The radio operator looked towards them. “Captain, they are requesting access to the work barge to talk to the survivors.”
Rudenkov looked at Liger and Yamamoto, and smirked. “Why not tell them the barge’s location? It will surely send them away and we can continue with what we need to do.”
“I still require more equipment,” Yamamoto insisted.
“Alright, then we escort this Wanderer over to the work barge to shut them up,” Liger said. “Once they get there we’ll let Sandor handle it while we grab our gear and finish this up once and for all.”
39
WHEN THE UNDERSEA HABITAT’s batteries were finally drained of power, the base’s interior was plunged into darkness once more. Gordon had watched several more videos using the computer console before he fell asleep, only to be stirred awake when an alarm sounded and the lights went out.
The dense air had somehow gotten thicker, and he wondered if he had applied the right gas mix. Reaching for the flashlight he had left lying on the tabletop, Gordon’s stiff fingers managed to touch the sides of the device before he inadvertently knocked it away, hearing it slamming down to the floor somewhere at the opposite side.
Cursing out loud, he tried to bend sideways to reach for it, but all he could feel was the bare deck. Gordon tried to move closer, but his foot caught on some piece of furniture and he tripped, slamming his pelvis onto the cold hard steel of the floor.
He lay there for a few minutes, groaning in pain. The aches in his ribcage and the hunger pangs were already acute, and what felt like a nasty bruise on his hip didn’t make things any better for him.
Looking up into the darkness, Gordon was surprised to see O’Keefe’s disembodied head floating in front of him, smiling and eyeing him intently.
Gordon chuckled. “So you made it here too? I always knew you were freaking good, bro.”
O’Keefe didn’t reply. He smiled once more before his face was swallowed up by the unending blackness.
Gordon sighed. It felt like a tremendous weight had been hoisted onto his already aching shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He realized that he must have been hallucinating. Gordon knew the gas mixes he breathed in would sometimes cause him to see things that weren’t there, and perhaps his subconscious was adding to the dilemma by injecting a degree of guilt from his own survival to produce such an illusion.
Shaking his head, Gordon groped around until he could feel the sides of the chair and pulled himself back up into a sitting position. His left hip still ached, and he hoped that he hadn’t sustained a fracture.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to stand up, but his weak knees gave way and he collapsed back down onto the seat once again. He tried to recall something that lay just beyond the reach of his thoughts, but after trying for several minutes he realized it still eluded him.
Damn it, he thought. I know I’m supposed to do something important, but I just can’t remember it!
As he continued to stare straight into the endless darkness, two more faces came into view. Now it was Langley and Haakon. The two men had solemn demeanors as each one made eye contact with him, and it seemed they were looking into his very soul.
Gordon let out a deep breath. “I know you probably blame Don and me, but it wasn’t our fault. I watched the videos. It was a sea monster, okay?”
Both men continued to gaze at him in silence, their expressions unreadable.
Gordon began to cry. “I don’t know what happened. I tried to pull myself back into the bell, but it all went by so fast. I-I used my knife to cut through my own umbilical. I knew there was no chance of making it back into the bell, and I cut myself loose so that Don could join you guys a-and get rescued. You b-believe me, right?”
Langley gave a silent nod before both their faces were swallowed up by the solid gloom.
Gordon sobbed as the tears flowed down his cheeks. “I-I did what I could. You have to believe me—you all have to believe me!”
For several long minutes he just sat there as the grief and the guilt slowly melted away into a pained oblivion. His mind kept telling him that the others had somehow made it to safety, O’Keefe included, yet an inner whisper was telling him the other three were all dead.
Out of nowhere, a female voice, confident and strong, reverberated in his head. Blowing his nose and wiping the last of his tears away, Gordon looked up. “Sis?”
He now imagined Chloe looking down at him. Gordon’s inner turmoil seemed to go away, as a feeling of hope began to stir.
“Remember your training, Gordy,” Chloe said. “If you stay focused, then you’ll stay alive.”
Gordon nodded. “This was the last thing you said to me before I left home on my first day as a tender.”
“Remember,” she said before her presence faded away.
“I will, I will,” Gordon said as he slid off the chair and sank to the floor. Probing with his fingers, he felt the solid plastic grip of the flashlight and activated it, only for the device to flicker as the light it emitted periodically died. He had to shake it every few seconds in order to keep the faint beam from cutting itself off.
Gordon gritted his teeth. The flashlight’s fall from the table must have damaged it, and now he was in deeper trouble than ever before.
There’s no one here but you. The only one who can get you out of this is yourself, he thought. Think!
He knew it had to be something recent, something they had talked about inside the hyperbaric chamber on the Aurora. He remembered O’Keefe telling him about it first, and then he had asked Langley and Haakon about it afterwards, right when they came back from their shift.
The lifeboat! That’s it!
Gordon’s mind became laser focused as he swung the flashlight’s dim beam of light along the capsule’s walls. Yes, now I remember. They told me there might be some sort of emergency escape pod attached somewhere along the sides of this habitat. Now I have to find a way to access it.
After checking the module he was in, Gordon limped over towards the adjoining chamber and gingerly slid through the attached trunk to get inside of it. The flashlight’s glow had once again begun to flicker out, and no amount of shaking the cracked plastic grip could reverse its seeming deterioration. He only had a few moments left of being able to see.
With rising panic, Gordon looked at the walls around the first lab module, and quickly noticed a small, red hand lever jutting out from the flat paneling, just below eye level. Gripping the rod, he gave it a strong pull, and was somewhat surprised to hear a shrill grinding noise as the wall in front of him parted, revealing a red painted hatch.
After unlocking the hatch he tried peering inside, just as the flashlight’s beam finally petered out. Gordon furiously slapped the device around, hoping it would light up again, but to no avail.
He blindly crouched beside the opening. The glowstick had been left behind in one of the other modules, and he would probably get lost while groping around in the gloom trying to look for it.
No choice, he thought. I have to go on.
After feeling the diameter of the opening he started to crawl into it, only to bump the top of his head on the upper rim of the hatch. Cursing in pain, Gordon readjusted his posture before he finally slid into what seemed to be another chamber.
Keeping low, he began to use his fingers to try and get a feel for the place. When his hands stroked at what seemed to be an embedded chair set along the sides of the room, a ray of hope came over him.
Gordon continued to fumble around, his fingers acting like insect feelers. After a few careful minutes, he could tell that there were indeed a number of levers and gauges along the walls. This has got to be that escape boat, he thought.
His hands soon felt something flat and hard, with slightly protruding lumps. Gordon figured that he was now stooping over some sort of control console, and the bulges would have to be buttons and switches, but for what?
Gordon’s shoulders trembled. If he pushed the wrong button or flipped the wrong switch, he might just end up dead. Working his way back to where the hatch was, he spent more precious time in making sure the entryway was sealed tight before heading back towards the apparent console.
Running his hands along the sides of the countertop and working his way to the middle, he sensed there were at least six to seven buttons on the panel, plus two switches near the upper right hand corner.
Gently tugging at the switches, he felt plenty of resistance, implying that it would be a hard mechanism to flip. Circuit breakers are usually built that way. I can’t take any chances with the levers or the buttons, so this is my best bet.
It’s now or never, he thought as all ten of his fingers gripped the switches and pushed them forward.
After a few seconds, the overhead lights within the chamber flickered to life. Gordon looked around in astonishment as his eyes once again adjusted to the sudden brightness. The module itself was indeed built like a hyperbaric lifeboat, but it seemed there was an outer steel hull to keep the vessel intact due to the intense pressure of the outside.
Moving along the sides of the chamber, Gordon quickly studied the gauges before pulling several levers. He remembered his years working as a tender, and he knew how to mix the gasses properly for an emergency decompression. The chamber had enough air for seventy-two hours, and could normally fit up to twelve people, so he definitely had plenty to spare.
I can probably decompress in three, maybe even two days if I do this right, he thought as he stared at a sealed outer hatch along the opposite end of the capsule. The thick porthole showed nothing but darkness outside. If I can’t figure out a way to detach this thing from the habitat then I’ll have to chance it by blowing open that hatch and shooting up to the surface after the decompression is done.
Opening one of the side cabinets, he grabbed a pouch containing fresh water and tore the lid open, gulping the nourishing liquid down his parched throat. There were emergency rations in all lifeboats, and this one was no exception. He even found several sealed packages containing emergency escape suits, like the ones found in submarines.
Sitting down on one of the chairs, Gordon let out a short chuckle. He had beaten the odds so far, and now he was in the final stretch. Five hundred feet above is the ocean’s surface. It’ll be a hell of a swim going up, but as long as I don’t hold my breath I ought to make it.