Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) (3 page)

“Yes. It’s what I said I wanted. I’m just surprised is all. Surprised you’d take me there.” Pensively she let the silence stretch then added, “Is it really dead? I mean
really
? How can something that large die completely? Weren’t there millions of fish?”

“Not millions,” he corrected. “Trillions. Hundreds of trillions. Trillions upon trillions of trillions. Such a large number that you couldn’t even imagine it if you tried.”

“All of that and its all gone?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“San Diego’s a long way, Carp.”

He nodded to the face of the moon. “That it is. But we can make it. Fifty miles a day. That has to be our goal.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “
Has
to be?”

He didn’t answer. She was smart. He knew she’d work out the answer eventually, knew that she’d figure out his motives sooner or later. He held his breath as her breathing deepened and became even, and just when he thought she’d finally fallen asleep she murmured once more into the darkness.

“Carp, we’re running out of disks aren’t we?”

He inhaled deeply. “Yes, Sam. We’re running out of disks.”

“Pike,” she corrected.

“Yes, Pike. We’re running out of disks.”

She said nothing for a time, and he worried at the boldness of the revelation. With so many miles left to travel, it was much too soon to create a panic. He peered at her and felt his throat tighten, thought perhaps she’d finally drifted off, but she had one more question left to ask.

“Was the ocean beautiful when you saw it?”

“No,” he replied absently. “It was terrifying.”

“Okay. I love you Dad.”

“I love you too Sam.”

But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.

—Gregory David Roberts 

She slipped her hand into his and grasped it firmly. “Olivia Abner. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Liam Colt. So this is your boat?”

Her eyes roamed the vast silhouette of the
Goblin
with unconcealed fondness. For a support ship, she was impressive indeed, a sleek catamaran with an aluminum hull and wave-piercing bow. Olivia pointed toward the center of the stern where a large crane was suspended over a hangar. A heavy winch and thick steel hook attached to a length of steel cable, was securely latched to a two-man submersible.

“Nope. Not mine I’m afraid. She’s a loaner from the institute. She’ll take us to the drop point, and from there we’ll board the
Savior III
and descend about ninety feet.”

She saw his throat work as he nervously fumbled the files clutched tight beneath his arm. “Ninety feet. Okay.”

His hand moved to the back of his neck. If he’d been holding a kerchief, she was certain he’d have pressed it to his flush skin like a preacher behind the pulpit on a hot summer day. Smiling, she touched his arm.

“That’s right. I forgot. You’re the lab geek. Ever been in a submersible before?”

“Yes, back in college. Older models though. Nothing as agile as this one appears to be. Though, I like to think of myself as one of the cool geeks, thank you very much.” He seemed to relax a bit as he looked toward the calm expanse of sun-glistened water. “I typically work the sidelines and crunch the numbers, but I suppose one should try and check as many things off his bucket list as possible these days.”

She nodded but didn’t acknowledge the comment. “Okay cool geek, let’s board and talk schematics.” She turned and urged him to cross the gangplank onto the
Goblin’s
wide transom.

His eyes widened as he circled the deep-water craft secured to the crane.

“Beautiful vessel.”

“She’s that—light too. She’ll take us down swiftly, but we’ll be topside again before you know it. I can assure you that the
Savior
was actually designed for far more robust missions than this one. At much greater depths, mind you, so she’ll have no problem with the two of us.” Olivia turned toward a deeply tanned man in white linen pants and a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt. “I’d like you to meet our captain for the day. Liam Colt, meet Captain Steve Pryon.”

She watched the chemical oceanographer shake the captain’s hand and let her eyes travel over his inappropriate clothing. He was certainly not a seaman. He’d worn jeans for one. Olivia hated jeans. What horribly constricting garments they were, little more than attractively cut straight jackets for the legs that pinched at the waist and strangled the calves. She preferred cotton khakis or loose, billowy linens. He’d also worn flip-flops, she noticed with a frown. An experienced seaman would never wear flip-flops. Sneakers were better. Bare feet were best.

Other than that, she supposed he was quite handsome. He was pale and perhaps a little stiff, his arms clasped rigidly around his files, but his eyes were a warm brown and his hair…well, suffice it to say she might have dared to call him uptight were it not for the small ponytail at the top of his head. Her lips curved into a smile. Perhaps not such a geek after all.

She watched him pluck a Dramamine from his pocket and slip it into his mouth. Great, she sighed. This should be good. She turned toward the captain.

“Steve, we’ll go sit at the bow.” Discretely she nodded toward the scientist and gave the captain a knowing look. “I think the two of us’ll stay topside. Out in the breeze.”

“Aye-aye. We shove off in ten minutes.”

She led the scientist toward the bow and sat opposite him on the leather sofa-style seating. “So. I understand you’ve commissioned this vessel to take samples of the dead zone.”

He laid his files across his lap and visibly tried to calm himself. Clearly he wasn’t comfortable at sea.

“Well,
I
haven’t commissioned it per se. My employer has. I’m here at the behest of Washington D.C., the D.C. Institute of Marine Sciences to be exact.”

“You’re a government employee?” she asked incredulously. With a raised brow she examined him anew, the way his hair was pulled from his face and gathered in a sleek knot at the top of his head, and the smattering of tiny rips and snags that ran the length of his jeans. He certainly didn’t
look
like a government agent.

With a casual flip of his hand he clarified, “No, I’m here at their
behest
, but I’m not officially on the payroll. They’ve sent me to obtain water samples at various depths, and then to test and share my findings. Typically a dead zone collects at coastal areas, at the mouths of rivers or other waterways. They’re caused by runoffs carrying fertilizer, sewage, and other industrial pollutants into the area. These, in turn, cause phytoplankton blooms which use up all the available oxygen and create a dead zone for all wildlife–“

“I know what they are, Liam,” she interrupted smoothly.

He coughed and smoothed errant strands of hair from his face. “Right. Well, they’d like me to test the area for levels of several specific elements, particularly nitrogen and phosphorous.”

She raised a skeptical brow. “That all? Not checking for any sudden increases in oxygen as well?”

He blinked. “What exactly do you do, Miss Abner? Or is it ‘Mrs.?’

“It’s Ms., or just Olivia, and I’m not just here to act as your escort. I’m a biological oceanographer.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. “So you’re the brawn and I’m the brains.”

She shook her head. “A common misconception, Liam. We’re actually more alike than you might think. You study the elements and properties of seawater and I study the various life forms that make that water its home.”

He nodded and casually crossed his ankle over his knee. “You’re right, although sometimes I admire what you do more than what I do. I’ve never seen much fieldwork myself. I’ve never been much of a seaman, though I love the sea.” He lifted his shoulders. “Yeah I know. Ridiculous choice of profession right? Man suffers seasickness and makes the sea his life’s work. But I’ve made it work for me. I’m still a bit jealous of you though. My lab is a white-walled building full of chemicals and test tubes. Your lab is all of this.” He gestured to the expanse of water behind his back, and then lifted his face and squinted into the sun. “Whatever all of this has come to be I suppose.”

She sat back and tucked her legs beneath her. “Are you able to level with me? Are you here because of the government’s Hail Mary to fix this disaster?”

He peered out toward the peaceful waves, his voice lower, eyes unfocused, as if he could see something she couldn’t. “It’s not so much a Hail Mary, Olivia. The science is actually sound. They installed the oxygen pumps a few months ago in an attempt to stimulate life. It was quite a feat of geoengineering if you really think about it. And if it works at the dirty mouth of the Mississippi then it might work at much larger sites.”

“Oh don’t get me wrong. I agree. It’s quite a feat of science indeed. I’m certainly not disputing that. It’s not the implementation of it that bothers me. It’s their timing that sucks.” She tilted her head and regarded him thoughtfully. “Their attempts at the beginning of the twenty-second century to reduce the amount of actual waste being dumped into the river all but failed, and so they had to turn to technological innovation instead. Don’t you find it insane that a species as intelligent and resourceful as our own couldn’t see fit to stop the problem at its source?”

He smiled. “
Couldn’t
see fit to stop it, or
wouldn’t
see fit to?”

“Touché. As a people, we’re ever able to find complicated and ingenious ways to treat the symptoms, yet we stray from examining the origins of the disease itself.” She sighed and folded her hands. “So that’s what you’re here to do. Take samples to see how our
treatments
are coming along?”

He laced his hands over his knee. “That’s it exactly. Essentially they’d like me to test the area for any improvement and report back to D.C. as soon as possible. May I ask what you’re here to do? Besides pilot the submersible of course.”

“Same as you. I’ll be taking some samples of my own.”

“And what do you expect to find?”

She met his gaze and then shifted her eyes over his shoulder. “I don’t expect I’ll find anything, actually. Here, I expect the ocean to be as dead as it’s been for a decade.”

With that she stood. “I need to check with the captain. We’ll be setting out soon and I need to prepare the wetsuits.”

He responded with a groan. “Wetsuits? We’re going in the water?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “They’re strictly precautionary.”

Again, her gaze crawled over his attire and returned to his eyes. “You can’t very well descend into the ocean in jeans, Mr. Colt.”

He watched her rise from the white sofa and move toward the stern. A biological oceanographer? Her? She certainly didn’t
look
like a scientist. Not any he’d ever seen at least. He straightened and slid to the edge of the bench. Peering over the side of the boat, he examined the water that lapped the hull. This was all for show, he thought with dismay, all just a waste of time. But show or not, he’d do his part. He’d take his samples and do as he’d been told, but he didn’t expect the oxygen levels to have improved much at all. He agreed with her, and though he’d not said as much, her point about the timing was apt. How had she so eloquently put it? Right. That the timing sucked. And yes. It did. It was simply too late and Liam already knew it.

He remembered a time when the dead zone was seasonal. It would begin to appear toward the end of spring and would be broken up in early September when the tropical storms and hurricanes swept ashore. But that was over a decade ago and everything had changed is such a short amount to time. Now the dead zones covered such a large area that they were ever-present year-round. There were currently over 2,000 dead zones around the world’s oceans, and they weren’t even the ocean’s deadliest problems.

He rummaged through his files and pulled out his pH graphs. While on this excursion, he also meant to test the water’s acidity. Though he’d previously examined countless reports and graphs in his office, he wanted to take his own measurements and draw his own conclusions. The world’s oceans faced a myriad of attacks from countless masked assailants. Scientists like him were vigilant as they looked for certain markers, specific signals that would herald the end. He hated to be a pessimist, but he had long considered the ocean beyond saving. So much so in fact, that recently he’d begun to make plans. Good plans.

Over the past several years he’d begun to stockpile supplies, had even settled on a place; a secure place high in the Tennessee Mountains, surrounded by acre after acre of uninhabited forestland. He’d even purchased a cabin there, a comfortable and isolated place; a cozy lodge with a bird’s eye view, a place where one might sit comfortably to watch the end of the world.

“Liam?” Olivia called. “We’re ready.”

He took his wetsuit to the small cabin below and dressed quickly, eager to return topside where the nauseating rolling of the ship was less noticeable. Olivia was all business. She helped him into the submersible and talked him through the basic safety precautions and emergency procedures. She was patient and possessed of a calming bedside manner, and he barely even noticed when the winch began to turn and lower the submersible into the cloudy waters. A thick glass dome offered panoramic views of miles and miles of water. He watched it crest the top of the dome then forced himself to settle into his black leather chair. This was indeed a superb craft, and Olivia an accomplished pilot. She seemed comfortable at the controls and he willed himself to breath evenly.

“I suppose you’d like to begin by collecting a sample at thirty feet?”

Her voice crackled loudly through his headphones, and he fumbled for the volume control. He nodded and wiped his damp palms uselessly against his rubber suit. God. He hated to think of how ridiculous he must seem to her. He was a chemical oceanographer for Pete’s sake. He loved the ocean. He really did. In his opinion it truly was the planet’s last uncharted territory. Forget space. Deep ocean marine life could be as alien as anything a talented Hollywood makeup artist could think to create. It was just that he’d always loved the ocean more when his feet were set firmly upon its shores. The chemical side of things allowed him to feel like part of it all without requiring him to dive into its depths.

He breathed to a count of ten and then scrutinized the landscape that surrounded him on all sides. The yellow glow of the submersible’s lights cast a peculiar green haze about the environment, yet failed to reveal any signs of life. The waters were barren, save for the small fragments of plant and debris that spun and floated with the movements of the tides and the propulsion of the oxygen pumps. The depth gauge put the submersible at twenty-eight feet and an involuntary shudder ran through him.