The Raw Shark Texts (31 page)

“He’s been down a long time.”

“He’s a strong one, but he
can’t
stay down forever. Don’t worry, Eric, we’re still ahead of the game. I’m glad the two of you sorted things out.”

“Yeah.” I found myself looking at the knots in the wooden floor. “Thanks for the blanket.”

“Well, it looked like you were going to need it.”

I felt my face purpling up.

“And now,” Fidorous smiled. “You’re probably wanting some breakfast, aren’t you?”

Scout was sitting near Nobody’s laptop at the back of the boat when I came up from the cabin with a couple of cans and a packet of chocolate digestives.

“Connection’s still running,” she said and I nodded, slowly sitting down next to her and passing her a can. “Did he have any ideas where that might have come from?”

I looked out across the water. The island rose up like a huge weathered
bone, olive and tan, the colour of plastic soldiers. There was something else about it too, some sort of idea itch caused by the look of the place, the shape, something I couldn’t quite–

“Hey,” Scout said.

“Sorry,” I cleared my head, tried to let the feeling go. “Yeah, I asked him about it and he thinks we might have drifted.”

“Drifted?” She reached across me to grab her sunglasses. “What, in this weather?”

I looked at her, confused.

“Haven’t you seen the sea?”

I looked out. The water was as clear and still as glass.

“Right,” I said. “So maybe there are currents or something?”

“Maybe, but you’d see that thing for miles, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, staring out at the island again. “Yeah, you would.”

Then two cogs deep inside my head meshed together and my brain identified the strange feeling. It was
familiarity
. I’d seen that island before. But how could I have? I wasn’t the backpacking, island-hopping First Eric Sanderson. I’d never even left the country. I’d never seen
any
islands apart from maybe on TV, and why would I remember something like that? Then, from somewhere, that phrase again–
the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view
.

The flipped-over coin, the hidden face. It felt like something huge was happening all around me but I couldn’t quite set my mind to see it.

Scout, sunglasses on now, sipped her beer and stared out over the water. I did the same, leaning against her, lost in thoughts about the strange feeling, about the night before, about the shark still out there somewhere in the blue.

After a few minutes I put down my beer and pulled myself up onto my feet, planning to go and look for a new hat or something to cover my head. As I did, my toe caught the edge of my can and knocked it over. It rolled away, spilling foaming spits of beer as it went, and hit the railings on the other side of the boat with a hollow metallic
tunk
.

Scout looked up at me.

“What?”

She looked out at the calm flat sea, then over at my can of beer, then back to me again.

“We’re not level,” I said.

“It’s
listing
. We’re listing.”

Scout got to her feet and the two of us walked across to the edge of deck where the can lay spilling out beer against the rails.

She bent to pick it up, stopped halfway down and straightened up again slowly.

“Did you hear that?” she said.

“What?”

“Listen.”

The noise was faint and muffled, but it was there.

Burr burr, burr burr.

The barrel broke the surface a hundred yards off the port side.

Fidorous marched out onto the deck with a ringing
something
in his hand that looked like an alarm clock with dials.

“He’s up. The barrel’s up.”

“We know,” Scout said. “It’s right there.”

The doctor clicked a button and the ringing stopped. The three of us stood together by the rails. The barrel floated motionless on the still ocean.
Burr burr, burr burr.

“What’s it doing?”

“Doing?” The doctor looked across at me. “He’s not doing anything. He’s spent the night trying to stay underwater and the barrel’s finally dragged him up. He’s exhausted.”

“So why is he here?”

“Hmmm?”

“Of everywhere that shark could be in the whole ocean, why is he right here?”

“Maybe he isn’t,” Scout said. “Maybe he’s ditched the barrel.”

Fidorous tried to sound patient. “That barrel isn’t floating there because the Ludovician is clever, it’s floating there because he’s stupid. Scout, can you get us alongside? Eric, it’s time for you to get that spear ready.”

“And,” Scout said, not moving, “we’re listing.”

“This is amazing.” The doctor stared out to sea, his hands gripping the railing knuckle-white-tight. “You’re both
determined
to find a crisis, aren’t you? Is it so completely inconceivable that I might know exactly what I’m doing and what is happening while we’re out here? As I said to Eric less than half an hour ago, this is an old idea and therefore it needs maintenance,
as
I expected
. For what little it seems to be worth, I can
promise
you both the
Orpheus
is sound. So,” a big breath in, a big breath out, “stations everybody, please.”

The last thing we needed now was an argument, so we did as we were told: Scout up to the flying deck, me gathering up the spear and checking the long looped cable was still firmly attached to the back of Nobody’s laptop.

Fidorous pulled up the anchor.

The engine growled awake, shockingly loud in the still and quiet.

“Nice and slowly!” the doctor called out. “Easy does it.”

The
Orpheus
glided itself through the mirror sea towards the barrel. Scout cut the engine and we slid to a slow stop.

With the spear in hand, I hobbled my way back to the port railings and joined Fidorous. The barrel just floated there, about four feet from the side of the boat, bobbing a little in the few little waves we’d brought with us.

Burr burr, burr burr.

“Can you see anything? Is it down there?”

Fidorous shook his head. “I can’t see him, but he’s there.” He lifted a long pole with a hook at one end down from a bracket on the cabin wall.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Pull the barrel line in and tie it off. Once we’ve got him attached to the boat we can winch the line up and–” the doctor leaned out over the water, stretching over the rail like a snooker player, the pole extended out in front of him “–we’ll drag him to the surface if we have to.”

I found my legs backing me towards the cabin side again.

The doctor reached and reached, one foot on tiptoes on the deck, the other in the air, one hand holding onto the boat’s railings, the other stretching out the pole. He wobbled, wavered, lunged, his hook missing the rope and clipping the barrel side with a
thuunk
.

“Careful,” my mouth said.

Still stretched out over the side, Fidorous turned to look back at me and was about to speak when the barrel exploded into life, kicking up a
sudden blast of spray and jetting off across the water. The doctor jumped, losing the hook and almost overbalancing. I dropped the spear and leapt forward to grab him and pull him back from the edge.

“Was that–” I said. “Jesus, was he playing dead?”

Fidorous untangled himself from my arms and turned to see the barrel racing away over the flat sea.

“Scout, come down and tie off another harpoon. Eric, you’ll have to drive. Quickly, come on both of you, move, move, move. We’re going to catch Eric’s clever shark.”

I hopped around to the flying deck steps as Scout raced down them.

“Forward,” she said, miming a throttle handle pushed down, “and side to side,” she did a steering wheel with the other hand. “Got it?”

“Got it.”

“The key’s in the ignition.” She planted a quick kiss and was gone.

I took the steps as fast as I could, pain shooting in my swollen knee. I found the key, turned it.
Orpheus
rumbled. I pushed down on the throttle experimentally and we belched out a heave of black smoke. The boat powered forwards and I steered for the speeding barrel.

Fidorous appeared on deck with his gun, taking a harpoon from Scout who then set to work roping up another barrel. The old man climbed up onto the prow gun plank, turned and waved up at me. “Faster, Tin Man. Come on, we need to get up close.”

The air flapped and battered at me as we ploughed forwards, my shirt slapping my sunburn. I pushed down further on the throttle and the engine made a noise like a big animal starting to panic. Ahead of the barrel, something else broke the surface, a dark triangle of fin and behind it another, thinner, the Ludovician’s tail.

“He’s coming up. Eric, he’s coming up. We need more speed. Come on.”

“I don’t–the engine. I don’t want to–”

“She’ll be fine, come on, we’ll get another barrel on him and see if he can run then.”

I pushed the throttle down a fraction further and the
Orpheus
grumble-screamed. Black and charred smoke poured from the exhaust pipes, but we were catching him, we were making ground on the shark.

Scout called
clear!
and the doctor’s gun went off with a
thwap
. The harpoon struck the shadow of the shark just below the waterline. A second barrel launched itself off the boat and chased the first across the flat sea.

“Yes!”

I took some of the pressure off the engine, slowing us down.

“No,” the doctor shouted up. “Keep after him, we’ll put all three on him to make sure.”

“Trey,” Scout shouting now. “He’s leading us out to sea. If–”

“We’ve almost got him. Eric, don’t you let him out of range. Scout, tie off another barrel and we’ll–”

I pushed down the throttle again. The exhausts choked on burning black smoke, we lurched forwards, then the engine’s growl split with a scream of shearing metal. A broken, thrashing clunking from below deck and then, nothing. The boat drifted forward in shocked fatal-injury silence. I turned the key in the ignition but could only call up a weak, tinny, hacking sound.

“Oh, shit,” I lifted my hands gently up from the controls and stepped back. “Oh, shit.”

Out on our slowing prow, Fidorous lowered his gun as the shark and its barrels left us behind.

I looked down to see Scout crossing the deck towards the doctor. “Oh no, don’t tell me,
not a major problem? What you expected
? You’ve still got all this completely under control now, have you?”

The doctor turned and climbed down from his bowplank. “A glitch in the translation. It happens occasionally, it’s normal and it can be fixed just as easily here as back in dry dock so, yes, yes, I do have everything under control. Now if you can get
yourself
under control I can go and solve the problem.”

“A glitch? Doctor, it wasn’t a glitch–all three of us just heard the engine ripping itself to pieces. I mean, look around for fuck’s sake. The truth is we’re dead in the water and we’re
listing
. I don’t know a lot about boats or anything, but I do know that when they start to list it’s usually because they’re filling up with water.”

“The truth is a complex mechanism, Scout, especially in this place, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to sit down and explain its workings to you. If we’re going to succeed here you’re going to have to trust me to do my job and focus yourself on yours, do you understand?”

“Okay, fine. Just answer me this–are we taking on water or not?”

“It’s just run-in. The conceptual loop has data cleaners which act as pumps and keep it clear and functional.” The doctor went to leave the deck but Scout caught him by the sleeve.

“Hang on. Yesterday this boat was unsinkable and now we’ve got pumps keeping us afloat?”

“Okay, if everything has to be black and white for you, we’ll do it that way. The bottom line is this conceptual loop is unbreakable, therefore whatever
appears
to be happening, we cannot sink. Can’t you see that? It just can’t happen.”

“Oh, that’s so good because for a second there I thought we were sitting on a sinking boat with no engine and with a
giant fucking shark
in the water.”

“Christ,” I said, “guys.”

Two faces looked up at me from the deck. I pointed out to sea.

The barrels were completing a large gentle curve in the water and heading back towards us.

Scout pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. “Oh fuck. It’s coming back. What, is it–is it
attacking
us?”

“Well, whatever it’s doing, it’s going to give us another shot at it.” Fidorous said. “Scout, tie another barrel off.”

“Is that going to do any good?” I called down.

Fidorous looked up at me. “It can’t keep this up with all three barrels. We’ve almost got him.”

“Someone’s almost got someone,” Scout said, hand shielding her eyes, still staring out to sea.

“Dorothy.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

The barrels picked up speed towards us, each one throwing up a jellyfish umbrella of water over and around itself. From up on the flying deck I could see the dark torpedo shadow of the shark rising up towards the surface. The fin broke the water again.

Fidorous stood out in his shooting position, gun at his shoulder. The Ludovician came higher in the water and I saw its wide flat head and snout, its fins like wings, its great flat muscle of tail powering towards us, all of it huge and grey and unstoppable.

“He’s coming straight on,” I heard myself shouting. “He’s attacking the boat, Scout grab hold of something,” I braced myself against the side of the control deck.

“My God,” the doctor called out. “Hold on.”
Thwap
. The harpoon hit the shark in the fin but the Ludovician didn’t slow down at all, it came in faster, closer, closer, closer–

The splintering sound of crunching wood and the
Orpheus
leaned hard to port. I grabbed onto the boat’s small windshield, pushed my feet against the flying deck side; Fidorous braced himself against his railings as buckets, boxes, ropes and everything else tumbled and clattered across the deck.

“Scout.”

“It’s alright, I’m okay.” Her voice from somewhere I couldn’t see.

A tub-thump-rumbling from underneath us, the Ludovician’s barrels dragging under the hull. As I watched, the third and final barrel wrenched itself overboard with a splash and all three hiss-spray-skidded out and away across the flat ocean.

The
Orpheus
rocked itself slowly back to upright and then carried on over a little too far, listing to starboard.

I jogged down the steps and around the cabin. Fidorous and Scout were already at the railings.

Scout shook her head. “He’s going under again.”

“He can’t, can he?” I said to the doctor, “Not with three barrels?”

Fidorous looked at me and I saw a crack in his conviction. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t–”

The skidding-away barrels suddenly dragged down underwater and disappeared, leaving only a slowing wave to run itself out across the still, dead surface.

“Oh, shit,” Scout said. “Oh, shit.”

I turned away from the railings, wrapped my arms around her and she pressed her face into my shoulder. I squeezed her tight and she squeezed back.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll figure it out, we’ll figure all this out. Doctor?”

“I don’t–I don’t know,” he said, still staring out at the empty sea.

“It’s alright,” I said again, my arms tight around Scout. “It’s alright, come on, we’ll come up with something.” And looking over her shoulder as I spoke, looking out across the deck and the sea towards the rocky landmass rising up in the distance, I remembered.

I remembered where I’d seen the island before.

Inside the
Orpheus
’s cabin, Ian watched the three of us work with big frightened eyes.

Scout and Fidorous were clearing fallen clutter and furniture from the sloping floor to get to the maintenance hatch. I had my backpack tipped out on the bunk, sifting through clothes and boots, and plastic packets of books and files.
Come on, come on. Where are you?

“Hey, could use some help here,” Scout said. “What are you doing?”

“The island. I’ve seen that island out there before.”

The clearing-away noises behind me stopped. “You’ve what?” Fidorous said. “Seen it where?”

I remembered the pocket in the top of the rucksack, unzipped it and
pulled the little plastic bundle out. “On this postcard. I’d forgotten all about it, I found it in Sheffield and I put it in here.” I turned around, struggling to unwrap the bundle. “It’s Naxos, it’s a picture of Naxos.”

Scout looked carefully at me.

“The Greek island?” Fidorous said.

I nodded. “The best one, the one Eric and Clio spent most of their time on before, before what happened. That’s Naxos out there right now, or, at least, it looks exactly like it. How can that happen? What does it mean, doctor?”

“I don’t know. Give me Eric’s notes, the ones you found in the bedroom.”

I passed him the bag of fragments. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t get the tape free and unwrap the postcard from its waterproof plastic so I pushed the bundle into the back pocket of my shorts. I clambered through the upturned cabin towards the door.

“Eric,” Scout reached out and rested a hand on my arm. There was something in the way she said my name, something I was too distracted to hear.

“I’ve got to go out and see. I need to make sure I’m not crazy.”

Scout let her hand drop and I climbed out of the cabin and onto the deck.

There it was, huge and real and out across the sea: the island. I pulled the bundle out of the back of my pocket and fought again with the cocoon of tape. Eventually, I managed to rip enough of it off, unravel the plastic and pull out the postcard.