Where There Be Dragons

Chapter 1

"So, you're headed to the NEEMO facility, is that right?".

"That's right, buddy and I'm running late, so can we speed it up?" said my passenger as he very dramatically looked at his watch.

Clearly, we were not off to a good start. My client boarded the sea plane and we pulled away from the shore, then lifted up into the sky.

"So, we're heading to that NASA facility right? Out by Key Largo?" I said in a bid to break the tension. "You an investor or an astronaut?"

"Both, actually" replied my passenger.
His suit looked expensive and what he'd paid me for this trip made me believe that there was something more to him.

"Of course, NASA don't know I'm going into space, yet. But I don't see they've got any other option, given the technology my company is supplying them."

It was pretty uncomfortable for a moment as I rattled through my brain trying to think of something, anything to break the cringe-y atmosphere. I was one of those people that needed to small talk. I did a fake cough to clear my throat.

"You know I really wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger. Could never muster those numbers though".

"Riiight" said my passenger with a condescending roll of his eyes as he typed something into his phone.

"But you know, I look down there, at that beautiful world and I think, actually, it's not so bad being a pilot, is it?".

"Yeah, but it's not space, is it? No disrespect, but what I'm going to see, only a handful of people will get to see in their lives".

No, I guess it wasn't. I shouldn't have let him get to me, but he did. In that moment, he made me feel really, really small. It's not that there was anything wrong with the world, but it had all kind of been done before.

I was always happy with being a pilot, at least I thought I was, but it was something I sort of fell into, not something I had earned.

I'd spent many years of my life trying to find my own path with my dreams of space, until I finally gave in and became the son part of Hudson and Son Sea Plane Adventures. My Dad was also a pilot and his Dad before that. I guess that's where my taste for adventure had come from, it was a part of my DNA, but something I never really had was that feeling of being the first to experience something. I remember sitting on the floor in front of my grandfather as he would regale me with stories of his long flights and somehow those lands would seem so magical and so far away. The problem was that these days the world wasn't as big as it used to be. Any student on a gap year could go anywhere in the world that their heart desired and their credit card would allow. I could video chat to a friend in England anytime I wanted. I could virtually wander down his street and almost knock on his door. There was no mystery out there anymore and that was the problem. So, we as a human race lost interest and went in search of something else, a new frontier to discover.

"Right, here we are". I said and very little else as the plane landed. Mr Egotist disembarked.

Now NEEMO was this facility just off the coast of Florida. It was an acronym for the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations. Here, at the very bottom of the ocean was where astronauts learnt how to deal with the pressures of space. Whatever he was doing, he'd planned to be out at the facility at least until the end of September, as that was when I was scheduled to pick him up.

However, it wasn't even the last week in August when meteorologists were already predicting Hurricane Vivienne was going to hit any day. The facility decided it was best to evacuate and my client booked his early flight home. I braced myself as he stepped aboard. I waited for him to open his mouth and gloat about all the cool stuff he was doing down there, but he didn't, he just stayed silent with a stupid smirk on his face.