Beneath These Waves

Chapter Five

Back at the control panel, I'm able to salvage a bit of peace. I don't think I'll ever be able to get all of it back, this has rattled me too much, but it's a start. The submarine almost flipped over, but now it won't. When I'm here, when I reign over and the buttons and switches, disaster does not occur.

The metal plaque sits on my lap, a dead weight. Cal and Ser and I debated about which coordinate to go to first, but eventually we just settled on the first one. If I pretend enough, this is just a glorified scavenger hunt, not what Dad's life's work was before we took that away from him.

I drum my fingers on a gap, a tiny expanse of metal that doesn't have any hazardous buttons to press. The coordinate is actually somewhat close, closer than I expected. I had expected the locations to be all over the world, spread far apart as possible, but at least this one is an exception. Maybe Dad was aware of this.

Because Dad is gone, I now have to abandon the control panel at night. I'm working harder by going to sleep later, when the water is black beyond the floodlights, but there's still a span of hours that no one is attending to the submarine. It makes nerves jump along the inside of my skin, shaking my bones.

On day two of the journey, with one more day left to go before we reach the theoretical location, Cal walks up to me, tapping on my shoulder.. I spin my chair and shoot her a glare.

"You scared me. What do you want?"

"Sorry. Can you come talk to me for like twenty minutes, or will that hurt the submarine?" she stresses the last part a little bit.

"I think I can manage that. It wouldn't be like last time, where I was away for over an hour. Anyway, the submarine's getting more used to it, since I've been leaving it on autopilot at night." I cringe at the thought. Sure, I could be more logical and park the sub on the floor before I go to sleep, but we need to get this done. For this to prove itself as a truth or a lie.

"Okay. I'll grab the chairs, and I'll call you in when I'm done."

"I'll switch the submarine into proper autopilot, then."

Cal hurries away, and then a screeching noise follows, the sound of chairs from the card table being dragged across the metal of the floor.

Speaking of the card table, I wonder if we'll ever clean up the coral, Dad's last project before he died. It seems almost like a memorial, like disturbing it would be disturbing him, even though he isn't here anymore, not at all.

Cal's voice bounces on the walls, hearing it almost makes me brace for minor tragedy. A leak, or the chairs falling over. But it's just two words, one scrap of a sentence. "All set!"

The viewing room is close to the control panel, I feel more comfortable going to it. All it takes is one left turn past the dining room, the opening of a heavy door, and it's there.

The room doesn't exactly serve a scientific purpose, not for us anyway, but it's so beautiful that it's necessary. The walls are plain and shimmery, not glinting coldly like the rest of the submarine, and a window makes up one wall. The window makes the body of the submarine less streamlined, but it's a worthy sacrifice.

The window is a circle, three layers of glass thick, ringed with metal and screwed in by bolts. When I first came here, this room made me anxious, I couldn't stop picturing the water crashing in.

The water casts a soft glow over the floor. Sometimes, if you try hard enough, you can pretend the glass isn't there, that you're just floating in space, void to the concept of breathing or feeling, just watching.

The sand's too far away so I can't see the bottom, the most interesting part usually, but there's still a view. Schools of fish pause at the glass and dart away, the lithe forms of moon jellies gracing the background. Scraps of kelp float and twirl, like organic confetti.