Beneath The Lies (bxb)

And So, It Begins Again

Just a quick note before the story starts :) All of my stories are in a program on WP that generates ads between some chapters in the phone app. If you would take a moment to glance at them, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. These chapters take 3-5 hours of my time, so please lend me a few seconds of yours as you enjoy the series :) 

I kicked my feet up on the other chair I had brought specifically to relax on this trip. My current assignment was to photograph the different fishes on the reef, then return to the lab, process the film, and put them into taxa groups. It was pretty darn simple for someone who had worked with marine life their entire career. When I'd first been given the assignment last week, I took it pretty seriously and made sure to go to all of the spots I knew certain fish frequented, but after the first few days, I realized something pretty obvious. If I just left the boat floating above those spots and didn't run around trying to angle the cameras and put the pole down into the water, I'd get much better shots.

The boat was also glass-bottomed and my running around on the top shifted the light getting down to the reef, startling fish every few seconds. Needless to say, my first trial at completely relaxing and letting the automatic underwater cameras do their jobs the day before was a complete success, so I figured today would be the same. That's why I brought some extra sunblock and undid the bolt on the back of the captain's chair so I could lean it back a bit farther.

A sudden loud beep from the motion detection camera's monitor snapped me out of my light doze. I sat up, rubbing at my eyes to get them used to the bright light before looking down at the dashboard behind the wheel where I had the monitor screen fastened. The dark screen showed that a large object had passed under the boat about three seconds ago.

"Huh?"

Reaching over, I tapped the screen in the upper left corner, which dropped down a menu. Tapping the 'Images' icon, it pulled up all the photos it had taken today, thankfully in chronological order. I flicked through a couple shots it had just taken of some smaller fish before something shocking caught my attention.

"Is that a... fluke?"

I pressed two fingers to the little screen and pushed them outward from each other, making the image grow larger. After a moment, the screen finished enhancing the grown image and my jaw dropped open.

"Holy shit. It was an orca!"

Excitement bubbled through my veins as I hopped up and down for a second like a kid, then ran over to the edge of the boat just in time to see a small eruption of water and air shoot up from just beneath the surface.

"Whoa!"

We never got Orcas this far north for at least another month. Watching the creature dive back down, I ran to the bow of the boat and walked out onto the small platform we'd had built for pulling in fish or observation. It took another minute of anxious waiting before it resurfaced, its black and white fluke splashing up, then slowly sinking back down with another blow of air.

"Awesome..."

Hang on a second.

I watched as it began to swim closer and quickly ran toward the glass window on the bottom of the boat right as it passed beneath it. I just barely managed to catch the back half of its body.

"Okay. You're definitely an orca, but there's no way you're an adult."

It must have gotten separated from its pod farther south and just followed the current up here.

Grabbing my phone, I tapped the speed-dial for my boss and walked back out onto the small platform on the opposite side from the one I'd last stood on and watched the small whale circle around my boat calmly. When my boss picked up, I shifted a bit and sat down, not worried about the water splashing me lightly as the boat bobbed up and down on the swells. Amen for waterproof phones.