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“So hey, I was thinking...” There were four of them on the diving skiff, meaning there wasn’t really any privacy to be had for this conversation. But there was also no time like the present, so GG dipped his head and lowered his voice to a I’m talking to you, not anyone else two feet away register. She gave him half a glance as she finalized going over their pre-dive checks.
“Paris, right? You, me – dinner on the Seine. What do you say?”
Her eyebrows rose. There was the slightest, thoughtful hitch of hesitation as she fit her mouthpiece into place. She adjusted her goggles, and leaned back to splash into the serene water.
He called after her, “Think about it, will ya?”
On the other side of the skiff, Oceana was cracking up. Prepping her goggles, Hayako was giving him the look that suggested she was too poised to join in on the outside, but was definitely having her own private chuckle on the inside.
“Look – haven’t you ever heard of nothing ventured, nothing gained?” Smiling at his own insight, GG popped his mouthpiece into his mouth and slid back off the skiff. His shoulders hit the surface, and the water engulfed him.
Deep aqua reached up from pitch black below, mingling with the aura of sunlight from the surface. There was little to see – a handful of freshwater fish shimmered and vanished in a hurry and the natural walls of stone, distant shadows, growing darker around him as he followed the line they laid out the day before yesterday.
There was a muffled splash as Oceana made her drop, followed by a flash of yellow in the corner of his vision as she darted past him. And another, more distant splash as Hayako joined them on the descent.
“Hey... hey,” GG warned, as Oceana’s shadow spiraled further into the indistinct murkiness. “This isn’t the ocean. Don’t wander too far.”
Deep below, a flare lit. Their esteemed lead already that far ahead of them.
“That goes for you, too, you know.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have been harping on it. They’d been here three days, and for a complex dive where anything could have gone wrong, nothing had. They’d laid out their guide markers, gone further than anyone else at this site. Sure, they hadn’t found any lost temples or hidden away cities, or any traces of human existence at all. And it wasn’t like the wildlife could be called fantastical, even if the cave fish were a little weird to look at.
Still. There were stories about this place, and after the L&L team’s skyrocket to fame on the oceano-antho-archaeology circuit and the marine biology corner – never mind the Ufology and Fortean circles, no one else did – their expertise was in high demand.
The sunlight faded above to a pale glimmer. GG lit his own flare, and followed the line deeper beneath the shelf of rock.
***
“Hey, what’s this?”
Oceana turned her diving light to the wall, and something glittered. She swam closer, reached to brush it off, and found...
...marks?
Deeply cut gouges under her fingers, that were inlaid with what looked like some kind of metal.
“Hey, what’d you find?” GG asked. Their lead was closer, coming to drift behind Oceana.
“It looks like... writing,” Hayako observed, “But I don’t recognize the letters.”
As she cleared away the sediment, Oceana flinched back. The marked tile under her hand slid back, and the others began to glow.
“What the...?”
“Maybe... we should regroup...”
Before Hakayo had even finished giving the suggestion, the wall... opened. A swift current of water poured into it, stirring absolute chaos in the calm waters.
Hayako was thrown clear.
Their lead made a somersaulting grab for Oceana, but the rush of water threw her back hard enough to snap her line. GG made a grab for her arm as the twisting cyclone carried her towards him, and kicked back out of harm’s way. Although he avoided the epicenter of the pull, he found himself acutely distracted by an even bigger challenge on his hands: they were a thousand feet below solid rock and L&L’s star diver was unconscious.
***
Hayako paced the twilit evening shore. Her heart leapt into her chest, and short-lived relief flooded her system as the calm surface splashed. GG swam towards the shore with broad strokes, and only when he got closer could she barely make out the diving suit of the woman he was dragging with him. When he got his feet under him in the shallows, he lifted her fully into his arms, and Hayako rushed to meet him at the water’s edge.
“I hate it when she plays the hero act.” GG’s teeth were chattering, for all that he was trying to stifle it. “It’s so uncool.”
Working to assess the condition of the woman in his arms, Hayako paused to regard him skeptically. “When she plays the hero act?”
“Well when she’s awake, she can argue.”
GG swallowed, then grunted, then cleared his throat. Hayako led him to the shore, and indicated where he could put her down. He stood by while she worked, shivering, and glanced around the shore.
“Where’s Oceana?”
“She hasn’t come up yet.”
He stared at her, then turned his gaze to the lake.
“Whoa, hold it,” Hayako stopped him before he could dive right back into it. “She’s unconscious; you’re in shock.”
“So you go.”
Hayako shook her head. She’d made it through unscathed, but that didn’t mean she could do the impossible. Their supplies were limited. Their tanks were depleted. They had not one but two injured, and one missing, out of a party of four.
“I hate it as much as you do, but we have to reassess.” GG stared at her blankly, then dropped to the ground as it sank in. She dropped down next to him. “We’ll come back for her, I promise. Whatever happens, we’ll find her.”
***
The cavern was thick with some species of water plant. A shadow slithered ahead of her, and when she paused, it doubled back and slithered again. An ambient light wasn’t barely enough to see by, and when it slithered out of the dark and brushed right up against her, she froze up.
Then it did it again, before rolling off through the thick weeds.
For lack of a better direction, she followed it.
The cavern only grew lighter, but it was a silver moonlight, not a warm daylight. Oceana pushed through the underwater forest, towards the light up above. She bumped into something heavy and brownish-gray, and drifted back.
“What...?” It was a silly question to ask, but no sillier than some kind of manatee staring back at her. “What are you doing here?”
It blinked at her. And, quite simply, began to surface. Oceana followed it, breaching the still subterranean pond. The cavern opened up above her head, streaked with light that reflected off glittery walls. Moonlight was seeping in from somewhere, but she couldn’t see where.
The manatee creature had drifted off. Oceana squeaked in surprise as something slithered past her leg; rippled along the surface towards a sandy shore, and she laughed in relief as an grayish otter bounced up onto the shore.
***
The local authorities had dispatched a team. L&L’s star diver was projected to recover, but hadn’t woken up yet beyond a few bleary moments here and there. GG sat with his head in his hands as Hayako came to stand beside him.
“We really made a mess of this one, didn’t we?” he asked.
She rubbed his back, and sighed. “Jean-Eric is flying out to meet us.”
“Great. We can tell him to his face how it wasn’t enough he had to mourn his son, now he can mourn his granddaughter.”
“We all know the risks.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t disagree. “I don’t know. That kid always acted like she was made for the water.”
“Come on. Let’s get back to the hotel. You’re not helping anyone if you don’t get some sleep.”
GG looked up at her. Then at the woman in the hospital bed. He leaned back and sank deeper into the stiff, under-upholstered chair.
“I think I’m good here.”
***
Sunlight.
The sound of water on the shore.
A pale fish was dropped into her arms, and Oceana started fully awake. The otter started, too, and did a little hop.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“Um... thanks, but I’m not that hungry.”
There were others on the beach, seemingly an entire colony. When Oceana didn’t hurry eat the fish, a juvenile crept up to steal it, earning a yelp from one of its elders.
Standing, stretching her sore muscles, Oceana watched one of the manatees surface. Weird manatees. She didn’t have a better name for them. The otters were unnaturally big. They seemed to have a sheltered little ecosystem all to themselves.
Oceana sighed deeply. Like with the moonlight, she couldn’t find the source of the sunlight, much less follow it to the surface. Wandering over to her equipment, she checked her tank. She didn’t have much more than one shot at getting back out of the caves, but... they weren’t ever going to find her here, and unless she wanted to become a mermaid and survive on fish...
Which meant never seeing her friends, or her grandfather, ever again.
The big otter that had brought her a fish rolled in the sand, but was staring up at her as it did.
“Hey,” she said. “You don’t know the way out, do you?”
It flopped to its feet, and bounded off into the water.
***
Hayako’s brisk stride slowed as she made her way down the hospital corridor. Jean-Eric hadn’t arrived yet, but she heard GG’s voice drifting down the way.
“And so you went looking for the Pacifica Treasure, huh?”
“I went looking, yes. It was important to my family. But I’m told you’re the ones that found it.”
“You’re told right. Me, I was in it for the fame and the money.” GG held it for a beat, then snickered. “...that’s not entirely true. But it makes a good story.”
Hayako turned the corner, and found them outside the patient room door – GG leaning on the wall and the other man standing with his back to her.
“Hey, there.” GG noticed her lurking, and the man he was speaking to turned around to face her. “Meet Matt. He heard we were in the neighborhood, and decided to stop by. Matt, this is Hayako Sakurai, doctor of practically everything you can be a doctor of.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure. I... was going to pay a visit to the hotel, but... I heard you were here.”
“Nice guy. Brought flowers and everything.”
As they explained, Hayako took the hand Matt offered her courteously. She squinted at him, studying his face – he looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him. “I’m sorry, do I... already know you from somewhere?”
GG circled around to pat Hayako’s shoulder. “He’s a client. One of our resident overachiever’s pen-pals... photojournalism, was it?”
“Ah...” Matt wrung his hands. “Yes, that’s right. Mr. Gray-...”
“GG.”
“My apologies. Mr. G,” GG winced, but didn’t correct Matt a second time, “was just explaining to me how you’ve had a bit of trouble, and I was wondering if I might be able to help out... I used to be a diver, you see, and I was recently re-certified.”
Hayako glanced at the hospital room behind him, and sighed. “Truthfully, we could use all the help we could get.”
***
A thin thread of light cut through the water.
The friendly otter had shown her a gap in the rock that led deeper into the cave. But it was only an otter and it had to turn back. Oceana braved onward; she couldn’t surface, but that only motivated her to be swift about it.
Abruptly, she stopped swimming, and drifted along with her momentum. The cave was deep, but the light cut through clearly, and where it did she could just barely make out...
...buildings?
Her heart leapt into her throat. Maybe this wasn’t such a boring job after all... had this been an underground city, once?
A large shadow was swimming towards her, casting a slim, graceful silhouette as it kept to the dim light. It circled her, and her ear just barely picked up the soft clicks and whistles. Suddenly, her attention was no longer on the city, but this new discovery.
“No way!”
The dolphin-like creature trilled back. It twisted to whirl around her in such a way it almost appeared to be waving.
“I bet you know the way out of here...”
***
The crystalline waters full of water weeds and deeply sunk buildings vanished once again into darkness. Oceana held tight to the fresh-water porpoise, following where it led.
It surfaced twice for air, into caverns that glittered with some kind of natural luminescence overhead. And then a third time, into a cavern that much resembled the caves that this dive had begun within. Then, things started to feel familiar, starting with the current that had swept her off in the first place.
With a few clicks and a whistle, the porpoise dragged her up-current, right up to the oddly placed door with the glowing symbols. Oceana held on for dear life as it twirled playfully, and both the current and the light vanished behind them.
And then the sky opened up above.
Thanking every bit of luck that she had, starting with the porpoise, Oceana barely thought to check her oxygen meter and started upward at a controlled pace. The last stretch was no time to be foolish.
To her surprise, she found the diving skiff was where she’d left it, casting a shadow over the line that led up above. It didn’t bode well for her friends, but she tried not to worry. Maybe... maybe they’d left it for her to find.
She surfaced starboard with a splash on the calm surface. She pulled her mouthpiece free to gasp fresh air, and tugged off her goggles. And then, glancing up, she found herself the center of attention. GG and Hayako, each perfectly stunned – and a third...
Oceana’s eyes widened.
“Papa?!”
***
“Man, I thought Jean-Eric was going to have a heart attack. Good thing we were in a hospital, huh?”
GG opened the window to get some air circulation into the room, and seated himself on the sill. The small provincial town stretched out below, turning to pastureland at the horizon.
His gaze returned to the woman resting comfortably in the armchair. Clean bill of health and none the worse for wear – considering what she’d gone through, and how drastically worse it could have been, a few days of bed rest had done her a world of good.
“So, uh... Not to put you on the spot or anything, but you never gave me an answer about dinner.” He raised an eyebrow, cocking his head. “I mean, they all got a lot to catch up on. And Hayako’s going to have her head stuck in a stack of library books until she figures out what Oceana found down there. That leaves us with plenty of time to ourselves.”
Before she could answer, he chattered on restlessly, “Of course, if you’re not interested, I can take it; I can always go sight seeing by myself or something like that.”
GG sucked in a breath, and put on his most charming smile.
“So... what do you say?”