My Brother Called From the Ocean Floor, So I Hung Up novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Call
Kit's voice calls for help from 35,000 feet in front of the whole ops floor; Emmett hangs up, is slapped and disowned, and goes straight to the machine shop where the Tern's new flange carries a Rask stamp from four hours before the call.
The speaker on the ops floor crackled, and my brother's voice said his sub was taking on water at 35,000 feet.
Forty people stopped typing.
The big screen over the console showed a blue line going down and a number that read 35,000.
My father stood in the front row with two men in uniform beside him.
My mother had both hands over her mouth.
The head of operations pulled her headset off and held the handset out to me. "He's asking for you, Emmett. You're the only one who's flown the Tern that deep."
I took it.
"Em," Kit said. "The ladder's loose. Please come."
His sub has no ladder.
Kit hadn't called me Em since we were boys.
I had heard this call once before.
Last time I said "I'm coming," and that same night I was dead at 30,000 feet inside a hull my father's company built.
Before the hull gave way, I heard my father's voice on the open channel. It said, "Let him go down."
I didn't know then why he said it.
I knew now.
"Emmett," Kit said, quieter. "Please. I'm out of air."
His answer to my silence came at once.
Sound takes several seconds to climb from that depth to the surface. Kit's words had arrived with no gap at all.
I put the handset back on its cradle.
Nobody moved.
"What did you do?" Joan Hendry said.
"I hung up."
My mother, Ingrid, crossed the floor.
She slapped me so hard my lanyard swung out and hit my wrist.
"Your brother is dying," she said. "He is dying and you hung up."
I didn't touch my face.
"Mom, he isn't down there."
"Don't you say that to me."
My father didn't shout. He never shouts. He just let his voice carry to the back row.
"You pulled strangers out of a stuck lander once," he said, and his voice shook. "Go and pull your brother out."
"Harlan," Joan said.
"No. Let them hear it." He turned to the room. "If Kit doesn't come up, Emmett is not my son. Not in this building, not at my table, not in my will. Write it down."
One of the Navy observers did.
Forty phones were already up. Somebody was filming from the catwalk.
I looked at the number on the screen. It read 35,000.0.
It had read 35,000.0 for as long as I'd been standing there.
Real sensors jitter.
"Joan," I said. "Ground the Tern. Nobody puts her in the water until I'm back."
"You're not even going to try?"
"I'm going to try something. It just isn't diving."
My father's face changed for half a second.
It was small. It was the look of a man who had expected me to run, and I hadn't.
My mother was crying into Quist's shoulder now, and Quist was patting her back and looking at me over her head.
Lowell Quist, my father's finance chief, stepped between us with his leather folder held to his chest. He had been at our Thanksgiving table since I was nine.
"Emmett, son, you're in shock," Quist said gently. "Sit down. Let Joan get you some water. Let us handle the Navy."
"I'm not in shock."
"Of course you are. Anyone would be."
He put a hand on my elbow, and I moved my elbow away.
"Thank you, Lowell," I said. "I'll be back."
I walked to the stairwell with forty people watching and no one saying a word.
Behind me the speaker crackled again, and Kit's voice begged somebody to come.
It used exactly the same words as before, in the same order.
My mother said my name once.
I didn't turn around.
The machine shop is on the ground floor, behind the dock doors.
The Tern hangs there on her cradle, orange and scuffed, with her hatch ring open for the night checks.
The shop was empty. The night crew doesn't come on until six.
I put on gloves and pulled the work light down over the hatch ring.
I knew every bolt on that ring. I had set most of them.
I didn't need to look long.
The seal flange was new.
The one I signed off on last Friday had a dull, worn edge.
This one was bright and had no wear. Its steel was cut clean.
I ran my thumb around the inner sealing face and found a groove.
It was thin and neat and no deeper than a fingernail. No inspector would catch it, and no gasket would hide it past 28,000 feet.
I turned the flange over.
On the rim, stamped small, was the Rask Marine lot mark, my father's company's.
Under it was a sticker from our own dock log.
INSTALLED 11:40.
I looked at my watch.
The call had come in at 3:52.
Nobody in that building had known the Halcyon was in trouble at 11:40.
Somebody had known the Tern was going to need a new flange.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend