Deep Dive
Actiniae–Seeanemonen from Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel.
Year 2103
There might not be much life in the ocean anymore, but it sure was still beautiful.
Standing on the edge of a crumbling cement dock, I clutched the rusty chain barrier at the water’s edge. The dark blue-grey water churned beneath me as it beat up against the grey structure. The water only whipped up into white caps as it got close to shore and crashed up against the wall, with each tiny wave trying to tear it apart.
“Isn’t it supposed to be more…blue?” I asked my mother, who stood silently next to my small pile of bags on the dock. “I guess this isn’t what I was expecting.”
She sighed, and pulled her windbreaker closer around her shoulders in an effort to keep the breeze out. No matter how much either of us kept pulling our thin jackets close in to our bodies it couldn’t keep the strong gusts from slipping through every seam.
“It only looks like this because of the clouds. It looks much different when the sun is shining. Maybe you’ll see sometime.”
I turned slightly, so I could see the ship out of the corner of my eye. After the long application process and weeks of preparations, the reality of what I had signed up for hadn’t quite sunk in. I wasn’t ready to look at it head on yet.
The USS Bowhead loomed off to our right, towering at least three stories above our heads. The sleek, black surface was all soft curves so it could cut through the deep water quickly and sustain the pressure of thousands upon thousands of gallons of ocean as it sunk below the waves. The only windows were on the very top and bottom of the rounded hull, letting its passengers see out into the watery world without compromising the ship. I doubted it was much of a view.
I was selected to be on a crew of 300 sailors, scientists and engineers for a special mission to the far-reaching corners of the bottom of the sea. The Bowhead is the first of its kind, decades in the making, built to test if humanity can survive below the ocean waves if climate change eventually left the Earth’s surface unlivable.
If the mission were successful, maybe we’d know if we had a way to save humanity. But beyond the government propaganda surrounding the mission, there was a dark, unsaid undercurrent of all of the things that could go wrong when you’re thousands of feet below the surface.
I had only a few more minutes before I said goodbye to my Mom, but we had hardly said a word. Other families surrounded us, tearfully saying goodbye and hugging each other tight before it was time to board. I uneasily kept running my hand over my zipped jacket pocket that held my reporting paperwork. Without a pocket to stuff my anxious hand into, I ran my fingers over the empty space on my left hand where my ring used to be again and again.
Emaciated gulls circled overhead, cawing to each other as they searched the desolate oceanfront for food scraps. One landed next to us, and I could see the bald places where its feathers were missing and its bright pink legs covered in chemical burns from the caustic ocean water. I had heard they used to eat fish, but the ocean water turned so acidic sometime in the past century it slowly dissolved every part of the aquatic food chain.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, watching me fiddle with the empty place on my finger. “I bet we could get in the car right now and turn back for Idaho. Weren’t there lots of other people applying for your spot?”
I shook my head silently.
The last year was a blur. A government recruiter came to my University of Idaho agronomy lab to speak to my research group about the upcoming mission. They needed mechanical engineers, geographic mapping experts and doctors to take care of a massive crew, but they also needed food. They were looking for the top agricultural researchers in the country to help run an indoor, self-sustaining farm built to last for years.
Through a fog of depression, I pulled together the application materials detailing my research on growing root vegetables in artificial soil. I forgot about it after I submitted the forms, but then I got called in to present my research to a panel of nameless government officials. And then came a series of one-on-one interviews and intense medical testing.
“Does anyone rely on you for emotional or physical care?”
“No,” I told the interviewer in a Boise office building six months ago. A lie detector test swiped side to side in the background.
“Are you in a serious romantic relationship you are concerned about leaving?”
“No.”
A few weeks later, a simple letter arrived along with the crush of credit card offers, political mailers and junk mail for people who lived in my small Moscow apartment three years ago, congratulating me on my selection. I was to report to a Norfolk, Virginia in two months time. Two months to slough off all the vestiges of my life and get ready to start fresh.
A foghorn sounded, pulling me back to the moment. The streams of crewmembers began moving toward the massive hatch on the side of the ship to line up and head inside. My mother turned to me and suddenly pulled me into an uncharacteristic crushing hug. Neither of us said anything as we held each other, but my eyes were wide open and I watched the first few of my future shipmates walk up the ramp and into the maw of the Bowhead.
“I love you,” I said, trying to choke back a sob. “I’m sorry and I love you.”
She pulled back from the hug and took my hands in hers, searching my face for a simple answer to all of her big questions.
“I just hope you find what you’re looking for out there.”
“Me too,” I said, not looking at her as I grabbed my trunk and duffle back to sling over my shoulder. “Bye Mom, I’ll see you around.”
I turned and walked away quickly because I knew I couldn’t look back. I threw up a hand behind me, waving goodbye as I headed to the growing line of crewmembers checking into the ship. My vision blurred on the edges and a parade of soft, earthly memories played on a loop in my brain.
The joy of picnicking on soft, green grass. The thick, dark forests of North Idaho, where the brightest of sunny days barely penetrated through the canopy to the ground below. Summer nights when the sun didn’t set until close to midnight and the golden rays glanced off the hills. Fiery orange sunsets. The satisfaction of picking food out of my scraggly apartment garden. Driving fast on a wide-open road with music blasting and my braid flying in the wind.
The line moved quickly and I was soon at the top of the hatch. I presented my paperwork to the stone-faced sailor and he checked me off on the computer. At his command, I stuck out my wrist and he wrapped a sleek metal bracelet around my wrist.
“The agriculture department is on Deck 6 and you are in room 634. Follow the signs, and use your wristband to unlock the door to your room and the lab. Next!”
He turned to the next person in line, and I was shuffled up onto the ramp. The salty air on the edge of the dock mixed with the stink of bio-fuels and chemical spills from the shipyard, but I still took a deep breath before I entered the dark corridor lit by yellow lights overhead.
The blur of new people inside the ship only served to remind me of old ones. I thought of my parents falling asleep on their battered couch watching television after dinner, my brother working on hydroelectric motors in the backyard and cursing under his breath and the silence of my lab partners working around me.
But most of all, David was everywhere. Every mile my mother and I drove away from Idaho, he was with me. What would he think of this funny roadside restaurant in Nebraska? Or this primitive campground in Kentucky filled with folk music fans? Was he thinking about me too?
It had been about a year since we broke up, but it was hard to put a date on exactly when it ended. It started when he wanted to move out of our one-bedroom apartment set into a hill a few blocks from the university to have more space for his research. He promised we would still see each other every day. It shrunk to every three days or so, then maybe twice a week. A month later we were seeing each other once a week and he leapt out of bed almost as soon as we were finished with each other.
I kept wearing the engagement ring hoping he might come back. I would see him eye it on my hand while I was cooking dinner. Maybe if I pretended we weren’t drifting away, he would come back. I finally took it off when I saw three months later he was “In A Relationship” with a younger lab assistant in the chemistry department and his text messages had stopped completely. Still, I put it in a jewelry box cubbyhole just in case.
The ring wasn’t among my few personal belongings I carried onto the ship in my regulation size trunk. Everyone selected for the Bowhead mission had the strict instructions to only bring one duffle bag and one trunk of items, including materials needed for research purposes. Stuffed amongst my notes on potato growth and soil chemistry, I had only a week’s worth of clothes rolled tightly, three long fantasy novels and not much else.
As I dragged the trunk through the bowels of the ship looking for the agricultural lab, I saw why we were allowed so few items. There wasn’t much room between the ship’s extensive machinery snaking back and forth from the nuclear powered engine room, bunks for researchers and crew, lab space and common areas.
The narrow hallways and small rooms grew increasingly constricting as we moved closer to the center of the ship. No matter how brightly colored the walls and the inclusion of colorful posters, everything felt dim without windows. The image of hundreds of men and women screaming as water rushed into these corridors and the crushing pressure suffocating us forced me to catch my breath.
Just before the claustrophobia set in, I arrived in a multi-level atrium with artificial sunlight shining down. It wasn’t the real thing, but unless you stared up at the ceiling panels it was hard to tell the difference. This was where meals would be served in shifts and crew would be able to congregate during free hours, playing cards, watching DVDs and talking. Before I arrived, I read in my manual the goal was to keep us from getting too depressed in the dark corners of the ship by giving us this space.
For now, the cooks would be giving us meals made from food grown in the outside world. This supply would last us six months, which would give us enough time to get the artificial farm up and running on the top deck. We already had the technology to eek by with these methods for the full two years, but our goal during the mission was to find ways to make the farm food something people could eat indefinitely if submarines like this had to become a more permanent home for communities.
We had boarded the ship in groups, with agricultural workers coming on near the end of the boarding process. I didn’t know anyone, but already groups of my future shipmates were laughing, and talking in the small chairs scattered throughout the room. I walked by one group cackling with laughter over a game and I shrugged my duffle bag onto the other shoulder to hide myself from them.
It had been a long time since I’d had friends. Once David and I started dating at the beginning of graduate school, he became everything. We met at a mixer for new students in a bar and only talked to each other for the whole evening. He was studying history, with a focus on the environmental advocacy movements of the 21st century. The conversation that night continued through last call, to the sidewalks snaking through the university and, finally, to my neatly made bed.
I had made a few friends in the agronomy department in the first few weeks of school, but I let those connections faded away. David and I were inseparable, and within weeks we moved in together. His books were in stacks in my living room alongside my lab notes and it felt like our connection would never end.
I made my way to the far end of the sunlit room and boarded the lift for Deck 6. It was crowded with other newcomers with trunks, crewmembers talking on radios and researchers from different departments who had moved in days ago confidently giving others directions. With my trunk pulled as close in to my body as possible, I squished into the corner until a small chime announced our arrival on my deck.
The farm was the center of the floor, with hallways to the dozens of bunkrooms branching off in all directions. More artificial sunlight poured in from the ceiling, but this room had light that waxed and waned throughout the day to mimic the natural world. The air smelled earthy, but with a slight chemical undertone from the artificial soil in the large cultivation areas.
I used to work a small plot of earth out among the rolling hills of the Palouse for my experiments. It was nearly an hour away from campus, but I loved driving to the field to collect samples, plant crops and study the soil chemistry in the dark of the early morning. Sometimes I would run into other people in my department out there, but we would mostly just nod in greeting.
My room was at the far end of a long hallway, which seemed dim in comparison to the brightly lit farm. I found the door and used my bracelet to open the automatic sliding compartment. There were six bunks with curtains, three shared desks and a door in the corner leading into what was most likely our small bathroom. The real sun beamed down into the room through the windowed ceiling panels at the center of the small space, but I knew this would change quickly once we dove into the murky depths of the sea.
The curtain surrounding a middle bunk shot to the side and a black woman with closely cropped hair looked up from her laptop at me.
“Hey girl!” she shouted. “Are you in here too?”
“Uh, yeah, I am,” I said. “Do I just pick a bunk? Or are they assigned?”
“Oh you can just go on and pick one that doesn’t have a curtain drawn around it. It looks like the only two left are the top ones though, but you still get to pick the side. That’s too high up for me, thank you very much.”
I glanced up and saw the third bunks bolted into the wall. There was only about three feet of clearance from the mattress to the ceiling, but I thought I could handle it. I moved over to the storage area, slid my trunk into the proper space and slung my duffle bag up onto the bed from the floor.
“I’m Arshelle,” my new roommate said, sticking out her hand. “What’s your specialty? I’m a fruit gal, myself. I grew up on an orchard only about four hours west of here.”
“Emily,” I said, taking her hand. “And, please don’t laugh, but I study potatoes and root vegetables. I came from the University of Idaho.”
“Dang! You really came a long way for this, that’s for real. I wasn’t sure if the potato thing was a myth or if that’s really all y’all grew out there. I’ve never been.”
She turned around, dug in her bag for a small sack and pulled out a yellow and pink apple.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, coming closer. “I haven’t seen an apple this nice in a long time.”
Since the climate heated up, it became increasingly difficult to grow fruit in most of the United States. Over thousands of years, the trees had evolved to hibernate during the winter months and bloom when it thawed, but without months of freezing temperatures the trees kind of went haywire. Fruit from orchards, like apples, peaches, plums or anything else was extremely rare and expensive to get now in most of the world.
Arshelle winked at me, holding it out for me.
“Take it. I brought a bunch from my family’s greenhouse. When everything started going to hell when I was a kid, I knew I wanted to find a way to save our land. My family was one of the few black families to own a farm of our size in our area and it was important to save it. So, I went and got my PHD at Virginia Tech and perfected a special process for growing apples in specialized greenhouses.”
“That’s incredible,” I murmured, staring at the fruit. It was too pretty to eat.
“The process hasn’t been patented yet or anything, but my parents have the tools they need to grow their crop and get the farm’s profits up while I’m gone. The Navy scouted me out for this mission specifically for my apple research. Maybe we can get some just as good as these on this ship by the end.”
“Is this for me?”
“Of course! I brought a bunch. I figured we would all need some bright colors in this dark ship.”
I studied it and carefully set it on the little shelf next to my bunk. I wanted it to last as long as possible.
“Do you want to go meet everyone else in our section?” she said. “They’re all in the lab checking out the equipment.”
I nodded and followed her. Arshelle talked endlessly on the way, about Virginia, farming and her research, but she didn’t notice I barely said anything in response. When we approached the lab, the door slid open and a wall of chattering voices overwhelmed me.
The lab was well stocked for all of our research needs. It was small, but all of the equipment for soil sample testing, microscopes, and moisture content readers was brand new and top of the line. A dozen scientists scrambling around the room could barely move because of the lack of space, but that didn’t dull the excitement.
“Check out these microscopes!” a Chinese man in his late 30s exclaimed. “Is this for everyone to use?”
In the corner, a small blond girl looked over a vast collection of beakers. A middle-aged man was trying out the custom fit lab safety glasses. Everyone seemed to be talking at once and pawing through all of the equipment with abandon.
“Look,” Arshelle said. “We each even have our own lab coats with our names stitched on them already. This is legit!”
I nodded again, uneasily taking in the room. Arshelle ran to the other end of the lab with a shriek to look at a case of equipment, but I didn’t have the heart to follow her. All of the loud voices were echoing off of the metal walls and ricocheting off of each other into a loud blur. My chest tightened and I started breathing faster and faster as the room swirled around me.
“I need a minute,” I said, to no one in particular.
I hurried back to my room and slid into the tiny bathroom where I threw up over and over again. I settled down on the floor, crushed between the toilet and the wall trying to catch my breath.
Everything in my Idaho life felt empty without David, but I never expected this new life to feel just as empty too. When he first left, I could barely get out of bed, but even laying there reminded me of him. I had no one else to talk to, no support system left. I had a few high school friends still in Lewiston and of course my parents, but we had drifted apart for years.
When I finally got up the nerve to tell my Mom he had left me, she was silent on the phone for what felt like an eternity.
“It will be ok,” she said. “There’s more fish in the sea.”
Our weekly phone calls never got better. After two or three inconsolable crying fits over the phone, she finally drove up to see me. I met her at a coffee shop so she wouldn’t have to see my messy apartment I couldn’t be bothered to clean up and we sat in silence.
“Maybe, you need to go somewhere new,” she suggested. “I bet you could find work at another university or a big company. That could do you some good.”
Another depressed week passed in a blur until the recruiter came, and I jumped. It felt like the perfect opportunity to hide away from everyone until I recovered, until it came time to get on the ship. Until it came time to tell my aging parents I wouldn’t see them for two years.
When I told them I accepted the position, they cried and then they yelled.
“How could you do this?” my Mom shouted, while my Dad sat dumbfounded on the couch. “Is this about David? Is this really the only way you could think of to start over? Why couldn’t you have moved to Washington? Or Utah? NOT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA!”
I tearfully tried to give a rational explanation for my decision to join the expedition that didn’t involve David, but it wouldn’t come. They saw right through me.
“I don’t know Emily,” my father said, leaning on his cane to stand up. “It seems awfully dangerous out there. You don’t know what could happen while you’re gone. Or to you, while you’re down there.”
I glanced down at my watch. We still had another 10 minutes before the boat pushed off from the shore and sunk beneath the waves, losing Internet service. I still had time.
I pulled out my laptop, opened my email account and began drafting a new message to my parents. I stared at the blank email for minutes while the blinking cursor taunted me as I tried to come up with what to say. I couldn’t find the words to acknowledge the enormity of cutting myself off from everyone I know and love for years at a time.
Above me, the loud speaker sputtered to life.
“ATTENTION CREW: THE HATCH IS NOW SHUT AND WE WILL BE DEPARTING THE DOCK IN T-MINUS FIVE MINUTES. CIVILIAN COMMUNICATION WITH MAINLAND WILL BE DISCONNECTED SHORTLY.”
I navigated out of the window and checked my messages for the first time in a week while I tried to slow my breathing. I had stopped looking at my university messages a month ago after I cleaned out my lab and began preparations to ship out for the Bowhead. I mindlessly deleted invitations to department meet and greets, advertisements from Amazon, junk mail and science newsletters.
I froze on the second page.
From: David Carter
To: Emily George
Subject: Smooth Sailing!
Emily,
I just saw a news clip on TV that mentioned you were selected for the Bowhead mission. Congrats!
How are you? Can we meet before you go? There’s so much I have to be sorry about…
David
My stomach dropped as I read the message over and over. I tried to navigate away to write my parents a message, but I couldn’t stop reading the short email. He sent this message three weeks ago. I could have seen him and he might have taken me back. I could be in Idaho. I could be on land. I could be with him.
The whole ship began to shake and a foghorn sounded above my head.
“ATTENTION CREW: PLEASE SECURE ALL BELONGINGS. WE WILL BEGIN OUR DESCENT IN T-MINUS ONE MINUTE.”
From: Emily George
To: David Carter
Subject: Smooth Sailing!
I still love you. Will you wait for me to get home?
Emily
I hit send, but the small wheel on the browser only spun in an endless circle. The Wi-Fi marker on my laptop had gone dark already. I looked up at the ceiling and I saw the waves begin to lap over the glass, leaving the gray clouds and circling gulls blurry. With each passing wave I could still see the sky, but only for a moment before the water washed over the glass again.
“STAND BY FOR DESCENT”
The dark shadow of one of the bridges in the bay passed overhead, darkening the room for a couple of seconds. Then, the room canted down on one side toward the bottom. I clutched my laptop as I watched more and more of the water wash over the glass, finally obscuring the sky. Light draped the room in gold for a few seconds ass it cut through the sea.
Then it went dark and all I could do was scream.
Leigh Williams has been writing professionally for the past four years in Idaho and elsewhere. In her free time she enjoys reading, spending time outdoors and going to the movies.