Odd Prompts: Deep Dive

A continuation of last week's story bit. 

***

Jimmy peered at the screens, his eyes flickering rapidly between them. He was too old to still think that hoping hard enough for something would make it real. He thought this, and then rolled his shoulders, trying to make it true. The tension in his frame was just anxiety over the first live dive, and whether the systems he'd built or at least designed, would work as advertised. 

Down below the ship, and sinking fast into the fresh water of the lake, Nathan was as relaxed as Jimmy was taut. He knew the dangers of the deep, and he also knew there was nothing he could do now about it. Watch, and wait. There were monitors on the small areas where leaks were possible. They would detect moisture long before he could. And if the whole thing should fail, it would go in an instant and he'd never know. It would be quick, at least. Instead, he turned his attention to the thick bank of screens and instruments that filled his vision. Glass to allow him to look out was impractical at this depth, although one engineer he knew swore that a chunk of lab-generated sapphire would outlast the steel of the vessel itself. Nathan had scoffed, at the idea of diving in a jewel-studded sub. Now, though, he allowed himself to smile at the thought, and wish that he could look outside. The eyeball was different from the camera. 

On the other hand, were the screens that showed views outside the realm of the flesh. Infrared and other spectral glows allowed him to get a glimpse of the unseen, had he been looking through that fabulous window. The heat signature was rapidly fading from the blues and greens of sunshine, to the indigos of deep cold, downward into impenetrable black when focused directly below the submersible. Nathan, in spite of the comfort in his artificial cocoon, shivered. 

They could have sent down an unmanned drone- and as a matter of fact, he had suggested it himself. Their patron and source of funding had vetoed this with enough emphasis it hadn’t been brought up again. Nathan himself had been summoned into a small anteroom, to meet the man. He’d come through the far door into the nearly empty room, his intense dark eyes boring into Nathan’s own. Nathan found that he was impressed with the man’s presence. 

“You’re the man going down there?” The patron had extended his hand, and Nathan had gripped it. “I hate to ask someone to do what I haven’t already.” 

“It’s my pleasure.” Nathan said, and he meant it. “The deeps are like another world, and I’m one of the few who’s seen them.” 

That had brought the world-famous grin to the other’s face. “Like men in space, eh? Glad you’re looking forward to this, then. I don’t know what’s down there, any more than you do. I do know you’ll be in danger.  Might be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.” 

“If it is,” Nathan matched the other’s earlier cheer. “There’s a demon in the fry pan looking to get somewhere hotter!” 

Nathan watched the black swallowing up his tiny blip of warmth, as he sank below the level where the sun’s light, much less the stars of space, ever reached. He was going down, down. Not the deepest a human had ever been. The deepest in fresh water, and he’d take that. His heart was thumping against his chest, and he could see his telemetry chart, so he took a long deep breath, then another, to get the doc off his case. 

The visible light screen was pitch black, so Nathan reached over and toggled the exterior light for a moment, to see what he could see. 

***

My prompt this week came from 'Nother Mike with "There was a demon in the frying pan…" 

I prompted Fiona Grey with "Cuddly, but trouble." 

You can read all of the prompt responses, or join in on the challenge yourself, over at More Odds Than Ends. 

Oh, I have no idea what's at the bottom of the lake. Perhaps we will find out next week!