.
- “Seventeen minutes left on the dial, Kree. Batteries at half.” Justin’s voice was heavy with breath and radio-distorted, his dive mask ensured that.
- “Roger that.” replied Chrisa from the radio desk in the pilothouse of the Lila Marie, as it swung through the air, twenty feet above the pitching surface of the Atlantic. “I’m calling you up in ten. It’s getting swingy up here.” She furrowed her brow as she glanced worriedly out of the now misting windows at the dark waves tipped with white.
- “Gimme twelve, hun. There’s still what looks like three, maybe four crates in a lump just south of the spine I wanna look at. N’ Kree, ask…ason if he can clean ou…..ucking pump will ya?” his transmission spattered with static and cleared up.
- “Ok, but that storm is getting bigger every second. And YOU have TEN minutes. Got me?” She started to rise from her chair and banged her knee into the desk as the ocean threw the former crab fishing boat-turned salvage/treasure hunter into another wild slew around her anchor line.
- As Justin’s disappointed “Ye-es, sugar.” Hissed from the radio unit, Chrisa gained her footing, rubbed her knee and turned to the gangway steps leading back and down.
- “Dammit.” She cursed under her breath, and slapping the intercom panel near the stairwell, shouted “Jason! Get off your ass and clean that filter out! You have one goddamn job while we’re parked and I STILL gotta’ tell you how to….” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared down the gangway.
- In the murky depths below, Justin Boston swept the vacuum hose over the remains of the shattered chest in the shattered skeleton of the ancient three-masted galleon, peeling away layer after layer of sand, hoping for the glimmer of gold. Right now, the pump seemed to be laboring and losing power, which is no surprise, he thought, since his brother Jason was running it.
- Justin was mentally kicking himself for the umpteenth time for allowing the ‘stoner nitwit’, as he called his younger brother, to fill in for his partner Andy on this trip. Andy was becoming a dad again, and their permit with the Brazilian government lasted only one week before it was to be termed ‘an archaeological site, important to the History of The People of Brazil’.
- Five thousand American dollars only buys a week these days, thought Justin, and even then you have to watch out for pirate outfits and stay parked over your site. Five grand don’t buy protection, that’s extra. On this shoestring budget, with Kree breathing down my neck to sell the boat and buy a house, ‘stoner nitwit’ livin’ off the last of mom’s life insurance, and lookin at ME when it runs out...
- Just then the slight vibration that traveled through the vacuum, when working, stopped. As did the grains of sand caught in it’s grip, and then sank slowly to the blue-grey of the headlamp-lit seabed.
- “And my goddamn equipment fallin’ apart around me!” he shouted into his mask. He would have continued his tirade but was brought up short by a series of incredibly bright flashes, deep in the darkness ahead. He rose from his crawling position and drifted off the floor, flippers dangling against the seabed, and stared into the murk. The upper range of his vision was turning colors as afterimages of blue-white orbs resolved into the black. Another series of flashes, one huge ball of light followed by four rapid smaller ones, popped into and out of existence in the distance directly in front of him.
-
- More to come...........
- “Roger that.” replied Chrisa from the radio desk in the pilothouse of the Lila Marie, as it swung through the air, twenty feet above the pitching surface of the Atlantic. “I’m calling you up in ten. It’s getting swingy up here.” She furrowed her brow as she glanced worriedly out of the now misting windows at the dark waves tipped with white.
- “Gimme twelve, hun. There’s still what looks like three, maybe four crates in a lump just south of the spine I wanna look at. N’ Kree, ask…ason if he can clean ou…..ucking pump will ya?” his transmission spattered with static and cleared up.
- “Ok, but that storm is getting bigger every second. And YOU have TEN minutes. Got me?” She started to rise from her chair and banged her knee into the desk as the ocean threw the former crab fishing boat-turned salvage/treasure hunter into another wild slew around her anchor line.
- As Justin’s disappointed “Ye-es, sugar.” Hissed from the radio unit, Chrisa gained her footing, rubbed her knee and turned to the gangway steps leading back and down.
- “Dammit.” She cursed under her breath, and slapping the intercom panel near the stairwell, shouted “Jason! Get off your ass and clean that filter out! You have one goddamn job while we’re parked and I STILL gotta’ tell you how to….” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared down the gangway.
- In the murky depths below, Justin Boston swept the vacuum hose over the remains of the shattered chest in the shattered skeleton of the ancient three-masted galleon, peeling away layer after layer of sand, hoping for the glimmer of gold. Right now, the pump seemed to be laboring and losing power, which is no surprise, he thought, since his brother Jason was running it.
- Justin was mentally kicking himself for the umpteenth time for allowing the ‘stoner nitwit’, as he called his younger brother, to fill in for his partner Andy on this trip. Andy was becoming a dad again, and their permit with the Brazilian government lasted only one week before it was to be termed ‘an archaeological site, important to the History of The People of Brazil’.
- Five thousand American dollars only buys a week these days, thought Justin, and even then you have to watch out for pirate outfits and stay parked over your site. Five grand don’t buy protection, that’s extra. On this shoestring budget, with Kree breathing down my neck to sell the boat and buy a house, ‘stoner nitwit’ livin’ off the last of mom’s life insurance, and lookin at ME when it runs out...
- Just then the slight vibration that traveled through the vacuum, when working, stopped. As did the grains of sand caught in it’s grip, and then sank slowly to the blue-grey of the headlamp-lit seabed.
- “And my goddamn equipment fallin’ apart around me!” he shouted into his mask. He would have continued his tirade but was brought up short by a series of incredibly bright flashes, deep in the darkness ahead. He rose from his crawling position and drifted off the floor, flippers dangling against the seabed, and stared into the murk. The upper range of his vision was turning colors as afterimages of blue-white orbs resolved into the black. Another series of flashes, one huge ball of light followed by four rapid smaller ones, popped into and out of existence in the distance directly in front of him.
-
- More to come...........
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