Down Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Down

  Copyright © 2015 by Ally Blue

  Cover art: Kanaxa, www.kanaxa.com

  Editors: Danielle Poiesz, Delphine Dryden

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-258-5

  First edition

  April, 2015

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-259-2

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  Seven thousand meters below the ocean’s surface, the crew of the BathyTech 3 mineral mining facility has found something remarkable: a rock-like sphere of unknown material and origin.

  For Mo Rees, the discovery calls to his inner explorer and adds color to his dull miner’s life. Even better than the promise of new knowledge is the unexpected connection he forges with Dr. Armin Savage-Hall, leader of the team brought down to study the thing.

  For Armin, the object is the find of a lifetime. It could prove his controversial theories and secure his scientific reputation. And Mo is a fascinating bonus.

  Then crew members start behaving strangely. Worse, they start to change: their eyes glow purple, their teeth sharpen. Then the violence begins, the brutal deaths. As BathyTech descends deeper into chaos, the surviving crew works desperately to find the cause of the horrors around them. What they uncover could annihilate the human race. And they can’t stop it.

  This book is lovingly dedicated to Jacques Cousteau and all those awesome undersea adventures I watched on TV as a child. They sowed the seeds of my lifelong love for all things aquatic. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been obsessed with the dark and horrific, so I’m blaming that on genetics.

  About Down

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Ally Blue

  About the Author

  More like this

  May 2137

  BathyTech 3 deep-sea mineral mining pod

  Bottom of the Peru–Chile Trench

  Mo thought he knew the dark. He’d sought it out all his life. Made himself intimate with it. Explored cellars and caves and forgotten places where the sun didn’t penetrate and dead things decayed in the corners.

  Then he’d gone down, and learned what darkness really meant.

  Nothing blotted out the light quite like seven thousand meters of ocean.

  The unrelieved blackness with its nightmare creatures called to the explorer in him. The part that wanted to uncover long-lost secrets and learn what no one else knew.

  Which was why, when the scientists upside had asked the thirty-person crew of the BathyTech 3 deep-sea mineral mining rig to help find out what was pinging their mapping scans down in Richards Deep, Mo had volunteered to guide the science team into the deepest part of the Peru–Chile Trench to look for it.

  His boss, Jemima, scowled when he told her. “I don’t want any of my miners skipping off on some stupid geek mission. I need every one of you on the vents.”

  “It’s one shift. You’ll hardly even miss me.” He answered her death glare with a grin. “C’mon, Jem, don’t be like that. Think of it as a political move.”

  Jem rolled her eyes, and Mo stifled a snicker. Pod 3 was the first of the BathyTech mining rigs to incorporate scientific research into its operation. To say that the scientists and the miners didn’t always get along would be a gross understatement.

  “Fine. But for the love of Pete, ask me before you volunteer for this shit next time.” Jem pushed herself out of her chair and crossed to the refrigerator on the other side of the miner’s lounge. She opened it and pulled out a pouch. “Beer?”

  He held out his hands. “Lay it on me, Big Mama.”

  That earned him a sour look. She couldn’t weigh more than forty-five kilos soaking wet, and the top of her head only reached Mo’s armpit. The nickname irritated the crap out of her. She tossed him the beer anyway, then dug another one out of the fridge for herself. Mo tore the tab off the top to activate the polymers, marveling for the umpteenth time at the transformation from a soft-sided pouch to a solid bottle that felt exactly like real glass. He always got a kick out of breaking the empty bottle and watching it change back into a flexible pocket. It reminded him of entropy, decay, and dissolution.

  She plopped into the chair, tore open her pouch, and took a long swallow the second it solidified. “So when’s this geek crew comin’ down?”

  “Tomorrow. Early.” Mo gulped beer, savoring the tingle of bubbles on his tongue. “They’re sending an outside team instead of BathyTech scientists.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  “How come?” She scratched her chin. “In fact, how come our guys couldn’t go get whatever the hell this thing is?”

  “They tried. I heard they sent Rover out, but it wouldn’t pick up the thing. Acted like it wasn’t even there.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep.” He took another swallow of his drink. Licked his lips. Did it again because he knew damn well she was dying for more details and he was having way too much fun not giving her any. “Mmm. Good beer.”

  She shot him a tight smile. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Yep.” He raised his bottle to her.

  She flipped him off.

  Chuckling, Mo slouched into his chair, nursed his beer, and drifted off into his thoughts while Jem turned on the TV. If he was honest with himself, the strangeness of the whole business was the main reason he’d jumped at the chance to lead the upside team in their walk. Dr. Poole, BathyTech 3’s head of science, had already shown him Rover’s vid. It was way more staticky than it ought to be, but Mo had caught glimpses of what looked like a rock. The problem w
as, rocks didn’t show up as empty space on mapping scans, and they couldn’t fool state-of-the-art unmanned retrievers into thinking they didn’t exist.

  Something highly unusual—maybe even something completely new—waited in Richards Deep. Mo fully intended to be among the first to see it in person.

  Dubai’s three-month-long blackout back in 2110 had taught Mo a lot. Like how to get in and out of any place he wanted without getting caught. How to make a gang member with an automatic weapon and a necklace of human tongues believe a thirteen-year-old boy would shoot first. How to pull the trigger without hesitation when he had to. Mostly, though, he’d learned how to tell whom he could and could not trust.

  He’d left his home and his teenage self behind a long time ago, but he’d never forgotten those lessons. People who arrived in the airlock pasty, sweaty, and sick from the journey down might not be bad sorts in general, but Mo sure as shit wouldn’t trust them out in the open water at over seven thousand meters in a walker suit. It was a recipe for disaster. Therefore, he got up early the next day to meet the sub from upside and see what he’d be dealing with on this assignment.

  Dr. Poole shot Mo a cool look when he strode into the airlock’s outer atrium. “I wondered if you’d turn up.”

  “Of course.” Mo grinned at the geologist’s sour expression. “That's not a problem, is it?”

  The doctor narrowed his eyes. Before he could say anything, though, the chime sounded, and the airlock tech announced the arrival of the sub from BathyTech’s flagship research vessel, Peregrine.

  Dr. Poole pointed at Mo. “Behave yourself.”

  “Remind me, Doctor, which one of us had our pay docked for fighting in the cafeteria?” Mo rubbed his chin. “Oh, that’s right. You.” And Jem, though that was beside the point right now. The two had literally come to blows more than once.

  Poole went red to the roots of his thinning hair. Behind him, his two lab assistants laughed. Poole’s glare shut them up just before the airlock door slid open to let in the upside scientific team.

  Mo straightened his spine, put on a pleasant expression, and studied the group filing into the atrium. Three men, two women, all with that hungry look scientists got when they were after something unique.

  Curiosity burned in Mo’s belly. He ignored it. Whatever was going on, he’d find out soon enough. Patience is a virtue, his mother used to say.

  He went back to his perusal of the team. Of the five of them, only one had that pasty, damp-at-the-hairline look that meant the trip down hadn’t agreed with him. He strode in with a wide smile anyway, bright-blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Mo thought he looked more like a football coach than a scientist.

  The man held out a wide hand to Dr. Poole. “Hi there. I’m Dr. Douglas. Call me Neil. Real pleasure to meet you. And you are?”

  “Dr. Oliver Poole. I’m the lead scientist here.” Poole managed a smile that settled uncomfortably on his face. “Welcome to BathyTech 3. We’re happy to have you and your team here.”

  The other man looked startled, then laughed. “Oh, no, I’m just the exobiologist. Dr. Savage-Hall here is the head of our team.” He turned to a slender, dark-haired man—midforties, at a guess, with large black eyes—who stood silently beside him. “You might’ve heard of him. His work in theoretical marine geology is groundbreaking.”

  Mo pressed his lips together to keep from pissing off Poole by jumping into the conversation. He’d read Dr. Savage-Hall’s study on the potential for macroquantum behavior of the seabed at extreme depth last year and found it fascinating. The doctor’s back off expression didn’t invite questions, but damn, Mo would love to pick that impressive brain.

  He only half listened while the upside doc introduced the rest of his team—Dr. Mandala Jhut, microbiology and microgeology; Dr. Carlo Libra, deep-marine geology; and Dr. Ashlyn Timms, practical and theoretical physics. Admiring Dr. Savage-Hall’s severe, studious good looks was much more interesting than hearing who did which job.

  Poole gestured toward his assistants. “These are my lab assistants, Ryal Nataki and Hannah Long. They’re both at your disposal while you’re here.” He nodded at Mo, his nose scrunching like he smelled something rotten. “This is Maximo Rees, one of our miners. He’s volunteered to lead the walker team into Richards Deep tomorrow.”

  To Mo’s surprise, Dr. Savage-Hall strode toward him with one slim hand held out and a smile that didn’t seem forced. “Mr. Rees.” His gaze flicked downward, then back to Mo’s face, so swift Mo almost missed it. “Thank you for agreeing to provide us with technical leadership on this excursion. We’re most grateful.”

  Mo grasped the man’s hand and shook. He had a good, strong grip and a refreshingly direct gaze. Mo flashed his most disarming grin, partly because he couldn’t help liking the guy and partly to see if the once-over he’d gotten came from professional interest or something more fun.

  “Please. Just Mo.” He let his smile warm when the doctor’s black-as-the-Trench eyes did the down-and-up thing again, checking him out less covertly this time. A hot glow stirred deep in his belly. “I’m excited to be a part of this team. Thanks for letting me play.”

  One dark brow lifted. “I look forward to our time together, Mo.” Dr. Savage-Hall dropped Mo’s hand and turned to his team, all business again. “Dr. Poole, is there somewhere we could all gather to discuss the excursion? I’d like to go over the logistics of it and precisely what everyone’s role will be. I think we’d all be much more comfortable if we could sit down somewhere and talk.”

  “Of course.” Poole gestured toward the hallway. “The library is private enough for a conversation and has plenty of room. Would that be all right?”

  Everyone agreed, and Poole led the way. While the rest of the group huddled together behind Poole to talk, Dr. Savage-Hall dropped back to walk with Mo in the rear. “This is my first time in one of the BathyTech facilities. I’m hoping to find someone to show me around and tell me more about the operations here.” His no-nonsense gaze cut sideways to meet Mo’s. “Pardon my bluntness, but I’d love it if you’d oblige me.”

  The heat in the doc’s eyes told Mo he’d be obliging more than a BathyTech tour. Which was fine with him. After nearly four months without getting laid, he was ready to jump the first man who’d have him. This doctor represented a definite upgrade from his usual casual lovers.

  “On one condition.” Leaning closer, Mo lowered his voice to what he’d been assured was a sexy growl. “Tell me your first name.”

  “Armin.” The doc’s pretty lips curved into an honest-to-fuck smirk. “I’ll look forward to hearing you say it later.”

  Mo laughed. He liked a confident man. “Me too, Doc. Me too.”

  They made an early start of it the next day. It was still dark upside, Armin reflected, when he, Mo, Carlo, Ashlyn, Neil, and the lab tech Hannah set off in the go-carts for their excursion into Richards Deep.

  With nothing to do until they reached their destination, Armin gazed out the window of the go-cart while Mo piloted the vehicle along the seabed. He’d studied the lightless world of the deepest ocean countless times, yet he never tired of it. What seemed barren at first glance teemed with life if one watched with a patient eye and an open mind. Not all living things looked as though they ought to carry that label.

  Learning that had changed him forever.

  “It was the tube worms that got me.”

  Mo’s low voice from the pilot seat brought to mind things other than marine life for a moment, stirring a heart-pounding heat in Armin’s belly. He shoved the feeling away with both hands because now wasn’t the time. Not with Ashlyn in the seat behind him and the second go-cart following them out to the place where the unknown object waited. He needed to present his best professional self and keep his mind on the work.

  He glanced sideways at Mo and tried to act casual. “Oh, yes?”

  Mo nodded. “I saw a TV show when I was little about the first worms they found on the deep-sea thermal vents. How they didn�
��t need the sun, but used the nutrients from the vents for energy. I remember thinking how they looked like some kind of weird rock. But the show said they were worms. They were alive. And that changed my whole world view.”

  He studied Mo’s profile, trying not to picture his face contorted with pleasure the way he’d seen it a few hours ago. “This is what made you want to be a deep-marine diver?”

  “It planted the seed, yeah.” The heavy-lidded eyes pinned him with a knowing look. “I saw you thinking about it.”

  For a paralyzing second, Armin thought Mo meant their tryst the night before—not that day and night had any real meaning down here. Then he understood and laughed, relieved. “My moment was the first time I saw a mermaid fish.”

  Ashlyn snorted. “Those are a myth.”

  “They’re not.” Mo’s voice was soft. Reverent. His eyes glittered in the jaundiced light of the go-cart cab. “I saw one six years ago, in the Mariana Trench. It was fucking gorgeous. That’s what made me jump at this job. I heard they’d been spotted here too. I wanted to see one again.”

  Armin understood. His first glimpse of the disturbingly humanlike fish on his third bathyspheric dive as a student had cemented his path in life. He’d fallen under the spell of its milky-green stare, and resolved to study the creatures of the extreme ocean depths as a secondary degree to his first love: theoretical marine geology, a field he’d helped pioneer. The possibility that he was about to lay hands on the first real proof of his theories—a macro object exhibiting quantum behavior—excited him.

  On the other hand, on the single glimpse Poole and his team had gotten of it, the object they were after looked remarkably like the one Klaudia Longenesse had carried from the Varredura Longa into the Antarctic Ocean. That fact filled him with a deep disquiet.

  “Doc?”

  He blinked and met Mo’s questioning gaze. “Yes?”

  The lips that had explored his body until he shook and moaned curved into a lopsided smile. “Where’d you go?”

  He looked away, embarrassed. “Sorry. I get lost in my thoughts sometimes.”