In Too Deep

 Devin rubbed his eyes and watched the footage again. He’d been sitting at his desk for three hours and hadn’t made much progress on his research. The footage he was looking over wasn’t clear enough to see what was going on.

The lighting was bad, with only the headlights illuminating the dark surroundings. What could be seen was out of focus, hiding just beyond the light’s reach. Devin took a sip from his coffee cup and sighed. He needed to watch this next part closely.  

As the ROV camera rotated to the left, the rock formation he’d been examining came into view. It was a large set of rocks, jumbled together in a seemingly random pattern. A few rockfish swam lazily around it, but that wasn’t what Devin wanted to see. 

As the ROV drew closer to the rocks, the lights illuminated a creature in the distance. Devin immodestly paused the video and started going frame by frame, so as not to miss any details. 

The creature sat at the edge of the lights for a moment, then moved out of sight. Devin adjusted his spectacles and rubbed his bald head as he slowly clicked through the footage, watching the creature just disappear into the darkness. 

He saw nothing substantial. 

He went back and clicked through the footage again, looking for any detail that could confirm his suspicions. He was just about to call it a night, review his work again with fresh eyes in the morning when he finally saw it. 

A glimmer of light coming from the creature’s right. He zoomed in on the frame and adjusted his glasses again, slowly scanning the footage to look for other clues. About 3 seconds after the flicker he saw it. 

The tail. 

Long and powerful, its glowing tip just in sight of the camera but still mostly hidden. He watched the footage at normal speed again. The glow disappeared a second after the creature did, disappearing into the water. The ROV didn’t chase after it. Devin had seen the rest of the footage. 

This creature was too elusive to be chased. Most pilots didn’t even see it on camera, and those that did never saw it again once they gave chase. 

Devin opened another file, a video clip from two months prior depicting the same creature. This time it was closer to the camera, moving quickly like it was chasing something. The video quality wasn’t as good, since this had been captured by a different team with inferior equipment, but Devin was certain it was the same creature. 

The face was the same shape, and the long tail that slithered behind it was too similar. Nobody had seen a creature like this before. It was clearly intelligent, staying away from ROVs and examining the vehicles from afar. It didn’t seem violent but there was no way of telling how it normally behaved in the wild. 

Devin tapped his hand against the side of his coffee cup and remembered another file, this one from a few years prior. It was in much deeper waters, somewhere in the Mariana Trench. The ROV was making its descent when something began shaking it. A tail darted into frame for a moment before disappearing, and Devin recognized the glowing end of it immediately. 

He pulled up the report of damages from the expedition and read through them carefully. The damages were nothing substantial but the pictures were interesting. 

The vehicle had webbed imprints on it, like an octopus and a gecko had grabbed the same spot on the ROV at once. A few scratches had been slashed into the vehicle’s hull, bearing similar markings. Devin fumbled with a pencil for a moment before scribbling down a few theories into his notebook. 

This creature had been disturbed from what could only be assumed was its natural habitat, deep in the Mariana Trench. 

After its first violent encounter with an ROV, it began to explore outside its home, searching for the large and well-lit invader that had entered its domain. Devin broke the pencil tip and smacked his hand against the desk, before grabbing a new one and scribbling furiously in his notebook. 

This creature needed to be studied, but he doubted he would get a chance to continue his work. 

His parent company had suffered a major loss, with a major asset being ‘lost’. On top of that, a research facility in Silicon Valley had suffered a major security breach and was undergoing construction. 

Devin knew his funding was in danger. The study of the deep ocean was something that the Fiko Company was very proud of, but Devin had hit a hit of a dry spell recently, and the company had suffered huge losses within the past few months in areas outside of his control. On top of that, his research on this new sea creature was just beginning, and not something that the Executives would likely find worth their time because of the limited information available. 

Fiko was in the business of creating scientific greatness, not chasing after an aquatic ghost. 

He rubbed his eyes from under his glasses and turned off his computer. All of these things could wait. First thing in the morning he would talk to Deborah about this project and sanction another ROV to explore the same location. This creature was moving upwards, almost as if it was following the ROVs. 

Devin had to know more, but sleep called to him. He had a board meeting the next morning with The Executive, and he wanted to impress his superiors. The Executive was a formidable man and Devin wanted to secure the future of his project. 

He took off his glasses and slowly walked towards his bed, sitting heavily on the mattress before rolling over and falling asleep, anxious to see what would happen to his research after the meeting in the morning.