Sarah was not planning on finding a Greenland shark so soon. It came out of nowhere and it had to be blind luck or twisted fate. She assumed it would take hours to track down a specimen, get a sample, and get back topside. She thought it was altogether possible they might come up empty tonight and have to venture out again tomorrow night. But if she survived this collision and didn't spring a leak, she may have stumbled upon some good fortune.
The sea cycle spun in a torrent of black water, the exterior search lights illuminating a wash of white suds as Sarah's head slammed against the watertight canopy. First came the loud thump of her skull striking the polycarbonate, followed by a second wave of foam swirling over the cycle. Then, in the middle of the violent water, a flurry of stars burst across her field of vision. Sharp pains bounced all over her skull. The impact would have knocked an average person out cold, but not Sarah. The blows left her off kilter, but only lasted for a few seconds. In an instant, she recovered because her body's enhanced immune system repaired and deflected the onset of a concussion in her brain. Any traumatic effects were temporary.
Otherwise, the ambush kindled a fire of determination.
As the creature swam off into the dark abyss, Sarah swiped her hand over the touchscreen, jabbing a finger at a button to engage the cycle's stabilizers. Her first and second attempt failed amidst the rumbling tumble through the water. But before she could make the connection, the computer's automated system kicked into gear, activating the cycle's balancing mechanism. Jets of water from the ballast tanks blasted from cone shaped nozzles into the direction of the roll, slowing the spin, and stopping it altogether. With less water in the tanks, the cycle shot up thirty feet from the ocean floor in a frothy blur. The sudden ascent sent her heart racing to her throat. She gasped, caught her breath, and steeled her nerves into an icy focus on the mission objective.
With precious time slipping away, Sarah located the fleeing shark as it scurried away. It showed up as a pulsating red dot on the display between the handlebars. In the past, keeping up with an untagged creature like this would be impossible, especially at night. But the technology of the future had a way of evening the odds. Before the collision, as soon as the computer detected the shark on radar, it locked onto the target's heat signature. With a goose of the throttle, she started the chase.
Sarah opened the comm system with the tap of a finger. "I got sideswiped, but I'm in pursuit. Fifty meters out." She saw Wolf's submersible on the screen, visible as a solid green dot. "It's about half a klick off your starboard."
"I see it. I'm on my way."
Sarah knew she would beat Wolf to the prize, but she didn't need to kill the shark or capture it. She only needed to get close to it. Sea Lab equipped the sea cycles with a pair of mechanical arms. One arm had four fingers that pinched together to pick up objects from the seabed. They had fitted the other arm with a rotating coring blade for taking tissue and blood samples from marine life. The blade was like a hollow drill bit that buzzed into a shark's tough skin.
Fortunately, Greenland sharks were slow. Since they lived in icy water, their metabolism had adapted to a leisurely pace, slowing its bodily processes, allowing it to live twice as long as the average human. Although it was capable of quick bursts of speed, normally, the shark lumbered the icy depths in search of prey.
Sarah gunned the cycle with a twist on the throttle handle. Twin fans at the rear of the submersible churned a milky wake, propelling her forward.
As she closed in on the meandering shark, she monitored the bank of lights illuminating the path ahead. Tiny bubbles and bits of debris floated through the water, sweeping over the cycle's clear canopy. The shark's tailfin waved back and forth. She was gaining ground, the red dot on her display screen drawing near.
"I'll never catch up to you in time," Wolf said over the comm system. "It's all you until I get there."
"I'm on it. I see it! Eleven o'clock off my port side."
The tailfin disappeared in a cloud of sediment from the bottom, but it materialized again in front of her as the silt faded away; the shark ten meters out, swishing lazily in the dark soup. The way the creature moved like it had nowhere to go made Sarah rethink her collision with the fish. While the creature may have targeted her cycle on purpose, on the flip side, it could have been an accident. Greenland sharks were almost blind because of parasites that fed on their eyes. Those same parasites provided the sharks with bioluminescence. Basically, it had dulled vision in exchange for light to see in the dark. An odd give and take.
Bottom line—the fish could have been in the wrong place at the right time. As the chase continued, Sarah had herself convinced of this. She held the throttle down, pulling the submersible up beside the unsuspecting shark's left side.
"You got the sample yet?" Wolf said. "I'm still far out."
"Almost there." Sarah extended the arm with the coring blade attached to it. Using a joystick that looked like a tiny toggle switch, her thumb guided the hollow tip toward the creature's rear flank, gliding over its body and contacting the dorsal fin.
She nipped the fin but failed to drive the spinning blade home. The core zipped into space, buzzing through the water like an angry corkscrew.
The shark swerved and bumped into her cycle, creating a gap between them. The fish didn't like being chased, or it was so blind it didn't know she was there.
Sarah twisted the handlebars to the right, closing the gap.
One more try.
"You got it yet?"
"Not yet," Sarah said with a growl.
"Well, hurry, I'd like to end this and get topside."
"You're not helping."
"Sorry."
Sarah controlled the joystick, inching the blade toward the bulk of the shark's body, nearing a long stretch of dark scales between the eye and dorsal fin. She prodded the stick with her thumb, stabbing the coring blade into its tough hide, buzzing into thick flesh. When the arm pulled away, blood swirled in the water, visible for a fleeting second before disappearing into the obscurity of the surrounding ocean. The sight was enough to let her know she had got what she needed.
As the arm retracted to stow the tissue sample in a secure compartment, the slow-moving Greenland shark veered away, and then changed directions, careening toward Sarah. She was thinking this creature was smarter than it looked. Maybe it was out for revenge? Doubtful, but possible.
In a blink, the creature crashed into the sea cycle.
The impact rattled through the submersible, tilting it at a slight angle. Before Sarah could right the vehicle, another jolt shook the canopy.
The shark jerked away with something in its jaws—the end of the mechanical arm. The same arm attached to the coring blade, with the tissue sample. Sarah couldn't believe her eyes. Her breath stalled in her chest as the shark ripped the blade free and swallowed it.
"What happened?" Wolf blared in Sarah's ears.
Her reply stuttered from her lips. "It-it... it ate the DNA sample."
The Greenland shark angled away, swimming through the murky water. The creature's lazy motion and methodical behavior irritated the fire out of Sarah. That thing had just chomped down and ate the sample she worked so hard to get. The shark melted into the shadows and disappeared from view, but Sarah still had a lock on its heat signature. Its red dot pulsated on the display screen between her handlebars.
"It ate what?" The disbelief in Wolf's voice echoed over the airwaves. "Did you just say that it—"
"Yes! It bit down on the manipulator arm with the tissue sample. Do I need to go into more detail?"
"No, I get the picture. I'm still on my way... on your six."
Sarah glanced down at the radar map on the display. Wolf's green dot was thirty meters behind her and moving in at full speed, her encounter with the Greenland shark having slowed her pursuit, allowing him to gain ground on her. But she still had a bead on the shark, its position in the water radiating red on the screen, fifty meters to the south.
"You'll have to get the sample this time," Sarah said. "But I have an idea."
"I bet I can read your mind—hem it in on both sides and wrangle it like a steer."
"Not how I would have described it, but close enough."
Sarah backed off the throttle and allowed Wolf to draw even with her. When the lights from his sea cycle illuminated the gloomy swath of water beside her, she revved the gas on the handlebar and shot toward the escaping shark. Wolf did the same and soon edged even with her again.
"We should have a visual at any moment," Sarah said. Her fingers and her palm ached from her hold on the throttle handle. Her skin felt sticky with perspiration as she squeezed the rubber grip with such a ferocity that it shocked her. Her mission drove her forward with a relentlessness that consumed her.
As they made their approach, the lamps of their submersibles turned the pitch-black depths around them into an eerie dark green cut out of the sea. Indifferent to their presence, the shark swished forward on a haphazard course. Sarah went right and Wolf went left. The mottled gray body of the fish stretched twenty feet ahead of them.
Invisible tremors in the water shook Sarah's submersible like air turbulence rattling a plane. The enormous tailfin generated mild shock waves, speed bumps, jarring both sea cycles with short and steady bursts. Sarah turned her head, gawking at the giant fish. It was not a pretty specimen to behold. Its black spots melted into muddled splotches on its thick hide. The shark's eye appeared glazed over with a milky haze—damage inflicted by the parasites. Its sheer size next to them stirred a healthy level of respect for the creature's power.
Sarah inched forward, the nose of her sub pulling even with the halfway point of the shark's body. Her gaze followed the outline of the dorsal fin as it curved, pointing toward the creature's rear flank. That's when she glimpsed Wolf's obscure figure hunched over the handlebars. She made out his brows, pinching together in concentration. He looked jacked up on adrenaline. Whatever drugs he was taking to curb his aggressive behavior, probably was the only thing keeping him from slipping over the edge.
She could only huff and wag her head. "Are you ready to do this? We're running out of time."
"Yes. No. Maybe? As ready as I'll ever be."
"Use the miniature joystick on the right side of your center console. It operates the manipulator arm on that side of your sub."
"I found it. Wait. How do I—"
"Nudge the stick to the right. That disengages it from the side of the cycle."
"And?"
"Use your imagination, Wolf. Get it close to the body and flick the joystick. The arm will draw back and stab the rotating blade into the shark's dermal scales."
"So, jab its skin?"
"Technically, it's not skin, but yes. Geez. Do I have to do everything for you?"
"I got it. I think."
"You need to make solid contact to penetrate the hide. Their scales are tough."
"I said, I got it."
The mechanical arm on Wolf's submersible crept toward the shark.
The big fish bumped into Sarah's cycle, jolting her. The collision twisted her sub sideways, slowing her down, but she made a quick correction and regained her position. Maybe the creature remembered her from earlier, and decided it didn't like her, or maybe it didn't like being crowded and feeling threatened? As she provided a blockade on the right side of the creature, Wolf continued to inch his coring blade closer.
An idea came to mind. She thumbed the joystick on the left side of her center console, maneuvering the other arm with the grasping fingers toward the shark. She might could use the metal hand as a guide like she and Wolf were a couple of cowboys at a rodeo.
At the very least, it created a distraction.
From Sarah's point of view, Wolf's mechanical arm whipped through the water like a small javelin.
Multiple attempts were fruitless, but Sarah refused to give up.
"Not as easy as it looks, is it?" she said.
"No, it's not." Wolf made eye contact with her for a brief second—a snarky glare—and then refocused his efforts.
The shark walloped into the side of his sub.
"Hello," he said, "a little help would be nice."
"Coming up." Sarah clawed at the dorsal fin with the flexible metal fingers, receiving a hard bump in return. "Any day now."
Wolf grumbled something incoherent over the comm system, aimed at Sarah. The coring blade sliced at the shark but came up short. Wolf seemed more determined now. He kept sputtering curses at the fish or at Sarah, or at his own inability to operate the arm. In a flash, the gaping mouth opened, lined with sharp, tiny teeth designed to tear flesh from prey, intending to eat Sarah's other mechanical arm. Simultaneously, Wolf struck the creature's hardened armor of dermal scales with a direct hit. The scalpel-sharp blade sunk into its flesh and yanked back with a tissue sample. The dark swirl of blood curled into view, letting her know Wolf had been successful.
The shark's teeth grazed the fingers of Sarah's mechanical arm, chomping down on nothing but water. Before it could try again, she peeled away, angling right, putting a safe distance between her and the predator. Wolf steered his sub clear and waited for Sarah to join him as the fish disappeared into the abyss of the Northern Atlantic.
Now, it was back to the lab and back to work. If she stood any chance of rescuing Jake, she had to deliver a perfect serum to the admiral.