Nerith Tidecaller's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Nerith checked their gear at the cliff's edge. Kael waited beside them, watching the dark water below. The descent would begin soon. But Nerith's mapping device lay dead in their hands. "The screen won't hold," Nerith said. "The pressure down there will crush it in minutes." They turned the device over. No backup. No way to record what waited below. Kael touched the scar on their head frill. "Then your maps stay in your head." "Memory isn't proof," Nerith said. "If I find old grottoes, old signs of life, no one will believe me. I need something that sees in the dark and survives the deep." Kael looked past Nerith, toward the far water. The powerful light swept slowly across the surface. It came from a drone that hung above the abyss, round and heavy, its many lenses glowing blue. "The beacon," Kael said. Nerith followed their gaze. "That's station property. The researchers won't lend it." "They won't," Kael agreed. "But it already maps the surface every night. It just needs a reason to go deeper." Nerith studied the drone. Its lenses turned as it scanned. Mapping lights ringed its body. It was built for crushing depths and total dark. Everything their broken device could not do. "Can you reach it?" Nerith asked. Kael smiled. "Selkari have flown it before. I know the controls." They worked through the cold hours. Kael keyed commands into a worn panel near the station wall. Nerith linked a cable from the panel to their own device. If the drone recorded below, the data could feed back to them. The first attempt failed. The drone drifted but sent nothing. Nerith's screen stayed black. "The link's one way," Kael said. They touched the scar again. It glowed faint. "It records for the station, not for us." Nerith stared at the dead screen. Then they saw it. "We don't pull the data up. We go down with it." Kael frowned. "Dive beside the drone?" "It survives the pressure. We follow its lights. It records every grotto we pass, and we stay in frame." Nerith's wide eyes caught the blue glow. "The station keeps the footage. The footage proves what we find." Kael was quiet. Then they nodded. "Risky. The drone won't wait for slow swimmers." "Then we keep up," Nerith said. Kael entered the last command. The round drone turned. Its lights flared bright. Slowly it sank from the air toward the black water, lenses sweeping, recording everything in their path. Nerith watched it drop. For the first time, they had eyes that would not forget. "It's leaving," Kael said. They pulled their hood tight. "If we're doing this, we go now." Nerith gripped their useless device and let it fall. They did not need it anymore. The drone's light pulled them down into the dark, and Nerith dove after it.