Then, a sharp pain that took a moment to register, his mind slushed from the cold and mild hypoxia. He glanced down and saw his wetsuit had torn away, exposing his shoulder. The black neoprene flapped and mingled with a black liquid. It was his own blood, snaking out of a cut on his white flesh. He’d scraped it along the razor sharp edge of the opening. Tusker gritted his teeth around the mouthpiece. Next time it might be his regulator hose or his buoyancy wing that tore. He felt a tap on top of his head and looked up. Sam was silhouetted above him in the hole. She flashed an urgent “OK” sign to him inquisitively. He returned the gesture and nodded, mustering a smile in the blinding beam of her torch.

The Vampire had come to rest on the sea floor at a steeply pitched angle. The inside of the hull where Tusker found himself was disorienting, made all the worse by the inky darkness. He cast his torch beam around the cavernous space. The ship’s bottom was almost above him and anything that had been on the floor of this compartment was now piled in a chaotic jumble below him. Only his exhaled bubbles would guide him back up and to the way he came in. He was glad to have Sam just outside with her torch as some reference. He glanced at the timing ring of his Aquastar watch. Nine minutes bottom time already! Every extra minute meant 15 minutes of decompression. He had to hurry. But what was he looking for? The helmet, yes, the helmet.

He swept the space with his torch. His own fin kicks had stirred up a cloud of silt, backscatter in the beam of light. But there, 15 feet below him, a flash of yellow. Yes! A Kirby Morgan Model 37, the most commonly used commercial diving helmet. Should he bring it up? What good would that do? It would be heavy and awkward to swim with and carry. How had its owner managed to get out without it? he wondered. From the back of the helmet trailed what looked like a twisted umbilical, like the kind that feeds electricity, comms, and breathing gas to a diver. The end of it lay coiled below, out of sight in the rubble. Near the helmet, another familiar object: a full dive suit! It had no sediment on it and from Tusker’s distance, looked almost new. The neck seal was split and the top of the suit torn as if ripped violently open by a superhuman force.