Chapter 3: Arthur

The water was cool. That was good. It meant those idiots over on the rig had taken his warning to heart. Arthur, grunted. Those idiots had been facing warnings for a year and a half now, if they'd only started listening to him now, then there wasn't much he could do for them. They just proved his father right, that humanity was lost.

He was about to turn and go back home when he heard it. A high-pitched screech. Arthur frowned. It wasn't an animal, he knew every noise the creatures of the ocean made, and it wasn't them. So, what was it?

He tilted his head, sometimes doing that allowed him to hear properly. The sound evened out, and it was a steady rhythm. One dot…two dot…three dot. An SOS. Some human had gotten stuck.

Arthur took a breath and then pushed himself off. He followed the sound, going past the reefs and the frigid waters, nodding to the whales and the sharks and then he was there. He'd been right. It was an SOS. A ship was sinking.

He glanced at the ship's name. White Portuguese.

That was an odd name for a ship. Weren't all Portuguese people white anyway? He shook his head and then pushed himself out of the water. The substance made a splash as he landed on the deck of the ship.

He saw the Captain standing there gawping at him. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"We hit something." The man said in fluent English. "I'm not sure what, but the ship's going down."

"Can you swim?" Arthur asked. It was a dumb question, but he'd found that sometimes the humans who got on these ships never knew how to swim.

"Yes." The Captain answered.

"Then come on, let's go." Arthur said, walking toward him.

The Captain shook his head. "I can't, not until I know my crew are safe."

"Where are they?" Arthur growled.

"Four men down below, five men on deck here with me." The Captain said.

"And the rest?" The White Portuguese was a big ship; it should have more men.

"That's it." The Captain said.

"Fine." Arthur grunted. He pushed passed the Captain and walked down the stairs. Immediately he could hear shouting and grunting. The men were panicking. As he reached the bottom of the steps he could see why. Water was creeping in. They must have been hit by something.

Arthur waded into the water and grabbed two of the men, he turned and threw them up the steps. When he heard them land on the deck, he grabbed the other two and did the same. He stopped for a moment to look at what might have caused them to start sinking.

On one of the monitors he found what he was looking for. A trident but with a skull on the middle prong. "Orm." His half-brother had done this. Which meant this ship wasn't going to last long.

He turned back around and walked back up onto the deck. The Captain and his crew were all there waiting for him.

"We're going to have to move. You've hit something and the ship is going to go down very soon." Arthur said.

"How are we going to go?" The Captain asked. "The nearest bit of land is miles away."

Arthur smiled. "Watch." He grabbed two of the men and threw them into the water and then dived in, and then grabbed both of them and sped off. They came to land within a few moments he dumped them off on the ground and then moved back to the ship. He grabbed the others and went back and forth a few times.

When the last of them had been deposited, he looked at the Captain and asked. "Who sent you to that spot and what were you carrying?"

"I don't know who sent us. We just got orders from above and told to go and get a shipment from the north." The Captain said.

"And what were you carrying?" Arthur asked.

"Some green substance." The Captain said.

"Well, it's gone now. I'm sure your boss will be happy to compensate you." Arthur replied.

The Captain's face contorted into one of fear. "No, please, you can't let it sink, please."

Arthur looked at the man. "Why?"

The Captain didn't say anything for a moment, and Arthur wondered if he had misspoken, but then he said. "Because if we don't deliver that substance, we're all going to end up dead."

"Are you serious?" Arthur asked. Surely that was an exaggeration.

"I am, please, sir, you have to help us!" The Captain begged.

Arthur considered this. He'd been wanting to go back home and sleep. The hangover he'd been fighting off was starting to come back to him. But if this man was saying he and his crew's life was in danger, then Arthur did have a responsibility to them. His mother had said as much.

Arthur sighed. "Fine." He dived back into the water, he wondered what was on that ship that made it so valuable. Was it weapons? Probably. A lot of businesses were buying weapons and selling them on for more money, causing all kinds of chaos in inner street America.

If he truly wanted to do some good in the world, he would destroy the ship and whatever was on that ship. But he also knew that protecting the Captain and his men was the better thing to do. He knew them, at least shallowly, he didn't know some poor black kid in Chicago, who would more than likely be killed by whatever was on that ship.

He blinked as he found himself staring at the White Portuguese. There was a hole in the bottom of the ship, that hadn't been there before. He decided to go and investigate. He swam up and found more of Orm's markings. Clearly his brother had been here before. He pushed that to one side and moved further into the ship.

It wasn't as big as he had originally thought. Perhaps big enough for five cases of weapons, nothing more. But there were no weapons, there were only crates. He opened one of the crates, and found himself staring at a glowing green substance. Something about this didn't seem right, but what it was he didn't know. He pushed that thought to one side and ripped the crate off from the wires holding it together and swam with it back to where the Captain was. He dumped it on the ground and then went back and got the other two crates. That done he looked at the Captain.

"Do your people know where you find you?"

The moment the question left his lips, he knew it was a dumb one. Of course, the Captain's people wouldn't know where to find him.

"There's a village about five minutes' walk from here. Go there, ask to use their phone. Tell them Art sent you." The Captain nodded and Arthur turned and went back into the water.

He'd only gotten as far as perhaps the southern bend when a bubble appeared before him. He groaned. What was it now?

He blinked and an old man with long hair and stubble, wearing the old guard armour was there before him.

"What do you want Vulko?" Arthur asked.

Vulko, the man who'd been his mother's chief advisor until she'd come to the surface, who'd served his brother until that man had dismissed him now said. "You're needed in Atlantis."

Arthur wanted to groan. He hated having this conversation. Hated it. "Why?"

"That ship whose crew you rescued? They were marked by Orm." Vulko said.

"I know." Arthur replied.

"Then you know that this is just the beginning. He won't rest until the surface world is brought to its knees." Vulko said.

Arthur laughed. "Why should I care?"

"Because you are the only one who can stop him." Vulko said. "You are the link between Atlantis and the Surface world. You know what Atlantis can bring to bear on the surface. It must be stopped."

Arthur grunted. "I'm not getting in the way." Personally, he was of the view that maybe the surface needed a good slap.

"Arthur!" Vulko pleaded.

Arthur looked at the man and said. "I'm not getting involved. I don't care for Atlantis or the surface world." With that he stepped out of the bubble and swam back to his home.

As he made his way back home, he did find himself wondering how much of what he'd said to Vulko was true. Did he not care if there was a war between the surface and Atlantis? Of course, not. People would die, innocent people. His father would be one of those who would die, of that Arthur knew. The old man was too bloody stubborn to move.

But Atlantis would also suffer. Arthur didn't know how he felt about that. Atlantis had rejected him when he'd been a child. His grandfather had called him a bastard hellspawn, even though his parents had been married. Atlantis. His birthright, but the thing that he didn't want.

He pushed himself out of the water and found his father waiting for him.

"Did Vulko find you?" His father asked, as he got out of the water.

"Yes." Arthur grunted taking the towel his father handed him.

"And?" His father asked.

"I said no. I'm not getting involved." Arthur said.

His father nodded. "They're talking about Superman on television."

Arthur groaned. "Fucking hell, why?" Why were the people on the news so obsessed with Superman? Arthur had considered him. He seemed to be an ordinary bloke. Yes, he could do some incredible things, but that was about it. He wasn't a God. No more than Arthur was.

"Senator Goodman." His father replied.

"That annoying little bitch." Arthur snarled. "She never leaves well enough, alone does she?" The woman had been to visit Arthur once. He'd told her to go fuck herself.

"Indeed, but enough about that. The food is getting cold." His father said. Arthur nodded and walked with him back to their home.