CHAPTER ONE
Looking up from underneath
Fractured moonlight on the sea
"We are here."
Darkness. That was what Asami saw first. An endless pit of darkness. Water so dense it threatened to collapse their submarines in on themselves. She closed her eyes. Had she been a waterbender, she'd bet she'd be able to feel the weight of the ocean upon them. She tried not to think about it. Tried was the key word here.
"Come left a little," said Mako behind her. "She's right in front of us, eighteen meters. Fifteen… Thirteen... you should see it."
"Do you see it?" asked Bolin. "I don't see it... there!"
That's when Asami saw her. Their submarines' lights hit her, illuminating first the railings, then the enormous mass underneath. A dead hull. A fallen giant, rising from the shadows. Green rust clung to her eroding metal. She glowed a soft blue under their submarines' lights, but Asami couldn't stop herself from shivering. In awe and fear. This ship had been the sight of a terrifying loss of life. But this ship was also going to make her rich.
The R.M.S. Titanic.
Their submarines hung above the hull, looking for the entryway inside.
"Okay, we're rolling," said Bolin, pulling his camera to his eye.
"It still gets me every time," whispered Asami, voice thick with emotion.
"It's just the guilt from stealing from the dead."
"Thanks, Mako. Work with me, here."
From the corner of her eye, she saw Bolin fiddling with a camera.
"To see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912, after her long fall from the world above."
Mako snorted.
"You are so full of shit, boss."
The two submarines continued down the length of the ship, past the bow. Asami imagined hundreds of tiny people, dressed in fancy dresses and top hats, walking along where now, there was nothing but rust, rot and fishes swimming about.
"Dive nine," said Asami. She picked up Bolin's camera herself and pointed it at her porthole. Pulling on her best teacher voice, she continued: "Here we are again on the deck of Titanic... two and a half miles down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train going over an ant if our hull fails."
Their tiny submarine continued down the length of the hull, endless in this vast darkness. There was nothing else for miles, yet here she was, buried at sea.
"These windows are nine inches thick," explained Asami to her camera and Mako and Bolin, "and if they go, it's sayonara in two microseconds."
Their submarine landed on the deck, next to the Officers' Quarters.
They were there, once again.
"Right. Let's get to work."
A small robot detached from their submarine. Mako pulled on the electronic goggles. Lucky bastard, he got to do the fun part. Though she also didn't mind watching the cameras as the robot continued on its merry way. The little robot started its descent into eternal night, guided by Mako's hands grabbing the joysticks.
"Walkin' the dog," he grinned.
The robot descended down a few decks, until it reached the First Class Reception area. Then, at a sharp horizontal angle, the robot entered the ship. It barely fit through a doorway that had once been made of glass, but of which remained half the double doors, with its sculptural detail and basic structure, green like everything else. As Mako mentioned, the robot continued on its way down, past the staircase.
As the robot reached one of the decks, Asami saw glimpses of Titanic's luxury.
A chandelier glinting in the light. Boots and glasses, forgotten for a long, long time. The discarded face of a child's doll, eyes and body gone. Darkness fell upon these fallen artefacts as the robot pressed on, never stopping for a moment.
They finally reached the room Asami was waiting for. A smile stretched on her face. Excitement bubbled in her stomach.
"Watch the door frame," she warned. "Watch it, watch it…"
"I got it, I got it."
The robot squeezed through the door frame. Barely.
"We're good, we're good. Just chill, boss."
A fish appeared in the light, ghostly and pale. The robot's light went past a fallen table to a mantle, still almost fully intact, with its clock in front of a mirror. A piano soon appeared, amazingly preserved, with its keys all fully attached. Everything was so peaceful, it was eerie. As if inanimate objects were dead, too.
"Right there, right there, right there…" Asami jumped up. She pointed at the screen. "Do you see it? Do you see it?"
"I see it."
Following Mako's orders, the robot crossed into the bedroom. They were getting closer. Asami could feel it. There, what was that, contrasting against the light? Yes, that was a bed frame! They were there. They'd arrived.
"Okay, I want to see what's under that wardrobe door."
"Gimme my hands, man."
The robot's arms extruded from its body with a low hum. Its hands, shaped like pincers, reached for the fallen wardrobe. With extreme delicacy, Mako lifted the door. It fell away, lifting a cloud of dust. Asami held her breath. If anything collapsed, it was over. But she exhaled. Nothing moved. The dust settled.
Then, it appeared.
"Oh, baby, baby!" said Bolin. "Are you seeing this, boss? It's payday, boys!"
Asami arched an eyebrow.
"Boys?"
"Guys. Ladies. People. Sorry."
"None taken."
Asami was too happy to be mad. Later on, everyone gathered on deck, joy spreading fast amongst the crew. It took them a couple hours to get back up and to get the safe from inside Titanic's hull. It landed on the deck with a thud! Someone patted Asami on the back. Someone else squeezed her arm. She wasn't sure who, but all of them showed the same wide grin she did. Mako even opened a bottle of champagne, covering everyone in bubbly goodness.
"Who's the best?" asked Mako, wrapping an arm around Asami. "Say it!"
"You are, Mako."
He kissed her cheek and she pushed him away.
"Don't give anyone any ideas. We're not dating. Not anymore!"
"I know, boss. I know."
A saw hissed to life as one of the crewmembers set out to open the safe. Metal screeched against metal. Orange sparks flew.
"Well, here it is," she said to a camera, "the moment of truth. Here's where we find out if the time, the sweat, the money spent to charter this ship and these subs, to come out here to the middle of the North Atlantic... were worth it.
When the safe cracked open, brown liquid flooded out. Everyone groaned.
That fucking smelled.
Asami bit back her disgust. She reached inside. She touched rotten… stuff. What exactly, she wasn't particularly certain she wanted to know. Asami pulled out something. A large stack of papers, bound together. Something like a large sketchbook.
But no diamond.
Asami slumped in on herself. Disappointment settled in her gut.
"Shit."
"You know, boss," said Bolin, not without an ounce of sympathy in his voice, "this happened to the Mechanist and his career never recovered."
Asami's eyes landed on the camera, pointed at her face.
"Get that outta my face."
If Asami had made a bet to figure out how long it would take her investors to call about the treasure, she would have lost. Somehow, they called not even five minutes into their disgusting brown discovery. Speaking of disgusting brown discovery, Teo, their best technician, was analyzing the sketchbook using water, rubbing away a century of filth. She put on a brave face and her voice didn't shake when she said, putting a hand against her ear:
"Hi, Amon? Kuvira? Zaheer? Look, it wasn't in the safe… no, look, don't worry about it, there're still plenty of places it could be... in the floor debris in the suite, in the father's room, in the Purser's safe on C deck…"
Something caught Asami's eye. She looked through the monitor at a zoomed-in version of the paper the technician was currently watering clean. A face appeared, beautiful, young, with short, chin-length hair. One eye - the one on the left - was half-closed, covered in a somewhat darker shade than his skin. A scar, probably. He was… a man. A man who also wasn't… wearing anything, at least from the waist up. The rest of him - or what Asami assumed would be the rest of him - was still obscured by grime and dirt. Yet what really caught Asami's eye was the necklace the young man wore. Mako grabbed the phone and hung up on their investors. At her command, Bolin brought over a picture of the necklace.
The Heart of the Ocean.
Asami ran her thumb over a date that had been scratched in the bottom right corner. April 14, 1912. Next to two initials. K.L.
The day of the ship's sinking.
"I'll be Spirits damned."
Katara La was hunched over her pottery wheel. Somewhere in the kitchen, the television played, but she didn't particularly pay any attention. Her old hands, covered in spots, pressed against the clay, thinning the sides of the bowl. Then, a word reached her ear. A simple word, but one that sent chills down her spine.
Titanic.
"Treasure hunter Asami Sato," was saying the announcer that Katara couldn't care enough to identify, "is best known for finding Spanish gold in sunken galleons in the Caribbean. Now she is using deep submergence technology to work two and a half miles down at another famous wreck... the Titanic. She is with us live via satellite from a Japanese research ship in the middle of the Atlantic. Hello, Asami?"
Katara turned around.
"Yes, hi," said a woman, holding a phone to her ear. "You know, Titanic is not just a shipwreck, Titanic is THE shipwreck. It's the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."
Grabbing her cane, Katara rose to her feet, slower than she used to, and crossed the room to the kitchen, where the television rested upon the counter. Korra, a friend of the family who was there to take care of her, spun around, kettle in one hand.
"What is it?"
Katara waved impatiently at the television.
"Turn that up, dear."
Korra obeyed. Louder in her ears, the announcer was saying:
"Your expedition is at the center of a storm of controversy over salvage rights and even ethics. Many are calling you a grave robber."
"Nobody called the recovery of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb grave robbing. I have museum-trained experts here, making sure this stuff is preserved and catalogued properly. Look at this drawing, which was found today…"
The camera moved from Asami to a sheet of paper on a table. A…
"... a piece of paper that's been underwater for eighty-four years... and my team are able to preserve it intact. Should this have remained unseen at the bottom of the ocean for eternity, when we can see it and enjoy it now...?"
Katara squinted her eyes. Then, it dawned on her.
Oh.
Oh.
"I'll be Spirits damned."
Night had fallen around their ship like a blanket, full of twinkling stars and calm, cool waters. Asami watched, hands on her hips, as the submarines were being launched for another mission. She was going back for that necklace. At all costs. When someone tapped on her shoulder, she spun around, ready to tell them to fuck right off. It was Bolin. She almost sighed at that. He'd never take "go fuck yourself" as a threat.
"There's a satellite call for you."
"Bolin, we're launching," said Asami, annoyance unraveling at her paper thin patience at the moment. "See these submersibles here, going in the water? Take a message."
"No, trust me, ma'am, you want to take this call."
"It better be good."
Bolin showed Asami to the phone they always kept on deck. He gave her the receiver, then made a comment about speaking up because she was "kind of old". Great. An old lady who called a treasure hunter's ship out in the middle of the ocean?
"This is Asami Sato. What can I do for you, Mrs…?"
"La. Katara La," said Bolin.
"... Mrs. La?"
A voice, shrivelled but full of teasing, spoke on the other side of the phone. Speaking in tones that meant she knew more than Asami. And she did.
"I was wondering if you had found the Heart of the Ocean yet, Miss Sato."
Asami's eyes widened. Bolin barked a laugh.
"I told you you wanted to take this call!"
"Alright." Asami put her hand over her other ear, shielding it from the launch's rumbles. "You have my attention, Katara. Can you tell me who the man in the picture is?"
"Oh, yes. That was a man named Zuko Kai. I can also tell you who drew it, too."
"Yes? Who did it, then?"
"The woman who drew that picture… is me."
It took them a few days to fly Katara La to the ship. Anticipation grew amongst the crew, though Mako tended to keep it to himself. He finally confronted Asami about his foul mood the exact day when she was set to arrive. Or, more accurately, he pestered her all the way from her cabin's door to the top deck.
"She's a Spirits damned liar!" he almost growled. Wow, he'd really been holding that in for too long, huh? "Like that... what's her name? That Anastasia babe."
Asami rolled her eyes. Only Mako could call Grand Duchess Anastasia a babe.
"She says he's Zuko Kai, right? Zuko Kai died on the Titanic. At the age of twenty. If he'd've lived, he'd be over a hundred now. And I bet she'd be, too!"
"One hundred and two next month," Asami corrected.
"Okay, so she's a very old Spirits damned liar. There's no sign of a Katara La on the Titanic either. But I traced her as far back as the Twenties... she was working as an artist in L.A. A con artist I bet! She's just a lonely old woman who's been living in Chippewa Falls a little too long and has to lie to entertain herself. Can't you see that, Asami?"
She stopped on deck and turned on him, index finger pointed at his chest.
"And everybody who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead... or on this ship. But she knows about it. And I want to hear what she has to say. Got it?"
He didn't have anything to say to that.
When their helicopter, the Sea Stallion, landed on board, Mako and Bolin first helped Katara's wheelchair down. Mako pushed Katara away and Bolin carried her seemingly hundreds of bags while a little dog trotted after them. Asami offered Korra a hand.
"Asami."
"Korra."
Asami was handled a fish bowl with two fishes in there. One black with a white spot and a white one with a black spot. Beautiful. Yet strange.
Asami stared after Katara.
"What in Agni is going on on my ship?"
Asami followed after Bolin and Mako to Katara's room. By the time she made it there, Katara was somehow finishing putting up a dozen or so old pictures, all in black and white, upon her dresser. Asami smiled. She actually liked the old woman. Even if she seemed a bit… quirky. Behind her, though, she saw Mako roll his eyes.
"Is your stateroom all right?"
"Yes," said Katara. "Very nice. Oh!" She put her hand over Korra's hand, which she had gently put on Katara's shoulder a few seconds ago. With a sly smile, she said: "Have you met my young friend Korra? She's a friend of the family."
"Yes," said Korra, leaning over Katara's shoulder. "We met just a few minutes ago, Auntie Katara. Remember, up on deck?"
"Oh!" She waved her hand meaninglessly. "Yes."
Mako rolled his eyes again.
"There, that's nice. I have to have my pictures when I travel." She turned to the little dog, standing off to the side. "And Naga, of course. Isn't that right, sweetie?"
Naga barked. A high-pitched "waf!" kind of bark.
"Would you like anything?"
Katara's eyes lit up when she turned to Asami.
"I should like to see my drawing."
Katara didn't exactly… fit in the laboratory. Not that they weren't able to get her down there at all. They had a ramp and everything was wheelchair accessible; Teo, their best technician Asami explained, had needed it months beforehand. No, Katara didn't fit in the laboratory because everything down here looked so… sterile. Meanwhile here she was, all soft blues and muted greys, with always that knowing smile on her face. She leaned over the tray of water in which the drawing was still submerged, for conservation's sake.
A wet sort of recognition dawned in Katara's eyes. She held her breath. Yes. There it was. Her drawing. She'd seen on the television, but it was nothing compared to the real deal. When Katara closed her eyes, memories flashed behind her eyelids. Her holding a charcoal pen. A young man sitting in front of her, with only a necklace for clothes.
Katara snapped her eyes open.
Asami reached over for a tiny picture, which she showed Katara.
"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown," she explained in what Katara presumed was a seasoned University Professor's voice. "Which disappeared in 1792, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too. Recut into a heart-like shape. And it became Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the Ocean." She looked over at Korra, leaning over Katara's shoulder. Then, she continued: "Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond."
"He told me…" Katara scoffed. "He told me it was a dreadful, heavy thing." She pointed at the picture. "I only held it for less than a minute. And he only wore it this once."
"You actually believe this is him, Auntie Katara?"
"It is him, dear. I'd recognize my own drawing everywhere! Wasn't he a dish?"
"I tracked it down through insurance records", continued Asami. "An old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was, Katara?"
"Someone named Agni, I should imagine."
Asami shared a glance with Mako. He looked at least interested at that.
"Ukano Agni, right. Japanese steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his daughter Mai Agni bought in France for her fiancé... Zuko... a week before she sailed on Titanic. And the claim was filed right after the sinking. So the diamond had to have gone down with the ship."
Katara nodded sagely, then looked away.
"See the date?" asked Korra. She pointed at the bottom right corner of the drawing, awe in her voice. "April 14, 1912."
"If your Auntie is who she says she is, she saw the last person wearing the diamond the day Titanic sank." To Katara, Asami said: "And that makes you my new best friend."
They brought out artefacts from the sinking. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes of artefacts. Taken, stolen. But stolen from what? From whom? From the ghosts who still were on the ship, dancing the night away or eating dinner at the tables? What they thought were artefacts, to Katara, were objects she remembered Zuko had touched, objects she remembered him interacting with. Her hand curled around a mirror's handle.
"This was Zuko's. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it." When she looked in the mirror, she almost laughed. "The reflection has changed a bit."
Her hand hovered above the objects. It landed on one. She lifted it. Reverently.
"This was Zuko's headpiece." Her voice was thick with emotion. "For his top knot. I found him dashing with it in his hair."
Asami crouched down next to Katara. Her voice was soft when she asked:
"Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"
The young men Asami had said were Mako and Bolin showed Katara a dreadful video. While Asami had mentioned that maybe Katara didn't want to watch it, she said it was fine. Curiosity gnawed at her. It represented the Titanic sinking, how it had cracked in half, rose up vertically, then landed upon the ocean floor. Katara watched with a tight-lipped smile, unable to look away. For those people, this was fascinating. Cool. To her, it was…
"Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mako and Bolin. Of course, the experience of it was somewhat less... clinical."
"Will you share it with us?" asked Asami.
Katara rose up from her chair and walked over to the wall of screens. Beyond were green ruins of what she had once known, maybe not as intimately as Zuko had, but she had still been there. When she looked at a door, a flash appeared in her mind. Two men opening the doors for her, on that night going to dinner in First Class. Katara's eyes flooded with tears. With one shaky breath, she buried her face in her hands.
It was too much. Too much…
A hand wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her along.
"I'm taking her to rest," said Korra.
"No! I can do what I want."
I'll be outside if you're man enough to fight me!
Katara dropped her arms. Her eyes turned to blue steel. She stared Korra down, remembering a time when men had told her she wasn't enough, couldn't be enough. Mako, gentle for once, pulled out a chair and Katara sat down. She took a deep breath.
"Okay, Katara." Korra raised her hands. "We'll listen."
She took in a deep breath. Gathered her thoughts.
"It's been… eighty-four years…"
"It's okay if you don't remember everything," encouraged Asami.
Katara smiled at that.
"Do you want me to tell you the story or not?"
Everyone shut up. Good.
"It's been eighty-four years…" Katara breathed in. In and out. "... and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was…"