Chapter One: The Oncoming Storm
Landon Ketterling adjusted the lapel mike on his bright red polo shirt and smiled brightly at the crowd of schoolkids in front of him, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Aloha!" he greeted them. "Mahalo for coming to the Aloha Marine Research Institute today."
Twenty-one second graders chorused, "Aloha!" back at him. Landon clapped his hands together. "Well, let's get started then, huh?" He walked them down a set of stairs and swiped his badge at a keycard entry point. "This is our laboratory entrance," he explained. "This is where all of our important science discoveries are being, well, discovered!" He leaned down, as if he was letting them in on a big secret. "It's really important that you do exactly as I say and keep your hands to yourselves. There are scientists working, and we don't want to disturb them. The last class that came down here almost got turned into plankton."
He paused. His audience had gone quiet. Twenty-one faces were staring slackjawed at him. Second graders, Landon. Sarcasm- not a thing. "I'm kidding," he assured them, and saw several of them start to visibly breathe again. "But we do need to be quiet. When we get to the biology lab, a friend of mine will be there to answer questions, okay?"
He got a couple nods. A few of them, Landon could tell, still weren't sure what to make of the tall biologist that was acting as their tour guide. "Awesome. Let's start!"
About a half-mile from AMRI's man-made lagoon, a crowd was gathered on the beach, all eyes staring out into the ocean. A young woman on a bright pink surfboard had just gone over the top of a large wave and was riding down the face of it. The waves had been unusually high the past few days, even by a surfer's standards, and Kealey Shepard was taking full advantage of them. She shoved upwards, going back up the center of the wave. Come on, she thought, willing the top of the wave to start curling over itself. She was in the zone today, her GoPro clipped into place. She wanted one good barrel today to post online. Her corporate sponsor, Storm Chargers, had given her permission to film the web series as long as their logo was prominent in the video somewhere.
Kealey grinned, looking down at her board. The SC logo was front and center on her board. "Let's do this," she said aloud, noticing a change in the water. Something's coming, she grinned, cutting back down the face of the wave just in time to see the top start to curl over itself.
On the beach, Nakoa Kino had one eye on the Youtube livestream playing on his iPhone, and one eye out on the water. "She is so cool," he gushed to brunette standing next to him.
"It would be cooler if you'd watch the real thing and not the phone," Emily Rice countered as she watched Kealey drop into the barrel. She shivered and pulled the hood of her white University of Hawaii sweatshirt over her head. "It's gotta be cold out there," she said. "How is it I'm farther south than California but I feel colder?"
"Doesn't look like it's bothering her any," Nakoa countered, and then cheered as the pink board emerged from the wave and she cut back down, finally splashing down. Kealey's head popped out of the water and she gave the crowd a wave. The small crowd cheered wildly.
Nakoa put his phone in his pocket. "She's so cool."
"I dare you to go ask for her autograph," Emily prodded.
Nakoa flushed. "No way. Not happening."
"You wuss," Emily sighed, shoving her hands in the kangaroo pocket. "You talked me out of doing homework to come down here; the least you could do is make it interesting."
At the "Whoa!" from the crowd, Landon allowed himself a smile. Finally, he'd gotten his group's attention. They were staring at the skeleton of a creature with protruding jaws that was mounted on a wall display. Landon pointed to it. "Neat, huh? This is a goblin shark. It lives in deep water. It's what we call a living fossil," he explained. "Meaning that it's very, very old, like, millions of years. When it gets near its' prey, it's jaws actually extend out from his mouth-" Landon outlined the jawline of the shark with his finger- "and then it catches it!" He snapped his hands at a rapt little boy in the front row, who jumped and blinked up at him.
"Cool!" he pronounced, and Landon grinned.
A loud rap on the glass window behind them made Landon jerk, and he looked over the top of the kids to see a blonde woman waving frantically at him. He frowned. The blonde was his supervisor and AMRI's chief marine biologist. He did not like the look on her face. "Hey, guys, let's do this," he improvised. "Let's give you guys a minute or two for a bathroom break and a drink, and then we'll go outside if it isn't raining and check out the lagoon." He locked eyes with one of the teachers, who nodded, ushering the kids toward the restrooms, and then he ducked inside the lab behind him. "Boss? What's wrong?" Landon asked as the door clicked close behind him.
Dr. Hannah Johnson's face was etched with concern. "Landon, I just got a ship to shore call from the Paxton."
"Is Dr. McCoy all right?" Landon asked immediately. He knew her husband had been out in the Challenger Deep with the research team. Kevin McCoy was the chief scientist and brainchild behind AMRI. He had been out on an expedition to the Marianas Trench for about two weeks. Landon hadn't seen any of the data being returned, but he couldn't wait to hear about it when Dr. McCoy got back.
"There was some kind of accident with the sub," Dr. Johnson explained to him. "They're hauling the submersible up now."
"Are you okay?" Landon asked her.
She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. "I'm…dealing. It's hard with him being so far away. I was hoping you might be able to hustle this group out of here a little early so you could take my place in here, finish with this experiment. I'd like to see if I can get a plane ticket to Manila, meet the research team."
Landon glanced out the windows. The gray sky was graying more, and the palm trees outside were starting to bend a bit more in the breeze. "The weather's pretty crummy anyway," he said. "I think we could skip the lagoon."
"I'd appreciate it. I'm sorry," she told him.
He shook his head. "No, don't be," Landon assured her. "It's fine. Let me just-"
"Dr. Johnson!" One of the lab techs wheeled their chair over and waved her cell phone in their direction. "Someone just shot this video snorkeling down near the beach."
Dr. Johnson snagged the phone out of her hand, looking at the video on a social media site. Her face went pale, paler than it already was.
"Dr. Johnson?" Landon pressed. He was starting to wonder if he was going to have to catch her when she passed out.
Wordlessly, she handed over the phone. "It seems today is our day for bad news," she informed him.
Landon watched the video. "What…in the hell…"
Moments before...
Something yanked on Kealey's surfboard, towing her backwards by her ankle leash. "Hey!" she yelped, jerking her foot forward. She turned around to see if she'd snagged it on something. There was a bright glow of white under the water, and then she felt herself being pulled under.
Someone screamed on the beach, and Nakoa and Emily paused in their walk back up to the street. The two of them turned around to see someone screaming and frantically pointing out toward the water. "She went under!"
"She's not coming back up!" someone else yelled.
Nakoa and Emily exchanged a look. Then, Nakoa was peeling off his shirt and running at full tilt back down the beach, while Emily scrambled for her phone to dial 911. "Nakoa!" she yelled, listening to the ringer. "What are you doing?"
Nakoa's feet hit the water and as soon as he felt it was deep enough, dove under, pushing himself to get out to where Kealey Shepard had been pulled under. There were no riptides in this area, and she was an experienced surfer and swimmer. Something had to have gone way wrong, he thought as he paddled furiously.
Then he pulled himself up short, his eyes widening.
Marching through the water were…well, Nakoa didn't know what the hell they were. They were bright, bioluminescent white, glowing in the murky water being stirred up by the wind and waves. Tendrils snaked out around a ball-like body. There had to have been twenty or thirty of them, all making their way toward the beach. One of them, he noticed, had a tendril firmly wrapped around Kealey Shepard's leg, keeping her under the water even as she struggled against it.
Holy….Nakoa didn't know what to do. Too much longer and he and Kealey would both drown. They weren't that far from shore. If I can get her out of there…they might have a chance in the shallower water.
But we're running out of time!
Hannah Johnson swiped her keycard and pulled open the door of her private lab. Landon had never been inside it before- the area was off limits to everyone but her and her husband. He cautiously waited in the doorway as she sat down at her desk and reached under it. He heard a beep and a whirr of a motor. Then, she emerged, a shiny black case in her hands. She stood up, rushing over to Landon and pressing it into his hands. "Take this to the beach. Now."
Landon frowned. "I-what?" he gasped. "What is this, Doc?"
"A pet project of Kevin-Dr. McCoy's- and mine. Take the red one. Give the others to anybody you see down there trying to help. Hold it in your hand to activate the bioscan. Remember this word: ho'ololi. Now go!"
Landon's head was swimming. "I-"
"Mr. Ketterling, move!"
Landon didn't argue. He took the box and sprinted out of the lab, into the hall, past his very confused tour group, and out the emergency exit door closest to the beach.
Nakoa, where are you? Emily wondered frantically as she searched the water for her friend. Out in the water, the top of the water was starting to bubble and froth, but not in the way it usually did when it stormed in the islands. She'd hung up with 911, anxiously waiting their promised ambulance and divers. but Nakoa hadn't reappeared. It had been several minutes. She didn't know how long her friend could hold his breath. "Any sign of them?" she demanded of an onlooker. They wordlessly shook their head, eyes fixated on the churning water that was getting closer to them. Several people were already running away, down the beach or up to the parking lot. Emily clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, willing Nakoa to appear.
Someone bumped into her, and she looked up to see a tall man in a red polo and khaki shorts running down toward the waterline. Emily ran after him. "Who are you?" she asked, intrigued by the only person running toward the phenomenon rather than away.
He stopped, turned to her. Sizing her up. Then, he handed her a plain white object that resembled a spiraled seashell.
"What-" Emily began, but he shook his head.
"Just take it!" he urged her. Dropping the box he'd pulled them from in the sand, Landon Ketterling clutched a similar shell, just colored red, in his hand. It felt warm, buzzing to the touch. Then, his vision went dark and he heard the young woman cry out next to him.
"What?" he asked. His voice sounded strange in his ears.
She was staring. "I- you-you look like-"
Before she could finish her thought, Landon watched a white light spread over her, enveloping her. A moment later, she was wearing some kind of biomechanical suit with a helmet and a dark visor. Explains a lot, he decided.
It seemed she was more in tune with what was happening. She grabbed his arm. "We have to get out there," she ordered him, not even knowing whether or not he could hear her in the helmet. "My friend and another girl-they've been underwater too long!"
Landon shot her a thumbs up.
Without another word, the two of them dove into the water.
Author's Note: I have no background in surfing, nor the weather in Hawaii. As to the 'accidental' morph, there, that was one of my favorite parts of Dino Charge, so that was my homage.