Title: Into the Light
Author: Malenkaya
Rating: R for violence and swearing
Summary: (RE movie fanfic, 2nd in trilogy): What began as a mindless effort to survive has developed into a race against time to stop Matt's sudden mutation as Alice, Rain, Michael, Matt and J.D. re-enter the Hive in search of a cure.
Disclaimer: After seeing all those clever disclaimers out there, I wish I had one. Any suggestions? I own nothing here but my own ideas.
Feedback: Please! I live and breathe reviews! Flames, as long as they're explanatory, are fine.
Author's Notes:
The play is going well, thanks so much to those who offered congratulations, etc. I am really busy right now, but trying my best to keep up with my regular every-second-Friday update. Regardless, even if I don't have a chapter ready on an update day, I'll post a note letting you all know when it'll be up.
Thanks again to those who have reviewed Into the Light thus far, particularly for chapter ten: masked-in-your-shadows, Darkside Alexis, Xmaster, rain1657, Kagii, Gabzilla, pwrwytoun, and . I'm sorry my little thank-you notes are horribly late; I'm sending them right now, five minutes before posting this:) Please again remember to leave your emails with your reviews so I can thank you for them and answer any questions you have. Thanks goes out also to all those who read and don't review, even though I beg you—continuously—to do so. It's still very appreciated.
A quick apology for the title of the last chapter. I rather hate it, but am far too lazy to come up with another:) Over and done with and all.
And a note concerning this chapter—I feel like it cuts off strangely. However, it was already quite long, and had I continued with everything I wanted to smash into here, it would have been a fifteen page chapter (at least!). So hopefully it still works.
A note regarding fanfiction (dot) net… I'm beginning to hate it. Now it refuses to send me my reviews. And keeps messing with my punctuation.I'm planning a mass revolution, anybody with me:)
Thanks again, enjoy the fic!
Into the Light
Chapter Eleven: Underwater Flame
"Twenty seven labs."
Michael's voice was irritable and tired, bordering on exhaustion when he added, "assuming, of course, Umbrella even has it stored in one of the labs."
Nobody in the room commented on that, each uncomfortably aware of the multitude of rooms in the Hive the anti-virus could be in. Each equally aware that if that was the case, there'd be no way they could reach them all in time.
Matt shook his head softly, unwilling to think about that possibility. For the first time since they'd arrived in the small, thankful windowless room, he actually looked at the people around him.
Michael's face was drawn and tired, his eyes bloodshot as he sat clutching the files. Olivia, sitting to his right, looked on a perpetual verge of tears; J.D, next to Olivia, looked sullen and withdrawn, an uncommon expression on his open face.
Rain sat to the left of Michael and next to Matt, her expression a mixture of sadness, exhaustion, and angry frustration. Sitting next to her, Matt could almost feel the angry energy rising off her in waves and had already numbed himself to the private battle being waged inside of him—Matt wanting to find the right words to make her anger disappear while the other half of his brain, the part already firmly melded into Nemesis, screamed at him to beat it out of her.
The mutation fed off anger and weakness especially, and sitting here, in between Rain and Alice, it was going insane.
He snuck a glance to his right, looking at Alice where she sat, pale and barely composed beside him. Her eyes were a stormy blue awash in anger and misery almost painful to behold, while Alice herself looked ready to crumble at any given moment. Ready to shatter, like a beautiful but delicate china doll hanging in the precipice between comfortably solid table and a careless owner.
All because of him.
"I don't get it."
Olivia's voice was low, and as they all turned to look at her she spoke up, her voice laced with frustration. "The anti-virus should have been there. It was part of the plan, and—"
She broke off as they all stared at her. Even Matt tore his thoughts away from Alice momentarily to ask, his voice low and dark, "What plan, Olivia?"
He knew it sounded like he didn't trust her.
And right now he didn't care.
She flushed, before straightening, looking wary but confidant. "My teammates and I were sent down with samples of an anti-virus to house inside the lab. Archangelo wanted them somewhere where nobody could find them, and this seemed the perfect place."
Alice spoke, her voice incredulous. "You knew where the anti-virus was and you didn't say anything?"
Olivia shook hear head. "I didn't even know which one it was," she softly. "We didn't even make it to the labs, I swear."
Matt nodded tiredly. "That's why you knew the codes," he mumbled offhandly.
"Olivia," Alice leaned forward, her blue eyes finally bright with an intensity beyond simple anger or sadness. "What exactly happened to your team?"
Olivia hesitated and she pressed forward. "Finding out where they are now could help save Matt."
They were all staring at her now, and finally Olivia nodded.
"Of course," she said softly.
xxxxx
"It was a team of six people—the only person I knew was our leader. He was notorious, a thief, a spy; and an incredibly talented biochemist. I had no idea what his name was, but we all knew him by reputation. He was rumored to have come up with the original formula for the T-virus."
She stopped, sighed. "Although we all knew the basic codes, he was the only one who knew at least as much as Archangelo, if not more."
"It was supposed to be an easy mission. The Hive was already under siege by then, but Archangelo's people had secured a pathway for us. We were supposed to get in, leave the case, and go."
"But something went wrong," Alice said softly. "Didn't it."
Olivia nodded at her. "Yeah. Something went wrong. One of the codes was wrong, and when we entered it, we completely destroyed the security measures holding our pathway together. Umbrella's mutations started flooding in—we were completely unarmed, and we ran."
She paused, struggling to hold her composure against the events flooding through her mind. The memories of the monsters that had come flooding inside, endowed with fangs and claws dripping with blood.
The picture still firmly imprinted in her mind of the monsters bounding forward, enclosing Greg's head in it's mouth and ripping it cleanly from his shoulders.
Greg had been just a kid, barely into his late teens. A child prodigy that had nothing to do with the Hive.
She realized, suddenly, that they were waiting for her to continue, and shrugged lamely. "I have no idea what happened after that—I just ran."
Matt nodded, his eyes intense, and asked gently, "Who had the anti-virus when they broke in?"
She looked at him in surprise, realizing she hadn't even thought about that yet. It hadn't been her, she was sure of that much, or their leader… maybe one of the techies? Or—
"Greg," she said suddenly. "Greg did. One of the monsters got him and he dropped it—we ran. Nobody even stopped to pick it up."
Alice leaned forward, eyes glittering with impulsive energy. "So the case is still there."
"It could be," Olivia said honestly. "But the lab, the entire wing of the Hive the lab was in, is completely submerged. I can't imagine Archangelo just leaving it there—"
"Why not?" Matt interrupted. "It's pretty much the perfect place to put something you don't want found."
She nodded. "But it's still submerged."
She expected exhaustion, frustration, anger at the ostensible fact—but Alice only smiled her cool smile and said, "Best odds we're going to get finding it."
Looking at her, Olivia marveled at the force of will the obvious love Alice held for Matt brought about in the blonde, at her easy acceptance of any possible sacrifice for him.
She wished she had the same kind of relationship with J.D.
J.D, who was leaning forward, asking, "You said this leader guy knew all the codes—any possibility he planned the entire thing?"
She shrugged. "I doubt it," she said honestly. "Like I said, nobody stopped to pick up the case, so I can't really see that happening."
"What'd he look like?" Alice asked. She must have looked confused, because the blonde quickly clarified, "We worked at Umbrella for a long time before the Hive incident. Maybe we'd recognize him."
Olivia nodded, understanding. "Attractive," she admitted. "Dark, curly hair, sharp features, striking blue eyes. Fairly tall, but couldn't have been very old. Late twenties, maybe. He spoke with a Russian accent. Not an easy guy to overlook, in all."
Alice nodded. "Anything else?" she asked, her gaze searching, imploring.
She paused thoughtfully, trying to remember something more useful. "He wore a key, I think. It was silvery, rather simple, and he wore it on a chain around his neck."
Rain started, and the entire table turned to look at her as she pulled something out of her pocket, palming it in her left hand and dropping it on the table, the silvery key glinting in the light. "Is this it?"
Olivia reached across the table, lifting the key and examining it wordlessly. She could hear Matt ask Rain, his tone teasing and exasperated, exactly how long she'd waited before bothering to tell them about it.
She never heard Rain's response.
She was too busy focusing on the miniscule lettering over the key.
"This is his," she said quietly, holding the key up. "I don't recognize the writing though—it's in Russian."
Rain looked surprised, admitting, "I thought that was a secret code or something." Michael snickered, and she punched him in the arm, grinning at him apologetically when he flashed her an injured look.
"Children," Matt said jokingly, and Olivia saw amused exasperation over his and Alice's features and slight jealousy over J.D's. She wondered, suddenly, how this group could still be so cheerful, so close after all the letdowns they'd suffered lately.
Then she saw Alice's smile falter slightly as she reached for the key and realized suddenly that they weren't acting cheerful because they wanted to or felt inclined to, but because they had to. That if they gave into the misery, the hopelessness, they'd all—Olivia included—lose all sense of sanity.
"My mother was Russian," Alice said softly, studying the key intently. "I can probably read this."
And as they watched in silence, she looked up, her expression surprised, and said, "It's a name."
"Alexei Demitrov."
They all turned to look at Rain again, Olivia asking, "Where did you get this?"
Rain narrowed her eyes the question, and Olivia got the uncanny sense that she was gauging her possible reaction to the answer. Finally reaching a decision, the brunette said bluntly, "A corpse, in that room by the theatre—" Here she exchanged a look with Matt—"Was wearing it. I, uh, thought it might be useful."
"What'd he look like?" Olivia asked quietly.
Rain grimaced slightly. "Hard to say. He was sort of—"
Alice shot a look at her and her words fell short, Rain flashing her an exasperated look.
Olivia just nodded, surprised at the wave of disappointment that rushed over her after hearing the news. She hadn't known Masaryk personally, but he'd been a link to her team, to the anti-virus. A link that was gone now.
There was a moment of silence before Michael cleared his throat. "About the labs—I vote we start tomorrow, sweep across the first floor in under and hour assuming there's no complications—"
"No," Alice said shortly, shaking her head. "We should head out to the place Olivia's mentioned first. Start on the labs immediately afterwards—if we have to."
"Alice, it's completely submerged," Matt said softly, watching her carefully. "Do you really think that's the best idea?"
She turned to stare at him, and the look that passed between them was electric as she said shortly, "It's the only idea."
He smiled at her then, looking exasperated and yet loving, and she only smiled at him.
Rain let out a discreet cough, and grinned as they turned to look at her. "Are we going?"
xxxxx
Twenty minutes later they were in the corridors again, hurrying down the long, white hallways in pairs and carrying weapons in front of them.
Their knapsacks, this time, were back in the room through which they'd came, Michael patiently guarding them—again. Olivia was coming along again, for the same reasons, and they only hoped her performance this time would be better than her last had been.
J.D and Olivia were last in their little line of people, walking a few paces behind Matt and Rain, Alice leading them all.
And they were fighting. Again.
"I just don't see why Rain didn't tell anyone about the key," Olivia hissed under her breath.
Ahead of him, J.D could see Rain's shoulders tense and he sighed. "Enough, Olivia. We don't exactly do fucking check-ups, okay? She probably just forgot about it."
She glared at him. "And how do you know that?"
He sighed. "Olivia, why exactly would she keep it a secret and tell us now? You're not making any sense."
Olivia was quiet for a moment, finally muttering bitterly, "Yeah, well, that's easy for you to say. It's not like you'd even care if she was."
J.D barked out a laugh. Ahead of them Matt started an absurdly cheerful conversation, obviously attempting to drown them out. "Look, Olivia, you're not exactly one to complain about withholding information here."
She gasped in disbelief. Her expression was one of hurt commingled with anger, and for a moment he regretted his comment, wondering if he'd gone to far.
Then: "Well, unfortunately my boyfriend isn't covering up for me!"
J.D knew that she was just pissed off. That by now, even she had to realize that she was grasping, that her comments, while undoubtedly rude, were completely unfounded. She probably didn't even mean them.
Still, he resented her complaining about Rain's trustworthiness when he was working so hard to convince the group that Olivia herself was still trustworthy. He resented the fact that Olivia would not just let things go for once, and resented the fact that she continued to imply that him and Rain were together, or something equally stupid.
But mostly he resented the accusation that he would betray his own fucking friends to defend anyone.
Still, he didn't exactly predict the words that came from him next: "Would you shut the fuck up already!"
Olivia's eyes narrowed. Matt and Rain stopped their conversation and listened. Even Alice, the only one to stay cool and collected so far had slowed down, waiting for the inevitable outburst.
And then they were both shouting, screaming at each other in angry tones that echoed through the halls. While Matt's awkward conversation had finally ceased, he was looking at the floors, at the walls, anywhere but at the spectacle in front of him. Rain and Alice weren't even trying to pretend they weren't listening anymore, both staring with expressions of annoyance.
J.D had no idea how long they would have stayed there fighting with one another if Alice hadn't interrupted, her tone full of a disgust that J.D had never heard from her before, with the words, "Are you two done?"
They both turned to look at her, the icy tones of her voice far more commanding than an angry outburst would have been, and she continued. "Don't let me stop you. If you two want to stay here and fight, that's your own goddamn choice. Matt can just stand there and wait for the anti-virus to come to us."
They just stared at her, Olivia's cheeks flaming with obvious embarrassment, J.D's own expression one of guilt and bewilderment. In all the years he'd known Alice, he'd never heard her speak that way to him.
Unsure of what to say, he glanced towards Rain and Matt. Neither of them were any help: Matt looked off in a world of his own, the expression on his face dark, and Rain just looked tired and confused now.
Without a word, Alice turned and resumed walking.
Matt and Rain fell into step behind her, all three walking comfortably, as if they'd walked these corridors a thousand times before.
Which, considering their entrapment down here together in October, they probably had.
J.D and Olivia hung back awkwardly, a striking contrast to the smooth efficiency of the three soldiers ahead of them.
They exchanged a glance, and J.D gestured down the hallway.
"Go," he said.
She went.
xxxxx
The corridor was blank, empty and dark as it loomed down the hallway ahead of them.
The lights had died almost ten minutes ago, and they'd been wandering around blindly since then, J.D's lighter providing the only light in the shadowed corridor.
Not, particularly, an environment they felt safe in.
The lighter kept going out, for one thing—J.D had already said it was running out of fluid—and light or not, if something decided to attack them here and now, they were almost completely helpless. They'd be more likely to shoot each other than anything pursuing them.
Alice sighed, thinking wistfully of the lanterns and flashlights still stocked inside the Spencer mansion. Lanterns and flashlights she'd assumed someone would have remembered to bring along.
"I can't believe we don't have a better light than this," she muttered softly.
Rain, however, must have heard. Indignantly, she said, "We packed them. Michael has them."
Alice heard Matt, somewhere up ahead of them, chuckle softly. "We're stuck with this shitty lighter when we had flashlights in those bags?"
Behind them, J.D let out a slight scoff, and Alice could almost see Matt grin in the darkness. "Sorry, J.D."
"That lighter's very important to J.D," Rain drawled beside her. "His great grandfather times a thousand gave it to him or something."
Alice was cheered slightly to hear J.D give a surprised laugh at a somewhat friendly comment Rain had obviously not meant to let slip.
The whole Rain/J.D/Olivia triangle was getting ridiculous. Half the time now Alice felt like she was dealing with thirteen year olds, and Rain's suddenly confrontational mood and Olivia's over-dramatic attitude were only compounding that feeling.
And to top that all off, Alice didn't even see the point of the tension. J.D and Olivia obviously cared about one another, but it was just as obvious to Alice that their relationship wasn't going to last. When they weren't fighting, they were making out. Both were too impetuous to make a relationship work between them.
Which was fine. Alice would have been happy to let them figure it out on their own if they'd had the common decency to keep it to themselves.
The pungent water, cold and wet, sliding over her boots brought her out of her thoughts.
"What the hell?" Matt muttered.
Behind her, Alice heard Rain ask irately, "What the fuck are we standing in?"
Alice smiled. "I'm guessing we've reached the flooded passageway," she said dryly.
"We're close," Olivia, standing behind them, said. She'd been silent throughout the rest of the trip, and her voice made Alice jump slightly. "There should be a room off to the right soon—we can stop there and recap."
Alice nodded, moving to the right to rest one hand on the wall, sliding it along as she continued to walk.
Five minutes later and about three feet deeper, Alice's hand hit solid wood.
A doorway.
"Guys," she said softly. "Found a doorway."
They sloshed in together, J.D relighting his lighter again to reveal a completely empty, mirrored room. Their dark reflections bounced distortedly off the walls and water as Olivia stepped forward, pressing her hand firmly into a thin overlapping mirror nearly invisible against all the other mirrored surfaces.
Across the room, a mirror slid up into the ceiling, revealing a darkened room containing a single staircase as water began to slosh inside.
Olivia was first walking up the staircase, Matt, Alice, and Rain pulling out their weapons despite her assurances that it was safe.
True to her word, it was. The staircase led to a small room, empty beyond the cabinets on the far wall and a small table and chairs in the middle of the room.
Alice took a seat, the others following her lead, and glanced across the table at Olivia. "What's the plan?"
The brunette looked surprised, and Alice smiled. "I thought you and Matt had one mapped out already."
Alice shrugged. "You're the one who knows the layout of this place," she said simply. "We trust you."
To her credit, Rain did not let out any comment. Possibly because of the sharp look Alice had thrown her before finishing her sentence.
Olivia just nodded. "Okay."
"The corridor we were just in goes on for a long time before reaching a square room. That square room branches off to four more rooms, each with it's own separate code panel. Once each code is entered, a fifth room opens into another corridor, which is where the anti-virus—if it's still down here—will be."
She paused for a moment, then continued. "There's a intercom system that runs through the whole passageway."
Standing, she crossed the room to open one of the cabinets, revealing a simplistic black box housing two different headsets and a small array of buttons. "This is the main control system."
Looking back at them, she added, "I think two people should stay here, while the other three go through the corridors. There shouldn't be any problems, but if there are, it'd help to have easy access to the security councils underneath the staircase."
Alice nodded, pleased with how easily Olivia had taken control. The lab technician knew a lot about the Hive—far more than the rest of them did—and Alice trusted that information more than simple speculation.
Rain spoke up, her voice doubting. "And if someone gets attacked down there, there's only two people to back them up."
Olivia nodded, her expression grim. "I know it's risky—"
"It's fucking stupid," Rain cut her off. "Nobody even knows how to use the security council underneath the stairs."
Olivia looked like she was struggling to keep her patience. "I could tell you over the intercom system."
The look on Rain's face clearly explained her opinion of that idea, and Alice spoke before she could say anything. "Look, I think this is a solid plan. Rain's right, it's risky, but since when has anyplace in the Hive been safe?"
Rain looked indignant, and Alice pressed ahead. "We'll take a vote. We have five people here, so we'll have a decent verdict."
Rain shrugged. "You know my vote."
"Mine too," Olivia said, her voice cold.
Matt shook his head slightly, sending an exasperated glance out of the corner of his eye at Alice before adding, "I'm with Olivia's plan."
Alice nodded quietly. "Me too." J.D opened his mouth to speak, and Alice cut him off. "Three to one odds, we're going." She stole a quick glance at Rain. The brunette only shrugged. Alice sighed. "Olivia goes—"
"I'm going too," Rain said stubbornly.
Alice sent her a look of pure exasperation. "Rain, you and J.D are staying up here."
Neither looked happy with that verdict, and Rain asked, a whiny, irritable tone to her voice, "And why is that, exactly?"
Tired of their behavior—of everyone's behavior—Alice said coldly, "Because the three of you act like children when you're together and I'd rather you don't jeopardize this mission."
The three she was referring to was obvious, and none of them spoke. Taking that as a sign of acceptance, Alice said simply, "Let's go."
xxxxx
The water was icy cold, disgusting and slimy, and as Matt trudged through it wearily, Alice at his side and Olivia slightly ahead of them, he realized they'd been walking for roughly ten minutes now.
Olivia hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said this corridor went on a long time.
The brunette was slightly ahead of them now, wearing one of the headsets they'd found on the lower level. All three of them were wearing them, and Matt tugged slightly at the mouthpiece of his, feeling ridiculous.
J.D and Rain had only checked in once, to make sure the headsets were working, and that was it. Matt wondered what they were doing up there now. If it'd been J.D and Olivia, he'd have known the answer: either making out or arguing. But with Rain and J.D, you never knew. The two could be sitting in silence, glaring at each other, in the middle of an all out war, or Rain could have already killed J.D and been plotting ways to destroy the evidence.
Either way, he was glad he wasn't there with them.
After what seemed like another six hours, the corridor opened up into a massive room. Alice tapped the mouthpiece of her headset. "We're in the square room."
After a moment, J.D answered, his voice crackling over the speakers. "Rain found emergency lights, we're going to turn them on."
Blue lights were flicked on, flooding the room with a hazy light. With the water being slightly over Matt's waist already, some were underwater, sending strange beams throughout it.
He turned back to look at Alice and Olivia, the blue beams sending a somber, almost mystical delicacy to their features. "Which room first?"
Olivia bit her lip, and then said, "Look, maybe I should go into the rooms while you guys stay here."
Alice glanced sharply at her. Matt just stared at her, waiting for her to continue. She flushed. "It's just—if anything comes in here, it'll be from that corridor."
As if on cue, the three turned to look down where they'd came, the black tunnel stretching on endlessly. Something could easily come down through there, and they'd have no idea it was there until it was too late.
Matt turned back to Olivia, saying simply, "We'll stay here and wait."
She nodded, looking relieved at his easy acceptance. "Okay. I'll, uh, be right back."
She left, sloshing through the water into the open doorway to their right. Despite the hazy blue lights, the room was dark, and with the tinted windows she disappeared from view in a matter of minutes.
Matt and Alice waited, both on guard, not only against anything that could be coming through that corridor.
Finally, she spoke. "Something about this isn't right."
He turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?"
She shook her head. "Just a feeling," she said darkly.
He nodded. It sounded ridiculous, but he was familiar with Alice's strangely intuitive nature. She didn't often voice it, but when she did, there was always some sort of reason behind it.
"First code's entered," Olivia's voice crackled over the system. They both looked up, watching as she sloshed back out of the room, flashing them a quick smile before heading into the next.
It didn't help that Matt's own intuition was fairly vocal right now. Unfortunately, his intuition was usually wrong, nothing like Alice's.
Part of his worry, though, was due to Olivia's sudden eagerness to work on her own. It might have been just her getting a grip on the situation, gaining some confidence after her disastrous mission last time.
Of course, it could also have been Olivia turning against them somehow.
He shook his head as she came wandering out of the second room and into the third. He didn't want to believe she was capable of that. She cared about J.D, anyone could see that despite all their fighting; and he sincerely doubted she wanted anyone on the team dead.
He scowled, remembering Spence. Unfortunately, appearances were never entirely correct.
Alice sighed next to him, and he moved closer slightly, resting a hand comfortably on her hip as they looked out at the corridor of blackness.
Behind them, Matt could hear Olivia moving past them into the fourth room.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
Her voice was wry as she answered. "I should be asking you the same thing."
He was unsure of what to say to that; any answer he gave in the affirmative would be a lie, and it was obvious that Alice didn't particularly want to talk about her own emotions right now.
So he stayed quiet, tugging her closely only slightly. A small smile graced her lips.
And that's when the beeping started.
Matt only had a moment to wonder why the godforsaken beeping soundtrack seemed to connect itself to the entire building before him and Alice were pulling apart, Alice asking edgily, "Olivia, what's going on?"
The brunette came wading out of the fourth room, flashing them both a confidant smile. "It's just a confirmation request. It'll quit when the doors open."
They both nodded, Matt turning back towards the corridor while Alice stayed turned into the room, watching the doorway.
A full minute passed. The beeping continued, and nothing more happened.
Olivia frowned. "I'm just going to go check on the computer," she said, almost apologetically as she slid back into the fourth room.
The door slid shut behind her.
Matt and Alice glanced at each other worriedly as each door around them slid closed rapidly, both moving into combat positions, looking around them warily.
The beeping stopped.
"Olivia," Alice said into the speaker, sounding irritable with the tone of anger that only came with fear, "What's going on?"
Olivia's voice came back, nervous and tense, "I don't know. The computer's working the way it's supposed to, but the door's locked. I don't know why."
Matt glanced back over his shoulder at Alice. "Should we let Rain and J.D know what's going on?"
She shook her head. "No need yet," she said, her voice edgy.
Across the room, a silvery sheeting of the wall was sliding down slowly, revealing another gaping corridor, this one dark and empty as well.
Water began to rush into the room.
"It's just water from the flooded corridor," Olivia said, and Matt realized she could see them through the windows of the door. "It'll level out in a few minutes."
Alice just nodded, her and Matt moving back anyways, steadying their weapons. The water was already nearly up to their waists now, and both were silent, the sound of their breathing lost in the rush of the water pouring in.
And then Matt heard Alice curse quietly under her breath, and looking up at the panel, now lowered halfway down into the water, understood why.
Less than twenty feet away from them, a triangular fin broke the surface of the water.
