4.May.2008
Summer Waters
Prologue
The Mexican coastal waters of the Pacific were advertized as a beautiful, tropical getaway and prime vacation destination. The land had its ups and downs but one of its star attractions was the ocean itself. For diving, snorkeling, fishing or even just laying on the beach in the sun, it attracted people from all over the world.
Some locals had it good, giving tours, making souvenirs or just supporting themselves and families with normal jobs. Others just got by from fishing or farming.
There were less well known villages that dotted the coast, between the larger cities. Some were peaceful, some lived in fear of either starvation or rouges or both. Still others were all but forgotten, happy to leave the world alone if they themselves were left alone. There was always a stray traveler or two that passed through one of these fishing villages. Yet nothing had ever happened, other than a possible trade or swap that is. Each day was similar to the last and the next, every now and then there was a holiday or festival.
Most of the men and older boys would go out onto the water, leaving behind the shelter of their bay to catch that night’s dinner and possibly tomorrow’s if they were lucky. Others help in the shared farm land and the elderly mended fishing nets while talking about the olden days when they had been the one to attack the village’s ladies.
Those children that could get away from their mothers and grandmothers, and sometimes and aunt, ran almost wild for a few hours in and out of the trees and on the beach. They worked off seemingly limitless energy until meal time. After that they would help with chores before going off again to the beach, keeping a look out for when their fathers and brothers returned.
This day started in just that sort of way. One man paused one his way to the family’s boat and smiled back at his six year old son that was bound and determined to fallow him to the beach and see him off since his mother was sick. Without saying anything the man reached out and rested his large, callused and sun tanned hand on the boy’s head, ruffling the short black hair. He left and the boy stayed on the beach until his father and all others slipped out of the bay and over the horizon. The night cooled water rolled up in small waves over sand and pebbles to tickle bare feet and encourage the owner to run back home.
Dawn broke and the sun’s light flooded the grey world with color and life, it turned the water from black to bright blue…but only on the surface.
Deep down, when the water slowly changed from aqua to cobalt to dark indigo until all light from the world above faded to darkness. There was another world, blind to almost any light and fueled by the fury of the earth itself.
Great structures rose from the barren sandy sea floor thousands upon thousands to feet under water. The hydrothermal vents bellowed blistering hot water and toxic ‘smoke’ that was made up of methane and sulfides. These Smokers ranged in size from ten to forty feet tall and each one was a thriving ecosystem to countless shrimp, crabs, tubeworms and fish as well as the micro-organisms in the bacteria that feed them all. All of these creatures were unique in the world, all able to survive and thrive in temperatures that would burn flesh off of a man before getting with in a few feet of the Smoker proper.
Everything down here deepened on one thing, the heat pumped up from deep within the crust. Yet that same life giving blood of Earth could easily wipe everything out, forcing a new cycle of life to start with a rumble and shattering of Smoker stacks. New ones always formed again and soon the fish and invertebrates trickled back until they thrived once more.
After one of these such tremors, a towering Smoker stack that had been long since been dead and quite had finally surrendered to age and gravity. Had there been light that deep, it would have reflected off of something smooth and completely alien to this barren, but not lifeless environment. Over time more and more of the object was raveled bit by bit until one day the seemingly eternal darkness of the depths was shattered.
Green glyphs that had no origin from this planet flashed over a blue backdrop and scrolled though a boot up process. As the computer waited for a command a lone white, and blind, crab scuttled over the control panel in search of a new home. It paused as one pointed leg sank as the ‘rock’ under it gave, the creature hurried off in fear of the ground clasping from under it.
The computer wined and fully came to life. Another panel opened, sending a cloud of silt and rocks sliding away as an antennae-like device lifted out and stretched up. Thin bars spread out from the main antennae, giving it an eerily familiarly to a radio receiver.
Sparks of red energy crawled up the metal until the darkness was broken even more. A wide scan swept over the sea floor, lighting it up scarlet shades for two complete rotations. The only sign of life it picked up was the same crab that hurried as fast as its energy reserves would let it. It had felt the strange tingles from the scan and didn’t like it, nor understand it so it did the only thing it could: flee to a crevasse where it bunked down with claws aiming out to ward off the possible threat.
Once again darkness enveloped the pod.
A deep rumbling echoed through the depths of an unhappy planet that was complaining over current volcanic activity. In doing so loose rocks were shook and slid off the pod enough for it to register that it was now safe for the lid to open. It was no longer being pinned by the remains of the Smoker stack that had grown over it so many centuries ago.
A series of small yellow lights illuminate the darkness as they spring to life around the outer edge of the pod. Not a moment later air and gasses that had been trapped inside for centuries suddenly exploded out in a surge of bubbles. Water crashed into the open pod, driven by miles of pressure, as a result the white lights inside were snuffed out as they were subsequently crushed to shards.
At the same time an inhuman scream echoed through the maze of dead Smoker stakes, all the way to the ones that were still pumping. The sound wasn’t high pitch, yet pain filled it as what ever was in the pod seem to be suffering the same fate as the light.
The last reverberation of the sound faded it was a long, long time before anything happened again.
Deepwater creatures slowly came out of their hiding places. Tubeworms spread out their plums again and the blind shrimp went back to grazing in the boiling waters, fish and crabs also came out of the nooks and crannies they had ducked into.
The whole ecosystem went about its business, ignoring the dead secretion of Smoker stacks or were just oblivious to it. Either way the pod was left alone to either become a hiding place…or a coffin.
Two emerald green lights activated in the darkness and a metal hand grasped the side of the pod as a large form emerged from within. Had there been any true light left, other than the glowing ‘eyes,’ multiple limbs would have been seen.
The trek to the surface was long, longer than going straight up. The sea floor stretched out for what seemed like an entirety. To the west perhaps it was, or seemed like it would be, but to the east…
The creature was patient however, and that ended up playing to its favor as it came across the slanting landmass that would turn into a continent. The climb up it was hard, but not nearly as it could be since the creature was no longer in the form it had been when it emerged from its pod. An impossibly giant, metallic crab made its way up to shallower waters.
The dark world of the ocean floor slowly faded from black to shades of gray and than blues and rather abruptly, color burst into existence in the form of corals, sponges, reef fish and a thousand of other living animals.
The surface shimmered above, beckoning to be broken.
The crab form unfolded into itself and reshaped. Parts twisted, shifted and changed positions until it became a bipedal shape. The water supported most of the creature’s several ton weight, but each footstep still crushed coral and sponges as well as any animal that didn’t get away in time.
Water bulged up, not quite boiling before the surface was broken. Not by a head but by multiple long, pointed barb like legs of the crab from. Powerful claws rested on the creature’s back as it emerged into the dawn light, walking up to the shore exposing more of its red and golden body.
Emerald green optics scanned the beach, noting the old dock to the left but movement pulled his head around to the front and down slightly.
A young, six year old boy with black hair and eyes had stopped in his rush to get back home and was standing in the middle of the path to the village behind him. The boy blinked in confusion, his was still young enough that if something new came along, he wasn’t immediately afraid of it. But he stepped back as the metal creature fully walked out of the water and came right up to the child, green eyes glowing brightly even in the dawn light.
It was an odd moment or two as the giant stared down with equal confusion at the young human, each having absolutely no experience with the other’s race. The creature slowly lowered itself into a kneeling position to get a better look, it’s mandible over what passed as a moths clicking quietly, inquisitively.
A woman’s scream made both creature and boy jerk and jump respectively. The manner of emerald eyed creature changed from interested to something dark as it stood back up, stepping over the boy, in doing so unexpectedly sparing him, and reached out for the frightened, stunned woman.
Days later, a research vessel anchored off shore in slightly deeper water because of its sear size. Three panga, zodiac like boats pulled in to the bay, at first intending on buying fish to restock food stores but instead found destroyed boats and a smoldering village.
…And one lone, dirty boy sitting on the beach, tightly hugging a hair decoration that his father had made for his mother.