It feels like people die far too easily just because they’re riding in a submersible in the deep sea. After hearing that dreadful news from Chelloni, Kim Jaehee spoke as if she herself were sitting not in a submersible, but in first class on an airplane.
“This is why you should only ride in a submersible with people you get along with. Even if submersible crew members barely move their bodies, they still have to work in a cramped space. If people who don’t mesh well ride together, the chances of problems breaking out are high. Once you’re in a submersible, you’re trapped and can’t run away.”
It was astonishing that people could fight each other to the death inside a cramped submersible like this. Then again, even though the three of us were doing our best not to touch one another, whenever we shifted our posture even slightly, our knees or elbows would often bump into each other. It was so narrow that such things happened no matter how careful we were, so if people who were usually on bad terms got on board, a fight would break out immediately.
It was already like this with two or three people in a submersible, so how did they manage inside a submarine with dozens of people aboard? Did they all just breathe as softly as possible and act carefully so they wouldn’t kill each other?
Kim Jaehee spoke to me in a voice full of mischief.
“Savior. But even if people who get along extremely well ride in a submersible together, problems happen.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The mile-high club happens in a submersible.”
Since Kim Jaehee said an English phrase I didn’t know while laughing, I realized there was no interpreter and asked without much thought what it meant. Kim Jaehee’s eyes went round, and a smile spread across her entire face. Then Shin Haeryang, who had been listening beside us, frowned and said to Kim Jaehee,
“If you say anything weird, I’ll make you get off here.”
“Team Leader. We’re passing minus 990 meters. How am I supposed to get off here? Hahaha.”
“Stay quiet unless you want to swim back with the fish.”
What’s going on? You two aren’t fighting, are you? I don’t have to break you up inside this cramped submersible, do I? Kim Jaehee grinned at me, then stopped talking. I looked at Kim Jaehee for a moment, then turned to Chelloni and asked what I was curious about.
“Chelloni. In terms of pressure resistance, what happens in a submersible where pressure isn’t maintained properly?”
[The place Researcher Park Muhyeon is currently in is called the pressure hull inside the submersible. Regardless of the water pressure outside the submersible, this pressure zone must always maintain atmospheric pressure, one atmosphere. The detailed situation aboard Simcheong 13 can only be known by checking the voyage data recorder, or VDR, inside the submersible, but according to the last records transmitted externally, it appears the human body was suddenly exposed to at least 99 atmospheres of pressure.]
So the voyage data recorder was like a submersible’s black box. Ninety-nine atmospheres. I didn’t even want to imagine it. At that level, wouldn’t the shape of a human body practically collapse?
“Is there any way for us to help the people aboard the other submersibles?”
[My AI system currently provides services only for the surviving passengers aboard Simcheong 7.]
The submersible AI system was apparently programmed to prioritize the passengers of that submersible in emergencies. But didn’t Chelloni just basically say that if I was alive, it would work hard for me, but if I died, it wouldn’t? ……My laptop and tablets could also be used diligently while I was alive, but they wouldn’t work for me after I died. It was true enough, but hearing it directly with my own ears felt a little strange.
[If you wish to conduct rescue activities, there is no practical value in approaching Anita 14 and Simcheong 13, which show no signs of survival. There may be possible survivors aboard Mary Gilmore 11, with which contact is impossible. However, according to the AI system’s calculations, the expected benefit is highly uncertain compared to the risk. I recommend proceeding to Undersea Base 2, as Captain Shin Haeryang judged, or heading to the nearby Undersea Base 3.]
……Thank goodness Chelloni was an AI and not a person. If one of my family members had been aboard one of those three submersibles, and a person had said something like this, a fight would have broken out just like on Anita 14.
“Then how do they rescue survivors or recover bodies from submersibles?”
“From within the undersea base, they operate an unmanned submersible, connect a cable to the manned submersible in question, and either rescue it or tow it to a position where recovery is possible before retrieving it. We won’t attempt to rescue Mary Gilmore 11. We’ll ascend as we are.”
When Shin Haeryang answered in her place, Chelloni’s voice system paused briefly. So they didn’t send in another manned submersible to rescue a manned submersible in danger. Kim Jaehee spoke as if to comfort me.
“We’ll be fine. We’ve done trial runs several times.”
“……I hope there wasn’t anyone aboard Mary Gilmore 11.”
I hoped the AI system had brought the submersible out on its own. This was terribly heavy. And there was no way for us to help.
Kim Jaehee yawned or occasionally checked the screen; otherwise, she stayed still as if dead. Once I also began gradually adapting to the submersible, all I could think about was wanting to get out of here. I felt like a patient hospitalized in a hospital, or an office worker trapped at work. Aside from the conversation between Shin Haeryang and Chelloni, time passed quietly inside the submersible.
I didn’t know if submersible operation was normally like this, but ascending took less time than I had expected. Not long after we passed minus 1,000 meters, Chelloni announced that we were scheduled to reach Undersea Base 2, at minus 200 meters, within ten minutes.
It wasn’t that I especially distrusted AI, but just in case Chelloni hadn’t moved the submersible at all and was merely verbally announcing that we were ascending, I looked outside through the observation window.
The deep-sea creatures I’d seen outside the window fifty minutes ago had been smaller than my palm and shaped like unevolved prehistoric monsters. Aside from the deep-sea anglerfish with grotesque teeth that had approached the window, there had also been beautiful, long-legged sea spiders living in the deep sea, but after seeing them move their legs in bizarre ways, use their mouths like straws to greedily stab into the insides of their prey, and suck out nutrients, I hadn’t looked out the window even once. Even thinking about it again, it was a scene only marine biologists would enjoy. Yugeum seemed like she’d enjoy watching things like that.
After hearing Chelloni’s announcement, I looked outside through the observation window again, and creatures that were at least somewhat familiar were roaming around out there. Several long fish that looked like sea eels slipped past the submersible. As I stared as if bewitched at their blue bodies, I could see several elongated fish, presumably sharks, moving around. A different sort of exclamation escaped me from the one I’d made at the deep-sea creatures that had glowed and emitted light all over their bodies.
Then, suddenly, I met a gigantic eye.
The black eyeball was almost the size of a watermelon. I wondered why there was a human-like eyeball outside the submersible, but even after I blinked several times, it didn’t disappear. Overwhelmed by the enormous eye that filled the observation window, I couldn’t move and had no choice but to stare back.
Only when the other party moved as if swaying did I realize it was an enormous giant squid. The squid’s tentacles, illuminated by the submersible’s exterior lights, seemed endless in length. I watched it slowly swim past the side of the submersible, then, dazed, fumbled backward and crawled away from the observation window. Shin Haeryang checked outside through another window and, upon seeing it, spoke as if surprised.
“It’s a giant squid. They’re timid and cautious, so they almost never approach right beside a submersible.”
When you’re too shocked, you really can’t even speak. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The squid, bigger than the submersible, disappeared far away into the darkness where the lights didn’t reach. I was afraid it might show up in my dreams.
Because of the cramped structure of the submersible, I ended up practically clinging to Kim Jaehee’s back, since she was farthest from the window. Kim Jaehee saw me like that, laughed as if amused, and said,
“Muhyeon, do you know how hard it is to encounter a giant squid? They almost never come that close. Hurry and make a wish.”
“A wish? ……Please let everyone aboard this submersible make it out alive to the sea surface! I want to get out of this horrible ocean right now!”
When the people around me heard my tearful wish, they burst into laughter. Do I look funny to you?
“Don’t you have a cooler, better wish? Something like world peace, the salvation of humanity, or ruling over time.”
“What are you expecting from a squid that’s only big in size? All it has is protein!”
“Ah. My Savior, without a shred of romance. What am I going to do with you?”
At that moment, Chelloni’s voice cut in.
[We will soon arrive at a depth of 200 meters. We are approaching the submersible port of Undersea Base 2. The submersible located nearby is……]
At that instant, there was a thud.
The entire submersible shook violently, as if there had been an earthquake, from whatever we had hit. The crew members, completely unprepared for the impact, literally rolled around inside the submersible like bowling pins. When I came to my senses, Kim Jaehee was on top of me, and Shin Haeryang was on top of Kim Jaehee, crushing people like a hamburger.
The people on the floor had been thrown upward by the sudden impact that seemed to press down from the ceiling; if we’d been unlucky, we might have struck our heads or bodies against the ceiling of the submersible.
Shin Haeryang, who came to her senses first, asked Chelloni about the impact that had just occurred, but Chelloni said she was confirming it and did not answer for several seconds. Chelloni also seemed not to have predicted this kind of sudden impact.
Kim Jaehee helped me, who was lying on the floor with the back of my head against it, sit up. On the instrument panel, nothing was displayed around Simcheong 7. That meant there should have been nothing to collide with. What on earth had we hit?
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m not hurt.”
Shin Haeryang gave up on getting an answer from the AI and immediately clung to the observation window. Outside the window, a submersible roughly twice the size of Simcheong 7 was descending below us. The impact just now had probably been because we had collided head-on with that submersible.
The only reason I could tell it was a submersible at all was because one of our submersible’s headlights had illuminated it before getting knocked off. The other submersible had no headlight illumination whatsoever. Chelloni was saying we had collided with an unidentified object, so it seemed she hadn’t realized that thing was a submersible.
That submersible had probably suffered damage to its location-related transmitter-receiver, so our submersible couldn’t detect its position. The other side must have been the same. Chelloni began recording and announcing the damage at tremendous speed. Kim Jaehee saw that and said to Shin Haeryang,
“Team Leader, there’s one problem.”
“Only one?”
Kim Jaehee laughed at that question and said,
“Team Leader. There are several problems.”
“Tell me the most urgent one first.”
“At this rate, I don’t think we’ll be able to make it to the sea surface.”