A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter One
On July 10, 1998, the Titanic headed to sail,
waiting for her doomed passengers waving good-bye for the last time to their
loved ones. They never knew four days later would change so many lives, and be
taken away from them. Some would fall, jump, and scream for mercy, as the ship
sank...
April 28, 2063
North Atlantic is where the "Ship Of
Dreams" sank. Suddenly, two faint lights appear, close together...growing
brighter. They resolve in two deep submersibles, free-falling towards the ocean
floor like express elevators.
One is ahead of the other, and passes close
enough to beat the other. They look like a spacecraft blazing with lights,
bristling with insectile manipulators. It tiled down as it descends away into
the limitless blackness below.
Soon they are fireflies, then stars. Then
gone. The two subs skim over the ocean floor to the sound of side scan sonar
and the thrum of big thrusters. The featureless gray clay of the bottom unrolls
in the lights of the subs.
Inside of the falling submersibles, called Mir
One, right up to its circular viewpoint to see the occupants. It's a cramped
seven foot sphere, crammed with equipment. A meter is reading on the Titanic.
"Thirteen meters...you should see
it," said a man looking at the Titanic from a small rounded window. His
name is Brock Lovett. He's in his late forties, and he wore his Nomex suit. He
has blondish brown hair and blue eyes. He's a hunter looking for treasures.
Out of the darkness, like a ghostly
apparition, the bow of the ship appears. Its knife edge prow is coming straight
at them, seeming to plow the bottom sediment like ocean waves. It towers above
the ocean floor, standing just as it landed sixty-five years ago.
"O.K., take her up and over the bow
rail," said Lovett to Anatoly Mikailavich, the sub's pilot, sitting
hunched over his controls.
"O.K., Mir Two. We're going over the bow
rail. Stay with us," said Lovett.
THE TITANIC. Or what is left of her. Mir One
goes up and over the bow railing, intact except for an overgrowth of
"rusticles" draping it like mutated Spanish moss. Looking through the
video camera. Brock's face is in between the window and camera.
"O.K., quiet. We're rolling. Seeing her
coming out of the darkness like a ghost ship, still gets me every time."
Brock takes the camera and pushes through the window for a better view.
"To see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at
2:30 in the morning, on July 15, 1998, after her long fall from the world
above."
The image pans to the front view port,
looking over Anatoly's shoulders, to the bow railing visible in the lights
beyond. A snicker came on the other side. Crammed into the remaining space is a
bearded wide-body named Lewis Bodine. He is an R.O.V (Remotely Operated
Vehicle) Pilot and the resident Titanic expert. "You are so full of shit,
boss." Lovett laughs.
Mir Two drives aft down the starboard side,
past the huge anchor while Mir One passes over the seemingly endless forecastle
deck, with its massive anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, its
bronze windlass caps gleaming. The twenty-two-foot-long subs are like white
bugs next to the wreck.
"Dive six. Here we are again on the deck
of Titanic. Two and a half miles down." Lovett is showing the camera a
reading. "Three thousand, eight hundred twenty-one meters." He turns
the camera to him. "These windows are nine inches thick and if they go,
it's sayonara in two microseconds." He turns the camera off. "All
right. Enough of that bullshit." He puts on a brown knitted sweater.
"Just set her down on top of the officer's quarters like yesterday."
"Sure," said Anatoly. Mir One lands
on top of the officer's quarters while Mir Two travels a little bit farther.
"OK, Mir two. We landed above the grand
staircase." Lovett on the radio raider. "You guys ready to
launch?"
"Yeah, Brock. Launching Duncan now. Go,
Charlie," said the guy. Duncan comes out of the cradle and goes down to an
open space in the ship. "O.K., Brock. It's dropping down along the
hole."
"Yeah, roger that." As Lovett
working on switches. "O.K., drop down and go into the first class gangway
door. I want you guys working the D-deck, reception area, and the dining
saloon."
"Copy that." Bodine slips on a pair
of 3-D electronic goggles, and grabs the joystick controls of a small orange
and black robot called Snoop Dog. Outside the sub, it lifts from its cradle and
flies forward.
"Snoop Dog is on the move. We're heading
down the stairwell," said Lovett. Snoop Dog drives itself away from the
sub, paying out its umbilical behind it like a robot yo-yo. It twin stereo-video
cameras swivel like insect eyes. It descends through an open shaft that once
was the beautiful First Class Grand Staircase.
"O.K., Lewis. Drop down to B-deck."
It views several decks. It shows rope hanging from A-deck to B-deck.
"Give me some rope, Captain," said
Bodine.
"B-deck. OK, A-deck. Get in there. Get
in there," said Lovett.
"O.K." As he controls the Snoop
Dog.
Snoop Dog goes down several decks, then moves
laterally into the First Class Reception.
Snoop Dog's video pov, moving through the
cavernous interior. The remains of the ornate hand carved woodwork which gave
the ship it's elegance move through the floodlights, the lines blurred by slow
dissolution and descending rusticle formations.
Stalactites of rust hang down so that at
times it looks like a natural grotto, then it shifts and the lines of a ghostly
undersea mansion can be seen again.
Montage Style, as Snoop Dog passes the
ghostly images of Titanic's opulence: A chandelier, still hanging from the
ceiling by its wire...glinting as Snoop Dog moves around it.
Its lights play across the floor, revealing a
champagne bottle, then some WHITE STAR LINE china...a torn up black book, but
on the cover it shows real well, it reads: HOLY BIBLE in gold print, and a
woman's high heel shoes and pair of glasses. Then something eerie: What looks
like a child's skull resolves into the porcelain head of a doll.
Snoop Dog enters a corridor which is much
better preserved. Here and there a door still hangs on its rusted hinges. An
ornate piece of molding, a wall sconce...hint at the grandeur of the past.
The rov turns and goes through a black
doorway, entering room B-52, the sitting room of a "Promenade Suite,"
one of the most luxurious staterooms on Titanic.
"Watch the doorframe," said Lovett,
as the Snoop Dog enters in. "Watch it. The door frame." It slides in,
but barely gets through. "Watch it. Watch it." It makes a cracking
sound as it slides in all the way. Lovett is complaining.
"We're good. We're good, just chill
boss," said Bodine.
Glinting in the lights, an eel swims by.
There are the brass fixtures of the near-perfectly preserved fireplace. An
albino Galathea crab crawls over it. Nearby are the remains of a couch and a
writing desk.
"OK, OK. Make your turn..." It
turns. "Make your turn, make your turn. Watch the wall." It glides
through perfectly then.
A grand piano in amazingly good shape,
crashed on its side against a wall. The keys gleam black and white in the
lights.
"Yeah, Brock...ah...we're at the piano.
You copy?" asked a guy. Mir Two.
"OK, copy that," said Brock.
The Snoop Dog crosses the ruins of the once
elegant room toward another door.
"OK, right there..." said Lovett,
pointing to the screen excitedly. "Right there, right there. Okay that's
it. That's the sitting room door."
"I see it. I see it," said Bodine,
smiling.
It squeezes through, scraping rust and wood
chunks loose on both sides. It moves out of a cloud of rust and keeps on going.
The Rov into another room, a bedroom.
"We're in. We're in, baby. We're
there," said Bodine, as he laughs. Lovett nods in relief, thanking him in
silence, that they made it this time.
"There's Black's bed. That's where the
son of a bitch slept," said Lovett.
The remains of pillared canopy double beds,
six of them. Broken chairs, dressers. Through the collapsed wall of the
bathroom, the porcelain commode and bathtub took almost new, gleaming in the
dark.
"Oops, somebody left the water
running," said Bodine.
"Hold it, hold it. Just the second. Go
back to the right," said Lovett, with concern. Snoop Dog turns. "That
wardrobe room door. Get closer."
"You smelling something, boss?"
asked Bodine.
"I want to see what's under it."
"Give me my hands man! All right!"
Several angles as the Rov deploys its
manipulator arms and starts moving debris aside.
"Take it easy. It might come
apart," said Lovett.
"OK," said Bodine.
Bodine grips the door, lying at an angle in a
corner, and pulls it with Snoop Dog's gripper.
"Go, go, go, go. Flip it over. Go,"
said Lovett. The door moves a bit. "Turn her over. Go, go, go. Keep going.
Go, go, go." The gripper got the door high enough to let go. "Drop
it."
It moves reluctantly in a cloud of silt.
Under it is a dark object. Lovett looks at it like "What is it?" Then
the silt clears and Snoop Dog's cameras show them what was under.
"Ooohh baby, baby, are you seein' this,
boss?" asked Bodine.
Lovett watching his monitors. By his
statement it is like he is seeing the Holy Grail. In the glare of the lights,
is the object of their quest: A small steel combination safe.
"It's payday, boys," said Lovett,
smiling.