Discovery

A dangerously small skiff traveled silently across the placid water of the lake, under a dense, all-encompassing layer of fog. Day was slowly creeping to a close, and twilight revealed itself through the eerily colored reflection on the water. Aboard the boat were two passengers, one who sat at the bow looking ahead into the mist eagerly and with anxiety, the other who possessed no emotion discernible from his visage.

“Nice night, eh?” the first jested without smiling. The second did not reply, his steely eyes not bothering to look up.

Besides its passengers, the boat also contained a small box, an antenna perched upon it, with a green-tinted display facing the more animated man aboard. He occasionally turned around to stare at the display with anticipation, but turned back around each time with disappointment.

He looked at the display for what seemed to him like the millionth time, sighing as he saw what he had expected it to show. “Do you think we'll ever find it?” he asked.

“Yes,” was the cold answer, followed by more off-putting silence.

But the bowman was determined. “Why are you so sure of that?”

“I am sure. That is all.”

And the conversation was over.

The frustrated bowman looked down, vaguely aware of the man seated across from him watching his every move. He grabbed his name tag as it dangled from his neck.

Jeff Pneuman

P.S.E. Plebian Class

Department of Chemical Research

The tag's familiar inscription stared back at him. He tried to stare it into submission. The words, however, would not change.

He let out a sigh, this time deeper and more meaningful than before.

“Jeff,” a gruff voice said, breaking his train of thought. He looked up in surprise as he realized that his partner on the boat had been the one to speak. He could not fathom what would cause this other than the discovery of that which they were looking for, so he began to look around excitedly.

“Jeff,” the voice repeated.

Jeff looked up expectantly, his face bearing a quizzical expression.

“I couldn't help but hear your sigh a moment ago, and was wondering how you felt. Are you content?”

Jeff was disappointed, and at the same time, shocked. Since when did his partner become a psychiatrist? He hadn't the faintest idea what was happening. A few moments ago, the man had been cold and impassive, but now he wanted to know how his partner was doing? Though, he thought, that would explain him watching me...

“Jeff? Did you hear my question?”

“I-”

But his answer was interrupted by the beeping of the radar box in front of him. Both heads were turned to the display.

“Fifty degrees northwest,” were the mechanical words of Jeff's nameless partner. The boat turned to its destination and resumed motion.

Jeff suppressed his feelings of excitement, knowing that his night was going to be a successful one. He looked his partner in the eyes.

“Now I'm content.”

But the man stared ahead, seeming to ignore Jeff's answer to the question. Jeff's countenance twisted into an easily readable and undesirable expression.

“Aren't you excited at all? Do you realize what we've found here? Do you realize that this could make us rich and famous? Do you-”

“I would not be so eager if I were you,” the man interposed.

Jeff's bewilderedness prevented his mouth from moving again, locking it into a slightly open position as he tried to understand -without avail- what it was that his partner had meant by that.

Through the silence, and the dense fog that accompanied it, an outcropping shone out several hundred yards ahead. As Jeff had been briefed before setting out, he had been told to expect such an outcropping, and to hope for an opening somewhere inside it through which to enter. Thus, as he slowly neared it, he hoped.

“Do you know what we are trying to find and gather on this mission?”

Jeff looked up, doubly confused. “Of course! Everyone knows there are some kind of rare treasures hidden somewhere in this lake! It's been an old legend around the town for decades! Mothers tell their kids, 'If you look hard enough, maybe you'll find them.' Maybe I'll get to lay hands on them tonight!”

The man seemed taken aback by the emotion Jeff so readily displayed. He put his hand to his chin, apparently deep in thought. “Interesting...”

Jeff did not understand. “You're not telling me you haven't heard the story before, are you?”

The man turned to face him. “Myths are myths. You're a scientist, are you not? You should know that.”

Jeff's mood now shifted from confusion to slight anger. “I'm hardly a scientist. I'm just a pawn of the Department. I still don't get why they sent me out here tonight. That familiar feeling came back, a whizzing sensation that seemed as if there were screams and cries building up to a general clangor within his mind. He shook it away. It was nothing.

But...” His eyes sparked in realization. “What did they tell you? I know you know something.”

The man turned away. He took a deep breath.

“Maybe I will tell you before the night is through. But maybe I will not.”

Jeff tried to stare hard enough at his partner to cause him to turn back, but it seemed the man's eyes favored the fog. He sighed for a third time, this time obviously in exasperation.

Night had fallen on the two explorers. Few stars were visible from their vantage point in the middle of the lake, though there were probably many obscured by the overcast sky. But neither of them seemed to notice.

Jeff's mind was alert. His confusion about his partner was second to his exhilaration in finding this treasure. As he looked off into the mist, he fancied he could see jewels gleaming in the moonlight. He wondered why no one had ever bothered this kind of technological expedition before.

Suddenly, the radar's beeping stopped. Jeff whirled around in confusion, yet could see nothing that could be the treasure. Then he came to a realization.

Why have I been thinking it's above the water?

He faced the other man in the boat, who already seemed to be looking below the surface.

“It is not too shallow. I will go down,” the man stated, then dove overboard.

Jeff almost stood up in shock at this. Didn't he know what was under there? The strange sensation of screaming and the brouhaha of a battle rang in his ears yet again.

His mind suddenly shot back to his childhood. He was approaching the lake with his friends.

(-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-)

“Now how are we gonna get it?” one child asked.

“Jeff could jump in!” another suggested, then broke into laughter.

Jeff, red-faced, stepped back from the water. “Oh, no! You're not getting me into there!”

“Relax, Jeff, I was only kidding.”

Just then, one of the children's mother approached, noticing the ball floating in the water.

“Kids, you're gonna have to find a new ball,” she said, slightly agitated, grabbing her son by the arm and leading him home. None of them argued with her.

He had never been in the water of the lake. He never planned to. No one in the town knew how to swim, and no one could remember a time when people had. That was just the way of things, and no one argued.

(-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-)

The man burst out of the water with a violent splash.

“This is most assuredly what we are looking for, Jeff. Now you lower the hook on the crane and I will stay down to attach it.”

As Jeff tried to figure out what he had meant, he noticed for the first time the crane protruding from the radar box, dangling over the water. He had mistaken it at first for some sort of secondary antennae for the radar machine, but now he noticed the chain and the hook at the end of it.

“Okay,” Jeff replied, reaching for the now-obvious control panel for the crane.

“Jeff,” the other man said. Jeff turned to him. “Why are you afraid of the lake?”

“Because... I was taught to do so.”

“Have you ever once drunk the water of the lake?”

“Well... I guess so. I wouldn't know. But it's likely that the water I drink comes from the lake.”

“In that you are correct. But let me ask you in this way. Have you ever drunk water that did not come from the lake? For instance, from a stream or some other natural source?”

Jeff remembered the time he had been hiking in the hills with his friends. Having run out of water, they drank from a crystal-clear stream.

“Yes.” Jeff said uneasily.

“Did you find that it tasted any different from the water you are accustomed to?”

Jeff remembered exactly the taste of the water. It was so pure and calming...

“Yes. Actually, the feeling... yes, the feeling was different.”

“I see. You may lower the crane now.”

Jeff wondered as to the implications of this interrogation, but he lowered the hook anyway. He watched as it sank beneath the murky surface and disappeared. The man soon followed. He waited for a signal.

And waited. He glanced at his watch. He's been under there for 3 minutes.

As could be expected, he automatically feared the worst. The old stories about the lake popped back into his consciousness. For some reason, they were accompanied by the frenzied screams and fighting that had been recurring in his mind. Normally, he got this feeling only once every few days or so, but there was something about this place, the lake, that brought it to the surface.

The surface broke, sending cold spray into Jeff's face. As if almost by instinct, he wiped it off hastily, knowing that it was silly, but feeling uneasy all the same.

“I have it,” the enigmatic voice said. “Raise the hook.”

Jeff nodded, and slowly began cranking the mechanism to raise the hook. How is he still alive?

He stopped as he felt the cold eyes of his partner on the back of his head.

“Why did you stop?” the man asked.

“What exactly are we... I mean... what am I pulling up?”

There was no reply.

Jeff turned around to face him. “What's on the end of this rope?”

“Keep pulling,” the man said, ignoring his curiosity.

“No. Not until you tell me what I'm pulling up. I want to know what exactly the department is doing, I want to know who is going to profit from this, and I want to know it now.”

The man said nothing, and instead climbed into the boat. Without a word, he pushed Jeff aside and began to crank the mechanism.

Jeff didn't know what to do. He wanted badly to let the man crank, but something within him was determined to resist.

The feeling returned, and this time it was not only momentary. The screams filled his ears, the cries whizzed past him at Mach speed. As if almost in a dream, he saw the hook rise over the boat, its claws clasped around a large greenish rock.

He grabbed the chain that the hook was attached to and swung. The rock flew through the air and hit the other man on the side of the head with such force that he was knocked into the water. Still the shrieks filled his ears. The rock flew out of the grasp of the hook and landed with a splash in the water.

He started the engine, not seeing the man anywhere in the water, and began to speed away. The feeling started to subside a little, but its bitter residue remained.

Jeff heard a splashing sound coming from behind the boat, even as he moved at medium speed. Through the fog and cover of darkness, however, he could not see anything. He stopped the engine.

The splashing grew louder. He couldn't...

As it grew even louder, Jeff could make out a form moving through the water towards him. In a panic, he revved the engine.

Hands reached over the side of the boat and clasped onto the edge. Suddenly, the feeling of anger and screams left Jeff altogether. It left him weak and cold and terrified.

The man climbed over the side and lay on the deck for a moment. Jeff fell backward and pressed himself against the other wall. The man stood up.

“H- h-” Jeff struggled to find the word- “How?”

“I'm an android, Mr. Pneuman. A robot.”

Jeff looked around, petrified. He now noticed the sparks flying from his partner's head where he had hit him with the stone. “I- I don't... know what came over me...”

“I do, Mr. Pneuman,” the robot said, pulling out a pistol. “I know very well what came over you.”

With that, he pulled the trigger, and Jeff was gone. He looked back at the water, then his eyes rested on the empty hook.

“Master... the mission has failed,” he said, seemingly to no one.

“Where is the meteor?” a voice replied on his comlink.

“In the water...”

“Well, get it,” the voice commanded.

“I'm sorry, master, but our experiment, Mr. Pneuman, was affected extremely, as you expected, by the proximity of the meteor. It is now in the center of the lake, three times deeper than our chain can reach.”

“Damn you, Jeff.”

“Master...”

“Yes, XT-6?”

“What is our course of action now?”

“It is bad,” the voice murmured. “I feared this possibility. The lake's jetties move water straight from the lake bed, where the meteor rests now, to the northern area of the lake, from which drinking water is extracted. The meteor's influence could grow in the villagers, and then serious problems could arise for the Department.”

“What do we do, then?”

“We wait. If the villagers become violent, we destroy them.”

“Yes, master.”

With that, Jeff's ex-partner, not capable of human emotion or sympathy, sped off into the fog, bearing Jeff's corpse with him, but leaving his memory behind in the depths of the lake.