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Thursday, August 7th Dartmouth, NS

As part of his everyday routine, Dr. David Heath rolled out of bed, found his glasses on the bedside table, walked to the kitchen and looked through the window across the deep water bay. He was a geologist with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and, like many of his colleagues, he preferred the quiet living found on the Halifax harbour. His cottage was on a rocky promontory; he could watch the weather patterns coming in from the Atlantic.

Before leaving for the Institute that morning, David had programmed his DVD system to record a CBC special that was to be broadcast that morning live from British Columbia. Just off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near the city of Tofino, an old warship was to be sunk. The beach was part of the Pacific Rim National Park, and included 50 kilometres of wide, white sand beaches, one of the most pristine and beautiful beach fronts along the entire West Coast. The warship would become part of the barrier reef and add a main attraction to this already popular tourist area for the growing crowd of scuba diving enthusiasts. CBC would be recording the final voyage of this old ship; David wanted to see the underwater shots.

He enjoyed his work at Bedford, his passion was the geologic study of Canada’s coastal waters. The Institute was world famous for the sonar techniques it had developed for scanning and imaging the sea floor, and the deepest trenches located around the world.

David looked at the photograph on the wall near his desk. It was one of the deepest recorded images ever taken; it had perfectly captured a still shot of an almost transparent yet luminous fish. David was amazed that any creature could survive under those pressures. The photograph, from the deep sea diving submersible, had logged the date and depth, 30,000 feet below the surface of the water. That fish lived farther below sea level, than the peak of Mt. Everest rose above it.

By noon, he decided to leave early. He picked up some fish and chips and headed home to watch the Tofino event. Setting his food on the coffee table in front of him, David sat down and picked up the remote.

The broadcast opened with Brian Edwards, CBC’s senior correspondent for the west coast, on the beach describing the event. First, there were interviews with sponsors of the event, and some file footage of the old warship. The next portion of the broadcast showed the ocean floor, well lit by the submersibles. David quickly finished his supper as he watched the next segment record the gelinite charges going off. They would rip the holes in the hull that were needed to sink the ship, as upright as possible, to the bottom of the shelf bed. That was the big event; the reporter described it would take awhile for the ship to settle into its new home, and that next week, they would have a short news brief of the first divers to enjoy swimming around this new edition to the barrier reef.

As David watched the end of the program, he realised something on that broadcast had triggered his subconscious. He clicked back to the beginning, where the crews had lit the bottom, without any interference. He watched it again, then again. David was already familiar with the surface geologic formations, but, ‘There should be some outcroppings that far out from the beach front,’ he thought, ‘some reef development at least.’ Slowly, frame by frame, he scanned the shots of the dark sand and corrugated ocean floor. ‘That’s not right.’ What he was seeing was not possible with what he already knew, or thought he knew.

It puzzled him. As a geologist, he had studied all of the coastal regions of Canada, at one time or another. What he saw should not exist. He walked to the back room where his field gear was stored, everything was sitting there, packed and ready. Time for a trip west, he decided. Maps. He’d have to go back to the Institute for the geological and topographical maps showing the detail of the coast around Vancouver Island.

He drove back to the Institute and once in the archive room, accessed the oversized steel drawers. Locating the maps he would need, he quickly made copies, rolled them up and carried them to his office. He e-mailed his colleagues that he would be gone for a week on research. From the pile tucked behind his office door, he grabbed four acrylic tubes with shoulder straps, slid the copies into the tubes, slung them over his shoulder and left. After returning home, David went on-line and booked an Air Canada flight for the next morning.

Yawning, he walked to the kitchen cupboard, brought down his bottle of brandy and poured a small glass. Carrying it to the bedroom, he undressed and crawled into bed, and sipped the brandy as he thought about his upcoming journey, wondering if he would be able to confirm what he suspected.

****

As David’s alarm clock buzzed hours later, Ted and Adam screamed past the New Castle, Pennsylvania exit. Sleepy Pittsburgh lay 60 miles to the south, but the sun was rising fast on their tail and Chicago loomed far in the distance.