The Virtual Dead
E.R. Mason
Copyright 1994
All Rights Reserved
All characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All references to The Dragon Masters or Slantian Industries represent fictional characters and are in no way representative of any real world businesses, groups, clubs, or organizations.
ISBN:978-0-6154542-9-0
Chapter 1
Diving for bodies was not one of Scott Markman’s favorite things. He gazed across the open water at the big orange ball creeping up over the forest horizon. A passing Florida breeze rippled the glassy lake-top and caused swirls within the fading layer of fog lingering at the water’s surface. Markman found himself wishing he were somewhere else.
Kneeling awkwardly on the flexible, black bottom of the rubber boat, he wormed the new regulator mouthpiece back into his sore mouth and sucked test air from the fresh aluminum tank. With his left hand, he wiggled the black wraparound mask down over his wet face and kept a gentle grip as he pushed over backward and splashed into the lake. Cool water seeped into the waistband of his suit. Exhaust bubbles gurgled loudly as he rose to the surface and squeezed the side of the raft’s inner tube.
He stared through the protective lens across the flat top of the calm water. Other divers were searching at different points along the way. No one had found a thing. The old man had wandered away from the care of his family and had been missing all night. To everyone’s dismay he had last been seen standing on the quaint wooden bridge that crossed the narrow portion of this picturesque country mere. Since the elderly man often suffered severe bouts of dementia, the divers feared they indeed might find him.
Markman slipped back beneath the surface to the lonely darkness that lay below. He arched over and pushed down into the unknown, keeping one hand outstretched in distrust of the limited visibility. The lake was as deep as lakes went in the area, fifty feet in some places, and the amber-colored water provided little more than two or three feet of visibility. It was a spooky, uninviting world of liquid emptiness.
His hand found the silty bottom. He withdrew his fingers from the muddy cloud and waved himself weightlessly into an upright position. The lake bottom was flat, mostly mud, decorated with thin brown weeds of varying height; the variety that needed little light to survive. At least it’s clean, he thought. The weapons recovery dives in the polluted waters near the industrial centers of the city never failed to leave him feeling dirty, even after the lengthy post-dive shower.
A cloud of silt billowed up around his position on the barren bottom. He took a bearing from his luminous wrist compass and pushed off blindly along the imaginary line of his search perimeter, trailing bubbles in a rising train behind him. If there were a body to be found, hopefully someone else would have the honor.
Soft kicks from his rocket fins moved him along the flat bottom at a slow crawl. He pushed forward through the solitary darkness, keeping the needle on his small compass fixed. When the lake bottom began to rise sharply upward, he twisted around and headed back the way he had come, traveling a line slightly to the right of his original course. Search and recovery dives were so unlike certification training. The open-water excursions on the ocean had been colorful and exotic, crystal clear water, jagged reef beds filled with life and wonder, places comparable only to the imaginary environments that might be found on another planet.
There had been fresh water cave dives also; startling descents into smooth rock tunnels filled with immaculately clear, cold water, tunnels that branched off and went on forever, even back in time thousands of years. He shuddered at the thought of what cave diving had become; unpleasant recovery operations that everyone dreaded; solemn affairs carried out expressly for the purpose of recovering the careless who had lost their way and their lives. There never seemed to be a shortage of adventurers who felt memory would serve just as well as a simple nylon rope lifeline, and the consequences were usually grotesque scenes of the violently desperate who had run out of air trying to find their way back home.
Markman pushed on, straining to focus ahead in the murk, moving delicately so as not to cause clouds of brown in the emptiness around him. This was a place of perpetual silence and stillness, rarely interrupted by aliens from above, and then only by those in search of worldly things lost or hidden.
He tugged on his shifting buoyancy vest, and suddenly realized this place was in some ways more familiar than the complex, foreign land that lay above. The surface world lacked peace. Life was competition. No time for inner reflection. Self-gratification was all-important. He felt more a stranger to that than to the serene darkness that loomed in the watery fog beyond. The steep mountains of China had little in common with the materialistic cities of America. There were no Yaks here to pull the plows; no scroll-packed prayer wheels to spin; no rancid-smelling butter carvings; and no stone-mud temples to crawl forward to in selfless respect for the soul of the Tao. But here in the silent world below the flat, shimmering line of water and air, Markman could almost imagine he was back in the ancient realm of his extraordinary upbringing, and that he had only to surface to be home once again.
The nagging little problem of being too heavy brought him back to reality. Freshwater dives required fewer segments on the black, nylon weight belt, and he now carried too many. The lack of buoyancy kept dragging him down, causing occasional fin contact with the fine layer of muck. It was greatly diminishing the already poor visibility. He continued to move ahead but compromised his search in an attempt to see why no air flow was jetting into the small rubber cells in his buoyancy vest.
Looking down at the pesky release valve, his hooded head suddenly bumped against something, something spongy and unexpected. Startled, he waved himself back to see.
He coughed up a burst of air as his eyes met the horrid object of interference, and he kicked frantically back from it in morbid repulsion. The ghostlike form swayed listlessly to and fro in current created by his intrusion. Long silky blonde hair waved hypnotically in the eddies, a complement to the thin flowing gown that moved with it. The small, pretty, chalk-white face stared back at him with wide, dull blue eyes that beckoned him to find her. The shapely, lifeless figure drifted and turned in suspension, its arms frozen outward from the waist like a twirling ballerina. The yellow nylon rope tied tightly to the left ankle had bruised and anchored it to the cement block that lay half buried in the soft mud.
Panic quickly turned to regret. This was not an elderly gentleman lost by consequence of age, but rather a beautiful young woman, probably not thirty years old. And this was not a case of unfortunate circumstance. Someone with a black hole for a heart had found convenience in murder. What earthly desire could have been so blinding? How could such heartlessness exist?
Stunned, he realized from the hollow silence that he had been holding his breath. He forced himself to relax and drew air from his tank. Bubbles rushed from the exhaust vents of the regulator and raced upward.
Without looking away, he drew the wedge marker from its attachment on his weight belt. He drove the plastic stake deeply into the muddy floor and inflated the red marker buoy. It bobbed upward atop the bubble trail, drawing a thin nylon cord with it. He returned his full attention to the lovely lady that waited before him. I’ll be back for you, he thought to her. I promise.
He reached overhead as though grabbing for the surface and propelled himself upward toward the blanket of silver, trying not to disturb further the stillness of the lady’s resting place. He broke out above the watery depths, pushed back the well-sealed mask, and searched the shoreline.
Police Chief Wandell
had set up a temporary base of operations around a weathered, old picnic table on a nearby shore. A large group of men were now gathered there, some of them black-suited divers. They had seen him surface, and a few were waving at him to come ashore. In the background stood an elderly-looking gentleman, who was being comforted by a small group of relieved relatives.
Markman rolled onto his back and kicked past the small red police marker on the way to shore. It twisted and swayed as though to remind him someone waited below. Chief Wandell and one other officer broke away from the picnic table celebration and came to meet him as he reached shallow water. He pulled off the long black fins and stepped awkwardly through the muddy shallows to join them on the grassy shore.
“We're done here, Scott,” called the Chief, as he wiped away the beads of sweat on his wrinkled brow. “The old man fell asleep in a neighbor’s car. We’ve been searchin’ for nothin’.”
Water streamed down the sleek black wetsuit as Markman approached the two men and stopped beside them.
“But I sure appreciate you helpin’ out during this convention thing. So that’s it, go bring your stuff in, everything’s okay here,” said the Chief matter-of-factly.
Even before Markman could speak, they had translated the somber expression on his face. “No Chief, everything’s not okay."
Chapter 2