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The drone had lovely headlights and once past the three-yard mark, those shone on what seemed the dead end of the tunnel only another yard ahead. Using the thumb toggle, I maneuvered past a thick stone block or outcrop and bumped into wall. When I turned it, the headlights only revealed more stone on either side. The space was small but the drone fitted.
Taking a deep breath, I tilted it to cruise it upward, as well as tilting the camera with the other toggle. Above was the surface of the water, above was what looked to be a fucking floor tile, eroded or corrupted by decades of immersion, but it was too thin and too precisely rectangular not to be building material of some sort.
I swallowed, placed one hand over my galloping heart. There must be a room above, mustn’t there? I drove the drone to the surface, and it broke though, bobbing about within a chamber. The camera caught a star of brightness that flashed and swung as the drone bobbed.
“The tower hole.” Again I had to draw a breath before I made the drone swing to the left then to the right.Steady as she goes. Slow and steady.
A wall of brick showed, then a curved surface with exact edges, partly cracked, destroyed on the other side, and in the middle hung a fucking portrait. Without humans, without light on it, this evidence of humanity, of the original occupants, had hung, silently, in what appeared to be an alcove near the corner of a room.
I felt…honored to have found this, as if I had rescued the couple in the portrait from oblivion.
Perhaps I had.
The focus on the lens was poor, and the lights were creating reflections, but I stared at the little screen. There was writing below, on a little plaque. The glass over the portrait was what had saved it from the destruction wrought by moisture, and a bomb had not fractured that glass. I was meant to see this.
Patricia Romanus.
I smiled as I read that.
…with her dear husband, Dr. H. Taylor.
Wait. The surname would be Romanus, wouldn’t it, since this had been the family island, inherited through his grandfather? Except their daughter could have inherited, married, and changed her surname. Then why was Patricia a Romanus?
I focused higher, on the couple. The portrait must be of their wedding, considering her veil, though he was in rolled-up shirt sleeves and less formal. It was a photo, a black-and-white photo and not a painting, which made its survival seem even more fated.
The grandfather had been a doctor too.
I stared and brought the screen closer. The grandfather looked a bit like the man snoring a few feet away from me on a towel. I stared at the doctor—his arms were high and keeping a book in place on his chest. There was some sort of mark on the arm of his grandfather.
And my doctor’s tattoo looked to be in precisely the same place.
I shook my head. No.
I’d read a few history articles recently and knewSPQRwas the symbol of the Roman Republic. Seeing the doctor was obsessed with history, it wasn’t that strange. Now it was. Or might be.
For several minutes, I patiently tried to get the drone to focus better, so as to decipher what was in the photo. It was not going to happen. The drone could not crawl from the water. That was it then.
I could leave this alone. Finished.
I pursed my lips and looked at the sleeping men.
I should leave this. With painstaking care, I made the drone backtrack and was enormously relieved when it swam free of the tunnel then reached the surface. It would float there until I retrieved it. I placed the controller on my towel, rose, stretched casually, and headed off toward the buoy.
They hadn’t stirred. They wouldn’t think I was doing anything unusual anyway.
Goggles in hand and with my reef shoes on, I went to the water’s edge.
I swam out, partway to the buoy, and even then, neither of the men had raised their head or moved. Treading water, I calmed myself, then dove down and kicked toward the tunnel that I now knew was of a length I could swim through, with an air pocket I could use. This was not foolhardy, just me satisfying an inexorable itch.I had to know.
A section of the tether of the drone looped partly into the depths, being slowly pushed by the surging currents, and I took care to avoid it. I reached the entry and kept going, methodically pulling myself through. Without the panic, with the reflections of that star of sunlight flickering through the tunnel, I could see some of the walls and almost enjoy this. I kept going past where my lungs were yelling,fuck this, go back. I reached the end wall, and leaped upward, kicking off the stone and likely bruising my foot. I shot from the water, dragged in a few huge lungfuls, and when I was recovered, I realized I barely had enough light to find that portrait.
The sunlight coming down through the hole was not enough.
Wait, my eyes might adjust if I waited a minute? I pulled my goggles onto my forehead and tried sitting in this claustrophobic hole beneath tons of earth for a few more minutes, until I thought my eyes had had time to adjust.
So dark in this hollow. I stared around me, trying not to imagine strange things waiting for me to move. There was nothing else in here that was alive, but if I couldn’t find the way out…
I shut that down. I propped my hands on the stone and took slow breaths. I could and would get out of here once I was done.
