Unconsciously, Denton grabbed hold of the table and looked around the room. Carter followed his example while Leah looked confused.

"Why will this be unpleasant? What do you mean?" she said.

"We're at the end of a pendulum," Jonythan continued, "Except under water. Jarell wants me dead. We're not going to suffocate in here as long as we're attached to the tether. If the module is disconnected from it, eventually the life support will fail and we will, eventually, suffocate."

"What happens when it's released?"

"It'll be a bumpy ride, which is why you want to hang on to something."

Leah's faced drained of all color as she sat down and held on to the table. "Do we need to take shelter in the sleeping quarters? Would that be safer?"

Carter shook his head and shot Jonythan a glare. "No, we'll be fine in here. He's exaggerating. When the module is disconnected, the built-in stabilizers kick in during the descent. They're not perfect though so we can expect a lot of rocking back and forth until we hit bottom."

The bottom. There it was, the word that Denton knew had to come out at some point. He shivered at the thought of hitting the bottom of this icy ocean.

"So we just wait?" Denton said.

Carter nodded. "Yep, it shouldn't be long now. The mechanism to release this module isn't complicated. Jarell only needs to press a couple of buttons, and we're history."

As they sat in silence, their bodies tense as they held on to whatever surfaces they could, Denton could help but be annoyed by their predicament. Why didn't a module like this have some sort of safety feature? An emergency exit or stop, something that prevented a situation like this from occurring. At the very least, there should be a way out in case there ever was a malfunction or, as in this case, a person intent on killing everyone in the pod. Denton shook his head in disgust.

The minutes ticked by as they waited for the inevitable to happen. When five minutes had passed, and nothing had happened, Denton decided it was time to do something.

"I'm going to take a look around," he said and left the room before either of the Forsythe's could protest. To his immediate left, the hallway returned to the observation deck. To his right, he saw several other doors, most of them unmarked. He checked each one in turn. Cleaning supplies, a pantry, and a server room. Unfortunately, nothing useful.

He walked across the observation deck to the hallway on the other opposite side. A couple of meeting rooms and a fully equipped lab took up most of the space, likely used at some point by the scientists that had used the module. Just as he was about to leave the lab, his eye caught a bunch of papers stapled to the wall, partially covering a plaque with large, red letters on it. He ripped the yellowing papers off of the wall, and his heart skipped a beat when a schematic showed the proper evacuation procedures for the module.

The plastic plaque on the wall looked like many other ones just like it that he had seen throughout the years. Floor schematics, red arrows and the red dot that indicated his location. It was so archaic, the leftovers of a process used many generations ago, but government bureaucracies were slow to make policy changes. Implementations were even slower to trickle down to the places where they were needed. Today, Denton was thankful for whatever rule that required one of these to be posted. Although he had never seen this particular schematic before, what he saw made his heart beat quicker.

He left the lab behind and ran back to the kitchen. Gabi had joined them since he left to search the module. They all looked up at him with surprise when he rushed through the door.

"What's wrong?" Leah said and stood up, her hands still gripping the table.

"Nothing. I found a map in the lab," he said between breaths.

Carter frowned. "A map? What do you mean?"

"It's an emergency evacuation diagram, really, but still, you need to see this."

Denton turned and retraced his steps to the lab, the rest of the group right behind him. They crowded into the narrow entrance of the lab, all eyes on the diagram on the wall.

"What are we looking for?" Leah said and squinted, her eyebrows furrowed.

Denton pointed towards one a section of the map and turned to Jonythan and Carter.

"Here, what's this?"

"Let me see," Jonythan said and leaned in closer. "Evac?" he read aloud.

"Evac?" Carter said as his eyes grew wider. He stepped closer to the diagram and stabbed the diagram with his finger. "Dad, the evac pods, I completely forgot about them. Are they still here?"

Jonythan shook his head. "When the scientific purposes of the module were completed, and it was converted for hospitality use, the evac hardware was removed."

"Why was it removed?" Denton said.

"It was an unnecessary expense. With our well-paying guests, the intent was never to actually use this module for descending into the depths. The evac pods required regular maintenance and updates, and they were deemed superfluous."

"Can you show me where they are?"

"What's the point? There's nothing there."

"Humor me."

Jonythan sighed and nodded. "Very well. Follow me."

The group left the lab behind and followed Jonythan back towards the observation deck. He walked up to one of the back walls and pointed towards it.

"Here it is."

Denton stepped up to the wall, confused. There was nothing there. "I don't see anything."

"Oh, my apologies. We covered up the access door when the pods were removed. Carter, help me out, please," Jonythan said a put his fingers in a crack between the wall panels. Carter joined him, and with a few quick tugs on the panel, it snapped off. Denton stepped up to help and moments later, the white wall panel was resting against the wall. In its place, a doorway revealed a short hallway and then a set of stairs. Denton didn't wait and stepped into the hallway, and down the stairs, the others close behind. They joined him at the bottom of the stairs in a circular room. Eight hatches, distributed evenly around the walls of the room, greeted them.

"This is it?" Denton asked and gestured towards the hatches.

Jonythan nodded. "It is. Or was. They were never used and obviously now, they never will be."

Denton stepped up to one of the hatches and peered through the porthole at the top of the hatch. He squinted and put his hands up around his face to remove the glare on the glass. Then, he felt a shiver down his spine.

"Are you sure they were removed?" Denton said over his shoulder.

"Positive. I personally hired the contractors that did the work," Carter said and stepped up. "Why, what are you seeing?"

"Take a look for yourself."

Denton stepped aside to allow Carter to take a peek. He looked for a few seconds, then turned and faced the group with a confused expression. "Dad? The pods are still in here?"

Jonythan furrowed his eyebrows and stomped over to one of the other hatches. "That's impossible. They were taken out," he said and peered into one of the portholes. He stepped away, his eyes wide, mouth open.

"I, I don't understand. Carter, why are the pods still there?"

Carter shrugged and threw his hands up. "No idea. We paid to have them removed, remember?"

"Who was the contractor? Did they rip us off?"

"I have to look through the paperwork, but-"

"Gentlemen," Denton said and stepped up to them, a hand on each of their shoulders. "As much as I understand that there may have been some shoddy work done by a contractor-"

"Shoddy work?" Jonythan said, his voice raised. "More like no work. Once I'm done with them-"

"Gentlemen, remember, none of this matters if we can't get out of here, right?" Denton interjected.

Carter and Jonythan looked at Denton at the same time and then at each other.

"The question is," Denton continued, "Whether the pods still work. If they do, we might have a way out."

Silence descended on the group for a few seconds as they all considered this new development. Denton knew it was a long shot but if the pods were there, contrary to the instructions of the Forsythe's, wasn't it also possible that they were also still in working order?

"I know the pods well," Carter said and stepped up to one of the hatches. "I can run a system check and see if they're still operational." He proceeded to key in a password on the keypad next to the hatch. At first, nothing happened, then a green light illuminated on the keypad and with a hiss, the hatch popped open a few inches. He grabbed the handle at the bottom of the hatch and swung it open.

The smell of stale air greeted them. Carter hesitated for a moment and then hunched over and stepped into the evacuation pod. He turned around and sat down in the solitary seat of the pod so that he faced the open hatch. He flipped down a display from the ceiling and pressed various buttons on the control panel on the wall. Denton heard beeps from inside the pod as it powered up and lights came on overhead. Carter pulled the display closer, his face partially hidden behind it. His fingers moved across the screen, pressing buttons that to Denton were invisible, pausing occasionally. Carter then sighed deeply and flipped the screen back into its position.

"This one is, surprisingly, operational," he said and climbed out of it and stretched.

"Should you check the other ones?" Denton said.

"I don't see why not. Just because one is fine doesn't mean the rest are. It's been a while since these had any maintenance, after all."

"I'll help," Jonythan said. "I still remember how to operate these."

Carter and Jonythan split the remaining pods between them while Gabi, Leah, and Denton retreated to the observation deck to wait. Twenty minutes later, Jonythan and Carter appeared, relief on both of their faces. They shared the good news: two of the evac pods were not operational, but that still left enough usable pods for all of them.

"So, now what?" Leah asked. "We use the pods to get out of here?"

Before Carter could answer, the module shook under their feet and threw those of them standing off balance. Denton grabbed onto the back of the couch and held on as the module swayed back and forth.

"What just happened?" he said asked no one in particular.

Carter opened a small panel in the wall, revealing a terminal screen. He tapped a few commands and watched numbers fly by on the screen.

"We're going up," he said, his face a mix of surprise, relief, and uncertainty.

"Up?" Denton said. "What do you mean?"

"Up to the surface," Carter said and tapped the screen with his finger. "We're going back up."

~~~

Evacuation pods? Functional? But wait, now they're ascending again? What's going on here? Do you think they will need to use the pods or is something else going on?