Professor Dodson had come to Shafer's house to make inquiries about the health of the fish stocks of Undersea. He was not one to rest on his laurels when he had an idea, and he was interested in conducting a study on the potential presence of heavy metals in the fish that lived in the city's vacinity. Professor Dodson had received clearance from the Lab to conduct such research and publish a paper on his findings. He needed to collect samples of fish waste, scale rubbings, and any dead fish. The professor thought to employ the help of someone like Shafer to get this task accomplished. When Professor Dodson saw Sarah his face brightened and her presence gave him an idea.

"You must work for me as an assistant Sarah," he urged. "I know you have it in you to do this work, I sensed it when we met and in our letters afterword, though you haven't written back to me lately!"

It was here that Sarah had to tell him why their correspondence had been cut off and why she was in Fish Town. Professor Dodson stood and listened. When Sarah finished the professor shook his head and stared at the ground.

"Sarah I am heart broken to hear your story," he said finally looking up, "but I...," Professor Dodson shook his head again. "No, I will not," he said softly to himself. "Sarah my offer to you still stands, I invite you to be my assistant, though maybe in a part time capacity as this will raise fewer questions with the powers that be. As a part time assistant, your roll in the research does not have to be so strictly documented in accordance with Lab policy."

"I think you are right," said Sarah slowly though a bit disappointed, "part time would be better overall, and it might ease the foreman's wrath at the factory; he hates to loose workers and is liable to raise a commotion when he does."

"I will speak to the man tomorrow," said Professor Dodson, "If it's for the Lab it's in my power to make work requests of this sort to any work manager or foreman. I will compensate you all well of course for the assistance rendured."

So it was decided: Sarah would work for or with Professor Dodson three days a week and the other days she would work in the factory. Professor Dodson thought it a good idea for Sarah to follow Beamer and Shafer around the first few weeks when not in the factory so she could learn the ins and outs of the pressurized suits and rebreathing equipment they wore. Part of the research would take Sarah and the Professor away from the pools, pens, and cages of the farmed fish and out into the open ocean. Familiarity with a dive suit would be a useful skill to have. Sarah would also to act as liaison between Shafer's crew and the professor and to direct sample gathering.

At the end of the evening all shook hands. Beamer grinned and gave her a high five, "welcome aboard!" he said with a knowing smile, "you're about to get in some deep doo doo!"

"You'll have to show me the ropes Beamer," said Sarah with a laugh, "I have never worn one of those dive suits or walked the deep pools and pens of Undersea before."

"Oh do be safe Sarah," said Zenith as they got ready for bed that night.

- - -

A few days later and after some practice with the equipment Sarah slipped from her bed while the city slept. She ate a quick breakfast, and taking up her lunch pail followed Shafer and Beamer out under the dim lamps of Undersea to the dive shop where their equipment was stored. Nearby, a cold dark pool lapped at its stony edges. It was here that Sarah would make her first descent into the depths.

"You'll go down first; it'll be no sweat," Beamer was saying as they stood at the edge of the pool looking into the water. They had already run through a comms check and reiterated the importance of monitoring the pressure gauges on their suits.

"As you know, mismanaging your pressurized suit can cause the nitrogen in your blood to bubble as you ascend from the pens," Shafer had said. "Remember to check your gauges often: the suits are programmed to maintain a preset suit pressure, but are not fool proof from malfunction. If you do have pressure issues with your suit you will have to ascend slowly to avoid decompression sickness, or the bends, as it's also known. You don't want the bends of course. It'll cause anything from deafness, to blindess, to paralysis, to head aches, severe joint pain; even death."

"Yeah, you'll want to avoid the death part in particular," cut in Beamer.

"Thanks, Beamer," Sarah had said with a calm smile. Now gazing at the pool she was excited to start despite the foreboding look of the dark water.

"Remember to switch on your head lamp before you descend," said Shafer. "The suction pumps we use are already down there along with the scrapers. It will just be us three today. We'll let you walk around at the bottom first so you can collect your samples."

There was a small fight of stone steps cut into the side of the pool going down from the edge to an underwater platform. Stepping heavily in her lead boots Sarah descended to the platform. The water came up to her neck. A long cable going from the bottom of the pool to the top was nearby and Sarah clipped herself into it before making her descent. She activated her head lamp and tightened the belt at her waist where her sample bags hung.

"Going down now," said Sarah into her comms.

She stepped off the platform clinging to the cable, searching for hand holds in the pool.

"Easy does it Sarah," said Shafer in her ear over the comms as she went under.

The beam of Sarah's head lamp shown down into the muted depths of the pool. In the thin blue light beyond she saw dark shapes shifting about in large schools. Sarah let go of the hand holds and sank, guided by the cable she was clipped in to. Her speed of descent seemed good so she looked about as she traveled downward, pulled by the weight of lead boots into the yawning deep. Sarah noticed the smooth walls of the pool; though now it looked more like a large rectangular shaft bored down into the rock. Soon she was aware of vast schools of fish around her. They parted in fluid geometry as she went, their silvery scales flashing about her like sparks in the light of her head lamp.

"I should be getting close now," Sarah thought.

With a soft thump her boots touched bottom and Sarah stood in a thin layer of organic matter that coated the pool floor. Above her hung the weight of the water, and far far away like a distant window was the dim blue surface. Around her was darkness, but her head lamp did enough to pierce it. She saw the scraper tools and suction pumps for cleaning the pool bottom and remembered to check in with Shafer and Beamer.

"All clear," said Sarah.

"Roger that," said Shafer, "keep an eye on your gauges."

"And hurry up down there," came in Beamer, "I can only keep an eye on your lunch pail for so long. I'm getting hungry!"

"When are you not hungry? But you better not Beamer," said Sarah with a laugh, "I know where you live!"

Sarah knelt in the muck and collected samples; she saw several fish carcasses and collected those too. She labeled the samples with a grease pencil and looked around when she was finished. "That should do for now," she thought, and Sarah spied a thin meshed grate in the side wall of the pool covering a sloping tunnel that descended even deeper. The tunnel looked just big enough to walk through. Sarah soon realized she was now at the very foundations of the city itself and that the tunnel led out of it, though the wall of rock and down into the fish pens connected on the other side. Beyond them there was a very vast ocean...

"You awake down there?" crackled Shafer in Sarah's ear.

"Yes, I think I got everything I needed. Coming up now."

Sarah made her way over to the guide cable bolted to the pool bottom. The end of a long winch rested on the floor nearby. She clipped into it.

"I've attached to the winch," said Sarah, "ready."

"Okay," said Shafer, "remember to check those gauges."

Slowly Sarah was withdrawn from the depths and soon she was dangling from the winch cable just above the surface of the water.

"Whoa, we got a live one!" said Beamer as he and the winch operator helped Sarah onto firm ground. "Everything go okay?"

"Yep," said Sarah patting the full sample bags on her belt, "now I get to watch your lunch while you go down!"

The sad look Beamer gave made even Shafer chuckle and both he and Beamer tightened on their helms with Sarah's assistance. Shafer clipped into the cable and descended while Beamer chose to be lowered down at the same time via the winch. (The winch operator had not yet arrived when Sarah made her first descent.)

"I'll rejoin you guys after I get these samples properly catalogued and stored," said Sarah. "Then we can head deeper into the pens."

"Roger that," said Shafer.

"Beamer that!" said Beamer.

Smiling, Sarah wriggled out of her dive suit with help from the winch operator and moved her bagged samples into sturdier containers and sealed them in preparation for transport and annalysis. She took inventory of what she gathered and catalogued amounts, sizes, and weights in a notebook of lined blue kelp paper. She ate from her lunch pail as she made a few more notes and got ready to descend again.

"Almost ready to move down to the pens," came in Shafer over a nearby radio.

"Okay, headed down soon," said Sarah back and she gathered her sample bags.

"Headed down to the pens?" asked the winch operator helping Sarah back into her dive suit.

Sarah nodded and gave him a thumbs up. She put on her helmut and he helped tighten the lugs.

The winch operator was saying something now but it was hard to hear as she was now fully geared up. Sarah shook her head not hearing and gave him another thumbs up. He tried shouting but then went to the radio. "You'll want to take this just in case," he was saying and he reached into a nearby tool box and pulled out a long thin object. "Dive knife," he said and he attached it to her sample belt. "You never know," he mouthed with a casual shrug.

Sarah gave him another thumbs up, not sure why she needed one. It seemed awkward in its sheath on her hip, but she soon forgot about it. This time she clipped into the end of the winch and he swung her out over the pool.

"Ready," said Sarah over the comms to the operator. "Coming down," she said to Shafer and Beamer.

Sarah switched on her head lamp and checked her gauges. The sound of her breathing echoed through her helmut chamber as the water closed over her.

"We're at the grate," said Shafer as she descended. Soon Sarah's lead boots were standing on the clean floor of the pool.

"Nice work guys," said Sarah looking down at what had once been muck.

"See that you don't mess it up!" said Beamer from somewhere in the gloom, "I hope you wiped your feet on the welcome mat first!"

"I did not," said Sarah as she moved towards the grate, "your lunch was delicious by the way!"

Beamer let out a mournful sigh and Sarah saw two figures loom in front of her as she approached. One of them waved.

"Ready to go down?" said Shafer. "Remember, the deeper we go the more unforgiving the environment! Keep an eye on your gauges."

"Ready and will do!" said Sarah as the grate was removed.

"It's tight in the tunnel," said Shafer, "once we start down there'll barely be room for a person to turn around, and it will be impossible for anyone to pass you. I hope you're not claustrophobic!"

"I'm not," said Sarah, although looking into the dark opening made her less sure.

"I'll go first and Beamer will be in the rear. We'll wait for him to shut the grate before we continue down," said Shafer as he ducked into the sloping shaft. Sarah followed and soon Beamer was behind closing the grate. The sides of the tunnel hugged close. The light from Sarah's head lamp could not travel far for Shafer filled the passage in front of her.

"Ready," said Beamer and they began their descent. They plodded downward, walls at their elbows. Sarah kept her eyes on Shafer's back and dared not think about the tight space they were in. In the confines of the tunnel there were no sound but the breath in Sarah's helmut and little to sense save the soft vibration of lead boots on stone. On they went, into the depths of the dark. Presently they came to a halt. Shafer bid them wait as he went on ahead to remove a fine meshed grate from their path.

"Alright all clear," he said after a bit.

Sarah, eager to be free of the passage, stepped out into sudden space and it surprised her so much she halted. There were no walls, stone barriers, or buildings anymore: a sprawling bluish murk stretched before her as vast as high heaven. Open and free she felt, and as she looked into depths and distances uncalculable she realized she had forgotten what space felt like; what it felt like to have such, well, room. She realized she was outside the walls for the first time since her arrival as a small girl. Her heart soared like a bird free from its cage, if only for a little while.

"You alright?" said Beamer coming up behind.

"Yeah," said Sarah after a moment, "it's just so..."

"Big?" laughed Shafer coming back to them.

Sarah nodded.

"It's the same for me," said Shafer, "though not so much for Beamer. The city's all he's ever known."

Sarah looked around to try and see the sides of the pen. She could not see the roof but saw part of the mesh enclosure to her right just before it disappeared into darkness. She also sensed there were more fish in the pen then in the pool, and it seemed to her they hung back beyond her beam like a thick veil.

"You can collect your samples on the right and Beamer and I will start cleaning the left," said Shafer. "Take care down here Sarah, remember, pen or no pen, you're in the ocean now."

Sarah moved away from the group and darkness came between them. Soon she could see their lamps no more as they went to work on the other side of the pen. Huge shoals of fish swirled about her as she walked here and there, stooping to collect dead fish or muck. She worked slowly, enjoying the feeling of being in a vast wall-less place, and before long she came to the mesh boundary of the cage.

With her collection bags nearly full she decided to walk along the wall of the pen. After some minutes she came to its far corner. Beyond her lay the wild ocean and she paused to look into its depths. She saw nothing at first, but as she gazed around she noticed vague shapes in the water. They circled about in a delibrate, unhurried way, but always just beyond the light of her head lamp. Sarah turned to go.

"Coming back," said Sarah over the comms.

"Almost done scraping the left third of the pen," said Shafer. "We'll suction it up then go back to the surface. We'll finish up another day."

Sarah looked into the ocean one last time. She caught a sudden movement. At the edge of her beam something writhed, thrashing at the fence. Puzzled, she took a step forward. Between two overlapping pieces of mesh; part of a patch job in the pen wall, was the wriggling mass of a sixgill shark. She froze as it pressed through, forcing itself further in, and then with a mighty shake the huge shark was loose among the fish. The fish in the pen fled before it in tight schools, shifting in a desperate dance to keep it at bay. But the sixgill paid them no heed, for its ancient nose, honed from time immemoral, picked up a new scent and bolted towards it. To the left third of the pen it sped, to the pile of fish muck Beamer and Shafer had collected. The swirling reek of that decaying mound much to irresistible for the great fish.

"Sixgill coming in two o'clock!" shouted Sarah on the comms.

On the other end Sarah's message had not been clear. Static took the first few words. All that was heard was a shouted "two o'clock!"

"Calm down," said Beamer, standing next to the pile, "it's only one-thirty. No need to yell!"

But Sarah was off and moving as fast as her lead boots would allow towards the left side of the pen. She heard a shout of warning over the comms and then commotion filled her ears. "Oh help!" and cried and tried to move faster.

"Get to the grate Sarah!" came in Shafer's clear voice, "Beamer and I will be right behind you!"

"What's happening?" said Sarah breathless and she remembered the dive knife on her hip. She pulled it from it's sheath as a dark shape appeared before her in the gloom. The shape hung before her like a marionette on stings. There it hung and Sarah stopped to face it, heart in her throat. With a flick of its tail the sixgill darted in and before Sarah could think its teeth were around a sample bag on her waist, shredding at the fabric to get the at fish beneath.

Sarah screamed. She slammed the sixgill with the hilt of her knife and connected such a blow upon its gills that it ceased tearing at her hip bag. It released her and moved to grab a second sample bag. Sarah cocked her fist for another punch, this time with the blade. The great fish twisted away and fled, it's tail catching a glancing blow off her helm.

Sarah did not turn to watch it go but rather fled the opposite direction towards the grate. She spotted lights ahead and arrived to see Shafer brandishing a long-handled scraper over Beamer's prone form.

"That you Sarah?" said Shafer as Sarah appeared more fully in his beam. "Turn your head lamp on!"

"Beamer!" shouted Sarah moving past Shafer.

"He got rammed by the sixgill and his gauges are out of whack. I think the rebreather still works but I don't know how much oxygen he has left. I think he's lost some. His comms are out but I think his suit's integrity still holds, but he might have lost pressure."

"We gotta get him out!" said Sarah. She looked at Beamer's face though the viewing port in his helmut. He was clearly in pain.

"I don't know exactly how much time he has with the oxygen," said Shafer, "but we'll have to ascend slow to avoid the bends since I'm worried about damage to the gauges and valves. I'll try to pull him up the tunnel. You hold the scraper pole to fend off that sixgill if it returns."

Sarah wielded the pole as Shafer grabbed Beamer by the arm pits and dragged him to the passage.

"Follow after us," he huffed, "and replace the grate the best you can."

Sarah backed into the shaft and tried to secure the grate, not knowing quite how the latch worked.

"You've placed it well enough," said Shafer from further up, "dragging Beamer is wearing on me. Can you lift his legs as we go?"

It seemed an eternity dragging Beamer up the passage.

"Would the winch reach down this far?" asked Sarah as they stopped for rest.

"It might," said Shafer who had turned to look up the tunnel calculating the distance. There was a slight movement from Beamer and then he went quite limp.

"Time to go," said Shafer alarmed, pulling Beamer further. "We need haste but there's risk of decompression sickness."

They moved him further up then Shafer left for the winch. "It don't like it," he muttered, "but he needs help now!"

Down in the depths of the earth Sarah closed her eyes and felt exhausted. She was confined and alone. Beamer was dying. Shafer was gone. And there in the dim light, with little hope in what she alone could do, Sarah appealed for strength in a future that was uncertain. The response was closer than the walls of the tunnel where she now stood. That strength of grandma and it's source was in her. She lifted her eyes and saw Shafer approach.

"It will be okay," said the strength.

Sarah longed to believe those words, then realized she had given herself over to them and their promise all along.

They winched Beamer out of the pool and only just in time. He received treatment for his wounds but not everything healed: Beamer never walked again. And so because he could not work he stayed at home and tinkered with the printing press. Soon Beamer was making copy after copy of grandma's old book with homemade ink and kelp paper.