OGENUS EARTH 🌎 🌊 {Dystopian Sci-Fi Adventure}

Cannonball

"ETA?" Matthias asked the Seafarer seated at the controls of her ship, the Syracusia.

The Sea Monkeys, as they were called by most aboard the Arcs, monitored the controls to ensure their passage remained cloaked. Matthias usually enjoyed underwater missions as they were a chance to leave the controlled environment of the Arc Cities. This mission, however, brought nothing but dread. As the Syracusia sped towards its destination, that feeling worsened.

"At least six hours." Justin, one of Matthias' meager crew of seven called back.

"I'm picking up several large organic figures in the water," Percival informed Matthias. "Do you want to get above them?"

"Turn on the monitors," Matthias instructed, curious to see their company.

In the reflected sonar image the body of an enormous Stygiomedusa jellyfish coasted by. The expansive gelatinous bulb glided out of view followed by four dangling tentacles like billowing inky curtains.

Matthias and her crew knew that this deep-sea species was quite benign; It was usually an easy source of food for larger, more deadly, aquatic animals.

"Jelly field!" Justin called out in case the others hadn't noticed.

"Engage evasive maneuvers," Matthias responded as she scanned. "I see a few giant Lions Mane jellies out there."

Had their sonar imaging been able to capture colors, the crew would have been completely arrested by the incredible light show going on in the water. The jellies drifted in billowing puffs of cloudy matter letting their staggeringly vivid insignias and electrified tendrils entice prey closer. The only possible problem the innocuous Stygiomedusa posed was clogging up the rotors. Giant Lions Manes, however, could entrap a whole ship in their interminable tentacles while its corrosive venom slowly dissolved the structure to nothing.

A fish, it could have been a tuna given the shape of its beak, swam by the monitors. The thing was easily as big as their mid-range ship, but in far more danger than Matthias' crew at this moment.

Everyone took a collective breath watching the impressive fish swim right into a deadly jelly's feelers. It thrashed at the seizing pain that its attacker was using to stun it into submission. Eventually, the fish stopped struggling and hung limp. The jelly drug its lifeless body along with the underwater stream like a snack for the road.

"They must be using the currents to travel." Matthias mused as the others looked away in horror. "Stay with them."

The Seafarers were well versed in the dangers lurking at these depths, which is exactly why Matthias couldn't bring Meg's father along. While most Arc citizens had some inkling of the beasts down here, none of them knew how out of control the situation had become.

When the permafrost melted enough to raise the oceans, the remaining humans on Earth descended into political chaos and martial law. The reintroduced primal bacteria overtook crops, water supplies, and livestock worldwide, plunging the world into famine. Their founding father, Arturo, liked to tell people that the sudden changes in topography and water temperatures had unleashed an entire coven of prehistoric monsters from one of Earth's vast oceanic trenches. Matthias wasn't so sure. Mother nature took a lot longer to evolve these types of hellish nightmares.

Once the Arcs were populated with survivors and fully functional, it was too late to stop these beasts radical development. The only thing they could do was protect the humans above water, from finding out.

Percival steered them closer to the top of a bulbous floating jelly where they could drift along as Matthias instructed.

Only hours away, and yet Matthias wasn't certain what to tell her soldiers when they got in range. They still had no information from Arc City Two and for all she knew, they were headed into a fight without the proper armor.