Chasing Sunshine | JJ Maybank

18 // Spy Games

For all of about twenty minutes, we had all forgotten about the storm brewing over our heads in favor of watching awe-struck as the Royal Merchant came to life before our eyes. But that awe quickly turned into gut-wrenching disappointment when her ghostly, underwater skeleton revealed not one shred of long-lost treasure.

"Run it through one more time," I instructed Pope, shaking at his shoulders when our third scan of the deck yielded no results. He sighed and went to reach for the controls half-heartedly but John B cut the pair of us off.

"It's not there," he sniped, running frustrated hands through his hair and stepping away from the display, muttering curses under his breath.

"You don't know that. We could have missed it or-"

"Look, just...just pull the drone up. Shit," he seethed, ignoring my lackluster attempts to give him hope.

Pope seemed to be on my side however as he suggested hopefully, "Look, we can do another pass. Recharge the battery...we can-we can go back down!"

JJ just scoffed from his permanent place at the helm, still working diligently to keep the boat upright amid the trashing waves. "Guys, we've been through it three times!" he called, "There's nothing there!"

"Shut up!" Kie shouted back at him but he just yelled back defensively,

"What? It's true!"

"The gold could be buried! We don't know," Kie argued still. I appreciated her trying to make the rest of us feel better, but the longer we sat here staring at a computer screen of empty, blue darkness, the less enthusiastic about our prospects I was becoming.

"The metal detector would have picked something up," I pointed out dejectedly, resigning myself to the bitter disappointment and standing up with a heavy sigh to the tether spool, ready to reel the drone back to the surface.

John B turned his back to us, pulling his hood up against the now-howling winds and braced himself against the rail of the boat with both hands. "Somebody beat us to it," he decided, voice rising to still be heard over the noise.

From my position on the deck, I could just hear JJ mutter quietly, "Or it was never there."

I shot him a nasty glare, but his back was still turned away from us. However, I probably could have drawn from memory the cold, disgruntled scowl currently painting over his features. Kie came over to help me pull up the ROV as Pope began to pack up the control monitor, angrily snapping the clasps back into place. It also seemed as though the thunderstorm had finally lost all patience with our antics because a loud drum of thunder rumbled overhead right before a few stray raindrops splattered against the deck.

"We should probably get going," I observed, looking up and holding out my palm to catch a few, "The last thing we need is to end up alongside the Merchant."

Kiara didn't seem to hear me, seemingly too fixated on John B who hadn't said another word since sullenly taking up post at the stern. "Do you think he's okay?"

"He will be," I replied, finally seeing the yellow outline of the drone materialize at the surface, "He's just disappointed. We all are, especially considering the shit we had to go through to get this far."

She just nodded, still glancing around at the other two boys with a small degree of worry. Together, we hauled the ROV up the side of the boat and onto the deck. She picked it up and said, "I'll go help Pope pack this away. Go tell JJ that we're good to go."

I would have much rather had helped Pope than deal with JJ's sure-to-be-pissy attitude but Kie had already walked away without giving me a chance to argue. So I walked up behind him, tapping on his shoulder gently. "Hey, you can start us up again. Everything's all set."