Interlude Seven point Four, Iron Maiden Goes "Home"
The IPAC launch bobbed in the water near the warning buoy at the site
of the platform wreckage. In the boat, Iron Maiden shifted he pack,
trying to find a comfortable position to carry the awkward SCUBA
gear which had been jury rigged onto her armour. Finally deciding
that it would matter less in the water, she hopped overboard.
Her heavy armour dragged her down quickly, but she was brought up
short by the wreckage of a support strut. Clicking on the diving
light she had brought, she looked around. Below her the main body
of the platform was dimly visible on the sea floor.
Iron Maiden clung stood on the strut peering down at the wreckage.
Visibility wasn't too bad. One of the scientists who had
"pre-flighted" her (what she had started to call it; there was a long
enough list that it reminded her of flying with her father) had
mentioned something about green wavelengths. All she had noted was his
tone--it seemed as if there might be another positive out of
her...transformation? Mutation? She'd never really regarded other
paras and their origins. But now she was quite interested in those who
had begun life as a Regular Joe and had then been altered. The
research was something she looked forward to. And it started right
here.
As she let herself fall toward the platform, she took a glance at her
watch. Thirty minutes she be long enough for an initial probe, she
thought. What the heck am I looking for? Well, maybe something will
leap out at me. A laugh. Well, just figuratively she corrected
herself.
The lab had split completely in half, falling open like a flower
to the sea floor. She floated down between the two halves. Below
her she saw a strange reflection. Gently she came to rest on
a bumpy, irregular blob of melted glass perhaps twenty feet across.
Iron Maiden moved off of the glass in order to lift it up and examine
it more closely. She got her hands under the edge and hefted it, then
once it was over her head, she began to move forward pressing the glass
into a vertical position.
She had no idea what it meant. Something had melted this and she
didn't know if it would held any merit for study or not. Well, she
thought, I can't decide, so I'll let the science boys do it.
She punched a hole a good meter from the edge and threaded some line
through it. She'd secure it to one of the remaining pylons so it could
be retrieved by a larger boat the launch.
Unanswered questions floated through her mind. Why here? What was
being attempted? Why me?
Eventually, she grabbed her line and floated back to the surface. There
was nothing else to be done here. The answers were somewhere else.
Last Updated 13 July 2000
