"The Beast of Trash Island" is a horror/suspense novella by Steve Metcalf. In this chapter, the team finally arrives at the swirling trash vortex and begins recording on every piece of high-tech equipment they have brought. Oddly enough, there's a black sphere a short distance into the debris island that seems to be glowing a bright orange on their full-spectrum cameras.
Chapter Three, Vortex
IN THE FADING SUN, Trash Island seemed to stretch on forever. It was a mosaic of different colors, materials and objects—some as small as postage stamps, some as large as car doors. At its highest, the island only stood a foot off the surface of the water. For the most part, however, the island lived beneath the water. Partly, this was the reason no one could accurately map the mass—satellite images couldn’t penetrate deep enough into the ocean to get a proper reading.
It was the evening of March 17th. Just a bit more than 40 hours after they had started their trip.
As it undulated with the motion of the waves, the island became almost hypnotic. People onboard the Aqua Tom were snapping pictures and taking cell phone video.
Edmund turned to James.
“Just how big is this thing?”
James shrugged and answered without taking his eyes off the floating monstrosity. “Since huge sections of the vortex only exist underwater, satellite images can’t really be trusted. Some people estimate that it’s about 50 square miles, some people estimate that it’s twice the size of the state of Texas.” He paused, blinking at the setting sun. “We’re here to try to get some conclusive answers.”
Edmund nodded. The yacht had come to rest at the perimeter of the island of plastic. Turned sideways, the port, or left, side of the boat ran parallel to the edge of the floating mass. Ai and Micah had moved along the deck to stand next to James and Edmund. The four people who had organized the expedition all stood at the edge of the ship’s flying bridge—the topmost deck, and a spot pretty much reserved for the ship’s royalty. They were in line, leaning on the brass railing.
“What’s the plan of attack?” Micah asked.
“Every piece of recording equipment is running right now,” Ai said, turning to James. He nodded in response. “I think our first goal is to map it out and maybe take some samples?”
Even though it felt like a statement, she phrased this last point as a question. She and James had developed a checklist, but, staring at the enormity of the vortex, they were all a bit flustered.
“Yeah,” James said. “We’re rolling on everything we can. Collecting as much data as possible.” He turned to Micah. “You rolling on tape?”
Micah nodded.
“For about an hour now,” he said. “Stationary cameras along the deck. I’ve got two recording your equipment. One remote-controlled hull camera.” He thought for a moment. “Plus, I’m going to use all of the film these yahoos are producing, though they don’t know it yet.”
James nodded in response.
“So you’re covered for now,” he said. “Plus you can shoot all around the exploration of the island itself.”
Everyone agreed.
“You think we should just stay here for the night?” Edmund asked, trying to reason out their next steps. “Start the exploration in the morning?”
The three researchers looked at each other in turn. Finally, it was Micah who spoke up. He turned to Edmund.
“You have GPS-enabled buoys, right?”
Edmund nodded.
“Yeah. I think we have a dozen or so. Maybe more,” he said. “They’re pretty small because they have a GPS beacon and a strobe with about a three-mile sight distance.”
“Wow,” Ai said.
“Let’s drop one here,” Micah said. “And start making our way around the perimeter while we still have some light.” He turned to James. “You can start mapping this thing right now, right?”
James nodded. “Yep. The equipment is already taking sonar stills and, I assume, we’re getting some interesting data from the hull cam.”
“I’ll go inform the crew,” Edmund said, pushing away from the gunwale and turning to his right. “Drop a buoy and continue on a north-westerly path around the perimeter. What? Twenty yards off the coast?”
He looked at Micah for confirmation.
“Sounds good to me,” Micah said. He turned to James, and then Ai. “Let’s go check your data. See if anything interesting has turned up yet.”
* *
“Wait a second,” James said. “Go back.” He pointed to the monitor. “Something over here.”
James, Micah and Ai were huddled around a bank of monitors in one of the main deck staterooms. The bed had been removed from this room to make way for a second desk. There were several monitors, multiple folding chairs and stacks of printer paper, extra ink and boxes of blank tape for the cameras James was using that didn’t rely on digital recording. Investigation was, after all, the main purpose of this trip...rather than a Spring Break Party Cruise.
Ai was scrolling through banks and banks of data that her seismic recorders had tracked. James and Micah scanned the garbage vortex with the motorized hull camera.
Micah rotated the control of the camera. Right now it was outfitted with a full spectrum lens capable of displaying a spectrum not visible to the human eye. It was broadcasting to the in-boat monitor in a purple hue. Ai had looked up from her numbers when James called out.
Slowly, by a factor of degrees, Micah turned the camera’s view back to the spot that James had indicated.
“There.” Ai lunged forward. “I can see it.”
She pointed to a section of the screen. Micah peered at it and started punching commands into the keyboard. Slowly, the focus in that area of the screen started sharpening.
What had originally looked like a bright, amorphous blob was now gaining shape. It was a sphere. Orange. Glowing with some sort of energy output.
“What the hell is that?” Micah said, leaning forward.
He touched the screen and started tapping on the unit’s keyboard. A small text box appeared in the upper right corner of the monitor. The box was filled with a lengthy data readout. Micah scrolled through the data and shook his head.
“There’re no energy readings,” he said. “But it’s clearly giving off something. I’ve never seen this hue before on the FSC. I’d have to dig into the owner’s manual to figure out what that color actually means.”
“Is that the distance?” James asked, looking from the orange sphere to the text readout and then back again. “Forty yards?”
“Uh-huh,” Ai said. “How deep is it, though? How far under the surface?”
Micah reached up and double-tapped the screen. The text box jumped and then reset.
“Forty yards out,” he said, translating the data. “Eighteen inches deep.”
He turned and flashed a winning smile at Ai.
“How’s about we go check it out?”
* *
The setting sun was casting a strange golden glow over Trash Island. The Aqua Tom had come to a full stop and the crew was preparing to shut down for the night—a full night’s rest for all eight crewmen.
Micah and Ai were paddling off the port side of the yacht in an inflatable raft. They were concerned that the bits of plastic would gum up the propellers of either the ship or the motorized dinghy that was attached to the aft section of the Aqua Tom.
Edmund and James stood watching from the flying bridge.
“You sure about this?” Edmund said. “Letting your girl go on an adventure with our boy there?” He nodded his chin in the direction of the inflatable raft as it was paddled further and further away. “He’s a pretty handsome fellow, you know,” he said, winking.
James recoiled like he had been slapped.
“She’s not my girl,” he said.
“Okay.” Edmund grinned.
James stood stoically, staring at the raft, blinking.
* *
About 40 yards out, Ai and Micah paused in their paddling. Ai raised a camcorder to eye level. It was basically a portable version of the same technology that powered the hull camera. Right now, she was peering at the LCD screen. The lens, likewise, was filtering data through a full-spectrum overlay. She was searching for the exact location of the orange orb.
The sun was almost gone and Micah glanced back at the Aqua Tom to gauge how far they had come. He noted the lit portals and the activity on the deck. He hadn’t actually seen the yacht from this angle at night—it was massive, and very pretty. He was brought back to the present adventure, though, when Ai called out.
“There,” she said, pointing, still looking at the LCD screen of the camera. “It’s about six feet that way.”
Slowly, the two grad students paddled over to the correct spot and stopped. They both unclipped huge Maglite flashlights from the interior of the rubber raft and pointed them in the direction of the sphere.
“Whoa,” Micah said.
They had expected the sphere to be orange—even though the full-spectrum camera wasn’t designed to deliver accurate color output. It was black. Pure black. So black that the light of the twin flashlights seemed to simply fall into it rather than reflect it back. It was the size of a beach ball and it seemed to be bobbing just below the surface of the water.
They moved their flashlights in tandem, circling the orb.
“Is that a…” Ai started and then stopped. “Is that a piece of airplane fuselage?”
The sphere seemed to be resting on a section of an airplane. In the failing light, illuminated by powerful beams from their flashlights—they could clearly see rivets and some lettering: RU-CORP, and, just below that, A2979-BK in smaller font.
“Looks more like a section of a tail fin,” Micah said. “Are those supposed to float?”
Ai shrugged without moving her flashlight.
After a moment, she put the Maglite down and reached forward with her paddle. She tried to pull the airplane piece—and, thus, the sphere—closer to the rubber raft.
“What are you doing?” Micah whispered, leaning forward over her right shoulder.
“Help me get it into the boat,” she said, putting down the paddle and leaning forward.
“It looks heavy,” Micah said.
“Well, it can’t be that heavy if it’s floating.”
She reached forward, bracing her hips against the inflated edge of the raft. Micah tried to hold onto the back of her shirt so she didn’t fall into the water. At the same time, he was leaning to the opposite side of the raft to balance her weight. She grasped the two sides of the sphere. Waves caused the cool Pacific water to splash up her arms nearly to her shoulders.
“It’s cold,” Ai said. “And…” She paused. “Dry. It feels dry, somehow. Even though it’s under water. It feels dry against my fingers.”
With a grunt, she hefted it up off the tail section and out of the water.
“Oof,” she said as she pivoted and gently placed it against the mesh covering of the rubber floor. “Heavier than I expected,” she said, wiping her hands down the sides of her shirt.
Micah was staring at the sphere, his Maglite trained right at the center of it.
“It’s perfect,” he said dreamily.
In the last of the day’s sunlight, Ai nodded. She, too, was staring at the orb, seemingly unsure what to say.
Neither of them noticed the ripple that passed through Trash Island immediately after the sphere was removed from its resting place.
* *
There were 18 people onboard the Aqua Tom—all aware of the two people slowly paddling an inflatable rubber raft through an ocean of plastic. They weren’t gathered because of any significance outside of the fact that two people suddenly left the ship to seek out something. A piece of trash in an island of trash. Everyone was curious to see what it was that Micah and Ai had found so interesting. Even so, the crew was still half going about their own task lists and the students were drinking, eating or flirting.
One individual was wearing a pair of night vision goggles—a gift with purchase of a popular first-person shooter video game—and was telling the story moment by moment to his friend. This friend relayed it to another friend who had relayed it to another friend. Now everyone, including the boat’s crew, was standing along the port gunwale—the left side of the yacht—tracking their slow progress back under the steady eye of the rising moon.
Ai, sweating, looked up at the yacht—now only 15 yards away—and the weirdness of the situation started to take hold of her. What was this object? Why was it showing up so strangely on the full-spectrum camera? Why did she find it necessary to immediately go and retrieve it without any further data? All of the people, silhouetted against the moon, were staring at her, waiting to examine this strange object.
For his part, Micah’s mind was reeling with similar questions.
“What was it?”
“How did it get there?”
“Was it responsible for the plane wreck?”
“Should he look up the call sign and find out what happened?”
“How could an object of this weight be floating in the ocean?”
“Could he sell it?”
“Should he sell it?”
After another couple minutes they arrived back at the Aqua Tom.
* *
Nearly two dozen people stood in a cluster around the black sphere. Most were taking photos and video with their phones or small cameras. The rest held flashlights that were passed around by the crew. The deck lights were all turned on and two spotlights that were anchored to the stern were turned to point at the object.
For all they knew, it was a giant ball bearing. But it just got pulled out of Trash Island. It represented the first tangible result of the scientific reason the yacht was there, regardless of the week-long party Edmund had promised these college students.
The four organizers of the excursion were standing closest to the sphere. Edmund was crouching, rubbing his fingertips across its surface.
“I got a friend who self-publishes books,” he said without looking up from the sphere. “He gets two proof copies every time. One with a glossy finish and one with a matte finish on the cover. Just so he can feel the difference. This is like a matte finish. Sticky yet smooth. Dry yet wet.” He turned back to Micah with a smile creeping across his face. “It’s bizarre.”
They were clustered around the aft, or rear, of the ship. This area was the main deck’s “party deck.” It was lined with benches, covered with engineered hardwood floors and had a huge hot tub in the corner. Even though The Four, as the other passengers had started referring to them, stood closest to the sphere, the rest of the Stanford students crowded around.
Ai nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” she said. “When I lifted it out of the water, I had the same reaction. Even though it was submerged, it felt dry at the same time.” She thought for a moment. “Smooth, yet pebbled. Almost leathery.”
“What is it?” James said. “I mean, really. Do we think it’s man made? It isn’t metal. Is it plastic? Is it stone?”
There were a few beats of silence.
“What’s that black stone?” Edmund asked, snapping his fingers. “The one that comes from volcanos? That floats, right?”
“Basalt?” Micah offered. “I don’t think that’s black, though.”
Silence again.
Suddenly, there was a voice from the crowd.
“Obsidian,” she said. “It’s black. And smooth like glass.”
A young lady made her way from the middle of the crowd to the front. Tall and thin, she was built like a distance runner and wore modest clothes—a sun dress and plain white sneakers that accented the caramel color of her skin. Edmund was taken aback by her striking beauty.
“I think I’d remember inviting you,” he said, smiling, losing his grip on the moment.
“I’m Sarah,” she said. “You didn’t invite me. You invited my roommate and I tagged along.” She knelt by the sphere and looked at Edmund, eye to eye. “Is it smooth to the touch? Like glass?”
Edmund shook his head comically, as if to clear the cobwebs. “No, it doesn’t feel like glass,” he said, putting his hand on the sphere and pushing it a bit. “There’s even a little give on the surface.” He pulled his hand away and leaned in close.
“My fingers don’t leave an impression,” he continued. “But there’s a little give. Like you were pushing on a phone book.”
He did it again, pushing on the sphere and then pulling his hand back. Sarah, for her part, mimicked this motion on her side of the sphere.
“Did you notice something?” she asked.
Edmund didn’t say anything, but raised his eyebrows in response. James looked at Sarah. He had yet to touch the sphere and seemed content, for now, in taking dozens of pictures.
“What?” James said after a pause. “What is it?”
Sarah looked from Edmund to James. She was smiling, but had a wide, excited look in her eyes.
“It didn’t move when I touched it,” she said. “The sphere is anchored to this spot on the deck. It doesn’t want to move.”
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