The First Bird: Episode 1 tfb-1 Read online

  The blackness made Matt feel claustrophobic. He could have been at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench, so complete was the darkness. The small pipe of light from his mask did little to dispel the eerie nothingness surrounding him. His rational mind knew he was no more than twenty-five feet below the surface … the problem was, his imagination was trying to stop him from believing it.

  He continued along Kurt’s rope, pausing to repressurize his ears before swimming on. At about thirty feet he was feeling the pressure of the dive, and his muscles were becoming fatigued from the strain of swimming and keeping his body below the water. Kurt’s rope veered toward the wall and snaked its way into a huge horizontal hole in the column, heading under the massive crater wall. Matt paused for a second or two, sucked in a huge lungful of compressed air, and then followed.

  He pulled himself along Kurt’s rope, not caring now if he was causing additional drag on the tether. He was over it. The oppressive darkness was making him feel tiny, alone, and extremely vulnerable. Kurt and his rope were the only links to his own world.

  Suddenly the rope went taut, and then slack in his hands. Matt’s eyes widened as he realized that Steinberg’s bodyguard had somehow become untethered. Matt had a moment of indecision, wondering whether he should continue, when he realized that he could see something farther along the tunnel… without using his light. There was a tongue of green up ahead. He swam on.

  In a few seconds, he saw a shimmering disk above him as he rose to the surface. His head broke through into another humid landscape, Kurt’s rope dangling uselessly in his hands.

  Large hands grabbed him under the shoulders and lifted him free. Kurt plonked him on the ground and then stood back and waved his arms in a theatrical arc.

  “Welcome to paradise.”

  About Greig Beck

  Greig Beck grew up across the road from Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. His early days were spent surfing, sunbaking and reading science fiction on the sand. He then went on to study computer science, immerse himself in the financial software industry and later received an MBA. Greig is the director of a software company but still finds time to write and surf. He lives in Sydney with his wife, son and an enormous black German shepherd.

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