S066_076_lg.jpg

The image took several seconds to load, drawing a sharp, high-resolution line across the screen from top to bottom. It wasn't a family photo. It was a scanned document, a piece of heavy, cream-colored letterhead dated October 14, 1966. The header read: Sovereign Deep-Sea Survey: Sector 066.

We could write the next chapter of Arthur's discovery, or we could brainstorm what the "Sovereign Deep-Sea Survey" was actually looking for. s066_076_lg.jpg

The file was buried four folders deep inside an external hard drive Arthur hadn't powered up since 2014. The image took several seconds to load, drawing

Arthur leaned in closer to the screen. Below the header was a black-and-white grid map, hand-drawn with coordinates slicing through a section of the North Atlantic. In the very center of the grid, at coordinate 076, a tiny, perfectly symmetrical circle had been inked in red. The header read: Sovereign Deep-Sea Survey: Sector 066

Below the map was a single paragraph of typed text from a manual typewriter. The ink was heavy on the page:

He clicked back to the main folder. He wanted to see if there was a s066_075 or a s066_077 , but the folder was empty. It was a lone fragment, an accidental souvenir from a project that didn't exist in any history book.

He looked back at the screen. In the reflection of the dark glass of the monitor, Arthur noticed something that hadn't been there a moment ago.