470798_424218 -

Tomorrow, he would steal a snowmobile and head toward the coordinates of Buoy Theta. NC-EST2020-ALLDATA-H-File14.csv - Census.gov

Elias reached for the red telephone on his desk to call central command. His hand hovered over the receiver. If he reported this, the military would swarm the station, redact his logs, and send him into a forced, silent retirement. But if he didn't report it, whatever was down there in the dark, frozen water—screaming out after decades of absolute silence—would be lost forever. 470798_424218

The first number, , was the identifier for Buoy Theta—a station anchored directly above the deepest trench in the Arctic Ocean. The buoy had been declared lost and struck from the records in 1994 after a massive sheet of shelf ice crushed the surface station. It shouldn't have been transmitting at all. Tomorrow, he would steal a snowmobile and head