S066_076_lg.jpg

Object identified at 076 is stationary but non-reflective. Standard sonar returns null. Diver 4 reports a "glass-like" boundary at 400 fathoms. No entry gained. Thermal signatures indicate the object is exactly 98.6 degrees. It is breathing, Commander. We are returning to the surface.

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

The file was buried four folders deep inside an external hard drive Arthur hadn't powered up since 2014. s066_076_lg.jpg

He was looking for his old tax returns, but the label pulled him in. Unlike the surrounding files—neatly named Beach_Trip_01 or Graduation_Raw —this one looked like a system-generated string or a piece of catalog inventory. He double-clicked it.

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. Object identified at 076 is stationary but non-reflective

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.

Arthur’s breath hitched. He checked the file properties. The photo had been created in 2012 on an old flatbed scanner, but there was no metadata indicating where the original document was. No entry gained

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