Page 1 of Chasing Forever


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3 Months Ago: Offshore Oil Platform, Gulf ofMexico

Static echoed in his ears, barely discernable overthe piercing, high-pitched ringing. He blinked repeatedly, tryingto clear his hazy vision.

“Chase? Do you copy?” A frantic voice echoed,bringing him back to the present. Jose, his dive supervisor, calledhis name repeatedly in a broken transmission. Chase tried to shakeaway the fog that had encompassed his brain.

“Yeah, I’m here. Explosion knocked me out fora minute. I can’t see much. Everyone ok?” He searched in the debrisfor the cause of the blast. Couldn’t have been too big as the rigwas still standing, but it was definitely close. “Hank?” He calledfor the other diver, searching around but knowing he wouldn’t seemuch with such poor visibility.

“I’m sending down help. I know you’re hurt,but we need to you stabilize the… loose in… “

The voice cut out again.Loosewasnever a term you wanted to hear that described anything thatsupported an oil rig. He’d been inspecting the structure with Hankwhen the nearby explosion struck. Chase put his hand on theblowout-preventer in front of him and felt an unusualvibration.

Shit. If that came loose, there could be acatastrophic rupture. At best a leak, at worst, a bigger explosionthat could risk everyone on board the platform.

He kicked his legs rapidly, following themetal down until he found a weakness in the structure. Explosionmust have knocked the stabilizing mechanism loose; normally theback-ups would have shut it down. Wasn’t this the section Hank wasinspecting? The voice crackled but was too broken up tounderstand.

His head throbbed. At least his mask hadn’tcracked.

Finally, he reached the affected area of theblowout-preventor and pulled the emergency wet-welder out from histoolbelt. His shoulder was on fire as he pushed the loose BOPcomponent back into place, trying to hold it steady so he couldweld the weak zone together. The rattling clamp shook violently ashe struggled to hold it in place.

Movement out of the corner of his eye. Ivy,his dive tender. He held steady despite the startle she had caused.Without words, she pulled out a hammer to knock the clamp back intoplace where it had slid.

Crack, the sound of the hammer hittingthe metal reverberated through Chase’s body, making his head poundeven more and a wave of nausea passed over him. He slowly breathedin and out, suppressing the need to puke as his head throbbed.Vomiting would be more dangerous than if his mask had cracked inthe blast.

The rattling stopped; the well-placed hit hadworked. Chase didn’t hesitate, knowing it wouldn’t last. He quicklystarted the welder and sealed the weak zone. Despite the urgency,he took his time, ensuring the weld wouldn’t come loose in thecoming storm. His shoulder screamed under the strain of holding theheavy equipment steady against the strong current.

He held his position against the force of it.Even an emergency weld needed to be done right.

Repair complete, he gave a thumbs-up to hispartner. He scanned the area, but it wasn’t easy to see through thedebris. The pair swam together through the critical zones, checkingfor any other areas that had weakened in the explosion. No moremajor weak zones, but they patched up a few spots that lookedunstable.

Reassured they had dealt with any criticalhazards, they searched for Hank. Visibility was poor, but even adark shadow would be worth investigating.

Jose’s voice crackled through again, “Chase,we pulled out Hank. Come on back up. Take it slow. You’ve beenunder a while; you’ll need to decompress within 5 minutes ofsurfacing and stay in there a few hours.” He and Ivy silently andslowly rose back to the surface. He was glad Ivy had been his divetender this excursion; she was shockingly strong for her 5’5”height, and he’d yet to see a challenge she didn’t face headon.

As they surfaced, a huge hand reached out andpulled him up the rest of the way. Sitting on the lift, he managedto pull off his mask and gasped in the fresh, albeit smellyair.

“Chase, you ok?” Ivy pulled off her mask aswell.

He looked to the other diver. She looked asexhausted as he felt. Her spiky black hair was wild, her brown eyesat half-mast with exhaustion. They sat side-by-side on the divelift, shoulders hunched forward, eyes half closed.

“Yeah, no worries. Glad you stopped by; myshoulder was about to give out. Must’ve hit it on something in theblast.”

She weakly elbowed him in the side, a tiredsmile on her face. “Excuses, excuses.”

As they neared their destination, theyquickly stripped off their gear and climbed into the decompressionchamber. A familiar face appeared in the window almost immediately.Through the speaker, a deep voice echoed, “You got lucky. Hankdidn’t make it. From the looks of things, that blast was an airpocket from his equipment. I figure, he’d gotten tangled in somedebris and must have jerked something loose. His gear was allfucked up, and I think it was before the explosion. There’ll be aninvestigation.”

Chase looked up to see Jose looking down athim, face grim. They all knew it was a dangerous job. Hank had beenin this business for over 20 years, twice as long as Chase. If youwanted to enjoy the hazard pay, you had to retire before your luckran out. Hank had been invincible; pure muscle, pure stubborn, yetdidn’t even reach Chase’s shoulder. He’d been planning to retire toAlaska, grow a full Grizzly Adams, and spend the rest of his daysfishing on the Copper River.

Sitting quietly in the decompression chamber,listening to the rumbling of the contraption’s aging but functionalmotor, Chase and Ivy shared a moment of silence for the lost diverand friend.

Unfortunately for his raging headache, thesilence didn’t last long. A shockingly chipper voice greeted them,causing screeching feedback from the aging speaker in the chamber.Chase winced, his concussion nagging at him. “Great work downthere. We’re back up and running.” Ivy closed her eyes and tunedout the shrill voice. Stacy, the assistant operations managerpretended to ignore the snub. Jose was no help either; Chase couldsee him walking the other direction, disappearing from sight. Stacypressed her face to the glass. “I’ll put in a good word for you,Chase. With your quick thinking today, I’ll be sure a raise is justaround the corner for you.”

Chase gave a polite, but empty smile. Hecouldn’t motivate enough to come up with a decent response to herinanity. Having failed yet another of many attempts to be “one ofthe guys,” she turned on her heel and stalked off. He could see herthrough the glass, strutting back to the office in her pristineblue jeans and very intentionally blue-collared shirt.

Finally done decompressing, Chase trudged tosee the medic. Totally wiped out. At the metal door, he knocked hisgood shoulder into the door to get in. He was greeted with a gruff“Hello” as he parked himself on the exam table.

After a few minutes of poking and prodding,the medic gave him the good news. “Well, you didn’t break anything.Pretty good contusion to your shoulder, maybe some rotator cuffinvolvement but should improve with time. And rest. Take it easyfor a few days; 800 mg ibuprofen three times a day for seven to tendays. Maybe some physical therapy once you’re ashore. Theconcussion’s pretty nasty; you may have a headache for a few days.Total brain and body rest, got it? You’re off duty until yourhead’s back to normal.” The burly medic gave him the serious-face.“I mean it Chase. You don’t want another head injury while you’restill recovering.”