Sunken Treasure

Leaning over the cabin cruiser's rail, Danny Martin peered through the murky sea water. The darkness he'd just passed over ought to be the sunken visitor center. Quickly killing the motor, he dropped anchor onto the building's roof. Good, he thought. He'd not coasted too far from the building's exterior. Donning scuba gear, he swam down to and through one of the broken windows. Crossing a vacant room fast, he shot into a hallway. With one hand he pushed off its wall toward an intersection.

Danny couldn't slow down. Everything worth anything had already been salvaged by generations of scavengers. He needed to go deeper into the darkness to find anything of value. Only the capacity of his oxygen tank limited his hunting time and distance. At the intersection, he turned his head lamp to read the directions on the wall as he raced past. He confirmed from years of scavenging here, where on his mental map of the place, he was. Minutes later, he swam up to an unmarked, closed door. Once inside, a quick look assured him no other scavenger had found his treasure trove: the gift shop storeroom.

Starting where he’d stopped on his previous visit, he pulled apart rotten cardboard boxes. Yes! The shelf of boxes contained additional T-shirts. Still in their plastic wrap, they were as pristine as the day they'd been stored here centuries ago. Opening a box on a lower shelf, his heart sank. Its odd shaped contents told him they were not T-shirts. Smearing away the brown film covering the package, a teddy bear face appeared. Excited, Danny rubbed frantically to clear more of the film. This was going to fetch an excellent price. Pinned to the teddy bear’s furry chest was a button logo which read, “NASA.”

Word count: 296