"Crap! We have a red tide."/ Shall I get the chocolate?
"No it's not that time yet. I mean we have a dead zone rolling in. Need to find out what is causing it before too much damage is done to this tidal sanctuary."
For those who are unaware of what a Red Tide is, I present you with this.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/redtide.html -- Fighting Fit
Working at the Shoreline Wilderness Sanctuary was usually just watching a bunch of feeds and occasionally sending drones out to scout the weather. Often very quiet and focused on whichever point of interest was scientifically relevant in the hour.
It tended to attract the kind of people who were obsessed with that sort of thing in the first place. The kind of people who would willingly spend three hours peering at blurry night-vision images of turtles hatching with a clicker in one hand and an energy drink in the other.
This time, though, Sal was watching the weather drone feed. "Shit. Red tide."
Maury had been documenting the local birds' nests. "Huh? You want me to do a choccy run? We need more of those tin containers, don't we?"
"Not that red tide. The fuck-this red tide.'
Maury put his feed on record for later in the evening and scooted across to examine Sal's drone feed. Sure enough, a giant algal bloom was drifting ever closer to their sanctuary. Not yet enough to be dangerous, but also not showing any signs of slowing down.
They would have to find the source before it endangered the whole damn food web.
"Oh fuck this," muttered Maury. "We're going to have to bust out the powerglider to trace this shit up-current."
They simultaneously said, "One two three, not it."
"Spuds," said Sal, and they played a brief round of Rock-Paper-Scissors. She threw scissors. Maury threw stone.
"Ah fuck me. I hate the powerglider."
"We all hate the powerglider. Get going. Time and tide..."
"Hardy har har."
The drones could only go so far or so high. The powerglider had to be extracted from its storage shed, fueled up, powered up, and all the comms equipment had to be checked. As well as the safety equipment. Maury launched under protest and headed towards the co-ordinates of the algae.
He had to shout above the engine directly behind him. "Yeah I can see it. The current's coming from deeper in the ocean. I got the tracker going so we can get coords for use."
"And the cam for verify?" said Sal on the comms.
"No I left that off 'cause I'm an idiot," shouted Maury. "Of course I got the cam on." A loud and vertiginous flight further up-current found the start of the bloom. And a small yacht with barrels on its deck.
Maury made sure to get a good shot of someone on the yacht pushing a barrel into the water. This was definitely illegal dumping. "We got us a dump job," he shouted, turning back towards their base. "Get the cops on the horn."
"Aw fuck this," sighed Sal. "Also calling the cavalry to salvage the fucking dumped material."
Maury joined her chorus, "Because official channels take forever."
[Photo by Evgenii Pliusnin on Unsplash]
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