CHAPTER SIXTEEN
December 19, 2012 AD – 5:46 PM,
Middle of the Atlantic Ocean
20:46 GMT
• • • • •
“I need to put the children back in the hyperbaric chamber for a while longer. The low pressure oxygen will help with the radiation and keep down any infection on their backside. They’re gonna need some additional treatment when we get back to the mainland. But a hospital will be able to handle that better.”
Luke and Marshall were escorting Janine and Dwayne to the guest quarters on the boat while Luke explained what was happening to their children, who were still in the infirmary. The back half of each child was severely blistered from the massive solar burn they’d received over five hours ago, but fortunately the other half was essentially undamaged. Janine looked over to Luke as they walked toward the cabins.
“Are they going to be alright?”
Luke smiled and nodded at her.
“They’re lucky they got inside the boat as fast as they did when the storm hit. As far as I can tell, everyone… including Lola, is going to be okay. The children just need to give their backs a little time to heal in a clean environment. I’m going to set up the cots in the wall of the hyperbaric chamber so they can lie face down and sleep for a while. They need to rest. In fact, now that everyone has medicine in them, it’ll do all of you good to take a little nap. When you guys wake up, we’ll have some late dinner, and you and I can go see them together.”
Janine smiled when she realized how tired she was. Marshall stopped in front of a cabin door and looked at Dwayne.
“There’s a shower and some clothes inside. When you wake up, and we grab a bite to eat, I’ll give you that grand tour I promised. We’ve got an all night trip ahead of us to get back to Miami. There’s plenty of time.”
Dwayne had a hard time keeping his eyes open. The medicine Luke had given him and his wife was beginning to have an effect. But he managed to perk up enough to shake Marshall’s hand.
“You got yourself a bargain. I gotta see this boat.” Then Dwayne’s attention focused, and he made direct eye-contact with Marshall. He smiled as he held Marshall’s hand in a tight grip. “Thank you… sincerely.”
Marshall grinned and returned Dwayne’s grip.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad everyone’s gonna be okay. Y’all get some rest. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
Dwayne and Janine slipped into their cabin as the Tomkin men turned and started toward the hyperbaric chamber, mysteriously marked engine room, to get it ready for the two burned children. They made their way to the bottom corridor of the vessel while Luke chatted casually.
“Those folding berths in the guest quarters look an awful lot like the sleeping berths on a nuclear submarine. Did you know that?”
“Let me guess, more Military Channel?” Marshall was thinking that somebody at the Pentagon ought to check out those guys over at the Military Channel. There seemed to be way too much information leaking out of the cable television sets in the country these days; information that formerly took the lives of spies to obtain. Now it seemed like you could just set your DVR and become a military expert.
Luke laughed. “You should check it out. You might be surprised what kind of information is floating around out there.”
The door to the hyperbaric chamber was still latched open against the side bulkhead as they approached the end of the corridor. Luke went in first.
“I’ll set up the sleeping cots in the wall. We can put the kids on them and keep their IV lines on the latch above the bed.”
He walked past the panel that Marshall used to control the hyperbaric oxygen and pressure then headed for the back cots against the bulkhead wall. He stopped at the bunks and began to rearrange the bedding.
Marshall stepped in front of the control panel and bent over to adjust the chamber for the same setting they had earlier. He spoke over his shoulder to Luke.
“Okay, I’ll set the gas mixture now. That way you’ll just have to switch it on from outside when you get the kids back in here. Pure oxygen and half atmospheric pressure, right?”
Marshall turned back around and looked up to show Luke what he was doing. He didn’t see Luke beside the cots, like he expected. What he saw was Luke standing in front of the door at the far end of the long radiation shielded pressure tube. Before Marshall could react, Luke twisted the latch and pushed it open. Marshall jumped up and sprinted to the other end of the chamber, while he cursed himself for not putting a lock on this pressure door, as well. It had never seemed necessary. Anyone inside had already passed the keypad security. And anyone coming from the other direction would—
He didn’t have time to finish his thought. Before he could reach him, Luke jumped into the room on the other side of the door. Marshall got to the door in time to see Luke stand up from the seven step leap. Luke landed on a platform to another small flight of stairs that went down to the bottom of the boat. Where there should have been a pair of gigantic diesel engines, there were instead two mini-submarines. In the middle of the bottom hull, was what appeared to be a set of large watertight doors. Luke could see the doors covered a moon-pool opening in the bottom hull for launching the subs and divers from the boat.
Luke had already mentally photographed the entire room before Marshall grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. Then Marshall pushed his defiant, but now compliant, nephew up the stairs and back into the chamber. He pulled the door closed and turned back around to face his nephew. But Luke had already turned and was now walking back to the front of the corridor.
When Luke got there, he bent down and looked at the control panel where Marshall had been setting the gas mixture. Then he stood up and crossed his arms as he turned and stared at his uncle at the other end of the room. Marshall was also staring intently at Luke when he spoke.
“I should kick your ass.”
Luke went in for the verbal judo.
“In a minute… But first, that walk-in refrigerator sized box in the rear of the real engine compartment was a US Atomic Mark-8 NeoDyne Power Block… Self-contained nuclear steam generator. Smallest design made, I believe.”
Marshall was quickly closing the distance to the front of the long room but stopped in mid-stride. His jaw was also hanging slightly open. Luke continued on as if it were a product demonstration lecture.
“When combined with a high-temperature turbo steam propulsion system, like the Pratt and Whitney unit that was next to the Mark-8, by the way, it could easily power a big yacht this size… or maybe a small submarine. Say something in the range of a small Virginia or Los Angeles Class, maybe of a size under—”
“STOP, right there…”
Marshall interrupted his about-to-be-classified briefing and started toward him again.
“I know for a fact what you’re about to say…”
He got to the spot where Luke was standing with his arms crossed, and a big smile on his face. Marshall didn’t return the smirking grimace. Instead, he readjusted his attitude and continued.
“Is NOT something you saw on the Military Channel… Am I right, so far?”
Luke just kept on smiling. Then he remembered something, and he smiled even bigger. But the sarcasm was evident when he answered Marshall.
“You know, you took a really big chance. The radiation shielding could have interfered with the nuclear generator. That static charge I told you about actually could have really been dangerous to the whole system. The Mark-8 computer has to monitor the entire electrical state of the environment around it. It could have theoretically even caused a meltdown. You should have told me.” Luke looked a little angry, but he was still smiling.
Marshall walked right into it again. “No Einstein. I didn’t take a chance. I had it verified before I let you put that nano stuff on the boat. Why do you think I wouldn’t let you wire into the power grid?”
“Really? Wow! You had it verified… By whom?” The sarcasm was overflowi
ng, but Luke never stopped smiling. It was beginning to creep Marshall out.
“By people who can answer technical AND classified questions. That’s who. I could tell you… but then I’d have to kill you.” Now he grinned back at his Nephew.
Luke started nodding his head but kept looking Marshall in the eyes.
“That would be a DOD document with the routing number of 7581-52-440 and the title of, ‘Request for Specification Compatibility - Nuclear Hardware and Systems document ID 65223,’ which was submitted approximately nine-and-a-half months ago… give or take a few days… I’m guessing.” Luke was about to keep going, but he saw that he’d hit his mark. He stopped talking but kept smiling.
Marshall was dumbfounded.
There was enough of what Luke had just quoted that Marshall could remember was actually on the paperwork for the nano-shield upgrade to convince him his Nephew knew of the existence of the documents. He stumbled out his response.
“How… how do you know that information?”
“I could tell you… but then I’d have to kill you.”
Marshall cracked up when he heard this. He tried unsuccessfully to recompose himself and chuckled out loud, again. After another few moments, he managed to calm his funny bone. He barely held the giggles at bay when he finally looked at Luke.
“Spill it, smart ass. I’ll take my chances.”
“I invented the shit. Who do you think THEY asked? Huh, smart ass?”
Then Luke got that special grin on his face, again.
Marshall started laughing, again. He had no other choice. His nephew always seemed to be one step ahead. That was gonna stop, real soon. Marshall intended to make sure of it. But for now, Marshall just kept laughing. Luke kept talking.
“Although, I was never told of the actual vessel. I assumed it was some new attack boat. My calculations and my ultimate answer could have been adjusted had I known of the final hull configuration and material. In fact, now that I know the actual boat we’re talking about, I’m sure I could’ve increased the plating over the living sections. And then you wouldn’t have a twenty minute ‘egg-timer on your balls,’ as you put it.”
Luke spread his hands apart for a second and gave Marshall that ‘oh well’ shrug. Then he grabbed his crotch with both hands and smiled. Marshall finally walked past Luke toward the infirmary. He was still chuckling as he yelled back to him.
“You and me are gonna have to work on our communication.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like my ex-wife,” snapped Luke.
Marshall just grunted, but he kept on walking.
“Uh uh. Don’t compare me to that bitch. Now come upstairs and help me get these kids back down here in this oxygen. And stop nosing around my fishing boat. Didn’t you know, curiosity killed the kitty cat?” He reached the end of the hall and looked back.
Luke jumped over the bulkhead in the doorway and started after him. “This is no fishing boat,” he said mostly to himself as he jogged up the hallway after his uncle. “And I got your kitty cat RIGHT HERE.”
The last part was said loud enough for his uncle to hear. But Marshall had already turned to go up the stairs to the infirmary. It was a good thing, too. He would have been required to return the Secret-Sign-of-the-Gentryhood that Luke pointed in his direction.
Just before he reached the staircase, Luke could hear Marshall on the landing upstairs as he called back down to him.
“I saw that…”
Luke shook his head and smiled as he rounded the corner and headed up one flight. Marshall was already gone when he looked up.
‘That man can move like a ghost, when he wants to,’ thought Luke, as he took the stairs three at a time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
October 2, 2000 AD – 8:01 AM,
University of Miami, Florida, USA
The God in the Clear Rock Page 17