Yet, ingeniously appended to the mind-boggling natural spectacle, the cavern had been carefully engineered into a vast community. Seven stood on a platform mounted on a center wall. Below him were rows of buildings that ringed the edge of the mighty, perpetually swirling lake. On top of those were more buildings literally hanging off of the walls. And above where he stood, yet another ring of structures hung, projected from the walls and jutting out toward the center of the great cave. From the cavern's upper limit, another layer of buildings had been suspended from the high ceiling. The structures were clearly intended to lend the appearance of a magnificent design, layered and patterned to fit together in perfect, coordinated symmetry.
The space had also been carefully engineered for light. Great banks of lights projected horizontally from the center row of buildings and illuminated the entire cavern and lake below. But above the banks of lights, the layer of buildings hung in near darkness; their individual room lights illuminated the upper dome like so many stars.
Together, the awesome, natural display blended with the incredibly beautiful human engineering to fuse into the single most spectacular thing Seven had ever seen or imagined. He looked at Desmond, speechless.
Desmond smiled knowingly. "Those who live here call it Middlearth - a borrowed and slightly altered reflection from the Tolkein classics. The Government insists on calling this place R29, but Middlearth is probably more accurate, don't you think?"
Seven smiled widely as he looked out over the incredible scene before him. "I approve, professor. “The water - where does it all come from?" he asked.
"Ah, yes. And where does it all go?" Desmond responded with another equally enigmatic question. “This is obviously a common subterranean drainage point for the seven major underground tributaries you see before you that come together in this chamber. We speculate that the tributaries converge here as one of the major underground collection points for the entire Cumberland Plateau. They join to form a massive river beneath the earth that pours down into the center of this chamber and literally disappears before us. It is our best guess that this system feeds many of the Florida springs and aquifers and there is some anecdotal evidence that it ultimately feeds into the St. Johns River. Had we the time or inclination, this system would make for some fascinating research. Unfortunately, such a study would make little difference now."
Seven nodded. "How many people work here?" he asked.
"Now, only seventy five. But Middlearth is designed to ultimately house seven hundred and fifty souls."
"For how long?" Seven persisted.
"Indefinitely," the professor replied. "We can generate much more power than we need from the rivers. We have aquaculture farms and fields of plants under construction that will ultimately meet all our needs into the indefinite future. Middlearth is designed to provide sanctuary until the storms pass - if the storms pass."
"My God," Seven replied, looking back on the scene before him. "It's an ark."
"Yes, it is an ark. We will store seeds, bacteria, plants, animals and even a vast DNA collection to replenish the earth, if the opportunity so arises."
"How many other locations are there like this?" Seven asked.
"Oh, there is only one Middlearth, I can assure you," Desmond responded with a smile. "But there are other underground locations - in caves, in mines, beneath mountains and other deeply shielded locations all over the world. The United States is in the process of outfitting 30 of them, and Middlearth is number 29. But this... this is the gem of the fleet. No other shelter even comes close to these wonders... except perhaps for one."
The professor looked away from the world he had created beneath the earth to Seven. "And that is where you come into the picture. You have been selected to lead the team at R30."
"What? Where’s R30?" Seven asked.
"You know, lad, I had worked for weeks to prepare your visit, to introduce you to the plan, your part, your contributions, your benefits," Desmond said in total exasperation. "And you have managed to completely obliterate it all by your insatiable curiosity and my own insatiable excitement over our plans."
Then Desmond smiled. "But I should have expected nothing else. We need you for your quick mind, and it is the quick mind that commands. But please, give me a chance to lead here, Aaron. Relax for just a few hours, and it will all be laid out for you in proper form."
"Just one more question, professor, please," Seven replied. "Does R30 also have another name?"
Desmond smiled. "Ah, the curiosity of youth! One question inevitably leads to another. Yes, R30 does have another name. I call it Pacifica."
5
Every cell in Luci's tiny body ached from hunger. But it did not deter her; it merely drove her on. She had known little else in her life but pain, and this was just another kind. She crouched silently behind the dumpster in the pre-dawn darkness, waiting for the load of garbage she knew was coming. She was desperate with hunger, shivering with the cold and dampness of the early Seattle spring, and she was very alone. At just six years of age, Luci nourished but a single uncompromising resolve - she wanted to live. She did not know why, only that the food from the next garbage bag would keep her alive one more day.
As she waited silently and perfectly still - skilled in stealth, skilled in hiding, skilled in survival - her mind drifted back to a life that once was, a life that hovered around her consciousness like a distant chimera. She remembered an existence long ago, one of love, a family, security and all the things a little girl should have. But they were gone now and she was on her own. It was Luci against the world, Luci against her memories that came and went, faded and burst upon her young mind and toyed with her only hold on existence, which was as tenuous as life gets at six when utterly abandoned in a uncompromising, lonely and dangerous world.
Luci’s stringy, tangled, dishwater blond hair fell into a matted mass across her filthy forehead. Her blue eyes, trained to sense danger, peered out into the alleyway from a freckled and delicate face, across a small but perfect button nose and rounded cheeks. Her torn pants, held in place by a bright yellow nylon safety rope, and damp sweatshirt clung to her tiny frame. The bare fingers of her right hand stuck out from many holes in her wool gloves as they touched the cold, wet asphalt alley. Her breath condensed, curled and fell in the chilly, ever moist Seattle air, illuminated by the bitter blue glow of distant street lamps that painted her skin a pale and ghastly gray.
The fingers of her left hand clung tightly to Flower, the only trusted companion she had in the world. Flower, a tattered and dirty stuffed skunk, was all that remained from her former life; not so much a reminder of the past but as an anchor, and her only friend in the present life's tumultuous and never ending troubles.
As she waited, crouching and silent, Luci’s mind slipped in and out of a fragile sleep, surrounded by images of a mother's face and smile, of arms that held her in love, of food without end, of her strong and loving father, of her own room, dresses and lovely things. But as waking nightmares go, they were sordidly morphed between images of being lost, of assault, of pain, of want, of fear and of an oddly inexplicable desire to live and keep on searching until she found what she had lost so many childhood days, months and little girl lifetimes ago.
A violent slam of the dumpster's lid startled her out of a horrible semi-consciousness where dream and reality are hopelessly fused into images and feelings of immobilized terror. Slowly Luci peeked out from behind the rear of the giant, ugly and reeking steel box and watched the waiter disappear inside the high walled building. Then quickly she snapped to attention, crouching, desperate to make her move.
Luci stuffed Flower firmly into her right front pocket, gripped the pavement with the toes of her shredded sneakers and prepared to make her move. As she sensed the moment was right, she leapt away from her position and dove around to the front of the dumpster. She expertly slid her foot into the dumpster's lift cradle and pulled herself up. Then she tossed the lightweight plastic lid back with a singl
e frantic motion. There inside lay her prize: a black, bulging bag of garbage from one of Seattle's finest restaurants. She laid hold of her booty, gripping the heavy bag with both hands and slid off the dumpster to the ground.
With trained senses and an understanding far beyond her years, Luci first looked quickly around for approaching peril before moving her bag behind the dumpster where she would tear into it and find food. Sensing no imminent threats, she gripped the bag and began to pull it around to the back of the dumpster with great anticipation. She wanted urgently to stop and begin tearing the thin plastic bag apart with her hands right there, but she had learned… she had learned.
Finally, Luci tugged the bag into position, out of sight behind the dumpster. Her little fingers trembled with anticipation as she felt the pain in her tiny stomach screaming for food. But she stopped, her instincts to survive stronger than her momentary instinct to eat. Just one more check, one more glance to see…
"Little thief!" screamed a bearded derelict as he slammed the back of his hand across her face. Luci’s body lifted off the ground and sailed a full five feet before she landed and skidded against a nearby building wall.
"This is mine! Mine! And I told you before to stay away!" he said, screaming at her through a vicious, toothless sneer. He pointed a bony finger at her and began moving in her direction. "I think I'm going to sell you to the circus. Do you know what that means?"
Luci’s face and head stung from the blow. Her hand inched to her cheek as she sat frozen, looking up and trembling at the ugly monster that stepped slowly toward her. But it was Flower who saved her from the approaching ghoul. In the blow, Flower had fallen out of her pocket and lay on the street between her and the staggering derelict.
Without a moment's hesitation, Luci lunged forward and in a swift, single movement, seized Flower, jumped to her feet and fled into the alleyway as his virulent laughter and venomous cursing followed her into the darkness. She would cry later, maybe, as she tasted the fresh blood oozing between her trembling lips. But now she had to find another dumpster, another bag and something, anything, to eat, because the time was getting short.
Soon, the sky would begin to lighten. With the day came intolerable danger. But Luci had her own refuge, away from the creatures of the day - the police, the uncaring and often vicious caretakers of the state, the older boys of the day-lit street, and the endless armies of people who all seemed to want to inflict more hurt. But Luci and Flower had their own secret, a hiding place no one knew about or could reach, deep beneath the streets of Seattle.
6
Desmond and Seven turned from the balcony that overlooked the spectacle that was called Middlearth and passed through another door into the side of the sheer cliff face. They entered into a long, sloping hallway that eventually turned into yet another hallway. At the end was a large set of double doors over which hung the sign: CASE STUDY ALPHA. Desmond walked to the door, paused and looked back at Seven.
"Dr. Seven," he said sternly, "no matter what you are about to see in here, I must demand that you control your emotions. The individuals inside have all been selected, for better or for worse, for the specific intent of saving at least a part of humanity from inevitable extinction. Now I must ask you - no, I demand - that you suspend your personal prejudices and act on your fullest measure of professionalism. You must give me your word."
Seven lowered his eyebrows with undisguised suspicion, looked back at Desmond sternly and said nothing.
"I warn you fairly, my apprentice, this project is much bigger than you or me and whatever differences we may have had in the past. This may be your biggest test and you cannot afford to fail this time," Desmond stated sternly and bluntly.
"Open the door, Professor," Seven replied just as unsympathetically. "I’ll give you my answer when I see what little surprise lies inside."
Desmond sighed loudly and opened the door, yet what Seven saw astonished him even more than he had dreamed.
The area opened up into an expansive, elaborate conference room surrounded by huge, wall sized state of the art monitors and super sized computer displays. On several monitors were live pictures of the sun broadcast in various color filters from orbiting solar satellites, complete with scrolling data displays beside each. In the center of the darkened, cool room was a huge conference table with keyboards all around in front of two dozen posh, high backed, black leather captain chairs. Two seats were empty, one at the head of the table and the other beside it. Desmond merely led the way to his seat at the head and pointed for Seven to be seated beside him.
As Seven took his seat, his eyes traveled the length of the table, and there at the opposite end was Serea Dessant. But beside her was the surprise Desmond had attempted to prepare him for: his ex-fiancé, Dr. Karen Dartmouth - the woman for whom he had tossed his major professor through the closed window. Here was the same insufferable wench that had married the slug, even after Seven had gone to jail to defend their relationship.
Just as Seven caught his breath at the sight of her, his leg muscles tensed involuntarily to either get up and leave or sail across the long table and clutch her by her scrawny throat. At this precise moment of consideration, he could not make up his racing mind - to attack or to take his chances outside with the worst of nature's wrath rather than spending yet another second stuck in the den of the lower-than-snake wench. Then, a most extraordinary thing happened, one so unexpected and powerful that he nearly forgot his urge to toss Dr. Dartmouth out the closest window into the raging vortex some 400 feet below.
Serea Dessant looked him squarely in the eye and winked.
Seven’s eyes flickered back for just a half-second to his ex who sat staring at him coldly with an icy, calculated, practiced indifference. He knew that he could toss her out the window; his mind paced the steps. He could get up on the table, walk down the center, snatch her 102 anorexic pounds up by the armpits and just toss her though the glass. He had practice, he knew what he was doing. While there were no bushes below to cushion her fall, perhaps she would survive the impact on the giant whirlpool just before it swallowed her and sucked her to God knows where…
He was enjoying the fantasy when his eyes flickered back to Serea who still stared at him. In this critical half-second, it was her calm beauty that finally and decisively captured Seven. It so stunned him, that he relaxed, sat back slowly in his seat and said nothing, his astonished eyes fixed on her incredible, serene, radiating beauty, as she gazed directly at him with a half-knowing smile. Her eyes were locked onto his, holding him, caressing him, saving him from himself.
"It is my distinct privilege to introduce to you an individual about whom I have told you much," Desmond hurriedly and nervously began, casting one eye around to Seven whose focus was resolutely fixed on Serea. "I am delighted to say that Dr. Aaron Seven has officially joined the team and has committed his services to this most critical of all tasks that has ever faced humankind."
There was a scattering of sincere applause from the other members of the team, save Karen Dartmouth who idly doodled on a blank pad before her. Seven tore his gaze away from Serea and glanced back at Karen whose eyes lifted, slowly and icily to meet his.
"Now, Dr. Seven's primary duty for the next seventy two hours will be to evaluate our calculations and predictions of exactly when the storms will begin in earnest. Since it is his model that we have been utilizing, it is hoped that he will be able to shed some light on the capacity to accurately predict such a difficult quantum-stellar phenomena."
Seven looked away from Karen and glanced to the screens where the data sets were streaming. The room became silent as his eyes scanned the screens one at a time.
"Dr. Seven," Desmond continued, "after this meeting, we will give you a complete run down on the information we have been receiving from our probes and from our earth based observatories.”
“How do you actually know that there is a quantum storm brewing at all?” Seven asked.
“All that data will be inclu
ded in the package for your review later, of course.”
“Humor me,” Seven responded dourly, his propensity for respect toward his mentor now soured by his proximity to Karen and her persistent, ill-tempered scowl.
“It was just as you predicted in your thesis, Aaron,” Desmond began. “We discovered it first with the most recent missing sunspot cycle that seems to mimic the Maunder Minimum of 1645. Your thesis concluded that the sun was close to a storm at that time, one that would have altogether doomed humanity if we had been so unfortunate to have endured it then. After I saw the similarities to your thesis building in the evidence, I began to investigate the matter further.”
“What evidence?” Aaron asked, now focusing on the data screens all around him.
“The very same evidence you predicted would herald a storm: namely large scale subsurface disruptions in the solar plasma jet streams and convection cycles. We can see them all clearly now, thanks to the Global Oscillation Network Group. And finally, the prediction that these quantum effects would disrupt the solar oscillation period has also come to pass. The sun now oscillates at 4.25 beats every five minutes, exactly as your model predicted. Every one of your predictions, including the increase in and level of neutrino flux, have all been verified and they fit your model precisely.”
But Seven's eyes were fixed on a single one of the screens before him. "Can you freeze that screen?" he asked, rising from his seat and approaching the wall where it was mounted. Serea's hands moved across a keyboard in front of her and the screen ceased its data flow.
Seven stopped before the screen and cocked his head to one side, then slowly to the other, his eyes dancing across the equations and data tables. "What is this matrix?" he asked, pointing to the display.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 4