A long moment of silence followed, then the man spoke. “The name’s Striker Legend,” he said extending his hand toward the still prostrate Seven. “I believe you.”
Seven reached out slowly and accepted the man’s vise-like grip as they locked eyes together.
“Boss!” an obviously surprised Sam exclaimed from the darkness. “That was the lamest spy story I ever heard. This guy’s just another Dr. Adams returning for one more shot, mark my words. There’s no way…”
“Dr. Storms, you’d be dead again except for one thing…” Legend said, with an ongoing stare into Seven’s eyes.
“My ineffable charm or my dashing good looks?” Seven asked with no trace of a smile.
“My brother’s a sonar expert. He tells me there’s an extremely noisy human underwater operation right about the spot you’ve described for Pacifica . But I suspect it’s gone by now.”
“What?” Seven responded, forcing himself up onto his elbow. “What do you mean, gone?”
“We’ve been playing cat-and-mouse with a nasty Chinese submarine intent on our destruction. We’re a submergible platform designed to run silent, just to keep out of harm’s way from your quantum storms and evil submarine captains in bad moods. But your underwater settlement, well, it wasn’t exactly conceived with that in mind, and every submarine in the Pacific will be paying your little settlement a visit, sooner or later. Lord knows it’s noisy enough. And if any of them, and I mean any of them, want to take her out or occupy her by force, then Pacifica’s toast, and there’s nothin’ you can do about it. You may have planned a deep water, remote as hell settlement, but you only delayed the inevitable. Strangers are gonna come knockin’, Dr. Storms. They may not look like shotgun toting bubbas, but they’ll look like foreign submariners who want what you’ve built to stay alive another day. You’ve got long term survival and they’ll take it by force, or destroy your colony in the process.”
“We’ve got to warn them, Mr. Legend. May I have access to a radio? I need to warn them immediately!”
“Woah! Hang on to your hossies, Dr. Storms,” Legend said as he pushed Seven back down onto the table with his fingers. Hovering over him he continued, “You’ve been here for four days. Any hospital in the civilized world would state your condition right now as ‘critical but stable’. We’re treating you for pneumonia, you have broken ribs from the dive out of the sky, and you’re bruised from the back of your head to your feet. There are a lot of things I’d like to share about our little undersea bungalow, but you still need more rest. Now, I can assure you, me and my crew will put our heads together and think up somethin’ but you need to rest.”
Seven shook his head violently and attempted to rise up again. “No, there’s no time. We’ve got to warn them…”
Legend pushed him back down onto the table with more force. “Rest with or without restraints, Dr. Storms, it’s your choice.”
Seven closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He felt like he was in bad shape through and through, but the urgent need to warn his people was overwhelming.
“Can you at least give them a call and tell them I’m alive? My wife will be interested in knowing that - please.”
“Rest, Dr. Storms, rest. Sam, give ‘im somethin’ to help him rest,” Legend ordered.
Sam approached his side with a syringe in her right hand. Seven noted her tiny yet shapely stature, long black hair and stunningly beautiful face. “This can’t be your hired gun, Mr. Legend, can it?” he asked weakly.
“You have no clue…” Legend responded.
“Are you going to plunge that into my brain?” Seven asked Sam, eyeing the approaching needle and attempting a weak smile.
“My work is far more enjoyable than that,” Sam replied as she inserted the needle into one of his IV lines, locking her black limpid eyes with his as darkness enclosed Seven’s mind.
gh
Seven’s eyes opened once more. He focused on the dim light surrounding him and immediately attempted to sit upright. As he did so, he noticed that he was in another room. His sides still hurt, but nothing like before. And his breathing was much less labored. But his head still ached, not so much from the robot’s iron hand treatment as from a non-stop headache. He looked around the room and saw a smaller, makeshift cot where Luci was laying on her back, sucking her thumb and staring up at him.
“Hey, Luci! How ya feelin’, little one?” he asked softly as he slowly sat upright. She raised her arms toward him and he picked her up and held her tightly. She was dressed in a long white t-shirt. “You know, Luci, we’re gonna have to get some different clothes for you. These t-shirts are getting old.”
She just laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.
Beside his bed was a folded set of clothes: a pair of blue dungaree pants and his white t-shirt. On top of them was a note: RING BUZZER NEAR THE DOOR FOR SERVICE.
Seven quickly began to get dressed and in so doing he looked in the mirror. He was shocked to see a rather developed and out of control beard and moustache, matted hair and fading bruises across his face. He turned and saw an inner door which he hoped was a bath and a shower. It was, and he was delighted to take advantage of the facilities. He quickly shaved, showered, and got dressed. By his bed was his watch and it read 23:30, set to Pacifica time. He also noted the deck was heaving gently. Legend had spoken of a submergible platform, and Seven surmised they were either at the surface or near it.
He touched the button near the door and waited five seconds.
“So happy you’re among the living, Dr. Storms. I’ll send my brother down to fetch ya. He’s been dyin’ to speak to you. His name, by the way, is Baker. Is Luci awake? Be sure and bring her, too; we have some breakfast, or dinner, or whatever for both of ya.”
“Have you been able to contact Pacifica , Mr. Legend?”
“Yes and no. I’ll tell you the whole story when ya get up here.”
Seven had waited no more than three minutes when he could hear the door being unlatched from the outside. It opened and before him stood a clean shaven, balding man of medium build and average height, with a wide, toothy smile.
“Damn, son! I can’t believe it, Aaron Seven! I just can’t believe it. Of all the people to come fallin’ outta the sky… it’s just unbelievable!” The man grabbed Seven’s hand and began pumping it in earnest. “The name’s Baker, Baker Legend, Striker’s brother. Geeze Louise, I can’t believe it, Aaron Seven….the real deal!”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Legend,” Seven responded, holding Luci’s hand.
“Call me Baker, please.”
“Okay, then Baker, and do I have a lot of questions for you!” Seven responded.
“And I have a lot of questions for you!”
“Good, I’ll ask one and then you can ask one,” Seven replied. “Let’s start with, ‘where can I get something to eat?’ I’m starving.”
“Okay, mine’s this – what started the storms in the first place? I mean, I know it’s complicated, but it’s been drivin’ me crazy tryin’ to figure it out.”
Seven just nodded. “So you’re the sonar expert here?”
Baker laughed with all the excitement of a school boy. “It seems there’re a lot of questions goin’ on here and no answers.”
Seven stopped abruptly and looked at Baker with a nearly suspicious stare. “There is one question that seems to top the list, actually.”
Baker shrugged, “Okay, shoot…”
“How did you just manage to have one of your robots so close to the exact spot in the ocean where we randomly fell out of the sky? It’s not like you had the capability of tracking and following us…”
“Well, you’re only partially correct about that,” Baker acknowledged. “It was at night and after sunset. We nearly always surface to refresh our air and gather electronic communications – you know – find out what’s goin’ on. It’s mostly shortwave but we also monitor military bands, as well. We spotted your aircraft a long way out on our radar. When we saw it
was headed in our general direction, we dispatched four of our Long Range ROV’s to grab some visuals as you flew over their location because you were very low, almost on the deck, for reasons we didn’t understand.
“Striker says I’m a mutant because I can figure complicated probability assessments in my head. But I laid out a string of intercept probabilities based on your track and the weather. So we had the bots actually sitting out there waitin’ for ya to cross one or the other of their paths ten minutes before you even got there. The only luck in all of it is that you fell out of the aircraft so close to one of the ROVs. We had you on video and in tow before you sank out of sight.”
In a few minutes, Baker led them up a dimly lit, narrow, long, winding steel staircase to an inner hatch. “This is the Phoenix ’s main passageway,” he explained. “All decks are accessed from this ladderway.
“Phoenix ?” Seven asked.
“Yeah, it’s the name of our underwater shelter.”
“Named after the mythological bird, I assume?” Seven asked.
“Nope. Striker’s favorite tattoo, actually.”
“But of course… And who built this?” Seven asked, looking down the massive and towering center tunnel.
“Striker did, with a lot of help from me.”
“So this was a private venture?”
“Yep, built in Hong Kong. Drove the Chinese freakin’ crazy.”
“Very impressive,” Seven responded.
“No, Dr. Seven, the platform’s not the impressive feature. It’s my little collection of submersible sound generators. With them we can either be totally invisible or we can paint whatever sound picture we want our enemies to see.” Seven just nodded with a wait-and-see attitude.
They entered a well equipped dining room that was carefully and efficiently arranged and stocked. On one table was a double place setting for Seven and Luci, with various breakfast items: toast, what appeared to be scrambled eggs, and an orange drink. He put Luci into her chair and sat opposite her as Legend entered the room followed by Sam, who eyed Seven with unconcealed suspicion.
“It’s typical American breakfast foods. Eat up,” Legend invited.
Luci needed no encouragement. She immediately downed her glass of orange drink and began wolfing down her food.
“Luci, sweetheart, slow down,” Seven said gently, mindful of her past. “Nobody’s going to take it from you, I promise.” Then he looked up at Legend. “So, you made contact with Pacifica ?”
“Yes and no,” Legend responded, sitting in a nearby chair. “We focused in on their signal and she’s still there and operating as before. It’s the loudest damn noise in the Pacific basin, I can assure you. I don’t know who designed her, but they took no notice of her noise generating capacity.”
“My wife designed her – every nut and every bolt,” Seven admitted proudly.
“Well, let’s just say your wife hasn’t had the pleasure of meeting some of the Chicom scumbags I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with over the years. But – I digress. We can’t speak to Pacifica one-on-one; it’s far too dangerous for us.”
“You mean you haven’t contacted them directly?” Seven asked in astonishment, his voice clearly betraying his anger.
“No, and I won’t, either. We have a policy around here that’s strictly enforced. And that’s to stay alive to see another day. It’s a fairly firm rule, actually.”
“Isn’t there a way to send an encrypted signal – something – anything?”
“An encrypted signal is a waste of time.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t actually care what we’re saying as much as they care that we’re saying it. I don’t want ‘em to know that I’m in the same ocean, understand that?”
“Then I must request that you at least transport Luci and me to Pacifica . I can guarantee you payment in whatever form you wish. As a matter of fact, I can promise you sanctuary – permanent sanctuary. In exchange for immediate transport, you can park your platform near Pacifica , come and go whenever you wish, and share our resources, which are nearly limitless. We’re a permanently self-sustaining colony. And if this ship of yours can do half of what you say it can, then we both need one another. We’ll call it a symbiotic relationship.”
Legend’s face visibly changed. He looked at Seven for a long moment.
“It’s not a ship, Dr. Storms, not even close. It’s a submergible platform,” he corrected as if lecturing a student. “But ya know, I think you just may have made yourself a deal here. I think we can help each other, actually,” he said, lacing his fingers through his long beard. “This platform, thanks to the genius of Baker here, is quite an awesome scientific marvel in itself. I’ve been rather concerned about keeping up our food and parts supply over the long haul, and you guys have it all figured out. But you need acoustic protection of which you have zilch. What d’ya think, Baker?” Legend asked his brother.
“Damn straight, Bro! I haven’t heard of a deal like that since you traded in those two cheap Jap crotch rockets for a classic Harley Electra Glide at Daytona. We accept, dude!”
“Fantastic!” Seven replied, reaching for Legend’s hand.
Legend accepted his handshake, and then responded, “We’ll make our course good for Pacifica right away.”
“Wonderful. She can’t be more than two or three days from here!” Seven added.
“More like 13 or 14,” Legend replied.
“What? I can swim faster than that!”
Legend sighed. “Eat your breakfast, Dr. Storms, I’ll explain later.” He looked at Luci whose plate was completely clean. “Damn! This little girl has the appetite of a long haul truck driver. Want some more?” he asked her.
She nodded her head vigorously, eagerly holding her plate out before her and smiling as a piece of scrambled egg hung from her lower lip.
Two hours later, following breakfast and a tour of the Phoenix , Seven was both impressed and doubly worried. He had come to realize that Serea had never counted on protection from enemy submarines over and above the presence of the USS Leviathan. She had also obviously not even considered the noise of such a large colony and the acute acoustic sensors of submarines that made Pacifica so visible and vulnerable. Seven realized that the Phoenix could well make the immediate difference between life and death for them all.
Seven entered the Phoenix ’s cramped control room and sat in the seat indicated for him by Baker. He sat with Luci in his lap alongside Baker to his right, and to his left were Travis, Sam and Stevie Wonder. Legend carried a steaming cup of tea which he sipped from carefully. He sat before a large control panel and began to tweak dials and flip switches. With his back to Seven he began instructing, “What I’m doin’ now is droppin’ our OTEC power system intake to the depth required to pick up the cold, deep current.”
“Yes!” Seven responded enthusiastically. “We also use OTEC power,” he pointed out, referring to Pacifica ’s power station which used the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion system. The OTEC power generator took advantage of the ocean’s relatively extreme temperature layers to drive an ammonia power generator, a technology that had been around since its first large scale trials in the mid 1970’s.
“Since your storms began, it’s actually made our OTEC system work much more efficiently that we ever dreamed, since the upper layers are warmer than we expected,” Legend continued as he touched a video panel before him. On its color display, a set of vibrating squiggles appeared.
“See that?” he pointed to a set of green wavy and spiked lines.
“Yes,” Seven responded.
“That’s the noise generated by an OTEC power system.”
“The Phoenix ?” Seven asked.
“Nope. That’s the noise generated by Pacifica ’s OTEC system. We’ve been focusing in on and identifying Pacifica ’s acoustics for hours now.”
“So what propulsion system do you use to move the Phoenix ?” Seven asked.
“Direct,” Legend responded.
“Direct what?” Seven asked.
“The OTEC exhaust ducts are designed to turn in one direction or another and push us along. It’s slow, but we can make relatively good time, if you don’t actually count the hours and minutes. If we have to buck prevailing currents, it can slow us down a bit, but we can point her and make our way gradually just about anywhere we want in the ocean, except for the shallower depths, of course. If we run into shallows, OTEC shuts down and we begin to drift again.”
“Very ingenious,” Seven replied with a twinkle in his eye. “Are we headed toward Pacifica now?”
“No, actually we’re not,” Legend responded, still configuring the instrument panel before him. “But in about fifteen minutes, we will be. It takes some time to get the generators up and running and the ducts pointed properly. The Phoenix was never designed for speed, just a quiet ride. The OTEC generators make their own unique noise, of course. But Baker here’s designed a built-in acoustic masker that makes OTEC sound like waves breaking atop the surface.”
“Marvelous,” Seven said sincerely, nodding to the smiling Baker. Then his eyes looked back at the screen and Pacifica ’s clamorous acoustic tracings. “How long till we get there?” he asked pensively.
“Hang on.” Legend responded. “Okay, here it is….”
A large numeric display sprang into view across the monitor before him. It read:
12 days 23 hours 55 minutes
“Can you speed us up any?” Seven asked boldly.
“Not and stay safe,” Legend replied flatly, turning to face Seven with a firm look.
Seven sighed deeply as Luci slipped off of his lap to stand beside him and quietly take his hand. His eyes looked back to the large display as the seconds ticked away with a terrible slowness.
55
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 48