by Alten-Steve
An object has become visible, towering above the western horizon.
Mick points. “There’s an oil platform out there, a big one. I thought you said Iz reported seeing nothing in the vicinity?”
“He did.”
Mick refocuses the glasses. “It’s not a PEMEX rig, it’s bearing an American flag. Something’s not right.”
“Mick—” Dominique points.
He sees the incoming boat, focusing on it with the glasses. “Damn, it’s the coastguard. Cut the engines. How fast can we get that sub of yours into the water?”
Dominique hurries to the pilothouse. “Five minutes. You want to dive now?”
“It’s now or never.” Mick races to the stern, pulling the gray tarp off the capsule-shaped submersible. He starts the winch. “The coastguard will ID us. We’ll be arrested on the spot. Hey, grab some supplies.”
Dominique tosses cans of food and jugs of bottled water into a knapsack, then climbs down into the minisub as the cutter closes to a hundred yards, its commander blaring a warning across the water.
“Mick—come on!”
“Start the engines, I’ll be right there!” Mick ducks into the cabin, searching for his father’s journal.
“THIS IS THE UNITED STATES COASTGUARD. YOU HAVE ENTERED RESTRICTED WATERS. CEASE ALL ACTIVITY AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.”
Mick grabs the journal as the coastguard cutter reaches the Jolly Roger’s bow. He hurries back to the stern, releases the winch’s cable—
“Freeze!”
Ignoring the command, he jumps down into the protective internal sphere of the eighteen-foot-long minisub, balancing precariously on an iron ladder as he reaches up and seals the hatch. “Take us down, fast!”
Dominique is buckled in the pilot’s seat, trying to recall everything Iz had shown her. She pushes down on the wheel, the minisub submerging—as the keel of the coastguard cutter collides with the top of the submersible’s sail.
“Hold on—”
The sub descends at a steep 45-degree angle, the titanium alloy plates groaning in Mick’s ear. He leans down and grabs a diver’s air tank as it rolls precariously toward the bow. “Hey, Captain, you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Don’t be a backseat driver.” She eases the descent. “Okay, now what are we supposed to do?”
Mick squeezes past the ladder to join her up front. “We find out what’s going on down here, then head for the Yucatán coastline.” Mick bends down to take a peek through one of the eight-inch-diameter, four-inch-thick viewports.
The deep-blue environment is obscured by a myriad of tiny bubbles rising up along the outer hull. “I can’t see a thing. I hope this tub has sonar.”
“Right in front of me.”
Mick leans over her shoulder to glance at the luminescent orange console. He notices the depth gauge: 344 feet. “How deep can this thing go?”
“This thing is called the Barnacle. I’m told it’s a very expensive French sub, a smaller version of the Nautile. It’s been rated for depths of eleven thousand feet.”
“You sure you know how to pilot it?”
“Iz and the owner took me out one weekend and gave me a crash course.”
“Crash, that’s what I was afraid of.” Mick looks around. The interior of the Barnacle is a ten-foot-diameter reinforced sphere situated within the rectangular hull of the vessel. Data-processing equipment lines the tight compartment like three-dimensional wallpaper. The control station for a mechanical arm and retractable isothermic sampling basket protrudes from one wall, high-tech underwater monitors and acoustic transponders from another.
“Mick, make yourself useful and activate the thermal imager. It’s that monitor above your head.”
He reaches up, powering up the device. The monitor switches on, revealing a tapestry of greens and blues. Mick pulls back on a stub-nosed joystick, aiming the exterior sensor at the seafloor.
“Whoa, what have we here?” The monitor reveals a brilliant white light appearing at the top of the screen.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. How deep are we?”
“Eleven hundred feet. What should I do?”
“Keep us moving west. Something massive is up ahead.”
Gulf of Mexico, 1.1 miles due west of the Barnacle
The Exxon oil rig Scylla is a free-floating, fifth-generation Bingo 8000-series semi-submersible oil-drilling unit. Unlike platform rigs, the superstructure floats four stories above the surface (and three stories below) on 82-foot-high vertical columns attached to two enormous 390-foot-long pontoons. Twelve mooring lines anchor the structure to the seafloor.
Three continuous decks sit upon the Scylla’s base. The open upper deck, as long and wide as a football field, supports a 72-foot-high derrick that contains the drill string, made up of lengths of 33-foot steel pipe. Two immense cranes are positioned along the northern and southern sides, with an elevated octagonal helo-deck covering the west deck. The control and engineering rooms as well as the galley and two-person cabins are located on the middle or main deck. The lower or machinery deck houses the rig’s three 3080-hp engines as well as the equipment necessary to handle a hundred thousand barrels of crude oil per day.
Although the superstructure is filled to its 110-person capacity, not a drop of oil flows through its drill string. The Scylla’s lower deck has been hastily gutted to accommodate myriads of NASA’s high-tech multispectral sensors, computers, and imaging systems. Support equipment, tether cables, and operator control boards for three ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) sit next to bundles of steel pipe stockpiled along the semi-enclosed lower deck.
Positioned at the very center of the concrete and steel decking is a twelve-foot-diameter circular hole, designed to accommodate the drill string. A soft emerald radiance rises from the sea, filtering through the gap to bathe the ceiling and surrounding work area in an unearthly green light. Technicians overcome by curiosity pause every so often to sneak peeks at the artificially illuminated seafloor, located 2,154 feet below the floating superstructure. The Scylla is positioned directly above a massive, tunnel-like aperture located along the bottom. Somewhere within this mysterious five-thousand-foot pit lies the source of the brilliant, incandescent green light.
Naval Commander Chuck McKana and NASA Director Brian Dodds huddle over the two technicians operating the Sea Owl, a six-and-a-half-foot ROV, attached to the Scylla’s winch by a seven-thousand-foot tether cable umbilical cord. They stare at the ROV’s monitor as the small submersible reaches the fractured seafloor to begin its descent into the glowing vortex.
“Electromagnetic energy’s increasing,” the ROV’s virtual pilot reports. “I’m losing maneuverability—”
“Sensors are failing—”
Dodds squints at the bright light glaring from the sub’s minicam monitor. “How deep is the ROV?”
“Less than a hundred feet into the hole—God dammit, there goes the Sea Owl’s electrical system.”
The monitor goes blank.
Commander McKana runs his stubby fingers through his graying crew cut. “That’s the third ROV we’ve lost in the last twenty-four hours, Director Dodds.”
“I can count, Commander—”
“I’d say you need to focus on finding an alternative way in.”
“We’re already working on it.” Dodds motions to where a dozen workers are busy rigging lengths of steel pipe to the derrick above. “We’re going to lower the drill string right into the hole. Sensors will be hooked up within the first length of pipe.”
Rig Captain Andy Furman joins them. “We’ve got a situation, gentlemen. The coastguard reports two people aboard a trawler just launched a minisub two miles east of the Scylla. Sonar shows them heading for the object.”
Dodds looks alarmed. “Spies?”
“More like civilians. The trawler’s registered to an American salvage company licensed out of Sanibel Island.”
McKana appears unconcerned. “Let them look. When they su
rface, have the coastguard arrest them.”
Aboard the Barnacle
Mick and Dominique press their faces to the viewports’ reinforced LEXAN glass as the minisub approaches the eerie beacon of light, the beam blasting upward from the seafloor like a 168-foot-wide spotlight.
“What the hell could be down there?” Dominique asks. “Mick, you okay?”
Mick’s eyes are closed, his breathing erratic.
“Mick?”
“I can feel the presence. Dom, we shouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t come all this way just to turn back.” A red light flashes above her head. “The sub’s sensors are going crazy. There’s massive amounts of electromagnetic energy rising out of the hole. Maybe that’s what you’re feeling?”
“Don’t pass through that beacon or you’ll short-circuit every system on board.”
“Okay, maybe there’s another way in. I’ll circle the area while you complete a sensor sweep.”
Mick opens his eyes, scanning the stacks of computer consoles lining the cabin. “What do you want me to do?”
She points. “Activate the gradiometer, it’s an electromechanical gravity sensor rigged beneath the Barnacle. Rex used it to detect gravity gradients beneath the seafloor.”
Mick boots the system’s monitor, which reveals a tapestry of orange and reds, the brighter colors indicating high levels of electromagnetic energy. The hole itself blazes a brilliant, almost blinding white. Mick pulls back on the gradiometer’s joystick, widening the field to examine the rest of the seafloor’s topography.
The intense glow shrinks to a white dot. Hues of green and blue create a circular border around the reds and orange. “Wait a second—I think I found something.”
Encircling the crater-shaped area are a series of dark spots set in a precise, equidistant circular pattern along the mile-diameter perimeter.
Mick counts the holes. He feels his gut tightening, a cold sweat breaking out across his body. He grabs his father’s journal, leafing through the parched pages until he locates the June 14, 1997 entry.
He stares at the photograph of the nine-foot circular icon, located at the center point of the Nazca plateau. Within its circular boundaries Mick had found the original Piri Re’is map, sealed within an iridium container. He counts twenty-three lines extending outward from the Nazca figure like a sunburst, the last one, seemingly endless.
Twenty-three dark spots surround the monstrous hole in the seafloor.
“Mick, what is it? Are you okay?” Dominique sets the minisub on autopilot to glance at the monitor. “What are they?”
“I don’t know, but an identical pattern was drawn on the Nazca plateau thousands of years ago.”
Dominique glances at the entry. “It’s not really identical. You’re comparing lines carved in the desert with a bunch of dark holes in the seafloor—”
“Twenty-three holes. Twenty-three lines. You think that’s just a coincidence?”
She pats his cheek. “Take it easy, gifted one. I’ll head for the nearest hole, and we’ll take a closer look.”
The Barnacle slows to hover above a dark burrow, twenty feet across, the orifice spewing a steady profusion of bubbles. Dominique directs one of the sub’s external lights down into its steep gullet. The beacon reveals a vast tunnel, descending through the seafloor at a 45-degree angle.
“What do you think?”
Mick stares at the burrow, the familiar feeling of dread growing in his gut. “I don’t know.”
“I say we investigate.”
“You want to enter that hellhole?”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? I thought you wanted to resolve the Mayan doomsday prophecy?”
“Not like this. It’s more important that we get to Chichén Itzá.”
“Why?” He’s frightened.
“Salvation lies in the Kukulcán pyramid. The only thing waiting down this hole is death.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t toss seven years of college in the toilet and risk being thrown in prison just so you could chase some bullshit Mayan prophecy. We’re here because my family and I need a sense of closure; we need to find out what really happened to Iz and his friends. I’m not blaming you for my father’s death, but since you’re the one who started us on this little adventure, you’re the one who’s going to see it through.”
Dominique pushes down on the wheel, driving the capsule-shaped minisub straight into the heart of the tunnel.
Mick grabs for a ladder rung, holding on as the Barnacle accelerates through the pitch-dark shaft.
A squishing sound echoes within the sub.
Dominique stares out of her viewport. “The sound’s coming from the walls of this passage. The internal lining seems to be acting like some kind of giant sponge. Mick, to your left, there’s a sensor marked spectrophotometer—”
“I see it.” He activates the system. “If I’m reading this thing right, the gas being filtered out of this hole is pure oxygen.”
A baritone thrumming reverberates throughout the cabin, growing louder as they descend deeper. Mick is about to say something when the Barnacle suddenly lurches forward, accelerating down the shaft.
“Hey, slow down—”
“It’s not me. We’re caught in some kind of current.” He can hear the panic in her voice. “External temperature’s rising. Mick, I think we’re being sucked into a lava tube!”
He grips the ladder tighter as the deep pulsating sounds cause the glass instrument panels in front of him to resonate.
The minisub plunges, spinning blindly down the hole like a beetle being flushed down a drainage pipe.
“Mick!” Dominique screams as she loses control of the Barnacle. She squeezes her eyes shut and grips the seat’s shoulder harness as the power fails and they are blanketed in darkness.
She feels herself hyperventilating, waiting for the jolt that will cause the sub to lose integrity to the suffocating sea. Oh, Jesus, God, I’m going to die, help me, please—
Mick has locked his arms and legs around the ladder, his palms clenching the steel bars in a viselike grip. Don’t fight it, let it come. Let the madness end …
Intense vertigo as the minisub spins round and around as if caught in a giant washing machine.
A sonic boom—a bone-jarring jolt: Mick is sent flying blindly through the pitch, the Barnacle driven bow-first into an immovable, unseen force, the air exploding from his lungs as his face and chest slam blindly into a stack of computer consoles.
17
GULF OF MEXICO: 7,168 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE
The incessant pounding in his head forces Mick to open his eyes.
Silence.
He is lying on his back, his legs propped in the air, his upper body entangled in a sizzling array of broken equipment. The cabin is humid and pitch-dark, save for the dull glow of an orange console flickering somewhere in the distance. Up is down, left is right, and a warm liquid is dripping down his throat, gagging him.
He rolls over painfully, spitting out a mouthful of blood, his head still spinning. Tracing the blood to his dripping nostrils, he pinches off the flow.
For a long moment he just sits there, balancing unsteadily on sharp fragments of shattered computer monitors and navigational equipment as he tries to remember his name and where he is.
The minisub. The burrow … Dominique!
“Dom?” He spits out more blood as he climbs over a pile of equipment blocking his path to the pilot’s chair. “Dom, can you hear me?”
He finds her unconscious, still strapped within the pilot’s chair, her chin on her chest. His heart pounds with fear as he carefully reclines the chair all the way back, supporting her bleeding head in his hand before allowing it to rest on the back of the seat. He checks her airway, detecting shallow breaths. He loosens the harness, then tends to the deep, bleeding gash on her forehead.
Mick removes his T-shirt, tearing the sweaty fabric into long strips. He ties a makeshift bandage across the wound, then searches the
battered cabin for the first-aid kit.
Dominique moans. She sits up painfully, turns her head, and retches.
Mick locates the first-aid kit and a bottle of water. Returning to her side, he dresses the wound, then removes a cold pack.
“Mick?”
“Right here.” He squeezes the cold pack, puncturing its internal contents, then presses it to her head, securing it with the remains of his T-shirt. “You’ve got a nasty head wound. Most of the bleeding’s stopped, but you probably suffered a concussion.”
“I think I cracked a rib, I’m having a hard time breathing.” She opens her eyes and looks up at Mick in pain. “You’re bleeding.”
“I broke my nose.” He hands her the container of bottled water.
She closes her eyes and takes a sip. “Where are we? What happened?”
“We descended through the burrow and hit something. The minisub’s dead. Life-support systems are barely functioning.”
“Are we still in the hole?”
“I don’t know.” Mick moves to the forward viewport and peers out.
The Barnacle’s emergency exterior lighting reveals a dark, tight chamber, devoid of seawater. The minisub’s bow appears to be wedged in between two dark, vertical barriers. The spacing between the two walls narrows sharply before dead-ending at a curved, metallic sheath.
“Jesus, where in the hell are we?”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know—some kind of subterranean chamber. The sub’s wedged in between two walls, but there’s no water outside.”
“Can we get out of here?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure where here is. Have you noticed those deep vibrations have stopped?”
“You’re right.” She hears him rummaging through the debris. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for the scuba gear.” He locates the wetsuit, mask, and air tank.
Dominique groans as she sits up, then lays her head back again, the pain and vertigo overwhelming. “What are you going to do?”