by John Akers
“It’s 3:37 a.m.”
“What? Why so early?” Pax felt a twinge of fear.
“We’re leaving the ship,” said Angelo. “Now.”
Instantly, Pax was wide awake.
“Leaving the ship? What’s wrong? Are we sinking?”
“Not yet.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s just say it’s time for you to disappear,” Angelo said with a smile.
Pax’s eyes widened, and he scrambled backward on the bed away from Angelo, struggling not to get tangled in the sheets. On the opposite side of the bed, he dropped into a crouch and looked at Angelo fearfully. For a moment Angelo looked confused, then he shook his head and waved his hands in front of him.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Mr. Pax. We just need to change our mode of transportation is all.”
Pax remained on the other side of the bed. “What do you mean? We’re moving to a different boat?”
“Um, yes. Please, we do need to get moving.” Anglo eased his massive frame back through the opening in the wall and stood expectantly on the other side.
Pax walked slowly around the bed and joined Angelo in the capsule. The door closed, then reopened a few moments later. Angelo moved aside so Pax could exit first. As he stepped through the door and looked up, his breath caught in his chest.
They had entered the ship’s hold, which spanned the full width and at least half the length of the ship. In the middle, resting in a channel that led to the rear wall, was something that looked like a massive torpedo. It had a cylindrical body some 50 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, and a 10-foot conical nose pointed toward the ship’s stern. Grooves in the nose ran in a twisting pattern from the tip to the base. The tail section had several long fins spaced evenly around the perimeter.
Pax turned to Angelo and matter-of-factly said, “I’m not getting in that thing. No fucking way.”
Angelo gave a slight smile and said, "I understand your reluctance, Mr. Pax. But in 20 minutes this ship will be halfway to the bottom of the ocean. Unless you want to join it, getting on that submarine is your only hope."
Pax was confused. “So, the ship is sinking?”
“Not yet. But it will be in a couple of minutes.” When Pax gave him a blank look, Angelo said, “The Infinet is going to intentionally sink the ship.”
Pax’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Infinet determined this will ensure anyone who manages to track us this far will lose our trail.”
“Bullshit," said Pax, while at the same time recognizing the lunatic genius of such a plan. “This ship must be worth at least half a billion dollars. You aren't going to just throw it away."
“I assure you,” said Angelo, “this trip is both the first and last voyage the Ludibrium will ever make. In just a few minutes, the door at the end of the channel will open and the hold will begin to flood. After the ship has sunk, a series of controlled explosions will destroy it. Afterward, the only pieces left will be the size of Lego blocks.”
“But they might find the material you made the walls with and figure out what it’s made of,” Pax said.
Angelo shook his head. “The Infinet estimates humanity is at least 50 years away from even being able to analyze the material the walls of this ship are made from. It won’t matter if it’s discovered before then.”
Pax felt angry and afraid. He’d never been in a submarine before, and he had no desire to take his first voyage in one of a custom-made variety. “Well, I’m not getting in that thing,” he said. He turned back to the wall from which they’d entered, but found the opening had already sealed up. He turned back around and crossed his arms but didn’t move.
“Mr. Pax, please,” said Angelo. Just then, Elena appeared in a doorway at the middle of the sub.
“Hey! I hate to interrupt your fraternizing,” she called out, “but could you two please get a move on?"
“He won’t come,” said Angelo.
“Did you explain to him the part about the ship sinking?”
“Of course.”
“I see. Let’s see how he feels in about 30 seconds.”
No one said anything for a few moments. Then a circular opening appeared in the wall at the end of the channel. Water exploded into the hold as if from a massive fire hose. The hole continued to get wider and was rapidly filling the bottom of the hold. Nonetheless, Pax still refused to move.
“Mr. Pax, please,” said Angelo.
Pax looked up at Elena and yelled, “The two of you can go to hell!”
Elena shrugged and called to Angelo, “Grab him.”
Pax tried to run away but discovered Angelo’s left hand already had a hold of Pax’s left shoulder. Pax pivoted sharply and swung his right fist as hard as he could into Angelo’s solar plexus. It connected solidly, but it felt as if he’d punched a bag of frozen marbles, and only produced a tiny “oof” from Angelo. Pax tried to wrest out of Angelo’s grip but the next thing he knew his tunic suddenly tightened, pinning his arms to his sides. His pants did the same, locking his legs tightly together. Pax started to tip over, but Angelo caught him and flipped him up and onto his right shoulder, as if Pax was a roll of carpet. He strode rapidly across the floor of the hold toward the sub.
“Put me down, goddamn it!” Pax hollered. “This is assault!”
“Sorry, Mr. Pax,” said Angelo, as he continued to walk. Pax’s position forced him to stare at the floor, and he saw the water in the hold already reached past Angelo’s ankles.
With his left arm, Angelo climbed up the ladder that led to the door where Elena had been. At the top he ducked under the exterior door to the sub, then in one stride crossed over a walkway that ran along the left side of the sub and stepped into a small room.
The room was square, about ten feet to a side, and had three high-backed chairs arranged in a triangle around a round table in the middle. Elena was already sitting in a seat at the front. Behind them, Pax heard the outer door close, then a faint hissing sound. Angelo placed him in the right rear seat, as Pax’s clothes relaxed enough that his body could assume a sitting position. Angelo pushed on Pax’s torso, so his back was forced against the chair back, then he stepped back and sat in the remaining seat, closest to where the door had been. Pax tried to move but found his back and legs were stuck firmly to the chair, as if they were somehow magnetically attracted.
“Hey!” he yelled. He tried to lean forward but couldn’t even budge. “What the hell?” He tried to wriggle free, but that only seemed to tighten the chair’s grip on him. It felt as if every particle of clothing that touched the chair became stuck to it. “This is fucking bullshit!” he said, spitting the words out through gritted teeth.
“Just relax, Mr. Pax,” said Elena, “it’ll just be for a few minutes, to keep us safe during launch and while the sub gets up to speed.”
Pax wanted to scream at her but realized it wouldn’t do any good, so he stopped struggling. All he could do now was look at the front wall. As with the ship’s cabin, there was no control panel. There were, however, several video monitors on the front wall that showed views from cameras at various locations around the exterior of the sub. Pax saw the water in the hold now reached more than halfway up the sides of the sub. A monitor showing a view of the front of the sub showed the hole through which the water had entered was now wide enough to accommodate the sub’s passage. Just then, Pax felt a slight vibration, and they began moving down the chute. A moment later the sub passed through the opening and was immediately engulfed in pitch black. A luminescent glow from the ceiling, similar to the cylinders on the ship, allowed Pax to still see Angelo and Elena.
A camera at the rear of the sub showed the light from the ship’s door receding rapidly. A minute later they were already 100 feet away. White navigation lights on the ship’s rear deck were now submerged.
"You’re all insane," said Pax. The thought of trashing the ship made him feel nauseous. He wondered if they were lying to him and somehow t
he ship would right itself once they couldn’t see it anymore, and return to the surface. With what he’d seen of their technology, anything seemed possible. But all his years of interpreting people’s non-verbal behavior told him they were telling the truth.
“Right now, the ballast tanks are flooding with water,” said Angelo. “In about 30 minutes, we’ll have descended to 4,000 feet, well into the ocean’s ‘midnight zone’ where there is no light whatsoever. No imaging or sonar devices will be able to detect us, and no maritime monitoring devices operate anywhere near that depth.”
“Anyone tracking us will have no way of knowing where we’ve gone after this point,” said Elena. “We’ll also be able to travel a lot faster.”
“What are you talking about?” said Pax. “At that depth, I could probably crawl faster than this thing will be able to go.” Neither Elena nor Angelo responded, and a silence as complete as the darkness outside fell over the room.
Pax looked at the monitors and saw there were exterior lights that illuminated a short distance around the periphery of the sub. Judging by the tiny pieces of plant or plankton that drifted by, the light extended about 20 feet out before disappearing. Beyond that it was totally black. He noticed there were no pinging or banging sounds as they descended. He’d never been in a submarine before, but all the movies he’d seen involving a sub had lots of noises associated with the descent, as the hull adjusted to the intense water pressure. But now there was nothing.
Suddenly, there was a humming noise. The video monitor in the center showed the sub’s conical nose had begun to rotate. Within a few seconds, it was a blur. Pax felt himself being pulled gently but firmly into his seat back.
“This sub is propelled by supercavitation,” said Angelo. “The nose is being rotated to a speed of 8,000 rpm, which will heat the front of the ship to a temperature of 400 degrees Celsius, or 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Even at a pressure of 200 atmospheres and a temperature barely above freezing, any water coming into contact with the cone will instantly evaporate, creating a low-pressure air pocket in front of the sub. The massive water pressure behind it then propels the sub forward into the near-vacuum in front.”
Sullenly, Pax wanted to ignore him, but his curiosity got the better of him. “How fast will we be going?”
“Once we reach full speed, we’ll be going over 200 miles per hour.”
Pax looked at Angelo like he’d lost his mind. “That’s faster than a bullet train!”
“Socotra is a long way away, Mr. Pax,” said Elena. “We don’t want to take up any more of your time than necessary.” From the sound of her voice, he could picture the smirk on her face.
Pax asked Angelo, “But what if we run into a squid or something?”
“In general there are very few creatures living at this depth. The probability of encountering anything large enough to damage the sub is less than half a percent. But in case we do, the sub emits an irritating beacon of sound that will cause any animals in front of us to get out of the way. Small animals that choose not to move aside will, unfortunately, be disintegrated.”
Pax was quiet for a minute. He felt his clothes relax, and he found he could lean forward once more. He swung his elbows back and forth in front of him as Elena swung her chair around to face them. With the affected voice of an overly ingratiating hostess she said, “Now that we’re on our way, Angelo, why don’t you show our guest to his room?”
Angelo looked at Pax, who shrugged and stood up. Angelo got up as well and the door reappeared. They stepped into the hallway and Angelo headed toward the back. At the end, he stopped and another door opened. Angelo stepped aside and motioned for Pax to enter.
Pax found himself in a room slightly smaller than the one they’d just left. The only object in it looked like a flat tarpaulin suspended high in the air between four cords coming out of the corners of the ceiling.
“We’ll be up front if you need anything,” Angelo said from outside the room. Pax nodded and Angelo headed back down the hall.
Pax took another step into the room, and the opening in the wall sealed shut. Simultaneously, the cords holding the tarp descended down vertical tracks along the edges of the walls. They stopped when the tarp was about three feet off the ground. Pax turned around and sat down on it. The material was surprisingly soft and smooth, and he pushed himself back into the middle of it and lay down. He felt it move underneath him, and for a brief second it felt as though he was falling. But before he could get up he realized the tarp material had somehow conformed itself to match the contours of his body, like a topographical map. Pax rolled over and the tarp’s shape adjusted with his motion. At first he likened it to sleeping on a water bed, but after a few more turns he decided it was more like floating in air. Soon he was asleep.
Pax woke up some time later, feeling rested, alert, and hungry. He sat up and swung his feet over the edge and stood up, then moved over to where the door had been. To his surprise, it opened. He stepped quietly into the hallway, then turned right and walked toward the first room. The door to it was open, and as he approached he heard Elena and Angelo talking. Pax stopped a few feet away and listened.
In a hushed voice, Elena said, “What do you mean, you just got a message from Alethia? We’re at the bottom of the freaking ocean! You know no radio waves can reach down here!”
“I don’t know. It must have been a timed message that was delivered to my Univiz before we descended but didn’t appear in my inbox until now. All I know is, I just put my UV on and there was an urgent message from her.”
“All right—what did it say?”
There was a slight pause before Angelo replied.
“She said it’s already started. The Mechanic has activated the virus.”
Chapter 32
Sunday morning, 7:05 AM PT
Emma Kirkland woke to the sound of her dog barking downstairs. She groaned and rolled over in her bed. When he barked again she raised her head and mumbled, “What time is it?” A male voice with a Spanish accent emanated throughout the room. “7:05 in the morning, Ms. Kirkland.”
Emma groaned again. “Let the dog out.”
“Yes, Ms. Kirkland.” She couldn’t hear anything, but she knew the doggie door in the mud room was being opened automatically. A moment later, she heard Preston, the retriever-lab mix she’d rescued from the pound a couple of years ago, burst through the door to relieve himself in the backyard. She drifted back to sleep, just before more barking jarred her awake once again.
“Open the patio door,” she mumbled.
“Yes, Ms. Kirkland,” replied the voice. She heard the barely perceptible sound of the glass door leading to her second-floor patio sliding open. Before it had opened halfway, she hollered, “Shut up, Preston!” Preston obeyed, but her directive had the unintended side effect of dramatically intensifying the throbbing pain in her head. She moaned, and in a subdued voice said “Close patio door.”
“Yes, Ms. Kirkland,” answered the voice.
She let her head fall back on the pillow. To her dismay, even that hurt. It felt as if the conflagration of Cosmopolitans and Mai Tais she’d enjoyed the night before had reignited inside her skull. She began vehemently regretting her decision the previous afternoon to accept Denise McIntyre’s invitation to a celebration at the Omnitech campus bar for some breakthrough they’d had that week on Project Simon. Denise had really called to invite Oreste, but out of courtesy had invited Emma as well. Emma explained he’d already gone to dinner, but said she’d leave him a message in case he wanted to join them afterward. Since Emma had no plans herself, after getting a quick bite to eat, she’d headed over to the bar.
She rolled over on her face to see if her head might feel better, but to no avail. She could tell she wasn’t going to fall back to sleep, and the realization made her cross. Sunday morning was the only time she could count on getting a decent night’s sleep. Oreste worked all day Saturday, and most Sunday afternoons as well, and Emma felt it was her duty to be at the office when h
e was, even though he rarely had anything for her to do. But she still felt protective of him, given the toll Omnitech’s success had taken on him over the years. She knew it was a comfort to him that she was always there, just in case he needed her.
Mumbling expletives at Preston, Emma rolled onto her back. Then she thought about how strange the gathering the night before had been. Denise and several other people working on Project Simon were already at the bar by the time Emma had arrived, but Oreste was not. And though only employees were allowed into the Omnitech campus bar, Project Simon was so top-secret even team members couldn’t discuss it there. As a result, they’d all been as tight-lipped as oysters about what the actual cause for celebration was. They’d spent the evening sipping their drinks and giving each other knowing glances and secretive smiles. The more Emma had drunk, the more their behavior had irritated her.
She had tried to contact Oreste periodically throughout the evening, but each time, his Univiz had been offline. After one last attempt around midnight, she’d given up and had her car drive her home. Despite being drunk, she’d been worried. She couldn’t recall him ever being completely offline. His UV had always been accessible, even if he hadn’t answered her calls right away.
Groggily, she got out of bed. After a couple of failed attempts, she managed to put on her Univiz. She held her palms up to her face and said, “Emma Kirkland.” Three seconds later a grandmotherly voice said, “Good morning, Miss Emma!”
“Good morning, Darlene,” she mumbled. She guided her feet into fuzzy pink bunny slippers and stood up. Her negligée clung to her in static rivulets, and she wavered in place for a moment before catching her balance. She slide-stepped out of her bedroom to the stairs. Down was good, she thought, as she took the steps carefully, one at a time. Coming back up might be a problem. Each downward tread felt like an uppercut to the center of her brain. At the bottom of the stairs, she headed for the kitchen, picked up the coffee that was waiting for her, then slumped onto one of the bar stools lined up along the large marble-topped island.