Rogue Wave

by Christopher Cartwright

  “Correct, but only partially so. You were right about the amount of cells being slightly lower, but would you believe the hive became stronger. Can anyone care to guess why?”

  There was a row of shaking heads throughout the room.

  Veyron smiled and pressed the play button on his computer screen. “This is a digital recording of the cells dividing without additional nutrients.”

  The plankton began attacking each other. The nanobots quickly determined the strongest cells and removed the weaker ones. They didn’t wait for the mitosis to provide dead cells to scavenge from; they simply killed the weak cells for their materials. By the end of it, although some of the plankton had been lost, the hive of machines hadn’t decreased. In fact, the remaining cells are now functioning better than before.

  “And the fourth sample?” Sam asked.

  “In the fourth sample I deprived the single gram of nanobots and plankton of both organic nutrients and building materials.”

  Sam grinned when he saw the results. “The entire hive died out.”

  “Starvation’s a bitch,” Tom said.

  “Okay, so back to the original question. Do we think the main hive is dead?” Sam persisted

  “No,” Veyron replied. “Although I said it was possible, it’s highly unlikely. The question is how much access they have to optimal conditions of growth, such as warmth and sunlight, and can they obtain organic nutrients and building materials?”

  Elise connected her laptop wirelessly to the projector. She then opened up a document titled Weather Reports - Atlantic. “If you look at the weather, the mean temperature of seawater is up by 2 degrees Fahrenheit for the regions surrounding our last known sighting of the hive for five hundred miles. These are perfect conditions for plankton to proliferate.”

  “Okay, so they have the right conditions, but do they have organic nutrients?” Sam persisted, looking for a reason, anything that might lead them to believe the hive was truly destroyed.

  “There’s no reason to suggest they don’t.” Elise brought up images of three large algae blooms within the area. “These are all plankton growths that have proliferated to dangerous levels, suggesting the seawater is currently teeming with organic growth.”

  “Any chance those could have killed the hive?” Tom said, hopeful.

  Veyron laughed at the thought. “If you were a betting man, would you put money on the nanotech enhanced cells losing to the regular drifter cells?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean that the large areas of plankton growth didn’t starve them out. We all know that red algae blooms can kill everything within the sea by depriving them of oxygen and sunlight.”

  Veyron thought about it. “Elise, bring up the locations of those recent algae blooms.”

  The overhead projector showed an area spanning the opening to the Gulf of Mexico, out towards the Bahamas and as far north as Bermuda.

  “You know if we suffocated the areas here and here with the algae– then anything south of Bimini Island would have been stifled,” Veyron pointed out.

  “Okay, it’s a pretty big if. But we might have gotten lucky.” Sam turned to Elise. “I want to keep monitoring this thing. I’m looking at this like I would a wild fire. You can put out ninety-nine percent of it, but it’s that other one percent that causes spot fires.”

  “Understood. It’s also important to remember, even though we’re effectively starving the nanobots of building materials with the destruction of the Bimini Road, they’re able to keep replicating by cannibalizing themselves. In theory, they could remain dormant for years and then our luck could change when a ship carrying microchips sinks, at which point the nanobots would swarm again.”

  It was a scary thought.

  Sam stood up, effectively ending the meeting. “Okay, I want to keep on top of this thing. No one lets up until we’re certain they’re dead.”

  Matthew was the next to stand up. “Now that we’re back to the waiting game, where would you like me to take the Maria Helena?”

  “Since you mention it Matthew, I’d like to move close to the original source. And while we’re there, I’d like to take the opportunity to dive the Antiqui Nautae’s wrecked trimaran.”

  Chapter Seventy Seven

  The Maria Helena’s twin engines slowed to an idle. The powerful ship cruised on its momentum for about a quarter of a mile before coming to a complete drift. The chime of anchor chain running through its hold replaced the engine’s sound. Within minutes the sound ceased and the ship turned as the anchor took its bite.

  Sam walked downstairs and into the dive room. The moon pool’s doors had been opened already, and Tom was preparing their dive equipment.

  “You look happy,” Tom said.

  “I should be. I’m finally getting to dive this ship. After years of being told that my theory was crazy, you got to dive it before me. Still, I’m very excited to see it firsthand.”

  “And for what it’s worth, I’m looking forward to diving it with you.”

  Sam wrote a number on his dive slate and handed it to Tom. “Oh, and there’s another thing to be happy about. The owners of the Mississippi, keen to avoid the formality of going to Lloyd’s Court, agreed to pay 50% of the value of the ship and cargo. At today’s prices.”

  Tom looked at the number. “You made 20 mill out of the process?”

  “No, that’s your portion of the reward.” Sam watched as his friend’s face went blank. “You see the ship was one of three remaining ultra-large crude carriers. The ship alone, factoring in depreciation of wear and tear, was valued at 100 million. Then we had the value of the 2 million barrels of crude oil on board. At conservative oil prices, a barrel of crude oil is 50 dollars. There’s another hundred million.”

  “We were given a hundred million dollars for being stupid and risking our lives?” Tom asked, shaking his head.

  “Yep. It was exceptionally stupid of us, I must agree. But there you have it. The benefit of Lloyds Open Form. We salvage the vessel and let the courts decide how much value we deserve. You see in this instance, the value was always going to be high. The courts would have looked at the cost of us not saving the supertanker, including the cost to clean up the spill. Once they start factoring that in with the significant risk of life and to our own vessel, the courts were bound to give us a pretty high percentage. As it was, the owners made the offer before it went in front of Lloyd’s assessors.”

  “And you took the first offer they gave you?”

  “Sure did. Why, did you want more than 20 mill?”

  “No, come to think of it, why did I get so much?”

  “Don’t get too excited. I gave each of the other members of the crew 5 mill and they didn’t even have to risk their lives.”

  “That’s great news, because I lost about a million dollars’ worth of gold last time I dived the Antiqui Nautae’s trimaran.”

  Sam laughed. “Really, you didn’t mention it.”

  “Yeah, well we’ve both been kinda busy since you came back to pick Genevieve and I up from the water.” Tom handed Sam the golden eagle he’d found in the ancient trimaran’s cache. “We found it at the very depth of the trimaran’s hold. Like a secure cache, it was locked behind a formidable door. I believe it leads to their ancient homeland or their treasure. It has several holes that align to star constellations.”

  “Do you know where it leads?”

  “No. The stars aren’t in the northern hemisphere.”

  “The ancient people came from South America?”

  “It would appear so. Certainly the southern hemisphere.” Tom looked at the golden eagle, pensive. “We had an incident when we dived the ancient trimaran.”

  “Really?” Sam was curious. “We’ve had a few since then, too. What happened?”

  “You’re not going to believe me, but I saw something down there. Something that wasn’t real. And it took the gold we found.”

  “I wouldn’t worry, you’re sure to find more.”

  “It’
s not that. As I said, you’re not going to believe me, but I saw something down there. A green apparition. It didn’t look menacing. Far from it. Instead, it just stared at me. Its mouth was halfway between a smile and a frown. When I reached it the entire thing came apart like a dream. It was only later when I returned to pick up the gold I had put down and it was no longer there, that I became concerned.”

  “Any chance you just misplaced it?”

  “A large piece of gold?” Tom laughed. “It must have been worth a million bucks. You might misplace something like that, but for us mere working mortals, I knew precisely where I left it.”

  “Any chance someone’s been following our discoveries?”

  “You mean another boat?”

  “It’s not unheard of for grave robbers or relic hunters to follow us when they know we’re on to something. Nothing would stop them coming in and picking up the pieces.”

  “I checked with Matthew. There wasn’t another ship for twenty miles. I also checked the sonar log – with the exception of a few large fish, nothing had been below the Maria Helena during our entire dive.”

  “Okay, so let’s find it. And if not, you told me there was a fortune in gold down there. So, let’s go collect our second payday for a job well done!”

  Chapter Seventy Eight

  Sam followed Tom into the opening inside the cockpit of the ancient ship. With his green primary dive guideline tied to the ancient tiller he entered the wreck. The place zigzagged through a series of small tunnels, slowly descending. He saw what appeared to be the ancient people’s dining room, followed by an ambush room – most likely used as a last resort to destroy invaders.

  Tom shined his flashlight into the smallest of the single tunnels. “Their treasure cache is down here. It gets pretty narrow. I’ll let you go first. There’s no deviations in the tunnel. Just keep following it to the end and you’ll reach the treasure, you can’t miss it.”

  Following the small tunnel as it descended another ten feet Sam swallowed, relieving the slight increase in pressure to his middle ear. It looped around and back on itself before straightening out in an impossibly narrow section.

  Ahead, he saw the faintest glow of light. It could have had a slight tinge of green. Most likely some sort of bottom dwelling fish. Sam continued. The light increased until the area up ahead looked like someone turned the light on.

  He held his Shark Powerstick in his right hand. Ready to use at a moment’s notice. He recalled what his old Drill Sargent had once told him years ago – Your weapon’s no good to you unless you have it in your hands and ready to fire at all times. Whatever it was making that glow, Sam wasn’t prepared to take any chances.

  Sam passed the remains of the ancient door that Tom destroyed weeks earlier. The room was now completely lit up with the glow.

  It was definitely a green color.

  And it stood like a giant of a man. The features of its face were almost believable, but the rest of it was more like an apparition than something living. So this is Tom’s ghost. Sam’s heart raced as he watched it for a minute.

  He heard the bubbles from Tom’s regulator.

  “Tell me you can see that!” Tom said.

  Sam gripped his Shark Power Stick. Ready to fire. His right trigger finger taking up the tinniest of pressure on the mechanism. “I can see it. Whatever the hell it is.”

  The green creature smiled at him. It had a kind face. The rest of the body had limited structure, but the face was clear. It had eyes, nose, ears and mouth – below which, was a deeply cleft chin. There was something terribly familiar about the smile.

  Well, that changes the face of the enemy. Even as the realization dawned on him, Sam couldn’t believe it was true.

  Then it was gone.

  And so was the gold.

  “I swear it was all here when we left!”

  “I’m not worried about the gold. Right now, I’m a little more concerned with reaching the surface alive. Let’s go!”

  Chapter Seventy Nine

  Sam reached the surface of the moon pool without saying a word to Tom. He removed his fins, holding them in his left hand and climbed the ladder into the dive room. Once there he removed his dive mask, tank, and weight belt before sitting down.

  Tom threw his mask in a bucket of fresh water and sat next to him. “So, do you want to tell me your theory? Cause, I know you’ve got one. You don’t go all quiet like this unless you have a pretty bad answer to something. Otherwise you just keep asking more questions. So what is it?”

  Sam unzipped a pocket along his right thigh and removed his dive tablet. He looked at his tablet computer, typed what he was after and clicked search. He patiently examined the results. Pensive. They only confirmed his nagging suspicion. Handing the tablet to Tom. “Does this look like your ghost?”

  “Christ! That’s exactly what it looked like. Where did you get that?”

  “From the database of students with exemplary achievement at MIT. That’s the most recent known picture of Professor Luke Eldridge – the man who was murdered.”

  Chapter Eighty

  Tom dried himself with a towel and threw a T-shirt on. This news was about to change everything. Until a few minutes ago they knew who their enemy was – someone who wanted Luke Eldridge dead. They had hoped the nanobot hive had been destroyed, but the appearance of the glowing green apparition showed this hope was in vain.

  Veyron and Elise both came down the steel stairs and into the dive room. Tom looked at their faces as they approached. “So much for our long overdue vacation,” he said.

  Sam then gave them the bad news. They took it well. Neither looked particularly surprised to discover the nanobots had evolved to survive. It’s only natural.

  At the end, Sam said, “Do you understand what this means?”

  “That we were sharing the same confined space with about a trillion microscopic machines designed to kill us?” Tom replied.

  “Well, there is that. Also, the nanobots are no longer confined to the surface. Plankton are natural surface drifters. They only sink to the bottom when they die.”

  “And if they aren’t restricted to the surface, it means they’re going to be a lot harder to find,” Elise said. “Until now we’ve been able to find them because at night they show up clearly on satellite imaging. No wonder we haven’t been able to find them. In the day they’re enjoying the warmth of the sun and in the night they sink to a cave or something to hide.”

  Sam dried his hair with a towel. “Which means, we’re going to need to find a cave somewhere nearby.”

  “Why nearby?” Veyron asked.

  Sam smiled. He knew he had a winning hand. “Because some of these nanobots were foraging for materials inside the ancient trimaran, and we know their flagella only allow them to make small movements. If they’re foraging for the primary hive, then they must be close.”

  “Could they be inside any of the hulls?” Tom asked.

  “No, not unless there’s about twenty cargo ships down there we don’t know about,” Elise replied. “Think about it. Their hive was large enough to create a rogue wave capable of sinking a cargo ship. That meant they must have the same weight of several cargo ships just to create the wave.”

  Matthew walked into the room. “What did I miss?”

  “The hive is alive and can now hide underwater.”

  Matthew looked taken aback. “Well that’s inconvenient. I was going to ask to take some leave.”

  Tom smiled. “Me too, buddy, me too.”

  Sam looked to Matthew. “About a month ago, you took a sonar scan of this entire seabed, trying to confirm the number and locations of shipwrecks. Did you see any overhanging rocks, or caves? Anything that might provide shelter for the primary hive at night?”

  “It’s all on the ship’s database. I’ll give it to Elise and she can get her system to search for a suitable location for their nest.”

  Chapter Eighty One

  Tom stepped into his quarters, ready to curl
up in his bed. It was only four p.m. but, if they were to find the hive’s nest, he would have to dive during the night so they could visualize the nanobots. He still recalled the old mantra from his days in the Corps – sleep when you can, because you never know how long it might be until you next get the chance.

  He stripped to his shorts and flicked the air conditioner on. It started up and ran with an annoyingly loud hum, more like sleeping next to a mechanic tuning a car engine. Tom put up with it due to the fact the steel hull lining his quarters radiated the outside temperature, making it above 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Still, it wasn’t ideal.

  Tom rested on his back. Pulled a light sheet up to his shoulders and closed his eyes. Two seconds later, several loud knocks struck the door. They were almost aggressive in their tempo. Tom stood up, walked over and opened the door.

  It was Genevieve.

  She walked inside and closed the door without speaking. Tom looked at her and smiled. She had dark hair, kept short and tidy, giving her the appearance of an elf. Blue eyes. Long eyelashes. No makeup whatsoever. Tan complexion. She was quite stunning to look at.

  She wore denim shorts and a white tank top. Like everyone else aboard, she was barefoot. He wanted to speak, but didn’t know what to say. They’d been so busy since the night the Mississippi had been damaged, when she’d kissed him, they hadn’t spoken since, with the exception of normal duties.

  She locked the door, and pulled her tank top over her head. Then she unclasped her bra, revealing large, well-rounded breasts with petite nipples. She stared at him. Her blue eyes taunted him with desire. She remained silent while she unbuttoned her shorts and removed both her underwear and shorts in one single movement.

  She stood completely naked in front of him, every bit as unimaginably beautiful as he’d dreamed she’d be. Her skin smooth and vibrant, her figure lithe and athletic. She had multiple scars throughout her body. Some could have been from natural accidents; others could only have been from her past. Tom was wise enough not to ask about them.