“Green now, boss,” Travis responded.
Legend paused for a long four seconds, considering the enormity of his decision, watching the building panic inside the pod. Then he thought of the alternative. He had not invited them along for this ride, anyway. As far as he was concerned, these cockroaches were all hijackers intent on considerable unpleasantness, much of it centered around him. In the end, he reasoned, it was either them or his crew.
“Dump the pod,” he finally ordered in a strong voice.
Twenty nine explosive bolts activated without hesitation. At the same moment, Baker’s fingers instantly initiated a command to his remotely positioned ROVs.
The entire structure of the Phoenix vibrated as the pod sheared and dropped away into the black abyss below. The image to the room was mercifully cut as it fell into the eternal night of the depths. The Phoenix immediately compensated for the loss of mass by ballasting her internal tanks. This entire process had been a part of her design before the first weld was placed. Within three minutes, the pressure of the ocean would implode the fake Command Center pod as it descended into the darkness and kill all of its passengers in the wink of an eye.
The sound of the pod ripping from the Phoenix would have given their position away, but Baker’s SROVs had lined up in a wide arc around the Chicom vessels and each of them mirrored the sound from their location. The net result of the carefully calculated acoustic array was to position the sound as evaluated by their computers many miles in the opposite direction of their actual location. The orchestrated acoustic pulses were also designed to mimic the sound of an underwater explosion commonly used in the undersea mining trade.
The SROVs were each programmed to work together as mobile auditory wraiths of the deep. Since the only eyes of the enemy were acoustic, the SROVs were designed to make them see only what Legend wanted them to see and to mask and redirect other sounds he did not want them to define. The sound of bulkheads collapsing which was transmitted earlier to the shadowing Chinese submarine was also engineered by the little acoustic pods. All of this was designed by his brother, Baker.
“Good work, team. Now, Sam, we have to find our friend Dr. Lurch,” Legend said grimly.
“At last, the day I have been waiting for,” Sam responded, her black eyes alight.
“I think we can all breathe easier from now on. The Phoenix is about to be ours,” Legend said. “Come on, Sam. We have one more duty to attend to.” He rose from his seat, moved to the hatch, unfastened it and passed into the life raft locker, followed by Sam. As he opened the hatch and stepped into the outer passageway, Legend turned and came face to face with Dr. Adams, who leaned against the far bulkhead, smoking a cigarette.
“Holy crap! You scared the bejeebers outta me!” Legend exclaimed in total surprise, yet quickly regained his composure.
Sam stepped from behind Legend and stood quietly at his side as they faced Adams, while Baker and Travis crammed inside the locker to look out at what had caused such a commotion. They remained squeezed together in the tiny area to view the ensuing confrontation.
“I see that we severely underestimated you, Mr. Legend,” Dr. Adams said, blowing a stinking cloud of putrid cigarette smoke into his face. “But for all of your hooliganisms, you have also underestimated us. The Jiang Zemin has orders to sink you upon any provocation, and I can assure you that she is closing on your position as we speak.”
“Oh?” Legend asked in an unwavering voice. “And how do you suspect they’ll find us?”
“You are so naive, Mr. Legend, just like all Americans. Your vessel is as large as a floating building, you have no capacity to submerge, no capacity to run and no defenses – not even a single rifle, as if that would do any good against a nuclear submarine.” Then his face hardened. “Now, release my Special Forces team from behind those locked doors and I will allow you and your team to live another day. I can assure you I am in full communications with the Commanding Officer of the Jiang Zemin and he is aware of our situation here. I just this moment spoke with the commander of my team. He is very angry and demands retribution. But, if you cooperate, I will speak to him on your behalf. If you act immediately, I just may let you and your band of riffraff live,” he said as he blew a cloud of smoke in their direction.
“Listen, you Chicom scumbag, I already told you there’s no smoking onboard the Phoenix ,” Legend said with a crooked smile. “Our life support systems have a difficult time processing that toxin.”
Adams stiffened, then responded neutrally, “May I remind you, Mr. Legend, that this vessel is the property of the Chinese government, that as their assigned representative, it is, in fact, my vessel, and I will do as I please…”
“Are you aware, Doc, that there’s a stiff penalty for violating the no-smoking policy onboard the Phoenix ?”
Adams inhaled deeply on his cigarette, and then blew another cloud of smoke into Legend’s face. “And what may that be?”
“It’s a capital offense,” Legend retorted firmly as he drew a .38 snub nosed revolver from the back waistband of his pants and leveled it to Adam’s face.
“Wait, Boss, you promised!” Sam protested, laying her fingers gently on Legend’s outstretched arm.
Legend held his grip and his position, fighting the urge to pull the trigger and blow Adam’s sneer all over the back bulkhead. Finally, he relented and lowered the weapon.
“You have more brains than I gave you credit for,” Adams sneered, taking another drag on his cigarette. “Now release my team, immediately!”
“Sic ‘em, Sam,” Legend said quietly.
Half a second later, Adam’s head lay loosely over the back of his shoulders as his fingers quivered involuntarily. His dying, but very surprised, eyes looked up to Legend, open, staring, but not quite comprehending what had just transpired.
“Smoking is a very serious offense here onboard the Phoenix ,” were the last words he heard as his world faded – permanently - to black.
“Awesome!” Travis T said from behind them. “Did you see that?”
“No, I didn’t actually see anything stuck behind your fat heads!” Wonder responded with disappointment as he emerged from the Command Center into the locker.
“It’s wearin’ those sunglasses inside, I keep tellin’ ya,” Travis quipped.
“How did you know that he wasn’t somehow in communications with the Jiang Zemin ?” Baker asked. “I mean, what if he’s telling the truth?”
“He was bluffin’; it was obvious. Didn’t you hear the nest of obvious lies? Typical Chicom crap. But at least they’re consistent liars.”
“Awesome!” Travis repeated.
“What happened to him?” Wonder asked, peering around to see Adams lying dead on the deck.
“Just be glad you quit smokin’!” Travis responded seriously.
“Wow! Free at last! Fantastic! No more walkin’ on eggshells,” Baker announced joyously.
But Legend’s face was hard as he looked down on the now still body of Adams. “Nope, I’m afraid it’s only just begun,” he said with a certain, resolute foreboding.
32
There had never been a sunrise like it since the dawn of time. The nearest star had hitherto long been considered an average, stable master and companion of its planetary system. Yet, on this morning, she no longer rose over her planets as an agent of life, but of certain death. Deep within her thermonuclear heart, something was dreadfully amiss. From the smallest of spaces inside her nuclear core, a set of quantum conditions were met that were so complex they were quite beyond the understanding of most men. Therein was expressed a certain, incontrovertible physical reality. They were articulated in principles mathematically described as a kind of relativistic atomic vagueness - all within individual spaces measured in less than ten to the minus twenty three centimeters. And yet their collective influence was felt in a sphere of countless trillions of cubic kilometers. Orbiting within that sphere of influence was the earth and all her inhabitants. And after this terrib
le sunrise, nothing would ever – indeed, nothing could ever - be the same again.
“Good God; it’s begun!” Warren groaned from his makeshift desk in Miller’s cave. His voice echoed throughout the cavernous space and back again into his ears. The sound of the rushing stream in the tiny sub-cavern below them lent a kind of persistent white noise to their space, but Warren ’s voice now cut through their sleepy peace like an unwelcome phantom.
“What’s begun?” Wattenbarger asked, yawning. He approached Warren pulling on a pair of cut-off jeans, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles over his nose.
“The storms…”
“What?” Wattenbarger asked with a crooked smile. “They aren’t supposed to start for days yet.”
“Three days and fourteen hours, to be exact. They’re early!”
“How do you know?”
“See for yourself,” Warren responded, pointing to a radiation meter.
Wattenbarger squinted through the lower part of his lenses at a meter whose black needle wavered well above its peg. “Okay, what am I seeing?”
“The sensor is placed on the television tower on the mountain above us. It tracks the sun. Sunrise over the mountain occurred an hour ago. The readings have been steadily rising ever since, which is exactly what would happen because of atmospheric density effects. As you can see, the radiation levels are well above normal – about seven times background already.”
“My Lord! I can’t believe it. It’s real!” Wattenbarger said, his eyes pasted on the meter whose needle wavered but held its position well into the band of red which indicated a high radiation field. “I was kinda hopin’ that…”
“Yes, it’s real, my friend. And it’s measuring a level that appears to be consistent with the Seven model; at least as far as I can determine with my rather limited set of instruments. Look at this,” Warren said, pulling out a roll of paper and spreading it across his desk. On the paper was a hand-drawn graph.
“Here’s the projected readings for the start of the storm – the first twenty four hours. Now let me pencil in the readings we’re seeing now, corrected for noon air density.” Warren squinted his eyes, tapped a few numbers onto a calculator, then plotted the point with a pencil. “Here… here’s what the level should be at high noon today,” he said as he circled his dot with the pencil. “See; it’s nearly on the projected line. Seven’s model holds; at least for the first day.”
“My Lord! I can’t believe it. It’s real!” Wattenbarger repeated, his eyes glancing back and forth between the plot and the meter.
“Denial isn’t just a terrible thing, it’s a deadly thing,” Warren responded.
“Yeah,” Wattenbarger responded, “as seven billion people are about to discover.”
33
Aaron Seven’s PC buzzer pierced the air of his apartment several times before he touched the button at the base and said in a sleepy voice, his eyes still closed, “Seven here, go…”
“Dr. Seven, Twink here. I’m standing at your front door. You and Serea need to get dressed and follow me to the Command Center right now! We don’t have any time to kill here, Boss.”
Seven’s eyes opened wide. The clock beside his bed read 0132. “What’s up, Twink?” he asked in a strong voice, swinging his feet to the floor.
“The storms… they’ve started,” Twink responded, his voice filled with certain urgency.
“We’re on the way,” Seven replied as Serea jumped to the floor beside him.
Minutes later the trio burst through the doors of the Pacifica Command Center. Spencer was standing at a wall mounted bank of monitors and they walked to his side and stood next to him. There on the wall were the world’s English speaking news outlets reporting the event. The dissonant noise of all the various monitors whose speakers were on simultaneously was cacopho*nous.
“Kill all the audio but that one,” Seven ordered, pointing to one.
“From his hidden shelter, the President has ordered the National Guard on full alert and has declared a permanent state of martial law across the nation,” the grave faced announcer said.
“Since he hasn’t lifted it for two months, I’d pretty much call that permanent,” Twink said from behind them.
“Shhh…” Edgar rebuked, now standing with the group.
“The storms have begun a full three days earlier than predicted by scientists and have caught the whole earth by surprise. Many shelter projects are still days from being completed. One senior civil defense analyst has said that this lack of accuracy by the scientific community will doubtless cost millions of lives.”
Seven sighed deeply and Serea squeezed his hand. “And if it weren’t for you scientist types, they all would have died,” she whispered into his ear.
“I guess they didn’t understand all those discussions of uncertainty,” he whispered back.
“The storms began at 0532 Eastern Daylight Time, over two hours ago, just before sunrise across America,” the announcer continued. “The first increased radiation levels were detected and reported by an observatory in the United Kingdom. The levels are consistent with the Aaron Seven predictions – the solar scientist who discovered the effect.”
“Sometimes I think these guys just make this stuff up as they go along,” Twink said. “Aaron Seven isn’t a solar scientist, you dupe…”
“Shhh…” Edgar and Spencer intoned simultaneously.
“The radiation levels will steadily climb now, according to Seven’s model, until they reach maximum intensity in about 45 days,” the announcer continued, projecting a simple line chart behind him. “Adequate shelter is essential. One of the most frequently asked questions is how much shielding is good enough. With us today to discuss that question is astrophysics expert, Dr. Karen Dartmouth.”
Serea could not suppress her snicker in time, and she put her hand over her mouth as Seven momentarily moved his annoyed eyes in her direction.
“Dr. Dartmouth, we understand that you were instrumental in assisting Dr. Aaron Seven in developing his model…”
“Why, that flaming….” Seven fumed so quietly that only Serea could hear. She responded by quietly squeezing his hand.
“Could you help our listeners out here by letting us in on the details of radiation shielding?”
“Yes, of course,” Karen responded with a flashy smile. “When Dr. Seven and I were working together to develop our model, we came up with some likely shielding scenarios.”
“You actually know this wench?” Twink asked.
“Shhh…” Seven responded rather than dare speak.
“Nobody believes anyone or anything at this point,” Serea whispered into Seven’s ear. “Don’t give it a second’s thought.”
“I should’ve tossed her into the seven rivers vortex when I had the chance,” he responded with no clue as to his sincerity.
“To escape the effects of the storm,” Karen continued, “shelters need to be at least 80 feet beneath the earth or 50 feet beneath solid rock or concrete, not accounting for variations in rock densities. Or, a shield made up of solid steel plate of some 10 feet would offer the same protection. Alternately, one would require at least 100 feet of ocean water for adequate shielding beneath the sea, not counting any steel covering as in submarines or other ocean shelters.”
“What about buildings – like in the cities?”
“Sure, large city buildings can offer a considerable amount of protection – probably even adequate protection - if one is inside the core of the building down low or underground. City sewers will also offer deep protection if they’re situated deeply enough. The shielding afforded by single family dwellings will provide shelter during the day for about the four and a half days after the start of the storms. After that, they will be insufficient as the radiation levels slowly build over the next month and a half.
“Obviously, when the sun sets, the danger of radiation exposure is over. People will be able to move about freely during the dark hours.”
“Dr. Dartmouth,”
the announcer asked solemnly, “we keep hearing the term ‘die-off’. Can you help us understand that phrase a little better?”
“Why, certainly,” Karen responded with an involuntary flip of her long brunette hair.
“My God, she acts like she’s being interviewed for wedding party tips,” Seven whispered quietly to Serea.
“You’re the one who went out and bought her a ring,” she reminded him in a wickedly depraved whisper.
“Die-off is a term that refers to the rate of death of any given species during the storm. For example, the rate of unprotected vertebrate animal die-off is projected to be 50 percent in four days and 100 percent in five days…” Karen continued.
“You mean from now? By vertebrate animals, you also mean humans?” the announcer asked, his face ashen.
“Yes, of course,” Karen responded with a flashy smile.
“Doesn’t she realize that if the world survives this, she’ll be forever known as Dr. Death by this one of a kind performance?” Seven rasped to Serea.
“The rate of die-off of microscopic life and insect life is somewhat different. However, all life that isn’t shielded will be dead within 10 days – the probable rate of death approaches 100 percent for every unshielded organism,” Karen stated arrogantly.
“Everything gone… ten days from now? The certain extinction of all life on earth in ten days? This is staggering,” the announcer rasped.
“This effect is well known and has been published from the beginning,” Karen responded. She successfully reflected that certain, unhidden, supercilious annoyance that only scientists can muster, even after announcing to the planet that every living organism had a terminal diagnosis with only ten days left to live.
The announcer looked at her in obvious, wide-eyed shock. While he, and the rest of his human companions, had been told and re-told of this certain inevitability, few of them had made the connection to reality or to an actual sunrise on any real day. The fact that none of them understood the underlying cause, hidden as it was just out of view in its quantum vagueness, lent certain credibility to the feeling that the scientists must have somehow been terribly wrong. But on this morning, the needles began to budge off their posts and it was useless to deny the fact that the warmth of a friendly sunrise was now to be dreaded and that something more horrible than anyone had ever feared to dream was actually in play.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 27
