by Scott Todd
Again the water hit us, but this time it knocked us backwards. Jan looked at me terrified, and we desperately clung to the sides of the bunk trying to hold on. The sub's hull groaned in pain. But we finally stabilized.
"Well, they tried to kill us," I said, somewhat regretfully. But I wasn't sorry. "They had an entire attack fleet, complete with a long range bomber and a sub-killing plane. So Ben and I authorized Gary to take them out. We had to make a fast call, or they would have gotten away. Otherwise, we would have asked you and Terry first, of course. But even if you would have disagreed, we still had a majority. It wouldn't have mattered anyway."
"Was that a nuke, that first explosion back there?" Jan asked.
"Yes. They nuked Mount Mitchell. All that was left probably on the entire east coast from this disaster, and they nuked it. It's clear they want no survivors. The only reason we survived is because we're deep under water with several mountain ridges between us and the explosion that all took most of the impact. Ben and Gary confirmed it through analyzing the explosion parameters. Nukes give off a certain, unmistakable signature, so I doubt they were wrong," I concluded.
"That's insane! Well then I wouldn't have disagreed," Jan said, regaining her composure and looking mad. "We acted in self defense!"
"Yeah well Gary anticipated this way back when we were still on the mountain, and suspected that either China or Russia might move in for the final kill. And he was right," I added quietly.
Just then Gary appeared, with an extreme sense of urgency on his face. And right behind him came Terry, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Jan quickly grabbed her in a comfort hug.
"We're going into evasive maneuvers, and so you better get strapped in," Gary said. "If either the Chinese or Russians have any working satellites, they can track the origin point of our missile launch, and it will just be a matter of time before someone comes looking into all these huge explosions... Or they may just decide to incinerate this whole area. I have no idea what's next. But we have to get out of here fast. Terry!" he exclaimed. "We desperately need you back on sonar."
He scurried back up to the bridge, but Terry was going into meltdown. Her eyes were tired, and it was clear she had enough.
"I don't think she's coming," I yelled up the ladder. "She's toast."
I heard Gary say some things to Ben, and then he finally said "Fine, I'll handle it. No time for training now. Just keep as quiet as you can down there."
Jan and I ushered Terry to the bunks and we all got into three close by each other. We felt the sub pick up speed and start to turn rapidly in one direction, then the opposite way, and then back again the first way. Glancing at my watch it was after 6 am.
The constant turning kept up for hours, while we waited in terror. Ben and Gary were navigating the sub full steam ahead, descending through inundated mountain valleys and ravines, and trying desperately not to slam into any of it. Plus, we didn't know if we'd be blown to bits any second.
But FINALLY the sub seemed to smooth out, and we seemed to be going more straight. Right about then Ben appeared, and grabbed Terry, hugging her.
"We're going to get out of this. Don't you worry honey," Ben said surprisingly calmly to her.
"But why did we have to fire nukes!" Terry cried.
"Because that's... That's... About the only thing we have onboard to hit a fleet of planes with... I guess," Ben replied, stuttering. "It's a submarine. Very few have any air defenses at all. Those bastards nuked the mountain, trying to kill us and anyone left."
"How could they even think to do something like that at a time like THIS?!" Terry cried in disbelief.
"Well we don't know exactly if that was the main Chinese government, or a bunch of rogue, hard line communist military, or what," I pointed out.
"Any of which could be true," Ben immediately replied. "And on that very note, I have reason to believe the Chinese not only lost Hong Kong and their entire eastern seaboard, but I believe they lost Beijing too. I made up a fast, crude world map estimate of the water damage and likely depths.
"Beijing was only a hundred miles or so from the coast. They wouldn't stand a chance against a three hundred foot wave, much less a three THOUSAND foot wave. That country is probably in complete chaos, like the rest of the world. It very well could have been some rogue, hard line military that survived way up in northern mid China, hell bent on destroying once and for all any remains of the "Great Satan," he finished saying.
"Well for once I have some better news," Gary announced, suddenly walking in.
"Instruments are showing that we have finally cleared the mountain range, and we have entered much deeper water. And we can all thank Ben and Terry mostly for that. That was an incredible job you two did to get us out of that trap in one piece. And we made it just in time, too," he concluded.
"We only had about seventy feet of water left when we went over that last ridge," Ben added. "That was damn close. TOO damn close. The currents are a lot weaker out here, now that we're out from the mountains, but they still seem to be flowing southwest, towards the event site. It is still pulling on us.
"In the meantime, I have plotted a new course south to clear the mountains- and then I suggest we go east- out into the Atlantic. Because to go anywhere west, and closer to that hole, is not something I'm ready for. Are you?" he asked, looking around.
We all shook our heads vigorously.
"Maybe in an airplane someday, but not in a submarine," Ben mused with a slight smirk on his face. "And that is a goal of mine- to fly over the event site if at all possible to see what happened. I just don't know that we'd see anything if water has covered it all back up. It could take a special ocean research vessel."
But suddenly, upon uttering those words, Ben went silent and put his head down. We all just stared at him, expecting him to say something else- but he didn't. I had the feeling that something was definitely up with that, and my mind went into overdrive trying to make some sense of it.
Finally Gary, looking a bit more relieved, said "Well we're a lot safer at this depth, and as long as the water level doesn't recede any more too fast, I think we can..."
He was silenced when the ship hull creaked for a minute.
"And so what depth are we at?" I asked.
Gary hesitated a minute, as if he didn't want to answer. But then he finally said, "The real depths this sub can achieve is a guarded secret in the US Navy. Is there a particular reason you really need to know that?"
"Not really. I was just curious. I mean the ship's hull is creaking and all..." I replied innocently.
Ben started to say something, but just as quickly acquiesced when Gary looked his way- a little menacingly.
"Just trust us- we won't push any depth limits unless we really have to- but yes, there are limits. However, if you order me to tell you, I will," Gary said, sounding a little annoyed.
It was the first time we felt him withhold information from us since we had become entangled together in the nightmare. Given everything else we had been through though, it made me uncomfortable. But then I thought about the vital secrets I was hiding. I was instantly relieved that Gary couldn't order me to speak mine.
Ben looked at me straight in the eye, and shook his head quickly, as in "Pease just drop it." Trusting him, I nodded back. He gave me the distinct feeling that he would tell me later. Perhaps there was some information that was so vital to our security that it couldn't just be out in the open. Not even in those apocalyptic circumstances. Our very lives could depend on it.
And my secrets, well... Evidence no longer existed for anyone to find ever again after the mountain was nuked- except for in my mind- and in my precious notebook. I suddenly had an extreme urge to grab that notebook and burn those relevant pages. And eventually, I did, at an opportune moment.
It is so true that the victors write their own versions of history. And I could live with that. Yeah, I finally could live with that. *Wink*
Chapter 55: Shattered Secrets
; The following hours were pretty uneventful, with the ship settling comfortably into the deeper water. Heading east, further out into the new ocean, I estimated we were somewhere over what used to be Charlotte, NC.
Ben and Gary were intent upon getting to the deep ocean basin of the Atlantic, in case there was a massive water retreat again back to the event site. At least that way we'd have a better chance of not being either caught up in the current, or stranded on land- or both. And amazingly, there was still some 2,500 feet of water remaining over the land- even after that massive water withdraw.
But Gary's high stress over another potential attack was infecting us to the point that the women just couldn't take it any more and had to go rest. He was running around from station to station nervously, constantly checking instrumentation.
"I still have no time to train you," Gary said to me all of a sudden, looking up from his instruments. "But you CAN do something and watch this radar screen for us. If anything at all appears on it, and I mean ANYTHING, you call me quick! I've got to get back on sonar and help navigate us, because we are still not out of the woods yet. I'm leaving it on max range, and please don't touch anything. Gotta run!"
And with that he rushed off. I looked down to see a sweeping line going round and round, and beyond that I knew nothing other than what I had seen in movies.
"Particularly bad is if you see a cluster of dots," Ben remarked. I looked up and saw him looking at me intently from his station. "That could mean another incoming aircraft formation."
I cringed and halfway nodded back, then glued my eyes to the screen. But there was nothing there. It quickly got pretty boring, but I understood the urgent necessity. So I settled into my chair, and just dealt with it. But then I realized I had an opportune moment with Ben alone.
"So Ben, why was it you got so quiet and nervous a while ago when you mentioned something about needing an ocean research ship to check out the event site?" I asked him, eager to find out what was up.
He looked up and stared at me with a peculiar look that is difficult to describe- but I detected a slight note of regret and sorrow. Then he looked around, as if to insure no one else was there.
"Because I have a hunch that the Japanese may have been responsible for this to a degree," he blurted out rather quietly, but intensely.
"WHAT???" I gasped. "HOW??"
"Well they had developed a special ship that could drill for ocean bottom core samples deeper than any other vessel in the world," he said with an accusatory tone.
"And when this became known about the uplift and all, I believe they may have sent it to the event site and drilled it. I know this because Marty had told me that a scientific research team which had that ship booked for the next expedition was abruptly cancelled by the Japanese government. And that was odd. Especially since that was about a month before this all happened. Their government usually doesn't get involved in expedition research, but Marty said they cancelled because of an emergency necessity for it," Ben continued.
"Marty claimed it was to go to the event site and drill, in an attempt to find out more about what was going on down there. He said he got that as confidential information from a scientist friend of his in Japan. And Marty would never lie about something like that to me. As nutty as he was sometimes, he was always clear to make a distinction between speculation and fact," Ben concluded.
I was in disbelief. "So you think them drilling might have uncorked the thing??? Is that what you are saying?" I asked him intensely, but quietly.
He looked around the corner again nervously checking, and looked straight at me and nodded. "It's possible. If they just happened to hit a thin, weaker layer of the ocean bottom and drilled a hole two miles down into the earth on top of all that accumulated gas under extreme pressure, it could have provided a sudden escape path and set off a chain reaction," he said.
"Most of us thought that even with the uplift that it would be at least several thousand years, if not millions of years, before anything would happen," he continued.
"But Marty said the Japanese government, fearing how badly it would affect them, would not listen to reason of any kind and were hell bent upon drilling it, no matter what. Marty said their scientists tried to talk them out of it, and his friend- finally out of sheer desperation- called Marty seeking more scientific opinions. So Marty called me and several others- but to no avail, even after our cumulative concerns were relayed. So I'm pretty sure they drilled it," Ben concluded. "They were the only ones who had the ship that could drill that deep."
I was stunned and speechless. To think that all of this could have been avoided, at least for several thousand years, was infuriating. Ben looked at me nervously, not knowing what to expect, but looked a little relieved to have gotten that off his chest.
A growing rage began to build within me, and I was having a hard time containing it. My family and friends were all dead because of this. Hell, our country was destroyed because of this. Billions of people died because of this. And here I sat staring at the last remaining bastion of science. In that moment, Ben now represented all of science. He represented cause and fault. And I was seeing red. "Kill. Kill him. Destroy the monster for this," my inner voice demanded.
As my fists clenched harder and harder, Ben sensed my building rage. He knew I was about to lose it. But before I could fly out of my seat, he suddenly had an automatic assault weapon pointed at me. My piercing death stare remained, challenging him nonetheless.
"Not so fast, Brian," he said sternly, putting his finger on the trigger. "First of all, I am not directly at fault here for this. I was dead set against any drilling there, and I told Marty to relay that to his Japanese friend. So don't blame me. And second of all..."
He held up several sheets of paper he produced from his pocket in a wad. I noticed part of it looked burned. He tossed it to me. I didn't have to unravel it very far to realize what it was- in horror. I thought I had burned it, but then I remembered I had to leave it smoldering when I heard someone coming. It was the crucial pages from my notebook I had sought to destroy, and he must have put the fire out and read what was left.
SHIT.
"Just so you know, I don't entirely disagree with what you did back there on the mountain," he said intensely- and with his eyes just as piercing right back at me. "I finally found your whole notebook and read most of it, too- which helped to put things in a more understandable perspective for me."
My blood boiled at the intrusion of my privacy for a second, but then I also felt a sense of relief- that at least he had more of the whole picture.
"The way you did all that was cunning to say the least. And I am not forgetting either that I owe you my life... Gary has since confessed to me that they were going to go along with a plan to kill us to cover up the rapes of the women.
"But yes, so now I know about it," he continued secretively, and still watching for visitors. "And now YOU know my deepest secret too... That it may well have been science that caused this. And for what it's worth, I am seriously shamed and embarrassed for it. But there is not a damn THING either of us can do about it now," he said regretfully.
I shriveled back down into my seat, utterly destroyed and forced into a pensive acquiescence. I didn't know whether to be more upset that Ben knew about the events on the mountain, or that his colleagues in science might be responsible for the utter mayhem we were all going through.
After several minutes of brooding, I finally came to the conclusion that given the circumstances, I was just going to have to deal with it. Ben knew my secrets. I just kept staring at him, but said nothing.
"So looks like we have some secrets we share," Ben continued quietly and with a sigh. "Now, can I put this gun down please?" he asked. "Or are you still going to try and kill me? I trust you will not mention this to the others, and I swear on my mother's grave I will never say a word about what really happened to you back there... To anyone... Ever. But I just had to tell someone. It was killing me. And I trust you."
Before I could even answer, a sudden beep startled us both. As I glanced down, I saw a dot on the radar, and heard another beep as the line went past it. Then there was another dot, and another beep. Ben came rushing over to look.
"Shit, go get Gary NOW!" he blurted out, and quickly got back to his post.
Hauled back into reality and stuck in a stalemate with Ben anyways, I went on an urgent hunt for Gary. My urge to tell the others about the drilling would forever be held prisoner by Ben's knowledge of my ordeal on the mountain. But at least I had Ben's promise of secrecy. And for now that was going to have to do.
I found Gary and told him about the radar. He came running back with me in total distress. We stared at the screen, and there were now several more dots and beeps. He immediately told Ben to stop the sub and cut the engines, while he went off to the radio equipment. He asked me to go to the bunks and insure the women remained quiet.
