The Black: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Paul E. Cooley

  “See here?” Catfish said and pointed to the furthest monitor on the right.

  Shawna stared at the peaks and jumps in the graph. When Catfish’s programs unpacked the binary data, it came across the byte indices for annotations made by the sensors. They were confusing to say the least.

  She cleared her throat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Number 5 came across a large fish. Something moving down there.”

  He shook his head. “We can check the video and still footage, but I don’t think that’s the case. Something else happened.”

  Something else. Bullshit. Catfish was having another of his hinky moments. The man frequently blamed gremlins for bugs in his code, or some unknown person for messing with his workstation and designs. She was used to hearing him go off at length about paranoid conspiracies. He was a genius, but he was hardly well-adjusted.

  She sighed. “You compiled Number 5’s footage yet?”

  “Yes, and no. They’re split into folders just like the others. But I haven’t run the program to splice them. They’re on the fileserver.”

  “Okay,” she said. She took the well-lit console next to him and sat in the expensive chair. She logged in and her fingers danced over the command line interface until she brought up the folder for Number 5.

  The pictures and videos were named by depth/timestamp. The ten frame- per-second videos were stored in five second segments. It was going to be a pain in the ass, but she knew analyzing the videos was the only way she’d get Catfish back on track. Once the man found a hiccup in his systems, he’d eschew all other tasks until he solved the problem. It was one of his many personal traits that drove her batshit.

  She searched for the max well-depth and then found the corresponding videos. Number 5 had taken nearly forty minutes of video at 30,162 feet. She opened another window, brought up the strange readings, and looked at the time slice. Shawna nodded to herself and opened the relevant video.

  Instead of seeing the glare of bright lights from the well-head’s surface, the images were clothed in a strange ghostly blue. The new camera technology for subsea depths didn’t use thermal imaging or traditional methods to capture pictures. Instead, they used a special range of light that allowed them to “see” even in the pitch-black.

  Unlike black and white photography, the blue-light afforded many more shades of contrast and it was less possible for details to be lost in the continual shift of colors. The sand and rock around the well-head was clearly visible. It looked undisturbed as the video played and then there was a skip.

  She frowned. With a touch of her finger, the video started over again, but at one frame per second speed. Number 5 was relatively stationary in the water, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a bit of change between the images. Even at that depth, the constant push and pull of the water was enough to jar its position. The cameras were affixed to motion-compensating mounts, but they weren’t perfect.

  Frame 23 displayed and she saw the jump. She hit the space bar and froze the image. Number 5’s position hadn’t changed, but the image had jumped up in the air as if a sudden burst of water had disturbed it. In the next frame, it was back to where it had been.

  Her eyebrows knit together. “Catfish?”

  “Yeah?” he asked as his fingers continued typing.

  “Can we check Number 5’s camera? Something’s strange.”

  He glanced at her. “What do you mean ‘strange’?”

  “Well,” she said, “I checked the footage from that timeframe. Looks like the camera image jumped although the AUV stayed stationary.”

  Catfish blinked. “What?”

  “Seriously,” she said. “Come here.”

  Except for the hum of the computer fans, the room went quiet. Catfish slowly rolled his chair next to hers. “Okay. Show me something I haven’t seen before.”

  She rewound the video and started it again at normal speed. Catfish watched. When the shift in the frames came up, he glared at the monitor. “Run it again. Slow-mo.”

  Shawna reset the video and once more ran it at one frame per second. When the image jumped, he sucked his teeth. She paused it and turned to him. “Well? What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “That’s fucking strange.” The words came out in a hushed whisper, but a smile crept across his face. “I’ve never seen a camera do that.”

  “Interference from the sensors?”

  He shook his head. “If it was, we’d have seen it before. Plus, the rest of the videos and stills would have the same problem.”

  “Who says they don’t?” she asked. “I think I need to view the rest of these and see if I can find another. How many anomalies did Number 5 mark?”

  “Seven,” he said.

  She sighed. “Good thing the drill string is still a few hours from getting all the way down there. Once the mud starts coming up, I’ll be trapped in my chair.”

  “Whah,” Catfish said.

  She punched him in the arm and he cursed. “Right, Mr. Computer, because you don’t have to analyze a 100 meter core once they pull the damned thing up.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s your job, ain’t it?”

  “Ain’t ain’t a word,” she said. He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Catfish, it’s my f’ing job.”

  He laughed. “Why can’t you just say ‘fuck’ and get it over with?”

  She turned in her chair to face him. “Because, I am a lady.”

  He raised his hands and flashed a grin. “I’d never say otherwise.”

  “Better not,” she said. Her look of consternation slowly melted into a soft smile. “Otherwise I’ll kick your fucking ass.”

  #

  The crew had finished assembling the drill string for the core sample. Over 600 sections of pipe had been spliced together to reach the ocean floor. Now they were at the spud-in site. All the drilling team had to do was start the fluid, turn on the drill, and wait.

  Much like the center of a record player, the end of the drill string sat in the middle of a large circular steel mechanism. The visible leader pipe was connected to tanks of fluid. When drilling started, fluid would flow down the drill string to lubricate the drill bit and force a return of sediment and other particles known as mud. The giant record player would begin to spin. The centrifugal force would grind the drill bit into the ocean floor. The diamond studded core bit would cut a 100 meter long cylinder through the rock and the shelf. As it drilled, the mud would rise back up the pipe to a return trough. The crew would strain and filter the mud so Shawna and Harobin, the mud-logger, could analyze the results.

  Once the drill reached its target depth and the core was salvaged, the crew would raise the 100 meter long cylinder of rock and soil through the string. At that point, it would have to be extracted so Shawna could analyze it and report as to whether or not the prospect was black gold, or just shit.

  Calhoun stared out toward the open ocean. The choppy waves frothed beneath puffy, white clouds. The massive storm that had chased them into the ocean was still out there, but it was no longer heading toward Leaguer. And that was a good thing.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cheap cigar. Its end was dark and moist where he’d had it clenched for most of the morning. He’d smoked one of the good ones at daybreak while the sun slowly crawled over the horizon. The cheapie in his hand wasn’t something he’d ever smoke—it was for chewing on.

  Once between his lips, his teeth clamped down on it. He rolled it from cheek to cheek in nervous anticipation. Any time a crew started drilling, a billion things could go wrong. Connections on the pipe sections might fail, or fluid wouldn’t reach the drill bit, or the drill bit would break. The worst? They could hit a gas pocket.

  He’d seen pictures of rigs that had hit massive natural gas or CO2 reservoirs. The gas would travel up the pipe or possibly explode causing a massive shockwave. Worst of all? A bubble might form.

  One rig had been destroyed by a bubble. When its crew realized they’d hit a gas pocket, they�
��d dumped all the concrete casing they had down the pipe. While it had contained the gas and kept it from blowing the well-head, the gas had instead ruptured part of the sea floor. A massive gas bubble roared out of the damaged trench and floated toward the ocean surface. It hit the semi-submersible rig at an angle. The force was enough to rock the rig and make it list. Once that happened, the rig was doomed.

  The ballast keeping the rig afloat took on more water on one side than the other. Unable to right itself, it kept listing. By the time the support ships managed to evacuate the rig, it was at a 25° angle. An hour later? The rig was gone. Just plain gone with nothing but wooden debris and trash to mark where it had disappeared.

  From start to finish? The event had taken five hours. In that short timespan, an 800 million dollar investment ended up on the bottom of the ocean. And that incident had occurred near land and in only 2,000 feet of water.

  If such a thing occurred out here in the middle of nowhere, it would be a race for the crew to get off the rig and into their lifeboats. Auto distress beacons would send out signals and the choppers and support ships would rally to their aid. But that was only if there was time to get off the rig.

  Calhoun wasn’t worried about an explosion. They weren’t fucking BP—they knew how to build a goddamned well-head with a proper blowback preventer. Those idiots shouldn’t even be allowed to cook with oil, let alone drill or refine it.

  PPE wanted the black, but they were savvy enough to know the difference between delays due to caution versus the risk of acting with reckless abandon. Before Calhoun had signed up with them, he’d looked at the track record of those involved. This was PPE’s first real venture in the deep ocean. They weren’t willing to risk losing their new toy under any circumstances. If they had, he would never have agreed to join the project regardless of how much money had been on the table. You couldn’t spend money if you were dead.

  The loudspeaker sprang to life. “Steve Gomez. Please call the bridge.”

  The short Hispanic man in the bright red hardhat walked away from the turntable and headed to a phone attached to the wall. He picked it up, spoke a few words, and then turned to the men on the deck. He gave them a thumbs up and cradled the phone.

  Calhoun pulled up his ear pieces and put them on as the pumps roared to life. Fluid started its long descent to the drill bit. He longed for the roar of the turntable as it turned and drilled, but it would be a while before that happened. Everything had to be nice and lubricated first.

  The crew was spread between the pumps and the turntable, everyone watching gauges and looking for warning lights. Up on the bridge, Vraebel and his XO, Terrel, would be doing the same. Catfish’s AUVs would be swarming down near the spud site, taking pictures, and monitoring the systems. If something went wrong, at least they’d get good film.

  Nothing is going to go wrong, he told himself. Just black gold waiting to be brought up.

  #

  At lower midnight, there is hardly any sound. The waves 30,000 feet above the ocean floor have little to no effect this far below. The fauna lived in near silence broken only by the sounds of their fins moving against the water or their teeth upon a meal.

  AUV 5 couldn’t hear—it hadn’t been given sensors for that. What it could do was detect the rush of fluid through the drill string. Its thermal sensors spotted the pipe’s temperature change and began tracking it. Motionless in the pitch black, AUV 5 started sweeping the spud site with sonar pings. Its cameras sprang to life and began recording video and photos.

  Its thermal sensor detected a strange reading near the spud site. The AUV focused the video on the area, marked the data as anomalous, and continued its inspection job. The fluid was circulating through the drill string. As it traveled down to the bit, it was recycled upwards through another part of the pipes.

  Hovering a few feet above the ocean floor, the robot turned on its magnetic sensors as a subroutine kicked on. It would scan for fractures or disturbances once the bit began rotating into the rock and sand. If something went wrong, the rig crew could analyze the data and determine if it was due to mechanical failure or damage to the spud site.

  If AUV 5 had been given the power to hear, it would have been startled as 30,000 feet of piping began to move. The long pipe rotated in a barely perceptible clock-wise motion. The fantastic weight of the drill string kept the bit flush with the rock and soil. As the turntable spun, the pipe and bit followed suit. AUV 5 would have heard the sound of diamonds pulverizing rock into dust.

  A few meters away, a large field of tube worms began to sway in the calm ocean depths. The tentacle-like creatures turned toward the source of the vibration. Whether they did this out of reflex or some inbred knowledge of danger, we’ll never know.

  AUV 2 was stationed above the bed of worms. It slowly tilted downward to snap pictures and video of the fauna. Its primary mission was to keep an eye on the drill site, but its secondary routines had started the moment the worms began responding to the drilling. Even in the dark of lower midnight, its motion sensors had picked up their movements.

  It pinged the creatures with sonar and they responded by reaching toward the AUV although it was safely out of reach. Its video feed would show the behavior later if anyone cared to watch. AUV 2 marked in its logs when and where the creatures started to react to the drilling.

  Far above the ocean floor, the turntable continued to rotate. Fluid was recycled from the trough and sent back down the drill string to lubricate the bit and seal the well as a thin cylinder was cut out of the ocean floor. It would take hours for the core drilling to finish. The AUVs continued their missions of sensor sweeps and filming. They didn’t hear the groan of something below the ocean floor, but their sensors did. The giant tube worms shook as if with ague.

  #

  The rig rumbled beneath the sounds of the computer fans, the air conditioner, and conversation. Its pumps were on. The turntable was rotating. The crew watched their stations. Vraebel, his seventh cup of coffee loosely gripped in his left hand, wore a thin smile.

  Gomez had reported in twice to give the all clear and ensure no warnings had been issued. Vraebel was happy to tell the man all is well and keep drilling. His people were good. So was Calhoun’s bit. They’d already had to add two more sections of pipe to the drill string. The core was being drilled in record time, but not because they were rushing it. It was all about the bit.

  At some point he would have to ask Calhoun what was so special about it. But for the moment, he was too focused on his screens to do more than give it a thought. The drilling console displays were lit up above the bridge windows. They showed a diagram of the drill string boring into the ocean floor. Mud readings scrolled by on another screen. The drill string was already 20 feet below the ocean surface and quickly plummeting. In another 300 feet or so, they’d be done taking the core sample and the crew would start the long task of bringing up the core.

  Calhoun and his crew were all in the drilling office. He’d no doubt the engineer and his people were studying the displays and raw data coming back up the pipe. Digital gauges showed pump pressure, fluid consumption, and approximated the bit’s descent. This was Vraebel’s favorite part of his job—watching the drill string slowly work its way into a find.

  Even at the speed the bit was traveling, it would still be several hours before it finished. When he’d first seen the results of the seismic and magnetic surveys, he’d noticed that Sigler had marked several areas of the trench as “optimal prospects for coring.” The geologist obviously knew her shit because he’d never seen drilling this easy.

  He looked down at the computer screen and the messaging windows. In the drilling office, Harobin and Sigler were sending instructions to the drill operators. Years ago it would have been impossible, but with the new sensors, the geologist and mud-logger could determine the characteristics of the well-bore in near real-time. Harobin was studying the mud while Sigler quickly analyzed the geology to make sure they weren’t about to hit something th
at could snap the bit.

  Vraebel sipped his coffee. He sat straight up in the black captain’s chair. He wouldn’t lean back and relax until the core was finished. By the end of his watch, his back would ache and his joints would feel like he’d been encased in steel.

  #

  Quiet conversation filled the drilling office. Shawna was riveted to her screen as she kept an eye on the particulate matter coming up in the recycle as well as the mud-log Harobin kept marking. Mud-readings scrolled across one of her four displays. Topographic maps based on the magnetic and seismic readings taken months ago filled the other three.

  A drill reading popped onto the screen. She shook her head. The topography had…changed. The initial readings they’d taken during the surveys didn’t match up with what she read now. She cursed herself for not studying more of the AUV film. If there was magma down there, they were screwed. And magma displacement was the only thing that explained why the ocean floor differed from the survey taken several months ago.

  “Unless someone screwed up the survey,” she said to herself.

  “What?” Harobin asked. He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on his round face. The wispy blond beard gracing his chin waggled as he ground his teeth.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just talking to myself.”

  Harobin nodded. “I don’t see any problems with the fluid. And we’re getting good flow.” His short index finger dug into his left nostril.

  Shawna shook her head. The mud-logger was good at his job, but he’d obviously been out on the water and surrounded by men for far too long. He wasn’t the only one. Most of the rig crew were barely above the level of savages when it came to talk about women or their manners.

  When her father had found out she’d signed up with Calhoun seven years ago, and what she’d be doing, he’d sucked his teeth and ran a calloused hand across his five o’clock shadow. “Shawna, you don’t want to consort with those kind of people,” he’d said.

  Shawna was the first in her family to graduate from college. She was the first not to join the military. Her family had been mining coal in West Virginia for so many generations, she wasn’t sure they knew how to do anything else. Men with dirty faces walked out of the mine while men with dirty fingernails walked in. It was the same procession that had graced the mine for over a hundred years.