The Black: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Paw, it’ll be fine,” she’d said.

  He’d lifted a cigarette to his lips and blown out a cloud of blue smoke against the dying afternoon light. “Trucking with those boys out there on the ocean? Or in some country in Africa? Don’t sound very lady like.”

  “It’s where the work is, Paw. It’ll be fine.”

  “Work,” he said in a low voice. “Plenty of jobs in labs and such, aren’t there?”

  She nodded. “But I don’t want to be a lab rat, Paw. There’s more to life than just sitting in a lab analyzing boring samples.”

  “Boring job is still a job. Better than being out on a drill site, or whatever it’s called.”

  Shawna had sighed. “Paw, I’ll be fine. Mr. Calhoun takes good care of his employees.”

  He blew smoke out of his nose. “And how many of them are women?”

  “What does that matter?” she asked.

  Her father took another drag of his cigarette. “Just worry about you, Shawna. You’re a good looking woman. Young. And old men can get all sorts of bad ideas.”

  She laughed. “You haven’t met Mr. Calhoun. He’s not some kind of lech.”

  Tim Sigler harrumphed. “We’re all lecherous, girl. Can’t believe you ain’t figured that out.”

  The conversation had continued, but ultimately she’d convinced her father to just be happy for her. He’d died a year later in a mining accident. She knew he’d been proud of her, but he’d never really understood what she did for a living. Her other sisters, three of them, were still in her home town and more than likely would never leave.

  Shawna frowned at the screen. “Andy? Do you see anything odd in the mud?”

  Harobin glanced at her. “No, ma’am. I surely don’t. What I see is…” His voice trailed off. He rapped a knuckle on the workstation. “Okay, I see what you’re talking about.” His gnarled fingers tapped a few keys. “Some of the particulates don’t look like sand to me. Or rock.”

  “Same here,” she said. Shawna left her station and stood over Harobin’s shoulder. His screens were lit up like hers, but the programs he had open scrolled with depth/time data and rough chemical approximations. “Yeah,” he said, “something really strange coming up. Wonder if we hit a pocket of algae or something like that.”

  She shook her head. “No algae below the ground, Andy. Could be the underside of a bed of tube worms, but I don’t think they plant themselves that far underground.”

  “Is it something we need to worry about?” Harobin asked.

  Shawna chewed the corner of her mouth. Something to worry about, she said to herself. “No. But we definitely need to point it out in the reports.”

  “I mean, it’s not enough to foul the samples.”

  She pointed at the data scrolling across the screen. “Make sure you mark that.”

  “I will,” Harobin said. He pulled open a report file and began scrolling backwards through the data to find the strange particulates. He typed one handed, the index finger of his other hand digging for nostril gold.

  Shawna wrinkled her nose and headed back to her workstation. As she sat, she looked down the row. In a pool of shadows, Calhoun was hunched over Standlee’s chair as the two looked at readings. Her mentor and boss had a concerned look on his face. He said something and Catfish began typing into a console.

  Another AUV fuck up? She wondered.

  Calhoun turned to her and he waggled his eyebrows. She laughed and stared back at her screen. The topography was still very wrong. It made no sense for the ocean floor to have changed so much. She’d have to talk to Calhoun about that once the coring was complete. Regardless of the changes in the areas surrounding the drilling, the drill had no problem cutting through the test site.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and twitched.

  “And how is it going?” Calhoun asked in his gravelly voice.

  Shawna shrugged. “Don’t tell Catfish I said so, but I think the seismic survey is wrong.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean ‘wrong?’”

  She pointed a finger at the reports filed by the AUVs earlier that morning. “See this? There should be a gentle rise off the spud site leading to the edge of the trench.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What part of the ocean floor are you looking at?”

  With a sigh, she pulled up the original survey map and placed it on the left screen. After a few mouse clicks, the right screen filled with another map. “The left is the original survey.”

  Calhoun chewed the side of his cheek as he flipped his eyes from one side to the other. “Can you superimpose the recent one atop the old?”

  She nodded and dragged from the right screen to the left. She clicked a few icons and the newest map line became a thick blue. She changed the transparency level until the blue lines sat atop the original map’s black ones.

  “Shit,” Calhoun said. The area surrounding the well-site was no longer a gentle slope. Instead, the spud site sat in a divot. The ocean floor surrounding it was rutted and irregular as if it had become a wash-boarded road. “The hell is that?”

  Shawna clucked her tongue. “Like I said. I think the original survey was wrong.”

  “Not possible,” Calhoun said. “Not that wrong anyway. The AUV sensors are top notch, Shawna.”

  She nodded. “I know. But how the hell else do you explain it?”

  “I—“ He looked over his shoulder at Standlee. The man was frowning at his console as he went over the earlier data-sets from the AUVs. “I think we need to ask Catfish.”

  “He’s not going to take that well,” she said.

  Calhoun grinned. “It’ll be fine, Shawna. It’ll be fine.”

  She let out a sigh. “Boss? When we get that core up, it might be a bit messier than we expected.”

  He laughed. “At the rate its going, we’ll be able to drill two more and still be on schedule.”

  “Whoa!” Harobin yelled from workstation and clapped his hands. “We have oil.” Shawna looked up at her screen. Alerts popped up on her screens. They’d hit a pressurized pocket and something was coming back up the drill string.

  “You don’t know it’s oil,” Shawna said with hesitation in her voice.

  Harobin stared at her. “You’re such a spoil sport.”

  Calhoun pointed at the readouts on her monitor. “How much pressure?”

  She clicked a button and another window popped up. “A lot.”

  Her boss growled low in his throat. “What does that mean?”

  Shawna wrinkled her nose. “Three atmospheres relative to the pressure at the ocean floor.”

  “Holy shit,” Calhoun said. “That’s a fuckton.” He turned to Harobin. “Any danger of blowout?”

  The mud logger shook his head. “No, Thomas. Nothing like that. We’re still in the green.”

  “For how long is the question,” Shawna said. “Andy? Let me know when the mud comes back up.”

  “Should be soon,” Harobin said. “Muds been moving pretty fast. If we hit a pocket of liquid, it should stream up at a good clip.”

  Calhoun nodded. That was one thing they hadn’t counted on—pockets of pressure. The original surveys showed moderate to light rock formations beyond thirty meters. But this was odd. Damned odd. If the mud showed nothing but liquid, their original surveys were way off. He wondered what else could be wrong.

  Calhoun turned to the tech. “Catfish?”. The man ran a hand through his long hair and slowly looked up from his keyboard. “Can we plan on having an AUV perform another magnetic survey tomorrow morning?”

  The tech-head squinted at Calhoun. “Why the fuck would we do that?”

  Calhoun took a deep breath. “Because something is off. And I want to know if our original sweeps were wrong. We need to check the area around the well-head in about a 200 meter circle.”

  Catfish groaned. “Okay. After JP retrieves them, I’ll have to do some work to get that done. You sure you need it tomorrow morning?”

  “If possible,” Calhoun said. �
��But don’t stay up all goddamned night doing it. I need you in good shape for the next well.”

  Shawna cleared her throat and he looked at her. “I wouldn’t plan on drilling another one until we figure out what’s going on down there.”

  The engineer nodded. “Right. So let’s get that mud up here and see what the hell is going on.”

  #

  When the drill string stopped turning, AUV 5’s thermal sensors triggered an event. A listener marked the time and temperature change. Another event launched into the main program. AUV 5 responded by tilting its nose toward the ocean surface. The ballast subroutine sent an electrical impulse to the switch-box. Water jettisoned from the tanks and AUV 5 began to rise.

  In the black of lower midnight, a giant lantern fish sped after it. The bio-luminescent leader protruding from its head danced with a blue glow—it was the only light that could be seen for over a mile. The fish thought it had spotted a morsel to feed upon. As it raced after the ascending robot, the dim light from its head shined off the AUV’s yellow painted skin.

  The fish, in an orgy of excitement, flew through the water toward its target with reckless abandon. AUV 5’s screws started up and it began to pick up speed. The lantern fish felt the vibrations of the screws and realized something was wrong. It slowed itself by waving its fins and changing its trajectory. Before it managed to strike the metallic robot, the fish ducked beneath the AUV. Jets of moving water from the screws knocked it aside as the AUV flew toward the surface.

  The fish, angry that it had missed its chance, headed back toward the ocean floor. The water buzzed with the vibrations of the other robots as they emptied their ballasts and headed toward the surface. The lantern fish rested a few feet above the ocean floor. It turned and stared at the well-head and drill string. Uninteresting except for the way the metal reflected back the light.

  Another vibration slammed through lower midnight. The fish swam away from the well as fast it could. The drill string slowly ascended out of the well in a smooth motion. When a full section of the string was exposed, the movement paused. After a few moments, it rose again and then stopped. The process continued for hours.

  The lantern fish lost its fear once it was certain the vibrations were harmless and it hadn’t become the thing’s prey. The fish watched and waited. Its instincts told it to wait, to observe. Perhaps the strange metal creature would deliver food, or finally show its true form.

  After another hour of waiting, hunger pangs drove it to search for a meal. It headed toward the bed of giant tube worms. The waving tentacles always attracted morsels. The lantern fish hovered a few feet away from the tentacles ensuring it was safe from the gluttonous creatures.

  As it searched for food, its fins flapping to keep it from getting sucked down, it didn’t see one of the worms reaching for it. It also didn’t see a new crevice open in the middle of the bed. In its tiny brain, an alarm bred from hundreds of millions of years of evolution buzzed. It canted to look down, swim bladder ready to release a jet of water so it could rise out of harm’s way.

  The lantern fish’s dim bio-luminescent light flashed off a large eye. Before its fight or flight response could trigger a panicked ascent, a tentacle reached for it with dizzying speed. Long protrusions morphed from its ends and snatched the fish.

  The lantern fish emptied its swim bladder. It squirted feces and urine into the water and wriggled against the alien touch. It tried to swim backwards and somehow release itself from the thing’s grip. Flesh parted and a hole appeared in the tentacle. The fish had no choice but to swim into it. When it reached the bottom, it found teeth. It was the last thing the fish would ever find.

  #

  The crew had stowed the drill string and carried the core sections to the small lab off the personnel cabins. Calhoun had watched them raise the sections of pipe from the ocean floor out of curiosity.

  As much as he hated being trapped on the rig, he loved watching this part of exploration. It never ceased to amaze him that a small group of people could get so much work done in so little time. The meticulous attention the crew paid to the drill string was impressive.

  Calhoun had seen it done more times than he could count, but the Leaguer crew was better than most, and quite possibly the best he’d seen. Vraebel might be a humorless prick, but he definitely knew how to put together a good crew.

  Those who weren’t sleeping were probably lounging in their rooms or making use of the commissary. Calhoun stood on the top deck, a Rocky Patel stuck between his lips. He puffed out a large cloud into the night air as the waves crashed against the submersible rigging.

  Even from this high up, he could hear the water as the crests broke against the metal. It was a sound he loved and loathed. It made him sleepy. Tonight, that was a good thing.

  Drilling the core had been too easy. As Shawna had said, the floor’s topography had shifted. Calhoun took another puff and chewed on the end of the cigar. A gentle breeze wafted smoke away from his eyes.

  “What the fuck would make that happen?” he asked the darkness. It didn’t make any sense. Tomorrow morning, he’d have to get on the internet and research that. Although he was certain Shawna was already doing it, she had to focus on the core tomorrow. After fourteen hours of mud-logging and compiling drill reports, she had been completely exhausted. She’d practically fallen asleep at dinner.

  Calhoun smiled to himself. Catfish’s resolve had finally broken an hour ago and he’d headed off to bed with a belly full of green chili and heartburn. The tech was merciless in his work ethic, but even he had to sleep. Eventually.

  While the crew had brought up the string, JP had headed out in the Zodiac with another diver to retrieve the AUVs. All five had risen to the surface long before the drill string was up. This time, “the bitch” had returned without a problem. The heavy steel robots were now in their berths charging up for another run.

  Since they were done drilling the first exploratory site, there would be little work for the AUVs for the next few days. But he was sure Catfish would run “the bitch” through its paces again and take another topographic survey. And tomorrow, while Shawna studied the core sample, he and Catfish would have to dig through the AUV videos, sensor reports, and run diagnostics. It was going to be a damned long day.

  He puffed out another cloud of smoke. The breeze shifted and his eyes burned. His thick, strong fingers removed the cigar while he brushed away a tear. Never failed. Damned ocean.

  Calhoun spat a piece of leaf and it fluttered in the wind before flying over the side and into the ocean. It would degrade in no time in the salt water. At least he could count on that.

  Vraebel hadn’t been at dinner. Calhoun assumed the rig chief had either sacked out once the drill string was raised, or was still sitting on the bridge. If the unpleasant man was still at his post, then he’d be damned tired tomorrow morning.

  Thomas wasn’t sure he could sleep. The core would prove the test well was either a boom or a bust. If it was the latter, they’d keep drilling throughout the possible reservoir until they struck oil or the powers that be called it. PPE had paid a fuckton of money for the best exploration crew and the execs would not be happy if they didn’t hit it big. Especially after Calhoun and Shawna assured them the oil was there.

  Finds like this were rare and the surveys showed something below the surface. Since reservoirs were almost exactly like water aquifers, peering below the rock using seismic and magnetic sensors showed hollowed out sections. But those surveys could only go so deep into the earth.

  The core drilling had gone easy. A little too easy. And the pressurized pocket they’d hit? It damned near flooded the drill string with liquid. According to the mud log readings, the liquid was indeed oil, but Harobin kept going on about strange particulates. They’d collected more than enough for Sigler to analyze. Her sample barrel to send back to the Houston lab was ready to ship out. Assuming, of course, there was a point.

  Shawna had shown Calhoun the mud log readings, but the
engineer hadn’t really known what he was looking at. He agreed it was more than likely anomalous. But the anomalies were adding up and something about that made his balls shrink.

  Tomorrow would tell the tale. The real tale. They knew what was likely in the first 30 meters of core, but until Sigler looked at it? Anyone’s guess. He blew a smoke ring into the breeze. It quickly disintegrated as the wind ripped it apart.

  The complete darkness was punctured only by the slowly blinking rig lights and the bright moon. A halo of moisture glowed around the pale yellow of the far away satellite. The cigar was nearly finished. He took it out of his mouth, exhaled a large cloud of smoke through his nose, and tossed the butt into the air.

  The remains tumbled in the wind before he lost sight of it. He wondered if it sizzled as the water drowned the cherry. Maybe a fish would mistake it for food and devour it. Or maybe, it would disintegrate into loose flakes of tobacco that settled on the ocean floor. Didn’t matter.

  He sighed and headed to the stairs leading back down into the cabins. The weather forecast was good, but that damned storm off the coast was still swirling around. In a few days, it might completely evaporate. Or maybe it would come visit. Either way, they had a lot of work to do in the next two days. And then, it would be time to drill another well.

  Chapter Four

  The large lab table was packed with cores. Nine 35-foot cylinders. Each core had been carefully raised from the drill string via wire-line and brought to her for analysis. And the analysis was terrifying.

  The rock in the first 25 meters was as expected. The usual granite, igneous, and sedimentary layers were stacked atop each other in a gentle gradient of colors. But the last five? They were the oddest damned thing she’d ever seen.