by Nick Cook
I grimaced. ‘Not so sure about that. That aside, is it just me or did those two look incredibly young to be a flight crew?’
‘I believe that both of them are in their very early twenties and are at the top of their class,’ Tom said. ‘According to her instructors, Erin Connor is an exceptional pilot and her weapons officer, Daryl White has even threatened some of Ruby’s high scores recently on the target range.’
‘Oh he’s that guy,’ Jack said, giving the retreating back of the man’s head a respectful nod.
‘It’s great the training programme is working out so well, but I do wish they wouldn’t idolise us like this,’ I said.
Tom raised his eyebrows at me. ’You’ll have to soak it up, Lauren. I’m afraid that fame within the walls of Eden is all part of your celebrity lifestyle now.’
‘I don’t remember seeing that in the small print when I signed up to all of this,’ I replied.
Tom chuckled softly and raised his glass to mine; I clinked it.
Jack glanced around us. ‘Has anyone seen Mike and Jodie? I thought they would have wanted to be here for the big moment.’
‘They are trying to retrofit a QEC radio to the Osprey squadron’s X104s,’ Tom replied. ‘And you both know what they’re like when they get a new science project under their belts.’
‘What’s a QEC radio when it’s at home?’ Jack asked.
‘A quantum entanglement radio designed to instantly communicate between devices, however far apart they are,’ I said.
Jack peered at me. ‘Are you saying we’ll have a way to instantly keep contact with the Osprey squadron with no communication lags as they head out towards the 16 Psyche?’
‘Precisely. No more waiting for over twelve minutes to be able to hear a reply to a message to Serenity Base when they establish it,’ I replied.
A flurry of movement at the doorway to the lab caught my eye and I turned to see Jodie running into the cavern, scanning the crowd. Spotting us, she rushed over.
‘Hey, where’s the fire?’ Jack asked as she reached our table.
‘Fire? There’s no fire, but Delphi has just had a positive hit trawling a Reddit message board. She’s found possible evidence of a micro mind waking up. Lucy is scanning the data right now for any more clues.’
I sat up straighter because this was all about our plan A to defend our world. Despite the enormous fleet that we were planning to build, our best hope was still to track down every one of the Angelus micro minds. Contained within them was some secret plan by their creators to defeat the Kimprak threat to Earth.
‘And has the TREENO network detected a neutrino burst to go with it?’ I asked.
‘No, nothing yet, but that aside it still sounds like a promising lead.’
‘Which is pointing to where exactly?’ Jack asked, putting his champagne flute down on the table.
‘In the middle of the ocean, just off the coast of Cuba. Anyway, I need to scoop up Alice. I’ll see you guys in the briefing room.’ Jodie bounded away through the crowd.
Tom scratched the back of his neck. ‘If this turns out to be a real lead, you do realise what that means?’
‘That there may be a micro mind at the bottom of the ocean?’ I said. ‘But can you begin to imagine the logistical nightmare that’s going to give us trying to retrieve it?’
‘If so, this is going to be a real doozy,’ Jack said, scraping his hand through his mane of blond hair.
Chapter Two
We all sat in the briefing room, the walls lined with screens filled with video and social media feeds from across the Internet. Nearly everyone waited with expectant expressions about what we were about to learn, although Ruby looked distinctly pissed off thanks to being pulled away from the party and more specifically, Jane.
Lucy, an Angelus AI that I’d grown close enough to to view as a best friend, was also in attendance utilising her new proxy, namely a rendered avatar of herself. This way she could project onto any of Eden’s screens, allowing her to move beyond the constraints of the holographic Cage in the lab, where the micro mind that powered her was actually situated.
Lucy’s face, modelled on a younger version of my aunt, now peered out at us in a overlaid window on the large viewing monitor at the far end of the room. Thanks to the fact that she’d chosen her study in Christchurch College as the background, her video feed bore more than a striking resemblance to a regular Zoom call. Just to add to her, you need to take me seriously credentials, she was also wearing a pair of half-moon specs especially for the occasion. This was something that my real aunt, who’d been a professor at Oxford, would never have been seen dead wearing in real life. Not that Lucy would let a small detail like that ever get in the way of her wardrobe choice for dramatic effect.
Alice, the president of the Sky Dreamer Corp, put down the tablet that she’d been studying since Jodie had handed it to her. ‘Lucy, would you like to brief us all on what you’ve discovered?’ she said.
Lucy nodded, making her specs slide down her nose so she had to poke them back up into place with her finger.
‘To kick this briefing off, we’re going to look at the area where this latest lead is located,’ she said.
All the screens around us were filled with a map centred on an ocean just off the northern coast of Cuba. Near the centre of the map was an island labelled the Isla de la Juventud.
‘This is the area of the ocean where a deep-sea diver called Raúl Fernández and his sister Maricela went missing three months ago onboard their boat Hercules,’ Lucy continued. ‘Debris from it was washed up on the shores of Juventud nearby, an archipelago lying 50 miles south of Cuba. There were no storms reported in the area at the time that their boat went missing, so local news sites have suggested that a whale strike may have sunk it, especially as there has been a significant increase in whale activity across that whole region in recent months.’
Mike tapped his stylus against the side of his tablet. ‘As tragic as that is, I still don’t see how a whale strike can be linked to a possible waking micro mind, Lucy?’
‘We’ll get to that part in a minute,’ Lucy replied. ‘But to start with, I took the liberty of checking the video surveillance footage from one of the military satellites that I’ve previously hacked into. And what I found is very interesting indeed. Here’s an image recorded less than five minutes ago, ten miles away from the area where Fernández and his sister disappeared.’
A zoomed-in image of the ocean appeared on the main screen.
‘Looks quiet enough now,’ Jack said.
‘You think? Look again…’ Lucy replied.
The image zoomed in again and it looked just as empty as the previous view. Then I spotted a tiny faint trail on the surface.
‘What’s causing that wake, Lucy?’ I asked. ‘The dorsal fin of a whale, something like that?’
’Not in this instance, my little sunflower,’ Lucy replied, deliberately using my Aunt’s old term of endearment for me when I’d been all of eight. ‘I’ve run some imaging processing to increase contrast and it will reveal what’s actually going on.’
The image switched to a false colour view. What suddenly appeared in what had been an empty area of ocean was the unmistakable outline of a very large submarine just beneath the surface.
‘The wake that you spotted, Lauren, was caused by that sub’s raised scope,’ Lucy said.
Tom sat up straighter in his seat. ‘Based on that silhouette, that looks like a Russian Graney class nuclear sub to me.’
Lucy’s avatar nodded. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, Tom.’
‘Okay, this is very interesting, especially if the Russians are prepared to send a nuclear sub so close to US territorial waters,’ Alice said.
‘Then I think you’ll be really interested when you see the next image,’ Lucy replied.
The view pulled out and started to scroll west until a white ship came into view. It appeared to have a couple of yellow crane arms towards the rear and some sort of gara
ge leading out onto a rear pad.
’What sort of boat is that?’ Mike asked, peering at it.
‘That’s a Russian research ship called the Retvizan,’ Lucy said. ‘But in reality it’s actually a spy ship that’s rumoured to be equipped with submersible drones that can dive to a depth of twenty thousand feet. They’re primarily designed to target undersea data cables between the US and the rest of the world. However, they are more than capable of getting to the bottom of the ocean at that location; it’s just a thousand feet down to the seabed.’
Ruby sat forward, elbows on the table, the annoyance that had been on her face about being dragged into this meeting, now history. ‘So you’re trying to say the Russkies had something to do with the death of those divers?’
‘It’s certainly one hell of a coincidence if it isn’t,’ Lucy replied.
‘Okay, I grant you that this is certainly suspicious,’ I said. ‘But I don’t see how this supports the theory that this has anything to do with a waking micro mind, especially as there’s been no accompanying neutrino burst.’
‘That’s where the next piece of evidence comes in about a possible cover-up around the divers and their boat,’ Lucy replied. ‘Examining Delphi’s searches, a report surfaced on one of the national Cuban newspaper websites a week before the divers’ disappearance. But a few days later that same news article was taken down, no doubt under heavy influence from the Kremlin, going by the presence of the Russian ships in the area. Anyway, thanks to the fact that Delphi stores every single web page on the server centre here at Eden, we can still read it…’
A website news article appeared on the main screen with the headline: Local Divers Claim to Have Heard Unexplained Sound Coming from the Depths of the Ocean.
‘What sort of,’ – Mike scratched air quotes – ‘strange sounds are we talking here?’
‘The diver said it sounded like echoey whale song that rose and fell in modulated tones.’
‘That certainly sounds like it could have been generated by a micro mind,’ I said.
‘Certainly based on the Russian activity alone, something significant is obviously happening at that location,’ Lucy replied. ‘Whether it’s anything to do with a micro mind is still up for debate.’
Mike pinched his lips between his fingers. ‘There is a way to rule it out either way and that’s to place seismic sensors across the area to pick up any monowave quakes. That way if a micro mind is responsible for these sounds, we can triangulate them and detect the precise location, even if it’s under the ocean.’
Alice nodded. ‘Okay, that certainly sounds like a line of enquiry worth pursuing.’
Tom steepled his fingers together. ‘I agree, but aren’t we in danger of jumping to conclusions that this is anything to do with a micro mind? After all, with all the Russian military activity and the high level secrecy that’s obviously in place, this has all the classic ingredients of a cover-up. Maybe the Russians have a sunken nuclear sub they are trying to recover, hence all the secrecy?’
I understood where Tom was coming from. ‘It’s just such a shame we can’t talk to those missing divers to find out exactly what they heard.’
‘Actually there may still be a way to find that out,’ Lucy replied. ‘You see, both siblings were part of a diving dynasty. Their father, Carlos Fernández, who heads up the diving school they all ran together is still very much alive. From the brother and sister’s posts on social media and on their diving school website, it’s obvious that the three of them were very close. If anyone might know anything more about what they heard, I’m sure they would have shared it with their dad.’
‘So you’re saying we should go and track this Carlos guy down in Cuba?’ Ruby asked.
‘It certainly sounds worth pursuing to me,’ Alice said.
‘Great! I’ve always wanted to visit there,’ Mike said.
Tom held up his palms. ‘Maybe you have, but do I really need to point out that this isn’t going to be any sort of holiday in any way or form?’
‘Exactly,’ Jodie said, frowning at her boyfriend.
‘But guys, we’re talking Havana here, not to mention the home of the Cubano,’ Mike replied.
‘The what?’ I asked.
But now Ruby was nodding with approval. ‘Only one of the best sandwiches in the whole world, Lauren. And I’m so up for that.’ She reached across and fist-bumped Mike.
Jack shook his head at the two of them. ‘I do wonder about your priorities sometimes.’
They both grinned at him by way of a response.
‘The one thing I don’t get is if this is linked to a micro mind, why isn’t the Russian navy trying to track it down rather than an Overseers’ force?’ Ruby asked.
‘Don’t forget that the Overseers’ reach extends into all governments around the world, including their military,’ Tom said. ‘If this has anything at all to do with a micro mind, I can guarantee you that the Overseers will already be pulling the strings of this operation. The Russian military probably have no idea of what their real mission is.’
‘It sounds to me like we have no choice but to assume that’s exactly what’s going on,’ I said. ‘But if we’re going to do this maybe we should also visit the area where the divers disappeared?’
Jack nodded . ‘If ever there was a need for a stealth mission, this is it. The problem as I see it is that if the micro mind is on the ocean floor or even buried beneath it, then that’s going to present a significant logistical problem as to how we’re going to retrieve it.’
An idea immediately sprung into my head and I turned to Jodie. ‘You talked before about adapting Ariel to be able to travel underwater when we first thought the Atlantis site was actually at the bottom of the ocean. Could that be a viable option here?’
Jodie eyes unfocused for a few seconds as she gazed off into empty space. ‘This sounds like a perfect project for my new Forge team.’
‘Your what?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sorry, it’s a group of some of our best scientists and engineers,’ Alice said. ‘Think of it as Eden’s very own version of America’s Skunk Works, where top secret, cutting edge tech is put together, like the Pangolins that we’ve been developing.’
‘Yes, and for some unknown reason, Alice has put me in charge of this new dream team,’ Jodie said.
Alice smiled at her. ’Oh, you’re more than qualified to be in charge of them all.’
‘If you say so,’ Jodie replied, frowning slightly. ‘Anyway, converting an X103 craft will be a perfect first project for the Forge team to get their teeth into. We would need to add some sort of thruster system, as obviously the existing multi-mode manoeuvring rockets wouldn’t work underwater. But the main problem is that we’re talking about a serious amount of pressure at those depths; we need to make sure the craft doesn’t get crushed like a tin can.’
‘Actually, that’s something that I can help you with,’ Lucy said. ‘I can adjust the REV drive field to create a gravity bubble around an X103. That will protect the hull in much the same way as we currently use it as a forcefield against enemy fire.’
‘Okay, this sounds very promising, but aren’t we overlooking the very real danger here?’ I said. ‘The Russians, or at least the Overseers –– who are really running the operation, may be able to retrieve the micro mind if there is one there and they’ll be long gone by the time we arrive.’
‘Not based on the evidence that I’ve seen from the military satellite feeds,’ Lucy replied. ‘If anything, activity is ratcheting up; more Russian supply ships are heading towards the northern coast of Cuba, which suggests this is very much an ongoing mission situation.’
‘But for how much longer?’ Ruby asked.
‘Taking into account the depth that they are having to work at, even with the right equipment, it’s going to be a serious challenge,’ Jodie said. ‘It could take them weeks, months even to locate, let alone retrieve anything down there. So if there is a micro mind down there, I think we’ll still be in wit
h a strong chance to beat them to it.’
Jodie made a good point and everyone was now nodding.
‘In that case it sounds like this is becoming a serious mission proposal that we need to act immediately on. We need to send out a reconnaissance team to get moving whilst Jodie begins the alterations to the craft for underwater use,’ Alice said.
Tom sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘Then there is something else I’d like to raise. If we are going to do this, especially after the events at the Richat Structure, I’m no longer prepared to send a single ship in. From now on it should be three ships as a minimum. So if we are serious about pursuing this lead I would suggest that maybe we send in Ariel and a converted X103, along with another converted Pangolin for heavy weapons backup. Jodie, would it be possible to convert an X104 for underwater use?’
‘That would be a bigger engineering challenge and I’m afraid will take longer. If speed is of the essence, I’d say just concentrate on the X103 craft and have one of the existing Pangolin fleet available for backup above the surface.’
‘That certainly makes sense to me,’ I said. ‘And having been caught with the shit hitting the fan during the last mission and being outgunned by a TR-3B fleet, I’d be more than happy to have some serious firepower available to us if it’s needed.’
‘Then you’ll have it,’ Alice replied.
I turned to Jodie. ‘I hate to try and pin you down on this, but how long do you think all this might take?’
‘In a sensible and realistic time frame, probably a year,’ Jodie said.
I couldn’t hold back the grimace that instantly appeared on my face.
But Jodie was already holding up a hand. ‘Relax, Lauren. In the crazy accelerated universe we all seem to exist in within the walls of Eden these days, it might be possible to get it all done in a few weeks, maybe less.’
‘Then you’ll have all the resources you need to make that goal become a reality,’ Alice said.
‘I also have a suggestion,’ Jack said. ‘Whilst we are waiting for the modifications and as it sounds like we’re heading to Cuba anyway, why don’t we hire someone with a submersible to explore the ocean bed where the divers went missing? At least it’s currently well away from all that Russian activity.’
