Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle

Chapter 7

“We can maintain position using our global positioning receiver and a series of thrusters,” Captain Stanton explained as he led them through a long corridor leading from the helipad on the rear of the Glomar Explorer toward the center of the ship. “Once we arrive on a site we can stay on position within six inches.”

Dane was impressed. The Glomar Explorer appeared even larger when one was actually on board. Chelsea kept close to Dane’s side as they walked along the steel decked corridor. The hum of heavy machinery was in the air, and the ship vibrated slightly.

The corridor ended and they walked onto a gantry-way that angled around a large open poll in the center of the ship. The pool was over a hundred feet long by sixty wide. Above their heads the derrick poked over three hundred feet into the bright blue sky. The walls of the pool were hung with hundreds of lengths of pipe. The dark surface of the ocean lay calm in the pool at the bottom of the opening. Above, the derrick towered over their heads.

“We are capable of lowering seventeen thousand feet of pipe,” Captain Stanton said. “That’s over seven thousand feet deeper than the next best thing available on the market. Better than any standard rig. And we’re much more mobile than any rig.”

“How long until you’re in position?” Sin Fen asked as they crossed the gantry way over the well.

“Another six hours.” He opened another hatch on the far end. “We have a briefing ready to get you up to speed. This way.”

Dane and Chelsea followed the captain and Sin Fen into a conference room. Ariana Michelet was sitting at the head of the table. The only daughter of Paul Michelet, the founder of Michelet Technologies, Ariana had not only had the good taste to be born into one of the richest families in the world, she had also been graced with good looks. Tall and slender, she had olive skin, very little of which was showing given she was wearing a set of black coveralls that looked like a flight suit. A patch on the shoulder showed a silhouette of the Glomar with Michelet Technologies written in script around the edge.

She stood and smiled, reaching down to pet Chelsea. “It is good to see you- both of you,” she said to Dane.

“I’m a little surprised to see you here,” Dane said.

Ariana straightened and stared at him. “Why is that?”

“After the way your father and Foreman tricked you into going into the Angkor gate- and nearly being killed there- I would think you’d be a little leery of getting involved in anything either of them set up.”

She sat down, indicating for them to take their chairs. “I would think the same of you. Foreman got you to go into the Angkor gate twice. I only went once.”

Dane smiled. “Good point.”

“Besides, we own this ship,” she waved her hand to take in the Glomar. “The technology is all ours.”

“So what exactly is the plan?” Dane asked. “What are we going to do? Drill in the middle of the ocean and hope we come up with something?”

Ariana reached forward and hit a couple of buttons. The room darkened and a map appeared on the wall behind her. “We are heading for this spot, about one hundred miles northwest of Puerto Rico. It also happens to be part of the deepest section of the Atlantic, a thousand mile long valley in the ocean floor known at the Puerto Rican Trench. It contains the deepest spot in the Atlantic which also happens to be the exact location we’re heading for.”

“Why am I not surprised at that?” Dane asked.

“It’s called the Milwaukee Depth.” Ariana pointed down. “The bottom there is twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and ninety-three feet that way. You could dump Mount Everest in there and only about fifteen hundred feet of it would stick out of the water.”

“But the good captain here,” Dane pointed at Stanton, “said you could only drill to a depth of seventeen thousand feet.”

“We’re not going to drill,” Ariana said.

Dane waited.

Ariana hit the forward on the machine and a new slide appeared. It showed a drawing of the Glomar Explorer with the pipe going down below it into the ocean. At the end of the pipe, three vertical cylinders were grouped around a thinner central cylinder.

“We plan to go down in stages. We will lower a deep-sea habitat on the end of the drilling pipe to the maximum depth of seventeen thousand feet. That will be our base camp, so to speak, if you wish to reverse the concept of mountain climbing. The habitat, Deeplab IV, is navy. It will meet us at the site.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Dane asked.

“The Navy Undersea Warfare Lab at Norfolk. It was flown to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on board three C-5 transports and from there it was cross-loaded onto a sub tender and is being assembled as we speak. It will arrive on station over the Milwaukee Deep just about the same time we do.”

“Has the lab ever been down that far before?”

“Deeplab is rated for twenty-thousand feet,” Ariana said.

“Has it been down that deep?” Dane repeated.

“Not yet,” Ariana said.

“Better and better,” Dane commented.

She clicked a button and another version of the map appeared. An outline of the Atlantic, from Bermuda in the north to Puerto Rico in the south, to the US mainland in the west with a black triangle in the center. A much larger yellow triangle covered it “At its widest propagation, the Bermuda Triangle gate was just short of touching the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Its current size is much smaller, a triangle centered about forty miles to the north of our destination.”

“So the place we’re going to isn’t inside the gate now?” Dane found that unusual.

“No,” Ariana said, “but-” she paused and turned to Sin Fen.

“Give me the good news,” Dane prompted.

Sin Fen spoke up. “The Navy has been surveilling the Bermuda Triangle area for a while at the behest of Mister Foreman using SOSUS in addition to constant surveillance from overhead satellites.”

“What’s SOSUS?” Dane asked.

“A sound surveillance system that tracks submarines,” Sin Fen answered. “The initial SOSUS systems were laid along the Atlantic Coast in the 50s and 60s as the threat of Soviet ballistic submarines increased. Over the years, the Navy expanded the system into the Pacific and closer to the Soviet Union.

“Basically each SOSUS line consists of a bunch of extremely sensitive listening devices on the ocean floor connected by cable and reporting to an on-shore tracking center. The Navy has constantly been upgrading the system and trying new listening devices.”

“Even after the Cold War ended?” Dane asked. He was always alert for parts of explanations that didn’t quite fit, and although he couldn’t 'read’ Sin Fen, he could read the way Ariana and Captain Stanton were reacting to her words and he knew he was, as usual, only getting part of the story.

“Even after the Cold War,” Sin Fen. “The navy isn’t stupid. They got money to continue working on SOSUS by tying it in with several civilian and government agencies to do a variety of tasks other than track submarines. SOSUS now listens for underwater earthquakes, volcanoes and even tracks whales for biologists.”

“Very interesting,” Dane said. “What did SOSUS pick up?”

“Even before Mister Foreman investigated and we got the map off the Scorpion,” Sin Fen said, “the area known as the Bermuda Triangle has always raised quite a bit of speculation. Over the centuries numerous ships- and more recently planes- have disappeared while in this area.”

“Bull,” Dane said in mild voice.

Sin Fen simply raised an eyebrow.

Dane amplified his objection. “As you may have noticed, I did some reading on the way down here. The insurance company Lloyds of London- who ought to know since they insure ships and planes- did a study and found that the area delineated as the Bermuda Triangle had no statistically significant higher losses than anywhere else. Also, many of the ships and planes that people claim disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle were nowhere near the area when they disappeared. Some were hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from that triangle you’re showing.”

“You are quite correct,” Sin Fen said. “However, there is something in the Bermuda Triangle. It is not so much that ships and planes enter the gate and disappear, we think it is more a case of something from the gate goes to the ships and planes and makes them disappear.”

“What is this thing?”

“We don’t know- yet,” Sin Fen said. “What we do know is that something comes out of the gate and travels to the depths of the Puerto Rican trench every once in a while and returns to the gate.”

“Why this spot?” Dane asked.

“We don’t know.” Sin Fen said. “However, special imaging using a muon detector in Japan, has-”

“A what?” Dane asked.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Ariana said. “Suffice it to say that this detector can pick up a gate and the gate’s influence in our world.”

“OK, go ahead,” Dane said.

Sin Fen indicated for Ariana to change the slides. A new picture appeared, showing the Bermuda Triangle gate outlined in red. A thin red dotted line went south from it to the Milwaukee depth where there was a red circle drawn.

“A muon active area eight miles in diameter is located there,” Sin Fen said.

“Another gate?” Dane asked.

“Not a gate,” Sin Fen said. “An area in our world influenced by the gate.”

Dane thought about that. “That means whatever is on the other side can pass through the gate and come into our world.”

“Yes or send something into our world that manages to survive,” Sin Fen said.

“That’s a change,” Dane said. “At Angkor the gate was a mixture of our two worlds. There were animals from both sides in the gate. And water stopped the creatures from their side.”

“The creatures, yes,” Sin Fen said. “but whatever the intelligence is on the other side- and there is no doubt there is some sort of intelligence over there- it has been able to send radioactive and electromagnetic rays through the gate and take over our satellites. Who’s to say they can’t also come out in other ways? Much like astronauts exploring another planet. They definitely showed the ability to send our own equipment back at us by releasing the Scorpion and firing the Trident.

“We think they may have developed vehicles or suits capable of coming into our world. Maybe the gates that are located in or over water on our side are located in or over water on the other side,” Sin Fen was speaking rapidly and Dane had the impression this was a matter of some conjecture on her part. “It’s even possible some of their water life can pass over and survive in our water as long as a gate encompasses the area. So water might not be a barrier to such creatures, but rather their natural environment, just as we have land and water creatures on Earth.”

“As usual,” Dane said, “we don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

“Several times SOSUS has picked up a bogey,” Sin Fen continued, “and each time it originates from the gate and returns there.”

“The same bogey the Wyoming picked up?” Dane asked.

“Yes. And the Scorpion. Something very big that moves very fast. It’s real and larger than anything we’ve ever put under the water.”

“Does it go to the spot we’re going to?”

“Sometimes.”

“OK,” Dane said. “Deeplab gets you down to seventeen thousand feet. There’s still a long way to the bottom.”

Ariana hit the button again. An elongated craft appeared, like a plane with stubby wings. The front of it was curved. Halfway back, another circle poked above and below the main body. There was also short wings at the rear along with two vertical fins. One thing Dane noted immediately was that there were no portholes or glass that he could see.

“This is Deepflight 2. We call it a fixed wing submersible, a very radical design departure for deepsea submersibles. That’s what will get us from Deeplab to the bottom of the Milwaukee Depth.”

“How deep is it rated for?” Dane asked.

“Thirty-seven thousand feet,” Ariana answered. “More than enough to get the job done. It’s a four person craft- two in the forward pressure sphere-” she used a laser pointer to highlight the forward part of the craft- “and two in the rear sphere. Each sphere is made of titanium and seals separately.”

“How does the pilot and crew see out?” Dane asked.

“Video and imagers,” Ariana said. “To keep the pressure integrity of the craft there are only two breaches to the titanium sphere: one is the hatch, which is titanium also and basically a titanium hatch closely fitted to the rest of the sphere, and one reinforced access port for the electronics and controls.”

“What’s the point then?” Dane asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If we can’t see out why put people inside? Why not just use an RPV?”

“You can see out,” Ariana said. “Using the low light level television, LLTV and other imagers such as sonar and radar, you’ll be able to 'see’ better than using your eyes. It also makes the craft less intrusive as you don’t need to light up the ocean with bright lights in order to be able to see. The Deep Flight II has conventional searchlights but it also has infrared searchlights.”

“Will we have the ability to pick up these muon things?” Dane asked.

“Not yet but we’re working on that,” Ariana said. She continued, using the laser to highlight the screen. “The craft is twelve meters long, by four wide, by four meters high. Each pressure sphere is three, point five meters in outside circumference, two point eight meters in inside circumference.

“Maximum speed is six knots, descent rate is four hundred feet per minutes, ascent seven hundred feet per minute. The dual engines are powered by a series of batteries. Flight endurance is twelve hours, life support is ninety-six. Outside of the spheres it is a 'wet’ submersible which means the engine, everything other than where the crew is, will not be pressurized and will be open to the water.”

A cell phone rang and Sin Fen pulled it out of her belt. She turned her back and spoke in a low voice for several seconds, then closed the phone. “Captain Stanton and I have work to do. I’ll leave you to complete the briefing.”

Stanton and Sin Fen left the room, leaving Dane and Ariana alone.

“How have you been?” Dane asked before she could go back to her slides.

“As good as can be expected,” Ariana replied.

“Which means?”

“Pretty crappy.” Ariana stood up and walked over to a porthole, staring out at the ocean. “We both were lied to and we both were used.”

“And we’re both here now,” Dane noted.

“Of course,” Ariana said. “Where else would we go? Walk away? Pretend what’s happening in the gates isn’t real? Pretend that Trident didn’t land in the Atlantic? Those bombs didn’t explode?” She turned and faced Dane. “Foreman and my father know us better than we know ourselves. They’re both experts at using people. They don’t have consciences but they know how to manipulate people who do.” She shrugged. “And besides, the threat is real. Foreman has had to do whatever he could to fight it when no one would believe him.”

““But not your father,” Dane noted.

Ariana sat back down. “He’s old and he worked hard-”

“Don’t make excuses for him,” Dane said.

“He got you to rescue me,” Ariana noted. “I think you’re being a bit hard on him.”

“I’m a bit hard on everyone,” Dane said. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Besides the fact that your company owns this ship.”

“Because some of my friends were killed in the Angkor gate.” She looked up at him. “Is that good enough for you?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s the threat,” Ariana said. “You know about the lines of propagation along the plate tectonics?”

Dane nodded. “But Foreman said that was just a reconnaissance. Imaging.”

“So far,” Ariana said. “But I’d say the nuke attack went a bit further than a reconnaissance.”

“Sin Fen said that was a test.”

Ariana nodded. “Yes, but one hell of a test, don’t you agree? The interior of the Earth is my area of expertise and what the Shadow is doing scares me. Most people feel solid ground beneath their feet and think the Earth is a big rock with a molten core deep inside, but that’s not the way it is at all.

“The Earth is a dynamic planet. The very outside of the planet, the crust, is called the lithosphere. It’s around a hundred kilometers thick under the land masses. And relatively cold and stable. Under the oceans, there are places where the lithosphere is only six to eight kilometers thick. That’s like a sheet of paper wrapped around a basketball. This is especially true where tectonic plates meet.” She pointed down. “Like in the Milwaukee Depth.

“Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere. It’s hotter, less solid and moving very slowly. Plate tectonics results from the lithosphere moving over the asthenosphere.”

Ariana went over to the slide machine and clicked through until she came up with the same image Foreman had shown Dane- the world with lines drawn across it.

“There are six major plates and several minor ones. These plates move relative to each other at various speeds. Anywhere from one centimeter to twenty centimeters a year. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but given the unbelievably large masses involved and the instability of the asthenosphere below, it can produce some rather dramatic results, both long and short term.

“Where plates are pulling away from each other, you have an opening into the asthenosphere which results in a lot of volcanic activity. Where plates converge or smash into each other, one plate usually slips beneath the other along an inclined plane known as a subduction zone. These result in mountain ranges. The Himalayas are the result of such a subduction zone where the Indian plate is sliding under the Asian plate. There is a third type of action- a transform fault where the plates are sliding against each other. The San Andreas Fault is a good example of a transform fault.”

“What makes these plates move?” Dane asked.

“That’s a good question,” Ariana said. “We don’t really know for sure, but the best theory is the slow churning of mantle rock, what’s called mantle convection. That’s where mantle rock deep inside the Earth is driven toward the surface by the extreme heat of the planet’s core. As it gets higher, it cools until eventually it starts to sink back down. Sort of a very slowly boiling pot using rock instead of water. Another theory is that the weight of the plate itself is slightly tipped, causing it to move in a certain direction. This theory is called slab-pull. We’re not really sure which causes plates to move and in reality it might be a bit of both.”

“You’re joking,” Dane said. “We don’t know what’s under our feet and how it works?”

“I’m not joking,” Ariana said. “Up until thirty years ago, there were those who thought the Earth was solid. There were others who thought the Earth was hollow and you could get inside through entrances at either of the poles. Hell, there are still people who think the Earth is hollow and there are large cities populated by strange beings under such places as Mount Shasta in California.

“The only way we have any idea what’s going on under our feet is through remote imaging. The deepest probe ever sent into the Earth hasn’t even come close to going a tenth of the way through the lithosphere, so everything below that is just conjecture.”

Ariana shut of the slide projector. “What scares me, is the possibility that while we may not know much about plate tectonics, whoever’s on the other side of the gates may know exactly how they work and how to manipulate the enormous forces involved.”

“If they do?” Dane prompted.

“If they do, they have a whole range of options. They can bring forth volcanoes. Cause massive earthquakes. Landslides thousands of miles long. If any of those events happen underwater, then the follow-on result would be tsunamis.

“Let me give you an idea of the threat I believe we’re facing and you’ll understand why I’m here. Have you ever heard of Krakatoa?” Ariana asked.

Dane nodded. “A big volcano in the south-west Pacific that exploded in the 1800s?”

“May 20th, 1883,” Ariana said. “The island, which is located in Indonesia, had been exhibiting signs of activity for several years. It lay along the meeting of the Eurasian and Pacific plates, right on the Pacific Rim.

“On that last day, it finally erupted. At 10:02 in the morning local time, the top literally blew off the volcano. It was the largest explosion in recorded history. The biggest atomic or hydrogen bomb we’ve tested doesn’t even compare.

“The blasts knocked down walls over two hundred kilometers away. The explosion was heard on Rodriguez Island, over four thousand six hundred kilometers from Krakatoa, a thirteenth of the world’s circumference.

“The resulting waves were over forty meters high. They devastated shorelines thousands of miles from Krakatoa. Over a hundred and sixty-five villages were destroyed and thirty-six thousand people killed. Since the island itself was uninhabited, most of these deaths were the result of the tsunami.

“Before the eruption, the island had been nine kilometers long by five wide. After the explosion, only a third of the island was still left above water.

“Ash fell on Singapore eight hundred kilometers to the north. When the ash reached high altitude, winds circled the Earth, producing such vivid red sunsets that fire trucks were called out in New York City. It blocked out to the sun to the point where global temperatures fell by over a degree in the year following the eruption and took five years to get back to normal. And that was just one volcano. Think of dozens, hundreds of eruptions like that.”

“What’s the worst case scenario?” Dane asked.

“Worst case? If the Shadow knows how to use those nukes we gave them- which they just indicated they do- and knows exactly where to place them- which I hope they’re still working on- they can split this planet wide open. Which means the end of every living thing on the planet.”