City-Ship Ascension

Geostationary orbit

Entering his office Michael could see a pile of paperwork on his desk. He stood in front of it and wondered how it happened that he was in space, orbiting Earth in a spaceship, and still had to deal with the damn paperwork. He was seriously considering Elizabeth's suggestion to get a personal assistant. Until now, he was mostly relying on Max to deal with most of the administrative duties, yet even the AI was too preoccupied lately with thousands of projects he had going on. Consequently, the overspill ended up on his desk. He deliberated if he should take Tyron up on his offer of a full-contact exercise session, just to get out of the office, when Max materialized his hologram in front of him.

“Michael, I found it!” The AI exclaimed with considerable excitement.

“Found what Max?” He asked absent-mindedly, still trying to make sense of the paper pile in front of him.

“What was marked on those coordinates, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”

Those words made Michael snap out of his musing and focus entirely on Max.

“Are you sure?” he asked, still having trouble comprehending such a momentous statement.

The AI looked at him with one raised eyebrow, not saying a thing.

“Of course you are sure,” Michael murmured, nodding his head. “Can we go now?”

The AI put both of his hands in front of him. “Hold your horses’ chief; the earliest we can leave is tomorrow morning. I need to make a few adjustments on the submarine since there is a 100% chance the others will not let you go alone. And Michael, there was one other development; when the submersible drones found the right location, they had to dig through the solid rock until they encountered a big metal door; then, when they tried to analyze its composition… they were challenged.”

“Challenged? What do you mean challenged, and by whom?”

“It was some kind of security protocol, sent on a frequency the Excalibur would natively receive, but the spaceship could never submerge to those depths, so I’m a little confused why it was set up that way. The drones received a digital challenge in that same ancient language the builders of the Excalibur used, as soon as they tried to scan the door.”

“Did you translate it?” Michael asked worriedly.

“That’s just it; it is mostly numerical, a security code query waiting for a correct response. I analyzed the data and the only thing I could recognize was a string of numbers that is identical with your CEI security protocols.”

“Wait a minute… didn’t you modify that implant while I was recovering from the fall?”

“Most of it, yes. However, the essential parts were left unaltered, I tweaked some supporting structures and programming. All the following ones were made from scratch, using a blueprint I managed to reverse-engineer. Besides, those security protocols were transferred to you when you took command of the Excalibur and are hardcoded into your CEI.”

“What do you think is down there?” Michael asked.

“Some sort of installation and I’m sure there is a MI inside that is sending those signals. There is one other thing… the security challenge is repeated every hour, and additional data it is sending suggests that it’s counting down to something.

Michael closed his eyes. “Don’t tell me…”

Max shrugged his shoulders. “My logical assumption is that there is some sort of self-destruct mechanism. There are still two days until it reaches zero, so we have plenty of time.”

Michael sighed heavily, and sat behind his desk, taking the first file from the pile.

“Well, we’ll see what it is tomorrow; just think, if things had turned out differently right now I could have been sitting on the cabin’s porch, drinking beer… without a care in the world.”

“You know, Elizabeth told you to hire an assistant; maybe you should listen to her?” The AI advised.

“Max… shut up.” Michael answered, not even lifting his eyes from the file.

***

City-Ship Ascension

Upper Landing Bay

The next morning Michael was waiting in the landing bay for Max to bring the submarine transporter he’d built. And he wasn’t alone—Elizabeth, Alice, Tyron, Pete, and Al decided that this wasn’t a trip they were going to miss. A few more people wanted to come, but unfortunately, the modified transporter had only six seats. The team’s excuse was that they were security in case bug-eyed aliens were hiding behind metal doors. It was ridiculous, yet, Al was insistent that it was a possibility.

Soon, Max remotely flew the strange transporter down to the bay’s floor. It resembled the regular ones, except it looked bulkier with the hull that was ten times thicker. As Max explained, it was meant to endure far more pressure than the Excalibur or regular transporters ever could. Space was empty and easy to keep outside the hull, the bottom of the ocean was a complete opposite.

“It’s called the ‘Cameron’,” Max proudly announced. “To honor the man who went all alone to the same place we are about to visit, except he went in a submersible that was technologically centuries behind this one.”

“How safe is this thing?” Al asked, suspiciously looking at the strange transporter.

“This is its maiden voyage, so… if it springs a leak, do let me know.” The AI responded in an amused voice.

“Max… tell me you are joking,” Al said in a worried voice.

“OK, cool your jets. The ‘Cameron’ was purposely built to withstand the crushing pressure found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Therefore, it is perfectly safe, but if you want to go to the bathroom, I would suggest that you do so now because you will not have the opportunity until we come back. I had to take out a lot of non-essential parts to make it sturdy enough.”

In a few minutes, they entered a two-door airlock built into the side of the vessel and sat at six chairs inside, arranged in the same circular way as in the regular transporters.

The trip to Earth was nothing new, but before they entered the atmosphere, Max showed them a new specialized craft he made for collecting the human-made space debris and miscellaneous rubbish. It was in all but name, a space garbage truck. He calculated that it would take more than a year, and dozens of similar crafts to clean 95% of the things flying around the Earth. That was a depressing thought, and a testament of human species proclivity to litter.

“Will you look at that,” Pete said, pointing at Pagan Island when they were flying over it. The place they once called home was considerably different from how they remembered it. Gone were the sandy beaches and lush vegetation, it was mostly covered in ash.

The volcanic mountain was a bit higher and still smoking, and the exact place where the Ascension was built was completely covered with hardened lava. The massive bowl the spaceship had left when it lifted off was filled to the top, and then the molten rock overflowed and spilled all the way to the ocean.

They watched in silence, remembering all the happy moments they had there. Before long, the island was behind them and they arrived above the coordinates where the shipbuilders’ secrets were buried.

***

Pacific Ocean, Mariana Trench

Aboard The Cameron

Michael looked at the five people sitting beside him, as close to him as a family. Today they were going to do something that he still felt a bit apprehensive about; they were going to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on the planet. The bright morning sun was reflecting off deep blue water, a total opposite of the darkness that awaited them below.

“OK folks, if someone has second thoughts and wants to stay on the surface, now is the time to speak up. Of course, this tub is only going downwards, so he or she will have to swim to the nearest land,” Max announced solemnly.

“Max… That’s not funny,” Al blurted, visibly nervous.

“Tough crowd, well then, without further ado… here we go.”

The Cameron submerged, and a few seconds later even the small ripples caused by it, disappeared.

Light shimmered through the water, casting waving shadows on everyone’s faces. A few schools of fish parted their dance, so the strange visitor could pass. It did not take long for all the light from the surface to disappear. Like turning a dimmer on the light switch, they entered a realm of eternal darkness.

Everybody was calm except Al, who was fidgeting in his seat. “You know… I heard that if you stare too long into the abyss, it’s going to stare right back at you.” He said looking into the darkness outside.

“Then don’t stare… it’s rude,” Tyron’s deep voice advised.

External lights on the Cameron lit up, creating an illuminated sphere around them; to the other denizens of the deep, it was as if a small sun was falling towards the bottom.

“The trip to our destination will take about an hour, so if any of you want to watch an episode of your favorite show, please do so now. There will be no meals or drinks on this trip, but we hope you have a great time and we thank you for using Max’s underwater transport LLC.” The AI said to break the silence.

“What can we expect down there?” Michael asked.

“Trust me; it’s a whole new world that it’s hard to describe; you have to see it with your own eyes to understand,” Max said cryptically.

Nobody said a word, and they were all watching the holo-screens that projected their sphere of light and the endless darkness surrounding it. Deep down, on a primal level, they all knew this was not an environment they evolved to be in, it was strange and the gloom made everything isolated and oppressive. For Michael, it was a strange solitary experience. With Elizabeth and others by his side, it should have been a shared one, yet everyone aboard was deep in their own thoughts.

“We just passed the height of Mount Everest, if it was inverted,” Max informed them, trying to lighten up a quite somber mood of the group, and continued his unsolicited lecture. “And right, now we are at a depth of 35,000 feet (10.66 km), an interesting fact: this is the height at which most commercial airplanes cruise. So, if there is an airplane flying above us, the distance between them and us is 70,000 feet (21.33 km), vertical.”

“Max, I really don’t want to know,” Al murmured.

“You people are very hard to please,” the AI mumbled through the speakers.

Some time later, the ocean floor appeared; a strange and desolate terrain. Like a surface of an alien planet, not resembling anything else they have ever seen before. A few fish moved close to the Cameron, and they were quite a strange sight. All white, with long sharp teeth, not something one would like to swim close to. Tall hydrothermal vents were at the edge of the circle their lights provided, with the wavy hot water rising from them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our destination of 36,000 feet (10.97 km). Passengers can loosen their seatbelts now. The weather outside is breezy 34°F (1.1°C), with the pressure of 15,750 psi. Please don’t exit the vehicle without the pilot’s permission.”

“Are we close to the site?” Michael asked while looking at the gray surface of the ocean floor. All life he could see was unnaturally white, with no pigmentation whatsoever.

“It will take us a few minutes to get there; I chose the scenic route to show you the curiosities of this place.”

“Is this a good time for me to confess that I don’t really like small closed spaces… underwater, so if I go for the door… to get outside…” Al blubbered nervously.

“We can arrange for you to take a sightseeing walk, be advised that conditions outside are not beneficial to humans. Your life expectancy would be much longer in the vacuum of space than under the pressure at these depths. But then again, if you really want to test if that’s true… say the word.” Max humorously instructed the nervous ex-soldier. “Your reinforced skeleton should be fine, it’s the squishy stuff you are going to have some problems with, you know… your brain, heart, lungs, and the rest.”

“Ah… I think I’ll take a rain check on that,” Al responded.

“Max, stop teasing him, it’s cruel,” Elizabeth said.

“I know, but it’s so much fun,” Max answered.

The Cameron glided above the seabed; from time to time, they could see movement beneath the craft.

“What the hell is that?” Al pointed at something caught in their circle of light.

“There is plenty of life down here. It goes to show the incredible adaptability of living organisms. The most numerous are single-cell amoeba with the size of more than four inches, some crustaceans known as supergiants and quite a few snail-fish,” the AI answered. “What you saw was a giant shrimp, everything grows big here, and it’s called marine gigantism.”

“That is not a shrimp, shrimps are small and tasty, and that thing is simply wrong… Christ… it could bite my whole finger off!” Al said, still looking at the big crustacean.

Michael could see a point of light in the distance, and it grew in its luminescence as they approached near it.

“That is our destination.”

Powerful lights, made by submersible drones, reflected off the huge metal surface on the side of the cliff.

“There was a rock wall covering it, built to hide the entrance. It was a lucky break that we even got any readings since it was so carefully camouflaged. It took some time for the drones to remove that layer and to clear the debris.

“Why would they hide something down here?” Elizabeth asked aloud.

“If you think about it, I cannot think of a more perfect place than here. This is one of the oldest parts of the seafloor, unchanged for millions of years. And it is distinctly out-of-the-way, so if you want to hide something that can only be found by those that know the exact location, it is ideal.”

The Cameron slowly approached the metal surface, and at one point Michael felt the query on the edge of his consciousness. It was something like a quick handshake protocol, a request for initial identity confirmation that Michael’s CEI replied without any input from himself. In front of their eyes, something began to happen with the metal surface. A seam that they could not see before appeared on the bottom half, and huge doors retracted upwards. The inside was illuminated, but there was something strange about it; the image beyond the opening appeared wavy as if one would look at the surface of the water while diving underneath it.

“I guess this is our invitation,” Max said.

***

Inside the installation, the guardian detected a new, authorized CEI signal, approaching its position. Its logic-tree demanded that the implant's bearer be isolated from the other beings accompanying it and subjected to two-step verification. If all preset parameters didn't match, there was only one path that its programming would allow—a complete obliteration of the facility and those who tried to access it.