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MOUNT BAKER. THE CABIN. 8:00 AM:
Alex walks out of the bedroom and down the short hallway to the living area of the cabin. The interior is nicely done in horizontal white pine boards, with a thick matching mantel above the gas log fireplace. He follows the aroma of fresh coffee into the kitchen and sees Wesley sitting at the small oval table, intently studying something on his laptop computer in front of the bay window. The spacious kitchen is also done in white pine for the walls and cabinets.
Wesley glances up when Alex walks in. “The cups are in the cabinet above the coffee.”
Alex goes to the coffeemaker on the granite counter and fills a white ceramic mug, then sits at the table. “What’s going on?”
“I just found this on the internet. FEMA is setting up operations in Anacortes, near the ferry dock and the marina. They’re having logistical problems getting rescue workers and emergency supplies to the islands. The only way to get there is by boat or aircraft.”
“Why is this happening, Wesley? A natural seismic event would not be so precise where it caused the damage.”
“According to the USGS website, they didn’t notice the needle jump off the paper.”
Alex sips his coffee and stares through the window. “I’ll call the USGS representative in Seattle and let her know about the jump. She’s the one who asked for my help.”
“Would that be Sharon Aniston?”
“That’s right. Do you know her?”
“She was the only one who believed my warning about Saint Helens.”
Alex gets up and feels his empty pocket. “I must have left my phone in the car.”
When Alex steps outside, the cool morning air is laden with the aroma of evergreens. This is a paradise, compared to the lowlands. He looks through the car window, sees the phone on the passenger seat, and opens the door to get it. When he slams the door close, three beautiful Canadian geese floating on the lake begin honking as he enters the cabin.
The instant he sits down, the phone beeps, and he enters a code to play the voice message. He stares out the window and sips his coffee while he listens. The message is from his friend in California, and he hears the urgency in Okana’s voice. Did the disturbance reached that far south?
He enters the number and Okana’s image appears on the fourth ring. “Hey, buddy. I got your message. What’s going on?”
“It’s been a long time, Alex. Did you hear of any unusual seismic activity in the Pacific Northwest yesterday?”
“Yes, twice. The first one did severe damage to Victoria, Canada, and the second one hit the San Juan Islands. Why do you ask?”
“I think I know what caused it.”
Alex turns on the speaker and sets the phone on the table. “I’m near my home in Washington with a friend. Did it originate in California?”
“Not that I’m aware of. What happened in California?”
“Isn’t that where you live?”
“No, I’m on a research vessel, sixty-miles off the coast of Vancouver Island. We were searching for methane hydride and found some on the ocean floor. During our test, we activated something deep in a fracture under the methane, and it created a tsunami on the ocean floor. The object at the bottom of the crack appears to be some kind of metal reflecting the signal back to the ultrasound unit.”
Alex and Wesley look at each other. “It wasn’t a tsunami that caused the destruction,” Alex tells Okana. “It was a seismic event. I wasn’t here, but I’ve been told they didn’t register like major earthquakes. We’re still trying to figure out what could have caused them.” The line is silent for a moment. “Okana?”
“I’m here, Alex. We had no idea that happened.”
“Whatever you do, don’t activate that thing again.”
“Now that I know what it did, I’ll make sure we don’t. My boss has a drilling rig on its way to meet us. We think that’s the only way to determine what’s at the bottom of that crack.”
“Would you have room for me on the ship?”
“I think so. I’ll check with my boss and call you back.”
“Thanks. I look forward to seeing you again.”
Alex turns off the phone and looks across the table at Wesley. “Do you remember Sonja from the conference in Iceland?”
Wesley grins. “The sexy blond woman? Of course.”
“She called me yesterday about a sudden increase in the size of the Polar Ice Sheet above Canada. It happened at the same time as the seismic activity down here. I don’t see how they can be connected, but nothing about this makes any sense.”
“I agree. At least your friend on the ship knows what’s causing the seismic activity. I’m glad it’s not in the hands of some crackpot terrorist.” He sees Alex grin. “Or should I be worried?”
“I trust my friend, but I don’t know the other people on that ship.” His phone rings, he recognizes Okana’s image, and answers. “What’s the word?”
“My boss wants to know where to send the helicopter.”
“Pick me up at the Mount Vernon airport, so I can drop off my rental car. What time?”
“Is an hour okay?”
Alex hesitates, wondering if he should stop at his father’s ranch first to explain what’s going on to his nephew and niece. No, not yet. “An hour is fine. See you soon.”
Alex turns off the phone and slides it into his front pocket as he stands to get his bag. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“What about Sharon Aniston?”
“That’s right. It’s your discovery. Would you mind calling her for me?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Alex retrieves his bag and Wesley follows him out to the car. “I’ll call you once I know what’s going on.” They shake hands, Alex climbs in to his sedan, and drives away.
***
Alex drives down the mountain to the small Mount Vernon airport and parks in front of the main building. He grabs his small suitcase from the trunk and walks inside to the ticketing and rental desk and hands the keys and the rental agreement to a young woman standing behind the counter.
A slender man sets a magazine down, stands from a chair in the waiting area, and moves over to the counter. “Are you Alex Cave?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Carl Gregory, your pilot.”
Alex shakes his hand. “Are you a commercial pilot?”
“No, I work for Mike Tanner, on the Discovery.”
Alex signs a piece of paper for the car rental girl and grabs his suitcase. “Ready when you are.”
Carl holds the door open, and Alex exits and heads to a white helicopter with DISCOVERY painted in light blue letters on the side. When Carl takes his suitcase and sets it in a storage compartment, Alex climbs into the co-pilot’s seat, closes the door, and puts on the headset.
Carl climbs in, starts the engine, and contacts flight control for clearance to take off. When he receives approval, he takes the helicopter into the air and heads west to meet up with the Mystic.
“Can you take me over the San Juan islands and Victoria so I can see the damage? A few of my friends live on Orcas Island.”
“No problem. It’s on our way.”
Five minutes later, Carl drops to a lower altitude and Alex stares out the window at the destruction to the islands. A large resort on Orcas Island lay in ruin. Its hotel accommodations, built onto the steep hillside above the resort, are now a pile of rubble clogging the harbor. Bodies are being stacked on what remains of the docks, and pleasure boats have been tossed onto the shore like toys. On another island, million dollar mansions are now rubble in the cold water at the bottom of steep hillsides, and smaller resorts have collapsed buildings and torn up docking facilities.
Victoria is no longer the beautiful city he visited years ago, and would probably never be the same. He realizes whatever is at the bottom of the fault line must be powerful to cause this much damage.
Thirty minutes later, they approach a beautiful white ship, alone on the vast Pacific Ocean. “Is that the Discovery?”
“No, that’s the Mystic, Mike’s personal research ship. Isn’t she a beauty? The Discovery will join her later this morning.”
Alex admires the Mystic’s graceful design and recognizes it from a boating magazine. It’s a tri-hull, designed and built by a company in Australia. When it’s underway, the center hull is held above the water by the two outside pontoons. The front ends of the pontoons are curved vertical wedges, designed to slice through the waves instead of going over them. The bow sweeps up and back over tinted viewing windows on the main deck and continue up to the bridge. Large tinted windows run along both sides of the main deck, with smaller windows for the lower deck spaced evenly along the sides of the ship.
They approach from the stern and Carl gently sets the helicopter down on the deck between the sub and the motorboat, and leaves the engine running.
“You’re not staying?” Alex asks.
“No, I’m going back to Discovery. That’s where I work. Good luck, Mister Cave.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
Alex climbs out and grabs his bag. Okana steps out from the double doors of the main deck and smiles as Alex walks over. Okana motions Alex through the doors, and once they are safely out of the way from the downwash from the rotor blades, the helicopter takes off and soars back toward the mainland.
Alex drops his bag and gives his friend a quick hug, then steps back and smiles. “It’s great to see you again, Okana.”
“Let’s go meet the rest of the crew. We have coffee waiting, and we’ll show you what we’ve discovered.”
“Sounds good.”
Alex grabs his bag and follows Okana into the lounge. He shakes hands as Okana introduces him to Mike Tanner, Josh Mason, and Lisa Harding.
Lisa feels her heart rate increase as she clasps Alex’s hand. When Okana said he was an old friend and a geology teacher, she imagined a frumpy old bald professor with horn-rimmed glasses, not this tall, good-looking man. She notices he’s not wearing a wedding ring.
Okana indicates the table. “Let’s sit down and we’ll show you the recordings.”
Alex sits at the corner of the table and pours coffee from the thermos. Okana, Mike, and Lisa sit around him to see the television, and Josh sits at a desk near a window.
Okana unrolls a map and points to the area beneath the ship. “This is the location where we found the methane.”
Alex studies the map for a moment, then looks around at the group. “That’s the Cascadia Fault Line. It starts north of Vancouver Island and follows the coastline down to northern California.”
Lisa looks over at Josh. “Play the recording, please.”
Josh presses play, and across the room, the television screen shows the video recording from the rover. After a few moments of darkness, the slab of methane hydride is illuminated by the sub’s brilliant lights.
Alex turns to look at Lisa. “I thought methane hydride was white.”
“You’re correct, but that’s not pure methane. It’s a mixture of chemical compounds found in our atmosphere. They shouldn’t even be down there.”
Alex looks back to the television as the picture from the rover is circling the slab, then the lens focuses on the black material.
In her excitement to describe what she thinks, Lisa reaches over and puts her hand on Alex’s forearm. “Pause that, Josh. Something happened between the formation of the methane and that black material. After what happened yesterday, I didn’t want to send the rover down to get a sample until we learn what’s at the bottom of the ice. Josh, please continue.”
The picture from the Rover tilts down above the methane, and Alex sees the discolorations create a spiraled green band, getting smaller toward the middle. The rover stops, and the view from the camera is magnified until the rover is on the surface of the methane. Three seconds later, the picture suddenly changes to blinding blue light for a fraction of a second, then the picture shows silt billowing up from the seafloor, casting everything in dirty gray darkness.
Okana looks over at Alex. “That’s when Mike and I were tossed around in the sub. The view from the camera doesn’t do it justice, Alex. What we saw from inside the sub was a translucent, neon blue light, shooting up through the water from the crack in the sea floor. A pressure wave slammed into the sub at the same time, and I lost control. Our first mate saw a neon blue circle of light on the surface, near the ship. He wonders what it would look like at night. I wonder what it would look like from outer space.”
Lisa realizes her hand is still holding Alex’s arm, and she quickly pulls it away. When he turns and smiles, her heart races. She gives him a quick, embarrassed smile, then looks back at the television. “Ah, could you put on the picture from the ultrasound please?”
The television shows several still pictures of the dark cylindrical object, deep beneath the ice.
“That’s the best picture I have,” Lisa tells him. “The only way to get a better look is to drill and send an optical cable down into the ice.”
Alex looks at the faces around the table. “I hope all of you realize the magnitude of what you’ve discovered. Whatever it is also disturbed the Mount Baker and Rainier volcanos. We’re worried that besides the destruction it’s already caused, if these events continue, there could be a major eruption.” Alex decides not to mention the incident at the polar ice cap, leans back in his chair, and looks over at Okana. “You mentioned that you know what caused this to happen.”
“It happened when we fired our experimental ultrasound system. I’m sure that’s what triggered the seismic activity.”
“So you used it twice, and this happened each time?”
Mike speaks for the first time. “No, that was the only time we did the experiment, right Lisa?”
“That’s right.”
Alex wonders what’s going on. “We had two events yesterday. The first was around nine AM, the other about five PM.”
Okana grins. “You’re right, Alex. We did it twice. At nine yesterday morning we got our first detection of the methane from the ultrasound unit here on the ship.”
Alex notices Lisa’s puzzled expression. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. We used a powerful, wide beam frequency of our new ultrasound to locate the methane, but it’s hard to believe the sound waves were strong enough to penetrate the methane and reach what’s at the bottom of the ice.”
Now Alex wonders if there is a connection with the polar ice cap. “Could the sound waves from your ultrasound reach the Arctic?”
Lisa wonders where this is leading. “Sure. Whales communicate the same way. With the power our new transducer puts out, the sound waves could have easily reached the arctic.”
Alex leans back and sighs deeply with the realization there is a second device acting in conjunction with this one. “Yesterday, I received a call from my friend at the CHARS station near the Arctic Ocean. It seems the water south of the polar ice sheet was suddenly frozen into transparent ice. I’m not sure what to make of all this. At least you stopped using the ultrasound, so we won’t have another seismic event.”
“The ice under the black material is transparent, too, Alex.” Lisa tells him. “The only thing left is my idea to drill down through the methane. Once we find out what that thing is at the bottom of the crack, we’ll have a better idea what’s happening.”
Mike stands from the table. “I say we should do it. If we don’t use the ultrasound, we shouldn’t have any problems.”
Alex glances around and everyone is staring at him for a yes or no. He nods up at Mike. “You’ve got my vote. I’d like to know what’s down there.”
“All right. I’ll tell Discovery to get started.”