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Sea Sphere - Chapter 2
By Guilty Spark
SATURDAY - 3:01 PM
"Good afternoon," Icebreaker walked up to the group that had just arrived, "I hope you found the trip down to be pleasant."
"Oh, yeah," Dac chuckled, "Being forced down here against my will. What's not pleasant about that?"
"I hope that you will excuse the way we do things," Icebreaker's kindness disappeared, "But you're doing a service to all mankind."
"A great service indeed," A man wearing an Armani suit stepped out of the corner, "A service that could stand to make you so wealthy that Donald Trump would be lining up to come to your dinner parties."
Icebreaker looked tense for the first time since any of these 'consultants' had met him, "Allow me to introduce to you Compy01. He is a private investor-"
"Private investor?" Yvonne chirped, "I thought this was a UN thing."
"Yes, it is," Icebreaker said, "However, we do not shy away from private investors if it would be in our best interest to welcome them."
"Compy01? I know you," Raptor Vinny mused, "Aren't you that guy who invested like half a million dollars into making deep sea submarines into commercial attractions? Like theme park rides, right?"
Compy01 smiled a toothy grin, "Well, you're half right. It was half a billion. However, it never fully panned out because of factors that were beyond my-"
Icebreaker interrupted him abruptly, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to continue this discussion later. Your rooms are right around the corner to your right, and down the corridor. You may room with whomever you like, and I'd like to see you all back here at 17:00. Evilgrinch, if you'll come with me sir, I have something I'd like you to see."
As the rest of the group walked down the corridor and out of site, Compy01 following them, continuing his story from before.
Evilgrinch followed closely behind Icebreaker, Trainwreck, and Kevy Mac. None of them were saying anything. Evilgrinch didn't know if he liked that or not. Up two flights of stairs, they finally came to doorway.
Trainwreck and Kevy stopped at the door, and within a moment, Evilgrinch knew why. There wasn't room in here for four more people. Hell, there wasn't really room for two more. Monitors sat lined up around the perimeter of that room, all giving different read-outs of various things.
At the end of the room, four people were crammed around a particularly large monitor. Icebreaker pulled Evilgrinch close to the monitor.
"I want you to meet my computer analysts. AngelPhoenix and Raptor2000."
They both gave curt nods. Evilgrinch didn't blame them, he was an outsider brought in because Icebreaker didn't feel they were cutting it. He'd hate him too.
"And this," Icebreaker carried on, "Is RaptorHiss, he's our staff programmer."
RaptorHiss smiled and stuck out his hand which Grinch took after a moment's hesitation for a handshake. Evilgrinch felt like a child being shown off by a proud parent. 'They probably feel the same way.' He told himself.
"Hey there," The young kid, no older than 19 stood up, "I'm SpinoMonkey. I'm the translator."
"You're a translator? But you're so young. How many languages?" Evilgrinch was shocked that there was anyone under 25 on the staff at all.
"Four. Well, four fluently. I speak English, German, Spanish, and Russian. Some Latin and a bit of Chinese, but not really enough to get by on." SpinoMonkey seemed like Aragorn and PaulSF. Excited to be there. It was still an adventure.
Icebreaker pointed to the screen, "Show him what we've found."
The screen flickered for a few moments between pictures from outside cameras.
"Perimeter cameras," AngelPhoenix said, as if reading Grinch's mind, "We have them all around both Shells."
Evilgrinch didn't say anything because his eyes were transfixed on the screen. In the video that we being fed to the monitor, Evilgrinch could finally see it. In the distance, barely visable, sat the orb. The sphere. The reason he'd been dragged down there. It was frightening to him because suddenly this was all very real.
"There you go," Icebreaker said, smiling, "That's what you're all down here for."
"That's," Evilgrinch knew that his voice probably sounded distant, but he was transfixed, "That's why I couldn't go to my bunk? Why didn't you just show us this all at once?"
"Because," Icebreaker was still smiling, "I knew you were a skeptic. That, and I figured since you were going to be working so closely with the computer team, that you should be the first to see what they just discovered."
"And what's that?"
Icebreaker didn't even verbally reply to Evilgrinch, he just pointed to the monitor, which switched away from the video, and to a black screen with white words sitting on it.
"Where did that come from?" Evilgrinch asked of anyone who was willing to answer.
"From what we can tell," Raptor2000 began, "It came from the orb. It came in about an hour ago."
"And it came like that?" Evilgrinch's stomach did a turn, because either way he wasn't going to like the answer.
RaptorHiss shook his head slowly, "No. It came in about 8 different languages before this. Some that none of us even recognized. It seems like it stopped with this one though, almost like it somehow knows that we can understand this one best."
Evilgrinch kept reading the message in his mind, and something about it terrified him.
'I AM DAN. I AM HAPPY.'
SATURDAY - 4:10 - GALLEY
All of the consultants and most of the staff had gathered in the galley at the request of Icebreaker. There weren't enough chairs so most of the people were left to find a place to stand. As it turns out, Icebreaker's request was actually Compy01's request as he now stood in the center of the room, smiling at all these people who would help make him rich. Everyone had now seen the video of the orb, some two-hundred feet away from Basilisk station, and each of them had seen the message from 'Dan'.
"So," Compy began, "I would like to know any theories that you may have. Any at all."
"Well," Guilt Spark was the first to speak, "Have you determined a purpose? Icebreaker mentioned that it was originally thought to have been dropped by the Russians during the Cold War. It's probably safe to say that isn't the case, however, whatever it is, it has a purpose. I think that should be our top priority before-"
"I respectfully disagree," Bryan interrupted, "I think that the first thing we need to figure out is where did it come from. For all we know this is a weapon of some sort and we're just sitting a few hundred feet from it with our thumbs up our asses."
Narrator, the staff lab technician gave a laugh, "I'm pretty sure that if it's been sitting here for a thousand years, that it's not going to blow up in the new few days."
"How sure are we that it's been down here that long?" Dac asked.
"Quite sure," MartinRandle sipped his cup of coffee, oddly at ease with the situation, "They've shown me a few pictures of the coral growth that was on it. It's been down here a very long time."
PaulSF raised his hand, "I would have originally said that it was perhaps some sort of geological anomaly, based on how it was described to me, but I have to say that the fact that it somehow contacted us...there's no way that it's from Earth."
"Absolutely," Snake Mark agreed, "I mean, the fact that it searched through almost a dozen languages to find a way to contact us. It's unfamiliar with us. It's alien in nature and we're the first living beings that it's had any interaction with."
"How can we know that?" Yvonne walked over to Icebreaker, "There are subs that have gone missing, right? Ships that have disappeared?"
"Yes," Icebreaker said slowly, "There have been disappearances."
"Well," Yvonne said trying to get this right so as to only have to explain it once, "Maybe it's another Bermuda triangle, only in the Pacific."
"The Bermuda triangle is a myth!" Guilt Spark exclaimed.
"Bullshit!" Aragorn laughed, "Do you know how many disappearances there have been within that little space of ocean? It could be anything that destroys those ships and planes that run through there. Hell, maybe there's another one of these orbs out there!"
Everyone went quiet for a minute.
"Are there any seams on it?" Carnotaur3 broke the silence.
Icebreaker looked confused, "Seams? No, not that we've been able to surmise. We haven't been close to it though. We ran one test on our Life Suits that let us walk around out there, but we didn't get close to the orb."
"Why would seams matter?" Asked SpinoMonkey
"Well. Perhaps," Carnotaur spoke calmly, "What we're dealing with here is an ark?"
"An ark? Are you serious?" Aragorn smiled, "You can't be serious. Like...Ark of the Covenant, Indiana Jones ark?"
"That's a possibility," Carnotaur3 said, "Or Noah's ark. It's just an idea."
"Ha!" Aragorn sipped his own coffee, "That's ridiculous."
"Well," Carnotaur now returned Aragorn's smile, "For a man who spends his day discussing aliens and bigfoot, I would expect that the possibility of an ark to seem rational."
There was a tense silence.
"Well," began Siir, "Has anyone tried to just ask Dan?"
7/27/2009 2:06:28 PM
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