Meg: Hell's Aquarium (22 page)

He opts for the shorts.

Thirty seconds later he’s dressed, tying his damp cross-trainers when someone knocks at his door.

It’s Kaylie. She’s dressed in shorts, tee-shirt, and a blouse, her hair still wet. She pushes him back inside his room, pressing her lips and body against his. “Sorry . . . am I early?”

“Early’s good. I like early.” He runs his hand beneath her blouse, attempting to reach beneath the tee-shirt.

She stops him. “Not now. Maybe tonight . . . if you’re good.”

“I’m always good.” He readjusts his cargo shorts then grabs his room key and follows her out to the elevator. They ride down to Level Five . . . holding hands.

The elevator opens to an acrylic bridge that spans the atrium, the clear walkway running through the anatomy of the re created and greatly enlarged skeletal model of
Dunkleosteus
. Crossing the bridge, they look down through the monster’s pelvic girdle to the lobby five floors below.

Kaylie pauses at the animal’s gill slits, gazing at the bones of its smallish pectoral fins. “What was this thing called again? The Paleozoic era was never my specialty.”

“It’s pronounced dunk-lee-OWE-stee-us. It was the nightmare of the Devonian seas, a placoderm, meaning it was an armored prehistoric fish. This model exaggerates its size; it only grew to be thirty feet or so, but it was fearsome. Instead of teeth, it had these bony blades that could crush anything. They say its bite was more powerful than a
T. rex
or Meg bite.”

They proceed through the skeleton’s thickly armored neck and head then out the mouth, stepping outside the automated glass door to the monorail platform.

Waiting in the depot, congregating in small packs, are the other pilot candidates—twenty-one in all. They are older than David by an average of twenty years—all men, save for one woman in her early fifties. Everyone looks fit and trim, many sporting military-style crewcuts.

Kaylie mumbles, “Looks like an Army PX just let out.”

One of the soldier-types, a 6 foot 2 inch specimen in his early forties, leaves his group to introduce himself. “You’re the Taylor kid, right? Brian Suits, captain, United States Naval Warfare Center, retired. Appreciate you being here.” He turns to Kaylie. “You must be Szeifert. Your experience with Graham Hawkes should give you an edge over most of these other recruits, half of which have never set foot in a submersible.”

Kaylie looks him over. “Are you a sub pilot?”

“Head instructor.”

David feels the blood rush from his face. “You’re in charge? I thought I—”

“You’ll assist. You’re primary responsibility is to care for your two sharks. You didn’t think bin Rashidi was about to put a twenty-year-old in charge of this mission, did you?”

“No . . . I just thought—”

“—that your familiarity with the Manta Ray qualified you as an instructor? Sure it does . . . if this was a resort in the Bahamas. You’ve been pleasure diving, kid. Ever maneuver in a thirty-knot current? Or find your way out of a debris storm three miles down in zero visibility?”

“I can handle it.”

“With proper training, I’m sure you could. But that’s not why the prince had bin Rashidi hire you. You’re a fish-keeper first, a demo pilot second. We clear?”

“Am I supposed to salute you?”

Captain Suits forces a grin. “Excuse us a moment, Szeifert.” He waits until Kaylie leaves. “Listen, hotshot, before I went Navy, I was Psy Ops—that’s Psychological Operations. Spent eighteen months learning Arabic in heavy immersion training. In Iraq, I headed over forty cordon and search missions while living among the Arabs, Kurds, and the Yizidis, a relatively unknown tribe that has roots in the Middle East deeper than most Arabs. My relationship with the locals meant I knew what the insurgents were up to before they did. After I was wounded, I earned my stripes extracting information from enemy combatants for Military Intel . . . and I was real good at my job.

“Now, the way I see it, you’re a college student here for the summer, at the end of which you’ll collect a nice paycheck and go back to Florida to finish out your senior year. Me? I’m here to accomplish a mission for bin Rashidi, a man who doesn’t screw around. Neither do I. So, be a good boy and toe the company line, but don’t cross it, or I’ll squish you like a June bug. Understood?”

David feels beads of sweat trickle down his armpits. “Understood.”

In the distance, a high-speed monorail, painted white with navy trim, makes its way silently around the track.

Brian Suits checks his clipboard. “I’m missing a man . . . Montgomery, Jason. He’s in Suite 3612. Get him.”

“Yes, sir.” David heads back through the
Dunkleosteus
walkway to the elevators then takes the lift back up to the thirty-sixth floor. Cursing to himself, he knocks loudly on the double doors of Suite 3612. “Monty, let’s go! Monty, you in there?” He bangs again.

After a few seconds Monty opens the door, still wearing the clothes he had on yesterday. His eyes look vacant.

“Dude, what’s with you? You’re going to miss the first day of training.”

Monty walks back to the sofa and sits.

“Hey, did you hear me? The monorail’s waiting.”

The vacant eyes roll up to David. “You surprise me. I had you pegged for the shallow rich kid.”

“Yeah, well, coming after you wasn’t exactly my idea. Some ex-navy hard-ass sent me to find you. You look like shit. Did you even sleep?”

“Sleep? I’m not sure. I can’t remember.” He lies down again. “Guess my doctor was right . . . I thought I could handle things.”

“Handle what? We haven’t even started yet.”

“Did I take my lithium? Can’t remember . . .”

“Lithium? Why do you need—”

“Ever play football, Junior?”

“Yeah.”

“Ever have your bell rung?”

“A concussion? Sure . . . once, I think.”

“Multiply that by a hundred and you’ll know what an IED feels like. Brain damage is the gift that keeps on giving. It never heals, it just keeps pushing you slowly into the abyss. Dementia, memory loss . . . suicide. Some days you lose the will to stand. Today’s one of those days. Go on without me.”

“Did you eat?”

“What?”

“I said, have you eaten anything?”

Monty’s eyes stare at the heavy drapes covering his bay windows. “Eat? I can’t remember.”

David opens the mini-refrigerator. “You haven’t touched anything in here, and haven’t changed your clothes. Between the jet lag and your blood sugar, you’ve bottomed out. Here, drink this.”

Monty drains an orange juice.

“Better?”

“A little. You’ll make someone a fine wife.”

“Shut up.” David shoves a handful of nutritional snacks into Monty’s jacket pocket, grabs another orange juice, and guides him toward the door.

“You’re wasting your time, you know. I’ll never make the grade. Hell, I’d be lucky just to make it through training.”

“You’re a war vet. Leave it to me, I’ll get you through training.”

“Thanks, brother.”

“Just don’t sit next to me on the monorail. You reek.”

Monty follows him out the door and onto the awaiting elevator, gulping down a handful of trail mix nuts and raisins. “Hey, ru rang rat rhick ret?”

“Try swallowing.”

“Sorry. Just asking if you did that chick last night.”

“No.”

“You will.”

The monorail is waiting at the station. An Arabic conductor is using his body to block the platform gates from closing, triggering a relay which prevents the automatic doors from sealing and restarting the monorail.

Brian Suits is standing next to the conductor with his clipboard. “Montgomery, J. Consider this your one and only warning. Show up late to my training again and you’ll be thumbing it home.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The captain gives David and Monty a dirty look as they enter the car.

The doors seal with a
hiss
, the straddle-type monorail, developed by Hitachi, moving effortlessly along its track, its velocity approaching seventy miles an hour. Monty finds a vacant row away from the others, emptying his pockets of snacks across one of the seats next to him.

Still feeling a bit emasculated, David passes up the open seat next to Kaylie and opts for a window seat in the next row.

The monorail shoots past two more hotel stations then banks and slows as it approaches the aquarium. They reach the station moments later, the train’s doors opening with another hydraulic
hiss
, breaking the seal.

An Egyptian man in his early thirties is standing by the gate. He’s wearing a sports coat and tie, his jet-black hair slicked back, a scar over his right eyebrow. “Welcome, welcome! My name is Magued Wadie Ramsis Haroun. I know that is a lot to remember, so just call me Magued. I am assistant director of the aquarium, and this morning I will be giving you a behind-the-scenes tour before you begin your submersible training with Captain Suits. If you will please follow me.”

Magued leads them inside through the automated entry doors and past a security and ticket checkpoint into the main lobby—the very center of the emerald glass pyramid. An open, three-lane-wide circular stairwell winds down two more stories, while above, the interior of the aluminum-trussed steel pyramid rises another seven stories.

“This is the fifth floor mezzanine—the Temple of the Gods. There are three main levels open to the public. Level Three, the Queen’s Chamber, functions as our ground floor and handles foot traffic entering from the park. Level Four, just below us, is the King’s Chamber; it features our food court and gift shops. This level, Level Five, accommodates hotel guests using our monorail system. From the three mezzanines, visitors can access any of our twelve main galleries.”

The entrances to the main galleries are set along each of the pyramid’s interior four walls, three to a side. The assistant director bypasses the three galleries on the east wall labeled T-1, T-3, and T-5, and proceeds through a tunnel on the south side designated T-4. The opening is wide enough to admit a bus, its ceiling and walls created out of fake rocks made from fiberglass. Magued leads them past several empty, twelve-foot-wide by ten-foot-high aquarium tanks, pausing at the last one.

Backlit in black-purple lighting, it is a scene right out of the Mariana abyss. Steaming currents of soot-clouded mineral water pump out of squat man-made volcanic stacks that feed several blooms of six-foot-long tube worms, their swaying stalks ghostly-white, their tips blood-red.

“These are
Lamellibrachia luymesi
, the only tube worms ever kept alive in captivity. The black smokers are not hydrothermal vents, but a cold water methane seep similar to those found in the Western Pacific and off New Zealand’s eastern coast. The cold seep pumps out methane and hydrogen sulfide which nourishes chemoautotropic bacteria. The bacteria in turn feed large communities of tiny, independent organisms known as extremophiles. The bacteria, which we call prokaryotes, process methane and sulfides through chemosynthesis to create chemical energy. Higher organisms, such as these tube worms, feed on this energy.

“Unlike hydrothermal vents, which release superheated mineral water into the depths, cold seeps are far more stable, pumping methane and other hydrogen-rich fluids at a far slower rate. This steady, more reliable pace actually increases the life-span of those creatures inhabiting the seeps. We now believe tubeworms, such as these, can live in excess of 250 years.”

David stares at the tubeworm colony, losing himself in their ancient dance, performed in the swirling currents.

“Hey—” Kaylie tugs him by his elbow. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Forget about Captain Crewcut. Come on.”

They catch up with the rest of the group, the tunnel emptying into an enormous gallery, its large acrylic window half the size of the Meg Pen.

The vast blue world before them is occupied by dozens of giant jellyfish, each longer than seven feet and as wide around as a sumo wrestler. Luminescent white, with crimson-red bands and bright white tentacles, the alien-looking behemoths move through the tank like massive globs in a house-size lava lamp.

“We call this our zen gallery,” Magued says proudly. “The creatures are called
Echizen kurage
, more commonly known as Nomura jellyfish. Each weighs in excess of four hundred and fifty pounds. As beautiful as they are to look at, they have become a terrible nuisance to Japanese fisherman, as they clog their nets. The tentacles yield a painful sting, but they are not toxic to humans.”

Magued allows the group a few minutes then continues the tour through a winding tunnel that opens to a titanic aquarium that occupies Levels Three, Four, and Five as well as two more open stories above their heads. Small octagon-shaped devices, each the size of a man’s fist, are spaced at ten-foot intervals along the inside of the aquarium’s bay windows. Large enough to accommodate a blue whale, the tank appears empty. Nevertheless, it is incredible to behold.

“This is aquarium T-4, one of twelve oceanic habitats we’ve built within the complex. The acrylic glass panels are composed of six layers that have been chemically bonded and heat treated on site to 185 degrees Fahrenheit. The process takes over a month to complete. The tank itself holds 80 million gallons of water, a full 20 million more than the Tanaka Institute’s Meg Pen, which had been tops in the world.”

David points to one of the small, eight-sided devices spaced along the interior facing. “Excuse me, but what are these?”

“Part of the life-support system.”

“What do they do?”

The Egyptian smiles. “I’m not at liberty to say. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you how we keep these amazing habitats functioning.”

Magued heads for a door marked t-4: restricted. He swipes his identification badge, and the hydraulic door hisses open, revealing an interior corridor. They turn right down a main hallway, an avenue of filtration pipes running along the high ceiling. A stairwell leads them up three flights to Level Eight. They pass through another set of security doors marked T-4, and into a gymnasium-size arena housing the aquarium’s deck, surrounding a pool of water as large as a small lake.