The two walked into the lab, filled with computer and satellite equipment, some so complex that it was almost unrecognizable even to them. Most of the shelves were a tangle of wires and cables, connecting dozens of monitors, computers, oscilloscopes, and amplifiers. Clay estimated that Borger had enough coax cable in his office to start a television company. A wooden desk sat in the corner under an old lamp with almost a dozen keyboards, some stacked on top of each other.
Borger stood nearby hunched over a table covered with a giant red and white map. He looked up with raised eyebrows. “Hey Clay, I didn’t know you were back.”
“Yeah, almost like it never happened.”
“Ah, you must have gotten called back for the Alabama, I hear they want to get this zipped up and back out to sea next week.”
Caesare glanced down at the map. “What’s this?”
“The Earth. At least part of it. I finished stress testing the sats and didn’t find anything so I decided to take a look at the coordinates using the new Jason-2 satellite.”
Clay was familiar with the Jason-2. Replacing its predecessor the Jason-1, which itself replaced the TOPEX/Poseidon, the first satellite designed to study the planet’s magnetic field. Those early missions had changed how satellite computer chips were designed and significantly increased their ability to withstand high doses of solar radiation, resulting in a boon for the satellite industry. Yet while the first two returned a wealth of information, the Jason-2 was the first craft sensitive enough to detect fields closer to the surface. He recalled the launch creating quite a bit of excitement among the scientific community.
Borger continued. “The maps won’t be completed for a few more years but because of its launch orbit the equator was the first area to be mapped, including the Caribbean where the Alabama reported the problem.”
They moved in closer. “And?”
“Well here’s the rest of the equator and here’s the area around Bimini,” he said pointing to a large darkened circle. “According the J-2 there appears to be a very high level of magnetism here.”
“Any chance of a fluke? Maybe the instruments aren’t calibrated yet.”
Borger shook his head and ran his hand over the rest of the map to straighten it. “I don’t think so. As you can see the rest of the measurements are accurate. Pretty coincidental that we’d see a glitch happen right here. If I had to guess I would say the sea floor has an unusually dense iron composition.”
Clay looked up. “But that shouldn’t affect GPS.”
“Well maybe not by itself, but we’ve been having small solar flares all month, and those have been known to throw off all kinds of things especially satellites. The flares we had on the day the Alabama experienced this problem were pretty small but with the area having a high iron concentration, the ionization may have rendered the satellites unable to accurately pinpoint their position.”
“How long did the flares last on that day?”
“Six or seven hours I think, I’d have to check.”
Clay stood up and tapped his finger on his chin, thinking. “So if the flares were the cause we could expect to see inconsistencies in the sub’s data for up to six or seven hours prior?”
“Probably,” nodded Borger. “They may be very subtle inconsistencies though depending on how close they were to the area and their heading.”
Clay looked back to Borger. “Can you find out exactly how long the flares lasted?” he then turned to Caesare. “Let’s pull all the sub data for that entire day.”
Four hours later Caesare walked in and dropped a giant stack of paper on Clay’s desk.
“The Alabama’s complete log from the 31st. Communications, navigation, propulsion…everything except the ship’s menu.”
“And?”
Caesare shook his head. “Nothing. Not a single discrepancy. And let me tell you, that is one boring read.”
Clay flipped through the pile. “Borger says the flares lasted almost eight hours, off and on. Anything else from the tech team on board?”
“Nope. They’re still tracing and testing cables but I don’t expect to find anything.”
They both knew that the cabling was more of a formality than anything else. A last act of diligence for the sake of being thorough. Wiring and insulation in these subs were meticulous. Rarely was the cabling ever found to be responsible. He pushed his chair back, finally shaking his head after a long moment. “Well whatever it was it wasn’t a solar flare, or a systems problem.”
“Or wiring,” Caesare added leaning against the door frame. “We going out?”
Clay nodded.
5
Alison sipped her tea and stared intently at the screen. It was about to start, and she could almost hear her heart beating. What’s with the anxiety? she thought to herself. You’d think you were the one on television. She was rarely nervous, if you could even call this nervousness. It was more excitement than anything else. Her press release had been picked up by dozens of papers and news broadcasts, all wanting an interview. She would never have imagined that kind of response, but with the progress they had made recently, maybe it was not so surprising.
What was surprising, was that they managed to make it on television and quickly. NBC called and wanted Dubois to be part of their Monday show, just three days after their press release went out. Previous announcements, albeit less exciting, had only been picked up by local papers. Something about their latest news sure got somebody excited. It made Alison wonder who got bumped. Hopefully some corporate executive lined up to hype a new product line or brag about how much richer they were.
Chris Ramirez approached with his own mug and looked at his watch. “Didn’t start yet, did it?”
She shook her head and bobbed her tea bag a couple times.
“You know you should have gone with him,” he said, taking a tentative sip.
Alison shook her head. “Nah. He’s better at this kind of stuff.”
“True,” Chris said, with a shrug. “Definitely doesn’t have anything to do with him loving the spotlight.”
She raised her cup to hide the grin.
Suddenly Matt Lewis’s face filled the screen, his words barely audible until Lee turned up the volume. “Here we go!”
“…at the Miami City Aquarium where a team of marine biologists have been trying to do the unthinkable. Talk to another species. With me today is Frank Dubois, the director of the center and the research being done there. Welcome Dr. Dubois.”
“Thank you, Matt.” Frank’s face filled the screen and both Chris and Lee let out a whoop. He looked good, comfortable on camera, much better than she would have.
“Doctor, I have to say, this is really exciting. I never knew there was such research being done at the aquarium. How did this all get started?”
Frank flashed his perfect smile and shrugged graciously. He was a natural. “Well the idea is not all that new, but the technology required for this approach was not available until very recently. We started with a small grant and eventually garnered enough interest to pay some salaries. In fact, much of the first two years of research was done on a volunteer basis by our senior researcher Alison Shaw-”
Lee Kenwood leaned over and gave her a friendly bump. “Alright Ali.”
“It’s a miracle,” Chris mumbled under his breath.
“Stop it!” She blushed and stared back at the screen. Accepting compliments was not her strong point.