“Sounds great,” Marazzato said. “So what’s the problem?”
“It doesn’t work.” Sam shrugged. “Okay, it didn’t work, until now. Basically, research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but with the exception of the one at the center of Habitat Zero, to date, no design has produced more fusion power output than the electrical power input. But no one could work it out. So how did your grandfather get a hold of it?”
“The ancient ones gave us nuclear fusion.”
Sam looked at her, she was still holding a gun at him. “Only you?”
“President John F. Kennedy to be exact.”
“Why?”
“They had a deal.”
Major Marazzato shook his head emphatically. “What sort damned deal?”
“There’s an ancient race… that live beneath the sea somewhere…”
Sam said, “We call them the Master Builders. They’ve been around for more than a hundred thousand years. They are genetically Homo Sapiens, but they have some anomalies that prevent them from aging very quickly. Unfortunately for them, this genetic fault, has led to a decrease in their fertility rates.”
“That’s right, they’re dying out.”
Sam said, “It’s been happening for thousands of years.”
“It’s getting worse. They’re getting desperate.”
“And so they made a deal with President JFK?”
“They needed to keep performing genetic experiments on Homo Sapiens.”
“JFK traded the Master Builders humans for technology?”
“No. The Master Builders already had a small pool of roughly twenty thousand unevolved Homo Sapiens.”
Sam gasped. “The 8th Continent!”
“I see you’re better informed than me.” She made a wry smile. “So the Master Builders traded their technology so that JFK would agree to keep the 8th Continent hidden. The submerged continent doesn’t appear on any satellite images, maps, or shipping routes.”
“It’s seems like one hell of a gift to trade for something so simple.”
Dr. Smyth made a coy smile. “There was one other thing the Master Builders needed. Something that they couldn’t access themselves.”
“What?”
“A rare element found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It sometimes floated up to the surface and could be harvested, but they needed it in greater numbers, and to do that they needed someone to go down there and get it.”
Sam asked, “Why couldn’t they do it themselves?”
“There aren’t more than twenty Master Builders left alive in the world. That means they don’t have the human resources to do it. Besides, the Master Builders have always been the brains of an operation, not the workers. They designed the pyramids, they didn’t build it themselves.”
“What’s so important about the element?”
“It makes people feel good.”
“So does heroin,” Sam said. “What makes this drug any different?”
“It has no side effects, and it makes people happy simply existing.”
Sam’s lips curled upward with understanding. “That’s how the Master Builders have kept their cohort of unevolved Homo Sapiens happy!”
“Exactly. Only, six months ago, you discovered the 8th Continent, and its waters were placed on the protected list, making it hard for us to deliver the elements. Then, the nearby volcano erupted destroying a uranium processing plant, and sending an island of pumice to the surface.”
Sam said, “It was your people who killed the crew of the Carpe Diem?”
“No. That wasn’t us. I believe it was one of the Master Builders who arranged it, afraid that the island would — as it did — lead to their processing plant being discovered.”
Sam said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand?”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you let us come down here in the first place?”
She smiled. “Because although my family came from Habitat Zero, and my father got rich out of it, we’ve never been able to locate it. It was almost a myth. I had to know the truth.”
“And now that you know it, what will you do?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I believe in the concept of Habitat Zero. In the hope that its technology might bring for the future of humanity. But it’s not up to me. It all depends what the people inside the sphere say when they find out the truth.”
“They don’t know?” Marazzato asked, his voice incredulous. “What did they think they were doing down here?”
“They thought the world above had been destroyed by a nuclear war.”
Marazzato laughed now. “Oh boy. They’re going to be pissed when they find out they’ve been trapped down here for seventy years, producing technology to make your family rich!”
The sound of footsteps moving along the obsidian passages echoed through the obsidian vault. More than a hundred people filled the room. They all looked like they had just come from a 1950s or 1960s dress up party. The men were in suits with ties or Navy dress uniform, and the women wore full length skirt and tight bodice, with a slightly above the knee hemline. The men were handsome and the women beautiful, with short cropped hair or long straight styles.
A man in a white US Navy’s full-dress uniform introduced himself as the Commander Baxter, the Commander of the Sphere.
There were tears of joy and happiness.
Everyone started hugging. People were asking about where they had come from. Who else had survived? What was left of the world above? Were there any other survivors? Can people still see the blue sky or is there a permanent cloud of nuclear dust?
But before any answers were given, someone ran into the room, and meeting the commander’s eyes, said, “Commander, another submarine has just docked on the eastern lockout locker!”
“Another submarine… one of yours?” Sam asked the Commander.
The Commander shook his head, “We don’t have any submarines that go to the surface.”
Dr. Smyth turned to Sam, and asked, “Could it be one of yours?”
“No. Ursula’s the only sub we have on board.”
“What about another ship?” she asked. “Would your crew have arranged for rescue submarine?”
“No way. There are no rescue submarines for this depth! Besides, the only subs that could reach this depth are thousands of miles away.”
Marazzato said, “That might not be the case.”
“What are you saying?” Sam asked.
“Before I cut the communications cable, there was a note on the communications computer from Elise on the surface. She warned that the Yantar was on the surface.”
“Are you kidding me!” Sam said. “You didn’t think to mention that the Russian spy vessel was tracking us?”
Marazzato crossed his arms. “Hey, I figured there was nothing we could do about it, so no reason to make the things any more stressful.”
Sam turned to man in the Commander. “Sir, do you have any weapons on board?”
“Weapons?” The commander asked, his voice soft, almost surprised by the question. “There’s an armory toward the center of the sphere next to the command center. Why?”
Sam met his eyes. “Because whatever submarine just docked with Habitat Zero it’s crewed by an elite force of Russians.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Sam, Marazzato, and Dr. Smyth followed the Commander of the Habitat Zero at a run through the obsidian passageway heading toward the armory at the center of the sphere.
Sam said to the Commander “Can you secure the passageways and doors between the lockout chamber any the rest of the sphere?”
“Sure, there’s a security code for everything we have. Although it’s not used very often. In fact, I don’t understand how they got in through the lockout chamber. It has a security code, too.”