The Conduit

In the middle of the South Pacific, aboard a seemingly innocuous sea station, the crew was experiencing something new in the air. The normal saltiness of the ocean air was mixing with something less pleasurable and stunned the senses as it irritated the nostrils of those forced to endure such a putrid odor. As rancid as the mixture was, those who knew the sea for a few years knew what caused such a foul stench.

The odor was blowing in from a floating, bloated, and scavenged whale carcass that had yet to sink to the bottom of the deep blue. Even with laws protecting them, whales were still hunted by poachers and whaling vessels illegally operating in the Pacific and along Atlantic coastlines. Massive operations continued to run despite the laws, mostly because of the size of the oceans and the lack of ability to monitor them more than sporadically.

Those unfortunate souls aboard ships and ocean rigs would get sick to their stomachs from the foul stench. If they weren’t sick, they’d be forced to merely endure the rancid smell or wear a cloth or mask covering their nose and mouth. Eventually, the odor of salt-water-soaked death would dissipate, as long as the bloated carcasses sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Sometimes, that wasn’t the case.

Pressing his head against the cold steel wall his bunk hung from, Max Shepherd closed his eyes and breathed shallow breaths. He could control feelings of discomfort by mediating his way through miserable situations. After years of practice, Max could survive anything thrown at him. He’d been strong enough to survive the war, torture, and being locked away as a political prisoner.

After years under the harshest of conditions, Max endured more pain and misery than any human should see in ten lifetimes. So, when he was offered the job as commander of the old Oceanic Station, Max didn’t think twice about accepting. While the commander’s quarters weren’t as spacious as advertised, the station had been retrofitted with the latest technology. Even with all the best toys, bells, and whistles, Max still had work to do. But what was left to accomplish was Max’s baby.

Max Shepherd could be called an underachiever. With a near genius I.Q., Max enjoyed adventure more than studying. He understood some advanced principles and had a mind for engineering and technology that was impressive to those who understood things and were educated on the subjects. As such, Max engineered a generator and managed to build a working prototype. With it, he was able to generate an electromagnetic field strong enough to contain a living creature and repel any force used against it. It was a mystery how Max came up with such an idea, and Max wouldn’t say anything other than it, “just came to me,” when asked.

As the commander of the Oceanic, Max had other duties. He was responsible for the different teams that lived and worked aboard Oceanic Station. There were three main teams aboard the station, and about thirty to forty support staff at any given time. The three main teams consisted of the science department, drilling operations, and security.

Max worked more with the science department and security than he did with the oil workers. Of all the things Max knew about, deep water drilling operations weren’t one of them. That was why he left the drilling operations to the rig foreman. He was an experienced oilman and a hell of a card player. Both men shared one secret in common; both played chess better than anyone on the Oceanic.

A commander assigned to an operation as complex as the Oceanic had duties they performed daily, weekly, and monthly. For Max, this was on top of overseeing the retrofitting of Level VI. That was where Max’s baby was going to be located, nearly twelve hundred feet beneath sea level and two hundred feet below its nearest neighbors. The idea of putting such a creation below sea level had never been suggested before Max, and even then, it was deemed insane. Max was close to completing the impossible. It was his insanity that drew the attention of the group.

The group was a somewhat shadowy cabal of seven members that met in secrecy and included a United States Senator, a U.S. intelligence officer, a representative from the U.K., Germany, and Russia, as well as a billionaire industrialist with direct ties to the government. He knew little about the members, other than their backgrounds, because their identities were kept a secret. Their secret was easy to maintain as they met remotely, and even then, it was through an encrypted channel on a laptop that was delivered to his door. He did, however, know that he was forbidden from sharing information about their existence. His only consistent contact was with the chair of the group, an image on a screen he was told he could call Number One.

As Max tried to nap, the rancid odor surrounding the station kept him tossing and turning. Even pulling a sheet over his face didn’t work. Max put his boots back on and stepped out of his quarters to the command center. As he walked in, he utterly surprised the night shift crew.

“What in the hell is that smell?” Max demanded.

Shelly, one of the technicians, and Max’s administrative assistant, pointed west from the Oceanic. She handed Max a pair of binoculars as he looked out at the open sea. Max spotted the problem, a dead humpback bobbing up and down on the water as it rested against a buoy marker.

“Shit, another goddammed whale.”

Shelly shook her head as the boss put the binoculars down and poured a cup of coffee. He took his first sip, and his tongue registered the aged sourness of the brew. Wiping his mouth, he put the cup down and went to the communications station to as who was on patrol.

“Sorenson and Howe, sir!” answered the communications officer.

“Well, why don’t we send Sorenson and Howe out there and have them sink that foul thing before it makes everyone sick to their tummies? Or do we want to suffer that infernal odor until the breezes die down?”

“Um…yes, sir,” answered the young officer as he called the patrol boat.

“Great,” Max walked into his office, a smile on his face as he passed Shelly.

It was nearly morning, so Max pressed the start button on his Keurig before sitting down to read over the daily reports. He was up already, so it was time to get to work. He flexed his jaw muscles as he forced himself to read through the daily activities from yesterday. It was all about another boring day at sea, and he had to force himself to read through the trivial notes the department heads thought were worthy of his time.

Shelly walked into the office and noticed the finished cup of black coffee waiting for someone to pick it up. She delivered it to the boss.

“What is it, Shelly?” he asked.

“Sir, there’s an encrypted communication waiting in your email. It says urgent,” she explained.

Max nodded at his assistant, acknowledging he had an incoming email on the secure server. He thanked her as she closed the door. Typing in his password and doing the biometric confirmation took a minute, but when he saw the title of the message it gave him hope for something more interesting than reports from the science team, daily activities from the drilling platform, or the need for resupply ships to be authorized. This was the day he'd been waiting for. As the finishing touches were about to be done on the detention level, Max felt a nervous energy growing inside him.

He pressed a button on his desk. The intercom connected to Shelly’s station, and in seconds she returned. When she did, he could hardly contain the smile on his face.

“I’m going below to oversee the final touches on the cells and security. If you need anything I’ll be on the secure channel.”

“Yes, sir” answer Shelly. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not today, but I’ll bring you into the loop as soon as I can. Things are finally going to get interesting around here,” he promised.

The only way down to the bottom level was by a turbo lift. Max stepped onto one a few minutes after talking to Shelly. The lifts were located on the South side of the station, and going to the detention level required using one of the security lifts. It was the only one that went all the way to the bottom.

It took nearly four minutes to ride down, which made Max wonder why they called it a turbo lift. Halfway, he was three hundred feet below sea level. Level VI was at the bottom of the ocean, originally constructed as a deep-sea lab. It took a key to go all the way, something only he and the security team possessed. As he passed the halfway point, enjoying the view from more than three hundred feet below, he could feel the pressure in his sinuses.

As he passed Level IV, Max considered taking one of the open suites. The security staff were all housed on Level IV, but there was room for guests and several suites were open. Now that his project was about to be deployed, he thought it was a better idea than when he first took over. Once the detention level was open and operating, he would want to be closer in case of emergencies. He decided he’d have his things moved down as soon as possible.

Level II, or the first level below, housed a cantina, a gym, and a recreational area for the drilling team, the science team, and the security team if they chose to use them. That had everything they needed on their level, which kept the off-duty personnel closer to the classified section of the Oceanic if needed. Level V was the training area and resupply station. While it was a secret to most of the station, the department heads knew of its existence.

Max arrived at Level VI, the detention center. He’d been brought to the Oceanic for this level more than anything. His design afforded a rare opportunity to have a nearly complete observation cell. Other than the view from the floor, the security staff could see every movement, every action, and every minute of a prisoner’s detention. This was the place to hold the world’s most dangerous people, and the unit Max designed was meant for the absolute most dangerous monster known to man. Once it was successfully deployed, Max was about to own the patent on something every government in the world was going to want.

As the door to the lift opened, and he was greeted by two armed men in black uniforms, a security officer approached him. Max knew the officer was doing exactly as he’d been taught to do. As the officer instructed him to “scan in,” Max nodded and said good morning to the men. The officers at the lift station were the only avenue of defense if the Oceanic was ever taken, which with prisoners down below, was a possibility. Seeing how they trained and were on top of their game, even with him, was reassuring. After completing the biometric scans, things understandably become more relaxed.

“Commander Shepherd, good morning. We weren’t expecting you this early.”

Max commented on the change in plans. “I’m here to oversee the final shakedown of the detention unit.”

As he started to wander off, Max turned and asked, “Will you be greeting everybody the same way?”

“Unless instructed otherwise,” answered the lead officer.

Max laughed as he continued toward the cell unit. He wasn’t critiquing as much as he was questioning. The AR-15 aimed at him was a very effective deterrent. As he walked fifty yards to the detention center, he realized everything that could be done had been.

The detention unit was the newest addition to the Oceanic Station; however, it didn’t exist on paper. It was meant to be a black site. There was nothing blacker than being trapped hundreds of feet below sea level. Not even a satellite could detect the location of the cell unit at the depth they were at and with the station directly above. They were in a veritable no man’s land.

“Well boys,” he bellowed as he entered the control center. “Are we ready?”

One of the technicians answered, “It’s a little rushed, but I think it’ll pass the test.”

Max nodded excitedly, energetically moving toward the control panels like a child running around a toy store. He couldn’t wait to play with the new toy. To have a working electromagnetically charged containment barrier was a dream and he was about to realize his dream as it became reality.

“What do you say guys, should we fire this baby up?”

The team cleared their tools away and in one voice answered yes. They had been hard at work for months, and all of them were excited to see the chamber work. If everything was right, the center of the detention center would become a detention cell without visible walls. It would allow a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of whatever they put inside it, giving them the most securely monitored cell in the world.

Max began the initiation sequence, powering each generator one at a time. There were eight other units that would be powered and the full observation unit in the center of the chamber. As he powered them all, Max smiled widely. Each of the singles around the room now glowed.

He got to the final controls, and told himself, “Here goes everything.”

The center of the chamber lit up, telling him the fields were holding. One of the technicians advised that they were at one hundred percent integrity. Max took a cup from one of the technicians, promising him he’d buy him a new one. He walked into the chamber and announced their success by throwing the coffee cup forcefully into the glowing chamber.

The room got silent. They watched as the cup shattered into a million pieces after it was deflected by the nearly invisible barrier surrounding the center of the chamber.

“I told you it would work!” Max yelled, smiling from ear to ear, as he put his muscular arm around the one technician’s neck. “And don’t you worry. I’ll get you all mugs that say world’s greatest team on them, you brilliant little bastards!”

The room erupted in applause as their work had paid off. Oceanic Station Level VI was now the most advanced black site detention block ever created, and in the most hidden place anyone could imagine. They would spend the day running tests on the barriers and cleaning up the unit, but for now, the hard part was over. But Max knew that wasn’t going to last.

“Well boys, go through all the testing protocols and let me know if anything comes up. I’ll have drinks for all of you at the cantina tonight. You’ve earned them,” he promised his team.

Max went back to his office after seeing the barrier testing work. It took several minutes to get there, and when he did, he held his hand up and shooshed Shelly, who was about to tell him the whale carcass had been hauled out to sea. Max had to send a message to his bosses to let them know he’d been successful.

When Max opened his computer and signed in, there was one message awaiting. Clicking on the header, he began reading.

“Captain Shepherd, Level VI needs to be operational as soon as possible. We’ve located a special project target and will need to transfer the target to the Oceanic Detention Center upon capture. The transfer will be done in conjunction with security from the United States Military. Expect more details in the coming hours. The group.”

Sitting back in his chair, things began to sink in. Not only had they finished the project, but it was about to go online. They were expecting their first guest sooner than he expected. Max began typing his reply.

‘Level VI is ready. Scenario and protocol testing is already underway. The initial tests were very promising. We’ll be ready to receive our first guest at your convenience. Captain Shepherd.’

“Talk about beating the clock,” he said to himself as he picked up the communicator and pressed the button to the cantina.

When one of the staff answered, Max instructed them to put together something special for the engineers. He ordered a buffet, drinks, and music for the team. Then he told the cantina to alert the science team and the roughnecks. They were going to celebrate the completion of the newest level of the Oceanic. He wanted it to be memorable because it was probably going to be the last bit of peace they saw for a while. He just couldn’t explain to everyone why they were celebrating.