he was appointed to that job.”
“That’s why he rejected you,” chimed in Sakura. “He wanted you to do all the work first, then hook up his buddies with that treasure.” Salas nodded in agreement.
“I immediately rejected HELIOS’ offer. Big Oil has done nothing for the country except strangle the economy with its monopoly on gas and heating prices. I didn’t want to aid them in any way to create another monopoly.”
“All part of the master plan to keep the classes separated!” said Nu’u Pali with disgust. The Hawaiian engineer on Salas’ staff with a penchant for going off on corporate corruption, found a door to vent his frustration and he went through it.
“Since the Bush and Obama administrations destroyed the middle class, the rich have controlled everything. Especially HELIOS and the other Big Oil companies. Record profits every year! Twelve dollars a gallon! Millions of people can’t afford to get to work, so they’re fired! What the fuck is that!?”
“Oh boy!” chuckled Funihashi. “Nu’u goin’ off!”
The heated Hawaiian realized the company he was in and quickly raised his hands and bowed his head.
“I’m sorry, Admirals. I always get carried away on this topic.”
“I appreciate your honesty, son,” said Glass. “And I fully agree with you, but we need to hear Dr. Salas right now.”
Pali nodded again and receded back in his seat
“But Steven wanted me to think about it more before officially rejecting them. For weeks he didn’t sleep; he didn’t go home. He was obsessed with the idea and motivated by the money they offered us up front. He began designing equipment that could withstand the pressure of the trench.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“Robotic drills, piping, cutting tools, and extraction tubes. I kept going down to the caverns to research if it was truly possible to get to the gas safely. But realistically, there was no way; my calculations didn’t support the massive effort. There was no way any vehicle could go down there for any amount of time and cut into the rock, much less extract natural gas safely.
“And more important to me were the negative effects any attempt to do so would have on the trench, its ecosystem and the potential catastrophic surface effects. Any saturation of methane natural gas into the open water, much worse an oil slick, would have killed millions of fish and poison the Marianna’s’ natural reef. The entire Western Pacific could have been wrecked.” He shook his head slowly. “Steven didn’t care about that anymore.”
Salas stood up and cleared his throat. He walked away from the table as tears began to shimmer in his eyes. Genero moved to him, but he used his hand to wave her back down. Kira poured a glass of water and brought it to him. He downed it and turned around, pain emanating from his eyes.
“When I rejected the idea based on my research, he said that his talents would be better served elsewhere.” The vision of those last moments came back to him like a lightning strike.
“NO!? HOW CAN YOU SAY NO!?”
“Steven, there’s no way it can work? We don’t have the technology to mine anything that deep,” Salas defended.
“I’m designing that technology, Joe! We can do this!”
“No, we can’t. We don’t have the vehicles to accomplish this. PRAS Deep is an industrial dig, Steven. Our vehicles here are too small to add drills and collection arms. I designed them for speed and observation, not heavy labor.”
“Then maybe you should let me do the designing, Joe. You’re the author, the lecturer and the global savior; I’m the businessman and the visionary.”
“And there’s the problem right there, Steven! Right there! You’re the businessman! How much is HELIOS offering you to get them down there?”
“They are offering us, not me, ten million! Ten million for a successful capture!”
“And what happens when we don’t make the capture? Or the equipment malfunctions? Or there’s a leak? PRAS Deep could drain out indefinitely!”
“Goddamn it, Joe!” Steven laughed, shaking his head. “Are you serious, man? Nothing will happen. We will be employees of HELIOS. If something goes wrong, then something goes wrong—we keep at it until it does work.”
“We become employees of HELIOS, the biggest fucking monopoly on the planet! Steven, they don’t give a shit about the Earth except how to rape it for their own profit! You want to work for them?”
“Joe, on top of the ten million, they will finance all our designs, patent them and market them. Joe!” Haynes looked excitedly into Salas’ eyes wildly. “No one has ever attempted this. No one has ever imagined it. We are the only two people on Earth who can make this work. We basically own the trench.”
“Not anymore apparently,” Salas countered. “You’re going to sell it to corporate criminals.”
“Oh Joe! Get over that, for Christ’s sakes! The entire United States is corrupt, starting from the fucking president!” He stepped forward, again smiling, with his vision guiding his steps and his words. “I’m talking about truly making our mark on the world. Imagine the books you’ll write, the lectures you’ll give, the symposiums you’ll head! That, my brother, that’s the dream you’ve wanted! That’s the science you’ve loved! You will have been the only man to protect the trench, discover its natural fuel, and then save our economy by mining it. Is this not a scientist’s dream?”
Salas sat down and felt the snake oil Steven was peddling touch his lips. Haynes went to the lab’s kitchen and came out with two cold bottles of beer. He popped them open and handed one to Salas.
“Joe, look at us. Look at what we do. We take measurements, readings, dive into the abyss, take more readings, monitor the chemicals, salinity and wave heights, and for what? Yes, we get a little excitement when we bust a company or the Navy on some infraction. We protect ecosystems, save beached whales and speak at international conferences. But other than that, what do we really accomplish? What is our legacy?”
“We protect our little piece of the planet,” answered Salas flatly. “You’re right, the trench is basically ours, especially PRAS Deep, and it’s our responsibility.”
“But that’s all it is, Joe. Like acres of undeveloped land, it’s useless unless tapped or built on. It’s just a canyon filled with water and no one really gives a damn about it.” Haynes dropped his smile and turned on a seriousness that Salas wanted to believe. “Joe, think about what I’m about to ask you right now. Think about it hard because I want to hear your answer.”
“What, Steven?”
“Is what we do, really so important?”
The question was simple enough and could have been answered instantly, but Salas hesitated. They took long swigs as an uncomfortable silence floated between them.
“What did you say?” asked Sakura. She and the rest of the group remained silent, concentrating on his recollection as if they were sitting around a campfire listening to a ghost story.
“I didn’t know
