Domain. - Domain. Part 31
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Domain. Part 31

DECEMBER 7, 2012.

GULF OF MEXICO.

4:27 A.M.

The incessant ringing rouses Edmund Loos from his sleep. He fumbles for the receiver, then clears his throat. "Captain here. Speak."

"Sorry to wake you, sir. We've detected activity along the seafloor."

"On my way."

The sea has begun churning by the time the captain enters the Combat Information Center. "Report, Commander."

The executive officer points to a light table where a real-time, cube-shaped holographic three-dimensional image of the sea and seafloor is being projected in midair. Positioned along the bottom of the ghostlike image, buried within the slate-shaded limestone topography is the ovoid alien object, color-coded luminescent orange. An emerald green circle of energy blazes atop the ovoid's dorsal surface, causing a shaft of light to rise up through a vertical burrow leading to the seafloor. The image of the Boone can be seen floating along the surface.

As the captain and his executive officer watch in amazement, the green beacon appears to widen as an eddy forms. Within seconds, the swirling torrent of water tightens into a powerful underwater funnel, stretching from the hole along the seafloor clear up to the surface. "Christ, it's like watching a tornado form," Loos whispers. "It's just as Gabriel said."

"Pardon me, sir?"

"Nothing. Commander, keep us clear of the maelstrom. Have communications patch me through to NORAD, then launch our LAMPS. If anything emerges from that whirlpool, I want to know about it."

"Aye, sir."

Lieutenant First-Class Johnathan Evans dashes across the aft deck, helmet in hand, his copilot and crew already on board the LAMPS antisub helicopter. Huffing and puffing, he climbs into the Seasprite's cockpit, then fastens himself in.

Evans glances over at his copilot as he struggles to catch his breath. "Damn cigarettes are killing me."

"Want some coffee?"

"Bless you, my son." Evans takes the Styrofoam cup. "Three minutes ago I'm lying in my bunk, dreaming of Michelle, the next thing I know, the XO's yelling at me, asking me why I'm not airborne yet."

"Welcome to the Navy adventure."

Evans pulls back on the joystick. The chopper lifts away from the helopad, turning south as it climbs to three hundred feet. The pilot hovers the LAMPS directly over the swirling emerald sea.

"Hoi-lee shit-" Evans and his crew stare at the growing maelstrom, mesmerized by its beauty, frightened by its intensity. The vortex is a monster, a spiraling eddy straight out of Homer's Odyssey, its walls oscillating with the force of Niagara Falls. Looking down upon the otherwise dark waters, the whirlpool's glowing emerald eye resembles a luminescent green galaxy, its cluster of stars brightening as the mouth of the funnel opens wider.

"Good God. Wish I had my camera."

"Don't worry, Lieutenant, we're snapping plenty of pictures back here."

"Who cares about infrared. I want a real photo, something I can e-mail back home."

As Evans watches, the center of the maelstrom suddenly bottoms out, exposing a blinding sphere of light that blazes upward like an emerald sun from within the fractured sea floor.

"Protect your eyes-"

"Lieutenant, two objects rising out of the funnel!"

"What?" Evans turns to face his radar operator. "How large?"

"Big. Twice the size of the LAMPS."

The pilot pulls back on the joystick-as two dark, winged objects soar out of the funnel. The faceless mechanisms rise up along either side of the Seasprite-the lieutenant catching a quick glimpse of a glowing amber disk-as the joystick goes limp in his hand.

"Oh, shit, we've stalled-"

"Engines off-line, Lieutenant. Everything's dead!"

Evans registers a sickening feeling as the airship drops from the sky. A bone-jarring jolt-as the chopper strikes the maelstrom's wall. The rotors shear off, the cockpit's windshield shatters as the copter is slung around the vertical column of water as if caught in a blender. Centrifugal force pins Evans sideways in his seat, his screams drowned out by the tumultuous roar that fills his ears.

The world spins out of control as the funnel engulfs the LAMPS.

The last thing Lieutenant Johnathan Evans feels is the strange sensation of his vertebrae popping beneath a suffocating embrace, as if his body is being crushed within a giant trash compactor.

DECEMBER 8, 2012.

GUNUNG MULU NATIONAL PARK.

SARAWAK, FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA.

5:32 A.M. MALAYSIAN TIME (13 HOURS LATER).

Sarawak, situated on the northwest coast of Borneo, is the largest state in the Federation of Malaysia. Gunung Mulu, the largest national park in the state, covers 340 square miles, its landscape dominated by three mountains-the Gunung Mulu, the Gunung Benarat, and the Gunung Api.

The Gunung Api is a mountain formed out of limestone, a geology that not only dominates the entire state of Sarawak, but also its neighboring island of Irian Jaya/Papua New Guinea, and nearly all of southern Malaysia. The weathering of this limestone landscape by the slightly acid rainwater has led to remarkable surface sculptures and underground formations.

Midway up the side of Mount Api, pointing skyward like a field of jagged stalagmites, is a petrified forest of razor-sharp, silver-gray limestone pinnacles, some of which tower more than 150 feet above the rain forest. Below ground, hollowed out from the limestone geology by subterranean rivers, lies a labyrinth containing more than four hundred miles of underworld caverns, representing the largest limestone cave system in the world.

Honolulu graduate student Wade Tokumine has been studying the Sarawak caves for three months, collecting data as part of his master's thesis concerning the stability of the world's underground karst volumes. Karst is a topography created through the chemical weathering of limestone geology containing at least eighty percent calcium carbonate. Sarawak's network of subterranean passages are composed entirely of this vast network of karst.

Today's journey marks Wade's ninth visit to Clearwater Cave, the longest underground passage in all of Southeast Asia and one of only four Mula caves open to the public. The geologist leans back from his seat in the longboat, shining his carbide light at the alabaster ceiling of the cavern. The beacon cuts through the darkness to reveal a myriad of stalactites dripping with moisture. Wade stares at the ancient formations of rock, marveling at Nature's design.

Four billion years ago, the Earth was a very young, hostile, and lifeless world. As the planet cooled, water vapor and other gases were sent skyward in violent volcanic eruptions, creating an atmosphere high in carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen compounds, conditions similar to those found on Venus.

Life on our planet began in the sea as a soup of chemicals, organized into complex structures-four basic amino acid chain molecules-animated by an outside catalyst, perhaps a bolt of lightning. The animated amino acid double helixes began to replicate themselves, leading to a single-celled life. These organisms quickly rose in abundance and began depleting the oceans of its fast-food carbon compounds. Then-a unique family of bacteria evolved to produce a new organic molecule called chlorophyll. This green-tinted substance was able to store the energy in sunlight, allowing the single-celled organisms to create high-quality carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, releasing oxygen as its by-product.

Photosynthesis was born.

As planetary oxygen levels rose, calcium carbonate was withdrawn from the sea and locked up in rock formations by marine organisms, drastically reducing the planet's atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. This rock-limestone-became Earth's storehouse for carbon dioxide. As a result, the level of carbon dioxide stored in sedimentary rock is now more than six hundred times the total carbon content of the planet's air, water, and living cells combined.

Wade Tokumine aims the beam of light along the dark surface waters of the cavern. The subterranean stream is laden with ten times the concentration of carbon dioxide. This part of the carbon cycle occurs as a result of the dissolved CO2 reaching its saturation point within the limestone. When this happens, the carbon dioxide precipitates out as pure calcium carbonate, creating the stalactites and stalagmites that now proliferate in the Sarawak caves.

Wade turns around in the longboat to face his guide, Andrew Chan. The Malaysian native and professional spelunker has been leading tours through Sarawak's caves for seventeen years.

"Andrew, how much farther to this virgin passage of yours?"

The light of the carbide lamp catches Andrew's smile, which is missing two front teeth. "Not far. This section of the cavern craps out ahead, then we go on by foot."

Wade nods, then spits out the stench of the carbide fumes. Only 30 percent of Sarawak's caves have been surveyed, most of these remaining inaccessible to all but a few of the more experienced guides. When it comes to charting unexplored passages, Wade knows Andrew is second to none, a caver exuding a strong case of "booty scoop lust," an incurable psychological condition common among "Speleo-boppers."

Andrew guides the longboat to a ledge, holding it steady so Wade can climb out. "Better put your brain bucket on, lots of loose rock ahead."

Wade fastens the helmet to his head as Andrew ties one end of a very long coil of rope known as a hog to the boat, tossing the rest over his shoulder. "Stay close. It'll get a bit narrow. There's plenty of sharp popcorn sticking out along the walls, so watch your clothes."

Andrew takes the lead, guiding them through a pitch-dark catacomb. He selects a tight, inclined passage and enters, allowing the hog line to feed out to mark their route. After several minutes of steady climbing, the passage squeezes to a claustrophobic tunnel, forcing them to crawl on all fours.

Wade slips on the wet limestone, tearing the skin along his knuckles. "How much farther?"

"Why? You getting entrance fever?"

"A little."

"That's 'cause you're a keyboard caver."

"What's that?"

"A keyboard caver's someone who spends more time reading the cavers' mailing list than actually going-hold on. Whoa, what's this?"

Wade crawls forward on his belly, squeezing in next to Andrew to take a look.

The tunnel has opened to a massive sinkhole. Looking up, they can see stars still glimmering in the early-morning sky, the surface a good seventy-five feet above their heads. Andrew shines his light below, revealing the bottom of a massive hole, another thirty feet down.

A luminescent amber glow casts bizarre shadows from within the pit.

"Do you see that?"

Wade leans forward to get a better look. "It looks like there's something glowing down there"

"This doline wasn't here earlier this morning. The roof of the cavern must have just collapsed. Whatever's down there probably fell straight through and landed in that pit."

"Maybe it's a car? Someone could be trapped down there."

Wade watches as his Malaysian guide reaches into his backpack and pulls out a Knobbly Dog, a rope ladder made of a single length of wire, the rungs threaded through the middle.

"What are you doing?"

"Stay here, I'm going to climb down and have a look." Andrew anchors one end of the ladder to the ledge, then allows the Knobbly Dog to unravel into the dark recesses below.

The sky above has turned gray by the time the spelunker steps down into the pit. The early-morning light barely penetrates the darkness and swirling wisps of limestone dust.

Andrew stares at the inanimate creature dwarfing him in the subterranean pit. "Hey Wade, I don't know what this thing is, but it ain't no car."

"What's it look like?"

"Like nothing I've ever seen. It's huge, like a giant cockroach, only it's got big wings and a tail, with a bunch of weird tentacles sticking out all over its belly. It's balancing upright on a pair of claws. They must be pretty hot, because the limestone's sizzling beneath them."

"Maybe you ought to get out of there. Come on, we'll call the park rangers-"

"It's okay, the thing's not alive." Andrew reaches out to touch one of the tentacles.

A neon blue, electromagnetic shock wave slams him backward against the far wall.

"Andrew, you okay? Andrew?"

"Yeah, man, but this sonnuva bitch is packing a serious charge. Oh, shit-" Andrew jumps back as the creature's hydraulic, mechanical tail rises, reaching up toward the sky.

"Andrew?"

"I'm leaving, man, you don't have to tell me twice." The guide starts climbing up the ladder.

The amber orb along the side of the being's upper body begins flashing, darkening to a crimson hue.

"Come on, climb faster!"

White smoke pours out from beneath the creature's talons, filling the vertical shaft.

Wade feels himself getting dizzy. He turns around and slides, headfirst, down the slick tunnel as Andrew pulls himself up and over the ledge.

"Andrew? Andrew, you behind me?" Wade stops his inertia and shines his light back up the tunnel. He can see the guide, lying facedown in the narrow crawl space.

Carbon dioxide!

Wade reaches hack and grabs Andrew's wrist. He drags him down through the crawl space as the rock around him grows hotter, scorching his skin.

What the hell's happening?

Wade stumbles to his feet as the passage widens. He hoists the unconscious guide onto his shoulder and staggers toward the longboat. Everything seems to be spinning, getting hotter. He closes his eyes, using his elbows to feel his way along the sizzling limestone walls.

Wade hears a bizarre bubbling sound as he reaches the subterranean stream. Dropping to one knee, he rolls Andrew's body into the longboat, then climbs in clumsily, nearly tipping them. The cave's walls are smoking, the intense heat causing the underground river to boil.

Wade's eyes are burning, his nostrils unable to inhale the searing atmosphere. He bellows a suffocating scream, thrashing about wildly as his flesh blisters and chars away from the bone and his eyeballs burst into flames.

JOURNAL OF.

JULIUS GABRIEL.

Chichen Itza-the most magnificent Mayan city in all Mesoamerica. Translated, the name means: at the brim of the well where the Wise Men of the Water live.

The Wise Men of the Water.

The city itself is divided into an old section and new. The Maya first settled in Old Chichen in AD 435 their civilization later joined by the Itza tribe, around AD goo. Little is known about the daily rituals and lifestyles of these people, although we do know they were ruled by their god-king, Kukulcan, whose legacy as the great Mayan teacher dominates the ancient city.

Maria, Michael, and I would spend many years exploring the ancient ruins and surrounding jungles of Chichen Itza. In the end, we felt convinced of the overwhelming importance of three particular structures, these being the sacred cenote, the Great Mayan Ball Court, and the Kukulcan pyramid.

Simply put, there is no other structure in the world like the Kukulcan pyramid. Towering above the Great Esplanade of Chichen Itza, the precision and astronomical placement of this thousand-year-old structure still baffles architects and engineers the world over.

Maria and I eventually agreed that it was the Kukulcan pyramid the Nazca drawing had been intended to represent The inverted jaguar within the desert icon, the serpent columns at the entrance to the temple's northern corridor, the icon of the monkey and whales-everything seemed to fit Somewhere, hidden within the city, had to be a secret passageway into the Kukulcan's inner structure. The question was-where?