Walking Titanic (copyright 2012)

12,000 feet down on the deck of the finest luxury ship of the 20th century...

My bare feet splosh cold water on the warped, white-enameled and wrinkled metal deck. Crew-quarters. Cheap rig. Well, half-a-bil for eighty-five rooms, a command deck, service facilities, medical, food and whatever isn't low-bill but it's like"total crap. Now, the El Coranone anchored five-hundred yards west, that's prime. Big-payers. Ten-K per package plus room plus this plus that to International waters one-thousand kilometers south-southeast of Newfoundland then twelve-thousand-five-hundred feet straight down to the queen of all shipwrecks, the RMST Titanic. 

S**t. 

Wind is light from the south-southwest, two knots. Sun is bright. Water, calm. The sky is clear. Me, I'm only here 'cause I work here. I do comm-links above and below. There's also some dives and underwater construction and what extra I can for a buck. Grunt pay for an ex-yeoman. Later today I'm on a service chopper home for two whole weeks off this semi-submersible rig " my rope-yarn Sunday. I squint at the bright, shapeless sun. Eight-hundred thirty hours. Wish I could leave now, but I have to make the trip " down to pick up something below.

Ten-hundred hours. I'm fitted in nice civvies " casual wear. Have to look presentable. I hate this walkway to leave-station. So ghetto. It's so narrow and fenced-in, even top and bottom. They don't want people fishing goods out of the water or dropping stuff in. RMST security is everywhere, as are painfully-obvious undercover DEA and Interpol-types. They have every angle covered for almost any action. Divers are always in, too. International waters. Legal things get complicated here, so someone's always trying something. Off to my right is a sonic buoy. They monitor all comms here. Of course, nothing with radio waves except very-low-frequency works deeper than twenty feet. We talk to below with hard lines and a special Extended Deep Siren setup. Converts radio to encrypted acoustic pulses translated to voice or text on the other end. I did some of that. Me, the dropout. I think it was my experience with the GS that got me the gig here. Better than the docks in Newfie, but this yeoman pay isn't enough. Smuggling? I'm OK with it. I'm not running guns or human cargo. It's all chips or gems or something bill. Maybe once a month I run goods from one of the Gift Shops, below. The juice, though, is getting to be on her and in her - the great wreck. 

Today's group is pretty typical of what we get here. Three grey couples who seem to have lots of time and money. Two fams " mother, father, two and three kids. Kids are at most teens. Definitely suburban, forties, so they started late. One has 'em reigned in " no disorderly behavior. The one with three - they're a little looser. One couple my age. Guy looks service " maybe Marines the way he walks. She's a thin little thing. Kind of awkward and aimless. Probably adores the b*****d. One lone gal " nothing I would want. Probably hooty by the looks of her glasses. That leaves one guy that keeps towards the back of the pack. There " he's heading towards the fence probably to let me walk by. So I do, sort of slow. He's looking out over the water. Pushed-back black crew cut with close-cropped sides. Tall with tiny eyes. A real sundowner. He's got a dickish carriage and a frame that looks like it could do a marathon in two hours. In his hands are a small camera and a cell phone. Don't think he's had a look toward me yet, though he looks around a lot. My question, the one I'm asking myself is: who's he work for?

OK, so the trip down goes like this: after the walkway is security. They check your comms, players, data cards, all fabrics and materials on and in you, test for residues, and take anything dangerous from you on the list. We then board a tight twenty-seat bumboat sub with one steward and two pilots and make way for the spot where Titanic hit the 'berg. There's no iceberg, but there are several service craft and supply stations for what lies below. Anyways, they jostle the sub and flash these special red lights and yell "We're going down!" Then we dive for her. Takes about an hour. Everything's fitted with pressure-walls so we don't have to worry about compression. The whole trip we have videos and narration and history lessons - the kind of thing that is educational so you know it puts me to sleep. I always seem to wake up for the on-board lunch, though.

Ten-hundred-thirty hours. We descend in a long spiral path to the ocean floor around the hundreds of power, communication and transfer lines feeding Titanic's rebirth. Service lights guide the way down. Not that there's anything to see anyways " just cables and murkey grey water. Dull trip. Kinda like my path. High school. College. Both were a loss. Navy finally took me. It was a good plan " college money, learn a trade. I love the water, anyways. My computer skills and gaming got me a spot in remote countermeasures. Now that was cool! We'd use long-wave radio and sonics to blow GS-300's, a slow-moving porpoise-like torpedo to sink ships. It keys in on a ship's electronic traffic, and, at the right moment, is detonated by guys like me from remote. I never got to go live. I got bored " had to do something else. They thought I was nuts. A non-bilge leaving special ops? I wound up in diving, demolition and construction. At least I was actually doing something, but it sunk my career. Commission? I never plugged into anything, not for too long, anyways. I always did the least I could to get by and always got bored with what I was doing. This - this is my latest thrill. My way back to life. Maybe that's the real reason I'm headed down the Gift Shop. 

I scrunch down a little to catch a better look through the small circular polycarbonate window. Shadows off starboard. There's a couple of blue-fin tuna to starboard keeping with the sub. Probably hear vibrations from the service lines. Yep, tuna. Wondrful. Another fifty minutes to go.

The sub dock and Welcome Center sit on the loose hazy ocean floor next to Titanic's restored bow. It's like a dense fog made from mud and bits of debris. Titanic's lit up dull by cruddy brownish lights. Her exterior is cleaned up but a little rough. Submersibles are everywhere " stabbing her with murky yellow cones of light. Some jostle welding torches. Others handle equipment for teams of deep-divers welding and building. There are rig platforms off the Bridge, decks, and...well...a lot of her exterior. And al those cables we wound around the way down. They all end here. Make Titanic look like she's on life-support, coming back to life.

Five years litigation, another five for the plan and funding, and so far eight years to build what we have now in front of me. First we stopped the degradation of her hull and support structures by a critter called Halomonas titanicae. Then swain worked on the hull. To restore rooms and walkways, everything was cataloged, photographed and measured by divers. Then they were cleared out, fitted with pressure wall rooms and rebuilt with as much original stuff as possible. No mannequins, though. No people in the exhibits. We connect the rooms with walkways, then move on. So far ten rooms for tourists plus concessions, the memorial and four external sites. There are eight more rooms for operations and personnel. We collect all kinds of royalties and fees. Ten-grand and more a pop has made the tourist venture worthwhile, they say. And hey: rebuilding allows RMST rights to hidden treasures like the one-hundred-thirty-million in diamonds found in a forward cabin safe.

Eleven-hundred-thirty hours. We made dry-dock, past security and now we're waiting on an elevator to the bow. The Forecastle, famous in that big movie thirty or so years ago, is where the tour starts. It broke off the Titanic when she sank and augured into the ocean floor leading edge down about thirty degrees. It was structurally compromised in a couple of places that had to be fixed before we could refit it to the hull. The actual deck and railings are part of the reconstruction. Her wooden planking is under your feet. You can touch all the original railings and the cargo crane. The capstans, lines and chains are all there up to the windlasses. You can see the Bridge and look all the way up one-hundred-seventy-five feet to the top of the forward funnel. But all around is the blue and murky water lit by the clever scatter lights below. It feels like you're on the deck of the Titanic in the moist cool air of late evening on the darkest of moonlit nights. There's even a little mist in the air, courtesy of saline atomizers overhead. But we're twelve-thousand-five-hundred feet under. The pressure outside is over four-hundred atmospheres"three tons of force every square inch. The trick is we're inside a totally clear triangular pressure-room about sixty feet each side and ten feet high. The magnesium-polycarbide ceramic-fiber walls can take up to 118 Mega-pascals pressure - good up to thirty-thousand feet deep. This is totally shiv stuff. No optical distortion. No seams. Cost one-quarter a mill per square yard. That's close to half-a-bill just for the room. Pressure walls mean inside it can be a comfy one-atmosphere. Add in the hidden HVAC and sound system, partly courtesy of me, a lot of sensors and effects, and you can see why these damn trips cost so much. 

OK, I stick with the group for a while. I'm expected to pick up by thirteen-hundred hours. The chopper is topside at sixteen-hundred, giving me lots of time to make the twenty-two hundred hour drop tonight.

Twelve-hundred hours. In the exhibits. Inside Titanic. It's like walking through a historic building or something but its a little bit more constrained. You move through hallways in her lower decks between renovated rooms. It's a little like a hamster trail. The halls have displays and info-stations. The rooms you can walk into. Titanic was a ship on the open sea. There was lots of light and air and noise. They did a good job making it feel like she was still topside. Fake windows have incredible projected images complete with sounds and air movement. There are breezes through the halls. Some cabin doors are slightly open so you can peak inside but the space is no bigger than a closet " they just figured an open door and glimpse of a room would make you feel less shut in. The best part is the reflecting speakers that create localized ambient sounds of birds, people talking, even waves against the hull. Integral canceling speakers remove the echoes and sounds you expect in a closed structure like a pressure room - like a 'ping' when you tap on the walls. There's even a little 'give' to the flooring and slight slight roll to the rooms that you might not really feel but you are aware of.

  The third class rooms two decks below the Poop deck weren't all that bad. They remind me of my quarters on the USS Fort Worth - small but not cramped. Everything is made from wood except the white ceramic wash basin and matching water tank above it. The bed is definitely a single but is fitted with what is described as “a suitably plush and durable fabric mattress.” There's also a small dresser and circular mirror. Fresh towels were always in the room. Feeling was at the time that even third class travelers should have some luxury and private rooms. Almost worth the price of the ticket, considering.

Further along, the first class rooms are a little better. Big difference from third. Big luxury. Beds are double to queen with brass-frames and sometimes a canopy. Walls have carved wood paneling. Even the ceilings had work " thick moldings and a center dome like over the Grand Staircase. Paint depended on the room and the occupant. This one here even has a sitting room complete with fireplace and two-seat sofa. One they're working on now has all that plus a chandelier, a private bath, and grand entrance.

Thirteen-hundred hours. Gift shop one. That's my contact behind the counter. Name is “Sal.” This isn't a highly technical process. I get a message near the end of my rotation to make a buy my last day on at a set time and pay with a torn hundred. Take it topside and get it to Newfie. That night I go to a certain bar at a certain time and give it to my usual contact. I get an envelope. Easy. I don't go right over to the counter yet. I like to let him see me and let him know I see him. I can also assess the situation. Well, what do you know. That guy just strolled in " the marathon runner, Mr. Fit. I head around to the other side of a low rack of black Titanic tennis shirts in a corner near some books. Now I think I should have headed right over to Sal. Mr. Fit is walking to the counter. Just walking right up there. Now he's talking to Sal. OK, I'm tensed. Is he a competitor, a replacement, or a fed? His back's to me and I move to my left to see better, but all I catch is arms moving. He looks like he's...he grabs something from the gray pack at his side. More movement. I walk a little to my right. He bought something, I think. This reeks! Either I'm gonna come up empty or end up carrying some plant. Maybe it really is the drop-goods. I don't have abort rights on missions, though. I gotta go through with my moves and do what I'm paid to do. Hell, just gotta cover my a*s.

Sal is not big on small-talk even though I've known him for a few. Security would know that, too, so we chat aimless for the cameras. I point out a few things from the case "  you know, be the customer. Sal suggests a clock modeled on the Titanic's compass. Fancy thing that tells time by dials and hands. Electronic. Syncs with atomic clocks so you don't have to set them. Hmm. Wrong time, but it's working. The radio signal doesn't work down here this deep, of course. I stall and haggle and he sells it to me for, guess what, one-hundred even. Bent but not unexpected 'cause we're friends. OK, so it's bagged and I walk off towards the south exit. Think I'll let the group guided tour slip by and slow my pace. Grab lunch. See what Mr. Fit is up to.

Believe me, I'm thinking about if there's another way off Titanic. S**t, I could get into more trouble that way than just taking my chances topside. Anyway, if I'm not on a sub up Mr. Fit or someone will know. Pace yourself, Ted. Today you're a tourist. Act like one. Check out some more sites but no skylarkin'.

Fourteen-hundred thirty hours. Mr. Fit stuck with me through lunch and other parts of the tour " the Swimming Bath, the Marconi Room, and the Grand Staircase. May be the last time I'll see her, who knows. Hope not. Now I'm in my seat near the front of the sub, and Mr. Fit just settled aft port side near the hatch. S**t. Who is he? What's his plan? How or what the hell am I gonna do, and when? I have one hour in closed quarters. Guaranteed at least one tourist is security who may already know about or be part of this operation. No friendlies on board, I have no tools, no space to maneuver, no usable comm device, nowhere to hide...

Play it cool. Run the sit-rep. Think. Why was he talking to Sal? Did Sal give him something instead of to me? Did Mr. Fit gave him that clock to give to me? Am I the patsy or  cut-out? But a device would have never made it through security. Hey, what if Fit was just another courier late on delivery?

On the way up in the gloomy light of the cabin under the droning educational barrage I lose it a little. I see myself rotting in jail, pounded daily and out of fight. I see Mr. Fit, heroic and honored, while I slang brick in Camden for my half-per or a squeeze. I see me " dead, my sprawled, gnawed body fused into Titanic's rusting metal slurry on the cold ocean floor. 

“Thump!”

Forty-five minutes in something bumps outside my window. Debris and larger fish will do that sometimes.

“Thump!”

What the...? Thing must be whack! I move my bag to my left and scrunch down and squint through the window below my right shoulder. Yep, a blobby gray thing twenty feet off it seems. Tuna? Moving weird. It's sick or...it's not really swimming. It's more like...that's no fish. It's slender and curvy like a dolphin; it moves kind of loopy like...a GS. A GS? Here? Why's it bangin'...? What's it keying in on?

I sneak a look back over my shoulder to Mr. Fit. His eyes dart up towards me, then quickly the other way. No eye contact. Ten minutes to surface. Maybe hundred, two hundred feet under? We slow down near topside. Why...how would a GS be keying on me? Is he doing this? No, they're not guided missiles. The GS keys on a specific radio transmissions behind a ship's hull. Now it hit twice next to me. Comms are up front, speakers and video feeds run the length of the vessel. And if it is a GS, who's gonna trigger it? No way there's a ship topside. These waters are tightly patrolled. No, Mr. Fit is the trigger man. OK. So what's his plan? Kill me? Blow the ship? Flood the sub and save himself? What would they gain by...

“Thump!”

The water is getting brighter out there. Not much time. What do they gain by killing me? There are easier ways...unless they just wanna blow a sub. It's not about me or the ring. They want to blow a sub and...make them think I did it. They know I know the GS.

Hold on. I sneak a look over my right shoulder to Mr. Fit. He is! He's right up against the bulkhead. He's probably trying to feel the 'thump'. That's when he knows to detonate. Stop the 'thump' and I live. Stop the 'thump' by removing the source radio signal that he must know is near me...the clock! The running clock! Gotta...

Figures. The bag is right next to the hull. Making t easy for him. I quietly unroll the paper bag. Pop the box, and...looks like a clock. I keep it lose to me on my lap. There doesn't appear to be an 'off' switch, though. The matte-black metallic sides don't have any seams. Underneath...three small torx set screws. Torx? S**t, I don't even have a Phillips"no tools at all! Can't just chuck this thing either. What the..?

I scrunch down to look up through the little cloudy circular window. S**t, we're shallow enough. Bet on the next thump he triggers with a long-wave pulse generator...probably in his cell phone. It would have to use a lot of power. Maybe he only gets one send and that drains the battery. He'd have to press the cell against the hull or glass...

I drop my head, turn the clock upside down and there it is " a recess and a thin, thin seam. I jam in my jagged thumbnail and pull. Might be glued. I poke again and...there it goes! Cheap glue flakes on my nail. Looks like 'super' that wouldn't stick to this kind of metal. And inside sits a beautiful gold-and-black nine-volt. I turn the clock over, give it a smack and the battery hangs by its wire. Grabbing the clip in my left while I tug the smooth boxy nine-volt free with my right. I turn the clock over again and...it stopped!

I know I'm grinning. I feel it all over my face. I want to twist around and flip-off Mr. Fit, but I don't. He's gonna panic soon. No 'thump'. No GS. That'll stay on its last heading which will mov it further away from us. Scrunching down, I can't see the damn thing...

Should be up any second. Light outside! We're near the top! I twist back into my seat and snap my harness tight. He might trigger it now out of desperation. I would. Let's hope the GS isn't near enough to receive.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have completed out ascent. Welcome back to RMST Titanic Home Base. We have a twenty-minute surface cruise to dry-dock at which time you will be able to make preparations for leaving the sub. Please remain seated with harnesses in place for the remainder of the journey. Thank you.”

OK, OK. I'm not gonna blow up now, but I'm still not out of this. Now what? If he keyed, surface comms probably picked up the pulse. Could they have seen the clock signal? Were they even looking? Geeze. And that GS had to be amped up to pick it up in a hundred feet of water. Would they know about the GS? Did they see it? Am I in trouble here? What the hell do I do now?

Fifteen-forty hours. The steward and a passenger move down the aisle first, pretty quickly. Probably both security. Others probably right outside. The hatch opens. Mr. Fit will be one of the first through. If he triggered and they got a fix on the signal, they'll grab him. The passengers around me stand up. I stand up. I can't leave the clock here. Can't slip it in someone's bag. That's too obvious. Either they know I have it or they'll trace it to me. I stoop down and shove the little battery connector into the case and click the cover closed. Back into the box, clumsily, and into the bag. Battery goes into my pants pocket. Mr. Fit will want to lose the cell phone, but they'll be watching for that. OK, Mr. Fit is off. Others leaving. I queue in in front of one of two kids. Dad's in back 

I make it through the door and see a dark black shiny scrub of a crew-cut between the steward and his friend. One has Mr. Fit's pack on his back. The other has a hand on Mr. Fit's arm. Nabbed. I keep moving, slowly. The kids cut around and dad catches up. I have five people left behind me. 

There's no one standing here on the deck near me. Driver and comms guy are still on the sub, I guess. They don't know about me, or at least they aren't letting on right now. I gotta lose this friggin' clock! Crap! Oh, I eye the fence. Standard two-inch diamond-shaped chain-link openings wrapped all the way around the walk. Even if I break it up I can't jam it all through. Nothing in or out of the water, right? 

Anyway, I don't even know if it's something I really have to deliver. Maybe handlers rigged a valid shipment.  If I was set up by the Feds they'd just rig a regular clock with a nine-volt radio-frequency...

Crap.

Shifting my pack to my left shoulder, I casually move my right hand down my side and drop my head a little towards the sea. As I saunter towards the fence I pull the smooth nine-volt from my pants pocket, cup it in my finger-tips, and poke it through the links and into the ocean. I squint as I sweep my hand up to my temple and give it a brisk rub like I have a headache. Had a headache, that is. 

I'll be OK. I've done nothing wrong. I'm not holding. Mr. Fit won't say a thing. Maybe he won't ever get the chance. And I work here. Lots of friendlies between me and the chopper. I'll be OK.

Without stopping I look back over the walkway to the marina and the hugely overbown floating motel. To the left is the gala El Coranone. And in the distance the small flotilla of tugs and service-craft 

keep watch over Her. Damn if that's the worst that happens to me then I'm blessed but I will still miss her.  I know this job is history. Sucks I won't be walking Titanic again. Something to drown with a stiff drink in a familiar bar tonight.