Alex and Lila have sailed off for trip number two to the salt mining station. Their secret relationship isn’t known to anyone but them. However, it may be put to the test when they realize that the water is far worse than it was on their last trip, and the possibility of the entire ocean dying is very real. It doesn’t help that Lila thinks he’s only going back to save his fortune, not humanity.
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Chapter 1 – Alex’s Mansion
The trip back to the mainland took two and a half days. Lila assumed the captain had put the peddle to the metal so they’d get back before they ran out of safe potable water.
They docked just after noon.
Lila stepped off the scientific ship ahead of Alex. He was busy talking to the crew about their potential next steps and a potential second sailing to the salt mining operation. From what Lila had heard, ‘potential’ was the key word. Alex didn’t sound thrilled to go back, and he wasn’t sure when they’d return to finish the job.
For some reason, Alex thought he had all the information he needed to thwart the lawsuit. While it was true that this wasn’t Alex’s fault. It couldn’t be. There was no possible way he could be blamed for a giant crack in the ocean floor that went down more than 300 feet. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion could cause that, and nukes weren’t given to private citizens.
However, they needed to fix the ocean before whatever was coming out of that crack rendered the entire ocean dead. Lila planned to run some scenarios once she got home. She had software on her computer that could be input with various metrics in order to predict scenarios.
Alex stepped off the ship while the driver and a couple more of his household staff grabbed his and Lila’s bags.
He slid an arm around her waist. “Are you coming home with me, or did you want my driver to drop you off at your house?”
“When do we need to be back here tomorrow to check the salt shipment?” Lila asked.
“I’m not sure. They’ll call when they dock,” Alex said. “And we’ll need to be quick. If the salt is good, they’ll need to call to have it offloaded.”
Lila contemplated. A one-night delay wouldn’t hurt anything, and she did want to make sure that salt was safe for human consumption.
“I guess I’ll go with you. No point in my going home just to sleep there,” Lila said. “Plus, you’re closer to the dock.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Alex said. He let her into the limousine ahead of him. Then, he stepped inside.
The driver shut the door.
Alex called ahead to the house to make sure there was a guest room ready for Lila. He was certain there was, but his staff liked to know ahead of time if they were having overnight guests. Alex couldn’t blame them.
“Lunch should be ready by the time we get home,” Alex said. “Or rather, to my house.”
Lila grinned. “Well, it is your home.”
“It is,” Alex said. The slip was not like him. His house was definitely not Lila’s. He needed to watch himself until he knew exactly what type or relationship they were in.
The limousine drove up to Alex’s front doors a few minutes later.
Lila stepped out as soon as the driver opened the door.
“Your luggage should be in your room momentarily,” the driver said. “But for now, drinks and sandwiches are available in the parlor until lunch is ready.”
“Thank you.” Alex led Lila inside to the parlor. As promised, there were drinks and roast beef sandwiches sitting next to the minibar.
“Food before food?” Lila asked.
“This is their idea of an appetizer,” Alex said as he grabbed a sandwich triangle. “I don’t argue. They feed me well.”
Lila grabbed a sandwich triangle and took a bite. “This is great. What beef is this?”
“Probably grass-fed organic,” Alex said. “And someone probably bought it this morning and made the roast beef all day.”
“It’s excellent.” Lila grabbed another sandwich. She had just finished it when another household employee told them that lunch was ready.
Lila walked into the dining room with Alex to see a similar spread to what they ate when she first talked to him about the job.
“They have good memories,” Alex said as he sat down at the table.
“This is great,” Lila said.
“Help yourself,” Alex said.
Lila loaded her plate with jalapeno, onion and bacon pizza, cheesesticks with more jalapenos, salad and ranch dressing.
Alex loaded a few pieces of pizza and salad onto his plate.
They ate lunch and drank a bottle of wine.
“Do you have copies of that data?” Alex asked.
“I do,” Lila said. “It’s in my bag.”
“Let’s go over it in detail now that we have time,” Alex said.
“I can get the data, but I need to know where my room is,” Lila said.
“I’ll show you,” Alex said as he stood from the table. He waited for Lila then took her upstairs to the room next to his. He hadn’t specifically requested this one for her, but he assumed this was where the staff put her. When he opened the door, he was not disappointed, her things were in the room. “If you have dirty clothes, just set them outside your door tonight.”
“Okay. Great,” Lila said as she walked into the room and grabbed her briefcase. “Everything is in here. I made digital and hardcopies of everything on our way back, just in case someone else thought it might be a great idea to tamper with it.”
“Good idea. We can review it in my office,” Alex said. “Bring your wine.”
Lila grabbed her wine glass and walked with Alex to his office. She looked around. She thought his office might be as big as half her house. “Where’d you get these floors?”
“They were custom,” Alex said.
“I’ve never seen wood like it,” Lila said.
“It’s extremely rare and hard to find. I spent months looking for it,” Alex said. “In fact, they don’t even keep wood like this in stock. You have to find the trees first.”
“Incredible,” Lila said as she looked around. “Where do you want to do this?”
“The conference table,” Alex said.
Lila set her briefcase on the conference table and pulled out her laptop and the thumb drives and disks where she’d put all the information they discovered while the sub was underwater. She booted her laptop.
“You can connect it to that large screen with this cable.” Alex handed her the end.
Lila plugged it in and watched as her laptop screen also appeared on the 85-inch monitor attached to the wall.
“This is the video of the camera going down the hole. This is what will probably win you your case.” Lila set the video to play at 25 percent of the original speed.
They watched as the camera swirled in the current, hit the edge of the crack and was sucked down into it.
“We got lucky in that that camera had its own light, but we really need a bigger one. Here, you can see just how big that cavern might be.”
“Looks like you could fit an ocean liner in that thing,” Alex said.
“Right. And then the camera either breaks or loses its connection to the sub,” Lila said.
“We need to get a bigger, more robust camera,” Alex said.
“That might help us see what’s down there,” Lila said.
“What caused that?” Alex asked.
“It’s probably natural,” Lila said. “Like an underground cave. The only thing I think they could say is that maybe your construction cracked the ceiling, and the ocean’s water pressure did the rest, but that’s at the bottom of the trench. So there’s no way you could have known it was there. Did you explore the trench at all?”
“We did,” Alex said. “We took water samples and tested it enough to determine that my mining station wouldn’t affect it.”
“Wouldn’t or was unlikely to,” Lila asked.
“I believe the exact wording was that it was highly unlikely to affect the trench,” Alex said.
“Were you required to do any testing?” Lila asked.
“Water testing once a month. Salt testing once a month,” Alex said.
“And are those tests being conducted?” Lila asked.
“I leave the details to my managers,” Alex said.
“You should ask for all those tests from the moment the station was put into operation,” Lila said. “The court will ask for them, and it’s better if we know what they say.”
“That’s nine years of tests,” Alex said.
“You should request them now,” Lila said.
“All right.” Alex pulled out his phone and called his mining station. He ordered all the tests from the construction of the mining station through last month to be sent to him. “Done.”
“How long did they say it was going to take?” Lila asked.
“A few days. He said he would get someone on it, but digging up all those tests, especially the early ones could take some time. Some of them would be on backups from before we upgraded the system three years ago.”
Lila stuck another drive into her laptop and started the data processing software. “That’ll take about an hour.” She picked up her wine glass and took a drink.
“Where was that software on the ship?” Alex asked.
“I was thinking we’d get more data,” Lila said. “I wanted to run it all at once. I’m not a big fan of doing the same thing over and over again. I’m more of a one and done kinda girl”
“I can get on board with that.” Alex took a drink from his glass. “But I would hope that doesn’t pertain to your private life.”
“If it’s fun, I might do it twice,” Lila said. “Or three or four times if it’s really enjoyable.”