2 |Fragmented Storm|

Arctic Sea|November 24, 2098|1248

Moon pool, an area at the bottom of the ship designated to commence underwater operations. The opening was massive. It looked like a pool with a length of 200 meters and a width of 100 meters. At the corner, a massive storm of people were moving about. Floating in the water was a 2 man submersible used by research boats in the early years of the 21st century. Attached to it was a strange device and a large coil of tubing.

Once Admiral Vardan entered, a crew member announced his presence. The entire space froze in place and mad a saluting gesture towards the old man.

"At ease, return to your jobs. I'm just observing."

Like a paused action scene resumed. Everyone returned to their jobs.

"Huh? Vardan, why does it seem that everyone is working extra extra hard right now?"

Chuckling, Vardan gave a dismissive wave. "I think you are just imagining things Chauncey. My crew are the best of the best, work like this is nothing to them."

As he praised them, the working crew members went up another notch in speed.

"O-kay then. I'd say in another 30 or so minutes, we should be ready to commence testing."

"Excellent news, so who is going to operate this machine?"

"Oh, I will. Since this is a first test, I'm going down and if anything happens, I should be able to resolve it." Chauncey shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal.

"Should?" Vardan questioned.

"Yeah, I'm expecting only a few problems to occur."

"And these problems are?"

"Oh, how the retrieval device will operate once we start mining, I'm testing 2 modes, one is a device that works similar to a conveyor belt, it would allow continuous mining, but then it would need a vessel directly above it to store the ore. The other would be replacing the propulsion devices to something stronger and have the machine store the ore on itself. We estimated the maximum weight it can bear but I still need to acquire a more precise measurement."

Vardan rubs his temples. "Huh, well. Do you have any emergency plans if everything goes to shit?"

"Yeah, just pull me up once this light turns on." Chauncey had a matter of fact expression. Vardan stared at him like he was a soldier that had a very stupid idea.

"That's it?"

"Yeah that's it. There's not much you could put on such a small submersible."

"That's true." Vardan rubs his chin. "Why don't we test another piece of equipment?"

Chauncey perks up a little when he hears this.

"And what equipment is this?"

"A prototype deepsea suit, it's in the final stages of finalization. To be honest, it's mostly the researchers trying to make it look cool." Vardan says as he scratches his head. "Those people in the R&D section barely go out, so designing things is the only 'fun' thing they do."

"Is, is that so...?"

"Yup, I'll have someone bring it to you so just keep doing what you're doing."

"Alright, see you when I go under"

18 minutes before

|Radar room|1230

"Hey Chester! I got a message from Paulina, she wants a updated weather report!" A man shouted to the other side of the room. He was a young adult, age 23, single. He sported a frilly afro held back by a rather large pair of headphones. The person he was yelling at was a long time friend of his, Chester, also age 23, taken. Chester was a large man with a height complex. His height was only 5'3" and would easily fight anyone that made a comment about it.

"Gotcha, I gotta let the radar finish its full scan before switching it to the weather module." He yelled back. "How's your conquest on finding a girl Luci?"

"Aw c'mon man, how am i gonna get girl if you keep calling me that? And its going bad by the way." Lucio grunted as he sank into his chair.

"I was just poking fun at ya, no need to be a sulky like that." Chester chided, "Take ya time and ya will get a girl in no time."

"Say's the guy who's in a relationship." Lucio growled, "Speaking of, how is she? Hows Oli doing?"

"Oli? She's doing fine, she keeps telling me that the guy in her unit won't stop trying to court her. In fact, it went up a notch even after I proposed to her." Chauncey sighs, "Just how desperate are the men here?"

"AHEM" Lucio coughs.

"Ya know what I mean dude! I ain't tryin ta dis ya!" Chauncey growls at him.

"Payback sucks doesn't it?" Lucio grins.

"That? That was ya revenge?" Chester tilts his head, "Not a very good attempt my friend."

"Fuck off" Lucio turns away and sunk onto his desk. "I'll let Paulina know that the weather report will be ready at 1250. Got it? Be sure to send it by then."

"I got it, I got-it..." Chester voice fails him as he stares at the computer screen.

"Yo Chest, you good? Chest?" Lucio calls out to his friend.

"What in the hell is going on?" Chester whispers to himself.

"What? Did you say something?" Lucio asks, not sure whats happened to his friend.

"Get over here, tell me I'm not hallucinating..." Chester gestures to Lucio,

"Wh..a...t? The fuck?" As Lucio took a glance at the screen, he too was shocked. "I'm gonna call Pualina now."

"Yeah, you do that." Chester agrees.

Lucio pulls up Paulina's office and sent a call link request.

"Operations officer Paulina, What can i do for you?" Paulina picks up and responds with her usual question.

"Paulina, its Lucio, I'm sharing our screens. Pull it up and tell me what you see." Lucio says with a hurry.

"Oh Lucio! Whats the hurry? I though it would take long-" Paulina stops what she is saying as she looks at the shared image.

A radar grid is shown with a clear circle and a ship in the middle. The ship is the Zephyr, and about 76km in all directions was clear, with a very thick cloud barrier developing along the edge of the circle. That would explain what they saw earlier, but the numbers following the image shocked them. Ever since humanities operation of cooling the planet, the Arctic sea has gotten colder with normal temperatures at -10°C. But right now, the thermometer has measured temperatures at 29°C, the average temperature a city near the equator would experience in the summer.

"Paulina, that was taken 5 minutes ago, Chester just gave me the updated one." Lucio says as he pulls up a second image.

This image showed a similar situation, except the circle of clouds has gotten smaller. Extremely smaller. It was now just a 5km radius around the ship.

"Lucio, Chester. Keep monitoring the weather, I'll tell the Admiral." Paulina commanded.

"Wilco.""Understood." Two response came back from the two men immediately.

"This is not good." Paulina said under her breath as she got up and left the room. "This is the worst time anything could have happened... Soldier!!" She yelled at a passing soldier.

"Ma'am!!" He jumped to attention. bewildered as to why a woman just yelled at him for no good reason.

"Escort me to the moon pool, now." She demanded

"Yes Ma'am." The soldier responded meekly, wondering what trouble he got into this time.