Sol Ildenson Part II

“I will see you as soon as possible tomorrow. See you at ten, in the Control Room. Bye.” I waved goodbye to him. I didn’t wait for him to say anything more and entered a room that was equipped with a sensor system. I signaled him to stop walking or else the security system would go off, and everybody would panic.

This was my personal room, meaning only I could enter.

Eric gritted his teeth tightly, watching me waving him good-bye until the door closed. I turned around with a sigh and shook my head.

“A nag as always,” I mumbled, and took a step down the stairs. The research center was partly submerged, which was a series of observatories used for monitoring the creatures under the sea. My bedroom was one of these, but it was separated on a different floor, unconnected to the other rooms. I didn’t like to welcome anyone inside, and that was another reason why I had the sensor system.

The only people who could enter were those who had been given my permission to do so. If I hadn’t, the intruders would be electrocuted, and the alarm would ring like a fire alarm.

And it wouldn’t end well if somebody had a heart attack from such a trivial matter.

“I’m back,” I mumbled softly to the empty room and swept my eyes across the world that I had created. The room was built from clear glass. I could see the darkness of the deep ocean and what was out there. I grinned at the sight of schools of fish swimming around. The room wasn’t so different from aquariums where one could see them up close.

But no one would have ever imagined living among them.

“Where are they?” I bit my lips, waiting in anticipation for the creatures that I wanted to see the most. As the underwater world was dark, the lights in my bedroom were the only spot that would attract predators. Thus, when this room was being built, extra-thick glass panes were used. They were thick enough that they likely wouldn’t even crack if anything were thrown at them.

If you’d asked me why I had them built with extra thickness…

Unfortunately, there were some underwater creatures that enjoyed beating against and biting at my room.

“Huh, teasing me, are we?” I rolled my eyes when I thought of those rascals. The only thing that could lure the predators out were cries of fear or despair. I walked to the speakers which were connected to the underwater area outside, with a barrier in place. I used it to call for the thing that everyone tried to fight against.

The attached sonar was used to send out the sounds of a whale calf, which was a delectable meal.

It was the sound of a little whale that had died last month due to a huge predator.

In the beginning, the sound didn’t seem to be working, but after a moment I saw something.

“There you are.” My grin widened as I saw something moving in the dark. The sound of the whale calf was raised to lure the enormous creature closer. At first glance, it was just a small shark circling around. After some time, the distance shortened, and its enormous body appeared before my eyes.

The glittering black eyes stared at me while I carefully observed its teeth, which were lined up in multiple rows. I once thought that maybe this is the way sharks say hello, but it was just a natural characteristic of a predator.

In front of me was the shark with the longest lifespan.

The shark’s body was about ninety feet long, making it the number one predator in this entire ocean.

“Hey,” I greeted it, my hands on the glass pane. My gaze lingered on it while my heartbeat quickened. I leaned my forehead against the glass pane like there was nothing between us. I breathed in, acknowledging the presence of both of us.

It was the only thing that confirmed what I’d live for.

“I’m back, Dy.”

Living to die, obviously.

………………

I was greeted with the faint smell of coffee from the grumpy man the next morning.

Eric handed me a cup of coffee when I stepped out of my bedroom at precisely ten o’clock. Apparently, I had missed the appointment that I had made with him yesterday. The tall figure sighed when I smiled in response. There were no greetings at all, as if he was mute, a typical attitude that I hadn’t seen for almost a month.

Not seeing it was better. No one wanted to be in a bad mood since morning.

“When you weren’t here. Dy ate one of the whales that we have kept.”

Flinch!

“The head was in its belly. As for the tail…”

“Soool!” Immediately after I opened the door to the Control Room, everyone there simultaneously called out the name of the owner of the research center who entered with their grouchy team leader. I almost dropped my coffee cup; it was a good thing I held it with both of my hands, so only a little drop of coffee spilled out. I raised my head to look at everyone who had filled the office up with decorations of some sort.

My jaw dropped when I saw the “’Welcome Back” banner and the rainbow-colored party poppers they were setting off. I needed to brush some of the colorful confetti off my head or else I would have become a Christmas tree for them to play with.

“Wow, you all threw a ‘Welcome Back’ party for me?”

“You went away for so long. We missed you,” Jordan laughed. He was one of the staff members of my research team. His job was to control the monitors and to check the sonar for any movements. “When we knew that you were coming back, we barely even slept so we could quickly throw you a party.”

“Or you guys were just looking for any reason to slack off,” Eric interrupted. “That’s what you guys are good at.”

“That’s not true. We’ve been working,” Nashley pouted. She was the brain of this research center. “When you weren’t here, we were working hard. No one slacked off at all.”

“I trust you all because I have been watching you through the surveillance cameras.”

“!!!”

“You didn’t forget that I can watch them on my phone, right? You set it up for me yourself.” I grinned while Nashley was dumbfounded. She must have forgotten that she had installed the surveillance camera application on my phone. No matter how far I traveled, I would know everything that happened, including those parties when I wasn’t here.

But I would pretend that I knew nothing as compensation for them welcoming my return.

“Anyway, thank you. I brought you all souvenirs. I will have Bernard hand them out later.”

"Seeing you come back safely is good enough already.” Dr. Owen, the oldest member of the team, said warmly, bringing a sweet smile to my face. I sipped my coffee while looking at the monitoring screens, as well as other screens showing different data.

One of the screens was for a camera that we had dropped deep into the sea. It was the spot where we had been conducting research.

“Any progress?” I asked, staring at the coral reef hiding beyond our reach under the deep sea. “Did you follow my order about sending the U-4 down for inspection?”

“We sent it already, Sol, but there has been a problem.”

“Hmmm?”

“Dylan chewed it to pieces before it even had a chance to land on the seabed,” Nashley said. She showed me a video clip of the big shark charging toward the equipment. Its razor-sharp teeth cut through every bit of solid steel, causing visible cracks on the camera. “He also destroyed the new submarine we’d sent to as a follow-up.”

Another video showed a small submarine. Its headlights shone above the seabed full of rocks and small fishes. However, it was crashed into not long after.

The image showed shark bites of the same wicked creature.

“We couldn’t recover them. The system was destroyed to the point where were unable to locate it.”

“Before this, it almost ate one of the cleaning staff. When he tried to steer the boat away, it blocked him.” Thomas, Nashley’s assistant, showed me another clip from a different camera. It was a video of the huge shark circling around a boat. Inside the boat was a full-time staff member who I remembered that I just hired him last month.

He was just a member of the cleaning staff. Not as important as the research team members.

“He threatened to sue if we couldn’t ensure his safety.”

“There is no safety working in the middle of the sea. Staying far away from the sea is the safest thing to do,” I mumbled. That threat made me shake my head. When I interviewed him, he said that he could do it and he would work hard, but what was this? He had worked here for only a short while and he was already going to quit.

He probably only cared for the money I’d offer to pay him.

“Anything else I need to know?”