Ride the Titanic! (46 page)

‘Strength in numbers.’

Geena touches his arm. ‘I need you, Pop.’

I key my mike. ‘Molly, any joy?’

‘Negative, sir, yours is the only boat stopped. The rest are still running.’

‘Clear this one to move in thirty seconds. Lewis and I are on our way.’

‘Aye, aye, sir. Please hurry.’

Geena and grabs my shoulder. Her eyes lock with mine as she says softly. ‘I know you’ll do the right thing.’

‘See you in the ocean. Take care of the kids. And Pop. . .’ I toss him the cutter. ‘You and Adam take care of Geena and the gang.’

He frowns but says nothing.

A sudden ‘thump’ as the induction motors re-energize, and the EMV glides down the track towards the
Boat Deck
Scene, with soaring distress rockets, shouting stewards and panicked gunfire, while Lewis and I race back through the darkness to sort out the real chaos happening.

Thoughts of disaster fill my mind as I stare speechless at the display monitor in the control room. What once was a bone-dry EMV storage compartment now resembles a swimming pool. Cameron and his crew roam around the Ride Bridge’s crowded space, while he holds a smaller camera high over his head.

‘Great wide shots with these little babies,’ he says to me. ‘Just amazing.’

‘You and your crew had better head out, sir.’

A tight, focused grin. ‘Woman and children first, captain. Then maybe.’

‘Reboot’s ready,’ Lewis calls out from a control console where he stands behind Molly.

‘Do it.’ I say.

Molly’s fingers fumble over the keyboard, pause, start again, then stop. ‘I can’t get it to work.’

Lewis sits beside her. ‘You entered it wrong. Move over.’

She slides aside, her face drawn and tense.

I say to her, ‘You’re doing fine.’

You’d think I slapped her from the way she looks at me, and then slowly shakes her head. Time to be the daddy. I raise my voice. ‘Let’s focus, everyone. Stay on track, work the problem and we’ll get through this fine.’

Lewis taps his thumbnail on his nose as he stares transfixed at the data rippling across status display screens. ‘C’mon sweetheart. No more being stupid, okay?’

One of the ride technicians calls out, ‘Flooding alarm in the EMV load area.’

‘Molly, show me real time.’

She sits there motionless.

‘Molly?’

I barely hear her whisper, ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’

‘But it is, and – Lewis, do it for her, will you?’

He reaches across and brings up the view of the loading area onto the main screen. Dappled light from real water reflects onto the line of empty EMV lifeboats waiting for the next wave of riders, who at this point will never come. For a millisecond the ride designer side of my brain admires how realistic the wiggly reflections play over the boats before my rational side reminds me that
real
water is surging up from the flooded EMV storage space.

Cameron says, ‘Can you stop it?’

‘Don’t know.’

Quick smile. ‘Say it this way; ‘I don’t know if we can stop the water from coming in’’

‘You’re filming me?’

‘Of course.’

I can’t think of anything clever to say. So I turn to Lewis. ‘How wet do we get before losing systems?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough – wait, we’re back online.’

I shout, ‘P-stop this son-of-a-bitch NOW!’

His fingers clatter over the keys and then stop. ‘C’mon baby. Love me like old times.’ Another long moment before he falls back, defeated. ‘We still got nothing.’

‘Zero?’

‘This thing’s got a mind of its own and it’s not listening to anybody.’

‘Did a full reboot?’

‘Thought so, but it didn’t down-cycle.’

Anyone who’s ever been trapped in front of a computer that’s program-locked in a circular dance knows how impenetrable that is. In our case, triple that, and triple it again. Like being in a car with the engine running even though you’ve got the keys in your hand, with one exception; we’re on a sinking ship that really
is
sinking – from the inside.

The display screens indicate the
Titanic
is now
thirty degrees down by the bow; right where she should be in a normal full-submergence cycle. But unless you’re strapped in a seat in the ride bridge, it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand. Not so for Cameron’s crew as they dart from one console to the next, sniffing for action with the carefree grace of monkeys hunting for coconuts. Whenever one of the shooters gets within ten feet of the ride techs they begin over-acting with stern faces, determined jaws and noble poses. It’s all still a game for them.

Which is helpful in a way, morale-wise, because Cameron’s cameras fail to capture the ride bridge door opening and the Pavarotti-like entrance of Max, still wearing his opera cape over his tuxedo. He makes a beeline for me, grabs both shoulders and leans forward.

‘I am devastated at this news. It is most incredible.’

‘How’d you find out? And how’d you get back here?’

He brushes away my questions like a cobweb on a summer morning’s stroll. ‘I know my submarines. And this I also know, it is impossible for the forward ingress hatch to malfunction. I guarantee you.’

‘What do you call that then?’ I point to the display monitor showing the water-filled space. By now only the tips of the tie-down poles are visible. The EMV’s free from their cradles, bob around like gigantic corks.

‘Un disastro,’
he whispers, and then suddenly brightens. ‘But not if we can close the secondary hatch and activate the emergency pumping system.’

‘Can’t close it, and we already activated it.’

‘Have you been there to try?’

‘Those guys did.’

Two soaking wet ride technicians sit slumped on the floor of the ride bridge like DWI offenders. Max darts over and begins asking a string of technical questions, only half of which I understand. But apparently they do, although they don’t answer to his satisfaction. He spins around to me.

‘I must go there immediately.’

‘No way.’

In an instant his breezy, Mediterranean, life’s-a-ball, why-aren’t-you-dancing attitude disappears. In its place, the toughest Palermo gangster you’d ever want to meet in a dark alley.

‘My friend, you want this ship to sink for good, or come back and make you a wealthy man?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Then don’t YOU be stupid. Those young men did not know you can reverse the hinge pins and the plug mechanism will operate. The water becomes your friend instead of your enemy.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Among other things saving your ass, not to mention everyone else’s, including mine, which is a wonder to behold, according to my wife. Now then,
allora,
’ His beaming smile returns. ‘I am fully prepared to embark on this hazardous mission.’

‘Not alone you’re not.’

‘Do not concern yourself,
signor
, this submarine I know like my Elena. Even better sometimes, I am ashamed to admit.’

‘It’s a ride not a sub,’ Lewis says.

He shrugs. ‘To you, perhaps, but to Fincantini she will always be the most wonderful submarine we ever built.’

I add, ‘That sinks in a desert.’

He raises his hand. ‘And like Lazarus will return from the tomb, this I guarantee you!’

The only thing standing between us and disaster is to secure the secondary watertight hatch in the bulkhead to isolate the ride from the passenger load area, which by the time Max and I arrive is at least ten feet under water.

Two days ago I witnessed a cool and collected Molly run a simulation-scenario of the exact same problem now facing us for real. She did so with all the concern of a person examining an annoying hangnail, such was her confidence in the design and operation of our core operating system. And she was right to act that way because in the space of less than thirty seconds into the simulation, water alarms sounded, red lights flashed, hatches closed, green lights blinked, and all was perfectly well in the great City of Oz.

But tonight, almost a full half-hour into a real disaster, we’re steadily sinking by the bow, because for reasons unknown the computer has become as stunned and ultimately useless as Captain Smith was on the night he met his maker.

‘Follow me,
amico
,’ Max says breezily as he slogs through the water, and feels his way to the edge of the boarding walkway. ‘You know, of course, how to save this beautiful submarine.’

‘Get rid of the damned water.’

‘Too late for that. She has become like an ugly lover. Beautiful the night before after many glasses of wine, but this morning,
mamma, mia,
she is here for good
.
’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

He brings his hands together to form a clamshell. ‘Elena and I get on the airplane in Rome to fly to Las Vegas. They close the boarding door; it swings in, rotates down, swivels up and -
un miracolo. . .’
He twists his hands ninety-degrees and then claps them together. ‘
Ecco qua
. The hinges rotate and what is impossible becomes possible: a door that cannot possibly close backwards, does so.’

‘This is not a plane.’

‘Fincantini builds their hatch systems to work even better than that. Ours can keep water out or keep it in, depending on which side the problem occurs.’

‘Our problem is right here.’

Against the distant bulkhead the water surface tumbles and foams, indicating the entry point from the flooded EMV storage compartment.

Max strips off his shirt to reveal impressive pectoral and abdominal muscles. He raises his eyebrows at my look of surprise. ‘I am no stranger to the gymnasium, or the looks I get from beautiful women.’

‘What are you going to do that the computer can’t?’

‘I know exactly the location of the hinge mechanisms. Once I reverse the cams, the door action can be triggered by a simple press of a button. Compressed air will do the rest.
Molto simplice
.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Problem solved! Water ceases to come in. And it should not require more than a few moments. Give me the safety line,
per favore
. I do not wish to be swept out into your great American desert after I save your ship.’

I rig the nylon line around his waist, and as a precaution lash it onto his belt as well.

‘
Arrividerci
,’ He dives into the water. Four strong strokes later he arrives at the turbulence.

A familiar voice rings out behind me. ‘Hang on, hang on!’

Cameron slogging and sloshing towards us, followed by his crew that fans out like a combat patrol.

‘What’s the deal?’ he says.

‘Later. Go, Max!’

Max’s bare feet flash farewell in a surface dive.

‘D’ja get that, Bobby?’ Cameron shouts.

The cameraman lifts his complicated-looking rig high in the air. ‘Nailed it.’

‘How about wide, Mattie?’

The other cameraman shouts, ‘Caught it at the end of my pan.’

‘Love you guys.’ Cameron turns to me. ‘Status?’

While I explain Max’s plan, I keep a mental clock running of how long he’s been underwater. About halfway through my explanation, I fall silent.

Cameron reads my mind. ‘Been down a while.’

I yank the rope, expecting an answering tug. Nothing. Then I yank as hard as I can, but it’s iron hard. Without thinking I jump into the water and swim as fast as I can over to where Max disappeared. When I arrive I try to remember how the hell to make a surface dive. Too many years since I’ve been a lifeguard. But then it comes to me. I scoop the water forward, tuck up my knees, roll over, shoot my legs straight into the air and drop into the near-pitch darkness, but with just enough vague outlines for me to recognize the fluttering motion of what first looks like butterfly wings, but the closer I get becomes human legs twisting and turning.

Head down, hands flailing at the impossibly snarled knot in the hatch piping, Max looks up at me when I arrive and shakes his head. I shove his hands away and try to tackle it on my own. He grabs my shoulder in a vice-grip and shakes his head again. I ignore him and continue scrabbling with the knot, but it’s useless.

Whatever my world has been up to this moment disappears in panic and rage that fills me to bursting, but somehow gives me the ability to stay underwater even longer than I would have otherwise. But even that doesn’t last. My body takes over and forces me to turn away from Max and try to rise. At the same instant, an explosion of air escapes from Max’s mouth as his lungs give up their fierce resistance.