The Light Amid the Darkness
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About this ebook
"The Light Amid the Darkness" is an exciting thriller/suspense story. It is set a few years in the future in a tunnel far below the China Sea. Based on an actual proposed tunnel linking China and Taiwan, the story follows a group of passengers on the maiden voyage of a Mag-Lev train. An accident along the way strands them. They then must battle natural and supernatural forces as they try to reach safety. It is a story of fear, courage, and belief.
Tom Paolangeli
Tom M. Paolangeli is an award winning humor writer living in Ithaca, NY. He's a firm believer in the 3 R's - Reading, Racing, and Rock and Roll. (Wait, is that 4?) He is happily married and they love living in the country with lots of trees and critters.
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The Light Amid the Darkness - Tom Paolangeli
The Light Amid the Darkness
By Tom M. Paolangeli
Copywrite 2011 by Tom M. Paolangeli
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Under the China Sea, 2015
Chapter 2 - Oklahoma, 1906
Chapter 3 - Zepong, China 2018
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
More from Tom
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not.
John 1:5
Chapter 1- Under the China Sea, 2015
The noise was deafening: the pulsating, throbbing roar of a 10,000 horsepower electric motor, pierced by 400 shrieking titanium cutting heads scraping against bedrock. Ice cold salt water dripped from the ceiling, trickled down walls, and oozed through the floor, creating puddles that whirring pumps relentlessly labored to suck away. Banks of temporary flood lights cast sharp shadows around the uncountable piles of pipes, spools of wire, barrels of synthetic resins, bags of shotcrete mixes, and heavy duty pneumatic tools littering the narrow cavern. The heat rolling off the 200 foot long, locomotive-like tunnel boring machine raised the cavern’s temperature to 112 degrees Fahrenheit. 306 feet above was the floor of the China Sea. 608 feet of ocean separated the seabed from the surface. The exit to safe, dry land lay 40 miles back down the tunnel. Darren Johnson, standing in an inch of cold water, oblivious to the noise, the heat, the danger, studied his handheld computer, and smiled.
While water plinked off his white hard hat, he finished reading the latest report. The geologists and engineers, safely ensconced in clean bright offices back on shore, calculated and computed and plotted the path for the boring machine. But ultimately it was Darren, down in the tunnel - his life and two hundred workers’ lives on the line - who gave the order to move forward. Darren double checked the signoffs from above. The last set of initials surprised him.
SB? Sam Bateman? Since when does he get involved in the day to day stuff?
Not that it made much difference. It still all came down to a simple matter of math. Given the porosity of the seabed, 306 feet below was deemed sufficient to keep leakage down to a flow that the pumps could handle until the casings set. Every inch higher increased the leakage, and the danger of a catastrophic collapse. Every inch lower increased costs. And any deviation from the original plans had logarithmic financial repercussions. The company’s accountants, who never ventured into the tunnel, constantly reminded Darren of that.
All the numbers added up, so they could just keep on tunneling. Good. That means the next shift will have to stop and do the test borings.
There was a friendly but fierce competition among the crews to see who would dig the biggest percentage of the tunnel. The losers treated the winners to a night of endless drinking, but the real prize was the pride and bragging rights that came from being the best. Right now Darren and his men had a 51 foot lead, which would probably stretch to 56 before their shift ended. There was no way the following crew could run the test bores and catch up today.
Darren felt a tug at his arm and looked up from his work. Tu Lee, a small Asian man clad in a yellow hard hat and remarkably clean overalls stood before him. Tu managed the tunnel boring machine’s operators, and liked to check in with Darren every half hour, whether he needed to or not. Darren gave Tu the thumbs up. Tu grinned, then turned and walked back to the TBM.
Darren glanced down and noticed the puddle now covered his waterproof boots. He frowned. A little water was inevitable, but more meant something was amiss. Probably one of the pumps is clogged, again.
He consulted his handheld, and brought up a screen that monitored the pumps in the forward section of the tunnel. The 10 pumps online were working fine, all running at their normal 50% capacity, so no problems there. That meant either more water seepage than expected, or more likely, a problem with some of the pumps further back in the tunnel. Annoyed, Darren sent a message to maintenance asking them to check the other pumps. They should have been on top of this. Then, just to be safe, he pushed his forward pumps to 60%.
One more hour to go, then an hour ride back to the beginning of the tunnel, to sunlight, safety, and three days off. After four days of twelve hour shifts, his men needed the down time. But Darren dreaded the coming break. It might be different if a wife and family still waited for him, but two years into the project Claudia had had enough of China and a preoccupied husband who only occasionally emerged from the depths of the earth, and took Mikey back to her family in England. That was three years ago, and it was looking less and less likely they’d ever resume life as a happy family when the dig was done next year.
Normally the overwhelming demands of his job left little time for feelings of regret or thoughts of should have
or could have been’s.
But three days spent sitting in a tiny apartment in a very foreign land always let a few lousy feelings seep in.
Darren heard someone calling his name over the din. Tu was about fifty feet forward, at the back end of the TBM, pointing to the ground. A steady stream of water, 4 inches high, covered his boots.
Damn it, Darren thought. Nothing from the geology reports, test borings or ultrasounds warned of any big pockets or veins. He hated to stop now, but if the flow got any worse, he wouldn’t have any choice. If he could just finish off this shift, then the next crew would have to deal with it.
Darren called up the pump screen on his computer, and pushed the pumps up to 75%. Any faster and he’d have to stop digging and notify the front office. It had to be just a small pocket of water. A big pocket should have been seen by the sonar soundings and noted on the report he’d just reviewed. But all the numbers were acceptable. Darren regularly risked his life, and his crew’s, based on the hard certainties of math and science.
Still, something nagged him, something he couldn’t quantify. He looked around, and noticed the other men seemed uneasy, too. As they worked, they’d occasionally glance down at the rising water, then steal a quick look to Darren. His crew trusted him, and never questioned his judgment, so if Darren said keep digging, they would.
A sudden chill swept over Darren that had nothing to do with the 5 inches of ice cold water he stood in. Damn it, something is just not right. It was instinct more than math that said so, and Darren hated to decide anything based on such a nebulous thing as a feeling.
He couldn’t see Tu, so he punched a code into his handheld to page him. Darren could send an emergency cease drilling order directly to the TBM operator, but he decided to go through the normal chain of command, which meant passing the order through Tu, who would in turn signal the operator to stop. Stupid bureaucratic rules. But it’ll only take a few seconds longer, which certainly won’t make any difference at this point.
For the rest of his life, he’d deeply regret that decision.
Chapter 2 - Oklahoma, 1906
Jeremiah Tobias truly believed that if he was neat, prompt, cheerful, courteous, respectful, and obedient, he would one day become youngest conductor ever on the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad. After all, he was only 18, so he still had a few years to reach his goal. Nothing could make him wavier from his dedication and steadfast determination to be a model employee. Nothing, at least, until he met Rebecca Tuttle.
Jeremiah’s father, Ely, was none too happy about his son’s career choice. Mr. Tobias, a Kansas City locksmith, had high hopes that his son would follow in his footsteps. Jeremiah certainly had the talent. Ever since he was knee-high he’d helped out in his father’s shop, and quickly mastered the ins and outs of locks and keys. But the urge to see the world beyond Kansas took hold in his sixteenth year, and Jeremiah figured the best way to accomplish that was to get a job with the railroad. Though his father thought it was pure foolishness, if not downright dangerous, he let him go. Like all good locksmiths, Mr. Tobias was a patient man, and he trusted that it would be just a matter of time before Jeremiah realized the error of his ways, and returned to Kansas City to take up the family trade.
Somehow Jeremiah hadn’t noticed Rebecca boarding the train. He must have been helping another passenger settle in. So his first glimpse of Rebecca occurred as he followed Mr. Steadman, the conductor, on his rounds.
The coach car already felt stuffy, as the early morning sun baked the dry prairie. Jeremiah hurried down the aisle to catch up with Mr. Steadman. Steadman had sent him forward to procure a cup of water for an elderly, red-faced gentleman in a white suit who complained about the noise, the heat, the bumpiness of the ride, and especially the presence of a colored woman and her baby seven rows behind him. It was most unusual, but