Eden's Ark

By Nikolai Petroff

They expect the Apocalypse at any moment. Christian televangelist and a nanotech billionaire join forces to build the 21st century Noah's Ark. Deep inside its bowels is located a miniature Garden of Eden, a self-contained compact ecosystem. With a crew of ex-Russian submariners they believe they are safe inside their little underwater heaven. They are about to find themselves in hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nikolai Petroff
• Release date: Apr 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301902354

Nikolai Petroff

Born in Moscow, Nikolai spends his time between Canada and Switzerland. Avid reader since childhood he also enjoys motor racing, planes, skydiving, partying and making a nuisance out of himself.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my family for their support and encouragement. My thanks also to my editor and book designer, Michael Aschenbach, for his invaluable help in bringing this project to fruition.

All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy Him.

—— Raoul Duke

1

Zachary Friar, or Zach as his friends called him, tried in vain to shield his face with his gloved hands from the icy slaps of the winter wind. Lead coloured clouds scraped the top of the hills with their dense bulk. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as the crumbling concrete slabs beneath him radiated cold through the soles of his shoes. "Thank God I wore that extra sweater," he thought, as the tiny hairs in his nostrils froze together. He was forced to draw a sharp breath in through his mouth and immediately began to cough as his lungs filled with what felt like ice.

Murmansk, above the arctic circle in the extreme north of Russia, was about as far from his native California in weather, and spirit, as you could get. Work was the only reason to travel here at the tail end of winter. The place was surrounded by a bleak moonscape of freeze-dried rock a short drive from the perpetually angry sea. Even here, far up the Kola Bay, massive waves arrived in successive phalanxes, only slightly more liquid than icebergs, to lazily smash into the breakers and shower the port facilities with a shrapnel of ice. Three weeks in this place and he had developed an understanding, if not full acceptance, of the locals' drinking culture.

In fact, he would not have minded a stiff shot of vodka himself, at that moment, if the circumstances were not so formal. Surrounding him were various groups of Westerners and locals huddling together, as if to share whatever warmth was still in them. The latter were mostly port workers and some military men, while the former were mostly friends and colleagues from the Eden Ark project.

The reason they were here was propped up in a dry-dock dozens of feet below by metal scaffolding. The giant steel shark, a Typhoon-class submarine—the biggest in the world—was once the pride of the Soviet Fleet, able to incinerate half the population of the United States in a matter of minutes. Now, after months of work, it was defanged and plumped up, ready to serve humanity as a harbinger of hope for a secure future.

First, it had been gutted, the interior and all its machinery stripped out. A new compact experimental nuclear reactor was installed, as well as some advanced automated computer systems. The entire vessel was modernized so that it required the bare minimum of crew to run it. The front half of the sub from the sail onwards, where the missile silos used to be, was equally cut and broadened. It would now house a large greenhouse. The Project as they liked to call it—in capital letters—was to ensure that the human race would survive and thrive after Armageddon, supposed to be almost certain in Earth's near future.

While they all disagreed as to what form that would take: nuclear war, rapidly rising sea levels, or the Rapture, they all agreed there wasn't much time. Thus, it was decided not to wait until September to release the man-made predator back into the water. The most pessimistic prediction of some religious members—according to the obscure way they interpreted the Bible—was summer. The submarine and its facilities had to be fully operational by then. If spared from doom that year, then the comet FX-741/6 would pass perilously close to Earth in four year's time. Whether they would collide or not was within the margin of error, a couple hundred kilometres.

In a few months, the vessel—stripped of all its instruments of war—would be ready to serve as an underwater bunker for a dozen or so chosen ones. Even in the unlikely event that the end of the world was not to happen so soon, the experience gained would be invaluable for constructing a new fleet of bespoke-designed underwater Arks and for training their crews.

Zach was first approached to be part of The Project while he worked as Chief Environmentalist for a Southern California company that built giant greenhouse capsule prototypes to be used in space exploration and moon bases. Several volunteers would spend months living inside them to prove the concept of long-term living on other planets. The whole concept seemed a bit too far into the future and was rather underfunded. So, when offered a chance to try something new, with a substantial increase in remuneration, he happily jumped ship. Except for this one-off trip, he wouldn't have to travel either. The Project's headquarters were conveniently located within easy driving distance of Southern California's many beaches.

There was a slight commotion among those present, when a small group of people emerged from a battered GAZ mini-bus parked a couple dozen meters away and began to walk towards a makeshift podium outfitted with a microphone. One of the men, almost invisible under a fur coat two sizes too large, was Karl Fisker, the pint-size billionaire who underwrote almost half of the expenses of The Project. A few steps behind and towering over him was his executive aide and first-class cunt, Susan Wentworth, holding a plastic bag and flanked on both sides by burly Russian men in green padded jackets over naval uniforms. Trailing them was the famous televangelist, Newt Benson, the other major sponsor of the Ark project through his End of History Ministry, with his daughter, Ada. Karl approached the podium, his voice hoarse from the cold, and began to speak.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to have you all here as we are about to put in motion the final stage of our Project. It is with great… Thieving gusts of wind stole parts of his speech, carrying them away into the milky distance. That… together with our Russian… the launch and… Ladies and Gentle… Eden Ark!

He approached a surly naval officer with a coarse face and whispered something into his ear. The officer in turn barked something into a walkie-talkie. Fisker's aide, Susan, rummaged around in the bag she was carrying, produced a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon champagne, and handed it over to her boss. Taking small steps in his fur boots, he gingerly approached the edge of the dry-dock and raised the bottle above his head. There was a short burst of camera flashes as he paused for a few moments. With a quiet grunt, he threw the glass spear downwards. The glass projectile struck the metal skin of the submarine breaking into a few large chunks of yellow ice. There was a round of polite applause, muffled by the thick gloves everyone was wearing, and the Russians again began to bark into their radios.

After a minute or two, the dock filled with the sound of a mighty hiss as tonnes of black, coagulating water began to flow under the stern of the submarine. Newt Benson, the televangelist, then approached the podium and began to speak. A slightly rotund man with ice-white hair and droopy cheeks, his eyes burned with an intensity that threatened to melt the snow within a twenty-meter radius. His voice was angry and hand gestures brusque. He slapped the podium from time to time and, for some reason, reminded Zach of Khrushchev's infamous speech at the UN.

… and God is angry!!! Angry at the … filth!!!… Sodomy!!!… Punishment for the wicked!!! He took out a Bible and began to read Chapter Six of Genesis: Wickedness of Man… for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth…

Zach began to zone out, his mind wandering off into the jade California surf. He suddenly began humming the words to Chris de Burgh's Moonlight and Vodka song. "Midnight in Moscow… is lunchtime in LA… But Newt wasn't losing any steam. His face began to glow faintly, like a cooling piece of hot coal. We made a promise to God to build it and, by His Grace, we have accomplished it! … No place for the wicked to hide from his wrath!"

Zach chuckled. By the good pastor's yardstick, his half of the crew was as wicked as they come: smoking weed, having premarital sex, and listening to rock music. In fact, Newt probably thought the only people truly deserving to hide from Lord's deluge were he and his saintly daughter. Zach sighed, That chick is Hot! However, if the father was anything to go by, she was nuttier than squirrel shit and probably dreamed at night, with a smile on her lips, how they would all be horribly tormented in Hell. Nevertheless, the half-dozen of Newt's followers seemed entranced by his speech and suddenly began jumping up and down, hollering, His Grace! His Grace! His Grace!…

* *

Away from all the commotion, stood three men dressed in a combination of military and civilian clothes. Captain Dimitriy Golubev, Nuclear Propulsion Engineer Sergei Krapivzin, and Lieutenant Alexander Volkov seemed completely uninterested in the spectacle of a giant vessel being put to sea, instead clapping their hands together and kicking their legs a little, Cossack-dance style, to improve blood circulation. Volkov looked over his shoulder.

Is it over yet?

Sergei shook his head.

It'll take a while. Relax your muscles, Sasha. You'll feel less cold, actually.

Volkov knew that trick. He had suffered through the cold-weather survival ordeal while completing his GRU commando training, the military arm of Russia's counterpart to the infamous KGB. There had been some cold winters in the regions of southern Russia where he had done two tours of duty fighting Islamic militants, but nothing that penetrated to the bone like the icy scalpels of a Murmansk winter.

I am just tired of doing nothing for the past few months in this piss-hole and soon I'll have to spend months cooped up at close quarters with a bunch of hippies and religious wackos. They get on my nerves already.

The Captain reached inside his coat, fished out a hand-rolled cigarette made with coarse Russian tobacco, and lit it up with a battered lighter that looked like it had survived being torpedoed. Puffing on the weakly glowing butt, he looked up in the sky.

Try living on a small submarine for months on end. That, he waved towards the Ark, that is a luxury summer retreat. When I entered the Soviet Navy, you felt lucky if you could fully stretch your legs when lying down and the smell was so foul that you had to wash your uniform twice to get rid of it. Nobody forced you to take this job.

Volkov nodded his head in acquiescence. Still, that was no consolation for a man whose only previous experience with submarines was storming them commando-style in training exercises. This was probably the main reason he was chosen as head of security over other equally qualified, or more experienced, candidates. He sighed and spat, the moisture evaporating in the air before it even landed on the concrete. Krapivzin patted him on the back.

Cheer up, friend. In a little over two weeks, we shall be in the warm waters of the Pacific: swimming, barbequing, and watching lots of DVDs. Man, you should see the grill they installed in the galley. Sergei smacked his lips, And, unlike us two, you'll have no actual work to do. All those punks look harmless. It's not like they are going to start a mutiny.

For the first time that day, Volkov smiled.

2

The dorsal fin of a huge metal shark tore through the surface, cutting endless rows of oceanic waves in half, churning the water into white fizz. After about a minute, the creature fully emerged out of the water, slowing down until it came to rest, the giant hull bobbing imperceptibly, seemingly unperturbed by waves. The hatch on top of the sail—the tower like structure on the top of the sub—opened with barely a sound, just a gentle hiss. The Ark was, after all, originally designed to be as silent as possible because, underwater, silence is stealth. As hot air rushed into the air-cooled depths of the sub, out of the hatch emerged Alexander Volkov, clutching a pair of futuristic rubberised binoculars. Standing on the bridge, he barely had time to do a single three-sixty degree scan of the surroundings when he was joined by somebody else.

Make some room, dude!

Stepping aside, Volkov obliged and Don, one of the crew members, peered over the metal lip of the bridge. He was wearing a tattered pair of old shorts and a "troll-face" t-shirt and was grinning from ear to ear.

Whoa! … Sweet.

He looked like he was about to climb over the railing and descend the ladder down to the deck, so Lex, as almost everybody now called Volkov, grabbed him by the shoulder.

You can't go there. A wave can wash you overboard and I am not going to play Baywatch just now. You know the rules: Nobody stays outside alone.

Don was disappointed. Come on, Boris! Just a couple of minutes! He thought it was hilarious to call Volkov various clichéd Russian names. He continued in the fake Russian accent usually used by comedians on TV. In Soviet Russia… but he didn't finish the joke when he looked into Alexander's steel-blue eyes and noticed his facial muscles twitching over his chiselled cheekbones.

"Alright comrade General, DA!" He sighed and dove back into the sub. Volkov did one more scan of the horizon, flicked back a lock of sand-coloured hair and followed him down, closing the hatch over his head.

3

The siren song of dozens of exotic birds resonated within the hull of the Ark, mixing with the cries and lamentations of dozens of exotic animals. The belly of the submarine that once housed giant launch tubes, pregnant with intercontinental ballistic missiles, each as tall as a five-story building, had been gutted. Now, the vast, airplane-hangar-sized, space was filled with a miniature tropical forest winding around an artificial lake. In fairness, the lake was more the size of a large pond. Further internal space was created by removing the multiple pressure hulls. Nobody expected the Ark to have to withstand torpedo strikes.

The forest and the lake were a compact but complete ecosystem, ripped out and airlifted straight from the depths of the upper Amazon, then planted into several feet of artificial soil. What looked like a large, painfully bright disco ball slowly moved lengthwise overhead on hanging steel rails. The artificial sun mimicked the real thing, with a twelve-hour day/night cycle. Its path stretched directly above rows of rain mimicking sprinklers. Together with