7G Read online

  7G

  By

  Debbie Kump

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © Deborah Kump 2011

  ISBN: 9781937085728

  Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2011931985

  First Edition World Castle Publishing August 1, 2011

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Cover Artist: Karen Fuller

  Editor: Beth Price

  Dedication

  For Doug, my futurist.

  Prologue

  Paradise Island, Bahamas

  “This trip was a lousy idea,” Steve Summers grumbled to himself as he looked inside his thin wallet after breakfast. Maybe he’d get lucky in the casino today and break even on the money he’d shelled out for their airfare. And Ellen’s unexpected shopping sprees.

  The whole thing had been Ellen’s idea. The tropical vacation. Their relationship. Everything.

  When Steve’s ex-girlfriend, Alyssa Kensington, ditched him just before graduation, it didn’t take long for her best friend, Ellen Carmikey, to step in. It was a rebound thing, Steve decided. Still, that didn’t make it right.

  Steve followed Ellen from their hotel room, past the pool and the water slides tunneling through shark tanks, and down to the beach. With a smile, she slipped her arm around his waist. At least she was happy again–the first time in months. Plus, she looked pretty hot in a bikini. Maybe coming to the Atlantis Hotel on the Bahamas’ Paradise Island wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  “Oh, my God!” Ellen suddenly gagged, covering her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  Steve crinkled his nose as the reek of overheated cooking oil and putrid meat filled his nostrils.

  Craning his head above the forming crowd, Steve spotted a stranded pod of whales on the beach. Ellen clamped her hand over her mouth, her face turning a sickly color of puce. She pushed away from Steve and barreled past the incoming flux of tourists and local residents. News travels fast on a small island.

  Steve squinted into the sun, trying to get a better look at the dozen or so creatures lying on the sand, struggling for a breath as their massive weight crushed their own lungs. He wasn’t sure what kind of whales they were, but they definitely looked out of place. Their bulbous foreheads and black bodies glistened in the sun–a stark contrast to the white, sandy beach. He leaned in, trying to catch a bit of people’s conversations to explain this odd occurrence, when he heard Ellen’s desperate cry rise above the clamor of the crowd, “STEVE!”

  Of course she expected him to be there for her–one of those relationship obligations, he guessed–but he hoped she’d finish the bulk of her task before he made it back to the room.

  Ducking under the low-hanging palm fronds, Steve tailed Ellen at a safe distance. She was nothing like his old girlfriend, Alyssa, he thought with dismay. Alyssa had a stomach of steel. And nerves to boot. Plus she was such a sucker for animals. Why, if Alyssa were here instead of Ellen, she’d probably be organizing the brigade right now, hauling bucket after bucket of seawater to splash across the whales’ skin. Not running up to the room, nauseous. Who’d have thought best friends could be so different?

  Instead, Alyssa had bolted right after graduation to enlist in the Navy. Wouldn’t have a thing to do with Steve. He heard she’d been assigned to work on a submarine, but didn’t know much else. She never talked to Ellen anymore, either. Is it because she’s jealous? Steve wondered. And still loves me?

  Disturbed by losing touch with Alyssa, Ellen had become exceptionally needy and clingy these past few months. So when she suggested they take a week off from classes to head somewhere warm, Steve agreed–but only after finding a sweet deal on last minute airfare and hotel accommodations. Apparently, it wasn’t good enough, though. Ellen already blew the backup cash he’d brought along.

  Up ahead, Steve watched an old Chevy sedan screech to a halt. Some government official stepped out, hurrying to the scene. He looked piqued for this early in the morning. His harried eyes darted back and forth as he optically typed a message for assistance, no doubt. He raced down the narrow path, accidentally brushing Steve’s shoulder as he passed.

  “Sorry, mon,” the Bahamian official apologized in his classic island cadences.

  “No worries,” Steve said as he caught a glimpse of the guy’s nametag reading, ROY JACKSON, DEPT. OF INTERIOR. Thank God Steve didn’t have that job. Cleaning up was going to take a while. And in this hot sun, the smell was bound to get worse.

  Ellen opened the door to their hotel room, beckoning desperately, “Steve, hon…a little help?”

  “Coming,” Steve sighed, though his feet remained rooted to his spot. She probably wants me to hold her hair, he thought with a groan. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what he saw in Ellen. Well, he certainly couldn’t dump her. Not here. Not now. Their tickets were nonrefundable; the flight back would be unbearable. Better to fake it for a while. Let her down easy once they got home.

  Then the door to their hotel room slammed shut. A bright red message from Ellen flashed in front of his eyes: NOW!

  Steve sighed again as he trudged to their room. Missing Alyssa.

  Chapter One

  Medical Office, U.S.S. Siren, Caribbean Sea

  “I’ve got some bad news for you, Seaman Apprentice Kensington,” the nuclear submarine’s medical officer, Michael Knolls, announced.

  Alyssa Kensington winced. She didn’t know how much more bad news she could take. Following graduation, she’d spent her entire summer enduring the rigorous submariners’ training program at the U.S. Naval Submarine School and the last two months underwater aboard the U.S.S. Siren. All Alyssa wanted was to get off this ship and go back home. Or anywhere on the surface, for that matter. Waking up this morning with red, itchy eyes glued shut was more than she could cope with at the moment. She braced herself for his diagnosis.

  “I’ll need to take out your DOTS to know for certain. Open wide.”

  Alyssa forced her goopy eyes open while Medical Officer Knolls scooped out her contact lens-sized, extended wear, virtual computer screen and keyboard eye DOTS. With body heat as the sole catalyst required to power the endothermic chemical reaction recharging each battery, both military and civilians alike constantly wore these Digital Optic/Ophthalmic Transmitters, collectively referred to as “DOTS.”

  He reached over to unlock a slit lamp from its position on the wall, revolving it into place to examine her retina. Dimming the lights, he instructed her to rest her chin and forehead against the padded head brace.

  A blindingly bright vertical beam of light scanned the surface of her cornea. Instinctively Alyssa squinted, shielding her eye from the intense pain, like a torch searing her pupil in two.

  Knolls reminded her to look straight ahead at his ear instead of her moth-like tendency to gaze directly into the light itself. He placed his fingers upon her cheekbones, physically keeping the lid open to examine the eye using his biomicroscopic lens.

  Alyssa willed her eyes to remain open, resisting the urge to shy away from the extreme contrast once more. The pain was excruciating; her eye socket throbbed as if someone hammered a spike through the back of her skull. Vivid blue spots appeared, interrupting her field of view.

  Her previous itchiness no longer seemed unbearable compared
to this new form of torture. When would it ever end?

  After what seemed an eternity, Knolls flipped off the light. “You can sit back,” he finally permitted.

  Alyssa watched him secure the slit lamp against the wall to prevent possible damage to the expensive apparatus while the sub was in transit. Then he thoroughly washed his hands in the room’s tiny sink. She drummed her fingers impatiently. “So?”

  “As I suspected,” he confirmed, accidentally bumping the cabinets behind him as he settled into his swivel chair. Knolls folded his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid you have conjunctivitis.”

  Alyssa narrowed her hazel eyes with uncertainty. Nervously, she ran her fingers through her bobbed brown hair. “Excuse me?”

  “Pinkeye,” he clarified, rolling his chair as far from his patient as possible within the cramped office.

  “Pinkeye?” Alyssa repeated in astonishment. “Am I the first?”

  “Yes that I am aware of.”

  “But…how could that happen?” It made no sense. They’d been at sea too long for symptoms to appear now. “I thought you got it from other people.”

  “True, but not always. Have you been sick recently? Cold, sniffles, that type of thing?”

  Alyssa blinked. How did he know? “A little,” she admitted. She hadn’t slept much this past week. It was only natural she’d feel a bit run-down.

  “Occasionally an upper respiratory tract infection can lead to conjunctivitis. It can flare up pretty quick,” Knolls replied as he gazed around the small room–every inch of space filled with essential medical equipment bolted to the wall. Scanning the rows of supply drawers stacked vertically from the floor to the ceiling, he searched for a particular medication. Alyssa could only imagine how he memorized the whereabouts of every item stored inside each locking cabinet.

  “So…” Alyssa wondered, raising her eyebrows, “what does that mean?”

  Knolls continued, “At this early stage, it’s highly contagious. You’ll have to be quarantined for the next three days.”

  Alyssa gasped. He’s kidding, right? How would she manage, confined to a minute cubby of a room for that duration? Would claustrophobia inevitably set in? “Isn’t there something I can do to control it?” she pleaded.

  Sadly, Knolls shook his head. He reached inside the proper drawer, removing a small bottle of sulfacetamide, prescribing, “You’ll need to refrain from using your eye DOTS while you administer these drops. Every three hours when you’re awake over the next ten days. Even if your symptoms clear sooner, continue to use it for at least two more days. We want to make sure this is properly controlled.” He closed the drawer again, locking it in place. “By the way, which rack do you share? I’ll make sure your sheets get changed immediately.”

  “38-F,” Alyssa said, frowning. Poor Rosemary. She’d forgotten all about her berthmate. Had she accidentally infected Rosemary as well? Alyssa chastised herself for not having the foresight to remove her pillowcase after she woke with itchy eyes, crusted in residue. It was too late to fix her mistake now–the next shift had already gone to sleep.

  Medical Officer Knolls’ voice snapped her from her thoughts. “Well, I don’t think you’ll be wanting these ones again,” he chuckled, lightening the mood, as he pitched Alyssa’s contagious eye DOTS into the red hazardous waste container affixed to the wall near the sink. Then he tilted her head backward, placing a single medicated drop into each of her eyes. “Blink,” Knolls instructed, handing her a tissue to dab the excess.

  She sighed in relief as the soothing drops coated her raw, irritated eyes.

  “We’ll get you some new DOTS in a few days,” Knolls continued as he washed his hands again. “You can toss your mobile uplink, too. The next upgrade comes into effect tomorrow, so everyone will be issued new ones anyway. You’ll be assigned a fresh set of gear once your quarantine is completed.”

  Alyssa nodded obediently, dreading her upcoming confinement. Not only would she be missing out on the civilian hoopla of unveiling the latest upgrade to 7G telecommunications technology, she’d be locked up by herself for days…with absolutely nothing for entertainment.

  Under the motto, “Run silent, run deep,” submarines strove to maintain minimal sound signatures in the water. As a result, they suspended communication with the surface below periscope depth. Alyssa and the other seamen aboard anxiously awaited the national upgrade to 7G Network when the Siren would float a buoy to the surface to make a dangerous, but mandatory, connection with the outside world. The Navy planned to initiate its DOTS’ voice amplification program, enabling submariners to speak in a mere whisper that would be audibly transmitted to others nearby–critically important during times of extreme threat.

  Seamen were usually limited to communicating with only those aboard the sub. Though during this brief connection period, they’d have the rare luxury of sending messages to loved ones back home. And now Alyssa would miss her chance to contact her mom and old friends. Though she had passed her evaluation for claustrophobic tendencies before being permitted to volunteer as a submariner, she couldn’t help but feel a wave of panic grip her throat.

  Reluctantly, she removed her chrome mobile uplink from her pocket and peeled the military-issued navy blue stereo DOTS stickers from her outer ear pinnae, tossing them in the refuse bin squirreled in the corner. Without her eye DOTS and MUDE (Mobile Uplink Digital Equipment), she’d have no use for these ear DOTS, either.

  On a bare section of stainless steel cabinet, Alyssa noticed a pair of magnetic photos. Desperate for one last stab at conversation before her impending isolation, she asked, “Are those your kids?”

  Michael Knolls’ face relaxed. Beaming with pride, he nodded. “It’s hard to believe how fast they grow up. Lauren’s already in fifth grade and Carson’s in third. After this tour, I’m heading home for a couple of weeks. Gimme a chance to catch a few of their ball games for a change. Take them to the movies. Just thinking about seeing them again seems to make the time here pass by pretty quick.”

  Alyssa couldn’t help but smile in return. She took another look at the school photos of Lauren and Carson, imagining how excited they’ll be to have their father back home again.

  “Head to Quarantine,” Knolls commanded as he screwed on the lid and handed her the bottle of sulfacetamide drops. “Then every three hours,” he reminded her before his eyes began skittering back and forth, optically completing the medical report for the Commander.

  Clutching her drops in one hand, she thanked Medical Officer Knolls for his assistance, then released a heavy sigh. Their conversation was briefer than she had hoped. All happiness faded from her body as she stood to leave. Alyssa knew she’d have ample time to spare in her upcoming solitary confinement.

  Time to dwell on the myriad thoughts that burdened her mind these past few weeks.

  And time to lose her last remaining ounce of sanity.

  Chapter Two

  Heading for the door, Alyssa frowned, reflecting on what a disaster this “adventure” had turned out to be.

  Originally, her plans for the future seemed calculated. Though she swam Varsity all four years of high school and qualified for States in the 200-meter Individual Medley, her grades weren’t high enough to guarantee an academic-athletic scholarship at her top three choices: UVa, Virginia Tech, or Old Dominion. And with the tight job market, she didn’t want the burden of paying off college loans a decade after graduation.

  Granted, Commonwealth Community College was an affordable option, but she needed some space from her ex-boyfriend, Steve Summers, who had already enrolled there in classes this fall. She vowed she wouldn’t fall into the same trap as her mom, Linda, by marrying her high school sweetheart. Stuck in the same small town, surrounded by familiar faces her whole life. And where had that gotten her mother? Widowed at age twenty-one with an infant to support after a roadside bomb blasted Alyssa’s father’s Humvee on his second tour in Afghanistan. Forced to remain in her hometown, working for minimum wage. Never having
the opportunity to advance.

  Alyssa wasn’t like her mother. She longed for adventure.

  Something a life with Steve would never provide.

  So when a Navy recruiter visited Madison High School in the spring, promoting the benefits of military service and the G.I. Bill to defray the rising costs of higher education, Alyssa decided to enlist. It sounded like the escape she sought. Plus the experience might actually help her determine what area of study to pursue in college.

  Immediately following high school graduation, Alyssa departed for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center on Lake Michigan’s western shore. Missing half her friends’ graduation parties, she barely had the opportunity to say goodbye. But she figured it didn’t matter; she’d see them soon enough on leave.

  Upon arriving at the Training Center, Alyssa thrived on the regimented workout schedule and written examinations. In fact, it didn’t differ much from the challenging AP classes she took as a senior or the killer practices her old Varsity swim coach, Mr. Sparks, typically scheduled after they lost a meet…or whenever he was in a rotten mood. Every time she entered a combat simulation, something in her brain clicked, sending it into survival mode. Though she ran outdoor track in high school because she never perfected an accurate enough throw to make the softball team, her aim in weapons training was dead-on. At the shooting range, she could cover all ten bullet holes on her target with a single silver dollar coin.

  Regardless of her weaponry skills, the grueling mental and physical fatigue required for battle and maintaining her senses on high alert lacked appeal for Alyssa. So with her physical stamina, drive to succeed, and intrigue with life below the surface–plus the Navy’s acceptance of women on subs for the first time in history–she readily volunteered to become a submariner. Alyssa took her rigorous screening in stride, viewing everything as a game not much different than Coach Sparks’ infamous workouts she’d endured to achieve her goal of going to States. Then she was sent to the Naval Submarine School New London in Groton, Connecticut for additional training where she learned the ins and outs of the job she’d perform over the next four years.