Free The Ark: A Novel by Boyd Morrison Page A

her know the minute he heard anything, but since it was a Saturday, he didn't expect any information until at least the next morning. Then he retired to his own cabin. Locke wanted to get some information about Coleman before he contacted him, so he sent an email back to Aiden MacKenna at Gordian's Seattle headquarters, which was four and a half hours behind Newfoundland Time. After it went out over the rig's wi-fi system, Locke passed out on his bunk, exhausted from the day's events.
    At 1:15 in the morning, a chime from his laptop woke him. Feeling rested from a few hours of sleep, he turned the computer towards him and saw that he had an instant message. It was from Aiden, Gordian's top expert in information retrieval. Locke often used his services to salvage electronic data from disaster sites, but Aiden was a renaissance computer whiz and could tackle almost anything Locke threw his way. Locke wasn't surprised to see that he was checking his email at 8:45 on a Saturday night.
    Tyler, my man, I've got your answer. You awake?
the message said.
    I am now. Where are you?
Locke replied.
    At home, playing Halo and shooting Red Bull with some nerds from the office. I'm kicking ass, BTW. I would have answered you sooner, but I just saw your message.
    What did you find out?
    You haven't heard from John Coleman in a while, have you?
    Not for six months. Why?
    He's dead. Freak accident.
    Dead? John Coleman was only in his fifties and seemed to be in perfect health.
    What happened to him?
Locke typed.
    Instead of a reply, the computer window said,
Connection lost
. Great timing. Just when they were getting to the good part.
    Locke checked his connection to Scotia One's wi-fi network, but it was showing 100%. He tried to pull up Google, but all he got was an error page. That meant the rig's connection to the Internet was down.
    Scotia One was equipped with a satellite antenna that served as its connection to the outside world. The workers on board could use it to surf the web and send emails when they weren't working. It also served as a backup to the platform's radio. There could be only two explanations for the connection to be down. Either there was some kind of internal glitch, or the antenna itself was disabled.
    Locke looked out the window. The fog was still heavy, and the sea was relatively calm. The conditions made a mechanical failure unlikely. With no storm to damage the equipment, the antenna should be intact. It must have been some kind of electrical or software problem.
    He picked up the phone and called the control room. It was answered by Frank Hobson. Locke remembered him as timid man with black horn-rimmed glasses who always worked the graveyard shift alone.
    "Hi, Tyler," he said in a reedy voice. "What can I do for you?"
    "Frank, I'm having some trouble with the Internet. When will it be back up?"
    "I didn't even know it was down. You're probably the only one up at this hour using it. Let me check." Locke heard tapping on a keyboard. "Yup, it's out here, too."
    "Can you isolate the problem? I was messaging someone and got cut off."
    Hobson paused. More tapping. "The software checks out. Maybe it's a mechanical problem. Might be the satellite dish. I'll have to call someone to look at it."
    "I can do that for you." Locke was awake now and eager to get the rest of the story from Aiden, so he thought he might as well get some air.
    "You know where it is?"
    "Yeah, Grant and I were working on it a couple of days ago when we were trying to diagnose that electrical problem. If it looks like an electrical glitch, I'll haul Grant out of bed."
    "Thanks."
    "No problem."
    Locke hung up, stood, and stretched. He threw on his jeans and jacket and headed outside.
    The night air was crisp, and the ever-present smell of oil flowed over him with the breeze. Even this late, workers roamed the rig, oil production being a 24-hour job. Visibility was limited to 30 feet. The screech of some sort of grinding tool pierced his ears every few