The big question was what to do with all of the debris. There was lots of digging, literally tons of it and that meant there was lots of refuse to get rid of. Hauling it out would be expensive. Finding a new spot to dump it would be time consuming. Worst of all, it would blow his cover.
He had decided to go with a more mysterious route and keep things a secret. His was the perfect spot for it. This area was remote and hard to get to. Besides, most of the work they were doing was underground. The only worry was some kind of mole in the work crews.
Well, there were ways of dealing with that. He’d asked the construction teams to hire people well before anyone knew there was something special going on. He’d pay them extra if they agreed to some degree of seclusion. This was his way of keeping secrets close to the vest and he hoped it would work out.
The outside pressure on him was enormous. The other six Wonders all had big publicity and the press followed their plans relentlessly. This was nice because James could keep track of what was happening without much trouble. Only his was a secret and that drove some people crazy.
Now the trick was to make certain that the final product was up to the trick. He’d created an enormous amount of interest by simply not telling everyone what he was up to. Now he had to have something that lived up to their wildest expectations. He smiled to himself. He thought he did.
This was something unique in the world. It would give people a chance to see some things that they never had in the past. If that wasn’t a wonder, he didn’t know what was. Now if they could just get the engineering details down.
James turned to a different part of his desk. Not that the logistical problems would be a cinch either. How do you transport something that massive and fragile so far without killing it? Well, they assured him that they could do it so he didn’t worry too much.
This was the trick to all of it, of course. Find some science people who could figure things out and let them do their stuff. If you spent enough money and used the right contacts, you could always find people who could get it done. That was the best trick he’d found in business.
His job was the larger picture. James had the very important ability to see what would make money. It was often curious how others overlooked goldmines while he could easily see them. He smiled to himself. This would be just one more step along that path.
Not that it would be a smooth one. He picked up the report again. They would run into pressure problems unless they could somehow go deeper. His other reports suggested that going deeper was hard to do. There must be a way to do one or the other.
Wait a minute! What if they used the debris to build up walls all around. They could use the troublesome rocks to artificially create depth. That just might work. James picked up his phone and summoned the critical parts of the team, the chief engineer, the architect and the ocean biologist. Everything had to go through them for agreement.
There was some delay while the team of experts was gathered. They all had projects to work on and it took some time to get them all in one spot. The marine biologist, a man named Dr Maki, was off site so they decided to start without him.
James first asked his architect, a woman named Ms Gao for a status report. She had been heading the team that was exploring the existing cave sections. Once they had the full map and an idea of the remaining rock sections, she’d be able to finish the design process.
She hadn’t been able to check everywhere but so far everything looked good. The maps they had been given were certainly accurate. The previous owners had kept good records and (more importantly) kept up with maintenance. Their only problem had been that the cost of production started to outweigh the profits. Once the margin went the wrong way, there was nothing they could do.
The news that everything was in good shape was excellent indeed. They had drawn up preliminary designs in the hopes that they were working from good information. Serious errors or obviously dangerous spots could delay the work or maybe even close down the site. Neither one seemed to be the case.
Next was the engineer, an Italian man named Scotti who had taken more than his fair share of ribbing from Star Trek fans throughout his life. He was in charge of the outside areas for now. The construction equipment was in place and ready to go. One of the things he had been waiting for was some kind of decision on where to take the debris.
This was where James came in. He quickly shared his idea of keeping the extra rock there at the site. Instead of hauling it somewhere, they could use it to shore up the upper structure. With any luck they could add some hundreds of feet. Both Gao and Scotti perked up at this suggestion.
They would have to sit down and check on some figures, but on the surface of it, they both thought the idea might work. In fact, it made some sense. They could use the rock to help keep the metal walls in place. That way they could take more pressure from the tank.
The plan was to go about six hundred feet down. If they could go up another three hundred feet, then they were closer to the full thousand that James had originally wanted. An upper structure would be easier to manipulate, both for tourists and for the actual day to day work that this place would require.
All that they needed was for Dr Maki to arrive and sign off on it.