I finally got that job. They made me sign an NDA but its no biggie, the pay is good, from what I've been told. It was a rather quick process considering the conditions nowadays, Machines have overtaken most jobs but it seems there is still demand for physical labor no machine can accomplish. What good are machines down at the deepest parts of the ocean anyways?
My interview was brief, I was mainly told about what the job is about: Going down into the deepest known part of the ocean called 'The Abyss' and keeping it 'In tune'... whatever that means. I wasn't told much about the Abyss other than the fact it produces pressure waves which have to be tuned and dispersed with the use of giant towers called 'Resonance Pylons', my job is to keep them working and report anything that goes wrong. Other than that, they told me I would be spending most of my time down there, which I don't mind, as long as I get to come up here and there but I doubt that.
I'm currently getting ready for the descent down to the Abyss with my submarine, it's more cramped than I'd like but then again, at pressures that high you have to prioritize function over comfort. Speaking of the pressure, oxygen tanks would near instantly implode down there so I have to use a liquid breathing system. I had to try it out during training and it felt horrible, like I was drowning, though they told me it was an absolute necessity.
The inside of the sub itself isn't something to write home about. There's one single radio array present on one of the walls, a small bed in the back which is where I'll be sleeping. Aside from that, it's more like an autonomous underwater shack.
My descent down to the bottom of the ocean stops with a loud bang, startling me. I have reached the outskirts of the Abyss. It is extremely dark down here, so much so that the lights of my sub illuminate only a few meters in front of me. My first task will be connecting my comms relay to one of the resonance pylons down here. Why I can't just set up my own antenna is beyond me. It would be way more efficient and faster but I have no choice but to listen to my instructions.
Getting ready for the dive took me about half an hour. Putting on the bulky diving suit as well as getting used to that damn liquid breathing system, which came with it's own bulky back attachment, already had me tired. I was told the currents down here would be strong, not sure how that works considering I'm at the bottom of the ocean where currents should be rather weak. Letting water fill into the airlock fuels me with a sense of anxiety, there shouldn't be anything down here that scares me.
Opening the airlock, I immediately feel that strong current I was told about. Swimming outside I try to look around but I barely see anything. From what I do see though, I am at the bottom of some sort of ravine, to my right where the sub is facing is a... wall? going up as far as I can see, to the left is a more open area where the resonance pylons are. Two things stand out to me immediately. Firstly, how big the resonance pylons actually are, these things are about as tall as a medium-sized skyscraper and have a bunch of cables wrapping themselves up to the top. The top is crowned with a ring structure which I can only guess is what dampens or disperses the pressure waves created by The Abyss. Lights run up from the wide base to the ringed top of the pylons in dots of green, faint but strong enough to see with the naked eye. There are three pylons in total and they seem to all be lined up against this wall. Speaking of that wall, at the bottom where it would meet the seafloor there is a pitch black darkness running along towards the pylons. I'd like to investigate but I have more pressing matters to attend to.
I waddle over to my sub to grab the cable which I have to connect to one of the pylons for my comms relay. It's heavy, lined with a thick coating of silicone so no water leaks through. Carrying it proves rather draining, given its weight, the currents, as well as the heaviness of my own diving suit. As soon as i connect the cable I feel a strange hum or rather a vibration coming from it, perhaps the amount of electricity flowing through it. It's quite faint but still noticeable.
While I'm here I might as well figure out how to even 'tune' a Pylon, since I wasn't ever really briefed on that. I was given this wand thing that they called a 'Resonator' but I'm not sure how to use it. Inspecting the handle reveals a button which, when turned on, activates a small display. The display currently reads "0.00 Pa"... it's a pressure wave measurer, a handheld one at that. I guess I'm supposed to adjust the Pylons to the value thats being read. I wonder why they call it tuning though. Wait... "0.00"? That doesn't make sense given the current I'm feeling...
Smacking the 'Resonator' at the side doesn't seem to change anything so I look back to the Pylons. Here from the base of one they look even taller, I wonder how we even built something like this down here. I look back to the 'Resonator' to see the value has changed, "0.07 Pa". Guess it takes some time to actually give a reading.
Near the base of the Pylon, I see a lit up terminal and slot. Placing the 'Resonator' into the slot took 2 tries as I put the top instead of the handle in. After a few seconds, the 'Resonator' gets pushed out and it take it. I really expected that to be harder than it just was. The pylons rings at the top jerk outwards in a sudden motion which startles me to look up as the pressure wave it procured hits me. A 1 second earthquake is the only way I can describe it, not nice but nothing I can't handle. Now to tune the other 2 pylons...