Hotel Megalodon: A Deep Sea Thriller Read Online Free PDF

and with no noise at all, a tram-like vehicle glided to a stop in the tunnel’s opening.
    “So quiet!” a reporter who’d been allowed to make the trip into the hotel with the guests remarked.
    White nodded. “Rubber wheels on a Plexiglas surface, plus it’s a cable-and-pulley system, with the motor housed in a separate building, over there.” He pointed a little ways behind them to a small structure where machinery churned within a soundproofed housing. “The motor’s in there, not in the train, so there’s no noise while it’s in the tunnel. Nothing to detract from the undersea experience. This way, please!”
    White led them with an outstretched arm to the tunnel entrance and the waiting train. “As you can see,” he continued, “The tram itself is an open vehicle that rolls within a sealed, Plexiglas tube. You’ll be able to look out underwater as we ride down to the hotel.”
    A chorus of appreciative murmurs followed as the guests boarded the tram. Soothing music played, over which a female voice welcomed them to Triton Undersea Resort, “the world’s first and only luxury underwater hotel.” Controlled remotely, the tram started to move shortly after the passengers had taken their seats. Seated next to the reporter, a young African American woman from the New York Times, White pointed to a camera mounted at the front of the train.
    “Gives the operators a view of what’s happening inside so they can wait for everyone to be seated.” The reporter nodded, and jotted something down in her notepad.
    The tram, with two identical ends, set into motion by rolling in the opposite direction from which it had come. The tube through which it was pulled slanted at an angle down toward the hotel. Immediately, it became a shade darker as the tram slid down into the deep. Outside the tube, the guests were excitedly pointing at small fish swimming by, their descent into the ocean made more real for having seen them.
    The vehicle moved surprisingly fast through the cool, recycled air, and in about two minutes the first energized chatter from the guests broke out as the underwater hotel came into view. It appeared as two huge cylinders situated on the reef floor, and stretching to just beneath the lagoon’s surface, with a long row of pods stemming from a central tube connecting the cylinders. The water was clear enough that from this distance they could see the entire complex. Dense schools of multi-colored fish swarmed around the structure. A squid shot between coral heads. A pair of lobster antennae twitched in the currents at the edge of their coral cave.
    The seafloor. Even the guests seemed to know that it wasn’t normal to have a hotel here. They had quieted as the tram drew nearer to their home for the next several days, the realization hitting them that they were underwater, and that this was no theme park attraction. This was the real deal. Mother Nature, modified to support humans where no humans should be. And in style, at that. Chandeliers and Persian rugs were visible through the mostly transparent structure.
    The train tube disappeared into the cylindrical structure on the left, the lighting changing to soft LEDs and plasma screens beckoning everyone a warm welcome to Triton. Amazingly, the tube passed through the wall into the inside of the hotel such that not even an airlock was required. James White had battled with engineers over this for years. There would be no “wet room” or industrial type space requiring guests to wait in a damp, confined area while a suitable pressure was reached before the door could be opened. None of that. Just ride the train in, ride it back out, at will. The train tunnel extended from shore all the way down to the hotel, and right through the outer wall.
    The tram slowed between two rows of potted palms, well lit with natural light from above, since the roof of the building was also clear Plexiglas or acrylic. The recorded voice informed passengers, “You have