Atomic Rex: Challenge of Gurral

by Matthew Dennion

  The enormous bruiser leaned in toward the Newcomer. “How am I supposed to find this big beastie anyway? Should I just wander around the planet until we bump into each other?”

  The Newcomer shook his head. “You can draw the monster to you. As you value your Impervium dust, so does Atomic Rex value his territory and the food within it. Atomic Rex currently considers the two land masses on the western part of his planet’s hemisphere to be his domain. I can place you in the middle of his territory between these two land masses. Once there, you shall encounter other larger monsters.” The Newcomer shrugged. “All of the creatures on this planet are highly aggressive, they should attack you on sight. Fight the creatures, slay them, devour them if you wish. The spectacle will provide entertainment for the other Arena Lords and the crowd. More importantly however, it will draw Atomic Rex to you. The kaiju on this planet, as its inhabitants call them, seem to have some innate ability to sense when another powerful creature has entered their territory. By engaging in a few battles, you will catch Atomic Rex’s attention and he will come to you.”

  Gurral smiled. “That overgrown lizard will be fighting in the arena before you know it.” The Smasher then walked through the rift.

  As Gurral disappeared into the rift, the Newcomer whispered, “Fighting in the arena and fighting for me.”

  Chapter 6

  The Settlement, Northern California

  Kate finished tying her hair behind her head in a ponytail and then she walked out of her room to see her son, Kyle, sitting at his computer. Kate smiled as there was a time in her life that she never thought she would see a computer again let alone someone using it. She walked over to her son and leaned down close to him to see his screen. “What are we looking at?”

  The thin dark haired eighteen-year-old shrugged. “Well, I’m not really sure. As you know, me and some of the other guys have managed to tap back into what’s left of the internet and access some of the old satellites, but it’s not like we have consistent power or go to school to learn this stuff. We’re basically going by what the people of your generation have been able to teach us and what we’ve been able to figure out. There’s also the fact that none of the systems have been updated for almost twenty years.”

  He shrugged. “Anyway, I was looking at the images from Google’s satellite and I found some interesting things. First, it’s not something we really have to be super concerned about, but remember a year or so ago when the satellites first showed us there were kaiju on the rest of the planet?”

  Kate’s body shuddered at the thought of what her son would say next. She took a deep breath. “Yes, I remember. What about it?”

  “It’s just that each time the satellite goes over Japan, I see less and less and kaiju. This past time I didn’t see any at all.”

  Kate shrugged. “Couldn’t that mean that they are just out of range of the satellites or underground, or in the ocean? We know several kaiju will swim miles off shore before returning to their hunting grounds on land.”

  Kyle nodded. “I guess, I just think it’s something we should keep an eye on. I know taking care of mutants in our own backyard is top priority but we definitely want to keep ourselves aware of what the kaiju on the rest of the planet are doing. It’s been a few years since we saw that Gfantis monster leaving Japan and you and dad lured him away from the settlement. You two may want to extend your sweeps in Steel Samurai 2.0 a little farther out into the Pacific than you were before, just in case anything decided to leave Japan and head here.”

  Kyle frowned. “There’s a typhoon off the coast of Hawaii right now that would make it dangerous to head that far. Maybe once the storm passes, you and dad can make a sweep over the ocean.” Kyle then brought up a picture of a giant ram wandering through the woods. “As far as around here goes, I hate to admit it,” Kyle lowered his voice, “and I’m sure dad is loath to admit it.” He brought his voice back to his normal speaking volume. “But it seems like Emily providing Ramrod with a steady supply of food twenty-five kilometers out from settlement has helped him to consider this to be his territory.” Kyle shrugged. “He’s not the bravest monster but he does seem to be keeping any other large mutants from coming this way from the south.”

  Kate smiled. “You and your sister are amazing. She is finding ways to live in conjunction with a monster and you are tracking them.” She shook her head. “My generation was so reactional to the kaiju whereas your generation is taking steps to change how we view the giants that now inhabit our world. It’s good to know that you and your sister are always thinking ahead. You two will do really well as key members of the settlement going forward.” She walked closer to Kyle. “I agree with you, your father and I will take the mech farther out over the ocean just to be on the safe side. Now, what’s the other thing you wanted to bring to my attention?”

  Kyle brought up a screenshot onto his computer. “There’s this purple blip that came up with one of the sweeps as well. It could be another one of those weird light anomalies that we saw Atomic Rex disappear into a few weeks ago and then come back from, or it could be any number of things, like a distortion on the camera, a glitch in the internet feed, or something else.”

  Kate nodded. “Where did this distortion occur?”

  Kyle brought up a map of North America. “It happened near the border of what used to be the southern point of the Lacandon Jungle in Mexico as far as I can tell.”

  Kate moved closer to her son. “Did you see anything come out of the distortion?”

  Kyle shook his head. “Not in the direction that the satellite was going, but it will be a few months before the satellite circles back around to that specific spot on the planet. It’s possible that if this was a temporal distortion and something came out of it, that it just walked in the opposite direction of the satellite. If that’s the case, we won’t see it until the images are updated again.”

  Kate sighed. “What’s your gut telling you? Is this something your father and I should investigate in Steel Samurai 2.0?”

  Kyle shrugged. “You’ve got five days until Emily finally gets married. At top speed, you and dad could make it out there in about three hours, and from that spot back in about five hours due to wind. The thing would be if you encounter something or if you have to track something down.”

  Kate took a deep breath. “Your father and I have to do our usual spiral sweep first. That will take us at least twenty-four hours.”

  Kyle groaned. “I think you guys could cut that time down some. For one, Ramrod is keeping most threats away from the south so I don’t think you have to really sweep too far in that direction. Second, I know why it usually takes you twenty-four hours, and might I add as a person who shares a house with you two, that I prefer if you use Steel Samurai 2.0’s quarters for those activities.” He shuddered. “I mean, I can hear you guys you know and can I say, gross. You’re fifty years old!”

  Kate playfully slapped her son in the back of his head. “I’m almost fifty, your father is fifty.”

  Kyle rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, well whatever, the more you and dad can keep that stuff inside the mech, the better for my mental health. Anyway, I think you probably have enough time to do your sweep and check the anomaly, even if you stop for other things. I’ll see if I can’t find any other satellites that I can access to give me a better view of the area. If I can get the same area and don’t see the distortion, we’ll know it was a technical glitch and not an anomaly.”

  Kate smiled and kissed Kyle on the cheek. “That’s my boy, now when your father is dressed tell him I went to Emily’s to review the needs of the settlement and discuss what’s left to be done for her wedding. Also tell him that I’ll meet him in Steel Samurai 2.0 in two hours.”

  Kyle wiped his mom’s kiss away. “Mom, again gross! I know where your mouth was this morning.”

  She smiled at her son and walked out the door. As soon as Kate exited her house, she saw the fifty-meter tall mech known as Steel Samurai 2.0 standing like a sil
ent guardian over the settlement. Every time she saw the mech, it filled her with a sense of hope and pride.

  The sense of hope the mech caused her to feel went back to when she first saw the giant robot. Kate and several other women had been held captive by the mutant known as Ogre for several years. By kaiju standards, the monster was small, being only about 4 meters tall. Despite his relatively diminutive size, Ogre was one of the strongest and most durable monsters on the planet. The monster was easily able to defeat creatures four times his size.

  He treated women as if they were pets. The brute had kidnapped Kate shortly after the monsters started attacking the civilized world. Before she was captured, she had seen that the US government had activated a series of mechs to fight the kaiju. When Ogre had first taken her, she hoped that the army would send a mech to come save her but for years that never happened. She and the other women had thought about escape but it was quickly revealed that was not an option. Ogre would track down and kill any woman who tried to escape. To make matters worse, he would leave the body of the slain girl in the same warehouse as his captives as a reminder of what would happen to those who dared to try and leave him.

  Kate did her best to placate the monster but despite her efforts, one by one the other women trapped with her would either try to escape or they would anger Ogre. Either slight to the monster was a death sentence.

  The crew that had started as Kate and several other women had dwindled down to her and one other. It was at that point that Chris arrived, piloting Steel Samurai. He had no idea Kate and the other women were there. He was simply trying to lure Ogre into another monster’s territory so they would fight to the death. When he saw Kate and her friend, he tried to save them. Sadly, Kate was the only one to make it aboard the robot. Once inside Steel Samurai, she and Chris led Ogre into a battle with Atomic Rex in which the grotesque Ogre finally met his end.

  The feeling of pride connected to Steel Samurai 2.0 came after she and Chris were married. After proving to be a great help to Chris when he had first saved her, he repaired the mech and retrofitted the cockpit of the mech so that they could both pilot it. With these upgrades in place, the mech was redubbed as Steel Samurai 2.0.

  Since this had occurred, Kate had co-piloted the mech on countless missions, including a mission which found the only other surviving colony in the world in Peru. After helping to save the Peruvians from a giant Yeti which had come up from the South Pole, Kate had established a trade agreement with the colony which had benefited both settlements. It was these acts she had accomplished while piloting Steel Samurai 2.0 that filled her with pride.

  As she approached the farm that her daughter Emily lived on with her fiancé, she smiled because Steel Samurai 2.0 was standing only a few hundred meters away from it. Ever since Emily had moved out, Chris had taken to leaving the mech next to Sean McDuffy’s farm. Chris insisted that leaving the mech there was a good idea because it was on the edge of the settlement and close to the crops that produced nearly thirty percent of the food for the people living there.

  Kate on the other hand, knew that he left the mech there because he felt it provided extra protection for his daughter. Chris felt if any kaiju showed up, the mech might scare them away or at least Emily would be able to run to the safest place in the world until he got there to pilot the mech and face the threat.

  Kate came up to the door and knocked loudly to make sure that her daughter and her fiancé had heard her in case they were otherwise engaged.

  The door swung open to reveal the burly Sean standing there. The well-built, blonde haired and blue-eyed farmer had a huge smile on his face as he welcomed Kate into his house. “Mrs. Myers, welcome, please come on in. Can I get you a glass of water or something?”

  Kate smiled. “Sean, in less than a week you are going to be my son-in-law. I keep telling you that you don’t have to call me Mrs. Myers. Please call me Kate or even mom if you like. It’s fine with me either way.”

  Sean smiled. “I mean, you’ve been the leader of the settlement since I was born. Calling you Mrs. Myers just seems natural. Calling you Kate would seem impolite and I wouldn’t go calling you mom until me and Emily are officially married.”

  Kate smiled. “All right, where is Emily?”

  Sean pointed to the back of the house. “She’s back there looking over all kinds of things related to sewage and power and such. Honestly, it’s a little beyond me to help her sort through it.” He smiled. “I do all I can to help her when it comes to looking at crop production and food storage and such. I may not be good at all that other stuff but when it comes to farming for the settlement, I do all I can to help her out.”

  Kate patted the young man on the shoulder. “Even before you were dating Emily, you and your family had always worked hard to feed the rest of us. You are the backbone of the settlement. Without the countless hours of hard work you do on the farm, the settlement would starve. Don’t count yourself short, Sean. You mean as much to this settlement as anyone here and more importantly, you mean more to my daughter than anyone else in the world.”

  Sean’s face lit up at Kate’s statement. “Well thank you, Ma’am and please know that Emily means more to me than anything else.”

  Kate smiled. “I know that and so does she.”

  Sean nodded. “All right then, I have an entire day’s worth of fertilizing ahead of me and then dropping off Ramrod’s food, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave all the other stuff to you and Emily.” Sean then walked out the front door.

  Kate made her way to the back of the room to see Emily sitting at a table and looking over old schematics for the town that their settlement was built on the remains of. Kate shook her head in disbelief as the sight of her daughter. The small freckled girl with tangled hair had grown into a beautiful young woman with curly brown hair, a thin build, and stunning green eyes.

  Emily looked up from the table she was sitting at as her mom entered the back room. The sunlight from behind her was silhouetting her and she looked both beautiful and intelligent. Kate smiled as she looked at her first born.

  As Kate entered the room, Emily gestured for her mother to come over to the table she was sitting at. “Mom, we have got to figure out a way to generate more power for the settlement. Our population is slowly growing and if we can figure out a way to generate more power, we can really start to improve things. I mean, imagine if we can get more than a couple of computers running at the same time and get more lighting at the school. Kyle has already shown me several videos on that YouTube thing that can teach the kids all kinds of stuff about plumbing and construction.”

  Kate smiled. She was so proud of the woman her daughter had become. Kate never saw herself as a leader. She had just more or less stepped up to the position because no one else would. Emily was charismatic, smart, and a natural born leader with a deep passion for helping others. Even if she wasn’t her mother, Kate would have recognized that Emily was the most skilled person to take over for her.

  She also knew that Emily would be a far better leader than she ever was. Emily had really stepped to the forefront of the community several years ago when Kate and Chris were trying to divert Atomic Rex into new hunting grounds in South America. While Steel Samurai 2.0 was gone, the giant big horned sheep known as Ramrod had become agitated and was heading for the settlement. Emily quickly organized a group of her friends, including her now fiancé, and devised a plan to divert the giant mutant away from their homes.

  After that, Emily had taken to studying Ramrod and found that if the beast was given a regular food drop, he would stay away from the settlement and begin to think of the food drop area as his territory. At first, Kate and Chris hated the idea of having a kaiju only a few kilometers away from the settlement but after watching the monster for almost a year, Emily was convinced that the mutant would come to grips with where his food was coming from and not attack the people who supplied him with it. Additionally, Emily suggested that Ramrod might deter things like giant bugs or
rodents from entering his territory and so far, he had. Ramrod was no idiot however. He would flee if a True Kaiju like Atomic Rex suddenly showed up but when it came to dealing with more mundane threats, the giant sheep did the job. This helped to greatly reduce the need for Steel Samurai 2.0 to engage every mutant that showed up near the settlement. This fact helped to greatly extend the mech’s dwindling arsenal and allowed her parents to rest more.

  Kate still had a hard time thinking about how she was kept prisoner by a kaiju for years and had to placate him just so Ogre wouldn’t kill her. Now her daughter was placating a monster to use it to protect the entire settlement from other threats. Due to her success with being able to utilize Ramrod in a positive way, Emily was dubbed the kaiju whisperer by the people in town. Despite her initial reluctance, the people in the settlement began to come to her as if she was the unofficial second in command. After a while, Emily had settled into the role bestowed upon her by the people.

  Kate knew that every parent’s wish is that their children will surpass them and be better people than they are. Emily was surpassing Kate in every way possible and she couldn’t have been prouder of her daughter for doing so. She smiled with pride as she thought about Emily’s accomplishments and sat down next to her. “Did your brother also speak to you about the idea of using cattle and horses to generate additional power?”

  Emily sighed. “You mean his gross idea for scooping up their crap, tossing it into a giant mixer, and then burning the methane gas that comes off it?”

  Kate shrugged. “It’s gross but it seems like it might have some merit.”

  Emily nodded. “From talking to the electricians we have, it seems like it might work. We just need some kind of vat to catch the methane in and then cables to attach the tank to the power grid. The electricians have given me a description of what we need. I was hoping on your next patrol you and dad could check what’s left of the towns you pass over to see if they have what we need.” She handed her mother a paper. “If they do, let me know. We can send some of the electricians out with you and dad, then you can use Steel Samurai 2.0 to bring the stuff back.”