Mega 4: Behemoth Island

by Jake Bible

  “Okay, okay, I’m getting confused,” Kinsey said. “You weren’t in the facility that exploded? You were in a different facility? Why? What’s the difference?”

  “I was in charge of the Alpha, which was command and observation,” Dr. Logan said. “Dr. Ann Liu was in charge of Omega, which was where the matrix facilitator was housed. The two facilities needed to be on opposite ends of the island so readings were clean and not influenced by their respective power grids. It took years to build and was all gone in seconds.”

  “What’s a matrix facilitator?” Kinsey asked.

  “You don’t know?” Dr. Logan asked. “I’d assumed that was why you were here.”

  “We’re here because Ballantine brought us here,” Kinsey said.

  “Aren’t we all,” Dr. Logan chuckled. The look on Kinsey’s face stopped the chuckle quickly. “Yes, well, the matrix facilitator is a machine, a connected hive of machines, actually, that takes genetic codes and rebuilds them into fully fledged life forms. Basically, a 3D printer for life.”

  “And what could possibly go wrong with that?” Kinsey sneered.

  “Really, not much,” Dr. Logan said. “There were safeguards upon safeguards upon safeguards. Nothing in that facility should have had the power needed to produce an explosion of that size. It was designed to specifically avoid any catastrophes. Everything was small scale, tiny. The matrix facilitator couldn’t produce a life form larger than a small dog. Everything that has happened, should not have happened.”

  “Said every scientist in the world right before they fucked up,” Kinsey said.

  “Believe me, I am very aware of that,” Dr. Logan sighed.

  “So, you were in the Alpha facility and this Dr. Liu and her team were in the Omega facility,” Kinsey said. “Omega goes boom and everyone dies. Then you find out, what? That your matrix hoodickey has grown some dinosaurs that are a lot bigger than small dogs?”

  “No,” Dr. Logan said. “You are getting ahead. Let me explain events in order, otherwise you won’t be able to understand where you are.”

  “I’m in a fucking cave,” Kinsey said.

  “Funny,” Dr. Logan said. “Do you want me to keep talking or not?”

  “Talk,” Kinsey said.

  ***

  “How did you become the leader?” Thorne asked the Liu croanderthal.

  “Always,” she replied. “How you?”

  “Always too,” Thorne said.

  “Not always,” the Liu croanderthal said, shaking her head. She pointed at Thorne. “You soldier. Soldier follow. Lead later.”

  “I’ve been leading a very long time,” Thorne said. “So pretty much always.”

  The Liu croanderthal nodded as if that made sense to her.

  “Ballantine come. When come, me, leader, kill,” she said. “You, leader, not stop. You stay. You help me leader.”

  “Why would I do that?” Thorne asked.

  “Me leader, kill you friends,” the Liu croanderthal said. “You stay. You help. Friends live. You fight me leader, friends die. You die. Everyone die.”

  “That includes you,” Thorne said. “If I fight you, you will die. Trust me. This soldier leader knows how to survive.”

  “This me leader survive too,” the Liu croanderthal said. Her face broke into a wide grin and Thorne did everything in his power not to recoil from the size and shape of her sharp teeth.

  ***

  “Human flesh,” Ronald said as he held up a microscope slide.

  Gunnar and Dr. Morganton gaped at it, both blanching visibly. Boris just nodded.

  “These things eat people?” Gunnar asked.

  “Yes,” Ronald replied. “They also eat each other.” He held up another slide. “This is mutated flesh.”

  “Great,” Gunnar said. “Cannibals.”

  “Are they cannibals because they eat each other or because they were once human and eat us?” Boris mused. “This is something to ponder.”

  He tapped at his chin a few times and shook his head. Everyone waited, but it didn’t look like he was going to come up with an answer anytime soon.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Gunnar said. “They eat people, they eat each other. They also eat a lot. Let me show you this.”

  He led them to a lab table where one of the attackers was vivisected. The mutant’s torso was completely split open. On a cart next to the table was its stomach and the contents were spread out.

  “The stomach is twice the size of a normal person’s,” Gunnar said. “And it was full. I mean stuffed to capacity full.”

  “But these things moved fast and fought hard, right Ronald?” Dr. Morganton asked.

  “They fought hard, yes,” Ronald replied. “They are very strong and very fast. Just not as strong and fast as I am.”

  “Good for you,” Gunnar said. “What Dr. Morganton is getting at is that if they were this full then they should have been sluggish, lethargic as their blood flow diverted to digestion. It is never recommended to do battle after eating a big meal. This asshole just ate the biggest of meals and then decided to come pick a fight.” He waved his hand around at the lab and the other occupied tables. “All of them did.”

  “I understand how digestion works,” Ronald said. “It appears it works differently for them than it does for you.”

  “How does digestion work for you?” Dr. Morganton asked.

  “Slowly,” Ronald replied. “A single meal can last me days, if I so choose.”

  “Does a large one make you lethargic?” Dr. Morganton asked.

  “No, not particularly,” Ronald replied. “I may not be at full capacity, but it does not have a significant slowing effect.”

  “Then these guys are more like you that way,” Gunnar said, following Dr. Morganton’s lead. “Why would you eat a large meal like this?”

  “If I was unsure when the next meal might be,” Ronald replied. “I sometimes would do that when I knew I had a very long work session ahead of me. I would go days before eating again in order to make sure I didn’t miss any observations and my data was complete.”

  “These guys don’t look like they were getting ready for a work session,” Dr. Morganton said. “Unless fighting us was the work session.”

  “I don’t think it was,” Gunnar said. “I think they were getting ready for a trip.”

  “A trip? Where?” Dr. Morganton asked.

  “Wherever this ship could take them,” Gunnar said.

  “That seems plausible,” Ronald agreed. “It would also explain why you all were incapacitated and not killed. Killing you would mean needing to store your bodies. Incapacitating you would keep you alive and fresh. Ready and waiting for when their bellies were finally empty enough to need refilling.”

  “Hold on,” Dr. Morganton said. “Are you telling me you think these things, these primitives, have the intellectual ability to take over and run this ship? That is hardly believable.”

  “Look at me, Doctor,” Ronald said. “With all you know about prehistoric hominids, would you think I would have the intellectual capabilities that I do? I am a living example of hardly believable.”

  “He’s right,” Gunnar said.

  “I know I am,” Ronald said.

  “You two,” Dr. Morganton said. “You’re on the same side, remember?”

  ***

  “Our mission was to try to recreate prehistoric biospheres as accurately as possible,” Dr. Logan said. “Just on a small scale. Keep them manageable, controllable. Safe. We’ve all seen Jurassic Park. We knew exactly what could go wrong if we recreated things at full size.”

  “So you were already fucking with stuff,” Kinsey said. “Making it smaller. Fighting nature. How did you expect to recreate anything if it wasn’t natural to begin with?”

  “Nothing on this island is natural,” Dr. Logan said. “Nothing.”

  He swallowed hard and continued.

  “Small scale, that was Ballantine’s directive. Apparently, he had had issues with other programs that worked at
full scale.”

  Kinsey snorted then waved her hand in apology. “Sorry, sorry, go on.”

  “Are you familiar with any of his other programs?” Dr. Logan asked, cocking his head at Kinsey. “How deep are you in with Ballantine?”

  “How deep am I in?” Kinsey asked. “I’m not in jack shit with that man. If there is any depth to him then I want to stay as far away from it as possible. Ninety-five percent of what has gone wrong these past few months has been because Ballantine does not share intel. He keeps everything to himself. I don’t even think Darby knows what the fuck he has planned.”

  “Darby is still with him,” Dr. Logan stated. He shook his head. “What is it about Ballantine that instills such loyalty?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Kinsey said. “Now, what the hell happened with your matrix factory?”

  “Facilitator,” Dr. Logan corrected.

  “Yeah, I know,” Kinsey replied. “I also don’t care. Just finish your very long story.”

  “Fine,” Dr. Logan said, annoyed. “Dr. Liu was running some basic tests on the equipment. Simple, run of the mill tests done every day since the facility was set up. Then the world was on fire. But it wasn’t fire.”

  “What was it?” Kinsey asked.

  “Raw energy,” Dr. Logan said. “The stuff that made the Universe. Pure, raw energy. It enveloped the island. We were shielded in Alpha, but Omega wasn’t. As far as we can tell, Omega was the source of the energy.”

  “I guessed that,” Kinsey said. “I saw the ruins. That place really blew.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Dr. Logan said. “Or not yet.”

  “What does that mean?” Kinsey asked.

  “It means that the energy surged from Omega, but didn’t touch any of it,” Dr. Logan responded. “Or didn’t touch it any more than it touched everything else. It washed over the island like a wave. But nothing was damaged. Nothing was destroyed. Not yet.”

  “Get to the yet,” Kinsey said.

  “As soon as the energy dissipated, I sent out an advance team to check on Omega,” Dr. Logan said. “They never made it there. I was talking with the team leader on his radio when he started yelling. The rest of the security team began to shout as well then the radios went dead. We tried for hours to reach them, but there was no answer.”

  “Did you send another team?” Kinsey asked.

  “We didn’t have another team,” Dr. Logan said. “Stupid, I know, but this island was supposed to be safe. We were off the books, according to Ballantine, and no one knew we existed. There was almost no native animal life on the island and certainly no predators. It was why the island was picked. Safe, secure, easy to manage.”

  “Until the energy wave,” Kinsey said.

  “Exactly. Until then,” Dr. Logan said. “I tried contacting Dr. Liu, but Omega wouldn’t respond. I waited twenty-four hours then decided it was time to take a trip to Omega myself and find out what had happened.”

  “How far did you get?” Kinsey asked.

  “All the way,” Dr. Logan said. “I made it all the way to Omega without any trouble. Once I was there, that’s when the trouble started. The staff, everyone at that facility, were changed. They weren’tHomo sapiens any longer. They were something new. Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, early hominid species. They pulled from it all. But they were not primitive. Primal, but not primitive. They still knew how to operate the Omega facility and were in complete control of all of its equipment.”

  “I am guessing they weren’t still working on the research,” Kinsey asked.

  “No, no, not at all,” Dr. Logan answered. “They were butchering my staff.”

  Kinsey frowned and started to open her mouth then closed. She opened it again then closed it.

  “Yeah, that was my reaction,” Dr. Logan said. “They had bodies, or what was left of them, strung up on the walls of Omega. Skins and meat out to dry. I knew exactly what I was seeing when I broke from the tree line and approached the facility. Everyone there stopped and looked at me. I looked at them. I saw the changes. My brain didn’t put it all together right away, but it put enough together to know to turn and run as fast as I could. So I did. I ran all the way back to Alpha.”

  “What about the rest of the island?” Kinsey asked. “The staff at Omega changed, but what about this prehistoric jungle and the dinosaurs?”

  “I got back and locked down Alpha,” Dr. Logan said, as if Kinsey hadn’t asked anything. “I locked us down tight. If there were research teams out in the field then they were stuck out there. I changed the facility codes and made it so no one could override my commands.” He looked at her with sad eyes. “The others tried to argue with me, but when the research teams came pounding on the doors, everyone saw quickly why we couldn’t open up.”

  “Omega followed you,” Kinsey said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Logan said quietly. “That and the island came at us. One team was taken by the Omega folks. Everyone shouted at me to open the doors so we could go help them. I refused. The next team arrived and that’s when the arguing stopped. They were bloody, they were haggard, they were exhausted from running. It was only a couple minutes after they arrived that what they were running from arrived as well.”

  “One of the big dinosaurs?” Kinsey asked. “With the huge heads and all the teeth?”

  “It wasn’t as big yet,” Dr. Logan said. “But it was big enough to rip into that team and shred them in seconds. They never stood a chance. From that moment on, everything we had come here for was thrown out the window. Twenty-four seven we watched the security cameras and saw how the island environment changed and grew. Small ferns became large ferns became giant ferns. Small animals became large animals became giant animals. And the Omegas changed also.”

  “Wait, what do you mean it all grew?” Kinsey asked.

  “It grew,” Dr. Logan said. “The jungle you see out there was small scale at first, mixed in with the natural habitat. Small like it was designed to be. Then it grew and overtook everything. The biospheres we had been trying to create were let loose. They were no longer in Omega’s controlled labs, but out in the wild. Everything. Animals, plants, insects, everything. From a dozen different ages and epochs. All intertwined. And the Omegas were just as intertwined. We watched them become more and more primal, their features devolving until all traces of humanity were lost. External microphones picked up how even their speech changed to something more like early man. Few words, short syntax. It was terrifying.”

  “Because you were waiting for it to happen to you,” Kinsey stated.

  Dr. Logan started at the insight then nodded. “Yes, we were. The paranoia began to take hold of everyone. Even me. With every sneeze, every twitch, every groan, we all thought the same changes would happen to us. We were safe in Alpha, but we didn’t know it.”

  “Somebody cracked and opened the doors, right?” Kinsey asked.

  “Yes. That is precisely what happened,” Dr. Logan said quietly. “I woke one morning to screaming. The facility was chaos. Blood was everywhere. I have no idea how I got out, but I did. I ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.”

  He waved his hands around.

  “I found this cave,” Dr. Logan said. “Over the next week, I also found some of my staff. I brought them here and we set up base. Food, water, basic survival were all we could think about, but once we knew we weren’t going to starve, that’s when I decided we needed to go on the offensive. Alpha was gone, locked back up tight. But Omega was a whole other thing.”

  Realization dawned on Kinsey’s face. “You blew up Omega.”

  “Yes, but only once I realized what that facility was doing,” Dr. Logan said.

  “How do you mean? What was it doing?” Kinsey asked.

  “It was making everything grow,” Dr. Logan said. “The matrix facilitator had created the energy wave and it was still creating them, just on a sub-particle scale that couldn’t be observed directly. I wanted to shut it down, but it was too far past that point. So I blew it up.�
��

  “Did that make things better?” Kinsey asked.

  Dr. Logan looked down at the ground. “No. No, it didn’t.”

  ***

  The Zodiac hit the beach hard. Max, Darby, and Mike rolled out onto the sand, each taking a kneeling stance, very large rifles to their shoulders. They waited a few seconds, their goggled eyes scanning the beach, the tree line, the darkness beyond. When nothing came for them, and they were sure they were alone, they stood up and moved towards what was left of the FOB they had created.

  It was shredded. Everything destroyed. And defiled.

  “Something shit and pissed on all this,” Mike said. “Jesus. That stinks.”

  “Claws,” Darby said. “Look at the tracks. The animals had very large claws.”

  “Maybe the sand just makes it look like they have very large claws,” Max said, a hopeful look on his face. Darby shook her head at him and he shrugged. “I would like to believe that the sand makes it look like they have very large claws.”

  “You do that,” Mike said.

  Max sighed and muttered, “Damned fucking large claws…”

  “Objective is to find any trace of the rest of Grendel,” Darby stated. She nodded at her rifle. “Are you two both clear on how these work?”

  “Plasma is default,” Mike said. “Should punch a five-inch hole in anything a blast hits. We can switch to stun with this switch and to self-destruct with this switch.”

  “Max, what is self-destruct for?” Darby asked.

  “For last resorts only and shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary,” Max replied.

  “What’s it not for?” Darby asked.

  “It’s not for blowing shit up just because it looks cool,” Max said. “Jesus, I make one joke and suddenly I’m on a training leash.”

  “One joke,” Mike laughed. “Right. Just the one.”

  “Why the hell didn’t they give these to us in the first place?” Max asked, ignoring Mike. “Would have been handy the first time we set foot on this beach.”

  “They weren’t perfected yet, according to Carlos,” Mike replied. “Ballantine had to be very persuasive to get Carlos to hand them over. I gotta say as crazy as Ballantine is, watching him be persuasive is like watching art happen.”