by Alten-Steve
"Forget it, I'm going!"
"No, my friend. As you say, this is different. D.J.'s death must not be a meaningless one. The Tanaka clan will finish this business ourselves."
"Give me five minutes to get dressed." Jonas ran into the bedroom. The television was still on, channel 9 Action News. They were showing the underwater footage, Maggie's footage, taken from the cylinder.
"...amazing footage taken just before she died in the creature's jaws. Maggie Taylor gave her life to her profession, leaving these incredible scenes as her lasting legacy. A public service was held yesterday, and Channel 9 will be presenting a two-hour special tonight at eight honoring Ms. Taylor.
"In a related story, a federal judge ruled today that the Megalodon has been officially listed as a protected species of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary. We bring you live to the steps of the Federal Court Building."
Jonas sat on the edge of the bed and turned up the volume.
"...hope to speak with him. Here he comes... Mr. Dupont, Mr. Dupont, were you surprised today how quickly the judge ruled in favor of protecting the Megalodon, especially in light of the recent attacks?"
André Dupont of the Cousteau Society stood next to his attorney, several microphones pressed to his face.
"No, we weren't surprised. The Monterey Sanctuary is a federally protected marine park designed to protect all species, from the smallest otter to the largest whale. There are other marine predators in the park, orcas, great whites. Each year, we see isolated attacks by great white sharks on divers or surfers, but these are isolated attacks only. Studies have shown that the great white sometimes mistakes a surfer for a seal. Humans are not the staple of the great white's diet, and we certainly are not the preferred food of the sixty-foot Megalodon. Of greater importance will be our effort to immediately place Carcharodon megalodon on the Endangered Species list, so it is protected in international waters as well."
"Mr. Dupont, what is the Cousteau Society's opinion of the Tanaka Insitute's plan to capture the Megalodon?"
"The Cousteau Society believes that all creatures have a right to survive and thrive in their natural habitat. However, we are dealing with a species that was never intended to interact with man. The Tanaka Lagoon is certainly large enough to accommodate a creature of this size, so we agree that it would be in the best interest of all parties to have the Megalodon captured."
The Channel 9 anchor reappeared.
"We had our field reporter, David Adashek, conduct an unofficial street poll to see what the public's opinion is. David?"
"Field reporter?" Jonas stood up, feeling the blood drain from his face. "This guy works for Maggie's network? Jesus, Maggie..."
"...opinions seem to favor capturing the monster that destroyed the lives of so many gallant people, including my close friend Maggie Taylor. Personally, I feel the creature is a menace, and I've spoken to several biologists who believe that the monster has acquired a taste for humans. This means that we can expect more gruesome deaths, especially in light of today's federal court ruling. This is David Adashek reporting, Channel 9 News."
Jonas hit the power button on the remote, turning off the set. He sat motionless on the edge of the bed, trying to piece together everything he had just learned.
God, Maggie, he thought, what did I do to ever make you so bitter, so unhappy. But Jonas knew in his heart: the long hours, the traveling, the long nights alone in his study, writing his books. Tears rolled down his cheeks. "I really am sorry, Maggie, so sorry." At that moment, Jonas felt more love for his wife than he had over the last two years.
The noise of the car horn forced him to move. He washed the tears from his face, then grabbed his duffel bag and shoved a few days' worth of clothing inside. He pulled out his workout bag, already loaded with his wet suit. Jonas looked inside, verifying that his good-luck charm was packed. He took a moment to examine the blackened seven-inch fossil, as wide and as large as the palm of his hand. He felt its sharp serrated edges as he ran the tooth across his fingers.
"Fifteen million years old, and still sharp as any knife." He replaced the tooth in its leather pouch, dropped it in the gym bag, and slung the two carry-ons over his shoulder.
He looked in the mirror. "Okay, Dr. Taylor. Mourning's over. Time to get on with your life."
When he walked out the front door, Masao Tanaka was waiting.
WHALE WATCHERS
For two long days and nights, the Kiku, her helicopter, and three Coast Guard cutters cruised Monterey Bay Sanctuary, attempting to locate the homing signal of the transmitter. The device implanted in the hide of the Megalodon possessed a range of up to three miles, gaining strength as the receiver got close. But after combing four hundred miles of coastal ocean, no signal could be detected.
Hundreds of whales continued migrating south through the sanctuary without any noticeable changes of direction among the pods. On the third day, the Coast Guard gave up the search, theorizing that either the Megalodon had left the California coast or the transmitter had malfunctioned.
Two more days passed, and even the crew of the Kiku began to lose hope.
* * * * *
Rich and Naomi Morton were celebrating their tenth anniversary in San Francisco, glad to momentarily escape the cold weather of Pittsburgh and their three children. They had never actually seen a real whale, so the idea of spending the day whale watching seemed exciting. Dressed in a yellow slicker, loaded with camcorder, binoculars, and his trusty 35 mm, Rick followed his wife on board Captain Jack's Whale Watcher, a forty-two-foot sightseeing boat docked at the Monterey Bay wharf. The couple found an empty spot along the stern, then waited impatiently for the twenty-seven other passengers to take their seats among the wooden benches.
The presence of the Megalodon had initially hurt business among Monterey's whale-watching tours. But the tourists gradually began returning, mostly because the predator had not been seen in almost a week, and surfaced only at night. For their part, tour-boat owners unanimously chose to cancel all sunset excursions rather than risk a confrontation with the Meg.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced a beautiful redhead decked out in a white sailor outfit, "Welcome on board Captain Jack's Whale Watcher. You folks are in for a real treat today. The humpbacks have been putting on a great show all morning for us, so get your camcorders ready!"
The boat chugged ahead, a film of blue exhaust choking those passengers seated in the stern.
A male voice boomed over the PA system. "Folks, this is really exicting! On our left is an unusually large pod of orcas." Everyone shifted toward the port side of the boat, cameras poised. "The orcas, also know as killer whales, are extremely intelligent hunters, able to kill whales many times larger than themselves. It looks like we're catching these orcas in the middle of a hunt."
Rick focused his binoculars on the pack of towering black dorsal fins moving parallel with the boat, now less than two hundred yards away. There were at least thirty orcas, ten of which were converging on a smaller object, the rest racing along the perimeter for their turn at the prey. Rick watched, fascinated by the battle tactics. And then he saw the shark, totally white, its three-foot dorsal fin half bitten off as the wolf pack tore at its hide.
* * * * *
The male megalodon pup raced along the surface, prevented from submerging by the attackers below. A pod of six orcas had initially tracked the male as it hunted along the Farallon Islands. Since then, the six had been joined by two larger groups. The mammals' motivation was simple: the Megalodon pup could not be permitted to live.
With frightening speed and power, the orca males launched themselves upon the pup, the sharp teeth of the attackers tearing mouthfuls of flesh out of the smaller Meg. The pup retaliated with its own bite, catching one orca along its pectoral fin, tearing the fin in half. And then the battle ended as twelve orca males, each well over twenty-five feet, converged as one upon the pup, ripping apart its carcass, prematurely ending the reign of the future king of the sea.
; * * * * *
Bud Harris gathered his belongings and stuffed them into a brown paper bag provided by the orderly. Unshaven, badly in need of a shower, the once-proud entrepreneur had been reduced to a feeble shell of his former self. Deeply depressed after having witnessed his lover's death, Bud was also suffering from exhaustion brought on by a lack of REM sleep. Memories of his awful experience were now manifesting themselves in his subconscious mind in the form of night terrors. More frightening than the worst nightmare, the night terrors were violent surreal dreams of death. For the last five nights, Bud had let out bloodcurdling cries that rocked the west wing of the hospital's fourth floor. Even after the frantic nursed had managed to wake him, he would still be screaming, blindly flinging his fists into the air. After the second episode, the orderlies had to strap his wrists and ankles to the bed while he slept.
Bud Harris no longer cared whether he lived or died. He felt alone and in pain, uninterested in eating and afraid to sleep. Extremely worried, his doctors brought in a psychiatrist, who decided that a change in environment might do the patient some good. And so it was decided that Bud would be discharged.
The nurse arrived to escort her patient out of the hospital with the traditional wheelchair ride. "Mr. Harris, is anyone meeting you downstairs?" she asked.
"No."
"Well, sir, I'm really not supposed to discharge you unless someone is here to meet you."
"We're here to meet Mr. Harris." The elderly man strode into the room, followed by his younger counterpart. "Mr. Harris, it's a privilege to meet you, sir. My name is Dr. Frank Heller, and this is my associate, retired naval captain Richard Danielson." Heller held out his hand.
Bud ignored it. He looked up at the nurse. "I don't know who these guys are, and to tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass. Get me the hell outta here." The nurse began wheeling Bud out, with Danielson and Heller in pursuit.
"Wait, Mr. Harris, we're here to discuss some important business." Heller walked ahead of the wheelchair, stopping it head-on. "Hold on a second, Mr. Harris. I understand that your friend Maggie Taylor was killed by the Megalodon. My brother Dennis was butchered by the same monster."
Bud looked up. "I'm sorry for your loss, but right now, I'm kind of fucked up myself, so if you'll excuse me..."
"Hey," said Danielson, "this thing has killed a lot of people, and we need your help to kill it. Now, it was our feeling that maybe you'd want to be involved in a little payback." Danielson looked at Heller. "Maybe we were wrong."
The thought of killing the Megalodon seemed to set off a spark in Bud. He focused his eyes on Danielson for the first time. "Listen, pal, that monster ruined my life. It took the only person I ever cared for, tortured her right in front of my eyes. If you're serious about killing this thing, then I'm in."
"Good," said Heller. "Listen, we're going to need your boat."
Bud shook his head. "That's how I got into this fucking mess in the first place."
* * * * *
The male humpback leapt out of the water, twisting its 82,000-pound torso in midair, then slammed its back upon the surface of the blue Pacific with a thundering splash. Two hundred yards away, the whale watchers clapped with enthusiastic approval.
"Wow! Rick, did you get that one on tape?" asked Naomi.
"Got it."
"Get some more still shots, okay?"
"Naomi, I've got two full rolls already. Give me a break."
For several minutes, no other whales appeared. And then the sea began swirling, the swells lifting the boat, slapping it up and down.
"Something's coming up," announced the tour guide. "Get your camera's ready!" Twenty camcorders rose in unison.
The mammal surfaced, flopped onto its stomach, and lay motionless in the water. Silence. Nothing moved, the whale still floating. And then the torso rolled, revealing a twelve-foot bloody gash along its stomach.
The whale watchers gasped as one.
"Is it dead?"
"What killed it?"
"Is that a bite mark?"
Something was rising from beneath the humpback. The carcass lifted several feet and then the entire forty-one-ton mammal disappeared, dragged underwater.
Screams rose from the whale watchers.
The carcass resurfaced. Blood gushed from another crater-sized wound along the dorsal side of the dead humpback. The sea turned crimson red.
The captain of the whale-watching boat panicked. As he revved his engines and swung around hard, the momentum knocked half of his passengers out of their seats. The tourists screamed, unsure of what was happening.
Fifty feet below, the predator felt the sudden vibrations.
* * * * *
The Kiku was anchored eight miles due west of the Tanaka Institute. Most of her crew were still asleep from the previous night's patrol. Terry Tanaka, clad only in a white string bikini, lay on a lounge chair on the upper deck facing the sun. The suntan oil glistened off her dark skin. Jonas sat in the shade, attempting to read his newspaper, his eyes constantly returning to the woman.
"Aren't you cold, Terry?"
She smiled. "It's warm in the sun. You should try it. You'd look good with a tan."
"When this is all over, I'll take a vacation, get away somewhere. Maybe a tropical island." Jonas smiled at the thought. "Want to come?"
"Terry sat up. "Yeah, okay."
Jonas could see the girl was serious. His tone changed. "You'd want to come?"
Terry sat up. Pulling off her sun glasses, she looked Jonas square in the eyes. "Try me, Jonas. You won't be disappointed."
"Jonas Taylor, report to the CIC immediately." The metallic announcement boomed over the ship.
Jonas stood up, unsure of what to say to Terry.
"Hey, wait for me," she said, pulling on a sweat suit over the bikini. They headed down the stairwell. "So, where are we going to stay in Hawaii," Jonas heard Terry call out over her shoulder.
DeMarco was waiting for him in the pilothouse. "Jonas," he said, "we just picked up a distress call from a whale-watching boat not far from here. Looks like the Meg's back!"
"In broad daylight? How?" The answer popped into the paleontologist's head almost as quickly as he asked the question. "Wait a minute... she's blind! It doesn't matter anymore. Damn, how could I have been so stupid."
"The monster's blind?" asked Terry.
"Yes and no, Terry. Her eyesight may be—"
"Jonas, Masao needs you right away in the CIC," commanded DeMarco.
Jonas and Terry followed the engineer into the dark information center as the Kiku weighed anchor, her twin screws churning water.
Masao was standing over his sonar man, watching the fluorescent green screen intently. "Where is she?" Masao asked Pasquale for the fourth time in the last fifteen minutes.
"Sir, I'm sorry, we're still not within range of the transmitter."
"How much farther?"
The sonar man pinched the bridge of his nose, calming himself. "We're still approximately twelve miles southeast of the distress call. Like I said earlier, sir, the signal only has a three mile range. But I've increased our tow array to five thousand feet."
"Jonas!" Masao's exhaustion over the last few weeks was showing. "Jonas, what's happening here? You said this monster only surfaces at night."
"Masao, it's my fault. I didn't take into account that the Megalodon may have been totally blinded. I knew Mac's spotlight had damaged one eye. I didn't realize that I may have blinded her in her other eye during the night of the storm."
"So the monster's blind. That's good," said Masao, smiling. "Isn't it?"
"Not really," said Jonas. "If the Meg really has surfaced, it means she's not only blind but has overcome her fear of ultraviolet light. But a Megalodon losing its sight is a lot different than you or me going blind. You have to realize this creature possesses seven other sensory organs that are extraordinarily efficient. She can hear low frequencies, especially splashing noises, at a distance of at least several miles. She can
smell one drop of blood, sweat, or urine in a hundred million parts of water fifty miles away from the source. Her nostrils are directional, meaning the Meg will head in the direction of the nostril receiving the strongest olfactory impulse. Her lateral line and ampullae of Lorenzini can detect electronic impulses and vibrations. She can home in on a signal better than our most advanced torpedo. And she has acute senses of touch and taste as well. Considering the fact that this female spent most of her life in complete darkness, losing her eyesight is probably a minor inconvenience at best.
"In other words," said Jonas, "we're still dealing with the most formidable predator ever designed by nature, and she's no longer limited to surfacing at night."
"I'd say things just got worse."
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
"Sir, I've got a visual on sonar," announced Pasquale excitedly. Jonas, DeMarco, and Masao converged on the sonar man. "She's this line right here, very faint. Wait, I can hear her now." He cupped the earpiece with his hand. "Yes, louder now... there it is, on my other console." He pointed to another computer screen. The red blip appeared as the fluorescent green wave band circled counterclockwise across the monitor.
"Where's she headed, Pasquale?" Captain Barre stood over the screen, watching.
"Looks like she's moving away from us, about two miles due east," responded the sonar man.
"Good job, stay on her." Barre slapped the man on his back. "Helm, change course five degrees to starboard, slow to ten knots. Where's your flyboy, Dr. Taylor?"
"I'm here." Mac came stumbling in, still half asleep.
"Mac, we've located the Megalodon. Are you ready to go?" asked Jonas.
Mac rubbed his eyes. "Sure, Doc, just give me thirty seconds to pour some coffee into my eyes."