Dirk reined in a smirk as he studied his screens. He tapped his radio. “Lab, this is Dr. Braddock. How’s the breakdown coming? Over.”
There was a moment of static before the reply came through. “The prenatals you sent down are being compared to known profiles. Results will be ready in twenty to thirty. Over.”
“Thanks, Jim. I’ll wait on you. Braddock out.”
Dirk changed frequencies and fired a transmission at Stacy, inside Colossus. “Dr. Daniels, I’m going to need your help closing.”
“Roger that,” Stacy said, perking up. She was situated in what was effectively the “head” of Colossus: a reinforced steel cube about the size of a powder room. Through the curved thermoplastic window that formed the upper half of the cab’s face, he watched her lean forward, her arms inserted in the neural interface ports that allowed her to control the world’s largest manipulators.
Mounted on its ten-foot thick, stainless steel shafts, the twenty-year old, two hundred-ton robotic lift system was an early brainchild of Amara Braddock’s robotics company. Originally designed for use in construction, the retired Colossus system had been overhauled and upgraded to handle captive pliosaurs inside Tartarus.
In truth, Dirk mused, the admittedly obsolete bionic arms were a godsend. Their regular hoists could do the job, to a point, but manipulating unconscious saurians that exceeded one hundred tons sometimes required a bit more muscle.
Colossus certainly lived up to its name.
With a loud, hydraulic hiss, the fifty-foot, stainless steel arms that gripped the sedated Gen-1 female around the neck and hip came to life. As he stood at the pool’s edge, sandwiched between a pair of hands that could each envelop a Mini-Cooper, Dirk wondered if this was how Fay Wray felt in “King Kong.”
Working the controls with impressive dexterity, Stacy shifted her grip on the huge reptile, holding it stable with one four-fingered hand and loosening its restraining straps with the other. This accomplished, she lifted the giant pliosaur up like it was a child, carefully manipulating its unconscious form until the behemoth ended up flat on its back.
Out of the corner of one eye, Dirk saw Garm tense and chuckled. His big brother – a tenuous title, as he was only seventeen minutes older – was inherently paranoid that he’d either get squashed by the manipulators or eaten by a prematurely revived specimen.
It hasn’t happened yet.
“Okay, she’s in position,” Stacy said, her voice emanating from her cab’s speakers. “Are you ready?”
Dirk nodded and accepted a five-foot, articulating surgical stapler from a nearby tech. He checked its magazine, pulled the activator handle back, and then hopped across the yard-wide space between the gurney and the pool edge. He moved nimbly around the immobile Kronosaurus, shifting the stapler to his dominant hand. He was glad they’d upgraded to the latest model. It was still no picnic, but its unwieldy predecessor had weighed as much as an Olympic weight bar.
Stepping carefully onto one of the pliosaur’s boat-sized flippers, Dirk did the Gulliver thing. Walking across its gigantic body, his knee-high latex boots made squeaking noises as their specially designed soles adhered to the reptile’s thick scales.
Dirk signaled to Stacy and then ducked, allowing one of her manipulators to pass directly overhead before it reached inside the creature’s incision. With surprising gentleness, she pulled the membranes of the pliosaur’s reproductive system back together, holding each layer firmly between stainless steel fingers as Dirk ran the surgical stapler smoothly along each cut, hearing each self-dissolving polymer staple shoot out and take hold.
Within ten minutes, the last suture was in place and the yawning opening in the pliosaur’s tough belly scales was sealed as tight as a drum.
Dirk climbed back down off the drugged behemoth and wiped the sweat from his brow before surveying his handiwork. The stitches looked good and the animal’s vitals were strong and steady. Between the medications they administered and the species’ inherent regenerative capabilities, it would recover in record time.
Puffing out a breath, Dirk crossed over to a nearby table and put the stapler down. He removed his stained mask, goggles, and elbow-length gloves, tossing them into a medical-waste bin, then put on fresh ones. He wiped his brow once more, then picked up a nearby tablet and hopped back onto the gurney.
“Okay, Dr. Daniels,” he radioed. “Let’s turn her dorsal-side up and continue with the evaluation.”
Stacy nodded and Dirk stepped back as the giant arms on either side of him bent at the elbows. Their industrial grade pneumatics kicked in, whining as Colossus hoisted the 137-ton pliosaur straight up and then flipped it back over. Replacing it gingerly on the floating gurney, Stacy used the manipulator’s fingers to reattach the restraining straps over its neck and mid-section – more a stability precaution than a security concern.
As Stacy’s shiny robotic arms pulled back, coming to rest on the platform directly behind him, Dirk skirted the sedated marine reptile.
“Okay, admiral, since this girl is going to be ‘hooking’ for you, let’s get down to business.” He tapped his recorder. “Finishing statistics: specimen, code-name Goliath, has a skull length of sixteen feet, ten inches. Mandibular beam peaks at seven-foot-six. The teeth are large and sharply ridged, with trihedral cross-sections.” He glanced down at his tablet and touched a key, then spoke into his chin mike. “Dr. Daniels, I’m bringing Fenris online.”
“Roger that,” came the reply.
Colossus’s arms lifted back up off the platform and extended forward, hovering overhead. Dirk signaled to a team of nearby medical techs. The three men approached what looked like an ornate, fourteen-foot thermometer with an enlarged, rubber-covered end, resting on a pad near the shelving units. A heavy-gauge electric cable attached to the narrow end of the unit was connected to a nearby generator. Two of them hoisted the heavy device and checked its settings, while the third guided its lengthy power cord to avoid entanglements. Inching carefully forward, the men moved toward the head of the Kronosaurus imperator.
“Fenris?” Callahan asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s our bite-gauge, admiral,” Dirk replied. He walked toward the techs, his fingertips tapping his tablet. “We like to calibrate the bite force of every specimen we bring in. I’m sure you’d like to know what kind of power this little lady is packing, yes?”
“Absolutely. How hard does Polyphemus bite?”
“Forty-seven tons per square inch. He can bite a car in two.”
“Wow. You know that off the top of your head?”
“Of course.”
Callahan leaned back in his chair, nodding his appreciation as Dirk reached the pliosaur’s snout and moved alongside its fanged jaws. He extracted a laser pointer from his lab coat and began to direct it over the drugged marine reptile’s skull.
“A quick lesson in pliosaur anatomy, admiral,” he began. “Notice the large bulges on the top of the skull; these are the animal’s adductor muscles. They’re responsible for closing its jaws.”
Callahan nodded.
Dirk continued. “All pliosaurs have enlarged supratemporal fenestrae to anchor these immense muscles and produce a powerful bite.” He swept the red dot down the animal’s muzzle. “When you combine the triangular-shaped head, the deeply-rooted, sharply ridged teeth, and a deep mandibular symphysis, you’re basically looking at history’s most lethal bite.”
Dirk focused his pointer on the Kronosaurus’s ivory fangs. “Unlike its smaller relative, Kronosaurus queenslandicus, which had rounded teeth and was forced to twist feed like a croc in order to tear chunks from large prey items, an Imperator’s jaws are like giant shears. If something’s too big to swallow whole, they just bite it into manageable portions.”
One of the techs holding the big bite gauge signaled Dirk. “Fenris is prepped, Dr. Braddock.”
“Thanks.” He touched his chin mike. “Dr. Daniels, are you ready?”
Stacy’s response was a hum of giant actua
tors as she directed her bionic arms toward the pliosaur’s head. Accompanied by a clicking sound, a nub-like electrode protruded from the tip of each of Colossus’s index fingers. With amazing precision, Stacy maneuvered the hands around to the back of the animal’s skull and pressed her fingers against its rear jaws, one electrode on either side.
“In position,” Stacy radioed.
“Okay, shock her,” Dirk said.
There was a loud buzz as a powerful jolt of electricity shot through the sedated Kronosaurus. The results were instantaneous. With eerie silence, the creature’s seventeen-foot jaws began to open, stretching until a buffalo could have fit inside. The white insides of its mouth became visible and thin strands of gooey saliva hung from its sharp-edged fangs. Dirk suppressed the urge to gag as its foul breath hit him – a delightful combination of rotting meat and the hordes of bacteria that fed on it.
“Okay, hold her,” Dirk said, breathing through his mouth. He signaled the tech team. “Insert force transducer.”
There was a collective inhalation from everyone in attendance as the rectangular, rubber-coated end of the gauge was inserted into the pliosaur’s jaws, toward the rear of its mouth. Dirk checked his tablet, confirming the positioning. He watched the gauges on his screen, waiting for a confirmation of system readiness.
“Hold her there . . . hold her . . .” he held up a gloved hand, waiting. “And . . . now!”
As Dirk’s hand swung down, Stacy dug her electrodes in deeper and increased the voltage. The pliosaur’s jaws slammed shut, sending an impact tremor through the concrete floor that could be felt forty yards away.
Dirk’s eyes lit up as he caught the readings. “Okay, got it. Cut it!” he yelled.
Stacy pulled back, causing the marine reptile’s jaws to spring back open, just enough that the nervous techs could extract the crushed end of the bite gauge. They backed carefully away and carried the device back to its station.
“Fenris figures coming up,” Dirk said. He touched a tab and sent the information to the monitor directly above the healing pool. “Bite force is approximately seventy-six tons, admiral.”
“Holy shit!” Callahan sputtered. “Is that a record?”
Dirk shook his head. “No, but it’s strong enough to crush a pickup truck or bite the head off a sperm whale.”
“Hey, now there’s an idea . . .”
Dirk shook his head and moved back to his previous station. Above him, Stacy guided Colossus back to a resting position.
He cleared his throat and resumed dictating. “Continuing examination . . . Besides evidence of feeding and competition-related injuries, there are scars running along the specimen’s dorsal region indicative of old puncture wounds. Scars are numerous – I count nine – and run in a jagged, strafe-like pattern. Date of injury is impossible to ascertain, estimate eight to ten years. Scar gradation indicates specimen dove on impact. Positioning and size of impacts suggests automatic weapons fire, most likely armor-piercing rounds of .50 caliber or higher.” Dirk glanced over at Callahan. “Looks like your boys missed one, admiral.”
“Humph.” The admiral got up from his chair and stood on tiptoe as he scrutinized the strafe pattern. “Looks like it’s from one of the old Apaches. Wait until you see the new Bladehawks we’ve got coming off the line. They’re beyond deadly. Counter-rotating rotors, fast, whisper quiet and armed to the teeth. If radar can’t pick ‘em up, no pliosaur will, either!”
Dirk sighed. “Continuing analysis . . . There are large, recently-healed bite marks on the nape region of the specimen. Assume copulation and post-copulation damage.”
Callahan cleared his throat. “Jesus, they bite even when they fuck?”
Dirk shook his head and prayed for strength. “As you know, bull pliosaurs tend to be smaller than their mates. Therefore, in an attempt to exert dominance during mating, the male immobilizes the female by biting the back of her neck, like a tomcat. You can see how much thicker the scales are in that region to compensate for this ‘affection.’”
“That’s one hell of a love-bite.”
“The female gets even.” Dirk pointed to the unconscious cow’s snout and continued his analysis. “Specimen exhibits evidence of numerous, recently-healed abrasions on the muzzle, in particular on and around the gum line.” He glanced at Callahan. “In what is considered to be unique reptilian behavior, the male sometimes remains near the female, post-copulation. Post-mating behavior by bulls varies, but has been known to include driving other males from the area, as well as making kills and surrendering them to the impregnated cow. Behavior typically continues until the female lays her initial clutch of eggs.”
“Initial?”
“Initial . . . as in first.”
Callahan rubbed his chin. “And the scratches on her nose?”
“Sometimes, males get brazen or try to claim a share of a kill before the cow has had her fill. They end up getting driven off by the female.”
“The price of love.”
Dirk held his tablet at arm’s length and tapped the screen. A moment later, a blue laser emanated from its underside and began sweeping up and down the Kronosaurus cow’s neck. “Scanning nape region now.” His eyes bulged as he checked his readings. “Assuming standard gape formulas apply, and presuming the absence of any pathologies, the male that inflicted these injuries was substantially larger than the female . . .” Dirk paused his recording and clicked his radio. “Jim, where the hell is that fetal report?”
There was a few seconds of delay before the lab tech responded. “Boy, you’re impatient today. Coming through now. You might want to sit down for this.”
Dirk swore under his breath as he skimmed the data. “Well, it’s confirmed. Test results of fetal amniotic fluids indicate hatchling’s DNA scans are inconsistent with any of our plotted profiles.”
Callahan shifted in his seat. “English would be nice, doc.”
Dirk faked a smile. “Popular opinion is that all pliosaurs are descended from the original adult female that attacked Paradise Cove, thirty years ago. That she laid at least one clutch of eggs before she was--”
“One clutch? Wait, they can lay more than one?”
“Absolutely. Once impregnated, cows have the ability to store the bull’s sperm and produce multiple clutches over a 6-9 month period, like sea turtles. Clutches typically range from 60-100 eggs, with 80 being the average.”
“Fuck . . . Well, that explains how--”
Dirk folded his arms irritably. “How eighty hatchlings were able to multiply into millions of ravenous monsters that ran unchecked and unchallenged, until they tipped the ecological balance of all the world’s oceans and decimated marine life on a global scale?”
“Doc, if you’re insinuating that--”
“An 80% survival rate back in the beginning didn’t hurt them any, that’s for sure,” Dirk announced. “My mother was right. With most of our apex predators – sharks, whales, billfish, and giant tuna – practically wiped out, our depleted oceans were defenseless. At five feet, even a newborn Kronosaurus imperator has few natural enemies. Once they reach eighteen feet or more – a yearling, in case you didn’t know – they’re virtually untouchable.”
“Thanks for the history lesson, doc. But I think we’ve managed to put a dent in their numbers. And when I say ‘we,’ that includes you and your research.”
“Yes, ‘we’ have. And expanding populations of the predators they shared the caldera with has slowed them as well.” Dirk looked down, clearing his tablet with a quick swipe. “Back to the DNA profiles . . . To date, almost every pliosaur we’ve studied has been descended from that original clutch.”
Callahan scoffed. “So they’re guilty of in-breeding. Big deal.”
“Reptiles aren’t mammals, general,” Dirk said. “At any rate, that all changed a few years back. We started finding specimens, usually Gen-3s or younger, that had additional DNA mixed in, but never a Gen-1. The specimen you see here is no exception. Her DNA matches our original profi
les. Her offspring, on the other hand . . .”
“What about her offspring?”
Dirk’s eyes sought and found Garm’s. “The clutch she carried was fertilized by an animal we have listed as an anomaly. His code name is Typhon and we’ve been tracking him for years. His genetic profiles are outside anything we’ve mapped. He’s our mysterious sperm donor.”
Callahan snorted annoyingly. “Are you telling me you’ve got a rogue Kronosaurus imperator running around out there that was around before the original animal was killed? Its mate or some such thing?”
Dirk’s brow tightened. “Its mate . . . I don’t think so. In fact, no. Definitely not.” He checked his data again. “This creature is older. We suspect he’s been around for a long time.”
“How long?”
A shrill beeping sound from the overhead monitor yanked Dirk’s attention from the conversation. “What the hell?” He adjusted the settings via his tablet as Stacy’s voice emanated from his radio.
“What’ve you got?” she asked.
“Something’s not right,” Dirk advised. He adjusted the system, gradually increasing the volume while filtering out background noise. The pliosaur’s heartbeat grew steadily louder as it was funneled through the monitor’s speakers – a slow, methodical bass-drum beat, typical of a dormant reptile. As he made a few more adjustments, a second sound became audible; it wasn’t as loud, but it was synchronized to the sedated saurian’s pulse.
It was another heartbeat.
“What is that, an echo?” Callahan asked.
Dirk shook his head. His head inclined toward the monitor and he eyed the rapidly-updating sonogram.
“Do you think they missed one of the eggs?” Stacy radioed. She was on her feet inside Colossus’s booth, her nose pressed against its protective Celazole barrier.
“No.” Dirk’s jaw muscles bunched up as he started to grind his molars. “It’s something else . . .” He swiped his fingers down his tablet screen in swift, repetitive strokes. Above him, the sonogram began to do high density cutaways, stripping away layer after layer of the pliosaur’s body, like slices from an MRI.
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