Chapter 2
Calm Waters
May 5th, 2048, 2:11 A.M.
-54.22 Lat, -52.91 Long
The Falkland Islands
The Ghost dipped in and out of the dark waters near the Falkland Islands just off the east coast of southern South America. The research vessel was following Durontus on his annual voyage from their home base in the north Atlantic to the wide-open Pacific via the infamous Cape Horn trade route.
Sitting in front of The Ghost’s automated steering controls, Captain Falk Hansen’s eyes were heavy with sleep from the lull of the ocean’s rhythm. He sipped at a neglected mug of coffee, but spat with distaste at its flavor and temperature. A thought occurred to Falk that he ought to make barista experience a necessity for the next round of G.W.G. interns.
The captain rose from his seat and stretched his limbs, creaking like a wooden house in a windstorm. In his forty-eight years he had put his body through many grinders: world traveler and historian, billionaire businessman and most recently, founder and chief officer of the Gargantua Watch Group. The first two were cake compared to the rigors of the G.W.G. Being the first job of its kind, how was he to know that monitoring, researching and defending a Class 1 Gargantua would prove to be the tireless and thankless task that it was?
But, he was never one for sleep and needed no one’s praise. The reason he endured the lack of schedule, endless paperwork and politics with the United Nations oversight committee was coasting at a steady 40 knots several miles off the port side of the ship.
Hansen strode out onto the deck and brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He smiled as he spied the moon’s rays glinting off a jagged set of scaled fins that sliced the water, which represented about five percent of the creature they belonged to. Below the surface lurked a creature of immense size and great power.
At five-hundred and fifty feet long and weighing approximately thirty tons, Durontus was the largest living creature on the planet, a title he claimed by destroying every other Gargantua that entered its domain thus far. When Hansen and the G.W.G. first established contact with Durontus, one of the first tests they conducted was to calculate the creature’s age through carbon dating samples of its scales, but the tests had all proven inconclusive, some results claiming Durontus to be hundreds of millions of years old.
Hansen wasn’t sure what he believed about the creature. Even after several years of near round-the-clock study, it seemed he and his team were always learning something new about Durontus’ traits and, if you believed his chief biologist Dr. Emma Perry, his “personality.” He would argue that habit is not the same as personality, but without a doubt the giant serpent seemed to have purpose in all of his action.
Still peering through the binoculars, Falk observed Durontus’ scales sinking below the surface, signaling it was diving to a lower depth, presumably to increase its speed. He didn’t ponder the action much until a gruff voice sounded over the vessel’s loud speaker.
“Falk, you better come see this,” said the voice of Dan Krieger. Hansen’s stomach went queasy for a moment. He already knew what Dan was going to say.
“We’ve got a potential Level 1 Alert happening right now.”
Falk rushed inside, cursing under his breath for not fitting the bill for a full-time barista himself.
Gfantis vs the Guest Monsters Page 8