That somehow he was “afraid to pull the trigger” or make a decision. Quite the opposite was true. Once he had all the information he needed he was quite adept at “pulling the trigger.”
He just didn’t like to shoot blanks. If he shot, he wanted it to count.
Tonaka could see though why Callum was sweating. The metal all around them was creaking and groaning quite loudly. It felt like they were in a soda pop can being crushed by a bodybuilder. But with only three struts they had to act judiciously.
“If we place one incorrectly, the pressure could buckle the strut itself and then where would we be?” Tonaka asked.
“Fine, fine,” Callum responded. “What can I do?”
“Stay very still and be quiet,” Tonaka suggested.
Callum frowned but didn’t verbally respond.
Tonaka ran his hand along the wall, feeling the vibration of the stress being relayed down the braided cables. The hurricane, even though diluted, was still quite the force.
A loud clang preceded the warping of the far wall.
“Robots!” Tonaka barked. “Heel to heel! Hold the walls.”
The robots instantly did as asked. Bracing off each other, they put their palms to the walls, preventing an imminent collapse.
That had been close. Why did no one think of these worst-case scenarios while building? So much easier to install a few beams during construction then have your million dollar titanium robots holding the wall for you during a terminal collapse.
“Do you still wish to do something?” Tonaka asked Callum.
“Like a wombat wants to dig in your garden,” the Aussie answered.
“Then move that strut and place it right beside this robot.” Tonaka patted the closest robot on the shoulder.
* * *
Callum struggled to move the strut. The way these robots were tossing them around you would have thought they were two by fours. Instead they weighed hundreds of kilos each and he only had one hand to work with.
He had to “walk” the strut over to the place Tonaka indicated.
“You are going to lay it in place and the QX is going to secure it.”
Callum could only nod. He was a second away from grunting like a pig as he finally got the metal strut to the wall. He simply lay it against the metal.
The QX, still one hand holding up the wall, used his other hand to pull the strut into the proper position and pushed it into place.
Kind of made Callum feel like the one armed cripple that he was.
“That will do QX,” Tonaka told the robot who pivoted all the way around on his ankle joints and held up the wall as his companion placed the third strut.
There was a bit more moaning of the metal, but the patch held.
“Are we good, doc?” Callum asked.
“With another half dozen struts we would be good. However, for the moment I don’t believe this structure will collapse.”
“So the island is safe?” Callum was hoping to get some confirmation.
Tonaka’s eyebrow went up. “I definitively would not say that,” he answered, “But its demise does not seem to be at the hands of this structure.”
“You know what?” Callum said. “With the day I’ve had, I’ll take that as a win.”
Tonaka actually smiled. That was a rarity. “Let’s get topside. We can only assume another five emergencies have cropped up since we left the control room.”
“Probably accurate,” Tonaka said.
Okay, Callum was really hoping that Tonaka would argue on that one. Callum honestly couldn’t think of anything else that could go wrong that didn’t mean they were all dead.
How much more could the island take? A single cable failure could spell the end to everyone. The hurricane kicking back up to a category two could probably do it as well. Another breach of a secondary electrical sub-station could spell doom as well. Plus probably another half dozen “minor” failures. They didn’t even have to have another “critical failures.”
They were surviving on the razor’s edge. If they tipped even the slightest way either way, they were done.
And that just wasn’t acceptable.
CHAPTER 21
Nami made a right at the junction, then a quick left. Her Vans squeaking on the metal grating. She’d been able to stay to the inner corridors the whole time. So far so good.
She came around the last turn to find the tunnel clogged with scared guests.
“Nami?” Dillon asked. “What in the heck are you doing here?”
“You’re going the wrong way, “Nami panted. It had been a long haul over here and she’d run the whole way.
“No,” Dillon said with a shake of his head. “We just need to cross three tubes and we’ll be on the leeward side of the island.
“But you’ll have to cross flooded tunnels that way.”
“There’s no way to avoid it, though,” Dillon stated.
“It used to be,” Nami corrected. “We’ve been able to bilge pump several tubes. If you follow me we can make it back to the control panel without having to swim.”
Dillon’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Why do you think I ran all the way over her and got a blotchy face, silly,” Nami said with a laugh, then had to cough. She really just needed to focus on her breathing.
“But what are you doing here?” Dillon asked.
“Look, let’s not examine my new found bravery, okay? Let’s just roll with it and hope it lasts all the way back to the control room.”
“You got it,” Dillon responded. “All right, everyone, let’s get moving,” Dillon looked to her. “I assume you cleared tube AA fourteen?”
Nami smiled. She’d guessed right. “Yes, then FH47,”
“And IP99?” Dillon finished for her. “The quickest route back. You really were paying attention.”
Oh, she’d been paying attention all right, but not just to the tubes. She tried to stop herself from blushing as she turned away. “Let’s just get back.”
They were about to move off, when one of the guests shouted. “Over there!”
He was pointing through an open door, out through the water to the room on the other side of the pool. This channel was a narrow one.
A small child, a toddler perhaps was banging on the glass. You couldn’t hear him but his bright red face, streaming tears and wide-open mouth suggested he was screaming.
Of course he was attracting the attention of every shark in the enclosure, which at this point were quite a few.
“What the --” Dillon said, stopping himself before he cursed.
“Did his parents leave him in the room by himself?” Nami asked incredulous. “They couldn’t have, could they?”
“People are so freaking stupid sometimes,” Dillon hissed. “Yes, they probably put him down for a nap then went off to lunch or something.”
Okay, it wasn’t cool to ever leave a toddler unattended, but in a shark park? You had to be just terminally stupid to do that.
“How did he get left behind?” Nami asked.
Dillon frowned. “The motion sensors are located at four feet high. The room doesn’t think that it’s occupied. Some parents.”
“No matter, we’ve got to get him,” Nami stated.
“No kidding,” Dillon said pinching his lips together. He looked just like his dad when he did that. “But how?”
“Are we leaving or what?” a guest asked.
Dillon urged Nami forward. “You guys get back to the control room. I’ll get the kid.”
“No way,” Nami said planting her feet. “Quax, take the guests to the amphitheater.”
* * *
Who was this girl standing next to him?
“Nami, you’ve got to go back,” Dillon insisted.
“Look, I’m not being all that brave. You can’t possibly hope to rescue that boy without help and let’s face it, out of that sorry lot, I’m your best hope.”
She wasn’t wrong there. Bless Quax, but he wasn’t about to voluntee
r and the rest of the guests were spooked. But this was Nami-Miss Shark-phobic herself.
“Are you sure?” he asked still skeptical of her answer.
“No, not at all, but I’m riding one hell of an adrenaline wave and feeling kind of invincible so I suggest we use it while I’ve got it. I could crash and burn at any moment… No, seriously.”
Dillon smiled. “Alright, alright. Any bright ideas how to not only get to him but get out without being an appetizer for the big boys?”
Nami hissed in a breath through her teeth. “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this but…”
“What?” Dillon asked.
Nami nodded to the flooded tunnel where a Leopard shark currently prowled. “There is a space between the rounded bottom of the tube and the underside of the metal flooring.”
She was right. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? “We could swim under the floor!”
“I’m just not sure if I can hold my breath that long,” Nami admitted.
“You won’t have to,” Dillon said, pointing at rounded cylinders at each junction of the flooring. “Those are bolt protectors, but they should have trapped air inside of them. We should be able to take a breath every few feet.
* * *
Nami was actually kind of hoping that Dillon would nix her idea. Getting in that tube and swimming with the sharks, albeit under the sharks made her stomach do some Cirque du Soleil style flips.
Yet each time she looked over to the bawling toddler, she knew she had to do this. She wasn’t going to run. Not again. Not if she could help it.
“You ready for this?” Dillon asked.
“Of course not,” Nami said and waved him on. “But if we wait for me to be ready, it will be the new school year again so let’s get going.”
Dillon led the way. They stood outside the locked glass door that led to the flooded tube. Dillon pried off a corner of a floor grate. Only a single steel panel stood between them and her harebrained plan.
“Last chance to head back with Quax.”
“Will you just get on with it?” Nami scolded even though it was kind of cute his concern for her welfare.
“Once we’re in, I’ll have to snap the plate back in place.”
Nami nodded. She got it. This was a one way ticket.
Dillon grabbed a wrench out of his pocket and removed the metal panel. Water flooded the hallway as Dillon indicated for Nami to climb in. She stood there for a moment wondering how in the heck she’d gotten in this situation. She suppressed an urge to run screaming. She’d tried that once and it hadn’t turned out so well.
Gulping a mouthful of air, she knelt down and pushed off into the small space between the metal grating and tube. It was a tight fit. Dillon had an even harder time squeezing in. he closed the grate as she pressed her feet against the metal grating and shoved herself forward.
The water was cool and if you knew there hadn’t been a shark swimming above her, it might have felt soothing. However there was a shark swimming above her. It had stopped its forward motion as soon as she’d gotten in and double backed to check out the new development.
Its nostrils were just a few inches from her face as the shark skimmed the flooring, using its highly sophisticated sense of smell to tell him what was beneath him.
Apparently it decided she was dinner as it opened his jaws and tried to bite through the grating. Thank god it was three inch steel grating. But the sound of the shark’s teeth against the metal sent shivers up and down her spine.
The toddler. Think of the toddler.
She couldn’t see him anymore. As a matter of fact all she could see was the shark’s teeth.
Toddler. Crying, scared, even more scared than she was, although that seemed downright impossible, toddler.
Her lungs began screaming their own tune. She found one of the cylinders that Dillon had pointed out. They were kind of small and it was hard to get her mouth up and into the trapped air. She blew out all of her air under the water, then grabbed hold of the sides of the cylinder and brought her lips up and sucked in. The air tasted stale, but her lungs thanked her.
Using the new air, she pushed off hard and swam the next section. The shark stayed right with her, biting and grinding the whole way. She gulped another bit of air, trying to leave some for Dillon and made it to the next section. Before she knew it, she was over half way to the other side.
She could see the other metal plate. She reached her hand back and Dillon handed her the wrench.
In a few strokes she was to the plate. She tried her best to remove the nuts. Dillon had made it look so easy. He squeezed in next to her, crushing their bodies together as he helped her loosen the nuts.
Once the metal gave way, they sloshed into the hallway, their limbs entangled. Dillon tried to rise but managed to just trip himself on her knee, falling back down on her.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, completely crimson faced.
He turned sharply to replace the metal sheet. Nami stood up more gingerly, checking to make sure she didn’t injure herself.
Now she could hear the toddler. Even through the thick doors and walls of the luxury hotel, she could hear the screaming. She hurried to the room. The door wouldn’t open.
“No worries,” Dillon said, pulling out a key card. “I’m got the master.”
The door whooshed open. The toddler turned from the glass, his face screwed up into a snarl. As soon as he saw Nami though, he stopped crying and ran straight for her.
She knelt down and caught him in her arms. The toddler buried his face in her wet shoulder. “Shh…” she said. “It’s going to be okay.”
Nami turned to Dillon. “Tell me I’m not lying to him.”
* * *
Dillon frowned. Clearly they couldn’t take the toddler back the way they came. He’d never be able to hold his breath for that long. Especially with a shark trying to eat him the whole way.
“From this room,” Dillon explained. “I think our only option is to try top-side. There are catwalks criss-crossing the whole area.”
“You mean the same catwalks where Mrs. Yashimoto died?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“What makes you think we can make it?”
“Well, not to be insensitive, but we’re not in a walker.” Dillon could tell that Nami didn’t take that as a ringing endorsement. “Plus we can only hope that the larger sharks moved on. The Yashimotos tried to cross right after the breach when all the big sharks had just broken through.”
“It’s okay,” Nami said, hugging the boy close to her. “It is what it is. You don’t have to try and make it sound all rosy.”
But he wanted it to be rosy. He didn’t want her to be scared. He didn’t want her to get injured. He didn’t want her to be even scared of being injured. However, Dillon had to admit that ship had already sailed.
“Here, let me take him,” Dillon suggested and tried to remove the boy from Nami’s arms, but the kid had a death grip on her.
“It’s okay, he barely weighs anything. I’ve got him.”
Anger at the boy’s parents ran through Dillon again. What kind of parent left their child alone in a hotel room? Especially an underwater one? Dillon’s mother certainly never would have.
Even his dad, not exactly in the running for the most involved and attentive, would never have left him in a hotel room. Shalie either. She would have made such a great mom.
Red hot rage ran through his veins again thinking of Jack the supposed shark hunter. He’d let Shalie die while he weaseled his way to safety. Okay, that was the type of parent that would leave their kid in the hotel room, Jack the Shark Hunter.
“You okay?” Nami asked.
Only then did he realize that he had tears streaming down his face. He used the back of his hand to wipe them from his cheek. “Yah, just a long day, you know.”
Nami gave a sympathetic nod of her head. “You going to lead the way?”
“Yes, sure,” Dillon said trying to gather his thoughts ag
ain. Top side. Across the shark infested pools.
That brilliant plan. Not his best one to date.
* * *
Callum was tired and sore and was having a hell of a time keeping up with the robots.
“Just allow them to carry you,” Tonaka implored. He was seated on the back of his like a jockey. “There is no shame in it.”
Maybe for you, Callum thought as he bent over, resting his elbow on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
Damn, Callum knew that he wasn’t a youngster any more, but old? So old he had to be carried back to the control room? Tonaka old? Yikes.
“We will get back to your percolating problems,” Tonaka stated. “So much more quickly. Allow the robots to do what they were built to do. Help.”
Callum sighed. He did want to get back as quickly as possible.
“Fine,” the word was barely out of his mouth when the robot knelt down, ready to accept Callum onto his back. Apparently the robot had been waiting for the same thing.
Surprisingly the ride was far more comfortable than he had imagined. Put a seat on these guys and it would be almost like a rickshaw ride. Then the QXs kicked into a higher gear. Not so much going that much faster but taking great leaps with each stride. It was a little like riding a giraffe.
Leap, leap, leap and they were down one hallway and to the stairs that led up. They didn’t stop leaping. They sprang from one wall to the other, ascending with a nearly frightening speed. It was like parkour in fast forward.
Then they were top side. The robots sprinted across the open space, leaving barely time to get soaked in the driving rain.
Then Callum spotted a flapping door on the periphery. “Over there!” he ordered his robot who instantly complied.
Callum jumped down off his robot and entered the doorway to the small storage shed. “Anyone in here?” he called out but could barely hear himself over the storm. Then a figure sprinted past at the rear of the shed. “Hey! I’m here to help.”
He recognized the sopping wet, wild red hair even before the figure turned around and he met her emerald green eyes. Well, one eye, the other was nearly swollen shut.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 24