Dirk glanced at Grayson, who stood nearby, beaming like a proud father. He checked the wall clock. Only five minutes had passed and Einstein had already made significant progress. Fifteen minutes later, the last square clicked into place.
“That . . . that was amazing!” Dirk sputtered. “I never--”
“Wait, wait . . . this is the best part,” Grayson said. “Come here.”
As Dirk stood next to him, his mentor once again raised the tank’s lid. He gestured for Dirk.
“What?”
“Put your hand here,” Grayson said, pointing at a spot just above the water.
“Are you serious?”
“You don’t trust me?”
His mind still reeling, Dirk held his hand a few inches from the water’s surface. Still sitting on the bottom, puffed up with seawater, Einstein extended two of his tentacles. Up they stretched, until they pierced the surface.
Dirk nearly choked as the octopus handed him back the cube. “I . . . I don’t know what to--”
“I don’t know what you should say, but I do know what you need to do,” Grayson emphasized, indicating the gallon jar.
“Oh, of course!” Dirk hoisted the heavy container and unscrewed its lid. Directly below, Einstein trembled in anticipation. “Should I . . .”
“Just dump it in.”
The blue crab never knew what hit it. The moment it broke the surface it was enveloped. One paralytic bite and it was over. Like the tiny sea lord he was, Einstein sat atop his kill, contentedly munching away as particles of crab meat and pieces of shell spewed out from under him and drifted across the tank’s floor.
Grayson wiped his hands on a towel, then tossed it to Dirk. “Good stuff, wouldn’t you say?” Before Dirk could respond, he added, “By the way, I think he likes you.”
Dirk nodded. “He really is something. I’m impressed, not only by the cognitive ability, but also the dexterity.”
His mentor gestured at a pair of chairs situated in front of his desk. “You have to keep in mind, he’s got more than one brain focusing on the job.” He moved behind his desk and eased himself down into his plush office chair.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Grayson. Cephalopods have never been my strong point,” Dirk said as he seated himself. “Now, if you want to talk Sauropterygians or cybernetics, I’m your guy.”
Grayson nodded. “They’re not my specialty, either, but I’ve done my research.” He patted a large volume sitting atop the assorted documents and journals piled across his desk. “It turns out, in addition to it having a brain proportionately as large as that of many mammals, an octopus’s tentacles have minds of their own. Only one third of its nervous system is in the brain. The other two thirds of its neurons are distributed in the nerve cords of the arms. It can actually give its tentacles an assignment and then forget it. That’d be like you telling your hands to write an email while you relaxed and watched a movie.”
Dirk raised an eyebrow. “So the tentacles are completely autotomous?”
“If severed, they act on their own, although not doing complex tasks,” Grayson emphasized. He leaned wearily back, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “The octopus needs to see what a tentacle is doing in order to continue giving it orders. In Einstein’s case, it helps with the cube; while his tentacles are implementing one move, his brain is considering the next.”
“Intriguing,” Dirk said. He eyed the thick book on his mentor’s desk. “All of that is in there?”
“And more. Would you like to . . . ?”
“Absolutely.” As he reached for the weighty tome, Dirk’s eyes fell on an unfamiliar object, peeking out from under a stack of papers. “Is that an antique French inkwell?”
“Very perceptive,” Grayson said with pride. He cleared the area around his latest acquisition. “Hand-wrought bronze, late 19th century. The workmanship is superb. I keep it next to the supercomputer. It reminds me how far we’ve come.”
“She’s a beauty.” Dirk took in the impressive mound of papers. “You might want to consider getting someone in here to help organize,” he said matter-of-factly. “So people could better appreciate it . . .”
Grayson laughed. “Derek, you’re as bad as my housekeeper, albeit a bit more tactful.” He removed his glasses and looked up as if reading an invisible screen. “How does that go? Oh yes: ‘If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?’”
“That doesn’t sound like one of your usual quotes.”
“Einstein,” his mentor instructed. He grinned as his protégé cast dubious eyes toward the octopus tank. “The real one.”
Dirk smiled. “Good one.” He hoisted his tablet. “Current events?”
Grayson nodded. “Let me get these old knees working and I’ll come see what you’ve got.” He gripped his armrests, grimacing as he struggled to get up.
“Wait, hang on.” Dirk sprang to his feet. Sidestepping Uriel, he put an arm around the old man and helped him.
“Thank you, son,” Grayson said with a smile. “I was told they’re bringing one in?”
“Yes, sir,” Dirk said. His fingers tap danced across his tablet as he brought a series of images up. “It’s that big cow that sank the trawler. She’s gravid and, as you can see from her stats, she’s a Gen-1 for sure. Once we’ve run a prenatal, we’ll know if it’s our boy.”
“I’m surprised your brother spared her,” Grayson remarked. “Don’t get me wrong, Garm’s got some amazing gifts. But he’s not exactly a ‘bring ‘em back alive’ kind of guy.”
“Actually, he passed on the capture. Dragunova’s bringing her in.”
“Ah.” Grayson rubbed his eyes before he resumed scrutinizing Dirk’s images. “Very good. We can definitely use the specimen. Callahan needs two replacements. But what makes you think ‘our boy’ is the daddy?”
Dirk gnawed his lower lip. “There’s, uh . . . more to the story.”
Grayson sighed. “Derek J. Braddock, you are twenty-nine years old and I’ve known you for the last ten. I think it’s high time you stopped your, ‘How do I tell him I wrecked the car’ routine?’ and just spat it out. Now, what happened?”
“One of our ‘cars’ took a hit.”
“Which one?”
“Antrodemus. But it wasn’t the cow’s doing. After she’d been subdued, her mate attacked the subs and, despite taking fire from Gryphon, did some damage.”
Grayson rubbed his temples. “How bad?”
Dirk brought up an image of the Antrodemus and zoomed in on the damage to her sail.
“Their photonics mast was destroyed and the outer hull fractured across a four square-yard area. On a positive note, the sail’s new pressure hull wasn’t compromised.”
“Time to repair?”
Dirk mentally crunched some numbers. “The outer casing we can have patched in twenty-four hours. But the photonics assembly is completely gone. If we’re going with a replacement, we’re looking at three days. If it’s a rebuild, more like five.”
Grayson nodded. “It could’ve been worse.”
“There may be a silver lining, sir.”
On his tablet, Dirk pulled up a scaled-down version of Gryphon’s 3D fathometer screen, complete with glowing miniatures of the two subs and the rogue pliosaur. He fast-forwarded to the highlights of the battle. “The bull that attacked the subs was not only huge, according to Captain Braddock’s report, it was experienced. It used the terrain to mask its sonar signature and ran silent. The only time it employed its acoustics was when it was under fire – at which point it managed to avoid a pair of Naegling M9’s traveling at over 300 mph. Both sub commanders stated in their reports they are convinced this is the same animal that destroyed the Titan, two years ago.”
Grayson’s eyes intensified as he finished reviewing the engagement. “I concur; it’s had experience with both submarines and torpedoes. But how big is it? Do we have images?”
“Yes, sir.” Dirk closed the fathometer reenactment and br
ought up individual sonar stills. The glowing, reddish-orange images of the giant reptile were devoid of detail. He tapped a few keys. “Implementing enhanced translation of acoustic images.”
With a final tap, the pixilated pliosaur was replaced with a computer-generated approximation of the real thing. The creature was massive and gnarled, its giant head coated with scars from untold battles.
“Ugly bastard,” Dirk muttered.
“He’s beautiful,” Grayson breathed. “Size estimate?”
“Ninety feet minimum,” Dirk replied. “Could be a hundred. It’s hard to say, they were under fire. Of course, it could turn out to be another mutant female, which would compound our problem.”
Grayson flipped from image to image. He stopped on one where the creature was broadside to the camera and zoomed in. “Not a chance. You see how wrinkled his skin is? I don’t know what caused all that scarring, but it matches the reports. And there’s no mistaking that hump.”
Dirk nodded. Although he had some concerns as to what this discovery meant for the project, he was as excited as his mentor at the prospect of success after so many years.
“That has got to be him,” Grayson asserted. “There can’t be two males that size running around.”
Dirk nodded. “After we finish testing the new female, we’ll know for sure.”
Grayson rubbed his hands gleefully together. “Indeed we will, my boy. It’s basically a formality, but before we start allocating resources, we want to be sure.”
“Yes, sir . . .” Dirk replied.
“Don’t be so down-in-the-mouth,” Grayson said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You should be excited. Your brother just found Typhon!”
* * *
Hanging ten miles back, the Ancient one cruised silently. His boat-sized fins flared out to the sides like sails, slowing his forward momentum until he hovered ten feet above the coral-strewn seabed. With gentle, undulating strokes, he held position, listening to the distinctive sounds of the two submarines as they withdrew, taking his mate with them.
The bull pliosaur’s sunken eyes narrowed and he uttered a deep rumble of rage that vibrated across the ocean floor at a frequency so low it shook the nearby rock. For a mile in every direction, reef occupants either withdrew into their burrows or took shelter in nearby crevasses. Larger fish, cephalopods, and marine mammals that had no place to hide simply fled.
At a full ninety-four feet in length and weighing 216 tons, the Ancient was the biggest, most dominant predator to prowl the seas. His massive, twenty-foot mandibles were lined with thick-ridged teeth measuring over two feet from root to tip, and powered by the most powerful jaw muscles of all time. His thick hide was covered with rock-hard scales, and further reinforced by layer upon layer of fibrous scar tissue – frayed medals of valor from ten thousand battles. Despite the bull’s size, he moved stealthily through the deep, soundlessly propelled by four barnacle-tipped flippers. He was nature’s perfect killer and had ruled the oceans, alone and unchallenged, for centuries.
Moving with eerie silence, the Ancient began to rise in the water column, the powerful downstroke of his pectoral fins casting up clouds of silt as he cleared an underwater ridge. Experience had taught him caution and he emitted no sonar as he traveled. Even if he was willing to chance giving away his position, the cow was already beyond the range of his formidable sound sight. He could still hear her intermittent groans, as well as the sounds given off by the noisy thing she was tied to. The female was still alive, although the great bull couldn’t understand why. The tiny bipeds usually killed his kind on sight. She was most likely destined to be torn apart on the surface, her remains cast into the sea as they did to the big warm-bloods the he and his ilk fed upon.
Eventually, the cow’s sounds stopped altogether, followed by the noises generated by her captors. The male could still smell her pheromones, however, mixed in with the scent of leaked oil. The scoop-shaped passages in the roof of his mouth were connected to the most highly-developed underwater olfactory system evolution ever designed. Her blood had not yet been spilled, although it undoubtedly soon would be.
Frustration began to take over, compounding the Ancient’s already intense hatred for both the bipeds and the giant metallic life forms they infested. With the exception of a handful of times he had been challenged, for untold seasons he had maintained his seclusion. Now, however, the tiny mammals actively hunted not only him, but his entire species.
He had sensed the deaths of thousands; victims of either their warm-blooded foes or the fiery death that rained down from above. The fact the old bull failed to protect his current mate served to enrage him even more, and he gnashed his sharp-ridged teeth in ill-contained fury.
Fifty yards off his port side, the Ancient espied the fourteen-foot shortfin mako that continued to shadow him. Like iron filings to a magnet, the big shark was drawn to the scarlet billows that continued to seep from the ragged seven-foot gash across his dorsal ridge.
He paid the fish no mind. The graze-wound from the submarine was a minor annoyance. The bleeding had already slowed and would soon stop. Once that happened, the shark would move off. And if not he would encourage it. The bull’s lips curled slowly back in what could have been a grin. He considered making a run at the mako, but then dismissed the notion. He was hungry, but the resultant noise might alert his pursuers to his presence. In addition, the fish was fast and maneuverable and would be very hard to catch.
The wrinkled skin around the Ancient’s eyes contracted. He could sense the water underneath his mottled belly growing shallower. The bipeds were bringing the female to shore. His jaw muscles tightened and he shook his monstrous head. To follow them there, away from the protective shelter of the deep, was a death sentence.
After a moment’s deliberation, the futility of continuing the pursuit became apparent. The old male had no choice but to accept the situation. He emitted a low rumble of frustration that sent the mako scampering away and veered east.
Accelerating to his normal cruising speed, the Ancient pondered the loss of the gravid cow. The clutch she carried was her last of the season. He had accompanied her from island to island as she laid the previous five – nearly four hundred eggs in all. On one trip, he guided her all the way to the remote island of their ancestors. There, warded by jagged black reefs and a protective fog, their progeny would hatch in moderate safety, before digging their way free from their sandy womb.
As his scarred flippers sped him along, the bull’s muzzle contorted into an annoyed grimace. His scarred snout was peppered with rows of fresh tooth punctures that itched like mad. They were the pliosaur’s version of love bites, and he had received many during his courtship of the female. Like the god many Pacific islanders worshipped him as, he had scattered her other would-be suitors, interrupting their mating chase with the intention of claiming her as his own. But the big female was intimidated by his size and responded with aggression, snapping at him repeatedly.
Eventually, the cow got over her initial fright and permitted their coupling to take place. Afterward, however, she resumed lashing out at him. It was her right and he did not begrudge her. Her mating hormones had elevated her innate nastiness to demonic levels and he absorbed many bites from her powerful jaws as he drew near, even when presenting her with the gift of food. Whenever possible, he presented his shoulder hump to her, allowing the great mound to bear the brunt of the damage.
As his hump ached from where the female’s sixteen-inch teeth had repeatedly buried themselves, the great reptile’s mind wandered. He recalled the incident, ages past, when a floating infestation of bipeds had given him that gnarled mass of scar tissue and very nearly ended his life . . .
It was a cool fall day, a hundred miles off the coast of Iceland, and the Ancient was resting on the surface after devouring a pair of hapless Minke whales. With his belly pleasantly distended and secure in the knowledge that no living creature could challenge him, the old bull allowed his sense of invincibility to get the bet
ter of him. He closed his eyes and slipped into a deep slumber.
It was a slumber that nearly became permanent.
A whale killer’s lookout spotted the sleeping behemoth’s broad back, awash on the surface, and figured they’d stumbled upon a big blue whale. They puttered in as quietly as possible and then killed their engines, allowing wind and tide to carry them close enough to fire.
The pain as the whaler’s grenade-tipped harpoon slammed into his shoulder and detonated was the worst agony the pliosaur had ever known. Only his exceptionally tough tissue and huge shoulder bones prevented the rocket-propelled harpoon from penetrating deep into his chest cavity before it exploded. As it was, it was all the stricken beast could do to wrench himself free from the harpoon’s lethal tether and submerge. For fifty yards in every direction, the water around him turned a brilliant shade of scarlet.
Onboard the whaler, its crew cheered.
As the Ancient struggled to right himself, he twisted his head around and took stock of his injury. The wound was horrific; a fleshy crater nearly ten feet across where great gobs of skin and muscle had been sheared away. A huge slab of meaty shoulder bone protruded from the wound site, along with several badly broken ribs. The subsequent blood loss nearly felled the giant predator and he fought not only to retain consciousness, but to drive away the hordes of scavenging sharks that arrived within minutes to plague him.
After thirty minutes passed and no carcass bobbed to the surface, the disappointed whaler’s crew assumed that their “Hvalur” somehow escaped and moved on. The old bull was far from finished, however. He clung to life with a tenacity only reptiles were capable of. Despite the near-fatal blow, he locked onto his attackers by scent and sonar and began trailing them. Where they went he followed, hanging back to avoid detection, but always keeping the boat within range of his sound sight.
Kronos Rising: Kraken (vol.1): The battle for Earth's oceans has just begun. Page 8