by Sean Wallace
“He’s an artist,” said Frida, with the reverence most people reserve for guys like Michelangelo.
“And I think that’s why radiation levels keep spiking and then falling off. That’s how he’s melting stuff together.”
“All well and good,” Oskar said. “But that will only make people angry when we tell them. They think Behemoth is a monster, like from the movies. They see that he’s giant, he waded ashore and destroyed the city. We know the military did most of that, but that will leave egg on the faces of the politicians and the generals. They will despise us if we point that out.”
I heard him, but something that was unfolding on Frida’s screen snared my attention. “Hey—is that footage you guys took?”
“No,” said Gee. “That’s from YouTube; someone took it with their cell phone the night Behemoth came ashore.”
Behemoth was walking through the city, away from planes that shot missiles at him. An elevated train line stretched across his path; the train was stranded, and full of people. It looked like Behemoth was going to walk right into them, so people were screaming, trying to climb out windows. Then Behemoth paused, pivoted just as another missile was fired at him, and the bridge started to collapse.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Did you see that? Can you go back and play it again?”
He replayed the segment, then froze it at the crucial moment.
“Wow,” said Frida. “Did I just see that?”
We watched the segment again.
“We’ve got to blitz social media with this clip,” said Frida. “I’ve seen the early part of the footage, but they keep cutting out the end. A lot of people probably haven’t seen the whole thing!”
“And there’s something else we have to do,” I said. “If we want to make them believe that we’re experts, and they should listen to us, we need to work on our bona fides.”
“But how?” wondered Houdini.
I pointed to the image on the screen. “We need to make contact with Behemoth.”
Our trip into the Makeshift Mountains made me wonder if Behemoth and the other creatures were having some positive effect on us after all. It was a challenging climb (though a few parts of Behemoth’s construct still had functioning elevators), yet I was able to troop alongside the others, despite the fact that I had just been very sick. We let Frida and Gee lead the way, since they were the youngest, and since they had also made several forays into those mountains.
For over two hours we wormed our way through mountain passages, walked single file along ridges, climbed in and out of shattered windows and across rooftops and balconies. We could hear Behemoth doing his work. We knew we were close.
“My friends,” Oskar warned, “we hope Behemoth will not hurt us, but what if we’re wrong? What if all those bombs and grenades have taught him to hate us?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, and by then I realized I wasn’t nearly as scared as I should have been. I just wanted to find Behemoth, I wasn’t even thinking about how we should contact him. But we had to do it if we wanted a future. We were bound together with him, for better or worse.
We climbed several rows of steps, some from old structures and some newly formed, until we reached a lookout point. As we made our way around an outcrop on the pinnacle, we came face-to-face with Behemoth. He stood in the valley on the other side of the peak, not more than one hundred yards away from us—a distance he could have crossed in just a few steps. His head was almost level with us.
Those great, golden eyes rolled in our direction and focused on us.
“Oops,” I said.
Yet I didn’t turn to run back down the path. None of us did. And it wasn’t just because we couldn’t have gotten away. Those eyes saw us, and we stared back at them, but it wasn’t an exchange between predator and prey. We, the Oddballs of the City, recognized Behemoth, the Oddball of the World.
We had seen it in that footage when he bumped into the elevated train. The cars began to topple from the track. Behemoth reached out and grabbed the train as it was going down. Once he had it settled more or less on terra firma, he shielded the people from the missiles until they could get out and flee the scene. One guy with a cell phone had caught that moment, and no one said anything about it. But we saw it. And now we were looking him right in his gigantic eyes.
Behemoth opened his mouth and emitted that cry we had heard so often in the last few days. There was no mistaking what he meant by it. I think he tempered it for us, it was gentler. It was still full of loneliness. But a new note had entered that symphony. To me, it sounded like hope.
“What should we do?” wondered Frida.
Without discussing it, we all waved at Behemoth. His ears perked.
His pupils expanded, as if he were drinking in the sight. He sighed, and settled down to contemplate us further.
We sat down and ate the lunch Oskar and Houdini had packed for us, where Behemoth could see us. When we had finished, Oskar said, “I can sit with him for a few hours. You guys go home and rest up.”
“I’ll spell you after that,” offered Frida.
And so it went. For the next few days, one of us was always where Behemoth could see us. Once we had established that habit with him, more of the creatures began to come into the open. We waved at them. Cloud Squid waved back with all her tentacles. Mega-Whatsis grinned and wagged his vaguely tail-shaped appendage.
But that’s not all we were doing. We started blitzing social media with our posts and pictures.
“Stop attacking!” we pleaded. “We’ve reached an accord with the creatures. We can manage them.”
When outraged people demanded to know just where they were going to rebuild the centers of commerce and culture that had once dominated our city, we pointed out that it would be a hundred times more expensive to rebuild that stuff than it would be to build new centers of commerce somewhere else. In response, we got a lot of flack from trolls. “Do the math!” we pleaded.
Just when we thought no one was listening, the trolling stopped. And the talking heads on TV stopped speculating whether more marines were going to jump out of planes so they could bounce off Behemoth’s Teflon hide. Instead, the government started to drop emergency supplies for us along the Neutral Zone. And that’s when I got an email from the president.
We’ll make sure you have electricity and water, he promised. We’ll keep the food and medicine coming, too. Your debts have been settled, and you won’t be paying rent anymore. In return, all that we ask is that you keep managing the creatures. Keep them peaceful. Can you do that?
Yes, I replied, though I felt a little guilty about claiming credit for what seemed more like good luck.
On the other hand, it might be something more than that. It might be the fact that even when the city seemed to be coming down around us, we didn’t want to leave. The more people outside lost hope, the more we gained it. They wanted to throw bombs at Behemoth, we wanted to sit down and have lunch with him. That counted for something.
So—you remember that footage of all the people pouring out of the city the day Behemoth came ashore? Now a lot of people want to come back. Not to live—to see the creatures. So we started Danger Zone Tours. We take selected visitors to multiple stops, including the shops of Mr. Abé, Houdini, and Gee, to Oskar’s bakery and Frida’s gallery, Beetle’s exhibit and Poe’s museum, and to lots of other odd places that have sprung up. We’ve all got some extra cash on the side now.
We take them to see the creatures, too. Ten of them have come out into the open, so far. Mega-Whatsis is the usual favorite (though he still doesn’t like cookies).
The last stop on the tour is a spot where people can see Behemoth. When he looks our way, we all wave. People love that. It’s the kind of reverence you would expect to see for whales breaking the surface next to a Greenpeace boat. When our visitors leave us, they talk about how glad they are the creatures showed up to teach us the error of our ways, that we were poisoning our world.
I agree th
at Nature has a reason for everything it does. If people who live outside of Monster Island think the creatures appeared because we abused the Earth, I won’t try to tell them otherwise. Maybe they’ll behave more responsibly. But I think there’s another reason.
Last night, I went to sit with Behemoth, and the two of us gazed at the stars. We’ve done that a lot, lately. Now that the Danger Zone is dark at night, we can see the Milky Way. Behemoth usually ponders the sky with a combination of wonder and inquiry, but last night was different. Last night, he watched with a vigilance that put me on edge.
When Oskar came to spell me at midnight, I didn’t leave. The two of us studied the heavens alongside Behemoth.
Then one of the stars glowed brighter. It glowed so bright, I realized it wasn’t a star. It moved closer; I could see other lights on it. Behemoth stood to his full height, a low rumble sounding deep within his chest. The lights began to flash at him in patterns.
Behemoth’s eyes glowed red, his brows clashed together like thunderclouds, and he fixed that bright light in the sky with his vigilant glare, opened his mouth, and sucked a colossal lungful of air for one of his fog-horn blasts.
This time his cry had no trace of loneliness in it. I wouldn’t even call it a cry. This was a full-throated roar, so loud the farthest stars must have heard it. This was the sound of challenge, the promise of doom to anyone who would threaten our world.
The light flashed white-hot, then streaked across the sky and away from Earth.
“Was that what I think it was?” Oskar asked, warily.
“Yep,” I agreed. “A UFO. I think Behemoth scared it away.”
The creatures aren’t here to destroy us. They’re not even here to rebuke us for our destructive ways. They’re here to defend us.
“The Creature War isn’t over,” I told Oskar. “This is the war that is yet to be fought.”
Oskar settled down for his vigil. “Better tell the others what you saw.”
I climbed back down through the Makeshift Mountains and walked up my street in our remade city, past all the odd shops, new and old, that defined the true character of the Danger Zone, until I arrived home to tend my beasties and compose a letter to the president.
One Night on Tidal Rig #13
Tessa Kum
With the moon long gone, the night ocean was very, very dark.
Against an overcast sky, empty of stars, the lights of the tower room appeared to float in the darkness. It should have been dwarfed by the beacon light fixed above it, but these nights the beacon was rarely lit. There wasn’t enough oil to keep it from squeaking, and Thirteen was fond of her sleep.
Not that sleep was easy to come by on a tidal rig.
It was a great hulking mess of machinery, towering out of the water like some bad-tempered god, making toy ships out of the massive cargo freighters that passed it by. Calling it ugly didn’t do it justice. Pipes thicker than subways tangled themselves chaotically and cogs with teeth a story high spun with only meters to spare. Nestled deep amid the pistons in the heart of the rig lay an arcane generator, one of the last of its kind. Drawing on mysterious and not entirely understood energies, it drove the engines that labored endlessly to turn the wings. A regular procession of sparks and power arcs lit up the rig’s bowels in enchanted colors. Usually her iron behemoth shuddered and roared as it worked. The pop and sizzle echoed clearly; this close to the turning of the tide it was relatively quiet. The engines were winding down and the wings merely rolling with the powerful current they’d created.
Just as long as the number five valve didn’t start venting at the wrong time, again, Thirteen paid the workings of the rig no heed.
Globes thirty through to sixty-seven along the ladder were blown, shattered or simply not there. In this unlit stretch of the ladder, she paused to scrub fiercely at an itch on her nose. She shifted her tool belt, making a note to refill her oil canister. It took a moment of groping about before she found the rung again. Three supply drops ago she’d applied for a helmet light, which had failed to show up. If she hadn’t climbed this ladder who knows how many times a day, half the time in starless darkness, she might have found it daunting.
“Rusty lump of crap,” she muttered out of habit, and continued climbing. The dim light of the tower room glowed above her, where she would be warm, away from the wind, and with a nice big plate of sausages and mash. Only another hour, and then she could turn the tide, and go to sleep.
Thank the Ministry of Moon Loss Rehabilitation for legislating that the tide be high twice a day. She never had more than five hours of sleep in one hit, and then only if she were lucky.
Ten rungs from the top she hesitated, and then cursed, scrambling up the last part. Warm air blasted her numb face when she jerked the door open. She snatched up the ringing phone.
“Thirteen here.”
White noise filled her ear. There might have been some garbled words in the hiss.
“Can’t make you out, say again?”
Garble, warble, hiss.
She hung up.
“The greatest thing about manning the oldest tidal rig on the continent is that nothing ever sodding well works.”
The com speaker in the wall crackled. “What?” Fourteen, manning the next rig up the coast, had a voice full of a gravel that came from a lifetime of yelling, grumbling, swearing, and generally being a grumpy old man. She loved him dearly. Not that she’d ever say it.
“It’s not even my fault.” She flopped down in her frayed armchair. “No matter how many times I tighten the valve, or clean the joints, or file a report. Nothing. Ever. Works.”
There was a brief pause before Fourteen answered. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She sat on her hands to warm them. “My phone, actually.”
“Bloody hell, Thirt,” Fourteen grumbled, “we were talking about the footy.”
“Well, no wonder I wasn’t listening.”
Fourteen sighed.
The tower room was dingy at best. The engineers who had designed and put it together hadn’t gone to any effort to make it a nice place to live. The walls were iron sheets, the rivets holding them together bleeding rust down to the floor. The 360-degree windows were spotted and covered in salt scum and bird droppings. Cracks ran down most, and a couple were boarded up with soggy cardboard.
She pressed her nose against the closest window, seeking out the green and red flashing light on the northern horizon.
“Thirteen—”
“Yeah, I know, I’m a dork, now wave back.” She wiggled her fingers at the light. The newer rigs had video and audio connections to the net, not to mention heating and carpet. There wasn’t much that Thirteen could do to contact the outside world besides wave. She’d tried smoke signals once, out of boredom.
“What’s all this chatter?” a third voice roared. The coast master. All belligerence and bile, that voice. Thirteen ducked at the whip-crack in his tone.
“Just passing time, sir,” Fourteen said.
“Do it without clogging up the coastline channel. Where the devil is Sixteen?”
Although there was no one for miles who could see her, Thirteen straightened her back and sat to attention. “Sleeping, sir.”
“What?” the speaker distorted. “The tide turns in less than an hour!”
“I believe she has her alarm set, sir,” Fourteen said, acquiescent.
There was a distinct lack of input from any of the other riggers along the coast. Cowards, she thought at them. Quietly, she retrieved a bottle from the small fridge at her side.
“I need her now. Why isn’t she answering her phone?”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Thirteen twisted the bottle cap in her hands, “but her phone broke ages ago.”
“Why wasn’t I notified?”
“I believe you were. Sir.”
Static filled the channel as the coast master paused. “She’s getting visitors in fifteen minutes. Some marine scientists making a lot of noise about this here
hermit crab migration. They want to see it up close.”
“What crab migration?”
“Don’t any of you riggers watch the news?”—Thirteen refrained from pointing out she couldn’t even if she wanted to—“Massive migration going all the way up the coast. Minister of Tourism is having a fit. All the beaches are closed.”
“But if they’re on the beaches, why does anyone need to come out here?” Fourteen sounded bemused.
“The Sea Walls are picking up multiple moving signals. Big ones. Not serpents. The pictures from the subs aren’t clear, but they think they’re old crabs joining in or some shit. They’ll cruise past you guys within the hour.”
A new voice piped up. “How big are we talking, sir?” Wheedling, needy, nasal: Nine. Thirteen wasn’t fond of him.
“Big enough, Nine. Don’t you worry, we’ve got the navy on standby at Port Puck.”
“The navy? What? Do we need them? And Port Puck is two hours away!”
Thirteen ignored Nine’s rising panic, frowning as she stared at nothing. “Sir,” she interjected, “there hasn’t been a crab migration since the moon closed and the Salt Fae died.”
“So? Who cares? They’re on the move. Now listen up, I have four marks going by Sixteen, three coming your way Thirteen, and Ten and Eleven might get a look in as well. Smaller marks going through Six and Seven. You got everything ready, Thirteen?”
She blinked. “What?”
There was muffled mumbling, as though the coast master had his hand over the mic, before he spoke again. “What the hell is wrong with your phone, Thirteen?”
“Nothing,” she said, not trying to hide the defensive tone in her voice. “It’s old, like everything else, and doesn’t work so well with the wind up and cloud cover. Sir. If I had one of those new ones—”
“You’re getting a scientist, too.”
“Wh—”
“Don’t even start. You treat the geek with respect, make sure he has what he needs, and if I get even a whiff that you’re thinking about being a prick, you won’t be getting the helmet light in your next drop.”