Kronos Rising_Kraken vol.1

by Max Hawthorne

  “There was evidence someone was in there. And that old skin sample – the one from the Paradise Cove specimen – had been moved or removed from her desk.”

  “That’s absolutely true.”

  Dirk felt his eyebrows hike up. “Wait . . . you knew about this?”

  Grayson sighed. “I sent one of the guards in there to bring down the sample. He was told not to disturb anything and he obviously didn’t follow instructions. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure he’s spoken to.”

  “But you promised me nothing in there would be touched until I--”

  “We needed to run a new DNA profile prior to the prenatal on Goliath. Our previous samples were degraded and, with the new system in place, well . . . it was necessary.”

  “But why didn’t you ask me to go get it?”

  Grayson closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “I’ve watched you on the security cameras. Before today, you couldn’t get within ten yards of Amara’s door. How could I ask you to go in there?”

  Dirk looked down, feeling foolish. Then his lips tightened and he looked back up. “There’s something else, sir.”

  “There always is.”

  Dirk licked the insides of his lips. “When I was in there I looked at the break in the railing. The spot where my mom . . .”

  “. . . fell.” Grayson finished. “And?”

  “I looked at the connectors where the section gave way and something doesn’t jibe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I haven’t done exact calculations,” Dirk admitted. “But I’m confident the railing wouldn’t have given way on its own.”

  “How so?

  “The metal should have held up. Even taking into account the weight of an adult human female weighing . . .”

  Grayson seemed to age fifty years as he leaned wearily back in his chair. “Son, we went over this ten times in the weeks following your mother’s death. She leaned on the railing and it gave way.”

  Dirk shook his head vehemently. “The numbers don’t support that. And the bottom part didn’t snap. It was torn, indicating gradual pressure was applied to it.”

  “That makes sense.” Grayson acknowledged. “She fell almost two hundred feet into the amphitheater pool. And the steel-framed PBI section hit five seconds after she did. It’s confirmed by the ground-level security footage – the one not interrupted by the blackout.”

  “So you’re saying that the weight of the--”

  “That slab must have weighed four hundred pounds. The connectors at the base are designed to withstand vertical shearing force, not lateral. The load must have caused the bottom connectors to tear as it hung down. Isn’t that what you saw? They’re torn, right?”

  “Yes,” Dirk acknowledged. “But the top portion shouldn’t have given way in the first place. The connectors should have held.”

  “Maybe there was a defect in the metal.”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t have a metallurgical scanner with me, but there were no flaws I could see.”

  “That you could see.” Grayson emphasized.

  “A defect big enough to cause a steel bolt that thick to snap would be visible to the naked eye,” Dirk said, feeling more confident, “And for both to fail at the same time? The odds against it are astronomical.”

  Grayson rested his weathered chin on the knuckles of one hand. “When a loved one is tragically taken from us, it’s inevitable we want someone to blame, to focus our rage on, some . . . boogeyman, for want of a better word. Have you considered that, perhaps, it was just an accident?”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Maybe she was watering the plants she kept in those hanging baskets and slipped and fell, striking the railing and causing it to collapse. The accident report showed a stool in that exact area.”

  Dirk shook his head. “Impossible. She would have impacted on a downward angle. She might have broken some ribs or cracked a vertebra, but the railing would have held up. The breaks indicate the railing was subjected to lateral pressure, and a lot of it.”

  “Maybe she slipped sideways?”

  “Slipped on what?”

  “I don’t know, Derek,” Grayson said, obviously exasperated. “Water from the plants or a mop, maybe? Stranger things have happened.”

  “I don’t think so . . .”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  Dirk hesitated. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up. First the railing fails, then there’s the blackout and resultant power surge, then the current cycle activating. It’s just too much to swallow.”

  Grayson shook his head. “It does seem like a lot. But those are all known and explainable phenomena. We were having rolling blackouts due to reactor problems for weeks prior to Amara’s accident, remember?”

  Dirk railed at the use of the word “accident.” He was still dissatisfied with the discussion but knew he was beating a dead horse. “I suppose . . .”

  “Son, you need to get some rest,” Grayson advised as his protégé battled back a yawn. “Tomorrow’s an important day and the demo is not without risks. Get some sleep. After things settle down here, if you want to run a metallurgical study on the connectors, I’ll happily look at your figures.” He nodded. “Hell, I’ll even assign our best mechanical engineers to do one for you. Believe me, if anything unusual took place, we’ll find it. Okay?”

  “Thank you, Dr. Grayson.” Dirk said, feeling somewhat better. “I’m glad I’ve got you in my corner.”

  “Where else would I be?” Grayson posed. “Now take a muscle relaxer or something if you need to, but get some rest! I need you and Dr. Daniels in good form tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dirk said. “Good night, sir.”

  “Good night, Derek.”

  As the video feed closed, Dirk sat there, tapping his index finger on the handle of his coffee mug while his incisors dug a trench in his lower lip. He decided to chance a call to Stacy to see how she was feeling about the demo. He glanced at the time. It should be fine. She was a night owl.

  He sent the call, sipping still-hot Kona as he waited for her pickup. When she didn’t answer, he shrugged. She must’ve turned in early, he thought. Still, Stacy was a light sleeper. The ringer should have woken her. Maybe she was in the shower . . . On a whim, he turned on Tartarus’s personnel directory and ran down the list. His finger hovered over the scan button next to her name.

  Dirk hesitated, realizing he felt like a stalker. Then he thought about Dr. Grayson’s habitual checking up on people and used it to push the creepy feeling aside. After all, he was on the Board of Directors with GDT. He was well within his rights to make sure a performer in an upcoming presentation was resting properly.

  He jabbed the scanner and frowned when the results popped up. Stacy’s locator indicated she was not in her quarters. He watched as her beacon materialized on the grid overlay and started to pulse in place. She was down by the docks, past the surgical center . . .

  Dirk’s head recoiled on his neck. She was by Gretchen’s tank.

  Dirk stroked his chin – a habit he knew he’d picked up from Dr. Grayson. He placed his hands on his desk, his fingers tapping the smooth wood polymer like piano keys. Stacy was certainly spending a lot of time with her reptilian charge. He understood her maternal feelings toward what was, essentially, a wild animal, but to be down there with it at 1 AM, while the rest of the world slept? That bordered on bizarre. Hell, it crossed the border like an illegal and brought its friends along for the ride!

  Dirk grabbed his keyboard and started tapping, his lean fingers a blur as he cued the security cameras to Stacy’s locator. It wouldn’t hurt to see what she was up to, just to make sure she was safe.

  Seconds later, he found her. She was walking past Gretchen’s dimly lit enclosure, outside the protective fence that prevented unauthorized employees from getting too close to the pliosaur’s saltwater pool. He zoomed in and spotted the fifty-foot reptile. She was on the surface, pacing Stacy as she walked and
ogling her master through the tall, chain-link fence.

  People could say what they wanted about the efficacy of the implants, but Gretchen certainly knew who her “mama” was. There was never any doubt about that.

  As Dirk watched, Stacy glanced around, making sure no one was watching before she opened the door to a nearby storage shed. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her.

  That was odd.

  Dirk zoomed in tighter, focusing on Stacy’s face as she reemerged. She was carrying a large bucket of some kind. She sat it down and glanced about once more, before moving toward a cottage-sized concrete building, set right into the dock floor. She looked left and right, then produced a key and unlocked the door before disappearing inside. Dirk leaned closer to his monitor, his expression intensifying. Unlike the big storage sheds situated across the docks that housed a variety of materials and supplies, that structure was a utility room. It housed the high-powered circuit breakers for a good portion of the docks, including emergency shutoffs for the pliosaur tank filters and pump systems, most of the dock lighting, and the . . . security cameras?

  As his video screen went dark, Dirk’s expression morphed from befuddlement to disbelief to outright suspicion. He grabbed his keyboard and attempted to revive the feed but the power was gone. He tried several other locations and got nothing as well. A quick check of the grid confirmed it. All the dock cameras were down. Additional scans showed that the turbines powering the current generators for the pliosaur tanks had kicked on, producing an impromptu exercise session for their denizens.

  It was bizarre, Dirk thought. Like a reemergence of the rolling blackouts they had six or seven months ago. It was the same thing that happened the night--

  His heart jumped in his chest. The cameras shutting down, the current generators kicking in . . . it was identical. Maybe the power surges weren’t caused by a reactor transference problem after all. Maybe they’d been caused deliberately.

  Dirk stood up. His head was pounding and he sucked in air like an exhausted sprinter. It was impossible. Stacy would never hurt anyone, let alone a member of his family. The very thought was ludicrous.

  Still, the cameras were down and the current generators were chugging away. Something was amiss and he intended to find out what. He thought about alerting security – maybe having them meet him down there – but dismissed the notion. The fewer interactions he had with those “men” the better. Besides, if he was wrong, keeping the assured confrontation to a minimum was a smart move. Stacy would never forgive him as it was. No sense in making matters worse.

  Snatching up his shoes, Dirk hopped into them en route to the door. Without a backwards glance, he ordered his quarters sealed behind him and headed for the nearest elevator. As the doors hissed closed, he glanced down at his tablet. On it, Stacy’s locator pulsed like a tiny, beating heart. According to the grid, she was inside Gretchen’s quarters now and she wasn’t moving.

  Dirk’s jaw muscles tightened as he steeled himself for the unpleasant task to come. For some unknown reason, his ex had deliberately disabled an entire floor of security cameras and activated systems that weren’t programmed for use until the following morning.

  She was up to something.

  And he was going to find out what.

  * * *

  As the final beats of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones faded in the background, Stacy Daniels moved wearily along the docks, heading back toward the nearby storage shed. Her task was complete and she shifted her weight to one side to offset her lopsided burden. As she walked, she felt Tartarus’s artificial breeze kick up, the cool burst of air striking her from behind and penetrating her soggy neoprene swimsuit. The chill permeated her core, causing her to shiver. She shrugged off the familiar discomfort and focused on another, more incessant one. With each step, she tried to wiggle her hips. When that failed, she stopped and reached down, tugging hard at the rubbery material around her crotch. She hated the thermal suits she was forced her to wear, especially when they rode up like that.

  As she reached the shed, she resisted the urge to glance around again to see if anyone was watching. She checked her waterlogged sports watch and scoffed. It was past 1 AM and she was bone tired. The combination of long hours and the ongoing subterfuge was weighing on her, but she had no choice. A life was at stake and she was committed.

  Stacy switched her burden to her free hand so she could grab the door handle. A grunt escaped her lips; despite her physique, she was so fatigued the five-gallon bucket she carried made her arm feel like it would pop from its socket. She swung the thick wooden door open and tottered inside, closing it behind her as she reached for the light’s pull cord.

  She blinked as a trio of bright LED bulbs lit up the disorganized mess inside the shed. Rows of shelves, laden with everything from cleaning compounds to thick slabs of tile, ran down the structure’s thirty-foot interior, and she worked her way between two rows as she made her way to her locker.

  The place was a disaster area, she acknowledged as she pulled the padlock and swung her locker door open. Her exhalation was a nasal chuckle. She could only imagine what Dirk would say if he saw it.

  Dirk . . .

  Stacy’s full lips tightened and she snorted through flared nostrils. It aggravated the shit out of her that she couldn’t get the neurotic son of a bitch out of her head. After six months, she thought she was over him, but that incident with the tapeworm . . . God, he’d come so close to getting his head chewed off. She shuddered and tried convincing herself it was her soggy suit, not the fact Dirk had nearly gotten himself killed before she had the chance to tell him how much she--

  She shook her head angrily, her tight blonde curls swirling about as she hoisted the heavy pail inside her locker and slammed the metal door closed.

  “What’s in the bucket?” Dirk asked, his lean face materializing in the darkened space the locker door had just occupied, like a shocker shot from some horror movie.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Stacy shouted. She staggered back, one hand on her bosom as her rump bounced painfully off a nearby shelving unit and knocking over most of its contents. Her eyes blazed with fury. “You asshole, you scared the shit outta me!”

  “I bet I did,” Dirk said. His dark eyes were unusually cold and analytical. “What’s in the bucket?” he repeated. His gaze was fixed on the closed locker.

  Stacy tried regaining her composure, despite her heart pounding in her chest. Dirk seemed to be in a very foul mood. A thought came to her and she hesitated. Had he seen her?

  “It’s adhesive,” she said with the confidence of someone who knows they’re telling the truth. “Why?”

  “Adhesive for what?”

  “For one of the tiles near Gretchen’s enclosure,” Stacy said. She hated lying but decided to go with an aggressive defense. “It was coming loose so I repaired it. Is there a problem?”

  “Show me the adhesive,” Dirk demanded.

  Stacy eyed him coolly. “Fine.” She swung open the locker door and pulled out the fifty-pound bucket, dropping it perilously close to his toes. “See for yourself.”

  Dirk dropped to one knee and grasped the bucket by its lid, pushing it back on edge so the light shone on the label. “Super caulk, eh?” He set it down and touched a finger to the white-colored gunk that clung to the outside rim, rubbing it between his fingers. He stood up and smeared the remainder of the caulk on the side of her locker.

  “I’m sure you don’t mind,” he remarked, indicating the ramshackle contents of the shed. “I doubt anyone will notice.”

  “That’s out of character for you,” Stacy retorted irritably. Her amber-colored eyes narrowed. “You’re the only guy I know who folds his dirty laundry.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being organized,” Dirk replied. “It helps to make sure nothing escapes notice.”

  “Look, Braddock. If you have a problem with me, why don’t you just say it?”

  Dirk sported a less-than-amiable grin. “Let’s step o
utside.”

  “Lead the way,” Stacy replied, confused by his uncharacteristic stiffness. As she followed him, she felt like she’d been challenged to one of those after-school dust-offs she’d engaged in a few times in Jamaica, back in junior high.

  As they got outside the breeze hit her again, but she stopped herself from shivering. Now was not the time to appear weak or frail. The music had stopped and over Dirk’s shoulder, she could see Gretchen’s scaly head. The saurian was peeking up from her darkened pool, her crimson eyes observing the two of them from twenty yards away.

  “Look, I’m cold, I’m wet, and I’d like to shower and rest up before tomorrow’s show, so can we make this quick?” she asked.

  “Always to the point, eh, darling?” Dirk said. “Okay. Let me be equally direct. And for the record, this conversation is between us – for now.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “You initiated an unauthorized exercise interval for our resident Thalassophoneans. Why?” Dirk demanded.

  “They needed it,” Stacy replied. “Their recent muscle mass and vascular scans indicated a . . . hey, wait a minute. What do you mean ‘unauthorized’? I’m the one who designs and schedules their workouts!”

  “True.” Dirk’s almond-shaped eyes contracted as he mulled over what he was going to say. “So giving them an extra workout was purely for the health and well being of our stock.”

  “That’s right,” Stacy said, realizing she was being interrogated. She felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She’d never seen Dirk like this. He was like a teapot ready to blow. She had a bad feeling about what was coming next but there was no help for it. “They needed it.”

  “I see.” Dirk clasped his hands behind his back. His voice increased in volume and took on an accusatory tone. “And it had nothing to do with concealing the sudden power spike that would have shown when you disabled the security cameras for the entire dock?”

  Stacy felt her mouth go slack. “I . . .”

  “You what?” Dirk demanded. His hands dropped to his side and he took a step toward her.