Prehistoric Beasts And Where To Fight Them

by Hugo Navikov

  ***

  Messaging Jake Bentneus was the surest way of contacting him and getting a reply. His voice, such as it was, was reedy and very difficult to understand in person, let alone on the telephone. He could use his special eye-movement-based typing apparatus to operate and instruct a Web-connected computer in a fashion similar to texting on a cell phone, but his pride kept him from using it much.

  In the time since the Bentneus Prize competition had begun, the man himself didn’t have a whole lot to do, not much to “talk” about anyway other than his rapidly failing corporeal being. Most of the time he was awake, he watched cable news and discussed with his staff or the occasional celebrity visitor what was going on in the race to kill Gigadon; the 24-hour news networks had ramped up the profile of the story, putting it at the top and bottom of the hour and showing footage taken from the boats themselves as well as the occasional helicopter popping over. (They were not encouraged to stay after they had gotten their footage, the sailors thinking it would scare off the dinosaur.)

  The actual competition followed dwindling discussion and news about Bentneus’s speech, the billion-dollar prize, and whether anyone could actually catch or kill a “Gigadon”—or if such a creature even existed. That morning-show speculation had put Bentneus in a bad, bad mood.

  No, Gigadon doesn’t exist, Bentneus thought. I attacked my own submersible with myself inside. The giant head and jaw of the dinosaur were CGI effects—or maybe even practical effects, since almost everyone on each of the ships saw what happened. NO WAY could Gigadon exist.

  Jackasses.

  This morning, though, there was fresh action and, thus, fresh coverage. An aide who had authorization to enter the room as needed woke Bentneus up—he slept and woke at practically random times, his body having the same demands at all hours of the day and night, since the only change he experienced was new pieces of him failing to operate. The aide alerted him that he had an urgent message from Mickey Luch, who was stationed on I Spit on Your Grave:

  MUIR JUST KILLED 50 PEOPLE WHEN SHOOTING AT SHARKS.

  WHAT SHOULD WE DO? CANCEL THE MISSION?

  “Tuhhhrn on the newssss …” He was barely understandable, his artificial lungs having to work harder and harder to keep a steady pressure of air traveling over his larynx. The wheezing speech lent him an ever-more-pervasive appearance of decay and approaching death.

  His aide swept up the remote control and pressed the button for CNN.

  Oh, boy, Bentneus thought, impressed: this was definitely the story of the day. The news anchors must have been sitting in pools of their own sexual arousal, so hyped up were they that this billion-dollar competition to hunt and kill a dinosaur was exploding right in front of the entire world. It was manna to the 24-hour news channels … which was all of them these days.

  Here’s what the newsholes were saying: In pursuing the Bentneus Prize, entrants’ efforts had gone haywire in several different ways. Most all of the smaller fishing-boat contestants had joined together in an effort to use sheer numbers to catch Gigadon. They hunted it using techniques as they would have if it were just an enormous shark—chum and stirring up the water and all that. The only difference was scale—huge amounts were poured into the sea, the better to catch a huge predator with. But what they got was every goddamn regular-sized shark (some of which were giant themselves) in that teeming-with-sharks section of ocean.

  Almost thirty boats were lost, since they were small and susceptible to capsizing when hit with the force of, say, a shark in the midst of a feeding frenzy. And the sharks were primed for feeding, so no survivors were found by Sea & Air Rescue helicopters that rushed to the area from their base in Guam. The whole fiasco was an idiotic act performed by people who maybe were very competent in their area, fishing—even to enter the competition, they must have made big money from commercial angling—but were total nitwits who had no idea what to do when faced with what they were actually supposed to be hunting. They wouldn’t know a Gigadon from a goddamn Eustreptospondylus, thought an annoyed Bentneus.

  But they didn’t deserve to die. Nobody deserved to die. He sure as hell didn’t deserve to die, but there he was.

  Gigadon was a different story, of course. Bentneus’s facial servos weren’t powered up right then, but if they had been, they would have pulled his face into a big smile as he thought about how that big bastard did deserve to die, and very soon.

  Essentially, many of the smaller competitors had ganged up to get the monster and split the booty, but instead called over every shark around, and those sharks then frenzied, destroyed the boats, and ate the people.

  Terrible, but not spectacular enough to keep the interest of the ADD newsrooms.

  Topping the “scores eaten by sharks” story was the piece on the actions of Bentneus’s supposed ace in the hole, convicted murderer Sean Muir, and his shooting of more than forty-five people. The “victims” (that seemed a premature label, Bentneus thought) onboard the two largest ships in that grouping were both sunk by the machine gun’s heavy artillery. The talking heads had all the gruesome details a cud-chewing public could want. Muir had reportedly opened up on the sharks—or was it on the boats? (their question)—with a Mark II forward .50 caliber M2 machine gun, allegedly (their word) in an attempt to kill the sharks surrounding those vessels. No matter what his motive (their word, again), Muir had single-handedly killed almost four dozen competitors for the Bentneus Prize.

  Much of this information came from captured radio transmissions between Muir’s communications crew onboard Sea Legs and Sea & Air Rescue command, and CNN reported that it relied on “citizen journalists” aboard some of the few ships remaining in the hunt. The sources claimed to be frightened that Sean Muir would turn the heavily armed I Spit on Your Grave upon them next.

  Those same “journalists” (in addition to ones from every alphabet-soup news network ever to appear by satellite receiver) had been calling for hours, apparently, while Bentneus slept his shallow sleep. His representatives, to a person, told the media that Mister Bentneus was in conference with his top advisors to fashion the best response to this horrible tragedy, etc. and so on, and that he would issue a statement later in the day, once more facts were known. (The usual bullshit that he paid them to spew, in other words. They were getting a bonus for this hazardous duty, Bentneus decided, if everyone got through it with more than the shirts on their backs. Or, in his case, the pressure suit that kept his artificial organs from falling out. Ha. Ha.)

  “Nancy Grace is calling for Muir to be extraordinarily renditioned from his ship and brought to Guantanamo for some ‘enhanced interrogation,’” the aide said, not without a touch of snark.

  Bentneus liked that. “Whhhat do the lawyersss sssay?”

  “Actually, sir, I have your lead attorney waiting just outside the room. I’ll bring him in?”

  “Yehhhhsss …”

  The Bentneus Prize organization retained its own top-shelf legal counsel, and Lance Boyle was the best—and most expensive, not that the expense mattered to the immobilized billionaire. Boyle followed the aide to Jake Bentneus’s bedside. In ten seconds or so, the immaculately coiffured and bespoke-suited Boyle nodded hello to each man and got right to work. “It is my understanding that no one knows for sure if Doctor Muir was trying to kill the sharks and save those two boats and their crews, or if he was trying to eliminate them, is that correct?

  “Yehhhhhhhsss …”

  “Excellent. We are relying on all the sources CNN has—more, actually—and they say it looked like Muir had completely lost control of the machine gun, and it was shooting wildly all over the place. The machine gun sank not only those two boats, but a couple of support boats from other expeditions, including the main vessel from the Cousteau Society’s team.

  “But with him being a convicted killer and all, others say they’re sure that he was out to kill and thin out the competition, wanting to get the Gigadon before anyone else with any chance could even launch their submersibles.”r />
  “Whyyyyyyy … yyyyyy … ”

  “Mister Bentneus? Sir, are you all right?” Bentneus’s aide gave his employer a look of concern.

  “Tekkkkksssssst …”

  The aide paused for a moment, not understanding the word, then said, “Oh, text! Of course, sir—it must be much more manageable for you to use your eye scanner.”

  Bentneus’s gaze had to linger on a character on the virtual keyboard below the monitor for one half-second for it to register and allow him to move to the next letter, so any interlocutor would have to be patient while communicating with the filmmaker.

  “Sorry, Mister Boyle, it takes a little while.”

  “No problem. I’ve had several conversations like this remotely, on my cell phone, with Mister Bentneus during his, em, decline. Also, don’t forget that I am remunerated by the hour.” The lawyer’s smile made the aide’s skin crawl. This made him confident that Boyle was a very good lawyer, indeed.

  Eventually, Bentneus’s message appeared on the larger green-text-on-black-background monitor facing them on the other side of his communication setup:

  WHY WOULD MUIR SINK THE TWO COMMERCIAL SHIPS?

  THEY HAD NO CHANCE OF BEATING HIM.

  “I can’t think of a reason,” Boyle said, “but, then, I also don’t know why he would be firing a big gun that he plainly didn’t know how to control.

  “As bad as this sounds, blasting those two irrelevant boats out of the water could show that he did not do any of this with intent to weed out the competition.”

  A moment passed. Then, on the monitor:

  CRIMINAL CHARGES AHEAD?

  “Because the whole incident took place in American-controlled waters surrounding both Guam and the Marianas area, the United States is the only country that can arrest Doctor Muir for the deaths and destruction of property. There might be, however, public pressure to indict him and let a jury decide if the incident was murder, manslaughter, or just a horrible accident. Also, the nations where the sunken boats were registered, not to mention the nations from which the victims hailed, could very well call for his extradition to their countries for trial.”

  WELL SHIT

  Boyle smiled again. “Don’t lose faith in the United States just yet, Mister Bentneus. The U.S. has the authority not only to ignore domestic public pressure, of course, but also the special pleading of any other country. This is because, unlike almost every other seafaring nation in the world, the United States never actually signed on to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. That document is the go-to legal reference on alleged crimes at sea, especially in international waters. Because our country never became an official signee, and because the incident occurred in American waters, the U.S. is under no obligation to arrest Doctor Muir for prosecution anywhere in the world. We usually do cooperate with those other nations, but it’s not automatic by any means. And this competition is of worldwide importance, its aim being to rid the oceans of”—Boyle motioned to Bentneus’s elaborate life-support system—“what has proven to be a threat to human life and liberty on the seas.”

  GOD BLESS THE USA

  WE NEED HIM TO FINISH THE MISSION

  “Indeed, and I believe the monetary interests of every nation’s participants would hold up any indictment until after the Bentneus Prize is won. The fact that he was just released from prison for causing a death, if not outright murdering his wife, is immaterial because he’s not on parole or probation. He is as free as you or I … he cannot be sent back to prison without an indictment and trial for committing some new crime.”

  LIKE MURDERING 50 PEOPLE?

  “We don’t know how many, if any, people were killed directly by the ordnance being shot by Doctor Muir. We don’t know how many, if any, people died as a result of the boats sinking, such as by drowning or electrocution. And although the people who ended up in the water were eaten by sharks because of the failure of their vessels, I believe it could be successfully argued that the victims themselves created the conditions that ended in their deaths. In any case, the sharks killed them, not Sean Muir.”

  GOOD WORK THANK YOU

  “It is my pleasure, Mister Bentneus,” Boyle said. “Even in a worst-case scenario, Doctor Muir would not be arrested or indicted before the mission has concluded, whether in success or failure.”

  FAILURE IM NOT CONCERNED ABOUT

  HE GOES BACK TO PRISON FOR LIFE THEN FOR YOU KNOW WHAT

  Boyle’s eyes grew wide for a moment, then he dropped his gaze to his briefcase, which suddenly needed fiddling with. “I certainly do not know what, Mister Bentneus. But, taking your lack of concern about legal ramifications following a possible failure of the mission into consideration, I will direct my team to focus on keeping him free and unencumbered by legal issues until the mission is concluded, and then afterwards if he is successful.”

  YES THAT IS ALL I MEANT OF COURSE

  THANK YOU LANCE

  Still visibly shaken, Boyle nodded to Bentneus and the aide and made for the door before anything else incriminating could be suggested.

  The aide laughed. “Yes, sir, this is the morning. Muir is headed down to kill your Gigadon and bring his bloody head back home.”

  THEN I CAN DIE HAPPY

  “Oh, sir, no, don’t talk like that …”

  ARE YOU KIDDING? I AM COUNTING THE SECONDS

  ***

  Two hundred miles from Bentneus’s hospital room, Mickey Luch and his team were filling the bathysphere of Ocean Vengeance with the perfluorochemical liquid. Holly and Orville from the science ship were there on Spit to supervise.

  Holly spoke through the opening at the top of the iron sphere, since Sean would still be able to hear her, and she wanted him to actually hear a human’s words before this alien dive into alien waters: “When the level reaches your helmet, just count the seconds, then take a deep breath of the water. It’ll be a shock at first, but don’t resist it—get it into your lungs as quickly as humanly possible.”

  “Otherwise an instant pulmonary embolism will kill you,” Orville added, but fortunately he wasn’t near enough to the opening for Sean to hear him. Holly could hear, however, and gave Popcorn a damned sharp swat.

  “All you need to do is breathe—if Gigadon or any of the rest of them come after your heat signature a little too quickly, we can pull you up faster without giving you the bends or turning you inside out.”

  “That is a good thing,” Sean said, his nervousness and excitement betraying his attempt at a calm demeanor. “I’ve never actually seen any of my dinosaurs in the flesh. I’ve known for a long time that they were there, had to be there, but …” His throat was closing up with emotion.

  “You’ll see them, boss. Now get ready to breathe like a fish. See you topside.”

  The not-exactly-water level inside the bathysphere was to Sean’s chin now. Then over his chin, then his mouth—should I start trying to breathe the water yet? He decided to wait until the liquid rose over his nostrils and he would had no choice.

  The liquid rose over his nostrils and, going against hundreds of millions of years of evolution, he took a deep breath.

  Gah! Baccch! Shit! The oxygen-saturated chemical brew was cold—it was cold while it had been filling up the bathysphere, but his well-insulated diving suit spared him from the temperature—and at once his system tried to reject the entire attempt. But he held any bile down, feeling right on the edge of panic, and let out that first lungful of liquid breath.

  Then he took another breath. In and out.

  Then another.

  Then he was just breathing. His body warmth compensated for the cold very quickly, and he knew the fluids surrounding him would warm up as the constant temperature maintained in the bathysphere rose back to stasis levels.

  “Mickey here. This is it, Sean,” came through his earpiece. “Do you read me?”

  Sean raised a thumb. It felt weird to be underwater—the bathysphere was just about topped off, and they would be closing the hatch to keep the pr
essure at the right level—but now he was also full of water. He was now Homo piscis.

  “Roger that. Now say something back to us so we know we can read you.”

  Sean remembered that any speech he tried to use would be completely incoherent because air would no longer be flowing over his larynx, as his whole respiratory system was now filled with liquid. That’s why they had their robust communications computers. Sean typed:

  I ROGER YOUR ROGERING. ROGER THAT. LOL.

  He could hear the smile in Mickey’s voice when the mission chief said, “Excellent. We read up here that all weapons are armed and all cameras and microphones are functional. It’s a beautiful, perfectly calm day, as you can see through your little porthole, and so we’re a go for submersion.”

  Again, Sean gave them a thumbs-up.

  “Winch is raising you in three, two, one, go.”

  Ocean Vengeance shook a little as its greater weight challenged the winch slightly—but only slightly. But the stab of icy panic in his chest wasn’t because of the shaking.

  WHO IS OPERATING THE WINCH?

  Mickey said in a flat tone, “Jesus, Sean, who do you think? Slipjack is. He’s doing his job—y’know, operating the winch.”

  IS HE BEING MONITORED?