Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii)

by Carolyn McCray

  “Oh my,” Nica exclaimed. Tonaka turned to find a Great White Shark casually swimming toward them. It was a huge beast. The shark was at least fifteen feet long and must have weighed, what, a couple of tons?

  The robot had not paused and so was nearly half way down the tube before Tonaka realized he was falling behind. He trotted to catch up with his wife. He took her hand as they progressed down the tube. Nica’s hand was so thin and frail. Her skin like tissue paper. She had several large purple bruises under the skin from recent blood draws. You could see each blood vessel through her nearly translucent skin.

  Nica squeezed his hand gently as she grinned. At the least he’d been able to make her happy, for perhaps the last time.

  But no more grim thoughts in this wondrous place. He would not allow the worry for the future taint this weekend for he and Nica.

  A figure emerged from the other side of the tube. Tonaka recognized the boy with the blond mop of hair. “Dillon?”

  The boy recognized him and ran over, grabbing Tonaka’s hand pumping it up and down. “It is so good to see you again, Mr. Yashimoto!”

  It had been several months since Tonaka had delivered the robots to the park. Despite the robot’s sophistication, he had given Callum a greatly discounted price. Robotics was still an industry in its infancy. More of a joke or novelty than a true science or player in the world market.

  That was all about to change though. The future was on their doorstep. There were so many hazard jobs, like shark care that robots were perfect for. Nuclear clean up. Bomb disposal. He could think of a thousand such professions.

  If he could just show the world the benefits to robotics his billion-dollar company would blow up into a trillion dollar company. Right now he made his money on automated machines for the car companies and large pharmaceutical factories. But what he really wanted to do was make fully functioning and societally integrated robots.

  That had been his dream nearly sixty years ago, when he read American pulp magazines, and now he wanted to see it come to fruition in his lifetime.

  “Can you believe it?” Dillon exclaimed. “The day. It’s here!”

  Tonaka shook the teen’s hand, although not quite as enthusiastically. His aged shoulder joint just couldn’t take it.

  “Tonaka!” his wife exclaimed. He swung around to see a Great White, swimming so placidly a moment ago, turn with a flick of its giant tail and head straight for the tube.

  “Your father has calculated the force that a full grown Great White shark can generate at full speed, correct?” Tonaka asked with a gulp.

  At the last moment the great beast’s mouth opened and the shark ran full speed into the tube. Its jaw could nearly fit around the entire tube. The acrylic shook, but held.

  “Yep,” Dillon answered casually. “Gabby does that all the time. I think she just likes to see new people’s expressions.”

  Yes, Tonaka could see that as the shark turned away with another flick of her tail, looking vastly smug.

  * * *

  Kevin stared out the reinforced Plexiglas window to his suite. He hadn’t seen a single shark yet. They had walked through what felt like all one hundred miles of interconnecting tubes and hadn’t seen one damned shark.

  “Are they really here?” Susie asked with a pout.

  This was not the 5-star, exciting, titillating adventure it was supposed to be and he hadn’t even paid 100 grand to be here. He could only imagine how disappointed the paying guests would be.

  Because if you ponied up for a shark park, you wanted, well…sharks.

  It should be all sharks, all the time. He would have to speak to Callum about this. He knew the biologist wanted to provide a “natural” environment, but did it really need quite so many hiding places?

  He liked the good old-fashioned fish bowl enclosures. If he wanted to see the damn fish, all he had to do was look. No hide and go seek, damn it. Especially not with Susie whining and pouting.

  Talk about a mood killer. Not even Viagra could right this boat.

  “Look!” Susie squealed as she pointed to the eighty inch LED television screen. A picture of a Hammerheads shark swimming through clear blue waters looked lifelike. Well, at least now he’d seen a damn shark in the shark park.

  Then a birth announcement flashed on the screen along with an invitation. Susie read it as if Kevin had lost the ability to read.

  “We are expecting Lola, our Hammerheads shark, to give live birth within the half hour. Please join us for this monumental occasion, the first time in captivity.”

  “Oh, let’s go,” Susie said with a clap.

  If only she could get so excited about other possible uses for their time. He’d kind of hoped for a quickie before they went to the “meet the sharks” investor’s dinner tonight. Which, by the way, had better have some sharks or Callum’s funding was suddenly becoming jeopardized.

  “Please, please, please,” Susie pleaded with her hands clasped.

  Kevin gave up a sigh. If he denied Susie now, not only wouldn’t he get a quickie now, there wouldn’t be any quickies in the foreseeable future. Kevin glanced to his phone, happy to see that his lawyer had responded with a curt “On it,” in regards the sixth floor blond.

  He pushed out of the rather comfortable chair, he had to give Callum credit, he had appointed the rooms very luxuriously. Kevin had half expected the rooms to be furnished with chairs made out of hemp. Instead they were upholstered in crushed velvet and overstuffed to the point they were nearly bursting.

  The screen changed and gave a schematic of the facility and a bright pink line that led them from their room to the birthing. Under it was a set of instructions, if you could call them that.

  Susie read this aloud too, for some unknown reason except to be able to hear the sound of her own voice. “If for every ten steps you take, you run, hop or better yet skip four steps you will nearly double the calories you will burn.”

  Ugh. Something else Kevin was going to have to talk to Callum about. His “help me, help you get healthier” routine. Kevin knew that he and most guests did not want to be guilted during their stay to exercise or eat right. As a matter of fact the pamphlet that was given to them at the reception desk listed the spinning classes, guided meditation and low impact yoga before any of the shark-related events.

  Um, at a shark park, shouldn’t “Swim with a Whale Shark” be the lead? Or any of the nearly dozen attractions such as petting a Nurse shark? Or touch a manta ray? Or hell, a hundred other shark related activities. Zumba should not come before the first ever in captivity live birth of a Hammerheads.

  And the dinner menu? Kevin knew that rich people liked weird foods, but shouldn’t the menu consist of exotic seafood like pickled squid or charred sea bass or something, anything to do with the sea? Instead nearly every meal had some form of Kale. Even Kale foam. What the hell? He was definitely going to have to talk to the chef. There needed to be a bacon cheeseburger on there, even if it was just on the kid’s meal.

  Callum might know sharks inside and out, but Kevin knew customer service.

  “Come on, we don’t want to miss it,” Susie squealed, pulling on her shoes. She took his hand and tugged him to the door.

  That sixth floor blond was looking better and better by the minute.

  * * *

  Dr. Shalie Hofstrum stood before twenty gleaming robots. They were lined up in two rows of ten. Perfectly spaced. Perfectly at attention. Her own little robot army. How would it feel to have forty or fourteen hundred of them?

  Okay, she was succumbing to what she had termed “robotis granditis”, but that’s what pride in robots did to you. You started getting delusions of grandeur. Now she could see why Dr. Yashimoto refused any and all military contracts. It wasn’t all Skynet to fear what the military could do with these robots.

  They were smart, strong and without remorse. A little like Gabby the Great White shark. Well, most of them. Shalie was glad for QX59 and his emotional chip. They needed to temper the she
er brute strength of the robots.

  But in this environment with forty-ton sharks who could kill you with their tail, they needed all of the brute strength they could get.

  And not a single robot looked nervous. How could they? They didn’t understand fear, or dismemberment, or death.

  They were the perfect shark keepers.

  “Are you ready?”

  A uniform, twenty strong nod answered her. Of course they were ready. They were QX’s.

  Shalie spotted a small smudge on one of the robots. “QX14, please step forward.”

  Without hesitation the robot stepped out of its formation and stood in front of her. She found a small piece of gum stuck to his chassis.

  “Where did this come from?” she asked the QX.

  “One of the immature humans placed it there,” he explained.

  “Do you mean a kid put it there?” Shalie asked.

  “A small, baby goat did not put it there.”

  Shalie sighed. Sometimes there was a slight language barrier. Sure they could speak a gazillion languages, but the finer, more nuances slang? Not so much.

  “No, I meant children. A child placed the gum on your chassis?”

  “Yes, a juvenile human did so.”

  “Do not allow them to do that in the future, QX14.”

  “Why?” he asked completely straight-faced. He had no pride and therefore no shame. “The gummy substance does not impair my operations.”

  “No, but it is an eye sore.”

  The robot cocked his head to the side. “It does not please the eye? But the eye has no emotional capability.”

  Shalie had to stifle another sigh. The robots were, well, literal. A bit too literal.

  “Just do not allow any guests, no matter their age, place anything on your bodies.”

  “And how are we to stop them?” the robot asked. “Are we authorized to use the shark prods?’

  “No,” Shalie blurted. “Heavens, no.” She had to take a moment to regroup. It was easy to forget that these robots had no moral compass. No way to gauge what their reactions should be.

  “Just call me if it happens again.”

  “Copy that,” the robot responded and stepped back into formation.

  “They are a wooly lot,” a voice said behind her.

  It could only be one “person,” QX59. Shalie turned to find the robot approaching. While made of the same titanium, he had buffed his to a brilliant shine. You would never catch QX59 with gum on him. And his ability to use colloquiums was far more efficient.

  “I hear Yashimoto is coming in for an inspection,” QX59 stated. “I helped his wife in from the helicopter.”

  “Yes. He was supposed to preview the robots before he checked in, but his flight was delayed. He will be by later.”

  “And he wants to see me, personally?” QX59 asked.

  Shalie put her hand out and patted his silver arm. “Especially you, but don’t worry, it’s all good.”

  QX59 smiled, another gesture that only he did. “He won’t find me lacking?”

  Shalie knew what QX59 was worried about. He had been built as a shark-keeper yet he was terrified of them. He wouldn’t go near them after he’d googled a few YouTube videos. One of the problems with robots enabled with their own Wifi. He had learned every route around the islands that avoided the glass tube network. Which was hard to do. There were a hell of a lot of them, but somehow he had done it.

  He and Dillon spent most of their time under there testing the infrastructure, making sure that it was up to snuff for the opening.

  QX59 was by far the least useful of the robots, yet was by far her favorite.

  “All right,” Shalie stated. “You know your tasks. Go check in,” she ordered.

  In unison the robots turned and headed to the hatch.

  “Sheep,” QX59 muttered as they marched past. “Baa Baa…”

  Shalie smiled. That was QX59 for you.

  * * *

  Dillon could barely hold still. The whole facility was cool. The sharks were cool. All the staff were cool. The robots were cool. But a live Hammerheads birth right here before his eyes?

  That was crazy cool.

  He wished that Quax wasn’t so jumpy around the sharks. He would so dig this if he would just let him. But for now Quax was over in the corner, setting up the refreshments. If Dillon didn’t know better he would have sworn the robot had been born and raised to a Jewish grandmother. Quax, even though he didn’t eat, thought fixing food would always make you feel better. Dillon really wanted Yashimoto to figure out to modify Quax’s exoskeleton so that the robot could taste and eat what he so generously made.

  He gave a wave to Quax, who waved back with his tail. Like he said, cool.

  And shocking to just about everyone but Dillon. Everything was going according to plan. Sure a storm was blowing in, but this was Australia. Storms always blew in. It hardly mattered under the surface, especially since they had built a pen specifically for this blessed event. It was large but not too large. They needed to be able to monitor Lola through the entire birth.

  People were streaming into the observation room from both doors. The place was standing room only already. Dillon was lucky to be up out of the fray on the steel control deck with his Dad and a few others.

  A woman approached the deck, her auburn hair flowing over a yellow blouse and jeans. He didn’t recognize her at first, then it clicked. She usually had her hair up in a neat bun and wore a white lab coat.

  “Dr. Hofstrum,” Dillon said holding out his hand not just to shake it, but to help her up the metal steps.

  “Shalie. A thousand times, Dillon, I’ve told you to call me, Shalie.”

  Dillon’s father came over and shook her hand. “And I’ve told him a thousand times not to, Dr. Hofstrum.”

  She flashed a smile. Dillon had long hoped that maybe his dad and Dr. Hofstrum would hit it off, but to no avail. His father kept his professional wall up against everyone, including Shalie. At least Dillon didn’t feel alone in that. He and his father worked side by side, but more as co-workers than father and son. Dillon for the most didn’t’ mind. He was happy to be here, but there were times when it felt like something was missing.

  Mainly his mom, of course. God, he still missed her. Especially on a big day like today. She would have been as excited as he was at a live Hammerheads birth. She would have been gushy happy. He felt like it was his duty to carry on her bubbly optimism.

  It wasn’t until Shalie was up on the deck that he realized that Nick Flack was standing right behind her. And his daughter just a step away. Dillon diverted his eyes knowing that his cheeks were already blushing red. He tried so hard not to imagine which bra she had on, but it was useless. Was it the pink frilly one or the smooth, low cut white one? He’d guess since she was in a tee shirt it would be the white one.

  “So can anybody get up there or is it the VIP lounge?” Flack asked.

  Dillon was stirred from his panic. “No, of course, come up,” Nick said unhooking the thin chain that blocked entrance.

  “I’m afraid not,” Dillon’s father stated, hooking it back on. “This is for vital personnel only.”

  Flack cocked his head. “I think for a hundred grand I should get a VIP seat to this, or any event.”

  Dillon noticed that his father looked to that skanky business man, Mr. Knightly who nodded his head. He hated seeing his dad take orders from such a sleaze ball.

  “Fine,” his father said, opening the way.

  Flack gave a polite nod and led his daughter up the steps. They stopped right next to Dillon. Great, now he had to smell her honeysuckle scented hair.

  “So Dr. Hofstrum, are you the facility’s veterinarian?” Flack asked, holding his hand out for her to shake.

  Before she did so, she grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear. Was that a flush to her cheeks? She never acted like that with Dillon’s dad, but then again this was Nick Flack.

  “No, I’m sorry, I’m not that kind of do
ctor. I’m in charge of the robots,” she said while shaking his hand.

  “Ah, a far more interesting type of doctor then,” Flack replied, setting his hand on top of hers, cupping it between his palms. Shalie blushed some more. Okay, Dillon was definitely taking notes. Anyone who could fluster Shalie had some serious mojo. Of course Nick had played Bond like three times. He certainly was channeling the secret agent’s swagger. Hell, he was even wearing a tux, ready for the night’s formal dinner.

  Shalie pulled her hand back, but with a smile. “I’m not so sure about that,” she replied. “Our veterinarian is in his wet suit right now ready to dive in if our Momma Lola gets in trouble.”

  “Adventuresome I admit,” Flack said, “But not nearly as intellectually stimulating. Plus, I’ve taken on my fair share of robots, they’re nothing to sneeze at.”

  “You’re a scientist as well?” Shalie asked which shocked not just Dillon, but Flack as well.

  He stammered, losing some of his patented Bond swagger. “Well, no, I’m… I’m an actor.”

  “Who does motion capture of the robot’s movements?” Shalie asked with a straight face.

  “Um, no, I’m sort of well-known for my action films,” Flack stated. Now it was the action star’s turn to have his cheeks blush. “I’m kind of a box office power house.”

  “Oh sorry, I don’t really watch TV or go to the movies. I’m too busy with my research.”

  The action star didn’t seem to believe Shalie. Or at the least he couldn’t comprehend Shalie. “Not even Assail Mt. Olympus?” Flack asked, sounding a bit flustered. “I played Mars?”

  “So sorry, but no,” Shalie admitted.

  Who the heck hadn’t seen Assail Mt. Olympus? Dillon wondered. It had grossed like a billion dollars.

  “How about A Day and a Night in Paris?”

  Shalie blushed even more. “Sorry, I don’t even do YouTube.”

  What? The Paris film, one of Flack’s few romantic flicks was the most downloaded movie on Netflix, ever.

  Shalie shook her head.

  Wow, the doctor was serious. To think Flack had her all flustered and she didn’t even know who he was. Now that was some swagger even Bond couldn’t generate.