“He’s got a record,” one of the techs called out. “A bunch of arrests for animal rights protests and one breaking and entering into a veal factory.”
Shalie got all of that. She herself observed meatless Monday and refused to eat veal, but it was a long step from that to destroying an entire complex devoted to saving sharks.
“And Milo isn’t on any other footage?” Callum asked.
“We’ve got a lot of camera back up, which is great,” the tech explained, “However that means there is a lot of footage to go through.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” Shalie said. Her science geek brain coming in handy again. She hated to move away from Callum, it felt so good to be near him in presence and in spirit, but she needed to get to a different terminal.
“Milo has a very distinct gait,” Shalie stated, pointing to the screen. “See how he has that little hop?
“I guess…” Callum replied.
“I’m thinking an old ankle injury.”
To know how to create a robot with a better structure than a human, you had to understand the human body, inside and out. Nature had done a great job in refining the human body, but she was limited by evolution. Take the tail. It had been essential in the forest, but once primates came out of the trees, it wasn’t necessary so Nature got rid of it. However in today’s modern world, having a tail was a huge boon, giving you nearly an extra hand. Hence why the robots had tails. Because they could. They didn’t have to wait thousands of years for Nature to decide it was an evolutionary benefit. They could just put one on now.
“And you are doing what exactly?” Tonaka asked as he came to stand over her shoulder.
“I’m building a program that is going to analyze the footage looking for this single marker. The limp. It should be pretty quick and efficient.”
“I see, excellent. Very eloquent solution to the problem.”
Shalie smiled. That was a high compliment indeed from Mr. Tonaka. To not only solve a problem but to do so elegantly was a scientist’s highest calling.
She hit a few more keys that started the program. “We should know if we caught him on tape in a few minutes.”
“Great job,” Callum said.
“If it catches him,” Shalie parced the compliment.
“No, it’s a great job no matter what happens,” Callum said.
Shalie wasn’t quite sure what had happened to park director. Perhaps she should nearly get eaten by baby sharks more frequently.
“We should get you looked at,” Callum said, indicating to her multiple bite wounds. They stung and throbbed and ached. He looked to one of the techs. “Can you get the medic up here?”
The tech sadly shook his head.
“The nurse then?”
Another shake of the head.
“The veterinarian?” Callum asked.
“He died trying to save the Nurse sharks,” the tech explained.
“I’m fine,” Shalie said. “I’ll tend to them myself.”
Callum looked ready to argue when the island shook. Everyone lashed out to hold onto something as it felt like they were experiencing an earthquake or a seaquake as it was known way out here.
Then the rumbling stopped.
“What was that?” Callum asked.
One of the techs brought up a schematic. “The westerly archipelago is sinking faster than we are. It is starting to break off piece by piece.”
* * *
Dillon stared at the screen. “That isn’t naturally occurring. Someone cut the connecting lines here, here and here.”
His father leaned in as well. “Dillon is right. Those couplings have been tampered with.”
“Have the QXs been monitoring for explosives?” Tonaka asked.
“No, why?” his father asked.
Tonaka shrugged. “Does that not feel like the next evolution of this man’s end game?”
Dillon’s skin suddenly went cold. A bomb. It seemed inconceivable on a day that was completely inconceivable.
“No,” Dillon said. “We turned off all of those specialized senses for routine activity otherwise it slowed the robots down too much.”
“I might suggest turning them back on,” Tonaka stated.
“New problem!” a tech yelled.
Everyone turned in her direction. “Which is?” his father asked.
“The pressure is mounting on the amphitheater window. If it sinks another two feet, it will shatter.
“On it,” Dillon said before his father even had a chance to ask. They had to get all of the guests the heck out of that room before the glass blew.
“But where are we going to put them?” his father asked.
The tech pointed to a cluster of storage sheds on high ground. “That is the only place that can hold that many people and keep them sheltered from the storm.”
“It isn’t going to be pretty though,” Shalie stated. “There’s no restroom facilities. No food or potable water.”
That had been the benefit of the amphitheater, it was well equipped to house a large number of people for a number of hours.
“It will have to do,” Callum said. “Son, you can head up the evacuation?”
“Try and stop me,” Dillon said, heading out.
* * *
Nami caught Dillon’s hand as he walked past. “Be careful.”
“I will,” Dillon said with a smile.
“Because I do not want to have to go out there and save your butt again.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dillon stated, then leaned in and gave her a kiss. Her first kiss, here in the sinking shark park. It was perfect.
Then he was gone out the door. Her father put his arm around her.
“He should be fine. They aren’t going far and all above ground.”
That was the problem though, wasn’t it? There wasn’t much ground to begin with on the island and now that they were sinking, how long would any of the facility be above water?
“Do you want to go get cleaned up?” her father asked.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I want to watch Dillon. Make sure he doesn’t want to do anything crazy.”
“You mean like leave a perfectly safe control room to go save a toddler and almost get herself killed?”
“Yah, kind of like that,” she said with a smile. Her dad just got her.
“Well then,” Her father said as he moved a chair out. Always such a gentleman. Why couldn’t her mother see that? “Have a seat?”
She sat down and watched Dillon and three robots descend the stairs to the amphitheater. Quax had stayed here with the boy. The robot was dipping crackers in peanut butter with his tail and feeding them to the toddler. They both seemed to enjoy the task.
Nami turned back to the screen to watch Dillon enter the amphitheater. Everyone seemed on edge in there. No big surprise, but she didn’t like how aggressive some of the guests were acting toward Dillon. Granted Dillon could take care of himself, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
* * *
Dillon allowed the guests anger and frustration to wash over him. None of this was his fault or even his father’s. He couldn’t exactly explain that without raising even more difficult questions.
“This is bullshit!” one of the male guests shouted. “We aren’t here because of the storm.”
“And why are there so few of us?” another demanded.
Dillon ignored both of the men’s statements. He couldn’t lower himself to get into it with the guests. He had a task and he was going to complete it.
“We are preparing for an evacuation,” Dillon stated loud enough to be heard in the back of the theater. “If you will all follow me to the staging area. Quickly and quietly.”
The robots held open the doors. To his surprise the guests complied, streaming out the door two by two, nice and orderly. They must really be desperate to follow a teenager’s orders without question.
“Why are the robots sniffing for explosives?” another guest asked.
Dillon’s eyes narrowed. How in the heck did he know that? Then he saw the tablet in the guy’s hand. He must have been one of their tech investors. He must have hacked into the robot’s communication frequency.
“Is there a bomb?” one of the women asked, wide-eyed.
“I can assure you there is no bomb,” Dillon stated.
Unfortunately that was about the time a bomb went off.
* * *
“What was that?” Callum demanded as the control room still rattled.
“A small bomb at the base of the amphitheater’s storm shutters,” the tech stated, bringing up the theater’s camera feed to the main monitor. That was where Dillon was damn it.
The explosion hadn’t done much damage except to blow the corner of shutter and the glass. Water was pouring into the amphitheater. Of course his son, instead of running out of the room, was running into it, helping get people back on their feet and out of the theater.
But the metal wasn’t going to hold. It was already bending, letting in more water. Soon there would be a shark sized hole.
Not soon, right now. A young Mako shark shimmied through, chomping as he came, taking a man down in one bite.
“Get out of there!” Callum shouted into his mic even though he knew the intercom was down.
The water was up to waist level now and several other sharks had entered the theater. Dillon backed his way up the stairs, still helping as many people as he could out. The QXs were doing the best they could as well, using their tails to crack at the sharks, keeping them as back as much as possible.
* * *
Dillon grabbed hold of a woman’s wrist and tried to pull her out, but a shark latched onto her waist. He tugged, but only pulled the top half of her out of the water. There was so much blood in the water, he couldn’t even see to the floor anymore.
“Retreat!” Dillon yelled to the robots. It was a feeding frenzy down there. They couldn’t hope to rescue anyone else.
The robots responded immediately, jumping over Dillon to the higher steps.
Dillon turned to run when a hand reached out and grabbed his ankle.
“Please, help me,” a man feebly begged.
Dillon turned around and tried to help pull the man out, but it was a tug of war with a tiger shark. Dillon lost. After the man slipped under the water, Dillon turned and ran. He couldn’t watch anymore. He just couldn’t.
Outside was not much better. The guests had panicked and now just ran, without any heed of the danger. Many of them had rushed onto the catwalk that Nami and he had crossed.
“Get off there!” Dillon screamed, trying to wave them back.
The catwalk couldn’t support all of their weight and crashed into the water. The sharks were on them so quickly it seemed a blur. There would be no survivors there either.
Dillon sank to his knees, damning the man who planted the bomb. So many dead and for what?
CHAPTER 23
“There!” the tech yelled.
“There what?” Callum asked. There was way too much going to on to know what the hell the guy was talking about.
“I think I’ve found him,” the tech said. “Milo.”
Callum’s head snapped around. They had found the man who had done all of this? Killed all of these innocent people. “Where?”
The tech brought up the island grid. A bright red light flashed just south to him.
“What is he doing there?” Shalie asked.
Callum felt a sense of dread in his gut. “That is where the main supports fuse at the base of the main island.”
“If he puts a bomb there…” Shalie didn’t seem like she could finish her sentence. Callum didn’t need to either. They all knew what it meant.
“Do we have footage?” Callum asked,
The view switched to hallway not far from them. Milo was clearly setting charges at the intersection of the struts.
“QXs to me,” Callum said, turning to the exit.
Shalie grabbed his arm. “And the plan is?”
“To stop him,” Callum stated.
“And if he has a gun?” Shalie asked.
Callum picked up his shotgun, priming it with one arm. He didn’t wait for her response, he trotted to the door, then smoothly jumped onto the back of one of the QXs who took off like a bat out hell. Perhaps there was some benefit to the robots now understanding their own mortality. It certainly lit a fire under them right now.
They crossed the distance quickly. Like mind-blowing quickly. These robots could haul ass if they needed to. The robot dropped him off at the door.
On the other side was Milo.
Callum made sure that he had a good grip on his shotgun as he nodded for the QX to open the door. After the robot jerked the door open, Callum burst through.
“Stop what you’re doing! Hands up.”
Milo dropped what he was doing but turned and ran. Callum shot, but he had only blanks in the shotgun. He climbed atop his robot and they gave chase.
Milo went up the stairs to ground level. The QX caught up with him easily. They were right outside of the control room. Shalie, Tonaka, Nami, Nick and a few others exited to see the saboteur.
Dillon approached from the other side.
Callum pressed the shotgun against his hip. “Stop, or so help me I’ll shoot you in the back.”
As the rain lashed them all, Milo jumped up onto a wind torn tree stump. “Go ahead!” Milo screamed. “I’ve done what I set out to do!”
“Which was what exactly?” Callum demanded.
“This island was an affront to nature. Capturing animals from the wild! Imprisoning them here. You are as bad as the fisherman, just killing the sharks more slowly.”
“Do you know how many sharks you’ve killed today?” Callum challenged.
“No more than you would have,” Milo ranted. “At the least they were given a warrior’s death, not a prisoner’s.”
Okay, enough talking with the crazy person.
“Come down, Milo.”
“Never,” the saboteur hissed. “Animals are God’s creatures. They are perfect. They are God’s highest achievement. Not us. Animals.”
“Do you know what else animals are, Milo?” Callum asked.
“What?”
“Hungry.”
The Great White shark leapt out of the water, grabbing Milo, dragging him back under the water.
Callum set his shotgun down. “Thank you, Gabby.”
* * *
Well at the least it was a fitting end to a shark park saboteur, Dillon thought. Had they stopped him though, before he did more damage? The rest had gone inside to the control room.
Dillon just couldn’t go in there yet. He’d seen too much in the last few minutes to put on his happy face. His father would be worried. Nami would be worried. Hell, he was worried about himself. That had been intense. And all for nothing. Some crackpot’s hatred of his own species? Dude, then go kill yourself, don’t drag us into it.
“Dillon, can you hear me?” Shalie asked in his ear.
“Yes,” Dillon answered. So they’d gotten the comms to work again. A step in the right direction.
“We’ve got infrared up again and it looks like we’ve got a guest in one of the south east storage sheds. Can you investigate?”
“Of course,” Dillon answered reflexively.
“You okay?” Shalie asked.
“I will be,” Dillon responded.
He headed off to the southeast to find out what adventure lay for him next.
* * *
Knightley’s leg was getting cramped but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it now was there. The sea snake, he’d decided to call her Susie, was taking her damn sweet time about her nap. The thing hadn’t moved for hours, but lay there with its eyes wide open.
Just like Susie.
What had he done to deserve this fate? He’d just been trying to get off the cursed island.
“Anyone in there?” a voice called out.
Then the cretin jerked open the door, allowing the roaring wind into the shed. The snake stirred, seeming upset at her nap disturbed.
“Shut the door,” Knightly whispered harshly.
“What are you doing?” the teenager asked. Knightly recognized him. It was Dillon, Callum’s son.
“Don’t wake her,” Knightly begged.
Dillon’s eyes scanned the scene, then his pupils dilated.
“That’s a… that’s a…”
“Yes, a sea snake, I know.”
“No. Yes, but that’s a spiny headed sea snake. It venom is ten times more deadly than a King Cobra’s.”
Great information. Like Knightly wasn’t stressed enough as it was.
“Just please shut the door,” Knightly begged. He wanted to be back in the dark with his asleep sea snake.
“I’ll get a pole and get her out of there.”
Too bad Susie was already awake. She stretched her neck out, flickering her tongue, honing in on Knightley.
It couldn’t end like this. He wouldn’t let it end like this.
* * *
They didn’t have time for the pole. The snake was about to strike. Dillon reached into the shed, grabbed Knightly by the collar and went to pull him out, but the business man had a very different idea.
Instead of just getting out of the shed, he grabbed Dillon’s jacket sleeve and threw him into the shed. What was up with all the douchery going on? Wasn’t there anyone else decent on this island?
Dillon tried to stop his momentum, but Knightly was stronger than he looked. Stumbling into the shed, Dillon covered his head with his arms. Not that it would help. Anywhere the snake bit would be fatal.
He couldn’t help his morbid fascination as he peaked out through his arms to see the sea snake spring into action. From a coil, she launched into the air. She was used to fighting the water’s inertia so she really sailed through the air, over Dillon’s head.
The snake latched onto Knightley’s hand. He screamed, running across the island with a seasnake pumping venom into his wrist.
* * *
The bite burned, stung and was screaming all at once. He just couldn’t shake Susie. The bitch had buried her fangs deep into his flesh. He couldn’t get her off.
He could feel the venom coursing through his veins. His blood vessels were on fire. He could feel the toxin hit his heart. It seized up, skipping several beats.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 26
