by M. C. Norris
“I’ve got three dolphins within range of the decoy,” Takashi said.
Collin knew that. He’d discerned which of the three available hosts would be utilized and started streaming in a fraction of the time that it normally took the combined efforts of Takashi and Jill to patch him in. The new tech was unbelievable. Collin was soaring beneath the waves inside the head of a dolphin named Daisy, and he had the decoy ship in his sights.
“Wait, are you already in?” Takashi asked.
Collin hesitated before answering. It looked like his buddy’s irrelevance was probably going to be discovered sooner than later. “Yeah. I’m streaming Daisy right now.”
“Oh.”
Takashi’s voice sounded a little strange. Collin was glad that he was wearing the headset, because he didn’t really want to see Takashi’s expression fall, as the slow realization set in. This situation was not unlike watching some wounded thing dragging its carcass around the floor, unable to put it out of its misery.
“Well, I guess if you’ve got radar and streaming covered with the new tech,” Takashi said, “then I’ll just shift my primary focus over to sonar and thermal imagery. Come on, kids. Let’s go on a monster hunt.”
Collin laughed. Clearly, he should’ve given Takashi a little more credit. His value to the team would never depreciate, no matter what the changing circumstances.
“How is it down there?” J.J. asked.
Collin smiled. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. I’m afraid that you’re just going to have to experience this for yourself.”
Collin tipped his dolphin snout and plunged into the polluted depths of the Yellow Sea. The water was so turbid that it possessed an almost fuzzy quality due to the massive amount of suspended solids rushing past the screen. Light scarcely penetrated fifteen meters, and thirty meters was absolute blackness. It had been a long while since he’d used the functions of the handgrip, but Collin’s thumb found its way toward the switch that activated the dolphin vest’s submersible lights. The screen leapt into sickening brilliance, providing every detail of the stew through which he traveled.
“I’m picking up massive structures on the sea floor,” Takashi said.
“Kaiju?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not getting any heat signatures. What I’m seeing are formations. Almost looks like a lost city down there.”
“Shipwrecks,” J.J. replied. “Probably the Chinese fleet lost in the Battle of Yangtze. Turning point in the End War. We’re over a graveyard.”
Collin slowed his pace to avoid impaling his dolphin host on a piece of debris. He could see forms thrusting up from the sea floor, but it was difficult to make out much of anything in the murk. Clearly, Takashi had a better view of this crucible of bygone things deliquescing back into primordial sludge. It crossed Collin’s mind to inquire if Jill could add sonar and heat signature options to the new tech, but he decided that bumping Takashi out of his second job in five minutes was probably not the best idea.
“Some of those wrecks may be more recent than the End War,” Skyler replied. “In the last year, hundreds of ships have been lost in this region.”
“What do we need to know about these things we’re dealing with?” J.J. asked.
“Of all the organisms brought back from Europa, bloodfins are the most predictable,” Skyler replied. “They’re the bullies of our interactive tanks, where we introduce different species in a controlled environment to observe their strengths and weaknesses. Bloodfins are fiercely territorial. You can count on them to defend what tends to be a rather entitled amount of personal space. Anything that strays too near what they perceive to be their hunting grounds will immediately be regarded as one of two things: a rival challenger, or foo—”
“Wait a minute,” Takashi said. “We’ve got something.”
“What is it?” J.J. asked.
“Hard to tell, but it’s big. It’s showing up on several drone sonar feeds.”
J.J. rushed for the gunner’s station, where he alone had clearance to the Devil Ray’s deadly arsenal of cannons, as well as views from multiple external cameras. Buckles clicked across his chest. Pneumatic valves hissed as he lowered the periscopic viewfinder from its storage position on the ceiling. Those familiar sounds of rehearsed actions performed countless times by the well-oiled machine that their team used to be was like comfort food to the ears.
“Can you guide me in, Takashi?” Collin asked. “I’m kind of flying blind over here.”
Visual streaming was worthless in such a dense and lightless miasma. If not for the depth readings derived from the water pressure on the dolphin’s vest, it would’ve been impossible even to discern which way was up. Daisy’s oxygen levels had dropped from the green to the yellow zone. She’d need to surface soon.
“Forty-five degrees to the east. Approaching the decoy head-on, at a speed of about forty knots.”
“That doesn’t do me any good down here.”
“Start veering starboard. I’ll let you know when you’ve got the right trajectory.”
“What do I do once I’m on this thing? Skyler?”
“Go for the gill slits,” Skyler replied. “Bloodfins have huge masses of capillaries just behind the gill plates, on either side of their jaws. That’s where you’ll want to aim your harpoon. A dolphin ought to be small enough that you won’t be perceived as either a threat or a food source, but maintain a safe distance and be careful, all the same.”
“Sounds easy.” Collin wasn’t sure if they’d detected his sarcasm. Beneath the headset, a pilot was robbed of the luxuries of eye contact and facial expression when trying to make a point, and that imposed some limitations on conversational nuances. The truth was that he wasn’t even sure if he was being sarcastic or not. To his teammates, Collin did make dolphin piloting look easy, because for him, it was. Collin had no difficulty speaking casually to those seated around him while streaming dolphin data. J.J. was more clunky and wooden in the dolphin suit, and Jill was even worse. They twitched and contorted their human bodies in a grotesque rendition of their host’s vicarious movements, as if the whole experience was just as uncomfortable and disorienting to them, as it was liberating to Collin.
It sounded like this operation was going to be pretty similar to the old torpedo training exercises in many respects. The only significant difference was that his target wasn’t likely going to be moving in a nice linear pattern like that of a ship or a submarine. From what he’d observed in the naval laboratory, the bloodfins swam like conger eels, writhing and undulating their serpentine bodies through the water. Lining up a direct shot on a small area of a moving target like that was going be difficult. It would be tough even in crystalline waters, and this sea was like a bowl of dirt soup.
“Alright, stop turning. Straighten out. There you go. You’re on it. You got this, man.”
Takashi’s reassuring words did little to extinguish the rising trepidation that ignited Collin’s nerve endings afire from the first instant they’d boarded the Devil Ray. He couldn’t easily forget how things had ended the last time he’d buckled into a pilot’s chair. They’d taken an awful beating. It required something of an athlete’s psychology to rise above that last defeat, and to march back out onto the playing field. However, Collin wasn’t much an athlete, aside from those hours he’d logged on an off-kilter air hockey table.
“How close am I?” Collin asked.
“Closing … I’d expect a rendezvous in less than thirty seconds. Better head for the surface.”
“Headed that way. My girl needs a breath.”
“Got a visual!” J.J. said. “It’s headed right for the decoy, and—oh, man. This thing is a monster!”
Collin could actually hear the smile on J.J.’s face. He was getting anxious for a glimpse of anything besides polluted water. His visual was a torrent of what looked like coffee grounds and chewing tobacco. Depth readings indicated that Daisy the dolphin was going to breach the surface in a matter of seconds.
“Good God almighty.” Collin heard his own muffled exclamation resonating apart from his host’s rubbery squeals and clicks, as Daisy’s head burst from the waves. Collin felt quite suddenly like the smallest minnow in the world, swimming alone in the Kraken’s shadow.
The bloodfin slashed its upraised head from side to side, displacing mountains of seawater with every sweep. Eyes like portals to some alien world took turns offering glimpses into that frigid oblivion, while fathoms of its endless body unreeled forever behind. At every turn of that battle-scarred chin, the great jaws gaped, revealing a forest of translucent teeth. Higher still, and billowing with great folds of vermillion, a hoisted dorsal sail seemed to send a declaration of war that was just as clear to the inhabitants of this world as it would’ve been in any other. The foreboding banner flapped against the dark and brooding skies.
“Look at the size of those gill plates,” Collin said, gaping up at a mountainside fissure, splitting and resealing with clocklike regularity. Each parting of that wall of flesh flashed a glimpse of the target. It was almost as though the monster was aware of its weak spot, and made access to that slot of crimson viscera into a deadly game of perfect timing. “What’s the range on my weapon? I don’t want to get cut in half.”
“The harpoons are effective out to fifty meters,” Skyler replied.
“We’ve got some kind of a strange issue, here,” J.J. said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen this warning come up before. Some sort of a contingency on your weapons protocol.”
“My weapons protocol?”
“Yeah. Somebody toss me my radio, would you?”
“I don’t know how long I can keep up with this thing.” Collin swung Daisy’s head in the direction of the bloodfin, and with a hard thrust of her flukes, swept alongside the oscillating cliff that was the monster’s head. He could hear J.J. shouting into his radio, presumably at Captain Roswell, but it was difficult to remain in touch with the world inside the Devil Ray when the Yellow Sea was roaring in Daisy’s ears. He watched the vacillating gill slit, mesmerized and repulsed by the red tonnage of exposed veins. The shot would have to be perfect.
“Tactical field commander’s approval?” J.J. yelled. “What field commander? I’m the only commander in this field!”
“J-man, what’s the story on that contingency?”
The dolphin’s stress levels were edging up into the yellow zone. Not difficult to imagine why. Daisy probably wouldn’t be able to maintain her breakneck pace alongside the slithering wall of death for much longer. Dolphins exhibited incredible endurance under normal circumstances, but this situation was anything but normal. The animal was terrified. It was wanting to tap out, and go somewhere else.
“Got a bogie coming in fast at four-o’clock,” Takashi said.
“Are you serious?” Jill replied. “Who’d be crazy enough to come out here right now?”
Through borrowed eyes, Collin watched a dark mass of angled steel descend from the swirling clouds. Like the Devil Ray, the flying weapon was designed to thwart radar detection. An array of rockets bristled from the undersides of downturned wings. Only one thought burned in his mind. “Is it pirates?”
“No,” J.J. replied. “It’s the SEALs.”
“Stand by to be boarded.” The terse voice of the Devil Ray’s assigned pilot emanated through the speaker system. “Tactical field command has arrived.”
The gunship lowered through skeins of mist until it hung nose to nose with the Devil Ray, mere centimeters between their cockpits. The intimidation did not appear to be accidental. With the pugnacious aircraft’s wicked arsenal aimed right in their faces, it was made plain to see that they were outgunned and outmatched.
“What the heck is going on?” Takashi asked.
“I’m going to lose him!” Collin gritted his teeth, pushing the stressed dolphin to her physical limits in order to remain within range of that champing gill slit, but the bloodfin was beginning to pull into the lead. Daisy’s stress levels were entering the red.
“It’s over,” J.J. said.
“What? What are you talking about? Like heck it’s over!” Takashi shouted.
“This ain’t our show anymore, bud, and I’m not sure it ever was.”
Collin eased back on the control, engaged the vest’s pneumatic stabilizers, and floated the spent dolphin atop the waves. Daisy’s stress meter continued to flash in warning at the top-right corner of the screen, while the undulating sea dragon bore down on the decoy amidst swarms of video drones. Collin couldn’t bring himself to watch. He closed his eyes just as the bloodfin’s sabered maw gaped wide, and listened to the sound of rending steel and explosions as its jaws slammed shut around the ship. Massive coils churned the seawater into foam, as the monster took the vessel for a death roll.
The cockpit of the SEAL gunship yawned open with a gaseous hiss. Backlit by the electrical storm, a dark figure arose from the aircraft’s throat. Collin blinked in the flash of distant explosions, the flickering strings of decoy lights, as armed flanks of Navy SEALs marched across a boarding plank.
Collin switched off the Mindbender Rift headset. Although he welcomed the enveloping blackness, he found no real sanctuary within it. Invaders stormed through the cockpit. Their trundling military boots reverberated through the fuselage, accompanied by a reeking cloud of sweat, brine, and gunpowder. Hotspot laid down his ears, and emitted a low growl.
“Easy, boy.”
There was no mistaking the foreboding presence aboard their ship. Here they were, once again, being punished for trespassing in the Yellow Sea. The warrant officer in charge of this boarding could be none other than Miles Bent, the Mad Hatter of Shanghai.
Chapter Seven
The severed dolphin head tumbled from its sacking onto the laboratory bench in a slurry of pinkish ice. Rivulets of stained water spilled from the counter’s edge to pool on the tile floor. The Red Brotherhood loitered in the wings, as Dr. Wu approached the remnants of the defunct sea creature, and placed his hand with a paternal tenderness upon its sunken cheek. The room’s silence was broken only by the spatter of water droplets, and by the constant hum of the incandescent lights. The dolphin’s bleary eye stared up into the appraising face of the Chinese scientist with the dullest regard. The doctor’s hand slid over the mottled flesh until it came to rest upon the animal’s bulbous forehead. The hint of a smile curled the corner of his mouth, as he patted the dolphin’s crown. He glanced up to the overhead monitor, where Volkov’s image lingered. “I think I know this one. I will have to digest,” Dr. Wu said.
Volkov frowned.
“Digest head—in acid.” The doctor was struggling just a little with the Tong-Tai dialect of the lower Yangtze, a tongue more closely related to its Mongolian linguistic roots than to any brand of Mandarin, evidencing a foreign presence that had endured for centuries in Nantong. Rumor held that the foothold was originally established by a colony of Mongolian criminals whose descendants were never extirpated.
The doctor nodded and smiled. “This one mine.”
“I don’t understand,” Volkov replied. “What are you talking about?”
The doctor patted the dolphin’s head. “Nanobots in here. Very tiny. I get them out.”
“Don’t damage anything. Understand? No damage.”
“No, no damage.” The doctor shook his head. Scurrying over to the large steel cabinet covered with corrosive placards, he swung open the double-doors with a terrible squeal of rusted hinges. Inside were rows and rows of glass jugs, amber and clear. As if in afterthought, the doctor darted off to a cluttered corner, seized a plastic tote and overturned it where he stood. Nameless contents rained to the floor with a terrible clatter. Once emptied, he returned to the acid cabinet, and dropped the empty tub on the floor. “Put head in here.”
Still shackled upon the central examination table, Mr. Krupin watched as the Mongol giant called Jochi obeyed Dr. Wu’s command. He seized the dolphin by its ser
rated snout, and raised it to give it a sniff. Jochi wrinkled his nose. He then swaggered in the direction of the plastic tote. Dr. Wu was already cracking the seals on glass jugs, and pouring their steaming contents into the tub. Jochi ambled right into the rising cloud. He reared back coughing, drawing his forearm across his nose and mouth, and shot an incredulous glare at Dr. Wu. The doctor noticed his reaction, and as though he’d just been reminded of some critical step he’d forgotten, he flipped a nearby switch into an upward position. An overhead fume hood came to life with a hollow whine. Currents of air began to slither through the laboratory, drawn up into the vortex created by the spinning fan. The doctor resumed his work, emptying jug after jug of acid into the vessel until he’d procured a volume that he deemed satisfactory. “You put head in now,” he said to Jochi, pointing at the steaming container. “Very gentle.”
Jochi glanced uncertainly at the doctor, as though he’d never done anything gently in his life. Goaded by the doctor’s expressionless stare, Jochi leaned lowered the severed head into the fumes. Received by furious fluids, the smiling face of the dolphin disappeared into the boiling cauldron. Jochi was quick to step back a few paces, as some violent reaction was triggered by the strange ingredient he’d just added to the witch’s brew. Unaffected by the sights and smells before him, as though he’d experienced the same situation a thousand times, Dr. Wu stared straight down into his angry concoction, hands folded behind his back, while the lenses of his glasses steamed over.
Krupin’s eyes crept around the room, studying each of the Mongols. Two still held their weapons. The others had shouldered their rifles, and holstered their pistols. They leaned against walls and counters, transfixed by the gruesome science.
