The Guillotine

by Lucas Pederson

  This old monster of the deep, it blasts out of the passageway, rocks and silt and sand flying.

  There’s so much light here. Too much. It doesn’t even stop when it sees the strange new thing in front of it. It can’t stop. Only hunger drives it now. How will this new thing in its waters taste?

  Its massive head plows into the thing. Its huge jaws open and snap onto one of the thing’s legs. The thing clanks and creaks and these are new noises that don’t make sense to the old monster. They are not the sounds of injured prey.

  Still, it swims, circling, and rams its head into the thing again and again and…

  SIXTEEN

  It happens so fast he’s not even sure if he’s still alive or not until the fat man, Clam, helps him to his feet.

  “Goddamn,” the tall scrawny man spouts. “The hell was that?”

  “Earthquake?” Clam ventures.

  Ash, still trying to regain his bearings, shakes his head. “Fault lines aren’t large enough here.”

  “Huh?” Scrawny tall man says. “I don’t—”

  The force of the quake is so intense it knocks all three men off their feet again. Ash lands hard on his ass, teeth clicking, somehow managing not to shear off the tip of his tongue. The toolbox topples over, spilling various tools and even an old, greasy porn magazine over the floor. The mini-subs break loose of their harnesses and fall from the jacks with deafening crashes. Shelves holding various parts break apart. Something hard bounces off Ash’s right shoulder. Jarring agony spreads through his arm and neck. He tries standing, but another quake knocks him back down.

  “This place can’t take anymore,” Clam shouts over the creaks and groans and crunching noises.

  Then, as soon as it began, the quaking stops.

  Even so, Ash waits. His shoulder stings from whatever bounced off it. Stiff when he tries to move it. Guess he should feel lucky nothing is broken as intense as the quaking was.

  All three men help each other up and just sort of blink at one another.

  “Sorry ‘bout given ya a hard time earlier, by the way,” the scrawny tall man says. “My name’s Ben.”

  “We get a lot of holier than thou folks in here demanding this’n’that,” Clam says. “So, we’ve come to messin’ with folks before we decide to help. You seem alright.”

  Ash waves a hand, wincing at the dull pain in his shoulder. “It’s fine. You said this place can’t take much more of those…well whatever they were. Are there escape pods or anything in case we need to evacuate?”

  Ben nods. “’Course there is. One hundred pods all in tip-top shape. I check’em out every other day or so to be sure.”

  “Good.” Knowing this eases his mind a bit. “I—”

  “Ash? Ash, you okay?” Julia bursts into the maintenance room, face flushed, eyes like golf balls.

  “I’m fine,” he says. “You alright?”

  Julia blinks, glances around, finally nods. “Y-Yeah. What the hell was that, do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Quinn is doing scans. Bunch of water sloshed into the Moon Pool room and we lost a few of the bones.” Julia visibly shivers. “We need to get out of here. Like yesterday, dude.”

  “I think we better see what’s going on before making any decisions,” Ash says.

  “Did you not feel any of that?” Julia, her eyes once more bulging.

  Ash stretches his shoulder, grunts. “Yeah. I felt it alright.”

  “Something weird is going on, we all need to get out of this thing before it collapses.”

  “She won’t collapse, darlin’,” Ben says. “Clam’n’I, we keep this rig tip-top. Gonna take more than a few shakes to break’er.”

  Clam says, “If those quakes kept on, though…”

  Ben nods. “Ya, but they didn’t. No alarms goin’ off. We’re fine.”

  Julia, eyes still wide, flaps her arms and paces. “I counted six of these quakes, or whatever. Six. In my experience if there’s that many, shit is about to get real.”

  “Right,” Ash says. “But let’s see what the scans tell us, okay? Before we abandon ship for no reason. Reasonable?”

  She shakes her head, blows out a harsh, hissing breath and storms out of the room.

  Silence takes her place.

  Ben straightens a little. “Say, your girlfriend on that meth? “Cause I had an uncle once who was on the meth and he—”

  “She’s not on meth,” Ash says, walking toward the doorway. “Just scared.”

  Neither Ben, nor Clam, say anything as he leaves and breaks into a light jog to the Moon Pool room. People are gathering bones. People are standing around the Moon Pool watching the water lightly slosh into the sides. And Giles is here barking orders no one is paying any attention to. Shouting at people to return to their stations. Ordering folks to calm down and follow protocols. No one is listening. All of them appear in some sort of shock. Neither here nor there.

  He finds Julia, Kayla and Quinn in the office.

  “Hey,” he says. “I was thinking you should do some deep scans just in case of a…”

  He notices their stiff postures. The way they all don’t acknowledge his presence. He notes, as he steps beside them, a similar expression of terror crawling over each of their faces.

  Ash frowns, trying to see what has all three women so scared. Something on the scan monitor, no doubt, but they’re so crowded around it, he can’t see what it is. Finally, he nudges Julia. She makes a shrill cry, stumbles away from the monitor, glances at Ash before gaping at the monitor again. She’s trembling all over. Her mouth opens and closes, opens and closes. Never in his life has he ever seen her so terrified. So brimming with fear she can’t even speak, only stare and shiver.

  He faces the monitor, and all the air wheezes out of his lungs. Blood turns to ice water. A thin whine seeps from his open mouth.

  “W…What is it?” Quinn asks, her voice distant, as if speaking through the fog of dreams.

  Or nightmares.

  He knows exactly what it is and instantly everything they’ve found makes sense. He knows, though he can’t find air enough in his lungs to say so. Hell, he can’t even move. Frozen like a damn statue gaping at the monstrosity swimming around no more than two hundred feet from the facility.

  Finally, he manages a few breaths and says, “We need to get out of here.”

  Kayla and Quinn tear their gazes away from the monitor to look at him.

  “What is it?” Kayla asks. “Another mutation?”

  Ash shakes his head, still staring at the image on the monitor. “No. I think…we woke something up.”

  “What?” Kayla brushes by Quinn, facing Ash fully. “What did we wake up?”

  A shuddery breath blows out of him. He looks away from the monitor, heart bashing against his ribs. “It all makes sense now.” He walks away from the women, pacing slowly, thinking. “All the skulls. The shattered bones…” He paces and paces and—

  “Ash,” Julia shouts. “For fuck sake, what is it?”

  He stops, turns to them. “A dunkleosteus. Placoderm fish.” His gaze drifts to the monitor. “Nicknamed, Dunk or…The Guillotine. It doesn’t have teeth, really, but bony plates that extend into sharpened fangs in the front of its massive mouth. Between the bony fangs is another plate, which is like a razorblade or…when the jaws close, a guillotine.”

  “I…huh?” Julia manages, her face void of terror, dripping with confusion. “I’ve read about these, but…how the hell is there one right here, right now? They existed over three-hundred and fifty million years ago.”

  “I don’t know, but maybe that trove of bones…maybe they kept the warmer water from reaching whatever ice pocket this thing had been frozen in. In theory. I don’t know for sure. All I know is it makes sense we found more skulls than other bones. It’s said the dunkleosteus often decapitated its prey.”

  No one says anything for a long time, then Kayla straightens. “I’ll get Green out there to kill it.”

  Ash t
hinks this over for a moment. “That fish is over thirty feet long. Has to weigh tons. Does Green have the right artillery to take down such a monster? Even without the thick armor, it’d take a tank or large bomb to kill it.”

  Kayla sighs. “I don’t know. I can ask her.”

  “Why don’t we just get in the pods and leave?” Quinn asks. She appears on the verge of some nervous breakdown. Eyes twitchy, sporadic shivers. Uneven voice.

  A moment of thought is all it takes Ash for an answer. “We could. But I’m not sure how many would make it to the surface. After being frozen for so long, I’m betting that thing is ravenous. It’ll eat any thing it sees or senses. And it won’t stop until its hunger is sated.”

  “I’m calling Green,” Kayla says. “She might have something.” She goes to phone and in seconds is asking to speak with Master Chief Green.

  Julia pulls Ash aside. “This fish isn’t supposed to exist anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s in a habitat very different and smaller than it’s used to.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s not enough food in this lake to keep it satisfied.”

  “I know.”

  She sighs. “Why didn’t you just listen to me earlier when I said to get the hell out of here?”

  “Because this is the discovery of a lifetime.”

  “And now,” Giles says, strolling into the office. “It’ll be the capture of a lifetime.”

  Everyone spins and gapes at the short, portly man.

  Giles smiles thinly. “Seismic readings set by Murdock revealed something under the lake bed. Something massive and whole. We didn’t really know what it was but figured we should find out.”

  “You…” Quinn says. “What the hell are you talking about? This is a fossil dig.”

  Giles chuckles, nods. “Indeed. But everything changed after those scans, which also revealed the bone trove you all dig into. Who would’ve thought taking a few bones out would unthaw the creature ten meters below you.”

  Ash, hands curling into tight fists at his side, says, “You knew about it this whole time?” He steps closer to the portly man. “You just helped release a prehistoric fish large enough to demolish this facility and kill everyone in it.” He moves closer yet. “And capture it? How the hell are we supposed to capture a fish that size, jackass?”

  Shrugging, Giles says, “Nets, of course. Can’t be any worse than a sperm whale.”

  “Oh,” Ash says, lifting a fist to Giles’ face. “It can be much worse. This creature just woke up. It’s starving. It doesn’t know this new environment. Capturing it will—”

  Giles holds up a phone, grinning. From the phone’s speaker, Murdock’s cultured voice. “Dr. Barrington. How are you? I’m sure you’re a bit perplexed by it all but think of the brighter future here. Think of all we can learn from this magnificent creature. For all we know, there’s a cure for ALS and cancer in its blood. We could save lives, boy.”

  Ash grits his teeth, and finally manages, “No, you just want to have it stuffed and put on a wall of your many mansions. This fish is out of time. It’s starving. It’ll react in unexpected ways and trying to capture it, I’m telling you, is a mistake.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Ash. I hired you to gather and identify any fossils found in the trove. The Dunk is one of those fossils. Now, I want you to gather it for me and I don’t want any bullshit about it. You’ll get paid handsomely when this is all over.”

  Ash snorts. “Yeah. Okay.” He glares at the phone. “Say we manage to capture the thing, then what? How the fuck do we haul it or keep it contained?”

  “I have teams above you ready for such a task,” says Murdock. “All you have to do is net it and bring it to the surface to get it removed from the lake.”

  “And how the hell am I supposed to do that? A dunkleosteus is said to have the most powerful jaws ever. Like a souped-up snapping turtle.”

  “The nets are titanium weave. Nothing can bite through them, not even this thing. Net it, drag it to the surface and you won’t ever have to worry about money again. You might even be able to afford to bring your daughter back.”

  This…this has crossed his mind more and more over the last couple years since they found a way to bring back the dead. No one beyond a certain age, of course. But doctors and scientists collaborated in actually reviving a corpse. All the memories still intact. All organs are in working order. Any damage repaired. Everything is restored. They are like gods, the way they bring back loved ones. And the price is in the millions to do so too.

  Ash sucks in a breath, as if slapped, and says, “What is the pay now?” All through numb lips.

  “Two billion. Not a penny more.”

  He can’t speak. Can’t think. That number is far beyond the previous amount of six million for the fossil job.

  “Ash,” Julia says, drawing him out of the proverbial clouds. “Ash, dude, think about this. I mean, really think. This is a living prehistoric fish. How do you think it’ll do in captivity?”

  Before he can respond, Murdock spouts, “Were you not all talking about killing it?”

  The man had them all there. Yes, killing the Guillotine seems appropriate, though having it suffer in a half-assed habitat…? Which would be worse? Ending it now so the thing won’t spend months dying and in pain or kill it now and return order to this region of the world. Extinct is extinct for a reason.

  The dunkleosteus isn’t supposed to exist in this time. At all.

  “No,” Ash says. “We kill it so it doesn’t hurt anyone, then I’ll bring it to the surface for you to haul away.”

  “This is non-negotiable, Ash,” Murdock says. “You either collect that fish alive, or you lose everything. Your money, reputation. All of it. And you’ll never see your daughter again.”

  Ash manages a few breaths and says, “I see her every day.”

  “Ah, but you can’t touch her. You can’t tuck her in at night like you used to. You—”

  “Enough,” Ash says. “This is how it’s going to be. We’ll kill it and bring it to the surface. You don’t even have to pay, except for our original deal.”

  “The original deal is void as of this conversation,” Murdock says, sounding more than a little irritated. The man isn’t used to being challenged. “Complete this simple mission and you’ll have two billion in your bank account tomorrow.”

  “Ash…” Julia says. Her face is one of worry.

  He stows everything and says, “Then don’t pay me at all. This fish is not meant to be in this time and having it here is a risk to everyone on the Infinity Moon.”

  “You really think I give a flying fuck about…” Murdock audibly clears his throat. “Look, Ash, you do this and you’ll be rich. You’ll have your daughter back. Isn’t that worth saving the life of a prehistoric creature that could save human lives? You’ll be a hero.”

  He glares at the phone. “Being a hero is doing what’s right when the odds are stacked against them. Being a hero doesn’t involve money.”

  For a moment, Murdock Jones says nothing. Giles shifts from one foot to the other.

  Finally, “If you kill it, I’ll have you and your partner killed.” Murdock’s tone is stony, cold, genuine.

  Ash grabs the phone from Giles’ chubby hand and says, “Then you’ll have to kill us.” He throws the phone against the nearest wall where it shatters into a few pieces.

  “Oh, you son of a bitch,” Giles spews. “You’re a dead man.”

  Ash punches the portly man square in the face, dropping him instantly.

  “Oooo,” Giles shrieks. “You broke my nose!”

  “Lucky I didn’t kill you too.” Ash looks up as Green and two of her soldiers appear in the doorway.

  “What now?” Green asks, barely acknowledging Giles kneeling on the floor holding his nose. Blood seeps from between his sausage-like fingers.

  Ash points at the monitor. So far, the dunkleosteus hasn’t strayed too far from the initial sighting.


  A few seconds later, Green looks at Ash. “What is it?”

  “Dunkleosteus,” Ash repeats.

  “Thanks. And how do we kill it?”

  Ash looks at the monitor. “Use the biggest guns you have. The armor is thick.”

  Green steps closer to the monitor examining her prey. “It’s not a mutation?”

  “No. The real thing.”

  She watches the giant fish swim for a bit, then nods. “I think I have enough firepower to take her down.”

  “Good,” Ash says. “Murdock wants us to take the corpse to the surface, but I say we return it to its grave.”

  “Are you insane?” Giles steps between Ash and Green. “He’ll have you all killed.”

  Ash shrugs. “Not if he can’t find us.”

  Giles blinks. “What?”

  “Never mind. Get out of here.”

  Giles ruffles. “You can’t tell me what to do on my facility.”

  “It’s not yours,” Ash says and faces Green. “I’ll help any way I can.”

  Green nods. Firm, eyes like chips of sapphire. “Just feed me info if what we’re doing isn’t working. But I think if we hit the belly, that should do her in.”

  “Okay.” Ash smiles. “Let’s put her back where she belongs before she decides to eat the facility.”

  “You’re all mad,” Giles says. “Two billion dollars…are you stupid?”

  Ash grunts. “Not as stupid as you.” He drags the portly man by his shirt collar out of the office. “Either get out of here, or I’ll have Green shoot you.”

  Sputtering, Giles says, “Y-Y-You can’t do that!”

  “Wrong,” Ash says, looming over Giles. “I can. That’s where you underestimate the power I have down here.”

  “I’m in command!”

  Ash give Giles a kick. “Not anymore. To let that thing suffer in captivity…” He sighs. “Can’t let that happen. It doesn’t deserve to die like that.”