Primeval Waters

by William Burke

  Batista reached the end of the causeway, suppressing a smile. In truth, he had no interest in exploration or discovery.

  Keying his walkie talkie, he radioed, “Santos, bring me that case full of Semtex.”

  “On the way, sir.”

  Hans seemed convinced there was some intelligence inside the Anomaly, one that had endured for millions of years.

  Batista muttered, “Well, all good things must end.”

  #

  The warriors paddled on. The thickly wooded marsh gave way to a floodplain dotted with broken trees.

  The warriors rested their paddles, letting the canoes drift forward. Popeye pointed into the distance. Micah strained to see what had caught his eye until the warrior handed him a set of binoculars that had once belonged to Queen Caveira.

  Batista’s yacht was moored to a crude boat slip about a hundred yards ahead. The last remaining gunboat, now stripped of its weapons, was tied off next to it. Just beyond the boats was the earthen rim of the crater lake.

  Micah looked beyond the moored boats and muttered, “Damn.”

  Catalina whispered, “What do you see?”

  “Like I said, a dam.”

  Micah studied the thirty-five-year earthen dam and said, “That’s a helluva piece of engineering.”

  Catalina replied, “Come on, even beavers can build a dam.”

  “Technically they build impoundments.”

  She snatched away the binoculars. “Try to stay focused.” She trained them on the yacht. “I only see two guys, both armed.”

  One man with an AK-47 stood guard on the yacht’s deck, looking far too casual for his own good. A second man was lugging a wooden crate from down below.

  The canoes gradually drifted closer, until they were barely twenty yards out. Neither of Batista’s men noticed their silent approach.

  Micah whispered, “We need to move carefully and see what—”

  The warriors all stood in unison, raising their bows, letting arrows fly. Four struck the man holding the crate squarely in the back, dropping him. Three arrows pierced the guard’s chest, sending him spiraling off the deck. He slammed down onto the log boat slip, his body wracked by spasms.

  Popeye grinned down at Catalina and offered her a thumbs up.

  Slapping Micah on the back, Catalina said, “Or we could just charge in blind.”

  The warriors paddled furiously, bringing their canoes to the far side of the yacht, shielding them from the ridge. Catalina hopped out, sprinting for the yacht, a cluster of warriors right behind her.

  Micah headed for the dam.

  Catalina paused to grab the fallen guard’s AK-47. The dying man stared up at her with tear-filled eyes, his foaming mouth struggling to form words. She hadn’t realized how agonizing death by dart frog venom was and felt torn between moving on and trying to help. Popeye slashed his knife across the dying man’s throat, solving her moral dilemma.

  Probably for the best, she thought while unhooking the dead man’s chest rig. It held six twenty-round magazines. She hoped it would be enough.

  Catalina boarded the yacht. After grabbing two more magazines from the other dying man, she made for the pilothouse. The warriors stayed on the deck, running their hands over the yacht’s smooth surfaces, whistling anxiously.

  After rooting around, Catalina located two fiberglass cases labeled Semtex. The first was empty, and the second was barely half full but contained a generous run of detonator cord and blasting caps.

  She muttered, “It’ll have to do.”

  She found another case containing a hard wire detonator and hauled the load up onto the deck.

  Micah was already scrambling up the grade to the crest of the dam. Catalina followed, whistling to the fascinated warriors and gesturing for them to come along. Two followed her, while the rest slipped off into the rainforest.

  Catalina muttered, “Where’re ya going?” then decided they must know what they were doing and kept climbing to the dam’s crest.

  She crouched down next to Micah, studying the lake below. It was less than two miles in diameter. The dam had reduced its depth to barely six feet. Batista’s tender boat was zipping across the lake, laden with equipment.

  She said, “Batista’s been a busy little beaver.”

  A causeway constructed from felled trees extended from the shoreline, connecting to a wide working platform jammed with electronic equipment.

  Micah stared at the Anomaly in amazement, muttering, “Look at that.”

  The Anomaly resembled a geodesic dome rising from the lake bed, gleaming brilliantly in the morning sun.

  Catalina wasn’t as impressed. “That’s it? You’re telling me that God’s a big dirty Christmas ornament?”

  Sounding defensive, Micah said, “Well, we’re only seeing the top portion.”

  “And you’re absolutely, positively sure it’s not just a plain old meteorite?”

  “A meteorite that big would’ve retained some of its cosmic velocity, hitting the earth at around one point five miles a second with the impact of four kilotons of TNT. If that happened the crater would be at least five times larger.”

  “You could’ve just said it’s not a meteorite.”

  Undeterred, Micah went on. “From the crater size, I’m guessing it hit at maybe two hundred miles an hour. Not exactly a cushy landing, but it definitely had something slowing it down. That impact speed was fast enough to bury it underground, probably by design. It sat down there until the earthquake hit. Sometimes, when a quake’s violent enough, it causes liquefaction, where the vibration turns loose ground into soup—”

  Catalina put her hand over his mouth. “Look, you’re cute when you go all Bill Nye, Science Guy, but can we stay on point here?”

  “Okay, but this part’s important. It came up, meaning it’s hollow. The outer shell that looks like a diamond is for protection. I’m guessing that when it’s struck by heat or energy it reacts with exponentially greater energy, like a force field. That’s why the fragment generated power.”

  “So, if that’s the crunchy candy shell, what’s in the chewy center?”

  “Something we couldn’t even comprehend.”

  “Can you be any more vague?”

  Micah studied the causeway for a moment and muttered, “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Handing her the binoculars, he said, “They’re already starting.”

  Catalina saw a man wearing a head-to-toe silver firefighting suit hooking up some kind of gun and said, “That’s got to be Hans, he’s the only one left alive who can tie his own shoes.”

  Micah said, “And that thing he’s holding must be some kind of cutting torch.”

  Catalina said, “It’s a ten kilowatt ytterbium fiber laser-cutting torch with a parallel refracting beam.”

  Micah stared at her.

  She said, “What? You think you’re the only brainiac around here? But here’s the thing; Hans has the morals of a garbage fly, but he’s not stupid. So why’s he doing it?”

  “He must think he can outsmart it.”

  Catalina shook her head. “That thing can conjure up monsters, and he still thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. You’ve almost got to admire the arrogance.” She panned the binoculars over to shore. “They’ve planted machine guns and mortars on the high ground, so a frontal assault will only get us killed.” She lowered the binoculars and noticed the two remaining warriors had slipped away. “Hey, where’d Popeye and his pal go?”

  “They must have gone off to join their pals, doing God knows what.” Micah pondered their situation. Unable to come up with a solution, he said, “It’s too bad we can’t open up the dam and submerge the Anomaly. That would force them to stop, buying us some time.”

  Catalina tossed the binoculars back to him. “That’s kind of what I thought you’d say. I think we can do just that.”

  “How?”

  She started scrabbling down the incline. “You’ll see.” Then she added, “And just
for the record, I still think it looks like a big dirty Christmas ornament.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Catalina climbed onto the yacht’s deck, telling Micah, “Move one of the canoes over here!”

  Micah paddled one of them alongside and waited to begin loading.

  He was so focused on the yacht that he failed to notice the dorsal fin slicing through the water a few feet behind him. The bull shark silently glided past Micah, heading towards the dam.

  Catalina tossed down the case of Semtex, followed by the hardwired detonator, saying, “That case used to be full, so Batista must have taken the rest with him.”

  Micah asked, “Is it enough?”

  “I think we’ll need some extra kaboom!”

  “Is that a technical term?”

  Catalina slipped below deck. She returned lugging a Port-a-Torch welding kit, comprised of two tanks wedged in a plastic carrying frame. Each tank held twenty cubic feet of gas. She handed it down to Micah, saying, “Batista was ready for anything. The lower hold is like a mini Home Depot.”

  Micah set the rig down in the canoe, saying, “Wow, oxygen and acetylene.”

  “Like I said, extra kaboom.” She tossed down a small oxygen bottle pulled from a first aid kit, a hammer and a waterproof flashlight, then climbed down into the canoe.

  They paddled the heavily laden canoe towards the dam.

  Micah asked, “Where do you think our boys went?”

  “Probably getting into mischief. I just hope they wait for us before starting the war.”

  Micah paddled on, his frustration growing with every stroke. “This is taking too long!”

  “Don’t worry; it’ll all be over before you know it.” After a moment’s thought, she added, “That came out wrong.”

  Micah guided the canoe to the far edge of the dam. As soon as he bumped shore, Catalina was out, jogging along the dam’s crest with an armful of gear. Micah followed, lugging the welding kit.

  Midway along the dam, Catalina said, “This spot will work,” and put her gear down.

  As soon as Micah set down the welding rig, Catalina started wedging the clay-like Semtex between its tanks.

  Micah asked, “You’ve done this before?”

  “Nope.”

  “No?”

  Jamming some blasting caps into the Semtex, she said, “That’s what nope usually means. But I did take a seminar in defusing explosives at Langley, so I’m just gonna do it all backwards.” Then she wrapped detonator cord around the whole affair.

  Micah muttered, “Uh, okay… Cool.”

  Finishing the work, she grinned at him, saying, “Like the mad queen said, have a little faith. How deep do you think the water on this side of the dam is?”

  “Maybe twenty feet.”

  She dropped the explosive rig into the water, playing out the detonator cord as it sank.

  Micah asked, “So, are we good?”

  “Nope, the charge has to be wedged in tight or else we’re just making a bunch of noise.” She turned on the medical oxygen bottle, taking two breaths through the mask.

  Micah asked, “Does that thing work underwater?”

  “Ask me if I come back up.” And she dove into the water. She bobbed back to the surface, adding, “Maybe you shouldn’t stand up there with a bullseye on your back,” and went back under.

  Realizing how clear a target he was, Micah scuttled back to the canoe, unspooling the detonator cord as he went.

  #

  Catalina kicked hard until she hit the bottom, where the welding rig lay waiting. She panned the flashlight along the base of the dam, looking for some way to jam the whole affair in snugly. Something caught her eye. The engineer had sunk water-filled fifty-five-gallon fuel drums as a foundation. A row of them rested lengthwise along the base, half buried in the muddy lakebed.

  She thought, That’ll work.

  Using the hammer, she pried at the locking clamp around a drum’s rim until the top came loose. After taking a long drag on the oxygen bottle, Catalina wrestled the drum’s lid off.

  She was too preoccupied to notice what was approaching from behind.

  #

  Micah jogged along the dam’s crest, unspooling the detonator cord, until he reached the canoe. He popped open the detonator case and studied the connections. It looked simple enough, but he wasn’t hooking up anything without Catalina. All he could do now was wait.

  He hunkered down low, watching the water where she was working, thinking, Every time I think we’ve done the most insane thing imaginable we manage to top it.

  He saw something out of the corner of his eye, and his heart skipped a beat. Knifing through the water was the dorsal fin of a bull shark—the Amazon’s apex water predator. It was headed for Catalina.

  Micah froze for an instant then scrambled for the rifle.

  The dorsal fin slipped beneath the water, meaning the rifle was useless. Firing the rifle underwater wouldn’t work either. Even at close range, the water density would render bullets too feeble to pierce the shark’s thick hide.

  “Come on, stupid, do something.”

  Then he glanced down into the canoe and saw a ray of hope.

  #

  Catalina hauled the welding rig out of the mud and slid it inside the open barrel. Detonating the rig outside the dam would have dispersed the blast pressure, making it ineffective. But being jammed underneath the dam’s main structure would direct the force where they needed it—and some shrapnel wouldn’t hurt either. She pushed the rig all the way into the drum and was ready to surface.

  Something rammed into her, shoving her against the dam. Catalina spun around in a panic, shining her flashlight out into the muddy water. Through the murk she saw the distinctive caudal fin of a shark swimming away from her.

  Fresh water sharks? But after fighting giant ants and snakes she’d stopped asking questions. Freezing in place, she thought, Come on, just keep swimming away, shit head.

  In one graceful maneuver, the shark reversed course while gaining speed. The eight-foot bull shark jetted through the water at 20 MPH, heading straight for her.

  Catalina grabbed the only defense available—the fifty-five-gallon drum’s steel lid—holding it out like a gladiator’s shield. The shark’s snout struck it like a battering ram, slamming Catalina against the dam, forcing the air out of her lungs. The shark’s tail swung side to side, propelling it forward, crushing her against the dam. With a twist of its head, the shark latched on to the edge of the steel disc, tearing through the metal. Catalina wrestled to keep the shark at bay, but her lungs were empty.

  If the shark didn’t kill her, drowning would.

  #

  Hans tightened his air mask and switched his air pack over to positive pressure. The continuous flow of air would keep him from inhaling the frigid helium mist. Wagner’s Parsifal boomed in his ears, drowning out his labored breathing as he adjusted the oxygen and nitrogen tanks feeding the laser torch. Satisfied, he raised the four-foot torch, holding its pistol grips. The fact that he was wearing a silver fire suit, an air tank and holding a laser rifle made him chuckle.

  A literal ray gun, he thought, though he’d never had time for frivolous space operas.

  The cloud of helium mist chilled him through the insulated fire suit. For the past ten minutes he’d directed a constant stream of the frigid gas onto the cutting area, reducing the Anomaly’s surface temperature to that of deep space.

  Holding the torch two inches from the Anomaly, he squeezed the trigger. There was no Hollywood style light beam, just a shower of sparks flying off the Anomaly’s diamond-hard surface and a sharp, red-hot line. The continuous jet of helium mist instantly cooled the surgically precise incision. The laser continued cutting flawlessly.

  One thing confirmed his theory had been correct—he wasn’t dead.

  #

  Batista paced at the end of the causeway while watching Hans work, muttering, “What’s taking so goddamn long?”

  A dozen of his crewmen
, all filthy and exhausted, were sprawled on the ground nearby, their rifles within easy reach. The men had also been issued plexiglass riot shields. Such shields had proven invaluable during one of Batista’s previous land rights ‘negotiations’ with an indigenous tribe, rendering their arrows useless … and them extinct.

  Initially, he’d discounted Hans’s theory about the Anomaly being alive, but the Austrian seemed so convinced he’d devised a plan to deal with it. Batista slipped a hand into his pocket and felt the wireless detonator inside. That detonator, and the plastic case resting at his feet, would ensure his place in history. He knelt down, popping open the suitcase-sized case, reexamining its contents. The top layer was a sheet of epoxy resin embedded with hundreds of ball bearings. Beneath it was forty pounds of Semtex plastic explosive, wired up and ready to explode. That much Semtex, combined with the ball bearings, equaled the killing power of thirty claymore mines. All he needed to do was toss it into the hole Hans was cutting. Detonating it in that confined space would destroy any intelligence, living or artificial, without damaging the priceless outer shell. With the press of a button, the extraterrestrial intelligence would, like all those inconvenient tribes, become extinct.

  Closing up the case, he thought, It’s the way of the conquistadors.

  A booming voice shattered his concentration.

  “Sir?”

  Batista felt himself jump and shouted, “What?”

  It was the yacht valet, his pristine white tunic now caked with mud. The man held out a plastic bottle, asking, “Would you like some water?” His demeanor was pleasant, considering he’d been forced into service as a human pack mule.

  Batista nearly snapped at him then thought better of it. “Thank you.”

  “Sorry it’s not cold—”

  The valet let out a piercing scream and collapsed to the ground, an arrow jutting from his back.

  Yanking the walkie talkie from his belt, Batista shouted, “It’s an attack!”