Mega 4: Behemoth Island (17 page)

Ballantine just gave him a wave and walked up the steps towards the bridge.

***

Team Grendel turned left so many times that Thorne thought they had to be going in circles, but with every turn came a new corridor, one he knew they hadn’t been in because Darby had been making sure to mark each corner with some of the blood and gore that stuck to her suit. It left a trail for the croanderthals to follow, but it also kept them from returning to corridors they had already gone through.

But that many lefts without going in a circle made no sense.

None of what they had been through made any sense. Dinosaurs, both small and gigantic, living cavemen/cavewomen, a massive hidden island that Ballantine was certain couldn’t be found, basically everything they had been through as a Team for the last two years.

It was all madness in the making.

“Stop,” Thorne said. “Just stop.”

Everyone slowed up and turned to the commander. Darby was obviously itching to keep moving, but even she stopped and waited to see what Thorne wanted.

“Does any of this feel right to you?” Thorne asked, making eye contact with each Team member as he caught his breath. “We should have found a way out by now. Why haven’t we? And why are we always turning left?”

“We’re crossing the island,” Darby said. “These corridors are scorched. You can smell it.”

“She’s right,” Shane said, tapping his nose. “I could smell the damp of being underground, but there is something else. What is it?”

“Fire,” Darby said. “These walls have just been burned. Something very hot happened here and I have an idea I know what. We keep turning left because we are skirting the island.”

“They herded us this way,” Thorne said. “Why?”

No one had an answer.

“Their leader, that woman,” Thorne said. He snorted at calling the Liu croanderthal a woman. “She wanted my help. She wanted to make a deal to get her and her people off this island. I told her Ballantine wouldn’t allow that. Loose ends. She knew what I meant.”

“Ballantine doesn’t care about these loose ends,” Darby said. “These loose ends are insignificant to what else is out there.”

Everyone waited for her to continue, but Darby only stood there. Max cleared his throat.

“Um, deadly death muffin, I think you need to elaborate,” Max said.

“All of this is not a loose end,” Darby said. “It was supposed to be a new beginning. A refuge for us to rest up in until we were at full strength.”

“Full strength for what?” Thorne asked.

“The real mission,” Darby said. “Wiping every one of Ballantine’s enemies off the face of this planet. There’s a few of them, so we really needed the rest.”

“But we ended up at the island that time forgot instead,” Shane said. “And naked, I may add. Awesome.”

“Great story,” Thorne said. “One I’ll revisit with Ballantine later. But for now, none of that helps us get out of here.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Darby said. “But neither does standing still. If you will shut up and follow me, I’ll get us out of here.”

“How?” Thorne asked. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“I have an idea, yes,” Darby said. “The smell tells me a lot, but the fact that woman wanted your help and is sending us this way then I think I know why.”

“We’re going to that other facility, aren’t we?” Shane asked. “The one that blew up and was being squatted on by the giant T-rex-looking motherfucker.”

“I believe so,” Darby said. “But we’ll only find out if we keep going.” She looked to Thorne. He nodded. “Come on. We can’t slow down.”

***

Kinsey did not like the look of the blip on the radar screen. Sure, it was only a green dot that showed up every couple seconds when the equally green line rotated past it, but it was still a green dot where Ballantine had assured them there would be no green dots.

“What is it?” Kinsey asked. “A ship?”

“Yes,” Ballantine said. “A good-sized one.”

“How can you tell that?” Kinsey asked.

“Ingrid got it all working,” Lake said, pointing to a computer monitor that was streaming data. “The system is analyzing the radar and calculating what type of vessel it could be. Right now it looks like it’s about twice the size of the B3.”

“Military?” Kinsey asked.

“Can’t tell,” Lake said. “Not enough info yet. When it gets closer, we’ll know for sure.”

“If it gets close enough, we can just look through the binoculars and tell for ourselves,” Kinsey said. She glanced at Ballantine. “But I’m guessing you don’t want it to get that close first, do you?”

“I do not,” Ballantine said. “Which is what I need you for. I’d like you and Ingrid to take the mini-sub and go have a closer look. You can drive while she takes readings and surveils the craft.”

“Mini-sub? What fucking mini-sub?” Kinsey asked. “Marty? Since when do we have a mini-sub again?”

“Fuck if I know,” Lake sighed. “I’m only the captain of this goddamned ship.”

“Oh, stop being such a baby,” Ballantine said. “I had the elves fix one up. It’s not the same as the Wiglaf was since we don’t have the manufacturing capabilities to put something that large together. But it’ll do the job.”

Kinsey thought about how cramped their former mini-sub had been before it was lost to the ocean depths because of one of their many encounters with giant sharks. There wasn’t exactly a lot of elbow room in that thing.

“You’ll be fine,” Ballantine said, seeing Kinsey’s hesitancy. “All you have to do is get it close enough for Ingrid to get as much info as possible then come back here on the double. I’m taking as much of a risk as you are.”

“How’s that?” Kinsey asked.

“Well, for starters, that man down there isn’t Dr. Will Logan,” Ballantine said. “I don’t know who it is, but it’s not Will.”

“What are you talking about?” Kinsey asked.

“Why even ask anymore?” Lake said and reached down to open a mini-fridge by his feet. He pulled out a beer and popped the can, took a long drink, and sat in his captain’s chair. “At least Ingrid fixed the fridge too. Nice.”

“How can you drink when Ballantine just said we have strangers on board?” Kinsey asked.

“Seems like the perfect time to drink,” Lake said. “And when don’t we have strangers on board? As far as I can tell, this ship has an open invitation to assholes. Present company included.” He looked right at Ballantine.

“Thank you,” Ballantine smirked.

Kinsey’s shoulders sagged and she looked out the bridge towards the island.

“We’ll find them and get them back to the ship in one piece,” Ballantine said. “But to do that, I need to know what’s coming at us s
o
w
e
can stay in one piece. If it is military then we are horribly out gunned. If it is something else then we may be out gunned in other ways.”

“You aren’t doing much to boost my mood, Ballantine,” Kinsey said.

“It’s not a mood, it’s an adventure,” Ballantine said and winked. He clapped his hands together. “Alright. Good talk. You can find Ingrid in the specimen bay waiting for you. I’m going to go get Ronald and ask for his assistance with my interrogation of the doppelgangers. Captain Lake? Do you need anything before we get too busy?”

“Got beer,” Lake said, holding up the can. He reached down to a shelf and pulled out a Desert Eagle. “Got pistol. Get lost.”

“As you wish,” Ballantine said. He pointed at the radar screen. “Keep an eye on that.”

“Aye, aye, asshole,” Lake said.

“He really doesn’t like you,” Kinsey said to Ballantine as the two left the bridge.

“What do you mean?” Ballantine asked. “That guy loves me.”

***

The corridor finally came to an end and Team Grendel gratefully stopped to catch their breath. They leaned against the soot-covered walls, coughing at the acrid taste of the air. Darby started searching the wall at the end of the corridor for a latch or some mechanism that would open a door for them. After a few minutes, she gave up and kicked the bottom the wall as hard as she could.

“That couldn’t have felt good,” Max said.

“Wasn’t supposed to,” Darby said.

“Com still out?” Shane asked.

Darby tapped at her ear and nodded. “Went out almost as soon as we entered the facility. They must have a jamming device in place. Makes sense. They’d want to limit outside interference as they take sensor readings.”

“Sensor readings of what?” Lucy asked. “I still don’t know what this island is.”

Darby narrowed her eyes then shrugged. “Fuck it. I’ll tell you what I know.”

She proceeded to fill them in on the purpose of the island. The experiments performed, the scientists and researchers hired to perform those experiments, and the reason Ballantine decided they should come to the island in the first place.

“It’s shielded? Like cloaked?” Shane asked.

“The same as our new suits?” Max asked

“Wait, what?” Shane responded, looking at Max’s suit. “That’s not just a compression suit?”

“Nope,” Max said. “It cloaks us so we blend into our surroundings. Bends light and other sciencey shit.”

“Dude,” Shane exclaimed. “I thought I was just trippin’ when you showed up.”

“There’s a generator on this island that powers a device that keeps this entire place hidden from satellite and other electronic surveillance,” Darby said.

“Then how could we see it when we showed up?” Max asked.

“Are your eyes electronic?” Darren asked. “Pay attention.”

“I wish my eye was electronic,” Shane said, tapping his eye patch.

“X-ray,” Max said.

“Totally,” Shane agreed.

“Shut the fuck up, you two,” Darren said then frowned at Thorne. “Sorry. I should have let you say it.”

“They sure as fuck don’t listen to me,” Thorne said.

“Ah, come on, Uncle Vinny,” Max smirked. “We listen, we just don’t do what you say.”

“Yeah, we are totally listening,” Shane said.

Darby pointed at the Reynolds. “Do I have to castrate you boys?”

“Listening and shutting up,” Max said.

“Totally shutting up,” Shane said.

“This island is beyond off the books,” Darby said. “Part of Ballantine’s personal holdings. He has slowly been amassing them over the years.”

“Them? How many fucking islands does he have?” Max asked.

“I didn’t say his holdings were all islands,” Darby said. “But there are a few more. This was supposed to be the safest. We rest here then start striking. Didn’t work out that way. Never fucking does with that man.”

“Chaos junkie,” Thorne said. “I’ve learned a lot about junkie behavior. He shows it in spades.”

“In spades. That saying has always—” Shane started then screamed and dropped to his knees, his hands covering his crotch.

“Keep going,” Lucy said.

“Did you just flick him in the dick?” Darby asked.

“Yes,” Lucy said.

“Nice,” Darby said and smiled. The smile lasted one second. “Ballantine has been walking a razor’s edge for a long time. He needed Team Grendel to keep him on that edge. First to clean up the giant sharks that had gotten loose. Then to deal with some of the various mistakes made by South American regimes. Finally to wipe out the last bits of his past. He broke from the company a long time before he put this Team together.”

“They have been hunting him all this time?” Thorne asked.

“Hunting Ballantine?” Darby laughed. It was a terrifying sound. “He’s been hunting them. The company is a broken shambles.”

“But I heard him talking to a man on the inside,” Thorne said. “Back on the beach in American Samoa. He was pretty upset that he had been cut off. He even told us as much.”

“He told you what he wanted you to hear,” Darby said. “Ballantine lies. About everything. The only truth with him is that he never tells the truth.”

“Why are you saying this?” Darren asked. “What’s the point of telling us now?”

“Because he can’t keep it going without getting some or all of us killed,” Darby said. “And I like you people. I like being part of this Team. I don’t want any of you to die.”

She grinned wide and it was genuine.

“Plus, look at you idiots,” Darby chuckled. “Half of you are naked and holding kitchen tools as weapons. You really fucking need my help.”

“So, what do we do after this?” Shane asked. He stood up and made sure he was as far away from Lucy as he could get. “If we live through this shit and get off this island, then what?”

“Then we have a chat with Ballantine,” Darby said. “And things change.”

“You ever going to tell us all of your story?” Thorne asked. “Where you came from and why you have been so loyal to Ballantine?”

“You ever going to tell me all the pain in your life, Commander?” Darby responded. “Just going to lay your soul out on the table for everyone to poke at?”