Monstrum (32 page)

“I don't know,” I tell Cortés. “I mean, why can't we do both? The chimera's already wounded, right? Maybe this is our one big chance to do humanity a favor and wipe the thing off the earth.”

Cortés looks at me as though I've shown up wearing a Santa Claus suit. “We're
kids,
Bria. Not Superman and Wonder Woman.”

“I know that,” I say impatiently.

“Apparently you don't!” Cortés roars. “How are we supposed to off the chimera without getting sliced and diced? Not to mention the fact that the ship is piloting itself right now. For all we know, we're about to run aground on some reef and drown before the chimera can kill us.”

“I have no idea. He's the one with all the answers,” I say, pointing to Dr. Baer.

“I think we should hear him out.”

“Yeah? Well, here's my first question,” Cortés says. “Have you seen my father?”

“He was on his way to the bridge,” Dr. Baer says. “A couple of the crew stayed with him. They're trying to stick to the original plan and get the ship down to Rio. I came to find you.”

Cortés doesn't say anything, but I know him well enough now to see the telltale flicker of relief in his eyes. He looks a little shaky, so I speak for both of us.

“Murphy was able to put out an SOS before all hell broke loose,” I tell Dr. Baer. “We want to get to the communications cabin. Make sure someone's on the way.”

“I'll help you,” Dr. Baer says. He pauses, scrunching up his face as another wave of pain hits him. He takes a deep breath. “And then I'm going after the chimera.”

“You can't go after anything!” I cry. Common sense—and fear—have won the day with me. “I mean, I want to kill the chimera as much as anyone, but I'm a kid and you're hurt!”

“I'm not—”

“Get real!” I say. “Look at you! You've got a concussion, and you can barely even stand up straight. You probably can't count the number of fingers I'm holding up, much less try to find the chimera on this big ship.”

“I know where she is,” Dr. Baer says. “She's holed up behind the drum winches on the deck. That's where she went to lick her wounds. Hopefully she's still there.”

This is not what I wanted to hear. I think fast, certain that Dr. Baer will be committing suicide if he goes after the monster.

“Great. Let's say she's still there,” I say reasonably. “There's no way you can kill her by yourself in your condition.”

Dr. Baer stares at me. “See that?”

And he points to a rocket launcher sitting in the far corner.

“R
eady?” Baer asks me and Cortés.

“Yeah,” Cortés answers.

I nod shakily, which is quite the accomplishment because I'm choked with fear. A scream of terror is wedged in my tight throat, locked, loaded and ready for just the right moment, and only my determination not to be the weak link in this small chain is keeping me calm.

We've weaponed up. I've got the panga gripped in my hand and a couple of other machetes strapped to my back, just in case. Plus, Cortés produced a fanny pack from one of the cabinets and strapped it to my waist. Inside are three hand grenades. Yes, hand grenades. They look like gray metal apples with ugly hardware attached to the top. According to Cortés, only a quick pull of the pin, three seconds and thirty meters—as if I can accurately convert meters to feet while under extreme stress—separate me from death by explosion rather than by chimera. He's sworn to me that I won't blow myself up by, say, tripping and falling on them, but I'm not feeling particularly reassured.

The rocket launcher strapped to Baer's back also adds to my general feeling of panic. For one thing, Cortés has explained that all you need to do to use the rocket, which looks like a three-foot-long gray metal tube with ridges on the ends, is to pull the pin, settle it on your shoulder, aim, and fire. That's it. And then a projectile intended to blow up armored vehicles is on its way, creating a blast radius behind it strong enough to take out all three of us if we're not careful.

And Baer, who has no weapons training that I know of, is in charge of it.

Behind me, Cortés is checking his assault rifle.

I have the wild thought that it might be more entertaining for the chimera to hang back for a bit, cook up a bag or two of popcorn and watch us accidentally take each other out with weapons we aren't qualified to use. A burst of semi-hysterical laughter lodges in my throat next to the silent scream, but I manage to overcome both.

“Let's rock,” Baer says grimly, nodding at me.

I dart past him, unlock the cabin door and swing it open, then resume my place in our back-to-back triangular formation. We want to be able to see whatever might be coming at us from any angle. Baer, staring down the sights of his assault rifle, leads us in our noiseless creep down the corridor as we do our best impersonations of SEALs sweeping the area for terrorists.

There's nothing out here.

Overhead lights show no sign of life in either direction, other than the slick streaks of water the crew left on the floor during the chaos of the evacuation, and the only sound is the ship's eerie creak as it rises and falls with the waves. It takes us ten seconds, tops, to ease down to the huge communications cabin and through its open door, and then we're inside. A quick search under the tables and chairs reveals nothing. I spare a quick thought for Duke and assume he woke up in time to escape with the rest of the crew. I find myself breathing a partial sigh of relief even though I can't get rid of the eerie prickle of nerves up the back of my neck.

At Baer's signal, I turn to lock the door behind us—hang on. The door is still open, swaying back and forth with the ship's motion. Didn't I shut it when we came in? Or . . . no. I guess I didn't. Just in case, I do another sweep, looking in all directions— up and down the corridor again, the walls, the pipes across the ceiling, under the table . . . there's nothing.

I swing the door shut and lock it. Some of the tension eases from my muscles.

“That was too easy,” Cortés mutters, echoing my thoughts exactly.

“We've earned some easy.” Baer slings his rifle over his shoulder and heads straight for the computer system, which looks as though a 747's cockpit has mated with an Apple store. I wouldn't know what to make of it, but he seems to know what he's doing. “Bria, keep your eye on the window. Let us know if anything moves.”

“Got it,” I say, taking a wide-legged stance in front of the plate glass window. I slowly turn my head back and forth, watching both ends of the corridor, but there's no sign of life.

That's when we hear it:

The jarring crackle of static and then a garbled male voice coming over the radio's speakers. “. . . Ooo you oppee?”

The three of us exchange excited glances before Baer hits a button and speaks.

“Mayday. Mayday. This is the
Venator,
do you copy? Over.”

We wait, breathless.

More static, then, “Iss is protor.” Static. Static. Static. “Ooo ear me?”

“Say again.” Baer frowns, leans closer to the speaker and cocks his head, listening hard. “I repeat:
say again
.”

“Well, it's about bloody time,
Venator
!” An English-accented voice, clipped but relieved, fills the cabin. Baer, Cortés and I grin and high-five each other. I'm dizzy with relief. “This is the
Proeliator,
and we were about to give you up for lost. What's your status? Over.”

“Proeliator?”
Baer's smile widens even further, even as he sags against the table with obvious relief. “Is that you, Wilkinson?”

A pause.

“Never say it's Eli Baer, you incompetent prat!”

“I've missed you, too, Wilkie,” Baer replies. To Cortés and me he adds, in an undertone, “We worked together. Long story. Now's not the time.” Then he turns back to the radio. “We're in deep shit, Wilkie. We need you to swing by and pick us up.”

“Well, it's a good thing we've been tracking your coordinates and are in the neighborhood, then, isn't it?” Wilkinson asks.

“You have no idea,” Baer mutters. “What's your ETA? We're operating with less than a skeleton crew, if that, and the storm's knocking the ship around. And we've got even bigger problems than that.”

I'd wondered what, if anything, Baer would tell the outside world about the chimera. The whole story would be about as believable as announcing that a mermaid riding a golden unicorn had hang-glided onto the deck.

After a silence that's so long and heavy that I'm beginning to wonder if we're having radio problems again, we hear Wilkinson.

“You . . . didn't get one, did you, Baer?”

“We got one,” Baer says grimly.

Cortés and I exchange looks of drop-jawed astonishment. Wilkinson knows about chimeras? How can that be?

“I told you—long story,” Baer tells us.

“It'll be an hour or more before we can get there,” Wilkinson says. “It's not exactly great weather for—”

Static. Static. Static.

“—Ooo ake am deck. An eee can osition ith a—”

Garbled. Garbled. Garbled.

A wave of disappointment rolls over me, so powerful and sickening that my belly cramps with it. For one brief second, there was hope. Now it feels like we're more alone and exposed than ever.

Baer punches a couple of buttons, his voice rising with renewed frustration. “Come in,
Proeliator
.
Proeliator,
do you copy?
Proeliator!
”

Cortés edges closer to me. “At least we know they're coming soon. We just have to stay alive until they get here.”

I take a deep breath and nod, determined not to give way to the clammy fear that wants to take over. “An hour. We can do that, right?”

Before Cortés can answer, a new noise comes from the radio.

A scream.

A long, shrill, blood-freezing scream of endless agony that trails off into sobbing.

We all jump, and I am catapulted back to that moment on the plane, when we were forced to listen to the murder of another human being, and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it.

“No!” Baer shouts, wild-eyed, as he hits more buttons. “
Proeliator?
Wilkinson? Come in!”

Indecipherable moans from the radio.

“Baer,” Cortés snaps. “Ease up on the radio, man. You keep punching the buttons like that, and you're going to—
Baer
!”

Cortés yanks Baer away from the radio, and they start arguing with each other.

That's when I hear another sound:

Drip . . . drip . . . drip.

I don't know why I hear it, but I do.

“Get off me!” Baer says, shoving at Cortés's shoulders. “I need to see if I can get him back! Make sure they're on their way!”

Cortés is right there, in Baer's red face. “The thing you need to do is calm down before you break the radio. Where would we be then, genius?”

I turn, their angry voices and the radio's crackle receding as I tune into this new sound and try to locate its source. It's like it's calling to me. I listen again, harder, and take an uncertain step away from the window and toward the cabin's far corner.

Drip . . . drip . . . drip.

I take another step. Yes. It's coming from the corner.

The radio crackles again. Incoherent moaning comes over the speakers, reaching my ears, but only distantly, as though the sound is bent and warped as it comes to me. The other sound, however, is perfectly clear and as loud to me as pealing church bells on Sunday morning.

Drip
. . .

There are more pipes in the corner, I realize. High overhead, at least twenty feet, and well away from the cabin's electronics, thick white pipes crisscross the ceiling and stretch down the wall before disappearing into the floor.