AEGIS EVOLUTION

by S. S. Segran

  “Domi and Aari, you guys scout the stream to the south,” she said. “Kody and Mariah, you’ll take the center stream while Marshall and I will check out the one to the north. This way, we have at least one telepath on each team. And take a photo of the satellite image with your phones so we can refer to it later.”

  Kody, who’d been rigid with anticipation, relaxed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you figure out how to distract Reyor’s men so we can get past them?” Aari asked.

  Kody grinned, sharing eager looks with Tegan. “Oh yeah. We’re gonna throw a major monkey wrench into the works.”

  * * *

  The group made their way over the lodge grounds toward Mount Meru, as casually as if they were taking a walk in a park. Kody, strolling arm-in-arm with Tegan, whispered, “We’re coming up about two hundred yards to the left of the other resort. Is everything in place?”

  “Almost,” she whispered back. “It’s a lot of pieces to coordinate, and they’re all spread out so I have to bring them closer. Ahh, it feels so good to not have to sit still for stuff like this anymore.” She squeezed his arm. “Now, be honest. How are you feeling?”

  He considered lying but decided against it. “My powers are definitely weakening,” he admitted. “At this range I should be able to clearly listen in on anything in that resort, but my hearing keeps fading in and out and my sight is returning to how it used to be before I got my abilities. All my senses are fading. And…”

  “And?”

  “I’m starting to feel a headache coming on.”

  Tegan gazed up at him, then at the gauze on his neck. He could see her fighting not to show fear. Turning his baseball cap backward, he gave her a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. She broke into a laugh, pulling back. “Hey!”

  “See? I’m still in charge of my faculties. So let’s just work on finding the seeds and not be concerned about the idiot brother of the group.”

  “You’re a butt.”

  “Yes. Yes I am.”

  When Tegan looked away, Kody dropped his breezy grin. It’s the strangest thing, he thought, to live with the knowledge that you’re walking toward death while it walks toward you. When it’s this close, and you know it’s coming… It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m ready for it. I’m ready. I… I…

  I’m not ready.

  A chorus of guttural roars exploded from the acacia trees surrounding the resort. A gang of colobus monkeys with shaggy black-and-white pelts burst onto the scene. They swung onto the wooden frame of the building and threw themselves at the windows until they shattered. As the simian troop clambered through, Kody, even with his fading hearing, picked up the yelps and expletives from the mercenaries inside.

  Then his ears registered the faint pounding of hooves. He looked to his right and watched in heavy-lidded amazement as a herd of two dozen buffalo thundered over the savannah. Their dark coats shone under the sunlight as they pulled their massive bodies, each easily weighing fifteen-hundred pounds, toward the resort.

  “Look at the horns on them!” Kody shouted over the fray. “And—holy cow!”

  The buffalo leading the charge slammed into one of the vehicles parked in front of the resort. Another larger bull lowered its massive head and gored a truck with its horns. The first buffalo joined in the effort and together they lifted and flipped the crumpled truck onto its side, the grinding of metal a foreign din to the livid rumbles of the wild beasts.

  “I feel like I’m in a live-action version of The Lion King!” Mariah shrieked gleefully as one of the buffalos turned to the resort’s entrance and rammed the doors down. “This is insane!”

  “I’m not done yet!” Tegan yelled.

  From the shrubs around the lodge, a war cry of furious squealing announced the stampede of reddish-brown animals with two pairs of tusks. They sprinted at unbelievable speed, filing through the building’s decimated entrance.

  “Warthogs!” Marshall doubled over in laughter. “Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s for good measure!” Tegan ran toward the main road. “Come on, while Reyor’s men are distracted!”

  She’d only taken a few bounds when she suddenly sagged forward. Kody caught her just before she fell. “Whoa,” she mumbled, holding her head. “Guess I have my limits, too.”

  Kody lifted her up. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

  “Sorta. Just… wow. Sudden drain. I didn’t realize jumping from one animal to another quickly would hit me this hard.”

  “The fact that you could do that at all is mind-blowing,” Aari said.

  Kody offered Tegan his arm again and she hooked on gratefully until they reached the main road, where Marshall took over and the group split up. With the satellite picture he’d snapped displayed on his phone screen, Kody fell in step with Mariah as they entered the rainforest and found the stream they were to follow.

  “If I remember correctly,” Mariah said, skirting a root, “the woman at the reception said that coming up here requires a ranger. Because of, you know, leopards.”

  Kody glanced up from his phone. “Are you saying you can’t fling away an overgrown housecat?”

  She groaned. “Gah, you’re right. I keep forgetting that I’ve grown in my abilities, and I don’t have to fall into the habit of being afraid of… a lot of things.”

  “You’re lucky like that, ’Riah. You and Jag, and Tegan, kind of. Aari and me, our abilities aren’t exactly great when it comes to protecting each other or even ourselves.”

  “That’s why we were trained in self-defense. And I saw you having a go with that old bo staff in the Lodge before we left for Israel. You really flowed with it, like you were an expert. And your abilities are useful, Kody.”

  “I’m a glorified bloodhound who provides slapstick comedy at best.” When he saw her stiff look, he added, “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

  “You don’t know how important you are, do you?” she asked, sounding small.

  Kody, armed with a deflective one-liner, swallowed his joke when Mariah stopped him from speaking.

  “Jag and Tegan are leaders, putting aside Jag’s ongoing self-doubts,” she said. “Aari’s got a mind that exceeds every one of us. I don’t know what I am in this saving-the-world dynamic. But you… Kody, you’re the glue. You do what you can to make everyone feel okay, feel like things aren’t necessarily as bad as they seem. Honestly, without you, it would be harder for the group to function. And I’m not talking about just now. It’s been like that all our lives. Yeah, maybe your abilities aren’t so great when it comes to self-defense, but I’m convinced your real power is who you are as a person.”

  Kody focused on his shoes as they trekked among the fig and cedar trees, continuing upstream along the calm waters, exchanging no more words. He wasn’t sure what to make of her statement and, from his point of view, she was being overly generous with his importance.

  In the forest canopy, blue monkeys chattered at each other, nosily following the humans from the trees for a time before losing interest and acrobating away. The other pairs checked in telepathically with Mariah to say they were on their assigned trails. One false alarm came from Dominique; the stone slab she and Aari unearthed had no etchings on it.

  Kody found that he had to squint as his headache hammered harder in his skull, demanding to be acknowledged like a child throwing a tantrum. He let Mariah take the lead, pretending he didn’t catch her troubled expression. Little things began to annoy him, like the jabbering of monkeys in the trees, the trumpeting of distant elephants, even the general hum of the forest.

  Cool it, he thought. It’s okay, man. You’re fine. What was it that Victor said when you met him? Eyes forward. Yeah, that’s it. Eyes forward.

  Determined to push past the Omega strain festering in his body, he overtook Mariah, giving her two thumbs-up and a big grin. “Hurry up, slowpoke!”

  One look at his beaming face and she broke into a smile and darted after him.

  Huh. Maybe ’Riah was
onto something with her little speech back there…

  They jogged side by side in comfortable silence, vaulting over mounds and fallen trees while the stream gurgled next to them. Search as they did for any shape or clue in the landscape that might mark Carmel’s grave, the forest seemed intent on keeping its secret.

  As the pair split around a particularly wide cedar, Kody thought he heard something overhead, above the canopy. He fought to hone his hearing and magnify his sight. When he located the source of the disturbance, he rolled his eyes. “Reyor’s guys found us.”

  Mariah whirled around. “Where are they?”

  He pointed through a break in the canopy. “Over there, coming in lower. A drone.”

  “Oh… oh, I see it. But how did they track us through the trees?”

  “It’s probably got infrared capabilities that pick up heat signatures.”

  “Well, I’m not putting up with this garbage.” Mariah, striking a sass-filled pose with a hand on her hip, lifted her other hand to the sky. With a swipe of her finger she brought the drone plummeting through the treetops before smashing it to the ground.

  Kody loped over to the mangled gray quadcopter and prodded it with his foot. “The more I think about it, the more I realize just how unfair of an advantage we have.”

  “I think it’s perfectly fair,” Mariah huffed. “We have to deal with them having resources literally everywhere while we—”

  She halted mid-sentence and grabbed Kody’s wrist, hauling him behind her. A strange protrusion covered in vines and moss, about eight feet long and six feet high, stood on its own between a couple of fig trees. Mariah pulled at the clingy foliage and Kody helped until the uppermost layer of overgrowth was peeled off, displaying the top of a jagged rock.

  The pair ran backwards a few steps, then turned to each other with elated grins.

  The outcrop, weathered by time, still resembled the outline of Meru as the mountain peeped in the background through a bald patch in the forest canopy. Kody directed his attention to the ground, now searching for the slab of stone that marked Carmel’s resting place. The headache still pounded but his eagerness provided a modicum of distraction from the pain.

  As they combed the forest floor, Mariah let out a giggle. “I told the others that we’ve found the landmark so they’re heading over, but I also warned them about possible drones following them. Tegan said none were following her and Marshall, but Domi… Domi threw a stinkin’ rock at a UAV and completely destroyed it.”

  “Now that’s something I wish I could’ve seen.” Kody lightly stomped on the ground until his sole struck something hard. “Bingo.”

  He pulled away clumps of dried foliage, revealing a square stone block with rounded edges. A thick coat of grime on the surface, probably nearly two thousand years old, made it impossible to positively identify the grave marker. Kody stroked the gauze on his neck, wondering how best to clean the slab. A sudden flashback to a documentary his younger brother once forced him to sit through came to mind.

  Thank you, George!

  He hurried to the stream, picked up double handfuls of fine sand and worked on exfoliating the slab. He was sweating by the time most of the accumulation had been scrubbed off. The sand easily filled in the markings on the dark stone, displaying several peculiar motifs. But one thing stood out to both him and Mariah: the Hebrew script at the center.

  “Look at you go!” Mariah high-fived him. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “I—”

  Kody’s smile fell. A sudden rush of blood to his head made the agonizing beating within unbearable. He stretched a hand to Mariah but before she could grab it, he collapsed.

  54

  “Kody!”

  Mariah dropped beside the comatose teenager, patting his cheeks and shaking his shoulders. “Hey, don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Up! Get up! Kody, get up!”

  He was warm to the touch, warmer than he should have been. She sent out a telepathic blast to the others, telling them to hurry, then carefully pulled Kody aside. “I won’t have you lying on top of a grave,” she muttered. “No sir, none of that foreshadowing business here. I won’t have it.”

  She positioned herself so Kody’s head rested comfortably on her lap. His breathing had quickened slightly, but otherwise he remained unresponsive. Dominique and Aari arrived within minutes; Mariah heard the rush of air as they pulled to a stop beside her. Aari scrambled off the Sentry’s back, looking uncomfortable that he’d had to cling on like a baby chimp as she’d sped through the forest.

  “He just collapsed,” Mariah told them, hating how her voice came out in a squeak. “It was so sudden, I… I didn’t see it coming.”

  Dominique leaned her head against Mariah’s. The brief gesture and the Sentry’s earthy scent delivered a morsel of composure to the distraught girl. Dominique then moved to do a full body-check on Kody before sitting back on her heels. “No physical injuries, but he does have a growing fever. I don’t know how to wake him.”

  Mariah lightly stroked her friend’s cheek. “Hopefully he’ll come out of it on his own,” she murmured.

  This can’t be happening.

  Marshall and Tegan reached them fifteen minutes later, drenched in perspiration. The forest had gone still apart from the pair’s heaving gasps, as if every creature had left the humans to themselves. Once they’d caught their breaths, Marshall tried to wake the unconscious teenager.

  Tegan turned to Aari. “Get on Lucius’s letters. Now!”

  Aari tentatively stepped onto the grave, as if trying not to rouse the remains that rested underneath, and withdrew a parchment from the canister. Mariah watched him attentively until she felt movement on her lap. Her heart skipped a beat as Kody’s eyes eased open.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Marshall said quietly, brushing some dirt off the boy’s ear. “Take it easy.”

  Kody sat up with Mariah’s help, resting against her. She held him tightly, afraid that if she let go, he’d fall to pieces. He weakly grabbed his baseball cap that had tumbled off his head. “H-how long was… was I out?”

  His speech was jarred, uneven. Before Mariah could respond, Aari yelled. “Nothing! I’m getting nothing!”

  “You said this was a geo-marker!” Mariah snapped.

  “I know what I said!”

  Marshall held his arms out at the two of them. “Getting riled won’t help. Aari, try again.”

  Aari turned back to the grave; he held the letter so tightly, Mariah worried it would tear. He stood motionless, letting out small hisses of frustration every few moments, then spun back around, flushed red. “It’s like the artifacts just died! They’re not giving me anything! No flash, nothing!”

  Mariah felt Kody go rigid in her arms. “The trail’s gone cold?” he asked. “Right n-n-now?”

  Aari couldn’t meet Kody’s gaze. The group remained stock-still. Kody folded into himself, hiding his face with a hand. Mariah held him closer, her mind a panicked blank. This—no—it can’t—Kody—no—no—

  “The slab,” she suddenly whispered. The others looked toward her resignedly. She pressed them. “The stone slab. Did Lucius carve it?”

  Aari knelt by the freshly-unearthed marker. “I don’t know. Maybe? I think he carved her name and the tribe symbols… if he did etch into it, there could be enough of an emotional connection—”

  “Try it,” Tegan growled.

  As Aari’s fingers neared the stone, Kody sat up so quickly his head struck Mariah’s chin. “Ow!” she cried. “Kody, what—”

  “I hear them,” he said.

  “Hear who?”

  “Reyor’s men. They’re trying to be r-real quiet, but someone stepped on a b-branch. I think they’re s-sweeping the forest.”

  “We demolished their trucks,” Aari protested. “How’d they get here so fast?”

  Marshall slammed the side of his fist into a tree. “The drones gave away our location. And they’ve got local mercenaries waiting to move in with their own vehicles who most likely
know this forest like the back of their hands.”

  “Guys.” Kody tried to stand but was too frail to hold up his weight. “L-look at me. If I can hear them in m-my state, then t-they’re close. No more than a half a mile.”

  “You think they’re moving up their kill-and-capture schedule?” Mariah asked.

  “Maybe.” Dominique threw Kody over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “We need to move!”

  Marshall covered up the stone slab. Together the group disappeared deeper into the rainforest.

  55

  “I still can’t believe we’re playing for sugar cubes.”

  Jag glanced up from his cards and grinned. “I appreciate you humoring me, Danny.”

  Daniel chuckled. “The last time I joined a poker game with Marshall, it was with his army friends who were between deployments and we played for MREs. I nearly walked out of there. At least they threw in kosher rations. But sugar cubes…”

  “It’s sentimental. First time Aari, Tegan, Mariah, Kody and I tried to play poker, we were eleven. We only had sugar cubes to bet with and it’s been our thing ever since.”

  A rumble in the distance made both of them look out the window next to their small table. Sprawling black clouds rolled toward them, throwing the desert around the safe house into a gloom. Sand dunes painted the landscape every which-way.

  Jag’s forehead crinkled. “You get rain out here?”

  “The desert does bloom, Jag. But this kind of storm is rare.”

  Daniel’s safe house was no more than a distant family member’s cottage located in the Negev Desert. The small edifice was roomy enough for three occupants at most, with a single open area on the main floor hosting a makeshift living room and bedroom combo, as well as a kitchenette. Wooden steps led to a half-loft with an air mattress, a small table and two chairs. Jag and Daniel spent most of their time there playing card games and conversing; the higher ground was also easier for surveillance. Daniel had set up his military-grade spotting scope on a bipod by the window and checked it often.