Fight it? I don’t even understand it.
“What’s he say, Doc?” the large boulder of a man standing behind me asks. His camouflaged face and broad shoulders make him look like one of the GI cartoons I used to watch as a kid. Long before the men came in the middle of the night to drag me across half the continent to this forsaken place. For your country, they had said. Then, why do they look like mercenaries instead of regular troops? Still, the money they dangled wasn’t bad. Heck, it was a small fortune. And it’s not like I had something better to do with my life. Not since I opened my drunken, big mouth and told everyone at the Christmas party about the Dean and his secretary. Now, no university would touch me with a ten-foot barge pole.
I let out a mental sigh and draw a crumpled red bandana from my back pocket. I wipe enough sweat from my forehead to fill half a bucket. I haven’t been in the jungle in over twenty years. How I survived that first field trip is beyond me. Then again, I was twenty years younger. Surprisingly enough, I remember the tribe’s language fairly well. A dry chuckle escapes my lips. Much good that’s done me. A failed academic turned unlikely jungle hero.
I swat away a mosquito eager to stab my neck with its straw-like proboscis and notice GI Joe behind me, still waiting for my answer. “Oh, right,” I say. “Sorry. Our chopper has him all worked up. He thinks it’s a sign.”
GI Joe’s gaze measures up the ancient shaman sitting upon a thick layer of leaves. Naked, bony legs protrude under a beige loincloth; the only garment on him. Tattoos and scars cover his skin. Painted red lines cross his wrinkled face. Strange how the various bugs seem to ignore him. Instead, they focus on me, even though I’ve practically showered from head to toe with stinky bug repellant. “A sign?”
I scratch my chin. “Apparently there’s some prophecy. An iron bird’s children will wake an ancient god, who will destroy the world. Or something like that. It’s all very apocalyptic, really.”
The captain’s face darkens. He glances behind us. A dozen men in camouflage have spread around our helicopter, assault rifles at the ready. “Are we in danger?”
I shake my head emphatically. “No, no, the natives don’t care either way. Listen.” I turn my attention back to the old shaman. “Will you help us?” I ask in his language. The tongue-twisting words sound like a typewriter, wrapped in tinfoil, falling down the stairs.
His laugh is throaty and cheerful. He clicks his tongue, as if scolding me for my naivety. “If the gods wish you to find your friend, no one can stop you,” he says in a rapid series of guttural sounds, like the typewriter was just crashed by a steamroller. “If they don’t, no one can help you. Either way, you don’t need me.” I translate for GI Joe behind me and he mumbles something under his breath.
“Does he know where the rebels are keeping him?” he asks.
I repeat the question to the shaman. He cocks his head for a moment as if listening to the wind, then nods. I take out a map and notice the bemused glint in the old man’s eyes. He’s probably never seen paper, I remind myself. Hell, he hadn’t even seen a white man before today. I fold the map away. A thin smile tugs at his lips, followed by a lot of pointing and a burst of words. I hastily draw my pen and scribble down instructions. A forked river. A lake. A snaked wall. Twin mountains. He points behind me. I follow his gaze and see two peaks behind us, barely peeking over the thick canopy of the jungle.
I thank him and unfold the map again. GI Joe looks over my shoulder. I point to an area in the south. “From what I can tell, we need to follow the river farther south. Whenever we come across a fork, we stay on the left. We will end up at a lake. A path leads from its far end to a ridge between those two mountains”—I use my thumb to point behind us—“then we hit something he calls a snaked wall. Or snake wall. Or the wall of snakes?” I scratch my unshaved chin. “It might be a ruined temple. Or some natural phenomenon. I guess we’ll know it when we see it.”
“Not we, Doc,” the gruff man says. “You’re staying here.”
I almost let out a relieved sigh, then my face drops. “I’d love to. But what if you get lost? Or if you hit a snag? Maybe you meet some other tribe and you need to communicate.” I shake my head. “I’m as good a guide as anyone you can find around here. You need me.”
He purses his lips, then nods. “Very well. But at the first sign of trouble, you hide.”
I chortle. “Don’t need to tell me twice.”
He turns to his men. “Prepare the dinghies,” he barks and two dozen men scramble to their feet.
Within seconds, they are busy loading a pair of huge dinghies with more ammo and supplies than I thought any boat made of rubber could ever hold.
“Why don’t we take the chopper?” I ask.
“No place to land for miles,” GI Joe explains. “The forest is too thick in the south. Besides, they’ll hear us coming. We can’t risk them killing the… asset.”
Asset. The brief pause and the way he spoke the word suggests a strange affection—even reverence—for the man we’ve come to rescue. Is he the one the prophecy refers to? Unless, of course, the shaman meant me. Am I destined to raise some sort of god? My mouth twitches in frustration. How can I fight a prophecy I don’t even understand?
Despite the stifling heat, the academic in me is intrigued. All sorts of information gathered during my studies bubble to my head. I open my mouth to further question the ancient shaman, but GI Joe yanks me to my feet.
“Are you coming, or what?” he growls.
His men have already loaded up the dinghies and are finding their places inside. I follow GI Joe and he shoves me into the nearest boat. I find myself squeezed between a tall man made of granite and a stubby one made of ebony, with a face scarred by fire. They grunt in response to my greeting. GI Joe pushes our dinghy into the river. Ebony’s hand finds the engine and jolts it to life. The boat bounces forward and seesaws into the river for a moment, then its movement becomes smooth and we stroll along its course.
Every now and then, a Caiman fixes his reptilian eye on us, watching us go by. A distinctive coughing sound alerts me to an arapaima fish emerging for air. This one is half as long as our dinghy. I make sure that all my limbs are safely inside.
“What’s so important about this guy, anyway?” I ask Ebony.
“We’d give our lives for him,” he whispers. His scarred face burns with a devotion I’ve never seen before.
“Why?” I blurt out.
Granite scowls at Ebony, who presses his thick lips together. No answer comes.
We ride in awkward silence until we reach a fork in the river. A fallen tree cuts off the left branch. As the two dinghies lumber around it, movement in a limb catches my eye. When I find myself staring into the eyes of an anaconda, I swallow. Its spotty skin makes it almost invisible among the thick leaves, but it must be around twenty feet long and thicker than Granite’s thigh. Granite follows my gaze and his whole body jerks. He reaches for his sidearm, but GI Joe shoots him a warning glare and shakes his head. Reluctantly, Granite draws a long breath. His eyes never leave the limb until we’re far enough for him to relax his grip on his gun.
“Snakes,” he mutters under his breath. “I hate snakes.”
“Well, we are in a jungle.” My words sound more cheerful than I intended. I am rewarded with a poisonous side glance.
I shrug it off and lower my sweaty hat to my eyes. The engine’s murmur and the soft bobbing of the boat make me drowsy. My eyes grow heavy, and I drift into an uneasy sleep.
A shove jerks me awake. “We’re here,” someone whispers in my ear.
I blink to clear cobwebs from my eyes. Granite is towering over me. Behind him, the sun is setting fast, as if anxious to get home after a busy day. I glance around. We have arrived at the edge of a large lake. Slivers of orange-hued sunlight slice through the green canopy overhead and leave its warm glow here and there. The men secure the dinghies and start pulling the crates out. I yawn and stretch. My limbs feel creaky and sore.
“We walk t
he rest of the way,” Granite says and throws a backpack to me.
I catch it with an audible oomph that earns me a contemptuous smirk. I ignore him and sling the backpack around my shoulder before jumping out. With a loud squelch, my legs sink almost to the knees in sludge. I cringe and yank one leg from the mud’s greedy pull. “Pretty soon, it’ll be too dark to see anything,” I say as I flick away thirsty leeches from my pants. “We should make camp here and leave in the morning.”
He points to something like binoculars hanging around his neck, then reaches into a crate and pulls out a similar set. He throws them at me. I catch them just before they land in the muddy waters. Can’t this guy ever pass something like a normal human being? I imagine him at a dinner table, throwing saltshakers and bottles of wine to his guests, and almost chuckle.
“Nice catch,” he says, his voice thick with irony.
The first thing crossing my mind is something about his mother and her marital status at the time of his conception. One look at his bulging muscles has me swallow my words. Instead, I finally manage to free both my legs from their muddy prison and shuffle over to harder ground. “What are these, night goggles?” I ask.
“See for yourself,” he says and points at a switch at their top.
I place the goggles in front of my eyes and he flips the switch. The dusky forest turns an eerie green. He pushes a lever back and forth. The image zooms in and out in rapid succession, until my stomach feels queasy.
“It’s not that dark,” GI Joe sniggers as he passes us.
Granite’s laugh burns my ears. Jerks.
I push Granite’s fingers away and tear the goggles from my eyes. It takes a minute or two for my nausea to subside. In the meantime, the soldiers have emptied the dinghies.
We make our way into the forest and clear a path. Soon, I find myself in the middle of a long column, a dozen guys before me, and another behind. Before long, I’m panting, too tired to look at anything but Ebony’s boots right ahead. Their rise and fall is hypnotic. Up, down. Up, down. I thank my lucky stars for the nap I had earlier.
Half an hour later, my whole chest burns with every breath. Every muscle aches. Thick sweat covers every inch of my body. The rough terrain is harder to traverse than I remembered. I sigh with relief when Ebony stops. He motions for me to put my goggles on. Like before, I need a moment before I get used to my eerie green surroundings.
Granite runs down the column to fetch me. He motions for me to follow him and leads me to a vine-covered stone wall. It’s so ancient, the ground has swallowed most of it. Whatever’s left barely reaches to my waist. From the old man’s words, I expect it to snake through the jungle. Instead, it runs in a straight line, cutting us off. Etched snakes, almost erased by time, meander through its surface. Granite notices them and draws a sharp breath. I almost smile.
“Now what?” GI Joe asks me.
“Umm…” I scratch my chin. The old man was not exactly a fan of specifics. “I think we’re meant to go around it. He warned against crossing it. The whole area here is taboo.”
“What about the rebels?” Granite asks. “Where are they?”
“Right past this area. If we keep climbing, we’ll reach the top. The camp should be below us.”
The two men exchange a loaded glance. Granite nods and disappears into the night to inform the others.
“You wait here,” GI Joe says.
“Again, that’d be fine with me,” I say. “But what if the old man has it wrong? The camp may be an hour or a day away. Or even a week, for all we know.”
His cold stare gives me the creeps. “Very well,” he says after a while. He turns to Granite, who has just reappeared behind us, and points his chin at me. “You, watch him.”
“Yes, boss,” Granite says and motions for me to fall behind him.
We keep the wall to our left and continue our ascent. The jungle is alive with sound even at night—except for the area surrounded by the wall. No birds, no frogs, no crickets. Just a chill that sends cold shivers down my back, despite the still simmering heat. Granite must have felt it too, because he takes a few steps away from the wall and into the jungle. I’m more than happy to follow him.
It doesn’t take long to circumvent the wall. It continues in what appears to be a perfect rectangle. We clear a path parallel to it until we leave that whole area behind us. Not a moment too soon, either.
After about an hour, we reach the brow of the ridge. True to the old man’s word, we spot lights below. Through the goggles, they burn like stars in a cloudless night. My limbs feel numb by now and my hands shake. On the other hand, only a fine sheen of sweat on Granite’s face shows any effort on his part.
GI Joe motions us to lie low. I drop to all fours and use the goggles to zoom in. Below us lies some kind of encampment, surrounded by wooden walls. For some reason, crosses stand on each corner. They look constructed in a hurry, out of fallen tree trunks. Words and symbols I can’t make out are etched on the peeling barks.
I tilt the goggles to study the wall. A single entrance leads in and out. Two soldiers guard it. Another four patrol the perimeter. There is a makeshift tower with a searchlight at one corner, with a bored-looking soldier manning a machinegun. Yet another cross rises over him.
I make out four—no, five—buildings including the toilets at the camp’s corner. The smallest building sits smack in the middle of the clearing. Six men guard it; one at each corner, and another two at its entrance. I assume that’s the jail where they keep the prisoner. More crosses line the walls, hastily nailed to each of the walls and on the door.
Right on cue, the door gives up a wide yawn and a broad-shouldered young man leans into the gap. Two guards raise nervous rifles to stop him from stepping outside. I expect him to go straight back, but he just stands there, a mocking grin dividing his handsome, angular face. He’s the prisoner? I expected a roughed up, terrified, white-haired man. Instead, I see an athletic man in his early thirties, wearing an impeccable silk suit that has to be tailor-made. His every move carries an unmistakable air of authority, as if the guards were, in fact, the prisoners here.
Thick beads of sweat rush down my back, thanks to the humid heat. My hair clings to my head under my soggy hat. My clothes are muddy and torn. But the prisoner—he looks like he’s been having drinks at an air-conditioned, five-star hotel bar. Not a hair on his perfect head is out of place. He tugs at a gold, serpent-shaped cufflink and straightens the snow-white sleeve of his shirt. As if feeling my gaze on him, he lifts his chin and stares right at me, a smug smile on his face. Then, he winks.
I let out an audible gasp. “Who is this guy?” I ask Granite.
“Not your concern,” he growls as he fixes an earpiece to his ear. He taps it a couple of times, then screws a silencer on the barrel of his rifle in a fluid, methodical motion. A laser scope the size of my arm goes at its top. He fishes an upturned cross from his khaki T-shirt and kisses it.
I watch, mesmerized, the silver amulet as he shoves it back down on his hairy chest. The cross’s horizontal bar is so low, it almost looks like an upside-down T. “That’s the wrong side up,” I blurt out, and immediately scold myself. Nice, oh master of the obvious. Argue with the guy with the rifle.
“Just the way it should be,” he says absentmindedly as he removes his goggles. He fixes his eye at the scope’s end and points the rifle at the guards. “Check,” he murmurs. I realize he’s responding to some inaudible command, and wish I, too, could hear what was going on.
“How can you be sure you’ll hit the guards from so far away?” There is no way they can hear us, but I still find myself whispering.
“These are special bullets,” he says. “They have a microchip, like a tiny computer. All you need to do is fix them on the target. The chip takes care of the rest.”
These are more words than I’ve heard him utter during the entire journey. His face beams with so much pride, I wonder if he designed the weapon himself. There is warmth in his voice, as if talking about
a loved one. His fingers stroke the barrel of the rifle with genuine affection. I don’t need to be a career guide to know this is a man in love with his job.
He raises a finger to stop any further questions. “Check,” he repeats, and squeezes the trigger.
I expect a bright flash and pop, like in the movies. But there’s not even a flicker or a glow, and instead of the pop, I hear a low thud, like a hammer hitting the ground. The noise is displaced, coming from all around us. A puff of smoke rises from the thick silencer. I turn my attention back to the camp. All the guards surrounding the jail are dead. So are the two soldiers guarding the entrance. A stunned expression mars their faces, as if some vengeful deity had snuffed all life out of them with a simple snap of his fingers.
A thin line of men approach the camp from the outside. One of them scales the wall and disappears. Moments later, the gate opens and the rest of them sneak inside.
Before they have a chance to reach the jail, the door to the toilets opens and a lone soldier breaks the threshold, still zipping up. Spotting his dead companions, he lets out a piercing shriek. He pulls a pistol from a waist holster and fires at the men crossing the courtyard as his trousers pool around his ankles. A bullet sends him crashing back into the toilet, but the damage is done. An alarm blares. With so many crosses around, I half-expect it to blare Gregorian chants, but no, this is an old-fashioned high-pitched alarm. The searchlight catches our men. They scurry to take cover behind anything they can find—crates and barrels mostly. GI Joe and Ebony hide behind a dilapidated truck.
An endless stream of guards rushes out of all four buildings. Rapid gunfire breaks the stillness of the jungle night. Pained screams send chills down my spine until the machinegun’s dry ack-ack-ack drowns out all other noises.
A bright light blinds me momentarily. I duck for cover as an explosion rocks the ground. Debris lands on my head. Granite lets out a curse and drops his rifle. Blood seeps out of his massive chest. He clenches his jaw in pain and moans.
The Ultimate Collection of Science & Speculative Fiction Short Stories (Short SSF Stories Book 5) Page 17