Insects 2: The Hunted

by John Koloen

  SILVIO SANTIAGO WAS bending Suarez’s ear, complaining about how he thought Duncan’s team had taken advantage of his good nature by overpaying for the ATVs.

  “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into it,” he fretted, in Portuguese. “Tomorrow you get nothing.”

  Suarez had come to the building to sit under one of its working ceiling fans, but the old man was clearly upset and wouldn’t let the young man sit in silence. Even though he understood little English, Santiago could tell when men were arguing in any language. Since the other film crew had flown in from Manaus, following the argument, they complained in Portuguese that he had cheated them, making him feel guilty and resulting in a promise that they would have the ATVs tomorrow. Suarez was offended that the old man blamed him.

  “Don’t blame me,” he said, calmly. “I was just translating. It wasn’t my idea. Now, will you sell me a beer?”

  The old man rubbed his stubbled chin, sighed, reached under the counter, opened the cooler and pulled out a can of Brahma beer. He charged fifteen reals, which was more than double the price in Manaus. Suarez paid it without complaint, popped the top and took a deep draught. Pulling up a rickety barstool, he apologized for what Duncan’s group had done and after a few moments asked if there was anything he could do to help them find transportation for tomorrow. The old man shook his head several times, insisting that all the machines had been reserved.

  “And I’m not going to let anyone undercut anyone,” he insisted.

  Suarez didn’t want to argue with him and took his beer outside to where the ATVs were parked. Someone had parked a third ATV alongside the two they’d dropped off. He couldn’t help but notice the two that were parked a short distance away. They were older than the others and bore signs of misuse but seemed to have most of their parts. Beyond them, and behind the building, sat several scavenged ATVs.

  “What’s wrong with those two?” Suarez asked, loud enough for the old man to hear. Emerging from the building’s open sides, he spit and shook his head.

  “They don’t work.”

  “Do you mind if I look at them?”

  “Look all you want.”

  “If I get them to run, will you rent them to us?”

  Santiago grew thoughtful. Nobody in the village could get them to run and that meant that they would sit there until stripped of usable parts and then pushed deeper into the junk pile.

  “Are you a mechanic?”

  “I worked in my brother’s shop when I was growing up,” the wiry Suarez said.

  “Ever work on ATVs?”

  “No, never.”

  Figuring he had nothing to lose if Suarez could get them running, he assented, watching momentarily as Duncan’s guide inspected the first ATV.

  “There’s some tools inside if you need them,” he said encouragingly. “Wrenches and hammers.”

  Suarez thanked him and continued to pull at wires and do what he could with his hands on both machines, turning the keys with no result. One thing was certain, the batteries were dead, though he found that they still contained low levels of acid. Topping them off with water, he asked the old man for the tools. Santiago pointed to a small, wooden crate near the cooler. Pulling out a handful of rusty wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers, Suarez asked if there were any spare batteries lying about. Santiago shook his head.

  “Do you mind if I pulled one out of one of the machines that works, just to test? The batteries got no juice.”

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Of course,” Suarez replied. “I just need one. I’ll put it back when I’m done.”

  “You won’t kill it, will you?”

  Suarez felt vaguely insulted but didn’t respond to it.

  “You know, it’s to your benefit if I get them running.”

  The old man waved him off cavalierly. He understood that he had little to lose.

  After fifteen minutes of fiddling, the first ATV sputtered to life, smoke pouring out of its exhaust in acrid, billowing clouds. The motor resonated like a tank, until he adjusted the loose muffler. The engine ran rough, coughing and spitting as if in its death throes. The noise and smoke drew Santiago outside, who watched from a distance, flapping his hat in front of him to ward off the exhaust. Suarez killed the engine. He knew that starting it was one thing, getting the ATV to move was another. He also knew that one ATV wouldn’t be enough, so as the old man moved back inside, he turned his attention to the second vehicle and had it running within ten minutes.

  Somehow he had to get them to run on their own batteries, and then start in the morning. He asked Santiago if he had jumper cables. The old man disappeared into a storage room behind the counter and emerged with cables. They were old and brittle and the wiring was frayed where it connected to the clamps. After replacing the working battery, Suarez started the ATV, which ran smoothly. Using the jumper cables, he took a deep breath and turned the key on the first ATV. The starter turned only slightly, but he was encouraged that it turned at all. Waiting a moment, he turned the key again and this time the engine shook and sputtered to life without filling the air with smoke. As he pressed cautiously on the accelerator, the motor revved haltingly but continued to run even after he removed the cables, which were hot. Suarez let the motor run to charge the battery and burn off old fuel, turning his attention to the second vehicle.

  “You did it,” Santiago said, patting him on the back.

  “For now,” Suarez said modestly. “We’ll see what happens in the morning. For now, I want to let them run and do a little tuning, if you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Of course not. You obviously know what you’re doing.”

  81

  HUDDLED INSIDE THEIR tent, Duncan and Boyd became aware of the limitations of the bottle trap they were struggling to assemble. The mouth was narrow and they still hadn’t determined the best way to attach flaps to prevent insects from escaping. Enlarging the entry would only make it that much more difficult to prevent escape, assuming the flap worked at all.

  “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong,” Boyd said.

  “How so?”

  “We know that blaberus is viviparous, right? That’s what Professor Azevedo said, right?”

  “As far as we know, yes.”

  “And, as far as we know, they’re breeding like rabbits, right?”

  “What is this, twenty questions?” Duncan said with slight irritation.

  “There have to be a lot of juveniles that will easily fit through the opening.”

  “Assuming they’re part of the colony and not reared in some kind of nursery.”

  Boyd frowned.

  “Yeah, yeah, that could be. But they’re not all the same size in any case. There’s variation. There has to be.”

  “OK, I’ll buy that. So we just keep the opening the way it is,” Duncan said.

  “Exactly. And that leaves only one problem and that’s how to install the flap. The more I think about it, I’m just not sure about using vines.”

  “Me either. Let’s talk to Antonio. He found the bottles, maybe he can help us with the flap.”

  “I’ll find him,” Boyd said as he prepared to crawl out of the tent.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Duncan said, pointing to the logo on his shirt.

  “Not for you,” Boyd said. “I’m a much better liar. Besides, I’m a consultant. Nobody cares about me. You’re the one with a target on his back.”

  82

  RETURNING IN THE late afternoon, Nolan Thomas’s group met to review what they’d learned and to prepare tomorrow’s plan. They pored over Thomas’s topographical map, outlining the area they’d explored, most of it in a wide basin surrounded by steep embankments of varying heights. They did not encroach on the area that Duncan’s group had visited.

  They had collected several carcasses for closer inspection as well as a small number of insect specimens that turned out to be little more than husks. Little anatomical structure remained, which was not surprising to
anyone given the heat and humidity. Gruber and the other assistants had stumbled through the forest with great caution, fearful of actually finding the quarry they sought. As if by agreement, they followed the path of least resistance, avoiding the more impenetrable parts of the forest floor, preferring to walk along the edge of the embankments, which were unobstructed by comparison. Thomas didn’t know this, of course, since his only contact with them once they were out of sight was via wireless radio. As far as they knew, the interior of the valley could have been crawling with blaberus.

  Whether defending a previous decision or not wanting to start over, Thomas firmly believed that they were in the right place and that it would be only a matter of time before the insects would appear.

  “We don’t want to be there when they’re there, do we?” Gruber asked awkwardly.

  “Probably not,” Thomas said.

  Gruber and his colleagues shared their relief with smiles.

  “Tomorrow we’ll set our pitfall traps,” Thomas said.

  “And we’ll set up cameras with remotes,” Mitchell said, as if it were important to the scientists.

  Thomas’s pitfall trap, which he had designed himself when he was a graduate student, consisted of a Teflon-coated funnel, eight inches in diameter at its widest, that emptied into a six-inch diameter polyethylene container. The device would be buried in the forest floor, and the insects would fall into it with no avenue of escape. Following the meeting, Gruber and the others would practice burying traps in the soft, grassy area around their tent.

  “The great thing about these traps,” Thomas said, “is that we don’t need bait. My guess is that when the insects come—and I must say again that I do not like the name Reptilus blaberus—they’ll fall in and we return the next day to collect them and be on our way back to civilization.”

  Gruber and the others couldn’t wait to grab their stainless steel folding trowels and get busy, but Thomas wasn’t finished. Using the data they provided, pinpointing the locations of carcasses, he drew a circle encompassing the approximate center of the valley extending to both embankments and several hundred yards north and south.

  “I’m playing hunches on this, but from your data it seems we found more specimens closer to where I was stationed than farther out. And so that’s where we’ll concentrate our efforts. Any questions?”

  83

  CODY BOYD HAD no trouble finding Antonio Suarez. Seconds after stepping out of his tent and getting his bearings he saw him near the administration building talking to Silvio Santiago. Knowing that the old man spoke only Portuguese, Boyd approached slowly, not wanting to interrupt the conversation.

  “So how’s it going?” Boyd said as Suarez reached him.

  “He’s still angry at us,” Suarez said soberly.

  Boyd didn’t need an explanation.

  “That mean we don’t get ATVs tomorrow?” Boyd asked apprehensively. “How we gonna get the traps out?”

  Suarez smiled happily.

  “He has a couple that wouldn’t start, so I worked on them and got them to run. I think he’ll let us use them ’cause I got them to work.”

  Boyd gazed at Suarez in silent admiration.

  “Unbelievable,” he said, patting the smaller Suarez on the shoulder. “No kidding?”

  “No. We can have them.”

  “Hot damn! Hot damn.”

  Suarez didn’t want to dampen Boyd’s enthusiasm but didn’t want to mislead him either. As they returned to their tent, he explained that the batteries were in poor shape, that they might not have enough juice to start in the morning and that if they didn’t start Suarez would have to jump them from one of the other machines.

  “So, we have to get there early, make sure there’s something to jump our machines with,” Boyd said.

  “To be safe. And we’ll have to pay to use them.”

  “He knows they aren’t worth much if they don’t start.”

  Reaching the tent, Boyd followed Suarez inside. Duncan saw that both were cheerful.

  “So, did you find something for the traps?”

  Suarez looked at Boyd uncertainly.

  “I’ll explain that in a minute,” Boyd said to Suarez.

  “So you didn’t find…”

  “Better yet,” Boyd said. “We’ve got ATVs for tomorrow.”

  Duncan was perplexed.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Boyd nodded to Suarez who explained the situation.

  “Jeez, I didn’t realize we had a problem,” Duncan said, looking at Boyd. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know either. This all happened while we were working on the traps. Antonio here saved the day.”

  Duncan congratulated Suarez, who smiled modestly.

  “Did you ask him about the traps?” Duncan said to Boyd.

  “No, I didn’t. We just talked about the ATVs.”

  Duncan explained that he and Boyd were building bottle traps and held up the half-completed prototype. He described the problem they were having attaching the flap that would prevent the insects from escaping. Suarez listened and watched patiently. Duncan asked if he had any idea how to solve the problem.

  Without a word, the guide dashed out of the tent, leaving Boyd and Duncan baffled.

  “Where’s he going?” Duncan asked.

  They watched as Suarez ran barefoot toward the huts along the river bank.

  “I don’t get it,” Duncan said. “Where’s he going?”

  “I don’t know, but he must have some idea,” Boyd said. “You know, really, if it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have these bottles to begin with, and I’m sure as hell we wouldn’t have any ATVs tomorrow. I don’t know what you’re paying him, but it’s not enough.”

  Moments after Boyd and Duncan had turned their attention to the prototype, Suarez returned with a handful of sharpened sticks, each about a foot long. He was panting as he held them out to Duncan.

  “Will these work, Mister Howard?”

  “What are they?”

  “Darts, they use them with blowguns to shoot monkeys,” he said, holding his hand to mouth and blowing.

  Duncan held them gingerly so that the ends didn’t touch his hands.

  “They’re not poisonous, are they?” he asked, suddenly hesitant.

  “Oh, no, they’ve never been used,” Suarez said reassuringly. “Will they work for you?”

  “Yeah, no question. This is exactly what we need,” Duncan said, handing them to Boyd and shaking Suarez’ hand. “You’re a miracle worker. I don’t know how we’d get along without you.”

  Suarez was happy that even though he hadn’t done any guide work, he was earning his pay.

  84

  AS EVENING FELL, Gruber, Covelli and the other assistants retired to their tent. There was just enough room for four sleeping bags and personal gear, which they crammed against the polyester sides. The initial appeal of camping had worn off, replaced by carping over little things, such as letting in mosquitoes. They were also starting to express criticism about the way Thomas was using them. All of them believed they were doing work that was beneath them and their skills. Because of their fear of being overheard by Thomas, they whispered.

  Normally, Gruber defended his boss. Normally, there was a pecking order among the assistants and he was at the top. But like his colleagues, he felt that he was being misused, especially since he was doing the same work as they were. As the senior assistant, he felt he should be supervising the grunt work, not participating in it. The fact that he was now criticizing their boss made them feel they had his permission to do the same. He was no longer their superior.

  “I agree with you guys,” Gruber said, sympathetically. “I don’t know what I expected.”

  With the tent illuminated by an LED headlamp dangling from the ceiling, it was difficult for them to see one another’s expressions.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kinda scared out there,” Covelli said.

  “Me too,” anothe
r said.

  “Yeah,” Gruber agreed. “We don’t know much about these bugs and I really don’t like it that the guy who was supposed to carry the flamethrower isn’t here.”

  “Yeah, what’s with that?”

  “I heard he was on parole or something and the Brazilians wouldn’t let him in.”

  “No kidding?” Gruber said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

  “That thing’s so heavy, I hate to wear it,” Gruber said.

  “A lot of good it does.”

  “You know what, that flamethrower would’ve been handy for those people who got trapped in the flood. Did you see some of that stuff online and what that one guy said? They were throwing cups of gasoline and lighting it with sticks. Man, if they had a flamethrower, shit…”

  “Maybe nobody woulda died.”

  “Well, at least tomorrow, we’re gonna lay the traps and be outta there.”

  “And what’s with all this filming? That producer guy keeps asking me what I think and how I feel.”

  Everyone looked at Gruber for an explanation.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “that’s between them and the company or the doc. It’s some sort of documentary or something. I’m not sure if the company hired them or what. You know how secretive they are about everything.”

  “Maybe they’re doing a recruitment video.”

  “I don’t know. So far, they gotta be disappointed,” Covelli said. “Doesn’t look like anything’s happening.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Gruber said, hopefully, and abruptly changed his tone. “Whoever is farting, stop it right now or keep it in your bag.”

  85

  SILVIO SANTIAGO WAS in a dark mood when Boyd and Suarez arrived to start the two ATVs. Villagers were fed up with the noise and presence of strangers photographing and filming their homes and boats. A youthful crew from Manaus were particularly disrespectful, laughing at the condition of some of the huts and wondering aloud if the boats would sink before reaching the opposite side of the river.