by Nate Granzow
The sudden silence was broken only by Clayton's exclamation, "What the fuck just happened?"
Examining the area where the rope had disappeared, Alex muttered, "You boys ain't gonna believe this shit. The rope's been wrapped around the tree. Like twelve times."
"He should have cut the fucking rope free. SOP, man," Dan said, shaking his head as he stared up at the cockpit.
"Doesn't explain how the rope got wrapped up like that," Alex mumbled. "Looks like…I don't know. It's too fucking neat to be an accident. It looks just like someone tied the motherfucker."
"Shit luck, that's all," Zeke said, adjusting his rifle's single-point sling looped around his collar.
"Well that's just great. Now what?"
"We proceed," Clayton said coolly, extracting a military-grade GPS unit from his vest. "There's no helping those poor bastards, and we've got work to do. We'll radio the boss lady when we're finished and let her know what happened. Afterwards, we'll make our way to the Hygeia airstrip about eight klicks south of this location and await exfil. Sorry boys, this is going to take longer than I'd thought." Returning the GPS to his vest, the mercenary said, "Let’s move out. Zeke, you take point."
They trekked through the dense jungle quickly, maintaining a swift pace given their light loadout. They weren't planning on staying long.
"Boss, you hear that?" Dan whispered, stopping. "Kinda sounds like…laughing."
"And whistling," Zeke added.
"It's the jungle, bro. Forget about it. Just monkeys and birds and shit. Toucan Sam, that's all," Alex said, waving them on.
"But it sounds kinda, I don't know, human."
Clayton spotted the unusual glowing eyes in his night vision a second too late. A scream broke the silent shuffle of their booted feet—a primal shriek that forced Clayton's heart to skip in his chest.
"What the fuck?" Zeke mumbled, scanning the surrounding trees with his rifle. Suddenly dropping before him from the dense branches above, a glowing white humanoid beast—fingers elongated and claw-like—pounced atop him. The mercenary's rifle barked as he fired wildly, but with one quick swing, the creature tore Zeke's throat open—a cascade of blood soaking his plate carrier, dripping into the dirt. Unhinging its jaw, the animal fastened its jagged teeth on both sides of the man's head and began dragging him into the underbrush.
Raising his rifle, Clayton let fly with a hail of .308 slugs. One of the rounds caught the creature in the shoulder, rolling its body over with the transfer of force. But its jaws stayed fastened in his fallen comrade, the creature's neck flexing at an impossible angle. Ignoring the wound, the brute flipped itself back into place, plunged its claws into the dead man's waist—through his load-bearing vest—and in one swift motion, peeled his skin to his neck.
"Jesus motherfucking—" Dan didn't get through the rest of his malediction. Struck from behind by another creature, the man tumbled into the dirt, his shotgun knocked from his grip. The still night air erupted as Clayton and Alex poured fire into the bushes. Dan dug out his sidearm and fired into the chest of the creature about to eviscerate him. The animal died, collapsing atop his body. Just inches from the monster's face, he stared into the empty, still-glowing eyes. Human eyes.
"Reloading!"
"We've got to get out of here, boys. These fuckers are everywhere," Clayton barked. Lifting Dan to his feet with one arm, he continued firing at the glimpses of movement darting around them.
"Three o'clock!" Alex belted as his RPD chattered, shredding low-hanging branches and thumping into tree trunks.
"Dan, watch our six. I've got the left flank." Clayton shouted above the gunfire. "Dan?"
The man stood waveringly, his shotgun dangling from its sling as he gripped the sharpened tip of the tree limb protruding from his sternum. Blood burbled from his lips. Before Clayton could take one step, Dan's arms were ripped from their sockets simultaneously, one of the beasts shoving the dead man's body forward, gripping the limbs in each of its clawed hands like war clubs and shrieking wildly. Firing a neat group of rounds into the creature's torso until the rifle's action hung open, Clayton swung the weapon to his back, expertly withdrew his handgun, and continued firing and stepping backwards until his shoulder touched Alex's.
"The outpost. Now!"
They burst into the clearing where the moss-covered Hygeia facility sat bathed in moonlight. Trying unsuccessfully to wrestle open the door, the two men stepped back-to-back again. The bestial cries from the trees grew to a thunderous volume.
Rocking a fresh magazine into his rifle, Clayton muttered, "Brother, we're fucked."
The crushing sensation of impending death and having failed his teammates, combined with the familiar luminescent emerald hues of the landscape in his night vision caused Clayton to flash back to his time in Iraq.
While on patrol, his squad found themselves under insurgent fire in the dead of night. His men gained fire superiority quickly and began advancing on the Al Qaeda position. But the insurgents had placed IEDs in ambush zones beforehand, predicting the Marines' fire-and-maneuver tactics. He'd watched his flanking element get blown to pieces by a series of Soviet 152mm artillery shells wired together and buried underfoot.
Facing withering enemy fire, with more than half of his men injured or killed and nowhere to run without the possibility of setting off another IED, he'd called in close air support. For a few minutes, which felt like hours amidst the flying lead and RPG blasts, Clayton felt as he felt now. Utterly helpless.
He'd had air support, then.
There was no one coming for them now.
TWENTY-FOUR
On the bottom of Denver's computer monitor, she kept taped a printed quotation that read, "All human plans are subject to ruthless revision by nature." Reading this daily not only served to keep her humble, but reminded her to always have a contingency plan in place for when even the surest of things fell through the cracks. This was one of those instances where she would need that backup plan.
Stepping away from her desk, she walked down the concrete stairs to the building’s lunchroom and stood in line for a sandwich. Her stomach had been upset lately—probably stress-induced. She wouldn't eat much.
As much as she tried to remain calm, to push thoughts of the expedition to the back of her mind, Denver found herself obsessing over the details of the operation. Where she'd slipped up. How Clayton would handle the fallout. Why she'd needed to organize the expedition in the first place.
Seven years before, when she'd first arrived at Hygeia as a branch budget analyst, she’d been told about the lost research facility’s closure. Her supervisor asked her to write the shutdown as a necessary budget cut. But with record profits showing on the books, she grew off curious about the true reason for closing it down.
When she inquired further, her superiors brought her in and explained the recent rash of bad publicity they’d encountered—unfounded allegations of genetic testing, primarily—and that this was merely a means to protect the company from further accusations. This, predictably, turned out to be a lie.
Even though she'd complied, Denver had kept her ear to the ground, listening to all the rumors surrounding the outpost's closure. The researchers stationed there hadn't returned. Some speculated that there had been an accident—wild animals had killed the researchers, or they'd all contracted an illness and died.
She'd learned the truth weeks later while listening through her supervisor's office door.
A man, badly shaken by the wavering frailty of his voice, explained that he and the others sent to investigate the break in communication between headquarters and the outpost had been attacked by some kind of humanoid creatures. Asked to explain what he meant by that, the man paused, summoning his courage.
"They looked…human. Familiar, even. I think…I think they were Hygeia researchers."
Denver's supervisor chuckled. "That's a bit much to believe, Jeff. You've never been one for exaggeration. Come on now, be serious."
His laughing stopp
ed abruptly as something thudded against the table.
"I got a finger from one of the damned things with my hunting knife before I escaped. Run your tests. Laugh at me, then."
Later that day, Denver approached her supervisor.
"I heard your conversation with that survivor this morning. I'd appreciate the truth, now, if I'm going to help prevent this from reaching the public."
He only nodded, not surprised or angry that she'd been eavesdropping. "That creature's finger—you heard that part? Well the DNA sequence, though mutated, was nearly human."
"Nearly?"
"Yes, nearly. When cross-referenced with our employee data on file, we found that the DNA was a near-match to one of our researchers. The DNA sequence had undergone a drastic chromosome mutation, but the similarities to those we had on file are damning proof. Those humanoid beasts you heard Jeff speak about? They were our employees."
Denver, aghast, whispered, "How could this have happened? The testing conducted at the outpost couldn't have brought about anything like this, could it?"
"Not to my knowledge. But then, what could?"
After a lengthy cost-benefit analysis and careful consideration, it was decided that attempting to capture or kill all the mutated researchers discreetly and without the media catching wind of it would be a logistical nightmare. Instead, the company wrote off the lost employees as having died in a tragic laboratory fire, severance was paid to the families, and all information on file relating to the research facility was struck from company records. The creatures would be left to roam the jungle undisturbed. The natives quickly learned to avoid the area the beasts frequented, and everything had worked out for the best.
Except for one thing.
Closing down the facility meant losing all the research the outpost had accomplished to that point, including the Taxus bromelieaceae plants.
Denver had lost hope of it ever being recovered until a partial sample had come in. When the news of the plant's rediscovery hit her desk, she'd felt as though Providence had spoken to her. Suddenly, clearly, Denver realized it was her calling to recover the lost plant and use it to develop the supreme cancer treatment. A catholicon. A panacea. She would become the savior of millions.
But she’d made the unpardonable mistake of thinking it would be as simple as having that drunkard British pilot and her team of lab rats retrieve another native-picked sample and fly back before nightfall. She was paying for that error in judgment, now.
"What can I get you today, Ms. Senske?" asked the heavyset woman working behind the lunchroom counter.
Denver suddenly realized that, though she’d eaten there for years, she’d never actually learned the name of the woman who prepared her meal each day. The sandwich-maker had a nametag with Jennifer written on it in bold type. She’d commit that to memory.
"Egg salad on wheat, please, Jennifer."
Denver watched the woman spoon a scoop of the yellow paste on a slice of bread. Her sudden turn of bad luck was just another example of Murphy’s Law at work, she knew—she’d taken a chance on this expedition, and she should have had a better contingency plan in place to deal with this eventuality.
But she would overcome this new set of challenges just as she had so many in the past—with ice-cold pragmatism, keen logic, and sheer force of will.
TWENTY-FIVE
Returning to the outpost's cafeteria, Olivia tried not to look embarrassed as Austin glanced at her. Henri looked up from reading a binder filled beyond capacity with company documents and asked, "Do you feel cleaner?"
An innocuous question that couldn't have been more pointed. She most certainly did not feel clean.
Olivia smiled back, but didn't answer. Looking around and counting the members of their party, she asked, "Where's Christian?"
"I haven't seen him for an hour or so." Henri replied. "He's likely sleeping. Poor boy's had a traumatic day."
"He's not a boy, anymore," Austin contradicted. "By the time I was twenty one, I'd already been living on my own for five years and had been shot twice."
"So I take it that joke about you learning to fly by smuggling weaponry into Somalia or wherever was a thinly veiled truth," Henri said, his voice dripping with revulsion.
"All the funniest jokes are. It was Sierra Leone, by the way, and that work was still more morally justifiable than what we're doing for Hygeia. Trading guns to rebels for titanium and bauxite can hardly be compared to holding an entire indigenous people hostage for plants. At least the RUF was getting something in return for their natural resources. The argument that we're somehow helping to preserve the Yanomami culture is no different than a mob protection racket telling a storeowner they're protecting his business. Both parties know it's not a gesture of goodwill. Hygeia's concern for the tribe is superficial at best, and ends with the money generated by the company's R&D division."
Henri, clearly ruffled by the pilot's assertions, straightened up. "First, I wouldn't argue that your juvenile delinquency is somehow superior to Christian's life of academia and civility. Second," he said, jabbing two fingers toward Austin, "Hygeia is in no way holding anyone hostage. In fact, the agreement we have with the Yanomami has helped check the influx of gold miners entering tribal land, thereby reducing violence committed against the tribe and the environmental degradation brought on by their mining methods."
Austin chuckled. "Someone's been reading the company public-relations pamphlets. You really think we've taken action to prevent those garimpeiros from coming onto tribal land? Have you seen any armed security about? Didn't think so. Hygeia's just going to use the tribesmen until it's no longer profitable to do so. Then, they'll pull out faster than you can say 'Bob's your mother's brother'."
"Well at least they're making an effort," Henri replied. "And returning to your point about morality, guns traded to African militants for precious metals is hardly harmless work—you had to know how those guns were going to be used."
"What Austin meant to say was," Jeremy interrupted, "the kid's soft. He should be no more troubled than the rest of us."
Olivia sat down beside her mentor, not listening to the men bicker. Her mind was elsewhere. Besides the obvious anxiety that came with the threat of a violent death at the hands of the hekura and the ache in her stomach from hunger, she'd begun to worry that her platonic relationship with her research assistant had been ruined. She imagined that every day at the office henceforth would be embarrassing and awkward. It was an unusual thing to worry about at a time like this, she realized. They might not get back to civilization at all. Besides, she'd done nothing wrong. If anyone was to blame for their friendship crumbling, it was Christian and his misguided adoration.
Interrupting Henri's defense of their assistant's character, Olivia asked, "So what have you learned about this place?"
Pausing as he checked his temper and composed himself, the Frenchman said, "Very little. Most of these papers have decomposed so badly, they can't be read. Those that haven't aren't very revealing. One thing is clear, though: Our suspicions about genetic testing were spot on. This outpost was built explicitly for conducting controversial testing Hygeia wanted to keep out of the public eye."
Jeremy, still tinkering with the satellite phone in effort to rejuvenate the damaged device once more, set it on the table and stared ahead.
"What?" Austin asked, digging in his pocket and placing the loose rounds for his revolver in a neat row on the tabletop.
"I just remembered: Right around the time I was applying for a job with the company, my parents sent me a newspaper article about Hygeia with some allegations about genetic testing. They asked if this was the kind of company I wanted to work for."
"You can read?" Austin kidded as he began chewing on an unlit cigarette.
"Jackass."
"Do you remember any of the details?" Henri asked.
"Not much. Just that some animal-rights activists were up in arms about it. To be honest, I dismissed it at the time. I figured it was just some inv
estigative reporter trying to make a name for herself by running the company's name through the mud. Maybe she was on to something."
"So a scandal like that would explain why the compound is abandoned. Hygeia would have things shut down quickly if they believed stockholders might discover what they were doing," Olivia said.
"What's the problem with genetic testing?" Austin asked absently. He clearly wasn't interested in the subject matter, but was just trying to keep the conversation going. He caught Olivia staring at him and winked. She blushed and turned away.
"There's the obvious point that it's considered unnatural, a product of mankind rather than nature or God or what have you. And most of it is too new to know what sorts of long-term effects it could have on our health. I think many are opposed to it simply because the words "genetically modified" conjure images of human cloning gone awry and Nazi prison camp sadism," Henri said, scraping a fleck of dirt from his thumbnail. "In many cases, however, genetically modifying plant or animal life is done to keep up with the demand of a growing world population. Genetically modified salmon, for instance, possess a blend of genes from Chinook salmon and ocean pout, making for a fish that grows faster and larger than the typical salmon, feeding more people. Some may not like that the food isn't 'natural', but even genetically modified foods are better than starvation."
"You won't catch me eating any Frankenstein fish," Jeremy said, shaking his head.
"It won't be long and you won't have a choice, Mr. Barreto," Henri said matter-of-factly. "Soon, every time you go out to eat or buy something from a marketplace, you'll be left wondering if the fish or steak or egg you just consumed originated in a laboratory."
"What the hell, Doc? Are you trying to scare me more than I already am? I only brought a couple changes of shorts, and I've already soiled most of them."
"So if they were trying to avoid scandal, they'd strike any record of this place, wouldn't they?" Austin asked, suddenly showing more interest. "But there would still be personnel left who might reveal its location and what they'd been doing. Do any of you know of someone in the labs who may have worked here?"