Mutation

by Roland Smith

He tried to stay in the middle of the path to avoid getting sliced or poked. The ground was squishy and covered with centipedes, beetles, spiders, and other mean-looking crawly things he couldn’t identify. Above him, the canopy was so tightly woven that light barely reached the ground. He was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

  Squeezed.

  The wind picked up, blowing cloudlike mist into the upper branches, dimming the light that reached the forest floor even further. A troop of monkeys scampered down to the lower branches and chattered at him.

  “Hello to you, too,” he said, putting on the cracked helmet in case one of them pooped on him. A moment later, one of them did.

  “Kind of rude,” Luther said. “But a nice shot.”

  He took off his helmet and wiped it on the ground. The monkey’s chattering sounded like laughter. As he scraped off the last smear, the chattering stopped. Luther looked up to see what was going on with the jokesters. They were scurrying away in silent panic. When he looked back down, he realized he wasn’t alone. He was being watched.

  “What the —”

  Six brown eyes, three heavily tattooed faces, unsmiling, and dead serious. Three blowpipes pointed inches from his stubbled head. As he always did in dire situations, Luther tried to defuse the problem by flashing his trademark grin. It didn’t work. The blowpipes remained in place, unwavering. Luther’s grin turned into a grimace. He was three breaths away from being turned into a pincushion. He put his hands up in the air very, very slowly, hoping they knew what he meant. They didn’t appear to. They continued to hold their breaths. Since the newcomers were frozen like statues, Luther had plenty of time to look at them, and he didn’t like what he saw. They were stocky and short, not much more than four feet tall, but they were powerfully built and nimble looking. They were barefoot and naked aside from small flaps of leather over their privates, held up by strings around their waists. A pouch hung on each of the strings. Luther assumed the pouches were filled with more lethal darts. Hanging next to the pouches were wicked-looking clubs with two-foot handles, each topped by a ball the size of a large grapefruit. The tattoos on the men’s faces, arms, and chests were jaguar spots.

  Definitely a cat-and-mouse thing going on here. And I’m the mouse.

  The men lowered their blowpipes. Luther let out a long sigh of relief until he saw that their teeth looked like they had been sharpened with files, which could not be a good thing. One of them tore the tracking tag off his neck and snapped it in two. The other two grabbed him and tied his wrists in front of him with an itchy vine rope. Luther thought about resisting, but it was already too late. He thought about screaming his head off like he had at Noah’s Ark when Butch had grabbed him, but there wasn’t much point in that, either. He was a long way from camp.

  Maybe the monkeys will come back and rescue me.

  He looked up at the canopy. Rain was dripping through the thick cover. The monkeys were nowhere to be seen.

  Cowards.

  The three jaguar men seemed to relax a little after they tied his hands, which made Luther more nervous. One of them touched the stubble on his head, said something to the others, and they all laughed. Luther was used to people laughing and making snide remarks about his hair, but he wasn’t used to someone examining his head like a future trophy. He thought back to all the images of shrunken heads he had seen and took some solace in the fact that all the shriveled former humans had long hair. Luther’s hair grew fast, but he figured he had a couple of weeks before they severed his head and filled it with hot sand to shrink it.

  He held his hands out. “This vine might cause a rash.”

  They ignored the complaint.

  “My parents are, like, billionaires, and I’m their only son. You really think they’re going to let you shrink my head? They’ll come after you big-time.”

  He wasn’t exactly sure about this. He hadn’t heard from his parents in days, and quite honestly they didn’t know where he was. The last time he’d texted them, he had kind of forgotten to tell them he was heading down to the Amazon.

  He decided to see what would happen if he just started walking toward camp. One of the jaguar men immediately whacked him across the legs with his blowpipe.

  “Hey!” Luther shouted. “That hurt!”

  His response got him a second whack on his shoulder.

  “Why don’t you untie me and give me a stick? See how you like it.”

  This elicited a third whack across his back.

  “Ouch!”

  The jaguar men pointed their blowpipes in the opposite direction of the camp.

  “Okay, okay, but the only reason I’m going with you is because I’m curious to see where you live. Otherwise, I’d be heading back to the jaguar preserve. Going with you is my choice, not yours.”

  The jaguar men stared at him.

  He started walking in the direction they were pointing. The rain was falling harder now, finding its way to the ground through the thick canopy. They wouldn’t miss him back at camp until the next dino feed, which was still several hours away. They’d have to track him in the dark, which was going to be difficult, and the rain wasn’t going to help.

  Ten minutes into Luther’s forced march, they passed a tree with a rope ladder dangling against the trunk. Luther kicked himself. If he hadn’t dawdled along the trail, he might have been able to get to the tree before they grabbed him. They would never have been able to catch him on a zip line.

  The jaguar men came to a stop a couple of hundred yards past the tree and started talking among themselves. Luther couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but he was glad to see they at least had language. He watched them carefully and listened intensely. Foreign languages were not his strong suit, but if he could pick up a few words, he might be able to communicate with them. His goal was to be able to say Please don’t kill me! in their language by the time they got to wherever they were taking him.

  One of the men stepped off the trail and started gently parting the thick bushes as if he were looking for something. The other two directed him to the right. He moved a few feet, parted some more bushes, then nodded. They prodded Luther off the trail.

  The road less traveled, or in this case, the trail less traveled, hidden by a green tangle of vicious leaves.

  He was certain that Doc and Laurel, Wolfe and Raul, Flanna, and even Jake were all good trackers, but they were gone. He wasn’t sure whether Ana or Buck possessed any tracking skills, and he doubted Grace would know what to look for. He was going to have to give them some help. He decided to do this by tripping and breaking as many leaves and branches as he could on the way down. He knew he’d slice his hands up, but it couldn’t be any worse than the hatchling bites he already had. Luther stumbled and fell forward with his arms outstretched. Unfortunately, the jaguar men anticipated the move and caught him before he touched a single leaf. He struggled to get away, knowing he would fail, but escape wasn’t the point. Damage was the point. The jaguar men anticipated this as well. One of them clubbed him on the head. Luther’s world went from green to black.

  Ted slowed the Rivlan down just after midnight. Marty, Dylan, and Agent Crow were all strapped into their chairs behind him.

  Marty looked at the monitors, which had been going in and out for the past hour and a half. It had gotten so bad that Ted had him pull the dragonspy off Yvonne and the Anjo to scan the boat traffic upriver instead.

  “It’s clear up ahead. Why are you slowing down?”

  “Because we’ve arrived,” Ted answered. “Almost, anyway. You can all unbuckle. We’ll go up top for the final leg.”

  Marty was happy to get out of his chair at last. He landed the dragonspy outside the wheelhouse, slipped off the spyglasses, and was about to put the Gizmo in his pocket when Ted stopped him.

  “We’re not done with that. I want you to fly the bot back downriver and check on Yvonne and her crew. We need to keep an eye on her.”

  “Mind if I skip the spyglasses? They work great, but it’
s hard to walk and fly at the same time.”

  “Fine, but don’t lose them.”

  Marty buttoned the glasses into his cargo pants.

  They climbed up to the deck and were hit by a blast of hot, humid air, which was a shock after coming from the air-conditioned helm. It was raining and pitch-dark outside.

  Ted pointed a floodlight at a narrow tributary emptying into the Amazon. “The jaguar camp is up there about a half a mile. I’m going to steer the Rivlan in the old-fashioned way, manually.” He sent Dylan and Crow to the bow to keep an eye out for flotsam and jetsam, then climbed up to the wheelhouse and swung the Rivlan toward the opening.

  Marty sat down on the gunwale and relaunched the dragonspy. He figured the only way to find the Anjo was to buzz all the boats heading upriver, ignoring the boats at anchor or tied up to shore. He was certain Yvonne was not sleeping. The boats were easy to pick out in the dark because they all used running lights and had people stationed at the bow looking out for things that might sink them and turn them into piranha chow. The bot was night-vision capable, but picking out details in the greenish hue wasn’t easy. There were three people aboard the first boat. One in the pilothouse, one on the bow with a spotlight and a pike to push debris away, and a third in the stern lying on the deck sound asleep.

  Definitely not whacked-out mercenaries. One boat down, a thousand to go.

  Staring at the Gizmo screen and hopscotching the dragonspy from boat to boat made Marty forget he was heading up a narrow tributary. He was abruptly reminded when a huge branch whacked him on the side of the head. He shouted out for help and caught himself from going over the side by just four fingers. Crow grabbed him by the wrist a second before he was scraped off the side of the hull, and pulled him over the gunwale like a dead fish.

  Crow looked down at him splayed out on the deck. “You need to be more careful.”

  “Duh du jour.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” Marty translated. He sat up, wiping tree slime off his face and arms.

  “You better check for leeches,” Crow said. “Bet you got a load of them.”

  Leeches were nothing new to Marty. He’d been covered with them before. He was more worried about the Gizmo. He had dropped it when he got smacked overboard, and he wasn’t sure if it had fallen on deck or into the water.

  Crow bent down. “You looking for this?” He picked up the Gizmo and looked at the screen. “What’s that spy bug thing doing?”

  “Dragonspy,” Marty said, taking the Gizmo from him. It didn’t seem the worse for wear. “It’s in a hover. That’s what it does when you take your hands off the controls. Stops it from crashing.”

  “You better stay in the center of the boat so you don’t crash.”

  “Good safety tip,” Marty said.

  Crow walked back up to the bow. Marty got back to tracking killers. He was getting good at jumping the dragonspy from boat to boat and was making good time downriver. He skipped the slow boats, barges, and dugout canoes, concentrating on boats with motors moving fast. He was guiding the dragonspy around one of these when another boat zipped by, rocking the boat the dragonspy was on in its wake. The men aboard shook their fists and swore.

  Marty caught the speeding boat about a mile upriver. He flew the dragonspy into the open door of the wheelhouse.

  Gotcha!

  Yvonne was standing next to the goon piloting the boat, scanning the river through a pair of night-vision binoculars.

  “You sure you didn’t miss them?” the goon mumbled. He had a nasty chewed cigar stuck in his mouth.

  “I don’t think so,” Yvonne said.

  “If I was them, I’d hide up one of the tributaries, wait for us to shoot by, then head back downriver.”

  “They are not going back downriver, Spike,” Yvonne said, the binoculars still glued to her eyes. “They are heading directly to the jaguar preserve.”

  “Yeah? We’ve been running full bore since we saw them. How are they staying in front of us in that junker?”

  “It’s not a junker. They’re faster than us.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  Yvonne unclipped her sat phone from her belt and held it out to him. “You want to call Blackwood and ask him about it? I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from you.”

  “No thanks. It’s your show. And your head if you’re wrong. What’s the preserve setup?”

  “I don’t know. “

  “Doesn’t matter. How hard can it be to take out a bunch of science geeks?”

  Harder than you think, Marty thought. He looked at the corner of the Gizmo screen. The dragonspy had calculated the Anjo’s distance and speed. Yvonne would be at the jaguar preserve in a little over two hours.

  Ted brought the Rivlan to a stop and stepped out of the wheelhouse wearing a headlamp. Dylan and Crow tied the Rivlan to the dock next to the helicopter.

  “They’ll be here in two hours,” Marty announced.

  “That quick,” Ted said. “Guess they decided to come directly here.”

  “And kill us,” Marty said. He told them about the conversation he had overheard.

  “They’re consistent anyway,” Ted said.

  “Where’s our greeting party?” Dylan asked.

  “I hope they’re sleeping,” Ted said. “Let’s go wake them up.”

  Marty put on his headlamp and gave his spare to Crow.

  They followed the path up to the camp. The only light came from the untended campfire in the center of the huts. It cast an eerie hue on the surrounding forest.

  “What’s that smell?” Crow asked, sniffing the air.

  “Uh, that’s —”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute,” Ted said, cutting Marty off.

  He’d been about to say dinosaurs.

  Ted called out a hello. No one answered.

  “Wait here,” Crow said. “I’ll check the huts out.”

  “Why you?” Ted asked.

  Crow pulled a pistol out of his waistband. “Because I have this.” He walked into the first hut.

  “Let’s take a look at the hatchlings to see if they’re okay,” Ted said. “Actually to see if they’re still here.”

  They walked over to the building attached to the corral and switched on the lights. The hatchlings were in the holding area sound asleep.

  “They’ve been fed recently,” Marty said.

  “What makes you say that?” Ted asked.

  “Because they have two modes,” Marty answered. “Screaming and starving. Sleeping and farting.”

  Crow walked into the holding area. “The huts are empty. What are those?”

  “Those are a couple of dinosaurs,” Dylan answered.

  “That’s impossible. Where —”

  “Mokélé-mbembé,” Marty said. “From the Congo.”

  “So this is what Blackwood is really after,” Crow said. “You didn’t tell me about these on the Rivlan.”

  “Would you have believed me?” Ted asked.

  “No,” Crow said flatly, without taking his eyes off the snoring hatchlings.

  “Blackwood is after everything,” Ted said. “I know this is a lot to take in, but we have more pressing matters at the moment. No one in any of the huts?”

  “Empty. No sign of a struggle.”

  “I’m not sure what’s going on, but the fact that the hatchlings are still here is a good sign. If Blackwood or his people had been here, they wouldn’t have left the hatchlings behind.”

  “Then where is everybody?” Marty asked.

  “I have no idea. All I know is that it’s time to go on the offensive. We can’t help anyone if we get captured or killed. Our first priority is to protect ourselves. I want you and Dylan to stay here. Feed the hatchlings when they wake up. Crow and I will head downriver and see if we can stop Yvonne, or at least slow her down.”

  “I will?” Crow asked.

  “Of course, you don’t have to,” Ted said. “This isn’t your fight. But I could use your help.”


  Crow gave him a curt nod. “Seeing as Buck Johnson doesn’t seem to be here at the moment, either, I might as well give you a hand. If for no other reason than to make sure you don’t do anything illegal.”

  “Can’t guarantee that,” Ted said.

  Crow smiled. “I have a broad definition of illegal when it comes to stopping bad people.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Ted looked at Marty. “Do you have any spare tracking tags?”

  “I have a couple in my pack.”

  “Perfect. While you’re feeding the hatchlings, you might want to figure out how to get tracking tags on them.”

  “The tags aren’t working,” Marty pointed out.

  “As soon as we get a break from people trying to kill us, I’ll look into that and try to get them back online. If we aren’t successful in stopping Yvonne, you’re going to need to get out of here. If you need to run, you won’t be able to take the hatchlings with you. You’ll need to let them go so Blackwood doesn’t get them.”

  “But they’ll starve,” Marty protested.

  Ted shook his head. “They’ll get hungry, and then they’ll figure it out, just like every living organism on earth, including you and me. The rain forest is full of food.”

  As if to prove Ted’s point, one of the hatchlings raised its head, took a vicious snap out of the air, then put its head back down, all without opening its eyes.

  “Bad dream,” Dylan said.

  “Bad news for us if they don’t want tags around their necks,” Marty said. “How are we going to stay in touch with you?”

  Ted looked at Crow. “That reminds me…. Is your sat phone working?”

  Crow took it out and shook his head. “No signal.”

  “I’m not sure how he did it, but Blackwood has jammed all communications here. On the bright side, that means he can’t communicate, either. Jamming signals is an all or nothing proposition, with the exception of the dragonspy, which he obviously doesn’t know about. We’ll use it to stay in touch.”

  “It’ll be a one-way conversation,” Marty said. The person flying the dragonspy could hear sounds and people within the dragonspy’s range but couldn’t talk to them. Marty held his Gizmo out for Ted.