The 6th Extinction Page 36

  Finally.

  She swung back to the cage. They had two options: hide inside and hope someone reelectrified the bars again . . . or travel the boy’s path up into the canopy.

  It was not a hard choice.

  She glanced over to the Megatherium. The beast stood half in the clearing, half in the forest, balancing at that edge. She remembered it rising up to its full twelve-foot-height, each claw eighteen inches long. She didn’t feel like trusting her life—or the boy’s—to those thin steel bars, electrified or not.

  And it wasn’t just this one sloth they needed to fear.

  She had caught glimpses of at least another four.

  Pointing to the top of the cage, she said, “Up you go.”

  Jori passed her his cattle prod and clambered like a monkey up the bars. Once he reached the top, she passed the prod up to him. He crouched above, covering her, snapping sparks of electricity toward the Megatherium in the clearing.

  She grabbed the cage, set a foot in the first crossbar—and watched as a sloth crashed out of the forest on the far side of the pens and came charging toward her.

  She realized her mistake.

  It hadn’t been fear that held off the pack.

  The beasts had waited until they knew the electricity was off, and not likely to be turned on again, using the boy like a test balloon. As long as he was up there, they knew they could attack without fear of getting shocked.

  “Jori! Jump!”

  She got the door open a second before the sloth struck the far side. She rolled inside the pen and slammed the door. Overhead, Jori leaped from the top, caught hold of a branch, and flipped expertly over it.

  Under his heels, the sloth hit the triple pen, rocking the entire unit up on one edge. As the beast reared, claws grabbed the top edge, ready to topple the cages the rest of the way over. She would be trapped inside if it landed door side down.

  “Jenna!”

  Jori hung upside down and dropped the cattle prod toward her. Rather than falling cleanly through the bars, it struck askew, and began to roll down the slanted side of the pen, right between the paws of the giant. She scrabbled for it, grabbed the handle, and flipped its business end toward the towering sloth. She stabbed at the tender armpit, where it was less furred, and the contact points exploded against its skin, looking hot enough to sear.

  The Megatherium bellowed and fell away, letting the cage settle back into place. Twisting to the side, the creature dropped down, licking at the sting under its arm, and retreated.

  Jenna popped back out of the cage, waving the prod broadly, trying to encompass the entire clearing.

  The Megatherium who was still in the clearing eyeballed her, one lip curling. But after a moment it also slipped backward into the shadows. In those eyes was a fury, a promise that this was not over.

  She took advantage of the momentary lull to climb the cage door, roll onto the top of the pen, then leap to join Jori in the trees.

  “Follow me,” the boy said. “Very careful.”

  He led the way higher into the canopy, moving from stout branches to limbs that swayed under her weight. Once seemingly satisfied with their height, Jori set off on a trek that led toward the distant gates of this level. She imagined he must have some way of getting past that barrier.

  Then what? she wondered. I’ll still be trapped on this island in the sky . . . while a virus ravages a path through my higher consciousness.

  She pushed those worries aside for now. One problem at a time. That’s all her mind could handle.

  Jori followed a path with which he seemed familiar, knowing where branches between trees were close enough to leap or a bridge of vines could be crossed by hanging from hands and feet. Together they worked their way across the canopy.

  “No!” Jori warned, moving her away from what appeared to be a simple jump to the next mahogany tree. He pointed to a hive growing on the far side of that trunk. “Hornets.”

  She nodded, not in the mood to get stung.

  He led her to another, more difficult path, but she kept watch on that hive. A small sparrow darted among the branches and came too close to that buzzing mud-and-daub nest. A flurry of hornets burst forth, swarming the little bird. With each sting, its flight grew more erratic. Then it tumbled away toward the forest floor, still coated in hornets.

  “Are they poisonous?” she asked Jori, who had noted her attention.

  “No.” He continued across a dense net of vines, balancing with his arms out. He reached the far side. “Sting with . . .” He plainly struggled with the word and rubbed his belly. “Juices that melt food.”

  She glanced more warily at that hive.

  Digestive juices.

  So their stingers must produce chemicals similar to spider venom.

  “Eat you from inside out,” Jori warned, as if this were the most normal thing in the world to state.

  They continued for another twenty yards in silence, accompanied by nothing but birdsong and the squawk of parrots from a higher level of this garden. Then a softer mewling reached her, rising from the left. The plaintive cry drew her closer.

  “No,” Jori warned again. “Too dangerous.”

  She wanted to obey, but the noise sounded close, just in the next tree. She shifted around the bole of the mahogany and pushed leafy branches out of her face.

  It took her a long moment to identify the source of the soft crying. A nest of vines hung from the branches across a short gap. A small movement caught her eye, a furred limb, about the size of a small child’s, seemed to beckon, to plead. A set of hooked claws opened and closed, more in pain than any conscious will. She followed the arm down to a body the size of a bear cub, encased in loops of vines. Even from here she could see the barbed hooks, the dribbles of crimson blood. The body shifted, and the vines tightened, squeezing another cry out of the small creature.

  Her heart ached at the sight.

  Jori pushed her arm down and the branches she had been holding down snapped back up. “Law of the Jungle,” he said.

  She could tell he tried to say this bravely, as if it were a lesson he wanted to show her that he learned, but he looked mournful nonetheless.

  He continued across the canopy, trying to draw her with him.

  “Why did you help me?” she called out. “Why break the Law of the Jungle for me?”

  He stopped and turned. He glanced to her face, then down to his hands, then away again. “You’re pretty. Law of the Jungle.” He shook his head. “Not for you.”

  With those sage words, he set out again.

  1:55 P.M.

  Cutter slammed through the hatch into the sinkhole, trailed by a pair of armed men. He had radioed for two carts to meet him. One held four more armed Macuxi. His sister-in-law stood before the second.

  Rahei glowered at him, as if this were all his fault. Though the woman had the cold-bloodedness of a snake, she loved Jori. Only the boy could bring out a measure of warmth in the woman, but that love could also turn savage, transforming her into a lioness defending a cub.

  Still, he welcomed that now.

  They piled into the electric carts and raced around and around, barely waiting for the gates at each level to fully open, before scraping through to continue onward.

  Cutter could not erase the image of his son vanishing into those dark trees, a habitat as dangerous as they could come. What was I thinking stoking his curiosity for the life I’d created?

  He knew a part of it was pride, to see the respect and awe in Jori’s young face. It was all the accolades he needed for his hard work and ambition. He had an audience of one and that was enough, especially if it was Jori.

  He found his breath growing labored as tension and fear mounted. Rahei must have sensed it and grabbed his knee, fingers digging like daggers, telling him silently to hold it together.

  For Jori.

  At last they reached the final gate, and the two carts parked on the far side. “Leave the gate open,” Cutter said as he climbed out. “If Jo
ri is hurt, I don’t want to lose a second.”

  He left one driver guarding the carts and the gateway. He headed down the ramp with the others, descending deeper into the forest’s depths.

  Cupping his mouth, he bellowed his challenge to this harsh world. “Jori! Where are you?”

  1:56 P.M.

  Kendall sealed the last zipper on his biosafety suit and entered the BSL4 lab. Before Cutter had stormed out, he had warned Kendall to begin his preparations for inserting that destructive code into his engineered shell. More worrisome, Kendall was instructed to expect a sample of Volitox blood before nightfall.

  Kendall hadn’t argued. He wanted access again to this quarantined space anyway. He glanced out the window to where Mateo and Ashuu spoke in low voices, their heads bowed together, a brother and a sister consoling each other. The giant loomed over the fragile form of his sister. She sheltered under his strength and support.

  Kendall felt bad that he would have to kill them, but he had to reach a phone, some way of sharing with the outside world about the cure to what plagued California, a magnetic frequency that could rip apart his bioengineered organism at the genetic level.

  The current chaos with the boy offered him his best chance.

  Even Cutter had slipped up, a rarity for the genius.

  Kendall patted his pocket, where he had hidden the object he had stolen from a tabletop while everyone was distracted. He crossed to the large refrigerators at the back, opened the doors, and searched the racks of vials. He thanked Cutter for his thorough cataloging and indexing. He quickly found what he needed and grabbed a dozen vials, shoving them into a pocket.

  He glanced over his shoulder, making sure Mateo stayed occupied.

  Only for another minute or two.

  He strode over to one of the medical exam rooms at the rear, the spaces used for studying tissues and gross anatomies of Cutter’s creations. Kendall stepped past the X-ray machine and the PET scanner and entered the copper-lined MRI room.

  Magnetic resonance imaging.

  The irony did not escape him. Magnetism was the key to saving the world, but it could also lead to Cutter’s downfall.

  He stared at the table surrounded by the enclosed ring of giant magnets. They were powerful enough to do great damage when operated by someone improperly trained or careless. Injuries, even deaths, had occurred due to mismanagement of these massive magnets, but they were dangerous for another reason.

  He moved over to the quench box on the wall near the door and lifted the spring-loaded cover. The magnets of an MRI were cooled by liquid helium. In case of emergency, the helium could be rapidly vented to power down a magnet, but it was a dangerous proposition in an enclosed space, as in a sealed-up BSL4 lab, especially one buried in the heart of a tepui.

  Most hospitals vented this pipe to the outside, but Kendall had already investigated and found that Cutter in his hubris had not bothered to do so.

  Kendall leaned out the MRI room and checked on the situation in the main lab. Mateo was alone now, staring straight back at him. It looked like Ashuu had already left.

  Kendall met the native’s gaze, then pounded the button.

  He dove out the door and flew headlong, sliding across the floor on his belly.

  Behind him, a frigid blast exploded with tremendous force as the helium liquid expanded eight-hundred-fold, pushing oxygen ahead of that wave. Windows blew out into the main lab, smashing into Mateo’s face. A chunk of magnet whistled past and struck a row of oxygen tanks in the next room. They exploded, ignited from a spark, and rolled into a fireball, challenging the freezing white cloud of helium erupting out that shattered window.

  It was more of a detonation than he had been expecting.

  He pushed to his knees, then gained his footing. He stumbled for the exit, choosing to climb out the observation window versus using the air lock.

  I think I already broke containment here.

  He saw Mateo crumpled on the floor, his face burned by the fireball, his hair singed away. Kendall had to step over him to get past the window, prepared to climb to the main villa above, to find a phone.

  Something snagged his leg.

  He glanced down to find fingers clamped to his ankle.

  Mateo lunged up, his eyes shining out of his blackened flesh.

  Kendall tried to escape, but Mateo lifted a broken glass cylinder and plunged it into his side.

  30

  April 30, 5:47 P.M. GMT

  Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

  “Nymph nest ahead,” Christchurch announced, swinging his DSR rifle and pointing its IR beam along the riverbank.

  Dylan called a halt and examined the site with a pair of night-vision binoculars. Twenty yards ahead, a small pool jutted from the main waterway, formed by a dam, not unlike what a pack of beavers might build.

  Only this dam was made of bones.

  The mud-packed mound of broken skulls, ribs, and other decaying remains rose waist-high, spreading in a curve, dividing the shallow pool from the river. Squirming in that pool and scrabbling over that abattoir were hundreds of gray muscular slugs that ranged from the size of fat thumbs to as long as his forearm. A few scrabbled on the neighboring bank, rooting through the mosses and algal beds.

  He watched one of the older nymphs—as they were euphemistically called—bunch itself and leap from the rocky bank, fly across the pool, and dive into an opening in its foul dike, vanishing into its depths.

  Dylan shuddered.

  The nest was clearly still agitated from the sonic blast that had ended a minute or so ago. Though this tunnel was behind the LRAD, the backwash and echoing acoustics still extended somewhat in this direction. The low-frequency infrasonics had set Dylan’s teeth on edge, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “We’ll move up another ten yards and set up the LRAD,” Dylan ordered.

  “So close?” Riley asked.

  Normally Dylan wouldn’t tolerate anyone questioning an order, but in this case, he didn’t blame his young teammate. Dylan hated these vile little hunters with a passion. They were an abomination.

  But right now he needed one.

  “Move up,” he said.

  They crept slowly, careful with each step. Nymphs were known to attack en masse. To rile one of these nests was like stirring up an anthill. The term used by the researchers was a boil-out—when the entire lair burst forth in response to a threat. It was one of the most terrifying sights he’d ever seen, a carnivorous explosion that could reach tens of yards through the air.

  So he understood Riley’s concern.

  Still, Dylan was a skilled hunter. He led the way himself, picking a silent path. Finally he lifted a fist and motioned for Christchurch and Riley to move to his right side and prepare the portable LRAD.

  They worked as an experienced team. Christchurch lifted the dish high, letting Riley hook up the power cables. Once this was done, Riley took a step behind his teammate’s shoulder, cradling the battery pack.

  Dylan pointed to the nest, then gave a thumbs-up.

  Riley hit the switch. The LRAD hummed for a second, then screamed at the nest like a banshee in heat. The reaction was instantaneous. While not as dramatic as a full boil-out, it was still a sight to behold, something out of the deepest circle of hell. Hundreds of gray bodies squirmed, bounded, and flew out of their nest, pouring into the main river. Those in the pools or along the banks followed their foul brothers, fleeing from the noise as if blasted by a leaf blower.

  Dylan waited for a count of three, then made a cutting motion across his neck.

  Riley flipped the battery off and Christchurch lowered the dish.

  Dylan rushed forward toward the pond, his scrotum still tightening at the thought of getting near that rotting nest. He searched the pool, but he found what he wanted near the edge of the bone pile.

  A single slug squirmed leadenly, stunned by the assault.

  Dylan snatched it up in a gloved hand, careful of its circular maw of needle-sharp teeth. He hun
g it upside down, knowing that the glands rimming its mouth were full of flesh-burning acids, capable of dissolving through his glove to his skin.

  With his bait in hand, he hurried to the river’s edge. The nymph was already reviving, pushing out little appendages from its muscular segments, like legs on a centipede.

  As it began to squirm more violently, he slipped out his dagger, slit the creature’s belly open, and held out the gutted carcass.

  Black blood flowed into the river.

  He waited until the nymph stopped writhing, then draped the body on the bank near the water’s edge. He bent down and tied a length of fishing line around its midsection—then took ten fast steps backward.

  Once in position, Dylan signaled his teammates to move to his right side and switch the LRAD back on, to keep it pointed at the bone pile. While he lay in wait, he didn’t want those other nymphs to come flooding back to the nest. Unlike the nymphs, what he sought to lure here was deaf to these sonic discharges.

  He crouched to one knee, slipped the assault rifle from his shoulder, and placed it at his toes. To hunt this prey, he preferred another weapon.

  He pulled out the Howdah pistol from its holster. He’d already chambered the .557 cartridges, one in each of the double barrels. Though the gun was over a century old—used to hunt rhinos and tigers by his ancestors—he maintained it in perfectly good working condition, expecting it still to be firing another century from now when his great-grandson eventually wielded it.

  But he wasn’t hunting something as meek as a lion here.

  Faster than he expected, his prey arrived. The only warning was a V-shaped eddy in the water, sweeping toward the shore. Then from the river, a scintillating globe rose to the surface, borne aloft on a muscular tentacle. The toxic orb swirled in bioluminescent shades: brilliant blues, electric greens, blood reds.

  It was easy to see how these deadly lures might dazzle and attract the denizens of this dark world, but Dylan ignored the display and used a thumb to draw back the hammer of one barrel.

  The sphere lowered to the rocky bank, searching the shoreline blindly until discovering the slug’s body. Nymphs were the offspring of Volitox ignis, an immature stage of this monstrous adult hunter.