Minutes To Burn Part 26

"Well, gents," he said, "today might be your lucky day."

CHAPTER 46.

--------------------- hey were at the aluminum specimen freezer in minutes. The breeze was moist against their faces, mixing with their sweat. The freezer stood before them, unchanged and unyielding against the wind-fanned gra.s.s.

They circled it as if it were a shrine, Derek pressing the larva to his side.

Savage tossed the thermite grenade to Cameron, who pulled the pin and rested it atop the thick shoe boxsized lock that protruded just beneath the handle. She was angry with herself for not remembering Tucker's grenade earlier-he always brought it with him on missions, nestled in the cargo pocket of his pants. His good-luck charm.

It took a while for the chemicals to mix, then the grenade emitted an intense white flame, like a welder's arc. They looked away as it melted down into the lock. There was no need to guide it through the metal, and the entire lock fell to the ground with the still-burning thermite.

The heavy door creaked open a crack, then sucked shut again.

The grenade kept melting right through the gra.s.s, and Derek kicked aside what was left of the lock and covered the grenade with dirt. Diego shook his head but said nothing. Derek reached for the thin metal han-dle and the door swung open to meet his hand. He turned and looked at the others for a moment before pulling it open.

"Lantern," he said.

Szabla stepped forward, the hurricane lamp dangling from her hand. As it swayed, it threw Derek's shadow across the door, oversize and dis-torted against the silver surface.

He pulled the door open, and they were greeted with the familiar smell of unliving flesh. Eight gnarled little bodies swung on specimen hooks, underlit by the hurricane lamp so they threw sinister patterns through the freezer. They were all close to three feet long, green, and contorted as if they'd been in great pain when they were slaughtered. Aside from that, none of them looked anything like the others.

A b.u.t.ton on the compressor in the back cast a wan glow, pale like moonlight. The breeze shook and twirled the bodies like wind chimes.

The soldiers and scientists moved among them, looking up in revul-sion. One creature had a ma.s.sive jaw shaped like a shovel and a scatter-ing of eyes across its forehead; another had the vulgar hunch and primitive brow of a chimpanzee. The body farthest away had eight furry legs protruding from its midsection, and its shadow was framed per-fectly on the back wall of the freezer. Its body was that of an enormous spider, its head something between a canine and primate.

"Jesus H," Rex whispered. "It's like a Lariam nightmare."

The larva cooed, squirming in Derek's arms. In the far corner, a tan-gle of hooks lay on the floor.

The wind pivoted one of the bodies and its leg struck Szabla in the back of the head. She grabbed it without flinching and turned the body to examine its front side. It had the smooth slender belly of a lizard, curl-ing back into a tail that, due to rigor mortis, ran parallel up its scaled back. The face had the broad snout and yellow teeth of a crocodile, and an iguana's pouchlike cheeks.

Behind Szabla, Justin shuddered.

The inside of the door had a heavy bolt that allowed collectors to lock themselves in in case predators were drawn to the scent while they loaded specimens. With slight maneuvering, the bolt could be disen-gaged and removed.

Tank pulled the bolt free from the door and held it by his side. It was thicker and heavier than the spikes; it would make a better weapon.

The hurricane lamp continued to cast lunatic shadows all across the constrictive walls and ceiling-dangling limbs, paws split in fingers, heads enlarged and misshapen. The soldiers' faces were drawn and bloodless among the beasts, which dangled among them like repulsive mobiles.

"If these manifestations are due to a virus,it's unlike anything I've..." Rex's voice trailed off. Diego's jaw had literally dropped; he gazed at the new creatures around him with a wonder bordering on disbelief.

Of the hung hooks, one was empty. Thick and barbed like a meat hook, it sc.r.a.ped against the far side of the freezer, metal on metal. The sound resonated within the bare freezer walls until Cameron grabbed it, holding it above her head like a subway strap.

She turned to face the others beneath the small dangling bodies, her neck flushed all the way down to the line of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She could only remember being this stunned once before-when she'd opened her rifle case and found the engagement ring Justin had hidden there for her.

"There were close to two hundred fifty chambers in the ootheca Frank found," Rex said, his voice hushed from fear or reverence. "Every one filled with a mutant-a new prototype. Of those two hundred fifty, only ten stood a legitimate shot at hatching." His breath caught in his throat. "'Ten viable.' That's what Frank wrote. Here are eight of them."

Diego laughed, a choke deep in his throat. "Look at the variation- it's incredible. Something caused the parents to breed all different off-spring. Adaptive radiation in a single generation, of a single brood. It's like a genetic brainstorm."

"Or a genetic nervous breakdown," Szabla added.

"What's that accomplish?" Justin asked. "Aside from scaring the s.h.i.+t out of me?"

"If they all mutated the same way, it would be a case of the genes put-ting all their chips on one number," Diego said. "Having different off-spring raises the odds considerably that one of them will take to the environment, or find a way to survive."

"Or two," Szabla said, counting the eight bodies again.

"Or two of the offspring. Exactly."

"How could they mate if they were so different?" Derek asked skepti-cally, looking at the bodies in the air all around him.

"I'd guess that those with the capacity to metamorphose do so into adult mantids like the one Savage killed," Rex said. "They only look dif-ferent in the early stages."

"I still don't get it," Cameron said, noticing that Derek was cradling the larva to his chest protectively. "The larvae are so much smaller than that thing that killed Tucker."

"Insects do have the capacity to increase over a hundredfold in size from birth."

Diego shot Rex a sideways look. "It's not an insect," he said. "Even if we are referring to it as a mantid."

"So given that you people are all such tree huggers," Szabla said, "why do you think Frank hunted these eight down and killed them?"

"I can't imagine," Rex said.

"He must have realized they were a threat to him, a threat to the peo-ple on this island," Justin said.

Something dripped from one of the corpse's legs. Cameron ran a hand lightly over her head to make sure nothing had landed in her hair.

Rex snapped his fingers. "In Frank's notebook, he tallied a nine count, meaning, I think, that he'd located nine of the ten offspring that had hatched and made it into the wilderness." His eyes clouded. "He must have kept one alive to observe, and it mated with the tenth one that he didn't find."

"So, the million-dollar question is: What did the one he kept look like?" Szabla asked, eyeing the empty hook over by Cameron. "Why did he keep it alive?"

The freezer door banged loudly behind them with the wind and they all jumped, the air thick with bodies. The larva cooed and squirmed in Derek's arms. When the door swung open again, they could see Savage's silhouette crouching just outside on the gra.s.s. They watched him through the corpses. Steam rose off his body in the mist.

"Why did G.o.d make puppies cute?" his outline grumbled.

They watched him expectantly.

He spit once to the side and wiped his mouth. "So we don't kill 'em."

CHAPTER 47.

--------------------- ordlessly, Derek handed the larva off to Diego and split off from the others. "I'm gonna check out the purse seine," he called over his shoulder. "Which farmhouse?"

"It's got a healthy tear," Justin said. "Plus the rope is old and cracking."

Derek stopped but did not turn around. "Which farmhouse?" he repeated.

Justin was silent for a moment before answering. "Last one down on the west side of the road."

Derek started walking again. Cameron followed him a few steps toward the road, but when Derek still didn't turn around, she realized he wanted to be alone and fell back.

Rex walked by her side, several feet behind the others. "Something is going on with your squad," he said softly. "And things on this island are going to get more complicated."

Cameron looked dead ahead, her face blank.

"I'd like to know I can count on you," Rex continued.

"You can count on me to uphold my orders, and to act in the best interests of my-"

Rex waved her off, his arm painting a short, angry stroke in the night air. He pulled ahead, leaving her to walk alone.

They reached base exhausted. Justin collected an armful of wood, sticking close to the tents, then dumped it next to the fire and tried to wipe the grime off the front of his s.h.i.+rt. Tank stoked the flame with the freezer bolt. He raised a branch in front of him, gripping it tightly at the ends, and snapped it in half with a grunt. He added the two pieces to the fire.

They all tried to ignore the enormous corpse to the side of the logs. Somewhere inside it were the mangled remains of Tucker.

The larva cooed in Diego's arms as he set it down near the fire. "It's getting heavier," he said quietly.

When he straightened up, Szabla was standing right beside him, tap-ping the spike in her hands, her eyes gleaming. Aside from Cameron, the others didn't yet notice; they cl.u.s.tered around the far log, talking in hushed voices.

Diego eyed the spike, taking a step back. Szabla stepped toward the larva and Diego s.n.a.t.c.hed it quickly away. He tried to sidestep Szabla, but suddenly Savage was there in his way.

Cameron looked at Savage's eyes, gone dull in the night, and was alarmed by what was lacking in them. She walked over, the others fol-lowing.

"I'm not dealing with another one of those." Szabla pivoted and pointed the spike at the large body.

Diego stood quietly for a long time, holding the larva and staring off into s.p.a.ce. It pulsed in his arms, squirming through the crook of his elbow. Its true legs pinwheeled in the air, searching for footing, and he turned it to his chest, the soft prolegs clinging to his s.h.i.+rt.

"Even your boy Frank judged the offspring to be dangerous," Szabla continued, more calmly. "He was picking them off one by one. But he didn't kill one because it was cute, because it appealed to him and amused him. That's a benefit of its appearance. You coddle it until it metamorphoses. Why do you think it was so easy to spot? It doesn't hold us to be a threat."

Diego set the larva behind him on the gra.s.s and stood before it pro-tectively. His face had the hard, grim cast of a statue's. Rex s.h.i.+fted on his feet, intense discomfort clouding his features. Diego made a noise of disgust from deep down in his throat.

"A lot of animals exist in symbiotic and parasitic relations.h.i.+ps in nature," Rex said. "Flying in under the radar, taking advantage of other species' needs and weaknesses."

"Like those feeder fish that hang out on sharks?" Justin asked.

"Or like cuckoo birds," Rex added softly. "Cuckoo birds lay their eggs in other birds' nests. The parasite egg usually requires less incubation and hatches first. Then the chick throws the other eggs out of the nest so it can get the foster parents' full attention."

"And the mom takes care of that motherf.u.c.ker since she doesn't know it's not hers," Szabla said. "I was bio queen undergrad, so don't be pullin' no wool on my a.s.s."

"You don't understand the full workings..." Diego's throat was dry, so he paused to lick his lips. He looked down at the larva, lying peace-fully in the gra.s.s, its prolegs wide and momentarily unflexed.

"A lot of animals persist because they inspire a foolish protectiveness in others," Rex said.

Diego glared at Rex, his eyes flickering with the light from the fire. "Don't you dare side with her," he growled.

"I'm not siding with anyone," Rex said. "I'm merely attempting to a.n.a.lyze the situation from all sides. We need to be able to discuss this reasonably. Let's start by demystifying the phenomena. The larvae are appealing because of specific, definable attributes-large heads, large eyes, a capacity for attention. They're fascinating. These characteristics conventionally enhance parental investment; here, they serve to increase other species'-most notably humans'-tolerance, favoritism or identi-fication...take your pick. Let's be aware of this and act accordingly. We can't be victim to our softer instincts when dealing with these creatures."

"This isn't about 'softer instincts,'" Diego barked. "G.o.dd.a.m.nit, don't you see?! This has nothing to do with sentimentality. The larvae shouldn't be protected because of affinity or compa.s.sion, but they also shouldn't be killed because of fear. Who knows what benefits we can derive from studying them?" His eyes moist, he pounded a fist into his open palm. "We need to know more. We need to discover more. We can't stop this amazing process now. We have no idea where this is headed."

"That's exactly my f.u.c.king point," Szabla said.

The larva squirmed in the gra.s.s. A seam had opened up in its cuticle, just behind the head.

Diego snapped the band from his ponytail, ran his hand through his hair, pulling hard, then banded it again. When he spoke, his voice was shaking. "Do you really want to turn this incredible thing into a dead end?"

"It might be incredible if we had guns and boats and the luxury of a little f.u.c.king distance," Szabla said. "But we don't. We're stuck on an island, weaponless, with no extraction set, and people are dying." She raised a hand to scratch her cheek, her arm crossing her chest so her biceps stood out like a tennis ball. "This ain't no science project. It's us versus it. And guess whose side I'm on."

A ripping sound drew their attention back to the larva. It had pulled itself free of its old cuticle, squirming out of the sh.e.l.l of its former self. It rippled forward, its new skin moist and an even more vibrant green.

Taking a deep, sorrowful breath, Tank pulled himself to his feet. He walked slowly over and stood behind Szabla and Savage. Justin looked from them to Diego and Rex.

They all glanced over at Cameron.

"What!?" she said sharply. "Why are you looking at me? Szabla's the AOIC."

Szabla clicked her teeth together, keeping her mouth closed. She squinted, drawing the skin tight across her high, hard cheekbones.

"What would we do to it?" Justin asked, though he didn't really want an answer.

The larva wormed up against Diego's leg and froze. Tank averted his eyes. "Cam?" Tank asked softly. He ran a shaking hand over his head, taking a deep breath.

Cameron felt all their eyes on her, felt the presence of the larva by the fire even though she couldn't bear to look at it. Even Savage was waiting on her response.

With the slightest movement, Cameron shook her head. "We're under orders," she said. "To a.s.sist Rex on his mission."

Szabla raised a hand, quivering with rage, and pointed to the large mantid body by the fire. "We are the f.u.c.king mission now."

Cameron looked to Rex. "What'll it be?"

Rex took a moment, gathering himself.

"Don't you dare," Diego whispered. "You could be single-handedly forcing a species into extinction."

Rex crouched, pinching the papery sh.e.l.l of the larva's old cuticle between his fingers. "Let's quarantine it," he said. "Keep a close eye on it until we get word back about the virus tomorrow."

"Well, I'm afraid you don't have the luxury," Szabla said. She advanced toward the larva. Diego stepped forward to block her, but she shoved him roughly aside. He stumbled and went down. He looked to Cameron, appealing to her with his eyes. Rex looked furious but held his tongue.