Fragment

6:16 P.M.

The Humvee climbed the natural road all the way up to the northeast edge of the island. As the vehicle crested the rise at the cliff edge, Sergeant Cane pointed out the right window.

“Check out these critters, Dr. Redmond!”

Thatcher leaned over Nell to see.

Sprawled and tangled on the sheer cliff of the island’s rim, dry tendrils swirled to form what looked like nests, occupied by hundreds of birds’ eggs and hatchlings. Geoffrey saw chicks suckling at appendages that rose from the tangled mass-bulbous pods shaped disturbingly like birds’ heads. “What the…?”

“Hatcheries,” Dr. Cato told him, peering out the window in awe.

Thatcher grunted as he nearly flopped across Nell’s lap to peer out. “Really?”

“Could you explain that?” Geoffrey said.

“Some seabirds migrate here to breed,” Dr. Cato replied.

“The plants eat the parents, and the nestlings hatch and imprint on their new mommies. Later they return here all fattened up as adults to nest, lay their eggs, and get eaten. The circle of life.” Nell smiled darkly at Geoffrey, who looked back at the hatcheries, speechless.

“We’ve even discovered a subspecies of frigates that has adapted its juvenile beak to fit the nipples on these things,” Dr. Cato told them. “So apparently these creatures have been good bird mommies for a very long time.”

“My God,” Geoffrey whispered, his heart racing at the implications. “A predator-prey relationship in which the prey is evolving to improve the predators’ chances? I think I’m going to be sick. These things have hijacked the frigate’s natural selection. They’re fricking breeding their own food!”

“Just like we do,” Thatcher drawled. “Haven’t you seen a chicken? The difference is that this has carefully evolved in tandem with its prey to preserve just what it needs to survive and not expand beyond its resources. You could devote a lifetime to studying any one of this island’s organisms.”

“A short lifetime,” Zero muttered.

Sergeant Cane chuckled sourly as they passed the squawking nesting grounds rimming the high cliff.

Zero videoed intently, cursing when a stream of cloudy juice sprayed the window, obscuring his shot.

Sergeant Cane laughed. “The vines around the nests squirt concentrated salt-juice at your eyes. They can zap wasps right out of the air at twenty feet.”

Geoffrey noticed an adolescent bird flung out of a nest. Each time the bird tried to climb back in, a spring-loaded plant stalk flung it back out.

Thatcher was ecstatic. “Fantastic!” he crooned, leaning fully across Nell now as he looked at the bird breeders.

“OK, enough,” Nell said, shooing Thatcher back into his seat.

The ramp of exposed strata sloped down from the island’s edge as it continued around the island. Cane pushed the throttle, and the train of three Humvees accelerated down the natural ramp.

Geoffrey gripped the back of Zero’s seat and watched Nell, who stared at the shadow of the island’s rim as it reached the ridge and doused the flashing light.

Eventually they reached a flat lower stratum. They continued around the bowl to the north, leaving brown tracks in the clover that gradually turned green again behind them.

The shelves of the high slopes were melted soft by erosion like the terraced hills of the Peruvian Andes, pelted with green, gold, and purple clover.

Ahead, patches of jungle topped the succession of rock ledges that erupted from the slope.

“See that highest ledge there?” Cane said, pointing through the windshield.

“Yep, that’s where I made it out to be,” Zero said.

“Good, no jungle on that ledge.” Cane spoke into the radio: “Blue Two and Three, we’re going to start on the highest shelf. Suggest you guys search the next two down for the survivor. Over?”

“This is Blue Two. We copy you, Blue One.”

“This is Blue Three. Sounds good.”

“Looks like we got a swarm, guys,” the first voice said.

“Copy that, thanks.” Cane twisted the handle of a crudely retrofitted valve on the ceiling of the cab as a swarm of wasps attacked the caravan of Humvees.

They could hear the squeak and hiss of faucets spurting to life.

Sprinkler-heads telescoped on the roofs of the Hummers, and a fine umbrella of water sprayed over each vehicle.

Sergeant Cane chuckled. “Bastards don’t like saltwater.”

Zero turned his head and gave a deadpan look at Nell.

“I see that we’ve already adapted to this environment,” Thatcher drawled, “and dominated it with our technological defenses.”

Cane chuckled. “It’s like the Marines say, ‘improvise, adapt, overcome.’ The Army just does it better.”

“Exactly,” Thatcher sneered.

Cane turned off the Hummer’s sprinklers after the swarm retreated. Blue One dug in its four Mattracks, powering up the steep incline beside the giant stairs.

The other Humvees followed close behind, each one peeling off at its assigned ledge. Blue One rumbled onward, rising fifty more feet to the highest ledge, a curving tier of rock jutting out of the slope.

They turned onto the flat lip of rock. On the left side swayed the palmlike crowns of trees rising from the lower tier. On the right side stood a sheer, three-story rock wall, which the ledge hugged, curving around a bend and out of sight ahead. Above this thirty-foot escarpment, the green fields rose unbroken to the island’s rim.

A fallen tree blocked them from driving farther onto the ledge.

Cane tried to drive over the log, but it was five feet thick, too much even for Mattracks to climb over: it looked more like the neck of Godzilla than the trunk of a tree.

“That’s the outer cuticle of a giant arthropod,” Dr. Cato pointed out. “The trees are actually related to the island’s flying bugs.”

“Good God,” Thatcher chuckled.

“Looks like a rockslide brought it down.” Geoffrey pointed at the fresh chunk missing from the cliff above. “So this island’s pretty unstable?”

“Yeah. There’s been a lot of seismic activity,” Nell replied.

Cane eased off the throttle and they heard something so incongruous they didn’t register it at first: a dog was barking.

“What the hell?” Cane muttered.

A bull terrier sprinted out on the ledge from around the cliff, yapping wildly. Then it darted back around the corner and disappeared.

“Copey!” Nell cried.

“I don’t believe it!” Zero said as he steadied his hand on his camera.

Copepod sprinted out from around the cliff once again, barking furiously, then ran back around the bend out of sight.

Nell grabbed Cane’s shoulder. “He’s trying to get us to follow him. Let’s go!”

Cane throttled forward against the trunk one more time, then stopped. He shook his head. “We can’t get over this tree in the Hummer. And no way are we getting out of this vehicle, not with that jungle so close.”

“Somebody signaled us and needs help, Sergeant! If Copey survived here, so can we! There’s somebody there!”

“No way. I’m not going out there.”

“Zero.” Nell turned to the cameraman. “You survived out there. Can we just run down quick and have a look around the corner? And then run back?”

Zero frowned. “Do we have any weapons?”

“Super Soakers,” Cane said. There was a moment of stunned silence. “Seriously. Full of saltwater. And if you leave the Hummer you have to put sterile booties on. In those packets. And before you get back in the Hummer take them off and throw them away.” The sergeant looked at Nell and shook his head. “But I don’t like it. That jungle’s too close.” He pointed off the side of the ledge, where the trees waved in the wind.

“It’s just a few treetops,” Thatcher said.

“Super Soakers?” Nell said. “Give me your gun, Cane.”

Cane locked eyes with her, hesitating.

“OK.” He finally nodded, and gave her his M9 Beretta handgun. “It won’t do much good out there,” he cautioned as he slid off the safety.

“Nell!” Dr. Cato turned around in the front seat and glared at her disapprovingly. “You can’t go outside!”

Nell smiled sadly at him as she clicked on the safety and tucked the gun into her waistband. “I’m sorry, Teach. I have to.”

The elderly scientist shook his head. “It’s too dangerous!”

“Someone’s survived here,” she said.

Cato reached out a hand, squeezed her arm.

“I don’t want anyone else to die on this island,” she said fiercely.

He sighed, knowing better than to try and order her. “Neither do I!” he pleaded.

“I’ll be careful,” she promised him.

Dr. Cato closed his eyes.

Geoffrey was already opening a foil packet of sterile footwear. “Wow. Rubbers.”

“Safe socks.” Nell winked as she pulled on a plastic booty over her Adidas tennis shoe. “Coming along, Dr. Binswanger?”

He nodded. “I’m still looking for a benign species,” he reminded her.

Nell touched his knee and looked into his eyes. “Just don’t look too long, OK? What about you, Thatcher?”

“I’ll watch from the car,” the zoologist replied.

“Douse yourselves with saltwater,” Zero instructed, spraying himself with one of the Super Soakers.

“Hey, not in here!” Cane growled.

“Sorry,” Nell said, pumping spray over Geoffrey. “In here! It may not help much but it should trigger a bug to spray repellent if it lands on us.”

“The water already has bug repellent in it,” Cane told them. “It’s taken from the moat around the base.”

“That’s good,” Zero said. “You can dry-clean the upholstery later, Sergeant. Do my back, Nell.”

“Any advice on how to move out there?” Nell asked, spraying Zero down as Geoffrey soaked her with the spray gun.

Thatcher cringed, sniffing the noxious musk mixed with the smell of seawater.

“Don’t run in a straight line,” Zero answered. “Zigzag. And never stop, not even for a second.”

“Zigzag?” Cane shook his head, bewildered. “You scientists are all fucking nuts. Good luck, man. I got absolutely no responsibility over this.”

“Yes, good luck,” Thatcher said.

Cato squeezed her hand. “Be careful, young lady!”

Zero gave Nell and Geoffrey a hard look. “Ready?”

Soaking wet and armed with their saltwater rifles, Nell, Zero, and Geoffrey climbed out the door of the Hummer and over the reptilian tree trunk.

Geoffrey instantly smelled sulfur and a sweet, cadaverous reek wafting out of the vegetation below the cliff. The air was damp. The growth covering the ground was surprisingly flimsy and tore apart under his feet. The intensity of the insect noise coming from the jungle below the ledge shocked him-it was a thick sonic mat of whistles, buzzing, shrieks, and clicking.

Zero tapped on the NASA headcam over his temple as they jumped from the log onto the ledge.

Copepod dashed away, barking as he once again vanished around the curving wall.

“Keep moving,” Zero whispered.

The three men in the Humvee watched the three run full speed after Copepod. The dog darted out of sight, then reappeared as the ledge curved back into view farther ahead-then Copey disappeared into a crack in the cliff.

Watching from the Hummer, the sergeant muttered, “Don’t go in there…come on, don’t go…oh no.”

Before the gash in the cliff wall, Zero, Nell, and Geoffrey stopped in astonishment.