“I want it alive!” cried Glinn.
Several men rushed forward, Tasing the creature with flashes of blue light, the crackling sound mingling with his terrible roars as he swept them aside with a massive arm. The Tasers only seemed to enrage him more. Now other men rushed up with a metal net, which they flung over him. Thrashing maniacally, the Cyclops clawed it apart with his hands, the metal strands snapping and twanging like guitar strings as he tore the net to pieces, Amiko fighting to help free him from the entanglement.
Men with rifles were hastily taking up positions, leveling their guns.
“No!” screamed Amiko, “don’t shoot!” But the rifles went off with popping sounds—tranquilizing darts. Half a dozen stubby syringes buried themselves in the Cyclops’s back and side. He gave another jungle-shaking bellow and flailed about, pulling them out and flinging them away.
“Again!” Glinn ordered.
“
No!
” Amiko screamed, trying to place herself between the Cyclops and the shooters.
A second round of well-aimed shots hit the Cyclops. The soldiers backed off as he came to a staggering halt, his great eye rolling grotesquely, his mouth distorted, spittle drooling out. He flailed about hopelessly for a moment, and then collapsed on the ground, his guttural cries dying into a choking sputter before going silent.
In five minutes, the soldiers had loaded his gigantic body onto a dolly and rolled him into the cage. Amiko, who had been tackled and recaptured, had finally stopped screaming and fallen silent.
Glinn turned to Gideon. “The creature came to rescue her. Impressive. Now that we’ve captured the Cyclops, we can get moving on phase two—finding the lotus.” He gestured at the headless body of the man lying in the wet ashes of the clearing. “That was unfortunate. Manuel, could you please have it taken care of?”
Garza went off in silence and soon was directing a group of men removing the body. Glinn gestured for Amiko to be brought to him. Her hands cuffed behind her back, held by two burly men, she was led forward.
“It’s over,” Glinn said. “There’s nothing you can do for the creature now. If you promise to behave, I’d like to release you.”
Silence. And then Amiko said, in a strange, cold voice: “You can release me.”
The two men undid her cuffs and let her go.
“The men will stay with you, however, until you depart.”
“You’ve overlooked one small fact,” Amiko said.
“And what is that?”
“You won’t find the lotus—without
his
help.”
G
IDEON AWOKE BEFORE
dawn, bleary-eyed and deeply discouraged, unable to sleep due to the miserable roaring of the Cyclops, which had gone on for most of the night. The bellowing had finally died down, and he had managed a restless hour of sleep before being awoken for the flight home. As the sun rose over the treetops, Gideon and Amiko—with her two armed guards—were standing to one side while the chopper sat in the landing zone, warming up, ready to take them away.
Amiko looked like a ghost, pale, her bloodshot eyes set in pools of dark skin.
“Are you all right?” Gideon asked, taking her arm.
She silently pulled away.
The soldiers indicated it was time to board. Garza was in the pilot’s seat, his face set, unreadable.
For a moment, Gideon hesitated. Where was Glinn? All their hard work and sweat, the dangers they’d endured—and now they were being hustled back to civilization. It all felt wrong. It made him angry. He glanced back in the direction of the security enclosure. The Cyclops had started bellowing again.
One of the soldiers gestured with his weapon. With a sigh, Gideon hoisted his drysack over one shoulder and climbed up into the chopper after Amiko. The soldiers shut them in.
He settled into his seat, buckled in, and put on the headset. A moment later the Sikorsky lifted off, rising above the jungle canopy, Garza at the controls. As the chopper gained altitude, Gideon could see the top of the island, floating high above the sea like a green paradise, but now marred by the scorched LZ, the camp, and several other brutally fresh clearings hacked out of the jungle. Directly below, he could see the Cyclops, shaking the bars of his cage and staring upward with that hideous eye.
He glanced over at Amiko. Her face was dark and strange. It chilled him how she had gone from pleading with Glinn, to a sudden eruption of furious violence, to this cold and forbidding silence.
The chopper banked over the canopy, flying along the spine of the island. But instead of winging out over the sea, when the chopper reached the end of the island it began to slow. Then it swung around and abruptly descended toward a rough clearing EES had cut out of the jungle on the far side of the tabletop. A moment later they landed.
“What’s going on?” Gideon asked.
Garza turned around in his seat, taking off his headset and indicating they were to do so as well. “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he said over the whine of the engine. “You’ve been hearing Glinn talk about his ‘client.’ I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet. There
is
no client. Or rather, the so-called client is Glinn himself.”
Gideon stared at Garza.
“From the very beginning of this project,” Garza said, “I’ve been concerned about Glinn’s behavior. He was so secretive, holding his cards close, never revealing the name of his client. I’m his right-hand man; I’ve always had a place in the inner circle. Not this time—it was an inner circle of one.” He paused, frowning. “I’ve seen Glinn go off the deep end before, and I’ve begun to see the signs of it again. He’s after the lotus to heal
himself
. And he’s not going to give it away. He plans to make big money on it.”
“Do you know this for a fact?”
“I know it because I know Glinn. I’ve been through this before, with the meteorite business.”
“Meteorite? You mean, the one you mentioned in the bar?”
“Exactly. This is a continuation of that same story. When we talked before, I never told you what the meteorite was, exactly. Now you need to know. It was a seed.”
Gideon stared at him. “A
what
?”
“You heard me. It was Panspermia on a grand scale, a huge alien seed, floating through space for God knows how long. It fell to earth a few thousand years ago and was lying dormant on a frozen island. Eli collected it for the Lloyd Museum, but the project failed, the ship sank, and it went to the bottom of the South Atlantic. Planted. Where it found the ideal conditions it needed to sprout.
And
grow.”
“My God.”
“It’s Eli’s white whale. He prided himself on never failing—and on that op, he failed colossally. He thinks that whatever is growing down there threatens the earth—that it’s his fault, and his responsibility to kill it. That project has always been in the back of his mind. But he’s estimated that he needs a billion dollars to mount an expedition to kill that thing. I believe this drug is how he’s planning to finance it.”
“So all that talk of giving the drug to the world…is a lie?”
“Oh, he’ll give it to the world—for a price. On top of that, the drug is also for himself. To cure his injuries. Glinn believes he must lead the expedition, and in order to do that he has to be able to walk and have use of his limbs.”
Gideon felt stunned. All along, he’d been thinking about what the lotus might do for him. He’d never considered that Glinn had his own agenda. It was so obvious, once it was pointed out.
“Glinn is going to get all of us killed,” Garza said. “I’ve seen it before. I saw one hundred and eight people die when the
Rolvaag
sank, and I never want to see anything like that again.”
Gideon looked at Amiko, then turned back to Garza. “So what’s your plan?”
“Simple. We bypass Glinn, get the lotus, and get the hell out of here ourselves.
We
give it to science, freely, for the benefit of mankind. What Glinn was claiming to do, but we do it for real. It’s up to us to pull this off.”
“How?” Amiko suddenly asked.
Garza turned to her. “You said something back there that struck me. You said we wouldn’t find the lotus without that creature’s help. Is that really true?”
“Yes,” said Amiko.
“Can you control him? Keep him in check?”
“I think so,” Amiko replied.
Gideon looked at her in surprise. She was looking steadfastly at Garza with an expression of dark intensity.
“To release the Cyclops,” Garza said, “you’ll have to get past the electrified enclosure. I’ve got the codes to its cage.” Garza pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and gave it to her. “He came to rescue you. He trusts you. You free him and get him to dig up a lotus and bring it back here. Then we’ll set him free and take off with the lotus. We’ve got six hours before Glinn expects me back. Think you can do it in six hours?”
“You know I can.”
“Gideon, you in?”
Gideon said nothing for a moment, and then spoke slowly. “A stash of lotus is hidden in a cave near here, below, in the cliffs.”
Garza stared at him. “You never said anything about that.”
“It’s true,” Gideon replied. It seemed a more prudent course than freeing the Cyclops.
“Then that’s the answer to all our problems,” said Garza. “I’ll wait here while you two go get it.” He removed his .45 and handed it to Amiko. “You may need this.”
She took it, shoved it in her waistband, and rose up from her seat. “Let’s go,” she said to Gideon.
G
IDEON SCRAMBLED DOWN
the dizzying trail to the crack that led into the necropolis, Amiko following. Once again the beauty of the necropolis—its lofty dignity, its mysterious light—was overwhelming. Here was proof the Cyclopes once had a culture, spiritual beliefs, a civilization. Anger at Glinn rose in him afresh. But he pushed those thoughts out of his mind, striving to focus on getting the lotus and getting out. There was nothing he could do about the rest of it—nothing. At least Garza was on their side. He had badly misjudged the man.
They entered the dark recesses of the necropolis, its silence overwhelming after the noise of the camp and the roar of the Cyclops. They quickly located Polyphemus’s grave. There was the stone box…and there was the lotus. Amid the strange and powerful scent that rose from the box, Gideon scooped as many pieces up as he could fit in his drybag. They turned and emerged from the necropolis into brilliant light, making their way up the treacherous trail.
At the top of the cliff, Gideon turned in the direction of the chopper, but Amiko paused. “What about the Cyclops?” she said.
Gideon hesitated. “What about him?”
“What do you mean? We’ve got to free him! We can’t leave him in that cage. And he
needs
the lotus. He’s dying.”
Gideon looked at her steadily. “We can’t do anything for him. He’s surrounded by a dozen armed soldiers.”
“I’ve got the codes. And I’ve got a plan. Now give me the bag with the lotus.”
“Wait, Amiko…Garza needs the bag.”
She stared at him, her face darkening. “The Cyclops saved your life. He saved mine. And you’re just going to leave him there, in a cage, to die in misery?”
“I don’t like it any more than you do. But there are bigger things at stake here. Like this.” And he lifted the bag.
“Give me half. I’ll take it to him. You can take the rest and go with Garza.”
“We don’t know how much will be needed for analysis. We can’t risk it. Look—”
Quick as a striking snake, Amiko lunged for the bag, seizing it. Gideon yanked back and for a moment they struggled over it before it tore open, scattering the lotus. She abruptly released the bag, sending Gideon off balance, at the same time plucking the .45 from her belt and, turning it butt-first, striking him on the side of the head. He hit the ground and all went black.
Gideon felt like he was swimming back up from the bottom of the ocean, and the journey seemed to take a very long time. He struggled to sit up, his head throbbing, and looked at his watch. He’d been out about fifteen minutes. He cursed himself for not seeing this coming.
He glanced around. The lotus roots, which had been lying everywhere, were gone. Except for one that she had left for him, shoved in his pocket. She had taken all the rest.
Blood oozed from a cut on his temple, and his head pounded so that he could hardly think. He pulled the lotus from his pocket, wrapped it in a leaf, and tucked it back. Slowly, he rose to his feet. As he tried to clear his head, he heard the thunder of a distant explosion. A moment later he saw a ball of fire rise above the canopy, roiling into red and black, in the direction of the base camp.
Amiko.
He sprinted through the jungle, bashing through the vegetation, ignoring the pain in his head, until he reached the waiting chopper.
“Where were you?” Garza cried. “Something’s going on at the camp.” His radio had burst into frenzied chatter, everyone speaking at once over the frequency:
…it’s loose…killing everyone…that woman…fire suppression now…Oh, my God!…
And then, as if to underscore all this, a distorted bellowing came from the radio, drowning out the babble of voices, dissolving into a roar of static—and then, suddenly distinct over the radio, a scream of human agony, cut short by the sound of ripping flesh.
“Son of a bitch!” Garza cried, and then stared at Gideon. “What the hell’s happening?”
“Amiko,” said Gideon. “She knocked me out. Took the lotus. She’s freeing the Cyclops.”
Garza looked at him. “
Took the lotus?
”
“All except this one.” He pulled it out of his pocket and gave it to Garza.
“Get in,” said Garza, snatching it. “Let’s get the hell out of here. And let’s pray to God that one root will be enough.”
Gideon hesitated, his foot on the threshold.
“Get in, damn it!”
Gideon shook his head. “No. No, I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” Garza was already powering up the rotors.
“It’s a catastrophe. I can’t go while that thing is killing people and…while Amiko’s in danger.”
Garza grabbed the controls. “If that’s the way it is, I hope you survive. Sayonara.” The door slammed and locked. Gideon retreated at a crouch as the chopper ascended into blue sky, then accelerated westward, toward Managua and home.
As Gideon watched it disappear, another massive explosion shook the forest.