The Terminals (28 page)

by Go Fish

32. TREADING WATER

by The Blind Leading the Blind

33. THIS LITTLE PIGGY

by Squeaky Wheel

“Don't wanna, ain't gonna. Humma-humma-humma.”

Siena's machete came down on the rope, snapping it neatly. It tumbled and twisted down to the beach. Below, the men from the other boats were huddling with Ward and Pilot. Several of them carried rifles, though they were not pointing them up at the bluff. Yet.

“We need to go,” Siena said to Cam. “Is he coming?”

“Donnie, are you coming?” Cam asked.

Donnie nodded, and they started off through the underbrush. They reached the second rope quickly, and Siena cut it. The men below had fanned out. Cam counted the rifles. Four of them. Plus Pilot's gun, apparently a pistol.

Zara's head popped out of the foliage down the bluff above the short third rope. She spotted them and silently mouthed the words, “What the hell?”

Cam pointed down at a man in dark clothing who stood at the base of her rope. He waved up to her with a friendly smile and began to climb.

“Cut the rope,” Cam mouthed back, making a sawing motion. Then he realized she only had a small needle-nosed knife. She bent to work on it, exposed. Cam saw one of the men on the beach kneel to aim his rifle up at her.

“No!”

The log that flew from the jungle was three feet long and as thick as a man's head—a chunk of heavy fruitwood from the shelter, stripped of its limbs. It tumbled out into space end over end, descending in a lazy arc. The man was preoccupied, sighting in on Zara. He never saw it coming. The log struck him in the shoulder with a loud crack, and he went down, curling in the fetal position. Another man ran to him, but instead of helping, scooped up the gun from the sand and took aim at Zara again. But he was too wary of flying logs. His eye flitted away from the gun sight as he zeroed in, and his first shot whanged off the rocks just below Zara's hands.

Cam was surprised to see her smile. Then he saw that she'd finished cutting the knot. The man who'd been climbing saw too. He stopped and began to climb back down. It was a strange sight, Cam thought, because as he descended he simply kept accelerating. He still held the rope, but the rope no longer hung from the bluff. Instead, it descended with him, limp in his hands, and they hit the beach together at a speed that made Cam wince. He managed to land feet first, but his legs crumpled beneath him. Cam had seen plenty of soccer injuries. The man would never walk right again. Both of his knees were ruined.

But there were more men and more guns, and there was no more time to stand in the open atop the bluff. Zara glanced at him, and he motioned her back to the shelter. She didn't even pause to nod, but simply dove back into the trees.

Cam and Siena hustled Donnie through the foliage and into the shelter, where the rest of the team stood, grim-faced. Wally was groaning over and over, as though someone had put his voice on repeat.

“This is so messed up. So messed up. Soooo messed up.”

Donnie's head hung, and he swung it back and forth in disbelief. Zara was panting, a grin of satisfaction still tugging at the corners of her lush lips. Tegan held his head. Cam stood waiting. After a moment, he realized that they were all staring at him.

“What do we do now, Wingman?” Zara asked.

When he couldn't answer, Siena whispered in his ear. “Into the jungle. They'll be up here in minutes.”

“You tell them,” Cam said.

“It's your team now, Cam. You're the leader.”

He saw that she was right. They were waiting for him to give orders. They didn't look to Zara or Donnie. Cam had been correct, not them. And none of them knew Siena. They would only follow Cameron “Wingman” Cody.

“Sooo messed up,” Wally groaned.

And if Cam didn't lead them away from the compound immediately, Wally would be correct.

“Into the jungle!” Cam ordered.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

32. TREADING WATER
  

by The Blind Leading the Blind

33. THIS LITTLE PIGGY

by Squeaky Wheel

34. FLY

by The Dread

“Sink or swim? Not really a choice.”

At first, the territory they navigated was familiar—the training ground where they'd dodged paintballs with Ward and Pilot. The forest was still freshly drenched from the storm, and they were soon miserably soaked from pushing through the wet brush. They moved quickly, but couldn't run. The terrain didn't allow it. Siena pointed out places where she'd hidden as they passed.

Donnie had retreated into himself, muttering, “I was wrong, so wrong. I'm such a jerk.”

Cam let him stew. He was a jerk, and he had been wrong.

Past the training fields, the brush thickened, and there were no paths. They found themselves crawling through thorn-riddled bushes and climbing trees only to find that they needed to double back. It was slow going, and Cam was among the slowest of them. Unenhanced, he and Siena—and Tegan, with his headaches—struggled to keep up. Siena felt certain they were being followed. It was only a matter of how closely. If they reached something resembling civilization, it was clear that all six of them would immediately break the unbreakable rule. Ward and Pilot wouldn't let that happen. Cam wondered for a moment what would happen if they promised to stay hidden, like Jules had.
Too late for that.
She'd made her deal before things had gone to hell.
Good for her.
Of course, if they were nowhere near civilization, the organization could simply let them wander in the jungle until a panther ate them.

“Sinkhole!” Wally announced.

Cam caught up with the group and stood at its edge. He marveled again at the deep pit with its motionless blue floor—a bizarre emptiness carved out of the forest. It seemed so long ago that he'd crash-landed in the massive kapok on its rim and first met their philosophical personal trainer. Ward had been quick to help and instruct and guide, but Cam recalled that the swing of the machete had made his first impression. It was strangely comforting to glance over and see that Siena had taken it from him.

They stood reverent on the rim, catching their breath after their flight through the forest, feeling insignificant in the presence of the spectacular oddity of nature whose rare combination of tranquility and grandiosity might have conjured a belief in a higher power, had Tegan not suddenly vomited into it.

The wet splatter of his last meal twenty feet below ruined it for Wally.

“Man, did you have to chuck in the pristine water?” Wally complained.

“I'm sorry.” Tegan coughed as he sank to a knee. Cam's big teammate held his head with both hands, his thick fingers gripping his wavy brown hair tightly. His face contorted, and he yanked two large hunks loose, as though they were snakes burrowing into his head that he was trying to pull out.

Cam knelt beside him and put a hand on his back, and he looked up. His eyes were cloudy, distant.

“Hey, hey. Take it easy,” Cam tried.

“I threw the log,” Tegan whispered.

“I figured that was you,” Cam said gently.

“Women don't usually pay attention to the big fella.”

He was talking about Zara, wondering if he'd impressed her. He didn't seem to realize that she was standing directly behind him.

“I think she noticed you.” Cam winked.

Tegan's lips curled into a half-grin, half-grimace, almost smiling, but his mouth wouldn't quite allow it.

“We need to keep moving, buddy.” Cam tried to help lift him up. Tegan teetered on his knee and then sat down heavily on his rump.

“He's delirious,” Siena said. “It's from the TS. How long has he been on it?”

“The longest of anyone,” Zara said.

“And they upped the dosage recently,” Cam added. “Does that make it worse?”

Siena shrugged. “He seems really sick.”

“But what does it mean?”

“I don't know!” she snapped.

Wally kicked the trunk of a nearby tree. “You're the one telling us what's supposedly happening to our brains.”

“I don't know exactly how it works. It's bad, okay? I started to get the headaches, but not like this. I stopped taking the stuff.”

Tegan reached out. He took Cam's arm and pulled him down to his level. Even in his condition he was strong.

“I did my best,” he said. His gaze was vacant now, his eyes swimming loose under lids that flickered up and down as his face contorted with the agony in his head.

“I know you did,” Cam said. He gave him a mannish hug—heads apart, one-armed, with a quick back pat.

But Tegan clung to him, squeezing him close. “My head hurts, Dad.”

Cam's heart leaped into his throat. He fought back tears as the rest of the team looked on in stunned silence.
Handle this, Cameron
, he told himself. He smoothed Tegan's torn hair. “I'm proud of you, son,” he said. “Very proud. You've done well.”

Tegan held him for a time. When Cam finally pulled away, the big guy looked at him, curious. There was a flicker of recognition.

“You can go now,” he said.

He slumped, and Cam arranged him so that his back rested against the giant kapok tree. Then Cam rose and faced his team. They waited for him to make a decision.

“We have to leave him here.”

Wally burst out in a series of muffled profanities, and Zara looked like she wanted to say something, but they didn't argue. They knew he was right, and moments later they were making their way around the sinkhole without their big teammate.

Soon they had reached the far side. Zara was the first to look back across the hole. She hissed a warning.

“Gun!”

She motioned with her elbow in the direction of the threat, just as she'd been taught in training, and they turned to see even as they dove for cover. A man stood over Tegan's reclining body, holding a rifle. The team scrambled behind an uprooted tree that had toppled onto its side like a fallen giant at the edge of the sinkhole, everyone except for Siena. Unenhanced, she reacted slowly and was still in the open when the man trained the rifle on her.

“Freeze!” he yelled in English. He glanced at a radio hanging loosely at his waist. It was clear he wanted to call for help, but he wouldn't take his hands off the gun.

Siena froze. She couldn't outrun a bullet. Cam swore and stood.

“That's right,” the man said when he saw Cam stand. “The rest of you come on out too. There doesn't need to be any more trouble.”

Cam moved in front of Siena. But he didn't join her. Instead, he replaced her and pushed her toward the dead tree.

“Stay there!” the man barked at Siena, but he kept the gun on Cam.

“I'm still here,” Cam said, buying enough time for Siena to find cover. “I'm all you need to negotiate. Let's start with the basics. We don't even know what you want.”

“I'm tasked with bringing you in safely. There's clearly been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“Safely with a gun?”

“But we're told you're strong, highly trained, and dangerous, which you proved back at the beach. We've got two men down.”

“Why'd you shoot Gordon?” Cam yelled, testing him to see if he knew their names.

“Gordon attacked your trainer's supervisor.”

Supervisor?
Cam thought. The hierarchy between Pilot and Ward had never been clear, but it was now.

“He's lying,” Donnie hissed. “Owen didn't move.”

“What's your name, son?” the man called.

“Tegan,” Cam said. “And if I was over there, I'd grab you so my friends could get away.”

“But you're not over here,” the man said.

Cam's heart quickened as he saw Tegan stir. His huge teammate rolled over slowly and wrapped his thick arms around the man's legs.

“Hey!” the man yelped. He struggled, and then brought the gun down on Tegan's arm. Tegan held on with everything he had left. His great strength had waned, but he was able to wrench himself sideways and roll over the man's knees. The man went down, and the gun went off, but it was pointed at the soft loam of the jungle floor and made only a muffled
whump
. Man and recruit rolled over once, and then ran out of earth and were falling. Twenty feet later, they hit the water together with a splash not unlike Tegan's vomit.

The man bobbed up, gasping for air. The gun was gone. So was Tegan. The team edged out from behind the tree.

“Careful,” Cam warned. “Be ready to take cover if others show up.”

The man floundered, staring up at them. Cam could see him reaching for the radio at his waist. It was gone too.

“Are others coming this way soon?” Cam called out. “The truth, or we'll sink you.” He motioned to Wally, who wrenched a stone the size of a cantaloupe from the forest floor.