The Terminals (29 page)

The man hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

“Then we'll leave you for them to save.”

He looked around. “Wait! How do I get out?”

“Your buddies,” Cam replied.

The man looked distressed. He surveyed the smooth rock walls. “I'm not a good swimmer!” he cried.

“We'll leave you the rope ladder,” Cam said.

He turned to see that Zara had already cut it. It tumbled down into the blue, where it writhed under the surface like a fleeing snake and sank. The man struggled, trying to pull off his heavy boots, but the laces were soaked, and each time he reached for them, his head went under.

Cam reached for his own rope.

“We don't have time, Cam,” Siena said. “There probably
are
more of them coming soon.”

Cam frowned deeply.

Siena put a hand on his arm. “If he's telling the truth, he'll be okay. And it will delay the others.”

“He wrote his own fate,” Zara said.

“And if no one comes soon?” Cam shook his head disapprovingly at her. She met his gaze with her unblinking stare-down eyes as she returned the blade with which she'd cut the rope to its sheath. He didn't have time to confront her about it, and so he simply led them away from the edge of the hole, back into the jungle.

“If you lied, you're screwed, buddy!” Wally shouted at the man as they turned to go, and he threw the stone. It hit the water so close to him that it sprayed his face, and then, just like all other things unlucky enough to fall into a lost and isolated hole, it tumbled into the depths and disappeared.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

33. THIS LITTLE PIGGY
  

by Squeaky Wheel

34. FLY

by The Dread

35. TELL ON YOU

by Drummer Boy

“Wee, wee, wee, where's the way home?”

“So where are we going, Cam?” Zara asked.

“The lab.”

The surprise among the group was universal, but Siena's expression was the most distressed.

“Are you joking?” she spat.

“It's the only place we know that isn't jungle. And they must have ground transportation, or at least communication with the outside world.”

“Right,” Wally sneered. “Are we going to fly there? I'm enhanced, but I haven't grown wings yet.”

“I don't think it's that far.”

“How can you say that? We flew in the chopper for an hour to get there.”

Cam pulled Ari's journal from his pocket. “Remember how Gwen was good with directions? That was her thing, right? And she kept time in her head by counting. She told Ari that, after a few helicopter trips to the doc, she started counting how long it took. She also could see light through the blindfold every time she faced the sun. When the light came at regular intervals every few minutes, she surmised that she was…”

“… flying in circles,” Zara finished for him. “Smart girl.”

“Yes, she was,” Cam said sadly. “Presumably Pilot circled so we wouldn't realize how close the facility was. Gwen counted the total time and subtracted the time we went in circles. The flight time turned out to be less than five minutes, by her estimation. She also determined from the sun that when we weren't circling, the chopper was headed generally west. Inland.”

They listened with fixed stares, as intently as if Ward were briefing them, their enhanced concentration both welcome and a bit unnerving.

“We know lift-off was at the clearing south of the compound at least three miles by boat,” Cam continued. “And the cruising speed of a helicopter is probably somewhere around one hundred and twenty miles per hour.”

“How do you know that?” Wally asked.

“The instrument panel. That's what it said just before I got dumped here.”

“Wow. You remember that?”

“Yeah,” Cam said, shrugging. “And if we travel for five minutes in the chopper at one hundred twenty, that would only be about ten miles.”

“Through the jungle,” Siena pointed out.

“I didn't say they were easy miles.”

“And when we get there? Then what?” Zara asked.

“I don't know. I'm working on it.” It seemed to placate them. After his impressive analysis of the location, they cut him some slack on his lack of further planning. They would have time to think about it while they traveled. Cam was grateful. He didn't have all of the answers.
I'm a wingman, not a leader, like Ari
, he thought. Pilot had even said so when he was recruited.

Zara pointed at Siena. “How come you haven't tried walking out before?”

“The jungle sucks,” she said. “I don't care how many enlightening programs they show on the eco channel, it's dangerous, dirty, and creepy, with vicious animals and bugs the size of your hand. Even the plants will grab, cut, and poison you.”

“Not a nature buff, I see,” Zara said.

“Besides, we could wander around out here lost until we died.”

“We can't go back,” Cam said. “Now would be a good time to tell us why you didn't hike out of here. Obviously, you stuck around for a reason.”

“I wanted to go by boat. It seemed a better option.”

“Why is that better than through the jungle?”

Siena looked indignant, but she finally rolled her eyes and explained.

“Look, I had to wade across a river, and I heard this splash. I got spooked, so I backed out and went up a tree. I stayed up there for like twenty minutes, until I thought I was being stupid and came down. But when I put one foot on the ground, this huge alligator lunged out of the water. If I hadn't still been enhanced, it probably would have eaten me. I spent the entire night in that tree.”

She looked embarrassed.
But anyone would have been frightened
, Cam thought. Then he remembered his bladder's reaction when he'd thought he was being eaten by a shark. Her expression had the same shame in it, maybe more.
She shit herself
, he realized.

“They don't have alligators here,” Cam said, trying to turn the discussion clinical. “It must have been a caiman.”

Wally laughed. “Those little things they have at the aquarium?”

“Caimans are in the alligator family. They can get big.”

“How big?” Wally demanded.

“I don't know,” Siena said, irritated. “Big enough. Bigger than me. And I was in the water with the damned thing.”

“Nine to fourteen feet,” Cam said. “But they can reach sixteen.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Wally said, shaking his head.

“I'm detail oriented, I guess. I remember that tidbit from one of those nature programs Siena doesn't care about.”

“So you got scared?” Zara said to Siena. “That's why you stuck around camp?”

“Yeah, I got scared. Okay? Don't you? It doesn't matter now anyway. I didn't get a boat.”

“No,” Cam said. “We didn't. So we move on. Just tell us when we get to the river where you met your reptilian friend.”

The group started off again, measuring its progress through the thick jungle understory in yards instead of miles. They still needed to put more distance between themselves and the compound before they could stop for a real rest. Cam listened for the thump of helicopter blades. He didn't hear them, but they avoided open spaces just in case and worked their way through Siena's hated patches of thorny brush with only her machete to blaze a trail for them. It made the going even slower.

Finally, they ascended a small rise from which they could see several hundred yards behind them and parked themselves beside a stream, exhausted. At least Cam was exhausted, and from the look of it, Siena was too. His enhanced teammates seemed to catch their breaths quickly, and they waited dutifully for Cam and Siena to rest.

“Cam,” Siena said privately, “I've got some more bad news that needs to be dealt with immediately, now that we have a moment.”

“Great. Just when everything was looking so cheery.” Cam steeled himself. “Go ahead.”

“They're tracking us.”

“That's not news.”

“No. I mean they're
really
tracking us. By satellite.”

“But we've been staying under the canopy.”

“They implanted GPS devices in my team. I'm willing to bet they did it with you too.”

“Implanted?”

“Subcutaneous. You know what that means?”

“Under the skin.”

“Did they insert anything into you during your medical checks?”

Cam shook his head, but his hand drifted up to his rump where he'd taken the monstrous shot. There was still a vague lump there that he'd thought was just scar tissue. He began to get a queasy feeling.

“Zara,” he asked, “did the doctors implant anything during your medical visits?”

She looked at him quizzically, but her hand immediately went to her own immaculate rump.

“No need to answer that,” Cam said, and he turned back to talk to Siena alone again. “So they know exactly where we are?”

“Probably. And which direction we're going, and who is left. It's the way they kept track of us in TS-8.”

“Lovely. How are we supposed to—?”

“They need to be removed,” she interrupted, and she pulled up her sleeve to show him a hideously ragged white and red scar on her shoulder. “You're lucky,” she said. “I didn't have a knife.”

Cam didn't want to imagine what she'd used to get it out. He drew his butcher knife. It would work, but Zara carried one too, and hers was sharper. “How big? The size of a watch battery?”

“Smaller. Mine was BB-sized.”

“You're sure about this. I don't want to slice into Wally's butt and be wrong.”

“I'm not sure about anything. But we should cut somebody and find out.”

Cam glanced about for likely candidates, someone who wouldn't complain about getting their butt cut open, especially if nothing was found.
Not Zara. Not Donnie. Definitely not Wally. And Siena no longer had a GPS in her.
When his team stared back at him, his choice became clear.

“I'll do it,” he finally said to Siena. “Use Zara's knife, but you do it. I don't want her carving me up. And don't go deep enough to hit muscle. I have to be able to walk.”

Siena shook her head. “I almost passed out when I tore myself up. I'm not doing it again.”

Cam grimaced. “Zara then?”

“Afraid so.”

He called them all together and explained the situation. They were serious and didn't laugh, as he'd thought they might. They were all nervous that they
would
find something in his rump and that they'd be next. Worse, that more men were coming with guns and knew exactly where they were.

Cam knelt and lowered his pants while Zara stood behind him with the knife. He asked her to try to pinch it out first. It didn't work, but when she felt around she did confirm that something solid was imbedded in his flesh. She split open the skin with a quick incision.

“Ugh! Warn me, eh?”

“I didn't want you to clench.”

“That's gonna leave a mark,” Wally said, but no one laughed.

“Pity,” Zara added, shamelessly examining him. “It's such a cute butt.”

Cam grimaced as he felt her fingers groping. Then she gave him a swat. “Done!”

She held up the object she'd removed. It was a flat disk the circumference of a pencil lead, smaller around than a BB and made of metal and plastic—obviously a computer chip. It had tiny sharp hooks jutting from its surface to keep it in place. “One injectable tracking device,” she announced.

Cam blew his long hair out of his eyes, concerned. “This means we have to hurry,” he said. “Line up, everyone.”

Zara did the duty. She'd already done it once, and there was no time to waste arguing. Soon everyone from the team was bleeding, and Cam had four chips in his hand.

“Should we smash them?” Wally asked.

“No,” Cam said. “We should use them.”

“How?”

“Bring me a stick of wood,” he said. “We'll attach them to it and toss the wood in a stream. The water will take them downstream. They'll think we're following the river.”

Zara shook her head. “Back to where we came from? The stream empties in the bay near the compound. That won't slow them for long. We should go back to the sinkhole and dump them all in there. They'll think we committed mass suicide.”

“Like Jim Jones,” Cam mumbled to himself.

“It would take them days to fish out bodies that aren't there.”

“Too risky,” Cam said. “They already found us there once, and Tegan's tracker is still taking them there. Plus we'd be giving up the small lead we have on them.”

A bird squawked loudly at them from above, sending them all scrambling for cover. “Shut up, bird!” Wally barked, and he threw a chunk of rotten wood up at it.