The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

The Megatherium who was still in the clearing eyeballed her, one lip curling. But after a moment it also slipped backward into the shadows. In those eyes was a fury, a promise that this was not over.

She took advantage of the momentary lull to climb the cage door, roll onto the top of the pen, then leap to join Jori in the trees.

“Follow me,” the boy said. “Very careful.”

He led the way higher into the canopy, moving from stout branches to limbs that swayed under her weight. Once seemingly satisfied with their height, Jori set off on a trek that led toward the distant gates of this level. She imagined he must have some way of getting past that barrier.

Then what? she wondered. I’ll still be trapped on this island in the sky . . . while a virus ravages a path through my higher consciousness.

She pushed those worries aside for now. One problem at a time. That’s all her mind could handle.

Jori followed a path with which he seemed familiar, knowing where branches between trees were close enough to leap or a bridge of vines could be crossed by hanging from hands and feet. Together they worked their way across the canopy.

“No!” Jori warned, moving her away from what appeared to be a simple jump to the next mahogany tree. He pointed to a hive growing on the far side of that trunk. “Hornets.”

She nodded, not in the mood to get stung.

He led her to another, more difficult path, but she kept watch on that hive. A small sparrow darted among the branches and came too close to that buzzing mud-and-daub nest. A flurry of hornets burst forth, swarming the little bird. With each sting, its flight grew more erratic. Then it tumbled away toward the forest floor, still coated in hornets.

“Are they poisonous?” she asked Jori, who had noted her attention.

“No.” He continued across a dense net of vines, balancing with his arms out. He reached the far side. “Sting with . . .” He plainly struggled with the word and rubbed his belly. “Juices that melt food.”

She glanced more warily at that hive.

Digestive juices.

So their stingers must produce chemicals similar to spider venom.

“Eat you from inside out,” Jori warned, as if this were the most normal thing in the world to state.

They continued for another twenty yards in silence, accompanied by nothing but birdsong and the squawk of parrots from a higher level of this garden. Then a softer mewling reached her, rising from the left. The plaintive cry drew her closer.

“No,” Jori warned again. “Too dangerous.”

She wanted to obey, but the noise sounded close, just in the next tree. She shifted around the bole of the mahogany and pushed leafy branches out of her face.

It took her a long moment to identify the source of the soft crying. A nest of vines hung from the branches across a short gap. A small movement caught her eye, a furred limb, about the size of a small child’s, seemed to beckon, to plead. A set of hooked claws opened and closed, more in pain than any conscious will. She followed the arm down to a body the size of a bear cub, encased in loops of vines. Even from here she could see the barbed hooks, the dribbles of crimson blood. The body shifted, and the vines tightened, squeezing another cry out of the small creature.

Her heart ached at the sight.

Jori pushed her arm down and the branches she had been holding down snapped back up. “Law of the Jungle,” he said.

She could tell he tried to say this bravely, as if it were a lesson he wanted to show her that he learned, but he looked mournful nonetheless.

He continued across the canopy, trying to draw her with him.

“Why did you help me?” she called out. “Why break the Law of the Jungle for me?”

He stopped and turned. He glanced to her face, then down to his hands, then away again. “You’re pretty. Law of the Jungle.” He shook his head. “Not for you.”

With those sage words, he set out again.

1:55 P.M.

Cutter slammed through the hatch into the sinkhole, trailed by a pair of armed men. He had radioed for two carts to meet him. One held four more armed Macuxi. His sister-in-law stood before the second.

Rahei glowered at him, as if this were all his fault. Though the woman had the cold-bloodedness of a snake, she loved Jori. Only the boy could bring out a measure of warmth in the woman, but that love could also turn savage, transforming her into a lioness defending a cub.

Still, he welcomed that now.

They piled into the electric carts and raced around and around, barely waiting for the gates at each level to fully open, before scraping through to continue onward.

Cutter could not erase the image of his son vanishing into those dark trees, a habitat as dangerous as they could come. What was I thinking stoking his curiosity for the life I’d created?

He knew a part of it was pride, to see the respect and awe in Jori’s young face. It was all the accolades he needed for his hard work and ambition. He had an audience of one and that was enough, especially if it was Jori.

He found his breath growing labored as tension and fear mounted. Rahei must have sensed it and grabbed his knee, fingers digging like daggers, telling him silently to hold it together.

For Jori.

At last they reached the final gate, and the two carts parked on the far side. “Leave the gate open,” Cutter said as he climbed out. “If Jori is hurt, I don’t want to lose a second.”

He left one driver guarding the carts and the gateway. He headed down the ramp with the others, descending deeper into the forest’s depths.

Cupping his mouth, he bellowed his challenge to this harsh world. “Jori! Where are you?”

1:56 P.M.

Kendall sealed the last zipper on his biosafety suit and entered the BSL4 lab. Before Cutter had stormed out, he had warned Kendall to begin his preparations for inserting that destructive code into his engineered shell. More worrisome, Kendall was instructed to expect a sample of Volitox blood before nightfall.

Kendall hadn’t argued. He wanted access again to this quarantined space anyway. He glanced out the window to where Mateo and Ashuu spoke in low voices, their heads bowed together, a brother and a sister consoling each other. The giant loomed over the fragile form of his sister. She sheltered under his strength and support.

Kendall felt bad that he would have to kill them, but he had to reach a phone, some way of sharing with the outside world about the cure to what plagued California, a magnetic frequency that could rip apart his bioengineered organism at the genetic level.

The current chaos with the boy offered him his best chance.

Even Cutter had slipped up, a rarity for the genius.