Apex

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Max looked again at the dying beast. Still dying. And I’m not wasting bullets to put it out of its misery. He surveyed the battleground. Of their human pursuers, only two soldiers lay dead at the scene—the immortal man in black had fled. Max grabbed his rifle from the ground and headed to the last spot where he’d seen their interlocutor. Along the way he noticed a surveillance camera positioned in the razor wire where the fences met, rotating slowly as it tracked his movements. He took it out with a single shot.

  Thin tendrils of steam rose from bloody blades of grass that marked the area where the man in black had fallen. When he knelt for a closer look, Max noticed the bloody grass slowly turning black. The steam was actually acrid smoke. He dipped a fingertip into the blood, felt a slight burning sensation, and wiped away the drop on his trousers. Mildly caustic blood? And the son of a bitch should never have gotten up after that shot. Maybe Swift will start believing in reptilian super soldiers now.

  “Good thing Flint was here to save the day,” Flint said over the radio. He still sat in the tree on watch for more unfriendlies.

  Max needed that levity. “We were done without you, pal, no question.”

  “So this makes us even?”

  He chuckled. “For the moment. You’ll owe me again before this is over.”

  “I’ll continue to cover your sorry butts in the meantime.”

  “Gotcha. What did you find up there?” Max jogged to the dead soldiers. “We need a place to hole up and fix Otto.”

  “I found a spot that might work... provided you’re ready to step onto the board.”

  “Why not? Being out of bounds isn’t exactly safe.”

  “Copy that. Get your asses over here somehow, and I’ll lead the way.”

  Max arrived at the dead soldiers, one shot through the helmet and the other through the heart. He looted their 9mm pistol ammo before heading back to the group.

  Swift had gotten Otto up and moving, leaning on Leseur at first but then walking under his own power. Max gave the ammo to Swift to refill his Uzi magazines.

  “Grassy ass, amigo,” Swift said. “Nothing else on him?”

  “Just the usual bullshit, no driver’s license or credit cards.”

  Swift snapped his fingers. “Dammit. Bet that dude in black had Diners Club.” His eyes fell on the gasping dinosaur, still dying its miserable and well-deserved death. After gazing reflectively upon it for several seconds, Swift drew his pistol and took aim.

  “Don’t waste bullets on that fucking thing,” Max said.

  Swift put four rounds in its head, which finally ended its life.

  “You got a hearing problem, Carter?”

  “No, I got a problem with suffering animals. Deal with it.”

  “So a dinosaur is more important than your team? Those bullets might have saved one of us later.”

  Swift shrugged. “Probably. I’ve done a damn good job of saving everyone so far.”

  Ease off. Don’t let him bait you. “Fine, asshole. Shit, I’m surprised you didn’t try to nurse it back to health.”

  “What’s the move?” Otto asked, wearily and sagely bringing the quarreling warriors back to task.

  He’s half speed at best. Max pointed toward the fence around the board. “We need to get over that.”

  “Boy, you don’t ask for much,” Otto said. “But before we go anywhere, we need to lose that radio.” He pointed to Leseur’s stolen radio receiver. “I think it gave us away in the thicket. Best leave it behind.”

  “GPS tracker built in?” Max asked.

  “Probably. It’s my bust; I should have thought of it.”

  “Don’t sweat it; it was my idea to start with. Leave it here, Leseur. I’m sure they’ve rolled frequencies by now anyway.

  “Which leaves us with the fence. We need to breach it somehow. Or get under.” They probably had explosives enough to dig a hole, but Max dreaded to waste grenades or C-4 on such an endeavor.

  “It is sunk three feet in the ground,” Leseur said.

  “We’ll bridge it.” Swift glanced around. “Let me find a tree.”

  His chosen tree stood at the edge of the jungle and measured almost two feet in diameter. He rifled through his pack, coming up with a hatchet.

  “I figured you had an entire bridge in that thing,” Max said.

  “Don’t hate me because I come prepared.” Swift went to work on the tree, wood chips flying. He had great strength and decent endurance, but Max figured it would still take him half an hour to fell the tree. Swift had other ideas. After cutting a notch in the trunk on the side that faced the fence, he put the hatchet away and moved to the other side.

  “Y’all might want to get behind me,” Swift said. Once they’d done so, he opened up with the M60 at point-blank range, using the swath of bullets as an ersatz saw. With a resounding crack of splintering wood, the tree toppled after about a dozen rounds. “Tim-ber, motherfuckers!”

  Upon impact with the fence, the tree crushed the top rail and smashed down the chain links to a height of about six feet. Sparks flew and electricity crackled, followed by a single loud pop when a glass insulator exploded.

  Otto chucked softly but still groaned before he said, “That might trip the breaker.”

  “We don’t have a voltage meter, unfortunately,” Swift responded. “Besides, the idea was to bridge the fence, not shut off the electricity. Fuck, does nobody appreciate my handiwork?”

  “Yes, you’re a genius of the first order,” Max said. “Now let’s get across. Can you make it by yourself, Otto?”

  “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I’m right behind you, just take it easy.”

  The crossing went without a hitch. Flint met them on the other side.

  “You’re on point with me,” Max said to Flint. “How far to the hideaway?”

  “A mile, tops.”

  “Any signs of surveillance up here?”

  “Not that I saw, but it was dark then. And I didn’t have time to look while I was running down here to bail you out.”

  Max nodded. “Keep your eyes open for cameras. Shit, keep ’em open for anything. Move out.”

  I know he’s watching. Somehow. Max pictured Wilde in a bunker somewhere on the island monitoring a bank of viewing screens.

  ***

  Instead Wilde stood before a massive table upon which the island was rendered in full relief. He gazed down, all knowing, at the miniature, animated figures of Max’s exhausted team entering the board and pushing deep into the jungle. With a demonic grin he placed fresh pieces on the board, men and monsters, and started maneuvering them into place with a croupier’s stick. They likewise animated to carry out his orders.

  14

  The team trudged on through the jungle, every step an uphill battle as the fatigue of infiltration and combat caught up to them. With Flint and Max leading and Swift on rear guard, the duty of helping Otto fell to Leseur, who looked and moved like zombie, eyes half open. Not for the first time, Max wondered if bringing him along had been a wise move. He’s been useful in some things. But he wasn’t sure if Leseur’s positive traits outweighed the negative.

  They arrived outside the cave about an hour after bridging the fence. Max and Flint surveyed the opening from the cover of thick vegetation—a fissure roughly three feet wide and eight feet tall at the base of a low hillock. The vegetation made it hard to spot from a distance, but Max doubted that would matter much. They know the location of every cave on this island. Flint had spotted two others as well, both in close proximity to this one.

  “How far in does it go?” Max asked.

  “At least twenty feet or so,” Flint answered. “I only took a cursory glance inside.”

  “It’ll do. Swift and I will clear it; you cover the entrance from here.”

  Max and Swift put on their NVGs at the mouth o
f the cave, where a steady, cooling breeze wafted up and out from the bowels of the island. It would have been a refreshing draft after the hot and laborious climb, had it not brought with it the stench of decay, dampness, and rotten flesh. Both men had to squeeze their bulk through the narrow fissure, which didn’t widen until they’d traveled some twenty feet into the dark. They powered on their goggles; enough light filtered through from outside to provide an excellent picture of the chamber beyond. Nothing moved or appeared to be alive save for a snake that slithered across the floor toward the shelter of a boulder.

  “Bothrops atrox, I’ll wager,” Swift said.

  “Didn’t know you spoke Latin.” Max moved into the chamber, irregularly shaped and roughly forty feet long. The floor sloped downward toward the rear; the ceiling peaked at about ten feet.

  “Taxonomy only. It was learn or die—my father labeled the snake trays in Latin. Watch out for more. Oh, and dinosaur crap too.” Swift pointed to a foot-high shit pile on the floor and then tested it with his boot, disturbing a few feasting beetles. “Couple days old.”

  The second snake they saw stood its ground in a coiled posture and hissed at them. A couple of well-aimed rocks sent it scuttling toward another fissure at the rear of the cave. The hole, too small for any man to fit through, was the chamber’s only other exit.

  “Not good,” Max said upon finding a pile of assorted bones at the rear of the cave. The ribcage, obviously human, lay smashed in several pieces. Larger leg bones had been gnawed and cracked open, the marrow sucked out.

  “Picked clean,” Swift said. “And not by snakes.”

  “Hopefully whatever did it doesn’t come back for a while. We can rest over there in that alcove, won’t be visible from the entrance.”

  “Lot of scattered rock there. I’ll check it for snakes.”

  Max took off his NVGs. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, just enough to see by, though not very well. He moved to the surface and beckoned the others forward. “No lights,” he said as he led them inside. “Over there, Otto.” He pointed toward a flat slab of rock in the alcove.

  “Looks comfy,” Otto said as Leseur helped him over.

  “Uh-huh,” Max said. “Just don’t get too comfy, and that’s all of you.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” Flint said. “I should go out again, try to cover up our tracks as best I can and lay down a false trail. It might buy us some time.” Though he’d done his share of running around that morning, Flint looked the least drained of them all, probably because he hadn’t duked it out up close with the lizards.

  “Good idea. Try to report in on the hour. This board’s already crawling with enemy.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Fuck off. And good luck.”

  Flint headed off.

  Max joined the others gathered around Otto, Swift busy checking Otto’s wound while Leseur sat on a rock. It appeared to Max that Leseur had the shakes again, though he couldn’t be certain in the dim light. “Go take watch by the entrance,” Max said to Leseur.

  Leseur’s green eyes caught the dim light. He looked more refugee than warrior, his tank empty, expression hopeless. “Monsieur, I...”

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  After a couple of seconds, he replied, “Oui.” He grabbed his rifle and took the watch.

  “How does it look?” Max asked as he took a knee next to Otto.

  “Infection setting in,” Swift responded. “Let’s get some antibiotics in him.”

  “That set in pretty quickly.”

  “Might be a venomous bite. Did you know that most large lizards are actually venomous? Nah, of course you didn’t.”

  “I could deal without the wise cracks, Carter.”

  “Sure you could.” Swift pulled a vial and syringe from his first-aid kit. “You’re the reason we’re sitting in this fucking cave low on ammo with a man down.”

  “I see. I suppose you would have done it differently?”

  Swift chuckled. “Without question. For starters we shouldn’t have been in that thicket.”

  “And where the fuck would you have hidden?”

  “Somewhere with an escape route, Ahlgren. But no, you barricaded us into a ring of thorns and had to rely on old Swift to shoot the way out. I’ve got less than three belts left for the MG thanks to you.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Carter. You would have gotten us all killed. Shit, even after seeing a track you still didn’t believe there were giant lizards on this island. Those thorns saved our ass.”

  “Yeah, bullshit, you—”

  “Shut up or shoot me already,” Otto said. “Jesus, you bitch like two prom queens on the rag.”

  “I see you’re well enough to be a wiseass,” Max responded.

  “I may be a twidget, but I can still take a hit.”

  “Good,” Swift said. “Take this one.” He stuck the syringe into Otto’s forearm.

  “That all you got?”

  “Tough guy, eh? We’ll see how you do when I clean out that bite.”

  “Great, can’t fucking wait.”

  Otto further proved his tolerance for pain when Swift began swabbing out his wound with disinfectant. Max stood ready to hold Otto down, but it never came to that.

  “You lost a bit of blood, but I don’t think you’re poisoned,” Swift said. “At least you’re not showing signs of it.”

  “Guess he forgot to... engineer that in.” Otto growled his words, betraying his agony.

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Max said. “Why did Wilde create these dinosaurs in the first place? What purpose do they serve?”

  “Maybe billionaires like hunting them,” Swift suggested. “They are supposed to be extinct for starters, so the novelty of seeing one alone, and they’re more dangerous than anything else on the planet, which makes them the ultimate big game. They probably pay him shitloads of money to come down here and hunt.”

  “I think hunting humans is the main attraction,” Max countered.

  “It could easily be both.”

  “Practice,” Otto said faintly. “Cloning the dinosaurs is the first step to genetically engineering an advanced reptilian race.”

  Swift gaped. “You don’t really believe that National Enquirer shit, I hope.”

  “You saw a guy stand up after being gut shot. Explain that.” When Swift didn’t answer, Otto continued, “You don’t know who you’re fucking with. I do. Expect to see more... and weirder.”

  “I still say he’s just doing it for the money.”

  “Do you make your living denying reality?” Max asked. “That guy with the dinosaur remote control has acid in his veins, not that he bled much when I shot him. That’s not human.”

  “I think we’re all in the ball park,” Otto said. “I followed Wilde’s cyber trail for years back in the Company. He’s constantly fund-raising. Everything in offshore accounts, untouchable. This place is Disney for psychos. He’s making millions off these hunters, funneling it back into genetic research. That guy Max shot is just his latest creation. He’ll have better in no time if we don’t stop him.”

  “If he’s really trying to build a reptilian super race,” Max asked, “why do the elites let him do it? He would become a threat to every country in the world. Has he made promises to provide soldiers for certain nations?”

  Otto laughed weakly and winced from the pain. “Maybe so... or perhaps they’d just rather deal with the devil they know. Fuck, why do you think the US Government allows the drug cartels to exist? My guess is there’s an implied line he isn’t supposed to cross, and maybe they think he’ll honor his promise. But that doesn’t sound like the Wilde I know. He wants it all.”

  And with soldiers like that he can take it. Everything. Something still seemed off about the theory, however. Wilde is old, past seventy-five. He won’t live to see the fruits of his rese
arch... or will he? That was the problem when dealing with diabolical minds like Wilde’s: they were capable of dreaming up anything and quite skilled in bringing those dreams to fruition. But Max dismissed the notion just as fast. He didn’t need to consult Swift to know that with the exception of a few tortoises, most reptiles did not live longer than humans. He thought of bringing up his longevity theory to Otto but decided against it with Swift in earshot. No more lectures in amateur herpetology... or juvenile pissing contests.

  Otto, pumped full of painkillers and antibiotics, soon fell asleep. Swift soon followed.

  Max dared not catnap. He had to watch his watchman, who lay prone by the entrance. He didn’t think Leseur would fall asleep on watch from laziness or inattention, not even the crash from his drug of choice, but rather from sheer exhaustion.

  Flint reported an hour after leaving.

  “How’s it look out there, over?” Max asked.

  “Enemy patrols in area. Return ETA one hour, out.”

  Max stood, stretched, grabbed his rifle, and went to the entrance. “Get some sleep, Leseur. I’ll take over.”

  Leseur nodded weakly and stood, nearly losing his balance. Despite the cool respite the cave provided from the tropical humidity, he sweated as though he were in a steam room.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Max asked.

  “Ah... uh... I am just tired, monsieur.”

  With Flint out in the field and a wounded man in his charge, Max didn’t have time to ponder Leseur’s behavior. Is it that odd for a junkie? He’s been fidgety from the start. “Sleep. Go get some.”

  Leseur nodded, took a spot on the floor a few feet from the others.

  Occasionally Max looked back to check on him and each time saw him hunched over with his face buried between his knees, continually rocking and fidgeting as he sat on his butt. He needs another good shit, whatever that entails.

  The jungle outside was alive with bird calls and the screeches of monkeys, along with other noises—faint engine sounds and the thumping of helicopter rotors. The chopper—perhaps the black one that had buzzed him and Heat on the boat—flew very close to the cave entrance before continuing on. Max didn’t sweat it. Flint had cleaned up their tracks around the entrance, which would barely be visible from the air through the jungle canopy.