Mutation

by Roland Smith

  “It’s complicated,” Dylan said. “Do you like to read?”

  “Of course,” Marty said. “Why?”

  “Because I wrote down the whole story.”

  “That’s right,” Marty said. “You said something about that back in Seattle. But I thought it was a story about Bigfoot. What does this Agent Crow have to do with that?”

  “He’s not after Bigfoot,” Dylan said. “But I do know what he is after, and that can’t possibly have anything to do with what we’re doing down here … but then why is he down here? I never thought I’d see him again, but it looks like …”

  “I hope the story you wrote down makes more sense than what you’re saying now,” Marty said.

  Dylan pulled out his smartphone. “I typed it up a while back. I’ve never let anyone read it.”

  “Fire it up.” Marty held out his hand. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

  Dylan gave him the phone. “Open the file called Sasquatch.”

  Marty took it down to the main deck, got himself comfortable in one of the hammocks, and started to read. He read straight through over the next several hours without even getting up to pee.

  Dylan had not only had several personal encounters with Bigfoot, but he had survived a volcanic eruption on Mount St. Helens. He had also stumbled across two hundred thousand dollars in cash stolen in an airplane hijacking by a man calling himself D. B. Cooper. Agent Crow had been after the hijacker, whose real name was Buckley Johnson. “Buck,” as everyone called him, was a retired wildlife biologist with a bum leg. He had injured his hip bailing out of the hijacked jet.

  “What do think?” Dylan asked.

  Marty nearly fell out of the hammock. He had been so engrossed in Dylan’s story he hadn’t noticed him sitting three feet away.

  “How long have you been there?”

  Dylan shrugged.

  “It’s fantastic!” Marty said. “Buck Johnson’s cabin with Pandora’s box and the lava tubes are real?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you been up there since the eruption?”

  “Once. My dad and me took my mom up there. She thought we were making the whole thing up.”

  “Did you see any Sasquatch?”

  Dylan shook his head. “There was enough physical evidence to convince her that we weren’t lying, but we didn’t see any of the animals. Like I said in the story, they’re pretty shy. I think we’d have to spend quite a bit of time up there before they’d let themselves be seen.”

  “When we get back to the States, can you take me up there?”

  “Sure.”

  Marty got out of the hammock. “I think we should try our hand at turning your story into a graphic novel. Of course, we’d have to change all of the names and locations so people don’t come up there looking for the Sasquatch. The cabin would be a perfect place to work on the sketches.” Marty paused for a moment, then asked, “So what do you think happened to Buck Johnson?”

  “After he returned the money, I never heard from him again. My dad tried to find him, but it was like he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “You think this Agent Crow is still after him?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, but I can’t imagine why he’d be looking down here. It’s been decades since the plane was hijacked, and Buck returned the money, and he saved Crow’s life up on the mountain. What’s the point?”

  “I think the point is that the FBI doesn’t give up.”

  “What’s this about the FBI and fugitives?” Ted appeared on deck, stretching and yawning.

  Marty told him about picking up Agent Crow at the barge, then started to fill him in about D. B. Cooper and Sasquatch. Ted listened for a minute, then held up his hand for him to stop. “We knew about most of this,” Ted told Dylan.

  “How?” Dylan asked.

  “Al Ikes did a background check on your family and interviewed your dad. Standard operating procedure for anyone trying to get a job on Cryptos Island. But I don’t remember him saying anything about the D. B. Cooper hijacking.” He smiled. “That would have stuck in my mind.”

  “That’s because he didn’t know about it,” Dylan admitted. “I didn’t tell him.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ted said. “We’ll pick up this Agent Crow and see what happens.” He looked at the sky. “It won’t be long before it gets dark. Just enough time for us to eat before we rev up the Rivlan.”

  Wolfe landed the helicopter in a narrow inlet next to a wooden dock. Luther was out the door and on the pontoon before the rotors stopped, but Wolfe didn’t seem to care.

  “Can’t blame him for wanting to get out and stretch his legs,” Wolfe said. “Long flight.”

  Grace looked out the window. Jake Lansa was the first to reach the dock, followed by an older man she didn’t know. Next came a woman with red hair, who had to be Dr. Lansa’s girlfriend, Dr. Flanna Brenna. Ana Mika and an indigenous man covered with tattooed jaguar spots followed closely behind.

  “Raul,” Wolfe said.

  Grace turned and looked at her father. “You know him?”

  “No. But I’m sure we’re going to become good friends. He and I are leaving as soon as I climb out of here.”

  “What?” Grace thought he would at least stick around camp for the night before heading off into the jungle.

  “We had a good tailwind coming upriver. Made better time than I thought. There are still a few hours of daylight left, and I want to take advantage of them.”

  “What about the hatchlings?” Grace asked.

  “You and Luther know more about taking care of them than I do. My priority right now is to catch up with Laurel and Dr. Lansa and help them look for Sylvia and Timothy. I want to make a side trip on the way. When I was down here before, I didn’t have time to visit the helicopter crash site. I want to see it for myself. Ted and Marty and Dylan will be along soon to give you and Luther a hand. I’ll stay in touch on the Gizmo and let you know how I’m doing. I’ll call in tonight, I promise.”

  He gave her a hug, grabbed his backpack, and barely said hello to the people on the dock before disappearing into the jungle with Raul, limping.

  Driven, Grace thought, worried about the limp, and wondering if she would ever get used to her father’s abrupt departures and his one-track mind.

  * * *

  It took them nearly two hours to unload the helicopter and haul the supplies to camp. The crated hatchlings were the last boxes they moved. Grace and Jake carried one crate. Luther and Buck, the older man who had met them on arrival, carried the other. They set the crates down inside their new enclosure.

  Buck leaned down and looked into one of the air holes on the top of the crate. There was a loud bang and a growl from inside. Buck reeled backward.

  “I wouldn’t be getting too close unless you want to lose something valuable like your nose,” Luther said.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Buck said. “When do we get to see the mystery creatures?”

  “As soon as I check out their new digs and make sure they can’t escape,” Luther said.

  The enclosure looked perfectly fine to Grace. In fact, it was the nicest enclosure the hatchlings had ever had. Certainly better than the high-tech dungeon Yvonne had set up beneath the Ark. This one had an indoor holding area and an outdoor corral. The holding area was ten by twenty feet and could be split in two with a gate if they needed to separate the hatchlings. Next to the holding area was a food prep area with a giant freezer, refrigerator, cupboards, stainless steel counters, tools, cleaning supplies, and an immersion tank to thaw out the meat. Ted had shipped in several hundred pounds of precut beef in five-pound freezer bags. All they had to do was take out a couple of bags, thaw them in the bath, and feed the meat to the hatchlings.

  “No more butchering,” Luther said, putting two bags in the immersion tank.

  Ted had also supplied some kind of generator that had enough power to light up the whole base camp.

  “This generator doesn’t mak
e much noise,” Buck observed. “And I can’t for the life of me figure out how you get fuel into it.”

  “I think it runs on —” Luther started.

  Grace gave him an elbow. It wasn’t their place to tell people about Wolfe and Ted’s inventions. “Ted will be here later,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll explain it.”

  They walked out to the circular corral, made from four-foot-tall fence sections seamlessly fastened together with some kind of magnetic locking mechanism. The corral was five times bigger than the holding area.

  “They’re going to love this,” Grace said. “They’ve never been outdoors.”

  Jake and Flanna were standing outside the corral, each resting a foot on the rail as if they were waiting for a rodeo to begin. Buck and Ana joined them.

  “This fence looks like it’s made out of stainless steel,” Buck said. “But it’s lighter than aluminum.”

  Luther looked at Grace. Apparently, he didn’t want to get another elbow in the side. “Some kind of special alloy,” Grace said.

  “Right,” Buck said. “Ted will explain when he gets here.”

  Grace smiled. She liked Buck. In fact, she liked everyone she’d met at the preserve so far and was looking forward to getting to know them better.

  “Time to blow their minds,” Luther whispered with relish. “You want to let them out, or should I?”

  Grace knew this wasn’t really a question. “Go ahead,” she said, and joined the others outside the corral.

  Luther strutted over to the two metal crates, glanced at the small crowd, then slid open the doors. The hatchlings had been banging around the crates for the past half hour, and Grace thought they would pop out like a couple of jack-in-the-boxes, but nothing happened. Grace was sure Luther was disappointed by the “reveal” and would try to prod the hatchlings out, but to her surprise he waited a few seconds, shrugged, then calmly joined them on the other side of the fence.

  “I’m sure they’re a little spooked after the helicopter ride,” he quietly. “And this is the first time they’ve been separated since they hatched.”

  “Hatched?” Flanna asked. “They’re birds?”

  “Not exactly,” Luther said. “You’ll see.”

  And they did. After a couple of minutes, one of the hatchlings snaked its long purplish neck out of the opening and looked around. There was a collective gasp from the preserve crew. At the sound, the second hatchling popped its head out and hissed.

  Grace had never heard them hiss before.

  Cautiously, they inched out of their crates, their heads bobbing nervously left and right at their new surroundings. They were as big as Shetland ponies now, but looked small within the enormous corral.

  “Oh my God …”

  “Impossible …”

  “They’re fantastic …”

  Grace barely heard their exclamations as she stared in awe at how the hatchlings were moving. Prior to this, the only two modes she had seen were sleeping and snapping. She glanced at Luther, who appeared equally surprised.

  “You think they’re okay?” she asked.

  “Pretty sure,” he said worriedly. “Hopefully, they’ll snap out of it when we feed them.”

  “Ha,” Grace said.

  “Amazing,” Flanna said. “I didn’t expect …” She shook her head. “I mean …”

  “I didn’t, either,” Jake said. “Who would have thought. Where are they from? How did you get them?”

  Grace had just started to explain when Ana’s Gizmo buzzed.

  “Wolfe?” Grace asked hopefully. He’d promised to check in when it got dark.

  “It’s Laurel,” Ana said.

  The last time Grace had seen Laurel was aboard the Coelacanth. Butch McCall had held a gun to Laurel’s head, threatening to kill her if Wolfe didn’t let Grace go with Noah Blackwood. Wolfe had refused. Grace had broken the impasse by voluntarily going with her grandfather.

  “Can you put her on speaker?” Grace asked.

  “Of course.” Ana switched the Gizmo to speaker and held it out so Grace could see Laurel on the little screen.

  “So you made it!” Laurel said with a broad smile. “Where’s Wolfe?”

  “He’s on his way to you,” Grace said. “He left with Raul as soon as we got here.”

  “He has a long way to go.”

  “Where are you?”

  Laurel laughed. “The truth is that we don’t exactly know where we are. The maps are wrong, and this Gizmo of Ted’s has been going in and out. I’ve been trying to check in for a few hours now. Doc’s setting up camp for the night. I finally talked him into a few hours of rest. He’s as bad as Wolfe.”

  “I heard that!” someone said offscreen.

  “Is that Doc?” Grace asked.

  “Who else?” Flanna said. “If you can hear me, Doc, you need to slow down!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Doc said.

  Everyone laughed.

  “The hatchlings arrived safe and sound?” Laurel asked.

  Ana pointed the Gizmo at the corral. The hatchlings had gotten over their initial fear and were now running around the perimeter like a couple of prehistoric puppies. Everyone laughed again but stopped abruptly when they heard the scream.

  “Who was that?” Ana asked.

  “Is everyone okay?” Flanna scanned the area around the enclosure.

  Suddenly, Luther shouted, “The Gizmo!”

  Ana stared at the image on her Gizmo’s screen. Laurel’s Gizmo was pointed up at the canopy, obviously lying on the ground.

  “Laurel?” Ana said.

  A rock came down on Laurel’s screen and the video call ended.

  Raul was a man of few words, which didn’t bother Wolfe in the least. He wasn’t one to waste time on idle chatter, either. And even if he’d wanted to talk to Raul, there wouldn’t have been time. Raul was leading him through the sweltering rain forest at a brutal and breathless pace. At the rate they were traveling, they would likely reach the helicopter crash site before dark.

  If I survive, Wolfe thought as he sipped from his canteen without stopping.

  His prosthetic leg was really bothering him. Ted had done a great job on the design, but one factor he hadn’t taken into account was the correlation between exertion, sweat, and chafing. The prosthesis wasn’t chafing yet, but it was starting to itch, which could lead to crippling problems if Wolfe didn’t take care of it soon. He was about to shout ahead to Raul to stop, but it turned out he didn’t have to. They had arrived at the helicopter crash site.

  The damaged trees had healed and the vines had grown back, but there were still a lot of debris scattered around: the charred fuselage, the twisted rotors, and other pieces too big to haul away and repurpose. Wolfe dropped his pack to the ground, fished his flashlight out of a side pocket, then limped over to the fuselage for a closer look. Raul silently gathered wood for a fire.

  Soon after Sylvia and Timothy had disappeared, Wolfe had heard a rumor that the helicopter had been shot down, which he’d discounted at the time. His sister and brother-in-law were journalists, but they rarely covered anything controversial enough to make them targets for assassination. Their specialty, their niche, was adventure travel. They covered the most exotic, hard-to-reach places on earth, Sylvia with her cameras and lenses, Timothy with his journals and Montblanc pens. After the crash, the local authorities had sent him Sylvia’s damaged camera and a couple of Timothy’s singed journals. There was nothing in the images or the scrawled words to indicate that anything was amiss, except for a cryptic note that they had new information about Noah Blackwood. This wasn’t entirely surprising. He, Ted and Ana, Sylvia and Timothy … all of them had been keeping tabs on Noah for years and sharing information with one another, but none of it had been enough to take Noah down.

  The fuselage was a blackened, charred hull. Vines and plants were already taking it over. In a year it would be completely absorbed by the rain forest. Wolfe examined the outside inch by inch with his flashlight but saw no sign tha
t it had been shot down.

  His Gizmo buzzed. It was Ana.

  “Something’s happened to Laurel and Doc,” she said, and gave him the bullet points like the great journalist she was.

  “Are their tags working?” he asked.

  “No,” Ana said.

  “Hang on.” He opened the tracking app on his Gizmo and found everyone’s location except for Laurel’s and Doc’s. This was bad. The only way to block the signal was to snap the tag in two. Glancing down at the screen again, he saw that Jake Lansa and Flanna Brenna were moving quickly through the forest. Ana said they had left camp fifteen minutes ago with the intention of rescuing Laurel and Doc.

  “Do they have a sat phone with them?”

  “Yes. I’ll send you the number, but Flanna said that the signal has been going in and out all day … mostly out.”

  “Great,” Wolfe said. “The smashed Gizmo doesn’t worry me. That could have been an accident. But both tags going out is an entirely different matter. How would a group of uncontacted indigenous people know what the tags do?”

  “And how would they know how to stop the signal?” Ana added.

  “Exactly. I don’t like this. Have you talked to Ted?”

  “No.”

  “Call him. Tell him what’s going on. I’ll try to catch up with Flanna and Jake, but it will be a while. I need to get some rest, or I’ll be no good. On top of that, I’m having a leg malfunction.”

  “Do you want me or Buck to come to you?”

  “Negative. You and Buck stay in camp and keep an eye on Grace and Luther and the hatchlings. I’m at the crash site. I’ll keep you posted.”

  He ended the call. He wished now that he had told Laurel and Doc to wait in camp for his arrival. He wished he had stayed in camp and done something about his leg before stomping off into the jungle.

  Stop! he told himself. It is what it is. Laurel is resourceful, and I’m sure Doc is, too.

  Raul had gotten the fire going. Thick smoke rose up into the canopy, which would keep the insects at bay, but Wolfe didn’t plan to be around long enough to be bothered by bugs.

  Two hours, maybe two and a half.

  The first thing he needed to do was check out the inside of the ruined helicopter, which had some risks. The fuselage was a perfect home for dozens of types of animals, many of which were lethal. Wolfe got Raul’s attention and pantomimed that was going to crawl inside. Raul looked at him like he was a fool, then held up a finger for him to wait. Raul found a long limb on the ground, quickly turned it into a pole with his machete, and handed it to Wolfe.