“That’s why she left?”
“She questioned other things too. She thought it was weird that Sans never left the reserve and… I don’t know. I think she was mostly homesick.”
“Couldn’t handle being away from her phone, probably,” Sydney smirked.
Andy frowned. “I’m not sure. I think there was more that she just wasn’t telling me. The vibe, she said…the vibe of this place is wrong.”
“What’s she talking about? This place is amazing. If I weren’t sick, I’d be enjoying this week much more.”
“She tried to convince me to leave with her, and to convince you too since I know you. She said she tried to talk to Brandon about it yesterday evening, but he was being a dick.”
“And what did you say?”
“I just told her she could do whatever she wanted, but that I was staying and I knew you’d do the same.”
“Damn right, I am. If that idiot wants to torpedo her grad school chances, she’s not dragging us down with her.”
Ramsay entered the room.
“Lunch is ready,” he announced.
Sans was once again sitting at the head of the table. Plates were prepared with sandwiches and he waited until they were seated to speak. “We’re just waiting on Brandon,” he said. “He’ll be here momentarily.”
A few seconds later, Brandon was led into the room by Graves, who looked cold and detached as usual. Once he was in his chair, Sans resumed talking.
“Courtney left about an hour ago on the plane. She’s being flown to Nairobi as we speak, where she’ll board a flight for Amsterdam that connects to New York later this evening. Fortunately, we were able to get this all arranged even at the very last minute. It turned out that, due to an emergency, someone on the Amsterdam flight had cancelled a few hours ago and that they were booked all the way back to the States.” Sans shrugged. “Sometimes, things just line up. Regardless, I’m not sure why she chose to leave four days in, but that is her choice. I hope that if any of you have comments or concerns, you will direct to them to me. I’d like to remind you that I personally selected you from a large pool of candidates and I value your input deeply. Just let me know.” He smiled.
They all nodded.
“Good. I know Sydney, Brandon, you two have been feeling under the weather lately. Nurse Graves will continue to monitor you and I hope you recover soon. With luck, next week will run much smoother.”
He stood up and made his way for the foyer just as Chang walked in. “Have you seen Jones?” Sydney heard her ask.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t,” Sans said. “He must be around.”
He continued on as Chang, looking concerned, joined them at the table for lunch. Sydney thought about when she had last seen Jones, dressed in all black and sneaking away into the dark. Her mind mulled over that image as she ate her sandwich.
That night around ten o’clock, Sydney was finishing brushing her teeth when she saw distant, moving lights out of the north-facing window. She spat the toothpaste into the sink and walked over to get a better view.
Just like the night before, there were two Land Rovers driving off into the savanna. She went to the western window and watched the ground for the next several minutes, half-expecting to see Jones slinking off again. She didn’t. In fact, she hadn’t seen the man all day. Chang’s face had been a mixture of worry and confusion at dinner. She’d barely paid attention as Sans narrated the story of a near-death brush with a lion in South Africa. And then there was what Andy had said about Courtney not telling him everything.
Things weren’t adding up. Something wasn’t right here.
Sydney decided to put those thoughts out of her mind and went to sleep.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN
The next morning was Friday. Sydney entered the dining room to find that Brandon wasn’t there. It was strange, she thought, given that he had been here before her every day this week. Andy sat at his usual place while Sans and Chang were situated at the head of the table, but there was still no sign of Jones.
She sat down across from Andy and began devouring the omelet in front of her. Sydney felt just as hungry as she had yesterday, but now it felt as if the fever was starting to come back. She’d almost gotten used to the dull ache that seemed to permeate every fiber of her body. At least her stomach would feel better once it had food in it.
Sydney wondered if she should ask Ramsay for another day off. With Courtney bailing out, her work ethic would still look good by comparison. And it wasn’t like she was slacking; she’d been feeling sick for the past three days now. She thought about the flies swirling around the decaying carcasses. Had that really been the cause of all this? Or was it something simpler, like Andy had said? Just a nasty side effect of the vaccines?
She wanted to see if there had been any other strange animal kills in the past few days, and she wanted to have tests run on the dead wildebeest, if there was anything still left of them at this point.
A moment later, Ramsay led Graves in through the front door and straight up the stairs towards the bedrooms.
“I guess Brandon’s taking a sick day,” Andy said, sipping orange juice. “If he can’t make it, would you mind if I joined you out in the field?”
“Sure,” Sydney said, her mood brightening. “Is that allowed?”
Andy shrugged. “I don’t have a partner anymore, so I’m sure Ramsay wouldn’t mind if I ‘tagged along’ for the day.” He winked.
She put a hand to her head. “Fuck off.”
Ramsay said he’d have to ask Sans for approval, but a few minutes later he came back and told them yes. They both got dressed into safari gear and met in the garage, where Ramsay went over the injector procedure with Andy. Then they drove out into the reserve.
“What’s the difference between the Mark VIIs and the Mark VIs?” Andy asked.
“Mark VII monitors vital signs,” Ramsay said, keeping focused on the terrain ahead.
An idea suddenly popped into Sydney’s head. “So it would tell you if the animals are dead or not?”
“That is correct.”
“And it tells you from the GPS, right?”
“Yes, the Mark VII-chipped animals will have their dot on the map change to gray if the device stops reading vital signs.”
“Have any of them died since we’ve tagged them?” Sydney asked.
“We’ve only tagged 14 this week, but–”
“Can we zoom out on the whole reserve?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Give me a moment,” Ramsay said, alternating between looking ahead and tapping the touchscreen to adjust the viewing area. She saw red dots all over the map for the animals with only Mark VIs, but the ones with the latest implants had both red and blue dots side by side since both iterations of the chip were still active. In an area towards the border with Serengeti National Park, there was a lone, unmoving animal with both a red and a gray dot overlapping. “One of them is deceased,” he said, then frowned. “That’s odd.”
“What is it?” Andy asked.
Ramsay turned the wheel to steer them in a new direction.
“It’s an elephant.”
The Land Rover slowed down at the top of a small hill. Below, a river ten feet across twisted through the land. All three of them climbed out of the vehicle and walked forward to get a better look. Sydney felt her hairs stand on end as she gazed down at the sight before her.
Resting on the riverbank was an enormous, bloodied skeleton. Large chunks of flesh still clung to the bone in some places, and the ribcage was shattered. Pieces of it lay on the ground near scattered remnants of the creature’s intestinal tract. The head was intact, but the eyes had been eaten and there wasn’t much meat left on the skull. The two ivory tusks, however, were unscathed.
“Well at least we know it wasn’t poachers,” Andy remarked.
Ramsay squatted and examined the ground nearby. A moment later, he stood up. “Hyenas have been here.”
“But what killed it?” Sydney asked, gr
owing worried. “Adult elephants have no natural predators. They’re too big.”
“It could’ve been injured,” Ramsay said. “Weak animals are always susceptible to attack.”
She shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted down at the remains, carefully scanning the entire body for any sign of a fracture that wasn’t clearly caused by the attack. “The legs are all fine. The damage to the ribcage must’ve been from the killers.”
“Maybe it was sick,” Ramsay shot back. “Whatever the reason was, something killed this animal. My guess is a pride of lions. But now it is dead, and there is nothing we can do about it. That’s how nature works.” He started walking back to the driver’s side door.
Sydney followed him. “Wait, but that’s not normal. There have been two instances of strange predatory behavior here over the past week, starting with the wildebeest. And I bet there’s more. Look for more small dot clusters of herbivores that aren’t moving. Look for unusual migration patterns within the limits of the reserve.”
Ramsay turned around and folded his arms. “What are you getting at? Sans personally selected which animals at which zoos he wanted DNA taken from to create a perfectly stable ecosystem. They were all healthy and normal. We have a complete list of species here and keep a close watch on all of them. There are no surprises here.”
“Then how do you explain that?” Andy chimed in.
Ramsay’s eyes narrowed. “I told you. It probably got sick.”
“But when we tagged it a few days ago it was perfectly fine,” Sydney said, remembering.
“It seemed fine. Viruses can lay low within a host’s body. Sometimes the primary symptoms don’t come out until days or weeks after it has entered an animal’s system. The early effects might be mild or not even noticed at all. We saw this elephant for no more than fifteen minutes.”
“The animals can’t get out of the reserve because of the electromagnetic emitters, right?” she asked.
Ramsay nodded. “That is correct.”
“But what about something else getting in?”
“What do you mean?”
Sydney wiped sweat from her brow. “I think there might be an invasive species here, or a species infected with some behavior-altering virus. And I think the virus was left in those carcasses earlier in the week, and the flies transmitted it to both me and Brandon by biting us.”
Ramsay looked as if he was trying hard not to laugh. “I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.”
“But it makes sense. You were probably right about the lions – but they’ve been infected with something, kind of like a rabies virus – but not rabies, obviously, cause Brandon and I don’t have rabies and…” She realized she was starting to ramble now and making herself look like an idiot.
“There’s a rational explanation for all of this,” Ramsay said. “I’m sure your sickness is related to the vaccines and in a few days, will be a distant memory. This” – he pointed to the elephant carcass – “is the result of predators preying upon a weakened animal. And I’m sure there’s a good explanation for the wildebeest too. Just because we don’t know it yet doesn’t mean we should jump to conclusions.”
He opened the door. “Now, we have work to do.”
Sydney headed for the back. Andy continued to stare down at the skeleton for a moment, then he followed her.
“There’s definitely something going on out there,” Andy said. They were sitting on the second-story balcony, sipping some pina coladas that Fatou had made them. Sydney figured if she could have several more of these, she actually might start to feel better.
“Do you think Courtney was maybe right to leave?” she asked.
“What do you mean? Of course not. You’re not thinking of–”
“No, no,” she said. “It’s just…don’t you find it weird that Ramsay doesn’t want to consider any other possibilities?”
“No, not really. He’s the type of person who doesn’t like to draw conclusions prematurely. I don’t blame him. Personally, I’d say something is unusual with that dead elephant and the other animals you described earlier this week. But I’m sure there’s a reason that makes sense. We just haven’t found it.”
“But what about everything else going on here?”
“Like what?”
“Like Jones.”
“What about him?”
“Haven’t you noticed he’s been suspiciously absent these past two days?”
“He’s got to be around here somewhere Sydney,” Andy said. “We’re in the middle of the Serengeti. Where could he have gone?”
“A few nights ago, I saw him sneaking around outside my window. He went off into the woods and the next day he’d disappeared. Doesn’t that seem suspicious?”
Andy massaged his forehead. “You’ve been reading too many Crichton novels.”
“And on the first day, Ramsay was all worried about us not getting back before dark. But for the past two nights, I’ve seen these Land Rovers driving out there.” She pointed to the grasslands. “And on top of that, we’ve got something eating fully-grown elephants that nobody seems to care about. I mean, for fuck’s sake, how are you not worried about this?”
Andy took a deep breath. “I’ll admit, it’s all a little strange.”
“Just a little?”
“Maybe more than a little, but Sans knows what he’s doing. If there was something really wrong out there, he’d do something about it.”
Her eyes lit up. “What if he already is?”
“I don’t follow.”
“What if they’re heading out each night to try and track down the predators or whatever is doing this? I mean, predators hunt at night.”
“And why wouldn’t they tell us?” Andy said. “We’ve signed NDAs.”
“What if they didn’t want us to be worried about working out there?” Sydney said. “Or they don’t know enough yet to want to tell us.”
“Well, there’s no way for us to find out.”
“We could sneak into the garage and attach a camera to one of the Land Rovers and see where they go…”
Andy shook his head. “This isn’t a Tom Cruise movie, Syd.”
“But come on, we’ve done stuff like this before. I mean, remember that frat party where we had to sneak upstairs to get Megan’s stolen phone back? I had to leave through the fire escape.”
“And for the record, I advised against that.”
“They always leave around ten at night. We could do it around nine and review the footage tomorrow.”
“Do you have a camera?” he asked.
“I brought a GoPro for safaris and stuff but I haven’t used it because I’m not sure how strict they are with the NDA. We’re not allowed to take photos of the lab equipment, but I’m not sure if filming the savanna at night counts.”
“I’m pretty sure spying on them would be a direct violation.”
“Come on, we can do it,” she said.
“Wouldn’t the battery die before they get out there?”
“It has enough for two hours. If we put it on just after nine and they leave at ten, we’ll have at least the first hour of whatever they do.”
“Does it have a night mode?”
“No, but if we put it right under the mounted lights, we’ll see enough,” she affirmed.
“And how do you know which Rovers they’ll take out?”
“We’ve only ever used the first two closest to the door during the day and I think I saw some extra equipment on the ones at the far end.”
He sighed and looked off the balcony.
“Please,” she said. “And then if it’s a bunch of nothing, you can mock me for this all next year.”
“Alright,” he said, hefting his pina colada. “But when this is done, I’m going to need another one of these.”
GARAGE
Everything was pitch black outside the windows as they crept downstairs. Sydney stopped and peered forward, trying to see if anyone was sitting in the dining room. The coast w
as clear. They continued into the foyer and hung a right, moving down the corridor that led towards the garage. Another hallway branched off here for the staff living quarters, so they waited a moment and listened for sounds before proceeding.
Finally, they reached the door.
Sydney glanced behind them to make sure no was coming, then she and Andy entered and gently closed the door behind them so it wouldn’t swing shut. She glanced around. It was dark, the only light coming from a tiny fluorescent strip hanging from the center of the room. She could barely make out the vehicles as shadowy shapes in the faint glow. Andy reached for the light switch.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“If anyone comes in and sees the lights on, we’re toast.”
“Are there flashlights?”
“Check around.”
Feeling along the wall beside her, she found what felt like a rope.
“Got some, over here,” Andy said from a few feet away. He clicked on a large LED flashlight, illuminating a table before him that had several more waiting next to a load of other night gear. Sydney grabbed one and turned it on, shining the powerful beam around the room. She felt goosebumps on her skin and the feeling that they shouldn’t be in here.
“Let’s do this quickly,” she said.
“It was your idea.”
“I know, but we can still get it done quickly.”
She slid past the front grill of the first Rover and started making her way down the row. Sure enough, as she shone the beam across the two vehicles at the far end, she saw they’d been retrofitted with additional racks.
“Can you find some tape?” she said.
She could see Andy’s light dancing around on the shelves at the back of the garage. “I’m looking.”
Sydney glanced at her watch. 9:05. Sans most likely wasn’t going to leave for another hour, but she didn’t know at what point he and his staff came in here to set up.
“Found some,” Andy said, pulling a roll of duct tape off a rack–
Safari: A Technothriller Page 7
