Invasive (35 page)

Progress is slow and arduous. She hopes like hell to see her quarry ahead in the off-chance that she's beating them to the punch, but she doesn't. She expects to be shot. But she isn't. Then she begins to wonder: Did they leave the trail? They could have. They could have gone inward, toward one of the waterfalls. Or could she have passed them? Maybe they were back there at the beach, hiding.

Fear and worry are like ropes lashing around her neck. Her foot skids out, kicking a rain of stones off the cliff. She watches them tumble downward to the point she can't even make them out when they hit the sea.

Deep breath.
You can do this.
She winds around the outer bulge of a massive cliff, and then the narrow path tucks inward again toward the island.

At the end of Crawler's Ledge is a respite: a small stream, a grassy bluff, a circle of red stones. Hannah doesn't step into this clearing so much as fall into it, onto her hands and knees. She presses her forehead against the earth. She finds her water bottle and takes a greedy sip. She wants to cry, but doesn't.

She's not sure how long she stays like that. Too long, she knows. She should be up. Moving fast. The others will be. If they're even out here . . .

When she finally lifts her head, she sees that she is not alone.

Will Galassi is here.

H
e's dead. His face is the color of ash. His chest is dark with blood—the soaked-through shirt perforated with a small hole. His hands are curled up in his lap, fingers barely touching.

“That you?” he asks. Then his lids lift. The whites of his eyes are not white at all, but so shot through with red they look like cherry tomatoes gone ripe and ready to split.

“Will,” she says.

“Hannah.” The last syllable dragged out in a rattling, gurgling wheeze.

“Where is Einar?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Water,” he says, and she thinks,
Einar is going to a boat.
But then Will's hands lift a few inches off his belly and feebly caress the air. “Drink.”

Hannah hesitates, but cruelty seems to have no value here. Any anger she may have felt toward Will has dissolved. She pulls the water from her bag and takes it to him. He sips messily, greedily. Most of it goes down his chin.

“Gone where, Will?” she asks, more insistently.

“Red Hill. Heli . . .” He coughs and some of the water burbles back up over his lips. It's tinged with threads of red. “Helicopter.”

That means they got what they came for. They don't need Will anymore. “They got your laptop? With all your notes?”

He offers a small nod and a waxen smile.

“How many of them are there?”

He whispers, “Ffff. Five.”

“Einar, Venla, and three mercs?”

Another nod. She knew the other PMC was lying.

“Glad you're . . . alive,” he says. He reaches out and holds her hand. His grip is brittle. His fingers are cold.

What to say to that? How to respond?
I'm glad I'm alive, too. Sorry about you.
She offers a stiff, forced smile. “Why, Will? Why did you do it?”

“Why . . . wouldn't I? People are people. You ever . . . look at a YouTube comments section? You'd . . . want everyone dead . . . too.” A spark of mirth dances in his bloodshot eyes. “B-besides. I . . . didn't do this. I just . . . made the monster. Einar . . . set it
free
.” He leans forward with a grunt. Fresh blood drenches his shirt. He stares at her with an intense gaze, lifts one finger, and she realizes he's about to give her a lecture. It would be funny if it weren't so grim. His pedagogical tone begins: “And do you know . . . why Einar did . . . what he did, Hannah?”

Thing is, Hannah has had time to contemplate this. Time on this hike. Time over streams and under blooming plums, time in the dust and the dirt. Time snaking her way across the dreaded ledge.

“The mosquito,” she says. “
Aedes aegypti
.”

He nods and grins—a reaper's rictus, that grin.

“Einar knew that despite its success elsewhere, the politics in the U.S. would never allow him to bring his mosquitoes here. But if his hand was forced . . .”

“If he was made to fix his own . . . mistake . . .”

“Then he would demonstrate that the only way to fight these intrusions by nature—be they natural or unnatural—is to implement opposition through genetic modification. We would let the barbarian through the gate because we would need the barbarian to fight for us. A risky gambit, but he could claim that Archer Stevens was the one who forced his hand. And the government would trust him. And then the people would trust him. And he would again change the world.”

Will chuckles: a muddy gurgle. He makes the “okay” gesture with his hand, and says, “Thus endeth . . . the lecture.” He stares off at an unfixed point, until his stare unmoors. It's like it disconnects, suddenly. And she realizes:
He's not here anymore
.

Hannah steps back. Takes a few deep breaths. There's a part of her that gets it. She cannot on the surface acknowledge any nobility in what he did, no, but she understands. The world is a strange place. It's full of beauty and wisdom. But sometimes it feels like finding those gems means wading through human waste first. Reaching into the muck and slurry in the hopes of finding something good, something pretty. People are a mess. And they're making a mess of the planet. Why not return it to a time when humans were just a fingerprint upon its surface and ants ruled the world?

She has to catch Einar before he leaves. Though part of her thinks,
I could just go. Head back. My existence is enough to cause him trouble.
If his plan is to return to the world and be its woeful, obligated savior, her narrative will directly contradict his. But what evidence does she have? It'd be her word against his. He has Will's research. He has lawyers and money. Then there's Kit and Barry. Does he have them, too? Already they think Archer Stevens is behind it. Already they believe their job is to return to the world and fix what's broken.

It's too uncertain. She has to finish what she began.

Before she leaves, she looks around for supplies—anything Will may have left behind. No bag. They probably took it along with the laptop. Though she finds the act detestable—
I'm not some vulture picking bones,
she thinks—she pats down Will to see if he has something, anything, that can help her.

She finds a bulge in each of the side pockets of his cargo shorts. In each she finds a black disc. Like a hockey puck—a hole on one end sealed with a tight plug of pale wax. Two Myrmidon colonies. She almost drops them like they're burning her hands. She imagines the ants spilling out all over her, biting, stinging.

But somehow, she maintains her grip. And she remembers:
I have the spray.
Will's special concoction.

Einar and the others either missed these or didn't bring them on purpose—maybe they saw the colonies as a liability. After all, they reached their goal. No need to bring more ants with them.

Hannah pockets the colonies.

It's time to go and finish this.

T
he Red Hill is a mound framed by green spires behind. The ground rises up sharply—a few hundred feet over a quarter of a mile—and the earth is as red as a penny. Scrub and grass stick up everywhere.

Hannah crosses down into the valley, staying in the few shadows afforded by the hala trees. She's tired. Her legs ache. Her feet hurt.
Everything
hurts. Her mouth is dry even though the air is wet. Her greatest desire right now is to sit down and lie back and let the sun warm her skin and pretend like it's her alone in a problem-free world with a future that's fearless and uncomplicated.

But then, up ahead—small shapes move in the distance, like dolls on a child's stage.
It's them.
Einar and the others. Her heart starts tumbling in her chest like a boulder down a hill.
I'm almost there. Just a little farther.

She thinks to charge hard ahead—

And yet, her quarry isn't moving. Milling about the apex of that hill, yes. But moving past it? No. They're staying in place. Why?

The sun has risen up over Hannah's head and is now dropping back down over the other side of the sky, easing toward the horizon. Evening will be in a few hours. Hannah wonders: Is that what they're waiting for? It makes sense. If there is a quarantine in place and nobody is allowed to leave the island, a black helicopter flying under the cover of darkness gives them a greater chance of escaping uncontested.

Which means she has a few hours to plan her attack. Hannah hunkers down against the rough bark of a bottle palm. She drinks
water. Eats a protein bar. Checks the pistol, changes the magazine to the one she stole from the dead PMC in the stream.

The horizon claims the sun. Evening bleeds. Hannah removes her shoes. She coats herself in the spray, head to toe. It's a greasy mist, hanging on her, oily and slick. The smell is not unlike cooking spray.

At last she creeps down the hiking trail, up the hill. She puts as much speed in her step while moving along as silently as she can.

It's slow going, and for a while it feels like she'll never get there—like this is some absurd optical illusion where her destination continues to stretch out away from her, always drifting just out of range. But soon her targets begin to become larger shapes, shadows on the horizon of the hill, and though it takes a half hour of darting from cover to cover, their voices become clear.

An unfamiliar voice: “. . . this raghead piece of shit comes up on me, he's got a kid with him, and a fucking goat—”

Another: “Always goats. Do they not eat cows there? I swear to fucking Christ, I would've killed for a cheeseburger.”

“I think I
did
kill for a cheeseburger, but shit, Barnes, let me finish my story, will ya? So he's got a goat and—”

“Shh,” says a woman's voice. Venla. The two men keep muttering and she hisses at them: “I said
shut up
.”

Hannah thinks,
She heard me
. Her hand scrambles into her pocket and extracts one of the discs. Her nails find the wax plug and she prays:
Please let this work, please let this work,
and for a moment she can't bring herself to do it. The fear is too great. The memory too strong. Ants, swarming all over her. Biting her . . .

She swallows the fear. She drowns the memory.
You applied the spray. You're safe. They're your weapon now.
With her thumb, she pops the plug, gives the colony a good shake, then sets it down and hurries perpendicular to the trail, darting behind a shrub that looks like a series of sword blades jammed in the ground at a central point. She skids to a halt and lowers her head, peering through the V between bladed leaves.

Two shapes crest the hill and walk down toward her. Broad shoulders. Pistols drawn. Mercs, the both of them. One of them kicks into the puck. “The hell?” He bends down.

And suddenly he's shaking his arm like it's covered in fire. “Jesus Christ, Jesus shit, they're here—”

But his words begin to catch in his throat as his esophagus tightens.

Hannah remembers the feeling all too well. The tightness in the throat and the chest. The itching. The swollen tongue. The Myrmidons, doing their work.

The man's knees bend and he starts to sink to the ground even as the other man moves to help him—a mistake, but an understandable one.

Soon, the second man is down, too. Crying out. Gargling his own spit.

The third merc crests the hill.

Hannah springs from cover, gun up. While that third man is distracted, she moves fast, charging across the hard ground. He turns toward her too late. She takes no chances: three shots from the pistol spin him on his heel and drop him. For a moment she considers taking out the other two: one shot apiece to their heads would put them out of their misery fast and save them from the ants. But she has no time, and they are out of her way.

The real prize is on that hill.

Her legs carry her forward with long strides, the stones of the hill threatening to cause her to slip and fall, which only invigorates the pain in her ankle. Acknowledging the pain is not an option. Later, she will have time to recognize it. If she survives.

At the top of the hill, leaning up against a rock, is Einar. Arms crossed in front of him. “Hello, Hannah.”

Shoot him,
she thinks. Her finger tightens on the trigger—

Bang.

Something hits Hannah hard from the side. Her right foot takes a step forward, but it's like her leg has no strength in it. Like it's just
a rubber band with the tension let go. Her knee pops out of joint and she falls to the side. Her gun clatters away into the rust-red dust.

She tries to prop herself back up, but her left arm is a dead slab of meat—for a moment, it's a vacuum of any feeling at all. Then, as she tries to breathe, the pain comes in sharply. A bullet in her arm, in the biceps.
Through
it. Into the shoulder and collarbone beyond. The pain now reaching out with greedy tentacles, seizing the space under her jaw, under her armpit, all the way into her chest. It feels like with every breath she's sucking in razors.

Two shapes stand in front of her.

“Wait,” one of them says. Einar. His hand out, staying someone familiar: Venla.

“No talking,” Venla says, her words like cobra venom. “Let me end this. Aron will be here soon with the helicopter.”

“I like to talk,” he says. “It is my way.” He moves toward Hannah. “You have been shot. I hate to see you like this, Hannah. You impress me. I would love to have you working for me. Is that even possible? Can we get past all this?”

“Of course,” she says, scooting backward so that her back is against a rock. She thinks,
Just keep him talking
.
Buy yourself time.
She can tell that the bullet has done some damage. If she's out here long enough, it'll claim her. But if she could just think of something . . . “But I don't think you can afford me.”

He laughs. “I'm sure I can pay more than your meager salary at the FBI, Hannah. I did a background check on you. I know about your house, if you can call it that. Your car. Your life. It's very empty, that life. I could help you fill it. We could change the world, you and I. I could use a mind like yours. It's not just that you're smart. You're tenacious. A
survivor
.”

“Einar,” Venla cautions, but he silences her in Icelandic.

“If this is your idea,” Hannah says, the words suddenly lost in a flurry of painful coughs. She tries again, blinking back tears: “If this is your idea of changing the world, I don't want to live in it anymore.”

“I was just making do. You don't see that yet, do you? A problem presented itself in the form of Will Galassi, Ajay Bhatnagar, and their Myrmidon ant. But I am fond of turning problems into solutions.”

“The
Aedes aegypti,
” she says. Even speaking those three words sends new waves of misery through her. Her injury is getting worse. She wonders how far the bullet went in. Is the pain just from bone splinters? She feels a lot of blood—can see it, too, shining in the moonlit dark. Did the bullet hit an artery?

“Very good. Yes. That was a problem for me. This problem solves that problem. Pitting two abstract enemies against one another on the field of battle.”

“And the Blackhearts?”

“I have money. They are mercenaries. I paid.”

“You're a genius,” she says. She means it.

“I am.”

“You're also a monster.”

His silhouette tenses and recoils. The words that follow are bitter. “I am not. Not anymore. I am a better man than I once was.”

Her arm is ruined, she fears. It'll never work again. But she has to make it work.
Has to.
Right now. She wills her limb to respond—she attempts to summon something almost supernatural. God, a ghost, a magic spell. Or maybe, just maybe, her own adrenaline.
Push, push, push.
Her hand twitches.

Her fingers begin to crawl along like a reticent spider.

“I am feeling confessional,” Einar says. “You know the story I told you? About the Ethiopian man I saved from the two skinheads?”

She nods and wishes she hadn't. Fresh pain. More blood.

Her fingers at the end of her left hand—at the end of her shattered left arm—tease open her pocket.

“I was one of those skinheads. I killed the male prostitute, Hannah. With a broken bottle to the neck. He propositioned me and I felt such
rage
at that. My father . . . well. That's a story for another time, but the rage I felt was like a blast furnace. And the man I killed, I still see his face. I knew then and there how awful
mankind could be because I myself had manifested that awfulness. But I resolved to do better. To
be
better. To make this a better place for men like him and men like me. I wanted to change the circumstances. I wanted to save the world.”

Hannah's left hand finds the second and last black disc. Her thumb begins to wander blindly along its edge. Once it finds the soft wax, she begins to work.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.

“I have my own confession,” she says.

“
Einar,
” Venla says.

“Shush!” he chastens her. “Let the dying woman confess her sins. I respect her. I owe her that much. Go on, Hannah. Please.
Confess.
”

“The man . . .” She coughs again. Spit flecking her lips. She doesn't taste blood. Not yet, anyway. “The man who came onto our property when I was a girl? The vagrant. Roy Peffer. My father didn't shoot him.
I
shot him.”

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Inside the pocket, the wax pops off into her hand.

“I had my rifle. He kept coming toward me. He was saying things, strange things, and he wasn't right in the head. I shot him. I just did it. I didn't hesitate. My father took the blame. Because that's who he was. The kind of
man
he was. A good man. Not like you.”

Einar sighs. “No, not like me. But I'm here, and he is not. I'm sorry, Hannah.” He looks to Venla. “Do it.”

Venla steps closer, teeth bared, gun raised.

“
Wait,
” Hannah says—a desperate, fear-tinged word. In the palm of her hand, ants crawl. One wanders onto her fingers, and she remembers Will standing there on the other side of the glass. The Myrmidons swarming his fist.

She pinches. An ant
pops
under the pressure. Squish.

Alarm. Alert. The Myrmidons swarm in the darkness—

“I have another confession,” she says.

Einar eases back Venla's pistol again, but sighs as he does so. “Hannah, we have each told one another our sins. That is as it must be. Do not make this harder.”

“The ants . . .” Hannah grits her teeth and pushes past the anguish to draw her hand back out of her pocket. She can feel the bones inside her shoulder grinding. Every movement pumps new blood down her shirt.

She darts out her hand and catches Venla's ankle. The closest thing she can grab. “The ants are
here,
” she says.

“Yes, we know,” Einar says. “They will have their meal and by the time they come to us, we will be gone. Venla. Now.”

The tall, dagger-edged woman points the gun.

And then she flinches, crying out. Venla takes a step back, wrenching her ankle out of Hannah's weak grip.

“Venla?” Einar asks.

But the woman's face, even in the growing dark, cannot conceal the sudden panic. Her features freeze. Mouth open in a worried
oh
. Eyes so wide.

Something crawls across Venla's cheek. She screams—a scream fast stifled—and swallows as she begins to claw at herself with stiffening limbs. Ants crawl from Hannah's pocket in a trail toward her, their little bodies gleaming in the moonlight.

Einar wastes no time. He bolts in the other direction.

Hannah gets the elbow of her right arm under her, and using her legs she launches herself forward. Not toward him, but toward the HK45. She crashes against it, fumbling for the weapon as he darts toward the far side of the hill.

Hannah gets up on one knee. Trembling arm out. Gun heavy, so heavy. She remembers the same lesson she conjured from memory on the day she shot Roy Peffer. Her mother was worthless when it came to teaching Hannah things; the woman was too impatient, too angry at Hannah's immediate lack of comprehension and demonstration of skill.

So her father taught her how to shoot—she was ten at the time, though Mom wanted her to learn much earlier. He said, “Here's what you do, Hannah. Think about what you want to hit.” In that case, she wanted to hit a Dr Pepper can on a fence rail. “You breathe
in, then you breathe out. All the way out, like you're trying to push all the air from your lungs. When it's gone, don't think about anything. Don't think about the target. Don't think about that can. Don't think about me or your mom or any of the world's troubles. Empty your head and pull the trigger and I promise you—that can will jump like a frog who got his ass bit.”