Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

"What?" Rex asked, trying to contain his panic.

"Clean," Diego whispered. "Clean, clean, clean."

He lowered his head to the countertop and they all stayed quiet for a few moments. "Well," Rex said. "That's step one. We still need to check in with Everett to see if the squad has taken care of the accountable virus reservoir."

He pulled the transmitter from his pocket and placed it on his open palm, leaning toward it as he asked to be put through to Slammer Two at Detrick.

Samantha's voice came through clearly. "Yes?"

"It's clean," Rex said. "The water system is clean. Every last sample."

There was a silence.

"That's good news," Samantha said slowly. "But we've been unable to contact Cameron. Either her transmitter is down or she's… " She declined to finish the sentence.

Rex noticed that she'd only mentioned Cameron. He closed his eyes, pushing away his concern, fighting to stay focused.

"What does that mean?" Diego asked. "About the bombing?"

"Without confirmation that the virus reservoir is exterminated, there's not much we can do," Samantha said. "Unfortunately. They're going to send a medevac at 2200 to look for survivors."

"And the B1 departure is 2300?" Rex asked.

"Yes."

"You keep trying to contact them via transmitter," Rex said, "and we'll haul our asses to the airport for when the medic unit returns. With the soldiers, let's hope."

By the time Rex had shoved the transmitter into his pocket, Diego was already out the door. Rex and Ramoncito ran after him through the Darwin Station and down the winding dirt road that led to Avenida Charles Darwin, having a difficult time keeping up. Rex was surprised to realize that it was already nightfall.

When they reached the street, Diego was sitting in the driver's seat of a huge blue truck that was parked near the path to Hotel Galapagos, his hands working beneath the steering column. A pair of handcuffs dan-gled over the rearview mirror.

"You run fast for a stoner," Rex said, panting.

Diego jerked his head toward the passenger door. "Shut up and jump in," he said. He twisted two wires and the engine roared to life.

Cameron sat patiently, legs folded Indian-style beneath her at the south end of the road, about twenty yards north of the watchtower. The wind whipped over her shoulder, blowing to the forest. She gazed up the road into the Scalesias, watching the trip wires blend into the air as the sun sank from view. The air tinted with shadow, turning dusty gray, then black, but still the mantid did not appear.

The glow of the red flares in the shed became more pronounced as the light drained from the sky. Soon, the watchtower behind her was the only point of light in the dark landscape, a shining devil's eye. The squeals of the larva should have been horrifying to Cameron, yet she found them almost pleasing, riffs of a symphony she had composed. The watchtower's howls joined the larva's squeals, sometimes even over-powering them.

Underlit with the red glow of the flares, the larva continued to strug-gle against the hook, its head cocked back at an excruciating angle, its figure shadowed on the shed's inside. Cameron hummed to herself, the tortured outline writhing behind her.

She didn't understand what was delaying the mantid. The wriggling larva, in combination with the bright artificial light of the flares, surely should have drawn her attention by now.

Cameron sat in the dead center of the road, completely unprotected. Whether the mantid was attracted to the larva or to Cameron, she'd be heading down the road toward the watchtower. Cameron would stand and wave her arms once the creature appeared by the edge of the forest, drawing her forward across the trip wires. The two minuscule wires would be all that stood between Cameron and certain death.

Cameron was growing impatient, anxious about the mantid's delay. She stood, letting the wind carry her scent up the road to the dark leaves of the forest.

The moon cast the road in a pale yellow glow. Cameron stared hard at the dark mass of the forest, as if she could will the creature to appear. She expected to see her at any moment, the wide insect head leering on the thin neck, the legs pulling her forward, graceful and ungainly at the same time.

The howl of the wind rose to a pitch that for an instant drowned out the larva's piercing squeals. And then a shadow fell across the road.

Cameron whirled around, trying to figure out how the dark night could have gotten darker, and then she saw her, stretched wide across the watchtower. The mantid clung to the walls around the shed's mouth with her legs, spread wide like a spider in a web.

The mass of her body nearly filled the shed's entrance, blocking out most of the reddish light. Cameron stumbled back, surprised. It hadn't occurred to her that the mantid would circle around to the watchtower. For some reason, she had assumed that she would come directly down the length of the road.

For an awful instant, Cameron thought that it was a different man-tid-a new creature that she had not yet encountered-but then she rec-ognized the shattered eye and the black stock of the spear. She realized why the mantid was so much larger; she had molted. She'd taken so long to appear because her new cuticle was hardening.

Cameron glanced nervously down the dark road, trying desperately to recall the location of the trip wires. She'd have to get the mantid to run up the road toward the forest in order to trip the wires, opposite the direction for which she had planned.

The mantid pulled herself into the shed and stood in profile facing the larva. The red light outlined her dark figure, shining around her with a glow that looked almost divine. The rows of spikes on her raptorial legs glistened like fangs. Cameron could see exactly how they fit together, like the teeth of a bear trap.

Cameron started moving quietly up the road, backing up into the Abatis trap. She'd try to sneak under the trip wires and get the mantid's attention when she was on the other side. She hoped the creature would charge her, tripping the wires on the way.

Cameron would be all right if she could just get to the other side undetected.

The mantid leaned forward, her massive head angled. Through her unbroken eye she regarded the larva, her last dying hope for procreation. The larva writhed in pain, shaking its head back and forth, attempting to rip the hook free. The squeals from its spiracles reached a pitch rife with nearly human agony. Its posterior end plopped across the mantid's head, but the mantid did not flinch.

Cameron felt viciousness emanating from the creature like waves of heat. A drop of digestive fluid slid down one of the mantid's mandibles and dripped to the ground. The light of the flares reflected in the crea-ture's eye, which had again gone black with the night.

With one swift motion, the mantid lashed her legs at her squirming sibling, raking it from the hook. Clenched in her spikes, the larva screeched, the sound continuing even after its head rose into the crea-ture's mouth and was severed with a single bite.

Cameron felt her stomach churning, but she continued her slow pace, careful not to disturb the occasional rock on the road. As she backed up, her heel caught on a lip of the road raised in the recent earthquake, and she went down softly on her ass.

But not softly enough.

The mantid's antennae snapped erect, and she rotated her head and front legs, peering into the night. Cameron felt her stare, felt her locate her in the darkness. The creature's head split in a gargantuan soundless scream, the pieces of her mouth flailing in the cavernous rictus. The larva's head fell from the mouth.

Panic rose like vomit through Cameron's chest and she tasted it at the back of her throat. The road dug into her chafed palms as she watched, frozen.