Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

There was a knocking on the window, and Samantha glanced over, one foot extended awkwardly before her. Colonel Douglas Strickland, Fort Detrick Base Commander, stood rigid in the hallway, watching her with something like disdain. Samantha lowered her foot and snapped off a crisp salute. Her hair had fallen forward in her face, and Kiera's NVME T-shirt was damp with sweat.

She walked over to the window. "Sir," she said.

Strickland watched her for a moment before speaking, his jaw shifting slowly to one side, then back again. Samantha wondered how he could stand like that-shoulders back, chest forward, beret tucked neatly beneath one elbow and pressed to his side. She made a note to work on Iggy's posture.

"Dr. Everett," he said. His nose bunched like a rabbit's, then loosened.

"Yes, sir."

"I'd imagine you're quite impressed with yourself, having backed us into a corner with this media stunt."

"Well, it-" He raised a hand and Samantha stopped short. When Colonel Douglas Strickland raised his hand, people generally stopped short.

"Allow me to proffer a bit of advice. I am not in the mood to field even the slightest amount of horseshit from you. I am here to speak, not to listen, and you are here to listen, not to speak. Is that clear?"

Samantha opened her mouth. Closed it. Nodded.

"Your viral load has continued to decrease, and we've cleared the anti-serum to be used on the pilot and stewardess."

Samantha began to smile but stopped when she read his expression.

He continued, his face betraying little emotion. "We've sent this case through for internal review. A JAG officer has already been assigned to the investigation. I am going to do everything I personally can to see that you're shitcanned. You may have the chops for science, darling, but an army major you're not. That said, I hope this ploy of yours is successful, that you might have something positive to remember during your early retirement."

He turned sharply on heel and began walking away. Samantha raised her fist to the glass and knocked once. He turned around.

"Sir," she said.

He raised his eyebrows, ever so slightly.

"I'm a Wellesley graduate with an M.D. from Hopkins, a Ph. D. in microbiology from the NIH, extensive clinical training at the EIS, and field experience on six of the seven continents. I ran the Viral Special Pathogens Branch at the CDC and, for the time being, I'm the Chief of the Disease Assessment Division here." She pushed an errant strand of hair off her cheek. "Don't call me darling. It just makes you look like an ass."

Colonel Douglas Strickland stared at her for a long, hard time. His mouth twitched once-Samantha wasn't sure if it was in anger, or the beginnings of a smile-and then smoothed back into his impenetrable face.

"Very well," he said. "Dr. Everett."

Rex hiked up the small trail cut into the cliff walls at Punta Berlanga, Derek, Cameron, and Diego following quietly. Above the cliffs, the ground was all rock, covered with low, scrubby saltbushes resembling haystacks. Rex let Diego navigate through the masked booby mating grounds. They crested a small rise, and dozens of the birds spread before them, spaced evenly across the lava.

One booby took a few halting steps and sky-pointed, angling its neck straight so its beak shot upward toward the sun. A bright white bird- save jet-black markings at the wing tips; a stout, yellow-orange beak; and a dark ring circling its beak and narrow-set eyes-the booby was odd-looking. It lowered its beak, panting, vibrating its wattle to shed heat. Most of the other boobies sat with their heads turned backward, accessing oil from glands on their rumps and brushing it through their feathers. Somewhere, a male sang a hollow, rustling whistle of a mating call.

A chick stumbled awkwardly out onto the path, and Diego halted, let-ting it cross. A fluffy white creature that resembled a little snowman, the chick leaned forward into the breeze, spreading its wings to practice flap-ping. Its white downy coat was patchy, its neck thin and fragile. Diego crouched, patiently waiting for the booby to cross. Cameron started to step around, but Diego raised a hand, snapping his fingers sharply, and she froze.

"Do not walk through the nesting grounds," he said.

Another masked booby chick stumbled ahead of them, its feathers ripped from the right side of its head. Darkened blood had crusted down its neck, and it wobbled unsurely on its feet. "What happened?" Derek asked.

Diego pointed to a nearby nest. "The females lay two eggs, but they only care for one offspring. The runt is murdered by its sibling, cast out to die of starvation or exposure, or attacked by its parents and killed."

Derek shook his head. "Christ," he said.

Rex shrugged. "Limited resources."

The chick fell over and struggled to rise, its eyes flickering in the sock-ets. Its wings pulsed twice, then stilled. Diego stepped over it and sig-naled the others ahead. They passed a group of male frigate birds in a tree ballooning their bright red gular sacs to draw the attention of females flying overhead.

Once they passed the aeries, Rex was glad to reclaim the lead. The steepness of the island's east side allowed them to pass through the vege-tation zones quickly. Palo santos dominated the arid zone, their forked, skeletal branches overgrown with wispy vines. From a burrow hidden beneath a flourish of saltwort, a land iguana watched them pass, not even bothering to lift its head. A distinct dusty yellow, the land iguana had a smaller crest than its marine counterparts, and its tail was shorter, not needed for swimming.

The underbrush thickened and grew more lush as they hiked up into the higher-altitude transition zone. Pega pegas-short-stemmed trees with spread branches and coarse, lichen-covered bark-sprouted virtu-ally everywhere, set off by the occasional mango tree. The higher reaches were infiltrated by introduced species, plants that the farmers had imported from the continents-avocado and mango trees, cedrelas, and balsas. These plants had proved aggressive in their active dispersal, invading the fragile vegetation with a predatory ease. Citrus sprang up like weeds wherever their seedlings had blown.

Clearly the main coastal thoroughfare, the trail climbed patiently upward before widening into a brief dirt road graded by the farmers. Rex pulled to a stop at the base of the road, which was split with a wooden tower rising fifty feet into the air. A structure built of weathered planks and crisscrossing boards, the tower supported a splintery ladder up one side, leading to a crow's nest of sorts, a precarious shack perched like a belfry. A makeshift widow's walk, it usually afforded the inhabi-tants a clear view out to the horizon, so they could anticipate the arrival of supply ships and the return of local fishermen.

The wind made a loud rushing noise as it whisked through the top of the watchtower. Leaning an arm against the structure, Rex paused. The road continued on, stretching a little more than two hundred yards between and past the farmhouses before fading into the Scalesia forest. Slender groves of towering balsas crowded the road. On either side of the tree-lined road sat crop fields and expanses of cleared pasture.

Most of the village houses were nestled among the balsas, but a few sat farther back, situated in the middle of plantain or yuca fields and angled to face the shadowy mass of the Scalesia forest. At its maximum, the island's population was twenty-three, but it had been rapidly drop-ping since the first quakes. The houses had seemingly been abandoned, and the fields had become overgrown with shrubs and scattered domes-tic plants. Big grassy wastelands, the fields would take decades to be reclaimed by the native forest.

Well into the cleared field to the west of the road, a few cows congre-gated in a pen beside a small bloque house, just beyond a stretch of castor oil plants. "We must figure out how to kill them," Diego said, watching the livestock graze. He ran a sleeve across his dripping brow. "But I'm pleasantly surprised by the lack of goats and dogs."