Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Something was indeed very wrong with these men.

The job of the sertanistas is to never harm the indigenous people they protect, even at the cost of harm to themselves. One of the most famous sayings among the FUNAI is actually a dire warning: “Die if you must.” But on this night, Brink was revealed to be a veteran soldier, not a conservator. Like most visitors to this place, he was not willing to risk his own life to protect this tribe who lived deep in the Amazon jungle.

Brink was not, in fact, affiliated with FUNAI, as he had indicated. Instead, he was a seasoned veteran with a tenacity borne of countless clandestine operations for obscure agencies in remote places throughout the world. Moving like a machine, he crept forward, scanning the jungle and occasionally squeezing the trigger of his battle rifle.

Each shot was a death sentence—his aim was impeccable.

Brink had been abandoned by his own indigenous mercenaries. He was outnumbered and facing annihilation in the form of primitive but deadly axes and arrows. Operating on a lifetime of soldier’s instinct, he employed superior training and a fifty-thousand-year gap in weapons and sensor technology to ruthlessly eradicate the threat before him.

Stepping carefully through the jungle, rifle on the high ready and one eye on his scope, Brink fired at anything that moved. He was not worried about whether the target was a friendly Matis guide or a hostile Machado—he considered them all enemies now.

In three minutes, Brink had nearly accomplished his objective.

When the bite of a stone ax glanced off his shoulder blade, Brink spun and fired on instinct. His bullet punched a fist-size hole in the Machado before him and sprayed a blood mist over the waxy leaves of a nearby kapok tree.

At first, Brink assumed he was fine. The blow had only grazed the meat of his shoulder. While painful, it had not shattered any bones, and he still had free range of motion. He could feel a warm wetness spreading down his back and into the seam of his trousers. After a few seconds the feeling went away.

Though Brink could not see it, the rivulet of blood trickling down his back had quickly clotted into a fine red dust.

For thirty seconds, Brink continued walking, sweeping his rifle back and forth and finding no remaining targets. He kept one eye on the brightly lit scope, occasionally closing it and opening his other eye (still adjusted to the dark) to scan the area around him.

Eleven minutes had elapsed, and every attacker lay dead.

Seven corpses were sprawled among the trees. Five of them were the bodies of the devil-like Machado. The other two Brink would have recognized as his own Matis workers. Nevertheless, Brink’s mission parameters were satisfied.

The scientists appeared safe, if terrified. The operation could now continue, with the field team easily reaching the destination in time to make the noon rendezvous the next day. At this thought, Brink leaned against a tree in relief. Lowering his rifle, he allowed himself a grim smile.

He had cheated death yet again.

The rueful smile was still on Eduardo Brink’s face as dawn broke over the jungle twenty minutes later. His body was found leaning peacefully against the blood-spattered tree trunk, fingers still wrapped around the grip of his battle rifle.

Alpha and Omega

IN THE PREDAWN DARKNESS, PENG WU HAD LISTENED from her hiding spot as the other three scientists scrambled to safety in the myriad roots of the walking palm. As the attack unfolded, Peng slipped out of her hammock and crawled to a large nut tree at the edge of the clearing. Drawing her PLA-issued combat knife, she crouched to make herself a smaller target, keeping a solid wall of wood behind her. From this strategic position, she resolved to stab anything that might come at her from the front.

Peng had assumed that if the Matis failed to defend the camp and a final attack came, it would wipe out the helpless scientists who were clustered together. She did not intend to be among the victims. So she sat alone, blindly scanning the darkness and catching details through the lightning-strike flashes of gunfire.

The close-packed jungle foliage deadened the barking reports of weapons. Occasional screams and shrill war cries seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. These sounds soon became more sporadic, eventually dying out altogether after ten long minutes. Peng listened carefully, tensed for a last attack. She heard only a final gasp of surprise, and guessed correctly that the noise had come from Sergeant Brink.

Whatever had gone wrong, Peng was determined to figure it out first.

As the other scientists began to compose themselves in the first gray light of morning, Peng carefully unfolded from her hidden perch. She noted a pale scrape of bark near her face, where an arrow had narrowly missed. Moving quickly and quietly, she crouch-walked to the camp perimeter, knife out and extended before her.

Along the way, Peng spied several corpses lying sprawled among the underbrush and gnarled tree roots. The tree trunks and foliage had been blasted and shredded by bullets, leaves stained red with horror-movie spatters of blood and soft tissue. These bodies would bear more inspection. Even at a glance, the skin seemed covered in a reddish pigment that was clouded with blotches.

Peng kept moving, giving the mangled bodies a wide berth. In the distance behind her, she could hear the hushed voices of the field team.

Seconds later, she spotted Brink’s burly silhouette. He was leaning casually against the fat base of a rubber tree, holding his battle rifle on the low ready. The night scope projected a green circle of light onto his bicep.

“Brink,” whispered Peng, stepping closer.

Approaching from behind, Peng put out a finger to tap his shoulder but stopped before touching him. Something felt wrong. Unnatural.

This was not Eduardo Brink, not exactly.

Peng worked to contain a thrill of panic. She was reminded of being a little girl with her parents gone away on PLA business, left behind to face unknown rules and consequences. She had learned to distance herself from overwhelming feelings by treating the world like a game. Over the years, Peng had become a cool and methodical person precisely because she struggled with anxiety.

Struggled, but never lost to it.

Backing away carefully, controlling her breathing, Peng glanced behind her. She was still alone.

Slowly, she circled around Brink.

The corpse was still smiling, eyes clouded over with gray flecks of a metallic-looking substance. It seemed he had leaned against the tree to catch his breath and then somehow been frozen there in death. Across his broad shoulders, Brink’s tan jungle shirt was ripped open. A small skin laceration was visible, partially hidden from view where it was pressed against the mottled bark of the rubber tree.

His body sagged, but something was holding him upright.

In this brief moment, Peng Wu was not foolish enough to touch the corpse. Instead, she hastily unzipped the interior pockets of Brink’s personal kit bag. As a former soldier, she would have known this compartment was where special forces troops often kept mementos, maps, and ongoing mission notes.

Among Brink’s effects, Peng discovered a small waterproof packet labeled:

FAIL-SAFE—FAIL-SAFE—FAIL-SAFE

Unraveling the packet, she extracted a black plastic container about the size of a Zippo lighter. Inside this protective case was a vial containing a sickly-looking amber liquid. It would have been obvious to the former soldier that the thick fluid was some kind of nerve agent—a deadly and discreet poison.

The glass vial was etched with the code word OMEGA. It was the final letter of the Greek alphabet, signifying the end of all things.