Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“Sure.”

“Now, rippling muscles work by a very different concept. When rippling muscles tense, or fire, they almost undulate, sort of like a dolphin’s body undulates when it swims. So when the muscles at the top of a wing undulate in the same direction as the air, they increase the air’s velocity, and that creates greater lift.”

“OK.”

“And when a separate set of rippling muscles at the bottom of the wing undulate in the opposite direction, they decrease the air’s velocity there. So this creates an even greater difference between the two airspeeds. One moving much faster than normal on the top, the other moving much slower than normal on the bottom. Collectively, that creates significantly greater lift. Fink conducted some lab tests in wind tunnels in Geneva last year that concluded the difference is exponential. ”

“Holy cow.”

“You have no idea. It can increase lift by a factor of five hundred times, maybe more. Rippling muscles are how Quetzateryx flew, Jason.” He pointed to what was in the cage. “And they’re how this animal flew, too.”

Jason eyed the creature behind the bars, scanning its back, wondering if he could actually… Jesus, I see them. There they are. They were clearly visible beneath the leathery black skin: a million different little muscles, each an inch or so wide, stretching from the head down to the tapered backside. He actually saw them rippling ever so slightly when the animal breathed. He’d never seen muscles move like that in his life.

Craig shrugged. “But obviously, the reality’s different from the theory.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean rippling muscles may work well in theory, but the reality—for this animal at least—is that they didn’t work well enough.”

Jason noticed the animal was staring at his feet now, and was clearly in very bad shape, sickly, and breathing heavily. He tapped his hand against the bar, trying to get its attention, but it didn’t move. “Has its condition worsened?”

Lisa looked down at it. “We just hoped it would stay alive until you came back.”

“Should we try putting it in the water?”

“We already did.” With the help of a boat crane, they’d lowered the entire cage into the sea. “It almost drowned.”

“It did?”

“You know how quickly gills dry up.”

“Right.” Gills become unusable in a day. “What about food? Have you tried feeding it?”

Lisa shook her head. “Everything. It won’t eat. It won’t eat a damn thing.”

Jason began pacing. “Well… we’re going to test it anyway…. Vision. Hearing. Smell. Radar. Sonar. Magnetic abilities… I want to test this animal for everything.”

Not hearing him, Lisa suddenly crouched next to the cage.

“And these rippling muscles. We’ve got to find out how they fire, determine their strength. And its breathing, and…”

“We’re not testing for anything, Jason.”

He turned to Lisa. “What? Why not?”

“Because I think it just died.”

“No…” He crouched down. Behind the bars, the animal’s eyes were closed, and its body wasn’t rising and falling anymore. “Son of a bitch,” he said quietly. “Son of a bitch.” No one else spoke. The only sound was from Phil Martino’s rapidly tapping keys.

Then Jason cleared his throat. “Let’s start the autopsy. Right away.”

FOR THE next few moments, no one said a word. They simply stared at the dead creature in the cage. As Monique studied it through the bars, she reconsidered the events of the past twenty-four hours. This animal is going to be huge, she thought. Much bigger than a new species. A species, the most basic of animal classifications, was defined as a group of physically and genetically similar animals. Related species composed a genus, related genera made up a family, and related families constituted an order. She eyed the dead predator. The key to animal classifications was that they were somehow related. But was anything— anything at all —truly “related” to this animal? Mantas were, of course, but that was a distant link from the days of Pangaea. In their current form, mantas were entirely different from this animal and lacked everything that made it so fantastic—the large predatory brain and the ability to think, breathe air, possibly fly. Was there anything else, any order of animal ever, now or in the past, that could be classified with it? She couldn’t think of one.

“Come on!” Jason pulled hard on the cage door, straining to get it open.

Darryl looked down to him. “Want a hand with that?”

“I can get it.” He yanked even harder, giving it everything he had.

“See, Darryl.” Lisa patted Jason’s back playfully. “He can’t even rely on someone to open a cage.”

Darryl watched Lisa’s hand closely. She wasn’t patting Jason’s back the way he would have. It was much more gentle, intimate even. Then Lisa saw him looking and removed her hand. Is something brewing between them? Darryl wondered.

The door popped open, and Jason looked up at her. “See?” He opened it fully. Then he just stood there. He didn’t enter the cage, didn’t even move. He just looked at the animal. There were no bars between them now and he wondered if it was really dead. He ducked his head slightly, stepping onto the metal.

“Be careful.” Lisa suddenly felt very nervous.

He took another step and entered the cage fully. The predator was just a few feet away now. He leaned down to touch it. His hand moved closer. Then closer still. Then suddenly jolted back.

“Oh my God!” Lisa stammered.

Jason exhaled. The creature hadn’t moved. “Sorry—nerves.” He touched the skin. The animal didn’t budge. It was dead. “Phil, Darryl, Craig—can you give me a hand with this?”

THE RAY was belly-up on a pair of pushed-together operating tables. Its wings drooped lifelessly over the tables’ sides, its middle so thick it almost looked like an inverted sea turtle.

As Phil jumped to and fro snapping pictures, Lisa touched the white skin. It was thick and leathery. Fantastically so, perhaps tougher than rhino skin.

Sweating from having just helped to lift it, Craig crouched beneath the tables and looked up at the horned head. Jesus, that’s a big mouth. Wide enough to swallow a physics text whole. He put his hands on the jaws and tried to pull it open. It didn’t budge. He pulled as hard as he could. Nothing. He pulled again, really straining. Not a damn thing. Annoyed, he looked up at Darryl. “Gimme a hand?”

Darryl joined him, and together they yanked.

It still didn’t budge, and Darryl paused. “Back away a sec. Let the Big Dog try solo.”

“Be my guest.” Craig got up, and Darryl carefully positioned his hands. Lisa watched as he pulled as hard as he could, forearms straining mightily. The mouth slowly opened. Holy cow. Propped open, it reminded Lisa of those shark jaws from museums, except considerably more frightening. Look at those teeth.

The fat S-shapes were as wide as shot glasses at their base, with dagger-sharp tips, and too numerous to count. They were the teeth of a child’s nightmare.

Summers eyed some pus oozing out of a closed eyelid. “This animal died of GDV-4.”

Phil paused from his pictures. “You sure?”

Craig almost laughed. “Yeah, Phil. I’m sure.”

Phil got back to snapping. “Don’t forget the recorder, Jason.”

Jason turned it on, snapped on some surgical gloves, then turned to Lisa. “Want to assist?”

“Oh, sure. Uh…” She quickly rooted around a cabinet for a lab coat. Putting it on, she didn’t notice Jason’s disappointment when her hips disappeared behind the white fabric.