Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

TRY THIS one, Jason.”

Craig handed him a Winchester Game 94 rifle.

Under fading bleak skies, they were half a mile offshore of Redwood Inlet. They’d been practicing shooting for hours, aiming at a huge floating target Craig had set up in the ocean. The size of a Las Vegas roulette wheel with big white and blue rings and a faded red bull’s-eye, the target sat on its own little raft, weighted heavily so it bobbed as little as possible when a wave struck.

Jason nodded, taking the rifle. The previous one, Craig’s old Mossberg RM-7, had been surprisingly heavy; but this one, he felt right away, was much lighter.

“Load it, aim, then fire. Phil, when he’s done you’ll go.” Craig turned to Monique. “Lisa still doesn’t want to shoot?”

“That’s why she’s at the front of the boat by herself, Craig. All right, I’m gonna go hang with Darryl. Let me know if you need a hand with this.” She went below deck.

“OK, get to it, Jason.”

Jason aimed carefully, waited as a big wave splashed the target, and… Bang! The rifle kicked back with a violent jerk, and he missed completely.

Craig shook his head. “Pay attention, and watch the recoil. This is a lighter gun. Hold it firmly but not too tight.”

“OK.” Jason drew the rifle close, eased down on the trigger again and… Bang!

Craig nodded. “Three rings from the bull’s-eye. Not bad at all. OK, Phil, now you.”

“Oh, sure.” Phil pivoted and inadvertently pointed his rifle right at Craig when… Bang!

“Jesus Christ!” Craig felt a bullet whistle past his ear. He grabbed the firearm away furiously. “You could have fucking killed me, Phil!”

“My God, I am so sorry. Are you all right?”

Jason put his arm on Craig’s shoulder. “Are you OK?”

Summers exhaled, feeling around his ear. “Yeah. I guess I’m fine.”

“I’m so sorry.” Phil was devastated. “You know that was an accident.”

Craig chuckled. “Yeah, no harm, no foul. You spend so much time on your laptop, maybe you should shoot that instead.”

Jason smiled, but Phil didn’t seem to find this remark amusing.

“All right.” Craig returned the rifle. “Try again. Carefully. ”

Phil held the rifle out in front of him, eyeing the target.

“Aim.”

“I am.”

“Watch for the recoil.”

“Uh-huh.”

Craig shrugged. Phil Martino wasn’t listening and it showed. He was holding the rifle too tightly, not looking down the line of the barrel, and, worst of all, not easing down on the trigger. Craig could already tell he was going to jolt it down like a kid on a pinball machine. “Fire whenever.” Bang! As expected, the bullet didn’t even come close to the target. Craig just shook his head. How had Phil Martino even learned to type? He glanced up at the sky. It was starting to get dark. “All right, guys. I think that’s it for the day.”

Jason handed over his firearm. “Thanks again, Craig.”

Phil just put his on the deck. “I’ve got some work to do. No more jokes about shooting my laptop, Summers. Your notes are on there too.”

He went below deck, and Craig stared after him blankly. “Is he kidding?”

Jason just shook his head. Somehow he didn’t think Phil Martino was kidding at all.

“What’s going on, fellas?”

It was Darryl, up from below deck in a bright orange Izod and green pants, looking like a guy off a Hamptons polo field except for the big bow over his shoulder. “Big Dog’s been getting rusty.” He held up three arrows. “Just gonna fire a few for fun.”

Before Jason even realized… Voom! Voom! Voom! The arrows rocketed through the darkening air…. One after another they ripped into the dead center of the target, the last splintering into the first. Darryl shrugged. “Not as rusty as I thought.” He started to smile, but then he glanced at the nearby creek and suddenly looked unsettled, even disturbed.

“Grab a beer, Big Dog?” Craig asked, not noticing his friend’s change in demeanor.

“Definitely.” Darryl turned. “Jason?”

Jason eyed someone at the front of the boat. “Uh, maybe in a little bit, guys.” Darryl and Craig disappeared below deck, and Jason walked toward Lisa. She immediately glared at him.

“What did I do?” he said as if wrongly accused.

She glanced around, checking to see that nobody else was on deck.

“Guns scare me, Jason. They scare the hell out of me. My God, look at what almost happened to Craig.”

“That was an accident.”

“It’s always an accident with those damn things!”

He wanted to stay calm. “Guns scare me, too, Lisa. But if we actually find what we’re looking for… we’ve got to be cautious, right?”

“I’m not touching a damn rifle, you got it?”

His cell started ringing, and he saw it was Ackerman. He didn’t pick up. “Lisa, in this situation, it might be more dangerous not knowing how to shoot than—”

“Jason, I am a biologist. Do you understand that? And if any situation arises where we need to use guns, I am gone, get it? Gone. ” She gave the ringing phone a dirty look and stormed away.

Jason picked up. “Hi, Harry… yes, I know; this area has horrible service…. How are you?”

The voice on the other end was cold, matter-of-fact. “Honestly, there have been some more… financial challenges with my companies.”

“Really?”

“Plus, I gave personal guarantees on a few bank loans.”

Personal guarantees? Jason had heard the term before but didn’t know what it meant. “What is a personal guarantee anyway?”

“To put this in perspective for you, Jason, the bank is trying to take my house.” Harry’s tone remained matter-of-fact.

“I had no idea, Harry. Are you going to be all—”

“I’ll be fine. I can’t seem to raise capital from the VCs, but I have a new plan to harvest an existing asset to cover our liquidity needs.”

“So…” Jason didn’t know what any of that meant. “You’re all right, then?”

“Fine. What’s the latest on your new species?”

Jason explained, and when he finished, Ackerman’s retort was direct.

“So you think this bear-cub skeleton further suggests these animals could have flown? I guess a bear is a land-based animal, but don’t they swim once in a while? I don’t know, Jason—to be candid… flying monsters… I just don’t see it.”

“I’m not saying I see it either, Harry. I just want to keep following the trail.”

A chuckle. “That sounds reasonable. Keep me abreast; we’ll see what happens.”

Jason hung up and went below deck looking for Lisa. Then he noticed Phil’s open door and remembered he still had to type up his notes. In sweats, Phil was stretched out on his single bed, going through pictures on his digital camera.

“Mind if I type up the day’s notes, Phil?”

A blank look. “Sure; computer’s over there.”

Jason went to the desk. The laptop was in screen-saver mode, and he smiled wide at what he saw. “What the hell is this?”

Pleased by the reaction, Phil looked up. “You like it?”

“Very cool.” Jason leaned in. It was an animated simulation. A massive winged creature flying toward a redwood forest from the ocean. Flapping in slow, mechanized movements, the animal looked shockingly real. It almost appeared to be flying right off the screen.

“How’d you do this?”

Phil smirked cunningly. “That’s my secret, pal.”

“Pretty damn frightening.”

“It would make a great video game, wouldn’t it?”

Jason stared again. “It really would.”