James Rollins - The 6th Extinction

He aimed the long tube of the rocket launcher and fixed its sights on the distant glow of the LRAD workstation — then pulled the trigger.

The rocket-propelled grenade blasted out of the tube and tore across the near-empty Coliseum. It exploded with a flash of fire at the back wall, striking true. The blast quickly echoed away.

He closed his eyes, enjoying this moment.

At long last, silence had returned to Hell.

Jenna stood at the base of a Brazilian mahogany tree, her arms crossed. It had taken too long to retrace her path, the one she and Jori had followed through the canopy. Instead, it was the familiar buzz of the hornet’s nest — the same hive that had killed that poor sparrow — that finally helped her find her way back to this spot.

Cutter touched her shoulder and drew her aside. “Stand clear.”

From the canopy overhead, a pair of natives dropped to the forest floor. One carried a machete; the other bore a blanket-wrapped object under one arm.

“Hurry,” she said.

The blanket was placed on the ground and folded back. Inside was the sloth cub, still painfully tangled in the barbed vine.

Was it still alive?

Jenna reached to pull the vine away, but Cutter pushed her arm back.

“Watch,” he said.

He took a cattle prod and shocked the severed end of the vine, sending a charge down its length. It contracted once, then relaxed, withdrawing the hooked barbs back into its green flesh. Cutter used the tip of the prod to tease the loops off the cub.

Once it was free, Jenna bent down next to it, placing a palm on its chest. She felt a heartbeat. The ribs swelled and contracted with shallow breaths. Multiple small punctures covered its body, seeping blood.

“Jori… said poison,” she struggled out through the haze and thick tongue.

“ Megatherium are tough. I engineered them that way. It’s why I made them omnivores, instead of herbivores. Gives them a wider range of nutritional options.” He nodded to the cub. “They’re also more resistant to this vine’s toxin. Slowly adapting to it due to the vine’s presence in their immediate environment.”

She leaned down and scooped the cub into her arms. He was heavier than she suspected from his compact size, at least forty-five pounds. She carried him over one shoulder. She heard that soft mewling again, and his snout moved closer to her neck, leaning against her with a sigh.

“Caves,” she said.

“Over this way,” Cutter set off with his remaining four men.

Jenna kept among them, letting them lead, placing her boots where they did, wary of this dangerous forest. She held the cub close, shifting it from one shoulder to the other.

“Do you want me to carry it?” Cutter asked.

“No.”

She couldn’t explain why, but she knew she had to be the one carrying this burden. The creatures they sought were not dumb animals. Back at the electrified pens, they had waited until Jori climbed the cages before attacking. And now they had kidnapped the boy, possibly hoping the unspoken threat would drive these trespassers off their lands. For Jori to have any chance, she had to respect their intelligence.

Slowly the forest grew taller, the canopy thicker. The sunlight waned down to a persistent emerald twilight, while the fungi growing along the trunks seemed brighter. As they hiked, the undergrowth also thinned out, starved of the sunlight by the taller trees.

At last the darker shadows ahead became discernible as cliffs of black rock, draped with vines and orchids. The air grew muskier with the reek of damp pelts and the rot of spoiled meat. Multiple cave openings appeared. Some looked entirely natural; others looked widened by the scratching and sharpening of claws.

Cutter slowed their pace.

The denizens of these caves were nowhere in sight.

“What now?” Cutter asked.

“I should go,” Jenna mumbled out. “Alone. Stay here.”

She passed Cutter and headed forward on her own. She crossed until she could see the darker shadows shifting in those black caves.

Watching me…

She lifted the cub, crossed her legs, and sank to her backside, cradling the small sloth in her lap. He mewled a soft complaint, batted her with a hooked claw, but then settled.

She sat there, waiting.

At some point she started to hum a lullaby, not remembering the words, but the melody remained inside her.

Finally a lone sloth appeared, knuckling on her claws, and it was plainly a female from her stained teats on her chest. The female bobbed her head up, letting out a soft chuffing noise.

The cub stirred, rolling his head toward the sound, and gave off a couple of answering bleats.

Clearly mother and child .

Very slowly Jenna lowered the cub to the ground and retreated away, staying hunched, her head bowed submissively.

The female crept forward, scooped the body up one-armed, using those claws like gentle hooks to pull the cub to her chest. Then she turned and lumbered back into her den.

Jenna sat again, waiting. Occasionally she would nudge her chin up and imitate that chuffing noise. The pack here had seen her traveling through the canopy with Jori. They would believe he was her child. It was why she had to carry that cub herself. Getting its scent all over her. To intensify the sense of maternity and nurturing.

After another ten minutes passed, she found it harder to think. For a brief moment, she forgot why she was here. She started even to rise. Then movement again. A small figure came running out of a cave to the left.

Jori ran up to her and hugged her, flying hard enough to roll her to her back.

“Careful,” she said hoarsely.

He helped her up. She did so with great care.

Then a massive bull sloth charged out of a cave and barreled toward her. She pushed Jori behind her, knowing if she ran they’d both be killed. She stood her ground, arms out, sheltering the boy. She kept her face turned, not wanting to challenge him.

The Megatherium bull skidded to a stop, its nose right at her face. Its breath blew the small hairs from her damp face, reeking of blood and meat and savageness. She knew it was the same creature from earlier, the same one who had followed her to the edge of the clearing.

It sniffed her in turn, moving from face to crotch — then bumped her with that nose, not to dismiss her, but as some manner of acknowledgment, as if to say I know you, too .

It began to turn away, and she took a step backward.

A gunshot cracked across the silent jungle.

The bull’s ear exploded into a pulp of blood and fur. It roared, swinging around and clubbing her in the side, knocking her flying.

Another shot struck its flank, flinching the limb on that side.

“Run, Jori,” she said, struggling for breath after the blow.

The boy refused, coming instead to help her. Cutter saw this and came rushing low toward them, ready to protect his son.

Another shot struck the beast in the head, but it glanced off the thick skull. Jenna spotted Rahei flat on her belly near a rock fall by the cliff’s edge. She must have crept into that position very slowly, keeping her presence from the pack.

Cutter reached them, grabbed Jori by the arm, and pulled the boy back with him.

The bull noted this movement and charged.

Jenna managed to pull Jori to the ground, rolling on top of the boy. Cutter took the full brunt of that fury as he was bowled onto his back and a claw ripped through his vest and shirt, scouring a bloody track down his chest.

The other men behind Cutter opened fire, a fierce barrage.

The poor beast hunched itself against that onslaught, as if leaning into a stiff breeze. But even its majestic bulk could not sustain such damage for long. It trembled, took a step backward, and fell heavily to the ground, almost crushing Cutter.