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  “What is Manifold Beta?”

  Ridley grinned wide. “Wonderland.”

  16

  Ucayali Region, Peru

  Not more than twenty minutes later, after dodging and plowing right over hundreds of small corpses, King came to a dock. He’d been so close. The single boat tied to the dock had been burned to a char, just like the SUV. They were covering their tracks. But burning a single boat could not produce the amount of smoke he’d seen. King stopped the boat’s engine and coasted to the dock. He tied off, slipped on his backpack, and slid into the jungle, his M1 Garand leading the way.

  Following a well-groomed path, King found the jungle floor clear of all but the tallest and thickest trees. King looked up at the thick canopy. Clearing the jungle to build, but keeping the natural camouflage, King thought. Smart.

  The terrain dropped and a valley opened up. Inside the valley lay a smoldering ruin of what was once a very large, modern facility. King took little comfort from the lack of movement. Something awful had taken place here. It wasn’t the smoke still sifting free from the ashes or the coppery taste of blood in the air. It was a gut feeling. The hair on his arms raised. His spine tingled.

  A wailing shriek, the same as the previous night, ripped through the jungle. It was louder, closer than he’d heard before. He knelt, raised the M1 to his shoulder, and waited for some sign of movement. Something was out there. Something that had somehow survived the slaughter of the previous night. King’s breath caught in his throat when he realized the only thing that could have survived the mass killing was the killer.

  King moved slowly down the hill, taking aim at any hint of movement or ideal hiding spot. The sound did not repeat and he detected no signs of life. He had yet to be discovered. His need for clues outweighed his primal instinct to run as he stood inside the ruins, picking out details. A few squares of linoleum flooring survived the blaze. The partial remains of a three-pronged, type-B outlet—American.

  After a half hour of slow, methodical searching he found little else. He’d heard a few more shrieks, but they sounded more distant. Still, he kept his guard up. He ended his search at the remains of a helipad. Had Pierce been taken out of here by air? Had he just missed him again? Or was his body among the ashes? King forced the thoughts from his mind and looked down at the charred complex. It was vast, taking up several acres, and given the amount of ash and rubble, had stood more than a couple stories tall. Probably reached right up to the canopy, he thought.

  A loud slap on the helipad pavement spun him around, rifle at the ready. A body lay writhing at his feet. A thirteen-foot boa constrictor perfectly camouflaged for jungle living twisted on itself as blood oozed from several two-inch-long punctures. King looked up and was surprised to see trees over the helipad. Looking to the right he saw the trees clear at an angle, reaching out to the sky. His eyebrows rose. The helicopters would have come in at an angle through the trees, allowing the helipad to remain covered by the canopy. Gutsy and a bit extreme. Whoever ran this place did not want to be found. He realized they’d probably detected his approach on the river the day before and bugged out.

  The snake twitched madly, then died.

  King knelt by its body and inspected the wounds. Just like the jaguar. Where junks of flesh hadn’t been bitten away, dozens of pairs of deep, straight wounds covered the body. A wet shriek from above, followed by a second fleshy whack made King jump. A large lump of short reddish-brown fur smacked the helipad next to the snake. King couldn’t see what kind of animal it was, but the thing was clearly dead. Upon impact its body had burst, spilling guts and gore out over the cement.

  He aimed the Garand up, looking for some kind of predator lurking in the trees. Whatever it was, it had returned and no doubt knew of his presence. Worse, he stood near two of its kills...its food. It would want them back. He felt sure.

  As King stepped back, his boot squished through the spilled gore. He looked at it and realized the guts didn’t look right. There were no intestines or other internal organs, just chunks of flesh. As he stepped closer King realized that only the creature’s stomach had burst. The mass of flesh spilled from its barrel-shaped body, some scaled, some hairy, some unrecognizable, came from whatever it had eaten. A sickening feeling took hold of his stomach. Using the rifle as a prod, King nudged the dog-sized creature, rolling it over. He recognized it. A capybara. The largest rodent on earth, it sported two sets of massive incisors, above and below. The source of the odd wounds and the overnight slaughter. This was the predator!

  Before he could think about how a vegetarian rodent could accomplish such a thing, the capybara twitched. After falling nearly seventy-five feet onto concrete and bursting open, the thing was still alive. Wondering if it was his imagination, King leaned in with the Garand and poked its head. The reaction was instantaneous. With a shriek, the capybara snapped its jaws and bit the barrel of the rifle, severely chipping one of its teeth. The scream, the same that had been unnerving him since the previous night, coupled with the sudden savagery caused him to stumble back. The rodent yanked its head to the side and tore the rifle from his hands.

  As the capybara began lifting its body from the ground, King did the only thing he could think of. He ran. To his amazement and horror, the capybara shrieked and charged after him, guts and the partially eaten remains of its victims dragging from its still open belly.

  Working his way through the burned-out complex, King hoped to lose the creature, but it seemed to never tire and was surprisingly fast, even with its stomach open. He never looked back at it though. He could hear it fine. Its claws clicked on the hard, burned hallway floors. Its teeth snapped loudly, like a manic chatter. And its shriek pierced the air like a siren.

  Atahualpa’s words returned to him. His description of McCabe.

  What she’d done to those people. The teeth marks on the animals here might be different, but the results were the same. He pictured McCabe, feral and savage like the capybara and grimaced as he realized Atahualpa had been telling the truth. As his lungs began to burn from sucking in deep breaths of the acrid air, King realized he needed to end the chase or he’d end up another gnawed corpse.

  He drew his .45, stopped, and spun around. He dropped to one knee, took aim, and froze at the sight. Froth sprayed from the rodent’s mouth with every breath. Its eyes were peeled wide, unblinking, and zeroed in on him. Its teeth chattered endlessly. Rapid-fire Morse code. The hair on its back stood on end like an angry dog’s. And its entrails, now covered in ash, whipped between its legs as it ran. The thing had become l50 pounds of savagery.

  As the capybara closed the distance between them, King wondered what kind of person could create something like this. It was obviously the result of some genetics experiment gone awry. But to what end? And why let them loose? As King looked down the .45’s sight, meeting eyes with the killing machine, it became clear.

  To kill me, he thought.

  Not today.

  King pulled the trigger sending a .45-caliber bullet into the capybara’s side. Flesh exploded on contact. The giant rodent fell and rolled through the ash. King stood and stepped closer. He took aim again. The wound was healing. As the wound sealed the capybara shook and frothed in a psychotic rage, even more savage than before. Before the creature could rise again, King took aim and pulled the trigger twice more, effectively reducing the beast’s head to pulp. The body fell still.

  King covered his mouth with a bandanna as he breathed heavily. He leaned over the dead creature and shook his head. Three .45-caliber rounds. Three. One was enough to kill most creatures on four legs, let alone a giant tailless rat. But it had taken three...two to the head. A distant shriek tore him from his thoughts.

  Another one.

  A reply came from behind, closer. Then a third.

  Damn. King ran for the helipad where the Garand rifle still lay next to the dead constrictor. He’d need it if he was going to survive the hour. A shriek tore through the clearing. Hell, he’d be lucky to survive
another ten minutes.

  17

  Ucayali Region, Peru

  Puffs of ash exploded with each footfall as King sprinted through the labyrinth of what were once hallways. But this was no tall walled maze. He could see the end goal in plain sight: the helipad and his M1 Garand rifle. Veering from the hallway, he opted for a more direct route. He bounded over the remnants of walls as he cheated his way through the maze, arriving at the helipad just as the first new capybara entered the clearing.

  King dove to his stomach hoping his black shirt and pants would conceal his position in the ash. He doubted the thing could smell him with all the soot in the air. The capybara was smaller than the first, but quicker on its toes. It bounced around the ruins, sniffing here and there, all the while frothing and chattering its teeth like an oversized guinea pig gone berserk. Shrieks in the distance told him more were coming. There was no way he could face them all at once, and lying here, just waiting to be found was not how he played the game. King slowly took aim with the rifle. Eight shots. He couldn’t miss.

  The rifle’s report echoed through the jungle. The capybara hit the leaf-ridden jungle floor and spasmed as though having a rapid-fire seizure. Then it snapped back onto its feet, spinning in circles. It stopped suddenly, eyes on King.

  The thing shrieked as it dashed for King.

  “Son of a bitch...” King fired twice more. Both misses.

  The capybara hopped the outer wall of the ruins with ease and charged toward King. He fired twice more. The giant rodent fell, twitched, and continued its charge. The smaller round shot right through the creature without mushrooming like the .45 rounds. As a result, the damage was minimal.

  As the beast closed to within thirty feet, King squeezed the trigger several times until a loud ping sounded from the rifle. The locking bolt sprang free and ejected the spent clip, allowing for the next clip to be slammed home. But King had no more clips.

  And even less time.

  The capybara launched into the air, its jaws open and two-inch incisors ready to bury into King’s skull. King drew his KA-BAR blade and slammed it down just as the capybara was about to make contact. The blade pierced through the creature’s back, slammed it to the helipad where the blade slid into a crack, pinning it in place.

  King fell back, leaning on his hands, breathing heavily.

  A shriek sounded to his right. He saw a flash of teeth.

  A single shot boomed from his .45.

  A splash of blood covered his body just before the now headless, hundred-pound rodent landed in his lap. King kicked it off and stood, looking for more attackers. Three more capybaras entered the far side of the clearing, already running toward him. King checked the magazine. Three bullets.

  A shriek at his feet made him jump.

  The capybara pinned to the helipad vibrated and spewed fluids as it pulled its body through the knife, slicing itself in half yet healing just as quickly. King placed the barrel of the .45 against the rodent’s head and pulled the trigger. Its head disappeared and its body stopped moving.

  King knew retreat was his only option. He searched his memory for what little he knew about capybara. They were semiaquatic. A glance at the dead rodents by his feet confirmed it. The river was out. As far as he knew, they couldn’t climb trees. But the first he’d encountered had fallen from a tree. In their enraged state they might be able to climb trees, and navigate quick enough to catch a slow moving boa, but it did fall. The canopy might be his only chance.

  As King looked for a suitable tree to climb he frowned. The trees had been trimmed clear of any low-lying branches, no doubt to afford room for the complex hidden here. The three capybara entered the complex, making a mess of each other as they snapped and vied for the front position, but they never slowed. They’d be on him in seconds. King holstered the handgun, tightened his grip on the KA-BAR knife, and leaped from the helipad. He struck a tall, smooth tree and nearly fell to the jungle floor, but he stabbed his knife into the tree’s flesh and held on. After wrapping his left arm around the tree and tightening his grip, he pulled the knife out and stabbed again. Higher. Then pulled himself up. He repeated the movements three more time. Grip. Stab. Pull. Then stopped to take stock of the situation.

  Before he could turn, the tree shook from an impact. A capybara landed on the jungle floor, kicking its legs madly in the air. A second launched itself at King and struck the tree, just below his feet. It, too, fell to the ground. As the third prepared to jump, King quickly withdrew the knife and stabbed higher, pulling himself up.

  The third rodent jumped, struck the tree, and clung to it. Its dull claws, powered by unceasing mania, held tight. King’s eyes widened as the creature began moving up. He let go of the tree, holding only to the knife. He risked a fall, but couldn’t pass up such an easy target. He drew the .45 and fired down. Half of the capybara’s face splattered against the tree, then began regenerating. He pulled the trigger again, finishing the job, and spending his last round.

  After dropping the gun, King returned to climbing. The two remaining capybara followed, clawing their way up the tree. In the same way King used his knife, they used their upper teeth. Stab. Pull. Stab.

  Pull.

  The chop and scratch of the pursuing capybara kept time with King’s movements. But he didn’t look down. He didn’t want to see if they were gaining. He just focused on the task at hand, moving toward the glowing green canopy above. When he reached the first branch, nearly one hundred feet above the jungle floor, he took hold and pulled himself up. After sheathing the knife he looked down. The capybara had five feet to go.

  As King looked around to find the best path through the canopy branches, a shadow fell over the area, like a cloud blotting out the sun, but this shadow grew darker, and larger. King ducked, knowing something was falling from the sky. It crashed through the canopy, snapping branches and, for a moment, stopping the startled capybaras. The sudden cacophony was followed by a loud voice, “I’m down, but in the trees, Queen, over.”

  King looked up and saw Rook fighting to free himself from his parachute, now tangled in the branches. He’d been speaking to Queen through his throat mike. “Rook!”

  Rook jumped back and nearly fell from the tree. “Gah!” The two men’s eyes met. “King, what’s the sit—” Rook saw the frothing capybara snapping at King’s feet. “Oh, hell...”

  “I need a weapon!” King shouted, stretching out his hands to the man he knew would be carrying an arsenal.

  Rook quickly slipped his assault rifle from his back and tossed it to him. After a quick flick of the safety, King aimed down at the capybara closest to him and pulled the trigger. Plumes of red liquid rained down from the tree, coating the jungle floor. The capybara fought the barrage as its wounds healed, but King adjusted his aim and took off the creature’s legs. It fell to the forest floor followed by the second, also missing its legs.

  The two capybara writhed on the jungle floor while their legs began growing back. King took aim and pulled a second trigger with his middle finger. The weapon coughed and sent a 40mm grenade flying through the air. The capybara disappeared in giant ball of fire. The explosion shook the canopy of the entire clearing and sent the tree King and Rook clung to swaying. They hung on tight until the danger was over.

  Armed and reinforced, King felt his confidence return. Though he couldn’t see them, he knew the rest of the team clung to trees somewhere nearby. “Everyone stays in the trees,” he told Rook. “Shoot anything that looks like an overgrown guinea pig.”

  Rook relayed the message and then peeled himself away from the tree. Still not free of his parachute, he turned around to give it a yank and came face-to-face with the blank-eyed stare of a corpse. He jumped back, but quickly caught himself, swallowing a gasp. “This a friend of yours, King?”

  King climbed the branches to Rook. “What’d you find?”

  Rook leaned back revealing the dead body of a young man. His T-shirt had been ripped open and his stomach eviscerated. The rest
of his body was covered in two-inch puncture wounds.

  King pushed past Rook and quickly searched the body. He found an ID card in his pocket. He handed it to Rook. “Ever hear of Manifold Genetics?”

  Rook looked at the card, shaking his head. “Seth Lloyd. Tech support. So how does a guy who deals with the blue screen of death end up a treetop munchie for a psychotic rat?”

  King noticed a lump under what little remained of the young man’s T-shirt. He reached under, took hold, and yanked it free. A thumb drive. “Maybe we’ll find some answers on this?”

  “Or a lot of porn.”

  A boom rolled through the canopy. King recognized the report as a sniper rifle. Rook listened to a voice in his headset. “Knight bagged one of your guinea pigs.”

  “Tell him to take off its head.”

  After Rook relayed the message a second boom shook the leaves. After a few minutes, the sounds of jungle life returned to the area. The last of the super-predators had been killed. Within a year the burned-out complex below would be reclaimed by the jungle. No trace of its existence or the slaughter wrought by the capybara would remain. The only remnant of the facility and what had taken place here sat in King’s hand. A small, eight-gigabyte thumb drive taken from a dead tech-support kid.

  “Where to, boss?” Rook asked.

  King handed him the thumb drive, not wanting to put it in his wet pants pocket. “Civilization.”

  18

  Pope Air Force Base, Limbo

  After making their way out of the jungle via an airdropped riverboat and catching a flight back to the States, King, Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop returned to Fort Bragg two days after touching down in the Peruvian rain forest. After showering and changing into fresh clothes, they returned to Pope Air Force Base, known simply as “the Pope,” and met in a room attached to Delta’s personal hangar. The few Delta teams elite enough to perform covert missions referred to the room as Decon, short for decontamination. But Rook had given the room his own name: Limbo—the place between Heaven and Hell. It was where they met at the beginning of every mission, to be briefed, and the end of every mission, to debrief. The name stuck.