deeply ingrained habit from years of playing with this kit.
Aiming centre of the sternum, I took a slow, controlled shot.
The crack of the round and the roar of the explosion seemed to be as one. The earth surrounding it was dried instantly by the incredible heat of rapid combustion, turned into dust by the shock-wave, and sent up in a thirty-foot plume. Slivers of wood were falling all around the high ground like rain. The tree was still standing, and so it should be considering the size of it, but it was badly damaged. Lighter-coloured wood showed like flesh beneath the bark.
'NIIICK! NIIICK!'
I jumped up and waved at Carrie as she ran from the back of the house.
'It's OK ! OK! Just testing.'
She stopped at the sight of me and screamed at the top of her voice, easily covering the ground between us.
'YOU IDIOT! I THOUGHT1 THOUGHT-'
Cutting abruptly from her screams, she turned and stormed back inside.
Luckily there was no need to do anything more: the zero was on for all ranges, and the dynamite worked. All I had to do now was make a charge that'd take out a vehicle.
Clearing the weapon, I picked up all the other bits and pieces and headed back to the house.
TWENTY-FIVE
The mozzie screen slammed shut behind me and I felt the sweat start to cool on my skin in the breeze from the two fans by the coffee table.
I headed straight for the fridge, dumping the weapon and ammo box on the way.
The light didn't come on when I opened the door, maybe some tree-hugging measure to save power, but I could still see what I was looking for another couple of two-litre plastic water-bottles like the one we'd emptied. The long gulps of chilled water tugged at my throat and gave me an instant headache but was worth it. I refilled the bottle I'd brought in from the garden-hose tap marked D and put it back in the fridge.
My T-shirt and trousers were still sticking to me, and the rash on my back was itching big-time. I got the cream out of my pocket and gave it a good smear all over. There was no point to welling myself off in this humidity.
After washing my gooey hands and face and throwing a couple of bananas down my neck, it was time to start thinking about the device I was going to make with the HE. With the half-empty water-bottle in my hand, and Carrie's giggle weed and Zippo in my pockets, I knocked on the door of the computer room as I entered.
Carrie was sitting in the director's chair on the left with her back to me, bent over some papers. The sound of the two overhead fans filled the room, a loud, methodical thud-thud-thud as they spun on their ceiling mounts. The room was much cooler than the living area.
The PC with the webcam was switched off; the other in front of Carrie showed a spreadsheet full of numbers, and she was comparing the data on her papers with what was on the screen.
It was Luz who saw me first, seated at her desk further down the room.
Swivelling in her chair to face me, she gave a 'Booom!' with a big smile spread over her face and an apple in her hand. At least she thought it was funny. I shrugged sheepishly, as I had so many times to Kelly when I'd messed up.
'Yeah, sorry about that.'
Carrie turned in her seat to face me. I gave her an apologetic shrug too. She nodded in return and raised an eyebrow at Luz, who just couldn't stop smiling. I pointed at the storeroom. I'm going to need some help.'
'Gimme a minute.'
She raised her voice to primary-school level and wagged a finger.
'As for you, young lady, back to work.'
Luz got back down to it, using her thumb and forefinger to tap the pencil on the table in four-four. She reminded me so much of Kelly.
Carrie hit a final few keys on the PC and stood up, instructing Luz as she did so, still in schoolmistress mode, 'I want to see that math sheet completed by lunchtime, young lady, or no food for you again!'
There was a smile and a resigned 'Oh, Mooom, pleeeease ...' in return, and she took a bite from her apple as we headed for the storeroom.
Carrie closed the door behind her. The outside entrance was open, and I could see the light fading on the rows of white tubs. The sky was no longer an unrelenting blue; clouds were gathering, casting shadows as they moved across the sun.
I passed over the tin and the Zippo and received a smile and a 'Thanks' as she placed a foot on a bottom shelf and climbed up to hide them under some battery packs.
I'd already spotted something I needed and was picking up a cardboard box that told me it should be holding twenty-four cans of Campbell's tomato soup, but in fact had only two. Wanting just the box, I took out the cans and stacked them on the shelf.
It was Little America up on these shelves, everything from blankets and shovels to eco-friendly washing-up liquid, via catering packs of Oreos and decaf coffee.
'This is like WalMart,' I said.
'I was expecting more of a wigwam and incense sticks.'
I got a laugh from her as she jumped off the shelf and walked towards the outside door.
I looked at her framed in the doorway as she gazed out at the lines of white tubs, then walked over to join her, carrying the water and soup box. We stood together in the doorway for a few moments, in silence but for the generator humming gently in the background.
'What exactly do you do here?'
She pointed to the tubs and ran her hand along their regimented lines.
'We're searching for new species of endemic flora ferns, flowering trees, that sort of thing. We catalogue and propagate them before they disappear for ever.' She stared at nowhere in particular, just into the far treeline, as if she was expecting to find some more.
That's very interesting.'
She faced me and smiled, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
'Yeah, right.'
I actually was interested. Well, a bit.
'I don't believe you, but it's very kind of you to pretend. And actually, it is very interesting...' She waved her arms towards the tubs and the sky above them, now dark with clouds.
'Believe it or not, you're standing at the front line of the battle to save bio diversity
I gave her a grin.
'Us against the world, eh?'
'Better believe it,' she said.
We looked at each other for less than a second, but for me it was half a second longer than it should have been. Our eyes might have been locked, but there was no way of telling behind her glasses.
'A hundred years from now, half the world's flora and fauna will be extinct. And that, my friend, will affect everything: fish,
birds, insects, plants, mammals, you name it, simply because the food chain will be disrupted. It's not just the big charismatic mammals that we seem to fixate on,' she rolled her eyes and held her hands up in mock horror, 'save the whales, save the tiger ... It's not just those guys, it's everything.' Her earnest expression suddenly relaxed and her face lit up.
'Including the sandfly your eye has already gotten acquainted with.' The smile didn't last.
'Without the habitat, we're going to lose this for ever, you know.'
I moved outside and sat on the concrete, putting the soup box down beside me and untwisting the bottle top. As I took a swig she came and sat beside me, putting her glasses back on. As we both stared at the rows of tubs, her knee just touched mine as she spoke. This rate of extinction has only happened five times since complex life began. And all caused by a natural disaster.' She held out a hand for the bottle. Take dinosaurs. They became history because of a meteorite crashing into the planet about sixty-five million years ago, right?'
I nodded as if I knew. The Natural History Museum hadn't been where I spent my days as a kid.
