Jet looked the makeshift ladder up and down. “Ten minutes up, time to remove the egg, ten minutes down. Got something to put it in?”
“The trunk with the black locks,” Skylar said. “You’ll probably have to lower the egg with the helicopter’s cables.”
Jet nodded. “That’ll take three of us. Bunk to pilot, Skid to operate the wench, and me to get the egg.”
Gunner glanced at Tungsten. “What are you gonna need us to do?”
“You’re going to help me down here. I need skin and blood samples.”
The two men shared a confused glance.
“I’ll get the blood, you lot scrape off some of the scales and put them in one container, and then cut out some of the flesh underneath the scales to put in another container…if you can.”
“What if she don’t like that very much?” Gunner asked.
“We’re small enough that she shouldn’t feel it. Think about how you just barely notice an ant crawling over your foot.”
Tungsten nodded. “Where are the scalpels?”
“Use the hunting knife over there,” Skylar said. “I doubt a scalpel will do anything.”
Skylar looked at the assortment of needles packed in with her equipment and sighed. Neither, for that matter, will any of these. She sifted through the equipment until she came upon a drill one of the mechanics had brought. She picked it up along with a second hunting knife, a length of tube and a set of stopped vials. Her steps towards the creature wobbled as her knees refused to cooperate with her brain. The sickening smell of spoiled fish, blood, and sea salt made her gag violently. Nothing she’d ever worked with had smelled this bad. Finally she made it to the creature’s side. She placed her equipment on the ground before casting a cautious glance up to where the creature’s head lay flat on the ground, eyes closed, like it was sleeping. A sense of unease ran through Skylar’s body. She looked up and saw that Jet had made it to the top and was working on extricating an egg from the bulbous sac on the creature’s back.
Why isn’t she reacting? Her children are being threatened.
She pushed the thought from her mind and set about her task. She pried off a patch of scales with the blade of the knife. Then, taking the drill, she pressed it into the exposed flesh, turning her head to avoid the spray of blood. Quick as she could, she inserted the tube into the makeshift hole, taped around it, and placed the first vial at the other end. Her gloved hands pressed into the area around the wound, sending a fresh stream of blood pumping into the vial. She repeated this process six times before removing the tube and tape. Her first instinct was to gauze and tape the wound, as she would with any other animal, but almost as soon as the tube was out, the wound had healed, and fresh scales were already growing into place. She placed a gloved hand on the creature’s side.
“I’m sorry it had to be like this,” she whispered.
Jet’s shout pulled her out of her quiet moment. “Item secured. Descending.”
“Good.” She handed her vials to Gunner and Tungsten. “Take these and the egg back to my lab on the base. Have Devonte watch over them.” She handed Gunner a check worth ten-thousand dollars, something from her secondary savings account.
He smiled and thanked her.
“What are you going to use it for?” she asked before she could catch herself.
Gunner’s face turned serious. “My wife and I want kids, you know? But, well, there’s a complication.” His face reddened. “I can’t do it.”
“You don’t want kids?” Skylar asked.
“I can’t have them,” he said in a hushed tone. “I’m—”
“Oh,” Skylar said. “I see.”
“This money won’t cover the adoption fee, but it will really help us.” He looked around. “And I’ll make sure the boys get a good split as well,” he added with a wink.
Skylar smiled as the man hopped into the helicopter. Her hair and coat blew around her as the craft lifted into the air and headed off towards San Francisco. As it was taking off, the military craft with Lieutenant Greenwood began its descent towards her.
“Get everything you need?” Greenwood asked.
Skylar smiled, “Just about.”
“You sent the copter back with your gatherings? Good idea.”
“Yeah,” Skylar said, her face falling, “something seems off here and I wanted to make sure it was safe.”
“Off how?”
“Let’s get up in the air first.” She watched the creature with growing concern as the helicopter lurched up into the sky.
“So what’s up?”
“Tigers pace back and forth when you put them in a cage. Have you ever tried to pin down a predator? Capture it and hold it in place?”
“Not animals, no.”
Skylar’s eyes widened.
Greenwood shrugged. “Interpol.”
Skylar nodded. “My point is…why isn’t she resisting?”
Greenwood frowned.
Inkanyamba lay pressed to the ground, unmoving. Her head was angled up at the sky, mouth slightly agape.
“She looks relaxed,” Skylar said. She tracked the direction Inkanyamba was looking and saw, almost on top of them, a dark cumulonimbus cloud lingering in the sky. Its shadow stretched across the ground, darkening it and dropping the temperature at least six degrees. There was no rain, no wind, it wasn’t a storm. The hair on Skylar’s arms began to stand on end. “We need to go,” she said. “Probably best if it’s now.”
“We were ordered to ensure Inkanyamba’s defeat.”
“She isn’t going to lose.”
“What are you talking about? She’s pinned and drying out as we speak.”
“No, no, no, she’s waiting!” The electricity in the air began to tingle and hum. An itch began to spread from the back of Skylar’s skull until her head felt like it was full of bees.
Inkanyamba let out a soft warble, her body alight with electric currents. Her eyes locked onto the clouds overhead. She lowered her head, then whipped it up, straining her whole body against her oversized restraints before screaming out as white lightning erupted from her whole body. The lightning spread throughout the cloud like misfiring synapses. A bolt
