ethidium-bromide-soaked agar and plugged in the gel box, a voltage machine that would draw the negatively charged DNA downward. The DNA's progress through the viscous agar would form distinct banding patterns visible under UV light, which he and Rex could compare to the control dinoflagellates' banding pattern to determine if the samples were infected.
Rex drummed his fingers on the countertop, checking his watch. 'How long will this take?' he asked.
Diego settled back on the high metal stool, fished for a joint in his shirt pocket, and lit it. Ramoncito watched him, shaking his head.
'An hour,' Diego said.
Rex tapped the gel box. 'Can't we speed it up?' he asked. 'It's only at one hundred fifty volts.'
Diego shook his head; his chest expanded with a toke. Smoke wafted from his mouth when he spoke. 'It'll melt the gel. Fuck up the resolution.'
He pointed to Rex's knee, which was vibrating up and down in a nerv-ous tick, then held out the joint. Rex stared at the joint, at Diego.
'There's nothing more we can do now,' Diego said.
Rex reached out and took the joint.
The mantid's legs moved her back into the forest, the cuticle scraping loosely around her body as she walked.
She crawled up the trunk of a tree and secured herself upside down, her slightest movements causing her to swing. Dangling like a bat, she began to push through her old exoskeleton. It split first along the seam of the thorax, and she wriggled her head and raptorial legs from the gash, squirming. The spear stock was deeply embedded in her head; the old cuticle had disintegrated around it. Her abdomen remained encased in the old cuticle and she flailed back and forth, screeching, until it popped free. Then, she hung from the exuvia for the better part of an hour, which gave her new cuticle a chance to begin hardening. When she finally dropped to the ground, she landed in a heap, her new cuticle still moist and tender. She rose quickly; the dirt could crumple up her new wings and dry out her exoskeleton. Her anomalous post-metamorphosis molt was complete.
Her protective tegmina were a deep brown, attached to her body at the second link of her thorax and overlaying her light-green speckled underwings. Sprouting from the third section of her thorax, the under-wings stuck out a bit, forming green stripes along her sides.
The mantid crawled back up the tree, past the branch to which her old cuticle still clung, past the other branches that spread like balconies from the core of the trunk, and when she reached the top of the canopy, where the foliage of all the Scalesias wove itself together, she pushed through and stood on top of it, her four back legs taking hold of the uppermost branches and leafy boughs.
She was standing atop the forest.
The water circling the island was visible all around, the sky stretching clear and blue for as far as the eye could see.
Unfurling her wings from her sides like massive capes, she spread them wide. Their span was enormous, and as they dried, they would con-tinue to stretch and grow; only this benefit had driven her to brave the sun. Already, the new cuticle stiffened around her, a living suit of armor. Her body unfolded to the air, the mantid rested, growing stronger and harder in the sun.
Soon, it would be nightfall.
Chapter 72
As Cameron finished setting the trip wire, a shriek echoed up the road. She wasn't sure whether it was the mantid or a wounded animal, but it sent a chill from the depths of her bowels all the way up her spine.
Using herself as bait, Cameron would attract the mantid. The mantid would be drawn from the forest, heading for Cameron along the open stretch of the road. About a third of the way down, the mantid would trip the first wire. The det cord would explode, detonating the blasting caps and, in turn, the TNT. All the trees on the corresponding side would fall simultaneously. The explosion would either freeze the crea-ture or startle her forward. If she froze, she'd be crushed by the toppling trees, and if she started forward, she'd trip the second wire and the whole trap would go. The trees would fall from both sides, pounding the ground along a hundred-yard segment of the road.
There would be gaps-that was certain, since the Abatis was gener-ally used as a roadblock, not a killing trap, but that was a risk Cameron would have to take. She was fairly confident that the trees falling at criss-crossing angles would crush anything beneath them. Once the wire was tripped, no matter which direction the mantid moved she didn't stand a good chance.
The trap had a number of situation-specific advantages. Most impor-tant, it expanded the danger zone drastically; if the mantid moved any-where along the guessed route, she stood a good chance of getting killed or maimed. A compact little boar might find its way through an Abatis, but not the long, wiry mantid. If Cameron had elected to rig a smaller booby trap, she would have had to predict exactly where the mantid would step, and that had already proven difficult. The Abatis also had the advantage of drawing the prey into a known area, cutting down the variables one faced when dealing with a free-roaming adversary.
Cameron walked the path she hoped the mantid would take, careful not to get too close to the forest at the northern end of the road. She saw the first thin trip wire gleaming in the sunlight and stopped, letting it rest across her stomach. Ducking under, she counted ten steps to the second trip wire, which she also cautiously avoided.
The Abatis was ready.
She strode down the road to the trail just beyond the watchtower. She still had time to wash off.
The water reminded her of Justin. It always had. When he swam, his entire body moved with a grace usually reserved for porpoises and rays. For fear of revealing his hiding place to the creature, she had resisted the urge to go and check on him, though she wanted to desperately. As long as his heart rate stayed low, he shouldn't bleed out. And he was resting, maybe even sleeping, cool beneath the surface of the earth. He'd have to wait until after the Abatis was detonated.
Cameron sank all the way beneath the surface, the water closing over her head with a gulp, and then she was drifting, alone and lifeless and free. The teal water was so clear that when she opened her eyes, it was as if she were looking through a mask. She rinsed herself off, wiping the virus-laden smudges from her clothes and skin.
The sand on the bottom was brilliantly white, ribbed like desert dunes. Mini-cyclones swirled, the white grains glimmering as light swept through them. Ahead, a series of vesicular lava rocks unfolded like the vertebrae of a sunken creature.
Just beyond them, Cameron saw an outline of something large, majestic. She swam toward it in awe, breaststroking underwater. It rip-pled into view, a magnificent and rare coral head, standing alone before the wall of the reef. As Cameron approached it, she saw that it curved around, encircling an underwater lagoon. The walls would keep growing upward, eventually forming an atoll.
Small patches of the coral were bleached, destroyed by UV sunlight, but for the most part the underwater life had rejuvenated since the last El Nino. Within the ring was a fantasia of color and movement. Shiny green sea urchins dotted the white surface of the walls, flicking into view behind drifting strands of seaweed. A jewel moray shot from a dark hol-low, narrowly missing a darting minnow. A blue parrot fish grazed, its small mouth emitting bubbles as it nibbled along a notch of coral. A marine iguana tirelessly navigated the surface, its small legs churning, tail undulating.
The water within the reef was tinted green from the minuscule bits of floating algae, but still it retained a near perfect clarity. Cameron watched a yellow damselfish chase the parrot fish off the coral wall, flicking its tail as it shot forward. The parrot fish swam away, though Cameron could see it for several yards before it disappeared from sight. Tri-umphantly, the damselfish banked in a fighter jet's wide turn before returning to the inner sanctum of the reef, its bright yellow tail and lip contrasting sharply with the sleek black of the rest of its body. With wonder, Cameron watched it slither through the water, her lungs beginning to burn.
As Cameron started for the surface, the damselfish swerved sharply to avoid something rising from the depth of the ring. Startled from her reverie, Cameron waited to see what would emerge.
