“They’re hungry,” I say a moment before our host continues.
“They’re hungry.”
“And he said he wasn’t cliché.”
King grins, but the smile is wiped away when a loud thunk on the kayak’s hull is followed by a bright yellow illumination. The yellow plastic above us starts to thin and liquefy.
“Get to shore!” I shout before ducking under the water, chased by globs of melted plastic. Under the water, King and I have the same idea. Before swimming, we shed our remaining clothes and shoes down to our boxers. King has the small knife gripped between his teeth, and I refasten my belt, with the machete, around my waist. Looking like a couple of Men’s Adventure action heroes, we swim for shore.
Surfacing to breathe is tricky, but not impossible. The real problem is that the longer the fire burns, the more foul the air becomes. We’ve swum only a few hundred feet when I surface in three-foot shallows, breathe, and gag. We’re between two islets, both on fire. The real problem is that I’ve surfaced just ten feet away from a KFI, bobbing in the water and spewing toxic fumes.
I turn to King, ready to plunge back in, when I see the ocean surging up over some kind of projectile headed for his back. Without warning, I shove King to the side, which is noble of me, but also puts me directly in the torpedo’s path.
Only it’s not a torpedo at all.
It’s a croc. Sort of.
The front of its head is covered in electronics. Where its eyes should be are two sheets of brushed metal, riveted to flesh. I catch only a glimpse before its jaws snap open to engulf me, but there’s little doubt that the predators unleashed in Nan Madol have been somehow modified. Perhaps being controlled. Living drones.
I fall back and slip under the water, letting my body arc beneath the croc. Darkness surrounds me as its massive form blocks out the fiery light above. A loud clunk reverberates through the water as its jaws snap shut, thankfully not on my head. But I’m far from safe. The behemoth starts to thrash. Its tail slams into my gut, shoving the acrid air from my lungs.
Something clamps down on my wrist. I struggle for a moment, but then see King, yanking me out from under the croc. He shoves me above the waterline and my lungs fill with poisonous air. King surfaces beside me, coughing. Despite not being sucker punched by a croc’s tail, he’s not faring much better. But the croc has seen better days. Its thrashing illuminates the area, as its head and then body burst into flames thanks to the KFI clutched in its jaws.
“Divide and conquer, mighty heroes,” the homunculus-bird says, apparently still watching from above. “If you both die, your friends both die. And we really would prefer one of you to survive. That is the point of all this.”
“How long can you hold your breath?” King asks.
“Three minutes,” I say, not taking into account that my lungs want nothing to do with the air I’m currently breathing.
“We need to get off their radar. It’s the only way.”
“So we go deep,” I say. It’s bullshit. My body says so. But the Warrior side of my personality is firing on all cylinders, roaring louder than the Civilized Man and Cop ever could.
The familiar whir of chain guns warming up joins the chorus of insects and drones. Without another word between us, we dive into the sea once more, swimming away from the shallows between islets and diving deep. Angry bullet swarms pursue us into the depths, but the water saps their energy after just a few feet, protecting us better than any armor could.
When my ears are about to burst from the pressure, we angle toward shore and kick hard. Forty feet above us is a light show from hell. Fire burns everywhere, in the water and on every dot of surrounding ruin. Water ripples from crosshatching lines of bullets scouring the surface. The silhouettes of four large crocs shift back and forth far above, but just under the waves, seeking us out. One of the apex predators leaves a trail of blood in its wake, most likely struck by friendly fire. The icing on top of this shit-cake is a fifth silhouette gliding toward the wounded croc.
When there’s blood in the ocean, it’s never long before the first shark arrives. And in this part of the world, where the waters have been deemed a shark sanctuary, man-eating species are as plentiful as they are large. Luckily, neither King nor I are bleeding, so the sharks will home in on the croc, but it sure makes me a lot more eager to get out of the water. That, and I’m about to drown. And I’m not the only one. King hitches a thumb toward the surface and we angle upward, while slipping ever closer to the mainland. We surface just beyond the farthest ring of fire, still fifty feet from shore, both of us sucking air as quietly as possible.
Still recuperating from our long swim, when a loud thrashing sounds out behind us, all we can do is turn and look. A croc has been struck by a shark. Blood pools into the water, mixing with burning jet fuel. The assault attracts the remaining crocs, one of which is struck from below a moment later. Jaws snap. Bodies death roll. Sharks twitch. The feeding frenzy is mutual and bloody as predators from two different worlds clash. The absolute mindless violence disturbs me, and despite still not being fully recovered, I find myself moving away.
“We need to get the fuck out of this water.”
King swims beside me, his strokes steady and smooth to not attract attention. We could swim faster, but flailing limbs look and sound a lot like struggling fish. Of course, that won’t stop the swirling mass of sharks from detecting our rapid heartbeats. When I feel the soft sand of the mainland beneath my feet, I start to feel better, but we’re still ten feet from shore, and anyone who’s watched Shark Week knows that even knee-deep water isn’t safe. So when we reach waist-deep water, two men who have seen their fair share of action stand and run for shore, lifting our feet high to clear the water.
Mangrove roots turn our run into a climb, but then we’re clear. I turn back, expecting to feel embarrassed by my retreat from the water, but when a dorsal fin passes by and, fifteen feet behind it, the tip of a tail, I realize the fear crawling up my back wasn’t cowardice. It was something closer to a sixth sense.
“Find them! Kill one of them!” homunculus-bird shouts, shouting at whoever is controlling the drones, and maybe the crocs. His amplified voice sounds smaller and distant, but also in stereo.
My head snaps to the dark jungle ahead. “They’re close.”
Without another word, we slip into the twisting coils of tree branches and roots. Distant voices grow louder with each step through the slick earth. There’s light ahead. A camp nestled in a recently hewn clearing. All of this for us. I crouch lower when I see movement ahead. King follows my lead, ducking beside me.
“We can flank them,” he says. “Come in from either side.”
A chip of wood slaps my face. There’s a bright white gouge in the bark just above King’s head.
“Or not. Stay here,” he says, and then he’s on his feet and moving, running pell-mell toward the camp, like a man who thinks bullets won’t hurt him.
“Stay here?” I say to myself. “Stay here? Not fucking likely.”
I move away from King, who has done a splendid job of drawing fire. So far, the web of trees are shielding him from the barrage, but he’s not going to last long if he charges out in the open.
I exit the jungle behind a trailer, but it looks and feels like a prop. I peek around the corner. The clearing is lit by a pair of floodlight stands. There’s a smoldering fire pit at the center. Two wooden posts jut from the ground. Laura is bound to one, her head hanging down, unconscious. There’s a man tied to the second post. King’s friend.