“I miss decent food and blow jobs. Not being covered in mosquito bites.”
Marcus eases the amplifier over a couple of inches, finding another conversation to snoop on.
“...even cooked all the way through, I’m not eating that. Were the cinnamon rolls a one-time thing?”
A green-blue-and-yellow snake is wrapped around a branch next to me, and I don’t like how close it’s getting. I’m about to take out my knife and chop it, but then I remember the trees and plants asking for my help.
The snake is alive. It probably feels pain. I’m the one who doesn’t belong here, not it, and I can’t bring myself to kill it.I nudge it with the tip of my knife, trying to annoy it without hurting it.
“...don’t like it either, but here we are.” That’s Vadim. Marcus moved the amplifier again. “He isn’t himself anymore, and we’re outnumbered.”
The snake is ... getting bigger? I gape at it, wondering if I accidentally ingested a hallucinogen. Its neck and upper body are inflating before my eyes. I don’t want to kill it, but?—
A thunk vibrates through the branches of the tree, making me jump. Marcus’s dagger cuts it cleanly, and he uses the tip of his blade to ease the snake’s body from around the branch.
The two halves of the snake drop to the ground.
I furrow my brow, but when our eyes meet, his espresso eyes are wide with alarm.
He mouths “boomslang”, and my jaw drops.
I should have known. I’m not great at identifying snakes, but the bright colors should have tipped me off. Boomslangs have hemotoxic venom. Their bite causes an agonizing death where the victim bleeds from every orifice for several days. They’re indigenous to Africa, but there are other plants and animals here that don’t belong. McClain seeded this island with species he wanted to experiment on.
My skin crawls as I scan the branches around me, alert for more deadly snakes.
“...keep telling you, he’s not like that. Cut the warmth. Marcus is cold and decisive. He’s not a talker. Even his friends said he doesn’t take anyone’s advice on anything. He relies on his own instincts. We’ve been over this.”
“I’m sorry, Commander.”
Marcus’s face is frozen in a scowl as he listens to the conversation between Ingrid and his clone.
“Drum up some concern for the girlfriend.” Ingrid barks the order, exasperated.
“What does drum up mean?”
She groans. “Contextual clues, 6A5. What do you think it means, based on everything else you know?”
“Find? Fabricate?”
“Yes. Marcus would be angry that his girlfriend is gone. He wouldn’t be flirting with the kitchen help.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Remember—no apologizing, ever.”
“Sorry, Commander.”
“Listen to me!” A few seconds of silence pass. “Be him starting now. No apologizing. No listening. You were programmed to be respectful, but I am ordering you to play this part as I want you to. You only defer to me. No one else. People here need to see him in you. He’s cold and ruthless.”
The clone’s tone is short and annoyed as he says, “Is that it? I have things to do.”
“Much better. Let’s get back to questioning his friends. The one-armed guy is close to breaking.”
Chance. I cringe, wondering what they’ve done to him.
Marcus’s expression is one I haven’t seen in a while. I remember it from when I first came to the Dust Walkers camp. He’s shut down. Walls up.
After another couple hours of listening in on the conversations we can reach with the amplifier, we carefully climb down from the tree and start the walk back to the cave. Ingrid still has soldiers searching the jungle for us, so we have to move slowly and listen for anyone approaching.
