Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,32

fight to survive.”

Sara looked at him. “It’s possible.”

“Even so, this makes no sense.” King shook his head. “Tigers kill to eat. They’d have no reason to kill an entire village. Even a hyperevolved tiger.”

“Sometimes evolution is more of a psychological change, making a population more fearful or secretive. But it can also lead to extreme territoriality and violent behavior. A tiger forced into a new territory by a more dominant specimen might see the human population as competition and—”

“Do this.”

“In theory. But hyperevolution requires an actual change in the genetic code, which certainly takes more time—even hyperevolution caused in accelerated breeding scenarios. We’re assuming that tigers don’t already have this instinct built in. It’s not inconceivable that tigers have latent abilities and instincts that could be triggered in certain situations.”

“That’s possible?”

Sara gave a slight nod, trying to stay focused on her thoughts rather than the gore surrounding her. “Genetic assimilation. Basically, the genetics of a creature, whether it be tiger, human, or shark, remain unchanged despite phenotypic changes—appearance—or behavior. The genetic code remains intact, but the expression of that code is affected by the environment.”

“Like playing the same song through different sets of speakers.”

“Exactly. All the music is there, but some speakers have more bass than others, so a vocal track might get drowned out. Let’s say there’s an island populated by ground-dwelling squirrels typically preyed upon by birds. They stay close to the ground, seeking shelter in brush and subterranean dens. But introduce a land predator and the squirrels are suddenly climbing trees. The instinct and ability to climb trees have always been there, but weren’t triggered until the introduction of a predator. The predator is basically a barrier to the continuing success and survival of the squirrel. Same as an ice age or food shortage might be. The genetic assimilation is a hard-wired method of overcoming evolutionary barriers without having to evolve over several generations, which often takes too long to be useful. It’s much faster than evolution and requires only a few generations to perfect the change . . . sometimes no generations.”

“Like flipping a switch.”

“Yes.”

“Can the switch be flipped off?”

She shrugged. “It’s all theory. No way to know for sure.”

“So this could be an average, run-of-the-mill tiger reacting to a unique situation the way any other tiger would.”

“It’s possible.”

“Except . . .” He pointed up and down the path. “There isn’t a single cat print.”

Sara knelt, looking at the footprints. Then one stood out among the others. “What about that one?”

The single print looked human, but too wide and too deep. While overweight people with wide feet weren’t unheard of, it didn’t make sense in this part of the world. “Have you ever se—”

Debris from inside one of the huts spilled out. Clay pots and clumps of reed thatching tumbled down the hut’s ramp to the ground. King and Bishop stood between Sara and the hut and took aim, ready to reduce the already ailing structure to toothpicks. An old woman stumbled down the ramp and fell to the earth as gravity proved too much for her brittle bones and aging muscles.

They rushed to her and found her mumbling incoherently through her white, dehydrated lips. Her hair was straight and completely gray. Not a hint of youth remained. Her wrinkled face, etched with years, softened at seeing them. She saw their guns and sighed.

Sara frowned upon seeing the old woman. She was someone’s grandmother . . . perhaps great-grandmother. Had she seen them all die? Her daughters? Her sons? Were their bodies lying around the village? Sara remembered what it was like attending her grandmother’s funeral, seeing the open casket. Death seemed so well preserved then, like an illusion of life. Her grandmother looked more alive in death than this woman did alive.

Sara’s heart went out to her. She shared some water from her canteen. The woman gagged and the liquid dribbled from her mouth. She was too exhausted to drink.

“Nguoi Rung,” the woman said. “Nguoi Rung. Nguoi Rung.”

King could see she was fading fast. “She’s not going to make it.”

A battle raged in Sara. She wanted to save the woman. And she might even be able to. She had everything she needed to start an IV liquid drip in her pack . . . but there was still a chance the woman would die before Sara had a chance to draw her blood. And that was a risk she couldn’t take. Sara opened her backpack and removed her medical kit. She popped open the green