Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,88
stone floor between himself and the fire. Then he removed the vial of blood and placed it next to the laptop. He opened the computer and pushed the power button. “You know, the laptop I brought must have weighed ten pounds. This can’t be more than two. Technology is amazing, isn’t it?”
“How long have you been here?” King asked.
“I arrived in 1995,” Weston replied. Sara’s eyes widened. “Fifteen years.” The screen blinked on and chimed as the operating system resumed operations where they had been when the laptop had been closed. “Cute penguin.” Weston spun the laptop around to Sara. “You were testing the blood?”
Sara ignored his question and looked at the test results. She did her best to show no reaction to what she was seeing. She scanned down the list of virus antibodies found in the woman’s blood. The new strain of bird flu had been detected. That blood was their best chance at a cure.
“There’s nothing there,” Sara said.
Weston raised an eyebrow. “I was a cryptozoologist before finding my place here. I’m no fool. In fact, I know more about your Brugada syndrome than you do.”
With a casual flick of the wrist, Weston tossed the vial into the fire. It shattered, sending a geyser of steam to the cave ceiling fifteen feet above. A breeze from deeper inside the cave carried the steam and smoke across the ceiling, removing all traces of the blood, and hope, with it.
Sara fought back a gag as she realized she smelled cooked human blood, but her repulsion became replaced by rage. “Why did you do that?” she shouted, fighting with her bonds, desperate to lunge at Weston and strangle the life from him.
“Because,” King said, “he already has the cure.”
Weston stood, picked up the laptop, and hurled it violently against the wall, shattering it. After its plastic body rattled to the stone floor, Weston calmly took his position by the fire.
His lack of denial was all the confirmation Sara needed. “Why don’t you give it to us and let us go! With so much at stake how can you—”
“You have no idea what’s at stake!” Weston shouted, his eyes wide and face reddening. “The civilization of the Nguoi Rung, the ancestors of my children, found refuge from humanity here. My children find refuge here. I cannot allow word of their existence to leave the jungle.” His voice calmed. “It is an awful thing. I know. But I have done awful things to protect this hidden treasure and I will again if need be. You must remain here, with us. Whether you live among us or remain a prisoner is your choice, but you will not leave.”
He rubbed his temple, closed his eyes, and sighed. “The rest of the world will just have to find a cure another way.”
“And the VPLA,” King said. “What will you do with them?”
“They will not leave the jungle, either.” He met King’s eyes. “I have done awful things, soldier. You of all people should understand that killing to protect your people, your home, is—”
“Noble,” King said.
Weston smiled slightly. “Yes, noble.”
“And the name is King.”
A smirk returned to Weston’s face. He picked up a stick and poked the fire. Sparks flew toward the ceiling. “Agent Orange, you’ve heard of it, yes?”
“An herbicide used in the Vietnam War to clear the forest,” King said.
“It’s still used as a defoliant for cotton before it’s harvested,” Sara added. “Traces of it can be found in cottonseed oil, which is ludicrous, considering it causes—”
Sara’s eyes widened.
King snapped his head toward her. “Causes what?”
Sara met his eyes and then looked back at Weston. “Genetic mutation . . . soft tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia . . . It’s a carcinogen. Highly mutagenic.”
“Impressive,” Weston said. “It took me a few years to put all that together. Took another few to figure out why the children and I were immune.”
“You experimented on the villagers,” King said.
“Heavens, no. I observed them. Their deaths revealed the mechanisms the plague used to spread and how long it took to kill. The flu swept through the village. Days later, the sudden death claimed its first victim. Then a wave of death spread through the village. I watched as sometimes one man an hour would simply fall over dead.
“I hiked to a village to the north of here and spoke to them about what was happening. To my surprise this wasn’t the first time. The village elder, an old man I had encountered several times