Zoo II (8 page)

“Please hold for the
president of the United States.”

I’ve met Marlena Hardinson many times before. I lectured her and other world leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House. I even spent a few months living with her, the First Gentleman, and other high-ranking officials at Thule Air Base in Greenland after animals overran Washington and the government was temporarily evacuated.

Still, it’s always pretty exciting to get a call from the leader of the free world.

Even when you know she’s about to chew you out.

“Dr. Freitas,
Mr
. Oz,” President Hardinson says pointedly as soon as she gets on the line, her husky voice brimming with frustration. “Can you please explain to me how an international operation costing over half a million dollars in travel, equipment, and logistical expenses
per day
has yielded no new breakthroughs on the animal crisis—or the growing
human
one—in almost four weeks?”

Freitas and I, along with just a few other colleagues (since most of our team, including Sarah, is still in Idaho hard at work), are back aboard our transport plane, this time flying across the Pacific. We’re listening to this unexpected call on an encrypted speakerphone.

Freitas gulps, visibly rattled.

“I see you received the briefing packet we prepared for you, Madam President.”

“Which might as well have been a stack of blank pages,” she responds. “Except the part about the new human affliction being ‘potentially irreversible.’ Is that true?”

“We don’t know for sure, ma’am,” I cut in. “After all, we’ve only been able to examine one live specimen. That’s why we’re on our way to—”

“Tokyo. Yes, I’m aware. I spoke with Prime Minister Iwasaki this morning and informed him of your plans. He told me, in confidence, that there have been dozens of reported incidents involving feral humans in recent days, especially in the countryside.”

“Have any been picked up yet by the Japanese press?” Freitas asks nervously. “Because if word gets out, we could be looking at a level of global pandemonium—”

“The prime minister, as
we
have, has been doing absolutely everything in his power to
suppress
any reporting on the feral humans. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned after all my years in Washington, you can’t keep a lid on bad news forever.”

She’s right. Especially of this magnitude. What was once just a silly rumor about bands of people “going native” in the game preserves of Africa has quickly proven to be a deadly reality all over, in places as diverse as Finland, South Korea, Egypt, and Japan. With most countries already teetering on the brink of anarchy, local governments have been trying desperately to sweep each incident under the rug. But it’s only a matter of time before a cellphone video goes viral showing feral humans mauling innocent ones, and panic is unleashed around the world.

“Godspeed to you all,” Hardinson says. “Oh, and Oz. My chief of staff informs me a security team in Paris has been making headway locating your wife and son?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply. “Thank you again for all your administration’s help.”

“I’m not doing it out of the kindness of my heart, Oz. As I’m sure you know. We’re only trying to save them because
you’re
trying to save humankind.”

I understand the president’s veiled threat loud and clear: succeed, or else.

Seven billion lives are hanging in the balance.

Including the two I cherish most.

Our Mitsubishi H-60 transport
helicopter thunders above the sprawling metropolis that is Tokyo. It’s a stunningly dense city that seems to stretch on forever.

But even from such a high altitude, it’s clear how badly the endless waves of animal attacks have ravaged Tokyo and its people.

It’s midday, but judging by the lack of movement, it seems like huge swaths of the city are without power. Pillars of smoke dot the skyline. I can see flocks of striped sparrowhawks, ready to swoop down on human prey. Herds of something—wild boar?—flow through the streets like living, snorting rivers.

We bank southwest. Gradually the urban density becomes more suburban, then finally lush and mountainous. This tells me we’re nearing our destination: semirural Yamanashi Prefecture, one of the most geographically secluded areas in the country.

Our chopper finally descends right in the middle of the main quad of Tsuru University, to the utter shock of the handful of students and faculty brave enough to be outside. Freitas slides open the cabin door and I see an elderly Japanese man hurrying toward us, shielding his face against the rotor wash. He has a bushy white goatee, thick black-rimmed glasses, and wears a tan suit and red bow tie.

My first thought is, the guy resembles a kooky mashup of Mr. Miyagi and Colonel Sanders. He must be Professor Junichi Tanaka, the highly regarded naturalist Freitas has been in contact with, who’ll be leading us into the highlands to trap a second feral human.

Great
. At least our guides back in South Africa were strapping young men. If we’re attacked with Grandpa here at the helm? I’d say it’s pretty much every man for himself.

“Konnichiwa,
Freitas
-san,”
Tanaka says, offering a smile and his hand to shake. But Freitas has already started bowing and doesn’t notice this. Tanaka returns the bow, just as Freitas rises up and extends
his
hand.

My boss is about to bow again when I grab his shoulder and stop him. Another time, another place, this little culture clash might be amusing. But not now.

“How about we ditch the formalities and get down to business?”

Freitas introduces the members of the skeleton team we’ve brought with us as Tanaka leads us all to an idling van. One of his graduate students, a twenty-something geeky-looking kid named Yusuke, is behind the wheel.

“First we will take you to the place where they killed all those Americans,” Tanaka says, directing us inside the vehicle. “Then we will track them down.”

“Uh…come again, mate?” asks Dr. Bret Clement, an immunologist from New Zealand, arching an eyebrow in concern.

This is rather alarming news to me, too.

“You told us there were only
sightings
of feral humans around here, Freitas,” I say. “What American dead is he talking about?”

Freitas sighs and looks away. I know immediately he has once again kept his team partially in the dark.

“Mormon missionaries. About five of them. They’d been living in a remote mountain village near Otsuki. One afternoon, they were outside, apparently repairing their well. Neighbors heard screaming. By the time the cops arrived, they were all dead. Police sealed off the scene and claimed the deaths were a religion-motivated murder-suicide. The handful of neighbors who claimed they saw a pack of filthy, screeching Japanese rushing back into the woods? Their stories were deliberately disregarded and buried, by direct order from the Japanese Ministry of Justice.”

Unbelievable. I supposed desperate times call for desperate, semi-illegal measures. But still. It’s a miracle that word of the human attacks hasn’t spread. Then again, the world is in such a state of chaos, maybe not.

Yusuke drives slowly and carefully along the narrow, winding roads that lead up the side of Mount Gangaharasuri, which I appreciate. But I’m mindful of how low the sun has slipped in the sky when we finally arrive at the missionaries’ former village.

We exit the van, duck under the blue-and-white Japanese police crime scene tape, and do a quick walkabout of the property. The wooden home is modest, even by local standards. The stone path surrounding the well is covered with dried blood.

“My best guess,” Professor Tanaka says, inspecting a topographical map on his iPhone and scanning the dense, hilly forest that starts just a few yards from the house, “is the pack went
that
way. The terrain is still steep, but less so. And in about twenty kilometers, there is a small cave beside a freshwater creek.”

“The perfect spot for a prehistoric human settlement,” Freitas says. “Let’s go.”

He starts marching toward the woods, but I hesitate. As do some of the others.

“Are you serious?” I say. “It’s already after five o’clock. Sundown’s in less than an hour. By the time we reach that cave, it’ll be pitch black. Just think about that.”

Tanaka answers instead. “Oz-
san,
there is a saying.
Jinsei ga hikari o tsukuru hozon shimasu
. Save a life, and your path will always have light.”

“That’s a nice proverb and all, Professor, but—”

“Proverb? No. I just made it up. Now let’s go.”

I can’t help but scoff as Tanaka and Yusuke head bravely into the woods. Freitas and the other scientists soon follow. Reluctantly, I do as well.

I’m all for saving a life. Just as long as it doesn’t cost my own.

Night falls on Mount Gangaharasuri.
In addition to our guns and gear, each member of our ten-man team is using a long-range, super-bright LED tactical flashlight to illuminate the way. But as the last rays of reddish-orange sunlight disappear behind the horizon, a cold and heavy darkness engulfs us for miles.

“We are nearly at the cave,” Tanaka says. With his eyes glued to the GPS program on his iPhone, he nearly trips on a hidden rock. “Just a few more kilometers.”

“Good. And remember,” Freitas says to the rest of us, “if those feral humans
are
there? You all know exactly what to do.”

He means that we’re to carry out the plan of attack we carefully crafted. We might not have learned much about what’s
causing
humans to turn rabid yet, but we’re certainly more prepared to sedate and capture one than we were outside Johannesburg. I’m feeling confident but also tingly with nerves.

Suddenly, Tanaka stops in his tracks. He holds up his palm for us to halt.

We all stand still as statues for a moment—until we hear a frantic rustling coming from some distant trees.

Instinctively, many of us, including myself, aim our flashlights in that direction. We can’t see anything yet through the branches, but whatever it is, it looks to be about five or six feet tall. It’s moving fast. And there’s more than one.

Looks like the feral humans are coming for us first.

As we start to spread out and get ready, I slowly reach behind me. Slung over my shoulder are two weapons I can choose from: one lethal, one not. Even though it goes against our plan, my assault rifle is sounding pretty tempting right about now.

The rustling gets louder and louder…until four upright creatures burst from the trees and stagger toward us—not feral humans but Asiatic black bears.

Our group flies into chaos. Tanaka, Yusuke, Freitas, and the scientists all drop their flashlights, scramble for cover, and grope for their
real
weapons.

Thankfully, I already have mine aimed and ready.

I pepper the approaching bears with bullets as best I can in the darkness. I think I’ve hit at least two, but they keep coming. They roar and prepare to charge, their first target apparently Tanaka…

When just as suddenly, they all stop, retreat, and scamper back into the jungle, whimpering, their tiny tails literally between their legs.

“What the hell was that?” Freitas asks, picking himself up from the ground.

“Same thing that happened with the mustangs on the highway,” I say. “Except this time, they didn’t get a whiff of a feral human. Just a bunch of normal ones—who I guess should probably try to shower a little more regularly.”

With relieved chuckles, our group reassembles and continues on.

We know we’re getting close when we start to smell smoke from a campfire. Crouching low, we follow a tributary of the creek Tanaka mentioned. Before long, it leads us directly to the cave.

And inside, there they are.

There are eight of
them, all squatting in a circle around the glowing embers, feasting on what looks like barbecued squirrel. Their skin and tattered clothes are filthy, their posture apelike. Once again, they seem to eerily straddle the line between human and animal, modern and primitive.

We all spread out in a semicircle, take our positions…and quietly slip on gas masks. Then we each ready the miniature pellet guns we’ve brought, loaded with rounds of a custom-designed nerve gas containing a mild paralysis agent. To put it simply, our plan is to defeat the feral humans by not fighting them at all.

Freitas gives the signal and we each shoot our little pellets toward our unaware fellow
Homo sapiens
. The odorless gas should take just under thirty seconds to dissipate enough throughout the air, undetected, to begin making them woozy.

Instead, the humans’ nostrils flare before the pellets even hit the ground.

Oh, shit,
I think, as it suddenly dawns on me: the gas was designed to be odorless to
normal
people. These half-human/half-Neanderthals very likely have a superior olfactory sense. Or at least their brains do, subconsciously.

In which case, we’re screwed.

Alerted to a disturbance, the feral humans look around, spot us, and let out a piercing battle cry. They leap to their feet, snatch up some of the prehistoric-looking weapons lying around the fire—spears, slingshots, tomahawks—and charge at us.

Freitas tries barking orders, but no one can hear him. And none of us cares. We’re all scrambling to aim our weapons and stay alive.

One of them lunges at me with a “dagger” made of sharpened flint. She manages to slash my arm, but then I twist, parry, and shoot her in the chest point-blank.

More and more gunfire echoes across the mountain as our team fights back.

I can’t see much of the “battlefield” through the fogged visor of my gas mask, but it seems like we’ve overwhelmed the feral humans with our modern firepower. Realizing they’re outgunned, they actually start fleeing back into the jungle.

“You’re not getting away that easy!” I shout, my voice muffled by my aspirator.

I pick the closest one to me—a middle-aged male—and charge after him. But he’s fast and nimble as a cheetah and scrabbles up the rocky terrain with ease.

Realizing he’s getting away, I make a risky decision. I stop running and kneel. I raise my rifle scope to my visor and try to line up the perfect, one-in-a-thousand shot, hoping to hit him in his leg and cripple him.

I squeeze the trigger—and yelp with joy as the man topples over into the brush.

I race over. Bleeding badly from his right thigh, he’s now trying to
crawl
away.

But as soon as he sees me, the man stops and starts screeching and thrashing wildly, desperately struggling to punch and claw at me.

Even though he’s wounded, watching his frenetic energy is still unnerving.

Which gives me an idea.

I take a few steps back, pull out my pellet gun again, and fire a little canister right at him. It bounces off him harmlessly and then begins releasing its paralyzing nerve gas. The man coughs and wheezes, kicks and writhes, but can’t get away fast enough. Within seconds, he starts slowing down, finally collapsing on the jungle floor.

Satisfied that he’s no longer a threat, I reapproach—this time readying the pair of handcuffs and leg shackles I’ve also brought.

I flip the unconscious man over, tug his arms behind his back, and slap on the cuffs, just like they do in the movies.

“You’re under arrest,” I can’t help but say. “You have the right to remain human.”