Unity by Jeremy Robinson Page B

dart frogs are brightly colored. They’re easy to spot, but no one messes with them because the color says, ‘Eat me and die.’ So it’s the frogs who try to hide that get eaten.”
    I smile. Always an example with this one. “Doesn’t always work out that way, but yeah. That’s the idea.”
    Gizmo stops at a log I know for sure he can make it over and lifts his arms. “Cool.”
    I lift him up, but stop short of putting him back down. The jungle ahead has caught my attention. We’re nearly at the crest of one of many hills, all rising toward the barren volcanic cone several miles inland. Fifteen feet ahead is a line of destruction, where the flood waters deposited their passengers and slid away. Beyond the piles of debris is the untouched jungle.
    I put Gizmo down, looking at the trees.
    Gwen stops beside me, sweaty and out of breath. “What is it?”
    “Look at the trees,” I say. “The water line ends here, but the trees ahead are thin. You can see the sky through them.”
    Daniel hops on top of a large rock, scanning the treeline. “You’re right, but maybe the jungle is thinning because of the elevation?”
    “We’re not that high,” Gwen says.
    “I still don’t see the problem,” Daniel says.
    “It means there’s a clearing,” I say. “And in a jungle like this, that doesn’t happen naturally.”
    “Oh,” Daniel says, and then his face brightens up. “Oh!” He leaps down from the rock and charges up the hillside, scrambling over the last few feet of torn up terrain. Then he’s in the trees, bolting into the shadows.
    “Daniel! Wait for us.” Gwen shouts after him, but then Gizmo breaks for the trees, too.
    “I’ll get him!” the small boy says.
    Gwen isn’t as worried as she is annoyed. “Can you stay with them?”
    “You sure?” I ask, thinking more about how much it’s going to hurt to chase after them than I am about not leaving Gwen behind.
    “I’ll catch up,” she says.
    The pain in my legs flares hotter as I double-time my walk. But my pace isn’t nearly fast enough to catch the spritely boys. So I shift into a jog, and the invisible cleavers slicing through my muscles nearly make me cry out. But by the time I leave the awkward footing of the debris field behind and step on the more cushiony earth of the jungle, my legs have already begun to limber up. As my eyes adjust to the jungle’s shade, I find relief from the hot sun. Moisture trapped beneath the canopy collects on my face.
    “Guys,” I say, keeping my voice hushed for some reason.
    No reply.
    I look ahead to where the sky once again cuts through the green ceiling. The trees have definitely been cleared. The question is why. As I near the jungle’s edge, I crouch walk, moving with caution. Again, I’m not sure why. Something about this doesn’t feel right. Of course, nothing has felt right since I was roused from a sound sleep and tossed on a transport. So this is just one more thing in a growing list of wrongness.
    The jungle ends at the crest of a downward slope. I drop to my hands and knees, crawling up to the edge. Still in the shadows, I lie on my belly and take in the scene below.
    A bowl of vegetation in the center of a valley has been cleared. Every plant and tree has been mowed down and dragged away, leaving patches of tall, windblown grasses and lumps of embedded stone. At the center of the clearing is a flat rectangle of concrete, bleached by the sun, but still dark enough to see the white lines painted on the surface. The paint divides the concrete into three equal-sized squares. Each segment contains a large Unity triangle with a T in its core. It doesn’t take a Base to figure out that this is where the transports were supposed to land. Three transports. Three landing pads.
    We nearly made it.
    Whispering to my right pulls my attention away from the landing site. I put my hand atop a large fern and slowly lower it. Daniel and Gizmo are lying on the ground, just a few feet away, staring into the