Outpost #2

Inside the lab station, Dr. Cooper feels the pressures of the day mount. “Just an urge,” he thinks. The directive of ancient genes skillfully crafted by unknown forces.
Training had prepared him for gene mechanics, but something was different here. Genetic codes, DNA, gene expression, and proteins of primal genes usually follow predictable patterns in gel boxes. He looks again.
“Tamperings." This would be the last word to emerge from his consciousness for awhile.

Cooper looks over at Suzi, in sleep mode for the night. Why is she so remote, so distant, so inner directed as if preoccupied with her own Abysma program? For the past week--and mostly today--Suzi's photovoltaic tints are a sharper blue. Her scanners focused a little more. Auras drift, sporadically, from her lab bench. For a second he wants to check her monitors--not to doubt her day's activity, he could never do that--but to free himself from the laboratory, to be free to go outside again, into the jungle, even for a moment.

The back door of the research station opens into the night. Cooper steps out, feels the cool chill and follows an ancient trail through the glade of Banyans leading beyond to the mountain. There are no tracks this low in the jungle. He wouldn't find them until he was further up the mountain.

Smooth mists lift off the tops of the jungle canopy into a clear moonlit night. The shadow of the lab building fades as Cooper makes his way further into the the darkness. He hears no life in the trees. Only the song of distant waterfalls and the wispy sound of the wind. As a coolness settles onto the shadows, the jungle floor darkens again.