Evolver: Apex Predator by Phil Hester, Jon S. Lewis, Shannon Eric Denton, Jason Arnett Read Free Book Online

of trees that marked the back of the EnviroTech property. A half mile further on and he was at the edge of the park and ride lot, already dotted with cars. The sun was just coming up.
    Lost in thought, he didn't notice one back out of its space until it almost hit him. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized it was there.
    The car stopped and the passenger window rolled down. "Let's go," Laurie said.
    He sat next to her but kept one leg on the ground outside and held out a handful of phage discs. "These are the discs you put in the suit in Thorn's lab," he said. "Any idea what's on these or how they work? I found some more in dad's office."
    She shook her head.
    "Know who might?"
    "Dr. Aladeen," she said. "I don't know where he might be, though."
    "We need to find him," Jackson said and dropped the discs on the ground. "Roll forward."
    He watched the rear wheel crush the pieces of plastic. He closed his door and looked forward.
    They drove off into the rising sun and left everything they knew behind them.

 
    EPILOGUE
     
    The bear was indifferent, sluggish, nearly ready to den for the winter as it made its way down to the babbling stream. There was some rocks, scree actually, that slid away as it walked, but that didn't affect the bear or change his intentions. The mountains had made their final push to the sky long, long ago, before the great spirit of legend was in charge of things and bears had been a part of this country ever since. This bear knew none of that, nor did he care. All he was interested in was a drink before a long slumber.
    The other animals of the area made way for the bear, sensing his torpor. The rule of prey was to first avoid all predators, even those who were basically sleepwalking.
    It was a straight ridge that led the bear to the trail that went down to the stream on this side. Most of the woodland creatures at the base of the mountain knew the bear, most of them stayed on the far side of the stream in case he came hungry. There was almost never any bloodshed at the stream, as though there were an unspoken agreement between predator and prey.
    The bear dipped his snout in the cold stream and lapped at the water. He drank a deep draught without noticing the man on the opposite bank. It had seen humans before, even charged at them when they had invaded his territory. This human wasn't moving, was, in fact, staring at the bear, studying it. The bear took a step out into the rushing water and roared.
    It sounded lazy, even to the bear, not at all fearsome. It took another step into the stream and gave a stronger accounting of itself, a bigger roar. The human didn't move.
    Instead, the human did something the bear had never seen before. It grew fur like a bear, its scent changed to something much more bear like, it was colored like a bear. When it stood, it was taller than the bear in the stream, its roar was deafening and the sleepy bear decided the human wasn't worth the trouble, took another drink from the stream and then turned to make its way back up the bank on its side.
    Jackson watched the bear go and felt a little bad about it. He changed back to himself and looked at his hand. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed then ducked his head to his armpit. He whiffed of bear. It wasn't as bad as the yeti scent, but it wasn't good, either. He waded out into the stream and lay down, let the current wash him clean.
    Laurie would be anxious to get on with today's testing if he didn't hurry up. She'd been a real friend through all of this and he had told her so often over the last few weeks on the run. His mother had taken everything pretty well when he'd called to explain, but she wanted him to go to the police to clear his name. She yelled at him over the phone when he said he couldn't and tried to reassure her that he was doing the right thing. Eventually she listened and he hung up knowing that even though she was angry with him, she knew he was alive if not exactly her little boy any