“Wait a second, everybody!” Jack shouted over the babble. “We need some order in this chaos. Only one person at a time.”

“Well, damn!” Warren said. “I’m going first! I just want to thank you guys for coming when you did.”

“I’ll second that,” Laurie said.

Having cleared the central part of town, Kevin pulled into the parking lot for the main supermarket. There were several other cars. He stopped and turned off the lights and the engine.

“Before we talk about anything else,” Kevin said. “We’ve got to talk about getting out of this town. We don’t have a lot of time. How did you people originally plan on leaving?”

“By the same boat we came in on,” Jack said.

“Where’s the boat?” Kevin asked.

“We assume it’s where we left it,” Jack said. “Pulled up on the beach under the pier.”

“Is it big enough for all of us?” Kevin asked.

“With room to spare,” Jack said.

“Perfect!” Kevin said with excitement. “I was hoping you’d come by boat. That way we can go directly to Gabon.” He faced around quickly and restarted the engine. “Let’s just pray it’s not been found.”

He drove out of the parking lot and began a circuitous route to the waterfront. He wanted to stay as far from the town hall and his own house as possible.

“We have a problem,” Jack said. “We have no identification or money. Everything was taken from us.”

“We’re not much better off,” Kevin said. “But we do have some money, both cash and travelers checks. Our passports were confiscated when we were put under house arrest this afternoon. We were destined for the same fats as you: to be turned over to the Equatoguinean authorities.”

“Would that have been a problem?” Jack asked.

Kevin let out a little derisive laugh. In the back of his mind, he could see the skulls on Siegfried’s desk. “It would have been more than a problem. It would have meant a hush-hush mock trial followed by a firing squad.”

“No shit!” Warren said.

“In this country, it is a capital offense to interfere with GenSys operations,” Kevin said. “And the manager is the one who decides whether someone is interfering or not.”

“A firing squad?” Jack repeated with horror.

“I’m afraid so,” Kevin said. “The army here is good at it. They’ve had a lot of practice over the years.”

“Then we’re even more in debt to you people than we thought,” Jack said. “I’d no idea.”

Laurie looked out the side window of the car and shuddered. It was just sinking in how seriously her life was on the line and that the threat was not yet over.

“How come you guys were in the soup?” Warren asked.

“It’s a long story,” Melanie said.

“So is ours,” Laurie said.

“I have a question,” Kevin said. “Did you people come here because of Carlo Franconi?”

“Whoa!” Jack said. “Such clairvoyance! I’m impressed, and intrigued. How did you guess? What exactly is your role here in Cogo?”

“Me, in particular?” Kevin asked.

“Well, all of you,” Jack said.

Kevin, Melanie, and Candace looked at each other to see who wanted to speak first.

“We were all part of the same program,” Candace said. “But I was just a minor player. I’m an intensive-care nurse for a surgical transplant team.”

“I’m a reproductive technologist,” Melanie said. “I provide the raw materials for Kevin to work his magic, and once he has, I see to it that his creations are brought to fruition.”

“I’m a molecular biologist,” Kevin explained with a sigh of regret. “Someone who overstepped his bounds and committed a Promethean blunder.”

“Hold up,” Jack said. “Don’t go too literary on me. I know I’ve heard of Prometheus, but I can’t remember who he was.”

“Prometheus was a Titan in Greek mythology,” Laurie said. “He stole fire from Olympus and gave it to man.”

“I inadvertently gave fire to some animals,” Kevin said. “I stumbled on the way to move chromosome parts, particularly the short arm of chromosome six from one cell to another, from one species to another.”

“So you took chromosome parts from humans and put them into an ape,” Jack said.

“Into the fertilized egg of an ape,” Kevin said. “A bonobo to be exact.”

“And what you were really doing,” Jack continued, “was custom-designing the perfect organ transplant source for a specific individual.”

“Exactly,” Kevin said. “It wasn’t what I had in mind in the beginning. I was just a pure researcher. What I ended up doing was something I was lured into because of its economic potential.”

“Wow!” Jack commented. “Ingenious and impressive, but also a little scary.”

“It’s more than scary,” Kevin said. “It’s a tragedy of sorts. The problem is I transferred too many human genes. I’ve accidently created a race of protohumans.”

“You mean like Neanderthals?” Laurie asked.

“More primitive by millions of years,” Kevin said. “More like Lucy. But they’re intelligent enough to use fire, make tools, and even converse. I think they are the way we were four or five million years ago.”

“Where are these creatures?” Laurie asked with alarm.

“They’re on a nearby island,” Kevin said, “where they have been living in comparative freedom. Unfortunately, that’s all about to change.”

“Why is that?” Laurie asked. In her mind’s eye, she could see these protohumans. As a child she’d been fascinated by cavemen.

Kevin quickly told the story of the smoke eventually bringing him, Melanie, and Candace to the island. He related how they’d been captured and then rescued. He also told them about the creatures’ fate effacing lifelong internment in tiny concrete cells purely because they were too human.

“That’s awful,” Laurie commented.

“It’s a disaster!” Jack said with a shake of his head. “What a story!”

“This world isn’t ready for a new race,” Warren said. “We’ve got enough trouble with what we have already.”

“We’re coming up on the waterfront,” Kevin announced. “The square at the base of the pier is around the next bend.”

“Then stop here,” Jack said. “There was a soldier there when we arrived.”

Kevin pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the headlights. He kept the engine running for the air-conditioning. Jack and Warren got out the back and ran down to the corner. Carefully, they peeked around the bend.

“If our boat is not there, are there other boats around here?” Laurie asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Kevin said.

“Is there another way out of town besides the main gate?” Laurie asked.

“That’s it,” Kevin said.

“Heaven help us,” Laurie commented.

Jack and Warren came back quickly. Kevin lowered his window.

“There’s a soldier,” Jack said. “He’s none too attentive. In fact, he might even be asleep. But we’ll still have to deal with him. I think it best you all stay here.”

“Fine by me,” Kevin said. He was more than happy to leave such business up to others. If left to him, he wouldn’t have had any idea what to do.

Jack and Warren returned to the corner and disappeared.

Kevin raised his window.

Laurie looked at Natalie and shook her head. “I’m sorry about all this. I suppose I should have known. Jack seems to have a penchant for finding trouble.”

“No need to apologize,” Natalie said. “It’s certainly not your fault. Besides, things are looking a lot better than they did only fifteen or twenty minutes ago.”

Jack and Warren reappeared in a surprisingly short time. Jack was holding a handgun, while Warren was carrying an assault rifle. They got into the back of the Toyota.

“Any problem?” Kevin asked.

“Nope,” Jack said. “He was very accommodating. Of course, Warren can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”

“Does the Chickee Hut Bar have a parking area?” Warren asked.

“It does,” Kevin said.

“Drive there!” Warren said.

Kevin backed up, took a right and then the first left. At the end of the block he pulled into an expansive asphalt parking lot. The darkened Chickee Hut Bar was silhouetted ahead. Beyond the bar was the sparkling expanse of the broad estuary. Its surface shimmered in the moonlight.