Read Online Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith - Free Book Online Page A

onto the sand and angled his helmet mounted cam into the canyon. To his right, a man dressed in tan clothes and a brown scarf raised a sniper rifle and pointed it downward.
    “Does this have audio?” Kate asked.
    Ellis clicked the volume. Gusting wind and background noise made it difficult to hear much of the conversation between the two men. He fiddled with the controls until a voice finally crackled from the computer speakers.
    “There they are,” the man with the rifle said.
    “Holy shit,” the cameraman replied. He centered the cam on the clusters of orange rocks below.
    “I can’t see any—” Kate began to say when the soldier holding the camera zoomed in on dozens of what looked like orange crabs clambering over the rocks.
    The sniper fired into the valley and the monsters scattered in all directions. They moved like other Variants on jointed appendages, but their anatomy was slightly different with fiery orange, scaly skin and humps on their backs. A round from the soldier’s sniper rifle hit one of those humps. It exploded like a balloon, blood and fat bursting into the air.
    “Pretty remarkable, isn’t it?” Ellis asked. He shut off the feed and swiveled his chair to face her.
    Kate took a few moments to analyze what she had seen. The Variants were adapting all around the world in amazing ways, but unlike Ellis, she didn’t feel anything remotely close to excitement. The new developments terrified her.
    She folded her arms across her chest. “The gills, the fur, and the other changes we’re seeing are just the beginning. There’s no telling how the Variants are adapting in other climates. We have to get other labs on board before it’s too late.” She let out a breath of frustration that fogged the inside of her visor.
    Ellis leaned back to his station and punched at the keyboard.
    “God. There’s more?” Kate asked.
    “Yes. The physical changes are metamorphosis, and the behavioral changes are adaptation, but I’m about to show you something that’s clearly evolution.”
    Kate steeled herself, drawing in another long breath of filtered air. The clock on the wall ticked toward midnight. Her thoughts drifted as she waited for Ellis to load another video. The day had gone by so quickly that she hadn’t thought about what would happen when she got off work. She knew she had to talk to Beckham, but every time she tried, there was another distraction. Plus, they had just laid Jensen to rest. Now wasn’t an ideal time to spring the news on him. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself. Maybe she was just too scared to tell him the truth. Maybe she didn’t want to believe it herself. Even if they managed to survive for nine months, what kind of world would she be bringing a child into?
    “Here we go,” Ellis said. He clicked the play button, and another video popped on screen, this one of a dimly lit tunnel.
    “This is the feed from a Marine Recon team that was inserted in Chicago,” Ellis added. “According to the file, it’s not far from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. As you remember, that was the epicenter of the Hemorrhage Virus.”
    Kate’s stomach flipped as she thought of her brother, Javier. He hadn’t been all that far from the hospital when he was infected.
    “Give it a second,” Ellis said. “Can’t fast forward this one.”
    The video rattled as the Marine’s helmet-mounted camera jolted up and down for several minutes. The graffiti-covered walls of the underground tunnel blurred by. At the end of the passage, the Marine crouched and raised his rifle. He then gestured toward a chamber with arching walls and a vaulted ceiling. In the center of the space, on the concrete floor, a sea of flesh shifted back and forth like dead grass blowing in the wind.
    “What is that...” Kate began to say. The NVG camera focused, and Kate saw something that confirmed her worst fear. The Variants slithered over the ground in a solid wall of pallid, glistening flesh. Tucked back