“My, what big teeth you have, grandma,” Neke said when she rejoined us.

“It is the new dominance ritual,” Carla said, “We don’t measure dicks any more. We measure teeth.”

“I bet you used that line on Ngoi a lot. The bid bad wolf.” I said.

She just grinned, showing me her impressive snake fangs.

I had to increase the level of the waves I was outputting now to moderate. I didn’t have to concentrate on the waves much. They were reasonably automatic, which was good. If I got into a fight, I needed to keep the waves going, or I would mutate once my Essence pool was contaminated enough.

Walking parallel to the stream, we saw crocs sunning themselves on the banks. There was a lot of bird life, including dingo and kangaroo tracks. I smelled snakes and various other animals, some that I recognised and some I didn’t.

When we closed in on the 1km mark, Ngoi said, “Spread out and start collecting. Looking for Kakadu Plum, Emu Plants, Stinging Nettle, and Witchity grubs for the medics. Anything dangerous looking for the fighters. Any seeds are good, but try to identify the plant they came from. Stay in sight.”

The three obviously had photos on their phones of what to look for. I saw Kai capture a funnel web spider into a container, and Neke had a sack with a live python, but it was smaller than the one we saw in the tree.

Kai used his knife to open a rotted wood log and brush grubs into another container while Ngoi dug into a Termite hill. Then I saw him duck out of the way as a green liquid-turned-mist came at him. He redoubled his efforts to get some samples and live termites. I think it might have been an acid of some sort.

Everything is mutated.

I saw Neke poking into a burrow with a stick, then grabbed the small shovel in her pack and dug furiously. Did she pull out a mole or something? Ngoi caught some lizards. There are a lot of reptiles. For most of what we caught, we had no idea what their mutations were. A few were evident, and some used them to defend themselves, but most were shot and had no chance.

Neke killed a snake with her shovel and shoved it into her pack. Kai was packing away some eggs he found in a nest. Good luck keeping them unbroken. Carla was helping Neke, and Soph and Rich were helping Kai. I sort of helped Ngoi, but my ribs were still healing, so I mostly packed samples away.

After two hours of this, Ngoi said, “OK, silencers on and let's see what birds we can get.” They attached silencers to their pistols and started bringing down birds and shooting small rodents and marsupials.

Then I saw Rich take off after something, and he brought it down. It was a wallaby. Kai cut off the head and one of the small arms to take. Rich crouched down for a snack.

Dusk was starting to fall when Ngoi said, “Time for some larger game.” he prepped the high-powered rifle, and the others unslung their Carbines. Kai brought down an Emu, and Neke tagged two dingos. After taking samples, we kept moving, letting the animals settle again.

We were moving closer to the river and the anomaly. I knew they wanted samples from one croc and other water creatures before they left.

“Fuck,” Neke swore. “I hate toads.”

“Did it get you?” Ngoi asked.

“Nah, I have been enhancing my snake skin.”

Everyone had been enhancing their skin except Kai and me, who couldn’t. At least mine could heal fast. I wish my ribs could do that.

“OK, let's approach the river carefully. Let's secure an area and let our water sensor in,” Ngoi said. That was me. Carla would watch over me, well, everyone would, but I trusted Carla the most… except when she was holding a gun, like now. The soldiers were more trustworthy with guns.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I approached the water. I had bought my spear gun but just took a hand spear for this. I smelled the water. It was salt water this low. I smelled fish, crocs, and a few other things. I splashed the water for a bit, baiting what might be hiding. Once I was reasonably confident, I ducked my head under. I smelled and listened with boosted senses. Something was close, something I didn’t recognise. OK, there were a lot of things I didn’t recognise. Then my eye caught a movement, and I jerked out the spear, hitting something and flinging it onto the bank, startling everyone. It was a long-necked turtle, but I am not sure of the proper name.

“Fuck you, you bastard,” Carla said.

I grinned, “There are a lot of fish, but you will need a net or something,”

I saw Kai was bagging a frog.

“We don’t have a net. Let's keep going upstream until we are out of the zone and get what we can, and then it is back to the truck and base camp. The turtle is a good start.”

We move cautiously up the bank, collecting wildlife and plants. Both Carla and I would swim except for the fact the crocs just floated there, waiting for prey to come along. Mutated Crocs. We stuck to the bank and often went back away from the water.

I went and sensed every now and then. One time, I smelled Croc very strongly and backed off fast. We all backed off and readied our guns. Ngoi tried baiting it with a dingo carcass tossed on the water's edge.

There was a tense pause as nothing happened. And nothing happened. And we waited. The water had splashed, and the smell of the carcass would be spreading.

Ngoi moved cautiously forward to give the carcass a nudge.

Then, the crocodile exploded out of the water at Ngoi rather than the dingo. Ngoi flung himself back as Neke, Kai, and Carla all fired into it. Then it did something, and we all shuddered. I forgot to keep my essence waves going for a bit. The first wave afterwards cleared my head.

It kept coming after Ngoi, who was still stunned. Soph grabbed his collar to drag him back. It moved up the bank toward him, and the shots had stopped.

Carla pounced, grabbing the crocodile's body and wrestling it off its feet. It seems the skill it used was more effective on the native mutations than on the foreign mutations. The soldiers are just starting to come out of it now. I had my spear gun ready, but Carla was there.

Then Rich was also there, bit down on a front leg, and started dragging it sideways. It was big for a croc, but Rich was big, too, and Carla was strong.

It tried to whip around and bite Rich but only scraped his hide with its teeth, not being flexible enough, especially with Carla dragging it in the other direction.

“Back off,” said Ngoi, and Rich let go and skipped away. Carla tried to toss it away from her, unsuccessfully. Before it could grab her, Ngoi acted.

Bang.

The croc's skull cracked open, and then Ngoi did it again with the high-powered rifle.

Bang.

The croc lay still.

“Grab what you can quickly. I want out of here. ASAP.” He never stopped scanning the water with the high-powered rifle ready.

Kai darted in with a knife, and Carla also pulled a knife.

“Grab me some teeth,” Neke said. She was scanning the water with her carbine ready as well.

“Thirty seconds, then we go,” Ngoi said, and Kai and Carla worked furiously.

Something was making him nervous.

“Move out now!”

Everybody moved backwards, and Ngoi and Neke covered the river, Kai taking the lead with Eliza watching. We moved directly away from the river.

I was out of sight of the river when I heard a large splash and then silence. “What was that?”

Ngoi moved a little so he could see. Then he backed off again in a hurry. “I don’t know, but the croc carcass is gone. We don’t stop until we get to the trucks.”

The night was falling fast. Kai, Rich, and I had good night vision- well, night senses in Kai’s case. I guided Carla, and Soph stuck close to Rich. The moon was up before long, and we made reasonable time.

Kai downed a couple of bats with his silenced pistol and stuffed them in his overflowing backpack. All I knew was my ribs were hurting.

The night sounds were different, and all sorts of nocturnal creatures had come out to forage. I had the best senses of everyone and the best sense of direction. Kai had his satellite navigation, so I guess that was actually the best.

It was early in the morning, but Ngoi wasn’t stopping when we reached the trucks. We loaded up and were driving to the base camp immediately and as fast as the terrain allowed. The longer we took, the more degraded the samples would be.