Kenna Esters's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

Kenna moved deeper into the jungle, away from the voices on the beach. The ship's hum faded behind her. She found a thick trunk and pressed her back against it. Her breath slowed. The film canister sat warm in her pocket. She had chosen this. Now she needed a plan to stop them. A flash burst near her foot. She flinched. A tiny tree frog crouched on a leaf, its bright frill spread wide. The membrane pulsed with a blinding light. A beetle tumbled off the leaf, stunned. The frog hopped away calm and slow. Kenna stared. One small flash had scrambled something bigger than itself. She pulled her backup digital camera from her bag. The flash still worked. She thought of the survey crew's instruments, their sensors, the delicate film in their own cameras logging every tree they planned to cut. A blinding burst at the right moment could ruin a lens, a reading, a record. She crept back toward the beach. Kenna found their gear stacked by the shore, unguarded. She thumbed the flash to full and fired it into each open lens, each sensor screen, again and again until the camera battery died and the equipment sat blinded. Out on the water, the survey vessel waited, metal railings bright in the sun — her last ride home, pulling at anchor without her. She dropped the dead camera in the sand and walked back into the trees.