Sweat streamed from beneath my feather adorned hair, from both the excruciating heat, and the nerves churning up my stomach. We'd been walking twenty minutes, struggling along the path Diver's drone had found for us when they showed up. The branches were thick and tangled, making for a consistent-if bumpy-road. But there was plenty of foliage to push our way through, foliage that whipped against faces and bare limbs and made it difficult to see. The only reason we knew they were there was because they had purposefully let us catch glimpses of them.

"Is it me, or are they trying to herd us?" Marla asked over our private comm channel. "They're getting really close on our right."

"They know this jungle far better than we do," I said. "Maybe they're trying to help."

"Or lead us to our doom," Christa grumbled.

I sighed.

"Much as I hate to agree with Lil' Miss Sunshine over here," Diver said, as he shoved a hank of vines out of his way, "that is a distin