Despite the incident with the whales and the landing craft the mercenaries kept a cool head upon landing on the beach, setting up base camp within an hour. Grant was reassured by one of the women on the team that most of the equipment on board the overturned landing craft had been salvaged and the vehicles had been saved by the floats that were attached to them.

“Three men died,” said Rourke to Grant, who was carrying a box of supplies to one of the canopies. “I just heard from one of the others. Two were torn apart in the jaws of one of the whales. One was crushed when the landing craft flipped over. Many others are wounded.”

“A shit way to start the first day here,” said Grant with a sigh. “It’s the duty of the living to make the sacrifices of the dead count.”

Rourke raised his eyebrows for a second. “Who said that?’

Grant smiled. “My grandfather. He was a veteran of both the Second World War and the Korean War. Best man I ever knew. My own father is a close second.”

“My grandfather was a veteran of the Korean War too,” said Rourke. Grant set down the box. “I never met him but my mother told me he was a good man.”

Grant blinked at Rourke, surprised that his friend had decided to open up a little about his family. He had always figured Rourke to be an extremely reserved or private individual. “The mystery that you are continues to unravel,” said Grant. “Where is Monty by the way?”

“He was helping set up the trailers,” said Rourke. “Could be with the other students though.”

Shreya approached Grant with Estelle following close behind. “Now I don’t want to sound pushy but it ‘s still daylight. Base camp seems ready to go. If it’s not too much trouble Grant, could you ask whoever is in charge here if we could get off this beach and move further into the island? Do a little exploring?”

“You’re pretty excited aren’t you?” said Grant, grinning. “I can see it in your face.”

“I think I need to exercise that feeling right now,” said Shreya. “To take my mind off of recent tragedies. God, I feel terrible. I heard that a few men died.”

Grant’s grin disappeared, and he dropped his head for a moment. “Yeah, we lost three. But you know it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“It’s all very bizarre,” said Shreya. “Whales don’t do that. But then again we were facing a species never before observed in person.”

“Everything about this island’s existence is bizarre,” said Estelle. “I’m just worried that this palace is going to vanish from this world and take us along with it. This place might have been sent forward in time to this century or from God knows where else.”

“Only one way to find out,” said Grant. “I’ll go talk to the mercenaries. I want some answers as well.”

As Grant walked away from the others, his mind drifted back to an unpleasant memory. There was still an assassin among them. Perhaps the infiltrator in their ranks knew something they didn’t. Perhaps the bone he had to pick with them was somehow connected to the island’s mysterious nature. Grant wondered if the island was some kind of top secret testing site that had been hidden from the public for years. Perhaps the island was manmade and now whichever government that owned it wanted Grant and his team wiped out. Grant shook his head and tossed the theory aside. There was no way any government could have kept something this large hidden from the public for so long and it didn’t explain the presence of prehistoric fauna. No, there was something supernatural at work and supernatural happened to be something he was more familiar with than pretty much anybody.

Beneath Grant’s feet wet grey sand broke apart in chunks with each step. This island and its beaches truly were beautiful. Mountains lay to the left and right of the beach. The air was cool and pure, complementing the picturesque natural landscape all around. It was a world untainted by man and its machines, that much was clear. Untainted that is, until they arrived.

Grant shook his head. He recalled a line uttered by the character Dr. Malcolm from the movie adaptation of Chrichton’s Jurassic Park. Discovery was the rape of the natural world. But it was too late to question the ethics of their expedition. Grant decided he had to partly disagree with Dr. Malcolm. He liked to believe man was made to marvel and discover more and more fascinating things about their world. Mankind was the gardener for mother earth. Every now and then a member of mankind screwed it up and mother earth fired her employee. Like all parents, she enjoyed having her children want to know more about her, ask her questions. Grant would make sure they didn’t ask the wrong questions.

Within twenty minutes, Four suvs and two trailers sat in a line formation, ready to move off the beach and further into the island. Grant sat in the back left of the lead suv. In the vehicle with him were Rourke, Monty, and Estelle. A muscular mercenary with a baseball cap and tactical vest rubbed the steering wheel and waited for the all clear to come through the radio.

“Mind if I turn the heater on?” Monty asked their driver.

“Help yourself,” said the driver in a gruff voice. “Seats have heating pads built in for the bum and back.”

“Nice,” said Monty, pushing a few buttons. “Are you three good back there?”

“Yeah it’s not too cold,” said Grant.

“I forgot my jacket back in the trailer,” said Monty. “I don’t feel like getting it though. Too lazy.”

“Lead driver, you are cleared to go,” a voice came through the radio. “We’re all good back here.”

“Solid copy,” said the driver, putting the vehicle out of parking. “Lead vehicle is moving out.”

The suv moved forward off the sands of the beach and onto the elevated grassy earth. The vehicle angled upwards as the front tires hit the elevation and rumbled as it pulled itself up. Grant grunted as he was jostled by the bumpy ride, his head was forced off the headrest twice.

They began moving into a flat green valley. Estelle snapped pcitured of the mountains to their left and right. It was truly a beautiful place, the kind of landscape that often made its way into computer wallpapers and postcards. Grant was a little disappointed that they had yet to encounter any land based animals though.

“Our priority is to find a spot to make camp,” said the driver. “The trailers can’t follow us on rougher terrain. They definitely can’t follow us into the woods.”

“Right,” said Grant. “Hey Monty hand me the radio will you?”

Monty grabbed the large black radio connected to a black headset. Grant made sure it was turned on before speaking into it. “Shreya you read me?”

After a few seconds, Shreya’s voice came through. “Yes I read you Grant.”

“Great, now it is important for all of us to maintain close communication.”

“Bird!” he heard someone else on Shreya’s end say excitedly. He could hear Shreya move her headset around and it bumped into things causing Grant to hear bassy noises.

“Shreya?” Grant asked.

“Grant,” Shreya said breathlessly. “I think we might have spotted something.”

Grant peeked out the window and scanned the skies. Someone had said “bird” so he looked for such a creature.

“This is guardian two to lead,” said a voice through the driver’s radio. “We may have something here.”

The suv came to a halt and everyone stepped off. The men and women in the other vehicles stepped out as well and began scanning the skies. The university students were pointing up at something. Shreya and Amanda were hopping up and down like small children who had just seen a ride at a theme park they wanted to experience. The skies were clear, which allowed perfect visibility of the avian that soared above them. The moment his eyes landed on it, Grant felt a sense of awe seize him, his body responding with a deep intake of breath.

What struck him was the size of it. No bird should have been of such size. Grant’s mind could not fathom it. The creature did not fit his preconceived notions of what a bird could be. It closely resembled a condor but with a far greater wingspan. The low altitude in which it glided combined with the fact that it was clearly larger than any man suddenly made Grant feel nervous. As a child he laughed as swans and pigeons ran away from him in fear as he chased them at the park, now he could finally empathize with the brave knights in the old fairy tales, staring upwards at a dragon which cast a shadow over them.

“That is one big damn bird,” said Monty. “Freaky.”

“It could probably swipe us off the ground,” said Estelle. “It’s so surreal seeing it.”

“Yeah,” said Grant, unable to take his eyes off of it. He felt vulnerable standing out in the open in its presence. “Did you get a picture?”

“Oh yeah,” said Estelle, quickly fumbling for her phone. “Wish I had brought a real camera.”

Grant noticed a group of people running up to him.

“Argentavis,” Shreya said breathlessly, now standing beside him. “Largest bird to ever take to the skies and here it is. A live specimen. I literally have no words.”

“Yeah me neither,” said Grant. “To be honest he’s kind of intimidating. If it is a he that is. Looks like a condor that’s mutated in size. Never thought a bird would make me feel small.”

“It’s too bad we can’t catch it,” said the driver of Grant’s ride. “We got a net gun but it’s not low enough.”

“Pictures will suffice,” said Shreya. “We wouldn’t want to leave a bad first impression on our hosts. I’d rather not disrupt the lives of animals on this island too much. It would be a shame if this land out of time skipped millions of years of evolution and global climate change, land in our era only for us to mess it all up with our probing and poking.”

“I could just shoot it down,” said Grant, putting a hand on his pistol. “People would pay money to see its stuffed body in my house.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Shreya, her tone indicating she was going along with the joke. “Our I’ll have you taxidermied.”

The Argentavis began to glide away and Shreya’s friends snapped a few more pictures.

“There will be more to see I’m sure,” said Shreya. “Much more.”

“Back in the vehicles!” the driver called out to everyone. Grant patted Shreya on the shoulder. “Well looks like you were right about this place. It's unreal. So far two informed species and an island from millions of years ago. The question of how it got here still remains.”

“It’s not just the animals,” said Shreya. “This island, despite its close proximity to the Aleutian Island chains is a geographical impossibility.”

Grant frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well one would assume that this was an island once part of the chain and was somehow sent forward in time to the modern age but Argentavis sets fire to that theory so to speak. You remember our discussion back on the ship right? When Amanda brought up the bird? It was native to South America. It shouldn’t be here unless it was introduced. It’s like horses. Horses weren’t here in North American until the Europeans brought them from across the sea.”

“Maybe it just flew here a long time ago and was sucked into the future along with everything else.”

Shreya shook her head. “No it’s unlikely for a bird to migrate or travel that far. Sure there are birds that bounce back and forth between North and South America but as far up as Alaska? Slim chance, very slim. But we can talk about that later. Looks like they want to get a move on.”

“Right,” said Grant. “Now I really want to know how far the rabbit hole goes.”

Grant slipped back into the suv, the last to do so. Estelle was going through the pictures she had taken, occasionally shaking her head when she saw a bad shot. The interior of the vehicle was getting quite warm with Month Having turned up the heater. It was making Grant feel sleepy but comfortable.

“That was one big fucking bird,” said Monty. “Eggs must be massive.”

Grant shook his head and leaned back. Hefigured with a bird that size, it was best not to go looking for its eggs.