The Last One(42)

Hours later, Tracker and Zoo skirt a long field of wildflowers, then cut west. Hours later, Banker and Black Doctor totter across stones to cross a creek. Hours later, Carpenter Chick pushes a branch out of her way; it snaps back and smacks Engineer in the chest. Hours later, Air Force is hobbling along, his ankle needing a rest that Biology is willing to give but he’s unwilling to take. Hours later, Exorcist has recovered enough to say, “Let me see the map.”

Waitress hands it to him.

“Where are we heading?”

She shows him. He reads the Clue, looks at the map. His face is twisted with thought. He looks back at the Clue.

“That’s wrong,” he says.

“What do you mean, ‘That’s wrong’?” Waitress’s posture slips into an offensive stance familiar to fans of reality television; she stands with one hand on a cocked hip, her head pulled back and tucked slightly down, daring, just daring, him to keep talking. Rancher peeks over Exorcist’s shoulder.

“As midday passes, the land’s tallest peak casts a blocking shadow,” recites Exorcist. He flicks the mountain on the map. “If it’s casting a shadow in the afternoon, that shadow’s going to fall to the east.”

“No,” says Waitress. “The sun sets to the west.” She rolls her eyes. Next she’ll be accusing someone of throwing her under the bus.

“He’s right,” says Rancher, and Waitress spins to face him. “Look at it this way. If you got a light on the left of an object”—Rancher holds his right arm in front of his face, then pulses the fingers of his left hand to its side—“the shadow will fall to the opposite side.”

Her mistake is obvious now, to everyone. Waitress’s face is flushed. She misses her old team: the scrawny Asians and the bossy blonde.

Exorcist is laughing. “You ought to have been a teacher,” he says, slapping Rancher’s shoulder. He sobers quickly once he looks back to the map. “We’re way off course,” he says. “We’ve got to cut east.”

Miles away, Tracker and Zoo are not off course. They are on course, the best possible course.

“There it is!” cries Zoo, pointing at a six-foot-tall boulder resting by a small creek. The water’s turn is obvious on the map, subtle in person. Viewers will be shown an aerial shot to confirm that the location matches the Clue.

Zoo jogs ahead of Tracker, who raises an eyebrow at her exuberance. Sunset is only a couple hours away, and this stretch of land is largely in shadow. “Tucked into the darkest dark,” says Zoo, as she reaches the boulder. “Darkest dark.” She’s searching the base for a hole. It takes her eight seconds to find. All eight seconds will be shown, and viewers will feel like she’s failing, like she’s taking forever, because they’re used to scenes like this being shortened. From Zoo and Tracker’s perspective she finds the metal box very quickly.

She pulls out the box from its niche and unlatches it. Tracker is at her side now. As Zoo opens the box he cranes his neck to see.

Five rolls of paper, like miniature scrolls.

“We’re the first ones here,” says Zoo.

Tracker isn’t surprised that they’ve beaten Banker and Black Doctor. Open ground saves time, always. “What does it say?” he asks.

Zoo hands him one of the scrolls, then closes the box and tucks it back into its shadow.

Tracker unfurls the Clue and reads it aloud. “An animal made prey. Pursued, it leaves a trail. Within a mile, it crosses. Follow the trail.”

“Crosses,” says Zoo, and she looks to the stream. She doesn’t see a trail. Tracker does. He also sees signs of the human who made the false animal tracks—the Expert wasn’t careful; he wants these tracks to be found.

“There,” he says.

Zoo follows his gaze upstream. “Where?” she asks.

“There,” Tracker says again.

She strains to see, and fails. “I don’t know what you’re looking at,” she says. “Can you please point it out?”

Tracker glances at her, an unspoken statement that Zoo hears.

She pauses. Then, “I get it. I understand that we’re competing against each other. But for now we’re a team. I’m not asking for a master class, I just want to know where to look.” All but the last sentence will be cut, and viewers will hear no pause.

Again, it’s easier for Tracker to help than to refuse. He walks a few yards upstream, then crouches by the water. “Here.” With strained patience he shows Zoo where to look, and though she cannot see everything, she sees enough. She sees the snapped flower stem, the tiny tuft of hair on a raspberry thorn, the hoofprint in the mud.

“So it crossed here?” she asks. But before Tracker can respond, she continues, “Wait, no. It’s just walking upstream. It didn’t cross yet.”

Tracker nods. Together, they follow the trail. Slowly, watching for more signs.

Banker and Black Doctor approach the boulder. The sun has dipped; Tracker and Zoo have advanced out of sight.

“Someone beat us,” says Banker, startled, when he opens the small lockbox.

“Cooper and the blonde, I’ll bet,” says Black Doctor.

“What did they do, run the whole way here?”

“I guess.” Black Doctor takes a Clue and reads it aloud. He’s not impressed; he’d expected more of an intellectual challenge, maybe some wordplay or a riddle.