Change of Plans

It's all up to me, they said. They knew they could count on me, they said. You're the best we have, they said.

No pressure, they said. Right.

For some reason, when you succeed once in a big way, everybody expects you to do it again. Even if it's just a fluke. Even if you couldn't pull off that kind of miracle again if your life depended on it. Naturally, that just means they find a way to make sure that it does.

So there I was, on my third day in the jungle with nothing but a pack (with nothing but MREs), a satellite radio (on the fritz), and the clothes on my back. My body was one big mosquito bite and I had lost track of my only source of fresh water. All I could hope was that the rain would keep up long enough to keep me alive until I got where I was going. Assuming I could figure out where that was.

Did I mention that I wasn't even supposed to be in a jungle? Yeah, that's not the kind of thing that usually comes as a surprise. According to all the world maps, I was supposed to be on a mild, temperate plain. It was supposed to be a quick, half-day walk to the summit. Where, of course, I was supposed to negotiate a peace deal with whoever it was that ran this place. I mean, the island had just shown up a week ago, so we didn't have the best intel.

Still, I'd expect them to get somewhere in the right ballpark on biome. What are satellites for, anyway?