Anne Gardner’s friends were dying. She took a sample just to be sure, but the visible signs were unmistakable. The light splotches on the trunk of the `ohe tree told her that the dreaded McNaughton’s beetle had reached Hawaii.

Her first impulse was to fall to her knees and cry, but the tourists around her would notice and she couldn’t let that happen. For a brief moment her grief turned to rage, which she also hid.

Putting the sample in a plastic bag, she imagined an ignorant tourist bringing the beetles onto the island, probably from one of the states that had been ravaged by the pest. She and other biologists had urged the quarantine of flights from affected areas, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The economy always came first, and tourism was a major part of the island’s economy.

“What’s that?” she heard the little girl behind her ask.

“I don’t know, Maggie,” said the child’s mother, Pam Allen. “Maybe Mrs. Gardner can tell you.”

Anne looked at where the eight-year-old was pointing. A greenish-yellow bird less than six inches long was perched on a nearby branch, studying them furtively.
“That’s an `Akiapola’au,” she said, and smiled when Maggie struggled with the strange pronunciation, silently mouthing the name.

The bird let out a shrill whistle and launched into the air.

“Wow,” Maggie exclaimed, her green eyes wide.

Maggie reminded Anne of how she had been thirty years earlier. Curious, flitting around from one plant to another, the child was easily awed by the beauty around her. They even bore a superficial resemblance to each other. Like Maggie, Anne had long blonde hair and a chiseled northern European face, which she had inherited from her father. There the resemblance ended, because in most other ways Anne was like her mother’s side of the family, which was a mix of several races, the most prominent of which was Polynesian. To the casual observer, this manifested itself in a perpetual tan, a solid yet feminine build, and dark brown eyes.

She thought about sharing the discovery of the beetles with her friend Tim Mahoney, but she would need to get him alone. This wasn’t something she wanted the others repeating.

Short for his twenty-six years, the dark haired tour guide was one of the most easygoing people Anne had ever known, but on this trip he was unusually agitated. Since leaving the trailhead, Tim had been in one argument after another with Maggie’s father James, whose temperament was as fiery as his hair, and whose voice was as loud as his family’s clothes were gaudy.

“I’ve got more important things to do, dammit!” James huffed as he and Tim emerged from behind a tree.

“We should probably eat anyway,” Tim replied. “We can leave after we finish.”
He addressed the rest of them, “Everyone, let’s go back to the trailhead for lunch.”

Deciding that she would have to wait for her talk with him, Anne pocketed the sample bag, shouldered her backpack, and made sure that nothing was being left behind.
 
Tim led with James by his side, while Anne helped Pam keep the children from straying.

Gangly with short-cropped brown hair like his mother, Maggie’s nine-year-old brother Jimmy was the hardest to control. Pam ended up holding his hand to keep him from bolting toward any wildlife that caught his attention.

They had walked for several minutes when there was a brief flash, reflecting off of the canopy above them as though someone had taken a picture.

Turning quickly, Anne scanned the forest. There was no one around.

“Did anyone notice that flash?” she asked the others. They were all too distracted to even acknowledge her.

Pulling a notebook and pencil from her shorts pocket, she recorded what she saw and where she was. Then she looked at the mechanical hands of her digital watch and recorded the time.

Anne saw that the tour company’s SUV was the only vehicle parked at the trailhead, which was barely more than a patch of dirt at the edge of the forest.
Tim fumbled for the key fob and pressed a button. Nothing happened.

“Great,” she muttered, and was thankful there was a real key with the fob.

Tim unlocked the driver’s door and seemed preoccupied for several seconds.

“What’s the matter?” James asked, standing nearby.

“The automatic locks aren’t working,” Tim explained.

“I hope the battery’s not dead,” James said with a tinge of menace.

Tim slid onto the seat and put the key in the starter. There were no sounds at all.
“No problem,” he told James. “We have a spare.”

Anne wasn’t surprised. Tim’s father Glen, who ran the family tour guide business, had a reputation for thoroughness. A battery was in the stowage area along with a full set of tools, parts, and supplies.

“Wait,” she told him as he started lifting the battery. She briefly searched her pack and dug out a small device. “Let’s use this to see if the spare is okay.”

Tim shook his head, grinning for the first time since they’d started. “You’re prepared for everything, aren’t you?”

“I try. That’s probably why your father asked me to come along when your brother got sick.”

She turned on the multimeter and began unwinding a pair of thick wires from its case.

“What the...” she stopped before uttering the expletive that came to mind. The multimeter was warm to the touch, and its display was blank.

“I put a fresh battery in this thing this morning!” she exclaimed, turning it off and then on again, with no change.

“Let’s put the spare in anyway,” Tim suggested, and started toward the front of the SUV.

“My cell’s broken!” James yelped from the shade of a nearby tree.

She thought for a moment and unzipped a pocket on her pack. “If my satellite phone is dead, we’re in deep trouble,” she said, pulling it out and pressing a button.
“Nothing electronic is working,” she announced, and just to be absolutely sure she looked at her watch. The hands had not moved since the flash.

* * *

Twenty miles away, on the east coast of the island, Mayor Ken Arigawa had reached the same conclusion. Like many people, he first assumed his local power had died. But when battery-driven devices such as calculators wouldn’t work either, he was forced to conclude something monstrous had happened.

If that wasn’t enough evidence, he could see from his window, which wouldn’t open, that traffic was at a standstill and people were milling around aimlessly.

Focusing on his reflection, Arigawa saw a short, middle-aged, slightly overweight, balding man who was sweating like a pig.

He cursed himself for not staying in shape. With the air conditioning off, he would be among the first to succumb to the heat if he stayed in the office much longer.
Heat wasn’t the only reason Arigawa was growing edgy. The staff members he had sent out for reconnaissance a half hour ago hadn’t returned.

He couldn’t stand waiting any longer. He needed to do something.

“Mary!” Arigawa called out for his executive assistant after stepping out of his office.
A short bespectacled woman in her fifties, Mary Jensen poked her head out of one of the cubicles.

“I can’t sit around here forever. I’m going to head down to the fire department, then over to Civil Defense.”

Wiping sweat from his forehead, he looked around the floor and made a decision. “Pack up everything you can and move it over to Civil Defense. Leave a note in case the staff returns or anyone comes looking for us.”


“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” she replied.

“One more thing: Have you got a hard copy of the emergency operations plan?”

She ducked into the cube for a minute and re-emerged with a bound document. “Here you are, sir.”

“You better get out soon,” he said, taking the document that he already knew by heart. “It’s getting too hot in here.”

As soon as he entered the stairwell, he understood why his staff hadn’t returned. A cautious person by nature, he reflexively turned the doorknob and realized it was locked from the inside. Apparently some security mechanism had automatically locked the doors to the upper levels of the building.

He used the emergency plan to keep the door from closing, then went back to the administration area and knocked on the door, which was also locked.

When one of the clerks opened the door, he explained the problem, advised getting a better doorjamb, and headed downstairs.

The fire department office was practically deserted when he got there. At least someone had propped the door open. “Hello!” he shouted, walking in.

A tall man in his early twenties with dark black hair and dressed in a fire captain’s uniform came out of an open door.

“Mr. Mayor,” the man said, self-consciously recognizing the much shorter Arigawa.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.

“The chief’s at Civil Defense. Since the radios and vehicles aren’t working, he’s got most of the department doing foot recon and reporting to him there. I’m here just for walk-ins.”

“Why didn’t he come see me first?” he asked.

The captain looked sheepish. “He wanted to get a sense of the problem before reporting to you, sir.”

“Wait a minute. Did you say the vehicles aren’t working?” He had assumed that the cars were stopped because of traffic lights being out and general confusion about having no power.

“That’s right, sir,” the captain said.

“If he gets back before I see him, tell him I’m on my way to Civil Defense and I’ll meet him there.”

The captain agreed as Arigawa stepped into the hot tropical sun.