The soldiers who had accompanied her out into the field in their own bio-suits lifted up the tarp holding their vast collection of bagged evidence.

“Make sure all the evidence gets into a cooler,” Alex yelled over the whine of a nearby helicopter.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s quite a haul,” Nate said.

Alex nodded. “Soil, grass, water, tissue, saliva, placenta… you name it, we collected it.”

“And the calves?”

“We took samples of every single one. We even got one entire calf.”

As in Ash Springs, the incident here in Buenos Aires had started at around the same time as the birth of a calf—but in this case, it seemed as if the calf’s birth had been the precipitating event. According to the local authorities, some of the ranch hands were trying to help with a birthing when all of them, simultaneously, started having some kind of seizure. They backed away, and the cow finished birthing the calf on its own. But as soon as it did, every cow nearby—included the mother—fell over and died. The calf began wandering about, crying out for its dead mother, and wherever it went, death followed it, until one of the ranchers finally realized what was going on and shot it.

And that was only one of many similar incidents. This herd had over a thousand head of cattle, many of them were pregnant, most of them due at about the same time. Shortly after the first incident, another birth occurred about half a mile away, and the whole process started over. Soon almost the entire herd was dead, along with a few of the ranchers.

Now, as the soldiers finished loading up the helicopters, and Nate surveyed the carnage, a sound caught his attention.

The high-pitched cry of a calf.

“Hey, Carrington!” a comms officer standing twenty feet away yelled over the whine of the UH-60 Blackhawk as the helicopter blades began to turn. “The extraction team has isolated the rancher and nearly a dozen of the ranch hands. They’re ready for you with translators whenever you get over there.”

Before Nate could respond, the drone of engines drew his attention. He lifted his hand to his brow and scanned the low bank of clouds above.

Despite the ever-increasing sounds of the unidentified aircraft, the nearby helicopter preparing for takeoff, and the soldiers yelling orders to clear the site, the high-pitched cry of a calf cut through the din.

Squinting through the brown dust kicked up by the chopper, Nate’s heart thudded heavily as he looked across the field, searching for the source. He spotted it: one of the dead cows had the head of a calf sticking out of her birth canal. The calf was squirming, trying to free itself.