Are these Blessed Ones responsible for killing that super croc?

YES. THEY ARE ALSO THE ONES THAT INSTRUCTED OSCAR TO FREE ROBERT EISENBRAUN.

*   *   *

Our destination was upstream. We followed the river for miles, from its more sedentary low course to its white-water middle course, the flow picking up noticeably as we progressed along on our journey to God knows where. Every so often a silverfish the size of a piranha would flit out of the water onto the bank, its indigo-blue fins whirling like a bumblebee’s wings as it fed on crawling insects.

ABE calculated that we were 2,970 feet below the surface, heading in a southeasterly direction. After nearly two hours of walking, I no longer cared, having barely eaten in the last eighteen hours. And yet as hungry as I was, I would have traded a four-course meal for a king-size bed and some aspirin.

Exhausted and hungry, I yelled out, “Vanilla sway, vanilla sway, vanilla sway.” My voice reverberated through the cavern, the echo causing the words of the useless phrase to overlap.

OSCAR WISHES TO KNOW THE PURPOSE OF YOUR ROAR.

Tell our friend the roar refers to a persuasive deception. A well-crafted lie. Sort of like this dream.

ROBERT EISENBRAUN IS NOT DREAMING.

Yeah, yeah … tell it to the judge.

The river twisted to the northeast, its rocky borders forming a serene pool of water. Oscar paused at a flat stretch of limestone and laid down my grunting female colleague.

ATTENTION: DHARMA YUAN HAS REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS.

I knelt by her side, adjusting her blanket to conceal her breasts. The sickly pallor was gone, replaced by a healthy flush. Her brown almond-shaped eyes were open … staring at me, as if her brain knew who I was only her vocal cords hadn’t quite caught up.

“Good morning.”

INCORRECT. IT IS EVENING, 19:22 HOURS.

ABE, silent mode. “Dharma, squeeze my hand if you can understand me.”

She power-gripped my fingers until I had to pry them loose. “Stay calm, we just thawed you from your cryogenic pod. Does everything seem to be working, other than your voice?”

She nodded, then attempted to move. I helped her sit up, watching as she tested each limb—never noticing Oscar, who had slipped into the river, the ceph’s camouflaging hide disappearing among the rocks.

Refusing my assistance, Dharma stood on wobbly legs, the action causing the blanket to fall away, exposing her nakedness. The Chinese-Indian beauty accepted her sudden nudity as something completely natural, lacking ego or embarrassment.

My response was typically Western male, although I did avert my gaze until after she turned her back. She treated me to quite the show, performing several yoga stretches before she began a tai chi movement, each form flowing from one position to the next, freeing up her blocked neural pathways like an internal massage.