Using the binoculars, I followed the wave inland. The tidal surge gradually shed volume and speed as it quickly covered the expanse of glittering sand that separated my position from the shoreline. At some point I had to stand, allowing the foot-high-wave to wash over my feet.

As the surge receded, the ocean revealed its bounty.

Sea creatures were left stranded along the exposed puddle-soaked beach. Albino sea spiders lay tangled in white clumps. Bizarre manta rays possessing barracuda-like teeth flopped in the wet sand. Pale pink crustaceans, some as large as my upper torso, stretched their claws, fighting to flip back over onto their bellies. Those that did so quickly burrowed into hiding.

Those that were too slow were plucked from the sand by flying lizards.

Seven to eight feet in length from the tip of their snouts to their narrow tails, the creatures—possessing white bellies and pale green backs—were using skin flaps running from their forelegs down to their hip sockets to glide on the forty-knot ocean gusts blowing inland.

I focused my glasses on one of the lizards as it landed to snatch a fish. Gobbling the morsel whole, the earthbound scavenger scampered away on all fours, building speed before it rose up onto its hind legs and spread its wings to catch the wind.

“Kite runners.”

Okay, so it wasn’t Latin, but who cared, it was just a damn dream.

“All righty then, let’s try this again. Vanilla sway. Vanilla sway. Vanilla sway.”

And still nothing happened.

“Damn you, Jason Sloan. When I get back to Florida, I’m going to create a lifetime ABE ban list, and your name will be—”

I paused, the memory of my bio-chip implant catching me by surprise. Having escaped from one chain of events into the next, I had completely forgotten about ABE.

I attempted to access the neural link. Tried the language program. The medical monitor. Even my manuscript … no response. It was as if the device had been surgically removed.

It’s the cold. The cryogenic process drops the body’s core temperature … core temperature powers ABE. Hope it hasn’t damaged the neural array.

“Bastards! I need to wake up.”

Frustrated, I aimed the binoculars at the expanse of desert behind me. The magnification revealed the distant horizon and what appeared to be a steep cliff face, its summit topped by a green forest.

Returning to view the ocean, I watched as yet another monstrous wave rose from the sea, its rising curl inhaling the shallows as if rolling up a carpet.

Shadows darted in front of the cresting point break—fluttering brown bodies that dive bombed the shrinking shoreline to pluck fish from the sea before the competing lizards could claim them.