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The civilized world came to an end in the year 2006. At the time, some thought it to be divine retribution. Some saw it as a fitting punishment to the most parasitic species ever to walk the Earth. Most didn't care. They were too busy trying to survive in a world where the dead walked and consumed the living.

As it happens, four horsemen did not herald the apocalypse, as the good book would have us all believe. Instead, the herald was a burly, dark skinned backhoe operator assigned to the western boundary of a stripping operation deep in the Brazilian rain forest. His name was Romero.

A simple man, Romero had no illusions about what he was doing and certainly did not believe his employer's talk about forest reclamation and the like. He had no interest in the environmental impact of his action. He only believed in the paycheck at the end of each month, enough to feed his family and put something aside for a rainy day.

He had been working his sector for the better part of the morning, clearing the way for the huge tree cutters, when he came across it. A dense wall of solid vegetation far thicker than he had ever seen, about a meter or so high, that appeared to slope away from his line of sight. Making it even stranger was the lack of trees, or any other familiar plants.

Romero turned off his huge machine, a puzzled look on his face. He rose in his seat. There appeared to be symmetry to this anomaly. Climbing up on the cab's roof, he was sure of it. An almost perfect circle, with the surrounding trees approaching to an almost visible barrier and then suddenly stopping, leaves and branches almost pulling away, afraid to cross that boundary.

From his vantage point, he could now see that the ground sloped down from where he sat and then sloped back up on the far side of the clearing. He could also see a huge bulge in what seemed to be the direct center of the depression. Romero rubbed at his chin. He finally reached down into this cab for his radio and keyed the microphone. "Base central, this is Heavy Mover Bravo, requesting a supervisor. I am in grid 18, over."

"HM Bravo, this is base camp, state situation, over."

"Base Central, unable to explain, you have to see this for yourself."

A short time later, a group of men stood at the edge of the depression. Their leader, Esteban Hernandez, was a short, rotund man he ran a large portion of operation in this particular sector. Himself a native, he was known for his overriding sense of greed over his concern for the rainforest. As curious as the rest of them, he nevertheless saw this delay as wasted money.

At the moment, he was having a heated discussion with the company assigned scientist about what should be done about the offending area. This scientist, who, while admittedly there for window dressing for the benefit of environmentalists, actually had a few PHDs, none of which seemed to help explain this anomaly.

"Mr. Hernandez, we need to suspend this operation until we can get a better idea about what we are facing here. I have never seen anything like it."

"Nor have I, senor Russo, but we are barely making our schedule as it is, and if we fall behind it is I who will be held responsible, not you."

"I realize that, Mr. Hernandez, but I need to move my equipment here in order to analyze and document this phenomena…"

"How long will that take?"

"I could get the equipment in place in 18 hours.."

"Que dices..? 18 hours? Absolutely not!"

"But how are we going to collect data to find out more about this without…"

"SENOR! I don't care about your data. However, I am sure we can reach an…accommodation…As it so happens, I need some downtime to overhaul the stripper assigned this sector. I was planning on doing it later this week, but I could be…persuaded…to move it up…"

"I see…how long would this "downtime" take?" As he said this, he slipped some folded bills into the waiting palm of the little man, who glanced down at his palm and smiled warmly.

He feigned serious thought, rubbed at his chin, and said, "12 hours, perhaps 14, but no longer!"

Although obviously disappointed, Russo smiled broadly and said, "I think I can work with that. You are only too generous, Mr. Hernandez."

And so the fate of the world was sealed.

A few hours later, Russo had set up a portable lab under an awning next to Romero's truck. Russo surprisingly took his position seriously, much to the amusement of his employers.

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