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3 – Everybody Inside

Amy stands on the beach staring at the cliffs. The late morning has brought dark clouds and a gusting wind, turning the sea behind her to scallops and whitecaps. The wheeling birds now swing through the air with much more force and speed.

She wears a shell but she isn’t cold. Her legs are bare and she wears hiking sandals. Amy studies the island before her like it’s a puzzle, preventing entrance. She shakes her head in awe and helpless frustration. These cliffs can’t defeat her. They just can’t!

Someone laces their fingers through hers. Amy turns with a quick smile. It’s Miriam, eyes tired and face careworn. Amy sighs and rests her head against the taller woman’s shoulder, grabbing her old friend’s arm.

“See you when I see you,” Miriam chuckles.

“Oh my god.” Amy pulls away and regards her strangely. “That really was the last time we saw each other, wasn’t it? It seems a lifetime ago.”

“Just six years. Oh, Ames, I’ve missed you.”

They hug more deeply. Amy tries to recall the specifics. “The WGSC was… Toronto that year?”

“Denver. Toronto was the year before. I couldn’t make it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, quite. You stood in the lobby of the Marriott with your giant black backpack on and the Rockies out the picture window. It looked like you were going to go walk out the door and climb them. That’s what Donna and I said after you left.”

“I recall a hangover so intense I can assure you I did no hiking that day. I miss that pack. I lost it in Costa Rica.”

“See you when I see you.”

“See you when I see you.” They giggle together, then shake their heads in shared wonder.

“Then we lost him. For so long…” Miriam has to share the depth of her suffering with the one person who will truly understand.

“I was always there for you.” Amy holds her fiercely.

“I know. And it was such a comfort. It was. But I just needed to get away and when Kyushu said they’d sponsor my Yakushima project then, well, I just dived in deep. It was the only way.”

They stand in silence, staring at the cliffs. Amy mutters, “Quite the problem, isn’t it?”

“You mean like rock-climbing problem? Yes. These cliffs are so huge. This is a whole semester-of-geometry worth of problems here. The first problem is that we can’t get past the soil layer yet here at the base, and we can’t climb it to reach the bare rock. I swear that what I can see is metamorphic. My guess, as strange as it may sound, is limestone. Which means this stretch of sea was much more shallow at some point. Then, it was subducted in the crust then thrust upward? A volcanic event pushed an old bit of crust to the surface? See, if I can get a drill into it I can start to peel back the layers. I’d bet there’s an igneous heart to this beauty. If there are any glacial cut valleys in the interior it will be like Christmas bloody morning.”

Jay emerges from the understory to the right and spots them. He strides toward them with eager purpose. Amy chuckles, “Oh, here comes trouble.”

“Hey, boss!” He calls out, impatient. “Time to swim across!”

Amy and Miriam share a look. They turn and regard the lagoon and the wider ocean. “Across?” Amy echoes. “Across where?”

“No, the pool.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder to the base of the waterfall. “Gotta see if there’s a route up the cliff on the far side of the waterfall.”

They follow him in dubious silence to the edge of the pool. The vegetation is so thick Jay hacks at it with a machete. “I figure this is pretty much the narrowest point here.” He fights his way through a mighty stand of thorny vines. One pricks his thumb and he holds it up. “Five leaves. Himalayan blackberry. Goddamn. Like the most invasive plant on the entire west coast. So much for pristine. I guess there’s nowhere on the planet it hasn’t reached.”

“Bird poop covers the whole world,” Amy declares. But she and Miriam hang back, still skeptical of his plans. “So hold up for a second here, genius. What are you gonna do on the far side?”

He looks at her with concern. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

Amy laughs. “Where? Where on the far side are you coming out of the water? Answer me that first.”

“I can’t tell from here. That’s why I’m bringing the machete.” They both look at the far side of the pool, about twenty meters away. Green tendrils extend outward in dense fans to drink directly from the current. More blackberry and buckthorn crowd the banks. They can’t even see a bare patch of earth.

Miriam studies the pool itself. She tosses a forked stick in at the base of the falls, where the water foams green and white. “Before anyone goes anywhere…” She follows the spinning course of the stick out of the boil toward a current on the far side. “Let’s see if… yes, there. Water on a limestone shelf. Eventually you get cavities. Whirlpools. Underground rivers. Et voilà. The stick’s gone.”

“Gone?” Jay yelps. “Gone where? Sucked down? Down where?”

“It must come out somewhere… out there,” Miriam waves her hand offshore to the left of the lagoon. “Who knows how deep. It seeps out through the sand or there’s an undersea fissure leaking fresh water. No, we won’t be swimming in this pool.”

“Aw, man. But I got to get across somewhere…” Jay swings the machete in frustration. He points at the impenetrable line of brush before them, thick with sword ferns. Maidenhair falls in emerald cascades from the far cliff. “It narrows to a creek there and runs right up against the cliff further on. Then it sinks into the sand at that point out there. All impassable. And I can’t climb that outcrop at the end. Nothing but clay on that head.” He waves at the dark cliff that terminates at the water on the east corner of the beach. “Might have to build a bridge or something. But I’m not sure to where. Damn, that undercurrent looks pretty strong.”

Amy scans the litter that the machete left at their feet. She picks up a frond from a Columbian lily he had severed. Bulbous orange egg sacs cluster on the underside. She crows in delight, then puts her senior researcher voice back on. “Hold on, Jay. Let’s not get ourselves drowned on our first week here. I’m fine with exploration first but let’s leave any dangerous stuff for later. We’ve hardly begun to study what we can already access.”

Ξ

Pradeep and Triquet face the bunker, wearing safety goggles and nitrile gloves. They each carry slightly different collection systems. Triquet’s is a stack of sealable plastic bags of various sizes, with loupes and tweezers in their own organized pouches. Their large pack contains laser levels for surveying, a foldable shovel, and bundles of titanium tent stakes they normally use to mark off grids. Otherwise, they wear a pith helmet and a lavender chiffon scarf tied tight at the neck with a bow.

Pradeep has a single pack he has integrated all his materials and devices into, creating a workflow that starts at the front pocket and eventually leads to the deposit of biological specimens in one of several containers deep in the main compartment.

“So let’s just assess the site first. Come up with a plan.” Triquet wrinkles their nose and paces back and forth before the building. “I’m not used to sharing a dig with a wildlife biologist in a pristine setting. I figure you should get first crack at whatever’s in there.”

“Thanks. I should be out of your way once I get a chance to find any unique little nuggets in there. Nests and skeletons and waste piles. Maybe any plant, fungus, insect species or whatever might thrive in the dark. Let’s just document everything with a lot of video. That’s the easiest. And then I can share with Alonso and Amy and Jay without them coming to disturb the site any more.”

“Well, good. That’s my concern. The more we disturb, the less I’ll be able to tell what the bunker was all about. Assuming…”

Pradeep finishes the thought for Triquet, “…the powers-that-be want us to know what the bunker was all about? I mean, I think it’s been made clear that our understanding of this situation is a pretty low priority. But there has to be a safety element for us here.”

“Exactly.”

“We absolutely have the right to learn what we can about our surroundings. Isolated here for eight weeks. I mean, it’s a matter of survival for us. Self-preservation.”

“That’s the argument I plan to make to Alonso about the grave in the redwoods.” Triquet appraises Pradeep, to see how he reacts to this idea. “A respectful disinterment and autopsy, then a proper reburial. Doctor Daine and I both believe it would be critical to our safety. What if Dowerd died of a natural pathogen or parasite here on the island? Something we can prophylactically prevent?”

“What if they were the victim of violence?”

“Exactly. What if this is just the opening scene in a horror film?” Triquet strikes a victim pose.

But Pradeep shivers. “No, thank you. My imagination is far too hyperactive for that joke. It’s bad enough we’re talking about digging up the bodies of our recent predecessors here.”

“Sorry, darling.” Triquet directs their attention back to the bunker. “Sometimes I get carried away. Now. To work.”

Ξ

“If they’d have let me, I’d have brought more weather balloons and built a forty-eight meter tower on the beach, just covered in instruments. But Miriam said that would have to wait,” Mandy explains to Esquibel, who reorganizes a plastic bin filled with boxes of pharmaceuticals. “She said my job will be to just keep us from getting swept away. But without the internet or even any longitude or latitude coordinates, I got to stay local, which really makes a meteorologist irrelevant in this day and age. I mean, I can like scan the horizon with my binoculars and shout out when a storm is coming, I guess. Take temps. Give half-baked forecasts. Other than that, I guess I can be… camp cook? I make a pretty mean stir fry.”

“Yeah, no tower. No internet. No no no,” Esquibel laughs. “It is funny—it is refreshing—to work with people again who have no idea about operational security. You are all like children, just wandering in the wilderness. Scientists only thinking about your own narrow specialties. You have no idea how dangerous the world really is.”

“Well, I think Alonso and Miriam do.”

Ξ

Splash. Katrina dives into the lagoon, the cold seawater sheeting over her skin and surrounding her. She rises with a gasp and a brief struggle with her willpower. The shortie wetsuit she brought from her aunt’s house at Ettalong Beach in Sydney isn’t nearly enough, both in size and thickness, for this latitude. But still. It’s all she has and she’s determined to make use of her mask and snorkel while she’s here.

Activity makes all the difference. She takes a deep breath and uses her fins to kick herself under, where the water is even more cold. Her extremities hurt. Her teeth ache. But still.

Katrina breaches the surface again with a whoop and dives back under again. The deep breaths appear to be warming her faster than anything. And the luminous colors beneath her are starting to become identifiable as patches of coral and anemone. An octopus flashes pale orange and skitters beneath her into a crevice. Fans and nudibranches wave in the current. It is dazzling. She dives one more time.

When she breaks the surface this time she realizes someone is yelling at her. It’s Maahjabeen, scolding her from the nearest rocks. “Yala!” She demands. “Yala, bint! The lagoon is not for you!”

“What is it?” Fear rises in Katrina. She pulls herself onto the closest outcrop of dead coral, a phobia of sharks suddenly gripping her. “What? What do you see?”

“Get out! You must get out!”

This does nothing to help Katrina’s rising panic. She climbs even higher on the coral, slicing her shin open. The salt stings. A red line trickles down her leg. “I’m out! I’m out! What is it?”

“The agreement is that I supervise the lagoon! It is very explicit in the contract!” Maahjabeen once again motions for Katrina to join her on the beach. “Out! Now!”

“Ah, fuck.” Katrina looks in dismay at the slice on her shin. The blood flows freely. She might need stitches. And the woman is still shouting. “What is your problem? Why are you yelling at me?”

“My problem?” This sets Maahjabeen off. The line she doesn’t allow anyone to cross is bringing a lack of professionalism to the workplace. On the open water that can get people killed. “My problem is that you are stupid and you are wrecking the ecosystem before I even get a chance to look at it. Also, you will probably step on an urchin and die of toxic shock. This is not a playground. This is not a party. It is a science expedition and you are in the way.”

“I’m not studying anything! I’m just swimming here!”

“And you are disturbing the sea life!”

“Like the Zodiacs didn’t already do that? Or you yesterday in your kayak?” Katrina shakes her head. “I’ll come back in. But you got to be nicer to the people around you. We’re all—”

“Well perhaps I’d be nicer,” Maahjabeen interrupts Katrina, “if I’d gotten any sleep the last two nights instead of hearing all that night club music!”

“Wow.” Katrina pushes herself across the surface of the lagoon to ride a swell onto the dark beach.

Maahjabeen strides up to her. “My lagoon. Mine. You want to swim in it you get my approval first.” Then she stalks away.

All Katrina can do is repeat to herself, “Wow. Wow wow wow.”

Ξ

Esquibel inspects Katrina’s injury. “It is very shallow. I think with a nice tight wrap you do not need stitches.”

“Oh, thank Christ.”

“But you will have a long white scar. Now this will be the fun part. Coral can easily break off so I’m going to have to irrigate this very thoroughly so it heals well. Ready?”

Katrina grimaces and nods, bracing herself. Her yelps and yowls carry across the camp.

Amy hurries back from the waterfall. “What is it? What’s wrong with Katrina?” she asks Flavia, who sits cross-legged on her platform in a black puffy, busy on her laptop.

“Cut her leg. She’s fine. So much yelling today!”

Jay and Miriam appear, deep in discussion about the likely layers beneath the sand. He is learning a lot from her initial insights and finds himself falling under her pedagogical spell. “I guess I never really thought about how much organic sediments interpenetrate the deeper layers, Doctor Truitt. I guess I thought of it as life up here…” He makes a lateral gesture at chest height. “…and no life down here. Just rock.” He indicates a lower layer around his waist.

“Please, Jay. Call me Miriam. And as with everything, it’s a continuum. We’ve found bacteria living in bedrock at a depth of over a kilometer. But consider, the web of life is something that might even come from the stars. I once consulted with a Harvard lab on galactic panspermia. Still a fringe theory, but it does make sense to me. We are finding life—or at least the elemental building blocks—on asteroids and around deep-sea sulfur vents and, well, everywhere. That interconnected nature of life is what Alonso is trying to characterize with his new classification system.”

Jay addresses the sky. “It’s like everything is a clay.”

“Well, yes,” Miriam laughs. “That’s probably about right. If Flavia averaged out the distribution of rock and soil throughout the universe, it would be a very very loose clay, organic bits floating in a mineral suspension. We are nothing but a bunch of clay from top to bottom.” With a friendly wave she returns to her platform and the shadowy bulk of Alonso in their bed. As she climbs the ramp her gladness fades. She is dismayed by the size of him. He is bloated and unwell, as if all the poison of the last five years still sits within him. He doesn’t stir.

Miriam kneels by his side and takes his hand. He twitches, then grunts. His eyes open. When he sees it’s her, they lose their anxious sheen and relax into softness. “Mi amor.”

“Amy’s fixing a hot breakfast.”

“Mm.” He rolls over on his side.

“It appears we’ve had our first injury. And our first argument.”

He chuckles with effort. “Life, uh… finds a way.”

“And we’re getting some findings and results coming in. We should have a meeting later on. When you’re up.”

“I’m up.”

But he doesn’t move. Miriam brushes gray hair from his eyes. “Oh, Zo. We’re so far out of rhythm. I don’t even know, I mean, what’s your morning routine? How do you wake up these days?”

He doesn’t answer for so long she’s afraid he won’t. But finally he gathers his will with a long indrawn breath. “I spent a lot of time in isolation. Just freezing for months in a concrete box. I didn’t, there really weren’t any…” He shrugs. “The idea of morning and night kind of lost meaning. I escaped inside my head. Into my ideas.”

“I don’t even know how long it’s been since you were rescued.”

“Rescued?” Alonso looks at her like he doesn’t know the word.

“I don’t know anything about… I mean, has it been a month? How long have you been in the hospital?”

“Three months. They tell me first I was at Rammstein for a week then Wiesbaden for two weeks and then Andrews. I think it’s thirteen weeks in all.”

“Three months! You mean, they had you safe in December? They didn’t even tell me until the end of February!”

“Yes, it was a classified thing. I have been safe now for months.”

“All the nights I worried… All those extra…” But Miriam sees he is buried too deep in his trauma to even hear her. She squeezes his hand again and kisses his brow. “Well. You are back again with me. And your dream is coming true here with all these lovely young people. The nightmare is over. Over forever! Mi novio…”

Ξ

Triquet stands in front of the big platform trying to decide if they should interrupt. All they can see is the shadow of Miriam stooping over Alonso’s resting body. It looks too intimate to disturb. But their hands are filled with exciting treasures from the bunker. Triquet finds themself unable to leave.

“What you got there?” Esquibel asks, divining Triquet’s predicament. She approaches with a curious smile.

“Ah! The good doctor!” Triquet crows. “You’ll understand. Look.” Triquet falls to their knees in the sand and places a dozen sealed plastic bags in a grid before them. “I think this is probably more or less chronological here. We’ll confirm with tests later. But you’ll get the idea.”

“What am I looking at?” Esquibel only sees fragments of paper and trash in different bags, each labeled with different-colored markers. She leans close and peers at one. It is a stained bit of paper the size of her thumbnail, covered in dirt, the remains of writing visible beneath.

“They did a pretty good job of sanitizing the site at one point. But these were still in crevices and under the dirt of the front door. This one is best in show so far.” Triquet lifts the second packet and bends it toward the light. “Here you can see the date April 9, 1942. Letterhead. Department of Army – Air Corps. It predates the creation of the United States Air Force as its own full branch. I can’t tell you how easy this makes the rest of my job.”

“Yeah, paper records for decades here. Makes sense. Do they say anything about what their mission was here? Any threats?”

“Oh god I wish. No, things won’t be quite as easy as that, I’m sure.” Triquet sniffs, happy with their treasures. “The clues will be much less straightforward than that but might in the end tell just as much. What they ate, how they thought, how they lived.”

“Well, as a doctor and scientist I can appreciate your excitement. But you will have to pardon me. As a soldier I’d prefer to know their mission. Do we know yet what it was?”

Triquet falls silent, reminded that Esquibel wears a second hat here. “I do hope you know,” Triquet finally says quietly but firmly, “I will keep digging unless I am specifically ordered not to. It’s in my nature, you see.”

Esquibel hesitates. “It is true that I am the representative on the ground for this interagency mission, but that is really only because I possess the necessary security clearances to brief them at the end. I assure you, ehh, that I am not here to be your manager. To tell you whether to dig or not. No! Remember, I am the one who wants to exhume that body with you. I know less about our circumstances here than you think. I am not here to control what you do. I am here to be your medical doctor.”

“Unless someone breaks the rules, right?”

“I am sorry…” Esquibel asks, deflecting the barb by changing the subject. “How would you like me to address you? I have spent the last few years on very small ship environments and I have missed many of the recent, eh, social developments on gender.”

Triquet gives Esquibel a feline stare, taking the moment to assess this situation. Although she brought the issue up in a direct way that Triquet generally finds the least awkward, her background as a military person and an immigrant from East Africa keeps Triquet on guard. “Thank you for asking, doctor. In fact, why don’t you just call me doctor, too? And yes, I use the pronouns they and them. Please let me know if you have questions or if there’s any guidance you may have on how I should interact with you.” Triquet always finds that last comment takes nearly everyone aback. It makes them reflect on their own culture and social standing—their context, like they are archaeological digs each and every one, layered in dirt and detritus, hiding treasures.

Esquibel is no different. Her mouth opens, trying to think of what she might say in response to such a question. Her Kikuyu grandma used to ask her each morning, “Wi mwega?” Are you fine? She had always loved the implied optimism and care in it. But such an intimate detail is nothing to share with this… doctor. This person. An irritation rises up in Esquibel, just wishing that Triquet could tell her which gender they were born as or had eventually become so that they could be settled neatly into a box. Esquibel requires everything to be in boxes. It’s how she keeps her operating theater clean in the field.

But before she says anything she’d regret, she comes to terms with it herself. Gendering Triquet is only a kind of traditional laziness on her part. Her impulse to divide everyone into binary genders isn’t Triquet’s burden to carry. It is something Esquibel would have to figure out on her own. “No, Doctor. Thank you. Just call me Doctor Daine. Unless we are having an argument. Then you can call me Lieutenant Commander.”

Triquet laughs as Pradeep arrives, stripping off his gloves. His knees are stained and his smile is infectious. “Did you tell her?”

“Tell her what?” Esquibel asks.

“She is currently perusing my findings.” Triquet includes their packets with an extravagant sweep of their hand.

“No! The trap door!”

“Trap door?” Esquibel turns, eyebrows raised.

“Well, we aren’t certain…” Triquet amends.

In his bed, Alonso struggles to a sitting position. His voice is clotted, unused. “Trap door? Here? In the bunker?”

“Triquet said we should stop and consult before we looked any more deeply at it.” Pradeep calls out.

“Now you will truly never catch me in there!” Flavia swears. “Who knows what might come up out of a trap door?”

“And look!” Pradeep holds up a specimen tray. “Ephemeroptera. Final subimago nymph stage. I think a type of may fly. Where’s Amy? I need to show her these annelids too.”

Amy calls out from the camp kitchen. “Ooo! Let me see!”

Ξ

Alonso holds the meeting at the long tables. Everyone sits in camp chairs or on stumps or bins. Amy is the only one on her feet, fetching things for others.

“But I believe it is a reasonable compromise to give us one corner of the beach, Maahjabeen, after you have done your assessments and found a spot where we can make the least impact. Now that we know the waterfall’s pool has dangerous undercurrents and whirlpools we will need a place to dunk our heads underwater.”

“There is no compromise clause in my agreement, Alonso.” Maahjabeen holds the paper document in her hand. “If I had been told I would be sharing marine resources with untrained amateurs I wouldn’t have accepted the job. You can’t just change the terms whenever you feel like it just so you can keep your little Bubblegum DJ happy.”

Alonso holds up a hand. Now she has gone too far. “You are free to criticize me or my management, Maahjabeen, but I will need you to treat the other members of this team with respect. Katrina Oksana possesses exactly the same number of advanced degrees you do and if I was asked to identify which of us is the most intelligent or will have the most impactful scientific career I would choose her without hesitation. I invite you to look beyond the Bubblegum DJ cover to the quality of the person within.”

Amy swoops in, a choreographed move that ends with a charming pose in front of Maahjabeen with a mug of hot tea. “Nobody is trying to change anyone’s terms, Maahjabeen. We’re just figuring out how we’re going to live together for eight weeks. It always takes a bit of jostling. But nobody is challenging your authority over all things ocean.”

“Thank you.” Maahjabeen knows when her point has been made. She nods to each of them and takes the tea. “I do look forward to friendly relations going forward. You must understand that I have been on many field projects that were poorly run where these issues became extremely difficult. I have sworn to myself that I would not deal with those issues again.”

“Oh, man, I get you,” Jay laughs heartily. “I mean, sure, maybe this looks to you like we’re at a Grateful Dead concert or whatever but once I was down in Baja with this South African team and they partied so hard one night they completely lost the manifest for—”

“I am not talking about people losing things!” Maahjabeen can’t help how hot her voice is. “I am talking about a girl nearly dying!” Everyone at the table goes still. “On my last contract, I had a silly group of undergrads from Florida on the Red Sea. And one rolled in the open water and couldn’t roll upright again. By the time we reached her she was unconscious. She has brain damage. Last I heard she was still being fed from a tube! This island is not a resort! And the lagoon is not for dunking your heads! I just want you to be more serious!”

Flavia says, “I always worry about that. It is why you will never catch me on a kayak. ‘Oh, it’s easy!’ they say. ‘Just flip yourself back over!’ Yes, but what if I can’t? Boom. Brain damage.”

“Flavia,” Miriam murmurs. “Please.”

Jay puts his utensils down and leans in, his open heart wounded. “Aw, dude, I am so sorry to hear that. That’s a super horrible thing for anyone to go through. And it sounds like you haven’t even been able to process it or anything. Yeah, I’ve lost some people out here. Maybe we all have. If you ever need to talk or anything…” Jay chokes up. “I get it. I really do.”

Maahjabeen isn’t expecting this kind of vulnerability. She thought they were still fighting. The fire in her eyes fades and she picks at her napkin. “Yes. Well. Thank you. No, I didn’t. I had to keep working that day and every day after. I am sorry. I do not mean to be rude. Alonso, Miriam. Forgive me. Once I am able to chart the currents and get out on the open ocean you will be seeing much less of me and these issues will take care of themselves.”

Pradeep shakes his head and grimaces. “Alone? But you have two boats. It doesn’t make sense for you to explore dangerous coastlines alone, Maahjabeen.”

“Well, I cannot be responsible for teaching you—”

Pradeep forestalls her objection by pointing to Amy. “I mean, Amy has led two week kayak expeditions on the Chile coast. Jay grew up paddling in Monterey and has guide certifications. I was a competition rower. We aren’t as green as you think we are here.”

Alonso lets the silence punctuate the subject. “Okay, moving on. Let’s hear about this body. Anyone?”

Triquet consults their notes. “M.C. Dowerd. A good Christian.”

Alonso waits for more. “That’s all it says?”

Miriam confirms, “That’s all it says.”

Alonso strokes his beard. “A mystery. I don’t like mysteries. The world has enough mysteries without digging a whole bunch more up, no? So what do you think?”

Triquet exchanges a glance with Esquibel. She says, “Well… Doctor Triquet and I propose an autopsy.”

Alonso makes a face. “An exhumation and autopsy? You don’t think this is outside the scope of the mission, Doctor Daine? We are here to characterize the life we find here, not the dead bodies.”

“No, Doctor Alonso. I think those are semantics.” Esquibel addresses the entire table. “The life and death of this person are very clearly important to our mission here. Cause of death alone would be invaluable to us.”

“I understand,” Alonso allows, yet he isn’t happy about it. “But let’s not lose focus. We only have eight weeks here to capture the essence of this island. Chasing Air Force ghosts can’t be our top priority. So, I won’t say no. I just want you to do a number of other, more important things, first. Okay?”

Triquet and Esquibel nod, unconvinced.

Pradeep adds, “And speaking of mysteries…”

Alonso sighs. “Yes? Now what?”

“The trap door.”

Jay jumps to his feet. “Yes! Oh, please let me be your tunnel rat. Please please please…!”

Amy restrains him. “Jay, less war imagery please.”

“Yes, this isn’t Vietnam, hermano.” Alonso waves his hand. “It’s just storage, I’m sure. Bomb shelter if you’re lucky. But again. Not our top priority.”

“I will absolutely disagree with you there, Alonso.” Flavia presses her hand flat against the table. “How do you think we can sleep if there are things like this under our feet?”

Katrina gives her a derisive snort. “Oh, babe, if you only knew how many tunnels and caves and underwater caverns are within a stone’s throw of here…”

Flavia stabs the air with her knife in Katrina’s direction. “And you are not helping! Although I must say you are a fantastic DJ and you have to give me a playlist before we leave.”

“Thank you!” Katrina beams.

“But seriously, Alonso,” Amy says, uncharacteristically sober. “This is our top priority. Unless you can tell us anything else you might know that would reassure us about our safety on this island, it seems we have to be pretty proactive about our own defense. And that means getting to the bottom of all the military assets left on the island. The bunker. The body. What we’re telling you is we can’t work under these conditions.”

Alonso spreads his hands. “I have told you all of substance that I can. Forgive me. My energy has been low since we landed. I am only now recharging my batteries. Baitgie… well he had a small team. A corporal and two contractors. We first met in Germany at Rammstein after we did the first debriefing. Once I’d been cleared, they said they were looking for someone with my credentials for a classified project. So we spoke. Four of them and one of me. They had tremendous resources. Great research teams behind them. If they didn’t recognize what I wanted or needed they would have an answer for me, often within ten minutes. At first they wanted to discuss whether there might be any patentable pharmaceuticals on an island like this and I said it would be possible. And that’s when they ran my background and made me a formal offer.”

They all patiently sit; he’s lost in the weeds. Miriam prompts him. “Alonso, your team is telling you they feel unsafe.”

“Ah.” Alonso shakes his head, the spell broken. “Just so. Yes. Of course. We will do what those who are wiser than I will ever be ask us to do. Naturally. Doctor Daine, for the safety of us all can I rely on you and Doctor Triquet to lead this investigation? Please use any resources you need, etcetera, etcetera. You understand our urgency. For we have an entire ecosystem to describe! Not just new single species but new nodes in the Plexity network, new colors in the weave! And a whole new language to describe it with! Come, mi amigos. This is not much of a rocky start. We are all strong people with strong hearts and heads or we would not be out here.” He lifts his wine glass. “To Lisica!”

A fairly enthusiastic response echoes him. “To Lisica!”

Amy leans in to grab the attention. “Just an FYI. There’s dinner. And then there’s social hour for two hours after that. And then it’s camp quiet time after that.”

“What?” Katrina makes a joke of it and flips her hair. “But I thought you liked my music! Who complained?”

Flavia apologizes. “Also me. I do. I love it, Katrina darling. But when I am done I am done.”

“Finally. Findings and discoveries?” Alonso refills his glass.

“Well, the first finding is that the cliff is just a fucking wall.” Jay tilts his own wine glass toward it. “We won’t be able to get up it anywhere within view. We got to paddle out, Maahjabeen. Around the whole coast. Find a way up and in.”

“You mean like a sea cave?” Maahjabeen frowns. “That is too dangerous. These currents are very strong. I have been charting the tide. I am getting a good sense of the cycle. Tomorrow the low might be a negative tide. That is when something like a sea cave would be accessible.”

“Well, that’s way more dramatic than I was thinking, but sure.” Jay shrugs. “I thought we might just find a nice little canyon or pocket beach somewhere that we can climb.”

“Don’t worry about the interior just yet,” Alonso says. “I want your energy focused on this beach and lagoon and grove before we impact it too much. We need to spend time making this camp work and getting us all figuring out how we are best together. With professionalism, certainly, but also with joy and love. I come from a big Cuban family. It is the only way I know how to run a project like this. For the next eight weeks we are all my big Cuban family.”

“And on that note,” Triquet sings out, “I think it’s time we open ourselves a trap door.”

Ξ

The bunker, now that its floor has been cleared and the corners lit, is a spacious eight meters by twelve. The trap door is in the back corner to the right, a narrow rectangle of banded iron and inset hinges, set a meter or so from both walls.

Triquet takes the lead, kneeling beside it. They wear a helmet with a powerful headlamp and camera. At their shoulder is Jay. Behind him is Esquibel wearing her black satchel. Behind her is Pradeep. Triquet says, “Like I have any idea how to open this.”

Jay says, “I think it just… opens…” He wedges his fingers under one of the iron bands and lifts. It creaks but doesn’t budge.

Triquet pulls out a spike. “Hold up.” They hammer it under the edge of the door, breaking the rind of oxide that rusted it shut.

Now Jay can lift the trap door, pushing it up against the back wall. Triquet tilts their light down a steep and narrow concrete stair, one hand on Jay’s shoulder to yank him clear if needed.

“I don’t see anything,” Jay reports. “Nothing moving. Just… eighteen steps. Then a landing. Another rusted metal door of the same construction. Things are looking good for bomb shelter.”

“Any scat?” Amy’s voice comes from the bunker’s door. They’d agreed to only have four people in the bunker for this moment.

“No droppings!” Jay calls out.

“Aw…” Pradeep voices his disappointment.

“Do we go down the stairs and open the door?” Triquet asks the room. They all look at each other.

“Alonso put us in charge,” Esquibel reasons, “so it is up to us to make that determination. But he is in charge of the wider project so it would be best to coordinate with him. Could somebody go run, tell him what we found?”

“On it!” Katrina disappears from the window.

Triquet looks at Esquibel with an apologetic smirk. “I think we know what we have to do.”

“Yes, I agree. Are you still comfortable being first? Now I wonder about stale gasses, Doctor. Radon. Do we have testing equipment? I can’t support opening that door until we can assess that better.”

“Good thinking. Yes, as an archaeologist I do carry a radon test kit. You’re right. I’ll get it.”

“Wait. Look.” Jay is on his hands and knees, face pressed against the floor of the bunker.

Triquet peers at what he’s studying. So do Esquibel and Pradeep. The dust is dragging itself across the floor, back and forth at the top of the stairs, like it’s in a microscopic tidal ebb and flow. Triquet purrs, “Ooh, air currents.”

“So, not stale at all. I wonder where it’s coming from?”

“What is it?” Pradeep asks, crowded out.

“The room below is ventilated somehow.” Jay shows him. “I bet it’s just a man cave,” he jokes. “Fifties style. Like with an Elks lodge Playboy magazine vibe. That’s my guess.”

“I’m sticking with bomb shelter,” Pradeep says. “These people were paranoid. It’s probably stacked with rations from fifty years ago. I just wonder how big it is. And how they kept the air flowing this whole time.”

“Excuse me, boys,” Triquet slips past them and carefully descends the stairs.

As they reach the bottom steps, Katrina returns to the window with a reply: “Alonso says, you know what’s best!”

Triquet faces the iron door. They nod up the stairs in vague recognition of her words. Then they shine their headlamp at the seams of the door, surprised to find that it remained cracked open all these years, just a few millimeters of darkness. “This one will be easier. But for my own safety I’m going to swing it wide open and hide behind the door. So whatever comes barreling out will charge up the stairs toward you lot.”

Pradeep, eyes wide, remarks, “The benefits of leadership.”

“Ready?”

“Wait,” Katrina calls out from the window. “Mandy’s shouting something. Hold on.”

Amy, at the door, shields her eyes and listens.

Triquet cocks their head. “What’s going on up there, team?”

Mandy arrives, panting. She runs through the door and across the bunker and stumbles to a halt when she reaches Pradeep. She clutches his elbow at the edge of the stair and he catches her neatly in his arms. “Whoa there. Steep drop.”

“Oh, sorry. Couldn’t see.” He sets her up on her feet and she falls against Esquibel. “Running in sand is so hard.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Triquet asks, hand on the door.

“Storm coming. Big one. The western sky is so dark. Probably stretches around to the north but I can’t see. Please don’t be underground when it hits. I worry about flooding.”

“Ooo, good call,” Jay says. “Yeah. Maybe let’s hold off on the downstairs for a minute and instead do some quick work here on the roof to make the bunker a bit more rain-proof.”

“Some tarps should do it,” Pradeep says. “Go tell Flavia the crabs are gone and the floor is swept. Let’s get everybody inside.”