Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us on our Scientist Soap Opera escapist journey to the mysterious island of Lisica! You can find previous episodes in the link above or column on the right. Please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment if you enjoy what you find!

Audio for this episode:

12 – Too Freaky

Triquet has now stacked and organized the entirety of the first three belowdecks rooms. That’s not to say that every artifact has been studied. Things have just been identified and put together with other similar objects. It’s quite a lot of material. To anyone less obsessed with memorabilia than Triquet, it would be entirely overwhelming. To the young archaeologist, it is an endless journey of thrilling discoveries.

The most inane thing can set them off: a mattress tag that lists formaldehyde as an ingredient; a dead mouse at the bottom of a mayonnaise jar; a deck of cards with the Queen of Hearts missing. Each artifact could exist nowhere in the world except here, in this time and place. That is what makes them precious. Invaluable, in fact. Triquet makes copious notes, writing with a Parker ballpoint pen on a moleskine pad. These items had been a graduation gift from their grandfather when they got their first Masters. Now it is as if their classic notetaking implements have fallen back in time to rejoin their contemporaries.

Triquet, alone belowdecks among the crew bunks in their pink satin vest, holds up their shiny blue ballpoint pen. “Hello, 1952,” they squeak in a pen-voice. “So nice to make your acquaintance.” The pen executes a formal bow. “Does anyone have a turntable for swinging tunes? Perhaps some Perry Como?”

“Why, Penny,” Triquet answers the pen in a deep announcer voice, “that’s a fantastic idea.” They open their music app and a folder containing every available Perry Como song. They select one of their early favorites and let the ethereal back-up voices fill the echoing metal capsule:

They were standing in a crowded station,
So unaware, of all the people there!
I didn’t mean to hear their conversation,
But anyone could tell, It was their last farewell!

Good-bye Sue… All the best of luck to you!
You’ve been my only gal, What’s more, my best pal…!

Triquet sings along, lifting a rotting Eisenhower jacket and slow-dancing with it for a moment before carefully folding it again. Ah, the past. The golden past, with none of the troubles of today. It’s always hard for Triquet to stay in the present and they rarely think of any future beyond their next dig. But the glorious past, already decided and locked in time, spreading in all directions behind them like a scintillating peacock tail while they trudge forward into the unknown… the past is their home. All the bright shining lights of antiquity lie scattered about Triquet, ripe for study.

“Allow me to worship my icons, O Lord.” Triquet finds a box of mysterious long glass cylinders with filaments, like early versions of fluorescent tubes. Divining what they are will require a fair bit of research. They hold up a thick manila folder, reading the name off the label, “Ingles, Philip John. Ooo, Air Force Colonel. Big boss man.” Opening the cover reveals a wallet-size black-and-white studio photo of the colonel in uniform. It is the same portly, balding man who presided over the group photo. “Bonanza!” Triquet sits, leafing through the pages.

They are dated in backward chronological order, the earliest records at the end. Triquet gently lifts the crackling corner to peer at the first one. December 15^th, 1952. It is a hand-written note that instructs the reader to hand over to Colonel Ingles the codes followed by the cryptic phrase Foxtrot Avenue. The signature is an illegible scrawl. Triquet giggles. “Oh, I love the spooks and their games.”

Most of the papers are brief correspondences concerning orders of fuels and supplies, which seemed to take up most of Colonel Ingles’ executive time on the island. He expended quite a bit of effort to try to get the Air Force to give them a steadily-replenished library, to uncertain success. And he had a constant number of discipline reports in the… Triquet checks the top page, it’s from 1962… so ten full years that Ingles ruled here like a king. Triquet whistles. It’s a lot of discipline reports. One name finds its way into more reports than any others: Lieutenant Clifton M. DeVry. He eventually got brought up on insubordination charges and was shipped off the island in 1956.

The next letter is a handwritten note, also from 1956. Apart from the date, it only says:

Philly,

On my way! Hugs and kisses.

MCD

MCD? Maureen Christian Dowerd? His wife? Then why didn’t she take his name? And why isn’t she in any of the photos? This was the 1950s and irregularities like these were far more significant. Triquet pages forward through 1957 and 1958 but finds no further mention of her. Just more fuel, books, and discipline problems.

“This is the guy…” Triquet realizes, “who buried the sub. Was it his idea?” But none of these papers make any mention of it.

Near the end of the record, in 1961, a stained telegram from Duluth, Minnesota, directs Colonel Ingles to ‘send her personal effects to this address.’ It is signed Penelope Archen Stoltz. So Maureen from Minnesota is dead by now and her family want her things. Triquet itches to get their hands on the official records of Duluth from 1956 but they’ll have to wait until they get back home to do that. What a mystery! What killed her? Why did she remain buried here if her family asked for her things?

Triquet resolves once again to conduct an autopsy.

Ξ

Miriam stands at the edge of the waterfall pool, watching the torrent, which has eased since she first checked on it after the storm. It is no longer threatening to kill her. The water has cleared and is less turbid now, and fewer wood fragments are dropping down from on-high.

She can’t see the dark vertical ovoid openings behind the falls any more. The cascades no longer separate from the cliff wall. They have mostly resumed their former less-thunderous route, framed on both sides by thick vegetation and not the lovely slick bare stone that had been revealed beneath.

Now how will she get to it? Erosion has opened up who knows what kind of fantastical caverns behind that waterfall. And it is all hers for the discovering if she can just figure out how to bypass the water. Deflect it somehow? Let’s see. At this moment it’s dropping, say, a hundred liters per second? Maybe less. Each liter of water weighs a kilo, traveling near terminal velocity. So it’s like having a heavy man fall on you traveling two hundred kilometers per hour. No, she doesn’t have anything that can withstand those forces, regardless of how many branches Pradeep lashes together.

“Well this is intolerable.” Miriam scuffs her boot against the mud beneath it. It can’t all be soil here, can it? She uses the blade of her shovel to hack away the crowding undergrowth. The earth is soft, the detritus from the waterfall that has collected over the ages to a great depth. She won’t find any stone here at all.

“Well… How close can I get?” Miriam edges toward the cascade, trying to find a providential place where the soil fades and the rock rises and the water above won’t kill her. She forces herself deeper into the brush, using her frustration to force her forward and down. Her old knees creak under the greenery. And her left wrist is bothering her these days. Careful how you crawl, old lass.

Miriam looks up from the dead leaves and mud. The bracken forms a low vault over her head. A narrow tunnel disappears into the gloom, curving away to the left. But it terminates to her right, overlooking the pool through a screen of branches. “But Amy said there’s no game trails here.” Yet this is obviously the nest of some animal. What’s more, a small hollow has been dug and lined with grass near the water’s edge. Like a rabbit’s den. Or that of a fox…

Ξ

Jay can’t stay horizontal any more. He’s losing his mind. So he’s up and hobbling around camp, picking up dirty dishes from the tables and bringing them to the kitchen inside the bunker for a wash. He should cook. He loves to cook. And by the time he gets everything prepped, moving slow as he is, he’ll definitely be hungry.

He makes a pancake batter, adding a dried blueberry trail mix with walnuts and sunflower seeds. They only have vegetable oil to fry them in. No butter or maple syrup, though Jay has noticed how fast Flavia is inhaling their supply of Nutella. Well, he’ll just put out a nice little spread here with a fat stack of cakes and a little bit of the Nutella on the side for whoever wants it.

Mixing is a bitch with a broken hand. He leans his body against the wall, the bowl braced between his leg and the concrete, to stir with his off-hand. He’s probably making too much. He didn’t even ask if anyone else is hungry. But nah. Everybody loves pancakes. Miriam appears in the bunker’s door, headed toward him. “There she is. Miriam will eat some, won’t she?”

“Biscuits? Yes, Jay, I’d love some. Hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Sure you’re okay to cook there?”

“I have to do something. Or I will explode. But it isn’t biscuits. Just pancakes if that’s okay.”

But she’s hardly listening. Miriam still looks outside, where the gray daylight glows softly in the doorway. “It’s a shame about your mobility. I just found the cutest little nest in the bushes.”

Jay stops mixing and looks at her. “What kind of nest? Where?”

“Right by the pool. Under the thorn bushes and everything. You and Amy think there’s a fox?”

“You found the fox nest? Oh hells yeah.” Jay turns off the burner he had already turned on. He bangs down the bowl on the counter and hops urgently toward the door. “Show me.”

“Oh, dear. I shouldn’t have said anything. Let’s wait until you can walk at least.”

“No way, lady. I can crawl if I have to. I got to see.”

Ξ

For the first time, Esquibel feels properly set up. What is this, the tenth day? Eleventh? Sitting in the clean room, she pages through the journal she’s been writing in. Diary-keeping is essential for a doctor on a solo tour like this. So the eleventh. She always had to keep her own schedule when she was aboard ships. It’s easy when you’re busy for the days to blur together. But there is something dreamy and timeless about this island that has a similar effect. It’s all so very pleasant. Cold and wet at times, yes, but no malaria mosquitos or stifling humidity or clouds of black flies. She might even go sit on the beach in the spot she had installed Maahjabeen the day before and read a book on her phone. Something trashy.

As she walks across the sand though she already starts to feel restless. Is this it, then? All she has to do is keep an eye on Jay and Maahjabeen and Alonso and the rest of her time is her own? On a ship she would have constant complaints and injuries. Her ward would usually be full and her corpsmen and nurses worked to exhaustion. But eleven people don’t really require a full clinic. They hardly require a doctor. Although these eleven seem to be particularly good at harming themselves.

She scrambles over the gigantic fallen redwood and drops down the other side. Esquibel realizes she will have to start a hobby, some useful way to spend her time here. “Ehh, that is always the issue, isn’t it?” She knows she is a fine doctor and a good person, but she also knows that she doesn’t have much of a personality outside of her work. She has thrown herself into medicine over the last ten years. It has left little to no time for anything—or anyone—else. Should that be her hobby? Mandy? She could devote herself to the lovely girl and they could live out their dreams…

Well, yes. But that would hardly require hours of her day. She can’t just stare at Mandy all the time. It would be unnerving. And such behavior is beneath her. Esquibel has her pride, after all.

So, okay. A little bit of time with Mandy. Maybe they can improve their cell in the bunker and their platform in camp, make it more like a tiny house. That would be dear. But what else? There must be something she can learn to do here on Lisica to finally explore parts of herself that remain undeveloped. She could assist Triquet with their efforts. No. She has no curiosity for the litter of dead Americans. Perhaps she can dig trenches for Miriam. Well, if her hip lets her. It still tightens up from time to time. She should see if Mandy would pry the scar tissue apart again tonight.

She can’t think of anything Alonso or Flavia or Jay might teach her that she cares about. What about Katrina? Maybe she could learn how to DJ? Ha. Now that’s a funny idea.

But for some reason it’s the only one that sticks.

At the beach, her attention is drawn to something white with a broken edge floating in the water. Esquibel forgets her plans of leisure and wades into the cold water to retrieve it.

Ξ

“No, I’m okay. I’m okay. I just get excited.” Amy tries to get Jay back in his chair, but instead he hops on his good foot and winces in agony. “Oh, please don’t make me sit again. Going crazy, yo. I’ll sit when I’m old.”

“Indeed,” Alonso agrees, “you will.”

“But wait! Miriam didn’t stick around for the full forensic exam. There wasn’t really enough room in there for two. Oh, it’s a puzzle, that’s for sure.” This isn’t a full meeting. Mandy and Pradeep are nowhere to be seen. Esquibel is down at the beach. Flavia sits on her own platform, frowning at her laptop.

“Puzzle?” Miriam pours glasses of wine and hands them out. “In what way? Is it not a fox nest?”

“Well…” Jay draws long gray fibers from his pocket and holds them up in the fluttering wind. “If further examination confirms these are fox, then yes. But that wasn’t the only hair I found there. I also found these.” Jay holds up a clutch of long curly golden hairs.

Amy holds her hand out. “Let me see.” Jay passes the tangle of hairs to her. She gets out her phone and takes a picture, then magnifies the image. “Huh.” Amy inspects the hairs more closely. “I can’t think of a single animal that might reasonably be here with this kind of hair. I mean, a golden doodle dog? A Mongolian yak? Some kind of mountain goat or sheep variant would be my best guess here.” She passes the hairs to Alonso.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.” Jay places a broken stick with a sharpened end on the table. “Until I found that.”

Miriam picks up the narrow stick. Its end has been planed into something like a pencil’s point. “Tool-using foxes?”

“Oh my god, the island is inhabited?” Amy covers her mouth.

Alonso, holding up the hairs, slaps his forehead and cries out. “Yes! Ai mi. I have seen one. I keep forgetting. With everything that has happened and hitting my head. Yes! This is exactly it! The child had this hair.” He holds up the blond curls.

“A child?” Miriam turns to him. “What are you talking about? You saw a child here? When were you going to tell us?” But her eyes are worried. Is this Alonso’s sanity showing signs of cracking? She glances at Amy, who is at a complete loss.

“When did you see a child?” Amy asks.

“I keep forgetting then remembering again. That night when I fell in the dark. I was very drunk. But I was sure I had seen her. Or him. Little person in the shadows, only maybe ten meters away. Didn’t see me. Long curly hair and a little face. They were very real. I heard them as they stepped. I swear to you.”

“Wow.” Triquet slowly absorbs these revelations. Now a number of things start to make sense. “This is a very important piece. A very important piece indeed.” It somehow fits in what they have been studying but they still can’t divine how. How did this lead to an entire sub getting buried at the base? One of the charges that had gotten Lieutenant DeVry in trouble again and again was fraternization. When they’d first read it, Triquet had skipped over the detail, assuming it was with some enlisted man or something, but now it begs the question—fraternizing with whom? Could DeVry not keep his hands off the natives?

Triquet opens their mouth to say as much but they’re interrupted by Esquibel, walking toward them from the beach holding a white triangle with broken edges. “Look. I found this. Floating in the lagoon. Is it what I think it is?” A row of black numerals run along its edge, a second row in dense Chinese characters.

Triquet is up and at her side in a flash. They handle the piece with care.“My my my. Will you look at that. It’s the wreckage of a plane, like a fragment of its wing. See?”

Esquibel asks, “Anyone read… what is that? Mandarin?”

“Mandy?” Amy asks. “Where is she?”

“No,” Esquibel says. “She never learned it.”

“Katrina?” Alonso asks, craning his neck. “I bet you know.”

She sits behind him on her platform but has pink headphones on, grooving to a beat while she fills in an intricate flower drawing in a coloring book. She looks up and removes her headphones. “Why is everyone looking at me? Oh. What’s that?”

Triquet crosses the sand to her and shows her the wing fragment and its Chinese characters. “How’s your Zhōngwén?”

“Yeh. I did study Chinese a bit for some intelligence analysis work I did a few years ago. Let’s see…” Katrina frowns at a cluster of symbols. “I think this part says directorate or ministry.”

“A few years ago?” Triquet deadpans. “When you were sixteen?”

“Seventeen. ASIS wouldn’t give me classified access until after my birthday. I mean, I was still a minor. So stupid.”

“Ministry of what though?” Triquet examines the characters. They are right at the edge, further characters shorn away. With a careful pinch, they peel back the white laminar to examine the composite substrate. “This looks like carbon fiber here. Oh shit. And now…” Triquet hastily puts the wing fragment down on the ground at their feet, “…I’m fairly certain we shouldn’t be handling that with bare hands because that is a Chinese military component and they have been widely known to use toxic jet fuels among other deadly materials. Gah. Doctor Daine, you and I need to get clean real quick. Uh… Uh… Uh… What do you got?”

“Yes. Alcohol wipes. Peroxide. I’ll get them. Right away.”

“Isn’t peroxide one of the fuels they use?” Miriam asks. “But like a toxic version? Is it even safe to mix them?”

Triquet shrugs, alarmed. “You think I know? This isn’t my area of interest at all. I just read stories of Chinese rockets falling on villages and giving everyone blood cancer or something. Ahh! Hurry, Esquibel!” Triquet holds their hands away from their body and jumps up and down in distress.

“So what happened here?” Alonso shakes his head in worry. “Did this float here all the way from China? Somehow I doubt it. So what then? Chinese military plane flying across the Pacific got hit by the storm?”

“What was it even doing here?” Amy wonders. “I mean, there’s nothing here and this is way outside of China’s reach.”

“There’s nowhere,” Esquibel says, returning with a satchel filled with bottles, “outside of China’s reach. Believe me. I have been all over the world and they are everywhere. Hands.”

Triquet holds out their hands. Esquibel puts a small bucket beneath before pouring liquid soap on them. “Any reactions?”

“Just psychosomatic ones. Pretty sure I have like face tumors now. How about you? Did you only touch it with your hands?”

“I am not sure. I had to get into the water to fish it out. Above my knee. I think it bumped into me there. But I didn’t think it could be dangerous since it spent so long in the ocean.”

“You’re probably right. But I’d still wash that leg.”

Esquibel nods. She turns to the person beside her. “Amy, could you please remove my pants?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” Amy tries to emulate the doctor’s business-like approach to bodies and nudity. She fumbles at the buckle below Esquibel’s navel, then unzips them and drags them over the tall woman’s hips and rump. “Maybe wash both your legs to be sure.”

“Would you please?” Esquibel asks, mouth pressed into a thin line. How could she have been so stupid to expose herself to toxins like this? She needed a bloody archaeologist to remind her of it. Unaware of Amy’s fluttering heart as she wipes down the long smooth muscles of Esquibel’s legs, the Doctor instead worries that everyone thinks she’s an idiot. She doesn’t realize she’s been upstaged by the sight of her graceful long legs and smooth skin. They draw all the attention and conversation awkwardly stops.

“There, Esquibel.” Amy stands, disposing of a wad of wipes. “Now you should survive.”

“Whew. I think Amy needs a cigarette,” Katrina jokes. They all laugh, breaking the tension. Esquibel laughs too but her head still rings with recriminations and she doesn’t catch the joke. She just assumes they’re all laughing at her.

“Oh, um, Amy, I think I got it on my legs too…” Triquet strikes a pose and sighs and they all laugh again.

Now Esquibel gets it. She blushes and hastily pulls her pants back up. They aren’t laughing at her. They’re objectifying her. “Thank you. That should be sufficient,” Esquibel informs them in her most prim voice. “I’ll do some research on possible exposures and see if I have anything to counteract them. I’m not sure I do, especially if we inhaled anything.”

“But it doesn’t answer,” Miriam says, “any of our questions. Why were the Chinese even here? On their way to spy on Canada?”

“Or were they coming to Lisica?” Triquet shivers. “I sincerely hope not. I only like the spooky stuff when all the spooks are dead and gone. I don’t need to actually live through any of it.”

Jay shakes his head in confusion. “So you think the Chinese were coming here and got caught in the storm and… and what? The plane crashed and they all died?”

“It’s true,” Alonso says. “We don’t know if anyone survived.”

They all think about what that means, about the other bunker on the other beach, about the forested interior peopled by mysterious natives with curly golden hair.

Alonso chuckles, fatalistic. Life is the strangest thing. There is no anticipating what surprise might come next. “Well. I guess we will have to add more plates to the supper table. Things are about to get a lot more crowded around here.”

Ξ

Pradeep leads Mandy by the hand out of camp and into a tiny nook on the far side of Tenure Grove, where narrow arms of the cliff drop down on one side and the other to enclose this small hidden glade.

Mandy hasn’t held hands with a boy since her cousin Albert walked her to her car at Aunty Carol’s funeral. Male hands are so big, like cartoonishly-large. And Pradeep’s slender fingers are twice as long as hers, carefully cradling her entire palm. She doesn’t like being reminded how much bigger and stronger most men are. Their very existence is an implied threat. Fortunately the three men on this island have been gentle. She loves that they were seemingly able to leave toxic masculinity behind. Mandy can’t remember the last time she was able to live a daily life without it.

But the going is rocky and rooty through the understory and everyone has already watched Mandy trip over one thing or another so she’s grateful for his hand. She wonders what kind of weird fungus or bizarre mating habit of ant species he wants to show her. But she doesn’t need to ask. She’s not a child.

Pradeep halts her at the mouth of the nook. The space within is only as wide as a house, with small shrubs and stunted trees that probably don’t get enough sun, hidden by the tall cliffs almost into an enclosure. Pradeep looks at Mandy with a smile of expectation. He feels so bad for the poor atmospheric scientist, cut off from nearly all her observations. Well, here is a special one for her.

She gives him a side-eyed glance. “What am I looking at?”

“You will need to wait a moment. For the wind to pick up.”

“It’s pretty here. Like a little secret spot.”

“Yes, you wouldn’t believe the interactions among the ground-dwelling arthropods in the leaf litter. I think it’s a full ground war, with at least five fronts and… There. The wind.”

A gust flutters her long hair and rustles the dead branches on the floor of the nook. Then a longer sustained wind shudders past her and swirls into it, lifting redwood duff and dried maple leaves from the forest floor and spinning them in a modest twister.

Mandy cries out with childlike joy and claps her hands. “Oh, oh do it again! That’s brilliant! You’re saying it keeps happening?”

“For at least the last hour. Quite a strong effect. Like surprisingly strong. I was thinking this is how we could get Jay up the cliff. Sit him in a little sort of whirly gig during the next storm. It would spin him right up to the top!”

She giggles and leans gratefully against Pradeep, squeezing his arm, the way she would with any of her girlfriends who had just brought her a gift. He stiffens, unused to intimate contact like this, his smile frozen on his face.

Mandy playfully pushes on Pradeep’s shoulder. “Oh, babe, don’t worry. I’m not into guys. You’re safe with me. But thank you so much! This is so awesome! My god, I can actually run some kind of interesting experiments in here. Does it only occur with a westerly wind? Are there local temperature factors? There must be. So what conditions need to line up for the phenomenon to occur?”

Pradeep shrugs, knowing it’s a rhetorical question. Mandy’s hair still brushes against his shoulder. It is too soft for words. But her proximity keeps him as still as a mouse. He doesn’t mean for human contact to turn him into a frightened prey animal. It just does. And at this point in his life, the old habits are just easier than the new pitfalls of engagement. He withdraws, edging toward the nook. “Would it spoil your observations if I continued my work?”

“In there? Maybe. But I mean, go ahead. This is your lab first. I just got here. And sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest you were coming onto me. I just wanted you to know I wasn’t. Onto you, that is.”

Pradeep nods, pained anxiety clearly showing on his face. Mandy feels a stab of sympathy and has to suppress the urge to give the poor guy a hug. Wow. Who hurt you, bro? We are all dealing with our own ish for sure.

The wind is still whirling, the threads of redwood bark and chips rising and falling in the column according to complex dynamics. He unslings his backpack and crawls forward, following an arc of lined-up pine needles that curve across the ground where the flood waters left them. Black flies and white gnats buzz above these collections of organic matter. Pradeep pries one lump apart with tweezers. He is on the lookout, as always now, for species symbiosis and interactions with their environments. He wants to be able to show Alonso some real knockout examples, really vindicate Plexity for the old data scientist. Hah. Here he goes again… Pradeep realizes he is making of Alonso a father figure, as he has done with mentors many times throughout his academic career.

The thing is, he comes from a family with a strong patriarch: his uncle. The old immigrant works very hard and his many nieces and nephews always come to him with their achievements, to show him that his work is meaningful, that all those pizzas that had put them through college would secure his retirement with a nice duplex or condo in the suburbs outside St. Louis. That is the plan.

But these expressions of filial duty make Pradeep a model student and one whom mentors gladly pick up. Reflexively, he is always trying to please them, to prove that their efforts on his behalf matter. It turns out, people really appreciate that care. It’s part of what allows Pradeep to be such a success in this cutthroat field. His ardent desire to please authority figures, whether they deserve it or not. Pradeep sighs with pleasure, finding an owl’s pellets bound up in the pine needles. He inspects it with the USB microscope attached to his phone. Microbes are already feeding on the small amounts of undigested animal matter that isn’t hair and bone. Wonderful. He scrapes a sample into a capsule and snaps it shut.

A stronger wind blasts the nook, the air pressure fluttering so much Mandy’s ears pop. Pradeep is nearly knocked off his knees. A long branch is picked up into the cyclone and sent skyward.

“Look out!” Mandy hauls Pradeep out of the way as the branch returns with a growing rush to earth. He falls back against her and they crash against the ground.

His weight crushes her ribs. She worries that the branch fell across his legs and hurt him. His hair smells of some spicy male shampoo. That’s the thing about men. She just doesn’t like how they smell. She never has. But girls smell like her favorite dessert. It’s how she knew she was gay, from the earliest moments. She just couldn’t imagine getting closer to that musky male scent.

Pradeep rolls away, worried that he’s hurt the poor girl. He holds up a hand in apology and she does the same thing. “Thank you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Did I hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine. But it didn’t fall on you?”

“No. You saved me.”

She holds out her hands for help up. He hesitates for only a fraction of a second before he favors her with another brilliant anxious smile and pulls her back to her feet.

More wind whips into the nook, sending large branches skyward. It’s like a fireworks show, just for the two of them. They retreat to safety so they can watch it together.

It is so magical that Pradeep doesn’t realize he’s been holding Mandy’s hand again until the wind fades and it is time to go.

Ξ

“Water.”

Flavia looks up from her screen. She sits in her little private cell, up to her neck in coding. Did somebody say something?

“Water. Please.”

Ah! It’s Maahjabeen, in a cot in the cell beside hers. Flavia curses softly at herself for her thoughtlessness and pushes the laptop away. She finds a bottle in the kitchen and fills it from their freshwater bucket. She taps on Maahjabeen’s door.

The Tunisian woman is on her side, face clenched, breath ragged. Is she asleep? She doesn’t appear to realize she spoke aloud. But she still must need water if she’s dreaming about it. Flavia puts a gentle hand on Maahjabeen’s arm, recalling how much Alonso bellowed when she touched him.

Maahjabeen groans, a scratchy sound, and rolls onto her back. She unsticks her eyes and looks at Flavia without recognition.

“I brought water.”

Maahjabeen nods, her restless disjointed dreams fading, and tries to lift an arm. Her shoulder creaks but allows it. Progress. She grasps the cool bottle and holds it against the side of her face.

“How are you? How is your back?” Flavia strokes Maahjabeen’s thick black curls, visible at the edge of her headscarf.

“Mm. Better. Thank you.” Maahjabeen twists the top off and sucks water out like it’s a baby bottle. “Get so thirsty. And then my muscles lock up again.”

“Drink it all.”

Maahjabeen does so.

“There there. Let’s make sure you don’t waste away.” Flavia mothers her, tucking her bag under her chin. “More water?”

Maahjabeen looks at her with gratitude. “Soon.”

“Us Mediterranean ladies must stick together, eh?” Flavia grabs Maahjabeen’s big toe through the bag and shakes it. “I have been to Tunisia one time. I loved it.”

“You’ve been to Tunisia?”

“Oh, yes. Very beautiful. My uncle was in the Italian Corpo delle Capitanerie di Porto, eh… captain of ports, out of Genoa…”

“Coast guard.”

“Exactly. He was in the Coast Guard and he would take us out sailing all over every summer. He loved Greece best so we sailed the islands most summers but once we went to Tunisia. Something about it… Felt so glamorous.”

“Glamorous? Ha. You must not have left the tourist beaches.”

“No. I think we probably lived onboard his boat in the marina. That’s what we always did. But one day we were in a small town but they had a big square and there was a wedding. Like a wedding procession through the town. And everyone was dressed—”

“Ah, yes. Silver thread and satin as far as the eye can see.”

“And I was like twelve! The bride, she had a headpiece made of gold coins. And the men were so handsome.”

“Ha. That is a perfect description of them. The men of my country do all they can to make themselves handsome to twelve year old girls. Now so much of my dating life makes sense.”

“You should try Italian men. They only think the whole world revolves around them. Their mamas spoil them so much growing up they are just impossible. But there was fantastic fruit in Tunisia. I remember. Sweet. It just really seemed, like, a land of plenty.”

“It could be.” Maahjabeen sits up with a sigh. “It certainly could be. And it definitely has some bright spots. I guess I will return someday and spend the rest of my life there. It will always be home and I miss it so much. But as you can maybe hear in my words, I am not ready yet.”

“Eh, Maahjabeen. What are you doing?”

“I am seeing if I can stand.”

“Let me help.”

Maahjabeen groans as she straightens for the first time in a day. Her shoulders settle and ribs adjust and spine relaxes. She takes the deep breath Mandy begged of her so long ago, then rocks her hips a bit. “Eh. Still very sore. But it is good to be young and fit, no? I will be better. But I have to move. Will you move with me?”

Flavia laughs. “Sure. I should definitely move too. I haven’t been anywhere except my keyboard all morning.”

“Help me down into the sub.”

Flavia blinks at Maahjabeen, who finds her shoes beneath the cot and struggles to put them on. Flavia kneels down to help with the elastic straps and zip cords. “The sub? Don’t you want a nice walk on the beach or something?”

“My body has been all locked up but my mind hasn’t. And I’ve been thinking. Nothing else to do. And I remembered something that was really important a few days ago. Then Triquet got all caught up in their US Air Force murder mystery drama and we’ve all forgotten about the fact that fresh air still regularly flows through the sub. Nobody is even looking for the source of the air anymore. Let’s do it.”

“Do it now? Just the two of us? One who is like broken and the other who is like the least physically competent person on the island? Shouldn’t we wait for, I don’t know, Esquibel or Triquet?”

Maahjabeen takes a jacket from the corner. She thinks it belongs to Pradeep. He probably won’t mind. She shrugs, restless. “We can always stop if things become a challenge. But it is just the stairs. I might have trouble though so if you could help me…”

Maahjabeen leads Flavia out the cell and to the stairs headed down. With a sigh, feeling thoroughly unqualified to lead an expedition of this scale, she gathers her courage and with a grip on Maahjabeen’s elbow helps her descend slowly into the sub.

It’s changed so much since she’s been here last. Triquet really has a sense of design (if it wasn’t obvious from their fabulous wardrobe) and each room is now tastefully decorated with items from the past, bringing each chamber back to life. The bright work lights help immensely as well. It’s nearly like stepping back in time.

“Nicer down here than the bunker upstairs now.” Flavia studies the giant wall map before ducking through the hatch and finding a wall in the second chamber filled with photographs and news clippings, preserved behind a thick layer of transparent plastic.

But Maahjabeen doesn’t have an eye for any of it. She is on a mission. Moving again. She is like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz. So rusty but only slowly now coming back to life. That movie helped her learn English. And it gave her very weird ideas about what to expect of Americans. Now their past is all around her, like coins from Carthage buried in the sand.

She gets to the control room and the permanently open panel leading to the belowdecks. The descent is more manageable now, with solid pieces of steel furniture stacked and braced as a fairly regular set of steps down. “This is where I need help, please.”

Flavia goes down first, standing on the desk that forms the base of the stairs. Maahjabeen sits on the edge and scoots her way down, until her stance is solid and she doesn’t have to lunge forward too far. They carefully find their way to the deck. “Big success!” Flavia cheers Maahjabeen. “You did it!”

“Do not,” Triquet’s voice echoes through the hatch from the chamber ahead, “scareme like that. Please, people!”

Flavia hurries ahead. She ducks through the far hatch to find Triquet among their collection, wearing a Renaissance-style linen tunic with laces at the neck and rolled up blousy sleeves. A velvet choker around their pale neck features a green faceted costume jewel. But the modern reading glasses on a chain nearly ruin the look. “Sorry, Doctor, I didn’t know you were down here.”

“Lost in time.” Triquet gives her a glassy stare, not truly upset, actually pleased to have the company. There are so many treasures here to share. “Look, Flavia. My whiskey collection.”

Apart from the fact that most of the containers are empty, it is an impressive assortment of bottles of all shapes and sizes, from flasks to jugs. The artwork on the old labels is really fascinating too, with Jack Daniels and Jameson and Wild Turkey the most common.

“And see. I saved one for… personal experimentation.” Triquet holds up a crate filled with three full vintage bottles of Bushmills, the amber liquid unevaporated. “We can nip one and still have two for reference if we need to run any tests. That’s ethical, right?”

Flavia chuckles. “Entirely ethical. And it is after lunch.”

Triquet uncorks the old bottle and sniffs it. “Smells like whiskey.” They take a swig. “Mm! So smooth!” Triquet wipes a drop from their chin. “I mean, maybe it’s just me with my silly expectations but this is probably like a sixty year-old bottle. Here. Try.”

Flavia toasts Triquet. “Chin chin.” She hums with pleasure. “Oh my god take this away it is so dangerous. It tastes like candy.”

“Irish whiskey candy. I know what business I’m starting when I get back home.” Triquet takes a longer pull. “Who is that? You brought a friend! Come on, then! It’s a drinking party!”

Maahjabeen contorts her way through the hatch and straightens. Her eyes fall on the whiskey in Triquet’s hand. “Ah. Hello.”

Triquet has the sense to cork the bottle and put it aside. They hurry forward. “It’s Maahjabeen! How are you, sweetheart? My god I didn’t think you’d have it in you to join us down here yet.”

“We have come,” Maahjabeen announces, “to finally find the source of the air.”

“The air?” Triquet shakes their head. They’ve been in too deep, every thought devoted to the piles of historical detail and data. “Ah! The air! Right! I mean, well, it must be coming from beyond the next room somehow, mustn’t it?”

Triquet leads them through the last hatch into the final chamber. Here the far hatch is welded shut, as it is with the control room’s far hatch on the floor above at the opposite end. It appears that the entirety of the sub wasn’t buried. The nose and tail were lopped off and only these major living compartments are left. Now they stand two full floors directly below the bunker’s trapdoor.

The expanded steel grates at their feet push cold air through. Then it pauses and draws the air in turn. Triquet steps back and clutches Flavia’s arm. “Oh. Right. Now I remember why I stopped looking for it,” Triquet admits. “Cause it’s too freaky.”