DW Draffin — Lisica

Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us for the third volume of 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:

33 – Into The Shadows

“No. Seriously. Stop planning this. It is madness.” Esquibel stands on Mandy’s platform. From up there she can loom over them and dominate the argument.

But Mandy and Amy don’t stop lashing bundles of tule reeds together. Their mouths are pressed into grim lines, their eyes stubborn. The rain has stopped and now it’s go time.

Esquibel pleads, “Think about it. What happens if your raft capsizes or gets waterlogged? What will you do?”

Yet they’ve already told her they plan on testing it on the lagoon before they take it inside. They’ve been over this a hundred times.

“I forbid it.” Esquibel crosses her arms.

The bundles are only being lashed together for the test, so the knots are relatively loose. They’ll need to disassemble the raft to get it through the tunnels. Then they’ll lash it all together again in the shaft before stopping up the water and rising to the top. It’s a quite simple plan.

“And what good does it do you to get your contraption up there, Mandy?” She’s trying a new tack now, hands on hips. “So you have a weather station up there. Big deal. You cannot get it down without doing
this stupid bloody trick again.”

“Twine.” Mandy reaches her hand out for it. Amy passes it over the bundles to her. This is really Esquibel at her worst. She is so… stony when it comes to being protective. And she was always like this, long before anyone in the military thought giving her a fancy title and real authority was a good idea.

“You are only thinking about getting there. Not returning. How will you do it?”

Finally, Amy sighs, realizing she’ll have to engage with the woman if she will ever have peace. “Pull the plug, Esquibel. Sink.”

“Okay. Fine. When? When will we know to pull that plug?”

Amy frowns at her tormentor. It’s true she hasn’t worked this part all the way out. But it’s simple and they have a lot of time. She gives it a moment’s thought. “Katrina. On the drone. She’ll be the spotter looking down into the shaft. When she sees that we’ve got Jay back and the weather station is securely in place, she can tell someone to pull it.”

“But the drone can only hover in place for like ten minutes at a time. That isn’t a real solution. And how does that even work? You want someone to slash the tarp? Get inundated with a million liters of water in a tunnel? That’s how you’ve described it. I mean, I haven’t personally seen this tunnel, but—”

“No. You’re right.” Amy scrubs her face and squints her eyes shut. Keep it simple. “You know what? We’ll just bring Jay back through the village and the tunnels and everything. They won’t be able to keep us out. We’ll make it quick. Just cross the square and make a beeline to the exit before they can protest my filthy ass.”

“It would be better if we wait. Why doesn’t someone just go talk to them now? Make sure they will be friendly when you pull this stunt. We don’t need…”

“You know what?” Mandy asks brightly. “That’s a great idea. We can get Katrina to do it. Have her go visit the village and ask the Mayor for her blessing or whatever. Get some diplomacy going. Thanks, Skeebee. You always think of the best details.”

But Esquibel isn’t buying Mandy’s glassy smile for an instant. And hearing Katrina’s name so much is starting to piss her off. Why is the golden girl the one Mandy always thinks can solve her problems? This is the absolutely wrong moment she should have to wonder about Mandy’s fidelity. No, not fidelity, just… During these last few weeks. Esquibel has been enough for her. They have been for each other. And she’d hate for that to end. She can drink of the Mandy River as long as it flows. But just how long will it flow?

“Could you go ask her for us?” Mandy gives Esquibel a sweeter smile and touches her arm. Despite this disagreement, they really are in love. “Please, dearest one?”

How can Esquibel say no? Off she goes across the camp, into the bunker, and finally down into the bottom level of the sub, where Katrina and Triquet eat lunch, smoke a j, and play each other old songs on their phones.

“And that is the great Harry Nilsson. Me And My Arrow was—”

“Katrina.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Katrina giggles, high as a kite, and flips a salute at her.

Esquibel sighs. “Oh. Never mind. I did not know you would be worthless on drugs. We will talk later.”

Katrina giggles again, then physically wipes the grin off her face. “No. No, I can listen. I promise. What is it?”

“It is Mandy!” Esquibel sags against the table, the words bursting from her. She is surprised by her exasperation. And by her need to share it. But it is a safe topic. “She and Amy won’t give up on that crazy idea! Will somebody please help me talk them out of it? Now they want me to send you to the village and be like, ‘Oh, hello, my friends are about to flood that entire shaft they already burned. Yes, remember when they scared you so much that you wouldn’t talk to us for ten days? Well, they’re doing it again. Oh, yes. And then they’ll be bringing Amy, you know the one of us you really hate? Yes. Well, we’ll be bringing her through your village at the end. That will be okay, won’t it?’ And then they want you to come back and give them a thumbs-up as if that will convince me their idea isn’t a complete disaster waiting to happen!”

Her voice rings in the sub. Triquet and Katrina only regard her. After an awkward moment Triquet holds out the joint.

Esquibel flips up her hand, rejecting it. “No, I don’t want your bloody dope. I want your help. I am not crazy. I know this. Are you crazy like them or will you help me?”

“Uhhh…” Katrina thinks about it, long and hard. “Well. You wouldn’t catch me floating on a raft like they’re talking about. That’s totally insane.”

“Thank you.”

“And you also won’t catch me asking the Mayor if all these things can happen. I think she’s just starting to trust me. And this will, well…” Katrina mimes an explosion beneath her cupped hands, flying outward.
“Big boom.”

“That is what I’m saying! That is all I am saying. Jay’s absence is very serious. It is our number one concern. But what they are proposing will only cause more problems. We need to get Jay back some other way.”

“How?” Triquet makes a face, trying to think of a way to rescue their lost colleague. “I mean, who would we even send? Alonso can’t go. People like Mandy and Flavia don’t have any kind of background in rescuing people. Pradeep? He’ll have a nervous breakdown in five minutes. I don’t think we could get Maahjabeen to care. Who’s left? Katrina and me? Miriam? Shouldn’t you go, Doctor Daine? You’re the only one who has the proper training. And isn’t that your mission here? To protect us?”

The question is innocent but the implications are too much for Esquibel to discuss. She shakes her head no. “No. None of us are properly trained for retrieval. That is a very specific skillset. Those Air Force Parajumpers who rescued Alonso are perhaps the best, and they are the very best soldiers the Air Force has. No. This is a mission for experts like them. We would just be getting ourselves in trouble. What we need to do is ask the Lisicans where Jay might be and if they can get him back for us.”

Katrina throws up her hands, helpless. “I already have! He crossed the river no one crosses. They won’t help us with that. Until he comes back, he’s pretty much gone. Oh. Here. Wait, Triq. This is my friend’s super lush synthwave track. Listen. It’s so fresh. His name is General Zed.” The opening warbling chords of what sounds like the soundtrack to a 70s science fiction film fill the sub. Triquet nods sagely and takes another hit.

As Esquibel assumed, Katrina will be no help. But, really, there is nothing for any of them to do. Wait here. Stop antagonizing the natives. Make their collections then go. Just four more weeks.

“Ay-eh,” Esquibel mutters, plucking the joint out of Katrina’s hand and taking a thin drag. This is what Mandy needs. A mild dissociative and relaxant. Come on, Esquibel! Just keep them all out of trouble for one more goddamn month.

Ξ

At a junction, Jay finally finds a door. He’s been running a good solid 10,000 meter track pace for what must be hours now. His feet are in agony, the impact strikes of his heels against the concrete something he just can’t handle any more. His hips and lower back are starting to go too, especially since his left arm can’t be used to swing properly. His left hand still grips his ribs, where the blood has thankfully stopped flowing. Now it just fucking burns.

His cardio is good though. And the heartbeat in his ears topped out only around 120 bpm so he’s definitely got more in the tank. He’ll need it to deal with whatever might be through this door.
He edges toward it, tip-toeing forward on the balls of his feet to save his heels. He shines his phone light on it. Oh wait. There’s no door. Just a doorway. He ducks through, into a long dark passage with a shallow shelf of a concrete pathway along the left wall. At its end he can see the iron rungs of a ladder.

Wait a sec. This looks just like the way he got in. But there’s no way he’s already all the way back there. How long has he been running, anyway? He checks the time. His phone says 8:23 am. When did they attack him, midnight? He’s been running for eight hours? Yeah, it’s possible. At one point he chained his phone to the battery so he could keep its light on. That was the last time he’d stopped. That was… yeah, that was a long fucking time ago.

Wow. This is some kind of personal record. Eight hours at a track meet pace? Yeah, boy. Rock on with your bad self. Funny what running for your life can get you.

He reaches the end of the passage and puts a hand on the rungs. So this is it? This is the end of the epic chase and maybe the end of his life? Certain death behind him, likely death at the top of this ladder? How will he even deal with popping his head out?

Think, Jay. It’s been hours. Maybe even a full day since they came after you. The hunters can’t have someone just waiting there, poised to strike. It’s not like I pop my head up and get it instantly chopped off. If someone’s there, they’re just like on lookout. And they’re tired of staring at the hatch. So I’ll have a few moments. Maybe I can spook them with my phone again. Flashing lights and heavy metal. Ha. Lord, save me.

He preps his phone, going classic with Ozzy’s Crazy Train. Then he starts to climb. At the last rung up he pauses. The tricky spot is actually pushing his head up over the lip. The morning is gray, he can see that from his vantage, like a groundhog worried about hawks in the sky. He thinks about playing dodge ball in the pool with his cousins. He’d hold his breath as long as he could, knowing they were waiting for him to surface, arms cocked. Then he’d kick up and grab a quick gasp and then be right back down again before the balls could hit. Same thing here, sport.

Jay pops up, flicks his gaze up and around, his survival instinct screaming that a blade is about to chop into the back of his neck. But it doesn’t. He drops back down and reverses his grip. Then he pops back up and twists around to find the redwood fairy ring empty of life. He’s alone here.
The silly fuckers didn’t leave a guard after all.

“And, I mean, why would they?” Jay pulls himself out of the hole and dusts himself off. “This isn’t a super likely scenario here, that I’d somehow, you know, escape. And then come all the way back. Jay-zus. What am I even doing here? Nah, I’m good. I just got to keep moving and they’ll never catch me. Sure of it.” But man oh man, he regrets losing his Salomon approach shoes. They were new and they cost a couple hundred dollars and now he’d never see them again. Just starting to break them in, too…

Jay backtracks, out the glade and up the slope, under the bracken, which provide his feet with a whole new level of pain. He gets lost in the gloomy tunnels and starts having to criss-cross an unfamiliar wood channel of bare stone that bisects his path. This doesn’t look right. He’s somehow gone off-course here in this fucking rodent maze. Back and forth, cramping and wheezing and shuffling on screaming feet. And then, against all odds, a smear of golden pollen appears on a dark limb and he’s right back on track. Ha! It’s still visible from, what, like two days before? Three? How long has he been out here now? It feels like ten years.

Jay finally scrambles out from under the dark thickets and finds himself in the silent pine woods leaking fog from russet carpets of needles and duff. He approaches the meadow from above as it leads to the river. Sweet Christ he’s actually going to make it back to the tunnel mouth village. And who cares about how he gets across the river this time. He’ll just throw himself in and kick his way across. Fuck it. But wait. He should get some things in a plastic bag first. He’s still got one somewhere in here, doesn’t he?

Jay takes off his pack and searches the bottom of the pockets. There. A small white plastic shopping bag that says WAH MEI GROCERY on it, with Chinese and Vietnamese characters below. Oh, right! He remembers getting this bag. Just last month in Daly City. He was on a booty call with Janey’s friend Megan and he’d forgotten condoms. But a late night run saved the date. And now this bag will save his phone and his battery pack and his wallet and a bunch of papers from getting wet.

He ties the top of the plastic bag tight and places it in the pack’s top pocket. Now he’s ready. Looking forward to getting off his feet, even if the water will make his nuts go numb.

Jay ventures out into the meadow. It is a long sloping field, larger than he remembers, dropping from the trees into a wildflower basin. He emerges from the last of the trees to finally see the river, a shining band of gray steel cutting the valley in half.

And on this near bank, in full neolithic battle array, waits the whole-ass village who have been trying to kill him. They stand in ranks, with crazy feather collars of white and black and capes of hide, spears bristling like a Greek fucking phalanx.

Hope dies in Jay’s breast. There are just too many. They wait between him and the river. And he can’t turn back. They’ll chase him down no problem. His feet are a ruin. Aw, man! But—but he can’t just let them execute him! Jay is nowhere near ready to die. An inescapable, dreadful sadness grips him and crumples his face like a child in the throes of a tantrum.

Then he hears his name. “Jay and Jay. Bimeby you listen.”

Jay clears his eyes. Stupefied, he picks out Kula’s squat silhouette off to the side of the village’s military formation. Jidadaa is there as well, holding a halter that leashes the three hunters who attacked them. Ha! They beat them! Ha! Kula and Jidadaa are okay! But how did they get here so fast? And what is happening here, some kind of parley? “Jidadaa. Man am I happy to see you. But what…? How long y’all even been waiting here today?”

Jidadaa points at the gray horizon. “From the sun.”

“Sunrise? So a couple hours? Damn. How’d you…? I mean, I ran like the fucking wind. Oh my god I was so sure they were gonna kill me. Hey. Could you… just like keep them kind of occupied until I get back across the river? I’ll just kind of edge my way…”

“No.” Jidadaa says the word with such force Jay stops. She lifts a hand. “No across the river, Jay. Not yet.”

The villagers stare at him stone-faced. Lady Boss, who spoke the last time they met, is in full battle array, with a splendid headdress of fur and feather and shell, her eyes ringed in black. Neither her nor her personal guard move.

“Okay. No across the river. Yet. Uh. Sure. But why not?”

“You break custom. You must pay.”

“Uh, fine.” A wild, hysterical laugh escapes Jay. “I got, let’s see, I think like forty-seven dollars in my wallet. Or is there punishment too? Is this like one of those online traffic school kind of things? You know, with the stand-up comics and the tricky tests?”

But nobody else laughs. Now they all stare at him in silence.

Jay grimaces. “Yeah. Bad joke. Does an apology help?”

“Blood.”

“What?”

“Pay is blood.”

“What, mine? The fuck it is. I’ve already lost like half a liter last night from that joker and his fucking spear. Look!” And Jay finally removes his hand from his side. The shredded base layer gapes open. His skin is stuck to it. Jay grunts with the sharp pain of removing his hand, reminding himself how badly he got sliced.

Jidadaa consults with Kula. Kula calls out loudly to the leaders of the village, gesturing at her own ribs in sympathy of his case. It seems negotiations are back open.

Jay nods. “Yeah. I’ve already fucking paid. You tell them, Kula. Fucked up my feet. Lost blood. Got the shit scared out of me. Then I had to run halfway around the island. So I think I’ve already paid as much as I’m gonna pay. Blood blood blood. You tell them.”

Kula keeps talking, adding the details that Jidadaa translates from his story. Jay just keeps punctuating her points with outraged comments like, “Yeah!” and “Fuckin’ A!”

Finally Kula stops. Some of the younger members of the village cast sidelong looks at their Lady Boss, waiting on her decision.

Lady Boss makes a low speech in a reasonable tone. At the end of it, she pronounces the word, “Jidadaa!” and then she turns her back on the meadow. Her followers all do the same. After a long moment, to perhaps drive the point home, all the villagers finally set off, back into the trees from where they came.

Jidadaa drops the halter. Two of the hunters pick up the third one, who still seems to be suffering from Jay’s tackle, and follow.

After they disappear, Jay turns to Jidadaa. “Now seriously. How the fuck did you guys get here so fast? Did I miss some shortcut?”

But mother and daughter are deep in conversation and not listening to him. Finally, Jidadaa shares, “Now Jidadaa happen to you, Jay. End of era.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You are lidass. You break the world.”

“No, I didn’t!” Jay fights not to whine. “I just swam across a river. Tell Lady Boss! I didn’t… I mean it’s not like I boned her daughter. I didn’t assassinate the fucking president. Come on!”

Jidadaa says a few words he doesn’t know then says, “She is in danger place.”

“Wait. I didn’t get who. Who’s in a danger place, Kula?”

“No.” Jidadaa points at the villagers who have retreated. She says the same few words, which just don’t stick in Jay’s brain at all.

“Is that Lady Boss? The leader?”

“Yes. She is in danger place. Jidadaa here, Jidadaa all around.”

“Jidadaa is? You… are?” Jay is utterly mystified by this.

“No, no…” Jidadaa shakes her head, downcast. “Jidadaa. Is not name. It is word… It mean… doom. No escape. Doom.”

“Doom?” Jay wheels on Kula. “And that’s what you name your daughter? My sweet little baby doom? What mother does that?”

Kula responds with a brittle laugh, her dark eyes sharp.

Jidadaa continues, “Doom for breaking tradition.”

“What is? You are? Or me, crossing the river?”

“Both.”

“Oh.” Jidadaa’s very birth spelled doom to her and her mother. And she’s had to live with it her whole life. Jay frowns. “Like, do they even know what real doom is? This is nothing. I mean, like everyone’s still here. Nobody died.”

“Custom. Tradition. Tradition die.”

“Well, then, fucking too bad. Tell them to wake up and get with the program. It’s the 21st century, after all. Shit has changed out in the world, yo. You don’t need to let them treat you like this any more. You’re saying they, what, like ran Kula off for sleeping with soldiers and wouldn’t accept you your whole life? Well I’m happy to break that custom. They can eat my ass. Out here just ruining people’s lives left and right because of some stupid tradition. Then they send killers after us because of it? No fucking way.”

“No send. They do no send. Young hunters. They want to end the doom. They think to kill you they end it. But Jidadaa no work this way. The… uh… Lady Boss say. No her idea. Only them.”

“Ohhhh. That’s why they left? And that’s why I’m still alive. It was just a dumb plan by some kids. They tried to get on her good side and she was like, ‘You did what? No! His Jidadaa ain’t like that now. Oh, fuck, now I’m gonna have to be nice to that white boy.’ Something like that? So she wasn’t here waiting for me, she brought the whole village to, what, apologize?”

“No apology. Doom.”

“Yeah. Jidadaa. Got it.”

“You are cut off. No more on this side of river.”

“Yeah. I got to leave. That’s something we can all agree on. And I’m not invited back? That’s fine. It’s a big world out there. I’ll figure out how to survive for the entire rest of my life somehow outside this tiny speck of land in the middle of nowhere.” Now he’s blabbering. Not a good look. He shuts his mouth. “Well.” He sticks his hand out and Jidadaa shakes it again, as they did when they first met. “Sister Christian. Nice knowing ya. Kula. Keep growing that dank herb. Peace. I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.”

“No.” Jidadaa shakes her head, hair falling across her features, corners of her mouth dimpling. For the first time, Jay is struck by her feral looks. “We come.”

“You come? What, with me? Really? Uh…” Jay isn’t sure this is a good idea. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s not. But he certainly owes them his life, probably several times over. He can’t really say no. “Okay. Well. Just so you know, that river water’s really fucking cold. I hope everyone can swim. And I got to take the rest of this hike slow. My poor fucking feet…”

Jidadaa exclaims wordlessly and reaches into a woven bag at her feet. She takes out Jay’s lost shoes.
“Aw, yiss! Dude! I fucking love you!” Jay hugs the shoes to his chest with a whoop of blind joy.
He never sees the blush on Jidadaa’s cheeks nor the worried scowl from Kula in response.

Ξ

“You know…” Katrina stretches the second word, curling her hair around her finger, “I knew. I knew for like a week before anyone else did. Kept that tea in the cupboard, I did.”

“You knew what?” Pradeep follows her, a step behind, dragging the blue kayak named Aziz.

Katrina stops and gives him an arch half-smile, eyebrow cocked. “That you and Maahjabeen were getting down. I saw you two in bed together the night we all dressed up in Triquet’s clothes.”

“Yes. I see.”

“And I didn’t tell a soul. Kept it to myself. How long had you been boning before that?”

“Ehh.” Pradeep is instantly beleaguered. “I don’t really care for that word, if you don’t mind.”

Katrina hugs the bundle of her wetsuit, fins, and Flavia’s spear close to her chest. “Oh, they’re romantics! That’s so… well… romantic, I guess. Not just an island fling. Pretty serious, huh? So what are your plans for my daughter?”

Pradeep bravely soldiers on in silence, dragging the rear of the kayak through the sand. But as they round the uprooted trunk of the fallen redwood he needs her help to lift it clear. “Could you, please?” He nods at the tail of the craft.

“Oh, yeh. No answer, eh? Well that’s not very salacious. My followers will not be enthused by that silence at all. I wonder what the opposite of salacious is? Prim?”

“Modest.”

“Ooo that’s the perfect word for you. You know, I’ve never gotten to tease such a gorgeous man for so long. You do know you’re gorgeous, right? I mean, look at you.”

He just offers a tight smile and reminds her, “Modest.”

“Fair play. Well, can we at least talk about what a stupendous smoke show your girlfriend is? She’s hotter than hot. She’s like… nuclear fusion hot.”

This brightens Pradeep’s closed face. Extolling the wonders of Maahjabeen has become his favorite pastime. “Oh, yes, quite. She is astounding. I never in a million years thought that someday I, this random little Chakrabarti boy from Hyderabad, would ever even speak, much less touch, or… I mean… You aren’t really going to post this on social media some day, are you?”

They put the kayak down on the clean sand of the beach, the lagoon blue gray and calm. Katrina storms up to Pradeep and pokes him in the chest. “Bitch, I’m the discreet one who didn’t ruin your secret for over a week. You know how hard that was for me? I say every bloody thing that pops into my head. I was literally biting my tongue over you two.”

Pradeep allows a sheepish smile out. “Uh, thank you?”

“Cheers. So what does she look like naked?”

Pradeep groans and turns away, dragging the kayak to the water.

Katrina giggles, following. “What fun! I can keep this up all day.”

“Get in the water, please,” Pradeep calls out over his shoulder in a tone that is as close as he can get to
her raillery.

“Oh, just try to shut me up. Look, I’m fully aware that if I poke fun at Maahjabeen she’ll like cut my off head with a scimitar…”

“That’s racist.” Pradeep puts the kayak down and begins to unpack what he’s stowed in the hatch. First, he’ll need a windshirt and maybe gloves, depending on the temperature of the water.

“Is it? Yeh, I suppose it is. Sorry. See? But I can dish it with you and you won’t get violent, just hilariously uncomfortable.”

“You know this is a work environment and we are subject to rules and laws concerning sexual harassment, don’t you?”

Katrina waves it away. “That’s bosh. Alonso says we’re all a family, remember?”

But now that Pradeep has brought up policy, he has trouble moving on. “Katrina…” He tries to frown at her elfin face. “Look, just because you’re this cute little anime character, it doesn’t mean you get to be inappropriate with your co-workers.”

She throws her arms into the air and screams in joy to the horizon. “He thinks I’m cute!”

Pradeep sighs and turns away, to finish unpacking the nets and dry bags in which he will store Katrina’s haul.

She drops to her knees beside him. “Okay. I’m sorry. This is new territory for me. Usually I’m the one on the receiving end of all the toxic attention and you’re right. Sorry for the inappropriate work environment, mate. I’ve just… nobody has ever taken me seriously before so I always get to say what I want and…” She shrugs. “Real teachable moment there, Pradeep Chakrabarti. Thanks. Hope I didn’t ruin our, you know…”

Now he feels ashamed. This lovely sprite, this sweet young genius, chooses to bestow her attention on him and all he can do is act like his grandfather, storming out of his study with a rolled up newspaper. All she wants is joy. Light and laughter and love. From deep within himself he dredges up a dry giggle. And the more he pulls at it, the more it gives him. He shakes his index finger at her, finding a mock scolding voice, very much the Hindi schoolmaster. “You are a very naughty child.”

“Oh, good, he forgives me!” She catches his hand and kisses it. Then in a single motion she pulls her top off.

Pradeep squawks and turns away.

“What? Just putting on my wetsuit.” Then it’s Katrina’s turn to laugh. She feels the cool morning breeze on the bare skin of her chest, which gives her goosebumps. She rarely wears a bra. Now she has to wrap herself in her shortie, never a fun process. The neoprene is always cold and tougher than it looks. Finally she’s got herself wedged in and she turns her back to Pradeep. “Be a dear and zip me up, would you?”

“Yes, Miss Oksana.”

“Ooo, he’s getting formal. Kinky.”

Pradeep puts on his spray skirt and stows his things in the hatches before and behind. “Push me off, will you?”

“Never, doll. I mean, sure.” Katrina waits for him to get in, then shoves the kayak into the short waves of the lagoon. The water is chill on her feet, not frigid, but sure as shit not warm. This is going to be an adventure no doubt. She sits in the surf and fits the fins on her feet and the mask and snorkel to her face. Then she backs in, falling into the next wave with a shock of salty cold. Oh, this is about three degrees colder than she’d hoped. She may not be able to stay in it too long. Just breathe, Kat. It’s the North Pacific. It will never be as warm as Sydney Harbour.

She falls in and rises with a gasp, breast-stroking out to him. It only gets colder out here, as the sand falls away beneath her feet.

“Careful. Lots of kelp in close today.”

She whoops. “This will get your nipples hard! Oh my god. I’ve got to warm up!” Katrina begins swimming, long overhand strokes with a powerful kick. The frigid water is filled with luminous color. Ghostly stalks of kelp disappear into the dark green floor.

“Where…?” she gasps, kicking strong, to keep her head out of water, “…did all this kelp come from?”

“It was already here. Just hadn’t grown up yet.” Pradeep points to a clump blocking her path with the blade of his paddle. “Bull kelp can grow a meter in a week. We just haven’t been here since it matured. It’s an annual. Completely dies out at the end of the year then starts over again. I should collect a sample, actually. See if it is in any measurable way different from other kelps we’ve sampled.”

Katrina treads water, thinking of how vibrant the life is in coastal waters, how quickly it can grow. She puts her mask underwater and watches anemones and urchins blooming on the rocks, filtering their food, sea stars and red crabs. She’ll have to be careful where she touches, and not let the currents sweep her onto the rocks.

A shadow flits through the kelp stalks beneath her. A twinge of fear turns to sudden wonder as the shadow returns, rolling over to display the inquisitive face of that same Northern fur seal. He steers entirely with his tail, his front claws folded over his chest. After staring at Katrina for a long time, he opens his paws and releases the remains of a crab upward, as if in offering. Katrina reaches out her free hand and snares the fleshy bits still attached to the shell. She mimes eating it and gives the seal a thumbs up, before he shoots back down into the darkness.

Katrina surfaces with a gasp. “Here. Sample this.”

“What?” Pradeep can’t make sense of what she’s handing him. “Oh my god. Did you just eat a crab raw?”

“No, a seal did! He gave it to me! Straight magic, that.”

“A seal? What kind?”

“Light gray with spots? Amy said…”

“Hmm. Juvenile monk seal? How big? Male or female?”

“Nah. Northern fur seal. Male. Amy said. Super sweet.”

“A fur seal? Extraordinary! At some point we’ll need samples from all the pinniped species of the lagoon, but I don’t think any of us have worked out how we will do that yet.”

“You know, when I was down there…” Katrina has finally adjusted to the cold and her mind has started to work properly again. “I was thinking about what you said, you know, about the kelp. It’s an annual. Well, with all these cycles, we should get samples of them in the morning and in the evening.”

“Yes, you’re right. I did get others in previous weeks.”

“Brilliant. I’ve got kind of a stress-test for Plexity. I want to present Flavia with a couple samples stripped of all context tags. To see if she can use the program to derive from initial readings and processes what time of the day it was taken.”

“That’s crazy.” Pradeep’s head cocks to the side. As someone used to original, orthogonal thinking, he understands what must prompt this line of thought. He admires it. But the math involved, or even the import of such an exercise, flies right over his head. “I’m not sure what value it would have in that project, apart from collecting the samples, I suppose…”

“Well, the science of big data is all about how to find needles in haystacks, right? You must have taken the prerequisites.”

“Yes, I have my bioinformatics Eagle Scout badge.”

She giggles. “Right then. So it’s all about designing ways to get at the data you want, right? The filters and algorithms…?”

“Yes, yes. Of course.” Pradeep catches up, blinking, his thoughts coming fast now. “So Flavia can, what? Automate the guessing of raw data stacks into machine learning and train it to recognize daily cycles in the data without needing to be explicitly told?”

Katrina nods. “That’s it. A start at least. But I’m getting cold. Talk more in a sec.”

As she dunks her head back down, Pradeep calls out, “Happy hunting! Or fishing? But nobody says happy fishing. What do they say? Catch a big one! Something like that.” From his vantage flat on the water, Pradeep has trouble seeing too far beyond the edge of the lagoon. The rocks that divide it from the open ocean loom up too large. But a cold wind is blowing in, and a dark horizon is threatening rain.

Just as he thinks it, he sees Mandy walking across the beach diagonally toward them, her hair blowing like a banner in the wind and a sarong wrapped around her doing the same. She looks like some vision of an island girl stepping out of time.

“Storm coming?” Pradeep calls out.

Mandy opens her mouth, pointing at the horizon, then closes it and nods. She beckons to him. “Where’s Katrina?”

“Getting dinner.”

And as he says it, she breaches the water, her breath exploding out of her lungs. A long silver fish is on her spear, thrashing, snapping its fearsome fangs and staining the water with blood. “Help! Gah! Pradeep, help me with this fucking thing!”

It is nearly a meter long, a more powerful swimmer than she is, and it takes all her strength to keep her head above water and not let go of the spear.

“Here! Lift it up to me!” Pradeep coasts alongside her, reaching down. “Holy shit, that’s a Sphyraena argentea, you lunatic!”

With a grunt of effort, Katrina hauls the shining fish into the air. Its hinged jaws snap in protest and it slaps the water with its tail.

As Pradeep reaches for it, a flash of fur and teeth passes between them. The fur seal leaps up and fastens its teeth on the fish’s spine. With a shake of his head the spine cracks and the seal tears the fish in half.

Katrina squeals, jerking away. An appalling amount of blood fills the water. The seal turns and spins twice and vanishes, taking both halves of the fish with him.

Katrina retrieves the spear, gasping and coughing bloody water. She hooks a hand around the prow of the kayak and tries to regain her breath. Then she hears a distant voice screaming at her. “Is that Mandy? What does she want?”

Pradeep calls out. “I’ve got her. She’s fine. Just no dinner. The seal stole it.”

Mandy screams some more, in helpless fear for Katrina and Pradeep’s safety.

“We’re fine…! Just give us a moment.” He paddles strongly, compensating for the woman hanging off one side. “I won’t tell her,” Pradeep stage whispers to Katrina as they approach the beach, “but Sphyraena argentea is the Pacific barracuda.”

Katrina screeches in outrage. “It’s the fucking WHAT?”

Ξ

On his back, Jay’s chest heaves, fighting for breath, the gray sky above wheeling as his head spins. He’d almost lost Jidadaa in the frigid current of the river. Then he’d nearly drowned his own sorry ass. Finally a branch hanging down from the bank had been his salvation and he’d been able to drag himself free. He’d never seen someone who was unable to swim take so bravely to the water.

Her head had vanished so fast underwater the surface tension had snapped with a little cartoonish ploink. Jay had yelled and reached for her, pushing a dog-paddling Kula and his floating backpack toward the far bank as he sucked in a huge breath and dived deep.

Her hands found his wrist. Her grip had been so strong, nearly pulling him down instead of letting him pull her up. It took the strongest kick he’d ever kicked to get them back to the surface. Then he had to lifeguard-carry her across the current and nearly kill himself getting her up that treacherous bank.
After that, he’d fallen back into the swiftest current and gotten spun back out into it. But he didn’t have anything left in the tank. His side was on fire. His arms and legs were made of concrete. Jay’s body started to sink… Then he’d hit that branch hanging off the far bank and lived to see another day. Hallelujah.

His shaking arm rises to his rib. It’s warm but when he wipes it he doesn’t get his hand coated in blood as he fears. Just a bit of pink. Something’s keeping his blood from leaking out. He must have pressed his veins and arteries closed on his big run. Just a little capillary action left. Motherfuck but it hurts.
“Kula. Hey. You still got my pack, right?” He calls out to the sky, unable to lift himself up to check. Losing his phone would be the biggest bummer possible. Four more weeks without his fantasy books and tunes. No thank you. “Kula?”

Jay finally rolls onto his side and sits up. Jidadaa and Kula have vanished, along with his pack. In their place are the two kids who had followed him from the tunnel village to the river, crouched at the edge of the meadow, watching him.

“Whoa. Hey. What’s up, guys? You see two ladies…? Uh… They got some of my stuff.” Jay rolls onto his hands and knees and takes a few shuddering breaths. He has surfed some of the biggest waves in the world over the years but he has hardly ever gotten this close to death. And his fucking rib is just screaming in pain.

With a sharp bark of agony and an indrawn breath against his teeth he regains his feet. Yep. They’re actually gone. Almost no trace, except where the grass is pressed down beside the bank. Fuck. He’s traded his shoes for, well, everything else. His favorite pants, his toiletry bag, his phone, his battery, his bag… Shit. Well. He better get back home before night falls, for sure.

Jay looks across the river. Four masked faces, covered in pollen, are pointed back at him, one cocked comically to the side as if asking a question. The golden childs have returned to the meadow.

“Yep,” Jay calls out to them. “End of an era. Now the next three hundred years belong to me.”
Something catches on his wound, one of the layers of cloth or something, and tears his skin a bit more. He screeches in pain and grabs at his side. Grimly, he limps toward the pair of kids watching him with dispassionate, lupine stares.

Good riddance to the other side of the fucking river. Good riddance to the golden childs and the prophecies and the rest of the island with its secret goddamn tunnels. Good riddance to Kula and Jidadaa. He just needs this adventure to end.

“Man…” Jay groans as he follows the kids up the incline out of the valley to their village up on the ridge.
“Never even discovered any new organisms. What a fucking bust.” He sees another figure, dark and toad-like, crouching off-trail, watching him. “Hey. Freak. What’s shakin’? Course you’re here. Wetchie-ghuy. Yeah, I know who you are. Don’t try any of your tricks with me. I’ll sick the fox on you again. Remember that? When you stole our message? And then the fox took it from you? Huh?” But Wetchie-ghuy only watches him with patient malevolence. “Lisica?” Jay mimes the fox biting Wetchie-ghuy with curved fingers as fangs on his arm. Then he draws tears running down his cheeks and whines like a baby. “Wetchie-ghuy,” he points, reminding him of his defeat.

Wetchie-ghuy only scowls and withdraws into the shadows.