Chapter 40 – The Rest Of Us Can Hide
September 30, 2024
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!
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40 – The Rest Of Us Can Hide
Katrina kneels before the golden childs in the gray rainstorm. They’ve rigged a tarp up over the door of the bunker where four of their guardians huddle, protected from the downpour. The masked figures will not come inside and they will not leave. So the crew have done what they can. She offers a steaming pot of hot water and four mugs. “Here you go, lads. Warm the core. Wait. Wasn’t there a fifth one? What happened to him?”
They make no move to accept the tray or what it holds.
She sits back, studying them, and zips her parka tighter, all the way up to her nose, so cold drafts don’t go down her neck. But here they sit, naked save for loincloths and masks, without a care in the world. They aren’t even shivering.
These aren’t the original golden childs. One looks old, with a bit of a paunch. He definitely wasn’t here before. And the others are new too, two young and slender, one kind of stocky with pale blond curls and ochre skin. Their loincloths are cured leather, twisted in sumo wrestler fashion. The world’s burliest thongs.
Otherwise they are barefoot and naked. Their hands and feet are darker than the rest, nails long and dirty. They somehow seem more primitive than the Dzaadzitch villagers, almost from an earlier era. She lifts a mug and sips from it. “Mmmm…! Good!”
Katrina offers the mug to the person seated closest. They don’t respond. Bollocks.
“Lisica.” She points at the ground. “Yeh? Uh, dzaadzitch and katóok. Wetchie-ghuy. Morska Vidra. Yesiniy. Uh…” No she doesn’t know any more of their proper names. She taps at her own chest. “Katrina. Pleasure to meet you. Katrina.”
Their faces are all pointed at her. They do seem to be paying attention. Each mask looks like a beetle’s back, with a line down the center dividing it into two curved faces, rich with gold. “Can I ask? How do you get the pollen to stick on there? And can you actually see through?” She lifts a hand, finger extended. But the golden child leans away, avoiding contact. She drops her hand, no point in forcing the issue. These people are here to help, right? Keep those wicked sorcerers from stealing any more of them away?
“Just how old are they, anyway? The shamans. Wetchie-ghuy? Fifty? Sixty? More? I wonder if they knew Maureen Dowerd. I mean, wouldn’t that just sort of neatly tie up a bunch of things? Maybe you lot popped out of a tunnel in like 1962 and scared the soldiers and they thought the only reasonable response would be to bury an entire fucking sub in the beach. Yeh. Because that makes sense. Maybe when they arrived there was a Jidadaa too. End of an era. Now coming faster and more furious for sure.”
The rain falls harder, angling under the tarp and wetting the legs of several golden childs. They seem unconcerned.
“Could I offer some blankets? Umbrellas? I mean, you blokes shouldn’t just sit out here like this. You’ll catch your death.”
Katrina stands, wiping the wet sand from her knees. She views the camp. Yep. There’s the fifth one, sitting out there miserably at the edge of the platforms. “How do you keep the pollen from just washing off?” she calls out but of course she gets no response. She shakes her head. “So many questions.”
Opening the door of reeds and twine behind her, she re-enters the bunker. Here there is life and noise and warmth, everyone working in close quarters on all their projects.
“No?” Amy sees that the tray is still in Katrina’s hands. She is crestfallen. “I don’t like that they won’t take my tea. I’ve always argued that a good cup of tea is a universal language of love.”
“They won’t take anything. Still won’t say a word. One poor blighter is in the middle of camp just getting drenched.”
Amy relieves Katrina of the tray and disappears into the back. Katrina sits heavily on an unoccupied bin, discouraged and tired.
Jay sits beside her, rattling away on a keyboard, organizing his notes from the day before. “What’s another word for scaly?”
“Reptilian? Segmented? Uh… That’s actually a hard one.”
“I know! And I’ve already used scaly like five times.”
“I thought there were no reptiles or snakes on the island.”
“Aw, I hope that isn’t true. But I meant this.” Jay gingerly lifts his shirt to display the line of scabs falling away from his healing wound. “Gonna have a wicked scar for sure.”
“Oh, you’re the reptile. God, Jay, that looks mean.”
“It was super shallow. Ridiculous luck. Otherwise it was like goodbye liver. And it’s doing much better. I think the humid air is what it needs right now. And the cold doesn’t hurt much either. I figure by the time this storm is over I can resume normal activities like a real man.”
“A real man.” Miriam sits on the other side of Jay, working on her own notes. She chuckles. “Just what we need. Doll, you know that as soon as you can move around you’re just going to hurt yourself again. Even I know that about you, and we just met.”
“Damn. Hurtful, Miriam. Very hurtful.” Jay scowls at her. “I thought you liked me.”
“Oh, I do, darling. I adore you. But I think you’ve demonstrated what kind of trouble you like to get into.”
“I can be safe. I hardly ever get injured at home.”
“Safe? Okay. Tell us what you plan to do once you heal up?”
“Well. I’m gonna reef dive for some more of those rockfish. And there’s the matter of Sherman’s osprey platform, so we got to climb that tree. And…”
“Need I say more?” Miriam chuckles at him. Katrina joins her. “One man wrecking crew, you are.”
Jay frowns, somewhat offended. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Fine. Nothing but dead weight to you, I guess. Just recuperating in the bunker every day eating you out of house and home.” He rattles off a few more typed words and then signs out of his account. With a sigh, he turns to Katrina. “Hey, do you think they’ll let us into the sub for a while?”
“Probably not. Why?”
“Cause I’m bored and I’m fucking sick of this reality. Let’s drop some of your acid down there and find a new one.”
“Yuuup.” Katrina likes the sound of that. She’s been wanting to dose but she didn’t want to do it alone. Not here. Not with all the challenges facing them. But with a buddy? “Yeh, I could definitely use a restart on this day.”
“Do you really think…?” Miriam frowns at them, but then shakes her head no. “No. I swore I’d never be the old person bumming out anyone’s trip. Fair play. Get along then. Just remember to drink a lot of water.” She leans in, conspiratorial. “And whatever you do, for god’s sake don’t mention it to Esquibel.”
“Should we invite anyone else?” Jay stands, wincing. The incision still crackles like a bolt of electricity from time to time.
“I say…” Katrina recalls this particular batch of blotter. It’s jet fuel. Super pure, and some of the strongest LSD she’s ever had. “Let’s keep it with the professionals this time. Make sure this drug works in this setting. Then we can try again later with others.”
“Cool cool. Let me just grab my herb and some layers and I’ll meet you in the back, little lady.”
“And I’ll just grab a couple itsy-bitsy tiny little bits of paper. And some water. Be right there.”
They both depart. Miriam shakes her head, bemused. “Ah, youth. Well, at least they have each other.”
A few minutes later Katrina has recreated the scene they shared on molly. Jay sits on a bench in the closest chamber in the sub to the stairs leading back to the surface. She has brought her laptop, to spin beats, and a couple of her fairy lights for color. Triquet has recently finished their work down here and it has transformed into a snug little museum-piece of a setting.
The millimeter square of paper settles under Jay’s tongue. “Like the world’s tiniest postage stamp.” He lights a joint and passes it to her. This is his Jack, to give them enough energy to ride this wave.
“Yeh, and you’re the envelope with the letter inside. And I just mailed your ass to the moon!” She leans in and kisses Jay.
He grunts in surprise and responds, her lips so soft and hot and wet. But she breaks off and stares at him.
“Sorry. Already breaking the barriers. Drugs haven’t even kicked in yet.”
“You’re good.” He thinks to draw her in for another kiss but no, this isn’t a hookup kind of situation, is it? This is psychedelia time.
“Don’t know why but coming on,” Katrina confesses, “this acid makes me really horny. But only for the first bit. So if you find me grinding up on you, nothing personal, right, mate?”
“Now that one, I can’t tell if it’s a compliment or an insult.”
They both laugh. Katrina leans against Jay. “No no. You’re hot and you know it. You’re even quite lovable. But we’re not…” She shakes her head at the improbability of Jay ever being her lover.
He agrees. “Yeah. You are too. I mean, back in high school they were always trying to hook me up with all the blonde chicks. Like some people just want to see all the blondes together.”
“Like some kind of busybody Nazi eugenics.”
“Yeah, now that I think of it. But no. Like, I could just see one of my old buddies trying to hook me up with his younger sister and then I find out it’s you.”
“Ha. You’re not that much older.” She leans forward, the first filaments of the lysergic acid uncoiling in her spine. Katrina kneads his thighs like a kitten making biscuits. “Ooo and you don’t know my brother. Although I think you’d like Pavel. He’d think you’re cool, for sure.”
Jay takes a huge drag on the joint, remembering that this entire endeavor is about changing his headspace. Katrina is complex, a jewel with more facets than he can count. But it’s all beauty through and through. No flaws. Just… brilliance. “Oh, man. Here come some visuals. Thank the maker. Man… Aw, you’ve got like little fairy flowers growing out of your eyelashes. Like…” He reaches out to touch them. “I needed this, yo. I’m used to having my phone, you know. My screentime. But now my whole optical nerve is like atrophying because that nasty old hag stole my shit.”
Katrina runs a fingertip over her own eyelashes. “What kind of flowers? I can’t feel them.” A flush envelops her and she presses herself forward against him. The contact feels so good she nearly swoons. With a drunken laugh she rolls her head against his chest. “My, you’ve got some fine muscles, lad.”
But Jay is blinking at the far wall, his vision fully engaged. Patches of lurid color bloom beneath the sepia tones of the photos Triquet has hung, bringing them to life. “Would you look at that.” It’s like an invisible hand is colorizing the old photos in realtime. On one portrait a flush of health appears on the smiling cheeks of some lieutenant. His hair gleams blue black. “Katrina… Dude. Can you see that?”
“Hmm?” Katrina looks up, realizing she was fumbling with Jay’s fly. Then he realizes it. “Oh. Oops. Like I said, I turn into this hot little devil, at least for the next like half hour. See what?”
She turns to look at the bare, cold chamber behind her. It holds no interest to her. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of Jay’s warmth. She backs up against him, snuggling close.
He chuckles. “Damn, girl. You sure you aren’t rolling instead of tripping? I’ve never seen anyone get so randy on acid.”
“Yeah, it just… plays my brain… like a… an oboe.” The words are halting and wrong. She laughs instead, an inebriated snort. “And I get all vibrate-y. Will you brush my hair? I bet I’d love it if you brush my hair. Like a cat.”
“Uh, sure.” Not really what he had in mind, but whatever floats her boat. It’s her acid, after all.
She turns around on the floor and leans back against his knees, pushing them open. Then she holds out a hairbrush over her shoulder. “You don’t have to. Except I really really… Yeh. I guess you have to.”
“I guess I have to. Sorry. Just not very practiced with…” He lightly strokes her scalp with the brush but the long fine hairs start to tangle. “Uh…”
“Long smooth strokes. That’s it. From root to end. Ahh. Oh, that feels lovely. And it’s a really fine man doing it.” She wiggles her hips in pleasure, rolling them up against his feet bracing her.
“I just…” Jay has to focus on what he’s doing to make it work. His eyes are starting to lose focus on her honey hair. “I mean, why do you think Jidadaa did it?”
That stops her. Katrina comes back to herself, the sensation falling away. “Huh. Jidadaa. She’s so awesome. What about her?”
“Yeah, well, you can have her. She keeps calling me the lidass and expecting me to kill everyone on the island. I mean, what is up with that? I’m just a surfer, girl.”
“Why did you stop brushing?” Jay dutifully resumes. “No, I think she’s wonderful. Don’t you think she is?”
“I mean, I think the word for her is unique.”
“Yes! So special. I’ve never met anyone like her.” Katrina turns to stare at Jay, a wicked little gleam in her eye.
“Well, you can forget about whatever naughty thought you got going in your little head because she doesn’t do drugs. Not even weed. Now her mom…”
Katrina collapses against him again. “Bummer. Brush!”
“Brushing. Your hair is so fine. And straight. I never had straight hair. Mine’s always been so curly. You’re like a spider… Like if Medusa… Instead of snakes you had spider silk…”
“Now it’s my turn to say I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult. So. What do you say? I’ve got about twenty more minutes of the hots. Oral sex, yay or nay?”
But Jay drops a hand on her shoulder for her attention. Oops. Did she go too far? Again? She pivots to him, an apologetic smile on her face. But Jay isn’t looking at her.
He’s staring at the hatch to his left, leading deeper into the sub. One of the golden childs is there, facing them. But this one is a bit different. The mask is more ornate. They wear a necklace of feather and bone. The man wearing it is older, to judge by the wrinkles and sagging skin of his belly and chest.
“Oh, Christ. Don’t scare us like that, grandpa!” Katrina pulls herself away from Jay and hauls herself onto the bench beside him. After a long moment she says, “Hello? Konnichi-wa? Uh, mushi mushi? What do you think? Should I offer to dose him?”
A rough voice comes from behind the mask. “Chto ne tak s toboy? Ty boleyesh’?”
Katrina blinks. Wait. She can understand those words. “That’s Russian. That bloke just spoke Russian.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked what is wrong with me? Am I sick?” She shakes her head no and answers the golden… man? “Net, otets. Prosto na narkotikakh.” She translates for Jay. “No, father. Just on drugs.”
Ξ
“Yes?” Alonso looks up from his laptop to see whose shadow it is darkening the door of his cell. The rain drums so loud on the tarps and steel roof that he doesn’t think he’ll hear the answer. He squints. Who is that?
“I said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’” Triquet repeats more loudly, feeling like they’re intruding on some senile elder who needs to be shouted at. Alonso is perched on his cot with a lap blanket, shawl, and half-moon reading glasses. He looks like Santa taking a day off.
“Yes?” Alonso repeats in the same gruff manner as before.
Now Triquet hesitates. What the hell do they think they’re doing in there? The man is obviously busy working. He has no time for Triquet’s gossip. Or whatever it is. Triquet turns away, suddenly ashamed, clutching the hem of their housegown. “You know, never mind. I’ll catch up with you when you’re not so…”
“No no. I need a break. Plexity is just laughing at me today. I can’t make it do anything any more. The creation has surpassed its creator and I have to learn to let go.”
“Yes…” Triquet lingers in the door. “They grow up so fast. But what’s wrong with it?”
“Ehh…” Alonso leans back, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “It’s just maths. A trick I was trying to use to change the bounded requirements of this dataset. If we can derive meaningful relationships from fewer data points then maybe…” He sighs, not wanting to say it aloud. “It’s possible we don’t have to do so much collecting to achieve the same results.”
“Well that sounds promising.” Triquet tries to be bright, even when their insides are in turmoil. Alonso deserves that much.
“It would be if I could make it work! But there is some fly in the ointment somewhere, preventing the results from computing properly. And I just can’t find it. It is driving me crazy. So, yes. Please ask me your question. But come in here so we aren’t shouting at each other like drunk college kids.”
“Roll Tide!” Triquet bellows, then chuckles at themself and with a measure of meekness enters the cell and sits on the side of Alonso’s cot, picking at the dried resin on their arm that still covers the eagle bite. “Nice job with the…” Triquet waves at the blank walls in a fruitless attempt at making small talk. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Your question?”
“Yes…” Triquet takes a deep breath, knowing they’re about to make a terrible mistake. Oh, well. “Have you ever been in love with a married woman?”
Alonso shrugs, not absorbing the question. His laptop screen is still mocking him. So he closes it. “Only Miriam. Why? Ah.”
Triquet nods solemnly. “I wasn’t going to talk to you at first. And then I thought, why would I do that? Why would I hide…?”
“It is fine. She told me of your night together. All the lurid details. And yes. She is very lovable. I grant you that. Ha. So she has cast her spell again, has she?” Alonso leans back, a pleased smile warming him. Yes, he needs a change of topic and this is perfect. A way to think with his heart instead of his head.
“So you aren’t upset? Threatened?”
“Threatened? Why? Are you planning on stealing her away from me? She told me you both had other ideas…”
“I am. She’s right. No. Not steal at all. It’s just hard to hear, for most people, that somebody is in love with their wife.”
“Do you know how many times I have had this conversation over the years? Oy oy oy. Especially when we were both teaching at Boston College together. I would be sitting in my office hours and some frat boy would come in and challenge me to a duel over her favors like we were knights at Camelot.”
“Really? A duel?”
“Well, once. And he was a tremendous nerd, the kind who would roleplay as a fantasy character on weekends. He had no idea that Miriam hates that shit. He didn’t have a chance.”
“Oh, dear. If she hates nerds I don’t like my chances.”
“Well, there are nerds and there are nerds. And you are much more stylish than that, my dear Triquet. No. I’d say your chances with my wife are pretty great. She understands how special and wonderful you are. And now she is falling in love with you too.”
Triquet mouths the words ‘thank you,’ tears welling up in their eyes, surprised by the immense tenderness they feel for Alonso. “She is… You are both so amazing. I just… I mean, I can’t believe the life she’s led! When she told me about going on a hike with Joan Didion I almost fell out of my chair. She knows everybody.”
Alonso chuckles. “Yes, Joan was smitten with Miriam as well. Those were good days. Very happy. It has definitely been a good life. I just hope…” And now tears fill Alonso’s eyes all of a sudden and fear grips his throat.
Triquet grimaces. “Look. It’s still hard. There’s still jealousy. And insecurity. No matter how hard we try to balance—”
“No, it isn’t that,” Alonso forces the words through. “I mean, sure, yes, you’re right. You will both need to take very good care of me to not feel left out, that’s for sure. But that’s not what worries me. We’ve had such amazing lives. Like, every academic dream I ever had has come true, and a whole bunch of others beside. You want names? When I was very young I shared a bed with Andy Warhol. The Tom Tom Club. Elton John once stuck his hand down my pants. I could go on and on. And I’m not any kind of mystic or religious nut, but it always felt like I was using up more than my fair share of beauty and light. I knew there must someday be darkness ahead. And there was. Oh, there certainly was. I could face what they did to me in the gulag, at least a little bit, because I knew that I had already enjoyed the glorious meal and this was just the bill come due. But it makes me worry. Miriam has never fallen from her heights. And I’m so afraid that when she does, because she has risen so very high…” He shakes his head in despair. “She doesn’t know… You don’t know. How dark life can be.”
Triquet nods in compassion and grasps Alonso’s thick forearm. “I think you’re probably the strongest man I’ve ever met.”
“Yes, that’s the stuff. You want to steal my wife I better get some damn fine honeyed words in the deal.”
“I can’t imagine stealing. Only… joining…” Triquet hopes it doesn’t sound like a come on. But then they hope it does.
“Yes, but why are you so shy with me? Eh? I am not used to it. I am used to being like Mirrie. Having people throw themselves… I mean, here.” Alonso takes out his phone. He presses his mouth into a thin line, opening a folder of photos he hasn’t looked at since he regained access to them. He swipes quickly through scenes he remembers so well, as if they’d happened yesterday, but at the same time a century ago, and to somebody else. Then he finds the picture he wants. It is 1993 and he is in Vancouver with Kevin and Chui, a quasi-official scholarly road trip and gay bar tour of the Pacific Northwest. Alonso is twenty-six, his hair thick and black, his eyes merry and dark face that of a Spanish noble. His shirt is unbuttoned and muscles are clearly defined beneath. “See?”
Triquet’s mouth drops open. “Holy shit.” On impulse they throw themself at Alonso and kiss him with passion. Alonso laughs at the gesture then responds in kind, reveling in this slender young body squirming in his lap.
Triquet breaks off. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“That was very superficial of me. Objectifying you like that. But sweet Jesus. I was into you the first moment I met you, Alonso. As a bratty sophomore at Penn. I’m sure you don’t remember.”
“I remember that we kept in touch. And that is why you’re here today. Your emails were always so funny and so smart.”
“And I guess I just did one of those ageist things where I forgot, or I let the old man window-dressing here distract me from the real you under all this gray hair.”
“No. This is the real me now, Triquet. They beat this guy…” he casts aside his phone, “out of me. I mean, I’ve still got a lot of healing to do, but I know what I look like now. I know who I am.”
Triquet gives Alonso a strong hug in sympathy, trying to impart strength. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through. And then to have some young asshole like me show up and threaten your marriage…”
“Yeah, these are definitely crazy days here on Lisica. In the gulag I could get so bored. Sometimes they would forget about me in a box for like a week. And my mind would rove. I would spend hours just watching a trail of ants. Everything here that happens in a single day would have been enough material there to occupy my brain for like a year.”
Another gust of rain sweeps overhead, crashing into the roof, and the two of them clutch each other harder, shivering. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t have a question after all. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing and hot and brilliant Miriam is and I didn’t think I could share that feeling with anyone. Then I went, “Hold up, Triq. There’s at least one person here who’s as into her as you are and maybe you could celebrate her together.”
“I am glad you came. Yes, we can. Her smell.”
“Like milk and honey.”
“And her brain. She has an absolute top-shelf brain. People don’t understand. It is like when you are an athlete, no? If you are in bad shape you can’t run up a hill. But when you are in okay shape you can. But only the runners in the very best shape can run uphill at any speed. Have you noticed this? Unless you are very fit, you can only run at your favored speed. But if you are in top shape then you can run as fast or slow as the people beside you and it doesn’t matter. Your muscles and stamina can work at any pace. That is Miriam’s brain. She is lightning fast with her creative thoughts and perceptive insights, but also she is able to keep timescales of half a billion years in her head. I can’t even remember… I mean, there’s the Devonian and the Ordovician and… That’s all I got. Married to the world’s greatest geologist and I can’t even recall the most basic facts about her—Oh!” Alonso starts, seeing another pair of figures looming out of the hallway. “Dios mio. Who is that?”
Triquet gasps. “Oh, my god, what happened to you two?”
Katrina and Jay lean against the doorframe, eyes wide, pasty and disheveled. Their energy is fractured and they can’t hold Alonso or Triquet’s gaze.
Katrina waves at them although she already has their attention. Finally she gets her mouth to work. “We got a problem, boss.”
Ξ
“Tell them.” Alonso finds a seat on a bin in the indoor kitchen in the back of the bunker. It is the end of the day and the storm has already darkened the skies. Miriam comes and stands beside him, a querying look sent his way. Everyone is here.
Jay covers his face in his hands. He can’t stop giggling.
Katrina is taking very dramatic breaths, Mandy holding her hands. This makes them all confused and a bit frightened. Finally she gathers herself. “Okay, first I got to apologize because we’re tripping. Whoa. Are you all doing that or…?”
“Doing what?” Amy asks, collecting enough mugs for tea.
“Your faces… Are fish. And we’re all underwater.”
Jay cackles, still holding his face in his hands. Katrina drags her fingertips through the air in wonder. She makes bubble sounds and giggles. Then she sees the way they’re looking at her. “Oh. Right.”
“You were going to tell us something?” Miriam prompts.
“What is wrong with them?” Maahjabeen asks Pradeep beside her. “I do not and will not ever understand drugs. I thought we were all in danger. Don’t you realize how foolish you both look?”
“They don’t care,” Flavia sighs. “Wish I could be so secure in myself but no. Never would I do this in front of sober people.”
Alonso prompts her. “Come on, Katrina. Remember how you said it was urgent?”
“It’s Alonso!” Her face beams with radiance. “Sorry. It’s just… sheets of color and you’re like a lion in the center! Aslan. Did you ever read the Narnia books?”
“Katrina. Focus. You said our safety is threatened.”
“I did?”
“You saw another one of the golden childs.”
“The golden man.” Recalling him shocks Katrina back into this reality. She grows instantly subdued. “Yeh. The golden man came to us when we were tripping in the sub. He was in the hatch watching. And he spoke Russian to me. Clear as a bell. Maybe a kind of Volgograd accent, the way he clipped his consonants—”
“Katrina.” Alonso is losing his patience. “What did he tell you?”
“Who?” Katrina looks around her. What is she doing in this dark room and why are all these strangers watching her?
Jay drops his hands. “He said the Russians are coming.” His eyes flicker and he’s unable to steady his gaze. But he shakes his head and tries his damnedest. This is the real shit. And he shouldn’t be fucked-up on goofballs at the moment. But he is. And he’s got to do something about it. He sees an open bucket of water at the base of the kitchen tables. He quickly kneels and dunks his head into it. The frigid shock makes his head spin. Not at all the right sensation. It just intensifies his trip. Now he’s in an ice cave like Superman. Except the cave is inside his head. And Superman is inside the cave. And inside Superman is… He pounds on his own forehead. “Uhhh… Slap me. Someone slap me.”
“No no.” Alonso holds up a paternal hand. “Nobody needs to—”
CRACK. Esquibel’s open-hand strike rocks Jay’s head back. A trickle of blood appears at the corner of his mouth. She grabs him. “The Russians? What are you talking about, you ridiculous child? You will come to your senses, both of you, right now, or I will—”
Katrina rides these bad vibes back into sobriety, if only briefly. “Hey, it’s okay. Let him go. We just had to tell you. The Russians are on their way. And, like, they don’t know we’re even here.”
“Oh my god, you’re serious?” Flavia squirms in her seat and Maahjabeen clutches her hand. “This isn’t the drugs? They are on the drugs, yes? This man, he wasn’t real. This is a made-up man.”
“Well then how did they both see him?” Alonso asks the room. “And how did they hear the same thing?”
“This story doesn’t make sense.” Esquibel releases Jay, who dabs at the blood and then loses himself in the bright red dollop on his fingertip. Nobody comes to his aid. They wait impatiently for the pair to continue. Esquibel prompts them. “So you’re telling me that a whole new golden person appeared in the sub while you were on drugs, speaking a language you know, and he told you the Russians are coming? Okay. Fine. Which Russians? Scientists like us or soldiers?”
“Soldiers,” Katrina echoes. And again. “Solll… diers…”
Then Jay, quietly: “He said if they find us here we’ll die.”
The entire room falls silent.
The tension is unbearable. Jay makes a loud bleating sound, covering his ears and scrunching up his face. “Stop… stopping. Time can’t just end. Somebody say something.”
“Is this a joke?” Triquet desperately hopes that it is, that this wildly inappropriate story is just in poor taste. Then Esquibel can yell at them and everyone else can go back to what they were doing, right? “Well is it?”
“You have to understand how difficult it is for us to believe you when you’re in this state.” Miriam crosses her arms, trying to quell her rising temper. “What are you children on, anyway?”
“Katrina’s acid,” Mandy informs them, to a chorus of groans.
“Acid?” Triquet snorts. “Okay, well here’s what really happened. One of you imagined this figure, this golden man, in the hatch, and then you told the other all about it and now you’re both convinced you saw him. You made up the whole thing about the Russians like in a bad dream. It’s all a dream, honey, okay?”
Katrina and Jay share a sidelong look. They know it wasn’t a dream. But how to convince the others? “Look,” Katrina begins. “I’m not what you call a rookie on this drug. I’ve dropped acid over a hundred times. I am an accomplished astronaut.”
“Oh my god did you really pull me out of the clean room and all my work just to scare me with this nonsense?” Esquibel claps her palm to her forehead. She is starting to get really angry. “Don’t tell me how many times you’ve done these drugs. It makes it so I can’t even trust you when you’re sober.”
“Exactly.” For once Miriam and Esquibel find themselves on the same side of an issue. “Look, Katrina, we all live, laugh, love here like a big Cuban family, doubtless, but you’re really trying our patience. And frightening us too.”
“No.” Jay spreads his hands outward, another ripple of panic washing through him. Whenever he can remember, he’s absolutely terrified of what the golden man told them. “Look. I don’t know if he came to us because we were on the drugs, though that’s how it seemed. But he was definitely real. Definitely definitely. And he said we got till dawn to hide. All our stuff. All our…” Jay waves at the bunker and camp, trying to include it all. “Hammock. Boats. We got to like cover our trenches somehow…”
“Hide? Did you completely forget…” Flavia protests, her fear making her irate, “that we are in the middle of a fucking storm? How are we supposed to take down our platforms and cover the trenches in all this wind and rain?”
“And how would anyone expect a boat or even helicopter to land during this?” Maahjabeen shakes her head in disapproval. “This is a fantasy you idiots have built up in your heads. No, the Russians aren’t coming. How could they?”
“Dawn.” Katrina shakes her head in despair at all the improvised structures in the bunker. They’ve got a lot of work ahead of them. “He said we have until dawn before the Russians get here.”
Miriam glances at Alonso, hoping to share her incredulous cynicism with him. But his face is drawn and his eyes are haunted. Right. The Russians. All he hears is he’s getting sent back to the gulag. These bloody fools are plucking on his heartstrings and they don’t even know it. “Now we’re going to stop this right here. Right now. Look what you’re doing to Alonso. You are going to repeat after me: There are no Russians coming at dawn. Say it.”
Jay and Katrina look helplessly at each other. “Sorry, Miriam,” Jay finally manages. “I know what I saw. And heard. It just didn’t go the way Triquet said. We didn’t imagine it. This acid don’t hit that hard. I mean, it does. But it didn’t.”
Alonso is beginning to tremble. Ah, no. His facade will slip again. Not Russian soldiers. Not again. Nothing is more horrible than the prospect of being returned to what he so recently escaped. Five more years. The very thought makes him audibly groan.
“Say it, Jay. Katrina.” Now it is Esquibel making the demand. “There are no Russians coming at dawn. And you will be handing the rest of that acid over to me for proper disposal.”
“I can’t. It happened.” Jay begs them. “What do you want me to do? We came and told you all as soon as it happened. We’re in danger, dude!”
“Jay! You are not in danger! There was no man down there!” Esquibel has had enough. She considers sedating them both against their will until this drug trip passes out of their systems. But she doubts she’ll get much support for such a drastic move. Then she recalls one of her activities from two days before. “Listen. It is impossible, anyway. I blocked off the tunnels again at the lowest level. Nobody could come up that way. He is only in your mind.”
“Katrina.” These are Pradeep’s first words. Once again, he speaks in a tone that seems to cut right to the heart of the matter. “If you want us to believe you, your words are not enough, regardless of how terrifying they may be. You have to give us proof. Actual physical proof that the man was there.”
Both Jay and Katrina nod. A jagged sadness rises in her. They don’t believe her and Jay. The Russians are going to show up and mow them down with guns. Or send them off to torture. She’ll be like Alonso and Pavel, broken for the rest of her life. They don’t believe her, all because of their prejudice against lysergic acid 25.
“I mean, we can look…” Jay isn’t ready to give up yet. Pradeep has given him something to do. “Come on, Prad. Bring your phone. See if we can find, like footprints or something. I don’t have my phone. Jidadaa stole it. And if I ever see Kula again…”
“Yes, Jay. We know.” Pradeep lets go of Maahjabeen’s hand and stands. “Come on. Let us see what we can find. Hold on, everyone. We will be right back.”
Jay leads Pradeep to the stairs and descends into the sub. After only a slight hesitation, Pradeep follows.
“Well. I guess this is what idleness and boredom gets you.” Miriam tries not to be angry at the kids. She has definitely been there herself. But anyone with eyes in their head can see how this farce is affecting Alonso. She just wants it all to end. “Can we agree not to take any more psychedelics while under threat of attack? I mean, what were you thinking, Katrina?”
“Uh…” Katrina sincerely tries to remember what they had been thinking. “Oh, yeh. We were thinking it was a whole day or more cooped up in this box so why not try something new?”
Esquibel growls. “Even the remotest chance that there is some kind of hostile maritime force landing on our beach at dawn will keep me from getting any sleep tonight. Preparations must be made. Even if it all is proven false. We still must guard against every eventuality.” Her anger nearly makes her helpless. She turns on Katrina, shaking a finger. “It is time for you to grow up!”
“This is ridiculous.” Flavia twists the fingers of one hand in the other. “Now it’s Russian soldiers? I cannot just sit here and wait for the next crazy part of this story. I am going to bed.”
“Wait.” Esquibel holds up a hand, an imagined spreadsheet with divisions of tasks filling her vision. “We need to… Ugh. We don’t know what we need to do first until we hear back from those two. And we need them back here as workers. Even if they are wrong and there is no threat, there will still be work to do before we can relax tonight.”
They all wait in silence.
“Where did you say you saw the golden man again?” Amy asks Katrina, who is staring at her own hand as its fingers slowly flex and spread. “Katrina? Where did you see him?”
“Um? In the sub. Didn’t we tell you?”
“Which chamber in the sub?”
“Just the first one there.”
Maahjabeen scowls. “Then what is taking them so long?”
“They are checking the whole sub to make sure there is nothing there.” Miriam feels like she needs to speak slowly for some reason. Maybe because Alonso is breaking apart and Katrina is on another planet. “And then when Jay is convinced it was a figment of his addled goddamned imagination they’ll come back and we can put this all to rest. Yes?”
After another long moment of silence, Mandy offers, “I was supposed to return to the weather station today to download data but of course that isn’t happening so… Kind of operating off stale measurements here but there’s got to be at least like another night of this storm before it abates.”
Esquibel spins to Mandy, cross. “I know! The idea that any landing force could brave the elements in the dark and hit the beach during this storm is just… I mean, it beggars belief, no?”
“Totally,” Mandy answers.
“Absolutely,” Miriam confirms, squeezing Alonso’s hand.
They wait another minute or two in uncomfortable suspense, the silence stretching.
“Watch,” Triquet says. “Pradeep climbs those stairs wearing a gold mask, shouting in Russian, run for your lives!”
“Bezhat’ za svoyu zhizn’!” Katrina helpfully translates, crowing at the roof. Then she giggles.
“How long has it been?” Flavia frets, checking her phone. “Five minutes? More?”
“More.” Esquibel frowns at the dark trap door and the stairs leading down. “Maybe we send someone to check on them…”
Flavia stands. “No. No more. This is how we always lose people, remember? We are not supposed to break up.”
“Calm down, Flavia. They’re coming back.” Amy puts on her bravest smile. “Anyone like some tea?”
Nobody responds. And Pradeep and Jay don’t come back. Not for another ten minutes, not for an hour.
Finally Alonso can take no more. The pressure within him cannot be contained any longer. He groans into his hands and sobs. Miriam looks urgently at Esquibel.
“Yes. Well. I guess something is going on down there after all. Thank you, Katrina, for your warning. Now…” Esquibel’s head drops. This is going to be an absolute mountain of work. “I guess we have to figure out how the rest of us can hide.”
Chapter 39 – Nonsense I Mean
September 24, 2024
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:
39 – Nonsense I Mean
“How did Jidadaa get you back anyway?” Amy sits beside Flavia on her platform in camp. The fog has not let up and a dank chill creeps up from the ground through their feet and legs. She murmurs the question, conscious of the masked golden childs, as Jay calls them, squatting at compass points on the camp’s perimeter. These figures are never still. They shift and scratch itches and follow sounds. But they don’t respond to any questions or offers of food and drink and they evidently aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Spooky.
Flavia shrugs. “A lot like the first time. Then it was the girl child Xaanach. This time Jidadaa. Both woke me in the middle of the night and led me quietly out of his camp. I guess he needs better security, but I am glad he does not have it!”
“That’s amazing. And did Jidadaa lead you right back here or did you go somewhere else first?”
“Somewhere else?”
“Like maybe she has some hidey-hole of her own? See, last night, after you got back, Jidadaa disappeared again. Right before these golden childs appeared. I think maybe she knew they were coming and she wants to avoid them. Jay says to the Lisicans they’re like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They scare her. But if we could find her now, like if you know where she might be hiding, we sure could use more answers.”
“They are pretty scary.” Flavia is empty. She wants to just give up. Completely surrender. Why can’t she? Everything here is an arduous epic adventure. Nothing is as simple here as settling down to her workstation with her dog across her feet and a steaming espresso in her hands. She misses big Boris. And she is sure he must miss her. She tilts her head back. “Ehh… Amy. I can’t do this any more. I have to go home.”
Amy throws a comforting arm over Flavia’s shoulders. “Soon, my dear. We’re nearly into May now.”
“You think that is some kind of help? We still have weeks of this! Weeks! And now the villagers are coming in and like taking over! We can’t do anything outside of their view! There is no privacy! Who cares if it is Wetchie-ghuy or these…” She gestures at the nearest golden child, who twitches when they hear the name Wetchie-ghuy. “These… I don’t even know what to call them. But what happens if we try to leave? Eh? Has anyone tried yet?”
“One goes with. When anyone goes to the trenches. Or like when Jay went down to the lagoon. Perhaps they’re protecting us.”
“I don’t want them protecting me,” Flavia declares loudly. Defiantly. “I just want them to leave me alone. All of them.”
Amy nods, patient and sympathetic. “See, if we can figure out where Jidadaa went then she could help answer some of these questions. If they are protecting us, then toward what end?”
“So we end up in their pot instead of someone else’s.”
“Cannibalism. Wow. Huh. There hasn’t been any sign of it here. Unless you know something that Wetchie-ghuy…”
“No.” Flavia waves a disgusted hand. “I don’t. Don’t worry. It is just me stereotyping your beloved natives, right?”
“Beloved? Ha. They won’t even talk to me. I’m too unclean.”
“Well, Amy my dear, I would be happy to switch roles with you at any time. They can’t seem to get enough of me.”
“Did Wetchie-ghuy try to put that loop over your hand again?”
“Oh, yeah. Like five times. Finally I took it and threw it off a cliff. And you know what he did? He giggled. Then he made another one out of some branches and tried again. Such a creep.”
“I feel like the two shamans are trying to claim us. Each one is taking as many of us as they can get. And if they can’t have us, then it’s better to poison us so the other one doesn’t get us.”
Flavia scowls. “We are just like… trophies to them.”
“I don’t know if we can continue to work under these conditions. Although I have no idea what else we can do.”
“Amy?” Miriam exits the bunker with Triquet and waves. “Come with us?”
“Sure thing, Mir.” Amy gets up and squeezes Flavia’s arm. “Well. I guess I get a chance to see. You just stay here and rest up, Flavia. Be Alonso’s partner. That means don’t let him go anywhere alone. Otherwise, nobody needs anything from you today.”
“Good. Because I swear to you I have nothing left to give.”
Amy grimaces, her inability to raise Flavia’s spirits grating on her, and joins Miriam and Triquet at the edge of the camp. They head toward Tenure Grove, one of the golden childs following.
“Do you think we can put this one to work?” Triquet wonders. “Ask how handy they are with a spade and trowel?”
“I mean, you can try…”
Miriam looks up at the cliff face they approach. “Right back at it. It’s important to Alonso that we continue the work today.”
Amy nods. “I’d say it’s important for all of us. We have to keep our routines or we’ll go crazy under these conditions.”
“Yeah, but Alonso… He had a very bad night. You saw him, Ames. He thought he was back in the gulag.”
Amy’s face falls. “Oh yeah, in bed I could hear him. And when he got up… At first I didn’t think it was a bathroom call. He looked desperate, like he was trying to escape.”
“Escape?” Triquet frowns. “Uh, where? Forgot he was on an island, did he?”
“Escape… life. I don’t think…” Amy answers quietly, “his mind was working all too well. Oh, Mir. He really is damaged.”
Miriam nods, sad. “And I don’t know how to fix him.”
“Time.” Amy and Triquet both say it and Triquet follows it with a giggle. “Jinx! Time, Miriam, and loads of chocolate.”
“So what are we working on today, boss?” Amy rolls up her sleeves as they near the base of the cliff. It is choked with brush and a fallen skirt of loose stone.
“I want to inventory who lives in that scree pile, if anyone. Got to be a dangerous place to call home, rocks sliding all over the place and crushing you. But still, if we are going to be thorough for Plexity, then it is a habitat we have to sample…”
“Life finds a way!” Triquet boldly pushes past the first branches of the manzanita and immediately squawks, ensnared, arms held above their head. “Except this life. Me. I’m stuck.”
“Life didn’t find a way?” Amy chortles, pulling the branches away from Triquet and allowing them to continue.
Miriam has paused in her examination of the scree pile to study the golden child, who has turned three-quarters away, their mask pointed up at an angle. “What do you think they’re looking at?”
“Well, Pradeep and Jay think Sherman the shaman hides up in those trees with his osprey. Maybe our protector here is on the lookout for them.”
Triquet scowls at the golden child. “What do you think that mask does for them? I mean, how do they see or anything?”
“I doubt we’ll ever know.”
“Lord, I am so sick of being hopelessly confused.” Triquet lifts their arms and drops them again. “I mean, yes it’s the first step in scientific inquiry, yeah yeah yeah, blah blah blah. But, I mean, can’t we just get a tiny bit of clarity every once in a while?”
“Not a chance.” Amy pushes past Triquet and climbs to the top of the scree pile. Small flat rocks shoot out from under her feet in all directions. “Well, this is… Hm. I can’t get on this without…”
“Yeah, careful. You’re killing all our specimens up there, Ames.”
“Okay, but how…?” Amy hurries back down to the clawing branches and solid ground underfoot. “I mean, how else can we do it? We have to climb it. If we don’t start at the top, the loose rocks will just slide down onto whatever we uncover.”
“Well, according to him,” Triquet indicates a robin hopping along the scree slope to their left, “the scree pile is good hunting. So I guess there’s something in there.”
“You’re right.” Miriam sighs. “Anything moves and the rest just slides. Ugh. This is going to be hard.”
“Miriam?” Amy turns to study her old friend, gaze troubled. “What happens to Alonso if we aren’t ever able to make anything of Plexity? Like if, by the time we’re finished here, we don’t have enough samples and he isn’t able to get it up and running?”
“I do not know, Amy dear.” Miriam shakes her head again, watching the robin pull a winged insect from the gaps in the rocks. “I do not know.”
Ξ
A shadow darkens Maahjabeen’s cot. Pradeep squints, dazed from lack of sleep, at the silhouette looming over him and his beloved. “Jidadaa! There you are. Everyone has been looking for—” He falls silent as the Lisican girl’s hand urgently clamps his arm.
Jidadaa casts a worried glance at the square of blurred gray daylight visible through the sheets of hanging plastic. Once she’s certain that Pradeep will remain quiet she removes a white plastic package from folds in her clothes and unwraps it. It is an old shopping bag carrying blackened leaves, mashed and pulpy. Juices have collected in the bottom.
Jidadaa kneels beside Maahjabeen and awkwardly struggles to figure out how to get the concoction in the woman’s slack mouth.
Pradeep helps, whispering, “Does Doctor Daine know you’re doing this? Is this like a prescribed medication or…?” But the answer is apparent and he feels a fool for even asking.
Pradeep pinches Maahjabeen’s mouth open and Jidadaa makes a spout of the bag’s corner to pour a trickle of brown and black liquid past her lips.
Maahjabeen gags, expelling it.
“Shit!” Pradeep hisses, warding the bag away. “Shit! No! Stop! You’re choking her.”
Maahjabeen quickly settles. It was only a few droplets. Mandy’s voice comes from the far side of the bunker. “Everything okay in there, Pradeep?”
“Yes! Fine!” Pradeep’s eyes dart back and forth across the ceiling. What does one say in this situation? “Uh… No worries in here. Just past it now. All is well. Back to Do Not Disturb please.”
Mandy giggles. “This hotel maid hears and obeys.”
Jidadaa straddles Maahjabeen, pushing on her belly, kneading upward with strong fingers. Then she leans on her patient’s ribs, as if she’s squeezing the last of the toothpaste out. Finally, she gets off and rolls Maahjabeen over, so her face is off the cot’s edge pointed at the ground. Then she pushes on her back.
Gray goo dribbles from Maahjabeen’s mouth. Pradeep watches in mute horror, knowing he must have expelled the same mucous. Lumps drop out, like little owl pellets or dried clumps of gray oatmeal. Jidadaa keeps pushing. More and more emerges, landing with disgusting wet smacks on the plastic. Soon there is a pile on the floor like a cat’s foul vomit that needs to be cleaned.
Then Jidadaa rolls her back face-up. She pulls a juicy fingerful of black leaves from her plastic bag and pushes it into Maahjabeen’s empty mouth. Then she sits back and wipes a strand of hair away.
Pradeep quivers, fully anticipating another choking episode. But his darling dearest seems to tolerate the leaves fine this time. Her breathing steadies, if anything, and she slips into a deeper sleep. “I think that’s good. Is that good?”
Jidadaa shrugs, the movement awkward to her. She holds up her fingers stained with gray mucous and black juice. “The argument. See? Here it is. Gray on black.”
Pradeep makes a face. “Ugh. Let’s get your hands clean. There’s no way that’s sanitary.”
“First I clean the…” Jidadaa gestures at the gray pile Maahjabeen expelled. She uses an empty tissues box and some wipes. Then she cleans her own hands, although the perfume on the wipes makes Jidadaa blanch. “Ew. Need water.”
“Yeah, the creek’s your best bet to get all the smells…” Pradeep begins but her head twitches sideways no. “Ah. Okay. Not the creek. Are you hiding…? From the Doctor?”
“From golden childs. They are bad sign.”
“Ah. Yes. I see. I think. Well I won’t tell anyone you’re here. The golden childs. Are they… on our side or…? I mean, what are they doing here anyway?”
“Protect. All many want to stop Jidadaa. People in village. Sky people. Underground people. Golden childs. They think they can. But Lisica ends now.” Maahjabeen shudders and her body heaves forward. Pradeep throws his arms around her. “Listen to the bird,” Jidadaa demands.
Pradeep hears the familiar peal of an outraged eagle. The bird flies far above, winging its way home. “The osprey. But why is the bird screaming this time…?” His attention is split between its sudden appearance and Maahjabeen’s convulsions.
“He knows. I take his slave away.” Jidadaa lifts Maahjabeen’s twitching hand. She places it in Pradeep’s grasp. With her other hand she passes him the plastic bag filled with leaves. “Give to her, every bit. She will be strong. Give it all. Do not leave camp. Ever. Keep here with golden childs.”
“Wait. Where are you going?”
Jidadaa whispers over her shoulder, “Kula. She is my mother.” Then she slips out the clean room to the left and hurries silently to the steps leading down to the sub.
“Mahbub…” Maahjabeen’s weak hand reaches for his face.
“Oh! Babi.” He kisses her trembling fingertips.
“Where…?” Her eyelids unstick and her pupils slowly dilate.
“You’re here with me. Safe. Nothing will ever harm you again.”
“The taste… in my mouth…”
“Yeah. Must be pretty bad. Not the last of that I’m afraid. But I think we finally found you some medicine that works.”
“Good. I was trapped…” She falls heavily against his embrace, her eyelids fluttering, “in quicksand.”
“I know.” He kisses her brow. “But you’re safe now.”
“Tell me a story. Let me…” Maahjabeen trembles again. “Let me hear your voice. It… helps.”
“Yes. Of course. I remember. Your voice was the only thing that kept me alive. Your touch.” Pradeep opens his mouth and then closes it again. “But what shall I say? I mean… I could talk about, well, anything. What sounds interesting? Tunicates? Spongiform encephalopathies? Uh, pinniped eye parasites?”
She waves his jargon away. “Tell me… of yourself.”
“Oh. Right. Well that is far more difficult.” But he shifts, making himself comfortable, reviewing all his memories. This is something he doesn’t often do. There is little to be gained from the practice. “You know, I have always thought of my life in two parts. The first part was India, with all the good and bad. Then I turned 18 and got into University of Houston and moved to Texas. And that was the second part. Two years there. Two years in Indiana. Then grad school with Amy in Monterey. Almost six years in the second part. But now…” He sighs, thinking of all those lonely days and nights in sterile buildings with neither friends nor family. “I think now… Meeting you, my life is in a third part, the part where I am not lonely anymore. You see, moving to Houston was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. You know me. How hard change is for me, how fragile I am. Well imagine me as a 17 year-old grappling with the fact that I was going to move to the big bad United States all by myself to go to college. It is so hard for Indian students. We are used to a very different culture. And then, after a couple long plane flights you are suddenly taken to a place where nobody is your friend, there are no parties you are invited to, nobody reaches out to you. There is racism. I mean, I shut down. For like the first whole year, I was just like sleepwalking through my time in the dorms and in my classes. I made no friends. I only thought about going back home. Desperately. I missed the rich food, the loud streets, the laughing people. I mean, Houston has some of that, but mostly only for its own community and it is very different. And yes, there are all kinds of Indian student clubs and things that I should have joined but I just couldn’t find anyone… Especially those Indian students who adored it there. They fell in love with the fast cars and the shiny buildings and the American football. So I made no friends there. And frankly it never got any better. Not at Purdue or CSUMB. America is a wonderful place in a lot of ways but in so many other ways it is so, so lonely.”
A figure appears in the door. It is Doctor Daine.
Pradeep leans down and kisses Maahjabeen’s soft cheek. “But then I found you, my little babi girl,” he whispers into her seashell ear. “And the third part of my life started. Now I will never be lonely again.”
Ξ
“Oh… Just look. It’s so beautiful.” Mandy leans back from the workstation screen at the long tables in the bunker and claps her hands with joy. Then she stretches. She’s been sitting here a long damn time.
Amy leans over her shoulder, eager to share the enthusiasm. But all she can see are graphs and charts she doesn’t recognize. “Great job, Mandy! Uh, what am I looking at here?”
“My first official data-driven forecast for the next ten days!”
“Oh! Really? What does it say? Is that X axis temperature or…?”
“Well, no, that one’s actually a humidity reading. Sorry. I haven’t properly labeled anything yet. I’m just so happy! Finally!” she groans, collapsing against the keyboard.
Amy is happy to see Mandy feel productive for the first time. “Hooray for you! So should I schedule a beach party or…?”
“No. God, no. Here, it’s this one. Look. Precipitation. Huge storm coming. In like eighteen hours? I mean, this is still just a single weather station with no satellite or network help. So I can’t get any more exact than that. Should be a cold one too.”
Amy nods. “You know, frankly, I’ve been surprised how dry we’ve generally been here. I mean, have you ever spent a spring in Oregon? Especially on the coast. It like never stops raining.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too…” Mandy’s fingers fly fast on the keyboard. “Look. Some figures we have here offline. Lisica is only at about 65% precipitation of Tillamook, Oregon over the last five weeks, although I figure we’re pretty much around the same latitude.”
“Oh, I thought we were a bit further south. More like Brookings or somewhere around there. But it just pours there, on like a daily basis, until summer. And even then.”
“Yeah, the biggest storms in North America are generated out here. The thing, look, here’s a satellite gif of a storm developing in the Bay of Alaska. Watch how it spirals outward. I think Lisica might just be too far from the coast. See how ragged the bands get by the time they’re this far south? All the main moisture patterns are usually drawn to the east, toward North America. And then these others kind of wither away over the open ocean. It’s like the main cells propagate on either side of us but rarely right here.”
“San Francisco is like this. The whole town is just stuck out on a peninsula facing the ocean but somehow it magically gets way less rain than the coast to the north and to the south. They just get the howling fog.”
“Well, we’ve certainly had plenty of howling fog here.” Mandy doesn’t want to correct all the inaccuracies in Amy’s comparison so she just changes the subject by bringing up another page of data. “Here are the locations of all the permanent oceanic buoys that NASA and NOAA manage. I figure one or two should be close. Actually, look. They didn’t drop a single buoy within a thousand kilometers of here. This is a really under-studied spot in the ocean, kind of a transition zone between the storm nursery in the Bay of Alaska and the open ocean of the North Pacific. Now that I’m actually getting some readings of my own, I’m seeing a possible paper analyzing this area in my future. Maybe many papers.”
“Publish, by all means!” Amy rubs Mandy’s back, excited for her. “That is, if the Air Force will let you. You know, I wonder if that’s part of the reason this spot remains under-studied. I bet the Navy and Air Force turned whole generations of researchers away from focusing on this area.”
“Well, not any more! Ooh, hear that?” Mandy pops up, cocking her head. “A gust front coming! Wind already in the trees!” She hurries outside, followed by Amy. The gusts are bitter and dry. “Yep, it’s pretty cold. I wish I could see the northern horizon. It must be getting active.”
Amy takes a deep breath. It’s nearly twenty-hundred hours, a bit after dinner. What she can see of the sky is purple, banded with gray clouds. A few stars peek through. “Look. Is that Venus? That must be like only the third time I’ve seen it since we got here. Good thing we didn’t bring an astronomer along. This would be like their least favorite place on the planet. Can you even think of a place that gets more cloud cover than Lisica?”
“There’s a spot in the North Sea north of Iceland, and another at the edge of Antarctica. But yeah. This area is like top five for sure. I wrote a paper on global cloud concentrations as an undergrad. I remember the least cloudy regions were Arizona and North Africa. By like a lot.”
They walk out of camp toward the beach and scale the fallen redwood trunk. Mandy takes a deep breath. “Oh, I love my new superpower though! I hope I don’t ever forget how to taste the air! I thought I understood weather before but I really only did through my computer screen. Now I get to combine both!”
Amy nods, the old sage. “This is why people do fieldwork.” She turns back to the cliffs behind them but they are lost in darkness. One of the golden childs stand in the whipping wind facing them, guarding Amy and Mandy from unseen threats. “Oh, hello. Nice night.” The golden child only presents its blank face to her, like a giant insect’s eye. At a loss for words, she turns back to Mandy. “So what do you think a big storm might do to the whole war between Sherman the shaman and Wetchie-ghuy?”
“Something Jidadaa said a couple nights ago…” Mandy jumps back down, shivering in the wind, and retreats to camp with Amy at her side. “It’s really stuck with me. She said that Wetchie-ghuy gets his power from people’s fear. Shadows and deceit. But Sherman is a sorcerer of the sky. That’s where they get their magic. So I figure a big storm will, uh, definitely favor one or the other.”
“Sky magic.” Amy shakes her head. “Really? That’s where we are here? Because what does that even mean? They call the sun and moon? Make them do their bidding? I don’t think so. They both rise and set the right times every day. I mean, as a scientist, I fail to grasp exactly what sky magic entails.”
Mandy nods in agreement. “Jidadaa said Sherman controls the fog. I was like, uh, actually the convective cycle controls the fog but go ahead girl. You do you.”
“Yeah and I’d say Sherman’s more into poison anyway with all the shit they’ve pulled on Triquet and Maahjabeen and Pradeep.”
“Exactly! Thanks but no thanks, dude. We got enough poison in the sky where we come from. That’s why we came here. Cause it’s supposed to be clear and pure out here.”
Amy stops, cocking her head. “Well, isn’t that a thing.”
Mandy stops as well, at the edge of camp. “What?”
Amy shakes her head, bemused. “As a professor I often say my biggest job is to point out blind spots in my students’ perceptions so that data-gathering and data-interpretation can be done free of bias. So. What you just said. I think it’s a bias that we still consider Lisica pristine. Know what I mean? We keep finding examples that contradict that assumption. Again and again. But so far we only see them as disconnected data points instead of a wider pattern. The fault is in us. We want Lisica to be undisturbed by the modern world but it really isn’t.”
“What are you saying?” Mandy sniffs the air. “That Lisica is like a toxic dump site? That poison is in the air? I don’t really get…”
“No. It must be less direct than that. I mean, actually, you’re right. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a toxic dump. Ruining land is what militaries do best. But no, these shamans aren’t like slipping radioactive isotopes into our drinking water. At least I don’t think they are. Biases are less visible than that. This is us not seeing what is right in front of our own faces because we’ve convinced ourselves it doesn’t exist. And what I’m saying is this is a developed island.”
Mandy blinks. She isn’t sure what that insight gets them. But she’s also pretty sure the lack of understanding is on her part, not in Amy’s explanation. She flounders, hoping to think of something useful to add. “Remember when we scanned the sub with our radon sensors? We thought it worked at the time, right?”
“God, that seems like six months ago now. But it was clean. No, I think it’s actually safe here on Lisica. It’s just that we can’t keep operating on the false supposition that this is some Garden of Eden and we’re the first ever explorers. But so far we’re only like, ‘Okay, well sure there’s mysteries and secret graves and hidden villages and weird natives, but we’re still these great explorers in a virgin land.’ It’s a fallacy and I think our frustration is just our inability to see what is actually here.”
“So what is actually here?”
“I’ve got a feeling that this place is far more advanced than we know. I mean, like politically. We’re getting plots and sub-plots as deep as these tunnels. But for some reason we just can’t accept it. You know, I think there’s just a real need for a lot of us to feel that we are the very first ones somewhere. It like removes a whole layer of moral ambiguity and guilt. If we aren’t taking Lisica away from anyone, if in fact it’s our own island and nobody lives here, then we get to be the heroes in our own story. But it’s almost never like that. In fact, it probably hasn’t been like that for anyone anywhere since like a million BCE. We’re always kicking someone out or committing genocide or, well, being the villains instead of the heroes. We’re always destroying a local habitat, no matter how careful or high-minded we think we are. I guess that’s what the villagers probably mean by Jidadaa. They knew we’d eventually come. And when we did, that the old ways would all end. They’re right. Jay is the leed-ass or whatever they call him. We all are. Harbingers of doom.”
Ξ
Maahjabeen wakes with a clear head. She is present again. Rested. Whole. Oh, praise Allah! She fiercely squeezes Pradeep’s hand in gratitude and love.
“Ow.” Alonso gently extricates his hand. “I mean, what a grip!”
“Oh! Doctor Alonso! Forgive…! I thought you were…!”
“No no. I’m sure. But Pradeep is busy. He made me promise to hold your hand until he gets back. In just another bit.” He glances upward, where several people crawl on the roof fixing the tarps in preparation for the storm.
“Ehh. What time is it?”
“About four o’clock in the morning. More rain coming. Mandy made us get up early to fix what the wind has broken and make final preparations. But I was already…” Alonso shrugs. Another night of horrors. He’d been more than happy to be roused.
“Another storm? But I want to get in my boat.”
“To hear Mandy talk you will not need to move. The deluge will come and everything will all wash away. This cot will float, no?”
Despite herself, Maahjabeen giggles. This life she is returning to is so good, better than she has ever known. Pradeep is the sun. He is the brightest and purest thing she has ever known. Before him her life was in shadow. It always was. Even her happiest memories from before held darkness. Yelling. Anger. Guilt. Her family is a very contentious lot. And she was always nursing some resentment or other over the insult of the day. It is how she became so fierce, in proud opposition to their challenges. And not just from her family, it was also her sexist professors and the unhappy students that made up her whole life. They would all throw their pitiful and infuriating self-inflicted issues in her face. And that was why she always escaped to the utter serenity of the ocean.
But then Pradeep arrived. And he is bearing gifts. His love is so pure she cannot doubt it, even for a moment. So the dark thoughts she has always had about herself just sound indulgent and paranoid in her own ears now. And the ferocity. She can lay that aside as well. She can laugh. She can dance. As long as he is with her, she is complete. She doesn’t ever need this to end and she has no need of Heaven. Eternal bliss is already hers.
She blinks at the apostasy. That is the very first time such a thought has ever entered her head. And she doesn’t like it.
“What?” Alonso studies her worn face. “A shadow passed over you. What is it?”
“Oh. Nothing. ” Maahjabeen has to very carefully not fall back into her familiar hectoring resentment. She sighs to release the tension and seeks out Alonso’s hand again. For once, she is happy to have him interrupt her wayward thoughts. “Thank you, Doctor Alonso,” she squeezes his big rough hand, “for watching over me. I am not sure I have had too many bosses who would do that.”
“You are very welcome. It is my…” Pleasure is the wrong word here. So is duty. Alonso pats their joined hands with his other. “I am very glad we get to be friends, Miss Charrad.”
“Please. Maahjabeen.”
“Of course. I just always wanted to respect your professionalism.”
“Yes. Thank you, Doctor Alonso.”
“I think we are both people who yell. And when we met…” He releases her hand so he can make an explosion between his own. “Boom. You know?”
She chuckles, and in her depths she can feel how depleted she is. She tries to sit up but finds it to be a struggle. Ah. Not a full return to health yet after all.
Alonso helps her. “Pradeep said there is a tincture I am supposed to feed you if things go bad. Some herbal concoction of his from India, I gather?”
“Ugh. That stuff tastes so bad.”
“So you don’t think you need it?”
Maahjabeen tries to recall the circumstances around that black liquid. Hadn’t there been leaves in it the first five or six doses? And where had it come from? All she knows is that it is a component of her recovery. So she blanches and beckons silently to him. “The last bit. Come on. Let nobody say that I don’t finish my medicine.”
He tilts the little container into her mouth and she gags. It is so alkaline it feels like it strips the cells from the surface of her throat. But she feels it as a clean heat in her belly, killing off whatever that pit of mud was in there. How horrible.
Now, after a brief struggle, she is able to sit up. But her back is immediately cold. She wraps her arms around her knees, fragile and vulnerable in the night air.
Alonso drapes a blanket over her shoulders when he sees her shiver. Then he looks away. Even in her distress she is achingly beautiful. And this from a man who still considers himself gay! But Alonso has always worshipped beauty wherever he finds it. It is how Miriam stole his heart. It is how he learned that he is properly bisexual, or pansexual, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. He loves love. He flies to it like a moth to flame.
“I seem…” Maahjabeen’s teeth chatter, “to be in recovery here on this island as often as I am standing on my own two feet. I am sorry. My work is suffering. I am falling behind.”
“No no. It is I who must apologize for putting you unwittingly in such danger. I have been thinking about… Well. Everything. This whole venture. The naïve idea that I could trust the military about anything is… I mean, I guess I was desperate and only heard what I wanted to hear. But I should have known that there would be this entire other reality here, one that did not want us on its shores. And then I forced the issue, until the villagers had to push back. And now we are in this mess. And it is all because of me. Do you know the English word hubris? My dangerous pride?”
“Yes, it has been used by supervisors about me on their reports. But you could not know, Doctor Alonso. This is the Americans. If they can use you they will and there is nothing you can do about it. You are good. It did not occur to you how bad others can be.”
But an entire montage of dark episodes flickers through his head. He was not a good man in the gulag. He was a beast, a rat among other rats. His goodness had been altogether lost.
Now she registers his distress. Maahjabeen recalls how wounded he is. No matter what she has gone through, it is nothing compared to what he endured the last five years. Compassion wells up in her, a nearly unfamiliar sensation. She cups his face. “You are… very strong. Amazing.” The halting words seem insufficient but they prompt a tear to slide down his cheek.
Alonso ducks his head. “Yes, I am so happy we get to be friends, Miss… Maahjabeen.”
“Ooo, I like that. Yes. Miss Maahjabeen from now on.”
They both laugh, listening to the white noise of rain approaching from over the water. Others tumble inside, chatting and shaking their clothes dry. Life fills the bunker.
Pradeep is the first one back in the clean room. “Ah! You’re up!” He throws himself at Maahjabeen, only holding back at the last instant so he doesn’t tackle her. He holds her gently in his arms, kissing her face again and again.
Maahjabeen laughs, pushing at him, reveling in his passion. “I am. I think it is gone now, Mahbub.”
Alonso informs him, “She is just waking. And her strength is back. She nearly broke my hand.”
They all laugh more. Pradeep is flooded with relief and joy. Oh, paradise is not lost. He gets to return to it after all.
“Ehh, what is going on in here?” Esquibel backs into the clean room holding a stack of dripping tubs. She turns and sees her patient sitting up, bracketed by the two smiling men.
“She is back!” Alonso feels the little room is crowded now so he stands with effort, his knees balking and his feet groaning with pain. He hides a grimace and moves aside, edging toward the door slit. “And that medicine may just be why.”
“What medicine?”
Pradeep’s smile goes glassy. He supposes there’s no harm in telling the Doctor now. “I am sorry, Doctor. Jidadaa was here. About, uh, sixteen hours ago? And she gave me some leaves and stuff, like an herbal recipe, for me to give Maahjabeen. And it immediately improved her. Now, she is doing so well—”
But Esquibel can’t hear another word. “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think the doctor should maybe test this ‘medicine’ of hers? Do the words contra-indicated mean anything to you? Oh, my god. You could have killed her.”
Alonso reaches out. “Now now.”
But Pradeep flares. “She was dying anyway. And you had given up. She wasn’t on any other drugs to contra-indicate, Doctor.” When someone attacks Pradeep he normally shuts down but this is Maahjabeen she is talking about. The ferocity that he puts into her title startles all of them, including him.
“You do not know if I would have started administering drugs. It could have been very fast, during an emergency. You have to tell your doctor when you want to try a new—”
“And you wouldn’t have given the herbs to her! You would have taken them away for your bloody stupid tests while she drowned in her own…” Pradeep gestures vaguely, the remembered sensation of cold bubbling mud robbing him of his words. “She needed it immediately. And Jidadaa swore me to silence.”
Esquibel pushes Pradeep out of the way. “Give me room. Tell me. How do you feel, Maahjabeen?”
“Okay. Like I have run a marathon or two. But getting better. Don’t be angry with Pradeep. He did what—”
“Yes, I know. He is your own true love and this is all so special. You are some of the worst patients I have ever had, I swear! So insubordinate. It is ridiculous trying to keep you healthy under these conditions.” Esquibel takes the woman’s pulse and prompts her to open her mouth and stick out her tongue. It is still a bit gray.
“We appreciate everything you do, Doctor Daine.”
“And don’t you try that political bullshit with me, Doctor Alonso. You knew about this too? Was I the only one kept from…?”
“No no. It is the first I’ve heard. If I’d known you hadn’t ordered it I would have never given her the final dose.”
“You gave her some too? Ai! Please. This is appalling.” Esquibel finds her stethoscope and starts listening to Maahjabeen’s thoracic cavity. Still congested. Things still seem a bit turgid. But far better than they had been. Esquibel could hardly detect her breath the last time she listened in. “And what if it is coincidence? Or what if these herbs have side effects that do not show up for six years? You cannot just eat any plant in the forest. That is how people die of toxic shock and renal failure. Does that sound like fun?”
Maahjabeen only silently regards Esquibel. What a powerful figure the Doctor is. But sometimes she is tiresome. Can’t she see that Pradeep made the right choice? He saved her life. “It is only your pride talking now, Doctor Daine.”
“No it is not!” Esquibel slams her hand against one of the tubs and pulls a tablet free of the same pile that held her stethoscope. “You think we just operate without any medical procedures? No best practices developed over the last one hundred bloody years of modern medicine? Why can’t people just shut up and do what they are told for once? There is a very disturbing trend in the world these days. Nobody trusts an expert any more. There is a growing amount of foolishness here in this camp, where trained scientists are beginning to believe in some very silly things. But you don’t know. None of you do. This is how the bush people are. They have no power of their own so they must magnify it through voodoo and superstition. Only if you believe in it, can it harm you.”
“We didn’t believe in anything, Doctor.” Pradeep wishes she would just leave them alone. “But we still ended up with the faces of foxes on our tailbones and pits of muds inside.”
“Yes.” Maahjabeen clutches him. “That is exactly how it felt.”
“Poison, as I have said. Most likely injected by a pad of needles in the pattern of a fox face. Perhaps for some ritual reason. Ask Doctor Triquet. No. Listen. You allowed an untrained village girl to give you a folk remedy for a deadly condition. Why do you not understand how dangerous that is?”
“What would you have me do, when she is dying? What were you doing, eh? What big plans did you have to save her?”
“I was monitoring her.”
“Monitoring…” Pradeep lifts his hands and lets them fall. “Great. Thanks. So much. For all your efforts. You had no plan. Doctors never understand. If you were able to heal us we’d be happy to stay in your care. But when you run out of ideas we are forced to take greater risks, to trust those we wouldn’t otherwise trust. Without this medicine, Maahjabeen would have died. I am sure of it.”
“What makes you sure?” Esquibel pinches Maahjabeen’s toes. “You didn’t need any medicine, Pradeep. And you survived. You came back even more rapidly than she did. So what healed you?”
They all look at Pradeep. A sudden image of Wetchie-ghuy fills his vision. He recalls for the first time who really saved him, in the twilight space between life and death, and at what cost. A sob bursts from Pradeep and he covers his mouth with his hand.
“What is it, love?” Maahjabeen kisses his hand.
He looks up, eyes drained of hope. “I… I, uh…” He finds himself incapable of putting it all into words. “I’ve been… claimed.”
Esquibel breaks the silence with a snort. “Yes, this is the exact kind of nonsense I mean.”
Chapter 38 – Pollen’s Gold
September 24, 2024
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:
38 – Pollen’s Gold
On his way back from the trenches after lunch, Jay finds the path blocked by Jidadaa. Or, well, not blocking him so much as waiting for him. Great. He considers turning around and taking a different route to camp but that would be stupid. Childish.
“Oh. Hey, Jidadaa.”
“Hello, Jay.” She holds her hand out to shake his but he holds his own hands awkwardly away from her.
“Should wash up before, you know… heh.” He indicates the trenches behind him.
Jidadaa only nods and falls in beside him. Her voice is gentle. “Jay is not happy to see me.”
It’s not often Jay gets angry. When he does it’s an icy sharpness that he hates. He spits the words out. “No. I mean. That’s not it. I… I should really thank you. For getting my shoes back to me.”
Jidadaa stops and stares at him and he is reminded of how still she went when he grabbed her arm. Great. Now he’s triggering all her abuse. He wheels away.
“Auugh. I just wish you hadn’t stolen my shit!” He shouts it at the trees and a burst of songbirds wings away. Tiny. Dark-eyed juncos? This far north?
He looks back at her. Jidadaa is downcast, offering nothing.
“I just want my phone. You know? It’s got all my stuff on it.”
“Kula uses it.”
“Yeah I bet. Well. She will until the battery goes out. She know how to recharge it?”
Jidadaa only looks at him.
Jay lifts his hands. “What do you want from me, Jidadaa? You already took all my good shit. I got nothing left.”
Her gray eyes burn into him. He realizes her ferocity is back. “You are lidass. You are end of Lisica. I will help.”
“Yeah… I don’t really know what that’s all about, sister.” He shakes his head, sad. “I mean, I kind of get it. I’d be pretty pissed off at the world if I was you too. Revenge tour 2000 for sure. But I’m not him. You think I’m gonna do some like apocalyptic shit and the whole island burns and everyone pays for what they did to you but that just isn’t happening, dude. The worst you’re probably looking at is some lawyers and developers showing up in a year or so and locking up all the island resources. Which, I mean, yeah, it could get pretty dire, but…”
“Jay is new. They are old.”
“Okay cool but what does that even mean? You think I’m gonna like show up and burn them out Far Cry style? Declare war against three villages? Just you and me and a sharp rock on a stick?”
“No. Not against villages. The old is the… the argument. Struggle between Wetchie-ghuy and the other.”
“The other. Right. Shaman on shaman violence. What’s his name, anyway?”
“We do not know name. We do not know if man or woman or both. We only call them…” Jidadaa leans forward with sincere confidentiality, whispering: “Daadaxáats’. Means skies are clear.”
“And you’re saying you want me to go to war against them?”
“I help.”
Jay laughs. “Uh, both of them? Is one worse than the other?”
“Both bad.”
“And what am I supposed to do, kill them?” He laughs, this hypothetical getting a little too absurd, even for him.
She makes a decisive gesture. “Stop the argument.”
“Oh, so I can just convince them? Just invite them to a chillout sesh and get them to bro down together and smoke a peace pipe?”
“No. I think we kill them.”
Jay laughs again. “Uhh. Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that’s against all our Star Trek laws. I’m not supposed to kill anybody here.”
“I help.”
“Jidadaa.” Jay lifts his hands to grab her by the shoulders but he stops a half-pace away as she stiffens. He slumps. “Look. We got a lot of smart people here with us. Let’s bring it up with the whole crew and see if we can get some different ideas here. Things that don’t involve capping anyone’s ass. Deal?”
Jidadaa nods. “Yes. They are all in argument too. Sometimes you get to say things when it is your own life.”
“Yeah, but only sometimes. Okay. Good. Cause I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m supposed to do with you.”
Ξ
“…and I’m as celibate as a nun for five years. Don’t even think about sex. Just obsess over my long-lost husband. Then I finally have him back for like three weeks and next thing I’m shagging the junior professors like—like some old hag!”
Amy nods in sympathy. They’re in the sea cave, coated in mud. Miriam has dug a series of sandy trenches in different geological contexts here: one by the base of the falls, one at the stone shelf by the collapsed pier, and this one in the side of the tunnel that leads in where the wall is a crumbly gray clay. Amy scrapes with her trowel at the aggregate of sand and gravel, collecting some in a repurposed sock. “Yeah yeah yeah. You’re a bad wife. So how was it? I bet Triquet was pretty hot in bed.”
“The hottest! That’s the thing. I feel… It’s almost… Youth is so soft, so sweet, so erotic. And I’m not young. It’s cheating. It’s not fair. It’s inherently unbalanced. It’s like I’m skipping the main course and just eating dessert. And poor Triquet. They’re stuck with… my dusty biscuits and weak tea.”
They laugh, leaning against each other. “Oh, I don’t know. Triquet obviously has a thing for ancient history. What does Alonso think? Wait. Let me guess.”
“It’s the orgy he always wanted.”
“Of course. And Triquet?”
“They adore Alonso. Lionize him.”
“And you love them both?”
“Do I love Triquet? Well, they are absolutely worthy of love. I’m just moving a little slower than that. Maybe that’s it. It’s all just going so fast. I’m a fucking geologist, Ames. The only timescales I understand last hundreds of millions of years.”
“Are you… maybe… afraid to share?”
Miriam stops, a pretty little frown on her face. She brushes back a loose curl and leaves a stripe of gray mud on her cheek. “Ooo, Amy coming in with the deep cuts. Share? Which?”
“I don’t know. Either. Both. Maybe you’re afraid, or you can sense, that it’s not a good idea. I mean, if things went south… here on this island where we can’t even get away from each other. Maybe it’s just your old hag wisdom kicking in. Leave the fireworks for after, when we’re all decompressing on the mainland.”
“Perhaps. Nobody’s in any hurry. And Alonso’s got enough on his plate. I don’t know. Thanks for letting me say it all out loud. You know, all those years he was gone I kept telling myself not to let it change me and to maintain my inner balance and all that crap. But it does change you, no matter how hard you try. And then, when this phase hits and you’re able to let go of it all… That’s when you realize how much there is to release! Maybe that’s why sex with Triquet was so important. It’s transformative sex. And with Alonso it’s, well, these days it’s like healing love. I guess I’m not sure how to mix those two.”
“It sounds like sex with Triquet is for you and sex with Alonso is for him.” Amy grimaces in the dark. That came out harsher than intended.
“No… I mean, yes sex with Triquet was about me. For sure. But sex with Alonso isn’t just for him. You know how he is. He’d never allow that. Sex with Alonso is always for both of us. For our future together and like building the rest of our doddering lives.”
“Yeah. But that’s not very erotic. I’ve heard there’s two types of sex, and they each activate different reward centers in the brain. One is promiscuous sex, or sex that has an element of risk or danger or novelty to it. This excites our adrenal glands and we get addicted to the adrenaline high just like with anything thrilling. But the other type is emotional sex with longterm partners. And this releases oxytocin, the same hormone that nursing mothers and babies get hooked on. It’s basically a choose-your-addiction type deal. Lucky Miriam. She’s getting both highs at once.”
“And what about you, Ames? Hmm? Anybody climbing into your bag at night?”
“Heh. Me? Never. I mean, who would? The kids are… I mean, they’ve all said nice things to me. I’ve come out to a few of them. But, no… To them I’m still just little Auntie Amy and I’m happy to keep it that way.”
“Are you?” Miriam gooses Amy and she squeals.
“Who’s that?” Amy turns away from their work in the tunnel to peer further down its length. She hears voices.
Katrina and Mandy emerge from the darkness, faces drawn with worry. When Mandy sees them, her eyes light up. “Amy! Is Flavia with you?”
“Flavia? No. Just me and Miriam. Didn’t she go with you?”
“Yes! But we lost her! She disappeared at the top of the cliff! We’ve looked everywhere! The villagers couldn’t help us. We saw your light and thought maybe you were her.”
“No. We haven’t seen her.” Miriam leans out, studying the two young women. “What do you mean disappeared?”
“At the top of the cliff, the trail down was too much for her.” Katrina says. “I should have stayed with them but I got a chance to interview Yesiniy and I let them go without me. So so stupid.”
“It isn’t your fault.” Mandy is hoarse from all the calling out. “It’s mine. She was my responsibility.”
“Mandy…” Amy recognizes the guilt in the young woman’s voice. Best to head it off before it consumes her. “You couldn’t—”
But Mandy waves her kindness away. “I just left her! All alone at the top of the cliff! How is that not my fault?”
Katrina interrupts: “The villagers think it was Wetchie-ghuy.”
“Oh my god.” Amy claps a hand over her mouth. “That rotten little fink. He’s just been waiting…!”
“It’s really my fault and I am so so sorry…” Katrina turns away. “Now we have to make sure she didn’t go back to camp but… I mean, how long have you been down here?”
“Half an hour? More?” Miriam looks at her phone. It is 2pm.
“Yeh, she’s been missing for hours. You would have seen her.”
“Oh, not again…” Miriam groans and rests her forehead against the rough stone of the tunnel wall. “Alright. Let’s go tell everyone and do what we can to get her back.”
Amy scowls at the darkness above them. “Fucking Wetchie-ghuy.” She doesn’t have much of a temper. But the few times she has ever lost it, those brief moments when she has accessed all her rage have terrified her. With wonder she regards her trembling hands. She hopes she doesn’t find Wetchie-ghuy alone somewhere. She isn’t sure she can guarantee his physical safety.
Ξ
A tendril of smoke curls upward from the windless canyon below. Blue gray. Everything is blue and gray. The nearby hillsides hold clumps of blueish brush against gray grass. And the sky. The sky is the essence of gray. There is no break in it.
Triquet can’t even tell where the sun is.
Their head drops back to level with a loose jolt. Nausea washes through them and they sway, putting a hand onto the cold ground to steady themself. Hoo child. Slow down there, partner. Hoo. With gulping breaths of the cool air they beat the nausea back. Wasn’t that a party. The words echo again and again in their mind, the letters of the phrase rotating in glittering light, holding their attention for who knows how long. Wasn’t. That. A. Party.
Something is combusting of fire and heat down below. And those ionized molecules are pushing straight up through airspace in a stream of ash and soot. Smoke. It wavers and Triquet does too.
The shaman appears. Not Wetchie-ghuy, the other one, waddling up the hillside from the location of the smoke toward Triquet’s feet. Kneeling with a grunt, their dark goblin face is creased by a self-satisfied smile. They struggle with Triquet’s left shoe, finally taking out a stone knife and slicing through the laces.
Triquet can only watch.
The shaman peels Triquet’s sock off and scrubs their foot with a wet rag. Then they dip a bone needle in watery ichor and carefully tattoo black dots between each of Triquet’s toes.
Triquet feels nothing. Their mind is empty. Empty as smoke.
A massive bird sails toward the two figures perched on the hilltop from across the sky. The shaman stands, squinting, muttering under their breath. A dead mouse appears in their hand, held by the tail. The bird lands, snapping the mouse up.
The shaman screeches and wheezes interrogatively at the dark bird. Sea eagle. The words run through Triquet’s mind. Sea… Eagle… They’ve never seen one so close. It’s enormous.
The eagle screeches back, as if they’re having a dispute.
The shaman scowls and turns away, studying the horizon. They lift a hand to the air and bare the inside of their wrist to the sky. They close their eyes and stand still. Triquet watches. Only the eagle moves, hopping close to the shaman’s captive.
The eagle pecks at Triquet’s shoulder and the beak’s edge slices neatly through their shirt-sleeve and opens the skin of their left shoulder. The pain divides the fog within them and Triquet yelps. In an instant they return to themself, blinking away the dissociative smoke that had ensorcelled them. “Ow. Back off, bird. I ain’t dead yet.” Triquet claps a hand to their bloody shoulder. They look around. “Where are we?” They stand and approach the shaman, who has lowered their hand and is grumbling again. “What have you done to me?”
The shaman pulls a hand from a pouch at their belt and speaks a pair of unintelligible words that sound an awful lot like, ‘Oh, shut up.” The shaman lifts their hand and blows a bluish gray powder into Triquet’s face.
Staring at the dark ceiling of the bunker, lying on their cot in their cell, Triquet has no memory of intervening time. Whoa. They were just at the shaman’s side, like six heartbeats ago. Their eagle had just bitten them. It had just broken the spell. And now they’re all the way back in the dark bunker. How…?
Triquet reaches for the eagle’s wound. It is rough and swollen, red and painful. Infected? Already? No… the texture of the skin is different. “Doctor…?” Triquet finds speaking painful and their voice is hoarse. They sit up. Yes, it’s night. Triquet removes their phone and stares at the screen. 10:12 pm. “Doctor Daine?”
The details of their time with the shaman are already slipping away. How long were they sitting on that hill lost in la-la land? How long have they been gone?
“Yes?” Esquibel appears in Triquet’s door.
“I’m back.” Triquet nearly weeps with relief.
“Good. You missed dinner.” Esquibel turns in the door to leave, preoccupied with her own work.
“I… I’m hurt.”
Now Esquibel catches the roughness in Triquet’s voice. She peers more closely at the archaeologist in the dim light. Yes, they don’t look well. “Hurt? What is it?” Triquet uncovers the eagle’s wound and Esquibel recoils. “Dear god. What is that?”
“A bird bit me. An osprey. Couldn’t recall… the name…”
“You need to come to the clean room. That is not a bite. What did you do to it? Mandy!”
Once Mandy arrives, the two women are able to help Triquet to the clean room and the cot that is still warm from Mandy’s use.
“How long have I been gone?” The bite is now a searing burn on their shoulder. Triquet lifts a protective hand to it but Esquibel pushes it away, inspecting the site with a light and tweezers.
“What is that black stuff?” she demands, picking at it.
“Black stuff?” Triquet cranes their neck to see the wound better. “It’s burning me.”
“Yes, your skin is very angry. Ah. There is the incision. That is what you are saying is a bite? It is quite long…”
“Osprey. Do they carry diseases? Where’s the—? Get the biologists in here. No. Seriously. How long have I been gone?”
Mandy just shakes her head. “Uh… I mean, we saw you for breakfast. Then you went somewhere. Down into the sub maybe?”
“And that was all today?” Triquet stiffens, their logical sense of time challenged. “There’s got to be a way…”
“This tar or whatever it is…” Esquibel pulls back from Triquet’s arm and makes a face. “It is cauterizing your wound. There seems to be a chemical reaction happening. A burning of the skin.”
“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you!” Triquet snaps. “What do you mean, cauterized? Does that mean it’s clean?”
“I do not know, maybe if it is antibiotic or antiviral. Perhaps with some tests. But your arm is a mess. I am not sure how to get that stuff off without hurting you even more.”
“I just don’t want an infection. And I’d rather not have a huge ugly scar. But if the tar is keeping the wound clean, then…”
“I do not know. Who did this to you?”
“The osprey’s owner.”
Esquibel and Mandy share a perplexed glance. Has Triquet lost their mind?
Triquet sees it and realizes they have just a few moments left to convince these two of their sanity. “No no. I know it sounds crazy. Just.” They emit a short explosive sigh and collect their thoughts. “Sorry. I was attacked. Kidnapped. Drugged.”
Mandy gasps. “You were? Who? Wetchie-ghuy?”
Esquibel hisses in fury and redoubles her efforts, giving Triquet a much closer exam. “Are you okay?”
“That’s what I’m… I don’t know. I don’t know how I am. The drugs, I mean, it just turned me into this totally passive victim. Like they didn’t even need to bind me. No. It wasn’t Wetchie-ghuy. There’s another.”
“That’s what Jidadaa was saying last night. Two shamans locked in battle. Using the rest of us as bait and sacrifices and unwitting soldiers in their war.” Mandy shakes her head. “Creepy.”
“What happened to your shoe?” Esquibel lifts Triquet’s left foot, so they can all see the sliced laces.
“The shaman did that. And then they… Right! They tattooed dots on my foot! Oh my god, you got to look…!”
Esquibel removes Triquet’s shoe and sock and looks at their pale foot. “Where…?”
“Dots between my toes. You can’t see them?” Triquet sits up and pushes Esquibel’s hands away. There, as tiny as pinpricks, the faint black marks are fading into their skin. “You see? All four in a row? Between the toes for—for who knows why!”
“I don’t see any marks, Triquet.” Esquibel shines her phone’s light onto Triquet’s foot.
Triquet look again. Now the dots are gone, vanished inside their foot. “Heavens to Betsy. Well now that isn’t good.”
“Are you… sure all of this is what happened?” Esquibel sits back, regarding Triquet with her unreadable professional mask. “The shaman, the bird, the drugs? Or maybe you fell and hit your head and this wound and tar came from a tree you fell against?”
“I’m sure of nothing. I can only tell you what I saw and felt and, and remember. I remember this greasy little golem laughing at me, with all these little bones and twigs in their ratty hair. Old. Like probably sixties. No gender. Skin like fucking leather. I mean, if it was all a hallucination it was really clear.”
Esquibel shakes her head in disapproval. “This is non-viable. First Flavia and now Triquet. I think it is time…” she decides, “for another camp security meeting.”
Triquet and Mandy would have groaned—even a few minutes ago—at this news. But now, they just share a pensive look and say not a word.
Ξ
It is nearly midnight before they get everyone congregated in the clean room around Maahjabeen on the cot. Pradeep sits at her side, his hand gripping her slack wrist. She stares at him, dull and nearly unresponsive.
Finally Alonso arrives, having detoured to fill his wine glass to the brim. This will not be a short meeting. “Everyone here?”
“Everyone but Flavia,” Mandy answers, bitter.
“Of course. That is what…” Alonso takes in all their frightened, tired faces. “Yes. Not so much of a paradise now, eh, is it? I am very sorry to you all.”
“Where’s Jidadaa?” Katrina wonders. “We could use her here.”
Amy puts out a calming hand. “It may be too much for her, poor thing. She’s probably never been in a room with so many people in her life. But… where is she?”
Katrina shrugs. “I didn’t see her after dinner.”
“So…” Alonso frowns. “Do we now say that two are missing?”
“No. No way.” Jay’s voice rises above all the rest. “She can come and go as she pleases. Just, like… check your pockets. She takes whatever she wants without even asking.”
“The innocent savage?” Amy clucks in disapproval. “Jay, you sound like Rousseau.”
“Innocent? Ha! She knows what she’s doing. She just doesn’t care.” Jay glares, sullen. He knows he’s the lone voice against rolling out the red carpet for Jidadaa here. Well. They’ll learn.
“I have misplaced a USB stick,” Katrina mutters. “Classic black thumb drive. Let me know if anyone’s seen it.”
Jay throws up his hands. “She’s already getting started.”
Esquibel shushes them. “Please. No arguments over my patient. We finally got her to stabilize.”
“The sign of the fox.” Miriam places a hand on Maahjabeen’s forehead. It is clammy. “Same place and everything? Right at the base of the spine?”
Pradeep nods, head bowed. I do not have the strength for this. It is the only refrain going round and round in his head, like a pop song’s chorus. He is helpless, useless, and teetering at the edge of his own panic. He is no less a control freak than Mandy and he can’t imagine a situation where he’d be under less control. This is intolerable. Impossible. I do not have the strength for this. He remembers the pit of cold gray mud in his vitals. Now his beloved Maahjabeen struggles with it, and there’s nothing he can do.
Esquibel straightens, an invisible military mantle settling over her. “We are under attack. It is impossible to deny any longer.”
Alonso nods, thoughtful. Everyone else remains silent, some saving their arguing for whatever draconian measures Esquibel is about to announce.
“As one of the recent victims, I have to agree.” Triquet is careful not to use their injured arm. The tea they sip rises in an unsteady grip. “This second shaman… I mean… they need a name, people, right? We can’t just keep talking around it. I say they’re Sherman. Sherman the non-binary shaman, okay? Wetchie-ghuy versus Sherman. And they’ve evidently both known we’ve been here for weeks and they’ve been watching us, trying to steal one or two of us away and,” they gesture at Maahjabeen, “straight-up attacking us when they want. I mean, I have no illusions about Sherman’s plans for me. These weird tattoos on my feet were just the start. Slavery, right? That’s what we keep hearing?” Triquet shivers. “And I don’t even remember how they nabbed me. I just stepped through the dark hatch in the sub and… and the next thing I knew I was staring at a valley at sunset, somewhere in the interior. And I couldn’t move or think. It was horrible.”
“Nobody goes anywhere alone.” Esquibel holds up a finger. “I think we can agree on that, yes?”
Miriam nods. “I think that’s sensible.”
Pradeep shrugs, needing them to understand how hopeless it is. “I mean, Maahjabeen and I were together when we were both attacked. Somehow in our sleep? I have to say, it feels very much like this, this Sherman, is coming at us in our dreams.”
“Slow down. Hold on.” Alonso pats the air.
Esquibel scowls. “Wait. I would very much appreciate if we can keep this subject rational and logical, please. That is an interesting observation about your subjective experience with this toxin, but as an objective piece of the puzzle to help solve these mysteries, it is just nonsense. You do understand that, right?”
Pradeep shrugs. They don’t understand. He can’t make them understand. This Sherman figure is slowly sucking the life out of them, one by one.
“So they’re the one we saw up in the tree feeding the osprey?” Jay asks Triquet. “You say this dude fed the osprey a dead mouse before it bit you? Same as our guy, right, Prad?”
Pradeep nods again. “I do want to get out and try that climb again. Just not now. I can’t believe the handholds go all the way up to the crown. That would be some kind of bizarre miracle, a fire that can burn away a tree’s entire heartwood and yet it still lives.”
“That sounds like a dangerous kind of mission.” Alonso shakes his head in negation. “Not the kind of thing we should be doing right now, mi amigos. Even as a pair.”
“Yes, my next proposal is that we do not leave the beach. Ever.” Esquibel looks at each of their faces, expecting the fight to come now. But Triquet’s account has sobered them all.
“So who has Flavia?” Katrina makes a note in her laptop. “We can assume it was Sherman for Doctor Triquet, as well as Pradeep and Maahjabeen. But why did Sherman the shaman kidnap one and try to poison the others?”
Pradeep groans and buries his face in Maahjabeen’s listless arms.
“So does that mean Wetchie-ghuy has Flavia? We know he’s been trying. Or… here’s a…” Katrina flashes a quirky smile. “Just thinking outside the box here. But when these two got poisoned it’s an unmistakable fox head tattooed on their backs, yeh? And, I mean, the only one we know who has a fox on the whole island is Morska Vidra. Maybe he’s the one, he’s behind it all, and the rest of it is all classic misdirection.”
“Uhh, I can assure you,” Triquet sniffs, “that Sherman and his fucking bird were not any kind of misdirection, nor was Wetchie-ghuy assaulting me after watching me wee a couple weeks ago. Remember that? No, I think Morska Vidra and the Dzaadzitch villagers are just trying to stay out of the fight and keep the peace.”
“Okay, okay…” Katrina allows. “I just… so far… Nothing’s been as it seems here. So I’m trying to get ahead of it. See what’s coming down the pike before it gets here for once. Trying to be active instead of reactive here. That’s good tactics, yeh, Doctor Daine?”
“It is. But it doesn’t matter how active we are because we have no offensive capability. That is the problem. We hardly even have anything for defense. It would be nearly impossible to make the bunker secure, for example. Especially if they’re using things like smoke and dust and other inhalants as intoxicants and paralyzing agents. Perhaps we hole up in the sub, seal off the hull breach as I tried to do before, and only come up in small squads for food and bathroom breaks.”
“For, like,” Mandy consults her phone, “twenty-four days? We’ve got to live like that for twenty-four days before they come get us?”
This dissent comes from an unexpected quarter. Esquibel frowns at Mandy. “Or…? I am happy to hear your ideas instead on how to survive getting poisoned or kidnapped.”
“I don’t know. This is just like playground politics as far as I can tell. My Aunt Nancy is a fourth-grade teacher. She says it doesn’t matter how bad the fight is, eventually everybody’s got to talk to each other. Maybe we should try talking to them.”
“The shamans…?” Miriam considers. “Well, first we’d have to find them.”
“Oh, I think I know where Wetchie-ghuy lives.” Amy frowns. “Or at least the path to get there. Let’s do it. In the morning. Like six of us, brandishing fishing spears.”
This is so uncharacteristic of Amy that Alonso frowns. If even Amy is starting to lose her cool then this situation is getting out of hand. “No. No… We can’t. It is too fragile here. This is like Israel/Palestine or whatever. We can’t just show up and start making demands. The whole thing could blow up.”
“Blow up?” Amy stands, hands on hips. “What could be worse than losing Flavia, not once but twice on an eight week project?”
“Inter-village warfare.” Alonso holds her irate gaze.
Amy finally drops her eyes, nodding. “Yes. Okay. Maybe not brandishing spears and making demands. But Mandy’s right. We’ve got to talk to these fuckers. See what they want from us. Maybe there’s a way they get what they need without…” Amy gestures vaguely at the group.
“Enslaving us?” Esquibel finishes for her. “I doubt that. Katrina is right. We need Jidadaa here to answer all these questions. We need to find her before we do anything else. But nobody goes anywhere without, say… Here. Let us do it this way. Everyone gets a partner. We go out in two teams of two. Each team member stays in visual range but not ever close enough to each other to inhale a cloud of smoke or dust. So…”
“I think that might be a little much,” Alonso amends. “But everyone absolutely has to be careful.”
“Two teams of two,” Esquibel stubbornly maintains. “Flavia is gone. Maahjabeen is fighting for her life. Triquet and Pradeep have been attacked.”
“Okay. Okay. Two teams of two. Everyone listen to Lieutenant Commander Daine now.” Alonso stands and drains his glass. “We are all sleeping in here tonight. Should we set watches?”
“Yes. So partner up. Maahjabeen is with Pradeep.” Esquibel encourages the others to name who they want.
“Miriam and Triquet.” Alonso pushes the two of them together. He throws his arm around Amy. “Right, partner?”
Katrina looks right through Mandy. “Jay, you my homeboy.”
He flashes her a peace sign. “Forever and a day, sister.”
Mandy squeezes Esquibel’s arm. “You and me, Skeeb.”
Esquibel nods, satisfied with their choices. “Now don’t ever go anywhere without your partner. The threats are too bad. And while we move everyone in from outside let’s have a couple people just on watch, at the edge of the perimeter with lights. Perhaps we even keep a watch throughout the night.”
“Every night?” Mandy again. Why is she contradicting so many of Esquibel’s orders? “Ugh. How long are these watches?”
“Usually two hours. We take turns and if you see anything at all strange or threatening you scream loud enough to wake everyone. One of the only things we have is our strength in numbers. So we must use it. Prepare to spend a lot more time together in close contact. I am sorry. This is… not how this mission was meant to go, but I can assure you there isn’t a single command unit anywhere in the world who knows a thing about the dispute between these two island medicine men. Nor would they care. So this is our fight. Ours alone. But if we are careful then we can…”
A noise at the bunker’s door. They all fall into a tense silence. A soft voice calls out, “Hello? Yes?”
“Jidadaa!” Katrina bounds to her feet and slips out of the plastic enclosure. “Where have you been?”
“Through tunnel. Ah. I make enemy.” Her voice is sad, fatigued.
Now they all file in a rush out of the clean room. Jidadaa is in the bunker’s door, mud-streaked, leaning against the frame. Katrina wants to pull her into a hug but she knows better. Her hands flutter at her sides instead. “Enemy? What enemy?”
“Wetchie-ghuy.” Jidadaa moves out of the doorway into the bunker, pulling Flavia after her from the darkness.
Ξ
It is the middle of the night and there is a wire cutting into Alonso’s back. He cannot shift or it will wake his cellmate, and if that man wakes then the rats will stir, and then no one will sleep. Alonso must remain still and accept the pain of the wire cutting into his back so the rats do not come. Pain is life.
He can hear the men stirring in the next building. The hour must be later than he thought. The rats have already come and gone and the torturer is here again. His crude joke and the deferential laughter of the guards splits the silence. Laughter greets anything he says. They’ve seen what this bastard can do with a pair of tongs.
Alonso must move. Quietly. Slowly. Do not rouse the prisoner pressed up against him. Just work on tensing your core and arching your back to get it off that wire. Only this one cot in this one cell has this wire across it. Its particular pain is what places him here. Otherwise, in the dark, he wouldn’t know where he is.
These are the most hopeless hours, in the pre-dawn of a winter morning, just waiting to be perfunctorily brutalized. But why do the torturers do it? They don’t even interrogate Alonso any more. Is it just to keep their skills up? Show each other new techniques? Train the new guy on the team? The soul-crushing reason why they really do it is impossible to ignore: they enjoy it. These men are sadists. They can’t get enough of Alonso’s blood and screams and tears. It is the unfortunate way of the world.
This Earth is a terrible Earth. Alonso can prove it from primary sources in the historical record. Over the decades he has taken part in many excavations of ancient burial sites, in Europe and Central Asia and North Africa. He has seen thousands of broken bones, pierced skulls, smashed digits. Crime scenes from eons ago, just uncovered now. The three youths they found in Cappadocia will always haunt him. Nearly three thousand years before they had been buried alive up to their necks and left to die of exposure. As he brushed the dirt from their bones he couldn’t help but relive their panic and despair. What a horrible way to die.
Using this remembered claustrophobia to collect his meager strength, Alonso heaves and lifts himself from the wire cutting into his back. He slides away from the man lying across him and tries to settle into a more comfortable position. But no. There is a wooden bar here, pressing his left shoulder down. Where did that come from? There was never any wooden bar in this cell. In any cell. They couldn’t leave such a useful bit of lumber. The prisoners would kill each other with it, or the guards.
Can Alonso hide it somewhere? His hand sneaks up and grasps it. The squared edges of the bar are wrapped in taut nylon. Now there is nylon? What horrors do they have planned for him today?
He runs his hand over it more carefully. Wait. This is a new cot. The wooden bar is part of a frame. The nylon is its webbing. He just shifted to the edge. But they never get new cots.
Alonso opens his eyes. Dark squares and trapezoids float above him. Ah. He is not in the gulag. He is in the bunker on Lisica. That is not a torture victim lying sprawled across him, it is Miriam.
His adrenaline quickly spent, he falls back in on himself. Yes, he is on Lisica and it is proving to be no less terrifying than the gulag of the Altai Mountains. And once again, it is all his fault. He got Charlie and Nadya killed in that border town and he’s about to get more people killed here. What the fuck is wrong with him?
Perhaps it is all the law of averages catching up to him. His first fifty years were so wonderful, so sweet and magical. Success had come so easily to him. He had that aura, that wonderful ability to charm everyone in a room without opening his mouth. And all the doors were so easily opened. He stayed right at the leading edge of data science and all its fresh discoveries, making him a rising star in several fields. He presented at a score of conferences every year and spent too many nights in a drunken fraternal haze with all the great minds of the world, outlining the new paradigms of processes and informatics. Ahh. What a lovely time that was. A lovely life. Now he has been relegated to something less charmed, more beleaguered, and far more realistic than the fairy tale he had lived.
At least he gets to keep Miriam through the transition. Or does he? After the first few days here where they were each other’s sun and stars, her eye has already strayed and he is old news. Well, of course he is. Look at him. He is a sagging fat mess, crippled beyond repair. Gray inside and out. Who would ever desire that?
Pity. It must be little more than pity that keeps her coming back to him. Yes, she smiles just like she used to, but what must be going on in her mind? Miriam loves beauty as much as he does. But now she is the only one who has any. Oh, what a nightmare. She would be far better off if he would just die. Disappear without a trace and die, that is what would be best. Not only best for her but for all of them. It is his damn obsession with Plexity that makes them put themselves in harm’s way each day. Remove Alonso and perhaps the rest can actually save themselves…
Alonso slides out from under Miriam and gets dressed in the cold morning air. Maybe he will just walk into the sea. That would be suitable. He could gain one more moment of painless bliss before succumbing to the waters. They could bury him next to that old woman in the redwoods and get on with their lives.
“Hey.” His hand is on the bunker door and the voice startles him. Another hand, as familiar as any he has ever known, falls on his. It is Amy. “Remember. We’re not supposed to go anywhere alone, partner.”
“Why are you awake?” Now what is Alonso going to do?
“Counting sheep. I heard you groan. Bad dreams?”
“I…” He shakes his head, unable to lie to Amy. “I just need the trenches and I didn’t want to…”
“Esquibel will dice us into bloody squares if we disobey any more of her orders.”
But this image is uncomfortably close to things Alonso actually witnessed in the gulag and he grimaces. “Where are my sandals?”
“Hold on. I’ll help you with them. Let me just get mine on first.”
Then Amy is kneeling before him, forcing his swollen feet into the loose straps. Alonso grunts, trying to figure out a way he could still vanish from this scene and abandon all his impossibly heavy responsibilities once and for all.
They open the door and shuffle out into the frigid night, a thick fog obscuring the camp. Only after they close the door behind them does Amy turn on her phone’s light. They can see no more than three meters ahead.
Amy giggles. “Groovy. This can’t go wrong at all, can it?”
Alonso sees that Amy carries one of their fishing spears. “What will you do with that? Tickle someone?”
“If they get too close, I will.”
“Amy… Amy… I have not seen this side of you, maybe ever. I did not expect you to be so…”
“Violent? Angry? Shades of my past haunting me, for sure. You know, violence is never the answer, Alonso. Until it is.”
“Yes, I have heard this phrase. And it is true the world is a very violent place. I have the scars to prove it.” He grips her muscled forearm. “But what if they would take a sacrifice instead? What if we do not fight and we give them the slave they so desperately want? Perhaps if I offer myself that could…” Alonso trails off, stopped by the look Amy gives him.
“Are you serious? Listen to yourself, Alonso. That’s not even… coherent. And I don’t like the way your thoughts are headed. I…”
But Amy stops. There is a figure in their path.
It is so expected that it hardly surprises them. Yes, the Lisicans are everywhere now, crawling out of every hole and casting them in their comedies and tragedies. Alonso idly considers, not for the first time, that it would all make for a great opera.
They do not recognize this figure. This one is slight, youthful, with bare narrow arms and an oblong mask covering their face.
When Amy’s light hits the mask it glitters with pollen’s gold.
Chapter 37 – Wetchie-Ghuy
September 9, 2024
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:
37 – Wetchie-Ghuy
“There he is. Hey, guess what?” Katrina comes upon Alonso in the morning on the beach. He is standing bare-chested at the edge of the water, looking out, idly running his fingers through his chest hair in a vulnerable moment of introspection.
He only slowly breaks his reverie and turns back to her. His eyes are still cloudy with thought and his smile is distracted.
“I said, ‘guess what?’ Alonso.”
“Eh, yes? Time for a guessing game?”
“The dam has broke! The secrets are out! All the mysteries have been revealed! Well. Not all of them, but… I’ve been talking with Jidadaa all night and this morning and boy do I have a lot of news. Just endless revelations. But the single most fascinating thing she told me? The island doesn’t have music, it’s true. It’s because the two sisters who founded the island didn’t like music. They came from, well, it must have been one of the old Eyat villages on the Alaska coast. And when they got here they just never passed music down. No songs, no melodies. In all this time Jidadaa is the only one. She had music introduced to her by whatever soldier was with her mother at the time. She sings. They were a shipwreck, like over two hundred years ago. They’ve had fourteen generations, maybe fifteen, depending on if any of her peers have had kids, which she doesn’t know because she’s been in hiding her entire life. Sorry. Babbling now. There was a lot! She is utterly fascinating. I’ve never met someone whose brain works like hers. She got her own… I mean, she says Kula told her when she was little that she would have to teach herself about the world. So Jidadaa built her own way of handling reality from the ground up. I mean, she has whole different ways to access memory and reason and… and everything! This is when the team really needs to have a trained psychiatrist or neurologist on board because wow. This girl is… sui generis.”
“Two hundred years… without music…” Alonso shakes his head, doleful. “Now that is my idea of hell. No. Purgatory. This would be a cold gray purgatory for me if I could not live with my music.”
“Absolutely. Could you imagine? My whole life has a soundtrack. I don’t know who I’d be without it.”
“Forgive me, Katrina, but I have been swimming naked and I was just about to take these things off. So I hope you are aware of European bathing traditions down in Australia.”
“Yeh, get your knickers off. I don’t care. But can you even tell how excited I am? I haven’t slept all night. Jidadaa is a treasure.”
“Yes, Katrina. You’re very excited.” Alonso strips his sweatpants off and steps out of them. His skin is pale beneath, with dark black hairs curling against the backs of his thighs. A single long purple stripe of scar tissue runs down his left hamstring. Several dark indentations on his calves look like puncture wounds. He shivers, then shuffles into the sea. As soon as he can he pushes off and breast strokes out past the tiny waves. He elongates his gasp of cold shock into the opening lines of Carmina Burana. “Ooooo Fortuna, velut Luna…!”
Katrina pulls her tights up to her knees and wades out. “So we should have like a full team session here sometime today because I’ve got a lot of answers for our questions. And some really trippy, creepy stuff too. Things they shouldn’t know about us but they already do. Like, somehow she could tell that Flavia was marked by Wetchie-ghuy for slavery. Said Pradeep was too, which I don’t understand at all. Says Wetchie-ghuy is locked in a mortal duel with the other like big shaman on the island. The rest of us are just pawns in their big game, according to her. And Kula has kept herself alive playing one off against the other since she’s been outcast. I mean, there’s just a ton of stuff here.”
Alonso paddles a slow circle before her. The cold is more than bracing. Miriam was right. But if he can just get his old heart going maybe he can warm up and stay out here longer this time. Because the release of pain in his feet and legs and hips and back is better than any drug, better than any sex or meal or even Mozart opera. It is bliss hanging suspended here. Pure bliss.
“She says we’re totally right about the Katóok village. They really are out to kill us if we trespass on their land. But they’re only in a couple big valleys in the center of the island and we should be able to avoid them. But yeh, there’s a third village we haven’t seen. She says she’s never seen it either. But it’s over, well, her guess is it’s on the west side of the island and she doesn’t really know anything about them. Because none of them talk to each other. There’s no trade or intermarrying or anything. No contact if they can all help it. Part of the duel between the shamans, and how they manipulate the villagers, but also she said it’s because of Jidadaa.”
“It is because of her?”
“That’s what I thought she meant at first too. But no. Jidadaa isn’t a name. It’s a word that means some horrible end is going to come for you because you violated the ancient customs and pissed off the ancestors. And it can take whole generations to play out. So somebody broke some old law like a hundred years ago and it was so bad nobody’s spoken to each other since.”
“Hold on. I am going to try to put my head underwater. But I don’t want to miss what you are saying. That is crazy. The woman named her daughter The Apocalypse.”
“Basically.” But Alonso has disappeared from view. Katrina should have brought him her snorkel and mask. Although it probably wouldn’t fit. His head is so freaking wide. And she is still just a little girl. Like Jidadaa. When they asked her how old she was she didn’t know. Jay guesses she’s like twenty. Katrina thinks she’s younger and that life has just been hard.
Alonso emerges with a gasp. He had stayed down in that emerald kingdom beneath the waves as long as he could. Expecting silence, the slap of waves against nearby rocks and the click and buzz of the creatures in the kelp and on the reefs surprised him. Why, it is as common as birdsong up here above. Life is truly everywhere. A familiar conviction fills him: Plexity is a necessity!
Once he surfaces, Katrina continues. “I figure we should try to get Kula out of there. She’s like hemmed in, it sounds like. Maybe we can get Esquibel to do a wellness check or something. I don’t know. I feel so bad for them. It’s amazing how sweet Jidadaa is after the childhood she had.”
“Ask her if she knows how to swim. This is… life-altering.”
“Isn’t it? It is so amazing in there. Although I haven’t been back in since I speared that barracuda. You, eh, heard about that, yeah? The fur seal and everything?”
“Ha. If something bites me in here I will bite right back. Oh, my dear! You have no idea what it is like to have the pain vanish. I can think again! I can… I can allow myself to feel things! It is not all doom and gloom and suffering! For just a brief moment I am the Alonso of old!”
He laughs and throws a brilliant smile at her and she is struck by the force of his charisma. Ye gods. Is this the star she’s hooked her wagon to? Just with that one glance he is easily one of the most handsome men she has ever seen. Like some Italian movie star.
But he can’t maintain it and his face collapses back into careworn age. He rolls onto his back with a sigh and floats easily with all this fat on him. Alonso stares at the clouded sky, at peace.
Ξ
Triquet wakes, their eyes snapping open. In their cell they sit up, filled with clear purpose. They haven’t been this eager to get to work since they discovered the sub.
Vera Kim. If they were going to bring anyone to Lisica to study the island and its inhabitants, Triquet would call on their old friend Vera. Or Vera’s patron at Trinity College, Doctor Amina Nousrat. Pound for pound, they could bring the most insight and expertise of anyone in the world to this project. Vera has published on Polynesian language evolution, she’s lived in like Tierra del Fuego with the Selk’nam and presented their artifacts at archaeological conferences. And on top of that she’s a crackerjack ethno-botanist. If anyone could figure out how the Lisicans have evolved to integrate into their environment, it would be her.
Instead, the team brought only-partially-trained Triquet. Nearly none of their real strengths are being used here. Now, if Lisica was a 1950’s roller rink that had been abandoned in the 70’s in like Aurora, Illinois, Triquet would shine so bright. But here, without the internet or most research resources, it’s all guesswork and bad theories and needles in haystacks.
Until now. Jidadaa is the best needle they could ever hope for. And she even speaks English! Triquet tries to order their thoughts, then remembers that last night they took assiduous notes. They even gave themself a to-do list for this morning. There. All the thinking has already been done. Today it’s nothing but a ton of investigative footwork.
They start with a mug of tea, provided kindly by Amy. Then it’s out to their tent where most of their clothes still are. Kind of cold today. Maybe the thicker skirt with tights beneath. Clogs. Ooo yes! A kind of hausfrau look. An orange bandana, folded into a triangle and covering their head, completes it. Now if they just had a pilly old green rayon cardigan and some horn-rimmed cat-eyes they could vanish into anonymity in 1982 Stuttgart.
After completing their toilet it’s off to the sub. Down… down… Only in the last couple days have they been able to get back into the real swing of things. They’d begun a pass on the personal papers of Master Sergeant Chester Ernest Radick. Now that they’d integrated all the relevant quartermaster reports and tallies into a timeline, Triquet would be able to match up Radick’s notes and diary entries to specific events from 1954 to 1957 that marked a change on the island, such as ship arrivals and deliveries.
But they ain’t gonna work on such dry material this morning! No no no. They set aside that project and turn once more to the diaries of Colonel Ingles. All his texts have been properly analyzed and they’d thought any more effort put into them here would be a slow slog. These pages have already been pretty finely combed.
But then Jidadaa showed up and blew the doors off everyone’s expectations. Too bad she is only an oral resource. Triquet needs things! And it sounds like most of the interesting artifacts are still being held by the Katóoks, which is a damn shame because that meant the researchers will almost certainly never see them. Oh, but what data Triquet could extract from a few old blankets and bracelets…! Ah, well.
The one thing they want to locate again is a passing mention Ingles made soon after he arrived here. Tuzhit. A word they’ve now heard in a variety of contexts. Last night, sitting in a little cross-legged circle with Amy and Katrina and Jidadaa, they heard it again. It’s a name. Perhaps the central name of all Lisican culture. It was Tuzhit and the two sisters who first landed here, a long time ago when the island was truly empty. They brought their Lisica arctic fox with them. He is the great father figure of the island. And that ceremony they had last week was in honor of him. Ingles even mentioned him somewhere! Triquet is sure of it. But where?
Their pale hand hovers over the chronologically-ordered spines of blue hardcover diaries, stained yellow and black. 1956 was the year the Americans seemed to have the greatest contact with the islanders. Not that they wrote anywhere about their impressions of the people they found. No, these colonizers were far too racist to see the Lisicans as anything other than background noise. But they did mention a few native names when discussing how they solved certain problems.
Triquet opens Colonel Ingles’ diary from 1956. His spidery, formal script recorded brief passages as dry as dust. Triquet shakes their head in despair of ever truly knowing this man. Can you imagine? This is how he was even in his own personal papers. These were the private reflections he shared with himself. And all of them were some variation on, “Cold tonight. Hanging nets to kill birds so we don’t waste any more rifle ammo. Prayed for N. and C.”
A little convulsive shiver shoots through Triquet. Lord, these people were so repressed. Generational repression, going all the way back to the shriveled bosom of Queen Victoria and the goddamn Puritans. Where’s your hopes and dreams, Phil? Your secret longings? You probably told everyone you didn’t have any. Triquet recalls their own grandfather, a man who proudly said his whole life he never dreamed at night. Not one dream ever. And he also thought the pinnacle of American comedy was The Three Stooges. Ugh. Things back then were just so… basic.
Although it comforts Triquet to immerse themself in these long lost days, they can really only do it through the meta-ironic kaleidoscopic lens of their modern life. Good grief, if Triquet had been born, as Phil Ingles had, in 1922, there’s simply no way they would have made it to adulthood. Barring a one-way ticket to Berlin or Paris they would have thrown themself under the blade of a combine harvester or whatever when they were like sixteen.
No… Not in this diary. Perhaps 1957? Well, wait. There’s only a bit about the island starting in 1955. So begin at the beginning and work your way through, Triq. “I know I saw Tuzhit somewhere!”
Their voice rings hollowly in the silent sub. Ooo, creepy. Maybe they can summon Tuzhit’s spirit. That would solve some mysteries for sure. Leafing through the brittle pages, they call out the same words again, “I… saw… Tuzhit! Somewhere!” They listen….
No… No spirit dwelling down here. No ghosts. Ha. Maybe that is how Triq would have made their way a hundred years ago. They would be Madame Doucette, spiritualist and palm reader. Lots of black lace and a collection of veils. Conducting seances and eating mummy body parts. They would have been a huge hit.
No, no mention of Tuzhit in 1955… This might be a very long day. Wait. There it is. Right at the end. December 22, 1955. “By signs I attempted to ask the men if their Tuzhit had celebrated Christmas but the primitives had no idea of the custom.”
Triquet goes to their laptop and opens the file of notes they’d created for this diary. And there, the question ‘Tuhzit? A god?’ stares back at them, the h and z transposed, defeating all attempts to locate it with command F. Triquet makes the minor correction, their OCD eventually simmering down.
Now, to the actual significance of the statement… Why would Tuzhit celebrate Christmas? If he set sail from the Alaskan coast in like 1750 how would he have any exposure to European customs? Is this just Ingles being obtuse? Probably.
But something that has bothered Triquet and Katrina both is that there seems to be no linguistic connection between the word Tuzhit and any Eyat forms. Katrina said it might have like Bosnian roots. And then there’s all those other Slavic words that have made their way into their patois. But how?
It’s equally preposterous that Eyat-speakers of the eighteenth century spoke a Slavic tongue, so the researchers had assumed that it was probably a modern exposure to Soviet and Russian military people over the decades. Yet they’d also had exposure to all these Americans but they could find no evidence the Lisicans allowed any but a few proper names into their lexicon.
“Tuzhit! Who are you?” Triquet scans the piles and stacks of organized materials. Nowhere else can they recollect a mention of the name. But also, they weren’t really looking… They were more focused on the murder mystery of Maureen Dowerd. And now that they know the two are connected, Maureen’s death and her native lover, it makes things even more compelling to find the answers to these age-old questions.
A brief wind riffles the papers of the stack in front of Triquet and they drop fingers onto it to still them. What an uncanny gust. It ran over the hairs on the back of their neck like harp strings. That wind. It did not smell right. With a deep instinctive conviction, Triquet just knows that it brought something. Someone. If they merely turn, they will see a dark figure in the hatch leading down to the tunnels.
They try to turn but find themself frozen solid, whether from panic or distress or… whatever. Fabulous. A bit of sleep paralysis to begin the morning. And I’m not even asleep! They try to find a self-deprecating giggle but terror seems to be gripping their throat tight. And yet, their center remains calm. Detached. The fear that coils in their bowels is an object of great fascination, like some sharp glittering blue crystal tearing at their flesh as it rotates deep within. Amazing. All this from a little breeze.
Breath. I still have my own breath. Breath is everything. Triquet inhales deeply, purging their limbs of whatever shackles them. They visualize their feet moving and, with effort, they finally do.
Triquet turns.
The hatch is empty and dark, which makes it even more spooky. They should retreat through the other hatch behind them and go back up to the bunker now. Get some lunch and share their findings. Freak Flavia out with ghost stories. But for some reason… they don’t.
Following every grim impulse they’ve ever had, Triquet smiles wolfishly and stoops through the dark hatch leading down.
Ξ
Esquibel and Mandy work at the outdoor kitchen tables together. Here, their roles are reversed. The Doctor, who swore never to be a cook, couldn’t say no when Mandy asked her to help feed the crew today. Especially since Mandy is so down.
It is clear why. Her golden dreamgirl Katrina has totally turned away from Mandy. It’s all Jidadaa now. Jidadaa this and Jidadaa that. She is so special and unique and wonderful in all these ways that Mandy could never be. Well. She’d just have to console herself with dusty old Esquibel, that is, if her own pride would let her.
So they work in silence. Esquibel doesn’t know if Mandy even realizes how she feels, or if she cares. Resentment presses against the inside of Esquibel’s ribs and, instead of stooping down for a pot, she sighs and stops, hand on hip. “No, I do not want to be like my parents. I want to talk about our problems.”
Mandy, sauteeing freeze-dried vegetables, looks at Esquibel with a hurt expression. “What? What problems?”
Esquibel sighs again. She swoops down and snares the pot, graceful as a ballerina, and sets it down with a clatter on the burner. “I just want to know if it is the blonde hair that makes her so desirable. Because that is something that you should perhaps look at in your own self as a… I mean, we certainly all have our own preferences, but…” And that is all she can get out. Esquibel shakes her head, choked into silence with bitterness.
“Oh, no!” Mandy squeezes Esquibel’s arm with her free hand. “No! You think I’m upset because I’m, what? Jealous of… of who?”
“We’ve both seen the way Katrina looks at Jidadaa. You lost your chance with her, didn’t you?”
“Oh, Skeebee.” Mandy puts her spatula down and turns to her lover. She wraps her arms around Esquibel’s stiff body, nestling her head in the hollow of her jaw and clavicle. “No. No no no. I mean, yeah, Katrina’s hot and I’ve had all kinds of dirty thoughts about her, but never without you. Always with my Skeebee.”
The words are a balm to Esquibel but she still finds she can’t relax. “But then why are you so unhappy this morning?”
“Because I have to go right back up through the fucking tunnels to the fucking weather station tomorrow morning! Every other day! Oh, Skeeb. I don’t know what I got myself into this time. I don’t like it in there. It’s creepy. And I don’t mean the tunnels. I mean inside the island. I thought, I don’t know, they’re islanders! On Hawai’i there’s this huge native movement and some of them have this super strong belief that if they could just get back in charge or get all the haolies off the island that they’d have bliss. But it isn’t like that! There’d be all kinds of turf wars and like, well, whatever they’re doing to themselves here. Everyone’s so cagey and on guard. I thought we could all be friends.”
“You’re burning.”
“Ah!” Mandy turns back to the pan and pours in a dollop of Alonso’s wine. “Just saved it. Thanks. Could you hand me that salt? And I think there’s a bit of lemon juice still left.”
Esquibel finally releases her ire. Mandy is definitely upset about this, not Katrina at all. She had been, all the day before, filling Esquibel’s ears with long lists of complaint regarding the mud, the dark, the unfriendly villagers, the cliffs, on and on. But then they had all sat around the campfire all night and Esquibel had been alone too long with her jealousy. She hands Mandy the salt and kisses her hand. “I love you, Mands.”
“I love you, too, Skeebee. Don’t lets ever fight.”
They bump hips.
“There has to be a way…” Esquibel thinks aloud, “to make it easier for you to get to that weather station.”
“Yeah. It’s called the elevator shaft. But a certain mean-spirited doctor won’t let me use it.”
“It’s not that I won’t let you use it. It’s just… All your ideas so far are so preposterous. They don’t work at all. Fire? And water? I’m glad you aren’t like an engineer. Mandy the architect would get people killed.”
They both giggle, the joke taking the sting from Esquibel’s words.
“It’s a safety issue, mostly. Falling from a great height.”
“That’s what the water was going to prevent.”
“Flooding the shaft was a stupid idea and you know it.”
“Well. You don’t have to be mean about it. But, yeah. I mean, Amy was going crazy trying to figure out how to get Jay back.”
“And you are just crazy.”
“Well, how would you do it?”
“I don’t know. I am not an engineer either. How wide is it?”
“Like three or four meters. Pretty huge.”
“All the way up?”
“Yep. Straight up.”
“What if… maybe if you had a very wide platform in the center, maybe wide enough that you could lift it and there would be no gaps on the sides for anyone to fall through?”
“Sounds heavy.”
“Yes, but maybe not too heavy to…”
Mandy shakes her head, dumping steaming rice into her vegetables and mixing them. “And how do we lift it? We’d need some kind of like rotary engine, right?”
“Maybe Triquet has something in storage down in the sub.”
“Well unless they have about a kilometer of cable or chain in there then we won’t have enough line to hang it and make it go up and down.”
“Maybe they do. Let’s ask them at lunch.”
“It would certainly solve all our problems.”
“Triquet to the rescue.”
Ξ
“Tessteh…” The warm throaty voice, nearly a whisper, echoes in Maahjabeen’s ear. Then comfort words in Arabic. She sits in her mother’s lap, the air full of spices and laughing relatives. Someone plays old music.
Ama’s fingers play with the curls behind Maahjabeen’s ear as she laughs with cousins from out of town and accepts a lit cigarette. The words flow over the little girl like water. And then the baby nickname again, some private joke Ama made about an old family dog, and a peck on her cheek. “Tessteh, Yala. I need to get up.”
She slips from Ama’s lap and lands with a heavy jolt on the floor. The shock quivers through her heelbones, up her legs…
The room goes quiet. She feels all their eyes on her, but all she sees is color and light. Red and yellow patches in the smoky haze, with dark figures hunched over tables. Maahjabeen tries to focus on her family members but they all fade into shadow.
By the wooden reluctance of her brain to register their faces, she is convinced this is a dream. It is a dream and they are all gone. Yussuf and Auntie B. Mahmoud. Dahlia. A whole generation lost to lung cancer. And then Ama in the wreckage of her car…
With a clatter, the walls of her childhood home fall away like a set in a music video, leaving her little girl’s form alone with the shadows, alone and far from shore…
Yes, she is in the water now. But it is somehow no longer the seat of her power. Or this water doesn’t belong to her. Or perhaps it isn’t water at all… She lifts a hand but the liquid is all dark in the darkness, just another shade of black.
Is she far from shore? Yes. A bruised sky shows a dark line of horizon in the distance. And her limbs are already so fatigued. There is no way she can make it. Just treading water is proving to be too much. She shouldn’t be wearing so much clothing. Maybe she can take a layer off…
Maahjabeen ducks her head under the water to remove the gown hanging heavy around her neck. But it gets twisted and she can’t free her head. A ropy line of fabric crosses her face at a diagonal and she can’t unwind it.
Growing more desperate, she claws at her face. But the fabric will not budge. Her breath is about to burst in her. Light fills her vision. She is dying…
A silhouette appears before her. It is that little golem of a shaman who isn’t Wetchie-ghuy. With a nauseous rush, she finally recalls the last time she saw them, during her nightmare on the beach when Pradeep grew ill. They looked down on her then from the cliff above, drawing their powers from the sky, invoking a fog that leeches life away. That’s how they almost got her that time. And now, invading her through the doorway of grief that is her mother’s death, they have returned.
No longer in the water, but a dark cave. “La! La!” Maahjabeen tries to push the encroaching figure away. But their advance is inexorable. The waddling body looms over her, blocking all sight of anything else. A rank stench emanates from them. Her fingers get tangled in their ratty old figurines and twisted-vine fetishes that hang from braided necklaces. Their face is a goblin’s seamed caricature of humanity. Little skulls, threaded by sinew and separated by teeth, rattle on a bracelet…
Maahjabeen is smothered by the force of their advance. Ah! No! Nooo…! This is how it feels to drown…
A stinging smack knocks her head sideways. Her body is lifted. She lands heavily, cracking the back of her head on the frame of the cot. With supreme effort she pulls her eyelids open.
Pradeep hovers above. He has slapped her. His face is filled with desperate concern but she doesn’t recognize the light in his eye. It is someone else in there… and not the shaman tormenting her…
He comes back to himself and shouts in a language she doesn’t know, his voice cracking with grief, and slaps her once more.
A plug deep inside her is pulled. The shaman finally recedes. She can breathe again. Huge shuddering lungfuls of air fills her and Pradeep cries out. He wraps her in his arms and covers her scalp with kisses. “Oh, lovely… Don’t do that. Don’t ever do it again…”
Maahjabeen sobs, sucking in the sweet draughts. Ahhh. She needs air so much. What happened? How could she nearly kill herself lying here in this cot? No, it wasn’t her. It was that devilish shaman. And this time she won’t forget them like she did the last time the wicked creature messed with her.
“What is it?” Esquibel appears in the doorway of their cell with a flashlight in the dark. She is nearly naked, a white triangle of knickers the only thing dividing the dark skin of her legs from the darker night. Maahjabeen covers her own body with her hands, ashamed for Esquibel despite herself.
But the Doctor has no such modesty. With a growl of displeasure she sits at the edge of the cot and shines her light in Maahjabeen’s face. Esquibel doesn’t like the look of the young woman trembling in Pradeep’s embrace. She grabs a wrist and finds her pulse. It is hammering. Her patient shivers from a deep place.
Cursing under her breath, Esquibel forces Maahjabeen to roll over onto her belly. She pulls up the shirt covering Maahjabeen’s back and shines her light on it.
There it is, a series of raised welts at the base of her spine, all in the silhouette of a fox’s face.
Ξ
Flavia drags her face through the mud, squeezing through the narrowest choke point of the tunnel. She hasn’t been down here since first pursuing that crying child all those weeks ago, when Wetchie-ghuy stole her away. She’s had zero interest in ever coming back.
Yet here she is.
Mandy and Katrina scramble ahead, their lithe girlish forms slipping easily through. As with everything, Flavia has more of a struggle. She fits one shoulder through, then the other, and kicks her way forward until she gets to her hips, where she has to repeat the procedure. There. Now she is through that fucking pipe and she can finally stand up.
“That’s the way to the shaft. Look, Flavia. I’ll show you where we’re going, even though we can’t get there from down here…”
“No, thank you very much, but I do not need any side trips. Just take me to your cliff and bring me back and let’s keep everything very simple. Very linear. That would be best.”
Mandy has another point to make but one look at Flavia’s face silences her. Arguing with the Italian woman turned out to be very weird, and not really what she’d expected. But Mandy realizes Flavia is not a normal Italian woman. She’s like half computer.
In a sense, it was as if Mandy and Katrina only had to put in a single input, that comment at breakfast about feeling safe and free here as women. Then Flavia had reflected on that aloud, bitterly, describing her own experience here as a type of prison. And then before they could protest or amend a thing, she had moved on to the next step, like she was writing a program. “But what does that make me? A prisoner, yes, but one who is basing all her daily choices on fear, the fear that I will see him again, the fear that he will try to make a slave of me again. But I have not seen him in weeks. And yet that fear rules me every day. No. That is an intolerable risk profile strategy. So inefficient. Grazie, Mandy. You make me confront this. Yes, I will come with you today. And if I see Wetchie-ghuy, then,” she shrugs, “I will kick him in the balls.”
“You will…?” Mandy is amazed. “I mean, you’ll come? Oh, I’m so glad. Thanks, Flavia. You’re the sweetest.”
And now here the three of them are at the base of the last tunnel section before confronting once again the island’s interior. They pause, catching their breaths, scouting the way forward.
Katrina laughs a bit to herself. “I’ve got a little pet hypothesis going here. Call me an optimist, but I think there’s a chance they’ll talk to us again. Remember this climb, Flavia? Watch your step.”
The fallen tree that they scramble up like stairs finally leads to the flattened mouth of the cave. Flavia gasps for breath as she reaches the end, the adrenaline thrilling through her and keeping her alert. She expects hands to reach out from the darkness and grab her. Yet they do not and she notes this absence of horror as a significant benefit of a happy hike, in an understated idle voice in her head.
Ahead, Morska Vidra waits for them, silhouetted by silver light.
They put on their masks and gloves. Katrina continues. “My thought is that they didn’t talk to us last time because Jidadaa was here. Like she was passing through and they caught a whiff of her, or maybe she was already following us, or… I don’t know.”
Morska Vidra approaches Katrina and chucks her under the chin. “Bontiik.”
“Bontiik.” Katrina can hardly contain her delight. He is talking to them again, which means her hypothesis might perhaps be true. “Hey, where’s your fox, Morska Vidra? Uh, Gde tvoya lisica?”
“Lisica?” He turns and looks. “Lisica?” Then he shoots a glance back at the researchers with a playful smile.
“My, aren’t you in a good mood. I wish I could learn more about Bontiik. You know? Where it comes from. What the whole gesture means. There isn’t a single word like it in Eyat or the Slavic family, not that I know of. A search only gets me that a bontiik is a bonito fish in Frisian. Did you guys just like make it up?”
Morska Vidra isn’t listening. He has started his own sing song discourse with Mandy and Flavia, pointing at each of them with his thumbtip and then outside.
“Uh, a little help here, Katrina?” Languages have never been a strong suit for Mandy. Learning a new one is so frustrating and takes so long. She hates floundering around in confusion. So she just stands there and gives the little old man a polite smile. “Maybe ask him about Wetchie-ghuy.”
“Wetchie-ghuy?” Morska Vidra repeats, scowling. Then he mutters a whole paragraph of sing song and falls silent. He turns to the light, leading them out.
“Cannot believe you have no music.” Katrina follows, with Flavia and Mandy close behind. “May be the first known case in world history. Didn’t anybody like show up later and teach you? I mean, that’s eventually what happened with Jidadaa—”
Morska Vidra freezes at the mouth of the tunnel. His head slowly swivels back to regard Katrina, who falls silent under the weight of that gaze. He only stares at her, unmoving, for perhaps a dozen seconds. Then, point made, he proceeds.
Katrina releases the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She curses herself for a bloody fool and lets Mandy take the lead.
And just right there, after all these weeks, sits the old woman with white and blonde curls who taught them that good-bye means betrayal. Katrina stops, knowing Triquet would never forgive her if she didn’t make some attempt to get some answers. The woman might just be the last living connection to Maureen Dowerd.
The old woman’s hands are skeletal but arthritis doesn’t prevent her from dying reed fibers with a black ink. Her fingertips are stained with it. She looks up and regards Katrina with a level gaze.
“Hello. Uh, Bontiik, uh…” Katrina sidles over to her, as deferential as possible, and lightly taps the woman’s chin.
“Bontiik.” The woman lifts her fist and Katrina lowers her chin onto it. Then she steps back. “Nice… Nice work… Uh…” She quickly consults a list she’s prepared on her phone. “At daké? Work? Good. Uh… Aad’é.” Katrina looks up to see that the Mayor, that somber middle-aged woman with the cares of the village in the lines of her face, watches her from a hut’s door. “Aad’é.” Katrina offers her most charming smile.
The Mayor pulls back into the hut.
“Well, I’ll take that as a good sign. So, hello. I’m Katrina.”
The old woman looks up at her, as if considering whether engaging with this ghostly creature from across the ocean will break her heart again. Finally, she says, “Yesiniy.”
“Yesiniy? That’s your name? It’s a lovely name.” Katrina’s breath hovers in her breast. Her mind is blank. She knows she has to establish some sort of connection before diving right into this woman’s tragic past but she has no idea what comes next. She looks at Mandy and Flavia, who are regarding her from where she left them near the tunnel mouth. “Don’t wait up for me. Sorry. Been waiting forever for this chance.” Katrina turns back to Yesiniy with a sweet smile. “Mind if I sit?”
“Don’t wait? Well.” Mandy makes a face at Flavia. “Gee. Guess it’s just you and me now. Um. You might want like a walking stick. This climb is pretty gnarly. But you got strong legs, right?”
“Strong? What do you mean? Eh. We are going to climb that?”
“I know, right?” Mandy gestures at the steep slope before them with hostility. “It’s the only way up and over. Maybe we didn’t fully describe like the whole route…”
“No, you were very clear. But still.” Flavia shakes her head in distaste. “I thought it would be much more little than that.”
“I’ve got to put up like a rope ladder. Yeah. Last time I did this with like twenty kilos on my back. Thought I was gonna die. Okay. Just follow my footsteps and you’ll be fine. There’s kind of steps cut into the side if you start looking for them. There you go.”
Flavia hasn’t climbed anything this steep since her teenage trips to Cogne and Val D’Aosta. And she was in skiing shape back then. Now, she isn’t in any kind of shape at all. Within twenty steps her thighs are shaking and a cold sweat is running down her back. But she can’t let that colt Mandy get too far ahead. She grits her teeth and squeezes the perspiration out of her eyes. “Dai, Flavia!” She has committed to this course and she must see it through. There is no other path for her. Literally.
Trailwork like this is exactly like data science. The unformed, uncategorized world is out there. And these are the literal step-by-step processes humans have used to bring order and meaning to the world around them. We started with tiny footholds like this, then paths and trails. Then roads and rails and now superhighways and jet airliners and satellites. Same with programming. Just a few generations ago we had punchcards. Now the programs are writing themselves, with massive throughput.
With idle thoughts like these she pulls her way to the top. Mandy is there, panting, hands on knees in the midst of some unpleasant bushes that scratch and pluck at Flavia.
At the crest an erratic wind whips them, dry and warm from the southeast. “Ew. Look.” Mandy points to a long orange band on that horizon. “I bet that’s like dust from the Gobi Desert. Can you smell it?” Mandy faces the dirty smear headed their way. “And all the pollution from factories in China. You know, they find signatures of Chinese coal mining all over North America now. All of it raining down on the whole world. Totally distorting mid-Pacific weather patterns. You know, so we can have fast fashion.”
“Yes, I was in a conference in Beijing once when they had the sandstorms. The whole city turned orange and we could not breathe outside without masks.” Flavia shakes her head. “It was very bad. Ahh… Just when I think I am alone and disconnected from the whole world out here in the middle of nowhere…”
“Chinese pollution cheers you right up! Come on. Believe it or not this is the way down.”
Mandy leads Flavia to the edge of the cliff and a narrow chute that looks like the opening of a slide at a waterpark, except this cliff is six hundred meters high. “Ehh… Are you sure?”
“I know, right? I went after Katrina last time and all she did was follow the footsteps. It’s like the climb before, but, you know, this time down, with your heels. Just lean back.”
“I am sorry but I cannot do that.”
“Okay we can give it a few minutes. It’s not too cold—”
“No, Mandy. It is not a matter of acclimating to the heights. That is insanity. I will not be doing that. Ever.”
“Okay…”
“So you should not waste your time. Go and get your data. Change the batteries. I will go back to the other side back there out of the wind. And I will wait.”
“Esquibel said I shouldn’t really do this alone…”
“I am sorry but what do you want me to do?” The shrill panic in Flavia’s voice cuts through the wind. They are perched on the edge of the cliff like gnats on the edge of a wine glass. The merest puff of air could send them spinning out into oblivion. No. Basta. Enough.
With a pained expression, Mandy turns back to the descent. Without another word, she slowly disappears from view.
Flavia is furious with herself. She should have known this would have been too much for her. Everything is, here. Flavia does not belong on Lisica. And now she has put Mandy in danger.
Well. She might as well get out of the wind.
But someone is blocking her way back up there, hunched on the path like a fallen log.
Wetchie-ghuy.
Chapter 36 – You
September 2, 2024
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:
36 – You
Maahjabeen finds Pradeep at sunset, tears in her eyes. He stands beside a tall Toyon analyzing its spiky leaves. When he sees the look on her face he drops the reader and reaches for her hand. She throws herself instead against him. Only when he envelopes her in his arms does she begin to sob, deep ragged sounds of grief.
“What…? Oh, love. What is it?”
She breaks away and begins shuffling back to camp, unable to speak about it. He quickly gathers his things and follows, a look of immense care on his face.
They arrive at the Love Palace in silence and she begins hauling at Aziz, the blue kayak stored beneath. Pradeep stows his things and helps her. He lifts the rear and she hauls it, still sobbing, out of camp toward the lagoon.
Flavia emerges from the bunker. “Ah no. What is it?”
But Maahjabeen has no words.
“What is wrong with her, Pradeep?”
As Maahjabeen leads him out of camp, he makes sure to match her strides. “I don’t know yet!” he calls out over his shoulder.
They navigate the fallen redwood and re-emerge onto the beach. Firewater, the yellow kayak, is already here. It’s been pulled a good ten meters clear of the tide line. He is shocked that she’d ever leave one of her boats alone out here for so long.
In moments they are on the water and she is paddling straight as an arrow to the far right side of the lagoon, the southwest corner of the whole island. There is something dark on the rocks there.
It is the corpse of an Orca calf. The markings are unmistakable. And it has been chewed on frightfully. Its fins are torn and whole pieces of its side are shredded, with only a small amount of viscera still spilling from the open wound. Its eyes are gone.
Now Maahjabeen is weeping uncontrollably. Her kayak starts to drift away in the current. Pradeep paddles to the far side of it to keep her from heading toward the lagoon mouth and all those unforgiving rollers. He knows intuitively that there is a meaning in this death that has not been revealed to him yet. The loss of marine mammals always makes him sad too, but this… this is somehow personal to her.
“It’s okay, babi. It’s okay.” The diminutive for her springs unbidden to his lips. His mother used to call him that when he was a child, facing one of his panic attacks. He pets Maahjabeen’s arm, as close as he can get to her in these unwieldy craft.
“La. La…” And Maahjabeen unleashes a torrent of Arabic that Pradeep is incapable of following. But she keeps repeating one word over and over.
“What is ‘Ama?’ I don’t…”
“Ama was my mother. She died last year.” Maahjabeen drops her face into her hands and the paddle slides from her grip.
Pradeep collects it, slides it under a couple shock cord lines, and holds onto her kayak. He’s running out of hands here. And he needs to keep both boats out of the current.
“In a car accident. I didn’t get to see her. I didn’t get to ever say goodbye. I was on the Red Sea.”
“I’m so sorry… Look. Just hold on. I’ve got to paddle.”
“Yes, of course.” Maahjabeen hooks her fingers under Aziz’s lines. “And her ghost… I feel her all the time, Pradeep. She is always watching over me.”
Pradeep waits patiently, unsure how all these things fit together.
“This poor baby…” Maahjabeen gestures listlessly toward the dead calf. “It is a sign. A sign from God. It is all coming to an end.”
She falls silent. Pradeep tries to figure out what she could possibly mean. What sign? What end? He knows so little about Islam and the Quran. It doesn’t have killer whales in it, does it? How could it? The whole thing is set in the desert.
“The orcas…” Maahjabeen whispers her secret, staring out over the horizon. “They watch over me. They saved my life in the storm. They are mine. I am supposed to watch out for them and I can’t even do that, because of this horrible surf! I am supposed to be out there with them, their protector, keeping things like this from happening!”
Pradeep looks at her, caught between befuddlement and wonder. “Is that what you do on the open water? Adopt whole pods of orcas? Protect them? Wow. That’s so amazing, darling.”
“No. It isn’t… This isn’t like a choice, like they are the animal I chose to study for my senior thesis or something. This is what has happened to me on the water. They chose me. This is real.”
Pradeep only nods, shocked to see how off-balance his lover has gotten. “Yes. I see that it is. But help me understand.”
Maahjabeen opens her mouth and then closes it again. There is a whole other world here, a profound hidden world of signs and ghosts and intuition, all presided over by a loving God. How do you describe that to someone who only lives in this cold hard modern world? “They are all… connected. They all… watch out for me. Do you see? It is a holy commitment, what we have. Mother and daughter. Human and whale.”
“I see.” Pradeep feels immeasurable compassion for Maahjabeen. He just wants to kiss and hold her and make her happy again. But he doesn’t know how. The wind shifts, riffling the water, and for the first time the smell of the rotting corpse hits him. He hacks a cough and then turns away from her resentful stare. “I’m sorry. I caught a real whiff there and it…” But her face is only getting more irate. He should stop now. “I love you so much, Maahjabeen. I’ll do anything for you. What can I do?”
She crumples into tears again. Relief washes through her. Of course this is the way forward. And this is how Pradeep can join her unseen world, with the magical power of their love. Love is how he can be one of those watching over her, as she will watch over him in turn. Love is how she can share her wordless bond with these mighty spirits of the sea. And love is how she will get the ghost of Ama to rest easy. It will be his love that her mother will appreciate. Even if she will not approve of him for a whole host of other reasons, Pradeep’s love for Maahjabeen will solve her problems! Suddenly grateful, she lifts his hand, in awe of the gentleness of his spirit and the capacity of his heart, and worshipfully kisses it.
Ξ
Katrina leads Mandy up the final climb to the entrance of the Dzaadzitch tunnel mouth village. Morska Vidra and his fox are already there, as if expecting them. The two researchers stop to put masks and gloves on before getting any closer. As they do so, Morska Vidra departs, out into the daylight.
“Uh, hi and bye. That’s not a good sign.” Mandy carries the camp’s largest backpack and she is sore from wrestling it through all the tight underground passages.
Katrina shrugs. “Who knows? New behavior for sure. He usually accompanies us the whole way. But maybe, you know, familiarity breeds contempt. We’re old news by now.”
Mandy hoists the heavy pack again. “I hope so.”
They emerge into a village filled with the business of daily life. Children strip long reed leaves and thresh dried grains. Adults cook and weave and repair items. Morska Vidra has already joined a trio of women hoisting a wide slab of redwood bark onto the hole in a hut’s roof. Nobody remarks on their presence. It’s almost as if Katrina and Mandy are invisible.
“Okay, then.” Katrina looks around but none will meet her eye. So she ventures further into the clearing, the town square where all the activity is. Jay has given her directions. Where the cliffs rise to her left, there is a game trail beyond the circle of huts leading to the top of the ridge. “That way.” She points discreetly, not wanting to venture forth yet until she gets a better idea of why they’re being ignored. “But I don’t know…”
“What did we do wrong this time?” Mandy has to fight a sudden irritation. That last climb to get through here was even worse than reports had indicated. And the disassembled pieces of her weather station are such awkward shapes in the pack. They seem to catch on every corner. Why, she had to practically inch her way up the tunnels. Something naïve in Mandy expects the villagers to register what a huge effort this was from her, but of course they don’t know. And they don’t care about her personal victories. They’re the ones who made those tunnels. Hauling a twenty kilo pack through them probably doesn’t impress them one bit.
Katrina listens to the many voices around them. Something has changed. The words are muttered instead of chanted. She sees the soundwave in Pro Logic: a flat tonal shift has knocked down all the rising and falling waveforms, leaving it narrow and compressed. Is this the sound of mourning? No, they don’t sound sad. More like resigned. Or depressed. Great. They gave the Lisicans depression. Now Katrina can’t bear to cause them any more anguish. “Okay, ready? Now or never. Let’s just slip through here… Pardon us…” She takes Mandy by the hand and hurries past the villagers and their huts to a spot where the cliffs transition to a steep slope. It is the only possible trailhead. And she can kind of see some footholds scaling upward. But it will not be easy. “Ugh. Watch out. I’m not any kind of mountain goat. This might get embarrassing.”
“Yeah, I’m not what you call a real hiker either.” Mandy does enjoy the outdoors, but only really when it keeps to itself. Growing up with an uncle on Oahu’s North Shore, she was no stranger to the kind of storms they’d been getting, and family trips all over the islands were no less challenging than what she’d done on Lisica for the last few weeks, but diving into the great unknown had never been her thing. She looks up the eighty-degree slope, pretty sure her legs aren’t strong enough to carry all this weight up over the top. Well. She’s been waiting weeks to get here. It’s time to find out if she finally gets to be a scientist on this island or not.
With a grunt and a heave, Mandy follows Katrina’s uncertain path up the slope.
It’s a good sixty meter climb, following the shallow depressions left in the earth, pulling themselves up the maze of switchbacks to a brow of manzanita at the top. Mandy grabs their iron twigs and pulls herself the last few steps up to the rounded crest. Katrina is in a thicket of flowering yellow branches, gasping, waiting for her. Mandy, her legs afire, pushes her way through the clawing twigs to keep up.
When she reaches Katrina the wind changes. Her new senses pick it up acutely, delivering such a wealth of information and sensation all at once it nearly brings her to her knees. This is it. They’ve reached the top. They’re up in the zephyrs now, finally above all the land that blocks her from the sky.
Katrina leads Mandy through manzanita to the true crest of the ridge. They climb the broken spine of it and balance on reddish brown rocks, their clothes whipping in the thin cold wind. The horizon falls away to all sides. This is the view the drone first got when they sent it up over the top weeks ago. From due east to west the ocean fills their view, with the beach and lagoon below obscured by the intervening trees and brush. The endless sea is banded shades of blue and gray, with a patch of bright silver sunshine to the east. The wind comes from the northwest, as it often does, and it carries a saline tang mixed with an arctic chalk. It almost hurts Mandy’s nostrils to breathe it in. It’s the wind of an entire hemisphere. And they can see so much of the island now, this bowl-of-a-thousand-rims. It dominates their view to the north, with several long ridgelines obscuring the far end.
Katrina silently leads Mandy down the cliff, which looks utterly perilous. But the footprints here are unmistakable. This is a path that humans regularly traverse. Which means she can do it as well, even if it seems like they’re pitching themselves off a six hundred meter drop with every step.
Soon a shallow fold at the base of the cliff, hidden until they’re nearly upon it, provides a respite from the terrors of the heights and the whipping wind. They sit.
“Huh. And we’re not even there yet? Not quite as freeway close as I’d hoped.” Mandy’s brave attempt falls flat. She’s so tired.
Katrina just studies their surroundings with a troubled gaze. Then her eyes light up. “Aha! Look. We are already there.”
Mandy follows Katrina’s eyeline. Oh my god. There it is. That’s the platform, the remains of the wooden deck that had been built up here. It’s out and down, in a bowl of a depression another ten meters below them. These cliffs aren’t sheer at all. They hide all kinds of secret spots. With a cry, she scrambles down to it.
The vegetation surrounding the shaft’s mouth was blackened by the fire Mandy had lit. Most of the platform has also burned away. What remains is a length of tilted decking that extends outward toward the sea. Mandy swings wide of the shaft and hurries over to what boards are still nailed together. She tests them with a firm shake. “Still solid! Check this out! I bet they built this for their own weather observations! Now with just a little TLC it’ll be ideal!”
She works to prop the platform back into position. Katrina sighs in relief. Finally Mandy gets to be part of the team. They gently remove the weather station’s parts from her sack and piece it back together, Mandy fine-tuning it as Katrina scours the area for heavy rocks to secure the station’s base. Soon it is complete, an ultrasonic anemometer’s spikes crowning it like a junkyard Christmas tree.
“It needs regular manual downloads and the batteries are good for about sixty hours so I’ll need to come back up every forty-eight to swap them out.” Mandy’s shoulders slump as she realizes how many times she’ll be running this obstacle course. Her irritation mounts again and she hurls a small rock at the shaft’s dark mouth. “Nasty old Skeebee. Wouldn’t let me and Amy figure out a way to get up and down the easy way. I mean, just look at it! It’s obvious this is what those Army dudes used.” Finally she hears a clink as the stone hits the bottom.
Katrina shrugs. “Getting up here’s the hard part but we could totally base jump back down sometime. I do have the remains of that parachute that was hanging over the camp. But it’s like military surplus and needs some like, serious repair.”
Mandy shivers, imagining the struggle she’d have just to find the impulse to jump off this cliff. She doesn’t have it in her. “No, thank you. I’ll brave the passive-aggressive villagers instead.” She steps back and admires her handiwork. “Data… data…” she croons to the weather station, like it’s a beloved houseplant she just watered. “Give me all the data…!”
“Are we done here?” Katrina has a faint hope that when they head back down, the temper of the village might have changed and they’ll be receptive again. She has loads of questions about their history and language. Triquet has a whole list they expect her to get answers for. This Lisican silent treatment is very inconvenient.
Mandy takes one last deep breath of this amazing rarefied wind. It’s surprisingly dry. No storms for a while. And there’s a stillness in the gaps between gusts that indicate no systems coming. Fantastic. The last thing she needs is a cyclone to pop up and wreck her instrumentation here. This whole rig is probably worth as much as a new car. “Yes, babe.” Mandy reaches for Katrina’s hand. She lifts it and kisses it without taking her eyes from the silhouette of the weather station against the shades of banded blue and gray. “Thanks so much for bringing me. I wouldn’t have made it without you.” And then, knowing deeply this is the moment between them if it ever is, Mandy steps close and kisses Katrina, a long breathy, dreamy kiss filled with tenderness and passion.
Mandy steps back and opens her eyes. Katrina looks upon her with affection and warmth, but not heat. Ah, well. It’s not like she was going to tear the chick’s clothes off, not here in all this wind. Then Katrina’s eyes skip past her to look at someone above and behind Mandy.
“Oh, hi,” Katrina waves at the willowy girl watching them from the heights above.
“Hi,” Jidadaa replies, waving at them. “How are you?”
Ξ
“Ecch, where is everyone?” Maahjabeen marches through camp, peering into all the empty tents. “Hello?”
“What’s up?” Jay pokes his head out from the awning covering his hammock.
She starts. “Ah. Jay.” Maahjabeen tries and fails to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I was just… I need a… I mean, where did they all go? When I left, everyone was here. It was so busy this morning.”
“Yeah, everyone’s out on missions now or whatever.”
“Ugh.” She opens her mouth, closes it, and turns away. How can he possibly help? The answer is clear: he can’t.
Jay squawks, rolling out of his hammock. He pads barefoot across the sand to her, hand covering his left side. He forces his grimace of pain into an eager smile. “What’s up? You need a hand?”
It irritates her that this is the exact phrase she was going to use when she practiced in her mind how to ask someone for help. A hand is exactly what she needs. But… it is Jay. The one person in this whole camp she still doesn’t really respect. She nods. “Yes, but you can’t fool me. I know Doctor Daine put you on bedrest.”
“Ugh, it is so boring in there! I’m going absolutely insane in the membrane. You got to let me… I mean, I can at least like tag along and offer some suggestions.”
“Suggestions I do not need. I know what I need to do. It would just be very much easier with another person. But no. You cannot help. You have to be an adult and take care of yourself, yes?”
Jay presses his mouth into a displeased line. “You know, a lot of you guys think like I don’t hear the condescending tone or I don’t mind being lectured or talked down to all the time but…”
Maahjabeen turns away with a snarl of impatience. Getting into a spat with Jay about—about… she doesn’t even know what it is about! And she only has a short window when the tide is low. She slams the door of the bunker open and ducks her head in. It is dim. “Hello?” But the interior is empty. Even Doctor Daine is gone.
Maahjabeen crosses the camp. Jay waits for her, his face eager. “So where we going?”
“You are going back to your bed and I am going out to the lagoon to hang a gill net.”
“Fuck yeah. Clams for days. So so glad you finally allowed some harvesting in the lagoon. We were running out of the tinned stuff and things were looking pretty dire.”
“Yes, well, it is not as pristine as I had hoped. Now go away. I will not have the Doctor yelling at me about your wound.”
Maahjabeen hurries back to the beach. When she climbs the fallen trunk, she studies the ocean. Such a perfect vantage. She has grown to love the extra three or four meters of height this massive log offers. Distant sunbeams slant at an angle onto the ocean through breaks in the gray mantle. God is serene today.
Maahjabeen drops off the trunk and hurries back to the beach. Okay. Maybe if she spools the rope and net and slowly unwinds it as she paddles out to the anchor point she’s identified. No. There is no way the net will remain untangled. What if she carries the entire net out, ties it off, and then unspools it on the way back? That might be simpler. Still no way to conceivably keep the net together. Perhaps if she just lays it out carefully on the sand and slowly drags it at a diagonal…
“Oh, I see your problem.” Jay startles her. He stands behind her, studying the net she has made and the lagoon. “You just need me to stand in the shallows and feed it to you, right? I can do that.”
She stares at him with open hostility. Regardless of the fact that this is exactly what she needs, Maahjabeen is so outraged that he ignored her direct order to stay away from her that she thinks of filing a complaint. “I am telling you to leave me alone, Jay.”
“Damn, this has nothing to do with you, Maahjabeen. I just want some clams. And you need a hand. Why you got to be so uptight all the time? I ain’t hurting anyone by being here.”
“When someone tells you they want to be left alone, you have to respect that. It is the law. And it is decency.”
“Sure sure. But I don’t got to be anywhere near you. I hold the line, you’re in the boat. And guess what? I’m the best person in this whole camp to do it. I used to run these really fine gill nets for the fingerlings at the hatchery. I know how to keep them untangled. You go out there and set it and then I leave you alone.”
“You can’t do it one-handed.”
“Look. I’ll use my foot. Just hand it to me so I won’t have to bend over. Then I can let it out easy like. Come on, Maahjabeen. I’m not like harassing you. You were the one who came into camp looking for help but for some reason you just hate me. Come on. I’m not a bad guy.”
“Jay. Listen to yourself. When someone tells you that you are harassing them, you cannot argue it. You just have to respect them and give them space.”
Jay lifts a hand. “Hey, all I’m saying is you got it wrong. It could be Amy or Miriam or Morska Vidra asking me. You don’t got to turn this into a federal case or anything. Fine. If you don’t want to set the net, I sure as hell can’t do it without you, so… Peace.”
Jay shakes his head in frustration and turns away. What the fuck? Why did he come back from the other side of the island again? Oh, right. Because they were trying to kill him. But that hidden garden of Kula’s sure was sweet. And she and Jidadaa treated him with a hell of a lot more respect than—
“Jay.”
He turns back.
Maahjabeen studies him. She remembers being a teenager on the streets of Tunis protesting American intervention in Libya. She has always hated the Americans. And this is how they always look and act. He is a picture-perfect representation of them. Tall and blond and cute, unformed… and they can never take no for an answer. “Just stand here and unspool it and then stop being such a bother.”
“You got it.”
Later, after the net is fixed, Jay follows Maahjabeen back up the beach as she drags her kayak home. She stops one last time and looks out at the lagoon with a frown. “There is no telling,” she says, “how successful it will be. It is very possible all that work was for nothing. Or that it will only catch things we can’t eat.”
“Or…” Jay counters, “we feast like kings. I’ve got a cream sauce I want to try with the dehydrated milk and garlic flakes.”
“Your optimism is annoying.”
“Well, your pessimism is hella sad.”
Maahjabeen turns back to him before she navigate the roots of the fallen tree. Her eyes twitch with ire. There is such a gulf between them. “My pessimism is earned. Your optimism is not.”
“Uh, I’ve spent my whole life on the beach, lady. And the ocean always provides. I thought you knew that.”
“The ocean is my sanctuary. But it is not easy. Nothing is.”
“Man, some people…” Jay shakes his head in despair. “You’re like my mom’s always been. Nothing means anything unless it hurts. Unless you sacrifice something for it. But why? You and I are scientists. We know that isn’t how things work. Things work or they don’t fully irrespective of whether or not they’re hard for us. The universe doesn’t care about your feelings.”
Maahjabeen stops again. “That is where you are wrong. The universe cares very much about my feelings. My thoughts and actions. Purity of both is the only way to paradise.”
“Paradise? I’m talking cream sauce.”
“God knows everything you think.”
“Well, that’s creepy.”
Maahjabeen loses her temper. “Gah! Get away from me! What is wrong with you? Go back to your toys and your made-up world of comic books. Seriously, I have no idea what Pradeep sees in you.”
Jay draws himself up to his full height. She has finally gone too far. “You might think I’m like too laid back to be offended. But you’re wrong. You’re totally one hundred percent wrong. And if you can’t figure out why Pradeep and I are buds, then that’s on you, not me or him. The fault’s in you. And you might want to check yourself before you lose us all.”
Then Jay turns away from camp and instead slips into the vegetation leading toward the waterfall.
Maahjabeen watches him go, her own heat fading. She wants to call out a last insult but she visualizes Pradeep hearing it and she knows how much it would hurt him. Feh. What a mess.
Ξ
“Has anyone seen Jay?” Pradeep ducks into the bunker. Amy and Triquet and Esquibel all share a workstation, discussing how to word their findings regarding the grave of M.C. Dowerd.
“Isn’t he in his hammock?” Amy remembers that she was going to bring him dinner an hour ago. But it slipped her mind.
“First place I looked. Not in the grove. Not on the beach.”
Amy sighs. “Shoot. I should be keeping a better eye on him. You know how he likes getting in trouble.” She turns back to the others. “Triq. You’re the best writer. Just make sure you add sentences in the lead paragraph about the setting based on my notes. I bolded the important bits. Seems I’ve got to find a wayward child.”
“He isn’t a child,” Esquibel mutters bitterly. “And you should all stop treating him as one.”
“Huh.” Amy barks a short laugh. “Jay’s like one of those high-performing special needs kids. Can hardly dress himself but he’ll spot four different species of lacewing while Pradeep and I are still getting our bearings. I know he can be a little much but we absolutely need him in the field. Which is where he probably is.”
“Yes…” Pradeep agrees, following her outside. “But where?”
They find Jay sitting beside Alonso at the waterfall’s pool, playing cribbage. Alonso soaks his feet and they share a joint.
“Ahh. Gambling. I should have known.” Pradeep slips through the dense brush at the edge of the pool and crouches beside them.
“No money on this game,” Alonso rumbles. “Or I would be very poor right now. You may think he is an innocent boy but he is really a hustler.”
“Just the luck of the cards, my dude. Sup, Prad. Hey, Amy.”
Pradeep leans down. “I think I figured out how he got up there.”
“Seriously? No shit.” Jay drops his cards. “I’ve been cracking my brain on that. Total mystery hour.”
“Who got up where?” Amy is glad she carries her daypack. She unslings it now and gets out a few snacks for the players.
“Amy, that is too kind.” Alonso unwraps a packet of crackers and dips them in the pool’s cold water. “Hm. Surprisingly good.”
Jay opens an energy bar and tears off a huge bite. “Show me.”
Pradeep takes a packet of dried fruit. “It is the Lisican fellow we saw in the crown of the redwood when the ospreys attacked. We couldn’t figure out how he got up there.”
“Way high up. Like a hundred meters. We were like, dude!”
“But there is no hurry. You should finish your game first.”
“Shit, it’s already over. Sorry, Alonso. Double run. And fifteen-eight is sixteen. Not your day, homie.”
Alonso glowers at the cards. Amy pats his shoulder.
Jay wheezes as he pushes himself to his feet. “I know…” he forces the words through the pain, “…not to pull the stitches open but I got to stretch the scar tissue or… ah!” He stumbles up, wincing. “Never heal properly otherwise. Good to go, Prad. Let’s get it.”
Pradeep and Jay leave Amy to get Alonso back to camp. “Ah, well. Boys will be boys.” She starts cleaning up their picnic.
“Eh. Unless they become girls.”
“Or nonbinary.”
“Precisely. Jay told me about the osprey nest. He says they can’t get blood samples unless they kill them. I told him—”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yes, I told him absolutely not. But it made me realize we need a policy for collection. We have no trouble killing all the insects and tapeworms and sea life. But birds? Mammals? I mean, as a field biologist, where do we draw the line?”
“It really depends on our values as principal investigators and how challenging it is to get our results. Do you think you can get an accurate report from Plexity without…?”
“No. Of course not. I mean, they are apex predators in this ecosystem, aren’t they? You people have always told me those are the keystone species.”
“Ospreys certainly are. But I don’t know how to get the samples you need.”
“Maybe something with the drone…?” Alonso taps his chin, lost in thought.
Amy stares at him as if he’s lost his mind.
Down the trail and across the camp hurry Pradeep and Jay. From her platform, Maahjabeen watches them go off together and her lover can’t understand why her face is so sour. But he doesn’t have time to find out. He’ll ask later.
They make it through Tenure Grove to the far side, where the osprey nest is. Here is where they saw the man standing so high above. Jay is full of guesses and theories. “You found a way he got there from the cliff, didn’t you? No, wait. There’s like a whole permanent village up there isn’t there? Oh, man. That’s it. I can see where he stood. And there’s totally room for a swank pad up there. I mean, I guess. Can’t really see which tree…”
“That is the big problem I had.” Pradeep points up at the spot in the distance he hopes to reach. “That’s the tree, right? That one. Okay. Now follow me. It’s that one. It’s that one…” As Pradeep ducks into the understory, he tries to keep his arm pointing at the correct tree. But it is soon hidden from view. By the time he can see the redwood canopy clearly again, he is at the base of a cluster of them. “Now which one is it?”
“Uhh.” Jay tries to orientate himself. The trees are so fucking huge their tops seem disconnected from their bases. “I don’t think it’s this ring. I think it’s further in.”
“Well. Good eye, is all I have to say. Because I spent far too long trying to figure out how to climb these trees here. But you’re right. It is another group, through this way.”
Beneath a close canopy of rhododendron and fern they crawl, popping up to find massive striated reddish columns once again towering above them.
“This one?” Jay guesses, pressing his hand against it. He needs to take a breather. His side is burning like a motherfucker but there’s no way he’s going to tell Pradeep that. He’d make them go back home, right when it’s getting good.
“Close. Up and over and the big one on the far side.”
“Up and over, huh?” Jay doesn’t know if he has it in him. And the brush is so thick there’s no way to skirt this fairy ring and its high walls of entangled roots. He has to climb them.
“Maybe you should wait here…”
“And maybe you should kiss my ass.” Jay grunts, reaching as high as he dares with his right hand, and pulls himself upward onto the foot of the redwood trunks. A hiss of agony escapes him.
“And now I regret bringing you…”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Fine. You’re in. This is it. You made it. Just wait here now.”
But Jay’s looking at the redwood duff and bed of moss beneath his feet. “Somebody’s been here alright. Like a lot. See here and here? Trying not to leave tracks but that only works if you’re light on the land. Not if you’re coming in every day.”
Pradeep studies the brown and bare patches in the moss. They lead right toward the burn scar in the tree that is their goal. “Yes, good eye. That is where they go.”
“In the goose pen?” Jay struggles across the uneven bed of moss to the yawning seam an ancient fire had burned in the massive trunk. This is one of the largest Coast Redwoods Jay has ever seen.
“Goose pen?”
“Yeah, the settlers in the redwoods would keep their geese and chickens in the burnt redwood trunks. They just put little gates across the openings then boom, eggs for days.”
“Yes, well, this one isn’t a goose pen. It’s a lobby.”
“A lobby?”
“Well, whatever the ground floor is with the stairs leading up.”
“There’s stairs? Where?”
But Pradeep is already inside the goose pen, a voluminous space as large as an average bedroom. He has fitted his hands and feet to indentations cut in the blackened interior bark. Following them spirals him upward.
“Whoa…! Dude! You did it! Oh my god! This is totally like in Swiss Family Robinson! You ever read that? I fucking loved that book. They had this treehouse with a secret interior way… but, I mean, how will you get all the way up? Does it go fully to the top?”
“I mean…” Pradeep grunts with effort. This isn’t very easy. The trunk’s interior tapers the slightest bit, which makes each step a little bit greater than ninety degrees. “It has to, doesn’t it?”
“And if I had to guess I’d pretty much assume they don’t want us poking our heads up there.”
“Yes, but…” Pradeep wants very much to get to the top of this tree. “We can’t do a full survey of the island without it, can we?”
“Careful. That’s the kind of thinking that got me involved in some pretty heavy prophecies last week.”
“Well, what would you have me do?”
“I just want you to wait a few more days for me to heal up so I can come with you. One person shouldn’t go it alone.”
Pradeep sighs. “You’re right. I hate that you are right.” He drops from his spot, a good four meters up, and lands on the goose pen’s floor. He stares upward. Is there a dim bit of gray light up there at the top of this narrow cone? Or is it just a trick of his eyes?
“We need to come back with Katrina. And the drone.”
Ξ
“Success!” Flavia returns from the lagoon with a bucket filled with sea life. “The gill net was very full.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, let me see what you got there.” Jay limps up to the kitchen tables of the camp. “Amy, where’s my filet knife at?”
Flavia places the bucket at his feet. Squirming fish, their backs red and mottled brown, can barely be counted, much less recognized. “Holy shit, a bonanza! You sweethearts. Papa’s got a plan for you.”
“Well, I will take that as a sign to start drinking.” Alonso moves with slow care toward his barrel, holding a wine glass.
“Look at you, Zo!” Miriam calls out from her spot on Katrina’s platform, where she works on her laptop. “Graceful as ever.”
Alonso laughs and makes a florid gesture with his arms like a ballet dancer. “Just don’t ask for a grand jeté. No, but I am doing much better, darling. The swelling has come down, more than I thought it would. Mandy, I thank you. Where’s Mandy?”
“She and Katrina have been gone all day,” Esquibel informs them as she exits the bunker. “Is it dinner time? I am starving.”
“Almost, Doc. Going for the simple fish fry tonight.” Jay pours a profligate amount of oil into their largest pan. “Man, this is way too much fishmeat for one meal. We got to keep the rest for later. Flavia, we need more seawater for these guys. Keep them fresh.”
“Fine. Water is something I can do.” Flavia lifts an empty bucket and heads back to the beach. She passes Maahjabeen, carrying her kayak, as she goes. “Chef needs another bucket.”
Maahjabeen nods. She has just unloaded on Flavia about Jay and a sour unspoken message passes between them.
“No, seriously, Alonso…” Miriam puts aside her laptop and goes to him, where he is dispensing his first drink of the night. “You look so much better. What did you do all day?”
“Well, I had my feet in the pool. And then I joined Maahjabeen for a dip in the lagoon. Have you been? Very bracing.”
“That’s a weasel word for freezing and you know it. But you don’t care. You’ve always burned so hot.” Miriam leans in and nuzzles Alonso’s rough chin. Her arms drape around him.
“And you have always been my cold-extremities girl.” He kisses her temple. “Triquet. Mi amor. Can I get you a glass?”
Triquet is touched that Alonso and Miriam so easily include them in such intimacy. With a groan of pleasure, Triquet crosses to them and falls into a welcoming embrace. “You know it, big boy. I’m thirsty as hell.”
They all giggle at the flirtation. Alonso kisses Triquet’s temple as well. “And how about you, Triq? Do you run hot or cold?”
“You know me, Alonso. I’m like quicksilver.” They favor him with an arch smile. “Catch me if you can.”
Miriam kisses Alonso’s ear. “I told you they were naughty.”
Alonso laughs. “Ah! Where is Katrina? We need music! And dancing! Tonight is a real supper and we should all be here!”
“Let’s see. Maybe I can…” Esquibel crosses the camp and climbs onto Katrina’s platform. She begins picking through the DJ gear. “Does anyone know where the power button is on this thing?”
But everyone is busy with their own pursuits. Amy has joined Jay at the stovetop. Maahjabeen has stowed her boat and gone to Pradeep at his platform. It is up to Esquibel to figure out how to get this system to make music.
She opens Katrina’s laptop and it asks for a password. Of course. Esquibel can’t just go snooping through someone else’s machine. But that does remind her of her other mission. And this is perhaps the perfect opportunity. The second pocket of the laptop case yields a black and chrome USB stick almost identical to the first one she loaded with Plexity data. Into a pocket it goes. “Ehh, I can’t figure it out. We will need to be acoustic, I guess.” Esquibel lifts a small tambourine, festooned with satin ribbons, and bangs it against the heel of her hand.
“Doctor, a glass?” Alonso has both Miriam and Triquet hanging from him. His smile is wide, wider than Esquibel has ever seen. It is good to see her patient doing so well.
“Why, yes, Doctor. Thank you.”
“Maybe for a song. Can you sing for your supper?”
The others call out for Esquibel to sing. But she has never had much of a voice. She tries to think of something that will satisfy them. She bangs out the rhythm on the tambourine to an old Kenyan nursery rhyme from her childhood:
“By short/shot I love you baby
The baby to the sun/son
The sun/son to the owner
The owner to the men
The men to the bush—”
Esquibel stops. Figures appear in the bunker’s door. Katrina exits into the camp with a squeal of delight. “Ooo! Sounds like a party!” She is followed by Mandy, shuffling behind, very tired.
Finally, blinking and smiling at them all with hesitation, Jidadaa exits the bunker behind them.
Jay is caught up in the cooking. But he finally turns when the camp goes still to behold their visitor. When he sees Jidadaa in the doorway, he slams the spatula onto the table with surprising force, silencing everyone. “You.”
Chapter 35 – My Brakes Don’t Work So Good
August 26, 2024
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:
35 – My Brakes Don’t Work So Good
“Slow down, Prad. Slow.” Jay holds his side as he gingerly follows Pradeep along the western edge of Tenure Grove.
Pradeep stops and takes out his phone. He opens a notepad app and dictates, “25 April, 9:33 am. Jay has just uttered the words ‘slow down’ for the first time in his life ever, to my knowledge.”
“Oh, he’s a comedian. Like a real funny guy.” Jay winces as he stops beside his friend, his left hand splayed protectively across his ribs. “Fuckin A, this didn’t hurt nearly as much the day of. What did Doctor Daine do to me? I thought her stitch-up went so well.”
“It is just healing. You know, that thing you will never sit still long enough to do?”
“Getting my blood flowing is also good for healing. I just got to make sure I don’t engage, well, like my entire left side. Turns out, it’s amazing how much you use the left side of your ribcage. Like putting on my sandals. Even the slip ons need me to lift my legs in a way that is just no no no bueno.”
Pradeep stops at the base of a huge coast live oak. “And here is as far as I’ll bring you. I even brought a tarp for you to lie on. The leaves are all prickly.” He unfolds it and spreads it on the ground under the boughs.
Jay sinks to his knees with a groan. “Oh, hell yeah. Now just feed me some lunch, baby, and you got yourself a date.”
But Pradeep is excited to get started. His face is already pointed at the canopy. This is a massive oak, as much as thirty meters high. He might be able to get about twenty meters up. Now. How to start? The massive trunk rises far above his reach before it divides. There are no obvious handholds. “Well. This is why we train.”
“Bro, you seriously ready to do this? They said you just flatlined on a cot like a couple nights ago.”
Pradeep stops and assesses his fitness, hands on hips. “I am somehow better than I have any right to be. Not perfect. My sternum still hurts. But I’m not nearly as weak as yesterday. Just don’t tell the Doctor we’re doing this.”
“No doubt. Well come on, then. Get on that bad boy. I want to see you pull some gnarly parkour shit up there.”
Pradeep takes out a length of climbing rope about twelve meters long. In one end he ties an alpine hitch. The other end he throws over the lowest crook in the trunk. Then he feeds that end through the loop of the hitch and pulls the rope tight.
“Bingo bango bongo, our boy is ready to roll.”
Pradeep dries his hands on his pants, takes a deep breath, and pulls himself hand over hand up the rope. It is too narrow and cuts into his palms. Gritting his teeth, kicking his toes up crevices in the rough bark, he rises one meter, then two. Somewhere between three and four meters is where he can hook his elbow around a nearly horizontal branch as thick as his leg. Then he swings his foot into the crook where his rope disappears. He shakes the pain out of his hands and peers upward through the greenery. “No real path yet available. This old Quercus agrifolia bastard has just extended itself in every direction. Need a loop.”
Pulling at the rope under his foot, he removes it from the tree. Then he makes a wider arborist’s loop of it on one end and gives himself a second one on the other end. He swings them into the branches, catching onto holds that are sometimes secure enough to bear his weight. He swings out and up, cheered on by Jay’s faint whoops from below. Finally he gets to branches built to a human scale. He sits in a fork of the limbs like a saddle, breathing hard, coiling the ropes and stowing them in his daypack. He takes out a Dyson reader. “After the last storm,” he calls out, “I was doing pull-ups on a branch of that coast fir beside you. And I found the remains of a huge uprooted porcini, just resting on the branch. At first I thought someone had put it up there as a joke. But that was impossible. The storm had blown it down onto the branch from above. So. Logically, giant mushrooms are up here somewhere.”
“Giant edible mushrooms.”
“Likely but uncertain. It was in end stages, just almost a clump of slime. So I’m like 98% sure it was porcini. Couldn’t use the branch after that. No grip. Now up here, I don’t see any troubles yet…” The outer edges of the oak are hung with long Spanish mosses but the interior, along the old trunk and branch lines where he climbs, are mostly dry and clear of life. He needs to get higher.
“Hey, hold the fucking phone. What kind of fir did you say that was?” Jay pulls his eyes from Pradeep’s exploits to study it.
“Coast fir of some variety. I hadn’t identified it. Just used it for pullups. No, the mushroom took my attention first—”
“Cause look at these bristlecones. Seriously, this is a bristlecone fir, dude. This might just be an actual Santa Lucia. Rarest fir tree in the world, dude. Only found in the canyons of Big Sur. Whoa. Seriously. Oh my god. We found an honest to goodness Abies bracteata Santa Lucia on Lisica. Holy shit. We’re gonna be like rockstar famous when we get back. You realize that, right?”
“NDA, Jay.”
“Shit. Right. Forgot about that. Well, some day.”
“Famous?” Pradeep blanches and swings up into the high branches, a good fifteen meters from the ground. “No thank you. I never need to be famous. Just give me a twenty year grant and a cabin somewhere and I will send you papers at regular intervals.”
Pradeep’s motion startles a nesting osprey. The massive black bird launches into the air with a shrill cry, screaming for its mate.
“Oh, no way! You got to get out of there, Prad! Sea eagles are super mean! Territorial! They can fuck you up!”
The osprey wheels into the sky. Now they see the gray and white highlights on her nearly three meter wingspan. She is a cunning hunter and a fierce protector of her nest. She wings quickly back to the tree, swooping past Pradeep, screeching at him.
“Yeah… Yeah, not good here…” Pradeep retreats, hiding behind two narrow trunks growing together. “See here’s a real operational flaw in Alonso’s plan.” He ducks as the osprey swings back at him, beating the nearby branches with her wings. “Theoretically, we are supposed to be collecting samples from every life form on the island.” She circles the tree and tries to attack him from the far side, but the leafy cover is thicker there and she peels away. “So who is going to get the osprey sample, you or me?”
“And her mate.”
“And the eggs? There must be eggs up there. Or hatchlings.”
“I mean, there are…” But the osprey has returned again, interrupting Jay. “There are protocols for sure. We just don’t, I mean, I didn’t bring any gear for trapping and sedating large raptors, did you?”
And now they hear the second osprey, out hunting over the water, returning with cries of urgency. Pradeep makes a quick decision. “Okay. Coming down quick. You might want to, uh, watch out.”
Jay moves as quickly as he can, which is agonizingly slow. He needs to get under cover. Pradeep runs out the limb he’s on and drops crashing down through the outer branches he can reach.
Both ospreys come in hard, reaching through the thicket for him with grasping talons and razor beaks. Pradeep yelps and releases his grip, falling onto a clump of others below. Then he rolls off them to land heavily on the ground. He scrambles away, unhurt, to join Jay under the protective eaves of the Santa Lucia fir. They peer upward. The birds have gone silent.
A trilling whistle pierces the air. Jay realizes it’s being repeated. He just couldn’t pick it out before during all the crashing and screaming birds. He and Pradeep step out and look up, to see a figure far above, a tiny dark silhouette in the canopy of one of the neighboring redwoods, nearly a hundred meters up.
The ospreys wing up toward the figure on a nearby thermal, who holds something out to them. Whoever it is stands on the branch with no concern for the height. They appear to be unsecured, just waiting for the birds. The lead eagle snatches the offering from the human’s hand. Somehow mollified by this, the pair of great birds return to their nest together.
Pradeep and Jay share expressions of open-mouthed shock.
Ξ
Esquibel wakes late. She lies alone on her cot, wrapped in fleece blankets and covered in Mandy’s sleeping bag. She is warm and snug, with no real memory of what came before. Oh, that’s right. Last night was dancing. Celebration. The return of the men.
She yawns and stretches, sitting up. This narrow cell closest to the clean room has become her own. She has not decorated it in any way, but the one clear wall has been filled with shelves stacked with trays and boxes. All the tools of her trade. They are what identify her. Sometimes she wonders what her life would have been like a thousand years ago. She’d be some hedge witch in a village with her stock of plants and poultices and people would hike for days to find her. But she would probably have to live as a hermit in the mountains after they found her in bed with a woman. It would be just her in a hut, alone with the leopards and the crocs.
Something itches in her cleavage, under the tank top she wears when she sleeps. She adjusts it and finds a slip of paper, like what you’d find in a fortune cookie, against her skin. She takes it out, assuming that it’s some manufacturer tag that came loose in the night. But it isn’t. It’s rice paper, folded endwise, so that when she unfolds it three times it’s as long as an uncooked noodle. And there’s writing on it.
DATA INSUFFICIENT. MORE OR NO DEAL. WEDNESDAY NIGHT. SAME LOC AS BEFORE. BURN THIS NOW.
Esquibel goes cold. How…? She covers her breastbone with her palms, hunching over protectively. Where did this come from? How did they get in here? Mandy was here with her at one point, wasn’t she? Oh, the violation! How could this happen?
Then the ice is replaced with fury. How dare they take this risk! So sloppy. Is this what she is getting involved with? No no no, this is too unsafe. If their spycraft is this loose then it certainly increases her own risk. She might break off the deal just because of that.
And what is this about asking for more? Such bald manipulation. Also very concerning. They obviously have no idea how to lure in an asset. Ugh. She may have gone in too hard about Dissatisfaction With The Americans in her contact letter. Now they must think she’s desperate. Well she isn’t. She’s… well, more than anything she’s offended. Legitimacy is hard to come by in this world, especially for an African woman. With this reckless contact she feels like she has been relegated to some lower division. Fine. If nothing else, that will just increase her price.
But she has no more USB sticks to spare. And she has no idea how to find one. Well. Keep her eyes out. It is all she can do. And yes. She will make herself some tea and use the stovetop to burn this note, then if anyone complains of the smoke she can stage a paper napkin or something catching fire.
Ehh, she had woken with such… relaxation. She had been empty. Now she is all anxiety and duplicity. This note is like that black splinter in the bull kelp, its existence solitary but still distorting the whole world around it. Horrible.
Ξ
Triquet wakes before Miriam does. They are tangled together, almost entirely naked. Oh dear, Triq. What have you done now? Never been a homewrecker before. Triquet squeezes their face shut, trying to make all the parts work. Their eyes are too dry. Their mouth. All the muscles of their face and jaw ache. And their neck and shoulders. It’s all a painful mess.
But Lord that was fun. Well, it started with fun. Then it got so goddamn touching and meaningful they couldn’t stand it, with poor Alonso wandering through his internal halls of grief. Then it got fun again, then it got… well… super hot and heavy. What an absolute shocker. Nothing Triquet had ever experienced before. Miriam is by far the best lover they’ve ever had. She was tender and fierce and artful and just so, so connected to Triquet’s every need and desire. Good golly, this is how it’s supposed to be? An ache rises in Triquet’s chest, a deep pang of regret over all the wasted years of fumbling hesitancy and miscommunication. Miriam had driven their body like a fucking speedboat through the waters, her hands and lips so sure.
And now what? Triquet can’t just let that go. It was revelatory, more precious than gold. They’d do anything to have a repeat of it, tonight if she’s willing. But on the other hand, this is a man’s wife. Your boss. Your boss who was tortured for five years and spent all night weeping out his trauma. And here you were, two tents over, banging his wife, singing Siouxsie and the Banshees. Eesh. Not a good look, Triq. And just not, well, what good people do.
Now what? Well, keeping secrets really isn’t Triquet’s way. If it was, they’d have just kept their birth gender and birth name and lived a private life of fantasy in a closet somewhere. But they just couldn’t ever keep their big mouth shut. Fuck. Their sigh sounds more like a groan of pain. It wakes Miriam and she smiles.
“Gor, I feel like shite.” She laughs, a croupy sound. Triquet counts the wrinkles at her eyes, realizing again how many years separate them. Miriam stretches and untangles her arms. “Way too old to be the party people. How you doing, lover?” And she kisses Triquet on the tip of their nose.
“Well, that’s one relief. That you aren’t waking up screeching, ‘What have I done?’ So thanks for that.”
“Why?” Miriam frowns. “What did we do? Nothing indecent, right? I don’t really think…”
“I mean, nothing…” Triquet grasps for a delicate way to put it, “…well, penetrative, but…”
“Exactly. Just some good old-fashioned fooling around. I mean, my menopause is almost upon me, dear, but birth control is still a thing in my life. Assuming you’re…”
“I’m not, I mean we can’t…” But Triquet doesn’t have the brain power this morning or the will to discuss it. “So we’re not…? We’re still friends, yeah? I didn’t ruin anything?”
“Ruin…? Honey, anyone who spends an hour going down on me isn’t ruining a thing. Mother Mary, when I finally came I thought the sky exploded.”
Triquet giggles, worry sheeting from them. “As long as you kept telling stories about Patty Smith and Debbie Harry I couldn’t keep my hands off you. Jesus, Miriam. You’ve met everybody.”
“Well, no. I was just very seriously into dancing in the clubs for a good fifteen years. It may be hard to imagine now, but I had this very particular look that, well, it just worked for me.”
Triquet finds it very easy to imagine, this long-legged, red-headed Irish girl gyrating elegantly under the lights. She must have been a legend. They put a hand on Miriam’s forearm. “You know, um. I have to tell Alonso. About last night. I hope you understand…” But Miriam laughs aloud. “What?”
“No way. We might have to race. I want to tell him first. But I guess you can if you want. He’ll love this.”
“Oh.” This is a scenario Triquet hadn’t considered. “For real? He won’t be jealous or…?”
“Oh, he’ll be fiendishly jealous. But only because he missed out. Not sure how you feel about my big Cuban bear, but I’m sure he’ll want to be part of the fun next time.” Miriam puts a tender hand against Triquet’s heart. “Assuming there is a next time.”
Triquet shakes their head in wonder. “God, who are you people and why has it taken me so long to find you? Of course. Yes, please. I’ve had a crush on Alonso since I first met him. Who wouldn’t? It would be an honor and a pleasure and, like a whole-ass fantasy come true. Just maybe give me a day or two to recover. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Triquet sighs again, and once more it sounds like a groan. They sit up and a headache announces itself. “Water.”
“Good call. Let’s find some.”
They stumble from the tent and the platform hand in hand.
Ξ
Amy sits at the long table in the sub’s belowdecks, facing Morska Vidra and the Mayor, who haven’t yet sat in the chairs provided. At Amy’s side is Katrina, recording everything and taking notes.
Running a finger down a list of words they believe are defined, Amy pulls out, “Uh, dzaadzitch. The word you repeated when you arrived. What is that? Dzaadzitch?” Amy holds her hands out, palms up, and shrugs.
The Mayor speaks slowly. Amy picks out the word katóok.
“Hold on. Hold on…” She consults the list. “No katóok here.”
“Katóok,” Katrina reads from her Eyat glossary. “Variants: dadóok, which can mean cave. Otherwise it means interior.”
“Jay was in a cave. I mean, we’re in a cave right now.”
“Or the island’s interior…” Katrina studies the Mayor’s placid face. No clues there. Katrina points at their feet with the tip of her thumb. “Katóok?” Seeing no response she points to where she guesses the center of Lisica’s hidden valleys and canyons must be. “Or, katóok. Is it out there?”
With her own thumbtip, the Mayor agrees by pointing to the island’s interior and repeating the word katóok.
“Okay. Progress! Yes!” Katrina writes down the word on Amy’s list. “But what about dzaadzitch? There is no mention of any word like it in the lexicons. In Slavic languages the closest you’d get is, well…” She shrugs, thinking, “I mean, maybe like a baby lamb? But Lisica doesn’t have sheep.”
The Mayor interrupts her reasoning with a long, emphatic speech, with plenty more mentions of dzaadzitch and katóok.
“I mean…” Katrina shakes her head, mystified. “We have to assume it’s been a good number of generations and of course they’ve invented their own words in the meantime, especially with all the loan words they eventually got from—”
The Mayor abruptly leans across the table, speaking again, and grasps Katrina by the wrist. She pulls on her arm until their joined limbs hang suspended over the table. With her thumbtip, the Mayor indicates the length of their connected arms.
“Dzaadzitch means arms?” Amy makes the suggestion in a meek voice, hating to be wrong. She grasps her own arm. “Dzaadzitch? Yes? Your arms? Your joined arms?”
The Mayor, still holding Katrina’s arm aloft, shakes both of them for emphasis. She tries to pull it even more taut and nearly lifts Katrina from her seat.
“Wait wait wait.” Katrina struggles to regain her balance, smiling and nodding at their guests. “I think I’ve got it. It’s some kind of connection. The ‘dza’ sound is in a bunch of words. Like, uh, ‘dzáaxʼ kadz’ means ‘string connecting a pair of mittens.’ Right? Like our arms are connected, yeah? Dzaadzitch.”
The Mayor repeats the phrase dzáaxʼ kadz and smiles. She seems mollified by Katrina’s line of reasoning. The Lisican woman uses her free hand to indicate herself, explaining something with a sentence that once again ends with the word katóok.
“You are? You’re katóok? You’re the interior?” Katrina’s smile falters. Wait. Maybe it doesn’t mean what she thinks after all.
“Oh, I get it.” Amy stands. “She’s Lisica. Or the heartland or whatever. Your arms are the conduit connecting the interior world with the exterior. And then you are… well, us. Right?” Amy asks brightly, pointing at Katrina. “Scientists? Uh… Americans?”
The Mayor grunts “Merriguns,” then once more points at herself and says, “Katóok.”
“Americans here. Lisicans here. But here? Who dzaadzitch?”
This prompts a long speech by Morska Vidra, who leans on the table and lists off a number of words.
“Wait. I know that one. That’s a name? I thought it was, like, a condition. These are names he’s listing, yeah?”
Amy nods. “I think so. He keeps saying Jay.”
Repeating it makes Morska Vidra say the name Jay again.
“And Jidadaa? That’s a name? Kula, Jay, Jidadaa? And they are the dzaadzitch, the connection between the island and the outside world? Is that what we’re getting here? I think that’s what we’re getting, Katrina.”
“Okay, but what does that mean?”
“Jidadaa. That’s the key. Remember, that’s the word on the photo we showed them when they got so upset? Said all those items were kept at the other village? Now it’s a person? Maybe it’s a title. Like something hereditary, cause that was an old photo. Too old.”
The four people stand around the table smiling foolishly at each other. The Mayor has released Katrina’s arm.
Katrina goes once more through her notes. “We need to ask Jay what he remembers. Didn’t he say the woman’s name was Kula?”
“The woman with the daughter?” Amy turns to the Lisicans. “Kula…” She puts her hand at one height, then moves it to the side and drops it a bit. “Jidadaa… Yeah? Mother…” She repeats the gesture, indicating one and then the other. “…daughter.”
With a thumbtip, Morska Vidra indicates the daughter. “Jidadaa.” Then he points at The Mayor: “Dzaadzitch.”
“Aha! Progress!” Katrina makes a note of it. “So it is a name! But what does it mean? Okay, so both Jidadaa and the Mayor are what connects the inside and the out.”
“Jay says Kula stole his gear and vanished. I doubt we’ll be seeing them again. And they live on the far side of the river, where we’re forbidden on like pain of death. So… Not sure how we…”
Amy falls silent as the Mayor and Morska Vidra confer, trying to figure out how to communicate more from their end. But nothing seems to resolve. Then Morska Vidra falls silent. He grunts.
An animal sound echoes from further within the sub. It is his silver fox, bleating for them, an expressive urgent note.
Morska Vidra grunts something then turns and bends at the waist. He vanishes through the hatch.
The Mayor regards them. Although her face remains impassive, the depth of her dark gaze indicates how deeply the animal’s call and Morska Vidra’s reaction shook her.
That surprises them all. “What? What is it?” Katrina still hasn’t figured out how to ask a proper question.
For a moment the Mayor looks frail. She places a hand on the table and regards them. “Wetchie-ghuy,” she informs them, tapping at her own chin with her thumbtip. “Moj brat.”
Then she follows Morska Vidra through the hatch.
Amy releases an anxious sigh. “Whoaa. What was that?”
But Katrina can barely hear Amy. She absently shakes her head, implications and glimpses of meaning shooting through her. “Well. Either Wetchie-ghuy is in trouble, or he’s causing it.”
But Amy makes a disbelieving face. “They can tell that from a fox’s cry? Proper names? I mean, I’ve seen some amazingly complex behavior in animals, but…”
“Yeah, I didn’t think about that. Kind of wild. No, I was all caught up in what she said after that. Those were Slavic words. Wetchie-ghuy is the Mayor’s brother.”
Ξ
“Fantastico!” Flavia puts her fishing pole in the crook of her elbow and applauds Maahjabeen, who has lifted a net filled with swarming crabs and placed it atop the kayak. She paddles with urgency; the writhing mass in the net could easily slide back into the water.
“We make these crabs in Tunisia, on La Goulette. With a humiss and oil. So good. But, eh. No chickpeas here. Careful!”
But the crabs have slid back into the water and Maahjabeen almost loses her paddle lunging for the trailing rope. She draws them back to the kayak and places them back atop the deck. “Just like six more strokes!” But when she digs in with the paddle the net slides toward her and against her sprayskirt. “La! Ehhh! They’re scratching at me! I can feel them! Through the fabric of my…!” Paddling frantically, Maahjabeen brings her boat back to shore. She pushes the crab net away and pulls herself free of the boat. Then she reels them in, scowling.
But Flavia is dancing. She celebrates Maahjabeen’s bounty, lifting the net up and counting how many she can see of the wriggling pale brown crabs, some wider than her hand.
“Oh, we have so many ways in Italy of eating crab. And we can make precisely zero of them here on this island! Ha! But imagine. Crab ravioli with ricotta and spinach… Or soup. Garlic and oil…”
“You are driving yourself crazy.”
“How can you do this?” Flavia holds the crabs as Maahjabeen gathers her gear and begins hauling her kayak up the beach. “I did not know what I was getting myself into out here but you did. You do this all the time. Leave civilization. Leave garlic and wine…”
“Not wine. I do not drink.”
“No. Well, but all the finer things in the world. You all make the crazy decision, consciously, to deprive yourselves of restaurants and movies and people and for what? To come out here and catalogue the very last of the last, like a bunch of obsessive compulsive teenagers who can’t leave a few stones in the world unturned. Eh? Why must you live like this? Like monks and nuns.”
“Yes, I think that is part of it.” Maahjabeen looks out over the ocean, shining in alternating bands of silver and gray. “We know that the knowledge we gain out here is deeper. We are that much closer to God.”
“Eh. God. If we are going to be friends then we will have to talk about this god.”
Maahjabeen stops, a storm quick to form in her eyes. “Eh? What about God?”
“I know your religion is very important to you but you will have to understand I have no faith. No god has ever spoken to me. So in that way we are very different. Just please. Keep it in mind.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m quite aware that I’m surrounded by unbelievers. It is the way of things, not just for me but for any Muslim who ventures out. You people always make me, eh, code-switch or you threaten me with your atheist outrage. As if an atheist has any basis to feel outrage. I never understand that. Rage, sure, anger and irritation. All that. But I have atheists come at me in the West filled with righteous fury. How is that possible? Where is the righteousness coming from if they are without God?”
“I think it is just people who have been hurt by religion in the past and the outrage comes from those injuries.”
“Yes, well, God is everywhere. And He is good. And so you will not ever get me to stop talking about Allah. He is the Light.”
“Well, you will never get me to stop telling you to stop. So there.”
“Eh. We are a proper Mediterranean standoff.”
“The Fourth Punic War.”
They walk companionably into the camp.
Ξ
Finally the world has stopped spinning. Alonso hasn’t slept all night. Life has beaten down all his doors and he has no defenses left. He is just a bare soul, trapped deep within himself, battered and bloody.
But the fight is over, at least for the time being. He can… rest? No, there’s no rest in him. He is blasted, strung out, attenuated by the chemicals into something less than human. Wrung dry.
How can his muscles be so sore when he has hardly moved for the last, what, eighteen hours? Ai, he is too old for this shit. Party drugs are a young man’s game. It’s easy when you’re twenty-two and pliable as a willow tree. Now he’s skeletal. There’s no bounce back, no sunny disposition to rely upon. Just a broken old man forced to face the remainder of his life with scars and demons and a slow tapering good night. Ugh. This is not the life he signed up for. Claustrophobia drags at him, pulling him into a desperate panic. No no no. This is not how the end will be for Doctor Sergio Alonso Saavedra Colon Ramirez Aguirre. He will not suffer pain. He stares at its baleful inescapability and finds a fatalistic Latin chuckle. No, he will not suffer pain. He will enjoy it.
“I will celebrate it!” His voice is ghastly, hoarse and (yes!) painful! “Nessun Dorma! Nessun Dorma!” Oh it’s like his throat is on fire.
“Knock knock.” Jay climbs the ramp to the Love Palace, his form a shadow behind the mesh.
“Yes, Jay.”
The tent is unzipped and the curly mop of reddish-blond curls ducks through. The youth grins and unslings a small satchel. “How you doing today, O Jefe my Jefe?”
“Fantastic.” Alonso doesn’t care if the boy is immune to his heavy sarcasm. He lets him have it. “Dancing on the ceiling.”
Jay laughs. “Yeah, been there, my dude. The coming-down blues. The worst one I ever heard… One of my high school buddies joined the Marines and he was like stationed in the Philippines?And they dropped acid right before some guerrillas ambushed them in the jungle. He was tripping hard, like peaking, when he got shot. He said he could feel the bullet pushing through his skin and every cell of his body reacting in super-slow—”
“Jay.” Alonso puts up an urgent hand. “Jay. Not another word.”
“Ten-four, boss. Anyway, Miriam sent me in. Said you’d need some of my medicine.”
“Water.”
Jay lifts a familiar metal cylinder from his satchel. “Hot water in the thermos. Here you go. But sip. It’s fucking pipin’, bro. We’ll just pour some into the lid. Now check it out. Honey packets. Amy said she was saving them for a special occasion and I guess this counts. Yeah, get it all in there. That’ll do it.”
Alonso has never experienced anything so soothing. He wants the honey and hot water to continue forever; it is such an immense relief. What an idiot. He had begun his drug trip absolutely drunk. And then he had screamed and cried for hours. None of it good for his throat. And never enough water. But this is like the oasis in the desert. “Gracias, muchas gracias, Jay. I am restored.”
“Miriam said you’d also appreciate one of my little juh-highnts. Ease the pains, dull the edges, get the flow back to flowing.” Jay pulls out a pair of thin joints and presents them against his upraised palm. “One will wake you up and one will let you sleep. Your choice. But they’ve both got some killer terpenes for healing—”
Alonso waves him away. “No. My poor throat. It would kill…”
“Right. Roger that.” Jay is crestfallen. But after a quick moment he perks back up. “Wait! I made some oil! Hold up!”
Before Alonso can protest Jay is back through his tent flap and hurrying across the sand to his hammock. He returns moments later, holding his left side. “Got to slow down, man. Shit hurts. Get too excited about life sometimes.”
Alonso only stares at him with a dull expression. His physical pain is fading now but the mental… it is like his brain is made of concrete. All the channels collapsed and depleted.
Jay pours a dollop of oil into Alonso’s lid cup, nodding like a mad sage. “This’ll cure what ails ya, Jefe. Super strong. You’ll sleep like a baby now. That’s what you need, right?”
“I am…” Alonso swallows, squeezing his eyes shut in pain, “I am currently suffering from the side effects of my last drug trip and you want to fix this by giving me more drugs? Madness. So what will it be with this one? What are the side effects?”
“I already told you. Sleep like a baby. The primary effects will be psychokinetic with some heavy visuals if you let them happen. But then it will knock you the fuck out and when you wake up it will be out of your neural pathways and just stored in your fat for another week or two. You won’t pass any drug tests, that’s for sure. But, I mean, it’s just weed, Alonso. It isn’t a drug.”
Alonso laughs. “You are crazy.” But the siren song of oblivion calls to him and Jay is the only one offering him a way there. “I do need to rest. Well. ¡Salud!” Alonso sips at the water, then finding it not too hot now, he tosses it all back and grins.
The oil puts a vegetal tinge on the back of his tongue. And he doesn’t know if he’s still tripping from the night before or if this is a whole new thing, but he senses filaments growing from the oil into the wall of his trachea, spreading outward like one of Pradeep’s underground fungal networks into every bit of him. A sigh from deep in his bowels takes the concrete out of him. Now he is like a discarded pile of clothes, tossed on the bed. He falls back, heavily, onto the cot and pillows.
Jay laughs in surprise and reaches for Alonso to break his fall but he winces instead and covers the wound to his left side. All he can do is grab the man’s leg.
But Alonso didn’t feel a thing. He is now sailing on a peaceful cloud. He can’t believe the effects hit so soon. This must be a Pavlovian response. A placebo… A palliative. And all the other nice P words he can think of, por su puesto. He grins at handsome Jay from the cot. “No no. I’m okay.”
“Yeah, whoa. Look at you. Yeah, you are. I’ll check up on you from time to time. Make sure you stay that way. So… things went well last night? You covered some ground? I mean, I don’t know if you’re ready to talk about it.”
“It was fine. Everything is fine.” And everything really is. Alonso wonders if this is part of Katrina and Mandy’s therapy. Hit him with the hard stuff to begin then have the gentle hippie boy show up with his balms in the morning. “You are the nicest fellow.”
“Wait til I get you an omelette. Then you’ll think I’m a god.”
They both laugh. Alonso realizes how hungry he is. “Oh, yes, pretty please, my darling. Sorry. My dude. No, it was…” He sighs again, collecting his thoughts. He owes it to Jay to give him a serious answer after the nice things he has done for him. “I can’t say it was hard because it took no effort from me to go back to those horrible places. And something about the way the drugs work meant I didn’t try to run away. So there was no… no struggle on my part, you understand? It was like once it started I was just along for the ride. So I do not blame myself for anything. It would be like getting flushed down the toilet and blaming yourself instead of the sewer for how you smell.” Ah, he likes that analogy. His brain is working again. “What an amazing oil you made. The flow is indeed flowing again. And I am very grateful. I had to face the men who tortured me last night and there was a lot of… yes, a lot of ground that I covered, but still I feel like I have been in a fucking riot. I am just beat up, inside and out. I remember… I remember Triquet was such a sweetheart. And Mandy… I swore she was pulling long shards of glass from my legs. I howled. Or I think I did. Maybe it was only inside my head.”
“No, you definitely howled. For hours.”
“Oh. Well. My apologies to everyone.”
“We were all so glad! I mean, she was barely touching you. But she’s got the gift. Mandy said I’ve got to heal more before she’ll lay hands on me like that but I can’t wait. Girl makes me scream.”
“But how are you?” Alonso reaches out and clasps Jay’s solid forearm. His skin is so soft, the corded muscles beneath admirable and worthy of envy. He is youth personified. The MDMA must not be entirely out of Alonso’s system. Something of the night’s glow illuminates the contact between the two men.
Jay is quite used to spending his time with people on drugs. He leans back, lights his daytime joint, and just shrugs. “Pretty good. Just chillin’. Trying not to open the stitches. Do not want to set myself back, know what I mean?”
Alonso nods. “Yes, but how are you after your… your ordeal? Tell me more. What did it look like, the rest of the island? The island that we will now never see?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I had no idea that I was bringing about an end to an era! I was just following the job description, man.”
“No. This isn’t over. You made important new allies and it sounds as though there is now maybe a path to speak to this interior village. This… what did Amy call it?”
“We’re calling it the Katóok village now. The one on the other side of the river. And this one at the tunnel mouth with the Mayor is the Dzaadzitch Village, the connecting village.”
“Someone will need to write these words down. I cannot keep them in my head.”
“Sure thing. Yeah. Maybe I do need a full-on molly and massage debriefing like you had here. I mean, not that what I went through is anything like your nightmare, but—”
“Jay, you had screaming natives chasing you through caves with spears! I would say yes! Let Katrina and Mandy heal you. If you are having trouble getting past it, I mean, who wouldn’t after what happened to you?”
“You know, the whole time I was pretty sure you would all be so pissed at me for leaving. I was super stoked when I came back and everyone was so nice.”
“No, we were very angry. It was a very stupid thing. At times you are truly a dangerous moron.”
“Fair enough. Yeah, there’s a third village in there somewhere. And then I guess a whole bunch of other free agents like Kula and Jidadaa floating around. Wetchie-ghuy and his whole deal. But this one thing they said, I couldn’t make sense of. So Jidadaa, she’s only half Lisican, right? She never knew her father, one of the men, right? She said that the men are gone but the men still come. I mean, what does that even…? Blew my freaking mind.”
“Men? I mean, if we just replace the word with soldiers it makes more sense, no? The soldiers left and the soldiers still come. Maybe they had a regular base but now there’s only periodic visits.”
“Poor women. Outcast from all the villages but still stuck here. They said they’d come back with me and I thought we could…” Jay shrugs. “I don’t know. We’d figure something out. Thought we had a deal. But they snaked my shit instead!”
“And they spoke English?”
“Jidadaa spoke some. She’s a smart girl.”
“Good. Good…” Alonso struggles to say more, but his demons seem to have returned. He can hear them calling in the distance, taunting him with their gleeful agonies in a variety of Russian dialects. They are not vanquished, merely held at bay. Well. It is the other side of the MDMA, is it not? It provides respite. But maybe he will never heal, not fully. Not even with Jay’s herbs.
Jay watches the hopeless pall cast over his patient’s eyes. He grabs Alonso’s forearm in turn, like they’re Romans greeting each other. “You know what you need, my brother? You need a good swim. We need to wash your ass clean.”
“I smell that bad?” Alonso is able to unearth a fossilized smile.
“No. Not literally. The opposite of literally. You smell fine.”
“Figuratively.”
“Yeah, that. Also, it gets the weight off your feet and it’s so absolutely fucking cold it all goes numb in just a minute anyway. Can you swim?”
“Yes, I am a good swimmer.”
“You rest. Just let the oil do its work. And when you get up, we’ll get you in the water.”
“Yes, Jay. But wait.”
Jay slowly gathers his things. “Don’t slow me down now. I’m gonna go get that omelette going for you.”
“Listen. I am a data scientist. Of all the people here, I think of the big picture the most. That is my specialty in my field. Yes?”
“Sure. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“There is something happening across many fronts here in Lisica. Not just among what Plexity tells us about the life here, but in a wider sense. The military is unveiling the island in May. You have caused some prophecy to come to life that spells the end of an era. Those children with the golden masks. We are here to witness some change, some transformation, from one world to the next.”
“Yep yep.” Jay nods soberly. “We definitely live in a time of accelerating change. And me, my brakes don’t work so good.”
Chapter 34 – You People Are Wonderful
August 19, 2024
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:
34 – You People Are Wonderful
“Yes, of course such a thing is possible,” Flavia tells Katrina and Pradeep when they present their idea to everyone at dinner. “I am already making similar filters in Plexity. In fact, if you hadn’t spoken of it I am sure I would have gotten around to making one based on the day and night cycle in the next few days. It is really not that special.”
“Well, sure, mate,” Katrina allows, “but it is when you’re out in the actual web of it, the overlaid matrices in the water with the bull kelp all around. The connective tissues. Bloody hell. I tell you, Alonso…” She turns her attention to the man sitting in his camp chair, his belly like a beach ball stretching his t-shirt. “Plexity is deeply changing the way I look at things for sure.”
“Good. Excellent.” This briefly enlivens him. His energy has not been the best lately. He hasn’t shaved in three days now and the bristles on his cheeks are like entropy, unspooling his carefully-preserved self-image into that of a loathsome old man. And what is the deal with this giant goddamn gut he is suddenly carrying? He was a skeleton in the gulag, and not much more in the hospitals. Gaunt was the word everyone used to describe him. And now he is fat. Is that progress? Well, it may or may not be, but Katrina seeing the world through the Plexity lens sure is. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Well, it’s less about what I saw as much as what I imagined. Lines of influence stretching out in every direction, the past and future, the sea and sky and air, the kelp growing a meter every week and then dying back again, over and over. All these cycles and feedback loops. It really is its own supercomputer, ain’t it?”
“Yes.” Alonso holds his hand up like a conductor about to call for the first notes of Haydn’s Requiem in C Minor. He opens his mouth but the strings do not play. He reaches for his usual grand thoughts but fatigue prevents him from formulating them.
Miriam watches his struggle, knowing too well that she can’t help. If Alonso is unable to reference a masterwork then he will never be satisfied with anything less. But for once she doesn’t sympathize. He needs to dig himself out of this depressive relapse himself. He needs to work on his inner strength. His resiliency. She goes back to her own notes, only half-listening.
“Yeh, it was great…” Katrina finishes lamely, not understanding why Alonso had suddenly fallen silent, visibly unhappy.
But Pradeep isn’t tuned into anyone else at all. Plexity is giving him new returns on his queries and they all blow his mind. “Oh, my god! Alonso. Oh, I’ve never seen…!” Pradeep claps a hand over his mouth, brow furrowed, trying to make better sense of the data.
Alonso turns his heavy head toward the beautiful young man. No, not even Pradeep’s dashing good looks can stir Alonso now. But perhaps his discoveries can. “Yes? What is it, hermano?”
“It’s a, well, it’s just this innocuous cyst. I found it on a stalk of the kelp while I was out on the water. Like an infection. Or a… You know how trees get fungal growths and things? So I found this discolored bubble on the kelp and when I cracked it open I found this thing like a fat splinter inside. Like a dark seed.”
“Yes? And did you send a sample into Plexity?”
“I did! And it just confirmed that it was indeed a fungal infection of the kelp, and identified the fungus down to the class and order. But it had never seen this family. Neither have I. It’s a class of fungal endophytes that may be entirely novel!”
“Congrats, Pradeep!” Amy squeezes his shoulder. “I can’t think of a more fitting thing to name after you.”
A chorus of laughs and reminders that Mandy has a plasmodial slime named after her are called out.
“But that’s not the interesting bit. Look, Alonso.” Pradeep gets up and sits beside Alonso, sharing his screen with him. “Here’s a genetic profile of the little beastie. And here’s a molecular visual. God, these programs are so powerful. Now. Look at this table. These are its environmental interactions.”
“What am I looking at?” Alonso frowns, knowing next to nothing about fungi. “Why are all the values at zero?”
“Because, according to Plexity, it doesn’t interact with anything in its environment. It found no trace of local water or nutrients from the kelp. The fungus doesn’t appear to respire. Or metabolize energy stores. We can only assume it derives its energy somehow from the sun, as all things basically do, but in this case it’s unclear.”
“Wait. What are you saying? Of course it interacts with its environment. That is the hallmark of life!” Now Alonso pulls Pradeep’s machine into his own lap and looks more deeply at the data. “No water, no nutrients, no energy source? Then how does it replicate? What makes it alive?”
“It does seem to be in like a polyp or spore phase. Perhaps it’s just in suspension, waiting for different conditions. But yeah. Ever since you described Plexity and the web of life I’ve been thinking about this. Could we find a counter-example? Would we even recognize it if we did? Would it look like life if it was an isolate?”
“Isolate?” Alonso shakes his head, unable to conceive of such a thing. “I mean, let’s say it doesn’t eat or drink. It is still captured in the substrate of the seaweed’s cells. It is interacting with it, no?”
“Well, what I saw was that it formed a kind of protective sheath around itself. I think it was the sheath that the kelp was reacting to. The spore itself seemed, well, untouched. That’s what I’m saying. Can it be alive if it isn’t connected at all to its surroundings?”
“This is preposterous.” Alonso’s emotions stir, deeply offended. “And I believe you are just playing semantics. It will be a timescale issue, not a—a biological one. We keep this for two years or ten and then it fruits. Isn’t that what a fungus does?”
“Well, yes, but most of the fungi and molds I study are actively feeding and storing energy when they are in their suspended phase. It seems obvious. There’s free energy all around us. Here’s a billion years to figure out how to harvest some of it while you wait for the right conditions to, yes, fruit. But this endophyte isn’t utilizing any of them. Unless Plexity is broken or…”
“There is nothing wrong with Plexity!” Flavia looks up from her dinner of clams and seaweed and noodles. “Perhaps you collected the sample wrong.”
“Perhaps I did.” Pradeep isn’t interested in a fight. He knows he followed all protocols. “Running the sample again is definitely the next thing to do. So I did. Six times. Same results every time.”
“Eh… I guess I don’t understand the problem.” Esquibel has little patience for these highly theoretical discussions. “We seem to have identified it quite properly. It is like a seed, yes? You would not say that the sunflower seeds on my bagel are feeding off it.”
“Well, yes, actually you would. Seeds are alive, only dormant, and their cells are active.” Pradeep shrugs. “They feed off their stores of sugars and starches and wait for the right time to sprout. Now this endophyte also has active cells. The problem is it has no known stores of fuel or resources. It is only a collection of genetic blueprints. But somehow it is humming right along like, like a perpetual motion machine. Immune to its environment. Completely disconnected. I think it’s an alien.”
This is too much for Alonso. An unreasoning irritation shoots through him. “I think you’re the alien.”
Amy rubs her chin. “Are we sure that it fruits? What if this is its mature phase?”
“Amy, please.” This is too much for Alonso.
“I mean, talk about proving the rule. What would even the point of such life be? No reproduction. No respiration. Just… a splinter in a piece of seaweed forever.”
“I think,” Flavia says loudly, “there’s a small matter of the second law of thermodynamics that is having a problem with all of this. If something is producing activity, then they are expending energy. And if there is no energy source then the entire universe collapses because nothing works that way. I thought we all knew this?”
“It’s a mystery, for sure.” Pradeep is delighted at the discussion his endophyte has caused. “And I can’t wait to someday figure out the answer. Until then, I think we can all agree…”
But Pradeep is interrupted by a crash from within the bunker. They all instantly fall silent. Its door swings open.
Jay stands there, his entire left side stained in blood. He falls to his knees and groans. “Home again, home again, jiggity jig.”
Ξ
Maahjabeen returns from the lagoon with a reader, which she is beginning to seriously despise. She almost lost it again. Using one in a kayak is nearly impossible without losing hold of her paddle. She needs a lanyard on it, but there’s no attachment point to the case. She’ll have to figure out something…
Flavia eats a bowl of oatmeal and watches her return to camp. She admires the muscles bunching beneath Maahjabeen’s tight white rashguard. Flavia has never been so fit. She calls out, “You know, Maahjabeen, you remind me of a girl from university. A real beauty. Her name was Flore and she was from Brugge. Every boy in class tried to date her. And some of the girls too. But she was just too shy.”
Yet Maahjabeen is in no mood to hear about the adolescent failings of Flavia’s childhood. She glares at her as she passes. So Flavia gets up and follows her, perversely delighted in the reaction she’s provoking.
“For me, the men I have ever liked, they did not know. I always keep my crushes secret, you know? And the girls. If a girl is pretty, she gets so much attention. I do not want to be just another person bothering them.”
Maahjabeen gives a disbelieving grimace to Flavia. Surely the Italian woman can’t be so dense that she doesn’t even hear what she is saying? She stops at the tables to unload the reader and find a mug for tea.
“So, with Flore, I became her friend instead. She never knew that I had as big a crush on her as anyone. And I listened to all her worries about how the Italian boys were like rubbing up against her in the halls and humping her leg like dogs. She hated all of them. But after she had been there nearly all year she finally told me about the boy she did like. He was quiet, a small and dark boy from Sicily. He was a very serious student and he would never speak unless he had considered his words very thoroughly. His name was Ennio. Nobody knew him well. Nobody thought about him at all. Except Flore.”
Maahjabeen has found her mug and filled it with a sachet and some hot water. Now she retreats to her platform. But Flavia still follows her.
“She made me ask him out the first time, for her. She was too scared. But I didn’t care. I thought it was funny. And it didn’t matter because he was harmless. So one day I stopped him from leaving class and I took him to the benches outside. I told him that Flore liked him and I waited, very excited, to see if he would laugh or throw up or run away. I don’t know. But he did none of these things. He only looked at me and his face grew very serious. Then he looked down and his eyebrows came together. And he thought for a long time before he said a thing. But during that silence I became impressed with Ennio for the very first time. I saw a little bit of what Flore saw in him. Finally, after he was finished with all his thinking, he said, “Okay lo farò. I’ll do it.”
Maahjabeen disappears into her tent to change out of her wet clothes and Flavia sits on the platform outside, nibbling on her oats and continuing her story. “And it was so fantastic. I mean, the way those two fell in love. And I got to have like a front row seat. I was the confidante. They both told me all their big hopes and dreams and all the secret thoughts about how much they really loved the other one. It was like we were a little family for a whole semester…”
The memories silence Flavia and she shakes her head, bemused.
Maahjabeen’s voice calls out, “Yes? And then what happened?”
“Ah.” Flavia remembers why she brought this all up in the first place. “Yes, well, after our third year Flore had to go back to Belgium. And Ennio, oh he thought and thought about it. For weeks he wouldn’t think about anything else. Then when it was time for her to go, he decided. He left behind Torino, which was a very big deal, and joined her up there in Leuven. I visited once on break. They were so happy to see me but it was so cold up there and it rained the whole time. After they graduated they moved back to Sicily. Now they have two kids and she teaches French to adults. A good life, no?”
Maahjabeen pokes her head out of the tent and stares at Flavia with suspicion. “And what does this have to do with me? And, eh, Pradeep, yes? What are you saying?”
Flavia shrugs. “I just hope that I can be a friend. Sometimes I believe it is the closest I will ever get to true love. No, those two ruined me forever. I have had a few modern like relationships, you know? With lots of contracts and mutual agreements and meetings with therapists. Very neurotic. But once you see true love, la! You can’t accept anything less.”
The hostility in Maahjabeen evaporates. Her face softens. “You know… You are right. I am ruined too, but…” She laughs a bit at herself. “You know, Flavia, I want to talk to Pradeep about my mother, but I don’t know how yet. I feel…” Maahjabeen sighs in frustration and falls back into the tent.
Flavia sees this as her invitation and scrambles in after. They sit cross-legged facing each other in the cramped space, sharing the length of Maahjabeen’s sleeping pad. It is salty in here, as if the oceanographer brings the ocean home with her. And there’s a musky scent beneath which somehow accentuates her beauty.
Maahjabeen shakes her head, eyes worried. “I feel like… I think my Ama is a ghost and she is watching over me. And she is, well, my mother would not have liked Pradeep.”
“What? Not liked him? But he is so wonderful!”
“I know!” Maahjabeen squeezes her fists and drops them in her lap. “But to her it wouldn’t matter. He isn’t Muslim. And he isn’t Tunisian. Even if he was from the wrong side of Tunis she would have disapproved! My mother was very modern in many ways but with family, no. Even if he converts she would never love him.”
“And she is watching over you?”
“Sometimes I can feel her and…” Maahjabeen shrugs. “She is not happy. And if I told him about her, and how much she had always been, you know, at the very center of my life, it would be so hard. It would be like she is on the phone listening in. How can I talk about her in a way that will satisfy both her and him?”
“What if you told him what you are telling me right now?”
“I don’t know… That is the other thing about Pradeep. My mother would have hated his… you know, his…” Maahjabeen holds up a trembling hand, “…his anxiety. She would see it as weakness. She would be worried he would pass it down to her grandchildren. And if he fell apart in front of her, ehh…” Maahjabeen throws her hands up, hopeless. “I am glad they will never meet. I am not sure Pradeep would have survived it.”
They sit in companionable silence. Maahjabeen finishes dressing, Flavia completes her meal.
“I did not know you liked girls, Flavia.”
“See, that is what I mean. The people I fancy never know.”
Maahjabeen favors her with a dimpled smile, acknowledging the implication. “I like that I can talk to you about my mother. She loved Sicily. One of her closest friends was from Palermo. Sophia. We went several times when I was young. She would like that you are such a strong woman, Flavia. You do not compromise. And you stand on your own two feet. But she would be worried that you are not married.”
“Ech. No, don’t worry about me. I have a wonderful collection of battery-powered devices and a big dog at home. My life is all in here anyway.” She taps her temple. “Now. Changing subjects, I have some questions for you that are actually about science, if you can believe it. Katrina has set me a problem, well two problems actually. First is the Plexity filter she wants me to develop. And then there is the weather-modeling program we are making for Mandy. I need your input as an oceanographer for both projects. How… eh… how is your maths?”
“I love maths!”
Flavia claps her hands in pleasure. “You do? Oh, that is ingente! Huge! I did not know! Beauty and brains! Wow wow wow. Now I can see why Pradeep is wandering around after you like a dreamy little lamb.”
Maahjabeen rolls her eyes, easing into the familiarity of her new friendship. “Oh, la. You want to talk brains? I can’t even keep up with Pradeep when he starts—”
“No no no, right now we are talking about you, you and your big beautiful brain. These are data science problems so we need to isolate factors that emerge from marine sources, sì?”
“Of course. Alonso keeps making me focus on what he calls the threshold species and conditions. It makes me think a lot about the interactions. I’ve been building water column data for the lagoon.”
“Yes! That! That is what I need. Can you send me your files? Any format. And the more data the better.”
“Of course.” Maahjabeen blanches. “Oh, no. Is that what I think it is? DJ Bubblegum is getting started early tonight, isn’t she?”
Flavia starts moving to the soft disco beat wafting through the camp. “Well, why shouldn’t she? We are celebrating, now that we are all safe and together and happy again.”
Ξ
Alonso walks through the camp in a white sarong, expansive and care-free. His feet don’t even hardly hurt. Ah! What a beautiful night! Windy and cold with a gunmetal ceiling over the sea. Very Sturm und Drang. A Wagnerian kind of night. In this flowing fabric he is both Tristan and Isolde. He is the happiest man alive!
Jay has returned. And Pradeep has recovered. The entire project is back on track! The worries that had been eating away at him can kindly fuck right back off. They can scurry back into the shadows and cracks of his foundation. While things are going so well he can ignore how shaky his base is. Or, rather, he can shake it! “Katrina! Do me a favor and mix in some Bocelli! He is my guilty pleasure! E Pi’u Ti Penso, if you have it!”
Katrina frowns and searches her database. “I… don’t. Real light on the opera tracks, I’m afraid.”
“Well, that is not from any opera. It is a piece written for a movie by the very famous composer—”
“Here. Well. How about… I’ve got Marilyn Horne sings Rossini. Will that do?”
“Will it do?” Alonso makes a grand gesture. “I ask for comfort food and you offer me a—a dinner at a five star restaurant! Yes! Please! Marilyn is a genius. And I am very much in a Rossini kind of melodrama mood.”
And with deft technical wizardry, the mezzo-soprano’s crystal voice weaves seamlessly into Katrina’s lush instrumental beats.
“Ahhh…” Alonso spins slowly in the center of the camp, arms outstretched. Anxieties slough from him like old skin. He is new again. Re-born. Not Teutonic Tristan and Isolde any longer. This torrid Italian tale has swept aside the clouds. Now he is Bianca and Falliero both, demure maid and tragic hero. Passionate and noble. Now if he can only do something about this appalling gut…
He opens his eyes to find Mandy, of all people, dancing before him. She sways awkwardly, unable to embody the lyrical currents of the piece at all, but still Alonso is happy to see her. “Olé! Mandy is here! Arriba!” He claps to have her dance around him, but she evidently doesn’t know the convention. She only stares at him with a goofy smile and sways back and forth in time.
Katrina calls out to her, “Ask him!”
Alonso gives Mandy a face filled with mock-suspicion. “Ask me what? What are you two cooking up now?”
“We were thinking…” Mandy reaches out to Alonso and he mirrors her movement until they’re holding hands. “This might be a good night to resume our therapy.”
“Therapy…” Alonso is so transported he doesn’t even remember at the moment what the word means. But when he does, instead of the darkness it normally brings, he is touched by their persistent concern. He lifts Mandy’s hand to his lips and kisses it. “You are angels. Angels of light and love. I thank you. Yes, if that is what you think will be best, I submit to your expertise. But first we dance!” And he spins her.
Mandy squawks and falls away as Esquibel marches outside, her face preoccupied and cross. But when she sees Alonso drop Mandy she laughs. “No no, Mands. That is no way to properly dance. It’s like this!” And Esquibel gives her hand to Alonso. When he raises it to spin her she pirouettes prettily away.
Mandy gasps from the sand and claps her hands. “Oh my god, Skeeb! I didn’t know you could dance like that!”
“The remnants of a colonial education in Nairobi.” Esquibel rejoins Alonso and they dance lightly together to Marilyn Horne’s soaring voice. He is delighted.
“Oh, Doctor Daine! You are a woman of many surprises!”
“And you…” Esquibel responds to the change in mood she finds out here. She laughs, letting her own cares fall away. “Alonso, you are the craziest Principal Investigator I’ve ever met!”
“What a compliment!” He spins her into an embrace and dips her. They both laugh.
Miriam appears through the ferns from the creek, holding one of the recorders. She exclaims, “Oh, my days!” Then Triquet appears at her side and they both cat-call the dancers.
Alonso gasps and stumbles in the sand. Esquibel falls from his grip. They do not stop laughing. Neither does Mandy as she pulls her lover up.
“Here.” Esquibel holds Mandy in a formal pose. “It is very fun. Let me show you.”
“Oh, Mirrie…” Alonso struggles again to his feet, covered in sand. He slowly gyrates his hips like a hula dancer, beckoning to her. “They’re playing our song.”
Miriam looks at Triquet. “I’ve never heard this song in my life.” She grabs Triquet by the hand and hauls them onto the dance floor to join Alonso. “But that’s never stopped us before.”
Ξ
Cool. Life without a phone. Cool cool. No worries. He can do it. He’s been off-grid before, like down in Baja every Thanksgiving. Come on, Jay. Just four weeks with no electronics. You got this.
But the thing about those times is that he still actually had his phone, he just couldn’t connect with it. But it still had all his stuff on it. Now he has nothing to read. No music to listen to except what Katrina shares. And that’s cool and all. None of it matters. He’s got dope aplenty. And as soon as he gets Esquibel’s stitches out next week he can run and swim again. Katrina speared a goddamn barracuda while he was gone? He needs to get in on that action. And he’ll definitely need something new to do with his downtime. Maybe he could… learn to weave?
See. Normally, recuperating in his hammock here, he’d be listening to Katrina’s beats and playing one of three games on his phone. He has one puzzle, one platformer, and one RPG going at any given time and he cycles through them depending on his mood. Like right now he’d definitely be up for some bullet storm madness. He’s getting restless just sitting here with nothing to do.
Flavia approaches and sits on the edge of the hammock beside him, holding a glass of wine. He grunts as her weight shifts them toward each other. She smiles, already a bit glassy with alcohol, and grabs his arm, squeezing the muscle. “How are you, Jay? I am hoping, per favore, for some of that herb you smoke.”
“Heh.” Jay moves gingerly, trying not to tug on the closing wound. “That’s right. Step right up for your magical herbalism here. And I could use one of those glasses of wine if you—”
“No drinking!” Esquibel calls out from the dance floor as she and Mandy pass by. “Not until you’re off the painkillers. So stupid. Don’t you know anything?”
Jay falls back with a wince. “Yeah yeah. I know. Just looking for a bit of oblivion, Doc, if you don’t mind.” His practiced hands pick apart a nug and sprinkle it across an open rolling paper.
Flavia’s hand slides from his arm to his rib. He is surprised by her familiarity, but Jay is the kind of boy who has no real physical boundaries and doesn’t understand why others do. “They tried to kill you? They really did? It wasn’t just like a… a warning?”
Jay chuckles. “Warning? Nah, dude came at me full force. I’m just super glad the girl screamed. Woke me up just in time. He was definitely going center mass. But I twisted, like, I don’t know, just reflexes, I guess. Hella clean wound, though. I’d like to see that blade. Maybe obsidian, but Miriam said she doesn’t think so.”
Flavia confides, “You know, I do not like this island. And this island, she does not like us.”
“Aw, what? Are you kidding?” Jay smirks in disbelief. “This place is fucking paradise. Come on. Everywhere’s got sketchy locals. An island like this is always gonna have someone claiming it. Just a fact of the modern world, yo. And it’s all settled now. I paid my blood debt. The scary village is like punishing their hunters. The golden childs, the four of them in their masks, we said goodbye. It’s over.”
“I do not like that you saw Wetchie-ghuy.”
“Yeah well I don’t think anyone is ever happy to see that fucker. Must be tough going through life like that. Imagine everyone hating the sight of you. Here. Just a little binger for ya. Should smoke right up.” He holds up a needle thin joint, expertly rolled.
“Aw, grazie, grazie mille.” Flavia plucks it from his fingers and kisses him on the cheek. The wine is definitely making her more emotional and touchy. She should watch herself or something. But the boy does not seem to mind. She remembers sleeping on top of him that one night, taking such comfort in his big frame and strong arms. She wants, somehow, a deeper connection. How do people do that? Flavia gropes for something meaningful to say. “Oh, Jay. How… how is the pain?”
“Sucks. But oh well. Wicked scar, I guess.”
Flavia shakes her head in frustration, his statement so devoid of data she doesn’t know how to proceed. Ai, why can’t the human languages be more like logic languages? She thinks it a dozen times a day. Why must it always be so indirect and messy? He’s so dear, this one. She remembers him and Pradeep showing up at the door of her cell to pledge to defend her. Maybe that is what she can do. “Hey.” She jabs him in the chest. “When they were after me, you swore to protect me. Well. Now it is my turn. If they come for you, Jay. I will protect you. Okay?”
“Thanks, dude. But, you know, I just want my phone back.”
“You understand? We have our backs. Eh. How do you say it?”
“I got your back, Flavia. And you got mine. Ride or die.” He holds up his fist for a bump. She leans in and kisses him instead.
“Cool. Cool cool.” Flavia pulls away, glistening and desirable. Jay has no idea what’s going on. But he’s learned long ago to just roll with it when it comes to girls. Her hand drags across his lap and for a moment he wonders if she’s about to unzip his pants right here in front of everybody. But she snares his lighter instead.
Flavia stands unsteadily and lights the thin joint. She feels stylish, sipping on its smoke like a cheroot. Then Miriam and Triquet spin past and an outstretched hand pulls her into their laughing dance.
Ξ
Alonso is soaked in wine. It perfuses through his tissues, releasing his fears and muddling his thoughts. Oh, if he had only had a cask like this in the gulag! He would have laughed the five years away!
Well, not really. But still. Here, here is his happy place, where his tongue hardly works and thoughts are like deep underwater creatures rising from the void. He is all heart, not head. When all is said and done, he is a creature of emotion despite all his intellectual achievements. Mandy on one side, Katrina on the other. These two sweethearts, working so hard to make sure he gets better. How lucky can he be?
They deposit him in his cocoon in the bedroom of his tent and he snuggles under the covers like he’s about to hear his favorite bedtime story. But he is nowhere near sleep. He is… well, excited. For the first time in about thirty years he’s actually excited to take drugs. He’d forgotten what a pleasure MDMA could be.
Katrina hands him one white pill and he swallows it dry. Then she holds out another, but a percentage of it has been shaved away. “Esquibel and I agreed that one isn’t enough but two may be too much. So your dosage is like 1.8. Here.”
Alonso dutifully swallows the second smaller pill. Katrina hands him a bottle of water. Then she holds out the crumbled sliver that remains to Mandy. “Want just a taste? This will probably just give you a bit of a glow…”
Mandy shrugs. “Sure. Why not.” She pops it into her mouth and immediately gags. “Ugh. So bitter.” She pulls the water from Alonso’s hands. “Gah. How’d you do that, Alonso?”
“Yes…” He realizes he must be very drunk indeed for the bitterness of the pills not to affect him until she mentioned it. He grabs the water back and rinses his mouth. “Very bad. Of course.”
“Lie back.”
“I don’t want to fall asleep.”
Katrina laughs. “Oh, you won’t be sleeping for a good long time, mate. Pretty sure about that.”
“Knock knock.” Miriam enters the tent with Triquet. “Hello, all. Just checking in on the patient.”
Triquet sings, “Ground control to Major Tom… Commencing countdown, engines on…”
“No no,” Katrina giggles. “He just took it. And I was about to join him. Anyone else?” She shakes a couple extra pills into her palm. Triquet and Miriam both accept the offer. They choke the bitter little pills down. Katrina takes hers too.
“Should you, I mean, as the like person in charge…?” Miriam begins, casting a worried glance at Katrina.
“Eh? Oh, mate, I operate far better when I’m rolling than when I’m sober. I’ve got a lot of experience with this drug.”
“I trust you, haiku triplet.” Triquet claps their hands then places them on Alonso’s barrel chest. “Now. How can we help? Is this like laying on of hands? A bit of faith healing for the wicked?”
Alonso laughs and mutters something none of them recognize. They share a few puzzled grimaces and turn to Miriam.
“I haven’t the faintest.” She leans in and pulls the gray curls away from her husband’s face. “What was that, Zo? I think you’re speaking Spanish.”
“Ah.” His eyes slowly come into focus. “I was just saying I love you all and I wish I could just have this experience in my brain. Just this one. Not… all the others.”
“How’s it feel, Doctor Alonso?” Mandy gets in position at the foot of the bed. “Can I put my hands on you?”
“I am…” Alonso sighs wetly and waves vaguely at them all. “A piece of meat for you all to… carve and cook and serve on a platter. Do with me as you will.”
Mandy approves. “What every massage therapist wants to hear.”
But Katrina frowns. “No, it’s not really like that. I mean, for this therapy to be successful you can’t just be… asleep or passive or whatever. This isn’t just massage. We need your help. It’s about what’s within you, yeh? The deepest scars.”
Alonso belches loudly and fills the tent with an unpleasant odor of wine. “Sorry. Forgive me.” He waves the air clear. Then he stares at his upraised hand. It trembles slightly.
“What is it, Zo?” Miriam studies his hand with him.
Katrina laughs at the look in his eye. “Coming online, I’m pretty sure. He should be a few minutes ahead of the rest of us.”
Alonso can’t stop staring at his hand. This hand, this object that he knows better than any other object in the world. His right hand. It has stayed with him throughout his whole life. He remembers it when it was soft and childlike, without all these lines and scars and mismatched skin tones, without the hair on his knuckles and the squared nails that now look like his grandfather’s. He lifts his left hand too, remembering digging in the field as a graduate student. Or throwing a futbol in and racing up the sidelines. These hands. Dios mío, he has done so much with these hands. He has built an empire. A deep, worshipful love for his own hands wells up from within him. He owes these hands everything. They have done so much for him, taken so much abuse for him.
And then he recalls the one they called Sergei fighting his hand into restraints so he could burn his palm with a glowing red wire…
Alonso bucks and his left hand thuds into Triquet’s chest, knocking them back with a surprised grunt.
Miriam snares Alonso’s right hand and kisses it. She says to the others, “Careful now. This is how his dreams have gone these last few weeks. Just make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”
Mandy shares a worried glance with Katrina, who puts a calming hand on Alonso’s shoulder. “We’re fine. It’s all fine. Do you know where you are, Alonso?”
“Yes…” He opens his eyes and tears suddenly stream from their corners. “This is Heaven.” Then he shrugs and his eyes clear. “I mean, do I still know I’m in a tent? Yes. But I can’t remember where the tent is at the moment. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine. Not too clear on it myself. And whooo…!” Katrina rocks back as the drug catalyzes in her blood and brain and sends her rocketing into space. “Here we go! All I know is we’re all on this spaceship together. I just wish I knew who was driving.”
“You are.” Mandy gives Katrina a meaningful glare. “You just told us that you’re more capable on this drug than—”
“Oh, right. Right. The therapy. Alonso! The therapy!”
But he only looks at her face hanging upside-down above his. “Oh, Katrina. I love you so much.”
She kisses his forehead. “Right back at ya, big guy.”
“What is it like…?” Alonso reaches up to her, trying to put his thoughts into words. They wait patiently for him. “To… to… have straight blonde hair? I always wanted to try. So fine. When I am feeling fem and I want anything other than this big thick Cuban forest on my head!”
Now they’re all laughing at him. Miriam pushes his arm. “Oh, Zo. You are such a shallow slut. Remember that time…?” And the memories flash through her, of a warehouse party and a fashion show, with banging techno and a long runway. Alonso had stalked the length of it in a velvet boa and a black satin sheath. Very Tim Curry. Stopped the show in its tracks. But as she tries to describe what she recalls, the memories vanish, leaving only the ache of nostalgia and a deep satisfaction that her life has been so rich.
“I had a dream.” The corner of Alonso’s mouth rises into a scowl. “A nightmare. Over and over.”
“In the goo-log?” Katrina stretches the syllables out into a silly cartoonish sound. “What a dumb word. Goo. Log. Russian is such a weird language. Russkiy takoy strannyy yazyk.”
Alonso talks over her, describes the dream. “I’m in the house of my father’s parents. My Oppy and Nina. And I am very young. But their house is surrounded by Nazis, like real Nazis from World War Two and they are unspooling wire around the house, turning it into a prison, a concentration camp. And we are trapped and cannot leave. Then the doctor, with the black uniform and the white apron, he finds me in the bathroom. He holds a spatula that he has been heating up, until it is white hot. Then he slices into my skull, like he is cutting slices off a block of cheese. And it is so painful. Oh my god, Mirrie, I couldn’t stand the pain.”
“I know, Zo. I know.” She and Triquet both grip Alonso’s shaking hand.
“You would think, in such a terrible place as a gulag, that when I was unconscious I could escape? But no. My poor brain needed to torture me as well. Ah! I hate that dream so much.”
“Okay. So here’s the thing.” Katrina’s eyes open wide and her pupils slowly dilate into focus. “Ehh… What was I…? Yeh. Right. Okay. So that Nazi doctor. The one who sliced your head open. Think about him now.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well that’s the thing about rolling like this, Alonso. You can. You can think about him all you want and he can’t hurt you any more. You’re safe. You can tell him whatever you want.”
“You know… every time it happens I have the same thoughts. I see the spatula and I think that I am hungry and maybe he will feed me. Then I realize he is going to torture me and I argue with him, mostly that he shouldn’t do such a thing in the bathroom. He will make a mess and my Nina will yell at us.”
“But what do you say to him, Alonso?” The drug charges into Triquet and convinces them that with the force of their words they can invest Alonso with their own strength and courage. They grip Alonso’s arm tight and whisper it again. “What do you say?”
“Eh? Say to him? Uh. Fuck off, Nazi doctor. This is not your house. Leave me alone. This is not your brain to play with.”
“That’s it,” Katrina encourages him. “Tell him what you need to tell him. And then say goodbye. You won’t ever see him again.”
Alonso shakes his head in wonder. “Oh, but I have seen him so many times… ‘Go. Vamos. Get out of my head, you fucking creep. Goodbye. Forever. Go.’” He rolls his eyes up to Katrina. “But he is still here. And I can still feel…” Alonso seizes his head with his hands. Katrina and Miriam cover his face and hair with caresses.
Finally Mandy ventures to touch him. She places her hands against the soles of Alonso’s feet. He barks in surprise.
Alonso sits up, his face clear, his mind forcibly altered. “How did you do that? What did you do? Uh, uh… What is your name?”
“Mandy. I just touched your feet, Doctor Alonso. I grounded you. That’s all.”
“Yes. Yes, you did. Grounded to earth. Huh. The Nazi doctor, he went poof! In my head like a magic spell, he just disappeared! And I… Ah! What is wrong? Why do my feet hurt so much?”
They all share glances, none willing to remind him.
“Ah. They really hurt! Like, they always hurt, you know? But I don’t know why! I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, no you didn’t.” Triquet grabs Alonso’s arm again, trying to share more strength. This is a tremendous figure, this man. Triquet never thought they would be so close to him, to actually wrestle with his demons alongside him. “Look, brother. It’s just original sin, okay? You and me, we were just born this way and for some reason the whole world has to take all their anger out on us. Life is pain, right? But we’ve got each other. And together, we can… I don’t know… We can do anything! Stop time. Stop all the abuse. Build our own empire of love here in this…”
“Love Palace!” Katrina finishes with a giggle. She leans over and kisses Triquet. “Thanks, Triq. That was glorious. You’re the best. The very very best.”
“I am…?” Triquet covers their mouth with a hand, touched. “Not sure I’ve ever been the very very best before.”
“Oh, but you are…” All their voices chime in, with Alonso sitting up again joining them in fawning over Triquet, petting their face and telling them in fast, slurring Spanish just how incredible they are, mind and body and soul.
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Triquet finally falls back a bit and wipes a tear away. “Wait. We’re here for Alonso. We can give me therapy some other time. In fact, I think I’ll make my appointment right now. You people are wonderful.”
Chapter 33 – Into The Shadows
August 12, 2024
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.
Chapter 32 – Let’s Go For A Run
August 5, 2024
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:
32 – Let’s Go For A Run
In Miriam’s dream, her little brother Denny is dying again. He is slowly drowning himself in his tub with pharmaceuticals, just as he did in real life, and she’s on the phone with someone who is there at the house, watching him but unable to stop him. It’s her Nan, or someone’s auld wan, her creaky voice dispassionately narrating how Denny’s face turns bloated and blue and his eyes lose their light. But Miriam is stuck in traffic, helpless, raging against the oppressive modern world, her face a teary mess.
Then a hand grasps her shoulder and shakes her urgently. She reaches for it in gratitude. Oh, praise be. Someone came to rescue him. She grabs the slender forearm and forces herself awake, the grief sliding off her like a shroud.
“It’s Pradeep!” Mandy squeaks, shaking both her and Alonso. Wait. Where is she? Right. This mad island. And Pradeep is…?
“What is it, Mandy?” Miriam glances at Alonso in the halo of white light that Mandy brought. His curls are wild and his beard is coming back in again. He looks ghoulish, and whatever dream he claws himself up from looks even more harrowing than her own.
Their minds veer toward calamity. Mandy would only ever waken them if he had died. But her face splits into a relieved but tired grin. “He’s awake. He’s back. It’s passed.”
Mere moments later, shivering in their base layers, everyone save Jay are crowded in the lantern-lit clean room, surrounding the cot. Pradeep still lies there with Maahjabeen, and they are arguing and giggling at the same time.
“No, I am telling you that I need to get up.”
“And I am telling you that you just spent nearly three days in a coma and need to take these things slow.”
“I am also not very comfortable with everyone looking at me while your arms are around—”
“No, you cannot turn this into one of your panic attacks, Mahbub. Everyone knows we are in love and nobody cares.”
“What do you mean, nobody cares?” Katrina scowls. “We think it’s a fabulous idea.”
“I’m just jealous,” Flavia adds. “But to say I don’t care would be false. You two are my new favorite soap opera.”
Pradeep giggles some more, the anxiety releasing its grip. He has long thought that the anxiety itself is neuronal circuits primarily in his brain but all along his limbs and deep inside his enteric nervous system in his gut as well. Neurons are always seeking out new connections and at some formative point in his development as a boy he learned to build these extremely strong anxiety pathways. They have nearly no off-branches and they only travel one way. If he thought neurological networks could spiral he would say that’s what his did. But he knows it’s more a feedback loop of endless repetition, the same images and feelings and scripts of fragmented condemnation that flit through his head in interminable cycles. But they are fading. His anxiety cannot hold him right now. The love they all share is too clearly demonstrated here to be questioned. And they are all such lovely people too. “No. Seriously. I’m ready, Maahjabeen. Please let me sit up.”
She scowls, just enough for him to see the ferocious creature she can be when she wants. Then she relents. “Yes, fine. But I am watching you.”
Her grip goes slack and he pushes himself up with gasps and groans until he is sitting cross-legged. Maahjabeen kneels beside him, her hand on his arm. Pradeep drinks water from a flask, then nods at everyone watching him silently. “Hello, everyone. Uh. What time is it?”
“3:32 am, the morning of the twenty-first of April.” Esquibel records the time in her notes then turns on her phone’s light. “We are very happy to have you back. How do you feel?”
“Hungry. Very sore. Kind of… restless.” Pradeep giggles again. “You can all go back to bed now. Please.”
“Yes you are sore from all the CPR. Lean forward?” Pradeep does so and Esquibel lifts the back of his shirt. She takes a photo and displays the screen to the others. “No marks. None at all.”
Pradeep frowns. “There were marks back there?”
“In the shape of a little fox.” Mandy draws the figure in space with pinched fingers. “No, really.”
“It was very much,” Alonso pronounces, “the craziest thing.”
“I’ve got a working hypothesis,” Esquibel tells them. “Obviously no natural process would create such a distinct pattern. It was proof of human intent. Someone poisoned you, Pradeep. Attacked you somehow. I think of it like, well, imagine an old hairbrush, but instead of bristles you have fifteen or twenty poisoned needles in the outline of a fox’s head. You bring it to camp and when your target presents the opportunity… whack!”
“Did anything like that happen to you the night of the big feast, sweetie?” Triquet smooths Pradeep’s hair out of his eyes and cups his chin. “Anything you can remember?”
Pradeep is flattered, nearly dazzled by all this attention. “Uh, no. No, I left the party early. The news that there might be others on the island who weren’t villagers… It shocked me. I was sure we were doomed.” His giggle becomes more neurotic. “Any news on that, by the way? Any, I don’t know, Russian paratroopers discovered on the far side of Lisica while I’ve been down? Any…?”
But they all talk him down, with a chorus of soothing words.
“Wait wait wait.” Miriam holds up a hand. “I want to hear more from Esquibel. What kind of poison would that be? Is it one of these plants here? Should we be worried?”
“I do not know.” Esquibel shrugs. “Perhaps we could have a patient interview discussing its effects from an internal point of view, but I do not have any knowledge of a poison or venom that has primary CNS neurotoxicity with the… phlegm or whatever it was that the woman was able to expel. Maybe it is one of the tree-frog or marine invertebrate toxins but that is pretty far outside the literature. I’ve been looking.”
“The… phlegm…?” Pradeep’s smile turns a bit sickly. “That doesn’t sound good. Oh, dear. Have I been gross?”
“No, no…” Maahjabeen presses her head against his shoulder. “You’ve been so strong.”
“Don’t worry, Prad,” Amy tells him. “You’ve been super sick but you’re better now. And we’ll just keep making sure you get better every day.”
“Good advice.” Esquibel takes out a stethoscope. “Now clear out everybody. I need to take another set of readings and our patient needs his rest.”
“Yes. Well. Happy dreams, everyone,” Alonso says. “We can all sleep easy now that we have our dear Pradeep back.”
“Wait.” Pradeep frowns. “Where’s Jay?”
Ξ
In the morning, Esquibel wakes up in Katrina’s arms. The blonde girl blinks sleepily at her when she feels her stir. Esquibel doesn’t remember anyone joining her and Mandy in bed. But somehow she doesn’t mind. It is very comforting. “Oh. Hello.”
Katrina grunts softly. Her voice is a sleepy drawl. “Mandy said I should hold you…” She drifts off and rouses herself again. “Like Maahjabeen holds Pradeep. You need it.”
A sweet tenderness for Mandy fills Esquibel, and Katrina by association. Nothing sexual, just a softness in her heart. Katrina is a lovely girl, no doubt, and Esquibel could imagine all kinds of erotic delights for her to indulge in with her and Mandy, but she is feeling rather monogamous these days. Mandy just satisfies Esquibel so completely she can’t imagine needing anything physically from anyone else, even someone as luscious as this.
So they hold each other for another long sleepy moment. Then finally Esquibel rouses again and checks the time. Nearly 10am. Ai me. How did it get so late? She should go check on her patient. “Thank you so much, Katrina.” She kisses the tip of her sharp nose and pulls her limbs free. “You’re a doll.”
Katrina rolls onto her belly and gives Esquibel a devilish smile. “Don’t you objectify me.”
Esquibel puts on a light layer of tops and bottoms. The air is so mild. She can take her chances with sandals. She exits the cell and the bunker into camp, where Amy is picking shellfish out of a net and Flavia is working on her laptop. After visiting the trenches, Esquibel finds some breakfast—a mug of hot water and a packet of crisps. She should get something more substantial in her later today but she has a lifelong habit of surviving too long on mere handfuls of crap. The wonders of cuisine have never meant much to her.
Finally she makes her way to the clean room to find it shockingly empty. No Pradeep, no Mandy, no Maahjabeen. She curses under her breath. Those damn kids. Where are they? He needs a week of observation before he should even think about leaving his cot.
She exits the clean room to find Triquet climbing out of the sub. “Hello, Doctor Triquet. Anyone see my patient?”
“No, Doc.” Triquet lifts a thick file. “Been sleuthing the morning away. Did you know the lagoon used to be full of sharks when they first got here? Nurse sharks, by the description, although maybe the biologists can tell better. And the Air Force just fished them all out. Didn’t even eat them. In this one report they say how they were more comfortable swimming in the lagoon after that.”
Amy has entered and caught the last half of that statement. “Whaaa-aat? Well, that’s appalling. Here we are wringing our hands over whether or not we can harvest a few handfuls of seaweed and our grandparents were committing wholesale shark slaughter. Great. Let me see that description.”
Triquet hands Amy the report as Esquibel continues her search for Pradeep. She exits the bunker, crosses the camp, and scrambles atop the fallen trunk to scan the beach. There they are, all three of them at the edge of the water, sitting in the sand.
Esquibel climbs down the trunk on the ocean side and crosses the sloping beach to join them. They are watching a whirling cyclone of white birds out on the open ocean. “There you are. What do you think you’re doing out here?”
“Fresh air.” Pradeep looks dramatically better. His color has returned and his eyes are no longer stained black. His cheeks are still hollow from lack of nourishment over the last few days, but he looks otherwise hale and whole. “Look. It’s feeding time. There must be a giant shoal or school of sardines down there.”
“Fins!” Maahjabeen points at a line of small hooked black fins breaking the surface of the water on the far side of the breakers. “Too small for orcas. Pacific porpoises. So many!” And following them in the air is a line of brown pelicans, thirty or forty strong.
But Esquibel sees enough of the ocean’s wonders aboard ship. She lifts Pradeep’s wrist and finds his pulse. “You have been very sick and we don’t know if there might be a relapse. You had…” But his pulse is quite strong and balanced, even better than her own. She shakes her head. “I am someone who often prescribes some time outdoors to my patients but this is just too soon.”
“I couldn’t be in that bloody plastic box any longer.” Pradeep realizes how this must sound to Esquibel and quickly amends it. “I mean, I am sure it is a snug and proper working environment for you, quite lovely, but I have just spent too long…”
Esquibel pats his hand. “It is fine. I get cabin fever too. But you cannot make these decisions without consulting your doctor first.” She wheels on the girl beside her. “Mandy.”
Mandy shrugs. “Yeah, I made the call. I couldn’t wake you up. You two looked so cute sleeping there.”
Esquibel frowns at Mandy, wondering what her game is. But she only gets a playful glance in return. Well. More to figure out there later. “I think you should come back anyway. You are painfully thin, my good fellow. Have you no appetite?”
“It’s true. I’m starving. I just needed to see the sea.”
“And, as I was just telling them before we were so rudely interrupted…” Mandy stands, pulling Maahjabeen to her feet. “There’s another storm coming. I can just feel it.”
“Feel it?” Esquibel takes Mandy’s hand and rises, dusting sand off. “Now you are becoming one of the mystics?”
“No! I’m just able to see what’s there. Finally. I can just tell now, even without my instruments… I can smell it on the wind. I’ve been forced to use other tools, like older tools, and—”
“You’re a pattern-seeking primate,” Pradeep interjects.
“Exactly. And I’ve been here long enough to see the patterns.”
Esquibel scans the horizon. It looks like it always does, gray and endless. “I don’t see any storm coming.”
Mandy points at the bulk of the island behind them. “That’s why I think it’s coming from the north. Come on. Let’s get back before it surprises us.”
And just as Mandy predicted, as the four of them enter camp a few minutes later, a swirling wind from above the clifftops carries dark clouds with fat raindrops that hit their tarps with flat slaps.
Everyone withdraws into the bunker. Mandy finds Amy. “Hey! I’ve been thinking more about your idea. And look! It’s raining! Now we can fill the elevator shaft up even faster!”
Amy nods. “Right. How wet do you think this storm might be?”
Mandy shrugs. “No clue. But it started well. Lots of moisture in this front with these big drops. And now it’s really pouring! If we can get, like that reservoir, you know wherever that pipe is draining from? If it fills all the way up then like a ton of water can flood the shaft, and maybe we can fill it up in just an hour or two.”
“Should we go down now? Build the raft? Stop up the tunnel?”
“Now? Ehh…” As eager as Mandy is she needs to think this all the way through. Her mouth opens then closes again.
“I know. It’s a one-way ticket. And if we have second thoughts there’s nothing we can do but wait till we get to the top.”
“Maybe we wait, until right at the end of the storm? It’s not like the shaft will fill up with rain falling from the sky. It’s all the other water that’s been building up in the other chambers.”
“Yeah. It’s the drainage. So the more it rains the better and then over the next couple days after that is when the water will flow the heaviest. So we keep waiting?”
“I know you want to find Jay.” Mandy squeezes Amy’s hand. “I want to find him too. We just have to choose the right time. I’ll figure out all I can about this storm and then we’ll get started.”
“Wait! Here is the guy I’ve been waiting to have up and ready for this idea. He can really help. Pradeep.” Amy pulls him out of an intimate conversation with Maahjabeen. “Listen. I need your brain for this. Mandy and I have an idea to flood the elevator shaft in the tunnels so we can ride on a raft up to the top. Back when she lit it on fire you came up with some equations…”
Pradeep shakes his head, as if he hadn’t heard Amy clearly. “Wait, you want to what?”
Esquibel exclaims in wordless exasperation and slaps herself in the forehead with an open palm. “Are you people trying to kill yourselves? I mean, honestly.”
Ξ
“So my mom was a hippie and my dad was a Marine.” Jay walks through the understory of a beautiful glade, the first time he’s been above-ground in two and a half days. Jidadaa walks beside him, her long athletic strides signaling a confidence in this place, an expectation of security and safety. So he tries to relax and answer her many questions. Her English is surprisingly good. She just doesn’t know what anything actually means.
“Wait, Jay. What is…?”
“A hippie?”
“…a Marine? She marries the water? The sea?” Her accent is so cute, hard on the r’s, with almost a liquid sound in her mouth. But when she speaks any of the Lisican words the guttural consonants in the back of her throat sound like a car crash.
Jay laughs, his hands trailing over the soft branches of a young madrone. “No! Ha. A Marine is, uh, a kind of soldier. They live on ships. Well they used to, historically. Anyway, I never met the dude. He took off when I was still being born in the hospital. It was just me and ma. Kind of like… I mean… Kula’s your mom, yeah?”
Jidadaa nods at him. “Yass. She is outcast.”
Jay nods back, slipping down a game trail to the steep bank of a stream. He lifts rocks, hunting crawdads. She joins him, crouched easily at the edge of the water, her brown hair falling in a wave to the water. “So… Your dad taught you English?”
She shakes her head no. “No. Not dad. Chief Master Sergeant Chilton Kincaid of the USAF of America.”
“Oh. He wasn’t your dad, though?”
“Kula has many men.”
“Ohh.” More of their story comes into focus. An awkward silence ensues. Now Jay feels sorry for her. There was evidently just one prostitute on Lisica and she had many customers. And now the islanders want nothing to do with her. Or her daughter. He tries to think of something neutral to say. “So he never taught you about the Marines? Yeah, sounds about right. The Air Force are all a bunch of stuck-up pricks, for sure.”
“You do not talk like him.” Jidadaa’s hand twitches, fast as lightning, and she snatches up a red and brown crawdad, its plated tail curling around her thumb. With a giggle she pops its head off with a practiced flick and slurps on the body while it is still kicking.
“Whoa. Hardcore. Alright.” Jay’s belly growls. He finds a silvery fingerling, probably some trout, in the mud nearby and grabs at it, but it slips out from between his fingers.
Jidadaa laughs at him, then cocks her head and looks up at the canopy. “Egg season. Good to climb.”
“Yeah. April. Definitely the late days of egg time. What we got here? Like, uh, pheasant? Grouse? Quail?”
“Dáax’. Big bird. Fat.”
“Fat is good.” They stand and scramble back up the slope to scan the treetops, seeking movement. Gray mice run rampant across the boughs. Songbirds flit through the eaves. What a pretty day. A pretty place. Jay knows from his view out the gun emplacement’s port that they are on the east side of the island somewhere. Fine living here. If it’s anything like the Hawaiian Islands the east side is wet with tons of storms and rough surf while the west side is dry with big reefs and killer waves. But there’s no reason to think that necessarily applies here. Different ocean and air currents up here. Still. He visualizes building a cool little treehouse and hanging solar panels in the trees. He could live here no problem. Him and these ladies. He chuckles. At least until those hunters track him down.
Jidadaa selects a madrone and scales its lower branches with ease. She is barefoot and her feet seem too big and wide for her size. Probably just from so much use. Her hands are big too, strong and stained dark.
She levers herself up into a high fork in the branches and an outraged squawk greets her. Jidadaa cries out, flapping her free hand, trying to scare the mother hen off the nest. It is a big grouse, dun and off-white, stubbornly defending what is hers. The girl is able to slip a hand in and snare a single egg before retreating, her own blood running down her forearm.
Jidadaa giggles as she drops back to earth, proudly handing Jay the egg. He grabs her arm to inspect her wound.
“Oh, you got sliced pretty—” Then he falls silent. She has gone utterly still the instant he grabbed her. He gently releases her arm and takes a step back. “Sorry, dude. I shouldn’t have just grabbed you like that. That wasn’t…” But the feline stare she gives him robs him of words. Best if he just doesn’t say another thing.
They head back to the hidden manhole that leads to Kula’s underground garden. Jay inspects the egg. Nice size, a bit bigger than a chicken egg, pale blue. Now just add a bagel and some avocado and maybe a bit of salsa then ya boi is livin’ large.
Kula waits for them. She has harvested a salad of her baby greens. She also has old onions and garlic in storage. Is that how her transactions occurred? She led the men to her mattress and they’d leave her some fruit or vegetable seeds? Hoodies and Reeboks? Better than money, for sure, but still. It’s like some appalling fairy tale.
Kula coos over the size of the egg and protests when he tries to talk about sharing it. She pushes it onto the carved plank that serves as Jay’s plate. “No no no. Jay and Jay.” But it’s clear she and Jidadaa expect him to slurp it down raw. And he will, if he has to, but he just really misses hot food.
“Any chance… we can build a fire?”
Kula makes a face, then silently leads him to a pile of garbage beside the edge of the emplacement’s curving gunport. Beneath leaf litter and trash he can make out the remains of a propane stove. It is a dilapidated mess. The canisters are empty. The pan still has a black crust of carbon from whatever meal they cooked on it last. It has quite obviously been years.
“Aw, man. You guys been eating cold this whole time?”
“Not cold, no no,” Kula says, leading him to another spot along the curving view, where a blackened campfire still glows with ruby embers. He recalls that she was smoking a fat joint when he first arrived. She must have gotten the fire from somewhere. Here.
“Right! Excellent. Check it out. Uh… Here.” Jay still holds the neglected pan. With a twig he scrapes it clean and then uses his sleeve to finish the job. Then he places it as levelly as he can on the coals. He cracks the egg onto the pan and they stare at the golden yolk, waiting for the pan to heat up enough to cook it. Soon the whites of the egg are turning milky and the edges are crackling. Jay’s mouth waters in anticipation. “Aw, yiss. This is gonna be so fucking good.”
When they sit again he prevails upon both of them to try the cooked egg. Kula chortles with pleasure, slurping on it, but Jidadaa is uncertain. The consistency is too unfamiliar to her. But her mother pokes fun at her in a guttural dialect that Jay can’t follow at all. Blushing, Jidadaa swallows a mouthful and bestows a weak smile on Jay.
“Yeah, you’re right. Needs butter. But you don’t got to act like I poisoned you. Okay, let’s talk. So, like, I’ve got a whole crew back on the beach. Really solid folks. You’ll love them. And we’ve all got a metric fuck-ton of questions. Maybe you can answer? I mean, we’re just a bunch of scientists and researchers and we’ve been here like a month and we can’t figure anything out, know what I’m saying? There’s all these mysteries here. Like: you know the outside world doesn’t even know Lisica exists, right?” As soon as he says it, he regrets it. They look stunned. Aw, man. It isn’t his job to lay such a heavy trip on them. They need like an anthropologist for this shit. They need a therapist is what they need.
Jay has to start slower. “So. Wait. How long have there been people on the island?”
Kula and Jidadaa confer. “Kula is fourteenth mother.”
“Ah. Aha.” Jay doesn’t know what that means. But then it clicks. “Oh, you mean generations? Like, uh, you’re fifteen? And her mom was thirteen? And her mom’s mom was twelve?”
“I am not fifteenth mother until I have baby.”
“Got it. So, like twenty years per generation… Y’all have been here like three hundred years?”
They just frown at him. In the awkward silence he eats one platter of salad, then another. His appetite is ravenous. The egg is long gone. Finally he stops, afraid that he’s eating into their stores. Kula sure as shit didn’t expect some giant American to suddenly show up and eat her out of house and home. They might even be expecting him to provide some new seedlings or something. Shit. Jay pushes his plate away, still hungry. He’s got to be careful here.
“Wait. I know. Dessert.” Jay takes out his kit and grinds a blend of his Kush with a touch of the Jack. He rolls a fat joint and hands it to Kula, who chatters at it, marveling in her own language at how thin the papers are and how neat the package. “You got to hit this slow, mama. Okay? Tell me you understand. This shit is fire. It will knock you on your ass.”
Jidadaa says something cautionary to Kula, who looks at Jay with lidded eyes, suddenly wary.
“No, it ain’t dangerous. Just take one puff. A little one.” He pulls it from her hands and lights it with his disposable orange Bic. She and Jidadaa both exclaim over the lighter even more than the joint. He instantly realizes how much it could revolutionize their lives, at least until it runs out of fuel. “Yeah. Sure. I got a spare with me and more of them back at camp. Here.” He holds out the lighter and bows his head, smiling as he offers it as a gift.
Kula marvels at it. Jidadaa frowns, a little spooked, and keeps her distance.
After Jay teaches Kula how to use the lighter he passes her the lit joint. She puffs it like a cigar. “No no no!” He pulls at her arm, laughing. “New weed. Big weed! Kula’s head goes boom!” And he mimes her mind getting blown.
But Kula just giggles, until she rolls backward onto the floor and loses her balance. She laughs louder, kicking her feet up.
Jidadaa frowns at her mother, then at Jay. He doesn’t offer the joint to the daughter. Her vibe is all wrong for it. But she doesn’t look upset with him, just disappointed in her mom. Jay takes a drag and asks, “So what’s the deal here? Lisica used to be some kind of… like secret military base then what?”
Jidadaa shrugs. “The men leave ten years.” She holds up all her fingers. Still eating, she has the appetite of a bird, pecking through her salad with nimble fingertips for choice morsels.
“Ten years? Wow. That’s a long time to be alone. And you haven’t seen anyone that whole time?”
“We see men.”
Jay’s eye twitches. “Okay. What does that mean? So the men are gone but you still see men?”
Jidadaa talks to Kula in their pidgin, low and fast. They have a long conversation, perhaps a bit of an argument, and then finally reach an agreement, echoing each other’s phrases.
Kula turns to him. “Yes and yes.”
“Cool. The men are gone. You still see men. I like it. Kinda surreal for sure. And what’s the deal with all the villages? Kula, you don’t like them?”
“Village? Which village?” Jidadaa asks. “Village village village.” She counts off three with her fingers. Then, touching the tip of her thumb like the other Lisicans do, she points at various corners of the island and counts off, “íx̱t’, íx̱t’, yéik deiyí.”
“Huh.” Jay nods emphatically, as if he understands. “So, you’re saying there’s three villages and… then… a whole bunch of other stuff. Got it. Well we’ve only found two villages yet, unless those kids covered in pollen were from the third. You know about that? I saw four kids in the field beside the river with their faces just totally covered in pollen? Thought I was losing my mind.”
Kula asks Jidadaa what he means. She does her best to translate and he waits. Kula’s face falls. She covers her mouth with a hand. She whispers something.
“When? Where did you see the gold childs?” Jidadaa is worried.
“Uhh… Just on the, well, let’s see, that’s the east side of the river in that valley down in the south. You know the one, where the two villages won’t cross it or look at each other? So just after I got across it, they were in the meadow. Super trippy. Fully covered their faces with masks. And then the hunters came and…”
But Kula and Jidadaa have stopped listening to him. They are engaged in an anxious conference, counting days.
“Aw, shit. What is it? What did I do wrong?”
“The golden childs…” Jidadaa frowns. “We do not see them. My whole life we do not see. Now they are here.”
“Wow. First time in twenty years? You’re like, what, twenty? I’m just guessing. Which I’ve been told back home I should really stop doing with the ladies. I don’t know if you have any of the same… I mean… conventions.” Jay flounders. “But like it’s been a while. Got it. So… Why? Why has it been so long? Just not any good pollen season for the last couple decades or…?”
“The golden childs. Bring death. Destruct.” Jidadaa has trouble finding the words. “Old time over. New time begin.”
“End of an era. Got it. That’s wacky. And I saw it happen. Wow. Part of history here. That’s awesome. Yeah, lots of things are about to change. You know they’re about to open this whole island up to…? Yeah. There’s no way you know that. Well, guess what? The men are coming back. A whole bunch of men. Probably heaps and heaps of men. But hopefully they’ll, uh, be nicer this time.” Jay’s words fade out. He has no reason to be optimistic about that. “Oh, wait. End of an era? Because of us? Is it because we’re here?”
“Jay cross river.”
“Yeah. Had to see what was on the rest of the island.”
But Jidadaa only stares at him.
“Oh, fuck! You’re saying I brought about the end of the era? That it was me crossing the river that did it? But—but no…!” He falls back, shocked to have such an effect on the island. They got to understand. “I was just… I mean, my entire fucking job here is to crawl all over the island just like picking up bugs and mushrooms. Right? I had to get across the river if I was going to see the rest of the island.” But they still only regard him in silence. “So, uh, what kind of era are we talking about?”
Jidadaa grins fiercely, her eyes flaring with sudden vengeance. It transforms her from a waif into a fanatic. “The end of Lisica.”
Ξ
“Jay is really who you want for fishing and hunting. I’m really more of a molecular gastronomy guy.” Pradeep looks up from his laptop at the spear and net Amy and Flavia have fashioned. The rain has stopped for a bit and many of them have taken the opportunity to escape the bunker. Some to work on their datasets, like Pradeep. Others, to fashion fishing gear.
“Well he is not here.” Flavia thrusts the spear at him. It is a softwood branch from a bay tree as long as his arm and whittled to a point. “And now that I’ve tasted the fish here, I need more. The big purple one was best. It tastes like steak. I could not believe.”
“Yeah, I can come out on the water with you, Prad.” Amy hoists her net, made from twine and twigs. “I just thought the activity might do you good. Or maybe you’d prefer to get out with your girlfriend instead.”
“Ai, don’t call her that!” He drops the spear and claps his hands over his ears. “It is… excruciating… knowing that everyone follows my personal life this much.”
“Yeah, sorry, champ. But this is what love feels like.” Amy claps him on the shoulder. “Familial love. It’s all support. I mean, you’re welcome to be as private as you want, but we all live together and we all love each other so… better get used to it.”
Pradeep snaps his fingers. “I know! Katrina brought a wetsuit.” He escapes his discomfort by grabbing the spear and wheeling away, crossing to the bunker. “Spear fishing would be perfect for her. It’s probably like a bloody class in Australian high school. Oh, Katrina?” Pradeep opens the door and escapes inside.
Amy shares a smile with Flavia. “Well. At least I can get you some clams with this contraption. Will that be good enough?”
“Ramen con Vongole,” Flavia shrugs. “It is a new dish, but sounds promising. We just need white wine.”
“That’d be super yummy. I didn’t know you were so interested,” Amy ventures, “in helping with the food.”
“Well, I am done for the time being, you know, with my work on Plexity. Or I am just waiting for someone to break the next thing. And I can’t get any more data for Mandy until she puts her new weather station up on the cliffs. So, when I got hungry, I thought about how I might eat better.”
“Don’t tell Alonso or he’ll have you grab a reader.”
“I told him I would take a turn and he told me to ask Miriam. She said later. So now I am on break. And I make fish spears.”
Amy high-fives Flavia. “Nice spears too. Oh. Here comes the rain again.” They listen to it drumming on the canopy as they hurry into the bunker. “Falling on my head like a memory…”
In the bunker, they find Mandy and Miriam returning from a session with the readers in the creekside understory. They are filthy and cold, striped with white and yellow streaks of fungus. Pradeep is cooing at his phone, reading their results in real time. “Oh my god, do you know how long I’ve been looking for a plasmodial slime mold like this? Fuligo septica but different, I’d bet my life on it. Mandy, you might just get a slime named after you!”
“Oh. Wow. Great!” She tries to marshal enthusiasm and fails. Everyone who hears her valiant attempt laughs.
Triquet catches up her hands. “Aw. Now, whenever I see you, Mandy, I’ll think of a slime mold!”
“Super!” she responds with even less enthusiasm.
The door bangs open and Maahjabeen enters. She is doused and shivering. “Here. Here is your stupid reader, Alonso. It is good they can float. I almost lost it. Then I almost lost my oar trying to get it back. And then I got soaked…” Pradeep fetches a towel and starts scrubbing her before she can even get her clothes off. “Ehhh. Thank you, Mahbub. That feels very nice.”
“Let’s get you into dry clothes.” Pradeep leads her to her cell.
Flavia brings her spear to Katrina at the workstations. “Did Pradeep tell you we need more of those big purple fish for dinner?”
Katrina, reading up on language families, pulls her eyes from her screen and gives Flavia a polite smile. “Um? What’s that, love?”
“He says you have a wetsuit.”
“Yeh? Is that a spear? Spearfishing…? Oh my god, I’m supposed to just swim down and run this thing right through their little fishy bodies, am I? Bloody work, that. Wow. Give me a moment to wrap my head around the idea, will you? I mean, um… Maybe later? I’m not sure anyone will let me outside in the storm anyway.”
“No.” Esquibel crosses her arms. “I won’t.”
Katrina nods her head slowly. “After the storm passes then. Yeh, those reef fish are delish. I guess I can give it a shot when things calm down. I did see Aquaman in the theaters five times, I’ll have you know. Jason Momoa could eat me like a snack.”
Flavia waits for more clarification. When it doesn’t come she looks at Amy. “I think that is a yes. Until then, oh well. I guess we are surviving on more packets of tuna and powdered eggs.”
A crack of thunder in the distance makes them all catch their breaths. The storm is intensifying.
Amy sighs. “Fucking hell. Jay is out there somewhere in that. Hope he’s staying dry.”
“I’m sure he’s safe.” Miriam kisses Amy’s hairline and squeezes her for assurance. “Warm and dry and… living his best life.”
Ξ
Jay sprints screaming down the curving concrete tunnel. His blood is hot and slick, running down his side. He keeps slipping on it, barefoot on concrete. His left hand is pressed against his ribs, where the blade slid, tearing his favorite base layer and opening his skin. He won’t remove his hand, not for love or money. Who knows how much blood he’d see then.
They’re still behind him, far back. He can tell. They’re doing the hunter thing, letting him run himself down while keeping a steady pace, to eventually corner their quarry and kill him. He wonders if they will ask for forgiveness or sing a prayer of thanks like Kalahari tribesmen. Or will they just slaughter him like a goat?
He runs harder. What they don’t fucking know about Jay is that he’s a goddamn monster. He can run all day and into the night. Even with blood loss and like zero adrenaline left. His baseline for fitness has always been the ability to hike ten miles uphill, in the rain, at night, while sick. Apart from his recent troubles with his hand and his ankle he’s got that amount of stamina right now no problem. They want to chase me? Eat my fucking dust.
They had come upon him in his sleep. Three hunters. Jidadaa must have heard them and gasped. The sound woke Jay up and all he saw was a shadow darting toward him. He instinctively rolled away and the spear blade opened up his side. Then he just started kicking, whipping his pack around, tangling them in his bivy. If it had been zipped shut he’d be a dead man but it had been a warm night and he’d worn it like a blanket. One hunter got his spear and legs snared in it, clueless how tough the nylon was. The littlest one beside him danced away.
Jay kicked the shaft of the third one’s spear and its point went wide. That dark figure leapt back. In a sudden hot flash of self-preservation and rage Jay picked up his cot and hurled it at them. The littlest one went down.
Jay knew he couldn’t let them corner him. And he knew that he must be endangering Kula and Jidadaa by staying here a moment longer. He charged in behind the cot and missed by sheer chance a spear thrust from the third. He ran past, out of range, but heard his attacker leap after in close pursuit.
Out the passage and into the garden. But Jay hitched his step and swung around. When the hunter appeared in the passage entrance, Jay juked left like a linebacker, lining him up, then slammed the slight youth against the wall with a piledriver of a tackle.
The kid rolled away, gasping and retching. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Jay grabbed his fallen spear and threw it out the emplacement’s port. Then he paused. Jidadaa and Kula were still struggling with the others in there. Should he go back? But an unfamiliar voice shouted in fury and Kula cried aloud in despair.
“Run, Jay!” Jidadaa’s voice pierced right through him. He considered shoving this fallen hunter through the gap but didn’t know if he’d fall off the cliff to his death. Jay didn’t know if he was ready for murder, even though they quite obviously were. He was barely awake. This wasn’t even his idea. He’d just run instead.
Now, a timeless stretch later, he’s on the curve, spooling back the klicks he’d climbed through the spiral. It’s got to be a spiral, right? That’s the only way it could go on so long. He’s fine with the dark. There was never any obstruction underfoot, he recollects, except when he got to the junctions. And maybe if he’s lucky he can find another door at one of them he could pop up a hatch and get back above-ground.
Yeah, but then what? He knows where these hunters came from. They tracked him from the bad village. And if he goes back up he might still be in their lands and facing far more than just three young ones. They could get like the whole town after him. And he’s leaving a blood trail. No bueno.
Let’s see. He’s running clockwise down the east side of the island, at this point like probably toward the southeast of the coast near four o’clock. If he could, he’d climb to the top now. He must be close to his friends; they’re just on the other side of a mountain of rock. He can’t make any mistakes here. All he can really do is make this a strict out-and-back. Don’t deviate from his former path. Just hope the hunters didn’t like leave anyone back at the first hatch to the south. Well, only one way to find out.
Jay runs. He loves to run. He’s built for it, all legs and lungs and implacable willpower. A lot of people think he’s flighty, just some silly hophead skating by in life. But you don’t survive Mavericks without being a peak athlete. You don’t survive getting lost in the Sur for eight days when you’re fourteen unless you got something fierce in you. At least that’s what the EMT who found him told him. And he’d always taken it to heart. When shit went down, as it so totally has here in the dark underground, Jay likes his chances against nearly anyone he’s ever met.
So come on, you little fuckers. Let’s go for a run.
Chapter 31 – Ja Sam Wetchie-Ghuy
July 29, 2024
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:
Book III – Methodology of Madness
“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
— John Steinbeck
31 – Ja Sam Wetchie-Ghuy
“And what do you make of this?” Triquet pushes their taped-up photo across the table before Morska Vidra. The elder stares at the image of the Tlingit tapestry, carved bone fishing spear, and word written in Cyrillic that Triquet has reconstructed.
Morska Vidra studies the photo in sad silence.
“Ji-na-háa.” Katrina sounds out the Cyrillic letters phonetically. But the word is unbearable to the old Lisican and he leans away from her, blanching. Finally he murmurs an answer.
“What’s that? Could you repeat, uh… povtori pozhaluysta?”
Morska Vidra speaks a few more broken sentences. “Something like, he’s only seen these once as a kid. The people who are beyond the river. They have them? These are their artifacts?” Katrina picks up the photo and mimes giving it to people in the interior of the island.
Morska Vidra only falls silent. He glares at her, apparently resentful that she brought it up.
“Ji-da-daa,” Katrina repeats. “I want to learn what that is. It seems to be key to the whole…”
But repeating the word is too much for Morska Vidra. With an outraged chuff he pulls himself awkwardly from the unfamiliar camp chair and stalks away, toward the creek. He does not return.
“Oops!” Katrina squeaks. “Sorry! God, this is just so… random. There’s this whole perspective shift thing I still do not get at all. Like in Lisican you’re not an actual being. You’re just a collection of other people’s impressions of you, who you’re related to, where you stand, where you’re going. It’s all very postmodern I guess.”
“Sounds like Plexity.” Alonso’s voice comes from the far side of his big platform. “Environment is everything. I think maybe I’ve gotten these people wrong. Perhaps they are very wise.”
“I guess it makes sense if you think about it,” Katrina continues, while Triquet studies the photo with frustration. “Maybe we all started with this kind of deep subjectivity. But how did we ever disconnect from thinking about the world that way? Imagine everybody understands that they’re all part of the web, right? And then one day some absolute psycho shows up and says, Fuck that. I’m only me. And I’m holy. And I’m in charge. And I’m not connected to any of you bitches or anything in the whole world around me. I mean, what an absolute bloody narcissist.”
Alonso laughs. “Context. It’s all context. We live in a data-rich age of context, right, Katrina?”
“You know, we did this breakout session at one of the security conferences I attended,” Katrina tells them, “where we had to try to re-imagine law and justice to be more fair. And they all got into how laws could be more universally applied. But I was like, hold up, that’s retrograde thinking. Three hundred years old. Our ancestors conceived of universal justice like that because they couldn’t see how to do it better. But we can. My idea is that each punishment or rehabilitation strategy should instead be tailored to each criminal as specifically as possible. Context, yeh. So I proposed that each person gets an official profile, open-sourced and secure, and we assign hundreds of numerical values to a whole spectrum of factors: upbringing, job, education, intent when committing the crime, you know, any amount of remorse… and then we use that profile and a shit ton of machine learning to construct a custom solution for every perpetrator.”
“I mean, isn’t this what we’re already doing?” Triquet sighs in surrender and puts the photo back in its manila folder. “Apart from your creepy digital profile idea, I mean, isn’t this what the justice system already does? At least it’s supposed to. It gives weight to things like background. In most countries at least, right? There’s steps to this. Pre-trial hearings. Jury of your peers. Sentencing. They already take things like intent and remorse into account. We don’t need a robot deciding who goes to jail or not.”
“Yeh, it wasn’t very popular at the conference, either. But I’m just talking about deriving more nuanced solutions for each crime. It’s all context now. That’s all I’m saying. I mean, you’ve heard of personalized medicine, yeh? Same concept. Individualize diagnosis and treatment, with increased efficacy that drives down the price. Everything’s data science now. Everything.”
This conversation is straying into territory that Alonso has hardly ever allowed himself to seriously consider. But the wild ideas he gets at night right before he falls asleep suddenly seem a little less wild. “She is right. This young generation will forever be known as the great collectors. Everything is about input now. We aren’t even really collating the data yet. That will be the goal of the next generation. Now is when we record the richness of life on this planet before it vanishes completely. Details, and the patterns within the details. That is our gold. And then, who knows, in a few hundred years, after the world has finished burning, it will be these records we are making right now that will bring all the life back.”
“Ji-da-daa…” Katrina repeats it again, looking up the word in first her Eyat then her Tlingit vocabulary lists. “I mean, there’s ‘jinduháayi,’ which means post office, or more precisely, ‘Building, around paper, delivered by hand.’ See what I mean? That’s some convoluted bullshit there. Or, ‘jinkaat,’ which is their number for ten, but specifically means, ‘hands facing each other.’ Whoa.” She drops her hands, helpless. “I’m sorry, Triq. This was supposed to answer a bunch of questions, but instead…”
Triquet stands, shrugging philosophically. “We just get more questions. It’s the way of the world, little sister.” They kiss the top of Katrina’s head and collect their things.
The door to the bunker opens. Esquibel stands in the frame. “What is this I hear about one of the Lisicans visiting us?”
Katrina falls back against her chair. “He’s already gone.”
“What? Why? We need one of them to look at Pradeep! He’s been poisoned or something! How did you just let him go?”
“Oh. Ack. Sorry. You’re right.” Katrina stands. “I’ll go find him. He went this way. Just… Ugh. I’ll be right back.” She hurries away.
Triquet grimaces in apology. “Sorry, Doc. It was my fault. I’m just trying to solve all these mysteries.”
“Yes, well…” Esquibel tries to find something to say that won’t indicate how very cross she is. “Me too.”
Ξ
“Okay, Pradeep. We’re going to roll over on three, okay?” Mandy holds his legs. Esquibel grips his shoulders. Maahjabeen still won’t release her full-body embrace.
The Lisican woman they refer to as the Mayor stands in a corner of the clean room, frowning terribly. Katrina hadn’t been able to find Morska Vidra, following his trail all the way back through the creekside tunnels to the village. But she had implored the Mayor to return with her. She suspects the woman might even understand a bit what is needed. Now Mandy and Maahjabeen and Esquibel all wear masks and gloves, their delirious patient fighting for breath.
Pradeep groans, a weak wet sound, phlegm rattling in his throat. They roll him over so Maahjabeen is on her back with him above. Esquibel pulls up his shirt, revealing the fox’s profile of angry red and black dots and the swelling at the base of his spine.
The Mayor pulls back with a hiss, like she’s seen a viper. She looks at each of them with wide-eyed outrage, pointing the tip of her thumb at each while intoning a chant.
“What is it? What?” Esquibel begs the woman.
“Lisica, yes?” Katrina prods her, outlining the shape of the fox’s head on his skin with her finger.
But the Mayor disagrees vociferously, her words coming in such a clashing rush that Katrina can’t follow. She fumbles her phone out and begins recording just as the Mayor’s speech ends.
“Okay. Got it. I mean, I didn’t get any of it, but I got that this isn’t Lisica. No. This is… some other fox then? I’m so confused.”
The Mayor is very upset with them. She begins lecturing, Katrina recording. The Mayor picks up the closest items off Esquibel’s bins, a short stack of paper. She tosses them to the ground, indicating that they are useless. Then with a loud wordless yell—Ayo! she leans over Pradeep, resting her elbow in the middle of his back. The Mayor puts her weight behind her elbow and presses until he expels his breath, a bubbling wetness. She presses harder and he expels more, finally ending with a trickle of milky brown rheum trickling from his chin. The Mayor stands back and points at it, careful not to touch it. “Kadziyiki.” She repeats the word again and again until Katrina echoes it.
“What is that?” Esquibel inspects the discharge, but the Mayor draws the doctor’s hand away before she can touch it. So she looks at it through her otoscope from a handspan’s distance. “Fine. I won’t touch it, I promise. But I should get a sample for testing…”
“Let’s see. Kadziyiki means…” Katrina scrolls through her vocabulary list. “Mud. A swamp place.” She points at Pradeep’s belly and repeats the word.
As confirmation, the Mayor repeats the word as well.
“I think she’s saying it’s magic of some kind or other. A curse.”
“Why would Wetchie-ghuy do this?” Katrina asks.
The name stops the Mayor in mid-sentence. She bares her teeth in an involuntary show of disgust and makes it clear with words and gestures that Pradeep’s illness is not the work of Wetchie-ghuy. But a new thought appears to interrupt her and after a long moment of consideration she repeats the name. “Wetchie-ghuy…”
Mandy releases Pradeep’s feet and shakes her hands to get his illness off them. The nausea seeping into her immediately fades. “Uh, then what if we get that Wetchie-ghuy guy to help Pradeep?”
Esquibel holds up an importuning hand. “Wait. As your doctor, I am not in favor of this idea.”
“Oh, because you’ve still got so many ideas of your own?” Mandy giggles to take the sting out of her words, but Esquibel scowls at her regardless. “I mean, if it’s some weird infectious fluid, wouldn’t we rather have them deal with it instead of us anyway?”
“I think we’ve got a bigger problem than that,” Katrina says. “How can we bring Wetchie-ghuy into camp without Flavia losing her mind?”
Esquibel demands, “I will not allow some—some herbalist to treat one of my patients. Especially since we know he is hostile. Or is she perhaps not saying that Wetchie-ghuy is responsible for doing this? That is crazy to think there might be another one. I mean, how many shamans does an island this size need?”
“Pradeep…” Maahjabeen murmurs. The others fall silent and she blushes. “Mahbub. I need to go to the trenches. I will be…”
Pradeep groans. His eyelids flutter. He seems to struggle at the edge of consciousness, unable to break through.
“I am so sorry. I’ve been holding it for hours…”
“That’s fine,” Katrina says. “I can wrap him up for a bit. You go take care of yourself. Maybe grab a bite.”
“No. I can’t.” Maahjabeen gasps when she releases her embrace. She’d forgotten how newly healed her shoulders are and now they scream as she moves them. Pradeep is unmoving. She slides out from under him, the pain and the heartache making her sob.
The Mayor watches her, stone-faced. Maahjabeen locks eyes with her and vows that she will not show another sign of weakness to this cypher of a woman. Maahjabeen can be stoic. Just watch.
Mandy and Katrina pull her free and she stands, clamping her mouth shut. She is still staring at the Mayor, whose black eyes seem to possess a reservoir of strength that Maahjabeen can access. Now she realizes the Lisican woman isn’t judging her, but silently lending her support.
Katrina scoots into position. “So… just like give him a good cuddle? Anything I should know? Any places I shouldn’t touch?”
Mandy giggles.
Maahjabeen can’t wait any longer. Her mind has no space for the prospect of beautiful blonde Katrina wrapping herself around Pradeep and nursing him while Maahjabeen departs. But the jealousy she expects doesn’t appear. Only a tired gratitude for Katrina and a screaming terror of worry for Pradeep. She pushes herself through the plastic sheets of the clean room, determined to do this as fast as possible.
Katrina lies down beside Pradeep. “Come here, luv.” She wraps herself around him, drawing him over her like a blanket. His sandalwood scent, which she had found so attractive before, has now turned sour. She recalls their spider hunt in the bushes, when she had such a strong impulse to kiss him that she’d kissed Mandy instead. Now she has no desire for this ailing man. But isn’t this when he needs her affection the most? She turns her face and kisses his ear, softly, with real tenderness, and breathes through her nose into the nape of his neck. Somewhere deep inside he quivers but his limbs are so heavy they’re nearly rigid. Poor bloke. What had he and Maahjabeen done out there to deserve this?
Suddenly a sharp wrongness knifes through Katrina. Horror fills her. “Wait. Esquibel. I don’t think he’s breathing. I…”
Esquibel curses and with a strong hand pulls Pradeep away from Katrina, who shifts herself entirely off the cot onto the floor. Esquibel rolls him onto his back and straddles his prostrate form. She pulls her mask off and points at the Mayor, “Get that woman out of here!” before beginning a strenuous round of CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Ξ
An hour later, a muddy Amy finds Mandy at the camp’s kitchen tables, fixing a pot of tea. “Could I get one of those?” Amy has already cleaned her hands in the creek before returning to camp but she still pinches the handle of a mug daintily, afraid the mud on her sleeve might touch it.
“Of course. What’d you do? You look like something the cat dragged in.” Mandy fills Amy’s cup with steaming green tea.
“I was in your elevator shaft.”
“You were?” Now Amy has Mandy’s full attention. “What were you doing in there?”
“Figuring out how to get to the top.”
“Oh my god. Really? And did you? Oh, please… That would be so… I mean, why? Why do you even want to get to the top?”
“I’ve got to find Jay, Mandy. As soon as possible. We have no idea how much danger he might be in. He’s my responsibility. My grad student. But I can’t even cross the fucking village to get to the trailhead he took. They won’t let me. So I need to find another way into the interior. Or my time here will be an entire waste. No. Worse than that. I swear to god if I have to go back home without Jay or Pradeep I’ll just…” Amy suddenly dissolves in tears.
Mandy catches the blocky little woman in her arms and kisses the top of her head. “Oh… Oh, no… He’s fine. I’m sure of it. Jay’s like some super outdoorsman. Living outside here is a snap for someone like him. And Pradeep…” She has no words for his condition. Esquibel had barely been able to bring him back from the brink last time, and he hadn’t stabilized until Mandy had gone to find Maahjabeen, who raced back to wrap her beloved once more in her arms. Instead, she tries to change the subject with gossip. “So. Did you know Maahjabeen and Pradeep were a thing? Or did everyone know but me?”
That stops Amy’s tears. Her breath catches in her throat. “They what? What kind of thing? What are you talking about? No, honey. I’m pretty sure Pradeep is a virgin.”
“Well maybe that’s what Maahjabeen loves so much about him. His purity. Katrina said she found them one night last week. She was in his bed. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Really? Sweet, uh, yeah…” For some reason, Amy can’t process this new information. It’s just so unlikely. “I’m not sure if, I mean, I don’t know if Maahjabeen is really introductory girlfriend material, know what I mean? And why’d he hide it from me of all people? Just… Seriously? Are you sure?”
“Maahjabeen won’t let anyone else hold him. She said it’s their love that’s keeping him alive. And after he coded last time she let go we’re inclined to believe her.”
“I don’t know what to say. Pradeep. You secretive bastard. Ah… he couldn’t tell me because of her. She needed it to be a secret. Some weird Muslim thing, right? That’s it, isn’t it?”
Mandy shrugs and rests her forehead against Amy’s in sweet intimacy. “Who knows? Love works in mysterious ways.”
Amy shakes her head in wonder. “Well. I hope it works out. Their children would look like… movie stars, that’s for sure.”
“I know, right?” Mandy giggles and releases Amy.
“Thanks for that, dear one. And let me repay you by telling you how I think we can get to the top of the shaft.”
“Fuck yes! Oh, Amy, thank you so much! You have no idea how hard it’s been for me to figure out a safe way to the—”
“Well, don’t get too attached to that ‘safe’ idea.”
“Oh, crap. What is it?”
“I mean, it’s as safe as I can come up with. But it is like hundreds of meters straight up. There is no super safe way for people to go up and down that thing without like a professional construction crew. But ain’t none of us here engineers so we’ll do what we can.”
“Now I don’t know what to think.”
“Well. Let me just drink my tea and you get some caving clothes on. It’s easier to show you what I have in mind than tell you.”
“Kay kay. Meet you back here in five.”
Later, after all the descents and struggles through muddy tunnels, Mandy stands with Amy at the base of the shaft. It is no longer flooded, and when the water drained it took a lot of the ash and cinders with it, leaving a long black trail down to the concrete culvert and the sea cave. Now they can tell that beneath the blackened ashes that remain is a solid concrete floor to the shaft. But whatever anchor points Mandy had been trying to blindly find with her frozen feet a few days before are not there.
They drag the last intact limbs clear of the center of the floor and stare upward at the small dot of gray light far above. It looks impossible to Mandy, and nobody wants to get up there as bad as her. But it’s just so far.
“Tell me what you see.” Amy’s voice echoes in the shaft, a harsh reverberation off the concrete walls.
Mandy swings her phone’s light up the shaft. “Not much. Lots of vertical. No handholds. Uh… Tons of burn marks. Can I have a hint? What am I looking for here?”
“Okay. What are the walls made of?”
Mandy drops her light to eye level. She brushes her hand over the smooth blocks. “Yeah, okay, it’s only concrete here at the bottom. Then it’s, I don’t know, what is it up there? Clay? Rock?”
“It’s rock. Care for another hint?”
“Please.”
Amy silently points at the trail of ash and cinders at their feet, leading out of the shaft’s base into the tunnel.
“Uhh, neat.” Mandy turns away so Amy can’t see how irritated she is. “Maybe I’m just not as smart as everybody else here, okay, Amy? Maybe I don’t have all these spectacular doctorates from world-class programs so you’ll have to excuse me—”
“No, no. I’m not—You’re not… Sorry. I’m being too playfully obtuse. I was just standing where you are, looking up, cursing that little fucking hole in the top. Then I thought to myself: How did this shaft get made? They didn’t drill it. It’s not quite that regular.”
“I don’t know. How did all the other tunnels get made?”
Amy lifts her eyebrows and points once again at the trail of black slurry running out of view.
“It burned…?” Mandy scrunches up her face. “But that makes no sense. What burned? The rock?”
“No. Sorry, Mandy. I’ll stop playing games. It’s water. Water carved this shaft, and nearly all the tunnels we’ve seen in here. Now come here. Let me show you something else I found.”
Mandy is still mystified. Amy keeps telling her she’ll tell her what she means and then she just keeps adding more and more random details that make no sense. “Sure. Now what?’
Amy takes Mandy back into the tunnel, but before it reaches the junction with the passage that heads upwards to the Lisican village, Amy stops at an outcrop of rock. She points her light at a pair of rusted iron pipes that run vertically from ceiling to floor. “Listen.”
“Listen…?” Mandy wipes the pipe as clean as she can and then presses her ear against it. Liquid, and not a trickle. These old pipes are still functional.
“The Army Corps of Engineers must have been in here. These are probably drainage for some other chamber up above to keep it clear. I bet it empties into their culvert and then the sea cave. But look.” Amy pockets her phone and grasps a circular handle. Her forearm muscles bunch and she grunts. Then it turns.
After a few rotations the pipe closes off. Amy pulls Mandy to the wall beside her and points to a bypass pipe. Now the water shoots out its end, much more than a liter per second. It splashes onto the tunnel’s floor and runs down back toward the culvert.
Mandy looks at Amy, who has the most self-satisfied smile on her face of her life. But then her smile drops when she realizes that Mandy still doesn’t see what she means. “Oh. Right. So… Next step. Block the passage leading down to the culvert there with tarps and rocks, forming a plug. And then ta-daaa!” Amy spreads her hands wide. But Mandy still only glares at her. “Ah. I mean, of course, the final thing I still have to mention is that we’re floating on a raft. In the elevator shaft. And there’s nowhere for the water to go. Except up. We fill the shaft and ride it to the top!”
Now Mandy laughs. “Are you insane? I set the shaft on fire and now you’re going to flood it? Is this some kind of competition?”
Amy laughs too. “No! Think about it! I mean, it’s got its share of drawbacks, for sure. It’s not something we can do, well, probably more than once. And I have no idea how long it would take to fill it. A day or two? So that part stinks. I mean, there’s a lot wrong with the whole idea but I just can’t figure out how else to do it!”
“I asked Katrina if she’d fly the drone up the shaft and try to attach some cable or something up there.” Mandy shakes her head. “But she said the shaft is too narrow. She’d have to turn collision-avoidance off and then she said she wasn’t good enough to not crash manually into the walls.”
“Well and then what?” Amy grimaces. “Let’s say we’ve got like three hundred meters of twine dangling down to us. So? We don’t have more than a third of that distance in climbing rope. What else are we going to use? Dental floss? I mean, I could manufacture some rope from the long-fiber creekside plants but that would take days if not weeks. We need to find Jay now.”
Mandy thinks about sitting in a raft for hours on end as the water level slowly rises toward the top. Just her and Amy and her weather station. But it wouldn’t even have any weight requirements this time. She could load it up with all the best gear. Hygrometer. Full windspeed rotor. She could even bring spare batteries and just hook them up in sequence. And she wouldn’t have to check on it more than once every few days. “Wait. Ugh. I should have asked him when I had the… Ah, hell.”
“What is it?”
“Jay! When he got trapped in the village with Triquet and Miriam he said that one day he went with the villagers to see the top of the tunnel, where the fire came from. And I was like, ‘Aha! The villagers can lead me to the spot from above. He said they climbed over the edge of the cliffs and came down to the top of this shaft on the ocean side. And I was going to have him show me so I could start making that my route but then we stopped talking to the villagers. And then I forgot with all the other madness going on. So now we’re all buddies again but he’s gone. Crap!”
“Well, still. That solves your problem, doesn’t it? You can go ask the villagers to lead you to any spot you want on the cliffs. It just needs to be high and like securely-placed, right?”
“Yeah, but…” Mandy sighs. “I think I still have your problem. Not that they hate me per se…”
“Oh, thanks.”
“No! It’s just that they can shut off the village to us whenever they like and I need regular access to my weather station. We can’t depend on them. We need our own way in.”
Amy nods. “So… What do you think we could make the raft of?”
“Maybe we could use Maahjabeen’s kayaks.”
“Yeah, and maybe Brad Pitt will be my sex slave.” Amy laughs in such hilarious disbelief that Mandy starts to as well.
Ξ
Pradeep twists and turns on the bed, fighting for his life. He thrashes, the cords in his neck straining. He drums the back of his head against the pillow, fighting to rid himself of this horrid infestation.
But he knows that in reality he does none of these things. His body remains slack, eyes glazed. The fight is entirely internal. Nobody can see how hard he struggles.
He knows he is about to die. He tries to find peace. Maahjabeen pressed against him gives indescribable relief. After his unending struggle against the cold pit of mud within him he is almost ready to surrender to oblivion. He has gotten to love the most beautiful woman on Earth. What more is there, really, after that? It is such an impossibility for a kasmaalam nerd like himself to have loved such an angel. Death is really the only possible thing next. But his regret will not let him go. Regret for not knowing her better, touching this unbelievable skin just a bit more. Regret that they will not grow old together, that he will not be there for her when she will need him. That is such a distasteful thought that it gets him to fight once more against the pit.
The little bit of his brain that remains working now puzzles out a possible way to combat the pit of mud. Within himself, where he feels the edges of it, he has drawn a ring of fire around it, stopping its slow seeping spread up into the rest of him. The fire is love and anger and every scrap of his survival instinct that he can muster. Now he has the fire burn down, all around the sides of the pit. He will excise it entirely with fire. He will find its bottom and burn beneath that and then isolate this cauterized pit of mud within him like a giant bloated splinter. Once it is encased entirely in fire then he can remove it. He can take himself back.
Burn… Burn… He doesn’t know what it is he burns here in the abstract internal world of his spirit. It is certainly some essential part of himself. Tissues… or memories… Perhaps he is destroying himself to save himself. Yes. Like a fever. Without fever he will die.
Why was this done to him? What did Pradeep do to deserve this? They say a fox bit him in the back, which makes no sense. And now he is dying of, what… rabies? Is that what this is?
It’s all muddled. He can’t keep straight any of the details they’ve told him. Disjointed phrases keep circling in his head. He realizes how slowly they revolve. Too slow. The cold mud is winning again. Where is his fire? Has it gone out?
No, it has just disappeared deep into the black firmament of his mind, still surrounding the pit of mud as it crackles its way downward. Now Pradeep feels an attenuated pain, as if someone strikes his spinal cord like a piano note. This time he grunts and he knows Maahjabeen hears it. Pain. Yes, pain is good. Pain is life.
She looks at him, her eyes ravaged from so many tears. But she is not hopeless. So he cannot be. He fights the words out, the corners of his mouth twitching upward bravely. “I am… not… dead.”
Ξ
“Ventilation ain’t your problem, Kula. It’s got to be humidity. I mean, this is like fog grand central. Here.” Jay holds up the frosty bud, its fan leaves curling, nearly black. “Look at the cola, dude. Smell it. You got to harvest now or shit’s gonna mold out on you.”
Kula, the Lisican gardener, stands at his shoulder smoking her joint. Her face is seamed with a perpetual smile and her black curls are a frizzy mass. She grunts and waters a row of lettuces with a cracked plastic watering can. “Bimeby Jay help. Wit Kula, yaw?”
Her pidgin is surprisingly understandable. Jay has no idea what that indicates about the island, or, more importantly, his safety here. Who taught her to speak English? Where did she get all this gear? And what about all this weed? Not that there aren’t a wide variety of other fruits and vegetables in these planters. Jay wonders why Kula doesn’t cultivate her garden on the surface. “This can’t be the best spot to grow on the island. You need more sun, sister.”
Kula claps her hand on his shoulder. She’s been friendly from the get go. She pushes her cigar at him again and he takes a big wet toke. Very grassy weed. Probably not too much in the way of THC but who knows about its terpenes. Once they get settled he’ll bust out his homegrown Kush and blow Kula’s goddamn mind.
Rows of raised beds, built from raw saplings bound together with frayed nylon straps, have been filled with a dark loamy soil that probably came from the redwoods above. And it looks like a lot of starters are already pushing through the surface. Her spring plantings are a success. What day is it? Like mid-April? He takes out his phone. The date is April 20.
“Yoooooo! Look at that, Kula! 420! 420! We hit it just right!”
But of course she has no idea what he’s talking about. She just gabbles something he doesn’t understand, much like he’s gabbling something at her. But that’s cool. They’re high. And hidden. And safe. “Four twenty…!” Jay leans out the gun emplacement’s curving opening, shouting over the open ocean far below. His words are immediately snatched by the wind. But he doesn’t care. He laughs, falling back. “Hey… Maybe you can help us, Kula. If you know like all the plants here, maybe you can like, I mean, we’re sort of doing a survey, you know. Flora and fauna. Maybe you could like help us identify a whole bunch of genera.”
“Eh. Eh.” Kula nods vigorously. She pulls something up by the roots, like a stringy white carrot, and pushes it into Jay’s hands. “Takee boss. Jay good good. Je rotkvica, yass.”
“Okay. If you say so…” Jay brushes the rest of the soil off and nibbles at its end. It crunches between his teeth and releases a clean watery taste across his tongue. It’s good. “Right on. This would be so good in a salad. Man, I’m gonna make the best fucking salads. Any olive oil and balsamic here by any chance?”
But Kula is back to her watering and weeding, talking to herself in a satisfied sing-song, the words a jumble of English and Lisican and who knows what else. What an odd duck. For one thing, she’s fat. Jay hasn’t seen any fat Lisicans before. Her skin is bad and she’s wearing an old hoodie with HOLLISTER stenciled across the chest. Her formerly-white Reeboks are split along each side. Her hair is lank and greasy. She is obviously suffering the effects of prolonged contact with the modern world. Now she looks just like any other shut-in anywhere in the world. Just get her a laptop and a VPN and she’d never see another live human ever again.
He wanders away from the plants for the first time to a dark corner recessed in the bare rock. He expected to find some kind of rat’s nest of bedding but instead he finds a neatly cut-out rectangle in the rock that runs as a passage to a contained chamber, far enough back to protect its occupants from explosions in the gun emplacement. This must have been command and control back here. The room is only like five by six meters, with seven wide ventilation shafts in the ceiling. Since its abandonment, these holes have allowed in trickles of detritus and the shafts are no longer clear; they only let in a bit of diffracted daylight.
Beneath the seven holes sit undisturbed conical piles of dirt surrounded by a scattering of leaves. “Ooo, creepy. Looks like some kind of… crypt in here yo.”
Kula, behind him, giggles. “Atsa sugoya eet ká. Yass, Jay. Me an me.” She takes him by the hand and leads him to a flattened and stained Navy cot mattress against the far wall. Ah. The rat’s nest.
“Uh… Not here looking for love, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m a grad student. Not a… I mean, not that grad students don’t get down. It’s just… That’s real flattering, Kula, you know what I mean? But, uh, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”
Kula giggles at him some more, hooking her fingers into his pockets. She snares a wad of leaves he collected and she frowns at them. “Me and me and Jay make three…” But her voice falters, looking at him with concern.
“What? Those are some rhododendron variety I found down in the river valley. You know the one? Over by the…? Well you got your tunnel-mouth tribe, down in the southeast corner of the island. You know, the one with Morska Vidra? And then there’s the bad guy village. Somewhere deeper in? Yeah. That valley.”
“Morska Vidra…” Kula’s nose twitches like a rabbit’s. She wipes it with the back of her hand and sneers. She lists off a bunch of other names. The only one Jay catches is “Wetchie-ghuy…”
“Yeah. That’s the one. That’s where I got the leaves. There.” He points where his internal compass guesses southeast is.
“Yass. Me and Jay znamo.”
“So I was wondering if you could help me with the classifica—”
But Kula hisses and throws the leaves on the ground. They are unclean to her or something. Then she stiffens. She casts a devilish grin sideways at Jay. “Jidadaa.”
Jay just nods stupidly, wondering what she means. Her change of mood is so mercurial he can’t follow it. Kula crosses back to the entrance to the chamber but a low black oblong against the wall to his right catches Jay’s attention. It is a decades-old military radio. And its power is on. A bank of batteries are connected and several wires run up one of the ventilation shafts to the surface. Jay peers at it closely. Its glowing analog dials and needles twitch slightly, picking up some signal. He squints at its frontpiece, finding the volume knob. He turns it, hearing static and garbled voices and nothing more.
He turns, calling out, “Where’d you get this, Kula…?” And then the words die in his throat. Someone new enters, slight and tall for a Lisican. Young, like twenty at the most. Her face is more pale and narrow. Her eyes are gray and sad. She is singing. A Lisican girl is singing, a soft wordless ballad. When she sees Jay she stops.
“Jidadaa.” Kula points to her. “Jay.”
Jidadaa just looks at Jay, her face neutral, hands hiding each other, lower lip glistening in the dim light.
“Hey, what’s up?” His greeting feels so awkward and paltry he resolves to do better. “Jay Darmer. Uh. Nice to meet you.” It’s clear what he’s looking at here, a mother and daughter. And now the whole story makes sense. Kula fell in love with some mystery military dude. They had a baby. She had to hide. He still provides for her somehow? They’re in touch by radio? “I like your song.”
Jidadaa’s eyes twitch and a tiny smile teases the corner of her mouth. She is angular with a prominent nose and wavy brown hair, but her mother’s slyness is still in her, around the broad cheekbones and shifting eyes. She edges her way into the chamber, beginning to sing again. There is a coiled excitement in her that makes Jay think she’s about to spring some surprise on him. But she looks so harmless. How bad can it be?
Jidadaa hugs herself in her stained hoodie, one palm running up and down the other arm. Her song seems to be nonsense syllables in a simple scale, like when someone plays around on a piano without knowing how to bring it to life. Jay starts adding his own notes to her song and she stops, clapping a hand over her mouth. Now she is quite close to him. She sticks out her hand.
“Uh, hi.” Jay and Jidadaa shake hands, like business partners.
Ξ
When the vessels of your body are empty, they collapse, the walls sucking up wetly against each other. Your esophagus doesn’t stay open when not in use. It rests flat like a bike tire’s uninflated tube.
It is in such an evacuated space that Pradeep now finds his body. The walls of the pit cling to him, robbing him of sight and sense and air. Freezing mucus and mud coat his skin, leaching the last of his vitality away. He has finally lost his battle against the curse within him and slid down, down, down… For too long he’s been thrashing in a panic to get out. Now stars are blooming in his vision and he knows that oxygen isn’t getting to his brain. This is the end. And he can’t feel Maahjabeen’s embrace any more.
The stars cover his vision and the world goes white.
Pradeep kneels on cold flagstones. He is bent into a deep prostrate pose, like he’s doing yoga or praying to Maahjabeen’s god. He looks up, surveying a space filled with light, infinitely wide. Is that where he is? Has he crossed some threshold into the divine?
People at the end of their lives talk about letting go of their earthly cares. But Pradeep burns with regrets. A coruscating waterfall of hopes and plans and memories rushes through him, filling him with an unbearable ache of lost opportunity. He was by every measure too young. And his life was just about to get really really good.
Footsteps echo in the distance. He turns, trying to locate their source, but he can’t find anyone approaching from the glare on the horizon from any direction.
He opens his mouth to call out but he realizes he would only do so as a function of his anxiety. What? Oh, fucking great. Not even in death does he escape it? Bloody hell. It has become too much a part of who he is for him to leave it behind. Anxiety is in his soul.
So this is his soul. It did survive biological death. Fascinating. And how many of the other stories are true? He recalls the five layers of a human form in the Taittiriya Upanishad. The body on the outside, then biological energy, mental energy, intuition and wisdom, and deep inside is his core essence, a seed of eternal bliss. Well let us get on with it. I am ready to shed the outer layers to find my blissful center, because I certainly do not feel it now.
Remembering the lessons of his boyhood, Pradeep sits cross-legged in a lotus pose and rests his wrists on his knees. He closes his eyes, or whatever passes for eyes here, and allows his mind to calm so he can more properly listen.
He hears the footsteps again. He had thought that whoever was coming would inevitably reach him here but perhaps that isn’t true. Perhaps they’re looking for him in this bright directionless place and can’t find him. Perhaps they’re lost.
Pradeep’s mouth opens to call out. But then his anxiety, disguised as common sense, reminds him that he may not want who-or-what-ever it is in this unknown place to find him. He may want to remain hidden. At least until he knows more of who it is.
His eyes snap open, anxiety building toward panic. Oh, he just had to introduce the idea of extra-dimensional terrors into his list of neuroses, didn’t he? Now how will he ever have a moment’s rest again? He takes a shuddering breath of sharply clean air and tries to master himself. Come on, Pradeep. You can do this. You have no choice. Face your future.
With an assertive impulse Pradeep rises to his feet. “I am here,” he calls out in a ringing voice. Too loud. But it had sounded resolute. Liking that, he stands taller.
The footsteps grow louder, seeming to come from all around. Then they resolve into a shadow, a dark stain in the glare directly ahead. A hunched figure waddles toward him. It is an old man with a brown face, bits of feather and fur hanging from his fringes. He grunts at Pradeep then mutters in a sing-song Pradeep almost recognizes. This isn’t who he expected at all.
The man stops in front of Pradeep and scowls up at him, still muttering. Pradeep realizes it is the language he’s been hearing the last couple weeks. “You’re Lisican.”
The man holds up a leather loop in one hand and turns a glittering stare onto Pradeep. “Ja sam Wetchie-ghuy.”
DW Draffin -- Lisica 