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 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 29 – Kill Him
July 17, 2024
Thanks for joining us for the second 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:
29 – Kill Him
“Has anyone seen Jay?” Mandy addresses the wider bunker, then parts the slits of the clean room to check in on Esquibel.
She is reading an official report of some kind, which she dismisses from her phone as Mandy enters. “Jay? Eh, no. I am sure he is out somewhere collecting Alonso’s million samples.”
“Yeah… That’s what I figured. That flake. He said he’d help me with my elevator idea today and I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Mandy enters the clean room and kneels beside Esquibel, kissing her temple and dragging her nails through the tight curls of her lover’s scalp. She rests her head on Esquibel’s shoulder. “So tired. I danced so hard last night. And now we’ve got an MDMA session set up for Alonso tonight. Poor me and all my excesses. Maybe instead of working on the elevator I should disco nap instead.”
“Yes, that is a good idea.” Esquibel turns to her laptop and opens a research paper that she has been meaning to study on the treatment of dermal fungal infections. “You go ahead and I’ll be in there soon. Rub your feet. Then I’ll wake you when he gets back.”
“Mm.” Mandy likes the sound of that. “You’re the sweetest. What are you working on?”
“I am starting to see an incidence in foot problems. My own, and Miriam has made a complaint. We may be picking up new types of infection from the sand and everything. We have no idea about the microbes here, despite Alonso and his Plexity. It doesn’t matter, all of the information it gives us, none of it can tell us yet if these new strains of fungus or bacteria will actually harm us, or how to treat them. Not even in a petri dish or a clinical setting, to say nothing of disease in the real world. No, Triquet…” Esquibel addresses their imagined presence, “the social sciences do not win. Medicine, biology, chemistry, and physics still rule us all.”
Mandy blinks at Esquibel. “Are you okay?”
Esquibel’s smile turns to glass and her insides go cold. There is something so incisive about the way Mandy asks that it seems to shine light into all her shadows. She pretends to misunderstand. “Oh, yes. It’s just a bit of itching and cracking between the toes. Frankly, it could be that the skin is getting dried out by the wind and saltwater that we are constantly exposing them to.”
“That’s good. But, no. I mean…” Mandy grasps for the words that might describe the dissonant vibe coming off Esquibel. It’s something she’s noticed more and more over the last… three days? Four? Something is bothering Skeebee and she isn’t letting on. Mandy shakes her head. “If you were having any problems, you’d like share them with me, right? You wouldn’t be the protective big sister or anything to protect my feelings, would you?”
“No.” Esquibel covers Mandy’s hand with her own. “I mean, yes. I wouldn’t hide things from you, Mandy. Not anything I’m… required not to. But that’s just military stuff. Nothing to do with you. With us. I guess if you’re sensing anything it’s just that I wish I had more to do. I’m happy to take samples for the project all day every day but it just seems…” Esquibel shrugs. “It is something that a grad student could do. Most of my skills remain… unused.”
“Ooo, what kinds of skills? Are you like a, what do they call them, a general practitioner? Sorry I’ve never asked. Almost all the doctors I know are specialists but you haven’t mentioned any…”
“If you recall, I was always interested in surgery so that has become my specialty. Combat medicine. Field surgery. Pulling bullets and shrapnel out of muscle and bone. But we do not get very many of those injuries when we are not at war. So it is a lot of training and simulation. So, yes. I am, for the most part, a GP like you thought. Dispensing Tylenol and referring sailors to physical therapists and psychologists. You, know, the real fun stuff.”
“God, are they scared of you? I bet they must be scared of you, coming to you with their problems.”
“What do you mean?” This is a safer conversation and Esquibel giggles, reminding herself how much she loves Mandy. “I am an excellent doctor.”
“You’re just so fierce. Nobody would want to tell you their problems. I can’t imagine wondering if I had, like, chlamydia and having to talk to judgmental old Doctor Daine about it. You’d probably yell at them for not wearing condoms.”
“Of course I would! That is my job! And these aren’t normal civilians you have to coddle. They are military personnel. I give them orders. They follow them or get written up. It is… very different from this situation here.”
Mandy laughs at her. “That’s what I thought, you big bully.” She cups Esquibel’s sculpted cheek in her hand. “It’s good to see you laugh. Don’t forget to.” Then Mandy kisses her marvelous full lips and stands. “Off to find someone, anyone who might help me figure out my elevator.”
“Yes, but after your nap. I’ll be right there.” Esquibel watches Mandy’s lithe form slip away, overwhelming fondness rushing through her. She is the heart of what Esquibel fights for, the prize who is easily worth all the sacrifices. As long as Mandy and all these other dear ones remain safe, Esquibel doesn’t mind whatever eventually happens to her own self. As Mandy’s brown and black silhouette dissolves in the semi-opaque plastic sheet of the clean room, Esquibel chuckles sadly. Because, make no mistake, there will be no happy fairy-tale ending for me.
In the bunker, Mandy finds Katrina at the work tables. She leans over the golden girl and rests her chin in the notch of her clavicle. Katrina, deep in a column of Python, absently reaches back and pats her head. The soft sheen of the long hair identifies who it is. “Mmm. Mandy Dandy.”
“Katrina, my dream-a.” Mandy kisses her ear and sits back. “Sorry to interrupt. You haven’t seen Jay, have you?”
“Noper.” Katrina just wants to resolve this last bit of logic before she tears her attention away. “Maybe he’s, uh, fishing?”
“Oh! That’s a good thought. Hey, we need to talk about our upcoming session tonight sometime. Coordinate some things, I figure. Let me know when you’re free.” Mandy kisses her again, unable to get enough of the feeling of Katrina’s soft skin against her lips. Her smell. She kisses the edge of her hairline one last time.
“Mm.” Katrina waves in the air, wanting Mandy to feel seen and heard, but she is already gone.
Through the door and across a mostly empty camp, with only Alonso and Flavia working on their laptops in silence, Mandy shuffles through and onto the beach. She crosses to the redwood trunk and scales it, squinting against a band of silver-white afternoon light against the horizon. It’s almost easy to forget there’s this huge, impossibly vast ocean out here. Mandy realizes that the redwood trunk falling across the beach and blocking their view of relentless infinity has done wonders for them. It’s allowed them to turn inward and get to know each other. It’s like some kooky feng shui principle. All their energy was leaking out into the open sea before, lost to this cold uncaring oblivion. Now they can conserve it and build something here. Hopefully… an elevator!
On the beach, Maahjabeen helps Pradeep haul the kayaks free of the lagoon’s lapping tides. He swoons and falls to his knees. Oh, no! What’s wrong with Pradeep? She scrambles down toward them. There’s no sign of Jay, not on the sand or in the shallows. Maybe he’s hiding in the little lean-to beside her, taking the nap that Mandy is fighting so hard against.
She drops onto the sand and finds the driftwood lean-to empty, although a blue fleece blanket almost entirely covered in sand has survived at least one high tide. Mandy pulls it out and twists the seawater out of it. She hurries toward Maahjabeen and Pradeep. “Hey there. Are you guys okay? How’s the water?”
Maahjabeen laughs, a short unhappy bark. “Very cold. Very… adventurous.”
“We fell asleep on this pocket beach over there.” Pradeep points east, along the coast beyond the sea cave entrance. “Got hit by a wave. Totally doused. Still feel…” He shakes his head, eyes blank.
Maahjabeen pulls the blanket from Mandy’s hands a little too roughly. It is evidence of a tryst she needs to hide. “Thank you. Sorry. I left it in there and forgot it.” She tosses it into the hatch of the kayak and drags it further up the beach. “Ehh. So hungry.”
“Yeah, I really need something warm. Has Jay cooked any more feasts today?” Pradeep moves like a zombie, his limbs stiff.
“I can’t find him! I hoped he was down here fishing.”
“Probably in the trees somewhere like a… simian.” Pradeep stumbles and drops his kayak. “Woo-ooo. I’m sorry. I can’t seem to… I think I might be getting sick.” Pradeep stands again, face ashen, and takes a deep breath, trying to marshal his reserves.
“Oh, no!” Mandy hurries to him and relieves him of the plastic handle at the yellow kayak’s prow. She hauls on it, following Maahjabeen around the end of the trunk in the woods.
Pradeep shuffles behind.
“How can he be sick?” Mandy asks Maahjabeen as she catches up to her. “There’s no new bugs on this island, nobody to even catch anything from.”
“I don’t know, but it is my fault.” Maahjabeen seems more upset about this than Mandy thought she’d be. “I felt the water hit but I kept sleeping. We both did. I should have realized what was happening and gotten him up earlier. But of course we were so far apart from each other, sleeping nearly on opposite sides of the beach, really. Now it is a shock to his system I think. Exposure or something. Maybe Esquibel should look at him. Ugh. So stupid!”
Maahjabeen lets her anger at herself fuel her march through the sand, which is difficult when she is so tired and hungry. She finally deposits Aziz under the big platform and directs Mandy to do the same with Firewater. But Pradeep struggles through the sand to get to them. Throwing caution to the wind, Maahjabeen hurries to him and puts an arm around his shoulder to support him as they make their way to the bunker and Esquibel in the clean room.
Mandy watches them go. There’s a whole host of strange vibes coming off them, enough to make whatever is afflicting Esquibel seem innocuous. When did everyone start getting so mysterious? She thought they’d reached some kind of transparency and fellowship here in the last few days. Mandy shrugs, letting it go. Who ever even knows with Maahjabeen? She’s always unhappy about something. “And I still haven’t found Jay!”
Ξ
“Now this is more like it.” Jay thinks he may have rediscovered the trail taken by the pollen people on this downward slope into a small canyon. It’s no more than a game trail but at least he can convince himself the depressions in the soft soil were made by human feet.
Tracking them was easy at first. The pollen of their masks left a trail like magic fairy dust, at least for the first few hundred paces. But as the woods grew more dense and the trunks of the fir trees crowded together into a gloomy, witchy canopy no more than a meter off the ground, the golden dust appeared less and less frequently until it disappeared entirely.
At the edge of the thicket Jay had to make a guess, dropping onto all fours and crawling through a dense stand. His backpack off, pushing it ahead of himself through the low passage, he was quite certain he’d lost his quarry when he spied one last faint streak of pollen on a branch above.
That led to the slope and this little hidden canyon. It is a cleft in a limestone cliff hidden by black oaks. There are no more signs or tracks leading to it but this must be where they headed. It’s that or they scaled the vertical cliffs and he sees no way to do that.
“Into the mouth of the monster.” Jay reads too much fantasy to think about this in any way other than epic adventure. Gird thyself for battle, young hero. But what kind? He’s never seen himself as like a classic fighter type. He’s more of a druid or a ranger. He’d like carry a spear and speak with the animals. If there was any magic in the world at all, he’d be a ranger of the mountains, sand, and sea. Ensconced in his daydream, he pushes his way through a stiff stand of ceanothus, preparing himself for conflict. Maybe he should get his knife out. Or at least keep it handy. “Bah. Who am I kidding? I’m not a fighter or a ranger or anything like that.” Jay takes out his phone instead. “I’m a wizard.”
Now he pauses at the entrance to the canyon. He really doesn’t want to surprise anyone. Not after his last interaction. He’d get his ass feathered with a dozen arrows before he took a step. “Actually, haven’t seen any bows and arrows. It’s all spears and nets so far. Wonder why? Whoa… Uh. Ding dong.” Jay has stepped between the sheltering trees into the canyon to find a lovely little glen, filled with madrone trees and butterflies and wildflowers. “So beautiful.” Jay brushes a hand over the flowers and inspects his palm. Next to no pollen. So, they must have played their games here first before going further afield. What is that all about, anyway? “Some kind of… spring festival? Rite of passage? Pollen collection service? Hello? Anyone home…?”
Jay edges his way into the glen, keeping up his nonsensical chatter. He’s never seen irises so gigantic, with varieties he’s pretty sure exist nowhere else. Also, the luxuriant dark green ferns have a weird extra bend in their sprouting fiddleheads. Neat. He might get something named after himself here after all. But stop goggling at everything, you dope. Now is not the time to do fieldwork.
He parts the fronds of the ferns to push deeper into the glen. “Guys? I just have questions, more than anything. What’s all that pollen for? And were those hunters gonna spear you too? Or are you like part of their tribe? Sorry if tribe isn’t the right word…”
A small grove of mature redwoods stands at the head of the canyon, hoarding nearly all the water and leaving a meager muddy stream for the rest of the glen. There is no sign of human presence or activity anywhere he looks. It remains entirely untouched. Despite his anxieties over being lost in what appears to be enemy territory, Jay allows himself a pleased smile. Alone in nature, getting up to trouble. That’s been his whole life. And it’s just so got damn beautiful in here. If this is where he dies, so be it.
Jay steps into the fairy ring of the redwoods and pulls up short. “What the…?” There is a ragged pit at his feet, leading down into darkness. The roots of the redwoods have been manipulated around it over the decades in an irregular woven ring. He drops to his knees, to make out recent disturbances in the duff from several pairs of feet. This is it. He did it. He tracked them all the way back. “To what, though? What is this?”
Jay turns on his phone’s light and shines it into the hole. “No way. That’s impossible. Isn’t it?” The light shines on the rusted steel structure of a ladder’s top rungs. He inches closer and tilts his phone further down, careful not to hold it directly above the hole in case he drops it. Yeah, that’s a long ladder alright. Dropping way way down into pitch blackness.
Jay rolls back onto his heels. “Well. That’s creepy as shit. But what am I going to do? Sit here and wait for the hunters to track me down? No way. I bet this is another one of those uncrossable borders, like, between these people and the others. Like we got the river as a border between the two villages, right? A super strong border. Cause who in their right minds would go down this thing unless they know what’s at the bottom?” He takes a deep breath, surprised how disappointed he is to find an artifact of the modern world here in this wilderness. “Yeah… Just when I’d thought I was getting away from all the madness of civilization.” As he talks he senses a bit of white noise from the vegetation on the far side of the redwoods, further up the glen but heading close. When he stops talking the noise also stops.
The hunters. They’re coming.
Jay shivers and pulls his pack back on. “Yeah. Okay. Fuck. That didn’t take long. Oh, well. It’s been a nice life. Bit short, but at least I got to discover some plants.” And then, holding his breath like a scuba diver rolling off a boat, Jay thrusts his legs through the hole and starts climbing down the rungs as fast as he safely can.
He counts his steps, eyes squeezed shut. When he gets to thirty he realizes he’s still holding his breath. He lets it out in a silent stream, unwilling now to give any more clues to the hunters above where he may have headed. Not that there’s any doubt where he went.
After just two more steps he finds himself on a concrete shelf. The hole mouth is a small gray opening far above. He wants to move away from it as fast as he can but he isn’t sure how. He feels forward with his feet, hoping against hope that the hunters’ heads don’t appear in the hole above.
The shelf is narrow with a sharp drop off, only a meter wide. Jay edges away from the ladder and the hole above, feeling with his hands along the dirty concrete wall at his back. What in the ever-loving Cold War of his grandparents is all this concrete doing down here? Just how many wildernesses around the world did those busy bastards ruin? Looks like the answer is all of them.
His fingers reach the flaking rust of a steel frame. A doorway. And it’s wet for some reason. If he ducks through then he’ll be out of sight of the hole above and he can use his phone’s light.
The door is smaller than he estimated and his pack gets caught on a ragged piece of steel. It tears the ripstop nylon a bit before the old rusted flake falls off with a clatter.
Cursing under his breath, Jay kicks the bit of metal through the door and carefully feels his way along the frame where his pack caught. He doesn’t want to leave any fibers in the frame for trackers to find. That’s what he’d be doing, if he was hunting himself. He’d be looking at all these choke points for any bits and bobs of hair or cloth.
Now he’s through and his hands are shaking. His breath’s a bit ragged too. “Turns out,” Jay whispers to himself, “it’s hella stressful to get hunted in the dark. Who knew?”
He lifts his phone and turns on his light. “Holy smokes.”
Jay stands in a grand curving tunnel. The tunnel has rails and a couple small derelict carts pushed up against the end of the line to his right. Like mine carts but with specific fasteners and brackets atop. Long unused. Like decades. “Are they even American…?” Jay wipes the grime from one cart, looking for serial numbers or anything. He can only find a few raised symbols at the base of the steel brackets, but those could belong to anyone.
“Damn, I don’t want to be down here with all this industrial crap. I want to be outside.” He stands unhappily in the middle of the tunnel, looking back and forth over and over. “You know, where I can be spitted like a pig and they can nail my hide to the front gate as a warning to all others.”
Jay sighs unhappily, cinches his waistbelt tight, and marches resolutely down the curving tunnel to his left.
Ξ
“Gah, I need a better shaker table for the amount of material we’re talking about here. Something bigger and automated. This little tray is taking forever!” Miriam stands back from her worksite at the far edge of the camp, and tilts the corner of the multi-layered tray into a plastic cup, where a fine sand has been separated from the dross. “I got one reading from the Dyson reader with a dry sample but I should see what a wet one does.”
Triquet stands to the side, leaning on a shovel, trying to recall what motors they might have on hand that could be repurposed into an automatic shaker. “We just need one really good vibrator strapped to one of the legs. We should ask everyone.”
Miriam wasn’t listening closely. She makes a shocked face. “Uh, what? A vibrator? Whose legs?”
“No. To the table leg. Get your mind out of the gutter, you catty old thing. I’m just trying to figure out your problem.”
“Ohh. Not a terrible idea. Who do you think might have one?”
“Well. If I was a betting person, First I’d bet on myself. But…” Triquet flutters a modest hand over their chest, “it is one of my regrets that I did not bring with me the toy I affectionately refer to as my bone flute. There wasn’t any room in my bag and I thought we’d be in more dorm-like sleeping arrangements so…”
Miriam is unable to stop laughing. She needs to sit, holding a hand in front of her mouth. “Oh my god, Triq. You just rocked my world. If I ever hear the phrase ‘bone flute’ again I’ll probably wet my pants.”
“Well, what do you call yours in Ireland? Your… your tea and crumpets? Your bangers and mash?”
Now Miriam is laughing so hard she can hardly breathe. “Stop! Stop! I’m already dead!”
“So, then, definitely not me. I’d say you and Amy are up there in terms of vibrator candidates. Everyone knows how you old ladies love playing with your cootchies.”
Miriam’s laugh turns rueful. “Well, I can’t answer for Ames, but I haven’t… I mean, I kind of went cold for a few years. It was all too emotional and intimate so I just threw myself into my work…”
“Wait. Girl. Are you telling me you’re not taking care of yourself? Tell me. When was the last time you had an orgasm?”
Miriam blushes. “Uh, two nights ago? No, don’t worry about me. Alonso is a very considerate lover. Very. But it’s true, there was a long dry spell, there. And I do mean dry.”
“Oh, you poor thing. So no for Miriam. Yeah, and I don’t think I know Amy well enough to ask her. Despite all that bubbly cheer she’s actually quite private, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, that’s her mask. The bubblier she gets the more upset she is. She can never figure out how I know, but when she’s gotten me a third cup of tea in five minutes I can tell she’s upset.”
“The tea! Seriously. What is up with that? Okay. Well. We’ll skip her. My next guess would be Jay. He probably puts all kinds of things up his butt. What? Don’t you think?”
But Miriam is laughing too hard again. “Or, god, Pradeep. If he has one it’s probably made of ice or something.”
“Ice pick as vibrator. Dangerous but exciting. Yeah, he’s a weird one. Not sure he’s ever touched himself, or had anyone touch him. I wonder if he’s still a virgin.”
“Him and Flavia and—”
“No, there’s no way, sister. I don’t think Italian women are even virgins when they’re born. Ew. Wait. Sorry. That came out wrong. They’re just so… worldly. I just think that Flavia has such a math brain that she can’t be bothered to have sex with a human being. Maybe her vibrator is like an entire robot that she’s constantly re-programming to get her off better.”
“Who’s left? I can’t imagine Katrina even needs one.”
Triquet makes a judicious face. “No, that chick is like a walking vibrator. Just being near her gets everyone hot and bothered. Imagine what living a day in her shoes would be like.”
Miriam sighs. “Exhausting! No, I doubt there are any vibrators here. If Mandy and Esquibel are using any then I can’t in good conscience take their toys away.”
“Not without washing them at least.”
They laugh again, until Miriam is wiping the tears away. She hugs Triquet. “Oh, thank you so much, dear Doctor. I haven’t had such a good laugh in ages. God… Now that I’m climbing out of my hole I’m seeing how deep and dark it was. But no more holes!”
“Well, especially if there aren’t any vibrators around…”
They laugh even more. Miriam pushes herself away from the worksite, exhausted by the problem-solving and the labor. “And just like that, it’s dinner time. Come wash up with me, Triq-star.”
“Ooo, I like that.” Triquet strikes a pose. “I am the Triq Star. Falling down from above. Like some David Bowie character.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Bowie live?”
“Oh my GOD I’m just going to cut open your skull and take like a bath in all your memories.” Triquet grabs Miriam’s head and playfully squeezes it. “Was it Ziggy Stardust? Please tell me it was Ziggy. Although if it was, oh my god, I’d have to kill you.”
“No. It was in the 80s. The Let’s Dance tour. So much fun. I dressed as his Little China Girl for Halloween one year. Christ. Can’t believe how racist that is now…”
“Uh, where is everyone?” They’ve made their way to the wash basin at the kitchen tables in camp. But the platforms and tents are all empty. “We weren’t that far away, were we? Are they in the…? Hello?” Triquet opens the door to the bunker.
Everyone is in there. Alonso and Amy, Katrina and Flavia and Maahjabeen, who looks like she’s been crying. They all stare at the clean room, where Esquibel and Mandy’s blurry figures bend over Pradeep’s prone form.
Miriam’s carefree smile fades as she enters. Alonso reaches out to her. His face is a storm. “Ah, Mirrie. Please.”
“What? What is it, Zo?”
He kisses her hands over and over, tears in his eyes. “Pradeep. He-he just suffered a cardiac arrest.”
“He WHAT?” Miriam cries out in grief, her knees buckling.
Triquet is struck dumb. Their face closes and their spine folds, as if they’ve been punched in the gut.
“Is he…? I mean…?” Miriam can’t say the words.
“Esquibel has stabilized him.” Amy’s voice is entirely without inflection. Miriam has never heard it sound like this before. “He’s out of danger now. She says.”
Miriam throws her arms around Amy, who can’t seem to find it in herself to respond. “But what happened? A heart attack? Really? But… how? He’s like twenty-four. Perfect health.”
“It was our nap on the beach.” Maahjabeen’s face is fearsome to behold. Her eyes are so sharp with pain Miriam can’t hold her gaze. “My fault. All my fault. I should have woken him sooner.”
“What, just some cold water…?” Miriam shakes her head. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, I think he was maybe stung by something in the tides.” Amy says this quietly. Alonso and Katrina nod in support. “Urchin or sea snail or… But so far we can’t find any site on his skin where he might have…” She shrugs as Maahjabeen wails aloud in guilt.
“But… will he be okay?” Miriam’s voice is tiny, hopeful.
“We don’t know yet.” Alonso’s mood is as dark as it’s ever been. “We don’t know how long his brain had to go without oxygen. Hopefully no time at all but… We just don’t know.”
“No imaging equipment here,” Katrina murmurs. “Doc said she’s just got to go off visible symptoms and old-fashioned manual diagnoses. But right now she’s having him rest.”
A glottal sound is expelled from Pradeep’s throat and his body convulses. Esquibel raps out an order and Mandy holds him down. Maahjabeen wails again and Amy drops her head in anguish.
“I can’t get him to stop shaking.” Esquibel’s voice is a bit strident, out of patience. “If that happens again it’s recommended to put him in a medical coma, but I don’t have nearly the monitoring—”
Pradeep convulses again.
“No, Pradeep! Please! La tamutu, ‘ana ‘uhibuk jdaan!”
Katrina glances at Maahjabeen. She’s learned enough Arabic to know Maahjabeen has just professed aloud her love for Pradeep. But she doesn’t know if anyone else could translate her cry of grief. She doesn’t think so. Oh, what a tragedy.
Pradeep’s face twitches and he settles again. “Perhaps I will just try sedation. We can take turns watching his vitals. I will just try diphenhydramine first. Intra-muscular.” Esquibel opens a series of small plastic boxes, preparing the injection.
“Is that safe?” Alonso has always held the medical superstition that the longer a thing’s name is, the more dangerous it must be.
“Yes. It’s just Benadryl. They use it for outpatient procedures all the time. Like a colonoscopy. Very safe…” Esquibel bends over the form of Pradeep. He grunts, then his breath rattles in his throat. “Turn his head. Clear his… Here.” Esquibel puts down her implements and with a hooked finger pulls Pradeep’s tongue clear of his airway. “Such barbaric conditions. But there. He’s already doing better now.” She checks his wrist pulse with her fingertips while consulting her watch. “I think your guess about a neurotoxin from a marine creature is a good one, Amy. Even if we can’t find a site where it bit or stung him. Who knows? Maybe he ingested it. Either way, I just want to calm his nervous system down.”
“He didn’t eat anything.” Maahjabeen stands, unable to sit out here any longer without him. She approaches the clean room and parts the slit with her hand.
“Please don’t,” Esquibel tells her, holding up a hand. “It might be infectious. You might make him worse. Or he might infect you. I’m sorry, but we will let you know when you can…”
But Maahjabeen doesn’t wait to hear the rest of Esquibel’s official visitation policy. With a ragged sob, she turns and flees from the bunker.
“Gor blimey, we’ve been here, what? Four weeks?” Miriam shakes her head in wonder. “Who knew this place would be so dangerous?”
Ξ
“They say you don’t know what you don’t know…” Katrina and Mandy sit beside the creek, tossing pebbles in, “…but sometimes I think I don’t even know what I do know. You know?”
Mandy sighs. “No, I don’t know. I didn’t know very much before I came here. Just enough atmospheric science to make a career of it, maybe get a state or federal job in the next couple years. But now… I mean… I guess I know how to start a fire. Screw up a science mission. Turns out those are the only things I’m good at.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, babe.” Katrina playfully kicks Mandy’s foot. “You’re a world-class arsonist. Biggest fire this island’s ever seen. They could see that shit from space.”
“Ugggh. I can’t believe you’re teasing me about it. I thought you liked me. But you’re so mean.” Mandy kicks her back.
“I do like you, Mandy Dandy. You should hear what I say about people I hate.”
“Everyone thinks you’re just this sweet little Australian blonde girl, don’t they? But you’re a raging bitch under there, aren’t you?” Mandy holds up a hand to forestall any protest. “I mean, as a closet raging bitch myself…”
“Closet? You sure about that?” Katrina cocks her head to one side, closing one eye in a grimace of disbelief.
Mandy squeals in outrage and swats Katrina, who giggles, then sighs and checks the time on her phone. “Looks like I’m stood up.”
“What? Damn it, is the dude just like hiding from me at this point? What did I say to him?”
“Well, a closet bitch wouldn’t ever say anything bad, would they?”
Mandy swats Katrina again. “I wish I was like you. Get to work on anything you want, just following your brilliant little ideas. But I. Can’t. Do. Any. Work. Here and it’s driving me insane. I have like six thousand dollars worth of software on two pretty new laptops and I can’t use any of it. And everyone else is like earning Nobel prizes every day while I sit here picking my nose.”
“Maybe he meant 6pm California time. Which is probably more like 7pm. But where is he? He asked me to do him the favor. It wasn’t like I was pining for his attention.”
“No. God. How could you? Jay is so goofy. Even if I was into guys, I wouldn’t be able to even like finish a first date with him.”
“Aw, I think he’s cute. But he’s got the self-awareness of like a yellow lab. Definitely not husband material. But I bet you could have a killer spring break with him. I love surfer bodies. To me, that’s the ideal human shape. Male or female or whatever. Yum. I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”
“Oh my god,” Mandy curls a lip in distaste. “Are you crushing on Jay? I thought I respected you and your taste.”
“No! Not crushing at all, Mandy. I think maybe I just have a… less discriminating palate than you. Like you’re a super taster and I’m one of those chicks that just eats everything. If it looks good and it’s in front of me, then it’s all mine.”
Mandy giggles, tossing another rock in the stream. But her ego takes a hit. She thought Katrina felt the same way about Mandy as Mandy did about her. Now Mandy realizes that even though she just got past the first audition, everyone else did too. She ain’t as special as she thought she was…
Amy appears, ducking her head around the broad green leaves of the creekside vegetation. “Oh! Hello hello. Anyone seen Jay?”
They laugh at her.
“What? You’re waiting for him too? This is like some Agatha Christie scene. Where is the murderer?”
“I think Mandy sees it more like Waiting for Godot.”
Mandy lifts helpless hands. “I’ve been looking for him all day!”
“And he told me on the dance floor last night to meet him out here tonight at sunset,” Katrina adds, “cause he wanted to show me something totally boss.”
“Hm. Yeah. We’ve been doing creek samples for the last couple days at different hours and under different weather conditions. Tonight is supposed to be eighteen hundred hours. I thought I was going to be apologizing to him for being late.”
“So where could he be?” Katrina asks. “Last time I saw him he was on the dance floor trying to teach his new mates to twerk.”
“Did anyone see if he slept in his hammock?” Mandy wrinkles her nose, a growing unease trickling into her.
“Oh, god.” Amy realizes the implications and hisses with worry. She turns back to camp and hastens to it. As they cross the sand she sees that Mandy and Katrina have caught up to her. “I was in Jay’s things earlier, looking for one of the Dysons. And at one point I was like, ‘huh, this pile seems light,’ but I didn’t think any more about it.” The day’s light fades as Amy leads them to his hammock and its small platform where he keeps his gear. She rifles through it. “No pack. No water bottle. Yeah, that’s fine if he’s just out collecting all day. But there’s a bivy I gave him for his birthday that is missing here. You only take that out for overnights. Ugh. No no no. What are you doing, Jay?”
“Wait. You think he went back to sleep with the Lisicans last night? He wasn’t that drunk.”
“I think we can all agree,” Amy says tightly, walking slowly back toward camp, “that Jay doesn’t make the best decisions all the time. Come on. Somebody hold my hand when I tell Alonso. This isn’t going to be very much fun.”
Ξ
Pradeep regains consciousness in darkness. It’s as if he is dragging himself with all his strength from a deep airless pit of sucking mud. He is first aware of his breath, catching it with his diaphragm and bearing down with all his might so he can build the resolve to drag himself another millimeter clear of the mud. But he knows it is just a metaphor. He is trapped somewhere deep within his body. And he is so weak and cold…
He bears down again, pulling himself clear of whatever is dragging him down. He realizes it’s dark because his eyes aren’t open. Lifting his lids will take another herculean effort and he doesn’t know if he’s up for the task. His inexhaustible curiosity scratches at some outside door of his mind like a cat wanting to be let back in. But he can do no more than listen to it scratch.
These metaphors are quite useful. Let’s see. What happens if he lets that cat in? Then his curiosity can re-engage. But does he have the energy for it? Somewhere, floating in this febrile trembling sea of ink, a measure of vitality must still survive somewhere…
Pradeep braces himself and pushes his eyelids flutteringly up, the muscles of his brow and nosebridge spasming from the effort. He is surprised to find himself in the clean room. It is well-lit. Esquibel dozes in a camp chair at his side.
Pradeep is blank. His head totters on his neck and his fingers tremble. What is wrong with him? His eyes focus on the gleaming outline of Esquibel’s sculpted cheek. Her skin somehow reflects the harsh LED light of the lantern, lending her a halo. His holy protector. What do they call those…? He gropes for the word. “You’re… my… angel.” It comes out as a slurring mess. Pradeep stops, appalled at how he sounds.
But the noise wakens Esquibel. Her eyes clear and she looks intently at Pradeep, surprised to find him looking back at her. “Eh. Pradeep. Nice to see you here with us.”
He only stares at her. Her words fall down into that mud pit in his center, pulling away any meaning or impetus to act.
“How are you. Thirsty, I imagine?” She holds a water bottle with a straw up to his face. He blinks slowly as she tries to push his lips apart to insert the straw. “Drink. Come on, now.”
Pradeep can only watch her. But she is right. His mouth is so dry it is sealed shut. Maybe he should obey her.
Sucking is hard, but probably easier than any other activity. It is perhaps the first instinct a baby has. His esophagus and cheeks contract and a drop of water reaches his mouth.
It clears the dryness from the tissues but when it trickles down his throat it seems to feed the mud pit deep within him. A bloated pressure of nausea builds in his guts. He stops and closes his eyes.
Pradeep feels Esquibel’s hand on his forehead checking for fever. Her fingertips press against his pulse on his right wrist. But he can’t seem to get his eyes back open. “What is wrong with me?” Well, the intention of his statement at least is recognizable in the moan and grunt that come out.
“Something stung you, we think, when you were out at the beach with Maahjabeen. Were you stung? Do you remember?”
But Pradeep hears no word after Maahjabeen. It is like a spell that unlocks something deep and preserved within him. There he is, way far away, hidden in a tiny little cavern deep inside himself. Why is he down there, when he can be out in the world again with the most beautiful woman alive? “Mach.” It is very important for him to say her name and have it come out right. “Mach. Jah. Bean.” Like a prayer against vampires, compelling them to withdraw from his holy words, her name finally forces the pit of cold mud to recede and lessen its grip on him.
Now he takes a deeper breath, opening his eyes again. “She… is… here…? She’s… okay?”
Esquibel marvels at his resolve. “Uh, yes. Everyone else is fine. Maahjabeen is fine. Except we appear to have lost Jay and now everyone is out in the middle of the night looking for him. Some of them have even gone through the tunnels to talk to the Lisicans. Madness. So, just you and me left here. We obviously couldn’t leave you alone.”
“Why…? am I sick?”
Esquibel hides her worry behind the professional mask she long ago adopted. Pradeep looks like a stage four cancer patient. His cheeks and eye sockets are bruised hollows. His skin is ashen. “Well. Not as sick as we feared. Looks like you’re getting better as we speak. But you don’t remember anything biting you? Stinging you? Did you step on anything? Eat anything? No?”
Pradeep shakes his tottering head. He thinks back to what he recalls last. Nothing about getting here. Only being at that lovely little pocket beach, Maahjabeen’s hip in the palm of his hand, her dimpled smile for him, a tenderness building… Ah! That’s right! He was having a panic attack. He was worried that the Lisicans would… would… He feels a trickle of that old familiar anxiety. But it seems to call the mud. Oh, no. His energy is fading again. It bubbles up once more from within him, this disgusting enervating affliction that someone has laid upon him. It’s unlike anything he’s ever felt. Not the pneumonia or dysentery or malaria he struggled through as a child, none of them felt this way. They burned and sizzled in him, dragged on his guts in different ways. But there is something calculated and malevolent about this… this thing he feels inside him. He knows deep in his bones that it was laid upon him intentionally, and that if he cannot find a cure, it will kill him.
DW Draffin -- Lisica 