Lisica Chapters

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.