Lisica Chapters

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

Audio for this episode:

38 – Pollen’s Gold

On his way back from the trenches after lunch, Jay finds the path blocked by Jidadaa. Or, well, not blocking him so much as waiting for him. Great. He considers turning around and taking a different route to camp but that would be stupid. Childish.

“Oh. Hey, Jidadaa.”

“Hello, Jay.” She holds her hand out to shake his but he holds his own hands awkwardly away from her.

“Should wash up before, you know… heh.” He indicates the trenches behind him.

Jidadaa only nods and falls in beside him. Her voice is gentle. “Jay is not happy to see me.”

It’s not often Jay gets angry. When he does it’s an icy sharpness that he hates. He spits the words out. “No. I mean. That’s not it. I… I should really thank you. For getting my shoes back to me.”

Jidadaa stops and stares at him and he is reminded of how still she went when he grabbed her arm. Great. Now he’s triggering all her abuse. He wheels away.

“Auugh. I just wish you hadn’t stolen my shit!” He shouts it at the trees and a burst of songbirds wings away. Tiny. Dark-eyed juncos? This far north?

He looks back at her. Jidadaa is downcast, offering nothing.

“I just want my phone. You know? It’s got all my stuff on it.”

“Kula uses it.”

“Yeah I bet. Well. She will until the battery goes out. She know how to recharge it?”

Jidadaa only looks at him.

Jay lifts his hands. “What do you want from me, Jidadaa? You already took all my good shit. I got nothing left.”

Her gray eyes burn into him. He realizes her ferocity is back. “You are lidass. You are end of Lisica. I will help.”

“Yeah… I don’t really know what that’s all about, sister.” He shakes his head, sad. “I mean, I kind of get it. I’d be pretty pissed off at the world if I was you too. Revenge tour 2000 for sure. But I’m not him. You think I’m gonna do some like apocalyptic shit and the whole island burns and everyone pays for what they did to you but that just isn’t happening, dude. The worst you’re probably looking at is some lawyers and developers showing up in a year or so and locking up all the island resources. Which, I mean, yeah, it could get pretty dire, but…”

“Jay is new. They are old.”

“Okay cool but what does that even mean? You think I’m gonna like show up and burn them out Far Cry style? Declare war against three villages? Just you and me and a sharp rock on a stick?”

“No. Not against villages. The old is the… the argument. Struggle between Wetchie-ghuy and the other.”

“The other. Right. Shaman on shaman violence. What’s his name, anyway?”

“We do not know name. We do not know if man or woman or both. We only call them…” Jidadaa leans forward with sincere confidentiality, whispering: “Daadaxáats’. Means skies are clear.”

“And you’re saying you want me to go to war against them?”

“I help.”

Jay laughs. “Uh, both of them? Is one worse than the other?”

“Both bad.”

“And what am I supposed to do, kill them?” He laughs, this hypothetical getting a little too absurd, even for him.

She makes a decisive gesture. “Stop the argument.”

“Oh, so I can just convince them? Just invite them to a chillout sesh and get them to bro down together and smoke a peace pipe?”

“No. I think we kill them.”

Jay laughs again. “Uhh. Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that’s against all our Star Trek laws. I’m not supposed to kill anybody here.”

“I help.”

“Jidadaa.” Jay lifts his hands to grab her by the shoulders but he stops a half-pace away as she stiffens. He slumps. “Look. We got a lot of smart people here with us. Let’s bring it up with the whole crew and see if we can get some different ideas here. Things that don’t involve capping anyone’s ass. Deal?”

Jidadaa nods. “Yes. They are all in argument too. Sometimes you get to say things when it is your own life.”

“Yeah, but only sometimes. Okay. Good. Cause I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m supposed to do with you.”

Ξ

“…and I’m as celibate as a nun for five years. Don’t even think about sex. Just obsess over my long-lost husband. Then I finally have him back for like three weeks and next thing I’m shagging the junior professors like—like some old hag!”

Amy nods in sympathy. They’re in the sea cave, coated in mud. Miriam has dug a series of sandy trenches in different geological contexts here: one by the base of the falls, one at the stone shelf by the collapsed pier, and this one in the side of the tunnel that leads in where the wall is a crumbly gray clay. Amy scrapes with her trowel at the aggregate of sand and gravel, collecting some in a repurposed sock. “Yeah yeah yeah. You’re a bad wife. So how was it? I bet Triquet was pretty hot in bed.”

“The hottest! That’s the thing. I feel… It’s almost… Youth is so soft, so sweet, so erotic. And I’m not young. It’s cheating. It’s not fair. It’s inherently unbalanced. It’s like I’m skipping the main course and just eating dessert. And poor Triquet. They’re stuck with… my dusty biscuits and weak tea.”

They laugh, leaning against each other. “Oh, I don’t know. Triquet obviously has a thing for ancient history. What does Alonso think? Wait. Let me guess.”

“It’s the orgy he always wanted.”

“Of course. And Triquet?”

“They adore Alonso. Lionize him.”

“And you love them both?”

“Do I love Triquet? Well, they are absolutely worthy of love. I’m just moving a little slower than that. Maybe that’s it. It’s all just going so fast. I’m a fucking geologist, Ames. The only timescales I understand last hundreds of millions of years.”

“Are you… maybe… afraid to share?”

Miriam stops, a pretty little frown on her face. She brushes back a loose curl and leaves a stripe of gray mud on her cheek. “Ooo, Amy coming in with the deep cuts. Share? Which?”

“I don’t know. Either. Both. Maybe you’re afraid, or you can sense, that it’s not a good idea. I mean, if things went south… here on this island where we can’t even get away from each other. Maybe it’s just your old hag wisdom kicking in. Leave the fireworks for after, when we’re all decompressing on the mainland.”

“Perhaps. Nobody’s in any hurry. And Alonso’s got enough on his plate. I don’t know. Thanks for letting me say it all out loud. You know, all those years he was gone I kept telling myself not to let it change me and to maintain my inner balance and all that crap. But it does change you, no matter how hard you try. And then, when this phase hits and you’re able to let go of it all… That’s when you realize how much there is to release! Maybe that’s why sex with Triquet was so important. It’s transformative sex. And with Alonso it’s, well, these days it’s like healing love. I guess I’m not sure how to mix those two.”

“It sounds like sex with Triquet is for you and sex with Alonso is for him.” Amy grimaces in the dark. That came out harsher than intended.

“No… I mean, yes sex with Triquet was about me. For sure. But sex with Alonso isn’t just for him. You know how he is. He’d never allow that. Sex with Alonso is always for both of us. For our future together and like building the rest of our doddering lives.”

“Yeah. But that’s not very erotic. I’ve heard there’s two types of sex, and they each activate different reward centers in the brain. One is promiscuous sex, or sex that has an element of risk or danger or novelty to it. This excites our adrenal glands and we get addicted to the adrenaline high just like with anything thrilling. But the other type is emotional sex with longterm partners. And this releases oxytocin, the same hormone that nursing mothers and babies get hooked on. It’s basically a choose-your-addiction type deal. Lucky Miriam. She’s getting both highs at once.”

“And what about you, Ames? Hmm? Anybody climbing into your bag at night?”

“Heh. Me? Never. I mean, who would? The kids are… I mean, they’ve all said nice things to me. I’ve come out to a few of them. But, no… To them I’m still just little Auntie Amy and I’m happy to keep it that way.”

“Are you?” Miriam gooses Amy and she squeals.

“Who’s that?” Amy turns away from their work in the tunnel to peer further down its length. She hears voices.

Katrina and Mandy emerge from the darkness, faces drawn with worry. When Mandy sees them, her eyes light up. “Amy! Is Flavia with you?”

“Flavia? No. Just me and Miriam. Didn’t she go with you?”

“Yes! But we lost her! She disappeared at the top of the cliff! We’ve looked everywhere! The villagers couldn’t help us. We saw your light and thought maybe you were her.”

“No. We haven’t seen her.” Miriam leans out, studying the two young women. “What do you mean disappeared?”

“At the top of the cliff, the trail down was too much for her.” Katrina says. “I should have stayed with them but I got a chance to interview Yesiniy and I let them go without me. So so stupid.”

“It isn’t your fault.” Mandy is hoarse from all the calling out. “It’s mine. She was my responsibility.”

“Mandy…” Amy recognizes the guilt in the young woman’s voice. Best to head it off before it consumes her. “You couldn’t—”

But Mandy waves her kindness away. “I just left her! All alone at the top of the cliff! How is that not my fault?”

Katrina interrupts: “The villagers think it was Wetchie-ghuy.”

“Oh my god.” Amy claps a hand over her mouth. “That rotten little fink. He’s just been waiting…!”

“It’s really my fault and I am so so sorry…” Katrina turns away. “Now we have to make sure she didn’t go back to camp but… I mean, how long have you been down here?”

“Half an hour? More?” Miriam looks at her phone. It is 2pm.

“Yeh, she’s been missing for hours. You would have seen her.”

“Oh, not again…” Miriam groans and rests her forehead against the rough stone of the tunnel wall. “Alright. Let’s go tell everyone and do what we can to get her back.”

Amy scowls at the darkness above them. “Fucking Wetchie-ghuy.” She doesn’t have much of a temper. But the few times she has ever lost it, those brief moments when she has accessed all her rage have terrified her. With wonder she regards her trembling hands. She hopes she doesn’t find Wetchie-ghuy alone somewhere. She isn’t sure she can guarantee his physical safety.

Ξ

A tendril of smoke curls upward from the windless canyon below. Blue gray. Everything is blue and gray. The nearby hillsides hold clumps of blueish brush against gray grass. And the sky. The sky is the essence of gray. There is no break in it.

Triquet can’t even tell where the sun is.

Their head drops back to level with a loose jolt. Nausea washes through them and they sway, putting a hand onto the cold ground to steady themself. Hoo child. Slow down there, partner. Hoo. With gulping breaths of the cool air they beat the nausea back. Wasn’t that a party. The words echo again and again in their mind, the letters of the phrase rotating in glittering light, holding their attention for who knows how long. Wasn’t. That. A. Party.

Something is combusting of fire and heat down below. And those ionized molecules are pushing straight up through airspace in a stream of ash and soot. Smoke. It wavers and Triquet does too.

The shaman appears. Not Wetchie-ghuy, the other one, waddling up the hillside from the location of the smoke toward Triquet’s feet. Kneeling with a grunt, their dark goblin face is creased by a self-satisfied smile. They struggle with Triquet’s left shoe, finally taking out a stone knife and slicing through the laces.

Triquet can only watch.

The shaman peels Triquet’s sock off and scrubs their foot with a wet rag. Then they dip a bone needle in watery ichor and carefully tattoo black dots between each of Triquet’s toes.

Triquet feels nothing. Their mind is empty. Empty as smoke.

A massive bird sails toward the two figures perched on the hilltop from across the sky. The shaman stands, squinting, muttering under their breath. A dead mouse appears in their hand, held by the tail. The bird lands, snapping the mouse up.

The shaman screeches and wheezes interrogatively at the dark bird. Sea eagle. The words run through Triquet’s mind. Sea… Eagle… They’ve never seen one so close. It’s enormous.

The eagle screeches back, as if they’re having a dispute.

The shaman scowls and turns away, studying the horizon. They lift a hand to the air and bare the inside of their wrist to the sky. They close their eyes and stand still. Triquet watches. Only the eagle moves, hopping close to the shaman’s captive.

The eagle pecks at Triquet’s shoulder and the beak’s edge slices neatly through their shirt-sleeve and opens the skin of their left shoulder. The pain divides the fog within them and Triquet yelps. In an instant they return to themself, blinking away the dissociative smoke that had ensorcelled them. “Ow. Back off, bird. I ain’t dead yet.” Triquet claps a hand to their bloody shoulder. They look around. “Where are we?” They stand and approach the shaman, who has lowered their hand and is grumbling again. “What have you done to me?”

The shaman pulls a hand from a pouch at their belt and speaks a pair of unintelligible words that sound an awful lot like, ‘Oh, shut up.” The shaman lifts their hand and blows a bluish gray powder into Triquet’s face.

Staring at the dark ceiling of the bunker, lying on their cot in their cell, Triquet has no memory of intervening time. Whoa. They were just at the shaman’s side, like six heartbeats ago. Their eagle had just bitten them. It had just broken the spell. And now they’re all the way back in the dark bunker. How…?

Triquet reaches for the eagle’s wound. It is rough and swollen, red and painful. Infected? Already? No… the texture of the skin is different. “Doctor…?” Triquet finds speaking painful and their voice is hoarse. They sit up. Yes, it’s night. Triquet removes their phone and stares at the screen. 10:12 pm. “Doctor Daine?”

The details of their time with the shaman are already slipping away. How long were they sitting on that hill lost in la-la land? How long have they been gone?

“Yes?” Esquibel appears in Triquet’s door.

“I’m back.” Triquet nearly weeps with relief.

“Good. You missed dinner.” Esquibel turns in the door to leave, preoccupied with her own work.

“I… I’m hurt.”

Now Esquibel catches the roughness in Triquet’s voice. She peers more closely at the archaeologist in the dim light. Yes, they don’t look well. “Hurt? What is it?” Triquet uncovers the eagle’s wound and Esquibel recoils. “Dear god. What is that?”

“A bird bit me. An osprey. Couldn’t recall… the name…”

“You need to come to the clean room. That is not a bite. What did you do to it? Mandy!”

Once Mandy arrives, the two women are able to help Triquet to the clean room and the cot that is still warm from Mandy’s use.

“How long have I been gone?” The bite is now a searing burn on their shoulder. Triquet lifts a protective hand to it but Esquibel pushes it away, inspecting the site with a light and tweezers.

“What is that black stuff?” she demands, picking at it.

“Black stuff?” Triquet cranes their neck to see the wound better. “It’s burning me.”

“Yes, your skin is very angry. Ah. There is the incision. That is what you are saying is a bite? It is quite long…”

“Osprey. Do they carry diseases? Where’s the—? Get the biologists in here. No. Seriously. How long have I been gone?”

Mandy just shakes her head. “Uh… I mean, we saw you for breakfast. Then you went somewhere. Down into the sub maybe?”

“And that was all today?” Triquet stiffens, their logical sense of time challenged. “There’s got to be a way…”

“This tar or whatever it is…” Esquibel pulls back from Triquet’s arm and makes a face. “It is cauterizing your wound. There seems to be a chemical reaction happening. A burning of the skin.”

“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you!” Triquet snaps. “What do you mean, cauterized? Does that mean it’s clean?”

“I do not know, maybe if it is antibiotic or antiviral. Perhaps with some tests. But your arm is a mess. I am not sure how to get that stuff off without hurting you even more.”

“I just don’t want an infection. And I’d rather not have a huge ugly scar. But if the tar is keeping the wound clean, then…”

“I do not know. Who did this to you?”

“The osprey’s owner.”

Esquibel and Mandy share a perplexed glance. Has Triquet lost their mind?

Triquet sees it and realizes they have just a few moments left to convince these two of their sanity. “No no. I know it sounds crazy. Just.” They emit a short explosive sigh and collect their thoughts. “Sorry. I was attacked. Kidnapped. Drugged.”

Mandy gasps. “You were? Who? Wetchie-ghuy?”

Esquibel hisses in fury and redoubles her efforts, giving Triquet a much closer exam. “Are you okay?”

“That’s what I’m… I don’t know. I don’t know how I am. The drugs, I mean, it just turned me into this totally passive victim. Like they didn’t even need to bind me. No. It wasn’t Wetchie-ghuy. There’s another.”

“That’s what Jidadaa was saying last night. Two shamans locked in battle. Using the rest of us as bait and sacrifices and unwitting soldiers in their war.” Mandy shakes her head. “Creepy.”

“What happened to your shoe?” Esquibel lifts Triquet’s left foot, so they can all see the sliced laces.

“The shaman did that. And then they… Right! They tattooed dots on my foot! Oh my god, you got to look…!”

Esquibel removes Triquet’s shoe and sock and looks at their pale foot. “Where…?”

“Dots between my toes. You can’t see them?” Triquet sits up and pushes Esquibel’s hands away. There, as tiny as pinpricks, the faint black marks are fading into their skin. “You see? All four in a row? Between the toes for—for who knows why!”

“I don’t see any marks, Triquet.” Esquibel shines her phone’s light onto Triquet’s foot.

Triquet look again. Now the dots are gone, vanished inside their foot. “Heavens to Betsy. Well now that isn’t good.”

“Are you… sure all of this is what happened?” Esquibel sits back, regarding Triquet with her unreadable professional mask. “The shaman, the bird, the drugs? Or maybe you fell and hit your head and this wound and tar came from a tree you fell against?”

“I’m sure of nothing. I can only tell you what I saw and felt and, and remember. I remember this greasy little golem laughing at me, with all these little bones and twigs in their ratty hair. Old. Like probably sixties. No gender. Skin like fucking leather. I mean, if it was all a hallucination it was really clear.”

Esquibel shakes her head in disapproval. “This is non-viable. First Flavia and now Triquet. I think it is time…” she decides, “for another camp security meeting.”

Triquet and Mandy would have groaned—even a few minutes ago—at this news. But now, they just share a pensive look and say not a word.

Ξ

It is nearly midnight before they get everyone congregated in the clean room around Maahjabeen on the cot. Pradeep sits at her side, his hand gripping her slack wrist. She stares at him, dull and nearly unresponsive.

Finally Alonso arrives, having detoured to fill his wine glass to the brim. This will not be a short meeting. “Everyone here?”

“Everyone but Flavia,” Mandy answers, bitter.

“Of course. That is what…” Alonso takes in all their frightened, tired faces. “Yes. Not so much of a paradise now, eh, is it? I am very sorry to you all.”

“Where’s Jidadaa?” Katrina wonders. “We could use her here.”

Amy puts out a calming hand. “It may be too much for her, poor thing. She’s probably never been in a room with so many people in her life. But… where is she?”

Katrina shrugs. “I didn’t see her after dinner.”

“So…” Alonso frowns. “Do we now say that two are missing?”

“No. No way.” Jay’s voice rises above all the rest. “She can come and go as she pleases. Just, like… check your pockets. She takes whatever she wants without even asking.”

“The innocent savage?” Amy clucks in disapproval. “Jay, you sound like Rousseau.”

“Innocent? Ha! She knows what she’s doing. She just doesn’t care.” Jay glares, sullen. He knows he’s the lone voice against rolling out the red carpet for Jidadaa here. Well. They’ll learn.

“I have misplaced a USB stick,” Katrina mutters. “Classic black thumb drive. Let me know if anyone’s seen it.”

Jay throws up his hands. “She’s already getting started.”

Esquibel shushes them. “Please. No arguments over my patient. We finally got her to stabilize.”

“The sign of the fox.” Miriam places a hand on Maahjabeen’s forehead. It is clammy. “Same place and everything? Right at the base of the spine?”

Pradeep nods, head bowed. I do not have the strength for this. It is the only refrain going round and round in his head, like a pop song’s chorus. He is helpless, useless, and teetering at the edge of his own panic. He is no less a control freak than Mandy and he can’t imagine a situation where he’d be under less control. This is intolerable. Impossible. I do not have the strength for this. He remembers the pit of cold gray mud in his vitals. Now his beloved Maahjabeen struggles with it, and there’s nothing he can do.

Esquibel straightens, an invisible military mantle settling over her. “We are under attack. It is impossible to deny any longer.”

Alonso nods, thoughtful. Everyone else remains silent, some saving their arguing for whatever draconian measures Esquibel is about to announce.

“As one of the recent victims, I have to agree.” Triquet is careful not to use their injured arm. The tea they sip rises in an unsteady grip. “This second shaman… I mean… they need a name, people, right? We can’t just keep talking around it. I say they’re Sherman. Sherman the non-binary shaman, okay? Wetchie-ghuy versus Sherman. And they’ve evidently both known we’ve been here for weeks and they’ve been watching us, trying to steal one or two of us away and,” they gesture at Maahjabeen, “straight-up attacking us when they want. I mean, I have no illusions about Sherman’s plans for me. These weird tattoos on my feet were just the start. Slavery, right? That’s what we keep hearing?” Triquet shivers. “And I don’t even remember how they nabbed me. I just stepped through the dark hatch in the sub and… and the next thing I knew I was staring at a valley at sunset, somewhere in the interior. And I couldn’t move or think. It was horrible.”

“Nobody goes anywhere alone.” Esquibel holds up a finger. “I think we can agree on that, yes?”

Miriam nods. “I think that’s sensible.”

Pradeep shrugs, needing them to understand how hopeless it is. “I mean, Maahjabeen and I were together when we were both attacked. Somehow in our sleep? I have to say, it feels very much like this, this Sherman, is coming at us in our dreams.”

“Slow down. Hold on.” Alonso pats the air.

Esquibel scowls. “Wait. I would very much appreciate if we can keep this subject rational and logical, please. That is an interesting observation about your subjective experience with this toxin, but as an objective piece of the puzzle to help solve these mysteries, it is just nonsense. You do understand that, right?”

Pradeep shrugs. They don’t understand. He can’t make them understand. This Sherman figure is slowly sucking the life out of them, one by one.

“So they’re the one we saw up in the tree feeding the osprey?” Jay asks Triquet. “You say this dude fed the osprey a dead mouse before it bit you? Same as our guy, right, Prad?”

Pradeep nods again. “I do want to get out and try that climb again. Just not now. I can’t believe the handholds go all the way up to the crown. That would be some kind of bizarre miracle, a fire that can burn away a tree’s entire heartwood and yet it still lives.”

“That sounds like a dangerous kind of mission.” Alonso shakes his head in negation. “Not the kind of thing we should be doing right now, mi amigos. Even as a pair.”

“Yes, my next proposal is that we do not leave the beach. Ever.” Esquibel looks at each of their faces, expecting the fight to come now. But Triquet’s account has sobered them all.

“So who has Flavia?” Katrina makes a note in her laptop. “We can assume it was Sherman for Doctor Triquet, as well as Pradeep and Maahjabeen. But why did Sherman the shaman kidnap one and try to poison the others?”

Pradeep groans and buries his face in Maahjabeen’s listless arms.

“So does that mean Wetchie-ghuy has Flavia? We know he’s been trying. Or… here’s a…” Katrina flashes a quirky smile. “Just thinking outside the box here. But when these two got poisoned it’s an unmistakable fox head tattooed on their backs, yeh? And, I mean, the only one we know who has a fox on the whole island is Morska Vidra. Maybe he’s the one, he’s behind it all, and the rest of it is all classic misdirection.”

“Uhh, I can assure you,” Triquet sniffs, “that Sherman and his fucking bird were not any kind of misdirection, nor was Wetchie-ghuy assaulting me after watching me wee a couple weeks ago. Remember that? No, I think Morska Vidra and the Dzaadzitch villagers are just trying to stay out of the fight and keep the peace.”

“Okay, okay…” Katrina allows. “I just… so far… Nothing’s been as it seems here. So I’m trying to get ahead of it. See what’s coming down the pike before it gets here for once. Trying to be active instead of reactive here. That’s good tactics, yeh, Doctor Daine?”

“It is. But it doesn’t matter how active we are because we have no offensive capability. That is the problem. We hardly even have anything for defense. It would be nearly impossible to make the bunker secure, for example. Especially if they’re using things like smoke and dust and other inhalants as intoxicants and paralyzing agents. Perhaps we hole up in the sub, seal off the hull breach as I tried to do before, and only come up in small squads for food and bathroom breaks.”

“For, like,” Mandy consults her phone, “twenty-four days? We’ve got to live like that for twenty-four days before they come get us?”

This dissent comes from an unexpected quarter. Esquibel frowns at Mandy. “Or…? I am happy to hear your ideas instead on how to survive getting poisoned or kidnapped.”

“I don’t know. This is just like playground politics as far as I can tell. My Aunt Nancy is a fourth-grade teacher. She says it doesn’t matter how bad the fight is, eventually everybody’s got to talk to each other. Maybe we should try talking to them.”

“The shamans…?” Miriam considers. “Well, first we’d have to find them.”

“Oh, I think I know where Wetchie-ghuy lives.” Amy frowns. “Or at least the path to get there. Let’s do it. In the morning. Like six of us, brandishing fishing spears.”

This is so uncharacteristic of Amy that Alonso frowns. If even Amy is starting to lose her cool then this situation is getting out of hand. “No. No… We can’t. It is too fragile here. This is like Israel/Palestine or whatever. We can’t just show up and start making demands. The whole thing could blow up.”

“Blow up?” Amy stands, hands on hips. “What could be worse than losing Flavia, not once but twice on an eight week project?”

“Inter-village warfare.” Alonso holds her irate gaze.

Amy finally drops her eyes, nodding. “Yes. Okay. Maybe not brandishing spears and making demands. But Mandy’s right. We’ve got to talk to these fuckers. See what they want from us. Maybe there’s a way they get what they need without…” Amy gestures vaguely at the group.

“Enslaving us?” Esquibel finishes for her. “I doubt that. Katrina is right. We need Jidadaa here to answer all these questions. We need to find her before we do anything else. But nobody goes anywhere without, say… Here. Let us do it this way. Everyone gets a partner. We go out in two teams of two. Each team member stays in visual range but not ever close enough to each other to inhale a cloud of smoke or dust. So…”

“I think that might be a little much,” Alonso amends. “But everyone absolutely has to be careful.”

“Two teams of two,” Esquibel stubbornly maintains. “Flavia is gone. Maahjabeen is fighting for her life. Triquet and Pradeep have been attacked.”

“Okay. Okay. Two teams of two. Everyone listen to Lieutenant Commander Daine now.” Alonso stands and drains his glass. “We are all sleeping in here tonight. Should we set watches?”

“Yes. So partner up. Maahjabeen is with Pradeep.” Esquibel encourages the others to name who they want.

“Miriam and Triquet.” Alonso pushes the two of them together. He throws his arm around Amy. “Right, partner?”

Katrina looks right through Mandy. “Jay, you my homeboy.”

He flashes her a peace sign. “Forever and a day, sister.”

Mandy squeezes Esquibel’s arm. “You and me, Skeeb.”

Esquibel nods, satisfied with their choices. “Now don’t ever go anywhere without your partner. The threats are too bad. And while we move everyone in from outside let’s have a couple people just on watch, at the edge of the perimeter with lights. Perhaps we even keep a watch throughout the night.”

“Every night?” Mandy again. Why is she contradicting so many of Esquibel’s orders? “Ugh. How long are these watches?”

“Usually two hours. We take turns and if you see anything at all strange or threatening you scream loud enough to wake everyone. One of the only things we have is our strength in numbers. So we must use it. Prepare to spend a lot more time together in close contact. I am sorry. This is… not how this mission was meant to go, but I can assure you there isn’t a single command unit anywhere in the world who knows a thing about the dispute between these two island medicine men. Nor would they care. So this is our fight. Ours alone. But if we are careful then we can…”

A noise at the bunker’s door. They all fall into a tense silence. A soft voice calls out, “Hello? Yes?”

“Jidadaa!” Katrina bounds to her feet and slips out of the plastic enclosure. “Where have you been?”

“Through tunnel. Ah. I make enemy.” Her voice is sad, fatigued.

Now they all file in a rush out of the clean room. Jidadaa is in the bunker’s door, mud-streaked, leaning against the frame. Katrina wants to pull her into a hug but she knows better. Her hands flutter at her sides instead. “Enemy? What enemy?”

“Wetchie-ghuy.” Jidadaa moves out of the doorway into the bunker, pulling Flavia after her from the darkness.

Ξ

It is the middle of the night and there is a wire cutting into Alonso’s back. He cannot shift or it will wake his cellmate, and if that man wakes then the rats will stir, and then no one will sleep. Alonso must remain still and accept the pain of the wire cutting into his back so the rats do not come. Pain is life.

He can hear the men stirring in the next building. The hour must be later than he thought. The rats have already come and gone and the torturer is here again. His crude joke and the deferential laughter of the guards splits the silence. Laughter greets anything he says. They’ve seen what this bastard can do with a pair of tongs.

Alonso must move. Quietly. Slowly. Do not rouse the prisoner pressed up against him. Just work on tensing your core and arching your back to get it off that wire. Only this one cot in this one cell has this wire across it. Its particular pain is what places him here. Otherwise, in the dark, he wouldn’t know where he is.

These are the most hopeless hours, in the pre-dawn of a winter morning, just waiting to be perfunctorily brutalized. But why do the torturers do it? They don’t even interrogate Alonso any more. Is it just to keep their skills up? Show each other new techniques? Train the new guy on the team? The soul-crushing reason why they really do it is impossible to ignore: they enjoy it. These men are sadists. They can’t get enough of Alonso’s blood and screams and tears. It is the unfortunate way of the world.

This Earth is a terrible Earth. Alonso can prove it from primary sources in the historical record. Over the decades he has taken part in many excavations of ancient burial sites, in Europe and Central Asia and North Africa. He has seen thousands of broken bones, pierced skulls, smashed digits. Crime scenes from eons ago, just uncovered now. The three youths they found in Cappadocia will always haunt him. Nearly three thousand years before they had been buried alive up to their necks and left to die of exposure. As he brushed the dirt from their bones he couldn’t help but relive their panic and despair. What a horrible way to die.

Using this remembered claustrophobia to collect his meager strength, Alonso heaves and lifts himself from the wire cutting into his back. He slides away from the man lying across him and tries to settle into a more comfortable position. But no. There is a wooden bar here, pressing his left shoulder down. Where did that come from? There was never any wooden bar in this cell. In any cell. They couldn’t leave such a useful bit of lumber. The prisoners would kill each other with it, or the guards.

Can Alonso hide it somewhere? His hand sneaks up and grasps it. The squared edges of the bar are wrapped in taut nylon. Now there is nylon? What horrors do they have planned for him today?

He runs his hand over it more carefully. Wait. This is a new cot. The wooden bar is part of a frame. The nylon is its webbing. He just shifted to the edge. But they never get new cots.

Alonso opens his eyes. Dark squares and trapezoids float above him. Ah. He is not in the gulag. He is in the bunker on Lisica. That is not a torture victim lying sprawled across him, it is Miriam.

His adrenaline quickly spent, he falls back in on himself. Yes, he is on Lisica and it is proving to be no less terrifying than the gulag of the Altai Mountains. And once again, it is all his fault. He got Charlie and Nadya killed in that border town and he’s about to get more people killed here. What the fuck is wrong with him?

Perhaps it is all the law of averages catching up to him. His first fifty years were so wonderful, so sweet and magical. Success had come so easily to him. He had that aura, that wonderful ability to charm everyone in a room without opening his mouth. And all the doors were so easily opened. He stayed right at the leading edge of data science and all its fresh discoveries, making him a rising star in several fields. He presented at a score of conferences every year and spent too many nights in a drunken fraternal haze with all the great minds of the world, outlining the new paradigms of processes and informatics. Ahh. What a lovely time that was. A lovely life. Now he has been relegated to something less charmed, more beleaguered, and far more realistic than the fairy tale he had lived.

At least he gets to keep Miriam through the transition. Or does he? After the first few days here where they were each other’s sun and stars, her eye has already strayed and he is old news. Well, of course he is. Look at him. He is a sagging fat mess, crippled beyond repair. Gray inside and out. Who would ever desire that?

Pity. It must be little more than pity that keeps her coming back to him. Yes, she smiles just like she used to, but what must be going on in her mind? Miriam loves beauty as much as he does. But now she is the only one who has any. Oh, what a nightmare. She would be far better off if he would just die. Disappear without a trace and die, that is what would be best. Not only best for her but for all of them. It is his damn obsession with Plexity that makes them put themselves in harm’s way each day. Remove Alonso and perhaps the rest can actually save themselves…

Alonso slides out from under Miriam and gets dressed in the cold morning air. Maybe he will just walk into the sea. That would be suitable. He could gain one more moment of painless bliss before succumbing to the waters. They could bury him next to that old woman in the redwoods and get on with their lives.

“Hey.” His hand is on the bunker door and the voice startles him. Another hand, as familiar as any he has ever known, falls on his. It is Amy. “Remember. We’re not supposed to go anywhere alone, partner.”

“Why are you awake?” Now what is Alonso going to do?

“Counting sheep. I heard you groan. Bad dreams?”

“I…” He shakes his head, unable to lie to Amy. “I just need the trenches and I didn’t want to…”

“Esquibel will dice us into bloody squares if we disobey any more of her orders.”

But this image is uncomfortably close to things Alonso actually witnessed in the gulag and he grimaces. “Where are my sandals?”

“Hold on. I’ll help you with them. Let me just get mine on first.”

Then Amy is kneeling before him, forcing his swollen feet into the loose straps. Alonso grunts, trying to figure out a way he could still vanish from this scene and abandon all his impossibly heavy responsibilities once and for all.

They open the door and shuffle out into the frigid night, a thick fog obscuring the camp. Only after they close the door behind them does Amy turn on her phone’s light. They can see no more than three meters ahead.

Amy giggles. “Groovy. This can’t go wrong at all, can it?”

Alonso sees that Amy carries one of their fishing spears. “What will you do with that? Tickle someone?”

“If they get too close, I will.”

“Amy… Amy… I have not seen this side of you, maybe ever. I did not expect you to be so…”

“Violent? Angry? Shades of my past haunting me, for sure. You know, violence is never the answer, Alonso. Until it is.”

“Yes, I have heard this phrase. And it is true the world is a very violent place. I have the scars to prove it.” He grips her muscled forearm. “But what if they would take a sacrifice instead? What if we do not fight and we give them the slave they so desperately want? Perhaps if I offer myself that could…” Alonso trails off, stopped by the look Amy gives him.

“Are you serious? Listen to yourself, Alonso. That’s not even… coherent. And I don’t like the way your thoughts are headed. I…”

But Amy stops. There is a figure in their path.

It is so expected that it hardly surprises them. Yes, the Lisicans are everywhere now, crawling out of every hole and casting them in their comedies and tragedies. Alonso idly considers, not for the first time, that it would all make for a great opera.

They do not recognize this figure. This one is slight, youthful, with bare narrow arms and an oblong mask covering their face.

When Amy’s light hits the mask it glitters with pollen’s gold.