by G M Eppers
I pursed my lips. “Not a belly laugh. Not unfunny, either. Kind of clever, I guess.“
“Have you ever ridden a camel?” She asked me. Her flashlight beam was still showing me her feet out of the corner of my eye.
“Only on a carousel.” It got a laugh out of her, but it was nervous and tense. “Not recently,” I added.
One of the camels started stumbling forward. I urged the animals again. Maybe if I can make friends with the animals it would give me an edge when we got around to riding them, I thought. Again, I was wishing I’d brought them a treat, like an apple or something. But with a lot of animals, being not a stranger is still better, with or without a treat. If they’ve seen you and you haven’t treated them badly, they’ll remember, like Androcles and the Lion.
Finally, after several hesitant steps, the second camel came within reach, just barely. I leaned over the railing as far as I could to give them both props and touched fur with my left hand. Slimy fur, just south of its bottom lip. The camel sniffed, then suddenly licked my hand. “Ewwww!” I cringed, but didn’t want to spook the animal. I brought the arm down slowly and the camel followed, still trying to lick my hand.
Norma laughed out loud. “Billings, it’s the salt! You’ve been sweating. Your hands are salty.”
“He…she…it likes me.” I put my hand out again and steeled myself for another lick.
“Salt,” Norma said again. “Can we go now?”
“Camel love,” I responded as the camel’s lick moved up my arm. It tickled, and got even wetter as the camel started salivating profusely. Thick, white drool pooled in its almost prehensile lips. I moved my arm out of the wet zone and patted the side of its neck. The drool, at least, was giving Norma something to laugh about.
Before I knew it, two camel heads were nuzzling my shoulders and nipping my shirt. “Hey, your food is over there!” I tried to back away, but the strong grinding teeth had grabbed on to my sleeve. Drool had slid into my armpit and drizzled down the inside of my shirt. I didn’t feel like I was in danger, but I definitely realized I had no idea how to control this animal. And it was huge. I’m tall, but the body of this beast towered at least a foot higher than my head, its long, muscular neck bobbing up and down as it tried to burrow into my side.
I suddenly realized in horror that the camel was biting my shoulder pack. “Hey, stop!” Its teeth latched on and its head jerked, mucus spraying on me through its nostrils as it heaved breaths. It seemed to believe there might be something good to eat inside the pack. “No no no no no,” I chanted.
Norma stopped laughing, and despite her fear, she grabbed her flashlight and rushed forward to push the camel away from me as if it were a swinging meat hook. I heard some stitches snap and instinctively grabbed for the pack with my other hand, dropping my flashlight which landed just inside the pen and rolled out of reach, the beam finally settling and pointing toward the doorway. My jacket also fell, landing on our side of the fencing. Finally, the camel disengaged, but not before tearing a hole in the seam of the pack. I grabbed the hole quickly, but Norma, who still had control of her flashlight, illuminated a short stream of ash as it floated to the ground.
I stood there, my left arm up out of the way, my right clutching the open seam in desperation. “What is that?” asked Norma.
I cursed, confident that Norma wouldn’t be offended. “My mother’s ashes. I’ve been on the lookout for good places to distribute them.” I looked down at the ground, dimly lit by the corona of Norma’s flashlight beam, but whatever ash had fallen was indistinguishable from the dirt floor. “This is not it.” I cursed again.
“Hold on,” she said, gently lifting the pack so that the torn seam faced upward. I removed my hand so she could examine the damage. “I can fix that.”
“It’s leather … ette.”
“Canvas,” she said. “I’ve got a needle in my room that can get through that. Come on, I’ll take care of it for you.” I secured the tear with my right hand again as Norma bent to pick up my jacket. She was about to climb into the pen to retrieve the flashlight when overhead lighting snapped on and the animals began roaring their objections to the sudden brightness.
I turned around to see Dean Bligh and T.S. Eliot enter the hangar. As if we were in the military, Norma and I stood at attention next to each other. Using only a hand signal, Bligh ordered Eliot to get the flashlight and he went into the Dromedary pen through the gate that we weren’t able to distinguish in the dark. He first went to the camels, both shuffling around nervously. Eliot, his ponytail wapping across his shoulders, patted the camel’s neck, stroking downward to calm the animal. Assured that the camels were okay, he picked up the flashlight, exited the pen, and handed the flashlight to Bligh.
While Bligh glared at us, Eliot walked to each pen and checked all the animals. “I –“ Norma started.
Bligh cut her off. “Quiet.”
She kept us there, waiting in terror as Eliot made the rounds. “They’re all good, Dean,” he reported.
I think Bligh had been counting to ten in her head. Several times. “In all the years I’ve taught this course, I’ve never had to expel a student. Now I find the need to expel two.”
Two If By Sea
Chapter One
Norma Van Luxe and I stood there in the dry heat, our backs to the Dromedary camel pen, facing Dean Bligh, while T.S. Eliot stood by ready for further orders. “Please, Ma’am, don’t expel Billings,” said Norma.
“Please who?”
Norma had forgotten the Dean’s no Ma’am rule. “Please,” she corrected herself, “Dean Bligh. Don’t expel Billings. This was all my idea. He only came along for safety reasons. To make sure I didn’t get hurt.”
I’d never said that, and though the possibility of injury had crossed my mind, it had been fleeting at best. But when the Dean asked me to verify that story, I did so without hesitation. She looked like she wanted to ask me why I was clutching my sub-shoulder pack so oddly, but decided against it. “Admirable, but foolhardy. These animals are on loan from several zoos all over the state and they are still acclimating to their new surroundings. We didn’t want anyone disturbing them, which is why we didn’t reveal their existence. Training on their handling can be compromised if the animals are not comfortable. Mr. Montana, do you have anything to say?”
Given that she hadn’t said yea or nay about my expulsion, I wasn’t sure what to say. “How did you know we were here?”
Eliot answered for her. He pointed to the high rafters of the hangar, even to the other end which was too far away to distinguish such details. But on the near ones, I could now see cameras mounted just under the roof line. “Night vision video surveillance. We take the security of these animals very seriously.”
“My apologies, Dean Bligh,” Norma said. “I’ll take the heat. Billings shouldn’t be held responsible. He was just protecting me.”
Dean Bligh was silent for a moment, studying our faces. “Have either of you had a successful run on the Big Rig Sim?” Dean Bligh asked.
“No, Dean,” Norma admitted. I concurred. It would have been stupid to lie about it. The scores on the simulators went directly to her computer. She already knew the answer.
“If you don’t, then expulsion for this incident will be moot. You have one more day to qualify. I’ll decide then if you deserve to continue. Dismissed.”
Dean Bligh and Eliot stood by the door as we exited the hangar. They had custody of the flashlights and the padlock, and the Dean was nice enough to drape my jacket over my shoulders, never asking why I had to hold the pack. Eliot turned off the light, locked the door, and put the key back where Norma had found it.
We made our way back to the main building in the dim moonlight. “Come up to my room,” said Norma. I can fix your bag.”
I was shaky, and nervous, but I followed her to her room down the hall from my own. She invited me to sit on the bed, removed my jacket, and carefully slid the shoulder harness off my arm. She put it on her desk, propped u
p on the base of a lamp so that the rip was on top, and opened a drawer to get out the tools she needed.
“You always carry leather sewing supplies?” This wouldn’t be an ordinary sewing kit. A regular needle wouldn’t punch through that material without bending into highly useless shapes.
“Oh, I carry all kinds of things. I was a scout for ten years. Be prepared.” She sat down in the wooden chair and began to work. “It would be easier if the bag were empty, but I don’t have anything that would hold all the ashes. And frankly, the less we disturb them the better. Here we go. The rip isn’t even very big. I’ll oversew to make it really secure.”
“Thanks for fixing it.”
“I can fix anything,” she said as if she’d said it a thousand times. Then she added, “except my son,” in a voice so low I wasn’t sure if I was meant to hear it.
I was tempted to stretch out and put my feet up, the way you normally sit on a bed, but it wasn’t mine and I didn’t want to send unintentional signals, so I kept my feet on the floor. “You can fix anything?”
“Pretty much. I carry duct tape and a travel can of WD-40. It’s amazing what those two things alone will fix. Not a ripped seam, but a lot of other things.”
“Maybe you just picked the wrong specialty,” I said as a sudden idea popped into my head. “If this doesn’t work out, you could try airplane technician with a concentration on APE.” The Automated Pressure Equalizer was a CURDS exclusive. “They’re always trying to improve it to keep the patent current. I bet you’d sail through that course.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the idea.” She had threaded the needle and started sewing, using her entire arm length to pull the thread through. “What are you going to do if she expels you, too?”
“I don’t know. If I took the airplane tech, it would keep me at the airports and I wouldn’t see Avis very much. I suppose I’ll have to give up on having a specialty, no matter what it looks like on my record. Avis and Agnes are straight combat. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“Oh yeah, twins.” Norma had to remind herself that my fiancé was a conjoined twin, which I’d told everyone about at the orientation. “That’s gotta be weird.” Realizing it sounded insensitive, she added, “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. But it doesn’t feel weird to me. I miss them.” A glance at my watch told me it was nearly time for their call. “Almost done? They’ll be calling soon and my phone is in my room.”
“One more stitch.” She finished it up, tied a knot three times and snipped off the thread. “There you go. Absolutely leak proof.”
“Thanks.” I slipped it back over my shoulder. I’d begun feeling naked without it. The color of thread was a close match, but not exact, and tiny knobs at each end testified to the mend.
“Normally I would have done it so the knots are on the inside, but of course turning it inside out not a good idea right now.”
“You can say that again.”
“Turning it inside out not a good idea right now.”
“I will cut you.”
Norma smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
I left Norma’s room and went straight to my own, where my phone was about to vibrate itself off the nightstand. I tried to catch it, but missed, picked it up and swiped. “Hi, Avis,” I said, closing my door and making myself comfortable on the bed. When we talked last, the team had been sent to Compton Acres in Poole, England. All I knew was that it was an elaborate public garden.
“McGrone is furious.”
I think that was his normal state, but I asked why anyway.
“We went all the way to the south shore of England and didn’t find any Uber.”
“Our friend the counterfeiter again?” I hugged my knees with one arm, my interest about as high as the Moon. Fun is fun, but it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a joke. There was something worse behind this. I just wished I knew what.
“This time it was a bag marked…what was it again?”
I didn’t know who she was asking until he spoke up. Sir Haughty had decided to accompany them for the call. “Diatomaceous Earth. It’s used as an ant repellent around bushes and such.”
“And instead it was…?
“Parmesan cheese. Grated. About ten pounds of it.”
His tone told me there was more to it than that. “What is it, Sir Haughty? You sound like that’s only part of it.”
“Well, it may be important and it may not be. It wasn’t common parmesan cheese. Retail grated parmesan is actually a mixture of a number of Italian cheeses with a parmesan base. This was pure Parmigiano-Reggiano, imported from a small region of Italy located just under what would be the cuff of the boot.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t repel a lot of ants.”
“Quite right, mate. A competing ant colony moved in and they totally destroyed an entire bank of saffron crocuses worth thousands of British pounds.”
That concerned me. It was serious damage. But once again, without Uber, we couldn’t do anything about it. I took a moment to absorb all this and my mind searched for meaning to it all. Our responsibility or not, I wanted to figure it out. “Do you have a source? Where did it come from?”
“Jekyll Island. Off the coast of the state of Georgia. We checked the company and it is already defunct. No forwarding address.”
“You notified Interpol, I assume?”
“McGrone did. Rather testy, he was, too.”
“Where are you now?”
“Would you believe Sawgrass, Florida? Hotel called The Overnight.”
One of the twins, probably Avis, broke in, apparently wanting to recover the conversation from Sir Haughty. “The usual manhunt. Tracking some guys who call themselves The Moldy Men. CURDS Intelligence says they are on the way to accept a large Uber shipment from smugglers in Cuba. McGrone is so excited for action I think he’s going to ejaculate. It’s disgusting.”
“Sounds really dangerous. Be careful.”
“Of course. How are things with you, Billings?”
I filled her in on the whole deal, even the possible pending expulsion, the spill of Mom’s ashes, and the side trip for repairs to Norma’s room. I was worried that they would be jealous, but if they were I couldn’t detect it. Instead, they asked me, “So you haven’t finished the Big Rig yet? You’re saying no one has?”
“That’s right.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little fishy?”
I paused. Now that she mentioned it, it kind of was. I know it was a small class, but still at least one of us should have had a successful run by now. “Are you suggesting the Big Rig is rigged?”
“If they aren’t up front about the hangars, why would they be up front about that? You should check it out.”
I didn’t have to check my watch. The Sim Room was open 24/7. I gave them my love and ended the call, then went down to the second floor. No one else was there. None of the enclosed simulators were currently in operation. I went to the first of the Big Rig machines, climbed inside and closed the door. Instead of badging in, I felt around the interior, not even sure what I was looking for. It was a little cramped as I turned to examine the seat and the rear wall, but I found nothing of interest. Finally, I sat down and buckled in. I scanned my badge and paid close attention to the screen as the program began, still seeing nothing that I hadn’t seen before. The Rig Sim always began the same way. I was up on the top level of the parking structure, just like where it was actually parked. It was tricky enough driving it down the ramps without hitting any of the other parked vehicles, but I had crashed there only once. I set the clutch and started the engine, going into second gear using the lever mounted into the floor to the right of the seat. I never broke five miles an hour until I was safely out of the structure.
On screen directions then told me where to drive. I exited the compound, took a left turn and a right and then saw the mountains in the distance. It was a nice relaxing straightaway, but knowing the tonnage I was carrying I kep
t it below fifty. Sometimes an animal would run across the road and I tensed for it, watching further ahead toward the horizon than I would driving something smaller. Braking distance is huge on one of these things. Before I knew it, the entrance to the mountain road was in front of me, and I turned onto it smoothly, riding the incline upward at twenty miles per hour.
Everything was going good, but I wasn’t fooled. Sometimes I’d gone off the mountain on the way up, but sometimes I’d crashed on the way down, too. The cab vibrated and rumbled as the engine strained with all imaginary eighteen wheels. This simulation had the sun to my left, the mountain to my right. A harder version had the sun behind the mountain, causing shifting shadows to confuse me. I licked my dry lips and kept climbing, wondering if the winnable simulations were programmed in for off hours.
I passed a sign that said one thousand feet. Suddenly, the image vanished and the entire computer rebooted itself. For a split second, I thought I had crashed either the truck or the system. The cab settled down to zero inclination and stopped all motion. The system ran through its memory check and I stared at the screen, my heart beating fast. It flashed for only a few seconds, but being an avid reader I took it in quickly. TIME 12:01 AM. END MODE KM.
Astonished, I was returned to the starting point. I began again, setting the clutch and putting it in gear, checking all my readouts and mirrors. Just like before, I maneuvered through the parking structure, made the wide turns and hit the straightaway. This time a rabbit hopped across the road, but I braked early, giving it enough time to pass without having to stop completely. Then I was on the mountain and climbing up.
The machine responded smoothly to every move I made. Fifteen minutes in I had reached the one thousand feet mark. I kept going, slowly but surely, as the cab tilted backward. Loose rocks fell down the mountainside, but I did not. Up another thousand feet and then I held my breath, applying the brake and downshifting as I began the descent. I kept my eye on the road, not on the sheer drop to my left. Using the brake to keep my speed to twenty or less so I had better control, the cab now tilting forward at a frightening angle. I came to a spot where I had frequently gone off the edge where the road narrowed a little. I saw it coming and inched the truck a little closer to the mountain, tapping on the brake and slowing even more. I passed the death spot, and then the thousand foot marker. I had no saliva in my mouth at all at this point. Finishing the last thousand feet, the road finally leveled off and headed back to the base. I centered myself over a large pothole and passed over it without a bump.