by Lara Hues
My mind had never been so stimulated and had so many riddles at once. I regretted coming for a moment but then shook my head. I wanted to be here. There were things I was learning here and experiences that would not come again. I was at least able to identify one of my fears and reasons for my shaking hands; I was small here. By normal human standards, I was not a small person. I was 5’6" and a 145 lbs. However, here with all these people who were on GH10, I looked like a hobbit or a child. A child is what I felt like around Richy but certainly not his child.
My father would have been upset at the break-in, but he wouldn’t have left me to clean it up. He would have comforted me and protected me from the invaders. What if they had been looking for me? What if they had hurt me? Richy’s concern seemed to be what they were after, not my privacy or how frightened I felt picturing someone as big as Alec or Bryce coming into the room. It made me mad at Richy, and my mind again juggled questions of where his wealth came from, why he was here in Papua New Guinea, how much GH he had been taking, and why he had brought me here in the first place.
My father. I needed to talk to my father.
Heavy pounding at the door made me jump off the bed and wish for a peephole. "Yeah?" I called through the door, abashed that I didn’t want to open it.
"Open up, Kat! Time to visit that baby tiger." Richy was jovial as ever, and I opened the door slowly. Richy looked at me critically before smiling and saying "Good, you were able to take another shower."
It had seemed obvious that I would after running. I wished I could have done it before my interview with the doctors but regardless, yes. I had showered and changed into light cargo pants and a comfortable black t-shirt.
"Can I…uh…can I call my dad real fast?" I said. Then I added a lie, "I promised him that I would and I forgot."
"Call your dad?" Richy asked.
"Yeah, I need to call him but my phone isn’t working. Can I use yours?" The idea of hearing my dad’s voice helped to steady my racing heart. My dad would know what to do. My dad would tell me that everything was okay and if my dad said it, I knew it would be true.
"Sure thing Kat, but not right now. Baby Habib is hungry and can’t wait. Call him when you get back." Richy looked at my feet. "You’re going into the jungle so you may want to put other shoes on," Richy directed. My tennis shoes were soggy from the ocean but he was probably right. Flip-flops were not ideal for walking any sort of distance.
I put on dry socks even though I knew the water would soak them quickly anyway, and we walked out, locking the door behind us.
It was awkward to walk in silence, but I didn’t know what I could or should ask him regarding the break-in. I assumed that if he knew who did it or why it happened he would tell me. Maybe he didn’t bring it up because he wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen.
Either way, I’d talk to my dad soon. I could always count on him answering the phone no matter what else he had going on. The promise of hearing from him soon helped me focus on the present. For now, I had to see the baby tiger. Then I could talk to my dad.
Again, we met in the Observatory overlooking where the deer had been eaten several hours prior.
"I’m sending you over in the cable car to meet little Habib. We will send out some game for Amar and Amala, so there is no way they will be around when you are visiting Habib. They don’t stay with him all the time, but I didn’t want to risk it." Richy moved over to the control panel where Alec sat quietly.
"So, you aren’t coming over with me?" I asked, not very eager to be alone with strangers or tigers.
"You won’t be alone." He laughed. "I’m sending eight men over with you. And Shardul- whatever category he falls into." He laughed again as Shardul walked into the room. It was true that next to the other men he seemed very small and I wondered why he didn’t take GH10 too. I had only been there a day and I understood the temptation, even as an eighteen-year -old girl.
A click and a whirring sound drew my attention to the small cable car as the glass in front of it shifted away and the doors opened. Its exterior was newly painted white and red, though based on the cable and the interior it was older than the paint job made it look from the outside.
"Kat is coming with you guys. Treat her like the princess that she is and although Habib isn’t really dangerous, keep her at a safe distance. Well, she can pet him, but make sure he is well fed, and I’ll keep Amar and Amala away."
Though I was not an expert in body language, it was easy to tell that these white lab coat uniformed men didn’t want me to come along for the ride. Their lack of interest in my presence put me on edge about going but I couldn’t ask Richy to come. It wouldn’t have changed anything.
It annoyed me to see Shardul move to the back corner of the cable car and face away from me. He’d been safe this whole time, but hadn’t even written. Hadn’t even told his mom that he was alive and safe.
But he also said he needed my help. Was being a jerk his approach to getting my help?
The nine of us were somewhat crammed in the small car due to the large stature of the men. They backed away from me as I climbed in last. I hesitated, as the car was small and already rocking back and forth a little bit. The cable looked strong enough, but it was not a state-of-the-art machine. Heights don't typically frighten me, but my fear was escalating quickly. I didn’t know why my heart was so against going. I wanted to see the baby tiger, perhaps a tiny tiger would replace the horrible images from earlier.
My apprehension must have been manifest in some form because the guy I recognized from my short run on the beach, Bryce, with the beard, yellow shirt, and thick rimmed glasses said "Come on Kat. Tigers are getting hungry."
I kept my eyes down. "I’ll keep in touch over the intercom system," Richy said, holding the doors open. "It’s a good 15-minute ride out there so I’ll see ya in about an hour."
An hour was longer than I had anticipated. I nodded, "Sounds great." Then he bent to kiss the top of my head right in front of everyone. If he had actually been my dad, I would have been embarrassed, but since he wasn’t, it made it even more awkward and uncomfortable than it otherwise could have been. Also, he had called me a princess, and that had not been an appropriate title for about a decade.
The doors whirred shut and the cable car jolted into motion. I peered out the glass doors at Richy as he shrunk in the distance. The greenery below me was breathtaking, and I pressed my face to the glass trying to get a better look at everything around me.
"Pretty great huh?" It was Bryce again, standing beside me and looking around.
"Yeah, it’s beautiful."
"It’s a nice place. But it gets old pretty fast." He leaned his back to the glass, and I could feel his eyes on me, staring at me. I kept my face to the glass. He waited a minute then spoke again, "You are gonna really like the little tiger too."
"I bet." I wished he would stop looking at me.
"And to think that Shardul didn’t want you to come and see it." Bryce folded his huge arms across his mammoth chest and sneered. His comment made me turn to Shardul as I knew he intended.
"Why?" I asked, the attention of all the passengers on me.
Shardul didn’t look at me. From the corner of his mouth he said, "I thought it was unwise."
I didn’t really want to play the game of interrogation, particularly not in front of all these spectators, though if I had been alone with Shardul, I definitely would have. His cryptic, ornery attitude bothered me significantly. Shardul had no reason to be a jerk. He was the one who basically faked his death and then didn’t write. He didn’t even care what his disappearance had done to me.
I turned out my own window and focused instead on the creaking of the cable car as it crossed over the jungle, the soft hum from the engine inside, and the gentle rocking side to side as we flew over the canopy.
Chapter Eleven: Mr. Cobra
Several minutes later the car lowered through the thick leaves and stopped with some unsettling creaks and a thud that made
me grab the side rail to balance.
"It’s not exactly new," Bryce said, laughing at my unsteadiness. I stepped out of the doors, relieved to be on solid ground again and have the luxury of some personal space.
"This way," Bryce said, taking steps so wide that I had to jog to keep up. We followed the dirt path to a roughly constructed shelter, not much different from the houses in Panama. Bamboo walls. Thatched roof.
I followed, wondering briefly where the tigers were, and my pulse quickened.
A loud crackle made me jump and turn, looking for the source, when I heard in the distance Richy’s voice over the intercom system. "Both Amala and Amar are up here with us. We should keep them occupied for a while. I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes."
The door of the shelter shut and my eyes widened as I focused on the tiger in front of me. Shardul had said that it was a little over a year old. It was, as all baby tigers, absolutely gorgeous. But as I got closer, I noticed something a little strange. Three of the paws were large but one was smaller. And one of his ears seemed a little lopsided. They didn't seem to be obvious or painful deformities or injuries. Maybe he'd outgrow them. Shardul stroked his coat and spoke to him in what I assumed to be Hindi or Persian.
I gulped, looking at the lovely coat on the cub. I bent and very carefully rested my hand on his lower back.
"Did you notice the different sizes of his paws?" Shardul asked.
"Why?" I murmured out. "What’s wrong with him?"
Shardul looked up to me and stopped petting the cat. "Your father believes it to be genetic. Because there are so few tigers left, he thinks that Amala and Amar were too closely related to reproduce." He paused, appearing to check vitals.
"What do you think?" I pushed. Endangered as tigers were, there was still enough genetic differences for birth defects to hold off a few years.
"I think it’s a side effect of the drugs." He didn’t look at me but his tone was final. Bryce cleared his throat.
"You can still touch his paws. The birth defects don't hurt him," Bryce announced.
I recoiled. I didn't want to touch birth defects. My stomach churned like fruit in a blender. My fingers balled into a fist and I stepped back. Not that it was contagious but I felt weird around birth defects. It was like when I was forced to hug my cousin at family reunions as a child, and I didn’t want to crush her small bones or be crushed by her larger-
My cousin! Amanda.
The terribly horrible realization hit me. I was, in many ways, looking at Amanda again. The deformities were much the same for this cub. I gasped and tried to cover my disgust and surprise, but my mind made a thousand connections all at once and I stumbled backwards, nausea smashing into me like a sheet of plywood.
My cousin and this tiger had the same birth defects because both my uncle and this tiger’s father had been taking GH10. The steroid was making their parents strong, but somehow, as a fetus, it developed incorrectly.
The audible gasp that slipped from my lungs gathered the attention of all the men there. "I….I need a minute." I blurted, running back to the cable car. I shut the door behind me and slid to the floor, holding my knees to my face and trying to steady my breaths.
Suddenly I knew why I had been brought here and why I had been masquerading as Richy’s daughter. I was the ‘proof’ that Shardul was wrong. My purpose was to support Richy’s claims that the drug had no generational effects. If I was healthy and smart and normal functioning, that would mean that the GH had not affected my growth and perhaps these tigers had a different reason for their deformed cub. I was here as the proof that GH10 had only positive effects. It was likely the doctors who had interviewed me for "scholarships" were members of the FDA which explains why they cared so little about my high school chemistry pranks. Maybe I was the last piece to the puzzle required to get GH10 on the market.
My stomach foamed and sloshed like white water rapids as I tried to figure out what to do. I couldn’t publicly announce that I was Richy’s niece and that his daughter had the same defect as the tiger. Richy would be livid, and that was an understatement. The image of his fist in the wall of my bedroom brought a lump to my throat. Calling him out on his bluff in private was perhaps more frightening and intimidating as the privacy may not serve to benefit me.
I scooted farther into the corner of the old, cable car trying to make my emotional dilemma clearer in my mind. I didn’t have all the facts but a few things were certain.
The baby tiger’s deformities were not a result of genetics; it was because of drugs. Now I needed to talk to my dad more than ever. How I wished he were here with me. Or that I hadn’t come at all.
My breathing steadied, and I determined that I had to get more facts. I could approach this logically. I could casually ask Richy about GH10 and about this baby tiger. Perhaps once I had a clearer picture of what was really happening here, why the drugs caused the defect, and why I had been brought to the island, I would know what I had to do.
I stood and looked outside at the beauty of the jungle and felt very far from home. The towering palms didn’t look like those from a postcard any more. They looked like long, green fingers anxious to get a good hold on me. I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize my safety. I could straighten things out once I got back home. I walked casually back to the building and opened the door slowly, attempting to act nonchalant. From around the corner I could hear Bryce’s voice, and he didn’t seem any too pleased.
"Bullshit," Bryce said, unfolding his arms and walking closer to Shardul. "You just do everything and anything you can to try and go against Richy."
Shardul said nothing.
"Admit it, you just didn’t want Kat to come ‘cause you don’t respect her father. You’re always trying subtle ways of disrespecting him."
Shardul still didn’t speak.
"You probably wouldn’t get treated like crap from everyone if you didn’t give him crap all the time. Why don’t you just play along like the rest of us?"
Shardul looked over to me first, then to Bryce. "The cobra will bite you whether you call it Cobra or Mr. Cobra."
"Oh, so now he is a cobra. You and your dumb proverbs really aren’t getting you anywhere. At least the rest of us have a plan. Phase two is going into effect in a few minutes. You’ll thank us when you don’t die on this island. You’d never get out alone because you don’t have any respect. You should just take the GH, and then you can get out of here like the rest of us. Richy is reasonable if you play along. This is his facility after all. He is in charge, and if you want out, you have to respect his authority."
"Even a cat is a lion in her own lair." Shardul said, his voice was growing cocky though it kept the slow rhythm it usually had when he spoke.
"You’re really pissing me off now. I’m trying to give you advice on how you can get out of here. It’s not like the rest of us don’t see some of the problems. We see them, we just realize what is and what isn’t in our power to change. We can’t change what Richy is doing so we are just doing our best to watch our own backs."
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," Shardul replied.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king? Now the rest of us here are blind? Really, Shardul, you’re an idiot. I wish I had some moronic reply for you. Maybe you don’t even speak English. Maybe you only speak Proverb."
"Perhaps you are looking for something like, ‘Living in the water and being an enemy of the crocodile is not good.’"
Bryce began pacing. "Yeah, something like that." His pacing quickened. "It doesn’t matter what you say anyway. I just wanted to help you, but I can only help myself. I’m getting me and all the guys I brought, out of here, Shardul, and soon. I have a life to get back to. I will be back home within the week. I have a plan, and it’s going to work."
Shardul cleared his throat and shook his head. "Don’t bargain for fish which are still in the water."
"Shut up!" He dragged out the words. "The drug won�
�t pass okay? It’s not your personal duty to stop it. It will stop itself. The authorities will stop it."
"It’s a matter of principle. All of you here, taking the drug, are just feigning strength. True strength lies in--"
"Stop, Shar. Shut up! They’ll run tests. It won’t be hard for them to figure out that it’s changing our DNA!” Bryce walked away shaking his head, only then noticing me around the corner. He kept shaking his head and glared in my direction before heading to the cable car. That’s right he glared. At me. Maybe he didn’t like that I listened in to his conversation with Shardul.
With Bryce back at the cable car, I figured we wouldn’t be staying here too long. I watched somewhat awkwardly as a few of the men took some blood samples from the tiger while others took notes. While I didn’t understand the purpose of so many men on this small trip to the make-shift lab in the middle of the jungle, I tried not to let it bother me. There were already enough mysteries battering my brain seeking solutions.
A few of the phrases I had overheard confused me further though. Bryce had made it seem like Shardul wasn’t playing along with Richy’s plan. He had said the rest of the men had an estimated date for when they could leave. Could. That seemed like a weird word choice. Was Shardul not allowed to leave? I remembered on the run that Bryce had mentioned something about being here longer than he had planned. And Shardul said "the hill at a distance appears smooth."
Bryce had also said that there were problems with my uncle’s research or the drug or something. He said there were problems that he had to overlook in order to get home. My mind tried desperately to make connections and not jump to wild, critical conclusions but nothing made sense. Between the break-in, the deformities, Shardul’s proverbs, everyone’s general hugeness, and my very presence on the island, I could figure out very little and guess at too much. There was nothing scientific about my approach because I had no hypothesis, no test, and no evidence. I felt like a pawn in a chess game, a piece of a puzzle that didn’t seem to display a super pleasing result.