They all glanced around, shrugging their shoulders and raising their eyebrows. Finally, Mr. Harutyunyan spoke. “I have to say, I don’t like. She could try to use gas or poison, make him unconscious, then there would be nothing for us to do. Above all, we must protect Lucas.”
“Yeah, s’true, but our boyo can protect himself better than all of us put together, can’t he?” Benji countered.
This sparked a brief argument, but eventually dad raised both hands to quiet everyone. “Lukey, you have to understand, all of the folks here, and others beyond us, have a very personal interest in your survival. Each of us put in the effort of our lives to keep you alive, and that has given us hope that all is not lost for the human race. If our small band of inventors and scientists can do this, and give our focus to peace and progress, then we can inspire other smart, progress-minded people to stand together against the forces who will never be satisfied until they have plundered and dominated every resource, both natural and human, or until everyone is dead, whichever comes first.”
There was a moment of quiet, and then Benji said, “Oi, mates, bloody John-o must be runnin’ for mayor after that speech. If ya wanted my vote, all ya hadda do was bloody ask.”
There was another brief silence, then five minutes of riotous laughter. Finally, still giggling, dad spoke: “Alright, I deserved that. You know I have a penchant for self-important seriousness. Sorry, all, I’ll try to keep it in check. Now, let’s get back to our present situation. I’ve been contemplating, and I don’t believe Ava would tell Lukey to do this if she wasn’t sure of his safety, so I think if we find the right moment, simply confronting her is the best course of action. She was ready to reveal herself to Lukey anyway and simply got interrupted, so there is no reason to think that she’ll deny anything, and then we’ll know what we must do. If she admits that she is here to observe us, we’ll need to determine what method of communication she has and disable it, then initiate phase five.”
“Dad, what is phase five?”
He and Benji exchanged a glance. “Once again, can’t tell you, Lukey. It’s better you don’t know for now, sorry.”
Since the dogs and cats were still raining out of the sky, we spent the rest of the day painting the walls and doors of the crew cabins on our floor. There was no good opportunity to attempt contact with Ms. Perez; in fact, we didn’t see her again until dinner, and then she was in the company of Alexy the whole time. Once again, she carefully avoided looking my way.
After dinner, we returned to our cabin, and the rest of the group was exhausted. We trudged down the corridor and upon entering the room dad and Benji fell into their bunks and soon were asleep, Benji snoring loudly again. Since I’m wide awake, though, it’s probably time to explain a few things.
15
F irst, my name is Lucas. It’s not Lukey, or Luke, and certainly not Lucinda. My dad has always called me Lukey, so I got used to it and it doesn’t bother me too much anymore. My parents taught me not to correct people or get upset when they call me Lukey or Luke, so I hold it in. My parents taught me lots of things about how to behave around other people, even when they don’t make sense, which is most of the time, by the way.
Second, I’m smart. Not normal smart, but unusually so. I only have nine years’ worth of knowledge, though, so I don’t know everything a normal fourteen-year-old would know. I could act modest and say something like, ‘well, I guess I’m relatively intelligent’, but that wouldn’t be true or logical.
Despite my brains, there are things that I don’t get and probably never will really understand. For example, jokes. Most of the time they are just absurd exaggerations and I don’t see why they would make people laugh. I wish I did; I would like to join in and appreciate the humor, but it just doesn’t seem funny to me. People crack up when someone farts, but I don’t see why. It smells terrible and it’s just an expulsion of gasses that build up due to food waste in our intestines. My dad tried to explain that the sound is funny, but I just want to get away so that I don’t have to smell it.
Third, I have a condition called autism. Actually, I am what you call an extremely high-functioning Aspberger Syndrome… person, I guess. I’m not really adept in social situations, and I have to practice in advance what I am going to say so that I sound more normal. I’ve gotten better at it, and maybe one day it won’t be a problem at all. I also have an attribute called Savantism. It manifests in different ways in savants; some people have unusual memories, others musical talents, some mathematics, and there are others. Mine is pretty unusual; I’m talented in the area of the use of language. When I was little, I would sit with a tablet with a dictionary app and read through until I found a word I didn’t know, and I would memorize it and all the ways it could be used. Then I would write sentences with the word and say it aloud so that my pronunciation was correct. It soothed me to learn new words; I never wanted to be in a situation where someone would say a word for which I didn’t know the meaning. I know that seems weird, but you could also say strange, odd, bizarre, peculiar, uncanny, eerie, unusual, or even creepy, although I wouldn’t use that one. Well, these are the things I think of while everyone else is dreaming. I am feeling a little sleepy, though…
I woke up forty-five minutes later, feeling totally refreshed and ready to go, but it was only four thirty a.m., so I had a while to wait. I considered going up to the deck to take a walk, but I could hear the rain still pouring down, so I thought about exploring the ship a bit more. What is below the crew deck we’re on? I imagine the engine is down there, but there must be other stuff as well… finally I just decided to think of things I could say to Ms. Perez if I ever got the chance to confront her so that I would be prepared.
Eventually the others awoke, Benji yawning mightily as he slid out of his bunk. “Well, time for more a’ that delicious tucker, eh?” He said, while scratching his scalp.
“Tucker? What… oh, food, I remember.”
We went up to the galley, and Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng sat with a couple of the crew members that they had become friendly with during our squirmy session the day before. Dad leaned toward me and said, “It’s best if we mix in, socialize. If we just stay to ourselves it will look suspicious. Plus, if we get to know the crew better, we are more likely to be able to enlist their assistance. Look over there.”
Two tables away, Mr. Harutyunyan was flexing his massive right bicep at the urging of his impressed tablemates, Mauricio and Sasha. Ms. Houng covered her face in mock embarrassment as the men “oohed and aahed”.
“Bloody rhino, that one,” said Benji.
“Yes, but he doesn’t have nearly as much hair as you,” dad replied. “Go over there and have them feel that bush on your head.”
“Oh, bloody comedian, you are. What you make a’ this then, Lucinda?”
“I bet they would like to feel your hair. It’s quite unusual.”
“Oi, teamin’ up on me, eh? Don’t you worry, I’ll get you back, and that’s a bloody oath,” Benji huffed, crossing his arms and turning away from us.
“Dad, is Benji mad?” I whispered.
A broad grin lit his face. “No, he’s just playing around. Sometimes people pretend to be upset just to be funny.”
“Oh, I get it.” I don’t really get it…
We finished our breakfast, Benji pretending to sulk and Mr. Harutyunyan entertaining the rest of the crew. I noted that Ms. Perez was not in the galley, and in fact we only saw her occasionally and briefly over the next week as the rain stopped and we did various jobs around the ship. I was beginning to think I would never get a chance to confront her; we only had a week of our voyage left, and who knows what was going to happen when it ended.
16
O n day fifteen of our twenty-day voyage, we were assigned to “swab the decks”, essentially meaning to mop the top deck of the ship. We had been engaged in various work activities throughout our trip, but this was the first swabbing duty. The rain had ceased and for several days we had been hit by blis
tering sun and heat, and although the rest of the crew seemed extremely uncomfortable, sweating profusely and guzzling water at every opportunity, I actually felt an extra jolt of energy. While we trudged through our mopping duties, I got close enough to dad to ask about the vigor I was experiencing.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” He whispered. “You are partially powered by solar energy, so the more you get the more oomph you will have.”
“Oh, ok. Yes, that makes sense.” And I did feel the extra go power. I felt like I could have jumped in the ocean and swam the rest of the way to our destination, and probably would have beaten the ship there.
As we finished our duties in the late afternoon, we shuffled into the galley for another round of some kind of stew, again with bits of questionable meat (there were whispers that the critters we had gathered earlier were now showing up in the meals, but we couldn’t tell for sure, and the rest of the crew were so hungry that they really wouldn’t have cared that much.) As usual, I was careful to look for Ms. Perez, but she was not in the galley for the evening meal; in fact, we had been seeing less and less of her as the days wore on.
After finishing the meager offerings, we slunk back to our cabin, dad and Benji literally falling exhausted into their bunks. I sat next to the lower bunk as usual and spent the next couple of hours amusing myself by making my hair take different shapes. I thought my best effort was making a rather accurate replica of an ancient Egyptian pyramid on the top of my head, although the octopus copy was also a favorite.
At a little after eleven p.m., long after all but the night crew up in the Superstructure were asleep, there was a barely audible tapping at the metal door of the cabin. I actually thought it was my imagination at first, so I waited, but a minute later it came again. I tiptoed to the door and put my ear up to it, listening intently; I heard someone breathing on the other side, and felt the beat of a racing heart; whoever it was felt nervous or anxious or both. I glanced over, and dad and Benji were still dead asleep; I reasoned that, whoever it was on the other side of the door probably couldn’t hurt me, so I opened the door as slowly and quietly as I could so as not to wake anyone.
I quickly slid through past the open door and closed it, and there stood Ms. Zoey Perez. The look on her face matched her heartbeat; she looked stressed, almost frantic as her eyes darted around, apparently not wanting to be discovered out of her room. I stood there for a moment, stunned and a little scared, not knowing what to say. This was the first time I had ever seen her dressed informally; she was wearing black sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt, and almost looked like she was the world’s prettiest burglar about to pull a heist.
“Thank God it was you who answered the door,” she hissed. “I need you to come with me.” She turned and walked a few steps down the corridor toward the spiral staircase; I wasn’t sure what to do so I didn’t move. When she realized I wasn’t following she turned and waved me on, mouthing “Come on, let’s go.”
I gulped, covered my mouth and whispered, “Ava, what should I do?”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You are a rock, you are an island. She seems like cold iron, but there is more to the story than meets the eye.”
“Wait… are you saying I should go with her?”
“Well, well, well. The wheels of learning turn slowly, but turn they do.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I scuttled down the corridor, followed her down the spiral stairs, and to the far bow of the third deck. A couple of cabins were wedged there, obviously larger than the ones we were provided. Ms. Perez held her finger up to her mouth in a shushing motion, and gingerly opened the metal door to the cabin on the far left. She waved me in, then wagged her head back and forth, making sure there were no witnesses to our entry. The room was about three times the size of our cabin and was somewhat better appointed for a cabin on a cargo freighter, including a couple of comfortable-looking easy chairs and a small kitchen.
She motioned me to sit, taking the chair across from me. “We’ll need to whisper. Alexy, aka gum on my shoe, is two doors down and the last thing I want to do is wake him.”
I glanced quickly around the room to see if there were any obvious weapons I needed to watch out for. I didn’t notice anything, and I couldn’t smell any signs of a gun. She wore her normal intense expression as she stared at me without comment for several seconds. Maybe this was a big mistake… I shouldn’t have listened to Ava… I might have to look for a quick way out of here…
“Would you mind removing the wig? I just want to assure that it’s really you. It’s a good disguise, by the way. If I didn’t know, I would think you are really a girl. It is you, isn’t it? Lucas Taylor?”
Oh, boy. Now what do I do? I don’t really think there’s much she can do to hurt me, unless she has some kind of device on her that I can’t detect, and if she does there’s not much I could do anyway… I could probably run fast enough to get away from her if I needed to, and I think I might be able to get through the door even if it’s locked… she already knows who I am though, somehow… I’m not very good at lying, so I don’t think I could fool her…
I reached up, pulled my wig off, and waited.
Then something weird and unexpected happened.
17
M s. Perez’ hard expression faded, and was replaced by a scrunched up, emotional face, as if she was going to cry or something, and then a tear did drop down out of her left eye. This left me totally confused. Sometimes I can’t tell what people’s facial expressions mean; mom told me that, because of my Aspberger’s stuff, I just see things a little different from other people and might need to have things like that explained to me once in a while. She said eventually I would start to recognize the expressions and would remember what they meant, but everyone’s face is different, and a certain facial expression on one person might mean something different than the same expression does on another person. It’s all very inconsistent, and I don’t really get it. Anyway, I continued to watch Ms. Perez, not knowing what else to do.
After about a minute, she seemed to get control of her feelings, and said, “I didn’t know if the stories were true. I had heard, we all had, but… I think somewhere deep inside I just assumed it was wishful thinking. It’s really you, though, isn’t it? I can’t believe it.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Oh, we’ve been keeping tabs on your dad and his friends for quite some time. We knew about their work, and even had an inkling of their plan for you, but… I don’t think anyone thought it would actually work. Here you are, though. Unbelievable.” Then she seemed to get emotional again for a moment.
“Well, what are you going to do? Unless you have some kind of weapon I don’t know about, I can get away from you. And if you tried to do anything to dad or the rest of our group… well, I’d have to stop you.”
Then she smiled, and said, “What if I told you everyone else on this ship, aside from Alexy, is here to help me? And don’t you think they would be just a bit confused when there is a boy where a cute teenage girl had been?”
“You work for the government, so you must want to capture me, right? Dad calls it the shadow government, or sometimes the deep state, or even the men in black. He says they’re the people who really run things. The want to study me, take me apart, see if they can make a weapon out of me or figure out how to make more of me. I won’t go. If they try to take me apart, I’ll self-destruct; they won’t get anything. That’s what my dad told me.”
Her hard expression returned. “Now just calm down. Nobody needs to self-destruct, I’m not here for that. And, although it’s true that I work for the government, I don’t really “work” for the government. Ok, that’s confusing, right? I really do work for the government as an inspector for the FDA, or what’s left of it, or at least I used to before I got on this boat. That’s not making things any clearer, is it? The truth is, seeing you here in the flesh, so to speak, has me a little flustered.”
Sh
e inhaled deeply, blew it out, and continued. “There are people both in and out of government employ who are very unhappy with the direction things are going. That should be expected; we all know the world is going down the drain, and the government, or those who control it, are flushing the toilet, so to speak.”
Oh, boy. She’s just as bad as Ava… I don’t know what that means. What toilet is she talking about? I think she must have noticed my confused expression, because she said, “I’m sorry, Lucas. Let me make it clear: I am not here to cause you any problems. There are people from around the world, smart, talented people, who are focused on turning the world around. It is a very difficult thing, though… the military power that the government has is overwhelming, and we don’t want to die, so we have to hide, at least until we have enough power to defend and support ourselves. And in you, we may have the power we need. You are the example.”
“So, you’re not here to capture me? Why are you here, then?”
She chuckled and said, “I am here to help you, silly. There are others on this ship who are here to help you as well, although not everyone. There is a plan to capture you and your group when we get to port, and we are here to help keep that from happening. I know you will wonder who, but I can’t say at this point. We want to maintain their anonymity and safety for as long as possible.
“There are others on board who want to make sure you are captured; they are being paid a lot of money to make it happen. People are desperate, so they will do almost anything for a little security these days. We know who they are, and when the time comes, we will keep them out of the way.”
“Well… what should I tell my dad and the rest of my group? And how do I know you’re not with the bad guys and you’re just trying to fool me into going along with you?”
“Come on, Lucas. Think about it. Wouldn’t that be a pretty elaborate way to go about it? I’ll tell you what… let’s go and talk to your dad and the rest of your group. That should help, don’t you think?”
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