Sandpaper Kiss

by Angel Wedge

  “Are you serious?” I burst out. I knew that if they went ahead with this, it would be enough to trigger an international incident, and give Paul’s friends all the excuse they needed to roll over this little jungle kingdom with choppers full of marines. I forced myself to calm down before she could even press the hidden alarm, though. “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s just some kind of issue with the paperwork. Is there somewhere I can wait while you call–”

  My head hit the desk, knocking my passport and Miss Kaeon’s pens to the ground. I kicked out reflexively, but the hand on my neck was both strong and experienced, and my attacker’s legs weren’t where I expected. A hand with olive sleeves and black cotton gloves grabbed my wrist, forcing my arm behind my back.

  “We are arresting you on suspicion of providing false documents with the intent of committing terrorist activity.”

  “I’m sure it’s just–” a mistake in the records, I wanted to say, but my jaw was pressed so firmly against the desk that it was uncomfortable to speak. I assumed that meant they wanted silence.

  “You are warned that making any kind of political statement may be construed as evidence against you when this matter comes to court. You are strongly advised to remain silent, and to come with us peaceably.” I recognised the voice then; he’d wished me good luck just half an hour earlier. The gloved hand must belong to the albino soldier; covering his whole body to avoid sunburn in this climate.

  I didn’t understand what was going on. The men who’d been so welcoming outside were suddenly the enemy. I’d been on the ground for less than an hour, and already I was being arrested. I even wondered if this was some kind of set-up. Would Paul go as far as having his own brother arrested in order to concoct an excuse to move more troops into this backwater country? I wouldn’t put it past him. The cordon relieving spectators of their cameras and phones was made up of both olive-garbed soldiers and the black police-like uniforms of the BJDS, so when one or two pictures of this incident slipped out, it wouldn’t be entirely clear which of the country’s feuding factions had perpetrated the atrocity.

  I could only guess what was going on now, each idea more terrifying than the last. I tried to stall my imagination, to keep calm until I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t help coming up with more nightmare scenarios. I had to assume Paul was in on this somewhere, because he was the only person likely to have taught soldiers to pronounce our name in the idiosyncratic way he preferred. How far would he go to get people behind him? Was this something he’d masterminded, or was it a double cross? Whatever I thought, there was nothing I could do about it right now. I was frogmarched between two heavily built men, a strong hand on each arm while my wrists were cuffed behind me. We went to one side of the main concourse, and into an office. While the steel panel walls kept most of the building hot, at least there was some kind of air conditioning concealed among the fractal of girders and pipes in the roof. In this office, clearly temporarily allocated to whatever agency might need it, there was no such luxury. I was literally thrown into a box-shaped cell, where a steel bench seat was too hot to touch with bare skin. Even if I could have got to my feet, there was nowhere to go.

  I think I might have cried, I’m not sure. I like to think I’m tough, that the horrors I see in every assignment just make me angry enough to push myself harder, but everyone has a breaking point. The possibility that my brother might have planned this for me just made the whole situation more terrifying than I could bear.

  Chapter 12 — Into the Wilderness

  My first experience of Sante Benedicté had been an oven-like cell. After setting the animals free, I ended up in a room that was almost the same size, but infinitely more luxurious. But instead of running I’d got carried away looking through the girl’s diary and thinking back to all the times I should have realised that this story wasn’t worth risking my life over.

  I’d gone too far to turn back now, so I had to find out what this book could tell me. But I needed to stop distracting myself. Whether it was the irregular, infant handwriting at the front, the wobbly but rounded hand of the middle parts, or the meaningless squiggles that seemed to fill the very back of the book, I would have to wait until I was free before trying to piece together all the facts. I wrapped the book in a pink T-shirt, the first thing I’d found to stop all of the inserts falling out. Then I hend the bundle tightly under my arm, and waited for the voices outside the door to die down.

  They knew my name already, and they called me a saboteur. Whatever happened, I couldn’t risk returning to my room for any equipment. I knew they’d disabled the cellular antenna on top of the facility, too, so I couldn’t get a message to the outside world with my phone. There was a chance I could work out how to get a message through if I could get up there, but the place would certainly be under heavy guard. Or I could go out into the jungle, and pray I found the road to Sante Benedicté before getting caught. Neither option seemed like a good choice, but at least in the jungle I’d have a vague idea what to expect.

  The complex was a maze, but there were only a few ways in and out. I could go down and come out in the compound where most of the native staff seemed to have their homes, or up to the cliff top. But after a little thought, I wondered if there might be another way. I knew from previous presentations that the waterfall had been a natural feature before the lab was here, and that the river that fed it had followed a hundred different paths through the cliff, boring out tunnels wherever there were seams of softer rock only to change its course years or decades later. So if I found the underground river that fed the falls, there was a chance of a navigable tunnel leading back to the surface.

  Before long I found one door that seemed to open onto the river bank, a tunnel stretching away into the darkness. A thin spur of land ran between the river, a roaring torrent in the darkness, and the slick wall. I should never have even attempted to walk along it, I was lucky to traverse the slippery surface without falling. But somehow I made it, and saw a faint glimmer of dawn light somewhere upstream. It turned out to be a natural fissure, connecting the underground stream to the surface. I know it was only luck that had allowed me to get this far, but I found myself wondering if some kind of guardian spirit was watching over me.

  Maybe it would be a good choice of escape route after all. There was no sign of any human interference here, and if anyone had come to explore the cavern with lights, they might easily have missed this exit. Once I was outside, I just ran. I had a vague idea that the River Lama ran parallel to the road, and it didn’t look like I had any reasonable chance of getting a proper map, so I’d just have to try heading in a straight line and hope I hit the main highway sooner or later.

  I knew it would take me days to get back to civilisation, if not weeks. Maybe I’d run into one of the native tribes sooner, but they were as unpredictable as the wild animals. I’d have to see if there was any food I could safely gather, hope there were fruits I could recognise, and hoard what resources I had to survive a long journey. But now, with the security staff hot on my heels, I had to run.

  If this was an action movie, I would have been running headlong, eyes following the ground at my feet and foliage whipping past in a blur. It was certainly tempting to throw caution to the wind like that, but this was the real world and I knew that kind of behaviour was what got tourists killed so often. I ran carefully, keeping one hand in contact with tree trunks, branches and vines as often as possible. That extra handhold could be the difference between life and death if I slipped or the ground beneath me gave way.

  The light reflecting from the glass dome of the observatory room, as well as the clearing itself, made perfect growing conditions for the nearest plants. So as long as I was close, this would be a true jungle. The space between the trees was filled with a tangle of vines and branches, all the low-growing foliage that would normally have their precious light cut off by the canopy overhead. I was running along earth or wood, or finding balance on precariously balanced slabs of
rock around which the river had taken the mud away. In places the ground wasn’t even visible beneath me, and I just had to hope I wouldn’t fall into whatever chasm was beneath each transient bridge. I could hear running water, but I couldn’t possibly tell which side it was on, or even if it was beneath me waiting to swallow me whole as soon as I stepped off this branch. Running carelessly here would be suicide, but still I moved through the sylvan maze as quickly as I dared.

  Hauling my body up a tree, I wedged fingers and toes into any hold available so that I could reach a higher branch. Then when I reached something solid enough to stand on, I paused only a moment to check for sounds of pursuit, or any sign they were around here. They were chasing me, and getting caught might stop me getting the truth out, or might even cost my life. I didn’t know if the natives were working for Barishkov, or if they were still loyal to Faulkner, or even if the people pursuing me were the soldiers sent by the United Nations, but it couldn’t be good if anyone caught me. Even if they weren’t right behind me, they could easily be circling round to cut me off.

  That was the problem. Twenty minutes after I’d left the compound, as nearly as I could estimate using my own heart rate, I could still just about make out voices. At first I’d wondered if they were trying to track down escaped specimens, but they wouldn’t have stayed with me for so long in that case. Every time I stopped for breath, the voices were there. Sometimes I managed to pull away a little, but more often I’d pause and hear them even closer than last time. Now I could make out the accents, and I could recognise the language even though the words meant nothing to me. This was the language of the tribes, rather than the Benedicteans, and I didn’t have the faintest clue what that meant.

  Paul’s briefing pack had mentioned that two of the nearby tribes had sworn loyalty to Faulkner, but nobody seemed to know how he had gathered their trust. There was some suspicion he might have used them as experimental subjects, but the official UN report said this was unlikely. The tribesmen had always been reluctant to deal with outsiders, so there was no way they’d stay allied with someone who stepped all over their rights. They had left as soon as Faulkner died, it seemed, because the natives I’d seen at Lucretia Falls – with one exception, of course – had all been of Benedictean descent.

  I didn’t have any idea whose side the tribes would be on now, or even why they had stayed with Faulkner as long as they had only to desert the place when his successor took over. It was always possible that their conventions and standards of behaviour were entirely different from what I was used to, and there was a reason that made perfect sense to someone who had grown up in their society. But right now, I was more concerned with knowing what they’d do to me if they found me, and that was something I had no way to predict. I just had to keep moving, until I found a sanctuary I knew I could rely on.

  I looked down from the end of a soft and rotting branch at the carpet of thorns and flowers below. Maybe some of those plants were growing on the water, like lilies. I had no idea, but didn’t want to risk stepping onto foliage that might not have solid ground underneath. I just wished I’d paid a little more attention when I first passed through this area of jungle. They’d given us a lot of information about the country, and the wonders of nature to be found around here. I’d paid attention to the local politics, the things each government said about the land they considered to be theirs and where they believed the borders lay. But in all three copies of the information the governments had given to the press, I’d skimmed over what they said about the jungle itself. I had to hope that I had the wits to stay alive here, and also hope that when I got back to the city I would be able to find help.

  If I thought back to my first meeting with the Sante Benedicté People’s Militia, it didn’t seem like anything to pin my hopes on.

  * * *

  Back then, I’d thought it seemed unlikely that I’d even get to see the jungle in person. I thought for a few excruciating hours in a baking cell that I’d never get to see the laboratories of the infamous Dr Faulkner, let alone report on them. The thin material of my trousers was enough to stop the hot metal from burning my skin, but there was no way it was going to be comfortable in there. Then two men came in to explain what had happened.

  “I am so sorry about this,” the albino guy spoke for both of them. With the quality of his English, he sounded like a textbook. It wasn’t the kind of accent I would have expected from a man holding me prisoner, but after all the shocks of the last few hours it came quite far down the list of unexpected occurrences.

  “I would have removed your cuffs earlier,” he continued, “but proper procedure requires us to complete three sets of reports before we are permitted to speak to you. On paper, it is to ensure that prisoners’ human rights are adhered to, that you are only denied access to counsel if we can prove that the very specific circumstances set out in law apply. In reality, it is most often used to let a suspect marinate in their own anxiety. Now, if I remove your cuffs will you please refrain from striking me until I have a chance to explain what has happened?”

  I tried to answer, but my mouth was so dry in the heat that all I could produce was a cough and phlegm like damp flour. Instead, I turned my back towards him and held out my hands. A faint click and I could move again, rubbing some life back into my wrists as he started to explain.

  “Your brother has provided a lot of logistical support to the current government, in their campaign to banish superstition and help us to develop technological academies in Matthestown and Oimbawa. Our President would have us join the next generation at last, taking our place in the developed world. However, this campaign has been somewhat impaired by the discovery of Faulkner’s facility in the jungle. It is a very different face of science, and people are becoming scared again, likening the experiments carried out there to witchcraft, things man was not meant to know. We need a known liberal, a man who loves the ways of nature and of traditional culture, to reassure people that this isn’t as bad as it seems. We were very grateful that you agreed to help in this regard, as your Nigerian adventure was well reported in our newspapers.”

  So that was why Paul had really sent me. As usual, he hadn’t told me the full story. I wondered how his ardent supporters would feel, if I had remained out of the cells long enough to write the article I intended.

  “My name is Marcos,” he held out his hand to shake. He pronounced it kind of like ‘Mars-sauce’, a name so close to my own, but put through an entirely different set of linguistic mutations since the white man first came here. “I am an army Belsemin – you would say corporal I think – in the Sante Benedicté People’s Militia, seconded to the national army. Maybe I am one of the lower ranks, but I have experience enough to be assigned some very special jobs. The whole of our unit is a little special, assigned to carry out unorthodox work within our borders, primarily fighting against terrorists. In this case, a man accused of carrying explosives or spreading sedition is always in our jurisdiction. This is why we were able to arrest you under the noses of the Bardjuso: terrorism trumps a paperwork error.”

  My surprise must have shown on my face then, because he felt he needed to explain further; “The BJDS, the Bardjuso we call them, are expanding beyond their stated role. They are raiding premises and seizing materials in various cities, claiming that their jurisdiction allows them to track contraband that they may have missed at customs. It is all very awkward, because they are using the unusual cases where the letter of the law isn’t entirely clear. They can detain illegal immigrants now, and monitor all the abuses of the postal service, and carry out surveillance work on behalf of the regular police. All the responsibilities they need, to become an undocumented secret police. The President knows this, but if he acts to curtail their power then Joe Public in the street says he is in favour of smuggling.”

  “They act like police, but the constitution does not grant them the same degree of monitoring it does the police,” he continued after a brief pause, “They are plannin
g some form of revolution, many of us are sure. We know they would want to turn you away. Maybe you are arrested over a paperwork error, and then another error means they don’t know where you’ve gone. They say you organised your own flight to leave the country, and they don’t know where you went next. Stupid foreigner, going to a dangerous country to avoid waiting in the cells for due process. I’m sure you could imagine what they might have come up with.” I could only nod. I’d seen that kind of system too many times, and had even publicised it enough to bring foreign outrage to bear on the perpetrators a few times.

  “We want you to do your job. We’re loyal to the Presidency, so we arrested you first. Now we release you into the custody of the Oversight Committee of this strange lab, and they are responsible for ensuring you don’t cause any further problems. They are appointed by the United Nation, so the civil authority cannot challenge them either. We can do this because nobody is quite sure which country the lab is in, however much as all factions of our government want the benefits of their research without the moral conundrum. And once we have arrested you, the Bardjuso have no jurisdiction. If they touch you now, the President would be entirely correct to demand an inquiry, and they couldn’t so easily spin that in the public opinion.”

  He handed me a water canteen, and I took a long swig before trying to speak again. It was surprisingly bitter, and I found myself spluttering in what must have been a humorous way. To their credit, neither of the soldiers laughed, though I could tell it was a struggle for both to restrain themselves.

  “Rum,” Marcos explained, “Just a little, to kill the bacteria. This is one good thing that foreign science has brought us, though so many people here would like to forget just how much we have gained through contact with the rest of the world. In any case, your job is too important to suffer through our internal politics.”