Earth Thirst

by Mark Teppo

  While Phoebe strips and cleans the guns, I go next door to Mere's suite where she's sitting on the couch, legs curled under her, intent on her laptop screen. She's already on the hotel's Wi-Fi, researching the legacy of Montoya Industry's involvement in local matters.

  I make myself useful and order room service. Fruit, a pot of coffee, yogurt, granola, honey.

  “There's an Incan spa down the street,” Mere offers. “They do ancient Incan cleansing rituals.”

  “Maybe on our next visit,” I say as I hang up the phone.

  “They have an oxygen lounge…”

  “Oh, well, that's different. Do they have mud baths too?”

  She grabs a throw pillow from the couch and throws it at me. I catch it and spend a few moments staring at the pattern woven into the cotton fabric. It reminds me of the facade of Montoya's building in Santiago. Dimly, I can recall the walls of the well room at the Arcadian spa on Rapa Nui.

  It's the same pattern.

  Are our minds actually wiped, I wonder, or do we just not remember everything? Phoebe said it was the Grove who inspired Mother. Arcadia—collectively—participated in the idea of Mother. Had we programmed ourselves into thinking she existed as a defense mechanism? As a way to explain why we did the things we did to ourselves? If Mother was responsible, then we weren't. We were simply agents of her desire. Worker ants, responding to the commands of a distant queen. An unconscious hive mind, working intuitively to protect itself. Was that worth saving? Or was my concern about Arcadia simply the ingrained survival mechanism of an ant whose only thought was to serve the queen and the nest?

  “Hey.”

  I shake myself from my reverie and look up. “Hmm?”

  “What do you know about terrace farming?” she asks.

  “The Incans were very good at it,” I say.

  “I could go so far as to say ‘exceptional,'” Mere says. “There's a bunch of sites in this region that are still in use.”

  “Escobar's?”

  “Undoubtedly. Okay, so think of this region as being shaped like a pot. If you look at it from the side, the Urubamba River is the handle and top edge of the pot. The Andes would be, ah, the lid.” She holds her hands to illustrate her point. “Along the river are these series of forts that used to protect the valley. Ollantaytambo”—she holds one hand flat to indicate the pot's arm and lid and walks down it with her other hand—“Urubamba, Calca, and Pisac.” Her hands move down the line. Then she cups her hand under her other one. “Down here is Cusco.”

  “The bottom of the pot.”

  “Right. Where everything goes. Down to the bottom.” She taps the underside of her wrist. “Now, back here is a place called Maras—it's known for its salt fields. Slightly uphill from it is a ruin called Moray, which is this ancient Incan installation with some serious concentric terraces. Apparently, they're deep enough that the climate changes dramatically from the top to the bottom.”

  “Handy if you're experimenting in different crops,” I interject.

  “You think?” she says. “A couple of years ago, there was a record rainfall. The sort that tends to wipe out existing settlements or, in this case, serious ancient Incan ruins. Ah, but we can't have our national heritage ruined, can we? No, that just won't do. Guess who steps in and funds the reconstruction work at Moray?”

  “Hyacinth.”

  “Hyacinth Worldwide, in fact. Which almost doesn't happen when someone makes some noise about the fact that Hyacinth Worldwide is mainly a hospitality and services company, but then there's a big donation to the city of Cusco and plans to open not one but three hotels within the city limits.”

  “Hyacinth hotels?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So it's double duty. Hyacinth Worldwide gets into the cultural heritage business and makes it easier for tourists to visit. Everybody wins.”

  “And with everyone paying attention to the construction in town, which is way more exciting, no one notices what's going on at a crusty old cultural restoration site. It's the same thing they must have done on Easter Island. Move in on the land. Build a hotel and boost the local economy, and then when things are ready, lease the real prize to a different arm of the company.”

  “Is Escobar building something at Moray?”

  “Who knows? The area's all closed off.”

  “So we can't take a tour bus?”

  “Only if you want to hijack it.”

  “You think that might be a little obvious?”

  “Well, it's sort of been your modus operandi so far. Why change now?”

  “Probably a good time to change it up then. Keep them guessing.”

  “I'm all for that.”

  “Should we go now?”

  “How about after we eat whatever it is that you ordered from room service?”

  I concede that point. “I'll go tell Phoebe.”

  Mere laughs. “I doubt it'll take her more than a few seconds to pack up her guns.” She pats the couch next to her. “Sit down for a minute. I won't bite.” She bites her lower lip as soon as she says the words and drops her gaze to her laptop screen.

  I might, I think. Why not say it? I wonder, and so I do.

  She blushes, and shakes her head slightly, a smile fighting to spread itself across her moving lips. She doesn't say anything out loud, but I can read her lips plainly enough. I'll bite you back.

  I sit down on the couch next to her, close enough that our shoulders brush. As she continues to fuss with the windows on her computer, I turn and lower my face toward her neck. Her hair is in the way, and I carefully lift it up with a few fingers. She shivers and sits up, her back straightening. She lifts her head, tilting it to the left. I smell her exposed neck, my mouth hovering less than a centimeter from her bare flesh. I exhale slowly through my nose, and she quivers beneath me. She grips the laptop with both hands. “Do it,” she whispers.

  I press my lips against her skin, carefully keeping my teeth away. My mouth stays closed, but I can still taste her. The ripeness of her flesh, the honeysuckle sweetness of her blood so tantalizingly close beneath her skin. The warm heat of her excitement. The sound of her heart, pounding in her chest.

  “No,” I say as I break the contact of the kiss.

  I stand up and walk to the door of the suite. I don't leave. I simply keep my back to her as I wait for room service to arrive.

  I hear her close her laptop and set it aside. She gets up and walks up behind me. My hands are shaking and I clasp them together to keep them still. She wraps her arms around me, pressing her head against my back. “It's okay,” she says.

  I unclasp my hands and raise them to cover hers. She's shivering as much as I am, and we must look silly. Standing there, staring at the suite door. I don't care. I feel…

  Remember your priorities.

  … safe.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  An hour later, as we're waiting in the lobby for Phoebe to bring the rental car around, I excuse myself from standing with Mere. Carrying the weapons case that Phoebe put me in charge of, I wander off toward the front windows of the hotel where I can get the best cell reception. I pull out my phone, dialing Callis's direct line.

  He answers on the first ring.

  “Hello, Callis,” I say. “Nice of you to pick up this time.”

  “Silas,” he says after a moment's hesitation.

  “You seem surprised to hear from me.”

  “It's, ah, a different country code from where you called me before.”

  “I've been traveling. It was your idea, remember?”

  He's quiet for a minute. “Did you go to the island?”

  “I did. What do you think I found?”

  “Probably not what you expected,” he says.

  “No,” I reply. “Did you know why Mother sent me there before? Who I was supposed to kill?”

  He clears his throat. “You weren't supposed to kill anyone,” he says. “That's not what the Grove wanted.”

  Somehow I'm not surprised to hea
r that response. “Come on, Callis,” I laugh at him. “When have I ever not done what Mother explicitly asked me to do? When have I ever gone off the mission parameters?”

  He doesn't bother to answer because anything he says isn't going to help him.

  “Do you know what Escobar Montoya is doing?” I ask.

  “Saving Arcadia, even if Arcadia doesn't want to acknowledge it is in danger.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. When he doesn't answer, I ask a different question. “Did you know Talus survived?”

  “Talus?” His voice isn't as confident as it was a moment ago. “What are you talking about?”

  “Talus never checked in with you after the incident on the boat?”

  “No,” he says. “I haven't heard from him.”

  “Who did call you?”

  “Just you and… and Phoebe.”

  I nod, glancing out the window at the valets swarming the cars in the roundabout. “Was he supposed to check in?”

  “Yes, and when he didn't—when none of you did right away—I knew something had gone wrong.”

  “Oh, something had definitely gone wrong,” I laugh. “Why didn't you answer when I called the other day?”

  “I didn't know it was you calling.”

  “Bullshit, Callis. It could have been any one of us. You didn't have any insight into what was going on. You're sitting by the phone now, dying to know what's happening. You've seen the news. You know that the top floor of Montoya's building is gone. You know things have gone off the rails. You're blind and you're sitting there, wondering just how fucked things have gotten.”

  He's quiet for a long time. “Okay, Silas. Things have gotten out of control. I may have erred in not giving you the intelligence you needed earlier. I'm sorry, old friend.”

  “Apology accepted,” I reply.

  He coughs lightly after a moment. “And…?”

  I spot Phoebe in a red sedan, pulling up in front of the hotel. “And Talus is dead. Phoebe shot him in the head. Probably a cleaner death than he deserved. I killed Escobar's grandson. And he has absolutely no intention of saving Arcadia. Oh, and do you remember that weed killer I mentioned when I was still in Australia? It's owned by a human corporation, and it's been engineered specifically for our physiology. That, old friend, is my report. Tell the Grove if you want to or not. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to answer to them any more.”

  I drop the phone on the ground and shatter it with my heel.

  * * *

  The car is a full-sized sedan and Phoebe waves Mere toward the driver's seat. She slips into the back on the passenger's side and I climb in behind Mere, putting the case on the hump between the back seats. The other two cases must be in the trunk since I don't see them. The car comes with an in-dash GPS and Mere starts punching buttons in an effort to figure out how to reset the language to English.

  Phoebe sits, her hands in her lap, waiting patiently, and I'm about to turn and tell her what I just said to Callis when our car is struck from behind.

  Mere's airbag deploys, slamming her against her seat, and since the handbrake is still set, the car grinds across the pavement. Phoebe and I bounce off the front seats, and I'm nearly brained by the aluminum case as it bounces around the back seat. Whatever has struck us has a big engine and it growls noisily as the driver of the other vehicle tries to force our car into one of the columns that ring the roundabout in the front of the hotel.

  A burst of gunfire shatters the window on Phoebe's side. Several rounds bounce off the case in my arms, and I feel the burn of a bullet as it streaks across the outer edge of my left shoulder. A black cylinder flies into the back of the car—too big and too slow-moving for a bullet.

  Flashbang grenade.

  I'm already in motion before I consciously identify what it is. My hand finds the door latch, yanks it, and I tumble out onto the sidewalk.

  The flashbang goes off, and in the wake of its noise and light, I hear someone screaming but it may be nothing more than my sense of hearing being completely fucked by the flashbang.

  There's a man standing next to me, wearing boots and gray pants that are tucked into the tops of the boots. Standard military-style dress. I roll toward him, swinging the case into his knees. He falls, coming down to my level, and I spot the HK MP7 in his hands. I hit him in the face with the case, and take his gun.

  More men are coming, pouring out of the back of the armored vehicle that rear-ended us. It's a security truck, the sort used by bank couriers. Secutores, yet again. In an upgraded transport this time. I point my freshly acquired gun and pull the trigger as rapidly as I can, knowing these guys don't default to full auto. Two men go down, and the rest scatter.

  I bolt for a nearby pillar as the mercs still upright return fire from cover. The high-pitched noise in my head is no longer a scream; it's a tea kettle whistle echoing down a long metal tube. The scream of a mortar shell falling from its apogee. The distant crump of shells exploding along a trench line. The front, on so many nights during World War I.

  Crouching behind my pillar, ignoring both the sudden influx of forgotten memories and the minute vibrations in the pillar that tells me it is being hit by gunfire, I open the aluminum case.

  I have both grenades and a handgun. I blink, and I see Phoebe sitting beside me in the car, hands in her lap.

  She gave me this case when we came to the elevator. Both grenades and a CZ 75—along with a few spare magazines.

  I blink again and yank a grenade free of the foam. Yank the pip, release the spoon, and roll it toward the armored security truck behind our sedan. It bounces a few times, and then explodes near the armored truck. It won't do much to the heavy vehicle, but it'll make them cautious. I have two more grenades, and so I throw another one, trying to put it past the truck to flush out the guys hiding back there. I cram the remaining contents of the case into various pockets as the second grenade goes off.

  A Mercedes G-class is coming from the other direction of the roundabout. The faces peering out the windows aren't frightened. More mercs, arriving in more standard Secutores-style transport. I empty the magazine of the gun I stole, killing both men in the front seat, and the Mercedes jerks to the right and slams into a nearby pillar. I drop the empty MP7, switch to the CZ 75, and put two rounds through the back passenger side window, hopefully getting one more of the mercenaries.

  More Mercedes are arriving, disgorging armed men. Belfast must be bringing everyone on the payroll. I'm outnumbered and outgunned. But they're not coming in for shock and awe. They're coming in for containment. They're moving efficiently to cut me off, firing to keep me pinned down. They want to secure the sedan.

  They want prisoners.

  I gauge my options. I could run to my right, back toward the front doors of the hotel, and I might even make it, but that would put me inside the hotel. I'd just be containing myself, making their job easy. I jerk to my left, drawing fire from some of the approaching men, but I don't stop. I make it to the next pillar, and then keep going. I'm running faster than they expect, and in the time it takes them to recalibrate their aim, I've already reached the edge of the building. There's a narrow brick fence that separates the manicured hedges of the hotel entrance from the surrounding parking lot, and I leap over it easily.

  I lurch to a stop and crab-walk back to the wall, moving toward the street that runs past the hotel. After a few meters, I press up against the wall and peek over. It takes a few seconds for someone to spot me and start firing, but in those few seconds, I get a pretty good idea of the situation.

  There's more than a half-dozen Mercedes in the roundabout now, and Phoebe and Mere are being loaded into separate vehicles. The armored car has been abandoned, and the only reason would be because my grenade had actually done some structural damage or wrecked a tire.

  As I creep along the wall, four of the Mercedes peel away from the hotel and accelerate up the street. There's no sense in sticking around the hotel any more, not when they've got Phoebe and Mere. I aband
on any pretense of playing hide-and-seek and run after the cars. I can keep up with them for a few blocks, but once they get out of the city center, I'm going to fall behind.

  As I reach the street, a helicopter roars overhead, coming in over my left shoulder. It's a Dauphin variant—sleek, distinctive fantail rotor assembly—and there are no markings on it. The helicopter dips below the buildings on either side of the street and roars up the road. The doors on both sides are open, and as it overtakes the convoy of Mercedes, people start dropping out. Leaping out of the moving helicopter onto moving vehicles like they were hopping from stone to stone on a river crossing.

  Escobar's Arcadians.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The trailing Mercedes goes off the road first, turning sharply and plowing through a storefront on the left side of the road. As I run past, I don't spot the Arcadian who had been on the roof. He must have been launched inside the store as the vehicle came to a sudden halt, or he's part of the jumble of masonry piled atop the wrecked car.

  The penultimate Mercedes waggles back and forth, and manages to dislodge the Arcadian clinging to it. The car corrects its course and speeds after the remaining pair. The Arcadian who was thrown off is recovering from his unsightly dismount as I reach him. I put two bullets in the back of his masked head before he can find his assault rifle on the strap around his torso. I strip the rifle from him, as well as the spare magazines, and then shoot him twice in the chest to make sure he stays down.

  An explosion draws my attention back to the road. Up ahead, there's an open space—a promenade or plaza of some sort—and in the middle there is a round turret-like building. Atop it is a tall statue of an Incan man with a long robe and a tall staff. Pachacutec—the Incan ruler who built an empire. Somewhere near the turret, something has blown up. I can't tell if it is one of the remaining Mercedes or another car.

  I'm certainly not going to find out by standing in the middle of the street with my mouth open. I sprint toward the promenade, trying not to listen to the part of my brain that is panicked about what I'm going to find in the burning wreckage.