“Not a mutant,” Maria said. “Well, actually yes. No. Maybe. We can’t know yet. The DNA samples we got off the arm might be able to help us with its exact origin.”
“A giant tortoise or turtle, though?” Kevin asked. “You don’t think that sounds at all far-fetched?”
“No. Given the fact that we’re in the Galápagos, an environment known for producing not only giant tortoises but also for forcing natural selection to work faster than other places, I’d say that’s substantially less far-fetched than, say, an enormous hammerhead that can control other sharks.”
“Fair enough point,” Kevin said. “But this still requires us to jump to some conclusions without having many facts. I thought you wanted to be Scully instead of Mulder.”
“Did I say I was Scully?” Maria asked. “I thought I was Mulder.”
“You obviously aren’t sure because the writer can’t remember what she wrote earlier,” Simon said.
Maria, Kevin, and Cindy all turned to him and spoke at once. “Shut up, Simon.”
Simon hmphed.
“Look, we can review the tapes again, but we’ve all already seen them plenty of times. Whatever was under the water was long and kind of snaked out. That was its neck. And what little we could see of its mouth matches that of a turtle or tortoise.”
“I see several problems with that assertion,” Ernesto said. “The first is that the tortoises of the Galápagos are vegetarians. There is no way one would eat a tourist, even if it did somehow grow to that size.”
“There are meat eaters in the turtle and tortoise family, though,” Maria said. “We can’t make the assumption that this one is a native to the area. It might not be a direct descendant of any Galápagos species of tortoise or sea turtle. It could have been introduced.”
“And how exactly would someone ‘introduce’ something big enough to eat a person whole without anyone seeing?” Cindy asked.
“I don’t know,” Maria asked. “Maybe that’s something we can look into. You know, like seeing if anyone has noticed anyone or anything suspicious about Isla Niña before this.”
“I could look into that,” Ernesto said.
“There’s also the issue of where something of that size is hiding,” Kevin said. “If it’s a turtle or tortoise, then it has to breathe air. It couldn’t just stay below the water at all times where it couldn’t be seen.”
“Maybe whatever made it so much bigger also changed its lung capacity,” Maria said.
“I suppose that’s believable,” Kevin said. “There are any number of species that have evolved tricks that keep them from needing to breathe air for long times and let them go to great depths. Still, it has to come up eventually, and anything that big coming up to the surface should have been noticed before now.”
Maria shrugged. “I can’t guess yet where it might be hiding, but I’ve got a hypothesis as to why it’s only now presenting itself.”
“And that is?” Kevin asked.
“It ran out of food.”
Kevin thought about that for several seconds. “Yes. Yes, that would make sense.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t,” Merchant said. “Care to explain your thinking to the cameras?”
“The missing sea lions,” Kevin said. “Wherever it came from, however long it’s been here, up until now the sea lions must have been its primary source of nourishment. That’s why we didn’t find the large harems we should have on Isla Niña. It ate them.”
“We need to come up with something better to call it than ‘it,’” Simon said. “It needs a name.”
“No,” Cindy said. “No way. The last time you came up with a name for a giant monster of the deep, you named it Teddy Bear.”
“I say, Call It George,” Simon said, ignoring his sister.
“George as in named after the tortoise Lonesome George?” Maria asked. The tortoise in question had been the last of his sub-species and had died several years ago. His only legacy on the island now was as an image used to sell souvenirs.
“No, not George. Call It George. As in ‘I will hug it and pet it and squeeze it and call it George.’ That way we can have a ‘Who’s on first’ moment every time someone uses its name.”
“We are not calling it Call It George,” Maria said.
“Aw shit,” Cindy said, putting her head in her hands.
“What?” Maria asked.
“By flat out stating that we’re not calling it Call It George, you’ve pretty much just guaranteed that’s what we’re going to call it.”
Everyone else in the circle nodded, even some of the production crew. That was, after all, pretty much the unspoken rule.
“Fine. Whatever. We’re stuck with Call It George,” Maria said. “Can we get back on track, please?”
Monica snorted. “You mean we were ever on track to begin with?”
“Sea lions,” Maria said. “That was what was providing George with—”
“Call It George,” Simon corrected.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. That was what was providing Call It George with its food. But it’s too big for such a small island and food source. It ate all of them, so it had to adapt. It had to start eating other things. Like the iguana we saw.”
“And, when the opportunity presented itself, tourists,” Kevin said.
“So that’s it?” Merchant asked. “That’s the mystery solved?”
“No, that’s a hypothesis presented,” Kevin said. “Before we can get anyone to agree to permanently closing Isla Niña down to tourist traffic again, we need proof beyond blurry video footage.”
“Why not just kill the son of a bitch?” Gutierrez asked.
“Same reason we tried to avoid killing Teddy Bear,” Kevin said. “Whatever this is, it’s likely a brand new species or sub-species, and we’re biologists. We’re not in the business of exterminating endangered creatures.”
“Yes, because that policy worked out so well last time,” Gutierrez said, indicating Maria’s leg. “No offense.”
“Only a little taken,” Maria said. “Look, I understand anyone’s wish to kill something that scary, okay? If I were face to face with Teddy Bear again, I can’t say that I wouldn’t try to take her out. But we need to be scientists here, okay? And a scientist doesn’t go up to the only known member of a species and kill it unless they have to.”
“So what’s the plan instead?” Cindy asked.
“We need to go back to Isla Niña and get better proof. More video footage would be good, but the best would be a definite DNA sample. Anything at all that can tell us what exactly Call It George is, and how it got here. This is huge, everyone. This could be bigger than Teddy Bear.”
“Um, are you meaning that figuratively or literally?” Simon asked.
“Yes,” Kevin said with a smile.
“Mayor Estevez probably won’t be very happy about anything that would keep Isla Niña of the tourists’ itineraries,” Ernesto said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t give two tiny constipated shits what that man wants,” Maria said.
“Gutierrez, why don’t you head back to the Cameron, and make sure she’s refueled and ready to go,” Kevin said. “We’ll leave in about two hours.”
“Are you sure it’s wise to be out there with Call It George once it gets dark?” Monica asked.
“So far, we don’t have any evidence that it strays too far from Isla Niña, for whatever reason. We’ll anchor the Cameron with just enough distance that we’ll be safe, yet close enough to try observing it. We won’t make any more serious attempt to study it until the morning.”
“I’m on it, boss,” Gutierrez said.
Maria looked at the Gutsdorfs. “You two want to follow him and make sure all the equipment is stowed properly?”
The circle began to break up, and the TV crew took that as their cue to prepare their own equipment for the next trip out to the island. Ernesto looked like he was about to head out as well, but Maria caught him by the arm before he got to the door.
; “Hey, I actually wanted to ask you something,” Maria said.
“Go right ahead.”
“Uh, so when I went out to the highlands to see the tortoises this funny thing happened…”
She didn’t even have to finish before Ernesto put his forehead in his hands and shook his head. “Which tour group did you use? Was it Galápagos Alive?”
“Uh, no. The company was called All Greatness.”
“That would have been my second guess. I wish you would have asked me for a recommendation. I could have given you the names of plenty of tour guides who weren’t going to try telling you your life’s work was the work of El Diablo, or whatever the hell Al was preaching today.”
“So, that’s common?”
“Miss Quintero, it’s more than common. There are many people in the Galápagos that believe Darwin was, at best, misguided, or at worst, an agent of Satan.”
Monica wandered over to join them, listening with a frown on her face.
“But this is the Galápagos Freaking Islands, for Christ’s sake,” Maria said. “The biggest and best proof in the world that evolution and natural selection are true. How can there be people here who just ignore that?”
“What are you trying to say, that just because people believe in God they must be ignorant?” Monica asked. “Because I’ve got to warn you, I’m a Catholic and I would take offense to that.”
“Really?” Maria asked. “I guess you’ve never mentioned it before.”
“Does it surprise you?” Monica asked.
“A little bit.”
“Well, don’t be. I can be religious and scientific at the same time. I believe and God and Jesus, yet still acknowledge evolution as true.”
“I myself am a Methodist,” Ernesto said. “And I agree with you.”
“Okay, point taken,” Maria said. “I didn’t mean it to sound like I was anti-religion. But…”
“But groups like All Greatness and Galápagos Alive are spreading provably false information,” Ernesto said.
“Exactly,” Maria said. “How does that even happen?”
“All I can say is welcome to the Galápagos,” Ernesto said. “There are a huge influx of outside forces now, and little to no regulation over any of it. The same lack of competent leadership that led to overfishing in protected waters and unrestrained tourist trade resulted in certain groups seeing opportunities. Galápagos Alive is actually funded by an American mega-church. You’re lucky you didn’t use them instead. They probably would have blatantly branded you as an apostate or something right in front of the whole tour group. All Greatness at least is a purely family run business, second generation Galapaguenos, but also heavily influenced by certain missionaries.”
“But this is the Galápagos. Surely these people can’t deny evolution when faced with evidence of it every day.”
“Remember that influx of money I told you about? Guess how much of it goes to local education. There are a significant number of the native population who only know Darwin as that man with his name on everything. Whatever Al might have said on the tour about Darwin? There was nothing deliberately misleading about it. Al and others like him have been told that evolution is a lie meant to lead humanity astray, or something like that, and no one has ever shown them how to connect the dots in their environment to see the real picture.”
“So wait, all of this money coming into the Galápagos from the tourist trade, and none of it goes into education?”
“No. Most of it just goes into the pockets of companies whose CEOs will never even set foot on the islands. Some goes into the pockets of certain politicians. Only a small portion of the millions of dollars flowing through the archipelago actually go to the people who have to live here.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do about it?” Maria asked.
Ernesto gave a humorless laugh. “We? Are you now a Galápagos native?”
“No, but I’m someone who cares about the islands.”
“And also someone who will be gone in less than a week. No offense, Miss Quintero. I like you. I have not seen anything so far that doesn’t lead me to respect you. But just because your skin is not white doesn’t mean you’re not acting like hundreds of white wannabe saviors who have come to the Galápagos before. We, and by ‘we’ I mean the residents of the islands, will solve our own problems. Thank you for the offer, but just because we’re on islands in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean we aren’t our own people.”
“Right. You’re right. Sorry.”
“Apology accepted. I assure you, I’m not alone in wanting change. There are others who want what’s best for the people of the islands without losing what makes the Galápagos unique. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few people I can hit up for information on anything suspicious at Isla Niña.”
14
The Cameron anchored for the night within sight of Isla Niña, and although they were all reasonably certain that they were far enough away that Call It George wouldn’t disturb them, someone stayed on watch duty all through the night. Even the camera people joined in on the rotation, each of them equipped with night vision video equipment in the hope they would catch more evidence of the Isla Niña monster. They didn’t, but there were multiple reports from other watchers of large disturbances in the water right about where they had last seen the creature. It was definitely out there, and for whatever reason, it would only stay in one place.
For Maria, the night was longer than any other since the Cortez Incident. She couldn’t sleep, even though Kevin did his cute little snore next to her. Mostly because her leg hurt, the one that no longer existed. Every time she heard a particularly large splash against the side of the Cameron, her entire body tensed up against her will, as though it thought something was going to come crashing through the walls for her.
I can’t keep going on like this, Maria thought, but she had no idea how to deal with it. She finally found something that only partially resembled a fitful sleep when she pulled out a small flashlight and propped it in such a way that it shone directly on her bare left foot. Somehow, that sight was comforting.
In the morning, the Cameron bustled with pent-up energy. There was a general feel among everyone, unspoken but very evident among both the normal crew and the TV people, that this was the day they had been building towards. Maria tried to revel in the energy like everyone else, but all she could feel was a dull buzz in the back of her head, like an alarm clock that had been shoved under a pillow but still wouldn’t stop.
Kevin joined her as she stood on the deck, white-knuckling the railing as she stared out at the spot of ocean where they’d seen Call It George. “You doing okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Now let’s try the truth.”
“The boat’s not even moving and I think I’m going to puke. Some action heroine I am.”
“I figured as much. I’m actually here on behalf of Merchant. She figured it might be easier for you if I was the one who passed along her message.”
“Is this a message I’m going to want to hear?”
“No.”
“Are you going to do it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me straight then.”
“She says she wants you to take point on anything we do today.”
“And what exactly will we be doing today?”
“Basically, we’re going to try luring Call It George out for a clear camera shot. We’ve got some meat we’ll be throwing in the water. We’ll keep our distance as much as possible, but it will still require someone to get fairly close in one of the Zodiacs.”
“So I’m basically expected to go face to face with this thing?”
“That’s what Merchant wants, yeah. She said she needs a shot of you being heroic if she’s going to give this whole thing the narrative spin she needs.”
Maria snorted. “What, she can’t do anything with the shots Gary and Charlene got of me freaking out?”
“I’m assuming that�
��s a rhetorical question you don’t need me to answer.”
“Yes, it is. So what happens if I can’t? What happens if I can’t get in that Zodiac and get the shot of me feeding a sea monster?”
Kevin didn’t answer right away.
“Kevin?” she asked.
He sighed. “She claims it’s not her decision, but the network’s. She’s been in contact with them this whole time, of course. They know about Call It George, and they know about what happened. And if they don’t get the heroic Maria Quintero they believe they signed a contract for…” He trailed off.
“Yes?”
“Then it’s no longer your show. It’s back to the original plan of the show centering around me.”
Maria let out a deep breath. “That’s not so bad.”
“That was what I thought, too, but it means you would no longer be the one making the big money. Suddenly, all those medical bills are back on the plate.”
“If I asked for your help with them, though, you would, right?”
“Of course I would. But I also know you. You wouldn’t ask.”
“No, I probably wouldn’t.”
They stood in silence for several moments as Maria considered this. Out across the crystal blue waters of the Galápagos, the sea around Isla Niña was calm. There was no sign at the moment that anything uncanny might be hiding below the waves.
“It’s the tide,” Kevin said as though he could read her thoughts. Apparently, they’d been a couple long enough where they could do that freaky I-know-what-my-partner-is-really-thinking trick. “We made a chart this morning while you were still in bed. Every appearance we’ve had so far, even just the hard-to-see extra splashing during the night, has been during low tide. I think that might be a way to make this whole thing safer. We go in and throw out the bait before it gets to low tide, and we wait nearby with the cameras.”
Galapagos Below Page 11