by John Bolin
The boy turned and led her down the hallway, through a set of metal doors, into a white windowless stairwell, and down three floors. He was dressed in a traditional Quechua wraparound skirt, and brightly colored tattoos lined his back and chest.
He’d been trying to tell her something important. There’d been some look in his eye that Alex couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was simply the same connection she’d felt with Tima’s tribe. She had to admit that seeing another Indian was a relief, but she was anxious to find Tima.
Where am I?
At the bottom of the stairwell was a door leading to the exterior. A series of metal clicks sounded, and the boy pulled down on the handle. As the door opened, a brief suction echoed against the walls. A shaft of muted moonlight filtered through the open door and a waft of thick, warm air struck Alex’s face.
The boy led Alex through the door and into the warmth of the outdoors. It was early, nearly dawn. She was surprised to find two armed guards, dressed in white, waiting on either side of the exterior door. Neither spoke to her. One said a few words to the other in a European language—German, Alex thought—and the other pointed to a walking path. The boy went that way, and Alex followed.
The scene around her was overwhelming. She felt like she had stepped into a massive arboretum. Giant trees towered above carefully manicured lawns. Water was everywhere: Fountains and streams and a giant azure lagoon that stretched out just beyond the buildings in front of her and gleamed in the bright moonlight. The air was perfumed with the scent of flowers. Gas-powered lanterns sat alight wherever she looked, adding a flickering glow to the pre-dawn gloom.
Pathways made of perfectly hewn white stones snaked between a dozen pristine granite and glass buildings. People walked briskly between the buildings, dressed in white jumpsuits, like the one she’d found in her room and was wearing now.
As Alex followed her guide down the white path, she scanned the faces. She noticed Caucasians and Africans and Asians, all dressed in white clothes. She saw other Quechua, dressed as the boy was. Everyone looked healthy and fit, especially the Indians. Alex had worked with hundreds of Indians in the rain forest. Many of them had battled disease or malnourishment and looked sickly. These Indians were all tall and strong and healthy.
They were scurrying about, weeding gardens, carrying water, or on their way to something. Daily life. Most of them were accompanied by men in white, who used hand gestures to communicate with them. From what she could tell, the Quechua mixed normally with the non-Indian population. Alex wondered if there were other newly discovered tribes, like the Mek, living here.
The Indian boy giggled as he pranced down a path, looking back occasionally to be sure Alex was still behind him. It was like some bizarre scene from The Wizard of Oz. The boy pointed and cooed all around him, showing off his home.
A small river ran parallel with the path. On the opposite riverbank, Alex noticed what at first had appeared to be tall, thin trees. Looking closer, she could see that they were actually metallic posts dressed to look like trees. Alex smiled. Talk about green industry. Even the architecture had been designed to complement the surroundings. What was this place?
As she walked, she saw that small metallic discs protruded every few feet up the length of each post on both sides. Beyond the posts was a wonderland of flora and fauna. Giant trees and lush gardens were situated around meandering streams.
Ahead of them, wandering across a picturesque meadow toward the trail, was a herd of deer. It reminded Alex of a painting or postcard, a perfect picture. Alex watched one of the deer stop, its tail lifted to alert the others. Though they seemed to be heading the direction of the path, the herd turned sharply and took off into the brush. A flurry of motion and Alex’s eyes were drawn upward. A flock of brightly colored birds took flight between the branches of towering trees. Even in the pre-morning light the colors of the birds were almost impossibly brilliant.
Alex became aware of a massive tree ahead of them. Monkeys and parrots fluttered and dangled all over its ancient branches, which were dotted with large white cocoons. Colorful butterflies flew in zigzagged patterns high overhead. Almost everything here seemed more extreme in some way than its counterpart out in the Amazon jungle she knew. Here it would be brighter or bigger or more beautiful. Was this some kind of lost world?
Alex noticed a creature, probably a sloth, easing its way up the gigantic tree trunk. Even the sloth seemed to have stepped from the pages of a children’s book or movie set. All the creatures she’d seen so far looked healthy and well-nourished. They seemed to be living quite comfortably despite the dozens of humans zipping around nearby. The happiest zoo Alex had ever seen.
In the darker corners, between the tree trunks, Alex caught a glimpse of another animal, maybe a jaguar. That was odd. Were the predators free to wander around with the prey? Or had the peacefulness of this place calmed their killer instincts? What was this place and who made it?
She watched as two howler monkeys played in the branches over her head, near one of the posts. The two animals smacked and bit each other playfully. One of them lost its balance and swung through the air, aiming for another branch. But it hit something in midair, as if it had struck an invisible wall. The monkey let out a cry of pain and fell thirty feet to the ground.
Instinctively, Alex took a step toward the animal, but her young guide held her back. He spoke in his dialect and pointed at the metal posts.
Was it some kind of virtual fence? Some electronic barrier that could stop heavy objects in mid-flight? The boy’s eyes darted around as if he were trying to figure out what to do next.
“I wouldn’t think of going past there,” one of the guards said, hustling toward them. “Unless you want to be something’s breakfast. I guarantee they can kill you a lot faster than I can.”
Alex turned to look across the jungle scene. She noticed that the whole racket of bird and animal sounds had all but ceased. “Who can?”
Two more guards appeared at the shoulders of the first. “Who can what?” the first guard said.
“Who can kill me fast?”
The guards didn’t answer. The new arrivals came to stand at Alex’s shoulders. They prodded her back toward the path.
Her young guide took her by the hand. “Come,” he said with a rather anxious smile.
Alex obliged. As they walked, the trees grew denser. Soon, pink sunlight crept through the branches, but only in shafts and spotted patterns. As she walked, the words kept tumbling around in her head.
They can kill you a lot faster than I can.
* * *
Gator was right. Peter was sinking.
The water now filled the lower part of the box. Peter figured there were probably five gallons of water already in the reliquary. At this rate the weight of the incoming water would soon overpower the reliquary’s buoyancy, and he would go under. He looked at Gator. Gator’s box was definitely taking in less water, maybe because he hadn’t been moving around.
As Peter looked through his window into Gator’s, he saw a school of football-sized fish swim between them. He caught a glimpse of one. The fish had a bulbous head with silvery fangs and a long, thin tail almost like that of a tadpole. It glinted as it swam, looking almost mechanical. The fish turned and disappeared in the water.
Peter’s breathing became difficult. He could feel the air in the chamber thinning. His exhaled carbon dioxide was returning to him as a slow killer, squeezing out the little remaining oxygen.
His mind began to toggle in and out of reality.
He was twelve years old, standing in the sun, squinting down the road. It was hot, even for Montana—almost one hundred degrees. His shirt was soaked in sweat, and he kept thinking about the lemonade and air-conditioning inside. He thought he saw something. A truck? He waited, watching the dust gather in a little cloud. It was closer. Yes, it was definitely a truck.
His heart was beating faster. Of course it was. He hadn’t seen his father in two years, but he’d always
known he’d come back. He had promised he would. The truck was loud, banging its way down the road. Peter could see that it was red. Was Dad’s truck red? He remembered it was black. He must have painted it. Or bought a new one.
Now it was only a hundred yards away. Peter moved to the middle of the road. He stood, waving his hands, smiling from ear to ear. He started jumping up and down. It was Dad. He was back.
The truck honked but didn’t slow down. Peter stayed where he was, waiting for his dad to slam on the brakes. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the red truck swerved and passed by. An old man yelled at Peter as he passed.
Peter stood in the road, his chest heaving. Tears rolled from his eyes. He’d already been waiting for three hours. That was it. Mom was right. He wasn’t coming back, no matter what he’d said.
That’s the way things are. The thought came to him like a news flash. Things either happen or they don’t. Wishing for something doesn’t make it so. You believe something when you see it. Right there, standing on the cracked pavement of that old highway, he decided he’d never wish for anything again. Life was cruel to people with wishes.
He began to walk back to the farmhouse. Inside it would be cooler—
Wait a minute. That was it: the temperature-control system.
Peter looked down at his feet, now totally covered by the reeking water of the Amazon jungle. Just below his foot, against the rear side of the box, a small stream of bubbles was emerging from the temperature-control unit. The valve was open, allowing at least a small amount of air into the box, along with the water. If he could shift the entire box one turn so that the Plexiglas was facing up, the leaking might stop and more air could come in.
Adrenaline pumping through him, Peter began to rock his box. As he did, water pulsed into the chamber. The weight of his body complicated the physics of rolling the box over. Finally, with little energy left, Peter tipped the box tipped up on one long edge. It crashed back down on the opposite side, sending water sloshing around the chamber.
Immediately, he felt fresh air seep into the chamber. He took several long deep breaths. It was rancid jungle air, full of decay, but to him it tasted like sweet ocean breeze. He waved at Gator and banged on the side of the box, wishing he could let him know what he’d done, but Gator looked okay for the moment. He wondered about Linc, Tima, Skins, and Alex. Mostly about Alex.
He lay his head against the aluminum and breathed deeply, organizing his thoughts. Dim Amazon light suddenly shined through the Plexiglas window, now directly above his head. His eyes focused on the scene above him.
Oh, no.
* * *
Two guards flanked Alex as she walked down the path, following the boy. Looking behind her, Alex saw that the building she’d been in had disappeared behind the trees. She could still hear the distinct sounds of humanity though: the low hum of machinery, the echo of footsteps, and even an occasional verbal exchange.
She looked up into the trees towering over her. What had at first appeared to be branches and vines transformed into a vast network of ancient-looking houses connected by an intricate system of bridges and ladders. All of it was suspended more than one hundred feet in the air. It looked like an eight-year-old’s dream.
Ultra-modern buildings hung next to other structures that looked like ancient Incan lodging. All of the structures were connected by rope bridges. It was The Jetsons meets Robinson Crusoe. The technology and architecture here were staggering, but even more so was the idea of an ancient culture colliding so peacefully with a modern one, taking up residence together in this mystical valley.
The boy marched under the tree house structures to another opening in the forest. In the middle of the clearing, snug up against a mountain’s rock face, was another building, a sprawling dome made of glass and metal. A massive geodesic biosphere.
The mountainside behind the dome looked like a postcard of the old Indian dwellings at Mesa Verde. It was littered with caves and structures. Ladders, walkways, and steep steps connected the various rooms and structures. Alex could see figures moving from one cave to the next. A living ancient Indian village. It was incredible.
A series of building pods—like mini Epcot Center spheres—were connected to the main dome. Some of the pods were nestled in the branches of the trees like beehives, all tied together with aluminum ladders and ramps. Scattered around the grounds were ancient vine-covered pyramids and temples and homes. An ancient Incan village synthesized with modern technology.
The dome appeared to be the central structure of this place. She felt like she’d found the centerpiece of the lost world. The building was gigantic, as wide as several football fields. Its roof was composed of hexagonal panels made of glass or Plexiglas.
Once at the main building, the Quechua boy handed Alex off to the guards, who hustled her through two sets of glass doors. The insulation around the doors made a sucking sound as they passed through an anteroom and into the huge, glass-paneled dome itself. Once inside, Alex stopped involuntarily.
It was as if God himself had lifted the Garden of Eden and put it down here. It was a tropical paradise. Tall moss-covered trees towered above delicate palms. Flowers of every variety and color burst out of the ground. Crawling vines formed bright green loops and patterns as they hung from the tree branches. As impossibly verdant as it had been outside the dome, inside it was twice as rich and suffused with life.
Water was everywhere. Bubbling streams meandered across the ground. All the water flowed toward a lagoon on the opposite of the dome. The lagoon and the dome itself were situated against a steep mountainside. A waterfall cascaded down from towering rocks into the lagoon. Mist formed at the bottom of the waterfall and rose off the water like steam. Brightly colored birds swooped and cawed in the air above the lagoon, drawing Alex’s eyes up.
The ceiling was even higher on the inside than it appeared to be from the outside. Each clear panel looked to be thirty or forty feet across. An intricate steel cage held the entire structure together, like a metal spiderweb. In addition to hundreds of smaller trees, two titanic trees—strangler figs—spanned the entire two hundred feet to the top of the dome, their branches meshing with the steel of the structure, as if holding it up. Alex recognized the snarled roots and looping branches that formed the latticework trunk of the massive hollow trees.
At the base of one of the trees, an elevator had been inset into the trunk. It reminded Alex of a gigantic sequoia tree in California that she and her family had driven their family car through when she was a child. These trees put those to shame.
Benches and table were scattered around. Men and women in white coats moved throughout the structures, appearing and disappearing in the thick woods. She half-expected that if she looked, she’d find rows of cubicles lined up against trees and copy machines next to climbing vines.
Inside, the temperature had to be fifteen degrees lower than outside, comfortable but not cold. Alex was sure she could feel a slight breeze but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The geodesic clear ceiling panels above her head allowed the morning light to filter in as if she were still outside. Alex could hear music being piped into the room. Somehow, it made the room feel more like a fancy Vegas hotel lobby than a jungle research center.
If that’s what this was. She needed to find out. Whoever had built this place was certainly powerful and visionary. He seemed to have the ability to control and enhance life, if the creatures and plants she’d seen were any indication. If here was where Tima’s illness had started, surely the architect of this place would know how to cure her.
“Let’s go,” the guard said.
The guards led Alex along another path, through a glade of trees and across a footbridge that spanned a bubbling stream. The place was alive with color, light, and life. They passed rows of orchids, jasmine, and lilacs, all filling the air with fragrance. Animals roamed freely, unnerving Alex a bit. Howler monkeys swung from branches overhead, a solitary sloth moved along one of the tree trunks and a pai
r of spotted jaguars lounged in the nearby grass.
The trees in front of her opened up again, and she was standing on the edge of the lagoon, facing the waterfall. The guards stopped.
Ahead, Alex saw a distinguished-looking gentleman sitting on the edge of the lagoon, gazing into the water. The man was white, like most of the guards. He had salt and pepper hair and a neat white mustache and beard. A young Ernest Hemingway. He wore a stylish black suit with an open collar. The guards nudged Alex closer.
“Did you know,” the man asked as Alex approached, “that the Amazon Basin is the most fertile ecosystem in the world?” He still didn’t look up at Alex. “Hidden in these jungles are the answers to the biggest problems of the world: energy, disease, defense.” His deep voice was rich and carried a slight foreign lilt—Irish, or maybe Scottish. It carried an aura of authority and wisdom.