The man pushed the mask back from his face and gave a quick nod. “Yah,” he said. “Good morning.”
There was a certain stiltedness in the man’s voice, a trace of accent that put a hard g sound in the middle of morning. Germany Tom guessed. Or maybe Austrian. Not that it mattered. He put his hands in the pockets of his pants and strolled closer.
Meanwhile, the man had stopped at the edge of the waves and dropped onto the damp sand. There was a black nylon web belt around his waist. Several fish hung from the belt: some snapper, a couple of grouper. Red fish blood ran over his leg and stained the tan beach. The fisherman took off the belt and laid it to his side, then took a blue anodized speargun from its holster and put it down beside the fish.
“That’s quite a catch,” Tom said.
“Yah,” said the man without looking up. He pulled his knees toward his chest and started to remove the fins from his feet.
“I guess there must be a lot of fish out there.” Tom took another step, and his shadow fell across the man.
The spearfisher finished taking off his fins and looked up at Tom. The man had short black hair coated with something that was clearly impervious to water. Even after going out under the waves, the man’s scalp was still covered in a forest of sharp little spikes. The guy was tall, with broad shoulders and well-cut muscles that spoke of a lot of time working out. He had a deep tan broken only by a small, pale scar at the corner of his mouth. It made the man look as though someone had once caught him on a hook and line.
“Yah, yah, yah. There are a lot of fish,” he said with obvious irritation. “It is the ocean. That’s where they put the fish.”
Tom smiled. “Hey, I guess that’s right.” He looked out at the water for a moment and nodded. “Sure is a pretty spot.”
The man with the spiky hair gave a disinterested grunt. He stood up, the belt of bloody fish in one hand and his speargun in the other. “Did you want something?”
“It’s just…” Tom gave a shrug. “I was wondering if I could see your spray gun.”
“It’s called a speargun.”
“Speargun, right. I’ve never seen one like that, and I thought maybe I could take a quick look.”
The question caused the man to roll his pale eyes, but he pushed the blue speargun toward Tom. “Here, be careful not to shoot yourself.”
Tom turned the device over in his hands. “Gee, this is fascinating.” He took the safety band from the gun and pulled it aside. Then he touched a finger to the tip of the spear. “Sharp.”
“Be careful,” said the man. “That gun is ready to fire.”
“Really?” Tom pointed the gun toward the ground and pulled the trigger.
There was a sharp grunt of escaping gas, and a plume of vapor rose up in the warm air. The man with the spiky hair continued to stare at Tom for several long seconds, then slowly looked down. Ten inches of shiny metal spear were still visible. The rest was buried in the man’s foot. “Uhhh… Uhhh…” The man looked up, looked down again, looked up, and a shiver ran through his body. “You… shot… me….”
“Wow,” Tom said calmly. “Sorry about that.” He reversed his hold on the speargun, got a good grip, and smashed the weapon into the man’s face.
The man with the spiky hair screamed. He staggered back, one foot still pinned by the spear, and windmilled his arms through the air. The belt of dead fish went flying as the man fell to the sand. “What are you doing?” he cried.
Casually Tom reached down, grabbed the exposed length of the spear, and gave a quick tug. The man screamed again as the spear came free. Tom took the spear, loaded it back into the gun, and pressed back the firing mechanism. “These gas-powered guns are amazing,” he said. He lifted the speargun one-handed and let his aim move over the man’s body. “I wonder if this thing would go all the way through an arm. Or what it would do to a knee.”
“You’re crazy!” The man did a little crab crawl backward.
“Naw.” Tom shook his head. He crouched down beside the bleeding man. “I’m only curious. I need a little information.” He tapped the sharp point of the spear against the man’s leg, and the man did another crab step away.
“What is it you want?” His accent was stronger now. What was transformed into vot.
“I’m looking for a woman.”
The man gave a weak smile. “You want a woman? I know many women on this island.”
“I bet you do. The woman I’m looking for is named Noel.”
“Noel? That name is not—”
The point of the spear was suddenly hard against the man’s forehead. “You know,” Tom said softly “I don’t know if this thing would penetrate a head as hard as yours, but I’m willing to try.”
“Wait! Wait!” The man ducked away from the spear, covering his head with his hands. “I think I know this woman Noel.”
“Think?”
“I know her.” The man nodded quickly. “Yah, I know her.”
“Then you can tell me where to find her.”
“Red Bay. There is a bar called The Rip.”
“Rip.”
The man nodded. “The Rip. Yah.”
“And I’ll find Noel there?”
“Every day she is there.”
“I’ve got another name for you. The name is Loki. Noel works for him.”
“Loki?” The man had a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t know.”
The man might be lying, but Tom didn’t think so. This guy was just a thug. Hired beef. If Tom was going to get to Loki’s Caribbean operations, he was going to have to find an operative farther up the chain of command. Someone like this woman, Noel.
Tom gave the man a bright smile. “Well, okay, then.” He straightened, took the speargun, and flung it as far as he could into the warm, turquoise waters of the bay. “You be careful if you go back in the water. An injury like that one on your foot, you might attract sharks.”
It was still a beautiful morning. A nice breeze kicked up from the Atlantic side of the island, and the palm trees began to sway.
One step closer to taking Loki down. One step closer to giving Gaia a normal life. Tom squeezed his eyes shut as he walked up into the shade of the trees. He tried not to hear the man crying on the beach behind him.
GAIA
A is for apple. B is for… Who gives a damn what B is for?
All I know is, school is for sleeping. Think of it as an experiment in alternate learning techniques. You’ve seen those programs that are supposed to teach you things in your sleep, right? You know: Slap this CD in the machine, pop under the covers, and eight hours later you’ll stop smoking, or lose fifty pounds, or learn demotic Greek. They say it on TV, so it must be true.
Funny, of the lectures that buzzed past while I was off in dreamland, I’ve remembered, well … absolutely nothing. Maybe I’ve soaked in some odd chunks of learnage without realizing it, but I doubt it. I have concluded that if you fall asleep with a pen in your hand, you’re probably going to wake up with ink in places you don’t want it. Results of my experiment: Sleeping in school is not the best thing you can do to further your academic career.
So generally, if you’re looking for a recommendation, I would vote against it. But sometimes-when, for example, you’ve been out all night jumping tall buildings in a single bound or maybe just climbing them with all the skill of a monkey on crack-you need to catch a short nap. Short like all of calculus. Maybe half of history.
It probably wouldn’t have been necessary if I could have relaxed and caught a couple of hours of sleep at home. Only there were a few problems on that front. First, I was missing the home part. There was this house on the Upper East Side and I did have a room there, but it was Natasha’s house, and the room was clearly a loaner. Natasha’s was just another place where my father had ditched me. The latest convenient kennel for an unwanted daughter.
Hey, Gaia, here’s your new pal Natasha and her irritatingly smart and pretty daughter, Tatiana. See you—I’m out of here. Maybe I di
dn’t get it word for word, but I think that’s a fairly accurate transcription of what my father said before he left.
A week ago I didn’t even know the people that I’m now living with. And that points directly to sleep problem number two: I don’t trust Natasha and Tatiana. Okay, Tatiana did help me kick a little ass when I made a slight mistake. And my dad must have trusted Natasha; otherwise he wouldn’t have left me with her.
But my dad also left me with his friend George, and George’s wife, Ella, turned out to be the leading candidate for the new Wicked Bitch of the West. In the end Ella died for me. Weird, but worth a lot of points on the trustworthy scale. That didn’t make living with her any fun. Any way you want to measure it, my father’s record in selecting foster care does not look so good.
My advice: When you get to the point where you’re more relaxed in calculus class than you are in your own bed, it’s time to consider moving.
ACGT
ECONOMICS WAS ALMOST OVER BEFORE Gaia remembered to look around for Heather. She made a sleepy survey of the class, but at the moment the Village School seemed to be blissfully Heather-free. Gaia felt a twinge of guilt. Not a big twinge. A day without Heather Gannis was not exactly Gaia’s idea of a day without sunshine. But lately, for whatever weird reason, Heather seemed interested in turning over a new leaf—which apparently meant befriending Gaia.
Now Gaia needed to talk to Heather about her new boyfriend, Josh Kendall. She needed to convince Heather that Josh was dangerous. Not dangerous in that leather-jacket-wearing, high cheekbones, darkly brooding, bad-boy way. Dangerous dangerous. Josh might be gorgeous, but he was also a killer.
Gaia had thought that Josh was dead until she saw him with Heather. She still didn’t understand how Josh wasn’t dead. Maybe he was some kind of clone. It wouldn’t be the first time he had been. She already knew about at least two Josh clones. Would number three be that surprising? Or maybe his whole death had been faked. Either way, Josh was walking around the city, breathing air when he had no right to be and making out with Heather.
Gaia had already made one attempt at warning Heather away from him. That discussion had not gone exactly the way Gaia had hoped. In fact, it had been handled with such typical Gaia diplomatic skill that, instead of Gaia’s convincing Heather to stay away from Josh, Heather had ended up believing that Gaia wanted Josh for herself. It was tempting to leave Heather alone. But Gaia couldn’t do that again. The last time she’d tried to warn Heather of imminent trouble, Heather had blown her off. Gaia had backed down, and Heather had ended up getting stabbed. Heather could be a pain in the ass, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die.
The bell rang. Gaia stretched and rubbed away fresh eye boogers as she headed into chemistry lab. Heather and Gaia were in the same lab group for chemistry, which should have generated both a chance to chat and some high-quality awkward moments, but there was still no sign of Heather among the test tubes and stained Formica tables of the lab. However, she was most definitely missed by the others in attendance.
Gaia was barely through the door of the lab before Melanie Young came running up to her. “Where’s Heather?”
“I thought it was your day to watch her.” Gaia dropped her books on the lab table and stifled a yawn.
The answer failed to thrill Melanie. She looked over Gaia’s shoulder and did a scan of the room, as if she were expecting to find Heather hiding in a corner. “We’ve got a big experiment today, and Heather… You know, she always…”
Carries you losers, thought Gaia.
“Organizes things,” said Melanie.
Gaia saw Megan Stein, the other member of Heather’s little chemistry coven, approaching with a similar look of panic on her face. Megan and Melanie were both part of Heather’s sprawling entourage, the adoring Friends of Heather. Gaia didn’t know much about Melanie, but Megan was in a number of advanced classes and had a good grade point average. It was assumed she had something that looked like a brain. But in the absence of their leader, the M&M twins seemed to be verging on mental anarchy.
In most cases Gaia would have been overjoyed to watch them twitch. But ever since that time Heather had forced them to go undercover to help Gaia out of a rough patch, she’d felt somewhat indebted towards them. And now, since they were all in the same lab group, their bad grade was her bad grade. “It’s all right,” said Gaia. “I’ll do the stupid experiment.”
The relief on their faces was in the range of gratitude usually reserved for doctors who had just performed some lifesaving surgery. Gaia ignored the pathetic display. She slipped on a pair of always flattering lab goggles and picked up the guide sheet from the chem teacher’s desk. As the other groups formed and started to work through the steps of the experiment, Gaia grabbed an armful of glassware and got to work.
The experiment was actually interesting for once. Starting with a small sample of DNA, a series of chemicals was added that would cause the DNA to break into fragments and duplicate. Eventually what had started as an invisible droplet would grow into a large, stringy mass. Like most high school experiments, it wasn’t exactly Nobel Prize material, but to generate so much DNA that you could really see it with your own eyes sounded sort of cool to Gaia.
Melanie and Megan scurried to bring chemicals and watched as Gaia titrated the mix by slowly dripping in reagents from a tube, but soon enough they wrinkled their noses and leaned away from the fumes. Heather might not be present in body, but she was certainly present in spirit.
There were several steps to the experiment, and Gaia lost herself in the complexities. For a few minutes she actually managed to forget about warning Heather, stopping Josh, missing Ed, and wondering if her father or her uncle was really to blame for all the misery in her life. Step by step she walked through the instructions, focusing on nothing but the task at hand. Melanie and Megan brought over the materials as Gaia asked for them. Otherwise the two chatted on about something else through the whole class. Gaia didn’t pay enough attention to even guess what they were talking about.
Ten minutes from the end of class, the beaker full of DNA was boiling along like a miniature pot of tea over the blue flame of a Bunsen burner. Gaia leaned over to read the instructions for the final steps of the experiment.
Some background information on the sheet caught her eye. DNA was made up of four amino acids. Only four. There was enough information in a DNA strand to hold the pattern for a virus, a person, a tree, or a monkey. And for all the incredible variety of life, it was all based on only those four chemicals.
Gaia stared at the words. She let go of the glass rod she had been using to stir the DNA mix and picked up the lab sheet. Adenine. Guanine. Thymine. Cytosine. She mouthed the names silently to herself. There was something nagging at the edge of her brain. Something that wouldn’t quite come clear.
It wasn’t like this was totally new information to Gaia. She knew the basics of how DNA was formed. Science hadn’t been the number-one subject in her father’s program of accelerated learning for freaky smart and fearless children, but there had been enough. So what was it about this lab sheet that was making telephones ring in her skull?
“Gaia!” shouted Melanie. “Is it supposed to look like that?”
A pungent odor told Gaia what was wrong even before she looked down. The fluid had boiled dry. All that was left of the DNA the experiment was supposed to generate was a brown lump baked hard on the bottom of the Pyrex beaker.
“It’s ruined!” said Megan.
Melanie leaned in closer. Her brown eyes looked frog large through the lab goggles. “We’re going to get a bad grade on the lab.” She turned her plastic-lens glare on Gaia. “I thought you said you knew how to do this.”
Gaia started to make some comment, but before she could get the proper words to her mouth, she grabbed for the lab sheet and looked at it again. Adenine. Cytosine. Guanine. Thymine. ACGT. Gaia turned off the gas burner and flipped off her goggles.
M&M were saying something. Gaia ignored them. She clo
sed her eyes and visualized the long, twisting strand of DNA. In her mind the whole thing was shaped like some kind of exotic key. If only she could remember where she left the lock.
Greek Tragedy
“MS. GANNIS?”
Heather looked up and blinked in an effort to clear her eyes. She had slept through the first class of the day, gotten dressed during the second, and munched on aspirin during the third. By fourth period she had judged herself ready to face the world. If only the world wouldn’t insist on being so bright and noisy. “Um… what?”
A hand came down quickly and snatched the sunglasses away from her face. “We are not allowed to wear sunglasses in class,” said Mr. Hirschberg. “You should know that.”
Heather held in a groan. The light in the room was so, so bright. Like being on the inside of the sun. And every little photon of that light seemed to be traveling straight into her skull, where it was instantly transformed into agony.
“Sorry,” she said through gritted teeth.
The teacher stared at her for a moment longer. Then he gave a slight shake of his head and carried the sunglasses up to the desk at the front of the room. “You’ll get these back at the end of the day.”
Heather rested her head in her hands and let her dark hair fall forward to curtain her eyes. She had thought her headache was easing up. But it had turned out that the headache had only been hiding, waiting to ambush her the moment she sat down at her desk. She wished she kept a small drill in her purse. Just to drill one small hole, right in the middle of her forehead. Something to let out the pressure. Maybe a pencil through the eye would do.
At the front of the class Mr. Hirschberg began to explain some tedious detail of that perennial favorite, Oedipus at Thebes. Heather moaned to herself as the chalk screeched across the board. Greek tragedy was definitely the right class for her. It seemed like her whole life was becoming some kind of Greek tragedy.
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