"You downloaded a video of men playing baseball?"
"Yeah. That's where the four bases come from. First, second, third, and home. The rules must be slightly different for gays. They don't kiss on first, although I did see two guys whispering into each other's ears, which is kind of a kiss. And since men don't have boobs, there are no boob grabs on second. But when a guy reaches third, a guy often pats him on the butt."
"And the sex?"
"Right as you cross home plate. I saw a guy who hit the baseball a long way – I don't know where the baseball fits into gay sex by the way. But he was a very fast runner and he ran by first base without getting a kiss and he ran by second base without having anything grabbed and he ran by third and the coach was running almost beside him encouraging him to have sex and then he slid onto home plate and the guy on the other team jumped right on top of him on the ground."
"They had sex on home plate?"
"Right there in front of everybody. Then the guy who was the first to reach home base ran around jumping and screaming and his teammates came out and jumped and screamed and there was a whole bunch of butt touching and hugging and the crowd went crazy too. I didn't know that having sex could be that exciting."
"Few people do."
# # # # # # # #
"Reese, your dad will tell you what real sex is about tonight. What you saw was a baseball game and it's not the same as sex. The thing about kissing, grabbing boobs, butt touching, and naming a base after them? That's a code that some stupid men use to tell other stupid men how they and their girl friends are getting along. Women hate it. Don't ever ask a girl friend, Can we go to second base now? You'll be lucky if you see her again."
"Got it."
"Walking a girl home is not having sex. If you were to accidentally touch her butt or her boob, that's all it is. An accident. Tell her you're sorry. Don't deliberately have that accident. Women hate that."
"Got it. So I can make sure that Annika gets home safely and I don't have to marry her."
"You can make sure she gets home safely without having to marry her. However, you do need to be polite to her."
"Do I have to walk beside her?"
"How were you planning to walk her home otherwise?"
"About ten paces behind in case something came up from behind her suddenly and I had to warn her."
"Walk beside her. It's easier for the two of you to have a conversation that way."
"Do I have to talk? Couldn't I just let her talk? Girls are good at talking. I'm not."
"If she asks you a question, you should answer it. Do the two of you ever talk in school?"
"No. Never. We just nod at each other."
"Try talking. You'll learn a little bit about her."
"What if I learn that she hates me?"
"She wouldn't have invited you to walk her home if she did."
"Do I have to start the conversation?"
"I think you can rely on Annika to do that."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 32
It was early December, a few days after the second unsuccessful attempt on Lucas' life. University classes were out for the holidays and the gyms were locked up tight. Dreamer had returned to B.C. and was staying with her grandparents this week. Theo had been spending a lot of time on his personal research project – Panther Girl. He had asked Lucas to bring the ship down to the island and witness what Theo had been seeing. Theo wouldn't tell him anything else until Lucas was there.
The Wilizy/Asia was now high in the sky over the island. By high, I mean very high. Theo had a reason for being well above cloud level and shared it with Lucas. "Panther Girl knows when I'm slinging invisibly over the island at tree top level. She looks at where I am and nods at me."
Lucas had had his own experience with a female of some kind knowing exactly where he was when he was flying invisibly, but he wasn't ready to share that with Theo yet.
"I don't think that she'll be able to see me if I'm as high as the Wilizy/Asia can get, so that's why I asked you to bring the ship."
On that, Theo was proven correct. They flew the ship way high over Panther Girl's head and she didn't look up.
"OK, the ship is here. So am I. What am I supposed to witness?"
"Something strange is going on," Theo started. "Remember that I told you that the old women were left here by people wanting them to die, and how they didn't give them enough food, and how they were counting on the alligators to kill them all off."
"Yeah. Bunch of jerks."
"Two old women are still alive, but they shouldn't be. They don't have enough food. Panther Girl traps some small animals and steals some food from the nearest town, but that's all the food she can give them. Fishing is too dangerous; there's no arable land where they can grow anything even if they had seeds, which they don't. The food that was left for them is all gone. I gave them a little until I ran out of money. But the women are still alive. I saw them eating venison!"
"There'd be no reason for any deer to come over to an island that has nothing much for them to eat."
"Right. So I did some time-travelling. About once or twice a month, a big deer swims across the water from the Canadian side and climbs up onto shore. It doesn't live long. Some big beast kills it and Panther Girl butchers it. I looked at the deer's body before the last butchering. It had claw marks on the hindquarters and a huge crater where its throat used to be. Some big animal killed that deer, but no such animal is living on this small island. Panther Girl has a knife and that's it. She has no bow and arrow, no spear, and nothing else that could bring down a big buck. If she did have such weapons, I'd have seen the marks on the carcass."
"The beast followed the buck over from Canada? Chased it?"
"I found where the last kill had come ashore. Soggy land. Perfect for leaving hoof prints, or paw prints, or any kind of print. I found the deer's hoof marks. I didn't see prints of anything following it. The women are out of food again. When that has happened in the past, a deer has swum across to the island."
"That's why we just took that very slow trip over the entire island. You were looking for the beast with the ship's telescope?"
"Right. It's not here."
"In a cave somewhere?"
"Perhaps. I didn't find a cave, but perhaps."
"What's the plan?" Lucas was definitely interested now. It was a hunt for an answer to a mysterious question.
"The sun is almost down. It's dark enough for us to turn on the ship's heat sensors and they'll give us a much better reading than the portable sensor. We'll take one more trip around the island looking for sources of heat. Both old women are imprisoned inside the camp. Panther Girl will have a small heat signature. We're looking for a big heat signature. I'm thinking a full-sized panther."
# # # # # # # #
It was now completely dark. The only heat signatures that they had seen were from the two old women and Panther Girl. The Wilizy/Asia was hovering high over the northern edge of the island and the boys were scanning the coastline with the heat sensor looking for a swimming deer. Theo was working the sensor. "Panther Girl is crossing north into Canada," Theo said.
"Is she swimming?" Lucas asked.
"Walking, probably. The water's not too deep. For some reason, she's not bothered by alligators."
"Do alligators sleep at night?"
"Dunno." Theo answered and shrugged simultaneously.
"Where's she going?"
"Inland. She steals food from the small towns. I don't think she does it too often or else the people would get upset and bring in dogs."
"She's not going anywhere near any homes. She's in deep woods now."
...
Theo tapped Lucas on his shoulder and pointed. "A heat signature is directly ahead of Panther Girl. Large deer, I'd say."
"I'll bring the ship directly overhead. Is that her sneaking around behind the deer?"
"Looks to be."
...
Theo again. "She's
driving it towards the water."
"Did you see how fast she is? It tried to break to the left and she got in its way." Lucas was always impressed by fast.
"It's now trying to the right. Again, she cut it off."
"You and I could do that with slings. We couldn't do it if we had to run through thick woods."
"She runs on all fours." Theo said. "I've seen her do that in daytime. Very quick."
"She won't be able to run fast enough when that deer has the wide open riverbank to escape down."
...
"Lucas, what's stopping the deer from escaping? Look. Panther Girl is behind it and driving it towards the river. It's breaking to the left; now it stops; breaks to the right; it stops again; breaks to the left; stops again. Why does it keep stopping? It has a clear path."
"Are the heat sensors on max?"
"Yeah," Theo answered. "There are only two heat signatures on that beach. The deer's and Panther Girl's."
"The deer is in the water. Swimming hard."
"Panther Girl isn't following. She's moving towards the little town now."
"Follow the deer."
...
"That's a kill." Lucas was interpreting a motionless lump of heat.
"And that's the scream of a large cat."
"Did you see where it came from?"
"I didn't. One second the deer was alone. The next second, there were two heat signatures."
"Where'd the beast go?" Lucas looked over Theo's shoulder to see the sensor monitor himself.
"On the ground. Eating?"
"No. That's only one heat signature. It's too small for two animals."
"The beast is gone. Vanished. Let's find Panther Girl. She should still be in that town. She was there only five minutes ago."
# # # # # # # #
Lucas and Theo didn't find Panther Girl that night. They did see her at first light when she left the settlement of huts, walked directly to the kill, and began butchering. She carved off some of the big pieces and carried them into camp. She then returned to the kill site, pulled the rest of the carcass onto her shoulders, and walked into camp with it. Afterwards, she washed herself off by swimming in alligator infested waters.
"This whole island is definitely weird," Lucas said.
"Wait until Panther Girl tells you her name."
"I'm meeting her?"
"Yup. Her and an old woman named Marie. I believe that Marie is her mother, but she never calls her that."
"Why are we meeting Panther Girl and Marie?"
"Some men will arrive soon by copter. According to Panther Girl, they'll shoot anybody still alive in the camp and throw the bodies in the water for the alligators. Since the old women are prevented from running away by the dog collars, it won't take them long. The men will be leaving a new lot of old women to starve to death on the island. Marie wants these men to die. I think she expects us to help."
"Do you like Panther Girl? You sound like you do."
"I wouldn't want to be stranded alone with her on this island if she were hungry."
# # # # # # # #
Lucas and Theo met Panther Girl at their original campsite. They had left the Wilizy/Asia anchored directly overhead in case they needed it; plus they were wearing their slings. They both had checked that all their weapons were working – a huge beast that appears and disappears without notice was something that prompted caution. Theo had whispered a warning to Lucas about mind-messaging. "If Panther Girl can see invisible slings, who knows what else she could see or hear."
"Where is she now?" Lucas whispered back.
"Directly above you but behind the tree trunk," Theo whispered, and then more loudly – "You can come down. He won't hurt you."
Panther Girl came down the tree face first, circled Lucas warily on all fours, sniffing. Then she went back to the tree she had been in, stood up on her two legs, crossed her arms in front of her, and leaned back against the trunk. "Where are your skin colours, Shango?"
"My name is Lucas," he said. He noticed that she had a nice voice.
"Shango," she corrected. "Are you an imposter? Your skin was coloured before."
"I was in a fight and was injured. I'm healed now."
"Shango is a fighter," she admitted and nodded approval. "You said he was your brother, Theogun. He's short compared to you."
Lucas looked sideways at Theo and raised an eyebrow in question at the Theogun mention.
Theo refused to message an explanation. "Even though we are different in appearance, we are brothers," he confirmed. "I have the body type of our mother, Shango has the body type of our father."
"What's a father?"
"A man who mates with a woman and produces babies. Then they live together and love their children together."
"You gods have different lives than we do."
Lucas turned and looked at Theo with another eyebrow question. Gods? Theo shook his head. Not now.
# # # # # # # #
"Marie will meet you now. She has been calling you. You have come. As she foretold."
"You should tell Shango your name," Theo said to Panther Girl.
"Nary nary quite contrary, how does your garden grow."
Lucas and Theo exchanged glances. Theo smiled. "Told you," he said.
# # # # # # # #
The Wilizy/Asia was anchored high about the island. Shango and Theogun were relaxing in the kitchen talking about their meeting with Marie and Nary.
"Marie is a Voodoo queen?" Lucas/Shango asked.
"She says she is."
"And Nary is a Voodoo princess? Marie is teaching her to be a queen?"
"That's what she says. We're Voodoo gods, or at least we could be if we do what she tells us to."
"There are Voodoo gods?"
"Apparently. We're Shango and Ogun. Brothers. I persuaded Nary to call me Theogun."
"Did you believe the old woman is a direct descendent of somebody named Marie Laveau?" Lucas asked.
"How would I know? She says she is. She's used that name her entire life."
"And the Laveau person was a Voodoo queen?"
"That part is true. I looked it up. The original Marie Laveau was born in the early 1800s."
"And Marie called us to the island so that we would kill the men who are going to hunt them down. She called them bosses."
"Yes. She had been calling us for a long time; chanting our names over every death of their sister prisoners. She had wondered what was taking us so long to show up."
"What did you say?"
"I told her we had been fighting an evil gnome. That seemed to satisfy her."
"Theo, do you believe that Marie has a spell that kept these bosses from seeing her whenever they've come to kill the women in the past?"
"She said that she did. It doesn't matter if I believe her or not. The fact is that she has survived for about 14 years on a tiny desolate island if my guess of Nary's age is correct. She can't leave these houses, so can you explain any other way that she could have hidden in clear sight and survived?"
"Assuming that the part about the murdering bosses is even true." Lucas was clearly a non-believer.
...
"Lucas, did you notice the size of Nary's brain-plug?"
"No I didn't."
"That's because she doesn't have one. Under what circumstance might it be possible for a child not to be given a brain-plug at birth?"
"If she were born outside of civilization," Lucas admitted.
"Did you notice the similarity between Marie's dog collar and Zzyk's brain-bands?"
"I did."
"What type of person would send old women into a prison compound surrounded by alligators so that they'd either be eaten or starved to death?"
"A man like Zzyk."
"Do we believe enough of Marie's story to know that we have to save these women from a man like Zzyk?"
Lucas didn't hesitate. "We do."
"I'll do the thinking, you do the battling," Theo said.
"So
unds like a plan."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 33
The next morning Theo and Lucas were in the kitchen of the Wilizy/Asia, which was still anchored high above the island. They were drinking their breakfast. Lucas had the orange sports drink; Theo had the red sports drink.
"We should have some kind of food on board for times like this," Theo said.
"Are you planning on living on the ship for a while?"
"I have to. We don't know when the next shipment of old women will arrive. The Wilizy/Asia is crucial to the plan, so it has to be here in place. Plus it has long-range sensors that can give us some advance warning of their arrival. You don't have to stay here. With your sling, you can be here quickly enough."
"I need one day in Toronto. The rest of the time, I can stay here on the ship with you. I'll bring back some food."
"Why the day in Toronto?"
"I have one more possible lead on Dr. Sandman to explore – the driver of the horse and buggy that killed Basher's mom. If that doesn't work out, I'll have to give up. I don't have anything that links Dr. Sandman to a crime."
"We know Sandman has a protection racket. We know he was having an affair with Basher's mom."
"But the only link to the protection racket is that he knows all four of the people running it. That's not a crime. Having an affair with an exotic dancer is not a crime. Plus my research is becoming dangerous."
"Arranging to have somebody murdered would be a crime. How's it becoming dangerous?"
It was at this time that Lucas finally told Theo about the two unsuccessful assassination attempts. It was a carefully edited confession. He didn't say anything about the guardian angel. He figured Theo wouldn't believe that Azure was a guardian angel; just like Lucas didn't believe that Marie was a Voodoo queen. Lucas thought that Marie was one crazy old woman. He believed that the men in the copter did drop her and the other women on the island. The dog collars proved that. However he didn't believe that those men went around killing survivors. He had listened to Theo's plan to deal with the next shipment of old women and didn't raise any objections because Theo was energized. He thought he was being a rescue god and he seemed genuinely interested in protecting Nary. But this trip to the islands was just like one of the many make-up games that they had used to play. Lucas was quite content to play the game – even to the point of agreeing for Theo to message home and tell the family that they wouldn't be coming home for Christmas holidays. Lucas was intent on stopping his investigations into Doctor Sandman if the buggy driver lead didn't work out. Those two assassination attempts were enough. He still believed, mostly, that Azure was a guardian angel. What he wasn't sure about was whether she went back to her home for Christmas Holidays and if she would be around in case Sandman made a third attempt. Presumably Christmas was a somewhat important date in Heaven. If so, without Azure to guard him, a third attempt on his life could be successful.
Nary, Nary, Quite Contrary Page 19