by Tara Ellis
He’d only managed to get a few hours of sleep before violent nightmares forced him to get up, drenched in sweat and feeling worse than when he’d laid down. It would take some time to shake off the remnants of the dream, and Jason was hoping he’d eventually feel the benefits from resting. But Peta was right. He’d been reaching his limit, and he would need to be more careful about getting some sleep whenever the opportunity presented itself, or else he wouldn’t be much good to anyone.
Peta was still dozing on the small couch in the sitting room, and he’d been careful to tiptoe around the kitchen while putting together the leftover breakfast for the kids. They’d gone straight to the barn earlier, so had missed out on the food Akuba prepared. She was sitting on the patio when Jason walked out, keeping a vigilant watch on the driveway and main grounds, since Devon had also been up all night. They were down to a skeleton crew now, which was another reason to get moving. There were too many dangers to have them spread so thin.
He was impressed with how quickly her wounds were healing, but Jason was also encouraged by Akuba’s will and perseverance. She had a calming presence about her that defied her age and spoke of a generational wisdom that embodied the long-standing traditions of her people. After delivering the food, he planned on working with her until they figured out the general location of the village, good maps or not.
“Hello!” Jason called out into the dim, dusty barn. “Did someone order some cold eggs and bacon?” As odd as it felt to be doing something as mundane as delivering food, it was critically important to keep up as much routine as possible in order for everyone to cope. And food was something they couldn’t afford to skimp on, so long as they had it.
Marty ran to the base of the loft ladder, and barked once as he ran in a circle around it. Tyler’s head appeared at the top, and he smiled down at them. “Up here!”
“Any luck?” Jason asked, setting the food on one of the random tables that took up the space in the middle of the building. Apparently, they had been full of various types of equipment, prior to Davies taking most of it with him.
“Nope.” Jess’s legs swung down over the edge. “There’s dozens of sealed tubs up here. My dad used the loft to store all of the old documents and papers from the ton of research and studies he’s done over the past twenty years.” As she quickly scrambled to the ground, it was obvious she’d grown up climbing on the ladder.
It took Tyler twice as long to descend, and Jess already had a mouthful of eggs by the time he reached his plate. He frowned as he took the first scoop. “I guess we won’t be having this anymore, since all of the chickens are dead.”
Jess’s chewing slowed as she nodded in agreement. “I don’t think there’s much bacon left in the freezer, either. But I guess once we run out of gas for the generator to keep stuff frozen, it won’t really matter.”
Tyler pointed at Jason with his empty fork before picking up a piece of the bacon. “We aren’t staying anyway, right? How long are we going to wait for those guys to come back?”
“Slaider and Kavish,” Jess said, pointing out that the guys had names. “And they’ll be back. Soon.” She turned to Jason. “What do you think my dad will do next?”
Jason was having a hard time keeping up with all of the questions. He’d forgotten how inquisitive kids were, even though they were reasonable things to ask. “That’s the last of the eggs,” he said to Tyler, starting with the easiest one first. The other answers weren’t so black-and-white, so he paused to consider how to phrase it.
He turned to Jess. “I imagine your dad will send someone by tomorrow, to ensure we’ve left as instructed. All we can do is hope he doesn’t decide to retaliate by making a stand today, but I think we caused enough damage that he’ll reconsider forcing another confrontation. By letting Peta go, I feel that he proved he has bigger issues on his mind. But since we can’t be sure,” he added, turning back to Tyler. “I’d like to leave before first light tomorrow, whether Akuba’s cousin has returned or not. We’ll take the ham radio and some other gear with us to set up somewhere else, so we have another location to fall back to. This preserve is what I would label as “compromised”, when it comes to being safe.”
When both Tyler and Jess simply muttered or bobbed their heads in acknowledgement, Jason figured he must have done okay. Feeling optimistic, he pressed on. “Jess, don’t you think it would be a good idea if you were to take Akuba to Kamal’s? With her leg, a two-day hike through the jungle is going to be pretty rough, and you guys would be a whole lot safer there.”
When Jess stopped chewing and glared at Jason, Marty whined and Tyler started shuffling his feet. “Um,” he grunted, putting the half-empty plate down. “I need to make a bathroom run. Back in a few.”
“Take Marty!” Jason called out to him unnecessarily, as the German Shepard was already hot on the teen’s heels.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe,” Jason offered, before Jess had a chance to voice her obvious displeasure.
“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” she breathed, her eyes narrowing. “You never did it before, and you don’t have to start now.”
“I—” Jason stopped. She was right. Struggling to gather his thoughts, he tried again. “You’re right, Jess. Except it isn’t a matter of need, but want. I guess in a way, that’s pretty selfish of me to think I can come into your life after fourteen years and make myself feel better by taking control of it. I just want you to understand where it’s coming from. What my intentions are. I didn’t come here for the prions. I came here for you. So, keeping you safe is my top priority and whether you like that or not, I hope you’ll take that into consideration.”
Jess’s eyes flitted up to meet his. Eyes that looked so much like his own, and he could see the emotions as they played across her face. He hoped she was remembering the night they met, when he shot and killed the jaguar as it was attacking her. It was the first of several ways he and the others had helped everyone at the preserve. But he also knew that with the hope of fighting back against the Kra Puru, they’d also destroyed what small remnant Jess had scavenged and kept together from her previous world at the preserve. Even though it was an illusion, it had felt safe.
It was enough to make his own head spin and cause Jason to question whether she was better off for his arrival. He could only imagine how a fourteen-year-old would deal with it.
“Okay.”
Jason blinked, and tried to interpret her somewhat neutral expression. “Okay?”
Jess nodded, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I get it. I’d probably be dead if you guys hadn’t shown up, and you’re the best hope we have of…well, I’m not really sure what to even call it. Fix? Stop? Maybe cure the people here that I love, not to mention what’s still going on out—there.” She gestured to the world beyond the barn, her eyes taking on a far-away look. “It’s too big.”
Jason felt a stirring in his chest, a stab of pain without a physical source. He wanted to absorb her fear and heartache but didn’t know how. Instead, he reached out and set a hand on her shoulder. Although completely inadequate, the physical contact still helped to relieve some of the pressure squeezing his lungs, and he felt Jess relax slightly under his hand.
“It’s too big to think about, isn’t it?” she asked, focusing back on him. A solitary tear traced the side of her nose and then slid down to her lips before she wiped it away, and the act seemed to break her from the spell. She shook her head and backed away, out from under his touch.
Busying herself with eating the rest of the food on her plate, Jess’s shoulders again became rigid. “I get that you want me to be safe, but my life has always been here, in this jungle. Akuba is my family and she’s also the strongest person I’ve ever known.” She glanced at Jason then, perhaps to emphasize how the comparison included him, though she didn’t appear angry. Just resolved.
“I don’t doubt that.” Leaning against the table, Jason crossed his arms and attempted to be as non-confrontational as was
possible for him. “But there isn’t any reason for you guys to come with us.”
Jess scoffed and dropped her fork onto the wooden table with a clatter. “Do you even know who she is? Akuba’s the next in line to be the Captain of the Lokono village. That’s the same as…like, a queen, or mayor or something. They’re her people, and there’s no way she’ll send you guys off to find their sacred village without going with you. She can’t. The village elders won’t listen to you if you go alone, and they’re definitely not going to let you harvest the Libi Prani.”
Jason wrestled with separating his unfamiliar feelings as a concerned father from the soldier. Akuba said the population of her village was close to three-hundred people. If her cousin Kavish didn’t return and they were forced to find the Tan Presi Rutu on their own, then Jess was absolutely right. It was foolish to think a large group of terrified people who were in hiding for their lives would welcome an unknown group of foreigners and let them take something sacred. And he’d have to anticipate they’d take measures to protect themselves. A violent confrontation with the Lokono due to a misunderstanding would be the worse-case scenario. For everyone.
Jess had picked the fork back up and was pushing around the last bit of eggs on her plate. “Are your parents alive?” she asked.
The complete change of topic threw Jason off, and he found it curious that she apparently wasn’t interested in hearing his response. It was a sign of confidence, and he was once again struck by the girl’s level of maturity. She didn’t need his words of approval or support, nor was she looking for it. They were most definitely related.
“My mom died a year ago from an aneurysm in her brain,” he explained. Rubbing at a spot over his eyebrow, Jason sought to suppress the memories the question dredged up. On a good day, he avoided talking about his mom. And it most certainly wasn’t a good day. “My dad is…well, was still alive last I spoke to him, which was at her funeral.”
Jess’s brows furrowed and her lips pursed as she digested the information. “Don’t you like your dad?”
“I, uh—” Jason rubbed harder at his forehead, unable to deny the headache brewing there. As much as he wanted to talk with Jess and learn more about her life, it would have to wait until he got a real nap. Offering her a crooked grin, he turned toward the door as Marty ran in. “It isn’t that I don’t like him, we just didn’t get along. Maybe it was because we’re too much alike. I’d like to think we would have worked it out, if we’d had more time.”
“I think both of my grandparents died when Yellowstone erupted,” Jess explained, kneeling to greet Marty.
Jason raised a hand to acknowledge Tyler as he walked in, before looking down at Jess. He hadn’t even thought to ask about her other family members. That pressure in his chest blossomed again and he understood then how it was an unseen connection to the girl. His daughter. “Jess.”
Jess glanced up, looking startled by the way he said her name.
“Akuba isn’t the only family you have left.” Squatting down on the other side of Marty so they were at eye-level, Jason set a hand on the dogs back, next to hers. “And we’re all going to get through this together.”
Chapter 22
TYLER
Amazon Jungle near Kumalu, Suriname
The Libi Nati Preserve
“I found one!” Jess hooted as she waved a rigid, plastic topographical map over her head. It made a strange flapping sound before she let it fall to the floor, dust billowing up and out from it.
Tyler dropped down next to it on his knees, feeling a huge sense of relief. They’d spent another hour dragging totes and boxes around up in the loft, and he was beginning to wonder if they were even in the right building.
The two-by-three-foot map was the sort he’d seen tacked to the walls in a geography classroom back in his outdated junior high school. He’d always thought the elevated details were pretty cool, and would often run his fingers along the upper crests of depicted mountain ranges. Except back then, it was of the Rocky Mountains, not a vast and secluded region of the Amazon Rainforest.
“Huh,” Jess glowered. She stood with her arms crossed, staring down with displeasure. “This isn’t the one we want. It’s too far to the north.”
Kicking at it in frustration before turning away, Jess immediately went back to the oversized tote and started digging. “There’s a ton of ‘em. It has to be in here. Come help me!”
As Tyler obediently reached for the next sheet of plastic Jess was tossing back at him, she paused when he took hold of it. “You never told me what Garrett said about your dad.”
When Tyler went in to use the bathroom, he’d found Peta talking on the radio. It had woken her up, and she’d been deep in conversation with the other scientist at the CDC. Dropping the map alongside the first one, Tyler shrugged. “Not much. Peta was having a pretty intense chat with him about bacteria and vectors, or something. But I don’t think it would have mattered. There hasn’t been any change in his condition, is what he said. I guess there isn’t anything more to say than that. Pretty simple.”
“Nothing about it is simple,” Jess countered, pulling out another section. Her scowl was enough to let Tyler know it wasn’t the one they wanted, so he tossed it aside with the other rejects.
Tyler thought about Hernandez, and his “condition” in the end. Being kept alive like that indefinitely wasn’t something his dad would want. That was why Tyler told Garrett to use him to test the leaves on, or whatever else he came up with based on it and the other stuff. Tyler wasn’t sure why he kept that part from Jess. It wasn’t guilt. He didn’t feel bad suggesting his dad be used as a guinea pig. Not when the alternative was continued suffering.
“You really think this tea is the reason the Lokono are immune?” Tyler asked, changing the subject. “Maya could have been a coincidence. We don’t know what else was going on with her.”
Jess turned from the tote and squinted at Tyler. He squirmed under her scrutiny, the same way he did when one of his teachers gave him that “look”. The one that said you’d just made yourself sound like an idiot. “What?” he asked, unable to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.
Her features softened and she tilted her head at him, clearly thinking. “Sometimes the most obvious answer is also the correct one.”
Tyler screwed up his nose at her. “You’re quoting Confucius or something, now?”
Jess giggled. “Occam’s Razor. It was one of my dad’s favorite philosophies, because it’s true. We don’t need to make this any harder than it already is, and it’s not like we have any other, or better options. Do we?”
Tyler was conflicted. He’d never known anyone like Jess before. Even though she was a couple of years younger than him, she bossed him around with the ease of an adult, and it left him feeling confused. Taking the next map from her, he considered her question and realized the answer was at the heart of his being resistant to the potential holy grail. “I don’t want to get my hopes up,” he said bluntly.
Sometimes the simplest answer was the right one.
Jess’s playful smile shifted to something more serious and she nodded while letting out a sigh. “I’ve gone back-and-forth from denying there was anything permanently wrong with my dad, to accepting he was gone and hoping he wouldn’t come back because I was afraid of him, to desperately clinging to the possibility that we’ve figured out the cure. At this point, I’ve decided to go with my instincts.”
“And what are they telling you?” Tyler asked. He was genuinely interested. She’d been right about a lot of things so far.
Dragging the next map from the container, she smiled at him again. “That we listen to the Lokonos. They’ve had the answer all along, it just wasn’t told in a way that we understood.”
She was talking about their ancient stories of monsters and spirits. A month earlier, if someone had told him that, Tyler wouldn’t get it. But standing in the loft of a barn in the middle of the Amazon, having experienced and seen everything he had to get
there… it made total sense. He smiled back. “We have to find them first.”
“Maybe this will help,” Jess said with a tinge of excitement as she raised her eyebrows. “We found it!”
Hopping to an open space on the worn, wooden planks of the loft floor, Jess set the map section down. Tyler went to stand next to her, and gazed down at a jumble of geographical features that took a minute for him to sort out.
Getting down on one knee, Jess reached out and set a finger on a small area of flattened land next to a river. “I think this is the preserve!” she said, her enthusiasm growing. “And here.” She slid her finger down the river a short distance, and then over to a gap in the trees dotted with small pools of water. “This is the Libi Nati.”
Once oriented, Tyler recognized other landmarks, like the head of the river, and the town where the paved road ended before going deeper into the jungle. “And where do you think the Tan Presi Rutu is?”
Jess shook her head and waved her hand over the lower half of the map. “I don’t have a clue, other than south of us. Akuba said it’s about two days away on foot, so it can’t be that far, but she never really told me much about it before. Even among the Lokono, its location was a secret.
“Come on,” she said, standing with the map. “Let’s go show this to Jason.
“He’s really not that bad, you know,” he said before she could turn to leave.
Hesitating, Jess looked at him suspiciously. “Who?”
It was Tyler’s turn to roll his eyes at her. “Jason. He takes a little getting used to, but you should give him a chance.” He’d overheard enough of their conversation when he came back earlier, to tell it was still a little rough between them.
“I know,” Jess said, surprising him with how easily she agreed. “That has nothing to do with it. I just—” she tugged at one of her red braids, looking much closer to her age than she sounded. “I guess it feels like a betrayal. To my dad,” she added, when she saw the look on Tyler’s face. “Like, I’m already trying to replace him before I’ve even done everything I can to save him.”