Safari: A Technothriller

by Alexander Plansky

  For the past two hours or so, they had been on Sans’s private plane that brought in supplies weekly and, on rare occasions, visitors. She glanced around the cabin. It was neatly furnished with plush white leather seats and polished wood paneling. It could fit eight passengers, four on each side of a small aisle, and each side had two chairs facing opposite across a table that folded out of the wall.

  Across from her was Andy, who was reading a copy of the Smithsonian magazine he had picked up at the museum a few days ago. To the right of her were the two other interns: Brandon Conway, an athletic redhead from Louisiana, and Courtney Akita, a petite-looking girl from Vancouver. She had first met them at the SansCorp offices toward the end of May, but Sydney had never really spoken with them much. She knew Brandon studied at Dartmouth and Courtney went to McGill, but other than that she couldn’t say much about them.

  They had been chatting with each other fairly amicably for most of the trip and she hadn’t wanted to cut in or intrude. In retrospect, she supposed she’d had an opportunity when Andy started talking to them – Andy could strike up a conversation with anyone – but she didn’t want to look like an idiot when she had to continue the talk forward. It was so much easier with friends she knew. People always judge you more the first few times they interact with you.

  “How’s everyone feeling?” came a voice from behind her. She turned to see a slim, middle-aged Asian woman standing in the aisle, her hands gripping the backs of Sydney’s and Brandon’s chairs in the event of sudden turbulence. She was Ellie Chang, the CFO of SansCorp. Behind where she stood, Sydney saw the other executive chaperone for the trip: a trim, goateed balding man who had introduced himself as Richard Jones. He hadn’t said anything else since and was currently looking out his window with an empty expression.

  “Tired,” Courtney said, yawning and scratching her short black hair. “How much longer?”

  Chang glanced at her watch. “About half an hour more. Almost there.” She flashed a smile, trying to be cordial. She sat down on the seat behind Sydney, moving up the arm rest so she could keep her legs in the aisle and have a direct line of sight to the rest of them. “I know what you’re studying from your files, but what about your career plans?”

  Sydney nearly sighed. At her energy level, the last thing she wanted to do was talk about her future with a bunch of strangers. Chang was clearly trying to make small talk – just trying to be nice. Sometimes she hated when people did that.

  “Computational neuroscience researcher. Oddly specific, I know,” Brandon said with a smile. He had a charming Southern drawl.

  “Not at all,” Chang said. “When I was seven, I told my family I wanted to be a pediatric anesthesiologist.”

  “I’m going to work in the pharmaceutical industry,” Courtney piped up with a matter-of-fact tone that made Sydney want to roll her eyes.

  Chang simply nodded and looked to Andy. “I’m aiming for medical school. After that, I’m not sure yet.”

  “That’s perfectly respectable,” she said, now turning her gaze to Sydney.

  She felt her shoulders tense up and a knot formed in the pit of her stomach. “Um…medical…school,” she managed, her eyes darting around and looking anywhere but Chang’s general direction. The CFO simply nodded.

  Courtney saw her opening. “For grad school, I want to go to Columbia for a dual MD/MBA degree.”

  “Funny, that’s what Billy Sans did at Stanford. I was only in the MBA program and given the workload of that alone, I thought he was crazy. But the son of a bitch pulled it off,” Chang said with a slight laugh.

  “You’ve known him since grad school?” Brandon said.

  Chang nodded. “He and I go way back, yes. We’re good friends, actually.”

  “What’s he like?” Andy asked.

  Chang paused, considering her words carefully. “He’s brilliant…and very dedicated… A lot of people have their own opinions of him, so it’s best to meet him in person to understand for yourself.” She leaned back and glanced out the window behind her for a moment. “You’re all very lucky,” she began before turning back to them. “Not many people get to meet Billy in person these days, let alone work directly with him.”

  “Have you been to the reserve before?” Brandon asked.

  Chang nodded. “Several times. It’s absolutely breathtaking. You’ll see soon enough.”

  As if on cue, the pilot turned around and shouted: “Final descent! ETA twenty minutes.”

  The executive glanced at her watch. “Excellent.” She returned to her seat across from Jones, who was still gazing outside with the same blank stare.

  Sydney turned back to her own window. The ground was starting to get closer.

  The plane touched down atop a plateau about a hundred feet above the flat prairies. On each side of the tarmac was a gently sloping hill covered with trees. The landing itself was fairly rough; the entire aircraft shuddered violently and for a moment it seemed as if the very frame would buckle. Somehow, the pilot managed to come to a halt before the end of the short runway. Everyone looked frazzled as they unbuckled their seatbelts and stood up.

  “I could’ve landed that better in my sleep,” she heard Chang mutter.

  “You’re a pilot?” Sydney accidentally blurted out.

  “Actually, yes. I mostly fly for recreation, but I did this route before a couple years ago.” She glanced around the cabin. “Same plane.”

  The cabin door was located on the rear left side. The pilot moved past them to open it and folded out a short series of metal stairs. Once everyone had their backpacks, they climbed down and onto the tarmac. It was cooler than Sydney would have expected, a soft late afternoon breeze brushing the humidity away.

  Three black men walked towards them. Two of them wore white polo shirts and shorts, but the other wore camo fatigues, Aviator sunglasses, and was extremely fit. He strode towards them with a sense of military formality.

  “Ramsay,” Chang said, walking towards him. “It’s been a while.”

  He flashed a friendly smile but his sharp posture never faltered. With an unmistakably Kenyan accent, he said, “I hope you all had safe travels. These two” – he gestured to the men behind him – “will take care of your baggage and bring it to your rooms. I’d like to remind you that there is no cellular reception here, nor will you be having any contact with the outside world for the next two weeks. I also ask you to avoid taking pictures of our equipment or using your cameras in the laboratories. We conduct some very valuable research there and have many competitors. Now, if you’ll follow me, Dr. Sans is waiting.” He turned on his heel and started towards a break in the treeline.

  They followed him and Sydney felt from the way he walked they should fall into a single file line. They reached the clearing’s edge and she saw a paved trail leading down through the forest for a couple hundred feet or so. There appeared to be a building or structure beyond. A wooden sign to the right of the path read: “Welcome to Simba Kishindo Game Reserve.”

  “Lion’s Roar,” Andy muttered beside her, translating.

  “Is that Swahili?” she asked. He nodded.

  The buzzing of insects danced by their ears as they continued down through the forest. Finally, they came out into an open area with a manicured lawn and landscaping where a large safari lodge stood before them near the base of the hill. The wooden structure was two stories high with a roof made to look like straw, although there were several solar panels along it. Sydney could see a skylight over one area at the top. They approached the building and Ramsay led them straight towards a series of wide glass double-doors. Before he could open them, a man stepped out.

  He looked a few years younger than forty-seven, which Sydney knew was his real age, with his golden blond hair slicked back. He was tall and fit, but not as muscular as Ramsay, and wore a hefty watch that she recognized as a Casio Pathfinder, popular amongst hunters and outdoorsmen. There was some kind of black sweatband around his right wrist. His eyes were a gleaming blu
e and he walked towards them with a wide smile – a genuine one, like the one she had seen in the photo of him with the lion.

  He first went to Chang, who extended her hand until he gave her a full embrace. “It’s been too long,” he said with the hint of a British accent, patting her on the back. Then he turned to the interns. Sydney suddenly realized she was the closest to him and found his arm outstretched toward her.

  “I’m Billy Sans. How do you do?”

  TOUR

  She shook his hand and noted the confidently firm grip. “I’m Sydney,” she somehow managed to say without stuttering. Sans moved to shake Andy’s next, then Brandon’s and Courtney’s.

  Finally, he reached Jones, who appeared to regard him with suspicion. If he noticed this, Sans’s didn’t show it. “Richard, how are the kids?”

  “Just fine, Billy,” he said blankly. His eyes narrowed as Sans turned back to face the rest of them and clapped his hands together.

  “I see you’ve already met my assistant Edward Ramsay, so let’s start the tour.” He turned and led them towards the open double doors. “Forgive me for being so excited, I rarely get visitors and there’s so much to see.”

  They stepped inside and found themselves in a large sitting room with wood-paneled walls and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There was a painting of a Serengeti sunset mounted on an open space at the back wall. The chairs and sofas sported expensive-looking upholstery. There were two exits on the left and right from where they were standing, each appearing to lead down a different corridor.

  “Here’s the library,” Sans said. “This is actually the rear of the house. The front entrance is this way.” He led them through an open entryway on the left, then made a right turn and led them down a hallway.

  They came out into a large foyer with a high ceiling. There was a grand staircase to their right leading up to the next floor; two large wooden doors stood before them. A large, diamond chandelier hung above the center of the room. Despite the furnishings and the clear inspiration from classic safari lodges, something about the design felt modern to Sydney. Everything was carefully arranged and there weren’t too many ornate decorations, just the occasional painting of an animal on the walls and some framed photographs.

  Looking closely at one next to her, she saw a young Sans, looking no older than seven, smiling while his parents crouched next to him on each side. They were out somewhere in the savanna and there was an old Land Rover behind them to the right. Below the picture but still framed behind the glass, “Christmas 1980” was written neatly with a sharpie. A few feet away, she saw another from when Sans was a teenager. He and his father, who had aged quite visibly, were standing over a dead lioness. This one was labeled “First Lion Kill – June 1989”.

  Sans had purposefully paused here to let everyone take it in. Then, he pointed to the staircase and continued: “That leads to the next level where all the bedrooms are as well as access to the balcony. Dinner will be served in here.” He walked through an open space to the left.

  They followed him into a dining room with large windows. The table was a thick rectangle of polished oak surrounded by ten chairs. There was a large mirror on the wall to the left. Out the windows, she could see an expansive patio and a large infinity pool with a great view stretching off into the distance.

  “We’ll get to that in a moment,” Sans said, noticing most of their attentions had turned outside. He pointed to a door at the back of the room. “The kitchen is beyond there. Fatou, the chef, is excellent. He’s currently preparing some wildebeest for tonight.”

  Sans moved back into the foyer and pointed down a hallway across from them. “That’s the way to the garage and to the staff’s living quarters. Now, if you’ll follow me…” He started up the stairs. When they reached the landing, Sydney saw they were in a small open space with a set of wooden double doors directly ahead and two hallways branching off to each side. There were two tropical ferns potted and sitting on each side of the double doors.

  “That’s my office and bedroom,” Sans said. He walked forward and spun around, his arms spread out in both directions of the corridors. “There are four guest rooms on each side of this floor, eight in total. Ellie, Richard, you’ll get the east wing to yourselves.” He pointed to his right. “And interns, you’ll stock the west.” He gestured in the other direction. “But we’ll get to that later. This way.”

  They walked down the eastern hall past the four rooms, two on each side. At the end on the northern side was a glass door that led to a balcony. Sans held the door open for them as they stepped outside and took it all in. There was a straw-roof overhang providing shade for four lawn chairs. The balcony jutted out roughly fifteen feet and took up about one fourth of the width of the lodge. At the railing, Sydney looked down towards the patio and the water. There was a wooden path before the pool deck began that led from the front doors to each side of the building. There were two decently sized windmills located a hundred feet off each end of the lodge, and looking up towards the roof she saw it was lined with more solar panels.

  “How long have you had this place?” Brandon asked.

  “My parents bought it in 1972, about a year before I was born. This isn’t the original lodge; I had it built about a decade ago. The old one was much smaller. And there was no pool.” He glanced out at one of the wind turbines. “And it had a considerably larger carbon footprint.”

  “How large is the reserve?” Andy said.

  “Nearly one hundred square miles,” Sans replied. “We’re in the southern portion here. The entire western edge borders Serengeti National Park, which you can reach going just over ten miles that way.” He turned around and walked to the far end of the balcony. Ramsay hung back while the others went to the railing to get a better view of the north.

  Sydney leaned out over the railing and gazed off at the plains, leveling her hand across her forehead to shield her eyes from the sunlight.

  “I’m sure you’re all ready to get out there, so why wait?” Sans said, glancing at his Pathfinder watch. “We’ve got about an hour until sunset.” He turned around and looked at all of them with a wide smile. “Perfect time for a safari.”

  “Sir,” Ramsay spoke up, a look of concern on his face. “I don’t think we would be able to make it back before–”

  Sans held up his hand and Ramsay went silent. “We’d better get going. Time is of the essence.”

  And he smiled.

  SAFARI

  The garage was a structure adjacent to the rest of the lodge. Bordering the building’s east side, it housed five SUVs and swaths of field equipment on shelves along the back. The walls were a sparse white and the floor was smooth gray concrete, giving off a different aura than the resort-like quality of the areas they had seen earlier.

  The vehicles were dark green Land Rover Discoveries, the sleeker variant from the 2017 model year onward, and had been retrofitted with forward-facing light rigs. The chassis of each SUV appeared to have a raised suspension and the wheels looked decisively more all-terrain than the standard model. Two at the far end appeared to have additional racks on the roofs and rear bumpers. Sydney also noticed they were all plugged in with their charging cords leading to several Tesla batteries on the eastern wall, another aftermarket feature.

  Sans turned to an Afrikaner polo-shirted staff member and gestured to the two Rovers nearest to them. “We’ll take these. Ramsay will drive one, you get the other.” The staff member nodded and moved to the vehicle on the right while Sans climbed into the passenger seat of the one closest.

  Ramsay opened the rear left door turned towards Sydney, motioning for her to get in. The interior had three rows of comfortable leather seats and industrial-grade floormats. She went in-between the second-row bucket seats and settled into a chair at the very back. There were two sunroofs, one over the driver and the front passenger, and a second over the rear two rows. Chang climbed into the row in front of her and Andy was about to follow, but seeing that Sans was in this car, C
ourtney abruptly brushed past him. Andy had no choice but to walk to the other vehicle and Sydney felt alone in the company of strangers.

  Courtney shut the left rear door behind her as she sat down while Chang was already buckling herself in beside her. Sans waited until they were all secured, watching in the rear view mirror, before holding up a Motorola two-way radio and saying, “Okay Kobus, move out.”

  Two of the doors retracted open in front of the Rovers. The other SUV drove out first, then Ramsay pressed his foot on the accelerator and there was a soft electric whir as they rolled out of the building. There was a well-worn dirt path that led away from the garage and out into the savanna. Up in the sky, the sun gently drifted ever closer to the horizon and the heavens began their transition from late afternoon into dusk.

  “We probably won’t see many animals until we’ve crossed the river,” Ramsay said over his shoulder.

  Sydney peered between the rows of seats and saw a small forest of trees looming up ahead through the windshield. A few minutes later they had reached it and followed the other Land Rover along another dirt trail. The tree cluster was bisected by a winding river, over which a wooden bridge had been constructed for vehicles to pass. Once across the water, they continued through the other half of the forest cluster before emerging back onto the prairies.

  This area was much more expansive, in line with what Sydney had seen from the plane earlier. Looking up at the far reaches of the evening sky through the sunroof, the vastness of this place struck her full-force. Here she was in a vehicle dwarfed by an enormous ecosystem that was but a tiny fraction of the planet’s surface. It was something to think about.

  Suddenly, the vehicle came to a halt. Everyone was looking at something.

  “There,” Sans said, pointing.

  Then she saw the animals.

  Just about two hundred feet off to their left, a herd of elephants was bathing in a pond. The sunroofs retracted and the windows rolled down. “Binoculars are under the seats,” Sans said.