The Cupel Recruits (10 page)

“The odds of us having this much in common at random are astronomical,” he informed the class, some of who already shared in this assessment.

“So a bus of genetically aligned freaks crashed?” Jane added with slight sarcasm. “Sounds like we were all drawn to the location, or the project or something, but by what?”

“It is strange,” Enam agreed, “but we’d better figure out why we are so similar later. We’re on a deadline.” Wood agreed with Enam’s gentle reminder and noted the time, advising the class they had fifteen minutes to change and return before the clock would start again. They were slightly ahead of pace on the time the project team had estimated behind the scenes and he hoped they could close out the day with a success. It would certainly improve morale throughout all the quadrants if word got out that the class was performing on task so far.

Wood escorted the athletically-outfitted team outside and they relished in the experience of fresh air and sunshine. They walked quickly, but took in all that was around them, appreciating the nature in stark contrast to their sleek and modern, but bland, accommodations. Wood led the class down a sidewalk that ended and turned into a dirt path, down a small hill between towering pine trees. Flowers were splayed out at the base of the trees like sprinkles on top of ice cream. Jack Reedson breathed in the fresh scent of pine and flowers, tipping his head back slightly, jutting the chin of his chiseled jaw upward. The handsome actor was clearly the outdoor type and felt like he was coming home to be entering the wilderness. The sky looked like a painting, colors more alive than he had ever remembered seeing. ‘Too much time in LA’ he chided himself.

“Is it me or does the refraction here seem like we’re at a very high altitude?” Alexander asked Enam as they walked.

“It does have that clearer look to it, but the air seems heavier than high altitude, at least as heavy as sea level, if not slightly more dense. It seems so easy to breathe-we can’t be at a high elevation,” Enam responded.

“We were in the mountains. Maybe they didn’t take us far,” Gabriel added. Twenty marching sneakered feet sang in unison for another 100 yards and the group came to a halt.

“This is the beginning of your exercise range. Please follow the colored markers as fast as you can based on the matching DNA sequences that you found,” Wood said. “Good luck,” he spoke more directly to Juliet than the others, but did include the whole team. She looked down at her feet and then back up at Wood briefly, watching his square shoulders walk the path back toward the grouping of buildings they had just left. She flicked her head around quickly, her red ponytail hitting the side of her face with a thwap only she could hear.

“We could make a run for it,” Juliet suggested as soon as he was out of earshot.

“And go where?” Jane responded. Her deferential demeanor made her the least inclined for survival skills.

“Away from here,” Juliet countered, “I’m tired of playing guinea pig.”

“What about the immunity mixture they gave us. I’m sure it doesn’t last indefinitely,” Alexander said.

“And if those are just scare tactics to keep us here?” Juliet challenged.

“And if they’re not?” George jumped in, surprising everyone since he had been avoiding confrontation. The countenance of his smaller frame was not challenging in any way and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts.

“Look, I believe they have done some medical work on us. I had a long scar that is now gone and…I have noticed some other changes as well. We don’t have time to stand here arguing, we’re on a deadline. I, for one, am not eager to find out if that deadline relates to how long our bodies can last out here.” Enam authoritatively retrieved the group sequencing results that David had been carrying and, reading them, began in the direction of the first color marker, “Whoever is coming with me, let’s go. Anyone else, good luck,” and he walked away without looking back.

David was the first to follow him, followed by Gabriel, Alexander and George. After a moment’s pause, Jack, Jane and Chandra quickly followed suit. Chandra pulled a hat from her backpack with a ladylike maneuver and shielded herself from the intense sun as all proper southern girls had been taught to do. She loved her perfect cocoa skin and did not want it marred by sun damage. Juliet and Kyle remained at the crossroads of the paths and silently communicated their doubt to one another.

“If you want to go, we could try it together,” Juliet offered, suddenly feeling the weight of responsibility as if she were a big sister. This would be easier if someone older than sixteen were the one to stay behind. Then, she’d have no sense of personal accountability for swaying the decision. True, he was very smart and sixteen is certainly a capable age, but not quite as independent as if he’d been say, twenty.

“Do you think we could make it?” he asked, looking at the rugged terrain around them that stretched as far as they could see. There were no towns or roads visible nearby, just dense forest and rocky, rolling hills. The rest of Molior were getting almost out of earshot at this point, half of them around the bend already and out of sight. Juliet looked at them grow smaller as they left and saw Chandra and Jack, the last in the gaggle, glance back over their shoulders at them.

“I mean, I know I could get us out of here if it were just the terrain we were dealing with, the survival aspect of it, but I really don’t know on the medical angle. If they’re right, we may not last out here.” Kyle weighed her words in his mind and thought of the pros and cons of the decision. He cracked his knuckles three times and pushed his chin-length hair once again back from his face.

“It seems too big a risk,” he concluded with an even stare. “I mean, if we’re wrong, we die, but if we’re right, we get out of here a few weeks ahead of when they say.”

“
If
they’re being truthful,” Juliet also weighed. ”If not, we may be prisoners and may not get a chance like this again.” That actually solidified Kyle’s position.

“If they were really concerned about keeping us prisoner, they wouldn’t let us out here unsupervised. Besides, I like what we’re learning here and Saraceni said we’ll be able to help people when we’re finished.” He began to walk backward in the direction the rest of the group had gone, facing her, but picking up his pace as the distance grew. ”Come on!” He turned and faced forward, beginning a light jog to catch up.

Juliet sighed and took four even, heavy steps at a measured pace before increasing to a jog to catch up with him, an easy task for her. He hadn’t convinced her entirely, but he’d raised enough doubt that she didn’t have the conviction to proceed alone. If only Gabriel or David had stayed, she thought. Looks like the sixteen-year-old didn’t need her to be responsible for him after all. He took responsibility for them both. They caught up with the remainder of the group just as they completed the first leg and made the turn to the second. They knew they had been in Part II for seventeen minutes now, but didn’t know what finish time was considered success, so they just pushed at maximum pace. Alexander and Jane were out of breath already. After three and a half hours of following the twists and turns of markers through the woods, they realized knowing the full length of their journey would have been better to pace themselves. How long could they continue at maximum pace before some of them started hitting the wall and could not continue?

“How much farther?” Chandra asked Enam, gasping for breath and fanning herself with a manicured hand. Seeing her distress, David stopped short as they arrived at the next marker and stood in a clearing by a river. He pulled his own long black hair in a sweaty pile away from his neck.

“OK, let’s all take another five here.” They opened their backpacks and each consumed some water and something akin to a protein bar, though it tasted much worse. David retrieved the map back from Enam and examined it carefully.

“Looks like we are a little more than three quarters of the way done; It can’t be too much farther now,” David declared. He looked at the marker ahead of them, which was blue, the next color they were to follow. He noticed the next several colors were blue, five blues in a row, in fact. “We’ve got a really long string of blues here at the end. I don’t think we’ve seen that much of the same color in a row so far.”

“By the river, there’s a marker with two long blue lines,” Gabriel pointed to a marker about fifty feet to the right of the blue marker that stood before them and about twenty feet closer to the river, right near it. The marker before them led down another path.

“But our blocks in the sequence aren’t any longer,” George pointed out.

“But there’s a bunch in a row, so that could imply a longer line, if you connected them,” Gabriel said. The rest of the team listened to the exchange while guzzling water.

“None of the others required any connecting, though. It’s been my experience you follow the existing pattern,” George answered, but he saw Gabriel’s logic and really was on the fence.

“I think we have to put it to a vote,” Alexander offered. ”Whatever we do, we must do as a team, we can’t have only half of us showing up and half of us lost.” With that, they took a vote and the shorter, single blue marker won out over the river way. Hoisting their backpacks atop their backs once more, the team trudged on for another hour and twenty minutes before finally reaching Saraceni at the end point of their journey. A boat dock along the river to his left stood empty.

“Congratulations, team! You made it within the time limit!” The team all removed their packs and a few lay on the ground at his feet. “Though just barely. I’m surprised you didn’t take the boat. You’d have been here an hour ago.”

“The boat?” Jack queried.

“The river path! I’m sorry,” George apologized to the group at large, but more pointedly to Gabriel as he had tried to convince them to go that way.

“Don’t be. We took a vote,” Gabriel encouraged truthfully, “and we still made it in time, so we didn’t miss our reward or anything.”

“What is our reward?” Kyle asked Saraceni.

“Let’s ride the transport back to base camp and then I’ll share it with you.”

Gabriel sat alone in his room later that night after they had all returned for showers, food and rest. They were reporting one at a time for their “reward” per Saraceni’s instructions and Gabriel, noticing the clock read his designated time of 7:30, strolled with stiff muscles beginning to be sore to meet Saraceni in the training room. They made their way from there down a long hallway, passing a monitor that Gabriel noted read “96.4%”. He intended to discuss it with his father later and made sure to remember the number. Arriving at their destination, Saraceni and Gabriel entered the surveillance room and encountered a man and woman whom Gabriel had not yet met. Kennedy and King rose from their seats, grateful for the interruption to their surveillance duty, and excused themselves.

“So my reward is taking over work from those two? I’m not sure I’d have marched all day if I’d known that was it,” Gabriel joked, a bit of his regular personality returning as his comfort grew with both his teacher and his new surroundings.

“No,” said Saraceni turning on the monitor, “as we discussed in class, you cannot communicate with your loved ones until later in your training, but due to your performance today, we will allow you limited observation rights. Gabriel saw Lela on the monitor. It appeared late at night, and she was in her home office on the phone discussing leaving for Africa the next day. Gabriel was glad to see her but his guarded suspicion returned upon realizing that these people had planted cameras in his sister’s house.

“You have illegal cameras in my sister’s house? Why?” Gabriel’s voice rose.

“It will be part of your training, Gabriel. It’s not to her detriment, I assure you. I told you that you would have the opportunity to help your loved ones, and you shall. We need surveillance in order for that to occur.” Gabriel was still skeptical and somewhat angry, but his heart strings won out in the short term and the ethical debate could ensue later.

“Do you have Gretchen too?” he asked quietly. The monitor switched to show Gretchen’s room. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her face barely visible in the dim light, but clearly thinking heavily was the source of her insomnia. Gabriel wished he were there to ease her troubled thoughts and felt a pile of contradictions at once: sad and upset at seeing his sister and Gretchen and missing them, feeling the loss of his normal life in the midst of this temporary insanity, and also a sense of accomplishment at the learning their training class was doing and the successful completion of the assignment. Saraceni knew this and, like all his moves, calculated the level of adaptation he was achieving with his team that day. This was just a fraction of how overwhelmed they would feel before their final mission was complete. Getting them used to it was simply another step in the process.

Lela had been a passenger on Flight 1562 to Dubasi, Africa for over six hours already. Brett Davies slept to her right. She’d already read her project notes and made as much additional headway as possible on her laptop. Without the luxury of keeping busy, her thoughts began to wander back to the conversation with Phillip Harriman. She withdrew the small plastic container of the mineral, whose temporary unofficial name was dumortierite light since it appeared to be similar to dumortierite, but a much paler bluish-purple with a crystalline structure more like an amethyst than the rock-like appearance of dumortierite. Until the official name was given by the geological department, they couldn’t really call it that, but she tired of calling it “the mineral”, so DL for short worked well. She turned the mineral in the sun and watched as light played on the light and dark purple tones. The object split the light into multiple parts and a series of geometric octagons danced on the back of the seat in front of Brett and on her food tray.

Brett awoke for the first time during the long flight and stretched, hitting his hand on the low cabin above.

“What time is it?” he asked groggily.

“Almost four,” Lela answered still lazily staring at the dancing pattern of the mineral.

“Wow, I was really out. I guess I was more tired than I realized. Man, am I hungry; I can’t believe I missed food service.” Lela withdrew the chips and crackers from her airline snack box, which was too large to finish, and held them out to Brett as an offer to abate his hunger. He thanked her and selected the peanut butter crackers as the more filling option.

“So, that’s the mineral they found in some of the zones?” he asked.

“One of ‘em. There are a lot of natural resources we need to log,” she replied.

“Is that one of the top priorities on this trip?” Brett was just making conversation, but was also curious on her view of their itinerary in terms of priority.

“Absolutely. We need to finish getting the land surveyed and catalogue all the natural resources. This will protect against allegations that the corporations are here merely to raze the land, which of course some of them are, so it’s also for us to use as a hammer when they try and protect these villages. Then we also need to find sponsors still for the as-yet-unassigned zones.”

“How do you find the sponsors?” he asked

“Pfister’s job mostly now. Before, everyone was eager to be on the Governor Jacob bandwagon, but I’m not sure if this new Governor has the same political capital, so I don’t know if we’ll see interest decline.”

“Probably,” he assessed truthfully.

“Yeah, but I will also be on calls with Pfister this week to work out the maximization of our project money and volunteers. I figure if we get the schools and clinics going first, and focus the healthcare work on HIV and malaria prevention where it can have the most impact, plus nutrition, of course, then we may be able to quickly demonstrate the project’s impact and use that to garner more sponsors.”

“Is that the full extent of the project?”

“No, we would like to tackle housing so these villages aren’t made only of tin, cardboard and mud, but that will take longer. We can’t afford to wait until we dig in on the housing problem to get more corporations on board, so we’ll really have to play up the PR value of the schools and clinics.” She paused and thought reflectively before continuing, “At the end of the day, we just want these people to know they matter and are empowered to change the future of their community. They have the most amazing community spirit, but it’s largely the education and money to do it that is lacking.”

“Wow, I can see why you’re so passionate about this project. Seems like you could really make a difference if all goes as planned.”

“I hope so.”

As they descended enough to see the landscape for the first time, both Brett and Lela were enthralled by its beauty. From the air, the lush green landscape adorned with bright floral arrangements seemed like a paradise.

“The rainforest is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.” Brett murmured.

“Me neither. How beautiful.”

Once landed, however, the view changed. On the ride from the airport to the base camp village of Svikiro, Lela was upset to see poverty all around her. Small boys chased after their vehicle waving their arms frantically.

“It’s different seeing it in person than on TV or in a newspaper,” she confided to Brett.

“Yeah,” he agreed, taking in the deplorable conditions. Gunfire broke out nearby. In reflexive fashion, Brett grabbed Lela and, turning them both, tackled her to the floor of the bus. The bus itself sped up to full speed, whisking them down a dirt road off of the main road. The driver rocketed through twists and turns on the off-road trail, bouncing all the bus passengers into the air and into the floor repeatedly. Bags fell from the racks overhead, but no one moved to retrieve them. They stayed where they fell, in many cases on top of the passengers. The gunfire grew more distant.

“Stay here,’” Brett said emphatically to Lela as he was the first to pop up to a standing position. He snaked his way in the lowest posture possible to the rear window of the bus, drawing his 9mm glock along the way. By the time he reached the back window, the gunfire had faded to the point of being barely audible.

“Okay, everyone,” he announced, “I think it’s safe to return to your seats now, but still say low and be prepared to hit the floor again if necessary.” Lela and Brett returned to their seat, but Brett required they switch positions and that she sit on the interior and he by the window.

“This area was supposed to be clear,” he fumed, “I am so pissed off at the advanced team right now.”

“Well, they’re not psychic,” Lela reminded him, “from what I’ve read, this sort of thing happens all the time down here.” He was amazed at how calm she was and sure that meant one of two things: either the feelings of danger really hadn’t hit her yet and she’d react later, or she was so heavily in grief mode that she genuinely didn’t care if she died. Brett looked at her for a long moment, her black hair falling across her expressionless face and her jaw was set squarely. He assessed her stature to be more in the category of holding back and was glad. That meant she did care, but would react later. Lela felt his gaze lingering too long and began to feel uncomfortable.

“You know, I’m starting to really not like buses,” she said, “I knew something bad would happen.” Across the bus aisle from Lela was one of their African guides.

“If you think bad things will happen, they will happen,” the guide instructed her in a very thick accent. This was beyond the guidance than she was looking for, but since she didn’t want to appear rude, she gave him a weak smile.

“Did Phillip Harriman tell you that?” Brett joked in a whisper. Lela’s smile broke from a weak, faint one to a broad, genuine one.

“No, smartass, but I didn’t ask either. Maybe I should have.”

“What did he tell you?” Brett asked

“That I’d be coming to Africa,” she began.

“No news there. I’m sure that was in the papers,” Brett deflected.

“AND …” she continued, emphasizing playfully that he cut her off, “that the mineral is important. He wants to see a sample of it.” Lela caught herself. She did not intend to reveal information to anyone, especially someone she’d known such a short time. It was not her nature. “And some other pretty specific things,” she continued more vaguely, “and lastly, that I’d be saddled with a smartass babysitter who couldn’t wait to get away from me because I caused him all sorts of grief.”

“See, I told you he was faking!” This time it was Brett who feared he had spoken too much, so he added, “I’m no smartass.” The bus pulled into the campsite and the passengers began to depart, picking up their toppled bags along the way. Each person was only allowed two bags-one duffel and one backpack, so it was not a large undertaking. The underneath storage area housed their gear and equipment, both medical and scientific. Immediately upon disembarking, Lela changed into her hiking shoes, hung her mosquito netting and stowed her duffel bag in her tent. They had pre-assigned the camp areas (housing, medical tent, science tent, food tent, cooking area, etc.), so the team already knew exactly where they were to go. The first few hours had been designated as time to get settled and unpacked. They would meet as a group for dinner at seven o’clock and then begin their first full day of project work in the morning. She liberally applied insect repellant, grabbed three bottles of water and, jamming them into her backpack, began to walk away from the camp.

“Where are you going?“ Brett asked.

“Exploring a few areas that seemed questionable on the geology maps,” she replied, slightly resentful of the question, but given the incident on the way over, she understood his question.

“Jumping right in? Not even a few minutes to get settled?” he asked.

“Don’t need ‘em. I’m as settled as I plan to be.” She sensed an endless series of questions and felt her time slipping away. “Brett, I mean, Mr. Davies, we already agreed that if I stayed within the second ring of the perimeter, I don’t have to advise on my every sneeze and step. I may not have been to Africa before, but I did do large portions of my field work for my PhD in a similar environment. I’m not used to five star accommodations.”

“First of all, please drop the ‘Mr. Davies’ treatment. Brett is fine. Secondly, yes, we did agree, but you need to at least let me know what quadrant you’ll be in. If you go missing, I don’t feel like searching four times longer than I have to in order to find you.” She knew he was right and paused a moment before acquiescing.

“Quadrant 2, Zone 8, actually,” she said and turned quickly and began walking northeast. In less than a minute, she was no longer visible through the dense vegetation.

“Women,” Brett muttered again to himself and then turned to his own tasks of unpacking and debriefing the local security detachment embedded amongst their crew.

Lela stopped after an hour in a small clearing with a fractional window of sun shining down. She’d learned not to stop under the large trees whenever possible lest unwelcome things, like snakes, scorpions or tarantula drop on her from above. This vegetation proved more difficult as clear patches without any tree cover overhead were few and far between. She crouched down, enjoying a large drink of cold water from her canteen. She took a few extra sips since she didn’t intend to stop again until she arrived near the river. Lela pulled out the waterproofed map of the area and double-checked her position. As far as she could tell, she was still on the right path. She pulled out her compass to again double-check. Typical scientist, double-check everything.

Placing her canteen and map once again into her black and orange backpack, she brushed some ants from it, swung it onto her back, continued again down the trail. Her legs were sticky with dirt and bits of grass attached to them. She scratched an itch on her right calf and noticed a giant mosquito bite there. “Already” she said to herself under her breath. The trail was fairly clear, but occasionally, when she reached an area where the vegetation had already overgrown the path, Lela would withdraw the small machete from her waist and clear the way. They’d be using this trail a lot in the next few weeks, so she would cut it a little wider than necessary for just her to get through whenever time allowed. After another half hour, Lela felt the air become even more moist, as if that was possible, and knew she was nearing the river. Within another five minutes, she began to hear its roar. The thunderous rushing of a large volume of water was loud enough that she would have had to shout were anyone with her by the time she reached the water’s edge.

Lela immediately went to the cliff face, just to the left of the river where the reports said the strongest concentration of the dumortierite light, or DL as she called it, was found. The reports indicated only a small amount of DL found, but the per-square-inch concentration of the mineral to the sample indicated a dense pattern. She could see where they had taken the sample from the cliff’s edge. Just a small area, it was clear that the surveillance team collected the bare minimum and moved on, since they had to gather samples from over 100 places in this entire region in short order. She intended to be more thorough and followed the edge of the cliff to the left from that point of sample withdraw, away from the river. The vegetation was quickly in the way, grown thickly against the face of the rock. She wrestled with the vines, cutting them away to reveal another ten feet of the rock.

Lela was breathing hard from the exertion, but enjoyed the labor of it. Physical work was much more distracting than mental work and she began to get into a rhythm as she continued to clear another few feet. Surely enough, the vein of mineral was widening as she moved left and the color getting more rich and vibrant than the half-rock, half-mineral sections by the river. She could see the mineral clearly on its own now. Continuing another few feet, the vegetation grew twice as thick. Lela’s arms were cut up past the edge of her gloves by this point. She would have brought different tools had she known this would be her task, but she pressed on with the insufficient small machete instead of waiting to return tomorrow. Anyone else would have given up already.

Clearing away the thickest part of the vegetation, Lela no longer felt the leverage of her machete against the rock in the next step. She changed her angle to cut inward and downward instead of outward and upward, which required more strength without a fulcrum. As she pulled the long strings of vines and tropical cover away, a break in the cliff face appeared, only about three feet wide, but seeming quite deep. Lela took a long branch and reached it into the opening, swirling it around, trying to scrape up against the sides to dislodge any animal residents and to judge the way it opened up inside. Judging it safe enough to just stick her head in, Lela did just that and was amazed by what she saw. First of all, there was plenty of light, which she had not expected. The small crevice led to a large cavern behind the cliff face, which had a giant golden beam of sunlight streaming in from a wide opening about three quarters of the way up the mountainside on the opposing side of the cavern. The sunbeam opened up as the cavern did, so it was small and laser focused at the apex, and became wider and more diffuse where it hit the floor. Seeing everything plainly and sensing no danger, Lela drew her arms in close to her body, making her way carefully across the jagged rocks of the crevice until she reached the smooth rocks and an open area just beyond. Once fully in, her vantage point changed and her eyes grew wide.