Under Vanishing Skies Page 8

  The graphics were good, really good. And the user interface was pretty damned sophisticated. “So how do you play?”

  Now more interested in a mosquito bite on his leg than the game, he said, “You start off with fifty people and two boats. The pirates attack the boats and raid the islands. That’s it.”

  “Uh huh. And what’s the objective?”

  “Are you serious?” He looked up at me, and then talked slowly like I was an idiot. “You kill the pirates. If you sink the mother ship, you win.”

  I ignored the attitude and said, “When did you get to be such a good coder? Hell, I remember that tic-tac-toe game that you and your dad had developed and—” He got up and snatched the data mat out of my hands.

  “I’m sorry, William. I didn’t mean to...well, I’m sorry.”

  He shoved the data mat in his back pocket and started to walk off.

  “How’s your mom doing?” I asked.

  He paused and without turning around said, “She wants to see you.” Before I could ask why, he ran off.

  “Shit.” Why did I have to ask? I knew how she was doing. Helen had sent me a message. She was getting worse.

  I picked up my bag, went inside, and unpacked. Stalling for time, I took my dirty clothes to the laundry hut and threw them in the washer. When the wash finished, I folded my clothes and tried not to think about what I’d find when I got to Sarah’s hut.

  There were a lot of reasons why I chose to study computer science instead of medicine. One reason was that I didn’t mind being around dying computers. Dying people, on the other hand, were a different story. I didn’t like being in the same room with them. I mean, what do you say to someone who’s dying? Bon voyage? It was nice knowing you?

  As I entered Sarah’s hut, I suddenly wished that I had studied medicine. Maybe they taught doctors what to say. Right now, my mind was a blank.

  Sarah was in bed covered with a single, dingy white sheet. The open window next to the bed let a soft breeze into the room. Helen sat in a chair next to her, trying to get Sarah to eat something.

  “Come on, dear. Just eat one more spoonful for me, okay?” She held the spoon out in front of Sarah’s face, but Sarah just looked at me and smiled.

  After a few seconds, she said, “I’ll eat more later, Helen. I promise.”

  I could tell that Helen didn’t believe her, but she set the spoon in the bowl, got up, and wiped her hands on her ever-present apron.

  “Okay, dear. I’ll leave you alone so you can visit with Aron.”

  As she walked past me on her way out the door, she whispered, “Mohammad will be here in another hour to give her another treatment, so don’t stay too long.”

  The word treatment was a stretch. Maybe Mohammad’s potions and yoga therapies were better than nothing. Who knows? But as I looked at her withered body, I found myself wishing that they would leave her alone and let her die with some dignity.

  “Come here.” She patted the edge of her bed. “Sit next to me.”

  I passed Helen on her way out of the door. She gave me the “I’m serious” glare before leaving. I opted for the chair instead of her bed.

  “You’re looking better. That jungle juice Mohammad’s been giving you must be doing some good.”

  Her laugh immediately turned into a coughing fit. When it subsided, she said, “It’s doing something, alright. It’s giving me diarrhea.” She looked out the window as Helen walked past. “Poor Helen. She’s been changing sheets twice a day. I told her that I didn’t want any more medicine, but when I saw the look on her face I promised to keep taking it.”

  I tried to smile, but I must have failed because she said, “Aron, relax. I know that it’s hard for you being here, so I won’t keep you long. It’s just that...it’s just that I need to ask you something. Okay?”

  “Sure. No…I mean...I’m fine. Really. It’s just that with the Council meetings and all the other stuff going on—”

  “Aron Atherton, you were always a lousy liar. That’s why Rick loved playing poker with you. He said that he wished he had known you before the storm, so that he could have won your money instead of coconut chips.”

  I ran my hand through my tangled hair that was getting too long in the back. “He cheated, you know. I never figured out how, but he cheated. Nobody is that lucky.”

  She smiled and we sat in silence. Finally, she said, “Aron, I want to talk to you about William.”

  “He was waiting for me this morning outside my hut, you know.” I was speaking too fast, but couldn’t slow down. “I saw that video game he wrote. Pretty impressive. He’s definitely got a knack for programming. A chip off the old block, I guess.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said. “He got something else from Rick. A tendency to keep all of his feelings bottled up inside. That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m worried about him and what he’ll do after I’m gone.”

  “Sarah, come on. You’re not going anywhere. Helen wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Aron, let’s not do this. Don’t make me play games like I have to with Helen and Mohammad. I’m dying.” She reached out and took my hand. “It’s okay. We don’t need to talk about it, but don’t pretend. Okay? Just sit there and listen to me. Can you do that for me?”

  I cleared my throat. “Sure. Go ahead.” I looked up and pretended to study the cheap painting that hung on the wall above her headboard, hoping the tears that I felt welling up in my eyes didn’t roll out.

  “Do you remember a few years ago after the raid on Embudu?”

  How the hell could I forget something like that? Body parts scattered around the island, women raped, and children...children skewered on bamboo stakes, some roasted over open fires.

  I nodded.

  “Well, Rick and I talked about what if something like that happened here. I mean, who would take care of William if we both died and he survived? As we started to run through possible candidates, we both said your name at the exact same time and then laughed. That was all there was to it. We had decided.”

  Shocked, I looked at her and said, “Sarah, I’m honored…really I am. But I can’t take care of a ten-year-old kid. I don’t have the time. I’m running back and forth to Male all the time, and when I’m not there I’m out fishing and that’s dangerous and…” My mind went blank. I just needed one good excuse, but nothing came to mind.

  She smiled and seemed amused. Clearly, I hadn’t made a good case, so I tried a different tactic. “It should be Helen,” I said. “She’s great with him and she knows how to raise a boy. Come on, you’ve heard all of those stories about her and Bob raising six boys in the outback. She’s the one you want, not me.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Helen is great and she’ll help you out when you’re off island, but William loves you . He looks up to you, he always has and after Rick died—” She paused and her eyes began to tear up. “After Rick died...well...he never lets you out of his sight. Do you know why?”

  I looked up at the painting again.

  “Because he needs you, Aron, and I think you need him too. And right now, I need you to say yes so I don’t have to worry about what will happen to him.”

  As a tear rolled down my cheek, I got up and walked to window and looked outside. Something moved up in the palm tree, and I realized it was William’s feet, visible just below the roofline. Every kid had a favorite hiding spot and that tree was his. I wondered if he could hear us way up there.

  “Okay, I’ll make you a deal.” I kept looking outside so she wouldn’t have a chance to read my crappy poker face. “I promise to take care of him, but you’ve gotta promise me something too. You can’t die…not yet. Okay?” I turned and looked into her eyes, “Just promise me that.”

  She wiped the tears from her eyes, smiled, and nodded. I knew that it was a promise she couldn’t keep. I just hoped that when the time came, I could keep my end of the bargain.

  Chapter 7

  It was late afternoon by the time Kamish dropped me off on Nort
h Point. We hadn’t spoken much on the trip over. What was there to say? His brothers died while getting me to Male. It was my fault. He’d never say it, but he had to be thinking it.

  After the boat left, I walked up to the shack. Before stowing my gear, I checked to see if Jin had replied to any of my messages. Still nothing. That sense that something was wrong grew a little stronger. But there was nothing I could do about it now. Climbing the ladder to the observation deck, I spent the rest of the day scanning the ocean for unidentified vessels that I knew wouldn’t be out there. It didn’t matter. Searching an empty ocean helped keep my mind off Jin, the Council, Sarah…everything.

  From the deck, I had an unobstructed, three-hundred-and-sixty degree view. There was nothing out there but water and a tiny sliver of an island called Bandos. It sat a mile and a half south of North Point and was barely visible even with my binoculars.

  As the evening sky darkened, I let the binoculars hang from the strap and I sat back into the plastic beach chair. I watched the sun as it sank into the ocean. And when the last rays finally disappeared below the horizon, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and willed my body to relax. It was nighttime, which meant that I was safe. Nobody in their right mind would try to navigate the maze of reefs that fenced the northern entrance to the atoll. And they’d have to be completely insane to try it at night.

  I took another deep breath and opened my eyes, drinking in the western sky. It was alight with hues of blue, orange, and pink. As I watched the colors slowly melt together, a pang of nostalgia coursed through me. Kelly and I had once watched a sunset like this from the top of Bishop’s Peak in San Luis Obispo. The nostalgia quickly turned in to sadness as I tried to imagine what a sunset must look like there now. The colors in the sky dimmed along with my spirits, so I climbed down the rickety ladder and went into the shack.

  Hastily constructed following the raid on Embudu, the one-room structure served as an early warning post. Barren except for a handful of scrub brush that had somehow found the will to live in the crevices of the dead coral and sand, the island itself was a perfect place for an observation post. It was positioned at the northernmost tip of the atoll and the view from the observation deck was totally unobstructed.

  The only electricity on the island came from a small solar panel that powered the cameras on the observation deck. There was no plumbing, no air conditioning, no food, and no water. Everything I needed to survive I had to bring myself. Two five-gallon jugs of water and a plastic crate filled with food sat in the corner. I called that corner the kitchen. The other three corners were designated as the bedroom, the living room, and the office. The bathroom was outside. The toilet was a large flat rock that hung out over a small tide pool. It was the easiest place to maintain balance while squatting. And nature took care of flushing the toilet.

  This shack was nothing like the huts on Lohifushi. With its earthen floor and palm frond walls, the shack took the word austere to a whole new level. The huts on Lohifushi were designed to look rustic for the tourists who wanted an authentic island experience without sacrificing any of the modern conveniences of home. The curtains, manufactured to look like hand woven fibers, were made from a fiber optic solar fabric that helped power each hut. There was even air conditioning, although I hadn’t used mine in over eight years. The sweltering heat and humid nights were a thing of the past. The weather now was more like what I had grown up with back on the central coast of California, pleasant days and cool nights.

  Smiling at the simplicity of the place, I unrolled my data mat and set it down on the office floor. With a few flicks of my finger, I opened the surveillance app. A four-paned window appeared on the screen, each pane displaying a view from each of the four cameras mounted on the deck. The cameras had already switched themselves to night vision mode. It wasn’t like the modern, full-color, three-dimensional night vision system that was built into car windshields. No, these were basic infrared cameras that showed objects in ghostly black and white. It was all that Rick and I could manage given the parts we had to work with.

  I made sure the app was fully operational and then stood up and stretched. The dim light of the data mat reflected off the snorkeling mask perched on top of the fishing gear. I had brought it along with a snorkel, fins, spear gun, and fishing pole. With any luck, I’d get a chance to do some fishing and maybe even snorkel off the reef. There was nothing like fresh fish cooked over an open fire in the middle of nowhere.

  North Point sat off of a reef that extended out a hundred feet before dropping off a massive underwater cliff. What tropical fish were still around were usually swimming along the cliff’s edge. The fishing was nothing like when I had first arrived here, but it was better than nothing.

  The soothing cadence of the waves lapping the shore filled the room. The more I listened to it, the sleepier I got. It had been a long day and I decided to turn in for the night. But I had to run my radio checks first.

  I sat down on my bed roll and flicked an icon on the sidebar of the data mat. A communications panel opened. I clicked the address icon and a long list appeared. As I scrolled through the list, I only found three addresses that were colored green. Green meant that the data mat was within range for voice and video communications. People on watches and patrols were the only ones besides the MDF who could use that communication channel.

  I clicked on Dhonakulhi and waited as the word CONNECTING blinked on the screen. With a ping, the word changed to CONNECTED and a small window opened. Inside the window was a familiar brown face. I knew who it was, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember his name.

  “Dhonakulhi, this is North Point with a radio check. How do you read me?” I asked.

  “I see you fine, Aron. How are you? It has been a long time.”

  I fumbled for his name. It started with an A. “I’m good, how are you doing?”

  “Very good, but very tired. I do not know if you heard, but Nisha had twins last month. I have been awake every night with crying babies, so I volunteered for the nightshift. I figured that I had a better chance of getting some sleep.” He chuckled and his hoarse laughter triggered my memory. It was Anand. He had helped me put up the tower on Dhonakulhi, but that was...what...almost eight years ago? He had been maybe twenty then.

  I remembered how he had asked us for advice on how to convince Nisha’s father to let him marry her. I don’t remember what we told him, but it must have worked. And I remembered that he had played the sitar by the campfire at night. “Are you still playing the sitar, Anand?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. Being a father takes up too much of my time. With the twins, I now have six children.”

  “Six! In eight years? You have been busy.”

  He laughed and said, “Yes. But children are a blessing and I would not have it any other way. How about you, Aron? Any special women in your life?”

  An image of Shannon wearing that tight black dress sprang into my mind. “Nope. Life’s too complicated as it is.”

  “Yes, that is true. But women bring such pleasure and peace to our lives, no?”

  “I guess. Well, Anand, I’ve got a couple more radio checks to make. It was good catching up with you. Tell Nisha I said hello and congratulations on the twins.”

  “Thank you, my friend. Please do not be a stranger. You know that you are always welcome in our home.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll wait until your babies are a little older. I was never very good with kids at that age. North Point, over and out.”

  “Over and out,” he repeated.

  I pressed the DISCONNECT icon and the video screen disappeared. The communications panel returned to the list, but the other two addresses that had been green, Iru Fushi and an MDF patrol boat, had turned red. Connections weren’t that stable out here. North Point was just barely within range of the Dhonakulhi tower. Still, it was weird that the MDF patrol boat was now out of range. They usually kept a patrol running in this zone and those boats had some pretty powerful amplifi
ed antennas. Maybe it was interference from the storm that was moving in. Storms always played havoc with the VHF frequencies.

  I thought about making a snack before bed, but I opted to sleep instead. No sooner had I laid my head on the makeshift sleeping bag than I fell asleep.

  ***

  In my dream, the food dispenser was beeping. Kelly stood by the stove cooking some of her famous French toast. She was beautiful, exactly as I remembered her. As she reached out to silence the beeping dispenser, I tried to tell her not to do it. But no words came out of my mouth. I watched helplessly as she pushed the button and I woke up.

  My eyes were met by darkness. I lay for a moment remembering where I was and trying to figure out where the beeping was coming from. It didn’t take me long to remember. I rolled over and tapped my data mat. It displayed a ghostly green image of a boat with at least three men on board. They were headed straight for North Point. From the video, I could tell that they were only a few hundred feet out. I didn’t have much time.

  I overrode the alarm and switched to the communications panel. Dhonakulhi was still the only green name on the list. I pressed it. It showed CONNECTING.

  “Come on, come on.”

  Finally, a sleepy Anand appeared on the screen.

  “Anand, I need your help. There’s a boat about to land on North Point and I can’t connect to the MDF.”

  “What? Aron, is that you? You are breaking up. Can you repeat?”

  “I said there is a boat heading straight for me. It’s about to come ashore and I can’t reach the MDF.”

  The screen flickered and Anand’s image disappeared. The list reappeared and everything was red. I went over my options. There weren’t many.

  Option one was fighting them off. Unfortunately, the only weapon I had was the spear gun and it wasn’t that effective unless you were really close. Besides, I’d only get one shot and there three of them.

  Option two was swimming to Bandos, but that wasn’t much of an option either. In these strong currents, chances were that I’d be swept out to sea or chopped up on the reef before I made it there.