Girl with all the Pain

by Michael Herman

  “This is fun,” she exclaims to Sister Mary with childlike delight.

  Sister Mary can’t help being affected by Isabel’s innocence and joy. She drops down on one knee to meet Isabel’s eyes and asks, “You are fine, my love?”

  “Oh yes, Sister Mary.” She presses her fingers into the wall and says, “Everything is so squishy, like being inside a big rubber playhouse.”

  Sister Mary’s eyes travel around their surroundings as she nods in agreement and murmurers, “Playhouse.”

  When the twin heads off into one of the tubes, everyone follows until they come to an area where the tube widens and expands into a large cavern-like room. Spread out on the floor of the room are indentations filled with the same light things that surrounded the cucumber object. The twin walks around inspecting the indentations and then turns to Ángel.

  “You first.”

  Ángel steps into an indentation, stops, faces them, and waits as the light things crawl up his legs. Once he is completely covered, they expand outward to create a glowing orb. From a wall off to the side, a sucking noise starts as its surface bulges outward. In short order, a large larva creature rips from the wall and drops to the floor. From the front of the creature, a small black head appears and silk-like strands shoot out from it to coat the creature and cocoon it completely. Inside the cocoon something bumps around, tossing and turning until it manages to make a rip in the cocoon fibers. Out of the cocoon crawls the largest Black Panther Isabel has ever seen. It pads up to her and sits by her side.

  “Stroke its fur, Isabel,” the twin says. “Tell me what you feel.”

  Isabel intuits that it is Ángel as she draws her hand across its fur. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “For your protection,” the twin says.

  The twin directs Forbes, Sonnet, and Zed to three other light-filled indentations. The process repeats and from the cocoons, three Black Panther avatars emerge.

  The twin says, “Sister Mary and Isabel, you are last.”

  “Together–of course.” Sister Mary grips Isabel’s hand tightly and looks down at Isabel, who looks up at her uncertainly. “Can you do this, my love?”

  Isabel nods, looks at the remaining pools and then back to the twin. “Will it hurt?”

  “No. Just as it was in the lake, it will be even better here.”

  “You’re not going into one?”

  “Once I see you two into the pool, I’ll follow.”

  Isabel and Sister Mary exchange looks. Sister Mary gives her an encouraging smile and takes a step forward. Isabel follows her lead and they both step into a pool together. Once they are in, the light things move up their bodies to cover them and then expand out to envelop them in an orb of light. From inside, Isabel is able to see the others in their orbs as well as the Panther versions of them. Then as if someone has thrown a switch, they are inside her head, all linked and waiting for her to give them her reaction. Sister Mary’s presence is the strongest.

  “Isabel?” Sister Mary asks. Isabel looks up to Sister Mary, who is staring straight ahead, no longer coated with the white things but enclosed inside the orb with her.

  “Sister Mary?” Isabel answers with her mind.

  “Are you okay?”

  Isabel senses Sister Mary’s worry. “I’m...” Suddenly there is a tear in her orb and two hands pull the tear wide to reveal the twin’s face. She grabs Isabel’s hand in hers and then starts to pull her from the orb. Isabel resists until the twin lowers her face to the surprised Isabel and says, “You need to let go of Sister Mary. It’s for her protection. If you don’t, she may be hurt.” When she releases one of Isabel’s hands and then places her fingertip against Isabel’s forehead, the subconscious Gi is brought to the forefront for just a moment and Isabel suddenly knows that she speaks the truth. She looks up at Sister Mary, who stares blankly ahead.

  “She will be all right?” she asks the twin.

  “She will be safe,” the twin assures her.

  Isabel's eyes meet the twin’s and she states matter-of-factly, “You and I must journey together.” The twin nods, pulls her free from the orb, seals it and then leads Isabel over to another light pool where all the Black Panthers have gathered. She steps into it, pulls Isabel to her side and then...

  Chapter 41

  Day 5

  ALMA support facility, Chile

  As Rafa and Twizzle step through the metal door into the windowless ALMA control facility, the merciful cool blast that greets them is a welcome relief from the scorching desert air outside the building.

  “Temporary trailers. Can’t beat them for quick accommodations,” Rafa comments about the utility of the double-wide they are entering. Inside the one-story structure, casually dressed engineers sit in front of monitors and computers aligned against the walls of the building. In the center of the room, a long metal table with a huge single monitor at the end dominates space. Images of the laser array as seen from onsite ground cameras are displayed on the large monitor’s screen. The top image that looks northwest shows the lasers in ordered rows set into a broad flat expanse with snow-marked mountains and clear skies as a backdrop.

  “Ms. Brown and Mr. Mundoz,” a middle-aged man says to Rafa and Twizzle, “so glad you could make it.”

  Twizzle holds up her hand to show off her wedding ring. “Mrs. Mundoz these days, Tom.”

  Tom laughs and says, “Damn. I bet Willie that you were going to keep your maiden name and maybe, just maybe, Rafa would take your name.” He gives Rafa an impish grin.

  “That bet had legs, my friend, but Twizzle insisted.”

  “Just a traditionalist at heart, I see,” Tom says with a smile to Twizzle.

  Twizzle gets right down to business. “So what’s the status? Have the probes been launched? How near to being in place are they if they’ve been launched?”

  “Twenty minutes.” Tom directs them to a middle-aged woman seated at a computer with an array of monitors in front of her. “We have fifty lasers scheduled for this test.” Four of the monitors have split screen charts. Tom points to the charts. “Each laser is tracked in these summary charts.” He directs their attention to the people around the room. “Each laser has a group of people who monitor their functions that are summarized into these charts.”

  “Only fifty lasers?” Twizzle asks, surprised.

  “For what we are doing, it’s all we need. The other lasers at the site are still in the process of being readied. What happens today will be used in the next test. We learn incrementally.”

  “And the smoke from the volcanoes?”

  “Minimal so far. Shouldn’t affect us.”

  Suddenly the entire building slams sideways.

  “Whoa!” someone yells. Rafa, Twizzle, and Tom struggle to maintain balance. The floor and building jiggle and jerk to the accompaniment of structural creaks, coffee mugs crashing to the floor, monitors falling over and computers toppling. Rafa grabs hold of the center table as Twizzle falls into it and holds on. Monitors flash and darken as they lose their connections. When the main lights inside the building blink off and cast everyone in complete darkness, exclamations from the support technicians fill the air. Then four emergency lights snap on to bathe the room in blue-white illumination.

  “Should we get the hell out of here?” Rafa calls to Twizzle over the staff clamor.

  “It’s only one story. Made to withstand this stuff. As long as we don’t get hit by falling lights, we’re okay.” Rafa looks up at the ceiling and observes that the long lights are fixed and not moving. When two technicians run past him to the door and exit the building, Rafa’s eyes meet Twizzle’s, but he says nothing. The ground sways and swoons and then diminishes to small rattling and bumping for another minute. Finally, it stops.

  Curses are thrown around as technicians scramble to right and reconnect their machines and monitors. Tom yells over the din, trying to restore order and get the push back on track. Rafa and Twizzle just watch, helpless to assist in any way.

&nbs
p; When the main overhead lights come back on, there is a general cheer followed by the return of the two techs who ran outside. As they shut the door behind them, Tom congratulates them for successfully restoring the power. Looking around, Rafa sees monitor after monitor spring to life as technicians reboot their computers. Link after link is reconnected to the laser array until all the monitors display the functions of each laser. Then, in one fell swoop, they all blink off.

  “What the hell?” Tom exclaims looking around. “Has the main...”

  The sound of an explosion like nothing Rafa and Twizzle have ever heard, rocks the air around them and the building begins to tremble. Seconds later a man from the outside comes running into the building, yelling, “It blew! The goddam thing blew its top!” Then he turns and runs back outside. Immediately people jump up from their seats to follow after him. Rafa and Twizzle, caught up in the exodus, rush outside to see what the commotion is about. Outside, people are pointing towards the mountains in the east, where a huge eruption column is climbing rapidly into the stratosphere to bloom out into an enormous mushroom cloud.

  “Is that coming from the Purico Complex?” someone yells. Purico Complex is at an altitude of 17,000 feet while the ALMA operations are at 9,500 feet. The operations people are looking uphill at something coming from over the ridge. The Purico complex is next to the ALMA telescopes.

  “No. Look at it. It’s farther east,” someone else yells.

  Tom, standing next to Rafa and Twizzle, is on his phone talking excitedly.

  “It’s Guayacas, 30 miles from here. It blew its top. Shit!” He listens to his phone for a minute then yells, “It’s blowing pyroclastic ash over the entire array site.”

  Suddenly, the ground beneath them shudders and then, moments later, the roaring from the volcanic eruption east of them is overridden by an even louder explosive roar from Volcan Lincancabur, approximately 20 miles north of them. People point as the top of the Volcano spouts a roiling grey pyroclastic column shooting into the air, billowing up and out. The superheated mass of gases, ash and pumice travel at the speed of sound climbing higher and higher into the atmosphere to an apex, to then fan out and form a dark, dense sun-blocking mushroom shape expanding outward. Millions of tons of ash, rock, pumice, and sand are thrown into the air. Around the base of the column, lightning crackles and writhes in the air as rock fragments, ice and ash particles collide to create static charges.

  Tom curses and struggles for balance while he maintains excited phone conversation. Behind Rafa and Twizzle, a building shrieks and then slowly folds; collapsing to the ground.

  “It looks like the whole chain is opening up!” Tom yells over the noise. “Cerro Zapaleri has gone from just smoking to pouring out molten lava. Flows are pouring from its sides.”

  Another building behind them starts to creak and fold in on itself under the strain of the earth movement. At Lincancabur, an even larger atomic bomb-like explosion cuts the air as pyroclastic debris rockets out in all directions.

  Rafa suddenly becomes aware of the wind direction that is blowing from the northwest, which means that the clouds are headed their way. “Twizzle!” he yells. “Look which way the wind is coming from, we need to leave now, head south.”

  “What?” she yells back over the roar of the volcanos.

  He grabs her hand and pulls her in the direction of their Russian ATV.

  “Where you going?” she yells.

  “Away from here. The wind is going to carry all that stuff in our direction. We need to head for the coast as fast as possible.” Ahead of him, it is apparent that he is not the only one who has reached that conclusion. People are jumping into their cars and racing down the road towards the main road. She pulls from Rafa, gets Tom’s attention and says, “Tom, come with us. We need to get out of the path of the pyroclastic ash.”

  Tom looks around wildly as people stream towards the parking lot. Twizzle points to their behemoth ATV. He nods, grabs a few people around him and they all run as a group towards the vehicle.

  Inside the ATV, Tom asks, “Where the hell did you get this?”

  Twizzle explains and Tom laughs, “Unbelievable overkill.”

  When they begin to drive away, Twizzle looks out the window at the ominous cloud moving their way and laments, “So much for the launch.”

  Sitting in the solitary driver seat, Rafa sees that cars down the road are stopped and stacking up. Tom looks over Rafa’s shoulder and tells him, “Forget the road, head south towards Toconao. We need to stay ahead of that cloud. When it starts dumping ash, we don’t want to be below it.”

  Rafa jumps the ATV off of the road and drives southwest.

  “We’ll pick up 23. It’ll take us through Toconao. We pick up B-355 there and take it to B-367.”

  “What’s at B-367?” Rafa yells over the noise.

  “Airport. I need to get up above this. We have planes there.”

  “You can’t fly in this stuff. You’ll crash.”

  “Not if I get above it. Besides, this route will take you to safety. It’s the best way.”

  Rafa punches the gas and hits his slow top speed of 50 mph, making a beeline south towards the road. Behind them, the base of the column has turned a bright red from a molten storm shooting out of the top of the live volcano.

  “Magma!” Someone shouts from the back of the ATV.

  Tom, who has had his phone pressed to his ear, exclaims, “My God. There are reports of eruptions all the way to San Pedro. Cerro del Leon, Cerros de Tocorupuri, Sairecabur, Putana, Colachi. It’s up and down the chain. Everything beneath has shifted, releasing geothermal pressures below. The whole area is being devastated.”

  “So are we heading in the right direction? We’re paralleling the chain. Should we head straight west?” Rafa yells.

  “B-367 will take you west.”

  In less than ten minutes their eight wheels touch paved road and Rafa veers directly south. Minutes later, he sees that the road ahead has collapsed down into a yawning sinkhole stretching thousands of yards east and west. Quickly he concludes that their best option is to drive through it rather than skirt it.

  “Hold on!” he yells as they maintain course and drop down the side of the hole to follow the road. The ATV bounces and the bottom of the vehicle cries out as it scrapes rock and pavement. He veers to the left past a deep new pothole and then forges on over the crumbled road, his wheels never missing a beat. Inside the ATV, everyone bounces around painfully. At the other side of the sinkhole, he plows into the incline, downshifts and grinds up the slope in a long steady drive until he breaks over the crest and drops down horizontal to continue on.

  “Don’t need too many more of those,” he declares.

  Out his side window, he glimpses another column of pyroclastic gas shooting up into the air from somewhere east of them, and wonders what sort of hell has been unleashed. In short order, they see the outer edges of the tiny village of Toconao on the horizon.

  “Almost there,” Rafa announces.

  “That must be Colachi!” someone yells and points to their left at a column of pyroclastic flow rising up in the air.

  Suddenly the terrain ahead of them drops and they find themselves shooting down a sharp incline.

  As the ATV slides down the newly created decline, Rafa fights for control. The slanting fortified front end of the vehicle plows into a boulder, slamming him forward against the steering wheel. He jerks the wheel left and the ATV’s huge front tire rolls up onto the side of the boulder, forcing the vehicle to lean precariously to the side. As the second wheel rolls over the boulder, the rock grinds loudly against the bottom of the ATV until the third wheel rolls onto it, spinning easily past it and onto the fourth wheel, which rolls right over it.

  Once past the boulder, he angles the ATV diagonal to the downslope and slows their descent. When the front tires hit the base of the hill, they dig into the softened ground and he quickly drives the ATV off of the fresh slope to flat rock-strewn lumpy ground. Inside the
ATV, everyone is white-knuckled as they hang on as well as they can. The engine bellowing and the clatter of rocks pounding the underside of the ATV fill the inside of the ATV.

  “Everyone okay?” Rafa yells over the din.

  Seated behind him, Twizzle turns and gets nervous thumbs ups from everyone. “Doing fine, back here,” she announces.

  She turns forward and looks past Rafa through the windshield. “Up ahead, to the right. See the natural ramp?” In the distance, a section of the incline has collapsed to create a long loose collection of rock and dirt creating a gentler incline.

  “Got it!” Rafa yells over the noise. He twists the wheel in the direction of the ramp and starts weaving his way around boulders impeding their path. Suddenly the ATV drops and leans to its side when the ground beneath one side of them gives way. Rafa struggles with the wheel, twists the ATV into the new incline, drops down in gear and digs into the dirt to drive up and back onto sound ground. Getting the ramp in his sights, he zig-zags around obstacles, closing the distance between the ramp and the ATV.

  When the ATV hits the ramp, his eight knobby tires make light work of the loose ground and quickly carry them up to its zenith, where he rights the vehicle and continues on their original path.

  One of the passengers calls everyone’s attention to a mound north and behind them to the west that is visibly rising. Everyone exclaims surprise about the pace of its growth.

  “What do you think it is?” someone asks.

  Before anyone answers, a column of grey smoke bursts through one side of the mound, shooting straight up in the air.

  “Mother of God! It's venting,” another person exclaims.