“Alright! Christ, just give me a minute.”
One part meticulous nature and three parts agitation, Bonman took his time relocating the glass-encased mineral sample to the safety of his bookshelf.
“So what exactly can I help you - god dammit, Every.”
The man behind the door and its bombardment was, despite appearances, not a student. Every Daniels was a friend. He was not an old friend - be that distinction measured in terms of years and birthdays or semesters of association - but, in Alvin’s mind, he was a good friend.
“You scared half the shit right out of me, pounding on the door like that! I’d be pissed at you if my laxative bill weren’t getting higher by the month.”
Every was a vocal fan of Alvin’s inventive vulgarity, but the young professor did not seem in the mood for humor when he sealed the office door behind him. A baker’s foot shorter, Alvin had to crane his neck to notice how pale Every’s face had become since last they spoke.
“Christ kid, were they feeding you snow in Russia? You’re whiter than old dog shit.”
Every’s lips puckered and his silence remained, long enough for Alvin to flirt with the possibility that he’d teased a step too far. The uneasy silence gradually outlasted what he’d expect if that were the case, and so he gestured to the chair across from his own and resolved to get his friend talking in time for brunch.
“Something bothering you, kid?”
“Yes.”
“Would it be safe to assume that that something happened in Siberia?”
“… Yes.”
The crown jewel of his position as head of Geology and a source of envy among his less tenured colleagues, the window behind Alvin’s desk directly overlooked UC Berkley’s scenic quad. Mid-morning sun burrowed through slats in its shutters and painted rungs into the back of his neck.
“Did the Russians rough you up or something? Clamp a twelve volt to your nipples and make you sing Be Glorious, our free Motherland while the first hour of Rocky IV played on repeat? Jesus Christ kid, spit it out.”
A wedding present from his first wife to his second, to be re-gifted later by the successor as his consolation prize for another resounding divorce court defeat, the dull bulb of an ugly lamp remained the room’s only source of light until Alvin cocked his head.
Through the Geology professor’s cherished window, the day was invited in. Rays of sun were encouraged to find the fastest route to Every’s face, where they would make sparkles of the tears on his cheeks; where they would cast shadow on a situation Alvin realized he’d taken too lightly.
“Are you crying, Every? What the hell happened to you?”
“I can’t - I don’t have time to go into detail. I have to get ready for class.”
Alvin clicked his computer back to life and summoned the Anthropology department’s schedule to the screen.
“Looks like you’ve got at least a solid hour. Talk to me.”
Every sniffled and Alvin did his best to unwrap the granola bar in his lap without too much commotion.
“It’s fucked up, Al. Really fucked up.”
“I don’t doubt it, kid. Three - four? Four years working together, can’t remember the rising star of anthropology launching an F-missile. But you don’t look f-d up to me, no more than normal, at least. No bruises. No blood. What did they do?”
“They showed me something.”
“Their dicks?”
“Stop - stop. I really don’t have time to explain it all to you, and neither of us have the time for your god damn jokes.”
Like a man born on a shadeless shore and raised in the steady discipline of a tropical sun, the nature of Alvin’s childhood had been such that his skin was thick and tough. He was certain that if he thought back far enough, he could recall having heard his mother make exactly Every’s statement on her way out the door. Alvin was not sensitive. Every was, and to a fault.
“I’m sorry, Al. I just - there is… something I need to do before class, and I’m not really sure how long a thing like that will take me. But I had to do this first, and I need to do it right because - ”
Every stiffened his lip in false courage, an attempt to delude himself into accepting the old adage of fake it ’til you make it.
“ - because you deserve to know. You deserve to know that you’re involved. You deserve to know that it’s my fault, and you deserve to make your own decision about what comes next for you.”
Alvin then recalled a conversation they’d shared over whisky on Every’s twenty-eighth birthday. That conversation concerned a subject very personal to Every, and was allowed to occur only under the condition that Alvin swear absolute secrecy. So today, sat together under the harsh lights of sobriety, and even as he witnessed the young man’s distress reach alarming new heights, he had reservations about mentioning the state of Every’s mental health.
“Calm down, collect your thoughts, and I will be happy to hear them.”
Every did his best to oblige, his eyes shut and his attentions cast backwards to his fourth therapist. He recalled that she’d been the sort of therapist who only prescribed meditation. Anything with chemicals and a label was sure to be a primitive form of mind control.
Every’s drunken recounting of a childhood plagued by crippling anxiety, and his own reservations in addressing them, remained central to Alvin’s thoughts as his friend struggled silently to avoid a relapse. It was those reservations that gave him cause to reassess the sort of man he was, and to recall the way that sort of man ought to act.
On the bell curve of crude dispositions, Alvin’s was widely regarded - at least in the view of his friends and associates and his wives and their lawyers - as an outlier. As a geologist, Alvin quite enjoyed having that term applied to him.
Crude was not a word devised to slander iron ore for being brittle, or to disparage unrefined oil for the thickness of its smoke. To be crude was to be raw, to have frank potential and give no inclination of what you mean to do with it. A truly crude man should be expected at all times to peel back the layers from his chosen message, distill it of all possible speculation, and inject the sentiment in its purest form through the heart of whoever sat on the receiving end.
“Okay, I’m - I’m okay.”
“Good. Now tell me exactly what’s bothering you, Every.”
“We are all going to die.”
“God dammit Every, shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.”
Every hadn’t tried to leave his chair, but Alvin liked the way it sounded in his head.
“You are a professor of anthropology at the University of god damn California fucking Berkley. You have Ivy League degrees for wallpaper and more research papers published than the fucking tobacco industry.”
Crude men with good intentions swore no fealty to feelings. It would be Alvin’s responsibility to set his friend straight - but it was not his burden to do it tenderly.
“Sit up in your chair, Every Daniels. Actually, fuck it, do a handstand. Do whatever you need to do to get blood flowing to that big brain of yours. Because you’re letting it control you, you’re letting it play tricks on you, and the whole god damn world is a little stupider for it.”
Every stared horrified opposite a gale of spittle and swears. He had, for a moment, the eerie sense that his life had gone another way - that the military had accepted him out of high school despite his medical history, that service had hardened him, mentally and physically, just as his father had so often predicted from his huddle of disappointment at the end of the dinner table.
Alvin was no different from a drill instructor. For all the harsh words, for all the spit and the veins in his head and all the outward aggression - Alvin wanted what was best for him. This, strangely, dredged a seed of courage from its reclusion in Every’s gut; true comfort. His voice was level when he spoke.
“You’re right, Al. I’m sorry I got carried away. But I didn’t lie to you, and I still hope you’ll hear me out. Whether you believe me or not is beside the poi
nt right now.”
“Fine. But if you start flipping out or something I’m liable to break my divorce lamp over your head. I won’t sit by and watch you hurt yourself.”
Reminded of a 10:40 AM meeting he’d scheduled with a shady man in a liquor store parking lot, Every scanned the room for a clock and found the next best thing on Alvin’s wrist.
“What’s the time?”
“Five after.”
“Then we’ve got probably twenty minutes to work with. Please just listen to what I have to say, and you can call me crazy in a thousand languages tomorrow. Deal?”
Alvin’s expression made no secret of how strangely Every’s emotional pendulum came across. Hunger didn’t help, and his stomach growled audibly when he stood to clear his lap of granola debris. He’d squeezed the snack into a pulp in all the excitement.
“Okay.”
“Who is the best geologist you know, alive or dead? And be honest, Alvin. It’s important.”
“Me.”
“I agree.”
“Stop ass kissing, Every.”
“I’m not. And even if I were, it’s too late now. They asked me that question, and they made me give them an answer, and that was the answer I gave them.”
“Asked you what question?”
“They asked me who I consider to be the world’s premier geologist. And I gave them your name, Alvin. And that’s why I’m here.”
“Who asked you that? The Russians?”
“Americans, too. Some Germans. Japanese, Brits, French, Chinese, a Swede. I think there were even some Nigerians flying in.”
“You need to start from the god damn beginning, Every. Who are you talking about? Why did they ask you about a geologist? Why did you give them my name and - crucially - why should I give a shit?”
“Come to think of it, Al, I’m pretty sure there was a whole team of Latvians out there too. Hard to tell their accents apart from - ”
“Every!”
“Shit. Sorry. I’m sorry, Al. I’ve got a lot on my mind, you understand. The point is this - there is an international team of scientists, government suits, and men with big guns conducting extremely sensitive research in Siberia. I was invited, obviously, to help. So I helped. And when they asked me for more help, when they said they needed an elite team of geologists - I panicked. I gave them your name.”
“I asked you four questions, Every, and only one of them was crucial. Do you remember it?”
“You should give a shit, Alvin, because one day soon you’ll open your mailbox and find a ticket to Siberia inside. There won’t be a return address, there won’t be an explanation, just a ticket.”
“And? I’ve got a month’s unused vacation time burning a cortisol hole in my brainstem. Haven’t taken a trip in years, and probably longer since I’ve put my name on any research worth it’s weight in color ink.”
“There won’t be ink, there won’t be a study, there won’t be a blog, there won’t be a tweet, Alvin. It’s too big. It’s too quiet. And it has to be.”
“Yeah? What’s the big secret? And if you start spouting off bullshit about fake moon landings or flat planets I’ll remind you that my divorce lamp is pretty god damn heavy.”
Alvin’s hands lay flat on the desk, and Every made short work of inverting the little hand on the watch in his mind. 10:18 AM.
“How many mass extinction events can you name off the top of your head?”
The head of geology didn’t miss a beat.
“May as well ask me how many fingers I have.”
“Work with me, Alvin.”
“You know damn well I’ve studied sediment layers from all five major mass extinctions, and a few minor ones for good measure.”
“Can you tell me, empirically, that we have identified the primary cause of every major extinction event beyond scientific debate?”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Answer the question.”
“You sound like my ex wife’s lawyer. To answer your question - no. We have pretty good geological evidence for every prevailing theory; global soot layers, abnormal concentrations of uncommon metals, big ass melted rocks that are indicative of high velocity impacts. All that good shit. But any extinction is damn near impossible to attribute to one event. Generally, it’s a confluence of events and circumstances. A rock from the sky or a volcano from hell just happen to be excellent nails if you’ve already got a coffin to drive them through.”
“That’s what I imagined you’d say. If it’s so difficult to establish causality millions of years after a given mass extinction, where would you place our odds of predicting such an event before it happens?”
“Barring the obvious? A kid with a Toys-R-Us telescope could tell you a comet was getting ready to turn the Earth’s crust into a second moon and still have time to get the car running and close the garage door.”
“Barring the obvious.”
“It would be impossible - obviously.”
“What about in a century? Could we predict a mass extinction with another hundred years of industrialized scientific research telling us where to look?”
“Not even close.”
“A thousand?”
“I don’t know. Doubtful.”
“Well, how long then?”
“I don’t know! Never, maybe. There are too many variables, too few telescopes, too few seismologists, too few people who give a shit. And unless this gets really compelling really fast, you can count me among that last group.”
Alvin was astonished to see that it was possible for more color to drain from Every’s face. He was unable to devise an analogy in league with his first, nor could he find it in himself to kick a friend so decidedly down.
“You look like you just got punched in the gut. Why does it matter whether we’ll ever be able to conclusively predict a mass extinction? We’re two decades and a South African billionaire genius away from a comfy outpost on Mars anyway.”
“It matters, Alvin, because they did. They figured it out. They were a thousand years more sophisticated than we are, at least. They knew what was coming for them. Whatever it was that killed them all - they knew, and they couldn’t get away. They know what’s coming for us. We don’t. Or we both do, maybe. We just haven’t realized that they placed the order and we’re footing the bill. That’s where my money’s at.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We’re all going to die, Al, just like the grave. Except when someone finds us eons from now, it won’t just be the males piled on top of one another. Women. Kids. Dogs. Dignitaries. But it is what it is. I wanted to warn you beforehand. You’ll have a decision to make. The government, the scientists, they’ve already made their decision. I have too.”
“Christ, Every. You’ve lost your god damn mind, haven’t you?”
“Almost.”
Every turned to leave, reassured more now than ever that his appointment was worth keeping. Illegally purchasing a firearm is no petty crime in California, but he didn’t have time for paperwork.
“Hold up, wait - wait! Every, I’m not sure that I can let you leave. I don’t want to be the man that stood by while you went out and got yourself hurt doing something batshit crazy.”
“I’ve spent twenty plus years in therapy. Look,” Every brandished his wrists, “not a scratch on me. I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about, Al.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’ll be one of the unfortunate few with a backstage pass for the end of the world.”
“And where will you be?”
Every shrugged.
“Meditating. You should try it. Those veins are going to pop out of your neck.”
“Why don’t you let me take you to breakfast, Every? You can tell me all about the end of the world.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Alvin, it’s coming up on lunch time. Don’t have much of an appetite anyway. As for the end of the world, you’ll be the expert on that soon, no need to bother trying to
pick my brain.”
Every almost laughed. Alvin noticed.
“Why is that funny, Every? Picking your brain - what’s funny about that?”
“It’s not. I really have to go, Alvin. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Alright. Be - please be careful, Every. I’ll see you then.”
Every nodded in Alvin’s direction, but his eyes lingered elsewhere. His gaze was cast downward, and Alvin could think of no good reason not to follow it. They intersected, the gazes of two brilliant men, on the seat across the geologist’s desk, Every’s seat, and then the door slammed shut and professor Daniels was gone.
Eight days later the envelope came. No return address, no explanation, only a Thomas Edison stamp and a ticket to Siberia.
Alvin boarded his first plane when he was twenty-five, and in the years since had not developed any great fondness for it. Religion hadn’t been central to his life before or after that inaugural flight, and still, when turbulence struck or the engines misbehaved, Alvin Bonman clung to a rosary for comfort.
The rosary was one of three items surreptitiously left by his friend Every sometime near the conclusion of their final exchange, discovered where they lay only moments later. Alvin recalled that the seat cushion was still warm.
The second item was a key, the third a sticky note graffitied with the address to a P.O. box two counties away. Mad with curiosity, bored with students who only visited to lobby for paper extensions or weighted tests, professor Bonman cut his office hours short. At 11:55 Tuesday morning, Alvin punched the address into his phone and followed the instructions of its synthetic voice.
Inside the box was a note, hand written with care.
Confined to his new island, his seat in the sky five miles above the nearest rock, Alvin read Every’s note for perhaps the hundredth time and resolutely decided that the man he’d known had lost his mind.
Al,
They said it was our only choice. They said we have the technology, that a test last month was successful. A ‘proof of concept’. They showed it to me. A moth, extinct for eighteen thousand years, flapping its wings right in front of me. Looking at me. I told them they were fools. I told them there could be no coincidences, Alvin, not like this one.
Permian- Emissary of the Extinct Page 3
