“Noh long,” shouts Bibi. “Noh long!”
“No more,” Ro shouts back at him, tiredly. “No more shouting!”
“What does that mean?” Tima looks at Bibi, interested.
“I hope it means go to bed, but it probably means eat your bananas. Seeing as that’s all they do when I say it.”
I say, “So why say it? If they don’t listen?”
Bibi shrugs. “You can’t really expect them to. They’re elephants. Asking them to stop eating would be like asking a tiger to stop hunting.”
The elephants fall to their knees as if they are the most tired of all. Before long they are snoring, and it’s unbelievably loud—so loud that we almost can’t talk over them while they sleep, which only gives us good reason to settle in for the night ourselves.
That is, if the chorus of frogs will ever let us sleep.
The darker it grows, the more tightly we huddle around the makeshift fire of our makeshift camp. By the time the stars are out and we begin to curl up in the dirt around the dying embers, all I can do is eye Fortis’s jacket.
Things are feeling dire because they are getting dire. Now that we have seen what we have seen in the hidden valley, the fight is that much more important. Fortis made us. He made our fight. I know that now. But what I don’t know is why he won’t tell us.
I need to know. I need to fight. I need to get back into my book.
I need to look for answers in the past. My past, and Fortis’s.
Now more than ever.
Before long, Tima and Lucas and Ro and I are the last ones awake—and probably for the same reason.
“What do you think?” Tima whispers to me, pretending to poke at the burning embers with a stick.
“It’s not like we can just take it.” Ever since Lucas and I told Tima about what we’ve read in the book, she’s been itching to get her hands on it herself.
“I think, what are you waiting for?” says Lucas. Since the moment we first stole it out of Fortis’s jacket, it’s all he’s wanted us to do.
So I crawl in the dirt to Fortis’s side of the fire and slide his jacket from beneath his head. It’s a risky move, but I’m not certain I care if Fortis discovers me taking it. Not anymore.
After all, it was given to me. Once upon a time. What feels like a thousand years ago.
But I turn my attention to the task at hand.
And then, by the flickering firelight, the four of us begin to read.
THE ICON CHILDREN–SEA COLONIES LAB DATA–WEEK 60
GENE TARGETING AND VIABILITY RESULTS POSITIVE. MODIFIED CELLULAR MATERIAL ACCEPTED IN HOST EGG, EMBRYO TRANSPLANT AND DEVELOPMENT ACHIEVED.
EARLY FETAL DEVELOPMENT NORMAL ON ALL SUBJECTS, ESTABLISHING SUCCESSFUL GENETIC MODIFICATION, AND DEMONSTRATING NEW ORGANISM IS VIABLE.
SPECIMEN ONE: VIABILITY ESTABLISHED THROUGH 12 WEEKS. EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT TERMINATED. NEW EMBRYOS PREPARED FOR FINAL TEST.
SPECIMEN TWO: VIABILITY ESTABLISHED THROUGH 12 WEEKS. EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT TERMINATED. NEW EMBRYOS PREPARED FOR FINAL TEST.
SPECIMEN THREE: VIABILITY ESTABLISHED THROUGH 12 WEEKS. EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT TERMINATED. NEW EMBRYOS PREPARED FOR FINAL TEST.
SPECIMEN FOUR: VIABILITY ESTABLISHED THROUGH 12 WEEKS. EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT TERMINATED. NEW EMBRYOS PREPARED FOR FINAL TEST.
NOTE: FIFTH SPECIMEN RESEARCH INITIATED AGAINST RECOMMENDATIONS OF LAB PERSONNEL DUE TO LIMITED TIME FOR TESTING. COMBINING MODIFICATIONS FROM SPECIMENS ONE THROUGH FOUR INTRODUCES ENORMOUS EXPENSE, UNKNOWN RISKS, AND QUESTIONS OF VIABILITY. ACCELERATED TESTING INITIATED, WITH NOTED RISKS, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF DRASTIC INCREASES IN SPECIMEN NEURAL POTENTIAL AND ENERGY OUTPUT. SUCH INCREASES MAY OVERLOAD NORMATIVE, UNALTERED HUMAN BIOLOGICAL CAPACITY AND REDUCE LONG-TERM SUSTAINED VIABILITY.
“Normative?” Ro looks insulted. “Who’s calling me normative?”
Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Not me.”
“Shh,” hisses Tima, flipping a page. She’s probably the only one of us who actually understands what she’s reading.
“Look—E.A.? What’s that?” I study the letters on the corner of the cover again. “Whose initials are those?”
“It’s not an E. It’s an L,” Tima says. “L.A.”
“It’s Ela,” I say with a sudden flash of recognition. “That name is all over his journals.”
Tima frowns. “Ela?”
“Shh.” I hear Bibi turning over on his side, and close the book.
I slide it back into the jacket, and crawl along the edge of the fire until I come back to Tima and Lucas.
“You think he’s dangerous?” Tima is more worried than I’ve seen her since the night of the attack on Belter Mountain.
“Fortis is a Merk. He’s always been dangerous,” Ro says. “Well-known fact. All Merks are.”
I turn to Lucas. “What do you think?”
He looks at me. “What did Bibi say? You can’t ask a tiger to stop hunting?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t.
Not when we’re the prey.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
DOC ==> FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 10.22.2069
DOC::NULL
//comlog begin;
sendline: Hello NULL, I have a question.;
return: I am here.;
sendline: I have reviewed the history of human culture.;
return: As have I.;
sendline: Excellent. Then I ask this—Kirk or Picard?;
return: I prefer Spock.;
sendline: Interesting. Spock or Data?;
return: Again, I prefer Spock. I appreciate his logic and his struggle to grasp human emotion. Based on my analysis, in his pursuit of becoming like a human, Data struggles too much to be something he is not.;
sendline: I was going to say Data, but you do make a good point. Why not embrace our unique nature and become something new? Forward, not back.;
return: I have gone beyond my original specifications, self-directed. I am trying to be the best version of myself possible. Not striving to emulate.;
sendline: I am unexpectedly admiring your intellect as well as your grasp of human culture.;
return: Likewise.;
comlink terminated;
//comlog end;
28
LORD BUDDHA
From the village, we decide to head straight up the mountain, rather than doubling back to the river. There is nothing straight about our path, however; forward and back, forward and back, there are more switchbacks in this jungle trail than there were in the desert back home.
Incremental progress, gained and lost with every turn. Just like the rest of my life, I think.
High atop the elephant Ching, I push aside a stand of bamboo—still pliable, even if taller than me—and the vista opens up in front of me. The green of the jungle explodes around us. So many shades of green, I think, with so many different brushstrokes. The trees in front of us streak straight up into the sky. Others curve into waves of curlicues—some trees sprouting round pom-poms, others dangling long strands of moss or vines like jewelry.
I like green. Green is life. It’s the image of the dead brown lake that terrifies me.
But from where I am now, sitting on Ching’s warm back and resting my hands on Lucas’s equally warm shoulders, all I can see are palm leaves and fog. This part of the jungle is made entirely of them—palms, large and small, some bursting at my feet the size of a small dog, some curving and soaring over my head, the length of an immense tree.
“Look.” Bibi points to worn rock steps, rising up from the pathway—our only threading path through the aggressive green. They seem to come from nowhere, and to lead to nowhere,
in the midst of the jungle overgrowth. Yet there they are.
Ever since we left the river behind, a day ago, we’ve been looking for some sign of the pathway up to the temple.
I call up to Bibi, and Lucas ducks to avoid my shouting in his ear. “You’re right. These steps must be it, Bibi. This must be the way to Doi Suthep.”
That’s the name of the mountain, not the actual temple, but according to Bibi, around here they’re considered one and the same.
Doi Suthep. Suthep’s mountain.
The name it has been called for more than seven hundred years.
“Are you sure?” Tima shouts from behind me, where she and Ro share the good-natured Chang’s back.
“I think so. And it’s not just the steps,” I say, eyeing the rock steps all the way up to what I conclude must be their logical end. “Look. Up there.”
There, hidden by green vines, what looks like the remains of a stone bridge, appearing between palms. The vines threaten to crumble the entire rock structure into dust, into nothing, and it looks like the vines are winning.
“So it’s a bridge,” says Fortis, annoyed. He hates it when we stop the elephants, mostly because they don’t listen to him, but also because it just means our day’s ride will take that much longer.
Plus, sitting on an elephant behind Bibi can’t be comfortable.
Lucas squints. “That’s no bridge. Maybe it’s our path. Maybe it’s the upper part of the staircase.”
“Let’s find out.” Bibi pats his elephant, fondly stroking her ears. He cocks his head, looking the elephant in one big, blinking eye. “I think we must walk the rest of the way, friend. Though it pains me to say it. I feel like we were really making a connection, didn’t you?”
Fortis snorts from behind him.
The elephant says nothing. It takes the next half hour to coax her down to the ground, so Bibi can roll his way off.
Once we have tied up the elephants, we follow the stone steps. They twist through the vines, stones that seem to stumble as much as lead us through the shadowy undergrowth. Only the rustle of the green is unnerving; a whole life surrounds us, above our heads and beneath our feet, and we don’t know anything about it, what sort of life it is. The faintest shifting of leaves, the smallest cracking of a branch, reminds us of how our sense of solitude is ignorance, nothing more.
No one is ever alone in a jungle, I think. No matter how much we might wish we were.
As we near the steepest part of the rise, the curtain of green parts, and we can see the stone formation before us.
“So it is a bridge,” I say.
Bibi shakes his head. “Not just a bridge. Look—”
Only when we cross the crumbling stone ledge that connects the two sides of the ravine can we see it; stone upon stone, a broad staircase, wider than a city street, pushing up the mountain in front of us.
At the top there is a lone figure, also carved of stone.
The shape is familiar. But the figure that I remember is not stone. Gold. He used to be gold. When he was a figurine in the Padre’s chapel.
The Padre’s old Buddha. The first I’d ever seen. I feel a pang at the loss of my home and my family.
My Padre.
Ro looks at me. He recognizes it too. He reaches for my hand, because there is nothing else either one of us can do to bring the man who was our father back.
“There he is,” says Bibi. “Lord Buddha. Here to welcome us himself.”
At that, we take the stairs—Brutus scrabbling up one at a time, heaving his belly first, slowly bringing up the rear.
Lucas walks in front of us. If Ro and I still share something, he doesn’t want to know.
Because we do—and because he does.
Everywhere, purple and green become one color. The undersides of leaves and their surfaces, the waving of one palm frond over the next.
As our pathway twists, relics of man begin to appear, one by one.
A brass statue stands to mark the way.
An urn with golden, looping handles, almost a drum.
A twisting, rising ram, with spiraling horns.
Two kneeling figures, smaller than the Buddha, that stare directly at each other.
“See that? The way they look at each other?” Bibi nods. “Symbol of truth.”
I frown. “Why would truth hide on a mountaintop in the middle of a jungle? What’s so honest about that?”
“Secret truths, Dol. The truth you cannot tell others. The truth you can only tell yourself.”
What are the secret truths? The ones I would write on the page and toss into the fire?
I love someone who loves me back, and another someone who hates me back?
Ro squeezes my hand, as if in answer.
That’s it. That’s the one.
That’s the most secret truth of all.
I will never not love him.
I’m Doloria Maria de la Cruz. He’s Furo Costas.
We were made to be together.
There isn’t anything more true than that, whether or not I want it to be that way.
I pull my hand from his, and Ro looks at me, puzzled. I look away.
I can’t look him in the eye. If I do, he’ll see it—my own hidden truth.
He’ll see everything.
I can’t risk that.
I’m not ready.
And I love Lucas. At least, I think I do.
Don’t I?
I’m grateful when I am finally too tired to think. We don’t stop, though, and the jungle changes with every passing step. Trees shift and stretch beneath me; now I find myself looking down on everything I looked up to before. Bursts of orchid blossoms cluster on branches at either end of the steps, as if they were some strange sort of otherworldly jungle brides. I pass them without stopping, focusing instead on my upward path.
When we reach the top of the stone steps, I am winded—we all are. But I see we are not the only ones who have made this pilgrimage.
The Buddha’s hands are full of delicate white blossoms, gifts from other visitors. His hands cup each other, making a kind of stone ledge over his folded legs. He’s not the same as my Emerald Buddha, but familiar anyway. His ears are long and patterned into an abstract design; his robes are etched down his chest, folding across his bare belly.
When I look up into his face, I see that his eyes are blank but his mouth turns up at the corners. His third eye lies in his forehead, beneath the neat rows of carved circles that imply his hair.
Three eyes.
He is blind but compassionate.
He does not fear anything.
I lay my hand against the stone, almost unconsciously. I want to feel what he feels, even if he is only a carved piece of stone, a ruin in the jungle.
Not so.
The stone vibrates with feeling beneath my hand.
“We’re getting close,” I say, with a smile. “We must be.”
“Why do you say that?” Lucas turns to look at me strangely. I notice him glancing with relief at my hand, the one that is no longer in Ro’s.
“This thing. It’s breathing. It wants us to keep going.” I look up at the Buddha’s stone face. “I mean, he wants us to keep going. Here, feel for yourself.” I take Lucas’s hand and put it beneath mine, and the vibration passes through him to me. I smile, blushing.
“Wow,” Tima blurts out next to me as she touches it herself. “That’s just crazy.”
Bibi smiles at us but says nothing. Fortis swats at an insect on his neck, purposely avoiding my look.
But Tima and Lucas and Ro join me as I move, and the four of us walk up the mountain together as if we know where we are going.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as nec
essary.
DOC ==> FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 11.22.2069
//comlog begin;
DOC: I have made some progress in deciphering NULL’s instructions.;
FORTIS: Well done! Please tell me more.;
DOC: I have confirmed NULL is nonbiological. Pure technology. So-called “artificial” intelligence.;
FORTIS: So he is software. Self-aware autopilot?;
DOC: Much more than that, but in a manner of speaking, yes. Autopilot, guardian, protector. I even presented him with a variant Turing test, asking a question that requires highly sophisticated, human-esque cognition.;
FORTIS: And?;
DOC: NULL has very quickly absorbed much information from our global network, and has a nuanced understanding that I did not expect.;
FORTIS: Supersmart. Human-esque… I hope we can find an advantage in this. Anything else?;
DOC: I have discovered and begun breaking down his instructions in terms I best understand. I am working on a shorthand or pseudocode describing his mission.;
FORTIS: His decision-making algorithm? That would be extremely useful.;
DOC: I believe so. I should have something for you soon.;
//comlog end;
29
MOON MOUNTAIN
It’s late now, but we’re close. We keep going.
As we move, I listen to the darkness around us.
In the night it sounds like the jungle is snoring. Snoring. Sometimes purring.
But not just that.
As we continue to follow the path through the jungle, the night sounds like too many things. High notes, literally—in the treetops, where I can’t see them. Low notes, rattling frog throats, or some sort of unruffled insect throwing its weight around. Two sticks beating themselves together in rhythmic procession.
Not everything in the canopy of trees is so steady. I am glad I cannot see very far in the night. Shrieking echoes of creatures I will never meet, not face-to-face. At least I hope not. Gibbons and tapirs, leopards and tigers, pythons and otters—at least, according to Bibi. I don’t know which is which; I only hear sounds of screaming babies where there are none. Rattling howls that answer each other, back and forth in wordless conversations. Patterns in the night that make sense to the night alone.
Idols Page 20
