The Fire Seekers

by Richard Farr

  “That’s the story we’ve been telling ourselves for thousands of years, isn’t it? But our friend Shul-hura says: ‘No, no. That story is a lie. The one language of the Architects was presented as a gift, but really it was forced upon us, as the conquerors always force their language on the conquered. So that they could control us.’ And then, get this, D. He says: ‘The majority believed. And those with many languages became priests, and helped them believe. But some of us with many languages resisted our own belief.’ ”

  “He spoke many languages, and all the priests did? You’re saying they were all Babblers?”

  “Sounds like a whole caste of priestly Babblers to me. Shul-hura lists every language he knows. The list includes every Mesopotamian language we’ve ever heard of, plus half a dozen more. Probably those are the other ones we dug up, that Bill’s not even had a chance to look at yet.”

  “Holy shit, M. You realize what this dude is saying, don’t you? He’s saying the Babel story that has come down to us—the Bible version—is—it’s—propaganda.”

  “Holy shit—literally.” She has a glint in her eye that reminds me instantly of Dad. “A possibility that religious people and atheists both seem to miss, isn’t it? That the gods were real, and really did tell us all kinds of things, but were lying to us. And to top it all, we’re being warned about the lie by a Babbler heretic.”

  “Oh man. When you publish this, it’s going to—Wait. Have you contacted Dad about it yet?”

  “Put it all in an email a couple of hours ago. Tried not to rub his nose in the fact that I have a better grip on the verb structure than he does.”

  My heart sinks. “Did you encrypt it?”

  “D, get a grip. You’re as bad as Partridge. Those guys in the gas-guzzler weren’t CIA or anything. I mean, I know this is freaky, but in the end it’s just archaeology. No, I didn’t encrypt it.”

  Her unwillingness to take the danger seriously, to take what she’s just said seriously, annoys me. I want to say: M, if you’ve told Dad by email, you’ve told the world. How do you think people will react to you and Dad telling them their gods are liars? But I swallow hard and let it go.

  My phone buzzes. Daniel, where ARE you?

  “Come on. Rosko’s freaking out.”

  I head down the hill. Morag must sense my irritation. When she catches up with me, she asks what’s wrong.

  “I just feel like you’re still refusing to look at what’s in front of your nose. Ever since we got back I’ve been trying to get you, and Dad, and everyone else to take seriously the idea that there was something strange about Mom’s death. But nobody believes me, nobody will listen, because everyone’s an expert on grief, everyone knows it’s all in poor little Daniel’s head. But surely at least you admit by now that there’s something that doesn’t add up?”

  She bobbles her head, not willing to say yes or no.

  “And now this. Not just evidence that Quinn knew something he could not have known by any natural means, but evidence that he and everyone else was deliberately misled, just like our heretical Akkadian blogger.”

  We’re at the top of Interlaken, a wooded ravine that provides a convenient shortcut to the Eislers’ neighborhood. As we descend into the trees she pauses, breathing fast, her eyes darting all over the place.

  “I’m just trying to focus on one thing at a time, D. I know it’s important to you to understand Iona’s death. I know that seems to be wrapped up with other things—the message in the vial, Uyuni, and now this stuff with the Colberts. But try to understand where I’m coming from. I’ve spent all my life hearing people who aren’t particularly brilliant say how brilliant I am. They don’t get it: Brilliant isn’t having a normal brain with a turbocharger bolted on. Mostly, it’s just an abnormal capacity to concentrate. Most people can focus on a task for two minutes, then they have to pick their noses and stare into space for twenty. Me, I’m like Bill: I can think about one thing, think about it hard, for eighteen hours straight. And I’ve been using that ability on the Akkadian translations. Which, believe me I know, makes me a pain in the bum for everyone else.”

  Yeah, it does. But then I probably wouldn’t love Morag, feel this deep need to protect her, if she wasn’t like that. Before I have a chance to reply, she says:

  “I have to admit, the Akkadian Version—Shul-hura’s story—gives me the creeps. It feels so real. Like I’m reading a cry for help that I could have written myself.”

  “What if it is? Real, I mean.”

  She pauses, temporarily lost for words. I experience a kind of elation, because I can feel the sand shifting under her feet. Doubt creeping in. A willingness to at least consider the idea that we’ll have to throw away all our ideas and start again.

  She laughs, as if to suggest she’s just thought of a joke. But then she says, in a tone as serious as can be: “If this is real, D . . . If this is real, then everything we thought we knew about human civilization—the origin of cities, religion, language itself—it’s just frost on the windowpane.”

  A small, root-strewn path goes steeply downhill through the undergrowth. Soon we’re in deep shade under the trees—red maple, elm, birch—and we have to tread carefully, eyes on the ground. Morag is so silent now behind me that, as the path tacks left along the top of the ravine, I turn to check that she’s still there—and that’s when I see handlebars poking out from a thicket of blackberry vines.

  I don’t think anything, really, except that it’s odd. Just take an involuntary step toward it, have time to notice that it’s three thousand dollars worth of exotic chromium-molybdenum alloy, the sort of machine that’s hand built and weighs less than a piece of toast. Then—

  Thokk.

  I’ve missed the last six, seven karate practices in a row, through no fault of my own. Besides, How to Remain Alert While Your World Is Falling Apart has probably not been covered any time recently in the post-practice chat at the dojo. So I’m not exactly thinking through defensive techniques at the moment when that first blow sends me reeling into a patch of salal.

  Luckily for me, I turn my head to glance at Morag and then flinch when I see the bike, so the chopping hand of Bike Jock Number One lands fractionally off target. My internal lights flicker dangerously, but they don’t go out. Twice-luckily, I’m not the only one who’s out of practice.

  The guy in the blue spandex probably knows his chop is off target, but as I roll over he reaches down, casually, his body language proclaiming loudly a major wrong assumption: that I will be offering no further resistance.

  Lying on your back’s a pretty good position from which to kick—and being angry and afraid concentrates the mind wonderfully, as some English literary heavy once said. I slip my hands closer in to my sides for better leverage, roll my shoulders back, and adjust my left foot so that it’s planted flat against the ground directly beneath my knee. Then I suck in a quick breath, take mental aim at a passing cloud, and launch my right heel at it with all the force of my thigh, butt, and back muscles combined.

  He’s still smiling as his jaw breaks. He’s probably still smiling as his neck snaps backward. After that, not so much: his teeth come out in all directions at once, like the shards of an exploding tea cup.

  With a backward roll I’m on my feet, standing next to the poorly concealed bike. Lost track of Morag. Never heard her shout, protest, nothing. The guy with the catastrophic dental problems is lying to my right, motionless. Should I check that he’s alive? I step forward, realize that he’s the “journalist” who accosted Stefan—and hear a distant, muffled cry.

  “Morag!” I scream. “Morag!”

  Impossible to tell what direction it’s coming from. I look around, but all I can see is trees.

  Oh yeah. The Sasquatch. He must have grabbed Morag from right behind me. But he didn’t come past me. Going toward Capitol Hill, and downhill, farther into the ravine, there are only two paths. They both lead through the trees to an old road, but one of the paths downhill is steep, stony. Not great fo
r a guy who is presumably carrying Morag under one arm.

  I fling myself sideways and start to run, jump, slide down the slope. It’s irregular, muddy, forty-five degrees. Most of the ground is obscured by plants. I get a branch in the face. Twice I end up sliding on my butt. Once, my foot comes down at a bad angle. Has to be my right foot, of course: my still-damaged knee feels as if it’s been split open with an ax as I go headlong into a stand of ferns. I pick myself up, slip again, keep moving.

  As I glimpse the road through a gap in the trees, there’s a flash of color to my left.

  The whole thing comes to me like a premonition. They’ve parked a car in here. Sasquatch will be dragging her toward it. But I’ll come up behind him while he’s bent over, struggling with her, the base of his skull unprotected. I’ll drive the heel of my hand so hard into his occipital crest that both his cervical spine and my wrist will probably break, but who cares about a wrist? Morag and I will be safe in the trees, back safely at home even, before anyone even finds him.

  Doesn’t quite work that way.

  Morag is kicking, trying to bite him, screaming at him. Stress tends to bring out her accent: “If ye dinna put me doon, ye greet fockin eejit, I’ll kick yer nuts into next month.” It’s not making any difference. I crouch out of sight for a moment, look frantically around for a weapon. A big stick would be good just now, or maybe three feet of steel pipe. All I can find is a fist-sized rock.

  I come at him from the side, think I’ve judged it well, aiming right for his temple, but he sees me coming and dodges at the last second; all I manage to do, maybe, is bruise his shoulder. Turning his full attention to me, he literally throws Morag away like a doll, one-handed, and comes at me fast with a vicious kick to the kidneys. Huge guy, huge kick; flailing for a block with my left hand, I reduce the power in his foot by perhaps a third, at the expense of nearly breaking all my still-healing fingers. As my bones scream, I’m thinking of whether Morag is injured while simultaneously entertaining a melodramatic image of a splintered rib piercing one of my lungs. Meanwhile he steps fluidly through the kick, and as if from nowhere produces a vicious-looking combat knife.

  This is not good.

  Winded and off-balance, I manage to dodge the first thrust, barely. The second one I manage to not-quite dodge: a stinging, bone-deep cut across the chin. Not good, some part of me registers: he was aiming for my throat.

  He grins at me then, I swear it, a dirty little smear of triumph he can’t keep from his face. There’s something both cruel and arrogant about it. Two of the things I like least in the whole world. Fury is not supposed to bring out the best of your training, but somehow, for a second, the pain and fear step out of me. I relax. I feel calm. I know instinctively that I can’t beat this guy, but I stop caring about that. Time slows down, and I even notice a little triangular tattoo on his neck. Watch the weapon, sensei would say. Watch the weapon, trust your training, and don’t think.

  I’m as surprised as he is. I string together three moves in a blur of energy: the sudden, twisting crouch; the spin, with a rising arm block to protect against his own next kick; the whirling, low, lateral kick into the side of his kneecap.

  He roars in pain, or anger anyway. The knife, released from his hand, flutters away into the bushes like a dying bird. He falls onto his other knee. And to my utter astonishment, Morag, who must have been directly behind him, comes out of nowhere, lands on his back, grabs his hair, and jackknifes forward with a savage head-butt right into the base of his skull.

  “Take that, ye miserable shite,” she says as he topples sideways. And to me: “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Wait.”

  “No. He could wake up any minute.”

  “Yeah, exactly. So we have to make sure he can’t follow us.”

  I never thought I would have to do this. It’s the most unpleasant skill I’ve ever learned: because it’s something you do to a person who’s already defenseless, it’s not easy, even with someone who just tried to knife you. But it’s what sensei teaches. Nobody can pursue you on a broken leg.

  He’s still in bike shoes. I push one of them with my boot until it’s turned flat on its outside edge against the road.

  “Don’t watch, M.”

  When she sees what I’m going to do, she doesn’t actually turn away, just stares resolutely at a point somewhere over my head. I aim, jump, and come down with one heel right in the thin middle of his tibia. The sound is fainter and simpler than I expect—less like a stick breaking than the click of a latch.

  I grab Morag’s hand. And we run.

  “Daniel, what—?”

  After shouting Rosko’s name and hammering on the door, I’m surprised to see Aaron standing there and Kit in the background talking to Rosko. Aaron’s looking at me with his mouth open, stupefied.

  “Aaron, let us in. And get some water, maybe Tylenol or something.”

  Kit looks at me and Morag with a stricken expression. With Aaron still gaping, she rushes to the bathroom.

  “I got hold of them when neither of you would answer your ph—” Rosko says as he comes to the door. Then he really sees me. “What the hell happened to you? You’re covered in blood.”

  Funny: the cut still stings, but I’ve almost forgotten about it. Kit comes back with a handful of medical supplies and two damp towels, one of which she hands to me. I wipe my face, feeling the coolness; sure enough, it comes away with the bottom half colored like raspberry puree. I clamp it back against my chin.

  While I explain what happened, Kit fusses over Morag with another towel. Then she turns to me and starts torturing me with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol.

  “Ow, that hurts.”

  “You almost cute when you try to be tough, Daniel Calder. Stay still and be quiet. How you managed to get mud in here?”

  “Beats me. Can’t you just slap in some Neosporin and tape it up?”

  “Getting there.”

  “If someone’s prepared to kill you while kidnapping Morag,” Aaron says, nervously peeking out the window, “you guys will have to go into hiding or something.”

  Morag gets up, twists from side to side, and then touches her toes, as if testing to make sure nothing is broken, then turns to me. “Aaron’s right. And I’m sorry, D. You were right too.”

  “About what?”

  “I need to stop worrying about Akkadian long enough to work out what’s going on now. I should have listened to you earlier.”

  I turn to Rosko. “What was the message about? What have you found?”

  He looks deeply uncomfortable, doesn’t say anything until everyone stops what they’re doing and looks at him. Rubs at his face with his hands, as if trying to scrub off dirt. Then looks at me:

  “They were filming right when the accident happened. Aaron and I found the video.”

  “What about that unbreakable encryption?”

  As usual, Aaron has barely said a word, but he steps in now—literally steps in, standing in the middle of us like a middle schooler about to give a class presentation. He holds his hands awkwardly, taps his thighs with his fingertips, speaks quickly:

  “When Rosko said he had files in Rijndael-128, I thought—well, I like a challenge, but that’s a waste of time. You need supercomputers to even have a prayer with that stuff. Then he explained about the file lists. The weak link in digital security is always the implementation, because the coders know what they’re doing and the end users don’t. I worked out that they’d put some of the files on a backup server, and I got into that in no time. It’s like, you put your key in a bank vault, and then, just in case, you leave a spare under the doormat.”

  “And these files weren’t encrypted?”

  He shakes his head. “Only a few of them were on the server at all. But one was your mom’s”—he blushes, throws Rosko a Help me look—“and then all these pictures and videos.”

  “What’s in my mom’s file, Rosko?”

  “You can read it later. Basically it shows two things. Th
at the Colberts have been spying on her for years. Right back to when she was still a grad student. And—that she knew Mayo back then.”

  “Knew him? As in—?”

  “They were in the same master’s program. Then they were lab partners with a shared interest in the relationship between biology and information. Then, by the time your parents met, they were living together.”

  Mom and Mayo. I’m not exactly shocked by this. It’s just like: Oh. A chapter of Mom’s life I had never even imagined.

  “They split because she met Dad?”

  “No. Before that. Looks like they had some kind of big argument. There’s an old email in there where she says she doesn’t trust him.”

  “O-kay. What about the video?”

  Rosko looks at the others. “Can you leave me and Daniel alone for a few minutes?”

  They’re halfway out of the room before I stop them.

  “No. I want you to stay. I need you to know everything.”

  CHAPTER 15

  HORROR MOVIE

  The table in the middle of the room is invisible under a thick, unstable ice cap of books and papers. Balanced in the center of the ice cap, like the research station at the South Pole, there’s an open laptop.

  “Sit down,” Rosko says to me, indicating the chair next to him. It’s a command, not a suggestion. The others gather behind us as he drags the machine into his lap and flicks his hand over the trackpad.

  An image of Mont Blanc: the website of Ciné-Colbert—except that there’s a group of folder icons along the bottom edge. One of them is labeled “Patagonie.” When Rosko clicks on it, the whole screen is populated with thumbnails. One, near the bottom, is a video clip—an image of rock and ice beneath a white “Play” icon.

  “I would not show this to you unless I absolutely had to,” he says. As if apologizing in advance for any damage it will do.

  He clicks the arrow, the image expands to fill the whole screen, and there we are: three ants in a line on the ribbed trunk of a Douglas fir. The camera wavers, catches us again, then zooms in on me, but the angle is wrong and all you can see is my pack. Better luck with Rosko: his best relaxed-and-determined look; the hair coming out from under his helmet tousled just so, as if he’s in an advertisement; some nice examples of excellent climbing style. Each movement precise and separate. Power perfectly controlled. It’s like being in karate class and watching sensei demonstrate an advanced kata.