Fluid

    “To doubt all things was the foundation of his theory, and to scoff at all who would not doubt was the corner-stone of his practice. In debate he preferred logical and mathematical grounds, requiring a categorical "because" in answer to his "why?" He was full of morality and natural religion, which some say is no religion at all. He gained the name of atheist by declaring with Gotama that there are innumerable worlds, that the earth has nothing beneath it but the circumambient air, and that the core of the globe is incandescent. And he was called a practical atheist--a worse form apparently--for supporting the following dogma: "that though creation may attest that a creator has been, it supplies no evidence to prove that a creator still exists." 
 						- Sir Richard Francis Burton, 
						King Vikram and the Vampire

chapter n

i was at work when the message came. we'd all be waiting for generations, but like anything that you wait for for generations, i never thought it would actually come. to add insult to injury, rather than being some 19th century leather evelope from darkest africa or carved ivory inset to a tibetian mandala, the message came though my normal syndicated work feed. i was taking notes on the requirements of transfering early 20th century film to the digital archive, trying to decide if corrections to film imperfections should be made in data aquisition, or by software correction later. the practical upshot was that i was having to stare very closely at the 1906 buffalo bill cody's wild west show in london, frame by frame, and evaluate the best way to preserve the data integrity, and whether later damage to the film was part of its historical value. I was in a windowless converted room in the basement of the radcliff science library with extra leads hanging around undecorously for my particular requirements, as a firm archivist and curator. i had everything external running to my knee display to minimize the chance of actual interruptions. consequently, my knee had probably been flashing at the table leg for some time before i pulled up my leg and looked at the message. it was marked importent, then unmarked by my server since it couldn't verify the sender. 

   we humbly request your assitance in locating an 
   artifact of interest. please confirm reciept. 

without even really considering what i was doing, and before everything had sunk in, i hit reply and typed 
   
   rcvd

i walked back to my office in a kind of daze. what did i do now? it had happened, it was in the past tense. i'd gotten the message. i had always assumed there was slightly more information than that in the message, because i had no idea what to do next. just then a co-worker ducked his head in the door.

"kate, there's a courier for you, wants you signature specifically."

i walked out to the lobby. there was a swarthy, uncomfortable man with a slightly greasy looking book sized package. 

"cath-er-rine page?" he demanded in a thick accent, pronouncing every sylable. i nodded.

"sign here, to conclude this arrangement!" he announced. he was striking something of a comic figure. i signed, and he looked extremely satisfied. and then just as i reach for the package, he pulled it away.

"wait, how do i know you are cath-er-rine page? he looked darkly suspicious, and slightly mad.

"because i told you i am." i replied, somewhat confused. 

"not good enough!" he announced. "prove youself!"

"um." i said. by now, our conversation was drawing some interest. "come back to my desk, i'll show you some id, i guess" 

we made a sight, me looking flustered, guiding this slightly dirty suspicious man though the office, who was cluching a package to his chest and leering at everyone we passed as if they were going to attack him and take his package away.

we reached my desk. by now we'd gathered a small crowd of people trying not to look interested. i got my purse and pulled out my passport. he looked it over, glancing from it to me and back again. 

"look" i said, "that's a valid form of id in every country in the world, i'm not going to be able to produce anything better."

he looked at it for a few seconds more, the space around him growing more and more awkward. 

"ok" he announced. "is good enough!" with that, he threw the package on my desk. He caught my eye and smiled. "see you in africa!" and with that, he spun around and marched out, the entire office staring after him.

I looked down at my slightly greasy looking book sized package. The cuoriour had been perfect, a surreal messenger for a surreal message. For a moment, i considered just throwing it in the trash, or walking up to the street and giving it to the pitt river museum so that they could hopefully put it in a drawer and forget to catalog it. Since the dutch divesture of their colonial collection pitt river's attmept to organize itself had fallen to pieces; theorectically they'd only agreed to take the items the dutch couldn't find appropriate owners for in their home countries. practically, that was a lot of items. It was especially difficult as the only dutch speaker working for pitt river at that time had suddenly quit and moved to america, and as packeges came in the staff was at something of a loss of what to make of them. As a practical joke over the last couple months people had been dropping by packeges with dutch all over them and sneaking them in to leave on tables and in the overflow mail area. One person, in a not very well thought out act of kindness had baked cookies for the poor confused and overworked staff, which were actually only unwrapped when the smell had reached such a crescendo they had to be found right then. My office followed the trials of pitt river closely, as they were the only people around with more material to sort through and less resources to do it than ourselves. So there, i thought to myself, a little dutch text on this package and viola, i never have to think about it again. 

Somewhere in my childhood, mom was showing me the letters, and getting me started on transcribing them. Taking the old crumbling things in my hands hooked me into loving the past. And then, at an age when literacy still held a bit of novelty, i could make them new again, make them last for another age. I never had any question about what i wanted to be when i grew up, i knew that i wanted to be there in the last moments of the life of history, be the last one to hold old things, and be the one to carry them forward.  When i transcribed the family documents as a child i often didn't even know what the words meant. It was enough to trace the shape of them, it was enough to write the letters down. If my mom could read them it was enough to make me happy.  I wouls ask her to read me the letters at bed time, and she would.

"someday" my mom used to tell me, "you will take all of these to africa!" 

on slow summer days when school was out i would ask my mom if it was time to go to africa yet. Not yet not yet, i could hear her dreamily in my past, you must wait for the message. But she would let me read about africa, all preperation for the trip i would take when i got the message. 

When i was a teenager we did it again, with the transcriptions and remaining originals.  This time we made it digital and put the files in several locations just to make sure nothing happened to them. Reading though them i realized i might never be called to make the trip to africa, that i might instead be some child of mine to whom i'd passed all this onto. But i really hoped it would be me. I would day dream in class about a silver clad arab warrior, busting into my class, bowing, and asking me to go to africa. I carried the digital copies with me just in case. straight into adulthood i carried those copies with me, just as i carried the passion for preserving the past into my education and career. 

All of that was at war inside me as i looked at the still unopened package on my desk. I really liked my life, I wasn't sure i wanted to run away on a romantic dream to africa. I had been waiting so long i'd stopped waiting. It felt too early and too late to be heading off to fulfill some 200 year old mission my family was on. 

I never really had a choice though, my life had been building to this moment for so long that momentum alone could carry it though. Without feeling willed to, my hands undid the package. It contained an old notebook, which was full of the more notes and tips and so on for africa. As i flipped through i saw snippits of data that completed what i'd learned and transcribed as a girl. It was the key to burton's artifact, proof that i'd been called. It was above all, my secret fulfilled. My heart was beating hard. 

I shut the notebook, and went off to the office's destructive scanner. I set it for preserve image of page and ocr. I cut the binding and covers off and slid the guides around the pile of pages left over. I slipped a memory card in the slot and went off to find my boss' office while the scanner worked.

I found his door ajar and knocked, just hard enough to open it to where we could see each other.  He was alone, working on a notepad. I let out a little breath of relief i didn't know i'd been holding. I didn't know what i would have done if i had to wait. 

"i really need to talk to you, as soon as possible." i told him. 

"come in, and shut the door." he said. Robert, my boss' name was robert. I always had a hard time remebering bosses were human, even nice ones.

"how would you feel if i took a sabbatical?" i asked. 

he looked a bit pensive, a bit uptight. "when are you thinking of going? what are your plans?”

i decided i was feeling a bit pensive too. "what about more of a family leave thing then?

"look kate, what's going on?" 

"i have to go. i don't know when i'll be back."

robert sat back in his chair. "i don't know that we can let you go right now." he told me, very matter of factly. "we don't have anyone that can pick up your projects, and in this economy we aren't likely to find anyone was your set of skills." 

it was time to interupt. Robert was a good boss. He wasn't willing to just put my work on other overburdened people that wouldn't know how to do it. But  i didn't know if he understood the concept of extrordinary events in people's lives outside of work. 

"ah. so i think i may be leaving anyhow. it would be great if there was a job when i came back, but not, strictly speaking, required."

he looked taken aback. "is it that serious?" 

"it's pretty serious. Actually, it's the most serious thing in my life. I'm sorry robert, i'm sorry this is so sudden." i was fidgiting and nervous and i knew i looked it.

he suddenly looked very sad. then i remembered that he's lost his wife to cancer very quickly a couple years back before he was specifically my boss. I felt like telling him no no no, it's nothing like that, but i also realized it was somewhat useful to let him think it was. 

"look" he started, and stopped again. 

"when," he said, "um, when are you thinking about going?" 

"i need to get my things in order, i need to pack," i was realizing i had a lot to do, and i couldn't possibly do it all. It was time to get down to the things i really needed to do. "i guess i need to pack, and give my cat away."

he nodded, and thought for a second.

"well, i'll put your position open. If it's still open when you get back, you can apply for it."

fair enough. I had the pertinent expereince. 

"thanks robert. Thanks for everything."
he grabbed my hand warmly and wished me luck. All i need now was someone to give my cat to. I headed home to pack. After packing, i headed back to the office to get the memory card and notebook i'd forgotten earlier. I was never great at organization.

I retrieved my memory card from the scanner and set the original notebook for shredding. On my way home i took a walk to think about what i was doing next, through some old college buildings. It was just occuring to me that i didn't know when i'd be back in oxford. i brought up a feed of friend's public geolocation data and did a search on africa, just to see if i had anyone to drop in on. I didn't really have a good reason to go to africa otherwise, and i didn't want to answer too many questions about why i was suddenly going to a country where i didn't know anyone for a family emergency. Two names came up, both emotionally complex. marcia, one of my best friends since childhood and the mother of my child, and simon. Simon was my ex, my most dramatic, most flamboyant ex. 

"so," i explained to the air, "i'll be calling marcia then." but i texted her instead. I was feeling nervous. No one can tell you are nervous in a text message.

    Need to go to africa. Want to come visit you. What's the 
    best way to get there? Where are you going to be? Any 
    chance richle is with you?

A few minutes later marcia replied.

    I won't be here long enough to bother, and 
    richle is back in london anyway. Why the sudden 
    interest in africa?

I stared at that message for a minute. What to say? Marcia was not someone i lied to, she was at most someone i prevaricated a bit too. She saved me the trouble, as she was one of the few that knew of my family's little curse, as it were.

    Did you get the message?

I typed yes back on my knee keyboard, but the send didn't take. This was strange as i hadn't actually had any problems with this service in months. I pulled up the diagnostic mode and looked at messages for the last few minutes. Everything had been fine, and then the signal had suddenly dropped to nothing, no wireless towers reachable. Either a couple of towers had fallen over simutaneously, or someone had turned on a jammer. I looked over in the quad of the christchurch college, which i was walking through, and saw something burning. A crowd of drunken and huge boys ran into me, laughing and pushing me  out of the quad and into a darkened area near the bathrooms. The burning thing was probably a boat, i figured. Just then i got shoved from behind again. I looked behind me to see a procession of 3 robed figures, whom i was in the way of. I hustled ahead, but they kept behind me, and were joined by another column from the direction of the quad. In the firelight and the lights of the college i could see young men's faces under the hoods looking very angry. I'd doubtless stumbbled into some hazing thing for a dining society, and i was ruining all of their young men's mythology with my adult womanish presence and normal clothing. 

i went into the women's toilet. I don't know exactly what i was thinking, that maybe they wouldn't come in here because they were all men. they didn't, but only because they'd already been there. There was a dead goat on the floor and messages scrawled in the wall in blood, presumably the goat's blood. 

“how did they get a goat in here?” i asked the air. The air took no notice.

Besides the usual pentagrams and horns and whatnot, there was a message - 

  it belongs to us

“i've walked into some weird college hazing shit in my time, but, wow.” I said, and reached for my headset to call the groundskeeping office for christchurch. The headset was ripped out of my hand just as someone grabbed my hair. I tried to swirl around, but i heard the headet clatter to the floor almost the same time as i felt a sharp point in my throat. I went limp. 

A voice whispered in my ear. “ms page, you go and get it. And when you've got it, you bring it to us. And then we won't kill you. Do you understand?” she, i think it was a she, pulled my head down by my hair and sliced upward with the knife.

“what are you talking about?” i yelled “what is...”

but my assailent threw me to the floor and ran out before i could say anything more. I got up, and brushed some goat's blood off myself, and retreived my headset. I looked around the bathroom again. Now everything seemed to point to me, where before it was been all generic foolishness. I called the grounds keeper's office and reported a bloody mess in the women's loo. I looked again at the wall. Whoever had done all this knew how to write impecibly in blood, or used some sort of tool, or both. Everything was very detailed and precise. I grabbed a paper towel and smudged out the “it belongs to us” before dropping it in the bin and heading out. 

Great, i thought to myself, now i have to go change my clothes, and hope that no one notices the blood on me right now. I started to head for the high street to catch a bus to my flat, and finally the fear struck me. They knew who i was and what i was doing. If i went home now, they'd probably know where i lived. But then, they had to know where i lived, didn't they? It was no great secret, i wasn't too good at protecting my privacy. I stood on a street corner a bit paralyzed. I started walking again, around the block, killing time, moving, trying to think of what to do. I needed the most bad ass person i knew, someone that could just tell me what to do. That was marcia, and marcia was in africa. I didn't know anyone else that could cope with this kind of stuff. There were a few people in london, maybe, but they'd want to know about why the satanists were after me, and my trip, and enough people appeared to know about that already. In the mean time i was litterally walking in circles, my head down, probably muttering to myself. I nearly ran into a man in a trenchcoat before i saw him standing in my path, facing me. 

“good evening.” he said. He was another american.

I wanted to run, but a deep lizardy instinct in my brain told me not to, told me to stand still. 

“are you,” he paused, and looked at a scrap of paper, “are you 2001:618:400:3bb9:230:65ff:feb0:c95e , currently resolving to OxKateTPage?”

that was me, that was my phone. But why tell him that? I wondered. I decided he didn't look like a satanist, and hoped cliches would hold. 

“yes i am.” i answered. He looked slightly surprised. He didn't seem to be expecting another american either. 

“i'm detective inspector gillian, would you care to acompany me to my office? I'd like to ask you what you know about some livestock and the defacing of a college bathroom.”

of course, I'd left my geolocation data on. They'd just checked their caller id and handed the police my number to trace. I'd been reporting my location every 6 seconds, tracing a lovely square around this block. That must have really looked great to the cops. Kate, i thought to myself, you're a fucking idiot. 

“hold on one second.” i told him, and started typing on my thigh. He looked at me suspiciously, and grabbed for something in his pocket. My signal dropped to zero again. I just smiled, i wasn't trying to make a call out anyhow. I was adjusting my calling options. I set encrypted calls, geolocation data to be sent to called party only. After that, i looked back up to the cop.

“sorry, i wasn't trying to make a call. I just thought of something i wanted to change, and figured if i didn't do it just then i was going to forget. Thanks for waiting.” 

he looked at me quizzickly, perhaps a little annoyed. 

“um.” i explained, “sometimes i just have to do things right then and there or they just don't happen.”

he asked me to come with him, but i had the feeling i wasn't really matching the image of a goat killing bathroom defacer in his head.

Detective inspector gillian, or rick, as i called him after we got to chatting wasn't really suspecting me very strongly. He just wanted to know why i hadn't stuck around, and what i'd wiped with the paper towel that came up with my dna on them. I said “the wall.” figuring that the best way to lie was to stay as close to the truth as possible.

“why?” he asked.

I shrugged, trying to figure out what to say, again, the truth seemed to be the best lie. “because there was something particularly nasty and scary drawn up there, and i figured no one else really needed to see it.”

“weren't you concerned with destroying evidence?”  he asked.

“not terribly. It was just a graffited bathroom, with a dead animal in it. I mean it was nasty, but i just chalked it up to some immature kids in christchurch, and i couldn't see any actual harm done to the structure. Is it something more serious?”

“we don't know. What was the drawing of?”

this is was ready for, and this i was lying about.

“it was of a demon deficating while holding its penis. I just found the whole thing a bit obscene.” 

he looked a bit taken aback, and a bit sympathetic. I felt like maybe i was winning.

“what looks bad here is that you reported it to the groundskeeper, and then you left.”

“i had places to go.” i said. As soon as the words left my mouth, i realized that i'd made an aweful mistake.

Mr gillian leaned in a little closer to me. “why were you walking around that block, if you had places to go?”

“i also have a lot on my mind. I guess i got a bit caught up with that.”

“ok, ms page. I have down here that you work for the library on a digital film archive project?”

“until today, yes”

“what happened today?”

“i quit. As i said, i have a lot on my mind, a lot going on in my personal life right now. The last thing i needed was to get involved with something some stupid kids who think they are getting all into the occult were doing in the girl's loo. I felt i should report it, but i didn't want to stay around.” 

i was on dangerous ground. There was a huge ammount of tension between me and him. I was so obviously not telling the whole story, i'd even said as much. He was in the unenviable position of trying to decide if i the story i wasn't telling was about this silly bathroom problem or not. 

He stood up. “would you like some tea?” i shook my head, and he stepped out.

He came back a few minutes later with a tea in his own mug and sat down.

“can you stick around town for a few days in case we have some more questions?”

“no” i said. “i'm leaving the country most likely tomorrow due to a family crisis.”

“ah.” he said, “can you at least answer the phone if we call?”

“yeah, i think i can do that.” i replied, smiling. 

He smiled and shook his head. “have a better evening, ms. Page.”

when i stepped out of the police area and consequently the phone jamming field my phone lit up. It was marcia, time delayed message. 

   What the hell are you doing behind a police jammer? 
   Are you alright? Should i send a lawyer?

The next time delayed message was a smart business card for a london law firm, one that put them on retainer for me, debited from a third party account if i didn't reply withing 12 hours. I smiled at marcia, so far away, and so effective in her worried and canceled the business card.

I sat down on the street corner to compose my thoughts for a message to marcia. I doublechecked that my message was encrypted and going through an encryted tunnel, and required her server to support end to end encryption on the message before i sent it.

   Yes i got the message. Ran into a bit of trouble 
   regarding the artifact. Some satanists seem to want 
   it, whatever it is. But i'm ok for now. Do you know 
   anyone that would look after my cat?
   
i was still in the same boat for going home as i had been when i was intercepted by mr. Gillian, but i cared less. They wanted me to go get this thing anyway, what use would it serve to trash my house? I started to make my way home. Marcia came through. 

   I have a ticket booked and waiting at heathrow for 
   tomorrow to johhanesburg. Cheapest fare, you just
   have to confirm the debit. Don't worry about the 
   cat, i'll take care of it. I've contacted simon and 
   he's available to pick you up. Stay safe. Remember,
   richle needs you.

I shifted over to my accounts to confirm the debit. She'd found a very cheap fare indeed.

Chapter n – 1, background

marcia is my most amazing friend. she's the big martial artist type, sometimes corp exec, looks like a model, the one with all her shit together. the one out of a movie. marcia does everything that she says she'll do. she's got the least used agent on the net. she is so self organizing, it has nothing to do. men fall over marcia, men feel like tufts of lint in her presence. geek types esspecially fawn over her, since she is the most cyborg person i've ever known. she uses men, but far less than they are hoping for. she has a slightly boyish athletic body, still with generous boobies and one of those eternally young, slightly androgenous faces. i've seen every kind of man go after marcia, and many kinds of women. they all come up empty though, marcia had most of what people think of as sexuality and libido surgically removed. 

i asked her right after the surgery the question you are wanting to ask her right now. what's it like? what does it mean to lose the biggest motivating factor in human existance?

she answered what she always answers to that question now;  "i feel as though i've lost my worst enemy."

a few years later, she asked to come stay the weekend at her place. She told me it was important. I showed up with my things, which we carried off to the guest room. She sat down on the bed and patted the space beside her. I obliged her, and sat.

“there's something i want to talk to you about.” Marcia began. “i've decided that i want a child.”

“Didn't you rather make that difficult?” i said. I was still getting used to the whole sexlessness thing. 

“Don't be flippant, i've given this a lot of thought.”

“i'm sorry, i didn't mean it. That was bad of me. Are you thinking of adopting?”

“no. When i became a eunich i had some eggs put on ice.” 

That surprised me. Marcia's split from the world of sexuality had been so complete, so profound, so enthusiatic, the thought that anything as sexual as reproduction could get though boggled me a bit.  But it made sense; while marcia couldn't really do the pair bonding involved with something like marriage for phsiological reasons. There were micro lesions in her brain that insured that the things we do to reinforce romantic bonds would never be more than torture for her. But there was nothing stoppoing her from loving a child. Or being loved by one. 

“This is about bonding, isn't it?” I asked

marcia smiled. “See, this is why i talk to you, this is why i pick you for these things. You get it, i don't have to waste time explaining things.”

“You probably have to waste a little time. I don't know how good an idea it is. After the bonding, which isn't there for everyone anyhow, you have to commit to this lifelong relationship. And relationships aren't something you've had a lot of experience with. What are you going to do if you feel like you're bad at it? It's not like you can rethink this decision.”

She was still smiling. "this is so like you. You get to the heart of the matter. But this one, i know. I've always wanted to share my life with someone, and the someone i want to spend my life loving is my daughter. And i'm telling you before i'm telling anyone else because i want to ask you to be my daughter's father."

i hate it when people strike me speechless. At that moment i was very speechless. I continued with the general speechless motif until marcia started looking impatient. 

I finally managed "but i can't even, and you can't,"

now i was getting upset. Marcia was just staring at me, arms crossed. I didn't understand what i was supposed to do in this situation. "ok, look, we're both women, and you don't even have most of your reproductive system. How the hell are we supposed to have a child? And why ask me? Why do you want me to be that 'father'?" 

it was marcia's turn to be upset. "look, if you don't want to, just say, but don't play stupid. You are far too clever to not understand me." 

she looked more vulnerable than i ever thought possible. Invincible marcia, sitting 5 inches from me with her arms crossed, forhead slightly wrinkled from emotional effort. It was profoundly wrong, it made me want to run away and hide under something. 

"just humour me and explain what you are thinking. I'm in no fit state right now to work it all out for myself. Is that so outrageous?" i said.

marcia relented. "i guess i'm very tense, i just want you very much to say yes. My plan is to use one of my eggs and a sperm, probably from laramie, and replace his dna with yours, then implant her into penelope to carry her to term." 

the whole plan was very strange, and technically difficult. I was still in shock, and i don't ask the best questions when i'm in shock.

"penelope your sister or penelope your college roomate?"

"sister. You know, i haven't thought about my college roomate in some time, but thanks for reminding me." snarky, that was better. That wasn't the strangely scary emotional marcia i'd just seen. 

"why laramie's sperm? I mean, the sperm casing has nothing to do with anything at that point."

she shrugged. "Two reasons really. A, in some countries donating the sperm technically makes him a parent, and i travel a lot. And b, in most countries it puts him in the line of succession should anything happen to me. I'd like him there. I think in a pinch he would make a good father." 

“huh.” I said. “This kid's going to have 4 parents.”

“Yes, she would. But with you as dad we know it'll be a girl. “

i smiled at her. “X is all i have to give.”

“Does that mean yes?” she asked. 

“no. that means i'll think about it. You are asking me to be a parent, and i at least need to think about it.” i said.

“Do you want to know why i want you to do it?”

I thought for a moment. I thought about all the answers she could give, all the possible praise and pratical reasons. Part of me wanted to swell with the tremendous honor, and bind marcia, the incredibly successful marcia, closer to me. But none of these were the right reasons to say yes or no to her. It struck me that right now her reasons were unimportant. 

“no. i don't want to know why. Give me a couple days to think about it.” i told her.

She nodded. "48 hours."

over the next two days i talked worse care senarios over with marcia. 

What if something goes wrong with her? What if she's not as bright as you want? What if she's everything, but she dies on you? What if she grows up to be a serial killer? What if you die? What if she and i never have anything to talk about?

Marcia answered my concerns deeply and patiently. Some of her answers were practical, but mainly her answer was "i don't know, we'll do our best."

two days later i told her i'd do it, on the condition that i got to name our daughter. 

"what do you want to name her?" marcia said.

"i want to name richle." i replied.

“Just to annoy laramie?”

“Partly, and partly because i think it's a nice name.”

“Ok,” marcia said. “I can appreciate both reasons.”

Next she headed off to convince laramie. Seeing as he was a catholic priest and the church looked askance at things like this he was liable to be a tougher sell. But in recent years the church had taken a softer line on fertility treatments, which this technically was. There being no actual genetic relationship to laramie helped as well. In the end marcia signed a contract binding her to single embyro implantation and a few other technical points, and the body of christ said it was ok for laramie to assist in a fertility treatment. She nailed penelope's ok with a phonecall. Slightly over a year and a bevy of hormone treatments later she was breastfeeding richle for the first time on a bed next to her sister in a recovery room. 

I dropped in the next day to say hi to both of them and to see my new daughter. I had no idea how i would feel. When i first picked her up she seemed so small and alien. She didn't cry, or pee on me, or anything people told me she'd do, she just stared at me. I visited the new mom everyday for the first couple of weeks, and then about a weekend a month. She did fantastic, and she and richle were everything together she's hoped they would be. Richle was so beautiful i could barely believe she was half from me. I was falling in love as sure as her mom, and i realized that i couldn't really afford to. So when richle was a about 8 months i told marcia i would see less of her and our daughter. I feared relief or worry or something from her, but marcia understood.

"I understand." She said. "drop in from time to time. But not so often that it gets too hard to leave." and that's what i did. 

Richle was five years old by the time i got the message. 

Marcia never stopped looking out for me, and never infringed on my independence. It was a hard line to walk, but she manages it. 

I slept at home uneventfully that night, bags beside my bed. I woke to an early alarm and began to make my way, in the semi-coma of travellers who are always suffling their feet without enough sleep and not fully awake.

Chapter n – 2, more background. 

i first saw laramie many years ago walking away from the kotel in jerusalem. I was fresh from my first trip through africa and doing the tourist walk of old jerusalem. The kotel is the west wall, the most sacred place in judaism. He was walking out of the men's side, and i not looking where i was going, stumbled into him. he was tall, swathed in black that fit tight neck to navel and fell away to a skirt style bottom and boots. he was wearing a cowboy hat. everything was black, everything but the priest's collar. what impressed me most was that all the blacks matched. he flashed me a toothy smile. i am not, apparently, a super attractive woman. i am at best slightly striking, and mostly i trade on my amazing personality. laramie was gorgeous, and at that moment i want to be gorgeous too. i hadn't really bothered to take the collar into account. i think at some level i decided that he was too sexual, too vibrant to possibly be celebate. the other thing i knew, with that style and that swagger, was that he had to be american. i was half right.

i decided to ask directions. yes, that would be how i would strike up a conversation. oh, yes. 

"excuse me, do you know where the..." hadn't thought through that part. "the..." 

"the... what?" he said. he didn't just say, he challenged. plus, he spoke in a hard to place european accent of some sort, so not american afterall. he knew what i was up to, he wanted to see if i could make it worth his while. he was such a perfect creature, why would i be the first to try this with him? it was almost certainly a lost cause, i decided the least i could do is go out memorably.

"do you know where the place we are going to have drinks is? i assume it's nearby." i tried to speak smoothly, but it was all a bit of a blurt. 

he looked taken a back, almost offended. i'd hit him with a line and he'd not been expecting that. 

he began to stammer slightly. "you seem to be getting ahead of me.."

"damn, there i go again, not showing my work. this is why i never did well in math. Let's start with names and hands." i suggested, “my name is kate." i offered a hand.

He he smiled took it. "Please call me laramie. Kate as in kiss me kate?" 

oh, this was going well. i smiled warmly and nodded, 

"yes, as in kiss me kate."

"well then kiss-me-kate, i think the place we are having a drink is right over here."

wow, i thought, this is really going well. right up to 15 minutes later when he explained that he was gay. also, he was a french expat living mainly in arizona. work brought him to jerusalem. i was stuck on the gay part, but trying very hard to remember the rest in case he quizzed me. 

"what work?" i asked

he looked a bit startled, then confused. "i'm a priest. i'm sorry, i thought you knew."

i suppose i should have guessed from the collar. still, it was all very confusing. 

"are you a missionary of some sort?" 

"ah," he replied "i think i see the source of your confusion. no, i suppose i'm more of a research priest. i am also a doctor of archaelogy."

"of course you are."

it wasn't six months before i ached for him. Laramie, i decided, was just always going to have a place in my heart. As for him, he wanted a friend, and i think he wanted essepcially a friend outside the church as a fresh perspective. I became that for him. He bounced ideas and politics off me, and i was wholly secular at him. Trying to convert me was outside the bounds of our relationship, as was trying to talk him out of catholocism. 

That's how i came to be in love with a gay priest.

the cheapest way to joburg, by some fluke, connected though tel aviv with a 5 hour layover. I texted laramie and asked if he could make it. He replied that i'd picked a particularly free day, and he had a place in mind. I walked out of customs with the normal israeli security shell shocked feeling, and he was there. He was dressed in custom black, white, and red motocycle leather, with, i kid you not, a priest's collar done in leather. I walked up to him and peered at his throut. The whole thing zipped up to his neck, and the white bit hooked onto the rest of the collar, sealing it against the wind. 

"hi kate, i'm up here." he said cheerfully. 

"wow, that is quite a getup. Did you have to explain alot how you wanted the collar done?" i said.

He laughed. "it's really nice to see you too, kate. And no i didn't, the man that made it came up with that and suggested it to me." 

"so if you are on a motorcycle now," i began. He rolled his eyes.

"we'll get a cab, foolish woman."

we got snarked at the taxi stand by a chassidic man. He flashed me such a look of discust, which was surprising. I rarely found chassidim that would look at me at all. As we got into the next cab, i asked laramie,

"what is the very frum hampstead heath?" frum, by the way, means ultra religious jews. The ones that won't touch the hand of the wrong gender, men that won't listen to the voice of women singing, and so forth. 

Laramie looked confused. "hampstead heath?"

"it's the area in london where the gay men go to have anonymous sex. Every city has one, i figured that holds true for israel, and probably doubly true for the frum, since none of them can afford to be gay."

laramie looked curious. "i honestly don't know. But thanks for the tip on hemapstead heath, i'll have to use that if i find myself in london."

i got my best shocked face on, "you?!"

he glanced at me. "no. Kate, i'm celibate. That's why it's ok that i'm gay."

Laramie was born to a very religious family in a very religious 
village on the coast of france. About the time that was i was having naughty dreams about the chess club president, laramie was laregely taken up with collecting sea shells and periphenalia from the beach. To each he gave stories, tried to imagine their purpose, how they were used, what the hand was like that held them. 

He found an old home made fishing pole on the beach with a wine bottle cork fed though the line as a float, and bait long gone and a plane hook on the end. He took it home, and used it to re-arrange his shells and rocks. He imagined christ's hands on the pole, rather than his own. He imagined christ healing people when he touched the pole to rocks and shells. He would say (in french) you i heal of leprosy, tapping one rock, and you i heal of limblessness, tapping a shell. They were stories of magic tricks though, and nothing more. Jesus was the action hero of laramie's early life. Games about jesus were the only games he was allowed to play without getting a good beating as well. But despite all that, one day he was walking down the road to the center of town, and he was struck. The awe of all that was good, of god's goodness, filled him. He felt as if he could see all the saints dancing in terrific joy in front of him, and as he held on to the pole he could hear the verses he'd read, playing in his head again. "suivez-moi, et je vous ferai pêcheurs d'hommes" (serve me, i shall make you fishers of men) and most of all, most powerfully of all, elle excuse tout, elle croit tout, elle espère tout, elle supporte tout. La charité ne périt jamais. Les prophéties prendront fin, les langues cesseront, la connaissance disparaîtra.

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Laramie was floudering like a beached fish on the road to damascus. He was streaming tears. He barely could walk, he was so struck in all one moment by the spirit of his faith. He made is way to the church and begged the father to let him devote his life to christ right then and there. But laramie was a child and his father's only son. The old priest knew his father, and knew that he would want his son by his side. He knew the man who had been his friend for many years looked forward to granchildren that would bear his name. He talked the boy out of priestly devotion and told him that many time the lord calls on us to serve him in smaller ways in our lives. Love the lord, he said, and he will show you the way. To love the lord as a boy you must above all honor your father and mother. Laramie nodded solelmly, and returned home. He was both elated and dashed. 

His consumine love of god, christ, mary, and the whole crew didn't leave him. He brought them his whole soul as he found it. Which is why he found himself a few years later confessing to the same priest that his affection for men was profound, physical, and driving him. that his love of his fellow man was perhaps inappropriate to his love of god. 

The old priest, still a friend of family's and at heart a compasionate if simple man, rocked on his chair.

he pleaded to the priest, he was still bathed in the ecstacy of his religion. he still wanted to make himself all better, in order to serve god. 

"perhaps," he said, drawing a deep breath, "perhaps we should consider the priesthood after all." 

for what it's worth, i've always assumed his spiritual awakening was the result of some sort of misdiagnosed aneurism. 

"is it really ok that you're gay?" i asked.

He shrugged. "certainly more than it used to be. But not in many communities, and no one likes how out i am. For that matter, i'm not very out. I don't tell people unless they ask and its not often that people come out with a 'father, are you gay?' unprompted."

he thought for a second. "it helps that they need my skills here. And it helps that i'm not really a missionary. I think they would be nervous about a gay missionry."

we pulled up to the cafe, and negociated our way inside in a few  minutes. I picked up where we'd left off, roughly.

"you told me you were gay without my asking." i said.

"that was different- you don't know me in the context of the church. Also, i needed someone to talk to." he paused, and then, "also, i needed to let you down gently but quickly."

my turn to shrug. "fair enough. I've always thought your catholosism was weirder than your sexual preferance anyway."

he laughed. "this from you- you are so strange. you know, kate, if i were  straight, i'd leave the priesthood for you."

he got me for a second, for a moment i just fell a little deeper into his spell. 

"Huh, really?" i said, "but you say that to all the girls, don't you?"

he flashed a grin, and looked into his coffee.

"yes, yes, you're right, i tell all the girls that." 

we started to laugh. I felt my chest loosen and tighten all at once. 

We talked on and burned our time away. We caught a cab back to ben gurion for the next leg of my flight and laramie came as far as security to see me off. 

As we walked, laramie toting my lugage, he told me "look, i want to see you more. You must come to jerusalem, i'm there nearly full time at the moment. I've even set you up a place to stay- i have a cousin zia who is a jewish convert- no don't ask, we don't have that kind of time now, but anyway, she lives in jerusalem, and she's said you can stay anytime and she doesn't really care how long. Her and her husband's house is too big for them anyway. So come anytime and text her- i'm sending her number now- and stay and we'll have coffees." 

i accepted the number to my contacts. "i'll think about it, it's very kind of you. Honestly though, I don't know when i'll be back. I don't know what's going to happen to me."

we both looked troubled. But by then there was a young israeli security man, taking my passport and ticket out of my hand and tapping them impatiently, and my visit with laramie was over. 
i've always had a way with men. Not a particularly good way, but a way none the less.

One of my first passionate affections was in 8th grade. He was a start boy, president of the chess club. to all appearences, he liked me enough. i had a serious crush on him, had had one for ages. Somehow, and i don't remember how either of us managed it, we arranged to have something that aproximated a date.

i was feeling pretty good. he had the geek shyness. he said very little, but when he spoke it was to blurt out facts. he had delicate features, partly hidden under an overgrown mop of hair. we had a  pass off campus at lunch, and took it at the local burger place. we grabbed our food to go, avoiding the crush of other students and trying to act together but not too together. as we walked back he told me about making rockets with his dad and brothers at home and firing them off on trips out to the desert. i listened attentively. i'm sure rocketry would have facinated me normally, but i couldn't have cared less. he could have been reciting mein kamf and i would have listened, kept my eyes on him, half smiled. 

when we got back to school we were at a slight loss for what to do. i suggested chess, and he looked pained for a minute. i didn't really pick up on it at the time. it took years for me to see that this was were i really went wrong. he agreed and brought out a pocket magnetic chess set. this is where he went wrong, and i hope he's gotten over it by now. chess looked cool to me, and i'd gotten to the point where i was completely confident about how all the pieces moved. 

and that was about it.

i moved first. i like knights. i like them because they can leap over other pieces, they seem like the action heros if chess to me because of that. so, i moved my action knight, with a bit of a flourish, out in front of the pawn line. 

he moved a pawn. 

i moved another knight. action, action, action!

he moved a bishop.

bishops are good, i thought. they have a very fast move thing going. you can slide them accross the board, pull your hand away and make that brief all important signifigant eye contact with your opponant. it's the eye contact that says "there, i've moved my bishop, he is most definately moved, and moved with confidence. it is not my turn anymore!" however, looking at the board, i realized i couldn't move my bishop. i hadn't moved any pawns. this is the failing of the bishop, he is not much of a leaper. i wanted to move my bishop badly now, but i was learning patience and preparation, so i decided to move my pawn in preperation to move my bishop. i moved a pawn right by my knight. i moved him two spaces, because i knew he could, and because two spaces allways looks more impressive than one. i wanted to be serious to him. i wanted to be impressive. i wanted him to look at me when i moved.

he didn't though, he just looked at the board. he moved a pawn.

oh, wow. now it was getting tough. i could finally move that all important bishop, but i could also threaten one of his pieces with a pawn. how good would that be? i could be strong and forthright, i could make the first threat of the game. how could he not notice me then? he'd have to look up from the board. i looked longingly one last time and mr. bishop, and then abondoned him. i move the pawn and threatened his pawn. i looked up from the board, hoping to be there to meet his eyes. no luck though, he was head down. 

he seemed stuck in amber for a moment. he wasn't looking up,but he wasn't really looking at the board anymore either. he moved his queen.

and then, barely audible, he said, "checkmate"

i snapped my head back to the board. it was true. i was in checkmate, the game was over in three moves. six if you count mine, but there wasn't much point in counting mine. i never had moves in the first place, i had flourishes. 

we sat in awkward silence after that. i had expected to lose, but i thought i'd have more to say when i did. i couldn't think of anything to say. for the first time i realized it had been important to him that i do well on the chess game, and there had never been a possibility that i would. he gathered up his chess set. 

"um, tell me more about rockets" i said

he paused, and then  "uh"

a moment later he said "i don't think there's much more to tell, i told you all about them"

"oh" came my witty rejoiner. "i guess you've been playing chess for a long time then, to be that good"

"well, that's kind of a standard thing, but i guess i have."

i had the inkling of what went wrong there. he hadn't needed me to win, he hadn't even needed me to be good at chess, he just needed the chance to show off his skills. i had been so simply aweful that i had denied him the chance to even do that. he mumbled an excuse so low i couldn't hear and suddenly he was gone. i looked down at half eaten french fries. my attempt at a date hadn't lasted though the fries. i wanted to follow his lead, i wanted to make an excuse and get away from myself as quickly as possible. instead i finished my fries and avoided the chess club for the rest of the 8th grade. 

At some level i believe 8th grade set the tone for my man troubles in life. 

Chapter n + 1

Nearly 17 hours after leaving oxford i touched down in jo'burg. simon was there to meet me at the airport. He'd lost weight and cleaned up, he was dressed sharp, and he caught my eye and held in a way that clearly said “i've been taking my meds right on schedule.” that is perhaps unfair. It wasn't simon's fault that he was born with a disposition to progrssive degenerative manic depressive brain damage, or as i called it, drama queen disease. But while it wasn't his fault, that was scant comfort to those of us who had attempted to date him. Simon had never really accepted it when i broke up with him. He didn't believe me when i told him i didn't have the energy to keep up with the mood swings and the bizarre adventures they took us both on. Partly this is because simon is something of a spoiled child, and partly because there wasn't a very good way for simon to tell the differnece between his own brain telling him to call it quits and me telling him. 

He was standing in a sea of professional drivers, all holding signs with their client's names on them. He was holding a carboard sign that just read “trouble”. I gave him my long suffering smile, and snaped a ring pic of him for later. This will help, i said to myself, if he tries to seduce me. 

“simon,” i said, “it's so good to see you. Thanks for meeting me here. You know you didn't have to.”

“bullshit.” he announced. “i absolutely had to.”

he took my luggage cart and started leading the way towards the parking lot. 

“How is your father?” i asked

“he's well. He was annoyed when he got the assignement to botswana, but he's quite pleased now, it's not at all what he expected.”

i nodded. “i know what you mean, everyone thinks of southern africa as a smoking crater until they come here. How are you liking it?”

he took a deep breath. “i love it. Frankly, i'm thinking of staying on if dad accepts re-assignment.”

that surprised me. simon was on his father's staff. It wasn't as nepotistic as it looked, since simon had studied for and actually done the job for years as aide to the ambassator, unpaid. He has a good enough resume at this point to work for many other ambassators, but he prefered working with dad. Since simon's mom had passed away they had grown close and mutually supportive. Some people looked askance at the situation, but the state department had known devon, simon's father for years amd simon all his life. I had learned something while dating simon- the unfortunate truth about nepotsism is that often the families of competent people end up being the best trained for the job. 

Then there was the matter of simon's affliction. Technically he couldn't be denied employment as a depressive or manic depressive under WTO human employment standards- this applied in the western world trade area, including north america and europe. Not only could he not be denied employment, he couldn't be fired for any resultant behaviors connected to his brain damage either. He could be put on unpaid medical leave for treatment, and forced out of active employment for not seeking appropriate treatment, all of which ammounted to being fired. Suing under wto standards was terribly painful as well, so the only employees that really benefited from them in any substancial way were governement employees, which simon was. But while a job was effectively garenteed a cooperative and understanding boss wasn't. This was another benefit of working with his father, he knew quite a lot about drama queen disease. All of this was always more important than any particular place has ever been, until now.
“what's making you want to staying botswana?”

“have you been to botswana, kate?”

“actually, no i haven't.” i admitted. “i've mainly been to south africa and for a camping holiday in madagascar.”

we arrived at the car and he loaded my stuff into the back. 

“get in, and i'll tell you why.”

i got in, and simon jumped into the drivers seat. 

“in 1966 botswana gained independence from england...”

i put up my hand to stop him. “i have an idea. Skip the history lesson, and just tell me what you like about it.”

he grinned. “it's well managed. The people like the governement, and the governement likes the people, and that's never been true in any other country i have lived. It was that goodwill that saw them through the aids crisis, which as horrible as it was made them even gentler and closer to each other. Plue it turns out i dearly love big game. First time i even got my car stuck behind a group of elephants walking tails in trunks, my heart was in my throat and it's never really left. Do you know there is more big game per square foot in botswana than anywhere in the whole world?”

i was smiling. I'd never seen simon so genuinely happy. “no, i did not know that.”

“yep. During and even before the zimbabwean civil war all the big animals made their way to botswana, as if they knew this was where they'd be safe.”

“i had no idea elephants had such good instincts for geopolitics.” i said.

He smiled. “apparently they do.”

well fell into silence for a little while, and without realizing it i simply fell asleep. I slept all the way though south africa and straight into gaborone, botswana. 

Simon had put my stuff in his flat and gotten a small dinner together while i slept in the car. I don't sleep on planes, and was consequently most exhausted than i realized when i touched down. I woke with a note taped to my forehead, the car seat let down to put me in a roughly reclined position. I pulled the note off my forehead and read it:

   This way to candlelit dinner

it said, with an arrow pointing the wrong way. Oh dear, i thought, it's going to be one of those trips. And what's more, simon's as healthy and happy as i've ever seen him. I pulled up the ring pic with him holding the trouble sign, and studied it, trying to commit to memory how fucked up simon could be. And then i joined him for dinner. 

Dinner was lovely, a stew of groundnuts, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, and a type of african yam i'd had before but not in years. He'd gone very local on it, which was getting the whole trip off to a lovely start. 

“What's bringing you to africa?” he asked over dinner.

“backpacking trip. I just figured i'd head off, avoid countries where i'd end up kidnapped and see where i end up. I'm hoping to do some prep shopping tomorrow, go get a map and start out.”

“you sound exicted.”

“i am. I haven't done anything like this in years, i was afraid i was getting too old.”

he nodded, looking down at his food. “it's a bit sudden, isn't it?”

“what do you mean?” i asked, getting suspicious.

“marcia called me, said she's talked to you and there had been some trouble. Southern africa is a long was from oxford, I was just wondering if that's why you were here.”

thanks marcia. I muttered to myself. Before he could ask me what i wa muttering about i said “i just needed to get away for a little while. Backpacking in the most beautiful places in the world is a great way to do that. I'm not in any trouble that a little r & r can't fix.”

“marcia wanted me to look out for you. She's worried. She said some shit went down in oxford, but wouldn't give me detail. Will you give me details?”
 
“i don't need looking after. I'm fine. This trip is fine.” i said tensly. “it's just that i need you to drop this subject.”

He looked hard at me. He was definitely the healthiest and strongest i'd ever seen him, and consequently he was more perceptive than he'd ever dreamed of being when we were actually going out. I was probably more of a mess than he'd ever seen me, belying everything i was trying to convince him of. He broke off his gaze.

“alright, i'll drop it and take you shopping, and everything, on one condition. Tell me where you're really going.”

“tanzania.” i answered.

The rest of the meal passed in awkward small talk. We broke the tension after dinner with a silly boliwood movie out of his extensive collection. Over my protests he put me to bed in his room and took his own couch. The next morning he fed my biometrics into his flat door, took me into town to shop, and headed off to work. I went back to the flat and geared up. I was getting a later start than i wanted and simon came home to see me off. He looked sad. And i realized that for all its charms, botswana lacked something for simon. He was stronger than ever, but also lonlier than ever. I figured that it was time to make my goodbyes.

it was getting on toward evening, and despite the fall, it was hot. 

"hmm" i said, "it's a bit hot."

"not really surprising for the kalihari." simon replied.

we sunk into silence for a moment. 

"it's not technically the kalihari in gaborone. that's slightly west from here." i said.  

"you know, there's no way to add it up so that it isn't a lot of miles to go alone." simon said.

i had my backback on, my little one man tent and sleeping roll strapped underneath. jerky, water bottles, and dried fruit and veggies were hanging off every concievable loop point on my body, and cash was stash on a belt, a sock, one wrist, tucked into my panties, slide into a secret jacket pocket and even a token amount along with some pre-canceled credit cards, in my wallet. my real cards were tucked into the bottom of my shoe, along with spare memory cards. and one non-spare memory card. it was one hell of a bad time to be starting this argument.

"really? i thought after i walked for a mile or two the tooth fairy took me the rest of the way."

he shifted in his seat. "it's amazing you have all that stuff ready to go like this. it seems like you took no time at all to get ready,"
 
wait for it. 

"are you sure there isn't something important you've forgotten?"

"of course there'll be something importnat i've forgotten. but none of them will be cash, credit cards, passport, or cell phone. therefore, i can get it on the way." except the memory card, but i have that, i said to myself.    

"what about entry visas,"

i cut him off, "waiting for me at the borders." 

he looked up this time, breaking off the stream attempts to stall me. "how did you manage that?"

"well, at most borders i can just buy the visa there, and the other ones i asked marcia to call ahead and make arrangements."

"and that's all taken care of?"

that was a really desperate poor attempt.

"she says it is, and she's only failed to deliver on something she said she'd do once in the last five years, when she was in that car accident."

he looked defeated. 

i relented. "go make me a cup of tea, we'll run though the trip, and you can try to predict where i'll die."

he grinned, and left.

i was still standing. i figured i was due for plenty of that, so i dropped my pack and sat. i was feeling a bit melancholy, but then, that was only natural. what i was doing was not going to be fun. i was going to the source, like my great great great + n grandpa had done, though at least i knew where it was, or that it existed at all. on the other hand, i was a woman. which wasn't as bad as it was in his day, but wasn't hugely better.

he returned, with a slightly sly grin. 

"earl gray, and something special for one of my favorite ladies." he put down a cup, surround on its saucer with little gold packets.

"is that melty blend? it is isn't it?" it was. my favorite japanese chocolates. either this was an olive branch or the weirdest atemtpt to make me stay. "how the hell did you get melty blend into botswana?"

"diplomatic pouches are amazing things. i have more, but i doubt they will transport well." he gave me a slightly pleading look. 

Maybe a little of both.

"then i suppose we shall eat them now." i said, and we did. 

i waited until morning. i wasn't in a hurry. if i'd been in a hurry, i suppose i would have been flying, and simon had offered to call a peace corp friend with a kit plane. I had turned him down in what i hoped was a gentle and firm manner. Events in oxford convinced me that i needed a low profile. by the next morning simon put up no resistance. he made me a cup of tea in silence and put it in a nice steel travel mug (there was something i'd forgotten). he kissed me on the cheek, and said goodbye, and that he had a meeting, and that he would miss me, and he left.

sitting alone in simon's flat in gaborone i considered dumping the whole deal again. i could change my name, sink away, something. then again, anything that had chased me to botswana probably wasn't going to let go of me, and i'd hating living in a backwater. i'd be that one white person in the village somewhere in angola or something, the one everyone is nice to, but everyone knows they have some horrible dark past. i didn't even have a horible dark past, as least not of my own. no, i had a horrible dark future. if i wasn't going to run away, i might as well get too it. so i walked outside and set my thumb against the lock and listened for the deadbolt spinning into place. from there, i began to make my way across africa.

about three hours later, after trying to sort out tickets on trains and buses, i gave in and bought a bike. I hoped this artifact didn't mind a little more waiting.

chapter n + 2

the highway that stretches from gaberone to the northern border with zambia is one of the best highways in southern africa. it is two lane, but well built and very well maintained. it often has reasonable passing room and proves that given the oppurtunity africans can drive like reasonable human beings. the bush is cleared on either side as wide as the highway itself. that is particularly helpful, as things pop out of the bush and head for the highway and the lead time is useful. it is a wonderful place to bike ride, baring the occasional scary elephant. botswana is pleasantly flat, so i made good time. i snacked on the bike, and drank my camelback nearly dry. i broke for lunch near a petrol station where i could get some water. with that, i was back on the road, feeling genuinely fantastic just to be moving again. maybe this was what i had needed most, something to shock me out of my complacency, something to get me out of the university offices and back to the bush. bycling through africa is a fanastic chance to think, but there's nothing in it to keep you from thinking your way into all the wrong places. 

firstly, about me. i am the illegitimate great great etc grandchild of sir richard francis burton by the indian wife of a delhi banker in the 19th century. it's all very scandalous, and very very well documented in my family. he translated the kama sutra into english for his mother country; she tanslated the kama sutra into action for him, while the cuckolded banker spent literally years out of town. there was some debate by external sources as to whether burton every knew of the young mulato daughter he had by susila. less doubt within the family; they exchanged letters, which avasa, his daughter, kept, and his wife burned the other end of. but much can be drawn from one side of the corespondance. susila was quite the power house for the daughter of her one great love. she embezzeled for her from her own husband and sent her to england and then america over the weak protestations of her father. he didn't want her ruining his rep, but neither the mother or daughter had any desire to do that. they weren't above hanging the threat over them, but i doubt they would have done it, had they ever felt the need. they were both weak in affection for the man, and too strong to need much from him. 

susila was chronicled in the letters between her and avasa. when i was a girl i'd transcribed them digitally with my mother, from some originals and mostly previous paper transcriptions. we were dead serious about preserving our history in my family. of all of susila's children (whom she loved friecely) only avasa was a half breed, and therefore hidden. but none of them were the children of her husband. she leveled with them, and explained this was through no lack of effort on her part. she didn't hold her husband's useless seed against him either, she just saw to it that she mainly got knocked up by any men that looked quite a bit like her husband. susila was a tough cookie, but not without her own internal ethics. she would have done well in any age. only burton ever convinced her to do anything stupid, and she was arguably one of the only women that convinced him to do anything stupid, besides the queen. 

i like to believe that burton carried a torch for susila through the rest of his journies, even though he never saw her again, and in the end she never left india. i don't really have a good reason to believe it other than the thing that was taking me on my journey now. the iron case hidden in a cave or something somewhere along his path toward lake tanganyika, containing something or other that my mother said one of us would have to go and get someday. and since apparently several people of medium power were hunting around for me, and the case, i had to go low-profile. in any case  backpacking africa was something i had done before, and wasn't too likely to raise suspision now. I hoped.

So it seems wandering in the wild and preserving information are somewhat in my blood. They are, at the very lest, two things i am happiest doing.

When night had properly fallen i pulled off the road in a fairly desolate spot and made camp. It had been a while since i tried anything like this, and i was a bit scared about wild animals. Being scared about wild animals was a bit of a relief from being scared about strange humans chasing me though, so i induldged it. I was roasting soup on the campfire when i started hearing rustling in the dark bushes around me. I felt my body get frantic from adrenaline.

“it's nothing.” i insisted to the air, “there's nothing bad out there.”

the rustling wouldn't stop. I finally grabbed my axe and crept away from camp, looking for the source of the disturbances. As i get closer, the rustling increased and i heard a muted but distinctive clopping. As i made it away from the light of the campfire, i had entered a herd of donkeys. I felt redicuous, but comforted. As i headed back the donkeys formed a circle all around my camp. They got close to humans because big cats didn't like to be, i supposed. i was glad they were there to keep me company. I went to bed but left a little fire burning for them. By dawn they had drifted away and i continued along the road out of gaborone. 

By midday the road out of gaborone was becoming the road into francistown, both in traffic and in my head. Francistown had the shell shocked quality of a ground zero town after the aids epidemic had passed, like hiroshima and the atomic bomb, or jerusalem and monotheism. Something so big had happened there that the city that was left couldn't hope ot contain it in its city limits or history. Francistown would always be the place where aids happened, both the disease and the cure. It would take me another day to get there, but i was glad i was going through. I'd never seen francistown, just learned about it in school. Kate, i thought to myself, you're making this a siteseeing trip, aren't you? It had all the earmarks of it, camping on the side of the road, biking instead of hastling with the transport, and now i was looking forward to a day of modern history in francistown. I felt that i wasn't taking everything seriously enough, but i also felt like maybe i woul dlose my mind if i did. For now there was no pressure on me. For now, i would be a tourist. That night in my little tent off the road and in the bush i slept better than i had in ages.

pulling into francistown the next day i was surprised to see hiv whores on the street corners. Women looking around with slightly furtive eyes wearing t-shirts that said things like hiv-- on them, and the like. When the virus was cured with a counter virus that could be, among other thereputic procedures, sexual transmitted,  a cottage industry of sorts grew up around the novel vacine/cure. Women would get the counter virus or simply claim to have gotten it and sell themselves as hiv whores who could transmit the cure to you though sex. They were well enough paid that after a time all whores decided they were hiv whores. Much of that had died down after the epidemic had mostly passed, but francistown had been in the forefront of the disease. At one time as much as 70% of the total population was hiv positive. Aids remained a tough disease to fight even after there was a cure. The counter virus remained hard enough to produce and keep viable that the price never came down as far as they hoped it would, putting it outside the reach of most africans. The political pressure to cure aids was so strong that paradoxiacally few drug companies wanted to touch it. but the doctor that engineered the counter-virus, (dr. kelgra, as we all learned in current events class) had released the relevant patents into the public domain, so at least several of them could take a stab at it. A few years later with goverments dithering and drug companies draining what little there was to be had of african gdp, dr kelgra re-engineered his virus to be transmittable through body fluids, and started injecting people in francistown until he ran out of money. But that was quite a while ago, and aids was hardly a threat now, going the way of leprosy. I suspected people around there still died of aids since as it turned out many of the hiv whores actually had the virus rather than the cure, and because the counter virus can't do much for you in the late stages of the disease.

After the hiv whores on the road into town, everything looked fairly normal. Like hiroshima and jerusalem, at its heart, it was just a town. I was getting board just looking at things. I ducked off the main road and did a couple loops of areas with shops and restuarants in them. Tucked away on a perpendicular street to the main throughoufare was a cafe, the outside all done in mosaics of trees. A line of bikes already graced the front. Calm movement and music emanated from the place. The glint of a coffee maker, and a stove with two kettles on became visable as i got closer. Baobob cups, it was called, written across the top of the door in pieces of broken pottery. It may as well have been glowing with angels pointing the way. I love finding cafes in odd places. 

I put my bike next to the others and snaked a chain through and locked it. I stepped inside, digging though my pockets looking for pula coins mixed in with rand and euros. I ordered a coffee and a soda and sat down in total relaxation. This seemed as good a time as any to plan my trip, to really plan my way to tanzania and then what i would do when i got there. As much as i wanted to at the moment, i couldn't bike right the whole way there. I was close enough to zimbabwe to duck across and catch a bus or a train, i figured. I took out a notebook and started taking notes. Get into harare or lusaka, both should be accesible, and then maybe catch a plane or more trains to mozambique and then tanzania. Eventually i would make my way to dodoma, where i could easily catch a tour that would take me to kigoma, the town were burton sat while speke went on to victoria, and where the object of everyone's affection was obstensibly located. Everything was working out fine. I would just keep a low profile until i got to dodoma and then blend in with the tourists until i could vanish in kigoma. All of that worked out, i started just doodling on my notepad. I made little maps and diagrams of what i could remember of the scraps and clues from the notebook i'd scanned and destroyed in oxford. I was getting them fairly commited to memory now, which wasn't hard, because they made sense next to the notes i'd spent so much of my life devoted to learning. The other half of the diagrams, the ones in my letters, those were so commited to memory i'd exhausted their doodle potencial by jr. high. 

In my reverie i hadn't noticed that the cafe emptying out. i looked up slightly confused by the lack of other patrons. Before i could really form a complete thought though, rough hands shoved a ball in my mouth and a hood over my head.

It was there, lying in the trunk of a car with the gag still in my mouth, a hood on my head and my hands tied behind my back that it finally occured to me that i wasn't really qualified for this sort of thing. I was no kind of secret agent. The bouncing around was terribly painful. I suspected i'd be too beatenup to walk fast, even if i did somehow open the trunk and successfully throw myself from the back without killing myself. I'd struggled with the rope on my wrists, movie style, but it only made the rope tighter and much more painful, then not painful at all. I'd managed later to relax it enough to get the pins and needles feeling back into my hands, which i took as a good sign, and stopped there. I wondered briefly if they were planning to drive me all the way to tanzania, because that would suck. I already had to pee. That's another thing about being trapped in a trunk that didn't fit with movies; i really needed a toilet. I found myself wishing that this time i'd left my goelocation data going, but that was something i never seemed to get right. I wondered if this were the satanists, but what little instinct i had told me no. this was too efficient and not at all showy for them. Plus, they could have either kidnapped me in oxford, or not bothered with the display in oxford if they were planning to kidnap me later. I was pretty sure i was in the hands of someone much better at evil than the actual satanists.

Sometime later, i gave up and peed my pants.

It occurred to me that i had one bit of data; we were probably in zimbabwe. We'd stayed mostly on a straight road or roads, and it was badly rutted. If we'd been making many turns i would have been carsick. That meant we weren't taking the roads west or north out of francistown and the only other straight road out was through zim. I wondered if they'd bribed a customs person or just trusted luck that no one would open the trunk. We'd come to some stops early on, and i'd tried to make a little noise banging around and squeaking through my gag, but never with any response. Eventually, despite the discomfort that continued as long as the roads were bad, i fell into fitful sleeps here and there. 

Many hours later we stopped. We remained stopped long enough for me to fall asleep properly, though not long enough for me to be well rested. Eventually the trunk was opened. I was lifted out and slung over a shoulder. It was day again- i could see light through my hood, a bit. i felt a corse blanket over me, and was carried inside. I was put down on my feet, but they didn't hold me. I crumbled to the floor and managed to catch myself on my knees. Still no one had said a word to me. Hands untied my hands, and immediately attached handcuffs instead. Someone reached under the hood and removed the gag, which felt wonderful. I smacked my licks and wiggled the muscles of my jaw  in relief. I was picked up and put back on my feet, and this time i was able to stay on my feet. I was led by the cuffs somewhere; dripping water. Another snap and my cuffs where attached to something. Someone was taking off my trousers. Now i started to struggle, kicking and throwing myself against whoever was there. They stepped out of my reach. A thick accented voice filled the small echoey space.

“do you want to use the toilet, or do you want to shit yourself?”

she stepped forward and started to take off my pants again. I let her. I figured if she was going to beat me or rape me or something, there wasn't much i could do about it handcuffed to some part of a toilet. she didn't beat me. she left me half naked on a toilet seat and shut a door fairly loudly.

I was probably there at least an hour before she came back. she started to uncuff me from whatever toilet bit i was cuffed to.

“can i wipe myself?” i asked. she paused.

“i will give you a hand. Don't try to remove your hood, or you will sit in your own shit from now on.” 

she got to the other side of me and uncuffed my left hand, thrusting some toilet paper into it. The left hand thing was interesting, because from where she was standing it would have been easier to release my right. I decided either she was a muslim, or she happened to release my left hand. Fifty/fifty chance, i decided, was good enough for me to do a lot more theorizing. Why would muslims be after me? What would interest both some muslims and some satanists? I finished my business and managed to flush. My captor returned, recuffed my hands and dressed me again, but not in my own trousers. I was in a skirt that fell nearly to the floor. That meant i didn't have to sit in my own pee anymore, but it also meant no phone and no connection to the outside world. I was put back into a car, but this time to my relief i was put into a seat. Another voice, male this time;

“if you can keep quiet, we will not need to put your gag back in. there is no point at which anyone not with us now can hear you. Can you keep quiet?”

i nodded.

The voice chuckled. “clever. You may keep your voice for now, and keep it still.”

he turned to face some other way, and began speaking to someone else in the car in a mix of french and arabic, which was a bit of a bummer for them, because i speak both.

We burton types are big on languages.

What was really lovely about it for me was that they were clearly switching between them often enough to try and confuse me in case i spoke either french or arabic, though they wenta bit heavy on the arabic, presumably because an american girl was less likely to know arabic. It was the first break i'd had in a while, and i really relished it. I sat back, leaned my head back into a nice comfortable position and listened. I could even risk a smile under my hood. 

We were in a car that had been driven into the back of a lorry that was then filled with maize meal bags, which explained why no one could hear me and how we got though the borders. My captors were in fact muslims, and they were very interested in my family's artifact. They refered to it roughly as “the wrath”. Oh, i thought, wrath, that sounds very spooky. that must be what the satanists were into. It seemed they were trying as much to keep it out of the hands of some other group chasing me as they were trying to get it themselves. I figured this refered to the satanists, but then it didn't quite seem to fit either. I began to wonder just how many people had been following me down the road out of gaborone. I was struck with the image of a procession of cars having the slowest chase scene ever with me, tracking just out of view while pedeled along. I was so funny that i had to supress a giggle, which i turned into a sneeze to escape suspicion. They paused for a moment, then when back to talking. What they didn't give away was why they had snagged me or what they were planning to do with me next. 

We drove though most of the night. Eventually they gave me water, but i was still hungry when we stopped again. We all sat at a table, me still hooded and handcuffed while i listened to to them eat and then head off somewhere, all except one that remained behind to feed me and give me sips of water. It was ambrosia, the most wonderful of food- the food you eat when you are terribly hungry. The last one went off and other people came, or came back. I was grabbed by an arm and hustled off for a long walk in relative silence. They said very little to each other, mostly asking the time, where a provision or such was, and all in french, and in an accent i didn't recognize. Occationally they would say something to me like “stairs” in english right before i needed to climb up or down stairs.

I did learn that there was some concern about another group interested in me that might or might not be catching up with this group. Perhaps this can be useful, i thought. Then i heard a smallish jet engine, and we started climbing up aluminum stairs. Less useful now, i thought. 

The female voice of my bathroom assitant returned. She spoke to me slowly in the chopped english of the not-fluent. It was hard on the ears. I wanted to tell her to just use french, but of course i couldn't. She slide very close to me, so that i could fell her bumping up against my handcuffs with the movement of the plane. She spoke low, presumably to keep the others from hearing her. 

“i will tell you something that would anger the others if they heard me tell you.”

“i'm listening.” i replied.

“perhaps you are a good woman. I will tell you this: you will need the love of Allah now more than you have ever. Only allah the merciful can help you now. Do you know the love of allah?”

i sighed. This wasn't what i had been hoping for.

“no, i don't know the love of allah. Perhaps one day i will, but today i don't believe in any god.” i told her. “i think submitting to allah under the circumstances would be less sincere than i would hope for. Perhaps when all this is over, then i can explore the love of allah.”

there was a long pause.

“i hope that you will see that day, then. You seem to be an honest woman. I hope that i will see you in paradise. Think on what i have said.”

i felt a bit of a shiver. I wished that hadn't sounded quite so final. On the other hand, i'd lifted her phone out of a pocket on whatever garment she was wearing while she was talking to me. So much for honest woman. It was an old style chording glove deal, but i could handle that. I had it hidden in the folds of the skirt they'd given me. I hoped it was on. I hoped it was sending geodata, at least to the call receiver. I had a lot of hopes. I dailed up marcia.

   Taken prisoner out of francistown, not sure who 
   by. I think we are headed for dar es salaam. In 
   over my head. Love, richle's dad.

Messages that contained “richle's dad” were whitelisted for immediate delivery on marcia's server. Then, i thought about it for a second and hit the power button and did it all again. Hit the power button a third time, and did it again. The older phones sent geodata by default, and reverted to those defaults on boot. On of those time it should have been on and sending geodata, i hoped. I leaned over in the direction my unknowing benefactor had been and gently placed the phone in the seat crevice.

Four hours later we touched down in dar es salaam. It was a country width away from kigoma, still many hours to possibly escape. But even if i did, i would have no passport, no phone, none of my supplies. Plus i was in a country without being legally admitted and without being signed out of the last, what would a border agent make of that? I wasn't sure what good my freedom would do. On the other hand, if these guys were going to kill me i'd happily take a long involved argument with a border guard. 

We got off the plane and i was walked across the runway. I heard a car door open, than then a trendous explosion threw me off my feet. I hit the ground some feet away with a kind of whole body thud. It knocked the wind out of me. I lay there for a second convinced that was paralyzed, and then forced myself to move. I hoped the air would catch up with me and fill my lungs, but for now i needed to get free. I used my handcuffed hands to rip off the hood. All that was to be scene was a blank overcast sky with some smoke curling into it, from the direction of my feet. My ears were a feast though. More explosions, not as big, and gunshots and screams. I really knew i should look around better, but my body was failing to respond to commands. Everything i sent out to the limbs was coming back “sorry, no can do. Too much abuse recently.” also, i was in a lot of pain. So much pain that i wasn't really in pain anymore, more a kind of swimming in pain negative euphoria. I hoped i wasn't permenantly injured. at least, i thought, flat on the ground is a good way to avoid being a target. 

A man appeared above me. He looked down at me, cocked his head and looked up again. He shouted something in swahili. Unfortunately i don't know much more in swahili than roughly what it sounds like and how to ask for a bathrooom. Bafu iko wapi, incidently. He never used any of those words. He continued to shout in swahili until another man walked up with a brightly colored small print out of something familiar that i couldn't quite make out. He looked at it, and down at me again. He smiled broadly. He shouted something very loud in swahili and began waving one arm. The pain began to subside, which probably meant i was more shocked and beaten than actually injured. Unfortunately this meant that the pain had subsided to a level where i could really start to get upset about it.

I closed my eyes for a second and threw my mind back ten years, looking for another phrase in swahili. I found it. I opened eyes again, this time there were three men above me, smiling. This time i also registered that they were incredibly heavily armed and wearing military looking fatigues.

“Kuna mtu anayesema Kiingereza?” i managed, slowly, painfully, and almost certainly without correct pronounciation. I had possibly asked if anyone spoke english.

Their eyes lit up. They began talking very fast to each other in swahili and laughing. And then the first man looked back to me and said in english:

“your swahili is very bad.”

i narrowed my eyes at him. 

“oh yeah? Think so, do you? Well, bafu iko wapi.” with that, i closed my eyes and sank into a tired hurt trance.

they laughed again. Then they put me on a stretcher i hadn't noticed showing up and took me to the bathroom. 

On the way i opened my eyes briefly and noticed that the small brightly colored piece of paper that almost half of them where carrying was a picture of me that marcia kept in richle's room.

Go marcia.

They had set up triage in a bathroom hanging off a small office building like space just beside the small airstrip i'd landed on. they'd apparently hit more resistance than they'd expected, and had a few other wounded beside me. If there were any dead, they weren't being taken here. 

The guy that found me stayed by me while i was patched up by a medic. He was an eternal smile, was giving me sips of water off a canteen, and he laughed at my jokes, all of which made him the best person i'd encountered in at least 3 countries. My clothes were torn, so he got me a set of their fatigues. The trouser leg had a slot for sliding in a phone, and i thought there was suddenly a lot of calls i wanted to make. I asked him if there was a spare phone i could use. 

“don't worry,” he said, “getting back your stuff was part of the contract.” 

sure enough a bit later someone came in with a pack including the sadlebags from my bike, my phone, and even the shoe i'd tried to be clever about hiding my memory cards in. i spent a minute ruminating to myself again about how bad i was at this, and then slotted my phone into place and dialed up marcia.
   
    whatever you did, it's fantastic. Thanks.

I was feeling a little too tired to make all the calls i felt would be a good idea, so i settle for that note to marcia, and sent “ping” to simon just to let him know i was ok now. 

I looked over at my companion. “you probably know this, but i just wanted to say, you are very good at what you do, and thanks. I'm kate.” and then after a moment, “but you probably have that in a dossier somehwere.” and i extended a hand. He took and shook it vigorusly, possibly a little too vigorously. I was pretty sore. 

“yes i'm sure we do,” he replied, “and we got it in the mission briefing. I am william. Are you hungry?”

i hadn't eaten since the few bits of food and sips of water yesterday or the day before- i didn't have the best grip on time. I had been too scared to feel hungry most of the time, though. As soon as he said something, hunger passed over me like a wave.

“i could eat the ass of a lion.” i told him. 

He laughed again. “then we will find you a lion!” i hoped to god he was kidding. He turned to another person who had just walked in and said something in swahihi, and then back to me. “you will have some food shortly.” the food didn't make it in time; i was asleep about 30 seconds later.

I was woken up about an hour later by a message on my knee. It was from marcia.

   Ok, you're welcome, but i need to explain a few things. 
   I put out an advert on craigslistnet tanzania for someone 
   to intercept your coordiantes and attempt to retrieve 
   you. I offered a month's peering and a british 
   copyright lib comp license. The contract was grabbed by 
   the governement and blocked out for 4 days. I confirmed 
   and they went after you. I'm as surprised as you are, but 
   the whole thing looks legal to the smart contracts.  So 
   you get to have the tanzanian equivalent to special 
   forces for that long, and they get an infusion of new 
   textbooks for the schools for a month, or something. Get 
   in, do what you need, and get out. I don't know what 
   happens when the four days are up. 

It took a minute for that to sink in. i had my own personal small army for four days based on a network peering deal. But it all flew from my head when i realized there was a plate of food in front of me. I don't really even remember what it was. I just ate as quickly as i could, and when it hit my stomach like a brick, i ate the rest of it slower.

I looked up at william. “you're doing this to get net access and copyright download prilages for a month?” once again i really hoped no one out there had died for that or me. William's smile never flagged though. He nodded vigorously. He pulled out his phone and started showing me pictures of his kids.

“they get the best educations, all the best for them from america and europe. Better than almost anywhere in africa, and that's because we do contracts for peering and comp licenses.”

it completely made sense, i'd just never thought about it. Most of the african nations weren't rich enough or big enough to negociate compulsory licenses with the copyright holder conglomerates. They had to buy their data piecemeal or try to pirate it, which could land them in a trade war. Contracting government services to private companies that could offer comp licences put them through a wto loophole for a resource they weren't allowed to pay for. The licenses were the most basic value add to a net connection in the powerful countries; out here they were pure gold. Marcia was a technical director for cable and wireless; dealing out peering was her job anyway. 

I laid down again and thought for a second. And then i looked at william. 

“so essentially this is my army for the next 4 days, and in exchange you all are getting all you can eat data for a month? And so are your schools?”

he nodded. “essentially, yes. And other government departements as well.” 

“so, what are you planning to download, then?” 

he swung his rifle around his front. It was large and shiney and new looking and had a big scope. 

“these we got in a deal with the taiwanese governemnt. Cheaper because we had no manuals or rights to the manuals. No one had worked out how to use the sight,” he said, tapping the top of the gun. “Right now we have the manual bookmarked and orders to study it over the next week.” 

i blinked in mild disbelief. The copyright treaties had made the world an even weirder place since my childhood. “useful, then.”

he nodded. 

Over the next few hours I felt like a princess, albeit a warrior princess. My new tanzanian army conveyed me to a proper hospital and kept fulfilling my every whim, though i was a bit in shock still and largely whimless. On the advice of my physician i ate even and went to sleep, skin salve patches all over my body. My guilt was alieviated by finding out that they did this sort of thing all the time and i settled down to enjoy myself. William was assigned to be my companion and translator. We got on fabulously in between my naps. 

The next morning i issued my orders- we were to head to kigoma immediately, with a list of supplies-

Shovels
torches
lantern
pen and paper
metal detector
crowbars
repelling gear for 6
overhead map of kigoma

They put me in a gunship full of bristling mercs and everyone else in trucks to play catch up and headed out for the west. 
We touched down outside ujiji (the twin town of kigoma) in the afternoon. Locals were waiting with a table and laid out food for william and i. His smile never flagged. 

“i don't usually get the special treatment like this,” he confided, “i am only getting this because you like me so much.”

i smiled. “cool for you! Merry christmas! I feel like the data and dinner santa claus now. How do you normally get treated?” 

“i am a soldier, i live as a soldier. We live well in tanzania, we are the heroes of the people, but it is also hard. I miss my little ones very much.” he said.

“do you get to see them much?” i asked

“no, it is hard, we train so much. I have combat training, urban assult, espionage, international intellectual property, internaltional law, the list goes on.” he said.

Ip? why do you study ip?

That is what we are out here to do, of course. We in particular secure ip contracts for our nation. It is important that each of us understands the law, both so that we know what we are fighting for and so that we don't make any mistakes. He shook his head, and altered his smile a bit. Sometimes the legal minefield is the most terrible of all.

Ok, i have to admit, i told him, i don't really understand about the whole ip-merc thing. Could you explain and use small non-legal words?

It's a recent innovation, i am not surprised that you don't know about it. Since these days most of the data that runs the world is digital, big powerful countries negociate compulsory licenses through the world intellectual property organization and pass legislation that requires all copyright creators to sell or licence their creations to on of the copyright conglomorates, who in turn sell it to media groups in the US or the state, in europe. further law requires you as a citizen and therefore a data consumer to pay a yearly fee for the licence which is passed back to the conglomorates.  This fee is more than most people make here in tazania.

That part i understand, i interupted. I'm on a monthly debit plan as a british citizen, and i have to pay a token upkeep ammount as an american citizen. Sometimes i think non compulsory countries have it better, i burn though nearly a third of my income, whether i read anything or not. And it's not like i come from the land of well paid writers, even. 

He shook his head sadly, and the smile lost a little traction. No, dear kate, it isn't better to be a non-compulsory country. We buy our data piece by piece and almost everything is subscriction based.  Imagine if you couldn't make the bill one month, and all the manuals to all the equiptment in the hospital just went away. Or imagine paying the patent fee to manufacture drugs but not lining up the copyright fee at the same time- the factories sit silent while you wait for the instructions on how to make the drugs. Because we are a non-compulsory country it is illegal under international law fo rus to pay for a comp license fee as well; all the money in the country can't buy the data we need at times. The screens won't give us the data and we turn to stashed printouts and people with very good memeories. 

What about buying books?

Hah! Books are the luxery of compulsory contries. Most data in tazania is illegal to print, even with a lifetime payment. If the wrong book is found, we must detroy it immediately or face censure from wipo or wto. 

Well, this is a fucking disaster. Why not pull out of wipo, break the digital rights management on the net and get the data all you can eat? 

He shook his head. I admire your spirit, but it would be death for tanazia. The only countries that can do that are ones that can afford to lose all international trade. Only countries rich in oil, or uranium, or something like that can afford to flout wipo. As it is, each violation wipo inspectors discover currently results is withheld oil. We are still a country very in need of oil, ms kate. People will die without it.

“this is discusting. I mean, comp licences seem bad enough, but people dying over ip violations?”

he leaned forward, speaking in a low conspiratorial tone. Did you know people used to create all manner of copyright works and give them away for free? 

Of course i do, but that's illegal now.” I shrugged. “You are required to sell or license to one of the conglomerates. I don't have to worry about that though, everything i work in is 20th - 19th century and in the public domain.”

he smiled widely again. We don't have to worry about it here either Here, in tanzania, we are beginning to create for free and give away for free. There is a growing movement among the african nations, and wipo can't stop us without offering comp lisences, which they don't want to do.”

but where does the ip army come in?

Aha! I got distracted. As i said, we can't pay for a licence, but we can get one temporarily as part of a network peering deal. It's a loophole that no one is closing because content rich network peering is the only way the conglomerates can get all of our free work. 

So let me see if i understand this. I said, you peer with cable and wireless, and you get the benefits of the comp licence for a month, and download everything you can.

“government connected agencies only, private busiensses and people still have to pay piecemeal.”

ok, i undertand that- but while you're peered with c & w they are downloading everything they can of tanzanian digital production and then what? Reselling it to the conglomerates? 

Yes

so they can sell it to me?

Yes

you know, this whole things sucks.

He laughed. It does. But for now, i fight for peering deals, and those deals keep the hospitals running and the schools as the best schools in eastern africa. Before we became peering mercinaries they were some of the worst.

I like you, i told william. It feels like maybe you are fighting for something that matters. 

“i like you too, kate. I would like to tell you a secret.” 

“ok, what's that?” i asked.

“i overheard a pre-briefing after i reported back to my superiour. When our contract is up we have another for your capture and the capture of an item you will posess.” 

“oh.” i said.

He knit his blow slightly, and adopted a slightly different smile. “i think our new client may have thought he was outbiding our current contract. But the smart contracts don't work that way, they automatically stack.” he shrugged. “i suppose he will find out soon enough.” 

i wasn't smiling. I could feel all the blood draining from my face, and possibly the rest of me. This well oiled machine was going to turn on me, in, i glanced at the time, basically 2 days plus a few hours. 

“do you have any suggestions?” i asked.
He sat back for a moment. “well, we don't go to zanzibar. We even have a get out clause for it in the contract. It's out of our juridiction- that was one of their treaty conditions.”

i remembered some trouble with zanzibar and the mainland a few years back, though i never knew the details.

“well then.” i said, picking up my glass. “here's to my trip to zanzibar, day after tomorrow.” he picked up a glass and we toasted.

“William,” i said, “the next contract, the one for my capture, it isn't the people you just got me from, is it?”

“no i don't think so. I don't think it could be. The contract was closed while we were still fighting. But i suppose anything it possible!”

“but you don't know who it is?” 

he tsk tsk'd me. “I am your friend, and i have told you this thing that will help you, but i cannot breach contract. If we start breaching contracts, what is to prevent data subscriptions from being pulled, or our peering cut off?”

i leaned forward dramatically. “my very life, william, isn't worth that!” and we both laughed. 

An hour later i gathered up a team of 4 men plus william. We loaded the gear in the back of a truck and set out north of ujiji into kigoma, william at the wheel. A few minutes later i asked them to pull off. It was time, finally, to do my thing. I pulled out the map of kigoma and the notepad and made a few quick sketches based on the letters of my childhood. Then i loaded the memory card scan of the notebook into my phone and searched for the bits that filled in the rest. I knew it was in kigoma, had always known. I even knew how deep it was, a part of the puzzle that only my family knew. But where and how it was hidden exactly, that was another matter. Here was a square structure so far from the shore, here it was on the modern day map a much larger square structure over it. 

Oh no, i thought for a second, what if it's completely burried? Well, we'll see, won't we? 

I made more notes, combining the notebook with what i already knew and looked up at william. I was feeling comfident, i was finally in my space and doing the part of all this i had been born to do. 

“take me to the train station.”

he nodded, smiled, and off we went. 

We arrived and unloaded the gear. I looked at william.

“find me the basement to this place.” william waved one of the men over, and they talked for a while. Then they waved me to follow. They led me past the main platform down a set of stairs to a maintainence area. William turned to me “this is the closest the station has to a basement. I am sorry.”

i looked at my notes. My guess was we weren't too far off the original structure built here. I went to the north wall, the most interior wall, and started pulling supplies away. The guys joined me. We cleared a set of shelves and a chest of drawers away. I saw a fairly new looking seam. I grabbed a crowbar away from one of the men and put it in the seam and pulled away the wall; a chunk came off easily revealing another wall underneath, this one badly water damaged.

“can we clear this wall away?” i said turning around. The guy were all smiles. They were having a great time. It occurred to me this was probably a lot more fun than getting shot at. 

They had the entire wall down in no time. There was a door behind the wall, also water damaged so that you could barely read the german on it. 

“do any of you read german?” i asked, pointing at the door. 

They looked around at each other and shrugged. “ok” i said, we'll hope that doesn't say 'this way to the vat of acid' and move on.”

we pried the door off and found a small landing with more stairs- stairs that definitely were too damaged to hold anyone's weight. One of the men leaned out as far as he could with a torch, and then leaned back in and started fitting william, myself and one other man with repelling gear. William turned to me and explained that we would tie off on the radiator, but be belayed by the other men in case the radiator didn't hold. I nodded, and the three of us proceeded. We used the shovels to break the staircase out from under us and proceeded into the room below with lanterns and torches, unhooking from our grapling gear with a tug to the gentlemen above. Water dripped in the background. We were in a tunnel now. Built possibly by german colonialists, possibly before. I looked at my notes. I was getting very lucky so far. We started walking north in the damp tunnel and i unslung the metal detector from my back. I passed to back and forth over my field of view, and the readout drew picture of the metal content of the landscape it passed over. We walked in silence, me sweeping the detector over the floor, the men staying a little behing me and shinning their lights in my path. There was a good hour of this before i found the plate. It was only showing about a third out of one of the tunnel walls. I swore aloud, it was the first sound anyone had made in a while. 

“bad news?” said william

“no. we've, or at least i've, gotten amazingly lucky. There's no reason for this to be showing at all.” i said, indicating a metal plate in the floor and scraping the dirt away to make it visable. 

i looked up and down the wall. “do you think you could go into this wall safely?”

he looked the wall up and down. The two men looked at each other, and then at me. 

“sure!” said william

i wasn't at all sure they actually believed it was safe. I was pretty sure they weren't going to leave until the found how this ended. I can't say i blamed them, i felt the same. 

They pried out the stones and started digging out the earth behind them. I took a shovel, and william went back to get some of the old timber. He found the strongest of them and brought them back building a sort of leanto over the metal plate. We all pried it up. The men stepped aside and let me get first peek in with my torch. It was a room below the tunnel, about 6 feet high, wood floors. To my amazement, it was filled with what looked like strange treasures- skulls adorned with gold headpieces, stools and pillows inlayed with precious stones, that sort of thing. I looked back at the guys

“we're going to need more rope.”

william went back and got two more lengths of rope. I was so glad i trusted these people at this moment, having found an unexpected hoard of african treasure underneath the kigoma train station. Also, it helped that i didn't care about the treasure at all. 

William returned with gear, and he and i decended into the last chamber. I looked at him and smiled.

“not bad for a day's work. We got very lucky!”

he smiled back.

“I think your little notebook had something to do with that.”

he looked around. “so it was old slaver treasure that you sought.” he sounded a little dissapointed.

“Nah,” i said, “you guys take this stuff. Though i imagine it belongs in a museum. I'm looking for an iron puzzle case, one foot wide, three feet long, six inches deep. It's in three pieces that lock the top on. It can only be opened by”

he interupted me, “i think it is already open.” 
sure enough william was standing over the open case, matching the descrition i had commited to memory, right down to the enscription;

   RFB

in frilly letters on  the top, the top currently lying askew about a foot from the rest of the case. I walked over and looked in the case of my family, disapoint washing over me. The artifact had been looted probably long before i was born. I never even got to know what it was. There was still something in the case though, tucked into a corner. I pulled it out. It was a small scroll case, ivory, maybe. Tentatively, gently, i opened it. Within was a piece of tapastry. 

I rolled it out on the lid of the case and brought the lantern over. It began to come apart even as i rolled it out. Whatever it was, it was very old, and not complete. 

[It was a scene done in flat medieval style. Holy men garbed in white where standing below what looked to be the seven hills of jerusalem. Angels hung in the sky, and a knight on horseback was handing something to someone beyond the tear.]

Below were two long strings of latin. I pulled out my phone and started snapping pictures of it. Then i put down my phone and looked at william. He was standing behind me, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. He saw me looking at him, and smiled.

“it's like being in a movie, around you.” he explained. 

“huh.” i said. “do you smoke?”

yes, he said, why?

Do you have a lighter?

He dug through some pockets and produced a nice little butane lighter. I took it, thanked him, and burned the tapestry.

“but” he said in a shocked voice behind me, “is that not what you came all the way here for?”

“i'm an archivist, william. i'm a destructive archivist as well. That means sometimes i have to make a judgement call on which is more important, the object or the information the object carried.”

i stood up, hands sooty from making sure the scene and the words were burned away. “and if i must say, that was the easiet call of my career. Let's snap some more pictures for your government for later excavation of this room, and get back dar es salaam”

i turned to head for the hole in the ceiling while william took pictures. 

We emerged back into the light without incident. I shed all the equipment and made my way back into the truck. The men all looked expectantly at me, then at william, who shrugged.

I sat silently in the truck on the way back. The men talked amongst themselves. William turned to me and said

“the men want to know, and the ones back at the camp will as well, where is the object?” 

i shrugged. “the middle east, or at least it once was. Now you know as much as me.” 

“was it taken?” 

“it may have never been there, honestly i don't know”

i felt a bit of relief spread over me. Some of the pressure was off, at least until the story of the burnt tapestry got around. There was still the matter of the next contract though, and what to do when i got to zanzibar, and what to do once i was in zanzibar without an army to protect me, and how to leave without having the army capture. me. 

But those were tomorrow's problems. Tonight i would eat and sleep.

Chapter n + 3

i requested a train to dar es salaam, and a strong dosage of anti-travel sickness medication. The men didn't look happy, but they complied without complaint. I think they wanted me to be in their hands when my clock ticked over, just to make the job easier. But it's not as if they could say as much about my decision to take the train. Not only was it much faster than my other options, it was much nicer. Tanzania had managed to get a couple of europe's first decommissioned bullet trains as part of an aid deal and built the track to support them with a grant. They had a lost luxury about them, in a kind of bulletproof plastic way. I sat down and watched tanzania go by. It was a beautiful country, and i wanted very much to visit it under better circumstances someday. Provided, of course, that i lived though all this. 

While i was lost in thought william came up and sat next to me.

I have a leave coming to me, my family is in dodoma, so that is where i will be getting off. Best of luck to you, getting to zanzibar.

Would it be not allowed for you to tell me exactly when my clock ticks over? I asked

he shook his head. Then he clapped me on the shoulder.

“you will do fine! Be healthy and well my friend.!”

“william, thanks for everything. You have been a good friend to me.” I tapped a card out on my phone and sent it to his phone. “if ever you find yourself in britain, please come by.”

“the same, of course if you ever find yourself in tanzania. With more free time!” 

and with that and a chuckle, william, still smiling, left me.

I was feeling more nervous, but i told myself- i am moving as fast as i really can, on independent travel. I needed to stick close to these guys until my time was up, and then i needed to hope i could get away. But for now, i was enroute. There was nothing i could do. Actually, i thought, i could get a cup of tea. Also, i could slip some of their equipment into my own backpack. I managed to get a trowl, a grapple and rope and one of their galileo/nav/walkie talkies.

We got to dar es salaam without incident. I asked for a map and a car, then i kicked the driver over to the passenger side and drove myself to the ferry. There was a contingent of men meeting me there. I smiled and waved at them, and booked myself on the next ferry. The men weren't smiling anymore. I took that as a good sign that i might just get away with this. I went for coffee at a booth near the ferry. I asked if any of them would like a coffee, but got no reply. Coffee in hand i doffed my 12 hour time release anti-motion sickness medication, and thanked what gods might be that i lived in the age of modern pharmaceuticals. 

The ferry was 15 minutes late. I was figditing wildly by the time it showed. With some slightly rude queing i was one of the first people on the ferry, which was a huge pontoon deal. It took another 40 minutes to get everyone and their cars, bicycles, etc. loaded on, but i was happy to see none of my bodygaurds were coming on. A few minutes after we launched i was unhappy to see they had tagged along in a helicopter. I decided to scope the place out a bit, walking all over the areas passengers were allowed and peering into the areas they weren't. I was a big boat, it would take some time to search, i decided. 

Then i heard a scream from te deck above me. I was pretty sure that meant my time was up. I looked at allthe exits form the passenger compartment i was in, 3 puplic ones and one crew one, and one open deck window. I pulled out the grapple and rope i had, hooked the grapple under a table and threw the rope out of a window. The other passengers were staring at me. 

“they're coming to kill me!” I yelled, “get out of here, they don't care who they kill, they're going to come in here firing guns!” one man screamed, but other than that everyone emptied the room. Via the passenger exits. Then i ran into the crew area, found a men's toilet, and hid in a locker. 

I have no idea how long i hid in that locker, because time stuffed in a men's room locker dilates to fill all the time availble. At first i thought maybe i could wait until we'd crossed into zanzibar, but after i'd been in the locker for a while i felt the boat grind to a halt and begin rocking gently the way boats do when they aren't going anywhere. I sighed. Eventaully i was going to have to try and make a break for it then. I sat in there for a little while longer. “At this point,” i said to the air, “i'm just waiting in here until i get caught.” i opened the locker door, and was greatful to not see a half dozen men with guns waiting for me in the men's toilet. I opened the door to the toilet, and found an equally empty hall. I ran down the way i'd come without looking around me or wanting to know, really. I was nearly to the passenger are when a huge a man yelled out in swahili and i heard and felt a warning shot go over my left shoulder. I didn't bother looking back, i just turned the corner into the passenger compartment. My rope and grapple were still where i'd left them. I grabbed the rope and threw myself out. I thudded against the side of the boat and took a second to survey my surroundings. A small diver's float had been attached to the side of the ferry where they'd looked for me in the water, and then hopefully gone. It looked like there might still be some equipment on it. It was about 40ft to the water. I let go. 

The water hit me shoes first as i'd planned, but it still felt like i'd jumped off a building. The beating my body had taken after the last week caught up with me again, and i felt pain surging over me and struggled for consciousness under the water. I manged to hold my breath. I allowed myself to float to the surface and took a deep breath. I had rarely  in my life been so pleased to be alive. I looked around, and there was no one immediately there to take my life either. I could see a beach though. I thought about going back over and looking on the raft for supplies. Maybe they didn't know where i'd gone, but maybe it was too soon to count my blessings. “fuck it” i explained to the air, and i made for the shore swimming with all i had left. 

I will never know how close they came to getting me. I will never know how hard they tried, even. I remember being in the water still, and my feet hitting the ground, and standing up and discoving i was in chest deep. I turned around and there were several men in boat, waiting in the water. One i recognized from the trip to the train station. He smile, his bright teeth against dark skin, and cartoonishly mouthed in english, “be careful”. I nodded and gave a quick wave. Then he said something in swahihi, and they turned the boat around and left. 

I waded slowly to shore and collapsed. I didn't care if i got captured at that moment. The sand was soft, and the sun was warm and not too hot, and i fell into dozing, and then asleep.

I was roused by someone shaking my shoulder. Someone had set up a table with two charis at it right on the beach, about 5 ft from me. A swarthy man in a traditional arabian winter robe and thagiyah was sitting at it, with another man pouring tea into a delicate china cup. Yet another man was kind of looming behind me, blotting out the sun. 

the man at the table spoke.

“would you care to join me ms. Page?” i crawled up to my knees. Everything ached. I decided to crawl the rest of the way, just to try and make the scene more awkward. No one made a move to help or hinder me. I struggled into the seat, glancing down at my phone just to check. Sure enough, i was jammed. Another delicate cup appeared before me. The first silent servant filled it with mint tea. The man in front of me, clearly the boss took in a deep breath. 

“ah, how i love the scent of tea. If women smelled of tea i would have no choice, i would have to drink them.” he said in a booming voice.

Now, that was a damn weird thing to say. I sniffed my tea, and decided agianst drinking. I was pretty thirsty, but this was damn weird. 

Um, who are you?

It isn't who i am, but what i represent.

This was getting annoying. Why did everyone i meet seem to think they represented something?

Ok, what do you represent. 

I represent victory, and for you, safety and calm. With the wrath in our hands, we can protect you form anything. You must be missing that calm, what with the christain fools chasing you, and the rats of allah biting at your heels, and even your bodygaurds turning on you.  

That surprised me; i'd taken him for another muslim, especially calling it the wrath.  

“How do you know about the wrath?” I asked. After a lifetime of mystery it was getting positively inconveniant to never know the identity of burtons's gift. I was hoping someone would clue me in on what the hell it actually was.

He looked up sharply, suspiciously. Stories of thewrath have been handed down for a thousand years. Perhaps a thousand thousand, who can know?

I can, i thought, we haven't been handing down stories for that long. Still, i wasn't going to tell him what i thought. 

“who can know. Of course.” i said. 

Then I sat back. “So the thing is, I began. I'm looking at this set up, and i already just can't believe i will ever throw in with you. But by all means, go on and give me your story.” 

he looked a bit nonplussed.

“of course you do not have the wrath with you, but then neither do any of our enemies have it. It remains that you are probably the only one that can find it. This makes your valuable, it means none of us are willing to kill you. But that can change, quickly. It could be that killing you is the best way to keep our enemies from getting it, and vice versa. Given that your life could at any moment be worth less than the trail of a slug, would you care to listen to what is probably not only the best but also the only offer you will get, not at the point of a sword, so to speak?”

“um” i said. It had been a while since i'd been so effectively shut up. “how do you know i don't have it on me?”

“the wrath is reported to be 3 feet long, and made of a metal that is harder than diamond. We didn't think your pockets would have fit it easily. Perhaps you would tell me what you know of the wrath, and i can decide if it is actually anything at all.” 

i cursed silently. You know grandpape, these are the kind of details you could have left in the letters, i muttered into the air.

“what was that?”

“i said, given the circumstances,that i would love to hear your offer.”

he smiled a chilling smile, the kind that is only mouth while the face stands still and the eyes stay dull.

“You mistook me when you saw me for a muslim. I will tell you more- others mistake me for an imam. But for everytime i say all praise be to allah, i twice say to my heart, may he be cursed forever. Everytime i say muhammed, peace be unto him, i twice say to my heart may he rot in his own cursed blood.” 

“oh” i said, “you really have some issues with islam. Maybe you should get a new job.”

he laughed. Someday i shall, but for now, i serve the cause of my master, whom i adore. 

Oh god, i thought, not more satanists.

Your master is..? i said

“the enemy of allah, and the one that will defeat him.” 

“Lucifer.” I said.

“You may call him that.”

“so were you the people in the christchurch bathroom?”

He looked confused for a moment.

“sorry, i ran into some satanists. I just wondered if you were them. But i guess they were the christain fools you were talking about.”

he still looked a little confused, but shook it off and moved on.

“we wish for you to join us. You would have an honored position in the reign of kings to come, assured to you by the strength of your blood and the delivery of the wrath. The rats of allah and the vicious jews, and the christain fools- they offer a heaven in the sky. But we offer a heaven before you now. You need not even ask for your desires to be fulfilled- we can find for you desires you didn't know of yourself. We are the true peace bringers of history, we who have fought-”

he was really getting started, and i was already nearly at my limit.

“so you know a lot about me, presumably. Have a dossier somewhere.” I said, “You must know that i'm an athiest. Hell, i'm pretty much a skeptic. I find all of this religious stuff non-sense. Gods, anti-gods, all cut from the same nonsense.”

“how do you explain the item you seek, its rare qualities, its strangeness? Or do you know nothing of it, and nothing of the world?”

“i know how to find it. that's pretty much all i need to know.” 

“perhaps then, that is all we need you for. Your bodygaurds can not protect you here, ms. page.”

so much for thinking that this was who had picked up the tanzanian contract after me. In an even slightly worrying turn of events, the man's two assistants had lined up behind me and far closer to me than i liked. 

“you can't afford a struggle here in open, in case i scream and draw attention to you. You can't hit me in the head,” i reasoned, “because you need me to remember where to find the artifact.”

“but we can dose you with ether and put you in a boot.” he explained.

As he spoke, his assistents grabbed me and covered my mouth with something that smelled terrible. 

I woke up some time later, hands tied behind my back, mouth gagged, back in the trunk of a car. This ride was much smoother, and the trunk was comparatively comfy, but i had a headache that could stop time. Whatever they'd used to knock me out hadn't actually done any damage that i could tell, but certianly made me feel like it did. I was feeling disinclined to escape. Nevertheless i gave my bonds a perfuctory few tugs, and succedded in only making them tighter. So i guess satanic muslims are just as good as normal muslims at tying people up, then, i thought to myself. 

The car stopped not too long after that. I heard two doors, one door shut, and then someone opened my trunk. The light was a bit blinding, but i could make out the familiar figure of one of the satanist's assitants. He grabbed me roughly and pulled me out of the car. We were in an ally of old white buildings, some renovated, most not. He set me on my feet, and never letting go of my arms marched me off into the backdoor of a rundown white building. 

We entered a mostly bare room, with only a card table and a few chairs around it. The assitant sat me down in one of the chairs. The satanist came in and sat across form me. His please demeanor was gone. He looked all business, and all mean. The asisstent took out a knife and went behind me and began cutting through my shirt. I started to turn, but mr. Satanist started to speak. 

“A lot of technology has been invented for cause pain, ms. Page.” He began. “Neural shunts and cattle prods and so forth. But i say fuck all of that. Give me a good old fashioned cane instead.”

and with that the assitant stepped back and applied the cane. It knocked me off the seat and i hit the floor face first. I was surprised to not feel anything from the cane, just the impact of my face on the floor. Then, a moment later, it hit like fire across my back and spreading out into my limbs. I yelled and laughed all at once. I can't really describe the sensation better than that; it hurt so bad i gave out a kind of screaming laugh. I was picked up roughly and put back into the seat. 

“Shut up or you'll get another.”

i shut up. I took all the sensation that was flowing out of my mouth, and i stopped it, i damned it up at the top of my throat. 

“I don't like you miss page. And that is dissapointing for me, because i thought i would like you. I really wanted you to join us, to help us, to strengthen our society with your blood. But i suppose you may yet do that.”

he gave a hand signal and the assistant poured something down my back. It caught fire again, and i yelled out. Satanist fucker just smirked at me. Irrationally i suddenly wished i'd drank his tea. I was terribly thirsty in addition to the pain, and if he'd poisoned me it couldn't have hurt this much, i thought. 

“would you ask me something, already?” i croaked.

“what was that?” he said, leaning in.

“would you ask me something so i could just tell you and get this over with?

“you think we are doing this for information? Is that what you imagine? No, ms. Page, we are doing this out of the kind of frustration and anger that blind men to even their fondest goals. But i do have a question for you, bitch. How did you come to retain one of the finest smart contract lawyers in all of zanzibar, when i saw with my own eyes wher eyou washed up like a diseased fish on the beach?”

“i don't know what you're talking about. A lawyer?”

“of course not. Lash her again.”

this time i threw myself out of the chair and managed to avoid the hit. Hitting the floor almost felt good, knowing that i was missing the cane. I felt squishy with pain and blood and sweat.

“don't you even want to know where to find the artifact?” i yelled out from the floor. I was trying to inch away from the assistant, but he grabbed me and put me back in the chair anyway. 

“no, blister from a whore's ass. I don't care about that anymore. Would you like to know why?”

i didn't reply. 

“because i am to be killed. I will never lay eyes on the wrath. You have killed me, you dog whore. The only reason i am not killing you now is that i prefer a quick and clean death.” 

i gaped. A lot can happen while you're passed out in the trunk of a car. 

“She will be here in a moment. And when she has reported that she has you and that you are in good health, my masters will come here, and cut my throat. This is the thing you have done.” 


“but why? I don't understand...” i said.

He interupted me with a slap across the face. 

“she froze our assests. Oh, she succedded in liquidating mine for contract infridgement on a carpeter. A fucking carpenter! Then she found every contract that traced back to the society and found bugs. Loopholes. Lies, breaches. She put leans on every dinar. She froze us, and it's only a matter of time until she exposes us. Except she will only report leans to five leans-holders, she says, if you are given to her, healthy and free. And now my masters have decreed that  i must die. But i have told my son to take two bites out of her heart, and your heart, when he is a grown man. One bite for me, and the other for himself, for having no father to guide him.”

i felt like i was choking. The extent of my barbarity in life was probably really liking veal. Now i had a man, admittedly an unplesent man, telling me how his son was going to have to go through life without him bec