The Search for Scott Page 3

  The first soul on the beach, he sauntered down the sand, cock of the walk, and stopped and attached his ankle bungee before running into the water. At knee-deep, he jumped on his five-foot surfboard, his arms cushioning the impact, and paddled out into the deepening water. Reading the waves, he maneuvered out through the rip, not wanting to fight the tumbling crash, a common mistake of rookies. In a matter of minutes he was out past the breakers, about two-hundred meters from shore. The wind stilled, gulls flew overhead, and he scanned the horizon. A boat approached from the North. Some morning fishermen no doubt. I’m not the only early bird.

  He sat up on his board and enjoyed the calm. Riding the waves and the excitement and exercise were great and all, but this was one of the biggest draws for him. Peace and reflection. Just contemplating the power and majesty of the ocean. A small molecule, dihydrogen monoxide. Simple yet powerful. Ubiquitous. Calming and deadly. Life depended on it, yet humankind valued it so little, taking it for granted.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Scott knew it wasn’t a ghost this time, or his own thoughts. He turned and there was Yantra, as Xero had been that first day, suddenly beside him, floating on a board. The same long hair, same muscled, tanned frame, with the skin markings and the trident necklace. He and Xero could be brothers.

  “The water stretches as far as you can see, and is deeper than most humans comprehend,” said the alien. “It is so vast, you think you have an unlimited supply.”

  It was like he had been reading his mind. Scott paddled over and sat up again, clasping hands with the lieutenant. “It’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

  “You have been silent, Dr. Blake. We expected contact.”

  “You know what they say?” said Scott, “Time flies when you’re researching phytoplankton.”

  “I’m not familiar with that colloquialism,” the Hürantån appeared serious.

  “Just kidding, Yantra, things have been moving along. It’s just that Brooke and I, well, we’ve had some… issues,” he said with some sadness. “The trip to your planet and back… let’s just say… some of it didn’t sit well, and we’ve had to adjust to the reoccurring memories.”

  Yantra furrowed his brow. He smoothed his hair and scratched behind his ear. “I understand how some of it could have been troubling, but we could have helped with that.”

  He looked around and surveyed their surroundings. Three surfers were paddling out from the beach. A black cigarette-boat puttered beyond the reef and the point, heading their way. Pelicans landed in formation.

  “There has been something more concerning lately, though.” They were approaching the cresting waves and a big one neared. They moved back toward the open ocean, to float and talk. “I’ve been threatened. People came into my room. They are watching Brooke and I, and they say they know about you.”

  A grave, knowing expression overcame Yantra’s face. “There are shadows at work, Scott. A Hürantån understands. A Hürantån can see.”

  Scott scratched his head. “Yantra, why didn’t your communication work? Is the trident broken?”

  “A Hürantån understands. A Hürantån can see.” He repeated, looking to the right. “To say more now would not be wise. But one must open his eyes to see as well.”

  He motioned with a slight tilt of his head and gaze, indicating Scott to turn. A hundred feet away, a boat bobbed on the surface, and a man dressed in black stood at the wheel and one on the rear. These were no fishermen. He had binoculars trained right at him, and a parabolic listening device. Yantra whispered, “they’ve infiltrated us, Scott. It’s not safe to talk, even here.”

  “Where can we go?” Scott said in a hushed voice, his back turned toward the boat. “How did they know we’d be here?”

  “They hacked our network.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Scott. “I have so many questions. I need your help. What about Xero?”

  A brief look of turmoil in Yantra’s eyes. “Xero is in Pacificas, captive,” he whispered. “Ride this wave in and talk no more. We must be careful and not give them more information.”

  A large wave approached, and they paddled for it, dropping in and riding it to shore. Yantra, beside him, he yelled. “Watch for us, Scott Blake. We will contact you. Until then, be strong. And be wary.”

  He dove into the curling water and Scott rode on. He followed the crash in and turned, but the Hürantån was nowhere to be seen. Gone as fast as he appeared. The boat was still there though, and the flash of the binoculars hit his eye as the lens caught the rising sun. Scott headed for home, more confused than ever.

  5 transcendence

  Xero Nekton closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, altering the pattern and path through the ocular membrane. In, out, in, out. Within seconds, he slipped into a meditative supra-cerebral state and there he would remain until he exited. Here he could see through time and space while saving all energy and faculties for what was to come.

  His anger threatened to tear him apart, and if he didn’t manage it, the feeling would soon overwhelm all thought and action. A pressure cooker set to explode, he needed to diffuse. Percolate. The fury could be no longer aimed squarely on the humans. He had to accept some blame. He had misjudged Scott Blake. Underestimated him.

  His breathing steadied and his body settled. Lying down on his back in the globule, his third sight materialized. Spectral strands held him, but he levitated into the astral plane where he could be anywhere, anytime. Sound waves became visible and sent him adrift. The globule bubble constraint a barrier no more. In losing physical touch with reality, his consciousness merely had to hint at direction and there he would be. Mowata, above the waves.

  Mowata, the source of his ire, the mother of the humans who had multiplied across her body and desecrated her shores. The watery paradise he loved. In this plane, billions of gallons of water was no matter, and he was there. Through the ocean and high in the sky, floating through the clouds, soaring like an ethereal eagle, diving, coasting, flying over the waves battering the coast of North America. He flashed through the water and land and over cities, sprawling suburbs and concrete stripes crisscrossing the land. Thousands of cars zooming this way and that. Planes burning though the stratosphere. Fields drenched in pesticide vapors. Forests: patchwork quilts of harvest. His will led him on a subconscious direction, set free to wander. Through the woodlands of foothills the mountains rose like massive teeth, head and shoulders above the flatlands beyond. A lone tower, black with green top stood like a sore thumb in the wild, displaced.

  In through the dome, the green light of the engineered chloroplasts shone. Akin to Hürantån technology, the domed crown, in which housed a room covered in screens and one high-backed chair. In it sat a sizable figure, large, grotesque, and lumpy. Contained in a business suit, but like a bag of rocks, the ill-shaped form huddled. Not lithe and curved and proportioned like the fit Mowatan form. Its head shrouded in peppered sisal. Eyes shining red from the reflection off the screen it faced. Jaw set over bulbous jowls and skin pale as snow, blue veins and gin blossoms burnt across his hook nose and sagging cheeks. A meaty paw cut through the sleeves and a fat finger tapped a gemstone ring. The thing spoke.

  “Are you all secure?”

  Its voice scratched the silence and rippled the sound-waves like braille through the air. Xero hovered in the ether. Though unfamiliar with the figure, the images on the screens were known to him. The bloated face and ridiculous tuft of ‘hair’ flapped his rounded mouth, “Yes, all secure here.” A doberman pincer of a man with sinister beady eyes nodded his agreement as did several others. Xero spent most of his time surfing the ocean, but also monitored the dark web, he recognized the dubious cast of characters nodding and shaking their jowly, fat white faces. There were CEOs of multinational companies, dictators, warlords, financial giants, and some other surprising attendants. The leader of the UN, leaders of prominent human rights organizations, the press, religious heads. This one in the m
iddle, Xero hesitated to call it a man, for it had a certain ambiguity he couldn’t quite put his finger on, this thing seemed to control them all. They all paid him honour and answered his questions in turn.

  “The tide is turning. We are close to the goal. For one hundred years we have dominated global affairs and I would congratulate you all on your singular focus. The point is coming when we can take matters into our hands.”

  Xero trembled, his anger reigniting, and threatening to take him out of his state. At such a distance from his body it would be dangerous. He had to ease out like when surfing the tail end of a monster wave. Bailing now would hurt, ripping his soul in two. He often suspected a global conspiracy, but this was beyond his knowledge. If true, and the meditative visions had a 98 percent accuracy, it meant that he had truly dropped the wheel. He was King. If anyone was to lead a global ring, it would be him. But the Hürantån mission was to occupy, not control. Guide, not manipulate. The vestiges of the old ways taught them that their meddling had not affected the positive change as they hoped. It caused fractured rebellion and the opposite effect. The human growth chart was one of fits and spurts, little nudges and boosts at times brought unheard of and deadly consequence. Still, these people sitting around this video conference stirred a vibe of evil that chilled Xero to his core.

  He spun out of the room, his ghostly form now on the coast again. A raft of surfers bobbing on the break. He knew these types. They spent their days seeking waves. Ripples and stupendous tubes. He then was above the African continent. Child soldiers and dusty plains. Hot war and cold hearts. Motherless children. Innocence stolen. Peoples on the move, tent camps and squalor. Helpers in white hats surrounded, administering aid, food, medicine.

  Xero spun higher in the clouds. Through the atmospheric gasses, thick with carbon dioxide and water vapour. Sun rays trapped. The greenhouse heated. Record heat waves. The polar ice melting, despite his failure with the laser beam. Intense storms raged below, and he soared above the planet, his spectral form growing and seeing all–the planets of the solar system–like he was viewing a science-room mobile, spinning around the star the Mowatans called ‘the sun’.

  The system shrunk to the size of a speck within a spiral white galaxy, like milk in a drain, a swirling mass of points of light, which in turn reduced to the proportion of a marble among others, yellow, orange, silver, and purple shapes, twisting, exploding formations of matter, scattered randomly, nebulae in the void. A white lightning bolt shape amid a red and blue circle took form, and he zoomed in on it. It grew, and he delved into the bolt. Jergarcia; the points of the galaxy scattering and growing and he rooted on one, the massive white star of the Hooliosto system. The fifth planet, navy blue with four green moons, Hürantå. In through the hydrosphere into the great underwater dome of Huranto city, and the palace of the Magnificent. Aga on his throne, white beard, holding the great trident, bejeweled. Xero would return one day, and would be vindicated.

  He then soared above, through the waters of the seas of Argentia, the mighty Hurantaguan asleep till the equinox of the four moons. Schools of Shagark and Flying Bullnards and out into the atmosphere, and into space. Back, he retreated, through the universe in an instant, to the Milky Way and Mowata, his home. Into the realm of Pacificas, the remaining stronghold of the Hürantåns, into the Nektonian Estate, his prison globule, and his prostrate form within. He re-entered. Breath and burning as his consciousness ignited his body. Back in the physical dimension, he sat. He pushed himself to stand and watched as the door opened and guards came in.

  Thoughts churned in his head. Snippets of the out-of-body visions he’d just seen. He’d travelled the universe. He fought to gain sense of them. Must stop this thing in the green dome above the forest. He’d been hasty and blamed every human. They were not all at fault, though most followed destructive paths like sheep. The greed of a few and the power-hungry, they were responsible. He had played it wrong, and almost been an unwilling pawn of this ‘committee’, this group that had their own interests at heart, damning the hapless billions, the helpless animals. The anger and guilt built back up. His home threatened. He had to save Mowata, he was king. His precious oceans. His family honour at stake.

  I must vanquish myself.

  6 No Brains atoll

  Yantra’s words weighed heavily on Scott the next few days: “Be wary.”

  He went about the basics, keeping his head down, but couldn’t stop wondering if they were out there, watching, waiting. There was one thing he failed to do, and that was slow Brooke down. Today she had an event at Pearl Harbour where she and the Mothers of Intention organized a protest against the US Navy. It seemed there was toxic waste galore festering on Pacific atolls, a lingering effect of military presence and buildup.

  Scott decided to go with her to support her in her efforts, and in keeping with Yantra’s warning, keep an eye out for trouble. There had been nothing since he’d been surfing; no surreptitious messages, no warnings, no bedroom intruders in the middle of the night, but nevertheless he worried.

  They wandered outside the naval base and found the Mothers; they were waiting by the USS Maurice, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, where they were going to start their gathering. A small crowd lapped at the feet of the massive vessel that towered over them and stretched the length of several football fields.

  Brooke squeezed Scott’s hand, crushing the bones in his little finger. “Easy there, honey, I need that,” he said, pulling his hand away and shaking it.

  “Sorry, I’m just excited, that’s all. The power of the people!”

  Protests weren’t his cup of tea. Scott looked around at the hippies and students and the unemployed. “Whatever floats your boat,” he said, somewhat under his breath.

  Brooke glared. “What was that?”

  “I said ‘want to buy a goat?’”

  Brooke’s eyes shot daggers. “You just settle down. Remember, you volunteered to come with me, so don’t be negative. Now let’s go talk to Susie before this gets going.” Susie Greenberg organized the event and was de facto leader of the Mothers of Intention. She also wasn’t Scott’s cup of tea; she always forgot his name.

  Scott held back and Brooke sought out Susie. Surrounded by protestors, Brooke jostled her way in and shook her hand and they talked. Scott stood on the curb and watched. There were now about a hundred people there and it was two p.m., the scheduled start time. People carried signs and milled about, waiting for the protest to begin. A man carrying a sign that said “No to military pollution—No Brains ‘Atoll’” spoke to Scott, but he didn’t hear because Brooke had returned from talking to Susie. “Sorry sir, I just have to talk to my wife, here.” The man frowned, and Scott ushered Brooke a few steps away.

  “Susie’s about to start,” said Brooke, again taking Scott’s hand and once more holding it uncomfortably tight as she jumped up and down a few times. He looked at his wife, she was beaming. There was being excited, and then there was crazy.

  Susie, five-foot-two, curly red hair, dressed in a business suit, stepped up holding a megaphone. “Hello, welcome to Pearl Harbour, and thanks for coming out.” She paused, and the crowd applauded. “We’re here today to send a message to the US Navy, that it has to take responsibility to clean up its act in the Pacific!”

  Brooke dropped Scott’s hand and clapped both of hers, jumping up and down. Scott was no obstetrician, but he worried. His brow furrowed, he put his hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “Hi, honey,” he said in a low voice, “do you think jumping is a good idea… in your state?”

  Brooke glared with a look of ice. Susie continued. “The military industrial complex has run amok over our oceans. Since the Second World War, they have plowed roughshod over low-lying islands, building runways and bases and testing zones. Many are now abandoned and waste piles are sitting there on islands only a few feet over sea level.”

  The crowd cheered. Brooke hollered. Scott chewed the corner of his mouth. “Brooke,” he said, quietly.

  “Yes, wha
t is it,” she replied, clearly annoyed.

  “You’re thirty-five.”

  “What’s your point?” Brooke turned her focus from Susie, who was now talking about the containers of PCBs and dioxins stored on Wake island, the waves literally washing over the shoreline.

  “Well,” Scott said, feeling sheepish now that he’d angered her. “It’s your first pregnancy, and, you are kind of doing a lot right now. Don’t you think you should take it easy?”

  “Oh my god, Scott, will you stop it with that! You’re being such a misogynist.” Anger flashed in her eyes. “Can we talk about this later, or not at all? This is my thing, and I’m doing it. I don’t care if you are uneasy. If you didn’t want to come, you should have stayed home. Now leave me alone and let me listen to Susie Greenberg.”

  She pushed him and stepped a few feet away into the crowd, closer to the action. Suddenly he was separated, and a big man sidled up right behind him. Scott could feel hot breath on his collar and he turned, realizing the breath was not only hot, but bad. “Easy there, bud,” the man said, stepping forward. Brooke was out of sight now, and three burly men stepped in and blocked the way. He tried peeking around them and glimpsed her brown hair just ahead. “Excuse me, pardon me.”

  The men wouldn’t let him through and stank breath closed in on him. “Is there a problem here?” He turned again, facing the man. Broken teeth and a bent nose adorned the stubbly face, the eyes menacing. Before he could say anything, Brooke pulled him through the crowd back to her side.

  “Did you see those guys? Unbelievable.” Scott looked over and couldn’t tell if they were ‘them’ or just random protesters. “Let’s go back over there, do you mind?” he said, motioning to the sidewalk opposite the carrier where the crowd was less dense. He took Brooke’s hand and led her through, glancing back from where they came. Were the big men following?