It rained most of today. Darrin, Reiko, and I ran a drag-net for a while this morning and collected some more samples, then spent more time taking swabs and tossing them back in. By the time we were done, we were all soaked despite the rain gear we were wearing. Of course, you can’t be a marine biologist without getting wet, but somehow standing in the rain is a lot more miserable than being entirely in the water.
I would have liked to have stopped and gotten some dive time in, but we had agreed to go with Dr. Stepherson’s desired schedule, so we continued on our way.
When we were done, we all headed for the cafeteria for some coffee. It was about half full; while some people had been willing to brave the light rain we had been experiencing yesterday, the more torrential rain today was keeping most everyone inside, or below decks. We stopped just inside the door, taking off our rain gear and shaking off what water we could before going further in.
Donnie had seen us enter, had gone to the coffee carafe, and came up carrying a pair of coffee cups. He handed one to Reiko, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and then gave the other to me.
“Sorry,” he said, looking at Darrin. “Only two hands.”
I could see Darrin was a bit put off, but he put on his best smile. “Yeah, I get it.”
Donnie smiled back. “Yeah, sure. Sorry. Want me to go… um… get you one?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”
Donnie nodded. “OK, yeah. Sorry though.” He turned to Reiko. “Hey, I’ve got something else to ask you about.” He took her arm and led her away towards a table near the back.
I took a sip of the coffee and gagged. I held it out to Darrin. “Want this? Not a big sugar-in-coffee person.”
He shook his head. “Me either. But Reiko is. The more, the better. Probably where he got that from.”
“Probably.” I looked over. Donnie and Reiko were sitting at a table with an improbably oversized book of some kind. He was looking at her intently as she was reading something from it.
“So…” I said, not looking in his direction. “You OK with her and Donnie?”
I heard him sigh a bit. “Yeah. She and I talked a couple of days ago. She said we’re still on, she just wanted a meaningless thing while out here; before she committed to anything.”
I turned in surprise. “Were you two that serious?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah. Well… we had talked about plans after we graduated; this trip should give us the last hours and dissertation material we need. And you should know that!” He frowned for a second. “Anyway, she convinced me things will be back to normal once we get back to Boston.”
“Well… I’m glad it worked out. Though I see that you and Anna are getting along.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I was in the minisub when you tried to get in last night.”
“What?”
“I wanted to have a beer in peace. So… where do you two wind up?”
He flushed slightly. “Forward cargo bay.”
“Why not your cabin? Or hers?”
“She’s a bit embarrassed at being seen spending time with a student. You know.”
“Got it.”
He shrugged. “So… why were you in the mini? With Dr. Parimala?”
“What? No! I just wanted someplace to drink in peace.” I paused. “Wait… are we that obvious?”
He laughed. “There aren’t any secrets on this boat. There are only thirty or so of us here and not a hell of a lot of private space; it’s pretty much obvious what everyone is up to.”
“Yeah. Well… the minisub is my private space. And if you’re in there? At least stay away from my stash!”
He winced slightly at that. “I… may owe you a few.”
“Oh? So that was you!”
“Hey, it’s better than the stuff they put in the cooler up here!”
“Yeah! Which is why I want you to leave it alone!”
He laughed. “OK, yeah. Got it.”
We suddenly had to step aside as another group came through the door. It was Atiya, along with Mitch and Sondra. All of them shook themselves off.”
“Ugh,” she said to no one in particular. “I hate this weather.”
“Hopefully, we’ll get out of it soon.”
“I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll go to Captain Anderson myself and demand we change course to somewhere dryer and warmer, and to hell with Dr. Stepherson!”
“Yeah, right there with you.” I gestured towards the carafe. “Coffee?”
“I won’t say no.” The two of us left the entrance and headed over.
She looked at me as I poured out the cup I was holding. “Cold or something?”
“No… Donnie brought coffee over for Reiko and handed one to me as well. She apparently likes a lot more sugar than I do.”
“Yeah, I noticed he was spending a lot of time with her.” She paused as she filled her own cup. “You OK with that?”
I shrugged as I refilled mine and added an oversized dose of cream to it. “I’m her professor, not her counselor. She can do whatever she wants.”
“Oh, wasn’t meaning to imply otherwise. Just that…” She paused. “Never mind.”
“What?”
She shrugged. “Well… I’ve noticed the two of them together. A lot. He’s apparently been asking her for help with some kind of translation work he’s doing for Dr. Stepherson. I just didn’t know if you wanted your students helping someone else.”
I shook my head. “What she does in her spare time is up to her. As long as she’s there when she needs to be, then I don’t care about her social life. And, so far, she has been.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I’m the same way with my people. Like… I haven’t said anything to Dr. Chambers about spending time with your Darrin. Even though he’s ten years younger than her.”
I shrugged but didn’t say anything.
She hesitated, then continued. “Yeah. Though… I guess none of them have said anything about us either.”
“Yeah. Which reminds me. What was it you wanted to talk to me about yesterday?”
She glanced around. “Yeah. Though… there are a lot of people here.”
“I have a minisub.”
“Does it have coffee?”
“No, but my beer stash is there.”
She frowned. “Let’s get some coffee first.”
We wandered to an open table and sat down. For a long time, the conversation was on random things. What was happening on the ship and what news we were getting from home. Then, she frowned and leaned forward.
“Look. I… need to talk to you about a few things.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You asked me last night about Dr. Stepherson’s research? Well, I haven’t had anything to do with him. But… Dr. McNamara? That’s a different story.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“Not here.” She glanced around. “Where can we have a private talk? A really private talk.”
“Again, the minisub. It’s mine. And it’s so compact inside that if anyone did anything to it, I would see it immediately.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Well, everyone thinks we’re having an affair together, so… let’s go!”
“We are having an affair together,” I said as I stood up. “Well… you are, I guess. Technically.”
“Details.”
We paused at the door long enough to pull on our rain gear, and I grabbed a pack of towels from behind the counter. Then, we went outside, and towards the minisub, the rain was coming down pretty hard at this point. I opened the hatch, waited for her to descend, then followed.
“Ugh,” she said as I secured and locked the hatch. “It’s wet everywhere.”
“Welcome to submarines,” I replied, tossing the towel pack to her. I waited as she wiped the aft seat and then did the same to the main one. Once we were both sitting on something more-or-less dry, I opened the specimen storage unit and pulled out a pair of beers.
“So,” I said as I handed one to her. “What do you know?”
She looked at me as she twisted off the cap. “First, what do you know?”
I paused, thinking. How much did I want to tell her? Finally, I decided to go with the truth.
“OK. Here’s what I have.” I told her about my team being selected at the last minute after Dr. McNamara was dropped from the expedition. Then about how Dr. Pickman had cornered me at the last moment and asked me to upload the story of our trip to the Internet. Then… I told her that the Internet for most of the ship was being filtered. But, the updates on the laptop that Dr. Pickman had given me were getting through.
“Dr. Stepherson only agreed to tell me what was going on because he didn’t know that his observations were actually being distributed. I went along with the lie because I wanted to know what was happening. I’m apparently part of… something, even if I don’t know what that is. I had hoped that Dr. Pickman would relay something new once I had posted his research, but nothing. He had also told me that you knew something and would tell me when you were ready. OK, maybe you’ll break off whatever-the-hell it is we have together for me pushing you for an answer, but… what do you know?”
“Didn’t I say I had something to tell you?” She frowned. “But, it sounds like you had some secrets of your own.”
“Which I just told you. So… what is going on?”
She hesitated for a moment, considering. “OK, fine.” She took a long drink of her beer then leaned forward. “You heard Dr. Stepherson’s presentation last night.”
“Well, yeah?”
“What do you think about him thinking he has found ‘Atlantis’?”
I shook my head. “He was kinda careful not to say that. He just said that he had found some possible pre-recorded history connections between different parts of the world.”
“Really? Yeah… I guess that’s all he actually claimed. I guess you haven’t been talking to your student about his student’s studies that much after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say he, and Dr. McNamara, had gone a lot further down that particular rabbit hole than he let on.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. They tried to get me involved in their ‘conspiracy.'”
“So… what happened? And what is Dr. Stepherson really working on?”
“Oh, he’s telling the truth about his studies. What he talked about anyway. He fully thinks he’s going to meet inhabitants of a forgotten island that are still in contact with other members of some secret society that spans the world.” She paused. “I’m not sure what he’s going to do when we find no one there, though he seems convinced that someone is. You haven’t seen the other records. This ‘Paloma’ is about as far to the east as it can be and still be considered part of Polynesia. There’s been no official contact with it for decades. I have no idea why anyone would keep going there now.”
“You’ve… looked into this?”
“Yeah, because Dr. McNamara was asking me about it.”
“Why? Why would he think you had any idea as to what was going on there?”
“He… They…” She paused. “They… have some strange ideas.”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever heard of… something called ‘Ley Lines’?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll take that as a no.” She laughed. “Actually, I had never heard of them either, until Dr. McNamara asked me about them. I think I hurt his feelings when I said no.”
“What are they?”
“Lines of magical energy.”
I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I realized that she had answered. “Seriously?”
She nodded, a smile on her own face. “Yes! Seriously! He… Dr. McNamara, actually thought I would understand that!”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I had no idea what he was talking about!” She shook her head. “They have this idea that there are ‘points of hypergeometric equipotential’ on the Earth, and that those points connected by these ‘Ley Lines.’ I’ll admit that I have no idea what they are talking about. But… this island we are visiting is supposed to be one of them. Those other places that Dr. Stepherson mentioned last night? Same thing. Those are places where the Earth’s ‘Hypergeometric Potential’ are the same. That is why both of them were so interested in getting to Paloma.”
“So… Why did Dr. McNamara get kicked off the expedition?”
“That’s… probably my fault. I went to the board and said I wasn’t sure about the validity of the research that was going on and that I was considering backing out. I wasn’t going to risk my professional reputation by being involved in that kind of New Age bullshit. I mean, I know that Miskatonic has a bit of a reputation of supporting things like that, but I hadn’t expected actually to encounter it.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, they agreed to look at it, and Dr. McNamara got dropped. I was afraid they were going to kick me off as well, or just cancel the entire thing, but then they approved you as a replacement. I figured everything was fine, but…”
“But what?”
“Did Dr. Pickman really corner you at the last minute for this?”
“Literally as I was walking onto the dock. Literally. I was heading for the gangway with my carry-on bag, and he cornered me. I just wanted to get on, so it was a bit hard to turn him down at that point.”
She frowned. “And you’ve been doing the updates?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Hey, I need the support from this expedition as much as the rest of us!”
She was nodding slowly in agreement. “Yeah. Yeah. I get it.”
There was a pause.
“So… what are these ‘Ley Lines’ anyway?” I asked finally.
She shrugged. “From what they told me, they are paths along which ‘the underlying energy of the Earth can travel.’ New Age bullshit, like I said. There is nothing in gravitational physics that would support such a thing. So… I don’t know.”
“None of this makes sense.”
“I agree with you there.” She frowned. “None of what you have been submitting has been showing up?”
“Not that I can tell. Well, actually, yes. What I post is showing up on the laptop Dr. Pickman gave me, but if I check on my own laptop, using the Arkham‘s connection, nothing is there.”
“Did it occur to you that you might be the one seeing a fake feed? Easier to spoof one laptop than everything on the Arkham. Maybe Dr. Pickman is stringing you along for some reason.”
I actually hadn’t considered that. Thinking about it, I had kinda liked the idea of having secret information that no one else did. But if I was the one wrong…
“Yeah, you’re right. I… honestly hadn’t thought of that.”
“Maybe that’s why he picked you.”
“But why? Some sort of joke at my expense? Revenge for Dr. McNamara being dropped?”
She took another drink as she thought. “No one ever mentioned Dr. Pickman in any of the conversations I had with Stepherson or McNamara. He’s Comp-Sci, so he doesn’t even have that much to do with the Science department. I don’t know.”
“So why would he want me to record our expedition if he wasn’t planning on doing anything with what I’m uploading?”
“Maybe he… wanted to make sure there was a record of some kind? A record that may not have been made in real-time otherwise?”
“Why does it matter that I upload something every day?”
“Because… what if something happens?”
“Something?” I frowned as I pulled out another beer. “Why do you think something might happen?”
“I don’t?” she said, looking askance as I opened the bottle. “It’s just that… you remember what happened on the Miskatonic last year.”
“Yeah, they lost Dr. Kashan and his team. I talked to Captain Anderson about it a few days ago.”
“Maybe he thinks the same thing is going to happen here.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But no one knows what Dr. Kashan was thinking when he insisted on being put ashore on that island either. So… maybe he’s afraid of the same thing happening again?”
“We aren’t likely to run into a winter storm down here.”
“Yeah, but the Pacific is really misnamed; it does get a lot of storms.” She shrugged again. “I don’t know, but that’s all I can think of.”
I thought. What was Dr. Pickman thinking. He, at least, was seeing my uploads, so they were going somewhere. But… why hide what I was posting?
I covered my indecision by pulling out another beer.
“You don’t know anything else?” I asked as I handed it to her.
“Not at all.” She still had most of her first one, but she accepted it without saying anything. “You say he told you I knew something?”
“Yeah. He told me not to push you because you would tell me when you were ready. Sorry, I guess I pushed you anyway.”
“I really don’t know anything more than what I told you. I don’t know what he might be talking about. But…” she leaned forward. “Given that we’re in someplace private, and you’re talking about pushing…”
—-
That was a few hours ago. I sat here for a long time before deciding to post this. So… Dr. Pickman. Are only you seeing this, or do I have a wider audience? Someone give me a clue. Should I continue this?”