Chapter #18Waiting for a Tango by: Seuzz   And as Geist Howland pulls you close, he puts a palm to his shoulder, and his form melts. A smooth African man now stands there. He's very young, with dark, chocolate skin and rounded muscles, and a trim moustache. His eyes show a mix of pain and tenderness. He pushes in for a nuzzle.
But you turn away. "It's too late, White. I changed my mind. Or I'm a fucking liar. Let's do it the way we always do it. As other people."
"Aren't you at least going to tell me I'm sexy," he asks in a wounded tone.
You smile. "Fine. Becky will fuck a brother. That'll almost even things up between her and Geist."
* * * * *
You spend the next day marching smartly up and down the trails, talking brightly to the fat, pasty visitors, and entertaining their fat but hyper kids. The air is clean and cool and fresh, and when you're not busy looking after the visitors you stand on a tall rock with your hands on your hips and smile into the wind. Only a handful of serious hikers show up to go in; only a handful come out, and Durras isn't one of them. When evening comes, you and Geist drive back to town for a backyard vegan barbecue with Buck Sloan, the fifth ranger, and his wife. Talk is fast and energetic, and you brag about the new bookshelves you're making for the house, and no one is rude enough to point out that Becky couldn't make a straight joint even if she outsourced the labor to a master carpenter. Geist offers to cover for Buck the next day, and he is agreeable, though slightly chagrined to lose another day of wages.
Durras doesn't come out the next day either, so that evening Buck gets dropped into Geist's cellar next to Becky, and you spend a lonely night in Becky's bed while White takes Buck's place at his house.
The next day the five sleeping rangers get booster shots and some nutrients. Durras remains in the mountains.
The day after that you take your lunch in the back of the station, munching on apples and granola while looking at porn.
Porn of Frank Durras, that is. The suspense is getting to you, a little.
They are photos, most of them taken long-range, showing a dark-haired man in his late twenties. (Twenty-eight, you know, to be precise.) His hair is thick, with rough bangs falling to his eyebrows and curling over the top of his ears and neck. The most recent photos give him a beard, too, full and a little unruly, but not long or bushy. His eyes, even when he's not locked in a scowl, are hard and wary, and though in none of them is he looking into the lens, a sense of foreboding creeps over you as you shuffle through the stack. He is on the lookout for something, and you've the unsettling feeling that he's on the lookout for you.
The next day he still doesn't come. Plante begins to complain of cabin fever, even though you've given him permission to drive around the nearby town so long as he has his cell phone on.
White continues to substitute for Buck Sloan at home, and alternates days at work as Buck and as Geist. You stay up at the lodge two nights in a row, with Todd Clemons on one night and Wynn Gamble the next. You make Plante sleep up there the second night too, for you've a sudden and forceful premonition that Durras will come off the mountain during the night.
* * * * *
If he does, he goes back into the hills before daybreak, for his truck—still with a flat—is still there when you get up. You let Gamble go down on you before the park opens and the others show up.
That evening White provokes a fight with Buck's wife and storms off so he can spend it with you. He catches you poring over photos of Frank. "Do you think he's hot or something, Knotts? I've never seen you so worked up about an impersonation."
"This one's different," you mutter, not lifting your eyes from a large, glossy photo that catches Durras in the act of swinging a compound bow over his shoulder. "I've been waiting ten years for this one."
You instantly regret what you said, for he prods you until you speak again. "It was my first job for Diana, even before there was a Project Diana. Before even Kips joined. It was just me, working for Hyde-White. This guy fucked up that job for me."
White tugs at the corner of the picture, pulling it back so he can look. "This kid?" he asks skeptically.
"I was a kid too, it was ten years ago. This is him two months ago. And what are you calling him a kid for? You're a year younger than him."
"Well, if you got a grudge you got a grudge, but you always tell us not to make the job personal. Fuck." He trudges into the small kitchen. "Why don't we have any meat? I want meat."
"We're vegan, dipshit."
"I wanna burger."
You don't reply. You've flipped to your favorite photo, the one you save for last. Durras is turned so that he's almost looking into the lens. If you tilt the picture, it's like he's daunting you with his gaze. You can't stare at it for more than a few minutes without looking away. It leaves you shivering, and you can't tell if it's from anticipation or fear.
The next day he still doesn't come down from the mountains.
* * * * *
"Is it possible he met with an accident?" Hyde-White asks three days after that. Plante has been complaining to him, and another technician will be flying out to relieve him.
"Anything is possible, but people can go up into the mountains for as long as they like," you say.
"What would he be doing in there?"
"Hunting, fishing, hiking. If you follow the right trails you can actually get to Yellowstone from here."
"That means nothing to me," the urbane Professor Hyde-White snaps.
"It means it could be six weeks before he returns, and he could drive up in someone else's car to pick up his own."
"Intellectually, I knew that North America was abominably large," the professor mutters. "If you want to abort the assignment—"
"I'm just keeping you informed," you say.
A week later the substitute technician comes down with the flu, and Plante has to return. Buck Sloan and his wife have begun to talk about getting a divorce. You and Cox start to lay serious plans for dumping five corpses instead of reviving five rangers.
But two days later, before their health is irretrievable, Frank Durras finally trudges into the parking lot.
* * * * *
You're behind the lodge, frowning over texts from Buck's wife, when the back door opens and Geist whistles softly to you. Something about the gleam in his eye makes your heart skip. You hurry after him into the break room. Your extremities numb at the sound of a resonant baritone. "I'm not symptomatic," it rumbles.
"I know sir," says Todd. "But with the recent rains—"
"What rains?"
"From a few weeks ago. The insect populations—"
"I've never even heard of this virus."
"It's just a simple eye exam," you shout. "Don't be such a baby." You blast some water into the sink, and ostentatiously clink some silverware.
"Thank you, Becky," Todd wearily shouts. "Thirty seconds, sir, just to check the state of the capillaries in your eyes."
The sigh sounds like a hot furnace turning on. A chair creaks.
You glance through the doorway. The visitor is sitting with his back to you, showing only a rust-colored hoodie and a mop of black hair. Oh, and mud-crusted boots and jean cuffs.
Todd squats and flashes a pencil light into his eyes. As your tango is so distracted, Geist smoothly jabs an injector gun into the back of his neck.
Two windows shatter. Durras explodes from the chair, and Todd and Geist fly halfway across the room in opposite directions. You stumble back two steps.
Durras puts his hand to his neck, sways, and falls to the floor.
You scamper out the front door to signal Plante, but he's already grinding gears as he moves the van to the back of the lodge. You follow and help him open the van doors. You then run back around to the front. "Excuse me, ma'am," you tell a fat woman who is about to put her hand on the door handle. "We have a small emergency. Please wait out here." You squeeze past her through the doorway and lock it in her face. You put out the lights. You turn to regard your prize capture.
But he's gone. So are Geist and Todd. You swallow hard.
You hear a thump in the break room, and look in to find your confederates carrying Durras through the back door. They haul him into the van and shut the doors in your face. A scant twenty seconds later the doors open again, and they come out. But they shut the doors behind them. "Not enough room for anyone but Plante and the tango," Todd says. "Plante says he'll be ready for you in five minutes." After two weeks, curiosity finally masters him. "What is that thing in there?"
"New tech," you squeak.
"I meant the dude."
But you've darted away to take a quick walk around the perimeter.
* * * * *
The back of the van is open when you return, but it's empty of everything but Plante's machine. A moment later, Plante appears from the other side of the van and beckons you up into it. "Where's the tango," you ask.
"Outside," he says. "It's too crowded here. Hop up." He pats the gurney attached to the P3 machine. "This won't hurt," he adds.
Oh, but it does hurt as you settle on the gurney. It hurts bad.
It hurts wonderful. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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