15. Marc
Marc
“U se less cinnamon for the next batch.” Serena pulled a face. “I can hardly taste the pineapple.”
“I told you Indonesian cinnamon is stronger than the Sri Lankan stuff,” Katie said from her hammock. “But did you listen?”
“I used half the amount I normally use,” Marc told her.
Maybe this could be a movie? The Big Lebowski meets Dumb and Dumber , but with extra insects.
After a tropical downpour soaked not only the roof of their makeshift prison but the inside of the room too, they’d been allowed a change of scene while they waited for everything to dry out.
Katie had run around with a mop and bucket, and Havana had hauled the mattress outside into the sunshine.
Marc and Serena were still tied up, but this time the handcuffs had been moved to their ankles with the chains fastened to a post in a barn-like shelter.
They could take a few steps outside, as if they were dogs in a yard, but freedom was still an impossible dream.
Although if they did escape, where would they go?
Thick jungle bordered the rickety wooden buildings on three sides, with the ocean on the fourth, and who knew how far they were from civilisation?
Apart from the hushed chatter of the handful of Wild Roots representatives who’d made themselves at home in the jungle, the only sounds came from nature—the melodious chirping of a bird of paradise, the clicking of tree kangaroos, and the meep of frogs.
Katie had been educating them about the various species.
Only she and Havana came close, but Marc memorised the other faces he saw for later.
He’d be expected to make a report to the authorities when they finally escaped this place, although he wasn’t sure how much he’d tell them.
These people weren’t the enemy. Okay, yes, they’d kidnapped him, but how else were they supposed to get the world’s attention?
Earlier, while they were mopping up pools of water, Katie had explained the lengths they’d gone to already—the petitions they’d started, the ad campaigns they’d run, the letters they’d written to government officials.
Two of the group’s members were languishing in a godforsaken hellhole of a jail after they handcuffed themselves to trees on Malati several months ago, an act that had caused barely a ripple in the media.
“You should have asked for their release as a condition of ours,” Marc had told her, only for Serena to kick his foot. “Not that I want to put ideas in your head or anything.”
“We thought of that, but we didn’t want to give the government room to negotiate. That’s our next project. Umar and Rain understand. They want us to save Malati at all costs.”
“Umar and Rain are the prisoners?”
She’d nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have told you their names.”
“When we get home, I’ll make an appeal for them.”
“You will?”
Serena raised her gaze to the roof and muttered, “Stockholm syndrome.”
“Somebody needs to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. Luck gave me a platform of millions—I might as well use it for good instead of letting my publicist post photos of feet every day.”
“Welcome to the revolution,” Katie said.
“Just to check, how revolution-y are things likely to get? Because there were a lot of guns around on Malati, and my face is insured for eighty million dollars.”
“We don’t normally use guns. I mean, I was only shooting into the air, and even that was terrifying. But we’d tried everything else, so what were we supposed to do?”
“Where did you get the guns?”
“One of our local members has connections,” she said vaguely. “He delivered them here in two huge hold-alls, and I almost broke my back trying to carry one of them to the boat.”
“Well, if my name is going to be associated with your cause in a less-than-victimy way, you need to ditch the weapons.”
“Is this a good idea?” Serena asked.
“I grew up in rural Nebraska, and I’ve seen the damage humans can do.
Not just by fuelling the ever-increasing number of tornadoes, but spraying pesticides that pollute the land and kill off the bees.
A chemical plant dumped neurotoxins in a river one county over, and do you know what the government did?
Nothing. The town that relied on the water died, and the company’s shareholders got richer. ”
Marc had friends who’d lived in Bryant Lake. Who’d lost their farms because nothing grew anymore. Of course he’d been angry, but in those days, his head had been so far up his own ass that he hadn’t used his voice to raise a ruckus.
What was the old saying? With age comes wisdom.
Marc liked to think he’d changed for the better.
Apart from a continuing thriller franchise he was committed to, he’d stopped chasing the big bucks and begun picking acting roles based on his heart instead of the paycheque.
That had led to him meeting Serena, and through Serena, he’d found a small group of friends who cared for him as a person rather than for the doors his name could open.
Maybe coming here was a sign that he should evolve again? Focus on a higher cause? Phae used to tell him that everything happened for a reason, but sometimes the reason wasn’t always clear at first.
“I think I know the place you’re talking about,” Katie said. “Bryant Lake?”
Marc nodded. “Except the lake’s off limits now.”
“We have members from there. Nothing like an environmental disaster to boost recruitment.”
“Unless it’s an abduction,” Havana said, walking over with a plate. “We’ve signed up a record number of members over the past few days.”
“We’ve also gotten a bunch of death threats,” Katie pointed out.
“In war, there are always casualties. Julisa Denning, Tim Weston, August Groveland, Levi Sykes, Christine Yang, Winston Viggs… All martyrs for the cause.”
Serena looked horrified. “Wait, I thought you said nobody died on Malati?”
“The battle to save our planet has been going on for way longer than a week.”
Marc was beginning to regret his newfound activism. “What happened to those people?”
Katie ticked off the names on her fingers. “Tim was involved in a car wreck, August died in a house fire, Levi spent years in prison, Christine’s exposure to toxic chemicals led to a brain tumour, Winston was shot on the street, and Julisa disappeared from her lab.”
Half of those sounded like accidents, or at the very least, not martyrdom. Katie had seemed reasonably normal up until now—criminal tendencies aside—but had she taken a wrong turn to Conspiracy-ville?
“So what you’re saying is that it’s not a great idea to drive anywhere? Or work, shop, or live in a home?”
“Not if you plan on speaking out against big business or the government.”
“And yet you still do it.”
“Someone has to.”
“But why you?”
“Why… Well…” Katie seemed genuinely flummoxed by the question. Finally, she answered softly, “I guess I don’t have much left to lose.”
“None of us do,” Havana added. “I’m not a wealthy man. I don’t have much to leave for my daughter, but I can try to protect her home. Our home. We don’t have another planet to live on.”
“I thought we were going to Mars?” Marc said, trying to lighten a mood that had suddenly turned heavy.
“Not any time soon.” Havana was still dead serious.
“Look into the logistics—we’re nowhere near ready for that, and maybe we never will be.
Right now, we can’t even create a self-sustaining biosphere here on Earth, and when you add in Martian dust storms that would pit the surface of any glass habitat and turn it opaque… ”
“Shame, I can think of several people I’d like to send there.”
“I’d settle for going home,” Serena said. “Is there any news?”
Katie checked her phone again. “Nothing yet. The pineapple’s smoking.”
Dammit. Marc flipped the slices with a fork and moved them away from the flames.
When he’d been forced onto that boat, he couldn’t deny feeling terrified, but this wasn’t so bad.
Quite relaxing, actually. He felt a little guilty that folks were wasting resources on the nationwide manhunt, but as Serena had reminded him earlier, they hadn’t started this.
No, they were just making the best of a difficult situation.
Much the same as Marc had in Nebraska. He’d been in charge of the grill back then as well, and caramelised pineapple had been Phae’s guilty pleasure.
Fuck, he missed her.