Chapter 20
Sasha
Sasha took a break from being on her hands and knees, coming to rest in a sitting position on the floor.
She moved into this position slowly, as though this was enough to prevent any squishing of unseen bodies, hoping to give a hypothetical tiny person enough of a warning to move out of the potential footprint of her ass.
Oh, God. Now she was thinking about how enormous her butt must appear from their perspective, like the planet Jupiter on a collision course with Earth.
It was better not to think about it for too long.
Sasha was probably wasting her time with this search.
It was getting late, and her eyes were tired, which didn’t help when looking for something the size of a large grain of rice.
She’d slipped the handsome resort shift manager a hundred dollars to let her hang out in the room overnight in order to tie up some loose ends.
The man had given her an odd look as he peered into the small conference room, which had already been returned to its natural state with a small round table and chairs, before studying her face with extra scrutiny.
Whether or not he believed her didn’t affect his decision, as he kindly slid the money back into her hand and said, “It’s no problem.
Let me know if there’s anything else you need. Buenas noches, senorita.”
Both the resort staff and the higher-ups looked at Sasha remaining at the hotel for a few extra days suspiciously.
There had been a group email questioning why it was necessary when she was needed in Belize ASAP.
Zack Massey expected everyone to adhere to his timetable even though he flew on a private jet and everyone else scrambled with their own travel arrangements.
She was relieved Dr. Cutchin hadn’t let her down as he came up with some bullshit excuse on why she remained, sounding convincing enough to the executive level.
This was the only thing that had gone well for Sasha.
Inside the small meeting room, she’d slowly crawled her way across the floor, her glasses replacing dried-out contacts, giving her tired eyes a better shot at seeing something.
She didn’t know what she hoped to find or what she was supposed to do if she did find something.
Every piece of lint and thread was studied and analyzed in order to discern if it could be something of significance.
It was beginning to feel too optimistic to expect to find the couple themselves and she settled for any kind of evidence of their existence.
In a strange moment of exhaustion, she could have sworn she heard something weird…
like an ape call. It could have been her mind playing tricks on her.
She’d almost forgotten about the lost chimp.
Sasha considered calling for the animal but wasn’t sure of its name or if it even had one.
Mankind2Mars had paid some local institution for the test subject, and its identification was simply a random list of letters and numbers like B… zero…something. She couldn’t remember.
“Here, chimp. Come, chimp, chimp,” she said in a low voice, not wanting to scare it.
“Senorita?” a voice said behind her.
Not hearing the door open, Sasha nearly jumped out of her skin, hitting her head on the underside of the small conference table. Rubbing her head, Sasha turned and saw a young, pretty housekeeper with a vacuum cleaner in hand.
“Oh, hi. Sorry. I’m using the room. It’s been okayed by Ricky.” Her cheeks grew hot as she realized how ridiculous she must have appeared, crawling around on the floor.
“Okay,” the housecleaner replied. She turned to leave before seeming to change her mind. “?Le puedo ayudar? ?Qué está buscando?”
“No, that’s okay, I’m looking…” Sasha wasn’t sure how to answer the question.
She couldn’t exactly say she was looking for tiny people without the situation appearing more bizarre.
“I’m looking for…an ape?” She finished the sentence timidly because this explanation didn’t sound any better.
Sasha had always been horrible at inventing lies on the fly.
Why couldn’t she say she was looking for an earring or something?
She internally sighed at her failed attempt to appear normal.
But, with her luck, the nice woman may stop what she was doing to help her find an imaginary earring.
The housekeeper listened to her answer, confusion spreading across her face. “Ape?”
“Yeah, you know…” But she couldn't remember how to say ape or chimp in Spanish and finally settled on “…un mono pequeno.” She already looked silly, so she paired this response by making an ooh ooh monkey noises and scratching the top of her head.
“Un mono pequeno. Muy, muy pequeno. I have no idea where that little devil monkey went.”
The look of confusion switched to one of alarm as the woman’s eyes grew wider. “Ah. Sí. Un mono pequeno. Okay, okay. Gracias.” She left, shutting the door soundly behind her.
Well, that conversation had been a disaster. At least the woman left, and Sasha could search in peace. She wasn’t ready to give up even if the whole thing was a crapshoot in the dark. All she could do was keep looking.