31
There’s this random YouTube video. It features a kid—in swim trunks—rinsing off after a day at the pool.
The boy is minding his own business, like one generally does in a public shower, and he’s shampooing his hair. But when he goes to rinse out the shampoo, more suds appear. Confused, he rinses again—more suds. Then more. More . On and on. This stuff won’t rinse out no matter how hard he scrubs. In fact, it’s reproducing. Taking over his scalp. He gets increasingly frustrated, right, because shampooing is a simple process. Rinse, maybe repeat if you have the time, that’s it. Done. But these suds keep coming back, multiplying, and after a while the kid begins to lose sanity. He rubs his scalp like a madman, throttles the showerhead in a vain attempt to choke reality into submission. He calls for help. His very existence is fracturing at the seams, his grasp of the physical world torn asunder by a bottle of Head & Shoulders.
Why aren’t things the way they’re supposed to be?
It’s his friends, of course. They’re behind him, discreetly squirting additional shampoo onto his scalp after each scrub. They own up to the prank. The kid’s relieved. But a part of him is also broken, his brain dented in the section where the immutable laws of nature are stored.
That’s how Dan felt.
Mara must’ve felt similarly because she clocked Shae so hard that he spun. She shook the pain from her hand as she retreated into Dan’s arms.
“My mom,” she said, and she was weeping.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “Yeah.”
Dan pegged the snow globe at Shae’s feet. He meant for it to shatter in an intimidating way, but it just kind of bounced off the floor and rolled away.
Instead Dan cocked the gun—cocking a gun is harder than it looks in movies—and he aimed it at Shae’s bloodied face.
“ What’s real? ” Dan screamed.
Shae wiped the blood from his nose with his wrist. “Mr. Foster, please—”
“If you don’t tell me what’s going on right fucking now, I’m going to lose it. Is Tizoc real? Lilyanna? Are you telling me the fucking sun is shining outside”—he couldn’t even say it—“outside the dome ?”
“This response,” Shae said, “is—is fascinating. I thought perhaps you would react in anger, but the violence, this outburst of violence, it is fascinating.”
“Stop talking to us like we’re experiments!”
“It’s real,” Shae said, his hands in the air. “All of it.”
“Except the sun exploding,” Mara said.
Shae nodded, conceded the point. “Except that. Yes.”
“Talk.”
“I—please. Okay. Yes. After the experiment with Jane and the others, I had wonderful data. Wonderful. But it was incomplete. We had so much more planned with the dome of course, so much we had yet to learn. But my father, you see—my father. He was always risk averse. He became even more so in old age. Please, Mr. Foster, is the gun absolutely necessary?”
“Keep talking.”
“He shut down the experiment after their deaths. People began poking around. It worried him. He lined the correct pockets—he was always good at that—but he forbade me from further experiments, cut the ShaeTech research budget down to nothing. I was to stay in my observatory like a good boy and continue my search for exoplanets. That was it.
“When he passed, the company soon went under. But he had gifted the island to me. I partnered with the Space Telescope Science Institute. The institute, of course, had no notion of the important work done here. No idea of the dome that lay just below the ocean’s surface. They only knew of the observatory. So, for decades, Mr. Foster, that was it—I was a lowly astronomer, and I was content to die a lowly astronomer, buried with my unfinished research. I made peace. Until one day, four years ago, while standing atop the rocky cliffs just east of here, a thought occurred.”
“Tizoc,” Mara said.
“Precisely.” Shae soaked his nose on the sleeve of his lab coat. “So much of my island lay untouched. Besides the astronomical benefits, I think you will agree—it is quite beautiful here. Certainly an attractive destination. The answer was right in front of me the entire time. A resort !
“What would a resort bring exactly, besides bright lights, loud music, and drunken tourists? I’ll tell you. Hundreds of new subjects, delivered directly to me, served on a platter like hors d’oeuvres. This was a revelation—an epiphany. I pored over the idea for weeks. I just needed the right buyer.”
“Where’s the button, asshole?” Mara said. She broke from Dan and combed the room for a control panel, a lever, something. “Where’s the button to retract the dome?”
“Before they both died, my father did business with a Cassandra Sheridan,” Shae said. “Brody’s mother. I knew the family, knew the boy, though not well. A California trust-fund baby with more money than sense and a lifelong dream of opening a party destination somewhere tropical. Somewhere remote. The perfect candidate. I used my father’s connections to schedule a meeting.”
Mara tore posters from the wall as he rattled on.
“Mr. Sheridan, of course, was thrilled. We shook hands. He was to acquire nearly 90 percent of the island at an incredible price, I would keep my observatory and the airstrip. The hangars. But Brody and I quickly became more than business partners—I think if you asked, he would call me a friend—and the boy was in over his head. I offered to help him develop the resort, handle the particulars, under the guise of wanting what was best for the island. A silent partner, if you will. He would remain the figurehead, the name associated with Tizoc Grand Islands Resort and Spa. I would stay behind the scenes. I’m only an astronomer after all.”
“You manipulated him,” Dan said.
Shae grinned. “Mr. Sheridan certainly fits the definition of a polezny dura .” He read the confusion on Dan’s face. “A useful idiot. Soon, I had my hands in all aspects of planning Tizoc. Room layouts, building amenities. I proved my worth to Brody time and time again. It was my idea to cater to three distinct socioeconomic populations. My idea to offer deep discounts to Building C guests, target Building B guests through self-worth comparisons on social media, attract Building A visitants by going overboard on luxury. I wanted a diverse subject pool, you see, and—”
“The sun,” Dan growled. “Get to the sun.”
“The experiment itself had to be short,” Shae said. “Tizoc’s grand opening package was only two weeks long. For two weeks, I could be assured no one would attempt to come or go from the island. But what would I test?
“I knew it was essential I quickly provoke my subjects—to test the limits of what humans are capable of under duress. How humans react to something like, say, their sun dying—well, Mr. Foster, that could help inform decisions made in the event of an actual cosmic disaster. Data like that could help humanity react in the face of certain doom. This research was for the good of humanity. You must understand that.”
Shae began to laugh, the same unhinged laughter from the night he and Dan shared Bagel Bites. “I convinced him—I convinced that boy—to theme the entire resort on the Aztecs, a people who famously worshipped the sun. Tizoc? The Sola Pool? Maize? ” Shae slapped his knee. “We’re in the Caribbean! It makes no sense!” He was dying. “There’s a mariachi band!”
“You’re insane,” Dan said.
Shae wiped a tear, composing himself. “Well, Mr. Foster, there’s a thin li—”
Dan shook the gun. “Do not say there’s a thin line between insanity and genius. They always say that. There’s a big line! It’s a thick fucking line!”
“I can see you are upset. But think of what I have observed in just over a week, Mr. Foster! All the data gathered. Tribalism, idol worship, a developing class system. A government in its infancy. Murder, mutiny. And love! We had a wedding , Mr. Foster. Then a war. In fact, that’s where I was before joining you. Observing the skirmish between Buildings A and C. Stupendous. Imagine having a front row seat to the Battle of Megiddo.”
“The fighting on the pool deck wasn’t exactly the Battle of Megiddo.”
“I’ve captured so much of the human experience. More than I could have hoped for. And soon that data will be uploaded for the world to see. You must understand the value of that, Mr. Foster. You must understand how it will benefit future generations. Our small sacrifice—”
“Those British guys,” Mara said, abandoning her search. “The ones who stole the boat.”
Shae stopped. “Oh, yes, that gave me a scare. I had forgotten about the boats. Imagine those chaps’ confusion when they crashed into what looked to be open sea.”
“It was you who disabled the remaining boats,” Mara said.
“I had no choice.”
Dan pressed the sides of his head, tried to keep his brain from rebooting. “The cameras in our rooms.”
“Brody protested, at first. But I told him they would only operate in an emergency. A safety investment. He’s a bit of a prepper, that one, and so easily convinced.”
Shae had done the impossible. Was Dan actually pitying Brody Sheridan?
“I must admit though,” Shae continued, “not everything was my idea. Some of Mr. Sheridan’s contributions, while coincidental, have been immense. Hiring that Rico character, equipping him with a rifle. Incredible. If he wasn’t plucked right from the Normanist theory of Scandinavian conquest. And Lilyanna Collins!” Shae closed his eyes, pumped his fist. “Could there exist a better analogy for de facto military leaders created in the midst of power vacuums?”
Shae looked at them both like he was actually expecting a response.
“Have I answered all your questions?” he said, blood on his teeth now. “Can we put down the gun?”
“We saw the sun explode,” Mara said. “It shattered. Cracked like an egg.”
“Mixture of projections, pyrotechnics, and screens built into the dome itself. Convincing, no? I tell you, when this dome was constructed, it was ahead of its time. Father often floated the idea of licensing the technology to Disney World.”
Dan thought of the island’s power requirements—what Pete said in Brody’s office. The dome.
He didn’t want to pose any more questions, he really didn’t, because it was clearly only feeding this demented man’s ego. Shae puffed his chest out like he was a real genius, like his brain was wrinklier than anyone else’s in the room.
But God, Dan had so many questions.
“We flew here,” Dan said. “The dome couldn’t’ve been up then.”
“Very good, Mr. Foster. Remember the brief power outage your first night? You were likely asleep. Well, it was overcast, and the island lights went dark for half an hour or so, and voilà, the next morning you awoke beneath the dome.”
“It’s quiet,” Dan said.
“Oh, state-of-the-art.”
“But Alan’s got the plane fixed,” Mara said. “And there are other planes from Nassau scheduled to arrive in a few days…”
Something wicked flashed across Shae’s eyes. “Oh,” he said, “this will all be over tomorrow.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dan asked.
“When the data upload is complete, the experiment will be concluded.”
“Okay. One more time: What the hell does that mean?”
Shae sneered. “Remember what I said about sacrifice? A couple of deaths make headlines—but a thousand deaths make the history books, make the annals of scientific discovery. This will be my final contribution to our species, Mr. Foster. The dome was constructed with a self—”
Dan had heard enough. It was the perfect time for some heroics, the perfect chance to impress his new wife.
He aimed the gun at Shae’s leg and fired.
Couple things. First, guns are really loud in confined spaces. Like, upsettingly loud. Each of them clutched their ears, even Shae, which Dan thought was odd because he should’ve been clutching his freshly shot leg. Which brought Dan to his second realization—he’d missed. A near point-blank shot and he’d missed. Just immeasurably embarrassing, made even worse by the fact that they were essentially inside a metal tube, so the bullet ricocheted off the floor, up the wall, and over their heads like Tinkerbell on fire. It sparked off a few more surfaces before coming to a sizzling halt somewhere behind them. Mara shoved Dan in the shoulder, one hand still on her ear.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I was trying to take charge,” Dan said meekly.
Shae bent over one of his consoles, clutched his heart, panted. “Mr. Foster. What—what on Earth were you hoping to—to accomp—”
The cabin door slammed open below, like it’d been kicked in, and footsteps rumbled across the timber floor. Shae and Dan shared a quick desperate glance, but before either could move, Rico Flores had scaled the ladder to the observatory and was screaming for them to get on their knees, rifle against his shoulder. Mara screamed something back, and Dan lifted the pistol, but Rico made quick work of that, slapping Dan across the face, one of Rico’s signature slaps that sent the whole room spinning, and he snatched the pistol from Dan like he was snatching a baby’s rattle. He slid it into his belt. Shae did something—Dan’s vision was kind of fuzzy, he was pretty sure he clicked off the monitors—and then he approached Rico, finger wagging. Rico must not have liked that, because he hit Shae with the butt of his rifle, and Shae crumpled to the floor like a collapsing star.
Mara steadied Dan, said, “Shh, shh, hey, look at me. Look at me.” And eventually his dueling visions converged, and there was his bride, as wonderful as ever, and just behind her was Rico, as big and sweaty and pissed off as ever. Dan stepped between them, held his hand toward the barrel of the rifle.
Rico seethed. His trigger finger twitched. “I’ve been waiting all week for this.”
“Listen, though, listen,” Dan pleaded. “There’s something you should know. Okay? Dr. Shae—he just told us that the—”
Mara hugged Dan from behind to shut him up, nuzzled her face between his shoulder blades. They held hands, which was nice, and nobody said anything for a moment.
Then Mara whispered something loud enough for Rico to hear. “I’m surprised he’s being such a little bitch about it.”
Dan gasped.
“The fuck you just say?” Rico asked.
Mara dug the top of her head into Dan’s back. “Oh, Rico, did you hear that? I didn’t think you’d hear that. I’m sorry.”
“Say it again, bitch.”
“That’s what I said, actually.” Her face poked from behind Dan’s shoulder. She spoke loudly, clearly. “I said I was surprised you were being such a little bitch .”
Dan squeezed Mara’s hand, desperately hoping it would convey that she should stop what she was doing immediately, but she only squeezed back. What was she thinking? If they just told Rico about the sun—if they just made him understand, maybe he—oh. He’d just kill them anyway, wouldn’t he? Then he’d be the only one who knew.
“Oh, yeah?” Rico said. “How am I being a bitch?”
“I mean—after everything—you’re just going to mow us down with your rifle?” She did that degrading baby voice of hers. “ My name’s Wico, and I pwull this widdle piece of metal with my fingey and all my pwoblems go away. I’m a weal tough man. Waah. ”
It was unclear why Rico would cry at the end of that sentence, even if in this scenario he was an infant, but Mara always ended her baby talk with waah .
“The fuck?” Rico said.
Dan joined in. “If you think about it, it is kind of pussy move.” He turned to Mara. “No offense.”
“None taken. Total puss move.”
“Rico is Puss in Boots.”
Mara laughed. “He’s a Pussycat Doll!”
Breath shot from Rico’s nostrils like a teased bull. He stared down the sights of the rifle. “Wonder if I could open both your skulls with one bullet?”
“That’s what we’re saying,” Dan said. “Literally any body could do that.” He turned to Mara. “When did guns become associated with tough guys? Is there anything more emasculating than a gun?”
“I can’t think of anything,” Mara said.
“For real,” Dan said. “ I’m in a confrontation, let me go get my big boy toy. Then all I gotta do is point it at anyone who’s mean to me, move my finger like this, and then I’ll be safe. ” Dan curled his trigger finger, over and over, and Mara joined him, both curling their fingers effeminately and laughing.
“ Hey, those people said not nice things to me ,” Mara said, and she curled her finger three times.
“ Let me run down to Walmart real quick ,” Dan said, “ and after I get back, I’ll show you who’s boss .”
They were in hysterics.
Rico said, “Oh, yeah? Fucking yeah?” He loosened the rifle strap, pulled the gun from his shoulder, and unloaded it, pocketing the magazine. He tossed the rifle down the ladder, it smashed against the cabin floor below. Unloaded and tossed Lenny’s pistol down there too. “Think I’m a bitch? Think I can’t handle you fuckers myself?”
Huh. It worked. Never underestimate the fragility of a man’s ego, especially one wearing camouflage pants. Dan and Mara straightened up, regained control of themselves. Rico raised his fists, boxed with the air.
“You wanna fucking go?” he asked. “You’re right, Foster. You’re right. It’s gonna feel much better to cave your skull in with my hands.” His jabs were pretty fast, actually. And his fists were like cannonballs. And his footwork—okay, yikes, pretty impressive footwork.
“Okay, Rico,” Dan said. He raised his fists. They looked like golf balls in comparison, but, you know, fake it till you make it. “You want a taste of the Foster Fury? Huh? Want me to finish what I started in the hangar?”
Dan rolled his head, sniffed real loud. Tough guys always sniff real loud before a fight.
“Kick his ass, baby,” Mara said.
“Oh, he’s fucking toast,” Dan said. “Put some butter and jam on him, babe, because this dude’s toast.”
“Come on,” Rico said.
“You come on,” Dan said.
Dan just needed to tie Rico up for a few seconds, a precious few seconds, so Mara could slip away. Then she could tell everyone on the island what was really going on. Stop the war. Get home. Yeah. Okay. Dan could survive a few rounds with Rico. He was fucking huge, looked even bigger right now for some reason, but okay. No problem . David and Goliath. Macchio vs. Cobra Kai. Sniff . He just needed to keep him busy for—
Rico swung left, a haymaker, but Dan saw it coming and ducked.
“Woo!” Rico screamed, and he slapped himself in the face. “That was a test, boy.”
Dan motioned Mara toward the ladder, but she didn’t budge. She held up her fists as a reminder for Dan to raise his.
What was she doing? Go!
Rico charged again, but this time he went low, his fist connecting with Dan’s ribs where he’d been shot. Dan buckled, almost collapsed, but he used his last gasp of breath to hook his arm around Rico’s neck and hold on for dear life. Rico’s muscles spasmed. Dan was wrestling a python. Dan slapped Rico in his face with his free hand, gouged at his eyes.
He never agreed to fight clean.
Rico bellowed and employed his entire body weight to launch Dan and himself at the nine monitors on the opposite end of the observatory. They came crashing down atop them, and Dan lost his grip on Rico, lost sight of him in the avalanche of broken glass and twisted metal.
Dan groaned and pushed a monitor off his chest. His bones felt shattered like the bottom of a pretzel bag. He wheezed. “We’ll—we’ll call round one a draw.”
Rico wasn’t as slow getting up. He towered over Dan, chest heaving, and he held a broken monitor above his head, poised to strike. He was bleeding at least. Dan had made Rico Flores bleed. Something positive to reflect on as he was beaten to death with a television. Ironic, Dan thought, that his end would come beneath a television, something he adored. Like being smothered in hospice by a loved one.
Rico released a battle cry, Dan braced, but then Mara was on Rico from behind, climbing his body like a squirrel up a tree, and she dug her nails into his face, tearing at the flesh. He howled and dropped the monitor, flailed backward into the center of the observatory. He slammed her into the telescope, which let out a great big bong , then pried her from his back, and flung her across the room. Dan was with her in a flash, helping her up, furious, absolutely furious, mostly with Rico but with Mara a little bit too.
“You were supposed to run ,” Dan said, panting. His insides were on fire.
“He was about to replace your head with a monitor,” she said, clutching her foot.
“You need your woman to fight for you, Foster?” Rico laughed, smeared the blood on his cheeks. “That’s fine. That’s good. You know what mi madre taught me about hitting women?”
Mara’s eyes narrowed on something.
“You had a mother ?” Dan shouted back, ignoring good sense because he’d thought of something funny to say. “I just assumed a moose fucked a Monster Energy drink and nine months later you crawled out!”
Mara seized Dan’s collar, pressed his nose into hers. “We can’t beat him like this, Danny.”
Dan began to say, “Any bright ideas?” but he miraculously took flight halfway through the sentence. Rico, apparently none too fond of comments about his mother, had covered the room in 0.2 seconds flat, seized Dan, and tossed him like a discus. Dan landed on his back, but his breath had scheduled a later flight, and he gasped and kicked, and soon Rico was on top of him, eyes bloodshot, mouth frothing. Rico raised a trembling clenched fist in the air.
Dan closed his eyes and screamed, “You wanted to be a stuntman!”
This sudden proclamation bewildered Rico, which gave Dan just enough leverage to scramble out from under him. Dan stood, panting, and signaled for a time-out. “That’s what you wanted to be when you grew up. Hollywood—Hollywood stuntman.”
Rico lumbered to his feet, fists clenched. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”
“Wait. Wait! Hold on. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Rico’s eyes answered for him. Dan watched as his boorish face ping-ponged between unbridled rage and confusion.
“Hold on,” Dan said, wheezing. “Hold on. Don’t kill me yet. Just listen.” Mara, still on the floor, slinked out of sight. “That’s why you moved to LA, and that’s where you met Brody. Right? You wanted to be a stuntman. Since you were a little boy.”
Rico growled. “What’s your fucking point?”
What was Dan’s point? He didn’t have one yet.
“My point is—my point, man, is that—you’re being played.”
Rico’s face twitched. Okay, that did something. Keep going, keep going.
“Hear me out. Hear me out. You met Brody in LA, right? At the gun range. And then you started going up there together. He told you about Tizoc, and you eventually told him about your dream of being a stuntman. And how studios wouldn’t even consider you because of your background.”
Rico lunged forward, but Dan sidestepped him.
“How do you know,” Rico said between clenched teeth. It was more statement than question.
“Brody promised he’d help you, right? He said if you’d come be head of security at Tizoc for one year, develop a security team, that he had connections in the business and could help you get stunt work. Right?”
Rico squinted at Dan.
Dan pointed at him. “I’m not wrong. Well, listen. They’re, uh—they’re laughing at you, man. They think you’re a joke. Brody was never going to help you get a job, even before the sun exploded. He doesn’t think you’d be a good stuntman. He thinks—and these are his words, not mine—he said your acrobatics are questionable. That you couldn’t—uh—you wouldn’t hit your marks in a high-pressure studio environment.”
Rico snarled. “My timing is fucking impeccable.”
“They said—and listen, I don’t even like repeating this, but you deserve to know—they said you couldn’t even read a script and that you had”—Dan scanned Rico’s body—“feminine calves.”
Rico clutched his leg, fuming. “My calves are proportionate to my overall leg shape.” He rolled his pants. “I guess they think I should get implants like every other asshole in that city?” He shook his head, like, Unbelievable. “My fucking stunt reel has over six hundred views on YouTube.”
Dan threw his hands in the air. “Hey, hey, you don’t have to tell me. I look at you, and I see—I see a stuntman. Like, you’ve got stunt double written all over you. It’s those guys—it’s Brody, and Lilyanna, and other Building A people—”
“You’re lying.”
“No! If I’m lying, then tell me, Rico, tell me. How would I know? How would I know all that about you? Huh?”
Rico’s eyes darted from side to side as he considered the question.
“I know all this,” Dan said, “because I’ve heard them. I’ve heard them laughing. They’re playing you. You think you’re one of them ? No way. You’re Building C to them. Less than Building C, Rico. There’s a reason the barracks are underground. You and I have way more in common than you and them. Come on. Think about it.”
Rico’s lowered his fists. He gazed past Dan, at nothing. For a second—like, a split teeny-tiny second—Dan almost felt for him. Lilyanna looked at Rico the same way she looked at Dan, as if she was confused that someone so beneath her had evolved to stand at eye level.
“You know, I wanted to write when I was younger,” Dan offered.
Some color returned to Rico’s cheeks. He flashed a mocking gold-toothed smile. “I bet you’re a shitty fucking writer.”
Okay. That didn’t last long.
Rico cracked his neck with a twitch of his head. “I’ll kill you first. I’ll deal with them when I get home.”
He didn’t make it one step. Mara had found the snow globe, and she brought it down with such force that it shattered against the back of Rico’s skull. His body swayed like a poorly animated cartoon before folding in on itself and hitting the floor, just a big heaping pile of man next to Shae.
He groaned.
Mara hopped over him and clutched Dan’s wrist, tugging. “Good job,” she said. “Come on. Quick. Before he wakes up.”
Dan followed her to the ladder. “Me good job? You good job. How’d you shatter it? I must’ve—I must’ve knocked it loose when I threw it earlier.”
“For sure,” Mara assured him. “Definitely.”
Just as they reached the exit hatch, the cabin door below slammed open again. Dan and Mara scrambled backward, tripping over Rico and onto their asses.
Three of Rico’s guards—one of them Madge—piled up the ladder, pistols drawn. Dan scurried to shield Mara from the inevitable hail of bullets.
“Whoa,” Madge said, pointing at Rico.
“ Whoa ,” said another. “Shit. Is that Rico?”
Rico groaned again.
“Holy shit. Rico. Did you get beat up?” There was a tinge of awe in his voice.
The other guard gasped. “Dude. I think he did. Hey. Hey, Rico!” He nudged Rico with his boot. “Yo, Rico! You okay, man?”
Rico shifted. He pulled himself up, every tendon, every bone of his body straining as if strapped to the floor. The guards helped him, one under each shoulder.
“Geez, Rico,” a guard said. “They did a number on ya. These two? They did this?”
“Shut up.” Rico seized the pistol from the guard and aimed it, trembling, at Dan and Mara.
“I love you,” Mara whispered.
“I love you too,” Dan said.
Rico let the gun fall to his side. He wiped the blood from under his nose. “No. Too easy. Gag them. They talk too fucking much.”