Jon Evans - Swarm

I didn’t respond.

“I know that was crazy and stupid. But at the time it was what I needed to do. I was so messed up before I met you. You have no idea how good you’ve been for me. And I’ve wanted to tell you ever since, I swear, but I was scared. And the more I didn’t tell you, the bigger a deal it became, and the more scared I got, so the the harder it got to even think about bringing up the subject. Emotional negative feedback loop. I’m sorry. That’s no excuse. It wasn’t a secret I needed to keep from you, total opposite, it would have been so much better for both of us if I’d told you. But it was like I didn’t know how. And I really thought it was all behind me forever, dead and buried. But I guess Faulkner was right. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, that it’s coming out now, like this, when we’re already… ” she let that thought trail off unfinished, “but believe it or not, you know what, it’s such a relief to finally be telling you, even here, even like this. Even if it makes you want to punch me or something.”

“Telling me what? You changed your name?”

“I was born Sophia Ward, not Sophie Warren.”

After a stunned pause I pointed out, “You didn’t change it much.”

“Just enough to dodge most algorithms. This way I can’t get caught out by someone shouting my old name, and if I bump into someone who knew me, it sounds like they’re just misremembering. But to databases I’m a whole new woman.”

“Whole new woman from what?”

She sighed. “I’ll tell you the sordid details sometime when we get out of this, if you like. But honestly, they don’t matter, they’re not even relevant to my life any more. Except that’s the real reason I never took any military money for the lab. I’m a new woman according to the databases, but that wouldn’t stand up to a real background check.”

“Huh.”

“And also, maybe -” She licked her lips nervously. “You ever heard of a hacker named LoTek?”

“Sure. Of course. The only hacker ever made it onto the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, right? And then they took him off for no good reason.” Some thought LoTek had cut a deal with the feds; some claimed he had hacked into their systems and erased himself. I had never encountered anyone with a convincing claim to having actually met the living legend in meatspace. “Holy shit. That was you?” Everyone had always talked like LoTek was a man, but that didn’t mean anything.

“No. He’s the guy who had Jesse keep an eye on me.”

I started, looked up at Jesse, busy trying to steer the raft. He had known Sophie longer than I. I remembered something she had said on the boat, after we were captured, something that had prompted a look from Jesse: Now I know how low-tech felt. Not low-tech but LoTek. “ Jesse ‘s friends with LoTek?”

“Was. Sort of. I don’t know.”

Not just her but him too. My two closest friends in the world had been keeping huge secrets from me for years, treating me like a child who couldn’t be trusted with the truth. I didn’t even feel angry. Just empty.

“That’s all I can tell you now,” Sophie said.

“Whatever.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged as if disinterested. A defense mechanism. Sophie closed her eyes and tightened her grip on me. For awhile her breaths were long and shuddering. Then she slowly began to steady herself.

I told myself none of it mattered compared to the immediate question of whether we were all going to die here on this raft. We were drifting helplessly and no one knew we were out here except for the drug thugs trying to capture us. I wondered how long we would last before the sun killed us. They called it death by exposure, but it was really death by sunburn. It was so easy to forget, on land, in the shade, how deadly the tropical sun could be when you had no respite. We had nothing to cover ourselves, except maybe the raft itself, but turning it over and treading water would drain our strength.

A weird resentment towards fictional Pi took hold of me. He had been Indian and dark-skinned, he had only had a tiger to worry about, not sunburn and sunstroke and exposure. You could trick and evade a tiger. The sun was inescapable. Or maybe thirst would get us first. We had almost no fresh water. I gave us a couple of days at most.

“Wait,” Anya said sharply. “I saw something.”

Sophie and I sat halfway up.

“Where?” Jesse asked.

“Over there. A flash. Look!”

We looked. The ocean was an endless series of twenty-foot swells. A moment later we saw it too; a flicker of light, sun glinting off something in the distance.

“A paddle,” Jesse said. “Fishermen!”

We tried to call out to them, but they were too far away, and our voices too hoarse. Anya displayed an impressive talent for earsplitting howls, but even they were quickly swallowed up by the wind and the sea, and the fishing boat came no nearer. In fact, to our crushing dismay, it seemed to be moving further away.

Then Sophie said to me, “Your phone.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Give me your phone.”

“It’s dead. Soaked. We’re way out of signal range anyway.”

“I know. Give me.”

I passed it over. Water dripped from its innards. “What are you going to do?”

“Call them.”

“How?”

Sophie looked at the fishing boat, then up at the sun, calculating. She raised my iPhone, angled it carefully, and moved its screen back and forth through a small arc.

“Semaphore,” I said, catching on. The phone didn’t work, but its reflective screen could catch sunlight and flash it towards the fishing boat. If Sophie had figured the angles correctly, and if they had any curiosity at all -

“They’re coming!” Anya reported excitedly.

It was a crude wooden fishing boat, crewed by two men and four boys, dragging a hand-woven net. As they approached they stared at us as if we were aliens fallen from a distant star.

Jesse said, grinning, “Thank you, Steve Jobs.”

Our attempts to communicate with the fishermen with high-school French failed utterly, but they took us on board their craft, brought in their net, attached a fraying yellow tow rope to our raft, and set out for what we hoped was land. We were too many for one boat, all our arms and legs were jumbled together in the middle, and once when we went over a big swell I nearly fell in before being rescued by a strong Haitian hand.

The oars squeaked in their ill-fitting locks, one of which was working itself loose with every stroke. The men were incredibly strong, and the boys scarcely less so. Jesse mimed an offer to paddle but they laughed at him. They occasionally glanced at Anya in her bikini, but paid her less attention than I would have expected.

The handful of fish in their net were amazingly bright, shining like silver in the sun. The water in the base of that overcrowded boat was not enough for them, and they thrashed and gasped convulsively. Twice Sophie and I started when a fish as long as my arm flopped against us, damp and clammy through the loose net, and the Haitians laughed. As the green line of the shore grew closer, the fish began to die, and their brightness faded.

The coast seemed deserted, rocky and forbidding. They brought us between two huge rocks into a lagoon we never would have discovered on our own. The water was turquoise, almost transparent. A huge whitewashed colonial-era mansion loomed like a mirage above a thin strip of beach where kids in rags played soccer, and a set of broken stone stairs which looked as ancient as Greek ruins. The lagoon was walled by steep, moss-covered rocks, above which coconut palms and bright green tropical foliage fluttered in the breeze. It would have been beautiful under any circumstances. After several consecutive near-death experiences it looked like Paradise.