Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (9 page)

I had been reading an article about the Caspian Sea’s black marketeers when Tomlinson returned to the subject of Internet isolation. “Wireless communication is our new tribal lifeline, man. It worries me. Like,
obsessively
worries me. Have you noticed that I rarely carry my cell phone anymore?”

“Maybe they’ll start making sarongs with pockets,” I had replied. “I don’t carry mine unless I’m away from the lab for more than a day. It’s like being on a leash.”

The man’s expression had read
Good!
“But we’re the exceptions, 
hermano
. The majority of people are so dependent, it makes us vulnerable as an Oklahoma trailer park. Sure, we can survive without cell phones and Internet, but we can no longer
function
without them.”

It was an interesting premise. There were Darwinian implications that I would have offered, but Tomlinson had been into the subject, so I let him talk.

“Internet and cell phones have morphed from simple conveniences into human sensory devices. No… sensory apparati, because
they have unseated our own five senses in importance. As well as our reliance on humans to provide—well, let’s face it—actual human contact. Shut down those two electronic senses without warning, man, it’ll be like… almost like…”

I had offered, “Sudden blindness—the psychological response would be similar. Shock, disbelief, denial and then panic. It depends on the person, of course. And how long the system was down. Which is probably an exaggeration, but—”

“That’s my point,” Tomlinson had interrupted. “No one will know how long the systems will be down. How can we? Combined with a simultaneous power outage and it will be the demon mother of all uncivil chaos. Coast to coast, rumors will spread like butt cheeks at a chili festival. There’ll be talk of a terrorist attack. Of government conspiracies. Of the CIA taking control of the White House—not that those bastards aren’t above trying. Rumors and disinformation will spread like crabs at low tide, from neighborhood to neighborhood. No… I’ve got that wrong.”

As he considered alternatives, Tomlinson had tugged at his hair so hard that, for a moment, I saw the little lightning bolt scar on his temple.

“Nope… I was right the first time. Rumors will travel from house to house. Of course they will. But the only real news we’ll get will come from fishermen and truckers, because they still communicate by radio. Some of them, at least. It’s been a while since I’ve done any hitchhiking, so I’ve lost track of my eighteen-wheeler brothers. Do they still use CBs?”

Taking off my lab coat, I had told him, “Truckers might do a better job than newscasters. Less biased, and they probably have better bullshit detectors. But you’re getting spooked for no reason. To use a Tomlinson phrase: ‘Shallow up, man.’”

My pal had given me an impatient look, meaning the subject was too important for him not to be upset.

I had closed the Mote file and put it away. This was on a Friday afternoon. That morning, I’d had a huge breakfast at the Over Easy Café, just down the road from Dinkin’s Bay Marina. The night before, I’d eaten a mammoth piece of Drunken Parrot Carrot Cake at the Rum Bar. Which is why I’d felt as if a slab of lead had been strapped to my butt.

The best way to treat a caloric hangover, I have discovered, is to bludgeon the offender with exercise. That’s precisely what I had intended to do: go for a run, then do an hour of serious cross-training—PT, my friends call it.

As I headed out the screen door to change clothes, I had said, “You mind taking your empty beer bottles to the recycle bin? A marine lab isn’t supposed to smell like a brewery. Not my lab, anyway. But it does way too often. And don’t think I don’t know it when you smoke dope in here, too.”

Because that sounded harsher than I’d intended, I added, “I’m going to jog Tarpon Bay Road to the Island Inn. Nicky Clements just installed a pull-up bar. Twenty minutes there, and I’ll swim the no wake buoys to the West Wind. You could pace me on your bike during the run. I want to keep it under eight-minute miles, then we could meet at West Wind pool later. How’s about it?”

Tomlinson had turned and studied me for a moment. “Dude, you are about as ripped as I’ve ever seen you. Seriously—you’ve got the veins popping. The whole gaunt predator thing going on. Man, it’s like you’re getting younger and younger while everyone around you ages.”

I had watched his eyes move to the padlocked cabinet where I keep the Schedule III drugs sometimes used in my work. Then I
listened to Tomlinson ask, “You got some human growth hormone stashed in there or something? Raw pituitary extract from unborn chimps? I’ve been wanting to try something like that, but I’m not sure of the side effects, so—”

“You lecturing me on the dangers of drugs,” I had interrupted, “carries about as much weight as you preaching the value of sexual fidelity. I’m fit because I work at it seven days a week.”

My friend was still eyeing the drug cabinet as he offered, “Then you can afford one day off.”

“That’s one of the few lies I don’t let myself believe. You coming or not?”

Tomlinson had exaggerated my level of fitness, although I
am
in the best shape I’ve been for many years. I had cut way back on alcohol and carbs—carrot cake the occasional exception—refined my workouts to eliminate injuries and doubled my cardio time on a ball breaker of a machine called a VersaClimber. It meant a lot more surfing and swimming and less joint-jarring sprints on hard sand.

As a result, I’m in better overall shape, but I can no longer talk and run sub-eight-minute miles at the same time. So it wasn’t until almost sunset, sitting at the West Wind pool bar, that we had touched on the subject of Internet isolation again. But not for long, because I did most of the talking.

During the mile swim, I had settled into an automaton rhythm—
stroke-stroke-breathe-kick
—that allowed my brain to drift free of the responsibilities associated with survival. It wasn’t really freeing, though, because at first I stupidly fixated on personal problems. Nothing serious, but irritating.

My sixteen-year-old son, who lives in Colombia with his regal, bipolar mother, was already being recruited by the Military School of the Americas—Military School of Assassins, as it was known when
the institute was based in Panama. That was unsettling in itself, considering my background, but he’d also decided to give up baseball to play
soccer
.

It was a trivial disappointment compared to the problems I’d been having with women.

The previous afternoon, the smart lady biologist I’d been dating, Emily Marston, had asked to have a “serious talk”—among the most chilling phrases in the female vocabulary. She said that our marathon lovemaking was as stimulating as our mutual interests, but, frankly, she’d begun to question my ability to make a lasting commitment.

I had been tempted to point out her concern was based on a flawed premise. I didn’t
want
to make a lasting commitment. Not yet, anyway. I was also tempted to mention that she had told me, from the start, that she was too recently divorced to get into a serious relationship. But isn’t that what women always say?

“Maybe we should take a month off and think about it,” I had suggested. I didn’t want to take a month off—we’d been having too much fun—but I was trying to behave like a sensitive, modern male.

Sensitive, modern males are dumbasses, apparently. Five minutes later, Emily Marston, the handsome lady biologist, was out the door, and maybe out of my life.

I had other relationship problems, too.

My workout pal and former lover, Dewey Nye, had decided that she, her new love interest and our toddler daughter were better off living in Belgium, where same-sex marriage is legal. I am all for same-sex marriage—what gives government the right to spare us from our own mistakes or happiness? But Dewey marrying a twenty-two-year-old female golf phenom? And in
Belgium
, for Christ’s sake?

Maybe on one distant day, at a soccer match in Brussels, I would get to see my son and daughter again.

As I swam along the beach, though, I’d finally realized I had been swept into negative channels of thought. So I had consciously shifted to an unemotional topic. Tomlinson’s theory was fresh in my memory, so I had spent the rest of the swim scanning for Darwinian parallels.

There were many.

Later, sitting at the West Wind pool bar, rehydrating with soda water and lime, I had bounced my conclusions off my pal, who had switched from beer to a Nicaraguan rum, Flor de Caña.

I had told him, “You’re right, I’ve been thinking about it. Our reliance on a tool, any tool, increases our vulnerability as a species.”

“Damn right.” Tomlinson nodded, as he signaled the bartender for another drink.

“Clothing is a tool. Supermarkets, leakproof roofs, Bic lighters, they’re all tool related. Our lives wouldn’t be the same without them. But ‘reliance’ isn’t the same as ‘dependence.’ See what I’m getting at?”

“No,” Tomlinson had replied, but he was interested. “Just for the record, I prefer kitchen matches to lighters. Call me old-fashioned. Plus, I like the smell.”

“I’m talking about the paper you’re writing,” I had replied, then explained that “dependence” implied a behavioral shift. “Specialization is a form of adaptation that results in dependence. A specialist species can thrive, but only in its environmental niche. Remove ants from the landscape and an anteater’s nose becomes a liability. Does it make sense now?”

Tomlinson was with me again. “The more specialized the tools, the more vulnerable their dependents. Wireless technology—bingo! Doc, you just gave the first line of my introduction.”

A few minutes later, sipping my first beer, I had asked the bartender for a piece of paper. Instead, she had given me a cloth napkin, and said, “I was going to trash it, anyway. See the stain?”

I had told Tomlinson, “Use this any way you want,” and then concentrated for a couple of minutes as I wrote:

“Godliness and the abyss.” Tomlinson had repeated the phrase several times, a genial smile on his face. “Your spiritual side is starting to overpower your dark side, Dr. Ford.”

I had countered, “I used the word metaphorically, Professor Tomlinson, as you well know.”

End of discussion, and we had moved on to more compelling topics—Vision surfboards made by Buddha Bonifay, women and torn rotator cuffs.

It hadn’t crossed my mind there was a connection between Tomlinson’s Sudden Internet Isolation theory, the party-crashing eco-activists and the events now taking place on Vanderbilt Island. Not until I had listened to Vladimir, anyway.

Now, though, as I swam through darkness toward the marina, I realized the oversight was a gross lapse on my part. In fact, I had received an advance warning, of sorts, from Tomlinson himself. He had referenced the subject obliquely a day or so later, while on a rant about environmentalism and the Caspian Sea.

The linkage was there. I had missed it. But I couldn’t be too hard on myself. Not many people would make a connection between hashish brownies, caviar and hijacking an island.

H
ash brownies—they were in the paper bag Tomlinson had been holding when he appeared on the stern of
Tiger Lilly
, the floating home of two Dinkin’s Bay icons, Rhonda Lister and JoAnn Smallwood. On his face was a tranquil grin and his eyes were glazed. The marina’s resident cat, Crunch & Des, was cradled in his free arm.

This was more than a month ago, a Saturday evening, after he had returned from the post office with mail that included his invitation to Vanderbilt Island.

As I’d watched Tomlinson exit the boat, I doubted if he was grinning because he’d just enjoyed the favors of one or both ladies, although it was possible. Anything is possible at Dinkin’s Bay, particularly after sunset, when Mack, the owner, locks the parking lot gates, barring prissy, judgmental outsiders from the marina, along with the rest of the world.

As it turned out, though, Tomlinson’s grin had more to do with the brownies the ladies had fed him before packing the rest into a to-go bag.

“They made the classic Betty Crocker one-cubed-squared recipe,” he had explained, still holding the cat and the paper bag as he followed me down the boardwalk toward my lab.

I’d replied, “Like a mathematical formula, you mean?”

“Even better. A mathematical double entendre. One egg, one great big cube of primo hash resin, one box of brownie mix, baked, then cut into squares. The resin was made with my own brownie-loving hands. You want one?”

Hashish, he meant. Which makes him even more talkative than grass, as he admits. And why I had tuned him out even when he got onto the subject of caviar and Vanderbilt Island, which somehow transitioned into a monologue on yet another environmental group
he had joined—Third Planet Peace Force—which was obvious only in hindsight. He hadn’t mentioned the group by name. Not even once, until they had appeared at the fishing lodge.