Chapter 20
Standing over her fevered patron, Roja felt very much the doctor but more friend. “No Guildern, I could give a fuck who knows my truth; quiet your concerns. 1st we have to confirm what you have; whether it’s Covid, a variant or some mutant bacterial spawn; do not focus on the Croc - anxiety will fuck your immune system. The good news is I have an excellent homegrown testing kit; the bad news is it’s very slow - 72 hours;” stabbing Guildern with a syringe, the Dr. continued, “let’s pull blood now. It’s Sunday 9:45am; we’ll know by Wednesday morning. You and Angela have to decide if you want her in or out because we have to close the door for logistical reasons; whatever it is, and you live, it’ll be some time before the contagion can be neutralized.” Doctor Roja waited for Guildern’s dazed reply, and took the thermometer from under his armpit: 39.333°. She texted Angela. “u need 2 dcide - stay or go b4 i raze drwbrdge · tst’ll tke 3 dze 2 elmin8 Cov frm eqwyzn. im styng. wl cntct athrties. dors cls’n 10 min.
Guildern was cogent enough to hold his phone up pointing to the jack for a charger, while framing his palms into a solemn prayer temple to Roja’s amusement. Talking was impractical so he focused on repulsing anything within the aerosol range of his sputum. His phlegm was green, thick and multiplying geometrically. He fantasized his expectoration was the result of his medical breakthrough - ‘ascorbic acid does Hennessy XO’; this fevered fantasy led to more miming by Dr. Roja when she spit into a paper bag she’d inserted into a plastic bucket within wrist reach of Guildern. She soaked a cotton cloth in another bucket 1/4 full with ice water and laid the compress across his forehead and plugging his phone to charge, she opened it back to his last text message to Angela, “id rather die with you safe - truth · we can do anything for 72 hours. do whtevr Dr sais”
Pressing ‘send’ Roja returned the phone to him. Guildern collapsed as his fever continued to rise, albeit in smaller and smaller increments. Dr. Roja then went to admit Angela and to secure the door for the long wait toward reckoning.
At the exact moment Guildern collapsed, 15,000 km distant, Carina Abejas sat bolt upright from a deep slumber and began scratching letters and numbers onto a pad that had been placed adjacent to her bedside just after the “Depiction” in the temescal weeks earlier.
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Lammele and Mordecaise hunkered in a hasty muted cellular conference: “Mordecaise, you are officially 2nd in command, though more leader than I. We pray for our brother Guildern’s recovery, but must plan for his absence because we are determined to protect the elderly and children against known and unknown enemies. I cannot guarantee how much longer you will have resources to continue your research in Oaxaca. I’d suggest you allot the least amount of time to the widest spectrum of tasks in the near term. I’m in transit through South East Asia, if there’s anything I should say to Pasqual’s face - contact me telepathically · kidding, sort of. I had to come off the mountain to swap blood with Guildern - part of a DNA pact we had made while sweeping up mayhem after NYC 9/11-2001·
What you and Carina are doing is magic, I will do everything in my power to point the hounds away from you, however much depends on Guildern’s healtb and the outcome of Pasqual’s efforts in the east. I will be back in touch soon after I arrive in South America. Along with our dear comrade Guildern, please direct your prayers to young Madame Leslei, and young Master Pasqual. We are spread thin and have few friends; I’ve no idea what I’d do without tobacco or your good counsel?”
“Bullshit yourself not Captain Dama; none of our efforts has anything to do with the other. We are but a continuation of a sacred trust from the earliest campfires on our planet. You are whimpering for a friend in danger I feel the same for you, Pasqual, and Leslei plus all those struggling up the hill, each one up to his/her ass in alligators protected by nothing more than love.
You are ancient and vulnerable but also loved and obeyed, relax - we’re in the zone: even if we fail colossally, it won’t have been for a lack of loving effort. Be safe and take good care friend.”
the line went dead, but not so dead that the bot tracing the tap failed to broadcast its findings
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Sysa Phish hung up her call with Faik Besos happy he was more lucid than when he’d ordered her to Montevideo to work for that insolent bitch Angela, and her whack boyfriend Guildern Seur. ‘Seems like a lot of trouble just to plant some electronic components’ she thought, but the prospect of his abject obedience in their mountaintop redoubt made her wet just to be packing her valise for the return trip. When the Croc was shuttered, the first thing Sysa did, was write her resignation: “Dearest Angela, I’m confused by the closure and frightened by the quarantine. I will hold out as long as possible waiting to hear from you. If we lose contact, please send my last cheque to ‘General Delivery’ Presidio, San Francisco, CA 94129” She toyed with the idea of calling him back for some phone tease, but opted to take care of business and called the Black Hand, Lisbeth Phelps.
“Ms. Phelps, It is as you said it would be, Faik is heavily invested in redeeming himself in your eyes. I am leaving Montevideo, Uruguay. Faik convinced himself the Hippy-Geek Guildern Seur was at the center of some cabal involving the mythical digital “nut,” so he sent me here to bug his bistro, the Crocodile Cafe. I got the devices installed and he’s turned up sick - could be Covid, won’t know for some days.”
Lisbeth Phelps was impatient with extraneous, “And I would give a fuck about some sick schmo in South America, why?
“There were 3 brothers who died last year; their substantial estates intersected with research about the “Nut” Faik was conducting for you; the sick South American, Guildern Seur is at the center of a group of 3rd tier heir-hunters” Sysa Phish was marginally aware of the power Lisbeth Phelps possessed mostly based on Faik Besos fear of her, and so waited to be spoken to.
“When the bugs are broadcasting, make sure I’m bcc’d every syllable.” The line went dead; the bot continued its search for the last call’s destination long after the phone tap had broken its connection.
Sysa Phish booked a flight for San Francisco dropping her resignation in the mail.
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Pasqual rose with the gongs at dawn in the monastery. Outside the hut’s door, there was a small pot of tea; covered bowl of rice and basin of fragrant water with a towel. He could hear the muted singsong echo of chanting wending through the labyrinth of huts while he disappeared his frugal repast - ablutions complete, he ambled out of the walled compound following an ancient trail into dense foliage bordered by neat rows of well tended vegetables; at a fork in the path he veered left up a short rise that dropped down into a shallow canyon joining a bouncing stream laced with pools walled in by ancient tumble-cut karst. The path’s footfalls followed the logic and contours that many generations of walkers’ mindful improvements had designed. The fragrance of vivid flora buoyed up through the dense canopy by a gentle stream of fresh air. Pasqual could have strolled in the timeless dreamscape for days except that the trail bottomed out at a flattened outcropping where the stream fell from a panoramic vista abruptly into a deep cobalt-blue pool so far below, it was difficult to hear the splash of its landing.
Rather than saddened by an unexpected cul-de-sac to a magical stroll, Pascual found in retracing his steps that he was accessing a contentment he’d felt estranged from for many decades; he was in no haste to end, nor reluctant to proceed. He was able to relieve himself and defecate in a tiny private clearing visually adjacent to the path; removed and elevated from the stream with abundant broad leafed foliage for sanitation and natural implements clearly intended for composting waste into nutrient rich soil. Using moist sand to scrub his hands before rinsing his hands in the stream, he wondered if the species would ever live again by such earthbound logic for passing a morning.
His driver/guide/barber was finishing a cheerful goodby when Pasqual arrived back. It was as though the universe had opened up and rained synchronicity into the fields. Pasqual waited to the side while salutations were concluded and was motioned toward a 2nd scooter when his companion mounted his. After the morning walk in paradise it seemed perfectly normal to ride a gifted conveyance as a guest amongst strangers on a road which he had no idea which direction he would travel.
The sun was breaking over the horizon of the tree line as they slowly paralleled the sunrise. He recognized the South China Sea to his left and faintly recalled the topography on his right, but mostly remembered exactly where his compass was in his rucksack. His handset was back online, and Pasqual was oddly incurious about its interminable demand except for when and where he’d meet with Lammele Dama. If the rapidly evolving abundunation front was to become a globally cohesive tipping point, capable of attenuating and trim tabbing the planet away from inexorable collapse toward a survivable horizon, it is going to take more than a disaffected band of renegade heir hunters waging skirmishes of quixotic guerrilla theatrics as though tilting at windmills.
Nor did Pasqual know in his heart what he’d advocate if Lammele asked. Violence is a fool’s errand, he was certain; yet observable metrics were sorely needed to fine tune operational initiatives, especially if the Al Queda model of independent actions supporting a common objective was to bear fruit. The more he tried to formulate a cogent recommendation for Mr. Dama, the more questions he got - maybe that was the model - a strategic field of battle predicated on accumulated questions from tactical initiatives? He’d like very much to have a conversation with Mordecaise’s bruja about Art Intel’s perception of events. Does Artificial Intelligence share awareness across the entire digital spectrum? Is the Borg more than an outdated media myth?
They had passed through Hue and Pasqual realized how existentially lost he was believing that the terrain they had driven through in the morning was familiar. He’d have liked to stop and pay respects to his friend Thich Tok Longh, but their ride had taken on an urgency that was only relieved by the demand for gas. The weather was in one of the periodic temperate intervals that Vietnam uses to brace itself for the savage climate extremes with which she tempers her people like fine metal, though the scooter shook more like a seated skateboard than the fond memories of his Harley Pan-Head touring the American Southwest in his pre-Hollywood life. Due to the pace determined by his ride Pasqual played the destination guessing game those lacking agency in their lives often play - picking Da Nang around sunset, Pasqual won the betting pool.
In the in between he tried to understand how he could be so preoccupied with an innkeeper who showed him no particular interest, rather deflected his mild advances with weighted disdain. Returning from a kidnapping to an unsure future, he puzzled how so little stimuli could command so much of his mind. Pasqual was deeply wounded by the dissolution of his marriage with Angela and worked very hard sorting out his role in the breakup. Pema Cauldron’s sage advice about reflecting relentlessly, gently and continuously on one’s evolving condition provided the cornerstone of for Pasqual post Angela, but also encouraged him to the process of coupling with conviction and autonomy; and so the road continued to unwind itself kilometer after kilometer whining his four stroke stallion deep into his emerging memory.
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In stories from the book of irony for shifting fortunes of the post-pandemic ruling elite was the chapter of Reiman Curzewel being outbid for control of the T1 Backbone that he had been instrumental in designing. The technology he’d shepherded into being as Chief Scientist at Cipher was now entirely under control of a mind Curzewel could barely countenance, much less respect; yet disrespecting a pedestrian enemy like Faik Besos was a luxury Reiman would not allow himself and prepared thoroughly anytime there was likelihood of any exchange; Curzewel preferred to deal with the puerile effrontery of Zchnarkzy Marskburgh, though he’d never knowingly reveal this to either.
The wrinkle of Lisbeth Phelp’s exposure as Black Hand was a two edged sword Reiman meant to wield in broad swaths. Irregularities in consumer metrics were spiking across all international demographics rather than those increases normally expected from the conspicuous consumption of the affluent. Nothing in the banking construct accounted for a 3.14% rise in discretionary spending for an entirely random .187 of the world’s population and it was fucking with the models the elite’s running dogs used for social engineering attenuation. He knew better than contact the Black Hand herself with anything but intelligence that would fortify her primacy; nor would Reiman give satisfaction to either Zchnarkzy or Faik by making inquiries to confirm the spikes and possibly reveal his intelligence apparatus.
The ‘singularity’ as raison d’être for Reiman Curzewel had become entirely subsumed into locating and controlling the Nut. If existence was to take note of the greatest influence on the planet at the point of human extinction Reiman was determined to possess that distinction - the Nut would be the genie granting his wish.
Models of mankind’s doom had been woefully generous in their climate predictions and the global rise in temperature accelerated more quickly than the direst predictions beginning 2013 when Carbon Parts Per Million (ppm) exceeded 400 for the first time since such measurements had been taken and some said for the first time in the past 3 million some odd years of earth history. It began innocuous enough with the hottest years on record; then proceeding to intermittent consecutive hottest years on record; onto unexpected leaps in temperature rise similar in pattern to the initial rise in temperature anomalies. Eventually the rise in global temperatures precluded any escape to the temperate climates that HNWI had invested in heavily. Extremes in weather began to overlap regions that had been recognized as stable; weather simply became unpredictable.
“Lammele Dama, this is Reiman Curzewel; do you remember me?”
“Yes of course; I’ve been expecting your call. What can I do for you?” Lammele felt strong and vitalized though he’d been on the road for four days.
“Travel is arduous and I won’t disrespect your time with niceties.”
Lammele’s inexhaustible curiosity was considering the respiration of snakes as well as what else Reiman Curzwell normally tracked besides Lammele’s itinerary when he replied, “yet you haven’t told me what I can do for you? Still full with contradictions I see, a luxury of the too smart, or the too rich.”
“I’m thinking just now that my call was simply to once again revel in your wit, but you’d see through that as well. I want to learn what you know about the Nut,” attempting to give the crucial question a lighter than air quality he let it float . .. “Lammele, did I lose you?”
“No Reiman, I was just wondering as I often do when talking with very smart people, what do you mean? Are you asking about nuts that are legumes, or nuts that are seeds? Was your question metaphorical? Were you referring to cajones? You can appreciate my confusion.”
“Fucking lawyers, I should know better than to ask a direct question. Lammele, you are in South East Asia risking sickness, wear and tear on an aged frame; heading for god knows where, though I doubt it is a simple rendezvous with an underling from a 2nd tier group of heir hunters scrounging around Vietnam over a piddling estate - even if it’s the whole fam-damily. The Nut I refer to is an esoteric computer concept for fictional mirrored wealth meant to level the economic playing field. Does that ring any bells?” Curzewel had polished ‘snide’ to a fine art and so waited for Lammele’s wounded response, getting none he continued, “The fundamental’s were conceived by Aaron Schtartz using the theory of a mirrored value scaled to the world’s accumulated wealth; apparently it’s not so theoretical; I’m seeing random increases in discretionary spending unexplained by normal metrics.”
“Are you talking about the digital version of the “Lost Dutchman Mine” isn’t that like a tired urban myth? I’ve heard similar rumors since computers replaced bound ledgers. CEOs, CFOs and COOs have built entire empires on the empty promises of that legend. I am surprised you’d be taken in by such a shopworn conspiracy; things must be slower in the corporate bunkers than I’d imagined . ..” Lammele was using the lull to fill out his ideas about snake respiration.”Reiman; hello, are you still there?”
There were now so many sentences hanging in the air between the two, the virtual space between them began to resemble a lighter-than-air balloon rally.
“Prevarication has never been your long suit Lammele.”
“And you’ve been hanging with trust-fund babies too long Reiman if you’re calling me a liar. In today’s world, to call anyone a liar is to put an ‘X’ on one’s own forehead. Excessive death has annealed acceptable norms and suffering has hone tolerance to a razor’s edge - honor now fashionable; you don’t get out much do you?”
The call was not going how Reiman had hoped; Lammele’s aplomb was deeper and more pointed than Reiman remembered. “What’s the matter Lammele, hit a nerve did I?”
“Did you? you’re asking questions for which I have no answers; perhaps I’m not the data broker you expected when dialing? Is there anything else I can help you with while you have me on the line; you know my expertise is law, right?” waiting for Reiman’s reply, Lammele wondered why snakes smelled with the tongue? Through the phone, he could her Reiman’s tounge ’tcliting’ the roof of his mouth and wondered if it was a nervous tik, or he was smelling something?
Reiman didn’t realize how much he disliked being trifled with or that it had broken his concentration until he stopped leaping intuitively from cognitive toe holds like an Ibex might. Instead he found himself ruminating rather than extracting valuable information during a crucial interrogation. “Law you say, why are you asking me about law?”
“Mr. Curzewel, I have a call on another line I have to take; if there’s nothing more I can answer for you, maybe something will occur to you later. Good to hear your voice, call anytime.”
The line went dead; there was no bot following any signal, because there was no trace on the call.
Reiman Curzewel stared into the phone trying to remember the last time anyone had ended a call to him, if ever.
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The journey had Pasqual doubting his abilities for deductive reasoning forecasting; instead of meeting Lammele Dama in Da Nang, the itinerant monk and his peculiar sidekick bedded early in a tiny room on the outskirts of Da Nang after noodles from a small stand outside a small enclosure containing their dimly lit pallets. They rose with the outlines of a new day and were well down the coast before the blazing sun crested the treetops. Pasqual was surprised to discover the sunglasses his quiet companion had used to disguise him in their still unexplained hasty retreat from wherever were polarized.
Passing through a small hamlet Pasqual saw more and more signposts for Hoi An. He’d checked cell service leaving Da Nang that morning - still just the increasingly enigmatic text “see you tomorrow night, LD” If Pasqual had been estranged from purpose before his kidnapping, he now had no sense of how long it had been since he was kidnapped by agents of Trâu Bet, purportedly working on behalf of Faik Besos; freed to flee from prison, then sanctuary as rider then driver on scooters cross country with a non-verbal saffron robed guide who’d disguised Pasqual as a monk except for Ray Bans. When the two stopped outside An Bang beach Pasqual asserted himself to his gentle friend with the first of his Vietnamese phrases, đi đâu (where to), nor would he budge until his gentle friend gave some indication of their destination.
They stood staring toward shore for many minutes after Pasqual refused to be pulled by his robe to the scooter, repeating the expression đi đâu. Eventually his friend took a stick and wrote in the sand ‘Son Mỹ.’ Pasqual immediately recognized the name as the site of the American massacre in the hamlet of Mỹ Lai during the American War. Pasqual bowed and used the universal sign language gesture for ‘thank you’; at which point the two mounted back up and set off for a long ride.
Pasqual wondered much for the next 2 and one half hours - how he could give himself so freely and completely to a sloe-eyed stranger with whom he’d barely spoken a dozen sentences, and those garbled. He was approaching 52 - a full deck and felt the school boy around women he was strongly attracted to. His work with Pema Cauldron’s principles of gentle, thoroughly honest self examination had affected him deeply. The wound from being stabbed by Angela healed physically but the emotional scar bared a deeper distress that had taken much longer to resolve; he felt no closer.
Once past the convenient con of ascribing blame to Angela for that drunken accident, he began the hard work of understanding his role in eliciting such fury in a normally very disciplined woman. The irony that the inebriated roles were reversed the night of his stabbing half-twisted the moral lessons into an emotional Mobius Strip - Angela was drunk and acting out with a knife when she tripped; Pasqual lunged to protect her and fell into the knife, penetrating his liver enough for him to be hospitalized for 2 weeks · they were never a couple again, if indeed they had ever been. Jouncing kilometer after kilometer Pasqual began to reflect whether he’d ever known intimacy or if his romantic self image of deep devotion had been a front fortified by sham, hubris, fear animated by reaction formation from ancient trauma - wounds so deep their only echo was never feeling safe. Save those rare occasions when impossible his implausible imaginings were reflected back by the passing warmth of a kindred spirit usually suffering similar confusion. How or why this was the case who could say, but for better or worse it was Nữ Thần Ngon at this turn who had illuminated his darkened heart; Pasqual was unable to avert his fascinated gaze from the mangled gore of his once tender heart - a temple of hope; now just an oozing hourglass scaling the unremitting diminution of inhalation and exhalation against an inexorable death.
solidarność
(˚ ㄥ _˚)
03 June 2026
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