Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,107

has done a good rendition of Escobar Montoya, and it's not hard to see that same likeness in the sculptures in the ground-floor gallery in the Montoya building in Santiago.

“I guess he's been running the family business longer than we thought,” Mere says as she spins the laptop back toward her.

“It's not as cool as a statue,” I point out.

“True,” she admits, “but he did get to run a whole kingdom. Up in Peru. Cusco.”

“Want to bet that's where the farms are located?”

“Sucker bet,” she says. She taps on the laptop keys, and then reads what the screen tells her. “Yeah, totally a sucker bet.” She chews on her lower lip. “What are we going to do about Pedro? We can't cross the border with him.”

“What makes you think you and I are any less illegal?”

“Oh,” she says. “Our passports. What are we going to do?”

“What we always do, which is to offer lots of money for someone to look the other way. And if that doesn't work, we'll go overland.”

“Neither sounds like much fun.”

“Only if we get caught.”

“Like I said…”

I lean forward. “We're pretty good at not getting caught.”

She leans forward too, a light dancing in her eyes. “There are a lot of things you're pretty good at, aren't there?”

“Posing for a neurotic sculptor with an eidetic memory isn't all that hard,” I point out.

“Too bad,” she says, a smile curling her lips. “I would have liked to see that sculpture.”

It takes me a second to realize what she's talking about, and I'm spared further embarrassment by the arrival of our waitress with our food. Mere fusses with her silverware. Her cheeks are pink, and her pulse taps at the skin of her throat. As she starts eating, her smile keeps creeping back onto her lips between bites. When she glances over at me, her heart rate jacks up.

Phoebe wanders in a little while later and approaches our table. “We're ready,” she says, glancing back and forth between Mere and me.

“We'll be a few minutes yet,” I say.

Mere continues to eat with exaggerated care, knowing that I'm watching her intently. Phoebe watches for a bit too, and then shakes her head and wanders off. I distantly hear her ask the waitress about ordering food to go.

Mere's heart rate has stopped spiking, but the flush has spread down her neck. I'm sure it goes further. I've been wondering how far.

* * *

Phoebe continues to drive. Shortly after the sun vanishes and the sky goes dark, Mere leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. I wait until her breathing becomes slow and regular before I start a conversation with Phoebe.

“We're going to Peru,” I tell her. “Cusco. Escobar's old company, Montoya Industries, has farms there.”

“How far?” Phoebe asks.

“Mere said it was a couple thousand kilometers. How long will that take us?”

“Maybe two days,” Phoebe says after glancing at the speedometer. “What about the border?”

I ask a very different question in return. “How did you get your arsenal in Santiago?”

Phoebe stares at me in the rearview mirror, that cold indifference. She doesn't even offer me one of her enigmatic shrugs.

“It's been bugging me since I woke up, more so after you showed me what was in the trunk. We weren't that far behind you. That sort of armament would take some time to procure, especially if you didn't have any local contacts. I would have had to call someone in Arcadia to find out who to talk to, and even then, without making a fuss, it would have taken me a day or two to close the deal. Either you have better local connections or you've been talking to Arcadia?”

“I called Callis when I got back to Australia,” she says.

“When was this?”

“About four days after we left the Cetacean Liberty.”

I ran through the timeline in my head. That put her in Adelaide nearly two weeks before me.

“Was it your idea or Callis's to stay dark?”

“He didn't like it.”

That didn't really answer my question.

“So the two of you let things fall where they would,” I say. “You let me become bait.”

“This isn't about you, Silas,” she says.

I growl at her. Mere shifts on my shoulder, her dream disturbed by my tension, and I relax, waiting for her to settle down.

“There's a war coming, and the Grove is in denial,” Phoebe continues. “The humans want this planet. They think they can tame it. They think they own it. Their scientists claim to understand how nature works. They're modifying seeds, creating abominations that