Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,73

button on her shirt. “You want this too?”

“I'm going to get breakfast,” I growl. “More coffee?”

“Please,” she whispers, locking eyes with me. Daring me to look down to see what her hands are doing with her shirt.

“And a tart,” I say. “A very fresh fruit tart.”

Her laughter follows me out of the room and all the way down the hall to the elevator. Only when I'm securely behind the closed doors of the elevator, do I look down at the marks my nails have made in my palm.

There is still alcohol in her blood. That, I tell myself, is the only reason I held back. Otherwise, I would have done something foolish.

I want her to stay too.

* * *

She's wearing pants when I return, and appears to have been upright for most of the time that I've been gone. On the wall beside the dresser and TV unit, she's attached a white sheet and has been covering it with circles, lines, and scribbled writing.

“I asked the staff for tape and a marker,” she says, stepping back from her work as I put my bags on the table. “In case you didn't get my psychic messages.”

“I did,” I reply glibly. “But I also knew you couldn't wait for me to come back with them and would badger the concierge instead.” I open a small box filled with round, sugar-coated objects and hold it out to her. “Berliner? Or as the Germans call them: pfannkuchen.”

“A what?”

“Jelly donut.”

“Why didn't you say so in the first place?”

“When in Rome…”

“Is that an Arcadian saying?” She takes one and bites into it, discovering the jelly center. “Like, the First Rule of Arcadia is: pretend you're in Rome.”

“It's the other way around,” I say. “The First Rule of Rome is to pretend you're in Arcadia.” I pause thoughtfully as I pluck a berliner from the box. “Though that may have been Nero.”

She wrinkles her nose as she finishes the first berliner and reaches for another. “Before my time,” she says.

Chewing my donut slowly, I look over what she's done on the sheet. “This seems a bit more recent,” I say. “Corporate connections.”

She nods. “Ralph gave me a bunch of it, and while I'm waiting for him to call me back, I started making notes.”

Near the center are three circles: Secutores Security, Hyacinth Holdings, and Arcadia. From the first two, she's drawn a number of lines to smaller bubbles, and each line has tiny notes running above and below. Hyacinth is connected to Hyacinth Worldwide as well as Hyacinth Pharmaceuticals—easy connections to make—and she's drawn a line between Secutores and Kyodo Kujira, but the line has a lot of conjecture scribbled along it.

There are clusters of notes orbiting each of the three central circles, but no lines connecting them.

“There's a Hyacinth Pharmaceuticals?” I ask.

She picks up her laptop, selects one of the browser tabs she's got open, and hands me the small computer. It's a page from Hyacinth Pharmaceuticals' website—a lot of market speak extolling the natural medicinal virtues of star fruit. At the bottom of the page is a back button that takes me to a summary page that gushes about the majestic mystery of the natural world and how much humanity could benefit from a more holistic approach to naturopathic medicine.

“Pretty over-the-top marketing copy,” she notes. “Notice anything about that list of trees and plants?”

I pay attention to the two columns at the bottom of the page. “Some of them are Polynesian. Some are African. These four are Chinese. That one is extinct—”

“I bet they're all growing in the crater at Rano Kau,” she says, interrupting my recital. Her voice grows more animated; it is clear from my expression that she knows something I don't, and she's delighted to be the smart one in the room. “Those trees we saw were big and healthy. A farm like that doesn't spring up overnight. How many years would it take to grow a farm that size?”

“A couple decades,” is my guess. “More, probably,” I amend, thinking of the stately toromiro.

“Hyacinth Pharmaceuticals was incorporated three years ago. It's hard to tell without going back, but I'd be willing to bet that building out there in the crater isn't more than two years old. The Hanga Roa Royal Resort goes back thirty years, but four years ago, it went through major renovations—including that five-story building we were staying in. The resort increased its number of rooms from sixteen to a hundred and eighty. For an island that's a marginal tourist