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THIRTY-FOUR
The Oregon’s spacious board room gave Sylvia Chang and Eric Stone plenty of room to spread out printouts and work on their laptops. A giant screen on the wall showed a view of the sunset so crisp that it looked like a picture window. This morning it had given her a front row seat to the sinking of the Marsh Flyer. Now she and Eric were working together to decipher the computer files brought back by Eddie Seng.
“I’m just glad to know everybody is now sure that I’m not crazy,” she said.
“Why would anyone think you were crazy?” said Eric, who was sitting next to her.
“I had no proof of what happened until Bob Parsons made my story plausible. I was beginning to wonder myself if I had hallucinated the whole trimaran attack.”
“I never doubted you. You’re too smart and resourceful to make up something like that. I’m still in awe of how you survived the sinking of your ship. That was a long swim, and then you immediately started taking care of everyone else on the Empiric. It’s pretty inspiring.”
Sylvia put her hand on Eric’s. “That’s sweet of you. I’m glad I’ve gotten to know you over the last few days. This has been hard on Mark, but it’s comforting to know he has you as a friend here on the ship.”
Eric looked down and turned red, but he didn’t take his hand away. “And I’m happy you’re here for him. Besides, without you I wouldn’t have decrypted nearly as many files as we already have.”
“At least we may have found something to help him.”
“I know he hates being locked to that chair. I’ve already promised to help him set up his skate park on deck when he’s recovered.”
“He skateboards here?”
Eric nodded. “I even got him a new board for Christmas, but it seems like a bad idea to give it to him now.”
Sylvia squeezed his hand. “I bet he’ll love it. It’ll give him some hope.”
The door to the boardroom opened, and Julia walked in followed by Murph in his wheelchair. Eric snatched his hand out from under Sylvia’s.
“How did the checkup go?” she asked.
“No change,” Julia said. “His condition seems stable.”
“Stable meaning still stinks,” Murph said through his voice box. “What are you two doing?”
“We’re just working on the download from the swamp factory,” Eric babbled nervously. “Nothing different. Why would we be doing anything else? The only reason I’m sitting here is because it’s easier if we’re close. That is, we can see each other’s screens. Otherwise, I’d be sitting over there.”
“Jeez, what’s your problem?” Murph said. “I only meant what’s the latest?”
“I heard you had some new information for me,” Julia said, taking a seat.
“We haven’t decrypted everything yet,” Sylvia said. “It’s kind of a mess because even some of the files that got downloaded are partially overwritten.”
“But we have found something that might be useful regarding the paralyzing gas,” Eric said. “It’s called Enervum, and it’s made from jellyfish venom.”
“We even know what species of jellyfish,” Sylvia said. “Chironex welleri. It’s a rare type of sea wasp that normally lives deep in the ocean, but it sometimes rises to the surface to breed.”
“Since they’re mainly found in the open sea, they’re not usually dangerous to humans. But we found an article about a storm in Indonesia twenty-three years ago when thousands of them washed up on a remote island. A fishing crew was discovered there a week after the gale. All six were dead from dehydration.”
“From dehydration?” Julia said. “Not from the venom?”
“No stingers were found embedded in their skin,” Sylvia said. “It was a mystery why they died.”
“Apparently, the wasps emit a gas when they rot,” Eric said. “It has a paralytic effect.”
“How horrible,” Julia said.
“So the fishermen laid there, unable to move, until they died of thirst,” Murph said.
“It seems like it,” Sylvia said. “The Enervum seems to be a weaponized version of that gas. But we do have good news.”
