The Last One(40)

“About time,” says the host, as the contestants are ordered to line up in front of him.

The duffel bag contains five rolled-up maps, one for each team. The host flourishes one. “The next phase of this Team Challenge is tougher than anything you’ve faced so far. And longer. Inside your map, you will find a printed Clue, which will lead you to a waypoint with another Clue. The third and final Clue will lead you to the Challenge’s finish.” He pauses. “You will not finish today.” Several of the contestants grumble, their murmurs an undertone to the host’s words as he continues, “The order in which you leave on this journey will be determined by how you finished your climbs.” He hands one of the rolled maps to Banker. “You two leave first, followed by the others in ten-minute intervals. Your time starts now.”

Banker and Black Doctor rush to collect their gear, then dart about twenty feet away to unfurl their map. The others mill about; Waitress sits, leaning against a tree and closing her eyes.

The new map is topographical, covering many more square miles than anything the contestants have been shown before. Rounded shapes, never quite concentric, and the U’s and V’s of running water tell the land’s tale. A You-Are-Here dot is settled near the bottom-left corner. Last night’s dirt road looks very close at this scale. A curl of paper tucked inside the map reads:

A boulder suns itself at a creek’s U-bend. As midday passes, the land’s tallest peak casts a blocking shadow. Tucked into the darkest dark, your next Clue waits.



“Okay,” says Black Doctor. “That’s pretty clear, right? We need to find a boulder along a creek to the east of the tallest mountain. Where’s that?”

Banker runs his forefinger along the map, scanning contour lines. “Here,” he says. “This one’s the tallest.”

“And there’s a blue line,” says Black Doctor. “But I don’t see the boulder.”

Banker swallows a laugh, not wanting to be rude. Black Doctor doesn’t see his smile, but viewers will. “I don’t think they’re going to show the boulder on here,” says Banker. “Not at this scale. We need to look for the bend.”

“Ah, right. So that’s…this?” Black Doctor jabs the map with his index finger. A comment thread will unexpectedly erupt on this topic—Black Doctor’s thick fingers. How can he use a scaple with fingers like that? one user will ask; the red line of misspelling obvious beneath as she hits post, but she doesn’t care. Another, I don’t want those hairy nubs operating on me! A lone voice of reason will tell people that one can’t actually determine an individual’s dexterity by looking at his fingers, and besides, they don’t even know what kind of doctor he is. And it’s true: Black Doctor is not a surgeon. He’s a radiologist and his stubby fingers get the job done.

“Looks like the bend to me,” says Banker. “Now, what’s the best way to get there?”

They take turns prodding at the map, exchanging ideas, and after a few minutes settle on a route that mostly involves following water upstream. They check their compasses, then strike out into the woods.

When Zoo and Tracker are given their map four minutes later, they determine the destination almost instantly, and Tracker notes something that Black Doctor and Banker did not: the giant swath of white cutting through the map’s abundant green east of the mountain creek. “I suggest we follow this clearing north, then shoot a bearing to the U-bend from its northern edge,” he says.

“Sounds great,” says Zoo with a laugh. “But will you tell me what ‘shoot a bearing’ means?”

Tracker doesn’t understand why she’s laughing. Neither her question nor her ignorance is funny. But they’re partners for now and so he answers, “It’s using the compass to determine what direction you should move in, then following your bearing landmark to landmark in an area where it would otherwise be very easy to lose your direction of travel.”

“Oh!” says Zoo. “We kind of did that last night.”

Tracker blinks at her, then takes out his compass and places it on the ground atop the map. He shifts the paper slightly so the map’s north aligns with his compass’s, then twists the compass housing to bring the north needle home. “Thirty-eight degrees,” he says, mostly to himself. “That’ll get us to the field. Although…” He scans the perimeter of the map.

“What are you looking for?” asks Zoo.

“Declination,” says Tracker. There’s small print, but not the small print he’s looking for. “Doesn’t say. Around here, it has to be at least five degrees. So, forty-three degrees. That’s our direction of travel.”

Zoo sets her compass to forty-three, then tucks it perpendicular to her chest. Tracker folds the map to leave their current location exposed.

“That dead tree?” asks Zoo. A decaying, toppled-over birch is as far as she can see along the line.

“Why not,” says Tracker.

They begin walking.

“I’ve heard of declination,” says Zoo, “but I have to be honest—I have no idea what it is.”

Tracker doesn’t reply. He’s already talked more than he’d like.

Zoo allows him a few steps of silence, then insists, “So, what is declination?”

“The difference between true north and magnetic north,” he relents. Zoo’s curious look prods him to further explanation. “Maps are set to true north—the North Pole—and compasses to magnetic north. Factoring in declination corrects for that difference.”