Hummingbird Salamander(54)

Silvina, stateless. Belonging, in a way, to no place and no one. Perhaps, at first, Unitopia had felt like a way to create her own country.

Had people even lived in Unitopia itself? I didn’t know. How sad if they had worked here for such a different future … but lived in a subdivision named “Lake Woods” or “River Creek.” Revolutionaries trapped in a theme-park life.

The community Silvina could not sustain, but, also, didn’t seem to have the patience to sustain. Even though she’d poured so much effort into it, brought in green-tech experts and even biologists. On the cusp of trying to make Unitopia independent. Teetering there.

Something impossible.

No, in the end, easier to tear it down and start over. The soundless scream of social media these days. The system must be destroyed. It can’t be fixed. Unitopia must have begun to seem like a Band-Aid applied to a gaping chest wound.

But how did you get from Unitopia to a kind of, for lack of a better term … weaponized taxidermy? And from that to bioterrorism? Or was that a pretty normal progression after you realize Unitopia is going to fail. That it’s not enough or not in the right direction. So you set off in a new direction, without a map. Maybe you even say, “Well, I tried to be good, to play by the rules. I tried a sustainable approach.”

On the west shore of the island, I found a relaxing nature park, along with a sign showing what you might see there. I sat on a bench and read about dredged reclamation and restored wetlands. Red-winged blackbirds in the reeds. Tanagers on migration. Marsh wrens. Great blue herons. The types of frogs. Even a rare sighting of a beaver.

But no hummingbird, no salamander.



* * *



When I got back to the parking lot, mine was the only car left. As if everyone else had fled along with Ronnie.

Texts I had missed made me wince, start up the car quick to get the hell out of Unitopia as if I could arrive somewhere else in an instant.

>>Where are you? You’re missing the talent show.

The after-school talent show. I had it on the calendar. Just not in my brain.

Daughter: >>Are you OK? Why aren’t you here?

The truth was … I wasn’t really anywhere.

I was just someone who had a new lead to a mystery she couldn’t have explained to a stranger in less than twenty minutes.

But I turned the engine off when I read the next texts. Not from Hellbender or my family. Alex. Coldly formal.

>>The board has decided to terminate your contract due to erratic and irregular behavior and unauthorized use of company resources for private endeavors.

>>Your office belongings will be sent to your house. Do not come in to collect them.

>>If you require an explanation, HR will be happy to provide one.

A weight pushed down on me. A weight left me. I slumped over the steering wheel like I’d been shot.

Then I called Alex anyway. I half expected he’d ignore me, but he picked up on the second ring.

Fusk all over again. I felt I had to hurry or he’d just hang up.

“Alex, I don’t know what this is about, but just because I’ve been distracted lately doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about this first. After so many years.”

The voice that came back at me made me regret the call. I didn’t need to hear that coldness.

“We have all the evidence we need of everything up to and including possible criminal behavior. The favor we’re doing you is not bringing this to the police.”

“I told you I was pursuing a client.”

“That’s not what you were doing.”

“Well, so what if it was a bit of research on the side? You know Larry does all kinds of—”

“You don’t get to say Larry’s name,” Alex snapped. “We know you’re doing something dangerous. Rash. Stay away from the office. Security has your photo and name. Any attempt to contact me again and I will go to the police.”

“Alex, I—”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get a severance package. Sort of.”

“I can sue you over this,” I said. Knew I sounded desperate.

Alex took a breath. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?”

I felt a panic emanating from his voice. The anger came from fear.

“The ‘client’ you tried to recruit contacted us. That’s all you need to know. And I never said that. Good-bye.”

He hung up.

So not Allie complaining but the Vilcapampa family interceding.

It hardly mattered how. I’d gotten too comfortable, hadn’t seen it coming. Any more than I’d remembered my daughter’s haircut or her talent show.

Even as a rush of wild elation—or was it hysteria—came over me, and such a sense of relief. Like calling Alex had been about going through the motions. Just another thing I was supposed to do, another way I was supposed to react. And some minor-key satisfaction: I must be getting close. Someone in power knew I was getting close.

But, mostly, I was thinking of how I missed the hummingbird, the softness of the fierceness of its wings. Knowing I would never see one in real life. Already, the photograph wasn’t enough and my memory wasn’t enough and video online wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough.

That’s what I thought of in that moment, god help me, sitting in the car after Alex hung up. To calm me down, to put things in perspective. The hummingbird and its vast journey, its tragic fate. Not my family.