Getting back

CHAPTER NINE

"I'm crazy, but not a fool."

The phrase became Daniel's mantra as he started his preparations. You make your own luck, he told himself. He would research, he would train, he would purchase, and because of that he would survive. When he awakened in the Australian desert he would be self-contained and self-sufficient, a twenty-first-century primitive, ready to live as prehistoric man must have lived but with the added edge of modern technology. The challenge was daunting, but also energizing. Once equipped, he would need no one and nothing, except the fruits of the earth. He would enjoy total freedom.

Because of the peculiarities of its challenge- the emphasis on self-survival, unaided and undirected- the training and guidance from Outback Adventure was alternately generous and guarded. The mix put him off-balance. From earliest memory Daniel's life had been crammed with advice: recited by parents, drilled by teachers, whispered to him from office walls, pounded at him in commercials, nagged by machines due for a tune-up, or scolded by corporate officials conducting performance appraisals. Everyone, it seemed, knew exactly what he should do next. Until now. He could learn quite a bit about generic survival tactics, and very little about the place he would use them. Survival could be taught. Australia must remain mysterious.

What Daniel was presented with were catalogs. There were endless lists of available equipment. Inventories of Australian plants and animals. Data on the temperature (hot), rainfall (erratic), and elevation (low). Survival manuals so general that they included advice on building igloos, drying fish, and distilling sea water. The descriptions of the country he was to be deposited in, however, were spare.

"That would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?" said Elliott Coyle.

"It's just odd, and difficult, preparing for a place that's been turned into a deliberate secret. There're no maps and no journals by previous adventurers."

"How did Columbus prepare? Cabot? Boone?" Coyle tapped his head and heart. "In here, not out there. They knew little of where they were going, but an immense amount about seamanship or forest travel. They succeeded on common sense. If you succeed it will be because of you, not because of us."

That's what he wanted. That's what he feared.

The shopping was initially exhilarating. Suddenly, money seemed to have no meaning. Departing on something as timeless and ill-defined as Outback Adventure was liberating. He felt like a kid in a candy store who could buy to fulfill a fantasy: Second-Skin to don for cold desert nights. A solar blanket squeezed into the size of a matchbox. Chem-candles to start fires. Torso webbing to hold clip-ons. Freeze-dried Stroganoff, couscous, strawberry shortcake, and Szechwan chicken. A water purifier, a solar battery recharge wafer, vitamin drops, a solar-lithium flashlight, a hydrogen pellet stove, Spider-Line, Supra-Boots, and a bush hat with band pockets for fish hooks, spare buttons, a barometer, and data wafers for his palmtop computer.

He spread it across the floor of his apartment and regarded its titanium glitter with initial glee. The paraphernalia of survival! Yet as he toyed with his acquisitions, weighing them individually while toting up his load, he began to feel misgivings. How much of this world did he really want to saddle onto his back? Every step would be a reminder of where he'd come from. Would that be reassuring, or oppressive? He sat on his couch and looked at his purchases, receipts curled like party streamers and box lids gaping like hungry mouths. He put on the bush hat and regarded himself in the reflection of a computer screen.

"G'day, mate."

He frowned.

"You look bloody ridiculous."

Suddenly the gear seemed a miniaturized replication of the United Corporations world, as cumbersome as a space suit. Out of curiosity he bundled the instruction booklets and weighed them. A pound right there.

He sat down again and began to think.

How could he carry enough on his back to keep alive for the months it would likely take to hike to the Australian coast and find Exodus Port? Even with the new food concentrates it suddenly seemed impossible. To be put down in the middle of nowhere, to find your own way to an unclear destination… was he insane? But then that was the nature of exploring, wasn't it? "Because of you, not because of us," Coyle had said. Damn right it would be a way to explore himself.

Raven carried no water underground because she knew where to get a drink. "Water's heavy," she'd said.

He moved to his window and watched the pigeons fluttering across Silicon Square. They carried nothing at all, and neither had primitive man. If you knew what to eat, the wilderness was a garden. He needed to carry less on his shoulders and more in his head.

He went to a hardware store and bought a dowel and block of wood. Then he came back, sat down, and began drawing up a new list of what he thought he truly needed. Next to it he wrote a goal: "45 pounds." He scratched some items out and added others. How light could he travel? How fast could he move? He considered, then wrote again: "35 pounds?" He flipped through the books. How good a garden was Australia? He'd been taught all his life that information was the tool of success, and now information was frustratingly vague. He underlined a passage. "Your environment is neither friendly nor hostile, but rather the product of preparation and the discipline of your mind."

He took the wood block and with a pocketknife whittled a small depression in it, then roughly sharpened one end of the dowel so it rested in the new hole. The wood shavings he carefully hoarded. Then he began to experiment with ways to pivot the dowel in the hole.

Four hours later, the building superintendent was pounding on his door. "Dyson! Hey, open the door if you're in there!"

Daniel opened it a crack. He looked tired.

"Christ, the stink!" the super greeted. "The goddamned fire alarm sounded! You okay? You burn something?"

His tenant held up a blackened piece of wood with a look of grim satisfaction. "I started a fire, Mr. Landau. With this."

The superintendent looked at the charcoal in bewilderment. "With what?"

"Friction. I made fire from my hands."

Landau paused. Thank goodness this loopy kid had already given notice. "You're a friggin' nut case, you know that?"

Daniel nodded.

"Listen, Dyson, you can't start fires here. You know that. It's against the rules."

"Everything is against the rules." He set down his wood and put up his hand to close the door. "I'm done now, don't worry. My arm is sore." He jerked his head in the direction of his carpet, littered with packages as if at Christmas. "I just have to take some things back to the store."

If information on Australian geography was meager, information on survival tactics was not. Daniel became a repository of trivia. Rommel's troops drank two and a half gallons of water a day in the desert, he read. Workers at Hoover Dam consumed an average of six and a half. African natives had used pierced and blown-out ostrich eggs as canteens. Rubbing oneself with chewed tobacco warded off insects.

"Too bad it's a controlled substance," he muttered.

Physical training became an obsession. Now his miles were timed. Alternate days were spent with weight and tension machines. He logged endless crunches, sprints, and even began a martial arts class. Daniel wasn't especially quick or coordinated, but he decided the discipline and drills of Asian combat couldn't hurt. He also sought out advice on practical, gut-level street fighting- more to give himself self-confidence than because he expected to have to use the knowledge.

One of the trainers, an ex-cop, looked at him doubtfully. "Hit first and give it everything you've got, Coogan," he said, wryly using the name of a current action hero. "It will all be over in fifteen seconds, one way or another." He looked Daniel up and down. "It wouldn't hurt to know how to run, either."

Daniel loaded his pack, weighed it, and then went over his list again. He filled it with rocks equal to twice the weight and climbed the stairs of his building. Then again, and again, and again. He spent a night on the roof in a bedroll with ground cover, kept awake by the lights and the heat. His back was stiff by morning.

He stalked, and butchered, a possum he spied prowling through garbage, comparing its internal architecture with the manuals he was reading. He practiced until he could hit crows with rocks. He ran in a downpour, drank water sluicing off an awning, and measured how much he could catch in his hat.

People ignored his eccentricity. Everyone moved in a bubble of anonymity.

The exception to this was an orientation and final screening session for regional participants, the first of several weekend seminars for the next class of Outback Adventurers. "We thought you'd like to see who you might rub elbows with in the bush," Elliott Coyle told a gathering of two dozen in a windowless rented conference room in the basement of Outback Adventure's office tower. "Just so you know you're not alone in your desire for wilderness challenge."

"Or our insanity," someone quipped. The group laughed nervously.

Daniel glanced around. Most of the participants looked to be in their twenties and thirties, a third of them women. A few had the whippet leanness of endurance athletes but the majority looked reassuringly ordinary, and uncertain about whether they were in the right place. They glanced at each other shyly.

"Some of you will insist on traversing the Outback on your own, we know, but most of our participants choose to form a small group," Coyle said. "I encourage you to consider it. For ourselves, it simplifies problems of delivery. For you, it enhances the chance of survival. Not to mention the possibility of forming friendships that will last the rest of your lives." He paused to let them consider that.

They looked at each other uncertainly. Who would they get along with? Who could they trust?

"We're also going to subject you to a physical, some inoculations, and a final psychological screening to make sure you're really Outback Adventure material. While some of this may seem intrusive, it's the kind of thing that could save your life in the end. So please, bear with us and accept our judgment."

The group looked surprised. They'd already made their decision and paid a deposit. Now there were last-minute hurdles?

A hand went up. "Did I miss something here?" the person who'd made the earlier quip now caustically asked.

Coyle looked at the short, wiry, thin-faced young man raising the question. "Ah yes, Mr. Washington. Ico, isn't it?"

"It is, Elliott." He stood. "So glad you remember me. Now, if I remember correctly, we're paying you. And we have to go through more bullshit tests? Come on! We're ready to go or we wouldn't be here."

Coyle looked at him calmly. "If you're ready, Ico, you won't have any problem with our tests. And if you don't like the Outback Adventure program, then obviously you aren't ready and can expect a full refund." He let his stern gaze pass across the room. "This is your life at stake here. We're not going to put you out there if you don't belong."

Washington sat down. "Corporate nonsense," he fumed. A couple of candidates snickered and a few others looked uncomfortable. Coyle ignored the rustle and called a couple of names to begin the screening.

The man sitting next to Daniel smiled. "That boy needs to get into the bush," he whispered. "I just want to."

Daniel studied his companion. The man was big, dark, and powerful, so long and solid that Daniel thought he looked like a folded tree.

"Everyone in this room has been tested up the kazoo since birth," Daniel whispered back. "Who wants any more?"

"You do what you have to do to get where you want to go," the man replied. He held out a hand. Like shaking a baseball mitt, Daniel thought. "Tucker Freidel. I was an Alaskan trapper in a previous life. And a Zulu warrior in the life before that." His brown eyes smiled.

"Daniel Dyson," came the reply as his arm was pumped. "And in this life, Tucker?"

The man grinned good-naturedly. "A failed computer salesman. My theory is, I can't do worse in the wilderness."

"At least you're honest."

"And as fed up as that little guy there. I'm willing for a last poke in the butt if it gets me out of here and into God's country."

"We're going to find God out there?"

"I sure as hell am going to look. I figure I might need Him."

"But not a computer."

Tucker laughed. "I sure as hell ain't packing one!"

"You know what Captain Cook said about the aborigines?"

"Captain who?"

"One of the discoverers of Australia. He said, ' They may appear to be the most wretched people upon earth, but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans. Being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them.' " Daniel winked. "Happy in not knowing the use of them. Like computers."

"And how do you know shit like that? You with Captain Cook in a previous life?"

"No, just a history major in this one. A walking repository of trivia. Though I guess you could call college a previous life. Or a hallucination."

Tucker laughed again. "Or a damn waste of time. But then, so was my marriage and most of my career."

"So now you're here."

"So now I'm trying to get there. Listen, do you know why I'm really going?"

"Why?"

"Because it's the one thing a computer would never do. There's no logic to it. I'm going because it's there, like that Everest guy said. Because it feels right. I like the pointlessness of it. The one time in my life when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. Can you understand that?"

Daniel nodded. He liked this guy. He seemed unpretentious, down-to-earth, self-aware.

"How'd you hear about it?"

"Tipped by a correspondent on the web. Pen pal fellow failure. I'd heard rumors, floating in the cyber underground, but never knew it was real."

"So what did you think about Coyle advising us to team up? Are you game for that? Maybe we could be partners."

Tucker eyed him speculatively. "Maybe. What do you do when you aren't quoting history?"

"I thought it was supposed to be why do you do. The what is a software writer."

"Sheeit."

"The why is… I don't know why. I haven't thought it through as clearly as you, perhaps. That's what I'm looking for out there: why."

"That's what unites this bunch, I'll bet. We're all looking." Tucker glanced around at the other chatting adventurers. "Listen, I wouldn't mind teaming up but I've already got someone else who wanted to tag along." He pointed. "That cute little girl over there. The one with the short black hair. Name's Chiu." He caught her eye and waved to her. "Amaya! Help me check this guy out!"

A young, pleasant-looking woman with a ready smile came over. She wasn't really little, but shorter and slighter than either Tucker or Daniel. Her round face was open and cheerful and her dark eyes danced as she looked up at each in turn.

"This is Daniel. He wants to come with us. He can quote Captain Cook."

She cocked her head. "How useful. And his field of expertise?"

"He says he's a software writer. I think that means he can type." Tucker laughed.

"And a military engineer." Daniel said it lightly. "I build catapults."

"Why Tucker!" she exclaimed. "Exactly what we need!"

"What do you do, Ms. Chiu?"

"Partly stand in Tucker's shadow," she teased, stepping slightly behind his powerful form. "He's the brawn and I'm the brains, right, Freidel?"

"I ain't doing all the lifting."

"I'm also an executive suck-up by profession, and amateur naturalist and closet romantic by inclination."

"Executive suck-up?"

"Assistant, associate, deputy, and lieutenant, rising horizontally from one middle-management post to another. A gofer who finally answered to one idiot too many and decided to really go. I love adventure stories, so I've decided to live one. And I'm fascinated by nature."

Like Tucker, without pretense. "We all seem to have a lot in common."

"And two strong males! You two can break trail. I'll point the way."

"Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea," Daniel said.

"Except a hundred eighty degrees in the opposite direction. We want to go east, gentlemen, not west. I'm already contributing, you see, by making that clear."

Tucker scratched his head in mock befuddlement. "And doesn't the sun set backward Down Under?"

Amaya rolled her eyes. "I never did have a proper taste in men. So do you really build catapults, Mr…"

"Dyson. Daniel Dyson. A little one, once. It got me into trouble."

"War machines usually do."

Daniel liked her banter. This could be fun.

"I saw you talking to the hand-raiser," Tucker said to her. "What's he like?"

"Smart. As in mouth, ass. But quick too. Maybe we should enlist him."

Daniel was doubtful. "That guy?"

"He's interesting. He'll talk your ear off. Come over and meet him."

Ico Washington wasted no time in presenting them with his worldview. He had curly hair and olive skin and a restless manner, his eyes flicking around the room as he talked. He fizzed like a shaken bottle.

"I don't take these Outback guys seriously," he explained. "I don't take anyone connected with United Corporations seriously. I haven't heard an honest word since the delivery doctor slapped my butt and extended condolences, just happy-talk bullshit my whole life and an unending list of rules and come-ons. I mean, a year's salary to dump me in some desert? It's gotta be a scam. And when an oily snake like Elliott Coyle says gee, not all of you may get to go, I know I'm being taken."

Tucker frowned. "So why are you here?"

Ico laughed with self-deprecation. "Because this is my peek behind the curtain, man. This is my chance to look from outside the box. I figure that out in the bush there's no wall whispers, no head-vid, no committee-meetings-from-hell. For once I get away from the ambient noise, you know? So I can think. So I can consider. So I can plan."

"Plan what?"

"Permanent escape." He nodded, as if confiding a great secret. "I don't want a temporary furlough, I want release from this bullshit corporate world. I want to experience real freedom. So I go along with their little mind games, even while I let them know I see through them. Because this isn't a vacation for me, this is a turning point. Once I'm down on that Outback ground, I'm not the same guy coming back. I'm going to imagine a better life. I think they're betting a taste of dirt and bugs will teach me the benefits of the United Corporations world, but I'm going to be finding my own world. We're Pandora's box, man, and they've no clue what can happen when you open the lid."

Daniel frowned, recognizing a bit of himself. "So what is it that you do, Ico?"

He looked at them smugly. "I see things clearly."