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Torrent(59)

By:Lindsay Buroker

“Anything right under town or in the farmlands would be unlikely,” Simon mused. “Especially if the caverns are as big as those guys think. People would have found them when they were drilling for wells.”
“Hm. The Prescott aquifer is to the north-northeast of Prescott and northwest of Prescott Valley. This map isn’t very good, but it looks like the Granite Creek area, maybe including Willow and Watson Lakes.” I was guessing because the map I’d found lacked above-ground terrain features. I wondered if we could find out where the librarian lived, show up at her door, and ask for the key.
Simon leaned over to study my screen. “There are some good-sized parks in there. Remember that hike we did the first day? The one that went north of the rail trail? Nobody could have drilled under all that granite around the lakes.”
“Oooh,” I said, the craggy Granite Dells popping into my mind. We’d clambered all over those giant boulders. In spots, the trails were simply marked with white dots painted on the rocks. “Think that’s a big enough area to hide their cave?”
“Could be. It’ll be hard for my program to see under that much solid mass. I’ll mark the lakes though. Where’s the Chino aquifer? Under town?”
“Yeah, and under the farms out there. It looks like it might extend into the national forest to the west.” I pulled up another map. “Of course, there’s nothing guaranteeing a cave would be in the aquifer systems. If we’re looking at the entire Verde River watershed... that’s hundreds of square miles.”
“I’ve got it all up over here,” Simon said. “I’ll do some comparisons and see what matches our criteria.”
I sneaked a peek at his screen. He’d found much more detailed maps than I had. It figured.
The rumble of big trucks drifted up the street. Someone was out in town, risking the monster-infested neighborhoods.
“Ah,” I said when they came into sight. A convey of National Guard vehicles rolled past, hummers and 5-Tons painted in tan desert colors. The soldiers in the seats peered to either side of the street with interest. A grizzled older man with gray hair who was being driven by a woman my age gave us a suspicious squint. I waved cheerfully.
“Sorry, no monsters out before dusk,” I murmured as the hummer drove out of sight.
“Huh?” With his attention focused on the screen, Simon hadn’t noticed the trucks.
“Nothing.”
My phone bleeped. I had a text message from an unfamiliar number with a Phoenix area code. It read: What the hell was that?
I took a guess and texted back, Professor Wilkons?
Yes. I’m running it through the computer, but there’s nothing familiar about that language. Where are you?
I’m not surprised. Prescott. I thought about calling him, but remembered him as a quirky introvert who preferred research to teaching and dead languages to spoken ones.
Isn’t a bear mauling the city up there?
Something like that. Will you let me know what the computer says? We’ve got a mystery up here.
No shit.
“You know, linguists aren’t nearly as articulate as you’d think,” I said.
“I like your lakes.” Simon was in his own world.
“How so?” I asked.
“Undeveloped land over the aquifer. It’s nearby too. Your Verde Watershed includes a lot of national parks too—couldn’t you see some awesome caves hiding under those red rocks in Sedona?—but I’m going to put my program to work on the local stuff first. Eleriss and Jakatra moved up the street to the Best Western, not to Sedona or Flagstaff or anywhere else in Northern Arizona.”
I nodded. “They specifically said it was in this area.”
My phone beeped again. It’s not Klingon. I checked.
I showed Simon the screen, figuring it would amuse him.
All he said was, “I could have told you that.”
I returned the text: As odd as the two speakers are, I don’t think they’re Trekkies. They thought they were alone and didn’t know we were recording them, so I’m sure they were using their native language. As soon as I sent the message, I wondered if I should admit to our spying tendencies to a university professor. I was on the verge of explaining that they’d been trespassing in our van when Wilkons responded.
Understood. The computer program will run it against all of the known languages on Earth, dead and living. I just thought I’d check popular fictional ones.
A familiar Jag rolled up and stopped next to the curb. The utter availability of parking in downtown Prescott was notable. I wondered how much these “bear” maulings would hurt the tourist industry.
I stood, glad to have an excuse to remove my rump from the cold cement. If Simon had noticed his would-be girlfriend drive up, or me putting my laptop aside to stand, he didn’t show it. He was chewing on his lip and staring intently at something.