"There it is, straight ahead." Jedi taps Matt on the shoulder and points forward to the pink container in the distance.
"Got it," Matt says. He slows the bike down.
As they get closer, the South African flag on the side of the container comes into view.
"We'll go around, wide," Matt calls over his shoulder.
"It looks deserted."
Matt steers the bike around the container. Both the Americans check for danger.
"No one home." Matt turns the bike toward the container. Its doors are open.
Jedi's nervous and holds his pistol close.
***
The American Humvee is now several miles away and still follows the quad's tracks.
"I hope those guys are going be okay," Sophia says.
"They'll be fine," Books reassures her.
"It's not like they're going down the road for a Sub."
"Quick code and they'll be back." Books sees something ahead and slows the Humvee. He shouts up to the gun turret, "Jim, Cutter, you see that?"
"Can't make it out—wait! It's a—" Jim begins.
"Quad bike," Cutter interrupts. "A blue one."
"Okay, we'll go and take a closer look," Books says. He drives the Humvee toward Lola's abandoned quad.
***
"This is it, kid, last stop on the line." Matt parks the bike up about twenty yards out from the container.
Jedi jumps off the bike and trots over to the forty-foot steel box. He takes out the remote control and enters the numbers from the side of the container. The remote beeps and a fourth blue LED lights up on their collars.
Matt puts the bike on its stand and walks over to Jedi. "Four blues—shouldn't we celebrate or something?"
Jedi glances at the countdown clock on Matt's collar. "We got just over four hours. What you thinking?"
"Anything that involves an ice-cold beer."
"Sounds good to me."
"Wait—I meant anything that involves lots of ice-cold beers."
Jedi takes out his notebook. "Give me a minute." He loses himself in deep thought with more scribbles and workings.
"Minute away, kid. I'll go and check out the neighborhood." Matt strolls around the container. He grimaces at its fuchsia pink paint job. "Man, that is one gay color. Orange is crap, but pink is just double crap. I'm thinking someone doesn't like these guys."
"Say again?" Jedi asks. He does not look up from his notebook.
"Nothing, just discussing the merits of pink versus orange."
"Optimism versus love."
"What is?"
"Orange is the color of optimism, and pink is the color of love, according to psychologists."
"What do they know? Those guys are nuts, anyway. They want to come out here and interview those dead South Americans?" Matt ambles back over to Jedi and watches him write notes into his book. "Those guys sure received a lot of pink love!"
Jedi's not listening and chews on the end of his pencil in deep concentration.
Matt glances down at Jedi's notebook. "Postcard for home?"
Jedi pretends to write the postcard. "Dear Mom. Got here okay. Great weather. Food average. The locals not too friendly—so today, we killed some of them. Your loving, murdering son, Jedi."
"Well, that should stop her worrying. You forgot the love and kisses," Matt says, then asks, "So what you really doing in that little book of yours?"
"I'm tracking our route and stuff."
"What stuff?"
"Take a look." Jedi flicks to the center pages of the notebook and flattens them out as best he can.
"You've drawn a map."
"Yeah. I've marked the two container locations. That's our container here." Jedi points as he talks. "And here's the Japanese container."
"So where are we?"
"Right here." Jedi marks the location of the South African container. "It's kinda not to scale."
"What's with all the lines?"
"Our tracks and the laser fence and some projections."
"Where's the airport?"
"Funny guy. This may sound weird, but—"
"Nothing sounds weird to me today, kid." Matt takes the notebook from Jedi and inspects the map. "So keep talking."
"Well, it looks to me like the containers have been set out in some sort of pattern."
"Okay, that is actually slightly weird. How do you mean?"
"If we use the container locations that we have found so far." Jedi takes back the notebook from Matt and uses his pencil as a pointer.
"Yeah . . . ?"
"And if I then input the various equidistant tracks, apply a bit of old-fashioned trigonometry, and enter some mathematical calculated forward projections of, —let's say, two more container locations, then, based on using my historically modeled data of the three container locations I have already plotted . . ."
"You're losing me again, kid."
Jedi draws another two container locations on his map. "Then we get—this." He turns his map toward Matt and shows him five equally-spaced container shapes. Jedi draws a line and joins up the containers.
"So it's a circle." Matt's not impressed.
"You're a genius."
"I give in, kid, my head's beginning to hurt."
"I'm thinking this circle represents a number or a letter."
"I'm thinking, you're thinking too much."
"Maybe a zero or the letter O."
"Hey, I got it!" Matt exclaims.
"Yeah?"
"It's the start of a sentence: 'Oh my god—we're screwed.' "
Exasperated, Jedi shakes his head.
"Was that the wrong answer?" Matt asks.
Jedi closes his notebook and puts it back in his pocket. "You know how me and you go way back together?"
Matt plays along. "For sure. Same schools, chicks, prom nights, getting wasted. You and me—we're bro love."
"So I think you should know something about me."
"Hit me, kid."
Jedi looks up in panic and pretends to point at something. "OH SHIT!"
Alarmed, Matt spins around and raises his pistol. Jedi slaps him on the back of the head, with a loud thwack.
Matt's not impressed. "Kid, if there was a john out here, I'd be flushing your head down it right now."
Jedi enjoys the moment. "As I was saying, I think you should know something about me."
"Go ahead."
"That I'm a bit of a software and math rock star back home. Remember, the geek shall inherit the Earth. It's my time, dude."
"I'll sure make a note of that!"
"I think I'm growing on you."
Matt hops onto the bike and kick-starts it. "Like a wart, kid, just like a wart." He revs the bike.
Jedi runs and just manages to jump on the back before they race off to catch up with the American Humvee.
