Page 48 of Factory Controller

“I’m not hungry, son,” I say patiently. “But if you could help me out with something else…”

“What you need?”

“I need a ride to Macapá.”

“Macapá? That’s a day trip, man. Gonna cost you, but my uncle has a car. He’ll drive you to Macapá. Cheap.”

He flinches, because Heather and I say it at the same time he does. Our driver turns out to be a miserly prick who tries to milk us for more money even though the ruby is worth ten times the fare, easily.

When I show him I literally have nothing else, he relents. Soon we’re rumbling along in his beaten up car which is held together by rust, the landscape rolling by at an incredible rate compared to our foot travel.

I realize that, when we reach Macapá, I can’t just say good bye to Heather and go about my way. I’m going to stay and help her see this thing through.

I’m not going to let Heather go.

Not just yet.

HEATHER

The drive to Macapá is a long one. Trent and I ride in the back of the car with a seat so worn there’s hardly any foam left. We bounce along on roads fit for a different century, and it’s not long before my bones ache from the constant jostling.

Even worse, it looks as if our driver is seeking out each and every pothole and doing his damnedest to hit every. Single. One. I don’t know how we have a car left by the time we reach a proper highway.

“Oh, thank goodness,” I say, heaving a sigh of relief. “I couldn’t take much more of that.”

“Uh, Heather,” Trent says.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to insult this man’s ride or his, ahem, driving, it’s just nice to be on a paved road instead of that pothole-ridden nightmare.”

Trent looks pained, his teeth clenched and wincing away from me.

“Trent, what’s wrong? Does your shoulder hurt?”

“It’s not that,” he points at the road ahead. “I’m just sorry you got your hopes up about the road.”

I look out of the windshield and see our paved path continues on a gentle curve toward the west. A hardscrabble dirt road diverges from the highway, and I get a sinking feeling in my chest.

“No…”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“I’m afraid so.”

The driver turns off the paved road onto another dirt-packed nightmare. My teeth clack together as he hits another pothole with bone-jarring force.

“I think I’d rather walk.”

“And run into another jaguar?”

I snort. “I’ll face a dozen jaguars rather than deal with this.”

“We’ll be back on a highway soon enough. Just see it as an adventure.”

I let out a bark of derisive laughter. “Misadventure, maybe.”

The sun crawls across the humidity-blurred sky, slowing working its way toward the horizon. Naturally, the wreck’s air conditioning doesn’t work, so we sweat and suffer as the sun blazes overhead.

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