The Geomancer's Compass (22 page)

I couldn't believe he was still on about that. “Are you nuts?”

“It would make for a faster getaway.”

“If you do that, I'll have a heart attack. I'm already as nervous as a cat.”

“That's because you drank all that Fizz at dinner. I told you to take it easy.”

“No Segways, Brian.” The avatar's tone was firm. “It's too risky. And no dawdling. The longer this takes us, the more likely it is we'll lose our connection. Miranda, lead the way.”

“Why don't you lead the way?”

“Because I don't know where I'm going. I'm a virtual entity, not omniscient. It's up to you to take us to the grave.”

“But I've only been here once,” I objected. “In daylight.”

“You've got the grave's coordinates dialed into your GPS,” Brian reminded me.

“Oh, right.” I checked our coordinates. “This way.” I led
them around the outside of the parking lot, in the direction of the first hole.

I was struck by how very different the course looked at night – drained of color, and teeming with elongated shadows that swayed and loomed in the slight breeze. And it was noisy – I could distinguish cricket chirps and owl hoots and frog croaks, along with scurrying sounds and the whisper of something running softly through the wheat. What
was
that? A hedgehog? A coyote? How big were coyotes? Did they attack humans? I shivered in my CanBoard hoodie. It was chilly for August, but then this was Saskatchewan.

“Check those out, why don't you?” Brian pointed toward the sky.

I tilted my head back and gazed into a thick carpet of twinkling stars stretching overhead as far as the eye could see. “Wow.”

“Ah, yes,” said the avatar. “I had forgotten how many stars are visible here, how clear the night skies are. Not like Vancouver.”

“See that flare?” I pointed at a light streaking across the sky. “That's a satellite pass.”

The avatar shook its head. “The sky is cluttered with so many things nowadays.” It sighed. “When I was a boy, there were only the stars.”

“If it weren't for satellites, there would be no satellite Internet or radio or TV,” I pointed out. “No GPS. Speaking of
which …” I checked back in with the GPS. “This way,” I said, and picked my way down the gentle slope of the hole and past the inky ponds that flanked it, followed by Brian; the avatar took up the rear. Once again I consulted the GPS, then headed down the cart path, around a copse of cedars to the second hole, and along the edge of the pond to which I had consigned so many balls earlier that day. In the midst of all this, it occurred to me that I might have to pee sometime soon. Great, I thought. Just what I need.

The third hole, zigzagging one way, then the other, then back again, was like an obstacle course. The avatar floated effortlessly over the mounds and bunkers, but Brian and I had to walk around or clamber over every landform and, remember, there was that little problem of proprioception. I stumbled like a drunk and timbered twice, landing once on my backside with a wicked jolt, and once on my knees, ripping my jeans. Brian was more coordinated, but he still managed to trip a couple of times, catching himself just short of falling. But the worst thing was that I was now convinced I had to pee.
Soon
.

We reached the fourth hole.

“This is it!” Brian was saying. “The fourth hole. Where the grave is.” He pointed to the eruption of earth crowned with bushes.

“The fourth hole?” the avatar asked. “The fourth, you say?” It shook its head. “So unlucky!”

Brian elbowed me in the ribs. “See? I told you. The number four is unlucky.”

“Not to mention
that
abomination.” The avatar pointed to the porta-potty. It had been shrouded in darkness at the edge of the green, but now that we turned our I-spex in its direction, it shone the same neon blue that pool bottoms are painted.

“The porta-potty!” How could I have forgotten? I was saved. “Thank heavens!”

The other two turned to look at me.

“I have to pee.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now!”

“I told you not to drink so much,” said Brian, sounding exasperated. “You know you have a bladder the size of a pea.”

“Don't say ‘pea.' ”

“Well, go on then,” he said.

“But I
hate
porta-potties.” I had only used a porta-potty once, when I was a child at some park. I could still remember the strong odor of disinfectant barely masking the other smells, the gaping dark hole down which I dared not look, and, worst of all, the feeling that the molded plastic walls were closing in around me.

“So pee outside.”

“Outside? Like a dog?”

“It's not going to kill you. Go over there. Behind that tree.”

“But, Brian –”

“
Honestly
, Randi!” He dropped the shovel and headed toward the berry bushes, hedge clippers in hand.

“When I first came to Chinatown in Vancouver, men would come around every morning to collect the contents of privies, which they would then use to fertilize their gardens,” recollected the avatar. “These men were called night-soil men. Those were good times.”

“Uggh. You are
so
not helping!” I steeled myself. People used porta-potties all the time and nothing bad happened to them. Besides, this was a fancy golf course; no well-heeled business dude was going to put up with some crappy porta-potty. Smarten up, I told myself.

I laid the suit bag down next to the shovel, rummaged in my knapsack for my industrial hand wipes, removed one, and forced myself to walk over to the structure. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and opened the door with the wipe. A faint odor seeped out. Not too bad, I told myself. But the enclosure was narrow – only three feet square – and I tend to get claustrophobic under pressure. Please don't let me have a panic attack, I prayed. Please! I stepped up into the porta-potty and pulled the door shut, again using the wipe. I pulled down my ripped jeans and lowered myself gingerly over the toilet seat, being careful not to let my skin touch the plastic. I didn't want to think what germs might be on that seat. Dangerous germs in lurid shades of green and purple, with
wiggly edges and malicious grins, as seen in Lysol, Mr. Clean, Chlorox, and Cepacol commercials. What can I say? I'm highly impressionable.

A moment later, as I was relieving myself of the three cans of Guarana Fizz with which I had washed down supper, I heard a loud, high-pitched wailing sound.

B
eep! Beep! Beep!

Yanking my jeans up around my hips, I struggled to my feet. “What is it? What's going on?”

Brian's response was barely audible over the alarm's high-pitched beeping: “Must … laser security,” was all I could make out. That and “Beam … broken.” Great. The perimeter of the grave was protected by a laser beam, and Cousin Doofus had just broken it!

“I'm coming!” I shot back. “Hold on!” Like I was the cavalry or Mighty Mouse: Here I come to save the day! There was just one problem. When I tried the door handle, it refused to turn. I stared at it with disbelief. Had I locked it? I shook my head. I hadn't locked it; I'd only latched it, I was sure. I rattled the handle, then tugged on it. I pushed it as far to the left as I could, then to the right.
Nada
. My heart pounded in my chest.
This was
so
not good. The alarm sounded like a fanfare for Armageddon; meanwhile, I'm trapped in a porta-potty. “Brian!” I yelled. “The door's locked! I can't get out!”

“The door's locked?” Brian's voice, nearby now. He must have left the stand of bushes and come down to where I was. “You locked it? Did you think I was going to burst in on you?”

“No! I don't know! I didn't lock it!”

“What?”

“
I didn't lock it!
”

“Maybe it's just stuck.”

I ground the heels of my hands into my ears to blot out the sound of the alarm. “That alarm is driving me
crazy
!” I wailed. “Do something!”

“Do what?”

“Get me out of here!”

And that's when I heard it – or rather
felt
it, because at first it was more a vibration than a sound. And it grew and grew. It grew until it drowned out even the shrill honk of the alarm. It grew until it was so all-encompassing, so huge, that nothing but it and I seemed to exist, with me a mere speck compared to the swirling, howling, raging vortex of sound – equal parts wrenching despair and towering rage, as if the space-time continuum were being ripped from its bearings, as if the universe were collapsing into itself. The noise was so vast, so horrendous, that it was a few moments before it dawned on me that the sound, the vibration, the … whatever
it was came not from the real world but from the virtual one. I fumbled frantically with the controls on the side of my I-spex and finally managed to find the off switch for the earphones.

And then it was gone, all of it – the alarm too. My head spun; my knees sagged; my ears rang hollowly as though I were at the bottom of a well. What the …?

A sharp rap against the outside of the porta-potty. Brian.

“Brian, turn off your earphones,” I cried. “The off switch is on the side of your I-spex!”

“What?”

“The off switch! For your earphones.”

“My earphones
are
off.”

“So you didn't hear …?”

“Didn't hear what? I heard the alarm, all right! My ears are still ringing.”

“No, not the alarm. The other. Really loud …” I paused. Whatever had just happened to me, whatever I had just experienced … there were no words to describe it, not that I could think of, anyway. And coming up with a reasonable explanation wasn't going to get me out of that porta-potty, which, in my books, was job
numero uno
. “Never mind! Just get me out of here.”

And that was when I felt it, felt it for real. The floor of the porta-potty began to quiver, then to quake. The toilet seat started jittering. I clapped my hand over my mouth and stared at the seat with horror. “Omigod!” I gasped.

“O
migod
what?
” Brian's voice, sharp with urgency.

“There's something down there!”

“Down where?”

“In the toilet!”

“Quick, put down the lid and sit on it.”

“What?”

“You heard me!”

I flung down the lid and sat down on it hard; it danced underneath me like the lid of a boiling kettle.

“Brace yourself!”

“Brace myself? How?” I searched the molded plastic walls to either side of me – there was nowhere to hold onto, nothing to grip. “Why?”

“I'm going to tip you!”

“Tip me?”

“I'm going to tip the porta-potty! It's the only way.”

“Brian, no!”

I felt the porta-potty lurch from right to left. “Whoa!” In a panic, I planted my feet on the door in front of me and pushed against it with all my might. Even so, it was all I could do to keep my bum pressing down on the seat. Then the porta-potty lurched right again, at a much sharper angle this time. It hung in midair for one heart-stopping moment, then crashed to the ground with a resounding thud. The impact caused the jammed door to burst open, and sent me sliding off the seat, over the door's sill, and onto the grass, feet first. Brian stood over me, laughing. “Look what you did! I told you not to drink so much Fizz. You broke the toilet!”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “It wasn't my fault! There's something seriously wrong with that toilet!” I held out my hands. “Help me up!” He grabbed me by my wrists and hauled me to my feet.

“Brian! Miranda!” The avatar pointed toward the downed porta-potty with the green globe of its cane. We looked back in that direction, and Brian quickly wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me aside. Just in time, as it turned out. The jittering lid flew open and an evil-looking and foul-smelling liquid started to ooze over the lip of the toilet.