The Gift of the Dragon (40 page)

Cautiously, Alice pressed the icon. The screen now displayed a new window.

“I think it wants a password,” Jacob said.

“Cripes!” Alice said. “This thing is making me mad.”

“I think if there were a bomb, it would explode without requiring a password.” Jacob retrieved the tablet, and they sat with it at the breakfast bar. The password prompt was a gray box with a phrase above it and a place to type in some text. An on-screen keyboard had popped up, as though it were trying to be helpful.
 

The phrase on the screen read “One Particular Harbor.”

Jacob said, “Looks like Moore liked Jimmy Buffett.”

“What do you mean?”

“That password hint there is the title of one of his songs.”

“What do you think it wants us to put in, then?”

“I’ll try some of the lyrics.”

Alice let Jacob have the tablet. She had another idea. “Okay. I’ll ask Ami!” Alice had plugged in her phone when she unplugged the tablet.

“I don’t think your smartphone knows any more than you do, Alice.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

While Jacob tapped away, the tablet giving off a mournful tone each time it rejected what he typed, Alice turned on her phone and said, “Ami, what is the answer to the question
one particular harbor
?”

“‘One Particular Harbor’ is a song by Jimmy Buffett and Bobby Holcomb. It was released as a—”

“Stop, Ami, thank you!” Alice reached for the tablet. “Jacob, let me try.” He shrugged and handed it to her. “I’ve been through the whole song…”

“Yeah, let me try a hunch.” She typed in “Sangerman and Moore.” The tablet made a happy sound, and the password screen went away.

“Wow!” Jacob raised his eyebrows. “How did you know that would work?”

“Just a guess.”
Or a memory.
When Ami had listed the authors of the song, the phrase had jumped into her head.
 

The tablet now showed a man’s face with receding hair; gray at the temples; piercing eyes, almost black. Heavy but well-trimmed eyebrows and a large nose rising from the center like a mountain above a half smile. “Quirky,” thought Alice as she looked at the image. A transparent gray triangle pointing toward the right sat superimposed over the man’s nose.
 

“Click that,” Jacob said.

“Huh? Oh.” Alice touched the screen, and the video played.

“My name is Peter Moore.” Alice almost dropped the tablet.
 

“Sara’s father,” she whispered.

“I made these videos to tell the world my story. About Sam Sangerman. About Apple Creek Corporation.” The man took a breath. “You will hear me say some things that may make you think I am mad.” The man laughed. “Who am I kidding? By the time I’m done, you will be sure I am mad! Also, it’s a long story. If you get bored, try to picture me in a green shirt, wearing a catcher's mask, and dancing the cancan.”

“Does he think that is funny?” Alice whispered.
 

“Why are you whispering?”

“The first thing you have to know is that the day I made this video was my two hundred and ninety-ninth birthday.” Moore paused. “You are probably thinking to yourself that I don’t look a day over ninety.”
 

“He looks about fifty,” Alice said, careful not to whisper.
 

“The thing is—I was in China two hundred and sixty years ago. In 1750.”
 

“So this video was made in 2010,” Jacob said.
 

Alice nodded. “Shhh.”
That’s
all
he has to say?

“It was a big adventure. Almost died. I could tell many stories from that time. In the important one, Sam and I heard about a meteorite. Heard it was made of gold. We thought it would make us rich. Well, it did.” The man’s face faded out, and the image of a scarred black rock faded in.

“Is that a meteorite?” Alice asked. Jacob nodded.
 

Moore went on, “There wasn’t much science back then. And Sam and I were just English pirates and guns for hire, working for the East India Company.” The meteorite faded out, replaced with an image that looked like gray worms crawling on a rough surface.
 

“Since then, people have found fossil bacteria in meteorites. We found something stranger.” A brown-and-white mushroom replaced the gray worms.
 

“We walked for days. Twice as long as we thought. When we got to the place we were told the meteorite landed, we were starving. We found the rock, and these weird mushrooms surrounded it. I thought they were edible. My grandma told me any mushroom with a sponge underneath wouldn’t kill you. By then we were starving. We ate them.”
 

The screen changed to show an oblong shape that looked like an amoeba. “We thought the meteorite would be made of gold. We were stupid. It was more like a rock filled with chunks of coal. Heck, we burned some of it in our fire the second night. Ate some more of the mushrooms. We made it back to civilization owing a pile of money to some nasty people who financed our expedition. Had to leave China. I don’t miss it.”
 

Alice tapped the screen, stopping the video, and turned to Jacob. “They burned the meteorite? If it could burn, wouldn’t it have just ended up being ashes when it fell?”
 

“Some meteorites are made of carbon. Like coal. There was one that landed in Australia. They extracted amino acids from it.”

“Really? How do you know
that
?”

“Hey, I watch some TV too,” Jacob said. “I saw a PBS show about it. 'Miracle Planet.'”
 

“Cool. Okay, he’s not completely insane.” She tapped the screen, and the video started again.

“Sam’s original last name was St. Germaine. Before we went to China, we cut quite a swath through Europe. When we returned from China, we got in some trouble in Paris. Headed for America. It was the thing to do back then.”
 

 
The image zoomed in on the amoeba. “It took us about twenty years to notice. We weren’t getting any older. We didn’t get sick, either. In the colonies in the 1770s, we could smell war coming. Sam and I headed west. We were passing through Virginia when we found some trappers raping some native women they caught bathing in a creek. Indians. We got in the middle of it. Didn’t mean to—just didn’t like seeing women being hurt.”

The video showed an old painting of men on horses with muskets shooting people dressed in deerskin and holding bows.

“Sam got shot. In his gut. A wound like that was a death sentence back then. Not a good thing now. I took him to a cabin in Logtown to keep him comfortable while he died.” The image changed to show another man’s face. Dark, curly hair flowed over his forehead. His eyes swept down at the corners over high cheekbones framed by full lips and a well-trimmed beard.
 

“My father?” Alice whispered.

The amoeba image returned, and this time it kept dividing into new copies of the original one.

“Anyway, he didn’t die. In another one of these videos, I go into the why of it more. Turned out we caught a bug up there in China. It’s sort of a contrary bug. It makes you healthy. Hey, I went to school to learn about such things. Since then I’ve done research on it. That’s all in the other videos and the papers in the notes folder.”
 

The multiplying amoebas onscreen were replaced by the swirl of a fanciful Chinese dragon. “The Chinese said that meteor showers were dragons hatching and that dragons are signs of good fortune, good luck. When we got around to naming it, we called the bug we caught
Andracia
dragoneris
, from 'dragon stone.'” In the video, the fanciful dragon slowly faded out, and one that looked angrier, painted in gold on a field of red fire, faded in.
 

Moore’s voice went on. “If you are still with me, this is where my happy tale turns dark. After Sam got shot, he changed some. Became more thoughtful. He said the
Andracia
must be a gift from God. It kept us from aging. It healed us. It made us different. Special. We argued. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be stuck with him anymore. It had been a long time. He was convincing. He was always a good talker, but after he got shot, he became even better at it. Not just with me, with other people, also. I’m stubborn, though. I left—kept heading west. Sam stayed behind, changed his name. Said he needed to find out what this was all about. Of course, we didn’t know anything about bacteria then, just that something weird had happened to us.”

In the video, the dragon faded out, replaced by the wiggling amoeba again.
 

“Those are just gross,” said Alice. Jacob nodded.

“Turns out we all have about four pounds of bacteria we carry around with us every day.
Andracia
seems to replace most of them over time. It’s kind of a sym-bi-ont. Benevolent. Other animals have them: termites, corals, and goby fish. About time people got some. But I’m getting ahead of my story. I didn’t know many multi-syllable words back then.”
 

The amoebas faded out and were replaced by a spinning globe.

“I went all over the world the next hundred years. Had many adventures. Should have written them all down. I lived through a few near-death experiences too. Wounds that should have killed me. I was even buried once. Everyone thought I was dead. Somehow, the
Andracia
brought me back. It fixes things. Well, I could go on. Short story is that while I was gallivanting around on my own, Sam was experimenting. He found that he could infect other people. When he had children, they were infected.”

The video changed to show another man. This looked like an old portrait, with gray hair and a thin face. Sad eyes.
 

“In England, Sam met a very smart man. Thomas Malthus. The man who invented rent.” A scene of people singing and dancing replaced the face. “Not the Broadway play.” Moore’s face came back on screen. “You thought me just an old sourpuss, eh? I get out. Had front row seats!”
 

The scene changed to show two lines on a graph. “Malthus scared the heck out of Sam. Here he was, infecting people with a bug that made them live longer, making babies who might live forever, and Malthus convinced him that this was a recipe for disaster. The world was going to run out of resources soon enough with people living normal lifetimes! Imagine if we all lived hundreds of years.”
 

The image zoomed in on the point where the line labeled resources crossed the line labeled population. “Sam decided he needed to do something about that.” The graph faded to reveal the words “Apple Creek Corporation.”

“By this time, Sam had some friends. Maybe not friends, not drinking buddies. More like associates. He found out that if he gave a person a transfusion with his blood, that person might also become infected. Turns out he could also do it by kissing, but Sam wasn’t that much into physical affection.” Moore laughed at that point. “Sorry, I am imagining Sam kissing Franklin McAlister. Nope, didn’t happen. They cut their palms and exchanged blood. Franklin and Laird Northwin. Robert Brandon. McAlister used to be a banker, rich as Croesus. Brandon was another thief Sam and I met up with in our travels. Northwin was a naval officer.”

The scene switched to a painting of four men on horseback. “The original four horsemen you see on the Apple Creek logo came from an old painting of Sangerman, Northwin, McAlister, and Brandon riding together, hunting buffalo.”

Alice gasped and pointed at the screen when she recognized Laird Northwin.
 

“You probably guessed where the name came from.” The scene shifted to show a tree with small, red fruit. “Apple Creek was the name of the stream those Indian women were swimming in.”
 

“The founding four decided to keep
Andracia
a secret, keep word from getting out. Control the information. Invite anyone who got infected in as a member of Apple Creek. Members had to swear to keep the secret. They killed anyone who turned them down. I popped back up a hundred years ago. Laird wanted to put me in prison. Franklin wanted to kill me. Robert and I got drunk together. Sam welcomed me back.”

The scene changed to show Northwin in a Civil War uniform, surrounded by hard-looking men with muskets.

“They hunted down my children and the women I had loved. Gave them the choice. Join us or die. Not much of a choice, but even then Apple Creek had the power to enforce it. Sam had Northwin start the Guardians. Former military men who were given the gift in exchange for their service. That being to enforce the rules. Keep the lid on the secret. Kill anyone who found out and would not join up.”
 

“Most of my kids joined Apple Creek.”
 

The scene changed to a headline that read “One of World's Richest Men Talks about Giving Fortune Away.”
 

“Sam was five years older than I. When Sam got close to three hundred years old, he started to change.”
 

Other headlines about Sam Sangerman giving to charity, talking about disbanding Apple Creek, and donating everything to medicine and science faded in and out. “Heck, he’d convinced
me
that Malthus was right. I went back to school and got a string of degrees. Even a doofus like me can do it with enough time. Became a doctor in 1937, then a biochemist in 1978. Studied under Dr. Crane. Hey, I was in no hurry!”

The headlines faded out and were replaced with a picture of a vial of blood.

“Franklin came to see me with a sample of Sam’s blood. Told me Sam had been talking wildly about telling everyone the secret, letting the world know they could live for centuries, free from disease. Suddenly he began saying Malthus was wrong.” The vial of blood shook on the screen.
 

“McAlister and Northwin got real upset. They built this whole organization based on one firm belief. They killed… hell,
we
killed hundreds who refused to join us. Thousands.”

The vial tipped over, and the screen filled with red.
 

“If Malthus was wrong, all that blood was on our hands for no good reason. Lots of blood. Franklin thought there must be a point where the
Andracia
becomes too powerful and it drives the host mad. He thought Sam was at this point. Wanted me to find evidence.”