Scavenger Hunt Page 6

  “Do you want me to call Mary?”

  Cynthia stared at Rick. He knew how her estranged daughter felt.

  “No. At least… not yet. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  Rick nodded and held her hand tighter.

  “I’m not dying,” she said. “It’s just a fucking blood clot.”

  He stayed by her side through the day, and she loved having him there. Cynthia didn’t let many people get close to her, but Rick was special.

  Just before 4:00, a doctor came to see her. He introduced himself as Doctor Conklin. He asked Cynthia if he should talk to her alone, but she said Rick was staying.

  “Okay, Cynthia. Have you ever had problems with your blood counts before?”

  “What counts? I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Your white blood cells and platelets. They’re dangerously low. You have about 16,000 platelets per microliter of blood. Normal is between 150,000 and 400,000.”

  He paused to let the number sink in.

  Rick asked, “So, what does that mean? Can you pump some more in? Like a transfusion?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that easy. The low counts are a symptom, not the problem. The problem — ”

  Cynthia saw Doctor Conklin stare into her eyes. She knew people inside and out. That was her job. She knew he was trying to make a connection with her, to make the news easier.

  She took a deep breath. “It’s okay. Tell me.”

  “We have to do more tests, but it’s very likely leukemia.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. She looked at her leg, feeling like it was a traitor to her body, but knowing at the same time that was silly. The pain in her calf still shocked her but she knew that was the least of her problems now.

  She felt a million thoughts invading her head, interfering with one another. But one thought surfaced through the chaos more than any other. It was so hard to ask, but finally she did.

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  Doctor Conklin rearranged his eyeglasses. “We need to confirm it’s leukemia… but, really, it almost certainly is. It’s already life-threatening. We need to start you on chemotherapy immediately. Tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Wow,” she said.

  Cynthia looked to Rick and blinked back tears. “Rick?”

  “I’ll never leave your side, Cyn.”

  The doctor made some notes on her chart and asked, “Is there a priest or minister you’d like me to call?”

  That’s when Cynthia burst into tears. Rick leaned over her and hugged her and rubbed her hair and kissed her cheek. She closed her eyes and just concentrated on him holding her. A million years passed while she tried to ignore the pain in her leg and what the doctor had said. She wasn’t going to die. She’d beat this. She’d do the fucking chemo and she’d beat it. She and Rick would get past this and produce the best fucking reality show ever.

  No way she’d let this damned thing win.

  “Rick?”

  “Yes?

  “Call Mary.”

  From The Los Angeles Times:

  REALITY SHOW CAMERAMAN DROWNS

  By Tony Sutherland

  Robert John Bors, 34, drowned yesterday after a bizarre accident off the Galapagos Islands. Bors was a cameraman working on the new reality TV show, SCAVENGER HUNT.

  The show, produced by Cynthia Wright and Rick Sanderson, has contestants working in teams to find specific objects hidden somewhere around the world. One of the items was off the Galapagos Island of Floreana.

  During filming, an accident caused the death of Bors, although details have not been made available. A local investigation ruled the drowning an accident.

  Wright and Sanderson called the death a terrible tragedy in a press release and mentioned that the first episode of the show would be dedicated to Bors. The press release also hinted that further details of the death would be part of the first episode. Television critics are voicing mixed reaction, some calling it a brilliant marketing move while others call it exploitation.

  Bors was unmarried. At press time we were unable to determine any other family. He had worked on several shows before joining with Wright and Sanderson two years ago for Celebrity Dance.

  Funeral arrangements have not been released.

  Cynthia - Los Angeles

  In the twelve hours since the Times story was posted on the newspaper website, Cynthia’s office phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Her voice mailbox could normally store at least 200 messages but it was full and no new messages were allowed.

  Her Gmail account had 482 emails since the story broke, and even her private cell phone had six messages from reporters.

  They all wanted to know one thing: What really happened down there?

  The Times now had two sidebar opinion pieces, on each side of the issue. Neither of them knew what Cynthia actually had planned for dealing with Rob’s death on the show but that didn’t stop them from talking about it.

  She skimmed both op-ed pieces and then went back to the four binders in front of her. There was one binder for each team. Inside each was one page for each hour of the hunt since it started on Sunday night, 74 pages so far.

  Each page had a grid, showing each of the three team members and the camera person. The comments in the grids showed what each person’s forecam had recorded and any significant dialogue or events.

  All the pages were calibrated to Eastern Standard Time, with notes converting to the local time.

  Cynthia and Rick had been mining the binders, highlighting events in yellow that they might want to show in the pilot episode. All episodes would be two hours long, except for the finale and reunion show, which would be three hours.

  Two hours. Of that, the first half hour was pretty much in the can. It was all intro stuff, showing Karen with her Jeopardy-style monitors explaining the rules to the audience, introducing the contestants, and having the players pick their first destination.

  The 90 minutes remaining would be just over an hour of footage. Karen would be conducting four-minute interviews with each team, leaving about 45 minutes of footage to mine from the books.

  Cynthia looked up at Rick. They were both in their private reviewing room. There was a twelve-foot-long table with two chairs. They could spread out and compare timelines on the various binders. Four monitors were ready, to let them see any footage recorded so far.

  Rick’s eyes were downcast, staring at Team Hollywood’s binder. He looked like he was asleep.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Rick snapped his eyes open and smiled. “Sure.” He stretched and walked over to the coffee urn at the end of the table.

  “You still don’t like the opening, do you?”

  He filled his cup. Cynthia watched him. Even though she always had the last word, she liked him to be happy with their shows. He wanted to hold Rob’s death till the end of the show, to build up suspense and ensure everybody stayed to the end.

  “You’re going against all our traditions. We should be saving it.”

  “I know, but my gut says we need to go this way. That Times article will spread like wildfire in the next few days and we’re going to double our viewers. Once they get over the shock of Rob’s death, they won’t go anywhere. They’ll be hooked.

  She stood and walked over and patted his shoulder. She smiled and added, “Don’t forget. The show really is good. We don’t need to be vultures when it comes to Rob.”

  Rick nodded.

  “We need a big ending, though.”

  She laughed. “We’ve got lots of choices.”

  “I’m not sure we do. Brittany slipping in the canyon was tense, but it happened too early. We can’t really hold that back till the end of the show.”

  “Tanya.”

  Rick frowned. “What about her? You mean get an interview of her and ask how she feels about Rob’s death cause he was saving her?”

  Cynthia looked at the clock hanging on the far wall. It was a little after ten o’clock. They’d
been working since they got the call about the accident at the Galapagos, almost 24 hours ago.

  “No. Before. Archival recording from the interviews. The bit about her looking over at Maria. And later.”

  Rick laughed. “You aren’t really going to do that, are you?”

  “It’s who she is.”

  “You want to show Tanya masturbating after fantasizing about her teammate?”

  “She knew she could be filmed at any time. And we have the lie detector tests when we asked how she felt about Maria.”

  “Shit.”

  “Remember. Sex, conflict, and danger. That’s our show.”

  Rick laughed. “It’s sure going to appeal to teenaged boys.”

  “It’ll appeal to everyone. Everyone loves a good sex scene. After that, no viewer will miss the next episode. They’ll want to know if Tanya follows through and hits on Maria. And we might have to help that work out.”

  Chapter 7: Team Harvard

  Susan - Queen Maud Land

  Just looking out the window of the LC-130 made Susan feel cold. They’d left the southern tip of Argentina at 6:00 a.m. and spent an hour over water and now three hours flying over the frozen ice sheets that covered Antarctica. All she could see was ice from the window of the plane.

  Cold, cruel ice.

  Part of her knew it wasn’t really that cold. They’d checked out the weather before leaving Ushuaia. The high at Queen Maud Land would be about minus twenty today. Not nearly as bad as it would be in the Antarctic winter when the temperatures sometimes hit minus ninety.

  But the landscape was bleak. Long stretches of flat bluish snow surprised her. Why blue? Then she’d see miles of snow dunes called sastrugi. It looked like the middle of a desert, but she knew that bitter cold would change that view the second she stepped out of the plane.

  The pilot was now flying over Queen Maud Land. She wouldn’t know one part of Antarctica from the next, but Michael kept leaning over and telling her everything he’d researched on the Internet. He was determined to know everything about their journey.

  Okay by me.

  The dunes were long gone now, replaced again by solid bluish ice.

  “We’ve passed Shackleton Base,” Michael yelled. He had to yell over the roar of the plane to be heard. “Won’t be long now.”

  She smiled at him and nodded. That encouraged him to start talking about the history of Shackleton Base. She nodded every once in a while. After a couple of minutes she put her finger on his lips and then pointed out the window.

  “Why is it blue?”

  “It’s clear, pure water, frozen densely into ice. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Susan watched the ice below them as she felt the engines start to back off. They were flying lower and lower, and she knew the pilot was looking for a place to land.

  She grabbed Michael’s hand as the plane bounced through the air and eventually landed. The LC-130 was an older plane but very reliable.

  She glanced behind to see Joe and Bea staring calmly forward. Actually, Joe was staring right into her eyes. Scared? Surely not Joe.

  Michael was talking about the weather. They’d checked it back in Ushuaia and it all sounded clear, but ice storms could drift in at any time.

  The plane stopped taxiing and became still.

  We’re here.

  Susan still had trouble imagining that they were at the bottom of the world, as far south as it’s possible to go.

  They all put on heavy bright orange jackets and gloves that were fitted for them by the crew.

  Antarctic Tours was the only way to fly to the ice fields from South America. They charged $6,000 for a drop off and a pickup four hours later. The alternative was to hop a freighter that would take days to get to the southern continent, with no guarantee of finding a meteorite.

  The pilot knew where to find them, though. Head for blue ice. The nearest land was almost ten thousand feet straight down through the ice, so any rocks showing on the ice pretty much had to come from space.

  The plane door opened after about ten minutes and they started out. Joe led. Michael followed and then Susan. Bea was last. She wanted her forecam to be able to get an image of the three teammates ahead of her.

  After the first step down, the cold hammered into Susan.

  Fuck.

  The wind bit into her and once it started, it didn’t let up. On very rare occasions, it would get cold in Boston, but it never felt like this.

  She could feel the cold seep into the seams of her clothes. They were made for this weather, so she knew she’d be okay, and after a few minutes on the ground, she realized she was getting used to the cold.

  The sun glared off the ice and it seemed like it should melt it, but of course the temperatures wouldn’t allow it.

  The plane’s engines were off.

  There was no sound other than the crunching sounds of their own movements on the ice. They all stared around them.

  Where the hell do we go now?

  Michael - Queen Maud Land

  Michael Fletcher was born in Connecticut and now lived in Boston. His father was a doctor and medicine was the only profession dear old Dad would pay for.

  That was why Michael was here freezing his butt off in the coldest place on Earth. His share of the prize money would cut the cord to his father once and for all. He hated that he was 23 and still was dependent on his family. His dad was the first black doctor to treat a Connecticut governor. Somehow that meant he had to follow in Dad’s footsteps. Medicine. Specifically, Harvard Medical School. Nothing else would do.

  A third of ten million bucks. Of course, Susan would have a third, too, so between them they could do anything.

  It wasn’t too late to change course. Michael’s true love was paleontology. Dinosaurs. They’d been his secret obsession since he was a kid. He’d imagined finding bones from a brachiosaurus or a triceratops and fitting them together into a skeleton. The ancient reptiles had fascinated him since he watched Jurassic Park when he was six years old.

  He wondered if there’d ever been dinosaurs on Antarctica. Miles below him, below the tons of ice, would there be crushed bones from long-dead raptors?

  Not up here, that’s for sure.

  There was a strong wind blowing toward them, biting into their faces. Michael stood in front of Susan, hoping to offer a bit of protection from the gale.

  Joe and Bea stood a bit off to one side. Joe held his arm up and his GPS device had a red glowing arrow pointing in the direction the wind was coming from. Michael held his own arm up and saw the red arrow pointing in the same direction.

  He stepped forward and was surprised that when his feet didn’t sink into the snow… but of course, it was solid ice, not really snow. He was standing on top of two miles of the densest ice on the planet.

  They walked a few dozen feet before they heard the engine of the plane starting up.

  “Bye-bye,” said Michael.

  For some reason Susan thought that was funny and she laughed.

  The plane rolled across the snow, picking up speed until it could take off. It would be back in four hours. If they weren’t there, it would just take right back off and they’d be stuck overnight.

  “Damn meteorites better not be far,” Michael said under his breath.

  “Come on!” yelled Joe. “No wasting time.”

  They started walking as fast as they could, but the suits were heavy and awkward. Susan was the slowest and Michael matched her speed. Joe and Bea were a bit ahead.

  The mountains were about a half hour away. The Transantarctic Mountains were tall cliffs that rose out from the ground and reached up to the sky.

  The wind bit into Michael’s face, and he wondered how Susan was doing. She kept smiling at him. At least he thought so. She wore a scarf over the bottom part of her face, hiding her mouth.

  They walked. And walked.

  The red arrow on the GPS locator kept pointing in the same direction until they walked an hour and passed through to a conn
ecting valley. The GPS device pointed them to the left.

  No real GPS device worked that way, Michael knew. It would just point to the point they wanted to go like a compass needle. It wouldn’t make sudden shifts like these things did.

  They’re controlled by the producers, he thought. They’re not really GPS devices at all.

  They walked another ten minutes. The valley was like a channel cut through the ice with jagged edges on either side. Most of the sides led to cliffs going up but there were occasional areas that fell off to areas far below.

  The wind blew up from those empty areas, and the valley floor was an ankle-high snowstorm, burning their feet with the biting cold even through their coverings.

  Joe and Bea stopped and waited for Michael and Susan to catch up.

  The GPS signal had changed to green and pointed to the right.

  “We’re close,” Joe said.

  “Damned good thing,” Michael said. “It’s too fucking cold.”

  They moved to the right, down a narrower valley. About a hundred feet away, Michael could see small black rocks about the size of baseballs scattered on the ice. They could only have come from the sky.

  Or from the producers.

  He didn’t care. They counted.

  The wind blew harder. It bit into Michael’s cheeks harder and now he wished he’d listened to Susan and taken a scarf. The black rocks disappeared under the snow and then were uncovered again, like a magic act.

  “Bea and Susan, stay here. We’ll get it,” Michael called.

  He started walking faster and moving alongside Joe before Susan could protest. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there before the wind got even worse. He’d rather look like an over-protective boyfriend than take an extra ten minutes getting the rocks.

  Joe and he almost sprinted toward the meteorites. After months of tryouts and interviews and endless flights to get here, they were finishing their first challenge.

  Almost without warning, the wind turned into a snow storm.

  Michael was blinded by ice crystals in his face. He couldn’t see at all.

  “Joe!”

  He couldn’t hear if Joe answered. He couldn’t even hear his own call for help. The wind had turned into a full blown blizzard.