“Two days. I was coming from somewhere else, so the team was supposed to join me the next day.” She stopped, her fingers making anxious patterns on her kneecap. “Do you think that’s what happened? They couldn’t find a boat, just like I almost couldn’t, and so they decided to hike? And the terrorists found them?”
I took a deep breath, trying to judge whether she wanted the truth or not, but as always, I decided reality was better than sugarcoating anything. There would be no use in telling her lies just to make her feel better. Not now, alone on an island. Hopefully, she wouldn’t fall apart.
“Yes, probably. Although they probably would have found them even if they’d taken a boat. There was a reason the fishermen were nervous and wouldn’t take you.”
Ashley sniffed, then nodded, passing the back of her hand over her eyes.
“Maybe if they’d come with me a few days earlier—”
“But they didn’t.” I knew I’d cut her off roughly, but we didn’t have time for fate-based guessing games. They only ended in grief and self-recrimination. “It happened the way it happened. There is no way to change it.”
Those wide, green eyes stared at me for a minute. Then she nodded, wiping at her nose and eyes again.
“So, the findings?” I prompted again.
“Right.” Her voice was still rough, but she swallowed, and it cleared. “You already heard most of the basics—most sea life avoided the damaged cables outright, which threw off their normal migration patterns enough to be noticeable. But those that didn’t seemed to lose their way, like the crabs in Scotland.”
“Crabs in Scotland?” I felt my own eyebrows inching up.
She explained about a study published recently that found the underwater Internet cables off the coast of Scotland affected the local crab population and how she’d realized something similar was happening here.
“I didn’t know what it meant then, but I do now.” Her sigh lifted her shoulders, then dropped them down again. “It was all very concerning, but what really made me nervous, what made me decide to leave the research station, was the radiation.”
Her head came up, and she looked me in the eye.
“What do you think it means?”
“Besides the fact that they’re messing with the Internet lines that control the nuclear power plants?” I scratched my head, wishing my mind wasn’t reaching for the conclusion it was. “What did you say the counts were?”
Ashley told me, and then I was more than sure.
“If I had to guess, I imagine they’re going to release some kind of chemical warfare on Hokkaido and then the Kuril Islands, so no one is sure who did what. I can’t see a better way to start a world war.”
There was silence again as we both contemplated the terrible implications, then my gaze flicked to Ashley as she moved. She was staring at her hand, trying to pick off the grass stuck to the pear juice remnants.
“Come on. Let’s get cleaned up. We aren’t going to get anywhere thinking instead of doing.”
I stood up and held out my hand to her, which she took to let me haul her up. Then we made our way down to the pool beneath the waterfall. If it wasn’t entirely crystal clear, at least the waterfall would help clean us off.
Despite how serious our conversation was, Ashley playfully splashed me once we’d washed off. Oddly enough, I gave in to the silliness of the moment and splashed back. From splashing, we found ourselves wrapped up in each other’s arms, Ashley shivering with cold, both of us breathing heavily from the exertion.
And then Ashley began to cry.