that education is the most powerful tool against the repressive regime that once ruled here and against the tribal wars that once marred the unity of our nation.”
As the bus rolled by, book-toting students dressed in brightly colored patterned shirts and khaki pants smiled and waved at the tourists.
Michelle waved back. “Would it kill you to wave at them?” she asked Joey.
“I don’t give a shit about those fuckers,” said Joey. “Why the fuck would I wave at them?”
“Because it’s a nice thing to do.”
“Fuck that. I didn’t come to be nice to some fuckers I don’t even know. If I wanted to be nice I could have stayed in New Orleans.”
“We need to find a way upriver,” Michelle said suddenly. “That’s where we’ll find Adesina.”
“Yeah,” Joey said with a sigh. “This is the fifth fucking time you’ve told me.”
By the fourth stop, Michelle was beginning to regret going on the bus tour. They’d seen the renowned farmer’s market, the hospital, and the central sports complex. Everywhere they went, people smiled and waved at them. It was as if the entire population of Kongoville was eternally happy. It was downright weird.
And she was feeling oddly jet-lagged, even though they’d skipped the jet. Maybe it was just the muggy afternoon. When they climbed back into the bus, she slumped down into her seat. She would close her eyes for just a minute…
It’s dark in the pit. Nighttime again. She knows that Adesina is near, but she doesn’t want to crawl across the bodies to find her.
“I’m coming,” she says, but she doesn’t know if Adesina can understand her.
“Bubbles.”
How does Adesina know her other name?
“Bubbles.”
She’s confused, and then Adesina is grabbing her arm.
“ Jesus, Bubbles, wake the fuck up.” Joey was shaking her. “We’re here.”
She sat up groggily. “Where?”
“How would I know? Some fucking place or another.”
It was a tomb.
“This is Our Lady of Pain, the people’s martyr,” said the tour guide, once he’d led the group inside. “She is considered a saint by Dr. Nshombo. As you can see, she’s wearing the highest honor our country can bestow: the Golden Hero of the PPA. Sadly, she was murdered by the war criminal Butcher Dagon just a few short hours after receiving the commendation.”
Our Lady of Pain was laid out in a glass coffin. She was dressed in virginal white and there was a large gold medallion around her neck. Her body rested on red satin.
Michelle glanced at the corpse and suspected that it wasn’t an actual body, but a wax figure. But then Our Lady of Pain’s hand moved, and she had to keep herself from jerking backward. She heard a snicker behind her.
“Joey,” she hissed. “Cut that out.”
“No can do, boss. This is too much fun.”
The corpse shot Michelle the finger, and then Our Lady of Pain’s hand dropped back to the crimson satin pallet. Luckily, the rest of the tour was on the other side of the glass casket.
“Don’t do that again,” Michelle whispered. “Ever.”
“You’re no fucking fun at all,” said Joey.
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
The Airplane hummed and shook. Out the window, the ocean was a featureless darkness below them. The flight attendant-a Vietnamese woman who looked about twelve-passed by trying not to stare at the severed human head in the window seat on its cushion of bright green wasps. Bugsy felt the urge to yawn, but with his torso broken down, there was no breath behind it.
Nick, beside him, slapped at Ellen’s arm, pushed up the brim of the nasty swamp-water fedora, and scowled. Bugsy smiled apologetically and drew the stray wasp back into the pile. “Do you have to do that?” Nick asked.
Bugsy re-formed his chest enough to speak, pulling the button-down blue shirt up as he did. Arms, legs, anything below his diaphragm, he left as insects. “It’s way more comfortable,” he said. “These really long flights I get a kink in my back.”
Nick shook his head. “You really don’t care about anybody else, do you?” he said.
“What?”
“Do you know how uncomfortable it makes people when you do that?”
“Jeez, sorry. But do you know how uncomfortable it makes me when I don’t?” Bugsy crossed his arms, bands of wasps making a rough approximation of normal anatomy. “Look, Nick, whatever it is, why don’t you say it, okay?”
“I am saying it. You treat being an ace like it gives you permission to ignore other people. When I drew my ace-”
“No, Nick. No, this isn’t about great power coming with great responsibility, all right? Let’s get down to it. You’re jealous.”
Now Nick crossed his arms. The airplane dropped like an express elevator, then steadied. The fasten seat belts light went on with a chime. “And what exactly is it that I have to be jealous about?”
“Hey, I feel for you,” Bugsy said. “It’s not really like it’s Ellen I’m with when Aliyah and I hook up, but Ellen’s in there someplace. It’s her body, and I know she feels what we’re doing. She’s thinking about you, but whatever. Of the four of us, you’re the only one who never gets any action, and I’m really sorry about that. But I didn’t kill you or Aliyah. I didn’t make the rules about how Ellen’s powers work. And I don’t think-”
“This is crap,” Nick said. “I’m not the jealous one. You are. You hate it that she brought me along and not just your girlfriend’s earring.”
Bugsy felt his annoyance bump up toward anger. The conversation about which artifacts-if either-to bring on the trip to Saigon had been between him and Ellen. That Nick was talking about the details of it meant that once again the two of them had been having internal conversations about him. “All I said was that Aliyah’s earring wouldn’t look out of place, and your hat might.”
“You mean my ‘sad-ass lump of felt and weeds’?” Nick asked, quoting the fight verbatim.
“I just meant that the hat’s been through a lot,” Bugsy said. Some of the wasps started moving around, making little hopping flights, growing agitated. “Ellen’s a very attractive woman, and we’re going to stand out here anyway.”
“And you didn’t want her bringing me back every time you were in the hotel,” Nick said.
“Well, no, actually I didn’t,” Bugsy said. “Matter of fact, I like being with Aliyah. I enjoy her company. I enjoy sex with her on those occasions when Ellen isn’t plopping you on her head the second she walks through the door.”
Nick smiled. Bugsy thought the expression was nastier than usual. “So why don’t you tell me some more about how you’re not jealous.”
Bugsy chuckled because the alternative was to start yelling. He pulled the remaining wasps back in, filling out the arms of his shirt, the legs of his pants. His anger was starting to send them a little too far afield, and unintentionally stinging some poor bastard three rows up wasn’t going to make the trip any better.
“Look-” he began.
“You have a lot to learn about women,” Nick said. “You have a lot to learn about people, for that matter.”
Bugsy didn’t precisely mean to do what he did next. It was like it just happened, his arm moving of its own accord, his fingers closing on the ruined fedora. Nick’s eyes had a moment to widen, and then they were Ellen’s. The storm in her expression was full-on category five.
“Look,” he said, before she could speak, “this isn’t the place for me and him to work out our shit, okay? This is a really unpleasant, complicated set of relationships, and we’re heading for Vietnam with about an inch and a half of legroom each. If you want to kick my ass, wait until we’re on the ground.”
Ellen snatched the fedora back from his hand, but she didn’t put it on. “We will have this conversation again,” she said.
