Papa Lani was a group of wood-frame buildings on two acres northeast of Lahaina in the middle of a half dozen sugarcane fields that had been donated to Maui Whale by a wealthy woman Clay and Nate affectionately referred to as the "Old Broad." The property consisted of six small bungalows that had once been used to board plantation workers but had long since been converted to housing, laboratory, and office space for Clay, Nate, and any assistants, researchers, or film crews who might be working with them for the season. Getting the compound had been a godsend for Maui Whale, given the cost of housing and storage in Lahaina. Clay had named the compound Papa Lani (Hawaiian for "heaven") in honor of their good fortune, but someone had left the gate to heaven open, and from what Nate could tell as he drove in, the angel shit had hit the fan.
Before he even got out of the truck, Nate saw a beat-up green BMW parked in the compound and a trail of papers leading out of the building they used for an office. He snatched a few of them up as he ran across the sand driveway and up the steps into the little bungalow. Inside was chaos: drawers torn out of filing cabinets, toppled racks of cassette tape — the tapes strewn across the room in great streamers — computers overturned, the sides of their cases open, trailing wires. Nate stood among the mess, not really knowing what to do or even what to look at, feeling violated and on the verge of throwing up. Even if nothing was missing, a lifetime of research had been typhooned around the room.
"Oh, Jah's sweet mercy," came a voice from behind him. "This a bit of fuckery most heinous for sure, mon."
Nate spun and dropped into a martial-arts stance, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't know any martial arts and that he had loosed a little-girl shriek in the process. The serpent-haired figure of a gorgon was silhouetted in the doorway, and Nate would have screamed again if the figure hadn't stepped into the light, revealing a lean, bare-chested teenager in surfer shorts and flip-flops, sporting a giant tangle of blond dreadlocks and about six hundred nose rings.
"Cool head main ting, brah, cool head," the kid almost sang. There was pot and steel drums in his voice, bemusement and youth and two joints' worth of separation from the rest of reality.
Nate went from fear to confusion in an instant. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Relax, brah, no make li'dat. Kona and I come help out."
Nate thought he might feel better if he strangled this kid — just a little frustration strangle to vent some of the shock of the wrecked lab, not a full choke — but instead he said, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Kona," the kid said. "Dat boss name Clay hire me for the boats dat day before."
"You're the kid Clay hired to work with us on the boats?"
"Shoots, mon, I just said that? What, you a ninja, brah?"
The kid nodded, his dreads sweeping around his shoulders, and Nate was about to scream at him again when he realized that he was still crouched into his pseudo combat stance and probably looked like a total loon.
He stood up, shrugged, then pretended to stretch his neck and roll his head in a cocky way he'd seen boxers do, as if he had just disarmed a very dangerous enemy or something. "You were supposed to meet Clay down at the dock an hour ago."
"Some rippin' sets North Shore, they be callin' to me this morning." The kid shrugged. What could he do? Rippin' sets had called to him.
Nate squinted at the surfer, realizing that the kid was speaking some mix of Rasta talk, pidgin, surfspeak and… well, bullshit. "Stop talking that way, or you're fired right now."
"So you ichiban big whale kahuna, like Clay say, hey?"
"Yeah," Nate said. "I'm the number-one whale kahuna. You're fired."
"Bummah, mon," The kid said. He shrugged again, turned, and started out the door. "Jah's love to ye, brah. Cool runnings," he sang over his shoulder.
"Wait," Nate said.
The kid spun around, his dreads enveloping his face like a furry octopus attacking a crab. He sputtered a dreadlock out of his mouth and was about to speak.
Quinn held up a finger to signal silence. "Not a word of pidgin, Hawaiian, or Rasta talk, or you're done."
"Okay." The kid waited.
Quinn composed himself and looked around at the mess, then at the kid. "There are papers strewn around all over outside, hanging in the fences, in the bushes. I need you to gather them up and stack them as neatly as you can. Bring them here. Can you do that?"
The kid nodded.
"Excellent. I'm Nathan Quinn." Nate extended his hand to shake.
The kid moved across the room and caught Nate's hand in a powerful grip. The scientist almost winced but instead returned the pressure and tried to smile.
"Pelekekona," said the kid. "Call me Kona."
"Welcome aboard, Kona."
The kid looked around now, looking as if by giving his name he had relinquished some of his power and was suddenly weak, despite the muscles that rippled across his chest and abdomen. "Who did this?"
"No idea." Nate picked up a cassette tape that had been pulled out of the spools and wadded into a bird's nest of brown plastic. "You go get those papers. I'm going to call the police. That a problem?"
Kona shook his head. "Why would it be?"
"No reason. Grab those papers now. Nothing is trash until I look at it, eh?"
"Overstood, brah," Kona said, grinning back at Nate as he headed out into sun. Once outside, he turned and called, "Hey, Kahuna Quinn."
"What?"
"How come them humpies sing like dat?"
"What do you think?" Nate asked, and in the asking there was hope. Despite the fact that the kid was young and irritating and probably stoned, the biologist truly hoped that Kona — unburdened by too much knowledge — would give him the answer. He didn't care where it came from or how it came (and it would still have to be proved); he just wanted to know, which is what set him apart from the hacks, the wannabes, the backstabbers, and the ego jockeys in the field. Nate just wanted to know.
"I think they trying to shout down Babylon, maybe."
"You'll have to explain to me what that means."
"We fix this fuckery, then we fire up a spliff and think over it, brah."
Five hours later Clay came through the door talking. "We got some amazing stuff today, Nate. Some of the best cow/calf stuff I've ever shot." Clay was still so excited he almost skipped into the room.
"Okay," Nate said with a zombielike lack of enthusiasm. He sat in front of his patched-together computer at one of the desks. The office was mostly put back in order, but the open computer case sitting on the desk with wires spread out to a diaspora of refugee drive units told a tale of data gone wild. "Someone broke in. Tore apart the office."
Clay didn't want to be concerned. He had great videotape to edit. Suddenly, looking at the fans and wires, it occurred to him that someone might have broken his editing setup. He whirled around to see his forty-two-inch flat-panel monitor leaning against the wall, a long diagonal crack bisected the glass. "Oh," he said. "Oh, jeez."
Amy walked in smiling, "Nate you won't believe the — " She pulled up, saw Clay staring at his broken monitor, the computer scattered over Nate's desk, files stacked here and there where they shouldn't be. "Oh," she said.
"Someone broke in," Clay said forlornly.
She put her hand on Clay's shoulder. "Today? In broad daylight?"
Nate swiveled around in his chair. "They went through our living quarters, too. The police have already been here." He saw Clay staring at his monitor. "Oh, and that. Sorry, Clay."
"You guys have insurance, right?" Amy said.
Clay didn't look away from his broken monitor. "Dr. Quinn, did you pay the insurance?" Clay called Nate «doctor» only when he wanted to remind him of just how official and absolutely professional they really ought to be.