The Lost City of the South
Chapter 2 - A Friend of Your Father's
The sudden clash of thunder jolted Asami Sato into self awareness in the lush leather seat of the automobile with the dark haired beauty that was Kuvira say tentatively next to her. Her shadowed eyes were gently shut and her strong yet slender arms gloved and folded to allow the fur boa to insulate her neck from the cold. It was already making the archaeologist shiver somewhat, with another crackle of thunder blasting its way through the late night sky with a flash following.
The flare lit up the property the wagon was approaching; tall and sprawling at the top of the hill as they reached the gate. It was grand; illustrious and shrouded in mystery just like the estate it was gatekeeping with a plaque on the left pillar that Asami had only just made out by the time the car pulled up past the iron bars and into the driveway leading upward. She remembered another flash lit up the one word on the plaque, 'Varrick'.
When the car pulled over to the main doorway leading into the house Kuvira smiled, a long and evasive yet certainly sly and seductive grin that signalled that the young and out her depth academic was in for a time at the estate.
Kuvira exited the car first, extending her gloved hand out to take Asami's to lead her indoors quickly. The archaeologist was so far from her comfort zone she was practically tingling with the rush of nerves and the cold swarming around her. Even her late father's estate wasn't nearly as large as Varrick's, she assumed the owner was named Varrick from the plaque at the gate.
"So I'm guessing he has a few yuans lying around" Asami remarked as her hostess pushed the grand wooden door ajar, snapping at the comment with a scolding look.
"You may want to keep comments like those to yourself Miss Sato," Kuvira warned her, a look of certainty in her misty and dark eyes. They entered rather rapidly after that. All in one motion they were suddenly through the threshold and Kuvira was removing her fur and adjusting the straps of her frail and flattering dress. "Mister Varrick has millions in funds and works hard for it. He deserves respect" Kuvira demanded broodingly. By that Asami could already tell that she devoted a huge degree of loyalty to this mysterious millionaire for some reason the young scholar would never find out.
The main hall was vast, vast and huge and spacious and simply grand; like an airstrip with decor. There were statues, busts, sets of armour and ancient swords draping the walls from the door to the very back where the main staircase lay leading to the menagerie of rooms further into the mansion. Asami Sato was in awe, struck by the rustic aesthetic of the hallway and how it was double the size and grandeur of one her father had before he passed. The most unusual thing wasn't the size and over expense of the house, but the fact that every light was switched off; not a single source of glow was to be found anywhere Asami could see. It was as if no one had lived there for months if not years.
"Are you done gawking?" Kuvira was suddenly asked, inquisitive and intrusive, stepping prudently on Asami's figurative toes while she spun around the room identifying all the artifacts that draped the walls. The mysterious woman was already stood by what appeared to be an elevator, her arm running down the metal cage with the velvet black gloves still covering her rather toned arms.
Asami was suddenly caught, stammering her next words while Kuvira tutted, moving her head and stepping into the elevator cage waiting for the guest.
"This way please," she called rather seductively. Asami was nervous, perhaps a little too nervous and it was that that caused her to drag her feet, slowly approaching the cage that looked a little too cramped for liking. The idea of sharing a small space with this well dressed and curvaceous stranger hardly met well with her rationality and cool head. After a second Kuvira snapped again. "Step lively now Miss Sato, Mister Varrick doesn't like to be left waiting."
Who even was the Mister Varrick? And more importantly what could possibly want with a small time and unknown archaeologist named Asami Sato? it was already weird enough to send a woman to fetch her in the middle of the night but even more ludicrous that she supposedly 'came down the chimney'.
Still Asami did as she was told, swallowing her nerves and stepping into the elevator with the, what she has sussed out to be, a member of the CIA, or an ex-member.
Quickly the cage was descending, down and down to the basement as Kuvira was moving her gloved hand all around Asami's chest and face, folding the collar and making the young woman look presentable. She removed the glasses from her face without word and began cleaning them on a hanky she pulled from her bra.
"You will address him as Mister Varrick or 'Sir'," she began, placing the lenses back on the bridge of Asami's nose and then moving back to the blouse, straightening it out and folding the collar a second time. "You will sit only when asked to be seated," she moved to the dark hair, damp from the downpour outside and flat from the lack of caring. She brushed a single strand back into the fold and sorted out the tie behind Asami's head so her hair would look acceptable for the mysterious millionaire. "Keep your sentences short and to the point, are we clear?"
The elevator came to a short and sudden stop, Asmai jerking a little and Kuvira grabbing her by the shoulders, preventing her from falling and all her hard work on the appearance begin for naught. Asami took a breath, nervous as hell again before stepping out on Kuvira's gesture. She ran her own hand through her hair, causing that single strand to escape the whole and drape down her face, making her look cute yet a little rough or at least stressed.
"And relax," she could hear the hostess call behind her. "He doesn't bite. Often" she finished before closing the cage doors to leave the basement through the route she came.
Sato looked around the basement as she had done the hall, again the same aesthetic only this time the walls were covered in older and more rarer pieces and then photographs. Frames of old men, board meetings of the company Asami had deduced Mister Varrick owned only as her eyes trailed along the far wall around the grand fire place she saw a familiar face. Hiroshi Sato; her dead father.
He was everywhere, his smile gracing the frames of iron and wood with many more men and women at parties, meetings, conventions and unveilings. Some showed a few of the earlier models of the cars Future Industries had designed, hell one or two showed Hiroshi and this other man standing shaking hands as the red ribbon was cut before a car Asami herself had designed years ago. Who was the other man?
Just as she thought it she heard a groan behind her; someone stretching as if they were just waking up from a thirteen hour sleep.
She spun on her heels to see it; a man with wild black hair and an even wilder, albeit stupid to some degree moustache and tiny beard clothed in only and loosely tied bright blue bathrobe. She half expected the Mister Varrick to be sat at desk writing something; a check or his memoirs the way Kuvira had alluded to him. But no, he was instead stark naked under a blue bathrobe. Stretching.
"Finest explorer and businessman I've ever met" he grunted as he pulled his entire leg up and around his neck. She was half disgusted and half bewildered, wondering how this man knew her father and how he classed him as an explorer.
"Sorry?" Asami asked on instinct, moving over to the man in the bathrobe
By now he was wrapping the second leg around his neck, like an aged pretzel. "Blackstone Varrick," he introduced himself, extending his foot by means of a handshake. Asami politely declined. Feet just were not a thing in her mind, least of all being offered to take one for a handshake, and she had worked on cars all her life. He was hardly phased. "Pleasure to meet ya Asami." Of course he already knew her name. If he thought so fondly of Hiroshi, and had his basement study littered with photographs of the pair he of course knew of the daughter. she was already seeing the type of person Varrick roughly was. "Care to join me for a little yoga?" He asked mid-grunt again.
She held up her hand again. "Oh no, thank you" she said, turning to look at the only source of light apart from the warmly lit fire; the large wall length and height fish tank. It was marvelous; so high and so wide and filled with all different species that Asami had never had even heard of let alone seen. The only thing that took away from the splendor of it was the grunting from the 'illustrious' Mister Blackstone Varrick behind her. Still she liked his name; his name and his bluntness although he was nothing like Kuvira had described now.
He showed no sign of recognition towards her damp and stressed appearance, nor did he show any interest at her timing. She assumed he would hardly care if she were late or early. It was his house and he would conduct business when he was good and ready.
She guessed that he eventually got stuck in a position when he stopped grunting after a fit of the noises. She was tempted to turn around to see if he was alright, but he already had the matter well in hand.
"Awh crap. Zhu Li!" he shouted to somewhere in the room. As Asami did turn around she saw that a woman, presumably his assistant was already by his side and helping him move his useless legs. Now he wasn't putting in any effort whatsoever, simply allowing his assistant move his body to free him. He looked ridiculous. Ridiculous and completely mad. Suddenly Asami was wondering what she had let herself in for. Was Kuvira being serious by saying he had business to discuss with her?
She tilted her head to look at him on the same level of yaw. "Did you really know my father?" She asked in all seriousness, desperately wanting to know and perhaps a little bit scarred by finding out about another side to her precious father like this. Her eyes told everything the way they glistened with the light reflecting from the fish tank and the thin layer of moisture seeping in from the thought of her father long gone.
"Oh yeah. Met old Hiroshi here in Republic City," he pointed to framed photograph over by a small coffee table near them, a smaller frame with a cast of men and women stood in formation. It was a high school class picture, old and withered from being handed from member to member until finally landing in Varrick's possession. Asami took it in her hands, immediately finding her young father and Varrick beside him, the two of them pulling rather goofy poses for the camera. "Republic Central high, class of '46. We stayed close friends until the end of his days." He let out a blasting laugh mixed in with a thankful cry as Zhu Li pulled him free to relax. "He even dragged me on a few of his crazed and half hunched expeditions." Mister Varrick let out one least drawn out groan as he straightened up with his assistant lingering, ready to help him change. He stood up.
"Crazy as a damn winged lemur old Hiroshi, hell we even found a few one time" he finished.
Asami was too confused; the sudden and somewhat unbelievable revelation that her father had this very close friend who roped him into secret expeditions that she had no idea about all while she was presumably still at university. It was all slightly too much for her to comprehend so quickly and Varrick was being so calm and collected about it. He did call for her especially and Asami had completely forgotten that.
Varrick sighed, remembering Hiroshi himself. "Old Hiroshi spoke of you often Asami. His little archaeologist was going to change the world he always told me."
"That's funny he never mentioned you" Asami sneered, somewhat angry at the man before her for holding different memories and remembering a different man to her, like it was some invasion of her fond memories of her father. She was flustered, unable to imagine her father the way Varrick was describing.
The millionaire simply shook her jeer away, snapping his fingers to signal his assistant to bring forth the changing curtain for him to get dressed appropriately. "Oh he wouldn't! He knew I liked my privacy" he called from behind the curtain
It made her giggle a little inside. So far nothing about Varrick, his house nor his character or activities had pointed to him being a private person. From behind the curtain next she heard him cry, "Zhu Li do the thing!" Such an impatient and forceful man. She could see how he was a millionaire. She decided to just be brash.
"Mister Varrick is there a reason in particular that I'm here? I'm very busy with my work-"
"You mean that expedition to the Eastern Air Temple to recover the Fisherman's Account?" He asked rhetorically, stepping out from the curtain now in a full three piece suit coloured in lush dark and light blues, Zhu Li finishing him off by pumping a spray of cologne to his exposed. He grabbed a cane from a stand nearby.
Asami was completely caught, silent and dumbstruck at how quickly he had found out her shut down plans. Varrick was obviously not only a millionaire but also a man who could acquire anything, including information at the drop of a hat.
She tried to edge out an answer, a comeback if anything to his dismantling of her faux excuse to leave. Blackstone Varrick simply smiled at her, swinging his cane dapperly around with the flick of his wrist. He moved over to the fireplace to pour himself a drink, her too, muttering a he walked. "Look on the table Asami, by the fish."
There was a package sat neatly on the small and round table next to a lamp and a picture of Hiroshi on his own, as if Varrick had taken it. The package was thick and somewhat heavy, the distinct feeling of a hardback that Asami knew all too well from her life in the classroom and then the library and the museum. The wrappings were brown paper, old and bound in string as if it had been left from another century with the words, 'For My Princess, Change the World -Hiroshi' printed clearly in her father's dead handwriting. It couldn't be. It's not possible.
Removing the paper wraps she was trembling, excitement and caution tingling their way down her hands as she untied the string and let the paper fall back to the table to reveal the roughly bound and age old book; The Fisherman's Account. It was in her hands, its binding rubbing up against her trembling palms and her slender and shocked fingers were running their way across the face, rubbing the wave pattern that represented the South etched in.
"I don't believe it," she mouthed, completely gobsmacked as Varrick made his way toward her with two glasses of brandy, refusing to leave his guest without a drink to entertain her. She lowered the book, struggling to tear her eyes away from its beauty and rarity. The rarest book in the history of the world. "This is the Fisherman's Account" she confirmed, her glasses practically teetering off of the tip of her nose when he pushed the brandy glass to her. She immediately set it on the table as he took a large gulp. He grunted afterwards.
"Mind blowing right?!" He yelled as the brand slid it's way down his throat. He cackled afterwards, making himself hysterical as she ran her fingers over the face again. "But I wasn't born yesterday Sato" he began. She was having no doubts in her mind about it.
"Mister Varrick, there are coordinates in here, diagrams, pictures, etchings," she rolled off as she quickly flicked through the rough and sometimes torn pages, taking in as much little information as she could before her mind would explode from excitement; the prospect that she was right and the South Pole existed.
Varrick had his eyes closed, taking another gulp before replying with a grunty, "It looks like gibberish to me kiddo" he lured her in.
"That's because it's in a dialect and glyphs that haven't been seen for thousands of years. But I can understand it." She finished that least part rather rushed and there headstrong, really pouring her heart an knowledge into convincing him that it was the genuine article and that she could indeed understand every syllable roughly that was transcribed.
Still Varrick was baiting her. He wanted more, a more convincing argument that she was the woman for the job; and she didn't even know he was doing it.
With a huff he turned around back to face the fireplace, taking a least sip and then gesturing for his assistant to refill his glass with more brandy. "It's probably a fake then" he jeered behind a smile he held to himself where she couldn't see.
Preposterous. No way was the book a fake. She was having none of his nonsensical remarks. "Mister Varrick, Sir. My father would have known if this book were a fake. He would know instantly because he knew how much it meant me, me and him. Hell I would know if it were fake!" She balled. He said nothing, he already had her.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I would know. I will stake everything I have on this book being the one hundred percent genuine article. I would even stake my damn cat!"
He smiled more excitedly, turning around to let her see, having been convinced, now was the pitch. "Alright then. So what do you want to do with it?" He asked, continuing with the bombardment of questions to judge her.
"I'll get funding" she snapped instantly, swaying a little as the thoughts rolled from her mind to her mouth without going through her logic filter.
"The museum will never believe you. Hell no one will Sato" Varrick countered, halting that line of thought and walking past her closer to the fish tank. She stammered slightly, thinking of where to go next. She was running out of rope of thought and just began saying what she wanted to do really, deep down in her heart.
"I will show them. I will make them believe me."
"Like you did today?" He asked sarcastically, the smile not faltering from his mouth as he flicked out the cane and twiddled with his short moustache.
She was halted yet again but there was no stopping her now. She wanted the book, wanted the chance to go on that expedition to find the city. To prove her father right. To prove herself right and most of all to prove that she could actually do it; find the damn place.
"It doesn't matter. Varrick I will find the South on my own if I have to. I will rent a goddamned rowboat!" She shouted at him again, expecting him to finally take her down a notch and calm her down by saying a flat negative. Instead he stood before her nodding his head and clapping slowly, smiling the whole time because she had done it. She had convinced him that she should be the one to go, that she was her father's daughter and she was worthy to find the city and the boon lying inside.
"Well done kiddo," he muttered fairly quietly, finishing his small applaud and taking a seat in the chair ready to catch him. "This is exactly what I wanted to hear tonight." He spun the chair around, now sitting at a rather elongated slab table with a single button where he was sitting. "But forget about the rowboat kid" he sniggered, pressing the button with his crazed finger to raise a full diorama of vehicles from the table. A colossal submarine clad in blue and sprawling out the length of the table roughly accompanied with smaller trucks, oil tankers, lorries, smaller one-manned subs and then slightly larger ones for squad deployment. He knew that if the city existed at all, like Asami knew, it would be under the continent that was the South which meant diving for it.
"We'll travel in style" he finished rather proudly, looking over his model fleet.
Asami was now confused. True the book had been found by her father and being his supposed 'closest' friend it therefore went to Varrick until this fateful night but why he fund the entire expedition on the word of a single book and a good friend was beyond her.
"But why?" She simply asked.
He got up, walking back to the fireplace to gaze at the wall of memories of he and Hiroshi, looking fondly and remembering each and every one of them. Asami joined him, spotting a few that she liked; the high school and university days then the club gatherings, the pair of them working on vehicles and playing chess. It was nice collection of tiny infinites that she never knew about. Maybe if she did it may have been different as he was passing.
"For years your daddy chewed my ear about stories about that damn book, saying it was real and he was close to finding where it was. I never believed it for a second like the rest. So finally I made a bet with old coot," he pointed to one specific photograph on the wall with his cane. It was him and Hiroshi shaking hands with money in a small bowl.
"I said to him 'Hiroshi, if you ever find that blasted book not only will I fund the entire expedition I'll kiss you square on the mouth," he moved to another photo frame on the wall, pointing again with his cane for Asami to see Varrick and her father recovering from what was most definitely a kiss; the Account in Hiroshi's clutches. "Imagine my embarrassment when he found the damn thing."
Asami laughed a little, realising that with the combined photographs on the wall and the personality of her father in Varrick's stories that they were real, as real as her memories of trips to the beach and camping trips in the mountain range as a little girl.
Varrick walked back to her, placing his hand on her shoulder to comfort the obvious sorrow in her eyes from remembering her dad too much. "Now I know he's gone kiddo. But Blackstone Varrick is nothing but a man of his word." His hand was suddenly gone as he extended his cane arm out toward the largest frame; the most heartfelt and warm picture of the two friends together shaking hands and looking toward the camera.
"You hear that Sato? Varrick's coming to the afterlife with a clear conscience by thunder!" He yelled at Hiroshi with a laugh on the edge of his proclamation. After the outburst he returned to a calmed mind, looking into the fire. "Your father was a damn great man kiddo. You probably don't realise just how great really," he began again, slight bitterness on the horizon and Asami knew full well why. Like she Varrick obviously held the immortalised belief that he was a good man, and that his missteps with the law were the result of the company really. It wasn't fair that he had to go with the reputation he had. He should have died a martyr for technology and innovation as he was his entire life. Varrick didn't need to go on, she already knew he was deeply saddened by the bureaucrats and penny-pinchers.
He spun around, drying the tears from his eyes and shaking his cane about. "What are we standing around for girl? We've got work to do" he told her, his assistant Zhu Li returning to him with a stack of files and setting them on the table.
"But Mister Varrick we'll need a crew" Asami petitioned as he spread apart the files.
"Taken care of" he snapped in counter as she peered in to see the faces of her new crew. A Doctor, an Engineer, a Geologist, a Demolitions Expert, a Communications Specialist and hell even a Chef.
From front to back he read off the names he'd worked with before, not stopping for a breath. "Doctor Suyin Beifong and her daughter Opal; sawbones and tinkerer, they look after the crew and the metal, good women. Don't let Opal's age fool you, she can work her way through a wagon in almost ten minutes.
"Bolin Montoliere, geology and excavation. Whatever you do don't ask him about dirt he'll talk all day," he move on, not stopping to check she was looking. "P'Li, demo expert; busted her out of a frozen prison one time, it was fun. They're the same team who brought the book back with your father" he divulged.
"Where was it?" She asked instinctively, just to find out if she was right from her morning pitch to the heads and hats in her 'office'.
He slammed a final picture on top of the files, one of all of the crew with Kuvira, Hiroshi and one more butch and tall man who Asami doubt she would ever know. "The Eastern Air Temple" Varrik exclaimed. Just as she had deduced.
"I knew it!" She leaped, correct as usual and celebrating it.
"Now all we need is an expert in the legend" Varrick told her, Zhu Li standing near them with a large mariner's coat ready for Asami to take headlong. The young archaeologist looked at the assistant and back to Varrick, wondering if all of it was real and it was actually about happen. If she was really about to leave to find the city she had dreamed of for years. Varrick's eyes told her it was and that he wouldn't take no for an answer.
"The Lost City of the South is waiting Asami. What D'ya say?"
She took the coat, putting her hands down the sleeves oppositely, tugging it on backwards and not caring, nearly exasperated by the excitement. "I'm your girl Mister Varrick," she beamed. "I'm so excited I can't even hold it in" she gleamed.
She was right. A week later she couldn't hold it in. The carrots were being chundered off of the deck as the ship ploughed through the main body of ocean towards the South, the city closer now than it had ever been.
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