Jess looked uncertainly at the two identical dentists' chairs and wire helmet combinations. "Do Cocos really use dentists' chairs?" she asked Steve.
Steve ignored her. "Jess Smith," he said loudly, "I would like you to meet my dear friend: Bob."
He gestured grandly at a Blue Kacheek standing behind him – Bob.
"Yo, dude," he greeted her. Steve coughed. "Dudette," Bob corrected himself.
"Hi," Jess smiled at the Kacheek. "This is a rather unusual place to learn about Sacrificers, don't you think, Steve?" Her words sounded suspicious but the manner in which she said them, and the manner in which she stood, and her manner in general made her seem rather gullible.
"Jess Smith," Steve repeated. "What do you think will happen to you when you die?"
"I hope I have eighty years to think about it," Jess told him. "This isn't another of your -"
"Why wait eighty years?" Steve asked her. "Why not know now?"
"Because I don't want to die right now," Jess informed him. "Now, this isn't your let's-make-Jess-religious arguments, is it?"
Steve smiled. "I told you you should meet my god."
"And how will a wire-covered helmet and a dentists' chair achieve that, exactly?" Jess asked.
"Why not see?" Steve grinned. "It won't harm you." Eh, well, that was technically true.
Jess hesitated. "I'd rather not, but thank you for the offer all the same."
"Your Uni, then," Steve said levelly. "She wouldn't come to any harm, either."
"What about Bob?" Jess suggested.
"Yo, dudette, you need my permission to do that, yo," Bob called out. Jess rolled her eyes.
"Fine!" she said loudly. "I'll talk to your stupid god. How about that?"
Steve smiled and before long, Jess was sitting comfortably on the chair, with a helmet of wires over her head. Jess watched Steve as he pulled a red lever.
Jess sat in the chair patiently, willing something to happen. Nothing did, except for the pretty blue lights that came out of nowhere and started circling the room. "Your god isn't very talkative," she commented.
"Why isn't it working?" Steve asked furiously.
"Maybe he's like all the others," Jess suggested. "Not real. Devised as an explanation to rather easily explained things like why we have day and night, or the seasons. Things like that."
Steve glared at the girl. "It must work," he declared adamantly.
"Look, saying it will work doesn't get you anywhere, you know -"
"Silence!" Steve yelled. "You are not accepting contact."
"Not accepting contact?" Jess asked in disbelief. "How am I supposed to accept contact? Open my mind?"
"Well... yes!"
Jess laughed. "I've never gone in for faith," she told the teenager. "Or, as it happens, lowering my guard."
It was then that Jess took a casual glance at her arms and noticed that they were bound to the chair by metal restraints.
"I don't believe it!" she declared. "I lowered my guard!"
Blanche felt it was about time she let her presence be known. "What," she demanded to Steve, "do you plan to do with her?"
"She is a reject," Steve announced. "That must be the reason."
Blanche rolled her eyes. "That wasn't the question, you know."
"Pango believes this girl will hinder our efforts," Steve declared ominously.
"So let me go," Jess suggested quite reasonably.
"She will hinder our efforts," Steve repeated, "in such a way that I am left with no choice."
"Of course you have a choice!" Jess insisted from under the helmet of wires.
"I don't," Steve insisted. "You must die."
"That's the third time this morning!" Jess groaned. "I'm starting to think everyone hates me! I'm really hating that Pango Pango dude now..."
"Pango Pango?" Steve demanded angrily.
"Yes, Pango Pango," Jess rolled her eyes.
"Such a name is forbidden!" Steve declared. "It is used only by ignorants who do not understand our cause!"
"Maybe that's why they're called ignorants," Jess suggested helpfully.
"Be quiet!" Steve shouted. "Maybe I do have a choice, after all..."
"Glad you see it," Jess sighed. "Now will you let me go?"
In response, Steve pushed a lever on the panel back up. The restraints slid away. "You may go," Steve told her.
Jess grinned. "Excellent," she stated. "Always knew you'd find a way. Come on, Blanche."
Jess strode towards the gaping hole in the wall confidently, pausing only when she noticed Blanche wasn't following her. She turned around, noticing that Steve was quite firmly holding her back with two arms around her neck.
"Now, come on." Jess put a hand on her hip. "Blanche wasn't a reject, as far as I remember."
"We said you could go," Steve hissed, "we did not mention your Uni."
Blanche stomped around a bit and flapped her wings ineffectually. "Let me go," she said quietly – but perfectly clearly.
"But you will serve a purpose, my dear," Steve said smugly.
"I won't serve any purpose I don't want to," Blanche declared adamantly.
"Admirable certainty, madam – if wrongly placed. You will serve the purpose."
"What purpose?" Jess demanded.
"You'll find out when the time comes," Steve smiled at the twelve-year-old condescendingly. "Now go. You might find yourself unnecessarily distressed."
Jess stared at Blanche's pleading eyes, Steve's angry, defiant ones and Bob's entirely, eternally confused ones.
"Sorry, Blanche," Jess whispered. "I'll save you. I will. I just don't know how yet." On that note, she fled.
Blanche swallowed her rage. Jess had a plan, she reasoned. Jess never did anything important without a plan.
Well, yes, actually, another part of Blanche's mind contributed, she did.
Blanche hoped that wasn't the case this time.
Before Jess even exited the cave she felt guilty. She didn't have a plan, of course – how unfortunately common it seemed when dealing with matters of life and death! - and her main idea was to find someone who wasn't a fervent believer in Pango and persuade them to help her.
Not a very good plan, I know.
Her entire plan changed when Jess's attention was stolen by a large monolith next to the cave mouth. Ignoring the semi-circle of smaller monoliths that surrounded the large, undoubtedly main one, she strode right up to the main one and peered at the words Blanche hadn't made heads or tails of.
Jess made head and tails of it.
"The gods," Jess read out. "Mumbo Pango and Pango Pango." She then read the subtitle. "And their relation to Coco history."
Jess was immediately intrigued. She hadn't realised, being an ignorant and all, that there were two Island gods. And besides that, Coco history wasn't heavily popularised.
"Coco technology reached its zenith eighteen thousand years ago," Jess read aloud, figuring there was no one there to complain. "Two thousand years before, there were two main, very different, tribes of Coco – the Pango tribe, which got its power through intelligence, and the Mumbo tribe, which got its through military strength.
"The leaders of the two tribes, psychic of course, predicted the sudden collapse of everything. They withdrew from existence into another dimension, from which they governed a newly combined civilisation.
"For a while, it was all good. The Cocos benefited from both intelligence and military superiority, and the minor Coco tribes – such as the Dangen and the Handra – were wiped out. From 20,000BN to 18,000BN, Mumbo and Pango slowly changed from leaders to gods.
"From 18,500BN to 18,000BN, Mumbo slowly began to think that Pango was dominating rule of the Cocos. Mumbo used his status as military ruler to turn the armies of Mystery Island on the civilisation. Pango did his best to protect the population, but the number of Cocos was halved."
Jess paused as she reached this moment in Coco history. If Kayandri wanted her to assist the Cocos escape Mumbo's massacre, he was a little off with the timing – eighteen thousand years off, in fact. There must be something else.
"The Cocos that lived never forgot their god's treachery. As such, the words Mumbo and Pango stopped being a reference to their old tribes and their skills, and instead they meant "Evil" and "Good". The gods themselves were renamed Mumbo Pango and Pango Pango – the latter Pango not meaning "Good", but "God".
"At around 17,500BN, it is believed a Cult of Mumbo started. Sufficiently after the events that caused Mumbo's disgrace, the Cult of Mumbo made contact with Mumbo and told the disgraced leader that they believed the massacre a plot of a power-crazed Pango. It is believed this Cult thrived for fifteen thousand years, though there is no mention of them, except in historical references, after 1,000BN.
"It is written in some several-millennia-old Cult texts that Mumbo would one day return to Mystery Island, bringing rewards to his loyal followers and ultimate doom to those who would not submit."
Jess frowned and glared at the stone. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," she muttered. "That does not sound good at all. In fact," she added, "it sounds like precisely the sort of thing I'm supposed to be solving."
She sighed, guessing that Blanche would temporarily have to wait. Ultimate doom sounded a lot worse than the misery of one Uni – even if it was her Uni.