Play@YSDC

"A distress call? From whom? To whom? And what is the location of the coordinates? Have you determined that?"

Milly realizes she has threaded her way to the front of the crowd and may be seeming a bit confrontational.

"Rather than take up everyone's valuable time," she says in a lower and more modulated voice, "Maybe we should discuss this more in depth after the tour. Over coffee, perhaps?"

Chaikovskaya seems stunned by her abruptness. "The co-ordinates are on a particular mountain ... there's to be an expedition to see," Chaikovskaya says. "The distress call isn't addressed to anyone. It seems to be a-an open invitation. It's given by a-a group of people. Perhaps the whole city? It's certainly a 'we', not an 'I'. It's very apologetic about it, almost. And, uh, I don't think it'd be, uh, appropriate if we were to meet and have coffee. I-I'm sorry. V-very busy. Y-yes."

She seems to blush even harder and stares at the floor. Perhaps with more time, Milly might be able to try and persuade her otherwise. The moment the tour ends might be a good time to start.

"Please excuse my impulsiveness, Fraulein," Milly says quietly, "I fear I am sometimes overly enthusiastic." With that, Milly melts back into the tour group. When she can, she drifts over to study the Liltian Tablet in its display case.

"Th-that's quite all right," Chaikovskaya says.

The other tour guide catches everyone's attention by clearing her throat. "Okay, from the start. In 1786, a team of nine explorers within the Kamchatka peninsula noted that no one had gone up one particular mountain. They decided to be the first to reach the top of the peak, with one such member keeping a journal of his exploits. Unfortunately, they were consumed by some bizarre malice that had sunk into one of the valleys that co-existed in the one-mountain dimension and the one-mountain-range dimension, and several ripped each other apart. As one of the explorers was from a noble family, rescuers were sent out after them. One such rescuer was the noble’s brother who, upon feeling the urges within the valley, and seeing the mutilations of the body, was so shaken that he made it his life mission to have the entire mountain declared out-of-bounds. Somehow, he managed to succeed."

The Liltian Tablet appears to be made from a piece of lapis lazuli, smooth on the front side, rough on all of the other sides. It's one inch thick, ruler height and about 2/3rds of a ruler length across. The symbols remind her of astrological star signs but with several differences.

Milly drifts along with the group, paying loose attention to Fraulein Swann's lecture and unable to keep her gaze from drifting to Fraulein Chaikovskaya. She realizes that she is beginning to feel somewhat fatigued and, looking at her watch, realizes that it is already noon.

The lecture ends soon after and she watches the crowd disperse. Chaikovskaya and the tour guide talk to each other briefly for a few moments more before going to head their separate ways.

Milly crosses quickly to Chaikovskaya before she can disappear.

"Pardon, Fraulein," she says, proffering her business card, "Please let me know when and where it would be convenient to continue our discussion." She presses the card into the young woman's hand and turns away.

"Hidden Places?" Chaikovskaya says. "You will be on the expedition with us?"

Milly turns back.

"Oh, of course! I don't know where my mind is lately. I knew I should recognize your name, but I couldn't place it. I was thinking that an epigrapher must be some fusty, fussy librarian-type, but you're so --" Milly blushes, somewhat flustered, "Anyway, I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance, Natasha. May I call you Natasha? I look forward to our closer association. Erm..." Milly decides the best course is to just stop talking.

If she were looking to Natasha to ease the awkwardness of the encounter, it didn't seem to be about to happen. She just stands there, nervously turning the business card over and over between her fingers, looking very focused on the piece of card.

Milly glances at her watch.

"Oh! look at the time. I really must be going... lunch meeting with my business manager." Milly begins to back away. "Almost forgot. Lovely to meet you. I look forward to..."

She walks briskly to the cloakroom to recover her almost-forgotten purchases, then goes out to the taxi stand and gets a cab to the Adlon Kempinski. In her suite, she orders a light lunch and begins to review the materials on the Liltian Tablets and the Kamchatka area. By the time her salad and mineral water arrive, she is no longer thinking about Natasha, but studiously jotting notes in the margins of books.

The book on the Kamchatka Diary is actually a fairly easy read and towards the end it picks up on threads of tension introduced earlier and fans them into a wild blaze. A very disturbing location for a film shoot, if ever she'd seen one. She remembers Carter's cautioning that she should make sure she's in tip-top shape for the expedition ... everyone was expected to increase their physical exercises.

Milly is shaken by the madness of the diary entries. Probably ergotism from the moldy bread and who knows what chemicals might have leached into the water from the volcanic activity. There's also the coincidence(?) of the name of the woman loved by both of the brothers Yasakev: "Irina Chaikovskaya." The same name as the little epigrapher.

Milly moves the furniture back and goes through another Tai Chi Chuan set, energized by its controlled movement and breath discipline. Still, she puts in a call to the Planck Apotheke where she has a pharmacist "friend" who will provide some amphetamines in a prescription bottle. She'll just take them along in case she needs a quick boost, but she won't overuse them, of course. "Jager" agrees to messenger them to her room.

Then she puts in a call to Daniel Carter to let him know she was unable to come to the cameraman interview because she was doing research. She also mentions that she met Natasha Chaikovskaya and read the diary in translation. When will they be ready to discuss the expedition plans?

On the telephone to Carter's office: "I'm sorry, but Carter's unable to come to the phone for the moment. I'm his temp assistant for today and having looked over this appointment book, it appears he has an expedition meeting for the various expedition members for a Saturday brunch ... that'd be in two days time? Oh, do forgive me. I'm Miss Chiang. I'll be sure to have him put a call back through to you as soon as he is able. Is there anything else?"

Milly thanks Miss Chiang and rings off. She composes herself for a brief nap.

When she awakes at 4:00 pm, she goes down to the hotel's fitness center and works on the treadmill as long as she can. Then she has a massage. She returns to her room for a shower and orders a small steak and salad for dinner with a bottle of good wine.

She falls asleep in front of Intolerable Cruelty on the media center. She awakes just after midnight and goes to bed.

The credits of Intolerable Cruelty are just starting to scroll up the wide television flat-screen when Milly is awoken by the sound of her telephone shattering the silence.

Milly starts awake. After a moment, she realizes where she is and answers her phone.

"Milly here. who's calling please?"

"H-Hello? Milly? It's ... it's ... Gemma," says a familiar female voice, trembling with fear and choked back tears. Gemma is a friend from Milly's old social circle when she had first moved to Berlin. Her crazy antics had soon exceeded even Milly's lustful manner - to the extent of getting a 24/7 slave and regularly attending the various sex clubs of Berlin. "P-please, y-you've got to help me. It's Angela ... she ... she's dead!"

"Wait...what? Gemma. Gemma! Slow down, liebling. Slowly now. Angela dead? How? What happened? Where are you? Are you safe?"

Milly's head clears quickly, as she swings into rescue mode.