Where are you man?
Bates stared at the four word subject line. He didn’t need to open the message, that would be all there was, just the subject line, no body. Typical Thomas efficiency. But he liked the italicized verb. Added a touch of urgency. He liked that Thomas was feeling some stress.
And why not. The quarterly call was in less than an hour. And he, David Bates, CTO, had disappeared. That is, disappeared from Thomas’ radar, from the tightly controlled orbit of office, apartment, gym and coffee shop that formed his personal ecosystem.
Where he was was in a coffee shop in Sayulita. The shop was on a corner, open to the street on two sides. The street on one side ran parallel to what the locals grandly called the river – little more than a drainage ditch at this time of year – and followed it a couple of blocks past surf rental shops and grubby food shacks before terminating at the beach. Across the road, on the sandy, shady shoulder overlooking the river, the proprietor had set out a few plastic tables and chairs for customers who preferred their morning coffee al fresco. Bates was sitting at one of these now, sipping a large and surprisingly fine latte. A toasted bagel sat untouched on a plate near his coffee cup, accompanied by a small dish of butter and a sealed single serving pack of strawberry jam.
The other street on which the coffee shop fronted was Avenue de Palmar, according to Google Maps the primary thoroughfare of the town. But here, where it met the river, the road simply gave up. Its cobbled surface stopped short on the sandy river bank, and began again on the opposite shore. At this time of year, when the flow was meagre, vehicular traffic simply carried on, fording the shallow waters until they reached the other side. Pedestrian traffic was accommodated by a singularly low tech footbridge: a flimsy scaffolding of bamboo supporting a few sturdy planks. As Bates watched, scores of people – locals heading to work and school, tourists seeking coffee and breakfast – carefully traversed the twenty foot span.
Where are you man?
Where, indeed. It was uncharacteristic behaviour, he’d be first to admit. He sighed, indulgently, and clicked the reply button.
Skype me.
Thomas was on within ten seconds. Office wall in the background, crisp white button down Oxford shirt, open at the collar, two days worth of carefully groomed beard on his dimpled chin.
Bates smiled as he saw his video feed come online. His pale face, tired but happy. Several days growth of untended blonde beard. Oakleys on his forehead. And in the background: blue sky, palm trees, a sliver of white sand.
Two things: said Thomas in a calm even voice. First, where the fuck are you and second, for Chrissake put up your corporate avatar before we begin the call.
Bates took a slow, savouring sip of his latte, and set the cup carefully back into its saucer which, he noticed, did not match the cup in any way.
Not sure I can do the call, Thom. Seriously.
Thomas pursed his lips for a moment. Not an option, Bates. We need this funding round. Funding needs your report. Ergo, you do the call. Again, where exactly the fuck are you.
Bates sighed. A young man in jeans and stetson splished across the river on an elegant grey stallion, leading three other horses. He walked the horses onto the riverbank just beyond the footbridge, and tethered them in the shade of the huge trees that overhung the river. From there, they’d provide horseback rides to the tourists, along the beach and through the jungle to the hills at the end of the bay.
Mexico. Got a last minute deal. Thought what the hell. Here I am. Check this out. He swivelled the laptop so its camera could capture the young cowboy and his charges. What the fuck, eh?
Bates, in 15 minutes we need to be on a conference call with our VCs. Thom’s voice was the controlled monotone that he adopted when he was doing everything he could to suppress overwhelming anger. They are expecting to hear a quarterly update from our CTO and they are expecting great things. Things you and I were supposed to discuss at a meeting on Friday before you went AWOL.
There’s a couple down here, used to be in software. Sold up, bought a house right on the beach. Know what they do now? They rescue turtle eggs. They dig them out of the sand and take them to this safe space near their house. And when they’re ready, they release them so they can make their way down the sand to the ocean. Pretty cool, huh?
Sorry, Bates, but what the fuck do turtles –
It’s really important that the turtles make their own way to the water – you can’t just pick them up and put them in. They have to make that journey on their own. And it’s crazy. There’s birds circling all over, eyeing them up. They get close to the water, then a wave washes them way back up on shore and they have to start all over again. But they just keep going, and they’re so small, like little grey tanks, but they just keep pushing through…
Bates, again, what the fuck-
Thing about the turtles, only 1 in 1000 make it to the water and live, but those that do live to 150, 200 years old. Some odds, huh?
He let that ride for a couple of beats, and sipped his latte.
Here’s what we’re doing Thomas. We’re switching gears. We’ve been all about health monitoring, right. Now we’re moving into new territory. We’re moving into health control. Listen: these turtles? They live to like 150, 200 years old, right. And science tells me that what they have, we could have. But we need to study at source, the full lifecycle. That’s what I’m doing here. We’re investigating … he paused, put his internal phrase generating machinery to work. …biosourced life extension. We’re on the scene of a genuine fucking scientific breakthrough. Sell that to the VCs. Put that in the fucking funding pipeline. That oughta buy you next three months, maybe six.
Thomas suppressed a small laugh. You asshole. They’ll eat it up. You know they will.
Just leave me be, okay? I’ll be back. But for now, handle the calls. Tell them what you need to, but just leave me be.
As you wish. Happy surfing.
Bates clicked his Skype window down, and folded his laptop closed. He drained his latte, took a bite of his bagel. It was barely nine in the morning, and the heat was already building. It would be eight or nine hours before they released the infant turtles on their nightly quest for the sea. He’d be there again, of course, watching the tiny terrapins flailing across the sand, like a desperate gambler urging his horse to the finish line, knowing the odds were not good, not good at all.
He looked across the road to the riverbank where the giant shaggy trees threw shade across the shallow, dawdling stream. Amigo, he called, you need help with the horses?