Magnolia's Code

DeVuo City

"Four apples," Tim Rayland said, looking carefully over the stock of fruit in front of him. "Three bananas, eight pears."

"Will that be all?" the shopkeeper asked sarcastically as he bagged the various morsels that Tim had requested. "Or do I need to include the kitchen sink with that?"

Tim was immediately uncertain with his decision. If the shopkeeper thought he was in the wrong, should he reduce his load? "Uh, well, I...," he stammered, ears turning red.

The shopkeeper snorted, reaching around to the cash register so he could ring Tim up. "That was a joke, boy. I'm guessing you're not much of a socializer."

Tim shrugged, looking down at his scruffy tennis shoes. "I just moved here so I'm not, I'm not really familiar with how things are done."

"Well, boy," the keeper said in his gravelly voice, leaning against the counter, "Welcome to DeVuo City. Home of scavengers and thieves, where no one has enough money to buy even an apple a week. If you're walking home from here, I can almost guarantee you're gonna get mugged carrying that much food."

Tim felt even more embarrassed after that. "No, sir, I brought, I brought my own car." He jerked his thumb at the grubby window, pointing at the single vehicle in the broken down lot.

The shopkeeper raised a bushy gray eyebrow. "You so loaded, why you staying in a place like DeVuo? Oh wait, I got it--you're tryna run away from the law." He scrutinized Tim through squinted eyes. "That's funny, you don't look like the lawbreaker type."

"No!" Tim held up both hands in protest, and the shopkeeper promptly handed him the groceries. He wrestled fruitlessly with the bag handles, trying to get a good hold on them. "No, I'm not a, a lawbreaker, I'm a--"

He stopped, reluctant to tell the store owner why he was really in DeVuo City. But he figured there was no reason why he shouldn't. After all, his profession was certainly more respectable than what the man had originally thought. "I'm an, I'm an archaeology student from the University of California. I'm Tim Rayland. For one of my field assignments, I chose to come to, to Colorado for a year to do some research. I'm trying to write a book." Tim couldn't resist puffing out his chest slightly, because his education was the only thing he allowed himself to brag about.

The shopkeeper peered at him again, an expression of distaste on his face. "Oh, you only came so you could investigate them nearby caves, is that it? That's gotta be the only reason, 'cause someone so famous would hardly come to our humble city for its charm."

Tim didn't know what to say, which happened most of the time anyway. He ended up just staring dumbly at the shopkeeper until the other man threw back his head and let out a derisive laugh. Tim had never met anyone quite so... unnerving. Granted, a lot of things could unnerve Tim, but the local shopkeeper was different; he had an air of... of... something Tim couldn't quite put his finger on. His eyes looked almost haunted.

"Well, boy?" the shopkeeper demanded, snapping Tim out of his reverie. "Are you gonna leave or not? I've got other customers, ya know."

Tim looked around. The only other person in the store was an old lady wrapped in a shawl who was piling cans of kidney beans into her shopping cart. There was no one else in line behind him. "I suppose if you're so, if you're so busy, I may as well leave," he said so the shopkeeper could barely hear him, regretting the words as they left his mouth. He winced at his harsh statement.

The shopkeeper snorted from where he had ducked under the counter to grab something or other. "What do ya know, the rose has thorns. Get outta here, Rosey."

Tim turned and practically dashed out of the shop. He wished he had the courage to apologize, but it seemed he never had enough confidence to go around. As he was pushing the front door open, the shopkeeper called out to him. "Hey, Rosey. A word of advice: if you wanna stay alive to see the next year, don't go pokin' around in those caves. They're too dangerous for the likes of you."

"Thank you for the, for the consideration," Tim replied to the surly shopkeeper. "I'll keep that in, in mind." He pushed his way through the doors, lugging his groceries over to his car.

As he drove back to his apartment, he surveyed the darkening skyline. DeVuo City would never be a town of luxury, to be sure. Poverty drenched the streets like rain in the worse part of town. It looked to Tim like a thriving city had been abandoned and then reluctantly taken up again, but never repaired. He was ashamed to say that he hadn't actually done much research about the place; once he had figured out that there was a huge cavern system just waiting to be explored, Tim had pretty much rushed over as soon as he could get approval from UC's Delegation of Anthropology. He would have to remedy that at some point.

Strictly speaking, UC's fieldwork was supposed to deal with culture and diversity, not underground caverns, but the delegation had made an exception for Tim, who was well on his way to finishing his first book about the culture of ancient communities, and an A plus student at that. In the end, there hadn't even been a debate.

Even though Tim did enjoy writing, and he did want to experience field work, those weren't the only reasons he was in DeVuo City. He'd wanted to get far away from Corona, his hometown, as possible. He couldn't bear to even think about the memories he had there. That was a problem for another day.

Now, there was a whole year ahead of him. He was free to do what he wanted, free to explore and be human and make mistakes and write his book in peace. He would be free to explore the caves--the Magnolia Caverns--at his leisure. Despite himself, and the awful, run-down look of DeVuo City, and thoughts of his hometown, Tim was actually feeling optimistic about all this.

If Tim had known what was going to happen to him in DeVuo City, if he had even an inkling of what he was going to find out, he probably would not be feeling as happy as he was. In fact, he probably would have high-tailed it out of there as fast as he could in his little Honda.

But he didn't. He stayed. And in doing so, he fell right into destiny's hands.