Eco Station One

By Edwin Stark

This is the tale of Eduardo Sinnombre, who gets hired by a shady organization to juggle the books of Eco Station One, an ecological research setup located deep in the middle of a tropical rainforest. From day one, Eduardo realizes he’ll be the designated scapegoat that will get the blame if something ever goes wrong. He is also being stalked by the unattractive, scrawny female secretary of the guy who has hired him... and seems to have the hots for him (the lady secretary, not the guy, ahem!)

In Eco Station One, Eduardo meets Mendoza, his soon-to-be nemesis, Harry the genetically enhanced Gorilla, a crazed scientist who believes he’s Moses, the tropical answer to the Three Stooges and a whole bunch of angry Ikawiri Pygmies who are constantly threatening to shoot poor Eduardo with darts coated with an aphrodisiac poison.

Can Eduardo cope with all this? Find out by reading this bizarrely funny novel!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edwin Stark
• Release date: Jan 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458157294

Edwin Stark

Hello, my name's Edwin Stark, and I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. That's South America for the few geographically-challenged ones out there. I suppose that somehow the stork had just stumbled out from a pub while it was delivering me, (it was confused to say the least) and mishandled my humble persona, leaving me stranded in this unlikely place. Having German ancestry, I spoke that language as a toddler, but my Mom had the misconception that I'd fit better here if I spoke Spanish, so that tongue was lost during my growing years. I grew up dreaming crazy tales and was my teacher's pet when it came to composition class—but not in deportment: that was for certain—and as I grew up I tried to get noticed as a writer by submitting to every magazine and writing contest available in my home country. No such luck; the publishing market in Venezuela is utterly locked out: you can only see your words in print if you're already a notorious politician or a TV celebrity. Since I wasn't in the inclination of becoming a serial murderer to achieve notoriousness and get published, the need to rethink the approach to my writing career became a must. Eventually, I decided to switch languages and start writing in English. I was already proficient in that language... but was I good enough to tell stories in that fashion? I then started to write short stories, effectively dumping my native language. I wrote nearly 200 short stories during a period of about eighteen months, slowly learning the nuances of story-telling in another language than your own. I already had the benefit of having the knack of telling a tale; I only had to adjust. 190 of them short tales certainly sucked; 10 were really neat, but the important thing was the learning process. These ten tales eventually made it into Cuentos, the short story collection which became my third book. I succeeded so well in tearing myself apart from Spanish, that almost everyone I meet online says: "I CAN'T BELIEVE ENGLISH ISN'T YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE!" So far, I wrote four books: AI Rebellion, a rather preachy cyberpunk thriller that still shows the struggle of switching languages (and I only recommend people to read it if they're on an archeological mood, as in if they're interested in seeing my progress as a writer), Eco Station One, a very bizarre and funny satire, the aforementioned Cuentos, and The Clayton Chronicles, a rather cookie-cut vampire tale. All these are available for the Kindle reader on Amazon, in paperbacks and all e-book formats in Smashwords.

Book preview

THE AD

My name is Eduardo Sinnombre… and boy, do I have a story to tell you…

Even after all these years, it’s still hard to explain my reasons to accept the job I undertook in Eco Station One. I’ve yet to find someone who really has the required level of perception to understand them.

For starters, I recently had a quarrel with my girlfriend on a topic I’d prefer/rather not discuss here, but it was something akin to the thing that started the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu, and I’d end up looking evil, stupid or both if I dared to try. So I was basically girlfriend-less at the time, to sum it up.

On the other hand, I was actually out of work then, reduced to perform odd jobs on an hourly basis or destajo, as this activity is known in Venezuela, the part of this world where this tale begins. So I had nothing better to do but sit in the park, and leaf through El Universal, the main newspaper in the country. It was then that the offer for an interpreter job nearly jumped at me, printed in a double-page splash.

WANTED

Someone fluent in English language, 18-40, willing to relocate to snake-infested, moldy and rotting rainforest jungle one hour away from anything. Wild West frontier spirit required and must not be easily discouraged by the lack of the modern living luxuries like Internet, electricity, once-in-a-month clothes washing and hot running water.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Must be able to act as a liaison between deranged Ecological Researcher, who sometimes seems to speak in tongues and local hired-hand yokels, and maybe the indigenous Ikawiri pygmies. Arcane book keeping skills preferred.

The rest of the ad was the usual uninteresting mish-mash of Benefits and Pay Thingy. Blah, blah, mid-five figures salary and the reassuring guarantee that the Ikawiri pygmies wouldn’t shrink your head or your dick—this last item was hard to read because a blotch of smeared ink blurred that part—and the applying address.

As I said earlier, I was jobless, womanless and without anything better to do than sit on a typical Plaza Caraqueña park bench, reading the paper and watching life stroll by. Kids were playing cops and robbers with real guns and the air about me was sweating bullets. One buzzed an inch away from my left ear and I absent-mindedly scratched it (my ear, not the bullet) as though it had just been an annoying bug.

I stared intently at the ad.

The interview address was only two blocks away, and easy to reach on foot since I’d only have to tip-toe through a couple of mine fields to get there. Besides, considering my last occupation emasculating houseflies with a jewelers glass—and the most impossible-to-handle tweezers—it sounded like a dream job.

I didn’t know what I was about to face back then. Maybe the skulls and crossbones and the biohazard symbols printed all over the ad should have been a dead give-away.

It was a wanting-to-be-rainy early October morning—you know, the sort of weather that would rain on you if you ever forgot to carry your umbrella along—which was the main thing that prompted me to get my ass off the bench and walk to the address printed in the ad. Of course, being the methodical guy I am, I had my trusty umbrella at hand. I grabbed it and was on my way… and looked like a total fool, strolling around with an umbrella during a sunny day. Clouds surely had an expedient way to get out from sight when it suited them.

THE WAITING ROOM

As I arrived to the indicated address, I noticed a few things early on. The place reeked of money; it was a glitzy building that seemed out of place in the typical demilitarized zone appearance that every section of Caracas City was increasingly gaining with each passing year.

A security guard at the entrance lobby stared at me balefully, as if expecting me to give him a reason good enough to pull his gun and start shooting—just his personal way to say ‘Hi’. I came closer to him, ignoring his squinty eyes and drawing stance that made him look like a character from an old western flick. Come to think of it, the man looked a bit like Yul Brinner in Westworld but clad in a cheap uniform. I showed him the clipped ad and asked for details.

I cleared my throat Excuse me, sir—is this the right place?

He made a non-committal grunt.

Is the job position still open? I asked nicely. Honey could be dripping from my voice. Most probably this armed and dangerous moron was absolutely clueless about what I just said, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

The man made an ambiguous sweep with his right hand, pointing to the elevator.

I shrugged and went there, all the time feeling the guard’s eyes on my back. The man seemed intent to get on my nerves but I wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction.

I pushed the call button and the doors opened immediately. I promptly got in, anxious to put something between the gun-happy guard and me, pressing the twelfth floor button repeatedly. The elevator doors happily obliged this small wish.

The elevator lacked the same ostentatious appearance of the building; it looked a little in shambles and someone had doodled nice and neat pictures of genitals on the walls with a magic marker. The way it was done was almost tasteful and I hoped then that the impromptu creator of this piece of art might consider a career in wallpaper design: it’d be a runaway success.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to an empty hallway.

Following the clipped ad directions, I finally arrived at office 122 and rang the bell.

After a short while, the door opened and a stern looking young woman dramatically came out through it. She glared at me with that horrid look people usually reserve for annoyances. Yes?

The woman would have been attractive if only she didn’t look like she was about to leave this world and promptly visit the next life. She was extremely thin, and her raven-black hair had been spun in a tight, restrained bun. She wore a black, skintight dress that didn’t favor her at all—for sure as she was as feminine as a broomstick with barely protruding hips. The only allowed hint of womanhood was a prim silver necklace that hung limply from her scrawny neck. She looked like death warmed over. Petite in size, she barely reached the height of my shoulder.

I spent several awkward moments in my life but these paled against the extended survey those dark and intense eyes were performing on me. Er, um, I stammered, I’m here about the job.

Oh, sure, great. Good way to start.

She stood at the threshold of the door like some sort of modern day Cerberus. She eyed me up and down, sparing some seconds od her attention on the folded ad I carried in my hand and then released a deep, soulful sigh. She stepped aside, impatiently gesturing me to enter.

Take a seat, she finally said. Her voice, when not restrained to mere monosyllables, resembled chiming, tiny bells. This unexpected quality certainly startled me.

She pointed to a row of plastic seats—you know, the hard, plastic, uncomfortable type you’d find in bus stations and mainly unemployment offices. The kind of chair that makes you regret that you had considered even going there, simply because they’re not molded to your ass. In fact, I think it’s the other way around: I suspect these sort of seats are designed by sadistic chiropractors, intent on molding your ass into some whimsical, arbitrary shape.

There were three seats in all: two already occupied and one ominously empty in the middle. I sat with an apprehensive clutch in my heart.

My two companions didn’t look nervous at all. I admired them.

On the other hand, it’s hard to look anxious in a drugged and dazed state while you seem to wear what amounts to be an Yves Saint Laurent-designed straitjacket. I found this small detail a bit unnerving.

As I waited, my eyes began to cursor over every single element of this small office. It was a small, square room, less than ten feet per side. There were two doors; the one I had entered through and another directly opposite it. This one was an old-fashioned wood and milky-with-dust crystal door and had the unlikely name of Thaddeus T. Barnum enameled over the glass. Below it, a Yellow Post-It note was taped and—in a hurried, ashamed scrawl—it read: ECO STATION ONE JOB INTERVIEWS. 1 P.M – 5 P.M. Your vehicle will be towed.

I strongly felt as if I had landed in the middle of a surreal detective yarn.

Sandwiched between these two entry points, were us lowly applicants and directly in front of us sat our charming custodian, her desk and a grimy file cabinet that had seen better times. It was then that I noticed the woman was intently staring at me, thoroughly examining me over the battered typewriter she was loudly pounding.

I winced—did she just cast a flirty wink at me?

Not that she was ugly at all. Maybe if she gained at least thirty pounds or so, you could find her somewhat attractive. There was a certain Mediterranean quality in her you couldn’t quite put your finger on, making you think about those dusky Sicilian women and their severe, prim librarian attitudes. But the Zorba-The-Greek style isn’t my type, so I ignored her fully.

The door with the unlikely name opened and a haggard-looking obese man poked his head out. His eyes tiredly went over us, the seated applicants. Marina, send in the next one. And with these words, he disappeared and gently shut the door.

The woman then rose from her seat and walked to the guy sitting at my right and groped powerfully at his straightjacket, helping him to his feet. The man staggered drowsily as he walked the short distance and the door closed.

After five silent minutes, some heavy shouting came through the closed door, not even muffled at all by its solidity. A couple of minutes later, the next sounds I heard were languid moans and a soul-piercing scream that was promptly followed by a faraway rotund thud.

I broke into a nervous sweat. And noticed that I had a death grip over the handle of my umbrella; my knuckles were dead white.

The door opened again.

The next applicant, Marina.

The woman rose once more from her chair and quickly closed the distance between us. She grabbed the other guy by the waist of the straightjacket and handled him like a big, heavy duffel bag. I couldn’t help but marvel at her sheer strength.

Another five-minutes-unilateral-shouting match. Seemed Mr. Thaddeus was very fond of that technique. Then the shrill noise of a dentist drill filled the office, fiercely piercing against something hard. The sound of bone crunching followed.

It was such a loud noise that I didn’t notice the creaking sound my umbrella’s handle was making on its own; the extreme strength I was exerting on it was threatening to snap the shaft in half like a pencil. I began to rise from my seat but Marina cast at me a severe and horny glance that froze me in my tracks. I sheepishly sat down again.

The drilling noise subsided and was immediately chased by the throaty buzz of a chainsaw, digging deeply into a soft, wet substance. I gave Marina a long, questioning look but her stern face promptly dissuaded me from both asking and leaving the premises.

Again, that long, falling scream and the violent thud.

The door opened one more time and the fat man with the haggard face showed again.

The next one, Marina.

Marina cast at me another of her dry, horny stares and made me crazily wonder what would be making love to her be like. The idea of jerking with sandpaper was a tad more pleasurable.

I stood up and walked to the open door, ready to face my destiny. My poor umbrella sat despondently next to one of the plastic seats.

THE INTERVIEW

Thaddeus T. Barnum’s office was exactly the spiritual opposite of Marina’s Spartan anteroom. It was the nest of a crazy mountain rat obsessed with papers. Piles of newspapers were haphazardly distributed everywhere and the man’s desk looked dusty and unkempt.

A detail attracted my attention: a big open window ominously dominated the room.

People seen from the height of a twelfth floor tend to resemble busy ants. At least that’s what the prominent sign that hung behind Mr. Thad’s head proudly expressed.

What an odd comment.

Mr. Thaddeus himself smiled in a way that made you think the top of his head would fall off with the slightest breeze. His hands rested on top of the desk blotter, the fingers elaborately intertwined. The man looked like the proverbial canary that ate the cat.

I stood at the door, carefully looking for any trace of the two previous applicants.

Without uttering a single word, Mr. T gestured me to take a seat.

I quickly obliged.

Thaddeus T. Barnum was a rather bulky man. Strongly reminiscent of Casablanca’s Monsieur Ferraro, I nearly expected Peter Lorre to be lurking about. His huge mahogany desk seemed a child’s toy by sheer comparison. As I said earlier, he looked tired, like a man facing an unwanted task and that had been losing sleep over it.

Mr. Thaddeus didn’t ask for a curriculum vitae; he went straight to test my qualifications as an interpreter by carrying the job interview in a bizarre mish-mash of English, Spanish and Spanglish. But I’ll transcript it here in Swahili for your convenience:

So, sir, what makes you think you’re qualified to take the job—I see you brought no resume, he said, a bit irked. With the tip of his fingers, he aimlessly shifted some papers across the desk blotter.

Well, Mr. Barnum, I replied, trying to sound brave and as if I was holding the upper hand on this occasion. I believe that you’re in a up-for-grabs kinda situation here.

To my amazement, he nodded slightly. Mr. T’s smile never abandoned the features of his face. Everything there was smiling: the eyes, the lips, the nose—even his ears, for God’s sake!

You’re an observant fellow, he agreed. Yes, we’re sort of desperate as it is. Maybe it’s better if I fully describe the job and see if you’re still willing afterwards.

He massaged the bridge of his nose and it was the first time his smile faltered. He let out a noisome sight of exasperation; I saw his lips flapper somewhat at its passage.

Your job, if you’re willing to take it, is in Eco Station One—an ecological research lab—to act as a translator between Dr. Farmington and the local crew. You see, Dr. Farmington is a bit of an eccentric and refuses to speak Spanish. The crew likewise.

They refuse to speak English? I broke in, trying to clarify the situation he was describing me.

No, they refuse to speak Spanish, either. In fact, I don’t know what sort of local dialect they speak. Your main task is to smooth out the rough corners between the Good Ole Doc and his workers, Mr. Thaddeus explained. To make matters worse, there’s also the presence of Ikawiri pygmies nearby. They constantly break into Eco One, raiding for Tequila and Playboy magazines.

I raised an eyebrow.

Mr. T must have read my mind for he quickly added, "No, no, the natives don’t goggle at the girly pictures: they actually read the articles and then they eat the magazines with Thousand Island dressing."

My other eyebrow went sympathetically up, perhaps to check on why the first one dallied for so long up there.

"The Ikawiri speak a very corrupt version of their native tongue, highly contaminated by the original Castellano Spaniard conquerors used during colonial times. Mr. T paused and made another long and frustrated sigh. Well, that’s as much as I can tell you; it’s better than nothing at all, since they worship the Giant White Cockroach."

At the time I didn’t comprehend the deep significance of this very peculiar comment.

Nonetheless, he said as he scribbled in a piece of paper that he pushed at me a few seconds later, this will be your yearly salary—and I think that you’ll find it more than satisfactory. You’ll find that you won’t be able to spend it, though, for you’ll be rather stuck there in the middle of a God-forsaken jungle. We’ll be depositing the aforementioned sum in the bank of your preference, on a monthly basis, sharp on the first business day of that given week.

I grabbed the sheet of paper and recoiled when I saw the amount displayed there—the yearly total was more than I could earn even if I worked incessantly for the next twenty years… Obviously, something was very fishy here. I began to sweat slightly and gestured Mr. Barnum to continue his exposition.

Dr. Farmington has a sizeable grant awarded by Mucusoft to study rain forest underground water levels, Mr. T paused, expecting any signal of recognition for the name. Sure, I knew of Mucusoft, developer and distributor of the VenetianBlinds Operating System, bundled with every computer sold in the world. They struck a gold mine when they developed the Vice version of its OS. It’s needless to explain they also owned most of the pharmacological companies specialized in tranquilizers—a single use of their Vice OS was more than enough to cause you a splitting headache and a consequent nervous breakdown.

Mr. Barnum smiled when he noticed I was really aware of the software company’s reputation; making yourself a tight ball on top of a chair—while tightly clutching its sides with your hands—is a surefire signal I knew of it and that I was about to grovel for mercy.

However, the constant communication problems with the workers have stalled the project to a screeching halt, sir, Mr. T continued. We hope to fix that by hiring you.

And there’s not much time, either, he added. A highway is being constructed in the area and the chosen site—Eco Station One—is in its way—I suspect we have a year, eighteen months tops before the project gets forcefully canceled.

Okay, cool, I thought inwardly. But there’s still something you’re no telling me, mister.

Mr. T’s eyes focused sharply on me—and his smile disappeared as if someone had flicked a switch. If his constant grin had me on the tip of my toes, this sudden appearance of such unsmiling features surely made me antsy as hell.

I also expect you to handle the Station’s finances—Dr. Farmington is a bit sloppy with numbers and we expect you to handle (ahem!) them. Can you be very creative with numbers, kind sir?

Aha! Bingo! Here was the crux of the matter. The dead rat I had been smelling all along. His eyes never left me, boring down into my soul.

Well, we don’t want Dr. Farmington to lose his grant, do we? he added. I could do nothing more than silently nod at Mr. Barnum’s final question.

Are you willing to take the position? he asked.

Again, I nodded without saying a word.

Mr. Barnum grinned. Congratulations! he exclaimed. You’re hired. Welcome aboard, son!

Throughout the entire exchange I had my eyes fixed on the open window and people from this height certainly looked like ants. Mr. T had undoubtedly noticed this and had been staring at me during an equal amount of time. He knew that I knew he knew—you sort it out. His smile resurfaced grimly.

I see the window interests you, kind sir, he said as he stood up and got closer to it. He abruptly lowered the windowpane and I heard the latch lock violently. And I believe I can sense what’s in your mind about the previous applicants that didn’t want to tackle the job.

He turned toward me and took two steps forward. All the time while showing his deadly, pearly white teeth. That a man of his bulk could move that way at all was simply amazing.

I didn’t throw them out the window, as you may think, he said while dusting his hands. They jumped on their own volition.

PACKING FOR THE JOB ‘N TRAVELLING THERE

My hasty retreat from Mr. Thaddeus’ office and the subsequent evasive action to avoid Marina’s intense glare made me forget my half-bent umbrella in the anteroom. Of course, as it was to be expected from an early October wanting-to-be-rainy morning, I was caught in a heavy downpour on my way out.

Well, now I had a job that had come right out of the blue and I needed to do the necessary preparations. I went back to the flat I was renting on a minute-by-minute basis in Catia, a borough at the opposite end of the city. Such arrangements were mandatory because the landlady wanted it that way; she came to collect rent every half hour or so, just in case an errant flying bullet hit any of her tenants, God forbid.

There, I packed all my meager belongings in a tote bag and paid the rent I owed for the remainder of the hour. The landlady, a gargantuan woman with a large and black moustache, was pretty saddened to see me go. I was the longest-staying customer she ever had: ten days without ending bullet-ridden.

Good thing that my mortal possessions didn’t amount too much; it would have been murder to carry more than a briefcase to the place that was to be my ultimate destination. It was located at the outskirts of Caucagua, a small town fifty miles away from Caracas and it was necessary the use of six buses, a submarine and a helicopter to reach it. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit here: make it only five buses and a submarine.

As per instructions, I got off from the last bus on Caucagua’s La Encrucijada—Caucagua’s Crossroads for those blissfully unaware of Spanish—and was immediately hit by the hot, sultry atmosphere. Though the location was pretty dusty, the air was thick as hell with the humidity created by a myriad vegetal living beings. I waited immersed in this soupy environment in front of Unicasa, the one and only supermarket that had dared to set an outlet there. I found it all normal in spite of Mr. Barnum’s dreary instructions: La Encrucijada was a seemingly ordinary tourist stop, for all those people that wanted to load up on their brewskies before the final stretch of road on their way toward Higuerote, one of the most popular beach areas in Venezuela.

There is an overpass in front of the Unicasa; the local government was so tired of cleaning up the weekend crashes fashioned there—just because someone wanted to fill their beer quota and decided that a blind turn exiting the highway was a great way to achieve it—that they simply gave up and built it in the end.

I stood there for an hour, contemplating the sloppy manner how some teenagers loaded their father’s Wagoneer with Solera beer cans and anis caña, until what appeared to be a dust devil and a hurricane mixed in the same bag entered the supermarket’s parking lot. I found the witnesses’ constant crossing themselves very unnerving, not to mention the few ones that forked the Evil Eye signal toward me.

From this billowing cloud of dust emerged one of the grimiest Jeeps I had ever seen in my entire life. Local customs would urge anyone encountering this class of dirt on a moving vehicle, to finger-scribble ‘Lavame’ (1) on the available layer of dust, but it seems no one had managed to gather enough gumption to do so on this one.

Very strange.

The car stopped in front of me, raising a dust cloud that immediately began to settle around and particularly on top of me. I choked on it and stifled a few coughs.

A tall, dark stranger sat behind the wheel, all covered in reddish clay dust. Underneath that dusty layer, I could see he wore a mechanic’s overall—but I couldn’t swear on it: the dust coat was so thick it erased all trace of details that could confirm my impressions. The man decidedly had Latino origins; he was scrawny and olive skinned with deep, dark eyes that bore your soul and wore a sinister looking moustache that framed his lower lip in such a way, that he seemed to be constantly pouting over some minor matter. His chin was covered with a grizzled three-day beard. Soon I’d learn that it had been his way to dress up for the occasion and specially greet me.

Mr. Mendoza? I dared to ask this dusty apparition.

He nodded silently, barely acknowledging my presence.

After a long pregnant silence he asked me, Eduardo Sinnnombre?

I nodded, gulping a steely, dusty ball of thick spit down my throat.

That was my first acquaintance with one of Eco Station One’s most important men: Pedro Alfredo Mendoza de la Villahuerta Palomos y Linarez.

I boarded the jeep and Mendoza put the pedal to the metal, raising another billowing cloud of reddish dust after us.

* * *

As soon as we left the supermarket area behind, all semblances of normalcy were equally abandoned. Mendoza took a sharp turn left next to the overpass and then entered the oddest stretch of flat shrubbery I had ever seen in my life. It was the sort of look land would acquire, if it had been bulldozed and then quitted over after being considered a waste of time.

This is the future Caucagua-Higuerote highway, Mendoza explained in Spanish. It was surveyed and started to build sometime around the first Caldera term, but was quickly forgotten by the following ruling government. I could barely understand what he said; the roar of the jeep’s engine was so loud it almost drowned his words

I nodded, after making some quick mental calculations. Aware of how easily our trusted elected officials began and abandoned projects on a whim, whenever their political party just lost a recent election, I calculated that this humongous portion of flat shrubbery had been left to its own fate for the past thirty years or so. The jeep speedily cut a swath through it, simply by trampling the overgrown brushwood. I could see that there were similar tracks of crushed vegetation all over the place. Probably from Mendoza’s previous trips through the area… or surveyor squads renewing their interest in the highway.

But the current government, Mendoza continued as he drove wildly amongst the varied greenery, has restarted its construction because of next year’s oncoming election. Plenty jobs means plenty of votes for them, I guess. He said this last part with a visible sneer.

What is the purpose of Eco Station One? I dared to ask, shouting above the deafening roar of the engine.

Senhor Farmington set up the project twenty years ago, to measure underground water levels and the effect of the highway’s construction on the underlying aquifer.

"Twenty years?" I asked in surprise.

Yeah, he said while grinning. Personally I’d believe anyone living for so long in that jungle, just studying how water levels are affected by a road is a little cuckoo to start with. But wait till you meet him.

* * *

We stopped the car at the bottom of a cliff, at a spot where the long, undergrowth-infested flatland just widened and abruptly ended. I had been wrong