Preface: Big Trouble in Little Jhina

(note from authors) And thus it begins. The gripping starting of a gripping experience with all kinds of more gripping to come. Enjoy.

Preface: Big Trouble in Little Jhina

“Well Sally, let’s see what kind of trouble we find today,” Vrinko Stroenblantz grumbled to his black ThinkPad laptop as he lifted open the dilapidated sheet metal door to his yurt home. He’d had no visitors for nearly 5 months in his cold, cramped residence, and he had begun talking to his computer, which he affectionately called Sally, out of an instinctual need to connect with someone. Vrinko was a short, portly man with a struggling career as an archeologist, and he’d lately been studying a burial site of nomadic people discovered in the small province of Jhina near the Mongolian border of Siberia. Vrinko did not believe the prevailing theory that climate change had killed off these nomads. Rather, he believed a virus had existed during the Ice Age that caused extreme bouts of diarrhea, leaving its victims dehydrated, immobile, and with a brown streak on the back of their woolly mammoth undies – the proverbial black spot for the ever-near sabretooth tiger. This virus, believed Vrinko, wiped out entire nomadic tribes, and Vrinko was determined to find it.

This theory, however, had made Vrinko the subject of what he considered offensive, vial jokes and puns. There were the annual Christmas gifts of “petrified” caveman doodoo, which he had on good authority were neither petrified nor of caveman origin but were, in fact, both fresh and from local neighborhood dogs. Or the countless laxatives colleagues had slipped in his food and drinks at conferences, often preventing him from presenting or, at a minimum, socializing at such events. But the worst was his nickname, Stinko Blown-pants, which was used so commonly that it even appeared in several archeological peer-reviewed journals. Vrinko often forced himself to pay it no attention – he’d prove them all wrong in the end.

Vrinko, donning a thick red flannel coat and earmuff hat, rode his rugged ATV through the harsh Siberian tundra to the nearby dig site. After nearly six hours of carefully brushing away dirt around the bones and artifacts he’d removed, Vrinko’s chisel hit a hard object different from all the others he had found. “What is this?” Vrinko thought to himself. “Could it be? Is it really?....” Vrinko quickly unearthed the frozen dark brownish green object he’d found. Pulling it out of the ground, Vrinko immediately recognized it. He’d been slipped laxatives enough times to know the distinct ripples from gravity’s pull on human diarrhea. “I’ve found it!” he yelled, holding the sample high above his head while he looked to the sky.  He turned to Sally. “And now we’ll see who’s laughing when I show up to this year’s conference with truckloads of crap!”

Vrinko fiercely typed the sample’s measurements into Sally – weight, size, color, smell, taste, chemical composition. You know. The ushj (usual). “We’ve got to find more!” Vrinko jumped back in the pit where he’d pulled the sample and started digging deeper. “There’s more, Sally. So much more! It’s beautiful. Oh so beautif… And the smell… oh, the smell... This is… hu…. Huuh…. Mhugh! Myuuuuhhh!!!!” Vrinko dry heaved as he stood on mounds of freshly discovered caveman feces. But not even the putrid smell could stop Vrinko. He dug with an increasing vigor as he thought of the impact of his discovery.

Just then, all of Vrinko’s meters surrounding the site started flashing red. “What is it, girl?” Vrinko shouted as he looked back at Sally. Vrinko had placed sensors to monitor methane levels, but until now, they had had nothing to report. “Oh no. Sally.  Sally!!!” Vrinko shouted as he clawed the sides of the pit, trying to an escape like a hamster from a cage.  Just then, a well of trapped methane gas burst out of a small hole, throwing Vrinko backwards and knocking the lit cigarette from his fingers onto the ground. He knew at that moment that doctors’ warnings were no joke. Smoking Kills. With what he imagined would be his first and last heroic act in this life, Vrinko lunged at Sally, barely reaching her and then hurling her through the air, hoping to save the data he’d just uploaded. As Vrinko’s body vaporized in the fiery blast that ensued, he saw the black ThinkPad notebook spinning through the air, out of the impact zone of the cigarette-lit methane inferno. With his last thought, Vrinko muttered to himself, “Fly, you fool!” Vrinko Stroenblantz was dead.

****

Hours later, top Russian authorities combed the area in hazmat suits, searching for clues to the explosion. A young intern approached the Russian Director of Knowledge Containment with a little red phone. “Director Korup, it’s a man from the United States on the phone. What do we tell him?”

“Who?”

“You know, the guy who talks reall well. With the tasty hair.”

“Ok, I’ll talk with him.” In a thick Russian accent, the Director spoke into the red phone. “Hello Sir. How is election going?”

“Couldn’t be better. It’s been tremendous. It’s been the biggest election since th..”

“Ok, good hear. We go now. Bye bye.”

“Wait. Director Corrupt, what was that big, big beautiful explosion in Siberia?”
                “Uh… What explosion?....”

“The tremendous one.”

“Can you be more descriptive, please? In Russia we have many explosions.”

“No, I can’t be more descriptive. I just used every descriptive word I know.”
                “Oh, ok. Yes, I know the one. Big beautiful, tremendous explosion. Right?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Oh yes. Was just accident at Gulag forced mining camp. Only many Gulag workers die. Workers from Mexico, I think. Is all. Nothing worried about.”

“What are citizens of The Beast doing working at Siberian Gulag mining camps? Doesn’t matter… As long as it was only cartel members, I guess it’s a good thing. In that case, thank you for your time. Don’t forget to vote for m..”

Director Korup hung up before the man could finish. Knowledge of a prehistoric diarrhea-causing virus could not get out to the public. Think of the toilet paper shortages. The tanking stock markets. At all costs, it must be kept secret. Nobody could know. Ever.

In the distance, the young intern tripped over a flat, small object. “What’s this?” He looked down at a black ThinkPad laptop computer with the word “Sally” printed on a sticky note stuck to it. “Sally. I bet you’re cold and scared out here by yourself. Don’t worry, Sally. You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’ll take care of you.” Checking to see if anyone noticed, the intern slowly stuffed Sally into his backpack.