Convinced that you have been wasting your time, and having found no other exits out of the lava tube, you decide that the sensible thing to do is backtrack down to the entrance. If the Wobans are still there when you get back, then you'll just have to wait for them to leave.


Therefore you turn to follow the little stream back down the angled cave, feeling a little bit like you are walking down an overgrown waterslide in an amusement park. The flow is little more than a trickle at first, but as you pass through the tunnel a second time you notice small seeps at various spots along the wall where additional rivulets are adding to the volume of the stream. In places, the running water fans out into an apron of moisture running down the slanted floor of the lava tube.


What you fail to appreciate is that some of this wet rock can be slippery, especially when you are walking downhill. On one patch of smooth rock, your Vibram soles fail you, sending you on a wild butt-slide down for a distance of about twenty feet. The flashlight flies out of your hands as you try unsuccessfully to stop yourself, but there is nothing you can grab onto. You come to an inelegant stop in the gravel bar at the bottom, unharmed except for a few scrapes on your legs and the palm of your hands, as well as a wet behind.


The plastic flashlight has come to rest in a pool of water, its light gone out. But you are not in the dark. You look up and see someone is standing over you, the light of their headlamp illuminating the scene of your embarrassing fall.


"You look lost," the person says — a woman, her familiar voice distorted by the reverberation off the rock walls. "I would have expected someone with your reputation to be more sure-footed."


The headlamp is blinding you, and the echoes are distracting, but you would recognize Meredith's voice anywhere.


"What the hell are you doing here?" you say. "And why did you take my stuff?"


Instead of responding to you directly, Meredith extends her hand to help you up. When you are standing beside her, she says, "Oh, right, the headlamp." She takes it off and holds it in her hand so that you can see her without being blinded by the light. Yet again she has changed her wardrobe; instead of a dress suit or a bikini, she is now clad in a khaki shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, with a white pith helmet to top it all off. The air about her is heavy with the smell of a scented bug spray. She looks like a model from an old Banana Republic catalog, before that chain went downhill.


"I've been looking for you," she says. "I knew you'd be the only person who'd understand!"


You notice she's wearing your brand-new backpack, holding your brand-new headlamp in one hand and your brand-new trekking poles in the other.


"Funny, Berringer asked me to keep an eye out for you, too. He even gave me a gun to use in case I found you."


Her eyes widen in alarm at the news. "You don't plan to shoot me and take me back to Walter, do you?"


"We'll have to see," you say. No, you don't plan to shoot her, but she's not exactly someone towards whom you feel much warmth at the moment, though.


"The last thing I want to be is one of his trophies. You saw the way he treated me, right? You know I had to get away from him."


Meredith is trying to play on your sympathies. You remember well the remark that Berringer made back on the yacht last night, when he boasted that he had "acquired" her and that she was too dumb to realize it. So she may have a point. Still, something doesn't add up; why bail on Berringer here, when she could have slipped away at any time she wanted back in Boston?


"So why were following me up this lava tube?" you say. "You got yourself off the boat, you could go anywhere you want. What do you need me for?"


"Because you're probably the only two-eyed person on this island who knows what they're doing. I stand a better chance getting out of here alive with you than I do on my own."


"I usually work alone. And besides, I'm not overly fond of people who steal my stuff right out of my cabin while I'm sleeping."


"Ah, yes, your stuff. Well, I won't insult you with an apology; you know as well as I do that the rules of our little game don't reward morality. But I'll make you a deal: you can have your 'stuff' back if you let me come with you."


"And if I don't?"


"I hardly see how that would even be a valid option," Meredith says. "Would you really just leave me here alone on an island full of cannibals, just because your pride was wounded? I mean, come on here. Let's be adults."


__________________________________________________

You leave her.

"Just watch me," you say. "With the money I plan to make off this gig, I can afford to replace everything you stole twenty times over."


Meredith genuinely looks hurt. "Is that the way you really feel about it?"


"I'm afraid so. I've been cursing your name all day long, and now that you're here, my blood is boiling."


"I guess I was so eager to get off that effing yacht that I never stopped to think who I was hurting," she says. "You are a skilled survivor; I figured you'd get by with some parachute cord and a roll of duct tape. I had nothing. That was how I rationalized it when I snuck into your cabin this morning."


"Well you can keep the pack," you say. "Don't say I never gave you anything."


You push past Meredith so that you can continue the trek down the lava tube on your own. Berringer will be upset that you're just letting her go, but he must know that you're neither an assassin nor a bounty hunter. You'll find the Stone of Vul-Kar for him, but he'll have to hire somebody else to be his avenger.


"Wait! Let me at least give you this!"


Her voice sounds wounded, so you turn back towards her so that you can at least have the satisfaction of seeing her hurt expression. But what you see instead takes you by complete surprise: a woman with grim determination, pointing a gun straight at you.


"Meredith, wh—" you start to say as the gun flashes and the shot echoes a hundredfold off the cavern walls. Her aim is true. You collapse to the ground, sitting stunned on the floor of the lava tube. You know a mortal wound when you see one.


Your murderer steps around behind you. "Let me see what else you've got," she says as she unzips the backpack that Captain Mark loaned you and rifles through the contents.


"Hmm, looks like I got all the good stuff already." She stands up, removes the pith helmet, and puts the headlamp back on her forehead. "Well, you did say you like to work alone. Let me know how that works out for you."


And then Meredith Nowitki sets off down the lava tube, leaving you to bleed to death in the dark.


THE END