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DOMINIC TURNED THE rented Oldsmobile Alero off of route 247 just past mile marker 17, as he had a day ago, skidding on the dirt road, and then heading out into the desert. “Are you sure you’re on the first page of that...” He hesitated.
“Flexagon,” Tonita finished for him.
“Map,” Dominic added.
“Yes, I’m on the first page.” Tonita held the flexagon in one hand and the map from the car rental company in the other. “I’ve compared the flexagon map with the map from the car rental, and I’m sure that this is the road we just turned off of.” Tonita showed the flexagon map and the car rental map to Dominic.
Dominic slowed the car down to a near stop, and looked back and forth between the two maps. “I think you’re right. This looks like the same road that we turned off of.” He pointed to the line on the car rental map. “See? This is Route 247 and it sort of squiggles around here. And so does this.” He pointed to the flexagon. “If we use route 247 as a landmark, then we can follow the markings on the flexagon to ...” He glanced up at Tonita. “Well, to somewhere.”
“Somewhere? That scares me.”
“It’s the best answer I have.” Dominic stepped on the gas and the Alero moved forward, bouncing on the dirt road.
“I hope this car makes it.” Tonita reached up and grabbed the support bar attached to the frame of the car, just above the passenger door. “I’m not sure, but I seriously doubt that an Alero was made to trek into the desert.”
The dirt road ran straight before them, following the natural lay of the land, for the most part, but occasionally cut counter to the grain of the desert. It was a seldom-used roadway. No tires had left the imprint of their treads in the sandy dirt, or if they had, the wind had smoothed them all away a long time ago.
Tonita followed the dirt road on the flexagon map, occasionally glancing out of the rear window to check their position against the paved roadway of Route 247, now far behind them. Every now and then a side road branched off of the main road and Tonita checked them off as they progressed deeper into the dessert. “Okay, we just passed this little road here off to the side, and we’re at the edge of the first page of the flexagon.”
Dominic adjusted the air conditioning vent of the Alero to blow directly on him. The vehicle was working overtime, and the fan of the air conditioner was blowing out more of a breeze of cooled air than a blast of cold. Dominic began to feel the heat, both from the sun beating down on the car and from the stress of being out in the middle of the desert with a folded paper map that may lead them nowhere, and without so much as a gallon of water with them. He hadn’t thought about the drive into the desert in terms of survival, but now he wished he had. There had been plenty of opportunity to secure food and water to bring along, but the thought had not occurred to him until this moment. Not too bright for an ex-service man, he thought.
The adventure that the flexagon had promised clouded his mind and filled his thoughts with the possibilities of what may lie ahead, so much so, that the dangers of the trek were lost. He chastised himself for not being prepared, and contemplated turning back and beginning again the next day better prepared.
“It works!” Tonita nearly shouted. “I moved the flexagon from the—A—page to the—B—page and look.” She held up the flexagon so that Dominic could see it without diverting his eyes from the dirt road ahead. “The lines match perfectly.”
Now, with their destiny clearly laid out before them, Dominic dismissed the thought of turning around and beginning again tomorrow. He pushed down onto the gas pedal of the Alero and urged its little engine forward.
Just over 16 miles into the desert, Tonita maneuvered the flexagon to the fifth page of the map. Near the far edge of the map, the lines of the road curved around a small circle that could not be seen when the page was at its original size and before it had been folded into the flexagon. The circle was formed by an arch in one fold and an arch in another fold that curved in the opposite direction of the first. Separately, they formed part of the lines that squiggled around the page. But once the map had been folded, only a small portion of the lines remained visible. Two portions of the lines formed the circle.
“Do you see anything? Tonita asked, squinting her eyes.
“Like something alive?”
“Well, that too. But there’s a circle on the map and the road curves around it, so I’m thinking that we should see something.”
“That circle could mean anything. An old building. A rock. A hole.”
“Or that!”
Dominic looked in the direction that Tonita was pointing. Her arm stretched out, her index finger extended, crossing his line of sight. Diagonal to their heading less than a half a mile ahead, the rusted remains of a metal structure lay crumbled in the desert.