021 NEVEREST That same night, back at base camp, while everyone is ready to pack, he spends the night putting together the plan for one last go. Almost everyone around him is either blue, seeing double, frostbitten or throwing up. Himself and Irvine are the only fit climbers left. It is already too late to consider a new attempt, but George finds the perfect excuse: since Sandy has the oxygen and they are the strongest left, they can go up at thrice the speed of the rest. They will leave early and come back by sunset after crowning “the mountain of their desires.” They are about to become the first humans to ever be entitled to call Mt. Everest, Neverest. NOW HERE, CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN, NEPAL, AUGUST 2025. Wade’s Davis emotional and exhilarating account of George’s Mallory and Sandy’s Irvine last days has turned Carl Murder into an insatiable reader. He has not even smoked since the termination of Khaled. In fact, he has never slept better. He is in such a mood that he has also taken in morning breathwork and yoga, before devoting his sleepless life to reading Into the Silence. Murder is oblivious to his whereabouts. He was taken to this freezing underground facility thanks to Alex’s magic. She is the same witch doctor that you met at Now Here, the shelter for young addicts outside Dublin. Yes, she killed Nora, your dearest student, and fled the crime scene framing you as the primal suspect. You have been on the run ever since, but it is only now when you put two and two together: what happened in Argentina 23 years ago has to be related to your current hunt. USHUAIA, ARGENTINA, 2003 It is 7AM and Alejandra sees you walking out her dead son’s room. You are pale and dishevelled, and she winks at you and asks, “Breakfast Mijito?” You can’t even say no, you just storm out of the house. You haven’t slept much since your editor in chief in El País wrote you the infamous email: “You are just A CONTRIBUTOR: never ask for a press pass IN OUR NAME AGAIN!” You were in Buenos Aires waiting for his green light to attend Mar del Plata’s cinema festival, where you were to interview Lisandro Alonso and Lucrecia Martel. Instead of the press pass you got the furious email, so you walked back to your hotel and booked a flight to Ushuaia instead, where you plan to write your first dystopian novel —Harper God, working title— and forget about journalism. CORRESPONDENT CONTRIBUTOR Instead of writing the novel, you become its protagonist: it has taken you less than half an hour in Patagonia to get adopted by a new mother, and to begin impersonating your dead twin. It is a furious start, and you act accordingly: after storming out of the house, you start walking towards Ushuaia, the last town of the end of the world. The hills are purple, the soil red, and the foam of the waves dazzling white. You feel inspired and unreal: you want to have a coffee and write notes for the first chapter using the recent disturbing findings in your dead twin bedroom. You find a cafeteria named Shackleton, order a double espresso and write the first chapter of your dystopian novel in one sitting. Before leaving the place you order a glass of water, and the waitress tells you that the bar is named after the Irish man who capsized in this shore while leading the first British expedition to the North Pole. “Old and fucking unlucky grandpa…” You ask her to elaborate. “Shackleton went MIA, and everybody assumed he was dead. But he and his men subsisted on seal meat, penguins, and their dogs, and they remerged alive five months later. I’m her illegitimate granddaughter, but my brother was the one who found out…and he was killed for it.” You tell her that you are a journalist: you’d love to know more. Her face lights up: “Come for tea at mine later: I’ll show you everything. I’m Mariana” CITY OF DOGS Before leaving, you see a newsstand and grab a copy of La Nación. You read a familiar headline: “Air Jordan’s and Nike Favelas.” It runs a story about the director of City of God, the first ad ever turned into an ad movie. His name is Fernando Meirelles. You interviewed him in San Sebastian and the story became the cover of El País’s Friday magazine. He is an unremarkable man who made an unremarkable movie. Today is Friday and La Nación’s magazine opens with the same photo that illustrated your story. You wonder if your dead twin might have written it, and you start reading it. FFS! It is your piece! What the HECK! You are signing it as “Héctor Castells, Correspondent of El País in Sao Paulo.” As it turns out, your piece is the biggest story promoting the opening ceremony of the festival that you were denied access to…for being a contributor! You flounce out of the house. You are shaking with rage. You find an Internet café and you write an email to your editor in chief. You will never work again for such a scumbag. And yet, you will for many others, not that you know.
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