As Bruce flew to Kunming, he posed the question to himself, of all possibilities, why hadn't Kirk attempted the ability of flight? Had Kirk conceded he couldn't create wings?
Did Kirk have the sensibility to realize bats were the only mammal capable of true flight, short of recognizing he wasn't a bat? Bruce found it hard to believe Kirk could've let this distinctive feature slip, of what it meant, by definition, to be a bat. If Kirk had boarded a flight to get to China or elsewhere, did he, in his state of mind, see an irony? In Kirk's logic, did he feel as though he were part of a species which had mastered flight by modern aviation? There was little point in speculating, as Bruce had no evidence Kirk had lost himself in adapting the ability of flight.
This was all absurd, Bruce cursed. What was he doing, following in the footsteps of a man trying to alter his physiology in the likeness of a bat? Kirk was either psychotic, schizoid, or both, dissociated from reality. To what end did it serve Bruce to attempt to understand Kirk's rationale and descent into losing grasp of reality?
What Kirk had come to believe shouldn't be relevant to Bruce, even were Bruce to find him, and bring him to relative safety. Would whatever afflicted Kirk do so for life, his wife and children not again knowing him as the person he was? In which case, Bruce asked himself, what was the point of all this? What mattered whether Brice was able to bring Kirk to safety? There was little evidence Kirk had harmed anyone or anything. Should it matter if Kirk were going crazy, alone in a cave somewhere, thinking himself more bat than man?
Were such doubts on Bruce's behalf enough for him to call off his one-man search party? He couldn't help but feel giving up would be tantamount to a kind of betrayal.
***
Bruce touched down in the international airport in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, population 8 million. Upon exiting the terminal, the city's fresh sub-tropicality flushed up against his senses. It was mild during the fall season, coupled with the high altitude of the plateau.
He felt an inexplicable unease setting foot in Kunming, an unsettling pit in his stomach, only able to speculate why. It was akin to the feeling attenuated upon disembarking in a landscape with a heavy past. Could the feeling in the atmosphere originate from a prescience, preparing his mind and body in attunement to what followed. Such anticipation held greater dread in Bruce than whatever might unfold.
As his taxi made its way from the airport throughout the city, Bruce absorbed his surroundings. The downtown appeared like any other major Chinese city. A wealth of tower blocks, shopfronts with pockets of flowering plants, occasional temples, and pagodas. Though different modes of transport abounded, the city didn't feel hectic. Despite the circumstances of his arrival, the city was peaceful.
Yunnan, straddling the tropics in the southwest of the country, shared borders with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. The province harbored a wealth of biodiversity. It was home to three-quarters of the country's protected animal species, and half the protected plants.
Yunnan faced infectious disease issues in the form of half the country's malaria cases. It also had a high incidence of HIV/AIDS compared to other provinces, and the point of origin for China's most recent cases of bubonic plague.
The SARS outbreak in East Asia of 2002 also originated via bats in a cave 100km outside Kunming. The trafficking of palm civets served as an intermediary between bats and the SARS virus' transmission to humans.
The city was a hub notable for its concentration of universities and researchers with expertise in the life sciences. Bruce's focus would be colleagues of Kirk's from the Kunming branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Foremost among these was the Kunming Institute of Zoology. Its research focused upon viral diseases, conservation, molecular biology, genome evolution and neurobiology.
Bruce would base himself in Kunming, yet his secondary destination was Xishuangbanna. This prefecture was home to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden. This was another member of the Kunming branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, alongside the KIZ. Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden was also one of the key institutes of Project CONSERVE, alongside the KIZ. The Garden's focus was upon conservation of tropical plants, though it also played host to 40 species of bats.
On the flight to Kunming, Bruce had steeped himself in the literature of those academic colleagues working alongside Kirk. Kirk's colleagues in Kunming seemed fluent enough to have contributed to articles in English. Bruce's Chinese language skills were rudimentary, enough to greet and exchange pleasantries. He was grateful English was the lingua franca of the global scientific community. He already felt lost at sea among the Chinese characters since arriving, with little of the Latin alphabet to grasp on to and tether himself.
What was he going to do about this Langstrom situation? The truth or insight wouldn't reveal itself until it was ready. This was, he assumed, how psyches or intellects worked. One took in what information one could, looking for clues. Then he had to wait for the mind to put the pieces together, away from view, in the subconscious reaches. Bruce trusted the power of waiting. He had no evidence of success in forcing past outcomes.
He knew hopping on a plane to Kunming had been a hasty act. But because little obstructed him from doing otherwise, he'd booked a flight, boarding a plane to the other side of the world. Feeling a fluttering nervousness now he was here, he hoped not to regret the decision.
