AWACS - An American With A Chinese System
Copyright© 2025 by PT Brainum
Chapter 43
“Hey Anthony, you free?” I asked as I stepped into his office, a neat and sparse room of somebody trying to get work done.
“What’s up?” he asked, pushing the mouse away.
“I’ve got an idea for a tourist attraction.”
“I’m listening.”
“What if we build a really big Moai statue, something bigger than even Easter Island.”
“That’s interesting, why would we do that? Easter Island is 2000 km from here.”
I set a Baby Moai on his desk, “Because every ten thousand years the Mama Moai comes to Pitcairn to give birth to Baby Moai, which then migrate across 2000 km of open ocean to find a home on Easter Island.”
He laughed, long and hard, eventually he caught his breath, and looked up at me, “And just where do you think we should put this Big Mama?”
“I was thinking we need a real town square. The one in front of the church is just wide enough for three carts to fit side by side.”
“It’s bigger than that, but I know what you mean.”
“Also, as an entrance to the medical center, how helpful are all those stairs? It would be much better to have a ramp going down to it.”
“You can get to it in a cart, you just have to drive around to get to the other side. How would you pave it?”
“I’ve got some meter thick stone slabs, five meters my five meters. Enough to do a five by five stone plaza. If the digger digs down, I can level the bedrock, and we can set them in place, then set the Big Mama down on the plaza.”
“And these?” he asked picking up the baby Moai.
“Slap a cloth diaper on them and sell them to the tourists.”
He laughed again, “Get a drawing done from Angie, she might have a better place for a plaza and Big Mama.”
“Thanks,” I said, and headed up the hill to Angie’s house.
She wasn’t there, but her youngest, Peter, told me where she was. He wanted to go too, so I had him hop on the back of the ATV.
He had fun taking me to places where she wasn’t, until I used the truth skill, and we went down to the processing barn for the cocoa. She had it fermenting in big boxes, and was as displeased to see me as she was displeased to see Peter.
“He said it would be alright, and that he had to show me where you were,” I defended myself, throwing young Peter under the bus.
“He drives like a little girl, I was perfectly safe,” Peter defended, not quite getting how to blame the other guy yet.
Angie put him to work, while I explained my idea, and gave her a Baby Moai, which she thought was very cute. She also thought it should go across the street from Christians Cafe, where it was right at the top of the ‘hill of difficulty’, which was the name of the very steep bit of road from landing up the side of the mountain into town.
I went and checked it out, and like most things on the island, it was the side of a hill. I didn’t much like it, it didn’t have a sea view, and it had 4 roads all meeting in the same area. Plus there was already a historical display there of an old longboat. I drove around town looking for a good spot. There really wasn’t one. I decided to drive up to the top of the island, I hadn’t been there yet.
It was a relatively flat spot with some nice pine trees. A few park benches for sitting and enjoying the view, and one of the ubiquitous island tourist toilets. There was even a concrete pillar, not very tall, that marked the top of the island. This is the kind of place where you put a replica Greek temple in shining white marble, not a giant Moai. I headed back to the spot that Angie and I discussed putting in tourist housing.
I finally found the spot, it overlooked landing, but could only be reached from above. It had exposed bedrock and a small peak that sat slightly higher than where the vacation houses could go. It was clearly visible from where they said the cruise ships parked, so that would be good too.
I took several pictures, and sent them to Angie, with a message: This is where Big Mama should go
She didn’t respond, so I headed down to the general store, and asked the manager what she thought the baby Moai would go for?
“Sell them by the pound. We will put numbers on them, and keep a book showing the name of who bought what,” she suggested, “That way we can track their migratory habits when they get too big to be kept as pets.”
I chuckled, this lady knew her audience, and her marketing. She loved the idea of Big Mama, and asked if she could be made of something special.
“Like what?”
“What about that obsidian you found? That would be pretty special. Maybe only the girls are obsidian? That way if you make some baby obsidian Moai, we can sell them for ten times as much, because females are so rare in the wild.”
I laughed more, what a great idea, “What about hats, some of the easter island Moai have hats, does she wear a hat?”
“No, but you’ve got to make her look more like a girl, not so blocky a face.”
“I’ll do some research, and bring you prototype babies before making the big one.”
“Good, I’ll need to get posters and post cards too. Already working on posters of the Obsidian Tunnel, when do you think you’ll have the entrance finished?”
“Not sure, I feel like it needs to be special. I was thinking about building a three sided building over it out of obsidian, so it’s not just a hole in the ground.”
“I like the hole in the ground, we can put some railing up to keep people from falling in. How about a gazebo structure? Some big stone pillars holding a roof?”
“That’s a very cool idea,” I admitted.
“Anthony said you might bring better sand in, now that there’s a bit of a break to slow the waves coming in on the beach.”
“I suggested it. He didn’t know where to get the sand.”
“Let me know when you do it, so I can update the postcards.”
“Ok, I will,” I promised.
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