The Second Wave Read online

  George made a sound and a face as if that was quite possibly the easiest thing he had ever done in his short lifetime, and just questioning this was a personal affront. But his crowing was cut short by a stern snort from Celem. Suddenly nervous, George fidgeted with the ticket and finally admitted between clenched teeth, “It is incredibly difficult.”

  “Don’t worry.” Celem grinned. “The payment will be generous. In fact, we can pay you right now. I have a lovely story with me.”

  “Please,” George replied woodenly, “tell me it.”

  John watched George hook up the computers with growing suspicion. The boy might be used to lying, but he wasn’t very good at it. What he said sounded like lines from a badly rehearsed script. Something was off, John decided. His hunch was confirmed when Celem stated, voice too cheerful, “With much pleasure, George. It begins, funnily enough, with Yahya telling me a story yesterday. You remember,” he turned his body to John, who was sitting close to him, “the one about the sad woman. I liked it very much, and then I thought to myself, Celem old fool, I thought to myself, how can a man like Yahya come into the possession of such a piece of jewellery?”

  John carefully went for his gun, but George suddenly spun around and held a dagger to his throat, forcing him to stay put.

  Celem laughed. “Did he try to draw his pistol? No, Yahya, don’t ruin this. I’ve only just started with my story. Where was I?…Yes, I was thinking to myself. I do this quite a lot, to be honest, I have good, fresh brains. When I was all done, I called for Lijuan, one of my girls, very talented with her mouth. She came here last year from China. I wanted to treat her to something, so I told her the story of Meng Jiang Nu, and what do you know? She had already heard it! I must apologize for my clumsiness with words, but I assure you that the story makes up in suspense what it lacks in poetic prose.

  “Lijuan wanted to know who told me the legend and, naturally, being a mild-mannered man with no secrets, I told her about you, Yahya. She said, she didn’t know anyone named Yahya, but she had heard about a man named Yuehan Huzi. A man, as it turned out, wanted badly by the Shanghai Dragon Clan, whose liaison Lijuan, in addition to being a woman of many talents, is.”

  Celem, pleased with himself so far, made a theatrical pause to let this information sink in. In the meantime, unable to move due to the dagger’s tip boring into his neck, John treated young George to a smile.

  “What are you telling me, Celem? Did you rat me out to the Shanghai mob?” He addressed Celem, but never let George out of his sight, who was getting queasier by the minute. He wasn’t used to this sort of violence in his presence, let alone by his hand.

  “This is the second time you insult me, Yahya, and this time I take it personally. I didn’t rat you out, it is a dishonorable and despicable thing to do even to your worst enemy. But as it turned out, the Dragon Clan is willing to pay a lot of bling to get their hands on you, and though I may not be a traitor, I am a business man.”

  “What about all the ‘stories are the new bling’ yarn you spun me?” John asked to buy himself more time.

  “They are when the trade is information. When the trade is people however…different matter.”

  “And here I was thinking you wanted to kill me yourself.”

  The tip of the dagger began to tremble. George’s body was too tense. Keeping this position—crouched over computer parts, arms outstretched, knees bent—was becoming harder for the computer genius with every heartbeat.

  “I do,” Celem admitted, oblivious to George’s growing insecurity. “Your disappearance all these years ago left a lot of open wounds, Yahya, and I’m not just talking about broken hearts.”

  A tiny network of sweat beads was now visible on George’s forehead, like the sheer veil over the face of a temple dancer. John looked him into the eyes and broadened his smile a fraction of an inch, knowing the terror it would inflict on the boy. People who were one meeting away from being sold to the Chinese mob were not supposed to smile. George’s nostrils flared.

  Celem was unaware of his surroundings. “Many people in this city want to kill you, but they are willing to settle for a good deal of bling and the knowledge that no one can inflict pain more excruciatingly than the Chinese.”

  George’s hand trembled, which was John’s sign to move. So fast that Celem didn’t hear anything until it was too late. John’s right hand shot up to George’s neck. It pushed the boy and the dagger away from him, long enough for John’s left hand to rip the weapon from George’s fingers, and hard enough to effectively choke him. Taking the hilt of the dagger between his teeth, John now wrapped the fingers of both hands around George’s neck and pressed them until the computer genius lost consciousness. It was over in less than three seconds.

  When Celem figured out what was happening, he shrieked helplessly, but his cry was cut short by the metal blade being pressed against his Adam’s apple.

  “You’ll never get away, Yahya. The Chinese are on your tail!” he croaked. The answer was an effortless slash through his jugular. His body fell forward, his life force bleeding out over George’s precious computer parts. The dagger and the ticket John put in his pocket.

  The next thing he knew he was running again. It was funny, he mused as he hurried to the harbor, he never seemed to be able to really escape, no matter how far he ran.

  * * * *

  Chapter 15: Sometimes You Can’t Make It

  Eugenia was all alone in the hospital room. She knew there was one of the uniformed protectors outside the door. To make sure she wouldn’t escape. Dr. Paige had told her the protectors were for her own safety. But Eugenia could still hear them. As clearly as she’d heard them in the darkness. And she knew what they were really there for. To protect them from her. They were afraid of her.

  Why?

  She was their Goddess. Tied to a bed. Needles in her skin. In pain. Scared by what was happening around her. What was there to make them afraid of her?

  Today was different. Normally, Dr. Paige was in and out all day long. She brought food, or more pictures to look at. Eugenia ate the food, although it tasted strange. She looked at the pictures, although she didn’t recognize anything. The people in the photos were strangers to her. Sometimes she felt something stir inside her when she looked at a picture. Like a distant memory was lying hidden somewhere. But it was never more than the faintest feeling of familiarity. She couldn’t even put it in words. So she remained silent. There was nothing to say.

  Today, Dr. Paige didn’t come. Eugenia closed her eyes to search for her voice in the darkness. Closing the eyes helped, she had learned. Shutting out what was happening around her, pretending she was back in the darkness again. It was still different—new voices to get to know. A new language to learn. But she was doing better now than at first. The headache was nothing more than a constant, dull throbbing now. The nausea wasn’t as terrifying as it was at first. She was still confused by it all, everything seemed wrong. But she was slowly growing accustomed to her new situation.

  So she closed her eyes and listened, not afraid anymore of the strange new sounds. Yet as hard as she sought, she couldn’t find Summer Paige’s voice anywhere. The doctor was gone.

  A distressed sob escaped her lips. Why? Her fingers dug into the bedcover, as if that could give her any sort of tether. Why did everybody leave her? Why didn’t they trust her anymore?

  Listening to the sounds of life around her, Eugenia was desperate enough to consider giving her people a reason to fear her.

  * * * *

  On Earth, the second wave settlers were slowly arriving at the main Headquarters building. More than a hundred people, some of them with their children and pets, cluttering the corridors, walking about, scaring the more sensitive among the engineers, who were not used to strangers.

  The wormhole wasn’t officially open for passage, yet. General Fatique wanted the settlers to go through together, so they wouldn’t have to drain energy by keeping the connection open for a long time, or by opening a
nd closing it excessively. The result was that while everything was getting prepared and the rest of the settlers arrived successively, those who were biding their time until their departure wandered around freely.

  Peter stood in a corner, watching the spectacle unfolding around him in mild horror. His luggage was gone. His luggage and, more importantly, his assistant. Not ten minutes ago, or perhaps half an hour, but not longer than forty-five minutes, he had had his suitcase in his hand and his coat draped over his arm. Now both were gone, suitcase, coat, and of course Luke. Three things gone. And although he knew Luke had taken the items to put them somewhere safe while they waited, and he knew his assistant would come back soon, Peter couldn’t help but feel lost in the meantime. He wondered what Duncan would have to say in this situation, just to think about something else and occupy his mind until Luke’s return. In hindsight, a bad idea, because once he started thinking about his late husband, he felt the familiar sensation of loneliness wash over him. It became clear to him that maybe going to another planet was not going to make it all go away. In any case, he’d be just as lonely there as he was here. He’d still come home to an empty house and he’d still eat his meals by himself.

  “I have not only found a quiet spot for us to wait,” interrupted Luke Peter’s morose musings, “I also managed to get my hands on a first analysis of the other planet’s flora.” He held up a thin file for Peter to see. “There are some amazing plants described in here—I can’t wait to encounter them myself!”

  “Luke. Am I doing the right thing in coming here?” Peter asked.

  Luke stopped his monologue about new and exciting plant-life mid sentence. It took him a moment to come up with an answer, but then he gave a lopsided frown and replied, “I know you’re not happy, but look at it this way: You can either be unhappy in the lab you used to share with Duncan, continue the work you started together, wallow in memories and be ridiculed by our colleagues for your theories. Or you can be unhappy in a completely new place, have a fresh start, and be the first geologist to encounter something novel and marvelous.”

  Put like this, there really was no choice. Peter tried on a smile that used to come so easily to him, and was surprised to find it still did. A fresh start. A new world.

  Four hours later, the long awaited announcement called everyone to the main chamber for departure.

  * * * *

  Without his beard John felt oddly naked; but moving among the many people who had come here for a new life, he considered himself less out of place clean-shaven.

  It had been a bit of an adjustment to get used to the Western world again, after he had spent several years in Turkey and then in the outlawed zone. The beard had to go, and he was wearing clothing traditional for the Occident now: a plain shirt and jeans that hid his boots. It was a matter of getting used to again; he tried to adapt as quickly as possible. If he was going to impersonate someone on his way to a new life on a different planet, he needed to look and act the part.

  The decision to use the ticket himself had been a last minute one. When John left Byzantium, he pondered where to go next to hide out until the Dragon Clan would forget about him. But then he’d been almost shanghaied in Athens, and the thought occurred to him that maybe this world was too small to run away from the Chinese mob. Since he possessed no great computer skills to hack into the program of the ticket, he had opted for another possibility. If hacking the computer was out of the question, maybe hacking people wasn’t. So he’d sat down and faked an ID for himself. All he needed to do was convince everyone that he was the person the ticket was issued to. He only needed to get through, after all. He didn’t plan on staying at the colony for too long—there was a whole new planet to get lost on.

  And that was why John was in a building called Headquarters Main House, carried a half-empty suitcase, and hoped he looked like someone holding a Ph.D. might look.

  John was antepenultimate in line. He watched the people in front of him show their ticket and ID to a protector and got nodded through to step into what looked like an elliptic waterfall made out of light.

  Apart from the travellers and the protectors, there were also a bunch of people dressed in white lab coats, probably engineers, who relentlessly checked on the elliptic waterfall of light which John understood was the much heard of wormhole to another planet.

  John had chosen his place in line on purpose. He figured that by the time it was his turn, the protector who checked everyone was fed up, ready to call it a morning, and would most likely not look meticulously enough to notice that the ID John carried, which identified him as one Dr. Duncan Wagner, carrier of a second wave program ticket, was a fake. While he gradually moved forward, he observed the protector, a young woman whose name tag said Sheldon, to assess her. She smiled a lot and was patient with the children despite the obviously tight schedule. Played well enough, he fancied he could distract her by voicing some made-up personal concern or other, to make her concentrate on his person rather than on his ID. He might even get on her good side with a good natured funny remark.

  His plans were thwarted, though, when across the hall a large door opened, and livestock was herded inside, no doubt to serve as food and resource on the other planet. Cows mostly, sheep, goats, chicken and a couple of horses. The cows seemed at ease with themselves and their surroundings, but the horses were nervous, and the goats refused to come close to the wormhole. Protector Sheldon got called out to help catch one of the two he-goats when it freed itself and was trying to make a break for it. So instead of her, an equally young man with a grim face, Niman, went on to tend to the travelers.

  Before John could think of a new strategy, it was his turn. Protector Niman asked for his credentials.

  “Clever animals, goats,” John improvised, nodding towards the impending animal mayhem. Protector Niman looked like he had spent more time with the cattle than he liked already.

  “Clever little bastards, yes,” he smirked. “And tasty.”

  They both laughed. Niman only fleetingly skimmed through John’s electronic papers, then waved him through. John felt absolutely nothing when he stepped through the pool of light.

  * * * *

  Chapter 16: Alone

  In her room Eugenia’s eyes snapped open with a cry of surprise. Something was happening.

  From listening to her people, she knew that today was special somehow; everyone was excited about something. But she didn’t know about what until it hit her—literally hit her. Suddenly the voices in her mind multiplied exponentially; where there had been one there were now ten. Where there had been ten there were now one hundred. And they all came at once, a sudden intrusion.

  She was not prepared. It was a violent overtaking of her mind. Sounds, fears, words flooded into her soul. They drowned each other out. It got so loud, so chaotic, that finally Eugenia couldn’t make out single voices anymore. Just one jarring noise that reverberated through every fibre of her physical form. Her hands sought hold, but found only the soft sheets of her bed. Her body convulsed in pain, involuntary croaks escaped her throat.

  Why were they doing this to her? It made no sense. Why would they punish her like this? It must be on purpose, they had to know what they were doing to her, that they were hurting her!

  She screamed, but no one came. Amidst the racket, the mind-numbing uproar, Eugenia was all alone with her pain.

  * * * *

  An eerie silence blanketed the wormhole main chamber after the last animal left for Alternearth. Everyone was through now. Everyone except Captain Eleven and Dr. Paige, who were officially the last people to go through; then the second wave settlement was on its own for a trial week, during which the wormhole would stay closed.

  General Fatique shook the women’s hands.

  “May Vesta bless you,” he said. “And good flock.”

  Burke did the same. “He means luck. Have a successful first week.”

  “One of my team will meet you in seven days for the first report,” Eleven promis
ed Fatique.

  He nodded. “Good. And find me those first shavers, Captain. This is your priority.”

  “That and the safety of the second wavers, sir.”

  “First shavers was a first.” Paige smirked when she and Eleven were out of earshot of the General and about to walk through the wormhole.

  “Sometimes it takes all my protector training not to giggle at his creations,” Eleven agreed with delight.

  “We should’ve kept a list. To keep morale up over there.”

  “You think morale will sink?”

  “I think we’ll have our ups and downs.”

  “I’ll be fine as long as there’s tea.”

  “I say ditch the tea and go straight for the chocolate.”

  “Thank Zeus Elizabeth didn’t come with us.”

  “Not that we didn’t like her.”

  “Of course not. Although like is probably too strong a word.”

  “Tolerate?” Paige suggested.

  “Abide,” Eleven proposed.

  “Agreed.”

  As soon as the doctor and the captain were on Alternearth’s ground, the wormhole vanished. It was almost dusk on the planet.

  The settlers were scattered about in a loose circle, some standing in groups around the protectors, others chatting, getting to know each other.

  Timothy Niman made an announcement to give the exact time so everyone could reset their watches. Mandy Rett helped load the suitcases onto a horse cart, so the settlers wouldn’t have to carry their luggage for the forty minute march to the colony; some of the people helped her. Sophie Bahr did a headcount to ensure everyone was present. Sally Sheldon tried to keep the chickens together. She was a farmer’s daughter and more comfortable among animals than among people.

  Eleven waited until Sophie noticed her, then gave her the sign.

  “All right, everyone!” Sophie had to shout it twice before everyone heard her and the general talking ceased. “Please follow the cart to the colony. Once there, you will be shown to your houses. We ask you to stay indoors for tonight. There are a map of the village and personalized information for each one of you in your homes. Take your time to settle in. Tomorrow morning we will have an orientation meeting for everyone. The details are in the information brochure. Let’s go, people!”