by S. A. Beck
“You were a good soldier. By the end, you had earned my respect.”
As she started to toss earth on top of him, she heard the three gang members start reciting something in Arabic behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she found they stood in a line a few steps away, their hands lifted in prayer, paying their last respects.
She resisted the urge to laugh. Praying for someone you had helped kill? Perhaps they were trying to ease their consciences. More weakness.
God, how she hated weakness! She’d done the hacker a favor last night. She had put him to the test, and he had become strong because of it. It didn’t matter that he broke eventually, because all people broke if you knew how to break them. The important thing was that for a while, perhaps for the first time in his life, he had been strong.
Most people never got such a test. The Western world had become soft and was losing its place to more dynamic, tougher nations. The most appealing thing about General Corbin’s plan was that it would stamp out weakness in the American government. No more pandering to voters and special interests, no more diplomacy. And a strong government would lead to a strong people, not the weak, whiny excuses for Americans she saw these days. America would be an empire greater than any that had ever been seen in the history of the world, and she would get to be part of it.
Isadore finished filling up the grave and scattered some leaves and fallen twigs from the olive grove on the freshly turned earth to hide it from view.
Briefly, she considered ordering Brett to kill the three Moroccans before deciding against it. In addition to freelancing for General Corbin, they were local contacts for the CIA. While she made it a habit to rub out any witnesses, if these guys disappeared, it might cause a few ripples in local intelligence circles. For the moment, Corbin’s plans depended on stealth. America was so focused on threats from outside—Islamist terrorists, Russia, China—that they were blind to internal threats. Best to keep it that way until it was too late for the civilian government to save itself.
The next afternoon, she and Brett took a taxi to the airport. General Corbin had arranged for them to catch a flight to Timbuktu. Knowing how much she liked luxury, the old darling had even paid for first-class tickets—or what passed for first class on Air Maroc.
The taxi sped along the four-lane highway out of town. Soon, they left Marrakech behind them and passed by a shantytown of tin shacks and heaps of uncollected garbage. Isadore wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Welcome to the real world, rich kid,” Isadore told Brett, who stared blankly out the window. “Bet you never saw a neighborhood like this. Oh wait, you used to go slumming with Jaxon. The Dynamic Duo fighting crime in the hood. Good for a laugh, eh? Well, no one living in these places is laughing. Trust me, I know.”
Isadore fell silent. She watched the slums passing by and spotted a little girl in a filthy djellaba carrying a yellow plastic jug of water on her head. She had just left a single tap sticking out of the ground at the end of a pipe and was heading home, the heavy jug of water balanced on her head as she steadied it with her little hands. A long line of women and girls waited their turn. Isadore grimaced.
She glanced at Brett again, started to speak, caught herself, and then said, “Believe it or not, I was raised in a place not much better than this. Oh, we like to pretend we don’t have the Third World in America, but if you get off the highways and take a look in the out-of-the-way places, you can find them. The Ozarks. Appalachia. Mississippi Delta. Most Indian reservations. I’m from Appalachia myself. Does that surprise you? No, I guess not. Nothing surprises you anymore. Well, I was. A buck-toothed, uncultured girl who could barely read and whose only future was to get pregnant at fifteen, sign up for welfare, and end up with a litter of a dozen squalling brats who would be doomed to live the same life of misery she did.
“But I got out. I saw what happened to my parents and my older siblings and swore it wouldn’t happen to me. Ran away when I was thirteen. It was hard at first, I tell you. Hard years. But I’d seen thirteen hard years already. I promised myself that one day, I’d be rich. Now I’m a millionaire. Someday, I’ll be a billionaire. I’ll never go back to being one of these.” She gestured at the people in the slum with contempt. “Weakness, Brett. Weakness. I look at a slum, and all I see is weakness. Oh, I’m not blaming them. They were born into it. But they’re still weak, getting pushed around by the cops and the rich and the government. I don’t get pushed around, Brett. I stopped being one of these weaklings at thirteen and learned how to be strong. Nobody has pushed me around for a long, long time.”
They flew into Timbuktu late that night, so Isadore didn’t get to see any of the famous city as she and Brett took a battered old taxi from the airport to their hotel. Accommodation was scarce in this part of the world, but General Corbin had arranged for a halfway-decent place, a creaking wooden mansion built a hundred years before during the French colonial occupation. The man at the front counter took their luggage and led them up some rickety steps and down a gloomy hall covered with a faded and threadbare carpet. He stopped at one of the doors and opened it with a brass key.
Isadore sighed. The room wasn’t any better than the rest of the hotel. Two lumpy beds took up much of the space, and the only other furniture was a wardrobe that might have looked nice in 1936 and a cracked mirror. She didn’t dare look in the bathroom.
Isadore thanked the hotel worker in French, tipped him handsomely (always a smart move to get the locals on your side right from the beginning), and closed and locked the door behind her.
She looked sourly at Brett. Their travel documents said they were mother and son, and she had decided that they should share a room even though he gave her the creeps. It would be better to keep an eye on him and have him close if he was needed.
“Use the bathroom if you need to, and go to bed,” she ordered.
He nodded and headed into the bathroom.
Isadore sighed and looked around the room. What a dump. Well, it would all pay off in the end. She started changing into her pajamas, exhausted from the long day and knowing there would be an even longer one ahead of her. General Corbin didn’t have any contacts here in Timbuktu, so she would have to scout the city herself.
It bothered her she hadn’t been able to bring a gun. Traveling like a civilian in this part of the world meant you couldn’t even have a gun in your check-in luggage, because bags got routinely searched. Well, at least she had a tonfa, a metal stick two feet long with a handle coming off near the base at right angles. It was a hand-to-hand weapon similar to what many police officers carried, although theirs were made of wood. Hers was made of the finest steel to add that extra bit of force. You could kill someone with it if you knew how, and Isadore knew how.
Plus, she had two makeup kits with her, a real one and another that contained various powders and liquids brewed up by her husband. Wouldn’t want to confuse the two kits, oh no. Stephen’s stuff would definitely not improve your complexion and highlight your eyes.
Isadore was half undressed when Brett came out of the bathroom. She gave a little yelp and covered herself too late.
Brett didn’t bat an eye. He walked right past her without looking, undressed, and got into bed.
Isadore felt vaguely insulted.
“Wow, you really are a zombie, aren’t you? Most men think I’m beautiful.”
Brett didn’t answer. Isadore shrugged and got into bed and switched off the light.
Three hours later, someone kicked their door in.
Chapter 17
August 10, 2016, THE SAHARA DESERT, WESTERN MALI
9:30 P.M.
* * *
“We don’t know Edward’s dead,” Otto said.
“I do,” Jaxon replied.
They were camped just past the border into Mali, having taken a circuitous route through the desert, avoiding roads and scattered settlements. The desert was a little less arid here. Instead of miles upon miles of sand dunes, they now saw scattered shrubs growing on
rocky hills and flatlands, and even a bit of scraggly grass. Oases had become more common, and to the south, Vivian had told them, there flowed the River Niger.
They weren’t quite sure how far south, because they had lost their topo map in the sandstorm and only had a vague road map purchased in Oualata to go by. They hadn’t dared enter any other towns to get a more accurate one.
The next morning, though, they’d strike due south to link up with the road to Timbuktu. They were finally reaching their destination. Finally, Jaxon hoped, they would start getting some answers.
The Atlantis Allegiance sat in a circle, eating a cold dinner and discussing their options. Although the night was dark and cool, they didn’t want to risk lighting a campfire.
“If everything goes okay, we’ll be in Timbuktu tomorrow afternoon,” Grunt said. “Once we are, I’ll check in on Edward again. Maybe there was some computer trouble or a power outage or something. Maybe he’s all right.”
Grunt sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince the others.
Jaxon shook her head. “It’s like I told you. When I was dying back in Oualata, I saw him. He’s gone.”
“Jaxon,” Dr. Yuhle said gently, “you went through a stressful experience. I understand. I was dying right there next to you. People often have hallucinations in situations like—”
“It was not a hallucination!”
“Just an hour before you overexerted yourself, Grunt mentioned that Edward had gone offline. We were all worried about him. And then we got captured, and you overextended yourself with your abilities and nearly died. You can be forgiven for seeing things. Think of it like a dream.”
Jaxon glared at him. She knew that he was only trying to help, that he was expressing how he saw the world, but she also knew he was wrong. To avoid an argument, she changed the topic.
“That librarian back in Oualata said my people were rounded up by the government.”
Dr. Yamazaki nodded. “Although the documentation is sketchy, it appears there have been incidents like that all through Atlantean history. Your people are outsiders, and if they can’t hide their abilities well enough, they get singled out. It’s like that Atlantean healer told you in Marrakech—your people have to hide. The problem is, they already have a reputation as being different. People often get persecuted for being different.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jaxon grumbled. “But why would the government of Mauritania go after them?”
“Because they’re facing a civil war, honey,” Vivian answered. “They’re getting hit by both the Tuareg and the radical Islamists. Plus, it’s a poor country, one of the poorest in Africa. The government wants the people to blame someone for all that—anyone except the people in power, of course—so they pick on a minority group. The same thing has happened all over the world all throughout history, and not just to your people.”
“So who’s to say they aren’t doing the same thing here in Mali?” Jaxon asked, feeling helpless and frustrated. “From what you and Grunt have been saying, this country has the exact same problems.”
“Mali is a bit more democratic,” Grunt said. “Plus, they’re getting military aid from the French to fight the terrorists. That means a bit more oversight. Hopefully, you’ll be safer here.”
Jaxon nodded. She knew in her heart that even if it was the most dangerous place they had ever visited, she would still go, because Timbuktu was where she would learn about herself and her past.
She saw Yuhle had stepped out of the circle and was bending over a camp table. In one hand, he held the bullet that had come out of him under the light of a lantern, while holding a strange tool that looked like a wrench in his other hand.
“What are you doing?” Jaxon asked.
Yuhle held up the device. “These are calipers. I’m measuring the length of the bullet.”
Jaxon and Otto walked over.
Yuhle turned a screw at the tool’s base to close the tips until they rested on either end of the bullet. A gauge on the handle of the calipers read 8.1 millimeters.
Yuhle let out a gasp of surprise.
“What?” Jaxon asked.
“Vivian told me that before it’s fired, this type of bullet measures 10.54 millimeters.”
The scientist pulled his laptop out of his bag and started tapping in figures.
“So it shrank. Why, because it hit you?” Jaxon asked.
Yuhle read the string of numbers his computer created and let out a low whistle.
“This is a lead bullet with a heat-treated steel core. The average 9mm automatic pistol has a muzzle velocity of 380 meters per second. Considering I was only a few steps away from the muzzle as I was charging our police friend, we can safely assume that the velocity when it hit me was virtually the same. Figuring in the force of the bullet due to the charge in this type of bullet and the fact that it hit me in the soft part of my abdomen, there is no way this bullet could have been crushed this much shorter unless it hit bone.”
Otto peered at the damaged bullet. “But you got hit in the gut. I saw that. You sure it didn’t bounce off a rib or something?”
Yuhle adjusted his glasses and held up the bullet. “No, what happened was that it broke my spine. After I got hit, I couldn’t use my legs or even feel the lower half of my body. At first, I thought it was shock and blood loss, but now it appears that what really happened was this bullet severed my spine. That shot should have put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, assuming I didn’t bleed to death. And the way I was leaking all over everyone, that would have happened pretty soon.”
Jaxon gaped. “The water healed all that?”
Yuhle nodded. “It’s even more powerful than we thought. It reknitted a severed spinal cord, something modern medical science can’t do. A spinal cord is made up of thousands of nerves. It’s one of the most complex parts of the human body. Plus, the water repaired the bone, replaced my blood loss, and healed all tissue damage. I don’t even have a scar.”
“Whoa.”
“Whoa indeed,” the scientist said, putting the bullet back in his pocket.
“It took a lot of water to do that, though,” Otto said. “I had you chug a bunch, and while that seemed to wake you up, you still weren’t a hundred percent.”
Yuhle shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. It pulled me back into consciousness, and I felt a lot less cold, meaning much of my blood loss had been taken care of, but I still had that hole in my belly. Plus, I still didn’t have any sensation or movement in the lower half of my body.”
“Then I poured a whole canteen full of the water onto your wound.”
“The water must have entered the bullet hole and fixed my spine. Imagine if we could isolate the active element! This would revolutionize medicine. We could inject small amounts of the water directly onto the affected area and fix it. But wait, there’s more.”
Dr. Yuhle fished in his pack and pulled out a box of nicotine patches.
“You use those? I’ve never seen you wearing them,” Jaxon said.
Dr. Yuhle looked embarrassed. “I used to be a pack-a-day smoker. Ridiculous when you think about it. I understand enough about the human body to know precisely the kind of damage cigarettes can cause. Ever seen one of those photos of a smoker’s lung, how it’s all black and nasty? Well, in biology class, I got to dissect one. You can’t imagine how vile it is up close. And to think I was pumping cigarette smoke into my lungs all day, every day. So a few years ago I decided to quit, but easier said than done. I have to use nicotine patches constantly to keep the cravings in check, and still the smell of cigarette smoke drives me crazy. I almost bummed one from Agerzam. Anyway, I’ve been using the patches for years, and even so, I still have cravings. I hide them under my shirt because it’s so embarrassing.”
“Um, okay, so why are you telling us this?” Jaxon asked.
“Because I haven’t used any patches or had any cravings in the two days since the water healed me.”
“Y
ou saying the water got rid of your nicotine addiction?”
Yuhle shrugged. “It appears so.”
Jaxon thought back to the homeless glue sniffers in the alleys of Marrakech. If they got some of the water, they’d get a new chance at life. Then there was that kid who’d died of leukemia at her old high school, and Otto’s grandparents who’d gotten cancer…
“This is the biggest discovery of the twenty-first century,” she whispered.
Yuhle nodded. “And I have a feeling that we’ll discover even more amazing things before this trip is concluded.”
“How much of the water do we have left?” Otto asked.
Yuhle sighed, looking worried. “Well, you were pretty liberal with it when you were healing Jaxon and me. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but we only have one canteen left. That means we have about has much as you used to heal Jaxon. So nobody try to get shot, and Jaxon, please don’t overextend yourself again.”
The next day, they continued their drive. Now that they had left the border well behind them, they headed south, and after a morning of passing through more desert, they got onto a two-lane paved road running through the Niger River valley and made much better time.
The land grew greener. In some spots, there were even trees. The river gleamed in the hot African sun far to their right, sailboats silhouetted on its glittering surface. To either side of the road stood scattered farms and the occasional village. The houses ranged from small domed huts covered with reed mats to larger adobe buildings with walls enclosing small courtyards. It seemed that wherever there was a farm or a village, there were always a few women who had set up roadside stands to sell the produce of their farms. The rest of the land was given over to cultivation. Fields of dark earth stretched out as far as Jaxon could see, watered by little channels that brought precious river water to every spot. There were no crops at the moment, and Jaxon guessed it was too hot for them. This was the kind of place to grow things in winter, not summer. Camels and cows and goats grazed on the stubble of last season’s crop and the tufts of green grass growing between the fields.
