National Exile: A 21st Century Novel about Nobility, Poverty, and Cruelty

by Rusul A. Altaay

  Chapter 6

  Prison Break

  Everyone was just shocked. Sidra looked at Rain and said with an angry voice,

  “What have you told them?”

  “Nothing… I swear… I never mentioned it to a soul.” Rain replied.

  “They said you have killed a man few years back.” Yazan added.

  “My cell phone… That must be it… That means that those robbers were soldiers. They must have found the document. Of course, I could tell they were highly trained. I thought they were just very skilled.” Sidra mumbled.

  “They have send people here to arrest you. They should be here any minute now.” Yazan told her.

  Mai entered the room slowly and asked Sidra,

  “You have actually killed someone?”

  “I will explain everything. I promise.”

  In that moment, some soldiers came in and others surrounded the Burj.

  “We are not going to ask you to come with us nicely. I think you know what happens to criminals like yourself.” A soldier said as he pushed her hard down on the ground.

  “There must a mistake. What proof do you have?” Rain questioned them.

  “We have what we need. Someone found her cell phone, and it has all the evidence. However… I think you know that we do not need any proofs to put someone in jail. It’s a war zone, and the law is on our side.”

  “What kind of law is that?” Rain yelled.

  “Shut up… Or you will be joining her soon enough.”

  “Rain, please do as he says and just shut up. I can take care of myself.” Sidra shouted.

  “You thought you could just get away with killing a commander in Estil’s army?”

  One of the soldiers said as he pushed her and walked her out of the Burj. They put her in one of the hummers they came in. They left quickly.

  Rain, Yazan, and Mai stood there watching what happened. There was nothing they could do. Any act would have put them all in jail. The administration had no tolerance at all. After few seconds of silence, Yazan started wondering.

  “So, let me get this straight. Hundreds of people are getting killed on daily or weekly basis, and they just arrested her for killing someone God knows how many years ago? Something was not right in here. They must want something from her. Or she knows something that we don’t know. Mai, would you please check Sidra’s room for anything that might be useful?”

  “Yeah, I will go now.” Mai said and left them.

  “What was the project that she was working on? Do you think that they wanted her because of that?” Rain asked Yazan.

  “No, she erases the data every night and never leaves a trace. There is only one possibility. We need to know who the man that she killed was. He must have been some part of the inner circle.”

  “He was my grandfather.” Rain said casually.

  “I’m sorry, what? It sounded like you said, your ‘grandfather’?” Yazan said with a surprised tone.

  “She does not know that. Please don’t tell her just yet. I think she should tell you her side of the story.”

  “Wow… Rain… This is crazy… What are we going to do now?”

  “I knew that few years back. But I never really cared. The man had it coming. When I learned the truth about her, I did not know what to say or how to react. I never told her that I am related to him.”

  “You knew that few years back? But Sidra just joined us less than a year ago. And why exactly did she kill your grandfather? And if we are talking few years back, that means she must have been between 15 to 18 years of age.”

  “Yeah, she was almost 15 when she shot him. Like I said, she should tell you herself. Rumors were everywhere at the time. Everyone said something different. I thought I put all of that behind me. That’s why I never mentioned it. Now, however, I feel that we should get her out of wherever they took her. You know that they torture prisoners regardless of age and gender.” Rain said with a very concerned face. “I think I will take care of this myself. You stay here. Don’t get the Burj involved. We don’t want them thinking that we are opposing the administration in any way.”

  “I have many questions, but I agree. Do what you have to and make sure you let us know if anything is needed.”

  After Rain left the Burj, he asked in many places where they might have taking her. He asked everywhere. But it turned out that they moved the prisoners around a lot. There was no record or a sign of her being in any prison. He left the Burj every morning and came back at night with no use for over three days. He decided to gather his friends and have a plan.

  “It’s time we expanded the search and find out what our dear administration is up to.” Rain told his friends at the Burj.

  “This is crazy. How can we not know where they hold the prisoners?” Waseem said.

  “I really hate to say it, but... is it possible that they... might have… you know… killed her? They do that to a lot of the prisoners these days. I heard that they just took this guy. Then, few days later, his family found his body in the front door because they did not pay the $30,000 they asked for.” Rayan added.

  “She is technically working for the federal administration. They wouldn’t dare ask for money.” Yazan stated.

  “There is only one thing left I can do. I was hoping to avoid this, but looking at what we have, which is nothing, it is time to call my dear old father.” Rain said.

  “What does your father have to do with this? And if he could help, why didn’t you call him in the first place?” Waseem asked.

  Rain just looked down and completely avoided Waseem’s question. At that point no one knew what really was going on. But everyone knew that Sidra needed to be found.

  Meanwhile, Sidra was somewhere in a very dark and small prison cell. Her prison cell was no more than a meter in length and a meter in width. It was very humid and filled with fungus. There were not any windows or any source of light. However, her eyes adjusted after a while. Some guard would bring a weird looking soup and a dry piece of bread once every day. That place was everything but quiet. She was not even able to sleep. The screaming voices of the prisoners that were being tortured in the next cells were so painful to hear.

  After nearly ten days in that hell of prison, Rain was able to find her. He contacted his father, who was the Sargent Major of Estil’s army. Rain was finally granted access to where she was held. He was not able to get in, but he did manage to find her prison’s cell. He reached the door and stood up for few seconds. He was not sure that she was there. He also did not know what to say, but somehow found the courage to speak up.

  “Are you there? How are you holding up, Sidra?” Rain asked but did not hear anything back.

  He repeated his question again and again until he heard a low and sickly voice.

  “Sidra, my name is Sidra. I am 23 years old. I dedicated my life to saving our country. I do not know of any uprising you speak of. I only killed him because he was a murderer.”

  “Sidra, I’m just glad I was finally able to find you.” Rain said smiling.

  “Rain? Is that you? Get me out of here? Please… I beg of you… I’ll be nice to you from now on. I promise… You have no idea what I have been through. They torture people. They burn them alive. They just killed the man next door after he swore that he had no information about any uprising.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. You will be out of here in no time. I need to know if this had to do with your project or not. What were you working on?”

  “Ask Mai about the song she saw me reading. It’s coded. 8 flames.”

  “What song and what flames? Never mind. I have to go now.” Rain said and walked out of the prison. He could not stop thinking of how bad things looked inside the prison.

  “She probably did not want the guards to hear. I need to crack that code. And what kind of hell is this? Are the guards really humans? When did people become such animals? I really hope that she was not tortured. Most importantly, I hope my father is
not involved in any of this” Rain thought.

  After he left, Sidra started reading what was written on the walls. It looked like it was written using a small piece of rock. She read it almost every day. She never knew who wrote it. But it gave her so much hope in such a dark place.

  It was a bright dream, just like a morning sun

  I wish if it’d remained as a dream… oh time

  I was going on as significant person

  Just like a glorious lighthouse

  Smiling at the oppression that never suffers

  Where have they thrown our hopes?

  And demolished the tenderness of our tears

  Their injustice have haunted our melodies

  Oh, my memories, bloom

  Dust the lethargy off you

  And shower in the supreme light

  What’s wrong with me?

  Why ~ can’t I forget a mellow-resonant tune?

  (What’s wrong with me?)

  Why ~ can’t I get out of the dark tunnel of grief?

  And so, this dream will live on to end of time

  In my eyes, to the end of time ♫

  Rain went back and told his father about what was going on. He seemed shocked. It sounded like he had no idea about what was going on in that prison.

  “What you are saying is outrageous and not acceptable. She might have killed my father, but I would never send a human to such a place. We also believe that she is working on some unauthorized projects. We found some files that led us to her in the first place. My men told me that she kept denying it.” Rain’s father said.

  “I want her out of that hell. I could care less about what she’d done or doing. The commander had it coming.” Rain said loudly.

  “Boy… How could you speak ill of your grandfather? She’s still a criminal. As for what’s going on in that prison, I’ll investigate myself. That girl will be released when I say she would.” The Sargent Major said.

  After realizing that it was no use talking to his father, Rain left the base and went back to the Burj. He thought about breaking her out of there, but he knew that his father would not leave her or him alone. His father could even go as far as imprisoning him and his friends. After thinking about it for a while, he decided to find out about the code Sidra had mentioned. He rushed back to the Burj where everyone was waiting. As soon as he entered the Burj, he found Yazan and Rayan in the main common area. He immediately asked for Mai.

  “Mai? Where is Mai”

  “I’m here… Did you find her?”

  He explained all that happened and asked about the song that Sidra had mentioned. She told him that it was some version of Les miserable, and that was all she knew. She later found a copy and sent it to his tablet. He asked his group to help him make sense out of it. They kept throwing ideas here and there for a while.

  “She said, ‘8 flames’. Does anyone have any idea what that means?”

  “I’m looking at the translated version of it. The entire song does not have ‘8’ or ‘flames’ in it.”

  “I wonder what she meant. I just wish we knew what we were looking for.”

  “Ok, the song says, ‘Love with no price.’ Maybe we are talking about some money?”

  “The song also says, ‘Forgiveness has a thousand ways’ and 1000 is the only number in there.”

  “We also have some interesting choice of words like, phantoms, sweeps, ignites, and many others.”

  It took a while until Yazan figured something out, or so he thought.

  “Rayan just said an interesting thing. Sidra loves math and numbers, and 1000 is the only number in there. We should focus on it. Also, we … wait a second, 1000 could be a binary number, and it is the number 8.”

  “You are right… One, zero, zero, zero is the binary version of the decimal number 8. This cannot be a coincident.” Rain added.

  “Ok, so the relationship is binary. What is that even mean?”

  “We will know more once we know what she meant by the word ‘flames.’”

  “The flames of the phantom? Sweeping flames? Igniting flames? Something flames? Anything?”

  “Ok, Mai. Stop making up words. Even if we did know what it means, what are we going to do with that information?”

  “I never thought about it, but why did Sidra choose this method?”

  “We’ll worry about her choice of methods later, Waseem. Anyhow, if we make sense out of ‘8 flames’, we will try entering it into SANA and go from there.”

  Mai ignored them and kept trying putting words together.

  “Flames of the candles? Blooming flames?”

  “That is it… How do flames start? You ignite them… ‘Ignites candles that brighten my fate.’ Now, what does that mean?”

  “Igniting binary?”

  “No… Ignite means start. So, start binary?”

  “Maybe the answer is simply .”

  “It’s a long shot, but what do we have to lose… Let’s enter it to SANA.”

  As soon as they entered ‘1000’ into SANA, alarms started. The lights in the room turned red and the following message was played:

  “You have entered the emergency code to the secret system of Orb. Voice activation will be terminated within 10 seconds from now. Please play the corresponding melody.”

  “What melody is she talking about? And who’s the idiot who put as an emergency code?”

  “Play the song… Now… No time… That could be it.”

  They quickly opened a link and were able to play the song. After the song finished playing, the system was partially unlocked and the following message was played:

  “You have sent the emergency code to Orb. Tracking system has been activated. Your work is complete. Thank you.”

  “That is it? What just happened?”

  “What on earth was Sidra working on? Yazan, I thought you knew.”

  “No, I only authorized the simple stuff like installing solar panels. So she could have power. She never told me what she was working on.”

  “We should visit Sidra again if they would let us. I’ll see what I can do with my father. He might help us get in one more time.”

  “I think we should break her out of the prison.”

  “I thought we should not involve the Burj.”

  “Forget about that. I said that before I knew what they are doing to people in there.”

  After a long conversation, all five of them agreed to go. They decided to do whatever it took to get her out of there. They had to have a plan. Getting weapons and bullets was not a problem for them. After nearly 24 hours of planning and deciding who was going to do what, it was finally time for action. Or so they thought. Something totally unexpected happened. The plan was to send someone to distract the first guard on the main gate of the prison. This was Rayan’s job. As soon as he got closer to the guard, he shot him with tranquilizer.

  They forced their way to the prison. Luckily, they had grenades and just about enough guns to break in. I do not want to get into the details of how they got in. Simply, because they did not find her where Rain said she would be. What I though was the funny part, was when they captured one of guards and asked him about her.

  “Sidra? She was released yesterday. She is one of the few people that get to leave this place a live. Now, leave before you get arrested as well. You can’t get away with this.” The guard said as Rain just knocked him down.

  They could not believe that at all. So, Rain called his father and asked about what was going on. His father explained that someone called and demanded releasing her. Rain never really said who released her. But it was obvious that he had an idea.

  “If she was released yesterday, then, where is she now? Why didn’t she come back to the Burj?” Mai asked a rhetorical question.

  Rain started to realize what was happening. He was afraid that this day would come. He did not tell his friends that he knew what Orb was all about. He just did not want them knowing that Sidra was involved in all of it. />