Escaped

by Gary Urey

  But now she was gone and so was her mother. This was not acceptable, and three of Muni’s most loyal devotees were at this very moment hunting them down.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come in,” Muni said, still staring out the window.

  Pavana, her young assistant, came into the room. Like all women of the Antakaale—a Sanskrit term meaning “the end of life”—she had the group’s sign tattooed in the center of her forehead, a unalome and lotus symbol inside a yellow sun.

  “I have good news,” Pavana said, setting down a pitcher of iced tea.

  Muni turned from the window. “About Gita and Varya?” she asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “Varya—the child,” Muni repeated, a little louder this time. Her Polish accent always became thicker and harder to understand the more excited she became.

  “Yes. We’ve recovered both of them. They’ve just arrived now.”

  Relief washed over Muni. She lifted her head to the sky and mouthed the words thank you.

  “Where’d they find them?” she asked.

  “Negombo fishing village,” Pavana answered. “Evidently, she was caught while begging one of the locals to sail her and the child across the sea to Kanyakumari.”

  Muni shook her head in disgust. “They wouldn’t have lasted a day sailing in one of those rickety boats. If she weren’t such a superstar in geophysics, I’d have taken the child and let her drift at sea. What was Gita’s name before she came to us?”

  Pavana tapped her chin, thinking. “Luciana Lopez, I believe.”

  “Yes, I think you’re correct. I was so thrilled when she heard the Voices and joined me.”

  Muni poured herself a glass of iced tea, lit a stick of cinnamon incense, and again looked out the window. This time her gaze wasn’t on the children, but at a large, ancient Buddha statue amid temple ruins sitting adjacent to their property. The temple had housed several female Buddhist monks. Yet another sign from the Voices that only women belonged among the Antakaale. They were all her precious daughters, and she loved them deeply.

  “We need to get her back on our side,” Muni said, closing the window’s curtains. “Besides you and me, she’s the only other scientist we have among us.”

  Pavana nodded. “And a brilliant one at that.”

  “Take me to her.”

  Muni fluffed her long silver hair, slipped a fresh lotus flower behind her ear, and draped a white prayer shawl over her shoulders. She and Pavana shuffled outside, barefoot. They walked down a long dirt path, past the rows of wooden huts perched on stilts that housed her followers. A warm late-morning breeze blew through the rolling hills. Green fields of tea cultivation, the Antakaale’s main source of income, stretched as far as the eye could see.

  “She’s in there,” Pavana said, pointing toward a small bunker with a heavy steel door.

  A woman stood guard. Like Pavana, she was young with long hair parted down the middle and the Antakaale symbol tattooed to her forehead.

  “Has she made a fuss?” Muni asked.

  The woman shook her head. “No. She’s been very quiet but refused fresh water and food.”

  Muni smirked. “Another one bent on a hunger strike. Open the door.”

  The door creaked open, and Muni stepped inside. Pavana attempted to follow.

  “I want to speak to her alone,” Muni said. “Wait outside.”

  Muni squinted in the squalid darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. When her pupils had properly dilated, she saw Gita sitting in the corner. There was blood on her forehead as though she had been trying to rub away the Antakaale tattoo.

  “Where’s my baby?” Gita said, her voice weak.

  “Varya is in good hands,” Muni answered.

  “Her name isn’t Varya,” Gita spit out. “It’s Catalina, and we want to go home.”

  “My dear, you and the baby are home.”

  Gita launched into a dry, hacking cough.

  Muni produced a water bottle from her pocket and handed it to her. “Drink this.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Gita said, throwing the bottle across the room.

  “You’re dehydrated. Death comes quickly to those who don’t drink.”

  Gita lowered her head and sobbed into her hands for several minutes. Muni stared at her, beads of sweat dripping from her temples and down her wrinkled face.

  “You and Varya couldn’t have made it to India in one of those death traps,” Muni said when Gita’s crying had run its course. “Is it so bad here?”

  “I never should have left my professorship,” Gita said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to go back. This was a mistake.”

  “The only mistake you made was leaving us in the first place. You’re an extremely educated woman. What were you possibly thinking?”

  “That I wanted my baby and me to get out of here.”

  “The Voices are calling to you. Don’t you want a seat at the table of New Earth?”

  “The Voices aren’t real. I want to see Catalina.”

  A knock came at the door.

  “Not yet,” Muni said.

  Pavana’s muffled voice echoed from behind the door. “But it’s very important. You’ll want to hear this right away.”

  Muni knelt down and stroked Gita’s sweaty, knotted hair. “You’ll see Varya again,” she said. “And you’ll realize what a mistake you made. The Voices delivered you to us. I need you, Gita. We’ll never make it to New Earth without you.”

  There was another knock on the door, this time more urgent than before.

  “I won’t force you to take water,” Muni said. “But if you don’t drink very soon, you may not live to see Varya again anyway.”

  The door opened, and Muni slipped outside into the bright light.

  Chapter Six

  AXEL

  Charu’s skill at Aadu puli aatam, or Game of Goats and Tigers, was legendary in the caves. In the game, one player assumed the role of the goat. The other was the tiger. The purpose for the tiger was to hunt the goats and for the goat to try to block the tiger’s movements.

  “I only need to ambush one more of your goats and I win,” Axel said.

  “Don’t be too confident,” Charu said. “I’ve already taken out two of your tigers. One more and I win.” She gave him a sly grin. “That would make twenty-three victories for me, zero for you. I’ve been keeping track.”

  Axel smirked at her. They had been playing the game to pass the time as his wound healed. He carefully studied the board and moved his tiger into position.

  “Is that your final move?” Charu asked.

  “Yes,” Axel said confidently.

  “Absolutely one hundred percent sure? I’ll let you take it back.”

  “I’m so sure that if this were chess, I’d say ‘checkmate.’ But I guess in this game we say ‘check goat.’”

  Charu rolled her eyes and moved a game piece. With a flick of her finger, Axel’s tiger flew off the board. “Game over,” she said. “I’m still the undisputed, undefeated, all-world Aadu puli aatam champion.”

  “No way!” Axel cried out. “My tiger had you cornered!”

  “Better luck next time, my friend. And like the old proverb says: When a tiger is in trouble, even a goat will kick him.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I have no idea,” Charu said. “But it seems appropriate in this situation.”

  Axel laughed. “One more game. I’ll beat you this time.”

  Kundan stepped into the room. He was carrying a first-aid kit in one hand and a bottle of antiseptic with the other.

  “How badly did she beat you?” he asked.

  “The game came down to the wire,” Charu said. “Axel is getting much better.”

  “I hope you’re not going to use more of that cleaning junk on my cut,” Axel said with a pained grimace. “The stuff stings like a jellyfish. And having been stung by one, I know what I’m talking about.”


  “You must mean the mixture of ethanol and hydrogen peroxide in the solution,” Kundan said. “These ingredients activate receptors in the body that trigger a burning feeling.”

  “Whatever,” Axel said. “All I know is that it hurts.”

  Charu lit the torch hanging on the wall. The room glowed much brighter. Kundan ordered Axel to lie down on the cot. He rolled up Axel’s baggy pants, which Charu jokingly called his punjammies, and carefully cleaned the wound.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Kundan asked, applying a fresh bandage.

  “Actually, the sting didn’t hurt like usual.”

  Kundan slipped the cap back on the bottle of antiseptic. “That’s because you’re healing. It’s only been a couple days, so I’d say you have another two weeks before the stitches start to dissolve.”

  Axel stood up, shuffled to a side table, and poured a glass of water. He was able to walk now with only a slight limp, even if it was only to go to the bathroom in the chamber pot, which he thought was the most disgusting thing in the world.

  A pang of guilt made his stomach gurgle and neck muscles tense. Here he was playing board games with Charu while Daisha was gone. He had no idea where she was or what would come next. How would he ever make it out of this cave to search for her?

  “Where’s Megan?” Axel asked. “I need to see her.”

  Charu shot Kundan a concerned glance. “She’s not in the caves,” she said.

  “What do you mean not in the caves?” Axel asked.

  “She and Jag went up top to check their iPhones because there’s no cellular service down here,” Kundan said. And then he left the room.

  Axel scratched gently at his wound as Charu grabbed a spray bottle from a shelf. She started watering down the dirt floor, a practice she did every day to keep the dust down. Daisha once again flitted through his thoughts.

  Was she alive?

  If so, where was she?

  Why did all of this happen?

  He quickly pushed the thoughts away—just thinking about her made tears form at the corners of his eyes.

  “I need to get out of this room and wander around a bit,” Axel said. “I’m starting to feel a little claustrophobic.”

  “I think that will be okay,” Charu said, putting back the spray bottle. “I’ll show you where I stay. My room isn’t nearly as extravagant as yours.”

  Axel grunted. “If you think this is extravagant, then you must live inside a rat hole.”

  Charu guided him into a dimly lit passageway. The smells of sweet, smoky incense and a warm clay pot filled with jasmine rice filled his nostrils. Axel hobbled along, gazing at the murals and carvings covering the rock walls. From what Jag had told him, the artwork was more than three thousand years old and in a near perfect state of preservation.

  “All of this wonder is thanks to the cave’s hidden location,” Jag had said. “The vandals do not know of it, and the natural elements have not eroded the stone or faded the colors.”

  They passed the giant four-armed-man statue and several other elegant carvings before Charu turned down a much narrower passageway. They scooted past a series of cave openings, all of which were covered with colorful beaded curtains.

  “This is where I sleep,” Charu said as she parted the beads.

  The cave was huge. Several lit candles bathed the space in a murky golden glow. Hindu-themed tapestries covered the walls. Several cots, the same as his, lined the floors. All of them were unmade except one.

  “I’m the only one left,” Charu offered.

  “What do you mean?” Axel asked.

  “The other female dancers fled when the Sun Temple began to implode. They went home.”

  “What made you stay?”

  “I didn’t want to go back to my parents in Bhopal. The caves were the only other place to go when the Temple started crumbling.”

  “What are your parents like?” Axel asked.

  “They are devout Hindus. It seems like they think since I’m a temple dancer it will give them extra points in the afterlife or something.”

  “What do you want to do?” asked Axel.

  “I want to study physics at the Indian School of Science in Bangalore,” said Charu. “Either that or be a movie star like Kangana Ranaut. Did you see her in Tanu Weds Manu? It’s my all-time favorite film.”

  Axel smiled. “Sorry, I missed that one. Seriously. You should talk to Megan. She has a PhD in physics.”

  Charu’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Why don’t you just go to school and study physics for yourself?”

  “Because my parents won’t pay,” she said in a low, sad voice. “It’s very expensive. However, they gladly paid for my older brother to go to engineering college.”

  “Why don’t they pay for you too?”

  “They’re old-fashioned. In their world, boys go to college and girls have arranged marriages. They have a boy already picked out for me, but I don’t like him and never will.”

  Charu opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out something small and round.

  “This is your thing,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” Axel wondered, not quite seeing what was in her hand because of the dim light.

  “When you arrived, this fell out of your pocket. Remember, you picked it up and hurled it across the room? You said you never wanted to see it again. I saved it just in case you changed your mind.”

  Charu handed him Daisha’s GeoPort. Axel rolled the unit over in his palms. The thing was still dead. Its pulses of blue starbursts and flashing latitude and longitude coordinates were gone. For more than six months, the GeoPort had been his lifeline to Daisha, an invisible, solar wind–fueled cord that connected them together.

  Axel frantically pressed the SW button on his GeoPort, hoping it would magically turn on and lead him to Daisha.

  “This needs to work!” Axel groaned in frustration.

  “And you need to calm down,” Charu ordered. “I don’t want your stitches to tear open.”

  “Come on!” Axel pleaded. “Turn on and send me into the Warp!”

  There was nothing. No burning electrical smell, loud boom, or discharge of white smoke. He was still in an underground cave somewhere in the Indian jungle. And he might never see Daisha again.

  Chapter Seven

  DAISHA

  Daisha ripped through the Warp at breakneck speed. A kaleidoscope of colors flickered before her eyes. Vivid images appeared on the pulsing artery walls. She saw ocean waves crashing against the shore, giant tortoises laying eggs in the sand, green iguanas scurrying in tall grass, and flocks of colorful birds soaring through the sky.

  A blazing beam of divine white light appeared in the distance.

  “The sun,” Daisha whispered.

  And just like the light that had appeared when the Warp had swept her away from Axel at the Konanavlah Sun Temple, this brightness was soft, kind, and peaceful. It was nothing like the blistering sun back on Earth.

  She hurtled directly toward the light, so entranced by its serene beauty that she hadn’t felt Loosha’s presence soaring directly beside her.

  The sun faded away like a giant eclipse in timelapse. Everything went black as Daisha and Loosha spiraled downward through the nothingness. Hot air blasted her in the face, and her ears popped from the sudden drop in elevation. Fuzzy images began to take shape below. Just as they were about to crash-land, a soft pillow of air encased them moments before impact.

  Daisha landed on hard, packed dirt. The impact jarred her bones, like a linebacker had plowed into her. She sat up on her hands and knees. Her head was spinning, stomach churning. Loosha was lying next her, vomiting.

  “What just happened?” Loosha stammered between dry heaves.

  “We went through the Warp,” Daisha said. “You know what that’s like. You and your fellow goons were chasing Axel and me for six months through the thing.”

  “Our trips were nothing like that. It was only a big black vo
id. I just saw the most beautiful thing in the world. The lights, colors, pictures. Like being part of a beautiful painting…though, the feeling at the end is the same.”

  Daisha wiped grit from her eyes, regained her balance, and stood up. She was standing on a well-worn path in a lush, green jungle. A scent of decomposing leaves mixed with exotic flowers wafted in her nostrils. Colorful birds she had never seen before flitted among the tree branches. Several mosquitoes swarmed her head, their incessant whine echoing in her ears.

  “I’ve been here before!” she exclaimed, swatting at the bloodsuckers. “We’ve landed back in India!”

  “What are you talking about?” Loosha asked, still on his hands and knees, face flush from throwing up.

  Daisha looked down, sneered, and kicked him directly in the ribs. Loosha cried out in pain as she sprinted down the path. It was a perfect time for her to escape.

  Thick vines and barbed bushes tugged at her skin and clothes as she ran through the jungle. She came to a clearing and stopped for a second, scanning the horizon, hoping to see the golden crown of the Konanavlah Sun Temple poking above the canopy of trees.

  “Axel!” she hollered. “I’m here! It’s Daisha! Where are you?”

  Footsteps pounded from behind. She turned and saw Loosha coming for her. Before she took another step, the man had reached her.

  “Stop!” Loosha ordered, grabbing her roughly by the arm. “Don’t ever run from me again!”

  Daisha ripped her arm away from his grasp. “Why don’t you just let me go!” she spit. “I just want to find Axel—that’s all!”

  “What do you know?” said Loosha. “I want to find him too. He might still be worth some more pieniądze. But do you really want to be alone out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Daisha didn’t care much about being left alone. But Loosha did have a point. Maybe he could help her find Axel. And it wasn’t like he was going to hurt her—Loosha would want her in one piece when he delivered her to the Doctor. So no matter how annoying Loosha was, it was probably in her best interest to stay with him for the time being and then make her escape when they were close to finding Axel.