Escaped

by Gary Urey

  Axel cupped Charu’s hand and sighed. “You’re right. They sure knew all about Daisha and me, and predicted what would happen at the Sun Temple.”

  “Exactly,” Megan said. “If you would’ve told me a month ago that I’d be in India gathering scientific conclusions from a five-thousand-year-old strip of a palm leaf, I’d have called you crazy. But Larraj and Jag were dead right about the Sun Temple, so they may know what we have to do now.”

  “Then let’s go ask them,” Axel said. “I can’t take one more day of not knowing what happened to Daisha.”

  Charu grabbed a torch from the wall, and the three of them scurried down the hall toward Jag’s chamber.

  Chapter Ten

  DAISHA

  Daisha exploded out of thin air and landed on hard gravel. She sat up on one knee and took slow, deep breaths. Loosha was lying a few yards away on his back. His complexion was ten shades of green from their blast through the Warp. But at least this time he wasn’t blowing chunks.

  “Where are we?” Loosha asked.

  “Not the Galápagos Islands, that’s for sure,” Daisha answered.

  Hot, bright sunshine beat down on her, and for a heart-pumping second, she thought she might be blasting directly toward the sun again. Stunning, towering red rock formations surrounded them. The sky was perfectly blue and cloudless. The smell of wet stone and sweet sage wafted in the air. A middle-aged man and woman were standing next to a set of coin-operated binoculars.

  “What in the world was that?” the woman asked, a shocked expression on her face.

  “How dare you light a firecracker off in a state park,” the man said with a scowl. “I should report you to a warden, but they’re probably headed this way after hearing a bang like that.”

  Daisha stood up, ignoring the man and woman. They had landed at some kind of scenic lookout. A sign read RED ROCK STATE PARK.

  “Where’s Red Rock State Park?” Daisha asked.

  “Sedona, Arizona,” the man barked. “Are you two so out of it you don’t even know where you are?”

  “Shut up and get out of here,” Loosha said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

  “Don’t you tell me to shut up,” the man retorted.

  Loosha stood up. His eyes narrowed, making his already menacing presence even scarier. The man slowly backed away. He took one look at the pistol holstered to Loosha’s side and hurried his wife back down the trail.

  Daisha looked down at the GeoPort. The numbers 21.52, 75.3, 78.14, 0.9786 flashed on the screen. “I need to figure you out,” she said.

  “What are you mumbling?” Loosha asked.

  “The numbers on my GeoPort aren’t latitude and longitude. Plus, the Warp’s supposed to take twenty-four hours to reset, but for some weird reason it’s happening sooner now.”

  “Big deal.”

  “It’s a big deal, all right.”

  “Give me that thing,” Loosha said. “I want to go back to Palo Alto.”

  “Then you better start walking,” Daisha said.

  Loosha grabbed Daisha’s arm and snatched away the GeoPort.

  “I want that back!” she cried.

  “Tell me how it works,” Loosha demanded.

  Daisha reared back to lash out at him, but quickly realized she was now the one in charge.

  “The GeoPort’s useless to you,” Daisha said. “My mom and Axel’s dad designed it to work only with my DNA.”

  “Then how did I go through the Warp with you?” Loosha asked.

  “Because…” Daisha started to say. “I don’t know. Something weird is happening.”

  An angry grimace washed over Loosha’s face. “Don’t lie to me!” he roared. “I want to go back to Palo Alto. Now!”

  Daisha grabbed the GeoPort from his hands and started manically pressing buttons.

  “See!” she hollered back. “It’s frozen!”

  Two girls and a boy emerged from the trail. They were young, college-aged, and loaded with backpacks. The boy was as tall as Loosha, but not nearly as muscled and tough looking. One girl had long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and was wearing a University of Arizona T-shirt. The other, a Hispanic girl, had thick black hair and big dark eyes.

  The boy plopped a quarter into one of the coin-operated binoculars. “This is so beautiful,” he said with awe.

  “Let me see,” the blond girl said, nudging the boy aside. “Magnificent.”

  “My turn,” the dark-eyed girl said.

  While the college kids took turns looking through the binoculars, Loosha and Daisha huddle around an information kiosk.

  “What happens now?” Loosha asked.

  “We wait,” Daisha answered.

  “For what?”

  Daisha rolled her eyes. “Oh my gosh! Don’t you get it by now? If the GeoPort is working and the Warp is up and running properly, it takes twenty-four hours to reset. Don’t you listen?”

  A sheepish look washed over Loosha’s face. “But I didn’t think we were in the Galápagos for that long before we Warped away,” he said.

  “Right. That’s why I said if the Warp is running properly,” Daisha responded. “But with you Warping with me, us Warping early, and earthquakes and tsunamis following us wherever we go, I would say the Warp is definitely not working properly.”

  As the meaning of the words sunk in, a look Daisha had never seen before passed over Loosha’s face. For the first time, she saw his tough exterior melt ever so slightly and be replaced with the emotion that must have been written all over her own face: fear.

  It was quiet for a moment and Daisha realized the college kids were no longer chatting. She looked and saw they were now eyeing her and Loosha. The boy was staring at the pistol holstered to Loosha’s side with an uneasy look on his face.

  “Where does this trail lead?” Daisha asked, breaking the tension.

  The dark-eyed girl pointed back to where they had come from. “That way goes back to the visitor center,” she said.

  “Apache Fire Trail’s just ahead,” the blond girl added.

  “Is there camping?” Loosha asked.

  The boy shook his head. “You’re not allowed to camp in the park. But there are lots of campgrounds outside the park boundaries.”

  The sound of clomping horse hooves captured their attention. They looked up and saw two men, high in the saddle and wearing Smokey the Bear hats, riding up the trail from the visitor center.

  “Here come some park rangers,” the blond girl said. “You can probably ask them about the best place to camp.”

  “Do you think that old couple reported us?” Daisha asked Loosha.

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Loosha said. “But I don’t want to take any chances. Let’s go.”

  They ran down a path into the heart of the red rocks. The trail twisted and turned between juniper and mesquite trees. As the men on horseback drew closer, Daisha and Loosha veered off the trail and skittered down a rocky slope full of prickly pear and other kinds of cacti. The sound of rushing water filled their ears. A large creek came into view.

  “We’ll hide along the bank,” Loosha said. “When the Warp resets, we go back to Palo Alto.”

  Loosha stood guard as Daisha sandwiched herself between two large boulders. They waited for hours, until the sun set and darkness fell over the red rocks. She thought of the random numbers that had appeared on the GeoPort. Not just how they got there, but why they were there in the first place. Were they guiding her to Axel? If it happened again, would Axel be waiting for her at the next place? And why did the GeoPort send her to Red Rock State Park in Sedona, Arizona? The place was beautiful, but why here? These questions tumbled in her mind as she drifted into a restless, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  MUNI

  Varya was fast asleep when Muni made it back to her office. The warm feel of the little girl pressed against her chest made Muni’s heart swell with happiness. All the daughters were special to her, but she loved Varya the most—from the thumb sucking to t
he big toothy smile and the way she always twirled her hair.

  She gently laid Varya down on a mound of soft pillows. The child stirred for a moment and fell back asleep. A flitter near the open window caught her attention. An Indian paradise flycatcher had landed on the sill. The bird’s sapphire-colored head, white chest, and bright orange wings and tail feathers were unmistakable. Her nest cradling four speckled eggs was just outside the window in the low-hanging branches of a Ruk tree.

  Pavana burst into the office. “You have to see this,” she said.

  “Shhhh,” Muni hushed, pressing a finger to her lips. “Our angel is sleeping. The Voices may be using dreams to speak to her.”

  Pavana handed Muni her cell phone. “Look at this.”

  “What’s this about?” Muni asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “It’s a newsflash from Huri News. I thought it might interest you.”

  Muni looked at the screen. The words Indian Sun Temple explosion…American held for questioning scrolled across the screen. She tapped the link with her finger and read the brief article.

  Officials in the Indian state of Odisha have detained American billionaire Doctor Lennon Hatch over an explosion at the ancient Konanavlah Sun Temple. Eyewitness reports say the American had surrounded the temple with several pieces of scientific equipment and caused a serious explosion. Damage to the temple is unknown. Odisha State Police are holding Doctor Hatch and several of his associates for questioning.

  The eight-hundred-year-old shrine is a major tourist attraction and considered one of the most revered sites in all of India.

  “Hatch?” Muni said, a hint of surprised shock in her voice. “What in the world was that man doing in India?”

  “Do you know this person?”

  “I met him years ago when I was a geophysics professor at Caltech.”

  “If he’s a doctor of geophysics then why don’t I know about him?”

  “He’s not a doctor. The man’s a multibillionaire who had once funded a couple of my former colleagues.”

  “Was this before or after you had won the Vetlesen Prize?”

  “Well before. The man was money hungry and thought science was the way to even more wealth. I wanted nothing to do with him or his deep pockets.”

  “That temple is supposed to be one of the most magnetic places on the surface of the earth,” Pavana said. “We’ve been trying for years to conduct research there. How’d this man get permission?”

  The cell phone vibrated in Muni’s palm.

  Pavana took back the phone. “Huri News has another newsflash. Wow! Three major earthquakes and a tsunami have been reported around the globe.”

  Muni snatched back the cell phone and read. “A 7.3 in Jakarta, a 7.9 whopper in South America, and a 6.4 around Palo Alto, California. Plus, there was a devastating tsunami in the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.”

  “What’s going on?” Pavana wondered.

  A smile spread across Muni’s face. “Perhaps the Voices are preparing the way. Summon Faraw to watch Varya and follow me to the lab.”

  Faraw arrived ten minutes later, baby bag in tow. Muni and Pavana rushed back down the dirt path toward a small concrete building in the center of the Antakaale’s estate. They called it the Command Center because the structure housed the various instruments that Muni, Pavana, and Gita—before she had attempted escape—used to measure Earth’s magnetic field.

  Muni glanced around, looking for anyone suspicious. Just last month they had caught a reporter from a magazine called Science Sphere snooping around the plantation. Somehow, she had sneaked through the gates and wanted to interview Muni. Members of the Antakaale quickly escorted the woman off the property, but it was a painful reminder that some people were still interested in the whereabouts of the former esteemed professor of geophysics, Benedykta Wójcik, PhD.

  Pavana slipped a card into the security pad, the door popped open, and they stepped inside. A cool blast of air-conditioning greeted them.

  “I’ll prep the fluxgate magnetometer,” Pavana said.

  The fluxgate magnetometer was a sophisticated instrument no larger than a kitchen mixer that worked like a compass. Except, instead of a spinning needle, it used electromagnets to measure magnetic fields.

  Muni sat down at a computer terminal. She logged onto the Geomagnetic Disturbance Lab’s website based in Helsinki, Finland, to check various satellite readings that also measured the strength and direction of the magnetic field.

  “Wow,” Muni said, a hint of excitement in her voice. “Look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “According to data from the satellites, weak spots in the magnetic field are popping up everywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And the magnetic field is strengthening dramatically over the Indian Ocean.”

  Pavana looked over Muni’s shoulder and pointed to a blue blip on the computer screen. “Whoa! Did you just see that? A major magnetic disturbance just happened at latitude longitude 34.8129° N, 111.8309° W.”

  “Where’s that?” Muni wondered aloud as she googled the coordinates. “It’s Red Rock State Park in Sedona, Arizona.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You have your PhD from Imperial College London,” Muni said, testing her. “You tell me.”

  Pavana thought for a moment. “Well, there’s likely only one reason the field is weakening so dramatically,” she explained. “The earth’s magnetic poles are getting ready to flip.”

  “And why would flipping poles cause the field to weaken?”

  “Because this is proven through analysis of seafloor magnetic anomalies. When a reversal of the magnetic poles happens, the shielding effect of Earth’s magnetic field weakens, exposing the atmosphere to much higher levels of radiation.”

  Muni smiled. “Such a smart woman. You make the Voices so happy. Tell me the last verse of the The Way to New Earth.”

  “The Old Earth shall reverse from one end to the other,” Pavana recited. “What was wrong shall be made right. The Voices will grant a New Earth for all those who hear.”

  “All the data suggests the magnetic north is moving toward Siberia,” Muni said.

  “Do you think the earthquakes and tsunami could have something to do with this?”

  Muni sat up from the chair and paced the room. “Of course, it does,” she said. “But I also think it has something to do with that idiot Doctor Lennon Hatch and the explosion he caused at the temple.”

  “Huh?” Pavana asked, puzzled.

  “If that powerful magnetic point on the globe was altered in some way, this may be the beginning of the cataclysmic shift the Voices whispered to me all those years ago. We’ll need Gita’s expertise in physical chemistry to ride this all the way. Prepare her for another indoctrination.”

  Pavana nodded dutifully and raced out the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  AXEL

  Axel, Charu, and Megan walked quickly down the hall and maneuvered single file through a series of mazelike passageways. The place wasn’t just a series of caves, but a beautiful underground shrine. Axel gazed in awe as several torches illuminated the place in a golden hue, but he was too consumed with thoughts of Daisha to truly appreciate the antiquity. The woody smell of sandalwood incense wafted in the still air. Large pillars carved with exquisite murals lined the perimeter of the space. Decorative tapestries of animals and Hindu gods hung from the ceiling. A depiction of a man with the head of an elephant captured Axel’s attention.

  “Who’s that?” he whispered.

  “Ganesha,” Charu answered. “Yep. One of the most beloved Gods in all of Hinduism has the head of an elephant and body of a human.”

  “Very interesting,” Axel said.

  “You should read up on him. Good old Ganesha helps people remove obstacles. He also has an insatiable sweet tooth. Next time you see a statue of him, toss a candy bar at his feet and he’ll bless you forever.”

  They came to a large opening covered with shimmer
ing beads.

  “This is Jag’s chamber,” Megan said.

  A hand parted the beads, and a tall figured stepped into the dim light.

  “Jag,” Axel said. “Where’s Larraj? We need to ask him something.”

  “I still can’t find him,” Jag said. “Kundan doesn’t even know where he went.”

  “Then you’ll have to help us,” Megan said.

  Jag raised his eyebrows. “Help with what?”

  “We have a problem and thought there might be more to the palm leaf prophecy that could help us figure out what’s happening.”

  Jag held up one finger, indicating for them to wait. He disappeared into his chamber and returned a moment later holding a manila envelope.

  “I found this at the foot of my door this morning,” Jag said. “It’s addressed to Axel, and it’s in Larraj’s handwriting.”

  “What is it?” Axel asked.

  Jag reached into the envelope and pulled out a single palm leaf. Axel remembered it looking just like the one Larraj had read to him back at the Sun Temple. The leaf was about the size and shape of a ruler. The faded squiggly lines of scrawled Sanskrit were barely legible.

  “What’s it say?” Megan asked.

  “First things first,” Jag said. “What is your problem?”

  Megan explained about the earthquakes and tsunamis happening around the globe. How Axel’s father and Daisha’s mother were still studying the long-term effects of the X-Points and were unsure of what would happen when one was destroyed. She said the professors had instructed that if something went wrong, they’d need help in creating a new X-Point.

  Jag stroked the day-old stubble on his chin. “And something indeed has gone wrong.”

  “We don’t know what to do,” Axel said. “Since you and Larraj were correct about the Sun Temple, maybe you can help us with this too.”

  “We do not help you,” Jag said. “Larraj and I are just the keepers and interpreters of the palm leaves. The Seven Sages who wrote on them thousands of years ago get all the credit.”

  “Please, read me the leaf,” Axel said. “It’s addressed to me, after all.”