Escaped

by Gary Urey

  Daisha nodded, and Muni removed the gag from her mouth. She gasped, sucking a deep and welcomed breath into her lungs.

  “What do you want?” Daisha huffed.

  “She told you already,” Pavana said. “Where’s the boy?”

  “If you’re talking about Loosha, he’s back at the visitor center,” Daisha said.

  “Is that his real name?”

  “Yes.”

  Muni looked at Pavana. “Bring him to me. Find the driver and give him plenty of dinar to keep quiet. There’s a stun gun in my bag. Use it if necessary. Go. Now!”

  Pavana raced outside and into the hot sun. Muni and Gita moved to the far end of the tent, whispering among themselves. Daisha strained her ears to hear what they were saying. Three of their words made her heart freeze.

  Electron. Diffusion. Region.

  How could they possibly know about that? She listened some more, catching scraps of their conversation. She heard things like magnetic poles, flipping, earthquakes, geophysics, and New Earth. None of it made sense to her.

  Muni walked over to the bed, reached into Daisha’s pocket, and pulled out the GeoPort. The unit pulsed with blue starbursts.

  “The Golden Jewel of my vision,” Muni said, cradling the GeoPort between her palms. “The boy named Loosha has the other. We need to destroy both of them so the door to New Earth will open.”

  “It’s called a GeoPort,” Daisha said. “Not a Golden Jewel.”

  “May I?” Gita asked.

  Muni handed her the GeoPort.

  A voice called from outside the tent.

  “Marhaba? Hello?”

  Before Daisha could cry out, Muni quickly tied the gag back around her mouth.

  “Who is it?” Muni asked.

  “It’s Tala,” a female voice answered. “My father sent me. He needs to speak with you quickly about some of the arrangements and activities.”

  “One moment.” She turned to Gita. “Watch her.”

  Muni slipped a lotus flower behind her ear and left the tent. Gita peeked through the flap, watched her walk away with Tala, and then removed the gag from Daisha’s mouth.

  “This is a fascinating piece of equipment you have here,” Gita said, studying the GeoPort. “What do you use it for?”

  “None of your business,” Daisha said. “Just give it back. I’m the only one who can use it anyway.”

  Gita pressed the SW button. Nothing happened.

  “Tell me your last name and where you’re from,” Gita said. “Then I’ll think about giving it back to you.”

  “My name’s Daisha Tandala. I’m from Palo Alto, California. Now give it back!”

  A surprised look washed over Gita’s face. “Did you say Tandala?”

  Daisha nodded.

  “Are you related to Jodiann Tandala? She’s a professor at Stanford.”

  Daisha lurched, like Gita had just sucker punched her in the gut. How in the world could this crazy cult devotee know her mother’s name?

  “She’s my mother,” Daisha said. “Someone shot her.”

  The woman’s response surprised Daisha. A wellspring of tears burst from her eyes. She plopped down on the bed.

  “Did you know her?” Daisha asked.

  “No, but I’ve heard her name many times. My real name’s…”

  Gita’s voice trailed off, like she wasn’t sure if trusting Daisha was the right thing to do.

  “They call you Gita,” Daisha pressed. “Isn’t that your real name?”

  Gita shook her head. “I’m Luciana…Lopez. I was a professor of geophysics at Caltech. The Antakaale have my—”

  Daisha sensed an opening and pounced. “Anta…what?”

  “That’s the name of our group. They have my little daughter, Varya…Catalina.”

  “And they’re holding her over your head, aren’t they?” Daisha wiggled closer to her. “You don’t want to be here as much as I do. You’re a hostage just like me. Untie me. We’ll find your daughter and get out of this place.”

  Gita wiped away her tears and produced a pocketknife from a backpack. She sliced the zip ties from Daisha’s wrists. Just as she was about to snip the restraints from Daisha’s ankles, the tent flap flew open and Muni stepped inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  AXEL

  The sun beat down on Axel and Charu as they walked deeper into the desert. They had slurped enough water from the puddle to make their bellies bulge, but it was not enough to keep the intense temperature at bay.

  “I need to rest,” Charu groaned. Her face was flushed, her breathing slow and labored.

  “Just a little farther,” Axel said as he trudged over a sand dune. “These prints have to be from Daisha. She’s been here. She’s alive.”

  “What prints?”

  Axel looked to the ground. The footprints they had been following were gone, covered up by the wind and sand.

  “We’re going in the right direction,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  He yanked the GeoPort from his pocket. The coordinates 29.5347° N, 35.4079° E flickered on the screen in neon green. When he had seen Daisha’s name and the numbers scrawled on the wall, he could barely contain his excitement. Now, an hour into their trek into the dry expanse of desert, he regretted leaving the gorge and puddle of water.

  “We have to keep walking,” Axel said.

  They continued trudging into the wall of heat. Sweat poured down their faces. Axel gripped his hamstring. His wound had healed significantly, but his legs were cramping and a throbbing headache pounded in his skull.

  “Are you okay?” Charu asked.

  Axel didn’t answer her. A sudden spell of dizziness came over him, and he dropped to one knee. Charu ran to him.

  “Heat exhaustion,” she said. “I’ve seen this many times in India. You’re not used to this temperature.”

  “I’m fine,” Axel said, standing back up. “We need to keep going. Daisha’s here somewhere, and I have to find her.”

  After resting for a moment on the shady side of an outcrop, they trudged farther into the sand. Axel took a few steps and looked into the sky. Streaks of brilliant colors danced and twinkled on the horizon.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  Charu looked up, her eyes wide with astonishment. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

  “It looks like the aurora borealis.”

  The borealis disappeared and the wind picked up. Grit and dust blew in Axel’s and Charu’s eyes and mouths. They turned their backs, but the gusts were coming at them in all directions. Several whirling funnels appeared in the distance.

  “Sand devils,” Axel said. “And they’re coming our way.”

  The visibility dropped dramatically. Axel tried to take a step forward but couldn’t move. He looked down. Sand was now covering him and Charu to the calves, slowly burying them alive.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Charu cried out.

  That’s when Axel saw two sets of giant eyeballs coming at them. His insides froze in terror. A giant sand monster was about to eat Charu and him like a real-life horror movie. The eyeballs stopped right before them. He heard two loud bangs like car doors slamming. Strange voices echoed along with the hissing wind.

  “Yalla!” a man’s deep voice called. “Get them inside!”

  That’s when Axel saw two men. They wore red-and-white checkered headdresses and dark green army-like uniforms with patches on the chest. One man grabbed Axel, the other Charu, and pulled them from the sand. A few steps later and they were in the back seat of a four-wheel drive Nissan SUV.

  Relief from being out of the sandstorm was instant. Axel and Charu coughed, hacking up grit and dirt from their lungs. The driver revved the engine, spun the wheels a few times, and sped off into the desert. A patch on their shirt read Wadi Rum Desert Patrol.

  The man in the front passenger’s seat passed them a water bottle. Axel and Charu took turns chugging until the bottle was empty. After a few minutes
of driving, they were out of the sandstorm and into the bright sunshine.

  “You’re lucky we saw you before the storm hit,” the driver said, peering into the back seat through the rearview mirror. “You could have died out here.”

  “How’d you get separated from your party?” the other man asked in a thick accent.

  Axel didn’t quite know how to answer. After all, he couldn’t tell the man that he and Charu had Warped there and didn’t have a party. Finally, he just nodded yes.

  “What camp are you visiting?” asked the driver.

  A glossy, trifold tourist brochure was sitting between them in the back seat.

  Charu scooped it up and blurted, “We want to go back to the visitor center.”

  The driver nodded, turned the SUV around, and sped in the opposite direction. An hour later, stone buildings came into view. A sign read Wadi Rum Visitor Center.

  Axel and Charu thanked the men and stepped from the SUV. They saw tour buses, a few local workers dressed in robes and headdresses, and dozens of tourists. They opened the door to the visitor center to a blast of cool air-conditioning. People stared at them as they took turns slurping from the water fountain.

  “You’re a grimy mess,” Axel told Charu.

  “And you look like you just took a bath in a pile of dirt,” said Charu. “Let’s wash off and meet back here.”

  Axel pushed open the men’s room door and looked in the mirror. He was filthy. The sun exposure had burned his face red. Dirt, muck, and sand covered every inch of his exposed skin. He turned on the water and splashed his face, arms, and neck. There were no paper towels, so he air-dried himself.

  The handle of the toilet stall jiggled, and a large man with a bull tattoo on his neck stepped out. They looked at each other. After a confused moment, both of their faces flashed with recognition.

  “Loosha!” Axel cried and burst out of the bathroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MEGAN

  The airplane’s sudden drop in altitude made Megan’s stomach lurch into her esophagus. She grabbed Jag’s hand as the turbulence rocked the plane back and forth. Flying had always made her nervous, but this flight from New Delhi to Aqaba, Jordan, felt like climbing inside a metal garbage can and tumbling down the Grand Canyon.

  A male voice echoed throughout the cabin from the intercom: “Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts.”

  Seat belts clicked and passengers stumbled back to their seats. Flight attendants scurried up and down the aisle collecting garbage. A baby one row over started crying. The mother popped a bottle in the infant’s mouth. An overhead compartment flew open, and a large carry-on crashed to the floor.

  “It’ll be okay,” Jag said, trying to reassure her. “Just a little turbulence, that’s all.”

  Megan looked out the window, saw the left wing shaking, and quickly closed the shade. The flight had been rocky from takeoff, but she and Jag had no other choice. After cell service came back up in India, Megan googled the coordinates 29.5347° N, 35.4079° E. She discovered they were for a place called the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan, and she knew that’s where Axel and Charu had Warped. A sneaking suspicion also told her that Daisha might be there.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Megan said.

  “Do you need the barf bag?” Jag asked.

  Megan shook her head. “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m in a disaster movie?” a middle-aged businessman sitting behind them joked.

  His comment made the surrounding passengers chuckle, but given what had happened in recent days, everyone seemed particularly on edge. Megan knew that if she and Jag didn’t find Axel, Daisha, and the two GeoPorts, this disaster movie would be all too real.

  A female voice blasted over the intercom. “Flight attendants and cabin crew, please be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain, Perri Towles. We are now passing over a very large hurricane in the Arabian Sea that’s causing a lot of turbulence. We should be swimming out of it shortly. However, we’ve just received a radio transmission about seven, yes, you heard me right, seven hurricanes being reported around the globe. This may affect your connecting flights. Please check with your airline when we land in Aqaba. Thank you for flying Oceana.”

  A flight attendant then repeated the message in another language. Megan looked at Jag, her eyes filled with worry. “Seven hurricanes. Can you believe it? If we don’t create a new X-Point soon, the world as we know it ends.”

  “We’ll land safely in Aqaba and find the kids,” Jag said. “I just know it. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? You’ll need every ounce of energy to pull this off.”

  Sleep was the last thing on Megan’s mind. The plane seemed to steer out of the turbulence and stabilize, making her stomach feel much better. She took a deep breath and rummaged in the seat pocket. There was the standard safety instruction material, barf bag, and an in-flight magazine called Oceana and You. She was just about to pick it up when another magazine called Science Sphere caught her eye. The cover story was about some modern-day doomsday cult. On the cover was a slightly blurry picture—obviously taken from a long-lens camera—of a gray-haired woman with a crazy tattoo on her forehead wearing a long white robe.

  The caption read: From Geophysics Superstar to Cult Leader: The Story of Benedykta Wójcik, PhD.

  A slice of intense déjà vu rippled through Megan’s stomach. “How do I know this woman?” she wondered, turning to the article.

  The magazine went into detail about Benedykta Wójcik—her modest beginnings on a farm in Poland, professorship at Caltech, and winning the coveted Vetlesen Prize in geophysics. The story became seriously strange after that. The author of the article interviewed some of Benedykta’s former colleagues. All of them claimed her behavior became erratic within months after winning the Vetlesen.

  “Benny—that’s what everyone called her back then—started claiming to hear voices, see visions,” Sara Hanson, PhD, Wójcik’s former research assistant, says. “She abandoned her husband and only child. Sadly, the woman was obviously descending into the ravages of paranoid schizophrenia. We in the department tried getting her help from doctors and medication. But she refused our offers and disappeared almost overnight.”

  Another colleague, Hugo Cyr, PhD, says, “About a year after she left the university, I received a strange little pamphlet in the mail from her. Only she had started calling herself Muni by that time. The booklet was filled with these odd, disturbing, pseudo-religious verses. Obviously the product of a diseased, schizophrenic mind.”

  Megan studied the accompanying photograph. The pamphlet was named The Way to New Earth, and the group she had founded called themselves the Antakaale, a Sanskrit term meaning “the end of life.”

  The article picked up many years later, when the author tracked her to a tea plantation in Sri Lanka. By this time, she had nearly one hundred followers and a bank account in the millions. Megan’s heart sunk when the desperate relatives of her followers joined the article. After the women fell under Muni’s spell, they each wrote one last letter to their families in tiny, bizarre-looking script, saying their relatives were never going to hear from them again. As far as the women were concerned, Muni and the Voices were their real and only family.

  “I’ve spent virtually all my retirement nest egg on private investigators trying to find my daughter,” says the father of Luciana Lopez, one of Muni’s followers.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this Muni person is a criminal,” Lopez’s mother adds, wiping away tears. “A brainwashing, kidnapping criminal. She’s a monster.”

  Megan glanced down the page and saw an old picture of a young Benedykta. She held a baby and stood next to a tall man with asphalt-black hair.

  The caption read: Benedykta abandoned her husband, noted geologist Russell Hollinger, and her daughter, Megan.

  Megan burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Jag asked, taking her hand.

 
“This article…the woman in the picture. She’s…my—”

  “She’s what?”

  “Benedykta Wójcik is my mother!”

  The plane rattled violently, dropping several thousand feet in altitude. The nose pointed nearly straight down. Cups, cans, and pieces of paper flew into the air. Noxious yellow smoke filled the cabin.

  “What’s happening?” the businessman next to them shouted.

  “We’re going down!” cried another passenger.

  People screamed, a loud buzzer blasted around the cabin, and air masks dropped from the ceiling. The contents of Megan’s airplane breakfast belched into her mouth. She leaned forward and vomited directly into the seat pocket.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  LOOSHA

  Loosha took off after the boy. He burst from the bathroom and ran down the hallway past several local artisans’ tables. A crowd of people jumped out of the way. He pushed open the doors of the visitor center and stepped outside. Where was he? The kid looked like Axel, but he wasn’t yet sure. Then again, how did the kid know his name?

  “Axel!” Loosha yelled out. “I’m here with Daisha! Come back!”

  A large group of Asian tourists were approaching. Loosha weaved through them and ran around the side of the building to the parking lot. Three passenger vans wheeled past him. The boy was nowhere in sight.

  “Axel!” Loosha hollered again. “I have Daisha!”

  But where was Daisha? Before he had stepped into the visitor center to use the bathroom, she was standing right here in the parking lot. Now she was gone.

  “Daisha! I saw Axel!”

  There was no response. Loosha’s cheeks flushed with anger. He shrugged off the emotion, knowing full well they couldn’t have gone too far in this massive desert. The visitor center had several buildings. They were probably somewhere hiding among them. Or, maybe…

  “The GeoPort,” he said, interrupting his own thoughts. “What if it reset and they both Warped out of here? That means I’m stuck!”