New Earth

by Orrin Jason Bradford

  “I see you’ve brought me a gift.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” James replied with a nod towards Alp. “I believe in tying up loose ends, and this is the last of the Kindreds you ordered.”

  “Well, it took you long enough to deliver,” Hassan said but continued to smile. “Better late than never. Isn’t that what you Americans say?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” James replied.

  Hassan stood up and walked from behind the desk, gazing intently at the young girl. "Hello, Alp. Welcome to my home. It's a pleasure to meet you finally," Hassan said as though welcoming a friend of a friend.

  Alp nodded but didn’t say anything. She looked down at her hands that were still tied together in front of her.

  "I don't think that will be necessary any longer," Hassan said, noticing the ropes for the first time. "Willow, can you take care of that?"

  “Sure,” Willow said as she stepped forward, pulling her stiletto from the sheath strapped to her leg. With a quick flick of her wrist, she severed the strand of rope and removed it from around Alp’s wrists.

  “I understand that you are Mel’s twin sister. Is that correct?”

  Alp nodded. Finally gathering the courage to look the Sheik in the face, she looked up. “Yes, that’s right. Is he okay? Where is Mel?”

  “He’s just fine and is in good hands. But let me ask you, do you have the same special powers of your brother?” the Sheik asked, his voice suddenly growing ominous.

  Alp glanced at James and back at the Sheik. Finally, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean? Special powers?”

  Hassan laughed. “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. You needn’t play innocent with me, my dear. I know more about you than you may think.”

  He reached over and lifted her chin with one hand. “And we have very effective ways to learn more. Do you understand me?”

  Alp nodded, a look of fear growing on her face. Her eyes darted over to James and back.

  “But, not to worry,” the Sheik said, suddenly changing his tone. “Plenty of time to get to know each other better. For now, I’m sure you’re eager to reunite with your sisters. Willow, how about making our young guest comfortable?”

  Hassan turned towards James. "And of course, you'll stay for a day or two, won't you? And who's your companion?"

  James nodded. “Yes, I can stay if you want.” He turned to Pat. “This is an old friend from back home. Pat, may I introduce...”

  But before James could make the introduction, Hassan stepped forward and took Pat’s hand in his own, waving James to silence with the other.

  "Lovely to meet you," he said staring intently into her eyes. As their hands touched, Hassan felt a wave of energy course up his arm. Something was strangely familiar about this woman, but what? He wracked his memory, trying to place her, but nothing came. This had happened before. His long-term memory had been damaged years ago in an accident he only vaguely remembered. It left long gaps in what he could remember about the years before the accident. Had he met this woman before during one of those gaps?

  As he released Pat’s hand, his eyes dropped down to the crystal pendant around her neck.

  "What an interesting necklace," he said as he reached out and touched it. As his fingers made contact, he felt an immediate reaction as a wave of nausea rippled through his body. He glanced back at her, and it was apparent from the look on her face she'd experienced a similar response.

  He took a step back and asked, “Have we met before, maybe years ago?”

  Pat shook her head, a confused look on her face. She smiled weakly. “No, I’m sure I’d remember. I’m not much of a movie buff, but when James mentioned you resembled the great actor, Rudolph Valentino, I had to look him up. I have to say James was wrong. You don’t resemble him. You’re the spitting image of Valentino. I don’t think it’s likely I would have forgotten meeting such a handsome man.”

  Hassan nodded, feigning modesty as nausea slowly passed but the feeling of familiarity remained. "You're so sweet," he replied. "My memory is not what it once was. Well, anyway. Welcome to my home."

  He waved his arm around the room. “One thing I’ve found interesting about Valentino. While he wasn’t all that sociable by the standards of his time, his home, which this is a replica of, had plenty of guest rooms, so I’m sure we’ll be able to make you comfortable during your stay here.”

  But after Willow escorted the three new arrivals out, Hassan walked to the window and gazed out at the oasis, deep in thought. It was good to have all the Kindred under his control finally. Now, he could get on with exploring how best to utilize their unique talents to help him expand his power and influence. So what's troubling me, he wondered? I should be on top of the world, but I'm not. It's that woman. Something wasn't right about her. He'd felt it the instant he'd taken her hand. But what? Surely, she was a small player in this whole game. Just an extra in his power play for world domination. What possible difference could she make?

  He was still deep in thought when the intercom on his desk buzzed, forcing him back to the present. He walked over to it and pressed the button.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked with a note of irritation.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Willow said on the other end, “but while I was showing James and Pat to their rooms, that Petty woman cornered me in the hallway. She’s insisting that she talk to you immediately; something about her payment.”

  Hassan groaned. What a pain-in-the-ass that woman had become. "Tell her I'm not available until this afternoon." He started to break the connection, but then stopped. "No, wait. I've had it with that bitch. Next time she asks about her damn payoff, give it to her."

  “Excuse me?” Willow said. “You want me to initiate paying her off? I don’t have the authority at the bank...”

  “Not that kind of payoff,” Hassan said, cutting her off. “Tell her you’re ready to take her to the bank, so she can get her money, then take her for a ride to our special spot where we’ve taken other people that have annoyed the hell out of me.”

  There was a pause on the other end before Willow replied. “Oh, I see. It’ll be my pleasure.”

  As Pat and James walked to their rooms, James leaned over to her. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Pat whispered back. “Someone just walked over my grave. I’ll be fine.” But meeting the Sheik continued to trouble her. Something was far from okay, but what?

  Pat strolled around the bedroom checking for bugs with her portable detector. As she did so, she continued to feel uncomfortable about her meeting with the Sheik. Over the years, she’d grown to trust such reactions, and the habit had served her well. So what had her instincts been trying to tell her? As she played it over in her mind, she realized the feeling had been strongest not when she'd first grasped Hassan's hand, but when he'd reached up and touched the crystal, she wore around her neck. But what possible connection could there be between the crystal and Hassan?

  She'd found the crystal outside a cave in North Carolina, where that other genetic engineering case involving the founder of Biogentrix had finally come to a bloody ending. But the case went back much farther, starting years before when she and James first met. That night at Yu-Lung's Chinese Pagoda when they'd met to catch up on old times, James had been right. It hadn't been an experimental plane that B.I.U.F.O. had been investigating. It had been an alien ship, and Homlin, or the alien monster who passed himself off as Homlin, had been its captain. The bastard had kidnapped her and taken her to that cave intending to kill her, but she managed to turn the tables, killing him instead. He'd lost the crystal during the fight, and she found it later on a return trip.

  Had Hassan somehow recognized the crystal? No, that didn't make sense. No one else knew anything about it, no one but Homlin, and he was dead. She felt the nauseous feeling return at the thought and shook herself. She had to stay focused on this case and not allow herself to become distracted by such distant memories. She returned her
attention to her work. Satisfied the room was bug-free, she gave the all clear sign. James walked over to his overnight bag that lay at the foot of the bed. He opened it, dumped the clothes and toiletry bag onto the bed and pulled out the false bottom. Removing the two tranquilizer guns, he handed one to Pat and stuck the second one in the waistband at his back. While he would have preferred carrying a 9 mm Glock, they'd all agreed they needed to avoid killing anyone. Besides, the tranq guns could immobilize an assailant nearly as quickly as a slug to the head and would be far less messy.

  The two of them sat down at the desk to map out their next steps. The morning sun shining through the window brought out the rich mahogany grain. “When the diversion starts around five this evening we need to be ready to get Alp and her sisters out and downstairs to the parking deck,” James said. “Luckily, our rooms are just down the hall from the harem area. It shouldn’t take long for Todd and two of his teammates to arrive to assist in breaking us out. We’ll meet them down in the basement and take the service truck to our rendezvous point.”

  Pat nodded.

  “We’ll need to watch out for the Sheik’s security guards, but especially Willow and her men,” James continued. “They’re highly trained and much more dangerous than the rest of Hassan’s security.”

  “And in the meantime?” Pat asked.

  “We stay out of sight and hopefully out of mind,” James replied.

  “It’s going to be a long day,” Pat said.

  “You got that right,” James pulled a pack of cards from his coat pocket. “Would you prefer Blackjack or Gin Rummy?”

  Lab

  DR. CHICKOWSKI LAY on the sofa in their room pretending to read a magazine he'd found on the coffee table, while Miriam watched an old re-run of "show" on tv. Chickowski glanced at his watch; a few minutes before two o'clock. A knock sounded on the door. The two of them stared at each other for a moment as he tried to give Miriam a reassuring smile.

  “That’s probably one of Hassan’s goons here to take me down to the lab.” He stood up, dropped the magazine back onto the table and walked over to answer the door.

  "As-salaam Alaykum, Dr. Chickaunski. I'm Ned. Sheik Hassan has instructed me to escort you to the lab," the tall, muscular man wearing all black said.

  “It’s Chickowski,” Thaddeus corrected him, ignoring the customary Arabic greeting. He turned to Miriam who was now standing with the remote still in her hand. She flipped off the television and walked over to him and, much to his surprise, gave him a warm hug as though they were a happily married couple.

  As she hugged him, she whispered in his ear. “Do whatever necessary to convince him that the damn template works so we can get our money and get out of this hellhole today.”

  Chickowski smiled and replied, “I love you too dear. I’ll be back in just a few hours.”

  He turned back to the man in black. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The two of them walked down the hallway to the elevator with Ned leading the way. Neither of them said anything until they were on the basement floor and Ned pointed down the hall towards the lab. "This way."

  Chickowski nodded. No need to point out to this goon that he'd already found the lab earlier that morning. To his surprise, the man stopped at the door to the lab and opened it, waving him into a smaller room where he found Hassan and another man also dressed in black. Chickowski looked at his escort then to the other man and back again with a perplexed look.

  “My twin brother, Ted,” Ned said, obviously accustomed to such a reaction.

  “Ahhh, there you are Dr. Chickowski,” Hassan said as the two of them stepped into the room. “Come in, come in. Ayhem tells me the two of you have already met.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Chickowski replied. “I found I couldn’t sleep this morning. Too excited about today’s test, I guess.”

  “I understand,” Hassan replied with a warm smile. “I sometimes suffer from insomnia myself.”

  Ayhem smiled and nodded at Chickowski but didn't say anything. It appeared to Chickowski that the boy was at least as nervous as he was, and Chickowski knew he had a good reason. In fact, if the boy had any idea how much Chickowski would be winging what was about to happen, he'd probably wet his pants.

  Fake it ’til you make it. The well-worn phrase came to Chickowski’s mind. He’d used that approach more than once in his life. It had served him well, but never in a situation where someone’s life was on the line. He felt the perspiration trickle down the inside of his arm.

  "Now, before you get started, I want to establish the purpose of our little test today," Hassan said, then stopped and looked at the twins who were standing next to each other. "One of you take Ayhem into the other room and prepare him like I previously instructed you."

  “That would be your job, Ted,” Ned said with a nod to his brother.

  Ted walked over to the other door next to a large observation window. He punched in a code on the digital pad, unlocking the door and then stepped aside to make way for Ayhem. After the two of them left, Hassan turned back to Chickowski.

  "No need to concern Ayhem with any of this. It's just between the two of us, but I want to be sure you're clear what we're doing here." He stared at Chickowski, the warm smile replaced with an icy hard look. "I need to know that the thing you call the template works; that, when it's given to a subject, it will result in that subject having special powers. I realize that it's still being tested and not all the bugs have been worked out, but I want to see some results today that proves to me it works. Is that clear?"

  Chickowski nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but found it so dry nothing came out; so he took a moment to swallow a couple of times, then tried again. “Understood,” he finally managed to say.

  “Good,” Hassan replied, the warm smile returning. “Then let’s proceed.” He nodded to Ned who walked to the door, entered the code into the digital pad, then opened the door for his boss and Chickowski to pass before closing the door behind them.

  Flip wasn’t sure he could put his finger on exactly when the change had started. It might have even been during the flight over to Dubai, or perhaps that first day after acquiring the limousines. For sure, by the second morning in this strange city, he'd noticed something odd happening within him. For one, he slept more soundly and with more lucid and more expansive dreams than ever before. Plus, he remembered each dream in rich detail. Unlike his previous experience with dreams, these did not fade shortly after awakening. He could recall them whenever he liked. In fact, it appeared he had considerably better access to his long-term memory than ever before.

  Evidence of that happened the second day after their arrival in Dubai serendipitously. He and Damba were out shopping for clothes that would allow them to play their respective roles while in the city. For Flip, that meant a business suit made from a light silk fabric that would be relatively comfortable in the scorching heat of early summer. For Damba, who could more easily pass as a native to the region, they bought a couple of thawbs, the ankle-length robe-like garment of traditional Arab dress. Under his thawb, Damba wore an izaar, a kilt-like garment made from a thin cotton fabric.

  While out, they stopped at a sidewalk cafe not far from their hotel for a bite to eat. While sitting there, Flip noticed an attractive woman in her mid-thirties seated with a man in a white sports jacket. As the woman turned in her seat to look at something the man was pointing out to her, Flip could see her face clearly and instantly recognized her, even though the last time he'd seen her was his freshman year in college when they'd met briefly at a fraternity mixer.

  But how could that be, Flip wondered? But there was no denying the level of certainty he felt about the identification. Finally, his curiosity got the best of him. He rose from the table and walked over to the young woman.

  “Hello, excuse me for intruding,” he said as the man and woman turned to look at him. “I apologize for being so forward, but did you by chance attend Boston College?”

  The woman looked at h
im as though he was from a distant planet but replied, “Why yes, but that was ages ago.”

  “You’re Lynn, right. Lynn Wheeler?”

  “That’s my maiden name,” she replied. “This is my husband. Do I know you?”

  “No, not really,” Flip replied nodding to her companion. “We just met once in college, and you looked familiar. Have a pleasant day.”

  Flip returned to the table where Damba sat.

  “What was that all about?” Damba asked.

  "Oh, nothing. Just an old friend," Flip replied, but he knew better. Something was up. He'd never been that good with names; a shortcoming that had gotten him in trouble more than once. Suddenly, he could remember someone he'd met decades ago. Recalled not only her name but the exact five-minute conversation they'd had...word for word. Something indeed was happening to him.

  Upon returning to their hotel room, Flip asked Damba to try on his new clothes.

  “How does it feel?” Flip asked.

  “Strangely comfortable,” Damba replied. “Almost familiar, but I still don’t understand why I need to wear this. There were plenty of people on the streets wearing regular clothes. In fact, more of those than people wearing these silly robes.”

  "Agreed," Flip said, "But we need to be ready for whatever contingency. You can go virtually anywhere in that outfit; if you had to, you could even go to a mosque, though I doubt that will be necessary."

  “I see,” Damba replied. “Not that I’m likely to get to go to any of those places, right? Isn’t this just more of an attempt to try to convince me that my presence is even needed?”

  Flip stared at the boy before sighing and saying. “I’m not having this conversation with you again. I’m going to lie down for a little catnap. I suggest you do the same.”

  Damba nodded but didn't say anything, unhappy with Flip's reply. Let the boy sulk; Flip thought as he turned to walk to his room. After all, wasn't that what teenage boys did?