For a long moment nothing happens. I don’t even hear him breathing. He’s just standing there, taking in the patterns on my back.
DIE
‘Only four people know about it: my father, who cut it; my mother, who covered it up; Zula, our physician, who fixed me up; and Cacho because Zula asked him to take me away from my parents and bring me to my…spermdonator, or whatever that man is.’ My voice is unsteady. I pull my shirt back on and walk away before my knees give in.
Erik Vandemeer. I don’t even know what I should call this man. Father doesn’t nail it. But then, the word father never had any other meaning to me than pain.
I walk down to the shore and sit in the sand. Half the sky is black, the other half, bright blue. A rainbow stands bow-legged at the horizon, feet in the water. The ocean’s fidgety surface cuts the sun into a thousand tiny fragments. I focus on it and try to empty my mind. It doesn’t work, so I shed my clothes and slip into the water’s cool embrace, swim a few metres and sink to the dark bottom, and let the booming of the waves calm my heart. Saltwater soaks through the bandages and burns in my wounds. I let it burn and stay underwater until my chest contracts and my lungs scream for release.
I wash my hair and my skin, although, I’m clean enough from taking a long swim with Runner earlier in the morning. I remove the wet bandages, rub myself dry with my shirt, get dressed, and walk back to our camp to disinfect and dress my cuts.
‘Micka?’ Runner’s eyes scan my arms and the handful of soaking wet bandages. ‘Where is your knife?’ There’s anger in his voice.
‘I took a swim. The knife is in my tent.’ I walk up to him. ‘Do you think Erik blackmailed Cacho to make me come to him?’
‘It’s possible. But I’m not sure why he would do this. Members of the BSA don’t give a damn about family ties.’
‘Hm,’ I answer and dig my toes into the soil.
‘Micka?’
‘Yes?’
‘Whatever this man wrote us today, Erik most likely knows about the scar,’ Runner says.
‘Yes, but Erik wouldn’t know how Cacho learned about it; he was gone already. Next time Cacho calls, I want him to tell me why he picked me.’
‘Yeah, I want to know that, too.’
‘The map, please.’ Runner snips an impatient finger at Kat. She blinks away the somewhat disrespectful gesture, switches on the screen, and opens a map of Taiwan.
‘Okay. As we know, the BSA went in here,’ he points at the west coast, one hundred kilometres off the southern tip of the island. ‘Two weeks later, we lost contact.’
He enlarges the observatory. ‘Erik, a former Sequencer and a satellite control, communications, and intelligence specialist, appears to have a leading role in this BSA group. We must assume he sees every single one of our moves during daylight hours when the sky is clear.
‘Their camp is a two-day hike from here.’ Runner points his index finger at a thin red line amidst the thick green forest — an old airstrip. ‘They are in possession of heavy weaponry.’ He nods at Ben and Yi-Ting and gets grave stares in return. ‘From now on, you two are responsible for visuals from the coastlines between Taiwan and the continent. I need to know if and when troop and cargo transport vessels are approaching. The BSA will reinforce sooner or later; all this weaponry can’t be for the fifty odd men we’ve seen. First question is: what do they need it for? Certainly not to attack us; we are only four people. Second question is: how many more camps and men do they have on location? Yi-Ting, how far did you get with the coding?’
‘We can encrypt text messages now,’ she answers. ‘It’s an old military technique that was used long before we took sole control of satellites. The BSA might be able to intercept the signal, but as long as they don’t have the codes, they’ll not understand what’s being exchanged. I’ll provide you with a list of codes that we’ll switch every twenty-four hours.’
‘Can they locate us?’ he asks.
‘Well… It depends on what they have,’ Kat answers. ‘The Chinese military satellites can pick up your signal and pinpoint your location within a radius of fifty metres. Don’t know why they never launched a better one. The BSA evidently controls the ESA’s cluster, too, but should they have gained control of the Russian military satellite system also, then they can see every single shot you fire. Their short-wave infrared and microwave satellites are top notch. They can see the thermal signature of your body, the muzzle flash, and the barrel of your rifle after you’ve fired a few shots. You’ll have to hide underneath thick foliage and clouds. You’re sharply visible on clear nights and days. The Russians used face-recognition software; keep that in mind when you dare show yourself for even a second.’
Runner nods slowly. ‘Micka and I know how to remain invisible. But…’
He looks at me and the penny drops. ‘They saw us breaking into the observatory,’ I say. ‘When we zeroed in our rifles, we lay prone on the airstrip. No trees above us. They saw that, too. Shit.’
‘They possibly saw us at the observatory,’ he replies. ‘But they certainly didn’t see us installing the amplifier, nor landing on the island. Heavy overcast in both cases.’
Well, that’s something. Some tiny thing. But Kat still hasn’t heard a peep from the observatory and that makes me think the Bullshit Army is avoiding it because they did see every single move we made. They must be mad that their booby trap didn’t blow us to shreds.
‘No word about this to the person who pretends to be Cacho,’ Runner continues. ‘The real Cacho might be dead by now. And Kat — no word to Joanna, except through personal contact. I know how badly you want to interview her. Let the BSA think us stupid for a little while longer. At nightfall…’ he looks at Ben and Yi-Ting, ‘…you drop off Micka and me, then you return to Itbayat. Fly your usual rounds at the usual times but avoid the camp. I want to know if there are any survivors in Taiwan, if the BSA has set up other camps on the island, or shows any sign of activity down in the cities. The latter will be hard to detect, but it’s worth giving it a shot. I also want to know about movements at sea and the harbours. Use cloud cover and avoid being seen at all costs. I want Erik to feel superior.’
He turns to Kat then. ‘Set up an encrypted comm with the continent. Your friend should be ready to move in our forces within twenty-four hours’ notice. Kat, you are our centre of communication and intelligence, and you are responsible for communicating to me every morsel of news as soon as possible. Is that clear?’
‘It’s not our first time, Runner,’ she says softly and smiles. Her hand rests on his shoulder and suddenly a monster roars inside my chest. I could totally tear up her throat with my teeth. What the heck? I stretch my neck to loosen the tension. Breathe out, breathe in, hold, release. My fists unclench.
‘True.’ He touches her fingers, leans back, and shuts his eyes.
My brain makes a click. ‘You want the two of us to take down fifty men?’ I croak.
‘Yes. But first, I want to learn what they are up to. There’s one factor that can make patience profitable — the BSA shows signs of organisation. Most would interpret this as disadvantageous. But I want as many of them as possible in one spot. And then we blow them up.’
A shiver crawls up my spine. ‘Is it possible that Erik has an apprentice who controls the satellites and manipulates the images for him?’
‘I hope to learn this when we’re on location.’ Runner claps his hands together and I jump as if he just fired a shot over my head. ‘We’ll run two operations. Micka and I are the stealth force. You, ladies and gentleman, are the brute force.’ He grins at the others. ‘We’ll smoke the buggers out of their holes.’
‘One more thing,’ Kat says. ‘Image analyses.’
Runner sits back down and nods at her to go on.
‘It’s now abundantly clear that someone has been manipulating our satellite imagery for years. And that someone did a very good job.’
‘Were you able to dig out the raw data?’ Ben asks.
‘No. A
ll scrubbed. I was looking at global imagery trying to reconstruct a timeline of Erik’s disappearance and the first doctoring of satellite data.’
‘Do we know when, precisely, Erik disappeared?’
‘It’s in our files. Cacho reported Erik missing nine and a half years ago. There was an investigation, but no leads. Fits with what the so-called Cacho said, but it’s not surprising he has this information. Compared to all the other things he seems to know, it’s insignificant.’
The computer bleeps, three dots blink on the screen — Cacho’s new window.
Next question, Runner types. Is Erik controlling the Chinese satellite system from the island, or is someone doing it for him?
The screen reads, I’m trying to find out. All I know so far is that the BeiDou-G12 satellite navigation system with all its twenty-five satellites has been hacked. No idea how long ago. Twelve of these satellites operate at geostationary orbit seeing all of China at all times. That includes Taiwan. Those are the ones seeing your every move in the visible spectrum and the shortwave infrared.
Kat smirks, her mouth is a hard line, her eyes flicker dangerously. Damn! What resolution do they have? she types, although she knows it perfectly well.
In the visible spectrum they can use face-recognition software to track you. The IR spectrum imagery is less advanced. To be detectable, objects have to be at least five metres in diameter and 50°C warmer than air. These satellites have been designed to monitor steep temperature changes from forest fires, aircrafts, ships, explosions, and the like. A small camp fire is invisible, as is a person or a group of people.
Kat types, Thanks! That helps a great deal. I’ll get back to you in a bit, have to run, and swipes the screen without waiting for Runner’s consent. I’m puzzled.
‘What you said before,’ he begins. ‘The manipulated satellite images. Can you tell us more?’
‘Yeah,’ she answers. ‘We already know that the imagery of the entire south half of the island had been doctored twenty-four hours before we lost contact. Since then, it appears the island is uninhabited, you all know this.’
‘Any signals from the observatory?’
‘Nothing as of yet.’
‘What about the global imagery. You mentioned you found more fake data?’ he asks.
‘Yes. This is where it gets really interesting. One set from sixteen months ago, and one set from twenty-one months ago. Once the encrypted comm is installed between the continent and Itbayat, I’ll send out two of our teams to gather intel. One is to go to Lake Baykal and the other to Kogi. I found manipulated satellite images in both locations.’
‘Where’s that?’ I ask.
‘Kogi is in Nigeria, Africa. Lake Baykal is in Russia, north of the Mongolian Plateau.’
‘I wonder what these places have in common with Taiwan,’ Runner says. ‘Can your radio signal be intercepted?’
‘Not sure yet. No functional train connection is the only factor these three locations seem to share, but I’ll keep digging. As for the interception: as long as they don’t know we use outdated technology, they probably won’t start looking for it. Encrypted radio signals are our safest bet.’
Runner pushes himself up. When he catches Yi-Ting’s severe expression, he lowers his gaze and leaves the comm tent with a sharp, ‘We pack now, Micka.’
‘You didn’t ask him,’ I call after him and he sticks his head back into the tent.
‘Kat will ask him next time. She’s much better at interrogating.’
Once we are out of Kat’s earshot, I ask, ‘Why did she break off the conversation with Cacho, or whomever—’
‘Because she needs to collect more information before she decides which questions to ask. If not planned well enough, each of her questions will give away too much. What we know, what we believe important for our mission, stuff like that. Come, get a move on now.’
I grunt acknowledgement, but inside I cringe at the thought of Kat poking around in my life.
Later in the evening Runner takes me aside and I can tell what’s coming.
‘I need to know if you can kill. When I tell you to open fire, when someone opens fire at us, or when a man shows up in your finder and you identify him as BSA and the moment calls for it — will you pull the trigger?’
‘Think so.’ I hold my chin high, but he doesn’t buy it. My unsteady voice coming from a too-dry mouth gives me away. He knows I want to crawl into a hole right now.
‘Not good enough.’ He takes a step forward. His face is close to mine; his arms are crossed over his chest and touch my ribcage lightly. My feet are stuck to the soil, I can’t move. ‘If I can’t trust that you will use your skills to the best of your abilities and that you will kill these men, I cannot take you with me. I can’t wait for you to make a decision in combat. You have to make it now.’
Somehow, I doubt that my defiance and anger will be enough to let me mow down fifty men, to make people die, to watch them dying. It’s not that I feel for them. It’s that I don’t care enough for the survival of our species. To tell the truth, I don’t give a shit if our species survives or not. Maybe it’s the wrong reason to kill, anyway. Groaning, I take a step back from him, bury my face in my hands, and rub my cheeks until they burn. With blurry vision, I look up at Runner. ‘Can I borrow Ezra?’
It takes him a moment to react. ‘You want to kill for my daughter?’ There’s shock in his voice, but his expression remains controlled.
‘Yeah, I like her. And I…almost killed you to protect her. So I guess it’ll work. That’s the best I can offer.’
His Adam’s apple hops up and down. He blinks and for a short moment, I can glimpse the unraveling of darkness behind his eyes; something opens up and softens, and that scares me more than him firing shots over my head during training, or the prospect of getting killed in combat.
‘It’s good enough,’ he croaks.
Part Two - Taiwan
When I was young and bold and strong,
Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong!
My plume on high, my flag unfurled,
I rode away to right the world.
‘Come out, you dogs, and fight!’ said I,
And wept there was but once to die.
Dorothy Parker
Dark blue brushes against the black night sky. On the other side of the mountain, the sun will rise in an hour. It’s time for us to make camp. A few hours ago I was still wondering how long my body would need to adapt to the new rhythm — walking at night, sleeping during daytime. But right now, I don’t need adapting. My muscles scream for a break, my chest feels like sighing constantly, my knees want to buckle. Runner waves a tired arm at a tree that looks like all the others we’ve walked past tonight. I take off my night vision goggles, drop my ruck on the ground, and instantly feel as if I’m floating. I’ve been carrying thirty kilograms uphill for seven hours with little interruption. Runner’s ruck weighs forty kilograms. We’ll bury about half of that weight before we leave this campsite.
With Ben’s and Yi-Ting’s help, we’ve dug down two large boxes of ammo, explosives, spare rifles, and MedKits near the airstrip. A few hours later and several kilometres into the woods, Runner and I dug down another box of sealed ammo and explosives.
Now, sitting on my haunches, I open Yi-Ting’s presents — steamed rice, fish, and veggies wrapped in large leaves — two packages for me and two for Runner. We eat with our fingers and chew in silence, both of us too exhausted to make conversation.
Our first priority is to remain undetected until we open fire. We’ll spend our days sleeping either on the ground with our bodies concealed by our ghillies, or high up in a tree, concealed by foliage and by our ghillies strapped to the underside of our green hammocks. When we walk, hats made of leaves help to cloak us, our thermal signature, and our rucks from satellites. We are invisible and that feels and sounds almost as good as invincible.
As soon as I settle in my hammock and stare up at the thick greenery and the few silvery stars peeki
ng through, my thoughts drift back to the goodbyes we said. My throat tightens. It feels like it’s half an eternity ago; how we stood in a small circle, clasping each other’s hands and making oaths to respect each one’s last will. I held Kat’s hand. It was warm and softer than I expected. We women all asked for the same thing — that no one should attempt to save us, should we be captured by the BSA. We’ll take care of ourselves. I wondered then, if they, too, had received a toxic implant. Whatever Kat and Yi-Ting have at their disposal, they seem set to use it. Ben just said that he doesn’t want anyone to cry when the BSA shoots him in the head. I almost did cry, then. Runner surprised me when he said that he, too, doesn’t want anyone to save him. When he saw my puzzled expression, he explained, ‘Snipers are the most feared and most hated of warriors. When we are captured, we are tortured and raped, no matter the gender.’
When we bade our farewells, neither he nor I offered anyone a hug. Not even Yi-Ting. It would have felt like a forever goodbye and I couldn’t… I just couldn’t.
I shut my eyes and recall their faces, the flavours of their names. Ben tastes of brass coated with a thin layer of mountain cranberry. As soon as I think of him as Benjamin, these flavours melt into jelly, and sweeten the space between my palate and nostrils. Kat causes a furry feeling in my mouth, that of the short and soft hair growing on a mouse’s tummy combined with the taste of raw lamb liver. It’s not an unpleasant taste. Lamb liver, when eaten while it’s still warm, is actually quite delicious. Not that I find Kat in any way delicious. And Yi-Ting — how lovely this double name and double flavour!
Runner’s cough interrupts my thoughts. I listen to his breathing. It’s not the relaxed and regular rhythm of someone sleeping. It’s that of someone plotting.
I think of the time when I was on probation; this one horrible evening when I believed he fucked a thirteen-year-old girl. She sat on his lap, chatting, pecking his cheeks and his mouth. Late that night, when he stomped through the snow toward the yurts of the gypsies where the girl’s home was, I freaked out. I was ready to kill him, chop his balls off at the very least. My rage and disgust quickly changed to shocked embarrassment when I realised I’d bustled into a sex-fest between him and the girl’s mother, and that the girl was, in fact, their daughter.
Fog: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 11
