by Jess C Scott
“So very careful…” Tavia slurred.
“—when I tripped over a stone, so small I didn’t even see it. It got stuck in my shoe, so I stopped to remove it. That’s all it was, the seemingly harmless sound of a fingernail scratching out a dislodged stone. The next thing I knew, three guards were coming over in our direction—they looked intent on finding out the cause for the ‘disturbance,’ even though the sound couldn’t have been louder than a twig snapping.”
“It was loud enough for them,” Nin pointed out. He was a little surprised Dresan didn’t mind relating the incident to Anya. Dresan considered it a major error, much like Nin’s experience with tossing a brick into the ventilator on The Gilbreth Institute’s rooftop.
The Elven trio was silent for a moment. All three were thinking about that fateful day, when they were almost discovered.
“Do you know of Area 51, in Nevada?” Tavia asked Anya, as she polished the handle of her embellished pistol. “Way out in the secluded desert. Protected by warning signs, guarded by sentries, helicopters…”
“And now the compound’s more…heavily guarded?” Anya second-guessed, inferring from the elves’ sullen mood.
“You’ll know when you see it,” Nin replied bluntly. He was putting Anya in danger—and Leticia too, in a way, as things turned out—but the elves needed all the help they could get.
Nin had on a belt of bullets, and a row of canisters on the inside of his coat. He passed Anya some fragrant herbs, that were dark green and narrow-leaved. “So that your body heat won’t be detected by Xenith’s infrared sensors,” he explained, before attaching his own nightvision goggles.
Nin glanced down at the bottom edge of his wrist device:
July 18th, 2035 | 06:20:35
The break of dawn wasn’t too far away.
“Anya…” Nin said, delegating his instructions. “You hold on to the vials.” To Tavia and Dresan, he said, “We’ll take down the guards from a vantage point.”
Nin spent a few moments studying the 3D map, before tapping his index finger on a red dot, at a forty-five degree angle to the southwest of the compound. “This vantage point,” he added, drafting out the entire route in his mind.
“Not that one?” Anya signalled to a point that was higher up on the map.
“Too close,” Nin answered. “That one’s just fifty feet from the compound. The one we’re looking at is about a hundred and fifty.”
“Railgun?” Tavia asked, looking cheery. “I’m a little out of practice though.”
Nin nodded, then turned towards Anya slightly, knowing she’d appreciate being filled in on the topic of their conversation. “The railgun is a plasma gun setting for long-range shooting. Snipers would love it.”
“Thin as a line,” Dresan added, drawing an imaginary line in front of him, from his chest outwards. “The bullet’s an actual laser line.”
“That doesn’t…kill them?” Anya asked. She didn’t know what it was like to actually kill someone, and wondered how she would feel if she did commit the act.
Dresan shook his head. “Keeps them down for twenty-four hours, wipes out their memory from the past forty-eight.”
Anya nodded, impressed and relieved. She really didn’t want to have anyone’s blood on her hands. She imagined that she’d be carrying around the guilt for some time thereafter, an emotional baggage she’d rather not have, ever.
The elves got their gear once the train passed through the blue portal, and came to a stop. When they stepped outdoors, Anya found they were surrounded by dense rainforest. The air was hot, humid, and heavy—Anya could already feel some strands of her hair sticking to the skin on the sides of her neck and face. Even her breath seemed strained, a reflection of the mounting danger she was engaging herself in.
“Watch your step,” Nin whispered to Anya, over his shoulder. She froze, looking down, expecting to see venomous whipsnakes and tarantulas that called the rainforest their home. What she saw were leaves, sticks, and stones—and she remembered what Dresan had said about tripping over a certain small stone.
Nin made his way to one of the trees in front, while Dresan and Tavia crept towards the side, so that they were in an inverted triangle formation. The elves were extremely synchronized in their movements, even though it was dark and hard to see. Anya stayed close to Nin, looking around in all directions, out of fear someone might chance upon them unexpectedly.
Anya was filled with horror and repulsion, when she saw the devastation before them. The clearing before the elves, at a distance ahead, showcased the damage and destruction inflicted upon the natural world. Dry, barren land and man-made structures surrounded a tiny patch of green in the center. Apart from the center, Anya would’ve thought she was looking upon a ravine in the desert. Man had surrounded nature—and it was forebodingly clear who was winning the battle. Now she knew why the elves had worn such morose faces earlier, when Anya asked about the compound.
The compound was the prime site of Xenith’s excavations in the Amazon, though there were no visible indications to the brand or company behind the compound. The fences and signboards contained no logo or slogan that could be associated with Xenith. The interior of the cordoned-off site was lit by a few weak spotlights.
It took a while for Anya to catch sight of the first guard, who blended so well into the near pitch-black surroundings on the fringe of the compound. Once her eyes were better adjusted to the dark, Anya could make out the pitched tents, stationed like black pawns on a chess board.
A once majestic tree—the one Nin called the Tree of Life—stood in the center of the clearing, half-lifeless, a faded image of its former glory. Half of the tree seemed almost like it had been uprooted already, while the other half clung on to what it could of the earthen ground. The tree endured like a steadfast soldier, who was being rendered powerless by Xenith’s actions—limb by limb—mutilated in a war it had little chance of winning. Anya watched as an ashen leaf broke off from a sallow branch, and made its descent to the ground like a teardrop from a bleeding heart. Anya could see how deep the roots went, due to the mounds of earth from the excavations, and crater-like hollow in the ground where half of the tree’s roots had been removed.
For reasons that mystified her, Anya felt an ache in her heart. It was as if the tree was human, and crying out for help, its branches like arms beckoning her. Anya’s thoughts turned to her mother, to the people she knew and loved. Anya couldn’t bear to keep her gaze on what remained of the Tree—she felt as if it was her own heart and body that was being brutally mangled. In that instant, she felt this was why Nin had asked for her help. This was why she had turned into a thief—this was why she and Leticia had met the elves—this was the moment when all the pieces seemed to come together.
Only one question remained, which hung over her heavily: would she be able to fulfill her role?
Dresan fired off the first shot, with the railgun. Anya saw a flash of a violet beam of light slice through the air. The point of light focused onto the head of a guard on patrol, who fell to the ground instantaneously, without raising any alarm.
“Good shot,” Nin whispered.
* * *
“Did you see Nin’s face?” Julius said to Leticia, once his private jet had landed. “He really believes in all that garbage. That the tree sustains all forms of life on the planet.” The very notion was ludicrous. He found it hard to believe that Nin took the idea so seriously.
Julius’s Halo Intersceptor jeep was parked nearby, which would take him and Leticia to the shipments of tree roots on the compound. He stood by the jeep, looking up to the dark sky, then gazed into the distance, thinking about the Latin parchment. He held the blue box in one hand. Leticia hoped to high heaven that his jeep wouldn’t start.
“Let not the eye fool thee, for there she stands…ever renewing the Earth,” Julius muttered the lines of the poem. He turned to Leticia. “What do you make of that?”
Leticia tried to match Julius’s sentiments, to continue conv
incing him that she was thoroughly on his side. She was finding it harder and harder to stay calm, each time he did so much as to glance her way. “There’s the tree,” she said, putting a hand out in front of her, in the general direction of the forest before them. “Maybe ‘renewing the Earth’ refers to…oxygen supply?”
Julius gave a laugh. “All trees give off oxygen.”
“Some trees are more special than others.” Leticia adapted a famous line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, about some animals being “more equal” than others.
Julius was quiet. While he didn’t seem to suspect anything amiss, Leticia still treaded carefully.
“We actually tried to graft it,” Julius mentioned. “It didn’t work.”
“What happened?” Leticia thought about it. “Did you try seeds from the tree’s fruit?” It was a fig tree, from what she knew. Every tree had to grow from something.
“We did…we tried growing one indoors.” Julius wore a downcast look. The experiment hadn’t been a success. “Maybe Elven blood…” He trailed off, making a mental note. Maybe that would get the seed to sprout.
“You could have asked Nin, if that would make a difference,” Leticia replied. Elven blood was the last thing she wanted on Julius’s mind, especially since he still believed he had the vials with him. “You were very nice to him,” she added, to appeal to the side of Julius that wasn’t related to cold, shrewd business.
“Was I?” Julius breathed in the air, as if trying to sniff out any mischief or mayhem. The blue box, with non-Elven blood vials, was still lovingly carried in his right hand. “I should’ve drawn some of his blood. Never know when you might need it.”
“Why didn’t you?” Leticia asked sweetly, though inside, she kept asking herself how she could have been in love with a man who treated life, whether it was human or Elven, so dismissively. He had kept it hidden too well, underneath the boy-next-door persona thoroughly immersed in innocent, honorable acts, such as charity projects and religiously attending church every week.
Julius thought for a bit, taking out the piece of paper which he had scribbled the poem onto. “He was the only one who knew all the words of the parchment,” Julius said. “I wanted him clear-headed…to see how much more I could get out of him.”
“Actually…” Leticia continued the conversation, leaning against the jeep, flaunting her curves slightly, and buying time, in case the elves and Anya were already at the Tree of Life, and were busy figuring out what to do next. “What if what he said is true? About the Tree of Life? Don’t you care?”
“Actually…” Julius imitated Leticia’s voice at first, before dropping to a humorless tone. “I don’t. People are silly creatures that should have self-destructed a long time ago.”
“Then what’s the point of living forever?”
Julius leaned back against the jeep, beside Leticia. “My dear girl! That’s not the point. It’s all about the profit margins, huge profit margins…you have no idea how many people, throughout history, have spent their lives searching for an elixir of everlasting life. Xenith is my family’s legacy…this will be my legacy.”
He opened the blue box, searching for the tell-tale sheen in one of the vials…when he realized none of them were labeled ‘H’ or ‘E,’ in black marker, in his own neat handwriting.
“Where are my vials?” Julius said, in a deathly whisper, just loud enough for Leticia to hear, as he lifted the glass tubes.
The stress was too much for Leticia to bear. In the second that Julius looked at her, he noted her features tensing up, which was followed by a quietness, a lack of response, that signaled her game was over.
Leticia took a sharp intake of breath, before turning to Julius, eyes gazed downward. “What—”
He instantly struck her across the face with a closed fist, right under the eye. It was like a small rock had hit her—her face was stinging with a tight, stabbing, burning pain. Leticia felt her eye had just exploded.
“How could you,” he said, caustically. He shook his head slowly, as he seethed with rage. “After everything you said—after everything we’ve been through!”
He brought a hand up to his head, trying to maintain some level of sensibility.
“I…” Leticia started, recalling some of the ups and downs in their relationship. She hadn’t meant to deceive him this way. The elves just seemed so sure about what they’d said about the Tree. “It wasn’t to hurt you—”
“All along—you just…you were just…”
Playing along, he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t believe it. Leticia, who had always been there for him, even in his darkest days. The whole thing was a fabrication—that’s what it was, then. The love of his life turned out to be the biggest lie.
“Where are the vials?” he repeated, demanding to know. His mind was working at the speed of light, as he filled in the missing gaps. “And the diamond dust?”
Leticia was hunched over the jeep, one hand over the side where Julius dealt a blow. She raised an arm to block him, and drew back, when he took a step closer to her.
With brute force, Julius dragged her over to the passenger seat of the jeep. Leticia tried to fight back, but she was no match for Julius.
“Oh…” he scoffed, digging for something in his bag on the backseat, “I never should have trusted you. Never!”
He regained his composure, turned on the ignition, and hummed along to the death metal tune that played on the radio, as he calmly handcuffed Leticia to one of the metal grooves on the side of the jeep.
“You’re not going anywhere, girl,” he snickered. Leticia was aghast, at how he could say “girl” with an unprecedented amount of affection.
Julius wasn’t taking any chances this time. He felt Leticia down, and tossed her cell phone out into the surrounding foliage. He sat on the driver’s seat, opening one of the compartments. He rummaged through some pieces of paper before taking out a silver case and a long, slim hollow tube.
“Are they already there?” he asked, looking through one end of the hollow tube.
Leticia didn’t answer.
“It’s the symbol, isn’t it,” Julius continued, still speaking in an acidic tone. “Why else would they be there…”
“See you at the Amazon…15-45, 47-57,” Nin had said to Leticia. She didn’t know what they were going to do at the Tree either. And she could swear that the elves really hadn’t seen the symbol. But why would Julius believe her now?
Leticia glanced over at the open bag on the back seat, and saw some guns and a machete inside. She watched as Julius picked up the bag, and held up the blowpipe in his other hand. He blew through one end of it, at an imaginary target in the distance, then waved the tube in front of Leticia’s face.
“These work like poison darts.” He opened the silver case, which was filled with little hand forged iron arrowheads, sharpened to a point. “A sure killer.”
Chapter 18:
Nin, Dresan, and Tavia entered the compound, and continued to move in a tight triangle formation, with Anya in the center, holding on to the box containing the vials.
Dresan started taking out the security cameras surrounding the complex—Tavia kept watch for him. She fired a shot at a couple of scientists who stepped out of their tents, dragging their bodies off away to the side once they were unconscious.
“Over there,” Nin whispered, barely audibly, to Anya.
Nin and Anya headed over to some crates, which they hoped would hold the precious roots they needed. They started ransacking the crates, one by one, methodically and desperately, very conscious of the precarious position they were in.
The first two boxes contained roots, but not the deep tree roots with the reddish hue. Anya struggled with opening the lid of one, before Nin helped her pry it open. This one also turned out to have shredded bits of bark and leaves, with no sign of the redroot.
“Which one is it?” Anya looked at the rows of boxes stacked up against each other, before turning to face Nin. He stood, baffled, cau
ght between figuring out which box to open, and whether he should be looking for the golden four-leaved symbol. He turned to look at the Tree, as he tried not to get distracted with the sorry state the battered Tree was in.
“I think I’ve got to find the symbol,” Nin said to Anya, as he tried to target which section of the boxes she could continue to search through. “It’s got to be there somewhere.”
Anya knew Julius would be on the way. He said he’d be coming.
“I’ll look for the redroot.” Anya had never seen Nin look so distressed. She was aware of what he was going through. She’d do whatever she could to allay some of his anxiety.
Anya stood for a moment, wide-eyed with the pure, innocent, untainted trust she fully placed in Nin. She wondered what he was looking at, when there wasn’t any time to lose. He was looking at nothing but her—right into her. He liked how they both seemed to understand each other, and take each other for what they really were.
He kissed her on the side of her cheek, another one of his actions inspired by being ‘in the moment,’ before heading off towards the Tree, which he felt was calling for him. Anya kept her eyes on his nimble figure, the figure whose lips had just warmed her skin, and unknowingly taken away a little piece of her heart. She had to remind herself to breathe again, before continuing her search for the right tree roots.
“Number four,” Tavia whispered to Dresan, as one of the scientists fell to the ground, after she fired off a shot.
Dresan and Tavia kept watch over Nin and Anya, taking aim whenever someone stepped out from one of the tents. The elves had to be faster, because some of the people were armed.
“I’m going inside,” he muttered to Tavia.
“What?” She looked around. She wasn’t sure she could keep a three hundred and sixty-degree watch for Nin and Anya, by herself.
“I’ll only take a while.”
