by Justin Bell
The doors were locked.
Of course they were. Why would they be open? She adjusted herself, searching for her ID badge which was also a proximity card that could let her into the building. She’d brought it with her, she remembered slipping it into the side pouch on—
…the duffel bag, which lay back by the mouth of the alley discarded in haste. She whirled just as the man closed on her, slamming his palms into her shoulders, driving her back against the double doors, her spine striking with a strange bonging echo. Darla gritted her teeth, her eyes pinching closed as the back of her head bounced off the glass door behind her, flaring pain at the base of her skull.
“I’m gonna smoke you,” he hissed. “But trust me, we’re gonna have some fun first… and like I said, ain’t no cops around to stop me!” He pulled one of his clenched fists back, his mouth splitting into a snarl.
“I would suggest you drop that fist, young man.”
The voice was calm, but with an edge, the voice of a stern man, a grandfather who had spent a lifetime disciplining unruly children. Darla looked to her left and saw him, just as she remembered from her many years of coming into the office.
Bruce Pinchot leaned out of a side door, keeping it open with his shoulder, a pistol clutched in two hands, pointed at the man. He still wore the powder blue shirt of SETI Security, matched with dark blue pants. His blue eyes were narrow and stern above a face full of gray beard, the baseball cap pulled tight over what Darla knew was a mostly bald head. She’d never been happier to see the man in her life.
The man looked over toward the older gentleman, his fingers flexing slightly, his hand drifting lower.
“I won’t ask again, young man. She’s coming in here with me, and you’re either going to turn around and walk away, or I’ll just drop you where you stand. What was it you said? ‘Ain’t no cops around to stop me?’”
“You’re gonna regret this, grandpa,” the man spat back, releasing Darla and bringing himself upright. “I got friends. We’ll come back. You’ll be sorry.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bruce replied. “We’ll deal with that as it comes. For now, get the hell off SETI property, you little dirtbag.”
The man snarled again, turning and stomping away, down the concrete walkway and Darla slid left, turning to approach the security guard.
“Bruce,” she breathed. “Thank you.”
Bruce extended a hand, guiding her into the building through the opened door. She walked into the building and he closed the door behind them, latching it shut with a metal locking bolt. They walked together down the hallway, deeper into the building, where the lights slowly started dimming into nothing, with no sunlight available to illuminate the building.
“Why… why are you here?” she finally asked. “Don’t you know what’s going on?”
“Of course I do,” Bruce replied. “No place I’d rather be. You’re the smartest people I know, I figured some of you would be coming back here. Someone had to keep the lights on, right?”
Tears stung at Darla’s eyes. Like her, Bruce was a loner, his wife dead for five years, and him retired from a full time gig as a police officer for the State of California. He’d been working for SETI part time ever since his retirement, and was more than just a security guard, he was family. SETI was his family as well, at this point just about the only family he had.
“Are they?” Darla asked.
“What, dear?”
“The lights? Are they on?”
“At the moment, no,” he replied. “We have the generator, but it’s shut down at the moment. There are a few others here, but they seem to be trying to… strategize, I guess? They want to know what to look for before they waste fuel looking.”
Darla nodded. “All right, then,” she said. “Take me to them. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
***
Now.
Monday, June 29th.
In the skies above Iran.
Chung pressed tight to the interior of the plane, his eyes locked to his window, glaring out at the pale sand below. The plane was flying surprisingly low, moving now for an hour since they’d come across the smashed and smoking wreckage of what used to be Tehran. There was some frantic conversation with the men up near the front of the plane as the trajectory shifted further west. At this point Chung thought the plane had circled a few times, but he couldn’t be sure, he just knew they were shifting lower and lower. So low it was officially making him nervous.
As he watched, the plane banked slowly right, coming back around, and as it circled, he saw a sprawling village down in the desert, a wide and spread out collection of tents, huts, and other miscellaneous structures and they were flying so low, he could even see people milling around in the open areas between structures, walking around white trucks, many of them looking up into the sky, whether at them or the threats beyond, Chung wasn’t sure.
“Strap in, boys!” Bahram shouted from the front of the plane. “We’re going in for a landing!”
Chung could actually feel the plane dropping, shifting lower and lower, the distinct feeling of his stomach dropping as the aircraft approached its final landing area in the village. Even from this high angle, Chung could see a level area of desert to the north of the village, a makeshift runway of sorts, with a wooden tower perched at the near end of the flattened surface.
Bojing moved slightly, angling toward the window on the opposite side of the plane, slowly withdrawing from his devastation about his brother’s death--Sheng brutally murdered right in front of him. Huang and Tyan remained in their seats behind Chung, showing no great desire to look out the window themselves, just content to still be breathing.
Tyan leaned forward, seeing that Chung was watching him.
“What happens next?” he asked in a quiet voice, his eyes narrowed. “What do you think they will do to us here?”
Huang lifted a hand over the back of the seat and clutched Chung’s shoulder.
“You are the smart one,” he said. “We all just played along. You are the one they will really want, I don’t want to die out here, cousin. My mother and father, they are still in Beijing, they will be worried.”
Tyan lowered his face for a moment, trying to compose himself, then lifted his eyes again.
“We must be strong, Huang-Di. Stay strong. I’m here with you. We all are. We are family, and we’ll be there for each other.”
Chung nodded.
“Yes, listen to Tyan-Yu. He’s a smart one, no matter what he says. We’re not going to leave each other, okay? We are all in this together, and we’ll make sure Bahram and these others realize that.”
“Do you really think we helped do all of this?” Huang asked. “Did we help them launch weapons? That whole city… it was wiped right off the map. Like one of those Hollywood disaster movies.”
“You and those Hollywood movies,” Tyan laughed, punching Huang in the shoulder, his face softening somewhat. “You would live one of those movies if you could!”
Huang smirked. “Not if it turned out like Tehran! That was scary, man. Even from the airplane.”
Tyan leaned back, trying to look out the window.
“Where are we going now, do you think? We’re still flying low and I think we’re heading west from Tehran. Are we going out of the country?”
Chung shrugged. “I have no idea. If these men truly are as important as they say they are, they must have some kind of political backing. But if they crushed Tehran, that backing must not be from Iran. It would be from… somewhere else. Somewhere nearby?”
“But why?” Tyan asked. “The world is at risk enough. This whole region has been killing itself for what remains of its oil for years now. What’s the point of obliterating the capital cities? That helps no one.”
“Unless it was an accident,” Chung replied, looking back at the two cousins.
“What do you mean?” Huang asked.
Chung shrugged again. “Maybe they hacked the satellite, planning on doing one thing, but
other things happened? Iran hasn’t been very happy about the state of orbital security lately, right?”
Huang shrugged. “I… I don’t know. We don’t hear much outside news in the Asian Union. The state controls much of what we see or hear. If you listen to China, the world is not such a bad place right now. Asia rules it and dictates terms, and the world follows for fear of reprisal.”
Chung’s eyes widened.
“Is that not true?” Tyan asked. “I mean, we are able to get some access to global social media within our hacker circles, but not as much. Asia is the biggest super power now, yes?”
“That much is true,” Chung agreed. “But the world is not necessarily just being compliant. There is no world peace, in fact it’s just the opposite. The climate continues to spiral downwards, fuel reserves grow increasingly scarce, and small pockets of conflict happen all over the world. The United States has bled Alaska nearly dry for its oil. Russia has tried at least twice to move in on it, but our military has fought them back. The Middle East is barely held together, the country and state lines blurring into warring factions. Not that it matters, most of the oil over here has been tapped clean, anyway.”
Tyan and Huang looked at each other unbelievingly.
“Still want to live one of those disaster movies, Huang-Di? Because that’s the world we’re living in right now. China has blinded you.” Chung nodded for emphasis, but almost immediately regretted his strong words.
Huang looked visibly wounded by the exposure to the truth, his eyes moist with brimming tears. Tyan put an arm around his shoulders to calm him.
Chung’s face relaxed. “I’m sorry. I should have been more… diplomatic.”
“It’s all right,” Huang replied, his words tinged with a sour bitterness. “We must know the truth if we are to know what to expect at the end of this flight.”
Chung shook his head. “No guarantees there. I know much of the truth, at least I believe I do, but I have no idea what’s going to happen when we land. Nothing good, I suspect.”
“Surely they need us for something,” Tyan replied, almost pleading. “Why else would they take us rather than just leave us in Beijing?”
“I don’t know,” Chung replied. “Let us all hope we are as valuable to them as we think we are.”
He let his words hang in the air as he turned back toward his nearby window. Sun glistened from the gentle curve of the glass, a swift flare of bright light catching Chung in the eyes as they crossed over its path, then dropped again, almost plunging toward the desert. At least they had some good news; scattered debris wasn’t peppering the plane anymore and their approach seemed to be clear.
Chung could hear the thunk and hiss of landing gear swinging down, the belly of the aircraft growing with the turbulence and wind beating around it, the wings tipping left, then right, rattling as it went into its final descent. The landing gear slammed down on the roughly packed sand and gravel, striking with a bang and vicious jostle of impact, the aircraft shuddering as it hit the ground, rattling and rolling to a rough halt.
The plane sat there quietly, the men in front starting to move as they began lifting from their seats and shuffling around. Bahram stepped away from them, walking down the aisle, flanked by two others as Chung started to slide right, working his way out.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Bahram growled. Both men behind him lifted automatic rifles. “Move nice and slow. The village here, they’re with us, okay? No funny business; there’s nobody here that can help you.”
Chung glanced out the window and saw men outside, walking around in long, dark robes, many of them carrying their own weapons. They approached the plane, some of them smiling, others pressing palms together and bowing low in religious salutes to the men on the plane.
“C’mon,” Bahram said, moving the barrel of his weapon. “Keep moving, but take it easy.”
Bojing, Chung, Huang, and Tyan converged on the aisle, Bojing stepping around the darkened stain in the center of the worn rug surface, avoiding his brother’s blood. They pushed through, following Bahram, caught between him and the two men with rifles who fell in behind. A makeshift caravan, the parade of walkers made its way to the front of the plane and angled toward the exit door on the left-hand side. Bahram glanced back, making sure they were following, and proceeded down the steep, metal stairs of the exit, out into the sun-soaked sand of the Iranian desert.
Chung was next in line, shielding his eyes with the back of his hand as he stepped off the stairs, looking out at the villagers who drew closer, a mixed group of Arabs and others, a group that certainly did not appear to be native to this village or even native to this country. A group that didn’t belong here. A group kind of like them.
All around him these men embraced Bahram and the others, applauding, congratulating, slapping them on the back, praising them for their sacrifice and their work. Bojing, Tyan and Huang came up behind Chung, the four of them standing there, thousands of miles away from home under the throbbing, yellow sun, completely at the mercy of the men who had taken them and with no idea what they would be forced to do next.
***
Now.
Monday, June 29th.
A small village west of Tehran.
Chung turned and looked back toward the plane, resting on the packed-dirt, makeshift runway, the sun glaring down at them, high and bright over the flat desert. Through the bright glare of the yellow orb he couldn’t see any of the orbital debris scattering through the pale sky and was glad for it. It was somewhat refreshing to imagine that they were no longer under constant threat from orbital bombardment. He knew it was a false confidence, living under the curtain of ignorance, very similar to what Tyan and Huang had said in the plane of their life in China.
Living day to day, just assuming their nation was the massive epicenter of a successful global commerce, a planet full of promise and a bright future, no clue whatsoever of just how near the brink of extinction they all were.
Now, Chung felt as if they had been nudged even closer.
A few weeks ago, if anyone had asked, he would have said that unless things changed drastically, the majority of the Earth’s population was going to be in big trouble within the next ten years. Now, with a crippled global communications network, power out throughout much of the free world, and space borne debris screaming through low orbit at a constant, dizzying pace, he couldn’t see a way the world would live past months, much less years.
Turning over his palms, he glared at his hands, thinking back… these fingers, these fingers attached to his hands and his arms and his body had tapped the keyboard which had allowed the architects of apocalypse to begin their work. True, Bahram and his group had been the instigators of Armageddon, but he’d unlocked the door and let them in. He was just as guilty.
“Have you figured out where we are, yet?” Huang asked, stepping up on his right, touching him gently. Chung had to fight to keep from jumping.
“No,” he replied brusquely. “I don’t know. It’s just a small village by the looks of it.”
They were being led to a collection of houses, structures, and other buildings, most of them third-world huts made of stone, concrete, mud bricks or other material. Roughly cut windows and doors looked out upon the sand-covered common areas they were walking through, scattered dried brush sprinkled throughout. A handful of pickup trucks were parked in various spots throughout the opened common area, all within spitting distance of the four boys. Chung let his gaze linger on one of the trucks a moment too long, and suddenly felt the butt of an AK-12 ram into his spine.
“Don’t get any ideas,” a voice growled and Chung turned to look at an angry man walking close behind him. He didn’t appear to be Iranian like Bahram, he looked more Eastern European, and in fact the entire group seemed to be of mixed nationality, something that indicated to Chung that perhaps there was more to this village then met the eye. Certainly they’d seemed friendly with Bahram and the others, but it had been a cursory kindness, not an intimate famil
iarity. Now, as the entire group came together, Chung was starting to realize that perhaps this village hadn’t just decided to help out Bahram and their team, but perhaps Bahram’s group actually worked for them.
Near the rear of the small collection of structures was a long, tented building, what looked to be some kind of military barracks, steel frame and canvas-covered, and the four young men were ushered toward it, walking briskly across the sand. It was hot out in the desert, even the low gust of wind through the buildings was warm, not cool and refreshing, and even though only halfway across the village, Chung's shirt was already slick and sticking to his chest. Bojing came up on his left, walking, looking straight ahead as if in a trance.
“Bojing,” Chung whispered. “Are you okay?”
Bojing continued walking as if he hadn’t even heard him speak.
“He is still in shock, I think,” Huang said to Chung’s left, leaning forward. “He and his brother were close. Very close. They didn’t look much alike, especially for being twins, but they were two sides of the same coin. He must feel like a part of him has been killed.”
“We must watch over him,” Chung said quietly. “He needs us now more than ever.”
Tyan came up next to him on the other side as Bojing drifted further forward, and the dark-robed men with assault rifles spread in a wide fan, making sure the boys were surrounded.
Bahram rode by in one of the pickup trucks, sitting in the bed on top of the tire well, using the wall of the truck bed for balance. He looked at Chung and smiled crookedly as the truck drew to a stop near the barracks-like structure.
He vaulted from the truck and waved toward one of the gunmen, who directed Chung and the others to walk toward the barracks where a canvas flap was peeled open, inviting them inside. Two men formed up on either side of the flap, weapons pulled up to their chests in a threatening manner. The one on the right had a thick, gray beard and cold, blue eyes, while the one on the left was pale-skinned with a week’s worth of dark stubble along his angled chin. His eyes were brown and focused, tight and alert.
