The Sapphiri

by R Gene Curtis

  People may not know where Waunakee is, but at least it’s somewhere. No one can say that about this place.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Texas,” Pearl replies from the passenger seat in front of me.

  When Dad abandoned us, he came back to Texas. He was from here, and this is where I was born. Maybe the one good thing about Dad leaving us was that I didn’t grow up here. I grew up by the trees and the snow instead of a dry, deserted, dusty landscape.

  I wonder if Dad still lives here. Does he regret leaving us? Would he care if he knew that I was here?

  I roll my eyes.

  Bob glances back at me again, his eyes focused on the rear-view mirror. I wish he would stop doing that.

  “We’re being followed,” he says.

  Pearl swears. “You’re sure?”

  Bob grunts.

  Pearl spins in her seat and squints out the back window. “How did they find us?” she whispers.

  “Probably waiting when we picked up Ler,” Bob says. He pushes the gas pedal harder. I turn to see out of the back window, ignoring the way my entire body hates me when I do it. As Bob speeds up, the car behind us speeds up as well.

  “I appreciate you coming to get me,” the man next to me says. Apparently, his name is Ler.

  “If we hadn’t, you’d be dead right now.” Pearl smiles at Ler and glares at Bob.

  Bob just laughs. “And if we can’t lose this guy, we’ll all die anyway.” He drives in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. “They probably just had one guy stationed at Ler’s house. If we lose this guy, we’ll be in the clear again. Though we probably have a tracking device on this vehicle now.”

  I strain my neck, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain, as I look out the back window again. Thankfully, the meds Pearl gave me are working, a little. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just another car following us, matching our speed, and a semi way behind him.

  “Maybe it would be good for someone to find us.” I turn forward in my seat and rub my temples. “To throw you all in jail.”

  Bob grunts. “If anyone catches us, no one will go to jail.”

  He sounds so serious when he says it, I almost believe him. He pushes on the gas harder, but I don’t look behind me to see the car speed up to match our speed. Bob’s eyes in the rearview mirror confirm it for me.

  “People don’t just kill people,” I say weakly. But people don’t randomly kidnap girls who just got ran over by cars, either. I shudder. If these people are right and there is a plot to release a fatal virus…

  “The Sapphiri do,” Bob says. “Just kill people.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I told you about the Sapphiri last night,” Pearl says. “They’re real. They’re looking for us.”

  The Sapphiri, a secret society that’s planning to make everyone die from an upset stomach.

  “No one cared when Lydia died,” I blurt out. “No one looked for her. It’s been months, and still no one knows what happened to her.” Tears glisten in my eyes. Stupid tears. Lydia and I share the same fate. Will my mom keep searching for me no matter what, or will I be forgotten as fast as Lydia was?

  Pearl spins in her seat so she can look me in the eyes. “Brit. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Exactly. Lydia’s disappearance. Something held up the investigation. What was it? Why did the investigation stall?”

  I don’t believe Pearl. Her own brother was part of Lydia’s disappearance. She wants me to believe he is missing, too, but I don’t want to trust her. It’s a foolish part of me that longs to open up my heart to the possibility she is telling the truth, that her brother really did disappear, and she wants to save me from something dangerous.

  But, a bunch of crazies shouldn’t kidnap me and carry me across the country.

  “You know Lydia?” Ler asks, suddenly smiling. “I discovered her and her friend Karl when they decided to grace my world. They traveled to my world through a portal.”

  I groan and glare at Ler. “Another world?”

  Back when Lydia first disappeared, Maria said something about a portal, too. She said Lydia went to Utah to meet up with Karl, to go through a portal. I wasn’t sure if Maria really thought that was what happened or not. At the same time, though, Maria was crazy and more interested in her boyfriend than she ever was about where Lydia ended up. It was probably convenient for her to have the dorm room all to herself. Maybe she was part of this.

  “You don’t know how to believe it?” Ler asks, still looking at me. “This other world, you don’t know it?”

  Where did they get this guy? I shift uncomfortably in my seat and shake my head. I’m ready to curl up in a ball and disappear now. I rub my leg, which has a huge knot in it where I got hit by the car. It aches. I wish I could stretch it better.

  “This turn of a head from side to side, it means something?” Ler asks the front seat.

  Pearl laughs. “It means no. She doesn’t believe in the portal or in your world.”

  “She can’t believe in my world?”

  “She doesn’t. Most people don’t believe in world-to-world travel. We don’t have hemazury here. I’m not sure if I even believe it.”

  Ler reaches out and touches my shoulder, again. I grimace as pain rockets through me from the touch. I look at him. His eyes are a deep chocolate brown. “I understand your feeling,” he says too kindly. “When I was a young boy, I heard all kinds of talk about the Blue Princess coming, but I found it hard to believe. Then Lydia came, and she fought against evil and won. Karl helped her. And me, too. Karl came up with a great plan, and I was the one who saved the world.”

  I manage to break eye contact and lean my aching head back against the window. This beautiful man is crazy. He saved the world? What world? What are these people trying to do to me?

  Tears roll down my cheeks. “What are you going to tell people after you’ve killed me?” I say quietly. “What will you tell my mom?”

  “I’m not calling your mom,” Bob says. “As long as she doesn’t know where we are, the Sapphiri don’t know where we are. Except for the bloke behind us, anyway. After we survive this, you can tell her what happened yourself.”

  “You’re sure the Sapphiri won’t go after her?” Pearl asks.

  Bob shakes his head confidently. “They’ll put all their resources towards finding us, which is why we have to lose this guy. Pronto. Hopefully before we get back to a place with cell reception.”

  I lean my head back and close my eyes. I’m tired of being sore, and I’m tired of being with these people.

  * * *

  About twenty minutes later, I find something outside my window besides sagebrush. A gas station is coming up.

  “You are now awake!” Ler says as I shift uncomfortably.

  “I can’t sleep. I’ve been in this car for days now with nothing to eat but cheap fast food.”

  Ler laughs. “Sometimes I don’t understand your words. We have not eaten anything that runs. The hemazury allows me to understand your meanings, but I can now see why Lydia’s speech improved with each passed month she stayed with us. What is this food that you have been eating that runs so rapidly?”

  I smirk and turn back to the window so Ler can’t see my smirk turn into a smile. The chocolate-eyed man is funny.

  “Lydia was skeptical also when she came to our world. Her knee was hurting her all the day. But she learned how to heal it. She learned how to fight and how to lead.”

  She already knew how to lead. I would have followed her anywhere. I would have sat behind her on the bench every game and never complained. If she asked me for something that might have helped her play better, I would have done it.

  “How did she heal her knee?” I ask quietly.

  “Hemazury. At the cave, she came out completely whole. That was after Karl got kidnapped. Before we found him again.”

  Ler sounds so serious, like he believes what he’s telling me.

  “So, if you’re from this Forgott
en World, how did you get here?” I ask.

  “My friend, Karl, asked me to come. I came here with Wynn.”

  Uh huh. “Where is Wynn now?”

  Ler shudders, and for the first time he doesn’t smile. “He’s dead. I thought I would have to fight him once we got here, but Wynn died as soon as we arrived through the portal. He was an evil dictator, but Lydia defeated him. She is very resourceful and very smart.”

  True on both accounts. “What have you been doing here, since you came through the portal?”

  Ler smiles, and he reaches out and squeezes my hand. I gasp and pull my hand away. Boundaries, people!

  Still, he’s having an effect on me. There’s something about his smile, or maybe it’s how he moves and talks. He meets my eyes when he speaks, and he smiles when he listens. But there is something else about this man that keeps talking to me. Pain hides behind his eyes. I believe him when he says he’s seen death.

  “Karl told me to find Pearl when I got here, and I did. I’ve started going to school, but it’s hard for me. I cannot read or write. Pearl helped me to get a piece of paper, and so now I’m an official person in your country. But there is so much to learn. All the time I was younger, I spent my days digging food for my family. Your world is busy with people going and coming. It’s not the same.”

  “It’s a good world,” I say. “Unless you get rear-ended by a car or something.”

  Ler laughs. “That’s a good attitude,” he says with a smile.

  I can’t help it, I smile, too. And then I laugh. I guess sarcasm doesn’t come out in the hema-thing.

  “He’s starting to close,” Bob says. “I think he’s going to try and make a move at the gas station.”

  “Do you want me to shoot him?” Pearl asks. I gasp and shrink down in my seat. Those were not the words I expected her to say.

  “No. We only have a mile to Vega. I’ll pull off and get gas here. Do you still have money? We should buy a new car in Amarillo.”

  “I do.”

  Bob pulls into the exit lane and pushes on the gas. The white car moves in behind us, and it pulls up close enough I can see the driver. The driver has short blonde hair and a sleeveless shirt. He doesn’t look like someone I would want to be in the car with. He doesn’t look at all like the policeman I was hoping would save me.

  Bob cruises into the gas station way too fast. He puts his ponytail in his shirt and slips on sunglasses as he steps out of the car. Pearl runs into the store to pay for the gas with cash. The white car pulls up to the pump next to us, and the man gets out of the car and starts to refuel with his back towards us.

  I close my eyes and decide against asking for a bathroom break. I can’t move fast, and I don’t want to be left behind with this guy.

  As soon as Pearl gets back from the cash register, Bob slips a knife from his pocket and ducks behind the car so the other man can’t see him. He crawls on hands and knees up to the white car and sticks the knife into the tire.

  I gasp as Pearl slips into the driver’s seat, her fingers tense around the steering wheel, the car still refueling.

  Bob retreats quickly on hands and knees until he’s to the passenger door. Then he jumps up and in, slamming the door behind him. Pearl starts the engine.

  The other man turns around at the sudden sound of car doors. He’s holding a gun in his hand.

  “Hit it,” Bob yells.

  Pearl hits the gas, hard. The fuel nozzle pops out of the tank and sprays gasoline all over the other man and our car as we speed away.

  Bullets hit the rear windshield. Tiny shards of glass rain down over me and Ler. I start to scream. Behind us, a spark from the gun ignites the gasoline, and the entire station blows up like something from a movie.

  “I don’t think he hit our tires,” Bob yells. Pearl pulls onto the freeway, still going way too fast.

  I finally stop screaming and try to dust some of the glass shards off me without cutting my fingers. It doesn’t work—my fingers are bleeding. That man was definitely not a rescue team. Whoever these kidnappers are, I trust them more than I trust that guy.

  Ler looks at the back windshield with an expression I can’t quite read. “What happened?” he asks. “That man struck us from far away. Was that hemazury?”

  “That was a gun,” Pearl says.

  Ler looks genuinely confused.

  “A shooter?”

  Bob hands his gun back to me. “Want to explain to him what a gun is?” he asks.

  I stare at the gun. I’ve never handled one before.

  “Tell him,” Bob says again.

  I reach out my hand but recoil again at the touch of the cool metal.

  “Is it loaded? I don’t know what I’m doing with it.” And I don’t know why Bob trusts me with it.

  He pulls the gun back, unloads the bullets, and then hands it to me again.

  I explain to Ler what it is and how it works. I tell him about the chemistry of the gun powder, which we studied a few weeks ago in class, but I gloss over the mechanics of how the machine works.

  Ler’s chocolate eyes follow my every move—he looks at me more than he looks at the gun. By the end of the explanation, I’m inexplicably bright red.

  With every second that passes, my trust in these people seems to grow a little. Maybe I can believe them. For now. That man did try to kill us. Ler really doesn’t know what a gun is, or he is a superb actor. Bob handed me a loaded gun without thinking twice.

  I remember watching Lydia leap into the air to get the ball while the Stanford girls closed around her and hurt her. Maybe she’s still out there somewhere. Maybe these are the people who will help me find her.

  14 Abandoned

  Bob

  Pearl is sure we’ll find something waiting for us in Pittsburgh.

  Pittsburgh.

  My heart runs up my throat and my hands get sweaty at the thought of being back there again.

  Near Cassi.

  She’s still there. Her job and company are still there, and Cassi would never change her job. If she got fired, she’d leave, but no one would fire Cassi. Cassi and rules stick together like magnets. Rules are her code of honor.

  In retrospect, Cassi is attractive to me because she is what I am not. Am still not. She lives her life beholden to her environment, ironically like Sapphiri agents like me should live. Exact in obedience, she fulfills every expectation of society—like my commanders expect of me. She accepts her role at face value, instead of constantly looking for something more. Even though I couldn’t do it, I was attracted to her because she could.

  And she was hot. Really hot.

  There was nothing deliberate about our first meeting. There have been times of my life when I was looking for trouble, but I honestly met her serendipitously. It was a rainy day, and I had just received my first assignment for the Karl Stapp Project. Our servers had identified his Sapphiri eyes in a school surveillance camera, and I was sent to confirm the trait.

  And confirm I did. Karl was Sapphiri—and he walked around with his bright blue eyes in public.

  Sapphiri have been hiding their bright blue eyes since we could. Even before colored contact lenses were invented in the 1980s, we wore sunglasses a lot of the time.

  Walking around with one’s bright blue eyes exposed is like, well, walking around without pants on.

  You just don’t do it.

  I didn’t rush home and tell my supervisor. Not that he could blame me for that. If I’d seen him walking around without pants, I’d have needed a moment to collect my thoughts. Anyone would have. It was time to get ice cream. Ice cream helps people think when strange things happen. Ice cream clears the brain and makes discombobulated thoughts clear. Ice cream. Deliciously cold and inspiring.

  I stopped by a little place on my way back to my apartment. Cassi slipped in behind me in line.

  Her presence was powerful, even before I looked at her. The lady in front of me was ugly, and three times fatter than should be allowed. If she had been Sapphir
i, she would have been deposed months before. Clearly, she used ice cream for reasons other than to clear her head in times of great distress.

  So, naturally, with nothing to look at in front of me, I turned around to see whose presence was sending chills through my spine.

  And it was worth it. Every thought, every doubt I had about seeing Karl fled from my mind in one glance.

  Cassi stood there, a hand on her purse, her green eyes meeting mine. Curly blonde hair, tall enough to kiss me without going on her tiptoes. Her chin was even square, like a lot of Sapphiri chins.

  Sapphiri rules went out the window. I stared at her. She gave me a curious look, but I didn’t break the big rule. Not yet. I didn’t say a word. After watching her long enough to confirm that she wasn’t an illusion, I turned around. Kind of. Eventually, I got my ice cream, only after glancing behind me about twenty-five times, give or take.

  She stayed there, and every time I turned around, our eyes met.

  I paid for the ice cream and started towards the door with the intent of watching her order. But when I turned around, she wasn’t at the counter at all. She was right next to me.

  “Are you allowed to eat ice cream?” she asked with a smirk. Her hands were empty.

  She was oddly right. Ice cream is on the forbidden food list for Sapphiri. Since I tried it over a decade ago, I haven’t been able to figure out why. Sometimes, I think they made up rules just so they can have an excuse to kill people they don’t like.

  “Aren’t you going to get some?” I asked. The person in line behind her was already ordering.

  “No.” She smiled, and I fell immediately in love. That smile. Better than getting to the top of a mountain or staring out at the Pacific. I’ve seen a lot of pretty things in my life, but nothing like that smile.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

  That was asking for something. Sapphiri agents don’t talk to women outside of assignments, and she definitely wasn’t part of the Karl Stapp project. In any case, Sapphiri don’t date, they’re assigned. Sapphiri agents shouldn’t even look when a gorgeous woman falls in behind them.