Jali's Ark
Elke stomped her way up the slope towards the freeway. She’d slept most of the day away, curled up against a wall with her thin camping blanket pulled over her. Now the afternoon sun baked down and the cicadas shrilled and thrilled in the undergrowth.
It was all the sleep she’d missed during the past few nights, catching up with her. Used to go for two, three nights with only an hour napping and never felt it.
She’d fallen asleep with her head whirling with questions and woken with one clear answer. Whatever happened, she had to get word to somebody in the Eye about that cache of hardflasks in the Cathedral. It was useless speculating where it had come from or how long it had been there—years, by the look of it.
Its presence was a piece of a puzzle she hadn’t even known existed. The peculiar creatures she’d seen on the beach with their little branching tunnel trees. The odd vegetation. Even Noor’s distorted foot. Could that be as a result of a viral infection against which the current batch of vaccines could not protect, some strangeworld bacteria that spread who knew how?
She also knew what Missy and the others were doing in the Muara, although there were still some pieces missing from that part of the puzzle. Somebody from the Eye had known about the cache of biologicals and had sent them to search for it.
Elke also had a theory about the children’s missing mother and her increasingly dodgy-looking boyfriend, Jayden, with his heat scopes and mysterious trip to the Eye.
This was not something she could handle all by herself.
Elke had left all communication equipment behind when she’d fled, fearing they could be used to pinpoint where she was. For the same reason, she didn’t dare use her own cortical jack. Until she knew exactly who was employing Missy and her gang she could not risk giving away her location.
Last night she’d struggled with the question of how she’d contact the Eye. She’d woken with the answer. The dike-building crew must have radios. She could ask one of them to send a message to the Ishtar Gate. It was, of course, impossible to communicate directly from the Real world into the Eye itself, but the Ishtar Gate was easy enough to reach.
She’d send a message to Diesel, asking her to meet somewhere in Kaapstadt. That would be the safest plan. Diesel could be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud when it came to rules and regulations, but she would respond to an urgent call for help without hesitation.
Now the only problem was locating the dike team’s base camp. It couldn’t be too far from the freeway. They had to bring in their diggers and machinery, and that was surely the most convenient route.
Elke started her search at their latest work site and sent Meisje ahead to track them back to their base camp, careful to stay out of sight of the workers. It would be bad enough to explain her needs to whoever was back at their camp. She didn’t want to deal with the rest of them as well.
To her relief, her plan worked. She heaved herself onto the flat top of a dune and saw a semi-circle of trailers and a big, yellow digger, all with solar panels. A thread of smoke rose from one of the trailers and she could hear the faint tinkle of music.
Elke smoothed back her hair, tucking the loose ends into her plait. Well. Better wing it. She approached at a slow walk, signalling Meisje to stay close beside her.
As she reached the closest trailer, she stopped. Voices. The rumble of a bike engine. Elke edged closer. She knew that voice. The words were Dutch but she didn’t need to understand them to recognise the speaker.
No ways. Elke strode around the corner of the trailer. Several people were gathered around a sand-bike. Astride it was a broad-shouldered woman, hair severely cut, her skin dappled with the unmistakable patterns of stranger tattoos.
“Diesel!”
Diesel put up a hand to shade her face. The dike workers turned to look.
“Elke.” Diesel nodded with satisfaction and swung herself off the bike. “Good.” She turned to the dike workers. “This is the woman I’m looking for.”
Elke laughed and dragged Diesel into a hug. “You,” she said into Diesel’s shoulder, “have no idea how glad I am to see you.” Then Diesel had to greet Meisje, who was dancing around her legs, wagging her tail so hard her body swayed from side to side.
“You’ve got some explaining to do.” Diesel looked up at Elke as she bent to rub Meisje’s neck. “Let’s find a place we can sit and talk.”
¤¤¤
They found a spot at a camp table next to one of the trailers, shaded by a canvas awning. Leendert, who was in charge of the dike workers, insisted on bringing them food, then left them alone while he went back to his work in one of the trailers. Meisje curled up under Elke’s feet, her tongue lolling, content.
“Nice people,” said Diesel, picking up a sandwich. “Friendly.”
“Why are you here?” said Elke.
“I could ask you the same thing.” Diesel took a drink from her water bottle. “You okay? You look rough.”
Elke ran a hand through her hair. It had been days since she’d had a shower and she needed a change of clothes. “I’m sure I do,” she said wryly. “I’m okay, though.”
She had been desperate to contact Diesel, had so much to tell her. Now that they were face to face she didn’t know where to start. “How’s Dolly? Has that commission finished with her yet?”
Diesel lost her smile. “No. That’s why I came out here.” She put the cap back on the water bottle. “Listen, Elke. I’ll cut to the chase. Things are looking bad for Dolly. Especially when you disappeared like that. Argent was very quick to try make a link between you and Dolly. According to him you couldn’t have been acting on your own. He’s convinced that you’re involved with the smuggling, and not only that, you’re acting on her orders. That kind of thing.” Diesel wiped her mouth. “The hell of it is, Dolly got through the whole of that commission hearing with flying colours. They didn’t get the better of her once. She’s quite something.”
“Is she in danger?” Elke no longer felt like eating.
“She’s under a sort of house arrest. Nothing formal yet as there’s no hard evidence. Not sure how long that’s going to matter. That’s why it’s so important that you come back as soon as possible.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Diesel’s brows snapped together. “You’ve got to come.”
“The moment I’m back in the Eye— Hell, the moment I set foot back in Kaapstadt, I’ll be arrested.”
“So? Yes, probably you will be.” Diesel spread her hands. “Then you’ll testify. Let the system do its work. How else are we going to sort out this mess?”
Elke looked at her friend. Diesel’s jaw was clenched, her whole body tense. She leaned forward, staring at Elke as if trying to convince her with the sheer force of her will.
“Listen.” Elke took a breath and let it out. “Diesel. There’s some stuff you need to know. Things are a bit more complicated than they look. Hear me out.”
Diesel’s frown deepened. “I’m listening.”
“Okay.” Elke swallowed, her mouth dry. “So. There’s a large cache of Strangeworld biologicals here in the Muara. Hundreds of hardflasks. Drugs too, maybe, I don’t know what’s in there.”
“That’s impossible.” Diesel stared at Elke, eyebrows up. “A cache of biologicals?”
“I saw it, and that’s not all. There’s people searching for it. Gangsters, not an official search. And they’re working for somebody in the Eye.”
Diesel drew in a breath as if to speak then nodded for Elke to continue.
“It’s complicated.” Elke took a drink from Diesel’s water bottle. “I used to know one of these gangsters, from back when I was in the Rent. Her name is Missy Cloete. She’s here with two men. Somebody in the Eye sent them here, told them the stuff is somewhere in the Muara. It can’t be long before they find it, and they’re nasty people. Armed.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Some of it I just figured out. Some of it Skyler Moraes told me.”
“They’ve got her captive. Missy Cloete’s using her as bait to lure me in. She wants to kill me. No idea why.”
Diesel gave a humourless laugh but said, “Go on.”
“Seems Moraes told Missy that I was friends with her. This gave Missy the idea to use Moraes as bait. Planted a leash in her skull and got her to send me that message, hoping to lure me out here to kill me. She’s responsible for that bank code thing as well. It was all just a plan to get me out of the Eye.”
“To kill you.” Diesel closed her eyes briefly. “That sounds crazy, but what has that got to do with this cache of hardflasks?”
“It’s a separate thing. There are two different plans going on here.” Elke drained the last of the water from the bottle. “What I think is this. There’s some guy in the Eye who knows about the cache. He pays Missy and her gang to come look for it. Missy meets up with Moraes and hearing that I’m in the Eye, takes this chance to winkle me out of there so she can get at me. That bit’s all a side-show. Thing is, I have no idea why Missy wants to kill me.”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know.”
They sat there for a long moment, not speaking.
At last Diesel said, “You saw this cache yourself.”
“I did.” Elke gestured towards the river mouth. “You can see the effects of it too. It’s been leaking.”
Diesel’s breath hissed through her teeth. “Leaking? Are you sure?”
“There are all kinds of insects and creatures down on the beach that I’m sure are Strangeworld. Fungi too. Something called rhinna. Not a lot of it, but it’s there. Also there are kids that live there, in a ruined hotel. One of them’s got a twisted foot. Looks to me like the result of a bone-flu.”
“That could be from the old infection, though. Pre-vaccine.”
“She’s only fifteen, but I suppose it’s possible.”
“You know, of course, what this must be.”
Elke shook her head.
“Jali’s hoard.” Diesel looked surprised. “Haven’t you heard of it?”
“But I thought that was treasure. Strangeworld gold.” Elke had heard the stories. Maxwell Jali, founder of the Babylon Eye and one of the only realworlders who’d gone into the Strange, had brought back a wealth of treasure and promptly hidden it. Elke had never more than half believed it.
“Oh, gold. I’ve heard those stories too,” said Diesel. “But the older stories were always about hardflasks. Jali wanted to infect this world, see. Make it like the Strange. It was his version of the Ark. Animals, plants, viruses, whatever he thought would do it.”
Elke stared at her friend, horrified. “He wanted to—”
“Yup. To him, the Strange was paradise. A perfect place, uncorrupted. The story goes he brought enough stuff through to start an infection that couldn’t be stopped. Seeds, spores, bacteria, whatever it took.”
Elke surprised herself with a grim laugh. “Ambitious guy, but why didn’t he do it? Why just leave the stuff hidden?”
“No idea.” Diesel shrugged. “That’s when he disappeared. Maybe he changed his mind. Who knows.”
“So this cache I found, this is Maxwell Jali’s Ark?”
“Could be. Does it look like it’s been there long?”
“Oh yes. Decades, easily, so that fits. Some of the flasks must have broken open. Maybe somebody’s been fooling with them.”
Diesel swore, using some Strangeworld words Elke had never heard before.
“Right,” she said. “So what are we going to do about it?”
¤¤¤
It was getting dark when Elke, Diesel, and Meisje set out for the river mouth.
Elke had managed to persuade a reluctant Diesel that neither of them could return to the Eye before they had at least some idea who Missy’s contact in the Eye was.
“It might be anybody,” said Elke. “Could be somebody really high up, and there’s another thing. Missy’s gang could find that cache at any moment now. What if they try and move it?”
That argument had finally persuaded Diesel. The thought of somebody attempting to move a large number of compromised hardflasks drew the colour from her face.
“We should at least check up on those kids,” Elke had added. “We need to get them out of here. Away from Missy’s gang, at any rate. They shouldn’t be wandering about while all this stuff’s going on.”
They made their way, as stealthily as they could, towards the hotel. Lights were on in the circus but they managed to get across the river mouth without being challenged. As they reached the first of the steps up to the hotel, somebody hissed at them from the shadows.
“Elke!”
Elke put a hand on Diesel’s arm. “Yes?”
“Over here.”
It was Ndlela. She could just make him out in the shadows.
“Ndlela! Is something wrong?”
“Yes!”
Then Ndlela must have caught sight of Diesel, because he was suddenly very still.
“This is Diesel,” Elke whispered quickly. “She’s a friend.”
“Hi!” Isabeau appeared beside Ndlela, a big backpack on her shoulders. She was struggling to keep her balance on her crutch while Robby tugged hard on his leash.
“Have you seen Noor?” said Ndlela.
“No. What are you guys doing here?” Elke could make out another bag imperfectly closed over a frying pan and a large water bottle. “Something happened?”
“Yes.” Ndlela hesitated, looking at Diesel.
“This is Diesel. She’s a friend from the Eye.”
“Hi there,” said Diesel.
“It’s those men,” said Isabeau. “They caught Ndlela. They had a gun. They’re looking for the Cathedral. They tried to get him to tell them but he got away. Then they came looking for us here. We had to hide in Jayden’s hole.”
Elke bit back a curse. “You’re okay?”
“Yes.” Isabeau looked unusually subdued. “We’re okay.”
“You were clever to keep hidden. And now you’re moving out? To get away?”
“That’s right.” Ndlela glanced beyond Elke towards the river mouth. “We can’t go till Noor gets here. We’ve been hiding back there in the hotel lobby.”
“Is the Cathedral what I think it is?” said Diesel.
Elke nodded and Ndlela said, “I didn’t tell them anything.” Then his face changed. “Noor!”
Diesel and Elke turned. Someone was moving towards them through the rapidly darkening evening. It was Noor, pushing her bike, a bag slung on the handlebars.
“Hi there.” Her grin faded when she saw Elke and Diesel but she still came on. “Hey, Issy, Ndlela, I got some treats for you guys.”
“Noor!” Ndlela grabbed the handlebars of her bike. “Listen. Something’s happened. We need to get away.”
Noor frowned as she caught sight of Isabeau and her backpack. “What are you doing with all that stuff? You look like you’re going camping.” She looked at Diesel. “And who’s this?”
“Those men are looking for us,” said Ndlela.
“Oh, not that again.” Noor pulled her bike free of his grasp. “It’s a good game, I know, but really. Where do you think I’ve been till now? Having coffee with your hated enemies. Real coffee.” She patted the bag hanging from the handlebars. “And they sent you some treats. What do you say about that? Now help me get this stuff up the stairs.”
“You were visiting them?” Ndlela gaped, so surprised that he let Noor push past him. “You went to the circus?”
“Yes, of course!” Noor started up the steps.
“You should listen to your brother,” said Elke. “Ndlela, tell Noor what happened to you today.”
Noor turned to look at Elke, the scorn in her eyes easy to read. “You think so? Well, Missy’s told me all about you.”
“No, Noor, really, you need to listen,” said Isabeau.
“Those men, the
y grabbed me,” said Ndlela. “They put a gun right into my face. It wasn’t a joke.” He swallowed. “They pushed me on the ground. That one with the jacket, Mamba, he had the gun. They said they’d shoot me, and when I got away, they chased me all the way here. We had to hide in Jayden’s hole. They smashed up all the dishes when they couldn’t find us.”
Noor’s grip on her bike loosened and it leaned against her as she stared from Ndlela to Isabeau. “What?”
“It’s true.” Isabeau looked solemnly at her sister. “That’s why we got all this stuff together. We need to get away before they come back.”
Noor let the bike fall and climbed the steps with a determined tread. A few moments passed then she appeared again, looking as if the breath had been punched out of her.
“They made a mess, I know,” said Isabeau. “Everything’s smashed, and they kicked the front door right in.”
“If I may,” said Diesel, “we need to stop talking right now and get to a safer place. Then we can sort all of this out. I vote we go to the Dutch camp.”
“No.” Noor looked pale and tired. “We don’t need their help. We can look after ourselves.” Her anger had burned out and her words lacked conviction.
“We need to go. Now.” Diesel started towards the river mouth and after a moment’s hesitation, first Isabeau and Ndlela, then Elke and Meisje, and finally Noor, followed.
¤¤¤
They walked without speaking. Ndlela and Isabeau’s obvious fear infected all of them and even Elke felt the urge to glance behind her at the lights of the circus. Only Robby seemed unconcerned, straining at his leash and sniffing at every clump of reeds, ecstatic at this unusual evening walk.
Diesel and Elke carried the children’s bags, but Noor insisted on wheeling her bike without assistance. When they came within sight of the Dutch work team’s camp, Noor balked and at last broke her silence.
“Do we have to go in there?” Her face was tense. “They’ll have so many questions.”
Diesel gave her a considering look. “Is there somewhere else we can shelter?”
Ndlela turned to Elke. “There’s that place you camped in when you first got here. That’s not bad.”
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