Escaped

by Gary Urey

  “You’re going to lose that camel again,” Daisha said.

  “Our camels do as they wish,” the boy said. “Only that one roams far from us.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Yaseen,” the boy said. “And what are your names?”

  “I’m Daisha. Mr. Grumpy Face is called Loosha.”

  Loosha frowned at her. “I’m not in the mood, dziewczyna.”

  They followed the boy through a passageway among the rocks. Daisha heard the sound of an acoustic guitar, laughter, and singing. What she saw next nearly blew her mind. They were inside a small, natural amphitheater among the boulders. Three colorful tents, two Toyota SUVs, and one large cargo van sat among the rocks. A man dressed like Yaseen tended an outdoor oven. The spicy smell of delicious food wafted in the air, making Daisha’s stomach grumble with hunger.

  “I’m starving for real food,” she said. “I’ve only eaten potato chips and candy bars for nearly two days.”

  “Taeam will be ready soon,” Yaseen said. “Wait here. I will get my uncle.”

  The sun had now completely disappeared over the horizon. Daisha shivered in the cool air and looked into the sky. Stars filled the beautiful night sky. Never in her life did the darkness seem so vivid and alive. Shooting stars rocketed across the cosmos before disappearing into oblivion. The constellations were so close it was like she could almost reach up and yank a handful from the sky.

  Yaseen and a tall man emerged from the largest tent. The man was dressed in traditional Arab clothing. He was bigger than Loosha, but much friendlier looking.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan,” the man said with a smile. He handed Daisha and Loosha each a bottle of water.

  “Thanks,” Daisha said, twisting off the cap and taking a big slurp.

  “My name is Khaled. Do you have a reservation with us? Because we’re currently booked for the next month.”

  “We were separated from our tour group,” Daisha said.

  “We need help getting back to a town or city,” Loosha added.

  “What city did you fly into?” Khaled asked.

  “I…uh,” Loosha stammered.

  “King Hussein International in Aqaba?” Khaled pressed. “Or perhaps Queen Alia International up in Amman?”

  “King Hussein,” Daisha blurted.

  Khaled nodded. “Aqaba isn’t far. Tomorrow morning someone can take you back to the Wadi Rum Visitor Center. There you can catch a bus to Aqaba. You will need to pay for the ghaz.”

  “I have plenty of money,” Loosha said.

  “Very good,” Khaled uttered a few sentences to Yaseen in Arabic, and the boy ran off. “Yaseen will bring you blankets. All of our tents are full with guests, but you can sleep here next to the fire. We will bring you food.”

  After a satisfying dinner of rice, lamb, pita, and lentils, Daisha and Loosha climbed under their blankets next to the roaring fire. The temperature had dropped so low Daisha could see her breath. A smile spread across her face when she saw the Big and Little Dippers stretched across the night sky. She and Axel used to lie in the grass at night back in Palo Alto, trying to name all the constellations. It hadn’t been easy because of the city lights, but they had managed to pick out a few like the two Dippers. Others were Gemini, the Twins; Taurus, the Bull; and Orion, the Hunter. However, locating Pisces had been nearly impossible, mostly because the stars in the constellation were dim.

  But way out here in the middle of the vast Jordanian desert, Daisha saw Pisces as clear as day. She used her finger to trace its long V-shape against the sparkly backdrop of the night sky.

  “Can you see it, Axel?” she whispered. “When we meet again, I’ll show you how to find it.”

  She yawned, her eyelids fluttered, and she fell fast asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  MUNI

  The Antakaale’s chartered private jet from Negombo, Sri Lanka, to Aqaba, Jordan, had cost more than two hundred thousand dollars. The flight was one way with first-class amenities for all. Money was not an issue. Thanks to several of Muni’s wealthy devotees, she had a financial portfolio worth twenty million dollars, not counting pricey real estate like the tea plantation, a Central Park West New York City apartment, and a Malibu oceanfront home. She had yet to tell them why they were flying to the Middle East, and no one questioned her motives.

  Two JETT tour buses and one rented SUV with tinted windows were waiting for them when they landed. The followers and the children hopped onto the buses. Muni, Gita, and Pavana slipped into the SUV. She handed the chauffeur a wad of cash, and they headed for a place called the Wadi Rum Visitor Center.

  “We have plenty of work to do before transitioning to New Earth,” Muni said, opening her laptop. The chauffeur didn’t speak a word of English, so she wasn’t concerned about him eavesdropping.

  Pavana and Gita opened their laptops. Gita no longer wore a bandage on her forehead. Her scratches had nearly healed, and the Antakaale’s sign once again shined brightly upon her.

  “Be grateful for the Voices,” Gita recited. “They are love, and their truth is for all who hear.”

  “Verse sixteen, one of my favorites,” Muni said with a smile. “I still remember where I was when they whispered that into my ear.”

  “Where were you?” Pavana asked.

  “I was still living in my little bungalow on North Michigan Avenue in Pasadena,” Muni said. “The same day I officially resigned my professorship at Caltech.”

  “Praise the Voices,” Gita spouted with enthusiasm. “They are the only truth, the only utterance worth hearing. Verse seventeen of The Way to New Earth.”

  Muni cupped Gita’s hands in her own. “Your brief daily visits with Varya are keeping you in good spirits,” she said. “You, me, and the little one will pass through the gates of New Earth together.”

  Gita nodded and typed into her computer. Pavana did the same. The Voices not only communicated to Muni in spiritual verses but also with science—advanced subjects like geophysics, chemistry, calculus, biology, and even economics.

  “According to the data, the Wadi Rum desert is experiencing major geomagnetic disturbances,” Pavana said.

  Gita peeked at Pavana’s computer screen. “Very similar to the instabilities around the Konanavlah Sun Temple at the time of the explosion.”

  “This place is the entryway to New Earth,” Muni said. “The Voices gave me the vision of a vast, scorching desert, swirling sand devils, seven pillars, men in Arab dress, and the two children.”

  “Who were the children?” Pavana asked. “Were they ours?”

  Muni shook her head. “They were older. Young teenagers. One was a striking black girl. The other was a white boy with long, flowing brown hair.”

  “Obviously he wasn’t one of us,” Gita said. “What did they have to do with your vision?”

  Muni stared out the window. The Aqaba suburbs were turning into countryside. A flat, featureless desert stretched as far as the eye could see. A shudder wiggled up her spine. The two children of the vision had frightened her. They seemed ancient and powerful. Muni remembered reaching out to the kids, desperately trying to make them hear the Voices. But they had refused to listen to her.

  Climb atop the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, where New Earth awaits. Two in youth will guide you, but they will not hear the Voices. Only one of you will survive.

  This was the final verse of The Way to New Earth. However, Muni did not include it in the book. The other Antakaale had never heard the words before. Not even trusted confidants like Pavana. The prophecy was too confusing and cryptic. She did not want to frighten her followers and cast doubt in their minds.

  “Three more events!” Pavana screeched.

  “What are you talking about?” Muni asked.

  “I just got a news flash on my phone. A massive 8.6 earthquake just happened in Bhopal, India. The quake destroyed much of the city and immediate rural areas.”

  “And the other two?” Gita wondered.

  “There’s been anot
her devastating tsunami in the Pacific,” Pavana continued. “Just like the Galápagos Islands. Viti Levu, the main island that makes up Fiji, is now completely submerged. And finally, the so-called supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park in the United States is acting up for the first time in seventy thousand years. Hundreds of thousands of people in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho have been evacuated.”

  “Never in recorded history have so many natural disasters happened within days of each other,” Gita said.

  “Bring up the satellite readings,” Muni ordered.

  Gita typed into the computer. “The aurora borealis can now be seen as far south as Ecuador,” she said. “And Earth’s magnetosphere is weakening in several locations. Radiation may be leaking into our atmosphere at unprecedented levels.”

  “Electron diffusion region,” Muni muttered.

  Pavana raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s another name for an X-Point,” Gita explained. “They’re places where Earth’s magnetic field and the Sun’s magnetic field meet. I remember a couple Stanford professors were conducting research on the subject. Professors Jack and Tandala.”

  The car slowed down and swerved slightly. They looked out the windows and saw that several large rocks had rolled into the road. The chauffeur looked into the back seat and waved his hand, indicating everything was okay.

  “I’ve been out of academia for a long time,” Muni said. “But the Voices still command me to keep up with all the new research. Those two Stanford professors you mentioned were funded by the one and only Doctor Lennon Hatch.”

  “What are you getting at?” Pavana questioned.

  “That man was responsible for the explosion at the Konanavlah Sun Temple, a place well known in the scientific world as one of the most magnetic places on Earth.”

  Gita’s mouth dropped open. “So you think the Sun Temple was an electron diffusion region, and that explosion had something to do with the magnetic poles flipping.”

  “Verse fifty-one!” Muni said triumphantly. “Only the Voices know the truth, and those who hear the Voices shall know New Earth.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gita said.

  Muni glared at her, her piercing green eyes boring into Gita like lasers. “You only need to understand that the Sun Temple was a permanent X-Point. That money-grubbing, imbecilic fool Hatch went and got it destroyed. Therefore, he unknowingly opened the door to New Earth, much to our good fortune. Latitude 29.5347° N and longitude 35.4079° E is the location of a potential new permanent X-Point.”

  “What does this mean?” Pavana asked.

  “It means we have to keep that X-Point from opening and stabilizing Earth’s magnetic field. Otherwise the door to New Earth may close forever.”

  Gita looked Muni directly in the eyes. “And how in the world do you propose we accomplish that?”

  Muni turned away from her without a response. She tilted back her head, closed her eyes, and whispered the missing final verse to The Way to New Earth.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  AXEL

  Axel landed face-first into a mound of hot sand. He sat up, wiped the grit from his eyes, and saw Charu. She was a few yards away on her hands and knees, gagging from their sudden blast through the Warp.

  He thought of Daisha. Usually she was the one Warping with him.

  “Are you okay?” Axel asked.

  Tears streamed down Charu’s cheeks. “Where…what…just happened to me?”

  “We went through the Warp.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Well, according to Megan, the Warp works by dematerializing the elemental composition of our bodies via the solar wind and turning them into a stream of charged particles. The GeoPort then reconstitutes those particles back to our human form.”

  Charu sat up and wiped her mouth. “So, you’re basically saying we were broken up into tiny pieces and sent flying across the world?”

  Axel nodded. “Yep. That’s the way it works.”

  “But I thought you said your GeoPort only functions with your DNA. How am I here?”

  “Umm…yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. We were touching when it went off, so maybe that’s how we Warped together. Think about it. Five minutes ago we were in India, and now we’re at latitude 29.5347° N and longitude 35.4079° E.”

  Charu looked at the numbers on the GeoPort. “And where is that?”

  Axel shrugged. A dry, seemingly endless desert stretched into the horizon. Strange rock formations jutted high into the sky. Intense heat beat down on them.

  “I think we landed on Mars,” Charu said, only half joking.

  The skin on the back of Axel’s neck began to sizzle with burn. “We have to get out of the sun,” he said. “We could easily die out here.”

  Charu pointed toward two large rock formations not far away. They came together to form a kind of gorge.

  “We might find some shade there,” she said.

  Axel nodded, and they started trekking over a massive dune. He noticed two sets of faint footprints in the sand. They were heading in the same direction of the rock formations.

  “This looks like a good sign,” Axel said, showing Charu the prints. “Someone else must’ve had the same idea as us.”

  The rock formations were a lot farther away than they thought. It took them well over an hour to reach them, but the hike was worth the effort. The stone knolls blocked out the sun, giving them a welcomed respite from the heat.

  “The footsteps go farther into the gorge,” Axel said. “Do you want to follow them some more?”

  Charu nodded. “Yes. It’s probably cooler the deeper we go.”

  They rested another few minutes and started walking. Axel noticed very large animal hoofprints in the sand alongside the human footprints. Prehistoric illustrations of animals and people appeared on the walls.

  “Look,” Axel said. “Those petroglyphs look almost exactly like the ones back at the rock shelter in India.”

  “Fascinating,” Charu said. “The animals appear to be horses and deer with very long horns.”

  “I wonder what the weird circles and wiggly lines mean?”

  “Perhaps some kind of ancient script or religious symbol.”

  A dripping sound caught Axel’s attention. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  “Sounds like water!” Charu exclaimed

  They ran toward the sound. Their eyes lit up when they saw drips of liquid trickling from the rock walls and into a small puddle below. Both of them knelt down, splashing their faces and necks with the cool water.

  “I’m dying of thirst,” Axel said. “Should we drink?”

  “It smells clean enough,” Charu said. “And rocks are good filters, but…”

  Axel didn’t wait for her to finish. He cupped a handful of water and slurped it into his mouth. He was about to drink more, but Charu stopped him.

  “That’s enough,” she said. “If the water’s bad, it won’t take long for you to start reacting. Let’s wait and see how your stomach takes it.”

  They waited thirty minutes until Axel had to go to the bathroom. Since the water had gone through his system and he hadn’t gotten sick, they figured the water in the puddle was safe to drink. They both swallowed several gulps. With their parched throats temporarily satisfied, they leaned against the cool rocks.

  “When the sun goes down, we can start to look for civilization,” Axel said. “Maybe there are more footprints in the sand.”

  Charu splashed water in her face. “I hope we don’t run into Minecraft zombies,” she joked.

  Axel laughed. “If there are zombies in this desert, we’re dead meat.”

  Their moment of lighthearted humor quickly gave way to the reality of the situation. They were lost in an unforgiving landscape where death at the hands of the extreme climate could happen at any moment. So they sat there and waited, both of them lost in their own thoughts as the hours went by. There was a dramatic drop in
temperature, but that fact didn’t give them much solace.

  “Where are we?” Charu said, a dejected tone in her voice.

  “A desert.”

  “But which desert?”

  Axel scratched his head. “Let’s see. How many deserts are there in the world? Sahara, Mojave, Arabian. Then there’s the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico. What’s the one in Mongolia?”

  “Gobi,” Charu answered. “There’s the Great Victoria Desert in Australia and Patagonia in Argentina. The largest desert in the world is Antarctica.”

  “We can definitely rule that one out.”

  Charu stood up, stretched, and paced around the gorge. After taking another drink of water, she ran her fingers lightly over the petroglyphs, retracing the artist’s handiwork from thousands of years ago.

  “This animal looks like a camel,” she said. “That means we have to be in northern Africa, the Middle East, or Mongolia.”

  “Great,” Axel said, his eyelids fluttering with fatigue. “If we’re in the Middle East, I’ll take a hummus platter, lamb kebabs, and a cold glass of iced tea.”

  Another petroglyph caught Charu’s attention, one that someone had carved directly above Axel’s head. She hadn’t noticed it before, but they were modern numerals and not some ancient cryptic symbol. Below the numbers were six English letters.

  Charu read the numbers aloud. “21.52, 75.3, 78.14, 0.9786.”

  “What are you mumbling?” Axel asked.

  “D-A-I-S-H-A.”

  “Why are you spelling out Daisha’s name?”

  “Look above your head.”

  Axel glanced up at the wall and nearly burst out in tears. Scrawled crudely into the stone were:

  21.52, 75.3, 78.14, 0.9786

  D A I S H A

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  DAISHA

  Daisha rolled over, stretched, and opened her eyes. A brilliant orange sunrise peeked over the rocky out-crops. Loosha was sleeping next to her, softly snoring. The events of the previous day flooded back to her, from Warping to a barren desert in the Middle East and seeking shelter from the sun inside the rock crevice to Yaseen and the lost camel.