Pursued

by Gary Urey

  “On June 21 of this year on the summer solstice,” Larraj read, “the moon will fall from the sky, landing at the Konanavlah Sun Temple. The bright side will be male, recognizable by his pale skin and long, curly hair the muddy color of the Narmada River. The dark side will be female, shadowy and beautiful like the goddess Parvati, wife of Shiva and mother of Ganesha. Garuda will fly overhead disguised as two sea eagles, indicating their arrival.”

  Axel and Daisha sat in stunned silence as Larraj continued the reading. They learned that the Sun Temple had been under assault almost since its creation—all because of its magnificent, awe-inspiring magnetic properties. Larraj also explained that the seven sages thought the dark and bright sides of the moon were the children of the gods. The first prophecy was devoted solely to them so they could gain wisdom and insight before their monumental undertaking.

  “What is the undertaking?” Axel asked.

  “You already know,” Larraj said. “By demagnetizing the temple, you free its soul so the divine energy may return to Swarga, the place you call Heaven. You will also stop the temple’s destruction and save the world from the shadow.”

  “My own Nadi palm leaf has destined me to help save the Sun Temple from destruction,” Jag said. “That is why I am here with you now.”

  “I want to know how we’re supposed to defeat this shadow,” Daisha said.

  Larraj pulled out a new palm leaf. This one was so faded that the squiggly lines of the scrawled Sanskrit were barely legible. “The leaf says that you must use the shadow’s own power and destroy it from within,” he said. “A small cloud will break away from the shadow’s thunderstorm and assist you.” Larraj stopped reading and stared at them for a long moment, his serene face growing long with concern. “As for the rest of the prophecy, I think our consultation should end here.”

  “It can’t end!” Axel exclaimed. “I want those leaves to tell us how to defeat him!”

  Daisha grabbed Axel’s elbow. “Calm down,” she hushed.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down,” Axel said, tearing his arm from Daisha’s grasp. “Jag throws us in here against our will, and some yoga dude gives us one colossal mind freak by reading our lives like a Wikipedia page. Tell us how to defeat him!”

  Larraj looked down at the palm leaf and then back at Axel. “The final divination says that the boy with hair like the muddy Narmada River must die yet still live. Now, you must leave. The consultation is over.”

  Jag pressed his palm against a wall, and a door opened onto an empty courtyard. He then shoved Axel and Daisha out of library and into the brilliant sunshine.

  Chapter Forty

  STIV

  Stiv’s heart pounded as she rushed through the busy streets of Jabalpur. Truck horns blared, motorcycle engines whined, pariah dogs yowled, and hordes of people shouted back and forth over the deafening traffic noise.

  “Sorry,” Stiv apologized after nearly plowing over an old man pushing a cart full of freshly baked naan bread.

  The people, traffic, and shops stretched toward the horizon. Stiv hadn’t planned to escape from the Doctor this early in the trip, but the moment had presented itself and she took advantage. Thankfully, the man had given her the stack of rupees. The cash would make getting to the Sun Temple all that more convenient.

  “Young lady, you are British?” a female shopkeeper standing with dirty bare feet and wearing a bright-pink sari asked in broken English.

  Stiv stopped running and peered into the shop. Rows of exotic Indian dresses and stacks of colorful, silky fabrics filled nearly every inch of the space. The sweet smell of jasmine incense wafted in the air, making a nice contrast to the stinky stench of the streets.

  “I’m an American,” Stiv answered back.

  “Your clothing,” the shopkeeper said. “They are like what a man wears. Come inside and try on proper dress.”

  A full-length mirror near the door confirmed the shopkeeper’s fashion assessment. Stiv was wearing leather pants, black motorcycle boots, a ratty T-shirt, and a sleeveless jean jacket with the rock lyrics I hate men who think I’m afraid scrawled in black marker.

  “Yes,” Stiv said. “I would like to purchase new clothes.”

  The shopkeeper smiled and invited her into the shop.

  “Do you have a washroom?” Stiv asked.

  A confused look spread on the shopkeeper face, as if not understanding the meaning of the word washroom.

  “Clean,” Stiv said, and then mimed the act of scrubbing her face and arms.

  “Ah, yes,” the shopkeeper said. “Behind the curtain. In back.”

  Stiv had expected to find a toilet and sink behind the curtain. Instead, she saw a wooden stool on which sat a chipped porcelain bowl filled with suspicious-looking gray water. A white towel and small mirror hung on a pair of wall hooks.

  “At least the towel looks clean,” she said to herself and splashed her face with water. Thick black mascara ran down her cheeks. After wiping the makeup from her face, she removed all of her lip and ear piercings—sixteen in all—and shoved them in her pocket.

  Ridding herself of the tattoos came next. She dipped the towel in water and scrubbed her upper right arm. The complicated blend of lilacs, gardenias, and unicorns she had painstakingly drawn on herself to resemble permanent tattoos melted down her arm in a gush of rainbow colors. She ran a finger through her short, spiky blue hair. Nothing she could do about her head except cover it with a scarf. The long, black hair she had worn since elementary school would take a while to grow back.

  She stared at her face in the mirror. Stiv and the punk persona she had created for herself were gone. Once again, she was Megan, a Stanford University PhD candidate in applied physics from Palo Alto, California.

  The shopkeeper was waiting with a tape measure. “I will make a good fit. You will be beautiful.”

  With the proper measurements taken, Stiv browsed through rows of saris. They ranged from simple and modest to designer and glamorous. An embroidered aqua-blue sari with a matching headscarf caught her attention.

  “It looks nice on you,” the shopkeeper said, taking the sari off the rack.

  After a brief tutorial on how to wear the traditional Indian dress, Stiv stepped behind the curtain. She slipped on the skirt and top and then wrapped herself in the long, silky fabric. The softness of the sari felt luxurious against her skin. After pinning everything together, she emerged from behind the curtain.

  The shopkeeper wrapped the matching scarf around her head. “Lovely,” she said. “You look like Indian princess.”

  Stiv counted out the money and handed the shopkeeper a stack of bills with Gandhi’s picture. She was relieved that after paying for the dress, there was still a lot of money left from what the Doctor had originally given her.

  “How do I get to the Konanavlah Sun Temple?” she asked.

  “Temple seventy kilometers from here. You can take train from station, but it dangerous for woman to travel alone. You need a man.”

  I hate men who think I’m afraid.

  The quote she had written on her jean jacket popped into her mind. There was only one man she hated—Doctor Lennon Hatch. After all, he was the one responsible for killing her mentors and all-time favorite people in the world—professors Roswell Jack and Jodiann Tandala.

  Out of all the qualified candidates, the professors had made her their number one lab assistant. They trusted her enough to let only her in on the amazing secret of geographical transportation. Not for one second did she believe they cooked meth in their lab or that a Mexican drug cartel had killed them. After some serious sleuthing, she knew without a doubt that the Doctor had ordered their hit and exactly why he had killed them.

  However, until the incident in the Monitoring Room with the kids, she was not sure that Axel and Daisha were still alive. Now she had seen them with her own eyes, Warping away in the hallway of the Doctor’s headquarters. A deep intuitive feeling told her they were in India right now. Specifically, they were heading to t
he Konanavlah Sun Temple to save the world just like she was.

  “How do I get to the train station?” Stiv asked.

  “Walk north,” the shopkeeper instructed. “Less than a kilometer from here.” The shopkeeper tried to give back her old clothes. “Do you want these in sack?”

  “No. I won’t need them anymore.”

  Megan then dashed out of the shop, heading straight for the train station.

  Chapter Forty-One

  DOCTOR STAIN

  Fourteen BharatBenz freight trucks sat idling on India Route 30 in front of the gated entrance of the Konanavlah Sun Temple. The trucks had rolled over miles of dusty roads pocked with potholes from the Jabalpur Airport, carrying all of the equipment needed to harness the solar wind and manipulate the X-Point.

  “We shouldn’t have left Stiv,” the Doctor said, his voice filled with worry.

  “There was no choice,” Pinchole remarked. “The Indian officials only agreed to shut down the temple to visitors for three weeks. The platoon of soldiers they gave us for security goes away then too.

  The Doctor chuckled. “That whole meeting was just for show. As long as I keep padding their bank accounts, we can keep this placed closed as long as we want.”

  “Yes. But we still have to get busy unloading trucks, setting up the equipment, and”—adding air quotes—“investigating new and viable sources of green energy. The party must start with or without your latest crush.”

  The Doctor shot Pinchole an angry look. “Watch your mouth, and remember who you’re speaking to.”

  “I’m sorry, but we couldn’t suspend the operation until she turned up. After all, you told her not to wander far. Three of our men are pounding the streets of Jabalpur looking for her as we speak. I guarantee you they’ll find her sitting in some shop getting a henna tattoo, blissfully unaware of the aggravation she has caused you.”

  “You’re probably right. Let the festivities begin.”

  Pinchole signaled three guards from the Indian Armed Forces to open the gate. The line of trucks rolled into the Sun Temple’s main compound. Pinchole waved the vehicles into position. He ordered four huge satellite dishes to go on the Sun Temple’s north, west, south, and east corners. The 800 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer was to be set up in the courtyard, and several powerful x-ray lasers would dot the exterior grounds.

  “The magic is how we can make solar energy self-sustaining,” Pinchole said over the clatter of the hydraulic forklifts. “Without our thermoelectric converters, Earth’s atmosphere would just dissipate the energy before it reached our satellite dishes.”

  “What do we do with all this energy once we have it?” the Doctor asked.

  Pinchole pointed toward two freight trucks. “See those trucks?”

  “What about them?”

  “Inside each trailer are massive lithium-ion batteries of 365–560 Wh/kgs. They’re the same batteries that powered NASA’s deep-space probes like Voyager 2, New Horizons, and Juno. They will store the energy until we start construction on an electromagnetic radiation power plant. Thanks to your recent land acquisitions, the plant will break ground less than two kilometers from here sometime in the next six months.”

  “Those batteries had to cost a pretty penny.”

  “Yes, about as much as the four long cables running from the satellites to the trucks.”

  The Doctor scratched his enflamed cheek. “They look like cheap garden hoses.”

  “They may look like a dollar-store deal, but in reality the hoses are made from hundreds of layers of diamond nanotubes, the strongest, sturdiest polymers known to man. A South Korean company manufactures them for space programs around the world. Every ten yards of cable costs over a million dollars.”

  “Each one has to be at least thirty yards in length,” the Doctor reasoned, trying to calculate the cost in his head. “That means the cables had to cost—”

  “A lot of money,” Pinchole interrupted. “They are completely vital to the operation. Without them, we would have no hope of transferring and storing the energy until the plant is built.”

  Pinchole scurried off to get the operation online and ready to roll. The Doctor meandered around the grounds, not quite believing that his grand plan was so close to fruition. His first act with fully functioning geographical transportation would be to send his highly trained assassins through the Warp, knocking off leaders from the most powerful countries in the world, including the president of the United States. The CEOs of oil, gas, and automotive giants like China National Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Volkswagen, and Toyota would come next. The instability would cause stock prices to nose-dive. Then the Doctor Lennon Hatch Geographical Transportation Company would swoop in and save the financial day.

  The beautiful, ornamental carvings on the Sun Temple caught the Doctor’s attention. He walked onto a large porch, stepped down a double staircase, and came to a shrine containing a statue of a person at least eight feet tall. Being a bit of a rock hound, he knew the ancient artist had used green chlorite stone of extremely high quality.

  “Surya,” a deep voice said from behind.

  The Doctor turned and saw a large Indian man with a thick mustache and wearing a traditional outfit. “Excuse me?” he said, slightly startled.

  “The statue is of Surya, the Hindu Sun God,” the man explained. “The temple was built to honor him. Traditionally, Surya is depicted as a red man with four arms and three eyes, riding a chariot drawn by seven horses.”

  “Fascinating, I’m sure.”

  “Your face is very red, but I see that you don’t have three eyes or four arms. Therefore, you are not a god. Am I correct?

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “In my country, Surya is a compassionate spirit who heals the sick and brings good fortune.”

  The Doctor felt the port-wine stain on his left cheek flush with irritation. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t a person alive who could frighten him. But the eerie presence of the man standing before him was beginning to do just that.

  “This whole area is for authorized personnel only,” the Doctor said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “I think it is the other way around,” the man said, his eyes intense and penetrating. “You are the one who is not supposed to be here.”

  The man reached up and rubbed his palm against the sun god’s exposed navel. The Doctor felt the ground vibrate underneath his feet. The statue’s stone eyes appeared to flicker with life. Two Indian soldiers carrying submachine guns rushed down the double stairs. The man removed his hand from the statue. The tremors stopped, and the statue’s eyes returned to a cold, dead stare. The man then sprinted down a long corridor.

  “Clear that man out of here!” the Doctor shouted to the soldiers. “And anyone else who doesn’t have a security clearance badge.”

  The soldiers made chase as the Doctor looked toward the sunlight-drenched courtyard. He saw a vaguely familiar face wearing a headscarf and an aqua-green sari. The harried woman looked him right in the eye and then quickly disappeared behind one of the many pillars.

  “Stop right there!” the Doctor shouted at her. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  He climbed the double stairs into the sunshine. He spent the next half hour scouring every inch of the courtyard looking for her, but the woman was long gone.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  DAISHA

  Daisha grabbed Axel’s hand, and they scurried along the sun temple’s ancient walls. Every inch of stone was a collage of carvings and sculptures—camels, cobras, mythical animals, deities, dancers, exotic birds, royal court scenes, and every other conceivable celebration of life. Daisha and Axel hid behind a hedge and watched Indian soldiers escort a bunch of unhappy-looking tourists through the gate. With the visitors out of the way, a convoy of large trucks rolled into the courtyard.

  Axel pointed to a man directing traffic. “That guy with the blue shirt carrying an iPad is Pinchole! The Doctor a
nd his men are here!”

  “He must have hired the soldiers for security,” Daisha said.

  “We have to stay hidden, or they’ll kill us for sure.”

  The boy with hair like a muddy river must die yet still live.

  Larraj’s words echoed inside Daisha’s brain. “What does it mean to die while still live?” she mused.

  “It’s some kind of oxymoron,” Axel answered.

  “As far as I’m concerned, the past six months are one giant oxymoron. Let’s get moving and figure out what to do next.”

  They turned the corner and slammed into Jag and a woman wearing an aqua-blue sari. The collision was so hard that Axel and Daisha fell to the ground. The headscarf covering the woman’s head slipped off, revealing partially shaved, spiked blue hair.

  “It’s the woman from the Monitoring Room!” Axel gasped. “She’s with the Doctor!”

  Daisha and Axel scrambled to their feet and attempted to run, but Jag blocked their way.

  “The man with the red face is pursuing all of us,” Jag said. “She is on our side.”

  “Axel, Daisha!” the woman cried. “It’s Megan, your parents’ grad assistant! Don’t you recognize me?”

  Daisha studied the woman carefully. The Megan she remembered had long, black hair parted in the middle and eyes the color of an Alaskan glacier. The hair on this woman was much different, but the eyes were the same icy blue.

  “I don’t believe you,” Axel said.

  “After what the Doctor has put us through,” Daisha added, “we can’t be certain of anything or anybody.”

  “Can you be certain of this?” Megan pulled out her iPhone, opened the photo app, and handed it over.

  When Daisha saw what the picture was, she cupped a hand over her mouth and burst into tears. The photo was from two years ago, when Megan, Axel and his dad, and Daisha and her mother went to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The four of them had been leaning over a guardrail, pointing toward the sea lions sunning themselves on wooden floats, when Megan had snapped the picture. The sky was cloudless and sunny, and Alcatraz Island loomed in the background.