Strangely, a vague hope lingered in the recesses of her mind. Maybe her brain concocted the hope as a way of holding despair at bay. She bit back the tightness in her throat. Breaking down in the middle of this road was out of the question.
Besides, Hamiad had suffered worse than her.
“Please, can you help him?” Sarah asked.
Hamiad glanced at her with a look that said, You didn’t have to ask.
Bashad hesitated. His hands drifted toward his face, then trembled. He might’ve been fighting within himself. Finally he sighed and let his arms fall. “You are our guests, so I will help you. Follow me.”
Up the road, Sarah stopped and stared at men on ox-pulled carts.
“What?” Hamiad asked.
“Nothing.”
Except she wanted to ask for one of the carts. If she only left Utbashi…
Images of her loved ones flooded her head. Krem, Janet, Dolores, her mother…
It dawned on her that her mom was off negotiating right now. There was no way the firestorm got her.
Something tight inside her unknotted. Whoever else might be gone, her mother had to be alive. The question was how to find her.
Bashad led them over the dirt road to a slightly nicer area of the town. The buildings on this street stood two stories, made of wood with glass windows and even basic balconies.
A cement area hosted Utbashi’s bazaar. Wooden stands offered vivid rugs, jewelry, beads, and everything in between. One vendor’s rug displayed radios and antique electronics. The scents of grilled fish, lemon, and a tangy sauce hovered around her, and she noticed the steam wafting from cooking areas. Hunger escaped her for the moment, though.
Besides, the sight ahead really stole the show. A shallow pool of water formed a doughnut around a wild-looking temple, separating it from all the surrounding two-story houses. Red, blue, pink, purple, orange. They danced along the temple’s thick-pillared front and atop a towering, intricate crown that rose twenty feet off the roof. Almost a small pyramid.
She stopped to admire it.
“You have never seen a Hindu temple, eh?” Bashad said.
“No,” Sarah uttered. No, she had, she meant to say. Her mother had painted temples like this before. Even taught her the names of certain parts. The towering crown was the shikhara. The inner sanctum they’d be entering was the garbha griha.
“It’s a nagara-style temple, right?” Sarah asked. She only remembered her mom telling her that part because it sounded like “Naga.”
Bashad merely waved them on. They ventured across a thin cement bridge, the moat of sorts hosting a few funny-looking birds she would’ve loved to paint. A small, dark doorway lay up a set of red and pink steps framed by pots of big, leafy plants.
“The only way in and the only way out,” Bashad said.
Struggling to see inside the dimly lit garbha griha, Sarah didn’t know if his saying that comforted her at all. If he’d meant to comfort her. She noted how heavy the stone seemed at a grazing from her hand. Maybe several feet thick. You’d need an army to enter here uninvited.
They passed several doors in the thin, smothering entryway until ten feet later, they passed into a small chamber. Incense burned from somewhere. A single stream of sunlight spilled onto a white clay fountain. On lily pads the size of dinner plates, yellow and purple lotuses bristled, and below, goldfish, big as cigars, darted about. She leaned in to see the fish better.
She thought of New Bagram. Of her family. Of clothing she’d once owned.
“Wash your face, if you like,” Bashad said.
“Why?” Hamiad said.
“Try it,” Sarah urged. Even if Bashad’s soft features made him look harmless, she didn’t relish the thought of crossing him.
Hamiad sunk down and stared at his own scars in the water’s dim reflection. The fish scattered.
Those fish shone the same orange as her mother’s decorative shawl.
Twice every year, her mom traveled to negotiate with New Bagram’s funders. In exchange for money and supplies, Bagram’s funders expected a quota of cadets every season to fight the Naga.
After an especially long trip that lasted almost two months, her mother returned with a glowing orange shawl marked by green, blue, and red tassels that dangled from the edges. Flowed in her mother’s hands.
Such items were rare in Bagram because of their exotic nature. But this one was a present for her thirteenth birthday. Sarah had never seen, or received, anything so striking and beautiful in her life.
Hamiad plunged his hands in the fountain and splashed the cool water over his face. In seconds, the scars lightened and diminished. The pink and red turned a shade of light brown as if the scars were just one of Johnny’s Conifer holograms. After only a few more seconds, all the scarring faded.
“How?” Hamiad stammered.
“Krishna’s water cleanses all sins and wounds.”
And it’s apparently a great skin-care product, Sarah thought. Judging by the smoothness of Bashad’s skin, he’d made good use of the fountain.
So how did Hamiad’s face heal this quickly? She might not have believed the whole thing herself, but Johnny’s Conifer had pretty much left her open-minded about everything. And alien technology was the only explanation she could come up with.
Hamiad examined his arms, a healthy tan color, then motioned to a building. “When I woke up, I saw others in the hospital. We can help them with this.”
Others? Other survivors?
“Too dangerous,” Bashad growled.
Sarah couldn’t help but laugh.
“Dangerous? This fountain just—”
“You can tell no one,” Bashad cut her off. “Not until your friends awaken.”
“They won’t wake up without help,” Hamiad protested, rising to a stand.
Bashad shook his head.
“We cannot abuse this gift. Please, it must stay our secret.”
She bit her lip. She didn’t know if she could.
Even if keeping secrets became her job the day she received that shawl. When her mother revealed it, she’d almost giggled so much, she forgot to breathe. That didn’t last long. Soon her stepfather caught a glimpse of it in her room. A glimpse because he immediately fell into a trance, breathing in short flares. He shouted angrily at no one in particular, his eyes bloodshot. Sarah tried to slip the shawl under her bed, but he got hold of it first. The terrible sound of fabric tearing filled her ears. In seconds, pieces of the shawl decorated the floor. Her mother rushed into the room, trying to help. Instead, she received a slap to the face and a few words on her stupidity for bringing it.
Sarah knew her stepfather carried mental wounds from the Shroud War. But she didn’t understand why that shawl had set him off. Later that night, she asked her mother about it. She agreed to answer under the condition that Sarah kept it a secret.
In order to reach Bagram’s funders, she traveled to a set of mountains far to the east, the Himalayas. The ceiling of the planet.
So what? Sarah had asked.
So that’s why I married him. We both have a history there. During the Shroud War, your stepfather was stationed there. He protected something very important.
Sarah didn’t remember much about that. Only that her mother brought the shawl back, expecting her and her stepfather to bond over it. As if they could both lay claim to it. She was wrong, though.
Without answering Bashad, Hamiad walked out of the temple.
“Where are you going?” Bashad asked as they followed him through the bazaar. Finally Hamiad broke into a run. Sarah saw a building with a red cross symbol past several houses and storefronts down the road.
A hospital. Sarah desperately wondered who waited inside. Krem? Janet? Dolores? Johnny? The unexpected thought of him conjured anger for his stunt with the medals. But it was hard to hate someone who might be gone forever.
She glanced at Bashad, then ran after Hamiad. Who was Bashad to deny them the opportunity to help survivors? Her stepd
ad might’ve used the same messed-up logic.
Thinking how much she had loved that shawl, how much she detested her stepfather, Sarah knew she needed to leave Utbashi and find her mother and the Himalayas, where there were no Anunnaki. Where her stepfather would never return.
That’s why she had a hard time believing she could keep Bashad’s fountain hush-hush. If they only helped the other survivors, they could start demanding transports and supplies to get moving.
Chapter 2
As they stepped inside the hospital, all optimism of seeing old friends hit a wall. Past wooden cabinets, a set of eight cots and twice as many bedrolls rested along the perimeter, occupied by New Bagram’s graduating class of Watchers. Some of their faces were covered by bandages. Others glowed with pink-red scars.
If Sarah hadn’t already seen Hamiad’s disfigured face, she might have run out. But that helped no one. She forced herself to look through the faces ravaged by fire, registering whether she knew them or not.
So far they were all strangers. She found herself wondering if Johnny would be among them. Hanging out with him again earlier that day, even if only to clean her stepdad’s Humvee, proved nicer than she’d expected. Especially after the whole New Bagram bomb scare. It reminded her of their younger days when they’d both be cleaning desks or blackboards at school. Johnny as punishment for a prank. Her because she’d wanted to help him out. She didn’t mind cleaning so much if it was for a friend. Since it was after school, they got to talk about whatever they wanted. Like about how crazy Tobias was. Or about their teacher’s funny accent.
She’d always kind of hoped she and Johnny might rekindle their friendship sometime before he deployed. Instead, he’d turned the notion into a joke. Either that or made a lousy effort. She didn’t know which was worse.
Despite that, her heart sank at his absence. He couldn’t really be…
“Back already?” a quiet voice said. “I wish I could’ve helped.”
Sarah and Hamiad rushed over to the bed in the corner. There was Krem, a gash across his forehead and pink burn marks dotting his face.
Krem noticed her wince. “At least it’s not as bad as Hamiad’s.”
She forced herself to smile and kissed him above the ear.
“How do you feel?”
Slowly Krem sat up and smiled. “It wouldn’t matter if I told you.” She gave him an annoyed stare, and he answered. “Well, I twisted my ankle running from the firestorm, so I’m pretty much bedridden. What about you? I heard you screaming out there.”
“I’m fine.”
“Wait, am I hallucinating? Hamiad, your face is…”
Hamiad patted him on the chest. “Don’t worry. You’re not hallucinating. Just don’t worry about it.”
Sarah relaxed, glad she wouldn’t have to be the one to decide if they were to reveal the fountain’s power, and studied the room. As far as getting out of Utbashi went, they didn’t have much to work with. There were cabinets on both sides of the room, a set of stairs in one corner, and a faucet in the other, but none of that encouraged her.
Longing to discover something helpful inside, Sarah opened one of the cabinets to find dusty boxes of bandages and cotton balls and dozens of vials of expired medicine.
“I’m not sure, but I think that’s Skunk,” Krem said, cocking his head to the bed opposite him.
A pillow obscured part of the cadet’s head. As she stepped over and looked from the side, Skunk’s round face and short hair stood out. He wasn’t as badly burned as the others, and his expression was rather peaceful. It seemed best to let him rest.
She reached into her pocket and skimmed the slick surface of Johnny’s medals with her fingers. She’d debated whether to throw them away or not. But now the medals were oddly reassuring.
“Can I ask you something, Hamiad?” she said quietly.
“You are asking me something.”
She gave a wry smile. “Give me an honest answer, okay? When you guys helped me clean my stepdad’s car, did Johnny say anything about giving away his medals?”
Hamiad squinted in genuine confusion. “No. Why?”
“Never mind.”
Sarah tried to hold back the pang of sadness. Johnny really had been meaning to apologize. A lousy apology, but worth more than her completely dismissing it.
“Speaking of Johnny, check the dog tags. Maybe he’s here,” Krem said. “He doesn’t really wear it, but still…”
Right. Faces weren’t going to tell her as much as dog tags under the circumstances.
She strolled around, reading the metal IDs of recruits who were bandaged or whose faces were too badly burned to bear looking at.
And then her eyes locked on to the word “Aldrin.” There it was: Aldrin, Johnny around a recruit with bandages covering his face, his tousled, blond hair peeking out. Her heart leapt.
“Here!”
Hamiad jogged over. Sarah wouldn’t have allowed herself to believe it.
Suddenly to her dismay, Johnny started to moan. A pang of guilt surged through her. She hadn’t meant to wake him. Not this way.
Hamiad looked at her in alarm. Regardless of what Bashad said, they couldn’t leave Johnny to suffer.
“Just relax. We’ll help you,” Sarah said, winding an arm around him. Hamiad did the same, and a minute later they were walking Johnny out of the building. He trembled every step of the way as locals eyed them suspiciously, his well-worn boots scraping against the dirt road and soon the cement of the bazaar.
“You’ll feel better in a minute,” she reassured him uncertainly. The fountain would heal him even if he had internal bleeding, wouldn’t it? They crossed the bridge to the temple and raced up the steps. Someone shouted in anger—probably for them to stop—but Sarah didn’t care.
They entered the fountain chamber and set their friend down in front of it. The goldfish vanished as Hamiad cupped water in both hands. He poured it over Johnny’s hairline so that it seeped down his face.
“Let me drink.”
“Sure,” Sarah said. She peeled the bandage off his mouth and offered him water from her hand.
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and stood up by himself, tearing at the bandages.
“Thanks.”
As the bandages dropped to the dirt, light fell upon his skin, now clean and normal-looking. Sarah was about to help him up. Except that the cadet wasn’t Johnny.
“Who…?” she started.
“Of course,” Hamiad said, crestfallen. “The Keeper’s double.”
Krem had mentioned that Johnny planned to take the Conifer out with him into battle. It was obviously a risk, and the double was a security measure to fool the Naga should he ever be in trouble.
Johnny’s double raised a finger to his lips. “Am I still dreaming, or did this water just heal me?”
You’re dreaming, Sarah almost said. Then she realized he wasn’t addressing the question to her or Hamiad.
“I asked you to keep it a secret.”
A sinking sensation coming over her, Sarah whirled around. Bashad gave a motion with his fingers. A motion Hamiad and Johnny’s double must’ve recognized from their rifle practice. Utbashi’s guards trained their guns upon them.
Chapter 3
“Get back inside,” Bashad bellowed. “And stay there. The doctor will come by to check on you after he finishes plowing his field.”
The cool metal of a gun barrel poked into Sarah’s shoulder. With this, the men prodded her, Hamiad, and Johnny’s doppelganger back toward the infirmary the way Bagram farmers prodded misbehaving cattle into their pens.
“What happened?” said an unfamiliar voice as they entered.
Sarah looked up in surprise to see Ibdan, the drill sergeant, seated on the bed next to Krem’s.
“I’ve filled them in on everything,” Krem said.
Them? Then Sarah noticed Skunk sitting up in his bed. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes. Scratching his thin crop of hair, he smiled weakly, which she returned.
&n
bsp; “Why didn’t you just bring the doctors here?” Ibdan said to Hamiad, pointing to the doppelganger’s healed face.
“The doctor’s a little busy, sir.”
Ibdan looked skeptical with his bloodshot eyes. A series of bright pink cuts ornamented his cheeks and forehead. “And those men, did they just arrive?”
Sarah glanced out the barred window. Guards had parked themselves outside on chairs, with rifles in their laps. Both wore white long-sleeve shirts and black pants.
“We’re stuck here?” she blurted.
“You have somewhere to go?” Ibdan said. It was hard to tell if his slumping over was due to a general weariness or for effect.
She thought of the Himalayas. There are lush green rolling hills that stretch for miles. With the cleanest air you’ve ever breathed. Valleys deep enough to fit a lake. And behind it all, the crisp white mountains are practically sculpted onto the sky. That was how her mom described it. More than that, she’d painted images of the areas she visited for Sarah to see. How she relished the thought of seeing the inspiration for those paintings.
There had to be a way to reunite with her.
“Didn’t think so,” Ibdan muttered.
“Actually I might,” Sarah said finally.
“Care to share?” Ibdan asked, putting a hand to his ear like he expected her to whisper it.
Things would be different if she could only talk to her mother about all this. She always seemed to have the right advice.
“Not yet.”
“We’re all New Bagramites. No need to hesitate. In fact, you’re Tobias’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Stepdaughter.”
Ibdan nodded understandingly. “The Shroud War didn’t leave everyone with happy memories.”
That was an understatement. Sarah was painting a still life of a fruit bowl in her room once when she heard Tobias talking with a war buddy he’d invited over for some beers. She only remembered because he’d raised his voice with his friend.
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