It was amazing. Below us nothing but blue water and streaks of white waves. The sky was clear but for some white feathery clouds. One could see far and no land was in sight.
Nin grinned appreciatively at Paul and added. “You know, Lia, we are really lucky to have Paul. He knows in and out how to fly that plane, even though he claims that he never flew one like it. Me, I couldn’t have done what he does. Without him, we would never have gotten away so clean and swift.”
“Don’t spoil him with praise. Or we’ll never hear the end of it.” Rob replied and, with a grin toward Paul he added. “No offence, bro.”
“None taken.” Paul laughed and then turned to tell me. “I haven’t quite understood what you told us before about that box with the bottles. What made you think that they contain the Pathogen?”
“For several reasons really: One, because the box, in which they are, is marked with a red circle. No other box bears such a mark. And second, that same mark, but in gold, not red, is found on that funny black lacquered casket we found in the other box. In fact, the sign and letters on that casket look like a seal. Engraved, golden. And third, the protective biohazard suits in those other two boxes. It’s possible that those bottles contain medicine, sure, but then why does it say ‘Nemesis 6’ on each and every one of them? What a stupid name! Like an imitation of the famous Chanel No 5, really. A cynical joke. And besides, what an earth would they carry two boxes of biohazard suits with them?”
“This really sounds rather mysterious. Come, Josh, let’s go and have a look.” Rob squeezed past me and headed for where Winter and Alice were seated, having a closer look at the papers.
“And tell us at once when you find something interesting.” Nin urged.
Josh hadn’t said anything yet. He stood next to me and when I turned, he quickly followed and held my arm. “Wait, Lia . Are you alright? If I may ask.”
I turned toward him and wrapped my arms around his neck, which seemed to please him infinitely because he instantly relaxed.
“Don’t you worry, Josh. Everything’s quite okay. And even if I am a bit anxious, it’s really got nothing to do with you.”
A hurt look crossed his face and I hurried to add. “No, don’t get me wrong. What I am trying to say is this: this flight is the most unnerving thing ever. I feel like a sitting duck waiting for the bullets that will take us down. We are so exposed up here in that plane. I can’t keep myself from expecting an enemy attack any minute. Just to sit here and wait for them to get at us is quite unbearable for me. I don’t want to elaborate on it. I just want this flight to be over and done with. So, sorting through these boxes is a great relief and distraction and I hope that it will keep us busy for some more hours. Because this way time will pass without me agonizing over where we are and what might possibly happen. Otherwise, I might just go crazy.”
He didn’t look convinced, so I continued. “I am sorry if I hurt your feelings before, Josh. But, much as I like your concern for my safety and wellbeing, sometimes I just don’t want understanding and concern, but need to be left alone with my thoughts. Do you understand?”
I wanted him to know that there was nothing to worry about. Not about me, at least. The big worry was whether we’d make it safely to Africa and as far down South as possible. To show him, I kissed him, just a quick peck on his lips.
He sighed and pressed me tight for a moment before releasing me. “You know, Lia. Silly as it may sound, but I can’t be happy or content if I think you are worried. It makes me anxious to see you not at ease. But I will try to give you some breathing space, I’ll try, I promise. Just, don’t shut me out. Please. Tell me about your feelings and I will understand. Will you?”
“Promised.”
“Okay. Then let’s go now and have a look at those boxes. I am actually really curious.”
Winter and Rob had already begun to sort through the contents of the box. But the lacquered casket box was still untouched.
Alice found all this not very interesting. She looked bored. But when I suggested that she try to sleep a bit, she vehemently denied being tired.
“Why don’t you go to Nin and Paul then, and help them navigate toward the African coast, little tiger?” Josh suggested.
This made her jump up and hurry toward the cockpit. “What! Are we already over the Mediterranean? Oh! I have got to see this!”
Good! Like that she was busy and we had ample time to have a good look at the content of that box. But before we sat down to have a closer look at its contents, I showed Josh the boxes with the Pathogen and the protective suits in the back of the plane.
“Hmm. You may be right.” He said pensively, carefully holding one of the bottles toward the light to have a better look. “This really looks like it might contain the Pathogen.”
He took great care when putting the bottle back in the box back and said with a shudder. “Just imagine. If it’s true, we are standing in front of enough poison to kill a continent. At least.”
When he saw my incredulous face, he added. “Seriously, Lia. It takes the tiniest amounts to contaminate, say, the water supply of a mega-city like New York or Shanghai. With this amount here, one could kill millions of people. If applied accordingly, of course.”
“Can we destroy this?” I wanted to know. “I mean, do you think that we can somehow get rid of it and at the same time see to it that no one could ever again use it to kill?”
“I don’t know. But you are right, we will have to try and destroy those bottles. We simply have to.”
We returned to Winter and Rob and Winter informed us, that she had sorted the papers into four heaps. “Those here are all maps. Some of them with text or some kind of instructions on them, others are just plain maps. These documents over here are some kind of a manuals. All of them contain instructions of a kind. The third pile I can’t make any sense out of as yet. It looks like reports; but they are in different languages and some also in foreign scripts. Some papers are just lists of numbers; others seem to be some kind of statistics or something like that. We’ll have to sort those out later.” She turned to point at the heap between herself and Rob. “This fourth pile here is easy: Those are identification papers for different people. Some kind of Nemesis passports it seems. Seriously weird stuff if you ask me. Really, kind of bordering on the ridiculous. But have a look for yourself.”
We all bent to have a closer look. Sure enough, the documents were some kind of passports. They were black on the outside with golden engravings. The paper in the booklets themselves was passport-style paper with safety features. Again, the golden circle appeared on the cover as an emblem. It looked weird and also kind of ridiculous.
“For how many people are they?” Josh asked.
“Eleven!” Rob replied. “And here, this one’s Steve’s.”
He handed Josh one of the passports.
I suppressed an urge to snap it from his hand.
Josh leafed through the passport and said. “They look just as our passports do. Nothing special about them. Except, no nationality is given. Just Nemesis. Look. They seem to be organized by cells and then by numbers. It says here: Nemesis collective, cell: Middle Europe, number 348. Strange!”
“Here’s another one whose holder is number 4589. Does that mean that there are several thousand Nemesis members in Europe alone?” Winter held up another passport.
“And Steve is number 348. I wonder who is number 1?” Josh mused; then he shot me an inquisitive look. “Say, Lia, how come that he hates your Dad and your family so much? What did you do to him?”
I felt myself blush violently. “There was never anything between us!”
I noticed that my voice was unsteady and breathed deeply. Josh looked at me, a mixture of amusement and sincerity in his eyes. He held my gaze for a moment and nodded encouragingly for me to explain.
“I mean, it was like this. One day he showed up at the University in a history class I took because Nate had suggested it might be worthwhile, the prof being a real spe
cialist on the matter. That prof knew Nate and sometimes came to our house for tea or dinner. I hadn’t really talked with him as he always came to talk shop with Nate. But anyway, when Nate suggested I take this course, I kind of felt obliged to do it because of their friendship. Or something the like. It’s kind of difficult to explain now. Anyway. The course turned out to be really interesting, at least at first. Later it turned a bit creepy.”
“What was it about?” Rob asked.
All three of them had ceased leafing through the Nemesis papers, but sat there and looked at me intently. It made me feel nervous like hell.
“Contemporary history and the relations of the West and the East. I know, not a very alluring title or subject, but it really was rather interesting. That prof pointed out a lot of interesting problems I had, honestly, never thought about before. A lot about demographic developments and difficulties arising from unequal population growth, biased sex ratios at birth in favour of boys and the resulting shortage of women in many societies, global inequalities of wealth distribution, the effects of natural resources being so unevenly placed on the globe and the lot.”
I saw the sceptical look on all their faces and hastened to add. “I know, I know, it all sounds like the same old crap just wrapped in another theory. But he had some things to say which made me sit up and think. Because he introduced another point of view into the equation that I had grown up to really see as a problem of mostly global warming, overpopulation and its related problems.”
They didn’t look convinced; so I tried to explain what had only recently become clear to me.
“You know, now, in hindsight, I understand why Steve suddenly showed up. At the time I didn’t understand it at all. He showed up in that course one day and seemed to know the prof very well. At that time the topic in the course was what kind of effects the aforementioned global problems might have on society as a whole and what kind of extreme views they might trigger. You know, global bioterrorism, extreme religious, gender or racial views, basically anything normally declared moral or ethical ‘no go zones’ that might now crop up, become acceptable and take hold in societies. Funny, but it was exactly then that Steve showed up and presented himself to the class and the prof as some kind of expert in the field. He seemed to have credentials, at least the prof gave that impression, and then he began to show an interest in me. He started to seek me out, to accompany me to wherever I was going. Suggested that he might bring me home in his car. Such things, you know.”
Josh didn’t look amused now; his face bore a definitely murderous look.
Winter noticed it too and punched him in the side. “Hey, quit glaring at Lia that way. That was all way before you even knew her. And anyway, from what I gather she never had anything going with that Steve, anyway.”
Quickly, before Josh could comment anything, I went on with my story. “Yes, there was never anything. But of course I felt flattered. He is a charmer, you know. He has that kind of ability some people possess to charm their way through life. If they want to, that is. Anyway, he accompanied me home one day and met Nate. He skilfully mentioned his supposed connection with that professor and had an entré with Nate straight away. In hindsight, I understood, and now even more than before, that he had planned this all along. Nate was pleased; and that first evening they talked for hours about this and that and things in general. After that, Steve came often to our house, either supposedly to see me or to meet Nate. It was never really clear what it was he wanted. Like, he never went out with me, or offered to take me some place. He always just waited to accompany me home. And then, if Nate was around, he would stay on and talk with him. Ask a lot of questions, too. If Nate wasn’t around, that would be that and he would leave.
“Maybe two weeks into this, he started one evening to ask questions about Dad and Uncle Phil. That sent alarm bells ringing all over me. A quick glance at Nate and Mum told me that they didn’t like this either. Nate skilfully carried on with the conversation without revealing our suspicion. But after Steve had left, we started to make inquiries. Well, not me, really, but Nate and Dad. They didn’t find out anything on Steve, nothing at all. He was like a blank slate; which made them really suspicious and prompted Dad to come over for a quick visit. Again, Nate, Mum and Dad behaved in such a clever way that Steve never suspected anything. At least, I like to think that. He was totally pleased to meet Dad and tried to ingratiate himself with him. Apparently, he wanted to become his assistant and asked whether that might be possible. When Dad snubbed him by asking for his scientific credentials, he had the audacity to admit that he had none but was convinced that he might be a real asset for Dad anyway. Nate then inquired why he would think that to be the case and that’s where he became evasive. He must have realised then that he had seriously miscalculated. He must have thought it would just take a bit of brazenness and bravado to impress Dad. But when it didn’t work, he was at a loss how to get out of it.
“He also, and that I will never forget, suddenly became aware that I was present. The look he shot me was one of pure and utter hate. It shocked me, but I didn’t place much value on it then. I was too busy feeling hurt and self-conscious because I had allowed this fraud into our house. And also, I honestly admit, because I had felt flattered by his attention, after all, he drove quite a car and I was the only one he ever gave a ride with it.”
Josh still looked unhappy and hurt. But he needed to know this; they all must know. Even though, I told the story mostly for his ears. He had to understand.
“After that incident with Dad, Steve stuck around at university, but he never came to our house anymore or tried to single me out by offering me rides in his car. Which was fine by me. A huge relief actually. He seemed to have connections, though, because he was mingling everywhere. That year I had applied at the geological institute for a minor research assistant position. Strictly without mentioning my family credentials in that area. I got turned down and about a week later, when we had that final fallout, Steve told me he’d seen to it that I hadn’t gotten that job. At the time I thought that he was just trying to show off. Now, I wonder, because the Nemesis had a cell in Berne, didn’t they? Maybe that professor of that history course was part of it. In hindsight, I think he may have been. Because, come to think of it, he seemed to justify really extreme views, in order ‘to save the planet as a whole’ as he put it.”
“He voiced such ideas publically?” Josh sounded utterly incredulous. “And nobody stopped him or filed a complaint?”
I felt a little angry, as if he’d accused me of inaction. My answer may therefore have been a bit on the snappy side. “Of course not. It’s just in hindsight that I see these things for what they probably were. At the time, it was just strange ideas that seemed to make sense, at least partly. One kind of felt thrilled to have been told about them. You know how it sometimes is with new ideas. They are deemed heretical, or maybe just silly, but they hold a certain undeniable appeal.”
They all looked really sceptically at me now and I rushed to defend myself. “It wasn’t a field I was in any way familiar with. So, how was I to judge ‘good’ from ‘bad’ hypothesis? I learnt a lot through all of this. Mostly, not to trust people and ideas. Before, I had thought that I was able to think for myself, that I wasn’t easily taken in by other people, their ideas and theories. And besides, nothing much happened anyway, did it? Not between Steve and me, nor with regard to Nate or Dad. But the mere thought that I let myself been influenced and listened to those crazy ideas of that professor and of Steve, still makes me cringe with shame.”
I heaved a sigh and looked up to meet Josh’s smiling eyes. “So, you see. That’s the little there was to it. In hindsight, again, it is clear that he, as a member of the Nemesis, was trying to find out what Dad and Nate knew or suspected. Maybe ingratiate himself enough with our family to gain really valuable information. But Dad made short shrift with him and sent him packing.
“And Steve’s not the kind of person to take such a set-down lightly. Ab
out three weeks after that evening where he’d tried to get to Dad, he offered to drive me home one afternoon. I didn’t really want to, but it had started to rain and I had books and bags of groceries to carry so it seemed convenient and I agreed. After all, I thought, he couldn’t do anything to me, could he? How wrong I was. First, he didn’t drive home but out of town, northwards, on the highway. When I demanded that he turn around and bring me home immediately, he told me to shut up. I wasn’t really frightened, but just extremely annoyed. I decided not to afford him the pleasure of freaking out; I would wait and see first. I was confident that I would find a way out of it somehow. And I was certain that he wouldn’t attack me physically.”
Maybe I should have chosen my words a bit more carefully, because Josh looked positively livid at that. And Winter just grinned at me sardonically.
So I hastened to continue my story. “He drove about twenty kilometres, left the highway at the first exit and kept on driving. Somewhere he turned into a forest road, just a dirt track, and there he finally stopped the car. In the middle of that forest. I didn’t like it at all but still wasn’t really afraid. Annoyed yes, but not afraid. After all I had a notion where I was and how I might get home. And I had my cell-phone with me. He didn’t assault me physically, but verbally he sure did. He locked the car doors and started raving and ranting at me for I don’t know how long. Calling me and my family names; saying how unworthy of his attention I was, what an utterly useless and unattractive creature I was and so on.
“I remember that I just sat there wondering why on earth he would feel compelled to do this. But then he started to talk bad about Nate and Dad, how he would take it out on them, that there would be revenge, terrible revenge. I should just wait and see. Someday and soon. And that we would all be very, very sorry. I told him to shut up and to open the doors so that I might get out of his car. That I didn’t’ want to ever see him again and that he could go and get lost, preferably somewhere at the other end of the globe. He almost burst a gut over this and went on insulting me and my family some more. When he threatened violence to Alice and Yuki, I finally cracked and lashed out to him. Stupid of me. That had been his intention all along after all. It was then that he opened the doors and basically kicked me out of his car. With all my bags. Into the pouring rain. Shouting a few last insults before he took off.
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