by S. M. Nolan
“This is mental.”
22.
Tension
October 6th
2:15 AM
Protectorate Store House
Maggie sat at the old console while Russell paced before the cots. For the last twelve hours they'd restlessly awaited the coming communication. Their tension left little room for sleep or conversation. They'd managed to stomach the last of their MREs, then wiled away their time examining the library for anything else of use. Eventually, they settled into their present places, neither wishing to speak their obvious thoughts.
When Russell finally did, he ridiculed Maggie's decision until an argument forced the same end as before. Now he paced, hoping to justify their approach. With no other options, the argument inevitably resurfaced.
He stopped at the nearest cot, “Have I mentioned just how bad an idea this is?”
“Yes, repeatedly,” she groaned. “And I'm still not hearing alternatives.”
He exhaled a hot breath, “What about She-La?”
“We've been over this. As far as we know she's in Oakton—where she's needed and said she'd be. Otherwise, she's dead. Either way, she can't help us.”
Russell threw up his hands, “You expect to just walk up to them with what they want and they'll play nice?”
Maggie leaned a tired elbow on her chair, propped up her head, “Again, Russell, we have no options. We're choice-less—unless we want to die trying to figure out what to do next.”
“Maggie, we've been running from them since before we left Oakton. At every turn they've found us. Each time, they've adhered to a strict “shoot-first” policy. Now you want to step in front of their cross-hairs willingly? This is rash. You need to call it off!”
She was determined, “No. We're done running. I made it clear, if they're armed, the deal's off and—”
“And it's the perfect time to kill us.”
Maggie was tired of running, even more tired of his sudden cynicism. She snapped, “Russell, goddamn it, you want to end this as much as I do! If we can use them to our advantage for even a moment we'll be through with it.”
He tried to calm his rising anger. The best he could do was clench his jaw and speak through his teeth, “I agree their resources would be helpful, but what about after we translate the books? Do you really think we'll be able to waltz up to the device with Omega in tow, and make sure it stays off? These people have been waging war for thousands of years over this thing. How can you be convinced we'll come out alive?”
Maggie huffed; he had a point, but it didn't change her mind. Omega would likely attempt something, but not until after they were certain they had what they wanted. Until then, they would keep the two alive, if only to learn all they knew.
“We'll deal with that when we come to it. Isn't that what you've been saying? Deal with each situation as it comes? That we're choice-less as to whether they will happen?”
He sighed, “It doesn't—”
She sprang up, kicked back her chair with clenched fists, dual accents in full-effect, “Goddamn it, Russell, what d'you want from me? I've given you every opportunity to come up with an alternative and you've spent it clamming-up and stating the obvious. If you can think of something better in the next minute 'n a half, say so.”
She stared, eyes ablaze and nostrils flaring. He stared back, the pair locked in a mental stalemate. He didn't disagree about their lack of options, but …
His train of thought ended there. However dangerous, Maggie was right; they could risk death running on no food and low water, or risk death hoping Omega proved useful. Anything else would have to be taken as it came.
He did his best to reply calmly but it came out less than stellar, “Fine Maggie, we'll do it your way. But “I told you so” may not be possible if this turns into the cluster-fuck it's looking to.”
Her fists remained clenched a moment, either from fury or sheer terror; neither was certain. She eased her fingers loose, then stretched her hands. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes.” He rose, stepped to her. “They meet us in the village-center at sunrise. I'll be patrolling the perimeter making sure they don't place any forces in the area.”
“And?”
“And…” He hesitated, despising the next part the most. “I'll watch from the field and wait for them to make contact and—”
Maggie eyes softened, “You'll signal me on the radio when they're in sight, then close in.”
“It should be me they're meeting.”
She lifted his hand, kissed the back of it, “We both know this is the only way it'll work. I'll never be able to stay hidden, but you know how to. We need that if something goes wrong.”
“Maggie, I—”
“Russell.” She slid her arms around his waist. “I trust you. Do what you're trained to and we'll be fine.”
She laid her head against his chest and he rested his atop hers.
A hiss of static forced them apart, “Two-thirty. West. Waiting response.”
“The bunker's blocking the comm,” Russell said.
Maggie pulled away for the tunnel, made for the ladder and the shack above. She climbed into the brisk night, cleared her throat and mustered her most authoritative air, “Go ahead, Omega.”
“Awaiting relay of coordinates,” West said with a resounding bravado.
Maggie produced the GPS from her pocket, read off their location, “Head to the center of the village. I'll be waiting there.”
“Understood,” West said with more than a hint of annoyance.
“Unarmed or the deal is off. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
Maggie smiled; his frustration was a small, personal victory that fueled her confidence. “If you're not here by sunrise, the deal's off. If you attempt to attack us at any point, we'll respond in kind and leave with the data. If I believe you pose a threat, I won't hesitate to walk away. Clear?”
“Crystal,” West repeated.
Maggie sensed his tense jaw. “Sunrise is in four hours. Doherty out.”
She turned the radio off, ducked back into the shack. Russell drug their bags up beside the shattered trapdoor, descended a final time to shut down the generator. Maggie stooped to examine her pack in the darkness, rifled through it to toss out her destroyed cell-phone and old clothes. She divvied up the Protectorate books between her pack and the duffel bag before zipping them closed.
Russell reappeared. “Generator's off. We need to cover this. We don't want Omega finding the place.”
Maggie slid the bags across the room, helped to set the shack up so it appeared to have been ransacked but kept the opening hidden. Russell made his way out and awaited Maggie.
He stared up at the dark sky; countless stars were arranged in a vast panoply of twinkling colors and intensities. Maggie emerged, ready to speak, but caught his view.
The night's sky in such form was yet another thing she knew to take from the unfortunate cataclysm. In all the horror of death and chaos, never once had she thought to look up in awe.
There were more stars here than she'd thought possible, unobstructed by smog, light-pollution, or rain-clouds. The moon hung heavy somewhere to the side, but the stars felt as though they could never be diminished by such familiarity.
“I've never seen so many,” she said airily. “I've always lived in the city and just… forgot they were there.”
“I've seen them in places, but never like this. It's special here. There's not a single source of light for hundreds of miles—not even a campfire. This is the way they're meant to be seen.”
Maggie felt a profundity from the beauty above and the evil she'd soon face. She looked to the ground sorrowfully, “They'll be gone soon. Either we live and return home, or die and never see 'em again.”
His starstruck gaze returned to her, “Now who's cynical?”
She was more depressed than bemused, “We're about to meet pure hatred face-to-face, Russell. There won't be time for stars then.”
He ki
ssed her cheek, “I'll radio every few minutes.”
He turned for the tall-grasses surrounding the village, then disappeared without a sound. For the next few hours, Maggie sat in the dirt before the shack, hunched over for warmth. The silence only broke to Russell's voice every few minutes as he gave “all-clears.”
Despite his stealth, she sensed his presence. He circled the village repeatedly, his routes ebbing to carefully traverse reeds and tall, muddy grasses. He occasionally stopped in a crouch to survey his surroundings or steal glances of Maggie in the distance.
When sunrise finally broke the horizon with fiery colors, it was still too low to cast light on Maggie. She found herself unconsciously drawing in the dirt. She scrawled different sequences of shapes and characters, some Chinese or Ha-Shan, others of her own creation. On a whim she drew what few characters she remembered from the photos, their approximate Mandarin translations arranged beneath.
She scooted back with an odd compulsion, drew the earliest representations of Chinese she could recall. She sat back, stared for a long moment, erased an odd character, then redrew the corrected one.
Even in the low-light, a diminished complexity was clear between the Chinese and Cuneiform. She slid sideways, redrew the languages in order of age.
Her eyes widened and she clicked the Lash, “Russell, the Ha-Shan were the first teachers of language.”
He replied with a hint of sarcasm, “I would assume so if they were the first intelligent life.”
“No, listen. My Mandarin classes in high-school had a pre-req for history of linguistics. There were four main languages in the early eras of man; Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian Cuneiform, and Old Chinese. All of which were ideographic—each word's a whole concept, possibly amounting to multiple sentences.”
“So?” He said, uncertain where she was headed.
“Old Chinese was one of these languages, but if that's true, why's one of the books translated to it?” She asked, prepared to answer. “The Protectorate were given Cuneiform by the Ha-Shan—which turns out to be much older than Chinese, so the Ha-Shan probably inhabited wherever the language was later found—in other words, Mesopotamia.”
“Okay, so the weapon's somewhere near Mesopotamia?”
“No, 'cause if that's true, why was the first Cuneiform translated to Old Chinese? They're along the same time-line right?” She asked, once more prepared to answer. “Because the only way for humans foreign to the Cuneiform to have communicated was by establishing a new construct of the concepts; new ideographs. In essence, new dialects of the pictures.”
He finally caught on, “Okay. So, you think we can use the Chinese texts to understand the Cuneiform? How?”
“Because they're all the same language.”
Russell crouched behind a shack, watched the road that wound through the abandoned fields with a slight confusion/ “Because each language is derived from the Ha-Shan's?”
“Yes. Knowing Cuneiform was taught to the first Protectorate means we can assume the pictures just evolved from there.”
“Evolved how? Through artistic interpretation?”
She stared at the characters. “Of concepts, yes. Think of it like this, I see a duck, you see a duck, but our minds are primitive. I see “flying thing”, you see “winged animal.” Eventually we compromise and come to “flying animal,” giving birth to a new dialect and a new image.”
He frowned to himself, “That's interesting, but irrelevant.”
She corrected astutely, “No. It isn't. Because while we can't word-for-word translate the Cuneiform, we can translate each of the Chinese texts and use them to decipher the first with interpretations of their concepts. If we locate any references to ancient Mesopotamia, we can search them for some mention of the weapon.”
“So we're not doing this for nothing?” Russell asked for clarification.
“No,” she reassured him. “Our earliest “flying animal” is likely radically different from the Ha-Shan's “duck.” Any translation would take long enough for Omega to catch up to us. At least if they're working with us we're equally ignorant and can watch them.”
“Good, because they're coming up the road.”
“Shit!”
She jumped to her feet, kicked away dirt and dusted her hands on her pants. She sprinted to the edge of a shack, hid behind it while a Humvee rumbled into sight. It stopped in the village-center and West's hulking figure emerged.
Reese climbed down from the passenger seat, cursing, “You sonofabitch pussy-push-over! Black's putting our asses on the line and you're just taking it!”
He rolled his head along his neck, “For Chris' sake, don't you ever shut the fuck up?”
Maggie watched them step into the truck's headlights to argue further. She clicked her radio with a whisper, “I'll get their attention. Then move in to check for weapons.”
“Good luck.”
Maggie switched the radio's channel, “West; both of you stand in front of the truck, hands up.”
West's hands rose. He yelled smugly, “Good enough?”
“Reese too,” Maggie commanded.
“Fuck this.”
“Do what she says or I'll kill you myself!”
Reese shot him a defiant sneer, her upper-lip cocked sideways. She stepped beside him to raise her arms. Maggie was silent. She stood, rifle aimed outward, and inched from the shack's corner.
Russell moved, double-time, rushed the two with his rifle and body poised to attack, “On your knees. Both of you!”
Maggie stopped a few feet away. They knelt while Russell patted them for weapons. He drew a knife from West's side, nodded to Maggie.
“Stand up, sl—”
Reese lunged, tackled Maggie to the dirt. Her rifle flew from reach. Russell and West lunged to break them up. A kick planted in Russell's ribs. He recoiled.
“This one's for my arm, you bitch!” Reese hissed with a blow.
West's arm wrapped around Reese's throat, followed through to slam her back on the ground. Russell coughed at Maggie's side, helped her up. She waved him off. West pummeled Reese with a fist, his other hand clasped her throat.
“Enough!” Maggie yelled. “Let her go or I walk!”
Russell caught West's fist as it rose, forced it behind his back and shoved him away. Blood trickled from Reese's mouth and nose, her face red as she lay in the dirt, coughing for air.
Maggie barked, “If either of you pulls that shit again I'll put you both down! We need your help. You need ours. Put the bullshit aside so we can get this over with.”
West sneered. Reese wiped blood away with a glove. Maggie offered her a hand. She slapped it away, knelt to spit a wad of blood sideways before rising.
“Get moving,” Russell ordered.
He shot Maggie a look. West grunted, climbed into the truck. Maggie and Russell tossed their bags in, hesitated as West started the engine.
Maggie cast a glance at Reese; she wiped blood from her lip. “Totally unnecessary.”
Russell climbed in with a hush, “He's already out of control. This won't end well.”
Maggie agreed. She followed Russell up. The engine revved, whipped them 'round to tear away into the morning.
23.
Androcles Cometh
October 7th
6:30 AM
Tibetan Wilderness
The Humvee's heavy treads jostled Maggie as it sped along rural, dirt-roads. Her eyes were peeled for any deceit from the two ahead. With their goals aligned, they seemed to understand the futility of acting against her. Maggie guessed they'd been ordered not to.
She leaned forward, head between the seats, “Where are we going?”
Russell watched, ready for one of them to strike. Instead, West gave a sole reply through his teeth, “Lhasa.”
“Why?” Russell asked.
“Populated,” West replied. “Got a warehouse to conduct our op. We can get transport to India from there.”
“India?” Maggie asked critical
ly.
Reese squirmed in her seat. West's voice stilled her with contempt, “We can make for our destination from there.”
Maggie examined the two, massive bruises on Reese's right jaw and left eye. “You alright?”
“Fuck off.”
She sank back beside Russell. He shook his head.
The next few hours were driven in silence, the sun settling into its pattern above. Its rays warmed the mountainous plains and highways to Lhasa. The scents of freshly asphalt mingled with the sights of new road signs that reminded the Tibetans of the Chinese stranglehold.
Through all the grim reality Maggie had experienced, this felt the most egregious. All the fighting over Tibet, and it seemed none of China's leaders had stopped to take in the region's tranquil beauty. If Maggie managed to see it despite the violence, there was little excuse for others not to.
Lhasa finally bit the sky in halves between two mountainous ridges that ran the length of the city's limits. West steered them for the Northern section of town, past thousands amid their daily routines.
The dust-colored Humvee attracted tense glances. They were quickly tucked away for fear of reprisal. West's erratic driving didn't help. He dodged cars and pick-ups with reckless speed, screeched past vans and bikes, and fish-tailed around turns.
They came to a stop outside a battered, blue warehouse marked with southern-Chinese. Maggie's heart was in her throat. H1er stomach groaned from sickness and hunger.
West slid from the truck to force his way through the warehouse door. The three piled out after him, into a building packed with shipping palettes and wooden crates.
West toppled a stack. It crashed to the floor. “Thorne! …Thorne!” He tossed aside palettes forming a makeshift maze, “Thorne! Goddamnit.”
West kicked and shoved through a pair of stacks to open a path to a closed door where a light shined behind frosted glass. West growled, threw the door open.
Inside, cots lined the far wall, a bank of computer screens set up diagonally in an adjacent corner. Before them sat the rail-thin, platinum-blond Thorne with headphones on. He nodded to a heavy beat, fingers flying over a keyboard.