by Nadia Afifi
Amira waited, ears straining to hear any indications of activity in the house.
Suddenly, there was a faint shout, followed by the muffled sounds of a scuffle. They had been discovered already, as Parrish predicted.
Her heart pounded. It was just past 5:00 a.m. – the sun would soon rise and the rest of the house with it, if the intrusion had not awoken them already. Fighting back panic, Amira considered her options. To follow them now would be reckless and most likely ineffective, as they tackled an unknown number of assailants, but she could not sit idly by either.
Another idea struck her. Instead of clearing the wall, Amira raced to the back of the complex. She followed the low cement wall until she stood before a narrow door of heavily tinted glass, an entrance to the house’s backyard. Taking a deep breath, she knocked.
The compounds had their differences in doctrine and lifestyle, but also shared common customs. One was that women always used the rear entrances to houses wherever possible, while men freely passed through front doors. If there were any women in the house, this would be the way to reach them. It was early morning, when younger compound women began chores and cooking. She knocked again, louder.
After a moment, the cloudy silhouette of a slight figure appeared through the other side of the door. A lump formed in Amira’s throat. If this didn’t work….
“Who’s there?” A soft, frightened, and unmistakably feminine voice.
“Please open the door, Sister in Faith,” Amira said, adopting the compound term for a woman of unknown marital status. She struggled to keep her voice calm, as though she were just a passing neighbor. “I need your help.”
A bolt turned and the door cracked open, revealing a sliver of a young face with dark eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Sister, I was born in the Children of the New Covenant Holy Community and I’m looking for my friend, Rozene Hull. I am worried for her safety and want to see her. Is she here?”
“There is no one here with that name, Child in Faith,” the young woman replied. She addressed Amira as an unmarried woman. A fair assumption to make, given her modern dress and uncovered hair.
A distant crash came from the house and the young woman’s eyes fearfully darted sideways. Amira’s chest spasmed under another rush of adrenaline. Time for Rozene, for all of them, was running out. Desperately, Amira searched for the words that might reach her on a common plane of understanding.
“Please,” she whispered. “Woman to woman, all I want is for one of our own to be treated fairly. Please let me in and I’ll make my own way. If I’m caught, I’ll say I broke in without help.”
The door opened wider to reveal the young woman in full. Like Rozene, her face was heart shaped, partially concealed under a periwinkle lace veil, through which several ringlets of dark, curly hair escaped around her forehead. The light purple color of her veil signified a woman past her first year of marriage.
Amira gasped.
“Marlee?”
“How do you know my name?” Marlee asked, eyes widening in fear. Her eyes had lost the sparkle she saw in Rozene’s memories, their dark centers now dull and weary.
“Rozene told me about you,” Amira said. “How close you once were.”
Marlee flushed slightly but continued to stare back at Amira through the narrow crack. Her hand remained pressed against the door, blocking Amira.
It was surreal, looking back at a person she had never met before, who regarded her as a stranger, though Amira knew her most private and intimate moments, at least through Rozene’s eyes. Knowing Marlee on some level, Amira used it to her advantage.
“You know what they’re going to do to our friend,” Amira continued, lowering her voice further. “If you stop me, I know you’ll regret it. You must still care about her in some way. Maybe not as you once did, but you don’t want her to suffer, I’m sure of that. Please. Do this for her now.”
Marlee finally relented, casting a final anxious glance behind her before she opened the door. Amira exhaled, flooded with relief. Marlee would not turn her over to the Trinity. Whispering her gratitude, Amira stepped into the backyard, which looked unsettlingly commonplace; patio furniture covered in white cushions, checkered with a pattern of palm trees and camels. A grill sat on the edge of the brick patio next to a large, beautiful cactus plant with spiky, outstretched arms adorned with purple flowers. The backyard’s intimate, personalized touches gave Amira a pang of grief for its former resident, a man she had never met.
Marlee gestured to the door by the patio.
“Down those stairs,” Marlee said in a high whisper as Amira pulled the sliding door into the house. “She’s being kept down there.”
The floors creaked under the echoes of distant footsteps. The sounds of the earlier scuffle were gone – either Hadrian and Parrish had won and were making their way through the house or, Amira thought with a cold shudder, they were no longer in a position to escape. In either case, she was on her own. Amira found a veil on the coat rack and hastily tied it around her head. Light blue, the color for a newly married woman. A woman’s coat rested on a hanger, smelling faintly of dirt and cooked onion, and she pulled it on, her body enveloped in its woolly protection.
The marble-tiled staircase beckoned behind the coat rack. Lowering her head so that the veil shielded most of her face, she descended with soft, swift steps. When she reached the first landing, she paused, reeling and light-headed as a strange sensation overtook her, the same disorientation she experienced in the Carthage station. Her ears rang. She leaned against the rail for support as she heard pounding footsteps from the level above her, followed closely by men’s shouts and several loud crashes. Amira silently hoped that Parrish had been able to reach Victor Zhang’s invention, or it was likely to be a short fight.
“What are you doing here?”
A stern woman of about fifty emerged around the staircase from below. She peered suspiciously into Amira’s face.
“I – I’m a—”
“Speak, girl, I don’t have all day!”
“I’m…Marshal Sarka’s new bride. My father brought me in late last night,” Amira said, keeping her head lowered. Her pulse drummed along her neck. “I – I came down because I heard some strange noises from the entrance of the house.”
The older woman’s face flickered with pity, probably at the thought of being married to Sarka, before resuming her scowl.
“We can all hear the commotion, girl, that’s where I’m going. Move on and pack your things. The Elder will send us away in a hurry if the Feds are here.”
Amira continued down the stairs. The next level contained an office and a den, with large screens and a bar that had been spray-painted with religious slogans. A hallway beyond the den led to several additional rooms, where Amira guessed the other Trinity members slept. The stairs continued to another level below, its pathway dark and unlit. A fitting place for a prisoner.
A shout came from the hallway and Amira darted behind the door. She pressed against the wall. Her hands trembled. Two men ran into the room. Through the sliver in the door jamb, she could see both men toted large guns with ammunition chains around their necks. One of them shouted down the stairs.
“All hands upstairs!” the man yelled. “We’re under attack!”
“Is it Feds?”
“Reznik told us to stand guard no matter what,” chimed in a second voice from below.
Guard. Amira was in the right place.
One of the men spat and cursed softly. Less than a foot away, Amira held her breath, willing every muscle in her body to remain still.
“Did you hear me? We’re under attack, grab your weapons and come fight, you sodomist clowns!”
‘Sodomist’ was a common insult at the Trinity, according to Rozene. It gained popularity following a brutal purge of gay men in the compound, becoming a general term for
any man one disliked. Between the persecuted gay men and the young straight men who were expelled to eliminate competition for young wives, Amira wondered at there being any men left other than the greedy, lecherous Elders.
She forced her back further against the wall as the guards from the lower level ran upstairs to join the action. Resisting the urge to follow them, to scream a warning to Hadrian and Parrish, she continued the descent to the next level.
She stood in Victor Zhang’s wine cellar, or whatever was left of it. Most of the bottles had been smashed, though some were intact but empty. The fumes from the broken bottles had saturated the wood-paneled walls and hardwood floor, strong enough to make Amira feel light-headed. The room was closed off entirely with no sign of Rozene.
Several tall refrigerators lined the wall at the end of the room. As Amira drew closer, she gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Crammed in the center fridge was an old man with long white hair, mouth slightly open. His head pressed against the clear glass door, revealing an opening in the side of his head from which blood streaked down his white hair. The wine refrigerator had not been cold enough to preserve the body entirely – the visible skin was waxy and green, bones protruding where the skin had broken apart on his hands. It was the same decayed face she saw a flicker of in the Carthage, the apparition at the end of the tunnel. Victor Zhang.
Amira knelt on the floor and retched. After a moment, she breathed in deeply and tried to steady herself, but as the pungent decay filled her nostrils, she doubled over and retched again.
A high cry rang out from beyond the wall. She stood up, searching for the source of the sound when she heard it again.
Help!
And as she looked back at the horrific sight of Victor Zhang, she understood. He was not only a hidden trophy, but a distraction from what was behind his tomb.
She moved to one side of the fridge containing Zhang and pushed it with her fullest strength, using her shoulder to nudge it sideways. It gave, scraping along the floor. As she suspected, the fridge concealed a door. At the third cry for help, she went through.
The next room contained a large, drained indoor pool, though about five feet of brownish water remained at its deeper end. Next to the pool, Tony Barlow sat on a chair with his arms bound behind his back. In the deep end of the pool, a metal cage similar to a rabbit hutch had been placed in the water, partially submerged. Inside, Rozene clung to the top of the cage with her head above water, her small face pale and petrified.
Relief momentarily flared in Amira. Rozene, alive! But fury quickly burned the relief away, and Amira gritted her teeth.
“Ah, M. Valdez,” Tony Barlow said mildly, as though they had just run into each other on the street. “We could use your help. As you can see, M. Hull was placed in the water overnight to induce labor. You may want to reach her first.”
Rozene looked up at Amira with wide eyes. She took in several short, sharp breaths as she wrapped her thin fingers tightly around the thin metal wire.
“Get me out of here!” she screamed.
Amira ran to the edge of the pool and jumped into the water. She came up alongside the cage as Rozene hit her palms furiously against the top of the enclosure. Amira felt the wiring. Though it resembled the chicken wire used back at the compound for smaller animals, the material was something stronger, not easily torn or broken through. A lock sealed the narrow hatch underneath the water.
“No, don’t leave,” Rozene screamed in panic when Amira climbed out of the pool.
“I need to find something to open it with,” she called back.
“There are keys somewhere,” Barlow said. “Keys for my handcuffs and for the cage.”
Amira ran frantically around the pool area, searching under furniture and on the tables. A standing camera loomed near the diving board, pointed directly at Rozene’s cage. It was turned off but Amira did not want to think about its purpose. The key chain rested on top of the camera.
“Quickly,” Rozene cried as Amira ran toward the pool again. All three looked up to the ceiling at the burst of rapid gunfire, followed by the bellow of a shotgun.
“The police?” Barlow asked with interest.
Amira shook her head.
She dropped back into the water, drew a deep breath and submerged. She fumbled with several keys in the lock before the right one slid in place, then she blew out a steady stream of bubbles as she wrestled with the hatch door. Rozene plunged under the water to squeeze through, barely fitting past the mesh wire with her swollen belly.
Gasping for air, Amira and Rozene stood in the water and faced each other.
“How did you find me here?” Rozene asked between coughs.
“It…well, it wasn’t easy.”
Another round of machine gun fire rattled above them and Amira pulled Rozene out of the pool. It took Rozene a moment to find her footing after her extended suspension in water. As she teetered on her swollen, waterlogged feet, Amira unlocked Barlow’s cuffs with no effort to be gentle. She had not forgotten his mysterious experiment on Rozene, but she needed allies for whatever was transpiring above them. After seeing Victor Zhang, she would not leave Barlow to the Trinity.
“How did you end up here?” she asked in a low voice as Barlow stood up, rubbing his wrists.
“I landed a little too close to the target,” Barlow replied. “Two men on patrol found me under my parachute and had guns trained on me as soon as I landed. It has not been a fortunate week for me, M. Valdez. Or maybe it has, since you’ve found me for the second time now.”
“Let’s get going,” she said in way of reply.
As the three began to climb the stairs back to the main level, Barlow held up his arm in warning.
Amira peered around the corner. A man stood sentry outside, near the back entrance through which Amira had entered. A small group of women gathered in a circle behind him on the patio, all billowing dresses and bonnets, arms folded while they anxiously awaited orders, to escape or return. The guard stood with his back to the house, although he frequently turned to listen to the increasingly loud sounds of fighting inside.
Marlee stood in the crowd of women and caught Amira’s eye. Shifting casually away from the group, she began talking animatedly to the guard. Marlee cocked her head, twirling a loose strand of hair underneath her veil, and the guard relaxed his grip on his weapon, entranced by the rare attention the young woman bestowed. A dangerous move for a married woman and a young, unmarried marshal. Amira raised her hand in thankful acknowledgment Marlee’s way for the risk she had taken, but if Marlee saw it, she didn’t react, focused on the guard.
“Now’s our chance,” Amira whispered. “Go!”
They moved swiftly past the exit door.
Amira breathed a sigh of relief, but Marlee’s intervention also meant that they could not escape through the back entrance, forcing them toward the ominous cries of a battle in motion.
The sounds of gunfire grew louder as they advanced through the hallways. Rozene clutched at her stomach with gritted teeth.
“Rozene,” Amira said. “Is that a contraction?”
Anxiety tightened Rozene’s face. “It feels like a cramp, times a hundred,” she managed, squeezing her eyes shut. “And my back hurts like nothing else.”
Amira exchanged a concerned look with Barlow. Her labor was beginning. Amira linked her arm with Rozene’s for support.
A long hallway ended at an enormous room with a domed glass ceiling and tall pillars along its edges in the style of a Roman atrium. The beginnings of sunrise turned the visible sky the color of dark coral. At the center of the room was an enormous glass structure in the shape of an inverted pyramid, comprised of thousands of smaller triangular shapes inside. A machine of some kind sat atop the structure with a laser beaming into it from the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, something bright flashed in its center and then
disappeared just as quickly.
“What is that?” Amira murmured, her fingers stretching in the direction of the mysterious device. The object’s shape suggested a prism, but it was far too complex to be a simple light refractor, and the machine propped above the glass resembled an old holographic simulator on display at the Academy, but was not the same. She turned to the senior scientist in the room.
“That is very interesting,” Barlow said with a slight smile. His face came alive as he examined it while Rozene pulled impatiently at Amira’s arm.
“We need to go,” she said.
Rozene clutched her lower back as she hobbled forward, squeezing Amira’s arm through another contraction.
The windows were too high to exit from. They continued past the strange structure into the next room in search of a way out. The rising sound of gunfire warned them away, but perhaps they could make their escape without drawing attention. Peering through the open door, they found themselves on a landing overlooking the main living room of the house, where an incredible scene was underway.
At least a dozen robots about eight feet high fired electromagnetic weapons at several armed Trinity men across the room. The Trinity men returned fire, blocking the front door leading out of the house. The robots moved in near unison, occasionally advancing only to pull back under the vigorous storm of bullets.
Alistair Parrish and Hadrian took shelter behind the line of robots. An intricate metal cap encased Parrish’s head, with bright blue wires reaching out to his temples and above his eyelids. He kept close to the ground, immobile aside from the occasional jerk of an arm or leg, while the machines moved in perfect synchronization, firing and defending in tandem. Hadrian shielded Parrish from the gunmen, sporadically lobbing a round from his own weapon with an accompanying taunt or insult.
Victor Zhang’s robots resembled nothing Amira had seen before. In Westport, robots tended to adopt either a conventional human-like aesthetic or something more harmless and endearing, but these robots looked anything but human. Their appearance was more likely inspired by nightmares. Their limbs were unnaturally long, their faces bloodlessly white and emaciated like skulls, teeth bare in wide, ghoulish grins with hollow black slits for eyes, like masks belonging to ancient, terrible gods. They moved with a spider’s swift, predatory crawl.