Chapter 3
I have to wait for further answers, because our secret landing on Earth demands all of Johar’s concentration.
We touch down at the spot where a city called Buffalo used to be. Lake Erie is still there, but it is dead. Nothing lives in it, anymore, and drinking water from it is deadly for humans and half-humans, alike. I cannot imagine that Cassie Burnett is anywhere near here. Why would she stay in this wasteland, where nobody can assist her at the birth? This area hasn’t been abandoned by humans only, but also by animals and plants. They would have nothing to eat. Unless … but surely even Cassie and her Qua’Hathri aren’t that crazy.
“Please tell me that it isn’t true,” I groan, as Hazathel, Shazuul and I climb out of the glider and look around. Johar, who is digging through stuff on the ship, sticks his head out. The gleaming sun gives his hair a blue shimmer. This same light that is transforming his hair is making my skin look chalky and ugly. His answer consists of him throwing me a back pack, which I catch by reaching up. The weight of it brings me to my knees. My fears seem to be well-founded. The only reason we would need so much luggage, is if we are planning to cross over the former-border into Canada. Today, it only exists in history books. We have sleeping bags, canned food and water, and those are just the bare necessities.
Shazuul and Hazathel seem to know all of this already, because they buckle themselves into their backpacks without saying anything and wait for Johar to finally be ready to head out. I would have loved to start our lives as lawless citizens with fireworks, for example, by blowing up the space glider (to hide our tracks, of course – not out of pure joy over a huge explosion.) But I know, of course, that a bang like that would mean that we would be advertising our position very clearly to our pursuers. So, we set off on foot.
Johar and Hazathel take the lead. I take the opportunity to examine Shazuul’s sucking snout, quickly. At my request, the Sethari moves it in all directions, and then I examine the scar tissue. It is light pink and seems to be healing very well. “Have you already tried … I mean, does it work?” Anyone who has ever observed a Sethari eating, will understand why it is so unpleasant for me to ask if the food consumption was successful. When they feed, these energy vampires experience feelings that can only be compared with what humans feel when they have really good sex. But Shazuul has no inhibitions. He nods with excitement and, with his thumb and index finger, he indicates a small portion. “Small animals,” he explains. “Rats?” Gross, I think. He fed on rats. Poor guy. He must really be starving. Shazuul’s snout wanders towards the back of my neck, the location where the Sethari prefer to stick their sucking snouts to harvest energy. I give him a strong slap on the end of his snout, and he cries out. With a start, I realize that his snout must still be very sensitive, until I notice the sparkle in his small eyes. “You fooled me,” I say and resist the urge to smack him again. He laughs, or at least I think that this strange cackling sound is laughter. Reluctantly, I join in, until Johar and Hazathel turn to us, to give us stern looks.
“What is so funny?” the cyborg asks, which only serves to make things worse. Shazuul and I are doubled over, laughing so hard we can’t breathe, and tears are running down our faces. Hazathel shrugs, annoyed, and stomps on. The way Johar is strutting speaks louder than words: we are too silly for him.
“Buzzkill,” I mumble, and quick as lightning, he is in front of me, grabbing me tightly and staring at me with an overly strict look.
“Do you think this is funny?” he asks. I realize this is just a rhetorical question, but his secrecy is getting on my nerves.
“Well, since I don’t even know where we are going, why we are going there, and, finally, what our plans are once we get there, I obviously have no choice but to take things lightly,” I retort with a snide voice.
“If you hadn’t been goofing off with Shazuul, but had been listening to me and Hazathel, you would know where we are headed.”
“I wasn’t goofing off,” I respond, coolly, “I was checking on the healing process.” He rolls his eyes, something I would love him for, if I didn’t already. “Now let’s go. I am dying for some answers, and by the looks of things, we have enough time for a conversation.” I take his hand, and pull him after me. “I am fed up with being in the dark. What else do I need to do to get you to trust me?”
Shazuul, who has been following our conversation, jumps in unexpectedly. “Trust Mara,” he says. He looks at Hazathel, the only one who is still looking at me skeptically. I understand what he is trying to say. Johar and Hazathel need to tell me everything and trust me. I wonder if the two of them understand Shazuul, as well.
“Okay, fine,” Hazathel grumbles. “What do we have to lose?” I am wondering where he left his animal, when I see it crawl up his leg to his shoulder and rattle something in his ear. He sees the question on my face, and explains that the scorpion scouted the area for enemies. “He is faster, smaller and less noticeable than we are,” he says, shrugging. “This isn’t the first time he has been sent out as a scout. If Karik says that the coast is clear, then it is.” His animal even has a name!
I bombard the men with questions as we walk, and walk and walk, through the barren countryside. In the end, I know, at least, that Carson O’Hare told us where he dropped off Cassie Burnett. At the time, her pregnancy was clearly noticeable, so they must have set up a safe camp somewhere. If you really think about it, this area isn’t as bad a choice as I first assumed. The flat landscape allows you to see your enemies early on, and if you are prepared to hike a vigorous six or seven hours, then you could hunt in the woods that are that far away. The only problem is water, because the area around the lake is completely dried out. O’Hare thinks that the refugees probably set up camp closer to the woods, somewhere near Point Blank.
“If I were the Qua’Hathri,” Johar speculates, “I would go exactly to that spot, too. And if I were a clever Qua’Hathri, I would not set up camp on the surface, but use the tunnels underneath.”
The tunnels! Of course! They are the perfect choice if you want to hide for a long time. The temperature down there is tolerable; different from up on the surface. The further you go into the bowels of Earth, the cooler it gets. Supposedly there are even some caves there where you can find lakes with drinking water.
“How far are we from Point Blank?” I ask nobody in particular.
“About three hours,” Johar answers. “We should be there by sundown. Although …” He hesitates, and looks around searchingly. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to stumble around there in the dark, looking for an entrance to the tunnels, when we could find one much more easily in the daylight.” Hazathel nods in agreement. I wonder why he is still with us – was the story of the man who is desperately searching for his family a lie, too? “We don’t know what kind of animals will come out at dark, and if we are all in one place, instead of stumbling around all over the place, we will be able to defend ourselves. That way, we wouldn’t be distracted by looking for an entrance.” Johar points to a cliff that towers over the jet-black sea. “We should spend the night here. With the cliff at our backs, we will have enough protection from a surprise attack, and won’t need to keep the whole terrain in sight.”
None of us object, so we make our way, single file, towards the stone formation. It seems more bizarre the closer we get to it. When we finally reach it, the sun is low enough for the cliff to give us some shade. With considerable relief, I drop the backpack and wipe the sweat from my upper lip. If I really am a cyborg, why am I not stronger? Can that be altered, somehow?
I ask Johar about this, but he shakes his head with regret. “Ruthiel wanted to make you as human-like as possible,” he explains. His words make me aware of the extent of the deception that my father, my creator, committed. Johar comes over and takes me in his arms. He holds me tight against his chest for a while, before lifting my chin and looking into my eyes. “You are perfect just the way you are,” he whispers in my ear, at last, so softly that the others can’t hear him. “You should find nothing lacking about yourself. But,” he lowers his voice until I have to strain to understand him, “you should never forget that you, too, are just one of Ruthiel’s experiments. He is as little your father as Shazuul is. You owe him nothing.” It is uncanny how closely he can read my thoughts.
I use this cozy togetherness, while Shazuul and Hazathel are unrolling their sleeping bags and looking for a comfortable spot in the sand, to ask Johar another question. He looks as tired as I feel, but he still owes me an explanation. “How do you know O’Hare?”
“He helped me free a few creatures from Ruthiel’s lab,” he says, confirming what I suspected already. “We deliver them to him, and he smuggles them to a suitable planet.”
“How many of you are there?” I ask, curious. It is doubtful that this mysterious underground organization, on whose behalf Johar works, could have very many members.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “It is a very compartmentalized organization. Usually you only know your contact person, or maybe one or two others. There are plenty of rumors that the head of the whole thing is a human. But I don’t know for sure. I don’t know him, and don’t know anyone who has ever met him in person. They say that he is against human experimentation for religious reasons, but nobody knows for sure.”
“Where do you get your information, then? Who is supposed to be freed, and when, or where, for example, is O’Hare waiting for you?” Everything about this sounds like a bad spy novel, and a feeling of unease starts to take hold.
“My contact person works in the Information Ministry,” Johar clarifies, looking a little uncomfortable. Maybe he doesn’t like the secrecy surrounding the organization and its – what are they? Participants? Employees? – It could be either. He is a man who likes to take things into his own hands, and I have a hard time imagining him accepting orders blindly. “We cannot come anywhere close to freeing as many as we would like,” he says, his voice bitter, “because it would be too obvious. So we limit ourselves to those who need it the most.”
“Then this hunt for Cassie Burnett is something that is out of the ordinary,” I say. He stops, looking for something edible in his backpack. He produces a can of vegetable soup concentrate and puts it down. The look of surprise on his face would be funny if it didn’t give me the chills. Johar stands up and comes over to me.
“You are right,” he says, thinking. “Why didn’t I notice this, before?”
“It doesn’t necessarily need to mean something bad,” I think out loud and unroll my sleeping bag right next to his. “It just means that you should be extra vigilant. Is it possible that your mysterious contact person is playing both sides?”
“Anything is possible,” he replies, deflated, watching Shazuul and Hazathel, who have gotten comfortable and are actually playing cards. The sight of them, sitting across from each other, with pebbles as substitute poker chips between them, makes the whole situation seem surreal. “I just don’t see a reason why anyone would send me after Cassie Burnett, of all people, so they could lure me into a trap or expose me. It would be significantly easier just to turn me off. Even if Ruthiel found out about our existence – no, it doesn’t make sense. He had plenty of opportunities to take me out of circulation, before we departed on our trip. And why would he send you with me?”
“Exactly,” I press on. “Why did he send me to be with you?” Hazathel and Shazuul are focused on each other. I don’t need to lower my voice. “What did he tell you? Why did he order you to turn me off, anyway?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” my cyborg asks, surprised. “He wanted to know how you would react to modifications outside of the lab. He asked me to take care of you, but you already know that.”
This is enough to shut me up for now. It is one thing to find out that the man whom I considered to be my father, was nothing more than a machine-human. I can even deal with – but not forgive - that he is experimenting with me by exposing me to new experiences, all in the name of gaining knowledge.
But to then hear, out of the mouth of the man whom I love, that he was employed as my chaperone – that hurts.