Terra Nova (The Variant Conspiracy Book 3) (13 page)

Chapter 17

Tarak began dumping ingredients into pots and saucepans, pulling loaves of bread and bags from his pantry. He filled plates with crackers, fruit, and cured meat. We relayed platter after platter to the dining room table.

I quickly realized that Tarak had invited us for ‘Tea’ in the British sense. He meant for us to eat dinner with him. A knock at the door interrupted the mesmerizing simmer of what a dhal-type lentil dish on a hot plate.

Tarak escorted an extremely tall man to his living room sofa. The man had to lean slightly while standing inside the room.

“My friends, I would like you to meet my neighbor, Monsieur Bonne Nuit,” said Tarak.

“I suppose we needn’t ask what his variation is then,” said Jonah as he rose and extended his arm to shake the man’s hand. Jonah’s six-foot two-inch stature was utterly dwarfed by Monsieur Bonne Nuit. Even Josh at six-foot-five looked up to the man.

“Regrettably, we cannot shake hands, sir,” said Monsieur Bonne Nuit with a subtle French accent.

“Yes, my friend delivers melatonin through contact with his skin. He will put you to sleep if he touches you,” said Tarak.

“Worse things could happen.” Cole yawned, stretching his thick arms above his head.

“I can prepare some crackers for you to take on your flight, to ensure you are refreshed when you arrive in Nairobi,” said Monsieur Bonne Nuit.

“Sweet! Between that and the uber awesome dinner goin’ on here, this stop has been a total score.” Faith grinned and popped a date in her mouth.

“Monsieur Bonne Nuit is a fugitive from Evonatura. Like Giorgio, Claude Mueller was very keen to take something from him. Only in my tall friend’s case, obtaining his value would have required extensive testing and therefore long term incarceration,” said Tarak.

“Tarak has graciously hosted me on a number of occasions when we detected Mueller’s men in the city,” said Monsieur Bonne Nuit.

“No offense, but what makes this house so safe?” asked Josh.

“We can indulge in a little demonstration tonight,” said Tarak and a thin smile stretched above his beard.

He picked up an empty glass beer bottle from the back of his kitchen counter. He rinsed a metal saucepan that had been emptied of its sautéed vegetables and placed the glass in the middle.

Tarak fixated on the bottle. His brown eyes began to shine with a red-orange ember-hot hue until two laser-like beams shot out into the glass, melting it on contact.

“This is a small scale demonstration. It took me many years of being trained and tested to hone my skill to this degree. I hid in countries all over the Middle East, piggybacking on the horrors of war to test my craft. Evonatura will not dare come to my home,” said Tarak.

I saw regret in his eyes and heard shame in his words.

Another knock at the door drew our attention.

“Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, how good of you to come,” said Tarak.

A woman in a leopard print niqab entered followed by a plain man in his forties. The woman took a seat in the last unoccupied chair in Tarak’s living room while Mr. Monroe and Giorgio exchanged a hug.

I tried not to stare, but the texture of Mrs. Monroe’s skin was off somehow. Something, maybe another layer of cloth, hung over what little of her skin showed around her eyes.

“Remember my love, we’re among friends here. You can remove your cover,” said Mr. Monroe.

“At this point, we’ve really seen it all.” I tried to sound reassuring and accepting.

Mrs. Monroe unpinned something under the fold that hung beside her left cheek. She peeled back the fabric and revealed the chestnut-brown face of a feline human hybrid.

“Amazing!” said Faith.

I hoped her hearty enthusiasm was well received.

“Agreed,” said Cole. He and his sister both gawked at Mrs. Monroe with ardent fascination. Jonah smiled as well and extended his hand.

“I hope you’re able to shake hands,” he said.

Mrs. Monroe accepted and took Jonah’s hand gently. “Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to remove my veil in mixed company.” Her silky voice suited her golden-orange eyes.

“This is a great part of the world for covering up in public without the harsh laws that go with the attire,” said Mr. Monroe.

“What’s your variation, if you don’t mind sharing?” Ilya asked Mr. Monroe.

“I can make metal. Iron is usually easiest, but it depends on what I’m working with,” said Mr. Monroe.

“How about this?” Faith passed a plump date to Mr. Monroe.

He turned it over in his hand. In a flash, he held a small oval chunk of bright copper.

“Impressive!” said Jonah.

“Wow, what does it take to make gold? Or silver?” said Faith.

“You must be pretty flush for cash,” said Ilya, arching his eyebrows with a knowing nod.

Mr. Monroe gave the copper date to Faith who examined it with wonder. “I’ll admit it does come in handy.”

“We work primarily to further the interests of variants, as opposed to achieving financial gain,” said Mrs. Monroe.

“You’re the couple that used to work with my father at Innoviro,” said Ilya.

“You must be Ivan’s son,” said Mr. Monroe.

“We’re both Ivan’s children,” I said.

“And you’re at odds with him now?” said Mrs. Monroe.

Another knock at the door startled most of the room.

“Shira! Thank you for coming, my dear,” said Tarak.

Shira exuded elegance with full flowing black hair and a simple white linen T-shirt dress. She allowed Tarak to kiss her hand. And then she disappeared in a blur. Shira reappeared a moment later with a bottle of wine in her hands.

“Sorry, Tarak. In my haste, I forgot the wine.” She smiled a flash of bright white teeth against red lips.

“Where did you come from?” said Faith.

“My home is in Heliopolis, just outside Cairo. Not so far really,” said Shira, smiling bashfully again.

“You just crossed the city and back?” said Ilya with marked incredulity.

“No, my dear, I went to a nearby bazaar.” Shira turned to Tarak, handing him her bottle as though they shared something meaningful.

“I think this is everyone who will join us tonight,” said Tarak.

“My friends, there are more variants in Cairo for sure, but we must see who we can before we put you on your plane,” said Giorgio.

“I understand there is something big happening between Innoviro and Evonatura,” said Mr. Monroe.

“Big is the understatement of the year. This is the single most dangerous plot the world has ever known,” I said.

“Dial it back a bit, sis.” Ilya nodded toward Gemma who had shockingly remained silent.

“She’s not exactly exaggerating,” said Cole.

“It’s called
The Compendium
. There is another corporation in China involved, Jinhua. That disaster going on in Shanghai right now? It’s Compendium-related. The earthquake that ruined San Francisco? One of Innoviro’s Compendium projects,” I said.

“Don’t forget the sandstorms in Syria,” said Melissa.

“How could we?” said Cole, lifting the bottom of his dirt stained shirt as evidence.

“The worst is yet to come and that’s why we’re headed to Nairobi,” said Josh.

Giorgio, Tarak, the Monroes, Shira, and Monsieur Bonne Nuit all listened without a motion or a sound.

“A virus called Terra Nova will be released soon, possibly any day now. Once Ivan is satisfied that enough catastrophic terra-forming level damage has been instigated, he’s going to let loose a pathogen that will wipe out every non-variant on the planet,” said Jonah.

“He says he’s trying to create a world where variants will thrive and dominate the world. He’s selling it as some kind of utopia for people who’d have an easier time of it if judgmental humans weren’t here.” Cole gave Mrs. Monroe a knowing glance. Her furry face did not conceal her embarrassment.

“She’s already rejected him. She’s on the right side.” Ilya frowned at Cole.

“I’m not sure taking a larger group to Nairobi will help at this point,” said Melissa.

“We want you should share your data. There are many things to stop, yes? You give us leads. We will work together,” said Giorgio.

“Have we got anything to lose?” I eyed my brother. He shook his head.

“Then it’s decided. You will leave us a copy of your Compendium files. And now, we eat!” said Tarak, clapping his hands merrily.

Faith barreled toward the dining table with abandon. I was so hungry that I was hot on her heels. I’d been snacking on meat and cheese and bread, but the chance for fresh, hot homemade food was becoming a rarity for us.

Tarak opened Shira’s wine and passed around bottles of beer with a pyramid on the label. I took a glass of the red wine expecting sharp tartness. Its sweet, light, fruity flavor made it go down too easily. I soon felt light-headed and joined in on the laughter as we ate our fill.

“Little Miss Irina,” said Giorgio as he put his hand on my shoulder. “I hear you have a talent for telling futures that come true.”

My cheeks already felt warm from the wine, but I could still sense the extra flush. “Yes, I’m able to see things from a person’s past or future. It’s one of the reasons Ivan turned my life inside out.”

Giorgio nodded. “Like my wife’s ability to grow things. This is what Evonatura really wanted from us. They steal our land, yes, but they do many, many tests on my wife. She leave me because I could not make it stop, not the tests or the theft of our land.”

I immediately pictured Tatiana and her fake ‘green thumb’ variation. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure she’s just hurt. Give it time.”

“This is what I am asking. Can you tell me what will happen, in time?” Giorgio’s eyes pleaded his case more effectively than his stilted albeit sincere words.

“Are you sure you want to know? Sometimes hope is better than certain knowledge. And I still don’t know that the future I see is written in stone. Just because I see something doesn’t mean it will come true no matter what.”

Giorgio blinked at me with an inebriated smirk. He rolled his eyes and held out his hand. I took it. Perhaps if I saw his wife with another man, or a new woman in his own life, Giorgio could move forward.

I saw Giorgio and his wife back in their vineyard. They were grooming and pruning vines on a sunny day, smiling at each other under wide-brimmed straw hats. I’d gone in the wrong direction. I released Giorgio’s hand and came back to Tarak’s dining room.

I shook my shoulders and arms out to refresh my tense muscles. I pictured Giorgio’s wife alone and took his hand again. I stood with her behind a cash register in a trinket shop, I assumed back on Santorini. Her worried brow and the increasing volume of alarmed voices outside the shop told me I wasn’t about to witness her reunion with Giorgio.

A teenage girl in a sundress burst into the shop and slammed the door behind her. She whirled around to peek through the blinds back out into the street. Blood weighed down her hair with debris tangling her bone straight locks.

The girl began to dry heave as she turned to face Giorgio’s wife and me. Suddenly the girl’s stomach contents came up and poured out onto the floor. Blood leaked from her eyes and nose as she pulled herself along the bookshelf lining the wall between the door and the cash register.

Giorgio’s wife looked past me to the end of the counter, her only escape from this girl. Instead of making a break for it, she reached under the counter and pulled out a gun. She shot the girl point blank in the chest. The girl choked on her own blood as she collapsed to the ground.

The shattering of glass shocked me as a barstool came flying through the picture window of the shop. Two very sick men crawled in through the broken glass and ambled angrily toward our position. Giorgio’s wife fired and missed. I let go of Giorgio’s hand.

“What you see? What is she doing? There is another man now, yes?” said Giorgio. I knew my face had a horrified gape.

“No, Giorgio, I didn’t see another man. I saw that we need to go to Nairobi now. Your wife is in danger. You must go to her right away. She needs you.”

Chapter 18

I told Jonah and Josh that I had a vision of Terra Nova loose on Santorini in what seemed like the near future. Josh called a taxi service and booked us a van to come as soon as possible.

“Okay folks, we need to get going so we don’t miss our plane.” Josh handed me my backpack and reached for Faith’s bag next.

“Thank you, Giorgio and Tarak for all your help and hospitality,” said Jonah.

Gemma eagerly nodded her agreement from behind him.

We took turns shaking hands with our new allies, passing over Monsieur Bonne Nuit each time who bowed gracefully instead. Faith and Melissa instructed Mr. Monroe on how to navigate files from
The Compendium
which they’d copied to his sleek cutting- edge tablet.

Tarak gave my sister a small satchel he said was full of food. Monsieur Bonne Nuit presented me with a small plastic bag containing the melatonin-laden crackers he’d promised us.

Our van honked in the street outside and we scooped up our belongings. The driver seemed a little confused that we had not one suitcase among so many passengers, but he got over it quickly.

Tarak said something hurriedly in his native tongue and slapped the top of the van.

Most travelers leaving a major urban destination have their first sampling of local traffic after arrival. Most travelers don’t arrive by interspatial portal. Gemma and I squeaked and squawked little sounds of alarm as our driver aggressively wove through Cairo’s post rush-hour traffic.

The sun set while our driver stopped, started, and shouted out his window at the drivers around him. For the half hour we were in the taxi-van, I had something other than Terra Nova to fear. It was painfully relaxing.

We arrived at the Cairo International Airport and came to an abrupt stop in front of a rounded ribbed metal roof with Arabic and English characters.

“Your friend pay. All you go now, thank you,” said the taxi driver through a very thick accent.

“Thank you sir,” said Cole, pleasantly surprised.

We piled out of the van and regrouped on the curb. Our taxi-van lurched forward without a backward glance from its driver.

The Cairo International Airport was a bustling travel hub that evening. People swarmed throughout the halls. We pushed our way through the crowd. I was grateful not to be hauling a suitcase.

“Okay, we need the Egypt-Air check-in desk.” Cole inspected the facility, craning his neck up to read the signage that stretched along the wall just under the ceiling.

No sooner had the words left his lips than I sensed danger. I whipped my head around, back and forth, scanning the crowd.

“It’s Rose and Sage!” Ilya blurted at me over Gemma’s head.

“Maybe they’ve changed their minds and they’re going to help us talk Ivan out of his plan.” Hopeful desperation filled Gemma’s voice.

“There is literally zero chance of that,” I told her impatiently.

“Where did you see them?” Jonah scanned the sea of heads with me.

“I dare those bitches to come near us!” A flash of rage filled Faith’s eyes. “I’ll teach them to mess with us.”

“Not in the bloody airport!” said Ilya, rounding on his powerful girlfriend.

A security officer in a blue police-like uniform frowned at us from the doorway of a canteen nearby. He put a radio to his mouth and his lips moved.

“I think we might be drawing some unwanted attention,” I said as anxiety rose in my throat.

“The twins aren’t going to make a move in the middle of the Cairo airport.” Josh’s dismissive tone failed to sate me.

“Then why are they here?” Cole scanned the crowd with the rest of us.

“There’s only one Irina. Ivan can’t magically know where we are or what we’re doing. They’re probably just supposed to verify that we’re on our way to Nairobi,” said Melissa.

“Then let’s not be seen,” said Jonah.

“We need to transform into our passport others before we check in,” said Ilya.

Two Panama hats over smooth platinum heads popped out of the sea of veils, caps, turbans, and bare black heads ahead.

“Guys, we’re running out of time. I can see the twins up ahead.” Frantic adrenaline charged through me as the hats got closer.

I glimpsed the security guard standing against the wall nearby. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of us.

“I see him too,” Ilya said to me. “Everyone, bathroom now!”

Ilya led the way to a tiled joint entryway to a pair of men’s and women’s bathrooms. As soon as we broke line of sight with the guard, Ilya immediately shrouded us. The transformation felt like a slow motion shower.

The guard rounded the corner and came face to face with a completely different set of faces. He blinked and gave his head a shake, then pushed past into the men’s side.

“I saw the Egypt-Air logo farther down the terminal, past where the twins were.” Jonah’s voice came from the face of a man I’d seen inside one of the British passports. We’d planned to use the English-speaking passports first to make questioning easier. Luck had matched four women and four men with the photographs in the passports.

“The faster we check in, the faster we’re out of their reach.” Josh peered around the corner to watch the guard continue down the hall.

Jonah led us back through the crowd to the Egypt-Air counter. We passed by the twins in the sea of people. Their bluish white faces were stern, studying the crowd with obvious intensity.

Cole moved ahead and presented our passports along with the sheet of paper with our booking confirmation and flight details.

My stomach knotted tighter and tighter as we waited. My lungs clamped nearly shut as I fought hard to pull air in and push it back out.

We had our tickets and retreated back into the crowd. The twins’ hats were coming back toward us. Could they possibly have some way of detecting us inside our illusions?

The security screening line was long and we had no choice but to stand and wait. None of us dared to speak as Rose and Sage closed in on us.

People shuffled forward drearily. The twin Panama hats edged closer. I glanced back toward the sliding glass doors at the far end of the terminal where we’d entered.

Incredibly, I saw a copy of my brother waving both hands in the air, trying to get the attention of the guard whose interest we piqued.

Ilya replicated himself perfectly and the illusion worked. The guard blew a whistle and shouted something in Arabic. He started to run, yelling something into his radio.

Rose and Sage caught sight of the scene and pushed their way through the crowd until they were running hot on the guard’s heels.

The fake Ilya slipped behind a luggage cart and disappeared. The guard skidded to a halt and heaved his way around the luggage cart, much to the surprise of the young family surrounding the pile of baggage.

Rose and Sage stopped short, just in time for another security guard to appear out of the crowd and grab them by their arms. I contemplated the possibility their wings would come out in public today. The first guard joined the man holding Rose and Sage. The four marched down a security corridor and out of sight.

Our line inched forward again and again until we were finally ushered through the baggage x-ray and metal detector.

A tense few hours consisted of our motley crew of fake travelers alternately sitting and pacing around the Cairo airport’s Gate 53 for our red-eye flight to Nairobi.

A question burned in my mind. How had Rose and Sage known we were at the airport? How they had traveled to Cairo was no mystery. They had built-in transportation to anywhere on the planet. How did they know where to find us? The puzzle only had one solution.

There seemed no alternative but someone at Tarak’s house had betrayed us. I searched my mind for any potential liability in having shared Compendium files. If they were working with Innoviro or Evonatura, it probably wouldn’t be new information anyway.

After mere glances at our passports, we boarded our 737 air bus and took up a row and a half. I stuffed my bag into the overhead bin. I stretched in an attempt to soothe the sore muscles of my back and legs. My dry eyes burned, aching to close. I curled up in my seat and shut out the world.

I woke to Jonah’s magnetically warm hand gently squeezing my shoulder. I’d slept through the layover in Addis Ababa and it was time to get off the plane.

I blinked awake and saw the faces of strangers around me. It took a moment for me to remember that Ilya had disguised us to match our passports.

Then a strange new sensation churned in my gut. I did not feel good at all. I felt odd, nauseated. A wave of sickness hit hard and I grabbed the paper bag tucked in the seat pocket in front of me. I emptied the contents of my stomach into the bag and took a breath. Another wave came and I opened the bag again.

My friends stared at me, along with our flight attendant. The plane had emptied and they were waiting on me to get moving.

“Sorry. It must have been something I ate.” I managed a weak smile.

“Let’s get some fresh food into you then.” Jonah’s furrowed brow and outstretched arm made me feel strong enough to move.

We stood in another security line, this time to be admitted to Kenya. Our passports passed muster again and we were all stamped quickly. Josh paid our entry fees with the last of our American cash.

Melissa made arrangements for an airporter to take us to Tarak’s friend’s hotel. I kept quiet about my suspicions regarding our allies in Cairo. We had few choices left. I took the remainder of my assorted cash to a kiosk and exchanged everything for Kenyan shillings while Cole herded everyone back together.

My stomach churned relentlessly as we all piled into the van. I began to worry as I buried my envelope of shillings at the bottom of my backpack. Was I seriously ill? Had I become a carrier for Terra Nova? If so, how long until I started to make people sick?

“If you were a carrier, all hell would have broken loose already,” said Ilya from the back seat of the airporter van.

“Irina, you couldn’t possibly be. You were right the first time, you’ve got some kind of bug.” Jonah laced his fingers into mine, transferring energy. The sensation felt right.

“I’ll heal you when we get to the hotel.” Gemma’s doe-eyed sincerity broke down the last of my resolve, despite the fact that she spoke from behind another girl’s eyes.

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.” I looked up at the van’s rearview mirror. The driver watched me with concerned black eyes. I rooted in my bag and then distributed shilling notes to each of my friends.

I leaned against the window next to me. I watched the buzzing hazy city of Nairobi rushing to meet us alongside the highway. A bubble of nausea rose up through my belly and I sucked in air to shove it back down. Before anything else, I need to get to that hotel and the toilet in my room.