Keystone (50 page)

Even eighteen years after the beginning
of the Chaos, the Nile Delta remained the most densely populated area of what
had been, what some insisted still was, Egypt.

But rather
than this concentration of people making the area livelier, it served only to
make its desolation all the more pronounced.

What little
remained of infrastructure was patchy at best; freshwater canals were mostly
blocked and stagnant, roads were broken and littered with the carcasses of
obsolete vehicles, and power cables were strewn across the landscape like a
gigantic collapsed spider web, where one by one the high tension electricity
grid had collapsed after years of neglect and unpredictable weather.

People lived
among all these remains, mostly in squalor. Some, as some always will, had
managed to climb to the top of the heap and make the very most of a bad
situation.

It was people
like this they did their best to avoid as they weaved their way up the road
towards Alexandria, keeping themselves to themselves and walking mostly in
silence through any built up area.

About twenty
miles from Alexandria, they turned towards the sea port of Abu Qir.

“It’s where
we’re most likely to find a large boat,” Ben explained. “If people are to be
believed, there may even be some international trade there, we might be able to
get on board a ship heading for Europe.”

The fact that
the four of them would remain in Egypt had not been shared with the others yet,
on Gail’s request. She didn’t want her last days with Jake to be fraught with
arguments.

“You may be
interested to know,” Ben turned to George and Gail, “that Abu Qir is where your
Admiral Nelson and the Royal Navy fought against the French in the Battle of
the Nile.”

George nodded
in interest. Although he had heard of it, he knew nothing of the battle itself;
but the mention of the Royal Navy caused a lump to form in his throat. It might
have been a male thing, for Gail didn’t seem that affected, but to him in that
very moment the Royal Navy
was
the
United Kingdom. Knowing that in all probability neither existed anymore, and
that on top of that he wasn’t going to return to see the remains, was hard to
take.

“Let’s hope
the place is a little more peaceful, nowadays,” Gail said bitterly. History was
a sequence of battles, wars and conflicts, punctuated by periods of peace. The
lull they found themselves in now would barely have been described as peaceful
thirty years ago.
Peace
, Gail had
decided, was a distinctly relative term.

It was shortly
after thinking this that they were stopped by a man brandishing an AK-47,
pointed straight at them.

He wore a
white thawb, the traditional long tunic worn by most Arab men, including most
of the people travelling with Gail. What made this man’s thawb special was its
brilliant whiteness, crisp and clean even in the dull evening light. His long,
flowing black hair and carefully trimmed beard framed a hook nose and thick-set
eyes that looked at them impassively.

Despite the
half dozen weapons the group of travellers pointed at him in return, he didn’t
flinch or lower the barrel of his rifle.

It didn’t take
them long to realise that they had in fact been surrounded by men with AK-47s,
and that they had been both outgunned and out-manoeuvred.

Their luck had
run out.

Over the years, Zahra’s connections
with the military and police in Egypt had been beneficial in almost every
incident that the group had been involved in. Though the Tourism Police had
famously been disorganised and generally poorly-lead before the Chaos, in the
post-war period people had craved some form of authority and sign of
governance.

Everyone, that
is, except
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
. Literally
the Islamist Group
,
al-Gama'a
al-Islamiyya
had been famous in the twentieth century for violence towards
any form of authority in democratic Egypt, and were responsible for the
killings of dozens of government officials and countless policemen, policewomen
and civilians, during the latter part of the century. Their long-term goal had
been for an Islamic state, an enforcement of Sharia Law, and the expulsion of
foreigners from Egypt.

Now,
a power vacuum had clearly given them authority over their own little part of
the country.

After some
brief questioning, during which Zahra and Gail struggled to keep themselves
quiet as the men negotiated, their captors escorted them to the Abu Qir
dockyards, where they were locked in an empty warehouse, with no food and
little water.

On the third
day of captivity, they were provided with a thin meat stew of what they
suspected was some of their own donkey, though it could just as easily have
been sick cow.

On the fifth
day, the man who had stopped them on the road appeared on a walkway running
along the end-wall of the warehouse, several metres above their makeshift
camping area. This time he wore a black thawb, and he looked as impeccable as
before. They, in contrast, had done their best to stay clean but the lack of
facilities for such a large group of people had taken its toll. He peered down
at them and curled his lips in disgust.

“As you can
see,” he said in Arabic, showing the empty expanse of the warehouse in a
flowing gesture, “we do not have much to offer. We, like most, are a poor
people, though we are infinitely richer than you in both culture and pride.”

George held
Gail’s arm tightly, both for comfort and to attempt to quell any rebellious
leanings she may have been feeling. She patted his hand reassuringly and he
released his grip slightly.

“We have
considered your request for a vessel to leave Egypt. It has been rejected. Our
boats are too valuable, and your old, stringy donkeys are not sufficient
compensation. I must add on a personal note that we would not have been sorry
to see you leave. You are rabble. Only a few of your people are strong enough
to be a part of our country, though I suspect all of your minds have already
been infected by blasphemous liberalism,” he spat the words out in disgust.
“And at what cost such liberalism?” he threw his arms up in the air. “The end
of your world! Fire and devastation! Death!” Pacing up and down the walkway, he
stopped above Gail and Zahra. Their faces and hair were uncovered, and he
looked down his nose at them. “And now you want to leave the last place on
Earth where order and law remain?”

Zahra looked
to the floor, not wanting to exacerbate the situation. But Gail kept her eyes
fixed on the man on the walkway. George’s grip tightened once more, but she
didn’t waver. The seconds drew out into minutes, until eventually the man swore
and drew a pistol from inside the folds of his thawb.

He pointed the
gun directly at Gail’s head. “You dare to stare at me, you whore?” he
exclaimed, his pistol arm trembling. George was about to act when Jake stepped
between his mother and the man with the gun.

In Arabic he
apologised for his mother’s indiscretion, and in English he pleaded with her to
swallow her pride and look to the floor.

“You are
British?” the man asked in surprise.

George nodded.
Gail dropped her chin to the floor but kept her eyes on the man as much as
possible. “Yes,” she said, defiantly. “My name is Dr Gail Turner, and I worked
with the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo.”

The
man lowered his pistol and leaned over the railing to get a better look at the
dirty, dishevelled elderly woman who had defied him. He raised his eyebrows and
a wide grin played across his face, exposing his perfect, straight, white
teeth.

He dug
inside his thawb and brought out a small book. On its cover was an emblem
looking rather like a green rose flower with writing across the centre.

“Do
you know what this is?” he asked.

She’d
seen enough Qur’ans to know what one looked like, and was about to make a snide
remark when the emblem in its centre caught her eye. She looked closer. Beneath
what she recognised as the Arabic word for Allah was the bold outline of the
Amarna Stickman; the symbol of Aniquilus.

Aniquilus. The
destructor of the Xynutian race. And now its symbol had been adopted by
fundamentalists. The irony made her smile.

“Aniquilus,”
she said. “Although you probably know it better as the
Amarna Stickman
.”

The man put
the book and the pistol away and stood tall on the walkway. His initial
surprise at hearing a new term for the Stickman was quickly hidden. “Absolutely
correct, Dr Turner.” And without saying a further word, he turned on his heel
and left the warehouse.

He returned soon
after, accompanied by a much older man dressed in grey. They descended a set of
steps to the warehouse floor and made their way towards Gail and George.

“Dr Turner, I
presume,” the older man said in perfect English. He smiled at his little joke
and stuck his hand out towards her. “
Assalaam
aleikum!
You are most welcome; I do apologise for the conditions in which
you have been kept, these are trying times, and you can never be too careful.”

Gail was taken
completely off-guard, and accepted the hand in bewilderment, though she stopped
short of the formal
waleikum salaam
response.
She had just escaped a pistol-shot to the head from this man’s sidekick, and
now she was being welcomed like an old friend.

“I am sorry,
how rude of me not to introduce myself. My name is Omar Abdel-Rahman. I am
responsible for Abu Qir. Please, do come this way,” he gestured for her to
follow him.

George, Ben,
Jake and Zahra stepped forward to protect her.

Abdel-Rahman
waved them away. “You do not need to worry; we will not harm such an esteemed
guest to our country. However, one of you may come with us if it makes you feel
more comfortable.”

Gail and George were taken to a
sitting room, instructed to make themselves as comfortable as possible, then
left alone.

The room could
only be described as opulent. Not just comparative opulence in bleak times, but
the kind of opulence that one would expect of a rich home during the twentieth
century.

Gold picture
frames held paintings that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an art gallery,
twin crystal chandeliers hung from richly decorated ceiling roses, plush
carpets covered the floor. A display cabinet filled with pottery and glassware occupied
one corner of the room, while floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled the remaining
wall-space. They sat on one of three Chesterfield sofas, arranged in a square
with a large open fireplace making up the fourth side.

George nudged
her in the ribs and nodded towards the small coffee table in front of them.

It was stocked
with old copies of National Geographic, and a large hardback tome on Islamic
art. All were well-thumbed, and Gail noted with interest that the topmost copy
of National Geographic was from November 2039, and carried an article on the
Amarna Library. Much to the combined chagrin and delight of her esteemed
University colleagues, she had been interviewed by the reporter for that very
issue, two months before achieving her Doctorate. The chagrin came from some
conservative archaeologists who sneered at the sensationalist journalism; she
always suspected that they were just trying to hide their envy. The delight
came mostly from her old friends Dr Hunt and Ellie.

She had often
wondered about them, in the aftermath of the Chaos. About them, Southampton and
indeed the rest of the United Kingdom. Britain was such a natural target that
it was hard to imagine much of it could have survived. She knew why George
wanted to return, she felt it too; the pang of guilt at being safe and well,
mixed with curiosity and homesickness. He was a natural optimist, believing
that their home was probably safe. There were days when she agreed. In any
case, no news of the UK had reached them for many years. It made her sad to
think about it, so she tried not to. Jake was more important to her now anyway.
Getting him, and his future, away from the dying embers of Egypt and off to a
better climate was her only priority.

The sound of
the door opening snatched her from her reverie. Turning in their seats they saw
that Omar Abdel-Rahman and the man with the hook-nose had entered the room.

Omar sat down
on the sofa opposite them.

Gail had
already started flicking through the pages of the magazine, looking for the
Amarna article.
 

“I see you
have found my favourite magazine,” he smiled. “Joking aside, though, it is a
poor article. I was particularly disappointed by the way in which they
downplayed your part in the discovery.
‘Gail
Turner sat down to take some rest and found herself sitting on the most
important archaeological discovery of the century’
, they said.” He cocked
his head and looked at her. “Surely there was more to it than that?”

“Actually,
quite a bit more,” she began with a frog in her throat. She cleared it nervously.
“Ben, one of your
guests
in the
warehouse, did all of the sitting. I saw he was sitting on something
important.”

“I see!” he
slapped his hands together with glee. “But that didn’t make for such a good
sub-title, did it? The editors took some poetic licence to make it sound more,
dare I say it, Hollywood?”

She shifted in
her seat. “I’m sure it was an honest mistake. There were more important things
in the article, although,” she hesitated for a moment before continuing.
“Although I do agree with you that it wasn’t very scientific.”

Omar grinned
again with glee. “How interesting! Tell me,” he said, leaning towards her and
lowering his voice, “what else did you find in the Library that hasn’t yet been
published?”

“What do you
want us to have found?” she asked cautiously.

He raised his
hands defensively. “Nothing, I am purely interested scientifically.”

“Why do you
have Aniquilus alongside Allah on your emblem,” she challenged, nodding towards
a framed picture on the mantelpiece. “What does it have to do with Islam?” She
sensed George tense up at this, and so hurriedly added “if you don’t mind me
asking?”

“Because Islam
is the one true faith, and our way of life is the only acceptable way of life,”
he answered without batting an eyelid. “And at the same time, we are a proud
Egyptian people. Our heritage is the birth of civilisation. The Stickman
represents that foundation, the legitimacy of our people to not be subservient
to the western world.”

“So you
brought religion and nationalism together, to take over Egypt and run it as an
Islamic state?” she sighed. “That sort of thing doesn’t usually end well.”

He raised an
eyebrow. “And yet it was the liberal west that destroyed humanity, was it not?”
Omar leaned forwards and picked up the National Geographic. He flipped directly
to a specific page and looked up at her before reading out loud.

“
For now, we shall have to call this new
symbol ‘Stickman’; we don’t know if it’s a person, a god, a concept, or even a
place or time. With the texts studied so far revealing nothing on this
enigmatic symbol, we have to accept that we may never know what, or who, it
represents.
”

Gail felt
strange hearing her own words, as quoted by the journalist, read aloud. It was
like hearing a recording of your own voice. She couldn’t help thinking how
naïve
her younger self had been.

Omar placed
the magazine back on the coffee table. “Dr Turner, political and ideological
differences aside, I would very much appreciate it if you could enlighten me.”
He crossed his legs, clasping his knee with both hands as he leant back into
the sofa.

His body
language, tone of voice and even the look on his face told her that she had
little choice. And the safety of her friends, husband and son might hinge on
her cooperating.

She sighed. “There
was a second book, one that was hidden as soon as it was found. I myself only
learnt of it shortly before the Chaos, nine years after the discovery of the
Library.”

He leant
forward once more, already fascinated by this new information.

Gail wasn’t a
betting person, nor had she ever had a keen eye for business, but she knew this
might be her only chance. “If you reconsider our request for a boat, so that
our companions can leave Egypt, I will tell you everything that was contained
within the second book.”

There was silence
for several minutes, before he replied.

“You would
need food, and boats large enough are difficult to come by these days, even for
us. You would also need some of our knowledge of safe areas to go to and travel
through. It goes without saying you would also need some medical supplies,” he
said pensively, listing the items on his fingers. “However, we are good people,
as you have seen, and I am a good man. More importantly, I am a scholar at heart,
and your promise has whetted my appetite.”