The Second Wave (9 page)

Byzantium’s organized crime was run like a
family business, with the exception that there was no head of the
family. It was more like a loose fitting-together of cousins and
distant blood relatives who all worked in different parts of town,
but casually kept tabs on each other to ensure that everything went
smoothly.

For instance, Celem’s computer genius
contact, George, worked for Adniye, a spice smuggler and sister to
Lamiya, who was Erol’s right hand, who, in turn, was the man John
shot in Melik’s han the night before. To give but one random
example.

The three men, George, John, and Celem—buyer,
seller, and middleman—met in George’s lab in the North tower of the
Topkapi Research Facility. A small room with more computer hardware
cluttering the space than was probably healthy to have lying
around. Celem stayed talkative on their way to the facility, but
exaggeratedly so, unusually chipper. John didn’t know if the man
had simply changed over the past years, or if something was
bothering him; in any case, he stayed wary.

George met them at the back door, all but a
teenager, and led them to his chamber via a few secret passageways.
His official employer didn’t need to know just how deep their own
security specialist was involved with the local organized
crime.

“This is so cool!” George blurted out when he
inspected the ticket. They were in his lab, sitting on the floor.
The computers surrounding them seemed to bleep their approval.

“I’d sell my best hard drive to get my hands
on one of these!”

John didn’t understand the boy’s excitement.
“You’d give up your life here to go to some village in the middle
of nowhere?”

John had heard they didn’t have any computers
or other technological advances there. Why anyone in their right
mind would want to live in the equivalent of the outlawed zone was
beyond him.

“Yeah, but dude!” George beamed. “The middle
of nowhere on another planet!”

A lot made sense seen in this new light.
Another planet indeed. Now John understood why the ticket was so
valuable, and why Celem had made such a big deal out the whole
business.

“Yes, there is no doubt about how cool it
is,” Celem chided George, angered by the boy’s blabbering. “But the
question is, can you hack into it?”

George made a sound and a face as if that was
quite possibly the easiest thing he had ever done in his short
lifetime, and just questioning this was a personal affront. But his
crowing was cut short by a stern snort from Celem. Suddenly
nervous, George fidgeted with the ticket and finally admitted
between clenched teeth, “It is incredibly difficult.”

“Don’t worry.” Celem grinned. “The payment
will be generous. In fact, we can pay you right now. I have a
lovely story with me.”

“Please,” George replied woodenly, “tell me
it.”

John watched George hook up the computers
with growing suspicion. The boy might be used to lying, but he
wasn’t very good at it. What he said sounded like lines from a
badly rehearsed script. Something was off, John decided. His hunch
was confirmed when Celem stated, voice too cheerful, “With much
pleasure, George. It begins, funnily enough, with Yahya telling
me
a story yesterday. You remember,” he turned his body to
John, who was sitting close to him, “the one about the sad woman. I
liked it very much, and then I thought to myself, Celem old fool, I
thought to myself, how can a man like Yahya come into the
possession of such a piece of jewellery?”

John carefully went for his gun, but George
suddenly spun around and held a dagger to his throat, forcing him
to stay put.

Celem laughed. “Did he try to draw his
pistol? No, Yahya, don’t ruin this. I’ve only just started with my
story. Where was I?…Yes, I was thinking to myself. I do this quite
a lot, to be honest, I have good, fresh brains. When I was all
done, I called for Lijuan, one of my girls, very talented with her
mouth. She came here last year from China. I wanted to treat her to
something, so I told her the story of Meng Jiang Nu, and what do
you know? She had already heard it! I must apologize for my
clumsiness with words, but I assure you that the story makes up in
suspense what it lacks in poetic prose.

“Lijuan wanted to know who told me the legend
and, naturally, being a mild-mannered man with no secrets, I told
her about you, Yahya. She said, she didn’t know anyone named Yahya,
but she had heard about a man named Yuehan Huzi. A man, as it
turned out, wanted badly by the Shanghai Dragon Clan, whose liaison
Lijuan, in addition to being a woman of many talents, is.”

Celem, pleased with himself so far, made a
theatrical pause to let this information sink in. In the meantime,
unable to move due to the dagger’s tip boring into his neck, John
treated young George to a smile.

“What are you telling me, Celem? Did you rat
me out to the Shanghai mob?” He addressed Celem, but never let
George out of his sight, who was getting queasier by the minute. He
wasn’t used to this sort of violence in his presence, let alone by
his hand.

“This is the second time you insult me,
Yahya, and this time I take it personally. I didn’t rat you out, it
is a dishonorable and despicable thing to do even to your worst
enemy. But as it turned out, the Dragon Clan is willing to pay a
lot of bling to get their hands on you, and though I may not be a
traitor, I am a business man.”

“What about all the ‘stories are the new
bling’ yarn you spun me?” John asked to buy himself more time.

“They are when the trade is information. When
the trade is
people
however…different matter.”

“And here I was thinking you wanted to kill
me yourself.”

The tip of the dagger began to tremble.
George’s body was too tense. Keeping this position—crouched over
computer parts, arms outstretched, knees bent—was becoming harder
for the computer genius with every heartbeat.

“I do,” Celem admitted, oblivious to George’s
growing insecurity. “Your disappearance all these years ago left a
lot of open wounds, Yahya, and I’m not just talking about broken
hearts.”

A tiny network of sweat beads was now visible
on George’s forehead, like the sheer veil over the face of a temple
dancer. John looked him into the eyes and broadened his smile a
fraction of an inch, knowing the terror it would inflict on the
boy. People who were one meeting away from being sold to the
Chinese mob were not supposed to smile. George’s nostrils
flared.

Celem was unaware of his surroundings. “Many
people in this city want to kill you, but they are willing to
settle for a good deal of bling and the knowledge that no one can
inflict pain more excruciatingly than the Chinese.”

George’s hand trembled, which was John’s sign
to move. So fast that Celem didn’t hear anything until it was too
late. John’s right hand shot up to George’s neck. It pushed the boy
and the dagger away from him, long enough for John’s left hand to
rip the weapon from George’s fingers, and hard enough to
effectively choke him. Taking the hilt of the dagger between his
teeth, John now wrapped the fingers of both hands around George’s
neck and pressed them until the computer genius lost consciousness.
It was over in less than three seconds.

When Celem figured out what was happening, he
shrieked helplessly, but his cry was cut short by the metal blade
being pressed against his Adam’s apple.

“You’ll never get away, Yahya. The Chinese
are on your tail!” he croaked. The answer was an effortless slash
through his jugular. His body fell forward, his life force bleeding
out over George’s precious computer parts. The dagger and the
ticket John put in his pocket.

The next thing he knew he was running again.
It was funny, he mused as he hurried to the harbor, he never seemed
to be able to really escape, no matter how far he ran.

* * * *

Eugenia was all alone in the hospital room.
She knew there was one of the uniformed protectors outside the
door. To make sure she wouldn’t escape. Dr. Paige had told her the
protectors were for her own safety. But Eugenia could still hear
them. As clearly as she’d heard them in the darkness. And she knew
what they were really there for. To protect them from her. They
were afraid of her.

Why?

She was their Goddess. Tied to a bed. Needles
in her skin. In pain. Scared by what was happening around her. What
was there to make them afraid of her?

Today was different. Normally, Dr. Paige was
in and out all day long. She brought food, or more pictures to look
at. Eugenia ate the food, although it tasted strange. She looked at
the pictures, although she didn’t recognize anything. The people in
the photos were strangers to her. Sometimes she felt something stir
inside her when she looked at a picture. Like a distant memory was
lying hidden somewhere. But it was never more than the faintest
feeling of familiarity. She couldn’t even put it in words. So she
remained silent. There was nothing to say.

Today, Dr. Paige didn’t come. Eugenia closed
her eyes to search for her voice in the darkness. Closing the eyes
helped, she had learned. Shutting out what was happening around
her, pretending she was back in the darkness again. It was still
different—new voices to get to know. A new language to learn. But
she was doing better now than at first. The headache was nothing
more than a constant, dull throbbing now. The nausea wasn’t as
terrifying as it was at first. She was still confused by it all,
everything seemed wrong. But she was slowly growing accustomed to
her new situation.

So she closed her eyes and listened, not
afraid anymore of the strange new sounds. Yet as hard as she
sought, she couldn’t find Summer Paige’s voice anywhere. The doctor
was gone.

A distressed sob escaped her lips. Why? Her
fingers dug into the bedcover, as if that could give her any sort
of tether. Why did everybody leave her? Why didn’t they trust her
anymore?

Listening to the sounds of life around her,
Eugenia was desperate enough to consider giving her people a reason
to fear her.

* * * *

On Earth, the second wave settlers were
slowly arriving at the main Headquarters building. More than a
hundred people, some of them with their children and pets,
cluttering the corridors, walking about, scaring the more sensitive
among the engineers, who were not used to strangers.

The wormhole wasn’t officially open for
passage, yet. General Fatique wanted the settlers to go through
together, so they wouldn’t have to drain energy by keeping the
connection open for a long time, or by opening and closing it
excessively. The result was that while everything was getting
prepared and the rest of the settlers arrived successively, those
who were biding their time until their departure wandered around
freely.

Peter stood in a corner, watching the
spectacle unfolding around him in mild horror. His luggage was
gone. His luggage and, more importantly, his assistant. Not ten
minutes ago, or perhaps half an hour, but not longer than
forty-five minutes, he had had his suitcase in his hand and his
coat draped over his arm. Now both were gone, suitcase, coat, and
of course Luke. Three things gone. And although he knew Luke had
taken the items to put them somewhere safe while they waited, and
he knew his assistant would come back soon, Peter couldn’t help but
feel lost in the meantime. He wondered what Duncan would have to
say in this situation, just to think about something else and
occupy his mind until Luke’s return. In hindsight, a bad idea,
because once he started thinking about his late husband, he felt
the familiar sensation of loneliness wash over him. It became clear
to him that maybe going to another planet was not going to make it
all go away. In any case, he’d be just as lonely there as he was
here. He’d still come home to an empty house and he’d still eat his
meals by himself.

“I have not only found a quiet spot for us to
wait,” interrupted Luke Peter’s morose musings, “I also managed to
get my hands on a first analysis of the other planet’s flora.” He
held up a thin file for Peter to see. “There are some amazing
plants described in here—I can’t wait to encounter them
myself!”

“Luke. Am I doing the right thing in coming
here?” Peter asked.

Luke stopped his monologue about new and
exciting plant-life mid sentence. It took him a moment to come up
with an answer, but then he gave a lopsided frown and replied, “I
know you’re not happy, but look at it this way: You can either be
unhappy in the lab you used to share with Duncan, continue the work
you started together, wallow in memories and be ridiculed by our
colleagues for your theories. Or you can be unhappy in a completely
new place, have a fresh start, and be the first geologist to
encounter something novel and marvelous.”

Put like this, there really was no choice.
Peter tried on a smile that used to come so easily to him, and was
surprised to find it still did. A fresh start. A new world.

Four hours later, the long awaited
announcement called everyone to the main chamber for departure.

* * * *

Without his beard John felt oddly naked; but
moving among the many people who had come here for a new life, he
considered himself less out of place clean-shaven.

It had been a bit of an adjustment to get
used to the Western world again, after he had spent several years
in Turkey and then in the outlawed zone. The beard had to go, and
he was wearing clothing traditional for the Occident now: a plain
shirt and jeans that hid his boots. It was a matter of getting used
to again; he tried to adapt as quickly as possible. If he was going
to impersonate someone on his way to a new life on a different
planet, he needed to look and act the part.

The decision to use the ticket himself had
been a last minute one. When John left Byzantium, he pondered where
to go next to hide out until the Dragon Clan would forget about
him. But then he’d been almost shanghaied in Athens, and the
thought occurred to him that maybe this world was too small to run
away from the Chinese mob. Since he possessed no great computer
skills to hack into the program of the ticket, he had opted for
another possibility. If hacking the computer was out of the
question, maybe hacking people wasn’t. So he’d sat down and faked
an ID for himself. All he needed to do was convince everyone that
he was the person the ticket was issued to. He only needed to get
through, after all. He didn’t plan on staying at the colony for too
long—there was a whole new planet to get lost on.