The Phoenix Creation, page 15
Zeph had found the crank to wind the shutters down, to protect the viewing tower, although the tempered glass was as strong as any used for the floors, walls, and ceilings of buildings back on Continent One and was virtually shatterproof, unless it was being attacked by a, missile wielding, Neptune man.
Alya’s gaze rested on Zeph first, as she observed him sitting on a wooden chair half-in and half-out of sleep. He was struggling to stay awake and she wondered why he thought he needed to, they weren’t going anywhere in the pitch-black, war zone, outside.
Lightning flashed and Alya startled causing Hanuel to groan next to her. Zeph had dimmed the lights, or some of them had blacked out, and ordinarily, Alya would have felt a bit scared but she wasn’t. In some ways, it reminded her of the hospital when she was little.
‘How is he?’ said Zeph, his eyes wide open, now that Alya was awake.
‘Er,’ said Alya, assessing Hanuel quickly, and then leaning away from him. ‘He’s hot. Very hot.’ She touched his skin and then tutted, like a concerned parent.
‘Fever,’ nodded Zeph, ‘because of his punctured lung.’
‘You said earlier he’d be fine for forty-eight hours.’
‘I hope so,’ nodded Zeph, ‘forty-eight hours tops.’
‘What if the storm lasts longer?’
‘It won’t, it’s a category six. They usually pass in forty-eight hours. It’s nothing. I’ve lived through a category ten which lasted five days, about ten years ago which ripped part of the canopy off The Island.’ Zeph smiled ruefully as he recalled the incident, although Alya couldn’t see the amusement in a five-day storm at sea.
‘Do you mind if I double-check?’ said Alya eventually, referencing Zeph’s earlier reconnoitre of the pod’s cupboards and drawers, in search of medicine.
He’d found tins of soup and fruit which they’d tried to coax into Hanuel to no avail. Zeph, however, had devoured several tins, one after the other, explaining that he’d brought enough water for his epic flight stashed in leather bound flasks upon his back, but no food. He’d used his lance for food, and flying low over the ocean had plucked fish near the surface out with it, and eaten them raw.
‘No, not at all,’ said Zeph. ‘It’s best you do. Your friend needs all the help he can get.’
‘Right,’ nodded Alya. She stood and stretched, uncomfortable from squeezing on the mattress next to Hanuel. She went to the kitchenette and rummaged at the backs of the cupboards, checking each one twice over, then doing the same with the units over by the bridge area. She checked under the beds and in the bathroom then returned, to where Zeph sat watch over Hanuel, as he lay on the mattress groaning and shivering.
‘He’s hot, but he’s shivering?’ said Zeph.
‘His body is making him try to lose heat so it appears as if he’s cold. It’s his brain adjusting to his new temperature set-point,’ nodded Alya. ‘There’s nothing that can help us, but at least we have drinking water,’ she said as she handed Zeph a freshly filled plastic tumbler.
‘Help me,’ she said, as they sat Hanuel up and encouraged him to drink. He appeared to have no idea where he was and he called Alya, ‘Mom’ twice. They laid him back down and Alya looked into Zeph’s blue gaze, he was concerned but not as concerned as her. She’d never seen Hanuel this ill before and it was terrifying.
‘Tell me, tell me about Continent One again,’ said Zeph, trying to take her mind off Hanuel’s condition. They’d already talked for what felt like hours; after they’d discovered that Zeph knew Leo. Alya’s jaw had dropped open when he’d asked her surname, then tipped back his head and laughed. ‘You’re, Alya Clarendon? Leo’s cousin?’
While Hanuel had slept Alya had told Zeph about Continent One. He’d nodded wide-eyed as she described some of the places in detail for him. Every now and then he’d get a bit excited as he recalled something that Leo had already told him.
The monorail was an alien concept to him, and cars and horses too. He couldn’t understand what a zoo was, ‘so you keep the animals for meat?’
‘No, just to look at,’ said Alya, and then she’d described the beauty and majesty of jungle animals that once roamed the plains of Africa. If Zeph hadn’t looked so incredibly dumbfounded Alya would have thought he was pulling her leg, and that really, he was just one of the performers from the Olympics that liked his costume too much.
In return, Zeph had told her about, The Island, and Alya had played along politely for a while, but really all she was interested in was her cousin’s welfare.
She couldn’t help but notice that when Zeph talked of Leo it was in informative snippets about his engineering work on, The Island. Alya felt as if her heart might explode from impatience but also joy at having first-hand information that he was alive and well.
Poppy had a lot to answer for, saying Leo had been kidnapped and was being held against his will.
According to Zeph, Leo had willingly taken on Project Mobi. He knew it was top-secret, although he had been unaware of the recruitment process, and just how strict it was with regards outside contact. He was tied in to the project for five years and had no idea that his family back on C1 had been fed a lie about a drowning accident, probably because they wanted their top-secret project to remain as such. Zeph had been instrumental in helping Leo communicate with Poppy via long wave radio between, The Island, and The Basin.
Alya was still entirely miffed as to why Poppy couldn’t have just told them all the truth when he’d discovered it himself. Why on Earth had she believed that old, silly, silly man? She felt stupid for believing it in the first place, and it hadn’t made a lot of sense at the time. She should have trusted her instincts. Her new information pretty much erased her doubts about telling her parents about Poppy’s findings. Now she was obliged to tell everyone including her aunt what she’d discovered. After that they would have to go to court and retrieve him from The Island; pay his bail, end his contract early if necessary.
Alya couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Do you know why my cousin is there? On, The Island? Do you know why he won’t come home?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Zeph, he appeared disappointed that Alya had diversified when he wanted to know more about C1.
‘Well, do you know how he came to be there? Only, we didn’t know he was there you see. Well, my grandpa did, although he told me Leo was kidnapped as part of some top-secret mission.’
‘It is a secret mission,’ nodded Zeph. He looked away and squeezed his eyes shut slowly, then opened them again to see Alya looking quizzically at him.
‘A secret mission?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘There’s one thing that my cousin isn’t, and that is complicated. He’s good and truthful and kind and he would never leave us unless it was life or death, or if he had no choice.’ Alya had been about to continue defending Leo but she suddenly didn’t feel able to do her cousin justice; not with someone she didn’t know and whose guarded narrative made her want to question his motives.
Zeph’s gaze locked on hers and he suddenly appeared to be agitated with her, as if her probing questions were too close for comfort.
‘It is life or death, Alya.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘It’s not his life, Alya,’ corrected Zeph. ‘Leo has met someone on The Island, a girl, but she’s a prisoner and he won’t leave her. I’m sure he’d love to come home, but at the moment, that’s not possible. I’m, well we’re working on it, but it’s very complicated.’
‘You’re helping him?’
‘That’s why I’m here. I’m scouting the flight.’
‘Right,’ said Alya, she sat quietly, a small smile creeping up the side of her face.
‘You’re going to get them out? What about the authorities? Or do we just get them home and worry about that later?’
Zeph looked at her doubtfully, as if he’d said too much.
‘What?’ said Alya, sensing his reluctance.
‘I said it was complicated,’ nodded Zeph. He stood and placed his hands on his hips then swayed back and forth as if stretching out sore muscles.
Alya decided it was a distraction technique and it was working if she was honest. She looked down at Hanuel’s sweaty brow and used the interlude to wet a cloth and place it on his forehead. Zeph watched her and waited until she’d finished.
‘Is he your boyfriend?’ he asked.
Alya smiled. ‘No, but he’s my very best friend in the world. He’s special. He’s er, like a brother to me, only better.’
‘Got it,’ said Zeph. ‘You have a brother, don’t you?’
‘Ah, Leo told you about Tal? Did he tell you what he is planning to do?’
‘Patrol you mean? Yeah, we know about that. It could be a problem. Minor.’
‘How would it be a problem?’
‘Well,’ said Zeph cautiously, ‘um, we’re not just bringing Leo and his girl out, we’re bringing Leo and his girl, and her entire family.’
‘Her family?’ said Alya surprised. ‘Who are they, are they Islanders or are they Continent One citizens? If they’re being held against their will then they would have to go to court and …’
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, if you don’t mind. I said it was complicated. It might not even happen so don’t get your hopes up, or any of your family’s, especially not Leo’s mother.’
Alya blushed, partly from fury that a stranger was telling her how she should treat her own aunt—as if she didn’t know the trauma she’d been through. Alya decided not to pursue the matter. What Zeph wouldn’t tell her she’d find out from Poppy.
‘He’s very hot. Should we try the radio yet?’ Alya let go of Hanuel’s fiery arm. She and Zeph had brought mattresses from the bunk beds so that they were lying on either side of Hanuel. It had been a full twenty-four-hours and the storm still raged outside. They’d taken turns sleeping so that they could watch and assist Hanuel, ensuring he drank water every half hour and then covering him in dampened towels. Alya could remember her mother’s administrations of her when she was in a feverish nightmare at the hospital. It was all they could do for Hanuel right now, until help arrived.
‘Pointless,’ said Zeph, raising his finger as if to get her to listen to the storm.
His blonde hair had dried out now, hanging in mid-length waves and he didn’t look so, apparition-like, as before, although he was still shirtless. Despite the gloomy on and off lighting in the pod Alya had caught glimpses of bright blue irises which seemed to glitter at times like they had flecks of diamonds in them. She was sure that by comparison she looked extremely un-god-like, with her hair having made a full escape which had them morphed into twice it’s usual size from the salty seawater.
The pod was surprisingly quiet inside, despite the ferocity of the wind outside. The lightning had died down somewhat, and it was evident that it wasn’t a toxic storm. When Zeph had checked the instrument panels at the bridge he had been assured that they weren’t experiencing a life-or-death situation. Alya doubted they would have been in any trouble anyway as Zeph had continued to reinforce the inner door with anything he could find that could be stuck over, or wedged in the gaps.
‘You seem to be used to this sort of thing, Zeph,’ prompted Alya. She’d noticed that he didn’t seem wholly bothered that they were at the centre of a ferocious storm, and she reminded herself that when he’d found her and Hanuel, he’d been on the edge of it as it had chased him across the ocean and with no notion of where the nearest safety was. It was the first time Zeph had flown this far north, and the first time he’d seen a pod probably, and yet he’d been more alarmed when he’d thought Alya might have been Patrol.
‘I am,’ he said surprised. Despite their long chats over the last twenty-four-hours, he realised he hadn’t really explained the dynamics of The Island, where he lived. ‘We have canopies that come up when there’s a storm approaching, double-layered and made of really strong metal, hence why The Island is too heavy to move. But, the moveable island they’re making, the one you saw in the diagrams at the museum, well that’s the one they will use for building the pylons for the pods that will take us to the new continent. Gods it seems weird saying that, but yes, the little movable island won’t have a canopy. If there’s a storm coming then we need to go below decks.’
‘We? Are you going to help build the pylons?’
‘Yes, I’ve already applied to the taskforce, although I don’t know what my role is yet. I have V20 wings, so I’ll likely be in the field. I doubt very much that I’ll be office based. There aren’t that many V20’s on The Island. I mean, well there are but they’re all under eighteen, I guess that’s the same for Continent One?’
Alya nodded silently, she’d tried her best to explain to Zeph what four-hundred-thousand people looked like but he still wasn’t getting it. He seemed to think that there were around nine-thousand of his people on The Island, although that seemed to be an impossible number of people to squeeze onto a metal platform out at sea.
‘How do they know there’s another continent, Zeph? I mean, how do they really, really know? Could the Boaters be lying perhaps?’
‘I don’t know, Alya, but I have met your cousin’s girl and her family, and I believe them. They say we shouldn’t go, that the people on the new continent wouldn’t want us there. But my government, and I suppose yours as well, since they are funding Mobi, that’s what they call the movable island, won’t listen. I don’t care what my government wants, all I want to do is live more freely.’
‘Don’t you live freely?’
‘Um, yes I do live freely, that’s not what I meant exactly. You see I used to live above deck on The Island, but since my father died me and my mom live below deck. It’s ok but it isn’t home. We used to have a nice house with a garden, and I had a dog. So I’m gonna go and work on Mobi, and make as much money as I can and then buy my way back to the upper deck, or, maybe I’ll come and live on Continent One.’
Alya couldn’t remove the frown that she knew she was wearing. The more she and Zeph talked, the more confused she became. There were so many questions she had and so many things that didn’t make sense.
‘Zeph, why do we not know about you? Me and the people on Continent One have never heard about The Island, and yet, you seem to know about us?’
‘Sure, we do, and we’ve known about you forever, it’s just neither we nor Continent One really needed each other, until now. You know, about one-hundred and fifty years ago there was still trade between The Island and Continent One, mainly fish because you landlubbers are scared of the sea and we’re not, but you guys had the medicine and your technology was better. From what I gather we were at a point in history when there were hardly any Boaters left. Our technology and medicine had caught up with yours and you guys got better at fishing. Genetically modified hybrids were getting more sophisticated and then there was the big storm.’
‘The Storm?’ said Alya, finally recognising something. ‘The one that wiped out half of Continent One?’
‘Yeah, but it didn’t touch us. The Island was fine but you guys weren’t. Some of the Continent One survivors came here to seek refuge when your government couldn’t immediately rehome them. They were malnourished and desperate and they brought diseases that spread to the Islanders, and then years later because the storm had been toxic some of the children born on The Island from those people, were deformed and sickly. Not only that, but when Continent One rebuilt, they wouldn’t take their refugees back and so The Island cut off all contact with Continent One. I suppose there’s been a lot of propaganda added to the mix over the years, because we all believe that C1 is a lot further than it is. If you say its one-hundred-miles from here then I believe you, but I suppose they did that to make sure we don’t try to go there. I don’t think our government would appreciate free trade, or the risk of losing its citizens.
‘My father worked in government too. He grew up with it. We were one of the elite families on The Island, the policymakers, the original, core inhabitants after the world was reborn. You see, The Island was very small in the beginning, an oil rig in fact.’
‘A what?’
‘An oil rig, what people used to drill for, a type of fuel.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, so we were on top, the rich ones,’ said Zeph, with an ironic smile, ‘but my father didn’t like some of the things that the governors, or our president, were up to and he rebelled. They kicked him out. They tried to silence him. He got a regular job and then one day my mom found him face down in our pond; heart attack at forty-five. Then mine and my mom’s lives changed forever.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ mumbled Alya, she looked at the floor rather than Zeph. It had been the same when her cousin had died, or at least, supposedly died, and she was unable to look her aunt in the eyes for so long. What could she say to make it better? What could she do to make it better? She sat silently by and directed her gaze at Hanuel’s shallow breathing instead.
‘The storm has passed,’ said Zeph eventually, lifting his head and breaking free from his reflective state.
Alya looked up and noticed that there was no longer an ominous darkness seeping through the shutters. She glanced at Zeph as he extricated himself slowly from his contemplative state of mind, and she suddenly felt profound sympathy for his misfortune. She noticed that he didn’t hang his head in self-pity and his reflective expression only seemed to empower him somewhat. She recognised the look; as if looking at her childhood self, she could see that Zeph’s expression was similar to hers: determined, unwavering, hopeful.
‘The storm has gone,’ said Alya, blinking. ‘I must call for help. Can you show me?’ She looked at Zeph and the corner of his mouth rose ever so slightly.
‘Of course.’ He got to his feet and showed her how to work the dials on the radio, ‘I have to go, Alya. I suspect that help is already on its way to you, but I can’t be seen here. Alya, after everything I’ve said, do you understand that the things that are happening need to be kept a secret? Your cousin’s escape, and Mobi? I don’t know how these things are going to play out yet. It could be dangerous for someone who knows too much. You do get it, don’t you?’
