ZARA
Ahmed was slumped over the steering wheel, the horn still blaring as he lay there, unmoving. Zara and Issey pulled open the door as passers-by crowded around them, trying to offer help. Zara put her hand out to Dr. Kader’s neck, searching for a pulse. But there was none. Steeling herself, she took him by the shoulders and gently pulled him back onto the seat.
We have to be sure.
She gasped and turned away. His jovial features were frozen in his last moment.
Dr. Kader’s dead!
She felt Issey pull her around the car, and blindly followed him to the other side where Jedi and Shiva were tending to the Director. He was laid out on the dusty ground, gasping for breath.
Shiva was bent over him, his arm cradling his head as the Director whispered something to him. Jedi looked up, their shock mirrored in his face. “He’s not going to …”
Shiva turned to them, his eyes watering. “I can’t believe it, he’s gone.”
This can’t be … I don’t want to be here.
I can’t do this.
“We have to go, now.” Jedi stood up abruptly, pushing back the crowds surging around them and the battered car. “It’s not safe here and we still have a job to do.”
“Jedi, we can’t leave them here,” Issey said, wiping his own tears away with a shirt sleeve. “The police will be coming and—”
“Exactly,” Shiva interrupted, getting up and brushing himself down. “And we can’t be here when they arrive. Follow me.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Issey yelled, now angrily pushing back against the people around him in his frustration. “Leave Dr. Kader and the Director in the street? Run from the police?”
“We have no choice,” Shiva said, grabbing Zara’s arm and nodding to Jedi to follow him. “We can’t afford to get entangled with the local authorities now. We have to leave them here, to go and fulfill the prophecy.”
Zara shook her head. It was all too much to take in. The heat, the dust, people shouting on all sides, the small street full of noise.
And the Director and Ahmed not with us anymore.
“Zara!” Jedi said. “Come on! You have to come with us, you too, Issey.” Jedi started to pull them through the crowds, some of them pointing and becoming hostile at the sight of them leaving the crash.
“Wait!” Zara said. “What did the Director say to you? Just now, before …”
Shiva sighed. “The last thing the Director said … he said we have to beat Solaris. Like it or not, now you really do have to save the world.”
Zara and Issey looked at each other.
“OK, lead the way,” she said.