13 |

Bedford Park, New York City

 

Asrat Fida stared at the message on his phone, his heart pounding, a smile spreading. It was a message he had never expected, not after so many years of waiting, so many years of isolation and boredom.

It was the day he had been waiting for.

This is my chance!

When he had volunteered to move to America and live here in case he was one day needed, he hadn’t understood what that meant. He had always been poor. Most in Ethiopia were. But to be poor in a poor country was one thing, especially when surrounded by family and friends who suffered equally.

But here, in New York City, being poor was an entirely different experience. It meant near inhumane conditions in a rich country. He had no money to do anything but huddle in his hovel of an apartment in a rundown tenement in the Bronx. He had no money beyond the meager allowance sent to him monthly, certainly a princely sum in Ethiopia, but a pittance in America—nearly every penny consumed by rent, food, and a phone.

If it weren’t for his phone, he’d have killed himself long ago. They had left him here for over a decade, with almost no word, and no indication of when he’d be allowed back home.

He feared they couldn’t afford to bring him back.

Yet did he really want to go back? Life here was hard, though it was far more interesting than that back in Ethiopia. It could be violent here, dangerous, but if he kept to himself, and made sure he was in before dark, even the hellhole he lived in was fine. He had a cheap television he had found in the garbage years ago that picked up channels with its bent antennae, he had free wi-fi from neighbors who didn’t understand basic Internet security, and he never worried about food or water.

If he thought about it, it wasn’t that bad a life.

Certainly better than what he had left.

It was the loneliness that was killing him.

Stolen wi-fi allowed him to surf the web on his phone, or his laptop for more intensive work, but he rarely interacted with anyone. He had no social life, as he had no money. He supplemented his income with a part-time janitorial job, barely enough for the coffee habit he had developed, and the occasional treat. He hadn’t been with a woman in years, and even that was when he had managed to scrape together enough money to pay for it, an experience he swore never to repeat for the shame of it.

He had no friends, kept to himself, and devoted most of his time to prayer and his assigned task: to learn everything he could about how to help the order, should it become necessary.

He now knew how to pick locks, override security systems, hack computers, plant listening devices, and more. He studied everything he could think of, and practiced whenever possible. He didn’t consider himself an expert, though he was good enough, honing his skills by breaking into homes and apartments around the area, hacking their computers, then leaving, taking nothing that might alert anyone that he had been there.

He had a few close calls—the only excitement in his life—though had always escaped. He was good. Not the best, not an expert, but good enough for whatever the order might need him for.

 And if Ganno were here, one of the leaders of the order, then something must be happening with the Ark.

And if something were happening with the Ark, then this might be the first chance in thousands of years for anyone to profit from it.

He smiled.

For he intended for that person to be him.

He pulled out his laptop and connected to the neighbor’s wi-fi. He activated a Dark Web browser, initiating the first step of a plan he had been working on for years, once he had discovered what was possible thanks to his studying. He posted his message, carefully crafted, on a dark corner of the illicit Internet meant for collectors.

Collectors with absolutely no scruples.

And unimaginably deep pockets.

Pockets that could give him the life he deserved. The life he had never known possible until he arrived on the shores of his new home.

America.