Chapter Seven

 

It was almost dawn, an observation Bree made based on the glowing numbers of a clock built into the curved clear table near her bed; the room had no windows. It was her third night since coming awake again, becoming aware, but it was the first night she couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning, she tried to puzzle out the strange circumstances of her hospital stay.

Almost every one of her conscious moments over the past two days had involved some sort of physical therapy. In one respect, she’d welcomed the exertion. It distracted her. Left alone, she spent her time beating herself up over her role in Cam’s fate. If she’d been more observant, reacted quicker, looked harder, who knew, maybe her friend would be alive. Of course, there was that reedy little voice of dissension that assured her she’d done all she could.

On the other hand, if she was feeling guilty, then she must be feeling better. She knew herself well enough to figure that out. And now that she was feeling better, she wanted out of the hospital.

It wasn’t that she had complaints about the care. Meals came regularly and were nutritious and tasty—although the too-obviously genetically bioengineered pitless avocados and the cute apple-sized watermelons with edible peels were more than a little strange. And Kyber’s all-female medical team of identical twins acted as if she were the center of their lives. What more could a patient want?

Access to the outside world.

Where were the intelligence people? They were usually the first on the scene, even before the shrinks and chaplains showed up, so they could begin the lengthy process of debriefing a freed POW. And why couldn’t she use the phone?

Her “fragile physical condition” was always the excuse the doctors gave her. Granted, for a while, she had felt fragile, and didn’t argue with the diagnosis, but she wasn’t feeling that way anymore.

Maybe she could wander the halls a bit before the sisters came on duty, chat with the doctors and nurses working the graveyard shift, and see what she could find out about using the phone. Good idea, Maguire.

Sitting up, she swung her legs off the bed. There was no wooziness this time, another sign that she was on the mend. A faint humming noise caught her attention. It was barely audible, lower in pitch and volume than a mosquito.

Something glinted to her right, and a silver sphere floated into her field of vision. At first, in the dim light, she thought her bleary eyes were playing tricks on her. But, it was a sphere, and it was bobbing...all on its own.

In midair.

It rotated, laser-sharp lights glowing, and paused to hover in front of her face. “Pip!” it chirped.

Bree lifted her finger to touch it, and changed her mind. How was the thing floating? No hospital she knew had that kind of technology. It begged an answer to the question: Where was she?

“Lights on,” Bree said, as she’d heard the sisters Park do. The walls and ceiling glowed brighter, providing the room’s lighting from an opaque, almost luminescent material resembling white crystal. The furnishings and tech reeked of money. The setup bore less resemblance to a hospital room than it did a converted bedroom in an opulent home.

All the more reason to take a walk.

Wobbling a bit, she stood. Her muscles ached some, but all things considered she felt pretty darn good. Not great, but good enough to find a telephone. And, if she was lucky, a Coke and a Milky Way. Her caffeine level was dangerously low.

She crossed the room to the huge double doors that everyone used to come in and out. The sphere followed her. “Pip! Pip!”

She ignored it, as she’d ignore an annoying, yapping dog that she didn’t know. It seemed harmless, but it might have sharp teeth.

The doors were heavy. Bree leaned her shoulder against one and pushed hard. Then she tried the other. No dice. Running her fingers along the frame revealed no knobs, handles, or dead bolts. She was locked in. Trapped.

She didn’t like the feeling. At all.

She tried again, shoving her full weight against the door. It didn’t budge. She slammed her hands against the surface. “Open!”

“Pip!”

Bree pushed away from the door and looked down her nose at the floating ball. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas.”

“Pip!” A thread of light shot out of it and into her right eye.

A violet splash of light blinded Bree. Her pores went electric as she staggered backward, covering her eyes. There was a commotion outside the doors. Her hospital staff pushed them open and swarmed into the room.

Dr. Park’s gaze traveled from the lights turned on in the room to where Bree now stood, spitting mad. “Captain Maguire. What’s wrong?”

“That thing flashed something in my eye.”

“It was a routine scan, nothing more.”

“I don’t care what it was. Never mess with a pilot’s eyes. If that little disco ball tries to shine any more lights without my express permission, I’m going to see how it likes playing Ping-Pong.”

“Pip!” The sphere bounced close to Bree’s face, and she blocked it with the heel of her palm. It thudded into her hand with a clanking noise, as if she’d knocked something loose inside. “Pip!” It came at her again. She drew her arm back.

“Pip, go!” Dr. Park shouted, and the sphere soared off. “Please don’t be alarmed.”

Bree rubbed her palm. “Keep it away from me.”

“Pip is your triage nurse, my robotic assistant.”

“A what? A robot?”

The ball was back, hovering near Dr. Park. It rotated, its tiny lights pulsating. Some sort of wireless communication was going on between the sphere and Dr. Park’s handheld, which seemed to confirm the woman’s explanation about the scan. “When you arose from bed on your own, Pip reacted to your unpredicted behavior. It’s programmed to monitor your vital signs during the night.”

“And ring the bell if I get loose, hmm?”

Bree’s slang seemed to baffle the elegant physician, as it often did the man named Kyber. What was with these people? Did they live in isolation, too? “I tried to get out but couldn’t open the doors. Why am I locked in, Dr. Park? Am I a prisoner or a patient?”

Kyber strode into the room. As always, he was dressed impeccably in black, but his hair was damp, as if he’d come straight from his room and a morning shower. The helper sisters clustered near the door, fell to their knees in a bow. He dismissed them without a second glance.

Bree turned on him before he could say anything. “I was given an invasive examination. Without my consent.” She thrust an accusing finger at the sphere. “By that.”

“It was merely a scan,” Dr. Park protested. “Completely benign.”

Kyber acted outraged on Bree’s behalf. “You did not forewarn her, Dae?”

“My apologies, Your Highness. I’m so used to Pip and its kind that I didn’t take into consideration that she wouldn’t know.”

“You delay me from telling her the truth, and yet you treat her with technology she can’t comprehend. Days have passed. She is stronger now, both physically and emotionally. The time has come for her to learn the facts of her situation.”

Bree’s attention jumped from the man to the woman and back again. The “facts”? Her “situation”? Come to think of it, what was her situation? Why was she isolated, locked up overnight? How come she hadn’t seen a single person in an American uniform during her entire stay?

You’re still in North Korea.

Ice flooded Bree’s veins. All at once, all the puzzle pieces fell into place: the strange hospital room, the weird accented English, the lack of contact with anyone she knew. She was imprisoned somewhere in North Korea. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Kyber claimed the blue-eyed diver had tried to “steal” her. But maybe the North Koreans were the hostage takers, and had abducted her from the hands of the U.S. rescue team! And they hadn’t caught Cam. No. Somehow, Cam had got free. That’s why she wasn’t here, not because she was dead.

How come it took her this long to figure it out? How could she be so stupid? So trusting?

They’ve been calling you by your name, fighter call sign, and rank. The enemy wouldn’t know her name.

Unless she’d given it to them during interrogation.

His English is flawless.

Okay, so he had British schooling. His father, whoever he was, wouldn’t be the first enemy of the United States to buy his son an Oxford education.

Kyber’s expression showed that he’d noted the dawning horror in her face. “Banzai...”

Bree stepped backward. “You’re North Korean.”

“I am not. Let me assure you that you are in friendly hands. We are not the people who captured you. We are not North Koreans. Or South, as we allowed you to believe. Much has happened to you, some of which you will not be able to comprehend all at once. We were in danger of losing you; your condition was fragile. My best medical people advised that further trauma could jeopardize your recovery. I didn’t want to do that.” His voice gentled. “I want you to get well.”

Something in Kyber’s eyes gave her pause. Sincerity, graveness, those qualities would be hard to fake. But that’s what she saw reflected in Kyber’s gaze. Nothing in his expression indicated malice. “Who are you?”

He shared a brief, insider smile with the doctors, who appeared more concerned than amused. “It is not too often I am asked that question.” The worker-bee sisters who had paused in their chores reacted to Bree’s question with alarm. But, clearly relishing the moment, Kyber dipped his head in a gallant bow. “I am Prince Kyber of the Han Dynasty, ruler of all Asia.”

Ruler of all Asia. Oh, please. She’d heard that North Koreans were egocentric, but this was for the birds.

He lifted his head. “You do not believe me.”

Well, duh. “I need to contact my commanding officer to let him know I’m okay. Phone or e-mail is fine. I don’t care.”

“I am afraid I can’t have you do that.”

Bree folded her hands over her chest. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

She’d expected won’t. “Why not?”

“Because he or she is dead, Banzai. Everyone you once knew is dead.”

Her stomach took a sickening plunge. It was hard to catch her breath. “I...don’t believe you.”

He waved at the empty bed behind her. “Perhaps you would like to sit.”

“That’s okay. I can take this standing up.”

But Kyber continued to act reluctant about spilling what he wanted to tell her, and since she had the feeling that he wasn’t normally a man who wavered, it didn’t bode well for what she was about to learn.

Squaring his shoulders, he clasped his hands behind his back, paced a few times in front of her, and stopped. “The underground laboratory in which you were put into stasis was bombed. Bombed heavily.”

“That’s what I understand,” she said.

“Rubble buried you in the cave. The pod protected you and kept you alive. Somehow it maintained power. But your rescue...it was delayed.” Kyber, his hands still clasped behind his back, studied her for long moments. “You were trapped in stasis for 170 years. I rescued you, and now you are safe.”

Bree never stuttered, but she did now. “S-say again?”

“You were trapped in stasis for almost two centuries. It is 2176.”

“Twenty-one seventy-six,” she confirmed. “The year.”

“Yes.”

The other women looked on, grave and concerned. Either this was an elaborately concocted scheme to brainwash her á la The Manchurìan Candidate, or Kyber was telling the truth and she’d done a Rip Van Winkle and slept through the last 170 years. She wasn’t sure which scenario was more far-fetched.

Bree pushed her hair away from her face. It fell around her shoulders. She took a lock in her fingers and stared at the strands, her heart beating hard. Her hair had grown longer. She’d noticed yesterday, but had been too sick and too tired for it to sink in. For years, she’d worn her hair in a jaw-length bob, both for the ease of wearing that kind of style with a helmet and because it looked good on her. But her hair was longer than it ever was, reflecting months and months of growth. The hair on her legs had grown in, too. It was fine hair, but she always waxed. And she’d just done so a few days before the mission. It shouldn’t have grown back for months...

A thousand rapid-fire thoughts flickered through her mind. Didn’t the scientist who captured her say she’d age while in stasis, but at a much slower rate? Did 170 years in the pod equate to approximately one year in normal time?

An awful feeling of dread grabbed at her chest. Mom, Dad, her older sister, Brittany...were they dead? Had they died believing that she was dead?

What about Cam? Her best friend. Bree hugged her arms to her chest and stared hard at the floor. Cam had probably died in her pod. How could Bree wallow in self-pity knowing that? She fought off a sharp wave of guilt. Survivor’s guilt. She was all too familiar with it.

She felt stinging in her hands and realized that her long fingernails had cut into the flesh of her palms. Opening her hands, she stared at bright smudges of blood.

The third Dr. Park grabbed a vial of something and swabbed the wounds, her dismay visible.

Bree lifted her head. “Show me something with the date. Money, a calendar, anything.”

Min took a note-sized piece of paper from her front pocket. “My schedule book.”

While the other woman cleansed Bree’s wounds, Bree looked at Min Park’s book, which was about the same size and thickness as a printed photo but glowed like a computer screen, and was flexible, too. With a brush of Min’s fingertip, a faint musical chime sounded and a forest in autumn appeared. Tiny trees in incredible, three-dimensional detail. Then the image broke into squares and reformed as a calendar floating a few hairbreadths above the base. A twelve-month calendar. The familiar layout was comforting, but the date was not. It said August 27, 2176.

“It’s in English,” Bree accused. “Or is that just for my benefit?”

“More precisely, it’s Hannish.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It didn’t exist in your time. When Asia erased its borders in 2043, it required a unifying language free of the past. We speak a dialect that adheres strictly to the version of English spoken in London at the time of our revolution. The first Han king was married to a Scot. He’d lived in London for many years. He felt that declaring English as the national language would be easier than trying to combine myriad dialects—or having to choose one from among many. Yes, there was opposition, but it eventually died out after a generation or two. It was a brilliant choice, Hannish. It unified us. Language does not a civilization define, Banzai. Regional culture lives on in many ways. I support and encourage it.”

Kyber had an answer for everything. She didn’t want answers. She wanted to poke holes in his airtight claims, to catch him in his lie. A lie meant she had a chance to go home.

The truth meant she’d lost everything.

Except her country. “I can still go home. Does the United States know you found me? They’ll want to repatriate me.”

Kyber’s gray eyes had that sympathetic look to them again, the look she was beginning to dread. It meant he had something to say that she wasn’t going to like. “The United States is no more, Banzai. There is the UCE, the United Colonies of Earth. It grew out of the country you once knew.”

The unease that had so far been lying like a cold rock in her stomach expanded. The room was cool, but she’d started to sweat. “It doesn’t matter what they’re called, that’s where I belong.”

“No.” Kyber’s expression hardened. “They’ll want you back, but they don’t deserve you.”

“Isn’t that my choice to make?”

“Not as long as you remain uninformed. The UCE is not the U.S.A. It would be incredibly naive to confuse the two.” Kyber lifted a hand. “Medcom. Show world map.”

The entire rear wall of the room pixilated into a screen with resolution that made the picture she’d watched on her brand-new satellite-imagery, high-definition TV look like a 1950’s black-and-white.

On display was a world map in intricate three-dimensional detail. Glowing sapphire borders marked the borders of various countries. The cities themselves were clearly visible. The first difference Bree noticed was the encroachment of the oceans on the coasts. The seas had risen, as everyone had predicted. Then she noticed that the myriad nations she was used to seeing were gone. With a few exceptions, the countries of the world had consolidated into several enormous entities.

Kyber flicked on a handheld beam of light. “A lesson in geography, Banzai.” His light circled the continent of Africa before making a ring around Europe. “The Euro-African Consortium, overseen from Paris by the United Nations. Or does the consortium oversee the perpetually inept U.N.? Nobody knows.” He gave her a long-suffering sideways glance. “No one can tell.” The beam of light bounced across the Atlantic Ocean. “Here lies the Dominion of Tri-Canada. Poor Canada, when will you come out of your quarantine?” Kyber sighed. “Maybe never. A full century after suffering a massive plague, they cower behind a veil of seclusion in self-imposed isolation. Perhaps they don’t want to attract the lusty interest of their neighbor in the south.”

The light tracked downward, swinging around the United States and nearly half the rest of the world: Mexico, South America, Antarctica, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and the Middle East. “This is the UCE, Banzai. The United Colonies of Earth. But all that unites this distended, overextended malignancy are the taxes wrung from its more capable colonies.”

The United States was an imperial power? It had colonies? It was inconceivable that the United States had turned into what it most hated when it broke from England in the 1700’s. Incomprehensible, that America would turn its back on the principles that had set it apart as the cradle of independence and freedom for hundreds of years.

Grandpa Vitale would roll over in his grave.

Now Bree knew what Kyber had meant—this wasn’t the U.S.A. she knew. She stared at her fisted hands. Tears didn’t seem an appropriate response. She felt too empty. The United States is no more. Something else to mourn. Add her country to the long list.

But if there wasn’t a U.S.A., where did she belong? Surely there were remnants left of her old home. But she didn’t know enough about this new world to find them. If in fact it was a new world. The only proof she had of that was Kyber’s word and a collection of cool high-tech gizmos.

But he sure sounded convincing.

Kyber’s beam of light swung south and west. “Australia, Earth’s waste dump. All trash graciously accepted, human and otherwise,” he spat before slicing the beam of light northward toward Asia.

Bree stopped him. “What about India?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? How can it be gone?”

“The land is there, but it is mostly uninhabitable. So are Pakistan, Nepal, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and the southern edge of the Himalayas. How did it happen? Terrorists set off a small nuclear device in Bombay. It destroyed the financial district. India blamed it on Pakistan and lobbed a bigger one back. By the time they were done, a billion people were dead. That was over a century ago.”

Except for the old nightmares that visited her in the dark, nothing scared her. No Fear was her motto, and the fighter pilot’s creed. But now her hands were shaking. “God help them,” Bree whispered.

“On this planet we don’t agree on much, but most say that war saved us all. The damage done was so far beyond what anyone could comprehend, or stomach, that to this day no country has ever again threatened the use of nuclear weapons. Our conflicts can be bitter, and bloody, but they are conventional.”

Bree felt the beginnings of a headache. Dull pain pulsed behind her eyes. It reminded her of her physical debilitation, that she was not yet well. But she had to keep her focus squarely on Kyber and the information he passed on. Her gut told her it would mean the difference between living through this, or not. Bree walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. Leaning an elbow on her thigh, she dropped her chin onto her palm.

“She needs a drink,” the self-proclaimed prince declared.

“Yes, of course.” Dr. Park gestured to one of the helper-sisters. “Joo-Eun. Bring water.”

“Not water.” Kyber lifted a hand. “A drink!”

“No, no, Your Highness. She cannot drink. Not alcohol.”

His mouth twisted in a mulish frown. “I would say she could use one.”

“I would say you’re right,” Bree agreed. Who cared if it wasn’t good judgment? Who cared if it was 6:00 in the morning? Shock had made her downright giddy. “Make it something strong.”

Everyone stared at her—the medical people with dismay, Kyber with a twinkle of amusement and approval in his eyes. He snapped his fingers. “Bring my best vodka!”

The doctors rubbed their foreheads as Joo-Eun ran off to comply with the prince’s orders. It added to the surrealism of the situation.

“Proof, Kyber,” she said, lifting her head. “I need it.”

“And proof you will have. One hundred proof!”

Had he just made a joke? Holy Christmas, he had.

Despite her grief and anxiety, Bree felt her mouth twitch. That humor again. He had the same bad sense of timing as she did. Got her into trouble all the time.

If only he were joking about the rest. The seriousness in his eyes told her that he wasn’t.

“Not that kind of proof, Kyber. Come on, Buck Rogers got a ride in a flying car, and all I get is a slide show and a history lesson? It’s going to take more than this to convince me that I slept for almost two centuries.”

Kyber lifted his hands helplessly. “Your English ...if only I could decipher it.”

“I want proof that what you’re telling me is true. Proof that I can see with my own eyes. You have some cool gadgets, but for all I know I’m still in North Korea.”

“You are here.” The wall distorted and reformed into a panorama of forest and sky. “My summer palace,” he said.

As in, not his winter one? But Bree didn’t make the comment. She guessed there were still people in the world who owned more than one palace. Only she’d never run into any.

A huge mountain dominated the scene, dusted with white at the peak. “This is a sacred place, Banzai. In Korean mythology, the son of the Lord of Heaven descended to earth, right here, and the first Korean empire began. Now I am here.” He gave her his most charming smile. “In the summer months, at least. Here on the slopes of Paekdusan, the weather stays cool.”

Paekdusan! “That’s in North Korea. Up by the Chinese border.”

“Three hundred and fifty kilometers northeast of what used to be called Pyongyang,” he confirmed.

You lying bastard. “You said you weren’t North Koreans.”

“I told you the truth. The former capital of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea is now called North Han City, and has been for over a century.”

Bree pressed her fists together and pushed them against her mouth. The map disappeared, and the wall screen panned out over a vast wilderness. It was full summer outside, blue sky, puffy clouds, green trees, and it made Bree’s heart ache for her home in Chestnut. Then the camera sped up and ascended the side of the volcano. At the very top of the volcano was a huge, deep blue lake that filled the crater, ringed by stony crags. A cluster of cabins stood near the shore. The word cabin didn’t do the exquisite buildings justice, but they appeared to be made of wood. Soft smoke curled out of the chimney of one.

“Chonji,” Kyber said. “Lake of Heaven. It sits there, at the summit. It is one of the deepest and coldest alpine lakes in the world. We’ll go often. You’ll enjoy our swims there as long as you stay close to the hot springs.” His even, white teeth gleamed. “I will make sure that you do.”

“You make it sound as if I’m staying.”

He spread his hands. “Where else will you go?”

Her chin jutted up. “Home.”

“Where is that? Somewhere in the UCE?” He said the name with disdain.

The United States is no more. Bree tried to keep her face blank of the emotions swirling inside her.

The wall once more formed into a view of the world. Kyber re-aimed his beam of light at the map. “My kingdom is a land of peace and prosperity.” His eyes turned smoky; his voice deepened and warmed. Bree couldn’t help thinking he’d use that tone of voice in bed with a lover. His light caressed all of Asia, circled a shrunken Indonesia and Philippines, slid up to Siberia, Mongolia, and around the eastern half of Russia. “We have the highest literacy rate, the lowest infant mortality rate, and the longest life span in the world. There is no better place to live than here.”

“You make your kingdom sound perfect,” she said.

“It is.”

“Don’t you wish?” she said under her breath, giving in to a fit of petulance. Finding out that you’d lost just about everything you had, and then learning the little you thought was left didn’t exist either—well, it made a girl grumpy.

“Actually, I do wish, Banzai. Let me say rather that my kingdom is perfect most of the time—but that is another matter, one that has to do with politics, of which I had my fill last night.” He glanced at both Drs. Park, who had been following the conversation and Bree’s distress with physician-ish disapproval. “Parliament troubles in Australia. Macao again. Greedy energy brokers. It’s been this way since my grandfather’s reign in the thirties,” he told Bree. “I have yet to decide on a solution.”

“The thirties?” She tried to trap him. Math could catch the best of liars. “That was almost eighty years ago. Your grandfather would have been a little kid, if he was born at all yet.”

“It has been only forty years, Banzai.”

“How’s that?”

“The 2130s. Not your 1930s.”

He’d done it again. The perfect answer.

“If you’re the prince,” she asked him, “who’s the king?”

“My father is the king.” A few seconds of silence ticked by. “He lives here in the palace with my mother, the queen. But his condition leaves him unable to rule.”

“His...condition,” Bree hinted, looking for more.

Kyber was fond of long-winded answers, but on this topic his reticence was obvious. Family issues. Bree let it go at that. “You’re a hereditary leader, though. You hold no elections. Your people have no choice in leaders but you. You’re a dictator.”

She knew she was being reckless with her words. Kyber held all the cards; she had none. With a wave of his royal hand, he could have her head lopped off right where she stood. And yet, it didn’t scare her. Nothing did anymore.

She felt empty. No fear, no grief. Thrust into a strange new world, she had nothing to lose but her principles. She wouldn’t sacrifice those; they defined her. She was an American soldier, even if there was no more America. She’d hang on to what she believed until the end.

She waved her hand at the luxury surrounding them. “I joined the air force to rid the world of so-called leaders who live in luxury while their population suffers.”

“Suffers!” He reared back. “My people are happy. Blissfully so. If I opened the borders, none would leave. I’d have to fight back a tide of refugees from everywhere else.”

Bree snorted. “I’m sure Genghis Khan said the same thing. And Stalin.”

Too bad Joo-Eun hadn’t returned with the vodka. Bree needed that shot. Maybe the whole bottle. Or, maybe her grief was coming out as anger, and she was taking it out on Kyber.

The emperor-prince puffed out his chest. “I am not your average despot. I’m...an autocrat with a heart, a tyrant with a conscience. Come, Banzai, surely this is as obvious to you as it is to my own people.” To his full-of-himself stance, he added a killer smile.

The man was hot, Bree decided. The trouble was, he knew it. If only she were as convinced of the facts of her situation as Kyber was about his looks.

Kyber turned to the doctors for support. He spread his hands wide. “She does not believe me.” Sighing, he strode over to where Bree sat on the bed and hoisted her into his arms.

“Oh...” She grabbed his shoulders for balance.

“My people are happy, Banzai. They do not suffer. I will prove it to you now!” The room spun as he swung her around and carried her out the door.