Cloud forest archaeological working site – 3:20 PM
Masae and her large entourage made of hybrid men and mercenaries, followed the GPS coordinates sent by Ian. They hiked past trails of wild vegetation machete in hand for the unmarked parts. Humidity was oppressive, but heavy rain would be worse. She looked up and saw the dark clouds moving, covering the sky; they had to hurry.
She marched through the jungle making an account of her sudden losses. Her clandestine laboratory complex in Singapore was indeed history. Everything had been consumed by fire. The neogenesis, hybrid program, and the intelligent virus design were also gone in the explosion. It was a cunning blow, but it only renewed her rage and purpose.
“Sure, the Singapore facility is gone, but I’ll get everything back from this place, not to mention the financial boost when governments pay for the virus’ antidote… nasty bug, keeps spreading death in their countries.” Masae whispered through her teeth. She peered into the forest ahead, her chest swelled with determination. She would leave the forest with the prize and reinstate her lab in record time. She glanced at the troops of manmade creatures in front and behind her; the odds were in her favor. Her manpower and the insight from her informant had increased her chances to one hundred percent success.
There was a victory awaiting her at the end of the road that neither the muddy dirt, the heavy foliage, nor the animals crawling along her path would prevent her from achieving. She had unleashed her wrath on the world. Chaos, despair, and illness were the right compost for anarchy and subversion, but also for a savior. And she would be the one with the cure. Everyone would forget to ask how exactly the virus came about, who made it, how it escaped the lab while under fear. All that mattered was how not to die.
Alexie, Alexie… I didn’t know you cared so much about the world. Yet in your haste, you’ve aided me to scale it. You made nature a favor and to the planet, actually. Overpopulation solved. This virus sent us back to the beginning, to the survival of the fittest. Masae mused. Alexander had made a mistake blowing up the lab and the antidote with him in the fire. There was enough for her and her people, and of course, she could replicate it in her other Pharma-NorTech laboratories. She would become the good Samaritan of the world once again. She savored the thought. The world would reach an infernal climax, and when that happened, only Pharma-NorTech would have the cure. She no longer needed Alexander Lyashenko, brain power was easy to find. All she had to obtain was the new raw material, the secrets of the forest, of the ancient culture that would establish her power as Shinji had foreseen. Losses and failure were excellent teachers, and she had always been a precocious learner.
Masae entered the camp and found the Håkansson brothers assembled around a portable table, observing the ancient cartography of the area. And Mila a few steps away was studying the brothers’ journals, which she had skillfully persuaded them to share.
Mila waved a hand to Masae and stood up, not wanting to call her ‘mother’ any longer.
“How’s it going, Mila? Are you having trouble with this pair?” Masae approached them with five of her men behind her. The rest of her hybrid commando force were left out of sight for when she required them.
“Well, not with the professors, but with the ancient culture. The Cloud People left nothing we could use,” Mila explained, spreading out the pages the Håkansson brothers had given her. In these notes, they had mapped the timeline and territory of the Cloud Warriors, they were wrong, but there wasn’t a reason to tell them.
Masae approached Mila without disguise. “Mila, for the sake of time that I’m not willing to waste, let me present things as they are. I know you understand more of this matter than you have revealed to me. I know about your relationship with these woods and with the people of this place.” Masae sat on a fallen log and drank from her water bottle. “You can’t imagine how freeing it is to drop the act; you should do the same.”
“What are you talking about?” Mila asked with the calmness learned in her training. Yet her heart sank in the bottom of her stomach. This was a new development she wasn’t expecting. Someone had sold her out. Who?
“Come on Mila, you know me better than this! After these two years together, I resent you taking me for a fool! I know your memory is back. Should I go over the terms of our agreement the day I brought you to my lab?”
“The day you killed your own son and kidnapped me? Oh, yes, I remember! And because of that, I’ve been under your thumb, at your command. A pact with the devil is always in effect…” Mila spat back, trying to figure out the traitor’s identity. It wasn’t Alexander. She was sure of that. Who else could have connections with Masae? Was there a mole in Cherut?
“Poor dear! Be a good girl and don’t waste any more of my time. You know I have eyes and ears everywhere. Cherut, what a wonderful society,” Masae got up and walked to the thick wooden door and admired it with her hands on her hips. “But as Alexander has proven in quite an explosive way, no matter what you do for the members of the team, there is always one dissatisfied.” Masae turned to face Mila and the confused professors. “And that was that. Back to the work at hand. Don’t forget that as well as you might know me, I’ve spent time learning how to stimulate your participation. I know that your own pain doesn’t break you, but the pain of others does. Your compassion is your biggest weakness.” Masae looked at Ian. “Take either of them!”
“No! Stop!” Mila yelled, stepping in front of the professors.
“Then, open that door!” Masae prowled along the enormous walls. “And I’m not referring only to this one, but also the door to the secrets you are guarding. I want the whole thing.”
“I don’t know how to open this door!” Mila shouted, glancing at the professors and Ian and the hybrids. “Ever since I woke up in your laboratory, I’ve been your right-hand agent. So, let me offer a reformulation of our deal: I’ll continue at your side, working for you, if you walk away from this place and these people.” Mila knew the answer, but she needed time. Where was Cherut?
“You aren’t in the position to make demands or negotiations,” Masae hissed, facing Mila.
Søren and Jesper Håkansson looked at each other, clueless, as they heard the interaction. Their biggest worry was how the outcome would affect them.
“Wait a minute! What are you both talking about?” Søren interrupted, standing tall and coming out from behind Mila.
“You should have stayed behind the girl. Your services aren’t needed any longer.” Masae glanced at Ian and the man pulled the trigger. As the bullet pierced Søren’s chest, he fell to his knees, looking straight ahead with puzzled, empty eyes. The anthropologist collapsed face down on the ground.
Jesper Håkansson ran to his brother, incredulous of what had just happened. There hadn’t been a conversation or negotiation. He turned his twin brother’s body and held him in his arms. “We know nothing more than you do!” Jesper shouted.
Mila knelt beside the body, anger rising inside of her. Søren might have been a greedy thief, but he was also a scholar. Now he lay dead, before he could ever make amends to his past wrongdoings. She looked at Jesper, still in a state of shock. Mila understood Masae wouldn’t shoot again; it was too easy and benign to end the second twin just now. Masae was keeping him as a cooperation tool to poke her heart and expedite the extraction of treasure she must have believed was stored behind the colossal door. Mila stared into Masae’s icy eyes.
“Ready, dear?” Masae asked, tuning to command her men.
The five hybrid creatures, lost souls taken from the forgotten corners of the world, awaited Masae’s orders in a robotic silence. Mila made eye contact with one, but there was only darkness. Their humanity was gone. Were they from the clandestine lab? But she had seen it burn down. Then she thought of the castle’s dungeon with many rooms back in England and realized where they came from. Flashes of her own time in the English forest passed before Mila’s eyes. She remembered her training and glared at the elite guards she knew from her time as Masae’s daughter. Mila peered beyond the trees, there should be more than five creatures, where were the others hiding? Masae wouldn’t come all this way with just a few elite mercenaries and hybrids. She looked at the three soldiers standing by the boss, they were her combat partners. A Navy Seal, a French National Gendarmerie eject, and a Russian Alpha Group defector. The men shrugged, recognizing her accusatory gaze; they were now mercenaries, living for excitement and pay day.
Mila reassessed her situation. Fighting them wasn’t easy—besides their special training they each had dangerous supernatural abilities: speed, strength and electricity. She was grateful they’d shown these abilities at the lab when training her. She had to be faster, anticipating their moves if engaged, but the best would be to avoid the fight all together. Between the three guards and the hybrid creatures, they would rip her apart in a matter of seconds. Intelligence and caution would be her most significant weapons. She would use the truth in tiny sums to buy herself time.
“Whoever told you that I recovered my memory completely, misinformed you. It’s a process. I have the parts, but I haven’t had time to piece the puzzle together yet. If I have a relationship with the people who lived here, I still don’t fully understand it. Maybe your snitch knows more than I do. Why didn’t you bring him along? Maybe he could help me remember faster.”
“Mila, you have one hour to find a way to get through that door or walls and give me what’s inside!” Masae barked, running her palms through the perfectly interlocked panels forming the gigantic tree. She touched the middle section where there should be a handle, but there was none. There was a square with, what seemed to her, lines forming rectangles, triangles and other strange shapes.
“One hour is not enough time to decipher thousands of years!” protested Mila, pretending to consider Masae’s order seriously.
“Then the second twin will have to die and I’ll do it slowly this time. How sad isn’t it? Everyone you meet dies…” Masae shook her head in pretend regret.
“If you are talking about my loved ones, they knew how to love and how to live, so they also knew how to die. Besides, they aren’t really gone. They live in me and in the power of their example they left behind,” Mila stood her ground, harnessing the power of the truth in her words.
“An intellectual, idealistic through and through, like your fathers, David and Kei. Hurry up! And Mila—” Masae turned her back to Mila and walked to the virtual screens her men had finished assembling in the professors tent. They had begun monitoring the area. Drones were flying above, recording and reporting any suspicious movement. “I know Alexander failed to apply the neogenesis on you. You are one strong human—yet, just a human.”
The two enhanced men flanked Mila as she stepped forward and the three elite guards followed. They pushed her to the front of the towering construction. The rest was still buried beneath overgrown vegetation.
“Well, I don’t have a magical key to open the door. So what do you expect me to do?” Mila walked around the exposed side of the building, congratulating the professors in her heart. They had been partially right. Most of the part exposed was a newer expansion to the ancient construction. It was her great-grandmother’s house. She remembered that it had two levels. That’s why, without a clear view, it looked like a gigantic structure competing in height with the trees. When Tzofia lived there, there were natural bridges connecting the second level with the trees, so she could reach the canopies to collect fruits, leaves, flowers for the medicinal blends. But the bridges had long since disappeared. Yet the climb wouldn’t be hard for the agile and strong. “I guess I’ll have to climb the walls. Perhaps there is an entrance through the top,” Mila mumbled as she dashed up racing the spider monkeys that had gathered around. The two hybrids climbed after her. Mila controlled her breathing and hurried, she had to keep the lead ahead of the killer creatures. They had heavy, awkward muscles and couldn’t climb as fast, but they had the strength to send her flying—and landing was the dangerous part. Before you knew it, you could smash your head on a rock or stab your heart by falling on a branch in the shape of a stake.
She kept on moving and got to the roof with precious seconds in the lead. She stood on less than half a yard wide path, it was enough keep her balance. She knew she wouldn’t get another chance. With shaky, tired fingers, she took from the inside of her belt the tiny satellite cell phone Kei had given her before leaving Israel. Beware! Traitor inside Cherut. Drones above. Men dispersed. Be careful and hurry up! She clicked ‘send’ right as a blow on her back made her stumble forward and lose her balance. The phone flew off her hand. She saw it disappear in the green vastness and hoped the tracker was still on to lead Kei and Cherut to her exact location in case the Sachapuyo were on their own.
“What do you think you are doing?” Mila screamed, turning around to face her attacker. His bulk took much of the limited space. He stood too close to her. A fist on her chest made her stumble backwards and almost slipped off. She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled herself back up. Mila wrestled with the man, their arms locked on each other’s shoulders.
“Let go of me! You don’t have the order to kill me!” Mila hissed, seizing the knife fastened to his waists. She confused the creature, shifting high and low on the edge of the wall with a controlled Capoeira fighting sequence made for the jungle. She struck him with a powerful kick across the face, then another to the chest. The man stumbled surprised, but regained his footing but couldn’t know whether to follow her moving hands or legs. She kept balancing on her feet, high and low, her arms alternating front and back, protecting her face while holding on her right hand the knife she took in a chambered position ready to slash.
The hybrid was Masae’s brute force. He wasn’t trained in combat and was far beyond rescuing—there wasn’t any reversing of the neogenesis treatment once made. The dark eyes looking back at her weren’t from this world anymore. He tried to push her off the edge of the wall, but couldn’t hit his moving target. The other hybrid stepped in to aid and bring her down.
“Three are too many.” Mila warned, glancing at the monkeys traversing the branches. She could do the same to buy time, but the nearest tree was 3 to 4 yards from her. The hybrid was about to hit again, she knew he would continue until he pushed her off. She had only the length of a step behind her, one more push and off she would fall. In a controlled swirl and swing of her hands, she slashed the hybrid in the only exposed and weak body part, his throat. She didn’t have time to think, she propelled herself to the tree before the other was able to catch her. She stabbed the knife into the trunk to impede her fall and gain strength. Then she climbed as high as she could to wait for a plan and delay Masae’s operation.
Cloud forest archaeological working site – 4:45 PM
“Climb down Mila or we’ll make firewood from this tree. I know how much you care about it,” shouted Masae from below. She pointed at Mila’s face with a flashlight as it was getting darker in the forest. She had to push her buttons, she had to make her care: blood would have to be spilled.
“Muzzle your men, and I will,” replied Mila, looking at the gushing slash on her arm she got by a pointy leafless branch at the time of her jump. The cut was deeper than she initially felt it to be. She tore her blouse and wrapped it tight around her arm. As she did this, she considered who to trust when the team arrived. Kei and the ancient Cloud Warriors were cleared by her instinct and experience. Fighting in Hebron alongside with the four Warriors had proven their loyalty and trustworthiness. The mole had to be in Cherut.
“Is anyone able to see anything?” Eli spoke through the communication device perched in his ear. The mosquitos buzzing around his head made it also hard to hear anything. He advanced to another tree, squinting and adjusting his binoculars. “I can see nothing but gigantic trees. I’m to get closer.”
“Adriel, do you have a better view of the camp?” Leo said from his position.
“I just got sight of Mila. Apparently, Mila has fallen from grace. She is stuck in a tree guarded by some men snarling at her like rabid dogs,” reported Adriel, using his special ability to blend with nature. His transparent waterproof and cooling gear allowed him to get closer to the camp than the others.
“We must get her out of there immediately!” urged Eli, ready to come out of hiding like a lone cowboy. Leo, who was standing close, prepared to tackle him if he was foolish enough to march into the camp with nothing else than his chivalry and feelings.
“We will, Eli. But this isn’t the time to be impulsive. She knows how to take care of herself. But I agree, we must make the move now,” Svend rebuked from the camouflaging ferns taller than him, where he was. As he was about to give the order to march in, an incoming message made the phone he held vibrate.
“You’re right. She can defend herself, but it doesn’t mean she wouldn’t welcome some help, just about now!” replied Eli, tightening his lips.
“Just what we were needing.” Svend muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” asked Hadi in a murmur from a top branch of a tree.
“Just give me a moment,” Svend replied as his quick fingers sent a group message to a selected few: This is a closed group: Kei, Eli, the four Sachapuyo. Mila alerted Kei of a traitor in our group.
It can’t be! Who would do such a thing? Eli texted back, as his heart and blood rose, getting hotter by the second.
This is a game changer, replied Svend, meditating on each name with suspicion.
Bastian is solid, he would never sell us for anything! established Eli, remembering their missions together. He had covered his back time and time again.
I agree, answered Svend. I vouch for Eldad. He is a soldier, devoted to his country and the international cause.
It can’t be Adriel or Eiji, Eli texted back, thinking of events in the field together that proved their innocence.
As if Adriel knew of the team’s predicament, he ventured even closer to Masae’s camp. “I’ll circle the area as planned,” he alerted through the main communication device.
“Be careful, Adriel! I wouldn’t be surprised if there are drones the size of mosquitos,” said Leo, refusing to believe Adriel could be the mole. His warrior instinct made him cautious but also a good judge of character. Adriel, in his opinion, was solid.
What are we going to do with Eldad and Ifat? asked Gadiel through the text group.
By now the traitor must have already alerted Masae of our arrival. Everyone out of this group will assume the plan set beforehand is still in place, answered Svend. Time is ticking away. We can’t deal with the mole right now.
How then shall we proceed? Eli requested orders to expedite the action. He hated leaving Mila to think she was alone.
We should presume that Masae knows everything up to this moment. We must divide and act out of conscience, answered Svend, sending a reply to Kei, who in turn answered they were at the other side of the camp. In total Cherut and the Sachapuyo were surrounding the camp.
Which means that we have autonomy to do what has to be done, Leo asserted referring to the four of them, flames of war danced in his eyes as it used to thousands of years ago. The traitor will betray himself in the fight. They always do!
We’ll confuse the defector. It’ll give us some ground. Now Warriors Sachapuyo lead this fight. We’ll follow. Svend answered, putting his night goggles on.
It has always been our fight! We’ll finish it in the name of Mikael and the Highest! Gadiel answered, marching to the camp.