They were leaving the Fujiyama arboreal city at great speed, outpacing his fellow humans who were still running from the scene of carnage. He was aware of the cessation of pain in his flank, and a consequent dulling of his senses. Seconds later he passed out.
He came to his senses an unknown time later, and he was still running, or rather the self-aware entity was running, tearing like an express train through hilly terrain. Trees flashed by, then buildings; the sense of speed, of forward motion, was incredible, and yet Allen felt nothing, no rush of air, no jarring impact with the ground. He was anaesthetised to all sensation and travelling like the wind.
He passed out again, and when he came to he saw that he was no longer in the countryside. He had no notion of how long he had been travelling, or how far he had covered. City blocks flashed by in a blur, and citizens around him appeared to be frozen, motionless.
Ahead, he saw a familiar sight, and could not bring himself to believe what it meant.
He was in Tokyo — but how could that be?
Directly before him was the rearing sable façade of the Tokyo obelisk.
They were heading towards it, accelerating, and Allen willed the golden figure to slow down before they impacted.
But the golden figure did not slow down — if anything it gained speed. The looming face of the obelisk rushed forwards to meet them.
Allen blacked out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANA FINISHED HER shift in the administration dome early and, on her way back to her rooms, dropped in to see how Prakesh was getting on in the labs.
Prakesh was supervising his team of biologists who were researching the genetics of a form of wheat seed donated by the Serene. The idea was that the extraterrestrial wheat might, when crossed with a Terran variety, produce a hybrid with a higher yield than anything grown on Earth to date.
She passed through the airlock and peered through the window at the clean area. Half a dozen white-suited scientists worked at long benches, while to the right Prakesh was bent over a softscreen.
He saw her and waved, then crossed to the window and switched on the intercom.
“Any progress?” she asked.
He lowered his face-mask and smiled. “It’s slow. We’re only just putting the markers down. It might be another day or two yet before we have results.”
She nodded. “Fine. Keep me posted, would you?”
She made to leave.
Prakesh said, “Ana, would you be free later? Since getting back from Japan, you’ve been…” He hesitated. “I was wondering if everything’s okay?” He looked, in his concern, like the young boy she’d known all those years ago.
She smiled. “I’m fine. Just very, very tired. I’m having an early night. And then… Look, I’ll be away for a few days, taking a break. But I promise we’ll have time to catch up when I get back, ah-cha?”
He nodded, but looked unconvinced. “Have a pleasant break, Ana.”
“I’ll be in touch.” She switched off the intercom and stepped from the dome.
The sun was going down slowly, but in the east, dropping like an accelerated sun, was the golden glow of the evening energy beam falling towards the distribution station a hundred kilometres north of Madras.
The sight of it never failed to fill Ana with reassurance.
She made her way to the residential block where she had a comfortable second floor apartment overlooking the fields which stretched, without interruption, to the horizon.
She sat on her bed, activated her softscreen, and summoned the library of images.
She scrolled through various media shots of her brother, Lal Devi as he was known now, which she had downloaded and stored over the course of the past few days since arriving back from Japan.
What had happened at Fujiyama had changed things.
She unbuttoned the front of her blouse and stared down at the smooth coffee-coloured skin of her chest. She touched the place where the laser had impacted and tried to recall the intense, shocking pain. She relived the mental anguish of knowing that she was about to die, and recalled her exact thoughts: Twenty-six years, and this is how it ends…
And then the breathtaking impact of something vital and strong slamming into her body and taking her over, raising her to her feet and carrying her at speed from the carnage…
And then she had awoken to find herself on the train heading south to the Andhra Pradesh wilderness city.
Not long after arriving home her thoughts had turned to her brother, and what she had told Kapil about not wanting to find him.
Well, the events at Fujiyama had changed her mind on that score.
She had been so close to death — had perhaps even died for a second — and the thought that she was mortal had hit her, later, along with the thought that had she died at Fujiyama then she would have left so much undone.
Earlier in Kolkata, before taking the Serene jet to Japan, she had faced her fears and approached both Station Master Jangar and Sanjeev Varnaputtram. She had confronted both men and in doing so had realised that the reality had not been as terrible as she had expected it to be.
She had learned a lesson from that and, with the knowledge that she was mortal and must do now what she would not always be around to do, had resolved to track down her brother and, eventually, confront him too.
In her free time over the past few days she had googled the company he worked for and the address of their head office in Manhattan. Yesterday she had booked a berth aboard the sub-orbital leaving Delhi for New York and arranged to meet Kapil on the evening of her arrival.
She slept badly that night, her dreams full of rampaging blue figures lasering down innocent humans; she relived her own death, and woke suddenly in the early hours drenched in sweat.
She rose, showered, then packed her holdall and took an electric cab to the train station.
The journey north to Delhi, through the flatlands of the Deccan changed now out of all recognition from the parched farmland of just ten years ago, gave her time to look ahead to her meeting with Bilal. He would be shocked, of course, when she turned up — a ghost from a past he thought he had left behind. But she would not accuse him, would not ask why he did not contact her — or at least say goodbye. To accuse him would be to risk alienating and angering him, and she feared that, after having waited for so long to be reunited, he would walk out on her and refuse to see her again.
They would talk, catch up on the lost years. She would tell him about growing up without him — though without censure — and recount what had happened to her since the coming of the Serene. Only if he was willing to talk about his past would she probe and ask what had happened to make him leave her without saying goodbye.
As field after field of alternating rice and corn sped past, she stared through the window and smiled to herself.
She caught the midnight sub-orbital shuttle from New Delhi airport and slept peacefully, untroubled by nightmares. She awoke to dazzling daylight outside the circular window, with a startling view of the New York coastline and the glittering length of Manhattan far below. Minutes later they were decelerating towards the airport on Staten Island, and thirty minutes later she passed through customs and was riding the monotrain across the bay to Manhattan.
Kapil met her at TriBeCa station and whisked her back to his apartment in Little Italy, where she showered, changed, and enjoyed a long, leisurely meal of strong coffee and croissants.
At one point Kapil asked, “But what made you change your mind?”