Nasira reached for her knife. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find her breath. She didn’t know her legs had given way until her face hit the snow. She couldn’t feel the cold anymore.
Darkness.
Then snow again. She was being rolled over. The blizzard was a soft pattern of white and gray. She breathed. Something plastic fogged in front of her. She noticed a small oxygen tank next to her.
White became gray, black.
Light danced across the wooden beams in the ceiling. Nasira sat upright and noticed a fireplace burning before her. She felt strange. It took a moment for the details of her surroundings to soak in. She tried to gather the threads of what had happened up to this point but her head ached and the threads fell loose.
‘How are you feeling?’
Nasira looked over at a woman standing in the doorway. She was twice Nasira’s age, with dark chocolate hair and concerned lines drawn around glacial blue eyes.
‘Been better,’ Nasira said.
Nasira’s voice warmed in her chest as she checked her clothes. She had everything on her except her knife and ruck. The woman noticed her concern and pointed to a corner of the room. Her things were there, almost hidden behind other satchels and rucks.
‘Your knife and other belongings are here,’ she said. ‘You are very lucky.’
‘What the hell happened?’ Nasira said.
‘Hypoxia,’ the woman said. ‘Oxygen deprivation.’
She stepped into the room and nudged another ruck with her mountain boots. ‘You’re lucky because I always carry an oxygen tank.’ Her blue eyes focused on Nasira. ‘You wouldn’t have lasted for long.’
Nasira rubbed her eyes. ‘I was feeling fine.’
‘It comes on quick; there’s no warning.’
‘Thanks,’ Nasira said. ‘I owe you one. Uh, you have a name?’
‘Lucia.’
Nasira blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You asked for my name,’ she said. ‘It’s Lucia.’
Nasira nodded slowly. ‘Gotcha.’
Lucia approached Nasira and the bed she had been lying on. Nasira realized she was waiting for her name.
‘I’m Nasira,’ she said.
‘Now tell me, Nasira, why have you come here?’
Nasira stood slowly and found her balance. ‘Where is here?’
‘Our village.’
Nasira moved for her ruck, her socks almost slipping on the polished concrete floor. She found her GPS and checked the coordinates. The woman who called herself Lucia watched with growing curiosity.
Nasira confirmed the coordinates of her location. She lowered the GPS and met Lucia’s gaze.
‘I’m here,’ Nasira said.
‘We’ve established that,’ Lucia said. ‘But what do you seek?’
Nasira felt overwhelmed. Just the thought of why she had come, weighed on her.
‘I came … I came to speak with the relatives of a young woman,’ Nasira said. ‘Another Lucia. Lucia Carpio.’
Something twitched behind the woman’s eyes. ‘This Lucia, what are you to tell her relatives?’
Nasira swallowed. ‘Lucia passed away. Last year. She was a friend of mine.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘How did it happen?’
‘She was killed in Belize,’ Nasira said. ‘It was a quick death, painless.’
‘And who was responsible?’
‘The Fifth Column,’ Nasira said. She was about to continue with the story but had to remind herself this woman had no clue who the Fifth Column were. ‘They’re an intelligence agency, sort of. And a shadow government, sort of.’
‘Are they American, like you?’
‘No, and no,’ Nasira said. ‘I’m not American, it’s just my accent. I was born in the UK. I’m African-Caribbean.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I used to work with Lucia. Do you know her relatives? I’ve been trying to find them.’
The fire warmed Lucia’s dusty skin, flickered in her eyes.
‘I am her aunt,’ Lucia said. ‘She was named after me.’
Nasira swallowed. She wasn’t good at this kind of thing. ‘I’m sorry.’
Lucia sat on the end of the bed. ‘What sort of work?’
Nasira walked to the fire. Embers crackled over chopped logs. ‘This man called Denton,’ she said. ‘He enlisted hundreds of kids into this project. Their parents thought they were enrolled in some cool scholarship.’
Lucia’s mouth parted. ‘You were one of them.’
Nasira let the question sink in. She finally nodded.
‘My niece—’
‘All of us,’ Nasira said. ‘Brainwashed.’
‘That is quite a story.’
‘It’s not an easy one to tell,’ Nasira said.
‘It’s not an easy one to hear,’ Lucia said.
There was silence for a moment. Then Lucia went on: ‘And you came all this way to tell us what we, in all honesty, already suspected. That she was dead.’
‘I wanted to tell you how,’ Nasira said. ‘Sophia warned me off, said you shouldn’t know all this—’
‘Sophia is your friend?’
‘Yes,’ Nasira said. ‘We had an argument before I left. I wanted her to come but she didn’t — she thought this would make it worse.’
‘Do you think it made it worse?’
Nasira shook her head. ‘Hell no. That’s why I’m here, ain’t I?’ She paused. ‘Has it … made it worse?’
Lucia seemed to stare through her. She took a long time to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She used to roll through the snow, laughing.’
Nasira watched tears wet Lucia’s face. She was smiling.
‘It was only yesterday. But it was so long ago. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she was a real little girl and that she lived here. I miss her. Was she happy?’
The question caught Nasira off guard.
‘When … when we were deprogrammed, we were free,’ Nasira said. ‘We were happy then.’
‘This must be hard for you,’ Lucia said.
‘Hard for Sophia,’ Nasira said. ‘We all looked up to her.’ She looked down at the GPS unit in her hand. ‘I should probably be going.’
That seemed to surprise Lucia. ‘Where?’
‘Back to my friends, to Sophia,’ Nasira said. She started for her ruck and paused. ‘Thank you for saving me.’
She shoved her shoes on, tied the laces and plucked the jacket from her ruck.
‘There is a snowstorm outside and it’s past sundown,’ Lucia said. ‘Very bad time to leave.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Nasira said, tightening the ruck over her shoulders.
She zipped her jacket and found her own way to the front door of the cabin. She took a deep breath and opened the door, stepped through into a blast of snow and wind. She knew it would be harsh, but she braved it and punched through, pulling the hood over her head.
Something burned through the sky. For a moment the entire village was illuminated. At first she thought it was a flare, but then she realized it was something much larger.
The ball of fire plunged through the sky. It seemed to shimmer through the blizzard, passing right over her head. A fiery meteor. She watched it burn silently through the storm and disappear from view. The night was dark again.
Something crackled Nasira’s ears. She thought it might’ve been the meteor’s impact, but it seemed to come from around her, not a great distance. It overwhelmed her. Her balance was gone. She couldn’t stay upright. She dropped to her knees, hands over her ears. Everything was spinning. Ringing. Buzzing. She screamed into the night. It was soundless in the blizzard.