Lia's files 1_Presumed extinct Read online

  He, on the other hand, scoffed at our pile of cream, body lotion, shampoos and so on, “Do you plan on running a store down there, or what? Who on earths will use all these things!”

  But we told him to shut up and help with the storing of the food in the cooking area.

  Uncle Phil and Mum also called us on a daily basis, they were all okay. Uncle Phil and Aunt Kamene had finished their preparations, too, and were leaving for Vancouver at the end of this week. Uncle Phil had managed to persuade Mum and Nate that they should meet there just so. Not because of what Dad had said, but because it would be nice to meet up. Probably Mum and Nate would fly there with Nate’s parents. His dad was already doing much better and the doctors had suggested a change of air, some fresh, clean ocean air if possible. And Uncle Phil had cleverly suggested Vancouver, his boat and an extensive boat trip along the coast, whale watching inclusive. This had appealed to everyone and so Mum and Nate now planned to accompany Nate’s parents to Vancouver, see Uncle Phil and Aunt Kamene and then head back home to Switzerland from there. I congratulated Uncle Phil on his clever move, but mostly I was just very relieved that Mum, Nate and the twins would soon be with him, safe and sound, whatever would happen.

  Dad only called us on Thursday. To scare us some more.

  He claimed that he, or Josh, or Papadopoulos had now solid proof that the Nemesis 4.2 collective planned to act soon, within the next ten days. Thankfully, by then we were almost ready ourselves, otherwise this news would have sent us panicking. Neither on the news, nor in the media or on the internet, at least there where we looked, did we see anything suspicious, anything that would have confirmed Dad’s warnings.

  By Sunday afternoon we had definitely everything in place and ready.

  The sub-basement was no longer empty, but every room now contained material or food, our things, books, beds, furniture, and so on. It no longer looked like a war-time bomb shelter, but more like a cosy apartment.

  And we decided to spend the night down there just for fun. We set up our beds in the big room with the light green walls. There were three double beds in that room plus another one in the main room, and we’d fitted them all with mattresses, blankets, pillows and everything. I wasn’t sure that for us all to sleep in the green room would be the final arrangement. After all, Nin and Yuki would need some space for themselves. But for now, everyone was happy to set up camp, so to speak, in the large room.

  Alice insisted that we share a bed which was fine by me. As soon as we’d have to live down here permanently the fun factor would evaporate quickly. She’d be scared and would need all the support and closeness we could give. And it was comforting to have her near, another human body, warmth. It made me feel less wound-up and gave me strength at the same time. To have her little body near me, to hear her breathe in her sleep, to feel her snuggle up to me every now and then, made me feel strong and determined: I would get her through this, whatever it was. I would make her safe and find a way to reunite with Mum, Nate, the twins. Because of her, I could sort of look around my own fear and uncertainty and focus on the task ahead. Having Alice near me helped me concentrate on getting things done. I was sure that without her and the need to protect her, we would never have been able to get all done within a mere week.

  For tomorrow we’d planned to fill every container in the house with water and store it in the sub-basement. But for today we were done, we’d eaten in the kitchen and now we were heading down to the sub-basement for the night. Nin had suggested that we should play this for real and lock the door behind us. Not a bad idea. It would test the strength of our nerves nicely.

  To lock the door turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Nin fumbled around with the complicated mechanism for a while before he managed to lock that door. We looked at each other for a moment, I was about to say something, but he shrugged his shoulders and went over to the sofa in the central room. Yuki and Alice were there, sorting through some games and films, trying to decide what they wanted to do. Nin sat down next to Yuki, put his arms around her and pulled her tight.

  “What’s the matter with you, Nin?” She immediately wanted to know. She wriggled around in his arms so that she could face him, wound her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Don’t look so worried. We’ll be alright here, you’ll see. We’ll all just be alright.”

  “That’s not what worries me”, he answered her, caressing her hair. “I just had to think about your family, your parents; about how selfish it is of me to keep you here. We should have told them, alerted them to the danger, let them decide what is best. I should have brought you to them while we still could. What if you’ll never see them again? How could you ever forgive me?”

  We all looked alarmed at this outpouring of self-loathing. Alice scared, I sceptical, and Yuki, well, quite frankly outraged.

  She let go of him, pulled away from him. He reluctantly let her go. And then she punched his shoulders hard.

  “What’s wrong with you? We talked about this and we agreed that this was the course of action to take. My parents would never believe us anyway. I know my Dad! So, stop this moping! This instant!”

  She shook his shoulders, as if to shake some sense into him.

  “Even if I could have gone to my parents, I would never have done so. I want to stay with you; I belong here, where you are. You had better accept that, you hear me!”

  She was almost shouting now and Nin looked uncomfortable to say the least.

  “Do you regret that I am here?” Yuki was attacking now.

  “Of course not, how could you think that” Nin looked appalled and uncertain. “I love you, you know that. It’s just … I am scared … uncertain. It’s all been a bit too much this week. We were so busy with our preparations that we kind of forgot the world outside … and I am not sure whether this is right or not. I feel as if at a crossroad, not knowing which way to go, afraid that whatever turn I’ll take will prove to be wrong.” He hung his head.

  Yuki quickly glanced at Alice. Then, smiling almost angelically, she bent toward Nin, lifting his chin with her right hand and kissed him straight on his lips. Alice giggled.

  “Now you listen to me, Ninian! There is absolutely nothing that I regret. We are in this together – you and I. And, I am exactly where I want to be, and happy at that. So, get a grip on yourself. And let’s all be merry, shall we?”

  She kissed him again.

  He just pulled her very close and closed his eyes.

  I wished Alice and I could disappear to give them some space but it would be awkward now so I remained where I was, feeling embarrassed, silly and, yes I had to admit to myself, a bit jealous.

  Josh’s face flashed through my thoughts and I scolded myself for it. What was the use of this? This crush on someone who probably didn’t care about me any more than he did for any ordinary person he knew. But I couldn’t help myself. He had kept appearing in my thoughts all the time these days. Probably because of all these daily telephone calls with him. Even if he talked most of the time with Nin and I didn’t like the tone of his voice above half, I still kept thinking of him more than I should.

  I decided that I would talk with Aunt Kamene about him tomorrow. I would call her and ask her about who he was, and what she knew about him. I needed to know. Was he the gorgeous and lovable person I had met in summer or the strange, conceited guy with whom we had talked every day this week? I needed to know; to prepare myself for – for what exactly? How would it be, should he come over here to us? How would it be to spent days, even months on end with him? If we really would have to travel all by ourselves to Kenya, how would we do it? Live together, travel together, and maybe fight for our lives together?

  “You know that I love you more than I can ever express”, Nin’s urgent voice brought me back to reality.

  “I tried today whether I could book flights for us… wait, hear me out before you get angry”, he waved down Yuki’s hand; judging from her face that she was about to explode with indignation.
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br />   “Wait, I didn’t mean for you to go there alone, but I thought maybe you and I could travel to Japan and then on to Kenya; and Lia and Alice could fly directly to Kenya. This would all be so much easier, than this waiting here for something that might happen or not at all.”

  He framed her face with his hands, gently, lovingly.

  “But it isn’t possible, not anymore, you know. And that’s why I feel so guilty now. If we had acted last Sunday or maybe even Saturday, we might have made it. Now, we are all stuck here, for whatever will come.”

  His voice trailed off as his hands sunk down on his lap.

  But Yuki was having none of this. “You were trying to book a flight for me, for the two of us to Japan, without telling me anything! I am very glad it didn’t work because I would never have gone! How can you do such a thing without talking it over with me? Or Lia and Alice! I know that you love me, but this wasn’t fair!”

  He tried to embrace her now, probably to cool her anger, but she shoved his hands away.

  “Really, how could you! I am not a weak doll that you have to bring to my parents at the first sign of possible trouble. And what would happen with Lia and Alice, did you think about this! No, I don’t want to be kissed right now! I am still too upset!”

  She wriggled away from him and stalked over to Alice and me, sat down next to Alice and lifted her upon her lap.

  She embraced and kissed Alice who was confused by all this. Somehow frightened by the angry talk between Nin and Yuki, and yet somehow pleased with the attention she got from Yuki.

  Nin remained seated in on his side of the u-shaped sofa but looked over to me, as if for help.

  I was sure that Yuki wasn’t really upset she was more confused than anything. But better not to mention it, better to keep it technical.

  “You tried to book flights? Why didn’t it work? What happened?” I asked.

  Nin shot me a thankful glance and explained.

  “This afternoon, after I had finished installing, checking and rechecking the solar panels. I tried a lot of different airlines and it was funny, all of them had the same problem. You could look up the flights, the details and even start the booking process, but then there always appeared a message saying that the booking process was unfortunately temporarily blocked and would you please try again later. It was eerie, every site I tried the same picture. It scared me like hell! What Dad said is coming true.”

  Nin looked over to Yuki, pleadingly. “I am sorry, I should have told you, Yuki. But I just wanted to see. I hadn’t thought this thing through. I didn’t really plan for us to split up or to leave Lia and Alice on their own. I just wanted to see whether it would be possible to book a flight. And, when airline after airline showed the same pattern, I got scared. It felt like being cornered.”

  We all fell silent.

  Was he right? Could this be the beginning? So suddenly? It was stunning. And scaring! Really scaring! Yes, we’d been waiting for it, but so soon? And, we hadn’t talked with Uncle Phil and Mum today. Suddenly I felt like rushing upstairs and calling them. Had the phone lines gone dead, too? I felt an urgent need to make sure.

  “Does this mean that we have to stay down here now? Has it started? Did this bad people begin their war or what it is that they will do?” Alice’s voice sounded panicky and Yuki held her tight, murmuring reassuring words into her hair.

  “I honestly don’t know, Alice. We’ll have to see. It is unsettling news, indeed; but we’ll have to see how things develop.”

  I convinced no-one with these words.

  Nin reached for the TV remote control.

  “Let’s watch the news and see what they have to say.”

  And sure enough! Several news channels we check all announced a global kind of computer virus that had attacked airports, airlines, travel agencies and every internet site where one could book flights! Booking flights had become impossible! Which meant that international travel was down. Just as Dad had said!! And the experts apparently were at a loss as to what might have caused this mayhem! Just as Dad, Uncle Phil and Josh had said!

  I suddenly felt more than scared. My head spun and I wanted to have this undone, desperately! It was not to happen.

  ‘Please,’ I whispered to myself as I closed my eyes, ‘Please, let this not be true. I am not ready; I don’t know what to do! Let this not be happening! I don’t know how to deal with this. How to care for the others. What to do next.’

  I felt like choking.

  Opening my eyes I could see that everyone else looked just as scared. Alice and Yuki were looking toward me, as if for comfort, and this made me pull myself together. I could not afford to be weak now; I must show some kind of strength; after all, I was the eldest here, wasn’t I?

  “Wow, I can hardly believe this, can you?” I exclaimed, my voice sounding as false to myself as it probably did to the others.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I mean, just as Dad said! It’s happening! But let’s not panic now. Let’s remain cool and focused.”

  Great! Here I was, trying to be the great leader, or what!

  Alice was having none of this. She was scared and she needed more than these silly words.

  “Lia, what are we to do now? I want Mum, I want Nate!” She exclaimed and began to sob hard.

  I reached for her, as did Nin. In the end, we all embraced her and by doing so, embraced each other. That was comforting. We just held each other for a while, saying nothing, just being there for one another.

  And slowly, Alice calmed down. She didn’t exactly look her normal self, but a lot better.

  “You will not leave me alone, will you? Not ever?” She wanted to know, from no one in particular and therefore from all of us. And we all nodded to her and patted her back.

  “Never!”

  We promised her as well as each other.

  We sat together in a comforting huddle for quite some time. No one saying a word, every one lost in their own thoughts, but all together.

  “Shall we try to call Uncle Phil and Mum?” I asked after a while. “I think it would do us all some good.”

  “The phone is upstairs, and we have locked the door behind us. I frankly don’t feel like unlocking it now, just to go and make a phone call.” Nin answered.

  “How about this satellite phone you have been working on all week?” I prodded.

  “Yeah, let’s try this satellite phone of yours!” Yuki agreed. “Or is it still not working?”

  “Of course it does!” Came the immediate and somewhat offended response.

  Nin got up and bowed to us, “We’ll have to go to the fitness room then. … Would you please follow me, my ladies?”

  We all had to giggle, despite the tense atmosphere or, maybe, because of it.

  In the fitness room, Nin busied himself with the phone, looked up and asked to no one specifically, “Who first, Mum or Uncle Phil?”

  “I vote for calling Uncle Phil first,” I said, and Yuki and Alice nodded their agreement.

  “Okay, here we go.” Ninian dialled the number and Uncle Phil answered the phone almost immediately.

  “Children! Finally! Here you are! I am so relieved! I have been trying to reach you several times over the land line. Where have you been?”

  He sounded anxious and continued without awaiting our answer, “Have you heard it? About this virus blocking the booking systems for flights? It’s starting! We were right! Hell and damnation! I wish it were otherwise! We were right!”

  “Lia, Ninian, Alice and Yuki, are you alright?” Aunt Kamene chipped in.

  “We are alright. Shocked, but alright,” I reassured them. “We are downstairs in the sub-basement. Just for a trial. We decided to spend the night down here and see what it’ll be like. You know, sort of a rehearsal. Now that we heard the news and what is happening out there, it feels eerily like reality. Anyway, that’s why we didn’t’ hear the telephone upstairs.”

  “Does that mean that you are ready, then? Did you prepare everything
?” Uncle Phil wanted to know, still sounding very anxious.

  “Do you have everything in place? Food, water, enough cloths and things for entertainment, medicine, fuel, and so on? And all the equipment you’ll need afterwards? Nin, did you find the night vision goggles and the infrared camera Ethan had? Did you get enough medical supplies?”

  “Yes, yes,” Ninian assured him. “We think that we have everything ready and in place; there are just a few little things to do tomorrow and two, three things to buy then we are ready.”

  “Do you think it is these Nemesis people who are blocking the booking systems?” Yuki inquired. She

  “No doubt about that. None whatsoever! And, Ethan and his assistant actually found proof of a link between that group and this virus. They transferred their findings to the Federal agents today. This will speed things up. I mean, probably this move by Ethan will make the Nemesis lot act quicker than they may have planned.” Uncle Phil sounded really upset.

  “Listen children, get what you have to get tomorrow, but then stay at home, indoors and go out as little as possible. I am certain that this computer virus thing is a) a diversion and b) some kind of global signal to their members. It’s some kind of trigger, like the beginning of a countdown. And I am dead certain that we are just days away from their main attack. That’s why I don’t want you to wander about too far from home. Understood? Stay together, stay alert and be prepared to bunker down soon and for real!” he urged.

  “I will try to stay in contact with you as long as is possible. But we have to envisage that we might not be able to get in contact for a while. Ah, I wish we could be there with you! I wish you were not alone over there! It feels awful to have you four all by yourselves and an ocean between us!” he exclaimed, and I could just picture his face. He was always so concerned about others, which made him such a loveable and trustworthy person in the first place.