Moje články

Two days after the message, Aminah hatched a plan.
“You're kidding! Sending me to Petra on some fool's errand, while mister No One here...” Thorne indicated newly arrived Racoon, “...tries to locate my father 'somehow'. And you'll do – what, exactly? - meanwhile?”
“That's need to know, mister Nobody,” Racoon's eyes glinted. “You don't.”
“I'm sick of 'alphabet soup types' pulling this shit every time. Keeping people in the dark only ever comes back to bite you.”
“Anything – anyone – can turn and bite you in the ass,” Aminah shrugged.
“You would know about that… but don't worry, Minnie. I keep my word.”

"Magic... it's true," Thorne breathed when the door of one of the buildings closed behind them.
"Surprised?" Aminah asked coldly. "Didn't your father have magic?"
"No."
"We don't take Americans without magic."
"He... had a thing. Family heirloom. Artifact..."
"...that we might be interested in. But why would he still be alive?"
"Maybe he isn't. Either way uncertainty is high price to pay."
"Your life is higher."
"Everybody dies. We don't leave our people to rot in enemy camps."
They looked at each other.
"Help me."
She couldn't. She was on thin ice already. Unless...
"There will be a price."

They looked at each other across barrels of their guns.
"Now what?" she asked.
Outside the guards still argued.
"We both drop them. And talk," he offered.
"You start."
He looked into her cold eyes and then shrugged.
"I am looking for my father."
"He's not here."
"He must be somewhere. Couldn't just... vanish into thin air."
"It happens, in this land. Who do you think will find you, if I shoot you?"
She had a point.
"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already. Or turned me over to your buddies."
He had one too.

We regret to inform you, your son was killed in the line of duty.
If you can call an unsanctioned op in neutral territory that.
He has served well and made his country proud.
He was a decent officer, but he went off his rocker, chasing ghosts.
He will forever be remembered by those who had the honor of serving with him.
Just like his father no one in the military looked for.
He will posthumously receive medal of valor.
He didn't deserve it while alive.

"They will never know the whole story. Is that what you want?" she asked.

She went to the Professor ostensibly to discuss her next trip to Petra.
"I am bringing Eyal in," he responded, surprisingly. "I don't want you distracted from the Synergy project - with him here, you don't have to travel there."
She cursed.
The three father figures in her life didn't have much in common, but the one trait she shared with all of them was stubbornness.
She suspected that what ultimately drove her biological dad to disown her, was cunning - something the two others had in plenty, but he lacked.
She's going to need both to get out of this pickle.

Considering he barely saw anything through the slit in the veil, things were going well.
Thorne kept distance, following the taillights.
She'll lead him where he needs to go, willingly or not.
The taillights suddenly disappeared. He slowed down to creeping pace.
He got just close enough to make out the silhouette of the jeep in front of him when its headlights flashed and it sped straight at him.
He barely had time to dive headfirst into the brambles on the wayside.
Cursing, he jumped up, covered in thistle heads, tore the headscarf off and glared after the disappearing jeep.

[fire cracking, cicadas chirping, quiet talk in the background]
Thorne: Where did she take you?
Woman's voice: Can't tell.
Thorne: I just need help. For my family...
[coins clink]
Woman: It was dark. No light. Only crack, high up.
Thorne: A cave then.
[fabric rustling]
Thorne: [resigned] Which direction?
[wood snaps, scratches against sand]
Woman: That's how you go.
Thorne: Thank you.
[fabric rustles, steps walk away from the fire]
Thorne: Thanks for your services.
Guide: Desert dangerous at night, I guide!
[coins clinking]
Thorne: No need. Me and darkness are old friends.
[pistol magazine snaps, small motorbike starts up]

This time Aminah was voluntold to lead the recruiting party. She scanned the crowd. The soldiers with her knew very little about magic. Still, there were some people she couldn't quite pass by.
She lifted her hand to point them out, eyes cold and hard.
"You want me," the man spoke broken Arabic with an accent. No magic.
"I am not your way to heaven from this purgatory, soldier," she declined in English.
"Oh, you're definitely not an angel, I know," his eyes were as hard as hers. "Take me. Or I'll tell your companions about your other activity here."

The artifact she was restoring gave Aminah some trouble as the original text on it was mostly illegible.
She traced the intricate lines with practiced precision.
As she finished the last one, there was a flash of magic.
It left a metallic aftertaste in her mouth, but she smiled.
Job well done.
Time to put it in the hold.
In the corridor she met a soldier leading a little girl.
"Ah, Mistress, new apprentice for you, Master said."
She had the sinking sensation of realizing you forgot something vital.
The sweet child shouldn't be here.
She could have stopped it.

The magic was pulsating, beating, thrumming.
Much more than sum of nine parts.
In Aminah's mind it conjured images - drums of war, the beating of thousand feet in a military step, the clank of a disc magazine being clipped into a weapon.
Steady beat of an enormous heart.
One that made you want to follow - to become a part of it.
It was calming and disquieting at the same time.
The Professor watched her closely.
"Now that you understand... can you replicate it?" his voice broke through her trance.
With cold composure she dodged the answer.
"I need some air."

It wasn't long before Wolf's question was validated.
As she returned home that night, she knocked on Professor's door.
"I have the things you wanted. I couldn't make the heads or tails of them, though."
"Ah, dear Aminah, you still have so much to learn. And so much curiosity..." his voice was the combination of amusement and condescension.
She smiled.
"Teach me."
He arranged the nine artifacts in equal groups on his desk carefully.
She could feel their magic interacting and changing.
"Constellation magic?" she wondered.
"Some things only work in synergy," he smirked. "Can you figure them out now?"

Baksheesh was a lot of things in this part of the world.
An expression of appreciation for services rendered.
A way to grease the rusty wheels of bureaucracy into action.
Or a closing of a deal nobody wanted on paper for things you couldn't acquire any other way.
The military encouraged its people to show initiative.
As he offered money in a handshake to the person against him, he doubted this is what they would have in mind
Iraq was a warzone.
Everything around it was at fragile peace.
If his father is out there, he'll need a local guide.

As Aminah stepped into the air conditioned lab she was greeted by her husband's smile. She stepped around the desk to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek.
Then she bent over one of the work benches, surveying the new artifacts.
"Another ancient performance-enhancing device?" she frowned.
With the obsession their employer had over these, he should have been a superman a long time ago.
"Not just 'another', the ultimate," he shrugged. "According to the inscription."
Roughly translated, the symbols read "Hero-maker".
They shared tight, unamused smile across the table.
Neither of them believed in heroes anymore.

The jeep rattled down the dirt track of a road and stopped at the border shack.
Aminah turned to the patrolman without interest, adjusting her perfectly fitting headscarf. Her driver handed over their papers.
"Conjugal visit, eh?" the soldier leered, inviting the driver to respond. Instead the man looked away and the woman gave him the iciest glare over the rims of her sunglasses. The soldier shrugged and waved them through.
The monthly routine of the journey became almost comfortable.
She loved her destination - Petra - and always had much to see and do there.
Her husband was just a cover.

The safety net of a family.
The conservative Christian upbringing.
The prism of her books, photographs and research.
Those bubbles burst when she deplaned in Damascus - in a different world.

The academic assignment.
The expectations of her new mentor.
The limitations set by her new culture and her youth.
She surpassed them all, burying herself in her work with artifacts.

The hope that it will be enough.
The belief that what they were doing was good.
The wide-eyed fascination with each new discovery.
He popped those, one by one. Not with cruelty or intent. With indifference.

That's why she turned.