The Sapphiri Read online

  the BLUE FLOWER trilogy

  THE

  SAPPHIRI

  R. GENE CURTIS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 R. Gene Curtis

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by: Allison P Martin

  Images from: Adobestock images © bedya, f11photo, PhotoSpirit, imfotograf

  https://rgenecurtis.com

  For Anna

  Appointment

  Tara found the building without any problem. As usual, working with these people was easy. A piece of cake. Money in the bank. She parked her car and stepped into the muggy Pittsburgh afternoon. If this place didn’t have air conditioning, she would quit and find something new. Not only was the heat uncomfortable, it could really mess with one’s makeup.

  Tara walked across the street to the deserted building. Like so many in Pittsburgh, this would be a perfect secret laboratory. No one would come near this place. Yes, she could spend a few months working here. Since her dismissal from the graduate program a few months ago, with a master’s degree as a parting gift, she hadn’t quite decided what she was going to do to pay the bills. The call last week, with the promise of a lot of money, was exactly what she had been waiting for. The Sapphiri had paid well for the job with that idiot Karl Stapp. Well, she thought they had paid well. This job was going to make that one look like small potatoes. Working with them again was going to be great.

  She hiked up her skirt and stepped into the building. Nothing worked to seal a deal like perfectly tanned legs and just a hint of midriff. Even though there wasn’t supposed to be anyone here, she was sure she’d get the attention of the men monitoring the cameras. Because they would be men, and they would make sure Tara got what she wanted. That’s what men did, at least most of the time.

  No one met her at the door, and her heels echoed as she walked down a deserted hallway. She half expected someone to meet her, but the Sapphiri weren’t there. They had avoided almost all contact with her last time; that was just how they did things.

  At the end of the hall, she found the door that led down the stairs, and not too far from the bottom of the stairs, she found her destination—a room full of lab equipment. The room was as empty as the hall, but Tara didn’t adjust her clothes. They were watching her. She stepped in and closed the door. The room smelled of recent construction, and all the equipment was state of the art.

  But first…her eyes scanned the room. Yes, there it was. A table against the back wall had a small briefcase on it. Tara walked straight to it and swung it open. She laughed. Tara had never seen so many hundred-dollar bills before. All these bills just lying here on the table. Yeah, they definitely had this place under surveillance. And, they had convinced her. She would take the job.

  Next to the briefcase was a small vial with a needle on it. Tara picked it up and construed her face with an exaggerated pout. The pout was sure to draw pity from the cameramen. The vial didn’t have a label aside from two words. The Antidote. This had also been promised with half (half!) the cash up front. Tara had six months to make the virus airborne. No other questions asked.

  Tara cursed and shoved the needle in her arm. She pulled it back out and swore again. She fingered a few hundred bills, and that made her feel better. Then she closed the suitcase and opened the scientific paperwork sitting next to the briefcase.

  The instructions were annoyingly specific. She couldn’t take pictures of anything in here, she couldn’t bring anyone here, and if she told a soul about the project, it would cost her life. That made for a tough working environment. But, it wouldn’t stop her from getting what she needed. She studied the scientific details and understood enough to know which men in her graduate program would give her enough information to complete the tasks.

  She would do this. Tara would get this virus airborne, and she would spend a little time researching the vaccine as well. After all, when the Sapphiri released the virus, the vaccine would go for even more money than was in the briefcase. Tara might act the part of a stupid girl, but she wasn’t. She was just better at seizing opportunities than other people. And, an airborne fatal virus was the perfect catastrophe. A catastrophic opportunity. One that would ensure Tara would never have to work this hard again.

  1 Assignment

  Bob

  The phone rings. Not my regular phone, which is on the treadmill with my earbuds plugged into it. The other phone. The phone I keep with me 24/7. The phone that hasn’t rung in over a year. The phone I wish would never ring again.

  That phone. It’s ringing.

  I swear and step off the treadmill. No indication of the caller’s identity.

  I swear again.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “We need Adolar on the front lines,” a deep male voice says. I don’t recognize the voice, which isn’t surprising.

  “The Ternian?” I say to verify my identity and tell the caller I have a pen at the ready. It’s a lie. Kind of. I have a pen handy, but the only paper I can find is a soda-soaked electric bill from the garbage can. It will have to do. I know how much headquarters people hate being delayed by slow agents.

  The voice gives me an address in Abelene, Texas. I hang up the phone and punch the address into my real cell. Seven hours from Edgewood, New Mexico.

  The time the man gave me was 3:30 AM—in eight hours.

  An hour to spare. That isn’t like them.

  I strip on my way to the shower, flinging clothes into rooms as I pass them. I don’t need to worry about cleaning up. A call like this means I’m leaving Edgewood in the rear-view mirror forever.

  Being an agent for the Sapphiri is a royal pain. Seriously. Not that I’m going to complain about the last year here. They owed it to me after making me suffer through a graduate program for four years. Graduate school is a near death sentence, and I was sentenced to it, all so I could track the rogue Sapphiri, also known as Karl Stapp. And when Karl disappeared? They made me finish.

  But, after grad school, things got better. They sent me here, and I’ve been working for a small defense research company in Albuquerque. Aside from occasional trips to Seattle and Waunakee for the League, I’ve almost lived like a normal person. The League even let me buy a cabin in the mountains east of Albuquerque, which has been a spectacular change from the coat closet I lived in during graduate school in Pittsburgh. I’ve enjoyed the job, and I’ve enjoyed the trips out to the Pecos Mountains on the weekends even more. The only thing that could have made the last year better would have been to have Cassi here with me. But I don’t dwell on that.

  After taking my time in the shower, I throw on my drab traveling clothes. Everything else stays in the cabin. I’ve purchased a few taboo items, but there isn’t time to hide them. The League will find them when they raid the place in a few hours. It won’t be the first time they find contraband in my house, and it won’t be the last.

  The cleaning agent will probably sneak the contraband for himself. Unnecessary rules. Control over our lives. The way of Adolar.

  I put in my colored contacts. The traveling color is gray. Such an ugly color, made even more unnatural by my long, blond hair. But I wouldn’t put it past a messenger to shoot a rule breaker on the spot. It’s
happened before, to people I know. Well, knew.

  I curse the League and push the front door open. I have no idea what’s coming next, but there’s no way it will be as good as this.

  The sun sits just atop the mountains, ready to fall away and leave the landscape lit with shadows and color. My cabin rests on a hill, obscuring the other houses from view. It’s awesome. Secluded in the juniper forest, even in the middle of a housing development. One could hide here and never be found. It’s like the world outside doesn’t exist.

  But alas, even here, the outside world exists, and it’s calling me now. And the world, at least the United States world, belongs to the League, and I belong to the League, and there is nothing I, or anyone else, can do about it.

  I race down the road, saying a silent goodbye as I speed through the quiet neighborhood. Goodbye to the people who used to be my neighbors. The people who live oblivious to the League. Goodbye.

  How will the League explain my disappearance this time? My character in Pittsburgh was mugged coming home late from school just days before graduation. I’m sure the insurance companies have never seen a better insured graduate student. This time, with a fulltime job and a house, the League will be pulling in a lot of money from my “death.”

  Not me though. I’ll have a new identity, another mission, and another home. That is, unless by some miracle, they give me a fatherhood or a leadership assignment, and then I’ll go off the grid.

  Identity-less. Invisible. Impossibly too good to ever happen.

  And so, I’m an agent, and I’ll obey. My new life starts with this town in the middle of nowhere in Texas. I’m not going to mess with that—I’ll be there on time. I pull onto the main road and punch the gas.

  * * *

  I make more than one caffeine stop along the way. I don’t get drowsy, but despite expert planning, I arrive at my assigned destination three minutes late. The tires squeal as I pull into the parking lot, and I slam on the breaks and jump out of the car. They won’t kill me for three minutes, but they won’t like it either.

  I’m at a gas station. Usually they’re a little more creative with their rendezvous checkpoints.

  Thunder sounds behind me in the distance, lightning flashes ahead of me, but rain hasn’t started to fall yet. That’s a good thing—a rain delay might have made me too late to walk out of here alive.

  Maybe I should have used my extra time for insurance against the weather instead of a beer at that bar back in Roswell.

  I kick the door open and walk to the counter. A large woman stands behind it. Definitely armed. Not happy.

  I’m not intimidated. She won’t kill me tonight, not for three minutes.

  “Interesting year for an election,” I say.

  “Ain’t no one going to be elected.” Her accent is southern. She’s either faking it, or we’ve upped our presence in the south. When I was in headquarters years ago, almost everyone was in the big industrial cities on the east and west coasts.

  “Didn’t you hear,” I say, and I laugh. The laugh irritates her, which is probably good for her. “Adolar is running.”

  The woman scowls and slams a knife into the counter inches away from my hand. She has a strong arm; the knife sinks into the wood more than an inch.

  Actually, judging by the way her arm jiggles, I’m guessing the knife is super sharp and she’s not that strong.

  I look from her jiggling arm back to her face. Her glare hasn’t wavered, and neither does her hand. She holds the blade firm. She’s not scared of me, and I’m not scared of her. I slide my finger gently, slowly along the blade. It’s as sharp as I expected. A trickle of blood comes out of my finger and runs onto the countertop.

  She pulls an envelope from her pocket and places it in the blood.

  I pick up the envelope and return to my car. I’m not opening it with her watching me; I’m getting away from the pistol beneath the counter and her anger at my three-minute delay.

  I jump in the car and rip the envelope open. My next destination is in Arizona—I need to be there in 14 hours. Ridiculous. I’m going to have to speed the entire way to make it.

  At least the League pays the tickets.

  I take out my phone and type in the URL from the letter. While it loads, I make a U-turn and start back on the road that I’ve traveled all night. I’ll make another caffeine stop in a few hours, but I want to put as much distance between myself and that woman as fast as I can. Messengers aren’t trusting people. They don’t mind putting a bullet through your head if they suspect foul play. I’ve seen the newspapers. I know what happens, even though the police never figure it out.

  Once the phone loads the URL, the message starts to play. It will only play once. It’s read by someone with such a heavy Mexican accent that it’s barely discernable. The League wouldn’t want to make this easy for me. At least they can rest assured that the guy who read the message has no idea what it means either.

  “Bob, you’re being assigned to Arizona to follow a development called Encamp. The enemy has come to us. There is a fellow called Ler. He seems to have come from the Forgotten World. Find out who knows about him and who he is staying with. Prepare a report by Thursday. A typical report will do. Once it’s delivered, you will receive your next instructions.”

  This isn’t like Mission Impossible where the message self-destructs or anything dramatic happens. It will be deleted from the server immediately, of course. If I press refresh right now, there won’t be anything to listen to.

  Still, it would be nice to hear a bang or something.

  Lightning lights the sky in front of me. I guess that’s something.

  I push on the gas a little harder. I’m back to work. A year off, and just like that I’m back in the middle of things.

  Bright lights appear behind me as another lightning strike hits in front of me.

  Figures. I wonder how many police stops I’ll have before Arizona. I reach into the envelope and pull out my new fake ID. My name is apparently Bobby Young now. What a dumb name. Who do they have coming up with these names? I use my pants to wipe blood off the license, shove the envelope under the seat, and pull over.

  I’m still going by Bob, no matter what the ID says.

  2 Ambush

  Karl

  I just have to close my eyes for the screaming to start.

  Children, women, men. They scream. Every night they scream. Swords flash, and blood flows into the streets.

  Buen, who was my trainer when I lived in Sattah, is always there in my nightmares. Buen is Sapphiri, like I am, and Wynn probably killed him after I left. But he is never dead in my dreams. His eyes glow as he pulls his sword out of people. He turns to me, and I stare into the hollow of his glowing eyes. I understand the pain in them. His pain is my pain. He hands me his sword, covered in blood. I take it, and the blood drips onto my hands.

  “Did Wynn kill you?” I ask. Someone behind Buen screams. He turns to go, and I yell for him to stop, but he doesn’t stop. I start to walk after him, but the corpses on the ground reach up. A dead hand grabs my ankle. I trip and someone grabs my shoulder.

  Whoever it is won’t let go of my shoulder. I try to pull away, but they shake me.

  “Karl! Wake up. We need you. NOW.”

  This voice is familiar. “Lydia?”

  “Wake up!”

  The screaming from my dream fades away. The blood disappears, I open my eyes and stare into darkness. Even though I have this dream every night, it is always so real.

  “Get up Karl! Mara’s in labor and I can’t stop it. I need blankets and water from Goluken’s house. Pronto.”

  I shake my head and sit up. Right. Mara is Lydia’s friend from the mountains. She’s been lumbering around because she’s pregnant with twins. And now she’s in labor?

  I rub my eyes, still shaky from my dream. But it wasn’t a dream. I really was in those streets, I really heard those screams, I really saw those people murdered. And Buen probably did die for helping me and Somrusee escape
.

  “Move!” Lydia runs to the other side of the cave.

  I push off the cold ground and start to tug my shoes on, the coolness of the night finally starting to cut through the haziness from my dream. “Anything else you need?” I manage to say.

  Lydia swears, in English. “How should I know? Just hurry.”

  Mara screams, and I run out of the cave.

  I can’t believe this is happening now. It’s been a rough few hours. Wynn showed up with his army, including Arujan, the mountain thug who has been trying to kill me since the day Lydia and I first got here. Goluken, the man in magenta, was also there, but Somrusee killed him. Lydia’s plan was for me to take Wynn through a portal she built, but I knew I’d never make it there, so I conspired with my friend Ler, from the mountains. I acted as bait, nearly died, and Ler disappeared in a flash of blue light with Wynn.

  After Wynn disappeared, what was left of his small army ran away, including Arujan. Lydia healed me, and we searched for Dynd, another one of Lydia’s friends. When we found him, his legs were dead, and Lydia removed them with hemazury. By that time, it was getting dark, and we were completely exhausted. We decided not to return to Goluken’s house, and we collapsed in the blood-stained cave.

  Which turned out to be a bad idea, because now Mara’s in labor.

  I push my body down the trail, and with each thud, my brain clears a little more. What time is it? The moon hasn’t moved much. I wonder if it’s even been an hour since we fell asleep. And now we’re up again, delivering twins next to Goluken and Tran’s dead bodies. Two dead, two new. Is that a gruesome thought? Or, is that just the nature of human existence?

  I’m tired. Somrusee’s tired. Lydia’s tired. But we won’t sleep now. We won’t let the babies die. I push myself harder.

  My foot hits a tree root, and rocks rip my hands as I hit the ground. My body demands I stay there, to lie in the dirt and close my eyes. The dirt rests softly against my cheek.