After the terrifying freefall, there was a brief moment of calm as they splashed down into the warm water. Looking around, Ava could see fishing boats and rafts on the surface of the choppy sea all being sucked out towards the looming wave. She spotted Noah close by, struggling to keep Mahdi’s unconscious body above the water. The roaring of re-entry had been replaced with the rumbling of the wave that towered above them, stretching across the horizon. It was a wall of blue with thrashing white water at the crest. Ava could feel the pull of the current, dragging them closer to the gigantic mass of water. She briefly wondered if it would be less painful to drown, gently sinking to the bottom as you ran out of air, rather than being smashed by this titanic frothing monster. Either way, the wave was almost on them. She held her passengers, the baby was crying. Ava was petrified, helpless in the face of such a giant destructive force.
Then she heard a voice in her head. “Hold on Ava, we are almost there.” It was John using their psychic link. He must be close. The VLR swooped down in front of them. Its rotors whipping up the sea surface and its hull splashing through the chop. The side door was open and the three of them were hauled inside. The VLR quickly manoeuvred over to Noah and Mahdi, and they were quickly dragged in. Noah was coughing up seawater and Mahdi’s head was still bleeding. A huge shadow moved over them. Ava looked out the door and all she could see was a vertical wall of water. It was upon them, above them. It was about to come crashing down as the rotors screamed and they were all sent flying into the back of the VLR from the sudden acceleration. Ava was sure they would be caught but the VLR burst out into the sunlight just in time as the wave thundered down around their tail.
The VLR reached maximum speed in seconds as it sped across the ocean, but the wave was close behind. Ava still held onto her passengers; she wasn’t convinced of their safety yet. Looking out the window she could see the frothing white water just behind them, almost keeping pace with the VLR. The wave front disappeared into the hazy distance as far as she could see, and its foaming crest was still higher than the VLR. Ava looked down at the sea bed. All of the water had been sucked out of Jakarta Bay leaving hundreds of boats stranded. Container ships, cruise liners, and fishing boats of all shapes and sizes sat helpless on the sand as the wave bore down on them. They slowly gained altitude and Ava released her hold on the thick thermal suit her passengers were wearing as the young mother struggled to get her arms free and check her baby. They both seemed ok.
The young woman looked around with alarm. “Who… who are you people? Do you work for Lago?” She shouted above the roaring noise of the wave.
Ava was stunned by the question. “You know Lago Santos?”
“He’s the father of my baby,” she replied.
Ava stared at the woman, shocked into silence. She shook her head. “No, we don’t work for Lago, you’re both safe,” was all she could say. She looked out the window again, they had risen above the height of the wave. Below the VLR, the entire ocean was a frothing, churning, mass of white-water racing towards Jakarta. They gained more altitude, sacrificing speed for height, but they were finally safe. Noah and John tended to Mahdi who groaned, dazed with pain as he regained consciousness. Ava looked on anxiously as one of Johns companions came to attend with a medical kit. Her mind was still spinning, wondering who she had rescued.
“Even with the suits, I wondered how any of you could have survived,” said John.
“We were lucky we didn’t all get cut to pieces by the debris,” said Noah, whose suit was stained with blood from Mahdi’s wound that dripped to the floor. He held Mahdi’s head as the medic fitted a brace around his neck and rubbed a topical glue-like nano-gel into his head wound.
“He’ll be ok eventually,” said the medic, shining a light into Mahdi’s slowly focusing eyes. “The IA is repairing the damage done to his brain, but knitting his fractured skull back together will take longer. His cells are producing anaesthetics for the pain, but he’ll still have a killer headache.”
“I see you managed to pick up a couple of hitchhikers Ava,” said John, coming over with bottles of water. It’s a miracle these two survived the destruction. Are you ok? Do you need any medical attention?”
“No, we are ok,” said the young woman who drained the water. She had a strong frame and a determined look. Ava studied her. She couldn’t have been much more than fifteen years old. Lago’s son looked back at her suspiciously and gurgled.
“I found this thermal suit and oxygen mask, I jumped out after the fire, but then we almost froze. Thank you for saving us.”
“What are your names?” asked Ava.
“I am Lesedi, and this is Carasco.”
The VLR sped inland, away from the wave. The frothing white water came crashing down behind them. Container ships were sent tumbling over, snapping like twigs. Ava watched with numb dread as the water thundered towards the city, littered with boats of all sizes. The Thousand Islands were swamped, the fragile fishing villages did not stand a chance. Ava was exhausted after falling from orbit but every muscle in her body was tense. She had so much to think about, she tried to focus on what, if anything, they could do to help. The coastal villages around Jakarta Bay housed thousands of people living in shacks, they were torn to pieces as the wave swept through and disappeared in the froth. There was nothing Ava could do. They were powerless in the face of such massive roaring destruction.
The gigantic wash of churning water bore down on Jakarta, higher than most of the buildings. The people of Jakarta had little warning and no time to prepare, but there was nothing they could have done as the wave swept everything in its path. The surge smashed through the flimsy lowland buildings carrying a torrent of debris, vehicles, boats, and bodies further inland. The water cut a swathe through the central city, smashing windows and flooding through the city skyscrapers. Ava could see desperate people running away down the city streets, then disappearing as they were engulfed. She wanted to swoop down and pick them up, but it was impossible. The water swept up through the southern suburbs and washed up into the hills behind.
The ancient coastal city was being destroyed in seconds. Wreckage swirled around in the dirty water along with the mangled bodies of thousands of people, crashing into the buildings still standing. A big, rusty oil tanker had been rolled up in the surf at least two kilometres inland, jammed between buildings, where it had ruptured, and the leaking oil had caught fire. The inferno slowly crawled through the waterlogged carcass of the city. The oily slick burned on the surface as it crept around the buildings. Ava stared in horror as the VLR flew above the city, along with several news helicopters that were filming the devastation. She spied some survivors waving frantically from a building top and asked the pilot to head in that direction.
The VLR flew in close to the top of the building. There was nowhere to land as hordes of people climbed to safety, desperately waving at them. Ava realised it would be impossible to help them all, there was only so many that could fit inside the VLR. Faced with an awful decision, who to rescue? Who to leave behind? But she had to do what she could. The VLR hovered low enough to drop a ladder down and they were engulfed with desperate people clambering to safety. Ava helped each one inside as the interior soon filled to capacity and the pilot had to rise up above the building. A few people clung on to the underside, before losing their grip and falling back into the mass of people below. Ava tried to hold on to the flailing arms, but she couldn’t save them all. As they slowly gained altitude other rescue helicopters moved in to help while the news helicopters carried on filming.
Ava could see what was going to happen as more and more panicked people pushed up onto the roof. Those at the edge of the building ran out of room and grabbed frantically at each other, trying to hold on. Rescue helicopters arrived and hovered close, trying to pick up as many people as possible. But they couldn’t help everyone, there were too many. People clung on to the landing gear, others tied to hold onto their dangling legs. Those who couldn’t hold on plummeted down into the blazing water below. The people at the edge of the building were being pushed over as the mass of people increased. They fell straight into the flames licking up the side of the building from the burning oil. More rescue helicopters were arriving but for many it was too late.
Ava sat back in the crowded VLR. There were cries of anguish but most of the survivors were uninjured. She was exhausted, physically, and emotionally. Shell shocked and powerless. Her body was weak, and she could barely lift a limb to put around Lesedi’s shoulder. She had never seen so much death and destruction. It left her numb and shaking. The VLR flew up and away from the city. Ava held on to Lesedi as they looked out at the waterlogged suburbs below. “Were you going up the elevator to see Carasco’s father?” Ava asked.
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“Yeah, we tried. It’s impossible to see Lago in person but we made an appointment with one of his lawyers, it doesn’t matter now. My people are all dead.” Lesedi shook her head and started shaking again, she was soaked from the seawater and Ava held her closer. She could see the anger on her face. She wondered what her story was, and could sense some similarities with herself. Ava recognised the signs of buried trauma and wanted to help, but Lesedi shrugged her away and clenched her fists. “Was the BPI hub destroyed?”
“No, the cable was cut below the hub. Lago’s still up there, orbiting Earth.”
John had been comforting the passengers and checking on Mahdi, he crouched in front of them and looked on with concern. “It seems we have a mutual interest Lesedi. We would love to hear your story but there is no urgency. You have just survived a massive disaster and fallen out of the sky; you must be in shock. Let me assure you, you are amongst friends. We will look after you and Carasco and take you wherever you want to go.”
Lesedi nodded and gave a weak smile. “Thanks,” she said.
The VLR had a wall mounted screen that was tuned into one of the news channels. All the passengers looked on in stunned silence as satellite footage showed the enormous lengths of broken cable falling into the Indian Ocean. The pieces of cable fell in a straight line, east to west across the equator. Each piece was thousands of kilometres long. The shiny metallic strands fell horizontally out of the sky and slapped into the ocean creating a huge steaming splash. The plumes of steam obscured the eruption of water bursting from the impact, cutting the Indian ocean in two. The camera panned eastwards towards Sumatra where a piece of cable could be seen draped over the land mass and disappearing into the foaming seas like a giant snake. To the west, the last pieces hit the Indian Ocean near Somalia and disappeared in clouds of steam.
To Ava, the scenes were apocalyptically surreal, like a disaster movie. The cables falling across the ocean caused surges to radiate out from the impact point and roll north across the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea. The frantic news commentary described how these areas had been coping with rising sea levels for decades and had been devastated by tsunamis in the past, but the scope of these waves covered thousands of kilometres. Anyone near the coastlines of India, Pakistan, Oman, and Somalia would perish. The entire east coast of Africa would be saturated, and to the south, the icy wasteland of Antarctica would be swamped. A news helicopter chased a wave that was heading north, as she watched, the frothing swell grew from ten to twenty metres approaching Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The view shifted to the futuristic city of Singapore. The swell swept through the islands in the South China sea and surged across the Singapore Strait. It washed through the towering space-age skyscrapers protruding through the spray. The force of the wave toppled many of the smaller towers, sending them crashing into their neighbours. The cameras showed people flinging themselves from the broken buildings into the churning seas below. Beautifully manicured gardens, vertical green spaces and cutting-edge architecture were demolished in seconds as the unrelenting wave swept through. Ava looked at the screen with weary eyes, she wished she could have done more to help. Looking around at the survivors crammed into the VLR, some were praying, some were crying, some were staring numbly at the walls. She told herself she had done everything possible. She couldn’t help everyone.
John shook his head and sighed. “Singapore was leading the way in eco-architecture and sustainability; its population was about six million, but Jakarta housed more than twenty million people. The city had been sinking for decades. They drained the underground aquifers to provide water and caused the land under the city to collapse beneath their feet. For years, Jakarta existed below sea level. The Indonesian government had already relocated but the people couldn’t just leave. They learned to live on the ocean, houseboats, giant floating shanty towns, slums built on cobbled together piles of floating trash, fish farms and desalination plants. They were adapting, becoming water people like us in Miami. But now it’s all gone.”
The VLR slowed down as it flew over a large inland city. Ava looked out through the smog at the normal, everyday activities below. They swooped down and landed in front of the Bandung hospital. She helped the passengers disembark, blinking in the bright sunlight as hospital attendants came to help. They were mostly uninjured, but stumbled around in shock. Ava went back to Lesedi and Carasco. “You can stay with us if you want Lesedi, we will take you wherever you want to go.”
“Why were you going to see Lago? Are you friends?”
“We are not friends. We were on our way to confront him before the cable was attacked. You can trust me Lesedi. Where are you from?”
Lesedi looked at her suspiciously. Carasco was sleeping in her arms. “I’m from Cape Town. I was fourteen when he abducted me. I was walking home from school when they grabbed me and knocked me unconscious and when I woke up, I was locked in a box. I screamed and kicked and cried, I didn’t know what was happening, but they must have imprisoned me for a reason.”
Ava held her head in her hands for a moment then reached out and took Lesedi’s hand. “You’re not the only one.”
Lesedi pulled her hand away. “I know I’m not the only one, there are others. He drugged me. I would wake up in his bed. They gave me so much smack I couldn’t move. The first time I vomited all over his bed, he beat me badly, but I survived. They kept me locked in that box, fed me rice, gave me water, nothing I could kill myself with because I would’ve. I’d no idea how much time passed, but I must have been locked in that box for weeks. I would have gone insane, but the drugs kept me numb.” Lesedi stared at Ava’s shaven head. Ava’s cap and wig had long since disappeared and Lesedi looked questioningly at Ava’s scar but didn’t ask. “They operated on me. Took one of my kidneys. He told me I was his favourite.”
Ava fought back the tears. “How did you escape?”
“They got sloppy or maybe one of them took pity on me. I think they were taking the smack as well. One day I woke up in my box and the door was open. I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was a trick. I crept out of there, down a corridor, out a window and out onto a street in the middle of Cape Town. It was daytime and there were people everywhere. I ran, I just kept on running and running until I collapsed. I found my way back home. I don’t know if my mother believed my story, but she loved me. After a few days, I was in withdrawal. I don’t know if I believed it myself. Two months after my escape I discovered I was pregnant. My Mum wanted me to get rid of him, but he belongs to me, and I had to keep him. It’s not his fault his father is a monster.”
“You are welcome to stay with us, for as long as you need,” Ava held Lesedi’s shoulder and smiled through her tears. “We were trying to get to Lago also, perhaps we could work together.”
The Vertical Lift Rotor was a sleek silver craft that had attracted a big crowd of onlookers. It took off quietly after all the passengers had disembarked. Mahdi was regaining consciousness; he gave Ava a weak thumbs up and lay back secured in the stretcher. Ava was exhausted and brought to tears by Lesedi’s story. What was unfolding on the screens did not help as they continued to show close up coverage of the destruction.
“Is there anyone you need to contact?” asked Ava.
“I guess I should call my Mum, she’s all I have left.”
“Can you tell us what you planned to do at the BPI hub?” asked Ava.
“I was with a group of women, all Lago’s victims. Some were kept as sex slaves and some were used for organ transplants, or both. There were five of us with a lawyer and a journalist travelling together. After I escaped, I couldn’t just forget. I couldn’t move on. I found other victims, I searched the web and found a group of women that claimed to have been abducted by Lago. Some men too. But there were a lot of fakers. Women and men who actually idolized him and were attracted to him. There are some fucked up people out there.”
Carasco woke up and started crying, Ava handed him a piece of apple that kept him occupied as Lesedi continued. “I contacted the victims, and we supported each other. We all had similar stories, they all managed to escape like me, or they survived after being left for dead. I hate to think of how many didn’t survive.”
Ava bowed her head and wiped tears away from her eyes. She didn’t cry easily but Lesedi’s story and her exhaustion had left her in a fragile state. She had known there were others, but she had no idea how many. She had painful memories which she could not quite piece together. She didn’t want to revisit that time but listening to Lesedi bought it all back.
“Are you people after Lago as well? What did you plan to do? Try to kill him?” asked Lesedi.
“We were going to change him,” said Ava. “Change him for the better and change him forever. I was abducted by him too. I wanted him dead; I have wanted revenge for years, but there is a better way. What did your group plan to do?”
Lesedi looked quizzically at Ava before answering. “We thought about trying to assassinate him, but it’s impossible to get close, he’s always surrounded by security. I guess that’s how he has survived for so long. We threatened him with a lawsuit,” she said with an ironic laugh. “We were going to sue him for damages and unpaid child support. The journalist with us planned the whole expedition. It was going to be a true crime show, rape victims trying to sue the rapist who just happens to be the most powerful man on Earth. But I don’t think Lago was worried about a lawsuit or any bad press. I think he agreed for us to meet his lawyers out of curiosity more than anything. We are the ones that got away. Maybe he just wanted us all in one place so he could capture us again.”
“You are very brave to take on Lago. And your friends.”
“My friends are all dead. I might as well come with you. What did you mean when you said you were going to try to change him?”
Ava tried to explain as the VLR flew over the low hills of West Java, back towards Jakarta to help with the rescue effort. She could see the dark hazy air that hung over the city. Clouds were gathering, thick with moisture that began to descend on the remains of the city like a grey funeral veil.