The End of Eden (Water Worlds 1)

Chapter 9

Or so I thought.

He jumped in the driver's seat and I into the back. As he powered up, an explosion shook the ground. Fire burst through the door we had just left and debris rained down on the hood of the car, pinging and thumping like hailstones on a metal roof.

Father put the car in reverse and mashed the throttle.

"Get down, Young Moon!" he shouted.

The car snapped backwards and slammed into the staircase as Father spun the steering wheel. I thought we'd get stuck but he punched drive and off we sped, silently, down the narrow alley past the Science and Technology Mansion, out the unguarded North Gate (Unguarded?) and onto the darkened Zhongguancun Street beyond.

Father was driving by hand like I'd never seen before. He was always stern about me wearing a seat harness, but now he was focused elsewhere. I liked not being told what to do, as if I were still a child. I was seventeen now, after all, and he trusted me to act like an adult. I buckled myself in and tightened the harness.

I heard sirens in the distance, but they weakened as Father headed north. We passed under the Third Ring Road and then the Fourth. Farther and farther from the destruction of all he'd worked so hard for.

He seemed to know where he was going, and he wanted to get there fast. After an hour of weaving through dark quiet neighborhoods and occasionally retracing his route, he slowed through a narrow, empty market place, just wide enough to pass.

I know this place! I thought. Arabic meats. Halal stuff.

We weren't too far from my school on Wenyang Road. The shops were dark. It must have been quite late now. Or quite early.

Father turned off the lights, veered into a loading area and powered down. He grabbed his bag and motioned for me to follow and be quiet.

We clicked the car doors closed as silently as we could and walked briskly over to the loading gate. There, a small service door had been left open just a bit, spilling a sharp needle of yellow light out and across the stained concrete deck.

Father went in first but held my hand tight. He opened the door wide and stepped through. I followed.

A single oil lamp sitting on a high, square table glared through a dirty glass chimney. Around the table sat four Western men. One noticed us enter, motioned to his friends and they all stood.

"Good, Young Moon is with you."

I knew that voice and swung around.

Thank goodness!

"Mother!" I cried.

She stepped out of the shadows. Father smiled and she smiled back. Whatever it was, things would be all right now. Mother was here.

I ran over to her. "Mother! I'm so glad you're here. Where's Joo Chen? Is he with you?"

"He's fine," replied Father, now beside us. He took Mother's hand and gave it a squeeze.

"He's with friends," said Mother, "and you'll see him again soon, but now you must stay close. We are leaving."

"Leaving? Where? Why?" I had so many questions, but Mother shot me that look.

"Later, Young Moon!" Then, suddenly tender. "Ah, how thin you are!" she sighed, raising her hand to brush my hair back from my forehead.

Mother was always worried about how thin I looked, but really I felt fine. Besides, in pictures of her at my age, she was not much different than I.

Father and the others bowed politely and shook hands, then huddled together around the table, talking. It sounded like English, but I couldn't understand a word of it. Soon some agreement was made.

"We must leave. Now!" Mother said as the short meeting broke up. Stern. Like a leader.

Who is this woman? I thought.

She took my hand and walked us quickly out the door into a small panel van.

That wasn't here before, was it? I thought. And Father's car — where did it go?

The van was windowless except for the front. It had a new-car smell and was surprisingly roomy inside. One of the men got behind the wheel and in a moment we were powered up. He drove out of the alley and didn't turn his lights on until we hit Wenyang Road. He drove by hand, avoiding the outer ring roads where that wasn't allowed.

Soon the speeding up and hard braking and the bouncing over the rutted streets made me a little ill. Father said to lay my head on his shoulder and I did. The road smoothed once we were far from the city and my stomach calmed. It had been a busy night, and soon I was fast asleep.

I bounced awake hours later to a red sun rising in a flaming sky. It looked as if the world itself was on fire.

From my seat in the back I saw, out the windshield, a rocky red outcropping on either side of the gravel road that stretched as far as I could see. Velvet red in shadow, it was speckled by bright yellow-orange patches of sunlight.

It all looked achingly beautiful, but also remote and hostile. No vegetation at all, either, like some alien world. I thought of Father's globe, slowly rotating back in his office at home.

"Mars!" I said aloud without realizing it.

"No, Vietnam." replied Father, matter-of-fact. I swung my head. There he was, still next to me, with a shiny red apple in his hands. He put his thumbs in the hollow on top, pressed down and pulled apart. The apple snapped in two with a satisfying sound, and the aroma filled my nostrils.

"From here it will be easier to get to America. Are you hungry?" he asked with a smile, and he turned and offered me a perfect half.