Chapter 9: "Lights Overseas"

-"The place where we are going . . . why is it called that way? Is it possible for a city to be brighter than the sun, and with more lights than stars in the night sky?"

The car stopped exactly at 1:59 in the parking lot of the airport, the doors opened and they started descending. The others would stand in the shadow of the jet, watching them walk through the piercing heat. Outside the sun blazed with dazzling rays that could blind the view. The heat was intense, the wind felt burning, and heat in the floor would pierce through the shoes. Forty-four degrees Celsiusat the heat of the sun, and thirty-seven degrees Celsius in the shadow, was what the thermometer would mark, although it seemed that it could actually be several degrees higher. Standing in the open for too long, could be a death sentence if you started dehydrating. The temperature would not rise, but neither did it decrease, making it even worst. All this, made up one of those days that could not be easily avoided, maybe if you had an AC or a pool, but rather than that, not even standing in the shadow would help to escape to the reality of the day.

As soon as they crossed the parking lot, they gathered around the plane, and got the luggage ready. The time past quickly and the clock would mark quarter for three and still, there were no visible signs of the location of the Red Shield chief.

"Hey," Kai said as everybody turned their heads toward him, "Where is Joel? It's almost three o' clock. He was the one who told us to be here on time"

"Kai, that you could not see me standing here," the chief said as the door in the jet opened," it does not mean I was not here all the time."

"Everything is ready sir." a flying attendant said,"You may now aboard."

As instructed by the flying attendant they all followed Joel into the jet, at first looks, it seemed as if it had a hotel-like decoration; elegant and luxurious. They all grabbed a place in the airplane, and waited for the door to close. As they all buckled up, Mao looked quite uncertain about something, and so she decided to speak her mind as she always does.

"Isn't landing in this jet in an airport not being discreet?" Mao asked.

"We are not." a voice from behind was heard.

"Okamura?! What are you doing here?!" she yelled at the reporter, who ignored her and peacefully walked through the aisle toward his place.

"Hmm?" he said as he sat "I am doing my job, which includes taking pictures for the archives. Besides, I know too much to be left here on my own."

"Still, if we are not landing in an airport, where are we?" Mao asked.

"We are landing in the new headquarters of the Red Shield." Joel replied, "It' has a wide heliport where the jet can land, and it is stationed not too far from the shores of England."

"You mean, as in a ship?" she asked again, but the chief only nodded.

As Joel answered Mao's question, the turbines roared to life and the jet took off. In less than an hour everybody was asleep, after all it was a long flight and everyone was tired by the events of the previous days. But Saya, besides the others, remained most of the flight's first hours awake. She seemed to be disturbed about something; therefore it did not let her sleep. She seemed to be uncertain about what she could find across the sea and in that city. She tried to get her mind out of those thoughts, first by watching the decoration, then by reading a book, looking at her babies' cocoons, who by the way where in a cradle besides her, she repeated this many times without any success. But it was until she watched through her window how the clouds were dimly lighted by the sunset, which gave them beautiful shades of different tones of orange and yellow to their usual plain white color, it was then, when she felt sleepy and took a long nap; a thirteen hours nap to be exact; if that could possibly be dared to be called a nap. The hours passed and so did the Trans-Atlantic flight concluded. It was when the plane landed in the new headquarters, when she started to regain consciousness and started to hear a familiar voice calling her.

"Saya, Saya, we are here." her brother called.

"Hmm?" she said as she opened her eyes.

"We have already landed. Everybody else is already out." he said as the rest descended.

She then looked at him carrying her nieces, one in each arm, and decided to wake up. They walked through the aisles and descended from the plane and into the ship. Outside it was night already, and she noticed that everybody else had moved into their assigned rooms and started to unpack. Meanwhile, she stood in the deck for a while, enjoying a moment of solitude in the peaceful night; feeling the salty ocean breeze in her face, hearing the sound of the washing waves in the peaceful night of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Are you staying here?" her brother asked in a low voice.

"Yeah, I don't feel like sleeping." she said looking at her nieces, "Don't worry about me, you should put the twins into bed, it was a long flight after all."

"And how about eating?" Lewis said walking through the deck.

Her stomach growled, and it certainly did not lie, this made her white face flush into a shade of pink, as in accepting the invitation to eat.

"I'll take that as a yes." Lewis said and they all followed him into the kitchen.

As they walked into the kitchen, they smelled a mixture of fragrances that included the heavy aromas of the food mixed with the smell of alcohol, coffee and tobacco that came from a table in the dinning room. The sound of chatter and laughter was the only sounds that could be heard in the room, besides the clanging metals that came from the kitchen. The ones responsible of this noise, for Kai and Saya's surprise, were Joel, Julia, David, Mao and Okamura. They seemed to have been drinking, for a while when they joined the table, even though they had not even touched their plates and their food was now cold. Kai placed the twins in a pair of nearby chairs, and after that he joined the table together with Saya.

"So I then saw him over there, you know." Mao said in a drunken tone about to pass out.

"It was about time for you to join us." Okamura said as he lighted another cigarette.

"Sorry for being late," Saya apologized.

It was late midnight; when Saya went to the deck for a breath of clean, fresh air after feeling dizzy by the heavy aromas of the kitchen. As she walked through the deck, not aware that she was being followed by one of her nieces, she decided to lie down while she watched the stars. As she rested and enjoyed a peaceful moment, she heard tiny footsteps that came towards where she was laying. It was Aoi, the blue-eyed twin, who had followed her. She quietly sat besides her aunt and raised her head to watch the stars.

"Auntie Saya." she said in a sleepy tone.

"Aoi?!" she asked and wondered why she was awake so late in the night, "Does Kai knows you are here?"

She blushed and bowed her head, she knew now that she had successfully sneaked out of the vigilant eye of his uncle, and that a possible punishment will come next.

"No" she answered shyly, "Please don't tell him"

"I will not. Come here please. "Saya said with a smile as her niece sat on her lap. "Why did you look for me any ways?"

"I wanted to ask you something." she said still blushed.

"What is it?" Saya asked curious.

"The place where we are going . . . why it is called that way?" she said looking at the night sky, "Is it possible for a city to be brighter than the sun, and with more lights than stars in the night sky?"

Aoi looked at her aunt with curiosity, she wanted to know why; but Saya thought for a while after she heard her niece's question. How could she answer that question? How could she explain her? That was what she wondered. After a while, she cleared her thoughts and looked at Aoi, who was anxious to hear the answer.

"Well, the place where we are going." she said as she sat Aoi besides her, "At night, that city is full of lights, maybe not as many as stars in the sky, maybe not as bright as the sun, but they sure look beautiful."

"But auntie, why it has so many lights?" Aoi asked still confused.

"Well . . ." she said unsure about what to say next.

"What are you two doing here?" Kai spoke from behind Saya's back.

"Watching the stars." both queens said in choir.

"It's late and both of you need to sleep." he said looking at Aoi.

"But I'm not sleepy." the blue eyed queen said as she tried not to yawn.

Kai then gave a reproachful gaze at his niece; it was useless to try to lie after she sneaked out. She tried to plead to be out for a while, but it did not worked.

"Night Aunt Saya." Aoi said as she left with Mao, leaving Kai and Saya in the deck.

"You have been thinking, am I right?" Kai said as he sat besides his sister.

She only nodded and lay on her back, watching the ultramarine night sky turn clearer. For a while, only the sound of the washing waves could be heard on the deck, she kept thinking about those dreams, which turned out to be the lost memories her memory wanted to blur.

"Why Kai? Why did I let this happen?" she said as she bursted into tears, "Solomon, he gave his life for me although I did not loved him, and he gave me something I did not deserved; and Haji, he, he, protected me to the very end risking his life. And above all this I forgot them."

Kai was shocked at her words; it was him, Solomon Goldsmith who raped Saya. At the moment he did not knew how to react, whether with anger for doing something without her consent or yet with relief, knowing that he did loved her although of the situation.

"Saya," he said as he stood up," I know this is something that hurts you so much, and I also know that is hard to believe for you that he had been alive after what happened at the MET. But, I know that if you call him, he will come, he always does."

"Thank you Kai." she said wiping the tears from her eyes. "I will and I know he always does."

Her sorrow turned into hoped as she heard those words, it was true, and he always was there when she needed him the most. It was not long before she realized Kai left the deck after he spoke with her. It was dawn, and the orange sun reflected on the ocean, making the morning look more beautiful than what it usually does.

"Haji, come back." she said at the rise of the sun.

And she spoke those words letting them be carried by the wind, hoping for them to be heard above the noise of the crashing waves, letting them find their way into the city of lights, where she wished for them to be listened by the light of her life.


44 Celsius equals 111.2 Fahrenheit

37 Celsius equals 98.6 Fahrenheit