Chapter Four: All that Remains
The sand and dust would settle in a seemingly another world, Anja's acclamation would be chaotic at best.
On the other side of the world, deep in Alaska, Bane and Doctor Cain Adamson were huddled closely together, examining radar footage hacked from the FAA.
When the blizzard subsided just enough that the fierce cold wouldn't rob one of their lives within seconds, Bane vetoed Cain's opinion of wanting to wait a little longer to get on the road.
Bane didn't invite compromise as they hopped in a sturdy utility vehicle and headed at as fast a pace as he dared to the remote hangar and poorly maintained runway that Jericho and his thieving company had taken Anja before spiriting her away from the soil of her home and life with Bane and the children.
The underpaid maintenance guy at the hangar knew nothing about Jericho before he'd laid eyes on him and heard his heavily accented voice speaking broken English.
No one talked to Alexander Knox, but he was only known as Al, to everyone, down to the ruby-red Al, stitched over his heart on the charcoal-grey coverall.
The hard man with the missing left eye had scared away Al's ability to speak but quickly revived it with a sack of cash for his silence and filing a false flight plan with the FAA.
The money in the woven sack was two years plus some of Al's salary.
Al was checking the tire pressure on a Cessna when Bane and Doctor Adamson descended upon the remote hangar. The biting wind and snow that battered the metal siding kept Bane and Cain's approach camouflaged.
Al wouldn't have seen Bane at all if he hadn't dropped the air pressure gauge, the metal slipping from his hands despite the amount of times he used the simple device a day.
Al pivoted sharply on his heels, letting his hands rest casually at his sides.
"You keep a record of every plane that leaves here," Bane stated.
Al nodded.
"Tell me of the last planes that departed from here."
"I, uh, I can't really show you those, government overreach, ya know, they keep track of the data," Al managed before Bane raised a hand to silence him.
"I am not asking of your government's rules and constraints, I am telling you that I require the recent flight manifests departing from here."
"I can't man, I'm sorry," Al said, shrugging helplessly.
Bane narrowed his eyes, sweeping his gaze across the bright red stitching over Al's rapidly beating heart.
"How much money do you require Al?"
Al's smile made Bane's gut coil in anger, but he kept his expression neutral as Al named an obscene amount of money.
Cain pulled out a fat envelope and after extracting a few stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills, passed it to Bane who held it out to Al.
Before Al could take the cash, Bane pulled back his hand, "the manifests first."
Al shrugged, he was pleased as punch with the bloated envelope of cash, mentally adding it to the sack of money he already had in his possession.
Al stood in the doorway of the office as Bane and Cain scrutinized the recorded flights, each entry consisted of the tail number, engine and propellor type as well as the owner and entire flight crew among other requirements.
Cain could feel Bane's growing anger radiating from his broad form, it was beginning to feel like he was standing too close to the sun as Bane's frustration grew at what all looked legitimate to the untrained eye.
Bane balled his hands into fists, his knuckles popping until the tail number of a nearby Cessna caught his eye.
"That plane," Bane stated, pointing to the small aircraft. "How long has that plane been sitting there?"
Al squinted to where Bane was pointing, "that? Oh shit, a couple weeks I guess," he said, seeing everything Bane could see.
The poorly maintained plane was a side project that Al was always working open, it had been months since the small plane had been in the air. It now boasted an impressive spiderweb and a flat tire.
"Then why is it listed in your flight record?" Bane asked carefully, attempting to be patient as a whole host of unspoken answers washed over Al's thin face, suddenly fifty shades paler.
"What took flight that night? Who was on that flight?" Bane added as he began to close the distance between himself and Al.
"I don't know anything man," Al said as he walked backwards, looking over his shoulder to not trip as Bane only stomped closer. "They gave me money, just like you're going to give me money now, same man, I didn't hurt that woman."
Bane stopped short.
"The woman was hurt?"
"I don't know if she was hurt man, maybe just asleep," Al tried, "maybe," he was able to add before Bane's hands were suddenly on his sides, firm, immovable boulders on either side of his ribcage, his feet off the ground, futilely kicking.
"You let an unconscious woman be taken without question," Bane murmured lowly, not caring, or having the ability to even hear an answer as his peripheral vision turned grey.
All Bane saw was Al's skinny face contorted with pain as he squeezed his ribcage harder.
Al began to represent more, a rage that had been dormant within Bane began to thrive, rise to the surface. He was a virus that was released from thawing tundra, no known cure, complete mortality rate.
Al spit out bits of data that Cain committed to memory; Bane was past the point of hearing anything as he continued to squeeze until Al's ribcage collapsed inward.
Al told Bane everything, confessed all as though he'd receive the Eucharist and not cardiac death.
Cain collected every word, every last gurgle from shriveling alveoli.
Al's chest cavity was a submersible that imploded, his lungs collapsing onto themselves as the very life was compressed out of his heart.
Al valiantly clawed at Bane's arms and the exposed skin he could reach of his thick neck, his fingertips catching on the vascular striations.
He never stood a chance within the whispering distance of a neutron bomb.
A postmortem would reveal crushed organs, smashed ligaments, and torn sinews.
Bane continued to throttle Al's body after his life was gone.
"You'll get nothing more out of him," Cain stated.
He didn't need the medical acumen to make that diagnosis.
Bane blinked a couple times, sluggishly, his eyelids slow to open and shut, his vision clearing before he saw that he would get no more answers from the man whose name was stitched in red, a tender reed of a man zipped inside his coveralls.
Bane dropped the dead he was holding and wiped his hands on the outside of his thighs before turning towards Cain.
"You captured his words."
Cain nodded and added nothing further.
Neither man spoke or needed to, the first bread crumb of Anja's flight would lead to many more changing of aircrafts and modes of transportation.
Finding each next stage of Anja's subsequent travel further from Bane would take the entirety of his veritable network of unsavory types, places where everything and anything could be had for a price tag.
The currencies traded were vast, from paper money, gold nuggets and human beings.
Answers took a while to find, Bane's impatience grew cosmic in nature.
It took time to uncover the hidden trails and to excavate rabbit holes.
Truthful responses from pointed questions began to require more than money to get the wheels greased, sometimes information required bone breakage, femurs busted and poking through the strong muscles in the thighs before tongues loosened, jaws opened and shut, and vestigial gums flapped.
As Bane searched, forgoing sleep until he crashed, sustenance unless he was on the verge of unconsciousness, on the other side of the world, now being watched under different constellations, Anja was terrified every waking moment and plagued by night terrors as she attempted to find solace behind her closed eyelids.
Each morning she felt the first warmth of the sun's kiss made her wonder if it was the last day she'd live.
Upon arrival at Jericho's vast property, Anja had been shuffled off to a tent, blindfolded, had her wrists and ankles bound before she was left alone.
Anja didn't know how much time had passed from her initial abduction, she didn't know who was in the room with her due to the coarse fabric covering her eyes, tightly wrapped around her head.
Hands kept Anja's body clean.
No one spoke to Anja as they fed her, gave her time to swallow and were patient when she took tiny sips of water, wordlessly wiping residual wetness from her lips and trembling chin.
Fingers moved through her hair, untangling knots, brushing the strands until they gleamed dully before braiding her long fall of hair, securing the end with a cobalt blue strand of yarn.
Anja whispered to her the unspeaking while they touched her, no one ever returned the smallest sound.
Her days and nights were mixed up, she was turned upside down, her sleep perpetually uneasy.
A night or a day or perhaps it was high noon, Anja was sleeping fitfully, sweat spouting on her exposed skin, her unconsciousness mind locked in a nightmarish labyrinth.
She cried out from the catastrophic destruction she witnessed from behind her closed eyelids.
Someone heard Anja's mewling, her small whimpers and made their approach to her shivering form stealthily silent.
They reached out for a damp washrag and pressed it gently to the flushed skin of Anja's forehead, smoothing the wet cloth along her cheekbones.
Anja was driven to a conscious state at the speed of a runaway bullet train.
"What, who…" she started before she was hushed by the tender press of the rag against her trembling lips.
Behind the blindfold, Anja strained her senses, trying to see and hear from the dark, trying to discern whether it was merely an intermission before a return to the night terrors.
Anja held her breath when she felt the person move their hands to the knot of her blindfold, pulling at the twisted ends of the heavy fabric strip.
Anja squinted, blinking rapidly as her eyes took a long time to adjust to the firelight inside the tent.
Anja blinked slower as the little girl's face came into view, the girl's solemn expression filled her field of vision.
"Who are you?" Anja murmured as the little girl remained as silent as the dead, quietly continued to press the damp rag to Anja's feverishly hot skin.
"Please," Anja begged, "please help me."
The little girl merely lowered her eyes, focusing on wiping the cool cloth on the abraded skin of Anja's ankles where the linen had slipped.
Anja didn't know the little girl had been there the moment she'd arrived at Jericho's home; she wasn't aware the little girl had been there as she'd been bound.
Anja didn't know the little girl was the gentlest of the touches she'd felt as her vision was cut off from the rough fabric of the blindfold.
Anja dipped her head, trying to catch the little girl's eyes, "who are you child?"
"Ba…ba….gr."
The sound was so faint, Anja nearly missed it.
The minute whisper could've passed through the eye of a needle.
"What did you say?" Anja asked, a spark of life in her voice.
A deeply masculine voice answered.
"She is my daughter."
Anja gasped, raising her head to where Jericho was standing.
He was tall, loomed over everyone like a crooked tree, his arms, and legs like thick, sturdy branches.
"She is all that remains of a life before Talia tried to destroy our world."