In the Heart of Babylon Read online

  In the Heart of Babylon

  SGD Singh

  Glory Press

  2019

  Copyright ©2019 by S.G.D. Singh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Glory Press

  For more information about this and other books by the author, visit www.sgdsingh.com.

  ISBN-13: 978-1697663259

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, places, and characters herein are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased is wholly coincidental.

  For my daughter, NamSahai

  Your light outshines the sun

  Some people believe that freedom is a state of mind, something no one can take from another. Until the morning of July 1, even after everything, Nadifa had been one of those people. He believed that fear itself could be transformed to strength, even under the worst circumstances. He believed freedom is not something bestowed but merely realized, within us from the moment of our birth.

  The lynching changed everything.

  Before July 1, for the three weeks and four days since his captivity, Nadifa thought of few things beyond escape. He worked on his maps like a person obsessed, using scraps of thin cardboard left over from the damaged MREs he ate. He noted every time the drones hovered above his head as he toiled and sweated in the orchards. He studied the shifts of the faceless guards at the gate, men encased in shining armor the other prisoners called Klexters, after the outer guards of the Ku Klux Klan.

  Before the lynching, Nadifa kept himself busy searching for a single flaw in his prison's perfect hell. He searched, and he held onto the freedom of his mind, even as he paced along the electric fence, staying just out of reach of the humming metal until the last light left the sky, knowing he'd have to find his way back underground in the dark.

  Until that morning, Nadifa had one focus: to remain free, to remain always hopeful he'd find the solution to their captivity. It was as Ayeeyo said, wasn't it? God is merciful. He may test our faith, but if we trust in Him, Insha'Allah, He will show us the way through any obstacle.

  But when Nadifa saw Ray hanging from a tree just beyond the electric fence, his grim reality beat down his belief in voluntary freedom. Stomped it to a bloody pulp. Kicked it aside like trash.

  Ray's body hung, lifeless, soulless, his arms tied behind his back at an impossible angle. His body stripped. Mutilated. His young features swollen until Nadifa almost couldn't recognize him. And looking at Ray, at what they had done to Ray, Nadifa's relentless optimism vanished—a meaningless sentiment in the end, nothing but air—taking with it all but one dying ember of his hope of escape.

  Mercy left him. And rage took its place.

  None of the other captives had spoken since the discovery of Ray's body, and Nadifa wondered if they all felt the same simmering fury, the same unendurable frustration at their absolute, complete powerlessness.

  Even Luk was silent as he picked apricots in the tree next to Nadifa, his face a mask, his movements slow and precise as he dropped the velvety fruit into his basket with concentrated care. He said nothing even when the fence's hum of electricity cut abruptly off and two Klexters marched out of the prison's tunnel entrance and toward the gate.

  Nadifa stopped working and turned as the sound of an approaching vehicle filled the orchard. He watched the prison gates open and the trees that towered along the fence sway in the warm summer breeze. He caught a glimpse of the single narrow dirt road that cut across flat, dry farmland as far as his eyes could see.

  One of the Klexters, the one closer to the orchard, raised his metal-encased hand, and the grey van stopped just inside the gate. The driver's pale face smiled up at the guard, and his high-pitched laughter reached Nadifa, the sound like gasoline on the fire of his rage until it was excruciating. He could hear the man's voice but not his words as he handed something in an envelope to the Klexter, and a moment later the van's side door slid open and something heavy fell from the vehicle, landing in the dirt.

  Something human and male.

  Someone who rolled over and covered his head with hands the color of Nadifa's own.

  Another captive.

  Hanna closed her eyes and deeply regretted everything about vodka. Her head felt like a watermelon that had been pushed out of a very tall window and splattered open against very hard concrete.

  And why, for the love of God, couldn't Katelyn ever shut up? Everything was beyond boring at this point. When one swims, one should not feel obligated to keep one's makeup perfect. Especially if said one is going to insist on dragging her hung-over cousin to the bathroom every single fucking time her foundation “feels melty.” And doubly especially if she is the very same one responsible for said hangover, being the idiot who thought drinking something called Sex on the Beach sounded fantastically hilarious, and therefore everyone simply had to drink two or three—or ten—of them.

  Well, the ten part was no one's fault but Hanna's, if she was being honest.

  Hanna sighed, wondering if coffee would help her head, then grimaced at the thought. The Resort had shit coffee. Hanna missed her coffee machine back home. Fuck, why was she even here in this stupid underground hotel, anyway? Everything was becoming seriously ridiculous. Claustrophobia practically choked her every time she remembered how deep under the ground she was. And if she had to listen to Katelyn blather on about flirting with Todd for one more minute, Hanna was sure she really would throw up.

  “So, anyway,” Katelyn continued, leaning forward so far her face nearly touched the mirror, oblivious to the fact that Hanna wanted to slam her face into the glass, “I'm like, why don't you prove it? And Todd's like, ‘Honey’—I swear to God, when Todd says honey I can taste actual honey, his accent is so hot! Where is he from again? Alabama? Anyway, he's like, ‘Honey, y'all should be careful what you ask for, you just might’—hey, where are you going?”

  “Out,” Hanna said, leaving the bathroom. It was way too early in the morning for this shit.

  The light by the pools was still turned up bright enough to make her eyes feel as if someone were taking a blowtorch to them. Hanna scowled at the ceiling as she staggered toward the shade of potted trees by the nearest pool, her head pounding with renewed force, sure whoever set the ceiling screens to look like a summer sky was determined to ruin her day.

  But before she reached the shade, her father's voice broke through Hanna's thoughts like a sledgehammer, “Hanna, sweetie!”

  She took a moment to determine which direction the sound was coming from, her vision blurring as she struggled to focus on the shapes around her. There to her right Father sat, leaning one gloved hand across his golf cart's steering wheel, looking like an advertisement for AARP magazine as he smiled perfect teeth in her direction across the manicured lawn.

  “How can it be that such a beautiful young lady is left to wander by her lonesome on this glorious morning?” he called. “Where is our dashing Connor?”

  Hanna tried not to roll her eyes but only partially succeeded. For months, Father had talked almost exclusively about Connor. Nothing but Connor, Connor, Connor every fucking time. Because Mitch Taylor, Businessman Extraordinaire, was determined his only child, Hanna, “marry well.” Never mind that she was barely seventeen and still in high school. Or that Connor happened to have less personality than a used-up sponge. Turns out, being the millionaire son of a billionaire senator doesn't entitle a person to a brain. Who knew?
>
  “Rejoining him now, Father,” Hanna called, gritting her teeth as she smiled brightly.

  “Excellent. But, Hanna sweetie, how many times do I have to tell you to put your hair down, sweetie?” He winked. “Connor will be stricken forever powerless against your beauty if you only put in just a little effort, trust me.”

  Hanna obediently reached up and let her blonde hair fall against her back, feeling removed from herself as she did, like a soulless mannequin on display. Her father liked to remind her that she had her mother's hair, as if that were all he remembered of his dead wife. She tried to remember, but Hanna only recalled her mother vaguely, like someone from a half-forgotten dream, smells, sounds, and feelings all fading and reappearing without warning, leaving Hanna with a sense of loss that never fully went away, no matter how much she partied or bought or chased an adrenaline rush.

  Father started to say something else—probably about what she should wear or how she should act at tonight's dinner party—but his gaze drifted behind her instead.

  “Doctor,” he called out, raising his gloved hand. “Don't forget the whiskey for tomorrow night. Michter's single barrel.”

  Hanna turned to see Dr. Kaiser, and her headache was replaced by something she could only describe as fear. She knew better than to say so out loud, but she had always found something off about Dr. Kaiser, and avoided him like a child who knows to avoid a reptile. For all his authority and prestige here at The Resort, the man seemed Neronian. Cold and calculating. As if the people around him were nothing more than insects beneath his microscope.

  Now the man was nodding at her father, but his smile looked as forced as her own.

  Hanna turned away from him with a shiver.

  “We want only the best for this banquet.” Father's false smile didn't falter, as he pointed, adding a thumbs up. The doctor did the same. “Counting on you, Doctor. Good man.”

  Hanna waited, but Mitch Taylor drove away without looking at his daughter again, trailed by two more golf carts filled with laughing men who could've been his clones.

  Each minute the vodka wore off, Hanna hated everything and everyone more than the minute before. If she didn't get another drink soon, she thought she could happily see the entire world destroyed and every person along with it.

  Hanna considered ditching Connor and going to her suite to sleep until lunch, but with only two days until The Resort closed for the year, Father would want her “properly socializing with the best families,” which meant more mind-numbing hours with Connor, Todd, and Katelyn. Garrett would have joined them by now, too. Ew.

  Katelyn wasn't back from the bathroom yet, but Hanna caught sight of the boys. They sat lounging across cushions by their usual pool, surrounded by palm trees and manicured hedges, their skin tanned by the fake sunlight, their smiles full of the conceit of the over-educated rich and powerful. Garrett had joined Connor and Todd, along with Scott and some boy Hanna had never seen before. None of them noticed her as they leaned their heads together like scheming gossips, and Hanna had the sudden urge to hide in the nearest cabana and listen.

  Maybe the vodka was still messing with her judgment, because she didn't hesitate to creep forward and position herself within the cabana's relative darkness, peering out from a gap in the curtains, like some crazed stalker.

  “Shit, he's one to talk,” Garrett said in his slow drawl. His back was to Hanna, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “I heard Kaiser spends all his time playing with freaks in some secret hospital under The Resort. That's why they call him doctor. My dad said he's got all kinds of retards to experiment on down there.”

  Hanna pulled back, suddenly cold. What the actual fuck? No. Father was head of The Resort's committee. Its main investor. He would never condone such a thing. Right…?

  “Dude!” Todd's laughter hit her like a slap. “No way. There's a fucking dungeon underneath us?”

  “It's true,” Garrett insisted, his voice raised. “And it's not a dungeon. It's a top-secret research lab. Kaiser's discovering the secret to human perfection. Facts.”

  “Yeah, well, my dad said they're shutting his operation down,” said the boy Hanna didn't know. “In six years, he's done nothing but lose money for the board of directors. He hasn't found shit. So as of the end of this season, he's officially done.”

  “Your fathers all talk too much,” Connor snapped. “Dr. Kaiser runs the first aid office. That's it. No secret medical conspiracy. No freaks held in dungeons.”

  Hanna saw a look pass between Connor and Todd that she couldn't read. Warning? Panic? Garret looked nervous.

  “Or!” Scott said, breaking the silence. “There's a whole world of experimentation you know nothing about!”

  Connor looked irritated for a second, then relaxed, saying something Hanna couldn't hear, and the boys all burst into loud laughter, clapping and cackling as Scott grabbed a pillow and began to demonstrate just what he meant by “experimentation.”

  Connor glanced at the cabana and Hanna flinched, staggering back out of sight.

  Fuck this, she thought. Her suite had never seemed so inviting. She would sleep until it was time to get ready for dinner, then get through the last day—fucking Banquet Night—and go home to the distractions of her city friends with deep pockets and excellent plans. The parties before school started were not to be missed, and this year Father promised to let her host the best of them all.

  No one except a maintenance man named Carl saw Hanna come out of the gazebo that morning, and he hardly noticed the spoiled party girl beyond thinking her ass looked good in a Gucci sarong.

  He was much too preoccupied with demanding that his cousin George (who worked in the resort's kitchens) connect with his brother-in-law Billy (who worked shipments), to demand that he pilfer some of that special whiskey Carl had just heard Mitch Taylor shouting about serving on Banquet Night.

  He'd be damned if those rich assholes hogged all the good stuff again this year.

  Nadifa and Luk dropped their baskets on the grassy earth as the van backed up, showering the prone figure with dust as it circled back through the gate. By the time its tires reached the tree line, the gate was closed, the familiar hum of electricity filling the air.

  The new arrival—who looked no more than sixteen or seventeen—was rising unsteadily, and Nadifa and Luk stepped forward out of the orchard's shade. Nadifa didn't have a plan, but the Klexters would have to kill him before he would silently sit by and watch another captive murdered. Rage had taken his fear.

  “I said, hey!” the boy shouted at the nearest Klexter. “I know my rights, sir. I have committed no crime, and furthermore, I demand you return my property to me at once.”

  Luk turned to Nadifa, raising his eyebrows. Furthermore, he mouthed.

  “Clearly, there's been some kind of mistake,” the boy continued when the guards didn't acknowledge him. Nadifa thought he was visibly losing the battle to remain calm as he looked up at the fence towering above him. “I promise, you do not want me to call my lawyers. Hello? Do you hear me? HEY!”

  Luk reached him first, planting himself between the newcomer and the Klexter, who had inexplicably begun to walk away, back toward the loading tunnel. Nadifa moved to block him from the second guard. It made no sense, but both guards continued to ignore the new arrival. That could change any second.

  “Hey, man, I'm Nadifa,” he said, stretching out a hand, and the boy turned to him with a scowl that said, And? So? But he took his hand, and when he did, Nadifa stepped in, pulling the newcomer closer, and whispered, “They will kill you without a thought. You need to forget about your damn phone and come with us.”

  The boy's face turned to stone. “Man, you need to get out of my face.”

  Nadifa wasn't sure what he'd do if the newcomer decided to fight him. He'd never thrown a punch in his life.

  Fortunately, Luk knew his way around a confrontation. Before the newcomer could react, he'd stepped forward and wrapped an arm around the new kid's shoulders and tur
ned him away from the guards. “You'll feel better once the drug they pumped you with wears off,” he told him.

  The Klexters disappeared into the darkness of the loading tunnel without a backward glance.

  By the time Nadifa looked back, the newcomer had shrugged out of Luk's grasp, and shoved him away. Luk simply folded his arms and leaned against a tree.

  “There's been a mistake,” the newcomer said again. “This is America. They can't just—”

  Luk shook his head. “Wrong.”

  “What? Where are we?” The boy actually looked hopeful, like maybe if he'd been kidnapped by Colombian drug lords the American government would send in a SEAL team to rescue him any second.

  “Look around yourself,” Nadifa said, crossing his own arms. “What do you see?”

  The newcomer looked at them, bewildered. They continued to wait as he turned in a slow circle, his gaze taking in the silent orchards, the plots of green and brown earth, rows of lettuce wilting in the heat.

  “Farmland,” he said finally. “Orchards? Circle irrigation fields…”

  “See any roads out here? Anyone driving by?”

  The newcomer shook his head.

  “See any houses?”

  Again, no.

  Luk pointed up. “What do you think anyone sees when they look down on this from a plane?”

  “A… farm?”

  “Nothing,” Luk said flatly. “They see nothing.”

  “But… I don't understand.”

  “C'mon,” Luk told him brightly, shoving off the tree and strolling toward the fence. “Let me show you something.”

  “Luk,” Nadifa said, his panic rising. “That isn't necessary, man.”

  Luk ignored him, picking up his pace as the newcomer followed him, pausing to glance back at Nadifa, uncertain.

  “Lukango,” Nadifa said, louder. “He gets it. He doesn't need—”

  But it was too late. The mutilated body that had been Ray Miller was already visible through the fence, hanging like so much drying meat from one of the border trees. The flies had discovered it in earnest now, their hungry buzzing reaching the three boys in the eerie stillness.