EXT. BARREN MOUNTAIN HILLSIDE, DAY. (2002)

A scruffy looking Semitic male is looking in a pocket mirror at a relatively fresh scar on his neck under his beard. (A closer examination shows that the beard is fake, the hairs have been individually glued into place.)

A second Male speaks up. "A watched pot never boils."

MALE #1,

"Ah, thank you for that wisdom."

He puts away the mirror and stands up.

The two begin walking.

The second Male says,

"I think it gives your character."

"Uh, just what I need."

"I only wish it showed through the beard."

"You wished it showed?"

"Yeah, like I said, it gives you character."

The first man grunts.

The second man smiles and responds.

"Don't worry, it'll fade until you can't see it anymore."

"Uhm, and how long will that take?"

Shrugs,

"Forty, fifty years. Who knows."

"Oh, thanks, that's a comfort."

They walk for awhile in silence.

"Until then I guess it's only really tough guys who are into scars and such."

"Tough guys are better then no guys."

"Which is what we have for the foreseeable future."

"Not so fast. I think we're approaching two right now."

Two men compose the Afghan border guard. Not so long ago these men had been local militia for the regional warlord and now they were official Afghan soldiers, not above supplementing their meager and undependable pay.

The guards make a show of getting off their backsides, adjusting their weapons and stepping up to the boarder, or somewhere near it.

Pandora was not pleased with this show of formality. Except for Rachel's boots everything they wore could be purchased for two days wages. They did not merit this pro- forma show of officialdom.

"Stop!" (Or something equivalent. Rachel had not had time to learn Arabic let alone the local Afghan variation during their trip and Pandora was a terrible tutor. She simply understood with out thinking. It was apparently impossible for her to explain rules of grammar or even to list the names of simple things. She simply spoke to someone in the language they understood.)

"We are returning to Artool." (This was the answer they had agreed upon. Artool was a village North of Kabul and their clothes and Pandora's Male tinted accent were sufficient -they hoped- to convince the border guards that they were indeed from that region and not to excite interest if they walked across half of Afghanistan to get there. Of course once in the region of Artool they would adopt the clothing and accent (Pandora would at least) of a region farther South. In this way they hoped to cross war torn Afghanistan, paranoid Iran, and deep into martial law controlled Iraq. There were of course shorter routes but few that would attract less notice or suspicion.)

"Aljd adfgl sall aouta." (Or something like that.)

While Rachel didn't understand a word of Pandora's response she knew it went something like, "to the birth of our brother's first child."

"Aljd adfgl sall aouta."

"Because his wife's family fled to Pakistan during the time of the Taliban."

"Aljd adfgl sall aouta."

Pandora turned to Rachel who replied, "As the youngest brother I am to keep silent unless spoken to," in Incan.

"Aljd adfgl sall aouta." ("You can say that again," thought Rachel.)

"It sounds like gibberish to us but our stepsister has always understood him so we have always thought it a blessing."

And now the moment of truth.

The guards unfortunately do not wave them on.

Instead they look them up and down.

Not much to see really. A few layers of baggy clothes you could pick up most anywhere except for the color and the way they wore their sashes.

Unfortunately the guards looked all the way to the ground.

Instead of cheap, perpetually worn out sandals or scraps of leather they both wore good army boots. Better in fact then the boots on the feet of the guards. (Pandora had insisted on this inaccuracy as she said their feet were too precious to damage in the name of disguise.)

Rachel and Pandora (Pandora especially- if you've been following the series.) are experienced fighters. Pandora can make use of just about any object as a weapon and she can probably even tell you, in sleep inducing detail, about the ancient school of combat surrounding it's use. Rachel has made room in her studies for a continuous course in the use of rim-fire projectiles. But even for these two, disarming, disabling and not causing permanent damage to a pair of Kalishzivcov armed local toughs poses a problem. Doing it with only their hands might even be described as a challenge. Not that the border guards appreciated their efforts on their behalf's.

LATER

The guard's hands and feet are tied together. Their pants pulled down about their ankles, the rest of their clothes falling over their heads and their asses held high in the air. It would take them some time but they would be able to free themselves and hopefully they would be too embarrassed to tell anyone what had happened to them.

Unfortunately for the guards, Pandora and Rachel saw the guard's relief driving up the pass only an hour later.

"I think we should hide."

Rachel did a double take.

" 'Hide?' That's easier said then done."

But hide they managed to do. And they managed to lengthen their journey considerably by going over instead of between.

Pandora and Rachel, as you can imagine, have many more adventures on their way to Southern Iraq but they finally make it. Only now that they are there Rachel is not convinced it was worth the trip, let alone waking up that morning.

EXT. MARSHES, DAY.

Rachel had been to the bayou once, she hadn't liked it. This was like bayou, times ten. They'd been floating around the marshes created where the Tigress and Euphreides Rivers met the ocean for days now, though Rachel was sure it was closer to months.

Everything was reeds. Reeds as far as the eye could see. The boat, really just a kind of rectangular platform, was made of reeds. The few homes they'd seen were made of reeds. The clothes, the few people they'd seen were made of fibers from the reeds. They burnt reeds to heat their food. And the only thing that wasn't a reed in the viewable environment was the dark brown water and the too-clear-to-call-it-a-color sky. (And it seemed that more then half the time both of these were obscured by reeds too.)

"I know I've asked this before-"

"About five minutes ago."

"But are you sure The Garden of Eden is near here?"

"What makes you think we're not already in it?"

Rachel looked around, hoping that the view had changed, otherwise she was sure that Pandora was nuts and she was hopelessly lost in a country that really hates Americans.

"Look at it this way. We lack for nothing."

"Nothing? How about some variety?"

"You are an over pampered member of the twenty-first century. Think back to a time when there wasn't a store and prepackaged food just a day or two's walk from here."

"Is that all?"

"When you had to catch or grow your own food, make your own shelter, walk where ever you went, make your own clothes."

"You mean like us this morning?"

"Uh huh. And how far did we have to go to do these things?"

Rachel didn't answer. Was there a distance less then a few microns?

"And how long did it take us to acquire our food, clothing, shelter, transportation.?"

Again Rachel didn't answer. Considering what they had been through the last few months the last few days had been incredibly easy, if not incredibly hot and boring.

"You see its all in the way you look at things. Did you know that the average American works January through March just to pay her taxes?"

"Okay, enough, enough. But if this is what we came all this way to see, I think you could have just explained it to me back at the condo. Or even taken me to the local botanical garden. It wasn't necessary for the two of us to set this centuries distance walking record. And though I can't smell it any more I know I stink and I DO itch."

But Pandora wasn't listening, instead she was staring intently into the jumble of reeds, weeds, vines and roots before her. For she'd found the thing she'd been looking for.

If you know what Pandora saw there in the bulrushes send it to info@electricnovels.com . And if you don't know check Genesis.

And after you've tried that >>