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“Come,” he said.
“Where?” She looked around them. And he knew what she saw. Forbidding, harsh wilderness, which seemed to have nothing hospitable to it at all.
“It is an oasis. In the desert.”
“You are delusional,” she said. “I have a feeling you would call a thimbleful of water an oasis in the desert if you thought you could use such assertions to manipulate those around you.”
“Perhaps I might,” he said. “But in this case, it is not a thimbleful. Follow me.”
There was a thin trail that wound its way through the mountain passage. They were arid mountains, with twisted olive trees covering the rocky surfaces. Scrub brush down beneath. The sky was an insipid sort of blue, washed pale by the heat of the Arabian sunshine.
“Are there snakes?” she asked.
“I would have thought you’d know. There are snakes everywhere. One must always look out.”
She looked at him, those turquoise eyes regarding him closely. And he could see that she was not certain whether he’d spoken in metaphor or not. “Literal and figurative,” he clarified.
“Of course.”
He led the way, but paused for a moment. “The plane is already gone. If you attempt to run... There is but one place you can go. And it contains me. Think on that.”
“I’m not stupid enough to run away from you in the desert.”
“That is a relief.”
“If I was going to attempt a reckless runaway situation, I would have leapt out of the car.”
“That begs the question... Why didn’t you?”
“If I had managed to survive the fall without injuring myself, I would not have been able to outrun you. What is the point of suffering the humiliation of such a thing if I can’t even really escape?”
“A valid question.”
“I wish that I could ask you what happened. How we ended up here. But the sad thing is I know the answer. And so... I’m just following you.”
“The best decision, you will find.”
They came around the corner of one of the black craggy outcroppings, and there you could see, glinting in the sun, a sheet of glass. The front of the house.
“What is this?”
“My fortress.”
It was a stark, black box. All tinted windows in the front that kept out the harshness of the desert sun, but provided a brilliant view of their surroundings. It was part of the wild landscape. And it was also a shelter.
“You can only get in if your palm print is programmed to allow you to do so.” They walked up to a mighty gate that cordoned off the property from the surrounding land. He pressed his palm against a flat black box at the gate, and it gave them entry.
“Are there any vehicles here?”
“Yes,” he said. “But like the gate, you will not be using them unless you have custom access.”
“One might be tempted to call you paranoid,” she said.
“One would be tempted to respond that my paranoia is earned. Do you not think?”
She said nothing. And he was gratified by the fact he had won this round. Or perhaps she really was getting tired now.
As they approached the home, its massive structure shaded them, and he walked up to the door and placed his palm against the sensor he knew was there. It unlocked.
