Did you hear what happened in Amsterdam?

She had finally made it. It had been seven years and it was all happening at once. There was no going back. She heard a woman’s voice calling from over the sound of her music, “Hoi love, gonna need you to hang up that call.. we’re just about ready go”. She hadn’t been talking on the phone, but she’d started murmuring aloud by accident. “Yes, alright” she replied to the attendant as she stowed away her belongings. This was her first flight since 2091, since the flying ban. She’d made it through the pandemic, and she was finally getting away.

Marovah Kurlowicz was born in Utrecht and left the Netherlands only twice in her life. Once for her mother’s funeral after the floods and the second time was today. She looked down at her phone. That number was calling again. What did they want? “Hello” she answered, lowering herself down on her seat as much as she could. “Hallo daar, Is this Kolnika Kervitz?”. Who was this man and how did he know her old name? “No this is Marovah” she replied sternly.

She could feel the man on her left glaring at her. Mobile phones were considered ancient artifacts, especially the one she was carrying. Her mother had gifted it to her before she left. “Excuseer me mijnheer, but I’ve got to go” she hung up the phone and switched it off immediately.

Who was this person and what did he want with Kolnika? She could feel the engine of the plane rumbling beneath the soles of her feet. She closed her eyes. “You are safe” she told herself “You are safe now”.

Fourteen hours later, she had arrived. In the streets of Kuala Lampar, she felt warm and anxious, but she was delighted. Marovah pulled out her virtual map and headed straight to her new place. From far, she could see a woman bustling through the crowd, it looked like she was trying to catch a streetcar. She tripped over a cleaning robot and just kept running. “Miss! Miss!” she cried out. Was she approaching her? Marovah thought. “Miss, you dropped this!” the woman screamed. Marovah couldn’t make out what the woman was holding, she lifted her hat and squinted a little. It was a little black bag? The woman finally reached her. “Here!” She jolted the object in front of her face and slammed it on the ledge where Marovah had been leaning. It was a little black book. It looked sleek and brand new. “This isn’t mine” Marovah responded but the woman had gone. She had already crossed across the street.

She looked around embarrassingly and opened the book. Right there in there on the first page was her name. “Marovah Gita Kurlowicz born 2068”. Marovah felt nauseous. On the next page, there was a number. She recognized the number instantly. It was the man who had called her on the plane. What was happening? What was this book?

She flipped the page. There it was long excerpt carefully printed in neat cursive handwriting. It wrote:

“This is all gonna seem surreal but please bear with me. My name is Andrescu Kervitz. You won’t remember me. In 2071, after the floods hit Earth’s Northern hemisphere and most of the South, some hundreds of families were given the chance to leave planet Earth. They offered Mum, dad and I a place to stay, start-up money, and three communication devices. There was one condition - we had to you behind. We didn’t want to go, but we were forced to leave right away. Dad left you with Mr Kurlowicz and his wife. I left my communication device behind, in case I needed to contact you one day. You’ve been pretty hard to get a hold of so if you’re reading this, it means I’ve finally succeeded. Every year for about five years, I arranged for people to look out for you. To make sure you were OK...”

Marovah could not keep reading. She looked around frantically for the woman who had handed her the journal. She was gone.

She flipped nervously through the book. Pages and pages of writing. She came across an address on page five. “…head to 456 Moleskine RD 28402 upon your arrival in Kuala Lumpar”. She looked down at the address she had plugged into her virtual map just moments before. It was the same address. This was the address her boss had given her. This was her new apartment, provided by the Plum Company. She didn’t understand.

How could this man claiming to me her brother have known where she’d be headed? She dialed her bosses’ number immediately. No response.

Marovah signaled a Fast Car and headed straight to the place on her map.

In the backseat of the Fast Car, Marovah thought hard. She didn’t remember her family. She had been adopted at the age of three by an older couple. She’d gotten a new name but her old name was never kept secret. Her mother had died in the flood after she’d gotten separated from the rest of her family. She had no siblings, or anyone other than Mr and Mrs Kurlowicz. This is what she had been told.

Marovah arrived at the apartment, entered the door code and let herself in. The place was empty. She spotted a bright fuchsia bag in the corner of the room.

She put her purse down, sat on the floor and continued reading where she left off.

“On May 8th, 2071, our family had to leave the Netherlands. Natural disasters would keep occurring on Earth until the planet would eventually become inhabitable”.

Inhabitable? Earth?! Marovah could not believe what she was reading. Surely this had to be science fiction. But this person knew so many intricate details about her life.

“A few years later, we got news that a pandemic had hit Earth. Many inhabitants have survived but something far worse may be coming. The generals here have finally decided to descend an aircraft into Earth’s atmosphere and assist new families to bring them up here. This may be our last chance to get you here with us. I won’t mess this up, not this time”.

“I’ve laid out very clear instructions in this book. You were not one of the Earth's people chosen to be rescued, but if you follow the instructions I’ve written out, we can fix it. I’ve left you $20 000 in a bag in your apartment. This should be enough to get you started. We have one year before the aircraft departs".

Marovah looked around. What had she been involved in? Was her job offer in Kuala Lumpar even real? What was this place?

She looked around at the empty studio apartment. She shifted her gaze from the bag supposedly holding $20 000, the little black book and her beat-up looking cell phone.

She flipped back to page two where that long telephone number was scribbled down. She dialed it. It went straight to voicemail - “Andrescu Kervitz.. laat een bericht achter”.