by Tony Corden
The weight of his body hanging from her still loosely bound shoulders and upper arms soon became too much for Leah. She let go just as she was brought to a sudden stop—whatever the weight was that was tied to her legs had caught on the handrail. As she hung there, upside down, Leah still couldn’t scream, hear, smell or talk but she almost smiled if the strange and sudden contractions of the muscles in her face could ever be called a smile. If she had interpreted the tiny insignificant feelings and movements correctly, then her father was still alive, although unconscious, and was lying in a van with another body.
Leah hung like that for several minutes, twisting in the wind, when she felt the strap around her arms shift infinitesimally. Carefully, she tried to contract her arm muscles, and with her sudden movement, two things happened. First, the strap around her shoulders fell away, and the other was a slight movement in the ties around her calves. All her weight was now pulling her downward and only the ties, and whatever was wrapped around them, was holding her up.
Leah tried to calm herself by slowing her breathing. While this stopped her panic, it did nothing to slow the slippage. The ties around her calves slipped toward her feet faster as Leah was twisted and turned by the wind. Her ankles and feet were thinner than her calves and after a sudden strong gust of wind, the ties around her calves pulled loose. All her weight was now held only by the bands around her thighs. Again the slippage started small, but this time she knew the final sudden drop was going to be much further.
As soon as Leah felt the tie go from her ankles, she’d tried to get her arms to relax and hang down past her head. Her attempts caused several small convulsions which probably lessened the overall time she hung suspended above the river. Still, she was finally successful and had her hands together below her head, and her hands clasped. Her shoulders ached with the strain of the position, but Leah kept her hands locked. Finally, the tie around her thighs slipped loose, and after briefly catching on her foot, which gave her some small angular momentum, Leah fell toward the Brisbane River.
When Leah’s feet briefly caught on the binding, it not only slowed her velocity slightly, but it started her rotating. By the time she hit the water, she’d rotated one hundred and sixty degrees, and her feet hit first with her body sliding in after them which caused her to tumble around. Leah had taken a deep breath on the way down, and as she tumbled around, she tried to let her body relax completely, hoping she would float. Unfortunately, her increased activities in the last month, coupled with the added muscle fibres and stronger bones, had made her denser than ever. As she held her breath and waited to rise to the surface, she slowly sank.
Her legs were denser than her air-filled torso, and this helped reorientate her so her legs were facing the river bottom. Added to this was the movement of her arms which also sank faster than her air-filled upper torso. After a minute, the turbulence of the water around Leah from her fall slowed. With her increased perception, she noticed the movement of water along her skin. Recognising that she was sinking Leah tried to swim upwards. Her arms thrashed about wildly, their movement only vaguely resembling swimming but the overall effect, although much slower, was in the right direction.
After almost two-and-a-half minutes of threshing her arms up and down, trying to open and close her hands to help move upwards, Leah’s head briefly broke the surface. She took a quick breath then started to sink. Her shoulders and back ached as she kept flailing around, trying to keep her head above the water. After almost ten minutes of keeping herself near the surface, Leah felt her feet touch the bottom. Somehow she’d got herself near one of the banks. It was another five minutes, though, before she stopped moving, her head just out of the river. The rest of her was lying wearily on one of the rocks planted near the shore to prevent erosion. As she stopped moving, her head slumped sideways, and she faded into unconsciousness, totally exhausted.
3
December 20 2073
REAL WORLD
Four hours later, Leah woke when she felt one of the river’s saltwater mud-crabs crawl over her right foot and nip her ankle. Leah’s foot jerked, shaking the crab loose and almost throwing Leah from her perch. Awake, Leah became aware of her twisted position on the rock and unconsciously turned to find a better position. Only after leaning back against the edge of the bank did she realise her success showed she now had more control over her movements. Slowly she began flexing her fingers, then her toes. After several minutes she concluded that although she couldn’t hold a pencil to write, she could probably crawl, climb and walk if she needed to.
As she lay there thinking what to do, she realised that her chest, and shoulders, were out of the water. She thought back over her swim, if she could think of the wild splashing as that, and remembered only her neck had been sticking above the surface. Leah knew the Brisbane River as far up as the Story Bridge, and further even, was a tidal estuary. So, if she could find out which way the water was flowing, and if the level was rising or falling, then she could tell which side of the river she was on. If she knew that then she could find a place to hide. She imagined that John and others would be looking for her soon, but so would the police and Nathan’s men. If anyone except her friends found her, she didn’t think she would live for long.
Lying still, Leah finally decided that with her back to the river bank the water was flowing right-to-left and the water level was still dropping. This meant she was on the northern bank. When she’d been looking for her mother, she’d looked over the maps hundreds of times trying to work out where her mother was. Feeling around the rocks for oysters or other mollusks she concluded the tide would turn soon. Although she had no idea what time it was, she couldn’t feel any heat from the sun on her skin, so it was still night. If she’d talked with Nathan around eight, then she’d probably been taken to the bridge just before midnight. The tide would already have turned so she must be downriver from the bridge somewhere on the northern side.
She decided she was somewhere around Merthyr, which was where the river turned to head northeast. She couldn’t safely cross to the southern bank with her sight and hearing gone, so she needed to find somewhere to hide on the northern bank, preferably under cover . She decided to keep moving downriver. If she was right, then in another five or six hundred metres, she’d come to the personal jetties of the new housing precinct. This was opposite Bulimba, where she knew John had access to a safe house. She couldn’t cross over at the moment, but maybe later in the day, her senses might improve.
Having made up her mind, Leah turned to face the bank and began edging her way downriver. For all she knew, hundreds of people were watching her movements, but she had no other choices. Leah didn’t move fast, and it was an hour and a half before she felt the first pylon driven into the river bed to support one end of the pontoons. Leah kept moving until she’d moved nearer to the place her team had exited the river when rescuing her mother. Finally, weary, hungry and thirsty, Leah slowly levered herself up and under one of the pontoons and wedged herself into the gap between the pontoon and one of the cross braces. After making sure she wouldn’t fall, Leah fell into an uneasy sleep.
Thirst woke Leah six hours later as the full force of the sun warmed the top of the pontoon. Leah would normally have had confidence that she’d last without a drink, but after having nothing for twenty-two hours, and after all her exertions, she knew she needed to have something before nightfall. From her previous visit, Leah knew that most of the pontoons had freshwater lines running to their far end as most rich people didn’t want to run a hose out to fill the water tanks onboard their boats. The fact that most didn’t have boats didn’t seem to matter.
Leah felt around the base of the pontoon until she found the conduits running on the underside. Her electro-receptivity seemed to work, and she rejected two of the thermoplastic conduits as data and electrical cables. The third seemed the most likely. Leah moved back to the riverbank and felt around on the rocks for a stick, a smaller rock, or something which she could use to wear
a hole in the plastic. She didn’t want to break it all the way through as the sensors would automatically cut the flow and send an alert if clean water flowed freely from the broken pipe. Eventually, Leah found a hand-sized rock with a semi-sharp edge and a few handfuls of some type of water plant.
Heading back toward the middle of the pontoon, Leah tucked the plants inside her bra and wedging the rock in the cross brace, she lifted herself back up and onto the brace. Once there, Leah slowly rubbed the stone against the pipe. It took about twenty minutes until Leah felt water begin to drip, then spray, through the tiny hole she’d made. Lifting herself up, Leah let the water shoot into her mouth, and against her inner cheek. She drank until she was full. When she’d had as much as she could, Leah wrapped the plant material around the hole as tightly as she was able before lowering herself back to lie on the brace and wait.
Twice more throughout the long day, Leah unwrapped the weeds and drank. She’d used the river as a bathroom earlier in the morning on her crawl along the bank, and she was pleased when she had to pee late in the afternoon. When Leah could feel the heat finally fade from the pontoon, she had a final drink and lowered herself back into the water, then headed for the river bank end of the floating pier.
Once there, Leah pictured the maps she’d seen when preparing to rescue her mum. Last night she’d stopped three pontoons short of where she thought her team had been and where she’d broken through the alarms. Johan had tied their half-full scuba gear on the end of the pontoon. It had only been a week and Leah was hoping it was still there. The house didn’t have a boat, so there was a good chance they’d not even realised they’d had visitors.
After waiting what she guessed was two hours, Leah clawed her way further downriver in what she hoped was the early evening. She moved slowly, taking her time, and staying under the water as much as she could. Finally, she arrived at what she thought was the right pontoon and worked her way underneath it until she reached the end. She checked for ten minutes before she was sure the scuba gear was gone.
Heading back to the riverbank, she counted in her head again and then moved back one house. Again, she couldn’t find the scuba gear. She next moved in the other direction and would have laughed in relief when she felt them secured halfway down the outer pylon. Well, she would have if she’d had any confidence that her voice wouldn’t cause problems. On and off she’d tried to form words and whisper them. Although she’d been able to build them in her mind and even know what movements her mouth should make, she didn’t seem to be able to connect the two.
Leah carefully secured the mini scuba canisters with their mouthpieces and underwater goggles around her waist. She’d used the rope Johan had used, and although Leah had no use for the goggles, there wasn’t enough rope to leave them behind. Letting them float away as any sort of evidence just wasn’t done. The tide peaked and was starting to turn before she was ready to leave. Leah’s plan was to swim close to the surface, trying to keep her head underneath as much as possible. If she kept the current on her right side, she’d eventually reach the other bank. If she angled toward the outgoing tide she should be close to where she and the team had entered the water. From there she was almost sure she could find the previous safe house by feel alone. It was the only place other than the Kodoman’s house that John knew Leah might head towards.
Taking a few deep breaths, Leah pushed off into the river. She was swimming blind and had to stop every thirty seconds or so to try and gauge which direction the current was coming from. Altogether it took fifteen minutes and one change of the scuba canisters before she pulled herself into the southern bank.
The edge of the bank felt smooth. Leah carefully moved upward and felt the surface on top of the bank with her hand. There was a smooth edge and what felt like rails. Slipping back into the water, she began crawling to her right. If her recollection was correct, then she’d been carried almost three hundred metres downstream. The bank felt like the walkway that had been constructed around the turn of the river in that area. It ran along the river edge at the back of a collection of newer and expensive up-market riverside units.
It was another hour before she crawled under the old pier where the ferry used to cross and half-an-hour after that before she found the walkway beside the Bulimba park. By her guess, it was close to nine at night and most people, if not all of them, would be in their pods for the night. Very few people went out at nights except in places like the Switch.
Finding the edge of the park, Leah slowly slid onto the bank, then, using her elbows and knees, Leah began to crawl and slide toward the safe house. What took ten minutes fully clothed while sneaking, took Leah, in just her underwear and going by feel, over an hour. Leah made her way around the back of the house and was almost at the door when she felt a hand on her forearm.
Leah’s arms and legs reacted automatically and before the person seemed aware, Leah was on her back with her arm tightened around the person’s neck, her legs wrapped around their torso. Whoever it was hadn’t resisted, not that they would have been able to do much against Leah’s increased strength. Leah carefully brought her right hand around to feel the face. As she’d attacked, she’d felt what she thought was a male body. The head was shaved and as her fingers brushed over the nose and eyes she felt a small scar under the left nostril. It was Johan, and she’d given him that in one of their knife fights early in her training.
As soon as she identified him, she simply collapsed backwards and began to sob silently. Nothing happened for a few minutes except that Johan rolled away and then gently pulled Leah close. After that, Johan gently pulled Leah to her feet and seemed to just stand there, except Leah imagined he was trying to talk. Leah gently pulled her hands away and lifted them to cover her ears, then her eyes, her nose and finally her mouth. The next thing she knew he’d brought her close into a soft embrace, then with an arm under her knees, he lifted her and carried her into the house.
Once inside, Johan brought a blanket to put around her shoulders before placing a sandwich in her hands. Leah ate slowly, not wanting to throw it up. After eating, she was given a hot drink of sweetened tea which she drank before signalling for whoever was there to come close. When a hand was put in hers, she knew it wasn’t Johan. Reaching along the elbow, she moved her other hand toward the face. Feeling carefully the face that was gently pressed into her hand, she was fairly sure this was Lacey.
Reaching down, she wrote ‘LACEY’ letter by letter on the palm of the person’s hand. There was no movement for a minute; then her hand was turned over, and she felt Lacey write the letter ‘Y’. Once she knew who it was, she turned Lacey’s hand over and wrote ‘DAD?’.
Lacey spelt out that her dad was alive and at home. He had a broken leg and a fractured arm. Leah spelt out, ‘BAD GUYS?’. There was a long pause before Lacey wrote that there were two dead. One in a van and the other pulled from the river. When she’d finished the long answer, Lacey spelt out, ‘YOU?’, to which Leah just nodded.
As Lacey had begun spelling out about Leah’s dad, Leah had felt Johan get to work cleaning and bandaging her various wounds. Besides the older ones on her back, neck, and arms there were the burns on her head and to her surprise a variety of cuts and gashes on her knees, elbows, arms, legs and face. When he’d finished, Lacey wrote, ‘READY TO GO HOME?’. Leah nodded and then leant back into Johan as he carried her from the room.
Once they were in what Leah assumed was a car, she simply fell asleep with Lacey’s arms around her.
4
December 20 2073
REAL WORLD
When Leah had left the compound with Michael, the car had only just passed from sight when John received a message from Olivia that the warrant had been cancelled. There was no need for Leah to leave the compound. John was frantic as he tried to connect with either Leah or Michael, but to no avail. He explained what had happened to Olivia, who contacted the police. They said that Michael and Leah had refused a lift back to the property and decided to walk.<
br />
In full health, John could imagine Leah being that stubborn, but there was no way she would walk back just to annoy the police in the condition she was in. John was pretty certain the Kodomans had taken them and contacted Jimmy. John arranged for as many resources as they could find to spread out around the city. Neither of them wanted to blanket the city with people, but they had no other options to look for her. Their fears were realised almost immediately. Several of the people contacted to look for Leah, Michael, or the car, had passed on what had happened to their friends.
In less than an hour, several thousand of the city’s poorest invaded the wealthy neighbourhoods looking for Leah. By mid-afternoon, there had been over four hundred arrests, and the number of people flowing from the negative-tax regions was in the tens of thousands. Unfortunately, at least in John’s mind, it wasn’t isolated to Brisbane. Across Australia in every major city, and most minor ones, the poorest marched through the streets, demanding Leah’s return. By eight that evening, the number of arrests had risen to five thousand across Australia. Reports were also coming in of small groups of people congregating in public spaces across China, Japan, and Russia, all of them calling for the return of Atherleah.
The area outside the Pod compound soon filled with people prepared for a vigil. John arranged extra guards, but no one did more than lean against the fence. Just after ten in the evening word came from some of their people in the city that Michael had been found. He was unconscious and lying in the back of a van with a dead man. The dead person was identified as Earl Dunmore, and he’d died of a broken neck. Michael had a broken arm and a fractured leg and had been taken to the Greater Brisbane Hospital for observation.