by Meg Buchanan
Trojan Gene
Trojan Gene Series- Book 1
Meg Buchanan
Range Road Press
New Zealand
Published in NZ by Range Road Press, 2018
Copyright © Meg Buchanan
The author inserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Cover designed by Kura Carpenter
Chapter 1
WE’RE RIGHT ON the bush line when Nick hears the Hovers. He drops to a crouch then signals at me to get down and stay low.
“Get my glasses, Jack. They’re on top.” Nick’s voice is barely a whisper.
I drop too and ease up to him. Mon’s hackles rise. He skulks back and lies low, head on paws, back legs ready for action.
I flip Nick’s pack open, grab the binoculars, hand them to him, then lie down. I move my rifle to scope what’s going on. I can’t see anything unusual.
Nick stretches out too. He wipes the binocular lenses with his cuff, carefully pushes the ferns aside, and holds the fronds down. He adjusts the focus and studies the valley below us. After a while, he hands the binoculars over and points to the farm buildings nestled in the valley. He folds his arms and rests his chin on his wrist guard.
I glass the buildings again. I still don’t see anything but hear a faint whomp, whomp, whomp noise. Then a hole in appears in the sky. The hole starts to shimmer. I focus on the shimmering.
A StealthHover materialises, a massive black triangle with a silver V etched from wingtip to wingtip. The troopship must have had its cloaking device activated to sneak up like that. Another comes out of the air, then another, and another, and another. They unhaze and settle on the ground in front of the barn.
“Vector.” I’m speaking as quietly as Nick did. This is my fault. I knew they were coming.
Nick nods without lifting his head. “We’re too late.”
I hand the binoculars back, ease the rifle into position again, and scope the farm buildings. There’s a pause, and then the Hovers lift their wings the way ducks dry their feathers. VTroops stream out of the open doors like black fury. The visors on their helmets hide their faces. Their coats stir around their legs. The sound of boots on the ground echoes up from the valley to the bush line. I’m beside Nick, flat and silent, watching through the crosshairs.
The armed VTroops move into position and surround the house. One kicks in the door and five of them storm inside. Then two come out dragging old man Stevens. They throw Stevens on the ground. He lies very still. Old lady Stevens follows, dragged by two more VTroopers. She gets thrown too, tries to stand but is hit by the butt of a laser gun and falls back down. She stays as still as the old man.
Three girls, one around eighteen, come out the door clustered together. A VTrooper walks behind them, laser held ready. The older girl breaks free of the cluster and runs. A guard grabs her and pushes her back with the others.
It’s all like a Vid with the sound turned down.
Then, two men dressed differently to the rest, no helmets and their coats almost brushing the ground, march up to the old people. They stand over them. One shoots old Stevens and his wife. Just two shots, point blank.
Me and Nick hear the resonance of the girls’ screams float up from the valley. We’ve watched Vector murder two old people, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
I look at Nick. He’s still staring through the binoculars.
The troopers start smashing stuff, systematically demolishing the farm buildings, every glasshouse, every outbuilding. It’s all smashed or burned. Completely destroyed. It doesn’t take long, maybe half an hour at the most.
When they’ve finished, the VTroopers drag the girls to one of the Hovers. The doors close. The shimmer starts again, and slides across the wings until all that is left in the air is a black hole. Then the other three Hovers disappear, leaving broken glass, crushed plants, and burning timber. And the bodies dead in the ruins.
The evening light filters through the trees. I rest my forehead on my wristband and lie there under the ferns. “I should have come as soon as I knew.”
Nick pushes himself up so he’s sitting. “You said it was just about rogue plants.” He looks as shocked as I am and sounds accusing.
“Yeah, that’s what Curley’s papers said, and Vector weren’t coming until next month.” I stand. Smoke winds silently across the valley. I pick up my rifle slowly like it’s heavy. I knew old Stevens had his grandkids living with him. He was hiding them OffGrid. I knew this would happen if Vector found the kids. If I’d come as soon as I found out or even this morning, we could’ve got them away. We shouldn’t have gone hunting first. I hang my rifle over my shoulder. If I’d done anything differently, I could have stopped this happening.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” asks Nick.
“They haven’t left much to come back for.” I start going down the hill. “I’m going to bury them,” I say.
It keeps coming back to me, the Stevens’ place crushed and burned, and the old guy and his wife lying dead. I can’t figure out how I’m going to live with it. All me and Nick did was bury them.
We don’t go and see Jacob on the way home like we know we should. He’s not going to see wanting to get in a hunt first as a good reason for letting two old people die. My boss’s not big on procrastination.
When we get back to town, Nick doesn’t take off and go straight home like he planned. He comes back to my place because we need to do something about what’s just happened, but we haven’t figured out what yet. We get to the pub real late. I stick Mon is his kennel, and we go inside.
Nick follows me through the back door. “I think maybe we should try damage control first.”
I nod. “Send emails to all the other farms. Warn them about an early visit by Vector.”
“Yeah, and maybe I should check with Curley to see if he’s heard anything.”
I start upstairs. “Or maybe we should go see Jacob after all. Ask him.” I’m trying to avoid Mum. I don’t want her to know I just got two old people killed.
Nick’s just behind me. “No, not Jacob yet. I figure we’ll be lucky to survive telling him what’s happened.”
I can’t argue with that.
Mum must have heard us arrive because she appears at the bottom of the stairs. “Fitzgerald was here looking for you. He came in earlier.”
“Where’s he now?” I ask.
Me and Nick are standing there, half up and half down, like neither of us can decide which way to go.
Mum studies me standing there on the staircase. “He said you’re to go to the station as soon as you get back.” That’s what my mum does, watches me, and usually has some opinion about my behaviour.
“What does he want?” Fitzgerald’s the local cop. Not Vector. Deals with stuff like drink driving, fights at parties and vandalism.
“Maybe it’s Fitzgerald we should talk to,” says Nick.
“Yeah.”
“Are you in trouble again, Jack?”
I’ve had a lot more to do with Fitzgerald over the last few years than Mum’s happy with. “Don’t know.”
“What’s gone wrong?”
“Can’t tell you.” Don’t know how much she knows or if she’s in on it or not. I make the decision. “Got to see Fitzgerald.” I figure he had a job to do when I got arrested, and he’s all right actually. He can be trusted.
I come back down the stairs. Nick follows. Mum stands there watching us. Even I know this isn’t the way I usually act, sort of undecided and ambivalent, and Mum’s known me longer than anyone.
When we�
��re nearly at the bottom, she says quietly, “It’s happening again.” It hits me like an echo. She’s said it as if her heart’s going to break. I heard her sound like that before Dad left.
I go down the last step, walk over to Mum and put my arms around her the way she used to with me. “It’s okay. Mum. I’m just the messenger boy.”
But Mum doesn’t buy that. She’s holding on to me like she’ll never let go. “Jack, whatever Jacob and Fitzgerald have planned for you, tell them you won’t do it.” Her head is against my shoulder, and her voice is muffled. “I can’t lose you too.”
I need to get moving. “They aren’t planning anything, Mum. I’m just the messenger boy.”
“Be careful.”
“I’m just helping Jacob. I send out warnings, plant the seeds, and feed the dogs.”
Mum doesn’t believe me. “Yeah, right.” She is trying to sound tough. “Be careful.”
“Okay, got to go. Got to see what Fitzgerald wants.”
Mum stands back. “And when you talk to him, tell him there are a few things going on here he should know about. He should call in tomorrow.”
“Okay.” We go back out to the Land Rover, and me and Nick drive to the Police Station.
“Ready to face him?” I say to Nick.
“Do you think he knows about the Stevens?”
“Yeah, and if he doesn’t we’re going to have to tell him.”
“Will he blame us?”
“I don’t know about you,” I breathe in and straighten up, “but it was me who was meant to warn them.” I figure I might be going to my own execution.
Fitzgerald’s sitting at his desk. His uniform’s crumpled like it’s had a long day. Nobody else is at the station, just him.
“You didn’t get caught up in what happened at the Stevens’ place?” he asks as soon as we come through the door. Fitzgerald’s looking tired and stressed.
“Nah.” Nick slumps down into the chair near the desk. He’s got a streak of soot on his face. The desk’s sagging under the weight of the papers on it. “We heard the Hovers just as we got to the bush line. Stayed hidden.” Not my proudest moment. We both stink of smoke. The smell fills up the room.
“You saw what happened?”
“Yeah.” I push a chair over nearer the desk. “We watched it happening.”
“How did you know we were there?” Nick’s being staunch.
Fitzgerald just shrugs. “I was at your place talking to Joe and your dad. Curley picked up new orders about the Stevens and tried to find me. By the time I got the message it was too late to do anything. Joe said that’s where you two were, and you were out after deer.” It doesn’t sound as if it’s worrying Fitzgerald we were hunting illegally. “I thought you might have got caught up in it.”
“We were lucky.” Nick rubs his forehead with the side of his hand. Back and forth. Like it’s getting too much even for him too. “Missed it by minutes.”
Then I can’t stand the waiting any longer. I’m worried about what Fitzgerald is going to say when he gets to the finger pointing part. I just want him to get on with it. “I should have warned old Stevens as soon as I found out DoE was targeting him.” DoE is the Department of Eugenics. Nick works for them, but he doesn’t believe in what they’re doing. It’s their job to stamp out rogue seeds. That’s what got Stevens killed. Growing bloody seeds that aren’t authorised.
Fitzgerald doesn’t respond to that. He stands up. The chair creaks as it returns to shape. He goes over to the window, pushes the curtain back, and stares out, then turns back to us.
“It’s not your fault. If you’d warned him earlier, Stevens might have got rid of the seedlings, but he wouldn’t have hidden the girls this early. Sometimes Vector comes a few days before they plan but not a month.”
Fitzgerald walks back to the desk and sits down again. He picks up a pen, studies it, then puts it down. He leans towards us a bit.
“Curley said this raid came from a completely different set of orders. If you’d gone this morning, instead of when you did, they would have got you two as well as the girls. When it happened, not going in with guns blazing was sensible. It sounds like they sent an army, so if you’d gone in and tried to help the Stevens you’d be dead, or worse. Captured. What you did with the information you had was sensible.” Nick nods. Me too. “You did the right thing,” says Fitzgerald.
“Okay.” I don’t believe Fitzgerald any more than Mum believed me.
Fitzgerald pulls a piece of paper off a pile. Places it in front of him. “Right, now describe what you saw.”
Nick goes through what happened. When he gets to the two men and how they shot old man Stevens, Fitzgerald stops taking notes. “Did you recognise them?”
“Nah,” I say.
“Okay. We need to find out who they are and why this happened.” Fitzgerald taps his pen on the page. “What did you do then?”
“Waited for the Hovers to leave and buried the bodies.”
“That’s all you could have done.”
“Yeah, right.” I start to stand up. “Is there anything else?”
Fitzgerald thinks a bit more. “You should warn the others on your list that this has happened. Mike’s computer is still the safest way.”
Then I remember Mum’s message. “Mum says to come to the pub tomorrow. She says there’s stuff you should know about.”
“Tell her I’ll come after lunch.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.” Fitzgerald stands too. He comes around the desk ready to walk us out. I stop to open the front door. “Jack,” Fitzgerald says seriously to me, “Stevens wasn’t your fault. Talk to Jacob about it. He’ll say the same.”
“Monday morning will do.” I figure that’s about as long as I can put it off without looking like I’m too wary of Jacob.
“It will be all right.”
“Yeah.” Still don’t believe him. Actually, I’d usually trust Fitzgerald. It was him who talked Jacob into giving me a job. I got arrested again one night a month or so ago. Drinking again, fighting again. And instead of taking me to the station or home the way he usually did, Fitzgerald had taken me to Jacob’s place.
“He’s all yours,” he'd said to Jacob as I’d rolled out of the cop car into the dark. I’d leaned against the side of the car trying to figure out what the hell I was doing there. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid when my dad was mates with Jacob’s son. Usually after an incident at a party, Fitzgerald just locked me up until I was sober enough to be taken home.
Anyway, that time Fitzgerald just said to Jacob, “See if you can knock your big hope for the future into shape. My way’s not working.”
Next thing, I’m employed by Jacob Hennessey. I’m pretty sure Jacob wasn’t too keen on employing me. He did it to keep Fitzgerald happy. It turned out Jacob’s way of knocking me into shape was pointing out at length what I should do any time I stuff up.
Chapter 2
NICK GOES HOME and I go back to the pub. I guess I feel a bit better after talking to Fitzgerald, but I’m not too sure if Jacob’s going to see the whole saga the same way. He has no trouble laying the blame where he thinks it should be.
I start Dad’s computer to send out warnings like Fitzgerald suggested. I wish I’d had my Com with me. I could have used that phone to take pictures of what happened at the Stevens’. That would have made the rest of them really take notice of the warnings.
I see the flicker of the shields going up and can’t stand it. Fold my arms on the desk and rest my forehead on my wrists. Just sit there in the flicker. I don’t hear Mum come in, don’t know she’s there until she touches my shoulder. She pulls up the other chair and sits down at the desk beside me.
“What’s happened?” she asks the way she did earlier.
I lift my head and she’s sitting there watching me, looking worried. Jacob keeps telling me to keep my mouth shut about what I see, but I’m pretty sure Mum knows more than I do anyway. Why else would she be passin
g information on to Fitzgerald? I decide to be a bit more truthful, and this time I don’t pretend I’m just planting seeds and feeding dogs. I tell her about how the day went, Stevens and all.
“Don’t get involved,” she says when she’s heard the whole story.
“It’s a bit late. I’m already involved, and after this Steven’s thing I’m planning on fighting the Administration with everything I’ve got.”
She looks at me, shakes her head, and then sort of smiles. “I know. As soon as you went to work for Jacob, you were part of it. I should have made you go to the City. It would have been safer for you there.”
“I’m tough. I can handle it.”
“Not tough enough for this.” Mum stands up, looks at the flickering computer. “What are you doing now?”
“Sending out warnings to the others.” I touch the email icon.
She just nods and sighs. “See you in the morning.”
“Yeah.” I turn back to the screen. There’s a message from Katie, my girlfriend. Now, the thing with girlfriends is having one stops you from looking like a complete loser, but they take up your time. They expect you to turn up when you say you will, return texts, answer emails and go to their birthday parties.
Going hunting with Nick instead of going to Katie’s party was probably a mistake, especially when I didn’t bother to let her know. Actually, I thought I was going to be able to fit both things in.
I open the message expecting a ‘where were you,’ type question. Instead it’s all ‘let’s stay friends but I need to concentrate on my studies right now’.
I’ve been dropped. I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, but I hadn’t expected to get dropped. I guess taking second place to hunting again was more than Katie could stand.
*
Jack Fraser, that’s me, farm worker, mug and bloody babysitter. I get to work Monday morning. It’s pouring with rain, and I’m sloshing through the mud. Jacob must have heard me arrive. He comes over and leans back against the fence rail, face wrinkled like a walnut shell, eyes peering at me from under his hat. He tells me about this babysitting job.