by Meg Buchanan
“About to get a visit, are we?” he asks.
“Yeah,” says Nick.
“How long have we got?”
“Fitzgerald says maybe an hour.”
“What about the seedlings?”
“No time. Fitzgerald says to leave them. Just get your family out.” His wife appears behind him. Switches on the light.
Egan turns to her. “Wake the kids, get them dressed and packed. Just a change of clothes.” She nods and goes back down the passage way. We hear whispering then movement from the bedrooms.
“Ela and Jack will help you pack,” says Nick. “I’ll get our vehicle, take you to Fitzgerald. He’s got a safe house sorted.”
“Where are you parked?”
“About a kilometre away. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so.”
“We’ll be ready,” says Egan, like he knew this would happen, and they’re prepared for it.
*
So, we get the Egans away safe. There’s ten of them, and all the kids OffGrid. Then Nick goes back to the layby, hides the ute, and me, Ela and Nick sit on the bush line above the house to see what’ll happen. Like Fitzgerald told Nick to.
Nothing happens. We watch the farmhouse and the barns and the long lines of glasshouses. Jacob says Egans have one of the biggest operations we’ve got. Acres of glasshouses and barns full of equipment stretch out in front of us. Maybe that’s why they need all those kids. There’s a fair bit of work involved in an operation like this. Anyway, it all just sits there undisturbed.
“This is a waste of time,” says Nick about two hours after sunrise.
“Maybe Curley got it wrong.”
“Yeah, looks like it.” He stands up. “Want to go with Plan B?”
Sounds good to me. We go hunting again.
*
Ela’s doing all right, but I hang back a bit and keep her with me. She might be getting better at moving quietly, but there’s still the smell of her. She moves in a fog of perfume, soap and shampoo. I let Nick go ahead. We have a better chance of getting something with Nick up front. He has his rifle loaded and the bolt half closed.
As we go up the next ridge, every now and then Nick walks out to the edge and takes a look.
“What’s he doing?” asks Ela. She might be better at moving in the bush, but she still talks.
“Looking for sign,” I say.
“Sign?”
“Footprints, broken branches, bark rubbed off tree trunks.”
He comes back to where we are.
“There’s nothing on the track,” he says. “If we work our way higher, we should start seeing something.” He holds the sling of his rifle against his shoulder and makes a snaking upward motion with his free arm.
We carry on. Ela is talking again.
“Why does he keep his rifle loaded?”
“So, he can take a quick shot. Closing the bolt the final half turn won’t make a sound.”
We work our way up the ridge.
“Why are we going this way?”
“It’s better if we move into the breeze. Nothing will get our scent.” Don’t mention the fog of perfume. “That means anything ahead of us won’t be disturbed.”
We come to a small crest with a large rocky knob that gives a good view of the gut leading down below the main ridge. Broadleaf trees wind their way down with grassy fingers separating them.
“It looks like a perfect spot for a deer, but there still isn’t much sign,” says Nick, coming back to us.
“We should head for the main clearing.”
“Yeah.” Nick walks along with us. “Do you think Vector will visit the Egan place?” he asks as we climb. The going is easy on this main ridge, the manuka fairly clear underneath.
“Not sure. We could go back and check.” I’m starting to feel uneasy about being out hunting again after what happened to the Stevens. I guess at least this time we dealt with the people before we took off. Last time the problem was we did the hunting first then went to the Stevens’ place. Got there just too late.
“Yeah,” says Nick, like he feels a bit uneasy too about the way we’ve left things. But we shake off the uneasy feeling and get back into hunting mode.
“The deer can’t be too far away.” He walks on ahead. We get slower and slower and have to crawl under fallen trees. The trees have rotted down a lot, but the bush lawyer has taken over, covering them with a mat of growth.
Nick and I unload our rifles and put the safety on then push ourselves through the deer tunnels that wind through tangled bush. Deer are small and streamlined compared to people, so it’s hard. Ela follows and makes no comment about crawling through the grubby burrows.
We come out into the first of a series of empty clearings.
Deer have been here. The grassy areas are cropped. After a while Nick signals to us to be quiet and shows Ela a set of fresh footprints leading down through a clearing.
I get ready in case I can get a shot and follow close, Ela behind me now. There are prints and droppings everywhere. It looks like something has been living here. We creep forward quietly, alert for anything. And suddenly a branch snaps ahead of us.
We all freeze. There’s something there all right. A small stand of mountain totara shields us from the next clear area. A deer could just be on the other side. We can see the trunks of the totara have been rubbed by stags. Twenty or thirty trees have been nearly stripped of their bark. Those trunks stand white, stark and naked in contrast with the brown of the manuka behind them.
Nick sees the ivory tips of antlers weaving through the manuka and totara towards us.
“He’s coming straight for us,” he whispers. Closes the bolt quietly and raises his rifle. Antlers disappear and reappear as the stag threads his way through the trees.
“What a beauty,” Nick whispers again. He’s looking through his scope to find the target. He concentrates, breathes, and adjusts his stance. “Stop moving,” he says under his breath.
A flurry of breeze moves the leaves around us. The stag’s eyes bulge open. His nostrils flare as he catches a scent. And then crash, he’s gone.
“The bastard took off,” says Nick.
“Not your fault. A gust of wind and that was the end of the place.”
“What happens now?” Ela asks. “Do we chase it?”
“No, that one’s gone for good. It will be nervous for days now,” I say. Nick looks at me a bit surprised but doesn’t say anything. Monsanto’s sniffing around the edges, looking back at us after every second or third tree as if to say, “Come on. He went through here.”
We sling our rifles back over our shoulders, and I put my arm around Ela. Turn to Nick, “What do you want to do?”
Nick thinks about it for a moment. “We’ll let the area settle.”
Chapter 9
WE SQUAT ON THE GRASS. Unpack the packs. I pull out the primus, gas canister and billy. Assemble the primus and sit it on the ground.
Ela walks over to the edge of the clearing and looks at the view. When she is far enough away not to hear him, Nick asks the question I guess he’s been bursting to ask since we let the stag get away.
“What happens if we see something across a ridge like we did last time?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“If we go after it, Ela’s not going to be able to keep up.”
“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t want to chase the stag.” She might be able to move a bit quieter in the bush now, but she’s never going to be able to chase a deer.
I decide to make the sacrifice. “I’ll stay with her and you go after it.” There isn’t any other way.
“Yeah, right,” says Nick. Lucky that decision never gets tested.
I prod the billy handle to keep it upright.
Anyway, how would we get the thing out if we did shoot it? We’re miles from the ute now. Last time we picked the deer up on the way back to the vehicles.
“We should have moved the seedlings out of the glasshouses. We would have had time to save
them,” says Nick.
“Yeah.” I pour everyone a hot chocolate, hand Nick and Ela mugs and then sit down beside Ela on her coat. She shuffles along to make room for me.
I pick up a sandwich, take the top piece of bread off to check the filling – ham and tomato. I stick it back down and take a bite. “It was too dangerous to have your ute there. If Vector arrived while we were doing it, they’d have got us.”
“We could have moved them into the bush and come back for them in a few days.” Nick twists his wrist shield around like it’s cutting into his arm again. “If Vector did come, they’ve got the seedlings now.”
Then I think of something I hadn’t thought of before. It wasn’t the seedlings Vector was interested in at the Stevens’.
“Vector didn’t take them last time. They just smashed them like they smashed everything else.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Nick looks surprised by the idea. “They took the girls. Everyone thought this is all about the seeds, but it can’t be.”
That puts a different slant on almost everything.
“And the thing the Stevens and the Egans have in common is OffGrid kids,” I say. We sit there for a while. Finish eating. Then Nick stands up, starts packing stuff away.
“What do you want to do now?” he asks.
“Go back and see what happened?” Still don’t like the way we left things.
“Yeah,” says Nick. “What’s the point of hunting if you can’t actually hunt?” We go back to Egan’s.
At the Egan place, everything is just the way we left it.
“False alarm.” Nick’s standing near the glasshouses. “Want to try moving the seedlings?”
Monsanto’s lying there beside him, head on paws, not looking at us. Put out because we’ve given up on the hunt, I reckon.
I’m still cagey about moving the seedlings. It would take a couple of hours and for no good reason really. It’s not like there seems to be any shortage of seeds to plant. Jacob seems to have an endless supply. We can easily make more seedlings.
“Nah,” I say. “We should get out of here.”
Ela wanders away from us over to the house, picks up a little box that’s sitting on the back porch. She brings it over to Nick and me, opens the lid.
This little pink ballerina flips up and spins around. Music tinkles out.
“Lucy’s dad wouldn’t let her pack this,” says Ela. “I’ll take it back and see if I can get it to her.” And we’re standing there, just outside that glasshouse. We’re watching this bloody ballerina spin round and round, and then we hear the Hovers and see a shimmer start near the barn.
Me and Nick move instantly. Nick crouches. Unslings his rifle. Slides in a round. He half closes the bolt like he might need to take a quick shot.
I grab Ela by the shoulder. She drops the music box near the glasshouse door. I push her through the doorway. Pull her down. Crouch beside her.
“What…?” whispers Ela. I shake my head at her. Make the ‘don’t talk, keep still, stay low’ sign I taught her when we were kids. She nods. Starts to look frightened as the whomp, whomp sound gets louder.
Monsanto’s hackles are up. Maybe he’s planning on attacking with Nick. Then Nick and Monsanto slide in behind me and Ela. Nick flips the door shut. I’m just kneeling there, heart hammering. The music box is still tinkling outside the glasshouse door.
Ela’s half under the seedling trays. I’m holding her arm tight to make sure she doesn’t try bobbing up to see what’s happening. We’re lucky it’s one of those glasshouses with a small brick wall around the bottom for a bit of passive heating. There’s plenty of foliage from some leggy tomato seedlings. We’ve got cover if we keep low.
I look at Nick. He’s still acting like some sort of Universal soldier crouching there, rifle ready as if he’s about to go into combat. I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do with one round up the spout and one dog for backup. Those Hovers hold a hundred odd VTroopers each.
Through the glass above the bricks we can just see the top of the Hover as it materialises in front of the barn. Ela bites the side of her lip.
We wait so we know what we’re dealing with. Two more Hovers arrive like at the Stevens’. They settle nearer the house. We hear the wings lift, see the tips when they get to our line of sight.
We hear the boots of the guards on the ground. That tromp, tromp sound you get when the VTroopers move in formation. I figure we have about ten seconds to make a move, or we’re going to end up dead or captured.
Can’t decide which would be worst. Planning on avoiding both scenarios.
I risk a peep over the bricks. Just as bloody Carlos Vincent and the sidekick stride from the ramp of the first Hover towards the house. Didn’t expect that.
Groups of VTroopers are moving into position all over the show. Tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp. It looks the same as it did at the Stevens’, form a perimeter around the house then a wider one around the buildings.
I duck down again and think fast. The glasshouses are ranked in three lines. Seven in each row. That Egan has a tidy mind.
We’re in the first glasshouse in the middle row. The houses stretch right to the start of the orchard. It’s in full leaf, so we’ll have cover there. After that an open paddock for fifty odd metres. Then the bush line.
We have to reach the bush line, preferably without being seen. Once we’re in the bush, they can’t use the Hovers to get us. Even if the three hundred VTroopers are sent after us, we should be able to keep ahead of them. Vector doesn’t bother with bush craft or stalking, just march straight at you. They know no one runs or fights anymore.
I see two groups of around thirty black helmets and visors bobbing and moving – tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp – fast. Both sides of us, outside the rows of glasshouses. We’ll be surrounded in no time if we stay where we are.
Only one choice. Get to the orchard before they get to the end of the glasshouses. Some choice.
I look at Nick. He snakes his hand at the alley up the middle of the house we’re in. Looks like he’s come to the same conclusion as me. Run.
I nod and grab Ela’s arm again. We take off.
We keep low and use the cover of those tomato plants. Avoiding watering cans and spare seed trays, we go for it.
We hit the end of the glasshouse. Sprint the metre to the next one, all the time expecting a bullet in the back.
We slide in through the door of the second glasshouse. Nick flips the door shut. Two groups of VTroopers tromp past the gap each side of us a glasshouse away.
Nick’s crouching in universal soldier mode again. One knee on the ground, one knee bent. Head cocked against the doorframe. Rifle ready. He waits until the VTroopers are past the gap.
Ela watches both of us. Waiting. Trying to control her breathing. At least we know now we can move faster than them. We’ve got better cover in this house than the last one too, so we can straighten up a bit and move fast. Mature capsicums, grown at ground level, tops nearly at the roofline. No bricks but heaps of leaves.
Nick gives the all clear signal. We take off again. Now Monsanto knows the routine, he blasts ahead of us.
We get through the next glasshouse. Don’t stop this time. Straight across the gap and into the one beyond. Need to be in the orchard and hidden before the VTroopers hit the end of the line of houses.
There’s that constant, tromp, tromp sound each side of us. The occasional shout like an order coming from behind us. We keep going low and fast. The adrenaline from crossing the gaps fuels the run through the next glasshouse.
We run through them all: chillies, beans, cosmos. Didn’t know we did flowers. Lettuces. That’s dodgy. No cover there, but I figure we are a good three glasshouses ahead of those VTroopers. Then on and on. Finally, we cross the end gap and hit the orchard. Flop down behind the feijoa hedge.
We lie low, hearts pounding, behind the hedge. Watch those VTroopers. They come around the end of the rows of glasshouses and form their perimeter. At least now we
’re on the outside of it, and they have their backs to us.
Still got the orchard and paddock to go. We’re all breathing like trains. Take a moment to settle.
Nick moves first. Comes up to kneeling again. Raises his eyebrows in a ‘ready to go?’ way.
I nod and grab Ela again. She gets up. Copies Nick’s stance. One knee on the ground, one bent. We watch the VTroopers a few more seconds. They’re standing like toy soldiers, watching those glass houses. Well trained, no looking around.
We slink though the orchard then take off across the paddock. No attempt at keeping low. Just fly. Turns out Ela doesn’t have running gear just to look good. In the open, she keeps up with me and Nick easily. And there’s that adrenaline again.
The orchard acts as a shield. We’re out of the line of sight from the farmhouse, but there’s still that waiting for a bullet in the back feeling. Finally, we hit the bush. Still don’t stop. With no discussion about what we’re going to do, in unison we work our way in about ten metres under the canopy then circle round and up and back to the bush line. I want to see what’s happening at the Egans’ now.
*
Me and Nick lie there with Ela between us. Dead flat, chins on wrists, like we did at the Stevens’. We watch those tiny ant-like figures spread out and go into the buildings and glasshouses. The Hovers sit in a line by the barn looking menacing.
The perimeter around the house has broken up, but the wider one around the glasshouses still holds. No one knows we were there. It’s a relief.
Nick flicks his pack open, gets out the binoculars, and starts glassing what’s going on. I do the same. Ela gives me a ‘what about me?’ look. I hand mine over to her and use the scope on my rifle instead.
It’s midday, I reckon. The sun’s high and the shadows are short. It’s easy to pick out Vincent and his sidekick.
“You recognise them?” I breathe at Nick.
He nods. Vincent and the sidekick are the only ones not in helmets and obviously in charge.
So, Vincent is driving all this. I see him walk over to the glasshouse we were in and bend down.