by Eliza Green
‘You want to see Laura, don’t you?’ said Tanya.
‘Of course.’
‘Then we’d all appreciate your cooperation, not your hostility. This is not the place to air your grievances. Do you understand me?’
Bill gritted his teeth. ‘Aye. My apologies.’
Deighton leaned forward. ‘We just need your help to get us a meeting with the Indigenes. We want to talk, that’s all. I assume you can contact them?’
Bill had brought Stephen’s communication stone with him. ‘They’re a pretty intuitive race,’ he said to Tanya. ‘They’ll figure it out.’
‘Yes, that’s what we thought too,’ said Deighton. ‘But just in case, we’d like you to take us to their home underground.’
The idea of leading Deighton to the Indigenes and their districts sickened Bill. ‘I have no way to do that. Besides, they won’t allow it,’ he said to Tanya.
Deighton nodded agreeably. ‘Chair, Bill’s probably right—we wouldn’t be safe in their territory, in their world. It would be better if they came to us, on our terms, above ground. Only then do we stand a fighting chance.’
‘A fighting chance? Do you expect some kind of war, Charles?’ Tanya stared at Deighton.
‘No, of course not.’ He seemed rattled. ‘But if they try to retaliate, which we know they might, our position above ground won’t trap us inside their network of tunnels.’
‘I might be able to convince them to come to you,’ Bill said to Tanya, ‘but I don’t control their actions.’
‘They will trust us if you’re on our side,’ said Tanya. ‘We only want to talk to their leaders, work together to make this union beneficial to all. We can assimilate them into our own culture.’
‘Can they trust you?’ Bill wanted to know where Tanya stood on the issue.
‘Of course they can. This isn’t an attack. The Indigenes have rights. We will consider giving back those rights, but they must promise to work with us, not against us.’
‘Why did the World Government set out to destroy the Indigenes in the first place, all those years ago?’ said Bill. ‘They were your creation.’
‘The Indigenes were meant to be Plan B if humans couldn’t live on Exilon 5.’ Tanya pushed back her chair and crossed her legs. ‘But they’ve continued to evolve and are already too strong for us. Anton is proof of that. Why do you think we surround ourselves with these genetically modified bodyguards?’
‘And now?’
‘Now we just want to understand their plans for the future—will they continue to plot against us or can we co-exist, find a common ground? The touch to her nose was brief.
Bill sat forward. ‘I want to see Laura now.’
‘We’re not done here, Mr Taggart.’
‘I understand what you want me to do. There’s nothing more to discuss.’
‘How will you contact them?’
‘As I said, they’re pretty intuitive.’ Bill stood up.
Tanya nodded to one bodyguard near the door. ‘Okay. But keep it brief.’
The bodyguard spoke into a device on his wrist. A minute later, a military man appeared at the door.
Bill followed the military man to the stasis room where two modified bodyguards stood guard. The military man indicated for them to step aside and opened the door. Bill’s breathing laboured as he entered the room. Would Laura look the same or worse? He hoped the solution Harvey had given him would at least slow the alteration process.
‘You have ten minutes,’ the man said before he closed the door.
Bill walked past several long, oval-shaped pods made from toughened glass. Most were empty, but some contained people who looked like sleeping soldiers awaiting activation. Bill studied their inanimate faces. The thoughts of giving up that much control to a computer made him shiver. He read the names on the small display screen embedded in the front of the pods: Robbie O’Shea, twenty-two; Joel Taylor, forty-eight. Taylor drew his attention most due to their similar ages. Taylor’s upper arms were heavily pockmarked.
Voluntary inoculations or forced experimentation?
Isla had told him that the government-employed lab technicians and medical staff received yearly inoculations to combat the live diseases stored in the labs. Was Taylor a government employee? What about the doe-eyed druggies in the recreation room? Where had they come from?
He found Laura next to the blonde-haired blue-eyed men—blonde-haired, green-eyed Laura also a government employee. Had her eye colour saved her from this one-way trip to Exilon 5? How long before they caught up with her and others with similar genetics?
Her breaths were irregular, even in stasis. But it relieved him to see her appearance had changed little since their arrival. He pressed his hand to the glass and studied her face: her closed eyes, her bald head and thin and patchy eyebrows. But something else made him shudder—the smile on her face.
He blinked and looked again. Not a smile, but a grimace.
The glass cooled his forehead when he rested against it. ‘I’m here, love,’ he whispered. ‘I promise to fix whatever was done to you, if it’s the last thing I do.’
Bill returned to his sleeping quarters and punched in the code to open his sleeping pod. He rooted inside his carry-on bag, relieved when he put his hand on the communication stone. The stone felt warm and now emitted a faint blue glow that highlighted the concentric rings on the front. He thought he heard a noise—a voice—but it was faint. Maybe it was the air conditioning. He listened again but heard nothing more.
Fully dressed, he climbed into his pod and pulled the hatch closed. He pressed the stone to his chest, next to the vial in his breast pocket. If they wanted either item, they’d have to rip them from his cold, dead hands first.
Come on, Bill. Think, for fuck’s sake.
He stared into the darkness of the pod trying to work out a plan. But all he could see was Laura’s face—her grimace. Thinking of her made his chest tighten.
He had agreed to the board members’ plan to act as a go-between. Then what? How could he warn the Indigenes about the potential trap? He didn’t trust Deighton, and Tanya didn’t fill him with confidence either. The communication stone felt warmer in his hand. He gripped it tighter. Then the faint voice he thought he’d heard before spoke again.
‘Laura needs your help,’ he said. The stone got hot.
Perhaps Stephen could hear him—he’d said the stone could become anything he wanted it to be. It had acted as a compass when he’d needed one, and now, maybe it could become a communication device.
‘Can you hear me?’ he whispered.
The blue rings brightened and a voice reached through the darkness. Bill pressed the stone to his ear.
‘I can see you,’ someone said.
Stephen.
Bill listened to the rest of the message.
30
The passenger ship arrived at Exilon 5 in the late afternoon. A convoy of land vehicles waited outside the New London docking station. Bill followed a groggy Laura who was being helped to walk by two military men. Tanya and her bodyguard stayed close to Laura while the other board members with their security detail went on ahead to the transport.
Bill stayed with Laura in the back of the car while Tanya and her private goon rode up front. He looked out the tinted windows at the world he wished had a better future ahead of it. The vehicle bumped along New London’s exit road. Laura shook beneath the blanket he’d draped over her. He pulled out the last vial that Harvey had given him, drew the contents into a syringe and plunged it in her arm. She didn’t flinch.
The bumps lessened when the vehicle swapped the dusty road for one of the newly constructed roads. A half-built construction about twenty miles from New London’s city limits came into view. Bill had read about the new build that would become the seventh city on Exilon 5. A large digital billboard announced the name of the city: New Melbourne. A strong military presence and roving cameras surrounded the unfinished area without a labourer in sight. The place reminded Bill
of the cities post World War II, from photos he’d seen in one of Isla’s history books.
The convoy of vehicles swapped the immaculate road for a bumpy dirt track that led to a large double gate, fifteen feet tall. An equally tall wall surrounded the remaining city.
One way in. One way out.
The convoy halted while the military opened the gate and waved them through. Bill glanced behind him to see the gates closing around the fortress-like city.
New Melbourne did not compare in size to New London. It appeared to be a purpose-built development with a main road framed by a single row of buildings on either side. Behind the main buildings was the undeveloped land of Exilon 5, trapped inside the same enclosure. Military men and women in riot gear lined the main road, their backs turned to the unfinished constructions. Bill wondered what resistance the board members expected from the Indigenes to demand such a heavy presence. Talking and negotiation: that’s what they’d promised him on the ship.
The red-bricked constructions without roofs extended just two storeys high. The heart of New Melbourne ended in a cul-de-sac at a completed large yellow-stone building a few hundred feet in width. Two smaller roads branched off either side of the building that the cars could not access.
The vehicles pulled up in front of the yellow house that had two open doors. Bill climbed out of the back and scooped Laura up in his arms. He had to get her inside out of the daylight. She may still be human, but her body was also half Indigene and sensitive to sunlight.
‘Take the room on the left,’ said Tanya.
Bill entered what looked like a supply room. Green boxes filled with food, blankets and medical supplies were stacked up against one wall. Three chairs sat on the cold stone floor alongside a table at the back wall. Bill set Laura down on one chair as a group of military men looked inside the room. He heard raised voices outside, then Tanya and her bodyguard, a foot taller than the room, pushed past the gawkers. The other board members and their bodyguards followed her until the room felt cramped.
Bill turned his worried attention back to Laura who refused to sit still in the chair. A mini war raged inside her. Her human side battled hard, but the Indigene side looked to be stronger.
‘The experienced ones will stay outside,’ Tanya said to her bodyguard and nodded at the military outside the door. ‘Everyone else, please go next door,’ she said to the others. The room emptied and Bill breathed a sigh of relief. New military formed a line outside the door that Bill feared would be difficult to break.
The bright day gave way to the dark evening. Under the watchful eye of the armed guards, Bill did everything he could to calm Laura down. He even attempted one of Jenny Waterson’s meditation rituals she’d used on their last journey to this planet, but while Laura had listened to Jenny then, now she could barely concentrate on his voice. The military murmured outside the door but it wasn’t until they raised their Buzz Guns to waist level that Bill took notice of them. He strode to the entrance but couldn’t see past the heads of military.
He pushed his way through the distracted military and the line gave way. Outside, he searched for what had caught everyone’s attention. Then he saw them: five hooded figures dressed in black entered through the open, unmanned gates. Bill couldn’t see the leader’s face. The military froze with fingers poised over the discharge buttons of their deadly Buzz Guns. Bill heard the occasional shit and fuck from the military men.
Tanya, Deighton, the two other board members and their bodyguards stood at the second door of the yellow-stone building. She issued no command to fire.
‘Not yet,’ said Tanya in response to one board member. ‘I want to hear what they have to say.’
‘I don’t recognise these ones at all,’ said Deighton.
Bill searched for a familiar face among the approaching figures but couldn’t find one. Where was Stephen who’d promised he’d come? Who were these Indigenes? Bill turned back to check on Laura when one of them spoke.
‘We’re here for the girl.’ It was a female.
He shot round to see the female walking towards him. The stranger’s eyes were a mesmerising shade of blue. He felt his legs move against his will and stand him off to the side. The female went around him and got as far as the military resistance.
He shook off the feeling of control and put himself between her and the room’s entrance. He would not hand Laura over to a bunch of strangers. He needed confirmation that Stephen had sent them.
Did Stephen send you? He attempted to speak telepathically to the Indigenes. Nobody responded. He knew they could hear him. They just couldn’t read his private thoughts.
‘Where are your leaders?’ said Tanya. The female turned round to face her. ‘We were promised they would come. You cannot take the girl, not until we talk to them.’
Bill growled at this suggestion of a trade. Laura wasn’t some bargaining chip. She would die if they waited for the rest to arrive.
Tell her your leaders are coming, even if they’re not. He concentrated on the female in charge.
‘They will be here soon,’ she replied to Tanya, ‘but first we want the girl.’
Bill listened helplessly while Tanya discussed Laura’s fate with the other board members. Their bodyguards created a physical buffer between them and the remaining Indigenes.
‘Okay,’ Tanya conceded, ‘you may take the girl.’
The military stepped aside and the female turned back to the room. Bill continued to block the entrance. ‘Let me pass, human.’
Bill studied the Indigene’s eyes that were an unusual shade of blue—neither human nor Indigene. He touched the part of his bag where he’d stored the communication stone. It was hot.
This had better be a fucking sign, Stephen.
Bill raced inside the room and stood in front of Laura. The female followed and reached out a hand for Laura. Without thinking, Bill grabbed her arm.
She glared at him. ‘Don’t touch me, human.’
‘You’re not taking her until you tell me who you are.’
‘I don’t need your permission.’ Her voice was void of emotion.
Laura’s breathing quickened in the presence of the female. She tried to stand up but Bill kept her seated with one hand. He felt something tug on his mind, trying to break down his resistance to let her go.
The female’s voice softened as she said, ‘Give her to me.’
An overwhelming urge to give in to the female’s demand hit him. He pushed against the feeling and battled to remain where he was in front of Laura. ‘Not until you tell me what district you’re from.’
The female looked at the military watching at the door and curled her finger at one. ‘You,’ she said. Her voice was gentle, attractive. ‘Come here.’
As if he had no choice, the soldier complied.
‘Now, make him give her to me.’
The military man raised his weapon and pointed it at Bill’s head.
She gripped the back of the man’s neck and leaned close to his ear. ‘Don’t fire yet—not until I say so.’
The soldier was sweating and his hand shook, as if he tried to resist.
Laura grunted like a wild animal behind him. Bill heard the crackle of energy build up inside the soldier’s Buzz Gun.
‘Move out of my way,’ the female commanded Bill.
Just then, another Indigene—a male—appeared at the door and came inside. The military didn’t seem to notice or react to him. They were too busy staring at her.
The pressure on his will was too great and with a huff Bill stepped aside. He wanted to shout at the female to stop but he’d lost the use of his voice. He gritted his teeth against the mind control. Then he saw it, the quick smile on the female’s face. Just for him.
The male Indigene swept Laura up in his arms. Bill contained his jealousy when she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. Before he could assure Laura everything would be okay, the Indigene pair had left the room. Bill ran to the door, pushing the dazed
military men out of the way. He saw the Indigenes run towards the open gate before they disappeared into the night like ghosts.
Tanya came over to him. ‘I’m sorry, Bill. I did everything I could.’
Her lack of sincerity angered him. She had sacrificed Laura for an audience with the Indigenes. The right ones would come soon enough. He pressed his anger down because only one thing mattered: Laura would get the help she needed. He stared after the Indigene group that was long gone.
What had that female done to him—to them all? He couldn’t even hold on to the memory. He looked at the soldier who’d put the gun to his head. All the military appeared as if they’d just woken from a deep sleep.
Stephen had told him an influencer would come for Laura. He had no idea how strong her ability was, until now.
Night time settled in and dropped the temperatures inside the bare-walled supply room. Bill put his bag down and snatched up a blanket from the table in the supply room. He huddled under it in the same chair Laura had sat in.
Three hours had passed since the Indigenes had taken Laura and no others had arrived. Three military men lingered inside the room with Bill. He wondered if Tanya had placed him under arrest. He licked his dry lips and searched his bag for something to drink.
‘Can I have some water?’ he asked one of the military men.
The man disappeared and returned with a metal canister. He handed it to Bill.
‘Thanks.’ Bill took a large gulp. He stood up and put the canister in the pocket of his coat. He picked up his bag and slung it across his body. Nobody stopped him when he walked outside, but one of the military men—a man in his twenties—shadowed him.
‘I’m just going for a piss,’ he said to the man. ‘I’d rather you didn’t watch.’
‘Don’t take a leak outside,’ said the soldier. ‘Use the toilets in the building over there.’ He pointed to a red-brick building with the words ‘Site for Restaurant’ emblazoned across the top. ‘We don’t want the biodome animals to track us by our scents.’