by A. A. Bell
He hung up, detached himself from the wires and began to pack the equipment back into its bags.
A knock from the hall snagged his attention.
‘Who is it?’
‘Me,’ Van Danik called. ‘I’m off for a run. Care to join me?’
‘I’d sooner shave my head,’ Zhou muttered. He opened the door. ‘You know I don’t —’
Behind Van Danik stood an attractive brunette. They both smiled at him.
‘Didn’t want to shout this through the door,’ Van Danik explained. ‘You remember Karin Sei? Kitching’s kindly reassigned her and some other guy from General Garland’s security team to keep a close eye on us in place of Houdini Hawthorn and kid commando.’
Van Danik noticed the equipment on the bed and leaned around him for a better look. ‘Problem, Zan?’
‘No.’ Zhou shifted sideways to block his view. ‘I was just running through some checks.’
‘Oh.’ Van Danik winked. ‘Sure. Have fun in the past then.’
‘But I wasn’t.’
‘Save it. I’m guilty of self-testing too — when you’re not around, of course.’
Behind Sei, Zhou saw a bug-eyed beefcake in jeans approaching.
Van Danik noticed him too. ‘This is our new meathead, John Duet.’ He mockingly saluted the undercover soldier, then cast Zhou a wink. ‘Sure you don’t want to come with me?’
Zhou shrugged. ‘I’ve got things to do here.’
‘Suit yourself. We’ll be back in time to drag you down for breakfast.’
Zhou nodded and closed the door. He waited until he heard footsteps leaving then checked through the security peephole. Duet was still out in the hall, leaning against the wall, glaring back at him.
Zhou reopened the door. ‘Do you want to come in?’
The guard frowned and shook his head.
‘The last team used to hold station inside our rooms, so if you want to do the same …?’
‘The last team was incompetent. Now if you don’t mind, Doc, I’m working here.’
Zhou nodded, closed the door and rolled his eyes.
‘Meathead,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe Mitch was right about this one.’
THIRTY
Mira packed away her makeshift bed before any of the dayshift staff had a chance to see it, taking extra care to fold all of her clothes that she’d used for a mattress and blanket, before slipping them neatly into the drawers that had been returned to her. She then climbed onto the tall chest and sat with her legs dangling to wait for her visitor.
An odd place to sit, she realised, but if things happened as she hoped they would, the room would soon be so busy with ghosts that this would be the only place to keep out of their way while watching them all.
To her left, through the magic of her mirrored sunglasses, she saw the brown ghost of herself beginning to stir, still groggy and incoherent from her sedative the night before.
Mira felt for her watch and pushed the talk button.
‘Time is seven twenty-one,’ announced the electronic voice.
Rubber-soled shoes squeaked outside in the hall.
Her stomach tightened.
The door creaked, spilling a turbulent gust of warmth into the room, but the ghostly brown door didn’t move. Mira heard the rattle of the breakfast trolley clunking to a halt in the hallway.
‘Breakfast?’ asked an invisible Neville. ‘Hey, what are you doing up there?’
‘What are you doing still at work? And you’re early with my breakfast too. What’s going on?’
‘I’m on my way home after an unexpected overtime shift so you’ll have to put up with it just as I did. Now get down this instant before you fall down.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, with a hop and a skip that took her all the way to the table. ‘Hurry up … please, Neville. My visitor will be here soon.’
‘Your imaginary visitor?’
‘Maybe.’ She pulled out the chair and made to sit down, wanting to make sure he didn’t see her as a threat, which might ruin everything.
‘You should have ordered breakfast for two,’ he replied.
She wondered if that was a mocking tone in his voice, but said nothing, listening as he put two bowls and a glass of fruit juice onto the table.
Pineapple; my favourite. She recognised the smell. The bowls contained yoghurt and a mixed selection of fresh fruit, including melons and mulberries. The scent took her momentarily home to her poet trees, and she was with Ben again, offering a mulberry up to him, his lips touching her fingers unexpectedly.
The hiss of a piston reminded her that the door was closing automatically behind Neville and she leapt across to hold it open, the sooner to be rid of him.
‘Okay, I’ve got the hint,’ he grumbled. ‘Someone else will collect your dishes. And now you’re supposed to say …?’
‘Thank you. Sorry, I did mean to say thank you, so thank you.’
Neville brushed past her into the hall, but she fought down her instinctive fear of him to lean out through the ghostly door to watch for Ben.
Nothing for a long moment, except the sounds of retreat from Neville’s breakfast trolley.
Then she saw him — Ben’s silent spectre emerging from the elevator!
He looked exactly as she’d imagined him, except his cheeks were a little more pronounced, making his face even more handsome. He paused at the nurses’ station to pen something onto a clipboard and collect a breakfast tray from a larger trolley, then he headed towards her room with her meal. Mesmerised, she watched him every step of the way until he passed her — so close and yet so distant. A week ago now, stretched well back into the shadows of eternity.
Behind her, the ghostly Mira stiffened on her bed. Mira bounded across the room to beat him to her bedside.
‘Morning, Mira,’ she read from his lips.
Still in wonder of him, she stroked the ghostly curve of his face, but her fingers passed through the blurred surface of his cheek, feeling little more than empty air.
He leaned closer to the bed and brushed a strand of hair away from the other Mira’s face. ‘Let’s get you ready for breakfast.’
The door swung open again, before it had closed properly, and two more spectres burst in: the ghostly Neville pushing a wheelchair, and a stern-looking woman wielding a Taser glove.
Mira shivered and clasped both hands over her mouth. Steffi Nagle!
‘You’ll have to spoon-feed her today in this.’ The words were clear as glass on the woman’s lips. She tapped the wheelchair and slapped her glove onto the table. ‘Only make sure the straps are tight or she will only hurt herself.’
‘Or you,’ warned Neville.
‘I’d rather try without first,’ Ben said, but Nagle shook her head and ordered him out to fetch a first-aid kit and supply of tissues.
‘Trust me,’ Mira read from Nagle’s lips. ‘This one prefers to fight than cooperate.’
Beside her, the other Mira clawed fingernails into her mattress, preparing to lash out at the first touch from anyone, despite the sedative that still lingered in her veins. Her eyelids clenched around angry stitches and her arm muscles tensed as the door locked, sealing her in with the two roughest staff in the building.
Nagle tightened the strap on her glove and Mira had to look away, unable to bear seeing them prepare her for breakfast the old way.
Ben braked his mother’s Jag to a halt outside the chained entrance to Mira’s property.
He waited for the tail-gating dust cloud to overtake him, then got out, taking the bolt cutters with him. The tool weighed heavily in his hand as he stared past the sign that warned trespassers to keep out of the construction site. More like a destruction site.
The bulldozers had been busy, trampling the field of wildflowers, gouging deep voids into the forest on the far side and shuffling the carcasses of trees into untidy funeral pyres.
Matron’s right, he thought. Mira would be furious.
She wouldn’t need eyesight to behold the devastation. She’d be abl
e to smell it in the mashed leaves, taste it on the soiled breeze and even hear it in the nervous calls of evicted birds, many still circling.
Closing his eyes, he could sense it as she would: the lifeblood of rich colour and energy drained to the point of anaemia.
He opened his eyes and leaned over the fat padlock and chain, hoping to see the crown of poet trees still standing intact down by the bay. But all he could see were another three funeral pyres and an uninterrupted view of the water. Where the trees had once been, a narrow pillar of smoke rose into the air.
His heart pounded harder than it ever had.
He cut the heavy chain and sped the Jag through, churning up dust as he slewed sideways. The trail through the wildflowers was gone, replaced by wide ruts in the pummelled soil.
He raced downhill past the old stump — now uprooted and pushed aside — and skidded to a halt in the pulverised earth where the poet trees had been. The charcoaled trunks smouldered in a circle of white ash, like a ritual dais.
He stepped out onto a frenzied zigzag of tracks and treadmarks indicating where men and machines had performed their murderous dance. Nearby, he noticed the scattered remains of cutlery and broken bottles ground into the dirt; a buckled refrigerator door. And a small golden glint a little further away.
Walking over to it, he found a short fractured limb of a silver branch studded with gold Braille.
Picking it up, he ran his fingers over it tenderly, wishing he could read it with greater confidence. To see a world was all that was left, and on the other side: Tomorrow starts toda
He closed his eyes and read the first side again, remembering Mira’s soft hands holding his as she’d introduced him to the whole verse and taught him to read it with his palm.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.
Now heaven and eternity were gone and all that was left of her world was this. From this single stick, she had to build all her tomorrows.
He stumbled back to the car, taking the only remnant of her home with him.
Killer growled at the black van reversing into the driveway.
‘Yes, I see him.’ Mellow Chiron scratched the dog’s ears and set aside the new leg rope she’d been attaching to her surfboard after her swim. ‘He’s here for Ben.’
She pushed a grey button on the wall and the roller door clicked and whirred into action.
The driver wound down his window and raised his sunglasses, his bug-eyes widening at the sight of her youthful ebony skin and white bikini.
‘Mrs Chiron?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘but I’m not Ben’s wife. It’s a common mistake. I’m his mother. And you’re John Duet?’
She approached the van, noticing that he kept the motor running as if he expected to make a quick getaway. ‘I overheard your lady friend introducing you to Ben last night. She’s not with you today, though?’
His grey eyes strayed again to her chest. ‘No,’ he replied flatly.
‘Ben’s not here. I don’t know where he is, but he’s expecting you, so you’re welcome to wait. Would you like to come in?’
He glanced at the dog.
‘He won’t hurt you unless you give him a reason … Coffee?’
‘Thanks, but no.’
‘Not much of a conversationalist, are you? So what brings you out here for Ben on a Saturday? Problems at Serenity?’
‘Sorry, ma’am. If your son didn’t tell you, it’s not my place to fill you in.’
‘That’s a little rude, isn’t it?’
She leaned against his door, making sure he had a better view of her cleavage. If Ben wasn’t going to tell her what was troubling him she had no qualms about using a few innocent charms to get the information she needed to help him.
Wheels skidded sideways across a bend in the sandy road a short distance away and they both glanced up to see the white Jaguar vaulting around the thinly treed corner towards them.
‘Is that his car?’ Duet asked.
‘Mine actually. He hasn’t bothered to tell me yet what happened to his.’
The car skidded to a halt beside the letterbox and Ben leapt out with a silver stick in his hand.
‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘And where have you been?’
‘Long story. Sorry I’m late.’ He pushed the car keys into her hand and pecked a small kiss onto her cheek. ‘Make it up to you tonight, though, promise.’
‘Sure you will. And I’ll bet you’ll explain everything then too.’
‘I promise!’
‘So it’s safe to hold my breath again?’
Ben smiled grimly and handed her the silver branch. ‘You can keep this as security.’
‘A stick?’ Her fingernail found a greenish-gold thumbtack, which she picked at.
‘Don’t do that! It’s valuable. I was going to give it to its rightful owner this morning, but tomorrow might be better. In the meantime, it’s yours until you get a complete and satisfactory explanation out of me, okay?’
He pecked her forehead with another kiss, then jogged for the van.
‘You’re leaving me with the short stick?’ she called after him.
‘Funny, Ma. See you tonight.’ He climbed into the passenger seat and waved to her from the window. ‘Love you.’
She sighed and watched them drive away. At her feet, the dog whimpered.
‘I know,’ she said, scratching his ears. ‘He worries me too.’
She waved the stick over her head until the dog stood and drooled. ‘Here you go, Killer. Fetch!’
‘Park outside,’ Ben warned as they sped towards Serenity. A hundred or more cars already lined the road, promising a big turnout for the inaugural festival.
Duet ignored him, following two full buses up the cobbled driveway towards the boomgate. ‘I called ahead,’ he explained. ‘We’re expected.’
‘Ah, so you can speak? I was beginning to wonder. I’d still advise leaving the van out here. Aside from one or two well-meaning vandals, I know some clients who can hotwire a car a dozen different ways and would love a joyride, especially today. Seriously, you can’t turn your back for two seconds.’
Duet didn’t reply. He waited for the buses to move through with their human payloads and jerked to a halt beside the guard station, where a young female nurse politely echoed the same warning as Ben had given. ‘No exceptions, sorry, sir.’ She pointed to a no-standing zone that had been roped off nearby. ‘That’s for you, though. Please park and follow the happy faces on the path up to reception.’
Duet muttered a curse and reversed into the parking spot as soon as she’d raised the boomgate for them.
‘What’s your problem?’ Ben asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. ‘We’re still early.’
‘We would be if this was our last stop this morning.’
‘Oh?’ Ben got out, not swiftly enough for Duet, who was already striding towards the administration building. Ben dodged the gaggle of elderly bus passengers still unloading and ducked a shortcut between rows of stalls filled with hand-made baskets, jewellery, toys and pottery. ‘So where are we going?’
‘That’s all need-to-know, and you don’t need to know yet, buddy.’
‘Hold it!’ Ben grabbed Duet’s arm, pulling him around, but Duet blocked and deflected his hand with military precision.
‘Don’t touch me again, pal, or I’ll put you on the ground.’
Ben raised both hands and backed off. ‘I just want to know what’s going on. I came here to help the docs with Mira, and now you tell me that we have to go somewhere else. Where to — their hotel?’
‘Sorry, I can’t gab with a civilian. You’ll have to wait.’
‘I’m not going anywhere else with you until I know what’s going on,’ Ben argued. ‘Mira’s expecting me to visit her here so far as I know.’
‘Miss Chambers is coming with us.’
‘She’s what? Does Matron Sanchez know? Did she give permission?
’
‘Hey, don’t take my word for it.’ Duet headed for the door marked Reception. ‘Ask her yourself.’
‘Ben!’ Mira shouted from the doorway.
He glanced up to see her waiting there in a pale blue-and-white polka-dot dress and sunglasses. She had a walking cane that she lifted as an extension of her wave.
‘You’re late,’ she called. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He jogged to meet her, ahead of Duet. ‘Where’s Matron Sanchez?’
‘In her office, on the phone. She was expecting Doctor Zhou by now, so she called him. You’ll never guess — they’re taking us to his hotel! Isn’t that exciting? I’m going out again! And look! They’re letting me wear shoes, bra and a dress!’
She tugged the white bra-strap up so he could see it, and he chuckled. The rockabilly dress was so old it was back in fashion.
‘Yes, Mira. That’s great news, and you look lovely.’
She blushed and toyed with the fullness of the skirt. ‘Do you really think so?’
Duet muttered a curse under his breath.
‘Stand still, Mira. I need you to meet someone. This is John Duet. He’s going to be our driver.’
‘Miss Chambers.’ Duet nodded, but Mira extended her hand for him to shake.
‘She’s blind,’ Ben explained. ‘It’s up to you to take it.’
‘Blind, hey?’ He shook her hand curtly. ‘Seems very confident on her feet. And how did she know we were coming?’
‘I heard your argument, and I’m not deaf, so you can speak directly to me you know.’
Ben chuckled. ‘I think we’d better see Matron Sanchez before we go.’
‘She’s coming now,’ Mira said just as Sanchez rounded the corner. Both her tall and short heels had soft rubber soles today and her footsteps were almost silent, even as she drew nearer. She handed a small slip of red paper to Ben.
‘You could hear that?’ Duet asked Mira.
‘You have no idea,’ Ben said, stashing the day pass in his pocket. He glanced at Mira, wishing he could share a wink with her. ‘She can probably tell which brand of toothpaste you use — or not — from this distance.’
‘Mira is a very special young lady,’ Sanchez agreed. ‘She therefore has very special needs. Ben knows all the details, so you’ll need to listen to him and do precisely as he asks, when he asks it, especially when it comes to touching her. Hands off unless he says it’s okay. And make sure they’re both back safely by five-thirty. Is that clear?’