by Justin D'Ath
She was referring to the night he and Birdy had sneaked into DoRFE’s secret research facility near a town called Abattoir and set free all the guinea pigs.
Something suddenly clicked in Colt’s mind. Abattoir was the town where four people had just contracted rat flu!
He leaned forward until he was nose-to-virtual-nose with his arch enemy. ‘I reckon it’s DoRFE who caused the rat flu outbreak. What exactly are your scientists doing in that research centre?’
Officer Katt drew back – as if Superclown could somehow reach through the phone and grab her. ‘Don’t talk rubbish!’ she snapped. ‘We’re trying to find a cure.’
‘By torturing guinea pigs?’ he asked, remembering all the sick ones he’d found in the labs there.
‘It’s research. You know nothing about it. And your meddling has put the whole project back by six to eight weeks.’
‘Boo hoo,’ said Colt.
‘People are dying, Snowy!’ the former rat cop hissed. ‘Our research might have helped them.’
A chill passed through him. Was she right? Had he accidentally delayed the discovery of a cure for rat flu?
If people really were dying, was he responsible?
His mother’s words came back to him: Cooperate fully with DoRFE.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
The new boss of DoRFE leaned closer. ‘First, I need you to tell the truth. Did your little friend get bitten by a ghost rat last night?’
Colt nearly said yes. Then he remembered how his mother had lowered her voice when she’d asked almost exactly the same question five minutes earlier. She hadn’t wanted Officer Katt to hear, or to know Colt’s answer. So when his mother had gone on to tell him, in a louder voice, to cooperate with DoRFE – a totally un-Mum kind of thing to say – she must have meant something else.
To not cooperate.
‘No,’ he said. He was glad Officer Katt couldn’t see his eyes – she’d know he was lying. ‘She got bitten by a gnat, not a rat.’
‘A gnat?’
‘They’re like mosquitoes. Mum mustn’t have heard properly – the phone went dead when I was saying it.’
‘I know what a gnat is,’ Officer Katt said impatiently. ‘But they’re hardly dangerous. Why tell your mother about it?’
Colt had to think fast. ‘The ones on Plague Island were really big. I think they must have mutated like tree spiders. Birdy had a bad reaction.’
‘What sort of reaction?’
‘Her hand swelled up and she got all hot and dizzy.’
The virtual Officer Katt leaned so close he could see a fuzz of tiny, pale hairs on her chin. ‘You’d better not be lying, Snowy. Because if you are, our tests will show it.’
‘Bring on the tests!’ he said.
Officer Katt wanted to speak to Dr Samson. It was the first time Colt had heard Hayley’s official name. He handed her the phone and she took it out into the corridor to talk privately.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Birdy whispered as soon as the door had closed.
‘Officer Katt,’ replied Colt. ‘And before her I was talking to Mum.’
‘Was my mum there?’ Birdy asked excitedly.
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t see her. Have you ever used a 4D phone? You can only see the person you’re talking to.’
‘Did your mum or Officer Katt say anything about my parents?’
He shook his head again. ‘I’m sorry, Birds – I should have asked.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Birdy wiped her eyes. ‘What did your mum say?’
Colt told her as much as he could remember from both conversations, including how he’d lied to Officer Katt.
‘Why did you tell her they could do tests on us?’ Birdy asked.
‘Because Mum said to cooperate.’
Birdy frowned. ‘I don’t get it. If they do tests, won’t it show I had rat flu?’
‘Probably,’ Colt said. ‘So we won’t let them.’
‘I thought we were going to cooperate.’
‘We’re going to pretend to cooperate,’ he said. ‘That’s what Mum meant.’
‘How do you pretend to give a blood sample?’ asked Birdy.
‘You don’t.’ Colt lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes. ‘You pretend to be asleep.’
‘Won’t Hayley wake us up?’
‘Let’s hope not,’ he whispered. ‘She said we needed rest. I don’t think she’ll –’
‘Shhh!’ said Birdy.
The door opened and Hayley came in with a tray of syringes, swabs and vials. She paused in the doorway, looking first at one bed, then at the other.
‘Kids?’ she said softly. ‘Birdy? Colt?’
Neither patient stirred. Dr Samson stood there for a moment, tapping a finger on the side of the tray. Then she turned and quietly left the infirmary, clicking the door shut behind her.
Two pairs of eyelids slid open.
‘Told you!’ Colt whispered.
Birdy yawned. ‘Now what do we do?’
Colt yawned, too. ‘We stop pretending.’
The last twelve hours had been exhausting. Colt had been awake nearly all night, then he’d single-handedly paddled the Zodiac flat out through a kilometre of choppy seas. Birdy had spent the night in and out of a coma, struggling for her life and fighting a red-hot fever. Hayley was right – they both badly needed to rest.
The next time the DoRFE doctor poked her head in the door (and three more times after that), neither patient was pretending.
Someone lightly shook Colt’s elbow. He opened his eyes and saw Hayley leaning over him. She was gloved and masked like she’d been earlier, but her coveralls looked crisp and new.
And they were orange.
The drink in her hand was orange, too. ‘You must be thirsty,’ she said.
Colt sat up and drained the glass. He was still half asleep and didn’t take much notice of the flavour. It tasted slightly different from the orange juice he’d had earlier. And it was in a glass, not a plastic tumbler like last time.
‘Your ride’s here,’ Hayley said, taking back the empty glass.
Two men dressed the same as her stood waiting with a stretcher. Two more were helping Birdy out of the other bed. Birdy’s hair was mussed up and she looked drowsy and confused. Colt knew he probably looked the same.
‘Where are they taking us?’ he asked.
‘To your limo,’ said one of the men.
Hayley flashed a MediScan across Colt’s eyes to check his pulse, blood pressure and temperature. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll look after you.’
But he was worried. Limo? He glanced at the porthole and saw it was night-time. There were tall buildings with lights in their windows. The ship must have reached port.
‘How long were we asleep?’
‘About eighteen hours.’
Birdy rubbed her eyes. ‘You mean it’s, like, tomorrow?’
‘You could say that,’ Hayley said, giving her a Medi-Scan check, too. ‘It’s five-fifteen in the morning.’
Colt’s heart was thumping hard. Another day and nearly a whole night had passed with the circus still in quarantine. Culdesac GovFarm was built like a prison. Colt’s mother used to work there, so he knew it well. All the doors and gates had three-phase fusion locks and the massive perimeter walls were topped with razor wire to stop rats getting in. So nothing could get out, either. And it sounded like Officer Katt was in charge. Colt’s mother was in there and so were Birdy’s parents and Captain Noah, the circus owner – but what could any of them do if the rat cops decided to kill the animals? Only Superclown could stop them.
He had to get to Culdesac.
‘What’s that city outside?’ he asked.
‘Mimosa,’ said Hayley. She fitted a mask like hers over his mouth and nose, then nodded to the two men who stood waiting with an empty stretcher.
‘I can walk,’ Colt said.
‘Lie back and relax,’ said the man who’d talked earlier, making him secure with broad V
elcro straps.
Colt could have resisted, but that would have only created more problems. He had to wait till he and Birdy were off the ship. And then what? he wondered. Mimosa was miles from Culdesac.
‘Where’s the limo taking us?’
‘Mimosa Infectious Diseases Hospital,’ said the talkative stretcher bearer.
‘But we aren’t sick!’ Birdy objected, as Hayley fitted her with a mask, too.
‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ the doctor said, dropping her used gloves into a plastic bag marked CONTAMINATED, then pulling on a new pair. ‘Lead the way, gentlemen.’
Their ‘limo’ was a big white-and-orange ambulance. It was parked halfway along the wharf where the ship had docked. A man in the same protective clothing as Hayley and the stretcher bearers stood next to its open rear doors. Two police cars were parked behind it, their red and blue lights flashing. Behind them was an orange DoRFE van, a second ambulance and a big yellow fire truck. The far end of the wharf had been cordoned off with a line of reflective posts and fluttering orange glow-tape. Four police officers and a couple of rat cops stood just outside the temporary barrier, keeping back a jostling crowd of photographers, journalists and HV crews.
Everyone, even those behind the tape, wore surgical masks.
Colt saw all this as they carried him down the ship’s stairs. The wharf was lit up like a sports stadium. He used his long-range vision to check out everyone in orange DoRFE uniforms, looking for one person in particular. She wasn’t there. Which was both good news and bad news. At least he didn’t have to deal with Officer Katt right now. But her absence meant she was probably still at Culdesac GovFarm, where nearly everyone and everything dearest to Colt was locked up. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out, his mother had said.
But did that apply to DoRFE’s new boss?
Just as his stretcher reached the foot of the stairs, Colt glimpsed something that made him crane his neck. A row of HV vans and smaller vehicles were angle-parked about 200 metres along from the wharf. Pulling in next to them was an old blue station wagon with one green door.
‘Quite a reception committee,’ Hayley commented, walking just behind him.
Colt let his head fall back onto the stretcher’s thin foam pillow. They were on the wharf now and there wasn’t much to see lying down – just a few fading stars directly overhead. Dawn wasn’t far away. ‘Why are there HV crews?’ he asked.
He was worried that Officer Katt might have spread word that he was Superclown.
‘They know you and Birdy were stranded on Plague Island,’ Hayley said. ‘And there was a rumour she had RF2.’
‘What’s RF2?’
‘The new form of rat flu – the one people are catching.’
‘She hasn’t got it.’
‘Let’s hope not,’ Hayley said. She still hadn’t taken any samples. ‘But we can’t take any chances.’
Colt asked, ‘How long will we be in quarantine?’
‘That depends on what we find. If your results are clear, you could be out in a week.’
‘A week? That’s ridiculous!’ he cried. ‘If we haven’t got rat flu, you have to let us go!’
‘You don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation,’ the doctor said. ‘This is the worst threat mankind has ever faced. Remember what the old rat flu did to animals? If we don’t contain RF2 before it spreads worldwide, there could be nobody left on the planet in a year from now.’
Colt shivered. ‘Has anyone died yet?’
‘Four so far,’ she said grimly. ‘And there have been twenty-two new cases reported in the past eighteen hours.’
‘Are they all in Abattoir?’
‘Not all of them. They’re turning up all over the country.’
‘That proves it wasn’t the circus,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ said Hayley. ‘But it means we absolutely can’t take any chances.’
Colt pondered Hayley’s words as they lifted him and Birdy into the ambulance. If people were dying from RF2, maybe he could save them. Or his blood could. Enzyme-C had saved Birdy.
But she’d had the old form of rat flu (RF1), which you only caught if a ghost rat bit you. RF2 was different – people seemed to be catching it from each other. Enzyme-C might not work. And even if it did work, the new virus was spreading too fast. There’d been 22 fresh cases in just eighteen hours. Colt didn’t have enough blood to save everybody in the world!
Who else knew about Enzyme-C? Just his mother, Birdy and James the scientist, as far as Colt knew. It was James who’d discovered it.
James might know how to produce it in a laboratory.
It was James’s blue station wagon that had just pulled into the parking area near the wharf. The green door was a dead giveaway.
What was he doing here?
Suddenly Colt remembered one of the last things his mother had said to him on Hayley’s 4D phone. Say hello to James. For some reason she wanted him and James to get together.
‘Doctor Hayley?’ he called.
She was talking to someone on the wharf outside while the driver and one of the stretcher bearers strapped him securely onto a strange-looking bed in the back of the ambulance.
‘Don’t raise your voice, Snowy,’ a new voice said. ‘We don’t want to excite the paparazzi.’
A shiver passed through him. Officer Katt was here! She must have been waiting in the orange van while he and Birdy were carried off the ship. Now her head appeared, wearing a mask like everyone else, between the two men who’d just strapped him in.
‘Are they buckled up nice and tight?’ she asked the ambulance driver.
‘A rollover couldn’t shift them,’ he said.
Colt tried to move and realised he couldn’t. He was trussed up so tightly there was barely room for his chest to rise when he breathed in. He was a prisoner! Officer Katt knew he was Superclown and she wasn’t taking any chances.
‘It’s too tight!’ he gasped. ‘I can’t breathe properly!’
She leaned into the ambulance and tested the straps across his chest. There was a tiny bit of give. ‘You’ll live, Snowy.’
At least she hadn’t called him Superclown. The others mightn’t know yet. Hayley was standing next to her.
‘Excuse me, Doctor Hayley,’ he said politely. ‘There’s a man down the other end of the wharf who might know how to cure rat flu.’
She and Officer Katt exchanged a strange look.
‘Does it make them delusional?’ the former rat cop asked softly.
The doctor seemed puzzled, too. ‘It shouldn’t do. It’s just a relaxant.’
Colt didn’t know what they were talking about. He felt a yawn coming on and stifled it. ‘I need to talk to him,’ he said.
Hayley shook her head. ‘You’re in quarantine, Colt. You can’t talk to anyone right now.’
‘But he’s a scientist. I think he knows a cure for rat flu.’
‘The kid’s off with the fairies!’ laughed Officer Katt. She stepped back, motioning Hayley to step back, too. ‘Close the doors, fellas.’
Two of the men in orange shut the ambulance’s big rear doors with a solid thump.
‘Who were you talking about?’ Birdy whispered. ‘What scientist?’
‘James,’ Colt whispered back. ‘I think he’s here. I’ve got to talk to him.’
‘Are you strong again?’
He strained his muscles against the complicated system of belts and buckles holding him down. It was impossible to move. He couldn’t even get his hands out.
‘Not strong enough,’ he said with a yawn.
They had to stop talking because one of the front doors creaked open and the driver got in. Hayley and Officer Katt climbed in on the other side. Hayley took the middle seat.
‘Comfortable?’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Snug as a bug,’ Birdy said. ‘But the lights are a bit bright back here. Could you dim them, please?’
The driver flicked a switch and the interior lights w
ent off. Then he pressed the starter and the big, battery- powered ambulance hummed slowly down the wharf. Lying on his back, able only to move his head and his feet, Colt watched the blue and red lights from their police-car escort strobing across the ceiling.
Was Officer Katt right? he wondered. Had his and Birdy’s meddling delayed DoRFE’s research to the point where everyone in the world was going to die?
He really needed to talk to James!
There was movement beside him. Colt turned his head. His superpowers gave him exceptional night-vision and what he saw made him smile. Snug as a bug, Birdy had told Hayley before the lights went out. Now she looked like a wriggling bug. Already she’d got one arm free.
She was just starting on the second one when the ambulance jolted to an abrupt standstill.
A man was shouting and banging on the driver’s window. Colt couldn’t hear what he was saying – the ambulance was soundproofed – but he recognised James’s voice. A police siren whooped.
‘Crazy idiot!’ Officer Katt said, as the ambulance sat there idling.
‘What on earth does he want?’ asked Hayley.
Colt could have told them what James wanted, but right now his attention was elsewhere. Birdy’s second arm was almost free.
There was more shouting outside, then the sounds of a struggle. A hip or an elbow bumped against the side of the ambulance. Someone swore.
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ muttered Officer Katt. She opened her door and slid out. Colt glimpsed her marching past the front window with her stun gun drawn. Run, James! he thought.
But James didn’t run. Probably because he couldn’t. It sounded like some policemen – or maybe rat cops – had overpowered him. But he was still shouting. And now that Officer Katt’s door was open, Colt could hear what he was saying.
‘LET ME GO! I CAN SAVE HER!’
Save who? Colt wondered vaguely. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Which didn’t make sense – hadn’t he just had eighteen hours’ sleep?
Meanwhile, Birdy had wriggled out of her safety harness like a snake shedding its skin. Now she was leaning over Colt, unsnapping buckles and pulling straps free.