It was a copy of Time magazine. The man on the cover had greying hair, a warm smile, and skin that looked like it had been stretched a bit too tightly across his face. Underneath was a heading that read, Noah Shackleton: Building a Better Tomorrow.
‘Mr Shackleton,’ said Peter. ‘So what?’
‘Look at the date,’ she said, stabbing a finger down at the corner of the page.
July 20.
We were only halfway through May.
‘There are others, too.’ Jordan stuck the magazine in her bag and started pacing along the shelf. ‘Reader’s Digest, Money, Cosmo, New Scientist … There are copies here right up to the middle of August.’
A fresh wave of panic hit me as I put two and two together. ‘Right up until Tabitha,’ I said.
I picked up one of the magazines and flipped through it, fighting to keep my hands steady. Every-thing inside looked completely legit. But it was all fake. All of this. The supply trucks and the delivery people and this warehouse and these magazines and all of this stuff…
‘We’re completely cut off, aren’t we?’ I said, turning to look at Jordan. ‘There’s nothing –’
My words were suddenly ten times louder in my ears. I slammed my mouth shut. The alarms had just cut out across the warehouse.
A second later, a muffled voice echoed down our aisle from the other end of the building.
Peter swore under his breath.
The security guys were back inside. And they were coming this way.
Chapter 24
SATURDAY, MAY 16
89 DAYS
‘How exactly were you planning on getting us out of here when the guys with guns came back?’ Peter muttered to Jordan as we ran the rest of the way down the aisle and slipped around the corner to hide.
‘We’ll figure something out,’ said Jordan, which wasn’t exactly an answer.
‘Right,’ said Peter through gritted teeth. ‘Fantastic.’
Peering through the gap between a couple of crates, I saw two men appear at the other end of the aisle we’d just left. The delivery guy with the clipboard and one of the security guards.
‘No worries,’ Clipboard Guy was saying, ‘we’ll notify maintenance when we get back – get Ketterley to send a couple of guys over.’
‘You two want a hand loading the truck?’
‘Nah, we’ll be right. Not much on the list today.’
‘Ah well … might as well grab a drink while I’m in here.’
‘Hey, you know you’re not meant to take any of this without –’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said the security guy dismissively. ‘Come on, who’s gonna know?’
Clipboard Guy took another look down at his clipboard and the two of them started moving up the aisle, obviously searching the shelves for something on their list. They hadn’t seen us, but for a minute I just stood there, glued to the spot, watching them come closer.
‘C’mon,’ Peter whispered, yanking at my arm.
Jordan had just checked down the next aisle to make sure the coast was clear and was creeping out along the back wall of the warehouse. We followed her, trying to stay in the shadows.
It was stop-start all the way. Pause at the top of each aisle. Check for guards. Race across to the cover of the next row of shelves. Which, I reminded myself, would be no cover at all if any of the guards made it up to our end of the warehouse.
About halfway along, we came to an aisle with a clear line of sight all the way through to the front entrance. Sure enough, the guards were back on patrol, blocking our way out of here. It seemed like our only option would be to find somewhere to hide until… Until what? They had to be guarding this place twenty-four seven.
We bolted across the gap and stopped dead. In the next aisle, the guy with the ponytail was struggling to bring an enormous box down from a shelf above his head.
‘Mitch?’ he said as we dashed past behind him. Risking a look back through a gap in the shelves, I saw him stare up at our end of the aisle, a suspicious look on his face. But his box was already halfway off the shelf, tipping down towards him. ‘Hey, Mitch, give us a hand with the toilet paper, will you?’
‘He really should be able to take care of that himself by now,’ Peter muttered nervously as we moved on again.
A few seconds later, there was a loud crash behind us. I heard Ponytail shout.
‘You all right, mate?’ called Clipboard Guy from across the warehouse, and suddenly there were foot-steps thundering towards us.
Time to run.
We raced to the end of the warehouse and dashed into the last aisle, just in time to avoid being spotted by the two men as they rounded the corner behind us. This aisle was almost empty, except for a few bikes standing at the end of a long metal rack on the bottom shelf. And one security guard.
I staggered, only just managing to keep myself from shouting out. We were twenty metres apart, if that. It was a miracle he hadn’t heard us coming. But the guard was facing the other direction, walking away from us.
We dived down behind the bikes and waited for him to leave. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears and I grabbed onto the bike tyre in front of me for support, struggling to hold still. But I couldn’t move either, couldn’t even breathe, because if he turned around…
From a few aisles down, I heard Clipboard Guy’s voice and the sound of boxes being shifted. The guard in front of us started walking more quickly.
Yes, I thought. Go. Keep moving. Go help them.
After one excruciating minute, he reached the end of the aisle and disappeared. I heaved a sigh and felt my muscles relax very slightly.
‘Hey, look!’ hissed Jordan, getting to her feet again. She started backtracking along the row of shelves towards a shadowy corner at the back of the warehouse, where a concrete staircase led down into the ground, disappearing into the darkness.
Checking for guards one last time, Jordan darted out and made a break for the stairs. Peter looked like he wanted to argue with her, but he just rolled his eyes and followed her down.
It was almost pitch black at the bottom of the stairs. I took one step too many and nearly rolled my ankle on the dusty floor. Up ahead, there was a narrow strip of light shining out from under a door. Jordan fumbled for the handle and pulled it open.
Bright light burned my eyes. I ducked down, blinded, waiting for the shout of a guard or the ringing of an alarm. But the only sound I heard was Peter pulling the door shut behind us. It seemed like we were alone down here.
I knew that we needed to keep moving, but for a minute all I could do was stand there, squinting stupidly, waiting for my vision to return. At first I couldn’t see anything but white light and a sea of green.
Then the room slowly came into focus and I realised that the green things were plants. Vegetables. Thousands of them.
The room we’d stumbled into was just as big as the warehouse above it. The whole place was packed with row after row of waist-high benches covered in leafy green plants. Instead of soil, the plants were suspended across clear plastic trays, roots dangling down into a cloudy white liquid like flour in water. Black hoses snaked all over the place, pumping the liquid around, and light beamed down on the plants from low-hanging lamps.
‘Whoa,’ said Peter. ‘It’s a hydroponics bay.’
‘A what?’ I said, glancing at him.
‘For growing plants without any soil or sunlight,’ said Peter. ‘You know, like in Star Trek. ’
‘Also like in real life,’ said Jordan, raising an eyebrow at him. ‘I guess this is where all our fresh food is coming from.’
We started making our way between the rows of vegetables. Not that we really had any idea where we were going, but it seemed like a good idea to keep moving. Looking around, I saw fruit trees growing along the walls using an upsized version of the same technology.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said, staring around at the endless green. ‘Why do we need all of this?’
Jordan shrugged. ‘People need to eat.
’
‘Yeah, but they’ve got everything else stored in that warehouse – surely they could get veggies in from outside?’
‘Maybe it’s not just for now,’ Jordan said quietly. ‘Maybe they need something more long-lasting for, you know, after.
’ In the far corner of the hydroponics bay was a little glass-walled room filled with computers – some kind of control station, maybe – and racks and benches piled up with gardening equipment.
Empty crates and boxes were stacked all along the back wall, waiting to be packed full of vegetables and sent upstairs. But there was no way a crate that big was fitting up the staircase we’d come down on. Which meant that there had to be another way out of here.
‘There’s a lift,’ said Jordan, noticing it a split second before I did. She walked over and pushed the button on the wall. The doors opened instantly, and she and I stepped inside.
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Peter, holding the lift door. ‘You sure you want to go bursting out there?’
‘What, you want to stay down here forever?’
Jordan asked him.
‘No. But I don’t want to get shot either.’
‘You have another suggestion?’ she asked.
Peter looked like he definitely had another suggestion for where Jordan could stick her idea, but I guess he figured she wouldn’t go for it. Without saying anything, he stepped into the lift with Jordan and me and pushed the ground floor button.
The lift clattered to life – way too noisily – and started rolling its way up to the warehouse level. I shrank back from the doors as we rose, half-expecting to find a bunch of rifles trained on us as soon as the doors opened again. We came to a stop and I spun around as a second set of doors clanked apart behind me.
A wire fence and a sea of trees. We were back outside.
I struggled to get my bearings. For a second, I wondered why we hadn’t noticed the lift doors when we’d first arrived, but then I figured that we were around the opposite side of the warehouse to the one we’d come in on. There were no security guards in sight, although that could change any second.
‘Which way?’ I asked.
‘Around the back,’ Jordan whispered, after thinking about it for a minute. ‘Out through the hole in the fence.’
Peter and I both nodded. It was either that or the front gate, and we knew we weren’t getting out of that one alive. We crept away from the lift and raced toward the back end of the warehouse.
The sun was just starting to set, but not nearly enough for the darkness to give us any protection. As we reached the end of the building, Jordan raised a hand into the air to signal us to stop. She peered around the corner, then snapped her head back again and said, ‘We’re clear.’
‘Roger that, commander,’ Peter smirked.
I followed them across to the fallen tree and realised right away that escaping through the fence wasn’t going to be as simple as I’d imagined.
When the tree fell, it hadn’t knocked the fence all the way down, but it hadn’t torn a neat hole either. The fence had buckled around the trunk, bending forward so that the razor-wire on top was jutting out toward us.
To get out, we’d have to climb onto the fallen tree, crawl across the narrow gap it had ploughed through the razor-wire – without slipping off and getting ripped to shreds – and then jump down into the bush.
All without getting captured or shot.
Now that we were right up against the tree, its branches and leaves were providing us with at least a bit of cover. But I doubted that it would make a difference if one of the guards came strolling around the corner.
‘Who’s going first?’ I asked.
Peter glanced back and forth between me and the fence, clearly wanting to get out of here as fast as possible, but not game to be the first one to test the strength of the tree.
‘I’ll go,’ said Jordan, unsurprisingly.
She pulled herself up on top of the fallen tree, straddling the trunk, and started shuffling her way across to the other side. From the other end of the compound, I heard the delivery truck rev into life. Any second now, it would be out of here and we’d lose any advantage that distraction might be giving us.
I jogged back over to the corner of the warehouse to make sure there was still no-one coming. All clear so far.
Jordan was making quick progress on the tree, and it seemed like it was stable enough, so Peter clambered on behind her. But Peter was heavier than Jordan and not as nimble, and the leaves around him shook noisily each time he moved.
I shot him a look, urging him to be more quiet, but he shrugged his shoulders, like, What do you want me to do about it ?
I stuck my head back around the corner, then jerked it back again so quickly I almost fell over. Two of the guards were headed this way. So far they were just patrolling, wandering along, but any minute now they’d get close enough to hear all the noise we were making.
‘Someone’s coming!’ I hissed, racing back towards the fallen tree. Peter gave up any attempt at going slow and steady, and started clawing desperately at the branches up ahead of him. As soon as there was room behind Peter, I climbed up and started crawling across.
The sound of the truck’s engine faded away behind us and I heard the distant scraping of the gate being dragged shut. Jordan was almost over the fence by now. She’d cleared the razor-wire and was twisting her way between two giant branches that stuck out in front of her. Peter wasn’t far behind. His shoulder jolted back suddenly and he grunted in pain as a stray bit of razor-wire caught on his arm. I tried to go faster, to close the gap between me and Peter. Leaves and twigs jutted out all around me, poking at the bruises on my face.
With a muffled thud, Jordan dropped to her feet on the far side of the fence. She stretched out a hand, ready to help Peter across. He glanced back at me and I would’ve laughed at the look on his face if I wasn’t so busy not getting killed. I reached the edge of the razor-wire and pressed down on a sturdy-looking branch for support.
CRACK!
The branch turned out to be not so sturdy. As soon as I put my weight on top of it, it dropped and went tumbling down to the ground, landing with a crash of leaves. I staggered forward, caught myself against the trunk, and narrowly avoided plunging into the razor-wire.
But the damage was done. I heard a distant shout followed closely by footsteps that definitely wouldn’t be distant for long. Up ahead, I saw Jordan hauling Peter down to the ground. He landed on all fours and sprang to his feet.
I glanced back over my shoulder and then dived the rest of the way through the razor-wire, making a desperate grab at one of the big branches I’d seen Jordan weaving through before. My fingers brushed against the branch, but then my jeans snagged on the wire and I crashed down hard against the tree, my already-bruised face hitting the trunk. I closed my eyes, head spinning.
‘Come on!’ Peter hissed, his eyes flashing back to the warehouse.
The guards had to be right behind me now. I dragged myself up again, fighting to get my breath back. Finally, my leg came free and I tumbled to the ground in a heap. I heard a shout from above me – Peter or one of the guards, I couldn’t tell which – then two hands grabbed hold of me and dragged me to my feet. Jordan.
I stumbled, vision still hazy. She grabbed my hand, pulling me forward, and the three of us dashed away into the bush.
Chapter 25
SATURDAY, MAY 16
89 DAYS
‘Never again,’ Peter panted. ‘Never. Not ever.’
He sounded half-delirious. Not that I could blame him.
‘Did they see us?’ I gasped as we stumbled through the bush, putting some distance between us and the warehouse. I was walking in a straight line again, but the last five minutes were still a total blur.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jordan, looking back. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
I realised I was still holding onto her hand and quickly dropped it.
‘No guns,’ said Peter vaguely.
>
‘Huh?’
‘They didn’t shoot us,’ he said. ‘And they didn’t seem like the kind of guys who’d hold back if they saw a trespasser.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I nodded wearily. The guards had definitely heard something, but it looked like we’d got away. I came to a stop and grabbed onto a tree for support. ‘So, now what?’
‘It’s five o’clock,’ said Peter, staring up at the sky.
‘We need to get back to our bikes if we want a hope of getting home before curfew.’
‘Not yet we don’t,’ said Jordan. ‘We’re only half-finished.’
‘Are you kidding?’ said Peter. ‘No. No way. We are all finished.’
‘What about the other place on Crazy Bill’s map?’
‘You know what?’ Peter snapped. ‘I reckon I’ve had about enough of Crazy Bill’s surprises for one day.’
‘But –’
‘Look,’ he said, stabbing a finger at her. ‘You want to spend the night out here? You want to go find more opportunities to get shot at? Be my guest. But you can count me out of it.’
It was surprising to hear Peter speak to Jordan like that, and he looked like maybe he regretted saying it. But he was at least as scared as I was, and I guess that fear was finally starting to outweigh his desire to stay on Jordan’s good side.
‘Fine,’ said Jordan, turning to look at me. ‘You coming, Luke?’
I didn’t answer right away.
‘Mate, come on,’ said Peter, obviously not liking the thought of making the journey home by himself. ‘Haven’t we been through enough for one day? If we decide we want to come back some other time –’ Jordan muttered something under her breath.
‘Sorry, what?’ said Peter, stepping up until they were nose to nose.
‘I said, as if you’d ever come back again!’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means if you don’t even have the guts to come with us now, then as if we’ll ever convince you to –’ ‘Oh, right,’ said Peter, rolling his eyes, ‘so just because I don’t want to give you another chance to get us all killed, that makes me a coward, does it?’
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