Fallout

by Chris Morphew

  ‘No, you didn’t, said Tank bitterly. ‘You never said sorry. You said you had to do all that to us.’

  Typical Kara, I thought. She might have softened since we first met her, but some things never changed.

  Kara rubbed her eyes. ‘You need to believe that everything we asked of you was motivated by the best of intentions.’

  ‘Because nothing says “best intentions” like luring innocent bystanders into a secret kidnapping cult,’ I muttered, buried anger rising to the surface again. ‘Who would’ve thought that would turn out –?’ I broke off as Luke’s fingers brushed over my hand. A gentle suggestion that rehashing this old argument might not be the greatest use of our time.

  Tank’s eyes widened. ‘Whoa. You guys are together now? Does Pete know about this?’

  I let go of Luke’s hand. No, Peter didn’t know about it.

  ‘Because, you know,’ said Tank, ‘he’s totally into you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I kind of picked up on that. Can we please focus?’

  ‘We think there’s a way to stop Tabitha,’ said Luke, finally landing on the point I’d been wanting to get to all morning. ‘Something called Tobias.’

  ‘What?’ Reeve jolted forward. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Luke, voice registering the same dull thud of disappointment that had landed in my own stomach. ‘We were sort of hoping you would.’

  Reeve scratched at his beard again. His face was half hidden in the shadow of the bunk above his head, but I could still see the network of tiny, faint scars crisscrossing his skin, lingering reminders of his last encounter with Tabitha.

  ‘Tobias,’ said Reeve, brow furrowed. ‘Where did you hear that name?’

  I glanced over at Kara. ‘That’s complicated too.’

  We’d filled the others in on the warning about Tobias, but we hadn’t told anyone how we heard it. Not even Luke’s parents. He said he didn’t want to worry them. I’d told him he was being dumb, but let it drop after he pointed out that I was acting exactly the same way about my visions.

  ‘Kara told us we had to take Tobias to the release station,’ said Luke, not quite managing to keep his expression neutral. ‘But she heard it from – someone else. She’s got no more about Tobias than we do.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Reeve leant forward, hands pressed together in front of his face. Then he sat up again. ‘Hang on. Release station. I reckon I might know where that is. At least –’ He stared into space, picturing something. ‘There’s a bunker, a little way out past the boundary wall. Only a few of us knew about it, and none of us ever got told what was inside, but they sent us out in the vans to do regular sweeps of the area.’

  ‘That’s what you were doing,’ I said. ‘The night we went out there. When you caught us climbing over the wall.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Reeve. ‘I had no idea what I was guarding back then, obviously. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? What else would they be hiding outside the wall?’

  Kara frowned. ‘That still doesn’t bring us any closer to –’ She stopped and hurried to her feet as Cathryn’s voice rang out in the corridor. ‘Get away from me, you little freak!’

  Luke and I jumped up too, and a second later Georgia tore into the room. She crashed into me, clinging to my waist, tears streaming.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, hoisting her into my arms. ‘What’s up? Where’s Mum?’

  ‘Sleeping,’ Georgia sniffed. ‘The baby makes her sleepy.’

  I carried her out into the corridor where Cathryn stood, red-faced, looking like she didn’t know whether to run away or start shouting again. ‘You got a problem, Cat?’

  ‘She was going to sneak out there and give Peter some of my muesli bars,’ said Georgia, pointing down the hall.

  ‘I was not, you stupid little liar.’

  ‘She was,’ said Georgia, tearing up again. ‘I’m not lying! She was going to steal the kitchen keys off Luke’s mum. She told me!’

  ‘Even if I was, like I’d tell you about it,’ Cathryn snapped.

  ‘Not with your mouth,’ said Georgia. ‘You told me in your head.’

  Cathryn glared, confirming that Georgia was telling the truth, and I felt myself ratcheting up from frustration to rage. ‘You don’t go down there,’ I said, closing the gap between us. ‘What, you don’t remember the beating he gave you last time?’

  ‘He’s sick!’ said Cathryn angrily.

  ‘And you think you can fix him? You think he beat you up because he was hungry?’

  ‘She’s still in love with him, that’s why,’ Georgia said matter-of-factly.

  A second flash of sparks behind Cathryn’s eyes told me Georgia was right. Cathryn turned and walked away, almost running into Mr Hunter as he came out of Kara and Soren’s room.

  ‘Sorry, Jordan,’ he said wearily. ‘I was watching her. But then I heard Soren yelling in his room and I thought I should check it out.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ I said, hugging Georgia and passing her across to him. ‘Just too many children down here. What was he yelling about?’

  Mr Hunter shrugged. ‘The breakfast thing, I think. He and Mike both shut up pretty quick after I got in there.’ He looked down at Georgia. ‘You two okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You’re a good boy,’ said Georgia, patting him on the shoulder.

  ‘Thanks,’ he smiled. ‘Come on, let’s go have a look at that new video camera of yours.’

  Luke’s dad took Georgia away and I sank back against the wall of the corridor, rubbing my eyes, listening to Cathryn muttering in the next room. She’d always been a bit emotionally volatile, but things had only got worse since she arrived down here.

  The morning after we brought her and Mike in, she’d spotted her mum on the surveillance feeds and discovered something the rest of us had known for ages: Mrs Hawking was one of the original members of the Shackleton Co-operative. For days afterwards, Cathryn had just sat in the bedroom, crying on Amy’s shoulder.

  But as tragic as all that was, it was kind of hard to stay sympathetic when she was taking it out on a six-year-old.

  I straightened up again, trying to put it out of my mind, and returned to the bedroom, where Tank had apparently latched onto the idea of Reeve being outside the wall in a van.

  ‘Look,’ said Reeve, ‘there’s only one exit in Phoenix, and you can’t just walk up and open the door.’

  ‘But if we could get through,’ Tank pressed, ‘we could steal one of those vans and drive out and get the army or whatever. Come on, boss. We have to try, at least!’

  Boss. The word stuck in my head. Mike had started calling Soren the same thing.

  ‘You okay?’ Luke whispered as I sat down.

  I sighed. ‘People keep asking me that.’

  ‘Mate, you know I love your enthusiasm,’ Reeve told Tank. ‘But we wouldn’t get a mile out before Shackleton blew us to pieces. If we’re going to take these guys down, we’ll have to do it from here.’

  He turned to the rest of us. ‘I don’t know what to tell you about this Tobias of yours. But I’ve been working on some plans of my own these past few weeks. Keeping an eye on the security patrols. Intercepting them when I can. Those guys know me. A lot of them were friends, back when I was still working for Calvin. And this end-of-the-world business isn’t what any of us signed up for. Some of them are still loyal to Officer Barnett, but a lot are just –’

  ‘To Barnett?’ said Luke. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

  Reeve raised an eyebrow. ‘You kids haven’t heard? Calvin went off the map about a week ago. No-one seems to know where he’s disappeared to, but it looks like Barnett’s in charge until he gets back.’

  Calvin gone. That explained why he’d suddenly stopped interrogating my dad.

  ‘Not exactly an improvement,’ said Luke. Next to Calvin, Barnett was the most sadistic, trigger-happy maniac the Co-operative had. ‘Anyway, sorry, you were saying…?’

  ‘A coup,’ I sa
id, switching back on to what Reeve was saying and feeling a rush of excitement at the idea. ‘You want to take the Co-operative down from the inside. Convince security to change sides.’

  ‘Some of them, anyway,’ Reeve said. ‘I won’t lie to you, though, it’s slow going. Even the guys that hate Shackleton are terrified of defying him.’

  ‘What can we do?’ I asked, suddenly bursting with energy. ‘How can we help?’

  ‘Well, for a start,’ said Reeve, getting to his feet, ‘I’d love to get a proper look at this surveillance room of yours. I have a few sets of eyes in town, but nothing like what you guys have got.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Kara, standing too. ‘Anything you need.’

  ‘More food?’ said Tank hopefully.

  Kara pursed her lips. ‘Don’t push it.’

  ‘Tank and I have something to take care of tonight,’ said Reeve. ‘We’re going to need to head back up to the surface.’ He looked down at Luke and me. ‘You kids feel like taking a walk?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Luke, like he was pretty sure he was going to regret asking.

  Reeve smiled grimly. ‘My tombstone,’ he said. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

  Chapter 6

  FRIDAY, JULY 31

  13 DAYS

  I spent most of the day putting off my promised visit to Peter’s room, convincing myself that I had other, more important things to deal with. But after washing up from breakfast, giving Reeve a painstakingly detailed overview of the surveillance room, finding clean sets of clothes for him and Tank, and convincing Luke and his dad to help me scrub the bathroom, I had to admit I was just stalling.

  After dinner, I told myself. We weren’t heading up to the surface with Reeve until midnight. Still plenty of time to see Peter.

  We ate around the circle of tables in the surveillance room. Luke’s mum sat in the corner, hunched over a notepad, reworking her meal schedule to accommodate our two new arrivals. Amy had offered to help, but Ms Hunter had shooed her away after only a couple of minutes, saying Amy was slowing her down. In reality, I think it was the opposite. With her accelerated brain, Amy could run all the numbers at triple speed, leaving Ms Hunter with nothing much to do. And I was beginning to see that Luke was right: his mum needed that job. She needed there to be at least some tiny shred of her life that was still under her control.

  I took my time cleaning up after dinner. Eventually, Luke came and found me. ‘Hey,’ he said, knocking on the open door. ‘You ready to go?’

  I sighed, draping a grotty tea towel over the edge of the sink. I really didn’t want Luke coming down there with me, but I knew he wouldn’t let me talk him out of it. ‘Yeah. Come on.’

  I heard Georgia’s voice from the girls’ room as we reached the hall. She walked out with the video camera Luke had given her. ‘And here’s the stinky hallway,’ she said, panning around the walls, obviously over being upset about her run-in with Cathryn. ‘And here’s my sister and her boyfriend. Kiss for the camera, Jordan!’

  ‘Not now, Georgia,’ I said, brushing past her.

  Georgia flipped the camera around, pointing it at herself. ‘Okay, now this is a song I wrote for them: I know a boy, his name was Luke. He kissed Jordan on – the – cheek!’ she chanted, barely getting the second line out before she doubled over in hysterics.

  I stopped at the end of the hall. ‘You need to stay here, okay? Go find Mum.’

  Georgia ignored me. She spun the camera around again. ‘I know a boy, his name was Luke. He kissed Jordan on the LIPS!’

  ‘Georgia,’ said Mum, coming after her, a towel clutched in her hand. ‘Shower. Now.’

  Georgia’s smile disappeared. ‘I hate the shower,’ she said. ‘It’s cold.’

  The stern look on Mum’s face softened a bit. ‘I know it is, sweetheart. Just a quick one, and then you can go in and say goodnight to Dad.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Georgia wearily. She turned and trudged after Mum.

  We mostly tried to keep Georgia out of the surveillance room during the day. No way of predicting what she might see in there. But each night before bed, Mum took Georgia in to watch Dad on the monitors for a while. It upset her a bit sometimes, but she kept going back. And it was important, I think. Georgia had as much right as any of us to know that he was okay.

  ‘Maybe that camera wasn’t such a good idea after all,’ said Luke, smirking over his shoulder as we headed down to Peter’s.

  ‘I think I’ve seen it before,’ I said, taking his hand in mine. We’d had too much insanity in the last twenty-four hours for me to dwell on it, but I’d definitely recognised Georgia’s camera when Luke pulled it out of the box. ‘In one of my visions. Two weeks ago, remember? I flashed – forward, it must have been – to the empty bedroom, and we couldn’t figure out why. But that camera was sitting on Georgia’s bed. Maybe that’s the reason I was there. Maybe that camera is going to be important.’

  ‘Important,’ repeated Luke. I knew he wasn’t a hundred percent sold on the idea that there even was a reason for my visions.

  ‘Why, though?’ I wondered out loud. ‘I mean, what are we supposed to do? Film what’s going on in town?’

  ‘What’s the point of doing that if we can’t get the video out to anyone?’ Luke asked. ‘You heard Reeve. No point trying to get out in a van. And as far as we know, the only other way to reach the outside is from the communications room in the Shackleton Building. Which, unfortunately, is in the Shackleton Building.’

  He stopped walking, and I guess he must have seen the frustration on my face because he said, ‘Sorry, I’m not – I would love to believe that this video camera could be some kind of solution, but…I don’t know. I just don’t see it.’

  ‘I don’t see it either,’ I said. ‘Yet. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.’

  Luke put his arms around me, resting his head against my shoulder. ‘The end of the world gives me a headache.’

  We stood there for a minute, holding each other in the debris, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been this quiet or still or alone.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Luke asked finally. ‘You don’t have to go down there.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘I have to keep treating him like a person.’

  I didn’t know if there was any way to reverse the path that Peter was on. But if there was, we weren’t going to do it by cutting him out of our lives. And in the meantime, I’d come up with a way to keep Luke out of the line of fire, at least for a while.

  ‘I was thinking,’ I said, as we continued down the passageway, ‘Reeve and Tank are heading back after we meet this friend of theirs tonight, right? Back to the cave where they’ve been hiding out, so Reeve can get in touch with his people in town. I think one of us should go stay with him.’

  ‘Why?’ said Luke.

  ‘Just, you know, to help him out. Share information.’

  ‘Haven’t we been doing that all day?’ said Luke. ‘Anyway, you can’t just disappear with them. You have to be here for Georgia and your mum. And I’m –’ Luke stopped walking again. ‘Wait,’ he said, bringing me around to meet him. ‘Is this about me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Seriously Jordan, do you actually have a plan here, or are you just trying to get me away from Peter?’

  ‘What’s wrong with getting you away from Peter?’ I said, struggling to keep the volume of my voice under control. ‘Why not get you out of here while we’ve got the chance?’

  ‘Right, because there’s no-one up there who wants me dead,’ said Luke. ‘And, anyway, who says Peter’s only interested in attacking me? Who says I’m the first person he comes after? All we know is what was on that video.’

  ‘Luke –’

  ‘I’m not leaving you down here,’ he said. ‘That’s not how this is going to happen. We’re not going to solve this by running away from it.’

  I leant in again, touching my
forehead to his. When had he started talking like this? When had he become the person who stared death in the face and kept walking?

  ‘You can’t die,’ I said.

  Luke smiled ruefully. ‘I really don’t want to.’ He bent forward and kissed me. ‘We’ll work this out.’

  I nodded, still staring at him, my tongue brushing over my lip. Then I realised what I was doing and started down the corridor again. ‘Come on.’

  We stopped just around the corner from Peter’s door and I reluctantly dropped Luke’s hand. He wasn’t actually coming in with me. He never did anymore; no point making things more volatile than they needed to be. But he always waited outside, out of sight, just in case. I left him there and started lifting the barricades away from the door. ‘Peter?’

  He was at the window in a second. ‘Jordan! Hey – are you okay? You look like you’ve –’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, setting the last barricade down against the wall, a dark edge slipping into my voice before I’d even made it inside.

  Peter moved in to hug me as soon as the door was open. My skin crawled, but I tried not to show it. He let go and reached for my hand. I stuck it into my pocket, pretending I hadn’t noticed.

  We hadn’t told him about the stabbing. We hadn’t told him about any of it. Neither of us was interested in having that conversation with him. Besides, what if us talking about it was what put the idea in Peter’s head in the first place?

  Peter returned to his bed and patted the blanket beside him. ‘Come and sit.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, dragging the chair across and setting it down opposite the bed, trying to ignore his not-so-subtle grunt of disappointment. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better now,’ he smiled, recovering quickly. He dragged his computer across and spun it around, proudly displaying a screen full of programming gibberish. ‘I think I’ve almost figured out a way to bring down the surveillance network. Really this time.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said, although the truth was he’d been telling me the same thing for three weeks straight.