by Steph Matuku
Tony nodded quickly, just as Griff knew he would. Seddon paid for his house, his car, his kids’ schools, his holidays, his clothes, his everything. One bad word from Seddon and Tony wouldn’t be able to find another job anywhere, ever. If the company went down, Tony wouldn’t be far behind. And unlike Seddon, Tony would never get back up.
‘Of course.’
Tony hurried back to his group and muttered a few words. They quickly moved off, one woman thumbing away a tear.
Griff bestowed a fatherly smile on the teens, which they didn’t return, and ushered them through the gate and into the Restricted Area.
74
Eva fell heavily on top of the guard. There was a startled ‘oomph!’ as they hit the ground, followed by a roar from the other guard as Jahmin knocked him over.
The woman recovered quickly, but Eva was quicker, more desperate. After a brief struggle, she managed to get astride her. She snatched the knife from the makeshift holster on her ankle and held it to the woman’s throat.
The woman froze. ‘You’re having delusions!’ she gasped. ‘You’re very unwell.’
The man struggling with Jahmin managed to get in a few good punches until Jahmin socked him in the face. The man fell limp. Jahmin looked horrified. He pressed his ear to the man’s chest. ‘He’s still breathing.’ He flexed his fingers in wonder. ‘One punch. Bam – gone. Just like that.’
Carefully he removed the man’s helmet and set about stripping off the rest of his uniform, revealing a pudgy belly and blue boxer shorts printed with white hearts.
‘They’ll come back for us. They’ll find you,’ the woman said, her throat working against the cold blade of Eva’s knife. A purple bruise around the woman’s eye looked like badly applied eye shadow. Whoever she was, she wasn’t having a good day.
‘Then we’ll be quick,’ Eva said. She felt strangely detached, as though she wasn’t in the world any more, merely observing it. This couldn’t be her, one minute sitting in a classroom trying to figure out what x equals, and the next contemplating murder.
Jahmin was tearing off his own clothes now, and Eva was struck anew by his curiously pale skin. In the shade of the trees, it was almost luminous.
The woman squirmed, and Eva exchanged the knife for her forearm.
‘It’s okay.’ The woman’s voice was thick and strange against the pressure of Eva’s arm. ‘We’re here to help you. You’re suffering from electro-radiation sickness. It’s very common around here.’
‘Electro-whatever,’ Eva scoffed. ‘We know what’s really going on.’
‘Eva!’ Jahmin warned.
‘What does it matter?’ said Eva, heartlessly. ‘She’s not going to be around to tell anyone.’
The woman jerked, struggling frantically. It was all Eva could do to hold her. Jahmin hurriedly zipped up his suit and fell across the woman’s thrashing legs. He held her down as Eva yanked at the woman’s zip, and he turned his head away.
‘I won’t look.’
Eva covered the woman with her discarded clothing and used Jahmin’s to cover the man. She pulled the uniform on and slid her hands over the sleek, black fabric of the uniform appreciatively. It clung to her slender frame like paint.
‘Nice,’ she said, and then, ‘Are you going to do it? Or me?’
‘You,’ said Jahmin quickly. ‘I’ll hold her.’
‘No, no, please,’ the woman babbled. ‘You don’t have to. I won’t tell. I’m used to not telling.’
‘Sorry,’ said Eva. ‘But this is the only way all this is going to stop. It’s the only way we’ll be safe. You don’t understand.’
‘I do, I do understand! I know about Destiny. The UFO.’
‘You fullas named it?’
‘That’s what’s making you hallucinate.’
Eva locked eyes with the woman. The musk of her perfume mingled with the distinctive scent of fear. ‘What I hallucinate is my dead girlfriend. What I know is that we have to get rid of that ship. It wants out as much as we do.’
The woman blinked. ‘You’ve heard them?’
‘You too, huh?’
‘Just whispers. The helmet helps. It’s not real, though. It’s just your brain getting scrambled.’ Her eyes widened, scanning Eva’s face. ‘It can’t be real.’
‘The only way everything will stop is if we give them what they want.’
‘Energy,’ the woman whispered.
‘Bingo,’ said Eva, and before she could change her mind, dragged the knife across the woman’s throat.
The woman glared at Eva. ‘Ow! That stings! Your bloody knife’s blunt as!’
‘Do it harder,’ Jahmin suggested. ‘Press down a bit.’
Eva flinched, averting her eyes from the scratch she’d made. The enormity of what she was trying to do hit her like a fist in the gut and she gagged, thrusting the knife at Jahmin.
He pushed it back.
The woman sighed. ‘Look, I get what you’re trying to do. But you’re kids, not killers. Just let us go. You can keep the uniforms if you want. They look good on you.’
‘They feel good,’ said Jahmin, running his hand over his torso. ‘So light.’
‘It’s a special polymer bound in with the fibre. It’s infused with a chemical that lightens the overall weight of the fabric.’
‘Really?’ said Jahmin, interested. ‘You mean like helium?’
‘Sort of. Not really. Obviously it’s more stable than that. It’s–’
‘Hallo? Excuse me?’ Eva interrupted. ‘This isn’t Fashion Week. You’re about to be murdered, for God’s sake!’
The woman smirked. ‘Not by you.’
A coms device in one of the backpacks suddenly expelled a burst of static followed by a stream of excited chatter. Jahmin grabbed it and held it to his ear, straining to make out the garbled words. There was another burst of static, and he dropped the device back into the bag, his face grim.
‘They’ve found a Māori guy and a Pākehā girl.’
‘Shit,’ Eva breathed. ‘Shit, shit, shit. What do we do?’
‘They’re taking them back to the Seddon camp.’
‘Okay, so we go to the camp too.’
‘We’ll get caught.’
‘Then we’ll just have to be careful!’
Jahmin motioned with his head. ‘And what about her?’
‘Knock her out … I don’t know!’
‘Wait!’ the woman cried. ‘Don’t hurt me. We’ll just lie here, peaceful as lambs.’
‘You be quiet,’ Eva said crossly.
‘I promise. If you’re going off to kill people, I don’t want any part of it. Unless,’ she added bitterly, ‘it’s Griff McKenzie and his creepy mates, in which case I’ll take a front row seat. They’ve gone too far. This whole thing – it’s too much.’
‘I think we’ve established that killing people isn’t exactly our forte,’ said Jahmin. ‘We need a Plan B.’
‘You’ll need it fast,’ the woman said. ‘They’re going to cover up Destiny to muffle the signals. They’re planting explosives all over the cliff.’
‘Great!’ said Eva. ‘This just keeps getting better. Now we’re going to have to dig the bloody thing out!’
‘You’ve got time if you hurry.’ The woman levered herself up on her elbows. ‘If I were you, I’d go along the river. There’s more cover and less security. You should go now. We’ll be fine here. Don’t hurt me, please.’
Eva gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Lie on your front then. I’ll have to tie you up.’
The woman obediently rolled over. Eva used Jahmin’s discarded sweatshirt to tie her hands behind her back, while Jahmin arranged the unconscious man into the recovery position.
‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I mean, life is precious. I get it now. I really get it.’
‘Don’t talk about it,’ said Eva. She didn’t like to think about what might happen to Jahmin if they managed to free the ship. ‘We’ve just gotta focus on getting to the camp and getting a Plan B.’
They pitched the guards’ backpacks as far as they could into the undergrowth, and Eva picked up Mandy’s cardy and stuffed it into her own backpack.
‘Good luck,’ the woman said.
‘Thanks,’ Eva replied. ‘And sorry about your neck. I didn’t mean it.’
‘I know.’
They slipped into the bush, their uniforms blending with the shadows.
75
There was a lot for Devin to take in. Staring people, canvas tents, strange machinery and, surprisingly, horses – beautiful horses that looked as ill at ease as she was. Everything was muddy, and she couldn’t hear properly because the tight-fitting helmet squashed her ears. It was hard to believe she’d actually been in this exact same place, just days before. It looked so different.
Rocky kept an easy pace with the big man’s footsteps, his feet sure and steady on the rutted ground, while Devin trip trapped alongside, a scared little Billy Goat Gruff off to the troll’s den. A little rhythm beat in her head that matched Rocky’s hurried words when the searchers had first appeared, terrifying in slick and silent black: ‘Don’t give anything away. Don’t let them know how much you know. And if you get the chance, darling, run.’
It was the ‘darling’ she lingered over, naturally.
The big man escorted them into a large green tent, and an unsmiling man called Jesse got them food. Sandwiches! And fruit juice! And little pies, mince and gravy, potato topped. She tried to eat slowly, aware that after several days of nothing but fish and eel and the occasional snack from Idelle’s stash, she might be sick. Rocky, however, ate as if the entire table was about to take flight, never to be seen again.
Throughout their meal, the big man, Griff, talked about the crash, how sad everyone was, how they’d been working round the clock to find them. Every now and then he’d press a hand to his head, and Devin was sure he was getting spaceship headaches. Frequent ones too. His voice would trail away and his eyes would glaze … just a little. Another man would fill in the gaps with a soft murmur until Griff got himself together, and then he was off, a torrent of words spilling out faster and louder as if to make up for his momentary lapse. He was a man on the edge.
When Devin finally worked out that Griff was the CEO of the entire Seddon Corporation, her stomach cramped and she dropped a half-eaten pie back on her plate, convinced she was going to throw up.
Griff, correctly reading her panicked expression, motioned the softly spoken man, Moses, over to take her to the latrines. He was big too, with huge, pudgy fists and ginger hair growing out of his ears. The utility belt at his waist was dragged down on one side by the weight of a knife and other tools.
Once outside, she took a moment to get her bearings. They’d extended the clearing, turned it into a flat, muddy expanse crammed with tents, while the bush hovered close at the perimeter, waiting for the chance to creep in and take it right back again. The sun was too bright. Everything was in heightened technicolour, angles too abrupt, edges too sharp. She could feel a pulse in her temple beating against the tight fabric of the helmet. Was the ship about to take her over again? She closed her eyes.
Moses took her by the elbow, urged her forward.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, in his surprisingly gentle voice. ‘It’s just the electromagnetic fields. You get used to them.’
Electromagnetic fields. Is that what they were calling them?
Once she was locked inside the little cubicle, she wondered how much use the helmets actually were. Griff’s didn’t seem to be doing anything at all. Slowly she slid her fingers under the black fabric and tugged it off.
The effect was immediate. The pulse in her temple slam-danced against her skull and she winced. The walls of the cubicle swam and melted, and then she wasn’t there any more, she was naked in the shower and hot water was streaming across her skin, clouds of steam rising from her pink flesh, the delicious scent of vanilla and coconut wafting in the air …
She raised her hands and watched the silvery spray dance across her fingers. She swayed, cracked her knee painfully against the edge of the toilet, and just like that, she was back in a dirty little cubicle that smelled of chemicals and waste.
The helmets did work. Most of the time.
She pulled it back on, tucked in her hair and opened the door. Moses stood a little way off, watching the horses toss their heads as they aimlessly circled the corral.
‘All right?’
His brown eyes searched hers and she gave a half-nod. One of the horses whinnied, and she remembered the pony she’d had when she was little, a chestnut filly that she rode bareback with her hands tangled in its mane because they couldn’t afford any tack.
‘You’re lucky,’ Moses said. ‘I always wanted a horse. I had a BMX, though. Called it Silver.’
She looked away. That was why he’d been able to speak for Griff. He’d been given a talent, a little bit of a boost, like Jahmin but far more dangerous. And then she wondered – how was she going to warn Rocky?
76
Rocky eyed the last bite of a caramel slice and stifled a burp. He picked it up anyway and shovelled it in. It was good. It was almost worth being caught, just for the sugar rush.
Almost. A calculating expression flickered across Griff’s face, signalling that however bad things had been in the bush, they were about to get real bad now.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Who are you? What do we call you?’
Rocky swallowed, the toffee caramel all at once too sticky and sickly sweet. He affected incomprehension and rubbed at his ear. He thought it would look odd if he kept rubbing it, so he did it again.
Griff spread a sheaf of papers across the table, careless of the detritus of food. Rocky couldn’t resist looking. They were files of information on his classmates and teachers, each with a photo stapled to the front. Most of them had a little red ballpoint cross on the upper right-hand corner. Idelle’s had a cross. So did Liam’s.
Griff looked carefully at Rocky and then at the photos. Finally, he selected a page and drew it out. The picture on the front had been taken the day before they’d left for camp. Rocky, with a cheesy grin on his face, was twirling a rugby ball on one finger.
He looked like a tosser, Rocky thought. A know-nothing, arrogant, naive little tosser. It had only been a week ago. He felt a million years older.
‘Rocky Rewiti …’ Griff flourished another page, ‘… and Devin Fitzgerald. I’m so glad we’ve found you. We’ll get someone in to check you over, make sure you’re not suffering from exposure or sunburn or germs or what-have-you. But first, we’d like you to answer a few questions.’
Rocky switched from rubbing his ear to rubbing his nose. Griff began pacing, his hands clenched, face red. Not exactly the image of a controlled CEO. Perhaps the ship was influencing him too. Rocky could feel a strange rhythm pulsing through his body, but he didn’t mind it so much. It made him feel … strong.
‘What can you tell us about the crash?’
Rocky didn’t answer.
‘How did you and Devin get out of the bus?’
Silence.
‘Is there anyone else? Have you seen anyone else?’
Nothing.
Moses nudged Devin through the tent flap. As she made to sidle past Griff, he abruptly backhanded her across the face. She crumpled to the ground.
Rocky surged to his feet. ‘What the hell?’
Moses grabbed Griff and pulled him away. ‘Boss! She’s just a kid!’
‘He can talk!’ Griff shouted. ‘He can talk … he …’ His eyes glazed.
‘Can tell us things, yes, but Boss, you gotta get a grip.’
Griff massaged his temples, his face contorting with pain. Jesse handed him a glass of water and he drank deeply.
Rocky, shaking with rage, dropped to the ground next to Devin and shielded her with his arms. Devin’s eyelids fluttered but otherwise she was limp. Rocky stroked the wayward strands of hair away from her face.
‘You didn’t need to do that,’ he said,
his voice cracking with emotion. ‘Haven’t we been through enough?’
Griff pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Shhh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Things have been very difficult here and we need answers. Just a bit of cooperation.’ His forehead was moist with sweat, and he was thunking his fist into the palm of his other hand.
‘So let’s just remind you of a few things, okay? You’re a long way from home. A very long way. And if you ever want to get back there, you need …’ his voice grew louder and purple veins stood out in his neck, ‘… to stop mucking me about!’
Just to see what would happen, Rocky looked him dead in the eye and said, ‘Piss off.’
Griff lunged at Rocky’s throat, but Moses yanked him back and stepped smartly between him and the two teens. Griff closed his eyes and sucked in two or three shaky breaths.
‘Tell me what happened when the bus crashed.’
Devin stirred. Rocky helped her to a sitting position and sat with his arms around her.
‘Who else was with you?’
‘There was nobody,’ said Rocky. ‘No one. Just us.’
The warmth of Devin’s body was comforting, and for an instant he remembered how it had been with the two of them. He saw Moses lift his eyebrows and smile before turning away and staring out the dust-streaked window.
‘Are you sure? What about …’ Griff flipped through the papers, reading out names. With every name Rocky’s heart gave a little lurch. Maybe they were still alive too.
‘Awhina Thomas? Eva Peterson?’
Rocky felt a wave of relief. They didn’t have her. Devin had been terrified Eva had been taken, but with supplies and clothing missing, he’d known all along that Eva had just packed a sad and gone off. Hopefully she’d found Jahmin. Hopefully they’d make it out alive and would tell everyone the truth.
‘Joshua Worthington?’
Devin moaned and her hand fluttered up to her cheek. She retched, once, twice, and then spewed thick stringy clumps all over Griff’s boots.