The Foretelling of Georgie Spider

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  I threw myself forwards so that my entire body was pressed against his and I wrapped my arms around his neck and lifted up my head to kiss him. Then I was shaking but with heat instead of cold, and I finally knew.

  This was how it felt to be part of the real world.

  THE CODE

  ASHALA

  We drove, Connor and Jules and me. Well, Connor and Jules did. I didn’t know how. So they took shifts at the wheel while I sat in the front passenger seat and dozed.

  We’d been driving for about eight hours now, and day had wound into night as we went. I stared out at gungurru trees washed silver by moonlight, and wondered what was happening in the city. Was the fighting still going on? Which side was winning? Probably not ours. Terence might even be there … or, no, I’d bet he wasn’t. He’d want to be absolutely sure Neville had complete control of the city before he went anywhere near the place. It said something about how paranoid Terence was that a man who was basically indestructible was so afraid of abilities. Especially when the aingls had made alterations to their systems that meant not even the ability that had killed Dominic could hurt them now.

  It was Connor’s turn to drive; Jules was asleep and snoring in the back seat. I shifted to face Connor. “How long before we get there?”

  “Three more hours. Four, perhaps.”

  He knew because he’d been to the centre before, back when he’d been an enforcer. And three or more hours meant there was plenty of time for him to tell me the story I hadn’t yet heard. “How were you hurt?”

  He was silent. Reluctant to talk about it because he didn’t want me thinking of it, not when we might be going into another fight. But I needed to hear. “I know you were hurt, and I know how badly. Jules is a mirror. He shows what he sees.” So at one point today, there’d been a collar around Connor’s neck and a wound to his head.

  He sighed. “We were outside the room, right after the taffa had been delivered. Willis’s husband had left by then so it was only us with the guards. Three enforcers came walking around the corner, and one of them looked too young.”

  So that had been the sense of alarm I felt. Since all the minions were teenagers, Willis had set an age limit on entering the Residence as a security precaution. There shouldn’t have been anyone under twenty wandering around that place other than us. “Minion?”

  “Yes, as it turned out, although to begin with she was simply a distraction. It meant I was looking ahead, and so were Ember and Jules.”

  Ahead and not behind, where the guards were – and Jules had said that enforcers had turned on other enforcers. “The guards attacked you.”

  “It didn’t seem like that at first. One of them tripped and bumped into me. There was a pain in my arm, nothing too bad! And I didn’t pay much attention because the minion – Firestarter – attacked at almost the same time, and the Electrifier and the Blinker showed up. Then I tried to use my ability. And couldn’t.”

  “Not at all?”

  “That pain in my arm? Rhondarite dart, sunk into my skin. Before I knew it there was an electric field across the door, and the enforcers were firing on us or at each other. We had to retreat.”

  I heard the loathing in that last word. “Minions, streakers, and no ability? If you’d stayed you would’ve died.”

  “Doesn’t mean I had to like leaving,” he growled. “But you’re right, and Ember and Jules saw it more clearly than I did. They dragged me out of there and got me to Wentworth. She dug out the dart and Mended me.”

  Okay, except there was something he was leaving out. “The collar?”

  “That I did to myself.”

  “To yourself? Why?”

  “Because Jules thought it might be useful for him to have an image of me wearing it in his head. I was going to put it on without closing the lock quite all the way until Wentworth told us about the mastercode.”

  Oh. Clever. “Where’d you even get a collar? Was … did the enforcers collar one of you?”

  “No, three of them tried to collar Wentworth, before we got to the infirmary. Nicky attacked them, and Wentworth knocked them out.”

  Doctor Wentworth’s healing ability was so strong she could make people sleep just by touching them – as she’d once said to me, almost everyone needed more rest. And the only one besides us who knew she could do that was Neville because she’d sent him to sleep with her ability once before. He must have sent those enforcers himself. No one else would consider a Mender a threat.

  I grinned. “He didn’t get any of us.”

  “What?”

  “Neville,” I explained. “He didn’t get any of the people he most wanted revenge on. You. Me. Belle Willis. Doctor Wentworth.” Despite everything, Neville hadn’t had nearly as good a day as he would have liked to have had. I leaned back into the seat, the smile lingering on my face at the thought of Neville’s plans going wrong. “Tell me the rest.”

  Connor shrugged. “You basically know it. Jules and I took uniforms from the enforcers who’d come for Wentworth, and Em got some spare Mender robes. Easier for us all to get through the place dressed like that, and, well, Em and Jules had blood on their clothes too.”

  I stopped smiling. “They got hurt.”

  “We had to fight our way to the infirmary, and Jules … he kept putting himself between me and danger. I think he feels responsible for Pen. He didn’t want anything to happen to me as well. Em took damage trying to protect us both.”

  Every bit of it would have hurt her before it healed, but I knew that wouldn’t have stopped her. Not my Em.

  “After that,” Connor continued, “Jules and Nicky let themselves get ‘captured’. I was waiting outside the window for the chance to get you out. Oh, and we met up with Henry Willis in the infirmary before then. That was when we arranged to get the Primes, and meet up with him and as many people as he could get out of the city at Turtle Rock.”

  I’d almost lost him, and maybe Jules as well. I felt a sudden sense of panic at how fragile their lives were, how easily taken … no. Not fragile. Strong. My Tribe was strong. We’d made it through.

  Connor took one hand off the steering wheel and held it out. I clasped hold of him, reassured by the feel of his hand in mine. Alive. Both of us alive, and Jules as well, still snoring away in the back. Neville didn’t get any of us.

  Then Connor said, “Your turn. Tell me about Neville Rose.”

  “There’s not much to tell. He’d only just arrived when you all showed up.”

  He smiled, teeth flashing in the darkness. “Try again, Ashala.”

  Yeah, I hadn’t expected to get away with that. “He killed Prime Grant, and he was going to kill the others. But – not me.” I ran through all of it, stumbling over the part where Neville had told me I was going to be his audience. When I got to the end, I said, “Making me watch while people suffer and die, over and over? It’s the worst thing he could do to me, much worse than killing me. And it really bothers me that he knows me well enough to understand that.”

  “He’s evil, and evil knows how to hurt good,” Connor answered. “That’s not the same as understanding you. If he did, you wouldn’t have escaped him, both times he’s had you captive.” His fingers tightened on mine. “You are beyond his comprehension.”

  I snorted. “I only ever escaped because I had h–” I stopped, a smile pulling at my lips, and repeated in a different tone of voice, “I only ever escaped because I had help! The Tribe is beyond his comprehension.”

  A weight I hadn’t even realised I was carrying seemed to fall away. Neville doesn’t know me. Because he didn’t know us.

  We drove on in silence, enfolded by the dark and connected to each other. We drove for hours as the moon travelled across the sky, looping over our heads as night approached morning. But it was still dark when we neared Detention Centre 1.

  The place was on a rise, so we saw it for a ways before we reached it. Spotlights lit up the main gates that were set into a towering composite wall that surrounded the centre.
Except the wall was early composite, the stuff the recyclers had produced before people had got them working properly, which meant it was grey instead of white and rough instead of smooth.

  Connor slowed the car as we approached, and we waited in the glare of the spotlights as one of the guards began to walk towards the car. I’d swapped clothes with an enforcer at Turtle Rock and I had a streaker as well. Now I copied Connor’s pose, sitting just as a real enforcer would. Shoulders straight and eyes ahead, watchful but not nervous. Maybe I was doing something wrong because the guard was staring at me. My breathing seemed unnaturally loud and too fast – she must be able to hear it – stop. She only knows what you show her. Jules said that if you truly wanted to pass as something you weren’t, you had to wear the identity like a second skin. So I slowed my breathing and shifted towards the guard, meeting her eyes squarely. I am an enforcer just like you. What’re you looking at me for?

  It worked. She gave me a brief nod and her gaze drifted to the back where “Henry” was. People here should recognise him, since he’d accompanied Willis on regular inspection tours. I heard Jules wind down the window and speak in Henry’s cheery voice, “Henry Willis to see the Chief Administrator on urgent business. Can you let us in, please?”

  The guard peered in at him, and stepped back. “Right away, sir!”

  She waved to the other guard and within seconds the big gates opened. We drove through and they shut behind us, sealing us in with a shuddering thud. Connor swung the car around to park it beside some other vehicles. Then he got out to open the door for Jules, and I followed him.

  The inside of the centre was as grey as outside and the lighting was dimmer. Buildings were crowded around the space where we were parked, three storeys high and all of them with windows looking down at us. There were no lights in those windows, which wasn’t the same as there being no people. It just meant that if anyone was watching they were in darkness. Perhaps standing to the side of the window, staring down at three figures in the parking lot … stop imagining things. If these buildings were offices there was absolutely no reason for anyone to be in them in the early hours of the morning. Most of the staff would be sleeping in their quarters, and the ones who weren’t would be enforcers on patrol.

  The door to the building immediately ahead of us opened and a blonde enforcer came hurrying out. “Mr Willis! So good to have you with us again. I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Carrie, one of the officers here. The Chief Administrator’s sleeping, I’m afraid.”

  Jules beamed at her. “Quite all right. My fault for arriving unannounced. But I really must speak with her as soon as possible.”

  “Of course. I’ve already sent someone to wake her. Please come with me, and you can wait in her office.”

  Jules walked along behind the enforcer with Henry’s bouncing step. Connor and I paced after him, into the building and more greyness. Carrie led us down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs, turning on lights as she went. “Sorry. There’s no one in the administration buildings at this hour.”

  I’d been right that they were offices. That didn’t make me feel better. Carrie was nervous. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between Jules and Connor and me. She could just be wondering what we’re doing here. Worried about a surprise inspection, maybe? Or worried about something else?

  She led us up two more flights of stairs and to a large room. I cast a quick glance around as we entered. Tall cupboards across one wall, a shelf holding books on another, and a big desk that held a couple of pictures of a smiling redhead with various other people. Hello, Chief Administrator Hayne.

  Carrie ushered Jules over to the chairs sitting in front of the desk. “Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

  “Just the Chief Administrator, thank you,” Jules replied, with another of Henry’s big smiles.

  “I’m sure she won’t be long. I’ll go check on what’s happening.”

  She scurried out, shutting the door behind her. I waited until the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the corridor outside, and said, “Does it seem like something’s off to you two?”

  Connor was frowning. “She’s too young to be a senior officer.”

  And Willis had said she’d replaced all the senior staff, but had only just started in on the juniors. “You think Carrie was here when Neville was?’

  He shrugged. “Not necessarily. They rotate junior officers through different centres. And it is four in the morning. All the senior officers might be sleeping. I don’t like that none of them came to meet us, though.”

  I didn’t either, now he’d pointed it out.

  “Best stay alert,” Jules said. He shimmered into himself and began to prowl around, opening drawers to see what was inside. Connor shifted to stand facing the door, ready for trouble if it came. It didn’t seem like I’d be much help to either of them so I wandered to the window in case I could spot anything outside. We were on the opposite side of the building to where the carpark was and the window gave a view of the centre, which was to say, more grey buildings lit by the dim glow of the night lighting. Also, an exercise yard surrounded by a razor-wire fence. The one in Detention Centre 3 had a park in it. This one didn’t seem to have so much as a single blade of grass. I suddenly realised that this would have been Neville’s office when he ran the place. It was easy to imagine him standing right where I was now, staring at the detainees in the yard. Choosing his next victim … I stepped away.

  Jules had abandoned the desk and gone over to the cupboards, opening one door after another. One of the cupboards had some kind of silver machine in it that I thought looked pretty interesting, but Jules must have seen whatever it was before because he just shut the door and carried on to the next. Except the next door wouldn’t open.

  He shook the handle. “Locked.”

  “Careful!” I hissed. “You’ll break it.”

  “Why would this one be locked? None of the others were.” He shook it harder.

  “Stop do–”

  Before I could finish the sentence the door gave way – and a red-haired woman came tumbling out to land on top of Jules.

  He yelped and leaped backwards. The woman sprawled across the floor, head lolling and eyes closed. Connor darted over, kneeling to put his hand to her neck. After a moment he shook his head. “No pulse. But no apparent injury, either …” He rolled her over. There was a burn mark on the back of her beige robe. “Streaker.”

  I swallowed. “That’s the Chief Administrator. She’s in all the photos.”

  From outside there was the sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor.

  Jules grabbed the streaker from my hip and shoved me back, sending me stumbling as he leaped across the Chief Administrator’s body to put himself in front of me and Connor. The door opened, and two objects came hurtling through the air to crash into the window and clatter to the ground. In the same moment Jules fired twice, and then there was quiet.

  I grabbed hold of the desk to catch my balance and glanced around in bewilderment, trying to work out what had happened. “Is everyone all right?”

  “We’re fine,” Connor answered. “You?”

  “Yeah. Just … surprised.” Two enforcers were lying outside the doorway with open, staring eyes and streaker burns to their chests. And on the floor behind me were two more streakers – the enforcers. They’d been armed with them until Connor had taken their weapons away. They’d come here to kill us – no, they’d come here to kill Prime Willis’s husband and his guards. With weapons that they shouldn’t have, and that must have been smuggled in here.

  Neville’s people had control of the centre.

  The door flew shut. “Stand away from the furniture,” Connor said. “I’m going to use it as a barricade.”

  I let go of the desk and backed up to the window. The desk rose upwards and the chair and shelves along with it, all floating forwards to pile up against the door.

  “How do we get o–” Jules began, and stopped as he realised. “Oh. Wind
ow.”

  “That’s our escape route,” Connor agreed. “But not yet.”

  He went to the cupboard with the silver device in it, bending down to twist one of the dials.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Public address system,” Connor replied. “Gets heard all over the centre, and I can make it play a recording on a loop, over and over.”

  I didn’t see how that would help – no, I did. “Like the collar code? That’s genius!”

  “It won’t be much help to anyone who doesn’t have an ability that can get them out of a cell,” he said, pushing at the buttons. “But I don’t see any other way to give the detainees a chance.” He bent closer to the device, and spoke in a calm, clear voice, “Attention all detainees. This facility has been seized by traitors loyal to Neville Rose. Your collar can be unlocked using the following sequence: 367537369.”

  He sat back, pushed yet another button, and stood. “That’s it. Let’s get out of here.”

  I grabbed the streakers off the floor, handing one to Connor and shoving the other into my pocket as the message started to play, “Attention all detainees …”

  Jules pried open the window and then the three of us were out and soaring through the night, floating over the buildings to settle onto a nearby rooftop. We lay flat, clinging to the ridge of the roof and looking down over the centre.

  Lights were flicking on inside buildings. Doors were slamming, and voices raised in anger and panic. I could hear orders being shouted too, but not well enough to make them out, and the pounding of multiple sets of feet as enforcers ran to – wherever they were running to. Over the top of it all, Connor’s voice steadily recited the magic numbers that would set the detainees free. 367537369.

  “Well,” I said, “now what do we do?”

  THE DETAINEES

  ASHALA

  “Whatever we do, we’ve got be careful about it,” Jules said. “This is going to get real chaotic real fast, and we’re in enforcer uniforms, in case you’d forgotten. We’re as likely to get killed by someone on our own side as we are by the guards.”