The Foretelling of Georgie Spider

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  I stared at Ash. “I didn’t know you could fix Ember’s dad, Ash!”

  “I didn’t know either, Georgie,” Ash said. “Em? Since when have you thought I can do this?”

  “Since now, because Nicky thinks so. That’s why he brought us here. I’m fairly certain he believes that you can help Dad the same way you helped him.”

  I didn’t understand what that meant. Maybe the others did and someone would tell me. Then Jules said, “Think you’re going to have to explain that a bit more, Red.”

  Ember drew in a deep breath, which was good, because it meant a big explanation was coming. “Dominic was dead. All that was left of him were those few circuits that Neville put in an interrogation machine. Then Neville hooked that machine up to you, Ash, and you brought Dominic back. Only as Nicky, instead of Dominic. You made him new.”

  Ash nodded. “I get all that, Em, but I don’t see why that means I could help your dad.”

  “When Nicky was the machine and you were connected to him, you weren’t conscious. You were in a state that was close enough to Sleepwalking for your ability to work. That’s how you brought him back. And Nicky still has some kind of link to you. I think he can use it to connect you to Dad’s mind in the same way you were once connected to him.”

  Jules frowned. “And then, what, Ash can make your Dad’s mind new?”

  Ember threw out her hands. “I don’t know! Dad’s suffering from some kind of progressive instability that was caused by transferring his consciousness from his original organic body into a synthetic one. I’ve never been able to figure out how to repair it. All I know is, Nicky thinks you can. Or at least that you have a chance.”

  Nicky bounded over to Ash and sat at her feet, thumping his tail on the floor. She patted his head, and said, “Well, if he believes I can do it, I’ll give it a try.” She looked at Em. “Do you need any special equipment or anything?”

  Ember shook her head. “There’s a lot of stuff stored in the room where Dad is. Things I was using to work on him. I’ll have all I need there – but we might be away from the Tribe for a while. I really don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I told her. “Me and Daniel will take care of the Tribe.” We were good at taking care of the Tribe, and these tunnels were no place for spiders anyway. I needed to be up in the warm rock, and with my map. Now that this choice had been made I could feel futures shifting and changing and becoming. My hand twitched, wanting vines to map them. “You all go bring Ember’s dad back.”

  “Everyone come with me, then!” Em said. She marched off down the tunnels, and everybody followed her. As they turned the corner, Nicky glanced back at me. His head was held high and his doggy mouth was set into a firm line. Like Em, I understood him even though I didn’t speak dog.

  My name is Nicky and I am going to save Ashala Wolf.

  THE BUNKER

  ASHALA

  So this was the great Alexander Hoffman.

  He was lying on a table, and he looked pretty much as he had in the memories Ember had once shared with me – red hair, a short beard and a lined, intelligent face. There was a small black disc on his forehead displaying a series of numbers that Em said indicated the level of instability in his brain. If I couldn’t change that, she wouldn’t wake him up. I reached out to touch him, brushing my hand over the Spinifex-City-yellow fabric of his sleeve and then against his wrist. His skin was unexpectedly cold, and I jumped back, bumping into Connor who was standing behind me.

  He caught my elbow to steady me, and spoke in my ear, his breath warm against my skin. “He’s not going to bite you, Ashala.”

  “I know! I just … it’s Hoffman.”

  He said nothing but I knew he was smiling. He thought the way I was reacting to Hoffman was funny, which I guessed it was. I couldn’t help it. I’d grown up admiring Hoffman-the-hero, and I couldn’t quite manage to merge that Hoffman with the one who’d built himself a family only to abandon them. Despite everything I now knew about Ember’s dad, I was still a bit awestruck by him.

  I stepped back to the table. He’s just an ordinary man … who predicted the end of the old world … discovered the Balance … invented the technology that saved humanity … This wasn’t helping. I stopped looking at Hoffman and looked at the rest of the room instead. Ember was sitting on the floor in the corner, surrounded by bits of technological clutter that she’d taken from the shelves that lined the wall behind her. For the past half an hour she’d been busy assembling wires and circuits into … well, something that she said we were going to need. Jules and Nicky were both wandering around the room, except Nicky was sniffing along the floor and Jules was taking things off shelves to examine them before putting them back, generally in a different place to where he’d got them from.

  Ember glanced up at me. “I’m almost done, Ash. Can you move another table next to Dad? You and Nicky will need something to lie on.”

  Connor and I went to the far end of the room, where more tables were shoved haphazardly against the wall. We grabbed hold of the biggest one, pushing it next to Hoffman. Then we helped Nicky onto the top of it before I climbed up beside him.

  Within a few minutes, Ember came hurrying over, and Jules strolled after her. Em was holding something in her hands – a thin circle of wires, connected by trailing cords to two other bands.

  I swallowed. “That looks kind of like the thing that was put on my head when I was in the detention centre with Neville.”

  “It is. Or an adapted version of it.” Em held up the circles. “One on you, one on Dad, and one on Nicky. If this works the way it’s supposed to, Nicky will be able to use it to link you to Dad through him.”

  She reached up to set the loop onto my head. I suppressed a sudden surge of panic as the cool metal touched my skin. This isn’t the same as before. You’re not Neville Rose’s prisoner. Em put the second loop on Nicky, who rolled onto his side. I stretched out beside him, and he tipped back his head to gaze soulfully at me. Not the same at all, and yet it was, because Nicky had been with me when I was a prisoner, his spirit trapped in the interrogation machine. We were both free now. Em attached the final loop to her dad, and said, “Okay, Ash. Now you …” She stopped, and sighed, “Actually, I’m not really sure. Nicky’s in charge of this. Maybe close your eyes, see if anything happens?”

  I shut my eyes tight. Nothing happened. After a few minutes of boring darkness, I opened my eyes again. “Sorry, Em, it’s not–”

  I sat up with a gasp.

  There was a grey sky above my head and around me were the remains of fallen buildings. I scrambled to my feet, my gaze darting across twisted wreckage that seemed to go on forever. Some of the wreckage was shattered glass or warped metal, but a lot of it was made of a material that I’d never seen before, something hard and grey and not composite, not even early composite. And the few buildings that were still standing were so high they seemed to be trying to reach the sky itself. I’d never seen buildings that tall before. I hadn’t even known it was possible to make buildings that tall. Is this Hoffman’s mind? It had to be, only nothing here made sense and nothing was whole. I wasn’t sure I could fix this. I wasn’t sure anyone could.

  The earth suddenly shook, sending me stumbling. A massive crack opened up in the distance, cutting a jagged path across the ground until it struck one of the remaining tall buildings. The crack vanished. But the building shuddered and began to collapse.

  Debris rained down in heavy chunks of grey, smacking into the earth around me and shattering into pieces. Splinters of rocks came flying out and I threw up my arms to cover my face and head as they spattered into my body, stinging my flesh. I sprinted, away from the building and the danger falling from the sky, careening across the fallen city with no idea of where I was going.

  “Woof!”

  Nicky? I staggered to a halt, lowering my arms to find him standing a few metres away. He took off, barking at me to follow.

  “Nicky, wait up
!” I chased after him, tripping and stumbling as the ground shook beneath my feet. Then he bounded up a massive heap of debris, disappearing over the top. I followed, skidding down the other side into empty space.

  Nicky bounded about my legs, nuzzling at my hand. I patted him and looked around. We’d come to the end of the city. Everything from this point on was flat emptiness, with the exception of the single, squat structure rising up from the ground ahead. Some kind of bunker? Like the city, it was made of a grey material that I couldn’t identify, and it had no windows, only a large, heavy-looking door. A flash of light shot out of the bunker and streaked high overhead. I spun to watch as the light arced down to strike the earth, setting the ground rumbling and opening a crack that went scissoring into the city beyond.

  “Woof!”

  “I get it,” I told him. “I think.” Thanks to the way my ability worked, I’d had lots of practice interpreting what I saw in weird landscapes of the unconscious.

  “The cracks are the instability? Which makes the city his mind, and the bunker the source of whatever’s wrong.” I turned to look at Nicky. “That’s why you brought me here.”

  He licked my hand as if to say, Good human.

  “Guess I better go inside then.”

  Nicky flopped down onto the ground, put his head on his paws, and whined. He wasn’t coming with me. Whatever was inside was for me to see.

  I strode to the bunker and turned the doorhandle. The door swung inwards to reveal a grey floor with a square hole in it, containing a ladder that descended into the ground. I peered downwards but it stretched so far I couldn’t see the end. I began to climb, my feet thudding against each rung. The ladder was made of a kind of silver material I’d never seen before, and it was cold. Everything was cold, which wasn’t right, because I was going into the earth and it should be warm like the caves were. But I could hear the soft hum of some kind of machinery at work; this place was being artificially cooled.

  I climbed until my arms and legs were aching from the effort, and still the ladder stretched on. Finally, I made it to the bottom, stepping off into a long tunnel. Lights shone down from the ceiling, glaring over the stark grey walls and floor. I could hear movement somewhere in the distance. Someone’s in here with me.

  I swallowed and crept forwards, following the tunnel until it connected with another, bigger passageway. Some kind of main corridor? It seemed like it, because it was wider than all the tunnels that branched off it. I skulked along the corridor, trying to spy some clue that would tell me what this place was and why I was here. Then I heard the distinctive thudding of footsteps headed my way.

  I darted into one of the side passages, pressing myself flat against the wall and peering around the corner to watch as a man stepped into the main corridor. A large, overweight man with golden skin, a flat nose and white-blond hair who moved with the grace of a cat. He was wearing khaki pants and a white shirt instead of Spinifex-City-yellow robes, but it was impossible not to recognise Leo.

  I sagged in relief and stepped out in front of him. “Hey, Leo! It’s me, Ash–”

  He walked straight at me and through me, as if I were mist. I staggered back, bumping into the wall. I’m not really here. I poked at my arm. It seemed solid enough to me. Obviously not to him. I stared after Leo to see him turn down a side passage, and hurried to follow. It was better to be with Leo than alone in this creepy place, even if he couldn’t see me. Besides, it wasn’t like I had any other indication of where I should be going.

  I trailed behind Leo, padding down the corridor at his back until he came to a door. He pulled it open to step inside and I darted in before the door swung shut. I was in a big square room, every wall of which was covered with screens that showed mysterious numbers and charts. Sitting in front of the screens were … aingls? There was Delta – her black hair was cropped a lot shorter than when I’d seen her last, but it was her. On the other side of the room was a round blonde woman who I didn’t recognise. Katya or Nova, maybe? Then there was a man with a hawk-like nose, brown skin and black hair tied in a ponytail at the base of his neck. Maleki? And strolling between each of them was Alexander Hoffman.

  Leo walked up to his father and the two of them began a low-voiced conversation. I waved experimentally at Hoffman. He didn’t react. It didn’t seem like he or anyone else could see me, any more than Leo could. I wandered around the room, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. The screens I didn’t get at all, and the aingls were wearing strange sorts of clothes. None of them were dressed in the colour of a city, and everything they had on seemed a bit grubby and worn out, as if they’d been wearing those clothes for a long time.

  I jumped at the sound of Hoffman’s deep, gravelly voice. “Delta? How is Europe doing?”

  She turned to him. “The quakes are getting worse. We project losses at thirty per cent of the population.”

  “That’s a better outlook than Africa,” Hoffman said, looking towards the brown-skinned man with the hawk nose. “Losses there are running at – what, Maleki, fifty-five per cent?”

  “Sixty,” Maleki replied. “If things continue this way, there won’t be enough survivors to sustain a human population, even assuming there’s anything left of the earth to live upon.”

  I didn’t know what an Africa was, or a Europe for that matter, but I understood quakes and fears about humanity surviving. That, plus the clothes that weren’t from cities, plus the building materials that I couldn’t recognise, equalled one unbelievable thing. This is the Reckoning. I’d gone back in time to when the earth tore itself apart after humanity had abused it for so long – or, no, I couldn’t have travelled in time, because I was in Hoffman’s head. I was in Hoffman’s memories.

  Hoffman heaved a sigh. “If everyone had just listened to me … I suppose there’s no point in revisiting that now. We must identify areas of relative safety, and send people there. What–”

  Before he could finish that sentence the door to the room banged open and someone shouted, “Everybody freeze! Put your hands up! Now!”

  I swivelled, gaping. Six people dressed in brown uniforms had crowded inside the room, blocking the doorway and pointing black stick things at Hoffman and the others. Weapons? They had to be weapons, because Hoffman was slowly raising his hands, and so was everyone else. Whatever those stick things were, they must be able to hurt an aingl. And the uniforms … enforcers of some kind? But if they were enforcers, they worked for the government. Why would the government, any government, be after Hoffman?

  I watched as the enforcers parted to allow a short, blonde woman to come marching through. She inclined her head at Hoffman. “Professor. I’m sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances.”

  He nodded back at her. “General. I’m sorry we have to meet again at all.”

  One of the enforcers snapped – “Show some respect!” – only to fall silent when the General subjected him to an icy glare. She returned her attention to Hoffman, offering him a smile that might have been pleasant if it hadn’t been so false. “There’s no need for this to be difficult, Professor. Simply give us the code, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “If I give you the code, you will use the device, and as I have told the people you work for a thousand times over, the technology is flawed. The device will stabilise a small area of land in its immediate vicinity. However it will destabilise the earth everywhere else.”

  “We’re willing to take that chance.”

  “I am not.” He lowered his hands to his sides.

  The enforcers shifted uneasily, and the General snapped, “Nobody shoot!”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Hoffman said. “Nobody shoot. Because I am far too valuable to kill. We are all far too valuable to kill. There is no one else who understands what is happening to this planet as well as we do.” He folded his arms, lip curling as he surveyed the General. “So I wish you’d stop pretending to threaten us. You’re making yourself look quite ridiculous.”

  The General sig
hed. “You’re right that you are too valuable to kill.” She turned and motioned to someone in the corridor behind her. “But your family is not.”

  More enforcers came forwards, shoving two people in front of them and I let out a cry of dismay that no one heard. Ember. And right beside her was a brown-haired boy with oddly familiar dark eyes who looked to be a few years younger than she was. The enforcers pushed them onto their knees and stood with the weapons pressed against their heads. I surged forwards, trying to wrest the weapons from their grasp. It was useless of course. My hands passed right through theirs. They didn’t even know I was there. I wasn’t here. This had all happened a long time ago.

  I stepped back, glaring at the General as she moved to stand between Ember and the boy. She rested one hand on each of their shoulders, and said, “Ember? Dominic? Why don’t you tell your father how much you want to live?”

  Em lifted her chin and stayed silent. Dominic glanced at her and then did the same, copying his big sister.

  “Your choice, Professor,” the General said. “Give me what I want, or watch them die.”

  Every gaze in the room was focused on Hoffman, and Hoffman’s gaze was focused on Ember and Dominic. Leo leaned in to whisper to him, “It’s all right, Professor. Just give her the code, and we’ll deal with whatever happens after that. Maybe you’re wrong about the flaws in the device.”

  “Ah, Leo.” Hoffman sighed. “We both know I am never wrong. If the device is used, it will result in the death of millions. Perhaps billions. Perhaps even humanity itself.” He kept his eyes locked on Ember and Dominic, and shook his head. “I am sorry, my children.”

  The General gestured, and there was a sharp, cracking sound. Dominic slumped to the floor.

  Ember wailed and I dived to Dominic’s side, trying to stop the blood pouring out of his skull even though his eyes were open and staring. Ember was sobbing and struggling with the guard who held her, and I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t do anything but watch.