He pointed to the CCTV screen on the wall. Rian turned to see Marshall’s truck parked by the pump, the swarm of bugs around the light. The image was unusually clear and in colour. ‘Had new camera fitted. Can see everything now. Got robbed, insurance company fitted it.
You’d be surprised what people do in their cars, kid. Some of it ain’t polite either.’
‘Can I see the picture?’ Rian asked, his heart pumping harder still.
‘If you’re chasing him, or her, you’ll lose. He’s thirty minutes up on you on his way to the Fortress. It’s what I told the cops. If kids go that way, they ain’t coming back.
Ever. No one listens to me.’
Rian ran out of the booth to the truck. He called back to the old man who was watching him carefully now. ‘Call Officer Miller. Tell him you saw me, tell him there’s a girl in the back of Reverend Schneider’s car. Her name’s Genie Magee. Tell him.’
The old man watched Rian drive off, noticing that the vehicle had no licence plate. The cops would stop him for sure if they saw that. His hand hovered over the phone, but then he noticed the time. 11.15 p.m. Time to close up. Wouldn’t be anyone else passing this way tonight.
Rian drove off at high speed. The Fortress was at least half an hour’s drive away. No way he’d catch up now.
Didn’t rightly know what he’d do if he did. Had no plan.
Just knew he wasn’t giving up on Genie. Never giving up on her.
‘Genie,’ he said to the night. ‘I swear I’ll kill him. I swear I will kill him, if it is the last thing I do.’
28
The Fortress
Genie was already in the prep room. They’d shaved off all of her hair, made her shower, then almost freeze-dried her and forced her to put on some one-piece underwear that felt like a second skin. It was clammy to touch.
A female technician with fierce nasal hairs had then examined her, probing everywhere to make sure she was ‘fit’. Then someone else had painted the outer extremities of her body with a kind of silver liquid. Painstakingly applying it to her head, arms, legs and the undersoles of her feet.
She didn’t protest. Didn’t do anything to resist. She knew it was pointless and these were her last moments of life – at least as flesh and blood. She was extraordinarily calm. She had no idea why, but she felt as if this had always been her destiny. To be chewed up and spat out.
The last month had been the very best of her life, even counting being ill. She had been loved and had loved in return, and it was as if Rian was with her every moment.
She only had to think of him and he was holding her hot
hand, their fingers entwined and making sure she was OK. Moucher had loved her, Marshall had been kind, even the darn pig saving her life was special. Everything had been perfect, every day. Warm sunshine. A safe place. Without all that she’d be hysterical right now, but she knew that when she was gone Rian would always have a space for her in his heart. She’d exist there, just like the kids in the Fortress who were still here, somewhere, forever stored in the system, ready to be alive at any time . . .
There was an annoying electrical buzz coming from a screen in the prep room and it soon became apparent that there was a fault on the transmission platform. They heard the system suddenly power down and Genie heard everyone moan with irritation. She didn’t have to be told she’d have to wait. She knew from Marshall’s explanation that they couldn’t transmit unless the Fortress and Synchro were in complete harmony.
‘You have to drink this,’ the technician was telling her, clearly irritated that there was going to be at least an hour’s delay to transmission.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s just juice, but you have to irrigate your body.’
Genie looked at the fluid and she knew without any doubt that it wasn’t ‘just juice’. It might as well be poison
because as soon as the system was up and running they were going to kill her.
As soon as the woman turned away Genie poured the juice down a heating duct. Hopefully none of the cameras or technicians witnessed this. She imagined the pink goo sliding down towards some really important electrical equipment – any moment everything would explode.
Sadly though, nothing happened.
‘Hello? I seriously need to pee. I don’t know what you put in that stuff but . . .’
The woman looked at her with impatience.
‘You’re prepped and ready,’ she snapped.
‘But I have to go. Come on, the system’s down, I heard it, you heard it. I really have to go.’
The woman sighed. She was clearly reluctant to help, but equally she knew it would be a while before everything was up and running again.
‘We will have to process and prep you all over again. It’s—’
‘Seriously, I am going to have to pee right here, right now, unless you let me go.’
The technician swore under her breath, but she could tell from the way Genie was hopping from one leg to the other that she was serious, and an accident was not what she needed on her sterile transmission platform right now.
‘Follow me. Don’t touch anything.’
As she turned Genie smiled. Anything to be annoying and occupy her time. She followed the woman to the heavily reinforced doors and watched her flip her finger over the button. It flashed up her name: Ulrich, Helen. Then it turned green. The doors opened on to a brightly lit corridor.
‘Follow me. I have to check there’s no one inside the bathroom first, we don’t want you contaminated.’
Genie waited in the corridor, hopping from leg to leg and doing her best impression of someone desperate.
There was a noticeboard on the wall nearby with all kinds of information. Sign up here for the softball team, vacation swap in La Paz, and a photo of a chubby man with severe black-framed glasses and a ruddy complexion, like he’d drunk too many whiskeys: Employee of the Month –Mr Jim Yates, Assistant Finance Director, Fortransco Synetics Development.
Jim Yates? The same Jim Yates who was practically living in Rian’s home and dating his mother? The man Ri detested more than anything in the whole world? Did Ri know he worked in the Fortress? Did his mother? Was this possible, or was it just a man with the same name?
No, couldn’t be. Spurlake was a small town, couldn’t be two of them.
‘You can go in,’ the technician told her. ‘When you finish, strip off and step into the ion shower. It will snap on the moment you enter. You understand? Pee then shower. Got it?’
Genie looked at her with loathing. What did she think she was, five years old? Couldn’t work out that you pee first. She entered the bathroom and the door shut behind her and was locked. As if she was going to escape from this place. They were at least a hundred metres underground.
She sat on the toilet. Her brain was racing. Mr Yates worked in the Fortress. If he knew Rian, he knew about her. How many others were working here and living in Spurlake? They would all know what’s going on. They would know kids were being sacrificed in the name of science. They would all know these kids were dying right here. How could they look their neighbours in the face? How could Mr Yates lie to Rian’s mother?
This was a terrible secret. If people knew, they’d riot, for sure. Wouldn’t they? Or that was it. They did know and didn’t care as long as it wasn’t their kid that disappeared. Reverend Schneider turns up and prays for your kid’s reappearance to keep it all respectable, but they weren’t coming back. People like Mr Yates and this ice queen technician woman, Helen Ulrich, would be
standing next to you in Safeway and you wouldn’t know she was judge, jury and executioner. Probably fried your kid the night before.
‘Hurry up,’ the executioner called out, the impatience clear in her voice.
Genie peed then flushed. ‘What’s the hurry? Nothing’s going to happen yet.’
She caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked awful. Why did they have to shave her head? She had pointy ears. Where had they come from? What
did Ri ever see in her? At least he’d never see her look like this. What he was doing right now? Was he looking for her? Or had his mother locked him in? She briefly thought about him coming to rescue her, but how utterly impossible that was. How would he get in past the guards and then find her a hundred metres underground, let alone get her out? Impossible. Poor Ri. Poor perfect Ri.
She’d never see him again.
She entered the ion shower and it clicked on. You couldn’t tell if anything was happening as it made no noise and you couldn’t see anything, but you could feel it inside your body as it bombarded you with ions. It wasn’t so bad though. Felt like a tornado passing through her body.
Memo to self: when in heaven or hell find out what the heck an ion is. Weird.
The door opened and the shower shut down.
‘We got to prep you now. System will be back up in forty-five minutes.’
Genie stared at the impression of the woman’s silver Celtic cross hiding under her T-shirt. Ulrich, Helen was another of Reverend Schneider’s flock, another believer doing the devil’s work for him.
‘You going to paint me again?’
‘Don’t worry. This will be all over soon.’
Genie nodded. Yes, exactly, she realized. It would be all over very soon.
Rian had to slow, bringing the truck to a stop by the barrier. He was at least five hundred metres from the Fortress and yet they had the road blocked with big concrete slabs either side of a gated barrier, so you couldn’t go around. Worse, there was a tunnel ahead.
Marshall hadn’t been kidding: this place was buried under a mountain.
The barrier was unmanned, but there were CCTV
cameras mounted on the gates so they would know he was there.
He didn’t know what to do. He knew Genie was in there, but this was no bedroom with a few bars to keep her in. This was the Fortress and further in they
had watchtowers and armed security. They meant to keep people out.
Rian sighed and reluctantly turned the truck around.
He’d have to go back to the junction and find the narrow track to Marshall’s farm, the way the Fortress people had come when they came to burn it.
He felt sick and alone, stupidly hungry and was finding it hard to stay awake. The windows were down; he pushed the fan to maximum. There was no air con.
He flipped on the radio. Razorlight were singing, ‘ I can’t stop this feeling I’ve got.’ Perfect timing. This was the night of his shame, the night he didn’t save Genie Magee.
Rian suddenly jammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt on a bend by a stream. He was being a wuss. Genie was in the Fortress. She would be waiting for him to get her out. That was his job. Any moment they would be trying to teleport her and he was just driving away. He had to try to save her. Had to.
He pulled the truck over on to the verge and switched off the engine. He left the keys under the visor. Marshall would want his truck back and this was, he knew, a one-way journey if things went wrong.
He leaped out of the cabin and ran down the slope to the stream. The water flowed from the upper slopes and
passed alongside the Fortress. He could follow the stream. It was dark; he hoped the cameras wouldn’t be able to see him and the cold waters of the stream gave him direct access.
The first barrier was the razor-wire strung across the water at the roadblock. Fortunately the water was deeper here and he managed to submerge enough to crawl under it. The water was icy and tasted odd, but that didn’t matter.
He had to keep moving. Every moment was precious.
The stream veered left and for a while he thought he was making a big mistake as it took him away from everything. Maybe he had to go back, get into the tunnel and hope he could get through before they could get to him. He walked on despondent, aware that Genie could be dead already; time for action was precious.
Two armed uniformed security men popped up from under a drain cover. They approached the truck cautiously from either side, guns at the ready. As one gave a signal they both swarmed the cab. The window was left open, nothing to smash. It was empty.
One of them got on to his cell and called it in, suspicious there was no licence plate. No ID in the cubbyhole either. The other was looking all around him with night vision goggles. He saw nothing. He signalled
to the other guard to fall back as he ducked underneath the truck a moment, withdrawing two small devices from his pocket.
This could be innocent, a breakdown, but highly unlikely. One thing was sure, there was nowhere for the driver to go. Either the driver had been collected by someone or he was still around – and if he was still around they wanted to know exactly where.
They vanished back down the hole in the road and pulled the drain cover back over their heads.
Reverend Schneider was exhausted. He was waiting in the transmission observation room. It was two a.m. He was drifting in and out of sleep, irritated beyond belief. The system was still down and perhaps this illustrated exactly why they weren’t making progress. All they made were promises and yet glitch after glitch. He’d done his bit.
God only knew he’d done his bit in providing the ‘volunteers’. The least they could do was get the science right. No one ever seemed to realize just how big this project could be. The commercial potential of eternal life and instant transportation was absolutely extraordinary.
Billions would be made, billions upon billions, and in that scheme of things, what was the sacrifice of a few miserable kids? Nothing. Absolutely zilch.
They wanted this meddlesome girl gone. She had been nothing but trouble from the beginning. At least it wasn’t a waste. At least she would be contributing something to the advancement of science. There was still the matter of the boy. Security said they had it in hand.
There was a suspect vehicle outside the Fortress barrier.
They were seeking the driver. It was all so predictable.
He’d followed just as he’d surmized. What on earth the boy saw in this girl, he had no idea. But Reverend Schneider had fulfilled his side of the bargain. Reverend Schneider always delivered.
Rian began to climb up a small waterfall, the water forcefully splashing down over him, his feet and hands struggling to grip on the moss-covered rocks. He reached for a tree growing out from one side of it and swung up to a ledge and from there pushed up. It being dark didn’t help and he was scared to death to look down. At any moment he could slip and crash to the rocks below.
He heaved himself over the ledge at the top and finally stood, amazed he got up there at all. He found himself looking at a lagoon.
He swam forward through the water, noticing it was distinctly warmer now. Gradually the stream grew more shallow again and he had to walk towards bright lights
ahead. The other side of the tunnel was suddenly right there in front of him, the Fortress surrounded by parked cars and trucks. He realized that the Fortress had been built in between two rock formations. A perfect hiding place. He knew from Marshall that only the admin block was on top, the real business was underground. He could see guards leaning up against a wall, smoking and talking.
Could they see him standing in the stream? He had to take that risk. There was a tower bristling with cameras. At any moment he could be seen. That was the chance he had to take as he searched for a way in.
All the trees were dead around him. He’d hoped for cover, but he was exposed and had to crawl on his belly in the water towards the building. As he got closer he could see where a large pipe was emptying steaming fluid into the stream. It stank like acid. He had no idea what it was doing to him or his skin but he tried to make sure he didn’t swallow or get it in his eyes.
He lay in the stream, watching a moment. There had to be a way in. A siren suddenly sounded and the security guys moved inside. Something was about to happen. Was he too late? Had Genie been transmitted already?
A hand shook Reverend Schneider awake. It was 3.05 a.m.
‘Ten minutes, Rev
erend. They’ve started the countdown.
Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee?’
Reverend Schneider wiped sleep from his eyes.
‘We’re ready?’
‘Yes sir. They’re bringing both systems up to speed right now. The test subject is ideal. She’s prepped and ready.’
‘She sign the release form?’
‘Signed. Most willing volunteer we ever had, I think.’
‘She’s deceptive. Devious actually. Sometimes I’m frightened people will judge us too harshly for what we do in the name of science, then someone comes along like this girl and I realize we are doing a service. She makes a contribution to knowledge; society is saved from another troubled soul. God’s work is harsh and difficult, but eventually humanity gains.’
Reverend Schneider stood up and stretched, suddenly realizing that he was alone. He stared at the transmission platform the other side of the glass. It was just as it should be. He’d be the only one to witness the death of Genie Magee and, since her mother wasn’t ever going to have another child, end of the Munby line. He was alert and ready. From behind the one-way glass he could see Genie standing on the transmission platform. A countdown going on behind him. He found he was smiling and quickly assumed a more serious pose in case anyone
was looking. In ten minutes she would be gone. Just ten little minutes.
A door opened nearby, about three metres above the waterline. A woman in a protective suit was taking a smoke break. Rian quietly made his way to the opening.
The women had her back to him, busy talking to someone on her cell.
Rian jumped up and ran for it. Even though the opening was high above him, he found some pipes to grip on to and hauled himself up, wishing his hands weren’t so slippery. Clinging on, he listened to her conversation.
‘No, I’m taking Tyler to a basketball match in Pitt Meadows and I’ve got to have my truck serviced.’
The woman still had her back to him, flicking her ash outside behind her.
‘T minus eight,’ came a voice over a tannoy.
‘Damn. Better get out of here. See you when the shift ends, Bob.’
The Repossession Page 22