Mutation

by Chris Morphew

‘I’m not asking you to work on it. I’m asking you –’ van Pelt kept arguing, but by now they were slipping back out of earshot.

  I looked down and realised I was sitting on Luke’s hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, shifting further into the booth.

  But Luke was staring off in the opposite direction. Peter and the others were sitting around a table, twentyish metres away. The three boys were demolishing a giant plate of nachos. Cathryn sat back, looking intently at Peter.

  ‘Try to get closer?’ said Luke.

  I shook my head. They were in the middle of the food court, right out in the open. Didn’t matter which direction we came in from, one of them would see us coming.

  Which was probably exactly how Mike had planned it.

  No point charging in there and ruining Peter’s chances of getting anything out of them. I slumped back in my seat. We’d just have to wait for him to fill us in.

  ‘So who do you reckon that guy was that Barnett was arguing with?’ asked Luke, watching him head off in the direction of the supermarket.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  I took it from his blank stare that he wasn’t.

  ‘The guy in charge of the mall,’ I said incredulously. ‘Arthur van Pelt. From Pryor’s phone, remember? I looked him up in the town directory as soon as we found out he was one of Shackleton’s people.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Luke. ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Luke, ‘been kind of busy lately. You know, this apocalypse we’re having.’

  I looked past him at Peter and the others. Mike was waving his arms around in front of him, telling a story or something. Peter burst out laughing. You could see just by looking at him how much he’d missed hanging out with these guys.

  Just don’t forget you’ve got a job to do, I thought.

  ‘So what do you want to do now?’ asked Luke, reaching under the table for his bag. ‘Not much point – Uh-oh.’

  I tensed, expecting to see Calvin or Pryor or a security officer closing in. But it wasn’t any of Shackleton’s people.

  It was Peter’s dad, pushing towards us in his wheelchair. He had a dangerous look in his eyes, the same one Peter always gets a split second before he flies off the handle.

  I hadn’t spoken to Mr Weir since before the night at the Shackleton Building. I guess I’d kind of been avoiding him. But I’d seen him, struggling around town, a constant reminder of the grip Shackleton had on us.

  Luke moved to get up, but Mr Weir rolled to a stop next to him, blocking our way out of the booth.

  ‘Uh-uh. No,’ he said. ‘No more screwing around.’

  ‘Mr Weir –’

  ‘I know there’s something going on in this place,’ Peter’s dad hissed, leaning across the table towards us. ‘And I know you two know something about it. And neither of you is going anywhere until you tell me exactly what the Shackleton Co-operative wants with my son.’

  Chapter 7

  MONDAY, JUNE 15

  59 DAYS

  I scanned the food court. There were at least three security guards within sight of us. Three opportunities for this to get extremely messy. But it was worse than that. Shackleton was tracking Peter’s dad too. He’d only have to take one look at his computer monitor to guess what we were talking about.

  ‘Mr Weir, please,’ I said, ‘now is not really the –’

  ‘No, I reckon this is the perfect time,’ said Peter’s dad. ‘Not sure if you kids have noticed, but I’ve made a bit of a lifestyle change recently.’ He rapped at the side of his wheelchair. ‘I reckon it’s earned me the right to some bloody answers.’

  Luke turned to see what I was thinking.

  Do we tell him?

  Mr Weir was right. He did have a right to answers. But he also had the right to keep on being alive, and right now it was pretty much one or the other.

  ‘I’m really sorry about what happened,’ I said. ‘But why would you think we had anything to do with it?’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You think I didn’t notice the way you three were limping around last week? You think I don’t know what they’ve done to you?’

  Luke forced a puzzled look. His acting skills had come a long way since he arrived here. ‘Mr Weir, whatever you think is going on here –’

  ‘Listen, mate.’ Peter’s dad leant in closer. ‘If you reckon I’m just going to sit by and wait for those people to –’ He moved to stand up, like for a second he’d forgotten what the suppressor had done to his legs. Then he realised what he was doing and slumped back down again.

  He swallowed, gazing down into his lap, and for the first time I noticed the unshaven face, the uncombed hair, the bags under the eyes. Little glimpses at the toll the last ten days had taken.

  All this guy wanted was to protect his son, and here we were, hiding the truth from him.

  The anger drained out of Mr Weir’s face and he put his head down in his hands. ‘Stay away,’ he said, eventually. ‘You just stay away from him, okay? Please. Whatever this is, just leave him out of it.’

  I opened my mouth to – to what? Lie to him some more? But then my stomach convulsed and I jerked forward, retching.

  My head hit the table and, in that same instant, the sound cut out all across the food court. Every voice, silenced. The lights flickered off. I lifted my head and found myself alone in the mall.

  Another one, I thought dizzily. Another flash, or vision, or whatever we were calling them.

  I stood up, holding my head, trying to get my bearings. The whole world blurred around me. It was night outside. I could see stars glinting through the glass ceiling.

  But which night? Was I seeing something that had already happened, or –?

  ‘Hurry!’ said a girl’s voice from behind me. I jumped, and the room spun some more. ‘Thirty-five seconds!’

  Rattling wheels and jangling metal.

  I climbed up and looked over the back of my seat.

  Three people were sprinting across the deserted food court, pushing a trolley piled up with groceries. They were dressed all in black, with balaclavas over their faces, but I recognised the figures immediately.

  Cathryn, Mike and Tank.

  I turned my head, following them across the room. But the more I moved, the fuzzier everything got. My stomach gave another pull. I grabbed the back of the seat, steadying myself.

  They hurtled toward me, Tank at the back of the trolley, Mike and Cathryn holding on at the sides. Mike looked in my direction, staring straight through me.

  You’re not here, I reminded myself. It’s just a –

  But it wasn’t a memory this time. Not my memory, anyway. This was all completely new.

  ‘Twenty seconds,’ said Cathryn, looking down at a silver stopwatch strapped to her arm.

  As they flashed past, I got a better look at the stuff in the trolley. All boxes and cans. Nothing perishable.

  Bomb shelter food.

  Mike had something black sticking out of his pocket. A notebook or something. He kept reaching back with his free hand to check if it was still there.

  ‘This way,’ he said, pointing across at a set of sliding doors leading out into the park.

  ‘I know,’ Tank grunted, hunched over the handlebar. ‘Shut up and push.’

  ‘Ten seconds,’ said Cathryn.

  They pulled to a stop at the doors.

  And they waited.

  ‘Five seconds.’

  Four. Three. Two. One.

  The doors slid open and the three of them hauled the trolley outside. I stretched up onto my toes, watching them race away into the park.

  The air around me gave another violent shudder, folding in on itself, and I felt my gag reflex kicking in again. I grabbed my stomach, stumbling over backwards, and –

  ‘Jordan – Jordan, you all right?’

  The lights flashed on, and the food court exploded with sound. The world kept swirling for another second or two, then straightened itself o
ut again.

  Back to reality.

  I felt Luke’s hands around my arms, holding me up. I’d fallen back on top of him.

  ‘Yeah,’ I murmured, shuffling back across to my side of the seat.

  Head still spinning, I checked the surrounding tables, trying to work out how much of a scene I’d made. There were a couple of curious stares, but it looked like Mr Weir’s wheelchair had mostly blocked me from sight.

  ‘We should get out of here,’ I said, giving Luke a nudge.

  He slid across to the end of the seat. Mr Weir narrowed his eyes, and I half expected him to try and stop us, but he looked like he’d used up all his energy on that first outburst. He spun around and wheeled away without another word.

  ‘Sure you’re okay?’ said Luke, watching him go.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I whispered. ‘He could be trouble, though, if – Great. What now?’

  Peter was charging up to us. Mike, Cathryn and Tank watched from the table behind him, wearing matching looks of confusion.

  He was almost running by the time he got to us, face wild with anger.

  ‘What the crap do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded, heading straight for Luke.

  ‘Peter, quiet,’ said Luke. ‘You’re going to –’

  ‘Stay away from my dad!’ snapped Peter. ‘What, you don’t think they’ve done enough to him already? You want to get him killed?’

  ‘Yes, Peter, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying to get Shackleton to kill your dad. That what you want me to say?’ Luke’s voice was low, but we were still attracting attention.

  ‘Listen,’ I hissed, desperate to placate Peter before he lost the plot completely, ‘your dad came up to us, all right? And we denied everything. If you’ve got a problem, go take it up with him.’

  Peter’s mouth moved again, but no sound came out. His shoulders dropped and he said, ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘So why don’t you get back over there and get on with what you’re supposed to be doing?’

  If Luke had spoken to him like that, Peter probably would have punched his face in. But if there was an upside to Peter’s obsession with me, it was that he was actually willing to hear me out from time to time.

  ‘Right,’ he mumbled, turning back. ‘You’re right. Sorry.’

  He headed back to his friends, and Luke and I finally escaped the food court. We started making our way to the other end of the mall, where I was supposed to be meeting Mum to give her a hand with the groceries.

  I kept glancing backwards to make sure we weren’t being followed. Between my latest vision thing and being tag-teamed by Peter and his dad, it was a miracle we hadn’t been dragged away to the security centre by now.

  ‘Twice in one day,’ said Luke.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Peter. That’s the second time he’s blown up at us over nothing. I think he’s getting worse.’

  He stopped walking. Officer Barnett and another guard were patrolling back in our direction. We veered across to Rebirth and pretended to look through a rack of shirts out the front.

  ‘Getting worse?’ I said, leaning close to be heard over the pounding music. ‘You think Peter is – You think this is like my visions, or Jeremy’s hand, or –?’

  I cut myself short, avoiding saying Georgia’s name, still not ready to admit that yesterday was anything more than a creepy one-off.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Luke, picking up a shirt from the rack as Barnett came past. The two officers spotted us standing there and paused. I took a couple of steps further into the shop, faking interest in clothes only Cathryn would wear.

  Eventually, they moved on.

  ‘Maybe it’s just stress,’ I said. ‘His dad and everything.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

  He put down the shirt and we left the shop.

  ‘Either way, though,’ he said, ‘if this keeps happening – I mean, if he keeps losing it like this, we could have a problem.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘It would really suck for us to have a problem.’

  Luke looked like he didn’t know whether to smile or say something reassuring. Before he had time to do either, a high voice cut across the mall.

  ‘Jordan!’

  Georgia was running over, grinning. She always seemed to pick the most random days to be excited to see me.

  Mum was out the front of the supermarket, getting a trolley. She narrowed her eyes, like she was debating whether to call Georgia back or not, but in the end she just let her go.

  I noticed the puddle on the floor too late – a knocked-over Coke cup that the cleaners hadn’t got to yet. I called out to Georgia, but her foot had already come down on top of it. She slipped, sprawled forward, and hit the marble floor. Hands first, then her head.

  A second of dazed silence, and then the crying started.

  Mum and I both ran across to help. But before either of us could reach her, two hands came down and scooped her up.

  Arthur van Pelt. He hoisted Georgia into his arms and started patting her on the back.

  I broke into a run.

  Let her go, you –

  I reached them just ahead of Mum. Van Pelt was rocking Georgia back and forth, whispering into her ear. ‘Shhh … Hey, c’mon, you’re all right. You’re all right. Look, here’s Mum!’

  Georgia’s a tough kid, and she was already calming down. She turned around in van Pelt’s arms, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mum, reaching out to take her from him.

  ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ said van Pelt, frowning at the spilled Coke. ‘I’ll have someone – Whoa, hey, what’s –?’

  Georgia was suddenly fighting to get free of him, writhing around like she was being electrocuted. She clawed at van Pelt’s face, kicking at him, attacking him with her whole body. Her tears were back with a vengeance. Breath coming in short, terrified gasps.

  ‘Georgia!’ said Mum. ‘Sweetheart, what’s –?’

  ‘He wants to hurt everybody!’ Georgia screamed, thrusting her arms out towards me. ‘He wants to hurt everybody!’

  Chapter 8

  TUESDAY, JUNE 16

  58 DAYS

  ‘Seriously Jordan, she’ll be fine,’ said Peter again. ‘They’re not going to do anything to her.’

  ‘She attacked one of the leaders of the Shackleton Co-operative!’ I whispered, skirting around the edge of the quad. ‘She screamed out He wants to hurt everybody! in front of half the town!’

  Peter stooped down to catch a handball that was bouncing toward us. ‘She’s six years old,’ he said, chucking it back. ‘Who’s going to listen to her?’

  ‘They will,’ I said. ‘Because they know she’s right.’

  The question was, what else did they know? Would they think I’d told her about Tabitha? Or did van Pelt know enough to guess that there was something even weirder going on?

  Either way, I was dreading the Shackleton Co-operative’s next move.

  The bell went, and we started cutting across in the direction of the gym. Cathryn, Tank and Mike were already over there, waiting.

  Peter had got nothing out of them yesterday.

  It looked like the only reason they’d invited him along was to try to smooth over the locker incident and convince him how normal and innocent they all were. The most suspicious thing he’d come back with was that Tank had been ‘scratching his arm a lot’.

  Brilliant.

  Before school this morning, I’d filled Luke in on my latest vision. I’d almost told Peter too, a couple of times, but something kept holding me back. The last thing I needed right now was hearing him go on about how impossible it all was.

  Besides, it was hard to see how knowing that Peter’s old friends were stealing groceries from the mall was actually useful information. If anything, it made things even more confusing, because why would Shackleton have them stealing from his own supermarket?

  Unless it was some kind of test or something. Maybe Shackl
eton was –

  Huh.

  I lost track of my thoughts, attention flashing across to the gym. Mike had just twisted around to stick something in his bag.

  A black notebook.

  The one from my vision.

  Maybe yesterday afternoon hadn’t been such a waste of time after all.

  ‘Peter,’ I whispered, grabbing his arm. ‘That book Mike just put in his bag. Have you ever seen it before?’

  Cathryn glanced up and I shut my mouth. She smiled at Peter, then went back to her conversation with Mike and Tank.

  Ms Jeffery appeared at the door and sent us all in to get changed. On the way inside, Peter went over and slapped Mike on the back. ‘Hey, mate. After school, you guys want to go –?’

  ‘Sorry, man,’ said Mike. ‘Homework.’

  Peter smirked. ‘Homework?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like school work, but you do it at your house.’

  ‘Since when do you do it at all?’ said Peter.

  Mike started to answer, but by then they’d both turned into the guys’ change room.

  I walked across to the girls’ and got into my PE uniform as slowly as possible, weighing up my chances of sneaking in and getting Mike’s notebook without getting caught.

  All around me, the other girls were busy complaining about their mobile phones not working or discussing how wrong it was that Hannah was going out with a guy in Year 8.

  Like these were the biggest problems in the world.

  I took off my school shirt, careful not to smudge the make-up on my hand. The discoloured skin was starting to darken again, but it was still a long way from normal.

  Luke would tell you to wait, I thought. He’d tell you there’d be plenty of other opportunities to get that notebook. No point rushing in there now.

  But what if there weren’t other opportunities?

  What if this was it?

  What if I’d seen that notebook in my vision because I’d needed to see it?

  I pulled my sports shirt down over my head and saw Cathryn staring at me from across the room. She didn’t even try to disguise the scowl on her face. I rolled my eyes and reached for my shorts.

  How much do you know? I wondered.

  Judging from her reactions to Luke, Peter and me, it definitely didn’t seem like Cathryn had the whole picture of what was going on in Phoenix. Shackleton had obviously told them something in that letter – but then, who knew how much of it was even true?