Mutation

by Chris Morphew

  Neither of us had brought up the obvious – that there was every chance Peter was already buried somewhere out there in the bush.

  No way were we going down that road.

  It was two days since Calvin had left us stranded out at the airport. We’d waited in the terminal building for a few minutes after he’d left – shell-shocked apart from anything else – then headed outside and started the long walk home. I’d buried his gun on the way back. One less weapon in the hands of the Co-operative.

  There’d been no sign of Calvin since.

  But if we’d been expecting what had happened out there to help anything, it looked like we were out of luck. Peter was still missing, and life in Phoenix seemed to be continuing as normal.

  The blood screening was back up and running this morning, and by the end of the day, the whole school had been moved through Montag’s testing booths.

  I was still losing sleep over Mum’s and Dad’s attempts to sort things out with Ketterley. At the moment, they were waiting. When Dad’s visit had failed to get them any closer to booking a flight, they’d sent off a few angry emails – one to Ketterley, one to Mr Shackleton, and one to the Herald – but it wouldn’t be long before they discovered that was another dead end.

  Then what?

  Luke finally managed to haul his bike free, and we joined the crowd heading into the town centre. I kept a lookout for Calvin, not really expecting anything.

  ‘Do you want food?’ Luke asked as we passed the mall. ‘Doubt my mum’s bought groceries since –’

  ‘Hang on a sec.’

  Mike and Cathryn were over on one of the benches circling the fountain in the middle of town. They were sitting with their backs to us, staring down at something in Mike’s hands.

  I took off my bag. ‘Here, hold this.’

  Between Peter’s disappearance and trying to keep my family safe, these guys had slipped off my radar a bit. But I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to figure out what they were up to.

  I crept forward, edging around the fountain, the noise of the water disguising my steps.

  I crouched down behind the bench in time to hear Cathryn say, ‘If you won’t, I will.’

  ‘Cat, we don’t even know where to look,’ said Mike. I saw a hand stretch down, stuffing whatever he’d been holding into his bag.

  ‘Pete’s our friend,’ said Cathryn. ‘We can’t just –’

  ‘Shh!’ Mike whispered. ‘We’ll send a message to the overseers, okay? Bring them an offering. See if they can tell us anything. But I wouldn’t –’

  ‘Mmph! Wha’ you doin’?’

  The shock almost knocked me over. Tank was right behind me, a doughnut sticking out of his mouth and a grease-stained paper bag in his fist.

  He reached for me with his other hand.

  ‘Get lost,’ I said, whacking the hand away and getting up.

  Cathryn was on her feet too, breathing hard. Mike slowly zipped up his bag and stood up to join us, like he was trying to show me how relaxed he was.

  ‘Have you found something out about Peter?’ I demanded. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No,’ said Mike.

  ‘I swear Mike, if there’s anything you’re not –’

  ‘We’d tell you,’ said Mike. ‘No – Seriously. I know what you think of us, but we want Peter back as much as you do.’

  ‘More,’ Cathryn muttered.

  Tank shot her a confused look. He opened the paper bag and pulled out another doughnut.

  ‘We should go,’ she said.

  Mike nodded. ‘Yeah. See you tomorrow, all right?’

  I didn’t try to stop them. Luke came up as they disappeared, handing over my bag. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘At least – I don’t know. They’re trying to figure out how to find Peter.’

  ‘Good luck to them,’ said Luke. ‘They know even less than we do.’

  ‘We still don’t know what they know,’ I said, glancing around to make sure Peter wasn’t listening in on our –

  Then I stopped, remembering.

  Ugh.

  We continued down the street to Luke’s, cold reality hitting me all over again.

  It was a few minutes before I said, ‘They’re going to ask their overseers about him.’

  ‘Right,’ said Luke. ‘Whatever that means.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I’d dreamt about the overseers again last night. Giant and faceless and gleaming. They’d cornered me in the cave, pinning me to the wall, pulling back glowing hoods, suddenly transforming into Calvin and Peter, both weeping hysterically, asking me why I didn’t love them.

  We filled up the rest of our walk with small talk. Not that we didn’t have more important things to discuss, but there’s only so much time you can spend talking in circles about the end of humanity without losing your mind.

  But as soon as we walked through the front door, we were dragged straight back to business.

  A buzzing sound from the kitchen.

  The coffee machine.

  Luke’s forehead crinkled.

  There’d been no bike on the verandah. And Luke’s mum was not prone to getting home early from work.

  The buzzing stopped.

  ‘Mum?’ Luke called out, moving up the hall.

  A male voice. ‘No, Luke.’

  Luke stopped dead. He slid over to the hallstand and unhooked an umbrella. He gripped it in both hands, holding it out in front of him like a spear. Another time and place, it would have been funny.

  Luke took one step into the lounge room. He hesitated, comprehension dawning in his eyes. Then his face screwed up in disgust.

  ‘She gave you a key?

  ’ I walked in after him. Dr Montag was sitting on the couch, setting a latte down on the coffee table.

  ‘Do you really think I need a key from your mother to get inside your house?’ said Montag.

  ‘Get out,’ said Luke.

  ‘Lower your weapon, Luke,’ said Montag. ‘I’m only here to deliver a message. Hear me out and I’ll leave the two of you alone.’

  He gestured at the couch opposite him.

  Luke looked at me.

  Two of us, one of him. No way for him to call for help apart from his phone, and we could get that out of his hands if we needed to.

  I nodded.

  Luke leant the umbrella against the wall and we sat down on the couch.

  Montag picked up his coffee again.

  ‘As you may or may not have gathered from your visit to the Shackleton Building,’ he said, shifting into the tone he used whenever he was explaining something to Mum about the baby, ‘the residents of Phoenix did not arrive here by accident.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Luke. ‘The Shackleton Co-operative brought them here.’

  Montag shook his head. ‘What I mean is it’s no accident that this particular group of people was selected to be part of our work in Phoenix. Every single one of you is here because you meet a particular set of genetic criteria.’

  I remembered the database of everyone in Phoenix that we’d found in the Shackleton Building, and the words genetic suitability confirmed flashed into my mind.

  ‘What kind of criteria?’ I asked, fully expecting him to ignore the question.

  ‘Resistance to the effects of our Tabitha weapon,’ said Montag. ‘Under the right circumstances.’

  He took a sip of his coffee and something in his expression changed, like whatever he was warning us about was more personal than he’d been letting on.

  ‘However,’ he said, ‘as I began analysing the results of the limited blood testing we were able to conduct on Friday, an … unexpected anomaly cropped up.’

  ‘Something to do with me,’ Luke guessed.

  Montag leant forward in his seat. I raised my hands, half-expecting him to leap out and attack. But he was just putting his coffee back down on the table.

  ‘Luke … you are not a genetic candidate. I don’t know how you got here, how you sli
pped through our screening process. But you should never have been permitted to set foot in this town in the first place.’

  He gave this a chance to sink in.

  ‘Why are you telling us this?’ I asked.

  But Luke saw straight through him. ‘Because if I’m not a genetic whatever, then neither is Mum.’

  One look at Montag’s face told me he was right on the money.

  ‘You need to tell Shackleton what you’ve done with Peter,’ he said.

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I asked.

  ‘We haven’t –’ Luke began. ‘If we’d found a way to stop you tracking Peter, why would we still be walking around with our own suppressors –?’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Montag. ‘Don’t do this to yourself. I’ll keep this situation under wraps for as long as I can. I’ll even try to find a way for you and your mother to survive in the new world. But you need to keep your heads down. Shackleton is taking a particular interest in anyone demonstrating extreme or unusual behaviour. You can’t afford to put yourselves in either of those categories.’

  Bit late for that, I thought darkly.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Luke. ‘Even if we did know where Peter was –’

  ‘Need I remind you, Luke, that the only reason you are not dead already is that I managed to convince Mr Shackleton that we couldn’t afford to kill you?’

  Luke lowered his eyes.

  ‘All that has changed now,’ said Montag. ‘You and your mother are not supposed to be here. And the instant Mr Shackleton finds that out, both of you will die.’

  Chapter 22

  TUESDAY, JUNE 23

  51 DAYS

  I pedalled hard down the dirt path, wind rushing at my face, sweat beading on my forehead. I was out here alone, riding to clear my head. Or to shuffle all the junk in my head around a bit, at least. I’d started at the south end of town, taking the long curving bike path that wrapped around Phoenix and emerged again near the top of my street.

  Another day gone. Still no Calvin. And still no more fallout from Peter’s disappearance. If Shackleton really didn’t know where Peter was, why hadn’t he come after us by now?

  Luke seemed to be taking Montag’s news pretty well. As well as you can take something like that. He was worried about his mum, but he seemed to figure that the only way to protect her was to deal with Shackleton.

  A misty rain was starting to drift down through the trees. I was almost home. I could see the edge of the explosion site coming up on my right, still taped off. I found myself slowing to look.

  Don’t even think about it, Peter’s voice whispered in my head. One death wish at a time.

  If only it were that simple.

  It was hard to see much from this angle. The crater itself was hidden by the trees, and most of the fire-damaged area was –

  I swerved, gagging violently. Convulsing. The bushland melted together. I tried to move across to the side of the path, to get off my bike before I blacked out, but my hands wouldn’t respond. My front wheel hit a rock or something and the bike slid sideways, falling out from under me.

  I was gone before I hit the ground.

  The rain evaporated and the sky turned murky grey – almost sunrise or just past sunset, couldn’t tell which.

  I lay on the ground, clutching my stomach and coughing, until finally it subsided enough for me to pick myself up again. I was bleeding. A big graze all up my left arm.

  When was I?

  The bush looked exactly the same as it had a minute ago. The security tape was still stretching out between the trees. Most of it anyway. The section right in front of me had been snapped, and was now lying on the ground.

  But if the tape was here, I couldn’t have gone more than a week and a half back – and probably not more than a few weeks forward either.

  So why was I here? What was I supposed to see?

  I looked up and down the path. No movement except the wind. No sound except –

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  I dropped to the dirt again.

  Gunshots in the bush. They were coming from inside the taped-off area. I ran to the edge of the road, almost falling again as the world shuddered around me, and stared through the trees.

  For a moment, everything went quiet.

  Then strained breathing and crashing feet and suddenly, I came running out from the bush with Luke right behind me.

  Another Jordan. A future Jordan.

  She recoiled, seeing the security tape lying across the ground in front of her. And then a look of understanding crossed her face. She spun around, her back to me, and scanned the bush to her left. Searching.

  She was hurt. Blood soaked up through a gash in the grey fabric of her T-shirt. Not a bullet wound, though. Surely there wasn’t enough blood for that.

  Luke was in even worse shape. Nose bleeding, face bruised, swaying like he might pass out.

  ‘Come on!’ he hissed. ‘What are you doing?’

  The other Jordan looked through the trees for a second longer, then said, ‘This way!’

  ‘Jordan – no – what if –?’

  But the other me was already veering off into the bush again.

  I ducked under the security tape, trying to see where they were headed. Too late. By the time the trees had all blurred back into place, the other Jordan and Luke had slipped away.

  And then it was time to go. The bush swirled together again, a hurricane of green and brown. I lurched forwards, straight across the broken section of tape, closing my eyes against the rising nausea.

  More footsteps.

  Another figure crashing through the bush.

  BLAM! BLA–!

  Gone.

  I hit the ground again, chest heaving. Cold rain on my face. Sudden brightness on the other side of my eyelids. I coughed a couple more times and opened my eyes.

  Cathryn was standing over me.

  She was a mess. Eyes red, cheeks streaked with mascara, clothes soaking wet.

  Too wet for this light rain.

  She’d been to the cave again.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. Her voice was choked with tears – but clearly I wasn’t the reason for that.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, sitting up. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was on my way home. You were just standing there, looking out into the bush,’ said Cathryn. ‘And then you collapsed into the security line.’

  I looked down at the freshly-broken tape on either side of me. I’d snapped it when I fell. Which I guess explained why it had been broken in my vision.

  I clambered back out of the bush. My bike was still lying there in the middle of the road. I reached for the handlebars and heard Cathryn sob behind me.

  Honestly. This was the week of random breakdowns.

  I sighed. ‘What’s the matter? Where are Mike and Tank?’

  ‘Back at the cave,’ she sniffed. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m not worried.’

  ‘No, I mean –’ Cathryn blinked hard, sending more tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I have something to tell you. Something they can’t hear.’

  I heaved my bike upright again. ‘What?’

  She stared out in the direction of their cave and took another shuddering breath.

  ‘I know who kidnapped Peter.’

  ‘Who?’ I demanded.

  Cathryn burst into tears again.

  ‘Us,’ she croaked. ‘We did it. It was us.’

  Chapter 23

  TUESDAY, JUNE 23

  51 DAYS

  ‘You?’ I said. ‘But Mike was the one who –’

  Of course he was.

  That was why Mike had been so desperate to find me the morning after Peter had disappeared. He’d wanted to make sure I got his version of the story first. And I’d fallen for it without even thinking.

  Cathryn stood in the middle of the road, staring at her shoes, hand over her face, crying uncontrollably.

  ‘Cathryn! Stop!’ I demanded, shaking her. �
�Where is he? What are you doing to him?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ she sobbed. ‘We haven’t got him anymore. We were only supposed to get him out of town!’

  ‘What do you mean supposed to?’

  A bike shot past, swerving to miss us. The guy looked over his shoulder as he rode away, frowning at the broken security tape.

  ‘We have to move,’ I said, pulling Cathryn by the wrist. ‘I can’t stay out here.’

  She stumbled along behind me, breathing still ragged. Her bike was lying on the other side of the path. She picked it up and started walking.

  ‘The overseers,’ she said. ‘They – It was part of our calling. They needed Peter. They needed us to get him for them.’

  ‘For what?’ I asked. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They’re – the ones in charge,’ said Cathryn.

  ‘The ones who set up the cave,’ I said, checking that the path behind us was still clear.

  ‘The cave is – It’s a sacred place. For when they want to meet with us in person,’ said Cathryn. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, a shadow of her usual immaculate self. ‘We have to wear blindfolds, though. No-one’s ever allowed to see them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She sniffled again. ‘Those are the rules.’

  ‘So you don’t even know who these people are?’

  ‘Mike says he saw them once,’ said Cathryn. Then her eyes widened, like she’d just admitted something dangerous. ‘It was an accident! He only saw them for like half a second. Off in the distance, across the lake.’

  ‘Two people dressed in white,’ I said.

  Cathryn stopped, head twitching around, searching the trees like a startled bird. Like she thought they could hear us. ‘Please, I told you, we’re not supposed to –’

  ‘They live somewhere close?’ I said, looking around. ‘Somewhere out in the bush?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Cathryn, voice getting shaky again. ‘We’re not – You don’t ask them questions like that.’

  ‘So you just do what they tell you, huh?’ I said, pushing on down the path. ‘You just blindly follow whatever –’