The Disappearance of Ember Crow

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  Three to make all great wrongs right

  Four for music, dance and art

  Five to nourish land and heart

  Six to invent

  Seven to remember

  Eight to bring the rest together.

  This version of the poem, though, had the numbers out of order.

  Eight to bring the rest together

  Seven to remember

  Five to nourish land and heart

  Four for music, dance and art

  Three to make all great wrongs right

  Six to invent

  Two to fight

  One to lead.

  I caught my breath. “It’s the same as Georgie’s numbers! Eight, seven, five, four, three, six, two, one. But what does it mean? That Ember’s somewhere with angels?”

  “Or that she’ll return here,” Connor said. “This is where the poem is.” I brightened, and he added gently, “Or perhaps not. Georgie’s futures are always difficult to interpret, and I couldn’t work out what those equations she wrote down were about. None of this really makes sense yet.”

  That was true enough. Still, the poem was a clue, even if we didn’t know what it meant. I glanced around the lab, which now seemed to be bursting with possibilities. “Let’s see if we can find something else.”

  We went on searching. After half an hour, I hadn’t found anything else useful. Plus, Nicky was driving me crazy. He couldn’t leave that cupboard alone. He tried to push me towards it, and when that didn’t work, he sat in front of the thing and barked.

  I told him to stop, and he did. But I could feel his big, dark eyes watching me mournfully. “It’s only herbs, Nicky,” I said, as I sorted through yet another pile of papers. “There’s nothing there.”

  There was a banging sound. I spun around to find Nicky throwing himself against the cupboard.

  It began to topple.

  “Nicky!” I dived for him as Connor captured the cupboard in air, stopping it halfway to falling. Grabbing hold of Nicky’s collar, I dragged him out from underneath, pulling him across the room. “Are you hurt?” I knelt down at his side, checking him over. To my relief, he seemed to be okay. “That was a really stupid thing to do!”

  “Actually,” Connor breathed, “I don’t think it was stupid at all.”

  I glanced up. He was staring at the half-fallen cupboard, looking a little stunned. “Ashala, I think … I think there’s something behind it.”

  The cupboard floated sideways, righted itself, and settled on the ground. I gaped at what it had concealed.

  A door. A heavy, dull, impossible door, set into the cave wall.

  Nicky barked, as if to say, I told you!

  I scrambled to my feet. Connor got to the door first and tried the handle. It didn’t open. I arrived right behind him, and ran my fingers over the cold, pitted surface. It felt a bit like metallite, one of the building materials churned out by the recyclers. But metallite was black. Smooth. This was … something else.

  “I think this could be the entrance to a bunker,” Connor said.

  I struggled to string thoughts together. “You mean, like where people hid out? To survive the Reckoning?”

  “This door is old. Whatever it’s made of didn’t come out of a recycler.”

  “Yeah, I can see that! But there’s never been any sign of anyone living in the caves, except us.”

  “Are you sure? How well do you know the cave system?”

  “Well!” Then I thought about it. “Pretty well. I mean, it’s huge, I’ve never explored it all. And Ember knows it best.” Ember’s ability meant she never forgot anything, so she could wander as far into the caves as she wanted without getting lost. “I always thought she’d tell me if she ever found anything interesting.”

  “You had no idea about this door?”

  I shook my head. “When we first began using the caves she had a different lab. She shifted here later, because it was bigger, and she’d already put that cupboard there the first time she showed me this room.” I glared at the door. “How could she have hidden this from me?”

  “A better question might be, how did the dog know about it?”

  We both looked at Nicky. He’d rolled on his back, and was lying with his paws in the air. “I thought you said he wasn’t very smart.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.” He bent to scratch Nicky’s belly. “I wonder if Ember can give memories to animals, the same as she can to people?”

  “You think she made him remember stuff?” It would explain how he’d known about the door. Then something occurred to me, and I frowned. “But if she made him remember the door … and that poem wasn’t very well hidden either … does that mean she wanted us to find this?”

  He straightened and shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Then none of this will lead me to her! She wouldn’t leave me anything that tells me where she is, not when she doesn’t want me coming after her.” I kicked the ground in frustration. “It’s all useless.”

  “It might not lead us directly to her, but everything new we learn about Ember – about what secrets she’s been keeping – helps us to narrow down where to start looking.”

  He had a point, I supposed, although it wasn’t a very satisfying point. I wanted more information than what we’d found, much more. Like the identity of the false Serpent. Or the names of those mysterious “bad people” Ember was worried about. Or a map with a big “x” on it to show where she is …

  “You know,” Connor said thoughtfully, “if Ember did send the dog to show us the door, we should be able to open it. I can’t see why she would have gone to so much trouble otherwise.”

  “If you’re thinking there’s a key hidden around here, you’re wrong.” I waved at the door. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no keyhole.”

  “What I’m thinking is that a set of numbers can be used for a lot of things,” he replied. “Including codes.” He crouched in front of the door, studying the handle. “Bring a light over here so I can see, would you?”

  I grabbed a lamp and held it above him, watching as he ran his fingers along the handle’s metal base. After a moment, he muttered, “Aha!”

  He pressed the sides of the base, and it slid downwards.

  There was a tiny keypad underneath. Nine numbers, set in a square.

  Connor grinned up at me. “I’ll bet you anything in the world this unlocks with an eight-digit code.”

  “Try it!”

  He entered the numbers: 87543621. Then he rose, and reached for the handle. So did I. My hand covered his, and we turned it together.

  The door opened.

  THE CACHE

  I held up the lamp, peering into what seemed to be another cave. I could make out the shapes of shelves against the walls, but not much more than that. The light faded to nothing before it reached the end of the space, as if the darkness was eating the light. Don’t be silly. It was just a really big cave.

  A big, hidden, spooky cave.

  I whispered to Connor, “We need more light.”

  “Yes, we do.” He bent to speak into my ear. “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t know! It just feels as if I should.”

  Connor grabbed a lamp, and the two of us walked into the cavern, our footsteps echoing in the vast space. But there was something wrong about the sound of that echo; the reverberation was a little off. I stopped and swung my light up to find that the walls, floor and ceiling were unnaturally smooth, and seemed to be made of the same material as the door. Someone had built this place. “I guess you were right about it being a bunker.”

  “Yeah.” Connor shone his light across the shelves, which were filled with containers. “Or – some kind of storehouse, maybe?” He paced to the end of the room, and I watched, heart pounding in anticipation, as the glow of his lamp shone over the room.

  There was a table in the centre of the space. There were more shelves. And there was nothing else.

  This really isn’t what I was hoping for.
I went over to a container and pushed open the lid to discover a collection of tools inside. Holding up a hammer, I said, “So Ember basically hid a giant cupboard.”

  “There must be something significant in here.” I could hear a hint of frustration in Connor’s voice; he’d been expecting more too. “We’ll just have to go through everything.” He looked down at the lamp in his hand. “Which means …”

  I finished the thought. “We still need more light.”

  The two of us went back and forth, gathering up lamps and placing them around the cavern. Nicky came padding in, and I stopped still, watching him in case he wanted to show me something. Except all he did was flop onto the ground with the satisfied air of a dog who felt his work was done.

  I went over to the shelves nearest to me, and got to work opening containers. Connor did the same across the other side of the room. Aside from boring stuff like tools, all I kept finding were bits of machines. I had no idea what the parts were for, because advanced technology was something everyone learned about in upper school, and I’d never gone. Besides, machinery didn’t seem very relevant to finding Ember. I left it for Connor to figure out, and went on searching.

  Finally I came across a container filled with papers, and hauled it over to the table, setting it down so I could rifle through the contents. “I’ve got a bunch of Alexander Hoffman’s writings here. Only it’s a bit weird.”

  Connor turned. “Weird?”

  “It’s handwritten, but it’s not Ember’s writing. And why would she need any of this when she’s got the collected works of Hoffman in books?”

  “Let me see that.” He strode over to pull a piece of paper out of the container.

  “The paper looks strange too,” I pointed out. “All white and shiny.”

  Connor examined it with a focused, intent expression. Then he muttered, “I can’t believe it.”

  “Can’t believe what?”

  “It looks strange,” he told me, with an air of suppressed excitement, “because the paper you’re used to seeing comes out of a recycler. And this paper isn’t recycled. It’s old world, Ashala.”

  I snorted. “It would have rotted to dust by now! Everyone knows the only old world paper that still exists is the stuff Hoffman preserved, and that was all in …” My voice trailed off. I stared at Connor. He stared back steadily, waiting for me to put it together. “Connor, you’re not saying – you don’t think this place is – it can’t be.”

  “I know.” He looked around and gave an incredulous shake of his head. “But I think it is.”

  “A Hoffman cache? There’s only been eight of them ever discovered!”

  “Nine. Now.”

  I leaned against the table to support my shaking legs. Not a storeroom. Not a bunker. Connor thought we were standing in one of the legendary repositories of technology and knowledge that Alexander Hoffman and his followers had hidden around the world. “Are you sure?”

  “You’d need a team of experts to be sure. But – there’s the paper. You said it yourself, the only old world paper that still exists comes from caches.”

  That was true. No one had ever been able to work out how Hoffman had managed to preserve paper, but he’d found a way. And he’d left his words, along with the technology he’d invented, as a gift to humanity so that people could rebuild once the Reckoning was finally over. I breathed, “The machinery … it must be …”

  “All the things that Hoffman put in his caches.” He dropped the paper, striding over to the shelves he’d been sorting through, and reached into a container. “See this?” He held up what looked like a big mess of wires. “I think it’s a recycler component.” His eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm – Hoffman might not mean a lot to Connor, but he obviously loved having access to all this technology. “And,” he continued, showing me yet another mysterious piece of equipment, “I’m almost certain that this is part of a solar generator.”

  This really was a cache. I picked up the paper Connor had dropped with a trembling hand. It was “Instructions for a Better World”, and I read the familiar directives with a sense of awe. 1. There are no gods. Only an inherent Balance between all life, and to preserve it, we must live in harmony with ourselves, with each other, and with the earth. 2. Advances in technology can never compensate for failures in empathy …

  “Hoffman touched this,” I whispered.

  “More likely one of his many devoted followers. I can’t imagine Hoffman patiently writing out copies of his words for all the caches.”

  I frowned at him. He threw me an unrepentant grin, and after a moment, I smiled back. Then I thought of Ember, and my smile faded. “Em must have known what this place was. And she hid it.” I looked around, feeling a bit depressed. “Do you think it’s all part of the cache?” Because if it was, then it was amazing – but it wouldn’t help me find Ember.

  Connor shrugged, his gaze darting across the shelves. “There’s a lot of containers in here. We won’t know for certain until we check them all.” He obviously couldn’t wait to get back to the search. With his quick, puzzle-solving mind, the bits of tech probably looked like the pieces of a satisfyingly complex jigsaw to him; he must be dying to try to assemble some of it. Glad one of us is enjoying this. I put down “Instructions for a Better World”, and stalked back to the shelves. “Let’s see what else is here.”

  After another hour of searching, all I’d discovered was technology I didn’t understand, and yet more of Hoffman’s writings. It was frustrating, the more so because in any other circumstances I would have loved being in here. I mean, a Hoffman cache! It was an incredible find. Right now, though, the only thing I could think about was Ember. Nothing we’d uncovered so far would lead me to her, and everything showed me that I didn’t know her the way I’d thought I had. I’m not getting closer to her. I’m getting farther away.

  I’d been lied to by a Tribe member once before – Briony, who’d betrayed us to Neville Rose, and died trying to escape from Detention Centre 3 after Rose had turned on her. But Ember wasn’t Bry. Whatever she was up to, she wasn’t plotting against me, I was positive of that. In fact, she seemed to be trying to protect me. I only wished I knew from what.

  Connor’s voice broke into my thoughts, “Ashala. I think I’ve found something.”

  I looked up. He hurried over to the table, holding a long, rolled-up paper in his hand. I arrived at his side as he spread the paper out, putting lamps on the corners to keep it in place. It was – a blueprint? A really complicated blueprint, for some kind of machine.

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re looking for things to do with Ember, remember? You can play with all the tech later.”

  “This is about Ember. This is – Ashala, this shouldn’t be here. Nothing like this has ever been found in a Hoffman cache.”

  That was more interesting. “So what is it?”

  “It’s a design, for a kind of computer.”

  “Like my black box?”

  “Yes … and no. This is more advanced than that. It’s more advanced than anything. And I think Hoffman invented it – see his signature, there in the corner?”

  I stared down at the loopy writing. A. Hoffman. “I still don’t see what this has to do with Em, Connor.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about something called artificial intelligence?”

  “Artificial what?”

  He drew in a breath, and explained, “In the old world, before the Reckoning, people were starting to develop computers that were like human brains. Computers that could think.”

  He gestured to tiny lettering at the bottom of the page, words all stacked up on top of one another.

  Artificial

  Intelligence

  New

  Gaia

  Lifeform

  Gaia … I’d heard that word before, Ember had told it to me once. “Isn’t Gaia an old world name for Earth?”

  He nodded. “Hoffman might have been trying to build a life form that could survive the Reckoning. Remember he didn
’t know if anyone would live through it. And watch this!”

  He pressed his hand flat over the words, until only the first letter of each was showing, and demanded, “What do you see?”

  For a second I just stared, confused. Then I got it, and choked. “A-I-N-G-L. Angel?” I put my hands to my head, which was spinning. Beware the angels. “Beware the aingls? Grandpa was warning me about computers?”

  “Yes. Maybe.” Connor tapped the paper. “This is just a blueprint. Hoffman might never have built an aingl. But if he did, they could still exist. Because he certainly knew how to make things last.”

  “That’s – this is …” I stopped speaking, trying to sort through the implications. Connor had said the aingls were advanced. But under the Benign Technology Accords, advanced tech could only be developed for projects of public good, and was strictly controlled by the Primes of the seven cities. If aingls existed, the governments would want them. Or maybe the government already had them, and wasn’t telling anybody.

  I paced, thoughts tripping over one another in my mind. The numbers, and the poem … if aingls exist they’re tied up with where Em is, or where she will be … and the bad people Em was worried about, could they be from the government? I couldn’t make everything fit together yet, but one thing was clear. Ember could be in terrible danger. And she’d gone off alone, without telling me where, or even why, really. I’d been confused by her behaviour, and hurt; now I was just mad. I took a breath, and yelled, “You should never have hidden this from me, Em!”

  My shout rang out through the caves. Nicky raised his head, and gave a soft “woof”. As if he agreed with me. Or just wanted to join in the noise.

  “Feel better?” Connor asked.

  “No,” I answered grumpily.

  He reached out, and I went to him, wrapping my arms around his chest and pressing my cheek against his shoulder. He held me tight, and I closed my eyes – shutting out the room, Ember’s secrets, all the things that had to be done – until there was only Connor and me. “She’s in real trouble.”

  He didn’t lie to me. “Yes. Whatever she’s mixed up in, it’s much bigger than we thought. More complicated. More dangerous.”