Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  She sighed, struggling to stay calm. Reeve kept talking. Jordan opened her mouth a couple of times, almost cutting him off. I put a hand on her shoulder –

  And then sprung away, whirling around at a crash of bushes behind us.

  Jordan crammed the phone into her pocket.

  I fumbled with my rifle, flicking the torch on and jabbing it out in the direction of the noise.

  There was a scream from the bushes and two figures tumbled out, hands above their heads. Amy, our friend with the triple-speed body, and Lauren, the freckle-faced Year 7 we’d rescued earlier tonight.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Amy cried.

  I lowered the rifle, heart smashing against my ribs.

  Lauren fell back against a tree, shuddering, obviously still traumatised from the gunfight back in town.

  ‘Hey – it’s okay,’ said Jordan, hand outstretched.

  ‘Okay?’ Lauren leapt up. ‘Okay? I almost died tonight! It’s a war out there, and you can’t even tell whose side anyone’s on! The town is on fire, my family are trapped, my boyfriend is gone, and also I’m pretty sure the world is ending! What part of that is okay?’ She slumped back into the tree again, drained by her outburst.

  ‘Yeah, all right. Point taken.’ I scanned the shadows again nervously as she slumped back into the tree, checking that no-one had heard us. ‘We did kind of save your life, though.’

  Lauren sighed. ‘Right. Thanks for that.’ She smiled sheepishly at Jordan. ‘Sorry. Kind of a rough night.’

  ‘We should get moving,’ I said, all too aware of the noise we were making.

  ‘Where to?’ Jordan asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Away.’ I stepped over a ruined wall of the old Vattel Complex building and we started out into the bush, walking parallel to the town.

  ‘Wait. Where’s everyone else?’ said Amy.

  ‘Gone,’ said Jordan darkly. ‘Taken into town.’ Then, before Amy had time for any follow-up questions, ‘Where are have you guys been? It’s been hours.’

  ‘We ran into more security on the way here,’ said Lauren. ‘Had to hide out at my old house for a bit. And then when we went to leave, Amy –’ She cut herself short, looking to Amy for permission.

  Amy stopped walking.

  She slowly turned to face us.

  Slowly.

  I hadn’t noticed it at first – probably because Amy’s slowly was everyone else’s normal – but as she opened her mouth to speak, the realisation slammed into me like a truck.

  ‘Your speed,’ I said. ‘Your fallout thing. It’s …’

  Amy closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know what happened. I was running upstairs to check the street before we left, and then all of a sudden it was like –’ Her brow crinkled as she searched for the words. ‘Like I was treading through water instead of air. Like everything inside me was groaning to a stop. I don’t know how, but …’ She spread out her arms. ‘I think – I think this is me now. I think I’m cured.’ She didn’t sound happy about it.

  ‘When?’ Jordan asked, suddenly urgent. ‘When did this happen?’

  Amy took a step back. ‘I don’t know! Sometime –’

  ‘An hour ago,’ said Lauren quickly. ‘Like, twenty past two or something. I remember checking the clock on our way out.’

  ‘Why?’ said Amy. ‘What’s going on? Do you know what happened to me?’

  Silence. All except for the hum of the shield grid and the distant sounds of the battle. Everyone stared at Jordan, who shot me a wary look.

  I felt my stomach turn over.

  Jordan took a breath. ‘What if it was us?’ she said finally. ‘I mean, we know I started the fallout in the first place, so what if –?’

  ‘Hang on,’ Amy interrupted. ‘What?’

  ‘Long story,’ I said. ‘Not her fault.’

  ‘The fallout was released when the portal collapsed,’ Jordan pushed on. ‘Right? The one that sent you and Peter – Bill and Peter – back in time. Twenty years ago, when it brought down the Complex – That’s when it all started. So what if – If the fallout started at that end of the portal, what if it finished at our end? An hour ago, when that same portal collapsed in the present … What if that was the end of it? What if the fallout started and finished with us?’

  Lauren squinted like Jordan was speaking another language.

  ‘So … wait,’ I said slowly, and it was like a massive weight was creaking up off my shoulders. ‘If that’s true, then it’s not just Amy who’s been –’ I hesitated. ‘It’s not just her who’s been “cured”, is it? It’s everyone. It’s you.’

  Which would mean no more visions. No more portals. No more spending every waking moment wondering if today would be the day she finally faded out completely.

  But then, if the fallout really was gone …

  ‘What about Tobias?’ said Jordan, speaking the thought out loud just as it dropped into my head. ‘If we’ve all lost our powers, then …’

  I felt the weight come slamming back down. If there was no more fallout, then what did that mean for our one hope of saving the world?

  Jordan held the baby closer against her.

  ‘We need to get to Shackleton,’ I said, that dizzy, how-am-I-even-still-alive? energy crashing through the fear again before I had time to think the better of it. ‘Get him to actually talk this time. If Tobias can’t stop Tabitha anymore, then we need to find a way to make Shackleton do it.’

  Jordan’s eyes widened, not at the idea but at me suggesting it.

  ‘What’s going on in town?’ I pressed. ‘What did Reeve say?’

  ‘He told us to stay away,’ said Jordan, in a tone that said this advice would have zero influence on her decision. ‘Leave the town to them and focus on getting Tobias to the release station.’

  ‘What about our families? Did he –?’

  ‘No, that was the first he’d heard about it.’ She gazed out towards town again, torn.

  Tobias stirred. I watched, imagining him sitting up in Jordan’s arms and laying out his plan to save everyone. But he just yawned, his little face screwing up, and settled back down to sleep again.

  Jordan turned. She stared into me, gathering herself, like she was still talking herself into whatever she was about to say next. ‘We should split up,’ she said quietly. ‘Now that we can. Now that the fallout’s gone and we don’t have to worry about me fading out again. One of us should go out to the release station, and one back into town.’

  ‘We don’t know the fallout’s gone,’ I said.

  ‘No, I know, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? How else do you explain –?’ Jordan faltered, looking sideways at Amy. ‘Anyway, we’ve got, what, fourteen hours left? We’re not going to win this thing by playing it safe.’

  ‘Sure, but –’

  Jordan ploughed on. ‘Think about it: we finally make it out of the Complex – which is kind of a miracle all by itself – and we’re stuck because we can’t split up, and then out of nowhere, here comes Amy, all ready to tell us that whatever the fallout did to her has suddenly come undone. What if that’s not a coincidence? What if the reason we ran into these guys is so that we could split up without freaking out about me randomly slipping off into another time or –?’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Amy, holding out a hand to silence her. ‘Whoa. Do you guys …?’

  Lauren shot her a puzzled look, covered almost immediately by a wide, disbelieving grin.

  I heard it too. The growl of an engine from somewhere in the distance. Somewhere above us. I looked up, through the haze of smoke and the reverberating cords of the shield grid, and saw a pair of blinking lights drifting across the sky.

  ‘No way,’ Lauren whispered, and I felt a cold shiver cut my spine down the middle.

  It was a plane.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 3.28 A.M. 13 HOURS, 32 MINUTES

  ‘They’re coming!’ said Lauren breathlessly. ‘They’re finally coming.’

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Who cares who
it is?’

  I tuned them out, hugging Tobias against me, feeling a rush of false hope before the truth came in and tore it all down again.

  What were they doing?

  Luke’s eyes were fixed to the sky, his face etched with an expression that said he was thinking exactly the same thing I was. If this was help arriving, if Luke’s dad and Kara had actually gotten out alive and convinced the military or whoever to come and rescue us, then why in the world were they trying to get back in here by air? Even before the shield grid went up, there was still –

  The plane swooped lower and my stomach went with it. Luke swore.

  It was small. Definitely military. Or, at least, definitely not commercial. It roared above our heads, straight over the town centre, then sailed around in a wide arc, coming back for another pass.

  ‘Get out!’ Luke hissed at the plane. ‘Get out, you idiot. You’re going to get –’

  ‘What’s it doing?’ asked Lauren, somehow oblivious to our panic. ‘Like, surveillance or –?’

  Bright light flashed from somewhere out in the bush, silencing them both, and a low rumble streaked across the sky, almost inaudible over the noise of the jet. Phoenix’s automated defences, kicking into action as soon as the jet was in range.

  The jet banked left. The missile swerved with it.

  I had just enough time to wonder what kind of insane defensive system involved blowing a target to pieces right over the place you were trying to defend, before the missile hit home and the jet exploded in a brilliant ball of flame.

  Exploded, but kept on streaking across the sky.

  The missile had struck just as the jet cleared the town centre, but something – the momentum of the jet or the force of the explosion, maybe – kept the wreck hurtling forward, tearing itself to pieces out over the bushland. Right over our heads.

  Lauren screamed, darting into the shadows as the jet soared overhead, spilling its guts out behind it. Amy followed, whimpering, sprinting away at what was now her top speed.

  Bits of flaming aircraft plummeted towards us.

  ‘RUN!’ I yelled, yanking Luke into action. A strangled moan broke out from his mouth. I weaved through the trees, pulling him along behind me until I was sure he’d keep moving on his own, knowing what was holding him back, knowing the question that was flooding his mind.

  Had his dad had been on that plane?

  I released Luke’s hand, holding Tobias in both arms now, racing for the edge of the storm of debris, seeing already that I wouldn’t get clear before it hit.

  The bushland blazed and twitched as the fire rained down to meet it. Shadows on shadows. I was running blind. My foot collided with the flickering ground and I went sprawling, automatically throwing down my shoulder to shield Tobias from the impact. I landed roughly on my back and leapt up again, ignoring the pain, frantically checking Tobias over. He was okay. Too okay. The fall had jolted him awake, but it hadn’t hurt him, hadn’t even bothered him. He stared up at me, wide eyes dancing with reflected light.

  The light of a giant chunk of flaming fuselage plummeting to the ground, right on top of us. It screamed in like a bird of prey, burning up the night, no hope of escape or even rolling aside before –

  CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

  The sky exploded with a new kind of brightness – harsh, sparking, electrical – as the debris from the jet crashed down into the shield grid. The noise was unbelievable. And it was everywhere. All across the sky, the shield grid sprung into action. Snapping tendrils of electricity shot between the crisscrossed cords of the grid, catching the wreckage, blasting it into oblivion. One moment, flaming debris was tumbling through the air, the next it was melting away like ice on a hot plate.

  A little chunk of jet, about the size of my fist, slipped through the fingers of the grid and dropped to the ground at my feet, charred and melted beyond recognition.

  And then, a few hundred metres away, with a final, deafening cacophony of sparks, the fiery shell of the jet’s cockpit slammed into the grid.

  I shuddered for whoever had been onboard. Even if they’d somehow survived the missile, there would be no surviving the grid.

  Not Luke’s dad, I told myself. They wouldn’t have put a civilian on a flight like that. Surely.

  In seconds, it was over. With the jet destroyed, the grid went dark again, returning to its usual ominous hum, and the world below lapsed into an eerie quiet.

  It wouldn’t last. Whatever might be going on in town, Shackleton couldn’t ignore this. Security would be here in minutes, whoever he could spare.

  I looked out through the trees, breathing hard, still half-blind from the light of the grid.

  Luke was gone. They all were.

  Tobias made a little sighing noise, nose wrinkling. Still not crying, despite the chaos around him. I bounced him gently, unsure whether to feel relieved or worried.

  I pulled Ketterley’s phone out of my pocket and found Galton’s number. Luke’s number.

  He answered almost immediately. ‘Where are you? Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I didn’t even realise you were –’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, smiling. ‘Tobias too. Are you with the others?’

  ‘Just Lauren,’ said Luke. I could hear her in the background. She sounded kind of hysterical. Luke hissed at her to shut up.

  ‘Do you want me to come and find you?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, yeah, I do, but if we’re just going to split up again …’

  Luke’s voice was strained, his mind obviously on that plane. On his dad. But there was something else as well. A kind of fierceness, like he was ready to go charging into a burning building or something.

  ‘So that’s definitely the plan?’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it? You’re the one who –’ He stopped himself. ‘Look, I don’t like it, but it makes sense. You take the skid from the armoury. Get Tobias out to the release station and – and figure out what he’s supposed to do. I’ll go find Reeve. Work out the rest from there.’

  I looked back towards town, aching to go after my family, sick at the thought of separating from Luke again after I’d just gotten him back, but there was no way I’d let anyone else take Tobias out to the release station. It had to be me. But then, what if Tobias couldn’t even help us anymore? What if we were both better off using the time we had left to find Shackleton and rescue our families?

  Do you actually believe that, or are you just looking for excuses?

  Hadn’t I just been saying we were meant to split up?

  Peter would’ve said it was crazy. The old Peter, back when he could still tell the difference. He would’ve said it was insane to go driving off into the bush, pinning our hopes on a baby, when our families were in danger back in town.

  But Peter was gone now. And as it turned out, he was the one who’d died to tell us about Tobias in the first place.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said heavily. ‘Yeah, okay, let’s do it.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. Then, with a very un-Luke-like confidence: ‘We’ll get them back, Jordan. I know Reeve said it’s a mess in there, but we’ve got to have at least some of the security guys on our side now, right? We’ll find Shackleton and get our families out of there. Just – Listen, no dying, okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You too.’

  I started walking, but kept the phone to my ear, not wanting the conversation to be over.

  Luke didn’t hang up either. ‘Weird that this is the first time I’ve ever talked to you on the phone,’ he said, breaking the silence.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You hang up first.’

  And for the first time in days, he actually laughed. ‘Love you, Jordan. Be safe.’

  ‘You too.’

  I stuck the phone in my pocket, glancing up at the smoke drifting out from the town to get my bearings. If Phoenix was over there, then the Complex was back that way, which meant –

  ‘Jordan!’ puffed a voice up ahead of me, and Amy came staggering out from between th
e trees. She held her side, fighting for breath. ‘Oh my goodness. That was – I was so slow!’ She stared down at herself like she’d just been transplanted into some stranger’s body. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Heading back into town. You can probably catch them if you –’

  ‘No,’ said Amy, cutting me off again. ‘I’ll come with you. If that’s okay, I mean. You shouldn’t go out there on your own.’

  ‘You don’t –’ I began, then realised how much I really didn’t want to go out there alone. ‘Thanks.’

  I took off in the direction of the firefighting skid we’d stolen from the armoury last week, re-energised by having a concrete goal to run toward. Tobias lay quiet and still against me, miraculously and terrifyingly unfazed by having been taken from his mother, dragged out into the bush, and almost flattened by a crashing plane.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Amy, crunching through the grass behind me, every step concentrated and deliberate. ‘What you said before about us being meant to find each other.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I frowned, still working out how much I believed it myself.

  ‘Down in the Complex,’ said Amy, ‘back when – When everything was slower – When I was faster, I mean – I had a lot of extra time on my hands. Like, literally, I had three times as much as the rest of you. All that time to slow down and pay attention. To listen.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember you saying.’ I reached up, shoving a branch out of my path. ‘Hear anything good?’

  Amy was quiet for a minute. I reminded myself that even thinking took more time than she was used to.

  ‘This thing is bigger than us,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t think –’ She paused again, finding the words. ‘Whatever that bigger part is, I don’t think it’s neutral on how this all plays out. I mean, I’m not saying you should read into every little coincidence, but – I don’t know. When stuff feels like it’s more than just random, I think maybe that’s worth paying attention to.’

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Tobias beat me to it. He finally let out a heartbreaking cry, his whole body tensing with the effort. The sound carried through the night, so much noise from such a tiny body.