Movers

by Meaghan McIsaac

  I hear a lot of rustling, cupboards opening and closing.

  ‘Afraid of Special Agent Hartman, are you, Simpson?’ Officer Kelley laughs.

  ‘The Mermick woman should be afraid of Hartman,’ he grumbles.

  Mom.

  ‘Hartman’s going to have those kids Shelved faster than Mermick can scream Shelf-Meat.’

  Shelved.

  Maggie’s little fingernails dig into my hand, her whole body trembling beside me.

  The click of the closet door. A sliver of light where the panel meets the wall, practically blinding, it seems so bright now. I just hope it’s not as obvious to BMAC as it is to me.

  ‘They’re still just children, Simpson,’ says Kelley.

  ‘And I’m just doing my job, Kelley.’ Officer Simpson’s voice is clear as a bell as he rifles through the boxes and clothes on the other side of the wall. ‘Besides, they’re not just children. They’re Movers.’

  I feel Maggie and Gabby press closer to me and my eyes close on their own. Please, oh please, don’t find us.

  More rustling. A shadow moves across the sliver of light and my muscles twitch, ready for a fight.

  And then the sliver’s gone. The closet door clicks closed.

  ‘All clear,’ says Simpson, his voice safely muffled.

  Maggie’s grip relaxes just a bit and I can feel Gabby’s breath on my cheek again.

  ‘I’ve got some pretty grimy clothes here,’ says Kelley. ‘Looks like the brother came home with the Vargas girl. Maggie’s probably with them. Check if the neighbours have seen them?’

  Simpson grunts what I guess is agreement and their footsteps move away from the closet. Their voices fade to murmurs as they head back towards the kitchen. It sounds like they’re getting ready to leave.

  And then there’s silence.

  The three of us stand there, frozen in the dark.

  And I can’t hold it in any more.

  My stomach twists, and I spew bile down the front of my hoody.

  TEN

  We haven’t heard a sound for – what? – fifteen minutes? Twenty? The three of us just stand there in the dark, listening to our frightened breaths and Beauty’s clucking. The smell of my puke is sour, burning my nose. I can’t stand it any more and reach out for the panel.

  ‘No!’ squeaks Maggie, pulling my arm back.

  We can’t stay here for ever. ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper.

  Her grip on my arm loosens, and quietly I crack open the panel. There’s no light. Officer Simpson closed the closet door before he left. I step out of Mom’s secret hideaway, my ankle rolling as my foot slips on an old sneaker, and reach for the closet door. Slowly I pull down on the handle and nudge it open barely an inch.

  I wait, listening for BMAC.

  Nothing but the sound of the news channel.

  I dare a bit more, peeking just my head through the opening, and look out at the empty bedroom. The beds are crooked, shifted from their usual spots. One of the mattresses has been flipped. The drawers of Mom’s dresser are all open, and the hamper’s been dumped all over the floor. They tore the place up.

  There’s a squawk and a flutter of wind as Beauty suddenly lands on my shoulder. When I open the door enough, she takes to the air, circling the room, and I hold my breath, afraid I’m going to hear Simpson or Kelley call out.

  Nothing.

  Heart thumping, I take a step out of the safety of the closet and creep over to the kitchen doorway. The front door lies on top of the mat, but the apartment hallway beyond it is empty. The cupboards are all open, pots and pans tossed all over the floor.

  And I feel him creeping in – my Shadow, wondering what the hell is going on.

  BMAC is what’s going on.

  I take another breath and the smell of my puke makes me dizzy.

  ‘Pat?’

  The room is spinning. And my Shadow’s presence buzzes through my temples with worry.

  ‘Pat?’ Maggie says behind me. ‘Is it OK?’

  No. None of this is OK.

  I look back at the closet, Maggie and Gabby’s heads poking out, frightened eyes looking at me.

  My stomach lurches and I grab my knees, dry heaving onto the carpet. There’s nothing in me, but my gut wants to vomit anyway. My insides strain, it hurts so bad. Maybe I’m gonna puke up my heart, who knows?

  A little hand falls lightly on my back.

  Maggie.

  The tingle of my Shadow fades as he retreats from me – I’m alive, and that’s good enough for him, I guess. I wipe the drool from my chin with the back of my wrist and turn round to face my little sister.

  How am I supposed to protect her?

  There’s a thud and the sound of things falling as Gabby trips on her way out of the closet. The door swings open and she falls to the floor, a box toppling over and spilling out onto the rug.

  Gabby looks up at me, embarrassed.

  But I’m not looking at her. I’m looking at what’s behind her – Mom’s secret panel, open. A stack of boxes are tucked in the corner, just like the one Gabby knocked over.

  And droidlets.

  Dozens of them have rolled out onto the carpet, one resting against my shoe.

  I bend down and hold it up. It’s dead. A plastic film is stuck over the eye – the camera part. Strip to activate. It’s a blank. Brand new.

  Gabby hoists herself off her knees and stares at the object in my hand, ‘How does your mom have a stash of blank droidlets?’

  When you need a new droidlet you put in an application to the Service Avin offices. They program it with your FIILES and tell you when it’s ready for pick-up. You can’t just get your hands on a blank droidlet. And even if you could, it’s useless without someone to program it.

  I frown in the reflection of the droidlet’s smooth plastic surface.

  Someone to program it.

  Mom grabbed three droidlets from the closet this morning – one, two, three – and popped them in her bag. It was right after that guy called, the one from Hexall. Mom’s programmer guy.

  ‘Leonard.’

  Gabby frowns. ‘What?’

  Three droidlets. Mom, Maggie, me. That’s what Leonard was calling for. She must have been planning to get us new FIILES. Mom was getting ready to run.

  And Leonard would help her do that.

  Maggie tugs gently on my arm. ‘Pat?’

  Run from BMAC? That’s insane! That’s criminal! Crazy! My eyes flick to Gabby, remembering what she said about Mom being scared. Scared of what? What could be so bad she’d risk something like this? I think of Dad, of Oscar Joji, and BMAC swarming the apartment. She wanted to run then. I remember. Mom begged Dad to run.

  Whatever Mom’s afraid of, it’s big. Big enough to get new identities for.

  ‘We gotta go,’ I say, snatching up two more loose droidlets.

  ‘Where?’ says Gabby.

  ‘Hexall Hall.’

  Maggie gasps. Because she knows what I know. She knows what everyone knows. Hexall Hall isn’t safe. It’s all Movers – runaways who’ve been kicked out of their homes, or kids whose parents were Shelved and left them with nothing. They survive by gambling, fortune-telling and busking. And the forebrawls. I’ve never seen a forebrawl in real life, and I don’t think I want to.

  But forebrawlers aren’t what make people afraid. It’s the others that scare them – wanted Movers and Shadows. Criminals. Hiding from BMAC.

  Gabby’s expression doesn’t change. There’s no fear there. ‘Why?’ she says, her voice even.

  I hold up one of the blank droidlets. ‘My mom has a friend. He makes phoney …’ I stop. How do I explain this? I’ve spent so long not talking about it – not wanting to talk about it. So long pretending not to know. My tongue practically knots in my mouth, so conditioned to bite when it comes to Mom and what she does.

  ‘Phoney what?’ says Gabby, her forehead crinkling as she looks at the droidlet. ‘Not FIILES?’

  I bite my lip. Gabby will know now. She’ll know Mom’s
secret.

  But she needs to know, if she’s going to trust me on this.

  I nod.

  Gabby’s eyebrows spring up, surprised. Or maybe horrified. And she takes a step back.

  ‘My mom helps Movers,’ I blurt out. ‘Movers and Shadows who need to get away from BMAC. I think this Leonard knows how to do this stuff. He’s my mom’s friend. She was going to go see him today. Whatever made Mom tell Maggie to run, whatever she’s afraid of, it upset her enough to risk getting us new FIILES. Her guy called this morning, I think because she wanted him to set them up. They were going to meet today, at Hexall Hall. He can help us, you see?’

  And maybe he knows, some part of me hopes, he has to know what this is all about, what Mom’s so worried about. This guy, this Leonard, he can tell me what I need to know.

  Gabby stares at the droidlet in my hand and I can see the gears in her mind working to process what I’ve said.

  ‘What choice do we have?’ I ask her.

  Gabby’s black eyes meet mine, staring into them so hard I want to look away. But I don’t. I’m right about this, about Leonard. It’s the only option. And I need Gabby to believe me.

  Finally she nods. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘We’ll go.’

  We’ll go. A sense of relief moves through me, as though having Gabby agree makes my plan more real. But I shouldn’t be relieved. No one I know has ever been to Hexall Hall. No one I know would ever want to go down into that place.

  No, I realise, that’s not true. Mom’s been there. Maybe more than once. And she was planning to go there again. But she can’t now. Only I can.

  ‘Hexall Hall,’ whispers Maggie through her bitten fingernails. She shakes her head, Beauty bobbing anxiously on her shoulder. ‘It isn’t safe.’

  Gabby scratches at her finger and looks up at the screen above Mom’s desk. There we are again, me and Gabby, our faces side by side on Avin News.

  Not safe?

  ‘Right now,’ I sigh, ‘Hexall Hall is the safest place to be.’

  ELEVEN

  The daylight’s fading by the time we’re scurrying down side streets to the Crossline Path that leads to the east end of the city. I’m wearing a pair of Mom’s giant sunglasses and they’re tinting everything so dark in the dwindling light I want to rip them off my face. But I don’t. With our pictures all over the place, I can’t risk someone recognising us. The three of us look ridiculous – me in an oversized hoodie and lady’s sunglasses, Maggie with her hair tucked up under my baseball hat, wearing a pair of overalls and one of my old T-shirts, with Beauty perched on her shoulder. She looks enough like a boy in that get-up to keep her from being recognised, at least. And Gabby. She’s wearing my dad’s paint-spattered shirt and a blue scarf wrapped around her head. It’s not really a scarf. It was part of my Nano Ninja Halloween costume from a few years ago. But it hides her hair, and if we really need her to, she can pull the mask part up over her mouth to cover her face, though that would probably call more attention to her than anything.

  So far the disguise has been enough to foil BMAC. Simpson and Kelley posted guards at every exit of the apartment building. We figured if the three of us left together, they’d notice. So I went first. I slipped through the side door, the two officers posted there too busy answering nosy old Mr Carrol’s questions to notice me. I waited around the block for the other two. Maggie and Gabby came a little while later, after they’d blended into a family of four on their way out to dinner.

  I keep my hood up and my head down, my hand gripping Maggie’s firmly. I’ve never been further east than the Upway Path and I’m starting to wonder how many people have actually visited this part of the city. The neighbourhoods are dark thanks to busted streetlights and the buildings are shabby and worn. The smell is awful – like hot sour farts, thanks to the garbage. It’s piled up high in heaps beside the road. I guess sending it to the dump just means making the city dump bigger and it will end up overflowing here anyway. Easier to leave the mess and move away than clean it up. It’s like everyone just decided to forget this part of town exists – as if there were an invisible wall around it, cutting it off completely from the rest of Avin.

  Movers are best forgotten.

  I look back at Gabby, who walks with her head down, her arms wrapped around her middle. I don’t think everyone will be able to forget about her so easily. Not after what happened at school. What she did. What did she do? Her Shadow’s here – that’s what she told me. After huge, wildly violent Movement activity, Gabby’s Shadow is here. But she says she didn’t Move him. Not on purpose, I guess. Is BMAC right? Is Gabby some kind of new phase? Some new phase where they can Move someone from the future without even feeling it? Without even trying?

  What’ll that mean? Will doors start opening up all the time now? If there are people out there who can’t control their Moves, we could have Movement happening at any given moment, new Shadows arriving every day. There’s no way BMAC can allow that. BMAC won’t allow it. If there are more people out there like Gabby, BMAC’ll hunt them down and Shelve them all. I know it. And Gabby will be first on their list.

  Gabby’s Shadow is here. But she said he was ahead of her too. A Shadow here and in the future?

  ‘My head hurts,’ Maggie whines. She scratches at her hair, frowning up at me. ‘Can we take a break?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  I look back for Gabby. She’s facing the Avin Turbine.

  I stop, noticing it for the first time since we left my apartment. I don’t think it’s ever looked so far away.

  ‘Gabby?’

  She jumps, a squeal escaping her as she whirls round.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  She quickens her step until she’s walking alongside me. ‘N-nothing.’

  I don’t buy it.

  Gabby starts shaking her head, like there’s water in her ear that she can’t get out.

  I glance down at Maggie, her lips pursed. She doesn’t buy it either.

  ‘Gabby.’ There’s an edge to my voice that I can’t hide. But she’s doing Gooba-like things again, and I need her to keep it together. ‘Just tell me.’

  Gabby chews the inside of her cheek, like she’s holding back whatever it is she wants to say. She turns and looks back at the Avin Turbine, spinning in the distance.

  ‘He’s mad at me,’ she says finally.

  ‘Your Shadow?’

  She nods. ‘He’ll find me. I know he will.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  She doesn’t say anything, just scratches harder at her finger.

  Maggie shifts on her feet, her grip on my hand getting tighter. She’s scared enough about going to Hexall Hall. This kind of talk from Gabby isn’t making anything easier on her. Or me. A rush of cold works its way up my spine as I remember the two BMAC agents on the stairs, their screams as they fell fifty flights.

  Because of Gabby’s Shadow.

  ‘Gabby,’ I say, ‘why do you think he’s gonna find you?’

  She shakes her head again, knocking loose the imaginary water.

  ‘Hello?!’

  She sucks at the cut she’s made on her finger, her eyes blank as she thinks. ‘I just … I can feel it. Like you said, about feeling him in the future …?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘I did, I mean, I still do …’

  I wait, watching her look back the way we’ve come.

  ‘But,’ she says finally. Her hands go to her head and she winces. ‘But it’s like there’s two of him. One far ahead but one … right up close.’

  ‘You only have one Shadow, Gabby,’ I say, as if I’m explaining how Shadows work to a little kid. But Gabby knows how Shadows work. She knows more about it than I do.

  ‘It feels strange,’ she says, ignoring what I said. ‘It’s all so muddled – like, like being in a room full of shouting people.’

  ‘Like listening to two songs at once?’ asks Maggie.

  ‘Yeah,’ agrees Gabby, and I look down at my sister, surprised at the in
sight. Maggie just scratches her head.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Gabby asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe that’s just what happens in your head after your Shadow comes to your time,’ I try. ‘And maybe that’s a good thing. If it’s muddled for you, it must be muddled for him, right? It’ll make it hard to find you. Maybe he won’t even bother.’

  She shakes her head and starts to walk. ‘You don’t know him like I do.’

  No, I don’t. And after what he did to those BMAC officers, I don’t want to. I watch Gabby walk ahead of us and I give Maggie’s arm a gentle tug to catch up. If Gabby’s Shadow is looking for her, then all the more reason to get to Mom’s Leonard friend as fast as possible.

  The light grows dimmer the further we walk. The tight apartments are steadily more dumpy, boarded up and falling apart.

  There’s a strong smell of skunk as we walk by a group of older kids sitting on a stoop, smoking.

  ‘Don’t make eye contact,’ I mutter to Maggie.

  One of them stops the chitchat and points in our direction, and I quickly look at the ground.

  One after another, in groups or alone, the people of this neighbourhood watch us make our way through the streets. Everyone seems surprised to see us, and I pull my hood down over my eyes, uncomfortably aware of how much we must stick out. Covering our faces doesn’t matter much here – our age, our clean clothes, even the way we’re shuffling along all give us away as nervous outsiders.

  Then again, we probably look the same as everybody who comes to hide out at Hexall Hall for the first time.

  Gabby stops suddenly and points across the street. ‘Is that it?’

  My eyes follow her finger to a massive grey building – pillars, boarded windows, the whole lot. In the brick above what must have been an impressive open entrance once upon a time are carved chipped letters: Hexall Hall.

  It’s busy, like Fellows Junction Train Station in the middle of the Upway Path, only this place is harsher. There are crowds of people moving in and out, huddled in groups, laughing and talking, but the feeling is nothing like Junction. It’s buzzing with something darker, greasier, like it’s suffocating under the same stinking film that’s clinging to the rest of the neighbourhood.