Pandora Jones: Deception

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘Hey!’ she yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

  Pan had no option. She followed.

  The crisscrossing beams of light froze for a second and then swerved towards the girls, who held their hands to their eyes against the bright torch lights.

  ‘Stay there. Do not move,’ came a voice from the darkness.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jen repeated, but no one replied. The lights converged on the two girls, illuminating them in an ever-increasing pool of brightness. There were six or seven torch-holders. How many people were in the Infirmary? thought Pan. We saw no one, yet half a dozen people are here. Just how many secrets does The School possess? What lengths will they go to in order to protect them?

  ‘Put your hands on your heads,’ barked a voice. ‘NOW!’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Jen. ‘Whatever happened to “please”? Put your hands on your head if you want, but I’m doing nothing.’

  The group circled the girls, the torches still directed firmly into their eyes. As a result, Pan could make out only a series of dark silhouettes. For a moment there was stillness, and then one of the shapes moved towards Jen and grabbed her arm. She didn’t hesitate. She leaned in towards the man and pivoted, turning her hip into his stomach. His own momentum caused him to tumble and then he flew through the air, landing on his back. He grunted as the hard ground punched air from his lungs. Then he groaned and lay still. Jen held up her hands.

  ‘No one touches me without my permission,’ she said. ‘That’s a simple fact and one I’d be happy to demonstrate again if any of you guys want to test it further. Do you?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘What is it with you?’ Jen continued. ‘Can’t a couple of girls take a walk at night without being molested by creeps? I thought we’d done away with all that old-world shit.’

  A dark shape pushed through the circle and into the spotlight. Even before Pan recognised him, she heard the trademark sniff. Gwynne put his hands on his hips and looked at the man who had got gingerly to his knees.

  ‘Not clever,’ he said, as if to himself. Then he turned his eyes to Jen. ‘Follow me, Jennifer,’ he said. ‘You too, Pandora. Please.’

  Jen smiled.

  ‘Hey, Gwynne,’ she said. ‘How are ya? And look, since you asked so nicely, I’d be delighted to follow you. Maybe you can explain what’s going on here and how a couple of innocent students can be attacked in the middle of the night.’

  Gwynne sniffed, but didn’t reply. He turned away and walked off into the darkness.

  The girls followed.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Walking.’ Gwynne glanced at his watch. ‘After midnight.’ He sniffed. ‘Why?’

  The girls sat together in the hut that Miss Kingston used for her Fitness and Survival program. Gwynne had dragged three folding chairs from a pile in the corner and sat opposite them. His face was hard.

  ‘Why not?’ said Jen. ‘We couldn’t sleep. Went to the memorial.’ She sniffed, and Pan stifled a laugh. She had to hand it to Jen – the girl had balls.

  Gwynne gazed at her for a moment. ‘Infirmary broken into,’ he said. ‘Know anything about that?’

  ‘Why would anyone break into the Infirmary?’ replied Jen. ‘What’s there?’

  ‘Drugs,’ said Gwynne.

  ‘Any taken?’

  Gwynne didn’t reply. He turned to Pan.

  ‘You a problem, Pandora?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Pan. She decided she might as well take her cue from Jen. ‘I’m a good student. Never in trouble.’

  Gwynne sniffed. ‘You are a problem. Be careful. Both of you.’

  ‘Can we go now?’ said Jen. She yawned. ‘It’s very late and there are classes tomorrow, you know.’

  ‘Turn your pockets out,’ he said.

  ‘Are you kiddin’?’ said Jen. ‘Why?’

  ‘If you have nothing to hide . . .’ Gwynne shrugged. Pan glanced at Jen and then got to her feet, Jen following suit. Carefully, deliberately, they both turned their pockets inside out. There was nothing in any of them. Gwynne glanced at the girls, but he seemed to have expected that any search would be fruitless.

  ‘Your watches?’ he said. ‘Where?’

  ‘Took them off,’ said Jen promptly. ‘Before we went to the cairn. Is not wearing a watch a problem for The School?’

  Gwynne shrugged.

  ‘Go,’ he said. The girls stood and made towards the door. Pan concentrated on not limping. She didn’t want Gwynne asking to see her feet.

  Gwynne stopped them before they left. ‘Be careful,’ he said. His voice was soft, almost contemplative. ‘Be very careful.’

  Jen gave him a smile. ‘Always, Mr Gwynne,’ she said. ‘Always.’

  The walk back to the dormitory was uneventful. The lights had gone out at the Infirmary and the night closed in upon them. As far as they could tell, they were alone in the grounds and the search had been called off. They know they found the people they were looking for, thought Pan. They walked in silence until they reached the shower block.

  ‘We need to talk, Pandora,’ Jen said. ‘I’ll meet you at the monument at seven-thirty tomorrow. Physical activity. And the running track seems a good place to continue clearing those damned stones.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Pan. She yawned. The lack of sleep and the fact that she’d missed out on dinner meant she was physically and mentally at the end of her resources. They entered the dormitory quietly, aware that the previous night they had disturbed everyone’s sleep. Pan crept to her bed at the far end of the dorm. As she slid beneath her blanket, she hoped that tonight she would be spared the nightmares.

  Something rough was propped on her pillow. She scrabbled for it in the dark as it slid down beneath the blanket. Her fist closed around a lump of bread. Hard canteen bread, but bread. She bit into it gratefully, tore lumps off with her teeth. Only when she finished did she wonder where it had come from. Jen, probably. Jen knew they would miss dinner and must have left something for her to eat. But, even as that thought formed, Pan knew she was wrong. Jen hadn’t left this for her. It was Wei-Lin. She knew it in the core of her being.

  It didn’t take long for Pan to drift off to sleep, but in the few minutes before unconsciousness, she thought about the implications of what they’d found in the Infirmary. But her last thought was of Wei-Lin, sleeping opposite, and the debt she owed her – a debt that had little to do with a lump of hard bread.

  The temperature was definitely rising, a new season kicking in. Pan rushed through breakfast, a breakfast at which Wei-Lin pointedly did not ask where Pan and Jen had been the previous night. Pan didn’t know whether to be worried that no one asked for an explanation or relieved. But she did notice that few of the team met her eyes. She knew she should confide in them, but that would only put them in danger, so she stayed silent, and ate her gritty porridge.

  After washing her dish, Pan left for the running track. She jogged, but there was humidity in the air and she was sweating heavily after less than a kilometre. When she arrived there were only a couple of students at work. Jen stood alone at the memorial. Pan joined her.

  ‘Want to know something strange, Pandora?’ said Jen. ‘My lock picks and the file are missing. Someone found the hiding place.’

  Pan shrugged. ‘Not surprising,’ she said. ‘We came out from behind the cairn; Gwynne searched us and found nothing. Easy to work out where we might have stashed things.’

  ‘I guess. But it’s a real bummer. Not the picks. I can make them again. It’s the folder. It would’ve been useful.’

  Pan wiped the sweat from her forehead and turned her face towards the sky. There was no cloud cover, everywhere she looked was an arch of powdered blue, and small birds circling high in the sky. The air was fresh and warm. It felt like a new beginning. She lowered her eyes and searched Jen’s face.

  ‘You believe me now, Jen?’

  Now Jen shrugged. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘That The School has us imprisoned, that the world as we knew it is goi
ng on out there without us. That the whole story of the virus is a lie, implanted into our memories?’

  Jen sat on a rock at the base of the cairn and ran her hands through her hair. She sighed. ‘To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. That The School has secrets it’s hiding from us, that we don’t know the full story? Sure. I saw enough at the Infirmary last night to convince me of that. But all the rest . . .’ She opened her arms. ‘Hey, it’s a bit out there, you know? I mean, I remember the virus, the terrible deaths. So do you. So do all of us. It’s asking a lot to believe that what I remember is some kind of manufactured crap.’ She met Pan’s eyes. ‘But I’ve got an open mind. That’s all I can say.’

  Pan watched the other students grunting with effort as they shifted stones, and she felt no guilt. If anything, she felt sorry that these kids – and they were kids – could be working so hard under such false pretences. And who knew how damaged they were as a result of their fake memories. Whoever was really in charge of The School should be the one feeling guilty, not her.

  ‘There’s only one way to be sure,’ she said finally. ‘Only one way to convince you. We need to get out of here and see for ourselves.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jen. ‘I know.’

  ‘And you’ll come with me?’

  Jen grinned. ‘You couldn’t stop me, Pandora.’ She spread her arms to encompass the School’s grounds. ‘The daily grind. The crap classes, the routine. I hate routine, always have. And I also have problems with authority.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve heard that so many times I’m finally prepared to believe it. So, yeah. The School doesn’t want me to leave, so that means I’ve gotta leave. Hell, yeah, Pandora. I’m outta here.’

  ‘You said you had a plan.’

  ‘I also said you wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  Jen unscrewed the cap from her water canteen and took a long swig. She offered it to Pan who shook her head. Jen placed her canteen at her feet, laced her fingers together and gazed up at the sky.

  ‘How is it possible to get out of here, Pandora?’ she said. ‘Give me the options. As you see them.’

  Pan gave the question thought. Although she had determined that escape was the only solution, she hadn’t given much attention to the practicalities. Now Jen was forcing her to do just that. She spoke to give her thoughts some form.

  ‘We could go through the wall again. I’ve done it twice, once with you and once with Nate. Then we could steal a boat and take to sea, find our way to land, check out what’s going on.’

  Jen said nothing, but simply kept her fingers locked together. Pan looked up at the surrounding landscape. ‘Or we could go over those mountains,’ she continued. ‘Again, it’s something we’ve done. Okay, not over the top, but when we went to find Cara’s body we showed it’s possible to climb at least part of the way.’

  Still Jen said nothing.

  Pan racked her brains, but could come up with nothing else. ‘What do you think?’ she said.

  Jen took her time replying, as if carefully processing Pan’s ideas.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that going over the wall – or under it – isn’t going to work another time. After last night we’re in The School’s sights. I imagine they’ll ramp up security, not just at the Infirmary, but everywhere. Especially the wall.’ She glanced at Pan. ‘You’ve done a good job of convincing them you’re a problem. Probably both of us now. If your idea that the watches are a way of keeping track of us is true, then they’ll also know you are onto them. Same applies to that chip in your back. You were out by the Infirmary, but I guess the tracking systems – if they exist – said you were tucked up in bed. Big problem. Of course they’re gonna be watching you. And the wall. It won’t work. Not now.’

  ‘What about the mountains?’ asked Pan.

  Jen sighed. ‘That’s impossible. Getting over the peaks would challenge much better mountaineers than us. Even if we made it, there’s no guarantee the other side has anything but more of the same. No food. And we’d freeze to death up there, guaranteed.’

  ‘Then how?’

  Jen met Pan’s eyes and didn’t flinch.

  ‘We can’t go by land, so that leaves only one option.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We fly, Pandora.’

  The day passed as it always did. After physical activity there was a classroom lesson. This time it was on basic animal husbandry, but Pan sat lost in her thoughts, disengaged from the class. Lunch was a solitary affair as well. Little conversation was directed at her. Wei-Lin chatted to Sam and Karl and tried to bring Sanjit into the conversation, though he made only the occasional remark. But Pan and Jen ate their meals in silence. For Fitness and Survival, Gwynne took them through a range of unarmed combat techniques. He made no reference to his interrogation of the two girls, but focused entirely on the techniques of disabling an opponent by attacking pressure points, as well as other unsavoury methods such as gouging the eyes. Pan came out of the session bruised but not broken. In personal development Dr Morgan also said nothing about the previous night’s activities, but simply conducted the cups test again, making annotations in his notebook, though Pan made little effort and didn’t care whether she was right or wrong. Another solitary meal followed and then it was free time. She returned to her dorm and sat on her bed, gathering courage.

  It was time to make amends . . .

  Pan found Wei-Lin in an area close to the wall. She was practising archery, four or five arrows in her quiver. As Pan approached, she stopped to watch. Wei-Lin had made her own target, a bale of hay, set up against a rock. A crude bullseye was drawn in the centre of the bale, an arrow impaled close to one side of it. Wei-Lin drew another arrow, nocked it and lifted the bow. Even Pan, inexperienced as she was with the techniques of archery, could see that Wei-Lin’s technique was fluid and impressive. She drew the bow in one easy movement and released. The arrow flew and hit the very centre. Wei-Lin did not hesitate but pulled another arrow from her quiver. Pan watched until Wei-Lin had exhausted all her arrows and waited while she strode over to retrieve them from the target.

  ‘Wei-Lin,’ Pan called. ‘Can I talk to you?’

  Wei-Lin looked up at her, pulled the arrows from the target and then strode back to her mark. She took an arrow and nocked it into the bowstring.

  ‘Sure, Pan,’ she said. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘I’ve come to apologise.’

  ‘About what?’ Wei-Lin raised the bow, drew and released. The arrow hit the outside edge of the bale and she clicked her tongue in annoyance.

  ‘Please?’ said Pan. ‘Can your practice wait?’

  Wei-Lin took another arrow from the quiver, but as she drew it up to the bowstring, she seemed to sag. She dropped the bow at her feet and turned to face Pan, her hands on her hips.

  ‘I am angry at you, Pandora,’ she said.

  ‘Please don’t call me Pandora,’ said Pan. ‘You’ve always called me Pan. And I know you’re angry. You’ve every right to be angry. That’s why I want to talk to you. I might not be able to make things right between us, but I know that you deserve an explanation for my behaviour. For cutting you out.’

  Wei-Lin’s face relaxed and she cast her eyes to the ground. It was as if Pan’s words had leeched her anger. One hand went from her hip to her face and she wiped at her eyes. Suddenly she appeared small and tired. Pan wanted to hug her, but knew she didn’t have the right, so she stood and waited. Wei-Lin sat on the rocky ground and crossed her legs. She glanced up at Pan.

  ‘So talk,’ she said.

  And Pan did. She told her everything that had happened after their group had returned from the island, the last time she had spoken openly to her. So much had happened, and Pan felt ashamed she hadn’t even made any effort to communicate. There were reasons, true. But none of the reasons were sufficient. So she told Wei-Lin about her feeling that Nate might not have died, despite the evidence of their own eyes, that The School was manufacturing the memories, that the vir
us might not be real. She told her about her trip under the wall with Jen and what they had discovered there. She talked about the Infirmary and the mysterious elevator. She mentioned her belief that their watches were a means for The School to track their movements. She finished with the idea of escape.

  Wei-Lin did not interrupt and when Pan finished she sat quietly for a minute or so. Pan found the silence uncomfortable, and it was a relief when Wei-Lin finally spoke.

  ‘We were told you would say something like this,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean? Who told you?’

  Wei-Lin sighed and glanced up at the sky as if for help. For a moment, Pan thought she wasn’t going to reply.

  ‘Members of the Student Representative Council,’ she said finally. ‘They have been talking. Nothing formal, of course. Just chats to various leaders within the student body. Not just our team. Everyone.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  Wei-Lin met Pan’s eyes. ‘The truth?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They say you’re delusional, Pan. That you’re emotionally unstable. The death of Nate, on top of what happened to you – what happened to all of us – when the virus hit. The tragic death of Cara. All of those things would be enough to turn the most balanced mind, but yours was never balanced to start with.’

  Pan wondered why she was surprised. It was a clever strategy for The School to try when it was under threat. Who would the students believe? Their own memories or the delusional theories of a traumatised victim? It made perfect sense. Nonetheless, she felt bitter and defeated. No wonder her team refused to meet her eyes.

  ‘So what do they say about Jen?’ she asked finally.

  Wei-Lin picked up the arrow at her feet and toyed with it, straightening the feathers. ‘That Jen is just a rebel who doesn’t like authority. That she has linked herself with you, not because she believes your insane theories, but because it gives her an opportunity to do just what she wants. Everyone knows she craves action and this gives her the reason to indulge herself.’