by Ben Onslow
“You didn’t get caught up in what happened at the Steven’s place?” he asks as soon as we come through the door.
“Nah.” Nick slumps down into the chair near the desk. He’s got a streak of soot on his face.
I follow Nick into the office. “We heard the Hovers just as we got to the bush line, stayed hidden.” Not my proudest moment.
We both stink of smoke. The smell fills up the room.
“So you saw what happened?”
“Yeah.” I push a chair over nearer the desk. “We watched it happening.”
Nick starts talking real staunch. “How did you know we were there?”
Fitzgerald shrugs. “I was at your place talking to Joe and your dad. Curley picked up the new orders about the Stevens and tried to find me. By the time I got the message it was too late to do anything. Joe said that’s where you two were: that you were out after deer.” It doesn’t sound as if it’s worrying Fitzgerald we were hunting illegally. “I thought you might have got caught up in it.”
“We were lucky.” Nick rubs his forehead with the side of his hand. Back and forth. Like it’s getting too much for him too. “Missed it by minutes.”
Then I can’t stand the waiting any longer. I’m worried about what Fitzgerald is going to say when he gets to the finger pointing part. I just want him to get on with it. “I should have warned old Stevens as soon as I found out DoE was targeting him.”
Fitzgerald doesn’t respond to that, stands up. The chair creaks as it returns to shape. He goes over to the window of his office and pushes the curtain back a bit, stares out. Just one streetlight gleams on the other side of the road. Then he turns back to us. “It’s not your fault. If you’d warned him earlier, Stevens might have got rid of the seedlings, but he wouldn’t have hidden the girls this early. Vector can come a few days before they plan, but not a month.”
Then Fitzgerald walks back to the desk and sits down again. Picks up a pen, studies it, puts it down. He leans towards us a bit. “Curley said this raid came from a completely different set of orders. If you’d gone this morning instead of when you did they would have got you two as well as the girls. Not going in guns blazing when it happened was the right decision.”
Nick nods, me too.
“You did the right thing,” says Fitzgerald. “It sounds like they sent an army. If you’d gone in, you’d be dead, or worse, captured. What you did with the information you had was sensible.”
“Okay.” I don’t believe Fitzgerald any more than Mum believed I’m just the messenger boy.
Fitzgerald pulls a piece of paper off a pile. Places it in front of him. “Right, now describe what you saw.”
Nick goes through what happened.
When he gets to the two men and how they shot old man Stevens, Fitzgerald stops taking notes. “Did you recognise them?”
“Nah,” I say.
“Okay. We need to find out. We need to know who they are, and why this happened.” Fitzgerald taps his pen on the page. “What did you do then?”
“Waited for the Hovers to leave, and buried the bodies,” I say.
“That’s all you could have done.”
“Yeah, right.” I start to stand up. “Is there anything else?”
Fitzgerald thinks a bit more. “You should warn the others on your list that this has happened. Mike’s computer is still the safest way.”
I remember Mum’s message. “Patsy says to come to the pub tomorrow. She says there’s stuff you should know about.”
“Tell her I’ll come round after lunch.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.” Fitzgerald stands too. He comes round the desk ready to walk us out. I stop to open the front door.
“Jack,” Fitzgerald says. “Stevens wasn’t your fault. Talk to Jacob about it, he’ll say the same.”
“Monday morning will do.” I figure that’s about as long as I can put it off without looking like I’m too wary of Jacob.
“It will be all right.”
“Yeah.” Still don’t believe him. Actually, I’d usually trust Fitzgerald. It was him who talked Jacob into giving me a job. I got arrested again one night a month or so ago. Drinking again, fighting again. And instead of taking me to the station or home the way he usually did, Fitzgerald took me to Jacob’s place.
“He’s all yours,” he said to Jacob as I rolled out of the cop car into the dark. I leaned against the side, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing there. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid and my dad was mates with Jacob’s son. Usually after an incident at a party, Fitzgerald just locked me up until I was sober enough to be taken home.
“See if you can knock your big hope for the future into shape; my way’s not working,” said Fitzgerald to Jacob.
Next thing I’m employed by Jacob Hennessey. I’m pretty sure Jacob wasn’t too keen on employing me. Did it to keep Fitzgerald happy. Turned out Jacob’s way of knocking me into shape is pointing out at length what I should have done any time I stuff up.
Nick goes home and I go back to the pub. I guess I feel a bit better after talking to Fitzgerald. But I’m not too sure if Jacob’s going to see the whole saga the same way. He has no trouble laying the blame where he thinks it should be.
I start the Connect on Dad’s computer to send out warnings like Fitzgerald suggested. I wish I’d had my Com with me, taken pictures of what happened at the Stevens’. That would have made the rest of them really take notice of the warnings.
I see the flicker of the shields going up and can’t stand it. Fold my arms on the desk and rest my forehead on my wrists. Just sit there in the flicker. Don’t hear Mum come in. Don’t know she’s there until she touches my shoulder.
Then she pulls up the other chair and sits down at the desk beside me.
“What’s happened?” she asks the way she did earlier.
I lift my head. She’s sitting there, watching me, looking worried.
Jacob keeps telling me to keep my mouth shut about what I see, but I’m pretty sure Mum knows more than I do anyway. Why else would she be passing information on to Fitzgerald? I decide to be a bit more truthful. This time I don’t pretend I’m just planting seeds and feeding dogs. I tell her about how the day went. Stevens and all.
“Don’t get involved,” she says when she’s heard the whole story.
“It’s a bit late, I’m already involved and after this Steven’s thing I’m planning on fighting the Administration with everything I’ve got.”
She looks at me, shakes her head, and then sort of smiles. “I know. As soon as you went to work for Jacob you were part of it. I should have made you go to the City. It would have been safer for you there.”
“I’m tough. I can handle it.”
“Not tough enough for this.” Mum stands up, looks at the flickering computer. “What are you doing now?”
“Sending out warnings to the others.” I touch the ComMail icon.
She just nods and sighs. “See you in the morning.”
“Yeah.” I turn back to the screen. There’s a message from Jess. Now, the thing with girlfriends is, having one stops you from looking like a complete loser, but they take up your time. They expect you to turn up when you say you will, return Txts, answer ComMails and go to their birthday parties. Going hunting with Nick instead of going to Jess’s party was probably a mistake, especially when I didn’t bother to let her know.
Actually, thought I was going to be able to fit both things in.
I open the message expecting a ‘where were you,’ type question. Instead it’s all ‘let’s stay friends but I need to concentrate on my studies right now.’
I’ve been dropped.
I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, but I hadn’t expected to get dropped.
I guess taking second place to hunting again was more than Jess could stand.
4.
Ela
Saturday 11th Feb 2051
11:30p.m.
Ela crouches besi
de the fallen trolley trying to catch her breath. She watches Amon and Lucan pull up. Lucan leaps out. Lands, runs to Isabelle, she’s lying in a crumpled heap.
“You all right Iz?”
Isabelle shakes her head. “I’m hurt.”
Luc switches off his haze and then Isabelle’s. He tries to help Izzy stand. Izzy cries out and collapses back onto the ground. Not good. And the ESD’s in bad shape too. A huge dent and deep scratches down the side. The trolley that made the scratches is lying beside the Eco.
They have to get out of here right now. They can’t afford to be caught. Three strikes and it’s a long spell at Re-Education. And Amon’s on two.
Jadah runs up with Damus. Both still an absent shimmering. Their trolley is sitting in the light in the middle of the parking bays.
“What happened?” asks Jadah. She looks at Ela. “Why can I see you, Ela?”
“My Com smashed.” Ela kneels beside Lucan to help him with Isabelle. This time he carefully helps Isabelle sit and she rests against him. She’s holding her wrist, supporting it against her body protecting it.
“I think my arm is broken.” Tears start to make tracks through the hearts on Izzie’s cheeks.
“Can you walk if I help you up?” Lucan has his arm around her. Ela moves to the other side.
Isabelle nods, and they gently try to ease her up to standing. They have to get away from here, call for an ambulance shuttle. Then they can say she fell. An injured girl, a fallen trolley, two others scattered around the parking area and a badly damaged ESD are too hard to explain away.
Vector can’t find out about the stolen HazeApp either.
Amon stands Ela’s trolley up and starts to push it away from Isabelle.
Then a shout comes from the entrance of the Mall.
Ela glances around the front of the ESD, and sees two men running towards them across the parking area, then a muffled whomp, whomp, from above. A black StealthHover materialises, the V stretching from wing to wing, then two more Hovers.
“We’ve got to go.” Damus doesn’t wait, he fades away with Jadah. Ghosts moving off into the shadows, they slide into anonymity over the barrier.
“You go too, Ela. Take my Com. Use the haze.” Lucan tears the Com off his wrist and gives it to her. “I’ll get Isabelle to the hospital. The guards will help us.”
Ela takes the Com but can hear the slurring in his voice. How much sense will he make after all the Bliss he’s had? And Isabelle isn’t in such great shape either.
“We got to go, Ela.” Amon’s ghostly face stares wildly at the StealthHovers as they softly come to rest on the tiles. “Luc can look after Izzy.”
Ela holds Lucan’s Com and tries to decide what to do. The guards pound towards them. They probably can’t see how many kids are behind the vehicle. They probably won’t notice if she and Amon follow Jadah and Damus.
Isabelle takes her hand. “Ela, go now, while you can.”
The guards get closer. The doors on the Hovers fly open. Vector Guards, black uniforms, long coats, silver Vs on the front, pour out.
“We’ve got to go.” Amon moves away towards the barrier. “We can’t get caught.”
Ela shakes her head. “I’m staying. I’m not leaving Isabelle like this.”
Amon hesitates. Shimmers with anxiety. Then makes the decision. He grabs his jacket. It fades into his haze and slides away. He follows Jadah and Damus over the barrier.
In her mum’s office, Ela watches a Vid of three trolleys racing across the carpark, pushed by vaguely human shaped emptiness. Usually she liked being at her mum’s work.
“We need to work out a way to contain this,” says Amon’s dad.
Ela watches her mother and Luc’s dad nod. When she got caught with Lucan and Isabelle, the Vector Guards had no trouble working out who their parents were. Her mum got the Connect, and must have contacted Amon’s dad even before she had a clear picture of what was happening. He was Simon Baker, Eugenics Corps head lawyer. Amon’s dad had clout. Her mum and Luc’s dad had clout too. But maybe even top research scientists and medical administrators needed help when their kids were in as much trouble as this.
The Vid gets to the part where she can clearly see Isabelle lying by the purple Eco with Lucan kneeling beside her.
She glances at Amon’s father. He looks worried, scratches his forehead as if that will help him think. He looks nothing like Amon. Amon is all blond hair and green eyes, and tall. His father is short and sort of ginger coloured with freckles. That isn’t surprising. Nobody looks like their parents now. Especially Elite. It isn’t possible to have your parents’ genes anymore. Not that this has anything to do with gene tampering. He waves his hand at the wall to stop the Vid then stands up, turns to the other adults.
“We’ll say the DroneCam was faulty, was fading in and out of focus. That the Vid isn’t admissible as evidence.”
The other two adults watch him anxiously.
“Will that work, Simon?” Her mum looks tired. Usually she looked beautiful in a tall, professional sort of way, but tonight she just looks like a mum and worried. “We all know what they used to disappear.”
“It’ll give us time to think. This could turn into more than just kids fooling around.” Ela watches as he stands there frowning. Hacking into the Administration’s computer and stealing stealth technology was probably punishable by death, at least.
The adults stand around not talking. Mr Baker had to know Amon would have been there too. That’s probably why Amon left. The only authority Amon has any respect for is his father and it’s the sort of respect that’s verging on fear. Ela waits. When you are in this much trouble, interrupting thinking adults only reminds them why they are thinking so hard.
Lucan’s dad speaks first.
“Where’s your Com?” he asks Lucan.
“I gave it to Ela.” Luc looks the way she feels, like a frightened kid.
“Do you still have it, Ela?” She nods and takes the Com out of her pocket, hands it to Luc’s dad. He spends a few moments going through the Apps. Finds what he is looking for. Gives Lucan one of those looks you get when your mum or dad would rather not have known. Then he stabs his finger at the screen.
“Where’s your Com, Ela?”
“It fell out of the trolley and broke.” Ela fishes in her cloak again and gives the damaged Com to Lucan’s dad. He plays with it for a moment.
“I can’t get in.” He turns to Lucan. “Where’s Isabelle’s?”
“I think she has it with her.”
Lucan’s father stands up and goes to the door. “I’ll get it and clean it up. I’ll put this,” he holds up the broken Com, “in the incinerator as I go past.”
Ela watches Luc’s dad go. Lucky she has all the data on that Com backed up on her Tablet. She turns back and watches her mum, her mum still looks worried.
“Was Amon with you?” Her mum traces the streaks of colour in the marble counter top with her fingers. Now they are home and it is nearly morning.
Ela stands up and wanders over to window. The Vid in the sky outside the apartment slides to text, ‘Humicrib, the Cradle of the World’ it claims. Her mum is in charge of Humicrib. The Administration had built a huge hospital and university in the City. Now there was only room left for apartments and HyperMalls. Humicrib cared for the PreBorns. There are these massive rooms all warm and softly lit, filled with thousands of small plastic cribs. A tiny baby in each one. The babies curled up around their umbilical cords. Sometimes they stretched, or sucked their thumbs. Or gave a little smile. Her mum talked about how they cared for the PreBorns until they were viable. It was nice.
She nods, looks back at her mum. No one has asked that question all night. She goes to the picture on the wall. In the picture she’s with her mum and dad. It was taken when she was eleven, five years ago, just before her dad died. She runs her hand over the photo. It still makes her sad.
Her Mum is watching her. “Amon left?” And leaving like Amon did was probably sensible. Leaving
like that meant he didn’t spend hours being hovered to the hospital, having his retinas and fingerprints scanned, having DNA swabs taken, and waiting while the adults were called like she did.
She looks out the window again. The City stretches, gleaming and bright on the other side of the glass. It used to be called Auckland but when the Administration took over it just became the City. Not much is left of the old Auckland: only the Sky Tower and the Harbour Bridge.
The silver of the night is changing to the white of day outside the window. Those Humicrib babies on the SkyVid march across the sky again, turn and wave as they get to the end of the ocean.
Her mum takes an apple out of the fruit bowl, polishes it a bit. “Did they do DNA tests?”
Ela nods again, her mum sighs. “You need to tell Amon, and anyone else with you, to get rid of that App.”
“Okay.” Maybe his father is still pretending he hasn’t connected things up like her mum has. Maybe Amon has already had the sense to delete the App.
“It’s important,” says her mother. “And you can’t keep getting into trouble like this. It’s dangerous. Remember, Sweet and Elite.”
“That’s so boring.”
Her mother smiles. “I know but it’s important. You have to act like the other girls. Not stand out. I’m in Paris next week. I’m not going to be here to protect you if Amon’s dad can’t make this go away. You need to stay with Jacob while I’m away.”
“Okay.” Her Tablet lights up. Ela pulls it across the counter top towards her so she can read it. Brushes her fingers across the screen.
‘Ela, where are you?’ says the Tablet.
Then, ‘Sorry I left.’
And then the Txts from Amon just keep coming.
Dad would have killed me.
Sorry I left.
Are you all right?
Sorry I didn’t stay.
What’s happening?
Please?
Sorry.
She ignores them all.