by Ben Onslow
“It will get easier as we get higher,” I say.
Ela turns and catches me watching her. She smiles as if she is still half puzzled, half friendly.
I start walking again, and carry on working my way up the track, expecting her to follow.
Mon bounces around, running ahead and then dropping behind to check things out.
We climb for an hour or so, then come to a clearing, a small undulating piece of grass surrounded by manuka and ferns. On one side there’s a fence and farmland with huge black and white cattle in the paddock and on the other the bush starts again, going straight up the mountain.
“Is this it?” asks Ela looking around, strands of hair sticking to her face. She pushes them back.
“No, it’s further on. We’ll stop here for lunch and then go on to the sites,” I say.
Ela flops down on the grass looking relieved.
“Have you got lunch with you?”
“I got Mum to make some sandwiches while I was at the farm.”
I take off the pack, drop it on the ground and sit down opposite her. Mon sits beside me, eyeing the pack.
I pull out a plastic container and take the lid off, hand Ela a sandwich. Two huge slices of brown bread with meatloaf, lettuce and tomato. She bites into it. From the size of the sandwich it’s pretty obvious I didn’t tell Mum it was our Elite house guest I was taking into the bush. She must have thought Nick was coming with me.
I’m sitting there eating, and suddenly I figure out the answer to something that has been puzzling me. I’m the entertainment. Jacob put me in charge of Ela before he got hurt. Why? He could have looked after her himself, and this trip up the mountain, not very important. Jacob’s an old man so what you have to ask is this – what was he going to do for two weeks with a really hot sixteen-year-old from the City?
Answer, hand her over to the hired help, and give him stuff to do to entertain her, like in that old ‘Dirty Dancing’ Vid.
Ever seen the Vid? It’s Mum’s favourite; she went to the mall and bought it. Patrick Swayze with his shirt off is her idea of heaven on a Sunday afternoon. Despite the lack of condom use in the plot. She blames Dad’s dislike of condoms for my arrival on the scene just after she turned eighteen. It wasn’t illegal to get pregnant then.
It’s a theory.
“Does your father still work for a mining company?” Ela asks.
“Yeah,” I take a bite of my sandwich, put it on my leg, rummage in the pack again and bring out a flask, pour the hot chocolate into the cup and hand it to her.
She sips carefully and then hands it back.
“How long has he been in MacKay?”
“Six years,” I wipe the rim, have a drink, hand the cup back to her.
“Do you work for Jacob because you want to be a farmer?” Ela sips the chocolate again and looks over the rim of the mug.
“No, I want to be an engineer like Dad.” But, actually, since Dad left I’ve wanted to stop the world and get off. This is the first time I’ve tried it. Now I find I don’t want to get back on.
“Shouldn’t you be at university if you want to be an engineer?”
“It’s my gap year.” Mum was making fun of me when she said that. Said I had to get a job if I wasn’t going to study. Said she couldn’t put up with me hanging around the pub for a year.
Ela hands the cup back.
I take it, wipe the rim again and have another drink. Ela sits there hugging her knees, hair flowing everywhere.
“A gap year: like the royal family used to have?” she asks.
Being compared to royalty is funny.
I give her a bit of a smile.
“Yeah.”
“So when are you going to university?”
I eat my sandwich and throw the crust to the dog.
“Not sure. What about you?”
“I want to be a doctor.”
“Shouldn’t you be at university too then?”
“No, not until next year. I’m still at school.”
“Isn’t this the middle of term?”
“Mum is in Paris at a medical conference. I’m just here for two weeks.”
Mon’s sitting beside her watching us like he’s at a ping-pong match.
“Yeah, Jacob said. Why didn’t you go with your mum? If I was still allowed to travel, I’d be off like a shot.”
Ela shrugs and doesn’t answer this time. Has gone all quiet on me again. I refill the cup from the flask, hand it over. She uncurls, takes it. I lay back on my elbows resting, watching her while she’s drinking.
And I was right before – she’s hot; really hot. Eyes, legs, hair.
“Why didn’t you go?” I ask again.
A fly finds us and buzzes lazily over the plastic lid.
“The trolley thing,” she says in the end.
“But you said the charges were dropped.”
Ela nods.
“But you still couldn’t go to Paris with your mum even though they dropped the charges?”
Ela shakes her head. “No, Amon’s dad said I could probably have gone, but it wouldn’t look good.”
“So you came to Jacob’s, and your mum went to the conference in Paris, then everything here went to shit?”
Ela nods again, looks upset again like she did in the Land Rover.
What was her mother thinking buggering off like that when her kid’s in trouble?
Ela acts like she’s read my mind; she starts defending her mum. “Mum had to go to the conference; it is only two weeks and it’s for work,” she says.
The bitch, I still think. Patsy is never going to win mother of the year, but even she isn’t that bad.
“Why didn’t you stay with a friend and go to school?”
“I’ve been suspended.” Her voice is real shaky. “Isabelle’s mother made sure of that. I’m a bad influence now.”
Yep, her mother’s a total bitch leaving her at the moment. Patsy stayed so close she was like a gaoler any time she lost the battle with the principal.
“How does that go with getting into med school?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” whispers Ela, like she might have lost the chance to be a doctor, then everyone she cares about just buggers off and leaves her to worry. I can’t really blame Jacob. He didn’t have much choice, but the others did.
There’s nothing useful to say so we sit there silently.
Then I take the empty mug from her, shake the last drips of chocolate from it.
“Are you ready to go?”
She nods.
I stand up, put the lunch things back in my pack.
Reach down, take her hand and pull her to her feet. Let go her hand as soon as she’s standing this time. She might be hot, but she’s Elite, she’s a kid, she’s got problems, I’m supposed to be looking after her. She’s the answer to all the trouble in the world. And to top all that off, she’s Jacob’s granddaughter.
15.
Drill Site
Thursday 16th Feb 2051
10:30 a.m.
Ela stands there watching me finishing packing up. I pull the draw string.
“So where do the Administration get the raw material from?” she asks out of the blue.
“What?”
“After we saw the Hovers take Lucinda, you asked me where I thought Humicrib got the raw material from.”
“You really don’t know?’
Ela shakes her head. Hair stirs then settles back on her shoulders.
“From us.” I adjust the straps of the pack so they are sitting right.
“How?”
I hold my hand up so she can see the band on my wrist.
“We all get a Locate implant when we hit college so they can track us. When we finish school every Local has to go to University or can join Vector or DoE. Then they know where we all are.”
“That doesn’t look like a Locate.”
“It’s underneath. They can’t track me if I’m wearing the shield.”
“And you’re wearing
it because we shouldn’t be here,” says Miss Hennessey, finally catching on, looking around like someone might appear and tell her off. “How do they get the raw material?”
“They give the girls injections to make them to produce more eggs. They have these monthly medicals to collect eggs from them and sperm from the males; no choice for fifteen years. That’s the way it is for us. Then you’re sterilised.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would they sterilise you?”
“Eggs start to degrade after you’re thirty. They don’t want any defective kids. And you can’t have your breeding stock going around breeding with just anyone.”
“I don’t believe you,” says Ela. “I’ve seen Locals with kids.”
“They get sent home from University with a degree and a couple of kids from Humicrib. They’re the replacement stock.”
“No, it’s not true. I would know about it if that was happening.”
“How? How many Locals do you meet in the City? They’re all kept penned in at that University. They get leave to come home for the weekend sometimes, but they don’t get to wander around the malls and talk to the Elite kids.”
“No, can’t be true,” she says.
“Ask your mum. She works for Humicrib, doesn’t she?”
“Mum wouldn’t be involved in anything like that.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have a choice, like the rest of us.”
“Except you, you’re not at university or part of Vector.”
“You wouldn’t catch me joining Vector, and I don’t want to go to University yet, so Jacob gave me a job, got me a dispensation.” I don’t say it, but I’m not too keen on having to help repopulate the world either.
I close the pack and sling it and the rifle over my shoulder. Mon sniffs around the edge of the clearing waiting to move on.
I start walking away from Ela, leave her standing there. She catches up after a while and just follows along. We walk the track without talking.
Then she moves a bit faster until she’s walking beside me again.
“What will happen to Lucinda?”
“Don’t know. If someone breaks the Administration’s laws, Vector comes and disappears them.”
Ela stays real quiet and thoughtful after that.
We leave the track completely and push through the bush. Ferns and bits of branch brush against Ela’s legs and arms scratching her skin. She rubs her leg where the last branch has scratched her and drawn blood.
“We’re nearly at the start of the holes,” I say. “We’ll be out of this in a moment.”
After a while we break through into another clearing and in the centre there is a huge circular area where grass has been flattened by the rotors of a helicopter. The grass is lying in one direction going around in a circle. Mon sniffs around the perimeter.
I walk across to the centre; scuff the flattened grass with my boot.
“They’ve been back; this has been used in the last few days.”
Ela walks over and looks at the new ruts by the side of the circle.
“It’s like those old pictures you see of the crop circles in England.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think this one was made by aliens. See those tracks over there.” I point to parallel lines flattened into the grass. “They’ve been made by wheels carrying something heavy.”
We follow the tracks for around five hundred metres, through the bush, and find a series of holes bored in the ground.
“Is this the prospecting site?” she asks.
“Yeah, and if we keep following these tracks we will find more, all spaced at half a kilometre apart. It is thorough: they seem to be working on a grid pattern.” We follow the tracks and find more sites. Mon does extra loops through the trees and keeps getting in the way, sniffing at the holes. “Whoever is doing this isn’t making any attempt to disguise what they’re doing.” I come to a fence and climb over it.
Ela follows me over to the fence. “I think I’ve been here before,” she says.
“This is the boundary to Jacob’s place. There are more holes over there.”
She walks to where I’m pointing and finds the holes. It is the same pattern as the earlier sites I showed her. She’s quiet, scuffing at the holes with her running shoes.
“So Jacob knows about these?”
“Yeah. Last time we were here there were a few further along.” I point ahead of us. “It looks like they’ve been working there this time too.”
We walk along the fence line a bit and as we get nearer to it I can see the wires are cut. Three of the cattle have gone through the gap and are grazing on the bush line.
“This is starting to really annoy me,” I say.
“Has it happened before?”
“Yeah. That’s why Jacob and me first found the holes: we had to get the cattle back in the paddock. I guess they have to cut the fence to get the drill through from the landing site.”
“Why would they do it?”
“Trying to make sure I don’t get lazy, I guess.” I change the rifle to my other shoulder.
I’m really annoyed. I’m going to have to come back and fix the bloody fence – don’t have the gear with me to fix it now.
I whistle for Mon. Like a shadow, he works around behind the cattle and herds them back into the paddock. We move the whole herd into the next paddock to stop them all getting onto the mountain. By the time that’s finished the cloud has moved further down and we’re shrouded in mist. It is damp, starting to get cold, going to rain soon.
Ela trips over the dog.
I stop looking at holes in the ground and busted fences.
“We’d better go. It is going to be dark before we get back.”
Ela is standing there, arms folded, shoulders hunched, miserable.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Just a bit cold. The temperature has dropped.”
She is shivering, her shorts and top damp. I drop the pack on the ground, take off my Swanndri and hand it to her.
“Put this on.”
“What about you?” she asks.
“I’m used to it, and I’m wearing more clothes than you anyway.”
She pulls on the Swanndri. I fish in the pack, find the flask.
She takes the cup, wraps both hands around it, sips, then hands it back to me to finish.
“Did you find out anything new?” she asks.
“Only that it isn’t a one off thing.” I drink the chocolate. My hair and shoulders are getting wetter. I pretend not to notice. Should have packed an extra jacket, or given her Mum’s Swanndri again.
We set off through the bush. It takes forever to get through it and when we reach the road it’s dark and raining heavily. The drips come through the canopy and make the bush glisten; the smell of damp vegetation rises up at us as we walk through the fallen leaves.
16.
Vandalised
Thursday 16th Feb 2051
5.20 p.m.
We’re completely saturated and freezing by the time we get to the locked gate. We climb over the stile. Mon runs ahead of us. He comes back and sniffs at my hand.
I pat his head, “What’s the matter, mate?”
He runs off again into the dark heavy rain, and then stops and looks back. Something’s upset him. He leads us back to the parking area, real agitated. It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s got Mon all ruffled. Someone has attacked my Land Rover. It’s been smashed with something heavy. They’ve hit it and hit it, deliberately breaking everything. It’s standing there alone in the rain covered in deep dents. Shattered glass where the windows should be. The side mirrors lie on the ground. The windscreen wipers stick out at strange angles.
Ela picks a bit of the shattered windscreen from the bonnet, heaps of it is shining in the rain, small diamond shaped bits of glass. The pieces are inside the cab too. The glass from the back windows is scattered all round on the ground and the side windows are splintered, look like they have a spi
der web stuck to them.
I slam my fist against the bonnet. “I should have known I was asking for trouble leaving it here. Bloody Willises.”
“Do you really think it was them?”
“Who else?”
“Do you think they’re doing the exploration work?”
That’s not something I’d thought of. But they were at the pub yesterday, and Mum said they were looking at NavMaps. I think about the idea a bit.
“No,” I say in the end. “They’re just cowboys. It takes money to do that sort of work.”
“What do we do now?” Ela’s all shivering and wet even in my coat. I’m bloody cold.
“Guess we drive back into town.”
I lean through where the window should be, put the keys into the ignition and the headlights come on.
“It looks like we still have lights.”
I go round the back, stow the rifle in the rack and throw the pack on the floor. The flask makes a clunk as it lands. I pull out a Swanndri and the sleeping bag before I let Mon get in. He jumps into the back, making the Land Rover wobble slightly, turns around twice and then shakes himself. Water sprays everywhere.
“That was helpful dog,” I say.
Mon looks offended. I hand the sleeping bag to Ela.
“Get in and wrap this around your legs. At least we don’t have far to go.”
“It smells of wet dog.” Ela takes it anyway. She pushes the glass off the passenger seat then looks in the glove box and gets her Com out.
At least it’s still there.
But I don’t know who she thinks she’s going to Connect with.
Ela gets in; wraps the sleeping bag around her so just her head sticks out.
I pull the Swanndri over my head – struggle into it because I’m soaked and it sticks – then climb into the driver’s side and start the Land Rover.
The drive back is cold and wet, the noise, the rain and the wind come through the broken windscreen.
When we reach town, rain is still pouring down in silver sheets. It catches the street lights and magnifies them so they look like huge Christmas stars. The tracks of the cars ahead, are parallel lines that stretch out like ribbons.