by Ben Onslow
There’s a bit of a change of plan. They put Vincent’s body in his Eco and leave it up North. They put his sidekick deep in a mineshaft. They make it look like he killed Vincent then ran off to Australia with Lucinda. But it was really Joe and Lucinda who went through customs.
Curley never turned up to change all the Locates, nor did Nick. Fitzgerald looked worried, finished up doing all the computer stuff himself, adjusted the car’s Locate and Vincent and the sidekick’s Coms to look like they’d never been in town.
36.
The Station
Friday 24th Feb 2051
8:50 p.m.
It’s all over, everyone has gone home. Just me and Fitzgerald left in the canteen at the police station.
“I’ll get going then,” I say.
“No. Stay a bit.” Fitzgerald pushes a chair out with his boot, the way Jacob does. “Have a seat, Jacob’s coming; we want to talk to you.”
He says it real mild, but it’s not a suggestion.
Jacob said they had plans for me. This must be it. He said they had plans for Curley, Nick and Scott too but they’re not here. In fact I haven’t seen anything of any of them through this whole mess.
It’s a worry.
I take up the offer, and sit like I have a choice.
Fitzgerald leans there by the table, elbows on knees, fingertips touching, studying me. “Those papers you found in Vincent’s room are important,” he says after a few minutes. “They tell us how much Vincent knew about the Vault, Ela and us. It doesn’t read like he was reporting to anyone locally.” Then he leans back and links his fingers behind his head, the way he does.
“So killing Vincent and his sidekick hasn’t put everything at risk?”
“No, we think Vincent might have kept what he found to himself until he was sure he had everything sorted. Didn’t trust the intranet or Vector. I think he was planning on reporting straight to Leblanc when it was all over. We might be lucky.”
“Good.”
“Now there’s something else we need your help with.”
“What?” I’m cautious; remember Mum’s warning about Jacob and Fitzgerald. She was sure they had something planned for me, she said to refuse to do it.
“We’ll wait until Jacob gets here.”
We talk some more about Vincent while we wait.
Then I hear Jacob arrive. He clomps through the door on his crutches. I get a bit of a grim nod, real unfriendly, but nothing else before he sits down on a seat on the other side of me from Fitzgerald. I’m caught between the two of them.
I figure it’s deliberate.
There’s a pause while he settles. Puts the bag he’s carrying onto the floor, leans the crutches against the table, sticks his leg out on another chair. I’m not too sure where I stand with Jacob, and he’s real aloof.
“Is Ela safe?” I ask to fill the gap, and to side track him, because Jacob is looking real forbidding. I can tell I’m in the shit again, but can’t tell why.
He nods. “As soon as we got your message we got her out.”
No surprise. I knew she’d gone. I checked the Locate on her Com before I got here. She was already in the City. Tried a Connect too but Shields came up and stopped it. Someone doesn’t want me connecting with her.
I watch Jacob shift a bit in his chair, I think that someone is sitting beside me. “Her mum’s had a colleague trawl through the Administration’s records,” he says. “They’ve got rid of the DNA test results and anything that links Ela with Thomas. But it’s safer for her if she doesn’t come back here again. We can’t get to the Outpost records to check what they have there. We don’t want to raise any heads. No point in making anyone suspicious.”
Sounds like Jacob’s not going to let her come back.
I wish I’d seen her again before she left.
But I guess I’ll see her when I go to the City.
Then Jacob fishes in the bag he’s just put on the floor. He pulls out a Tablet. He slides it onto the table, turns it, and positions it.
“Watch this.” The way he says it makes me really wary. He waves his Com at the Vid screen on the wall.
The screen lights up a bit. When the Vid starts the picture is dark, like it has been taken at night. It starts at the compound perimeter at the Outpost. I can see the moon. If I had any doubts about what night it is, there’s a date at the bottom of the screen 13.02.2051. And time 12:50, exactly when we went through the gate at the Outpost to get Lucinda.
Curley said he deleted the surveillance tapes. Vector must have had some sort of backup feed he didn’t know about.
So Vector must know Nick and Curley are involved.
Unless it was Vincent who set up the extra feed.
Maybe only he knew about it.
Fitzgerald said he was sure Vincent hadn’t reported to anyone. I hold onto that thought. I figure it’s no coincidence the tape starts at that exact moment. Jacob must want to discuss the Lucinda thing again.
But why just with me?
Me, Fitzgerald and Jacob watch the Vid unfold. See Curley’s ute go past the sentry post, with Curley in it and two black holes beside him. Curley parks and gets out. Then Nick’s ute goes through.
It’s like watching a nightmare. I know what I’m going to see, but not why I’m being shown it.
“Where did you get this?” It’s that fear of what I don’t know that’s clawing at me.
“Off Vincent’s Tablet.” All pretence at Mr Nice Guy gone from Fitzgerald.
I look at Jacob to see if he looks concerned.
“Keep watching.” Jacob stares back at me real nasty. So we watch Curley muck around for a while with the door open. “That you in Curley’s ute?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Anyone else?”
“No,” I lie, and try to remember back to how often we unhazed, and who unhazed, that night. I remember Joe did when he was in Lucinda’s room. But he’s out of reach of Vector; he’s safe. I’m pretty sure Ela and Scott stayed in haze mode the whole time. Curley and Nick hardly ever hazed.
Questions pour into my head. Mainly, why is it just me being shown the Vid, not Curley and Nick too? And maybe Scott if they’ve guessed he was there. Why aren’t they getting this treatment too?
Maybe they’ll have a go at them later.
Maybe they’ve had a go at them already, and they’re still licking their wounds.
No, that’s not it. One of them would have warned me.
Besides, Jacob has already shared his thoughts about the whole Lucinda saga with me. This can’t just be about that.
The Vid carries on, swapping from camera to camera: like someone’s cut it together, just gathered up the incriminating bits.
I’m going to have to explain having the HazeApp.
“Where did you get the app?” Fitzgerald asks, real silky, right on cue.
I don’t answer that. Having the app is probably going to cause more trouble than rescuing Lucinda did.
“Where did you get it?” insists Jacob, like they’re a tag team. They’re sitting each side, blasting the questions at me.
I still figure they’ve planned this.
“Somewhere,” I lie. “Don’t remember. Had it a while.”
They leave it alone, and we go back to watching the Vid. Curley and Nick go into their base rooms. The camera cuts to doors that open and shut on their own, right up to Lucinda’s door. It swings opens on its own too. Lucinda is lying there. Then there’s a depression on the bed, and after a bit Joe materialises. The camera’s behind him. You can just see his back and hair. I only recognise him because I know who it is. The Vid is silent, but Joe and Lucinda talk. I can see Lucinda’s mouth moving and Joe nodding and shrugging. Then Joe hazes again without touching his Com. The pillow floats to Lucinda’s head.
Jacob looks at me. “That was you?”
I nod.
We go back to the watching. The nightmare continues. Lucinda is floating up, then she hazes too. The door opens on its own again.
Vincent must have watched all this maybe three days ago. Why hadn’t he done anything? I keep watching. I remember we all went to Nick’s base room and unhazed. But that doesn’t happen on the Vid. Vincent must have missed that. No. Nick said he’d masked the camera. It goes straight to Vincent sitting in Curley’s base room talking to him. Curley gets a Txt. Talks to Vincent. Then answers the Txt. Vincent leaves, then Curley says something and waves at the wall. Pointing out Ela, but Jacob and Fitzgerald don’t catch that.
Jacob’s worried about other things. “Who sent him the Txt?” he snaps.
“Me.”
Fitzgerald turns to Jacob.
“That could be traceable,” He turns back to me. “What did it say?”
I try to remember the exact Txt I sent.
“By the door, I think.”
“That places him there.”
“Yeah,” says Jacob. “We’ll have to deal with that.”
And we all focus back on the screen.
The utes leave the compound. The Vid stops. I think this is nearly over. I expect Jacob and Fitzgerald to either tell me what they want, or start in on me about disobeying orders again.
I reckon I can handle either thing. But I still can’t figure why I’m the only one here. That’s getting harder to handle because if this Vid came from Vincent’s Tablet, with what I know he knew, and what I read about what was done to Ela’s dad, I’m starting to figure how this might end. Starting to work out why Vincent and the sidekick went missing for a few days, and why I haven’t seen anything of Curley or Nick in that time either.
37.
The Station
Friday 24th Feb 2051
10:30 p.m.
Then, instead of turning off the Com and starting on the talking, Jacob turns to me.
“Now watch this one really carefully.” His voice just drips nasty. He flicks the Tablet screen and goes to a Hologram file. It slowly resolves into 3D.
Someone used an ImageMaker this time. And this hologram turns out to be the real nightmare. The date and time put it nearly two days ago. About an hour before I killed Vincent and his mate.
When the hologram is fully resolved, I see Vincent. He’s in a room. Has a gun in his hand. Nick and Curley are there too, tied to chairs.
The room is familiar. It takes a while before I realise it’s the dining room at Curley’s place. Curley and Nick are so real I want to reach out and touch them.
Vincent asks Nick a question.
Nick shrugs.
He gets hit across the face with the gun.
Nick’s already been hit a few times, his face is a mess.
I stand up, want to stop it.
Go straight through the Vincent shape.
Fitzgerald grabs my arm and forces me back on my chair. Then I feel Jacob’s hand on my shoulder on one side, Fitzgerald’s on the other. They’re holding me in the seat, like they really want me to sit and watch.
No sound still, but it’s not too hard to figure what’s happening. I drop my head, so I don’t have to watch.
Jacob grabs my chin and forces it up. “Sit and watch what you caused.”
Vincent moves across to Curley, questions him, gets a shrug from Curley too. Curley’s not in much better shape than Nick.
Vincent lashes out with the gun again.
It goes on like that for about ten minutes. Back and forward. Back and forward. Question, shrug, smash. Question, shrug, smash. Curley, then Nick, then back to Curley.
I feel Jacob look at me. He and Fitzgerald are still holding me down in the chair. Jacob lets go my jaw but he needn’t have worried. I can’t take my eyes off what’s happening now. It’s like one of those nightmares where you can’t move no matter how hard you try.
I keep willing something to happen, someone to walk through the door and rescue them. Like in a Vid.
Then Vincent goes over to Curley. Stands there looking at him. Curley just looks straight back into his eyes. His face is battered, unrecognisable. Vincent doesn’t ask anything this time. Just lifts the gun like he’s going to shoot him in the head. The way he did with Stevens and his wife.
“Where are Curley’s mum and dad?” I ask.
“Dead in the next room,” says Fitzgerald.
“How did you get this Vid?”
“Found it in an ImageMaker at Curley’s.”
“Why is Nick there?”
“We think he went to warn Curley. Vincent and the sidekick were waiting for him.”
I feel the tears start behind my eyes, drag my eyes away and down. He went to get Curley after I sent him the warning. It’s the ‘we think’ that gets me. If they don’t know, it means they haven’t been able to talk to Curley or Nick.
“Keep watching.” Jacob sounds real harsh, pushes my head up again.
I watch the images. So close I feel I can just reach out and touch them. Curley sitting still watching the gun, Nick slumped in his chair.
Then the sidekick comes into the room, says something.
Vincent gives up on Curley, turns to Nick. Snaps a question at him and then hits him a few times, until Nick drops against the ropes. This time it looks like he’s unconscious. Maybe dead. Vincent lifts Nick’s head up by the hair. Blood is smeared from a cut on Nick’s cheek. Vincent stares, then lets Nick’s head drop. Shrugs, moves to Curley, hits him again. And he slumps too, like he’s dead.
The sidekick walks over to where the ImageMaker has to be and reaches like he’s turning it off. The hologram fades out on my two mates. Sitting deathly still, slumped in chairs.
“What just happened?” I ask into the silence and stillness, hope still flickering just a little.
“We think the sidekick picked up the Intercept on your Com, the ‘CatchingFire’ you sent to Fitzgerald,” says Jacob.
“What happened to Nick and Curley?”
“We were too late.”
The hope dies. My two mates are dead.
It’s real quiet in the station. Just the clock ticking away. A car going past. Jacob and Fitzgerald breathing.
The tears slide silently down my cheeks.
Jacob picks up the Com and puts it in his pocket. “They were protecting you and Joe, we figure Vincent spent three days torturing them, trying to get them to talk.”
No kidding? Like he needed to spell that out? I can’t believe what I’ve just watched. But it was too real to think they’d faked it. And who would have faked it? That’s what the bastard had been doing that night I killed him. I killed him right after he’d killed my two mates.
“Why?” I ask.
“He didn’t need them to talk. He already knew most of what he wanted to know,” says Fitzgerald.
“He did it for the fun of it.” Jacob comes at me from the other side.
They let that sink in.
I sit there wanting to slaughter everyone.
The silence closes in.
“Here’s your chance to make it right.” Fitzgerald sounds like he thinks he’s got me.
I know I’m being managed. They’re taking turns talking to me: good cop, bad cop, like in the Vids.
“How?” I ask anyway.
They keep up the double act.
“Go to Vector with Vincent’s Tablet.” Jacob leans in. “Say you found it in Vincent’s room.”
“And that achieves?”
“The recordings of the rescue can be edited to look like the sidekick got Lucinda out and then killed Vincent.”
Fitzgerald leans in from the other side. “You tell Vector it was the sidekick,” he suggests. “Tell them he was in love with Lucinda.”
“How would I know that?”
“I’m sure you can come up with something. You live across the road from where she lived.” Jacob is elbows on knees, face in my face. “And your life’s going to depend on the story being good enough.”
They are both leaning right up close to me. I close my eyes. Give myself time to think. So it’s my job to make Vector believe the sidekick rescued Lucinda and killed Vincent.<
br />
They are waiting, I can feel them breathing.
I open my eyes again.
Look at Jacob, then Fitzgerald.
“That was Joe in the Vid,” I point out.
“They don’t know that, it could have been the sidekick.” Jacob’s still leaning forward watching me, like he’s almost holding his breath now. One last hurdle to clear, his face says.
Yeah, it could have been. You could only see the back of Joe. They’re both blonde, have similar body types, tall, really built.
“What does that achieve?” I ask.
“Takes all the suspicion away from us,” Fitzgerald folds his arms, like he thinks this is a done deal and we’re just tidying up the details. “And it will stop any reprisals against the families. Tomorrow Vector are going to start shooting Locals until they have all the people involved in the raid. That’s what they do. Vincent stopped them doing it to flush us out, but it will start happening now. You giving them the culprit will stop that.” Then Fitzgerald leans back, still watching me.
It could work. I could stop a lot of people dying.
“Then we want you to let Vector recruit you,” says Jacob.
Recruit me?
Fuck.
Join Vector?
“No,” I say. “There’s no way I’m doing that.”
But Jacob and Fitzgerald keep pounding away at the idea. They need someone on the inside. They had Curley and Nick, but Curley and Nick died protecting me. I stole the HazeApp. That was the only reason Joe, Curley and Nick thought they could get away with rescuing Lucinda. That makes it my fault they were killed. Vector will take me because I can shoot, and I’m fit, and know the bush, and a million other reasons.
“Get Scott to do it,” I say.
“He’s already in the City. He’s gone to the University so he can feed us information from there.” There’s more to that than Jacob knows.
“What if they want me to do something, like with the Stevens or Lucinda?” I can hear myself starting to give in.
“You do it,” says Jacob.