Mac Slater Coolhunter 2

by Tristan Bancks

  She handed me up a paddle.

  'Just get in the boat,' she said.

  'No,' I said.

  'Whatever. Do what you like, Mac, but I'm not listening to you.' She slid two paddles onto the dock, sat back in her boat and used her oar to push off from the pier. She started paddling for shore.

  'Just listen to us!' Paul shouted.

  Melody stopped paddling and looked up. She was as surprised as I was by Paul's random rage.

  'Are you really going to turn your back on this?' he asked her. 'What if I'm wrong? What if this Gatt dude's cracked it? A fuel-free car. You seem to think he has and, if he's done it, you've got no choice but to get him to tell people about it.'

  Melody was about ten metres away from the dock now, drifting towards the shore, not paddling in either direction. I figured this was our last shot at convincing her.

  'He might not want to talk about it before the trial but what if the thing works and we have video evidence?' I asked her. 'Once he sees it in motion maybe he'll change his mind?'

  Even as I said it, I didn't know if I actually cared whether people knew about Gatt's world-changing invention or if I just wanted to be the hero who uncovered it.

  Melody stared into the bottom of the canoe for a long moment. Then she dug an oar into the water.

  24

  Perpetual

  Melody spun the rotor and the machine began to move, slowly at first, but then it gathered pace. Paul and I looked at one another. This was it. But, after about ten seconds, it died. She turned it again but nothing happened.

  'It was working this morning,' she said quietly.

  There was a sound from downstairs and we all froze, staring at the door. Melody's face went white with fear. We crept around so that the car was between us and the door. The three of us sat and waited.

  It was just after 5 p.m. and we were on the second level at The Hive. We'd come back inside, waited till everybody left and then climbed the stairs.

  We didn't hear the noise again so we moved back around to the engine.

  'I can't believe I'm doing this,' she said, adjusting some magnets on the complex-looking engine at the back of Perpetual. 'This is so bad.'

  'It's not bad,' I said. 'We're gonna ask for permission. Just not now.'

  Paul and I had convinced Melody that we needed to shoot the test, and if we were going to shoot the test, Paul told her that we needed to shoot the engine first. We had to have evidence that it was a perpetual motion machine. Otherwise it'd be written off as another online scam-job.

  The deal was win-win. We'd get the scoop of the century, Gatt would save the world. Bada-bing, bada-boom.

  Melody spun the rotor again. It began to pick up pace and was looking hopeful. But then it slowed again to a stop.

  'I don't think we have to worry about Gatt finding out,' Paul said, hitting stop on his phone camera. 'We're not gonna waste our time shooting something that doesn't work.'

  'Shut up,' Melody said. 'You want to see the thing or not? I've never started it myself before. I designed the body of the car but the engine was all Joe.'

  I shot Paul a look.

  The engine had what looked like an electric motor at one end, then there was a shaft connected to a wheel with magnets stuck to it. The magnets passed by a coil made out of wire, which apparently created electrical energy. A simple generator.

  'I've got to overload the electric engine,' Melody mumbled as she played with both ends of the machine. 'Which somehow causes magnetic friction to be turned into a magnetic boost. Then the engine should just keep spinning faster and faster. That's why the magnets flew all over the place during the tests. Slowing the thing down is harder than making it go.'

  'And braking is what recharges the engine?' Paul asked, starting to film again.

  'In theory,' she said. 'It's something to do with rotating magnetic fields. I don't think Joe even fully understands why it works, but it does.'

  Then she gave it another spin and, this time, the machine started gaining pace, speeding up soundlessly until the magnetic rotor was just a blur. As it continued to speed I started to worry that it was going to spit magnets again. I stepped back a little. So did the others. The machine kept on turning.

  Paul's eyes sprung wide open. He was gazing at it like a surfer might look at incredible swell or a base jumper might stare at an outrageous cliff face they dreamed of jumping off. I loved moving fast but, for Paul, it was all about how things work. Our flying bike was cool but perpetual motion had never been done. Ever. Anywhere. He moved in with the phone-cam and shot a few things in close-up. Melody looked anxious as he did. Paul got down and listened to the engine, studied the drive shaft. Then Melody hit something and it came to a stop.

  'Show's over. We've got to get out of here.'

  Melody slammed the boot of the machine and I went around and took a quick look inside the driver's cabin before she covered it up again. It was pretty small in there. Nothing like the inside of a regular car. Bare metal with just a steering wheel, a plastic seat, a couple of gauges for speed and revs. It wasn't so far off one of our prototypes after all.

  I wanted to climb in and drive it so bad.

  'Can I just –'

  'No,' she snipped.

  'Sorry. Hey, what's that?' I asked, pointing to a device on the dash.

  Melody looked inside. 'It sends out a high-frequency signal to a receiver at the traffic signals,' she said. 'Same technology emergency vehicles have onboard. Jamie's dad is an ambulance driver and hooked us up. Supposed to give us green lights all the way.'

  'Road test, huh? How you gonna get it down from here?' I asked.

  'Ramp and rollerdoor. Now get out of here,' Melody snapped, throwing the cover sheet over the car and playing with the edges to get it exactly as Joe had left it.

  'Test starts at the corner of West 218th and Broadway, two blocks south of the hospital, midnight tomorrow,' Melody said as Paul went downstairs and I finished helping her with the coversheet. 'He's gonna ride Broadway the length of the island, north to south. Be there early and hide. And, whatever you do, don't get caught.'

  She didn't seem happy.

  'Look, if you don't want to do this ...' I said, grabbing her hand. I don't know why I did it but I did. Her skin felt good. Maybe I was a loser like Paul said, a freak who fell in love with every girl I met.

  'No, no. I do, I do,' she said, leaving her hand there. 'But you can't say anything about this to anyone till we speak to Joe and show him the footage after the test, OK? This is his invention and he makes the call.'

  'Yeah,' I said. We were only standing a few centimetres apart. Paul had disappeared downstairs.

  'You go home the day after tomorrow,' she said.

  'Yeah. Thanks for doing this,' I said.

  'That's OK,' she said softly, still full of nerves. 'Like you said, people should know.'

  She looked me in the eyes and I wanted to lean right over there and kiss her but I had a flash of Jewels, my maybe-girlfriend back in Kings.

  'You coming down?' Paul called.

  'Yeah,' Melody said. She looked back to me, pulled her hand away, smiled and headed downstairs. I stood there, watching her go, wishing that Paul didn't exist. Then I followed her down and across The Hive and outside where she stopped on the dock.

  'If Joe finds out about this before the test, he'll tear us apart. All of us.'

  'Got it,' Paul said.

  'Hey, one more thing ...'

  Melody looked at me.

  'We sort of filmed the Rollerball stack today,' I said. 'You mind if we put it on the Coolhunters site tonight? We've kind of got to have something to –'

  'Mac?' she said.

  'Yeah.'

  'I'm helping you with Perpetual because I think it's important. It's not an open invitation to exploit everything here, OK?'

  25

  Sliced Emu And

  Gut Worms

  'The emu carpaccio?' said the waiter.

  'Jubbly. Here, please,' said Sp
eed.

  He'd brought us to one of his fave New York restaurants. An Aussie place in the heart of Midtown serving fish and chips, kangaroo satay sticks and emu. It was one of about eight Australian joints that had sprung up all over the city. New Yorkers were knocking back meat pies on street corners like they were hot dogs or pretzels.

  The waiter laid a plateful of blood-red, uncooked slices of emu in front of Speed. Around the table Michiko, Rash, Van, Luca and Tony were getting their meals, too.

  'How'd you lads go today? Get some good stuff?' Speed asked, picking up a slice with his fingers and dipping it in sauce. He'd made a special request that Paul and I sit next to him so we could 'have a little talk'.

  Paul and I looked at each other.

  'Got anything on these teen Einsteins you promised us?' Speed said.

  'Well ...' I said.

  'Yeah?' he asked, a piece of raw emu stuck in the tuft of hair under his bottom lip.

  'Tim Tam Tiramisu?' the waiter interrupted.

  'Here, please.' I wasn't much in the mood for eating so I'd just ordered dessert. 'We've got something big lined up for tomorrow night.'

  'What is it?' Speed asked.

  'Can't tell you,' I said.

  'Course you can.'

  'No, I can't.'

  'Don't play games, Mac,' he said.

  'I'm not meaning to. I just promised the person who promised us the thing for tomorrow that we wouldn't say anything.'

  Speed shook his head. 'And what about today? I don't really care about tomorrow anyway, to be honest. Tomorrow is, like, fifteen years away. Our subscribers want it today or not at all. What have you got today?'

  I looked down at my tiramisu, untouched. We were stuck. We'd promised not to put the Rollerballs on the site and that we wouldn't tell a soul about tomorrow night.

  'This thing tomorrow'll be so hot if –'

  'Look, I don't know what's going on with you two but you have one more day here and the best thing we've had from you is the promise of something that it appears you can't deliver. I told you guys that this is not an expenses-paid holiday.'

  'We just didn't really see anything cool today,' Paul said.

  'What, in all of New York, you didn't find a single thing you like? Mac, you?'

  I shook my head. I tried to look him in the eyes, but I was probably staring more at his cheek.

  Speed polished off the last slice of his tall, three-toed bird.

  'Well, if you can't find cool in New York then there's something seriously wrong with you.'

  That hurt. Especially when I knew we'd found the coolest thing in the world.

  'But I think you're lying to me,' Speed went on. 'I know you've got something.'

  'We'll deliver tomorrow,' Paul said.

  'I took a chance on you guys, brought you out to New York, you lost a five-grand camera on the first day and while everybody else has been coming up with brilliant stuff, you guys have delivered nothing. You don't deliver tonight, there won't be a tomorrow, yeah? You can pack your bags.'

  Speed wiped our national bird off his chin with a serviette and stood. 'I have to use the men's.'

  I could tell the other 'hunters were listening. I caught Michiko looking our way, grinning like she'd just won something. Van was staring at us through eyes smeared with bright pink and purple eyeshadow.

  'We'll deliver tonight,' I called to Speed as he headed off through the restaurant.

  He didn't turn back.

  Paul and I stepped outside. People raced by under black umbrellas as rain teemed. We huddled under the awning.

  'Isn't this supposed to be spring or something?' Paul called over the sound of traffic speeding by.

  'You want to make a run, get a cab?' I said.

  'Mm,' Paul grunted.

  We were about to go for it when the door opened behind us.

  I turned. It was Van.

  'Hey,' I said.

  She closed the door and stepped in under the awning with us.

  'I wanted to talk to you,' she said.

  I was immediately suss. Paul looked knives at her.

  'About Speed.'

  'Yeah?' I said.

  'Just watch out for him,' she said. 'I've been doing this longer than anyone in that room and he's tried to pressure me like that plenty of times.'

  'So ...' I said.

  'So just be careful. He's a gut worm. He'll use you and spit you. You don't know half the stuff he does with the information we give him.'

  'Like what?' I asked as a group went by, laughing, rain coats on heads. Then Speed and the others pushed through the restaurant doors.

  'Just watch out,' Van said as she popped her umbrella, stepped out into the rain and headed off down 38th Street with the others.

  26

  Upload Or Die

  Paul whipped me with a horsey-bite and I returned fire by grabbing his ears and pulling them very hard. He gave me a double nipple-cripple and I screamed, trying to detach his fingers, which were tearing my three or four chest hairs out of their sockets and possibly ripping my nips off, too.

  'Quiet!' Dad called from downstairs.

  I silently tried to pry Paul's fingers away but they were locked like a pitbull's jaw.

  'Okay!' I said.

  'Okay, what?' Paul asked.

  'I won't put it up,' I said, fighting back tears.

  Paul released the pressure and I lifted my shirt to check the damage. Damn. The hairs were gone and I swear he'd drawn blood.

  I gave him a shove and I wandered over to the other side of the room, pretending to check out my wounds. Then I grabbed my phone off the floor where Paul had levered it out of my hand and I hit 'upload'. Paul saw what I'd done and lunged towards me again.

  See, he'd come upstairs and caught me cutting together the UnSneaks piece. Not that there was much to cut. It was just a minute or so of footage that Paul had filmed with Melody's explanation of the Sneaks acting as a voiceover. Even though the shooting was rough, the shoes looked cool.

  Paul didn't want me to upload it to the site. He said it was wrong. Like I didn't know that. But, like Speed said, if we didn't put something up, there would be no tomorrow for us. We didn't have a choice. I'd looked through all the other footage from the day but not much of it was useable. So it was either me stacking the Rollerballs or Melody modelling the UnSneaks. And she'd specifically told us not to upload the Rollerballs.

  Paul landed on me and we slammed into the wall with such force that I felt the plaster give way behind me. Paul rolled off and we both stared at the giant dent. The wallpaper was crumpled and there were chunks of chalky stuff on the carpet.

  'Nice one!' I spat at him.

  'You heard what that Van chick said about Speed,' Paul said, dusting plaster off his shoulder.

  'What about it?'

  'He's a gut worm. We knew that from the beginning. Why are you trying so hard to please him? The guy's using us,' he said.

  'What for?'

  'I don't know. Coolness?'

  'Yeah ... like, we're so cool,' I said. 'Van's just saying that so that we don't upload anything tonight. She's playing us.'

  'Well, it didn't sound like she was playing us.'

  I stood and headed for the shower.

  'Melody's gonna hate you,' Paul spat at me.

  I didn't have a comeback. I shut the bathroom door and cranked the hot water. Staring out at the lights of Manhattan through the full-length glass walls, I wondered if anyone could see me there, nude in the shower, or if it really was oneway glass like they said in the hotel info. I jumped out and grabbed a towel just in case. Never know when the coolhunter paparazzi might start chasing us.

  My eyes were stinging. It had been the best and worst day of the trip so far. Best because we were semi-accepted into The Hive and got to do and see so much cool stuff. Best because of those few seconds this afternoon, just me and Melody. Worst because of the pressure that Speed was piling on, to deliver no matter what.

  I wished I hadn't uploaded the sho
es.

  Around midnight, just before I switched out the light, I grabbed my phone and checked the Coolhunters site. We'd already had a few thousand views of the sneaks. It was going to be a hit. There were a bunch of comments:

  Oh, my God. Get me a pair NOW! But I'll need an operation. My toes are so ugly.

  – Min, L.A., USA

  at work and trying to forget about these shoes but i cant think straight. yum!

  – Sophie, Perth, Australia

  I thort u guys had more depth than sneaker ads. least homemade I guess.

  – PhatFrog, Lisbon, Portugal

  The only pair? I don't even like them and I want them. Anyone got ideas where these dudes' hideout is?

  – MixRod, Wellington, NZ

  I tried going to sleep but all I could do was lie there, lights from the city below shifting and drifting across the ceiling above me. At about 1 o'clock I sat up and grabbed my phone again and logged into my blog, my private one.

  im angry @ p. and m. why don't they understand what im trying 2 do? i came 2 this city to find the coolest stuff there is. i tap a bunch of way-cool stuff and im told i cant cover it. why not? if someone wanted to do something on one of my inventions i'd be like 'right on'. if i talked to my ma about this i know she'd dig gatt's decision not to sell out but what the hell? the guy is on the cusp of something massive 4 the world and without us it'd never see the light of day. and what does it matter that m's unsneaks are being seen on the web? what diff will it make to her? none. i know it's not so cool to ask someone + get a no + then do it anyway but she'll understand. and what was i s'posed 2 do with speed all over us? it was upload or die.

  I tried calling Melody but her phone was still off. Then I googled 'Joe Gatt'. There was nothing on him.

  27

  Trend-spotters

  'I once, like, totally puked because my parents cut internet access on my phone.'

  Paul and I were on the streets in the Tribeca 'hood, interviewing kids at bus stops, outside schools, in cafes, on the front steps of their apartment blocks, wherever we could get them. We had till midnight to wait for the Perpetual trial and we needed back-up material in case the machine exploded or Gatt finished us. We were asking about the little things we'd noticed as we were cruising around the city. Like the fact that kids as young as four had mobiles and were texting.