Trojan Gene

by Meg Buchanan

  Then after a few stabs at the screen she proves it isn’t.

  “Stay away from her.” She’s still studying the screen. “She’s pretty and she seems nice, but she’s young, she’s Elite and she’s the granddaughter of your boss.” Then she turns around and looks at me again. “If you don’t want to go to university next year, you still need a job, or they’ll make you go.”

  “I know, Mum.” I try to cut the lecture short. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Be sensible.”

  “I’m just looking after her like Jacob wanted me to.”

  “Make sure that’s all it is and stay in your own room tonight.” She turns back to the computer screen.

  I slowly push myself away from the doorway. Well, that was about as embarrassing as I expected. Trust Mum to come straight out with it. She never could just go with the flow.

  I envy Nick. His mum prefers not to notice things and pussyfoots around. Though considering the Joe/Lucinda situation, that approach hasn’t worked out too well for their family lately.

  *

  Next morning Mum is up, dressed ready for work, make up on, hair dried. I’m up too. I’ve had a shower, and I’m having breakfast. Mum’s doing her usual thing after we’ve had a run in, acting all conciliatory, as if she thinks it’s all sorted now to her satisfaction. She’s all, ‘I’ve had my say. Let’s get on with things’.

  Ela arrives, showered and dressed too, and Mum smiles at her, friendly and welcoming, not fierce and critical like she sounded last night when she was talking to me.

  “Did you sleep well?” Mum asks.

  Ela nods. “Yes, thank you.”

  “What would you like for breakfast? You can have toast again, or there’s porridge. Jack can make it for you.”

  “Thank you, but toast is fine,” says Ela very politely.

  I’m sitting on the other side of the table eating toast and Marmite. Look up, give her a bit of a nod. Mum leaves in a flurry of activity and instructions to me about remembering the washing and putting the cat out the way she usually does.

  Then things get awkward. Ela makes toast and finds the butter and glances at me as I finish eating. I go to the bench and rinse my plate and mug and put them in the dishwasher.

  “Do you have jam?” asks Ela.

  “I’ll get it for you.” I open the cupboard and pull out a jar of jam, strawberry, black top on the jar, three hand drawn red strawberries on the label. The breakfast show croons quietly from the VidScreen in the lounge. I put the jar beside the toaster.

  I look at Ela for real this time. I brush the hair off her face and tuck it behind her ear. And the world closes in very small. A world where only the morning light, the cat winding around our legs and dark espresso coffee exists. What the hell.

  I kiss her.

  And this time.

  I’m breath taken.

  Heart-stopped.

  Gone.

  *

  Me and Ela sit on the couch and go through the box file to find out what’s left. We look at the plans. They’re CAD drawings of a building.

  “What is it?” asks Ela, looking at the lines and boxes.

  “Some sort of storage facility. This looks like the ventilation system.” I point at the coils and tubes drawn there. I pull out the next drawing and study it to see if I’m right. It’s all familiar. I’ve seen these drawings before in Dad’s study before he left. “This is based on designs they used for EarthShips. It was Dad’s thing.”

  “What’s an EarthShip?”

  “A house that can exist off the grid, doesn’t need an external power supply, uses the temperature of the earth for heating and cooling, that sort of thing.”

  “How does that fit in with the rest of the stuff?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Ela points to the line of numbers that have been handwritten at the bottom of the plan. “What are the numbers? It looks like some sort of pattern.”

  23022032. I recognise the number sequence straight away too.

  “It’s my birthdate, it’s a palindrome. When I was a kid I’d play around with the numbers and see how many other patterns they’d make.”

  “What’s a palindrome?”

  “A word or sentence that reads the same backwards or forwards.”

  “The 23rd of February, 2032,” says Ela. “That’s soon.”

  “Yeah, in a week or so.”

  “How old will you be?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Ancient.”

  “Nice,” I say, and she grins.

  Then we get to the journals. I take the old one to look at it, and a photo falls out. Ela picks up the photo and studies it. “This is my great, great, great grandfather and his wife Mere.” She hands me the photo.

  I study it too, then study Ela. “Mere looks like you.”

  “You mean the eyes and hair? It runs in the family. Look at Jacob.” Ela takes the old book from me. “And this is that great grandfather’s journal. He was William Hennessey. In 1890 he bought the land Jacob farms. All the text in the journal is handwritten in cursive. Well, that’s what Dad said it was anyway. It’s hard to read.”

  I flick through it and it looks bloody hard to read, all scrawled and faded. We give it a go anyway, but it takes a while.

  We get to this bit.

  We entered the final clearing and saw Mere standing there near the falls beside a cave. She was beyond beautiful, an ethereal creature. Moss hung from the dark trees in soft tattered shapes, framing her with ripped banners of pale grey lace. Her feet bare, she was in a simple white dress, looking as if she borrowed light and power from the silver waterfall, the grey of her eyes haunting. She had been bathing in the water, and her coal black hair was loose and hung in damp tendrils around her face and shoulders and the dress clung to her body.

  “I always liked that bit of the story,” says Ela.

  “I can’t see how this fits anything either.” I start to read the rest.

  “Do you know where that waterfall is?” Ela takes the book off me.

  “Nah.”

  “I do.” Ela flicks through the pages. “And the night Jacob got hurt, he told me to take you there. Remember he said to take you to the clearing when we visited him? It’s the same place. Jacob and I go there sometimes when I’m visiting.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Not far from the back of the farm. You just have to follow a track through the bush. You can get to it from the walkway too, but it’s harder and takes a lot longer.”

  “Does it still look the way he describes it?”

  “A bit. There’s some moss but not long banners of it. There’s always that mist though. The waterfall is meant to be a family secret. I’ve never seen anyone else there.”

  I take the journal back, focus on the script again.

  “Let’s see why Jacob thought it was important for us to read a hundred and fifty-year-old journal.”

  We’re up to Mere taking William back to the clearing and asking him to help look after it.

  William writes about Mere by the waterfall again and the way she looks. He goes on a bit, especially when she goes for a swim.

  She slowly unbuttoned her dress and let it slip from her shoulders and fall in a heap around her feet. She stood there, her body silhouetted, golden in the light, against the silver of the falls, her hair falling over her shoulders and down her back.

  “Wow, evocative image.”

  “Evocative?” Ela giggles.

  “I do read. When are you going to take me to this waterfall?”

  “We could go today.” Then she thinks of something else. “You know, that’s something I hadn’t realised before. At the waterfall, the water in the pool is warmer than it should be.”

  “Do you think it’s a hot spring?”

  “Maybe, but I haven’t heard of any hot springs on the mountain.”

  “Me neither. Te Aroha and Katikati have hot springs and it’s all one range. It could be possible.”

 
I put the book down. “I can’t be bothered with this anymore. What about you?”

  “No, I’m sick of it. Jacob could have been a bit less mysterious, just told us what this is all about.”

  “Walls have ears,” I say, like Jacob does.

  “Very funny,” says Ela. I sit there thinking about the journal. I’ll say one thing for William Hennessey and his story. If things start to get boring, he’ll throw in a knife fight, or a cave filled with gold, or a naked woman.

  “You said they use a HoistEM to look for uranium and water.” Ela’s moved on from the journal. “Can it do anything else?”

  “There’s probably a website. We could look it up.” I don’t get off the couch and go to the study. It’s pretty comfortable sitting there.

  “What’s the plan?” she asks.

  “Check the farm, you’re going to take me to that waterfall, and then visit Jacob.”

  I stretch my legs out and recross my socks.

  Then she asks, “Why was your mum so angry last night?”

  “You heard?”

  “Yes, and your mum’s pretty scary.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And she’s likely to turn up here at any moment to check why I’m not at work.”

  I go to get off the couch. Ela puts out her hand to stop me, but I get up anyway. “Come on, let’s see if we can work this out before we go see Jacob.”

  *

  I’m backing Mum’s car out of the garage. Ela’s standing by the door ready to shut it, and Vincent and the sidekick come out of the pub. They are in civvies. They must keep the VTroop officer’s uniforms for the base and missions like killing old people.

  “Jack.” Vincent’s hand’s out like he wants to shake. It’s the last thing I’m planning on doing with a murderer.

  Keep my hands on the steering wheel. “Vincent,” I say.

  He changes the hand into a chin scratch. “You off to work?” he asks. “Your mum says you work for Jacob Hennessey, and he’s been hurt.”

  “Yeah, he’s in hospital and dogs need feeding.” I guess it was me who asked her to talk to him, and she had to talk about something. Not that she found out anything useful. During the being conciliatory talk this morning, she said all Vincent told her was he is on holiday.

  Ela shuts the garage door and gets in the passenger side of the car.

  “Ela Hennessey?” asks Vincent. “Jacob’s granddaughter?” Ela nods, and Vincent watches her sort of speculatively. “You helping with the farm work?” Ela nods again. “Anything interesting for a visitor to do around here?” he asks.

  Apart from kill a couple of innocent olds and smash their place to bits. “Pretty boring around here,” I say.

  The sidekick’s leaning against the Eco parked near the guest entrance watching this exchange. And have you ever seen a couple of cats playing with a mouse? Get the impression me and Ela might be the mice?

  “I better let you go then.” Vincent smacks the roof of Mum’s car with his hand then walks over to the sidekick. They both get into the Eco and leave.

  It occurs to me this might be a good time to search their rooms. I know where Mum keeps the keys for the cleaner. Might find out something useful.

  Ela slowly releases a puff of breath. She’s not going to go for the search the room option. I might leave that for another time.

  Chapter 18

  I DIDN’T EXPECT THIS.” My first view of the waterfall is mind blowing. I’d read about it in the journal, listened to Ela talk about it. But nothing prepared me for the dark beauty of it. It’s haunting. The water cascades down like a fall of diamonds. Steam mists up from the pool diffusing the rays of light that stray through the canopy of leaves.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” She looks around taking in the serenity and peace. “It’s strange I didn’t realise that the water was warm.” Ela shows me a bowl-shaped hollow in the granite. She dips her fingers in the water and trails them over the surface.

  “It’s amazing.” I walk around the clearing taking in the hanging moss, the smooth grey stones and the silver waterfall cascading down into the mist. The dark reflective water of the pool. I’m awed by the beauty and at being let into a secret Ela’s family have kept for over a century and a half. I watch her standing by the pool catching the drops from the waterfall. It reminds me of William’s description of Mere.

  Beautiful.

  I walk past a group of trees at the edge of the clearing and start to search around by the cliff.

  “What are you doing?” asks Ela, joining me.

  “Trying to find something.” I kick aside the undergrowth and push branches away. It takes a bit of searching but eventually, a few metres from the waterfall amongst the ferns and leaf litter, we find a heap of rocks piled into a crack in the granite. It looks like several flat rocks have been carefully wedged against each other. Ela helps pull the ferns back. When we have cleared everything off the rocks, we look at the stack.

  “It has to be man-made.” She’s standing back and considering it.

  “Yeah, I think we’ve found it.” I’ve been adding it all together, the Willises, the Hoist Em, the heated water here, Dad’s plans, Jacob’s endless supply of seeds, and have a suspicion about what we’re going to find behind those rocks. I try to pull a rock away, but nothing will shift.

  “Found what?” asks Ela. I climb up onto one of the rocks and look at the stack. There’s a lever embedded into the top under the overhang. I reach up and pull on the lever.

  “What is it?” Ela asks.

  I hear a click, jump away from the rubble, and land beside her.

  A big flat rock slowly hinges down so it’s tilting away from the rock wall and leans against the pile in front of it. “Clever.” Behind the rock is an entrance.

  Ela grins. “It’s not easy to see even when it’s open.”

  “Hop up on the stone and climb in.”

  “You go first. It looks pretty dark,” says Ela.

  *

  I climb back onto the rock, put one hand on the tilted slab to steady myself and the other on the cliff wall, then jump down into the opening.

  I look around. “Hey, Ela, come in here. This is cool.”

  Ela looks through the entrance into the cave. The light comes in from the opening. It’s not really a cave. It’s more like a mine. Heavy timber beams are holding up the ceiling, but it doesn’t go very far. There’s a massive metal door surrounded by concrete sealing the other end, with a keypad at the side.

  I can hear a faint hum coming from behind the door. “What do you think is behind that door?”

  “No idea.” Ela jumps down onto the dirt floor. I go over to the door, give it a push then stare at the key pad. No handle. No lock. It looks like you need a code to get in.

  “It all looks quite new.” Ela is standing in the middle of the cave, hands on hips, looking around. “There’s no rust on the door. This can’t have been here when William and Mere were here.”

  “No, I don’t think they had electronic door locks in 1875.” I stay staring at the key pad, thinking, and then have an idea. I punch in a series of numbers and push on the door. It doesn’t move.

  I try a different sequence of eight numbers and push again. The door stays right where it is.

  “There are billions of possible combinations,” says Ela.

  “I know. But what I’m doing isn’t random.” I put in another combination and push the door. There’s a pause then the metal door slides open slowly, the rock behind us groans shut. Concrete, tiles, glass and LED lights are everywhere in the room in front of us.

  “Step one accomplished.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I used the numbers on the plan.”

  “Your birth date?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I think this is the storage facility the plans are for.”

  “Why?”

  “We were sent here. Jacob told you to take me to the waterfall. William’s journal mentioned it. I think the bl
oody Willises are looking for artesian water, and that’s how the pool at the bottom of the waterfall is heated. Thermal water from underground could be used to heat this. Dad would have known I’d recognise that number sequence.”

  “That’s a big leap. You think your dad wrote the number on the plans?”

  “Yeah, I told you Dad drew the plans.”

  “Why did it take three goes to get the number?” she asks.

  I stare down the long tunnel in front of us. “I figured he’d use the palindrome. It was just a matter of working out which pattern he’d choose.”

  “It looks like home,” says Ela.

  “Yeah, a slice of the City.” I go through the doorway. Ela follows. There’s a glass door about two metres away.

  I put the code into the keypad for the next door and, before the door in front of us opens, the one behind us closes. We’re in an airlock. Soft light fills it from the room behind the next door.

  “Are you sure we can get back out?” asks Ela.

  “Pretty sure.” I go to the next door and use the combination again. The hum is still there, and I guess it comes from the heat exchanger or the batteries. The glass doors slide open with a sigh.

  The plans said the whole building, or tunnel, or whatever you call it, is 120 metres long, 12 metres high and 12 meters wide. You have to see 120 metres to know how big that is. It’s bigger than a carpark. Bigger than ten car parks. Every few metres there’s another glass door. There are white tiles that shine in lines on the floor and the walls. Every room has rows of metal shelving along the walls filled with plastic containers. The first room has only red containers, the next blue and so on. It stretches on and on and on, like one of those perspective paintings, or the painting of the room reflected again and again in mirrors.

  “If your dad built this, I wonder where he got the money,” says Ela. “It’s massive. It must have cost millions.”

  I go through the glass doors, and Ela makes sure she keeps up with me. Slides her hand in mine, so I can’t get away. “I don’t want to be stuck in another room trying to remember your birthday,” she says. The door slides shut behind us.