Trojan Gene

by Meg Buchanan

  We start moving towards the door. There’s no way to make the bed look like Lucinda’s still in it so we only have until the guard comes back to get away.

  We need to move fast.

  “We’re out,” says Joe.

  I go out and shut the door. “Me too.”

  “Lock,” says Nick to Ela through his Com. I hear the slide of the lock.

  We work our way back to Nick’s base room, corridor by corridor. One door after another opens then shuts behind us. Finally, we get to the base room and go in.

  Nick shuts the door. “I’ve shielded the cameras in here,” he says. “You can turn the haze off.”

  We all unhaze. It’s a relief to see the others. Everyone looks a bit crazy with relief. Ela and Curley should get here any minute and we can go.

  We wait for them.

  Wait some more.

  They don’t show.

  *

  As the minutes tick by, and we don’t see them, a cold dread builds up in me. Scott must be thinking the same as me.

  He nervously moves his Com from one hand to the other.

  “Something’s gone wrong,” he says. Talk about stating the obvious. Typical of him.

  A stream of VTroops go past the window outside in the other direction from the earlier group. A couple of stragglers go past. I recognise the two from the gate. They disappear into the dark too. The rise and fall of men’s voices quietly drifts into the room.

  “The guards coming off duty,” says Nick.

  “What do you think has happened to Curley and Ela?” Joe is resting against a desk. Lucinda is leaning against him, blanket still wrapped around her.

  “No idea,” says Nick, “but it shouldn’t have taken Curley this long to get here.”

  I don’t think we can muck around much longer. That guard could look in Lucinda’s room again at any moment. No point in us all waiting and risking getting caught.

  I make a decision. “Nick, you leave with Scott, Joe and Lucinda. I’ll go and find Curley and Ela and we’ll follow.” I give him my keys. “Go back to the pub. Wait for us there.”

  “Right.” He puts the keys in his pocket.

  Joe nods and pushes himself away from the desk and picks up Lucinda. He’s looking pretty weary.

  “You all right with her?” asks Nick.

  “Yeah, I can get to the ute.” Joe goes into haze, then Lucinda does too.

  “I’ll stay with Jack,” says Scott. “He might need help.”

  “You okay with that?” asks Nick.

  “Yeah.” I go into haze mode too.

  Scott follows. I would have preferred any of the others with me. We wait until Nick is out of the room.

  I hear Joe say, “I’m out.” Then Nick walks along the corridor to the entrance of the main building, a soft rustling and vague shimmering from the others following him.

  Me and Scott use the NavApp, moving through the white, shining corridors until we are close to the computer room. The door is open, and I hear Curley talking to someone.

  “Some malfunction with the locks,” he says. “It’s fixed now.”

  “It was a late callout.” I recognise the voice. I look in the room, and there’s Vincent lounging in an office chair and his sidekick propping up a wall. It’s pretty hard to imagine why they would be at the Outpost at this time of night.

  “Yeah, I’m shagged,” says Curley. “Can’t wait to get home.”

  “Where do you live?” It sounds casual, not like Curley’s being interrogated.

  “Karangahake,” he answers.

  I can’t see any sign of Ela. I decide to take the risk and let him know we can help if he needs it. I move away from the door. Hold my Com far enough away from my body it unhazes. I send Curley a text. ‘By the door.’

  I go back to the doorway just in time to see Curley’s Com flash. He picks it up and looks at it.

  “Who’s that?” asks Vincent.

  “My mum,” lies Curley. “She gets worried if I’m on a callout for too long.”

  “Nice mum.” Vincent stretches out in the chair as if it’s been a long day, swings the chair a bit from side to side with his heels.

  “I’ll tell her I’m on my way home.” Curley answers my text.

  I move away from the door again. Don’t want Vincent to see the flash.

  “Under control,” says the text. Curley’s still in spy mode.

  Vincent yawns and stretches his arms out wide. “I’d better get going too. Bed awaits.” He stands up and wanders out followed by his sidekick.

  I wait until he’s at the end of the corridor then go into Curley’s room.

  “Where’s Ela?”

  “Here,” she says from the corner. I focus on the shimmer against the wall, relieved.

  We get out of there fast.

  “What was Vincent doing?” I ask Curley as we drive along.

  “Don’t know. He’s been around a lot over the last couple of days. He always acts friendly and asks a heap of questions. The other guy just stands around, watching.”

  “Did you check him out?” I ask.

  “Tried to. He’s not anywhere on the system. I figure he’s undercover for someone, looking for something.”

  *

  It’s about three in the morning before I finally see my bed. Joe and Lucinda are in the living quarters at the back of the vault. It’s the only place we could think of to stash them.

  Curley, Scott and Nick still don’t want Fitzgerald to find out that we were in on getting Lucinda away. They think we’ll be lucky to survive. I agree with them. Jacob and Fitzgerald won’t take this well. Curley says he knows how to get Joe and Lucinda away and out of the country. He says he’s done it for Fitzgerald before, but it takes a while.

  The whole world will be looking for Lucinda tomorrow.

  We need to lie low – pretend Joe did it on his own somehow and now he’s disappeared with her – make like we’re innocent if Fitzgerald asks.

  Chapter 25

  BEFORE WE GO TO BED, I check the email.

  An envelope icon floats onto the monitor.

  “You’ve got mail.” Ela’s leaning over my shoulder.

  I open the envelope. The message is from Katie and says it was lovely to see me and to talk, we should keep in contact, she hopes Ela’s all right and I didn’t get into any trouble after the party. She’s seen my mum in action.

  “I’ll answer that later.”

  “She’s very friendly still.” Ela stands up.

  “Yeah, she’s nice.” I’m a bit slow. Then I realise what Ela’s read and she doesn’t sound too happy about it. I turn around and look at her.

  She’s standing there twisting her hair the way she does when she’s worried and not sure what to do.

  “You don’t have to worry about Katie. We’re just friends.” This time I don’t try to make it a joke.

  She nods, still hesitant.

  What else can I say? I go back to the email.

  There’s the reply from Yvette.

  It’s short.

  Vincent is dangerous. He’s being investigated for everything. We think he was involved in the accident at Mt Annan. There have also been a few disappearances he’s connected with. Don’t try anything clever.

  Yvette

  I flick to eSerch, type in Mt Annan.

  “Your stepmother knows you well, doesn’t she?” says Ela from her corner.

  “Where did that come from?” I ask.

  “Fitzgerald said don’t do searches on him.”

  “Didn’t say anything about seedbanks.”

  Ela lifts her eyebrows at me.

  A newspaper story comes up.

  ‘The NSW Seed Bank at Mount Annan was established in 1986 as an integral part of the Australian Botanic Garden. It was a facility for storing seeds collected throughout Australia, with a focus on NSW native and threatened species. There were more than 9000 collections of fully documented wild sourced seed held in the Seed Bank. In January 2051 a fire broke out in th
e facility, destroying both the building and the collections it protected. This was a huge blow to those trying to protect Australia’s biodiversity.’

  The fire was only a few weeks ago.

  “We need to go see Fitzgerald,” says Ela.

  I decide to be responsible. “Yeah, first thing tomorrow.”

  *

  When we turn up the next day Fitzgerald doesn’t mention Lucinda. There can’t have been any reaction from Vector to Lucinda going missing. Can’t figure what that’s all about.

  “I’ve got a bit more information on Vincent,” Fitzgerald says to us. “I want to make sure you know what we’re dealing with. The guy I was talking to says Vincent is some sort of agent for Eugenics Corp. If he turns up its trouble for everyone.”

  That’s no news to us.

  Fitzgerald hands me a printout of an article about a badly beaten man who was found in Sydney a few weeks ago, and he hands a couple of other bits of paper to Ela.

  He nods at the news article I’m reading. “The police are investigating what happened to this man, but he isn’t talking. The last person he was seen with was Vincent.”

  The date of the fire at Mt Annan and when this guy was beaten up are pretty close. “You might like to tell your friend to look at the timing of the Mt Annan fire,” I say.

  “You still doing searches on him?”

  “I sent an email to Yvette.”

  “Mike’s partner?” Maybe Fitzgerald knows more about my dad than he lets on.

  “Yeah, it was before you told me to stay out of it. Yvette came back with the Mt Annan thing.”

  “Seed banks get wiped out pretty often,” says Fitzgerald. “Usually it’s put down to mismanagement, or accidents, equipment failures, or funding cuts. Natural disasters and war are blamed too, but maybe someone could be trying to destroy them systematically. Okay, that gives us some idea of what he might be here for. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “And there’s the Willises. When Mum heard them talking at the pub the other day, I think they were discussing how to locate the vault.”

  “What makes you think that?” Fitzgerald doesn’t seem surprised that I know about the seed bank, but I guess he visits Jacob.

  “She heard them talking about Jacob,” explains Ela. “We think the Willises are aware Jacob knows where the vault is and are going to try to make him tell them.”

  “You’re probably right,” says Fitzgerald. “We need to figure out a way to stop them getting to the vault.”

  “Jacob comes out of hospital on Friday,” says Ela.

  “Jacob can look after himself,” says Fitzgerald. “But with any luck, we’ll have it sorted by the time he gets out.”

  Ela hands him back the piece of paper she’s holding. “Your friend thinks Vincent is dangerous?” she asks.

  Fitzgerald nods. “Yes. Leave him to us from now on.”

  “He’s all yours.” I say, standing up. Not likely, I think.

  We get outside.

  “Are you up for a bit of forgery?” I say to Ela.

  “Why?”

  “While Fitzgerald is dealing with Vincent, we need to slow the Willises down and buy some time. We can’t let them get anywhere near the vault, especially now with Joe and Lucinda there.”

  Ela gets in the Land Rover. “How?”

  I get in the other side, pull the door shut.

  “When the Willises come to ‘talk to Jacob’ on Friday, I’ll make sure it is me they ‘talk to’, and I’ll give them the map of where to find the vault.”

  “What map is that?”

  I turn the key, start the Land Rover.

  “The one we’re going to make.”

  “So, how will that work?”

  “If they come after Jacob on Friday or Saturday, we make sure it’s me they find, and I offer them a deal. They get the map if they let me into their scheme.”

  “Why are they going to do that?”

  I pull out onto the road while I’m thinking then list all the reasons I can come up with. “I’ll explain to them I’m a nice person. Or that I know what they’re doing, and I’ll tell on them if they don’t cut me in. They should go for it. I’ll even offer to take them straight to where the vault is.”

  “What are you going to do then?”

  “Stall and hope Fitzgerald’s thought of something. But if we draw a map that takes them away from the waterfall, it should keep them busy for weeks.”

  “Draw a map?” Ela sounds pretty sceptical.

  “Think about it. We’ve got the plans, so we know what the map should look like. You’ve done art at school, I did CAD. We make a fake map.”

  “Is this a real plan?” Ela tucks a bit of hair behind her ears.

  “It’s for real.”

  “Okay.” She still sounds pretty doubtful. “Isn’t CAD design done on a computer? Are we just making a NavMap?”

  I consider the idea but dismiss it. “No. They probably know it would be on paper. The vault design is.”

  We park in a space near the Nostalgia shop, walk in, go past the books, magazines and novelties, and stop at the back where the art and craft supplies are stored. I rifle through the piles of paper looking for something that has the right texture and weight.

  I pick up a block of watercolour paper.

  “What about this?”

  Ela runs her hand over it and then lifts up a sheet.

  “It’s too thick.” She picks up the sketch book beside it. “This is better.”

  “Yep.” I run my hand over the surface of the top page in the sketch pad. “If we fold it a few times, dirty up the edges, it should look right. A bit like the journal.” I pick up the pad and put it under my arm and find a fine point pen.

  “Do you know anything about these?”

  “I used one years ago.”

  “Okay, we’ll have two of those too, and one of these.”

  I add a scale rule and put it with the sketch pad.

  “Where are we going to do this?” Ela asks.

  “Home. There are some survey maps in the study that will help us. Dad kept records of what he found when he was looking for gold on the mountain.”

  We arrive at the pub. I let Monsanto off his chain and go inside. Ela is standing by the dining room table, trying to open the packaging around one of the pens. She bites the side and tries to rip it apart. “I can’t work out why they used to make the packaging so difficult to open.”

  “Intelligence test,” I say.

  “Just failed.” Ela pulls a chair out and sits down to try out the pen.

  I watch her practice for a while then go and get the CAD drawings and a couple of survey maps from the study.

  “See if you can make it like Dad’s drawing. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just something close.”

  Ela tries to copy the drawing. “It’s too black,” she says.

  “Doesn’t matter. The Willises won’t notice.”

  She keeps going until it looks about right.

  “Not bad.”

  “It might pass if the paper looked older.”

  We spend a while looking at ways to age the paper and soften the colour of the ink, so it looks faded.

  When it’s good, I spread out Dad’s maps. First, we need a site that is near a creek and can be got to by walking along the river bank. By using the map, the notes and what we know of the area, we find a creek on the way to Dickey’s Flat.

  “This will do. You have to go through a tunnel, but there’s no reason that would make them suspicious.”

  We study it all a bit. Then using the topographical maps of the area as a guide, I sketch an outline onto the paper and show the site we’ve chosen. I write the notes and instructions. After we have bleached the writing and stained the whole area with tea then dried it with Mum’s hair drier, it’s starting to look the way we imagined a map made and used by Dad might look. We do it again and again. By the time we’ve finished the sixth map, we have it right.

  “A few folds and smud
ges and we’re there.” Ela folds and unfolds the map. Not bad for a couple of amateurs. “I think we should go to the place we’ve chosen,” says Ela. “I’d feel better if we weren’t just guessing what’s there.”

  “Okay.” I put my arm around Ela’s shoulders and walk her up the hallway and out the front door.

  “You’re enjoying this,” says Ela. “It’s your idea of fun.”

  She isn’t wrong. Double crossing the Willises has its appeal. Can’t wait to see their faces when they find me, not Jacob, at the farm. I wait for Monsanto to get into the back, shut the door, and get into the driver’s side.

  “We’re just setting a trap for some vermin.” I start the motor.

  “Huh.” Sometimes even Ela is stuck for words.

  We drive to Dickey’s Flat at the Waihi end of the gorge and turn right onto a tar sealed road. It has farmland on both sides. As we drive along the road gets narrower, winds around corner after corner. Then it’s just a track winding its way through the dense bush.

  I park by some huge boulders at the entrance to the Dickey’s Flat Camping Ground. No one is camping, but it has been used recently. The rubbish bin is overflowing with beer cans and bottles. I haven’t been here for years. It used to be the place kids went for parties and night time swimming. I’d say from the mess it’s still a place for parties.

  Ela helps me unload and Monsanto stands quietly beside us waiting. The river murmurs in the background. Ela carries the shovel, and I put on the pack filled with the rest of the stuff we need and get the pick.

  We go across the grass on an angle to the old swing bridge and down the curved ramp that gets us back on the track. After a few metres, I turn into the bush and push through a stand of manuka near the tunnel at the end of the walkway.

  “We could have parked at the carpark and walked along the walkway,” Ela says.

  “Not many people go for a walk carrying a shovel and a pick,” I point out.

  Ela’s struggling to get between the trees without tangling the shovel in the branches.

  I take it off her. It just gives her more energy to talk.

  “It’s beautiful here with the three waterfalls and the water flowing through the second tunnel.”

  “Yeah.”