Trojan Gene

by Meg Buchanan

  But the Intercept’s gone.

  “Fitzgerald,” I hear.

  “I’ve still got that book you wanted,” I say.

  There’s a long pause. “Where are you now?”

  “Where you left me.”

  “I’m coming,” says Fitzgerald.

  And I’m standing there, holding my Com and the sidekick’s gun, trying to figure out what to do next, and Vincent comes through the door. He is pushing Mum in front of him, got his forearm around her neck, and she’s clawing at it like she can only just breathe. He looks at the body on the floor, then at the gun floating through the air.

  I lift it. Aim it at him.

  He tightens his hold on Mum and brings his gun up and pushes it into her cheek.

  “Drop it, Jack, then switch the haze off,” he says quietly. “Or I’ll start shooting bits off your mother.”

  Mum tries to throw herself to the side. “Don’t listen Jack. Just shoot him,” she orders.

  Vincent tightens his grip, presses the gun harder into her cheek. “Put the weapon down.”

  I lift it to take a shot, but even though Vincent’s huge and Mum’s pretty slim, he’s got her positioned so she’s covering all his vital organs. If I shoot, I either kill my mother, or I get Vincent in a bicep or a foot, and just make him mad.

  I don’t like either scenario. I need to wait until the odds are better. I go to put the gun down on the carpet.

  “Slowly.” Vincent tightens his grip on Mum, like a warning. “Then, kick it away.” When the gun is on the floor I kick it, and it slides until it comes to a stop by the table leg. “Now turn off the haze,” he instructs.

  I slowly slide my thumb across the Com. The shimmer disappears and I appear, standing there in the middle of the room, boxes and papers around me. There’s still a pile of papers on the table.

  “Now the Com can join the gun.”

  I put the Com on the floor and give it a kick.

  “Good boy.” Then Vincent looks at the sidekick’s body taking up most of the rest of the floor. “Disappointing.” He keeps his hold on Mum and with the hand holding the gun, reaches out for a dining chair, and turns it round.

  “Have a seat, Mrs Fraser.” He pushes Mum at it.

  She pushes back.

  He grabs her hand, twists her arm and makes her sit.

  She spits at him and glances at the gun on the floor, not too far from her. Vincent just laughs, wipes his face, bends down and picks it up.

  “Not quite as friendly as you were a few days ago, Mrs Fraser.” He runs the gun over Mum’s shoulder and down her arm like he is caressing her.

  I’ll kill him.

  “Not inviting me for a drink tonight or trying to pump me for information?” he asks.

  That was my idea. I got her into this.

  “Instead I find you loading my things into your car.” Now the tip of the pistol caresses her face.

  Mum pulls away from it. “What were you planning on doing with the information I spent so much time collecting, lovely Patsy?” The voice is silky, the barrel still caressing.

  Then he puts the gun down on the table, well away from Mum. She’s eyeing it. He removes the silencer from the barrel of the sidekick’s gun, works the safety, and puts everything in his pocket. Picks up his own pistol again, all the time making sure he is too close to Mum for me to risk charging at him.

  “Now, what am I going to do with you two?” he asks, voice still silky. The question sounds rhetorical, so I stay quiet.

  “Not talking?” He considers Mum, then me. “You will in a moment. I have a few questions for you to answer, Jack. Just a few things I need to tidy up.” He considers Mum again, uses the end of his pistol to make her lift her chin. He looks back to me again, still keeping Mum’s head forced back.

  “Leave her alone,” I say. “She doesn’t know anything.”

  “So, there are things to know,” says Vincent, in that cat playing with a mouse way. “You have a pretty mother, Jack. I will leave her face as it is for a while if you play ball.” He turns back to Mum. “Mrs Fraser, please put your hand on the table.”

  “Fuck you.’ Mum clasps both hands tight together and pushes them down between her legs.

  I watch Vincent as he puts his pistol on the table again, still well away from Mum’s reach, takes the sidekick’s gun out of his pocket, refits the silencer, runs the silencer in a line from Mum’s forehead, down her face to her chin, then down between her breasts, over her stomach, until he gets to where she has her hands clutched together between her thighs.

  It’s sickening, but Vincent is a bit too competent and ruthless to risk rushing him. Mum will get hurt. There’s nothing I can do yet

  “Put your hand on the table, Mrs Fraser,” Vincent says again, less silk, more iron this time, “or I will put a shot in it now.” And he pushes harder against her hands and starts putting pressure on the trigger.

  I know a fair bit of what he knows already. I’ll just tell him that. I’ve got to do something.

  “Don’t. I’ll talk,” I say. I need to buy time to figure out what to do.

  “Don’t say anything, Jack,” says Mum like she means it.

  “Move your hand to the table, Mrs Fraser.”

  Mum just looks up at Vincent, ignores the pistol between her legs.

  “Do what he says, Mum,” I say urgently.

  “Good advice,” says Vincent.

  “Jack, don’t say anything,” says Mum.

  Vincent looks over at me. “This is not the time to listen to your mother if you want to keep her healthy.” He lifts the gun, grabs one of Mum’s hands, places it on the table beside her, palm down, then pushes the silencer into the back, and looks at me.

  Fuck. How far away is Fitzgerald? “What do you want to know?” I ask.

  Vincent rubs his nose with his free hand, like he needs to figure out where to start.

  “Don’t tell him anything,” Mum orders fiercely.

  The barrel presses deeper into her hand. “Was it you doing the searches on me?” Vincent asks.

  He probably knows that already, so I nod.

  “Thought so.” He nonchalantly keeps the gun pressed deep into Mum’s hand. “I got an Alert a few days ago, checked my status and someone had done a search. Tried to track where it originated.” He leans against the table as he talks, close to Mum, his leg between hers now, gun still pressed into her hand. “Saw shields go up so I couldn’t take the track right to the source. But before the shields went up, I saw the search was local. I was starting to get a reaction. It was worth setting up a loop, so everything came back just to me. Just needed to find out where and who.”

  Shit, I wipe my mouth with my hand. I should have listened to Fitzgerald and Jacob.

  “Next question. Was it you at the Egans’ place?”

  He knows that too. I nod again.

  “Who was with you?”

  I hesitate, I remember reading he knew Nick was there, but did he know about Ela? Does it matter? He’s already after her anyway. I can’t decide. One of them? Both of them?

  “Too slow,” he says.

  And he pulls the fucking trigger. Shoots Mum through the hand. She screams and snatches her hand back.

  All I can think is, there’s not much blood, and why wouldn’t there be blood? Cauterised by the flash maybe. She’s cradling her hand in her lap again, holding it with the other hand, and then the blood starts oozing through the fingers of her good hand.

  Fuck. Vincent grabs the unhurt hand, covered in blood now, slaps it down on the table and pushes the end of the gun into it.

  “It was Nick!” I yell. “Nick was there.”

  “Good boy,” he says. “Now what do you know about the vault?”

  Mum watches me, pain on her face now, her injured hand leaking blood all over her jeans. “Don’t say anything,” she whispers. “Please, Jack.”

  “Don’t listen to your mother,” says Vincent, squeezing slowly on the trigger. “I know it exists. I’ve been t
hrough the accounts, plans and records of building the Outpost, then matched orders to deliveries to invoices to be sure. The quantities supplied didn’t match the quantity surveyor’s estimates. Truckloads of building materials went missing while they were building the Outpost. Do you know where it is?”

  The gun digs into Mum’s hand. He already has the coordinates marked on the map. He already sent the Willises to find it. If I tell him, it doesn’t matter. He already knows.

  He’s torturing us for fun. I watch the gun push deeper.

  “I can give you the coordinates,” I say in a rush. “Will need a map though.”

  Vincent nods. “And where is that little girlfriend of yours?”

  Now the choice is Mum or Ela.

  And Fitzgerald appears in the doorway.

  Thank God.

  Vincent looks over at him, stands, lifts the gun off Mum’s hand to take Fitzgerald out. Mum leaps up, crashes her shoulder into Vincent, and grabs his gun hand. She must have had surprise on her side. There’s a massive weight difference.

  He staggers. The table topples, throwing papers and the gun off the top. The shot Vincent gets off goes wild. I dive for the gun on the floor.

  Fitzgerald goes for Vincent.

  Vincent gets free of Mum, sidesteps Fitzgerald, and takes a few steps my way.

  I roll, both hands holding his weapon. I aim and shoot him straight through the heart.

  He drops to the floor by the sidekick.

  Two dead bodies to deal with now.

  Chapter 35

  TO GIVE FITZGERALD HIS DUE, he doesn’t waste time on extraneous questions. He’ s straight to the point. “We need this cleaned up, or we’ve all had it.”

  He uses his Com. “I need the FireCrew at the pub right now. Forget what we’ve just planned. Everything’s changed.”

  He listens for a moment. “Keep it low key.” Listens again. “Yeah, four at least. And pick up Curley and Nick. We’re going to need them.”

  Fitzgerald makes more calls. It sounds like he’s calling in a whole army and changing what he already had in place.

  Mum’s holding onto the table, trying to stay upright, blood from her hand leaking all over her jeans and the floor.

  Fitzgerald disconnects. “Curley will reset the Locates later. Where are their Coms?”

  “Still on them.”

  “Okay,” he says. “When Curley gets here, he can adjust them. No one can know Vincent has been here.” Fitzgerald pulls out his Com again, checks how far away the FireCrew is. He looks at Mum. She is swaying, ready to crumple. He goes to her and catches her as she falls.

  And, bloody hell, he picks her up and holds her like something precious has been broken. Her good hand curls up round his neck, her hurt hand bleeding all over his shirt and her t-shirt. He kisses her on her forehead. She leans her head against his shoulder and he curls his body around her like he’s protecting her the way Joe did with Lucinda.

  It’s all done without talking, like they know what the other will do, like they’ve done it before.

  How come I didn’t see that coming?

  “Johnson will be here soon,” Fitzgerald murmurs to Mum. “I’ll get you to your room. He can treat that hand first.” He looks over at me.

  I’ve made it up off the floor but nearly fell back down when I saw that kiss.

  “Jack, get the rest of the stuff out to Patsy’s car. The others will be here anytime now. We’ve got a few hours to clean up this mess.” It’s like he’s thinking out loud. He nods at the bodies. “If we can cover this up, we should be able to use their documents to get Joe and Lucinda out of the country. Curley can change the details and the retina scans to get them through customs. Then change them back to show Vincent and the other guy are in Aussie.”

  It’s a bit of a puzzle how he’s going to make a young kid and a really crook girl look like a couple of hit men, but I’ll leave that to him.

  *

  There is no doubt Fitzgerald is in charge now, and I follow his instructions all night and all the next day. I work with the FireCrew cleaning up the mess. They’re slick. They’ve dealt with this stuff before.

  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. He finished up doing all the computer stuff himself, adjusting the car’s Locate and the Coms to look like they’d never been in town.

  *

  It’s all over. Everyone has gone home. Just me and Fitzgerald are left in the canteen at the police station.

  “I’ll get going then,” I say.

  “No, Jack. 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 quietly, 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.

  “Killing Vincent and his sidekick hasn’t put everything at risk?” I ask.

  “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. I 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 for Jacob to get here.”

  Then I hear Jacob arrive. He clomps through the door on his crutches. I get a bit of a grim nod, but nothing else before he sits down on a seat on the other side of me. I’m caught between the two of them. I figure it’s deliberate.

  There’s a pause while he settles. He puts the bag he’s carrying onto the floor, leans the crutches against the table, and sticks his leg out on another chair.

  I’m still not too sure where I stand with Jacob, and he’s aloof.

  “Is Ela safe?” I ask to fill the gap and to side track him. 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 calling her.

  I watch Jacob shift a bit in his chair. I think that someone is sitting beside me.

  “Her mum 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.

  “Watch this.” The way he says it makes me really wary. He waves his Com at the Vid screen on th
e 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 18.02.2051. 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.

  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?

  We 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 is gone from Fitzgerald. I look at Jacob to see if he looks concerned.

  “Keep watching.” Jacob stares back at me. 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.