Replica

by Jack Heath

  I hesitate for a fragment of a second, wondering if I should surrender, watching his finger moving into the trigger guard before I turn, run, sprint towards the window, Pete bouncing on my shoulder.

  The trigger clicks …

  The shotgun booms …

  And the blast hits me in the back like a train.

  ~

  I wake to the sound of angry voices.

  ‘You shot Chloe Zimetski!’

  ‘I didn’t know it was her. But she doesn’t look hurt, and …’

  ‘That’s not the point, you idiot!’

  Pain. Confusion. I writhe slowly on the ground like a spider sprayed with insecticide. I’m deaf, the microphones in my ears overloaded by the gunshot.

  Rolling onto my back, I see the window, cracked from when I hit it. Pete is sprawled on my left. On my right rests a fallen shotgun and a tiny sack of beads. The four hunters huddle around the doorway.

  One of Chloe’s memories hits me in a rush. Graeme once brought home a ‘beanbag round’—a new type of shotgun ammunition which was classified as less-than-lethal rather than non-lethal, since it could rupture internal organs and create fatal internal bleeding.

  I have no organs. Other than the pain, the sack of beads left me unharmed.

  ‘We have to bring her in,’ one of the hunters says.

  I can’t let them take me. They’ll find out what I am.

  I grab the shotgun and climb to my feet.

  One of the hunters sees me.

  ‘She’s awake, she’s awake!’ he yells.

  Blam! I pull the trigger, and the shotgun lurches in my hands. The discharge hits the hunter’s shoulder with the force of a cannonball. He spins like a ballerina before pitching over sideways. Not dead. Not unconscious. But stunned, for now.

  I yank the slider. Chock-chock. An empty cartridge flies out the side, and a new round slots into the chamber, just in time—the second man is raising his gun. My fake heartbeat is like thunder in my ears.

  I pull the trigger. A miss. The beanbag hits the open door, which slams against the wall. I tug on the slider again, frantic. The hunter’s own shotgun is lined up with my face. I fire again.

  The blast hits him in the gut. Even with the bulletproof vest, it bends him in half. All the air whooshes out of him like a soccer ball under a meat-tenderizing hammer.

  Two down. Two to go. Chock-chock.

  But the other hunters have fled out the door. I barely have time to wonder if I’ve won before a grenade flies into the room. Different from the last one—it has a set of yellow bands around it, like a bee.

  I watch it bounce, once, twice, before reacting. I turn to face the window and pull the trigger.

  The cracked glass shatters into hundreds of glimmering pieces. Dropping the gun, I grab Pete and run, launching myself off a chair on my way out.

  The frame clips my shin and I yowl as I hit the grass outside, rolling with the impact. Pete lands face-first and stays there. He’s going to feel terrible when he wakes up. Henrietta will never forgive me if I’ve ruined his good looks.

  Lightning flashes inside the classroom as the stun grenade goes off with a sound like a thunderclap. Any moment now the remaining hunters will come in and see me through the window.

  I haul Pete back up onto my shoulder and run through the wind, trying to get out of the line of fire. Pete’s bloody cheek bounces against my hip. No students or teachers are within view. I sprint around the side of the building, hoping the hunters won’t shoot me in front of hundreds of witnesses.

  Seconds later, the evacuees are in sight. Henrietta spots me coming.

  ‘Pete,’ she screams, and starts running.

  The whole crowd turns to look at her, and then, following her gaze, at me. I feel horribly exposed.

  Henrietta and I meet halfway. I lower Pete to the ground.

  ‘He was just outside one of the exits,’ I say. ‘He must have inhaled some gas while he was trying to evacuate.’

  She doesn’t hear the lie. Holding his chin in one hand, she cries his name over and over again.

  I look back at the school while a circle forms around us. No sign that I’ve been followed. That’s the second time I’ve heard them say they want to bring me in. But what does it mean?

  Mrs Blatt is the closest teacher. ‘People are inside,’ I yell at her. ‘With gas masks. And guns. I saw them through the windows.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Everybody!’ she roars. ‘Get back! To the far side of the oval! Quick!’

  Henrietta ignores her. As the crowd starts to flee around us, she’s giving Pete mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which is silly for two reasons. Firstly, you’re only supposed to do that if the victim has actually stopped breathing, which Pete hasn’t. Secondly, there’s still some toxic gas in his lungs.

  ‘I feel sick,’ Henrietta says, her voice slurred. And then she tumbles sideways, sprawling across Pete’s body like Juliet over Romeo.

  I can’t carry two unconscious teenagers to safety—but Mrs Blatt is already picking up Pete. I grab Henrietta under the armpits.

  The air seems to shudder.

  I turn to the school, searching for the source of the racket. Is it gunfire? More stun grenades? An earthquake?

  A helicopter rises from behind the building.

  It’s a spindly, insectile thing, daubed in matte grey paint. The blades chop the air like a buzz saw. The four hunters are visible through the open door, strapped to the walls inside. Two are clutching their stomachs and shoulders, keeping dislocated bones in place.

  One of the others has a rope of tattoos around his neck, which is wider than his head. It takes me a moment to remember where I’ve seen him before.

  He’s the man who shot Chloe.

  It’s hard to tell behind the reflective goggles, but I could swear he’s staring right at me …

  … and he’s holding an assault rifle.

  Apparently witnesses are not an issue. Terrified of being fired upon, I haul Henrietta away from the school as fast as I can, heading for the cover of the trees on the far side of the oval. The screams of the other students drown out the thudding of my feet against the grass as I wait for the air around me to be shredded by gunfire.

  But the hunters don’t shoot. Whatever their agenda is, a massacre won’t advance it. As I look back, I see six fat tyres fixed to the underside of the helicopter. That must be why nobody heard them land—they drove here. By the time the police realize that they need air support, the hunters will be long gone.

  The helicopter rises and rises until it’s just a fading shadow in the clouds, leaving no sign that it ever existed.

  MAKING A STATEMENT

  The teachers walk around like sheepdogs, herding the students for roll call. I’m standing near the ambulances while the paramedics examine Henrietta and Pete, who lie on stretchers. They’re both conscious now, and it’s hard to tell who looks more embarrassed.

  ‘I don’t even remember coming outside,’ Pete is saying, his voice distorted by the oxygen mask. ‘I was in the bathroom … and then …’

  ‘Memory loss is a pretty common side effect,’ says the paramedic, shining a torch in his face. ‘Look at the light, please.’

  Pete does, his eyes watering. The TV crews zoom in on this from their vantage point outside the school gates. A journalist with painstakingly coiffed hair is on the phone with her production assistant, telling him to go to the hospital with media release forms for Pete and Henrietta to sign. The press already outnumber the teachers and, with more arriving every minute, soon they will outnumber the students.

  Terrorists attack high school in the national capital—this will be in the global news cycle for days.

  ‘Is he going to be OK?’ Henrietta is asking.

  The other paramedic holds her wrist, comparing the speed of her pulse to the ticking of his watch. ‘We’ll know more once we’ve run some tests at the hospital,’ he says.

  ‘She saved your life, Pete,’ I say.

  Pete looks at Hen
rietta. ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ she says, and glares at me. ‘She’s exaggerating.’

  ‘She sucked the poison right out of your lungs,’ I continue. ‘Gave you the kiss of life.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Henrietta hisses. Turning to Pete, she says, ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ he says. I suspect he’s just trying to look tough. ‘I don’t think I even need to go to hospital.’

  ‘Believe me, you do,’ says one of the paramedics. ‘You look like you fell down a flight of stairs. Come on, off we go.’

  Pete disappears as his stretcher is pushed into the back of the ambulance.

  ‘See you at the hospital,’ Henrietta calls.

  ‘I’ll call ahead and book a bed for two,’ I tell her.

  She tries to slap me, but I step out of reach just in time. I laugh, and she tries not to.

  Then I flinch. For a minute, I completely forgot that Henrietta and I never met before today, and that her real best friend is buried under a construction site.

  Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life? Feeling like I’ve been kicked in the chest every time I remember who—or what—I am?

  Henrietta’s face becomes serious, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

  ‘Why did you ask me not to tell anyone where you’d gone?’ she asks.

  ‘They would have come looking for me,’ I say. ‘Then they would’ve put me back with the rest of the group, instead of letting me find Pete.’

  ‘How did you know you could save him?’

  ‘I didn’t save him. He was lying outside the door. He would have been fine.’

  Henrietta grips my hand. ‘I never knew you could be so …’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So something. I don’t know what.’

  I force a smile. ‘Thanks, I guess.’

  The paramedic starts sliding the stretcher into the ambulance.

  ‘I’ll text you when I get home, OK?’ she calls.

  ‘Sure thing.’

  The paramedic closes the doors, and turns to me. He’s a stiff-legged man with the brawny hands of a plumber or a football player. His eyes are colourless beneath a heavy brow.

  ‘I’ll need to examine you, too,’ he says.

  I step back. ‘I never went into the school.’

  He pulls a wristwatch from the pocket of his scrubs, and holds it up like a hypnotist. ‘You went near the doors. You could have been exposed. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a minute.’

  He reaches for my wrist. I snatch my hand away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

  Heads turn towards us. Students. Teachers. Journalists.

  ‘I just want to check your pulse,’ the paramedic says quietly, ‘and your pupil dilation. It won’t hurt.’

  ‘I have my own doctor,’ I say. ‘I’m seeing her after school.’

  There’s a pause. He glances over at the media personnel before looking back at me.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘But make sure you tell her everything that happened today. Got that?’

  I nod. He climbs into the ambulance and shuts the door. Cameras are raised. Journalists take panning shots of the vehicle as it drives away.

  ‘Excuse me,’ a woman with a microphone calls.

  I look over at her. ‘Yes, you,’ she says, beckoning and flashing some perfect teeth. ‘Want to be on TV?’

  I shake my head and turn away.

  ‘Chloe!’ Mr Fresner is waving.

  I jog over. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You saw the terrorists, right?’ he says. Tufts of his hair are poking out from under his cap—he must have pulled it on quickly during the evacuation.

  ‘Just through the window,’ I say. ‘I didn’t get a good look at them.’

  ‘Well, the police would like to ask you some questions.’

  ‘The police? I …’

  He glances over and I see a familiar policewoman standing nearby. She looks at me, and I look at her.

  In any other city, the highway patrol wouldn’t be investigating terrorist attacks. But I live in the nation’s capital, where the local police are also the federal police. Lucky me.

  ‘Chloe Zimetski,’ she says.

  ‘Good memory,’ I say. It comes out sounding friendly, I think.

  ‘I’m Detective Anders,’ she says, rolling up the sleeves of her ocean-blue windbreaker. ‘This is Detective Ericson.’

  The other police officer looms like a statue of a politician—larger than life and improbably strong. Under a sunburned nose, his jaw protrudes like the bow of a houseboat. He doesn’t look at me. He’s staring up at the sky, as though he expects the helicopter to come back down out of it.

  ‘How’s the singing going?’ Anders asks, in a voice that implies she doesn’t expect the truth.

  I shrug. ‘I haven’t done any since you saw me last night.’

  Fresner raises his eyebrows at me.

  Anders tells him, ‘Thanks for your time. We’ll call you if we need anything else.’

  He nods, and turns back to the milling crowd of students.

  Anders brings up something on her PDA. Possibly my address and licence number. ‘So,’ she says. ‘You spoke with the attackers.’

  ‘What? No. I just saw them.’

  ‘But you heard them talking, right?’

  Through a window, with the siren going? Not likely. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I only saw them.’

  Anders rests one hand on her hip. ‘Sorry. I must have misunderstood. Can you tell me what they looked like?’

  ‘They were wearing gas masks, and gloves. All their clothes were black. They all had weapons, too.’

  Ericson passes a tablet computer to Anders, who hands it to me. On the screen, a goggled man with a long-distance Taser shoots down a firing range at a target.

  ‘Did they have these?’ Anders asks.

  I shake my head.

  She taps the screen. ‘How about these?’

  The same man, now wearing ear protection, is taking aim with an enormous tube. I can just make out the words ‘weaponized noise cannon’ on the side. When he pulls a lever on the top, it emits a shrieking sound like a table saw carving through chains.

  ‘No,’ I say, wondering why the cops assume the terrorists had these bizarre weapons. ‘They were carrying Remington pump-action shotguns.’

  Anders raises an eyebrow. ‘You know your guns.’

  ‘My dad works for defence.’

  ‘Does he have a shotgun?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Any guns at all?’

  ‘Why are we talking about my dad?’

  Anders shrugs, and takes the tablet away. ‘Just curious. Were they carrying anything else?’

  ‘Not that I saw.’

  Still looking at the sky, Ericson says, ‘Grenades?’ He talks like Stephen Hawking, with a voice devoid of expression.

  The chemical grenade on the floor wouldn’t have been visible from any exterior windows. ‘Not that I saw,’ I say. ‘But I didn’t get a good look at the equipment on their belts.’

  ‘Any other identifying marks?’ Anders asks. ‘On their clothing, or their skin?’

  ‘When the helicopter flew away, one of them took off his gas mask and I saw he had tattoos around his neck.’

  ‘What kind of tattoos?’

  ‘I was too far away to see. It was some kind of pattern, dark, and it went from here to here.’ I point at spots on my throat.

  ‘How is it that you saw the soldiers and no one else did?’

  ‘I was on the other side of the school. Around there.’ I point.

  ‘Where you rescued Peter.’

  ‘Pete. That’s right.’

  ‘And you knew he was there because …’ She consults her PDA. ‘“Henrietta” told you?’

  ‘She told me he was missing. I didn’t know where he was until I found him.’

  ‘Why didn’t Henrietta go looking herself?’

  I can feel the net of lies tightening around me.

  ‘You�
�d have to ask her,’ I say. ‘She was kind of panicked. Maybe she figured he would be inside, where we couldn’t get to him.’

  ‘That seems like a fair assumption. Why did you think differently?’

  ‘I didn’t. I just thought I might see him through a window, and be able to direct the fire department when they arrived.’

  ‘And instead you found him on the ground,’ Anders says. ‘Just outside one of the doors.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you carried him all the way here, to the rest of the group, by yourself?’

  Uh oh. ‘He’s not that heavy,’ I say. ‘Or maybe it just felt that way, because of the adrenaline.’

  ‘We’ll need your number,’ Ericson says. ‘In case we have to explore more lines of questioning with you.’

  I tell them Chloe’s mobile number. They already know where I live and where I go to school, so refusing wouldn’t do me much good.

  ‘Thanks for your cooperation,’ Anders says. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  They both turn to leave.

  ‘One more thing,’ Anders says, turning back. ‘I asked the bar staff at the Phoenix. No one remembers your performance last night.’

  I fight to keep my expression neutral. Would she really have done that?

  No. It’s a test.

  ‘I wasn’t at the Phoenix,’ I say. ‘I was at the Potbelly.’

  ‘That explains it,’ she says, without a hint of surprise. ‘Thanks again.’

  They disappear into the crowd, muttering to each other. Perhaps they’re talking about me. Perhaps they just want me to think they are.

  ~

  The principal announces that the school won’t be safe until the gas dissipates in six to ten hours. Now that the roll has been checked, we’re supposed to spend the rest of the afternoon studying at home. Judging by her expression, she knows that this will be interpreted as permission to take the day off.

  ‘I can’t stop you from talking to the media,’ she adds, ‘but I would strongly discourage it. Until we know exactly what happened here, anything you say is likely to be misleading, and I’d rather none of you looked foolish on national TV.’ She leans forward. ‘Think of how embarrassing that would be.’

  Fear of embarrassment is a powerful incentive. Short of telling the kids their hair or make-up was a mess, this warning is more effective than anything else she could have said. Duly chastened, the students leave without responding to the cries of the press. Some younger kids get on the phone to call their parents. Others bounce towards the bus stop, bickering about which shopping centre to go to and which fast food chain to gorge themselves at when they arrive. Already the attack is on its way towards being forgotten.