Macka’s finger hovered over the SAVE circle. Then she let out a groan and flung open the pod door. ‘No, no, no!’ She emerged from under the blanket and strode away down the length of the dock, past the black vans, each of which probably held a pod like hers, containing its full complement of species. Did each game come down to this point? Were there dozens of kids—no, hundreds, she thought, her eyes sweeping over the ranked rows of pods at the end of the dock—hiding endangered animals in their bedrooms, keeping them in cages, feeding them whatever they could get them to eat, or watching them die of starvation, or some disease they’d caught from the family cat, or just of natural causes, unable to find a mate? Or did everyone end up deleting their animals, going through the process of being shot, watching the screen go black?
Macka hugged herself, gazing up into the vast spaces of the warehouse, which might have been the night sky except that her footsteps echoed back at her from it. She had no doubt that to save the rat-kangaroo would mean having it plunge out of the game for the last time, smellier and heavier than ever, and somehow more wild, more real. To snatch it from under the hunters’ noses would be a laugh—she wondered if she’d get to see their reactions—but then it’d be up to her to give it a better chance than it had out in the wild.
She thought of it bowed down and shivering in Razz’s cage, its distress releasing wave after wave of sour scent. She shook her head. She remembered it pacing up and down, like someone in solitary confinement, in her bedroom. ‘God, I don’t know! Where else can I put it?’ Her voice came back at her in a shout from the steel girders holding up the roof.
She turned and looked up at the wall of darkened offices, empty of anyone who might have helped her. Then again, maybe they’d have said, like the Koori girl did, no, it’s your turn, you don’t need us. Maybe they would have left her in the lurch, too, stuck between two unpleasant choices.
Macka crouched down and rocked back and forth on her toes, her head buried in her arms. Her decision was making itself felt, just as the cold struck up from the cement floor through the soles of her runners. She didn’t feel happy about either. Even once she’d done whatever she was going to do, there were things to consider, like how to get out of this place (possibly with a wild animal in tow) and how to get home. How long was this going to take—how long had it taken already? Macka wasn’t even sure she knew what day it was. Or rather, what night. The grey light had dissolved into almost total darkness, with only a pallid yellow glow from the pod door, half obstructed by the forklift. Macka had never felt so alone in her life as she stood up and slowly walked back along the dock. Or so powerful—the very air seemed to have adjusted itself to her decision, lifting its cool pressure from her, softening to let her through.
She seated herself in the pod, closed the door firmly, reached forward and lightly touched the centre of the SAVE circle.
‘What’s this place made of?’ cried Macka’s dad, whacking at the wall of The Fun Company with a crowbar.
‘Oh, give it away, Dave,’ said Trish miserably, sitting in a slumped heap on the bleached grass, which was frosty-looking in the moonlight. ‘If we can’t get in, I can’t see how a thirteen-year-old girl could manage it.’
They’d explored every surface, every seam of the building. It remained impenetrable.
‘If she was in there,’ Vinnie said, ‘she’d probably have heard us knocking and come out.’
‘Maybe it’s as impossible to get out as it is to get in. And anyway, what would she be doing in there?’ Trish gave Vinnie a sour look. ‘Oh, I know, “putting the animal back in its pod”. Sure, Vinnie, sure.’
Vinnie had never felt so stupid for telling the truth. He wished he’d lied and said the animal came from some bully at VideoZone, someone he didn’t know, whose address he didn’t have a clue about. Anything would have been better than Macka’s parents’ blank refusal to believe him, the pitying scorn they’d poured on him. ‘You must think we’re complete idiots, Vinnie,’ Dave had said. ‘Either that, or Lou’s spun you this story to cover up for someone else.’
Vinnie was beginning to wonder about that. The story had sounded so gross, so pathetically unlikely, when he’d spelt it out to the adults. He thought he must have been a bit of a sucker to believe Macka in the first place. The more he tried to reconcile her behaviour since last night with the possibility that she had lied to him, the more confused he became. If it were all a pretence, she’d suddenly become a lot better at pretending. As far as he knew—but standing in the moonlight outside The Fun Company he was beginning to think he didn’t know an awful lot—she hadn’t bothered lying to him about anything before. Why start now?
Trish stood up suddenly, brushing chopped grass fibres from her long skirt. ‘Forget it, Dave, let’s find a phone. Maybe she’s turned up at home.’ She stalked away towards the car.
Dave and Vinnie looked at each other. ‘I’m sorry,’ Vinnie said. ‘I’ve told you all that I know. I’m not pretending—’
Dave looked after Trish and shook his head as if to get rid of an insect that was bothering him. ‘Come on,’ he said roughly.
Vinnie climbed into the back of his mum’s car, feeling as if he’d been slapped across the face and sent to his room. Dave climbed in beside Trish. Instead of reaching forward to turn on the ignition, Trish sat with her head bent, and Vinnie heard a sharp, wet intake of breath. He wished he could vaporise himself, just dissolve into the air, just stop existing.
Dave slid across the seat and put one of his all-encompassing arms around Trish’s shoulders. ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he said, in a voice that gave even the mortified Vinnie a twinge of hope, ‘we’ll find her. Like you say, maybe she’s sitting at home right now, wondering where on earth we’ve got to.’ He gave a desperate little laugh.
Vinnie pushed a rather squashed box of tissues into Dave’s other hand, and sank down into the back seat. He heard Trish blow her nose loudly, and in a strained, hopeless voice say, ‘We’ve been such lousy, slack parents, you know? And now we’ve gone and lost her. It’s like punishment. We’ll always regret—’
‘Sssh, sssh. Come on now. Don’t give up yet. She’s only been missing a few hours. We’ll find her.’
‘We’ve got to do something about our lives. We’re so aimless, you know? We’re not exactly an inspiration to our kids, are we? And we live in such a bloody slum, we really ought to—’
‘Trish, just cool it for a minute, will you?’ Dave’s voice was gentle but determined. ‘We’ll talk about this later, hey? Right now, we’ve got to find a phone. We’ll call home, then we’ll call the police. Then we’ll have done everything we can, okay?’
Trish nodded, gave a last stifled sob and blew her nose again. ‘Okay,’ she said dully, and the engine shuddered into life.
The tail-end of the explosion shattered the silence of the pod, and Macka felt the most horrific pain begin at her fingertip and gush through her until her whole body shook with it. It was as if every one of her cells was being flattened out and given corners, and loudly protesting at such treatment. A shout escaped her and she snatched her hand back from the screen. The hand shone and, looking as carefully as she could through the pain, she could see that its edges were stepped, as the rat-kangaroo’s nose had been.
She felt her body being bent towards the screen, and there was an ugly, grinding roar in her ears like heavy machinery under great strain. ‘No, I don’t want to go in there!’ she yelled, trying to brace herself against the control panel, but her pixelated hands had no grip; she was like a shiny piece of cloth, collapsing into the rectangle of the image.
The brilliance of sunlight blinded her, was all around, and the tiny pod-space snapped open to the endless space of the rat-kangaroo’s plain. Her hands were on its body—she felt the bullet lodge painlessly in the back of her wrist at the same moment as she registered the animal’s state of motionless shock. She snatched it up, turned and ran from the two men with all the strength she could muster in her fluid, pain-filled legs.
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br /> The hunters’ shouts battered at her back; they hurt so much that her mind didn’t have the space to enjoy their astonishment. The animal in her arms was staring-eyed and stiff. Its shock might kill it; it might already be too late.
It was hard to run. Something outside her seemed to be guiding her steps in a specific direction—down the hill towards the construction site—but the steps themselves were for her to deal with. Her nerves shrieked with the impact of her feet on the ground; her bones seemed to bend and yield like rubber. It took an immense amount of energy to keep going.
Another shout struck her in the middle of the back. She heard the blast of the rifle and felt another bullet catch her clothing and slice across the skin of her calf. She tried to look over her shoulder, but her head was too heavy to move. She couldn’t tell whether the men were metres or centimetres behind her.
She was running among the stakes planted around the construction site. Their red flags burned into her eyes and left an after-image that cluttered her view. Running towards the front-end loader was like charging through a cyclone; the engine sound threatened to knock her over backwards. Still she was guided on, right up to it and then, somehow, through it; she felt the engine churn horribly in her stomach and die.
‘Hey! Let me stop!’ she yelled as she burst out the other side. She felt as if her cloth-self were being gradually chopped to pieces. But the energy to run was still being demanded of her, step after rubbery step. She was running at the group of workmen by the white hut, the hunters’ yells and the swearing of the loader driver punching her onward.
The men looked up as she approached. ‘Jesus wept!’ one said, and the words hit Macka’s face and stung. One of the men stood in front of her, his arms out wide to stop her, his face full of determination and fear. Macka felt their foreheads clash as she plunged through him, felt him fall to the ground behind her. For a moment the pain in her head throbbed most.
She ran through the site office—a brief impression of overcooked air and whirling papers—then the spinifex country opened up before her, and she was able to lengthen her stride. She heard a last bullet whizz over her head, and the noises from the site began to fall behind.
She kept running until there was only the sound of her own breath grating in and out. Then she slowed, and fell to her knees in the thin shade of a clump of grey-green bushes. Barely able to think, she placed the rat-kangaroo on the sand beside her. It lay limp, its eyes closed, as she reached under the bush and began to dig out handfuls of sand from the roots.
Clouds of dark specks kept floating into her eyes as she worked, and she felt terribly hurried. The pain was intensifying and her movements were less and less coordinated; soon she’d be unable to do anything useful. Her breath, caught under the bush, was hot against her face, reeking of spent sparklers.
At last she finished the burrow—it was messy, but large enough for the rat-kangaroo. With as much gentleness as she could command from hands that shook and flickered before her eyes, she lifted the animal, slid it under the lowest branches and laid it in the sandy hollow. It didn’t move, and she knew her hands wouldn’t be sensitive enough to feel for a pulse.
‘Food’s what you need,’ she said, trying to overcome a great powerlessness that began to infect her bones. She stood up and looked around for the bright Christmas-balls of a nut tree. She could see none, but a foul smell reached her on the breeze. Remembering the big man’s face, screwed up as he smelt the fruit, she followed it, and found a low bush, heavily laden with dusty, dun-coloured globes.
‘Geez, things look different through a rat-kangaroo’s eyes,’ she muttered, bending over with great difficulty and picking off four fruits. The smell of them made her dizzy and nauseated, and their slight weight was almost impossible to lift.
She creaked back to the burrow, and crouched down, almost crying from the pain, to look at the rat-kangaroo. It lay perfectly still; she couldn’t see, through the black speckles across her eyes, whether its side was moving with its breaths or not.
Fumbling, she tore at the thin shells that covered the nuts, trying not to drop them and make the impossible task of retrieving them necessary. Inside were ugly little bunched nuts, like tiny pickled brains, a weak-coffee brown. They gave off a strong stink of rotting vegetables and meat. If Macka had had the strength, she would have gagged and retched. As it was, tears of revulsion oozed up into her eyes.
She laid the nuts in front of the rat-kangaroo, then withdrew her arm, knowing there was no more she could do. Peering at the animal, she thought she saw its nostrils open slightly, but she couldn’t be sure. The black specks were gathering into clots, and Macka’s bones wouldn’t support her any longer. She collapsed sideways and felt herself roll onto her back.
Above her in the spinning sky, she heard the bird’s rasping call. She opened her eyes a crack and saw it, high up and circling higher. She thought she raised her arm and shook her fist at it. She thought she shouted ‘Stuff you, bird!’, however weakly. Then the clots swam together, and her thoughts were blotted out completely.
A great distance away, a telephone was ringing. It would stop, and after a time begin again, its urgency losing itself in a gigantic emptiness.
That emptiness was broken into by the hiss of a door opening, and muffled voices. The phone began again, and was quickly answered.
Footsteps approached, many soft rubber soles on concrete. A man’s voice said clearly, ‘Get Joan, quick. And let’s get this tarp out of the way.’ There followed much sliding and thudding, and cool air flowed across Macka’s face.
Someone was very close; she could feel the force of their examination of her. ‘God almighty,’ said a man, ‘you sure she’s alive?’
‘Yes, she’s alive,’ said a woman’s voice right near her. ‘She just needs a little time.’
‘She’s taken a beating all right. What’s happened to her hand?’
Macka felt her hand lifted, and a cold pain shot up her arm and pushed the blackness over her mind again.
She rose once more to hear a clink of metal and feel the coldness shift out of her wrist. Soft exclamations sounded around her.
‘Nasty,’ said the woman.
‘Why would someone take a shot at her, for crying out loud?’
‘Stupidity. No other reason. Look, there it goes.’
There was a pause.
‘Like mercury,’ said a man. ‘And then it just evaporates.’
‘Did we get it out in time?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the woman. Again Macka felt herself being examined intently, the woman’s gaze like a firm voice calling her name.
She hung just below a layer of strong pain. She didn’t want to wake up and have to pass through it. She tried to shake her head and two types of pain collided and exploded.
‘Look, she’s shivering,’ said a man, and a sigh went through the people around her. She felt a cloth being put over her, tucked around her shoulders.
‘Is it safe to lift her?’
‘I’d say so,’ said the woman, and Macka moaned in protest as she was picked up and carried. She opened her eyes a fraction and saw a blurred pattern of rafters, and a line of black blocks that were The Fun Company’s vans.
They laid her down in an office. Something cold was put against her forehead, and someone fiddled with the leg of her jeans, snipping it off at the calf.
‘Will it take long to heal?’ said the someone.
‘Not as long as a normal wound,’ the woman said. Macka felt the pressure of a hand on her forehead, and then the cold was removed and replaced by a soft stroking. How could something hurt so much and feel so nice at the same time? ‘There’ll be scars, though, of one kind or another.’ And then she really was calling Macka’s name, drawing her up from somewhere very deep and dark and safe. ‘Macka. Lou. Louise Rudge. Wake up. Come back, Macka.’
Macka’s eyelids felt like two slabs of dough. She tried to heave them open and half succeeded.
‘That’s right, Lou. That’s r
ight, Macka. Come on back to us.’
Macka’s eyes sank closed again. ‘How d’you know my name?’ she said through a mouth that felt as if it hadn’t spoken for a hundred years.
‘Your friend Vincent phoned to let us know you were here. Your family’s been looking for you, Macka.’
‘What’s the time?’ croaked Macka. ‘And who are you?’
‘It’s Monday morning, nine-fifteen, and I’m Joan.’
Macka’s eyes opened more easily the second time. She met Joan’s dark eyes—brown eyes, normal, shining eyes—and scowled through the pain. ‘How long was I out for?’
‘The chamber’s record shows that you exited the program at twelve minutes past midnight on Saturday. So, quite a while.’
Macka lifted her hand. A pad of shimmering white cloth was taped to her wrist.
‘Best not to move,’ said Joan, ‘while all this is going on. You’ve been pretty bashed about. We should have you just about fixed by the time your parents get here, but there’ll be some bruising to explain to them.’
The woman seemed so matter of fact, so calm. ‘Do people get bashed up by your machines very often?’ asked Macka accusingly.
Joan grinned and ran a hand through her crimson hair. ‘Only occasionally. Most people just feel very tired. The transmission isn’t all that good for anything organic. But it depends.’ She looked sober again.
‘Has anyone ever been killed?’ said Macka.
‘We’ve lost a couple of people,’ Joan said. ‘But we still have hopes of getting them back. We’re working on it.’ She was quite unruffled, which Macka found a bit spooky, but she hardly seemed cruel.
‘Did my rat-kangaroo make it out?’ Macka asked suddenly.
Joan nodded. ‘Along with three new specimens,’ she beamed.
‘Are they real? I mean, can they eat real food, and—’
‘Once they recover from the transmission process, they’ll be indistinguishable from the real thing. They can eat, drink, reproduce, whatever.’
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