The undersized rear seat was not a good fit for Madeleine, Fisher and Nash, particularly with Madeleine at the bottom. She wriggled out as Noi came to the end of the long one-way street and slewed right onto the main road.
"Hook a left at Blair," Gavin recommended, balancing Emily on his lap. "Are they coming after us?"
Fisher stared back, his expression closed. "They don't seem able to move as fast as a car," he said slowly. He looked at Madeleine, currently sitting mostly on Nash's lap. "Did you do that on purpose?"
She shook her head.
"I think you hurt it," Gavin said. "They weren't keen to come near you after."
"What do we do now?" Emily's voice was high.
"I don't see any other option than to get out of the city," Noi said. "Even though everyone's going to be totally paranoid about Blues and Greens, and there's a huge chance of getting locked up if we're found. But better locked up than possessed. Did anyone from your school get taken?"
"Chris." Nash glanced at Fisher, but didn't find any answer in Fisher's puzzled expression. "Hammad and Ryan were there as well, but I didn't see what happened to them."
"We've no way of knowing how much they can learn from the people they take over. Language, obviously, but they might know about your school from your friend."
Nash nodded. "We need to warn everyone there – if they don't know already – then grab what we can and go."
"This car has about a quarter of a tank left." Noi pushed down on the accelerator. "But we've been collecting car keys back at Finger Wharf. And boats, though they're probably not much advantage for getting away from flying balls of light."
Emily distracted them then by pulling a bag of coconut ice from the glove box and passing it around. In a car full of Blues this was an immediate silencer, and Madeleine was particularly grateful, shaking as she grabbed a handful of pink and white squares and worked her way through them.
At Noi's speed and with clear roads it was a short trip to Rushcutters Bay, and Gavin directed them through a wide-open iron gate to a small car park surrounded by clipped hedges and many-windowed buildings. The white hatchback was there waiting for them, its occupants clustered around Pan as he stood arguing with a dozen boys holding cricket bats.
"I'm going to turn the car for a quick getaway," Noi said, after a brief survey.
She was speaking to empty seats, as Gavin and Nash were already out and bounding forward. Fisher was slower to move, glancing up into the sky before following.
"What the hell's this, Matt?" Gavin said, striding up to confront a tall, tanned boy with brown hair. "We've got to move, not argue."
"You've got to move," the boy, Matt, replied. "All you Blues. We won't stop you going, but there's no way you're staying here when any of you could have one of those things inside you."
"All us Blues?!" Gavin exploded. "What shit are you pulling now?"
"They're not interested in Greens, Gav," a different boy said apologetically. "We were watching on TV, and they ignored all the Greens. They only went for Blues. Matt's right – even if none of you are...whatever, there's too much chance you'll draw them here."
"And in what way are the cricket bats going to help?" Nash asked, his beautiful voice mild yet commanding. "We are only here to warn you – unnecessary as that is – and to get our bags and be gone. I would suggest you do the same."
He walked straight at the heart of the crowd, head high and stride scornful, and they wavered, wilted, and stepped aside.
"Tossers," Pan muttered, following.
"Oh, eat it Rickard." The boy called Matt threw the cricket bat after Pan, which was a mistake since Pan had been waiting for it, and the thick wooden bat bounced spectacularly off his shield and through a window.
Nash whirled protectively to stand by Pan, and the two groups tensed, but further words or action were cut short by Noi, leaning on the horn of Tyler's car.
"Can we save the dick swinging until after we've escaped from the aliens?" she shouted into the silence the horn left behind. "Seriously, Blue, Green, Purple, whatever – now is the time for running and hiding. You think just because those things are only possessing Blues they're going to happily ignore Greens? Go get your stuff, all of you, get into cars, and get the hell out of the city!"
They listened. Within moments only Noi, Madeleine and Emily remained in the car park.
"What were they thinking?" Emily asked, close to tears. "A Blue could turn a Green into a smear without even trying."
"They're afraid." Noi sighed, and ran a hand over her eyes. "When you're afraid, sometimes it's easier to be angry."
Madeleine, suffering a raging thirst after her handful of coconut ice, spotted a tap on one side of the car park and fished an empty, dented water bottle out from her well-mashed shoulder bag. She was drinking thirstily when a thin, oscillating sound made her gulp and then desperately try not to cough. Noi pulled Emily behind the nearest hedge and ducked down and Madeleine followed suit, though the hedges near the tap were half the height, forcing her to lie full-length between bush and building to have any hope of concealment.
Eyes streaming from suppressed coughing, Madeleine peered up through dense leaves, trying to track the source of the noise. Was there – yes. Floating lightly over the roof of the building opposite was a ball of light. She pressed down into the dirt and leaf litter, sure she could hear an echo of the thing's song. More than one of them.
The memory of the lightest touch stopped her breath, and she guessed, knew, that it was the same one, the bright, rich blue one which had been so close. It had followed her, and no amount of branch or leaf could hide her.
The song died down as the star moved further into the school, giving no sign it was aware of three Blue girls. Madeleine lifted her head cautiously, but across the car park Noi immediately made a lowering gesture. They would wait.
Boys began appearing. Three Greens, running straight through the gates without even glancing around. One of the younger Blues who'd been at the beach, slipping into the back seat of the white hatchback and crouching down into the foot well, sitting his bag on top of him as partial camouflage. Another group, all Greens, piling into a four wheel drive and gunning the engine, waiting for a final friend before roaring off, swerving around Tyler's empty car.
Pan and Nash emerged from Madeleine's side of the car park, crossed without seeing her and paused beside the two driverless cars until Noi beckoned them over for a hasty, whispered conference. Then, as Shaun, Gavin and Fisher appeared among a large clump of Greens, she signalled a dash for the car.
Tensed for the return of the oscillating song, Madeleine was unprepared for a sudden chorus, louder and yet more distant than the encounter at the beach. It wasn't coming from anything in the school, was strangely pervasive, overwhelming. Ahead of her the group of boys stopped and turned, orienting toward it.
"That's the Spire," Emily said, as Madeleine reached the car.
Noi didn't pause, leaping into the driver's seat and starting the engine. "Care later. Leave now."
Madeleine obediently climbed in back as Pan and Nash headed for the white hatchback.
"Shaun?" Gavin, about to join them, darted back. "C'mon man, we've got to move."
Shaun didn't react, listening intently to the wordless, fluctuating noise.
"He's got the keys," Pan said
With a swift, comprehensive glance at a dozen boys, all Greens, all standing motionless staring in the same direction, Nash reversed course, he and Pan climbing into the sports car. Fisher, who had stowed his bag in the boot, took the front seat and a lap full of Emily.
"Gav! Come on!"
Trying to shake some response out of Shaun, Gavin glanced back and that was the worst of timing because he saw their horrified reaction but not the deep blue kite shape which flowed down from the roof and settled in an embrace around him.
Noi let the clutch out, then stamped immediately on the brakes as the hidden boy erupted from the white hatchback and threw himself across the s
ports car's back seat, heavy bag thumping against the car door until Pan dragged it in.
The car leaped forward, engine rising from a purr to a roar, and they left the school and a dozen unmoving boys behind them.
Chapter Nine
Staring back, Madeleine could see the lone strawberry blonde boy who walked to the gate. Watching them go.
"Gav! Bastard things! We'll get them for this!" Pan writhed under the weight of bags and the boy lying across all three back seat occupants. "Shit. Fuck them all! Shit, shit, shit. Damn it, I need better words."
He took a deep breath, and boiled out with:
"I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the Earth! You think I'll weep. No, I'll not weep."
He was shouting, eyes bright and wet, punctuating the sentences with thumps on the legs of the boy lying on top of him.
"I have full cause of weeping, but this heart will break into a hundred thousand fragments before I'll weep! Oh Fool, I shall go mad!"
Noi darted a glance back at him, then at Emily's gasp swore herself and swerved around the three Greens who had left first, standing just around a bend in the road. The boy lying on top, a spiky-haired Asian kid, slid dangerously sideways, and Madeleine and Nash grabbed to stop him zipping over the side.
"Be Shakespearian later," Nash told Pan. "Focus on the fact that he's not dead. For all we know these things hop from person to person, and there's a chance we can get Gav back."
Pan punched the inside of the nearest door, a thump to make them all wince, but he stopped talking.
"We've been terraformed," said the boy in Madeleine's lap, his lightly-accented voice edged with a kind of disbelieving, acid delight. "They made us habitable."
"It's what they've done to the Greens which concerns me," Nash said. "There are so many more Greens than Blues, and they seem to have all been impacted at once. We had best not spend long at the Wharf getting those cars."
"Get out of the city as soon as possible," Emily muttered.
"No." "Perhaps not."
Noi and Fisher, speaking together.
"Why not?" Madeleine asked, startled. "Even if we get locked up, it's better than...that."
"Because of the Greens. Because we don't know nearly enough about what's going on. How far does that sound carry? Is it going to tell them to do anything more than stand gaping?" Noi roared down a wider road. "There're Greens in every direction, in all the surrounding towns."
"We need a solid plan on where to go, and how to get there unseen," Fisher said. He had been very quiet, uncertain, but now seemed to have rediscovered his drive. "The problem is finding a place where we can wait safely and gather information."
"That's taken care of," Noi said. "We had a Plan B."
After the swiftest of trips they hurried up to Tyler's apartment, squashing into one elevator, tensely searching for any sign of other people, straining for an individual voice over the song of the Spire.
"Someone pack the edibles while we grab our stuff," Noi said, scooping up a line of keys.
The TV went on while Madeleine was in Tyler's wardrobe, and when she emerged the screen showed a couple of hundred people, all staring in the same direction.
"All of the world," Nash said. "A simultaneous attack."
Madeleine turned to stick a large note on the fridge: "T – Don't stay here. They know it. – M" She printed her mobile number at the bottom, in case he'd lost it, then did a quick tour of the room, collecting stray brushes and the bag of pads and pencils she'd put together while hunting nappies and baby formula. Most of her supplies were already in the bolthole, a piece of forethought she owed to Emily.
"Right." Noi emerged, two bags hooked over her shoulders. "We don't have far to go, but it's critical we go quick, quiet and unseen. Let's head down to the central hall."
They accomplished this without much difficulty, the cloak-and-dagger peering about not even comical when they were all so sick and nervous.
"Good," Noi said, as they emerged from the elevator. "Now–"
"Girls! Wait there!"
Madeleine was not the only one who gasped at the sudden voice from above. The elevator's doors closed behind them and, exchanging glances, they watched it go up.
"Wait," Noi murmured. "If it's an attack, run out to the visitor parking – through the big entryway on the driveway side. I've a key to one of those cars."
"But who is it?" Pan asked, eyeing the descending figure.
"Not a clue," Noi said, as a beautifully-dressed woman – all silk and pearls, her platinum hair perfectly coiffed – stepped out.
She was holding a gift-wrapped box, complete with extravagant, curling bow. "Girls," she said, her voice cultured and assured, "I wanted to give you a small thank you before I left." Smiling, she held out the box, which Noi accepted blankly. "Take care of yourselves."
Without another word she turned and walked back into the elevator, her heels clicking.
"Hello Twilight Zone," Pan said, as it descended.
"Have you seen her before?" Noi asked, and Madeleine shook her head.
"Something you can discuss later–" Fisher began, and stopped as Noi suddenly gaped.
"Take Him Away Lady! It has to be! Holy flipping hell."
"You think so?" Madeleine stared at the elevator, but the woman was already out of sight. Could that hoarse, frantic whisper really have come from a person who looked like that?
"Has to be," Noi repeated. "And, yeah, now is not the time." She spun on her heel, craning to look in every direction. "Total fail on quick, quiet and unseen, but we're going to have to risk it. Come on."
They were already near the north end of the long central hall, so it was a short trip to the aerial bridge joining the main building to the smaller block at the very end of the wharf.
"This is called the North Building," Noi said, after they had crossed, and the outside world was safely closed away once again. "When we were doing our check-the-neighbours shtick we didn't find anyone alive in here. Almost all the apartments on the east side didn't have anyone in them at all." She paused as Madeleine unlocked the door of their chosen bolthole. "One advantage of this one is that with the help of a ladder we prepared earlier you can jump the patio fences and dash for either the cars, or the boat moorings. There's comparatively limited entry points, we can move through the whole sub-building without risk of being seen, and there's a good hiding spot if anyone actually comes this far."
"You don't think it too close to where you were before?" Nash asked.
"I think that right now there's very few places where we can get in and out without having an encounter like we just had with the Take Him Away Lady, where there's no-one on the other side of a wall to hear us, where there's no easy line of sight through the windows. We might want to move again, sure, but I'm not driving madly through the city till I have a better idea of what's going on."
"Makes sense," Fisher said.
"Why do you call her the Take Him Away Lady?" Pan asked, and Noi explained as they dumped their bags just past the entry hall.
The apartment was enormous, taking up the eastern half of the ground floor of the North Building, with a spiral staircase leading up to another quarter floor on the level above. Sliding doors led to an expansive patio bordered by potted hedges and a glass safety fence which looked directly out into the harbour. The sprawling lounge, dining and kitchen area which backed on to this was full of sunlight, and the room was dotted with touches which showed that this was a family home: children's drawings stuck to the fridge, clusters of photos, and a stuffed unicorn arranged in one of the chairs. The warm comfort of the place seemed to make the day's losses all the crueller, and they collapsed onto the wide lounges, suddenly depleted.
"Damn it," Pan muttered again.
Nash dropped a hand to his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. The taller boy looked worried, but turned his attention to the room. "This is Min," he said belatedly, while Fisher sorted through a collection of remote
s.
"Pleased to escape with you," the younger boy said.
"Welcome, welcome." Noi gestured vaguely around the room, then paused and pulled out her phone, answering it as Fisher managed to turn on the wall-mounted television.
Images of silently-standing Greens were interspersed with scenes of unfurling stars, of fleeing Blues embraced to become abruptly composed and purposeful. The stars had found large groups of Blues everywhere, whether gathered to test their powers, or in the survival communities which had begun to form: swooping into dormitories, share-homes, repurposed hospital wards. One group of stars had even travelled far out beyond the fringes of their city, to a quarantine facility outside the dust zone.
"Hiding mightn't be a plan after all," Pan said restively. "They don't seem to have any problem finding Blues."
"The one at the school passed right by us and didn't stop," Emily said.
"None of these places have been hidden," Fisher pointed out. "Most are Safe Zone sites whose locations have been broadcast. And we could hardly have been more noisy about the testing sessions."
"Aliens who surf the internet." Pan shook his head. "Great."
Noi's fragmentary conversation reminded Madeleine to hunt out her own phone, and she was not surprised to see a half-dozen missed calls from home. The spectacle of Madeleine Cost being thrown to the sands of Bondi Beach had already flashed up twice among the stream of TV images.
Moving to sit on the spiral stair, she tried her home number
"Hi Mum."
"Oh, thank God!" A pause. "It – it is you, isn't it?"
A tiny snort of laughter escaped Madeleine, and then her eyes stung and she felt ill and exhausted. "I don't think the 'phone home' stuff applies to all aliens," she said unevenly.
"Are you safe? Are you hurt?"
"Just a little shaken up. I'm with friends. We'll try to leave the city as soon as we figure out a safe way to do it. Mum, I think you and Dad should go now. Go to Gran's."
And All the Stars Page 10
