by A. A. Bell
The kookaburra didn’t shoot Sergeant Hawthorn, Mira thought. And she felt sure Kitching had no relationship of any value with his brother, so she doubted his testimony would stand up to scrutiny. But as she heard a van door slide open, and Kitching’s pleas give way to sobs, for a brief moment she did pity him. He was a coward. She felt stronger by comparison, but it was an empty superiority and lasted barely a moment before she was drowning again under a crashing wave of grief for Ben.
Dust, leaves and twigs whipped around Mira as the chopper drew down to land, but she didn’t bother to shield herself. The tiny projectiles tapped her skin in time with the first drops of blue rain.
‘Mira!’ called a pair of familiar voices. The sound of jogging boots carried the doctors towards her from the chopper. Mira was barely able to raise a smile for them.
‘Are you okay?’ Zhou asked, clasping her arm.
She nodded, alert to the sound of more footsteps approaching. ‘Ben?’ she asked, hopeful to the point of almost seeing him there before her.
‘Sorry, no,’ Zhou replied. ‘We flew him to hospital, but there was nothing more we could do, so we …’
Mira felt faint, the world blurring around her; past and future melded into a single tight sheet of white agony, wrapping tighter and tighter. Still falling, she clamped her eyes shut against a future she could not bear. Strong arms swept her up before she could hit the ground. ‘Safe now!’ Van Danik promised. ‘You’re a survivor like me!’
‘I’ll take it from here, Doctors,’ said a familiar and stern-voiced woman. Her footsteps stopped a short distance away, and behind her, Mira heard a small regiment of other boots thudding to a halt too.
‘Miss Chambers, I’m General Caroline Garland.’ The woman tried to shake Mira’s hand, but Mira flinched away, never wanting to be touched again. ‘Everything is okay now. I’m taking direct control of this project. I’ll also be your legal guardian, just as soon as I settle transfer papers with your matron. Then we can —’
‘Back up!’ Zhou said. ‘You didn’t mention anything to us about becoming her legal guardian.’
‘We insist that you give Mira a choice!’ Van Danik added.
‘When you’re both done interrupting me,’ Garland said coolly, ‘I certainly shall give her a choice. But she’d be crazy not to choose independence by coming with us, wouldn’t she?’
Mira shook her head. ‘There’s nothing left to care about. But even if there was, what makes you think I’d consider life in the army any kind of independence?’
Van Danik swept his arm around her shoulder. ‘What she said!’
‘Be reasonable, Miss Chambers. Allow me to summarise the facts here. You’re a handicapped ward of the state — always will be, thanks to the unfortunate nature of your genetic condition — so the decision as to where you live and under what circumstances will always be in the hands of your legal guardian. Within that framework, however, I’m in a position to offer you a choice. Option A: you can come with us to another secure facility and, in return for helping us, we’ll make sure you lead a very healthy and productive life. We will also pay for your corrective surgery once your work for your country is complete.’
‘You’ll be paid the whole time as a consultant,’ Van Danik cut in. ‘You won’t be used as a lab rat, Mira. You’ll have input into how things are done at every stage. We’ll make sure of it.’
‘Or Option B,’ Garland continued, ‘you can leave your eyes with us and go back to the Serenity Centre.’
‘If you do come with us,’ Van Danik warned, ‘your new home will be an underground lab in the heart of the Simpson Desert — and they don’t call it the red heart of Australia for nothing.’
‘She’s blind,’ Garland said. ‘What difference does it make how red the place looks on the surface? As for the heat, she’ll have constant air conditioning, not to mention the best medical care. And in higher-security surroundings she’ll never be abducted again.’
Mira sighed and lifted her chin to the breeze. She remembered explaining to Ben why she missed having a window in her room. That was her first terrible day with him, when she’d almost escaped and would have given anything to get away from him. Then he’d convinced her to go back with him, back to the only place in the world, he’d told her, where everyone cared for her.
She still had Steffi Nagle to deal with, but as Mira stared silently across the blue fields of yester-century to the mountains, she knew that no longer mattered either.
Ben had been right, she realised now: her desperation for freedom had faded with every step she’d taken away from the isle, until it had finally died with him.
She ached to be with him again.
In a flash of insight, it occurred to her that might be possible. If she returned to her old life with her eyes intact, she could see him in the ghosts from yester-week. In the right coloured light, she might even manage to see him for the rest of her life there. Oh, how painful, though! To witness her own yester-week ghosts mistrusting him over and over.
‘Mira?’ Garland said, startling her back to their conversation. ‘Do you understand what I’m offering?’
‘Yes, General.’ Mira folded her arms. ‘You want to take me away from the ghosts who mean the most to me. In red rock I’d choke with blue fossils.’
‘You can’t live in the past forever,’ Garland argued. ‘You have to live for the future.’
‘How can I do that if you want my future filled with the past too; only the pasts of your choosing?’
‘Be reasonable, Mira! You must understand that I can’t let you fall into enemy hands again, not in your current condition. I’ve already taken steps to change your name so you can disappear.’
Mira laughed and splayed her fingers in front of her face; they were as invisible as ever against the blue mists of yester-century. ‘How much am I here now, General?’ She closed her eyes and could almost feel the layers of time unfolding softly around her, dissolving her into the breeze that could sweep her away, far over the mountains to Serenity. In her mind, she could already see the cobbled driveway, hedged on both sides by her favourite brown boronias, and as she swept past them in her mind, she teased out their lemon scent with her fingertips.
The small curl of a smile tugged at her lips. ‘I am yesterday’s breeze,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t ever tame me.’
Garland muttered a curse. ‘You told me she was the full calibre.’
‘Indeed,’ Zhou replied. ‘I fear she sees more clearly than any of us.’
‘Then what does she mean?’
‘I mean,’ Mira said coldly, as she spun back to face her, ‘if you’re forcing me to make a choice, then I choose Serenity, and I choose Dr Zhou as the surgeon to take this curse from me.’
‘You don’t understand what you’re giving up!’ Garland said. ‘Don’t force me to —’
‘Force?’ Mira laughed. ‘Just try it! A word now, please, Zan, just doctor to patient.’
By 9 a.m., Sanchez had motion detectors and a security alarm installed in the cellar. Still no sign of Freddie or his alter-egos, nor any word from General Garland, Ben or Mira. No word from the doctors either, and she still had one chapter left to read.
She glanced back to the page on her desk and felt ill as she saw the words written there:
By 9 a.m., Sanchez had motion detectors and a security alarm installed in the cellar. Still no sign of Freddie or his alter-egos, nor any word from General Garland, Ben or Mira. No word from the doctors either, and she still had one chapter left to read.
She glanced back to the page on her desk and felt ill as she saw the words written there.
Then the phone rang.
Then the phone rang.
‘Madonna Sanchez?’ asked the woman on the other end. ‘I’m calling from the Royal Brisbane Hospital. I don’t mean to worry you, but how fast do you think you can get here?’
Mira regained consciousness slowly. She knew something was wrong from the smell. The air was cool, like the air-con
ditioned lab where she’d allowed herself to be sedated, but it smelled different — acidically clean. She knew she wasn’t back at Serenity either, where the air smelled of fresh paint and lemon-scented cleansers. Nearby, she caught the additional odour of an unfamiliar aftershave. Or maybe it was deodorant. Whatever it was, it reminded her of fly spray.
Then someone exhaled heavily beside her.
‘Who’s there?’
‘She’s awake!’ Van Danik called. ‘It’s okay, Mira, it’s only me. And Zan is coming.’
She smiled weakly. ‘You changed your aftershave.’
‘Sorry, I’ve been here all night and it’s all they had at the canteen — unless you mean one of the guards in the hall. I think he must have swum a few lengths through a vat of antiperspirant.’
‘Guards?’ Mira tried to sit up. ‘Why haven’t they gone yet? Where am I?’
Van Danik’s large hand grasped her shoulder. ‘Nothing to worry about. You remember your private discussion with Zan before you went under?’
Groggily, Mira nodded, wondering how he knew about it. She groped for her forehead, feeling the dull pressure of a blindfolding bandage. Pressing a little harder, she could feel the bulge of two eyes behind her eyelids, but whose eyes? She couldn’t feel any stitches. Zhou had promised he’d sew her eyes shut so no one else would know that he hadn’t replaced them as he was meant to. So what has Zhou really done?
Around her wrist, she became aware of a plastic bracelet, which refused to break no matter how hard she scratched at it.
‘Leave that,’ Van Danik said. ‘You need it for free meals around here.’
‘Where? What’s happening?’
Footsteps approached in a small herd; some rubber-soled, some harder.
‘And why are the guards still here?’
‘Just a precaution,’ he promised. ‘For your own safety.’
‘Why?’ She panicked. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Miss Chambers!’ Garland said, entering the room. ‘I’m glad to see you’re awake. I was beginning to think you might sleep all day.’
Mira clutched at her throbbing forehead.
‘Not so loud,’ Zhou warned, coming in behind the general. ‘She must have a headache to rival an earthquake by now.’
‘Take position in the hall,’ Garland ordered.
Only two sets of footsteps approached the bed, Mira noticed. The rest stayed outside as they’d been told. Someone touched her wrist and she flinched.
‘Sorry, Mira,’ Zhou said, now close beside her. ‘I forgot how touchy you can be. I need to check your pulse, please?’
She offered her wrist back to him, fighting a rising sense of suspicion and fear. His hands were cold. Icy cold.
Van Danik’s large hands and Zhou’s cold ones assisted her to sit up, and bandages began to unwind slowly.
Too slowly!
‘This is a win-win situation,’ Zhou explained. ‘Even if it didn’t work out the way you planned, General. Keep your eyes closed until I say, please, Mira?’
Mira clenched her fists as well as her eyes.
The last layer of bandage fell away and she heard Garland gasp.
‘The stitch marks are old wounds,’ Zhou said. ‘They’ve grown a little angry under the bandage overnight, but they should heal quickly. You can open your eyes now, Mira. Slowly and carefully, please. And try not to be frightened.’
She did and her world changed colour from black to blue. Not quite the old familiar blue that she was used to, but it still swept her into the sky and hugged her close to the belly of a heavy rain cloud. A flock of seagulls flew right through her and she screamed, startled more than anything. Then she noticed just how high up she was — three or four times higher than she’d ever been before — and she trembled in terror of falling. There was a small brick shack below her, with a cross painted on its roof, and beside it sat a bi-plane with Royal Flying Doctor Service in large letters along the side. Her fear grew as she realised the implications, and how important it was now for her to keep her mouth shut until she could figure out why — or even if — Zhou had betrayed her. Something had changed, but she couldn’t guess what.
Her left eye itched and she reached up to scratch it.
Zhou’s cold fingers caught her wrist. ‘You mustn’t touch them for a day or so,’ he warned.
‘Sorry, I … ‘ She fumbled to catch thick folds of reassuring bedsheets in her fists. ‘I really didn’t expect to see anything.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Zhou said kindly. ‘I had to replace the entire eye, General, in case it wasn’t just the lenses that caused the anomalies. Of course, without Mira’s cooperation it will take us much longer to figure out how they work, but we should still be able to reverse-engineer a prototype on a larger and more viable scale. Unfortunately for you, Mira, your new eyes may not come clear for a few days, if at all. They may even lose all sight completely, I’m afraid. It’s too soon to be sure if the implants will be rejected, but I can tell you this — your eyes are now brown instead of icy blue.’
She frowned, wanting to argue about the blue fog, but resisted the temptation. She wondered what Zhou hoped to achieve with a lie that should be so obvious to everyone in the room. What kind of game was he playing with her life? ‘What do you mean, brown?’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ Zhou replied. ‘They’re a lovely deep brown — really suits you — but they’re not nearly so special as your crystal-blue eyes were originally.’
‘So where am I?’ she asked. ‘This place smells different to Sandy Creek or Serenity.’
‘You were airlifted to Royal Brisbane Hospital shortly before dawn,’ Garland explained. ‘Safer that way, under the cover of darkness, as if you were a normal emergency patient. You can return to Serenity now, though. Take a taxi, or hitchhike for all I care. You’re no longer my responsibility.’
Never was, Mira thought.
As Garland’s footsteps took her away, Mira noticed that neither Van Danik nor Zhou wished her goodbye either.
‘How long before you have to leave?’ Mira asked, wishing Garland out of earshot faster so she could ask her most burning questions.
‘Tomorrow,’ Van Danik replied. ‘We’ve still got things at the hotel, and I’m not going anywhere until I get my hog onto a cargo plane.’
Zhou patted her hand. ‘It should take months before Garland realises we’re not making any progress with the eyes I’ve put into cold storage.’
‘So these really are my own eyes?’
‘Yes, but before you get upset, please understand that I couldn’t simply pretend to take out your eyes and stitch up your lids temporarily, as you asked. I took an oath to do no harm. There was also the risk that Garland might have noticed the soft bulge of eyes still behind your lids. So when I had the chance to transfer you to a public hospital, I contacted Matron Sanchez to ask where the donor eyes for your surgery tomorrow were. They were here, safely preserved with everything else I needed.’
‘So why didn’t the general recognise I still had my own eyes?’
‘Do you remember the cosmetic contact lenses I tried to get for you? The ones that would stop you feeling self-conscious in public? Well, we’re in Brisbane now, with twenty-four-hour pharmacies in every suburb.’
‘I’m wearing contact lenses?’ She couldn’t feel any difference through her eyelids.
Zhou chuckled. ‘I’m glad they’re so comfortable. They’re the darkest brown I could find.’
‘But if they’re brown, why can I see blue?’
‘Because novelty-coloured lenses have a small aperture — a small hole in the middle — so you can see clearly through them. Although this particular set also has a small degree of UV protection built in, so I’d expect you to be experiencing a slightly different yester-year than you’re used to.’
‘I am … And they needed surgery to fit?’
‘Heavens, no. You slip them on and off as easily as gloves — almost. But while you were sedated, I took the opportunity to clea
nse and tidy up the wounds where your stitches used to be.’
‘And General Garland took the donor eyes I was supposed to get?’
‘Frozen, so they appear more crystalline. Now come on; we need to get you out of here.’
‘Aren’t you going to wait until the general’s gone? I can still hear her down the corridor.’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to wait.’
Four hands encouraged her to shift her legs out from the starchy cotton bedsheets. She noticed warmth returning to Zhou’s fingers.
‘Why the hurry?’ she asked. ‘All I have left now is Serenity, so I’d like to make the most of my last moments off the island — probably forever.’
‘And I thought I was a fatalist,’ Van Danik said, beginning to lift her into a wheelchair.
‘Hey, I’m not crippled! If I have to go, I can walk!’
‘Trust us,’ Van Danik said.
He set her down gently in the chair, then pulled her around so swiftly and into the hall that she had to close her eyes to keep her balance. With her eyes open, he was sweeping her into the soft belly of that heavy rain cloud.
‘Leaving so soon?’ Garland asked, as they overtook her.
‘She’s keen,’ Zhou lied. Mira opened her eyes, forcing a smile and hoping the general wouldn’t think any different.
Without slowing down, the chair swerved left around a sharp corner, then came to an abrupt halt. Doors chimed, the chair rolled forward into a chilly pocket of air, chimes rang again and the floor dropped halfway to the ground.
Mira gripped onto the wheelchair so hard her knuckles felt they might burst from her skin. ‘I think I feel sick.’
‘After-effects of the sedative,’ Zhou told her. ‘You’ll be fine in a minute.’
‘Hey, intensive care is that way,’ said Van Danik when the lift doors opened.
‘But the high-dependency unit is this way,’ Zhou said. ‘Leave the navigation to me, Mitch. Hospitals are my home ground.’
