Fallout

by Chris Morphew

  Miller shot a curious look at Luke and me.

  ‘Matt!’ The other guard gaped at Reeve. He was an older guy, maybe my dad’s age. ‘You’re… You’re actually here…’

  Reeve smiled and reached out to shake his hand. ‘G’day, Ethan. Yeah, still kicking, whatever the chief might tell you.’ He turned back to Luke and me. ‘Guys, this is Officer Hamilton.’

  I recognised the surname. ‘You’re Lauren’s dad.’

  Lauren was a girl from school who’d helped Luke and me out when we were hiding from the Co-operative in town. Georgia used to go over to her place sometimes to play with her little brother, back in the days when kids lived in houses.

  ‘That’s right,’ Hamilton nodded, but for some reason he didn’t quite meet my eye as he said it.

  ‘Have you spoken to my dad?’ I asked, advancing on him without really meaning to. ‘Is he okay? Can you pass a message on to –?’

  Reeve’s hand came down on my shoulder. ‘We might want to give Ethan a minute.’

  I stopped talking, stepping back again, but the uneasy look didn’t shift from Hamilton’s face.

  ‘How are you guys holding up?’ Miller asked, shrugging off a backpack and handing it to Reeve.

  ‘Surviving.’ Reeve nodded at Luke and me, waving a hand at his new clothes. ‘Better for having run into these two. How’s life in town?’

  ‘About the same as the last time you asked,’ said Miller. ‘We’re all just stuck in a holding pattern. Waiting. People get restless, start fights. We move in to break it up, settle things down before they get out of hand. Only a matter of time before it all blows up.’

  ‘Which is why we need to be ready to move when it does,’ said Reeve, pulling the backpack open, revealing a jumper and a few tins of food. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘The surveillance network,’ I said. ‘One of you needs to shut it down. Until that happens, we’re –’

  ‘Jordan,’ said Reeve, cutting me off. ‘Slow down.’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said Miller. ‘Security personnel have no real access to the new network. We can monitor the feeds, but we’re locked out of the network hub. Not even Barnett has clearance.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Miller, returning his attention to Reeve. ‘Weird rumours floating around town today. Something called Tobias.’

  A chill shot up my spine, piercing through even the cold of the graveyard. Reeve looked significantly at Luke and me. ‘We’ve heard that name too. Any ideas what it is? Or where?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ said Miller, brow crinkling. ‘I mean, obviously there’s no way to tell what’s real and what’s just speculation, but it definitely sounds like something the Co-operative doesn’t want us to know about. The most convincing theory I’ve heard is that it’s some kind of emergency shutdown mechanism for Tabitha.’

  I suppressed another sigh. That was no further than we’d got.

  ‘Right. Well, keep an ear out. Let me know as soon as you hear anything more solid.’ Reeve zipped up the backpack. ‘Now,’ he said, focusing on Hamilton, who was starting to look like he regretted coming. ‘Let’s get to business. I assume you know why you’re here.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hamilton, glancing nervously over his shoulder. ‘You want to drag me into this. You want me to join your revolution.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Reeve. ‘Right now, I just want to know whose side you’re on.’

  Hamilton’s eyes flashed around the clearing. ‘Listen, Matt,’ he said, suddenly defensive, ‘you’ve got no right to drag me out here and start making demands.’

  ‘Who’s making demands?’ I said. ‘He just wants to know where you’re planning on pointing that gun. That’s not a reasonable question?’

  ‘It’s not that simple.’ Hamilton’s voice was shaking now. He jabbed a finger towards Reeve. ‘And you know it’s not!’

  Luke shot me a warning look, and part of me knew that I should probably listen to him. But we’d been dealing with blind, useless townspeople since forever, and I wasn’t about to let this one go without a fight.

  ‘You want simple?’ I said. ‘In less than two weeks, the Co-operative will wipe out every human being on the planet outside this town. They’re going to murder seven billion people. You’re either working to stop that from happening, or you’re working to make it happen. So if you’re still having trouble picking a side –’

  ‘They have my daughter!’ he shouted.

  Luke flinched, glaring at him to keep quiet.

  ‘They have my dad too. You think you’re the only one who –?’

  ‘No,’ said Miller. His voice was low, but it shut down my rant in an instant. ‘No Jordan, that’s not the same.’ His eyes dropped to the ground, like he needed a minute to gather himself. Then he looked up at Reeve. ‘You haven’t told them about the loyalty room?’

  ‘The what?’ Luke asked.

  ‘The old staff cafeteria,’ said Hamilton. ‘In the Shackleton Building. Every security officer has a family member in there. As long as we’re completely obedient to the Co-operative, they’re well treated. Better than everyone else. Real beds, double food rations… But if we put one foot out of line, they get…’

  ‘They get hurt,’ I finished, guilt surging up.

  ‘Shackleton came to each of us – one at a time,’ said Hamilton, starting to break down now. ‘He – he described exactly what he would do to Lauren if I ever disobeyed an order.’

  My mind sparked with a thousand nightmarish images. I’d been dealing with Shackleton long enough to know that he didn’t waste time on empty threats. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  Hamilton didn’t even look at me. He turned away, heading towards the path into town.

  ‘Ethan…’ said Miller half-heartedly.

  He kept walking. Reeve dashed forward and caught him by the arm. ‘Ethan, just wait a minute.’

  ‘No.’ Hamilton whirled around, pulling free. ‘No. You can’t ask me to choose between saving the world and saving my daughter. You can’t.’

  ‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ said Reeve.

  ‘But Jordan’s right. You’re already choosing. We all are.’

  Hamilton just shook his head, refusing to hear it. He walked away again, and this time Reeve let him go.

  Chapter 8

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 1

  12 DAYS

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, finally breaking the silence as Luke and I tracked back to the Vattel Complex alone. ‘I shouldn’t have got fired up like that. He was twitchy enough already without me blowing up at him.’

  ‘Do you really think it would have made any difference?’ said Luke, craning his neck to watch out for security. ‘I mean, yeah, maybe you could have been a bit more diplomatic or whatever, but it’s not like you said anything that wasn’t true.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said, still mad at myself, mad at Hamilton, mad at myself for being mad at Hamilton.

  Really, it was Reeve I should have been apologising to, but he and Tank had already gone back to the cave hide-out. Reeve’s whole operation was set up to run from there, and he said it would be a while before he could safely shift things down to the Complex.

  I sort of wished we were going with him. He might be sleeping in the cold and struggling to recruit anyone over to our side, but at least he was doing something. We were going to catch up in a couple of days to compare notes and see if we were any closer to getting into the armoury, but in the meantime, I was back to watching surveillance feeds.

  I’d asked Miller to get a message to my dad and Peter’s parents. Let them know we were okay. The last time Dad saw me, I was being carried away from him with a pickaxe wound in my gut.

  ‘Here’s what I don’t get,’ said Luke. ‘How can there be all these rumours suddenly floating around town about Tobias, and still no-one knows what it is? Surely someone must have seen something.’

  ‘Not if it’s up on the restricted level,’ I said, grateful for the change of subject. �
��That’s the one place left in town that even security don’t know about. Reeve’s right: if we want to find Tobias, we need to find a way to ge– EEUUGH!

  ’ I collapsed forward, slamming into the undergrowth like someone had shoved me over. My arms rushed to my stomach, and I swear I could feel it churning underneath my clothes.

  ‘Crap,’ said Luke, crouching beside me, hands resting hesitantly on my side.

  Not just my imagination, I thought. I started gagging, chest heaving, as though my body was trying to shove my guts out through my mouth. This was worse. They were definitely getting worse.

  ‘Try to – try to keep your eyes open,’ said Luke, rolling me onto my side. ‘Try to focus, okay? See if you can –’

  He swore, ducking closer to me as light flickered in the distance. Panic signals fired inside my head, but I couldn’t work out what it all meant. Luke drifted in and out of focus above me, his face stretched with panic. I had just enough time to feel him clamp a hand over my mouth before he melted into the darkness and the whole scene folded in on itself.

  The hand disappeared, and the light on the other side of my eyelids changed colour.

  A cockatoo squawked above my head.

  I sat up gingerly in the scraggly undergrowth.

  I was alone.

  The sky was shot with pink and gold. Sunset. I was still surrounded by bushland. No clues at all about how far I’d shifted this time. It might have been hours or years.

  Voices rose up from somewhere off to the south. Not loud, but obviously not trying all that hard to be secretive either. Whoever was speaking obviously didn’t think they were in any danger out here.

  I was still dizzy. Disoriented.

  The voices got closer. My head began to clear, and I realised who was talking a second before he stomped in front of me. It was Mike, smiling and clean and dressed in a school uniform that looked almost new. He studied the crumpled bit of paper in his still five-fingered hands.

  ‘Over here!’ he called back into the bushes.

  Tank and Cathryn walked into view behind him. Tank was lugging a giant cardboard box. It was stamped and labelled just like the ones Luke and I had taken from the truck.

  ‘This was a bad idea,’ said Cathryn, picking something out of her stocking, looking extremely unimpressed to be getting this close to nature. A thick coil of rope was weighing down one of her shoulders. ‘What if someone catches us out here?’

  ‘Like who?’ Tank taunted. ‘Security? Come on. What are they gonna do?’

  ‘Hurry up and get over here,’ said Mike. ‘We need to find a tree stump.’

  ‘You find a tree stump. You’re the one not carrying anything.’

  ‘I’m carrying the map,’ said Mike.

  Despite the obvious weirdness of following a note from their overseers out into the bush, there was something impossibly light about their conversation. Like this was all just some exciting adventure. This was months ago, back before everything got swallowed up in darkness and the constant threat of death.

  The thought dragged me back to reality and my mind rang with the sudden realisation of what I’d seen back there in the present. The light was a torch. Someone had heard us. And now Luke was stuck out there, trying to bring me back.

  So where was he? What was taking him so long?

  Or worse, what if I’d finally slipped out of his reach entirely?

  ‘Found it!’ said Mike, darting closer to me. I pressed down into the bushes. If I really was here, I didn’t want to take chances.

  Mike shoved his hand into the tree stump he’d spotted and pulled out an envelope sealed with black wax. A message from the overseers.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing the other paper he’d been holding to Cathryn. ‘Burn this one.’

  Cathryn took a lighter from her skirt pocket and held it to the old note, while Mike tore open the new one. I pushed up from the ground again, trying to get a look at it, but then the bushland was blocked from view as a face flashed into existence, right in front of me. Luke.

  ‘How come she gets to burn everything?’ grumbled Tank.

  ‘Because if I let you do it, you’d start a bloody bushfire,’ said Mike. ‘Besides, you’ve got a box to carry.’

  I sat up, reaching for Luke, but my hands sank straight into him like he didn’t exist.

  ‘What do the overseers need so many freaking candles for, anyway?’ Tank muttered, pulling my attention away.

  ‘How should I know?’ said Mike. ‘Not your job to ask questions, man. Just do what you’re told.’ He looked up from the note in his hand and pointed towards the lake. ‘All right. This way.’

  The cave, I realised. That was what the candles and the rope were for. We were way back at the beginning. Kara and Soren were luring these guys out to set up their creepy little cult headquarters.

  Luke launched himself back into my field of vision.

  Jordan! he snapped silently. Pay attention!

  ‘Yeah,’ I muttered, turning away from Mike and the others again. I held out my arms, trying to focus.

  Luke reached for me again. Nothing.

  ‘What about Peter?’ Cathryn asked behind me.

  ‘They didn’t ask for Peter,’ said Mike. ‘They chose us.’

  I tried to tune them out, but part of me kept getting drawn back into the conversation, wanting to know why I was here in the first place.

  ‘No, I mean –’ Cathryn began, the lightness vanishing from her voice. ‘Why do they keep asking us to find stuff out about Peter? They’re acting like he’s dangerous or something. What if – What if they’re going to do something bad to him?’

  ‘You saying you don’t trust them?’ said Mike.

  Luke grabbed at my shoulders like he was trying to shake me. Snap me out of it. His hands dropped through and he almost overbalanced.

  ‘No!’ said Cathryn, horrified, like she was sure they could hear her. ‘No, I do! I do trust them! But –’

  ‘You swore an oath, Cat! We all did. We swore that we would die for them if we had to!’

  Luke jolted, startled, and whirled to look over his shoulder. He turned back, face white. Whoever was out there, they were coming closer.

  ‘Get moving,’ Mike spat.

  ‘Mate, come on,’ said Tank. ‘Don’t be such a –’

  ‘DO IT!’

  Mike set out in the direction of the cave, and the others followed.

  I locked eyes with Luke, willing my hands to make contact, furious at myself for putting him in danger. If my stupid curiosity had just got us –

  My hands smacked down hard into Luke’s arms. I held on tight, pulling him towards me.

  ‘That’s it. That’s it,’ he hissed. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘Hey…’ said Tank behind me. ‘What the crap is that?’

  I turned around. He was staring right at me.

  And then the bile rose up in my throat again and everything collapsed.

  And just like last time, the two worlds blurred together. Day and night. Warm and cold. Cathryn and Mike there and gone at the same time. And Tank looking straight through me, almost like I was actually there. I spun my head around, fighting the sick feeling in my gut, trying to take in everything at once. The moment stretched out. I hung there, suspended at both ends. Like time was standing still. Or like it didn’t even exist anymore.

  Then Luke’s voice rang in my ear, ‘Jordan, get back here!’ and it all sped up again, the world flaring around me, just random snapshots, like someone was flicking through a slideshow.

  I was sitting under a blazing sun, surrounded by knee-high saplings.

  I was engulfed in complete darkness.

  I was watching the day break over a barren wasteland.

  I closed my eyes against the pounding nausea, clinging to Luke, sure it was all that was keeping me alive. And then finally, I was back in the present, mouth clamped shut to keep myself quiet, head throbbing like I’d smashed it into a wall.

  ‘Shh…’ Luke breathed, cradling me like a l
ittle kid. ‘Shh…They’re almost gone.’

  I opened my eyes and the world swung slowly into focus. Two bright torch beams cut through the trees. I held my breath. They were pointing away from us, back towards town, but all it would take was one sound…

  Slowly, the lights dimmed into the distance. By the time they were gone, I’d got my head back together enough to stand without collapsing or throwing up. Luke held onto me anyway, fingers lacing themselves around mine. I could feel him shaking.

  Twice in two days.

  Why? Why now, with everything else that was going on?

  ‘That was – I thought we were dead,’ breathed Luke. ‘Seriously, if they had taken like two more steps…’

  ‘What stopped them?’ I asked, moving closer and resting my arm around him.

  ‘I don’t know. I was too busy hanging onto you.’ He glanced over, like he wasn’t sure how much more he wanted to say. ‘It was worse this time, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Wait. Why? Did you see something?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. It just scares me, Jordan. It freaks me out that one day you might just – that I might not be able to bring you back.’

  I shivered, looking up at the stars, wondering for a moment if all of it – everything I was seeing – really was just random. Just chaos. An unguided by-product of an unguided universe that was completely indifferent to everything we were going through down here.

  But no, there had to be more to it than that. There had to be more than I was seeing.

  All of this might not make sense now, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t ever.

  A minute or two later, we were stepping through the low, overgrown ruin that marked the entrance to the Vattel Complex. There was a dull rattle as someone downstairs opened the trapdoor, and I glanced around one last time to make sure there was no-one waiting to follow us in.

  A thought struck me as we started down the mouldy stairs. ‘What if those guards had shot you?’

  ‘They didn’t,’ said Luke.

  ‘Yeah, but what if they did? What if you’d, like, jumped up and waved your arms around and got yourself killed back there?’