Exodus

by Julie Bertagna

  Mara can’t bear to think that while she lives in comfort and luxury, Gorbals and Wing and so many others are forced to endure such an existence. She can only hope that they have not been shipped off to another project across the ocean. Or worse—Mara’s heart almost stops dead at the thought—how far have the Ideators of the New World developed their schemes to colonize space?

  I must get my plan together, quickly, and act.

  Mara rouses from her thoughts. Scattered around her in the café are Dol and her gang. They sit at tables bickering over all the things they might do tonight, chatting to friends on the voice-controlled knuckle phones with ear stud connectors that make them all look as if they are muttering into their fists or listening to invisible presences. The cyberfox could never be one of them, she is sure. They’re all too shallow and self-obsessed, not interested in anything beyond here and now and having fun. Mara swallows her bitterness. It’s not their fault. They know nothing of what she has seen and lived through. If she had been born into this life she’d probably be just like them—frittering away her leisure time in the shopping malls or scenic chat cafés in the Noos—Dol regularly visits one that meets in the beams of a rainbow. Then there are cybervizits and safaris, realsports and feel-movies, blisspools, solhols, zoominlums, colorjetting, sensawave clubbing, fear circuses, and a hundred other entertainments.

  The only problem anyone ever has in New Mungo is deciding what they want to do. And yet Mara feels a grudging awe. The New World and all its wonders were created while the rest of the world drowned and the people of Wing and the islands only just managed to survive.

  “She’s not a total slo-ped. She’s turned out quite zippy—after a truly lousy start-up. These newcomers really do need the expertise of top Noosrunners like us to get them up to scratch,” she hears Dol boast. Mara glances over and sees Dol winding a strand of her wispy blond hair around and around her finger, her face flushed with triumph as she chatters breathlessly to David, the boy Mara crashed into outside Entrance. David must be an ace Noosrunner, she supposes, from the way girls always hang around him, treating him like a young god, each subtly trying to elbow her way into his affections. Yet he is distant and cool with them all; off-puttingly so, in Mara’s opinion. But she pricks up her ears now, all too aware that the slo-ped Dol is mocking in a superior tone is very probably herself.

  “We really must be the nux of the New World, when you see what slo-peds the other cities’ runners are,” Dol murmurs. She leans closer to David, gazing into his eyes. If she leans any closer she’ll go cross-eyed, thinks Mara.

  “Who is she?” asks David, seeming to prefer the frothy orange dregs of his glass of Noobru to Dol’s rapturous gaze.

  His voice is husky and attractive. A nighttime voice, good for fire-stories, thinks Mara wistfully, wondering at the unexpected tingle that runs down her spine. She leans her chin on her hand and lets her hair fall casually across her face to hide the fact that she’s listening hard. Anyhow, he’s better to listen to than look at, as he’s very ordinary looking: pale and intense, with a scrunchy mess of light brown hair. She can’t help wondering why he’s such a hit with the other girls. Although, beneath the messy hair—Mara casts a quick glance at him from behind the smooth, dark sweep of her own hair—he does have dreamy eyes.

  Dol nods abruptly in her direction without taking her eyes from David’s face. “Mara,” she replies.

  David turns and looks straight at Mara. He gives her a long, pensive look but there’s a distance in his eyes that suggests he’s half-thinking of something else. Just as Mara begins to feel uncomfortable he briskly shifts his gaze back to his drink and Mara is left watching his fingers, drumming restlessly on the café table. His quick, sharp movements seem at odds with the faraway eyes.

  “Where’s she from?” he murmurs to Dol, and Mara feels her body stiffen, immediately on the alert. He’s not quite as distant as he appears.

  “Um, New Wing—I think that’s where she said,” says Dol, looking as if she’s itching to find a way to turn the conversation around to herself.

  “New Wing?” His restless fingers fall still and he stares hard into his frothy drink. He glances at her once again, for barely a second this time, but Mara feels the faraway eyes focus and narrow to shoot her a hot bolt of a look. Her heart beats painfully. What is it? Has she been found out? Does this ace Noosrunner know there’s no such city? But already he has turned away, the sharp expression switching to instant boredom. Beneath her relief, Mara feels stung by his lack of interest.

  What a terrible island mentality they all have—anyone from outside New Mungo is a second-class citizen. And anyone who isn’t a New World citizen is worthless, their most basic human rights sacrificed to the needs of the New World.

  Mara rages silently as she sneaks away from the café crowd, puts on her zapeedos, and zooms out into the silver nexus. Now that she’s got the hang of it, zapping is sheer release. Dead air is wind in her face and speed is freedom. She even enjoys the occasional drama of tunnel rage; it’s all exhilarating stuff. Yet tonight not even skaterush can kill the black mood inside her. Fueled by adrenaline, she tries to fix her mind upon her rescue plan. She’s got all of the pieces in her head, she just can’t find a way to fix them together.

  After a long skate, Mara winds up in the cybercath. This late, with its lights dimmed and only the low, melodic hum of a few night workers, it’s as peaceful as a church. Mara slips off her zapeedos and chooses a work cupule far away from anyone else. Then slumps in the hug chair in despair.

  Fox, where are you? I need you.

  She must find him. If only she could figure out how. One trip into the Noos devastated her hopes of finding him there. She could search through Noospace for the rest of her life and never find him, it’s so vast and complex—and ever expanding. But she really needs an ally, someone she can trust. She can’t see how she will manage a rescue plan all on her own. It could take ages to get her head around the detail of everything she needs to know. And time is what she doesn’t have. Gorbals and Wing are suffering now, this minute; as are all the refugees in the boat camp. She can only hope that Rowan and the people from Wing are still alive.

  Every time she thinks of Rowan and the others in the boat camp she feels a rising panic at the length of time that has passed since she left them there. Panic makes her helpless, unable to focus and plan and act. The only way, she decides, is to try not to think about the camp, to push it to the edges of her mind until it seems unreal and remote. Only then can she concentrate on the task at hand.

  What she lacks is someone who really understands the city, who can work its system expertly, who could find a way to reach the slaves, access the boats, and disarm New Mungo’s security for long enough to let them all escape. Who better than a sly cyberfox? But even if she could find him, could she trust him? Would he help her? She remembers that single moment of connection she had with him out in the cyberhaze between the Weave and the New World. The magnetic tug that pulled her toward him, as if by instinct. She remembers the human presence behind the cyberfox eyes and tries to have faith. You wouldn’t feel that kind of pull toward an enemy, would you? For someone who meant you harm?

  There are thousands of people in this city. He could be anywhere. The scale of her isolation hits Mara, hard.

  She looks around the vast, almost-empty cybercath, at the honeycomb of cupules that are filled during the day, wondering which one Fox might sit in—and jumps nervously as her eyes meet a pair of sly ones. The eyes of Tony Rex. As soon as she spots him the slyness slips from his features and he assumes a pleasant, cheerful expression. The change is so swift and subtle that Mara is left unsure whether it’s just her own nervousness that made her imagine the disturbing glint in his eyes. What she does know for sure is that she can’t seem to shake him off. He always seems to be on her tail—in the tunnels or peering at her through the ranks of faces in the cybercath, watching her in the café or the canteen. It’s beginning to feel as if he is stalking her.


  Mara’s heart thuds as a sudden, awful thought strikes. What if the cyberfox is not her natural ally? What if her impression of him is all wrong? She only met him for the briefest of moments. It would be easy, amid all that blinding cyberhaze, to misread the look in anyone’s eyes. Now Mara begins to doubt her own instincts because the only solid evidence she has of the character of the cyberfox is his sly, predatory ways when he stalked her for so long on the Weave. The very same sleek, sly manner in which Tony Rex seems to be stalking her now.

  Trust no one, Mara warns herself. For all I know, Tony Rex could be the fox. Forget the fox. I’ll just have to work things out on my own—somehow.

  She smiles blandly at Tony Rex and murmurs tonefully, pretending to be thoroughly engrossed in some long, complex bit of cyberwork. When at last he leaves the cybercath she lets out a huge breath of relief. Then she puts her head in her hands, aching to cry.

  She has lived with the idea of the cyberfox for so long that to cut him out of her mind feels like chopping off a limb, severing a lifeline.

  It’s no good. I can’t do this on my own. I may as well go back down to the netherworld—but I can’t. I promised the Treenesters I’d bring Gorbals and Wing back with me, that I wouldn’t come back until I’d found them. But they’d understand, surely, if I said I tried and failed. Or would they? Did they only take me in and be my friend because they thought I was their savior? Maybe they won’t want me back once they see that I’m not. And anyway, I haven’t tried, have I? I’ve hardly tried at all. But how can I ever find Gorbals and Wing? And even if I do, how could I ever rescue a mass of slaves and refugees and escape in a ship? I must have been mad to even think I could do it.

  But if she doesn’t try, who will? Gorbals and Wing will be condemned to live as slaves. All the others too—all the stolen urchins and refugees. Soon the ocean will rise again and the Treenesters will lose their tiny island and drown. And she will be trapped here in New Mungo for the rest of her days—or until she is discovered and cast out. So she must try. What does she have to lose?

  My life. Just one small life among so many that have been lost.

  But it’s her life, and to Mara it doesn’t feel small. It feels like everything. Yet she will try, even if it means losing her life—because she won’t be able to live with herself if she doesn’t. And nothing is impossible—she should know that by now. A world can drown. People can cling to life in boat camps and nests in trees. A New World can rise out of the oceans. Its citizens can live amid wonders and luxury and know nothing of the human catastrophe that exists all around them.

  Anything can happen. That means anything is possible. So I will find a way.

  But right now she must find a way to get herself through the night. Mara needs more than a hug chair. She wants real arms to hold her, not this synthetic embrace. But there’s no one. Mara thinks of the next best thing.

  A story. I want a story.

  Somewhere in Noospace there must be a story to settle her, to burrow into, and let her forget her worries and fears. Mara longs for Gorbals and his nighttime fire tales. A memory runs through her, and she sees the wide eyes of the Treenesters gazing through the firelight as Gorbals’s story spins a comfort nest around them all. Mara dashes away tears and the memory too. She puts on a godgem and jumps deep into the chaotic patterns of the Noos.

  She’s just beginning to get the hang of the tonal voice-steering that by day fills the cybercath with its choral hum. Falteringly, Mara uses her voice to get to a Noosstation, one of the floating help platforms.

  “I want a story,” she instructs the small glitter-ball of electronic energy that immediately bounces toward her.

  The glittering search ball bounces high into Noospace and explodes in a million fragments—electronic questers—that scatter across the mutating patterns. Moments later, like a reverse explosion, the fragments zoom back into a ball, having searched the Noos to find what Mara wants.

  Story as in floor, level in building? the glitter-ball reports back.

  “No, S-T-O-R-Y,” says Mara. “As in once upon a time.”

  The search-ball explodes again.

  Falsehood, lie, it suggests, when it’s back in one piece.

  Mara sighs. “No. Try books.”

  Boots?

  “Books!”

  The search-ball scatters yet again and takes a moment longer than usual to gather back the questers. Mara’s hopes rise as she watches the glittering fragments gather back into a globe.

  Defunct word, it claims uselessly.

  “I just want a story!” Mara bursts out.

  She catches the eye of a guard at the door and quickly lowers her voice. “Story,” she mutters stubbornly. “I don’t believe there isn’t a single story in the whole of the Noos. Any kind of story will do—fairy tale, ghost story, adventure story, love story. You choose. I’ll sit here all night and ask if I have to. Just find me a story.”

  Store, bounces back the search-ball, just as stubbornly. Try stockpile, save, stash.

  A useless heap of words that are nothing to do with a story. Mara feels blank. She doesn’t know what to do. Hoard, treasure, the search-ball chatters on. Would you like to try any of these?

  Oh, shut up, thinks Mara, but something odd is happening. The heap of words reshuffle, sorting themselves into a pattern that becomes a flickering picture in her mind. A familiar, moving picture. A story.

  Hoard, treasure. Goosebumps prickle all over her body and the words seem to grow hot inside, flaming into a story she knows, the one Gorbals told on the night of the storm about the lost girl who followed a rainbow and found a hoard of treasure at the rainbow’s end. The crock of gold.

  “All right, I’ll tell you a story,” Mara whispers to the little search ball, as she wriggles deeper into her hug chair. “Once upon a time,” she begins, but she has hardly breathed the words when there is a deep electronic shudder in the godgem that ripples out, disturbing the patterns of the Noos. The glitter-ball bounces off in fright.

  “Hey, come back,” Mara calls after it. “Oh, all right, I don’t care. Well, once upon a time…”

  She falters. The familiar words sound so alien and empty in the vast loneliness of Noospace.

  There’s another electronic shudder. Then a voice that does not belong to the godgem or the search ball.

  “Once upon a time,” echoes the voice.

  Mara sits bolt upright in her seat. The words tingle inside her, and she shivers as if she’s caught a cold. The low, wary voice has taken her back to a time and place that feels worlds away now. Mara is so shocked she can barely speak.

  “Where—where are you?” she gasps at last. Then jumps in surprise as she finds herself alone on the Noosstation platform, staring into the eyes of the cyberfox.

  The fox is as still as a statue. All senses alert.

  “Once upon a time,” says the fox. “I followed you. We met out in Nowhere, out beyond the Weave. You screamed for help then vanished. I’ve been searching for you ever since.”

  Mara looks at the fox and the fox looks back. A tangle of Noos patterns reflect in its liquid, untamed eyes.

  “You have?” breathes Mara.

  The fox pads closer. And through her joy and disbelief cuts a sudden flash of panic, because Mara doesn’t know if this cyberfox is friend or foe. She doesn’t want her New World cover blown because then she’s sunk. She wants to run and hide. But curiosity, and the pull of that other, deeper instinct is too strong. So Mara stays her ground, her eyes never leaving the fierce, vivid gaze of the fox.

  FOX DEN

  Mara is thinking faster than she has ever thought before.

  “I still need help,” she whispers. “But can I trust you?”

  Who are you? she wonders frantically. Who? She glances around the near-empty cybercath and reassures herself that Tony Rex has not returned. And the voice is not his. But if you can take on a new form in the Noos then surely you could assume a new voice? And there are mobile godgems, so he could b
e working from anywhere in New Mungo.

  “Can I trust you?” says the fox, unexpectedly.

  “Me?” exclaims Mara in surprise. Then lowers her voice as she senses someone stir in a work cupule several seats behind her. She steals a quick, fearful glance, but the Noosrunner’s head is bent, engrossed in whatever he or she is working on.

  “Okay, here’s a story for you, a story from the old world,” Mara blurts out, because if it is Tony Rex, she’s already caught. If it’s not, she has to take a leap of faith. It’s her only chance.

  “Once upon a time there was a Weave-wizzer, an ace wizzer. For years she played in the old network called the Weave. This girl—I mean, the wizzer—had no idea that what she thought was everything was really just the ruin of a dead old world and that a whole new electronic universe had sprung into life out beyond the patch of cyberspace she knew. One day she fell out of the Weave and saw what lay beyond it. And she met a cyberfox. But her whole world was about to fall apart. Her island in real-world was drowning…”

  Mara pauses, swallowing hard. When she is able to speak, her voice cracks with emotion.

  “She lost everything, her family and friends, everyone. But somehow she survived. And all the time, all through the nightmare that followed, she held on to the hope that she would find the cyberfox again—that he might help her.”

  It’s hard to go on. The fox says nothing, just stares at her. If a fox could cry, this one looks close to it.

  “Do you understand?” Mara asks.

  The fox nods. Mara is sure tears stand in its eyes.

  She lets out an enormous breath she didn’t know she has been holding. A sob shakes her. She glances around quickly but the Noosrunner behind her is still too deep in concentration to notice.

  “It’s a long story, too long to tell it all now, but amazingly I ended up here in your world,” Mara whispers to the fox. “I asked you for help once. I still need your help. Desperately. I need someone I can trust in realworld. I don’t know if I trust you but …” Mara grinds to a stop. She must trust him. She has no choice. She looks into the unblinking fox eyes and takes a deep breath.