Cynthia smiled to herself. They were all so similar.
“We have to get out of this,” Cynthia said, “Ace of Clubs is crazy. We have seen what he is capable of. We have to stop him. I assume you are both unarmed?”
They both said that they had nothing.
“Can either of you reach my feet? They are strapped up, but I might be able to use them if nothing else. Maybe I could try and get one of your cages open.”
Courtney was the closest.
She tipped he cage over so it lay at Cynthia’s feet and put her finger between the wire to reach the strap.
“Can only just reach…” She groaned.
“We will have to do what we can. This drive can’t last forever.” Cynthia tried to bring the strap closer to Courtney’s fingers.
Fortunately the truck went through another pothole, which made everything in the back of the truck bounce again and Courtney’s cage was knocked closer to Cynthia’s feet.
She picked at the strap for what felt like half an hour, and then finally she had loosened it.
Cynthia wriggled her feet about until the strap came off. She flexed her ankles and toes, trying to get the blood flowing in her feet again.
“Now,” she said looking down at the dark shape of Courtney at her feet, “we need to get you out of that cage.”
Cynthia prodded at the cage with her toes, feeling the edges, trying to find a clip or a latch.
All she could find was a knot where the wire was twisted into a ball.
“Shit,” she muttered with wide eyes in the dark. “It’s just twisted wire. I can grip it, but I can’t undo it quickly with my toes.”
She looked into the shadows to her left.
“Kara?”
“Here.” Kara whispered back.
“Can you get close enough to Courtney to untwist that wire?” Cynthia couldn’t reach far enough. The cages were closed with twisted wire at the back, so the girls couldn’t twist and undo them on their own.
Kara began to rock her tiny cage back and forth. Each time she crept a little closer to Courtney’s back.
When Kara edged close enough, Cynthia reached out and grabbed the cage with her toes and tipped it the rest of the way.
The little cage barely made a sound as it fell forward against the other.
Cynthia began to try and untwist the wire on the back of Kara’s cage while Kara tried to open Courtney’s.
It was hot and stuffy and the truck would occasionally go over bumps or around sharp corners, which hindered their progress, but the girls didn’t have a choice. Tony Carlyle, was not going to keep them alive.
Chapter 29
Matt was pacing.
In the foyer of Bronson Carlyle’s building, he and Ryan Chen had been waiting for Carlyle’s contacts to report back. Matt and Bronson had been frantically working the phones for a good half an hour before, so they could get choppers in the air and people watching traffic cams.
The people watching traffic cams had reported back saying that there were eight different convoys of vehicles that could match the description that Matt had given them. Now he had to wait for the helicopters to investigate each convoy.
“I feel so helpless. I think we should be out there doing something.” Ryan sat with his arms crossed staring at the floral rug under the dark coffee table.
“I know.” Matt said rubbing at his eyes.
It was nearly six in the evening.
“I do not want to lose my sister again.” Ryan said as he leaned forward and picked up his cold cup of coffee.
“I know, mate. Cynthia is like a sister to me too, but we have to wait. If we go out there and start our own search, the boys will report that Tony has taken the girls in the opposite direction.” He sat on the sofa opposite Ryan. “That time we take to back track could cost them.”
“If we were already on the right road we would cut out the time we waste sitting here.” Ryan had a sour expression after tasting the cold coffee.
“Either way we waste time, Ryan. I get it, but searching could cost us more.”
“Could, Mr Claire, ‘could’. It might also be what saves them.”
Matt stood again. He and Ryan had been arguing about this since they had come down stairs. The waiting was taking its toll on both men.
Matt took out his phone to demand an update from his man in the air, just as it began to ring.
You better tell me something I wanna hear! He thought.
“What’ve you got?” Matt demanded.
Matt stood silently rubbing at his temples as he listened to the man on the other end. Ryan had sat forward on the chair and was desperately searching Matt’s face for any sign of optimism.
“Okay,” Mat nodded. “Keep looking.”
Ryan’s heart sank and he slid back into the sofa and closed his eyes.
“Right,” Matt began, “They aren’t on the Hume or the Princes Highway’s.”
Ryan groaned. “Good. That only leaves us with everywhere else.”
Matt shrugged and collapsed into the lounge opposite Ryan.
Tony could have taken the girls in any direction from Melbourne or within it. Melbourne was a big city with many places to hide.
“Food over here!” Matt called to he old man working behind the foyer desk.
“Keep it down, Mr Claire!” The old man hissed back as he rushed over with a menu. “We have paying customers staying here. Mr Carlyle may live here, but as far as the business of running the hotel goes, it is my responsibility. I don’t need you people causing a ruckus.”
Matt smiled an apology to the old man as he tossed the menu onto the coffee table.
“What do you want?” The man asked. “Anything off the menu, or are you going to upset my chefs like the boss does?” The old man cocked a brow as he looked down.
“Just a couple of sandwiches, Williams. Thanks”
The old man relaxed a little and nodded before wandering back to his desk.
Matt and Ryan both stared at the ceiling as they melted into the sofas.
They both felt helpless.
After a few minutes of staring at his phone and the floor, Matt was interrupted by one of the staff delivering a plate of sandwiches.
The young woman smiled and sat the plate on the coffee table, before returning to her duties.
Ryan made the first move, grabbing the sandwich from the top and taking a big bite. Matt followed, taking the second.
It felt so good to eat something. They had both been so distracted by the current situation that they had skipped breakfast and lunch.
As Matt chewed on a delicious mouthful of ham and pickles he looked around the foyer and out the big glass doors at the front of the building.
That was when he spotted a woman propping up a motorcycle and unstrapping luggage. She was dressed in a black leather jacket and vinyl pants and held her black helmet under her arm.
The bikie outfit reminded Matt of Ace of Clubs when he had seen him on the main street in Chinatown, but he had worn a black mask-like hood to hide his identity.
The woman let the valet take the motorcycle and he wheeled it toward the customer parking area.
Matt watched the woman come in to the front desk and collect her room key. There was something familiar about her.
Ryan sat forward to get another sandwich. “Every time, I think its one of them.”
“One on them?” Matt asked taking his second sandwich. “One of Tony’s men?”
Ryan nodded and watched the woman walk to the elevator. “It’s like they are everywhere.”
“Everywhere.” Matt nodded and sat back.
Everywhere.
Matt sat up. He had seen them everywhere. Last week he had met two of Tony’s men and he didn’t even know. The two bikies that had followed them from the Little Desert were his men, but Carlyle was convinced that they belonged to one of his competitors.
“What is it, Mr Claire?” Ryan was watching him intently.
“We met Tony’s men b
efore, Cynthia and I, in the Little Desert region.”
“Desert?” Ryan looked confused.
“In the state’s north-west. There is the Little Desert and the Big Desert.”
Ryan gestured with his hands. “I thought it was all farms up there.”
“It is. Crops grow in the sandy soil of the north-west, but some of it is protected as a national park.” Matt stood. “My point is, that it’s miles of open scrub land. You can disappear in there, no one would ever know.”
Ryan stood too, facing Matt. “You think they have gone there, don’t you?”
Matt blinked and nodded. “Where’s better?”
Ryan nodded and grabbed another sandwich and picked up his backpack.
“We can’t drive, Ryan, it’s too far. If they left the warehouse around lunchtime they could be there already. We could be too late.”
“We cannot think that way, Mr Claire, we are the only hope they have.”
Matt nodded and grabbed his phone from the table.
“We will chase them, but we can’t drive.” He dialed a number. “We fly.”
Chapter 30
Cynthia sucked in a deep breath.
Her toes ached from trying to untwist the wire that held Kara’s cage closed. One of the wire knots was undone, but there were still two left. She hoped that Kara would be able to push the cage apart from inside after the first knot was undone, but Tony had been careful. He wasn’t going to lose his new Post-Humans.
Cynthia’s toes were becoming slippery.
Her toes were beginning to slip off the wire. She was fairly sure that it wasn’t sweat making then slippery. It was most likely blood. The wire was sharp and the clipped edges scratched her skin every time she failed to untwist it. She would have to stop.
Cynthia wasn’t going to risk getting any of her blood on the two girls.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m bleeding. I have to stop.”
“But you are so close…” Kara whispered back.
Cynthia shrugged. “I can’t get my blood on you. I don’t know what it will do to you. You’ll have to get Courtney out.”
The truck bounced regularly over corrugations in the road.
Cynthia leaned back and tucked her bleeding foot away. There was something familiar about the bumpy road.
Where are we? She thought. How would Matt work this out?
Firstly, she decided that they had been driving very quickly, so they had to be in the country. Secondly, they had been driving all afternoon, so they would have to be further than Ballarat.
Either way, the evidence told her, that they were a long way from the city.
The bumps and corrugations told her that it couldn’t be a highway anymore. This had to be a country road.
“Dammit!” she said hitting her head against the frame that held her.
Kara and Courtney creaked their bodies about in their cages trying to see why Cynthia had cried out.
“Is it your foot?” Kara said straining to see Cynthia’s toes in the dark.
Cynthia rattled at her restraints. “No, sorry, I’m just mad.”
“You think you’re mad?” Courtney whispered. “Try being crushed in one of these cages. I can barely feel my legs and my shoulders are killing me!”
Shaking her head, Cynthia apologized to them for her outburst. “I just can’t tell where that jerk is taking us. And I don’t know if anybody else could work it out in time.”
The girls said nothing, but Kara began picking at the wire catch again.
“We just have to do what you said, stick together.” Courtney whispered. “It’s our best chance.”
Cynthia agreed, but secretly she was harboring a lot of doubt. She knew how to handle herself, but she always had Matt to back her up. She was alone again, like when she was young, laying on the kitchen floor at the mercy of Mum’s drunk boyfriend. She couldn’t remember what the punches felt like, after the first two or three, but she was thinking the same thing, that she did that day: is this all there is for me?
As the few shafts of light became softer she realized that they must be close to their destination. The bumpy corrugations on the road had also abruptly become the crunch of gravel.
“We are off the road.” Kara observed.
Cynthia nodded. “But where? We could be anywhere in the state.”
“Maybe I will see a wild kangaroo.” Kara joked. “I have not been outside of Melbourne since I arrived in Australia.”
The others chuckled quietly in the dark.
The truck crunched and bumped along it’s new road and the girls desperately tried to pry open the two cages. To no avail, the wire was thick and tightly twisted.
Finally the truck was stopped.
Cynthia felt her stomach in her throat.
This was the deciding moment.
The doors of the truck’s cabin clicked open and slammed closed.
They could hear footsteps on the gravel outside.
“At least three.” Cynthia whispered.
The three women watched as the men outside banged and pounded at the door locks, until there was a clang and it creaked open.
Cynthia recoiled from the orange glow of the afternoon sun, her eyes had been adjusted to the darkness in the back of the truck.
“Get all three, out here,” Tony’s voice called to his men. “I’ll get the equipment.”
Equipment?
A silhouette climbed into the back of the truck and grabbed Courtney’s cage and began dragging it toward the door. She was passed to a man outside, who no longer wore his clown mask.
The same man came and dragged Kara’s cage out the same way, and at last he came to collect Cynthia.
Cynthia watched him collect his clown mask and put it on, then pull on a pair of long welders gloves before getting close.
“Not taking any chances with you, freak.”
Thump.
Her body tried to double over as he hit her in the stomach.
Cynthia wasn’t a stranger to violence and her karate lessons had improved her resiliance, but being punched in the stomach while she was tied up made her feel sick.
While she tried to get her breath back the second man climbed onto the truck.
Then she felt the cold sting. Another needle.
“No, not aga…”
Everything was blue.
She was floating.
Flying.
Laying.
Cynthia blinked and tried to look around. She was laying on her back in the gravel.
“Welcome back,” Kara’s voice said, from her right.
Cynthia tried to get up and found that her hands were bound together inside a plastic bag and she had a nylon cord tied around her neck.
As she struggled to sit up she took in the scene around her. The men were locking up the back of the truck and putting things into packs. Courtney and Kara both sat in the gravel next to her, their cages gone. They wore the same cord around their necks and their hands were bound the same way.
“Right, campers,” Tony pulled on his backpack, “we are taking a little hike.”
He no longer wore his leather jacket and his black leather pants, just a white t-shirt and jeans. The other two men were dressed in a similar casual way.
“Get ‘em up, boys. We’ve got a little walk before can get to Dad’s favourite place.”
Cynthia was only confused for a moment, before she realized where Tony had taken them; the twisted and stunted eucalypts, the heathers, brushes, the tall spiny grass and saltbushes. Of course there was all the sand. They were in the Little Desert National Park. It was Bronson Carlyle’s secret place for hiding evidence.
Cynthia and Matt were up here just over a week ago, now she was back. Tony Carlyle was planning on making them disappear, at least the parts of them he didn’t want to keep.
The two men pulled Courtney and Kara to their feet and Cynthia got up on her own.
“That way,” Tony gestured with his head. “And you lovely ladies, are lea
ding the way.”
Now, if we all run at once…
Cynthia’s thoughts of a running escape were cut off as she saw one of the men handing out three rifles.
Tony looked her in the eyes and grinned.
His eyes that were deep and kind, now looked dark and dead, like something else was wearing him like a fancy suit.
Cynthia decided to start walking. As long as they were moving, some opportunity might reveal itself.
They marched in the orange evening sun. It was obvious which way was which now; where the sun was setting must be west.
Tony was directing them south-east.
“Where are you taking us?” Courtney piped after a little while.
Cynthia kept her eyes on her bare feet. The prickly ground, crunching twigs and sharp grass stems made her cringe when she was prodded in the pads of her feet.
Tony chuckled to himself. “A walk and talk, eh Courtney?”
Courtney didn’t reply. Regretting the question.
“Well Courtney, you have seen my collection. It’s beautiful and it will be the first of its kind. When the world is finally cleansed, the military will begin to talk about using the DNA from Post-Humans to create super-soldiers. And who will have the most comprehensive collection of Post-Human material?” He shrugged and smiled.
“That would be you, Ace.” One of his men chimed.
“Damn right. You people don’t seem to understand anything about humans, do you? They fear you and they hate you, but when you’re finally gone, they will want to remake you.”
“I do not understand your thinking,” Kara spat. “You are insane.”
“Far from it. I’m many different things, but foremost I’m my father’s son. I’m passionate about what I believe in and I’m very proud of my collection, but most of all I’m a businessman.” He kicked some broken sticks out of his way and pushed through a saltbush. “The best businessmen in the world, are the ones that know how to make money, doing the things they love. Passion and success go hand in hand.”
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