Escape to the Moon Islands: Quest of the Sunfish 1

by Mardi McConnochie

  ‘I want you to have the chance,’ Spinner said. ‘Don’t lock yourself out of the possibility of a decent future.’

  ‘You never went to university and we have a good life,’ Annalie protested.

  ‘I’m happy with our life,’ Spinner said gently, ‘but there are certainly more comfortable lives to be had.’ He smiled. ‘You could do great things, Annalie. You can be anything you want to be. There’s plenty of time to decide, but if you don’t start by getting a good education, you’ve already made most of your choices before you’ve even begun.’

  Spinner had high hopes for her—medicine, science, something valuable to society—and the only way to enter those professions was through the Admiralty.

  Forty years ago, before the Flood, the Admiralty was just Dux’s navy—admittedly, the world’s largest standing navy, but still under the control of the government. Then the Flood happened; the government collapsed—many governments did all around the world—and the Admiralty took control, ‘until the emergency passed’. A number of other navy forces joined with Dux’s Admiralty, forming a Federation of Allied Nations, ensuring that there was no corner of the oceans the Admiralty and its naval allies could not reach. Now, the Admiralty still led Dux’s emergency government. There were elections, but the parties merely competed to see who would join a coalition with the Admiralty, and everyone knew who was really in charge. Emergency measures introduced to rebuild Dux after the Flood and never repealed meant that the Admiralty had a hand in almost everything, from government contracts all the way through to education. If you wanted to go to university, you had to pay for your education by spending the same number of years in the Admiralty. Three years of science meant three years in the Admiralty; six years of medicine meant six years as an Admiralty doctor. A portion of that had to be spent on active service, at sea. Even if you weren’t academically inclined, the best way to get ahead in life was to sign up for a few years of naval service.

  Even though many people—Annalie among them—thought this was horribly unfair, competition to get one of the very few places at university was so fierce that it was almost impossible for ordinary people to get in at all. If you didn’t get into one of the top schools (either an Admiralty college or one of the other elite schools) you had very little chance of passing the entrance exams that would let you into university. Annalie was not at all sure she even wanted to go to university, but as Spinner said, it was better to have choices. The Admiralty colleges had a full scholarship program for underprivileged kids, and there was a lot of talk about seeking out the best and brightest minds wherever they were to be found. This made it sound like there ought to be a reasonable cross-section of society at Triumph.

  The reality turned out to be rather different.

  Annalie began to see what she’d signed up for on her very first day, when she and Spinner arrived at the school and saw the electric cars pulling up out the front, disgorging girls in jewel-studded jeans, or long dresses covered in ruffles, or tiny skirts with decorative tights and coordinating high-heeled shoes; every one of them dragged two, three, four suitcases of luggage. At that moment, she understood what she had never really understood before: she was poor.

  At home, Annalie had lived happily in a small handful of things—shorts in summer, long pants and a jumper in the winter, a cut-down old waterproof coat to keep the rain out, shoes rarely. She’d been astounded when the school uniform list had arrived—summer uniform, winter uniform, sports uniforms, all with matching hats and socks and shoes and regulation underwear. Luckily you could buy some of it second hand, but Annalie still couldn’t quite believe anyone could ever need so many clothes. She’d travelled to school in her shorts and her old canvas sneakers with the toes poked through. But as the two of them walked through the school gates, they both realised they’d made a mistake.

  ‘I’d forgotten what teenage girls are like,’ Spinner muttered, looking at them with dismay. Then he turned to Annalie with a fierce expression, and said, ‘Don’t forget, you’ve got just as much right to be here as any of them. You aced that entrance exam. You’re as good as any of them.’ He tapped her temple with a finger. ‘It’s what you’ve got up here that really matters. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Annalie said, almost as disturbed by his anxiety as by the sight of all the girls in their finery.

  While he was with her she’d managed to stay proud, even when people stared at her shabby shoes and Spinner’s faded old pants. They were his better pants, but when she saw what the other dads wore, and noticed Spinner was a whole generation older than the rest of them, she understood how odd the two of them looked.

  It wasn’t until he’d gone and she was unpacking her things in her new dormitory that she truly began to see how things were going to be. The other girls—she had five roommates—had arrived with cases full of casual clothes in a rainbow of colours. They lined up fragrant bottles on top of their chests of drawers, and Annalie was embarrassed to realise she didn’t know what these were for. Following the school’s list, she had brought a toothbrush and toothpaste, a comb, soap, shampoo. Shop-bought toiletries had seemed like a luxury when she got them, but now she saw how pitiful they looked compared to what the other girls had.

  And it wasn’t that the other girls in her dorm teased her; they simply stared, and said nothing, and left her alone, as if she were a wild beast dropped inexplicably into their midst.

  Girls who weren’t living at such close quarters were less reserved. After she heard one girl whispering—audibly—about her clothes that first day, she changed into her school uniform and never took it off again.

  At breakfast on her fourth day, someone came up to her and asked, ‘Is it true you never wash your hair?’ There was a burst of giggling around her and Annalie didn’t know what to say. At home, she had only washed her hair intermittently—it hadn’t seemed all that necessary. She had noticed that her roommates all seemed to spend a lot of time each day washing and tending their hair, but it hadn’t occurred to her that she might be expected to do so as well, and it definitely hadn’t occurred to her that anyone might be watching her to see what she did. It horrified her to realise the other girls were scrutinising her and finding fault with her behaviour.

  Before she’d come to school, she’d worried that perhaps she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the school work—she’d never studied any foreign languages—but it turned out that the lessons were the easiest part of her day. It was dealing with the other girls that was hard.

  If it wasn’t for Essie, she wasn’t sure she’d have made it through the first month.

  Swamphead

  Essie was one of the girls who shared Annalie’s dormitory. Although they slept, dressed, ate, played sport and took all their classes together, Essie did not exchange a word with the girl from Lowtown until several weeks into the term.

  One mid-week evening, Essie was in the junior common room, trying, and failing, to make sense of her maths homework when an outbreak of giggling snapped her back into the room. She knew at once it was not the nice kind of giggling, and a shiver like icy water went down her back.

  She looked up, and saw Tiffany and her gang sashaying towards her. Tiffany was a pretty second-year girl with auburn hair and eyes as dead and cold as deep space, and Essie could only watch helplessly as she approached, leaving eddying swirls of curiosity in her wake. A few heads turned to see whatever drama was about to unfold; many more kept their heads down, afraid of attracting Tiffany’s attention.

  ‘Essie!’ Tiffany said, sliding into the chair next to her. Tiffany’s dark-haired friend, Sandra, followed her lead and slid into the chair on Essie’s other side. Lina, a hard-faced blonde, sat down opposite. ‘How are you doing?’ Tiffany continued, her voice a sing-song of concern.

  ‘Okay,’ Essie said.

  ‘Okay? Really?’ Tiffany cocked her head to one side then the other, pushing her face a little too close to Essie’s. Essie tried to shrink herself inconspicuously away.

  ‘I s
aw your daddy on my newsfeed again,’ Tiffany said, her voice as sweet as ant poison. ‘It must be so devastating for you.’

  ‘Devastating,’ agreed Sandra.

  ‘So embarrassing,’ Lina said. ‘Having a crook for a dad.’

  ‘Lina!’ scolded Tiffany. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that to her. She knows what her daddy is. Saying it just makes it harder for her.’ Tiffany turned back to Essie with a smile. ‘I mean, imagine if your daddy had done all the stuff Essie’s daddy’s done. Taken bribes. Stolen money. Built shonky developments that fell down and killed people. Can you imagine how her family must feel, knowing they’ve got blood on their hands?’

  Essie said nothing. Her face was burning.

  Tiffany picked up Essie’s shell and began playing with it. ‘I mean, imagine how you’d feel if everything you owned was bought with blood money. All your clothes. All your devices.’

  Essie stared longingly at her shell—it was still new, the latest model—wishing she were brave enough to ask for it back, afraid that asking might make things worse.

  Tiffany switched it on and Essie gasped. Her messages and feeds popped up. Tiffany scrolled back and forth through them. ‘How can you bear joining the links when everything’s all about what a vile scumbag your daddy is? It’s all anybody’s talking about. If I were you, I’d throw my shell in the bin. I seriously would.’

  Tiffany held the shell up over her head, her eyes locking challengingly with Essie’s. The smile was gone now. There was just pure calculation—How far will you let me take this? How far will I go? Lina and Sandra hovered beside her, avid. There was no knowing, with Tiffany. You never could tell where the limits were—or if she had any.

  ‘Please—’ Essie breathed, reaching out hopelessly for the shell that was already beyond her reach, knowing she was falling into the trap, and she saw Tiffany’s ugly pleasure. But before it could go any further, Essie’s shell was whisked out of Tiffany’s hand.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ said a small, firm voice.

  Tiffany’s head snapped round, outraged.

  Annalie held Essie’s shell. She was not tall for her age, with a head of thick brown hair and very dark eyes; right now they blazed with stern determination. Everyone knew that she had grown up in a shantytown, beyond the edges of the civilised world. It was rumoured that she’d come to school in rags, that she was illegal, that she was in a gang. Essie wasn’t sure who she should be more afraid of, Tiffany or Annalie.

  ‘Oh look. It’s the swamphead they let in,’ Sandra said.

  Swamphead meant slum-dweller, someone dirty and dangerous and criminal. It was not at all the sort of term you’d usually use to someone’s face.

  Tiffany smiled with bright malice, and Essie felt her stomach turn over with anxiety. ‘The swamphead! I thought there was a smell in here!’

  Everyone’s eyes were on Annalie now. Essie felt a shrinking sense of sympathy—Annalie was possibly the only girl in the school who was more notorious than she was.

  But Annalie didn’t look afraid. She gave Tiffany a look that was almost scornful. ‘Come on, is that the best you can do?’ she asked. ‘What are you, seven years old?’

  Tiffany got up then, drawing herself up to her full elegant height to stare Annalie down. ‘What did you say?’

  Annalie cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you have a hearing problem?’

  Tiffany’s fine face moulded into a sneer. ‘You don’t belong here, swamphead,’ she said. ‘And neither does she,’ she added, tossing a look of death at Essie, as if to remind her she wasn’t off the hook yet.

  ‘Is that right?’ Annalie said, unimpressed.

  ‘Swampheads are scum,’ Tiffany said.

  For a moment, Tiffany’s words hung in the air, and Essie felt a little ripple of shock run through the room. Plenty of people had thought it; no one had quite dared to come out and say it.

  Annalie’s look turned cold. ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she said, slowly and deliberately. Essie noticed her small hands curl into fists.

  The other girls began to twitter and murmur, shifting about; Tiffany eyed Annalie, her eyes darting a little as she tried to weigh up what was happening: should she push it further? Was it worth the risk? Did she dare to back down and risk the loss of face? Annalie was an unknown quantity, and in that moment, Tiffany was perhaps not quite brave enough to risk it. The moment of inaction stretched, and then Sandra helpfully said, ‘Leave it, Tiffany. She’s not worth it.’

  Given permission to back down, Tiffany pulled her face into an arch sneer, as if she’d won the encounter. ‘I’ll be watching you, swampy,’ she said. And the three of them walked out.

  Essie felt the breath go out of her. She hadn’t realised she’d been holding it. She felt a little dizzy.

  ‘Here,’ Annalie said, holding her shell towards her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Essie said, taking it, and then for a moment neither of them knew quite what to do. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ she asked.

  Annalie sat.

  ‘You’re brave to take her on,’ Essie said. ‘I just hope she’s not going to come after you next.’

  ‘She’s not so scary,’ Annalie said.

  Essie looked at Annalie nervously, trying to get her measure. ‘I thought you were going to hit her,’ she said.

  Annalie smiled and looked down at her hands. ‘That was the idea.’

  ‘Were you bluffing?’ Essie was startled by the audacity of it. ‘Would you have actually done it though?’

  ‘Hit her, you mean?’ Annalie hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’

  Not ‘no’, Essie thought. For a moment she tried to imagine the life this girl had come from, picturing newsfeed footage of refugees in water-riddled slums, and action films featuring the violent brotherhoods who ran those slums. Neither of them seemed to have much to do with the twelve-year-old girl sitting beside her now.

  ‘What was all that about, anyway?’ Annalie asked.

  Essie felt a blush seeping into her face again. ‘You know the Tower Corp scandal?’

  Annalie shook her head.

  ‘The building that fell down? It’s been all over the feeds. They say my dad was responsible.’

  Essie’s father, Everest Wan, was a property developer. As a young man, the Admiralty had posted him to the Department of Reconstruction, which was responsible for rebuilding the flood-damaged cities; much of the actual building work was done by private companies, and soon enough Everest Wan had started his own company, Tower Corp, and was hard at work putting up office towers and apartment buildings. It was more than just work to him; it was a mission to give people a place to call home.

  The week Essie started at Triumph there was a horrible disaster. A newly completed tower building collapsed, killing and injuring hundreds of people. At first a storm was blamed for the disaster, but then it emerged that there had been problems with the construction—building materials stolen and substituted with cheaper ones, engineering reports faked, bribes solicited and paid. The company responsible? Tower Corp.

  She went home the weekend after the news broke, and there were awful scenes. Her mother cried, her father cried, insisting he’d known nothing about the corruption, that he was as devastated and shocked as anyone by what had happened. Essie went back to school reassured that her father had done nothing wrong. But every day, more evidence came out about the company and the way they did business. None of it was good, and it became harder and harder for Essie to keep believing that her father really hadn’t known what was going on. If he didn’t know, then he was an idiot; but if he did know, he was something far worse. Neither thought was very comforting. Lately there had been talk of criminal charges. Her parents were worried they were going to lose everything.

  Now it was Annalie’s turn to look embarrassed. ‘I don’t really keep up with all that stuff,’ she said awkwardly.

  Of course, Essie thought. Annalie just didn’t seem to get the links. She had a shell—it was a school requirement—but it was nothing lik
e the shells the other girls had. It was old and out of date, although it had all the basic functions, like a virtual keyboard you could activate to type your schoolwork. But as for all the other stuff a shell could do—playing music, running newsfeeds, gaming, messaging, taking photos, getting information; in fact, anything you might need to do ever—Annalie didn’t do any of it. Most kids their age walked around in a constant blur of information coming through their shell’s virtual displays, but Annalie didn’t even wear a headpiece. It was possible her shell was so old it wasn’t compatible with headpieces. And although Essie thought it must be strange to be so cut off from what was going on in the world, it also meant that Annalie was possibly the only girl in the school who didn’t give a damn who her father was.

  ‘Why give you a hard time?’ Annalie was saying. ‘You didn’t make the building fall down, did you?’

  Essie shook her head and laughed uncomfortably, feeling a little glow of gratitude towards her, and for a moment they both looked away awkwardly, unsure what to say next.

  Essie fiddled with her shell and her maths homework popped up. It caught Annalie’s eye. ‘Are you still working on that?’

  Essie groaned. ‘Don’t you just hate maths? It’s so hard here!’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Annalie said, then stopped herself. ‘I could help you with it if you like.’

  ‘That’d be great,’ Essie said, ‘if you don’t mind.’

  ‘What else am I going to do?’ Annalie asked dryly, looking around the common room.

  Essie glanced around too, and noticed for the first time that although some of the girls had formed into little knots and were talking and laughing together, most of them were sitting alone, their headpieces pulsing and glittering as their feeds poured each private, individual stream of news and pics and music into each private, individual head.

  ‘Okay,’ Annalie said, angling the shell so they could both see it. ‘This is what you have to do.’

  Over the weeks that followed, Annalie and Essie had become good friends. Annalie helped Essie with her maths, and Essie helped Annalie with her languages (Essie had learned several at her primary school). It soon became clear to Essie—and to the rest of the class as well—that Annalie was dauntingly clever. But she also had surprising gaps in her knowledge. She had no real idea what a shell was for, beyond the basics; she had never searched the links; she had no newsfeeds of her own and couldn’t really understand the point of them. Essie tried introducing her to some of her favourites—fashion, music, celebrities, cat vids—but Annalie confessed she found most of them either boring or baffling.