This is tough, but cherubs are tougher. This is tough but cherubs are tougher.
He smiled at the irony, as he realised that this was part of CHERUB’s own brand of thought control. But the similarities between the tough regime on CHERUB campus and life inside the Survivors’ Ark were only skin deep: everyone who joined CHERUB knew what they were signing up for and if you wanted to leave it was as simple as asking.
Within a few minutes, James had got his breathing back to normal and he’d rehydrated himself from the morning run with three beakers of water.
‘You know,’ Rat said, speaking slowly because of the heat, ‘this is all my fault. I reckon I owe you a favour. Anything you like.’
James smirked. ‘What exactly does a kid with a sore butt and attitude problems have to offer me?’
‘More than you think,’ Rat said indignantly. ‘Being one of Regan’s kids counts for quite a bit and feeding gossip into the right ears can earn you plenty of favours around here.’
James tried thinking of something that would be good for the mission, without making his goals seem obvious.
‘OK, Mr Big Shot,’ James said. ‘I take it we get work assignments here, the same as in Brisbane?’
‘Sure, school lasts until one, then we work until dinner.’
‘Could you fix me and my little sister up with something cushy? Like, a nice desk job, instead of cleaning toilets, or laundry.’
‘No sweat,’ Rat said, surprising James with his air of confidence. ‘I’ll have a word with my stepmum, Susie. That’s my dad’s fourth wife. She’s the second most powerful person in the Ark after The Spider.’
‘What about your mum?’ James asked.
Rat made a gesture like there was a noose around his neck, followed by a gagging sound. ‘My mum couldn’t handle all the other women my dad was carrying on with. She ended up going ga-ga and hanging herself.’
‘Christ,’ James gasped. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not as sorry as me,’ Rat said. ‘You’ve got a family outside of this nut house. If you’re enough of a pain in the arse, they’ll kick you out to go and live with your dad or something. I’m stuck here ’til I’m eighteen.’
‘Doesn’t your dad care what’s happening to you?’
‘He’s eighty-two years old, he needs an oxygen cylinder to breathe, he’s got thirty-three kids and I remind him of the nutty wife who topped herself.’
‘Bummer,’ James said.
‘It was cool back when my mum was alive. We’d visit other communes all over the world with my dad. I was like five or six, and everywhere we went, we were treated like royalty. Cameras flashed when we arrived at airports. I remember one commune in Japan, I wanted to be normal and play, but none of the other kids would go near me because they were scared of who I was. They’d hand me toys, do a little bow and then scarper.’
‘Quite a fall from grace,’ James said.
‘More like a plummet. Now I’m just in the way. I’m not a Survivor and I’m too smart to buy their brain games, but there’s nowhere else I can go.’
27. SUSIE
The metal shed got more unbearable as the sun rose. James tried all sorts of positions to get comfortable: sideways, on his belly, crouching, standing up, clothes on, clothes off. The only relief came from pouring water on his shirt and slapping it over his face.
Mercifully, the bucket got refilled every hour by a round-faced girl who’d perfected all the standard Survivor nods, head tilts and smiles. Each water delivery came with a syrupy blessing:
‘Sweat out the devils. The Lord shall forgive you both.’
Neither boy had a watch, but Rat had spent enough of his life in the sweatbox to gauge time by the position of the sun. When he sensed it was close to 1 p.m., he told James to clean himself as well as he could using the limited water available, then put on his trainers and clothes and get ready to run.
‘This heat has done me in,’ James gasped. ‘I’m not sure I’ll even be able to walk.’
‘You’d better get it together if you want that cushy work assignment,’ Rat said. ‘I nicked some papers out of the office for my stepmum and she owes me a favour, but we’re talking about Joel Regan’s wife. She’s a bit of a psycho. You can’t just knock on her office door and say hi anytime you want. We’ll have to catch her while she’s at lunch in the restaurant around the back of the Holy Church.’
James nodded. ‘I’ll try, but I’m dying here.’
Rat practically barged the girl out of his way when she released the bolts to let them out. James was impressed by how tough Rat was, disregarding dehydration and the pain from the savage paddling as he sprinted towards a single-storey building fifty metres away. The dazzling sunlight made James’ eyelids scrunch up as he struggled to keep pace.
Rat cut around the side of the building and clanked down a metal staircase cut into the ground. He grabbed a rubber handle and levered open a metal door with a yellow and black radiation symbol on it: Emergency Decontamination Area. The door was fifteen centimetres thick and Rat had to drive with both legs to shift it.
‘I know every tunnel in this joint,’ Rat said, as James followed him into a gloomy, low-ceilinged room. There was a line of radiological protection suits hanging from a rail and shower heads jutting out of the wall.
A second thick door took the boys into a corridor, with lines of strip lighting glaring off the shiny floor. The air was chilly, which gave James a boost as he ran past rooms filled with dated looking electronics, provisions and ventilation equipment.
‘What is this?’ James shouted, as their running and breathing echoed.
Rat looked back over his shoulder. ‘There’s more to the Ark than meets the eye. It goes four levels below ground in places. There’s enough canned food to keep us underground for years.’
The Ark was starting to freak James out. The Survivors in Brisbane were manipulative and eccentric, but they didn’t have underground bunkers, radiological protection suits or guns, and they didn’t beat kids into a bloody mess before baking them in metal sheds.
A four-minute run wouldn’t normally have taken much out of James, but by the time he reached the line of elevator doors at the end of the corridor he was shattered. The sweatbox had sapped his strength, leaving his muscles tight and his head thumping.
‘OK,’ Rat said, as they stepped into a giant cargo elevator with a paint-spattered floor. ‘When we step out, you’d better be on your best behaviour. This is the temple restaurant.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s where the high-ups inside the Ark go to eat proper grub, instead of the tinned slop we get at the boarding school. So behave yourself and avoid getting into any casual conversations.’
James was expecting something swank when they stepped out, but the temple restaurant was a basic canteen type deal, although the chunky wooden tables looked like they cost a few bucks and there were arty black and white photos of the Ark along the walls.
A titchy man in a white shirt and black trousers stepped out as they tried getting in. ‘Excuse me,’ he said stiffly, clearly not impressed by two boys in school kit.
Rat pulled his necklace out of his shirt and jangled the gold bead.
The man stepped back a touch nervously. ‘Oh, yes. It’s Rathbone Regan, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes, it is,’ Rat mocked. ‘Is my stepmum here?’
‘She usually prefers to eat alone. I wouldn’t …’
Rat ignored this and led James between tables, towards a stunningly beautiful woman eating a bowl of minestrone soup. She had long dark hair and her carefully made-up face suggested that her life didn’t run on the frantic schedule of a Survivor.
‘Hello, Rat,’ Susie said. Her accent was American and her voice indicated a mixture of suspicion and pleasure at seeing her stepson. ‘Why don’t you both sit down?’
James reckoned he’d recovered enough to sit down, but Rat shook his head. ‘I’ll stay on my feet, if that’s OK.’
Susie smirked. ‘Oh dea
r, how many did you get today?’
‘Thirty-nine.’
‘Phew,’ Susie said, shaking her head as she looked at James. ‘I think he rather enjoys it, James. A bit of a masochistic streak.’
James wondered if there was some truth in this. Rat had practically begged James to beat him up in the shower.
‘I don’t enjoy it,’ Rat said angrily. ‘I just want people to know that hurting me makes no difference.’
The restaurant was self-service, but Susie’s elevated status warranted a waiter. The man was dressed the same way as the dude on the door.
‘Are these two bothering you, Mrs Regan?’
‘Do I look bothered?’ Susie yelled back, startling James with the unexpected flash of anger. ‘Ask the boys what they want to eat and make sure they get it.’
Because the restaurant was supposed to be self-service there was no menu. James didn’t know what they had, so he let Rat order a burger and fries, with an ice-cream float and Pepsi for both of them.
‘And get Rat a rubber ring to sit on,’ Susie said, making James smile at the thought.
Susie didn’t seem anything like a Survivor, but her obvious taste for expensive clothes and jewellery did make her look like the type of woman who’d give up a modelling career to marry a seventy-five-year-old billionaire a few weeks after her twenty-third birthday.
‘How’d you know my name?’ James asked.
‘Your arrival was big news in our little community, James.’
Rat noticed that Susie was through with her soup and sensed he was running out of time. ‘I’m here to call in a favour,’ he said.
‘You surprise me,’ Susie smirked.
‘Ahem,’ the waiter said.
James looked around and was surprised to see the man holding an inflatable rubber ring. He’d assumed Susie was joking, but apparently the restaurant kept a few around for the benefit of the recently paddled.
Rat grinned as he settled cautiously on to the ring, making sure that he didn’t put any weight on to the tenderest areas of his bum. Moments later, burgers, fries and a giant pitcher of Pepsi were slid on to the table. It looked better than anything James had eaten since moving into the Brisbane commune more than a month earlier.
‘So what’s this favour?’ Susie said, as she stood up to leave. ‘Spit it out, I haven’t got all day.’
‘James needs a work assignment,’ Rat explained. ‘He’d like something that doesn’t involve poo or backbreaking physical labour.’
‘My sister too,’ James added, then more sheepishly, ‘if that’s OK.’
‘What’s in it for me?’ Susie smiled, as she hooked a dinky Louis Vuitton backpack over her shoulder.
‘You’ll want more papers and back-up disks nabbed from the office sooner or later,’ Rat whispered.
Susie looked around anxiously. ‘Tell the whole world, why don’t you.’
‘But the best thing is,’ Rat grinned, ‘it’ll get right up The Spider’s nose if you start interfering with the new arrivals.’
This comment brought a huge smile to Susie’s face. ‘Yes it would, wouldn’t it? OK, I’ll make a couple of calls and sort you both out.’
Rat pointed at his food. ‘I’ll miss afternoon service if I stick around to eat this.’
‘You’re covered,’ Susie nodded. ‘Tell them you were on assignment from me. Enjoy the food and try staying out of trouble for once.’
James nodded appreciatively at Rat as Susie strode away. ‘That was slick, Rat. Thanks.’
‘No worries, mate. You’ve no idea how good it is to finally have a member of the human race to talk to.’
28. ASSIGNMENTS
James and Rat’s brutal paddling was the only surprise of Lauren’s first day inside the Ark. The Survivor school taught regular subjects, in classrooms that were air-conditioned and equipped with computers and modern textbooks, although the outside world was cut off: the computers didn’t have internet access and there was no TV, magazines, or newspapers. There was a heavy emphasis on rote-learning of passages from The Survivors’ Manual and you were out of luck if you wanted to know about anything that had happened since World War One in history class.
Lauren hadn’t spoken to James, so she didn’t understand why her job in the kitchens got pulled after half an hour. She was told to abandon her rubber gloves, before getting reassigned to a cushier job as an office assistant. She found herself working alongside Rat and her main duties were retrieving files, passing messages and making coffee for the adults.
The low point of the Ark routine was undoubtedly the food. Lunch had been a gritty pasta salad with black olives, which were one of Lauren’s pet hates. Dinner was a dried-out baked potato sitting in a puddle of baked beans, followed by vanilla ice-cream and a square of sponge cake that had all the culinary virtues of a seat cushion. As always, there was plenty of sugar-rich orange juice and cola to keep up the youngsters’ energy levels.
The school didn’t give homework, so after the early evening service Lauren spent time playing skittles and basketball, before getting introduced to a bunch of weird skipping and chanting games. The other girls were polite and ready with hugs and compliments for the new girl, but their words and smiles seemed flat. Lauren began to imagine that she might be able to peel off their faces and uncover a robot army with flashing diodes and microchips inside their skulls.
*
Lauren’s second morning at the Ark began with a shout, shortly after sunrise. She felt a sense of dread as she forced open gooey eyes. The Survivors’ schedule was relentless and Lauren knew she wouldn’t get a rest until she returned to bed in sixteen hours’ time. On top of that, she couldn’t see a clear path forward for their mission and was worried about what would happen over the coming days, especially when every chance they took meant running the risk of a paddling.
The girls around her were already out of their beds, pulling on the grubby kit they’d worn for sports the night before.
‘Come on, drowsy,’ a girl called Verity said brightly. ‘It’s a new day. The Lord has set challenges for us.’
The words reminded Lauren of the sickly phrases you get inside cheap birthday cards. She would happily have told god to stuff his challenges, in return for a couple of hours lying in bed watching bad TV, followed by a lazy session pottering around a kitchen whipping up her favourite pancakes, stuffed with Nutella and icing sugar.
Still, Lauren had a job to do. She pulled on her stinking yellow socks and rugby shirt before peeing and chasing the other girls outside on to the exercise yard behind the accommodation blocks. James was already there with the Blues, lined up beside Rat.
Lauren was desperate to speak to her brother, but girls and boys slept, ate, learned, worshipped and played separately, so it wasn’t going to be easy. There was no opportunity during the exercises, nor in the formation lap that followed, but she finally got a chance as they broke free to run the high-speed laps of the compound.
‘How’s your butt?’ Lauren asked, deliberately keeping her speed down so that they dropped behind the charging hordes.
James was out of breath. ‘My arse is black and blue, but it looks worse than it feels.’
‘Were you really perving at girls in the shower?’
‘It’s a long story,’ James said, not wanting to repeat it because it made him look dumb. ‘More importantly, the guy I got paddled with is Joel Regan’s son. You and me need to meet up so I can explain properly.’
‘The earliest will be tonight,’ Lauren said. ‘We can sneak off during sports time, between the buildings or something.’
They turned a corner and heard a sharp popping sound. Lauren immediately stopped running and hopped on one leg, as though she’d twisted her ankle.
James thought she was really injured. He stopped and turned back anxiously. ‘Are you OK?’
Lauren spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Look around, idiot head. It’s the signal from John.’
With all that was going on, James had forgotten that John was
going to try and get the miniature radios to them. It made perfect sense for it to happen at a corner, because the runners ahead of them had no reason to look backwards and the runners behind would be blindsided by the corner.
As Lauren sat down on the pavement, ripping off her trainer and clutching her foot in mock agony, James scoured the floor. He noticed a golden cigarette packet at the edge of the tarmac path that clearly had no business in the middle of the outback.
James realised the pop must have been caused by something firing the carton from between a couple of boulders a few metres away. As he snatched the packet, he had to unhook a nylon cord that must have been there to wind the carton back if things had gone wrong.
He tucked the cardboard pack inside his shorts and wondered how it had managed to get where it was and pop out at exactly the right moment. But there wasn’t time to stand around trying to figure it out, because a couple of stragglers and a teacher who always ran at the back had just turned the corner.
Lauren stood on one leg, leaning against the Ark’s perimeter as the moustached teacher stopped running and smiled at her.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I put my foot down funny and went over on my ankle … I don’t think it’s bad, though.’
*
Dana staggered in from her run around the Brisbane mall. She always finished half a lap ahead of the other girls and was surprised to see Abigail standing outside the shower room waiting for her.
‘I’m out working all day,’ Abigail explained hurriedly. ‘They’re really busy over at the warehouse. I got these off Michael last night.’
‘Who’s Michael?’
‘He’s our liaison with ASIS now that John and Chloe have headed off to the Ark.’
Abigail passed Dana a rectangular white strip, which looked like a small bookmark.
‘Fat lot of use that’ll be to me,’ Dana said sullenly. ‘I just hope James and Lauren got theirs OK.’
CHERUB: Divine Madness Page 16
