Pandora Jones: Reckoning

by Barry Jonsberg

  Dr Macredie rubbed her hand across her brow and the bridge of her nose. When she spoke, her voice was even softer than usual and Pan had to strain to catch the words.

  ‘No one . . . no one regrets Cara’s death more than me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Cara probably does.’

  ‘She was so talented, Pandora. So talented.’ Dr Macredie was gazing into the distance, somewhere over Pan’s shoulder. ‘The night she died, she came to see me. In my cabin in the staff quarters. It was past midnight and there was a knock on my door. I was, as you can imagine, surprised to see her. I knew of her talent, of course. The research I had done suggested she possessed an extraordinary gift, but she was determined to deny it.’ Dr Macredie sighed. ‘She reminded me so much of myself. A child, puzzled by her difference, trying desperately to fit in. Unhappy because she couldn’t, but with nowhere else to go, stuck in a cycle of misery. She cried to me. She wanted my help. She was babbling about watches and that they were wrong, that The School was not what it appeared to be, that all of the students were under surveillance.’

  Pan kept her silence. She doubted if Dr Macredie would hear her even if she spoke. This was a prepared monologue and all she could do was listen. Nonetheless, the dreadful irony was not lost on her. Cara had cried out for help. What a tragedy that the one person she went to was the person who wanted to exploit her. Why hadn’t Cara come to her? Because Pan hadn’t given a strong enough invitation? And so poor Cara did what she should do, what was expected of her. She went to speak to the school counsellor . . .

  Dr Macredie shuddered and met Pan’s eyes.

  ‘I tried to explain,’ she said. ‘I told her about my own experiences growing up, how I had gone through similar traumas. I thought she would relate to that.’

  ‘You gave her the story you just gave me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dr Macredie held up her hands. ‘It was a mistake. I acknowledge that. Cara didn’t have the strength to understand my vision. It scared her. She became hysterical.’

  ‘So you killed her.’

  Dr Macredie gripped her chair so tightly the tendons in her arms bunched.

  ‘You don’t understand, Pandora Jones. She unleashed . . . it is almost impossible to explain it. An attack. Though she stood five metres from me, she attacked. A furious bombardment of the mind. I have never experienced anything like it. The girl’s power was . . . phenomenal. Imagine someone connecting a live electrical wire to your brain and then ramping up the voltage, throwing the switch to maximum. I tried to defend myself, but her power was off the scale. I had no idea, no idea at all, what Cara was capable of. And even as she attacked, I don’t think she knew either, had no understanding of what she was doing to me.’

  Pan waited while Dr Macredie regained control. She slumped back in the chair as if exhausted.

  ‘I had to protect myself,’ she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper. ‘My body did what my mind couldn’t. The pain had to stop, that’s all I knew. And it did stop. When I could see again, Cara was dead. I don’t remember strangling her, but my hands were around her throat. I would give anything to take it back, Pandora. Anything.’

  ‘You called Dr Morgan.’

  ‘Yes. The man is an idiot and a coward – he’s still hiding somewhere in the Infirmary, by the way – but he has his uses. This was a disaster, but he had ideas and I let him run with them. What was the point of doing otherwise? What was done was done. Nothing could bring her back.’ Dr Macredie leaned forward. ‘You must understand. That’s why I swore you would never come to harm, Pandora. I couldn’t afford another mistake or the whole project was in grave danger.’

  ‘A mistake, Dr Macredie? The project in danger? Is that all this means to you?’

  ‘Nothing is more important than my project,’ said Dr Macredie. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I can think of a couple of things,’ said Pan.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like freedom,’ said Pan. ‘Like justice.’

  Now the moment had come, Pan felt a strange, almost disquieting calm settle on her. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noted the prone figure of the marksman in front of the helicopter, his head slightly cocked as he peered down the rifle’s sights. Jen’s locket burned against her skin.

  Something strange was happening to time. Pan heard her heartbeat, felt the rush of blood, but everything was slowed. She licked her lips and even that seemed to take forever. She searched for the image in her memory, the child on the swing and the pregnant woman gazing on, smiling. She wore a black dress with polka dots, her belly swollen, one hand resting on the top of the bump. Pan locked on the image, remembered the touch of the soldier’s hand, and gathered her strength. She had no idea if this would work. I just need a few seconds, she thought. Give me a few seconds.

  Summoning all her strength, she pushed out with her mind.

  And at exactly the same moment, Pan ran as fast as she could towards Dr Macredie.

  Chapter 23

  A flick of the eyes. The soldier had one hand clutched to his head and he rolled away from his rifle. Faintly, through the still air, Pan heard a groan. He was throwing her out of his mind. That familiar revulsion, that sense of disgust as he purged her presence. Pan tried to ignore his outrage, and fixed her gaze on Dr Macredie who was rising from her seat. Pan had covered half the ground. The soldier was back in control of his head. Pan didn’t look, but she knew he would be scrambling to regain position, find the trigger, bring his eye to the sights, take a bead on her body as it ran along the pier. Maybe the other soldiers inside the chopper would be scrambling from the craft, unslinging weapons. But time had slowed, and that was to her advantage.

  Five metres to go.

  But now something else was happening. A force against her mind. For the first time, Pan knew how others felt when she tried to batter down the barriers guarding mind and will. It was unnatural. Evil. She felt her limbs weakening. Something was ordering her body to stop, overriding synapse and muscle. The air itself had taken on a thick and oily consistency and each step was harder than the last. Two metres.

  Dr Macredie’s teeth were bared in a feral snarl.

  And then, as Pan crashed into her body and the chair and wrapped her arms around her, time returned to normal, found its customary pace and everything became blurred. The pressure in her head eased for a moment. Pan brought her left arm around the doctor’s neck and squeezed, forcing her head back. With her right arm she encircled Dr Macredie’s body, heaved it in front of her own.

  A board close to her right foot exploded. A split second later she heard the whine of the bullet. Pan increased the pressure on Dr Macredie’s throat and took a couple of steps back. She peered over the doctor’s right shoulder.

  The soldiers had fanned out. Five of them. Two ran to her right, trying to find a position for a clear line of sight. Another two headed towards the start of the pier. The last remained in front of the helicopter. Pan had hoped for confusion, possibly a frozen moment of uncertainty. It hadn’t happened. Their training had taken over. Dr Macredie’s body was a shield, but could it protect Pan from all angles? Doubtful. Impossible, if they were trained snipers.

  Dr Macredie gurgled, and Pan released the pressure slightly.

  ‘You can’t get away,’ she croaked. ‘Don’t die for nothing, Pandora. Please. Don’t waste this opportunity.’

  The assault on Pan’s mind came again, thoughts and images jumbled. Tainted by fear. She tightened her grip again and took her right arm away from Dr Macredie’s waist. She fumbled at her own neck, found the chain and pulled on it. She clutched the locket, the metal warm against her palm. The mental assault from Dr Macredie had lessened as the grip around her throat tightened, but Pan still wasn’t sure she had the cerebral space to do this. But this had to be done. She cleared her mind and let the touch of the locket permeate her being. The image of the red-haired girl flared, but Pan forced it aside and pushed out with her mind.

  Dim at first, but with a clarity that sharpened by the second,
Pan found herself looking out a window onto the deserted landscape of the village. The wall was close, its sheer face blank and expressionless. A watchtower loomed a hundred metres away. Jen’s disgust filled her, but she wasn’t thrown out.

  ‘Move,’ said Pan in her head. ‘Down to the quay. Five soldiers, armed. Watch the towers. Be quick.’

  She let go, felt Jen’s fleeting gratitude as she did so. And then she was back on the pier, Dr Macredie’s body squirming against hers, the soldiers still running, still looking for an angle. Pan took another step back and risked a glance behind. Another four or five metres of pier before the sea itself. How long would it take for the team to get here? She replayed her own journey with Ruby. Ten minutes’ walk. Three minutes, running. Maybe less. Could she hold out that long? She brought her right arm back and gripped Dr Macredie tightly again, shifted her body to cover the soldiers’ line of sight to her right. Glanced to the left, saw the other two enter the pier, slow to a walk and advance, cautiously yet with determination. Pan took another step back. And then another.

  She ran through possibilities in her mind. Everything depended upon the soldiers’ loyalty to Dr Macredie, but she felt confident about that. If they hadn’t been loyal in the first place, then both of them would have been gunned down by now. Provided Pan could keep the doctor as a shield, she was safe. But for how long? She edged back with her right foot and felt the end of the pier. There was nowhere else to go.

  Above, a lone bird circled the village, its shrill cry echoing through the landscape. Pan wondered whether it was Kes, and longed to be back up there with only the wind and the sky. Life could be simple.

  But it wasn’t. Not now. Not ever, in this body.

  Pan looked down, past the soldiers who had advanced along the pier, hoping for movement behind them. Nothing. And then a burst of gunfire, explosively loud against the stillness. The watchtowers. Her team was on the way. Far off in the distance, the speck of dark metal against the mountain stirred and lifted. The other helicopter was in flight. Off to her right, another smear of movement. If she could see the soldier, then the soldier could see her. Pan tried to shift Dr Macredie’s body slightly to cover her exposure, slipped, and then there was nothing beneath her feet.

  She clung to Dr Macredie’s neck as they fell. Pan was aware of a dizzying rush of cloud and sky across her vision, before the sea closed over them both.

  Dr Macredie’s squirming intensified when they plunged beneath the water and she became possessed of what seemed supernatural strength. Fighting for her life, thought Pan. Just as I am fighting for my own. She wanted to let go, knew her chances of survival would be drastically improved without another body attached to her own. But she didn’t let go – she tightened her grip and tried to fight off panic. Dr Macredie’s thoughts burst through her head.

  This is insane, Pandora. You don’t want to die. I feel that. And I don’t want to die. Accept the future. Embrace it. The world is yours. For your children and their children throughout the immensity of time.

  Except it wasn’t words in her head, but a string of images and sensations that spoke much clearer than words ever could. Dr Macredie’s vision in all its twisted glory and delusion. It was so sharp and vivid, and Pan felt the immense pull, the attraction of what she saw, and there was a part of her that truly wanted to accept it as her destiny. But another part of her mind accommodated other visions. Cara’s face, her body as it dipped and slid beneath the waves. Her mother’s touch, Danny’s hair and the way his mouth twisted when he was upset. The life that Sam held and nurtured within her. The future of the human race, whatever it might be. Lies and corruption and famine and death – everywhere death. Everywhere cruelty. The world spinning into mortality.

  But the sweetness of its dance. Oh, the sweetness.

  Pan flexed the muscles of her left arm, felt the bones in Dr Macredie’s neck crack under the pressure. The doctor’s arms swatted and flapped against the grip, just as her thoughts flapped against Pan’s mind. But everything was weakening. The darkness beneath the sea was increasing and Pan’s lungs burned.

  Take a breath, she thought. One long, deep inhalation and all this will be over. She gritted her teeth again.

  The body in her arms went slack, twitched once and stilled. Pan opened her eyes, but it was difficult to see clearly in the green-grey gloom. She let Dr Macredie go, watched as her body turned leisurely in the grip of the ocean currents. The doctor’s face was a pale slash against the dark, her eyes open. And then she receded, taken by the sea, spiralling down. Joining Cara.

  It took a long time to break the surface, or at least it felt that way to Pan. Just when she thought her lungs would give out, when the band that tightened with each passing second became unbearable, she found air. Her lungs drew it in, and then the waves broke over her face and she inhaled sea water instead of air. Panic grew and clawed at her mind. So close, only to drown when salvation was within grasp. But then her head cleared the water again and she coughed and spluttered, fought the dizzying black sparks that swam before her eyes, fought her way to calm. Except her heart hammered and her lungs felt torn and bruised.

  She had surfaced beneath the pier. A metre or so to her left a post thrust from the water, crustaceans clinging to its stained surface. The light was strange, a twilight thrown into relief by the coruscating glints of sunlight that sparked from the waves and made her flinch. Pan had never felt so tired, both physically and emotionally, but she forced herself to breaststroke a couple of metres further into the shade. The soldiers. They had been only twenty metres away when she and Dr Macredie had plummeted from the pier. They must, by now, have covered that ground and be watching, waiting, their guns raised, peering into the waves, anticipating a head breaking the surface. Fingers poised on triggers.

  Pan trod water and looked up. The gaps between the boards were narrow, but the light filtering through them made dappling patterns on the surface of the sea. Even as she turned her head upwards, the light was broken. Movement. A person, edging carefully along the pier. Pan fought the urge to cough. Her lungs were raw, still fighting to purge the seawater she had taken in. She held her breath. The shadow moved closer to her, and off to her right another shadow mirrored it. Both soldiers, gazing down into the waves and waiting.

  The splash was so sudden that Pan’s heart rose into her throat. A second splash, followed by the sound of gunfire. A loud burst from an automatic weapon, and then a slightly different tone. Two guns firing. Three. Within seconds, the world was filled with noise. The body rose gently to the surface, head down, an arrow embedded in its back. The waves took the body, rolled it over and Pan saw the soldier’s face. A face with surprise deeply etched upon it, a final emotion frozen by death. Ten metres to her left another body rolled, but this one was still alive. The soldier fought against the water and clawed with one hand for the arrow in his side. It was just out of reach. A scream issued from his throat, but immediately the water closed it off, choked it to a gurgle. Pan instinctively made to move towards him, help him. Someone in pain, someone needing assistance. But she didn’t have time. The man gave a final shudder and then his body dipped beneath the waves. It didn’t resurface.

  My friends. My team. They need me.

  Pan swam beneath the pier towards the shore, where she could see the steps she had walked so long ago with Gwynne and the others. Her mind made swift calculations. Two soldiers down, three still alive. The odds remained stacked against them. The gunfire continued. How many thousands of bullets? How was it possible to survive such an onslaught? What chance, a knife and arrows against a metal curtain of death? Pan grabbed for the lowest step and hauled herself out of the water. She crept up the stairs, head low.

  At first, when she poked her head above the top step, she was puzzled. She’d expected to see Jen and the others, Wei-Lin, her bow drawn, charging the enemy. But there was nothing, just the acrid stench of gunfire. She poked her head a little higher.

  The remaining soldiers had regrouped. One remained
on the ground – the one who had been charged with covering her? – but the other two flanked the helicopter, using its bulk as a shield. All three faced away from the pier, firing towards the nearest cluster of buildings. Pan glanced up at the sky. The second helicopter was approaching, passing between two of the watchtowers. Its blades made a shimmering circle above the craft, though the noise of the engine couldn’t be heard above the gunfire. It banked and made towards the pier. Men in uniforms leaned from the open doors on both sides. Pan fought against that familiar tide of despair.

  You’re still alive, she reminded herself. Think.

  Three soldiers on one side of the pier, maybe half a dozen arriving. Even as the thought occurred to her, dark lines snaked from the side of the approaching chopper, fell and dangled close to the ground. Men swarmed from the helicopter, climbing down the ropes with incredible speed.

  Think, Pandora!

  Six watchtowers. How many were in there? Two to each tower, maybe. What were they doing? There was no point continuing to watch and guard. Almost certainly, they would be spreading out from the base of the wall, moving towards the fighting. Her team would be caught in a pincer of two forces. And where was her team? Pan was tempted to take out the locket, make contact with Jen, but decided against it. Judging by the level of gunfire, her friend had enough on her mind without a voice intruding in her head.

  Their only chance was to get at least one gun. Pan scanned the pier. A dark shape lay, half on and half off the edge. The soldier who had still been alive when he hit the water must have dropped his weapon when Wei-Lin’s arrow hit. Pan had no idea how to fire a gun. She suspected there was more to it than simply pulling the trigger, but there was only one way to find out. She pulled herself from the water and lay flat on the pier, presenting as small a target as possible. Then she snaked towards the gun.