I nodded.
‘It must be a training exercise or some kind of war game scenario.’
‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘And that’s not all.’
‘Not all?’
‘You remember when you said you’d detected anomalous results in my scans?’
Kostova nodded.
‘It turns out that was because my father had injected me with a vaccine to protect me against the Change.’
‘But your father . . .’
‘Changed. His vaccine worked though. I’ve been to the Zone. I’m not infected. But it did something to me. The Changed we encountered got sick, almost as if my presence disrupted the Change somehow.’
I could see from Kostova’s face that she was wavering, that I was getting through to her. I knew I had to push my point.
‘I don’t understand the mechanism. I ran away before my father could finish testing me. But I think the Change is aware of me, of the disruption. It’s frightened.’
For a long moment Kostova didn’t speak. Then she laughed abruptly. ‘You disrupted the Change?’
I opened my mouth to reply but then, from the other side of the yard, somebody spoke.
‘It’s true.’
I turned, only to feel a sick lurch of fear. It was Matt.
Ben took a step forward as if to protect me. Kostova swung her pistol around and trained it on him.
‘Stay back!’
Matt lifted his hands. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
I scanned the bush, alert for any sign of more of the Changed. Matt took another step toward me.
‘Don’t move,’ snapped Kostova.
‘Callie. It’s me. The real me.’
I clenched my fists. ‘I should have killed you.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you had,’ he said.
I hesitated. Despite his opaline eyes and the markings of the Change there was something different about him.
He took another step forward.
‘Stop!’ said Kostova.
‘I promise it’s not a trick,’ he said.
Kostova glanced at me.
‘You knew him?’
‘He captured me.’
‘In the Zone?’
I nodded.
‘Please, Callie,’ Matt said. ‘You have to believe me.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Ben said. ‘You know it’s a trick.’
Matt took another step forward, his arms still above his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kostova said.
As she spoke her stance relaxed and I realised she was about to shoot. Almost without thinking I threw myself at her, knocking the gun to one side. ‘No!’
The shot went wild. Ben lunged forward, striking Matt and throwing him to the ground. Matt went down, barely resisting as Ben twisted his arm behind his back.
‘Stop!’ I said. ‘I think he’s telling the truth.’
‘Don’t let him fool you,’ Ben said. ‘You know what he’s capable of.’
Kostova had trained her gun on Matt again and was slowly advancing on him.
‘Please, just let him talk.’
Kostova and Ben exchanged a glance.
‘Please!’
Kostova gave a small nod. Ben hoisted Matt to his feet. Matt grimaced.
‘It’s true. This body isn’t mine, but I . . . I’m me.’
I took a step back. ‘You mean you’re a replicant?’
He nodded. ‘But my memories, all I was, they’re here, in me.’
‘And the Change?’
‘It’s still there. I can feel it, I think it can feel me. But I’m in control again.’
‘How?’ I demanded. ‘When we left you, you were dying.’
‘I was. In fact I think I might have. I don’t remember all of it, but I remember capturing you, I remember being at that house, getting sick. It’s difficult to explain: I was there but I wasn’t there. It was like I was dreaming, or I was a passenger in my own body. And then I woke up and something had happened. I was myself again.’
‘But how?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m not the only one. Two of the others who were with me at the house are the same.’
‘How is that even possible?’ Kostova asked in disbelief.
I stared at him. I still wasn’t sure why I had leapt to his defence; after all, I had seen the trickery of the Change, the way it used those you loved against you firsthand. But something about this was different. Whatever the thing that had captured Ben and me had been was gone; it still horrified me to think of Matt’s memories in one of these things, but if there was a chance something of Matt could be saved I knew I had to do it.
‘I don’t know. But I think it has to do with Callie.’
‘My father’s vaccine. If it really was the vaccine that made them sick and killed those plants perhaps it affected them in the same way it did me.’ My heart skipped. Was it possible? What about Gracie?
There was a moment of silence. ‘This is insane,’ said Kostova.
‘Perhaps,’ Matt said. ‘But it’s true.’
‘Why should we trust you?’ Ben asked.
‘You have no reason to. But if I was really your enemy, if I was still being controlled by the Change, I wouldn’t be here. Not like this.’
I looked at Kostova. ‘You see? We have to stop them. If there’s any other way we can stop the Change Omelas and the others can’t be allowed to do what they’re planning.’
Kostova hesitated. I could see she was wavering.
‘Please,’ I said. Kostova looked from me to Ben to Matt and back, then slowly lowered her gun.
‘You stay there,’ she said to Matt. ‘Come any closer and I’ll take you down.’
Then she turned to me. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Show me what you’ve got.’
27
Over the next hour Kostova made me tell her everything: about the Ark, about Omelas and Meena, about the systems and the aquifers I had seen, about Firestorm and the Zone and my father and the vaccine, and when I had done she made me tell her again, making sure I had left nothing out.
By the time I was finished I was exhausted, worn out by her interrogation, by being pressed on details I hadn’t known I knew. On the far side of the clearing Matt sat against a tree, his head on his knees, while Ben kept watch over him; even when I wasn’t looking at him I could feel him there, feel the implications of his presence pressing in on me. Could it be true? Was it really my father’s vaccine that had made it happen? He had said it was mutating in my system but had it mutated that much? I knew it was dangerous to want it to be true this much, but what if it was? It meant everything was different, everything. It meant Gracie could be cured.
‘Can we go to the media?’ I asked when Kostova was done. ‘To Quarantine?’
Kostova shook her head. ‘Even if what your friend Meena told you about the Ark having systems to detect mentions of it online is true, there’s a good chance the media wouldn’t believe us, and even if they did there’s no guarantee it would result in anything happening in time. And an operation on this scale would only be possible with the help of people at the top, so we can assume Quarantine command are compromised.’
‘Then what can we do?’
Kostova sat back. She looked grim, shocked, yet determined.
‘I don’t think we have a lot of options. If we attack the installation, try to interrupt the launch, then perhaps that will buy us some time to get the word out, make sure they don’t get a chance to try again.’
‘There are hundreds of installations though, spread all over the planet.’
‘I have contacts here and overseas, people in Quarantine I trust and can send the information to. Perhaps we can coordinate, hit a number at the same time.’
‘And if that doesn’t wo
rk?’
Kostova shook her head. ‘If that doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter anyway.’
While Kostova called her partner, Egan, I went and stood beside Ben. Matt was still seated with his back against a tree.
‘We need to get under cover,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not safe out here.’
‘Kostova says she has somewhere we can go,’ I said.
Realising Matt was watching me, I crossed to where he sat.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, my voice hard, wary. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘After I woke up it was different. I was myself again but I could feel the Change. Inside me, inside my head. I knew it wanted me.’
A shiver of recognition passed through me.
‘So?’
‘So I headed south, to the Wall.’
‘But you must have known what would happen if you were caught.’
‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘None of that explains what you’re doing here, now.’
‘Don’t you remember this place, Callie?’ Matt asked.
I didn’t reply.
‘There was a house we stayed in, with a piano. Half a day’s walk from here. I went there.’
On the far side of the clearing Kostova flicked her goggles open.
‘We need to go,’ she said. ‘We can’t risk Omelas’ people finding us. Callie, you come with me. Miller, you get your motorbike and follow us.’
‘What about him?’ Ben asked. Kostova looked at Matt. There was a moment’s silence.
‘Please,’ Matt said. ‘I want to help.’
‘Bring him,’ Kostova said.
Kostova led me and Matt to her van and opened the back.
‘Get in,’ she said to Matt.
He looked at me. I nodded.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said.
Once he was in Kostova slammed the door behind him and I climbed into the front after her. Looking back, I could see Matt – or whoever he was – through a grille, staring at the side of the van. If he was aware of me watching him he gave no sign. Reaching over Kostova slammed the grille and started the van.
We drove through the town and on, north, deeper into the Transitional. It was getting late and the sun was low in the sky.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked as we headed out into the silent landscape.
‘There’s a Quarantine supply depot not far from here. We should be safe there for the time being.’
The depot was in a pair of sheds off the main road. As we pulled up in front of the sheds the van’s headlights picked out the ghostly trunks of a stand of gums. Kostova crossed to the doors and pressed a security panel. A moment later lights came on. Kostova pressed another button and one of the doors opened.
‘Put the bike in there where it won’t be spotted,’ she said. She crossed to the van and opened the back. Matt stepped out.
‘What now?’ I asked.
‘We wait,’ Kostova said, but as she spoke I heard the dull thump of a helicopter and saw lights in the sky to the south. I shot Ben a panicky look. His face told me he had seen it as well.
‘Don’t worry,’ Kostova said. ‘They’re with me.’
The helicopter circled twice then descended, landing in an open space a little way away from the sheds. Together with Kostova we walked toward it, the long grass rippling around us as the rotors slowed and stopped. The doors opened and two Quarantine officers clambered out and approached us, removing their goggles.
I recognised the taller of them as Egan, and the look of surprise on his face told me he recognised me as well. The pilot, who was younger, with dark spiky hair that looked the worse for wear from its time under his helmet, was unfamiliar to me.
‘This is Glass,’ Kostova said. ‘And I think you know Egan.’ Then, turning back to us, she introduced Ben and me. Finally Matt stepped forward.
‘What the . . .’ Egan began, his hand moving to the holster on his belt, but Kostova stepped in front of him, her arm covering his hand.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I can explain.’
Neither of them spoke, but I saw something pass between them. Egan let his hand drop but didn’t take his eyes off Matt.
We walked back to the sheds, where Kostova made me tell Egan and Glass what I had told her already, repeating all of it piece by piece. When I was done I crossed to the far side of the shed where Matt was sitting in the shadows watching Kostova, Egan and Glass talk.
‘Did they believe you?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘So what happens now?’
‘I think that’s what they’re trying to work out.’
He didn’t reply, just nodded. How did it work? I wondered. How did the Change make people? What were their teeth constructed of, their muscles? What organs did they have within them? And perhaps most importantly, how were their brains created? If it was true the being in front of me had Matt’s memories, his feelings, what did that mean? Was it really him? Or a copy? Or both and neither?
‘How did you really find us?’ I asked.
He looked at me. ‘After I came across the Wall I was planning to try to turn myself in, to tell somebody what had happened. But then I . . . I felt you. In the Change.’
‘Is that how you found us today?’
He nodded.
‘The others who recovered. What happened to them?’
‘They . . . they were afraid to come back. Of what Quarantine would do to them. So they stayed behind in the Zone. I don’t know what happened to them after that.’
‘But you have some idea.’
‘The Change has no compunction about killing when it thinks it might be threatened.’ He paused.
‘But?’
He looked up. ‘But I think it’s afraid, Callie. Can’t you feel it?’
I began to speak, to deny that I had any connection to the Change, but his face told me there was no point: he knew.
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Why else would it have tried to capture me?’
Matt was silent for a moment.
‘I don’t know how to describe what it is. But what I do understand is that if it’s afraid, that means it can be hurt.’
I looked away, trying to resist the hope that was forming in me. I could feel Matt watching me.
‘You’re thinking about Gracie, aren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘Do you know . . .’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen her.’
‘But she’s alive?’
‘I think so.’
I clenched my fists.
‘There’s no guarantee what happened to me would work for Gracie,’ Matt said, his voice gentle.
I didn’t look around, just stared at Kostova and the others.
‘But there’s a chance, isn’t there?’
28
With so little time our options were limited, but by midnight we had a plan. We would start by sending the files I had recovered to as many people as we could in Quarantine and the Science Corps, in the hope some of them would pay attention and help raise the alarm. Even if there were trackers searching online, they couldn’t stop the information getting out if enough people had it.
While that was happening Kostova, Egan and Glass would make contact with people they thought they could trust in Quarantine here and overseas and supply them with the locations of other facilities specified in the files. With no idea who was compromised, they couldn’t risk contact with anybody senior for fear of accidentally alerting those in charge of the Ark project to our plans, but Kostova was hopeful at least a few of the people on their list would agree to help.
Meanwhile we would attack the nearest installation using the helicopter and as many Quarantine officers as Kostova could muster. I could see from the way Kostova and the others talked about it that this part of t
he plan made all of them very uneasy, and not just because there were so few of us.
‘Are you sure you can do this?’ Kostova asked Ben at one point. ‘Some of the people guarding the installation may be friends of yours. If they resist you may have to hurt them, or even kill them.’
‘Hopefully it won’t come to that,’ Ben said. ‘But if it does, I can do what needs to be done.’
With our course of action agreed we all gathered around while Kostova uploaded the files. There was a moment of silence as she touched her screen, then she nodded and said, ‘It’s done.’
For a few seconds there was quiet, then Kostova looked at Egan and Glass. ‘We need to call some people,’ she said, then looked at me. ‘And you should get some sleep.’
While they made calls, I laid down on one of the camp beds. Other than the few hours that afternoon, I hadn’t really slept in days, but even so it was difficult to relax. Too much had happened, and the thought of the attack was difficult to put out of my mind.
But it wasn’t just nerves about what might happen that kept me awake. Although we had not spoken again, I could feel Matt’s presence, feel the presence of the Change massed to the north, it presence heavy in the air like an approaching thunderstorm, ominous, electric. I remembered my father describing the feeling as being like standing in a forest in the wind and feeling the wind enter you, and now, after all this time, I thought I understood what he meant. The Change was in everything, part of everything, a web of awareness that bound me and Matt and all the rest of it together.
We broke camp before dawn, Glass using the helicopter to cover us as we made our way to a rendezvous point closer to the installation via a series of back roads and overgrown tracks. Barely an hour later we pulled up by an old stock shed. As we climbed out of the van a black-uniformed Quarantine officer appeared at the entrance to the shed and walked toward us. Matt hung back, a hood drawn down over his face.
‘Klein,’ Kostova said, shaking her hand. ‘Are the others here?’
‘Inside,’ Klein said.
‘Let’s get on with it then,’ Kostova said.
Inside the shed half-a-dozen Quarantine officers were gathered. As we entered they came to attention, but Kostova motioned to them to relax.
The Buried Ark Page 18
