by Cowley, Joy
‘I didn’t say that. You’ll get paid well, Matisse, plus a bonus for keeping the kids happy until I have the co-ordinates fixed. Did you send off the Cape Prudhoe subject?’
‘The orphan Banjo? Yes, he went off without a murmur. Right now his little spirit is wandering round some oil rig in north Alaskan darkness, but he won’t be feeling the cold. We also moved the girl upstairs. The thin one with red hair. Taylor Shaw. You wanted her sent to Tokyo.’
She filled the coffee-maker with water. ‘That’s right. Small assignments for both of them because they won’t last long. We should get clear readings but neither has much physical stamina. The boy is asthmatic. What did you do with the termination case?’
‘The McCready kid? Vaporised.’
‘No trace?’
‘Absolutely, positively, no trace.’
‘Good. He was a great disappointment. Physically strong but scrambled upstairs. Years of addiction, I suspect. Complete breakdown between the neo-cortex and limbic system.’ She sighed. ‘Do you still take cream and sugar?’
When the coffee was made, they sat by the window and she told him about some of her time-travel research. She did not know how much he understood, for his remarks were all heavy with clumsy humour, but she realised his importance to her plans, and her need to involve him. Class Act had a worldwide reputation that was beyond reproach, and it was very convenient that she could set up her laboratory under the cover of one of its houses. Street kids were everywhere, and there would always be avaricious people like Lieutenant Peachman and Matisse and his team, who, at a price, would help her turn delinquents into useful subjects. She had so perfected her astral projection technique that she could send a child’s astral body anywhere in the world. No company was secure from a ghost. The kids could walk through walls unseen, unheard. Yet everything the little souls observed and listened to was recorded faithfully on their monitors back in the laboratory. The information was sold through brokers to the highest bidder and no one, but no one, knew where it had come from.
‘I can assure you, Matisse, your money won’t dry up. It will simply come from a different source. You see, there are limits to industrial espionage. We can’t go on spying for, and spying on, the big multinationals forever. They are all getting paranoid and, sooner or later, someone is going to make the connection with Dr Elizabeth Frey, astro-biophysicist. But with time travel—ah! Imagine what museums and universities will pay for history’s secrets! What is the connection between the pyramids, Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar? How many plays did William Shakespeare actually write? Who really were the first settlers in North America? What happened to the dinosaurs? Eye-witness information will bridge the gaps between the spirals of time, and the astral and the physical dimensions. We actually see and hear those dinosaurs. We witness Shakespeare’s hand on the page.’
‘It sounds altogether fascinating, Elizabeth,’ said Matisse drily. ‘You might discover if there were any financial connections between Matisse the painter and Elizabeth the First of England. Is there any more coffee in that pot?’
‘Don’t laugh, my fine-feathered friend,’ she said. ‘Time travel is inevitable. You’ve heard of the lost city of Atlantis?’
‘Of course.’
‘Some say that is was in Central America, some say the Pacific or Africa. There is a sea-filled volcanic crater in the Greek island of Santorini in the Aegean. This was Atlantis, according to the locals. Others claim it was in Antarctica and destroyed by a polar shift.’ She poured more coffee into his cup. ‘One thing we do know. Over three thousand years ago, there was an explosion of knowledge all over the world. Simple peasant tribes suddenly sprouted philosophy, mathematics, literature, sophisticated architecture, advanced social structures. Tradition has it that it all came from the city of Atlantis and that Atlantis was built by beings from outer space.’
‘Utter phooey!’ said Matisse. ‘Atlantis did not exist.’
She laughed with delight. ‘You are right, Matisse! As you would say, you are absolutely, positively right. That is why people have not been able to find the fabled city. There were no visitors from outer space and there was no Atlantis! Do you know why? Because it is yet to come! Atlantis was not a city of the past. It is a city of the future!’
She sat back, enjoying his vacant stare. ‘Matisse, it is so obvious,’ she said. ‘We are now on the verge of travelling back in time. Soon it will be a reality. Some years from now—100, maybe 300 or 400, who knows—the planet earth will be greatly burdened. The human population will be intense and there will be massive pollution, poverty, violence, everywhere. But there will also be areas of great enlightenment and, somewhere on this planet, there will exist a remarkable city of knowledge where the best of our civilisation is housed and preserved. But the citizens of the shining place know that it is only a matter of time before the hordes take over the city and destroy it. To save their civilisation and, hopefully, to try to better the world, they make a mass exodus. They travel back three and a half thousand years, to different parts of the globe, carrying memories of the great city to which they can never return, and they set to work to change the elemental society they find.’
Matisse put down his coffee cup and clapped very slowly. ‘Well done, Elizabeth. After the commercial break we’ll have episode two, the Sky Dancers meet Count Dracula.’
‘You have a mean spirit, Matisse,’ she said, ‘but sometimes you are amusing.’
‘Thank you, dear heart, for both compliments,’ he said. ‘I don’t buy the Atlantis story, but time travel? Yes, I admit it’s possible. Everyone’s researching it, not just RUSAC.’
‘It is a race,’ she admitted. ‘And I intend to win. I can only do so with certain classified information. That can only come from the RUSAC Mars space lab. The only way I can get it is to successfully project the astral bodies of two very strong subjects. Three big “onlys” are involved, Matisse.’
‘When will you be set up for it?’ he asked.
‘Maybe tomorrow night, maybe Wednesday. I’ll work as fast as I can.’
He sighed. ‘I wish it was ready now.’
‘Keep them both busy and entertained,’ she said, ‘and make sure that all doors are locked. Have Marlene give the girl a couple of ZR14 tablets before bedtime, but no TP3, understand? I don’t want her functions impaired in any way.’ She took his empty cup from him. ‘You did get the grandmother’s medical report?’
‘Advanced dementia. She’s completely ga-ga. There’s no other kin.’
‘Good. We are nearly there.’ She put the cup down on the table. ‘Don’t let me down, Matisse. It will be a long time before we get another opportunity like this.’ Then she picked up the remote control from her chair, and pressed two buttons. The room filled up with the crashing sound of the opening bars of the Shostakovich symphony.
It was her way of signalling him to leave.
Chapter Twelve
Shog was troubled by Jancie’s mood but thought it might still be the effect of the medication. On the long ride to the airport, his sister barely spoke to him or to Savannah, who seemed to be trying to fill the silence.
‘They always have white limos,’ Savannah said. ‘It doesn’t matter what country you are in, you know Class Act by their white limousines. When Mum and I arrive in London there will be one waiting for us, and I hope that the chauffeur is as nice as Leroy.’
Leroy looked up to the mirror, with twinkling eyes, and Shog realised that he was hearing every word spoken in the back of the Cadillac.
Savannah was wearing a pink pants suit with purple boots, scarf and bag. Bands of gold and amethyst decorated her fingers but her earrings were simple gold studs. She was shining with happiness and Shog thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. How, he wondered, could she have liked a stupid bully like McCready?
Savannah said, ‘Our Class Act house had two limos, and Marlene said the New York house has eighteen. I wonder how many limos Class Act has in the entire world? Do you know, Lero
y?’
Leroy’s voice came back through the intercom. ‘I’m sure I don’t know a thing like that, Miss Savannah. Two are enough to look after.’
Savannah stretched and smiled with perfect elegance. Happiness was fizzing off her like ginger beer bubbles but every now and then she would glance at Jancie’s shut-in face and draw in her enthusiasm, closing it off with a gentle, sympathetic smile. She had seen Jancie in her nightmare screaming session last night.
Shog said in a quiet voice, ‘Leroy, are there two chauffeurs for the two limousines?’
The reply was immediate. ‘No, Mr Ashoga sir. I happen to be the only chauffeur but there are other drivers on the staff, sir—Mr Zeke or some of the designers from the fashion wing.’
‘And Dr Elizabeth,’ added Savannah.
‘What about Mr Matisse?’ Shog asked.
‘He has a preference for sports cars, sir. He drives his own Porsche.’
Savannah leaned towards Shog. ‘When I am old enough to get my licence, do you know what I want to drive?’
‘A sports car?’ he said.
‘Nnn-nn. A big rig. I would so very much like to be a truck driver. But Mum says my future is in modelling, juvenile and then adult. I won’t miss out, though. Nobody ever uses models over thirty years of age. That’s when I shall get my own trucking firm. What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Shog. ‘I haven’t had time to think about it. Everything costs heaps of money and, until a few days ago, me and Jancie had nothing. Heck, I mean nothing.’
‘If you had all the money in the world,’ said Savannah, ‘what would you want to be?’
‘A lawyer,’ said Shog.
Savannah smiled. ‘My mum’s a lawyer. She specialises in copyright law.’
Shog said, ‘I’d want to specialise in the rights of kids, especially kids who get pushed around and can’t look after themselves.’
He had not meant to speak with anger. The words had just come out that way. Savannah looked surprised and Jancie turned her head. In the mirror, Leroy’s eyes lost their crinkles and doubled in size.
Savannah said to Jancie, ‘And you, Jancie?’
Jancie shook her head and, again, looked out the window.
The airport signs came up and Savannah opened her handbag, looked at her face in a mirror. She smoothed her eyebrows with her finger and dabbed a perfume wand on each side of her neck. Then she snapped her bag shut and picked up her pink fur jacket.
‘It’s only fake,’ she said, stroking the fur.
‘It’s really nice,’ said Shog.
‘Not as nice as Dr Elizabeth’s green fur coat. Have you seen her in that? But I think it might be real fur dyed green.’
‘I haven’t seen Dr Elizabeth at all,’ said Shog. ‘What does she look like?’
‘Like a model, but she isn’t. She doesn’t visit the house as much as Mr Matisse—’
‘Miss Savannah, ma’am,’ said Leroy. ‘Which terminal is it?’
‘International,’ said Savannah. ‘United Airlines.’ She looked back at Shog. ‘She’s tall, with straight black hair and she’s got heaps of degrees apart from being a medical doctor—’
‘Excuse me, Miss Savannah, what time will you be meeting your mother?’ Leroy was looking at her in the mirror.
‘She’ll be there now, Leroy. She’ll be right outside waiting for us, I’ll bet you a dollar. Look! Look, didn’t I tell you?’
As Leroy pulled into the kerb, they all saw the tall smiling woman in the cream suit. The windows slid down. The car stopped. The door opened. ‘Mummy!’ cried Savannah.
Shog and Jancie were introduced to Mrs Daluma. Savannah said goodbye. Five new suitcases were taken from the trunk and put on a porter’s luggage trolley. Leroy escorted Savannah and her mother to the kerbside check-in counter, and shook their hands.
Suddenly, Jancie moved. She leaned forward and pulled on the door handle. It would not open. She scooted, quick as a squirrel, over Shog to try his door. It would not open, either. But the window was part open. She called out to Leroy, ‘I got to go to the bathroom!’
Leroy came back quickly and got into the driver’s seat. The window slid up, blocking out the noise of the airport. ‘Sorry, Miss Jancine,’ Leroy said.
‘Please open this door,’ said Jancie. ‘I have to get to a bathroom. It’s urgent.’
Leroy put on his indicator and tried to pull out from the kerb, in front of a small bus. ‘I shall endeavour to get you back to the house as quickly as I can, Miss Jancine, ma’am.’
‘I have to go to the bathroom now!’ shrieked Jancie. ‘Now, Leroy! If you don’t let me out, I’ll shootin’ well do it in the car!’
The limousine was moving into the middle lane of traffic. Leroy looked at her in the mirror, his eyes once more crinkled. ‘Miss Jancine, ma’am, it would not be the first time a chauffeur has had to mop up a puddle in his vehicle.’
Jancie tried to slide back the glass partition that separated the driver’s seat from the back. That would not move, either. She gave the back of the front seat a hard kick and then gave up, fell into her seat and turned her face to her window. Shog reached out to hold her hand but she snatched it away. For the rest of the journey she lay curled up like a snail in the corner of the car.
When they were back in the house, Shog said, ‘Who were you going to phone?’
She looked at him. ‘Fern and Trevor,’ she said. Then she shrugged. ‘Who else is there?’
They went to her room to view the McCready video clip in the hologram player, a miniature McCready with other kids, parading ski clothes beside the Eiffel Tower.
Jancie lay back on her pillows, watching, her face expressionless, and when the tape was finished she said, ‘It’s a fake.’
‘But why?’ said Shog. ‘Why would they fake that?’
‘Because he’s not in Paris. He’s up there. Dead.’ She sat up. ‘Shog, they knew he was going to die and that’s why they did the video. Just in case someone came snooping round asking questions about a street kid called McCready. He’s in Paris. How convenient!’
‘Nah!’ Shog tried to laugh. ‘If that was true they could check up just as easy in Paris as here.’
‘Not just as easy!’ cried Jancie. ‘McCready was a street kid, a cheesehead. Okay, so he ran away in Paris. That’s what they would say. McCready ran off to his crack habit and blew his modelling career.’
‘They could still search for him,’ said Shog. ‘If a smart detective got on the case, he wouldn’t be fooled by a video.’
‘Detectives cost money,’ said Jancie, softly. ‘Who’s going to spend that kind of money on a street kid?’
Shog didn’t answer. He got up, put the video back in its box, and shut down the hologram player.
‘I did see him,’ Jancie said. ‘He was dead.’
‘You thought you saw him,’ said Shog. ‘You were having a bad dream.’
‘Shog, we only dream about things we already know. There are no new things in dreams, no shootin’ surprises. I never saw any of that before. I never saw a body before. I know he was dead. His eyes were like milk, Shog, and his skin was kind of grey and yellow.’
Shog groaned inside. He did not want to hear any of this. ‘Jancie, you said yourself, you thought it was a dream.’
‘It wasn’t,’ she said. ‘It only got made into a dream after they gave me that injection.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know what I shootin’ well saw. But other things get added on to the real bits. Like now I remember this kid’s bald head with wires sticking out of it and then the wires change to an octopus and the octopus goes swimming away in a white sea, with the head in its tentacles. Next time, I see the head and the wires, the head turns into a balloon and floats away. It’s weird.’
‘What you saw were empty sunbeds,’ said Shog.
‘No, I didn’t! Shog they did something upstairs, to fool us. They changed things. Or maybe it was us they did something to.’
‘
Like what?’
‘Like hypnotising us so we saw things differently.’
Shog’s groan was loud this time, ‘Heck, Jancie!’
She was starting to dance on the balls of her feet and that look was in her eyes. ‘I want to go back up, Shog. I want you to come with me. Tonight, when everyone’s asleep. You reckon you could do a lock?’
‘Those locks?’
‘No, no. The lock on Matisse’s office door. I saw him put his keys in the top drawer of his desk.’
‘No, Jancie!’
‘They won’t catch us. Matisse is away. Marlene said he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow lunchtime. We can return the keys and he’ll never find out. Please, Shog.’
‘No! No, no, no! What’s wrong with you, Jancie? What’s flipping got into you? This is like winning a lottery, and here you are, trying to throw it all away. Heck, they are bending over backwards for us, taking you upstairs, letting you phone about Gran. It was really thoughtful of Matisse to suggest the ride to the airport. What did you do? Tried to get out of the car! If Leroy tells Matisse, we could both be thrown out.’
‘That’s what I want!’ she said. ‘Out!’
‘Are you crazy?’
She flung herself down on the bed and did not speak for a while. Her face was set hard and the pupils in her yellow-brown eyes were small. Then she said quietly, ‘McCready is dead. That video is a cover-up. You know what they do? Take videos of kids and then they kill them.’
He laughed at her. ‘Well, we’re okay, then, fancy Jancie. No one has bothered to take a video of the Donoghue twins.’
She looked at him, unsmiling. ‘They did one of Banjo,’ she said.
Something inside him stopped for a second and a wave of fear smell broke out on his skin, drowning the deodorant, the cologne, the foot spray. He smiled at her, shrugged and said, ‘So what?’ and sauntered out, pretending he was going back to his room.
Banjo’s door would not open. It was locked. He hammered on it. ‘Banjo? Hey, Banjo?’
