by Jen Cole
Richard said nothing. What could he say without revealing his conviction that she’d lost it?
Jo chewed and swallowed a fry before continuing. “You might ask why people from the future would devise such a nasty game – I did. Well it turns out they don’t like us much. This era’s failure to control its population growth will ultimately result in nuclear warfare, which will wipe out nearly all life on the planet. Those left will struggle to survive until The Company – a group that hid underground during the worst of it, emerges. The Company will co-opt the survivors into a workforce to clean the radioactive land and produce food. It will take hundreds of years, but eventually the people will end up in pretty good shape, except for one big downside. They have to live their lives in silos.”
Richard choked on his burger. “Silos?”
“You got it. Their clean land is used for food production, so except for Company Executives, everyone lives, eats and sleeps in silos. They only ever leave them for four hours each day when they go out to work on the radioactive fringe, cleaning the earth.”
Jo took another swig from the can of Sprite, but Richard still had no words.
“Anyway, something to do with microwave photons enables the people of the future to connect electronically with us through time. They can view us on their virtual TV sets, send holographic projections of themselves to our era, and even control our electronic devices.”
“How nice for them,” he managed.
She looked at him. “It enables Fitani and his friends to run this game. Through Play or Die, the people of his time can vicariously enjoy our open spaces while getting revenge on individuals from our ‘evil’ era.”
“Er, I guess you tried reasoning with this man from the future?”
“Reasoned, ranted, pleaded. He was un-swayed. The game runs for five days. If the Hunter hasn’t killed me by then I go free.”
“You seem to be taking this rather matter-of-factly.”
“Raging against fate gets you nowhere. I learnt that lesson when mum died. In any case, I haven’t had much time to feel sorry for myself. The Hunter’s been on my trail since Fitani told me I was Prey. I’ve already had more close calls than I like to think about.”
Richard decided to play along. If he could show her the holes in this fantasy, it might help bring her to back to reality.
“So they send the Hunter your coordinates and photo every three hours? That hardly seems fair.”
“Oh, they pride themselves on being fair. To balance that, I get to build up game points when I impress the viewers with smart moves. For every thousand points I receive, Fitani appears and I can ask him three questions. The Hunter and I were also allowed a single technological request. His was to set up a false ID for me in the national police database. In that database my photo and fingerprints identify me as Kylie Marshall, a drug addict with priors for theft and assault, who is wanted for kidnapping her baby son after the court awarded custody to the father.”
“This Hunter seems smart.” He mentally kicked himself. Really showing Jo the holes in her fantasy, he thought.
“You think that’s smart? With my false ID in place, the Hunter approached two detective agencies as the representative of a billionaire whose grandchild Kylie had kidnapped, offering a big bonus to the agency that found Kylie first.”
“Why two agencies?”
“So when the Hunter receives my coordinates, he can pass them on without creating suspicion, by telling each the other had located me there.”
He raised his eyebrows but managed to refrain from comment this time.
Jo stood and carried the remnants of the meal to the bin. She filled the kettle.
“Coffee?”
Her matter-of-fact actions clashed with the crazy story she’d just told him.
“Thanks, milk and one sugar.”
“How am I doing so far? Getting ready to call the men in white coats?”
“You tell an insane story very sanely,” he said. “But do you have evidence to prove any of it?”
Jo gave a short laugh. “The best evidence would be for you to meet Fitani, but I never know when he’ll show up. Since his last appearance I’ve hitched a ride on a small plane to Shepparton; snuck into my guarded house and successfully hidden from the Hunter’s agents in the roof space; sent the Hunter a false indication I’m on my way north; and now I’m holed up safely for the moment, in this motel. All that should have earned me a few points. If you stick around, Fitani’s bound to show soon. In the meantime…”
Her face suddenly became animated and she held up her hands. “Take a photo of me and my fingertips. Send them to BEAM to check against the national police database. You know I’m Jo Warrington, but the database will say I’m Kylie Marshall.”
Richard took out his iPhone and snapped photos, forwarding them with a note to BEAM. While he did so, Jo made the coffees.
“I’ve just thought of some more evidence,” she said, bringing their cups to the table. “Those men at my house – they were detective agency operatives.”
He frowned. “Maybe. And maybe they were from the H Group.”
“Well what about the fact that I was able to get into my place without triggering any alarms? That was my technological request – to be invisible to electronic surveillance the Hunter had set up around the house.”
Richard looked at her speculatively. “It seems you were. The guards only showed up each time I went to the house. But there’s something I don’t get. If you anticipated the Hunter would stakeout your house, why go back at all?”
“To investigate my father’s murder. You wanted to know how I knew about Simon Brooks? I knew because I’d asked Fitani. With their equipment they can view any event in our era and he told me Simon Brooks had paid Morris Blatman to make the hit.
“I figured if Simon Brooks ordered the hit, he must have known my father and had a reason. So I went back to the house to check through Dad’s correspondence for any reference to him.”
“That was incredibly reckless.”
Jo shrugged. “According to Fitani, my chances of surviving five days of the hunt are minimal. I figured since I was probably going to die anyway, I’d try to track down my father’s murderer before it happened and hopefully leave enough proof to have him convicted.”
Richard blinked. Jo was either amazingly gutsy or even crazier than he’d thought. “Did you find anything?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t make sense. Simon Brooks works for the supermarket chain we sell to. He’s Director of Operations for the Northern Victorian Region. People like that don’t go about employing hit men.”
Richard’s phone chimed and he read its text message in disbelief. Jo’s photo and fingerprints were listed on the police database as Kylie Marshall’s! His head spun. Since finding her this afternoon he’d oscillated between admiration for her quick thinking and courage, and fear she was raving mad. Now he held corroboration of at least one part of her story. Could there be more evidence?
“Jo, you don’t by chance know the names of the detective agencies the Hunter employed?”
“I do. It was one of the questions I asked Fitani.” Jo dived for the pannier bags, searching in first one and then the other before holding a notebook aloft. She flipped through its pages and announced, “They are Eagle Investigations and SIS – Secure Investigative Services. If BEAM can confirm they’re both after Kylie Marshall, you’d have another piece of evidence, yes?”
Richard replied cautiously, “Detective agencies keep their assignments and clients confidential. It won’t be easy to discover if they’re going after Kylie Marshall, but I can certainly get BEAM to make inquiries.”
“What about Simon Brooks and Morris Blatman?” cried Jo. “If BEAM can find evidence they’re responsible for my father’s murder, it’s more proof! Fitani gave me those names. There’s no other way I could have known about them.”
Richard made up his mind. Discovering the truth about Bill Warrington’s death was his top priority. If
he could prove it was an H Group hit, BEAM would be able to take immediate steps to bring them down. Right now his only two leads were the names Jo had provided, and since at least one of them had turned out to be a real person, he intended getting BEAM to investigate.
The problem was that he could hardly tell his bosses he’d received the information from a girl who claimed she’d obtained it by communicating with people from the future. That ruled out taking her to a safe house. If BEAM came to suspect she was off her rocker, they’d drop that avenue of investigation and he wanted all their resources focused on it.
On the other hand there was no doubt Jo was in danger, whether from the H Group or her mysterious Hunter. One way or another she needed his help until this thing was resolved. He turned to her.
“Jo, I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to think there may be something to your story. I’m going to set BEAM onto investigating Brooks and Blatman, and also to see if they can find out whether those detective agencies are after Kylie Marshall. In the meantime, in order to help keep you safe, I’m prepared to offer my services.”
~~~~
CHAPTER 31
He watched the cup in Jo’s hand tremble. She put it clatteringly on the saucer and stood, tears spilling down her cheeks. She must have been steeling herself so much for his rejection that when it hadn’t come, her defenses had crumbled. He moved towards her and suddenly she was in his arms, holding him as tightly as he was holding her.
“Ah, how the audience loves a bit of schmaltz!” pronounced a gleeful voice. “That little clinch added just enough points to pop you over the thousand.”
Richard jerked at the sound and twisted towards it, putting Jo behind him. As he tried to take in the bizarre sight, he heard Jo’s voice saying sarcastically, “Nice costume Danny. I see you’re still into the animal theme.”
The thing preening before him, Richard now saw, was a thin man. His entire body was sheathed in what appeared to be tree bark but couldn’t have been, as it was completely flexible, adjusting to every muscle twitch as he spread his arms and pirouetted. Thin branches sprouted from those arms, ending in clusters of eucalyptus leaves. The red hair, standing up in stiff strands from his green head, was likewise topped with leaves. More horrifying than this though, was the animal life traversing the tree-body.
Colonies of ants moved up the trunk and apparently into knots and under loose pieces of bark. In a forked branch near his shoulder, a koala with a baby on her back sat contentedly chewing leaves, and at his forehead a small spider hung at the end of a silvery thread that descended from a web glittering between the vertical strands of his hair. The web was the only unnatural element, having been spun in the design of a logo.
“That must have cost you a pretty Personal Point,” Jo’s voice continued.
The tree-thing spoke loftily. “What are a few thousand Personal Points, when it comes to showing one’s support for our great Company?”
“Hmm,” Jo’s tone became speculative. “Since when did The Company need a show of support?”
“No talk of The Company! I am here only to answer your three questions.”
Richard strode forward, and with his entire weight threw a punch at the green face, regretting only that the koala and her baby might be injured in the tree-creature’s fall.
Inexplicably he found himself sprawled facedown on the bed behind the tree-man, who had stepped towards Jo and was continuing to talk to her as though nothing had happened. Leaping up Richard aimed a karate chop at the trunk-neck, and tottered as his hand sliced through an apparently solid body without resistance.
“Richard,” Jo’s voice penetrated his shock. “This is Danny Fitani, or his hologram at least. He’s the one I told you about – the host of Play or Die.”
Richard moved to join Jo, passing ghost-like through several branches before turning to scowl at Fitani. The host gave him a desultory wave and turned back to Jo.
“So, what is your first question?”
“All in good time Danny.”
Jo put her hand on Richard’s arm, which helped bring him out of his daze. “He takes a bit of getting used to,” she said quietly. “But Fitani’s not the one we have to worry about. He can actually give us valuable information if we ask the right questions.”
She turned back to speak to the host, but Richard beat her to it. “You green prick! What the hell gives you the right to inflict this vicious game on an innocent young woman?”
Fitani flicked him a dismissive glance and grinned at Jo. “Just as well he’s not the one I have to answer, or you would have wasted a good question.”
“Indeed,” Jo said calmly. “But since he’s now helping me, we’ll be discussing together which questions I’ll be asking, so I suggest you wait over there while we do so.”
She pointed to a corner of the room, but Fitani frowned and stayed where he was. Jo ignored him and seated herself at the breakfast table, gesturing to Richard to take the chair opposite.
“Any ideas?” she said as he sat.
Richard found himself speechless, but Fitani’s derisive chuckle did wonders to focus his mind. He turned his back on the game show host and spoke to Jo.
“Could you ask him how to avoid being killed by the Hunter?”
“That’s a bit general. He’s likely to respond with something like – Stay out of its clutches. Better to be as specific as possible.”
“Well, how about asking where the closest agent is?”
“Yes, that’s a good one.”
“In fact,” said Richard, getting into his stride, “why not ask where the nearest six agents are.”
Jo glanced at Fitani and Richard followed her gaze, catching a smirk on the green face.
“Risky,” she said. “He might regard that as six separate questions and after telling me the location of three of them, disappear on us.”
“Save that for last then. Should we ask about the Hunter’s location? Or is he likely to be with his agents?”
“When it comes to the Hunter, I’ve learnt not to assume anything,” she said, and turned to the tree-man. “Okay Danny, question number one – where is the Hunter right now?”
Fitani tilted his head, appearing to consider for a second before replying. “Your Hunter is sitting inside a building at the Shepparton airport.”
Richard raised his eyebrows. “Why the airport I wonder?”
Jo’s eyes narrowed. “I think I can guess. He likes to keep a step ahead of the game. In a little over forty minutes he’ll receive my new coordinates. By now he’s probably positioned the majority of his agents around Shepparton. Some he would have sent on to Wangaratta and Albury-Wodonga in case I really was headed that way, but he’s learnt I have a few tricks of my own.
“I’m guessing he’s chartered a helicopter with a local pilot. If they lift off and hover over Shepparton just before 8.00, the Hunter can be onto my position within a minute of receiving it. With a powerful searchlight he can keep me covered until the ground troops pick me up. Then he can just set the chopper down in a nearby field.”
“But having caught you for the Hunter, wouldn’t the agents be expecting to hand you over to the police?”
“They would,” said Jo. “But all the Hunter has to do is offer to fly me to the Melbourne police, pointing out it’s quicker than going by car. Then when he’s got me in the helicopter…” she looked at Richard.
“What a neat way of both catching and killing me. During the flight he injects me with something nasty, simulates a struggle for the benefit of the pilot, and my subsequent dive from the chopper is put down to the escape attempt of a frenzied drug addict, high on some hallucinogen.”
Richard regarded Jo with amazement but he couldn’t fault her reasoning except in one area.
“This would all be highly expensive to organize. How could a young twenty-something punk have that kind of cash?”
“In the rules of the game, Hunters can elect to take a one million dollar cash advance on their
potential fifty million dollar prize-pot.”
He turned to Fitani in disbelief. “You pay a million dollars to fund a murderer and fifty million if he succeeds? That’s obscene!”
Fitani looked through him as if he hadn’t spoken and Richard felt his face grow hot with anger.
Jo’s hand on his once more steadied him. “We’ll need to move soon.”
Something shifted inside him and Richard felt the last of his resistance drop away, finally accepting that the Hunter and the game were real.
He spoke decisively. “Right. The best approach would be to do what we did before. Get twenty minutes away from here for the broadcast and then return. At 8.00 p.m. there’ll still be plenty of vehicles on the roads. Even if the Hunter guessed you were in a car, he’d be hard put to figure out which one.
“The broadcast point should be as far away as possible from agency operatives, so my suggestion for your next question is to ask which road twenty minutes from here is farthest from the nearest agent.
Jo’s eyes glowed. “Excellent!” She turned to Fitani.
His tone was sulky. “They’re supposed to be your questions, not his.”
Jo gave a little laugh. “Danny,” she said sweetly, “I recall quite clearly you telling me I was allowed to use help, and I know your sense of fair play would never let you go back on your word.”
Fitani shrugged and the koala repositioned itself in his tree fork. “Go ahead.”
“What’s the name of a road twenty minutes from here by car, which is the farthest from any of the Hunter’s agents?”
Fitani adopted his usual head tilt for a second. “That would be Huggard Drive.”
“Do you know it?” Richard asked Jo.
“Never heard of it. I’ll need to check the map.”
“Then let’s check it now.” Richard glanced at his watch. “We have to leave in fifteen minutes and I’d like to send in my report before we go.”
“No problem, you get started on your report and I’ll check the route on my laptop.”
An imperious throat clearing from Fitani was ignored by Jo, but made Richard ask, “What about the last question?”
