by Lara Morgan
His face closed up. “Don’t know.” He gripped her arm and pulled her along with him through the crowd. “But they had gear – not just the laser guns the Senate have – real gear. Why do you think your whole housing block went so quiet?”
Rosie didn’t reply. What was so important about what she’d found?
“Here.” Pip swerved onto the road. His grip on her slid down so he was holding her hand as they negotiated the traffic. It was oddly intimate and she would have pulled away but for the thick trail of bio bikes whizzing around them. She was clipped more than once, the bikes’ drivers yelling at her or sounding impact alarms as they buzzed past. Pip didn’t slow down when they reached the other side. He strode towards a dilapidated-looking set of stairs that led down to a jetty almost covered by water.
“Down here.” He let go of her hand and went nimbly down the stairs. The jetty wasn’t fixed to the riverbed but floated free, tied only to the stairs, and a swell made the jetty lurch as Rosie stepped down. She staggered.
“Careful.” Pip caught her. He then turned and jogged down the jetty, water splashing up his legs. Rosie followed more slowly, wary of the undulating surface.
The boat they were getting on was in no better condition than the jetty. It was just a skiff. Pale green paint was peeling along its side and the mast looked like it hadn’t seen a sail for years. The cabin was nothing more than a three-sided shelter and a thin man of indeterminate race was sitting in it on an upended drum, a fat candle burning on another drum next to him. His skin was sallow and wrinkled, and when he stood up he wasn’t much taller than Rosie. He regarded them with a dour expression.
“Got another one?” He addressed his comment to Pip but his eyes stayed on Rosie as he sucked on his bottom lip.
“We’ve just got to go over.” Pip pulled a credit slip from his pocket. “The boss sends this.”
The man looked at the slip, then up at Rosie again and after a moment he jerked his head at Pip. “In.” He turned his back and blew out the candle then went towards the engine.
Riley paced back and forth. It was getting late; Pip should have been here by now with the girl. What was he doing? He pushed a hand through his hair. How had this girl found Cassie’s stuff?
He tapped a key on the computer, reading again the message that Helios had sent out.
Shore beacon activated. Retrieval team to recon status.
It had come from Madrid, sent to Libertine City in South Bay. Someone there had sent the team out – but was that all? Was he missing something?
He paced back and forth, back and forth. The room he was in was dark and dank, and the stink of the river mud drying on the floor smelled like sewage; he’d have to wash his boots before he went back to Central.
He stopped, his profile edged in the moonlight coming through the broken window. What if he’d been wrong?
He began to type furiously on the keyboard, spinning numbers, checking routes, hacking the net. Sweat formed on his forehead and stained the armpits of his shirt as he prayed it wasn’t what he thought. But then he found it hidden in a complex sequence of numbers. They were clever. He shook his head and stared at it. There had been two messages sent. The second was buried deeper than the first, much deeper, but there it was:
Clean Genesis.
Two little words. Riley’s fingers shook. This was it, they were going to destroy everything. His chance to bring them down would be gone and Cassie would never be able to come back.
Cold anger formed in his gut. He walked over to the window and stared up at the stars towards the brightest and reddest of them all: Mars, his family’s downfall and their only hope of salvation. Did those girls have any idea what they’d done?
CHAPTER 10
Rosie sat under the shelter of the cabin with her pack jammed between her legs, swatting at the insects buzzing around her bare thighs. She wished she’d thought to change into a pair of longer pants, but clothes had been far from her mind when she’d jumped out of the window. Where was Dad? Was he all right? She kept hearing the sound he’d made, the way his cries had cut off, and it made her feel sick. She pushed her head briefly into her hands, pressing her palms to her eyeballs and took a long breath. Get it together, Rosie. This was no time to burn out.
She rubbed at a bite, praying it was a midgie and not a MalX-carrying mozzie, and glanced at Pip. He was leaning against the cabin entrance, his hands in his pockets, watching the dark water of the river rippling out behind them. She wondered how much this boss of his was paying him to fetch her and if it was worth the trouble.
The old man sat at the back of the boat, his eyes fixed on an unseen spot ahead of them, ignoring both his passengers.
She tapped her fingers on her knees. She didn’t want to meet this boss, but he might be able to answer some of her questions. Pip had said the box belonged to him. But how? The diary was obviously a girl’s and there was no name on it, nothing but initials to give a clue to the owner. Maybe his initials were CS?
She felt for the pendant in the pocket of her shorts and looked again at Pip. She hated this waiting, this not knowing. She got up and went to him.
“How far are we going?” she said.
He didn’t look at her. “Not far.”
“Can you be more specific?”
He shrugged and kept looking at the river. “Probably.”
“Probably?” She waited, watching him, but he just scratched his arm and said nothing more. The strain of the day, all the worry and the fear came raging up in her. Furious, she pushed him – hard. He staggered back into the wall of the cabin, his eyes wide with surprise.
“Probably?” she repeated, louder this time. “My dad is missing and I’m going God-knows-where and all you can give me is probably.”
He recovered his balance and came back at her fast. “What do you want – a map?”
“No.” He looked angry now but Rosie didn’t care. She was sick of his attitude. “I want you to tell me who those men were who took my dad and how they found my flat so quickly.”
He leaned towards her and said quietly, “You really have no idea, do you?”
She wanted to slap him. “Why don’t you explain it then?”
He shook his head, a weary, condescending look on his face.
“Did you happen to check something on the Grid while you were at your friend’s fancy estate? I don’t know, say look up the name of your aunt on Orbitcorp staff listings?”
“What?” Rosie felt her skin prickling hot then cold.
“Yep. It would have been easy to trace you once they figured out she had a brother and he had a daughter. I mean that’s not how I found you because I checked some other sources after I saw your little face,” he brushed a thumb along her cheek, “but that is definitely how they found you.”
She slapped his hand away. “Who are they, the Senate?”
“Hardly.” His smile became bleak.
“Then who?”
“The boss won’t tell me, so how should I know?”
“Really? Are you sure about that, because you know a lot for a Feral,” she said.
“Yeah?” He leaned even closer, his face level with hers. “Well, you know nothing for a Banker.” He walked away to the back of the boat.
Rosie glared after him.
“Bridge ahead.” The old man spoke and reduced the speed of the boat. Rosie went to the small, grimy window at the back of the cabin. Ahead of them the river narrowed and the huge curved span of Central Bridge rose up like a great black spine.
The bridge allowed traffic between the north and south sides of the river and no one crossed it unless they had gone through the Senate-controlled checkpoints on each side.
As they approached the bridge, bright lights beamed down on them from above. A blue laser roamed over the boat, examining the licence numbers painted on the side.
“Get down.” Pip was suddenly beside her and pushed her to the floor behind the upturned drum.
“But it’s not curfew yet,” R
osie said.
“Doesn’t matter. This boat’s only licensed for the fishing crew. If we want to get across, we’ve got to hide.”
“But–”
“Sh!” He crouched beside her. The boat was moving slowly under the bridge. Searchlights flooded the cabin. They huddled together, crunched up in the narrow space between the drums and the back wall. Pip’s thighs pressed against hers and she felt the heat of his body through her shirt. The light surveyed the wall near his head and he ducked down so their faces were just centimetres apart. He held her gaze as the light flashed around the cabin.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. Uncomfortable, she looked away and stayed as still as she could.
Outside the cabin the old man was waving up at unseen people on the walkway of the bridge. He had a piece of plaspaper in his hand over which the blue laser scanned. After a moment a horn sounded and a male voice from high above intoned, “Fishing vessel D542, you are clear.”
The boat passed beneath the bridge and the searchlights turned off. The old man gunned the engines higher, the boat picked up speed and they were once again moving up the swollen, dark river.
“That was close,” Pip said.
He rose and put a hand down to her which she ignored.
She got up, brushing spider web off her thighs, not looking at him. Her anger at him had faded. Now she just felt nervous. He was still too close.
“We’re nearly there now,” he said.
“Really? So …” Rosie glanced up but Pip was turning away.
“So be ready to jump out.” He went outside the cabin to sit with the old man at the other end of the boat.
Rosie watched him a moment then followed him out but didn’t join them, leaning instead against the side of the boat near the cabin. On the south bank, the Central side, the bright lights of the city’s towers and hoverways lit the sky, dimming the stars. Further up, beyond Central proper, was Juli’s sector – Central East – where she’d been only just this morning.
Rosie stared in its direction and hoped Juli was all right.
The boat puttered down the river, drifting closer to the north bank. Scattered clusters of lights flickered through the thick growth. Rosie had never been to the North Coast but she knew it was mostly Senate-run research stations and farms. There were a few residential areas but she’d heard they were for the workers; the people who lived there even had their own school. Beyond the farms was the train called the Bullet that ran all the way up the coast towards the Capricorn Line and the border of Gondwana Nation – the indige lands outside Senate control. Her dad had even talked about getting out of Newperth to live up there – before the MalX. He’d said up there they could grow their own vegetables outside of a genfarm, actually in the ground. But he’d stopped talking about it when the MalX came.
She watched the bank slide past, tears stinging her eyes.
“We get off just up ahead.” Pip was suddenly at her side again. She started and blinked the tears back quickly before they fell, before he saw.
“Where?” she said. “I don’t see a jetty.” She couldn’t see much but dark scrub and there was an odd sulfurous smell in the warm air.
He leaned in closer and pointed. “Can you see it?”
She stared ahead, her eyes straining, scanning the bank, and then she saw it: a dark blob, jutting out into the water. The old man guided the boat towards it.
“Get your bag.” Pip nudged her and Rosie obeyed, glad to have an excuse to put some distance between them. He picked up a long-handled gaff and jumped up onto the narrow ledge between the side of the boat and the cabin.
Rosie stood out of the way and watched the bank come closer. The old man grunted and the engine puttered as the boat turned out of the main current and tacked across the dark water. When they were a few metres away, Pip deftly hooked the gaff onto a pylon, pulling the boat up alongside the jetty. He jumped onto it and caught the rope thrown by the old man, and the boat bumped up against the jetty with a wet thud.
“Jump out,” he called to Rosie, his voice strained from the effort of holding the boat steady.
Rosie jumped. Pip threw the rope back and pushed the boat away and soon fishing vessel D542 was backing up, turning and gliding away from them. The old man didn’t look back once.
“Come on,” Pip said. “We can’t hang around.”
Beyond the jetty a steep, rough path climbed the bank and then disappeared into deep shadow.
Rosie followed Pip as he began to climb up the slope. The ground was muddy and her hands and knees were quickly covered in muck. Pip gained the higher ground, grabbed her hand and yanked her to the top without asking.
“Thanks,” she said.
He barely seemed to hear as he peered into the darkness of the trees. Tall trunks surrounded them, interspersed with thick grasses and scrub, reminding Rosie of the area around the Old City. Moonlight filtered down through the canopy and, a way off, through the trees to her left, she could see lights. Somewhere an insect sang but otherwise it was still.
“This way and keep quiet.” Pip started walking away from the river along a barely discernible track.
The path twisted and turned through the trees, leading them further inland away from the river and then back towards it. Finally, they emerged into a clearing. An abandoned building sat in the middle. Long, low and square, it was made of dark brick and was half buried in the earth. Grass grew raggedly around its walls, and gaping holes, where windows should have been, stared back like slitted, hostile eyes, the sills hidden underground. The roof was little more than a domed lattice of steel covered intermittently with sheets of tin, and near the building, not far from where they stood, was a burnt-out hovercar.
“This way.” Pip seemed nervous now and kept clenching and unclenching his fists and looking around. The boss had to be waiting for them here.
A shiver of anticipation and fear ran up Rosie’s spine. What would he be like? Would he be old and fat with narrow eyes that never settled, or would he be a thug, like the gang members?
He was neither.
Pip led her to the opposite side of the building and they dropped through a low broken window into a dark and dank-smelling room. Seated at a portable table, staring at a computer in a case, sat a man with short brown hair. Beside the computer was a lamp, half covered by a cloth, providing a small pool of yellow light.
“You’re late,” he said.
CHAPTER 11
The man was younger than Rosie had imagined. She guessed he was in his mid thirties and he seemed very clean. His skin was pale, his jaw clean-shaven. He had brown eyes and a straight nose and looked just like anyone from Central, except there was an intensity about him that was out of place in his blandly handsome face.
She went towards him warily, Pip beside her.
“You must be Rosie,” he said. “Did anyone follow you?” His gaze went to Pip, who shook his head.
“No, boss, I was careful.”
“Let’s hope so.” Rising from his chair, the man walked towards her and held out a hand as though intending to shake hers. “Give it to me,” he said.
Rosie hesitated, holding tight to the straps of her pack. Now she was here, she was filled with misgiving.
“Please, Rosie.”
Pip took hold of one of her pack’s straps.
“I can get it.” She twisted away from him with a glare.
“Just trying to help,” Pip said, his smile smug.
Rosie slipped the pack from her back and pulled the box out. “Here.” She thrust it at the man who took it as though she’d offered it willingly.
“Thank you. Where did you find it?”
“In the Old City.”
“I’m aware of that. Where in the Old City?”
His face gave nothing away as he regarded the symbol on the lid.
“A tunnel, a long way in.” She wanted to ask him why it was important and, mostly, what had happened to her dad, but his demeanour was unnerving.
He placed
the box carefully on the table. Rosie flicked a glance at Pip but he had gone to stand by the window. He appeared tense.
“Tell me exactly where you found it,” the man said quietly.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“And you figured out how to open it?” He hardly blinked as he watched her.
“It was just luck, really,” she said. He said nothing so she ventured a question. “Do you know how to open it?”
He pressed the silver buttons and the lid sprang open. The look on his face as he saw what was inside was impossible to read. Did he know what was supposed to be in there?
The man picked up the grey com. “Did you look at this?”
“We couldn’t figure out the entry code.”
He studied her closely. “We?” he said. “Your friend’s name is Shen, isn’t it?”
A trickle of dread shivered up Rosie’s spine. “Yes. I’d like to try to contact her if you have a com I could use.”
“It’s too late. I’m sorry.” He turned his computer towards her. “I recorded this earlier. I hoped we could have avoided this. If Pip had brought you here sooner, I could have contacted them – told them she didn’t have it.”
What was he saying? Her breath felt short as she gazed down at the blue screen.
Family killed in freak accident. She read the news wave in disbelief: The entire Shen family was found dead earlier this evening at their home in Central East, apparent victims of a faulty generator switch. The explosion destroyed the main part of the home … Unable to read any more, she turned away feeling sick.
“You were lucky you hid when those men came,” he said.
Rosie couldn’t speak. This wasn’t true. It wasn’t happening. If Pip had brought you here sooner … His words repeated in her head and a terrible feeling like bitter acid rose in her gut. If she hadn’t run away from Pip, would Juli still be alive? She stared back at the screen. The news wave was paused on what had been Juli’s house. The remains of the house were smouldering, the bush around it a blackened circle. She wanted to sit down. She was dimly aware of Pip standing beside her, the man frowning as he watched her.
