‘Lay down your guns.’ The voice came from behind a large curved section of piping on one of the platforms. They couldn’t see anyone. ‘We have guns trained on you. There is no escape. No one else should get hurt, I’m sure you’ll agree. Put your guns down on the deck. Now.’
Jen let the barrel of her gun dip slightly towards the deck. She spoke quietly, but without turning her eyes towards Pan.
‘Your call, Pandora,’ she said. ‘Give up or fight?’
‘And if we fight?’ Pan said. ‘What are our chances, you reckon?’
‘None.’ Jen chuckled. ‘But if we fight we might take one or two of them with us.’
‘Certain death or the possibility of survival?’ Pan held her gun up in the air, her palm in plain sight to show she didn’t have a finger round the trigger. Then, very carefully, she crouched down and placed the gun on the deck. Jen sighed.
‘Do you always do the sensible thing, Pandora?’ she asked. Then she followed suit, holding up the automatic rifle and laying it gently next to Pan’s handgun. Both girls put their hands in the air and waited.
‘Move away from the guns,’ called the voice.
The girls obeyed.
Only then did the men emerge from cover. Six of them, forming a semicircle. They stepped down from the last platform and moved towards the girls, their guns raised. Five of them stopped about ten metres away, but one kept approaching. Six pairs of eyes, framed by balaclavas, gazed at the girls. Six guns remained pointed at their chests.
And then Pan knew. Something in the way he moved. It hit her like a punch in the chest and, for one delirious moment, she thought she would pass out. She knew. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Images from the past overwhelmed her and she thought she would drown in them.
The figure didn’t even bother taking aim. His gun twitched slightly and then the shot rang out. Jen gasped and clutched her stomach. Her hand reached out and took Pan’s. It felt like slow motion, as Pan tore her gaze from the man with the gun and turned towards her friend. Jen’s eyes were ablaze with anger. Then the light in them dimmed and disappeared and she slumped to the deck.
Nothing felt real. Time remained sluggish. Pan saw the man reach up, slowly, and remove the balaclava from his face. The eyes, the dark hair.
‘Hello, Pan,’ said Nate. He mouthed something to her, something hidden from the men behind. He mouthed the words, Trust me.
And then he shot her as well.
Chapter 26
Pandora Jones woke to a breeze playing against her face. It was annoying, like an insect tickling. She brushed a hand at it, but it returned immediately. Insistent. This is not the time to sleep.
Pan opened her eyes and flinched from the light. There was a burning sensation in her head, a pain that demanded attention. She groaned. Slowly, feeling returned. Something soft beneath her head, crisp sheets against her arms and legs.
She sat up in bed, a painful and agonisingly slow process. She was the only patient in the Infirmary, lying in the bed previously occupied by that boy – what was his name? She couldn’t recall. There was the familiar smell of disinfectant. She swung her legs to the side and sat on the edge of the bed. Closed her eyes. Tried to remember. Tried not to remember. Silence was everywhere.
Pan stood and concentrated on keeping her balance. Everything threatened to flip and swirl and she had to focus, keep the world from turning out of control. In time, it steadied.
It took her five minutes to walk to the open French windows, the curtain blowing fitfully in the breeze. She looked out. It was all so familiar, so terribly familiar.
A garden.
Flowers grew from multicoloured pots. The ground was rough and solid rock. Small patches of lichen had found footholds in cracks and struggled for life. Pan walked out onto the Garden. The building behind her, snuggled close to a mountain whose peak was shrouded in mist. Mountains to each side of her. And, in front, an expanse of rock and beyond . . . She knew what lay beyond, but she walked to the edge of the drop.
The wall, punctuated by towers at regular intervals. Beyond the wall, the village and the sea. Boats bobbed in the harbour. Pan cast her eyes down. The School, its buildings, its rough roads, its students and teachers. No one moved on the paths. There was no sign of life anywhere.
She knew someone was behind her, but didn’t turn. She waited.
‘Hello, Pandora. Welcome back to The School.’
‘Professor Goldberg.’
Pan took in every detail of the scene before her. And, as she watched, she went back into her mind, relived all that had happened to her, what had brought her to this moment, this rewinding of experience. It was as if the intervening months had never happened and this was her first day at The School all over again.
‘Jen?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ came the reply. ‘Tranquillised, just like you were. She has recovered fully. Just as you will.’
Pan sighed, and this time she did turn. The Professor was different. She remembered him as vague and affable, absent-minded and cheerful, smart and sympathetic. Now there were no smile lines around his eyes, which were flat and dull.
‘You have questions, Pandora,’ said Goldberg. ‘And maybe this is the time to answer them. After everything you’ve done, everything you’ve been through, I think you deserve the truth. Are you ready for the truth, Pandora?’
‘Nate is alive.’
Goldberg shrugged. ‘Of course. He’s my grandson. I would never let anything happen to him.’
Pan thought she should be surprised, but there was no room within her for any emotions.
‘My mother is alive.’
‘Yes.’
‘My brother is alive.’
‘Yes.’
‘The world is out there as it always was.’
‘Yes.’
‘The virus doesn’t exist.’
The Professor paused, bit at his lip. He took time replying, as if weighing his words.
‘Your first error. The virus does exist, Pandora. It most definitely exists.’
‘But it hasn’t destroyed the world.’
‘Not yet. But it will.’ The Professor moved up to Pan’s shoulder and gazed out over The School, the wall, the village and the sea. He didn’t look at Pan again and he spoke without emotion, without inflection. ‘You have been . . . how can I express this? Inconvenient, Pandora Jones. The original plan was to loose the virus in six months. But you’ve forced our hand.’
‘What do you mean?’ But even as she asked the question, Pan thought she knew the answer.
‘You have the virus, Pandora. All of us in The School do. It was the first thing we gave you when you arrived. It is virulent, easy to transmit. All you have to do is breathe. This doesn’t matter here because we are a closed system. The only people you could infect were already infected, and immune. But you escaped, came into contact with strangers on the tanker. That was . . . I think the expression is a “game changer”.’
‘Go on.’
‘We could have killed them, of course.’ Goldberg’s tone was that of someone considering a theoretical problem, devoid of emotion. ‘Wiped out the crew. But you had gone to so much trouble to kill them yourself, and it’s only six months after all. No. We decided this was better.’
Pan closed her eyes and fought to control her breathing. She was close to hyperventilating.
‘You have to admit it’s interesting, Pandora,’ Goldberg continued. ‘All your memories – the memories we gave you – of a world dying. They were correct, but just out of time. What you were remembering was the future. How’s that for a paradox?’ The Professor put his hands behind his back and smiled. ‘The tanker. A crew heading for Japan with a hold full of steel. They docked there this morning, by the way. On schedule.’ The Professor waved a hand. ‘Naturally, they reported an act of piracy, the abduction of two girls they’d rescued from the ocean. I’m sure the authorities are investigating. In fact, dozens of people must by now have made contact with those men – all of them in
fected with the virus. Infected, Pandora, by you. And Jen, of course. Though it’s only fair to warn you that she is . . . incapable . . . of taking responsibility for her actions. It’s unlikely, I’m afraid, you’ll find support from her. No, Pandora. You are entirely alone.’
The Professor turned and passed by on Pan’s right side. When he spoke again, his voice was low and close to her ear.
‘Remember this. The Japanese are great travellers. And so is the virus. It spreads exponentially. In twenty-four hours it will have crossed the globe, in forty-eight, the whole world will be primed for death.’ He put a hand on Pan’s shoulder.
‘You really have lived up to your name, Pandora. In the entire history of the human race I don’t think any one individual has visited such destruction, such mischief, on the world.’
And then his hand was gone.
Also by Barry Jonsberg
FOR YOUNG ADULTS
Pandora Jones 1: Admission
My Life as an Alphabet
Being Here
Cassie
Ironbark
Dreamrider
It’s Not All About YOU, Calma!
The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull
FOR YOUNGER READERS
Blacky Blasts Back
A Croc Called Capone
The Dog that Dumped on My Doona
About the Author
Barry Jonsberg’s young adult novels, The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull and It’s Not All About YOU, Calma! were shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers, awards. It’s Not All About YOU, Calma! also won the Adelaide Festival Award for Children’s Literature, Dreamrider was shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Awards for the Ethel Turner Prize and Cassie (Girlfriend Fiction) was shortlisted for the Children’s Peace Literature Award. Being Here won the 2011 QLD Premier’s Young Adult Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2012 Prime Minister’s Award. My Life as an Alphabet won the 2013 Gold Inky, the 2013 Children’s Peace Literature Award, Older Readers, the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, the 2014 Territory Read, Children’s Literature/ YA Fiction Award, and was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers.
Barry lives in Darwin with his wife, children and two dogs. His books have been published in the USA, the UK, France, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Brazil, Turkey, China and Korea.
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