by Ben Onslow
I guess I can ignore the Elite thing. I can look after her, act like a big brother again for a while. Take her to see Jacob and check what else he wants done.
I see Mum say something to Ela, then walk across to the end of the bar and push open the doors. She stands and yells into the murk and the noise.
“Hey Jack, your date’s here.”
That’s my mum, the smartarse.
Then she goes back to Ela.
“He’s not my date,” I hear Ela say as I get to the door.
“I know,” says Mum. “Did you have a good sleep?”
“Yes, thank you.” Ela glances around the dingy surroundings, looking a bit uncomfortable. Everything is clean but there’s a smell of alcohol and old smoke. Maybe I shouldn’t have got her to meet me in the bar. She’s probably never been in one before.
Mum leans on the wooden top.
“So you’re staying with us for a few days.”
Ela nods.
“How’s Jacob?”
“I made a Connect with him. He said he’s all right but he’s very tired. We’re going to see him now.”
“Give him my love.” Mum. wanders off to serve a guy at the end of the bar.
I go over to Ela. We nod. Ela bites her lip, probably thrown by the date comment too.
I look over at Mum. “Patsy, how about some service here?” I say to get my own back.
She pauses before taking a glass and filling it with ice, crystal clinking. Then water.
Not quite what I expected. I look into the other bar, not at Ela. I see the Willis brothers turn up like they do every morning, breakfast pies in hand. They have their morning routine: it sets them up for the day. Go down to the dairy, get a pie for breakfast, and go to the pub for a beer to wash it down.
No two guys with them this time. Nothing to report to Jacob there.
Mum is watching me. “You’ll be careful won’t you? It’s getting dangerous and you’re putting yourself right in the middle.”
“Don’t worry about me.” I say. “I’m tough.”
She shakes her head, blames the whole tough thing on Dad. For the first year after he left, I stayed with him in Australia. That was when we were still allowed to travel. It can’t happen now. Anyway, Dad would drag me around the mine sites. He did a fair bit of drinking and fighting before he met Yvette. Then he cleaned up his act. Mum reckons the first bit rubbed off.
“Where are we going?” says Ela when we’re outside.
“Curley’s first. Then visit Jacob. After that we’ll check those drill sites, if Jacob still wants us to do that.”
I’m leaning against the Land Rover, arms folded, one boot resting on the bumper. Ela’s Mum’s ESD is sitting there looking all sleek and shiny and out of place, like Ela when she turned up – and today too.
We are just about to get in the Land Rover when I see Scott walking towards us.
“Hey Fraser, hi Jess,” he says. He’s small, short and skinny, with long hair tied back behind his neck.
I guess from behind Ela would look a bit like Jess. Though Jess tends to wear a bit more skirt, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in one of those Elite cloaks.
“Hey Scott,” I say. “This is Ela.”
Scott leans against the side of the Land Rover and takes a good long look at Ela. “Where’s Jess?” he asks.
“It didn’t work out.”
“Really?” asks Scott. “I might have to go to the University after all.”
I give a bit of a snort. He’s not Jess’s type. Even if he thinks he could be.
“This is Scott,” I say to Ela.
She gives Scott a little smile.
“Are you Jack’s new girlfriend then?” asks Scott hopefully. Bloody Scott has two interests: my now ex-girlfriend and motorbikes.
“Just a friend.” And I wish he’d shut up.
Scott doesn’t shut up.
“Might have to get in a fight when I go to University,” he says seriously to Ela. “That’s how you get Jess’s attention isn’t it?” he asks me.
“Seemed to work.” I change the subject. “Scott was in the same class as me,” I tell Ela. “He’s a mechanic for DoE.”
Ela nods and smiles at him again.
I get him onto discussing motorbikes.
“What are you riding at the moment?” I ask him.
“A Yamaha DoE.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, I’m doing a bit of motocross.”
“Me too.”
“What bike have you got?”
“A Kawazaki DoE.”
“I had an ESD.”
We are spouting bits of the alphabet at each other.
The motorbike talk takes a while. Ela waits patiently.
When Scott is about to leave he has a thought.
“I’m having a party at the flat, Saturday night. Do you want to come?” he asks.
“Might do.”
“It should CatchFire.” Scott sort of pauses, waits for me to say something. When I don’t, he says, “I meant it will be good. See you Saturday then, maybe.”
He walks down the street, turns to wave at us.
Ela watches him leaving. “Shall we go in Mum’s car?” she asks when he’s down the street a bit.
“Nope, not a useful vehicle you have there, Miss Hennessey.” I go to the Land Rover, open the driver’s door. I saw her mum’s car bounce from rut to rut on the loose metal on Jacob’s driveway. “It won’t get us up to Curley’s house.” I climb in. “I can’t see how it managed Jacob’s drive even.”
“It did all right.” Ela climbs into the Land Rover too, all legs and cloak, shuts the door with a bang. The leather seats are worn through. The cracked piping is probably cutting into her legs, even through the cloak.
“Does this run on bio gas?” she asks doubtfully, and looks at me with those eyes. “It looks too old, it looks like it needs diesel.”
Getting her own back. Fair enough. I’ve just criticised her Mum’s Eco.
“Yeah, Dad switched it over.”
The dog gives her shoulder a bit of a sniff.
“That’s Monsanto,” I say. “He’s coming with us.”
I check my rifle is in the rack. There’s a sleeping bag and primus on a shelf. Jackets and coats are piled on the floor. Mon lies down on the pile, rests his head on his paws.
I slam the door, lean my elbow out the window.
Then I hear a familiar soft whomp, whomp, whomp and three StealthHovers, massive black triangles with silver V’s etched from wingtip to wingtip, materialise in front of the pub. They slowly come down and park in the middle of the road.
“Fuck,” I say softly as the wings of the Hovers rise up and VTroopers pour out each side. The silver Vs on the front of the uniforms, helmets, boots, long coats, all black. They form a circle around the Hovers, lasers held ready.
Three VTroopers go into the dairy across the road.
“What’s happening?” asks Ela, looking over at me, all frightened eyes and dark hair.
The VTroopers come out of the shop escorting Lucinda, her head down, blonde hair hanging over her face.
“The Department of Eugenics in action.” I’m pretty bitter. Whatever Fitzgerald and Nick’s dad were planning for Joe and Lucinda they haven’t moved fast enough. Her hand is on her cheek like she’s been hurt, walking slowly, reluctantly. Her mum runs out behind them screaming. Clutches at the arm of one of the VTroopers. He turns and hits her with his gun. She flops to the ground and Lucinda looks back, frightened. The VTroopers push her towards the nearest Hover.
“What’s she done?” Ela asks, when the Hovers have gone. Like she thinks this has to be Lucinda’s fault. Typical Elite attitude.
“Got pregnant.”
“How?”
“You’re kidding, right?” I start the Land Rover and pull out onto the road.
“I meant, why have they taken her?” asks Ela over the noise.
“It’s illegal. We’re just sperm and egg donors to you lot. You
don’t have much use for a whole foetus.” I concentrate on driving through the main street. Shops slide past.
I’m angry. I’m angry with Vector, the Administration, the Elite, Humicrib, Transgenics, Ela, her mother, you name it.
“What was really happening?” she asks.
“I told you, they took Lucinda away because she’s pregnant.”
“Why?” Ela asks sounding really confused. “How could getting pregnant happen? And how would Vector know anyway?”
“Someone informed on her.”
“Why?”
“It’s illegal.”
“I don’t understand,” says Ela. “No one can get pregnant now, Humicrib clones the babies.”
“Locals can. Where do you think Humicrib gets the raw material from?”
She ponders on that. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she says quietly, after a while.
I drive out of town, go past the old meat works building. It’s falling apart. The old cemetery is filled with weeds. Not much changes here ever. It just gets more dilapidated.
We turn towards the Karangahake Gorge.
“I’ve been here before.” Ela says it like she’s trying to be heard without shouting. “Jacob used to walk up Mount Karangahake with me. We would picnic at the top and then climb down and swim in one of the creeks.”
I don’t say anything, ignore her, just keep driving. I feel Ela study me as we go across the bridge, old and wooden. It rumbles under the wheels of the Land Rover. All around is neglect: no one looks after this stuff now because no tourists are allowed in the country. The bridge, old and broken, goes from the start of the walkway to the huge tunnel through the hill. On the other side of the road is the entrance.
I ignore Ela a bit more.
She finally gets the message.
“Okay, why don’t you want to take me with you now?” she asks.
“You can tag along like you used to. Your choice.” Not true, Jacob made that clear.
She shakes her head looking a bit irritated by that. Tries again.
“So why are you acting like this, if this is what Jacob wants?”
I don’t answer.
“Is this because of that girl? The one Vector took away? Or because I’m Elite?” she asks.
I still don’t answer. But she’s Elite. Her mother’s part of this. She’s part of it, and I’m stuck with her.
I turn down a narrow unsealed track that has a row of small houses on one side of it. Stop outside an old miner’s cottage. The veranda sags at one end.
“Why are we here?” Ela asks.
“I need to pick something up.” I get out of the Land Rover, knock on the door of the cottage and wait. The door is opened by Curley’s dad. Huge, middle aged, in an old white singlet and grey track pants, the clothes and bare feet look lived in, as usual.
“Curley said he left some stuff here for Jacob.”
From the back of the house Curley’s mum yells, “If that’s Jack tell him we don’t want any trouble here.”
His dad yells back.
“Shut your mouth, woman,” and then looks at me. “It’s there on the porch.”
A cardboard box is sitting on the faded armchair in the sun. I go across to the box and lift up a flap. It’s only about half full this time.
“Curley said it’s the best he could do. Said he thought the printer was going to CatchFire,” says his dad.
“Tell him thanks.”
I fold the flap down. Pick up the box and carry it out to the Land Rover. Put it in the back.
I open the driver’s door.
Ela’s Com buzzes: another Txt, I guess.
She gets heaps.
She reads it this time.
“Who was that?” I ask, thinking maybe it’s Jacob.
“A friend.” She doesn’t answer the Txt, just deletes it again, puts the Com back into the pocket of her cloak. “Jacob wants me to show you something.”
“What?” I ask as I climb in.
“Some documents. They’re in that box I was carrying last night. He reminded me again when I made a Connect with him this morning. He thinks they have something to do with what’s happened to him, and wants us to read them.”
“Where did the box come from?”
“Hidden in the chimney. I think he thought that was what they were looking for. He made me get it before the EvacHover arrived, and lock it in the car. And he said you and I have to read the documents in the box. He kept saying it like it was important.”
“Why didn’t he just tell you what’s in them when you made the connect this morning?”
“Com’s have ears,” says Ela.
I’ve heard that before. According to Jacob everything has ears.
I give a snort. Glance at her. She’s sort of half smiling and fiddling with her necklace. A bit of paua shell on a chain.
And I give in, decide to talk to her after all, because to be fair, she’s just a kid and isn’t part of it all really, just trapped in the middle like the rest of us. “And walls and trees and Tablets,” I say.
Ela giggles.
“Have you read the documents?” I ask.
“I’ve just started. It takes a while. It’s all text. So far I’ve read the first one. It’s the history of Genus 6 and the development of biofuel.”
“Where are they now?”
“In my room.”
“Okay. We’ll swing by the pub again before we go to the hospital. We need to drop off Curley’s stuff anyway. I’ll read the documents and catch up to where you’ve got. Then we can visit Jacob.”
“Why?”
“He gets real tetchy if you don’t do what he wants.”
“Does he?” asks Ela, like that’s news to her.
It makes you wonder how much she’s had to do with Jacob.
So we drop off the stuff from Curley’s at the pub, and pick up the document box.
I get Ela to take over the driving, put the documents on my knees, open the box. There’s a stack of things in there. Some sort of report. A couple of books. Some plans. I spend a few minutes looking at the first thing. The first page is just the title.
Genus 6 and the Development of Biofuel
The Trojan Gene
Edited by
Dr Edwin Parr
March 20, 2026
A fifteen-year-old report. Can’t see why Jacob would think that was important.
I flick to the next page. The table of contents. Find it goes on for twelve chapters. It’s worse than the journals Dad used to leave lying around the house. I skip all the tables and lists and other junk and go straight to the preface. Finally, I start to read. Read a bit, but not much. It’s boring. Everyone knows the story of Genus 6. I flick through a few more pages. Try to speed read.
“You look like you’re finding it about as interesting as I did.” Ela, glances at me then back to the road.
“I’m not sure how much more I need to know about the history of biofuel.” I fan the pages to check how much there is to go. “Is there anything here you didn’t already know?”
“No, it’s just some facts about genetic engineering and how biofuel was developed. We did it at school.”
“Do you want to talk me through it?”
“Is this like a test?” she asks, then goes back to watching the road, and getting ready to turn left.
“No, just want to speed things up so I know what’s in here before I see Jacob.”
“Okay.” She has a bit of trouble changing gear before she turns, not used to a vehicle this old.
“Clutch in, gear lever to neutral, clutch out and in again quickly.”
“What?” asks Ela.
“You have to double de-clutch, to change gear.”
“Yeah, right, like I could do that.” But she gives it a go.
I go back to the document.
“What’s first?” Ela asks.
“I’ve read the preface and the history. Next is, ‘What are genetically modified crops?’”
“It’s just
like we learned at school. Genetically modified crops or biotech crops have their DNA modified using genetic engineering techniques. This is done to give the species something that it doesn’t have naturally.”
“Nothing new there.” I scan down the page. “Methods used to genetically modify crops,” I prompt.
“Genetic modification is usually done in the laboratory,” says Ela. We get to the hospital. She turns into the entranceway. “Scientists add one or more genes to a plant's genome.” She finds the hospital carpark. Most of the parking spaces are taken. She starts driving along the first row of utes. Carries on with the lesson on GM. “There are two methods. The ballistic method is the most interesting. DNA is bound to tiny particles of gold or tungsten. Then they use a gun to shoot the particles into plant tissue or single plant cells. They penetrate both the cell wall and the membranes. The DNA separates from the metal and becomes part of the plant genome inside the nucleus. Then there’s Agrobacterium tumefaciens. It’s less interesting. Something about plant parasites and their natural ability to transfer genes.”
“You remembered all that?” I ask.
“Did most of it at school.”
I point ahead of us.
“There’s a carpark over there. What else do I need to know?”
“Transgenic plants have genes inserted into them that are derived from another species. The inserted genes can come from species within the same kingdom. Like plant to plant. Or between kingdoms like bacteria to plant.” She pulls into the space. “And carrots have been engineered to exhibit bioluminescence. One day it could be an alternative to electric light,” she says, as we get out of the Land Rover.
9.
The Hospital
Tuesday 14th Feb 2051
10:40 a.m.
Now that we both know what’s in that report, we are ready to go into the hospital and find Jacob.
Ela tries to open the door on the driver’s side of the Land Rover. The handle won’t work. Does that sometimes: should have fixed it. I watch her push and pull on it, try wiggling it up and down, but it won’t move.
“How do I get out?” she asks giving up the struggle with the handle.
I lean across her to hit the door just above the handle, the same as I would have a few years ago. This time I pull back real quick, there’s a click and the door opens when she tries the handle again.
