by Ben Onslow
“Okay,” says Ela, then turns enough in my arms so I’ve got no choice but to kiss her.
23.
The Farm
Sunday 19th Feb 2051
11:00 a.m.
“So your mum’s Eco arrived,” I say next morning as the driver’s door of the ESD floats up like a wing.
“Yes, just after you left.” Ela hops out of the ESD, hair drifting in the breeze, looking Elite. She’s been to see Jacob, and it’s the way she usually looks when she’s been in town, before she finds the farm clothes again.
She reaches over to the passenger seat. “Your mum sent lunch.” She hauls out a bag, gives it to me then looks a bit uncertain. Her hair settles over her eyes.
“Get changed into your farm gear,” I say, ignoring the hair. “I’ll get the bikes ready.”
Ela nods, looking puzzled the way she has since we left the school camp ground last night. She turns and goes inside.
You see last night in the Land Rover it started to get problematic. I’ve spent my life hearing how sex and my unplanned arrival on the scene ruined Patsy’s life. And when you think that through it’s not particularly flattering. But last night there in the Land Rover with Ela, I began to see where Patsy was coming from.
So I said, “We’d better get home.”
“Why?” asked Ela, looking pretty puzzled.
And I had a ‘and her mother’s a doctor’ moment.
But I said, “Patsy’ll be worrying about us.”
So we went home, and Ela slept about a metre away from me in her own bed on the other side of the wall.
And that’s about how we stand at the moment.
Talk about unsettling.
At the edge of the bush we get off the bikes, I whistle the dogs, order them to stay, sling my rifle over my shoulder and give Ela the pack. She shrugs into it, dressed all serious now: Swanndri, t-shirt, jeans, boots.
We go to the clearing where we saw the Willises. We’re going to make sure Ela can shoot them if she needs to the next time she sees them.
“Stick the pack there,” I say, and she drops it by the log the Willises were leaning on.
I get a sheet of paper out; it’s already got a cross on it and a 50mm bull’s eye. “Come and help set up. Bring the hammer, we’ll nail the target up on that log by the bank.”
I step it out as we walk over to the log, count out 110 paces; near enough for this – those Willises are a big target. I nail the cross to the log.
We walk back to the log. I unsling my rifle and hand it to Ela, get a box of ammo and a Swanndri out of the pack, put them on the ground. I take the binoculars, sling them around my neck, sit behind the log with Ela. She puts the butt up against her shoulder, looks through the scope. I adjust it a bit for her until she can see the target.
“How does that feel?”
“Good, but the cross is moving.” She looks through the scope again. “It keeps disappearing; I don’t remember that happening when I was a kid.”
“You’re being too careful: kids don’t do that. If you take too long, you start shaking and can’t hold it on the target and pull the trigger. You have to line the sight up.” I demonstrate with an imaginary gun, fingers pointing at the cross. “Take 3 deep breaths and on the last breath you let it half out, hold it then fire. Don’t think about it too much.”
Ela tries the breathing technique.
“That’s better,” she says. “The cross stays in sight.”
“Try to hold the crosshair above the target and each time you let out your breath bring the crosshairs down then up again as you breathe in.” I lie down beside her. “When you let the last breath out, bring the crosshairs down to rest on the target as you hold the half breath and gently squeeze the shot off.”
She puts the gun down. “That’s impossible, too many things to remember.”
“You used to be able to do it.”
“You didn’t make it so complicated when you were twelve,” she mutters.
“Stop complaining and just do it.” I lift the gun to the right position and move her head a little.
She wiggles closer to get a bit more comfortable. Never realised teaching someone to shoot could involve so much touching.
She looks through the scope again. “The cross is on the target.”
“Okay, are you ready to try a shot?”
She nods.
“Here’s a round.”
She slips it into the chamber and closes the bolt, then looks through the scope.
“Hold it tight into your shoulder. Get your head right down on the stock.” I push her head down a bit. “And hold your cheek against it. It won’t kick as much if you’re holding it tight.”
She fires.
“Don’t shut your eyes.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Keep them open.”
Ela reloads the rifle and gets back into position, fires again.
The gun bounces back and the scope hits her.
“Look, it’s hit me in the eye. I’m bleeding.”
“Sorry. Open the bolt; wipe the blood off. It’s not bad.”
She sits up and uses the bottom of her t-shirt to wipe the speck of blood off her eyebrow.
“What happened?”
“You weren’t holding it tight enough into your shoulder; try to keep your face back a bit further from the eyepiece.”
I hand her two more rounds. “Have another go.”
She loads the rifle, aims and fires.
I look at the target through the binoculars. “Nice shot.”
When she’s fired six times we go over and examine where the rounds have hit. They are all close to the cross.
“Not bad.” I take the target off the tree then replace it with another. “Now we practice shooting standing up.”
We run out of ammunition and get ready to leave. I pick up all the gear we have with us, put it into the pack, sling the pack over my shoulder.
“I’m sorted now.” Ela, hands me the rifle. “Watch out vermin.”
I rest the rifle on my other shoulder, holding it by the stock. Start walking back through the bush to the bikes. The dogs hear us coming and are waiting at the fence, noses through the wire and tails wagging.
We’re eating lunch by the waterfall. We’ve checked the Vault and filled in the logs; it all seems good. I’m sitting propped against a tree. Ela is sitting close, leaning against me.
The only sound is water falling into the pool. The air has a silver sheen to it. A damp smell of leaf mould and moisture rises from the ground.
“What’s your house like?” I ask. Ela is warm, soft, smells good. I’m having pleasant thoughts about the spare bed in Jacob’s house. It’s still unmade after Ela pulled it apart the other night. I’ve stayed at Jacob’s some nights when we’ve been working late, so I know it’s comfortable.
And I’m aware of the pack of condoms in the top right hand pocket of my Swanndri too. There are some advantages to living in a pub: the steady flow of contraband is one.
“Why?” asks Ela.
“You know all about my life. You’ve met my mother, seen me working, asked nosey questions. I know nothing about you except you’re still at school and want to be a doctor.” I lean over her find another sandwich and pull her closer.
“I don’t know,” she says, thinking. “It’s new, it’s big, it’s twenty storeys up. You should see the kitchen – it’s huge.”
“What’s your room like?”
“Untidy.”
“No kidding?” I take a bite of my sandwich; a piece of crust falls off. “You’ve got crumbs in your hair.” I blow them away.
Ela giggles and looks up at me.
“Mary, our housekeeper makes the bed and does a bit of dusting. Keeping it tidy is my job.”
“But you don’t bother?”
“No, that’s how I rebel.”
“A real rebel. Who are your friends?”
“Isabelle’s my best friend. She lives just down the road.”
“What about Amon? Is he your boyfriend?”
She doesn’t answer.
Perhaps the spare bed in Jacob’s house isn’t as close as I thought.
“What is he?”
“An ex sort of a friend. Like Jess is.”
The spare bed comes back in view.
Ela snuggles in deeper and lays her head on my shoulder. I plant a kiss on her neck, nice curve.
I keep asking questions.
“Do you play any sport?”
“No. Elite girls don’t do sport: we’re ‘Sweet and Elite’.”
“Why the running gear then?”
Ela giggles again. “Because it looks good.”
She’s right there. But after the Egan incident I don’t think that’s exactly true.
“What do you do when you don’t come to Jacob’s?” I ask, stroking her hair.
“In summer we swim, surf, water ski, fish.”
“What about winter?”
“Sometimes we go skiing. Sometimes Mum takes me out of school and we travel to Europe or Africa or America. Travelling gets boring.”
“Poor little Elite.” I stretch a bit, move away a bit, turn round and lie on my back with my head in her lap. I lie there quietly, her hand on my chest, my head on her legs.
Ela, looks down, examines me in the shadowy light.
“Why do the Willises dislike you so much?” she asks after a while.
“Not everyone likes me.”
“It has to be more than that.”
“We’ve got a bit of history.”
Ela brushes the hair down over my eyes, like she’s testing how it would look. She studies the no eye effect.
“It makes you look like a sheep dog,” she says.
I push the hair back so I can see.
She gives up on the sheepdog look. “What history?” she asks.
“We had a run in last year, a bit the same as at Scott’s place.” I look up at her and she nods, her hair falls forward and I push it back. “I went to a party and walked into a room and they were having a threesome. It was like they were trying to make a porn movie with no camera. Charlie was with Jess, and Henry was telling him what to do. She was making it clear she didn’t want to be there. It was a really bad situation. So I told them to leave her alone.”
“And they did?” Ela asks.
“I was pretty persuasive. Anyway Jess went to Fitzgerald and laid a complaint against them. They were charged with assault. Their mum paid for a big shot lawyer so they didn’t go to jail. But Jacob thinks Vector got to them. He thinks they had to make a deal, act as informers or go to jail. It was probably them that dobbed Lucinda in. They get their breakfast pies from her mum’s dairy every day – would have seen her.”
“And they blame you for getting them in trouble?”
“Yeah, especially after I started to go out with Jess.”
“But you don’t go out with her anymore?”
“No, she wants to be friends now. I think she just went out with me because she was grateful.”
Ela strokes my hair again. “Do you ever look in a mirror?” she asks.
“Sheepdogs don’t need mirrors.”
Ela giggles again, then goes back to the Willis topic.
“If the Willises hate you why do they drink in your mum’s pub?”
“I don’t know. To prove they can, or maybe because they’ve been banned from everywhere else.”
“So Henry and Charlie aren’t very nice?”
“I think they’re dangerous; just haven’t reached their full potential yet,” I say.
I stay quiet for a while. Then Ela leans forward like she’s going to unlace her boots.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going for a swim,” she says. I sit up and she takes off the boots. She puts them and the socks on the grass, stands up.
“I thought you were supposed to wait for an hour after eating.” I lean my elbows on my knees, and watch her. Swimming wasn’t in my plans.
“No. Mum says that’s a myth.” She walks across to the pool.
I guessed as much when I was about ten. I always thought that rule had more to do with Patsy and Dad not wanting to get off the picnic rug, than any concern for my health.
“Come on,” says Ela. “It won’t hurt you.”
She takes her Swanndri off and lays it on the ferns near the waterfall.
“I didn’t bring a towel.”
I lean back on the tree, cross my legs, fold my arms, and keep watching her.
“Use your shirt.” She unzips her jeans, pushes them down her legs and steps out of them.
I’m not sure if she is moving slowly or if my brain speeds up but suddenly everything is happening in slow motion.
I figure she’s prepared. Has a bikini on under those clothes. Her family have swum here forever.
She crosses her arms picks up the hem of her t-shirt. Lifts it over her head. A white bikini, and those Chinese factories use even less fabric for bikinis.
If she looked good in clothes, she looks great out of them.
She drops the t-shirt on the Swanndri and jeans.
“Are you coming?” she asks.
Quite likely.
Everything about her flares and curves and hollows in the right way. She’s beautiful, standing there, the waterfall behind her, the filtered light making her body glow. She reaches her arms up, gathers her hair on the top of her head, twists and knots it the way girls do.
Curls escape and sit around her cheeks.
She looks at me and smiles. Beautiful lips.
“Too slow.” She turns back to the pool and dives in.
Making love to someone for the first time, outside, in the bush by a waterfall, on a pile of clothes on a layer of ferns, beats an unmade bed in the guest bedroom any day. And as we lie there together, breast to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, I touch her face, and her lips. Run my fingers along her arm. Watch her eyes watching mine.
And it’s like…
It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time.
I’ve known her all my life.
But not this way.
Not like this.
I’m hers…
She’s mine…
Never had a moment like that with Jess.
24.
The Message
Sunday 19th Feb 2051
4:30 p.m.
Late afternoon, me and Ela are lying on her bed. She must have decided I can be trusted because as soon as we get to her room, she takes the thumb drive off the necklace.
“It’s lucky my Tablet’s old,” says Ela. “There aren’t too many Tablets left with a USB port.”
She undoes the chain, slides the memory stick off it and removes the cap. She sits on her bed, slides the stick into the USB port and the Vid file opens. The small icon spreads out, slowly the hologram forms, and there’s her dad. It’s like seeing a ghost, except he looks real. He reaches over, adjusts the focus on the ImageMaker, then smiles directly at us.
He pauses for a while as if he’s thinking about what to say, and then starts to speak.
“Hi Ela.” He pauses, smiles sadly. “If you’re watching this I guess I’ve missed all the years it’s taken for you to grow up. But I can imagine how you look: tall and slim like your mother, but with my colouring, the grey eyes and black hair. Am I right?”
Ela turns and looks at me, bites her lip, close to tears, then goes back to looking at the screen. We watch her father. It feels weird that he looks just like he did six years ago.
He looks down, reads the notes he has in his hand, looks up.
“I’m in hiding. I don’t think it’ll be safe to try and see you or your mother again so I’m leaving you this message. I know your mum will have done what we planned and so you’ve grown up in the City. It’s the only way to keep you safe. But she has promised to make sure you keep in contact with Jacob.”
Her dad looks down at the notes again.
“In the next few days,” he says wh
en he looks up, “either I’ll escape and go to Australia where Mike Fraser is – he was lucky he got out in time – or I’ll be dead. I don’t have time to explain it all, just some of it. If there’s anything you don’t understand ask Dad.
“I don’t know what they will have taught you about the history of the Quarantine, but in 2025 when the UN closed New Zealand to the rest of the world, they said it was to protect the population. We were one of the few countries in the world still able to have children. Already there had been stories of children being snatched and smuggled away.
“The Quarantine seemed like a good thing: nothing would be allowed to contaminate New Zealand. The UN put an Elite team of researchers, doctors and administrators into the country to assist our scientists and keep us safe. That’s how I met your mum. She was part of that team, and I was a research scientist already working on what had happened. I hoped we could stop it happening to us.
“At first the Quarantine worked, the Commissioner oversaw our protection, and the population lived in peace. I thought the Quarantine would give my team time to discover why we could still have children when no one else could. But the answer eluded us.
“Your mother and I married; we gave up our work and went to live on the farm with your grandfather. Then you were born. We hadn’t thought it would be possible because your mother is Elite and no Elite female had given birth for nearly ten years. But we had a beautiful baby girl.
“I started to look at all the things that might’ve made it possible for your mother to conceive when nobody else from her country could.
“At about that time, Commissioner Leblanc replaced the old Commissioner, and the Quarantine changed. A barrier was built around the City where the Administration was based, the UN Team became ‘the Elite’, the Vector Guards were given more power, and after a while the rules imposed on us became more and more difficult to live with. We’d been taken over; we were prisoners in our own country. Some of us started to fight back but any resistance was handled brutally and efficiently. I worked against the Administration and it has brought me to here, a fugitive who probably won’t survive tonight.
