‘It’s getting hard to tell,’ I say. ‘Damon, Nick, the guards, all the walkie-talkie stuff. Why the act?’
Jack sighs. ‘I’ve gotten better at making them seem normal. But even when we first met I probably could’ve had you thinking Evan was all Evan and everyone else I woke up was just in shock. But that wasn’t how I wanted to start our—’ He hesitates and I’m not sure what word I want him to say next. ‘—friendship with a lie.’
The Sesame Street theme starts up. Coloured lights twinkle as Evan rides on a plastic Big Bird. Damon looks on. They could be favourite nephew and doting uncle. Jack’s right. He could’ve kept me in the dark.
‘It’s important to me that you know the truth,’ he says. ‘But for the others, I just want things to seem as normal as they can until things really are normal again.’ Jack catches himself and laughs. ‘Well, as “normal” as they can be.’
We walk on, side by side, trailed by Evan and Damon. My hand slips into his without me thinking about it. Being safe, being able to trust, being able to hope—it’s all such a relief. I imagined this day going very differently. Walking past stocked shop windows like this adds to my sense of security and wellbeing. If things had gone differently I might’ve been cruising a place like this with my school crush Finn. Except he really did prove to be an asshole. I squeeze Jack’s hand.
We emerge into open space under the plaza’s central atrium. A Christmas tree reaches up past more shopping levels to a glass ceiling filled with sky the colour of mustard. Minions sleep on yoga mats at the base of the tree, like elves tired out from helping Santa.
I look at Jack, try to imagine how their sleep recharges him, as though supernatural lights should link their heads to his. No matter how hard I try I can’t get my mind around his.
‘Try to make me understand,’ I say, ‘what it’s like for you.’
Jack looks up at the star on top of the Christmas tree like it holds the answers.
‘Before the Syncosis, before the Sync, whatever we call it, I was no one,’ he says, letting go of my hand and pulling out his tobacco. ‘I mean, I wanted to make a difference. Resist, activism, all of that. But being a busker can be the ultimate in realising how insignificant you are. Thousands of people ignore you every hour like you’re invisible.’
I hope he’s not about to tell me he’s glad to finally have a captive audience. Jack and Dad might’ve gotten on well. I have to hold in a laugh.
‘What I’m saying,’ Jack continues, ‘is that doing this, having this power, wherever it comes from, it’s really a privilege. It’s an honour, being able to help people and guide them and—’
I can’t help snicker. Jack’s eyes turn cloudy. ‘What?’
I feel bad for interrupting. Wish I could take it back. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay, tell me.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘you sound a bit like a celebrity saying how much he loves giving back to every individual fan.’
Jack’s eyes gleam and he laughs uproariously, the sound echoing through the mall.
I stare, too surprised to join in as he wipes his eyes.
‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘That’s what I love about you. No bullshit.’
My face is hot. Jack’s used the L-word. Maybe in an indirect way but he still said it. Inside I’m trembling. But I try to play it cool. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Anti-bullshit, it’s my superpower.’
Jack thrusts his fingers out in the air, in front of him. He’s thrown me off balance again.
‘We playing charades?’ I ask.
‘You want to know what being me is like?’
I nod.
‘Remember I told you about raising Mike, that stockbroker douchebag? How it was like I hacked him?’
‘Pretty hard to forget.’ I’d barely believed Jack when he’d told me about Mike, the first person he woke up. How he discovered he could control him, knew everything he knew. But my heart sinks every time I think about Mike’s fate because of what it means for Evan. When Jack tried to release Mike’s mind, he collapsed back into permanent catatonia. I guess he’s out there somewhere. Dead—or almost dead.
‘So extending the computer metaphor,’ Jack says, waggling his fingers in the air, waving them around like he’s typing, clicking, touching a screen. ‘You’ve got ten fingers, dozens of keys, can move the mouse or touch the screen anywhere. There are hundreds of shortcuts and billions of possible combinations. But while you’re doing all of that, where are your eyes most of the time?’
I draw a rectangle in the air. ‘On the screen.’
Jack nods. ‘Right—you’re reading, writing, researching, surfing websites, messaging people, talking on the phone, listening to music and watching videos—whatever. Point is your brain’s multitasking like a mofo and your fingers and arms and muscles and bones are making it all happen seamlessly. You’re not even aware of them. You’re hardly thinking about any of it. What I’m doing with my guys is like that. Just bigger. Their brainpower and physical energy accounts for ninety-nine point nine-nine per cent of what needs to be done. The other bit’s me, when it needs to be. Does that make sense?’
I gaze down at the sleeping Minions. ‘Are you kidding? Nothing makes sense.’
Jack smiles. ‘Think of me like the mainframe computer—and they’re all terminals. We’re all running the same software, we can all operate independently, but for the moment I’m linking us all together.’
I laugh. ‘Sure you were a busker? You sound like an IT nerd.’
Jack laughs. ‘Come on, smart ass, there’s a lot more to see.’
We reach Cuisine Kingdom, the plaza’s food court. The takeaway outlets around the perimeter—a United Nations of fast food—are all shuttered. But the expanse of plastic tables is packed with Minions.
Nearest to us a blue-haired matriarch munches a banana as she studies a textbook called Small Dam Maintenance. A few seats along a puffy-eyed Asian dude blinks at Special Forces Close Quarters Manual as he spoons soup from a bowl. There are scores more, all replenishing their own bodies as they feed Jack’s mind. On the far side of the food court, Minions line up outside rest rooms.
Jack lights his cigarette and sends a cloud of smoke across the ceiling tiles. No one in the dining area complains. No rent-a-cop tells him to stub it out. It’s a filthy habit but there’s something liberating about him smoking inside a food court because it hasn’t been done in my lifetime.
Over by a wall of windows, a row of sweaty heads pops up and then disappears down behind tables. Then they pop up and drop again. People are doing sit-ups.
I look at Jack wide-eyed.
‘The obesity epidemic,’ he says. ‘Wake up whoever’s got a pulse and you get a lot of very unhealthy people. They need to be in shape if they’re going to pull their weight. No pun intended.’
‘The No-Free-Will Diet?’
Jack tilts his head as he mulls the suggestion. ‘Lose Weight Now—Don’t Ask How? People would’ve paid a fortune for it. They’ll thank me.’
We shouldn’t be joking.
‘Will they really, Jack?’ I ask.
He glances at me.
‘When they come back to themselves, you think they’ll be happy that you’ve helped them lose a few kilos instead of helping them save their loved ones?’
Jack’s shoulders slump and he drags hard on his smoke.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘It’s going to be bad. But I’ve done the best I can. What else could I do? Wake one person up, go into their mental address book and try to find and raise up everyone who was important to them? Then do the same for all the people who’re important to those people? I’d still be back in the city.’
He’s right—and wrong. ‘That’s where the Lorazepam comes in. Give the power to the people so they can make their own decisions. It’s messier but fairer. Time’s running out. We should be working with Nathan.’
Jack stares at me, his expression as serious as I’ve seen. Maybe I’ve gotten too comfortable and overstepped some bounda
ry. Challenged his status as The Man and/or his idea of himself as My Man.
‘Danby,’ he says sadly. ‘You’re exactly right.’
I could kiss him.
‘That’s why I needed you down here sooner rather than later,’ he continues. ‘Is it all right if Evan stays here with Damon for a while? I need to show you something upstairs.’
I can’t really object to leaving my little brother in the food court. I trusted him to Jack for days. Keeping him at my side so I could ensure he was safe when I killed Jack now seems like an idea that someone else had. Someone who was maybe a little deranged.
We pause outside a supermarket where Jack’s army of grasshoppers strip the shelves under banks of fluorescent lights.
‘Can you imagine how lucky we were compared with most people through history?’ he says, as he stubs his cigarette out in a pot plant. ‘When we asked “What will I eat?” it wasn’t the cry of the starving. It was the mantra of people born into unlimited choice. Food from anywhere, cheap and plentiful. Now we can salvage enough basics to support a few thousand people for a year or two. After that, we’ll need to become farmers and hunters and gatherers again.’
Jack’s strong profile makes him look fearlessly angled towards our future. He notices me staring at him and shrugs. ‘What I guess I’m saying is we’re not going to go hungry but squid-ink pasta and wagyu beef burgers and all of that foodie stuff ’s going to be off the menu for the rest of forever.’
‘We’ll still eat better than most of the world did before the Snap,’ I say.
Jack nods. ‘You’re right. Good attitude. Up this way.’
We walk up a stilled escalator to a floor of fashion outlets. Style Lounge, Forever New, DNA Jeans, Duds 4 Dudes, Glitter Gulch: they go on and on.
Jack does a game-show-host arm sweep. ‘Updating your wardrobe every season? Seriously, the stupidest concept ever invented. What a waste of resources, of time, of money, of everything.’
I feel like I should agree but I kinda liked fashion even if I was never big on designer stuff.
‘Check it out.’ Jack smirks at a sale window of little black dresses. ‘Half price but still more than it’d cost to feed a third-world kid for a decade.’
I blink at him. He sounds too satisfied. Like we deserved it. I’m never gonna think like that.
‘What?’ he says, looking from the display dresses to me. ‘You want something?’
‘No,’ I say indignantly.
‘I was kidding.’ Jack nods. ‘But I’m glad. Remember that zombie movie in the mall?’
Can’t say I do. ‘Uh-uh.’
‘I saw it when I was a kid,’ he says. ‘A group of survivors hole up in a place like this and go crazy for all the swag. Zombies get in. Just about everyone dies. Moral is: it’s better to keep going than go shopping.’
My smile’s uneasy. Jack doesn’t notice. Just like he doesn’t seem aware there’s a bit of a contradiction between what he just said and the industrial-scale looting he’s orchestrating.
At the top of the next escalator, Million Dollar Baby’s jewellery glitters worthlessly in its display cases and Far And Away offers holiday packages for places that might no longer exist.
But it’s what’s on an easel in Vane & Vane Gallery’s window that knots my throat. I walk on spongy legs towards the painting of a cartoonish-looking girl. Big dark eyes. Feathery black hair. Skinny arms folded. She stands on a golden road that twists off to a stormy horizon. I’ve never seen this artwork before but I’d know Mum’s style anywhere.
My eyes fill with tears. Jack’s arm is around me.
‘Your mum’s?’ he asks.
I nod.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
All I can do is nod again.
I had no idea Robyn was showing in this place. Some of Mum’s earlier work had exhibited regionally. Edgier outlying venues embraced Robyn. Thought her exhilarating. Regional art initiatives needed bold outsider woman. So the experts said. But curators changed. Tastes moved on. Mum was left selling her paintings alongside her market stuff. I wondered if getting into this gallery was something we would’ve celebrated at Christmas. If she’d been on the verge of a breakthrough when the whole world was pulled out from under her.
‘I didn’t know it was here,’ I whisper.
‘I love it,’ Jack says, brushing tears from my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’ Jack looks back at the painting, reads the signature. ‘Robyn West.’
‘She went back to her maiden name after Dad,’ I say.
‘Twelve hundred bucks,’ Jack says with a whistle. ‘Someone thought she was worth it.’
‘What?’
‘The red dot. Doesn’t it mean it’s sold?’
I shrug.
He nods. ‘Well, whatever of hers is here, it’s yours now. I’ll get some guys up here to go through the gallery.’
I lean my head against his shoulder. ‘That means a lot.’
While I’m glad to have her journal in my pannier, Mum’s painting will be something I can look at every day—when I finally have a room of my own.
We stand like that for a while, gazing at Mum’s legacy.
‘Do you ever think this is just a bad dream?’ I ask.
His lips press together in a grim line. ‘Be good, wouldn’t it? But it’s not. Know why?’
I shake my head. He pinches his nostrils closed, shuts his mouth tight, puffs out red cheeks as his eyes bulge.
I laugh. ‘What are you doing?’
Jack lets go of his nose and gasps and guffaws. ‘Trying to breathe out. If you do it in a dream you can still exhale.’
I try it. Can’t breathe out. Jack grins.
‘Did you make that up?’ I ask.
‘I swear I didn’t,’ he says. ‘It’s totally a thing. But it was fun watching you try it.’
I whack him on the shoulder, grateful he’s lightened the mood.
‘Are you okay to keep going?’ he asks. ‘I need you to come up here.’
I follow him through a fire exit and up concrete stairs to the empty rooftop car park. At the far edge, we lean against the safety rail and peer over the balustrade. Below us, trucks roll west on cleared streets, bound, I guess, for the railway bridge and then Clearview. Above us, on neighbouring office towers, spotters with binoculars and rifles keep watch against fires and whatever else.
‘You’ve really got things under control,’ I say.
‘Not really.’ Jack’s face is pinched, his mouth set tight. He hasn’t brought me here to show off. ‘The situation with Nathan has changed.’
My world tilts. The ground seems to rush up. I tighten my grip on the railing and try to anchor myself. ‘What,’ I say, ‘does that mean?’
Jack holds his hands up defensively. ‘Hang on—I haven’t done anything to him. It’s what Nathan’s doing. What you can stop him doing.’
My whole body’s clenched, I stare at Jack. ‘What?’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Danby,’ he says, ‘I think you’re the only person who can stop a war that really might finish us all.’
I sag, muscles melting, and slide down the concrete wall to the floor. Sitting’s safer than standing when I’m spinning out fifty feet above the street.
Jack crouches beside me.
‘Remember what I told the others before about IV supplies coming back here?’
‘Yes.’
Jack pulls a little video monitor from his backpack and extends a stubby rubber antenna. Static clears and I see a drone’s viewpoint, looking down at a railway line. A four-wheel drive lies wrecked on its side. Another one’s burned out. There are bodies, men and women, scattered across the tracks. I can see bullet wounds. Blood on their clothes. It doesn’t look like they died in the crash. It looks like they got free of the wreck but were killed.
‘An ambush,’ Jack says. ‘About five kilometres from here. They were heading back from a hospital with enough IV supplies for hundreds of people.’
‘What
happened?’
Jack looks at me. ‘Nathan happened.’
‘No.’ I don’t want to believe him. Except last time I saw Nathan, he had guns. He has no way to know he’s not being hunted.
‘I saw it,’ Jack says softly. ‘Nathan and three other Specials. They’ve got machine guns, rocket launchers.’
Jesus. It makes sense Nathan and whoever else would’ve raided army depots. Just like Jack clearly has. My eyes glisten as I examine the carnage.
‘They killed eight people,’ Jack says softly. ‘More than I did in Parramatta. But the medical supplies they destroyed—’
‘Nathan wouldn’t—’
Jack holds his hands up. ‘He might not have known what was on board but denying us those supplies means a lot of people who could’ve been saved might die.’
I feel sick. I feel sick that I have to defend Nathan to Jack. I feel sicker that Nathan may have been driven to become like Jack.
‘He thinks you’re after him,’ I say. ‘He’s acting—thinks he’s acting—in self-defence.’
Jack rubs his temples. ‘I know this situation’s my fault. But you have to help me resolve it before it gets really out of control.’
‘How?’
‘You have to talk to Nathan. Get him to sit down with us. Come up with some way we can work together. Undo the damage we—me and him—have done.’
I look at the video feed from the railway ambush. I wonder if Nathan and whoever he’s recruited are hiding out in one of the buildings nearby.
‘It’s not like I can just call Nathan.’
Jack rests a hand on my knee.
‘Actually,’ he says softly, ‘you can.’
THIRTEEN
‘Who are they?’
We’re back on the third floor of the mall and standing in the entrance to a sprawling NiteRite outlet. Every one of the bedding store’s display mattresses, from the kiddie bunks to king-sized luxuries, is occupied with someone hooked up to an IV. Floor-stock bedroom furniture is stacked with boxes of medicines. Stretchers lean against the walls. There must be thirty people in here. Men, women, kids.
‘Borderline cases,’ Jack says. ‘They needed intensive treatment. But some of them might be okay to wake up now.’
The Last Shot Page 12
