Contact

contact

Born in Sydney in 1985, Chris Morphew
spent his childhood writing stories about
dinosaurs and time machines. More recently he
has written for the best-selling Zac Power series.
The Phoenix Files is his first series for young adults.

The
PHOENIX
FLIES

Chris Morphew

contact

The Phoenix Files: Contact
published in 2010 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

Text copyright © 2010 Chris Morphew
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

Illustration and design by Sandra Nobes
Typesetting by Ektavo

Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To Katie,
Put your head in here.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 1

S
UNDAY
, M
AY
17
88
DAYS

Someone's phone was ringing.

Jordan jumped to her feet, shoving her textbook into her bag and whirling around to see where the noise was coming from. Luke scrambled after her.

‘Peter! C'mon!'

I chucked the rest of my chips on the ground and leapt up.

‘Shh!' said Jordan, like I'd been talking. Her eyes darted back and forth. Then, without warning, she sprinted away across the grass.

She does that sometimes.

I caught up, running a few steps behind her.

A working phone.

How?

I could hardly make out the sound of it over the noise of the park, but Jordan seemed to know exactly where she was going. She sped away, weaving between gardens and hedges and barbeques crowded with people, towards the line of trees at the end of the main street.

Someone had done it.

Someone had found a way past the communications shutdown.

Someone who didn't know or didn't care how dangerous it was to let the whole town hear what they were doing.

More people up ahead. Keith from Dad's office, spreading out a picnic rug with his wife. He shouted something not very polite at me as I ran straight through their picnic.

‘Same to you, mate!' I yelled over my shoulder.

I pushed ahead until I was right alongside Jordan. My legs were already burning, still giving me crap from yesterday's bike marathon into the jaws of death.

But I wasn't about to let
her
see that.

Jordan powered forward, unstoppable. She shifted her path, cutting right in front a security guard. He gave us the eye as we bolted past him, and one look at his face told me he could hear the phone too. An instant later, he was running away in the direction of the security centre.

We kept moving, tearing after the sound of the phone.

But the sound of the phone was moving too.

Whoever this was, they'd realised what a scene they were causing.

Why didn't they just switch it off ? Why were they running away with the thing still ringing?

Other people were starting to notice that something was up. Some of them pulled out their own mobiles, adding to the confusion, making it even harder to work out who we were meant to be chasing. Others pointed at us as we flashed past, like they thought we were the cause of all this.

‘Idiots,' I muttered.

We hit the line of trees at the end of the park. The sound was louder now. We were close.

I burst through the trees, almost bowling over Mrs Burrows and her dog coming along in the opposite direction. I jumped sideways over the leash, nearly stacked it on an empty bike rack on the other side, and ran to catch up with the others.

We'd come out into the little alleyway that runs between the park and the primary school. There was no-one else in sight.

Jordan was racing back towards the town centre, with Luke right behind her. I flew across the concrete, reaching them as they hit the crowded main street.

And then the ringing stopped.

No.

Luke let out a grunt like someone had just stuck a knife in him. Jordan slowed to a stop, chest heaving, sweat trickling down her neck. I pulled up next to her, desperately scanning the street.

On a bench across from us, Ms Benson was fumbling through her handbag. Nearby I saw Mike's dad look over his shoulder and then drop something into a bin. Over at the mall, Neil the butcher was ducking inside with his hand in his pocket.

That phone could've belonged to any of them. Or none of them.

Jordan whipped around, braids spinning out from her head in a black halo. She was still shifting from foot to foot, ready to take off again at a second's notice.

‘See anything?' she asked. Luke shook his head.

‘Nope.' I slumped over, resting my hands on my knees.

Jordan rounded on me. ‘But you
heard
it, right?'

The question was like a punch in the gut. After everything that had happened at the wall yesterday, she
still
wasn't convinced I was on board with all this end-of-the-world stuff.

As if I didn't have good reasons for doubting it all before. It was ridiculous. All of it. All I did was believe what
should
have been true.

Unfortunately, in Phoenix, what should be true is almost never what
is
.

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I heard it.'

Jordan growled and kicked the low wall of one of the garden beds.

‘But surely –' Luke looked around to make sure there were no security guards in earshot. ‘I mean, they haven't put the phones back on, have they?'

‘Are you kidding?' I said.

But Luke had already pulled his phone out of his pocket. Two weeks after arriving in Phoenix, he was still carrying it everywhere with him. He hit a number on his speed dial and put the phone to his ear. He held it there for a sec, then sighed and snapped it shut again.

Jordan rested a hand on Luke's shoulder.

‘No chance, mate,' I said, watching her hand out of the corner of my eye, ‘even back when the phones
were
working, we never got mobile reception out here. It was only the landlines, and even they were pretty dodgy.'

‘How do you explain it, then?' Jordan asked, finally letting go of Luke. He pocketed his phone and stared down at the bike path under our feet.

‘I can't,' I said. ‘It doesn't make any sense. Who could've –?'

I broke off, seeing Luke bend down to pick something up from the ground. A sheet of paper. Couldn't have been there for more than a couple of minutes, or else the cleaners would've picked it up already.

‘What is it?' asked Jordan, looking over his shoulder.

Luke straightened up, wincing slightly at his still-bruised stomach. He flipped the paper over and I caught a flash of red at the top of the page. A fiery bird with its wings curved up into a circle.

‘Shackleton letterhead,' I said, moving around for a better look.

‘It's some kind of list,' said Luke slowly, scanning the page. ‘Like building materials or something. Look:
15-5PH steel plating, bullet-resistant glass …
' He ran his finger down a long line of materials, all spelled out with precise sizes, quantities and measurements.

My eyes dropped to the bottom of the page.

‘Page seven,' I said.

‘Huh?'

‘This isn't the whole document. It's page seven.' I pointed to the number. ‘See? The rest of it is probably –'

Jordan cleared her throat loudly. The security guard from the park was coming back up the street towards us. Luke stashed the paper in his pocket and tried to act natural.

Luke acts natural about as well as a penguin in the desert.

I flashed the guard my most winning smile as he closed in on us. He was one of the newer officers. Hadn't been here long enough for me to know his name. He glared back at me, but I guess he didn't suspect us of being anything other than normal no-good teenagers, because he walked past and headed back to the park.

I waited until he was well away from us before I started breathing again.

‘So,' said Jordan when he'd disappeared completely. ‘What's page seven of a Co-operative building plan doing in the middle of the main street?'

‘Someone must've dropped it,' I said.

‘Obviously. But who would've –?'

‘Someone who was in a hurry,' I said, the pieces snapping together in my head. ‘Like maybe someone who just got sprung with a working phone?'

Luke pulled the paper from his pocket and smoothed it out again. ‘So the phone …' He stabbed the Phoenix logo with his finger. ‘You're saying it belongs to one of them?'

I hesitated, not liking where this was going. ‘Y-yeah. That'd make sense.'

Luke looked up at Jordan. She shrugged and nodded. The same horrible, considering-something-that-could-get-us-all-killed look spread across their faces. I cringed, stomping down the urge to tell them both exactly how insane they were.

‘You want to try and
find
this person, don't you?'

‘We have to,' said Luke. ‘We need to warn everyone about Tabitha, and finding that phone is the closest thing we've got to a plan for doing that.'

One day off between suicide missions. Was that really so much to ask?

‘Awesome,' I said. ‘Here we go again.'

Chapter 2

M
ONDAY
, M
AY
18
87
DAYS

I happened to run into Jordan on the way to school the next morning. After waiting at the bottom of her street for twenty minutes, I happened to step out in front of her just as she walked around the corner. Funny how these things work out.

‘Hey,' she said. ‘Have you seen Luke?'

‘Nah, not yet.'

Forget Luke. I'd figured out a way to get more info on that list we found yesterday. A way to prove to Jordan that I was on her side.