Deborah Hockney (7 page)

*

The building was large, airy and cold, and although she had never been in one, Jocasta imagined it must be some kind of warehouse. A high roof, thin metal walls and a few shaky partitions with no windows to let in any light; just a few skylights and stark, old-fashioned, fluorescent lighting. She shivered as she followed the rest of her group, led by a small, bird like woman; appropriately name Lieutenant Wing Commander Wren to the rear of the building.

Jocasta was disappointed that neither Nikki nor David were in her group, especially as she badly needed to talk to someone about talents and the implications it would have for her future training on Mars. She searched her group, of about thirty students, trying to find a friendly face, and as she did so she became aware of someone behind her. It felt as though they were very close, too close for comfort, so close she could feel their warm breath on her neck– but when she turned around there was no one there.

She shivered again, feeling goose bumps rising on her arms and was relieved to hear her name being called out. She made her way to Lt. Wing Commander Wren who thrust a package of clothing at her. Some of the other girls were emerging from cubicled areas, looking slightly uncomfortable in their new uniforms, tightening a belt here and adjusting a button there. Jocasta had to admit that they looked quite smart, and she hurried towards the swinging door of an unoccupied booth.

Unfortunately, another trainee had her eye on the same cubicle, and they nearly collided in their eagerness to reach it first. The other cadet stumbled, but regained her composure, her dark auburn hair swishing over her shoulder as she looked towards Jocasta. An apology began to form itself on Jocasta’s lips, but the words dried on her tongue as the other girl turned abruptly away with an ill-disguised look of displeasure on her face. Jocasta slipped into the cubicle. A discomforting sense of unease settling over her.

She quickly removed her outer clothes and unpacked her uniform. She felt its firm, grey texture beneath her fingers. First she pulled on the trousers and then carefully buttoned up the tunic, noticing the broad, silver braiding on the arms and lapels. It felt good, surprisingly soft and easy to wear. Next she put on the ribbed belt, adjusting the buckle so that it fitted comfortably around her waist. Finally she redid her long hair in its neat ponytail and carefully squeezed her clothes into her bulging back pack. She emerged feeling smart and confident, until she realised that everyone else had on a shiny pair of Elite boots while she was still in her scruffy foot wear. Seeking out Lt. Wing Commander Wren she was quickly issued with new footwear but was told she’d have to throw away her wonderfully comfy, but admittedly rather smelly Conversion trainers. She reluctantly complied and only hoped her new boots would soon be as comfortable as her uniform.

‘Attention, everyone!’ Lt. Wing Commander Wren’s small but surprisingly insistent voice engaged an immediate response from the group. She certainly carried an authority about her which belied her size and stature.

‘After refreshments have been taken, we must depart on the next train to the EL Checkpoint before reaching the space port by early evening,’ she relayed to the trainees, ‘where we shall prepare for our flight to Deimos Space Station II tomorrow morning.’

A ripple of excitement reverberated round the cadets as they realised their departure for Mars was gradually becoming a reality.

‘I do, however,’ she cautioned them, ‘have a word of warning for you all.’ Lt. Wing Commander Wren’s voice then took on the monotonous and formal tone of someone relaying the same orders for the umpteenth time. ‘On no account must you attempt to use your talents while still on earth, or at any time during our space travel. Only under controlled conditions on Mars will you be allowed to explore and develop your abilities.’

Seeing some puzzled expressions in front of her, she gave what could only be described as an exasperated sigh, and with her eyes darting from face to face, continued. ‘I see that some of you are unaware of your talent and its capabilities and I cannot stress strongly enough that it is imperative that no-one, I repeat
no-one
should be coerced into finding or using their talent before the given time. I am conscious that several incidents have already taken place and any further misuse will be dealt with in the strictest possible way.’ She left her words hanging formidably in the air so that everyone present was left in no doubt as to the severity of the order.

The image of Nikki’s hands had flashed into Jocasta’s mind, which she quickly tried to banish by focusing on her new, toe pinching boots. Luckily it worked, but she was becoming increasingly curious about her talent. She’d been relieved by Lt. Wing Commander Wren’s reassurance that there were others in the same position as her; at least she wasn’t the only one who had yet to understand the significance of their latent abilities.

It was looking as if there was going to be much more than just a planet to explore when they reached Mars.

Chapter Seven

A few minutes after noon the train carrying the missing cadets came to an abrupt standstill. With a high pitched squeal the brakes pulled it to an ungainly halt, and the young passengers tumbled out onto the overcrowded platform. The uniform clad trainees were
urged to make room for the disembarking passengers and there was confusion as the officers tried to ascertain exactly which of their students had arrived.

And then it happened; so quickly, Jocasta had no time to turn away as a blinding light pierced her vision and a loud explosion reverberated in her ears. Smoke filled the platform and an acrid, sour smell infiltrated the air. She tried to cover her mouth and nose but the fumes penetrated her air passage making her retch. She squinted through scrunched up eyes trying to work out what was happening and could just distinguish a group of five or six figures pushing their way towards the cadets and shouting angrily at the officers who had managed to create a human barrier between them. Small, close, incoherent noises of kindling panic and the frenetic, blunted shuffles of those desperately trying to move in the crush of bystanders was all Jocasta was aware of, penned as she was between bodies. She was too deafened to make out what anyone was saying, although when she craned her neck she could see one of the figures brandishing a banner, though the words on it looked unfamiliar.

Along with the other cadets, she could only wait with a numbing sense of trepidation as the masked attackers came within a metre or so of the officers. The leading one rushed towards Wing Commander Wren who, twisting her small body upwards, aimed one vicious kick to his groin with the other foot crunching into his left kneecap. (A nifty move she informed her cadets later that she had learnt from her good friend Captain Jack Sparks). Her opponent was catapulted to the ground with a resounding thump and an unmistakable grunt of pain. She placed her foot at his neck and efficiently removed his mask with an accomplished flurry.

Once the man had been dragged to his feet by station security, and the other would-be assailants quickly despatched by the Elite officers and security guards, the whole frightening incident seemed quite surreal. The Elite officers treated it as though it was simply an ordinary day-to-day hazard and quickly herded the cadets onto the next train.

There were no sleeping compartments here, but each four-seater section had its own small drinks machine and individual overhead screens. Each cadet was issued with a thumbnail communicator and told to follow the instructions for use by studying the appropriate programme on the screens and then should try to relax in their reclining seats.

Jocasta and her companions found this an impossible task after the previous events and once they had each managed to attach their thumbnail communicators and discovered that they held the newly invented speech translator, tried to work out exactly what their would be attackers had being trying to achieve.

‘I thought I recognised the first one,’ Jocasta ventured to remark.

‘Me too!’ one of her companions replied. ‘I think he was the dissident Marco Dursz, the one who’s always protesting about the Elite activities.’

‘Maybe they were trying to stop us leaving then. Trying to prevent us all from becoming little grey soldiers,’ continued Romana, another girl. ‘After all some people are so frightened about what the Elite stands for, they’ll do anything to try and stop them.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jocasta asked, her thoughts returning to Nikki and her abilities.

‘Well, I’m not sure about all this,’ Romana continued in hushed tones, ‘but rumour has it that genetic experiments on stored embryos and gene manipulation resulted in some children developing extraordinary abilities.’

The other two girls nodded in agreement and Jocasta, eager to know more, encouraged her to continue.

‘What happened to them?’

‘No-one knows for sure, but apparently the Elite initially saw such people as a threat, but later on changed their minds and starting using them as a commodity to be used for their own purpose.’

‘And this Marco Dursz and his comrades,’ said the girl who had spoken first, named Marcella, ‘thinks it’s all wrong and that the Elite should be stopped.’

‘But why?’ Jocasta asked, trying to work out why that would be. ‘The Elite only wants what’s best for us all, doesn’t it?’

‘Who knows?’ Romana replied, with a shrug. ‘Let’s hope so. I’m not looking forward to my training if it involves being experimented on.’

The thought left a shiver running down Jocasta’s arms and by the silence that ensued she guessed the other girls must be feeling apprehensive too.

After a few minutes of awkward silence she tentatively asked if anyone knew what the silver braiding on their uniforms denoted.

According to Romana it showed their placing within the ‘Air’ unit of the Elite. However, no-one was prepared to let on whether or not they knew what this stood for, although several suggestions were made, including being trained to fly missions to other planets.

‘‘Air’, surely that’d stand for, you know, uh, well, flying…’ The girl who had remained silent up till now spoke so quietly it was difficult to hear her. She turned in apparent embarrassment and stared pointedly out of the window, nervously smoothing the hair around her ear.

‘You mean… flying aircraft?’ Jocasta suggested to the compartment at large. ‘Some sort of piloting group?’ Imogen, she thought, would be so jealous.

‘I’m more worried about our imminent flight without stressing about learning to fly a spacecraft on my own!’ said Marcella. She gave a laugh that did not entirely conceal the anxious crease between her eyebrows. ‘I mean, I’ve been on spacecraft before, but… this is
Mars
. My brother’s been to the Moon once, he said it was a breeze…’

*

All of them had visited one or more of the space hotels that orbited the Earth as luxury holiday destinations, but only Jocasta and Romana had travelled to the Moon. There were mixed feelings about the flight, anxiety imbued with a sense of excitement. But even if they had been feeling apprehensive, this was after all what they had signed up for and Jocasta knew that there was little point worrying about it too much.

When Lt. Wing Commander Wren interrupted their conversation to hand out itineraries, she suggested they study the information on the overhead screens.

‘It will undoubtedly be useful for you all to be up to date on rules and procedures, and it will also give you a taste of what is to come.’

Selecting the relevant film from the compact control panel in the arm of her chair, Jocasta adjusted her earpiece, inclined her seat and saw the familiar face of MICA appear on the screen.

MICA, she’d learnt, stood for the Maddigan Interactive Computing Auto, Professor Maddigan being the scientist who first created a successful interactive computer interface. MICA’s androgynous face was made up of thousands of tiny points of light which were infused with numbers and letters and shifting trails of electronic symbols, which was meant to represent her complex buffer system.

To be fair, MICA’s voice was, today at least, quite feminine: the technicians were always messing about with it to try and achieve a perfectly androgynous voice. Evie, Jocasta’s mother, had stipulated that obviously the technicians at Maddigan Corporation weren’t being given enough proper work to do if they had time to mess around with voices.

Jocasta was led, by MICA, through a series of explanations and procedure notes about her impending flight to Mars, the solar sails, the rocket engines, even the control panels, and then she was shown visual aids and stunning views of how Earth and outer space would look from their vantage point on the orbiting space station and given a glimpse of what life as an Elite trainee on Mars would really be like.

As she tried to absorb all the information, Jocasta was aware of the smooth, fast passage of the train. At times it would increase its speed, as they covered many miles of track, through vast areas of sandy plains; then it would gradually slow as it snaked its way through the mountainous forests, where dark conifers blocked out any light or warmth from the distant sun.

Towards late afternoon, a buzz went around the carriages as in the distance people could glimpse the vast launch pads of Baikonur.

A heavily accented voice announced over the intercom.

‘Ve vill be air-iving at Baikonur Space Centerr in opprozeematly ten min-ootes. Plez make surre tat all your belone-ings are removved from da carri-ages. Any re-maining it-ems vill be confiss-cated and dis-troyed.’