Extinction Game (11 page)

Kip nodded and headed out into the sunshine. I remembered Nadia telling me Bramnik’s second-in-command was named Kip Mayer.

‘Some advice,’ Bramnik said to me once we were alone. ‘I like Nadia a lot. But she tends to be . . .’ He waggled a hand in the air. ‘. . . a little
strong-willed
at times – put it that way.’

I nodded, unsure what to say.

Bramnik took a seat beside me on the bench, legs splayed and hands locked together before him. ‘Just do us all a favour the next time anything like this happens while you’re around,
and see if you can talk her out of making a bad situation worse. That’s all I ask.’

I looked round at him. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’

‘Shoot.’

‘Has anyone – I mean, any of the Pathfinders – been sent back to where they came from for screwing up? Has that ever happened?’

A furrow formed between Bramnik’s eyebrows. ‘Did Greenbrooke make some kind of threat?’

‘If you mean, did he offer to ship me straight back to my home parallel, then yes.’

Bramnik’s expression hardened and he stared out of the door to where we could see the two Patriot agents getting into a jeep.

‘I want you to understand something.’ Bramnik’s voice was taut with anger. ‘What I said back there is true. The Patriots don’t have any jurisdiction here. And we
have
never
sent anyone “back where they came from”.’

I nodded, relieved. ‘What about Nadia and Rozalia? Aren’t you going to let them out?’

‘I already took care of that,’ said Bramnik. He stood. ‘What you and Miss Mirkowsky did yesterday was very brave, but it’s not easy for me to protect you unless
you’re right here on the island. Anywhere else, and you’re technically out of my jurisdiction. Got that?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember.’

Bramnik made for the door, beckoning to me to follow. We stepped outside, and I saw that Greenbrooke and his aide were gone. The two soldiers waited with Kip Mayer next to a parked BMW that
looked like a well-preserved antique. I saw Yuichi waiting with them also, dressed in blue denim and scuffed cowboy boots, a bandana around his forehead.

‘Hey, jailbird,’ he said with a grin as I came up beside him. Bramnik meanwhile stepped over to Mayer, conferring quietly with him while the two soldiers got in the front of the BMW.
‘I hear they let you out early for good behaviour.’

‘What happened to Nadia and Rozalia?’

‘They’re over at the Hotel du Mauna Loa getting a late breakfast. Bramnik asked me to come fetch you.’

‘Commander Bramnik,’ I called past Yuichi’s shoulder. ‘Can I ask just one more question?’

Bramnik turned to look at me.

‘Why is it,’ I asked, ‘you don’t want us to know who the Authority are, or where they come from?’

Beside me, Yuichi had become completely still, as if he was holding his breath.

Bramnik’s expression, as he gazed back, was as solid and unmoving as any of the statues dotting the island. ‘We all deserve more answers than we can find, Mr Beche,’ he said
finally, then climbed in the rear of the BMW. I watched as they drove away.

‘What the hell did that mean?’ I asked Yuichi.

‘Beats me,’ he said, reaching up to adjust his bandana. ‘Nice of them to offer us a lift back into town.’

‘None of this,’ I said, ‘needed to happen.’ I told him what Greenbrooke had said to me, about Nadia and Rozalia.

‘Of course it didn’t. The Authority folk are definitely on the conservative side when it comes to certain kinds of people. Like people of colour, atheists, women or lesbians. And
Rosie in particular, God help her, ticks all four boxes.’

‘They’re like something out of a different era,’ I said. ‘Talking to them is like stepping into the past.’

‘Or a different universe?’ He batted me on the arm. ‘C’mon. Beans and grits on the menu today.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked, as we made our way in the direction of the dilapidated runway and the town beyond.

’It’s Saturday,’ he replied. ‘It’s always beans and grits on a Saturday. Didn’t you notice yet?’

We passed a tumbledown gas station, the harbour on our left, before making our way down a broad, palm-lined street that led past the Hotel Miranda. The Authority’s
civilian staff were housed here. Finally we reached the Hotel du Mauna Loa, which stood on a slight elevation in order to give long-gone tourists a better view of the ocean. Its front facade curved
in a sinuous line, partly hidden behind bushes long grown wild and unkempt, and its lawns lush with tall grass and weeds.

A woman I hadn’t seen before came down the hotel steps, wearing cut-off jeans and a baseball shirt. She had shoulder-length brown hair, and petite features that made me think of what
Audrey Hepburn might have looked like – if she’d had to survive alone in the wilderness for ten years. I didn’t have to be told she was another Pathfinder; I could see it just
from the way she carried herself. Even so, there was a distracted look on her face, and she was almost upon us before she even realized we were there.

She came to a sudden halt and made a silent
Oh
, the way people do when they nearly collide with someone unexpectedly. Her eyes grew wide and round when they settled on me, and all the
colour drained from her face.

‘Hello, Chloe,’ said Yuichi.

I watched her try and form words when she wasn’t darting confused glances at me. ‘I . . . hello,’ she finally stuttered. ‘I hadn’t. . . I . . . excuse
me.’

She fled past us with such haste she nearly broke into a run.

‘What the hell was that about?’ I asked.

‘Maybe you should go on in first, get yourself something to eat,’ said Yuichi, his eyes tracking the fleeing woman. ‘I just remembered I need to talk to Chloe about
something.’

‘She’s one of us, right? A Pathfinder?’

‘Got it in one.’ He raised his hand in a farewell gesture and hurried after Chloe, who was still retreating at speed. I stared after them both, wondering if I would ever understand
the people here.

I made my way up the steps to the hotel entrance and found that the square of coloured card that had been stuck to the door since before my first arrival on the island had finally been replaced.
Before, it had advertised
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
. Now somebody had stuck up a new card, which read:

!SHOWING ALL WEEK!

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, 1968.

starring

AKIRA KUBO
,
JUN TAZAKI

Underneath was a crude sketch of a fire-breathing lizard surrounded by collapsing skyscrapers, while little stick figures fled in terror. I still hadn’t found out who
among the Pathfinders felt driven to share their deep and, to my mind, inexplicable love for disaster movies.

I stepped past the deserted front desk and made for the glass door to the left, beyond which I could hear the sound of tinny animal roars and overdubbed screaming. Near the glass door, pinned to
the wall, were about two dozen photographs, all of the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t until you looked more closely that you realized they were not, in fact, pictures of the
same
Statue of Liberty. Some were half-drowned in ice, while others rose out of baking deserts. One lay on its side, its head separated from its body, while another was wreathed in jungle vines. Another
Pathfinder’s idea of a joke.

I could also smell the beans and grits Yuichi had mentioned, and I suddenly felt ravenous. I hadn’t eaten since grabbing a snack in the EV a whole universe away.

I found the bar deserted. The monster movie was playing on a ceiling-mounted projector that threw the images onto a bare, cream-coloured wall. I paused for just long enough to see a man wearing
a rubber monster costume manoeuvre his way past shoulder-high balsa wood skyscrapers. The scene cut away to Japanese and American actors in a room filled with fake computers, pretending to be
thrown about as if by an earthquake.

The components of a still took up much of the top of the bar counter. Most of the liquor behind the bar had been brewed by Yuichi, who had set it up with the help of the Nuyakpuk cousins. A door
to one side of the bar led into a room that had formerly been an office, and was now filled with vats of fermenting beer and wine. As well as all this, a couple of times a day either Tony or Jim
Nuyakpuk dutifully fired up a portable gas stove to cook whatever was on the menu that day. I couldn’t see either of the two cousins around, so I ladled some of the beans and grits into a
cheap plastic bowl before grabbing some lukewarm coffee to go with it. It was there for the taking; it wasn’t as if we had any use for money in a place like this, after all, nor a bank to
keep it in. I’m pretty sure the Authority used cash wherever they came from, but for us at least, everything we needed was there for the taking.

I found Nadia sitting outside next to the pool, accessible through a sliding glass door. Another Pathfinder by the name of Selwyn Rudd was with her, his sailor’s cap pulled tight over his
fleshy, balding scalp. They nodded wordlessly as I sat with them, bowl in hand.

‘My fellow jailbird,’ said Nadia, raising a bottle of Yuichi’s home brew as I pulled up a seat. Selwyn grunted something at me. ‘Now you can tell us all about what life
was like on the inside.’

‘I heard what happened,’ said Selwyn, his accent a deep Welsh rumble. ‘Bit nasty, that.’

‘Bramnik said he let you out,’ I said to Nadia, and she nodded. I looked around. ‘Where’s Rozalia?’

‘Went home to get some sleep,’ Nadia replied. ‘I’ve still got too much adrenalin in me.’

‘That’s the first time I’ve met Bramnik,’ I said. ‘You should know he had a huge argument with that guy Agent Greenbrooke right in front of me.’

‘Really?’ Nadia sat up a little more. ‘That must have been a hell of a thing to see.’

I gave a quick rundown of what I’d heard and seen in between shovelling spoonfuls of beans and grits into my mouth, then nodded to the beer bottle clutched in her hand. ‘Isn’t
it maybe just a little early for that?’ I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

‘In your ass,’ she said, draining the last dregs. ‘I’ve been in three different alternates since breakfast yesterday, and my body clock insists it’s Happy
Hour.’ She dropped the empty bottle back down with a thud. ‘I make it beer o’clock, and screw you if you disagree.’

I put my hands up in surrender, then picked up my coffee. ‘Now maybe someone can tell me what the hell a “Patriot agent” is, and why I never heard of them before.’

‘They’re not really called Patriots,’ said Selwyn. He tapped a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it, sucking hard until the tip glowed orange. ‘That’s just
what I hear the soldier-boys at the base call them, and not necessarily in a complimentary way. They’re like the equivalent of the FBI or CIA or something, back where the Authority all come
from.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nadia. ‘I think they’re called something like the Department of Political Investigation. We’ve been seeing more of them around here lately.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Indeed.’ Selwyn nodded. ‘Greenbrooke – or the people he works for, at any rate – appear to have developed a special interest in how things are being run
here.’ He gave me a crooked smile. ‘Whatever he said or did, don’t take it personally. There isn’t one of us hasn’t had some kind of run-in with Greenbrooke or those
other bastards.’

‘The point is,’ said Nadia, ‘not only is Greenbrooke an asshole, he is the asshole by whom all other assholes are measured. Because, if there’s one thing the Authority
seems to excel at, it’s grinding out officious little pricks like Langward Greenbrooke.’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus. Even that
name
. Some people, I swear, are screwed
from birth.’

‘I was stuck in that cell long enough that I really did start to wonder if they were ever going to let me out.’

Nadia shook her head. ‘They can’t touch you. However much we hate them, Mort Bramnik seems to hate them more.’

‘Greenbrooke sounded as if he was threatening Bramnik,’ I said. ‘He said he’d been watching him, that he knew all about his high-flying friends. He also mentioned
something about a senator. I don’t know what he was talking about, but by the look on Bramnik’s face, he was a long way from happy.’

The other two looked at me in surprise. ‘I have no idea what that could’ve been about,’ said Selwyn.

‘Maybe Greenbrooke let slip something he shouldn’t have,’ suggested Nadia. ‘All he did with me was bawl me out good and proper. He didn’t even bother with
Rozalia.’ She shrugged. ‘I just sat and waited for him to get a sore throat.’

‘When I was on my way out,’ I continued, ‘I heard Greenbrooke and Bramnik arguing. Greenbrooke was yelling something about a Pathfinder named Casey Vishnevsky.’

‘What exactly did he say?’ asked Selwyn, leaning forward with keen interest.

‘That they needed more men like Vishnevsky, because he’s a “real American”.’

They both laughed.

‘He’s Australian,’ Nadia managed to gasp. ‘Oh, Jesus. He really said that?’

‘Bramnik made the exact same point,’ I nodded. ‘So what’s the deal with this guy Vishnevsky?’

‘Well, he’s good,’ said Nadia, a touch grudgingly. ‘Probably the best Pathfinder out of all of us. Charming when he wants to be, but an opinionated right-wing asshole.
Under different circumstances, he and Greenbrooke’d be bosom fucking buddies.’

‘Really?’

‘You can have a perfectly normal conversation with him,’ said Selwyn, ‘right up until the point where he starts to tell you why the abolition of slavery was the biggest mistake
the US ever made, or why only people who fight in wars should be allowed to vote.’

‘I would like,’ said Nadia, ‘to declare this an officially shitty day.’ She leaned towards me, and patted me on the head. ‘Jerry,’ she said, ‘I gotta
write up my report on your training mission. Keep doing like you did back there, you’re going to be the best of us before long.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But right now all I can think of doing is going back home and getting some sleep.’

‘Good idea,’ said Selwyn. ‘Better that than waste your time watching Casey make a fool of himself here tonight.’