The Dark Giants (3 page)

Feeling like the worst sleepover host ever, Amelia knew Charlie was right.

‘Let’s go,’ she said. Crashing their way back out of the bush, they turned away from
the hotel, and headed down to Tom’s.

‘Is Tom even down here?’ said Charlie as they reached the clearing beyond the magnolia
trees. ‘What if he went back up to the hotel after the fireworks to get some cake?’

‘Now you ask!’ said Amelia, but through Tom’s lit window, she could see someone moving.

They crept slowly closer. It was always better to know who was in there before knocking,
plus – although Amelia knew it was very bad manners – they’d learnt a lot of really
useful things by eavesdropping in the past.

‘I know you can’t go near it,’ Tom’s voice drifted through the open window. ‘But
there must be some way you can get rid of it. Throw it in the Nowhere, or –’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said a second voice. ‘You’ve
seen
what happens when I even
approach the thing. And even if I
could
take it from you, there’s no telling what
might happen if it entered the gateway. An energy source of that power – of that
nature
? The result could be catastrophic – we have no way of knowing what disaster
we avoided when those Guild morons were stopped from stealing it.’

‘The canister,’ Charlie guessed in a whisper.

Amelia nodded – the canister that had been hidden at the hotel for over a century,
until the Guild had come looking for it two weeks ago. The canister whose contents
were so secret and dangerous that Tom refused to tell even Control
about it. Worse:
he’d
lied
to Ms Rosby – the only agent at Control who was really on their side –
and then he’d made Lady Naomi take it away and hide it somewhere so that not even
he
knew where it was.

‘What do you expect us to do, then?’ asked Tom, his voice rising. ‘Just
trust
that
Lady Naomi’s found a safe enough hiding place to keep the Guild from ever –?’

‘You might start by being a bit
quieter
about it,’ said the second voice, and before
Amelia had time to wonder what he meant, two thin hands shot out through the open
window, grabbed her and Charlie by the backs of their shirts, and dragged them into
Tom’s cottage. It wasn’t comfortable, either: Amelia banged her knee hard on the
windowsill.

‘Hello, Leaf Man,’ said Charlie, as the pale, gaunt man dropped them to the floor.
He stood
back from them, shaking out the sleeves of his trench coat. He didn’t look
nearly strong enough to have hauled them through the air like that, but Amelia knew
that behind his holographic disguise stood a powerful Keeper – a guardian of the
gateways.

Tom glared at Amelia and Charlie as they got up from the floorboards. ‘When will
you two learn to mind your own business?’

‘We’re
here
on business,’ Charlie retorted.

‘Then why were you lurking about out there like a pair of snoops?’

‘We weren’t snooping!’ Charlie sounded hurt. ‘We were just too polite to interrupt.’

‘Anyway,’ Amelia said quickly. ‘Lady Naomi sent us – that alien scientist guy was
out there in the bush with a scanner he sneaked past you.’

Tom looked furious. ‘Where is he now?’

‘He ran off when Lady Naomi tried to bring
him here,’ Charlie said. ‘She’s gone after
him.’

Tom and Leaf Man exchanged glances.

‘What sort of scanner?’ asked Leaf Man.

‘He’s scanning for animals,’ said Amelia. ‘He’s researching the effect of wormholes
on them or something.’

‘Not looking for the canister then,’ said Leaf Man. ‘Whatever’s in that thing, it
isn’t an animal.’

‘So this guy isn’t Guild,’ said Tom. ‘He’s just some other kind of trouble. That’s
the closest we’ve come to a break that I can remember.’

‘So he’s not dangerous then?’ Amelia was relieved. She hadn’t liked Foxy exactly,
but she respected scientific research, and if anyone around here could help her find
Grawk, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

‘Dangerous to my career,’ Tom grumbled. ‘If Arxish finds out I let an alien illegally
transport unregistered tech onto Earth –’

‘But not so dangerous you need my help,’ said Leaf Man, nodding at Tom. ‘I’m going.’

‘You’re what?’ said Tom. ‘But –’

‘Timing is everything,’ said Leaf Man. ‘You’ve seen for yourself how unstable things
are getting. How violent and unpredictable the wormholes have become. Doesn’t that
tell you something?’

‘Nothing obvious, no.’

‘Truly?’ Leaf Man tutted. ‘You’ve manned this post for decades, Tom. Have you learnt
nothing in all the years you’ve sat here and watched?’

‘Sat here and watched?’ Tom snapped. ‘
Sat here and watched?
Is that how you see the
miserable life I’ve had? Some old slob just parked on his bum,
watching
? Because
I’ve learnt a lot, now you ask. I’ve learnt that the universe is far bigger than
anyone on Earth knows, and that there’s not a lot of kindness or fairness out there.
I’ve learnt that doing the right thing will cost you more than
you can bear, and
there will be precious little that comes to you in return for it.’

‘Oh, Tom.’

‘Don’t pity me!’

‘Doesn’t someone have to?’

‘If you have any pity, then pity Lady Naomi. It’s not right that she of all people
should have to take responsibility for the blasted thing.’

‘Which is exactly why I’m going,’ said Leaf Man, crossing the room and disappearing
down the stairs. ‘To help Lady Naomi. Or at least, since the Nowhere has been stirred
up by all this instability, for the first time I’ve seen a hint of how to find the
only person who can.’

Amelia glanced at Charlie, who looked just as confused as she was. They were lucky
if they ever understood half of what Leaf Man was talking about.

When Leaf Man said nothing more, Tom
grunted, ‘Get on with it, then.’ He picked up
a length of coiled rope, slung it over his shoulder and began limping toward the
door. Then he growled at Amelia and Charlie. ‘Go on. Get back to your stupid party.
Leave Lady Naomi and the alien to me. As usual.’

He stamped out, leaving Amelia and Charlie standing alone in the cottage.

Amelia felt extremely tense walking back toward the hotel. The moon had risen by
now, and was lighting their way with a cool silver glow, and far below, at the base
of the headland, the sea was beating out its usual soothing music on the cliffs.
But all Amelia could think about was Lady Naomi and Tom searching the bush for a
rogue scientist, Leaf Man disappearing into the Nowhere on some mysterious quest,
Grawk lost and who knew where, and up ahead – worst of all – Sophie T, whom she had
abandoned at the hotel without any warning or explanation.

Would she still be there? Amelia wouldn’t blame her if she’d called her mum and asked
to be picked up.

With a heavy heart, she opened the main doors and stepped into the lobby. Mum was
making a phone call at the reception desk, but when she saw Amelia she smiled and
pointed to the library.

Amelia braced herself and opened the library door – totally unprepared to find Sophie
T sitting wide-eyed on the sofa, seemingly entranced as James explained one of his
gadgets to her.

‘It’s based on Napier’s Bones,’ he was saying, showing her a set. ‘You see how you
can arrange the rods in any order and use them to multiply or divide any numbers
with up to nine digits? Well, imagine if instead of using rods to construct a two-dimensional
matrix, you used a combination of spheres and cogs to make a three-dimensional system.’

Sophie T’s eyes flicked to the door, saw Amelia, and then flicked straight back to
James. ‘And what would you use it for?’

James hesitated. Amelia knew he couldn’t tell Sophie T he’d been trying to invent
a machine to calculate the distortion in the gateway’s pattern of wormhole movements.
‘Err … it’s for – sort of for – that is …’ He looked and smiled broadly at the sight
of his sister. ‘Amelia! Charlie! Where have you been? Sophie and I have just been,
er, waiting for you.’

‘Yeah, Amelia,’ Sophie T said in an ominously sweet voice. ‘Where have you been?’

Amelia pulled a face. ‘I’m so sorry for disappearing on you, Soph, but one of the
guests wandered off into the bush and we had to, uh, stop him from getting lost.’

Sophie T looked from Amelia to Charlie, and back to Amelia, uncertain. ‘Right. So
do you
often have to run off and rescue random guests?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Charlie, so wearily that Amelia almost believed him herself. ‘Not
the Australian ones, of course.
They
know we’re not kidding about spiders and snakes
and paralysing ticks and goannas that’ll run up your leg and claw your face off.
But the overseas ones … whoo. We’ve got to look out for those guys.’

Sophie T, desperate to know whether she was being fooled with, looked to James. He
shrugged modestly and nodded. ‘It’s like I told you, Sophie – I didn’t know what
Amelia and Charlie were up to, but there’s always some little emergency that needs
to be dealt with straight away.’

Amelia saw Sophie T’s shoulders hitch up toward her ears, and her fingers curl into
the fabric of her skirt. She was staring at James, waiting for some signal in his
face of whether he was telling her the truth.

James gazed back, unruffled, and then Sophie T smiled and let out a deep breath.
‘Of course. I knew it was something like that.’

‘Well.’ James got to his feet. ‘Nice talking to you, Sophie. I’ll tell Mum you’re
ready for that movie now, Amelia.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning more than just the movie.

‘What are we going to see?’ Sophie T asked, eagerly taking up the change in subject.
‘Is it on DVD or Blu-Ray? Oh – do you have a 3D TV?’

‘Actually,’ Amelia said, ‘we don’t have a TV at all.’

‘Really? Oh.’ Sophie T was unperturbed. ‘So you just watch everything through your
laptops?’

Charlie laughed. ‘They don’t have any computers either.’

Sophie T narrowed her eyes. Despite deciding to accept their excuse for running off
on her, she
was clearly still worried that they were laughing at her somehow. ‘OK
then, smarty, so how are we supposed to watch a movie?’

‘On that,’ said Amelia, pointing to the old reel-to-reel film projector that was
sitting on its trolley beside the rolled-up projection screen.

Sophie T blinked. ‘And what movie are we going to watch on
that
?’

‘Um …’ Amelia gulped and hoped very hard that Dad had got something good. ‘I’m not
sure, let me check.’

She slipped out to the lobby and saw that Mum was on her way with a large, thick
plastic disc tucked under her arm: the can of film.

‘What is it?’ Amelia asked.

Mum grinned. ‘Have a look for yourself.’ She held the can out to Amelia. It was heavier
than Amelia expected and had a paper label stuck to it, with untidy handwriting telling
her the title was …

‘
Spring Kisses
?’ Amelia was puzzled. ‘But …’

‘What?!’ Sophie T yelped from inside the library. ‘What did you say?’

Amelia showed her the can.

‘
Spring Kisses
?’ Sophie T gasped, then shrieked. ‘The actual, genuine
Spring Kisses
with Harry Badenburger?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Mum. ‘Was that a good choice?’

Sophie T grabbed the film from Amelia’s hands and hugged it to her chest, jumping
up and down with such feverish joy Charlie took a step back.

‘This is unbelievable!’ she cried. ‘This movie isn’t even out at the cinemas for
another month – how did you get it? It’s impossible!’

Mum and Amelia looked at each other. How could they explain why a little family in
a crumbling hotel in a nowhere town on the edge of Australia had a copy of the biggest
teen movie
in the last fifteen years that
no-one
had even been able to
preview
? Imagine
if – after all their problems with cyborg rats, Guild mercenaries, and ancient starships
– their cover ended up being blown by Sophie T’s knowledge of movie release dates!

Sophie T, though, was too excited to let the oddness of the situation waste a single
second of her time. ‘Can we put it on now?’ she pleaded. ‘Right now?’

‘Of course!’ Mum said brightly, thrilled to avoid explaining her way around Control’s
connections with the movie industry.

Charlie, meanwhile, shot daggers at Amelia.

‘What?’ she said.

‘
Spring Kisses
?’ he said with distaste. ‘Are you for real?’

Amelia shrugged. ‘My dad was in charge of what we got.’

Charlie snorted. ‘What happened to getting
Ninja Cops on Mars
?’

‘Yeah, that was
your
choice, Charlie, not mine.’

‘But you can’t really want to see this film,’ he said kindly. ‘I mean, I get that
Sophie T does, but not you, Amelia.’

‘Why not me?’

‘Because … because …’ he spluttered.

‘Is there a problem?’ said Mum, threading the film through the projector’s spools,
while Sophie T set up the screen.

‘No, not at all,’ Amelia said, sitting on the sofa. ‘Charlie just figured out I’m
a girl.’

‘Oh,’ Sophie T smirked. ‘
Boys
.’

Charlie didn’t reply, but sat down on the other side of Amelia with an air of heroic
resignation.

‘Oops, quick!’ said Dad from behind them, just as Mum flicked on the projector and
Sophie T sat on Amelia’s other side. There was a soft
purr from the old motor, and
a square of light appeared on the screen, flickering before it was replaced by an
honest-to-goodness old-fashioned countdown.

‘Before it begins,’ said Dad, ‘I’ve got a whole dinner in forty-five-degree sectors
for you!’

He set down two big plates of food: one of pizza slices, and the other of watermelon.

Looking much more cheerful now there was food in the room, Charlie helped himself
to pizza and settled down to endure the movie. Sophie T squeezed Amelia’s arm and
whispered, ‘Sophie F and Shani will
die
when they find out what they missed!’ Amelia
settled into the sofa cushions, smiling.

It turned out that the movie was pretty dim. Harry Badenburger was so gorgeous it
wasn’t funny, but the movie wasn’t funny either, and Amelia was almost sure it was
supposed to be.
Even Sophie T had to admit that he didn’t make a very convincing
international diamond thief. When the sad and lonely (but totally beautiful and rich)
main girl confronted Harry at the top of the Eiffel Tower, saying, ‘You’re nothing
but a common thief – I know you stole my necklace,’ and he replied, ‘All’s fair in
love and war. After all, you stole my
heart
,’ all three kids covered their faces
with their hands and howled.

‘No wonder nobody’s leaked the film onto the internet yet,’ said Sophie T. ‘Who could
be bothered?’

Amelia giggled. ‘I don’t know, I think it’s starting to grow on me. Look – Harry’s
about to burst into song again.’

Sophie T rolled her eyes and turned away from the screen in contempt. She lolled
on the arm of the sofa and made a gagging noise, which made Charlie laugh, and then
jerked upright with such
violence she knocked the pizza out of Amelia’s hands. As
Harry Badenburger hit a high C, Sophie T went a whole octave better and
screamed
.

‘It’s bad,’ Charlie agreed. ‘But not
that
bad.’

‘It’s a ghost!’ Sophie T’s voice was so constricted by fear, little more than a
gasp came out. ‘Look – a vampire!’

She pointed and Amelia saw something glowing yellow outside the library’s French
doors. Two somethings, seeming to hover about a metre from the ground. Almost like
ghostly eyes, staring straight at them. Amelia’s heart sped up in recognition, but
then she caught herself. No, it couldn’t be Grawk out there. But if not, then …
what
?
Sophie T wasn’t stopping to wonder. Before Amelia could say anything, she was already
out the library door and across the lobby. Amelia and Charlie rushed to follow.

The lobby was quiet at this time of night,
but Mum was standing over at the reception
desk, busy with a couple of guests. Amelia did a double-take: no, that wasn’t a guest.
It was Lady Naomi, and she was holding Foxy firmly by the elbow (though he was, of
course, holo-disguised once more as the man in the corduroy suit.)

‘I’m trying to tell you, my research is time-sensitive!’ Foxy was whining. ‘If I’d
waited for approval, I’d have missed the whole reason for the study.’

‘Mmm, very frustrating,’ Mum agreed. ‘But not my concern.’

‘How can you say that? How is it
not your concern
to see science and exploration
push back the darkness of ignorance? How is it –?’

Mum regarded him levelly. ‘You can save your breath, sir. My concern is to see that
every one of the people in this hotel is safe.’

‘But science –’

‘Is extremely important. But people matter more. I’m keeping this.’ She took the
bio-scanner off the desk in front of her, put it into the hotel’s safe, and locked
it without further comment.

Sophie T took that as her cue and dashed over to Mum and Lady Naomi without a single
glance at the fuming man with them.

‘Mrs Walker! Mrs Walker! Excuse me, but –’

Mum shot a glance at Amelia who tried to shrug (
I couldn’t help it
) and grimace (
sorry!
)
and look serious (
but there
is
a problem
) all at the same time.

Mum seemed confused, but nodded her head toward the man (
OK, Amelia, but you can
see I’m busy
) before saying to Sophie T, ‘I’m so sorry, dear, but I have to finish
my work here before I can talk with you.’ She lifted her eyebrows at Amelia. ‘Perhaps
Scott or Mary could help you? Or James is somewhere.’

Sophie T blushed in embarrassment and said calmly, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mrs
Walker.’

‘That’s perfectly all right.’ Mum smiled at her warmly, but quickly turned back to
Lady Naomi and Foxy.

Sophie T turned away just as quickly, looking dangerously close to tears, and whispered,
‘That was so humiliating.’

‘No, it was fine,’ Amelia assured her. ‘Come on – Mum’s right. Let’s go and find
Dad. He’s probably in the kitchen and we can at least get some cake for a midnight
feast.’

Sophie T shook her head. ‘No, don’t. I was just imagining things. I can’t even remember
now what I thought I saw.’

‘You said it was a ghost,’ Charlie reminded her. ‘Or a vampire. You didn’t decide.’

‘Yes, thank you, Charles. Like I said: I was just using my imagination. Obviously
it was just a
possum in the bushes.’

‘Except there
aren’t
any bushes outsi–’

‘Yeah, thank you, Charlie!’ Amelia kicked him in the ankle. ‘Anyway, who’s tired?’

‘What?’ Charlie rubbed his ankle.

Sophie T was quicker on the uptake. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready to sleep yet, but
I can’t wait to see your room.’