The Repossession (19 page)

‘Did Mouch get back all right?’ Genie croaked. ‘Please tell me he got back OK.’

‘He’s fine. He’s back.’ And then she was in his arms and they held each other tight. Genie filled with emotion, hardly able to breathe, biting on her lip so she wouldn’t cry. It was so good to be safe in Ri’s arms again. She let one stray thought escape about how awful she must look, crazily covered in yellow mud, but he just held her tight and said nothing at all, like he was

the rock she’d been aiming for all along.

She drank the water bottle dry as they stumbled back down the stream bed towards the farm. Genie told him about the weird bus stop in the middle of nowhere and the boy who’d been snatched by Fortress people.

Rian let her talk, let her get it all out. He felt sorry for the kid they took, but he was more relieved that the Fortress security hadn’t grabbed her too. The reservoir was off-limits from now on.

‘Promise me you’ll never wander off without me again?’

Rian asked her as they reached the hayfield.

‘It’s a promise, Ri. An absolute promise.’

Moucher was waiting for her in the backyard, his back paws bandaged and his coat gleaming once again. He knew he’d let her down but he needed reassurance she still loved him. Genie let him lick her hand, about the only bit of her not covered in mud.

‘Traitor,’ Genie told him as she headed for the shower.

But she was real glad he’d had the sense to run away. He would have given her away for sure had he stayed.

Thirty minutes later she met the boys in the kitchen and seemed to be totally back to normal, like nothing had ever happened. Rian was worried about her, but aside from a

couple of scratches, some sunburn and sore feet, Genie looked to be in good shape. He was impressed by that.

Genie was like the battery rabbit on TV, going on and on.

He was more proud of her than ever. They sat around the table, ate her muffins and drank coffee as Marshall tried to explain just who owned what around his land.

He had spread a map out and they studied it as Genie tried to tame her hair, the reservoir seemed to have made it all static. Marshall had his old Led Zepplin CD playing in the background, trying to educate them as to ‘good’

music, as he called it.

‘See here? It’s the old pioneer trail used back in the 1880s. They pretty much turned over every hillside around here looking for gold. The track goes down here; you were up beside the reservoir, Genie.’ He jabbed the map with his finger. ‘The Fortress is down there, underground, built right under the old trail. Cost a damn fortune to keep it secret. Everyone had to sign non-disclosure forms and they had lawyers ten deep to make sure you kept your mouth shut.’

He looked at her over his specs, took her arm a moment and squeezed it.

‘You sure you’re OK? I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you come home. You looked so wild.’

Genie smiled and nodded. ‘The guards were idiots. I

was scared, but the woman was practically standing on top of me and didn’t see me. I kept thinking she must be able to hear my heart thumping, it was sooo loud. Didn’t help there was a beetle crawling over my ass. I nearly had a heart attack, didn’t know what it was or if it was going to bite.’

‘Not sure I could have stood that, I hate bugs crawling on me. I’m not surprised she didn’t see you, girl. You get an A-star for camouflage. Smart thinking.’

‘I didn’t know what else to do. Just roll in the dirt and lie still and close my eyes. An ostrich would do the same.’

‘I think the fact that you don’t see any ostriches around here proves that you were a tad smarter, girl.’

‘Ha, ha,’ Genie replied, but could see Marshall was being genuine.

‘You didn’t say why the water vibrated? It was so strange. You know how when it rains real hard and the water kind of bounces up? That’s what the reservoir was doing – only it wasn’t raining.’

Marshall frowned. ‘Could be they were drawing down water if they needed more power or . . . I don’t know.’

He shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any reason why the water should vibrate like that. I’d like to have seen it. Could be a phenomenon of a transmission in progress or one of the power generators that’s resonating slightly

off-balance deep below. Who knows?’

He pointed out a huge lake area behind the Fortress mountain ridge. ‘There’s Hobb Lake further back in the mountains that supplies the main generators, but your reservoir will be mainly used to cool the building. It gets super hot down there. And I mean hot hot. The air gets superheated in transmission and they have to extract it with huge fans, comes out with the force of jet exhaust.

Seen birds flying over too close get cooked, it’s so hot.

Neither of you can go swimming again up there, it’s far too dangerous, way too close to them. Y’hear me?’

‘Not get me back up there,’ Genie declared emphatically.

Rian was thinking about the kid Genie saw abducted.

‘Spurlake kids have to be making contact with someone who’s directing them here. The printout Tunis showed me had a toll-free number you could call and it talked about out how you had to be fit. If you’re desperate you’d do it for the money, right?’

‘It had to be the vending machine,’ Genie said, thinking aloud. ‘As soon as anyone selects a drink, it rings a bell some place and the Fortress people come running. The drinks have to be drugged. The guy passed out really fast.’

Marshall nodded, pointing. ‘I really can’t believe the Fortress would be that crazy. Cops would have to

investigate it and they wouldn’t want it to lead back to them.’

‘But they’re getting their “volunteers” from Spurlake and other places around here somehow. And don’t forget Reverend Schneider. He’s collecting souls,’ Genie remarked.

Marshall looked at Genie and smiled. ‘However mean you say this guy is, he didn’t send you to the Fortress, Genie. He put bars on your window, remember, to stop
you leaving. I just can’t believe there’s someone out there trying to seduce kids with money on behalf of the Fortress. It’s diabolical, too immoral to contemplate.’

Rian and Genie exchanged glances. They had to find a way to convince him he was wrong.

Marshall was looking at the map again.

‘If they started over here in Spurlake and headed south down the river, there’s a rope bridge over it, look here, see where the river squeezes through the canyon gap. The cable engineers use it so they don’t have to go all the way downriver.’

‘So anyone could walk it if someone told them exactly where to go. Two thousand bucks would be a big incentive if you’re desperate,’ Rian said.

‘It’s a lot of money to most people,’ Marshall replied.

‘But where’s your proof? I’d need to hear that from your friends. Just how did they get there and who did they

meet? Seriously, I’m open to being proved wrong, Rian.’

Genie wasn’t listening any more. She’d felt funny ever since she’d got back to the farmhouse and now she could feel her eyes fluttering and she was suddenly falling down that valley, swooping like an eagle to the bus stop.

She opened her eyes. She was in Synchro again. Sitting on a chair. Somehow she was dripping wet. Everyone around her seemed tense and there was a rising electronic noise, like no other sound she had ever heard. She turned her head – men and some women were in a control room behind reinforced glass, all dressed in white and watching the transmission platform with a keen intensity. There was a digital countdown going on at the side of the room and Genie could feel the whole place vibrating slightly, as if all the electric power in the world was under her and coming to a crescendo. Something big was about to happen.

The digital countdown was suddenly triggered.

Eight . . . six . . . two . . . suddenly there was a kid materializing right before her eyes on the platform. He was glowing slightly, his head shaved, and he looked frozen with fear. It had to be the boy who had only hours before arrived at the bus stop with his backpack. He opened his eyes. The sound around the room was deafening now at maximum power. The boy saw her. She

could see his eyes dilate as he stared at her and then BANG! There was a huge flash and he vaporized, dense particles blown backwards against the wall. Genie had felt the heat, like that of an exploding sun. His shadow had been instantly carbonized on the curved back wall. She began to shake uncontrollably with horror.
This
was what carbon blowback looked like.

There was shouting all around her. She heard one voice in particular. A calm, almost mechanical female voice.

‘DNA stability lasted three point two seconds.’

Then another voice, closer this time.

‘OK. We’re going with a second test at twenty-hundred hours. Get this mess cleaned up.

Genie opened her eyes. She was lying on the grass, a deep pink sunset glowed overhead. Rian was watching her carefully with a worried expression. He took her hand and squeezed it.

‘Welcome back.’

He handed her a glass of water and she drank it all, still needing more. All she could see was the boy exploding and couldn’t get the vision out of her head.

‘I just saw a boy vaporize,’ she croaked. ‘I was in Synchro again. He was transmitted from the Fortress.

He could
see
me, Rian. He stared at me and then just exploded.’

She closed her eyes, trying to breathe normally.

Rian pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her.

‘You’re all right now. It was just a vision. You’re OK.’

Genie shook her head. It wasn’t a vision. It
really happened. She’d been there, felt the force of the explosion, seen the boy’s eyes as they opened.

‘You were gone for two hours. Marshall wanted to call a doctor.’

‘He did? I was? But it was just a couple of minutes.

I was there . . .’

‘Shh,’ Rian soothed. ‘Try to put it out of your head.’

Genie knew that would be impossible.

‘He materialized, he looked at me, Rian, and then just exploded. All I heard was this woman’s voice call out, “DNA stability three point two seconds.” Like they didn’t care one bit a boy just exploded in front of them. What kind of people can do that, Ri? What kind of people?’

‘Three point two seconds?’ Marshall queried, suddenly interested, leaning forward in his chair.

Genie turned her head and saw he was perched on a lawnchair watching her. Mouch was lying beside him, fast asleep.

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‘Three point two seconds must be the longest they’ve ever achieved. That’s amazing.’

‘Amazing?’ Genie protested. ‘Amazing? Marshall, a boy was killed.’

‘I know. And I’m sorry, Genie. I’m thinking like they do, that’s all. Think about it. They are transmitting DNA from over thirty-five kilometres away from the Fortress to Synchro. For three point two seconds the boy was stable. You said yourself he saw you. That means he was conscious for three point two seconds. They will be writing that down as a success.’

‘Success?’ Rian protested. ‘You heard her. The boy exploded.’

Marshall grabbed his cane and slowly stood up.

‘Rian. Believe me, when I was working there we only used inanimate objects. Clocks, toys, dolls.

We were aiming towards using laboratory mice, I admit that. After all, our goal was teleportation of humans. But there’s different people there now with different values. They obviously think they can get away with this. I’m sorry about the boy, but I’m telling you, tonight they’ll be popping champagne and calling that a success.’

He said nothing more and walked into the house.

Genie and Rian stared after him, horrified.

‘Help me up,’ Genie told Rian. ‘Take me for a walk.

I need air.’

A roll of deep thunder sounded in the distance. Mouch ran for the house. Doom never sounded so close.

‘It’s going to rain. His leg was right after all,’ Rian told her, surprised. ‘You got wet once today already. I’m wondering if you caught a fever.’

Genie shook her head. What she had seen was no damn fever.

It was much later, half an hour after supper. Just after the lightning storm and the downpour that followed that drenched everything. Rian was in the barn checking that his roof repairs had held. Genie was outside, watching her pig wallowing in a mudhole. She still hadn’t cleared her head of the events that happened earlier. She wasn’t sure she could keep her supper down, either.

‘You really think Marshall will eat my pig?’

Rian came out of the barn to join her. He held her in his arms and they listened to the water dripping off the trees and the pig making little snorts as she dug herself in deeper.

‘Pigs have a certain destiny, I guess.’

‘She’s free, why doesn’t she go off into the forest and just live wild?’

‘Because a certain person around here keeps feeding her scraps and talks to her and scratches her head and she ain’t going to get that in the forest now, is she? Also there are bears in the forest. She ain’t stupid. You sure

you’re OK?’ Rian asked. ‘You’ve been so calm since you got back and—’

They suddenly heard howling.

‘Coyotes,’ Rian declared. ‘Another reason not to go into the forest.’

The pig had heard them too and stopped moving.

That’s when they heard the tortured scream. Genie looked at Rian in alarm.

‘Was that a person? Was that human?’ Her heart practically stopped. She’d never heard such a horrible, agonizing noise.

Rian moved quickly. ‘There’s a flashlight on the wall in the barn. Grab it.’

Genie ran back into the barn as Rian looked for weapons. Coyotes would run off if confronted. He knew that, but he wanted a stout stick, just in case.

Genie re-emerged with the flashlight. ‘Which way?’

The cry started up again, to the south of them, and Rian dashed off into the forest, Genie following. ‘What are we going to do?’ Genie asked, trying to control her breathing as they ran between trees.

‘Scare them. Keep listening.’

Genie could only hear her beating heart and the sound of breaking twigs underfoot. Genie had this vision of some kid being hacked to pieces by coyotes. What