The Repossession (30 page)

He had no idea how he forced himself to do it, but he had to continue bringing the house back to life. Genie’s notebook was stashed in a safe place now in the basement.

Just knowing it existed gave him strength, he refused to be overwhelmed by despair. She wouldn’t want that. He’d figure out how to get revenge later. Definitely figure something out.

Sometime later he had the kitchen functioning again and he’d straightened out the bottom rooms so Marshall could settle in without a problem. The broken chairs and debris were stacked outside and he realized some of it would make good firewood. Might come in handy at the next power outage.

He ate a bowl of cereal with half-frozen milk and watched the pig happily scoffing the spoiled food. He’d never really taken to the pig the way Genie had, but now, he kind of understood what she meant. You had to care about everything, then maybe someone would care about you.

‘You miss her?’ he asked the pig. The animal grunted,

ignoring him, munching on cabbage and briefly glaring at him as if to say he was interrupting her concentration.

It was the way of pigs.

Genie opened her eyes. Water dripped on to her face from a tree, she felt it trickle down her neck. She felt pain in her lower back and moved, realizing that she was lying uncomfortably on a rock. Rock!

Rock? Pain? Did this mean she was alive? She was real?

She closed her eyes suddenly, really scared that she was only partly formed. She had awful, horrid memories of the howling dog with the back legs fused together. This meant that she had definitely been transmitted. She remembered the actual moment she began to fade. It was almost like watching a sandcastle disintegrate under the force of a high wind, grains of sand flying off and disappearing into thin air. She opened one eye and sneaked a look at her legs.
She definitely had legs
. Two of them. And they looked normal, like her legs should, kinda skinny and still scuffed from her ordeal up to the reservoir. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her face and arms, but exactly where was she? She opened

both eyes now and sat up. Everything seemed to be in working order except she had a tight knot in her stomach, like she was travel sick.

She looked around her. She was in the forest and she realized that she wasn’t alone either. Other kids were grouped around her in a semi-circle, all asleep in various foetal positions, lying on grass or ferns. She realized the whole clearing was filled with lush green ferns and bright red fireweed. Above her head power lines softly hummed.

She wondered if she could stand, nervous her legs wouldn’t work. She stood, and with immense relief they took her weight. She had a sudden wild thought:
Am I still Genie Magee?
They may have transmitted her body, but had her memory come with it? Was her heart in the right place? Her kidneys? What about her blood, lungs, all the little bits that were right now making her feel dizzy? She realized she was shaking with anxiety. Her nostrils told her that her nose was working. Sweet pine and decaying vegetation. She took a deep breath and filled her lungs. As she did so she noticed her left arm. The moles had gone.

All her moles had gone. She had three, like a little triangle on her left arm. Rian had always rubbed them for luck. It was just a little thing, but what else was missing? It made her more nervous. Annoyingly, the scar, the Celtic cross,

was still vividly prominent on her other arm.

She moved toward the other bodies. Scared of what she might discover. Were they still alive? Or were they . . . ?

Many were almost naked, some wore the one-piece underwear she was wearing.

She shook the first boy awake. He turned and stared at her, fear in his eyes, then slowly he began to smile as he recognized her.

‘Jesus, Genie. What they do to your hair?’

‘Denis?’ Genie realized that he looked different in real life. Even smaller. She liked the green socks though.

Denis smiled and tentatively unfurled his body, embarrassed that his underwear had holes in it, but much more curious about whether his arms and legs actually worked. ‘I’m real. I’m frickin’ real,’ he told her with pleasure and astonishment.

‘And almost naked. You might want to do something about your underwear.’ Genie moved on to the next kid.

Denis laughed and just the sound of it made him happy.

He stood up, testing his body, feeling everything. It was so weird for him to touch and feel again.

Genie was shaking the next kid awake. Cary Harrison, she remembered. He’d been so quiet and scared when she’d met him at the house. She looked across the forest and wondered, why here? Why now? The whole

area looked very familiar to her. Was this where she’d found the howling dog? She moved cautiously to the edge and looked down across the ravine and the huge hundred-metre drop. The Fortress was somewhere down there, beyond range. Weirdly, this was
exactly where the dog had materialized. Maybe Marshall had been right. Something was making this happen. Couldn’t be a coincidence.

She leaned up against a rock and looked back at other kids stirring. She hoped it wasn’t a dream. It would be cruel if this was just a dream.

‘Genie?’

Genie turned and sat upon a rock and smiled at Renée, who stood up and stretched, wobbling on her feet a little.

‘My God, you’re so tall,’ Genie remarked. ‘At least they left your hair on. Look what they did to me.’

Renée was feeling her body, testing it, just like Denis had done. She coughed, then spat blood, which unnerved her some.

‘Can’t believe this! I’m real. I’m solid.’ She looked at Denis and the others and then without warning began to cry.

Genie rushed over to comfort her, giving her a big hug.

‘Open your mouth. You’re bleeding.’

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Genie looked into Renée’s mouth, checked teeth, tongue, everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. ‘Maybe you bit your cheek.’

Renée spat again but it was clear this time. She looked relieved and hugged Genie back.

‘We’re all alive, we’re alive, Genie,’ Renée said quietly, totally amazed.

‘It worked, I don’t know how it worked, but it worked,’

Genie told her.

Denis was frowning, moving around and helping the other kids get up. He looked back at Genie.

‘Nine of us.’

Genie broke away from Renée. She looked at Denis, still so small. She wondered if he would ever grow normally. She didn’t recognize one boy who stirred and looked so frightened to be in the forest.

Julia, the blonde girl, was last to awake and was staring at her stomach, totally unaware of her near nakedness.

‘My scars. All my scars have gone.’

‘My hair,’ a girl Genie didn’t recognize was saying. ‘I was blonde. My shoulder?’

Denis knelt beside her. She seemed distressed.

‘Does it hurt, Danielle?’

‘No. That’s just it. I can use it again. I had an accident.

Couldn’t move it.’

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Genie watched each one of them re-familiarize themselves with their bodies. It was the weirdest thing to watch. Every single one of them checking their ears and noses were in the right places. Two more were crying with relief and happiness. The silent boy was looking at his stomach and legs with total wonder.

‘What’s wrong?’ Renée asked him. ‘You OK? What’s your name?’

‘Randall.’

Renée looked at Denis and exchanged looks of surprise.

‘Randall, the blimp? You ain’t Randall. Randall was like – huge.’

Randall looked at Denis and began to cry.

‘Oh my God, it is Randall,’ Julia trilled. ‘What did they do to you? You were like the fattest kid in our year.’

Renée looked at Genie and shrugged.

‘Well, that’s one diet that finally works. You should send them a letter of thanks, Randall. Can’t believe you were that obese kid.’

Genie realized she’d have to take charge.

‘We have to go. We can’t let them find us. We have to stick together and that means not being mean to each other. I think we’ve all been through enough. I have no idea how this worked or why, but we’re here and we have

to make sure we stay alive now.’

‘But where are we?’ Julia whined.

‘I know exactly where we are,’ Genie said, smiling.

She helped the girl up off the ground. ‘And I know where we can go.’

‘But how did this happen?’ Cary asked. ‘I mean, one minute we were like nowhere and now we’re here and we’re alive?’

‘It was Genie. She came for us. I told you she would,’

Denis declared.

‘I didn’t do anything. They just put me on the platform and pressed a button.’

But Denis was looking at her curiously. He stepped forward and stroked the silver paint on her arms.

‘And this?’

‘They painted me. I don’t know why.’ She smiled. ‘They gave me juice too, but I poured it down the heating duct.

I think that’s what started the fire.’

Denis and Renée looked at her with surprise.

‘I remember that gloop,’ Renée told her. ‘Disgusting.

It’s filled with stuff so they can see you.’

‘Nanobots,’ Denis told her. ‘I heard them talking about them. They make us swallow them and they can track all our organs if they go astray. Or something like that. It stays active for about two days. Lucky you

didn’t drink it, they’d know exactly where you are now.’

‘But where are the others?’ Julia asked. ‘Is this it? Just us? Is that Miho? Miho, is that you?’

Miho uncurled, then abruptly became aware she was practically naked and curled up again, embarrassed and afraid.

‘It’s OK,’ Julia was telling her. ‘We’re alive, we’re alive.

Come on, get up.’

Denis ran behind a tree to take a leak.

‘Ow, pine cones.’

Genie smiled. They were all barefoot except for Denis in his socks. It was going to be hell walking back to the farm.

‘Plumbing works,’ Denis shouted back. Some of the girls smirked but you could tell they were relieved to know.

‘Come on, we have to go. I don’t want them to find us.

Hell, I don’t even want them to look for us,’ Genie told them. ‘They might think I’m dead. After all, I didn’t arrive in Synchro and they don’t know about you guys.’

‘Then why are you crossing your fingers?’ Renée remarked. She turned to the others. ‘Genie’s right. We have to leave.’

‘There’s a farmhouse near here. There’s some old clothes we can have and we can get something to drink.’

Denis returned from the tree.

‘You think there’s any more of us?’

Cary was looking at where people were standing and the pattern of how they had arrived. Genie remembered he was the smart one.

‘We arrived in a semi-circle. Look where you are.

It’s a pattern.’ He looked up and saw the huge power cables strung above the trees. ‘I don’t know how, but we’re here and if anyone else came and they were outside the—’

‘Don’t say anything bad,’ Julia begged him. ‘I don’t want to see anything bad.’

‘I remembered something,’ Genie remarked, but didn’t explain. She had a flash of being inside a swirl of electrons, being able to see everything, like the secret of the universe – every atom and nothing, all at the same time. She suddenly thought of all those pictures on the walls of Marshall’s bathrooms. How many kids were missing?

Why only the nine of them in the circle? Marshall would know.

‘Come on. It’s not far. Watch out for pine cones and thorny things. I don’t know what they are but they stick right in your foot and they’re hard to get out. Oh yeah, and coyotes.’

‘Coyotes!’ Julia protested.

‘You’re too skinny to interest them,’ Denis told her.

‘And you’re too short,’ Julia shot back.

Genie ignored them and walked ahead. She was thinking about Rian. Would he be there? And then she remembered Mr Yates, employee of the month. How were they going to handle him?

‘Hey,’ Denis shouted. ‘Another one.’ He walked cautiously off the track towards a heap half hidden by ferns.

Genie turned to see all them follow Denis and she turned back to join them.

Miho was puking before she even got there and Denis was pushing them back. ‘Back up, don’t look.

Don’t look.’

‘Who?’ Genie was asking, but stopped when she saw Denis’ face.

He shook his head. ‘It’s a what. Seriously, don’t look, Genie.’

Renée had the stomach to look. She stared. ‘It’s inside out – it’s gross.’

‘There might be more.’ Genie didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to see them. If they weren’t normal, she didn’t want to know. The deformed dog had been enough for her.

Something was shining in the undergrowth. She

approached it cautiously. Once it had been white, but now, covered in sticky stuff from the trees, it looked like a plastic road cone. It was half a metre wide, with the familiar Fortransco logo. It was warm to touch and vibrated slightly. She looked back suddenly. Now she studied the ground more carefully she could see they formed a large semi-circle, just as Cary had observed.

Some probably buried under plant life as the forest grew around them. Marshall’s receptors. It was no accident they had appeared here. Something had triggered them.

The last storm brought them back to life, exactly as Marshall said.

Cary was at her side and he saw them too, his face deathly white.

‘These things must be here for a reason,’ Cary said. ‘I can feel my heart pumping. It’s a weird sensation. You?’

Genie nodded. ‘You will have to get used to lots of things you used to feel, I guess. You going to be sick?’

Cary was trying to be tough, but he was increasingly feeling nauseous.

‘What if there are more kids here and they haven’t woken yet?’ Renée asked.

‘I think it’s just us,’ Genie told her. ‘I can’t tell you how I know. Everyone outside the semi-circle will be too damaged to put back together.’

Cary was sensing that too. Someone actually transmitted inside out. He couldn’t bear to think about it, way too gross to handle. He turned away, taking deep breaths to stay calm.

‘We have to stay together, stay alive and we have to expose them,’ Genie told everyone as they started back down the track again. ‘We have to take Reverend Schneider and the whole Fortress down.’