The Repossession (34 page)

‘You want to know why no one ever tells you about the Fortress?’ Cary was saying. ‘’Cause if they hear or read anything critical at all, they will turn up at your door a day later and you’ll lose your job.’

‘How do you know this?’ Rian asked, removing Danielle’s bloodied shoes from her feet. He noticed Danielle’s ankles were swollen but said nothing.

‘Because I know what happened to my father, Ri. I found a way back home. I thought if I explained what had happened to me everything would be all right. I was stupid, y’know. Found that web link looking for volunteers for some experiment. I just wanted the two thousand dollars. I mean, how dumb was I? No one is ever going to give kids two thousand dollars cash for taking part in a drug trial, or whatever they pretended it was. We’re just kids. We never read the small print. We just see two thousand dollars and think, hell that’s easy.

Only take a week and I’ll be made. I was just as stupid as all the others before me.

‘I was going to reveal myself, but things didn’t look right. My dad had made some noise. He’d hacked my computer and discovered about the money and the toll-free number and was making a fuss. He’s a math teacher, he knows computers, he can hack anything. He asked awkward questions. I was there. I could see what was happening.’

All the kids were paying attention now.

‘My ma has a bad heart. I realized that if she saw me, and then realized I wasn’t real, wasn’t flesh and blood . . .

she’d probably have an attack. It was bad enough she missed me so much. I never knew that. I had no idea how much they missed me.’

‘So what happened?’ Denis asked.

‘The people from the Fortress came around and the next thing you know he lost his job. He was just ruined.

In one day. My mother got seriously ill. I saw it all happen and I knew right then that if I
did
show myself, it would finish them. Better they think I might be dead. I know Renée was always telling us that we were alive as long as we could see and move around, but I didn’t really go along with that. If you can’t touch, or feel things or . . .’ His voice faltered. ‘If we want to expose them, we have to do it big. We have to do it quick. If they know we’re coming, they’ll grab us so fast, we’ll be disappeared, and our

families along with us. They’re truly evil. They’ll do anything to keep it secret.’

No one said anything for a while. There was a strong sense of gloom now.

‘If we can’t use the phone, why don’t we send an email to the cop?’ Denis suggested finally. ‘They can’t read every single email.’

‘They can identify the computer it comes from – and that’s exactly what we don’t want them to do,’

Cary pointed out.

‘No use anyway, there isn’t any computer,’ Genie told Denis. ‘Marshall doesn’t have one.’

‘Yeah, he has,’ Denis replied, puzzled.

Rian looked at him, frowning. ‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘I’ve seen it. When I was here before. The small room off the kitchen.’

Genie shook her head. ‘That’s the pantry. Just boxes and cans in there.’

Denis went back inside the house to the kitchen to prove them wrong and several followed him.

Genie exchanged glances with Rian and they shrugged. They had no idea what Denis was doing. They followed the others inside.

Denis walked across the kitchen, straight into the pantry. And stopped. He turned around and came

back to the door. He saw all their faces looking at him. ‘I just remembered I can’t walk through walls any more.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Randall agreed, rubbing the side of his head.

‘But there’s nothing in there, Denis,’ Rian told him from the doorway. ‘Genie and me looked everywhere for a computer.’

Denis turned around again. ‘Come here. I’ll prove it to you.’

Rian sighed and joined him. ‘If it’s there, it’s got to be well hidden.’

Denis was standing by a stack of boxes in the pantry with his eyes closed trying to remember what he’d seen before. ‘Help me with these boxes.’

Rian and Denis heaved and the boxes came away pretty easily – there was virtually nothing in them. They both saw the door was barely visible, cut with the grain of the wood so you really had to be looking for it. Clearly it wasn’t meant to be found. Rian pushed on it. It was surprisingly heavy. It squeaked on rusty hinges. A neon light flickered on inside.

Denis entered first, closely followed by Rian.

‘Wow.’

Rian was looking at a room only two metres wide, but

the full length of the house. A good fifteen metres long. It was filled with electronic and scientific equipment. A fully fitted lab. Dusty broken computer bits sat on a table along with some of the receptors they had found in the forest, some still to be assembled. From the amount of dust it looked like Marshall hadn’t been in here in a very long time. Certainly he hadn’t used a computer – it had been deliberately smashed to bits.

Denis turned to him and frowned. ‘I guess he didn’t want to use his PC.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Genie said, entering the room with the rest of the gang. ‘This is like so cool. A secret room.

He never said anything.’

‘Neat, huh? You’d never know it was here, unless you measured the house on the outside and compared it to the inside,’ Rian said.

‘Point is, can we use any of this stuff?’ Denis asked, looking around.

Cary entered. You could see his instant disappointment when he saw the smashed computer parts.

‘This place hasn’t been used in years,’ Denis protested.

Cary picked up electronic equipment, bits of a cell phone, some cables. ‘I can’t work with this.’ He looked at Rian. ‘Sorry. I guess he didn’t want them listening to him either.’

‘You’ll have to go down the track to the nearest phone,’

Genie told Rian.

‘Guys, we have apples to pick. Got to finish the job, OK?’ Renée was calling.

They all groaned, but they trooped out back to the kitchen to join her.

Cary hung back a moment and looked at Rian.

‘How far is this phone?’

‘About ten Ks. By the mail drop.’

‘We’d better work out what we’re going to tell him.

He’s probably not going to believe anything you say. I wouldn’t. Keep it real short too.’

Genie had an idea. ‘Leave him a message, Ri. Tell him this:
Moucher is harvesting. Needs a new basket
.’

Rian understood and smiled. Yeah, that would work.

An hour later Rian found Cary standing in the shade of the house, cooling his temple against the stone wall. He’d stopped picking for a while. Rian had brought him some water to make sure he was OK. He silently took the bottle from him and drank. Cary’s left eye was swollen and he had a slight nervous tic.

‘Go in, cool down. You’ve done enough today.’

Cary rubbed his face. ‘Can’t seem to adjust to my new eyes. I can see perfectly, but I’ve got such a

blinding headache. They’re flickering.’

‘Flickering?’

‘Y’know, like when you stare at a computer screen for too long. Always had problems with my eyes. I once played
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
for about ten hours straight, then discovered I was practically blind for a day.

Couldn’t lift my head I was so nauseous.’

Rian sat down on his haunches. He needed a break himself. ‘What was it like – y’know, being inside the system, being part of it?’

‘Like being a Borg,’ Cary answered with a wry smile. ‘Only worse. Whoever wrote the code was pretty smart though.’

Rian glanced over his shoulder. ‘That was Marshall.

This is his farm.’

Cary was surprised. ‘Well, he did a good job. You know that computer data is just made up of ones and zeros, right?’

Rian nodded.

‘Ones and zeros aren’t conscious of each other. Can’t be, right? Computers aren’t sentient. But he wrote this code called Vallhund.

‘Vallhund?’

‘Vallhund makes everything associated with your DNA go hunting, to keep it all together. It tracks every bit of

information about your individual DNA make-up on every server constantly. It herds. Keeps you whole. That’s why we still existed. That’s how Renée and Denis were able to come here and you could see them. The code kept them in one piece pretty much all the time, unless a server went down. Fanatical about it, checking every bit of data a million times a second.’

Rian realized that Cary understood how all this stuff worked.

‘You worked it out?’

Cary smiled. ‘Yeah. I was looking for flaws. I figured that if I was intact, then there had to be a way to transmit me out of there again for real. I wanted to know what they were doing wrong.’

‘Did you find out?’

Cary shrugged. ‘No. Sheer dumb luck that I came out with Genie. I don’t know what she did, but she brought us out somehow. When you’re inside, everything is infinite and yet you feel like you are in the smallest box in the universe and can’t breathe. I can’t explain it. Eleven months and six days, Rian. Doesn’t feel more than eleven seconds right now, but I never ever want to go back in.’

‘Got to make sure everyone has water,’ Rian told him.

‘Take it easy. All right? You’re free now.’

Cary watched Rian go. Why didn’t he feel free? Why

did he feel he was still inside that box? He took long deep breaths of clean mountain air and closed his eyes. His heart beat loud in his ears, blood was pumping around his body. Rian didn’t know what a miracle it was to be able to feel that. Had no idea at all.

They had already stripped one side of the orchard of all the best apples and were already on to the other side.

They had a good system going now, sorting good from bad, small from large and layering them in the boxes, separating each layer with blue tissue paper to stop possible contamination. The boxes were stacking up under the shade of the old oak tree in the corner, ready to be moved to the cool room at the back of the house. It was exhausting work for weak muscles. Julia complained a lot, but was an expert picker, so they put up with it.

Danielle appeared just as they had all decided they were exhausted and needed a break. They were laid out flat in the long grass drinking water and groaning as unused muscles and aching necks throbbed.

‘Hey, I thought you guys were picking apples.’

Everyone protested and some pelted apples at her.

She just laughed.

‘You feeling better?’ Genie asked.

Danielle nodded. ‘Yeah. Sorry about what I said earlier.

I was just panicking. I sure hope those bloodsucking choppers don’t come back though.’

‘Got to find you something different to wear,’ Genie said, looking at Danielle’s bloodied T-shirt.

Danielle looked down and shrugged. ‘Nothing white I think.’ She smiled. ‘In case.’

‘We’re going to get our own back soon,’ Denis told her. ‘We’re going to go back to Spurlake and make such a lot of noise when we do, they won’t be able to touch us ever again.’

‘I want to see Reverend Schneider’s face when we suddenly challenge him,’ Julia said. ‘I hope he squirms. I hope they throw things at him. I hate him.’

‘We’d need TV and newspapers,’ Cary said, as he returned with an empty basket, ready for work again.

‘They’d have to come. It’s the only way we’d be safe. Us coming back from the dead all at once would be a real big thing. But until then, we have to stay well hidden.’

Danielle sat down beside Denis and munched on an apple. Her colour had returned at last.

Ri signalled to Genie that he was going. He got up slowly and strolled towards the barn. Genie followed.

They hugged beside Marshall’s truck a moment. Rian held her tight, reluctant to leave her behind.

‘You think this is a good idea?’ Genie asked.

‘I’m just going to leave him the message on his cell.

Not talk to him or anything. I’ll come right back.’

‘Pick up some milk. Get two four-litre jugs, OK? Oh, and some bread.’

‘Can I kiss you now or are you going to—’

Genie kissed him long and hard, then broke off suddenly. ‘Go. It’s getting late. Come right back. Avoid any Fortress people. Don’t attract attention.’

Ri nodded. He opened the truck door. ‘Love you.’

‘Of course you do. Come right back, Rian. I just don’t want any surprises.’

‘Better clean up the blood,’ he told her. ‘You’ll need bleach.’

Genie nodded. It was next on her list of things to do.

She watched Rian go until he disappeared from sight completely. The pig wandered over and let her scratch her ears.

‘No one is going to make you disappear, pig. No one.’

Genie woke at first light. She thought she heard a noise, the drone of a car maybe. Her arms ached from all that apple picking. She’d been on edge all night, worried about the message they’d sent to Miller. Would he understand it? Or dismiss it? He wouldn’t be able to call back and

might think it was a prank or something.

She rose, careful not to wake Rian. He looked so peaceful lying on the bed and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. She definitely heard a car again. She quickly dressed and hurried on out of the bedroom and down the stairs. What if it was the Fortress? Would they have time to get out?

Outside, the sound of a car struggling up the miles of dusty track was confirmed. She ran down the track to the big rock some twenty metres from the gate. Climbing up, she could get a good view from there. It would give her time to warn the others if it was trouble coming.

It was going to be a sunny morning. There were a few pink clouds but they’d soon disappear. They were heading for the normal kind of weather they got in the fall, long sunny days and chilly nights. No more rain for a while, at least.

It was a four-by-four. She had a good feeling about it.

It would have to stop by the gate. Rian had insisted on closing it, it would give them a fraction more time to get ready for trouble. Renée had found cowbells to hang on it.

No way now to open it without making a racket.

‘You think it’s him?’

Genie started. Rian was standing just below her, still in his shorts.

‘I hope so.’

‘Me too.’

Rian reached out and squeezed her foot, all he could reach. ‘I’ll go back, get them all up. In case.’