The Hunting (25 page)

Cary turned to Genie a moment. ‘They will freak back in the Fortress. If we’re sending our guys out, it’s going to swamp the servers and drain all the juice. What if it blinks out?’

Marshall was looking at a dusty manual left in a corner.

‘Send them at thirty-second intervals and – this is most important, Cary – purge them all from the memory before you yourself leave. Belay that.
Don’t
purge yourself before you go. You’ll have to time delay that task. Leave a coded message that wipes all the server memories. They won’t be able to stop it.’

Denis looked up sharply. ‘But that means anyone still stored on there will be killed.’

Marshall looked back at Denis. ‘Kid, you’ve seen what happened to the ones who didn’t get stored right. It ain’t pretty. You guys got lucky. They had it right, but didn’t know it. You save who you can – it’s harsh, but you can’t save someone who isn’t really one hundred per cent there. You understand?’

Denis thought about it. It was true. He didn’t like it, but it was true. ‘When are we going to do this?’

‘Shift change. Five o’clock tonight,’ Marshall said. ‘Something always going wrong at the changeover, so they won’t think anything of it and they’ll be so busy trying to trace the power surge, they won’t realize they are transmitting until it’s over.’

‘How long is each transmission?’ Genie asked.

‘Thirty-seven point five seconds,’ Cary answered, looking at the data on-screen. ‘Any longer and it gets unstable.’

‘Who do we save?’ Renée asked.

‘Whoever you can,’ Marshall answered.

‘What if they’re already dead?’

‘Denis already came back once. Right? Let them explain that. Our job is to get them out and get them away. Your job is to find a way to survive after. That will be the really hard part.’

Marshall was looking at the Radspan manual again.

‘Cary, Dr Milan made some interesting notes here. When you’re inside, the brain activity is coded pale blue; each different element is colour coded now. I heard they’d adopted that. You have to check each person you want to transmit and make sure all the datastream is routed back to that person. There will be a code number for each of them and all their bits. We are talking trillions of bits. It should work, but even if there is one server down at the moment of transmission, you could wind up missing an ear or your hair changes colour or whatever, you follow me?’

Cary nodded. Almost anything could go wrong and probably would. He got it.

‘You will be reborn in the reverse sequence that you were deconstructed.’

‘I know this isn’t the time and place to mention this,’ Denis said, ‘but did anyone ever see
The Fly
?’

Julia screeched, ‘I did not want to hear that, Denis Malone.’

Marshall chuckled. ‘Fly DNA is small; your DNA is strong and much bigger. You could chuck in a swan, doesn’t necessarily mean you’d grow wings. You’d be a freak, but they maintain a very clean lab, Julia. There won’t be any flies there.’

‘It’s arriving here, with a dog and coffee and—’

‘You’ll be fine. Hell, you turned up in the forest last time and you didn’t get any bugs growing out of your head,’ Genie told her.

Cary suddenly blinked out.

‘Hey.’ Genie spun around looking for him. Denis disappeared before her eyes and then Julia.

Marshall looked at the data on-screen. ‘Power’s down again. They might be doing repairs after the storm. No need to get scared.’

‘I have to go help him?’ Genie asked.

‘You have to find a quiet corner and do whatever you have to do to go there, Genie. I want you helping Cary. No one can touch you and you’ll be safe here.’

‘But where will I find him?’

‘He’ll find you. He always does. I think you have some kind of natural signal. Couldn’t explain it, but nevertheless …’

He was taking the receptors out of the bag and handing them to Rian. ‘We have to wire these into this system. It will alter and boost the magnetic pull. I hope.’

Renée felt kind of spare. ‘What do I do?’

Genie took her gloved hand. ‘Keep everyone happy and don’t forget to hug Mouch. He’s shivering.’

Moucher did look miserable curled up on some magazines in the corner. He looked up at them, then went back to sleep.

‘This is all I have to do?’ Genie asked, unsure of how to help.

Renée nodded, shivering. ‘Don’t be scared, OK, and bring Cary back. I’m kinda getting used to him again.’

G
enie was squatting in a corner, desperately trying to concentrate. She had no idea how one deliberately travelled. She wasn’t sure what the real word was for what she did. Was it magic? Or what? It had always just happened before; now she was supposed to look for something to trigger it. She fiddled with a metal washer she’d found and discovered that it calmed her. She was staring at Marshall and Rian working on the wiring when suddenly the room shifted. Nothing else, it was more like an electrical fault, that was all. She looked back at Moucher and he was staring at her now, his little quizzical face studying her.

‘Anything?’ Marshall asked her.

Genie frowned. ‘I only just got here.’

Marshall shook his head and smiled. ‘Been over ninety minutes already.’

‘No way.’ Genie was stunned. ‘Impossible. I just sat down this second.’

Renée emerged from the kitchen. ‘Oh, you’re awake. Tea and cookies? Mouch has already had his.’

Genie was astonished. How the hell? Ninety minutes? Worse, she could no longer remember what it was she was supposed to be doing.

‘Is there a washroom?’

‘It’s tiny and stinks of sulphur, but it works,’ Renée told her. ‘Come on. You need those cookies, girl, I can tell.’

Genie sat in the tiny toilet carved out of the rock and tried to think. What just happened? She seemed to have blinked and almost two whole hours disappeared. Just like on the ferry. Perhaps she was losing it.

Renée was talking to her through the door. ‘I don’t think this is going to work, y’know. I mean, they’re practically dead. It’s probably wrong to bring back people from the dead. Don’t you think, Genie?’

Genie was washing her hands. The water was brackish and warm. The walls were warm too. Somewhere deep below this rock was molten lava, if she had that right. Too weird.

She opened the door. Renée smiled at her.

‘You look like a ghost. You’re really pale.’

‘Don’t feel so good, that’s all.’

‘It’s not so cold now. Marshall fixed the temperature; it was stuck. Come and look at this.’

Renée seemed really enthusiastic all of a sudden.

‘What?’

‘Come see.’

Genie followed her to the small room at the side of the chamber. Marshall and Rian were in there watching a TV screen.

‘It’s Dr Milan,’ Rian told her as she curled up beside him.

They were watching videos of Dr Milan preparing his experiments. Each one meticulously recorded and each one a failure.

‘You’re watching all four thousand five hundred!’ Genie asked, appalled.

Marshall glanced back at her as Renée gave her some hot black tea and two cookies.

‘Just the last ten. He’d made a lot of progress. I had no idea.’

‘But you said he couldn’t succeed,’ Genie reminded him.

‘True, but he was a determined kind of guy and very resourceful.’

‘Isn’t that a …’

They watched as he placed an emaciated Alsatian on the platform and injected it with something; the dog quickly slumped. He placed a tag around its head too and turned to the camera.

‘Test four thousand four hundred and ninety-seven. Rufus. Stray dog number fifteen. Transmitting to Station Five.’

Dr Milan walked away to behind the camera. His hair was wild and he looked exhausted.

The light suddenly grew intense and the screen whited out, but the dog completely disappeared. Station Five came on the line over a speaker moment later. The voice sounded excited.

‘Dr Milan. We have legs. Repeat. We have four dog legs.
They twitched!
’

Marshall shook his head.

‘This was never mentioned. We had no idea he’d got so far.’

‘What about the rest of the dog?’ Genie asked, unable to look at the screen, the words ‘they twitched’ reverberating around her brain.

‘Didn’t make it. But it’s impressive the legs got there at all given how little memory he had. I can’t believe Strindberg shut him down.’

Genie didn’t like to watch this. OK, it was
history
, so it was important, but it was also cruel and disgusting.

She didn’t look at the next. She knew how this movie ended.

Marshall advanced the tape to the last test.

‘Test four thousand five hundred and one.’

Rian looked at the box to check. ‘It says one hundred to four thousand five hundred. Doesn’t mention four thousand five hundred and one.’

‘Then it’s going to be interesting. It’ll be the last one they ever did.’

Dr Milan walked on to the platform. He looked absolutely haunted, his hair a total mess. He was barefooted and looked unshaven. A man completely on edge. All of them wondered what he was going to do. There didn’t seem to be a dog or cat with him.

‘This is for Carson Strindberg. You say I wasted your money? That this will never work? Well, let me show you
this
, Strindberg.
This
is where your money went. Goodbye, Ingrid. This test is for you.’

Dr Milan pressed a button on a remote and let it drop just outside the platform area. He stood and braced himself.

‘Oh my God … he’s going to send
himself
!’ Genie exclaimed in horror. This was a suicide.

The light intensified. You could see the beginnings of the transformation, his eyes registering with fascination as he began to disintegrate, something Genie understood well and then –
boom
.

He exploded.

A blackened human shadow formed on the wall and unprocessed flesh slid to the floor in a bloody mush.

Renée screamed. Genie just stared as Rian gripped her hand.

Marshall stood and quietly turned off the video.

‘I’m sorry. I should have stopped it the moment he walked out there.’

Genie shook her head. ‘He must have known that would happen.’

Marshall nodded. ‘Sometimes you hope too much for a change of luck.’

He walked out of the room, ashen. Moucher got up and followed.

They’d been there seven hours. Waiting. Marshall still tinkering with the platform and all the receptors, trying to make sure it was ready – not quite sure if it was going to be of any use or not.

Rian was reading up on the experiments to ward off boredom and Renée watched
The Breakfast Club
on the TV. She’d found a stack of old videos and was fixated now on teen angst.

Genie was feeling guilty. She wasn’t sure of her role and she was sure that for some reason she seemed to have lost all her ability to ‘travel’. That was the problem with a gift you didn’t know how to control. It was either on or off, it seemed.

Moucher came over and sat beside her and she cuddled him.

‘I’m sorry, Marshall. I can’t seem to do anything. I feel bad.’

Marshall looked up at her from the floor and shook his head.

‘It was always going to be a long shot. I only needed you there to help Cary transmit himself. I am sure he’s bright enough to get the others here, but sending his own data, that might be tricky. If you can’t go, you can’t go. No one will blame you, I promise you that.’

She appreciated him saying that, but she knew it wasn’t true. If the others came through and Cary didn’t, she didn’t know how she’d live with herself.

‘I worry about their memories,’ Genie added. ‘They’ve been through so much, and they won’t remember anything, not even us.’

Rian glanced at her. ‘Maybe they will. Maybe memory is not just information. It’s not genetic, so it isn’t being transmitted, and so it must be coming from someplace else.

Marshall stood up, groaning as he tried to straighten his good leg.

‘The great mystery of the hippocampus. The brain has a hundred trillion synapses connecting nerve cells to other cells. One of my colleagues was working on the electro-chemical process of perception. You guys have both been teleported and you remember a previous existence. You’re living proof it works, but there’s no exact code for your memory. Nothing we’ve written, anyway. I mean, they’ve mapped your brains, so anything you’ve ever done is retained, but quite how it comes along with the whole package … ?’ He grimaced. ‘Beats me.’

‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ Genie replied and she pulled Moucher’s ears gently and bent down to kiss his head.

She opened her eyes and she was standing in the parking garage above them. She looked down. She was wearing her thermal suit and it would be very visible under the lights. She shrank to the shadows behind an old dusty van.

Two security guys were investigating Marshall’s truck, getting excited that it didn’t have any licence plates.

Genie was annoyed. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she was supposed to be with Cary. How on earth had this happened?

The security guys took a photo of the truck with one of their phones and then headed back up the ramp to the next level.

Genie was about to relax when the elevator door opened and Reverend Schneider came out of it. Genie almost wet herself. There was nowhere to hide and she knew he would be able to see her if he looked in her direction.

He walked over to the truck and inspected it. He was on a phone to someone.

‘Looks a lot like one from Spurlake. Only this is smarter. No plates. The one I know has scorch marks and this is too well cared for. I don’t think it’s the same.’ He disconnected and pocketed his phone.

Reverend Schneider was looking at the other cars covered in dust, and was puzzled. He was paying particular attention to the puddles by the three cars, sniffing them. Genie realized this was where Moucher had peed. He looked up, couldn’t see any leaks in the roof. He turned to go back to the elevator when he spun around and started to walk towards the van that Genie was hiding behind.

Genie started to panic, praying he wouldn’t discover her.