Vulture's Gate (16 page)

‘Do you feel better now? Now that you've shown you can bully me any time you like? What happened to “I never
force
a boy to do anything”?'

Roc trembled with rage. ‘Why can't you shut up!'

He scanned the crowd. A group of Festers had caught Mr Pinkwhistle. One boy had his tail, two held his body and a fourth threw a piece of cloth over his head and held him fast. Beside them, three other boys had Callum pinned to the ground.

‘Look, we've got your mate, we've got your machine and we've got you. So from now on, you do as I say,' said Roc.

Bo looked straight into Roc's angry face and spat. It landed on his cheekbone and slithered down to his chin. Even though her mouth was full of blood, she smiled.

Then they heard the copters. Black against the pale blue morning sky, they swooped low over the roadway. With a collective cry of terror, the Festers dispersed into the undergrowth. Some scrambled up trees, others disappeared into the nearest tumbledown house. The boys holding down Callum released him and scurried into the bush.

Roc leapt up and grabbed Bo's hands, dragging her to her feet. ‘Run!' was all he said. But even as he spoke, the nets were falling. Heavy wire mesh dropped from the copters, blanketing the streetscape and covering any boy unlucky enough to still be out in the open.

The copters landed on the broken road, and drones opened fire with long-range tasers. Bo ducked. She could hear a surging, pumping noise inside her head and knew it was the sound of her own fear. She whistled for Mr Pinkwhistle but he had vanished.

On the street, chaos reigned. Soldier-drones were firing into the bush, tasering runaways, untangling boys from nets, and rounding up the ones that were still writhing from the pain of being tasered. Roc stood stock-still, his face a mask, as the captured Festers gathered around him. Bo stood beside him and scanned the crowd of defeated boys, searching the faces of the captured, hoping Callum had escaped.

As the soldier-drones closed in on the boys, she saw a flicker of movement inside a tangle of fallen branches in a nearby garden. Suddenly, Callum leapt over a fence and ran towards her, his hands in the air to signal his surrender.

‘Callum,' she said, as he fell into line beside her, ‘what have you done?'

‘I couldn't let them take you. I couldn't let them take you without me.'

23

SHEEP FROM THE GOATS

Bo, Callum and Roc said nothing to each other as they sat
side by side on the roadside, waiting.
Six soldier-drones were left with them while the other copters took off into the blue morning sky. Bo glanced along the row of captured boys. She spotted Flakie at the end but Festie and Bug were nowhere in sight. Close to thirty of the Festers were missing and she could only hope they had made it to safer ground.

The soldier-drones hadn't bothered pursuing anyone into the bush, satisfied with their haul of fifty boys. They circled their prisoners like crows but came no nearer than to nudge a boy with a boot or threaten them with a taser if they tried to speak to each other.

‘Stay awake,' whispered Roc. ‘If you fall asleep, they might think you're sickly and shoot you. They only want the strong ones.'

Bo sat up straight and eyed the soldier-drones angrily, but inside she was churning with guilt. She knew that if she and Roc hadn't been fighting they might have been more alert to the threat. They might have been able to bolt into the surrounding gardens and disappear into a ravine before the nets fell. And Callum – if it hadn't been for her wanting to stay with the Festers, they might be with Callum's fathers by now, and yet, despite everything he'd still come back for her.

When the truck finally arrived, it looked more like a four-wheel-drive bus than an armoured vehicle. The Festers were herded on board and driven along bumpy, cracked roads to the edge of the North Shore. The sun beat down on the roof and inside everyone began to sweat. When Bo reached up to open a window, a soldier-drone hit the back of her hand, grazing her knuckles with the butt of his gun.

The boys were off-loaded behind the ruins of an old funfair. The wind whipped off the harbour and Bo licked her lips, tasting salt. So much water. It made her uneasy, left her wondering how the land could compete with the sea, with the relentless pounding of surf against rocks, the constant erosion of the ground they walked upon. It was as if everything in Vulture's Gate was under attack.

They passed into a large, white building with a sign above the doorway that read ROT, and then beneath, in smaller letters Re-Orientation Terminal. A man in a white coat came out and inspected the Festers, checking to see if any of them were wounded and scanning them for microchips. ‘Time to sort the sheep from the goats,' he said, smiling grimly.

Bo could tell he wasn't a drone. His eyes were bright and sharp and he shouted instructions to the soldier-drones, ordering them to separate the boys into groups.

Bo watched Callum fingering the crescent-shaped scars on his ears. He blended so perfectly with the Festers, it would be hard to believe he wasn't one of them. She wondered if he would try and explain to the man in the white coat that he was from the Colony but he stepped closer to Bo and kept his head down. Then it dawned on her. If he told them his story, they would be separated. She slipped her hand in his and their fingers entwined.

Flakie and two other boys were dragged away as the microchip scanner registered their histories. The small boys were sorted from the older ones and led down a long, brightly lit corridor. Roc kept his head up, his face proud, but he would not look at any of the boys.

‘What will they do to them?' asked Bo.

‘Flakie and the other chipped boys are runaways. They'll go back to the men who own them. The little ones I don't want to think about,' said Roc. He looked across at her with hollow eyes. All Bo's rage against him drained away. She touched his hand. He was nothing like the angry golden boy she'd fought in the roadway.

They were organised into single file and marched down another hallway into a long bathroom where showerheads jutted out above them from every wall. A large black bin was wheeled into the centre of the room. Soldier-drones positioned themselves in every corner, breaking up clusters of boys, forcing Bo and Callum to step apart.

‘Strip,' said one of the soldier-drones. ‘Throw all your clothes in the bin and stand under one of the showers. Now!'

‘They're going to kill us,' said Roc, grimly stripping off his shirt.

‘Why didn't they simply shoot us when they caught us?' whispered Bo.

Roc shrugged. ‘Maybe they need us for body parts.'

Bo grimaced and began to untie the stays of her ragged shirt. Then she stopped. She watched the boys begin to strip, her mind churning. How could she expose herself in front of them all? Finally everyone was naked except for her. Slowly, she took off her shirt and folded her arms across her chest to cover her breasts, but she still wore a pair of baggy khaki pants that Mollie Green had given her. Callum immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from view.

‘Bo can't take his gear off,' he announced. ‘ 'Cause his skin is really sensitive.'

A soldier-drone pushed through the crowd of boys, shoved Callum out of the way and pulled out a long knife. In one swift movement he cut through Bo's trousers so the fabric fell away and lay in pieces around her ankles. Bo shut her eyes. One boy cried out, ‘What's wrong with him?' Then she felt a pair of strong hands grip her shoulders and shake her hard. She opened her eyes to see Roc glaring at her.

‘You lied to me,' he said, his voice full of hurt. ‘Why didn't you say?'

Callum pushed between them.

‘She's a girl. That's all. See, they're not all gone. We have to help her. We have to keep her safe,' he said pleadingly to the other boys.

He was shouldered aside. A tall and powerfully built drone swept Bo into his arms and carried her through the startled press of naked boys. At the doorway, she was wrapped in a blanket and slung over the shoulder of another soldier-drone. As the sound of the boys receded, the last voice she heard was Callum's, calling her name, sharp and insistent. ‘Bo! Bo! Bo!'

24

MATER MISERICORDIAE

Bo could hardly breathe.
A prickly blanket smothered her face and she wriggled and clawed at the fabric until she made a tiny opening through which she could see. She was inside one of the small copters that Callum had called a Pally-val, and they were flying high over the water. Beneath them was an island, in the middle of the harbour, between the ruined city and the overgrown North Shore. Sheer stone walls rose straight up from the water, making it impregnable by sea. The copter landed in a walled garden in the centre of the island.

As soon as the Pally-val touched down, Bo was hauled over someone's shoulder, rolled out of the blanket and deposited naked on her back on a stretch of smooth green lawn. She drew her knees up to her chest and made herself small. Three strangers in long robes stared down at her. Their faces were soft and narrow, framed by tight wimples. Their lips were painted soft pink and their eyebrows were shaped in perfect crescents. They looked like characters from a storybook. They looked like women.

One of the women reached down and tried to drag Bo to her feet but Bo pulled away. She wanted to bare her teeth, to snarl at them like Mr Pinkwhistle. The thought of Mr Pinkwhistle sent a wave of grief coursing through her.

The oldest woman spoke. She was as weathered as Mollie Green, her face lined, her long eyelashes silvery-grey.

‘Come inside, child. You can't sit here naked in the sunlight forever.'

Grudgingly, Bo got to her feet. The woman tried to take her hand but Bo tucked them both under her armpits and let the blanket trail along the ground behind her.

They crossed the lawn and climbed the steps of a shiny, shell-pink-and-silver building. In the foyer, a copper sign read
Mater Misericordiae
.

Once the sliding glass doors of the building had shut behind them, the women took off their black cloaks. Beneath them they wore pale blue silk dresses that accentuated their hips and breasts. Their long, shining hair cascaded over their shoulders, reminding Bo of the queens and princesses she had seen in fairytale illustrations. They led Bo down bright corridors in silence, hemming her in on all sides. Bo tried to mask her curiosity but she couldn't help glancing around at the strangeness of her surroundings. Nothing was broken in this building. Everything was clean and smooth and the air was heavy with cloying perfumes.

The older woman opened a door to a large, airy room and then gestured for Bo to enter. She pointed to a white plush lounge suite beneath a barred window.

‘You may be seated,' she said.

Bo remained standing.

‘You have nothing to fear. You are in safe hands now. I am Alethea, and this is Verity and Meera,' she said, gesturing to each of the two other women. ‘Do you have a name, child?'

Bo stayed stubbornly mute. She registered a flicker of annoyance in the old woman's expression. ‘Later, then,' said Alethea. She nodded to the other two women and left the room.

‘We will help you wash,' said Meera.

‘No!' said Bo. ‘I can clean myself!'

The two women looked at each other and smiled, which Bo found inexplicably annoying. They bowed in assent and led her into the bathroom, where they demonstrated how to use the taps and shower. Then they left her alone.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Bo felt her body relax. At last she could think. She sat on the end of the bed. It was impossibly soft. Everything about the room was soothing. The walls were painted pale green and the dusky-beige carpet felt lush beneath her bare feet. Bo went to the bathroom and touched the smooth white tiles. Every surface was so bright, so clean and shiny, that it almost hurt her eyes.

Most alarming of all was a huge mirror that covered an entire wall of the bathroom. Now that she was alone she stood in front of it and stared at her reflection. Her hair was matted at the back and tangled into long rat-tails at the front. She felt startled by her own green eyes staring back at her. There had been a small mirror at Tjukurpa Piti but she had never seen her whole body. It didn't look the way she had expected. The budding breasts and the tiny patch of silky dark hair at her crotch seemed as if they should belong to someone else. She bared her teeth and was disappointed to see they were discoloured and one tooth on the left was sharp and jagged, probably chipped in the crash of the Daisy-May.

She turned on the taps in the shower and watched the water spilling onto the tiled floor of the cubicle. It flowed without stopping, like a waterfall, and the water was clear and sparkling, not like the murky brown bore-water of Tjukurpa Piti. She held her hand under it until she was sure there was nothing in it that would hurt her, then she stepped into the silvery flow. The water around the drain swirled brown and red as months of caked grime washed from her body. Her skin became lighter, like golden honey. She stood beneath the flow until all the dirt had washed away, until even the cracks between her toes were clean.

When she returned to the bedroom wrapped in thick, fluffy towels, she discovered a tray of food on a small table beneath the window. Bo flopped down on the white sofa and stared at the food. Maybe it was poisoned. Maybe now was the time she should try to escape. Although the window was barred, the view was across a garden full of lush plants and bright flowers. Through the foliage, she could see the high, sheer walls that enclosed the island. There would be no easy escape from Mater Misericordiae.

Steam rose from a bowl of soup and beneath a silver cover was a platter of meats and vegetables. Bo sniffed at the food. Her stomach grumbled. There was a small bowl of nuts and a larger one of fruit and a small, pink – what? A cupcake? Bo had never eaten a cupcake before, or even seen one, but she had read about them and the cake looked as foolish and wonderful as anything she had imagined. She picked at the icing, which burnt her mouth the same way that Callum's donuts had, and then she picked up a spoon to try the soup. For a moment she hesitated; what if they wanted to kill her? But why would they do it so graciously? The smell of the hot soup was making her stomach ache with hunger. She took a small spoonful and let it rest in her mouth for a minute, savouring the rich, salty flavour.