Half Lives (8 page)

Greta lets gravity speed her pace down the mountain. Her legs are pumping almost faster than she can control. She can’t stop her momentum, much like she can’t stop Da.
She’s seen him assimilate other communities into the cogs and wheels of their progress. She doesn’t want that to happen to Beckett. She wants Beckett all to herself. She wants to feel
what she felt with him again. It was only a moment but everything calmed and the world, normally so full of tension and obligation, narrowed to one person who looked at her like no one ever has
before.

When she reaches the base of the Mountain she keeps running towards Vega. She wishes she could run away from her responsibilities, but she’s learned no one can survive alone out
here. She jogs through the endless maze of houses.

She hears laughing. It’s that sickening bark her brothers make when their mouths gape and their fingers point and their fat bellies jiggle. She cups her hands around her mouth
and calls, ‘Joe! Bungle! Tinker! Buzz! Time to go!’

Four boys twice her size come rushing towards her. The layer of dirt that perpetually covers them makes them almost indistinguishable from one another.

‘Hi, Greta!’ Bungle says with a wave.

‘What took you so long?’ Buzz asks, and shoves her into Tinker.

‘Hey!’ Tinker shouts, and pushes her into Joe.

Buzz, Tinker and Joe jostle her between them while Bungle punches each one in turn, yelling, ‘Cut it out! Leave her alone!’

This type of teasing is new. They think she doesn’t see their new-found interest in her recently developed body. She used to be one of them but now she’s different, and
there’s a new awkwardness among them.

‘It’s all right,’ Greta says to Bungle. She dives under Buzz’s arms and outside of the circle. ‘Let’s go,’ she says, and takes off at a brisk
pace. ‘We need to get back before it gets dark.’ She can hear them arguing and then there’s the distinct sound of fist hitting gut. She doesn’t turn around. She’s
through with their silly fights.

Bungle strides up next to her. ‘Don’t worry about them,’ he says.

‘I don’t. I do worry about you.’ She rams her shoulder into his and he knocks her right back. ‘What did you guys do besides wait for me?’

‘Nothing,’ Bungle says, glancing back at the other three. ‘Tinker and Buzz saw how far they could throw stuff. Joe chased after those lizard things.’

Greta shouldn’t be surprised by their lack of brain function, but she is. Most days a pile of rocks would be more interesting than those three. The roar and scramble increases
and soon Joe, Tinker and Buzz are barging into Greta and Bungle as they pass.

‘So, Greta, what did you find on the mountain?’ Tinker asks, walking backward.

‘Nothing,’ she says. Da is the only one she’s told about seeing Beckett and the girl. She’s supposed to determine if they are a threat or an asset. Da
can’t leave anyone alone.

‘That smoke every night isn’t coming from nothing,’ Buzz says. ‘Da’s just going to send us back until we figure it out.’

She knows he’s right. Next time she’ll convince Da to let her come alone. She doesn’t need their protection or disruption. They don’t know she’s sneaked
here once before and, if she needs to, she’ll sneak out again.

‘Maybe
I
should go to the mountain,’ Tinker says, and stops. ‘I will find the source of the smoke.’

‘You wouldn’t know what to do if you found someone.’ She speaks too fast. It’s too important. ‘You can’t go to the mountain. Da sent
me
.’

‘He sent
us
,’ Tinker says, puffing himself up. ‘I can make first contact too, you know.’

She changes tactics. ‘Tink, you’re too big and scary.’ And he is. She hadn’t really noticed before how much he’s grown. He’s always been her stupid
younger brother, but he’s already as hairy as Da, and she could hide in his shadow.

‘I guess you’re right.’ Tinker smiles a toothless smile and some of what makes him scary fades away.

Maybe that
is
why Da sends her. She doesn’t look intimidating, but she’s tougher than any of her brothers. They don’t mess with her, not really. All she
needed to do was to give Buzz one swift kick between the legs the first time he knocked her down. The others saw it and knew she’d do it again.

The closer they get to Vega the tighter the buildings are packed together and the higher they climb. She can’t believe that all these buildings used to have people in them. How
did the world work with all those bodies crashing into one another? Even now, she feels trapped by the walls of her new home. Da claimed a building near the centre of Vega. He liked that it was
shaped like a big X.

Greta doesn’t understand the ways of all the other people who have joined them. There’s one family that only comes out at night. Another is trying to grow things on the
roof of their building. She tried to tell them they’d have to cart water all the way up there, but they don’t seem to mind. One family prefers to live in the basement. They’ve all
survived, but in very different ways.

Greta’s family searched for six years before they settled on Vega. Da plans to set up lookouts on each of the mountains. He’s trying to organize everyone. He says the only
way they will survive is to work together. He says they need to play to their strengths. The group he calls the Fighters stand guard. They’d as soon punch you as look at you.

Greta’s family are Gatherers. She and her brothers zigzag through streets they haven’t travelled before. Tinker, Buzz, Joe and Bungle can’t help but explore the
buildings and come out with broken bits and pieces.

‘We can use this!’ Tinker says of a scrap of material with plastic loops clinking together on one end.

‘Look at this!’ Bungle shows Greta a metal pot with a broken handle. That is a rare find. Over the years these buildings have been picked clean like sun-bleached bones
long after the vultures have stopped circling, but her family has discovered where people hid things way back then. They know how to take other’s leftovers and build something new.

Greta calls to her brothers and keeps them moving. Without her they would get lost, wandering aimlessly, picking at shiny things like raccoons.

She runs the last mile to the heart of Vega. She wants to reach Da first. Da’s standing on a glass bridge near the X building. He can see down the streets and keep an eye on
everyone bustling about.

‘Hey, you!’ he shouts, and points his fat finger at a red-headed man who is piling wood for a fire in the middle of the street. ‘Dig a trench so the fire
doesn’t spread. We want it to be seen but not burn the place down.’

The man nods.

‘Are we going to have enough torches?’ he yells at a blonde woman wrapping scraps of material around thick branches.

‘I’ve sent Aaron and Blue to get some more,’ she yells without looking up at him.

‘I want more lights in those buildings. I expect the Coasters and Valley folks to come soon. We need to make sure they can see our lights no matter which direction they come
from.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the woman says. ‘You told me already.’

Greta climbs the stairs and surprises Da with a hug. He shrugs her off. She places a kiss on his cheek and gets a rare smile from him. He makes a big show of wiping his cheek.
‘About time you and the lazy creatures returned.’

They stand and survey what he’s built. At last count, Vega’s population had grown to nearly two hundred. But it is hard to keep track. Some people keep to themselves and
more people sneak in and out every day.

‘Will we raise the fires tonight?’ Greta asks. The last time was magical. Vega was cold and lifeless and then everyone lit their torches at the main fire and carried their
lights into the buildings. The Messengers taught everyone the words to a lullaby of light, and the song seemed to glow in the flickering flames. Da doesn’t realize he’s humming it
now.

‘Not tonight, Greta, but soon,’ he tells her, and then yells to her brothers, ‘Take your finds to the Collectors and help them organize the supplies.’ Her
brothers are laden with treasure. Bungle has loaded everything he scavenged in a big blanket and is carrying it over his shoulder like a Traveller. The others haven’t been so thoughtful and
have to stop every few feet to pick up what one of the others has dropped. Da and Greta share a laugh at their crazy procession.

‘So, my darling daughter,’ Da turns his full attention to Greta, ‘what did you discover on that mountain of yours?’

Lying to Da isn’t easy – or advisable. ‘I need more time. There are people who live on the mountain, but I need to find out more.’ She makes up her response as
she goes along. She must give him a good reason to let her continue her contact. ‘They may have valuable knowledge about how to survive in this area. But they are as wary of me as we are of
them.’

‘Did you meet with the leader?’ Da asks this because it was his instruction.

‘I am learning about their culture from a boy who is about my age. The more I learn, the better equipped I will be to introduce you to their leader. As you say, patience leads
to power.’

‘A boy,’ he says, and raises one eyebrow. She blushes. He knows. He always knows. ‘I trust you, Greta. You are going to lead us one day.’

They look out over Vega and she can see Da’s vision. The city is coming to life again. Da said Vega once had millions of people living here. One day this place was alive with
light and life – or so the story goes – and the next day everyone in it was dead. Greta thinks he exaggerates.

Greta’s ancestors survived because they lived on a farm miles away from anyone. Da says they can be stronger by joining with other survivors. He has the battle scars to prove
that not everyone wants to rebuild what was broken so long ago. The people who survived the plague and the wars were outcasts in one way or another. Greta was starting to feel she didn’t
belong – not with Da and his quest to conquer and not with her brothers, who were happy to follow orders. She’s never had someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t related or scared
of Da. But since meeting Beckett, for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t feel so alone.

I
stared out of the wall of windows overlooking the runways. Normally planes would be criss-crossing the sky like some airborne x-y graph. But all
the aeroplanes were parked in neat rows. The airport terminal had grown strangely quiet.

I felt as if I was on the edge of my seat, but my seat was dangling by a dreadlock over the Grand Canyon. It was like a google times worse than the feeling I got when I watched horror movies. My
insides were bunched up and a primal scream was permanently wedged at the back of my throat. All that was missing were those screeching violins. But I couldn’t cover my eyes or switch off the
TV. This horror story was my life.

I had to get out of here. I followed the exit signs. My spine felt as if the vertebrae were being crushed under the weight of my backpack. A queue of people stretched through the sliding doors
that led outside and slithered around a maze of barricades. They were checking and double-checking their phones. They all kept their heads down and their eyes averted. Women rummaged in their
handbags. Businessmen removed their jackets. Kids my age bobbed their heads in prayer to the iPod gods.

Everyone was trying to act natural but tension sparked in the air. No one had any info about what was happening. It was as if everyone knew this was a Darwinian test on a massive scale. Survival
of the fittest. When I did inadvertently make eye contact, people’s eyes were glazed with panic and their faces were tight, nearly twitching with fear. It felt as if one wrong word would
transform this tenuous order into disaster-movie chaos.

Up ahead a vision in pink was jumping and waving wildly. It took me less than a second to recognize the bald head, the ears that were more metal than flesh and the cat’s eyes. Even though
my predicament hadn’t improved a fizzle, something inside me lightened a little.

‘Icie! Hey, Icie!’

Damn, that girl could project.

She was nearly at the front of the queue, which I could see was marked ‘taxi’. Surveying the length of the line, I knew Marissa was my only hope of getting out of here any time soon.
I swallowed my fear of all these potential disease-carriers and weaved my way towards her.

‘She’s with me,’ she said to the people scowling at me. I handed her my backpack and then slipped between the metal bars of the barrier. I had to nudge a man in a purple golf
shirt to make some room. He grudgingly shifted his golf bag a whole five inches.

Marissa placed my stuff on the ground between us and wheeled her fuchsia suitcase closer. ‘Got some supplies,’ she said, opening a canvas bag which was stuffed with bottled water, a
year’s supply of breath mints, and every snack food available at the airport travel mart. She had mad survival skills. I noticed the slogan on the bag:
Arizona is Dehydriffic!
Another Ripple.

I couldn’t think of Lola right now. I couldn’t afford to think about everything I was leaving behind. I had to block out everything and focus like a laser on the one thing I could
control – getting out of the airport.

‘Thanks for the assist,’ I said. ‘Sorry about earlier. On the plane, you know. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘No problem,’ she said, spinning on the heels of her sneakers and clearing us a few more inches of space. ‘Desperate times call for outrageous actions?’

‘Desperate measures,’ I corrected. The saying was ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’.

‘Yeah, whatever. You know what I mean.’ She whipped her phone from her jeans pocket and poked the screen. ‘Your cell working?’

‘Don’t have one.’

A look of sheer horror crossed her face.

‘I mean, I have one but I didn’t bring it with me,’ I explained, but that didn’t change her expression.

‘My cell died,’ Marissa said. ‘It was working a minute ago and now nothing. It’s not out-of-juice-or-minutes dead, but like no signal. Everyone is having the same
problem. Look at them. You’d think they’d lost children.’