Lifespan of Starlight (27 page)

I shuffle sideways, trying to catch his sightline. ‘I’ve been
working on a masking
code, but it re-triggers whenever you move. Maybe if we had more time, but we don’t.
I think cutting the chip out is the only way.’

‘I’m not …’ Mason snaps out of his thoughts and sighs. ‘Scout, I’m not cutting out
my chip. I …’ He turns to Boc. ‘We have a plan.’

Echo’s still leaning against the wall but I can tell that she’s listening. I turn
back to find Mason waiting for me.

Slowly, he inhales. ‘We’re going to time skip further than ever before,’ Mason says,
emphasising each word. ‘So far that none of this will be on file anymore. The case
will be long closed.’

‘How far?’ Echo asks from behind me on the floor.

‘Ten years.’ From Boc. ‘More if we need.’

But I’m not looking at the others, all that I see right now is Mason. ‘You’ve talked
about this?’

‘Sort of. Yes. But it’s different now.’ He makes his way around the reception desk
to me. ‘It’s sooner than we thought, but … don’t you see? This is where we’ve been
heading all along.’

My eyes lower, scanning the worn tiles. He’d be safe, I guess. Boc would go with
him. But what sort of world would they find? Water supplies could have diminished
even more than they are now. Rations might be even tighter.

Then again, maybe not. They’d have their parents waiting for them. And me, I guess.
For all I know, life might be better in ten years …

I risk a peek sideways. ‘You think you could make it that far?’ I ask.

A cautious smile. ‘We know it’s possible, yeah? We’ve seen that woman make seventeen
years. Who knows? Maybe we could go ten times as far.’

His gaze is so even, his face so open that I know without having to ask. He
wants
to do this. He’s not just jumping as an escape, but also to see what he’ll find.

It’s too much, too fast. Even though it would keep him safe from the police, I can’t
help a lump rising in my throat. ‘But as far as we know there’s no coming back –’

‘I know.’ He says it softly.

He’d still be sixteen, and I’d be twenty-four.

‘Come with us.’ Mason’s close by now, his hand at the tip of my elbow. When I lift
my head, his mouth opens again but before the words have formed an alarm rings out
from the comscreen. We all go still.

In the next instant, we’re moving at once. Mason and I bolt around the reception
desk while Echo jumps up from the floor.

Hands shaking, I bring up the grid map of the industrial estate and zoom out. Twenty
or so dots from all around us are headed this way.

‘T
HIS WAY,’ CALLS BOC
. Echo is beside him already heading for one of the side doors.
I’m halfway across the room when I realise Mason’s not with me. I spin back to find
him typing and mouthing to himself as he peers at the comscreen.

Through the entrance doors I catch a flash of distant headlights. The windows are
rattling with vibrations from the approaching drones.

‘Mason,’ I hiss.

‘Hold on.’

The others have stopped too. Boc strides towards the reception desk. ‘Mase, we gotta
go.’

‘Nearly … finished …’ Mason mumbles, furiously typing between each word.

‘Mason.’ I’m close by now, a hand on my forehead as I examine
the screen. ‘Hang on.’
I realise that the lines on the screen are familiar. It’s the masking code that I
was playing with as a way of dropping off-grid. ‘Where did you get that from?’

Mason’s eyes don’t leave the screen. ‘You said you’d been working on it at home.’

He’s hacked into my home comscreen and copied the script. Except he’s made some changes
too. Just a simple few lines of code that are so elegant I can’t help being impressed.
Soon Mason copies the same code from his dot on the grid to mine, and then Boc’s.

By now the others are watching over Mason’s shoulder. Finally the code is added to
Echo’s dot. Mason clicks to bring up the grid map in real time. ‘Look.’

Gridlines spread across the screen showing reception at the rock-climbing centre,
exactly where we are now. Except …

From either side I feel Echo and Boc lean closer. None of our dots are visible. Not
one for any of us.

Already Mason is grinning. ‘You’re a genius, Scout. That code you wrote to hide from
being seen on the grid? I made some changes so that we stay masked as we move around.’

I step backwards then forwards, testing, then check the screen. Nothing.

‘So it looks like we’re not here?’ asks Echo.

‘Better.’ Mason tilts his head. ‘It will look like we jumped, right? So they’ll be
watching for our return while we’re still getting away.’ He turns to Boc. ‘We’ll
be able to organise supplies. See our folks.’

Boc nods and rolls his shoulders as if preparing for work. ‘Sort our stuff out. This
is great.’

I can’t believe he fixed the problem so easily. ‘So, you’ll be safe? You won’t have
to jump?’

Mason’s mouth goes straight. ‘No, the dots will only stay masked until we swipe for
something. The minute you access water, food … swipe for anything and you’ll be back
on the grid. That’s the best I can do.’

It was perhaps too much to ask. Here we are once more, the story of my life. There’s
freedom in being off-grid, but no life without rations.

Boc reaches over to take screen control, zooming out to see the area around this
building. ‘So why are they still coming?’

Only a kilometre away, twenty or so dots are making their way towards us. Still coming.
The floor vibrates with their engines.

‘Dammit,’ snaps Mason. ‘Why aren’t they watching the grid? They should have seen
us drop off.’

‘Maybe they
are
watching the grid,’ Echo says slowly. ‘And they think that we’ve
jumped. But they’re still coming so they can secure the building for when we return.’

It takes only a second’s thought before we react. She’s right.

I waste precious seconds wiping Mason’s coding history, before shutting down the
comscreen. Then we’re out the side door and into the climbing room, close behind
Boc. Can’t still be in the building when they lock it down. Even if we’re hidden,
we can’t risk being trapped.

By now the engines are so close I can feel them in my stomach,
a low, rumbling growl.
We’re heading for a side entrance when light flashes in through the glass panel,
our legs caught in the beam before we duck to one side.

We’re in a row, backs against the wall. From the front, Boc wiggles a pointer finger
from side to side, meaning ‘no’. Then he points back the way he came, taking the
lead as we make our way to the rear.

When we make it to the back, light is rimming that door too. We’re trapped.

Boc lifts his finger to his lips, then points back the way we came before stretching
his arm above his head. His idea is to climb one of the walls, I guess, and make
our way to the roof.

My heart is pounding so much that I think I might throw up, but I’m not sure if it’s
because of the police closing in on the building, or the idea of climbing one of
those stupid walls.

Boc leads us to the room where we’ve been training all summer, and points up to a
manhole in the ceiling next to the top of the climbing wall. It’s dark in here, no
lights on of course, just one long, high window allowing moonlight in.

Already Echo is halfway up the wall, her limbs somehow longer than I thought they
were with each stretch for a new hold. Without a word Mason begins after her, not
quite as smoothly but with the confidence of someone who’s done this before.

I turn to Boc, and point.
You go.
Maybe I can follow behind and copy what he does.

He barely reacts, before he begins up the wall.

One foot on the place where Boc’s just was, reaching out a hand to match his. But
already I’m not sure where to reach, my grip weakening from angst about what I have
to achieve. I’m barely off the floor.

It’s only when I find Boc next to me that I realise he’s climbed back down. ‘What
the hell are you doing?’ he hisses. ‘You’re putting us all in danger.’

‘I don’t know how to climb,’ I whisper.

‘Then do exactly what I say,’ he snaps.

‘But …’ Should I admit this? ‘I’m a bit … not so good with heights.’

Boc’s eyes narrow as he leans towards me in the dim light. ‘Do what I say, when I
say it, and we’ll both get out of here.’

Okay. There’s not much else I can do. One foot up, I reach a hand out to grasp one
of the blobs sticking out from the wall. Step up to the next lump in the wall. It
helps that I’m in bare feet, better able to feel my grip.

From one side, Boc whispers instructions each time I pause. ‘Move your left hand
up to that hold. Step sideways. Try swapping your hold the other way.’

Before I know it, I’m halfway up the wall.
Don’t look down
. Just hold onto his voice.

When we’re nearing the top, the smash of breaking glass echoes from reception. They’re
here, and they’re coming in.

Before I can stop myself I glance down to the side door, making sure they’re not
opening it, too. Even though it’s
dark, the hugeness of the space below rushes up
to me. The world lurches sideways and gravity sucks me away from the wall.

A whimper escapes my throat. Eyes closed, cheek pressed against the brick.

‘Scout.’ Through the panic I hear Boc: ‘You’re nearly there.’

‘I …’ Can’t think. Can’t breathe. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can. And you will.’

Still, I don’t move. Have to keep going, but no idea how to get my limbs moving again.

‘Scout, the Feds are in the other room, okay? They’re too busy securing reception
to realise we’re here.’

I don’t understand how those words are the right ones, but somehow I find the courage
to let go and reach immediately for the hold above.

One foot up, and then the other. I’m nearly at the rim when I pull up to find a hand
reaching for me. Mason.

My fingers slip into his and I push off to feel the welcome lift as I make it over
the edge. Panting, but here, with a solid platform beneath me. Made it, at last.

Boc pulls himself over the rim and slips open the manhole in the ceiling above us,
motioning for us to follow. In silence we shuffle through the ceiling cavity. Boc
replaces the manhole cover and dusty steps take us up through another door to the
roof.

Clear sky is above us; headlights and voices beneath. Boc points, and we follow in
silence. Warehouse roofs stretch so far
ahead of us that I can’t pick the end. They’ve
been built in a row, with no gaps between, but it’s nearly half an hour before we
make it to the warehouse at the opposite end.

Boc takes us down through a door from the roof like the one on top of the climbing
centre. We emerge into a storage facility stocked full with shelves of boxes up to
the ceiling, which is about as high as the climbing wall was. The ladder down is
short, only five or six rungs until we reach the next storey and have to track sideways
for the next ladder along. It’s not so bad as long as I don’t think about what I’m
doing.

Soon we’re on the ground, eight or nine warehouses between us and the action at the
other end. Out of sight, and off-grid.

Together we make our way to the edge of the industrial estate, streetlights and the
glow of the sky showing the way.

At a fork in the track, we pause. One path will lead the others to the old highway
and down to Moonee Ponds; the other way will take me to the Maribyrnong Canal, and
home.

It must be three or four in the morning, quiet and dark. From here, you can see the
whole city silhouetted against the moonlit sky, somehow different now, although I
know it’s not the city that has changed. It makes me wonder how much of the scene
before us will still be here ten years from now. How much will be new? Just the idea
of it makes my mind slow, my heart go steady and calm, the same as when you look
into the sky and feel so small but part of something at the same time.

‘So. When? Where?’ asks Boc, rubbing his hands together.

‘Think we should get a decent night’s sleep,’ Mason says. ‘Who knows what kind of
world we’ll land in.’

‘Midnight, two nights from now?’

Finding a time for them to leave is easy, but sorting out a place proves more difficult.
Buildings might be pulled down; parks might be built over. After seeing what we’ve
seen, the location of their return becomes the most important detail. Even the barest
patch of dirt in a corner of nowhere might end up with a shrub growing in it.

They’ve been dancing over all the places that wouldn’t work, when I lift my head.
‘There’s a cave near the entrance to Footscray Park. I used to use it as a water
source.’

‘Yeah?’

All three of them wait. ‘It’s too dark for anything to grow, and they wouldn’t build
because of the underground spring.’

Boc steps forwards. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘It’s …’ Then I remember. ‘It’s where I found that woman.