Mutation (19 page)

I swerved, gagging violently. Convulsing. The bushland melted together. I tried to move across to the side of the path, to get off my bike before I blacked out, but my hands wouldn't respond. My front wheel hit a rock or something and the bike slid sideways, falling out from under me.

I was gone before I hit the ground.

The rain evaporated and the sky turned murky grey – almost sunrise or just past sunset, couldn't tell which.

I lay on the ground, clutching my stomach and coughing, until finally it subsided enough for me to pick myself up again. I was bleeding. A big graze all up my left arm.

When
was I?

The bush looked exactly the same as it had a minute ago. The security tape was still stretching out between the trees. Most of it anyway. The section right in front of me had been snapped, and was now lying on the ground.

But if the tape was here, I couldn't have gone more than a week and a half back – and probably not more than a few weeks forward either.

So why was I here? What was I supposed to see?

I looked up and down the path. No movement except the wind. No sound except –

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

I dropped to the dirt again.

Gunshots in the bush. They were coming from inside the taped-off area. I ran to the edge of the road, almost falling again as the world shuddered around me, and stared through the trees.

For a moment, everything went quiet.

Then strained breathing and crashing feet and suddenly, I came running out from the bush with Luke right behind me.

Another Jordan. A future Jordan.

She recoiled, seeing the security tape lying across the ground in front of her. And then a look of understanding crossed her face. She spun around, her back to me, and scanned the bush to her left. Searching.

She was hurt. Blood soaked up through a gash in the grey fabric of her T-shirt. Not a bullet wound, though. Surely there wasn't enough blood for that.

Luke was in even worse shape. Nose bleeding, face bruised, swaying like he might pass out.

‘Come on!' he hissed. ‘What are you doing?'

The other Jordan looked through the trees for a second longer, then said, ‘This way!'

‘Jordan – no – what if –?'

But the other me was already veering off into the bush again.

I ducked under the security tape, trying to see where they were headed. Too late. By the time the trees had all blurred back into place, the other Jordan and Luke had slipped away.

And then it was time to go. The bush swirled together again, a hurricane of green and brown. I lurched forwards, straight across the broken section of tape, closing my eyes against the rising nausea.

More footsteps.

Another figure crashing through the bush.

BLAM! BLA–!

Gone.

I hit the ground again, chest heaving. Cold rain on my face. Sudden brightness on the other side of my eyelids. I coughed a couple more times and opened my eyes.

Cathryn was standing over me.

She was a mess. Eyes red, cheeks streaked with mascara, clothes soaking wet.

Too wet for this light rain.

She'd been to the cave again.

‘Are you okay?' she asked. Her voice was choked with tears – but clearly I wasn't the reason for that.

‘I'm fine,' I said, sitting up. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I was on my way home. You were just standing there, looking out into the bush,' said Cathryn. ‘And then you collapsed into the security line.'

I looked down at the freshly-broken tape on either side of me. I'd snapped it when I fell. Which I guess explained why it had been broken in my vision.

I clambered back out of the bush. My bike was still lying there in the middle of the road. I reached for the handlebars and heard Cathryn sob behind me.

Honestly. This was the week of random breakdowns.

I sighed. ‘What's the matter? Where are Mike and Tank?'

‘Back at the cave,' she sniffed. ‘Don't worry.'

‘I'm not worried.'

‘No, I mean –' Cathryn blinked hard, sending more tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I have something to tell you. Something they can't hear.'

I heaved my bike upright again. ‘What?'

She stared out in the direction of their cave and took another shuddering breath.

‘I know who kidnapped Peter.'

‘Who?' I demanded.

Cathryn burst into tears again.

‘Us,' she croaked. ‘We did it. It was us.'

Chapter 23

T
UESDAY
, J
UNE
23
51
DAYS

‘You?' I said. ‘But Mike was the one who –'

Of course he was.

That was why Mike had been so desperate to find me the morning after Peter had disappeared. He'd wanted to make sure I got his version of the story first. And I'd fallen for it without even thinking.

Cathryn stood in the middle of the road, staring at her shoes, hand over her face, crying uncontrollably.

‘Cathryn! Stop!' I demanded, shaking her. ‘Where is he? What are you doing to him?'

‘I don't know!' she sobbed. ‘We haven't got him anymore. We were only supposed to get him out of town!'

‘What do you mean
supposed to?'

A bike shot past, swerving to miss us. The guy looked over his shoulder as he rode away, frowning at the broken security tape.

‘We have to move,' I said, pulling Cathryn by the wrist. ‘I can't stay out here.'

She stumbled along behind me, breathing still ragged. Her bike was lying on the other side of the path. She picked it up and started walking.

‘The overseers,' she said. ‘They – It was part of our calling. They needed Peter. They needed us to get him for them.'

‘For what?' I asked. ‘Who are they?'

‘They're – the ones in charge,' said Cathryn.

‘The ones who set up the cave,' I said, checking that the path behind us was still clear.

‘The cave is – It's a sacred place. For when they want to meet with us in person,' said Cathryn. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, a shadow of her usual immaculate self. ‘We have to wear blindfolds, though. No-one's ever allowed to see them.'

‘Why not?'

She sniffled again. ‘Those are the rules.'

‘So you don't even know who these people
are
?'

‘Mike says he saw them once,' said Cathryn. Then her eyes widened, like she'd just admitted something dangerous. ‘It was an accident! He only saw them for like half a second. Off in the distance, across the lake.'

‘Two people dressed in white,' I said.

Cathryn stopped, head twitching around, searching the trees like a startled bird. Like she thought they could hear us. ‘Please, I told you, we're not supposed to –'

‘They live somewhere close?' I said, looking around. ‘Somewhere out in the bush?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Maybe?'

‘I don't know!' said Cathryn, voice getting shaky again. ‘We're not – You don't ask them questions like that.'

‘So you just do what they tell you, huh?' I said, pushing on down the path. ‘You just blindly follow whatever –'

‘It's not like that! We do it because we're meant to do it.'

‘According to who?' I said. ‘You don't even know who you're following! You're talking about two people Mike might have seen for half a second out in the bush! And they tell you to abduct Peter, and you just do it?'

‘We had to! It was our –'

‘Your destiny?' I snapped. ‘You were destined to take him?'

Cathryn broke eye contact, staring down at the ground again. ‘There's no way you could understand.'

‘Then why are you telling me all this? If I'm too thick to get it –'

‘Because it's
Peter!'

‘Yeah, you probably should have thought of that before you took him.'

Cathryn dissolved into another round of sobs.

‘I can't do this anymore. I can't. I don't care if Peter's dangerous! I just … He needs to be safe.'

‘Why were you even doing it in the first place?' I pressed. ‘If Peter's the one they wanted, why didn't they just send a message to him?'

‘They said he wasn't chosen,' said Cathryn. ‘They didn't say why. Not until last week, anyway.'

Last Monday at the locker,
I realised.

‘The letter we caught you with – that was them telling you to kidnap Peter!'

‘It was my fault,' she said. ‘I told them about those two people on your computer –'

‘That had nothing to do with us, you moron!'

‘That's not what they said. They told us Peter was dangerous. They wanted us to lure him out. Convince him to come out here with us and then leave him for the overseers. But all of that got screwed after you found the cave. And screwed again after Peter got taken to the medical centre.' A fearful look came over Cathryn's face. ‘The overseers went nuts when we told them. They made us sneak in there that night and get him.'

Just like at the mall.

Whoever these people were, they must have had some kind of access to the town security.

‘I didn't want to go,' said Cathryn. ‘I didn't. But Mike and Tank wouldn't listen. And I knew what the overseers could do to us if we failed. So we went. There were still people in there, but not many. Peter was out cold on one of the beds. We got him out, but –'

She broke off, and it was a few seconds before she was able to continue.

‘He woke up. We were bringing him out to – to the place where we were meant to leave him. Tank was carrying him. And Pete woke up and started fighting. Tank dropped him and – Pete's legs didn't work, but he was punching and shouting. Mike picked up a branch from the ground. Tank held his arms down and – and Mike hit him. Not just once. Not like a movie. He had to – He had to hit him like three times before …'

Cathryn's eyes squeezed shut, face twisting up with the memory of it.

‘It was bad,' she said. ‘Mike got him knocked out again, but – there was so much blood. Tank picked him up and we kept going. Mike carried the branch with him. Just in case. We got to the place and – we just left him there. Just lying down there, bleeding.'

We'd both stopped walking again.

I was shaking, my whole body wracked with revulsion and rage, not knowing whether to throttle her or fall to pieces next to her.

‘Where?' I said. ‘Where did you leave him?'

Cathryn raised an unsteady hand, pointing back the way we'd come. ‘Out – out there. Out where that explosion happened. They told us to leave him in the crater.'

Chapter 24

W
EDNESDAY
, J
UNE
24
50

‘You sure this is what we want to do?' said Luke again, as we rode past the Shackleton Building after school the next day. ‘I mean, after what happened to –?'

‘Don't,' I said. ‘That was different. We're not asking him to do anything he's not allowed to do.'

‘Yeah, but –'

‘And you're the one who said we couldn't do it alone.'

‘Yeah.' Luke smiled wearily. ‘But I thought I was talking you
out
of something, not further into it.'

I raised an eyebrow. ‘C'mon. You know me better than that.'

When we'd got to school that morning, the first thing I'd wanted to do was grab Mike, drag him out to the crater and make him show us exactly what had happened to Peter. But then Luke had politely suggested that we might not want to die today.

We couldn't go rushing in like that, not with Shackleton looking over our shoulders. And letting Mike and Tank (and through them, the ‘overseers') know what we were doing was probably not such a smart idea.

Assuming Cathryn hadn't already confessed about our conversation yesterday.

But if Mike and Tank knew anything, they were keeping it quiet. They'd kept to themselves all day, deep in conversation. Or as deep as conversation can be when Tank is one half of it.