Authors: Andrea K Höst
He photographed himself obediently, paused to look at the
result and shook his head with a wry lift to the corner of his mouth. But handed the tablet over to her.
After some pantomime and a little stifled giggling, she had
seven photographs, and began to outline, covering the whole of a page in her
large sketchbook with faint circles and lines, roughing out proportions and
angles. It was a challenging picture, a
circle of seven seen from above, each with a sabre raised to a central point,
some faces smiling, some grave beneath their broad-brimmed hats and curling
feathers.
"That's two hours," Noi said softly, breaking
Madeleine's concentration. "I think
we can risk sending a scout now, but first I'm dying to see what the hell it is
you've been drawing
Maddie
."
Madeline passed the sketchbook around, and felt oddly
breathless, not at their pleased reactions, but at the implications of that
picture. Blue Musketeers, united and
bold.
She, too, agreed with Emily.
"Will it bother you if I watch you paint?"
In the middle of setting out her first palette, Madeleine
turned to find Fisher watching with an open interest which pleased and daunted
her. Since they'd run from the beach
Fisher had buried himself in one of the laptops, searching for any scrap of
data he could use to fight back – pausing occasionally for meals or
discussions, but usually to be found in the library window seat on a
shadow-eyed quest for answers. She
wasn't sure why they all held on to the hope he'd find a way to fight back,
beyond that he hadn't given up yet.
"Not if you stay quiet." She tried to keep her tone casual. "I usually tune distractions out when
I'm working."
"I noticed that yesterday." His smile was slow and warm. "I'll set a chair over here if that's
okay with you."
Madeleine shrugged, and avoided
Noi's
eye as she finished preparations, then stood before her easel entirely focused
on Fisher instead of her subjects. But
she was longing to finish this painting, the light was good, and Noi had agreed
that the faint scent of acrylics weren't that big a risk now that the building
had been cleared. Even Fisher wasn't
enough to keep her from becoming completely absorbed.
Together on a couch set by the patio entrance, Emily and Noi
were a study of contrasts. Fine blonde
hair drifting beside foaming black curls. Slender height; compact curves. Shy pleasure at being painted against entertained interest in
Madeleine's awareness of Fisher. Below
it all, never going entirely away: anger, hurt.
Madeleine blocked in colours, not pushing herself so
frantically this time, spending more effort on consciously analysing shadow
tones before beginning to detail the two figures. Emily and Noi chatted and read, and watched
the television behind Madeleine, keeping roughly to their original positions
but accepting Madeleine's assurance that she did not need them to sit stiff and
frozen except when she was working on specific detail. She released them a little before two, in
part because the light had begun to shift, but also because the "First
Challenge" was due to start at midday in Manila.
Fisher helped carry her used brushes, jars and palettes to
the laundry, and had made a good start on cleaning them by the time she
returned from stowing the paints and canvas in the study.
"Thanks," she said, and took one of the palettes.
"Will you have enough paint to complete the
portrait?"
"I should. But
not for the third canvas. When we toured
the other North Building apartments this morning I saw a computer with a
graphics tablet, and I was thinking of teaching myself how to properly use a
digital art program. I don't think I
could talk Noi into the importance of art supplies to my continued
existence."
"They are, though, aren't they?" He was watching her face in his deliberate,
considered way. "It's so central to
you. I sometimes wish I was so
focused."
"You mean you can't decide what you want to do?"
"I wanted to study astrophysics. And biochemistry. And archaeology. And words, and a great many things said with
them. Year Ten was when we started
seriously choosing courses, and I had to face that I couldn't sign up for every
unit, that–"
"There's never going to be enough time," Madeleine
finished. "Oh, I know how that
feels. There's so many things to try, to
perfect, so many different techniques and media and–" She lifted her hands at the enormity of her
hoped-for future, and shared a look of mutual comprehension with Fisher. "Does the fact that you said
astrophysics first mean that's what you'd chosen to do?"
He shrugged. "The
Sciences are where I've started – I've been allowed to study ahead for a few
different courses. I can hope to
self-study the Arts, at least to a basic understanding, but Science tends to
require a little more equipment."
"You were seriously going to try to study them
all?"
"Eventually. Those and more." Fisher
paused, then added: "To try to be a
Renaissance man."
"Renaissance man?" He wasn't talking time travel.
"Someone who has multiple areas of expertise. Think da Vinci – mathematician, artist,
inventor – so many things. The ideal of
the Renaissance man is to be a fully rounded person – to embrace the Arts and
Sciences, languages, society, sport. Knowledge both broad and deep." The tips of his ears had gone red, and he smiled with self-conscious
amusement. "I don't usually talk
about this – it makes me sound so greedy."
"Not really," Madeleine protested. "Intimidating maybe." Which was not what she'd meant to say, and
she wished she had a quarter of
Noi's
ability to joke
and tease, but pressed on gamely: "Did they have Renaissance women?"
"Some. A Greek
philosopher called
Hypatia
is the earliest known
example. One of my mother's heroines –
my mother was a mathematician, an architect, cellist, linguist. She's the ideal I measure myself
against."
"I'm sorry," Madeleine said, and his dark brows
swept down – puzzlement, not anger. Then
they lifted and he shook his head.
"My parents died when I was ten. Though I'm sorry too. Did yours make it to Armidale?"
"Day before yesterday. They want me to try to make a break for it, but people recognised me
from the beach broadcast and are, well, paying attention to see if I show
up."
She realised they were both rinsing perfectly clean brushes,
and with a murmur of thanks shook water out of the last of them and went back
upstairs to stash them away. And wash
her face.
When she returned she helped Fisher bring the 'portrait
couch' forward to fill its original position in the semi-circle before the
screen, feeling distinctly like they were giving everyone a bit of extra
entertainment to go with the alien dominance challenges.
"Just in time," Noi said. "There weren't any good cameras on the
Manila Spire, but webcams on other Spires are picking up movement."
Min handed over one of the laptops, which showed the Sydney
Spire via a webcam set in St Marys Cathedral, giving a clear view of where the
Spire had risen through St James Station and then the fountain at the north end
of Hyde Park. One of the fountain's
bronze statues was visible, resting in a tumbled tree: Apollo inverted.
The fountain was named for the same person who had
established the Archibald Prize. Madeleine stared at the tumbled remnant, thinking of all the hours she'd
spent planning to win, then turned her attention to the handful of people
gathered by the Spire. They were too far
for details, but appeared to be casually chatting while waiting. She gave the laptop to Fisher and glanced at
the presenter on the muted television.
"He looks excited."
"Yeah, it's a sporting commentator feel, which is
totally the wrong tone to take." Pan frowned at the screen. "But he's not the only one like that. Just this past day I've noticed it. Most are still aching to hit out, but the
non-infected...well, they've got this end date now. Stay out of it for a couple of years and you
get your world back."
"Once people work out what these challenges mean,
they'll start betting on them. Guarantee
it." Min, smiling cynic, sat back
as if the idea pleased him.
"Two years until we get our world back too," Emily
pointed out, more in defiance than certainty.
"That's what we're aiming for Millie." Noi changed channels, then restored sound.
A terse voice told them they were looking at a view of the
Mumbai Spire, which had one of the closest webcams available. A dozen Blues were standing together, holding
umbrellas to keep off heavy rain, and someone at the broadcaster was drawing
lines on the image pointing out the Core, who was a slim man in his early
twenties. The image looked slightly off,
and that was because the Blues held themselves in an attitude of conversation,
but didn't move their mouths. Speaking
Moth.
Two of the Blues handed their umbrellas to a Green standing
to one side, and then turned and walked into the Spire. Seamlessly, without an opening or a ripple,
as if the star-studded darkness truly was the night sky, and they had been
swallowed by it.
Nash had already been sitting unhappily upright at the
appearance of his home city, but at this he turned to Fisher: "Could it be
they brought their shield down? Have
they just shown us an opportunity?"
"Possibly." Fisher was reserved, not ready to be drawn.
"Still, these challenges could mean a missile at the
right moment–"
"We're cutting to a broadcast direct from Manila,"
the presenter said, as the image changed to a different Spire, surrounded by
many more people, with more arriving, walking out of the darkness of the Spire
to spread over closely maintained grass. The presenter helpfully pointed out what Madeleine had already seen: the
two Blues who had walked into the Spire at Mumbai had emerged a few moments
later in Manila.
Noi, sounding annoyed, said: "Okay, so either the Spires
have teleportation devices...or they aren't ships at all. They're gates. Great big pointy wormholes."
"It felt like stone when I touched ours," Madeleine
reminded her.
"Either you weren't at the In point, or it has an on and
off mode." As alien song began to
sound an accompaniment to the images Noi glared at the screen, then slowly let
out her breath. "Guess we get to
watch the Olympics after all. I
just...seriously, have they really half-wrecked our world for a pissing
contest? They couldn't decide their
primacy shit on their own world?"
"They said 'and business of our own'." Min had risen to his feet to approach the
screen, but glanced back at Noi. "I've a bet of my own – this other business is nothing we're going
to like. Maybe when they leave they take
all our water, or our sun or something."
He turned back to the screen and pointed to a tanned Blue at
the edge of the ever-widening crowd. "I remember this guy from Bondi."
It was the woman standing beside the tanned man who had
Madeleine's attention. Short-cropped
blonde hair and a lovely line of neck and shoulder.
"Asha." She
exchanged a glance with Noi, then added for the benefit of the room: "One
of the people we met going through Finger Wharf. We cooked dinner together."
"Every country – every Spire is sending two people to
compete?" Emily asked. "What was
the little glowing animal picture for?"
"I guess we're about to find out."
The flow had stopped, the crowd forming into a loose circle
around the Spire. The weather in Manila
was a step up from Mumbai: only overcast and drizzling, and most of the Blues
moved with an eager, alert step, though some must come from time zones when
they'd normally be well asleep. The air
filled with oscillating song, and Madeleine wondered if they were just saying
hello, or were sledging each other, or boasting about their stolen bodies.
She glanced at Fisher, sitting attentively, and could almost
feel the roil of anger swelling in him. The room was thick with it, with resentment, and worry, and over it all,
helplessness. Was this how it would
be? They would spend two years hiding
and watching, feeling as though their faces were being rubbed in their
loss? The cheerful excitement of the
Manila crowd, and the wash of language impossible for humans to understand,
seemed to declare the irrelevance of any audience but the Moths. They had co-opted cities, people, technology,
and would use them as they pleased.
The chorus of song died away, and one Blue outside the circle
climbed onto a rock, raising a single thin warble.
"Speeches?" Min said. "Skip to the good stuff."
Quite as if she'd heard, the Blue standing on the rock raised
one hand, and produced three short notes.
Fireworks. All around
the circumference of the Spire, about twenty feet from the ground, balls of
light burst out in unison. But instead
of popping, or arcing to the ground, these zigzagged away, leaving a suggestion
of a trail behind.
The circle of Blues gave chase, the sudden intensity of
movement wholly at odds with their light-hearted cheer of moments before. One woman, particularly quick to react, leapt
impossibly high into the air to intercept the nearest ball.
"Shield jump!" Pan cried, while the ball curled at
the woman's touch, no longer trying to move.
A second Blue had followed the woman into the air, aiming not
for the ball, but for her. He hadn't quite
connected when another woman punched at him from the ground, clipping him so
that he spun away then tumbled down, slowing at the last moment as the grass
and dirt bellied out below him beneath the cushion of a shield.
"Are they wearing any flags or colours to tell which
team they're on?" Min asked, frowning at the screen.
"I guess all they'd need to know is their partner. Everyone else is on another team." As the two women sprinted for the Spire, Pan
leaned back, visibly resisting being caught up in the competition. "And maybe they can see something we
can't."