Authors: Andrea K Höst
"Right." Noi
dumped her food bag on the nearest work surface. "Iced Blues it is. But first snacks, hot showers, a warm meal,
and then we'll see what we can do about making a freezer habitable.
ooOoo
An elbow to her ribs. Madeleine started awake, and came close to falling off the edge of the
triple-stack of mattresses set in the centre of the refrigerator. Emily, beside her, shifted and groaned until
Noi, on her far side, turned to rub the girl's arm.
"She's trying so hard," Noi murmured. "She's not even thirteen-going-on-fourteen,
has only just stopped being twelve. I
don't know how to convince her that she's allowed to be overwhelmed and
frightened sometimes. Just like the rest
of us."
Madeleine blinked in the orange glow of the emergency exit
button. "I spend half of each day
being overwhelmed. What's the
time?"
"Ten minutes till midnight. How's your breathing? Feeling headachy? Stifled?"
"I feel like I'm in a refrigerator," Madeleine
said, tucking the quilt back under her side, then contemplating the metal
ceiling. "I guess it worked,
then."
"Yeah, looks like Science Boy was right. I had my doubts, I admit it."
"I think he did too," Madeleine said, remembering
Fisher's expression as he asked for her promise.
"Twenty minutes before we get to check what's going on. Distract me by describing exactly what you're
going to do to Science Boy first opportunity you get."
"I think I'll leave that to your imagination." Madeleine's own imagination caught her up,
and she paused to enjoy it before adding: "The rooms in this place
are–"
"Yeah. Lap of
luxury, fallen into it. And did you see
the big room half done up in decorations? We'll be able to use them for Pan's party."
"Much as I liked that apartment, there are some definite
advantages to this move. And we have
enough food to last us maybe for the rest of the year."
"Pity we'll be leaving it behind." At Madeleine's confused look, Noi continued:
"Once the fuss from this hunt dies down, we really need to get out of this
city. No matter the problems we'll have
dealing with the uninfected, it's clear that you – all of us really, but you
particularly – are way too interesting to the Moths. We need to get out of dragon range."
"But can we do that without anyone helpfully pointing me
out while I'm still within reach?"
"If Nash's sister has come through, then the Moths will
have been flooded with sightings – a few more won't hurt. Though a judicious makeover is probably a
good idea. A tub of peroxide should dent
your serious arty girl look."
Emily's voice rose, small but defiant: "How can we fight
if we run away?"
Noi blinked as the girl turned to her, then said:
"Leaving doesn't stop us from returning. To fight, we need to both learn to confidently control all these fancy
new powers, and come up with a plan. Getting out of the city will buy us the time and freedom to do
that."
"If we leave, we won't come back." Emily spoke with a furious certainty. "We'll be like the rest of them, cowards
waiting two years for it to be safe again. Don't you
want
to make the Moths pay?"
"You know I do." Noi was a rock against the tide of Emily's anger. "I want it enough to not run shouting at
them before I'm ready. They've taken
everything that was precious to me away, and I will find a way to hurt them for
that. I know you miss your family,
Mil–"
"No!" Their
mounded quilts were pulled away as Emily sat up, her slender body rigid with
ever-increasing anger. "I don't
miss them! You think they're dead, don't
you?"
After a swift, astonished glance at each other, Noi and
Madeleine struggled into sitting positions. Noi reached out, hesitated, then changed direction to take Emily's
gloved hands in her own.
"I did," she said. "They're not?"
"They left." Two words and a world of emotion. "When the dust started, they went straight to my brothers' school
and then out of the city. I couldn't
even get home – a girl from school took me to her house. My parents are the worst people in the
world."
The tears came, bringing with them violent, wrenching sobs,
and Madeleine and Noi could only clasp Emily between them until the storm had
eased.
"Emily." Madeleine shied away from asking if the girl's parents even knew she was
alive. "You know that, whatever
happens, we won't leave you behind. We'll come for you."
"No you won't." The words had an exhausted, bitter certainty. "I know it's all a lie, just play-acting
to make each other feel better. The
Moths will get us one by one, just like they got Gavin, and we can't do
anything at all."
"You're underestimating us there." Noi spoke with quiet assurance. "We know that we can fight. I'm sure we could hurt some of them. It's just a matter of hurting them
effectively which we've yet to figure out." She stroked Emily hair. "I think you're not being quite fair to
your parents as well."
"They
left
."
Noi took a deep breath. "Millie, when the dust came, my Dad was up at Kellyville, well away
from the cloud. He drove back in. The traffic was madness, people driving the
wrong way down the roads, and it took him hours, but he got home. My Mum, and my
Nonna
,
and all his brothers, they yelled at him, called him stupid, but he said he
wanted to be with us, whatever was going to happen.
"I guess maybe it helped Mum, him being there. And because he got sick later than the rest
of us, he was able to look after everyone, for a little while. And, with Mum and all his brothers and all of
our family gone, maybe he would have preferred to not have to be around
afterwards. But me, I'd rather still
have a Dad."
"
Th
-that's different."
"If you say so. And it's different again to get ourselves out of the reach of the Moths
until we can find a way to hurt them. Nor is it just play-acting to give it your best shot. And that's what we're going to do. I'm not going to guarantee that we'll win,
but I promise you we'll try." She
paused, studying the stubborn set of Emily's shoulders. "About time for breakfast, don't you
think? Ah, and check-in time – almost
missed it." She fished a tablet
computer out of one of the bags set alongside the mattresses.
Keeping devices off was more about preserving battery life
than the possibility of being tracked, but it still gave Madeleine an uneasy
feeling as Noi, complaining about the poor signal, slid off the bed and held
the tablet toward the door.
"Pass me the thermos?" Madeleine said to Emily, and
was pleased to find the tea clinging to a lukewarm state. They set out a miniature feast as Noi
reported that the challenge was still underway.
"Next check-in time at seven," Noi said, returning
to accept a cup. "Science Boy says
if it goes much past that we might have to risk opening the doors to try and
cycle the air, and we're to keep alert for any headaches, muscle twitches, or
turning new and original colours. Anything to report?"
"Just cold," Madeleine said, around an oatmeal
biscuit. "I'd hate to be in Pan and
Nash's shoes."
While the Southern Sky had four restaurants, it had proven to
own only three walk-in refrigerators, with both ground floor restaurants
catered out of the same kitchen. Fisher
was in the top floor restaurant's refrigerator, and Min in the one on the
Mezzanine level, while Pan and Nash were stuck with the biggest freezer at its
warmest temperature setting. Since the
warmest temperature setting of the refrigerator was still making Madeleine wish
for another hot shower, she hated to think how they were coping with the long
night.
"Do you feel sleepy?" Noi asked. "I'm tired, but it might be because I
kept waking up and stressing."
"Not sleepy," Emily murmured.
"Cold aside, I'm fine," Madeleine said. "Energetic, even. I usually wake up feeling good after feeding
Nash. Don't know why."
She dusted away crumbs, and they packed their leftovers, then
took turns using one of the large lidded buckets Noi had found and emptied
during their hurried preparations. For
all they'd thought they would have plenty of time between arriving and their
deadline of an hour before the challenge, they'd barely been ready. With no password for the hotel's computers
they'd been unable to code the card-keys to access the higher floors, and had
been limited in their movements until the discovery of an unlocked security
room on the Mezzanine level which, along with master keys, had provided camera
views of much of the hotel.
Fisher's hunt for wheelie bins and caustic soda had taken even
longer, and dumping entire containers of bathroom cleaner in after they'd been
filled had produced an eye-stinging reek, which thankfully had lost its edge by
the time they'd rearranged their hiding places enough to fit both the bins and
mattresses hauled down from the hotel rooms, along with some wilting pot plants
from the foyer. How much difference the
bins would make to carbon dioxide levels was something Fisher hadn't been
willing to guess, beyond insisting that in theory they should help.
She'd wanted to kiss him before they locked themselves
away. She'd planned on it. And hadn't even managed an exchange of
meaningful glances, though she'd known it could well be the last time she would
see him. Too tired after the long night,
and having Nash drain off much of her energy. Too new at all this to seize the right moment.
"Noi," she said, after they settled back down under
their quilts, "did you see if any other Sydney Blues had been
captured?"
"I figured looking at that can wait till we're out of here."
Madeleine sighed, and curled against Emily, working hard at
not feeling guilty. Unless they'd
gambled wrong about the length of the challenge, it looked as if she would have
another chance to see Fisher.
How many chances had she stolen from other Sydney Blues?
The clunk-clack of the latch broke through the refrigerator's
steady hum.
Emily, quickest to react, flung quilts back in time to throw
a force punch at the door as it opened. There was a gasp, and Madeleine caught a glimpse of Fisher as he was
knocked backward by the impact against his shield.
"Someone not a morning person?" Min said, poking
his head cautiously around the side of the doorway.
"What are you–?" Noi began, then stopped. "It's over."
"The time limit seems to have been dawn," Fisher
said, from his new horizontal position on the floor. "They were all gone by the time the sun
touched the horizon, but I gave it another half hour."
"I'm sorry!" Emily struggled to her feet. "Did I hurt you?"
"My fault," Fisher said, sitting up. "It would have been sensible to knock
first." He moved arms and legs
gingerly, then smiled. "Not to
mention polite."
"Let's see if polite works on Nash and Pan," Min
said, and rapped on the freezer door. "We should have thought up some kind of secret knock."
"That'd only be useful if none of us were taken,"
Noi said, and crossed to pull the freezer door open. Worried, Madeleine realised, as they probably
should all be.
Nash and Pan did not force punch at the door, or shift on
their mattress pile, though they did stir in response to
Noi's
urgent shaking. Flushed and lethargic,
they were slow to sit up, blinking with confusion.
"Let's get them to the foyer," Fisher said. "Without an oxygen mask, all we can do
is give them space."
Out in the soaring, glass-and-excessive water features foyer,
Madeleine found herself analysing the changes to Nash and Pan's skin tones,
struggled with herself for a moment, then accepted. This was part of who she was, and she could
only be relieved that the shift she was watching was a return to healthy shades
of brown and pink.
"Were any Blues captured?" she asked Fisher, noting
that he, too, was returning to a normal colour, though for different
reasons. Would he have nightmares about
Nash and Pan, a plan almost gone wrong?
"Yes." He
met her eyes directly, not cushioning the statement. "From the leader board changes, just
over thirty."
"Thirty!" Noi spilled some of the water she was offering Nash. "There were thirty Blues still free in
Sydney?"
"In and around it. It was a good decision to let Madeleine warn her parents. At least five dragons were sighted in the
Armidale area."
With a news channel unhelpfully broadcasting their location,
speculating on whether she was hiding with them, Madeleine had insisted on
emailing her Mum and Dad. Thankfully
they must have taken her grandmother and gone in time. But thirty other people had paid the price
for this hunt.
"So, what now?" Min asked.
"Errol Flynn marathon."
They all stared at Pan, propping himself against the legs of
a low chair.
"One of the symptoms of CO2 poisoning is delusions,
right?" Min picked up a brochure
and used it to fan in Pan's direction. "More oxygen required."
"If you'd read that brochure you'd know there's suites
with mini-theatres." Pan was
working on a wall-to-wall grin. "Not to mention a gym, three swimming pools, spa baths in the
suites, huge vats of ice cream, and a chocolatier. We just outsmarted our alien invaders,
people! We've learned more about what
they
can't
do, we've kept our hides our own, we've lived to fight
another day. Time to celebrate with some
quality swashbuckling and strangely sped-up repartee."
Min wrinkled his nose. "Couldn't we at least watch something released this century?"
"Without a password to the hotel computer system,
chances are we won't be watching anything at all," Noi said, her eyes
giving away the smile she was trying to suppress.
"Some drip always writes their passwords
down." Pan waved a hand airily at
the glassy grandeur of the foyer. "There's sure to be an administrative office with some actual paper
files, or a post-it note stuck to the bottom of a drawer, or a computer left on
when they all ran away in the dust."