Dark Star (2 page)

She shut thoughts about that off fast and shoved the stylus back into the roof, then dropped off the wall. Maybe she’d be able to steal another stylus today to finish it.

She stood under the dry blast and leaned against the tiles. Her head was pounding. She closed her eyes as the soft dissolving powder coated her and thought about the Pantheon file. The five names of those who controlled Helios were etched in her memory. Tate Mills, Franco Brun, Alis Chan, Eliza Rush and Jebediah Curtis. The only person she could identify was Jebediah – Dalton’s dad and one of the wealthiest men in Newperth. The others were a mystery.

Still things weren’t all bad because she’d had a breakthrough since getting here. The second week after she’d arrived, following one of Alpha’s more energetic manacle sessions, the implant had opened and showed her more of the Pantheon file. Not only were the names of the five on there, but also a set of four numbers linked to each name, each set different like a code, and after that a list of their last known locations. She could only guess what the numbers were. Communication codes maybe? If the Pantheon members had gone into hiding like Sulawayo said, they would need a way to talk to each other. Perhaps those numbers were com codes.

Rosie wondered if Riley had tried to track any of them down before he disappeared. That’s if the information was still current. She had no way of knowing, but someone on the outside might. She had to get that information to Dalton or Aunt Essie and that meant finding a way into the Enclave’s computer grid. But even if she could get her stylus working, would it do that? She pressed her head against her hands feeling overwhelmed. All she had to do was steal some stuff and hack into the planet’s most secret and most dangerous organisation’s grid and then send it out to her aunt. No problem. Should have it done by lunchtime.

The sharp chime of the wake up call sounded and she sighed. Time to get out. She rolled her shoulders, flinching as a sharp pain stabbed through her skull behind her ear. She flicked off the dry blast then stepped out, rubbing at the powder residue. It left her skin lemon scented, like everything at the Enclave. She was doing up the drawstring on her pants when the first couple of girls came in.

Tara and San. Tara was tall and thin, while San was shorter and flat chested with a dark suspicious gaze.

“Newbie,” San said, her tone unfriendly. Tara, as usual, didn’t speak. They dumped their bundles of clothes on the bench and began undressing as if Rosie didn’t exist.

Gillian came in yawning. She stretched lean muscular arms over her head, her thick curling hair sticking out in all directions, and the faint scent of the vanilla oil she liked following her. She spotted Rosie and grinned, her teeth startlingly white against her dark skin.

“Morning, bitches.” She looked sideways at the other two girls.

Tara ignored her, heading for a shower stall, but San sent her an evil glare. “Go pulse burn yourself, Gilly.” She slammed the door of the dry blast shut behind her.

“Good comeback,” Gillian said. “You really stretched your imagination there.” She winked at Rosie and threw her towel and clothes on the bench. “Gotta hand it to you, girl, you’ve been out of solitary a little over a week and already San doesn’t like you. Must mean you’re okay.” She raised her voice so the other girl would hear her. “Because she puts the capital B in bitch.”

A string of swearing came from the shower and Gillian laughed. “She’s so easy. You up early again?”

Rosie nodded. “Habit.”

“A bad one around here.” Gillian pulled her hair into a clip. “You need all the shut-eye you can get in this hellhole, in case you haven’t figured that out.”

Rosie picked up her clothes. Other girls were coming in now.

“You ready for classes today?” Gillian said.

“I’ll cope.”

“Yeah, you’ll be fine. Stick with me and Stefan. We’ll get on the same team, watch each other’s backs.”

“Sure, um, thanks.” Rosie was still getting used to how friendly Gillian was. “I’m going back to the room, make the bed before breakfast.”

“I’ll be right behind you. Don’t want to miss out on that fantabulous breakfast, right?” Gillian turned towards the showers. “If you make mine too, I’ll give you my coffee.”

Breakfast was held in the large communal cafeteria that took up part of the centre of the building between the zeroes’ and the operatives’ wings. Black clad operatives, two each side, stood at each of the entrances, watching them closely. Unlike the bedrooms and corridors, this room had a wall of floor to ceiling windows that let in the sunlight. The Enclave was built in a U shape and the cafeteria was at the bottom of the U. The view through the windows was of a rectangular yard, the other wing of the Enclave and a flat parched brown landscape with a few stunted trees and low outcrops of rock. In the middle distance a dark line shimmered – a barrier that deflected any Senate surveillance was Rosie’s guess.

The majority of the other trainees were already there and the room filled with the sound of quiet talk, scraping chairs and the hiss of the food machines.

Breakfast was protein soy cakes, a bowl of dark salty grain and dried fruit, and a small cup of biogen coffee that tasted like it was made from recyc. Seemed even Helios had been hit by the increasing water shortages.

They found a table and Rosie positioned herself so she could see through the windows. Every morning she’d been committing to memory as much as she could about the layout of the other wing, studying it for when she got the chance to get in. This morning, she paid particular attention to the grounds, wondering if there was a better way into the wing from the outside.

“Picturesque, isn’t it?” Gillian kicked out a chair and rested her foot on it. “All that flat brown dust, reminds me of the farm back home.”

Rosie averted her eyes. “Farm?”

“Bio oil.” Gillian shrugged then waved at a small sandy-haired boy of about eleven. “Freddie!” He paused in his passage from the food dispensers, loaded tray in hand, and a smile lit his face as he saw Gillian. He came over and sat down. “Where’s Stefan?” Gillian asked, but he shrugged. Freddie was light boned, freckled, and didn’t talk much. Rosie questioned what a timid kid like him was doing training to be a Helios operative, but he did have a way of watching her that was unsettling, like he was measuring her, judging.

A sudden ache stabbed at the back of her skull, like the implant was shifting downwards and, for a brief second, tiny sparks of light danced in her vision. She almost dropped her coffee cup and some of the hot liquid spilled over her wrist. “Ow!” She cried out, dumping the cup and flicking the coffee off her skin.

“You okay?” Gillian said.

“Just clumsy.” Rosie avoided Gillian’s eye. The sparks vanished, but the ache was still there, as well as a tingling along her spine between her shoulders. It scared her, but she couldn’t afford to show it. She said the first thing that came to mind to distract the other girl. “So, any idea who’s training us today?”

“Older operatives. Level ones or twos probably.” Gillian nodded at the wall near the iris and the operatives. “The order of the day will go up on the timetable any minute.” As she spoke, a large holo projection materialised with the day’s date and a list of activities.

“Target games first,” Freddie said, around a mouthful of food.

Gillian seemed amused. “Hope you brought your A-game Rosie.”

Target games meant weapons practice. After breakfast the zeroes lined up in front of the two black clad operatives. The man Rosie knew as Hanto. He was one of the head operatives of the Enclave and Alpha’s right-hand man. The other was a woman Rosie had seen around but she didn’t know her name. They were waiting for them by the iris that led to the other wing. A vestibule and corridor lay beyond it, and the operatives directed them through the iris and on to a door leading to the yard.

The day was hot, the air immediately drying Rosie’s lips and skin. She walked with Gillian and Freddie near the back of the line. The ache faded along with the tingling, but it left her more tense than normal.
Focus Rosie
, she chided herself. This was too good an opportunity to waste.

It was her first trip outside and a chance for her to add to her knowledge of the Enclave. She tried to concentrate on seeing as much as she could without anyone noticing.

At their backs, the U-shaped building squatted low in the ground, partly buried, with the high window slits giving it a closed, watchful feel. It was dark brown, the same colour as the parched earth, designed to disappear into the landscape. She thought that behind it was a storage bunker for transport vehicles. She vaguely remembered Sulawayo guiding her from the transport that had brought them here through a cavernous building and out to a door in the Enclave, but her recollection was poor. Sulawayo had drugged her for the trip.

Over the past week she’d been trying to figure out exactly where she was and how the Enclave was laid out. It was difficult when each day brought nothing but lessons in weaponry, tactics or Helios history, and physical fitness tests – all held inside in a set of rooms behind the dorms. So far, by the appearance of the landscape and the position of the sun, she guessed that she was somewhere east of Newperth – how far from it was impossible to determine. What she was fairly certain of though, was that the medibay was probably in the operatives’ wing. But “probably” wasn’t good enough: she needed to be definite.

Gillian must know, so she asked as casually as she could. “Hey, if we get injured do they treat us on the spot or …”

Gillian glanced at her. “Straight to the medibay, in there.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the Enclave. “The trick is not to get hit. You nervous, newbie?”

Rosie swore silently. Not exactly informative. “I’m fine,” she said, “no problem.”

“Good.” Gillian looked amused, like she didn’t believe her. “Stick with me. I’ll watch your back. And Freddie. Won’t you, Freddie?” Freddie gave Rosie a smile that was more sly than friendly.

Creepy kid. Why did Gillian hang out with him?

They were almost at the edge of the yard where the hard-packed ground became sandy desert, and Rosie saw something she hadn’t spotted from the cafeteria. Ruins. About a kilometre or so away to the east were the remains of a town. There was a line of broken aerials that must have transmitted some ancient communication and a cluster of buildings surrounded by stunted trees and lumps which could be rusted-out vehicles.

Abandoned towns were not unknown inland from most major cities. Lack of water and opportunity had turned many of the smaller settlements into ghost towns over the last several hundred years since the Melt. Rosie couldn’t help her old habit of wondering if there was anything salvageable out there.

“That any place special?” she said.

Gillian followed her gaze. “The ruins? It’s just some old town, farming of some kind, I think. Every so often we get taken out there for operational training. Spy mission, subterfuge et cetera. It’s squads of us against the operatives and usually they win and we end up terminated.” She glanced behind them. “There’s Stefan. Hey!” she called out to the tall gangly boy walking at the end of the line. “He likes to think if he walks at the end no one notices him,” Gillian said.

Stefan was pale with a thick fringe of black hair that flopped in his face as he hurried towards them. He pushed Freddie out of the way so he could walk on Gillian’s other side.

“Get burned.” Freddie punched him feebly in the ribs.

“Watch it, runt, or I’ll feed you to Hanto.” Stefan peered at Rosie from under his fringe. He was older than Freddie, probably fifteen and always cautious, reserved. “All right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Rosie nodded back. Stefan didn’t smile.

“Easy, tiger,” Gillian said. “Don’t get too friendly, we might die from all that sweetness.”

“We might die from a lot of things.”

Gillian rolled her eyes at Rosie. “Mr Upbeat.”

Ahead of them the two operatives stopped beside a slim metal pole stuck in the ground. It was about hip height on the female operative. The woman touched its rounded top. There was a faint whirring noise and a section of ground slid away, revealing a rectangular hole in the dirt and a platform hovering inside. She stepped onto it.