The Hunting (21 page)

‘That why Reverend Schneider’s “Eternal Life” project got a toehold. Strindberg liked that. The genetic modification programme has been getting a ton of money for research lately.’

‘What?’ Genie asked, confused.

‘Cosmetic surgery.’

‘Like Randal getting thinner?’

‘My red hair. They took away my red hair.’

‘And my moles,’ Genie said, with mixed feelings about that.

‘Exactly,’ Marshall said. ‘They’re experimenting with every “volunteer” who comes in.’ He held up his hands. ‘And before you say anything, I know you didn’t volunteer. I’m just telling you what they’re doing. They didn’t take your moles; they altered your melatonin level most likely. You tan really easily now. Did you not notice how brown you are, Genie? They didn’t change your hair, Renée; they sequenced your DNA so that it would dilute the bit that made your hair red. It might seem pointless to you, but not to Strindberg. He doesn’t care a fig for teleportation, he wants to open a chain of beauty stores where you go in ugly and come out beautiful. People will pay a fortune for that.’

‘This is all about cosmetic surgery?’ Genie protested. ‘You have to be kidding.’

Marshall rubbed his neck. He was tired now. ‘I told you it was crazy, right? But in ten years, fifteen max, they might be more common than Starbucks are now. You’ll pay to look beautiful if you think you’re ugly or have a big nose or have a limp. That’s his plan. One-day DNA fix. You’ll plan your kids there. Fix your kids there. Got aggressive tendencies? Strindberg can flick a switch and your kid will be all sweetness and light. The potential is amazing and at the same time scary as hell.’

‘You really are kidding, right?’ Rian asked.

‘Genie is the big breakthrough. Randall too, especially him, from what you told me. If you can successfully make an obese kid thin, just think of the billions to be made from a slimming programme that actually works. There would lines around the block. You have made it all possible. Of course, you have also made it impossible.’

‘Huh?’

‘Who are you?’ he asked Genie.

‘Genie Magee. Genie Magee, more tanned, no moles,’ she added.

‘Big deal. Small change,’ Marshall said. ‘But what happens when we live in a world where everyone except the poor can afford to be beautiful?’

‘It’s a better-looking world. Everyone is hot,’ Renée said, grinning.

‘Maybe,’ Marshall answered. ‘Or no one is hot ’cause they all look the same. Imagine five million Mila Kunises or Beyoncés, or whomever they want to look like in the future. One hundred million Natalie Portmans.’

‘God, I mean, she’s beautiful, but we’d all be the same.’

‘And maybe you’d change your looks several times. How many times before there’s side effects? What happens when things go wrong? You absolutely know things will go wrong.’

‘That’s a weird world, Marshall,’ Rian declared.

Marshall nodded. ‘And as I say often, these days, expect the unexpected. The law of unintended consequences. Let’s talk about side effects.’

‘I’m all side effects,’ Genie said. ‘I’m possessed, remember.’

Marshall smiled, then yawned. He needed sleep. ‘The short of it is, you can’t save your friends, Genie.’

Genie looked at him. It was beginning to sink in. Cary, Denis and all were truly doomed.

‘That’s what Cary said.’

Marshall looked at her. ‘Where did you last see him, exactly?’

‘Level Fourteen. It was really cold, I told you. He was excited to explore the system. He got Dr Milan’s tests up on the computer, but you were right. By Test four thousand five hundred he was absolutely crazy.’ She shuddered, remembering the cold. ‘I was hoping that just being there I’d discover something important, but I don’t think there’s anything there. I don’t think you’ll find anything useful.’

‘Was Cary aware that his body is on life-support?’

Genie nodded. ‘He said Denis was real bad and he didn’t think the others would survive. I don’t really like to talk about it now.’

Marshall pondered the situation a moment. It was interesting that Cary knew he was on life-support, yet could separate himself out and be with Genie in Level Fourteen.

‘You don’t believe me?’ Genie asked, her voice breaking up.

Marshall stood up, gripping the chair for support as his leg was awkward after sitting so long.

‘I’m thinking ten impossible things before breakfast,’ Marshall replied, ‘or whatever Alice said.’

‘“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”,’ Genie corrected him. ‘I read
Alice in Wonderland
at least four times before my mother burned it.’

‘She burned it?’ Marshall queried. ‘
Alice
?’

‘She burned
Twilight, His Dark Materials
and just about anything with monsters or witches or fairies or vampires in them. She got a list from the library and went through my shelf. Reverend Schneider came round and prayed for my soul – again, and I watched them burn in the back yard.’

‘I think it’s time we slept. Lots to do tomorrow,’ Marshall declared. ‘Someone take Mouch out for a pee, please.’

‘You were going to tell us something.’

‘I have to think. I didn’t know Cary and the others knew they were on life-support. It alters everything. Puts a different perspective on it at least.’

‘You mean if they’re simultaneously conscious or unconscious,’ Rian stated.

‘Exactly. Which is it?’

‘You think I dreamed it?’ Genie queried. ‘Come on, Mouch. Time to pee.’

‘No, and that’s the problem. Genie, be careful outside. Keep to the shadows.’

Genie nodded. She stepped over Renée, who was asleep on the carpet.

‘We’re going to take this to the enemy tomorrow, Genie,’ Marshall told her.

The air outside was chilly, instantly waking her.

She looked up at the stars as Mouch hunted for a good spot. They were bright and gave her comfort somehow. All those years as a kid staring out of her window at the stars at night. It was a place to go when her mother was bitching and she was always complaining about something she’d done or would do or hadn’t done. She’d travelled to distant stars and made plans and cities and lived a virtual life there. She wondered how they were getting on without her now.

Genie blinked. A cop car drove by slowly. She merged into the shadow of the building and held her breath until it had gone.

‘Mouch,’ she hissed.

He came running, wagging his tail. He was the happy one at least.

M
ouch saw it first and stood absolutely still for five seconds. It twitched its ears, highly tuned to anything that moved, and then it saw him and was off. Dog versus rabbit – it’s an old story and rabbit usually wins. Mouch darted off in pursuit; the rabbit had a good start and shot across the road.

‘Mouch, no!’ Genie was yelling and gave chase.

Mouch wasn’t listening though. He had a rabbit in his sights and was going for it.

The rabbit just missed a vehicle and got clear. Mouch very nearly got squashed and the car slewed to a stop in a cloud of tyre smoke, the angry driver trying to unbuckle to remonstrate with the girl running after her dog.

‘Mouch!’ Genie yelled again. Vaguely she registered a car had been involved and a driver got out to shout at her. She glanced back and carried on.

‘Mouch!’ she yelled, angrily now. ‘You get back here.’

And then, because that’s what brains do when processing two things at once, it played back the image of the man who’d gotten out of the Mercedes Benz and she nearly had a heart attack when she realized who it was.
Reverend Schneider
.

Now she was no longer angry at Mouch. She was running a little faster than the dog, if that was possible. She was stunned. It just wasn’t possible, was it?

Mouch looked back and could see that Genie was no longer chasing him, but running away at full pelt from him, down into the ditch at the side of the road, built to take the run-off in spring from all that melting snow.

Mouch set off to follow her, all thoughts of a rabbit forgotten.

Reverend Schneider was swearing and getting back into his vehicle, when he too had a revelation. The girl, that running girl with a dog, no less, that running girl with just a fuzz of hair … could it be? Was it possible? Was that his nemesis, the girl who had single-handedly wrecked his entire life?

He got back in, buckled up and spun the car around in a cloud of hot rubber. He wanted a closer look.

He’d been chasing this girl for almost two whole days now. At every stage she had eluded him, but he’d seen the CCTV footage of her and her friends on the ferry. Seen her disguise. It had taken him a while to realize it was her at all. Traced her to the pizza restaurant where she’d gotten a ride to Whistler, seen the wheelchair she’d abandoned at the ferry terminal with a note saying ‘thanks’. They’d been appreciative to get it back and most helpful to enable him to find his sick ‘daughter’ who’d been tricked into some unorthodox spiritual healing for cancer. They’d been very sympathetic. They had difficult children as well and wanted to help. Reverend Schneider knew how to make people help him.

And now, a scrawny skinhead girl and a little dog nearly running right under his car. What were the chances?

He gunned the motor down the road. He could see the top of her head. She was trying to get back to wherever she’d come from.

He speed-dialled a number on his cell.

‘Blackcomb Way. If you’ve got anyone in the area, she’s out chasing a dog.’

‘I’ve got your car GPS tracked. Help will be with in you ten minutes. Count on it.’

Schneider registered his surprise that his car was being tracked. Strindberg clearly left nothing to chance. He slowed, keeping her in sight. He could see that she had nowhere to go. He’d cut her off at the start of the hill and then Fortransco could take over. He felt the elation of a hunter. Finally he would be rid of her.

Renée woke up on the floor. Her neck was sore from lying in an awkward position.

‘Where’s Genie? Where’s Mouch?’ she asked.

Rian came out of the bathroom. His heart skipped a beat.

‘She’s not back yet? She took Mouch out.’

‘Oh no …’ They both realized something was wrong and raced to the door.

‘What’s going on?’ Marshall was asking, but got no reply; he was looking at an open door. He heard their footsteps running away. He frowned. Genie should have been back by now; it had been nearly half an hour.

Genie took a left and ducked down, running hunched into a huge drainage pipe that ran right under the road above. Her heart was pumping wildly. She couldn’t believe her bad luck in running into Reverend Schneider, of all people. It just didn’t seem possible. Mouch was at her heels now.

‘I hope … you feel … guilty,’ she said grabbing air between words.

Mouch didn’t look at her; he sensed that he’d done something wrong. Had no idea what – he was supposed to chase rabbits. Marshall made him chase rabbits all the time back home.

Genie ran to the end of the pipe and saw there was a car park to her left and beyond that some condos. She began to run. She needed to make sure that Schneider couldn’t get to the others. Didn’t matter if he caught her, but she had to save Rian and Renée.

She ran, keeping low between cars. She knew Schneider’s Mercedes would be close by somewhere, but he wouldn’t be able to drive in here – there was a barrier at the entrance.

It was then she heard it. A chopper. She could feel the invisible fingers of Mosquito clutching at her mind. The bastard had called the Fortress; they were sending in the big guns.

She needed a place to hide, a place where the signal from the chopper couldn’t penetrate and shut her down. She was at the far end of the car park now and the condos were before her. It was nearly two a.m. No one was going to be awake, or able to let her in and who’s to say the signal wouldn’t get her, even if she got inside?

She prayed to Grandma Munby for advice. Which way to go? What to do?

Mouch saw the storm drain first. He stopped right by it. Genie looked at him, he looked at her and who knows if it was Mouch himself or Grandma Munby intervening, but Genie realized it was a brilliant idea.

She dropped down and crawled in, trying not to see the bugs and creepy-crawlies that would be living there. Mouch entered at the same time and somehow squeezed by and got ahead of her. The Mosquito broadcast couldn’t effectively penetrate the ground above her – she’d be safe, for a while.

Renée saw the chopper too and knew exactly what it was as her head began buzzing.

‘Mosquitoes,’ she gasped. ‘Get me somewhere safe, Ri. They know we’re here.’

Rian took no chances. They were running along Blackcomb Way. Genie had to be somewhere around, but all he could see was a Mercedes stopped some way ahead, its headlights pointing out across a car park and overhead, a chopper making its way to the area. He couldn’t work out how they knew they were here. It was impossible.

He saw the storm drains – half filled with stagnant water. They had no choice.

‘Follow me,’ he yelled.

Renée could see where he was headed. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Crawl in. Never mind the mud and bugs. It will cut off the signal. Get in now, Renée.’

Renée closed her eyes and wriggled in, smearing mud all over her head and clothes. Overhead the Mosquito was getting stronger and …

‘You OK?’ Rian called.

‘You coming in?’

‘It’s muddy.’

Rian laughed as Renée swore at him.

The chopper flew directly overhead and he was suddenly thinking about night-vision. He had no choice but to crawl right in behind her.

‘Eww, yuk,’ he complained.

‘I have a headache.’

‘You can feel Mosquito under here?’

‘No, I banged my head on the pipe. There’s a lump just—’

‘Ow.’

‘About there,’ Renée told him.

Rian rubbed his head and wished there was room to turn around. It stank down here.

‘You can’t feel it?’

‘I’m OK. The point is, has Genie found anyplace to hide? How did they find us, Ri? You think they’ve got Marshall’s truck bugged?’