The Phoenix Creation, page 20
‘What?’ said Red confused. ‘Who? What?’
‘Oh, it gets better,’ said Hanuel, as if handing the baton over officially to Alya. He watched the expressions of the three boys as Alya explained the whole story, starting with Seb’s late-night jaunts to the radio mast in The Basin. She moved on to her and Hanuel’s ordeal at sea and how it linked to Zeph’s arrival, and the plans to get the family off The Island, where he was from, and into the bunker her grandfather had built all on his own.
‘Whew,’ whistled Red, when Alya had finished relating the story. ‘That sounds complicated.’
‘It’s going to be fine,’ assured Alya. She knew the others would have questions and she hadn’t officially asked for their help yet, although Hanuel had certainly just introduced the idea to them.
‘Kidnapping,’ said Lancelot soberly.
‘Rescuing,’ countered Alya. ‘The family are being held to ransom because the father has information about the new world and the weather systems around the Zion Trench, at least I believe that’s what it’s called. Anyway, the whole family are forced to live below decks and the girls aren’t allowed to go to school. Can you imagine?’
‘How will a bunker be any different?’ said Berlin.
Alya didn’t like the track the conversation was taking and Red and Hanuel eyed her expression.
‘It won’t be!’ snapped Alya. ‘But it’s only for a short time, not the rest of their lives! The lawyers will work it out and they’ll be officially welcomed, and I suppose the rest of Continent One will then discover that it wasn’t a rumour after all, there is indeed an island out there with more hybrids on it, just like us.’
‘Boy,’ nodded Lancelot, his eyes popped wider at the mention of The Island again. So, what Hanuel and Alya had seen at the museum was true after all.
They all sat in silence, their picnic finished with.
‘I’m in,’ said Berlin eventually.
‘Me too,’ nodded Lancelot.
‘Really guys?’ said Alya quietly. She realised she’d been more worried than she thought about their acceptance of the situation. She knew without doubt that Hanuel and Red would follow her, but with Berlin and Lancelot, it was a different matter altogether; they were kind of a package deal. Their presence and support meant a lot and she felt a lump in her throat. Red noticed and tried to help her out a bit.
‘So, it’s just a thought, and actually, I don’t know how we’d do it, so never mind.’ He tapped the table as if dismissing his musings.
‘What?’ frowned Alya, catching the scent of something reckless.
‘Uh, well, I was just wondering about what did you and Hanuel see at the museum exactly?’
‘What? No!’ said Hanuel sternly, shutting down any ideas relating to the museum before they were given a chance.
‘Hanuel, shush,’ said Alya, waving her hand dismissively. ‘Go on, Red. What are you thinking?’
Red looked at Hanuel apologetically, perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything. Alya’s eyes had widened and she looked positively excited, but she was also looking at Red and Hanuel and how they were becoming solid friends at long last. Alya also knew that Red’s confidence had taken a knock since he and his father had been evicted. He wasn’t as chatty as he had been and she wanted the old Red back, so any idea he had would be encouraged by her, if needs be.
‘Well,’ said Red. ‘If the stuff you saw at the museum was plans and locations of The Island and Mobi, then surely they would be useful to us? I’m not saying we take them, but maybe we could make a copy and show your grandpa, then it might move things on a bit quicker if we had plans and coordinates, etcetera?’
‘I like that idea,’ nodded Alya, without thinking at all about the details.
‘I don’t!’ snapped Hanuel. ‘Are you two crazy? We nearly got locked up the last time, Alya!’
‘I like it too,’ nodded Berlin. As soon as he was in, Lancelot agreed too, and the four of them started discussing re-entry tactics that might work.
Hanuel got up and started pacing; every now and then interjecting that they were all mad.
Alya ignored him, and the others did too.
‘I bet that the window me and Hanuel excited, would be the best way in. I swear, it’s such an old building and those windows were a bit of a mess. I think one little push and we’d be in. It would have to be in the middle of the night this time, we’d need dark clothing.’
The boys were truly excited and Alya could see that she’d need to act quickly so that Berlin and Lancelot didn’t get cold feet.
‘We could do with your help, Hanuel,’ said Alya, at last addressing her friend’s reticence as he continued pacing.
‘I don’t want anything to do with this, Alya!’
‘Hanuel, we need you, and this is going ahead with or without your help; without you, we get caught, but with you, we don’t get caught, and those little girls and my cousin’s pregnant girlfriend are free from tyranny … a lot sooner.’
Hanuel looked at her and smiled wryly, then after a long pause said, ‘tyranny it is then.’
Alya remained mute with a matching expression. As far as she was concerned, it was tyranny if you weren’t allowed to be free to go places.
‘When?’ said Hanuel with a deep sigh.
‘Tomorrow night,’ said Alya.
~
‘What?’ said Alya, as she tiptoed across the floor.
‘You look funny,’ whispered Hanuel. ‘You look like a cartoon burglar.’
‘Thanks,’ said Alya drolly. ‘You look hot, yourself.’
Hanuel huffed. He’d thought that the black face mask was a bit extreme to begin with, but then he saw Red’s logic; he really didn’t want to get caught for a second time, the, ‘we were looking for the bathroom,’ excuse wouldn’t work this time, not at four a.m. in the morning as they each held torches.
‘Here,’ said Alya, gesturing for Red to come to her. ‘Look,’ she pointed her torch at the wall where the details of Mobi hung from reams of papers attached to the walls and boards.
‘Right,’ said Red, producing his camera and zooming in on the diagrams. He snapped away, the flash popping like a crime scene investigation.
Hanuel had found a chair and was leafing through a file on one of the desks. He was surprised by how calm he felt when moments before, his heart had been hammering in his chest as he pushed the museum window in. It had released easily and made a gentle squeaking sound on old hinges as he, Alya, and Red had climbed through onto the wide solid sill. He stopped at a page towards the back of the file which he’d not had a chance to look at the day he and Alya had taken a deliberate detour into the large ballroom. His nose wrinkled as he held the torch close and steady to read the contents. Recruitment? Enlisting? What was this all about? He read carefully from the top again, as certain words sprang out at him. V20 wings. Teenage resources. Penitentiary recruitment. Enforced listing. Service - Two Years = ENFORCED.
‘Alya,’ whispered Hanuel audibly.
Alya turned and wove her way through the desks to where Hanuel sat.
‘Here,’ he said, shoving the file at her. ‘Read that page.’
Alya scanned the page as Hanuel had, and then with the same frown as his, she read from the top again. She looked at the date stamp and red letters stamped ‘APPROVED.’
‘The date is two months ago Hanuel, and it’s a government stamp. Look!’ She pointed to the eagle crest below the ‘approved’ stamp.
‘I know, Alya,’ said Hanuel. ‘I saw that bit.’
‘Red! Red!’ Hanuel and Alya called for him.
Red stopped what he was doing. He had most of what he wanted anyway and he made his way towards the others.
‘Get this,’ Alya said, ensuring that he was certain all the photos were in focus.
‘Right,’ nodded Red, he scanned the document as the others had and clenched his teeth in anger.
‘What is it, Red?’ asked Alya concerned.
‘You know something, Alya, this might be the reason why my brother’s in the Pen right now. If the government is paying asshole shop-owners to say they saw kids stealing all over East-Side, that would make a lot of sense, and then lo and behold they’ve got their recruits for this Mobi Project, which looks like it’s going ahead pretty soon too, huh?’
‘He’s right,’ said Hanuel, snatching the file from Red and laying it on the desk to start at the beginning. ‘Let’s get all of this photo’d from start to finish, ok? I don’t know what the hell’s going on, on C1 right now, but we have to let someone know.’
~
‘Here,’ said Red, handing the copied prints from the museum over to Alya.
It was lunchtime and they’d found a quiet spot behind the canteen on a grassy embankment to continue their investigation.
After they’d left the museum quietly and carefully, they each returned home and waited a few days until Red had managed to produce the prints himself, not wanting to hand over the sensitive information to a pharmacy photo-shop.
Hanuel, Berlin, and Lancelot arrived. They sat down on the grass and hardly a word was spoken as they scanned the images, taking in the information carefully.
‘Who should we go to with these?’ said Berlin. He was starting to wonder what Alya had gotten him into, and he didn’t want to wimp out, but this was way over his head.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alya. She was reluctant to do anything that might come back at any of them. If they handed over the documents then they’d have to explain why they were in the museum photographing Mobi which would come back at her and her grandparents. Then there was the fact that the government were obviously deliberately ensnaring poor kids over in East-Side. Enforcing them to become workers and move Mobi halfway across the world towards a new continent that no one even knew existed! And why would they need so many recruits anyway? The figures were shockingly high, with a recruitment process that would see a third of all sixteen to eighteen-year-olds enlisted over the next four years.
‘Maybe the newspapers?’ suggested Lancelot. ‘Anonymously!’ he snapped defensively, when Berlin gave him a sarcastic look.
‘You have to quote a source, otherwise it sounds fake,’ said Red. ‘Also, if we say these photos were from the museum then my worry is they’d come right back at Alya and Hanuel.’
‘True,’ nodded Alya, ‘but if we stay quiet then your brother might end up two-thousand-miles away, forced to live below decks and working in a dangerous job.’
‘What about Dali? Couldn’t we show her? She’s a lawyer, she’d know what to do.’
Alya could see that Red was quite smitten with Dali ever since she’d kindly taken up the case against Red’s brother.
‘I don’t know, Red,’ said Alya concerned. ‘I think the best person to speak to is Poppy, he’ll know what to do. In the meantime, we’ve got to keep this to ourselves. You understand that, don’t you?’ she directed her gaze at Berlin and Lancelot.
She could see from the boys’ expressions that they had no intention of telling anyone. They were all quite worried, subdued by the gravity of knowing a big secret and scared that it went so high up the chain of command.
They said goodbye to Red who went back to his own school after they’d promised to meet him later to fly together, the thought of which raised their spirits somewhat. Alya secreted the photos away in her bag feeling like they were burning a metaphorical hole in her bag. Some younger students ran by unexpectedly and Alya startled, then rolled her eyes, chastising herself. Hanuel squeezed her hand.
‘At the end of the day, we don’t actually have to do anything with those,’ he assured her.
‘I know,’ she nodded. ‘I know we don’t, but then we’re not kids from East-Side are we? But if we were, what would you say for us to do then, Han?’
Hanuel still held her hand as they walked along, contemplating the question.
‘What would I say for us to do? I’d say we had to do something Alya, but carefully. Very carefully.’
14
The Hundred-Year Storm
‘Poppy?’ called Alya, from where she stood outside the new, locked, barn doors.
‘Aly?’ came his reply. He must have been standing immediately behind the doors as he opened them promptly to let her in.
‘What’s that?’ said Alya, before her eyes had adjusted to the change in light. At the centre of the barn floor was an enormous raised wooden platform, with no base or top panels.
‘A-ha,’ said her grandpa, pleased that she’d noticed, although how could she not? ‘That is for the boat.’
‘The boat?’ said Alya, a little smirk at the side of her mouth implied she was anticipating a good story.
‘Yeah, the boat,’ said Seb, scratching his head as if he too had seen the enormous platform for the first time. ‘It’s the start of the boat that we’re going to build for Madison’s family. I’ll do as much as I can on my own but I hope your dad is going to come and help me out, Tal too … possibly.’
‘A boat?’ said Alya, frowning at her grandpa. ‘But why?’
‘Well,’ said Seb reluctantly. ‘They won’t want to live here forever, they’ve spent most of their life at sea, and if for whatever reason the C1 government won’t grant them residency, then they have the option to go home and re-join their flotilla. I’d like better materials though, so this might be a backup boat, an emergency boat. And, to be honest I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.’
‘And how would we get it to the sea in an emergency?’ laughed Alya. ‘It’s going to be huge if that platform is anything to go by.’
‘Well, I haven’t worked all that out yet, Aly, maybe in sections, anyway, enough about the boat, come and see the latest development.’
Alya followed her grandpa until they were ducked down below the boat platform, and Seb pulled open a hatch leading to some concrete stairs which led to the underground accommodation for the girls.
‘The boat’s a good idea, Poppy,’ said Alya, as she followed him down into the gloom. ‘It will give the girls something to focus on.’
Seb stopped, they’d reached the bottom and he turned to squeeze her shoulder.
‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said.
He knew what Alya was trying to say, his dear Little Bird had learned to deal with boredom from an early age, she was already thinking about the girls’ state of mind, and so was he.
He keyed in a number to the door entry lock and Alya drew breath as she saw that her grandpa had been very busy indeed.
The bunker was old, but solid, and built in the early days when terrific storms obliterated homes across C1. The storms were much rarer now, and homes were built to withstand the ravages of a category ten, but everyone by law had to have access to one. The bunker below Alya’s building was sophisticated enough to have private accommodation for each apartment as well as communal areas and a gym, three months’ supply of food and water, in case it was total annihilation, although the resilience of the very fabric of C1 had changed so much that it would be highly unexpected.
‘Wow, Poppy,’ said Alya, rushing forward to stare around at his handiwork. He’d clad the inside with white walls, and the floors were now freshly varnished wood. He’d recessed most of the lighting and had added a huge sofa in front of a large TV. The girls didn’t have enclosed bedrooms as there wasn’t enough room but they did have semi-walls, and individual lighting with their own beds and desks, and a toy box at the foot of their bed. Madison’s parents had their own enclosed room furthest away from the main door. Alya’s grandma had been busy making individual patchwork quilts and cushions for each of them too.
Alya looked to the left where a larger section had been made with a double bed upon which resided some of the baby things she’d collected. She ambled forward to admire her own efforts. She’d spent most weekends in different shops so as not to arouse suspicion, purchasing nappies and baby food, and breast pads - how embarrassing, under her grandma’s instructions of course.
‘Poppy, it’s beautiful,’ said Alya. Her grandpa had added a pretend window with a large painting of the ocean in the hope the girls would feel more at home.
‘They’ll be fine,’ said Alya, upon seeing the painting. ‘It’s probably what they’re used to in a way.’
‘Apparently, when the flotillas are together, they have boardwalks so you can pass easily from boat to boat, sounds crazy right?’
‘Sounds great,’ approved Alya, as her imagination set to work about a life at sea. Boaters, real bona fide Boaters living and sailing the ocean. Beautiful skies, and sunsets, fishing every day, singing songs together when the sun had gone down. If only they could fly too, she thought sadly; how wonderful it would be to be able to stretch your wings every day and fly as high and fast as you wanted, barrelling through the sky with all that open space, outrunning storms, real life and death adventures!
‘So,’ said Seb, ‘I’ve made some improvements to the farm too. Come and look.’
Seb led the way back up and showed her a hatch in the side of the barn which led across a paddock towards the house.
‘See,’ said Seb pointing out the saplings he’d planted a metre apart running all the way up to the house. ‘This will grow like lightning,’ he gestured to the bushy saplings, ‘and it will create a screen so that the girls can come and go to the house as they please. And did you see what your clever grandma is doing?’
Alya had; when she had arrived, her grandma was still at her new sewing machine making pretend wings for the girls in case they were spotted from the air above, or if a neighbour arrived quietly uninvited. From a distance at least, the girls would look like normal hybrids and people wouldn’t think twice about Pasha and Seb having guests.
‘It’s really good, Poppy,’ nodded Alya. ‘And Grandma said she’s going to school the girls, well, you both are.’
‘Yeah, we’re used to that, Little Bird,’ said Seb, ruffling her hair as he referred to the countless bedside hours, he and Pasha had spent entertaining Alya, or getting her to read, or do math.
