Dark Star (23 page)

The implant worried her. The way those numbers had come and gone, she could be losing information and she only had one small card left to play. There was only one name and location left on the Pantheon files that she hadn’t given out. Alis Chan. And for some reason Jebediah still wanted it. She had to hang on to it. Jebediah had Pip, a possible vaccine start and the Equinox Gate plans to make that wormhole. He must think he had almost everything he needed. It was only her and the information about the last Pantheon member standing in his way – and she was sure he wouldn’t let that hang for long. He’d get it out of her, maybe use her dad to do it, or Aunt Essie. And then what use would she be?

None. Gillian was right. She had to get out as well. But the question that kept her up and wouldn’t leave her be was what was Dark Star? It had to tie in to Jebediah and Alpha’s plans. Alpha had talked about satellites and called it a delivery system. But delivery for what? Was it to do with the MalX or the gate? She had to find out.

At breakfast the next morning Rosie struggled to behave normally. She knew she looked bad. Her skin was pale, almost grey, and there were dark bruise-like circles under her eyes. Everyone was staring at her. The rumour to cover what had really happened was that she’d almost been killed in training. It had gone round so fast, she thought the operatives must be spreading it as well. She kept expecting Alpha to come in and take her away. Why wasn’t he or Jebediah doing anything? Did they consider her so unthreatening they had stopped caring? Or did they think they’d won? Where was Sulawayo?

“Eat.” Gillian leaned across the table, her eyes bright with worry. Rosie stopped pushing her spoon through the warm bowl of grains and forced herself to take a scoop.

Stefan sat down with his overloaded tray. “You look like three kinds of puke. You gonna be okay?”

“Shut it, Stef,” Gillian said.

“Hey, I’m being friendly.” He took an enormous mouthful of grains, speaking around it. “You feen weddie?”

Gillian raised an eyebrow. “I don’t speak moronese.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You know what I said. Have you–”

“Forget about Freddie. He’s off since the ruins,” Gillian said.

“What? He was the one?” Stefan paused in shovelling in another mouthful.

Gillian flicked a glance at Rosie. “Yeah, it was him and he almost killed her, so forget about him. He’s gone to the psychs – probably be there for years.”

“Huh. Always was a weird kid.” Stefan kept chewing. “New boy.” He pointed with his spoon towards the door.

Dalton had come in, trailed by Hanto. Rosie dropped her spoon so it clinked against the bowl. Gillian frowned at her and said to Stefan, “You spoken to him yet?”

“Nup. Hanto doesn’t seem to like people talking to him. I heard he’s bunked in that empty room near the iris, and he doesn’t have to share.” Envy twisted Stefan’s mouth. “Must be good to be the son of Mr Richie-pants Curtis.”

Dalton saw Rosie, but his gaze was unreadable, moving off her fast. He nodded at something Hanto said and sat down at a table on his own, while the operative pointed at someone to bring him some food.

“Even gets his own servants,” Stefan muttered.

Rosie worried. Dalton was head and shoulders taller than most of the other students, and the fitted black shirt made him appear even taller, but he seemed diminished. He hadn’t lost his looks, not judging by the number of girls surreptitiously staring at him. It was as if the light had been dimmed inside. The flirtatious smile that had always hovered at his lips was gone, replaced by a watchfulness that made him look … She tried to figure it out, then felt a fearful jolt. He was more like the image the implant had shown her of a young Jebediah standing with Alpha.

What has he done to you?
Rosie wanted to run across the caf to him, but she bit her lip.

“Hey,” Gillian said. “We got a bit of time before training. Maybe you should head to the bathroom and try and clean up a bit more. If Stefan’s noticed, it must be bad.”

Stefan’s eyes widened in protest. “I was only–”

“It’s okay.” Rosie stopped him. “Give me a hand?” she said to Gillian. She knew why she’d suggested going to the bathroom.

“Sure.” Gillian pushed their trays to Stefan. “Take these up will you, Stef?”

“Yeah, all right.” He began stacking them, and Gillian and Rosie went off to the bathroom. They were about to go through the door, when Stefan came pelting after them shouting their names.

“Keep it down,” Gillian said as he reached them, all elbows and flying hair. “What’s the deal?”

He leaned on his knees a minute to catch his breath. “Got a message for you.”

“Obviously.”

He gestured behind him with one wiry arm. “One of the operatives, what’s-her-name, Jai or something, said to say you two were to report for clean-up duty in the laundries, some order from Alpha or something.”

“Clean up?” Gillian said. “But that’s for zeroes who have no points at all on the training score. We’ve both got more than five. Well, I have anyway.”

“Hey, I don’t know, I’m just the messenger.” Stefan shrugged. “But you’d better go. I’m late for endurance testing. Thanks so much.”

“You should be thanking us. You know you suck at that.” Gillian took his arm, propelling him back up towards the main corridor with her. Rosie followed, wondering what new game of Alpha’s this was.

She’d never been in the laundry room. It was at the opposite end of their dorm rooms to the cafeteria and she’d thought all their cleaning was handled by the Enclave system.

“It is,” Gillian said when she asked. She waved at the security unit and the iris opened to admit them to the short grey corridor beyond. “But the room itself still needs cleaning. Usually, the cleaning drones do it, but when Alpha gets really pissed at zeroes he makes us do it. It’s like bottom rung of punishment. He must be messing with us.”

They passed a few narrow doors then stopped at a set of double doors. “In here.” She swiped the opener and the doors slid back. Immediately, the scent of lemon cleanser surrounded them, making Rosie cough with its stench. The lighting was bad: two weakly glowing orbs in the centre of the room, creating deep shadows in the corners. Along the back wall was a row of large machines making a low humming noise with indicator lights flashing. Half a dozen squat cleaning drones were loading clothes in, or taking them out, and another three were busily wiping the floor and sucking dirt from the corners.

“This is weird,” Gillian said.

“It’s the best I could do.” Sulawayo came from the shadows. “If Alpha or Jebediah see me talking to you, we lose any advantage we have. Did you see Pip?”

“How did you find out he was alive and where he was?” Rosie asked.

“Still suspicious, I see.” The yellow light caught on Sulawayo’s cheekbones as she came closer, giving her the appearance of a predatory black cat. “Do you think I would surrender my goals so easily?”

“I think you’ve tricked me before. You didn’t believe me when I told you Alpha and Jebediah had been playing you, and now you do? It’s a pretty quick change. How do I know it isn’t you who had Pip shot and hidden?”

“I’m flattered you think I have that kind of power, but even I couldn’t have managed that,” she said. “Besides, as you suspected, the operatives I thought were working with me are really Jebediah’s creatures. It was easy for him to get Pip away and tell me whatever he deemed I should know. Only Gillian and Stefan are beneath his radar. They’re children; he doesn’t think they’re worth worrying about.”

“So nice to be ignored,” Gillian said.

“Be thankful he did,” Sulawayo said. “He would have made you disappear had you been a problem.”

“So Stefan’s part of this?” Rosie said. “Does he know what’s going on?”

“Not yet, but he will.”

“And Freddie?” Gillian asked.

“He’s been Alpha’s personal lapdog for some time.” Sulawayo rested her hands on her slim hips. “But I don’t think he was supposed to shoot Pip twice. I don’t know where he’s been taken, but I’m assuming it’s nowhere good. Re-education probably.”

“So what about you then?” Rosie said. “If they suspect you …”

“Do not worry about me, Miss Black. I have no intention of alerting either man to my knowledge of their actual plans.”

“So you found something?” Gillian said.

Sulawayo cast her dark gaze on Rosie. “Those names you gave me, of the Pantheon and their locations, I discovered exactly what Jebediah has wanted them for.” She retrieved a thin holo from her pants’ pocket and activated it. “I went to dangerous lengths to copy this from Alpha’s grid,” she said. “But I think you should see.” An image sprang from the holo, hovering in three dimensions above the laundry floor. Rosie felt ill. It was a man lying in a pool of blood, his throat slit open, clearly dead. The shadow of someone stood nearby. “And this.” Sulawayo changed the image and this time it was a woman. Her body lay beside a lake. Her skin was pale and bloated and another jagged scar showed her neck too had been slit. Gillian coughed and put a hand over her mouth.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

“They were identified as Franco Brun and Eliza Rush. The names you gave me and which I passed to Jebediah.”

“He’s been killing them,” Rosie said.

“Yes.” Sulawayo switched off the holo.

“But why?” Gillian said.

“The rest of the Pantheon are still powerful. If they moved against Jebediah and Alpha, their plans would be finished. They need stealth and subterfuge to affect a takeover. I assume they decided it was easier to get rid of the threat, rather than take the risk.” She eyed Rosie. “And now, since Alpha is Pantheon, there is only one left and you have the location on your implant. I’d say it’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”

Alis Chan. Rosie had suspected this but seeing it … she desperately wanted to sit down. “But Jebediah already knows her name,” Rosie said. “I heard Alpha saying they know all their names just not where they were.”

Sulawayo’s nostrils flared. “Yes, I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think he wouldn’t know the rest, but Jebediah can be very persuasive. He told me he only knew the others by code names and that Riley had somehow discovered their true identities and placed them in your implant.”

“That does sound plausible,” Gillian said. “I would have fallen for that. Especially since the Pantheon keeps their origins such a secret anyway.”

“Going on about getting the names and the locations from me must have been a distraction then,” Rosie said. “But why?” It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t help feeling she was missing something.

“Does it matter now?” Sulawayo said. “He has almost everything, as well as the bonus of those numbers you gave me.”

“Numbers?” Gillian frowned.

“Yes, when I gave them to him he seemed pleased, excited even. But when I asked him what they were for he said they were identification codes,” Sulawayo said.

“That can’t be right.” Rosie shook her head. “Riley hid that information on my implant because it was important. All of it. He wouldn’t have put the numbers in there if they weren’t.” God, why hadn’t she thought of this before? The numbers had to be more than just identification codes. Riley was meticulous. Everything he’d collected on Helios was a step towards taking them down, everything was vital. And she’d given those numbers up. “If Jebediah already knows all the names of the Pantheon, he probably was trying to find them anyway,” she said. “Getting the locations from me was just a short cut. What if what he really wanted was those numbers?” She looked with desperation at Sulawayo. “No wonder he was pleased.”

“Possible,” Sulawayo said, her expression grim. “But if they’re not ID codes, what are they?”

“I don’t know.” Rosie passed a hand over her forehead.

Gillian said, “So now they have those numbers, the trial vaccine and Pip, and the plans for the Equinox Gate.”

“Yes.” Rosie felt sick at what she’d had to give up. “You know he wants to use the MalX like Helios originally planned, as a kind of population control?”

“The very thing he said he wanted to fight against,” Sulawayo jaw was tight. “I’d wager the rest of the Pantheon decided to change that idea, or try a different way and Jebediah and Alpha didn’t.”

“So they decided to eliminate the others,” Gillian added.

“I saw something else on my implant as well,” Rosie said. “I think he’s planning on infecting the entire world and using the cure to select those he decides should live to carry on humanity.”

“And with the construction of the Equinox Gate, he will control access to the outer colonies and mines,” Sulawayo said. “Effectively putting himself and Alpha in charge of the planet’s water, resources and off-world travel. He’ll hold the Senate and UEC to ransom for that cure. They’ll make billions.”

Gillian said, “A perfect plan for the new emperors of the universe. Brilliant. So I guess we should stop them.”

Sharp jabs of pain in her chest were making it hard for Rosie to focus as she said, “Okay, but we still don’t know how they’re going to carry the MalX plan out. Sulawayo, I heard Alpha talking about something called Dark Star. It’s some kind of satellite system. Did you find anything out about that?”

“No.” Sulawayo frowned. “But it’s doubtful Jebediah would keep a record of something that important to him here.”

Rosie battled frustration. “Maybe the numbers have something to do with it. We have to find out.”

“Stop.” Sulawayo held up a hand. “One step at a time. We need to get you and the boy out.”

“And how do we do that if the place is crawling with their best buddies?” Gillian said.

“There are tunnels that lead from the ruins to our underground training levels, built when the site of the Enclave was a granary. The tunnels allowed people to transport grain from here to the town without exposing it to the harsh environment. When Helios built the Enclave, they kept them. You know how they love a secret. I used the tunnels to make the trip to the ruins to meet you.” Sulawayo looked at Rosie. “And we can use them to get you out. I know them better than Jebediah or Alpha so we should have an advantage.”

“But how do I get out of the Enclave?” Rosie said. “I need a stylus.”