FRIDAY, MAY 22
83 DAYS
The door clunked shut behind me.
I dashed to the back of Pryor’s office. Dived behind her desk. Stopped and listened.
Still plenty of noise outside, but I knew it wouldn’t take Pryor long to put a stop to that.
I looked under the desk.
There was a single, heavy-looking drawer on the right-hand side. I was about to pull it open when I noticed Pryor’s computer screen.
Her recording program was still running.
I grabbed the mouse, hit pause, and deleted the last thirty seconds of audio.
‘What is going on here?’ Pryor’s voice exploded behind me and I nearly hit the roof.
But it was coming from outside, blasting over the mayhem in the quad.
Stop. Breathe.
I stared back down at the drawer. Grabbed the handle. And pulled.
The drawer didn’t budge.
I glanced up at the metal door, panic rising in my stomach. The noise outside was disappearing fast.
I pulled at the drawer again. Nothing. It was locked.
And then the panic turned to rage and I started wrenching at the handle as hard as I could, rattling the drawer up and down, clunking and smashing and not even thinking about all the noise I was making, ready to tear the whole desk apart if I had to.
Still nothing.
I swore, kicked the leg of the desk, and then swore again as pain shot through my foot.
Then I realised I couldn’t hear Pryor’s shouting anymore. I stepped back, fists clenched in my hair, staring furiously at that stupid bloody drawer.
And then the drawer rolled open.
It just unlocked all by itself and slid out from the desk, like someone was working it with a remote control. And there, sitting on top of a stack of white Shackleton Co-operative notepads, was Pryor’s phone.
I stared around the office, adrenaline surging, suddenly positive that I was being set up.
What the crap just happened?
The bell rang.
Just grab it! Just grab it and go!
I took the phone, switched it off, and shoved it down into my sock. It was an older model. Would’ve been top of the line maybe five years ago. There was a weird bulge at the back of it, where the battery pack should be, like someone had modified it.
I slammed the drawer shut again and ran for the door.
I was halfway round Pryor’s desk when I remembered that the recording on her laptop was still paused. I leant across and set it going again.
Across the room. Into the hall. Still deserted.
Good.
Out in the quad, Pryor was restoring order. The crowd of students was slowly moving off to their classes, talking and laughing and glancing back over their shoulders at the scene of the crime.
The bin that Jordan had set on fire was still sending up clouds of black smoke and the occasional piece of smouldering newspaper. Even better, a couple of Year 7s were up against the office wall, getting busted by Pryor. Both of them had long, blackened sticks lying at their feet. By the look of things, they’d been using the sticks to pull flaming garbage out of the bin.
Idiots.
Good for us, though. Couldn’t have found a better way to shift the blame if we’d tried.
I crept around behind Pryor, searching for the others.
Jordan was at the other end of the quad, waiting in the doorway to the English building.
‘Well?’ she said as I reached her.
I didn’t stop until I was through the door and out of Pryor’s sight. I collapsed against the wall, silent for just long enough to make her think I’d failed, and then I winked at her.
‘Yeah,’ I breathed. ‘I got it.’
And the look on her face was totally worth the five years that all that stress had taken off my life.
We headed upstairs, surrounded by a mob of Year 8s still going nuts over the bin. Seriously, you’d think these guys had never seen a fire before.
Luke was waiting for us at the top of the steps. ‘Did you get it?’ he whispered.
‘Yeah,’ I said, walking past him and heading down the corridor.
Luke grabbed me from behind. ‘Give it to me.’
‘After English,’ I said, shrugging him off.
‘Forget English,’ said Luke. ‘Larson’s not going to notice if we’re a few minutes –’
‘Like I’d care if he did,’ I said. ‘We’re not doing anything until we’re out of here.’
Luke turned to Jordan for support, but she just shook her head at him. ‘Your dad will still be there at three o’clock.’
She was agreeing with me. Again. This was pretty much the best day ever.
Luke looked almost ready to push us both down and take the phone by force. But then he just huffed at us and slumped off to our English room.
I shrugged at Jordan and we followed him.
Not that I didn’t feel for the guy, but getting emotional about this wouldn’t help anyone. I hadn’t put my arse on the line for that phone just to get caught using it five minutes later.
We walked into English, and I saw Cat up the back, scratching her shoulder. Her usually immaculate make-up was looking kind of thrown on today, like her mind had been on other things.
Cat glanced up when I came in. For a second I thought she was actually about to say something to me. But then she spotted Jordan walking in behind me and her eyes shot straight back down to her work. I ignored her and followed Luke to some empty seats at the other end of the room.
Larson usually gives us something pretty bludgy to do on a Friday afternoon. Today, we were meant to be looking at a bunch of book extracts on our laptops and deciding which ones were dystopias. It might actually have been an okay lesson if I didn’t have the bloody telltale phone beating a hole in my leg.
The longer I sat there, the heavier it felt.
This was actually happening. In less than an hour, we were going to make the call.
We were going to let the outside world know what was really going on in this place. And then, finally, all of it would be someone else’s problem.
I barely got anything done all lesson, but that wasn’t exactly suspicious behaviour for me. And it was nothing compared to Luke. Mr Larson asked him three times if he was feeling okay. Each time, Luke nodded mutely and went on squirming in his seat.
Jordan was the total opposite. She tore through the work, like that would somehow help us get out of here faster. How she could focus on anything at a time like this was beyond me.
But when Larson finally told us to start packing up, not even Jordan could contain herself. She leapt up from her chair and shoved her stuff into her bag almost before he’d finished talking.
‘Somewhere to be, Jordan?’ Larson smiled.
‘Uh, no sir,’ said Jordan, putting her chair up. ‘Just excited it’s the weekend.’
As soon as Larson let us out, we sprinted across to the maths block to get our bikes.
Luke’s fingers could hardly work his bike chain. ‘Where should we –?’
‘Jordan’s place,’ I said. ‘It’s closest.’
‘Sure,’ shrugged Jordan.
Despite everything, Luke still found time to stop and roll his eyes at me.
We pushed through the crowd to the back gate and raced up to the end of the street, to Jordan’s.
‘Should be no-one home,’ said Jordan, unlocking the front door. ‘Mum was going to pick Georgia up from school and go do the shopping.’
Luke latched onto my arm again. ‘Where is it?’
I checked over my shoulder to make sure the street was still clear, then reached down and pulled out the phone.
Luke had his Dad’s number punched in before we’d even walked inside.
‘Put it on speaker,’ I said, as Jordan shut the door behind us.
‘Shh!’ said Luke, turning away with the phone to his ear. His hands were shaking. He looked sick.
I shut up and waited.
And waited.
Luke pulled the phone away from his ear. Checked the screen. Put the phone up to his ear again.
‘What’s happening?’ I began. ‘Is it –?’
‘Shh!’ said Jordan, giving me a whack. ‘Just let him do it.’
Luke stood listening to the phone for what felt like forever.
Then a tiny beep sounded from the speaker. Luke pulled the phone away to read the screen again. He closed his eyes, whispered, ‘No, you piece of –’ and hammered the number into the phone again.
Not a good sign.
Luke leant against the wall, shaking worse than ever, barely keeping the phone to his ear. Waiting.
Jordan took a step towards him.
The phone beeped again. Luke stared at it.
Then he slumped down against the wall. The phone dropped from his hand.
Crap.
Jordan sat down next to him and rested a hand on his knee.
Why did she always have to touch him?
‘Luke …’ she tried, but Luke didn’t even seem to notice she was there.
I bent down and picked up the phone. The error message was still lighting up the screen.
Unauthorised number.
I showed the message to Jordan.
‘Should’ve guessed,’ she said softly. She looked almost as gutted as Luke.
Now what?
‘You can fix it,’ said Luke, staring up at me, eyes suddenly snapping back into focus.
‘What?’
Luke pointed at the phone, desperation across his face. ‘You can fix it, right? You know about this stuff. You can take it home and make it work.’
I turned the phone over in my hands. ‘Mate, I don’t –’ I started to say, but then Jordan was looking up at me too. ‘Sure. Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.’
I dropped the phone into my pocket. I think we all knew it was a long shot, but – ‘Peter!’ said Jordan. ‘The contacts!’
‘Huh?’ said Luke.
‘Oh, crap, yeah,’ I said, amazed it had taken us so long to get there. I ripped the phone back out of my pocket and started clicking through menus. Pryor was obviously using this thing to call someone. Her contact list would give us a pretty good idea of who the authorised numbers were.
‘Got it,’ I said, starting down the list. ‘Bruce Calvin … Um, okay, let’s not try calling him … Victoria Galton …’
‘Who?’ said Jordan.
‘She works at Dad’s office,’ I said. ‘She’s like the boss of the whole Shackleton Building. Apart from Shackleton, I mean. Anyway … Louisa –’
I stopped. No way. How was that even possible?
I’d been over to their place about a thousand times. Surely I would have noticed something.
‘Louisa who?’ asked Luke, head snapping up. ‘I think that’s my mum’s boss’s –’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Louisa Hawking. She’s head of the office complex.’
‘Wait – Hawking?’ said Jordan. ‘Cathryn’s mum?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, moving on before either of them had a chance to react. ‘Aaron Ketterley … Robert Montag …’
This was insane. Aaron? The doc? These guys were my neighbours. They were good people. They couldn’t be a part of all this. It didn’t make any sense.
Jordan gasped at Montag’s name. She looked like she’d just been slapped.
‘Mum’s doctor,’ she said. ‘He’s taking care of all the baby stuff. What if –?’
‘He won’t do anything to the baby,’ I said, not knowing if it was true, but trying to be encouraging. ‘They want everyone inside Phoenix alive, right?’
‘We’ve got no idea what they want!’ said Jordan. ‘They could just as easily decide –’
‘Jordan, stop,’ said Luke. ‘We’ll look after your mum – and the baby. We won’t let anything happen to them.’
Jordan gave him a weak smile.
Why? Why believe it from him and not me?
I kept going down the list.
‘Benjamin More … Noah Shackleton. Well, obviously. Arthur van Pelt … He’s in charge of Phoenix Mall –’
Then I realised exactly what we were looking at.
The principal, the security chief, the office manager, the residential liaison, the head doctor, the mall manager, the top guys from Dad’s office …
Everyone in a position of power in Phoenix.
I counted them off in my head. Shackleton plus seven others. Eight if you counted Pryor. The article in Jordan’s Time magazine said that Noah Shackleton had formed the Co-operative with eight other wealthy business associates.
Those associates were all here in Phoenix. Of course they were. Where else would they go when the outside world was about to be obliterated?
This wasn’t just a list of phone contacts. It was a list of the people responsible for everything we’d been through since we got here.
The people responsible for Tabitha.
‘Guys,’ I said, almost dropping the phone, ‘there’s …’
‘What?’ Jordan demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’
My thumb had just grazed one of the buttons. There was another name on the list.
Brian Weir.
Dad.