Andrea Höst - And All the Stars

Standing wasn’t much of a problem with so many hands ready to help, though Madeleine was feeling far too vague and floaty to navigate herself to the back seat of the Volkswagen, and yet found herself there, Emily on one side and Fisher on the other. As Gav was cheerfully exchanging names with Emily, Madeleine remembered the squares of fudge Noi had given her before they set out, tucked into the front pocket of her backpack. A backpack now sitting on Fisher’s lap.

Painful heat washed through her as she stared at the overstuffed bag. He couldn’t possibly know, had no reason to open it, but–

Fisher frowned. "What is it? Are you going to be sick?"

Madeleine looked away, head spinning. "Where’s Noi?"

"Ferrying the court jester," Nash said, nodding ahead just as Noi’s moped cut in front of them, Pan balanced precariously backward, indulging his inner hoon by holding arms and legs out at the same time. But it was Nash’s expression which caught Madeleine’s attention. Fond, indulgent. Enough to make Madeleine wonder if it was not Pan’s age which would get in Noi’s way.

Trying not to picture the contents of the bag spilling everywhere, Madeleine turned resolutely to the girl on her right. Tall, fine-boned and delicately pretty, with the kind of silken, straight hair which Madeleine sighed over on the days when her own was determined to imitate steel wool.

"Emily? Sorry, didn’t mean to be so…over the top."

The girl ducked her head, colour flooding through porcelain skin, but then lifted her eyes and said fiercely. "I’m glad you did. They were such awful people, pretending they wanted to help. I couldn’t find a way to leave without them getting angry."

"What more can we do to get the word out, Fish?" asked Gavin as he followed Noi onto the private road along the eastern side of Finger Wharf. "People are checking on each other, grouping up, but for kids like Emily here there’s too big a chance they’ll walk right into the wrong person. The site messages, Twitter, it’s not enough."

"The Safe Zone model’s gaining momentum," Fisher replied. "Melbourne Trish got through to the ABC, and once they start broadcasting links we’ll catch the majority." He saw Madeleine’s confused expression. "A sister site of BlueGreen , working a model which came out of Toronto. Establish safe zones, just as we have with Rushies. Remove corpses, manage food, identify survivors with expertise, like doctors, electricians, and then gradually clear outwards from your central point. We’re looking at seventy to ninety per cent mortality in high exposure areas, while the fringe areas are full of people trapped in their houses. Even in cities which have had rain, like Sydney, they’d be risking everything to go outside. Once the Blues and Greens have established some organisation, we can look at trying to help the uninfected in the dust zones. Not to mention working on some kind of inoculation. There’s Blue groups in Berkeley, Beijing and London who are the primary focus for that research, and we’re feeding them as much information as we can."

His glance at Madeleine clearly put her in the category of information to be gathered, but questions were forestalled as they pulled up near the apartment elevator. Madeleine was by now piercingly hungry, but all her attention was focused on retrieving her backpack from Fisher, which she managed to do with minimum fuss as they waited for the lift, drawing a startled look and stifled cough of laughter from Noi.

"So are we all capable of trash compacting cars if we put our minds to it?" Pan asked, as they travelled upward. "I mean, I know I’m not the only one who’s been playing with recreating the surge. I’ve felt tired afterwards, but haven’t collapsed. Definitely haven’t had any couldn’t move moments."

"Do you get pins and needles after?" Madeleine asked, better able to engage with the situation now that her backpack was safely in her arms, and Fisher was carrying innocuous bags of clothing.

"Nope." Pan glanced around, but everyone shook their head.

"I haven’t even tried," Noi said, unlocking Tyler’s apartment with the master key.

"Do you react like that every time?" Fisher deposited the bags he was carrying by the couch, started to sit down, then said sharply: "Unmute that TV."

The television, which had been busily telling the world’s story to an empty room, currently displayed an unsteady image of two men walking toward a Spire.

"What are they – is that a bazooka?" Gavin asked.

The pair had stopped, one man moving back to whoever was filming while the other dropped to one knee and lifted the bazooka to his shoulder. Noi found the remote in time to give them sound as the man fired, a plume of white followed swiftly by a sunburst of orange.

"That was perhaps not an entirely pointless exercise," Nash said, as the fiery bloom died to a drift of smoke, revealing a completely undisturbed Spire. "It gives us a gauge for what will not penetrate it, at least."

"Aliens always have impenetrable force fields," Pan said. "Must be some kind of industrial law. No invasions of Earth until force field technology achieved."

"You still think it’s an alien invasion?" Noi asked, bringing water and a plate of sweets over to Madeleine, who gratefully tucked herself into one corner of the couch and stuffed her face.

"I sure don’t think it’s the judgment of God. Did you hear that dipweed calling himself Pope? The one in Vienna, I mean, not the one in Florence."

"No religion I’ve ever heard of has mentioned giant starry pointy things," Gavin said. He glanced at Nash, who looked amused.

"Technically, there is no reason why Shiva or Kali could not do such a thing. Why should any god tread old ground?"

"Divine retribution via aliens then," Pan said. "Still aliens.

"No, I don’t mean about it being aliens," Noi said, offering Emily a chair and pointing people toward the trays of sweets in the kitchen as she muted the television again. "The secret government conspiracy idea never seemed likely, which does leave gods or aliens. It’s the invasion part. If they’re invading, where the hell are they?"

"Laying their plans? Waiting for more people to die so it’s safe to come out?"

"Or just watching." Gavin shrugged at Noi. "There’s the aliens doing experiments theory. Think The Island of Doctor Moreau , except we’re the animals being made into people . I think there’s even a religion which already believed that – that humans were uplifted by aliens. So all this, the whole horrible thing, has been to make Greens and Blues, to create the next evolutionary step of the human race."

"A new world, a Blue world," Madeleine murmured, and felt sick.

"I agree with Fish that we should not rush to judgment," Nash said, paused, then repeated: "Fish?"

Fisher, who had been keeping a watchful, worried eye on the television, looked up, then let out his breath. "Sorry. I’ve been trying to find a way to ask Madeleine to take off her clothes. Everything I can think to say sounds impossibly wrong." One corner of his mouth twitched at their various reactions, then he added to Madeleine: "You’re very blue, aren’t you?"

"Yeah." Madeleine couldn’t stop the rush of heat to her face, and wondered what the patch around her eye looked like when she blushed. "Just a minute – I actually anticipated that particular request."

"Oh, man, everything I can think to say right now sounds impossibly wrong as well," Pan said as she stood up, then added on a more serious note: "You want us to kick off, Maddie? Give you less of a crowd."

"It’s okay." She collected the bags of looted clothing and, most importantly, the backpack of looted other things, and headed into Tyler’s walk-in wardrobe.