Cured (20 page)

“
Rise and
shine!” h
e said far too
cheerily.

I grumbled and rolled over, covering my eyes
with my hands. “Too early.”

Ellina was up
too; clearly early mornings were a Prime thing. Felix and I whined
and moaned as the other two forced us up and shoved leftover rabbit
meat in our direction. I shuddered a the thought of eating meat so
early, but Felix cheered up immediately and shovelled both his and
my share of the rabbit into his mouth.

The sun was
still only just perched on the skyline when we started walking.
Ellina and Theo bounded out in front, and Felix and I lagged
behind, making a point of yawning extra loudly. We hiked over the
summit of the mountain at my direction. Aunt Tiana lived a little
way below my house, and a while to the east. When I thought we had
reached the right height, we began to traverse, finding a little
dirt path leading around the mountain and towards Aunt Tiana’s
labs. Although they were closer to the populated area of Olympia
than our drop-off location, the testing grounds were still not
close enough to see my house, or any other houses on the mountain.
Tiana kept her distance from the rest of Olympia in case
experiments went wrong or animals went awry. Even she lived a
little way from her experimental labs in case something went wrong.
But her doe was kept right next to her house, I remembered. When I
was younger, Aunt Tiana had introduced me to the deer, and even let
me sit on its back as it strolled around its paddock. I remembered
how I had tried to feed it grass, and my Aunt had laughed, “No
animal of mine would ever eat grass! They are on a vegetarian
gourmet diet, with no sugar or preservatives, to keep them healthy
and fit.” Instead she fed them grains and legumes, pureed into a
paste that they lapped from dinner plates.

I had felt
sorry for the creatures. My ten year old brains couldn’t imagine
anything worse a life without any sugar. So I used to sneak out of
Aunt Tiana’s house after dinner to take the animals the leftover
dessert, and any sweets that I could find. The doe had loved them,
always nudging my pockets looking for extra hidden
lollies.

I smiled at the memory, before stopping
still.

“Hold on a second.”

Everyon
e turned to me, and I went
on, “This is going to be too easy. The doe is locked up in a
paddock, and it is completely tame. There must be some
catch.”

Theo nodded, “I am sure there will be. But
the sooner we get there the sooner we figure it out.”

“We are here.” I pointed to a horse that
stood grazing a few hundred meters ahead of us.

“
Aren’t
Tiana’s animals meant to be scientific experiments?” asked Ellina,
“I mean, no offense or anything, but that horse looks terribly
ordinary and horse-like.”

“And where is the fencing to keep the animals
contained?” Theo asked.

Felix and I laughed.

“
The animals
are kept in by force fields. That is why we had to stop walking so
far away. You’ve got to watch out for them, they're basically
invisible.” I explained.

“And as for the horse, maybe it hasn’t been
used in an experiment yet.” Felix added.

As though it had heard me, the horse suddenly
disappeared.

“Wha-“ Theo and Ellina’s’ jaws dropped. “Your
Aunt is no scientist, Avery, she is a bloody magician. She makes
animals disappear!” Theo was aghast.

I laughed. “I doubt it has actually gone. I
would imagine she has figured out a way to make animals fur work
like an invisi-suit.”

“What on earth is an invisi-suit?” Asked
Theo.

“
What, you
guys don’t have those in the Fields?” Asked Felix. Upon seeing
their bewildered expressions he continued, “I guess not. They're
suits that make you invisible when you wear them. The Alphas wear
them when they are in the Fields keeping an eye on
Norms.”

“
You mean,
there are Alphas walking amongst the Fields all the time?” Asked
Ellina with a shudder.

“Pretty much. How else would we police the
behaviour of Norms, and punish them promptly for not doing their
work?” Felix nailed the monotone drone that the Officials all spoke
in.

I laughed at his impression but the others
were silent. Ellina shot him a dirty look. “That is an invasion of
privacy.”

Felix threw his hands up in a mock surrender,
“Hey, I didn’t make the rules, and I’ve never even been into the
Fields except for on school Field-trips. Ha-ha FIELD-trips. Get
it?!” He laughed awkwardly, trying to break the tension, and
failed. Ellina turned away from him with a low growl, and murmured
something that sounded very much like a rude name beneath her
breath.

“
Aaaanyway,”
I attempted to move the conversation along, “Shall we find
ourselves a deer?”

Theo nodded
eagerly, starting to move away from the bickering couple. “Yes
let’s go guys, we are wasting time and daylight.”

Ellina remained standing still, her hand on
her hips and her face turned away from Felix, who was trying to
console her by stroking her arm; a gesture that Ellina swatted
away.

I shrugged,
“They’ll catch up when they've made peace.” Then I bent down to
pick up a stick from the hillside.

“What are you doing?” asked Theo.

“
It’s the
easiest way to detect the fences,” I explained, “Unless you want to
just wander into them and see how effective they are?”

“
Please,”
scoffed Theo, “They cant be that bad! Tiana wouldn’t want to hurt
the animals!” He puffed his chest out and strutted forwards. He had
gone a hundred meters when he turned to me with a grin.

“
Maybe I am
too tough to be affected by the-” his sentence abruptly ended when
Theo was thrown off his feet. He sailed through the air and landed
with a thud right next to me. I clapped my hand over my mouth to
stifle my laughter.

Theo groaned and rolled over, clambering back
onto his feet. “Christ that hurt.”

I snorted and the laughter erupted. I noticed
I wasn’t alone, when I herd Felix’s deep chuckle and Ellina’s
giggle beside me.

“Glad to have broken the ice.” Theo grunted.
“So you two lovebirds have made up then?”

Ellina
sniffed, “Let’s get a move on, we are wasting our day.”

Felix gave
Theo and I an exaggerated wink. “Listen to the woman,” he said,
sucking up to her, “Everyone should start gathering sticks to test
for force fields.”

We spent the next few hours tossing sticks
into the air to figure out where the fencing was, and uncovering
the pathways between paddocks. We had passed a variety of bizarre
animal experiments when I finally spotted the unremarkable doe that
my Aunt loved so dearly. It stood, oblivious to our existence,
facing the opposite direction. We slowly made our way between
paddocks until we reached the deer. It still didn’t look at us.

“How do we break through the force field?”
Theo asked.

“
You cant,” I
replied. “That is the point. You’ve got to turn them off at the
power board.”

“And where is that?” queried Ellina.

I moved
towards my Aunt’s house, recalling how I had seen her switch the
fences off countless times at the main power board. She was a
humble woman compared to my mother, and was completely satisfied
with living in a small white cottage. The house was perfectly kept,
surrounded by a pristine garden filled with daisies that she had
engineered to grow to the size of sunflowers. I tiptoed over the
cobblestones that marked out a pathway through the massive flowers,
and found the power board in the very same spot it had always been.
I waved at the others and shot them a thumbs-up. My Aunt had even
marked the buttons on the board, the second button being labelled
“fencing”. I pressed it, trying not to overthink the possible
consequences from removing the only walls that contained my Aunt’s
beasts without her around to keep them under control.

“Have you done it yet?” I heard Felix’s loud
whisper.

I dashed back through the garden. Nothing had
changed. The animals remained in their allotted spaces, and the
deer was still.

“
It can’t be
this easy…” I whispered.

Felix shrugged. “Who cares? I am not
complaining just because one of these tasks happens to be less life
threatening that the others.”

“I guess that it is easy for us because you
guys know Olympia so well…” Ellina said. “I mean, if we didn’t have
you two guiding us we would have had no idea how to get here, or
how to pass the force fields and find the power board.”

I shook my head. “They know that Tiana is
like an aunt to me. They wouldn’t have given me such an unfair
advantage.”

Theo had
started to move towards the deer, his arm outstretched. “Here, you
pretty thing, you.” He was cooing. We all stood in silence,
watching his approach. By the time he was an arms length away from
the deer, which remained stock still, we were all grinning like
maniacs. It was actually going to be as easy as lassoing the
doe!

Slowly, Theo
reached out, inching his hand closer and closer to the deer’s neck.
Finally he let his fingertips brush the deer’s fur. The animal
twisted its neck to face him; its usually yellow eyes were
bloodshot and wide as teacups. Theo instantly dropped his hand and
inhaled sharply.

At the same time, I felt a burst of warm air
brush by my cheek. I turned, expecting to see Felix over my
shoulder breathing in my ear. Instead, right beside me, stood the
horse from earlier. It breathed again, sending another surge of air
gushing into my face. I let out a tiny squeak. The others turned
around too. We were surrounded. Every single animal we had passed
by was encircling us, blocking any chance of escape.

“Well guys, there is definitely a catch.”
Felix’s voice wavered as he eyed up the human sized rabbit in front
of him, whose front paws were thumping at the ground like a bull
ready to charge. The deer had loped lazily away from Theo, and
slipped between a goat whose sharpened horns stretched straight out
in front of him like javelins, and a snake, which had eight sets of
legs, making the serpent the height of a dog. We were still inside
the circle, with no way out.

“Ellina and I will fight.” Theo instructed,
though his voice had less authority than normal. “You two try come
up with a plan.”

“
Maybe the
deer will recognize me from when I was younger?’ I suggested. Felix
didn’t have a better idea, so I moved towards the circle of
animals, my eyes locked on the doe’s. As I neared the animal
barrier, the serpent coiled its neck back dangerously and the goat
bowed his head, horns pointing straight at me. I held my hand out,
offering it to the deer, but the animal did not move. I took
another step, and the eyes of every animal followed me. I moved
into the gap between the snake and the goat, and suddenly the goat
turned, its horns catching the fabric of my top, lifting me, and
hurling me through the air. I flew for a few seconds before landing
hard on the ground. I gasped for breath, winded, and the rest of
the animals began to close in.

Ellina and Theo sprung into action, moving
swiftly, each taking on two animals at a time. I scrambled to my
feet as Theo fought the snake and a spider twice the size of him.
He jabbed the snake between the eyes causing the animal to recoil
whilst he attempted to snap one of the spider’s legs.

Meanwhile, Ellina was throwing punches
between the goat and an eagle that was swooping towards me, its
beak sharpened to a swordfish-like spike. She was strong, but even
between the two of them, they would never manage to take out all of
the animals. There must have been between forty and fifty mutated
creatures, and every one of them was aiming to kill.

Felix must have had the same thought, because
he grabbed my hand and spun me towards him, “We’ve gotta think of a
plan Ave, or we’re toast.”

“Any ideas?” I asked him.

“
Go for the
deer,” h
e instructed. “By the way it
looked at you, I think it remembers.”

“
That didn’t
work out so well last time...”

“I will act as a distraction,” he said, “you
head straight for the deer. I don’t think we have any other
option.”

I nodded and
spotted my target. Felix approached an oversized centipede and
prodded its rump. It turned towards him, red eyes glaring. Felix
gulped and then flung his arms in the air, waving them wildly and
dancing like a crazy person. The animals all turned to stare at
him, perplexed. I took the chance and started moving towards the
doe, slowly and smoothly, trying to avoid any attention. I was a
meter away from the creature when it lifted its nose into the air,
sniffing for something. It turned to me and took a step forward. I
stepped towards it again and it matched me, once again moving
closer. It sniffed again. Prodding my torso with its snout. Then it
butted its head into me, hard. I stumbled back with the weight of
the butt, my knees shaking. I knew the deer could take me down very
easily. It was my Aunt’s first project, and she had proudly
explained how she had used the essence of a rhinoceros to enhance
the deer’s strength. I held my hand out flat, as I had when I was
young. The deer ignored the peace offering and instead butted into
my stomach again. I grunted and doubled over, winded. But I was not
ready to give up; I knew that it recognized me. Tentatively, I
reached a hand out and scratched the deer behind its ear, as my
Aunt used to do. It paused, and nuzzled into my hand. I stopped
scratching, and threw my arms over the other side of the deer,
preparing to mount it. This time it butted into my hip so hard that
I was lifted off my feet. I crashed to the ground again and the
deer loomed over me. I looked around for help, but Ellina was still
fighting the eagle, and Theo was surrounded by three giant hamsters
whose front teeth had been stretched to the size of elephant tusks.
I couldn’t see Felix but guessed the he was in the midst of the
enormous huddle of creatures a few meters away. I curled into the
fetal position, hoping the deer might think I was dead and leave me
alone. It bowed its head to me, sniffing my body. I stayed still,
eyes squeezed shut. The deer’s nose nudged my hip. I didn’t move.
It nudged me again and again. I wondered if it was playing with its
dinner. But it kept nudging, never once baring its teeth. Surely if
it wanted to eat me, it would’ve done so by now.