Leopard Dreaming (2 page)

‘Is that code for drugs?’

‘From Declan?’ She laughed. ‘No, Lady. It’s code for loving. Chorus girls like me are a dime a dozen … or do you need a translation into Braille, maybe?’

Mira shrugged in the direction of the alley. ‘Can you see that man coming?’

‘You mean that hot guy in the black jeans and jacket?’

‘Does he look happy?’

‘Ah, no. Actually, he looks set to kill somebody.’

‘And do you really want to be here arguing with me when he gets here?’

‘Message received.’ She scampered away so fast Mira barely had time to notice which pier she ran along. Sounded like the longest, which serviced only one yacht at the deepest end of the marina. The sleekest, most opulent cruiser she’d ever seen in her life. The
Liquid Limo.
It looked like a pale whale docked with its mouth open, and dark windows down its flank like gills for a fish. One huge circular window also gave the impression of an eye watching her.

As Lockman neared, Mira braced herself, already knowing that she’d let him down by straying too far out into the open.

‘Wait,’ she said, raising a finger. ‘I can explain.’

Lockman swung around the tail of the Gallardo, catching Mira around the waist and pinning her against the driver’s door, as if shielding her from onlookers.

She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him radiating an energy that made her far too aware of how formidable he could be with an enemy. Yet for her he remained gentle, and as respectful of her personal space as he could afford to be. He touched her no more than necessary, and planted his hands on the roof of the car, either side of her bare shoulders. His face plunged nearer to hers, and she felt his warm breath on her ear.

‘What’s the problem?’ he whispered. ‘Was she bothering you?’

‘What? No! It wasn’t like that.’

‘I heard arguing.’

Mira shrugged. ‘She’s just a girl who lost a guitar pick.’

‘And you had to help her find it
now
?’

‘I could spare a few seconds.’

‘Out here? With a geosynchronous surveillance satellite stationed due north over the air base?’

‘I kept my face down. The mist feels thick enough to shield us from facial recognition programs for at least another hour or so anyway.’

‘That’s exactly my point, Mira. We have only a set window of opportunity to pick up the colonel’s trail and set after him. If he still has contacts in the military, he could hook in and be watching us come for him.’

‘Don’t lecture me. I had to make sure she wasn’t a threat first.’

‘
You
did? Fine. Then what’s my job?’

‘You were busy.’

‘Mira, please. How can I keep you safe if you won’t trust me to handle my end?’

‘Safe?’ She laughed. ‘I can’t be safe until my friends are. You’ve experienced the colonel’s hospitality first-
hand, and you’ve seen what he did to Ben. So you tell me. He’s the best friend I ever had, and now he’s stuck in a wheelchair for the next eight weeks, not to mention therapy until he can think my name without throwing up on himself. So how much more inventive do you think Colonel Kitching will be with Matron Maddy? She’s even more protective of me than Ben is. And her body’s more fragile.’

‘Running away won’t help her, Mirage.’

‘Hey, I didn’t run. I’m right here,
Lieutenant
.’

‘Don’t call me that when you’re mad at me. I’ve cut my ties to the military too.’

‘Then don’t call me
Mirage
. My mother only named me after her visions as a sick joke, and you never would have known that name in the first place if you hadn’t been spying on me.’

‘It’s not like I had a choice.’

‘And I did? We’re stuck with each other for now, but if we’re going to work together you need to remember I’ve been locked up for ten years. I hate to admit that, but sometimes the pressure gets a little claustrophobic out here and I just need some space occasionally.’

‘I give you as much space as I can.’

Using her smallest finger, she pushed him back a little. ‘You talk about me not trusting you, but what about
you
trusting
me
? Did you honestly think I wouldn’t be back in time when you needed me? This hunt for Maddy was my idea. And I’m barely fifty steps from where I’m supposed to be anyhow. What’s the big deal?’

‘Oh, Mira.’ His tone softened without sounding too frustrated. ‘You’re so used to fighting the world, you’re fighting me without even realising it.’

Mira chewed on her lip, slugged by an ugly truth that she hated about herself. After ten years of fighting for her freedom, and still struggling to regain the peaceful hermit life she’d once lived with her parents,
she’d inadvertently brought harm to everyone she’d ever known, and lost sight of what she really wanted in life. Her parents were both dead by their own hands and her childhood home had been bulldozed. So she had no way back and no clear way forward, either. All she had was the mission to rescue Maddy, and then nothing. No plans for the future, aside from a campsite somewhere in a nameless rainforest.

‘All I did was try to help someone other than myself for a few seconds.’ She ducked under his arm and headed back to the alley. ‘It’s not like I was wasting time. If anything, I was making the most of it until you gave the all clear.’

‘Fine,’ he said, keeping pace with her. ‘I can appreciate that, but with your track record, everyone you meet ends up fighting for their life, while everything you do spins around to bite you.’

She clenched her fists, furious. ‘Are you telling me I can’t get out and meet new people now?’

‘Heaven forbid. Your social guidance is Ben’s department anyway. I’m only suggesting, as your security adviser, that until this is over, it might be easier on everyone if you hold off on making new friends.’

Mira opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t. Coincidence or not, everyone she’d ever met had been attacked or hospitalised within a week. ‘Message received,’ she said, adopting a line from Maybelline. She sighed and tried to find a positive note to cling to. ‘Considering my track record, I suppose she just dodged a bullet.’

Lockman chuckled. ‘Considering your track record, you should send her a get well card anyway. Post it express, and hope it gets there in time.’

A bug flew into Mira’s eye, startling her as it slipped in and out behind her glasses.

‘Brilliant,’ she muttered and tried to rub out the pain without tripping over her own invisible feet. ‘Not enough stress in my life already.’

Stopping at the mouth of the alley and tugging off her shades, she felt a sting and a gritty burning sensation inside her left eyelid. Clamping her eyes shut made it feel even worse, and without the time-filtering effects of her shades, history swept back over a hundred years to the only wavelengths she could see with her naked eyes. Yester-century blue. Hazier too, with blue trees and blue sails in the harbour, where clipper ships and steamers replaced the modern boats at the marina.

Glancing down, she startled at the sight of water flowing beneath her in the wider and wilder mouth of the estuary. Her feet hovered metres above it!

She lost balance. In reflex, she grabbed for the branch of a nearby mangrove tree — not there any more — and she fell.

Lockman caught her against his chest. ‘Let me guess. We’re standing on landfill.’

‘Stupid developers.’ She struggled with her eyelid, making it worse.

‘I’ve got you. Hold still.’ He steadied her by the shoulder with one hand, and peeled open her left eye a little wider with the other.

‘Ow, ow, ow, ow!’ she complained as he ran his thumb along the lower inside edges of her eyes. ‘Hey, no mining! They only
look
like diamonds.’

‘Worth seeing up close, but your miner today was a kamikaze. She’s left a wing behind as a souvenir.’

‘What from, an emu?’

‘Mosquito.’

Tears welled before he released her eyelids, and the salt water refracted light from another time. Pain shot to agony as the sharper frequency pierced her lenses like white-hot lasers and burned through the delicate
lacy thresholds from past into future. For a single heartbeat as she swept through the present, she saw Lockman materialise from the mists of time in full colour. His face so near to hers, and so full of concern.

If he hadn’t been holding her eye open, she’d have missed him entirely. Such a fractional moment. She locked gazes with him briefly — until her tears thickened too much and golden light outshone all others. Time swept her forward another hundred years, away from him.

‘Hey, what’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Your eyes, they’re …’

Lockman disappeared, replaced by a row of three hovercraft, all racing in to land; and one of them headed straight for her. More like a squashed Volkswagen without wheels; top half painted in racing patterns, while the undercarriage remained clear for visibility. Piloted by a young boy, barely four years old; he caused Mira to duck tighter against Lockman in reflex to avoid him.

‘Don’t!’ she shouted at the boy.

‘Don’t what?’ Lockman released her instantly.

She realised what she’d done and shoved away from him, hating how her body could react like that to visions, even when she knew none of those threats were real yet, and wouldn’t be until long after she died of old age.

‘I wasn’t talking to you.’ She swiped the tears away fiercely, causing time to sweep back again. That rollercoaster of pain engulfed her, but she clamped her eyes shut before the climax and missed the confusion of images with their burning bright light and jolts of raw agony. She missed glimpsing Lockman again too, but that threshold from past to future and back again had never been a fun ride.

‘Are you okay?’ He pulled her closer for another inspection.

She blocked his hand before he could peel open her eyelids one more time.

‘I’m fine. It just happens sometimes.’ She tried to turn away, but he’d have none of it, leading her aside instead and shielding her inside the mouth of the alley to put her out of sight of any yachtsmen.

‘Don’t tell me you’re fine. What just happened?’

‘My eyes watered. What did it look like?’

‘Pain. And for a second there, I thought …’

‘You thought?’

‘I thought you saw me. I could have sworn it.’

Mira shrugged. ‘I see through you all the time.’

‘This was different and you know it. You saw me. I saw your pupils dilate and lock on me. Even if it was only for an instant.’

‘So what if I did? I can’t control it. And it hurts far too much to endure for long anyway.’

‘But if it’s possible, then there’s hope that maybe …’

Mira shook her head furiously. ‘I don’t need a doctor. I need a bodyguard. May I have my glasses back now, please? I need to get focused.’

He cleaned them first, and his silence warned her that he’d be watching her more closely; precisely the
last
thing she wanted.

Donning her shades, she wished they could hide her whole body from him. ‘So what day am I looking for?’

‘Aim for the day before yesterday. Early dawn. Maybe an hour or so before General Garland called us to warn about the matron’s last text for help from her mobile phone.’

‘General Garland?’ Mira huffed. ‘Now there’s another name I’d rather never hear again. You’ve had as much luck with commanding officers as I did with psychologists.’

‘She promised she’d leave you alone so long as you stay out of enemy hands.’

‘Yeah, right. She classified me as a national secret. And how’s she going to know if I’m out of enemy hands, unless she’s watching me as closely as she ever did?’

‘I must admit, I’ve been thinking the same thing. She told me the last known coordinates for the matron’s phone, and then warned us to stay away. That’s like hanging out a carrot with a sign for rabbits to take a hike. So either she’s using you again, or she lied and misdirected us here to keep you out of harm’s way while she closes the net on Kitching somewhere else.’

Mira laughed. ‘I’d pay for box seats to that. He’s been giving her the slip for years.’ She reached for the nearest wall to brace herself. ‘I’ll start with yesterday and scan backwards.’ Not that she had much choice. Without any ghostly clocks, calendars or newspapers within sight, she couldn’t skip any shades of violet or purple without the risk of missing the day that she hoped to find Kitching or Matron Maddy passing through the alley. ‘These controls are too sensitive. If I’m not methodical, I could skip back five days instead of two and not know it. The shades can seem that close in this light.’

‘Whatever it takes. I’ve got your back.’

As she adjusted the controls and scrolled time backwards a day or so through all the wavelength layers, the bare skin of her shoulder found the cool sandstone building.

Aligned precisely with its ghostly image, the past overlaid in time with the present, making the sandstone blocks feel far more real than they appeared. Less blurry than further back in time too, thanks to gravity, which seemed to hold the slower and weightier particles of light in orbit forever, while Mother Earth continued to wind time around the sun and universe. Mira didn’t need to understand the science of it any more. She only needed to keep reminding herself that
the yester-world she could see wasn’t the real world she could feel, hear and otherwise perceive.

Yesterday’s silence seemed all the more surreal as the future wakened slowly around her. The alley appeared empty and lifeless, while an alarm buzzed noisily in an apartment above her. Probably rang yesterday too, but she could only see the past, not hear it.

Static buzzed too, and a male voice swore at his radio. No reception, apparently.

Pans clanked against the other side of the wall, making her jump.

‘Chef’s apprentice,’ Lockman said. A familiar click reminded Mira that he could see through most walls using sound waves and thermal sensors akin to radar imaging. ‘He’s preparing to bake. That should keep him busy for a while.’

Mira stayed on edge anyway. Since she’d left Serenity, most loud bangs had been accompanied by bullets flying in her direction.