The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League (19 page)

Altogether she had produced a collection of thirty paintings and drawings for her exhibition entitled ‘Hiding’.

She had never done so many works in such a short period of time before, and she put it down to this new sense of foreboding.

Thinking about the feeling gave her goose bumps, so she decided to snap out of it and concentrate on having a good time.

It was her day.

She looked at her reflection in the glass covering a painting, titled ‘Contact’.

She looked good tonight, her long blonde hair tied back in a messy bun, her long black silk gloves covered her hands and she sported one of her better make up attempts. The dress cost three hundred on Chapel Street.

Yep
, she thought, as she looked at her reflection,
quite tidy indeed.

“You should go lighter darling!
Bright
colours. Summer’s nearly here, and by the time the weather gets hot, your summer collection will be ready to blow us away!”

“Geez, Matilda! I’m an artist. I need to be inspired. I can’t just turn creativity on and off!” Cynthia blurted with a laugh.

She thought she better be civil and charming, or every exhibition in Melbourne would be filled with gossip about how rude she was.

“Well Paul Blue said that he
can
do that. Like a light switch he said. Switch on the creative juices or put a stopper in them till later.” Matilda nodded matter of factly.

“Matilda,” Cynthia said shaking her head, “that is from a guy who only paints in blue, and changed his name to Blue on purpose. I don’t want to be nasty about the guy, but he’s a show pony. The big pseudo-intellectual glasses and the bright pink shirts; it’s a gimmick, and it’s getting old.” She felt the heat in her cheeks. She needed to calm down. “Julie and Martin both went to Art School with the guy, he can’t draw and he used to claim works done by his kids as his own.”

“Really?” Matilda’s eyes were glowing with interest.

“Yeah, that thing about naïvety, children’s art and the beauty of the unbiased heart crap? He rode that all the way to town. The idiots at Artsake Magazine lapped up his drivel like kittens with milk.” Cynthia took another sip of champagne and smiled smugly with one hand on her hip.

“My goodness! You don’t say?” Somewhere inside Matilda a tiny secretary was scribbling down gossip notes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a bitch, but he’s just one of those artists that gets my goat, ya know?” Cynthia shrugged.

“Oh no! It’s good to know these things. I might boycott his next exhibition!” Matilda was glowing. She loved the attention.

“Don’t get crazy,” Cynthia finished, with an undetected note of sarcasm.

“I simply must go and pick Julie’s brain about that man!” Matilda grinned. “What a scandal! I’ll get another wine first. Love the work dear!” Matilda scurried off into the crowd to annoy someone else, giving Cynthia some peace.

It was time to mingle.

She saw her friend Carlton, and nudged her way through the crowd to speak to him. He was a tall man with a ponytail and small ever-present sunglasses.

Before she reached him Cynthia felt a hand on her shoulder.

She pulled away roughly, uncomfortable with people touching her.

“Excuse me!” she said brashly.

“No, excuse me, ma’am.” It was a stocky, bald American man in his fifties. “I don’t know if you can help me,” he chuckled, “but I’m looking for a very talented young artist named Cynthia Abell.”

“You know that’s me, right? My picture is on the flyer.” Cynthia flashed a brief smile.

“Yeah, I did, but it’s nice, you know, when people are honest about who the are.” The bald man was smiling confidently, waiting for some kind of witty reply.

A prickling sensation crept over her skin.

Something was not quite right here.

“Why are you looking for me?” Cynthia managed to say with some poise, sipping at her champagne.

“You see, Miss Abell… You are a Miss or am I wrong?” He grinned showing off perfect white teeth.

“No.” Cynthia swallowed a quick sip. “You are correct.”

The bald man looked at the taller man who stood at his side then back to Cynthia. “Miss Abell, we are representatives from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we’d like to interview you on their behalf and talk about acquiring some of your…work,” he said with an animated expression.

Cynthia’s stomach went cold.

She could almost taste their lies.

Who are they?

“I’m not convinced… I mean, when would The Metropolitan Museum of Art have seen any of my work? I don’t upload anything online…”

“We’ve been scouting Australian galleries, Miss Abell.” The bald man said.

“I see.” Cynthia looked about the room.

Something wasn’t right. No one else seemed to even notice her, or the bald man and the two men that stood behind him.

She could see Carlton was laughing with a small group of university students not far away; she needed to get his attention.

“This one here…” the bald man pointed to one of her bigger pieces that portrayed a crying woman sitting in a field of bones. It was called ‘Deadfall’. “…I love this. It says so much, you know? And the title! Wow!”

Cynthia could see through the man’s false front. He knew who she was in her other life.

She was Deadfall.

Did he know?

Her hand tightened around the stem of her wine glass, her knuckles white.

PHC. It had to be.

Her skin burned and tingled with panic.

“I’ll have to go and get my manager,” Cynthia said, stepping back into a woman behind her, “
she
does all of this international, exhibition stuff. Just give me a moment.” Cynthia tried to slip into the crowd, using a couple of human shields.

“Is it true that you can take a person’s life just by touching them Deadfall?”

Cynthia’s stomach was in her throat.

She remembered days when she was part of The League, when one of the boys or Kiranda had her back.

This time she was alone.

She had no choice. It was time to run.

She smiled at the bald man then threw her glass of champagne to the floor making a loud smash that echoed enough to get the attention of everyone nearby. As people pressed in to help her she slipped further into the crowd. The American stood smiling in the crowd.

Cynthia noticed how calm he was as she slipped out the door and into the vaulted space of the 101 Building.

She kicked off her heels and ran as fast as she could on the polished wooden floor.

Damn,
she thought as her stockings slipped awkwardly.

The corridor was long and smooth; a mixture of highly polished wood and polished concrete.

Then down she went. Her right elbow hurt, her head hurt and her left hand, and worst of all her stupid knees.

Cynthia tore at the stockings, ripping them off her feet. Her eyes darting around and her ears listening for any sound of pursuit. She could hear nothing, but the cacophony of the party where she had come from and the throb of her own heartbeat.

She couldn’t stop.

She picked herself back up and continued to run. Her bare feet getting far better purchase on the polished floor.

She was nearly at the big glass door when she saw three tidy looking men in suits pretending to look busy in the foyer.

They had to be PHC, but how had they tracked her there?

Why did they find her now?

She hadn’t used her ability in so long, except to put that poor magpie out of its misery, but a car had hit it, and how would they even know?

“
Carpark
.” She muttered to herself.

The downstairs carpark would offer her an alternate way out, or at least better place to hide.

Rather than taking the elevator straight down, Cynthia chose the less conspicuous stairwell. It smelt a little of urine which was unexpected for such a well-respected building. Maybe it was too far to a toilet for the car park security guards.

She swiftly padded down the stairs to the bottom door and took a deep breath before pushing it open quickly and hard, in case there was a…

Bang!

The car park security guard on the other side of the door collapsed to the concrete clutching his face before passing out.

Well he wasn’t PHC, which is positive.

She had to get out.

Cynthia could see the light from the car park entrance was at the other side. She also saw a pair of black vans parked in the middle of the lanes that divided the cars. Around them were three men and a woman, all dressed in khaki uniforms. They were carrying some kind of gun she didn’t recognize.

The badges on the uniforms, however, she did recognize: the letters DPHR.

The Department of Post-Human Relations.

Her knees were weak and she knew she only had one chance.

The PHC had found her.

She turned on the spot to run back to the stairwell, but the grinning face of the bald American man stopped her.

“There you are, Miss Abell.”

Cynthia moaned as she came back to consciousness.

Then she felt the grating sting.

She was being dragged across the concrete of the underground car park to the back of one of the black vans.

Heavy men’s hands gripped her under the arms, their gloved fingers pressing roughly into soft skin.

Cynthia hissed as she became aware of her aching knees grazing the concrete and the dull throb from a blow to the back of the head.

Her stomach turned for a moment and her vision swam.

“I bet ya going out of your damn mind thinkin,
how did the bastards find me?
” The arrogant bald man gestured theatrically. “Well, Miss Abell, I’m gonna show ya, because I’m a nice guy and I’m pretty damn proud of it myself.”

The bald man pulled the door open on the back of the van, revealing a big glass box containing a girl. Beside her was a series of computer monitors bolted to the wall of the van.

Cynthia was confused, and it took a second for her blurring vision to focus properly on the scene before her.

The leads and cables from the monitors were threaded through plugged holes on the side of the glass box, then into the skin of the girl inside. They were into her half shaved head, into her arms and legs and spine, and she hung inside the box from restraints that didn’t let her move, except her head which rolled around in a drug addled stupor.

Cynthia tried to free herself from the gloved hands that gripped her tightly.

She felt the need to help the poor girl, but she was in no position to do anything. She couldn’t even help herself.

“Ya see, Miss Abell, she’s great in’t she?” The American man pointed. “It’s our prototype ya see?”

Cynthia looked blankly at the man and back at the poor Asian girl in the box.

“You can’t work out all that gibberish on them there screens?”

Cynthia shook her head, not really wanting to know.

“Oh, man, are you in for a treat. Let me explain. This is how we can track down any o’ your folk anywhere, anytime.” He held out his arms as if he were accepting applause. “You see? She’s like you, ya see? ‘cept her special thing is that she can feel your kind when y’all are close.” The bald man laughed. “And when I say close,” He slapped the side of the van appreciatively, “this little baby found you from two blocks away. She’s a little gold detector, Miss Abell, and she’s gonna make me a very rich man.”

“What do you want with me?” she demanded, feeling the pressure of a growing headache, probably from the hit to the head.

“Well you are just another piece in the puzzle aren’t you?” He crossed his arms.

“What puzzle? Who are you?”

“Name’s Evan Boothe, Miss Abell, and the puzzle, is that gang I hear so much about. The League, my bosses say. Had gangs like it back in the States. They think they are gonna solve the world’s problems. It never works out like in the comic books. People don’t trust anyone different, ya know?” Evan smiled and slammed the door of the van, hiding the poor suffering girl inside.

“Boys!” He called.

Cynthia heard a soldier open the back of the second van behind her. The two men holding her arms dragged her back across the concrete towards it. “Don’t worry, Miss Abell. We’ve a fancy little box just for you as well.” He finished with another laugh, and straightened his tie before getting into the first van’s passenger seat.

Cynthia tried desperately to struggle from the grip of the two burly men, but they easily overpowered her and pushed her into a glass cube. The door of the box snapped shut and the big man grinned as he fixed some sort of latch.

“Won’t be hurtin’ nobody now, will ya, Miss Deadfall?” He chuckled a little as he climbed up into the back of the van followed by two other soldiers. Then the door was slammed and the space turned dark.

Cynthia gritted her teeth with rage, at herself for being so careless and at the arrogant hick that had locked her up.

She felt her skin burning, glowing slightly in the dark. She wished more than anything that she had wrapped her bare hands around that man’s throat and stolen his life from him a little bit at a time.

She screamed into the emptiness.

No one escaped from the PHC to be able to talk about it.

She ran her super-sensitive fingers over the inside surface of her glass cage. There had to be a weakness. There had to be.

And when she found it she would kill them all.

ATHAN SHOOK HIS head.

They were supposed to meet Brad’s contact at the front a dingy little bar in the centre of the city.

It was one of those concealed bars, where you had to be told about it to know about it.

A word of mouth meeting place.

Brad had told Athan that it had been a long time since he had been in Melbourne, despite the fact that he knew every change that the city had undergone in the last few years, he still felt out of place. They both felt a presence, a kind of foreboding that crawled over skin like a thousand little spiders.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Athan said looking at the way the streetlights made glittering patterns on the wet asphalt. “Are you sure this guy got the message?”

Brad nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ve kept tabs on him for a while, and we’ve communicated through safe means.”