Underground (17 page)

She'd been threatening to melt down like this for days. I'd seen it coming. But that didn't make it any less miserable to watch. Any less terrifying. If Jordan lost her family, it would destroy her. And if that happened, it was all over. There was no way I could do this without her.

‘We should head up while it's still dark,' I said, caving in to the inevitable. ‘First thing in the morning, before …'

Jordan pulled away from me. She gazed at my face with an expression I couldn't read, and then – She wrapped a hand around my head and pulled me in and kissed me.

She was
right there
and I could see the wet streaks on her face and feel the pressure of her mouth and the brush of her tongue, and then she was breaking away again, pulling back, still face to face but not quite looking at me.

We stood there, neither of us speaking, and a few seconds later there was the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

We moved apart awkwardly just as Dad poked his head in through door, beaming. His smile faltered as he saw Jordan wiping her eyes. ‘Everything okay in here?'

‘Yeah,' she sniffed. ‘What's up?'

‘The surveillance cameras,' said Dad. ‘Soren's got them working again.'

I glanced back at him, not really hearing, brain frozen at thirty seconds ago, replaying the moment on a loop. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

‘C'mon,' said Jordan, jolting me back to reality, dragging me across to the surveillance room.

Most of the screens were still flashing error messages, but Kara and Soren were stooped over an image of the street outside Phoenix Mall.

‘There are over three hundred angles on the outside,' Soren was telling her, ‘and probably as many more in the buildings.' He punched the right arrow key as he spoke, and the screen jumped from camera to camera. ‘I will need to write something to categorise them all, and then –'

His finger froze, hovering above the key, and I looked down, forcing myself to focus.

We were looking out at the school. It was late afternoon, I realised, the sun drifting away behind the buildings. It was so hard to keep track of the time down here, without any natural light.

There were only a couple of lights on in the English block, and the playground was almost deserted. Almost. As we watched, two familiar figures skulked up to the building and tried the door.

Mike and Tank.

‘They're checking the locker,' said Jordan, closing in on Kara, voice still a bit choked. ‘Your locker.

You're
still
communicating with them?'

‘No,' said Kara.

Soren went hastily back to tapping the keyboard, shifting our camera view away from the school. The screen flashed with images from the town centre.

Jordan looked like she was about to argue, but then her eyes flashed to the laptop and she shouted, ‘Hey. Stop! Go back!'

Soren made a disgruntled noise, but started cycling back through the images we'd already seen.

‘The one of the park,' said Jordan. ‘With –
There.

' We were looking down on the playground. There was a woman sitting on a bench, right under the camera, a thick red pen in her hand and a stack of paper resting on her knee.

Peter's mum.

‘What's she doing?' Jordan asked.

The top page on the stack was a giant clock face, with two wonky hands that looked like they'd been drawn on by a kid. Mrs Weir drew two new hands in over the top, scribbled
5 a.m.
in underneath, then initialled and dated the bottom of the page. She held the pile of papers up into the air, admiring it, then shuffled the top sheet to the back, revealing another identical clock on the next one.

‘Marking homework or something,' I said.

Jordan pushed Soren's chair away for a better look at the screen. Soren grunted again, but he didn't shove back.

We watched as Mrs Weir marked the next few pages. She went slowly, clearly in no hurry to finish.

Jordan squinted. ‘She keeps writing four-seven underneath. That's not today's date. That's –'

‘Tomorrow,' I said.

Mrs Weir finished the next page and held it up into the air again. Five a.m. tomorrow.

‘This is for us,' I said. ‘I think – I think Peter's mum and dad are calling a meeting.'

Chapter 22

S
ATURDAY
, J
ULY
4
40
DAYS

I pulled up the zip on my jumper, yawning, just awake enough to realise how bad it smelled. We'd definitely need to track down a laundry soon if we didn't all want to die of some gross skin disease.

It was just after 4.30 a.m. Dad's alarm had gone off a few minutes ago, and I'd rolled off the couch to find Jordan already up and dressed. She'd gone to check on Peter while the two of us got changed, just needing to give herself something to do, I think.

We were going to find her parents right after we met with Peter's.

Neither of us had talked about the
thing
that had happened yesterday. But I'd been thinking. I'd definitely given it plenty of thought.

She was emotional.
That's what I'd been telling myself.
It was just this impulsive, emotional thing that
happened. Don't read too much into it.

But it wasn't nothing. And even though I'd come up with a really good list of reasons why nothing was ever going to happen (like, for example, the end of the world and the fact that Peter would probably kill me), I was still thinking about it.

‘Who are you?' asked Dad from across the room.

‘Huh?' I said, snapping out of it.

Dad smiled. ‘
You
. How can you be so calm about this? What happened to my son, the panic merchant?'

‘He's still here, trust me. But I've been almost dying since we arrived. You get – Well, not
used
to it, but …' I shrugged. ‘And, hey, this time it might even be good news.'

‘Optimism!' said Dad as Jordan reappeared, carrying a couple of dirty plates. ‘From
my son!
Jordan, is this your influence?'

Jordan smiled feebly and went into the kitchen.

‘How's Peter?' I called, trying to ignore the grin on Dad's face.

‘Stuffing around on his computer.' Jordan dumped the plates into the sink and came back to join us. ‘You ready?'

‘You always ask that like it's possible,' I said.

We crossed to the surveillance room for one last look at the cameras. Since they hadn't told us anywhere else, we were guessing that the Weirs wanted to meet us at their house.

Our plan was to wait across the road in the bush and see if we could get their attention. They knew about the cameras, so surely they weren't expecting us to just stroll up to the front door. But if that didn't work … Well, rescuing Jordan's family was already a suicide mission, so why not cram two into one morning?

We found Kara waiting for us in the surveillance room. She stared straight at me, a weird, searching look on her face.

‘Here to make sure we don't break anything?' said Jordan.

Kara didn't take her eyes off me. ‘I'm just very curious to see how this morning turns out.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you I was concerned for Luke's safety?' Kara asked.

‘No,' said Jordan, almost cracking a smile. ‘I don't suppose I would.'

All the laptops on the table were back in action now. Soren had set each one automatically cycling through the cameras in a different section of town.

I leant over an image of Peter's street. It was dark. No signs of life.

The camera angle shifted, closer to the Weirs' house. Nothing. Were they even –?

The surveillance picture flickered. Off, then on again. And then it was gone completely, replaced by a blur of static.

What?

I stood back. It was the same on every computer.

‘What did you do?' Jordan snapped.

But Kara was looking just as confused as we were. She ran for the door.
‘Soren!'

‘Have they found us?' I asked, checking the camera over the entrance. ‘If Calvin's figured out they've hijacked his security cameras …'

But there was no-one at the entrance.

Kara came tearing back into the room, dragging a barely-awake Soren behind her. He took one look at the computers and swore groggily.

‘Why have we lost the signal?' Kara demanded, pushing him forward.

Soren stumbled over to the desk, brushing the sleep from his eyes. ‘We haven't …'

‘Wake up!' barked Kara. ‘I don't have time for –'

‘I
am
awake!' said Soren. ‘Do you see an error message? We have not lost the signal. That static
is
the signal. We are seeing everything they're seeing. The whole network's gone offline.'

A few minutes later, Jordan, Dad and I were jogging through the bush.

This couldn't be just a coincidence. The network hadn't just
happened
to go offline, fifteen minutes before we were meant to be meeting Peter's parents.

So how in the world had they done it?

As usual, Jordan was a couple of paces in front of us. She stopped walking and turned around. ‘I'm not coming,' she whispered. ‘You two see what Peter's parents want. I have to go get my family.'

She folded her arms, clearly expecting an argument. But I already knew there'd be no talking her out of this.

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Go. We'll meet you back down there.'

She moved to leave, hesitated, then turned back, pulling me in for a hug. I squeezed her back, and whatever Dad might say about me being
calm,
I wasn't. I was terrified.

Jordan loosened her grip, drawing back to look at me, and for a second, I thought maybe she was going to –

But no. Not this time. She released me and disappeared into the shadows.

I waited until she was out of sight. ‘Come on,' I told Dad, ‘let's get this over with.'

We walked the last few metres to the edge of the bush. The bits of splintered wood had been cleared away from Peter's front lawn by now, but there was still a gaping hole in the verandah. It wasn't like the Co-operative to leave something like that unrepaired. They usually jumped right on top of anything that poked a hole in their picture-perfect facade.

‘All right,' I said, checking the street one last time. ‘Ready?'

‘Okay,' said Dad, giving me a nervous pat on the back. ‘Right behind you.'

I sprinted out across the dirt and over the bike path, straight through the sights of at least one of the security cameras. Peter's front door was open before we were halfway up the lawn.

‘Oh, thank goodness,' said Mrs Weir, standing aside as we bolted through. ‘We didn't know whether you even – Where's Peter?'

‘He's safe,' I said. ‘Don't worry.'

Mrs Weir nodded, closing the door behind us. But she stayed at the window, eyes flashing across the yard like she was still waiting for someone.

‘Who's this?' Peter's dad asked warily, coming in from the dining room.

‘My dad,' I said. ‘Jack. He's just arrived.'

‘Just arrived?' said Mrs Weir, and I cringed at the surge of hope in her voice.

‘Yeah, but he isn't – It's not –'

Mr Weir rolled his wheelchair out past the window, into the faint glow of the streetlight, and I gasped. He was all red and purple, lips cracked, right eye swollen almost completely shut.

‘Nice to meet you, Jack,' he said, holding out a hand. Then, to me: ‘As you can see, Mr Shackleton is pretty keen to know where you guys are hiding out.'

I shivered. ‘Mr Weir –'

‘Looks worse than it is,' he said dismissively, spinning his chair back toward the dining room. But he pulled up short as someone else stepped into the doorway.

At first, I didn't even believe it was her. My brain chased itself around in a circle, trying to make sense of it.

‘Mum?'

She pushed past Mr Weir, straight up to Dad.

‘Emily …' Dad breathed.

‘What are you doing here?' she demanded, like he'd come just to be difficult.

‘What's
he
doing here?' I said, reeling. ‘What are
you
–?'

‘He's coming!' said Mrs Weir, staring across the lawn. She moved back to the door, letting surprise guest number two into the house: Dr Montag.

He skidded to a stop, breathing like he'd run halfway across town to get here. He caught sight of Dad, and I saw the comprehension creep across his face. ‘You.'

Montag spun around to Mum for an explanation, but she just threw up her hands.
What are you looking
at me for?

‘Is this him?' Dad asked me. I could hear the cold anger waiting just beneath the surface.

My jaw clenched. ‘Yeah.'

Mum was still fuming at Dad, like this whole morning was perfectly fine and normal except for him showing up.