Underground (23 page)

Mr Burke's face fell.

Brilliant,
I thought.
What are we supposed to get
done in –?

I caught Jordan's eye.

Uh-oh.

‘Perfect,' she grinned. ‘That's perfect. Plenty of time.'

T
UESDAY
, J
ULY
7
37
DAYS

I dragged the last shirt up from the water and twisted it around my hands, wringing it out. A dirty brown stream ran back into the tub at my feet.

My plans of finding a secret laundry down here had turned out to be wishful thinking.

I shook the shirt out again and handed it to Jordan. She stretched up, draping it over the rope we'd strung across the living room.

‘Where were you?' I asked, finally giving up waiting for Jordan to raise it.

She wiped her hands on her jeans. ‘Huh?'

‘Last night,' I said. ‘When you were, you know … gone. What did you see?'

‘I was –' Jordan ducked under the makeshift clothesline, and I could see the anxiety on her face. ‘It was the future again. I mean, I assume it was, because –' She cut herself short, shaking her head. ‘The whole place was turned upside-down. Furniture everywhere, computers all smashed …'

‘Peter?' I said, checking the door to make sure we were still alone. ‘Did he –?'

‘No,' said Jordan. ‘No, that's what I thought, but then I went to the hall, and there were – Luke, there were
guards
down here. And one of them was – I looked out there, and this chair came smashing down the hall, and – I think it was
him
. I think the guard made it move. With his brain or whatever. Like Peter.'

I tensed, like they were coming in right now. ‘They found us?'

‘Well, they found
here
at least. I didn't actually see any of us, so maybe we'll all be out by then. I don't know, but –' Jordan looked right at me, like she was getting to the part she really wanted to talk about. ‘– there's something else. Right before you pulled me back, I heard someone shouting behind me, and I turned around, and – it was the guard who threw the chair. I think he
saw
me.'

There was a thump on the door, and Kara walked in.

‘What do you want?' asked Jordan, the vulnerable look vanishing from her face before she'd even turned around.

And since when do you knock?
I thought.

‘It's seven-thirty,' said Kara. ‘They're all waiting for you.'

‘Give us a minute,' I said.

And, surprisingly, she didn't argue. She waited there a moment longer, then skulked back to the surveillance room.

‘What do you mean he
saw
you?' I asked, as soon as she was gone. ‘How is that even possible?'

‘Possible?'
said Jordan. ‘Luke, I've been having visions of the future for like a month now. I think we can assume that all bets are off at this point.'

‘Yeah, but –'

‘Come on,' said Jordan, ducking back under the clothesline. ‘We'd better get in there.'

‘Wait,' I said.

Jordan turned back. I looked at her for a second, not exactly sure why I'd stopped her.

‘This is going to work,' I said. ‘We're going to find Georgia and your mum.'

She gazed back at me with the sort of scary intensity she always saved for right before we did something life-threatening. ‘Yeah. We are.'

I kind of wanted to kiss her again, but I figured now was probably not the time.

Jordan grabbed my hand. ‘C'mon. Meeting time.'

We headed for the surveillance room.

‘How did this happen?' I sighed as we walked.

‘What?' said Jordan.

‘When did we start going to meetings?'

I could hear Peter getting stuck into Soren before we were even through the door. ‘Would you get that bloody thing out of my face? If I was going to kick your arse again, I would have done it already.'

‘Sounds like we're off to a good start,' I muttered, heading inside.

Kara and Soren were sitting either side of Peter, auto-injector pens at the ready. Hard to say whether they were making him less or more likely to lash out.

Dad, Mr Burke, and Peter's parents were sitting around the table too. I sat down at one of the two free chairs, feeling like the chairman of the board of some corporation.

‘Sorry we're late,' said Jordan, taking the seat next to mine.

Dad winked and gave me a secretive little thumbs-up. I tried not to look at him.

‘All right,' Jordan went on, apparently not noticing, ‘so, like we told you, we think we've come up with a way to get into the medical centre and rescue Georgia and my mum. It's a
little
bit sketchy, but I guess if we just lay it all out for you guys, then – then you can tell us what you think.'

‘A little bit sketchy' was kind of an understatement. But we'd both figured that the meeting in town was the best opportunity we were going to get to pull this off.

‘Shackleton's meeting starts at eight-thirty tomorrow night,' I said. ‘We're thinking we'll leave here at about eight-fifteen. That'll give us time to get around to the south end of town, before –'

‘Hold on,' said Mr Burke, leaning across the table. It creaked under him. ‘I think we need to just step back for a minute. Jordan, I don't want you going up there again.'

‘Dad, come on –'

‘No, Jordan. You could get
killed
. What kind of father would I be if I let you put yourself in danger like that?'

‘Right, because I've been completely safe down here,' said Jordan.

Peter flinched.

‘It's not about that!' she said. ‘This isn't – You wouldn't even
be
here without me putting myself in danger!'

‘Jordan, just tell us what we need to do,' said Mr Burke. ‘Please. Explain your plan to us, and we'll go up there and –'

‘No!' said Jordan. ‘Dad, you're not cutting me out of this!'

Mr Burke shook his head. ‘I'm sorry, Jordan. This isn't your decision.'

I expected Jordan to come straight back with another argument. But she just stared down at the table, red rising in her cheeks.

Silence stretched out across the room. Now what?

My dad straightened in his seat. ‘You're right,' he said, eyes locking on Mr Burke. ‘Jordan's your daughter. If you want her to sit this one out, then that's what she should do, but –'

Dad wavered for a second, suddenly emotional. ‘Listen,' he said, ‘I
love
my kid. If anything happened to him, I'd – I would lose it. But these guys have already been in this for months now. No-one knows Phoenix better than they do. This is their fight too. And, as far as I'm concerned, it will be for as long as they want to keep fighting it. Because the bottom line is, as much as I want to keep my boy safe –' His voice shook again. ‘– I
can't.
There is no safe option here. Not for any of us. But if we pull these guys out, all we're doing is hurting whatever chance we have of putting any of this right again.'

I didn't know whether to cry or run around the table and hug him.

Mr Burke put his head in his hands, watching Jordan with almost the same expression he'd had last night. Like she was slipping away, and there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Dad, please,' said Jordan. ‘I know you're just trying to keep me safe, but …' She trailed off, her hand reaching for mine under the table.

Mr Burke rubbed his face with his hands and sat back up. ‘All right,' he said. ‘Let's hear your plan.'

It took Jordan a second to realise what he'd just said. Then her face lit up and launched straight back into it. ‘Okay,' she said, releasing my hand. ‘So, yeah, we'll get to the south end of town by quarter to nine. Banksia Avenue, down past the park. Scout out the street, make sure everything's clear, then sit tight and wait for Peter to knock out the cameras.'

‘Right,' said Peter, taking over, looking happier than I'd seen him in weeks. ‘At quarter to, I'll launch the attack on the network. Should only take a couple of minutes, but wait till you see the lights go out on the cameras. As soon as that happens, start running to the back door of the medical centre.'

‘Which we still don't have a way to open,' I reminded him. ‘Mr Weir, have you got any ideas?'

‘You're not picking that lock,' he said. ‘Not in two minutes, anyway. It's going to have to be brute force, but I don't know what could –'

‘How about this?' said Jordan's dad, snatching Soren's pickaxe up off the floor.

Jordan beamed at him.

Mr Weir smirked. ‘Yep. That should do it.'

‘Won't there be people in there?' asked Peter's mum. ‘I know this meeting is supposed to be compulsory, but that can't include hospital staff, surely?'

‘It's pretty quiet in there after dark,' I said, thinking back to the night I'd spent recovering from Crazy Bill's beating. ‘A doctor and a couple of nurses. With any luck, we won't even see them.'

Then again, it was the
with any luck
parts where these plans of ours usually fell apart.

‘Besides,' Jordan went on, ‘we're assuming the people they've taken are actually being held
underneath
the medical centre, otherwise someone would've found them out by now.'

Then to Kara, she said, ‘Where is it?'

Kara reached under the table and pulled out Jordan's black Phoenix High backpack. The one they'd taken the morning we arrived. Jordan dumped the contents of the bag on the floor. Then she turned it inside-out and felt under the lining until she pulled out a rectangle of plastic. A Shackleton Co-operative key card.

‘Told you I still had it,' she grinned at me.

Mr Weir's eyes widened. ‘Where did you
get
that?'

‘Long story,' said Jordan, flipping the card over in her fingers. ‘Anyway, that's pretty much it. Knock out security, then two minutes, tops, to get inside, and then – well, we'll see what happens when we get in there.'

‘That's it?' said Peter's mum. ‘That's your plan?'

‘What's wrong with it?' said Jordan.

‘
See what happens?'
said Mrs Weir. ‘I'm sorry, but – shouldn't there be a bit more to it than that?'

‘Nope,' said Peter heavily, ‘that's pretty much how we do things.'

‘There's not much more we
can
do,' I said. ‘The medical centre is the one place in town that's never had any security cameras in it. Whatever's going on in there, they obviously want to make sure
no-one
finds out about it.'

Peter's mum frowned. ‘If that's meant to reassure me, it was a step in the wrong direction.'

I staggered up the hall, half-asleep, feeling along the wall for the bathroom door. It was late. Or early. Night, anyway.

I found the handle, stumbled inside, and flicked the switch on the other side of the doorway, rubbing my eyes against the sudden, blinding light. Into the first cubicle. I stared down at the bowl, trying to wake up the part of my brain that knew how to aim.

My mind drifted back to the meeting. At least four of us would be making the trip up to the surface tomorrow night, or tonight, or whenever it was. Mr and Mrs Weir were still making up their minds, but if they came too, it would be everyone except Kara, Soren and Peter.

Jordan and I weren't exactly thrilled about that combination of people staying behind, but, since Peter had to be down here to deal with the cameras, we couldn't really think of a better solution.

I finished what I was doing and walked back out without pressing the button. Now that there were so many of us using the water supply down here, Kara had brought in this gross rule about not flushing anything that didn't have solids in it.

I washed my hands and slumped back out into the hall. I was awake now. Awake enough that it would probably take me ages to get back to sleep.

Awake enough to hear the low voices coming from further up the hallway.

I glanced along the hall and saw a thin strip of light shining out from under Kara and Soren's bedroom door. I crept up until I was close enough to make out the words.

‘You've made that much perfectly obvious,' Kara muttered. ‘But regardless of whether you
like
them, the fact remains that we're stuck with them, presumably until –' ‘
If
they make it back from the medical centre tomorrow,' said Soren.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' said Kara impatiently. ‘We'll be seeing Luke again, at the very least.'

I shivered. The way she'd said it, it was like she knew something.

Soren must have said something that was too soft for me to hear, because Kara snapped, ‘Of course I don't
want
to believe it! My wishes are beside the point, and have been since before you were born.'

‘But he
said
it,' Soren protested. ‘He was the one who told you –'

‘I was
there
, Soren. I know what he said. And we were right to be cautious. But whatever the truth of the situation, they are plainly yet to discover it. The most important thing now is to ensure that we are in a position to find out when they do.'

‘What about Tobias?' said Soren. ‘We still don't even know who he is.'

‘That's precisely the point,' said Kara. ‘Honestly, Soren, after everything we've learnt – do you really still believe that this Tobias we're looking for is a
who?'

Chapter 30