The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery (2 page)

‘What is going on?’

An eerie silence fell over them and as if wanting to hide their true feelings they hesitated, and then turned to face her, though an overwhelming sense of long-ago dread emanated from them.

Quixote's mother broke rank and pulled Quixote close to her, and the rest of the mothers approached their children.

Lexington's mother ran her hand through Lexington's long hair. ‘Always remember your strength is your mind and your gentleness. Your gentleness is the strongest weapon you have.’

‘Weapon? What do you mean, weapon,’ Lexington said. ‘What is going on?’

‘Use “IT” only when you need to. Take care “IT” does not dominate you.’

As Lexington's mother stood, she pulled an object from her pocket and slipped it quickly into Lexington's hand, and closed her fingers around it and then leant into her ear.

‘Hide it from the others. You will know when it is time to show them. If you find it, come back for us.’

‘Find what?’

Her mother did not answer but turned and walked to the edge of the clearing.

Lexington hid the object in one of her pockets, curious yet confused.

Ari's mother grasped her son's thick shoulders and felt his muscles underneath his camouflage suit.

‘Your father and I have never been prouder. Not in all the years could we have foreseen a lad like you, strong as an ox, unfaltering and brave. Stay strong. Stay strong for the others,’ she said filled with admiration.

‘We…we will see you again…won’t we?....Mum?’

She stood and joined Lexington’s mother.

Melaleuca locked eyes on her mother and she gazed into an older version of her own face, though the eyes differed. Through the darkness she pictured those eyes in her mind - a blue fog over the irises and a subtle undertone staining the whites purple. All the mothers had them. She wondered again why it was and why only she looked like them.

Tears welled in her mother’s eyes - filling them.

‘Melaleuca. Use your instincts always. Not your mind. Remember what we taught you.’

‘That was just playing,’ Melaleuca said.

Her mother hugged her tight - tight enough to make Melaleuca feel as if she would never see her again.

‘Mum, please…what is going on?’

Her mother answered her with a kiss and then walked away.

Melaleuca fumed. She did not want to listen to her instincts. If her feelings were right, they were about to be separated from their parents and then she would be in charge, totally in charge. Dread grew inside her and she questioned whether she was ready for this.

‘It's time,’ Quixote's mother said.

A stifled cry came from one of the mothers. ‘Please tell them.’

‘No! We agreed. It must be this way,’ one of the other mothers said.

Fed up, Melaleuca marched closer to them.

‘Tell us now! Intolerable. What is going on? Is this a test or what?’

Through the dark the mothers could all feel Melaleuca's sharp eyes bore into them - wanting, challenging, unearthing and demanding a reason for their actions. It's what Melaleuca did best, cut away the untruths.

Her mother stepped forward and took her a small distance away and spoke with her alone. A silent but pensive Melaleuca returned, calmer.

‘What did she say?’ Quixote asked. ‘Giants? Are we...giants?’

‘If she knows, I want to know,’ Lexington's soft voice said, and then added, ‘Might as well tell me. You know I will work it out.’

‘Super men,’ Quixote blurted out. ‘That's it eh! We are supermen.’

‘And why are these men after us?’ Lexington said.

Quixote’s mother stepped forward.

‘They are not. They do not know you exist and forbid they find out.’

‘So what ─ ’

‘ENOUGH!’

Three of the mothers dashed off through the bush, back the way they had come, leaving Quixote's mother behind. Melaleuca stared after them, listening to the bushes and branches being brushed and pushed aside. Soon a deep stillness descended and all noise seemed to stop. In the seconds that ticked by it seemed that forever filled the space where their mothers had been.

Melaleuca examined her cousins one by one.

They will have to listen to me now.

‘Follow me,’ Quixote's mother said, breaking the silence. ‘Not a word, not a sound.’

‘Let’s go,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Ari, take the rear.’

She led them after Quixote’s mother, entering the cover of the forest again and headed uphill along a ridge.

Thirty minutes later Melaleuca reached a second clearing behind Quixote’s mother and turned to make sure her cousins arrived as well.

‘On the right shoulder strap is a white light,’ Quixote's mother began. ‘On the left one is a red light. Turn the red one on.’

One by one they located the lights and pressed them. Four dim red lights came on, bathing the ground around them for a few feet in a ruby colour.

Quixote's mother searched around on the ground, as Lexington studied her light.

‘Why red? Why not white?’

Quixote placed his red light under his chin.

‘To make things scarier.’

Melaleuca studied the furtive actions of Quixote’s mother, and again felt a rush of uneasy emotions come off her.
Can’t they see she is terrified?

‘Because she said so,’ Melaleuca said.

Ari tapped his light and added, ‘Red lights don’t shine as far as white lights, so there is less chance of someone below spotting us.’

Quixote’s mother stopped searching, reached down and tugged up hard. With a slight metallic click, a section of the ground lifted up. Quixote and Ari rushed forward to see, leaping in front of Melaleuca and blocking her view. Even Lexington politely pushed past her - notebook and pen in hand.

Three more lids were opened in quick succession, until before them four underground foxholes gaped wide. Each lid had a tree stump stuck to the top of it, and a few bushes were spread around the base, making it look a little less obvious.

‘Listen carefully,’ Quixote's mother said and paused.

The red lights cast a hazy glow across her face. Dirt and soot sat smudged into her cheeks, and lines of sweat trickled out from underneath her messed up hair.

‘You are to hide in these 'til one of us comes back to get you. It may be two days...It may be a week. But we will come back. In case......in case we...don't, don't come back...’

Both Ari and Lexington opened their mouths to speak, but she shushed them harshly and carried on talking.

‘...these are your last instructions. Bide them well. Melaleuca is to make all decisions when a decision cannot be made. Melaleuca take good counsel of the others, especially Lexington. Ari, look after Lexington, protect her and the others, but especially Lexington. Melaleuca do not be afraid to use Ari's strength, it is more than he realizes. Lexington, lover of all that is gentle, follow your mind but with your heart learn from Quixote.’ As she said her son's name she stopped.

She faced him and grabbed him gently with both hands. ‘And you little one, dreamer of dreams, imaginer of worlds, a true imp spirit if there ever was one, never stop being you for anyone or anything, ever...ever...’ She paused and it seemed as if more words would be forthcoming though only silence and choked emotion followed. Squeezing her eyes together she fought back the tears and jumped up.

‘What,’ she cried out to the darkness and then said more softly, ‘I will be there soon.’

She turned and started to run leaving the cousins stunned by everything, especially her last words and her sudden reaction.

Stopping, she looked back at them. ‘Well, hide,’ she shouted and disappeared into the bushes.

Desperate to reach his destination, Argus North tripped and fell. He slid down the hill through the forest, smearing dirt along his tight-fitting, faded camouflage suit and came to a halt against a tree. Tired and sweaty, he felt glad for the rest and fought to keep his eyes open though he soon nodded off to sleep.

Images of hooded people in a crowded bar swept through his dreams and their eyes loomed large – foggy blue-purple irises where the whites should have been; sacks of gold; tales of faraway lands; words of a mission that may or may not happen…..

Argus opened his eyes and looked around and for a moment was unsure.

‘What’s...’ he said and then realised he had fallen asleep. ‘Damn.’

He hauled his body up and cursed.

‘But it’s been over twenty years!’

He couldn’t believe the strange eyed people needed him now. Why now, he wanted to scream, why now? After all, his knees hurt, his chest felt tight, his muscles ached and his mouth felt parched, and still he had a distance to go. He shook his head and surged forward, trying to remember what he once did to ignore pain. As if stubbornly hibernating, his toughness slowly stirred inside him.

Sunlight filtered through the forest causing him to curse again. His orders had been simple. Get to the cousins before daybreak. They must not be allowed to return home.

He got up and crashed through the trees toward their homestead, smelling a faint hint of spent gun powder in the breeze. The forest abruptly ended and he stopped, stunned at the sight before him.

***

Shafts of thin morning light streamed in through the fake tree stump above Lexington. Hunched over a desk beside a bed and a large stack of tinned food, she poured over several open notebooks spread around her, analysing her workings-out. Scrawled maps, calculations, distances, and past tests faced up at her from the notebook pages. Satisfied, she reached up to a small pipe which connected the foxholes, stood and whispered into it.

‘Mel?’

‘I’m awake.’

‘Shh. Not so loud.’

‘Fine. What is it?’ 

Lexington could almost hear her roll her eyes back.

‘When are you going to tell me what your mum said?’

‘Why?’

‘Well, for a starter, last night you said we are to wait for our parents to return, but with no explanation, and I expressed then how I needed all the information ─ ’

‘Quixote told you what he saw.’

Lexington tapped her pencil.

‘Well…Quixote is unreliable. A thousand men? Our fathers moving like lightening? No. I think I know what happened...’

‘I see.’

‘...but with the addition of your ─ ’

‘Lex, trust me.’

‘I want to. But this is what I do, ask why. You know that.’

‘We wait.’

Lexington flopped back down frustrated. She knew that stubborn tone.
Why is Mel being so difficult? God I hate it when she decides her “feelings” are instantly correct.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the object that her mother had given her and held up a medallion on a heavy chain. On one side two squares sat embossed, opposite each other, the tips of one of their points touching. On the other side sat a raised circle with two opposing sections missing. She slipped it over her head and tucked it out of sight beneath her overalls.

Melaleuca is not the only one with secrets.

She whispered through the pipe again.

‘I’m coming over.’

She peered through a slit on the side of the stump, checking the coast was clear. Movement near the edge of the clearing alarmed her. The bushes shook back and forth as if someone pushed them from beneath.

What if it was one of the attackers from last night? She glanced at her notes and knew that even now they could be scouring the hillside for them.

She lowered herself down and whispered through a different pipe.

‘Ari?’

No reply came.

‘Quixote?’

No reply came.

She whispered Ari’s name a second time, but still no reply came.

What if they have already been..

She peered once more through the slit, and the bushes no longer moved.  She placed her hand on her chest to still her fright and wished Ari were here to give her courage as he normally would.

What to do, what to do,
though she knew, as ever, she needed solid facts and that meant looking. Anyway, it did not make sense that the attackers would shake a bush and give away their position so carelessly.

A camouflage net lay beside the tinned food, just one of the many signs showing that their parents must have known something like this could happen. She threw it around her shoulders and pushed the lid slowly open.

Quixote lay on the ground spread out between the bushes surrounded by toy men and soldiers, his body pushed part way under his camouflage net.

‘Hey Lexington. Come and play.’

‘Oh Quixote, you’re supposed to be in your foxhole. I thought you were someone else.’

He laughed and pretended to shoot her.

‘Where’d you get those?’ She pointed at his toy men. ‘Were they in your foxhole?’

‘Nope. In all my pockets.’

She shook her head and slunk over to Melaleuca’s foxhole and placed her head close to the fake bark.

‘Mel, you realise that Quixote is out of his foxhole.’

‘Yes, hang on,’ she said with a muffled voice. ‘I told Ari to make sure he is hidden.’

‘I can’t see Ari anywhere. And he did not answer me.’

Melaleuca opened her lid, squinting as she looked up.

‘It’s all right. He’s at one of his lookouts. Why are you so worried?’

Lexington shoved the notebook at her, displaying her scribbled notes.

‘Oh.’
How long will this take.
‘Hop in,’ Melaleuca said.

Inside the foxhole, Lexington took her through all her calculations.

‘...so you see, with what they said last night, the edge in their voices, the fact that none of our fathers came out, and these foxholes, and the secret escape door, which we knew nothing about, it either means someone or something has attacked us. They were not after our parents, they were after us.’

‘We still wait.’

‘Wha….that’s not enough...look, you must see that something big is going on here. Camouflage nets, well stocked hiding holes, a well planned escape route...there ─ ’

‘What was in your pockets?’

‘My...?’ Lexington patted them as she spoke. ‘Exactly what I’d need for something like this. More proof that ─ ’

‘Pens and papers?’

‘Yes, so I can make notes.’

‘Which is what you do. What’s in Ari’s?’

Lexington shrugged her shoulders and Melaleuca saw in her eyes she did not like being outwitted.

‘I have not seen in his pockets either,’ Melaleuca said, ‘but I know what he has.’

‘And what is in your pockets?’

Melaleuca pulled a piece of card from one of her pockets, and handed it to Lexington, and then pulled more bits of card from her other pockets, handing them all to her. On each card one word lay emblazoned –
“trust.”

Lexington flipped them over and back again, rubbing her finger across the word and even held it up to the light.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means follow me,’ Melaleuca said and climbed out of the foxhole.

With Lexington behind her Melaleuca surveyed the clearing, ending where Quixote no longer lay.

‘If I work out what your mum said, will you tell me if I am right?’

Ignoring her request, Melaleuca shuffled over to where Quixote had been playing.

‘Oh nice. He has gone back.’

‘Back? Back where?’

‘To our house. Look.’ Melaleuca pointed at his toy men.

In the dirt, made out of sticks and stones, Quixote had fashioned a small valley complete with a poor replica of their house and their foxholes. Three small figures stood around the foxholes, while a lone figure stood facing oodles of small sticks. The sticks had badly drawn bearded faces on them.

‘He thinks he has powers,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Come on, we have to get Ari and stop Quixote.’ She walked back, reached into her foxhole and grabbed her camouflage net, bundling it around her shoulders. She pulled out a sharp, stout pointed stick and hauled some rope out as well. Lexington studied it puzzled.

‘Wait...why? Why rope? And why the stick? Did you make it? How come I don’t have one?’

Melaleuca brandished the stick at Lexington.

‘Take it. Go on. When we play, you detest such things.’

Lexington screwed her face up in reply.

‘What has got into you?’

Melaleuca tapped one of the cards in Lexington’s hand.

‘I feel things are about to change. And I trust that feeling. I saw the rope and felt I needed it. Now, come on.’ She turned and headed into the forest.

Muttering, Lexington trotted after her. ‘Always Quixote. Well, I have warned them. Let’s see what trouble he creates now.’

Melaleuca stopped and ran back toward Lexington.

‘On second thought, stay here in case Quixote or Ari comes back, so you can tell them where I have gone.’

***

Argus's eyes widen in awe. More than 30 over-sized Morton-Bay Fig trees spread out before him. Large tortured roots erupted out of their base, spreading out like twisted elephant legs frozen in time.  Gargantuan branches leapt from tree to tree and formed gnarled bridges between each of their massive trunks. 

Despite his urgency, he walked slowly beneath them and stared up puzzled. Under one tree rested a replica of a pirate ship, and a mini stone castle sat under another reaching high into the branches. Between all the trees rope gangways were slung, with ropes and rope ladders hanging down from huts built into the upper branches. Flying foxes, wooden gangways, slides, swings, monkey bars, roughly shaped cars made out of tree logs, and toys lay scattered around, and a real plane lay wedged high up in the branches of another tree. A graveyard silence clung to them as if they had been suddenly abandoned. Argus had seen similar secret training grounds for soldiers and terrorists hidden deep in jungles though without the toys.

He pushed on and broke into a pensive trot. Why would they need such a playground?
Ask them no questions
, he had been instructed,
tell them nothing - follow this strictly
. Why? What was so special about them? An uneasy feeling curdled in him.

Gun smoke curled into his nostrils and he dreaded the worst. He picked his pace up and dashed out of the trees spying an unwelcome sight. Across a small open valley lay another copse of large Morton-Bay Fig trees, and beneath them lay the smouldering rubble of a house, faintly outlined against blackened tree trunks.

Fearing the worst and feeling exposed, he ran toward it, darting his head left and right checking for movement. He reached instinctively over his shoulder for his rifle but only felt his pack. He cursed. There had been no time to grab anything else. He slipped his hand inside his jacket and touched the hilt of his pistol, though he knew it would be of little use against whatever destroyed the house.

Shrouded in a thin haze of smoke, he finally stood under the canopy of the great trees. He crouched behind one of them and listened, gaining his breath. Like a spent volcano dying away, smoke wafted up from the remains of the demolished house. What should have been a simple extraction now became complicated. He would have to sift through the rubble and check the cousins were not dead.

Perimeter check first.

He trod wide around the crumpled house sweeping the area for signs of others. Nothing human stirred though he stayed on guard.

A half-burnt sign lay strewn on the ground, and large letters in a child’s handwriting splayed across it the words:

“Play is forever. Play never ends. True learning starts and ends with play. Fun is the key.”

Gibberish. Child’s words for a child’s world.

***

Covered in his camouflage net, Quixote sat high up in a tall beech tree - high enough to stare down through the gaps to where their house once stood.

A strange man appeared by the remains of their house. Quixote watched him poke and prod through the rubble. The man disappeared from sight and Quixote climbed higher to try and spot him again, though could not so he descended.

***

Argus stood amongst the small craters where the canon shells had landed and stared at the dead bodies scattered all around. He crouched and turned one of them over. A caveman looking figure with messy hair and a scraggly beard stared back at him. Pock marks and scratched-in tattoos embellished his skin and his clothing consisted of furs. One by one Argus checked them and found nothing different until he reached the last six bodies. He turned one of them over and stopped, astonished. An attractive woman’s ashen-white, dead face stared up at him,. Something deep in her death repose touched him and a long-forgotten sadness panged him.