The Other Tree (14 page)

“Why did SinaCorp need the book now?” asked Chris as she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. “If my mother was working with SinaCorp, why didn’t they have her notes?”

“Maybe they thought she missed something.”

“Maybe she didn’t trust them. Maybe she hid some of the information.”

Chris pulled on her jacket as Luke picked up both their packs.

“Where are my shoes?” asked Chris.

“Where are we going?”

Chris pulled an extra sock over her swollen ankle and started to hobble down the corridor.

“To visit an old friend,” said Chris.

* * *

The small Romanian airport was exceptionally crowded that morning, and the main departure hall bustled with sticky children and tired tourists. Indecipherable announcements crackled through the loudspeakers, blaring like calls to arms.

“There’s some kind of problem with the refuelling pump,” said Luke, squeezing through the crowd back to Chris, who was hopping up and down trying to read the departure boards. “Nothing’s been able to take off since last night.”

“Great,” said Chris. “We’re already a day behind SinaCorp.”

“On the bright side, you’re alive.”

“There’s got to be another way out of here,” said Chris, weaving through the departure hall and squeezing her way along the wall towards the air field. “Maybe we can hitch a ride on a private plane, or catch a blimp—”

“You want to stand on the airstrip with your thumb out?”

“No, but I bet I—”

Chris stopped abruptly, frozen in front of a glass wall partitioning the VIP Crimson Lounge from the main hall. Plush suede couches the colour of merlot were spaced around designer coffee tables, while classy beverages were dispensed from a classy bar by a very classy bartender. A separately partitioned section of the lounge was furnished with antique leather armchairs and writing desks, while a glass wall overlooked the air field. Gathered, or posed, in a cluster of lounge chairs was the SinaCorp team.

They looked like a photo shoot for couture fashion. Or designer sunglasses. Or salon hair products. Stace leaned back in an armchair, drinking something on the rocks, while Bale leaned forward, flicking through a small book. Emir stood facing the airfield, arms crossed, a grim expression on his face. Docker stood with his hip leaning against the couch, watching over Roman’s shoulder as she sat working on a touchscreen tablet.

The hair bristled on the back of Chris’s neck—if she had been a porcupine it would have been quite a fearsome effect. She hadn’t noticed Luke’s reaction to the SinaCorp team, which was why she was surprised when she turned around and found him gone. She was even more surprised, however, to see Luke marching into the Crimson Lounge, pushing past a startled doorman to bear down on the SinaCorp team.

Luke stopped right in front of Emir, not noticing that both Bale and Stace had reached quietly into their jackets.

“Well, if it isn’t ‘looters-sans-frontières,’” said Luke.

Emir didn’t move, except to raise a hand mildly to dismiss the apprehensive doorman.

“Do I know you?” asked Emir.

“I’m Luke. The guy who cleaned up your mess last night. Were you trying to kill her, or did you just not care?”

Emir glanced at Docker, whose expression was one of faint amusement.

“We’re not trying to hurt anyone,” said Emir.

Luke took an angry step towards Emir, his voice low and vehement.

“You’re the one she trusted,” said Luke. “She said you would do the right thing, but you just went along with it. The breaking and entering, the broken portcullis, the attempted murder. She almost died in the emergency ward last night.”

Emir’s glance slid sharply to Docker.

“What are you—” Emir began.

It was at this point that Chris hobbled into the lounge like a wounded thundercloud, and even Roman looked up from her computer. Chris marched up to Docker, who watched with the shadow of a smile.

“Almovar wants his book back,” growled Chris.

“He’s been more than adequately compensated,” said Docker. “His castle needs fixing, his bird needs a respirator. It’s a successful transaction, as far as I’m concerned.”

“‘Transaction?’” snarled Chris. “You think you can just terrorise someone and then toss money at them, and call it a transaction?”

Chris shook with rage, colour flushing her sickly pallor.

“You know,” said Docker. “It’s going to be hours before you can get a flight out of here.”

He leaned forward in mock conspiracy, tilting his head towards the airfield.

“Our jet is going to be ready in about ten minutes. Need a ride?”

On the tarmac directly outside the window, a sleek private jet had just finished refuelling. The compact carrier had a hint of surveillance craft in the design, but something about it also suggested it was equipped not only with missiles, but also a Jacuzzi. The tail was emblazoned with the SinaCorp logo, and the engines were just roaring into gear.

Docker leaned back, watching as Chris groped for either a snappy comeback or a heavy projectile.

“Let’s go!” barked Docker, winking at Chris as the SinaCorp team fell into step behind him, headed for the airfield.

Except Emir.

Emir glanced at his colleagues as they left, and then stepped towards Chris.

“Don’t,” said Chris, stopping him with a glare.

She looked terrible, worse than when her rare Miniature Flamboyant Coconut Palm had died. Worse than the time she’d said the five-day-old laksa was still okay to eat. Worse than… Almost worse than how he felt now, with her looking at him like that.

“What happened?” asked Emir.

“You tell me,” said Chris. “Stealing, harassing, lying, hurting people. Is this what you do now?”

“No, we— There was no one— We didn’t…” Emir struggled for words.

No wonder he had never finished uni. He couldn’t even finish a sentence when it mattered.

“Your luxury jet is waiting,” said Chris bitterly.

Emir could feel the words flapping around in his chest, unable to make the transition to coherent speech. He exhaled, and it felt as though the world were deflating slowly.

“Take care,” was all he could say as he left.

Chris couldn’t watch as the futuristic aircraft taxied and launched noiselessly, shimmering into the horizon. She felt like a wingless beetle, sitting in a particularly unhappy puddle of glue.

“You okay?” said Luke.

“Sure,” said Chris, grabbing a bowl of herbed macadamias from a side table and emptying it into her pack. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

* * *

The presentation room was illuminated by a large projector screen, currently displaying crisp slides of some rather disturbing cellular mitosis. Marrick sat at the end of an empty conference table, watching as a tense woman in a lab coat clicked the slides forward, describing in graphic detail how exactly they had managed to extend the life of adult cells by twofold.

“Could you please go over the part about the brains exploding again?” asked Marrick, her expression inscrutable.

“That only happened twice,” said the woman, gripping the slide controller a little tighter.

“Thank you,” said Marrick. “That will be all.”

The researcher gave a tight nod and left the room hurriedly, leaving Marrick to scroll carefully through the slides again. The door hushed open.

“Sir,” said Hoyle.

“Yes, Hoyle.”

“We’ve lost contact with Fountain Forty-Seven. No audio, and the tracking has stopped responding. Should I send an extraction team?”

Marrick didn’t take her eyes from the slide. Hoyle made the mistake of following her gaze and his stomach clenched. He looked away from the projector screen.

“How soon until Fountain Forty-Eight are ready?” said Marrick.

“They’re still five weeks away from completing their training.”

“Send them as soon as they’re ready.”

“Straight to the shrine?” asked Hoyle.

“Start them from scratch. Team Forty-Seven must have missed something.”

“Yes sir,” said Hoyle, his fingers sliding gracefully over his computer pad.

“Did they have any children?”

“Karim had two daughters, eleven and six. Arker had one son, aged three.”

“Put all three under surveillance level four,” said Marrick. “Update me when they reach sixteen.”

“Sir,” nodded Hoyle.

“Was there anything else?” asked Marrick, clicking forward to a slide which appeared to be a mushroom with eyes. It looked angry.

“Eden Two are headed for Dubai,” said Hoyle. “I believe this is where we had the problem with the last one.”

“Did they get the book?”

Hoyle paused.

“The last page was missing.”

There was the faintest trace of amusement in Marrick’s expression.

“Thank you; that will be all.”

Marrick turned back to the slides as the door hushed closed. Some people tried to achieve immortality by having children. However, from her own observations, having children often reduced your longevity, especially if you had a large bequest that you had not had the foresight to leave to an extremely benign charity.

Marrick did not believe immortality was a genetic legacy or a symbolic perpetuation of your memory. Immortality was not some tastelessly large statue in a public place, or a priceless painting ogled by people who secretly thought it was smaller than they expected.

Immortality was
not dying
.

Very few people complained about antibiotics, or heart surgery, or curing cancer. Marrick saw nothing different about trying to fix that last, stubborn kink of existence. The thing that common people didn’t understand was that King Canute
could have
stopped the tide. Rome
could have
been built in a day. All they needed were enough engineers, architects, labourers and money.

Marrick did not believe in agonising over whether something was or was not possible—that was the difference between middle managers and CEOs.

CEOs made it happen.

8

Luke staggered off the tram into a grey, gusty day. The sky was bright and colourless, mottled with distant rain clouds. The wide city street was lined with scraggly elms, their wide branches feathering over shady boulevards.

“Tell me again why we had to fly thirty-four hours to Australia, rather than taking advantage of this wondrous invention called the internet?” said Luke, his head still slowly re-pressurising.

“He must have changed his email address,” said Chris, trying to unfold a map which was already fully unfolded.

Luke looked around morosely as people wandered about in T-shirts and shorts, oblivious to the blustery weather.

“Why is it you can get a map of the world for a dollar, but seven bucks only gets you three blocks in Melbourne?” muttered Chris.

“Maybe he moved to the Maldives,” said Luke. “Can we go there?”

“I hope it’s still here…” Chris studied the map as she walked past an eco-office block, with potted plants sprouting from complicated networks of window boxes.

As they continued away from the main strip, the streets grew quieter, and fewer pedestrians roamed about. Empty shopfronts sported “For Lease” signs, squeezed between dollar-shops cluttered with merchandise that had probably been moved less often than the heart of a jaded film critic. At the edge of the cracked sidewalk, a bottle-brush sapling strove in slow motion to dislodge an entire block of paving.

“I think this is it,” said Chris, looking up from her map.

They stood before a large, square building of eggplant-coloured brick, erected in the late 1800s, but not heritage enough to warrant repairs. Loose guttering hung like a falling crown, framing clay roof tiles encrusted with lichen. Above the entrance, a tarnished brass plaque read “Stewart Burns Museum of Natural History.”

“Is that an unfortunate name or a permanent headline?” said Chris.

Luke leaned in to read the laminated sign stuck to the front door.

Open Mondays and Thursdays
.

“When you say you know this guy, do you mean you know him, you know
of him
, or you plan on getting to know him if he exists?” asked Luke.

Chris was already standing on the front lawn, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“Mr. Flute!” Chris yelled towards the upstairs windows. “Mr. Flute, are you there? Hello?!”

Luke sank down beside the door, wishing he had a pillow and perhaps a pair of earplugs. It had been a long, exhausting flight, after what had been a long, exhausting night, and he was starting to suspect that he should spend some time being horizontal.

Luke heard footsteps clipping sharply towards the museum entrance, and he stood up as the front door opened to reveal a woman wearing a slightly rumpled blouse and tan slacks. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, with greying hair tied back in a bun and her sleeves partly rolled up. A battered tag dangling from the lanyard around her neck identified her as “Professor Griffith—Director, Curator, Collections Manager and Head Teuthologist.”

“Can I help you?” asked Griffith.

“I’m looking for Marcus Flute,” said Chris. “He’s head of acquisitions and research.”

There was a flicker of chagrin in Griffith’s expression, but it was quickly covered by polite composure.

“He hasn’t worked here in almost twelve years. I don’t know where he is now.”

Chris’s heart sank like a depressed donkey in a deep swamp.

“Do you know how I can find him?” asked Chris.

“I can’t help you.”

“We’ve come all the way from Romania,” said Luke, slightly plaintive.

“Romania?” Griffith looked sceptical.

“I’ve been… I really need to find him,” said Chris. “He was a good friend of my mother’s…before she passed.”

Even Chris had to admit it was a long shot coming here. Luke had said the connection was so oblique it made art-house cinema look like a blockbuster comedy about a man dressed as a woman wearing a fatsuit. But it had to make sense—it all had to come together somehow, if only she followed the breadcrumbs. Her mother must have acted with good reason. With purpose.

Griffith studied Chris a little closer, with a glimmer of recognition.

“You’re Rana’s daughter…?” said Griffith cautiously.