The Tomorrow Code (10 page)

Read The Tomorrow Code Online

Authors: Brian Falkner

Tags: #Children: Grades 4-6, #Nature & the Natural World, #Environment, #New Zealand, #Nature & the Natural World - Environment, #Environmental disasters, #Juvenile Science Fiction, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Ages 9-12 Fiction, #Fiction, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Science fiction, #People & Places, #Australia & Oceania, #Action & Adventure - General, #Science Fiction; Fantasy; & Magic, #Action & Adventure, #Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic, #Children's Books, #General, #Fantasy

BOOK: The Tomorrow Code
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Tane didn’t bother to open the safety gate; he just swung his legs over it and walked the first few steps without even holding on to the handrails, balancing like a tightrope walker.

He came out here often. Some days because he wanted to, and other days the evensong of the native birds seemed to call to him.

The breeze had come up with the closing of the day, but the sun had yet to disappear behind the mountainside, so it was pleasantly warm. The leaves on the trees that surrounded him ruffled softly, but the branches and the rope were still. All around him, birds sang joyfully in an enveloping chorus.

His dad came out here a lot also. He said it beat the hell out of watching television in the evening, and Tane supposed he was right.

The last time he had seen his dad was a couple of weeks ago, just before he had gone bush on another painting project. Fatboy had come around that day to show off his
moko,
which he had somehow managed to persuade their mum to keep a secret.

Fatboy had walked in and taken off his helmet, and after an initial look of surprise, their father’s face had cracked slowly into a smile, and his eyes had sparkled with pride. His dad had embraced Fatboy and pressed their foreheads and noses together in a
hongi,
the traditional Maori greeting. Then he had hugged his eldest son, and Fatboy, the cool, leather-clad, rock-star-in-the-making that he was, had hugged him back without embarrassment or backslapping.

Tane thought back on that now and shook his head. He and his brother couldn’t be more different. He was getting messages from the future, but Fatboy was still stuck in the past.

Where the heck was Fatboy anyway? He had not called, and when they tried his mobile phone, it went straight to voice mail. Had he even watched the Lotto draw? Did he know? Maybe he did,
and that was why he hadn’t called.

A tui landed on the rail just in front of Tane’s left hand. The distinctive white feather under the bird’s chin looked like a miniature clerical collar. The parson bird, the early European settlers had called it, because it looked like a churchman. Tane didn’t move. The tui looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then fluffed up its feathers and began to sing. The call of the tui was legendary, and they seemed to sing a different song every time you heard them. This bird, this day, had a slow, sad, rhythmical pattern that sounded like a lullaby.

After a while, the bird stopped and looked back at Tane, turning its head from side to side in small darting movements.

Tane raised a hand slowly toward the tui, inviting it to perch on his finger. The tui took a step backward on the rope.
I’m not scared,
it seemed to be saying,
but I’m not stupid.
Then it was gone in a whirling dash around and through the branches of a nearby macrocarpa.

Tane stayed put for a while, looking out across the valley toward the concrete spires of the city.

It would be a shame when this was all gone. He knew it was coming. The subdevelopers with their tractors and bulldozers would be here one day. Already, across the ridge in the next valley, he could see the brown scar where a construction crew had felled the trees and cleared the bush, preparing the foundations for a new lodge and conference center.

One day, this ropewalk would be something he would tell his grandkids about, and they’d laugh, he thought, unsure whether to believe him.

He walked on to where he knew there was a new nest of young fantails. The mother was busy feeding them worms and didn’t notice him.

Where the heck was Fatboy?

 

T
RUST

Fatboy rang when Tane was
getting ready for school, bleary-eyed and headachy. He’d been unable to sleep the night before.

His mum answered the phone, and from the tone of her voice, he knew instantly who it was.

His schoolbag dropped, spilling his pencil case and English study notes across the kitchen floor. He barely noticed.

“Harley wants to speak to you,” his mum said, holding up the phone.

Tane had to restrain himself to avoid snatching the phone away from her. “Where are you?”

Fatboy’s voice sounded cheerily in his ear. “We’re millionaires, little bro. All three of us. We need to get together.”

“We have school today.” Tane tried to sound cool, as if he had never even remotely considered the idea that Fatboy might have absconded with the money.

“Can’t you take the day off?” Tane could hear the excitement beneath the words. Fatboy, too, was trying hard to maintain the ice-cool rock-star persona, but the excitement was seeping out into his inflection like a little kid with a new toy.

“No way. Exams start next Monday,” Tane said steadily.

“Lunchtime, then. I’ll meet you both at McDonald’s.”

Fatboy rang off, and Tane realized that he had forgotten to ask why he’d had his mobile phone turned off.

He speed-dialed Rebecca’s number.

 

Lunchtime was at twelve-thirty, but by twelve thirty-seven, Fatboy still hadn’t showed. Tane could barely restrain his excitement, and a Quarter Pounder and fries didn’t help.

Rebecca, by contrast, was oddly silent and ate nothing.

“What’s troubling you?” Tane eventually asked. “Is it the SOS?”

“No, no. Yes, I’m excited. It’s just…” A small tear squeezed itself out of her left eye, and she wiped it away quickly. “I know you should never say ‘What if.’ What if this had happened, what if that had happened. But I just can’t help thinking, what if we had thought of the whole thing a year earlier? Fourteen months earlier.”

Tane reached across the small Formica-topped table and put his hand on her arm. He knew where she was heading.

Rebecca said, her voice choked, “They could have warned us. We could have told Dad to stay at home that day. Everything would be different.” Rebecca struggled to contain the sobs. “Mum…” She couldn’t continue.

“You’re right,” Tane said. “You should never say ‘what if.’”

He wanted to say more, something to ease Rebecca’s pain, but he couldn’t find quite the right words, and then it was too late because Fatboy pulled up, right outside their window in a brand-new, metallic green, soft-top Jeep Wrangler. There was a nervous-looking man sitting beside him in the passenger seat.

Rebecca grabbed Tane’s napkin and patted at her eyes. By the time Fatboy and the stranger sat down, her smile was forced but believable. Just.

Fatboy slid across the bench seat with a flourish and put his arm around Rebecca’s shoulders. He grabbed Tane’s Coke. “
Kia Ora,
kids.”

“Hey!” Tane protested.

“Buy yourself another,” Fatboy laughed. “Hell, buy yourself the whole goddamn factory if you want to.”

The stranger sat timidly on the end of the bench seat. He was tall and balding in a flat line across the top of his head. He had a black mustache. He said a little unsteadily, “Actually, the Coca-Cola Amatil factory would be worth considerably more than the six million you have available to invest.”

“Don’t you just love lawyers!” Fatboy and his
moko
grinned at them. “They’re so literal.”

“Nice wheels,” Rebecca said cautiously.

“Yeah. Goes like stink too,” Fatboy agreed. “I almost got it up on two wheels coming around Seymour Road.”

Tane thought that might go some ways to explaining the rather nervous-looking lawyer.

“And we need a lawyer, do we?” he asked pointedly.

Fatboy reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thick, folded orange-colored booklet. He tossed it in front of Tane, who picked it up and examined it.
Realize Your Dreams. Winner’s Information from the NZ Lotteries Commission.

“Page twelve,” said Fatboy. “Seek professional advice. Tane, Rebecca, this is Anson Strange; Anson, my brother Tane and my um…Rebecca.”

They both shook the man’s hand.

Fatboy continued, “I didn’t have a spare helmet for the Harley with me. But it was no problem. I just ran next door to the Chrysler yard and picked up the Wrangler.”

“I hope you got a discount,” Tane muttered. “Why couldn’t we get hold of you?”

Fatboy looked aggrieved. “I was on my way to Wellington to claim our winnings. You can’t just run into the nearest Lotto shop and ask them to cash out a six-million-dollar ticket!”

“We tried your mobile phone.”

“Can’t use them on a plane.”

Rebecca asked, “Are you sure we need a lawyer? I thought you said that was all unnecessary.”

Fatboy answered, “Things are different now. With six million dollars to play with, we’ve got to do things properly. Otherwise we might go and do something stupid like spend it all on a flight to the moon or something.”

“Or a submarine,” said Tane under his breath.

Rebecca said, “Does anyone else know about our win? Like your mum and dad?”

“Or the press?” Tane added.

Fatboy shook his head. “Nobody. I requested that our details remain anonymous.” He turned to the lawyer. “Anson, would you give us a few minutes?”

Anson rose dutifully and went to stand in a queue behind the counter.

“What are you guys into?” Fatboy asked as soon as Anson was out of earshot.

“What do you mean?” Rebecca asked innocently.

“You knew those numbers were going to come up. I’m not entirely stupid. Something’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on,” said Tane quickly.

“Can you do it again? Pick the numbers?” Fatboy stared directly at Tane.

“No.”

“Maybe.”

Tane and Rebecca said it simultaneously. Tane was louder.

Tane could just about see the dollars ticking over behind Fatboy’s eyes.

“I want in,” Fatboy said. “I want a part of it.”

You want a part of everything,
Tane thought, and said sullenly, “You don’t even know what
it
is.”

“That’s true.” Fatboy grinned. “But I want in anyway. How’s that? Is it illegal?”

Tane didn’t think it would worry Fatboy if it was. “No.”

“There are some big up-front expenses,” Rebecca said cautiously.

“Bigger than six million dollars?”

Rebecca nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

Fatboy whistled. “But you could do it again, right? The Lotto thing?”

“Maybe,” Rebecca repeated, but it was clear that Fatboy interpreted that as a definite yes.

“So if I understand what you’re saying…We all pool our money together now, and we all get an equal third of anything later.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Tane insisted. “Stay out of it.”

The more Tane insisted, the more interested Fatboy seemed to get.

Fatboy said slowly, “Okay, I’m in. My two million for a one-third share.”

“We need to talk about this,” Tane said.

“I’ll give you a minute,” Fatboy said, and went to chat with his nervous-looking lawyer.

“No way.” Tane was adamant, although he kept his voice low.

“We don’t know what we’re getting into,” Rebecca reasoned. “He might be a good person to have around.”

“I’d rather sell my soul to the—”

“Look, he came through all right with the Lotto ticket, didn’t he?”

“I still don’t trust him. And anyway, he thinks this is all some kind of moneymaking scheme.”

“Well, trust him or not, and whatever he thinks, we need his share of the money.”

“No, I figure we’ll just scrape through without him.”

Rebecca dropped her eyes and there was a sudden catch in her voice. “Sure. And where are Mum and I going to live? On the submarine?”

Tane’s next sentence froze on his tongue.

“Come on, Tane.”

“I think we’ll regret it.”

Rebecca reached over and kissed him on the forehead.

Tane realized that he already regretted it.

 

They told Fatboy everything. Tane hadn’t intended to tell him any more than they had to, but once you showed a tiny corner of the picture, it just kind of led to more questions and they led to more questions, and before long, Fatboy knew as much as they did. He didn’t quite believe them at first, but the Lotto ticket was a quite convincing argument.

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