And All the Stars

Chapter Six

Sunlight crept beneath Madeleine’s eyelids, but it was a sumptuous roil of cinnamon and chocolate which woke her. She scrubbed a hand across her face, stretching, and blinked at a man on television filming himself in front of a Spire. The only sound was from Noi clunking something in the kitchen.

For some minutes Madeleine didn’t move, watching the man holding up a star-studded arm, displaying it as best he could next to the Spire’s whorl of light. Then she shifted her attention to the easel, to Tyler who was somewhere out there probably dead. Painted eyes gazed back at her, uncompromising, and she realised that she felt no impulse to return to the portrait because it didn’t need it. The roughly blocked background, the quick strokes she’d used for everything except the highlight points of head, hand and hair, worked perfectly.

"Which do you prefer for shops: King’s Cross or Bondi Junction?" Noi asked as Madeleine sat up. "There’s a fair few things I need, and from what Faliha was telling me it’s probably not a good idea to wait too long."

"I’ve never been shopping at either of them," Madeleine said. Finding the room unexpectedly chilly, she pulled the koi dressing gown around her. "What on earth are you cooking?"

"Fudge, and caramel squares. I figure we need to always carry something with a big sugar hit – little blocks of emergency energy. There’s pancakes for breakfast, or will be by the time you’re dressed."

"Can I keep you?" Madeleine asked wonderingly, and then laughed with Noi at how that sounded. "I’m guessing you get that a lot. It must be nice to be good at something so useful."

"What, and you aren’t?" Noi said, looking pleased. "I’d kill to be able to draw like that." She nodded toward Madeleine’s sketchbook on the coffee table. "I can’t believe you did those from memory."

"Not a useful skill," Madeleine muttered, and shrugged at Noi’s questioning look. "My mother wants me to be a vet. There’s no money in art. I need a real career, need to be practical, can still paint in my spare time." She pulled herself up, hearing the resentment leaking into her voice. "Guess none of that matters now. Did you always want to cook?"

"Hell, no. I was destined to be a pro basketball player." All of five foot nothing, she grinned blithely. "Well, okay, maybe I did watch a few too many episodes of Masterchef when I was a kid. And food’s a big thing in my family – I’m Thai-Italian, so I’m like Aussie fusion cooking incarnate. My Dad would have preferred I finished Year Twelve before starting my apprenticeship, but he knew it was the only thing I wanted to do." Her smile faded, and she stirred the bubbling pot of fudge.

"I’ll go get dressed," Madeleine said, hesitated, then murmured "Thanks," and left it at that.

After another raid on Tyler’s closet, they disposed of the pancakes and found a second backpack for carrying supplies. Madeleine took a moment to remove the boring print over Tyler’s bed and hang his portrait, balancing the frame of the stretcher on the hook. She refused to acknowledge any symbolism to the gesture.

"We’ll have to search some of the apartments for car keys later," Noi said as they headed down. "But my bike should be enough for this trip. Meet me out front."

It was still early, a breezy and overcast day with a chill southern breeze. Madeleine wished she’d added a jacket to her ensemble, and tucked her hands into her armpits as she walked slowly down the wharf, attention on the Spire flirting with the clouds. Every velvet step reminded her of warm, unnatural stone.

A tutting motor warned her of Noi’s emergence from the driveway on the eastern side of the wharf. Her curls foamed beneath a white helmet and she rode a cream moped, speeding to a precipitous stop at the curb.

"I’ve only the one helmet, sorry," she said. "The Cross is closer, so we’ll head there. Anything you particularly need?"

"Underwear," Madeleine said, sliding onto the seat behind the shorter girl and feeling a little ridiculous.

"Underwear it is!" Noi said, and shot them across the street, past the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel, and by a collection of tiny terrace houses. She rode with verve and obvious pleasure at having no competition for the road, but it was the shortest of trips, and when they reached the shop-lined streets around King’s Cross Station she slowed to a crawl, staring at ragged holes and spills of safety glass.

"Looks like we’re late to the party," Noi said. "Looting: the new economy."

Madeleine was shocked by the destruction: there was hardly a shopfront intact. King’s Cross had a certain reputation for a drugs-and-prostitution nightlife, but it was an ordinary enough inner-city suburb otherwise.

"What would anyone need from a nail salon?" she wondered.

"Cuticle crisis? Hangnail emergency?" Noi shook her head. "Let’s do this quickly."

Tucking her moped between two cars, she led the way into a Best & Less, snagging a couple of enviro-bags from a checkout. The store offered a full range of cheap, serviceable clothing, and there was no sign of whoever had broken the door open, so Madeleine quickly stuffed bags with clothing suitable for a Sydney winter, and slipped on a plum-coloured coat with a white lined hood.

"Did you see a shoe store?" Noi asked, joining her at the door. "I want some serious boots."

"Next to the chemists?"

They left the unwieldy bags at the moped, and headed to an up-market shoe store, with a brief detour for chargers from a phone specialty shop. Madeleine quickly found sneakers and some comfortable slip-ons, then told Noi she’d be next door.

The chemists was a disaster zone, and she hesitated at the door, not overly surprised at the mess. The scatter of items in the front of the store was nothing compared to the complete shambles at the back, where a pharmacist would dispense prescription medicine. But Madeleine didn’t need anything serious, and slipped off her backpack to do a cautious tour, collecting aspirin, toothbrushes, tampons, and a couple of bottles of cough mixture in anticipation of flu season. Heading out, she paused and picked a box off a shelf, reading the label doubtfully.

"They were four very fanciable boys weren’t they?"

Madeleine hastily tried to put the box back, but Noi plucked it from her hand.

"No, no, it’s just what I was thinking. Though I see this packet has Science Boy’s name written all over it."

Madeleine stared. "I didn’t–"

"Oh, come on. I looked at that sketch pad of yours. Some nice pictures of me and the other three, and about a thousand of he-who-dives-down-stairs. You couldn’t have been more obvious if you’d drawn love hearts around each one."

"He’s just a good sub – what are you doing?!"

Noi, attempting to shovel an entire shelf of condom packets into Madeleine’s backpack, sent half of them scattering to the ground, but tucked in the rest. "No, don’t back down on good sense. Even if not Science Boy, it can’t hurt to put in a supply. There’s got to be a few thousand reasons why getting preggers during a starry blue apocalypse is a bad idea. Better yet–"

She slung the black boots she was carrying around her neck and waded into the mess in the pharmacy section.

"Drugs, drugs, damn, someone really cracked a rage fit back here, didn’t they? I should have put the boots on first." Glass crunched. "Hmm, that might be useful. Hey, does your phone have enough juice to Google the name of – oh, wait, that looks right…"

Arms full of boxes, Noi waded back and tumbled her load into what little space was left in Madeleine’s backpack, scrunching them down so she could zip the bag up. "Painkillers, antibiotics and the Pill. Probably. We’ll look them up when we get back. All done?"

Madeleine considered the backpack uncertainly, thinking Noi’s practicality immensely premature given that Madeleine had never even kissed anyone, and Fisher hadn’t looked at her twice. Then she sighed and slipped the bag over one shoulder. "Which of them is it you keep texting?"

Noi’s grin broadened. "Pan. Which, damn, is giving me fits because, seriously, a Year Ten boy? He’s got to be only sixteen. Or fifteen. I don’t know if I could handle fifteen. I don’t think fifteen’s even legal."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen! And, yeah, I know – no-one would think it strange if our ages were the other way around but it’s a big mental adjustment for me to be chatting up someone in Year Ten."

"Half the world is dead, we just robbed four stores, and you’re worried about liking a guy two years younger than you?"

"Priorities, I have them."

They headed out, Noi swinging her new boots by their tied laces as they debated the best way to occupy the rest of the day, and then puzzled over transporting so many stuffed bags on a moped.

"Hey, hey, more damsels in distress! You two want a hand?"

Three people were walking toward them: two guys in their early twenties and a younger girl.

"No, we’re good," Noi said. "We don’t have far to go."

"You sure?" asked the one in the lead, tall and blonde with a surfer tan. "It’s no problem."

"Yeah. Thanks anyway."

The blonde guy shrugged and waved, but his friend, short and sandy, gave them a dirty look as he turned away which made Madeleine glad Noi had refused. The girl, between the two men, hesitated, fine pale hair drifting across her face. She looked painfully young and overwhelmed, and Madeleine felt suddenly sick.

"You okay?" Noi called.

The girl’s eyes widened, sending a frantic message which she stopped short of saying aloud.

"Hey, what’s the problem?" surfer guy said. "This is our friend Emily. We’re taking care of her."

"You need a place, come with us," Noi said, speaking directly to the girl.

"Mind your own business, bitch," snapped sandy guy.

"Just walk over here," Noi said, still talking straight to the girl. She swung her pair of boots lightly.

"Little girl, you think you can fight us with those?" Surfer guy sounded pleased by the idea. "Man, even in the old world you wouldn’t have a hope. But this is the new world! The Blue world!" He laughed, bubbling over with good humour, then lifted an arm and pointed his palm at a nearby shop window.

Nothing visible came out of his hand, but the window still shattered, a wide round hole punched through the safety glass, little crystalline squares showering the display.

"Shit, all of us can do that," Noi said. "You think you’re special?"

"Uh-huh. Big talk, shortie. I think you’re the only fighter on your side. You might want to get out of here before you get hurt."

"No."

Madeleine wanted to run, but she stepped forward to Noi’s side, gripping the metal pole of a parking sign for support.

"You’re the ones who’re outgunned," she said, putting as much quiet authority into her voice as she could manage. "Leave before I do this to you."

Lifting her free hand she aimed the palm at the windscreen of the nearest car, and pushed out with the strength which had been in her since the surge, giving her all in order to impress.

She’d kept her eyes on the leader, and only saw the result of her effort in peripheral vision as, with an enormous smash and scream of metal, the car shot back and then flipped up, setting off a cascade of collisions climaxing with the first car’s descent, a smack-bang coda only a ton of metal falling out of the sky could provide. A half-dozen car alarms rose in discordant chorus.

The reaction of the two men was, thankfully, exactly as Madeleine had hoped. As she stood there, one hand wrapped around the metal pole and the other still pointed at the destruction she’d created, they turned tail and ran in the opposite direction, and did not look back to see that she still stood, hand out, head high, eyes fixed on the place they had been. Paralysed.

The aftermath followed the same course as the time at St James Station, with the added complication of Noi, who managed to lower Madeleine’s arm, producing a burning sensation in her shoulder. When, soon after, Madeleine curled down to clutch her knees and gasp in pain, the girl hugged Madeleine protectively, not realising that made the pins and needles worse.

Despite the blaze of pain Madeleine could feel Noi shaking, so struggled to say through stinging lips: "S’okay. Jus' tempry."

"I reserve the right to panic," Noi replied, with a gasp of relief. "I’ve called the apple-green cavalry to give us a lift."

By the time the cheerful Volkswagen arrived, the worst had passed, and Madeleine was sitting almost upright, bracketed by Noi and the blonde girl, Emily, all her limbs feeling disconnected and not quite hers. Recovered enough, though, to appreciate the stunned reaction of the four boys to the line of five cars rammed into each other, garnished with an upended sedan whose engine had been driven almost through to the boot.

"Questions later," Noi said, as the cavalry piled out of the car. "This is all way too noisy and attention-getting. Can you stand, Maddie?"

Standing wasn’t much of a problem with so many hands ready to help, though Madeleine was feeling far too vague and floaty to navigate herself to the back seat of the Volkswagen, and yet found herself there, Emily on one side and Fisher on the other. As Gav was cheerfully exchanging names with Emily, Madeleine remembered the squares of fudge Noi had given her before they set out, tucked into the front pocket of her backpack. A backpack now sitting on Fisher’s lap.

Painful heat washed through her as she stared at the overstuffed bag. He couldn’t possibly know, had no reason to open it, but–

Fisher frowned. "What is it? Are you going to be sick?"

Madeleine looked away, head spinning. "Where’s Noi?"

"Ferrying the court jester," Nash said, nodding ahead just as Noi’s moped cut in front of them, Pan balanced precariously backward, indulging his inner hoon by holding arms and legs out at the same time. But it was Nash’s expression which caught Madeleine’s attention. Fond, indulgent. Enough to make Madeleine wonder if it was not Pan’s age which would get in Noi’s way.

Trying not to picture the contents of the bag spilling everywhere, Madeleine turned resolutely to the girl on her right. Tall, fine-boned and delicately pretty, with the kind of silken, straight hair which Madeleine sighed over on the days when her own was determined to imitate steel wool.

"Emily? Sorry, didn’t mean to be so…over the top."

The girl ducked her head, colour flooding through porcelain skin, but then lifted her eyes and said fiercely. "I’m glad you did. They were such awful people, pretending they wanted to help. I couldn’t find a way to leave without them getting angry."

"What more can we do to get the word out, Fish?" asked Gavin as he followed Noi onto the private road along the eastern side of Finger Wharf. "People are checking on each other, grouping up, but for kids like Emily here there’s too big a chance they’ll walk right into the wrong person. The site messages, Twitter, it’s not enough."

"The Safe Zone model’s gaining momentum," Fisher replied. "Melbourne Trish got through to the ABC, and once they start broadcasting links we’ll catch the majority." He saw Madeleine’s confused expression. "A sister site of BlueGreen, working a model which came out of Toronto. Establish safe zones, just as we have with Rushies. Remove corpses, manage food, identify survivors with expertise, like doctors, electricians, and then gradually clear outwards from your central point. We’re looking at seventy to ninety per cent mortality in high exposure areas, while the fringe areas are full of people trapped in their houses. Even in cities which have had rain, like Sydney, they’d be risking everything to go outside. Once the Blues and Greens have established some organisation, we can look at trying to help the uninfected in the dust zones. Not to mention working on some kind of inoculation. There’s Blue groups in Berkeley, Beijing and London who are the primary focus for that research, and we’re feeding them as much information as we can."

His glance at Madeleine clearly put her in the category of information to be gathered, but questions were forestalled as they pulled up near the apartment elevator. Madeleine was by now piercingly hungry, but all her attention was focused on retrieving her backpack from Fisher, which she managed to do with minimum fuss as they waited for the lift, drawing a startled look and stifled cough of laughter from Noi.

"So are we all capable of trash compacting cars if we put our minds to it?" Pan asked, as they travelled upward. "I mean, I know I’m not the only one who’s been playing with recreating the surge. I’ve felt tired afterwards, but haven’t collapsed. Definitely haven’t had any couldn’t move moments."

"Do you get pins and needles after?" Madeleine asked, better able to engage with the situation now that her backpack was safely in her arms, and Fisher was carrying innocuous bags of clothing.

"Nope." Pan glanced around, but everyone shook their head.

"I haven’t even tried," Noi said, unlocking Tyler’s apartment with the master key.

"Do you react like that every time?" Fisher deposited the bags he was carrying by the couch, started to sit down, then said sharply: "Unmute that TV."

The television, which had been busily telling the world’s story to an empty room, currently displayed an unsteady image of two men walking toward a Spire.

"What are they – is that a bazooka?" Gavin asked.

The pair had stopped, one man moving back to whoever was filming while the other dropped to one knee and lifted the bazooka to his shoulder. Noi found the remote in time to give them sound as the man fired, a plume of white followed swiftly by a sunburst of orange.

"That was perhaps not an entirely pointless exercise," Nash said, as the fiery bloom died to a drift of smoke, revealing a completely undisturbed Spire. "It gives us a gauge for what will not penetrate it, at least."

"Aliens always have impenetrable force fields," Pan said. "Must be some kind of industrial law. No invasions of Earth until force field technology achieved."

"You still think it’s an alien invasion?" Noi asked, bringing water and a plate of sweets over to Madeleine, who gratefully tucked herself into one corner of the couch and stuffed her face.

"I sure don’t think it’s the judgment of God. Did you hear that dipweed calling himself Pope? The one in Vienna, I mean, not the one in Florence."

"No religion I’ve ever heard of has mentioned giant starry pointy things," Gavin said. He glanced at Nash, who looked amused.

"Technically, there is no reason why Shiva or Kali could not do such a thing. Why should any god tread old ground?"

"Divine retribution via aliens then," Pan said. "Still aliens.

"No, I don’t mean about it being aliens," Noi said, offering Emily a chair and pointing people toward the trays of sweets in the kitchen as she muted the television again. "The secret government conspiracy idea never seemed likely, which does leave gods or aliens. It’s the invasion part. If they’re invading, where the hell are they?"

"Laying their plans? Waiting for more people to die so it’s safe to come out?"

"Or just watching." Gavin shrugged at Noi. "There’s the aliens doing experiments theory. Think The Island of Doctor Moreau, except we’re the animals being made into people. I think there’s even a religion which already believed that – that humans were uplifted by aliens. So all this, the whole horrible thing, has been to make Greens and Blues, to create the next evolutionary step of the human race."

"A new world, a Blue world," Madeleine murmured, and felt sick.

"I agree with Fish that we should not rush to judgment," Nash said, paused, then repeated: "Fish?"

Fisher, who had been keeping a watchful, worried eye on the television, looked up, then let out his breath. "Sorry. I’ve been trying to find a way to ask Madeleine to take off her clothes. Everything I can think to say sounds impossibly wrong." One corner of his mouth twitched at their various reactions, then he added to Madeleine: "You’re very blue, aren’t you?"

"Yeah." Madeleine couldn’t stop the rush of heat to her face, and wondered what the patch around her eye looked like when she blushed. "Just a minute – I actually anticipated that particular request."

"Oh, man, everything I can think to say right now sounds impossibly wrong as well," Pan said as she stood up, then added on a more serious note: "You want us to kick off, Maddie? Give you less of a crowd."

"It’s okay." She collected the bags of looted clothing and, most importantly, the backpack of looted other things, and headed into Tyler’s walk-in wardrobe.

Noi followed her to check that Madeleine was okay, turned to go, then returned to pick up the backpack and briefly clutch it to her chest, bouncing in a circle of silent hilarity.

That at least left Madeleine smiling as she dug through the bags to unearth a pair of very short shorts and a matching crochet halter top which was a mere inch or two from being a bikini. Something she would normally never consider wearing, since it made her look like a noodle, only emphasising her lack of hips and how little she had to fill the top. But looking in the mirror she saw neither abbreviated black cloth nor string-bean figure, only stars.

"Barely human," she murmured, and saw exactly the same thought in the faces of those who waited for her in Tyler’s lounge room.

"Damn," Gavin said. "But – damn."

Madeleine, resisting the urge to clutch the coat she’d carried with her to her chest, turned so they could see her back, which had a particularly brilliant display: her own tiny nebulae. She looked down, the handful of sticking plasters on her arms and legs catching her eye.

"How are you still alive?" Fisher asked, sounding breathless. He came close, putting on his glasses, and she looked away as he bent to study her back. "Can I document this?"

"If you keep my face out of it," Madeleine said, and stood unhappily as he circled her, taking pictures with his phone. She hadn’t really processed the impulse which had produced so many sketches of Fisher Charteris, but couldn’t entirely deny Noi’s conclusion, and so watched his face gravely as he angled his phone to take pictures of her stomach. He was someone she’d only just met, and she liked the bones of his face, and the cinnamon warmth of his light brown eyes, and she wanted to do more than just sketch him.

Finished, he looked up, brows drawn in thought, and Madeleine wondered if he made many enemies because the slightest frown made it seem like he was seriously annoyed. He caught her gaze, and paused to study her frankly in return, and that was a little too much for Madeleine in front of an audience, so she retrieved the plum-coloured coat and sat back down, trying not to curl protectively into a ball.

"I was at St James," she announced, wanting to limit questions about that time. "The dust was knee-deep. I walked out along the track. Higher exposure, more stain."

"I don’t know of any other very high exposure cases who have survived," Fisher said, tucking phone and glasses away. "Did you eat anything unusual, take any medicines we could investigate?"

"I don’t think so. I painted, and ate soup. I took some aspirin early on because I’d hit my head. But–" She grimaced. "If there’s anything really different about me, it was that I’d touched the Spire."

Fisher paused in the act of sitting down, then completed the movement, the lowering frown reappearing.

"Something you might have mentioned earlier!" Pan said. "What was it like then?"

"Like us," Madeleine replied, uncomfortably. "Velvet. The same sensation as blue-stained skin. It was warm, too, and felt alive. Except solid as marble."

"That’s…so not comforting to hear." Pan exchanged a glance with Nash, then tangled fingers in his hair, feeling the shape of his skull. "Not pointy yet."

"I’d only just touched it when the force field came up," Madeleine went on. "I was knocked back, paralysed like I was this morning. Then awful pins and needles. Today I was a lot hungrier afterwards, but otherwise it was the same."

"Did that happen during your surge?" Fisher asked, very intent.

"No."

"Go look at the bathroom," Noi said, and pointed the way. When they returned she added: "I was surprised you aren’t more cut up, seeing all that."

Madeleine explained briefly how the shards of glass and tile had bounced off her during the surge, the cuts simply the result of picking herself off the floor afterwards.

"Personal force field," Pan said, excited. "Can we do that? Okay, yeah, it makes us even more like the Spire, but so cool. But why the paralysis?"

"Some controlled, less spectacular experiments might answer that," Fisher said, not taking his eyes off Madeleine. "Something I wanted to organise anyway, somewhere away from anything we can damage, but even more so hearing this. It’s more than worth investigating whether your survival is intrinsic to you, or a result of the shock soon after exposure. Have you heard from your cousin?"

"No. But he had just flown in when the Spire arrived, and was safe from the dust for a long while. The last time I heard from him he didn’t have the stain."

"Leave a note," suggested Pan. "Forward the apartment phone to your mobile." He grimaced. "The senior dorms are set a little apart, and it makes a real difference to know there’s not a body in the next room. I’d be all manly now and say you girls should let us protect you, except you just gutted a car, and I think Noi would throw those boots at me. But we’re good company, and wash most days."

"How’re your Greens?" Noi asked, a note of regret in her voice.

"Up and about, all but a few of them. Not quite ready for a marathon, but you wouldn’t be walking into playing nurse or anything."

"I mean how’s their attitude? To you and your plans. To these stories of Blues killing Greens."

All four of them hesitated, which was answer enough.

Noi sighed. "Look, I’m all for teaming up, community, good company, whatever. But even if nothing else happens we’re facing a world divided into three parts. The uninfected. People doing Kermit imitations. And people who can gut cars. Some of whom seem to think they’ve been promoted to the top of the heap. Give Maddie’s cousin another couple of days and then we’ll come over, but we need to think contingency plan."

"Fair point," Fisher conceded. "Any suggestions?"

"If nothing else, we’ll try to find the keys to some of the spectacular array of boats lined up outside. Some of those things are practically floating mansions. Driving out of the city to any of the surrounding towns would mean competing with the thousands who’ve already done that – and potentially being isolated and locked up for being Blue. Not that I have the least idea of how to drive – or is it pilot? – a boat, or any suggestions on where to go. But it’s a first step."

"Nash knows boats," Pan said.

"Sailing," Nash corrected, but they all stood and went out on the balcony to survey the gently bobbing array.

Madeleine stayed where she was, just turning so she could watch them. Fisher was self-contained, withholding judgment, while Gavin was clearly more optimistic, reassuring Emily. Nash’s shoulders were slumped, and Pan was keeping a concerned eye on him. He reached up and put a hand on the taller boy’s shoulder, and Nash seemed to gain strength from the gesture, straightening, but then moved away.

Noi came back inside, face pensive, but grinned when she spotted Madeleine drowsing. "Hey, it’s barely midday! Not nap time yet." She sat down on the coffee table. "They want to get together day after tomorrow for some shiny new super powers tests. At a park or a beach, where there’s lots of space. Okay with you?"

"Do you really think it’ll turn into a Blues versus Greens kind of thing? Particularly at that school – they saved lives there."

"I don’t think it’s inevitable," Noi replied. "I just think it’s…" She paused, deliberately inspecting Madeleine’s glimmering legs. "I think it’s human."