Cat's Cradle 2: Warhead.

by Andrew Cartmel.

Prologue.

The bulldozers were big blunt yellow machines, their belted tracks and superstructures spattered with mud. Brodie counted five of them. They were being carried up the sloping dirt road on a fourteenwheeled flatbedded truck. Brodie watched from the cover of bushes at the roadside. Both the truck and the bulldozers had cartoon designs of a bee in flight and a human eye painted on their side. There were words and numbers painted beside the beeandeye logo.

Some of the words were in j.a.panese and of course Brodie couldn't read those. The other words, the English ones, he would be able to read soon. He had turned five this summer and he would learn to read in grade one, when he started school in September.

The truck made monstrous low noises as its driver struggled through low gears, fighting her way up the steep mountain track. As she approached the highstanding security camera the road levelled out and the truck began to pick up speed.

Brodie took his hands off his ears when the driver settled back into high gear and the engine noise dropped to a low rumble. Now he could hear the wind in the leaves all around him. The driver was leaning out of the cabin window and waving as she pa.s.sed the camera, a small video unit mounted on a tall carbonfibre pole. Brodie waited, crouching in the bushes. The truck was out of sight now, growling away on distant curves of the mountain road. Then there was silence, broken by the drilling of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r in a tree on the forest slopes behind him.

Brodie kept his eyes on the camera and took the smooth heavy rock out of his pocket. He'd brought it from the pile he'd collected by the big fallen tree in the woods. He had brought only the one rock because he knew he'd get only the one chance.

Brodie told himself to be brave but his heart was beating hard.

If he didn't move now he never would.

Brodie broke from cover and ran out into the centre of the dirt road, almost tripping on the deep ruts cut in the mud. He snapped his fist back and then forward, throwing the rock overhand at the camera on the high pole. It hit with a loud ringing noise, connecting with the support pole but missing the camera by a metre and a half. The boy stood frozen for a moment, then ran back into the woods.

Leaves on low branches whipped at his face, wiping at the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. Tears of rage.

A jeep would be coming down from the big cave now, a yellow jeep with a bee and an eye painted on the side. There would be men with guns and helmets in the jeep and they would search the woods near the road. If they found him they would take him back to his parents and his parents would keep him close to the cabin until it was time to close up for the summer and drive home. And then Brodie would never have another chance to smash the camera.

A squirrel was running through the branches above him, pausing to chatter down at him before leaping from one tree to another. The boy stood watching the small animal, a flash of redbrown among the grey branches, and then he changed direction, running along a winding side track, away from the path that would take him home.

In five minutes he was approaching the clearing with the big fallen tree in it. There would be more rocks by the tree, where he'd left them. Goodsized rocks for throwing, and he would wait until the men in the jeep went back up to the cave and then he'd 'Possibly it's your choice of weapon.'

There was a man in the clearing.

Sitting on the stump of the long fallen tree. He looked up at the small boy standing at the fringe of the woods.

'I saw you throw that stone. It was a good throw, but a very difficult shot at that distance. You shouldn't feel bad about missing.'

Now the man looked down, at something he was doing with his hands. Brodie saw that he was carving, shaping a piece of fallen wood from the dead tree. The man put the carved piece of wood into his pocket and bent down. He reached into the long gra.s.s and selected a few small, smooth rocks from the pile under the tree. Brodie's pile.

'As I said, perhaps it's just that you didn't choose a suitable weapon for the job.'

The man stood up and Brodie got ready to run, but the man turned away from him, walking across the clearing, and Brodie found himself following. The man was putting the rocks carefully into his pocket as he walked. His eyes were a flat strange colour as he turned to look at Brodie.

'I don't like that camera,' said Brodie. He felt the need to explain under the cool gaze of those eyes.

'Clearly,' said the man.

'It used to be great here. I used to have a fort. In the woods. I built it myself last summer.'

'And then the company came,' said the Doctor.

'They're building across the valley,' said Brodie. They were walking side by side now, the man and the boy. Like old friends, back into the shadows of the woods.

'There were trees all over the mountain. Now they're gone and the squirrels are, too, mostly,' said Brodie. 'I don't even live here. But I can't stand to see somebody wrecking it.'

'I know exactly what you mean,' said the Doctor.

The Doctor?

Brodie tried to remember how long he'd been calling the man that. It was as if someone had whispered the name in his ear. No. It was as if it had been gently poked directly into his mind.

A wind was gathering behind Brodie, rushing up through the thin trees. The woods were turning cold and suddenly Brodie realized how late it was. The sun would be going down soon. Brodie shivered, his skin p.r.i.c.kling. He remembered the stories he'd heard, about the witches and ghosts that once lived on the Catskill mountains, wandering these dense wooded hills.

The man the Doctor had stopped walking. He was looking at Brodie. Brodie didn't move.

'I'd better be getting home,' said the boy.

The Doctor held out his hand and showed Brodie the piece of wood he'd been carving. 'Do you know what this is?'

Brodie stared at the shape. 'A slingshot,' he said.

'Or catapult,' said the Doctor, walking back towards Brodie, holding out the piece of wood. 'All it needs is a strong piece of elastic or rubber.' The Doctor smiled. His eyes were calm. 'I wonder if you could help me with that?'

He handed the wooden slingshot frame to Brodie. It was nicely carved, the smooth wood fitting neatly in Brodie's hand, feeling good there. Feeling right.

Brodie looked up at the Doctor and smiled back.

The tyre was lying below a clump of splintered trees at the outside edge of a curve on the access road. It was a tight curve and a large construction vehicle had taken it too fast and crashed, months ago, when the excavation on the mountain was just beginning.

'They cleared the rest of the wreck away,' said Brodie, 'but they left this.'

A beetle was crawling across the dusty waffleiron tread surface on the big tyre. Brodie brushed the beetle off and it flew away, its smooth glossy body dividing into wings. Brodie looked up, but the Doctor wasn't listening. He stood on the other side of the road, gazing across the valley towards the construction site, shading his eyes against the late sunlight.

The side of the mountain opposite had been shaved clean of trees and growth. A smear of raw brown earth stretched for kilometres, centred on the deep excavation hole. A single thin line of trees ran across the brow of the scalped ground, a large house above them, all gla.s.s and redwood. There were solar panels and satellite dishes on the mountainside near the excavation, and tall skeletal metal towers reflecting the pink of the evening sky. Yellow earthmoving vehicles grumbled near the tunnel mouth.

'What are those big towers?' said Brodie.

'They're for communications,' said the Doctor. 'You use them to relay to satellites.'

'Are you sure?'

'I've had rather a close look,' said the Doctor.

'That's the big cave beside them,' said Brodie. 'Do you think they're mining for gold?'

'In a manner of speaking,' said the Doctor.

'That's Patrick's house up there. We used to play in the woods.'

'Not any more?'

'His father won't let him.'

Smaller machinery operated among the earthmovers, running in and out of the mouth of the tunnel. Brodie shielded his eyes the way the Doctor was doing. He spotted some bulldozers and wondered if they had come up on the truck he'd watched earlier. You couldn't see the beeandeye emblem painted on their sides, but Brodie knew it was there. 'It just keeps getting bigger,' he said.

'I know,' said the Doctor. He walked back across the road and stood looking down at the tyre from the old wreck. 'Excellent,' he said. Brodie took a last look across the valley and turned back to the Doctor. He had freed the inner tube from the tyre and he was working on the softer rubber, cutting it with his knife, the same knife he'd used for carving the slingshot handle. The blade of the knife was made of some odd, dull metal and it cut the rubber with surprising ease. The Doctor made a last neat trim, then took the slingshot handle from Brodie. 'Find some stones,' he said, fixing the rubber to the handle. 'For practice.'

The big fourteenwheeler was making good speed coming back down the mountain road, the trailer freed of its load. The driver slowed as she pa.s.sed the observation camera and waved. As the truck accelerated and rolled past, Brodie and the Doctor moved to a tree beside the road 'Whenever you're ready,' said the Doctor. Brodie started forward, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

'Why aren't you trying to stop me?' said the boy.

'Sometimes it's necessary to fight back.'

'You aren't like other grownups, are you?'

'No.'

Brodie stepped out into the road. He didn't hurry. There was no need to hurry now. He stepped carefully over the ruts on the mud road, almost invisible in the failing light. The setting sun was a fat red disc behind the high black camera pole. Brodie took out the slingshot, settled a heavy round rock into the rubber strap and drew it tight. He held his breath as he took aim, the way the Doctor had showed him. He was squinting directly into the sun. He closed one eye and squeezed the other eye half shut, his eyelashes shattering the light into rainbow distortion curves. He released the rubber strap and the rock shot upwards into the blaze of the evening sun, rising towards the thin black pole.

The camera snapped to one side under the impact. It buzzed and twitched, trying to force itself back into the correct alignment, and that was when the entire lens housing came free, spilling open the body of the camera. Fragments of metal and gla.s.s rained musically down from the tall pole.

Brodie remained standing where he was.

They couldn't see him any more. Now he could cross the road and go into the woods on the far side. He could play there. He could play anywhere he wanted tomorrow.

Right now it was time to go home for supper.

Brodie could hear a jeep high up the mountain, starting down from the construction site. He went back into the woods and stood for a moment, a small boy, alone and tired. Then something moved in the shadows and he saw the Doctor again. Halfway down one of the winding trails, almost out of sight in the deepening shadows of the woods. He turned and looked back at Brodie, then he spoke to him, his voice carrying strangely among the autumn trees in the quiet evening.

'You see,' said the Doctor, 'it's all a matter of a.s.sembling the correct weapon.'

PART ONE: a.s.sembly

1.

They had moved her to a new room two weeks ago. It was a private room, high up in the hospital, with a window. She knew what that meant. She tried not to dwell on the situation. Her aim these days was to keep her mind in neutral and sleep as much as possible.

It would be nice, she thought, if it could happen while she was asleep.

But it wasn't so easy getting to sleep any more.

Her body was weak, and the medication should have helped. But her mind seemed sharper and more active than ever. She sketched out a dozen articles she would never write. Thought of subjects for a hundred more.

Finally she put a stop to that. Now when she lay awake at night she managed to think of almost nothing.

She lay in bed looking up at the neutral image of the ceiling, a colourless square that filled her vision. After a while her eyes created minor hallucinations for her, meaningless patterns of motion in the noncolour of the ceiling shadow. If she kept her eyes still for a long time the images intensified. It was like watching a television after the test pattern faded, or a section of blank video with the sound turned off. The endless interference filled her field of vision and soothed her. There was a certain industrial beauty to the monochrome images. And it helped her to imagine herself as simply a machine that had failed. She stopped blaming herself and punishing herself in her mind and took comfort from this notion. The thing she was going through was just a terminal technical failure.

The thought even allowed her a little sleep, just before dawn.

That was the usual pattern of things.

Tonight was different.

Tonight she closed her eyes as soon as they took her supper tray away, the food uneaten but stirred around on the plate a bit to cheer up the nurse. And as she closed her eyes she went into a profound sleep that lasted for hours. She woke up just as suddenly, jolted out of a dream as if an electric shock had crossed her heart. She came up to consciousness with the absolute conviction that someone else was in the room with her.

She didn't stop to question whether she might still be dreaming. She groped for the lamp on the bedside cabinet. Fumbling in the dark she knocked over a getwell card and gla.s.s of water. A plastic fruit bowl went clattering off the hospital cabinet, spilling its contents. There was no fruit in the bowl, but she'd used it to hold her books and her computer. She heard them hitting the floor just as her hand closed on the light switch.

She had to close her eyes under the impact of the light.

When she forced them open they ached in the glare, tears forming. Her vision swam a little, but she could see well enough.

The man was sitting in the chair beside her bed. Sitting patiently, as if he'd been waiting for her to wake up.

'It's you,' she said.

Her heart was still racing, but that was just the aftershock of whatever dream had woken her. She could already feel her pulse slowing. She was surprised at how calm she felt.

He looked exactly the way she remembered. Pale eyes, thinning hair. Indeterminately old. But no older than the last time she'd seen him. She almost laughed when she saw that he'd taken his hat off. Holding it in his lap. It seemed so solemn. A gesture of respect at the bedside of the sick. Why have respect for this, she thought, looking down at her thin body in the hospital bed.

'h.e.l.lo, Shreela,' he said.

'h.e.l.lo. How did you find me?'

'Your room number is on the hospital computer.'

That wasn't what Shreela had meant, but she decided to let it pa.s.s. 'You know, in a funny way I almost expected you to turn up.'

'Really?'

'For a while I forgot about you,' said Shreela. 'I'd say that in all these years I've thought about you maybe a dozen times. But then, of course, with all this ' Plastic tubes shifted as she lifted her arm. 'With all this I've been thinking a lot of strange thoughts lately. Looking back on things. And then I started thinking about you again.' She yawned. 'We had quite a time, didn't we?'

'Yes, we did.'