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."
Chapter Seven
"Morning, kiddo."
"Tyler!" Madeleine almost dropped the phone. She settled for depositing her shoulder bag on the floor, and sitting beside it. "I’m – I’m so glad!"
His bubbling laughter enveloped her. "So am I. You didn’t sound too hot last time we spoke."
"Are you okay? Are you–?"
"Now in technicolour? Very much so. Embarking on a brave blue world, or what have you. Have you noticed the potential for a soundtrack?" he added irrelevantly. "Blue Hotel. Blue Velvet. So many songs, such a dreadful wealth of puns."
"Where are you?"
"At a hotel, just by the airport. We walked here after the stain began to show."
"Do you want me to come pick you up? I, um, found your car keys."
"Did you? Felt like a drive in the country?"
"Went out to see Mum and Dad. They’re still stuck in the house, and I took them some supplies."
Noi had driven, fast and confident, the M5 wide enough that even the occasional abandoned wreck was easily avoided. They’d stood tins and bags of rice on the front path of Madeleine’s home, and hosed them off in case they’d brought any dust with them. Then they’d hosed the house, trying to get places the recent rain would have missed.
"How dusty is it out there now? Are they going to make a dash inland?"
"The cobwebs under the eaves were tinged purple. And you can see occasional flecks of sparkle in the grass. The inner city’s the same, except more so." She sighed. "I don’t see how the uninfected could ever risk going about without face masks. Dad said he and Mum are even sleeping with a sheer curtain over them, and that until there’s been a heap more rain they’re going to stick it out in the house. No-one had time to put in supplies, though. When we went to leave, the lady over the road waved at us madly through the window, and asked us to go get nappies and tins of baby formula. Your car doesn’t have enough boot space."
"Well, I didn’t really buy it with babies in mind." He chuckled. "Who are we?"
Madeleine apologetically explained his extra house guests. "We were just off to Bondi," she added, mouthing Tyler at Noi as she stuck a puzzled head around the door. "But that can wait till I collect you."
"No, I found a car. I’ll head home tonight after taking a friend to check his family. Why in the world are you going to the beach?"
"For some Blue powers tests. We’re trying to work out exactly what Blues can do so we can avoid doing it accidentally. We’ve ended up with a lot more people going than I expected, but I guess it is kind of a critical thing to know."
Tyler didn’t respond, and she said his name, wondering if they’d been cut off.
"I’m here. I–" He paused, a completely uncharacteristic hesitation. "I can’t do that, you know. Force punches. I don’t seem to create energy, but I need it. I’m lucky I made a couple of good friends out here – they keep me on my feet."
"You need it?"
"Mm. Let’s just say I was playing quite the wrong character on Blood Mirror."
"Seriously?"
"Giant dust-spewing towers, and you balk at some mild vampiric tendencies?"
"I…guess not. That explains some of the stories going around, at least."
When Tyler rang off, Madeleine grimaced apologetically at Noi, but only said that Tyler would be in that night, since she wanted more time to think over mild vampiric tendencies. Grabbing the bag containing a portion of the lunch they’d packed, she headed down to the garage.
The Blues test session had spiralled into an event. Fisher’s discussion on BlueGreen of Madeleine’s experiences, and his plan to test and compare a range of Blues with different levels of stain, had swiftly been picked up by other Blues around the world, and multiple groups had organised to do the same thing – a couple of test sessions were already underway, and others were waiting for day wherever they were.
When the number of people wanting to join the Sydney test had risen to more than a hundred, Fisher had asked Madeleine, Noi and Emily to head to the beach a couple of hours early, to get Madeleine’s testing out of the way before too many people were around. At a little after seven in the morning it was chill with a hint of mist above the water, but the sky was a pale blue wash which promised a day worth being outside.
The apple-green Volkswagen was waiting by a white hatchback as near as possible to the centre of the massive arc of beach, six boys leaning on the railing above the esplanade. Noi pulled Tyler’s red convertible sports car in beside the hatchback, and grinned at Pan’s expression.
"That’s it, I’m riding back with Noi," Pan said. "I can’t take this any longer."
"We’ve collected about a dozen sets of keys," Noi told him. "Come back after and you can pick one out. I’ll throw in a couple of boats."
"You’re on!"
"This is Nick, and Shaun," Gavin said, nodding first at a freckled blonde boy and then a dark-skinned guy with cool mini-dreadlocks. "Part of our data collection team, and volunteer guinea pigs."
They were both Greens, and the brief discomfort that fact inspired bothered Madeleine inordinately. There was no reason to feel any different about Greens, and certainly Nick and Shaun were nothing but nice as they showed off the stain-coverage diagrams they’d created – a front, back, left and right outline of a generic person – and enthusiastically highlighted almost all of hers.
"Thanks for keeping my name out of it," Madeleine told Fisher, as Noi and Emily filled out their sheets.
He nodded absently, surveying the beach. "Another advantage to starting this early. You followed the discussion on fields versus punches?"
"Yeah." Naturally many Blues hadn’t waited for formal test sessions after his post on Subject M, and it had quickly been established that two different expressions of power were possible: punches focused and pushed out, or protective fields. Fields seemed a lot harder to create, but within an hour of the post Blues began reporting that they’d successfully paralysed themselves by surrounding themselves entirely with a field, and then trying to throw it like a punch. "Nice to know I did that ass-backward," she muttered.
"You destroyed a car with a shield," he said. "I don’t want anyone else on this beach when you try to punch. Let’s see if we can get into the lifeguard tower."
This was easily accomplished with the aid of "Noi’s Little Helper" – a small crowbar usually used to open delivery crates – and they explored the circular observation level, deciding to ignore the beach vehicles kept in a locked garage below.