Madeleine, suddenly very glad she’d taken out most of the sketches of Fisher, moved hastily on to another uncomfortable topic.
"I heard from my cousin before we left today. He’ll be back this evening." She pushed on through the beginning of their congratulations. "He’s a Blue, but he said that he doesn’t create energy, he needs it. That two other Blues have been keeping him alive."
She kept her gaze steadily on Nash as she spoke, and saw how his face closed.
"A revelatory skill," Fisher repeated. Rather than disturbed, he sounded almost pleased. "Also a skill which involves paying attention to people. Is your cousin returning home? We’re finding that it takes all three of us to keep Nash up – at least, without needing to frequently rest. Though he’s highly stained, which must impact on the need."
"Can Greens gives you energy as well?" Madeleine asked Nash, and flushed at the flat, accusatory note in her voice. "Is this why there’s been so many stories?"
"They can." Nash sounded resigned, then straightened, as if refusing to let himself be ashamed. "Shaun’s a good friend – he volunteered to allow me to check. It’s a different kind of energy." His candy-cream voice was grim. "And much less. If I had no other Blues around me, if I had spent the last few days surrounded only by Greens, I would now be a murderer. Or perhaps have found the courage to face the consequences of not killing."
"I’m surprised this isn’t already widely known," Madeleine said. "Though – I guess I’d…" She paused, considering how she’d instinctively wanted to hide simply the amount of her stain. "What are you going to do?"
Nash hesitated. "It makes most sense to be proactive, to clearly describe the situation and pre-empt any…less calm announcement. We’ve held back to gauge the environment at Rushcutters."
Now that most of the Greens were up and having opinions. If Madeleine was a Green, she’d probably have an opinion about Nash too. But then there was Tyler.
"Noi and I should be able to support my cousin," she said. "Though I guess he’s already managing. We’ve been working on the relocating plan, in case things get weird, and have keys to enough boats to stage a carnival. Is it okay if I tell her?"
They agreed to that, and left her considering the sketch she’d just completed: Shaun and Nash watching Pan. Would Tyler and Nash be able to feed off normal humans as well, or only Blues and Greens? Would all Blues be seen as dangerous monsters, either destructive or life-stealing?
Before long a car arrived carrying five Blues in their early twenties. More people drifted in while these were running through their tests, a trickle which became a stream, until there were hundreds, Blues and Greens, far more than anyone had expected. Someone had brought a portable stereo, there were picnic baskets, umbrellas. As the day warmed, a handful went east of the lifeguard tower to swim. Then Pan discovered that he could use a partial force field to launch himself into the air, and immediately after frantically found a way to slow his fall with another, splashing down into the surf in a minor explosion of spray.
Madeleine drew. Faces full of excitement, strain, hilarity, irritation, hope, suspicion. People who clumped together, never straying too far from their particular friends. Those who sat apart. The group around Fisher, Shaun and Nash, pontificating at each other. The handful who had decided to jump off the walkway and force shield bomb the sand, and the group who went to lecture them.
Among the small sea of strangers Madeleine spotted Finger Wharf residents, and stopped sketching to talk to Asha, and to meet Mrs Jabbour.
"It is the feeling of taking a positive step," Mrs Jabbour explained, gazing fondly at her husband and daughter as they prepared to test. "Even though we saw that you had more than enough participants, we still wanted to come, to take part."
"Saw?"
With a smile, Mrs Jabbour nodded at the railing above and behind them. "The special news broadcast. Did you not know?"
Madeleine looked, and saw two women with a professional-weight camera. Wincing, she turned away.
"We will be leaving, early tomorrow," Mrs Jabbour went on. "To the house of a cousin on the South Coast. If you and your friends wish to join us, you would be welcome."
"Aren’t the roads still closed?"
"The main roads perhaps. We will find a way."
The idea of just getting out of Sydney was tempting, but Madeleine didn’t want to go too far from her parents, and explained their situation.
"You, too, have been blessed then." Mrs Jabbour held out her hands as Faliha came bouncing up, glorying in the length of her punch. "Cherish that gift."
Like Madeleine, the Jabbours were rare in not having lost anyone from the very core of their little family. Even Madeleine’s grandparents were fine, off up in Armidale.
Reminded of Noi, Madeleine looked about and couldn’t spot her. Tucking her sketchbook into her shoulder bag, she climbed the stairs and wandered across to the Bondi Pavilion, a low, square building with galleries and a gelato shop, lockers and showers. No sign of Noi, no response to her tentative call in the toilets.
Not quite concerned, Madeleine headed back toward the beach and stood at the top of the flat series of stairs to the left of the lifeguard tower. Bondi Beach was enormous, large enough for ten thousand, let alone the few hundred clustered around its centre. Noi shouldn’t be hard to find.
Far to her left an isolated figure in a sunhat was standing at the very eastern end of the beach. Noi. Madeleine headed in her direction, and Noi must have seen her, starting back.
"I think they’re about through," Madeleine said, when she reached the older girl. "The flow of new arrivals has slowed, at any rate. Did you know it’s being broadcast?"
"Yeah. Casey and Djella, ABC Sydney’s newest – and only – roving reporters. One of them was a sound editor, and the other some kind of junior-league production assistant. They knew a heap of interesting goss. You know the home billeting thing being set up – people volunteering to take in some of the city outflow? Blues and Greens are going to be specifically excluded, no matter what the science types say about there being no sign of person to person transmission. And they want to collect any Blues and Greens who are already outside the city, and not let them stay with uninfected people. Even their own families that they’ve been staying with for the past week without any sign of passing this on."
"I guess it’s too early to be entirely certain we won’t start spewing out dust," Madeleine said, far from pleased. "It’s only going to get worse when they know there’s two types of Blues." She explained briefly about Tyler and Nash.
"Is that what’s going on with Nash?" Noi produced a low, appreciative whistle. "Just what we didn’t need. Damn, I was already looking forward to meeting your cousin. This makes him twice as interesting! Think I can talk him into biting me?"
Madeleine gave Noi a wary look, and realised she was being teased.
"People really did give you a rough time for having Tyler Vaughn as a cousin, huh?" Noi said. "I would have thought they’d be queuing up to ask you to wangle an autograph."
"Some did. But at that point I hadn’t seen Tyler for six years. We knew he’d come back to Australia, and then we spotted him guest-starring on Blood Mirror. It wasn’t until they asked him to come back as a rival love interest, and that whole you realise I’m physically male story was released that most people back home even recognised him. School got very strange after that."
She rubbed her forearm, still able to find a slight lump.
"It wasn’t the people objecting to the way he dressed who were my main problem. All his new Biggest Fans were angry at me for not producing him for some kind of show-and-tell session, and then decided to be offended that I didn’t refer to him as she."