CHAPTER 10

A HISTORY LESSON FOR US ALL

Finally, blissfully, we arrived back at our place, very tired, very dirty, very exhausted. I checked my watch. 5am.

"You guys are staying here for the night, alright?"

"I can't be stuffed driving all the way back to Yarraville, so yeah, we're staying here."

As quickly as we could, we set up bedding for the five JC members. At half past five, I had the chance to go to bed, and I seized it. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow. For once, I did not dream.

At noon, I stumbled out of bed, still tired and very bleary-eyed. I found a relative party going on outside, as my nine best friends discussed the night's events.

"Man, I can't believe they ambushed us." Mike still couldn't come to terms with it.

"Yeah, they knew we were coming."

"Even worse, they knew it was us coming."

"True, with that whole neo-mitochondria blocking thing."

"How did they do that?"

"And how did they know it was us?"

"They must know we're alive."

"Then we're in big trouble."

"Wait, who's 'they'?"

"NCA. The government. Celgro. Who knows. 'They' is just a pretty good description for now, a description of everyone we're fighting against."

"So why are you guys in trouble, just because they know you're alive?"

Matt took a sip of Coke before replying.

"For the past year and a half, we've been pretty much able to do whatever we want. Everyone thinks we're dead, and with the identities we borrowed, we've got relative freedom. But now, that's all going to change. They know we're alive, and they're going to come after us. They know who we are, what we do, how we do it. It could be a major problem."

"You guys are just going to have to hide again."

"Hide? Where?"

"In a place no-one would think to look. Actually, in a place no-one is allowed to look."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, B1?"

"How old are you, Daniel, two or something?"

"Wait, you guys don't mean…"

"Yeah, we do mean. Pomborneit."

Across the yard, Phil was giving Larry a dirty look.

"We told you guys to check out the warehouse in Pomborneit."

"But we hadn't got around to doing it yet. Besides, you guys botched your job pretty badly, you need to do something to redeem yourselves."

"Botched it up? Christ, we were ambushed!"

"And if it wasn't for us, you'd all be dead or captured. You guys owe us. Big time."

Brett sighed.

"Okay, okay, we see your point. You guys helped us out, we owe you one."

"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't hear you. Say it again for me?" I loved teasing him.

"No I won't say it again, smartass."

"Anyways, let's have a look what's on that CD Matt downloaded."

I retrieved my laptop from my room. Matt booted it up, and accessed the CD drive. I was bewildered.

"Wait, I've got a medium-sized army of passwords on that thing, how did you…?"

He chuckled.

"Well, there's two answers to that question. One, I can hack straight through all the password protections. Two, I know all your passwords, so hey presto, I plug them straight in and away we go."

I cringed. Mike raised an eyebrow.

"You haven't changed any of your passwords in a year and a half?"

"I haven't changed any of my passwords in the last five years."

Everyone started making disapproving noises at me. I ignored them all and focussed on Matt's clicking of the keys.

"Aw shoot, all the files are corrupted."

"What do you mean, corrupted?"

"I mean, Tamara, that they won't open. It looks like there's some sort of block on them, so they can only be accessed on Celgro's network of computers."

"Are you sure they're not just corrupted because you stepped on the CD a few zillion times?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, so shut up already."

"Can't you work around that block, anyway?"

"Nope. Wait, here's one file I can open."

Ten faces crowded around the screen.

"It's a file about one of the Project Stella biologists. Wait, why am I telling you, you can read it all yourselves."

From: Ben Little, head of Celgro security To: Stephen Dobson, head of Project Stella Subject: Project Stella biologist, Aya Brea

During a routine security check into all members of Project Stella, we discovered an anomaly in the psychological profile of Miss Brea. She appears to have moral concerns over the work being performed in Project Stella. Further investigation revealed that she has a link to the First Mitochondria War, her now-deceased daughter was a founding member of the Kyzah movement.

Security advises you to keep a close eye on Miss Brea. Unless you can be completely sure of her loyalty to the Project, I strongly recommend that she be removed and detained until further notice.

B. Little

"Brea? The name's familiar…"

"I know, where have we heard it before?"

Mike, Matt, Brett, Buffy, Phil and I all knew the name Brea. 7A looked on helplessly as we tried to work out how we knew the name. Minutes ticked by.

"That's it, I worked it out. Eve."

"No way."

"That's right, Eve's surname was Brea."

"She never used it, though, everyone just knew her as Eve."

"Wait, who's Eve?"

Daniel's question interrupted our chatter. It was a fair enough question too.

"Eve was… the guinea pig for artificial neo-mitochondria."

"Huh??"

Larry was even more confused. For a moment I stopped, lost in memories. I had known Eve, I had known her better than most. I tried to find the right words to describe just who she was.

"Eve was a close companion of Jay Talleja."

"If I recall correctly, it was her idea to create the Kyzah movement."

"That's right, and Talleja injected her with some of his neo-mitochondria."

"The experiment didn't go well."

"It went fine at first, but then she had some kind of adverse reaction."

"She lost control of the neo-mitochondria."

"Yeah, she went nuts."

"Talleja refined the technique of inserting neo-mitochondria, and went on to create the rest of the Kyzahs."

"And, as they say, the rest is history."

"So… what happened to Eve?"

We thought about it for a while.

"No-one knows."

"The last I heard of her was during the war. Talleja kept her locked in a mitochondrial cage, down at Highpoint."

"It was the only way he could stop her from going berserk."

"She has to be dead now, I mean, there's nothing left of Highpoint but the huge war memorial."

"Okay, so that's the story of Eve Brea in a hundred words or less. And this Aya Brea's her mother?"

"Looks like it."

It was then that I realized just how… different JC and 7A were. No, not different, that's not the right word. JC was a unit, a self-sufficient squad, just like 7A was. But JC was united in the context of war, we had shared some pretty bad experiences that 7A could not even begin to understand. It felt like there was a huge gulf separating us, a gap that I didn't know how to bridge. I could see the obvious discomfort on the faces of 7A as we discussed the war. The war wasn't a good time for anyone, JC especially. Reliving it was painful. But it had to be done.

Gradually, I noticed Matt had stopped talking and was deep in thought.

"Penny for your thoughts, Matt."

"If you can find a penny to give me, I'll gladly tell you what I'm thinking."

"Okay, maybe not a penny. Is five cents close enough?"

"Good enough for me. I was just thinking, how can we use this to our advantage?"

"Use what?"

"The fact that Eve's mother is on the project, and that she might have realized that the idea behind Stella's not exactly the most sensible idea ever invented."

"Hmmm, not sure."

In the corner of the yard, Graham was getting more and more excited.

"Can't you guys see how to use it?"

"Um… no."

"We get to the mother! We convince her that Stella is wrong, that she should be helping us, and if we stop the project we'll be avenging her daughter's death! Don't you see? It's obvious!"

"That sure is an idea."

"And it sounds all good in theory, Graham, I mean, I ain't knocking it, but will it work in practice?"

"I don't see why not."

"I hate to throw a major spanner in the works, and spoil what sounds to be a really good idea, but how exactly do we get to Aya, the mother? I mean, we can't just rock up to Celgro and say we want to meet with her. How are we going to do it?"

Daniel, doing what he does best. Arguing against things, poking holes in arguments and ideas. I knew it all too well.

We all sat for a while, just thinking. Eventually, it was Buffy who came up with the idea of how to approach Aya Brea.

"Eureka!" she cried.

Tamara burst out laughing.

"You goof, no-one says that anymore."

"Yeah they do, well I do anyways."

"What's all the noise about?"

Tamara had woken up Phil, who had fallen asleep, sprawled out on a lawn lounge.

"I've got an idea."

"Well, spill it already!"

She outlined her idea. It was interesting, and just crazy enough to work, I have to admit. For hours, we talked about her idea, finding and fixing flaws. By nightfall, we'd come up with a rough plan. It sounded good. Not great, just okay. It was going to have to do.