The fence was just Sumud’s first line in the sand. On the other side was the No Go – the same grey scrubland but with hills in the distance. Beyond the hills, out of sight, was the XB itself, the wall around the precinct of Sumud. People said there were only thirty or forty ks between the fence and the wall, but in that open ground there were XB Force patrols and no presumption of innocence.
Li said, Don’t go out there again.
But Sulaman’s dad lets him go, he just says be very careful.
If Sulaman gets shot that’s his dad’s business. I don’t want you playing in the No Go.
Matti looked down. I wish I never told you.
Yeah, well. Li took a breath and let it out, watched it fade in the air. I’m glad you told me.
The queue shuffled forward a step. Matti said, You know what?
What?
Me and Shayla and Sulaman, in the No Go, we found a big tree that was dead. And there was a big stripey lizard living inside it. This big.
Huh. You see any other animals out there?
Rabbits. And pigs. I mean, I didn’t see any pigs but there was poo everywhere. I thought there might be horses in the hills, but probably not.
Something started taking shape in Li’s head. Something tradeable that no one had staked out yet.
I don’t really want to go out there again anyway, Matti said, because of the Takeaway.
It brought Li back sharply. The Takeaway was an old terror, she hadn’t heard Matti talk about it in years.
Matti looked at her, pupils expanding. Li remembered her on the boat, twisting and crying through sleep while they crossed the Gulf. Because of Frank, she’d thought. But the Takeaway came earlier, back in Nerredin. Was Matti already afraid of losing them, of being lost to them, then? Before everything was consumed and nothing was left standing and nobody came to help and they had to walk. Like all the others.
Frank would have said something right but Frank was gone and Li didn’t know how to answer these fears. Tell her the dark was benign and no one would hurt her?
She said, Just stay outside the fence.
All the way back to makecamp Li kept having the same unfinished thoughts. Rich had volunteered to show her the safest way after dark – a long slow circuit from the factory through Port Howell’s industrial zone, avoiding security patrols. The third night since the camp was cleared. She kept groping for action, decision, a way to claw back the time. Over and over her mind dragged her back to the fence with Matti on the other side.
Mum, look!
But she wouldn’t think about that. There was nothing there that would help her. She needed to pull herself together, work out the next step. There had never been any records of who was in makecamp, but someone must have kept track of the eviction, checked off status numbers before people were transferred to holding. There were always parents or reliefers at the Kids’ Tent to break up the fights and hand out the stuff. Someone would have made sure all the kids got out.
She kept looking across for Frank, to say these things out loud or ask what he thought, kept forgetting it was Rich. He was nothing like Frank, except for some economy in the way he moved. And the joking where there was nothing funny. He’d given back her flint and steel and her knife in its sheath, but her sharpening stone was gone. It wasn’t clear to her yet why he was helping her. He didn’t seem to care about the phone.
All the times Matti ran away back in Nerredin, they’d only lost her once. Not even in Nerredin. They’d gone to Warrick for a Mynas home game, three families in Kit and Ivan’s van. In the crush out the front afterwards Li let go of Matti’s hand to reach for her wallet.
The backs of her hands hurt through the gloves. Rich had said she should keep them on as long as she could but they were too white, too visible. They were on open ground now, between the highway and the perimeter fence, with nothing but scrub for cover. Rich kept pace beside her, alert in all directions. He’d offered her a ready bar. Told her there was a fence around makecamp now, too, right around the site, to stop people going back in. That there were patrols. After that he seemed to know enough not to keep talking.
They’d found her at home, after loudspeaker announcements and searching the grounds with dozens of volunteers. When Li got back to the house after dark, frayed and panicky, the radio and all the lights were on. Matti had fed the chooks and washed herself and she was trying to make pikelets. A taxi driver leaving for Nerredin had recognised her and dropped her home. Her face was a mess of snot and flour and she looked up at Li without forgiveness. You shouldn’t have let go of me, she said.
They stood at the western edge of the camp and looked through the new fence. They weren’t far from the main cluster, where she and Matti had slept. Safia and Rich had said makecamp was finished, that there was nothing to see, but she could see everything. There were the food shacks, there was the ready shop, the stinking toilet block, the rows and rows of tents with their tarp extensions and washing lines and murals and cooking fires and solar hook-ups. Over there was the patch where Sulaman’s
