Free Genesis by Lara Morgan

lights flickered through the thick growth. Rosie had never been to the North Coast but she knew it was mostly Senate-run research stations and farms. There were a few residential areas but she’d heard they were for the workers; the people who lived there even had their own school. Beyond the farms was the train called the Bullet that ran all the way up the coast towards the Capricorn Line and the border of Gondwana Nation – the indige lands outside Senate control. Her dad had even talked about getting out of Newperth to live up there – before the MalX. He’d said up there they could grow their own vegetables outside of a genfarm, actually in the ground. But he’d stopped talking about it when the MalX came.
    She watched the bank slide past, tears stinging her eyes.
    “We get off just up ahead.” Pip was suddenly at her side again. She started and blinked the tears back quickly before they fell, before he saw.
    “Where?” she said. “I don’t see a jetty.” She couldn’t see much but dark scrub and there was an odd sulfurous smell in the warm air.
    He leaned in closer and pointed. “Can you see it?”
    She stared ahead, her eyes straining, scanning the bank, and then she saw it: a dark blob, jutting out into the water. The old man guided the boat towards it.
    “Get your bag.” Pip nudged her and Rosie obeyed, glad to have an excuse to put some distance between them. He picked up a long-handled gaff and jumped up onto the narrow ledge between the side of the boat and the cabin.
    Rosie stood out of the way and watched the bank come closer. The old man grunted and the engine puttered as the boat turned out of the main current and tacked across the dark water. When they were a few metres away, Pip deftly hooked the gaff onto a pylon, pulling the boat up alongside the jetty. He jumped onto it and caught the rope thrown by the old man, and the boat bumped up against the jetty with a wet thud.
    “Jump out,” he called to Rosie, his voice strained from the effort of holding the boat steady.
    Rosie jumped. Pip threw the rope back and pushed the boat away and soon fishing vessel D542 was backing up, turning and gliding away from them. The old man didn’t look back once.
    “Come on,” Pip said. “We can’t hang around.”
    Beyond the jetty a steep, rough path climbed the bank and then disappeared into deep shadow.
    Rosie followed Pip as he began to climb up the slope. The ground was muddy and her hands and knees were quickly covered in muck. Pip gained the higher ground, grabbed her hand and yanked her to the top without asking.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    He barely seemed to hear as he peered into the darkness of the trees. Tall trunks surrounded them, interspersed with thick grasses and scrub, reminding Rosie of the area around the Old City. Moonlight filtered down through the canopy and, a way off, through the trees to her left, she could see lights. Somewhere an insect sang but otherwise it was still.
    “This way and keep quiet.” Pip started walking away from the river along a barely discernible track.
    The path twisted and turned through the trees, leading them further inland away from the river and then back towards it. Finally, they emerged into a clearing. An abandoned building sat in the middle. Long, low and square, it was made of dark brick and was half buried in the earth. Grass grew raggedly around its walls, and gaping holes, where windows should have been, stared back like slitted, hostile eyes, the sills hidden underground. The roof was little more than a domed lattice of steel covered intermittently with sheets of tin, and near the building, not far from where they stood, was a burnt-out hovercar.
    “This way.” Pip seemed nervous now and kept clenching and unclenching his fists and looking around. The boss had to be waiting for them here.
    A shiver of anticipation and fear ran up Rosie’s spine. What would he be like? Would he be old and fat with narrow eyes that never settled, or would he