“It’s an MRH-90,” yelled a boy, “they must be on a training exercise. You’d think they would have waved back.”

The boy picked up a rock and threw it at the helicopter. A hand grenade, he reckoned. The rock came down and bounced on the roof of the school’s toilet block. He did this a few times. The other kids talked about the rock thrower. He was on drugs because he was crazy, or so they said. They scattered when rock thrower threw a hand grenade at them. The grown-ups called what he had a behaviour disorder.

“Yeah, must be a training exercise.” They heard him mutter.

It was not a training exercise.

17 – Helicopter flightpath

STARKEY KNEW IT WOULD NOT BE LONG. He had to execute his plan.

He had sent off a text message to the man who lived in a shack next door and now watched as Isabella walked into the kitchen. He admired his granddaughter. She had on denim jeans and a navy blue pullover with a black vest keeping her vitals warm. He liked her boots as he had a pair of the same style—RM Williams. He’d had them for twenty odd years. Her mum wore the same boots too. Starkey had bought them for her. Isabella looked like her mother.

She had slept in. Starkey invited Isabella to join Lucas and himself at the breakfast table.

“Good morning, Lucas.”

“Good morning, Isabella.”

“What would you like to eat my little princess? Eggs, toast, porridge?” Starkey asked.

As he walked towards the kitchen pantry, Starkey heard the thump, thump. He noticed Lucas tilted his head slightly.

He pointed to the ceiling. “Flightpath for army helicopters.”

Starkey turned towards Isabella and Lucas, and walked over to the kitchen bench and retrieved his phone. It looked more like a large wallet than a smartphone but folded out to reveal a good-sized screen.

He turned towards them. “You two would make a sweet couple. Let me take a photo of you both. It’s not often that I have visitors. Come on, stand up. Play the part.”

There was some resistance. Reluctantly, they stood up, pushed their chairs aside and stood next to each other.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Starkey positioned himself to take a photo. “You look after her, Lucas.”

Starkey pushed a button on the phone, noting the perplexed look on Lucas’s face. They were gone. He hoped it was a smooth transfer.

Starkey looked at the briefcase on the floor under the kitchen bench. He was sure it had everything needed for what was to come next. Yes, he was sure everything was there. He’d spent most of the night collating and adding the material—not that there was a lot, it just took him ages to do things these days. He was so full of anxiety. Next he needed to round up Isabella’s belongings and throw them in her travel bag. He grabbed her pills from the bedside table and placed them in a pocket in the bag. His preference was to throw the pills away, but the risk may be too high. At this stage, anyway.

The thump, thump, thump was overhead. He had a quick look out the window. They were coming down the ropes now—shadowy figures. He rushed back into the kitchen and moved the briefcase out from under the bench. The travel bag and Isabella’s backpack were placed on the floor next to the briefcase. He did something to his device, and opened the briefcase and placed the device in the briefcase.

The thumping was gone. The blades were whining down. The house would already be surrounded.

It was like taking a self-portrait. It would perform its action in ten seconds. He had set the device to capture all things within a square metre including the device itself. It was tricky programming, but he had worked out a way for the device to transfer itself. He hoped it worked. The auto function was beeping the countdown. He stepped back.

Pieces of dust swirled around where the travel items once sat.

Starkey opened the door and walked out of the house. He raised his arms. Two troopers followed him, one trooper walked beside him, his weapon raised. Starkey walked onto the driveway, turned and stood facing the house.

He knew they’d come for him. It would have been an easy task to locate the property, as a simple trace using satellite or drone surveillance would lead them to exactly where Lucas had driven the car. It wasn’t Lucas’s fault. Starkey had expected them to come during the night, so he’d had little sleep but was thankful that they came in the morning. It allowed him to be better organised. He wasn’t sure how he would’ve done the transfer otherwise.

All doors were entered by the troops. Some stood outside with scanning devices. They picked up heat generated by the dogs and cat, but there were no other heat sources.

Starkey did as he was told. He kept his arms raised. “There is no one else around . . . just me.”

“Where are the other occupants who came in that car over there?” asked the trooper next to him.

“Not sure. They seem to have vanished.”

18 – The barn

DRONE MANAGEMENT BASES, or DMBs, were scattered throughout regional centres, each supported by a land-based two-seater helicopter and high-speed pursuit vehicles. The operating of these bases was a joint exercise between the Federal Police and the Department of Defence. In the DMB that covered south/eastern Zone 3, one particular property was a high-priority target.

Aaron Fitzpatrick had an automatic alert notification set up for any reporting activity relating to this property. He had just received an alert.

The message attached to the alert advised that two entities had been detected by the drone covering the property, and two officers were airborne and speeding towards the property. The DMB was fifteen kilometres from the property and touchdown was five minutes away.

The officers’ brief was that the main person of interest had been apprehended at another property but there were some secondary persons of interest who had vanished. They also needed to be apprehended. All possible leads needed to be investigated.

Aaron wondered who the entities were trespassing on Isabella’s parent’s property.

<°)))><

Where were they now? Lucas could smell hay. His initial thoughts connected the smell to dope. He never really enjoyed the dope that smelled like hay. Would these thoughts ever go away? He looked over at Isabella. She was brushing herself down.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asked.

“Yep. What happened? Where’s Gramps?”

She didn’t seem overly concerned with what just took place. “Congrats. Your first transfer, Isabella.” Lucas looked around. They were in a barn. He turned back at Isabella.

“What do you mean, ‘transfer’?”

“You don’t know much about your granddad, do you?

“Not really.” A grin was forming.

“He’s a clever man, Isabella. He invented a technology that can move people around—along a realm of some kind. That’s what he’s done to us. He transported us here; I don’t know why. But it must be tied in with those people who were following us. The people in the black car.”

Lucas watched Isabella for some kind of reaction. All he got was a smile.

“Why are you smiling?”

“That’s my travel bag and backpack there. The briefcase must belong to Gramps. He sent them with us. But that’s not why I’m smiling.” She walked over and opened the barn door. A well-presented cedar house came into view. “This is our house. I mean, this is where I grew up and lived until recently.”

Lucas followed Isabella outside and they walked around to the front of the house. Although it was cloudy, the view was spectacular, with areas of grasslands scattered with pockets of widely spaced trees. To the left lay rocky terrain, spat out by volcanic activity from the mountain peaks that dotted the landscape—he remembered such things from his school days. He also noticed some dark clouds moving in their direction. They looked like they were carrying loads of water.

Lucas registered a distant thump, thump, thump sound. He listened hard again but did not register the sounds again, but he was concerned.