The February haze of summer had blanched the sky a parboiled blue. Violet submitted to its mesmerising sheen, as she peered dreamily up at it through the window from where her head lay on her classroom desk. Soon, the bell would ring; several hundred pairs of sweaty legs peeled from the plastic laminate of school chairs; bags hastily grabbed; and the kind of half-hearted goodbyes teens exchanged with their thoughtless confidence in the thousands of tomorrows that surely awaited them all. On her walk to the bus stop, the cicadas would start to scream in the tropical afternoon heat. The skies would roil and boil, and thunder would rankle in the distance.
"Violet Swillong!"
Violet jumped at the nearness of her teacher's voice.
"Yes, Mrs Cramm?" she rifled back, bolting upright in her chair, startled to find her teacher's craggy, wrinkle lined face level with her own. Mrs Cramm leaned across Violet's desk, peering coldly at her.
"What is YOUR response to the question I have just posed to the class?"
Violet gulped so hard, her throat hurt. She had no idea what the question was. Beyond Mrs Cramm's shoulder, Violet glimpsed Nathan Cartwright quietly rise from his seated position at the front of the class.
"So," her teacher accused as she leaned further over Violet's desk, stabbing the desk with an index finger with each word, "you weren't paying attention to the lesson, distracted as usual!"
Violet was momentarily sidetracked by Nathan's arms, which were flailing behind Mrs Cramm's bent form in an obvious effort to catch her notice. Confident he now had Violet's attention, Nathan's surprisingly elastic lips moved in grotesque slow motion as he mouthed the words: "What did the mockingbird symbolise in the novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird"?" At Violet's vacant look, Nathan tried a different tack, mimicking, as if playing a game of charades, a bird flying, complete with flapping wings and pecking beak. The class began to break out in laughter. Mrs Cramm swivelled on the toes of her very sensible shoes. In the split second she did so, Nathan collapsed back on his seat and silence descended once again as the year 9 cohort, like a herd of frightened deer, sensed the imminent threat posed by their teacher's rising anger. There was blood in the water.
Violet had, in fact, read "To Kill a Mockingbird" four years ago, when she was only 10. Her father and her had moved three times since then- their move to this dry, sun beaten dust bowl of a town, the last in her short lifetime of her father's air force base "relocations".
"Could it be Mrs Cramm..." ventured Violet, surprising the teacher with her delayed response, "that the mockingbird symbolised the innocence of love which is blind to the artificial distinctions of humanity that people have historically made - between races and religions for example? The mockingbird motif might apply for instance to the innocence of youth, ably personified by the character of Scout Finch, or that of guileless affection personified by the character, Boo Radley? "
For a moment, Mrs Cramm was speechless. Abigail Cramm was so close to retirement, she could almost hear the blast of the cruise ship's horn leaving port with her on it. In truth, she should have retired years ago when she realised the prospect of teaching no longer filled her with a sense of adventurous anticipation, but monotonous dread. Abigail was tired. Her body was sore. This young girl reminded her of all the reasons why she shouldn't be teaching. Obviously gifted, Violet was bored by the lessons Abigail delivered. Abigail knew that Violet needed a differentiated curriculum, one that would challenge and extend that teeming mind of curiosity and limitless potential. Yet... for the life of her, Abigail couldn't summon the energy.
The class held its collective breath, still stunned by Violet's undoubtedly impressive, if unintelligible response (except to the teacher and perhaps to one other student). Nathan Cartwright grinned.
Mrs Cramm straightened herself to full height and stared down at the dark haired girl. "Violet Swillong, I am no fool. One of your classmates has obviously informed you of what we were discussing, while you were daydreaming as usual and falling asleep on your desk!"
"Ahem..."
Mrs Cramm spun around again and a nervous looking Nathan rose unsteadily to his feet. Beads of sweat collected above his top lip as Nathan pushed thick, horn-rimmed glasses further up his slippery nose. "Excuse me Mrs Cramm, but I believe that the new student's name is Violet Sqia'lon, not Violet 'Swillong'."
Such was the tension in the room that, at the sudden intrusion of the school bell announcing the end of the school day, mouse-like Miriam Belvers here let out a startled squeal and the rest of the class jumped in their seats. The resounding clatter of noise and activity unleashed like an explosion. In the centre of it all, Nathan Cartwright stood resolute and still amidst the chaos, perhaps waiting in case Mrs Cramm should want to reprimand him for his outspokenness. But the teacher had, against all expectations, disappeared from the classroom as well, leaving only Violet as silent spectator to Nathan's sentinel like presence.
As they stared at each other across the now empty classroom, the hum of the ceiling fan ceased and the overhead lights blinked out. "Do you think that's normal at the end of the school day," Nathan wondered aloud, "or is the power out?"
"I'd say the power's out," declared Violet, grateful for the distraction from a strangely uncomfortable moment. "I'm sure that the school would not want to discourage the teachers from staying back and preparing their lessons by turning off the power."
"Good point."
"Thanks by the way." Violet tried to sound nonchalant. "For helping me out with Mrs Cramm's question and... for the name thing." Violet played with her hair, pulling it across her face as if to hide from his scrutiny.
"Its orright," Nathan mumbled shyly. "Anyway," he began, on surer footing, "it's an interesting name isn't it? Really different. Does the name connote any particular cultural heritage?"
Normally Violet ignored such questions but there was something about this boy that evoked trust in her. For a profoundly unsettling moment, Violet realised that she had perhaps, never experienced the feeling before.
"I did ask my father once about that - the cultural origins of our name. But he said, it wasn't really relevant to me."
"How so?" Nathan asked quizzically.
"Because I'm adopted you see," Violet replied, smiling to mask the swirl of feelings Nathan could only glimpse in her green eyes.
"But you're still your father's daughter. Surely, it's your heritage now as much as his, regardless."
"You don't know my father. He has... secrets."
"What about your mum then?" asked Nathan.
"My mother died apparently, when I was very young... I don't even remember her... not at all. "
Violet became aware of the stifling heat in the enclosed classroom.
"C'mon, let's get out of this oven."
Trudging from the classroom, the pair were met with chaos outside. The traffic lights weren't operating with the power outage and policemen were busily conducting traffic to reduce potential accidents around the school. Without air-conditioning, the motorists' tempers flared in the heat with impatience.
"Well you're not getting home anytime soon," announced Nathan. "Look at the queue for the bus at your stop. The bus still hasn't come." Nathan's face lit up with an idea. "I know! Why, don't you kill an hour or so until things calm down at my place. I live just around the corner, a short walk away."
"I don't know Nathan. You're very kind, but..."
"We've got a pool?" he said hopefully, as if this last bit of information might change her mind. She laughed prettily and Violet became aware once again that she couldn't remember the last time she had laughed spontaneously.
"Look, I'll tell you what Nathan, I'll just ring my Dad and ask him..."
"But," said Nathan interrupting her, "you won't be able to ring on your mobile - our land towers don't have battery back up. It'll be dead."
Sure enough, Violet's check of her phone confirmed Nathan's prognosis. "You sure know a lot about such things." Nathan beamed on the back of the compliment.
"Yeah, well I'm old school you know. I don't hold with the increasing dependence of our telecommunications network on the Internet and the electrical grid. In fact," added Nathan, "this is one more reason why you should come over to my place." At Violet's mystified expression, Nathan continued. "Our landline... and", he smiled rather triumphantly, "if all else fails, my CB radio." Violet was unsure of the reaction Nathan was expecting from her. He was nodding now, interpreting her silence as some kind of reverent awe. "Yes," he said proudly, "yes, you are looking at the President of the south-east quadrant of Citizens' Band radio,North Queensland!"
As soon as Violet walked into the Cartwright house, she knew she had entered a different world. The first sign of it was the sound. The house literally hummed and throbbed with an energy that was palpable. At her look of consternation, Nathan merely smiled. "Generators," he supplied. It was then she noticed the cool temperature and the background noise of a television.
"Your generators supply all this power?" she queried.
"That and our solar panels and batteries. We can live off the grid indefinitely," he added proudly. Violet jumped slightly when an intercom buzzed beside her.
"Dude, who's the girl?"
Violet spun around glancing at the cornices of the entrance hallway, before catching sight of a camera oscillating in the ceiling corner.
Alarmed, Violet inadvertently, clutched at Nathan's sleeve.
Nathan placed a comforting hand on Violet's arm. "It's okay," he said gently before pushing the button and yelling into the intercom,"it's just my STUPID brother!"
Violet was beginning to rethink her decision of visiting Nathan's home. Releasing the intercom button, Nathan began to explain. "My brother, Blade..."
Violet couldn't keep the laughter from her lips. "Blade?" she clarified.
Nathan looked at his feet and shook his head, "Yeah, my stupid brother changed his name by deed poll. It was 'Richard'. He's now, 'Blade Logan'."
Violet doubled over in laughter so infectious, Nathan found himself in a similar state of hilarity.
"You guys," announced the disembodied voice again from the intercom speaker, "I can see you, you know. This is not a private moment between the two of you. I can tell that you're LAUGHING at me."
"Nathan,please don't take this the wrong way, but why do I feel as if I've stepped onto the set of 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'?"
Clearly unsurprised by her comment, Nathan shook his head - "Tell me about it Violet, I have to live with the guy! Life is stranger than fiction here, believe me."
It did not escape Violet's attention that Nathan had taken her hand and now led her down a steep and spiralling staircase to the basement. Her tension returned. It mounted further when Nathan pressed what appeared to be a buzzer next to a heavy black door. The theme song from "Dr Who" blasted out in its psychedelic glory, before the door shunted sideways into a hidden cavity and, nudged by Nathan, she was catapulted into a dark and windowless interior.
The room had been made up as an exact replica of the Tardis interior from the television series, "Dr Who". Blade, sitting behind a large console panel, spun on a leather swivel chair to face her. Violet clasped her hands to her mouth, the better to prevent another outburst of laughter from escaping her. The quintessential sci fi basement nerd, Blade sported a baseball cap; unkempt beard flecked with food; a 'Dr Who' black t-shirt only skimming with difficulty, an ample tummy; tracksuit pants; and runners. Blade was of indeterminable age. He could have been anything from 17 to 40 years of age.
Blade scanned her from top to bottom and then, simply uttered two words, "Get out".
Violet turned to comply with his request but Nathan held her sleeve preventing her escape. "Trust me", he mouthed as he had earlier in the classroom. Violet felt she owed him that much.
"We need your help," Nathan said, allowing a note of desperation into his voice. Two sets of curious eyes met his own. "We need to know the meaning of a name."
Blade and Violet simultaneously spoke in unison: "What name?"
"It's spelt S-Q-I-A- apostrophe -L -O-N".
Violet sighed in disbelief. "What?" she demanded.
"Go away," said Blade dismissively.
"You deserve to know," said Nathan first to Violet; and then to Blade, "Her Dad's got secrets Blade. She needs to know who he is."
Blade looked more interested now. Nathan had played his brother to a tee. Violet on the other hand was angry. "What are you doing Nathan? I told you no such thing. You have no right..."
"Whoa V," Blade held his hand up to her face, and Violet realised for the first time that by "V", Blade was referring to herself. Despite her suspicion that Blade was undoubtedly on the spectrum and potentially suffering from some kind of mental paranoia, he somehow communicated an authoritative command. "What's this name,'Sqia'lon' to you?"
"It's my surname," she said hardly believing that she was answering the questions of such a clearly deluded individual.
"But she's adopted," offered Nathan "and her father won't tell her about their family."
Violet looked hurt and shocked by Nathan's sharing of her personal details.
"I'm sorry Violet, but I think you deserve to know and the fact that you haven't pressed the point with your father is so not like you."
"Yeah Nathan, like you know me so well after only 6 months! I wish I'd never told you; I wish my father had never been transferred to this stupid town and its stupid air force base and that I never came to this stupid house!"
'Hold the phone!" declared Blade who had returned to his console only to spin back around to face the warring pair.
"Did you say air force base?"
"Yes," snapped Violet.
"Her father's military..." added Nathan.
"There's no air base in this town or anywhere near us," stated Blade matter-of-factly.
"Aaargh," Violet screamed, "I hate this place. Of course there is. Lavarach Barracks of course!"
"That'snot an air force base V, that's an infantry military installation."
In the face of Blade's confidence, Violet looked less certain of herself. Blade spun back around on his chair, his fingers flying over a keyboard. Violet stepped closer to the console. She saw the name, "Sqia'lon", but after it, a number of incomprehensible codes splintered onto the screen. It meant nothing to Violet or Nathan, but Blade, who had been reclining on his chair suddenly snapped into upright position, his attention wholly on the 2 screens spilling out codes in various algorithms. "Holey moley!" Blade shoved a chup-a-chup that had been resting unwrapped on his desk, into his mouth, his fingers continuing their flurry of activity across several keyboards.
"What? What have you found?" stammered Violet, her face reflecting the green luminescence of the computer screens in the dark room.
"I've found a connection between your name and..."
"And what?" demanded Violet impatiently.
"And the United States Central Intelligence Agency."
"Well, that could be anyone who works there. We're looking for an Australian connection."
"No, we're looking for an American connection," countered Blade.
"Since when?" demanded Violet.
"Since I found a Red Sqia'lon, an Orange Sqia'lon, a Yellow Sqia'lon, a Green Sqia'lon, a Blue Sqia'lon, an Indigo Sqia'lon and a Violet Sqia'lon clustered together and repeatedly referenced to site or sites currently unknown in the CIA."
"I don't get it," confessed Violet looking dazed.
Nathan turned her face from the luminous screens, his eyes concerned. "The colours of the rainbow, Violet. Yours is the seventh colour."
"Bullseye!" shouted Blade. I just ran an algorithm cross-referencing the colours against the numbers. It lit up like a Christmas tree in the dark web. Violet - or should I say - Sqia'lon Seven, you are famous."
Violet felt sick. "I don't know what you're talking about. I feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss book and you're talking nonsense Blade. Do you hear yourself? I feel sorry for you, I really do. I have to get out of here."
She jostled past Nathan and ran up the spiral staircase to the entrance hall. A clock on the wall told her it was already 5 pm. Her father would be furious with her. She checked her mobile, but there was still no reception. Violet's eyes roved around the room, searching for a landline.
"It's right here," announced Nathan, standing beside the living room windows. He had followed her and correctly guessed the subject of her quarry. Lifting the handset, Nathan proffered the phone in his outstretched hand as if it was a peace offering. Violet moved towards the large windows, obscured from the outside by broad white plantation shutters. Taking the phone in her hand, she began dialling her father's mobile number before noticing strange activity outside the window.
Suited men in dark sunglasses with serious expressions, were emerging from two black, expensive looking vehicles at the front of Nathan's house. "Who are they?" Violet asked pointing furtively toward the window. Nathan looked startled, as surprised as she was at the sight.
Violet's Dad wasn't answering his phone, which was strange because now that Violet came to think of it, her father never failed to answer it in the past. The intercom buzzed and Blade's excited voice erupted over the speaker. "Guys, you better get down here quick! Lock the door before you come Nathan. Those goons outside? They're with the American embassy."
"Okay Blade, that's enough. Do you think we're stupid? There's no embassy in Townsville! Stop trying to scare us!"
"Dudes, I know there's no American embassy in Townsville. But they're not from Townsville! Just come down here and I'll show you!"
Nathan bolted the door and he and Violet ran as fast as their legs could carry them down the staircase. Back in the "Tardis" as Violet was coming to think of the Cartwright basement, she felt somehow safer as if she was removed from reality for a little while. Her sense of security vanished however when she saw the suited men on a monitor on Blade's console, speaking into radios on their wrists outside the house.
"Nathan, can you tune into the radio frequency the suits outside are using and turn up the volume for us?"
Nathan scooted over to a separate corner in the darkness, switched on a desk light and put on an ear piece that was connected to a large radio transmitter/receiver. "Got it!" he yelled jubilantly. American accented voices drawled over the speaker. "Agent Onetti, any sighting of Sqia'lon Seven yet, over?"
"Agent Onetti here. Negative Agent Benson. The asset was tracked to this location, residence of a Ms Gayle Cartwright, divorcee. We believe sir that the asset came to this address with Ms Cartwright's youngest son, Nathan Cartwright. No visual on-site contact with any person as yet sir. Permission to approach the residence, over?"
"Negative Agent Onetti. Await the arrival of the asset's handler, expected onsite at 1800 hours eta, over."
Violet rocked on her heels, feeling faint. Was she really "Sqia'lon Seven'? If so, what did it mean to be referred to as "an asset"? Who was the "asset's handler" that was due to arrive on their doorstep in about one hour? What did any of it mean? She could feel the familiar beginnings of a migraine headache coming on. She had suffered them her whole life. When they became too bad, she blacked out. Violet felt more alone and scared than she had ever felt in her life.
Warm arms wrapped around her shoulders and guided her to a chair beside Blade at the console. "I'm here Violet, you're not alone," whispered Nathan in her ear, as if having heard her desperate thoughts.
"Okay, Blade what've you found out?" interrogated Nathan.
"I've tracked down all the clusters of the Sqia'lon Seven to one site in the dark web."
"Don't do that," warned Nathan.
"What?" queried Blade with fake innocence.
"Don't leave us hanging like that so you can show off, just tell us brother!"
Blade smiled apologetically "Sorry. I've narrowed it down. The site you all keep being linked to is Area 51."
"The place they keep alien stuff?" Nathan queried.
"Well, it's a storage centre for the CIA among other things. What it contains is a matter of national security and therefore, something we will never know for sure. But one of my esteemed colleagues..."
Nathan interrupted to translate for Violet - "that's code for one of his hacker buddies, probably from Nevada in the States."
Blade gave Nathan a withering look before continuing. "One of my colleagues tells me that Sqia'lon is the name associated with an unidentified flying object that crashed just outside of Broome in Western Australia in 1961. It was allegedly, taken back to the US on board the frigate ship, USS Iowa. According to chatter on the web, there are reports that the UFO had on board a life form that was dormant until it infected a host human carrier - in this case, the daughter of the captain of the USS Iowa. Under radiotherapy, the little girl's brain emitted a red luminosity. The military codenamed her "Red Sqia'lon". The theory is that the "alien" life form was using the information acquired by the little girl's brain as intelligence for its own purposes."
"What purposes?" Violet broke in.
Blade took a moment to regard Violet before he answered. Violet felt a change in the way he viewed her. Blade was much more interested in her now, but as a subject rather than as a person. Remembering himself, he shook his head a little and then shrugged his shoulders. "Search me if they know why. It's just a theory, the only theory really - well, unless the alien simply needs a human host to continue to survive on Earth." Violet shuddered at the thought.
The green light coming from Blades' many computer screens was exacerbating the pressure in her head; her headache was getting worse.
"Anyway, apparently another independent source tells me from his research, Red Sqia'lon had an accident. Though closely monitored her whole life, some years later at the age of 42, she fell off her horse while riding with friends. Red died in hospital, but not before the life form jumped again."
"How do they know that the life form jumped? Did they see it happen?"
"No V, but the Sqia'lon space ship stored in Area 51 changed colour."
"Changed colour?" Nathan echoed. "What do you mean Blade?"
"When the life form first infiltrated the Captain's daughter, the Sqia'lon emitted a red light - apparently, like Saturn the planet has a ring of luminescent dust around it. In the same way, the Sqia'lon emitted a ring of coloured light - red. But when Red died, the Sqia'lon emitted another ring of coloured light -orange."
It turns out that a friend of Red's visited her when she was dying in hospital and took her three year old son with her. All visitors to Red were x-rayed in the ensuing months following her death. Only one exhibited the luminescent brain common to all human hosts of the alien - the little boy. He was codenamed "Orange Sqia'lon" and now that they knew the life form could jump, they also called him Sqia'lon Two."
"So, I'm meant to be Sqia'lon Seven? Me, Violet Sqia'lon?"
Another flurry of activity disturbed the trio's attention, as Blade's camera captured a third black car sidling up to the sidewalk outside the house. "It's six o'clock," announced Nathan. "The handler is spot on time." It was impossible to see through the tinted windows of the parked car, but then the passenger door opened. Violet inhaled sharply. "Dad?" she whispered when she finally caught her breath, as a tall, gaunt, but ruggedly handsome man she had always known as her father, lunged purposefully out of the car.
Violet's mind began to swim in a miasmic ocean of uncertainty. The floor felt like it was opening up and she was about to descend beneath it. Everything she had counted on as real and concrete was proving as flimsy and shifting as sand. None of it was true. She pressed her fingers into the flesh of her arm just to make sure she herself was real. A red welt immediately blossomed under her fingers.
"What do we do?" she asked no-one in particular.
"Pretend no-one's at home?" suggested Nathan.
"No, they know we're in here. Remember what we overheard on their radio? 'We tracked them here'. How did they track you?"
"No-one followed us," assured Nathan. "We went via the lanes between the neighbours' back yards. "
"There were no cctv cameras anywhere," Violet said, almost relieved to be thinking about something real and concrete - cold, hard facts.
Blade stared at her. "Your phone!" he yelled. "They must have a tracker on it. Give it to me."
She handed it over and after pulling it apart, Blade removed a small electronic disc, no larger than a pinhead.
"That'sit?" she asked shocked.
"Fat good destroying it is going to do us now," stated Nathan disgustedly. "They already know where we are."
"But what do they want me for? Why now?" asked Violet.
"Something must have pre-empted this search for me. I've gone to visit friends before without necessarily telling Dad, and I haven't had the damn FBI or whoever these people are, chasing me." Violet's head felt like it housed a pounding monster. "My headache," she mumbled clutching at her head and sinking to the ground.
"The power outage!" Blade erupted, "it has to be something to do with the black out." Blade channelled the news on one of his monitors, while Nathan lay Violet on the cool floor and got her some Panadol and water. According to the news, the black outs were not localised, but were apparently, occurring world-wide. A beeping alarm sounded and Blade swivelled over to another computer immediately.
"That's Blade's personal mainframe computer," explained Nathan gently to Violet. "Someone is trying to contact Blade urgently." Blade switched on the speakers attached to the mainframe and the Southern drawl of an excited American teenager blared at them. "Dude, you gotta see this man. It's beautiful! Switch to my Youtube channel dude - quickly!"
Against a hazy clear desert sky, a silver disc with several rings of coloured lights swirling around it rotated above a huge non-descript warehouse. "Are you getting the video dude? Nevada desert, Area 51. Unbelievable man!"
"Violet? Violet?" Nathan shook his friend, anguished concern written across every pore. Violet lay comatose on the floor, her eyes open but unseeing, her mouth chanting sounds and words neither Blade nor Nathan could recognise. Slowly, she rose, padded to the console and began typing furiously on the keyboard; eyes still unseeing, unconscious of her own actions.
Even from the basement, Nathan and Blade could hear the suits pounding at the front door. Soon they would break it down, judging from the noise they were making. Glancing at the Youtube video, the Cartwright brothers could see that the spaceship had now vanished. Before long however, the brothers received further communications about sightings across USA, Europe and Asia.
"She's calling it," Blade concluded, his gaze flitting between the sightless girl tapping and chanting at the console and video footage of the foreign aircraft with its rotating rings of coloured light appearing and disappearing across the skies. "The algorithm she keeps programming and chanting - it's like a siren call to the alien vessel: The Song of Sqia'lon Seven."