Manipulator's War

Chapter 1: An Unanticipated Destination-1

Chapter 1

An Unanticipated Destination

Linh: Australia, Two Months Later

Refugee Crisis Continue; Climate Catastrophe Looms; Misinformation and the End of the Age of Reason. Linh ground her teeth as she scrolled through news headlines on her phone. Was it just her, or were adults taking the world headfirst down the toilet? And she couldn’t so much as cast her vote in protest for two more years. Her phone vibrated—a welcome distraction.

Have fun. Do not wander off!

Ba xx.

Her grandmother’s profile photo showed aunts and uncles who had died in the Vietnam War. Ba had immigrated from Vietnam to Australia over fifty years ago, yet she still worried. What did she think could happen on a science excursion? Linh shook her head. And if the Australian Government had airlifted refugees to safety fifty years ago, why didn’t they give a damn about refugees now?

Linh threw her phone into her backpack and buried herself behind the pages of Origins of Modern Democracy, retreating into the past to evade spending the bus trip in a bad mood.

“Ba worrying again?” Fiona asked on the seat beside her.

Linh rolled her eyes.

Fiona’s freckled face split into a smile. Her lank brown hair slipped over her faded blue school uniform dress as boutique shops, cafes, and smartly dressed adults sipping coffee flashed past their window. Linh turned across the aisle and gazed over green slopes extending to a sea punctuated by windsurfers and a container ship sailing a distant channel across Port Phillip Bay.

Fiona slid Atlas of the Ancient World into her bag as the bus turned into a car park, and Linh zipped her book into the front pocket of her backpack. The rumble of the bus quieted as it pulled to a stop, and Mr Gentile stood. “The ferry to Noriyong Island is for the public, and your behaviour on board will reflect on Kinnara High. We expect you to act as ambassadors for our school.”

“He says as if it’s a revelation,” Troy said, shaking his wild brown curls on the far side of the aisle on Linh’s left.

“From the way you behave, it is,” Linh asserted.

Troy’s broad face split into a grin. His friends glanced meaningfully from him to her as they stepped into the aisle, where Troy towered over Linh and his chubby form dwarfed her petite one. She glared at his friends, suspecting they were mocking her.

A short walk brought both science classes to the end of the pier, where pedestrians disembarked from a white, double-decker passenger ferry. A cool sea breeze played about Linh’s face and ruffled her black ponytail as a crew member in a fluro yellow vest waved everyone on board. Troy and his friends rushed upstairs, and Fiona and Linh followed them into warm sunlight. They leant on the metal railing lining the deck, gazing across the deep blue water, inhaling the salty tang of the sea breeze.

The ferry’s engines rumbled. Small children waved enthusiastically from the lower decks to bystanders on the pier. The ferry left the whine of speedboats and jet skis behind, generating splashing waves as it sailed towards the open sea. Linh’s shoulders loosened as the crowded coastal street fell behind, and she turned to the vast blue horizon, enjoying the personal space of the upper deck. It was nice to get away from a world that seemed increasingly troubled and too complicated to do anything about, even just for a day.

She sighed when Mr Gentile called them to the lower deck, and reluctantly followed Fiona down to the crowd of uniform pale blue dresses, navy shorts and pale blue t-shirts.

“We will reach Noriyong Island in five minutes. Please keep any valuables on you, get your observation sheets, clipboards, and pens ready, and get into your groups.”

Linh’s shoulders tightened again as people moved across the deck into the groups Mr Gentile had assigned. Working with Fiona and Troy might be all right, but Mr Popularity’s best friend from the other science class might spend the day mocking her for taking pride in her work.

Troy eyed her hunched posture, then said, “Mic’s all right. He won’t talk much.”

Students regrouped, and lanky, dark-featured Michael emerged from the crowd.

“Hey Mic,” said Troy.

Fiona smiled in welcome, and Michael nodded. From his dark brows, brown eyes, and broad nose, Linh assumed he was Aboriginal, but his serious expression gave away little about his personality.

“Can we trust you to be the brains of the operation?” Troy asked.

Michael’s lips twitched.

“Get ready to depart!” Mr Gentile called.

Linh gazed ahead. Noriyong Island was hilly and covered in short trees whose tangled branches cast strange shadows. The ferry slowed and manoeuvred against the island’s pier. Mr Gentile made both science classes wait while a crew member waved off families. “You have an hour to make your ecosystem observations,” he announced. “Collect your map from a teacher, carry your water bottles, and leave your bags with me. We will meet here at eleven for an early lunch. Don’t be late!”

Linh’s classmates spilt down the boarding ramp and pier, a sea of light blue shirts and school dresses, buzzing with conversation. Fiona collected a map from a teacher as they disembarked, and everyone dumped their bags with Mr Gentile, keeping hold of their water bottles.

“Which way do we want to go?” Troy asked as they stepped onto the sand.

Linh crossed her arms. “Not bush-bashing,” she replied, gazing sternly at classmates wandering into the trees. “I don’t fancy getting lost.”

“Where’s the fun in life if you don’t take risks?” Troy asked.

“What’s fun about exposing yourself to danger?” Linh snapped.

Troy’s smile faded.

Fiona stepped between them. “How about we walk along the beach?” she suggested, her blue eyes twinkling as always. Linh never understood how she did that.

They turned left over sandhills, and Fiona carried their equipment towards a rock pool in the shallows, opposite a shore lined with banksia trees. As they walked, a shadow loomed at the corner of Linh’s eye. She turned and glimpsed tree trunks towering above banksia trees on her right. Trunks that cut off slightly higher from right to left, peaking then cutting off lower on her left, in a vertical half-oval. It vanished. Linh stared, blinking at the clear blue sky. Her eyes must be playing tricks. This island was too small for trees like that.

Troy gazed at the trees, too. Linh tensed and increased her pace along the sandy shore.

“Are you all right, Troy?” Fiona called from the rock pool.

“Fine,” Troy replied tightly as he crossed the sand.

Linh tried to shake the image of vanishing greenery as her group noted the rock pool’s inhabitants. Her gaze fixed on a blue starfish distorted by the gently shifting tide until Fiona turned to her and said, “I know you’re not keen on wandering through trees, but there isn’t much else to observe here.”

Linh blinked at the filled-in top section of Fiona’s observation notes on her clipboard.

“I can see a trail,” Michael added, nodding at the banksias.

Linh sighed, and her shoulders tensed. It would be faster than doubling back along the beach. “All right.”

Michael led them on a narrow dirt path winding between knee-length grass under a low canopy of white-backed leaves.

“So, you trust Michael to lead us into the wilderness,” Troy said, eyeing Linh pointedly but ruining the effect by smiling. “Because his grades are as good as yours?”

Linh glared. How could he be annoying yet make her want to smile?

Fiona stopped suddenly, and Linh eyed her in surprise.

Troy’s brows creased. “Do this hill and those trees seem bigger than they did a moment ago?” he asked.

“The wildflowers are gone,” said Fiona, looking around.

Goosebumps rose up Linh’s arms. She couldn’t see banksias ahead, just dark-barked tree trunks. When did the trees get so tall? Like the ones she thought she saw above the banksias earlier... And why was there an ancient-looking stone pillar on her left? Linh shivered.

She took a deep breath and looked up. High in the canopies above, pale branches extended from stringy barked trunks. Impossible. These trees were triple the height of anything on Noriyong Island! The smell of salt was gone, and the air was cool and fresh on her skin. She looked down at bracken mixed with grass, and panic bubbled within her at the complete absence of the path they had been walking on a moment ago.

“How come there’s blue between the trees ahead?” Troy asked. “The sea’s behind us...” He broke off, his face pale.

Linh blinked, but the bracken at her feet remained.

Troy pushed ahead, and Fiona and Michael followed him around tree trunks wider than themselves. Linh didn’t move. They had been walking on a small hill on Noriyong Island. Now they stood on a vast ridge carpeted with fallen gum leaves and ferns interspersed with mountain ash trees. How could an inland rainforest surround them?

She turned to go back and froze. There was no strip of sand or glimpse of the sea behind her. She turned her head to a stone column rising among tree trunks on her right, then across to the ridge’s end, at sharp cliffs. Beyond, the blue haze of a eucalypt gum tree-covered mountain range curved unnaturally towards her.

Linh blinked and opened her eyes to the same impossible scenery. They couldn’t be somewhere else. She turned and her feet crunched through leaf litter to the others, who stood on the far side of the ridge, peering through a downhill clearing created by a fallen forest giant. Beyond the thinning canopy, grassy plains extended to more hazy blue mountains curving unnaturally towards them. She blinked again, hoping against hope the impossibly shaped range would be gone when she opened her eyes. It wasn’t.

“Can you all see it this time?” Troy asked weakly, the knuckles gripping his water bottle turning white.

“Yes,” Fiona whispered, repeatedly blinking at the surreal landscape, seemingly unaware of her shuffle back from it. Linh didn’t have the heart to tell her it wouldn’t do any good.

“I’m not sure that’s reassuring,” Troy said, his face going slack as he shook his head.

Beside him, Michael stared at the symmetrical mountain ranges with a dull gaze and his mouth open. “Impossible,” was all he had to say.

Linh flinched as Troy seized a fern and tore it up by the roots. He ripped it in half, frowned, then dropped it and shoved a tree trunk, which didn’t budge.

“It’s real...” he murmured. His features scrunched in bewilderment.

Fiona still stared at the clearing. Linh followed her gaze and spotted something she’d missed, a blocky stone castle on the grassy plains, ringed by mountains on three sides.

“We’re somewhere else,” Fiona whispered.

Linh’s heart thundered against her chest. Ba had told her not to wander off...

“We can’t be,” Troy objected. “The beach is just—”

“It’s not,” Linh cut him off, hugging herself to suppress the dizziness rising within her. “It’s gone.”

Troy gaped. “You mean the universe just folded up on itself and let us walk to God knows where?”

“We can’t step from one location to another... but I don’t think we’re on Noriyong Island anymore,” Linh replied, her knees becoming weak. She sat in the bracken as dizziness washed over her. Fiona gripped her shoulder with a trembling hand, gasping for breath.

Troy stomped away, and Fiona cried, “Be careful!”

Linh pressed her hands firmly against the ground, taking deep breaths and trying not to exhale too quickly. She looked up when the worst of her dizziness cleared and Troy’s footsteps approached.

“We’re surrounded by mountains,” he said softly, his features wide with surprise. “This is somewhere completely different.”

“It’s like this place was sitting behind Noriyong Island. I saw the small hill we were walking up vanish, and this ridge was beyond it.” Michael eyed Troy and Linh sharply. “Did you see something strange on Noriyong Island?”

“I glimpsed these trees,” Troy replied.

“Rising semi-circle shaped above the banksias,” Linh added. She turned back, searching between the trees for the stone column she’d seen earlier. It wasn’t a column. She traced the round pillar up into the trees until it curved overhead and down in a giant, familiar shaped arch.

“We walked through that?” Troy asked, crunching through the undergrowth behind her.