by Rohan Wilson
‘Why?’
‘You know why. I won’t explain it.’
I use the fence links to pull myself up. We stare at each other. It feels good. It feels honest. There’s a lot of distrust, but I think it’s good and honest distrust.
‘Don’t give up on me,’ I say. ‘I’m not giving up on you.’
He looks at the sky again. I move closer to him. I take his hand. That’s all—I just hold his hand, the way we used to do. He smells sweaty, he has a few days of growth, and he’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.
‘Let me take you out of here,’ he says.
I nod.
‘We’ll have to cross the yard.’
I nod. ‘Don’t worry about me. I can do it.’
‘Howland wants to open Red Gate. He wants to burn the place down. I’m worried about what might happen to you then. His sheep are becoming wolves.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Rin, he wants to burn it down. That’s what he wants.’
‘… burn what?’
‘The manufactory.’
It sits in the near distance. Production has ceased since the riot started and the windows are dark and the automated delivery trucks sit idle. I give a scoffing grunt. ‘He can’t do that. I mean, how would he even—’
Then I stop. I look again at the manufactory, vast and grey and ugly, pitted with tiny windows along its side. Why couldn’t he? There are, what, two security points between the yard and the manufactory? With Howland’s cutting tool, two gates counted for nothing. He could reach it. He could start a few fires and burn it, lock and stock, and leave Eaglehawk MTC without a means of production.
‘Oh shit,’ I say.
In a second, I see the fallout. The fallout and the nuclear winter. This is heavy. It could sink Cabey-Yasuda as a going concern. Can you imagine the share price if our own clients burned down our biggest factory? It would take a Himalayan plunge. Then a second thought follows this: if he could reach the manufactory, why couldn’t we?
‘Wait a second,’ I say. ‘Just wait a fucking second. Wasn’t there …’
First thing, I call up a satellite feed and stretch it around until the Eaglehawk MTC sits like a blister on the horse hide of Tasmania. This peninsula we’re on, it’s supposed to be famous for ancient ruins or something. Some sort of tourist place. I stretch the terrain map and zoom in. You can see the forests, the roads, and the miniature towns. A glowing pin appears in a bay about a kilometre south and it sets the pulse in my neck working.
‘Yeah. Right there. Port Arthur.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Not they—it. Port Arthur. It’s a place.’
He shakes my arm. ‘No, who are they?’
I lift my head. At first, all I see are the gum trees outside the electrified perimeter fence and it takes a moment to spot them bunched in the understorey where the shadows are thickly black. It’s a squad of armoured police. The extraction team, sent by Alessanrda to pull me out. The heat in my stomach spreads upwards, up my spine, my throat.
‘They’re calling to us,’ he says.
One of the team has a pair of bolt cutters and he’s clipping the links in the fence one by one. Another holds a ballistics shield, another an assault rifle. In short, they look like men who don’t take no for an answer. So when I hear my name called, I grip Yammy by the arm and start walking, lifting the plaser from my belt as we draw along the fence line.
‘Don’t look back,’ I say.
‘Rin, they’re calling to you.’
‘Ignore it.’
Over my shoulder, I can see them working on the last few links of the outermost fence. We break into a jog.
‘They look like police.’
‘Don’t look at them.’
‘Rin?’
‘This is some kind of shit we’re in,’ I say.
For too long, I’ve been idle and passive and compliant. When you’re faced with choices and you don’t choose, what have you become? A tool. You’re a tool in the hands of others. But make choices and you make trouble. Right, and I’ve come here to make some trouble. I’m not passive anymore. I’m not compliant. I’m doing what I should have done years ago: standing up for myself.
Alessandra starts pinging my message feed again. what are you doing? the black team made contact. they’re at the perimeter. turn around, you’re walking the wrong way.
I clear the feed with a toss of the hand.
We enter the recreation yard through a sallyport and a security gate. The gate hangs like a lazy eyelid where Howland and the prisoners from the BAU tore it down. There are nine hundred men in here and me, the only woman. Bravery is about the same as stupidity if you judge by results and I find myself checking the battery on my plaser and setting the pulse strength to maximum and wishing I was smart enough to know better than walking into a riot with nine hundred unrestrained men. Black smoke blows down from the admin building towards the dormitory pods. The windows have been smashed, the furniture dragged out and burned. Slogans have been written on the walls in charcoal. No More Work. We Want Visa. Help Us.
My eyes are on the men standing among the bonfires and the trash on the slope. They’ve become aware of us. They turn, one by one, each with a question, the same question, shown in the tilt of a head or the widening of the eyes—who is she? Most stand with their hands in their pockets but here or there you can see one holding a club, a chain, a stick.
This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
The truth about these guys, right, is they’re not criminals. They’re refugees. They’re here to work and find a new home. Why would they want to hurt me? This is what I tell myself anyway, as I look around the yard and grit my teeth. There’s a CYC pin in my lapel that I unfasten and throw away, hoping no one sees it.
In Houston, Captain Abernathy showed me how power is a con job. It’s about your hands and your posture. It’s about your belief. If you project strength, you have strength. I learned a lot about projection in my time in Houston. Now, men start to approach and I straighten my shoulders and stare like I mean it. These men approach in twos and threes. A circle starts to form around us. My juices boil and gurgle. I’m at a focused heat. My heart rate reads a steady one hundred.
The men call to us.
‘They want to know who you are,’ Yamaan says.
Really, they look like anyone you’d see on the street in Malé. Some young, some old. Some dishevelled, or half-dressed, or barefoot. There’s one wearing a towel like a headband and one with a bandana and baseball cap. Sweat is crawling down my neck. Yamaan calls to them. The translation in my glasses reads: she is a friend, she came to help. They stand off but they’re yelling and pointing. A big guy with a roll of belly hanging over his pants tries to snatch Yamaan’s weapon. I level my plaser at his chest.
‘Move back.’
His name floats beside him. Ahmed Nasir. Total debt, $95,453.
‘Back,’ I yell.
He leans and spits. He takes a backward step.
‘Where’s Howland?’
Some call and some point and some grow angry. One man throws a bottle at me. Yamaan leans close. ‘They say he’s at the gate.’
Red Gate. You can see it from here. A few dozen are climbing the wire, shaking it and yelling to the other compounds beyond the sallyport. Most are wearing orange jumpsuits—the men of the BAU. There’s a better than even chance the men of the BAU want to hurt me. And here I am with just a half-charged plaser. At least I won’t live long enough to understand how idiotic this was. Under Cause of Death the coroner will write ‘Acute fucking brain failure’ and everyone will nod sadly. We thought she was smart. What a dumbass way to die.
I start forward, leading Yamaan by the hand. The circle parts for us and we pass through the pack of men and pass out the far side. They’re all looking at me and I look right back at them. We cross below the tall tree in the middle of the yard and, even though we’re some distance away, it’s easy to see where Howlan
d is trying to cut the gate’s steel cross-bolt. The glare of the blowtorch throws a crazy hunchbacked shadow above him on the wire. The rings in his eyebrows flash. There’s a plastic rifle slung on his shoulder and he must hear the commotion because he looks up from his work and shuts off the torch and brings the rifle around.
A message from Alessandra appears: rin, we’ve lost sight of you. turn around. the black team won’t enter the yard.
These BAU men, they have weapons and they’re pointing them at us. I’m thinking of my posture and thinking of my expression. Don’t let them see it, Abernathy would say. They see it, you’re done. I focus on Howland. He might be smiling, I think, or at least his eyes are narrow but you can’t tell what’s happening under his beard. Smiling at what? Smiling at my lack of self-regard. The BAU men fan out beside him. One fires electricity into the ground near our feet.
From Alessandra: rin, we’ve lost you. where are you?
‘Not a lot of respect for company people in here,’ Howland says. ‘I’m sure you understand that.’
I straighten my shoulders. ‘The company fired me, remember?’
‘You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.’
There’s hooting and the waving of banners. I feel the noise of the crowd in my chest.
‘These are honest and hard-working people, Rin. Good people. Good people robbed of everything they had. Robbed by the thieves we call our ruling class. If this lot decides they don’t like you, that little zapper won’t help much.’
‘It’s not me who needs help. It’s you. It’s all of you.’
Howland blinks a few times, as if to get a better look at me.
‘You want to open Red Gate?’ I say. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘She can open the gate,’ Yamaan says. ‘She can take you to the manufactory.’
‘Shut down the manufactory and you could shut down the company,’ I say.
Howland is really looking at me now. ‘Marketing, my arse.’
‘You could shut it down. The whole fucking thing.’
‘Who are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter who I am. It matters what I can do.’
God. It’s so simple. It’s the simplest thing to grasp—we work together, we help each other. Howland frowns down at me and I can see the male simplicity bubbling behind his eyes, the stew of pride and aggression. He’d rather do it on his own and fail than accept help from a woman. I’m thumbing the safety switch on the plaser and looking at the hundreds of men circled around us and waiting for him to say something.
From Alessandra: are you in danger? we can’t see you. please answer.
‘Clock’s ticking,’ I say.
‘Well, let’s put it to the vote,’ he says and rounds on the men in the crowd. Every face turns his way. ‘Last people of the Maldives. I ask you: can we trust this woman?’
The jeering is so loud it shakes the lens in my glasses.
‘There’s your answer,’ he says.
Already I sense it though. My eyes flick from Howland to the men in orange jumpsuits and then beyond them to the burning admin building on the hill and I sense something has changed. It’s the sound—a far-off thudding. Something is different. It takes a few seconds to work it out. The crowd are calling and waving and when they start breaking apart I’m given a momentary view out beyond the perimeter fence. I shade my eyes but even from this far there’s no mistaking what it is. The AFP tiltrotor has lifted into the air.
It cuts through the smoke over the buildings, sending black eddies spinning from its rotors, and circles and dips a wing low over the dormitory pods before coming to a hover over the yard. Yamaan says something that I can’t hear over the blades, something about Howland. The rear cargo door deploys and a line of riot drones drops one by one in a precision formation. As each one hits the ground, we feel the heavy thud through our feet.
I’ve worked with drones like this before, in Houston and Fort Worth, in places where we might require serious stopping power, and watching them move in absolute coordination is a weird thrill. They jerk like badly animated CGI. The creepiness of it gives me a jolt. It’s hard to tell how many—thirty, forty. They snap upright and deploy their weapons. Even at this distance, even over the calling of the men, you can hear the shrieking of their leg actuators as one by one they stalk into the compound.
A message from Alessandra floats up in my glasses: hold tight. the drones are coming for you. we’re getting you out.
There’s a clunk. A can of tear gas lands hissing and spinning on the gravel beside us. I’m looking at it. Everyone is looking at it. In that second, no one quite knows what to do. No one, except me. I’ve been gassed before in simulated situations and the only hope you have is holding your breath. Immediately, I cover my mouth and run upwind from the spreading fog. The others take my cue. We run, hundreds of us, towards Red Gate.
Except Daniel Howland catches me by the forearm.
‘Who are you, really?’
‘Go shit in your hat.’
‘That can open gates and doors in here? Who?’
His first mistake is touching me. I step off his line and curl the fingers of my free hand around his wrist. We meet eyes, Howland and I. He’s about to say something else but I trap his hand and move into an elbow spiral to force him flat. And then nothing happens—he tenses and I can’t find the leverage to topple him. There’s too much weight to move.
‘Karate shit won’t work on me,’ he says.
Grenades arc and fall right around us. My eyes are watering. I start to cough. Howland must have some change of heart. Gas will do that to you, especially if you breathe it in. He drops his grip.
‘You better open that gate,’ he says.
I turn to take Yammy by the hand but he’s not there. I turn a full circle and I can’t see him anywhere. The yard grows misty. I wipe my nose and wipe my eyes. Searching the faces of the men around me, searching for Yamaan, I look again at the slope and see how the sky is full of white spiral contrails. Grenades fall with a clatter. Everyone is shouting, everyone is running. They run down the slope towards Red Gate. They’re running because the mist on the slope is pulsating red and blue like it’s lit inside by coloured lightning.
The first drone that exits the fog is fitted with a crowd suppression loadout: tanks of mace on its back, a spray nozzle, and a multi-barrel gas launcher. It makes a hollow pop as it fires cans in the air. The police lights on its chest strobe for extra visibility, extra intimidation. It’s the first but behind it, fanning out in a wave, follow dozens more.
Right at that moment, I’m not worried. This is counter measures. They’ll aim to hold ground and take control section by section and they’ll try to do it without killing anyone. You kill someone in a place like Eaglehawk and the bureaucrats get very pissy. There’s paperwork. Court cases. No one wants that. But the drones advance and keep advancing. They hose long yellow arcs of mace over the clients fleeing down the slope and they fire plaser shocks at the men blind from the pepper. When I hear the soft pop of rubber bullets hitting bodies I know this is not counter measures. This is an assault.
‘Yammy,’ I call. ‘Yammy.’
Howland is still beside me.
‘Open the gate,’ he says.
I see a single drone leave formation and start dousing men in the incapacitant gel we call bubble gum—a pink, quick-setting gunk. They fall and roll and find themselves glued to the ground. I see one man choking with the gunk on his face and I know he’s dead even before he stops moving. You can’t get that stuff off, not once it starts to set.
‘Mate, you open it or these buggers clobber the life out of us.’
He’s right. The drones are cornering us in the yard. I look around for Yamaan one last time but I don’t see him anywhere and I have to calm myself and make a smart decision here. Yammy knows where I’m going. He’ll come to the gate.
‘Acute fucking brain failure,’ I say. ‘God. Okay. Let’s go.’
ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE
EAGLEHAWK MIGRANT TRAINING CENTRE RIOT
THE HONOURABLE OSCAR AMBROSE IPP AO QC
PUBLIC HEARING
DAY 25
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS AT HOBART
ON TUESDAY, 4 JUNE 2075 AT 10.00 A.M.
MS NGUYEN: Do you agree that the decision to send Australian Federal Police drones into the compound led to the deaths of two men—Ali Faud and Hassan Niyaz?
MR SLATON: No, I don’t agree with that.
MS NGUYEN: You don’t?
MR SLATON: No, I don’t. The deaths of those men were an accident.
MS NGUYEN: Ali Faud suffocated when his face was covered with adhesive gel meant to incapacitate him. You’re saying that didn’t happen as a direct result of the police entering Delta compound?
MR SLATON: I’m saying it was an accident. The AFP acted within the law.
MS NGUYEN: That wasn’t my suggestion. My suggestion was that he died as the result of actions taken by AFP anti-riot drones.
MR SLATON: I don’t see a connection between the two.
MS NGUYEN: We’ve heard testimony that Mr Faud suffocated after being sprayed by an AFP drone. Do you dispute that?
MR SLATON: His death occurred during police manoeuvres. There is no connection between the manoeuvres and his death.
MS NGUYEN: All right, Mr Slaton. We also heard evidence that the decision to re-enter was taken because the behaviour of the detainees had become violent. Do you agree with that assessment?
MR SLATON: Yes. We wanted to save lives.
MS NGUYEN: And yet two men died?
MR SLATON: We’ll never know how many lives were saved though. Detainee on detainee violence was occurring. These were dangerous people, you understand. Violent people. We needed to stop them.
MS NGUYEN: But it was the anti-riot drones that caused the deaths, not the detainees, correct?
MR SLATON: I refute that. In the course of police activities, accidental deaths occurred. That’s very different to what you’re suggesting.
MS NGUYEN: So, in order to prevent violence from occurring, you ordered the police to use violence against the protesters in Delta compound. Is that a fair summary?
