Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation]

by Tayell, Frank

  “That’s from O.O., too,” Mick said.

  “For you?” Tess asked. “It’s not that I expect it’s poison, but if Oswald Owen wished you g’day, it’s guaranteed the invoice is already in the post.”

  “Nah, it was a bulk order for all those politicos from Tassie,” Mick said.

  “Here you go, Commish,” Elaina said. “There’s no coconut, but it’s not a bad way of ending a day.”

  “Not bad at all,” Tess said, looking over her team. “Thank you all for your help in saving what’s left of civilisation.”

  “Australian civilisation,” Mick added.

  “The best kind of civilisation,” Clyde said.

  “I’m serious,” Tess said.

  “So am I,” Mick said.

  “Yep, me too,” Clyde said.

  Tess gave up, and took a bite. “This is good cake. How come there’s cake to spare? Is Owen snaffling food for his own use?”

  “Probably,” Bianca said. “But Ms Nguyen said there was an excess of eggs, and an insufficiency of packaging to distribute them to the refugee camps. A brewery over in Fyshwick has been converted to a drying facility to make powdered eggs.”

  “You can do that with a brewery?” Tess asked.

  “The brewery is close to the railway line,” Mick said. “The eggs are being rolled in, cracked open, and the empty cases stuck back on the train and returned to the farm. Trouble is, they’ve now got an excess of powdered egg and nowhere to store it. Since the trains are busy carting the eggs back and forth, they can’t use them to ship out the flour or sugar that came in last week. Since there’s a bakery next to the brewery, Oswald decreed everyone should have their cake and eat it.”

  “I bet he did,” Tess said. “Sounds like we’ve a transportation problem. Are there no trucks?”

  “Not enough fuel tankers,” Mick said. “Lost a few with the flooding. The rest are running to the refinery in convoy in case of zoms, but someone didn’t take into account that’s slower than letting them travel individually. Give it a few days, and it’ll all be ironed out. But until then, we’ve got cake.”

  “It’s a good problem to have,” Tess said. “And it’s good news for all of you. The investigation is over. One day, you’ll all get a medal. I’m serious. Thank you. Tomorrow, I’m heading to Perth with Bruce Hawker and the scientists. We’re picking up some U.S. Rangers there for help in following up that lead Malcolm Baker gave us. You are being reassigned. Mick, to you falls the duty no father can escape. You’ll be flying your daughter around for the next couple of weeks while she tours the refugee camps. The rest of you are going with Anna to help with the admin.”

  “We’re not in the police anymore?” Zach asked.

  “It’ll be a while before justice is back on the agenda,” Tess said. “Restoring order comes first. I don’t want you lot in uniform. I want people to see the politician pushed around by the bloke with the guitar, surrounded by civilians with clipboards and pens rather than rifles and body-armour. You’re public servants, or journalists, if you like. It’ll look bureaucratic not dictatorial, implying the focus is on restoring normality, and so it’s worth putting up with discomfort and long hours for a little while longer.”

  “We’ll need new clothes,” Bianca said. “We could get them from my house.”

  “I thought you lived in Adelaide,” Tess said.

  “We kept a house here in the city,” Bianca said. “Cameron, my husband, is a lobbyist. Or he was.”

  “He’s passed?” Elaina asked.

  “No, but I don’t think there’s much call for lobbying anymore,” Bianca said.

  “Here’s hoping,” Tess said. “So you’ve got clothes there?”

  “D’you mean ball gowns?” Elaina asked.

  “Yes, but I have some more practical pieces, too,” Bianca said. “Some of my husband’s suits would fit Clyde and Dr Dodson. My son’s should fit Zach.”

  “Your son has suits?” Zach asked, his face strained in puzzlement. “There’s a lot of money in baking, then?”

  “Anna wants to leave first thing in the morning,” Tess said, finishing her cake. “This sounds like the best idea. I’ll go with you, Bianca. Elaina, you can help carry. Everyone else, back to the airport. Mick, I’ll need a pilot and plane to take us to Perth as soon as Leo, Dr Avalon, and Colonel Hawker turn up.”

  “You better drive, Bianca,” Tess said, climbing into the passenger seat.

  “Perfect,” Elaina said, getting into the back. “I could do with a rest.”

  “How are you doing?” Tess asked as Bianca started the engine.

  “Badly,” Elaina said bluntly. “But we all are. It’s too much trauma all in one go. But what can we do but pretend tomorrow won’t be as bad as today? Hey, maybe it will be.”

  “Touring refugee camps is going to be a different kind of horror,” Tess said. “If you like, I can get you work at the airport.”

  “No, we’ve all got to do our part,” Elaina said. “But it’s good to have a bit of a whinge. Do you know where you’re going, Bee?”

  “Mugga Way in Red Hill,” Bianca said.

  “But do you know the way?” Elaina asked. “Because you’re driving us back towards Parliament House.”

  “Sorry. Should have turned left,” Bianca said, pulling a pi-point turn.

  “Did you spend much time in Canberra?” Tess asked.

  “Me? No,” Bianca said. “We came here just after the outbreak. Cam reasoned the capital would be better defended than elsewhere, while his contacts would ensure a better quality of life. I… well, I disagreed, so he told me to stay behind. But Ron wanted to go with his father. He always does. When the conscription van arrived, Cam said we were exempt, so I volunteered.”

  “Not a happy marriage, then?” Tess asked.

  “It was over sixteen years ago. Just after our son was born,” she said. “But Cam said we were staying together for the look of it, then for our son.”

  “He said?” Elaina asked. “He told you?”

  “There’s a pre-nup,” Bianca said. She touched the necklace around her throat. “But it doesn’t include my personal jewellery.”

  “Smart girl,” Elaina said.

  “Fifteen million dollars in gems,” Bianca said.

  “How much?” Elaina said.

  “But how much are they worth today?” Bianca said. “So I might as well wear them.”

  “Wear them and hope they’re worth something again sometime soon,” Elaina said. “They should be, shouldn’t they, Commissioner? If things are getting back to normal.”

  “I never understood why colourful bits of rock were so valuable in the gone-before,” Tess said, “so who knows what they’ll be worth in the coming-soon?”

  “This is it? Honestly, Bee, I was expecting something bigger,” Elaina said, when Bianca rolled the car up onto the kerb.

  “It’s primarily for entertaining, not for living,” Bianca said. “I won’t say whom he was entertaining, but he was happy if I stayed away.”

  “What a ratbag,” Elaina said.

  “Oh, he’s not all bad.”

  “Your husband is Cam, and the son’s Ron, yes?” Tess asked as she got out of the car.

  “Cameron Constantine Clague,” Bianca said. “My husband is the fifth, and my son is the sixth. He made it clear what our child’s name would be on our first date.”

  “Strewth, Bee, and you still went out on a second?” Elaina asked.

  “I was young. He was rich,” Bianca said wistfully. “I thought I was in love.”

  It was a small house on a large plot. Cubist in design, with a box hedge to provide privacy, but with a new, almost-complete, wood fence behind. Through the gaps, on what had been lawn, were a quartet of camper vans. On the roof of one was a night-time sentry.

  “Police!” Tess called up to the guard. “We’re looking for Cameron Clague.” Deliberately ignoring the shouted query from the sentry, Tess inspected the neighbouring properties. It was a suburb of large gardens, th
ick hedges, and tall fences, but was already losing its air of affluence. Every garden, front, side, and back, had gained a vehicle or two. Not for transport, but overspill accommodation for the surge in refugees. But missing here, and common elsewhere, were community checkpoints and local roadblocks. Each of these houses had become an island unto itself.

  “Lights,” Bianca said.

  They’d come on in the house, a bright searchlight glow, from which a separate beam detached itself and came over to the gate.

  “Who’s there?” a man growled.

  “Cam, it’s Bee.”

  “Bianca? What do you want?”

  “To talk,” Bianca said. “Can I speak to Ronnie?”

  “It’s all right, Diego,” Cameron said. “It’s only my ex-wife.”

  “Who’s there with you?” Bianca asked.

  “I hired some new staff,” Cameron said. “You know my motto, expand or die.”

  “Can you open the gate?” Bianca asked.

  “Wouldn’t be safe, would it?” Cameron said. “Got to think of other people, don’t we, Bianca?”

  “Well, can you call Ronnie, ask him to come down?” Bianca asked.

  “Not at this time of night,” Cameron said. “Why are you here?”

  “To speak to my son, Cam!” Bianca said. “My unit’s leaving Canberra for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Your unit? So you still think you’re a soldier, do you? You picked your team, so you better play on until the whistle.” On the other side of the wall, the light went out.

  “Cam?” Bianca said. “Cam!”

  He didn’t reply, letting his feet do the talking as they squeaked across the driveway and back to the house.

  “I’ve got some chains in the truck,” Elaina said. “We could pull down the gate.”

  “That wouldn’t help,” Bianca said.

  “It’d make you feel better,” Elaina said.

  “No, I don’t think it would,” Bianca said.

  “Well, tell him how you helped stop the coup,” Elaina said. “Tell him you’re working for the government.”

  “Oh, he’d love to hear that,” Bianca said. “He’d switch to champagne and roses if he thought I could get him a meeting with Mr Owen. But that’s not what I want.”

  “Window, upstairs,” Tess said.

  In the upper corner of the house, a flashlight shone through a closed window of a dark room.

  Bianca raised a hand. “Love you, Ronnie!” she called.

  The torch blinked on, off, on off.

  Bianca waved. “I love you,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

  Wordlessly, they got into the car, and drove back to the airport.

  15th March

  Chapter 5 - The Taste of a Dollar

  Perth, Australia

  “Good morning, Commissioner,” Teegan Toppley said.

  “Can’t be,” Tess said, reluctantly opening an eye. “It’s still bat-dark outside.”

  “It’s two a.m. Truly the best part of the morning, when the police are asleep,” Teegan said. “Thus it grated against every grain of my soul to wake you, but our plane is almost ready to leave.”

  Tess pulled herself up. “Two whole hours of sleep? Luxury. You’re still in uniform. Couldn’t you find any civilian clothes?”

  “Suits are being pieced together out of the emergency uniforms the air-stewards left behind. But I’m not joining the goodwill tour. I’m coming with you.”

  “You are? Why?” Tess asked.

  “For the same reason Dan Blaze is pushing the deputy prime minister’s wheelchair,” Toppley said. “I am a recognisable figure, universally known to have been sentenced to a term in prison. I can’t be seen to now be in government.”

  “Working for the government,” Tess said. “But that’s a fair point.”

  Anna Dodson, Leo Smilovitz, Bruce Hawker, and Mick Dodson were waiting downstairs.

  “I feel like I’m late for a funeral,” Tess said.

  “A court martial,” Colonel Hawker said. “Not yours,” he added, handing her a mug of coffee.

  “Your pilot’s drunk, Tess,” Mick said. “It’ll be a day before he’s sober enough to drive, but he’ll never fly again if I have my way.”

  “Where are the other pilots?” Tess said. “There were dozens here a few days ago.”

  “Idle hands still need feeding,” Mick said. “Rule-twelve, that is.”

  “It’s at least number fifty-three,” Tess said.

  “Rule-nine-million-and-twelve by my count,” Anna said. “Ms Nguyen allocated the pilots to the driving pool. We thought that was a good way of ensuring we always knew where they were. Except, now, half are driving trucks and buses filled with buckets of flour, individually wrapped eggs, and beer-bottles of milk to the refugee camps in the east. The other half are ferrying generators and every empty tanker truck we could find to fill up at the refinery. But since yours is a one-way flight, I’m going to start my inspection in Perth, and we’ll all fly there together.”

  “Don’t say one-way,” Tess said. “Where’s the rest of my team?”

  “Swapping the cargo,” Hawker said. “We’ve got a supply of M4-carbines and ammunition for the Army Rangers, in case any are without, and we’re loading supplies Ms Dodson needs for her tour. She’s leaving her bodyguard behind.”

  “Only the soldiers,” Anna said. “I’ll have your team, Tess. If any of us has to fire a shot, we’re in deeper trouble than a few soldiers could save us from.”

  “I disagree,” Hawker said.

  “So do I,” Mick said.

  “But it’s my decision,” Anna said.

  “We’ll have to leave some of the food behind,” Mick said. “The Gulfstream wasn’t designed to be a cargo plane.”

  “Which is a perfect excuse to eat some now,” Anna said.

  “There’s food?” Tess asked.

  “Of a sort,” Hawker said. He held out a cereal bar.

  “Ah, processed food, how I’ve missed you,” Tess said, tearing the wrapper off. She took a bite and began to chew. She stopped. “Why are you all staring at me?”

  “What’s your gastronomic assessment?” Leo asked.

  “It’s food and I’m hungry,” Tess said.

  “To think you grew up in a restaurant,” Mick said. “What would your mum say?”

  “That there’s too much sugar, and not enough cinnamon. Why the quiz?”

  “The bar was made yesterday,” Anna said. “A group of mums had turned a school bake-sale idea into a kitchen-table biscuit-by-post business. Just before Christmas, they took over a large warehouse near the railway. They had the kitchens, and the packaging machines, all on-site. We don’t have storage space for raw ingredients, so cooking them is essential, and this factory was ready to go. If it works, we’ll expand their operation.”

  “Tastes good,” Tess said, taking another bite. “I’d say expand away.”

  “Take another look at the packaging,” Mick said.

  “Plain and sensible,” Tess said. “Oh, it says it costs a dollar. We’re using the old currency again?”

  “That is currency,” Anna said. “The bars should last for a year, and so will be sold, and can be traded, at a nominal rate of a dollar.”

  “We’re replacing bank notes with biscuit-bars?” Tess asked.

  “They’re a lot harder to forge,” Mick said.

  “If people are starving, they’ll eat the bars,” Anna said. “But if they’re not, they’ll trade them. This establishes a baseline for bartering. We can’t use the old currency, and we can’t waste the resources in printing new notes, or the electricity in running a digital currency. Not yet. Until then, a two-hundred-and-fifty-calorie oat-bar is worth a dollar. So your daily calorie requirement should cost ten dollars, but people can thrash out the specific costs and wages for themselves.”

  Tess nodded. “Money you can eat, but which truly won’t last forever? The future is now. Where’s Dr Avalon?”

  “Working,�
� Leo said. “Or sleeping. Probably both. I better find her.”

  “We best find everyone,” Anna said.

  “On it, ma’am,” Hawker said. He and the scientist hurried away.

  Tess took a final bite, finishing the oat-bar. “Does this mean we’re okay for food, nationally?”

  “The days of local surpluses will soon be over,” Anna said. “The canning factories are running at full capacity, with the bottleneck now in steel. We have more bakeries than we can equip, so I think we’ll begin canning pre-cooked meals and stick a price on those, too. It’s what happens next month which is giving me a migraine. We should be approaching harvest-time, but there are zombies in the fields, and double the population in the cities. Over winter, Leo’s worried the oceans might be too radioactive to fish. But there’s an idea for hydroponics through the cold months if we can sort out the electricity supply.”

  “This country could do with a diet,” Mick said. “Starting with our prime minister.”

  “Don’t you dare say that to him,” Anna said.

  “Someone should,” Mick said. “It’s a three-hour time difference to Perth, and we’ll be flying about a hundred kilometres an hour slower than the sunrise. We should land as the day’s first light is shining on the wrong side of the right desert. Let’s get you aboard Oz-Force-One, Anna.”

  “Dad, please don’t call it that,” Anna said.

  A month ago, the Gulfstream V had been a USAF VIP transport, with space for fourteen passengers, each in their own bed-comfortable lounge-seat. From Dr Avalon’s headphones came a muffled roar of drums and guitars as she drowned her ears in music while alternating between writing in a notebook and tapping away on a laptop. Bruce Hawker had brought one soldier with him, Sergeant Nick Oakes, who had a vaguely familiar face which was currently throwing curious looks towards Clyde, who sat by the door. Sophia and Bianca were catching each other up. Elaina was dictating the lyrics of Australian folk songs to Blaze. Zach was making a bid at hyperinflation by methodically chewing his way through a crate of the edible banknotes wedged next to his seat. Hawker was up front with Mick, Anna was reading, Toppley was writing, and Leo had closed his eyes.