Heaven is a Place on Earth

by Graham Storrs

  The vote!

  She put up a news feed and scrolled back three days. The headline, “Major Upset for Government” was at the top of the most-accessed list. She ran the clip.

  “In a major setback for the Government, today,” the presenter said, “the House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming majority to reject the Liberal Party's Cyberterrorism Bill, with over a hundred Liberal Members crossing the floor to vote against it.” Ginny watched in astonishment as various pundits were called on to voice their opinions. She couldn't take it all in. The pyjamas, the toenails, the vote... There seemed such a vicious wrenching of reality going on that everything felt out of shape. She shuddered, feeling menaced and dislocated.

  She requested follow-up stories and, from two days ago, found the headline, “Double Dissolution Likelihood Rocks the Country.”

  “Prime Minister Jason Dougherty stunned the country today when he made this announcement outside his Kirribilli residence.” The feed cut to the Prime Minister, looking tired but resolute, saying, “Yesterday's surprise decision in the House has come as a severe blow to this Government and to me, personally. I invested a lot of personal capital in ensuring the Cyberterrorism Bill would succeed and its failure leaves me no option but to resign as leader of the Liberal Party and as Prime Minister. The no-confidence motion tabled by the opposition has found support with a great many of my colleagues, many of whom I consider close friends. It is with some bitterness that I acknowledge that my own leadership has failed my party and failed the Australian people.”

  Ginny watched as a tear rolled down the man's cheek. The presenter came back on. “Political analysts are unanimous in believing that a successful vote of no confidence in the Government will mean a dissolution of both Houses, with all seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate to be contested in a general election. Australia has not had a double-dissolution since – ”

  Ginny paused the clip and sat back on the sofa, blinking at the presenter's perfect features. When was the last time you saw a real news presenter?

  She felt her stomach knotting. She scanned the news feeds for the past three days, then did a general search. There was no mention anywhere of a terrorist attack at the Parliament worldlet. Nothing at all.

  Had it even happened? Part of her could swear she had been there, fighting to stop the vote, just minutes ago. Yet here she was, looking at the evidence that three days had passed since then and no-one had mentioned what had happened in the Public Gallery. And the toenails... And the pyjamas...

  Her mind wandered off into a fugue of aimless speculation and random thoughts. In the end, all she could think was that she should call her parents and Della to check that they were all right. And that she was hungry, starving hungry.

  She turned to the kitchenette and stopped dead. A vase filled with long-stemmed red roses stood on the counter. She stared at it for several seconds, afraid to go near it. On an impulse, she turned down her aug to minimum. It was still there. Real roses in a real vase. She could not remember ever having seen real cut flowers before. Slowly, she moved closer until she could reach out and touch the cool, velvet petals and smell their thick, rich perfume.

  Cal, she thought. This is all Cal's doing.

  She stepped away from the roses, frightened by what they might mean. She wanted to see Della. She wanted to talk to somebody, tell somebody, have them tell her she would be all right. She hurried out to the bedroom automatically seeking her tank so she could get out of there. She glanced at the news presenter's face, still frozen on the big wall display. She was a beautiful woman, intelligent and serious, but with just a hint of humour about the eyes and mouth. She was a woman you'd like to get to know, a little bit intimidating, perhaps, but someone you could imagine being friends with.

  No, not a woman at all. A construct.

  She heard Cal's voice in her memory. You can make the construct as beautiful, engaging, and trustworthy as you like. With a gesture she killed the feed. Her messages replaced the image. There were lots of them, many were from Della, there was an odd one from Bernard Recszyk, Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, which was a puzzle, and one from her bank requesting an urgent interview, which was not. There were also several from her father. Her stomach lurched, imagining the bad news he'd called to share. Instead of viewing any of them, she carried on to the bedroom. She had reached out to open the tank's lid before she jerked back her hand in shock.

  It was not her tank, not the battered second-hand unit she'd bought two years ago with her first UnReality pay cheque. This was a brand new top-of-the-range model that probably cost more than she could earn in two years. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it when she'd first woken up, but she'd been a little distracted at the time. What else might be different in her apartment that she hadn't seen yet?

  She rushed about her two small rooms, checking everything, but the only difference she found was in the kitchenette. A fabulously expensive food printer stood where her old microwave had been, the cupboard below and the fridge beside it were stuffed with goopacks to go in it. Her stomach growled at the thought of food but she kept away from the printer as if it were a dangerous animal.

  She thought about leaving her unit, just to get away from whatever it all meant, but the idea of being outside, alone, with nowhere to go was too much to bear. So she lay down on the bed, eschewing the new tank, and unlatched.

  -oOo-

  When Della came out from her office into the Chastity Mining foyer, Ginny thought her friend looked worn and stressed, although on the surface her expression was one of astonishment and joy. She ran straight over to Ginny and grabbed her in a ferocious hug.

  “Oh my God, Gin, it's been five days! Where have you been?”

  Ginny clung to her friend for the length of a long, calming breath.

  “I – I don't know. I mean, some of it I know. Some of it maybe I just dreamed. But the last three days... And look.” She pulled back and showed Della her fingernails.

  Della frowned, clearly concerned at Ginny's incoherence. She said, “Your father called me yesterday, several times. He's been trying to reach you. I had to talk him out of calling the police. Maybe I should have let him.”

  Ginny didn't want to deal with that now. “It's probably his job. He probably wants me to help him deal with Mum. I'll call him soon.”

  “You ran off,” Della said. “We were going to – ” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “You know what. But when I came home you were gone. Did you do it? Did you find anything? Of course, it doesn't matter now, I suppose. Maybe it's best if I don't know.”

  Did any of it matter now? “You heard about the vote?”

  “Heard about it? It's on all the feeds. No-one's talking about anything else, what with the election and everything. Who'd have thought, after all you went through? And S10 and Detective Chu and the Consortium, and all for nothing. No terror attack needed. They just voted against the bill and called an election. Your friend Tonia must be over the moon.”

  Ginny heard Della's words like a broadcast from another planet. “Is that what happened?”

  Again, Della frowned. “We should get you to a doctor or something. You seem a bit...” She looked hard into Ginny's eyes for a while, perhaps trying to read the mind behind them. In frustration, she said, “I've got to get back inside, Gin. There's this meeting... Look, where are you right now? Your body, I mean. Are you somewhere safe?”

  Ginny nodded, although she wasn't sure. Are you safe in a home where people come and go at will, replacing your appliances and laying you out on the bed in pink pyjamas? “I saw Cal,” she said, remembering the roses in her kitchen. “We talked. He told me he loves me. I think he might be...” What? Insane? Running the country? A delusion?

  “OK, listen,” Della said. “I want you to go back to your unit. Get out of the tank and lie down on the bed.” Ginny didn't bother to explain that she was avoiding the tank because it wasn't hers. “I'm going to call your friend Babs – s
he lives in Brisbane, doesn't she? – and tell her to get round to your place. I'll get a docbot to pay you a call too, and I'll call your dad and tell him you're back. You just rest, and don't go anywhere.” She took Ginny by the shoulders. “Promise me you'll stay home.” Ginny nodded. “I'll get rid of this damned meeting and then I'll come and see you. OK?”

  Ginny forced a smile. “OK. Thank you.”

  “Go on, now.”

  Ginny left Della in the lobby of her building, looking worried, and went back to her unit. She got off the bed, took off the pyjamas and took a shower. She dressed in her overalls, dismayed to find that all her clothes had been laundered and pressed and hung neatly in her wardrobe. Then she went to the kitchenette and stared at the food printer. She was starving hungry or she never would have touched the thing. She popped up the interface and flicked through the extensive snacks menu, finally choosing a meat pie. When the printer pinged, she took the pie and sat down on the sofa with it. It tasted good, really good, and she felt better for having eaten. The world felt more solid, less like a dream.

  While she made herself a cup of coffee, she rang her father.

  “Ginny? Where have you been, darl? I was worried sick.”

  “I'm fine, Dad. I was just visiting a friend.” She bit the bullet. “How are you and Mum?”

  “That's why I've been trying to reach you. You wouldn't believe what's been happening here in the past couple of days.” She steeled herself for the news. “I got a promotion,” he said, announcing it as if he'd won the lottery. “They've made me Regional Manager. I couldn't believe it. You know I was down to part-time working and, what with all the layoffs and all, I was expecting the worst. Then, right out of the blue, we've been awarded the biggest contract in the company's history and it's all hands to the pumps. The GM called me in yesterday and said how much he valued my work and would I do them the honour of helping steer the company through this massive expansion? His exact words. I didn't even think he knew my name, but it turns out I've been 'on the executive team's radar' for some time now.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “It's like a miracle.”

  Ginny tried to smile but couldn't. She managed to say, “Mum must be relieved.”

  Her father guffawed. “Her? She's to busy with her own miracle to even notice me.” He seemed very pleased about it.

  The pie she'd just eaten felt heavy in her stomach. “Her own miracle?”

  “She's only gone and got herself a new exhibition. Got a call from the Australian Museum of Art this morning. They're putting on a series of events honouring underappreciated modern artists – or somesuch. They practically begged your mother to display her stuff there. Well, you've never seen anything like it. She's strutting around like a queen telling anyone who'll listen that it's about time she got the recognition she deserves.” He chuckled. “She'll be impossible to live with now. You'll see.”

  She let him ramble on about the incredible timing of it, and the incredible luck of it all, just when things were looking so bleak, and how happy they both were. She tried to look pleased for him and to urge further details out of him, but all she could think was that the timing was, indeed, incredible and that she didn't believe it was luck for one moment. By the time he had hung up, anger and anxiety were gnawing at her insides as if she'd eaten a stew of them cooked up by that infernal food printer.

  She looked at her message list, still displayed on the wall. Her eyes were drawn to the one from the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It was a day old and marked urgent. Reluctantly, she told it to play. The face of Bernard Recszyk appeared, familiar to her from news items and ACO concert program notes.

  “Ms Galton – may I call you Virginia? – I wanted to be the first to call and tell you the good news.” Ginny watched the smiling face with grim foreboding. “Our grant from the Rice Consortium has been approved. Honestly, I'd forgotten we'd even applied for it, but it's extremely generous. It allows us to commission works from three of the country's most promising emerging composers. Several names were proposed and evaluated by a most eminent international panel of experts as part of the grant process, it seems, and yours, I'm pleased to say, was top of the list. Congratulations, Virginia! The terms of the grant are quite spectacular. They not only fund your own time for the next two years to produce a substantial orchestral work, but will pay for our rehearsal and production costs to run a series of performances around the country at top venues – already booked and scheduled, by the way! It's really very exciting and an amazing opportunity for you.” He drew a breath as if to settle his fluttering heart. “We need to meet, of course. I'm so looking for – ”

  She cut it off. Another miracle. She slumped into the sofa and closed her eyes. Somewhere in the past few days – or even weeks – reality had become unglued. She had her suspicions but she needed to know just when it had happened.

  She called Rafe but there was a message saying Rafe Morgan was no longer at that Net address and for further information she should contact the Federal Police Service, Department of Missing Persons. So she called Dover Richards, the man who had shot her.

  “Missing Persons.” The face in the display was that of a pretty woman in her mid twenties. A construct if ever Ginny had seen one.

  “I'm trying to reach a tagger called Dover Richards.”

  “I'm sorry, Detective Inspector Richards is on sabbatical. Would you like me to redirect your call to another officer?”

  Ginny shook her head and hung up. Was Richards there or not? Was he really on sabbatical? There was absolutely no way to know. Her only certainty was that everyone she called about it would give here the same story. For a wild moment she imagined finding out where Richards lived and staking out his home until he showed up. But how would she get his physical address when every directory, every person she might ask, may be deliberately misleading her?

  She put her wrists to her temples and pressed hard. Is this how it feels to be paranoid? Is that what I am? Have I gone crazy?

  Whatever the answer, Richards was a dead end. He had either been removed, or hidden from her. In a sudden burst of anger, she stomped into the kitchen, grabbed up the roses and threw them into the waste chute. Cal was behind this. Cal had been working her like a puppet from the start. She pulled open a drawer so hard the assorted cutlery and cooking implements jumped and crashed. She grabbed the rolling pin and yanked it out. Stupid bloody thing. She'd bought it on impulse ten years ago and had never used it even once. But now she'd thought of a use for it. She grabbed it by one end, took aim at the food printer and swung it back, shouting, “I don't want your fucking roses, you sick creep!”

  “Would you prefer chocolate?”

  She screamed and dropped the rolling pin, jerking herself round to see who had spoken.

  “I didn't mean to scare you,” Cal said. “I just didn't want you to break your new toy.”

  She goggled at him, her heart pounding. “How did you get in here?”

  He gave a wistful smile. “I'm not really here at all. It's just a projection in your – ”

  She didn't want another lecture on his damned technology. “What the hell is all this?” She waved a hand at the world in general. He seemed to understand.

  “I wanted to do something for you. To make up for...” The sentence drifted off with a sigh and a helpless gesture.

  She narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips. “It worked, didn't it? The vote was in favour of the bill. It passed. And moments later, you flipped the switch and down came your curtain of lies and corruption.”

  “You can still join me, Ginny.”

  “And the very first lie was that the vote went the other way. Then the bastard Government calls a double-dissolution election so that they can all step out of the limelight and let a bunch of mugs get elected who have no idea that they're not really running the country at all.” She felt tears running down her cheeks and hated herself for crying. “How could you be part of that? How could you help them turn the world to shit like that?”


  He took a step forward, as if he meant to comfort her. She took a step back and looked for the rolling pin.

  “No-one will even notice the difference. You'll see. It's always been like that. The people in power define reality. The victor gets to write history, but they also get to write the present, and the future. Democracy has been a sham since... well, always. It's better to be on the inside.”

  “Better for you and your criminal friends.”

  He stopped talking and pursed his lips. “I just wanted to give you another chance to consider it.”

  “And if I say no, do you take away my dad's job, my mother's exhibition? Is that the deal?”

  His eyes widened. He looked genuinely shocked. “No, no. Those are just... I just wanted to help your family out. I wanted to please you.”

  “By giving me a commission I didn't earn?”

  She could see from his alarm that he really didn't understand what he'd done.

  “People get preference because of their family and connections all the time, Ginny. Almost everybody with power and wealth got a leg up from someone else with power and wealth. It's the way the world works. You could go all your life trying to 'earn' success and, like almost everyone else without the right connections, you'll fail. I just tipped the scales in your favour a little. People hardly ever deserve their successes in this world, Ginny. There isn't a cosmic karma operating that rewards the good people and punishes the bad. Take the commission. Write something beautiful. You don't get opportunities like this except by the luck of being born in the right circles, but anyone can blow it, no matter who they know.”

  She wasn't really listening to him. Her mind was in the Public Gallery, with Tonia desperately working at inserting the virus and Dover Richards swinging his gun round towards her. “When did it stop being real?” she asked. “For me, I mean. Did I really go to Sydney to see Della? Did Sorenssen really die? And Chu? Was I ever with you at that oversized mansion of yours?”