I barked in frustration, exhaled, and sunk below the surface. Pushed all the air out of my lungs so that I’d sink, one hand pinching my nostrils shut. With eyes squeezed shut I sat down on the seabed – only a metre below – and sat there with the swell pushing me back and forth, where it was nice and quiet, until my lungs started burning and I had to come back up to the surface.
“It’s not dumb,” Jess said, as though I hadn’t gone anywhere. “It’s an important thing to keep. We don’t want everywhere to end up like New England. Or even worse than that. New England was horrible – all the little rules and shit, and if you put a foot wrong it was off to the torture chambers – but going south it was even worse. Some of the shit we saw, some of the stuff Hannah told me they saw in the Hunter Valley...”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
“Well, you’ve done your bit,” she said. “I guess that’s all you can do.”
We stood there in the sea for a while, the swell waist-high and sometimes neck-high, jumping up whenever a big wave came, or diving forward through the heart of the even larger waves. The sun was starting to sink down into the west. I couldn’t remember, before we came here, the last time I’d watched the sun go down over the ocean. Reeve Island, maybe.
We watched it drop, pooling on the horizon, eventually winking out entirely. The rare green flash – a sudden flare of disconcerting light.
“I miss Matt,” I said.
Jess put a hand on my shoulder, then swam back into shore, leaving me in the darkening water. After a moment I left as well, dried myself off, and climbed up the staircase with the others to where we’d left the Range Rovers, driving back across the island to the Sunset Hotel.
December 14
12.00pm
Tai Jin House. The oldest building on Christmas Island, a Federation-era mansion with Chinese touches, home of the colonial administrator back in the old days. It was down the road a little from the harbour, on the headland that makes up the south end of Flying Fish Cove, with a mountain of tropical foliage looming behind it. There were no walls. It was surrounded by a scattering of green lawns, rose bushes and mango trees, the jungle behind it and the waves breaking against the cliffs before it. It was here that the Prime Minister had taken up residence before his fall from power, and it was here, under house arrest, that he remained.
Tobias and I were frisked by the police guards after emerging from our chauffeured Range Rover, and once again I had to surrender my Glock. There was a sniper on one of the upper balconies, and probably more up on the mountainside behind the house. Half a dozen police and soldiers were scattered around the gardens, occasionally speaking into hand-held radios. After we’d been cleared, a pair of officers led us across the lawn towards the manor.
“So why do they let him stay here?” I asked Tobias quietly. “Why isn’t he in a cell somewhere?”
“Don’t ask me,” Tobias said.
I was pretty sure I knew the answer. As far as plenty of people in the coalition were concerned – including the new PM – the man in Tai Jin House was still this country’s leader.
As we crossed the lawn, a few gentle strains of piano music came drifting from the house. “Moonlight Sonata,” Tobias said. “Beethoven.”
“Show-off,” I said.
“My daughter was doing piano lessons last year,” he said, without looking at me, and I shut my mouth.
The cops led us inside, down richly carpeted halls, past Chinese paintings and antique furniture. Down the corridor and into a sitting room, with French windows opening out onto the garden and a view across the shining sea, white curtains waving in the breeze. And here, sitting at the piano, gently playing Beethoven, was Martin Vascoe, former prime minister, and my brother’s murderer.
As we entered the room he stopped playing. The police officers had taken up positions on either side of the door, watching us carefully. Vascoe turned on the piano stool to face us, but said nothing.
“Taking up a musical instrument?” Tobias said.
“Not a lot to do at the moment,” Vascoe said. He had an unremarkable face and an unremarkable voice; a body in a suit, a Member in the House, an empty politician. That was my first assessment. “I take it you don’t want to shake hands,” he said. “We can sit outside, if you like. Lovely day.”
We followed him out onto the lawn. There were a few white metal chairs around a table, beneath a flowering jacaranda tree, bright purple flowers scattered across the trim grass. I had a sudden, ugly memory of the day we flew north to rescue Matt. That field in New South Wales covered in Paterson’s Curse, the chopper rotors swirling them into the air, so many I felt like I might choke on them. I pushed the memory down and took a seat next to Tobias, Vascoe sitting opposite us.
“So,” he said. “I saw your speech in Parliament yesterday. On the evening news.”
I hadn’t bothered to watch that, to see what the general reaction had been. I hadn’t been in the mood and I didn’t care. “And what did you think of it?” Tobias asked.
Vascoe shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I thought of it. I’m not the prime minister anymore. Just the honest old Member for Hinkler.” A wry smile. “They can’t exactly call a by-election, can they?”
He looked out over the ocean. The lawn ended abruptly about twenty metres away, cliffs plunging straight down into the water, and I suddenly wished the table was nineteen metres closer so I could stand up, walk around it and push him in.
“You can pretend that if you like, and that’s fine,” Tobias said. “We’re here to talk to you because we want you to see the same thing Parliament saw, which is Aaron. We want you to understand that he isn’t, and never was, a threat of any kind. None of us are. We just want what’s best for the human race.”
Vascoe turned his head back to look at me. He had an irritating expression on his face, like he was smarter than us, like this wasn’t worth his time. “I see exactly what you want me to see,” he said. “I see a teenage boy. It’s what’s behind the curtain that I don’t trust.”
We looked at each other for a moment. I still hadn’t said anything yet, and for some reason the first thing I did was: “You killed my brother. That must make you pretty happy.”
“On the contrary, Aaron,” he said. “Ira Cole was under strict orders to take you both alive. It was never my intention for either of you to be harmed. But you are – by your own admission – at least partly alien. It was in the best interests of the country, in the best interests of caution, for you to be brought back here so we could learn more about you. Not let you go running off half-cocked with a nuclear warhead.”
Learn more about you was a relatively innocent-sounding phrase which nevertheless conjured up images of government labs and experiments.
“Prime Minister,” Tobias said – whether as a slip-up or a note of respect, I don’t know – “you authorised the mission. You sent us, back in May. You know as well as the rest of us that the machine base in Ballarat is real.”
Vascoe snorted. “I sent you and your men and those bloody scientists to investigate the ASLA. I didn’t authorise you to take along a pair of kids you found floating in the Bight. I didn’t authorise you to let those kids have a chinwag with an alien intelligence and then go dredge up a nuke in Brisbane and decide to blow up Ballarat!”
“You did, actually...” Tobias began.
But Vascoe was still going. “You,” he growled. “You and McLeod and that bloody old man who thinks a cushy ceremonial job means something all of a sudden. What did you expect me to do? You want to nuke a known site of alien contact – utterly destroy it – like the US military stomping on Fallujah. Like, like – bloody hell, I don’t know! Just think about it! The first alien contact mankind ever makes and you nuke it? How’s that going to look down the line?”
He was getting frustrated and nearly shouting. I didn’t know what to say. He’d obviously set his mind on what was happening long ago, and refused to budge his opinion.
But
Tobias spoke anyway. “Funny you should mention the US military,” he said. “Because they’re on side with us. You know that. So are the Russians and the British and the Chinese...”
Vascoe scoffed. “The US government. Right. How far did they go down the line of presidential succession? It’s the Secretary of Transportation or something, sitting on an aircraft carrier off Hawaii. The British have got the Home Secretary and the Queen’s granddaughter cowering in the Shetlands. And don’t get me started on the Russians and the Chinese. Christ knows who’s running the show up there. All we’ve spoken to are military officers.” He looked out over the ocean again. “It’s a joke. It’s a fucking joke.”
Tobias waited a moment, then said, “This is a global initiative. This is bigger than us.”
Vascoe didn’t say anything.
“It’s over,” I said. “You realise that, don’t you? The Governor-General and the ADF are bending over backwards to try to keep civilian government going and you keep undermining them at every turn. You’re your own worst enemy. You had your chance at stopping what’s going to happen and you fucked it up...”
“Aaron,” Tobias said.
“...you fucked it up,” I said angrily, “and you got my brother killed.”
“Your brother was going to get himself killed, sooner or later,” Vascoe said.
I stood up angrily, but Tobias gripped my arm before I could step over to Vascoe and do anything stupid. “What the fuck would you know?” I said.
It bothered me because it was true.
“I know all about you and your brother, Aaron,” he said. “I’ve read your files. I’ve had intelligence reports about you every week, ever since Captain Tobias just coincidentally found you floating in the ocean, when you were just coincidentally on your way to the same place he was going, and then you just coincidentally managed to get inside the ASLA barrier and let the rest of the team in as well. You and I both know that that’s too many coincidences to trust. I don’t know who or what you are, but if there’s any kind of human empathy behind those eyes – and you do play a human well, you really do – then you can’t blame me for being just the slightest bit suspicious of you and your brother. But you’re right. I had my chance, and I failed, and now the fate of the human race is in the hands of someone not quite human.”
I stared at him, still standing up, Tobias’ hand still around my arm. “I’m done,” I said. “Let’s go.” I yanked my arm out of his grasp and started walking back across the lawn towards the house.
“Aaron!” Tobias said.
“He’s never going to trust us!” I yelled back, still walking. “This was a waste of time!”
When I got back to the Range Rover, Sergeant Tucker was leaning against the door chatting to a pair of other cops. “Finished already?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, and got in the back seat of the car to brood.
Tobias was not long after me, and soon we were driving back up the coastal road to the hotel. “Well,” he said eventually, “that could have gone better.”
“How much contact does he have with people?” I asked. “Is he allowed visitors?”
“Not really. But there’s all those cops there, all the time. And he’s allowed to see his family... look, we can’t guarantee he’s not still pulling the party’s strings from in there. That’s why we wanted you to meet with him, to try to change his mind.”
“That fucking house,” I said. “That mansion.”
Tobias shrugged. “Putting him in a cell wouldn’t change any of that. There’s really no way we can stop him from influencing the government, if he is.”
“I can think of one way.”
“Bit drastic, Aaron.”
I turned to Tobias. “He killed people. All those people at Jagungal. Women and kids. Your men in Canberra. All that’s on him. Don’t tell me you don’t think he deserves to be punished.”
“After a trial,” Tobias said. “Anyway...”
I turned to look out the window again, folding my arms. “This was such a fucking waste of time. When are we going back to Jagungal?”
Tobias sighed. “A week is a long time in politics.”
At least my bit’s done. I talked to Parliament, I talked to Vascoe. I don’t have to deal with any of this bullshit any more. I just want to go back to Jagungal, so I can talk to the Endeavour about these dreams of Matt. I just want to go home.
8.00pm
Once again, we arrived back from our morning appointment before noon. Tobias left soon after, off for another Defence meeting. I was considering swimming some laps in the pool when Professor Llewellyn invited me and some of the others to come out to one of the undead research vessels.
I’d vaguely heard about them before; all the scientific experiments on zombies are done offshore, on ships, for safety reasons. It sounded interesting. Definitely beat hanging around at the hotel. But I was a little dubious about it. “Are you sure that’s... OK?” I asked. “Isn’t it a security risk?”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Tobias cleared it. Said it might stop you from being bored out of your skull.”
I decided to come along, as did Jess and Hannah, and Corporal Martin and Sergeant Mendelson. We split up into two cars, from the little government fleet that’s been ferrying us around. Our driver was once again Sergeant Tucker. “How’d you find the PM?” he asked me, honking the horn as we approached the docks. A bunch of workers were carrying pallets up from an unloading ship by hand, across the road and into the burgeoning city.
“He was an asshole.”
Tucker chuckled. “Yeah, well, aren’t they all? Bloody pollies. Same as they ever were.”
I didn’t say anything. Tucker’s she’ll-be-right attitude pissed me off. He honked the horn again a few times, nosing the car through a stream of labourers going in and out of the harbour. A lot of them were Asian – Indonesians, maybe, who’d been lucky enough to get on the island before the government put the blockade up.
At the harbour, we left the cars and were shown onto a small launch, where – ludicrously – Tucker insisted we wear lifejackets. “More than my job’s worth,” he said, as I realised that he wasn’t just our driver but our handler as well. I guess the government want their own bodyguards on us as well as Tobias’ men; it wouldn’t look good if all the fear and suspicion they’ve been stoking culminated in some random wharfie attacking me. The other driver, a wiry police constable named Stafford, sat on the gunwale smoking a cigarette and didn’t put a lifejacket on.
It was a five minute cruise out to the spot where the research vessel was anchored. It gave me a funny feeling of deja vu, even though the ship was much smaller and the company very different. It reminded me of cruising out to the mysterious hulk of the Regina Maersk, just offshore from the cliffs of Eucla. But that had been under the dark and gloomy skies of a southern winter, with not another ship anywhere in sight. Here, there were Navy vessels to the left and right, and the ragged ring of refugee boats out beyond that. The research ship’s name was printed on the bow in huge letters: RV SOUTHERN SURVEYOR.
“This is the only one that was originally a CSIRO boat,” Professor Llewellyn said, as we pulled up alongside a rope ladder splayed against the hull. “That one you can see out there, past the north point? That’s the Aurora Australis. She was an icebreaker – still is, I guess – but we’ve fitted her for research. The other one’s on the east side of the island, an oil tanker the government seized.”
“And these are all for zombies?”
“Yup,” Llewellyn said, and started to climb.
It gave me an eerie feeling, climbing up the ladder, staring at the metal hull and wondering what was on the other side. Ships full of zombies. The concept of not killing a zombie when you have the capacity to do so is a strange and unsettling one.
We were met by a man named Dr Florian, a senior researcher and the effective “captain” of the Southern Surveyor. I didn’t see any sailors, though there were a couple of soldiers scattered around the place, al
l of them with automatic rifles. With the ship anchored and effectively just a floating research platform, I guess there wasn’t much need for a crew. Just scientists and guards.
“Professor Llewellyn, always nice to see you,” Florian said, shaking his hand. “And we do get so few guests out here,” he added drily. I got the impression he wasn’t happy about having civilians onboard. That was fine; I’d agreed to the tour to get out of the hotel for a while, but now I felt distinctly uncomfortable. At least this time no-one had tried to take my Glock away.
Florian led us belowdecks, down through a lab where a scattering of scientists and technicians were looking through microscopes, filing test samples, or chatting by the coffee machine – though they suddenly hurried back to work when they realised the boss was leading a tour group through the lab. It felt like an ordinary place, almost pre-outbreak apart from the armed guards, which was why it was a shock when I noticed the zombie heads in jars lined up on one wall.
“Don’t touch, please!” Dr Florian said as I moved towards them, though I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. They were all in various stages of decay, moving their jaws and moaning slightly, though the jars were soundproofed. One of them which still had functioning eyes was looking back at me.
“A decay experiment,” Professor Llewellyn explained. “To see how much being separated from the body affects the rate of decomposition.”
“Why would that make a difference?” Hannah asked.
“Oh, but it does,” Dr Florian said. “The undead don’t decompose as quickly as a normal corpse; certain strains of bacteria simply won’t settle in them, just as carrion scavengers avoid them. While they remain active when separated from the body – provided the brain stem is intact – they certainly lose some as-yet undetermined aspect of their animation. They’re less responsive to stimulus, and this can affect the rate of bacteria growth, and therefore decomposition.”
End Times Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 177
