Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation]

by Tayell, Frank

  At the university, reassuring lights shone from un-curtained windows, behind which workers headed to their improvised office-floor beds, or sleeplessly waited for their first-light shift. The footpaths were deserted, and at the medical science building, the sentry was gone, seemingly replaced by the lab assistant in the unicorn t-shirt.

  As Anna parked, the student took a step towards her car, but stopped when Anna got out.

  “G’day,” Anna said. “Mel, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, g’day. Hello, ma’am,” Mel stammered.

  Anna forced a smile. “Guess I’m not who you were waiting for. Life goes on, right? Even now. I need Dr Smilovitz. Is he still here?”

  “He’s in the new lab,” Mel said.

  “And where’s that?”

  Mel turned, and pointed through the doors. “Go inside, go right. Along the corridor, turn left, and listen for the music. She’s working late.”

  “Dr Avalon? Ah.”

  “If Dr Smilovitz isn’t there, he’ll have gone to sleep in one of the offices. Go left, not right, and take the big set of stairs up. Offices are to the left at the top of the stairs. No, the right. Yeah, the right at the top.”

  “Ace, thanks,” Anna said, giving the young woman another, less forced, smile. “A friend of mine gave me some advice once. In these dark hours, it seems more relevant than ever. Enjoy the minutes because you don’t know how many hours you’ve got.”

  Mel gave the politician a puzzled, but polite, nod.

  Anna, suddenly feeling twice her age, went inside. As embarrassing in hindsight as the conversation with Mel was, she felt genuinely calmer now. Beset by panic, she’d rushed from the Bunker, intent on doing something, anything, to regain some small measure of control over a situation at the very edge of comprehension. A nuclear detonation was still a tragedy, still a disaster, even now, but though the planes had been lost, many of the power-less ships would still be afloat. A rescue could be mounted. Somehow.

  The blaring music provided an audible trail ending at a wide-windowed lab with a row of tables and an array of machines she couldn’t identify let alone name. Behind those was a white-walled containment room with an airlock door. In one corner of the wide room, splayed in an armchair far too comfortable to be university-issue, and wearing a pair of ear defenders to block out the din, Leo Smilovitz tapped at a laptop. In the other corner, three tables were arranged in a U, and covered in notebooks, except for the space taken up by the speakers. Avalon, head twisting and rocking in time to the music, held a pen in each hand, both of which darted from one notebook to another, jotting annotations and amendments with an occasional pause to drum a punctuation to the beat.

  “You’ve come to give us a hand with the unpacking?” Smilovitz asked, pulling off his ear defenders.

  Anna shook her head. “No. I need your help.”

  “It’s bad news?” Smilovitz asked, closing his laptop and standing up.

  “What’s bad news?” Avalon asked, glancing up from her notebooks. She looked at the clock, Anna’s face, and turned the music off. “How bad?”

  “A few hours ago, the pilots of three different planes reported seeing a mushroom cloud in the Pacific, somewhere between here and Hawaii, north of Kiribati. The message was transmitted to ships to planes, to ships to shore.”

  “You don’t know if it was one mushroom cloud or three?” Avalon asked. “And you jumped to the conclusion it was a nuclear detonation, or three, rather than a water spout caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano.”

  “The pilots in a plane were blinded by the flash,” Anna said. “They crashed. We’ve lost contact with a wing of passenger planes transporting soldiers to Hawaii. Thousands are missing.”

  “And what do you want me to do?” Avalon asked.

  “To help,” Anna said. “In our communications rooms, our bunker, they’ve been pulling the wires from the walls, and sent away anyone who has a clue how to plug them back in. We’re relying on eyewitness accounts relayed by radio, and whatever transmissions we can eavesdrop on. It’s a mess, and I was hoping you could help fix it, or at least translate the little data we’ve got.”

  “But specifically,” Avalon said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Was it one warhead detonating in the ocean,” Anna said. “Was it three? More?”

  “I can’t help with that,” Avalon said. “Leo?”

  “I think I can,” he said.

  “Then do that and let me get back to work,” Avalon said. She reached across, and turned the music back on.

  Smilovitz gestured towards the door.

  “You can help?” Anna asked when they were outside.

  “Not from here, but yes,” he said.

  “It doesn’t sound like an atmospheric burst, does it?” Anna asked. “That was what we feared. Six high-yield warheads, three in each hemisphere, detonated in the atmosphere to knock out the globe’s electronics.”

  “That wasn’t what I feared,” Smilovitz said. “And the EMP will only knock out the devices without shielding. Each year, that number was decreasing. On the other hand, the absolute number of devices and machines increased exponentially.”

  “I wondered if it could have been a submarine accident,” Anna said. “A reactor meltdown, maybe?”

  “Unlikely on all counts,” Smilovitz said. “By which I mean it’s unlikely for a sub’s reactor to melt down, or for that to occur close to the surface. It’s more than unlikely for a warhead to detonate while in submarine’s silo. If pilots were blinded by a flash, and if others saw a mushroom cloud… Are you sure this was at sea?”

  “No,” Anna said. “Honestly, I’m not. We think it was northeast of Tarawa Island in Kiribati, and there really isn’t much land between there and Hawaii, but the location could have been misreported.”

  “At what altitude were the planes flying?”

  “Again, I don’t know,” Anna said. “They relayed the message to some ships, who then reported it to some other planes, and ultimately back to a fighter patrol. Contact with the ships has been lost since. What if it was a mutiny aboard a sub? The captain tried to launch a missile without authorisation in order to obliterate a large concentration of the undead. The autodestruct destroyed the warhead while it was still in the tube, or shortly after launch.”

  “An autodestruct would destroy the missile, not the warhead,” Smilovitz said. “Besides, how would anyone in a sub, or on land, know where the undead are most densely gathered without satellite data?”

  “Fair dinkum, so no more guessing. I need you to come with me, back to Parliament House, to interpret what data we do have.”

  “Sure,” he said. “But you’re right, no more guessing. I don’t know what’s happened to your communications systems, but your bunker isn’t the only place data comes into. Can we go to your government’s geoscience department?”

  “Do you mean Geoscience Australia? Why are we going there? And how do you know about nuclear warheads?”

  “Do you have a car? Then I’ll tell you as we drive.”

  Outside, her car had been joined by an army four-by-four in which were two black-uniformed Special Forces. Smilovitz paused when he saw them.

  “It’s okay,” Anna said. “I think they’re with me.” She raised her voice. “Mr Lignatiev sent you to keep an eye on me? I’m okay, guys, but thanks. I need you to go back to Parliament House. Tell Mr Lignatiev we’re gathering some more data from Geoscience Australia. But we’ll be back at Parliament House in an hour. He’ll understand.”

  As she got into her car, the four-by-four pulled away.

  “Sorry. That brought back bad memories of Kazakhstan,” Smilovitz said as he pulled on his seatbelt.

  “Kazakhstan? Is that how you know about nuclear warheads?” Anna asked as she pulled away from the kerb.

  “Originally, it was my area of expertise,” Smilovitz said. “The long-term impact of radioactive decay with a specific interest in the mutations to flora. As a student, I dreamed of working near
Chernobyl.”

  “Really? You wanted to go to Chernobyl?”

  “Sure. To learn if, by accident from that disaster, we’d accidentally created a solution to one of the planet’s many, many, man-made problems. Wildlife thrives there. Thrives and has changed, and is changing still.”

  “I thought you were an epidemiologist.”

  “That’s Dr Avalon. You’re aware we were part of the U.N.’s disaster mitigation team? We were tasked with identifying potential calamities before they became extinction-level events. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, pressure-cooker volcanoes, ancient anthrax spores revealed in the melting permafrost, each day was a new adventure.”

  “Sure, yes, I’d read the reports. It was one of those areas of international cooperation I thought our species could be proud of. It’s why you were in the far north of Canada, right? But if radiation is your area of expertise, how did you end up hunting for anthrax?”

  “Dr Avalon,” he said. “I met her in college.”

  “You were her teacher?”

  “Her student,” Smilovitz said.

  “Really? Sorry, it’s just you look older than her.”

  “I am, but only by a month. According to her, one night, tired of adolescence, my body decided to skip ahead to middle age. I’m not kidding. One morning, she actually said that to me. And I guess she was right. She got her first degree when she was fourteen, and was a professor by the time I enrolled. That’s how we met. They had her teach a class to scare off the students not serious about real science. I was one of three that survived to the end of the semester.”

  “And because of her, you switched to biology?”

  “Epidemiology. If she hears you call it biology, you’ll get a lecture. With homework. Which she will insist you complete. No, I didn’t switch, not exactly. While I was still working on my thesis, she’d taken the job with the U.N., mostly because it involved less human interaction than teaching. One week after she’d begun, half her colleagues were threatening to quit. She needed a buffer, and asked for me. She calls me her human interface.”

  “You put your own career on hold just to act as the Avalon-whisperer?” Anna asked.

  He shrugged. “I was asked to save the world. How could I say no? It was important work. We stopped four pandemics the like of which the planet hasn’t seen in millennia. Wish we could have stopped the fifth.”

  Anna nodded. From the way the two scientists interacted, it was obvious this man had abandoned his career goals for a romantic dream. But if he didn’t mention it, nor would she. “Why are we going to Geoscience Australia?” she asked instead, slowing to detour around the unguarded barricade partially blocking the bridge over Lake Burley Griffin.

  “Someone decided you could turn every patch of grass into a truck-garden,” he said. “They didn’t think to check what cables ran beneath. They severed the data-lines into the university.”

  “Sorry, that might be my fault. I authorised the agricultural science department to make use of any patch of grass in the city. I expected them to plant crops, but they’re creating something far bigger. Every lawn is a different agricultural mini-lab.”

  “No, it’s a good idea,” Smilovitz said. “I talked with them, after I finished shouting. Long term, we’ll all live in walled-in hamlets. We can have a few big farms in island-nations, and on this island-continent, but most humans, at least for a generation, will live in walled settlements.”

  “A generation? You think the zombies might live for twenty years?”

  “The memory of them will, and so people will demand a basic level of personal security. If you, the government, wish to remain in control, that sense of security must be provided. We have to maximise every inch of soil, and every inch of sunlight. But I would have preferred they did it without cutting the cables. I put in a request to have them repaired, but I guess my turn will come after you guys in parliament. A couple of days ago, I took a tour of your government labs to see what equipment could be repurposed and what should go into storage. Your geoscience building was very interesting.”

  “Oh, so it was you who Hoa sent?” Anna asked. “I thought the report I received was unusually detailed. I’m reserving government buildings for office and factory space. As the number of refugees increase, the amount of work-space will, too. Time spent constructing walls and laying cables is time better spent producing something we need. But I don’t want everything inside chucked onto the scrap heap. So what’s there? Some kind of radio to speak to submarines?”

  “Sadly, no. Have you heard of E.L.F.? It stands for extremely low frequency, and it is what the name suggests. It’s a radio pulse in the three to three hundred Hertz range, which can penetrate seawater to a depth of a hundred metres. You need a truly massive facility. Miles across. China, India, Russia, and the U.S. are the only nations who use it, and all to send one-way signals to their submarines without them having to surface. Because of the physical size of the transmitter, a submarine can’t respond in kind, but those nuclear powers all used it as part of their launch system failsafes. Which, by the way, were supremely misnamed. Command and control was a myth, the world over.”

  “Right. Sure,” she said. “Where in the U.S.? Is it anywhere near Canada? Maybe British Columbia, the Saint Lawrence, or anywhere else we might ask General Yoon to investigate?”

  “Michigan, I think. But I was expounding on your theory about a sub, and about how we can find out what’s happening in the wider world. The internet was always more than social media and movies. You’ve shut down the data centres, and your power restrictions mean institutions are blacked out, but the cables haven’t disappeared. Instruments are still gathering data, and some of them are still transmitting. We need to find somewhere that’s still receiving.”

  “You’re talking about weather monitoring? Wasn’t that all done with satellites?”

  “Not all of it, and I’m talking about earthquakes,” he said.

  Though the street lights had lit up Jerrabomberra Avenue as bright as day, the lights in the arcing car park were dark. So were the lights on the curved-roof complex, as big as a stadium. But as Anna got out of her car, a startlingly bright light dazzled her. Temporarily blinded, fear returned quicker than the flash. But as she raised her hand to shield her eyes, the light dropped.

  “Sorry,” a man said. “Just checking you’re alive.”

  “No worries,” Anna said, blinking away the white spots, and the man into focus. A neat grey beard edged with white. A face lined with age and worry. Flashlight, slung rifle, a green jacket which wasn’t military, but wearing dress trousers with a razor-sharp crease and shoes polished to a mirror.

  “Advance and be recognised,” he said, before raising the beam again. “Hang on, I know you. You’re the politician who said everyone deserved cake.”

  “Anna Dodson,” she said, again blinking away the bright light. “G’day. Are you the guard here?”

  “I’m the night-time patrol for everything between here and the caravan park,” he said.

  “Have you seen any undead?” she asked.

  “Tonight? No. But I’ve heard a few shots from the wall. Other than a few teens, you’re the first people I’ve seen since shift-change. Do you want to go inside? I’ve got the keys.”

  “Please,” she said, as he went to his truck to collect them. The vehicle wasn’t army. It wasn’t even police. It was a flatbed road-maintenance vehicle, on the back of which had been rigged four spotlights.

  “I’ll let you in, ma’am, and I’ll wait out here for you.”

  “There’s no need,” she said.

  “I’m Sergeant Troy Brown,” he said. “Retired, re-enlisted. Came to Canberra to help my daughter with her first child, and that’s what I did, and it’s what I’m doing now. She’s a big fan of yours. We both are. She wouldn’t approve if anything happened to you. Do you have a torch? Here, take mine. It’s as dark as a midwinter coal mine in there.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “We won’t be long.”
>
  “Why did you want everyone to eat cake?” Smilovitz asked as they stepped inside.

  “My opponent, the incumbent, made a quip about me being out of touch with what my constituents wanted,” Anna said. “He suggested I should quit the campaign because the only advice I’d ever give someone was to eat cake. He even called me Marie-Antoinette, I assume because he thought I wouldn’t know who that was. I explained the causes of the French Revolution, and finished by saying that, a quarter of a millennium later we all deserved three reliable meals a day, and we deserved cake, too. It became a meme, and that helped me win. My constituents still send me cake. Or they did. The sergeant wasn’t entirely correct; looks like the back-up lights are on,” she added, shining her light around the partially lit vestibule. “Do we need to find the breakers?”

  “Nope, the terminals we need are always kept on, so they’ll be on the same circuit as the emergency lights. We want the basement.” He fished out a penlight. “I always carry a spare dozen of these. Avalon’s always losing them.”

  “Oh, so you’re carrying a torch for her?” she asked, as innocently as she could.

  Finding the stairs was as easy as following the signs. But once in the basement, in a below-ground corridor with only an occasional illuminated Exit sign as a guide, finding the correct set of offices took longer. Only after Smilovitz opened the door did Anna think of the question she should have asked before they’d driven out here.

  “How long will this take?” she asked.

  “An hour, maybe two,” he said.