“These elites are the masters of your delusion. For hundreds of years, they have fed you fables mixed with partial truths. They marvel at how, over time, continuing the charade became easier and easier. It is both sad and amusing when you consider that, don’t you think?”
“Why is that?” Storm asked before he realized he did not really want to hear the answer.
The world is about to face an event that’s happened many times before. The elites call it a Jubilee. A time when all debts are wiped away. Did you know you that they always ensure you are in debt to them? They offer a handful of you amnesty but the price is always more than can be afforded. The elites are working to ensure the world’s population remains ignorant of this coming event until the last possible moment. There will be nothing any of you can do to alter your fate.”
“And where are you in all this?”
Martyn’s face became a mask. “Yes, I am in the picture.”
He sipped from his glass.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I want to watch you survive, Storm,” Martyn said and set down his glass.
Below the mezzanine floor, the tables emptied as the members moved back to the debating chamber. Martyn had fallen quiet. He looked as if he might be meditating. His eyes stared through Storm as though they did not seem to see.
“What are you doing?” Storm said, unable to take the silence any longer.
Martyn’s response was as sudden as if a switch had been thrown. He sprang back to life.
Martyn poured from the decanter and took several gulps. He said nothing for a moment before he lifted his head. It was a bewildered stare, as if he was seeing the boy for the first time, but it lasted only a short while before he snapped into the present.
“You will have to forgive me. During this time of great change, I am unable to sustain extended periods of animation. This has been a long day for me.”
Storm had no idea what Martyn was talking about. It sounded like he was saying he was not quite human.
Martyn waved a hand. The same gesture he had used before to brush off a question from Storm.
“I was talking about the survival of this planet and all life on it, and I must warn you. Planet Earth will not take much more of this kind of beating. This is really an inherently unstable planet. And yet here we all are…”
Martyn seemed to lose track of his thoughts. He blinked.
Storm realized it was the very first time he had seen him do that. It was a slow blink. The way a lizard might in the early morning sunlight.
“The magnetosphere twists and breaks…” Martyn said.
He paused with start, reaching for the glass and swallowing the remainder its content before he plunged back into his lecture as if nothing had happened.
“In turn, the biosphere must collapse or adapt. Either way, it means the end of this world. A great change is about to take place. Most life forms will become extinct. Including, perhaps the human race, but we shall see.”
He sighed. “I can do only so much.”
Hoots and howls of laughter from the last table of members were followed by exaggerated hushing sounds.
Storm gazed over the rail at the empty chairs and at a table strewn with empty bottles of champagne and the remains of a birthday cake. The last of the diners were leaving the restaurant.
Martyn glowered at the stragglers from his chair. “They consider themselves beyond the reach of the majority,” he sneered. “The elites they serve consider themselves overlords who rule by divine right. Such a cluster of insularity cannot form overnight. It takes millennia. But, I assure you they are all pawns. The lawn outside this building is full of ant nests. Tiny creatures living their lives oblivious to the existence of a far more advanced world. The ants have queens, soldiers, and workers and they know nothing of a downfall of rain until they are flushed from their tiny tunnels. When the flood comes they all discover they are nothing but ants.”
He leaned across the table in a faux-conspiratorial manner.
“Consider what I’m about to tell you as a parting gift. You asked me about the event. Listen carefully.”
Storm shivered. He didn’t want to know any more of what Martyn had to tell him.
“Erelong—the proximity of a passing star and its orbitals will cause Earth’s surface crust to shift. There will be earthquakes of unimaginable size and scale. Tidal waves will wash over much of the surface. Mountains will rise overnight. A plume of oxygen atoms will be sucked from the planet’s magnetic grip. The very air you breathe will all but vanish. And it will happen in a very short time. A day. A night. The atmosphere will quickly return to levels that allow life to return to the surface, but most of the larger life forms will have perished. This is what you must prepare for. To avoid the worst of it.”
“How?”
“Go inland and go underground.”
“For how long?” Storm asked.
“I don’t know—the removal of a large part of the atmosphere means ozone will also be lost. Natural ozone protects life on the surface from cosmic rays that contribute to aging, disease, cancers, and early death far more than your scientists realize. With a massively depleted atmosphere, even for a short time, there will be a large increase in the quantity of deuterium in water. Heavy water means death to life. The cells in living organisms cease to function. Plants will quickly die off. Your elites have prepared seed vaults and nurseries deep underground. They understand they will be able to replant. They know the planet will survive, even if most of the population does not.”
“But they haven’t warned us, have they?” Storm asked in disbelief.
“Not in any meaningful way. They realize it is in their own interests to see a number of you survive, of course! Without the masses, they themselves don’t exist. Their preference is for the world population to be what they would consider a controllable number.”
“How does the world survive this kind of disaster? Storm asked.
“Erelong—the situation self-corrects. Rivers from the melting ice flow directly into the oceans and as a result, the amount of light water increases. A faster correction would require technological intervention. And—if the worst happens help will be offered.
“This is a tenacious world. One that is worthy of respect. The event never happens exactly the same way every time this star passes. These things never go exactly as predicted. Above all else—you must take action and prepare. This is vital! Otherwise, the only survivors will be those monkeys who think themselves gods.”
“I enjoyed our talk, Storm. Davenport will see you to the airport and onto your plane to Tamworth. I wish you a safe flight home.”
With that Martyn gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes.
Storm turned when he heard a cough and saw that it was Davenport waiting for him at the top of the stairs.
Running Home
On the drive back to the airport, Storm barely noticed Davenport’s silence. The things Martyn Boas had told him made sense, in a one-plus-one-equals-two kind of way. Yet, the story was as fantastic as any Storm might imagine during one of his runs through town in the early hours.
He considered asking Davenport what he thought about Martyn, but the man seemed preoccupied since they had left Parliament House.
Arriving at the domestic terminal, Davenport slid the car neatly into a gap between two buses. He pressed a switch under the dash and Storm saw the reflection of flashing red and blue off the shiny surface of the bus. When he stepped onto the pavement he saw the flashing lights came from behind the Commodore’s front grill.
“Better hurry, mate,” Davenport told him and he gestured for Storm to go through the terminal doors.
Davenport paused before the check-in counter to study the announcements on the departure screen.
“Bad luck,” he said. “Looks like your flight to Tamworth has been canceled.”
Storm stared at the red text and groaned. He had been looking forward to meeting Penny at the airport. They had
planned on dinner together in Tamworth and a stopover at a motel on the way back to Coona.
“I guess I’m stuck with a bus,” Storm muttered in frustration.
He turned away from the display board to see Davenport talking quietly into his cell phone.
“Well, it looks like this is your lucky day,” Davenport said when he finished his conversation. “Mr. Boas’ office organized a plane for you.”
“That quick?” Storm asked.
“It looks like you impressed him,” Davenport replied with a tight smile. “I’ll drive you to the hangar.”
“I gotta take a leak,” Storm told him.
“The toilets are past those shops,” Davenport said pointing the way. “Don’t take too long.”
He hurried past a busy bar filled with customers dressed in suits and ties and pressed skirts, gathered like so many magpies perched on high-chromed stools. A news broadcast on the television above their heads had captured their attention.
The volume of the broadcast was turned up so that he caught the words of the anchorman as walked out the restroom.
“Fire services report several of the observatories are badly damaged. We have no news as yet on the whereabouts or condition of several workers known to be at the site at the time of the fire. We go now to Karen Phillips at Siding Spring.”
He stopped to listen when he heard the last two words. The reporter was talking in urgent tones over the noise of sirens, helicopters, and exploding eucalyptus trees.
“Once again, Australia’s most famous observatory has been struck by a bushfire. This time, it looks to have lost the battle. The disastrous blaze struck early in the day. Emergency teams have been able to enter the area only in the past few hours. While we can confirm there is extensive damage, the fate of all the scientists and technicians is not known at this stage. Unfortunately, we can report that we have seen a number of bodies airlifted from the scene by emergency vehicles.”
Storm’s mind was a blur. Mount Woorat was already ablaze when he left Parliament House? Surely Davenport knew? And why had Martyn not mentioned the fire?
Storm remained frozen in the corridor, his heart pounding as travelers hurried past to empty their bladders before their planes departed. He found himself gazing down at a child with a teddy bear hanging from one hand staring back at him.
“Katie!” A woman called out as she grabbed the child’s free hand and whisked her away. “What on earth are you doing?” She said to the child.
She gave Storm a worried glance over her shoulder and hurried off.
He thought quickly as unease turned to dread. There was no sense in panicking, he told himself and he looked around for an escape route. The toilets were located either side of the short corridor where he was standing. The corridor ended in locked double doors. There would be no way through them without a security keycard, and Davenport would be looking for him soon enough.
The thought occurred to Storm that his friend, Ben would run to tell him about the fire. He took out his phone and swore aloud when he saw there was no signal. He stuck the useless slab of plastic back into his pocket. The images flickered on the TV screens as he walked past the cafe, and he did his best not to give them so much as a glance. Even so, he caught the flickering red in the corner of an eye.
Davenport was ice cool. He told Storm it was too bad travelers could no longer depend on scheduled domestic flights. On the way to the exit doors, he made a half-hearted smartass comment about how Storm should move out of Hicksville. That it was a good idea if Storm wanted a decent job.
“A decent job doing what?” Storm asked him.
Storm was playing for time as he looked for an escape route.
“The police are always looking out for smart, fit men,” Davenport replied. “I’ll put in a good word for you. Don’t bother with the Raras. There’s no future with that lot.”
Storm was not listening. He had turned his head to look back at the shuttle bus that was pulling into the far end of the terminal building.
Davenport eased the Commodore into the flow of traffic. A taxi drew up alongside the car, and he gave the cab a blast of the car horn.
Storm glanced back once more and saw there was a short line of people boarding the shuttle. “Hey, I’ve changed my mind,” he shouted, pushing open the car door. “I’m taking a bus!”
Davenport braked hard, cursing himself for not locking the car doors.
Storm felt Davenport’s fingers grasp his arm but they could not hold him. Rolling across the road and onto his feet, he hit the bitumen with momentum to spare, spinning around to wave goodbye before he bolted.
He made it onto the first step of the bus as it pulled away from the curb, managing to squeeze between the doors as they closed, dropping a handful of coins onto the steel plate in front of the driver, avoiding his eyes and his words. There was no way in the world Storm was ever going to leave the bus. Not until it had taken him a safe distance from Davenport.
Canberra Rescue
“There’re other buses coming, mate!” The middle aged bus driver called out to him in a thick European accent. “I saw you run for your life. So I wait—you know?”
The driver shook his head in disgust and turned back to his driving.
As the bus lurched into the traffic Storm found an empty seat and sat down. He peered out the window, looking for Davenport’s Commodore, but it was not among the cars behind the bus. He fell back in the seat and pulled the cell phone from the pocket of his jeans. He saw the battery had come back to life. There were texts from Stella, Summer, and Ben about the fire.
He stared at a cryptic message from Penny.
‘U need Alistair’s help!’
He made the call without thinking twice. It was not to Alistair.
“This is Martyn Boas.”
Storm couldn’t tell whether it was a voice message or the man himself and ended the call.
He wiggled the SIM card out of the back of the mobile and slipped it into a spare sleeve in his wallet. Then, he jammed the phone deep into the gap between the seats.
At the first stop, he got off the bus and headed for the public phones in the hotel lobby. To Storm’s great relief Alistair picked up his phone immediately.
The arrangement was for Storm to take a city bus to the war memorial at the base of Mount Ainsley. At around sunset, Alistair would pick Storm up on his way home from work.
He made sure he was out of sight of the passing drivers, leaning his back against one of the uprights to the war memorial structure. With the hum of the traffic in the background, he was soon lulled to sleep. Darkness had fallen when he woke with a start to the slam of a car door. He froze, expecting the police, but it was slap on the back and a warm handshake that greeted him.
“Good to see you again,” Alistair said. “Sorry for getting here so late. I forgot they had me working overtime tonight. Where’s your gear?”
“I don’t have any,” Storm told him. “I was going to fly back tonight. Shit! I thought you were the cops!”
“What makes you think the police are looking for you?” Alistair asked him in surprise.
Storm explained his visit to Canberra to pass on a message to the astronomer for Michael. He told him how he had been taken from the airport by Davenport to Parliament House and about his strange encounter with Martyn Boas.
“That’s some tale! So you were invited to lunch at the same restaurant the ministers’ dine in, by someone you have never met before. Who happens to be a giant.”
“You sure it’s okay for me to stay the night at your place?” Storm asked quickly, not wanting to go into the details of his story. “I’ll take a bus back to Coona in the morning.”
“No problem. It’s just Marianne and me, and we have a spare bedroom.”
“Thanks,” Storm said, relieved to spend the next few hours with someone he felt he knew and trusted.
“You’re welcome. I’m curious to know what happened after you were taken from the cell,” Alistair said. “Di
d you know anyone working at Siding Spring?”
“Yes. Did you hear if there were any survivors?”
“No, I haven’t,” Alistair replied softly.
Storm closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.
Alistair placed his hand on Storm’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you given much thought to what happened in Sydney?”
Storm shook his head. He knew he was indebted to Alistair, but he was not in the mood to talk about politics.
“You were caught up in something far greater than you think, you know? What you saw on the streets of Sydney is happening everywhere, all over the world.”
“A worldwide revolution,” Storm muttered.
“All of us are facing the counter-revolution, whether we know it or not,” Alistair continued. “We need to come together or we will be crushed by it.”
“I’ve told Mom and Dad I am going into the Army,” Storm blurted out.
He wasn’t sure why he brought up the subject. It simply popped out of his mouth. Perhaps it was all the talk of conflict. It hit him then that joining the Army no longer excited him since his arrest and since he had met Martyn. He realized with a start, that he actually wanted to be talked out of the notion.
“Why would you do that?” Alistair said raising his eyebrows in the dark of the cab.
“They train you for a job and even pay you while you’re training,” Storm replied. “You can’t beat that.”
As the headlights of a car lit up the interior, Alistair glanced across at Storm. “How about I take tomorrow off work and drive you to Coonabarabran?”
“Thanks,” Storm said after a moment’s thought and with a shake of his head. “I can get a bus.” Alistair was way too intense to be stuck inside a car with for an entire day.
“I can drive you!” Alistair insisted.
Jubilee Year: A Science Fiction Thriller (Erelong Book 1) Page 16
