Jubilee Year

by Gerard O'Neill

  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. As they walked to the exit doors, Davenport 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 while he looked for a way to make his escape.

  “The police are always looking out for smart, fit young men, like you,” 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 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.

  31

  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. All of them were talking about the fire.

  He stared at a cryptic message from Penny. 'U need Alistair's help!' He made the call without thinking twice, but it was not to Alistair.

  “This is Martyn Boas.”

  Storm couldn't tell whether it was a recorded message or the man himself. It didn't matter. He abruptly ended the call, wiggled the SIM card out of the back of his phone, and slipped it into a spare sleeve in his wallet. Then, he jammed the phone deep into the gap between the cushions of his seat.

  The first stop was a tourist hotel. He got off the bus and headed for the public phones in the lobby. To Storm's great relief Alistair picked up the receiver.

  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 stop on his way home from work to pick up Storm.

  When the bus reached the monument, he jumped off and walked to the back of the structure, well out of sight of passing cars. There, he sat on the ground with his back against an upright. With the hum of the traffic in the background, he soon fell asleep. It was dark when he woke with a start to the slam of a car door. He stayed where he was, waiting for the police to show up. Instead, it was a slap on the back and a warm handshake that greeted him.

  “Good to see you,” Alistair told him with a grin. “Sorry for getting here so late, but they had me working overtime. Say, where's your gear?”

  “I don't have any,” Storm replied. “I was supposed to be flying back tonight.” He shook his head in relief. “Shit! I really thought you were the cops!”

  “What makes you think the police are looking for you?” Alistair asked.

  Storm explained his visit to Canberra. How he was to pass on a message to the astronomer. He told him how he had been taken from the airport by Davenport to Parliament House and about the strange encounter with Martyn Boas.

  “That's some tale! So, you were invited to lunch at the same restaurant where the ministers of parliament dine? And, by someone you have never met before, who just happens to be a giant?”

  “You sure it's okay for me to stay the night at your place?” Storm asked quickly. He didn't want to go into the details of his story. Not right there on the side of the road where he might be arrested or worse at any moment. “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 are welcome. I'm curious to know what happened after you were taken from the cell,” Alistair said. “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 in reply. He didn’t want to talk about politics.

  “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. Joining the Army did not seem as exciting after his arrest and since hearing what Martyn had to say. He realized with a start that he actually wanted to be talked out of the idea.

  “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.”

  The headlamps 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 in a car with for an entire day.

  “I can drive you!” Alistair insisted.

  “Are you sure?” Storm asked. “What about work?”

  “I need a break. I'll pull a sickie. I haven't had one this year. They owe me a few days off.”

  “That would be great, I guess if you can do it,” Storm told him. At least he would be with Penny soon, he thought.

  “A car is more comfortable than the bus,” Alistair said.

  “And the conversation will be stimulating.”

  “I'll pay for gas,” Storm told him.

  He was going to sleep for most of the journey if Alistair would let him.

  “Whatever you can afford is fine,” Alistair replied. “The more I think about it the more I look forward to it. You know, Coonabarabran is almost down the road from Canberra as the crow flies, yet I've never been there.”

  “How long do you think it will take us?” Storm asked.

  “Allowing for a few stops—ah, about twelve hours,” Alistair replied.

  “That's a long time to be stuck in the car,” Storm said, thinking of how much he could take of Alistair’s conversation. After all, there would be no interruptions.

  32

  Children

  They had not long left Alistair's house when he told Storm there was something he wanted to show him. On the outskirts of the city, he turned off the highway.

  “We ne
ed to be discreet,” Alistair said. “The place is run by an international company contracted by the government to set up and service emergency shelters. It's a big outfit called Wagonshaks Incorporated. That's as much as the government tells us. The history of the organization and the background of the operators is apparently of little interest to Australians.”

  “Actually, rather than shelters, we should be calling them internment camps,” Alistair quipped dryly. “They've been popping up along main trunk lines the last couple of years. In the beginning, they used old brick storehouses built early last century. Workers on the trains might see the signs warning of razor wire. Eventually, they might notice that all the security cameras point inside. Not what you would expect if they were built to keep people outside the wire, right? These new camps are built outside the cities. Away from the public eye.”

  They drove by empty truck yards, derelict factories, and burned out warehouses. Entire sections of land lay strewn with charred, broken, and twisted wreckage. Laid to waste by man and nature alike.

  Alistair turned off onto a side road. “Look over there,” he pointed.

  On a large area of open ground rows of white tents stretched into the far distance. The camp was vast and surrounded by a high wire fence with towers at regular intervals. Men and women were walking between the tents.

  “Try not to stare,” Alistair told him. “We have to be discreet. Otherwise, the guards take an interest in us.”

  “Who are all those people?”

  “You, me, our neighbors. Anyone they don't want walking around free outside the wires. They're all labeled dissenters.”

  Storm thought he saw a child run between the blocks of tents and prefabs, but it was just a brief glimpse. He didn't see the small figure again.

  “They are like holding pens. When they get full, they'll shift the inmates out to the camps they've built in remote areas. Concrete fortresses surrounded by arid desert, kangaroos, mongrel dogs, and dingoes. They've even built them in the wetlands and on the coast.”

  “They've built them in croc country?” Storm asked in surprise. “How come you know so much about them?”

  “It's best to keep up with what's happening in times like these,” Alistair said, glancing at Storm. “I try to get out and about whenever I can, and people tell me things. After a while, you find the stories intersect, and then you know it isn't fantasy.”

  “What they have done to end up inside a place like that? Did they go to protest marches?”

  “Most of them haven't enough money for rent and food.” Alistair glanced into the rear vision mirror to check if the security detail were paying them any attention. It was risky to take Storm out here, but in truth, he wanted to see the place for himself and it was best to have a kid in the cab with him. He felt bad about having done it but Storm was the rare kind of young individual who actually seemed like he could look after himself pretty damn well. Alistair had high hopes for Storm. He had been impressed by the youth when he first met him. After hearing the story he was doubly impressed.

  “In Sydney, they've fitted out the stadiums so they can contain large numbers of people in a secure environment. The government likes to refer to them as temporary emergency shelters. Only once inside you don't get to leave of your own accord.”

  Alistair turned back onto the motorway. Later they drove through the electronic checkpoint into the state of New South Wales. The simple toll collection software had been massively updated by satellite more than a year before state lines became secured borders. The device sent Alistair's details to the state security forces automatically: his address, personal details including health records, his employment situation, bank account, the names and addresses of his family members, and his overall legal status. All of it was recorded in a distant mainframe along with his movements across the land.

  “You wouldn't hear so much about the remote camps, I suppose?” Alistair asked. “They're almost never featured on the news. Not unless it's a story about how the camps provide a solution to a problem needing to be fixed.”

  “People are not going to buy the idea that camps in croc country are necessary,” Storm replied.

  “You don't think so? People have been buying whatever the corporate owned media spun them for years. They concoct a threat by blowing the action of a desperate and unbalanced mind out of all proportion. Suddenly it's a terrorist act. They get the viewer to react, with fear, horror, and anger, so they accept a new law pushed through in the dead of the night. A solution to a threat the government created. They tell the country the new law is a temporary anti-terrorist measure, but it's never revoked, and after a while it becomes permanent.”

  “A permanent solution,” Storm said, remembering history class at school.

  “You know what's really weird?” Alistair asked. “They run the camps as a private business in the cities, but in the outback, it's most often the military.”

  “So—what do you think about me enlisting?” Storm asked. “You never said. They train me and pay me. I come out and walk straight into a job. I want to be a commercial pilot.”

  Alistair reached grabbed Storm's wrist and twisted it around. “You see that?”

  Storm stared at the tiny black barcode.

  “That right there's not going to work in your favor,” Alistair said.

  “There must be hundreds of others wearing a bloody barcode who want to enlist!” Storm said, turning sullen.

  “Sure,” Alistair nodded in agreement. “And they might take them, and what kind of training do you think they are going to get?”

  Storm turned away to stare out the side window.

  “Those camps are filled with people wearing our barcode tattoo,” Alistair muttered.

  The car radio was tuned to the government news channel, and they listened to a report on the police investigation of what was now considered a criminal case of arson and mass murder. Police had issued a statement that said their investigation now focused on a single suspect. The radio talked about multiple homicides at Siding Spring. Almost all had suffered gunshot wounds. One of the bodies had been pulled from a cottage only partially damaged by fire with a wound that appeared to be self-inflicted.

  “Sounds like a lone gunman,” Alistair said. “And a lot of smart people dead.”

  “Without any of them sounding the alarm,” Storm added.

  “It's hard to believe all right,” Alistair said. “I'm not sure what to make of that.”

  “I don't believe it!” Storm said angrily. “It makes me wonder what they are covering up.”

  Alistair didn't answer. The distant hills had attracted his attention, or to be more precise it was the dark sky over them. For it was cut through with tiny lines that even as he watched were lengthening like chemtrails.

  Storm followed Alistair's gaze and saw a scattering of lights that looked like glitter thrown in the air by children.

  “The meteors are back,” he said.

  It was early afternoon when they reached Molong. The fuel gauge showed less than a quarter tank of gas remained and Alistair pulled into the first gas station they saw.

  Storm had scrambled onto the back seat, throwing a blanket over himself to hide his long body. He lay still until they were once more on the open road.

  “Were there cops around?”

  “Nah,” Alistair said. “Very quiet.”

  Storm stayed in the back. The journey was painfully monotonous, and any change was good. What he really needed was a run.

  “I hate long road trips!” Storm announced with sudden vehemence.

  “How about we swap over at the next truck stop,” Alistair suggested.

  “You want me to drive?” Storm asked in surprise.

  “Mate, I'm tired! It's hard work squinting at the road continuously even wearing these sunglasses. It's like bloody snow glare on a ski field!”

  “Old age, maybe?” Storm chuckled from the back seat.

  Alistair didn't reply.

  “So which directio
n are we going in?”

  “Coonabarabran, you idiot! What makes you think I'd take you anywhere different?”

  Storm stared up at the sky. He couldn't see the outline of a single cloud. It was one solid iridescent metallic gray. The hue changed from metallic gray to a yellowish white. He blinked several times, but it wasn't his eyes.

  Alistair pointed over the steering wheel. “There's something on the road ahead of us.”

  Storm peered over the front seat, catching the glint of metal. A thin column of smoke was rising into the air. Caught in a crosswind it drifted across the dry plain.

  “That does not look good,” Alistair muttered.

  “Looks like a car crash,” Storm said.

  “This road's dead straight,” Alistair observed. “How the hell would two cars collide? The driver must have fallen asleep and crossed over the centerline.”

  “I don't see the other car it hit?” Storm asked as they approached a smoking station wagon. The vehicle was parked on a diagonal in the middle of the road.

  An elderly couple looked on. They were standing on the verge beside their car as Alistair pulled over. The white-haired man looked at them with a wide-eyed stare, his mouth moving, as he uttered words they could not hear.

  Alistair already out of the car when Storm opened his door.

  “Are you okay? You're not hurt?”

  It was the woman who spoke to Alistair first.

  “Our son Shane graduated from the police academy last week,” she continued in a thin voice. “We are following him and his girlfriend to Dubbo on his first placement. We are helping him set up his apartment. Candice is such a sweetheart. Can you help them, please?”

  As Storm drew closer to the car, he felt a wave of heat against his face. He could smell burning oil and hot metal. He could hear the engine block ticking as it cooled. He noticed the surface of the road beneath the car was buckled and cracked. Perhaps it became stuck on a rise. One of the recent quakes probably broke the bitumen, driving one side up against the other to form a peak. They had seen many such cracks over the past weeks. One stretch of road would be repaired only for more lines to appear. Some could easily damage a low-slung car. He could see the chassis had been lowered so that it would hug the road. If he was a cop, and his street racer became stuck in the middle of a remote highway, he'd probably sit in the car for a long while wondering what to do too!