“So?”
“We can only use motes. On him personally.”
“So we need to meet?”
“No, of course not. He knows you, he knows me.”
“We could ambush him as he left.”
“Too much surveillance. We would be picked up approaching.”
“We could tail him.”
“No. Again, we’d be picked up.”
“An outsider?”
“Who can plant motes. We task a drone to follow him.”
We both sat looking at each other. Looking at the feeds.
“Kate.” Phil said.
Chapter 32
Colin sat and stewed. It wasn’t Alice’s threat. He expected that. It was the constant stream of emails and meeting schedules that assumed they already had the information they needed from Alice. He walked into the outer office to talk to Xiaoli.
“The dissociative stuff. Substitute reality. Does it work?”
“In about 60% of cases. There is a risk of total catatonia.”
“OK. I want you to have a go at Alice.”
“It takes time to set up.”
“Sure. Accelerate it.”
He retreated back into his office. Messages from home. Holiday itineraries and hotels for the south of France. Sometimes he wished he could just pick his wife up, hold her close and say simply “It’s never going to be like that again. The best we can hope for is to come out of this alive.” He couldn’t do it. So home became like a fantasy world.
Staring at Alice on the feed. She wasn’t simply a fanatic. She was strong. But not strong enough.
Chapter 33
Phil looked hesitantly at Kate.
“Do I need to persuade you?”
“No, not really. It’s all going to hell in a handbasket. At least I can tell myself that I did something.”
“OK. A minor accident in a car park. Nothing really. You get close enough to throw some motes over him.”
“Motes?”
“Small trackers. Size of a dust particle. Our drones can track it. It will get us to the lock-up. That’s all we need.”
“OK.”
Newsfeeds were showing a regional shopping centre. Looked like Southland. They all looked the same. Huge crowd, spilling out onto the highway. Commentary was about food shortages. The crowd was surging in the direction of the supermarket. It pulled back for a long shot. The helicopters were firing gas grenades. Then a tight shot on the supermarket doors. Store security were armed with automatic weapons. The crowd surged forward again and the store security started firing. Like a scathe cutting through wheat. A row would fall, then another. Now the gas was spreading, and the crowd was scattering.
Late afternoon. Phil was tidying the game plan. I was about to ask about the snatch part, when Peter came on the line.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
I hesitated.
“We have a plan.”
“Yes, Phil’s briefed me. I can help.”
“You can?”
“Just a few friends. Nothing official. They’ve had enough of herding people into camps.”
We had to gamble on Colin going straight from home to the lockup. Every time he went in and out of the security building he went through the scanners. They would pick up the motes. Phil had analysed Colin’s path from home. 90% of the time he would stop for a coffee at a small shop in Gardenvale. Ideal.
Nothing on Kate being connected to Phil showed in a complete scan of security. We couldn’t be absolutely sure. It was risky. Of course after the event, Kate would have to disappear.
6am. I talked to Kate.
“It’s ok that you are nervous. He will assume it is because of the accident.”
“Drone ready?” I asked Max.
“Yes, hovering out of sight.” he replied.
“He’s in motion.”
“Give me the waypoints.”
Phil just looked calm. He always looked calm. Sometimes I wondered whether he was really a cyborg.
“Five minutes.”
It was a small carpark. I was hoping like hell there was going to be a slot for Colin.
“One minute.”
He moved fast. Car was parked and he was out of it. Familiar, practised. Kate was sitting in her car.
“Now.”
She backed out and steered left. Just enough to touch Colin’s bumper and leave a very small indentation. Colin was on his way back towards the car. For one horrible moment I thought he was going to pull a gun.
“I’m so very sorry. I was in a rush. So very sorry. I’ll just give you my details.” Kate was playing it out, getting close.
“No need. It’s too minor. Don’t worry about it.” Colin was worried about the delay this might cause.
Kate reached into the handbag. For a pen. But also for the dust. The precious dust. I could see it glisten, and swirl, and find its mark.
“Ok. If you insist.” Colin writing on a piece of paper.
“Lock?” Max asked.
I positioned the drone. It had to be close, with such a weak signal coming through the skin of the car. Luckily these days most it was plastic.
“Locked.” I said.
Chapter 34
Alice’s gut wrenched with recognition. She almost gasped as she stared at the collection of people. The row of caskets, with photos on top. The faces in the crowd, familiar, all of them, even those she could not name. A hall, a speaking platform. The photos: Andrew, Phil, Max, Kylie.
Peter walked to the stage.
“I’m here. I’m here” she wanted to say. But held back. This was a funeral, after all.
Peter began.
“We are gathered here to celebrate the lives of Max, Andrew, Phil and Kylie. They died for all of us.”
Inside Alice was screaming: No!
“In the difficult days since their death we have grappled. We have struggled. We will always remember their sacrifice.”
Alice just sat quietly, shedding tears. Waiting for Peter to finish. So she could rush to his side. Finally, he finished. The coffins were each borne by six people. The colors draped across. Slowly down the aisle, towards the sunlight.
Peter walked behind. When he got to Alice he looked up. It was a sad look, a grief stricken look. A look of somebody who has aged a lot in a short time.
Peter and Alice embraced, but it was more of a leaning on each other. It was a long time before Peter spoke.
“It’s over.”
“No.”
“It’s all over. Finished.”
“No.”
“With 90% against us, how could we go on?”
“How?”
“A backlash against us. People lumped us in with W4. The lack of electricity.”
“What will we do?”
“Grow vegetables I guess. Wait for the end.”
Alice sat in the corner at the wake. It was so loud. Shouting. You wouldn’t have known it was a funeral.
Chapter 35
Colin drove away from the coffee place. Looking at the time. Hoping he could make it up. He hated the breakfast meetings. The politicians nervously shifting in their chairs. As if their arses were on fire.
He called the lockup, Xiaoli. She answered almost immediately.
“Is it taking?”
“Yes. She’s at stage 3. She’s very susceptible.”
“OK. I’m coming straight there.”
The car swerved left. He knew he was violating protocols. He also knew without results in the next week not much of anything would matter.
---
“He’s going for it.” I said to Phil.
“Wait a moment. We need a definite trajectory.”
Max interjected: “You’ve got to be sure.”
“He’s not heading for the city.”
“Moving faster.”
I looked at the drone status. We had to stay locked. If we l
ost him we had no way of finding him again.
Peter came online.
“Go?”
“Yes.” Max said.
“OK. We are ten minutes away.”
Chapter 36
Alice didn’t struggle. But they weren’t taking any chances. She was tied at both her ankles and wrists. Her eyes were closed. She was off in an another world. They knew that a few more hours of this and she would answer any questions they had.
---
Max was close managing it.
“Not too close. Don’t spook him.”
I looked across at Kylie. She was concentrating.
“He’s right. Go with the drone trace.”
We had the screen up on the dashboard. I was driving for once. We were in Beaconsfield Parade. Going past the pier. Not far from where she had been snatched. That day. That day. I pushed it out of mind. I had to concentrate.
“I am five minutes out.” Peter said.
There was an element of luck needed here. We figured they needed a large facility, somewhere in this dockyard district.
Now we were passing the ferry terminal. Heading for Todd Road. I could feel it. Somewhere here was Alice. Turning into Lorimer Street I had that feeling strongly, as Colin slowed. I could see the perimeter fence.
“Hold back. Wait for Peter.”
Colin stopped briefly at the gate. Waved a pass. Drove through.
“Where is he?” I asked. I scanned the skies. No sign of a helicopter.
“30 seconds.”
I felt it through the ground as I saw it. A Skyhawk helicopter, at full throttle, coming under the Westgate bridge. It was angling down to land right beside us, but as it rotated it fired a missile at the gatehouse, and the gatehouse disappeared.
“Move. Follow Peter.”
The helicopter didn’t land, it just placed one leg down and Peter with three soldiers came running out. Full gear. The headsets, the lot.
Gunfire was coming from the remainder of the gatehouse. The helicopter backed up, about four metres in the air and raked the front of the warehouse with high speed machine gun fire, rotating as it fired. The gatehouse was shredded.
“Clear.” Peter said.
“Follow me.”
Peter had a direct feed from the drone, with Colin’s location. But that wasn’t his focus. We ran across the concrete towards the door. One of the soldiers put a charge against the door, we backed around the corner, and the door blew.
We looked inside the room. Alice, and four armed guards. Peter backed around the corner as they fired at him. He pulled a small robot, no larger than a wombat, off his backpack. Peter whispered to the robot “Kill everyone in the room except the girl.”
I looked at Peter. He was watching the robot.
Its expensive Swiss motors screamed as it accelerated to full velocity. Around 15 metres per second. They couldn’t follow it’s movement. One of the guards moved to aim at it. Even as he aimed, the robot slightly adjusted the angle of it’s rifle arm and fired. Before he had a finger on the trigger, a small hole had appeared in his head, right between his eyes.
From the recoil, the robot spun, but accelerated as it spun. It’s motors screamed again. It was going away from the other two guards. It stopped about three meters from both of them. Again as they prepared to fire, a hail of three, four bullets hit them. Too fast.
With the last guard, it was the same. The robot was almost underneath him as it fired. Through his legs it passed, firing almost continuously. It stopped, and slowly moved back in the direction of Peter.
We ran towards Alice, unstrapped her. She was very weak. She looked at Peter.
“They are dead. They are all dead.”
We half carried Alice to the helicopter. It lifted away quickly, wheeling back away from the city as fast as we could move.
Then I remembered the motes. Colin.
“Colin.” I said.
“Today he gets lucky.”
Chapter 37
Watching the monitor, and the signals coming from Alice, Colin was calm and confident. They had taken a risk, but it was paying off. Another hour or two of this, and Alice would be ready to talk.
He felt it through the floor, even before he heard it. The building shook. He scanned the surveillance system, stopping and staring when he saw the Skyhawk helicopter. What was that doing here? He hadn’t ordered it up.
The surveillance zoomed in, and in an instant of recognition, Colin began to move. There was only one exit, and he wasn’t going to wait to see if they cut it off. He was running even before the front door was breached.
Walking along Lorimer Street, he called for an urgent pickup. From the high of highs, now he contemplated the depths. How was he going to explain this? The violation of protocol, the disclosure of the location. That bloody coffee stop. That bloody woman. Suckered.
Chapter 38
Peter arrived, with Alice. She was almost hanging off him. Struggling to walk. To see her physically struggling, it was shocking.
Even through that, the grin. We gathered around. The relief. The letting go of tension. It was only now that we realised how much on edge we had been. The not-knowing. The trying not to think of what might happen.
“Magic.” I said.
“I thought you were all dead.”
“I know. I know.”
It was going to take some time to wear off.
“The funeral. So real. I could feel the breeze, the sunshine.”
“Yes.”
Peter sat her down. He hovered, as if he was not sure it she could even sit. Through the haze, the injuries, we could see that she would eventually recover.
We were constantly aware of the refugees in the Exhibition Gardens. Not that we had much to do with them. Going past every day, it nagged at you. The kids playing, running up and down the paths, beside the tents. The smoke from the campfires would waft across. Eucalypts burning. It haunted you.
So as Max went on about the operational plan, the penetration attacks, my mind wandered. Not much food at the camps. The irony wasn't lost on me, or them, as for most of their lives they had grown the food. Proud, strong.
I hassled Max. The kids, I said. He furrowed his brow and spared me the speech. You know, I know. In the end he relented. Just one raid. You better have it well organised.
Dark. Quiet. Beside the Yarra. We could see the food store. Behind the barricade. We had maps and photos. Had sensors at the barricade. Max up in a high location in one of the buildings behind us. Overall control. Good sight lines. Rubber dinghy. Only one chance.
"Ready?" Max asked.
"Yes." I replied.
As the truck convoy went past our sensors, Max got a signal. He could get us to the right location. As the trucks came down past the Botanic gardens, we laid down a series of smoke grenades. This was to give us some room to move. At least their cameras wouldn't be useful. But they would still have plenty of tracking sensors.
I pressed the buttons and the gates blew. Before the guards could react we were inside, and waiting for the trucks. We were throwing smoke grenades. It was one big cloud.
Phil was listening on their network. "You have about five minutes."
We had the forklifts moving. We were loading crates. Anything we could grab. I was watching our feeds from the roadway - nothing moving yet.
"Hurry." I shouted.
We had charges placed at about 300 metres from the gate.
"Now." said Max
The lead car heaved up and rolled back on to the others. It was heading for the river. We drove away - back down St Kilda Rd.
It was great chucking the stuff off the back of the truck. Max just sat quietly. I knew what he was thinking. Indulgence. But sometimes you need it to break the grip.
Chapter 39
Then, finally, the day came. Time to take out CoalGen. It was a relief in a way. Better than sitting and hacking. Inside I started to get the shakes. Kylie arrived, ready for the bike ride to th
e lockup to get the equipment. Me, Kylie, Alice and Phil: we were to go and pick up the motor bikes.
“They are in a lockup south of Dandenong. I've got the keys here.”
“Fuel? Ready to go?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“So this is it?”
“Yes.”
I was nervous. It was fine to sit around and draw diagrams. Easy to talk to a whiteboard. Doing it was something else. Experience with explosives? The training course at the camp. How many things have you blown up? This is my first. I didn't want to show my real feelings. Max would assign somebody else.
“Kylie and Alice will go with you. I want them back here. You'll go on with Phil.”
They knew who was the most likely to be assigned. So they would track them intensively. Not expecting Phil and I.
South down Dandenong Rd. As if we were off for a ride. It was pleasant. If it hadn't been for the churning in my stomach. I wasn't actually shaking, just on the verge of it.
“At the sharp end.” I said to Phil.
“Strange territory for us.”
I could tell he was as nervous as I was. But he handled it better. Through Dandenong and onto the bypass road. Towards the industrial area. The lockup.
We turned the corner. A vast crowd in front of us. Surging. More people in one place than I had ever seen. The streets were impassable.
“We can't get through here Max. It's clogged.”
“Can you see the Coles logo?”
“Yes.”
“It's a supermarket distribution centre. Huge food storage place.”
There must have been two hundred thousand people. I pulled up an aerial view on the glasses. Huge. It was like they were waiting for something. I looked across at Kylie. “We have to keep moving. We are on a schedule.” she said.
“I know, but what is this?” I asked.
“When a truck comes out, they will go for it.”
“Are there armed guards.”
“Yes.”
Kylie was becoming impatient.
"This isn't our situation. You know that."
"Yes, but there are so many of them."
"Of course. Lots of people. Not much food."
"We should do something."
"Exactly what? A four person crack assault squad versus about two hundred well armed guards. In place?"