“Mahir Gowda, meet George Maxwell, airfield general manager. Max, meet Mahir Gowda, my boss.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Max, running the words together so that they became virtually one. “Heading for Nullarbor, aren’t you?”
“To refuel, yes,” I said. “From there, we’re heading for…” I stopped, looking hopelessly at Jack.
“Dongara,” he said. “We’ll be catching a car from there to the fence.”
“Long trip for a foreign boy,” said Max. “You could save yourself some trouble, buy a few postcards of the fence and head on home.”
“Thank you, but I’d like to actually see it for myself,” I said politely.
Jack laughed. “I told you he wouldn’t go for it, didn’t I?” he said. “You owe me five dollars. Pay up.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be offended or not,” I said, as Max dug out his wallet, scowling, and slapped a five-dollar bill into Jack’s hand.
“Be flattered,” said Olivia, stepping up behind me. “Most of the time when we have tourists, Jack’s betting on how long it’ll take them to change their tickets so they can get back to a ‘civilized’ country a little sooner.”
“They can’t actually be saying that they’re leaving because Australia isn’t ‘civilized,’” I said, unable to keep myself from sounding appalled.
“Welcome to Murderland,” said Olivia bitterly. She turned to Max. “Who’s our pilot?”
“Juliet,” said Max. “Where’s my fee?”
“Here you go.” She walked past us to set a small cooler on the counter. “Zane’s special brownies and some of Hotaru’s vanilla shortbread. Zane says hello, Hotaru says you’re an arsehole.”
“Sounds about right,” said Max, as he made the cooler vanish under the counter. Turning, he bellowed, “Oi, Juliet! Your fare’s here!”
“I do love the civility and refinement of this establishment, don’t you, Jack?” said Olivia mildly.
“It’s a real treat,” Jack agreed.
I shook my head, leaving them to their banter, and turned to better study the office, looking for signs that might indicate how good the security was. After my second scan of the corners, I found them: a thin wire ran along the edge of the wall, almost obscured by the general clutter. Tracing it with my eyes, I saw that it vanished beneath the corkboard and that more wires were concealed behind the other boards. We were in the center of a very well-monitored web of sensors, and while they might all be air quality and sound-based, that wouldn’t make a difference if someone infected managed to get into the building. There’s more than one way of detecting an outbreak.
“Why are you trying so hard to look unsafe?” I asked, as I considered the near-invisible outline of a blast shutter, painted to appear like it was just another part of the wall. “Is it because you want to discourage tourism, or is there a deeper reason?” I turned back to Max. He was gaping at me.
Several seconds passed with nothing being said.
“Well?” I prompted finally.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Those wires.” I pointed. “There’s no reason for that distribution unless you’re filtering the air looking for signs of Kellis-Amberlee infection. It’s a good way of avoiding any local regulations about security cameras, although I can’t imagine why you’d have those out here, but it’s not the sort of thing that goes with your ‘we’re too wild and carefree to worry about security’ image. So why are you trying so hard?”
“He’s got you, Maxie,” said Jack, sounding amused. “You’d best tell him, or you’ll become his new pet project, and that’s never a fun place to be.”
“I think I should be offended by that statement, but I’m not,” I said. “Well?”
Max scowled at me before saying, “Look. Lots of tourists who want to see ‘the real Australia’ make it this far, or as far as places like this one, and they say they want to ‘go bush,’ which they think is a real thing that people really say, because they’re all mental. They’re looking for theme park adventure, and if they make it past me, that’s not what they’re going to get. They’re going to get real pain, real danger, and very possibly, real death. Tourist deaths are bad for business. So those of us who stand at the border between ‘exciting but safe’ and ‘you’ll get your damn fool arse killed’ sometimes have to make a little show of how dangerous things really are.”
“That makes perfect sense,” I said. “I’ll be sure to include a comment about how terrifying this place was when I write the posts about this part of my trip.”
Max looked relieved. “Really? Thanks, mate. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No, you are. I’m simply a man who sees the wisdom in leaving the support structures in place.” In an odd way, the false advertising at the airfield was a quick, almost iconic means of telling the truth. After all, “go any further than this and you’ll probably be killed” isn’t an easy message to sell most people on, and if this made it easier to believe, then it was a necessary masquerade. “I do, however, want to get to the fence before my tourist visa expires. You said something about a pilot…?”
“He meant me,” said a stern female voice whose thick Canadian accent was almost shocking in its foreignness. I turned. A tall, rail-thin woman with deeply tanned skin and a short bristle of bleach-white hair was standing in the doorway. She was wearing khaki overalls, and had prescription-grade sunglasses covering her eyes. “Juliet Seghers-Ward, at your service. I understand I’m taking you worthless scumbags to Dongara?”
“By way of Nullarbor,” confirmed Jack. “Juliet, this is our boss, Mahir Gowda.”
“A pleasure,” I said.
She turned toward me, and although I couldn’t see her eyes, I had the distinct, uncomfortable feeling that she was taking my measure. “You ever been in a Cessna before, Mr. Gowda?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ve been in privately owned planes, but nothing quite so—”
“It was a yes or no question. You can stop talking.” She crossed her arms. “My bird’s small and fast, but she’s also loud as a motherfucker. She’s going to shake. She’s going to rattle. She might even do some rolling, depending on the weather and what’s going up once we get off the ground. You’ll need to wear ear protection, stay in your seat at all times, and do your praying without distracting me. Got any questions?”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “Are these sincere warnings, or do you share the general air of theatrics that seems to pervade this airfield? I ask only because he”—I indicated Max—“wanted me to view this place as a sort of portal into Dante’s Inferno, and while I’m more than happy to play along, I want to know whether or not I ought to be wetting myself in terror right now.”
There was a pause before Juliet smiled. There was something unnerving about the expression, and it took all my self-control not to step backward.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re one of those. Well, won’t this be fun.”
2.
It was not fun.
While I am sure that there are people for whom an evening flight in a Cessna is a lovely experience—the sort of thing they yearn to share with friends and loved ones—it took only the first ninety seconds in the small, cramped plane for me to realize that I was not one of those people. It didn’t help that I was crammed into the back with Jack, while Olivia sat up front with Juliet. This wasn’t as arbitrary as it seemed: Olivia had taken some flight classes as part of her journalism licensing, while Jack had opted for first aid and additional weapons certifications. Australia might be deadly to the unprepared, but Australia’s regulations tried to guarantee that the local journalists would never fall into that category.
The roar of the small plane’s engines was loud enough to make my ears ring, even through the protective headphones that had been shoved into my hands during the loading process. Most of our possessions had been left in Jack’s truck. The few bags that were making the trip with us had been stowed in the hold, save for a single coo
ler that contained our dinner—as if anyone could eat while traveling in a shaking, rattling, roaring metal tube that was being hurled through the air at speeds that hadn’t seemed nearly this unsafe when I was in a jumbo jet. Jack grinned, flashing me a thumbs-up. I shuddered and looked away.
If I threw up, I’d be riding the rest of the way with the smell, assuming Juliet didn’t toss me out in midair to punish me for befouling her beloved plane. The thought didn’t do much to settle my stomach.
Jack’s hand touched my arm. I looked back and found him watching me sympathetically. “You okay?” he mouthed exaggeratedly, accompanying it with the appropriate hand gestures.
I shook my head no.
He laughed. I couldn’t hear it, but there was no mistaking his expression. “Sorry,” he mouthed, before folding his hands and putting them against the side of his head, clearly suggesting that I get some sleep.
Since there was no possible world in which that was going to happen, I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before shaking my head and turning to look out the one small round window that was available to me. The sun was setting as we flew, casting the land below us into deepening darkness. There were swaths of lights coming on, identifying the cities, but so much of the land remained black that it almost took my breath away. This was a land that had not been fully industrialized before the Rising came, and certainly hadn’t been industrialized afterward.
There are wild places in Europe and the Americas; there are places where mankind has surrendered whatever had been built to the wilderness, choosing to withdraw rather than fight the monster that we created in our labs and through our carelessness. But those places lacked the quiet grandeur of the Australian countryside, which was dark not because the lights had gone out or because the landscape had been too hostile to allow the people who lived there to build. It was dark because they had, quite sensibly, left it all alone, allowing Australia to find its own equilibrium.
I didn’t know what that equilibrium was going to look like, but I was starting to believe that whatever it was, it would be magnificent.
3.
Contrary to all logical outcomes of our flight, I fell asleep somewhere between Adelaide and Nullarbor, with my cheek pressed up against the cold surface of the window and Jack no doubt laughing at me from the other side of the cabin. The plane jumped and shuddered as it touched down on the runway, and I jerked awake, grabbing for something that would keep me from toppling out of my seat.
Now I could see Jack laughing at me. “You’re wearing a seat belt, mate,” he shouted, and either the plane’s engines were quieter now that we were on the ground or he had decided that this particular bit of mockery was important enough to be worth scraping his throat over. “I don’t know how they work in England, but here in Australia, they keep you in your seat even when we attack the runway.”
“You boys okay back there?” Olivia’s shout was followed by her blue-topped head appearing around the side of the copilot’s seat, a wide grin on her face. “Hey, it doesn’t even smell like sick! Gold star for both of you.”
“Yes, it’s truly a banner day when I can be applauded for not vomiting all over everything,” I said dryly, pushing my hair away from my eyes. My campaign to sleep my way across Australia wasn’t making me any less tired, but it was certainly making me more irritable. “What happens now?”
“Refueling stop,” said Olivia. “Juliet hooks the plane up to a pump while we run inside for coffee—or tea, since you’re incurably British—and sandwiches. And a facilities break. Mustn’t burst our bladders between here and Dongara. After all, we might need them later.”
“Oh, God, I really am in Hell,” I moaned, and rubbed my face. Still, the prospect of tea was enough to make me check my clothes to be sure that they were presentable, and when Juliet finally killed the engine, I was ready to go.
“Safe to take your belt off now,” Jack said, unfastening his own seat belt and stretching as much as the plane’s cramped quarters allowed. He didn’t try to stand. I undid the buckle but stayed where I was, assuming that he must have some reason for his immobility.
That reason emerged from the cockpit a moment later, as Juliet unfolded her long limbs and crawled around the back of her seat like an outsized spider, her sunglass-covered gaze flicking first to Jack and then to me. Her lips firmed into a disapproving line.
“At least you had the sense to stay seated until I told you otherwise,” she sniffed. “You are now free to deplane.”
“Cheers, Julie,” said Jack, and rose, following her out of the plane.
I remained where I was until Olivia climbed into the back. She gave me a curious look.
“You all right, boss?”
“I’m fine. I just wanted to ask you something about our esteemed pilot, and it seemed best to avoid attracting her attention if possible.”
“Ah, you’re wondering about her”—Olivia made a tapping motion on the air in front of her eye—“aren’t you?”
“Yes, and now I’m also wondering why you didn’t want to say the word.”
“More fun this way.” Olivia shrugged, continuing toward the open door. “She has retinal Kellis-Amberlee. Bright lights hurt her eyes. She takes the glasses off when she’s actually flying the plane, unless it’s daylight, and then she keeps them on.”
“I wasn’t aware that people with retinal Kellis-Amberlee could have pilot’s licenses.”
“Maybe not where you’re from, but this is Australia.” For a brief moment, Olivia’s gaze turned disapproving. “Stop trying to judge us based on what you know, and try judging on what’s actually around you. You might be surprised by how many things we don’t do the way you’d expect but that turn out to work just fine all the same. Think about it, won’t you?”
Then she was gone out the open door of the plane, leaving me to either follow her or sit alone in the dark with my thoughts. I followed her.
The Dongara airfield was slightly larger than the field we’d left from, which made sense; I wasn’t sure airfields could get much smaller than the one in Adelaide. Jack was already most of the way to a long, brightly lit building at the edge of the tarmac, and Olivia was running after him. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in waiting for me. I slung my laptop bag over my shoulder and trudged after them, taking my time about things, trying to get a new view on this place that I was struggling to figure out.
It wasn’t that Australia wasn’t England: I’d been expecting that. It was that Australia prided itself so aggressively on being Australian, but there wasn’t a book of rules or a checklist that would tell me exactly what that meant. Did it mean allowing women with potentially severe vision problems to pilot aircraft? Did it mean open-air picnics and penalizing people for shooting infected wildlife? Because if those things signified “Australian,” then I was having a very Australian day.
The sky above me was black, peppered with unfamiliar stars. I was out of my home hemisphere, and I was increasingly coming to feel like I was out of my depth—and we hadn’t even managed to reach the fence yet. Who knew how bad things were going to get once we actually made it to our destination?
In the distance behind me, Juliet was swearing loudly and enthusiastically at the fuel pump she had connected to our plane. I smiled a little and picked up the pace. Maybe the trouble was that I was looking too hard for definitions. After all, certain danger, stupid risks, and window dressing were very familiar to me, back in my native habitat: the news. As long as I remembered that, maybe I’d be fine.
Jack and Olivia were inside the brightly lit building, swiping their credit cards through vending machines and filling their pockets with crisps and sandwiches. Olivia looked over and grinned when the door opened.
“Hey,” she said. “We got you a tea and a packet of dreadful-looking crisps that said they were authentic London-style, and you’ll have to tell us whether that means anything beyond ‘they’ve put an echidna on the package.’ It’s on the counter there.”
“T
hank you,” I said, and walked over to the indicated counter. “That’s not an echidna. It’s a hedgehog.”
“Ah. They sound more British already.” Olivia turned back to the vending machine that she’d been looting one candy bar at a time. “Drink up and hit the head if you need it. We’ll only be on the ground for about twenty minutes, and then it’s off to our final destination.”
“Ready to see the fence?” asked Jack.
“Honestly, I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to stay awake when we get to the fence.” My tea was hot, strong, and cheap, which was an acceptable set of modifiers. I dumped in a packet of powdered creamer, stirred it twice with the swizzle stick, and took a gulp before saying, “This may seem like a foolish question, but honestly, I’ve reached the point of assuming nothing. Are we staying in a hotel, or with some local friends of yours, when we get to the fence?”
“Fuck, no,” said Jack. “We’re camping.”
There was a momentary silence in the building, broken only by the low buzz of the vending machines. Then, as if they had synchronized their watches before the conversation started, Jack and Olivia burst out laughing.
“Oh, man,” said Jack. “I wish you could have seen your face. That was fantastic. Olive, did you get that on camera? Please tell me you got that on camera.”
“I got that on camera,” said Olivia serenely, as she reached up to peel what I’d taken for a round plastic sticker off the front of the vending machine. She tucked it into her pocket as she turned back to me, an almost feral smile on her lips. “Nothing like photographic proof of the terror that is Australia to really spice up a report, eh?”