“Ah.” I glanced back to the fence, and the empty land beyond it, before returning my attention to Juliet. “You’re from Canada, right?”
“I am,” she said, with a nod. “My family’s from Newfoundland, and I was born in Toronto, since they had to evacuate with everyone else during the Rising. I never liked the city much, and I didn’t have the drive for the news or the social skills for the armed forces. So I went into aviation. Used to fly supply planes across Canada while I looked for something better.”
“Australia was your ‘something better’?”
For the first time since I’d met her, a small smile creased Juliet’s lips. “Still is,” she said. “This is the country I’ve been dreaming of since I was six years old. It’s a lot like the stories my grandfather used to tell about Newfoundland.”
What little I knew about Newfoundland described a frozen, rain-drenched stretch of land that had been abandoned during the Rising partially because the infrastructure to defend it simply wasn’t there anymore. I looked at Juliet dubiously.
She shook her head. “I know, the climates are nothing alike, but I was going on stories, not real experience. A land so wild that it could swallow you up in an instant, and a sea that was like a story no one ever finished telling. That’s what Granddad always said about Newfoundland. That no one could ever go there without saying, ‘Oh, how green this land, oh, how blue this sea; I must have lived a very good life to be allowed to come to such a paradise.’” The faint smile slipped from her lips as she continued, “I signed up for a dating service that was meant to connect Australians with foreigners interested in immigration the day after he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He missed his home, and I like to think that he made it back there in some form after he died.” Juliet turned her attention to the fence. “One of our friends is back.”
“Hmm?” I scanned the land behind the chain link, looking in vain for something that wasn’t a clump of grass or scrubby tree. I was starting to think that Juliet had simply been trying to change the subject when what I had taken for a small hill took a single cautious hop forward. “Well, would you look at that.”
“Immature red kangaroo,” said Juliet. “Probably too small to have amplified yet, although it’s hard to tell at this sort of distance.”
“Are they afraid of people before they amplify?”
“I’m not the one to ask,” she said. “I avoid them as much as I can, and they return the favor when I see them outside the fence. The noninfected tend to be skittish, and the infected… well, you can see why I’d try to keep out of their way.”
“Yes,” I agreed, and watched as the kangaroo made its way to the fence, where it bent forward and started digging in the grass with its forepaws. “They’re herbivores, aren’t they?”
“They are. I’ve done feeding runs past the fence a few times—fly out, dump a payload of fodder, fly back. It’s safe as houses, but it still makes me nervous, so I only do it when I really need the money.”
“Or when you’re trying to convince yourself that you don’t need any more excitement in your life,” said Olivia. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to hear her voice. She walked over and stood beside me. She was wearing a long blue nightgown with purple lace around the neckline, and no shoes. It was warm enough that she wasn’t even shivering as she directed a grin across me to Juliet. “He misses you, you know. I bet you crazy kids could patch things up, especially since you’ve still got his name on your license and ID. He’s the sort of bloke who takes that as a statement of undying love.”
“Because I want to go through that whole stupid circus again? No, thank you.” Juliet scowled at Olivia. “I have my plane, I have my work, and he has my blessing to go off and do whatever dumb-arse thing he wants to.”
I couldn’t help myself: I burst out laughing. Both women slowly turned to face me, Olivia openly staring, Juliet’s lips narrowing into a hard line that probably meant she was trying to kill me with her eyes. That didn’t stop the laughter. If anything, it made me laugh harder, bending almost double and clutching my stomach as I tried to make it stop.
“What’s so funny?” asked Juliet.
“It’s just… oh, God.” I managed to get myself back under control and straightened, removing my glasses with one hand and wiping my eyes with the other. As I scrubbed the lenses against my shirt, I said, “You reminded me so much of some friends of mine just now that I felt like I was falling backward through time, that’s all. Shaun and Georgia used to have arguments just like that about whether or not Georgia belonged in the field. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Apology accepted,” said Juliet, in a stiff tone that implied the exact opposite. She turned to Olivia. “He’s your tourist. You keep an eye on him. I’m going back to bed.” She spun on her heel and stalked away, heading back toward our hotel.
“Well, that went splendidly,” I said, any urge to keep laughing dying. “Do you think she’ll push me out of the plane while it’s in flight, or will she land somewhere and abandon me to the native wildlife? I suppose either option would be fatal, so it’s mostly a question of how merciful she wants to be.”
“Aw, don’t mind Julie,” said Olivia. “She’s just having a rough patch. She and Jack will sort things out before we’re done here, you’ll see.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”
“She’s not the only pilot who does this run is how,” she said. “If Juliet didn’t want to see her ex, she wouldn’t have taken the charter.”
“Ah.” I looked back toward the fence. Our friend the kangaroo was still there, scrubbing about in the dirt. “How did they get the second kangaroo out?”
“Not a clue. Weren’t we going to visit the biological containment facility tomorrow? They’ll be able to answer any questions you ha—”
She was cut off midsyllable by the sound of a gunshot ringing out of nowhere. I flinched, looking to the sniper tower, and froze as I realized that they looked as confused and dismayed as I felt. They hadn’t been responsible for firing that shot. I turned toward the other visible tower and saw the same confusion reflected in the body language of the distant guards. I didn’t need to see their faces to know that they were not the shooters.
“Mahir, look,” said Olivia, sounding horrified.
I turned, already half suspecting what I was about to see. The young kangaroo was no longer grubbing for roots among the grass near the fence. Instead, it was puddled in a heap of limp muscle and grayish fur, eyes still open and staring at nothing. There was a wound in the side of its neck, blood soaking through the fur and grass. The poor thing wouldn’t be reviving from the Kellis-Amberlee virus. Not even a disease that raises the dead can get reanimate a body that hasn’t got any blood in it.
The snipers hadn’t been responsible for shooting the second kangaroo earlier, either. Someone was killing the kangaroos inside the fence, and although I was coming to understand Australia more with every moment that passed, I had no earthly idea why.
4.
The snipers eventually dispatched a guard to check me and Olivia for weapons—we were both armed, of course, but neither of us had fired a gun within the past twenty-four hours, something which a simple residue swab quickly confirmed—before sending us back to our hotel with strict instructions to stay indoors until the sun came up.
There was a time when I would have stormed back to my room, prepared to write a scathing editorial about mismanagement of natural resources and poor security. Time has been kind to my temper, and has given me the ability to see when patience is the best possible answer to a bad situation. I went to my bed, crawled beneath the covers, and forced myself to be still. Given enough time, stillness would deepen into sleep, no matter how awake I was.
I don’t know how long it took for that miraculous transition to occur, but my dreams were filled with kangaroos hurling themselves endlessly at a fence, and it was impossible to know in the dream whether the ka
ngaroos were sick and trying to break down the fence to reach their prey, or whether they were fleeing from some greater danger. It was almost a relief when the sunlight struck my face and brought me, gasping and only half rested, back into the waking world.
Jack was standing over me, the curtain still grasped in the hand he had used to wrench it open. “Up you get, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “You must not have many hobbies, given how much time you spend passed out.”
“I have a small child,” I said, sitting up and yawning. “Sleep is a precious thing and should not be spurned when it’s available to you. What time is it?”
“A little past eight,” he said. “I’ve been up for an hour. Had my jog, had my shower, and the girls are getting breakfast on the table for us at the café down the block.”
I frowned, reaching for my glasses. “You lost me somewhere in the middle of that sentence. Did they take over the kitchen of the café?”
“No, they’re just putting in orders for all four of us. Juliet and I are going back to the airfield so I can help her with maintenance and refueling, and Olivia said that the two of you are going to visit the biological containment facility, which sounds like it should be nicely nonhazardous.” Jack beamed beatifically. “I couldn’t leave if there was a chance that you were going to do something exciting in my absence.”
“Of course not,” I said dryly. “Where’s the shower?”
“Down the hall.”
“Lovely. And where’s the café?”
“Down the block. If you turn left when you step out the door, you can’t possibly miss it.”
“Even lovelier. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Good on you. I’d be fast if I were you—there’s a good chance I’ll eat your potatoes if you’re not there before I get bored.” Jack winked before he turned and left the room.
“Irwins,” I muttered, and moved to dig around in my suitcase. It’s bad to make general statements about groups of people—there are always exceptions, and those exceptions are likely to be offended if they hear you generalizing about them—but every Irwin I’d ever met had been gifted with a tendency toward overacting even when the cameras were off, just in case someone was spying on them while they were going about their daily lives. Shaun Mason was the same way. So was Becks. It made sense, especially given their place in the blogging world, but it could get tiring.
The shower was unoccupied, which was a blessing, and the hot water was plentiful, which made up for the hotel soap, which seemed determined to remove the top three layers of my skin before I was finished bathing. To my surprise, there was no bleach cycle—just water. Feeling clean but slightly contaminated, I pulled my clothes on and made my way down the stairs to the still-empty lobby. There was no sign that anyone had been through there since our arrival. I paused to frown at the desk. It was starting to feel like we were being put up in a false hotel, rather than a real one; there should have been an irritated clerk, at the very least, someone to glower at us when we came and went at odd hours, and to demand clean blood tests before allowing us to have any extra towels.
“Now who’s trying to turn Australia into a theme park?” I muttered, chuckling to myself as I stepped out of the hotel and got my first view of the nameless little town in the daylight.
It wasn’t much more impressive than it had been at night—darkness doesn’t change details like size very much, not when it’s beaten back by streetlights and crowds—but the overall maintenance of the place was much more apparent. The buildings were painted in neutral colors not because the paint had faded from something brighter, but because neutrals had been chosen from the beginning. The individually fenced yards were still somewhat jarring, and yet they were offset by more visibly secure front doors, and by what looked like self-latching hinge mechanisms on the gates. One press of a button and those houses could lock down as tight as anything else in the world.
The sidewalks were mostly deserted, although a few people wandered by as I studied my surroundings. They were split roughly down the middle between civilians and guards. Only the guards openly carried rifles, although some of the civilians had small handguns or pistols. In the event of an uprising, the civilian population would inevitably lose.
With this cheering thought in mind, I turned, following Jack’s directions halfway down the block, at which point the smell of freshly baked croissants made directions unnecessary. I followed my nose the rest of the way to a small café that would not have looked out of place in London. The door was standing open, and the voices of my traveling companions carried out into the street: Olivia, laughing, voice half garbled by a mouthful of something; Jack, louder and more boisterous, trying to prove something, if his tone was anything to go by; and Juliet, quiet, audible only because her words somehow fell into the space between his. I couldn’t understand a thing they were saying, and I didn’t need to. The sound of them was quite enough.
I paused at the door, smiling a small, private smile. It wasn’t meant to be shared, because it would have required too much explanation. I hadn’t traveled with a team since the last time I went to North America—the last time I saw Shaun Mason in the flesh. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
“Did you save me anything?” I asked, finally stepping inside.
“He lives!” Jack thrust his hands into the air, grinning ear to ear. “There’s pancakes and toast and oatmeal and fried egg and fried tomato and fried mushroom and croissant with cheese. Sit down and stuff your face.”
“What Jack means to say is that he tried really hard, but not even he could conquer my ability to keep ordering more food,” said Olivia. “We did save you a seat, though, even if the food is mostly here because Jack is a failure at life.”
“Well, thank you all,” I said, and moved to sit. “Is there tea?”
“There’s tea,” confirmed Juliet, and pushed the pot over to me.
“Then this morning is truly perfect.” I busied myself with preparing a plate. The table was set family-style, with bowls and platters of food, rather than individual servings. As I reached for the mushrooms, I glanced to Olivia and asked, “What time is our appointment for the biological containment center?”
“Half an hour,” she said. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I would have come looking for you with a go-box. Have you got a recorder on you?”
“I never leave my bed without one.”
Olivia nodded, looking satisfied. “Good.”
“Meanwhile, we’re going to be making sure that our escape route is still fully intact and ready to fly our handsome butts out of here,” said Jack, making an airplane gesture with one hand. “You’ll call if anything really interesting happens, yeah?”
“Yeah,” confirmed Olivia. “You can play grease monkey with impunity.”
“Don’t worry,” said Juliet. “I intend to work the stupid out of him.” She stood and walked toward the door without looking back or saying good-bye.
Jack laughed, pushing his own chair away from the table. “I recognize a hint when I hear one. See you lot later.”
“Bye, Jack,” said Olivia cheerfully.
“See you soon,” I said, and reached for my fork. With only half an hour before I needed to be fed, presentable, and professional, I intended to eat as fast as I could. A man must have his priorities, after all.
5.
The biological containment facility—helpfully identified by a large sign reading RABBIT-PROOF FENCE BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT #17—was an attractive, white-walled facility that could easily have been repurposed as a museum, had the need ever arisen. Only the four men standing outside the door with rifles at the ready disrupted the illusion that we were on our way to a day of education and enlightenment. Which was perhaps not such an illusion after all, once I stopped to think about it.
“ID?” said the first of the guards.
Olivia produced her photo ID. I did the same. The guard took them both before pulling a small scanner out of his pocket and running it over our n
ames. He squinted at the screen. I maintained a carefully casual posture, wondering what would happen if he didn’t like the results. Something unpleasant, no doubt.
“Here you go.” He handed back our IDs. “You’re on today’s list. Will you be entering the airlock separately or together?”
“Together,” said Olivia, before I could formulate a response. “We haven’t done anything that could have resulted in an infection.”
That seemed to be the right answer. “On you go, and have a nice visit,” said the guard.
“Cheers,” said Olivia.
“Thank you,” I said, and followed her through the facility door into the airlock on the other side. It was a fairly standard design, with three testing units arrayed against the glass wall in front of us. As I watched, yellow lights came on above two of the test units, while the third remained dark. Olivia walked calmly to the unit on my right. I moved to take my position in front of the other one.
“I hate these high-security places,” she said, slapping her hand down on the test panel. “It’s such a waste of time.”
“If we were anywhere else in the world, this would be our sixth blood test today,” I said, mimicking her gesture.
Olivia wrinkled her nose. “Everywhere else in the world wastes an unconscionable amount of time.”
“You know, I actually cannot argue with that.” The light above my testing panel blinked green, and a lock disengaged somewhere in the glass wall with a soft hiss. A second later, the same thing happened with Olivia’s testing panel. This time, the hiss of the lock letting go was followed by the entire glass wall sliding open, allowing us to finally step unencumbered into the lobby of the biological containment facility.
Olivia walked to the middle of the room and stopped. Lacking any better idea of the protocol, I did the same. She looked to me and smiled. “Rey should be here in a moment,” she said. “He’s going to take us on a tour of the necropsy lab, the specimen storage unit, and the viewing lounge. That should give you a solid grounding in what they do here.”