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“Like UFOs or crop circles you mean?”
“Exactly. It’s so far removed from everyday experience that people just paper over it like it’s not real – just those crazy blackfellas, yeah?”
“Surprising how good the world became at ignoring anomalies,” he agreed.
She smiled sardonically. “Much easier to ridicule what we don’t understand.”
* * *
It was dusk when Luckman arrived back home. The chopper had barely touched down before Bell launched back into the air, seeking to minimise the impact on the campfires nearby. It was an odd bivouac, a disparate posse of survivors interspersed with two squads of soldiers under Luckman’s command. Some of the soldiers had claimed the house next door, which was now incorporated into their compound. Other properties were deemed too far away to easily secure. The boys had been out on patrol when he arrived with Mel. They had since returned for dinner. He was happy to play host to the Army both because it helped keep the perimeter secure and because it gave him an operational excuse to base himself at home.
Each day the troops combed the surrounding area trying to round up any Blanks they could, searching houses for food and removing anything dangerous. It was a bit like toddler-proofing a house. The Blanks ate and drank anything they could find. Some of them had set fire to themselves, others had died after eating rat poison or bleach. Government policy was to bring all Blanks into custody unless they were dangerous. Trouble was, scared and trigger-happy soldiers had shot more than a few of them when misunderstandings got out of hand. Increasingly the Blanks had come to regard them as the enemy.
The Army still had working vehicles and fuel to run them, and the soldiers used these locally during the day. But driving was too much of a risk at night time. Covering any distance of more than a few kilometres in darkness was now done exclusively by air. The situation reminded him of Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan, except the terrain was more familiar and the “enemy” was unarmed.
From around the main campfire, several people greeted Luckman warmly. Squad leader Sergeant Kev Naughton caught his eye. Luckman sighed. He was mostly reliable, but not exactly the smartest of units. And on the subject of the Blanks, their views were poles apart.
“What’s up Sergeant?”
“We noticed something new today, sir. They seem to be getting together and forming packs.”
Naughton talked about the Blanks like vermin. He was one of the growing clique in favour of a Final Solution.
“Well,” said Luckman patiently, “I suppose that’s not so surprising. Humans are social animals.”
“They’re learning real quick. And there are loads of properties out here that still aren’t secure. What happens when they work out how to use guns, sir?”
It was a good question. If they were forming groups, their learning would quicken dramatically. “Look, it’s not exactly Oruzgan Province out here. You know the drill. Approach them calmly and carefully. You’ll be right.”
“We’ve made a baked bean casserole if you’re interested,” Naughton suggested.
Luckman knew it was a peace offering and that he really should accept, but he needed to see her. “I just want to clean up and collapse. But thanks. Next time, eh?”
He had hoped she might come out to meet him. He found her fast asleep, buried deep under the covers in the guest room. It was a strange time to be sleeping; probably a sign of trauma. It had to be the first time in a while she’d felt safe. He wandered wearily through the dining room and onto the front deck for his nightly yoga ritual. Mortality had, of late, weighed heavily upon his aching bones. The yoga, even just a few minutes of it, revitalised him. Afterwards, he showered, threw on shorts and a T-shirt and returned to the solitude of his front deck. The hypnotic thrum of crickets and cicadas vibrated through the cool evening air. He lit a mosquito coil then curled up cross-legged on a cane chaise lounge to meditate. Listening to the sound of his own breathing through the thrum of the evening, the memories of all that had transpired cascaded like a film on fast forward. He let go and sank deeper into thoughtlessness.
Meditation had come to him as an extension of Shodokan Aikido, the martial art in which he had become a black belt. His meditation teacher had given him his mantra, stipulating he never reveal it to anyone else lest its power dissipate. The mantra had changed his life. With it he learned to tap a source of power beyond himself, a deep well of understanding and forgiveness. It had held back the darkness inside him when it might otherwise have been overwhelming. It delivered him from the illusion of material existence – a very useful tool when that existence left much to be desired.
His meditation teacher once said, “intention is destination”. She believed it was possible to actually influence physical events through focused thought. While that was an art he had yet to master he had long been aware of his own strange and miraculous gift for being in the right place at the right time.
In his early 20s, he once bumped into his cousin Gemma in Europe. They were both backpacking on the opposite end of the world at the same time but in typical youthful self-absorption had never bothered to compare notes or arrange to meet up anywhere.
When Luckman arrived in Munich, he didn’t even know Gemma would be in Germany let alone the same place in the same city. They found each other in the stairwell of a five-storey backpacker hostel, a place big enough that even there they might easily have missed one another.
And yet when they met Luckman realised he’d been expecting to see her all along.
Twelve
He sank into the half-sleep, half trance of the delta state from where a pleasurable base of tranquillity rose through his perineum and rippled through his body. Stillness wrapped itself around him like a cocoon, and he felt as if he had touched upon an instant of absolute silence.
It could have been five minutes or half an hour later when he opened his eyes and returned to the world. He walked back inside the darkened house and turned on a lamp in the lounge. How miraculous it now seemed to have electricity. Albeit it from a bank of harvested solar batteries.
Mel’s bed was empty. She must have gone downstairs to see Seamus. He decided he would cook them all a decent dinner. He was starving and Seamus usually ate straight from the can. Luckman was sick to death of baked beans.
The carrots were flaccid, though it couldn’t have been more than a few days since he’d pulled them from the ground. They were the last edible remnants of his old vegie garden, which had been tilled over and subsumed by a much larger garden bed that would feed many more people. It wasn’t yet producing crops.
Limp carrot would do fine in a curry. He grabbed the rest of what was in the fridge – some broad beans, half a capsicum and a slab of pumpkin – and began to chop and dice. Vegetarianism had been thrust upon them by necessity. The Army offered a reliable supply back-up and they still whacked a steak on the barbie occasionally to boost energy and morale. But that wasn’t going to last. Their best hope of fresh meat would be to breed chickens and goats, but they too required food.
If it was true that what hit them was an act of God, it was also true that the Amish had inherited the earth. Small-scale solar and wind farms were being cobbled together across the country to provide power for essential services. The power grids had collapsed and it was unlikely they could be rebuilt in the foreseeable future. Heavy industry and mechanisation was dead. At ground level, this meant no more tap water, no more sewerage and no more mass production or distribution of food. For those who had survived, the world had become a lot smaller and a whole lot tougher. Starvation would soon be a serious issue and Luckman knew this was when the shit would hit the fan.
It was one of the reasons he had argued for a home-grown platoon; it gave him a decent work crew. A few weeks ago, he'd divided the civilian tribe into work groups to reclaim water tanks from nearby properties, install the solar batteries and begin cultivation.
The fence wasn’t his idea, but he had to concede it was a necessity. The nagging nihilist within wondered whether all of it might yet prove futile, although he wasn’t about to surrender without a fight.
He pulled out Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food and for a moment toyed with making Korma curry paste from scratch. But it would take too long. Skipping rapidly past all the pictures of perfectly seared meat and fish, he flicked back to the recipe for vegetable jalfrezi and reached for a jar of curry paste. That too was an indulgence which wouldn’t last. With onion, chilli and ginger sizzling in a pan he threw in his vegetables, added a tin of chickpeas and a tin of chopped tomatoes, then whacked on the rice.
A bottle of Shiraz was calling to him from the end of the kitchen bench. He stared at it for a moment before deciding to pour himself a glass. He grabbed the bottle and two more glasses, and wandered downstairs to tell Seamus and Mel food was on the way. Halfway down the stairs he heard the guitar, followed by the lilting wail of the Irishman’s voice. He could sing, the little bastard. And didn’t he like to use it to effect?
The place was a mess, but lived-in and instantly welcoming. Newspapers and dog-eared books were scattered across a dining table. On a chunky old couch with holes in the arms, Seamus sat with his back to Luckman, facing his audience of one. Mel looked like she was in seventh heaven.
Seamus was singing Ed Kuepper's version of I’d Rather Be the Devil and he’d just reached the fun bit:
“Well the woman that I love, I stole her from my best friend.”
She looked both amused and slightly embarrassed. When she spotted Luckman she made a point of slapping the couch cushion next to her, inviting him to join her.
As he sat down, she gave his hand a squeeze and leant over to whisper in his ear. “Saw you meditating, thought I’d leave you to it.”
Over dinner, Luckman told Seamus about their escape. He was trying for the right combination of heroism and self-deprecation but wasn’t sure it came out that way.
Mel was shovelling food into her mouth hungrily. “God this is so good. OK so tell me – the global situation, how terrible is it?”
“The world’s pretty much buggered, frankly,” said Seamus. “Except for the Chinese – they’ve got all those ghost cities they built in the middle of nowhere. It was almost as if someone over there knew this was coming.”
“The US believes China caused the Flood,” Luckman explained.
“Hence the showdown with America in the South China Sea,” Seamus added.
“They’re doing that now?” she cried.
Luckman nodded. “As if we don’t have enough to contend with. What’s left of humanity is living in third-world conditions, or worse. Most cities have been wiped off the map, and nothing functions like it used to. We think – at best – only about 10 percent of the world’s population survived. The wave hit on the weekend, so city buildings that might have offered more protection from the mind-wiping effects of the Sunburst were mostly empty.”
“New York’s under water,” said Seamus. “Likewise Washington and LA. The Yanks are setting up a new capital in Chicago. Not that they have many people left to govern. And there’s nothing even resembling a functioning economy anywhere.”
“The only reason we have food and fuel is that there are so few people left we’ll be able to run for a few years on what had already been produced.”
“What about the Pacific island nations?” Mel asked. “Has anyone tried to help them?”
Luckman grimaced. “The Torres Strait Islands no longer exist. Same goes for Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa. Indonesia is a disaster area. Most of its smaller islands are uninhabitable. Millions died in Sumatra and Java. Japan’s been wiped out. There have been a string of massive earthquakes that followed the collapse of the ice shelf. The Pacific region is one catastrophe after another. New Zealand’s a complete mess. The quakes have just about shaken it off the map. Papua New Guinea has descended into tribal murder and cannibalism. It’s just Blanks galore up there.
“Australian authorities couldn’t cope. The Defence Force has been flat out helping Australians. The RAAF sent out a few search planes but everywhere we’ve gone it’s been too little, too late. The Army’s on the ground in Indonesia and East Timor. We pulled out of PNG because dozens of soldiers were killed trying to help people.”
“Right. Fuck,” was all she could manage.
“That’s the word for it all right,” Seamus agreed.
“So there are two big issues,” said Luckman. “How to secure future food and water supplies, and what to do with the Blanks.”
“What exactly happened to them?”
“It was the Sunburst – a massive EM pulse that exploded off the surface of the sun. It destroyed all our electrical infrastructure, just like people always said it would.
“But somehow it also wiped the minds of people who were hit by its full impact.”
“Like a global computer crash,” said Seamus.
“The Blanks have been stripped of all memory, all identity,” said Luckman.
“Everything it is to be human,” said Seamus.
“Except they still are human,” Luckman insisted. “That’s what a lot of people seem to forget. We may yet be able to help them.”
“You mean it might be reversible, what happened to them?” Mel asked him.
“That is the hot topic of debate. I think it depends on your definition of human consciousness.”
“If we are connected to something greater,” said Seamus, “maybe the imprint of their identities still exists somewhere.”
“Needless to say this isn’t a line of inquiry our surviving medical experts take seriously,” said Luckman.
“But no-one believes the Sunburst triggered the Flood?”
“The two events hit the Earth within minutes of one another – close enough to look as if they might be connected. But they weren’t. American scientists detected a massive violent explosion deep underground in the Antarctic before the Sunburst hit.”
“Meaning either God has a very sick sense of humour or someone did it on purpose,” said Seamus.
The room went quiet as the conversation hit its inevitable brick wall.
Thirteen
“Sod this for a dinner party,” Seamus slurred, in a bid to lighten the mood, “we need some music.” He pushed his chair back untidily and staggered toward Luckman’s hi-fi. Unusually for an Irishman, he was a cheap drunk. In a moment, the room filled with the incomprehensible rambling of Shane MacGowan.
“The Pogues,” Mel noted, almost approvingly.
“You’ve heard of them then,” Luckman grunted.
Seamus beamed. “I thought you looked like that sort of a girl.”
“Hell, don’t wish that on the poor woman, she’s been through enough already.”
“Bollocks to you mate. Give old Shane a go, or I’ll be forced to take you out the back and kick yer arse.”
Luckman sat for a moment, looking like he was trying to resist a sneeze. He got up. “Sorry, I can’t do it.” He walked to the hi-fi and turned it off. “Why are your CDs up here, Seamus?”
“That’s not mine,” Seamus told him, sounding wounded. “I gave that one to you for your birthday.”
Luckman opted for something more melodic.
Mel smiled. “Oh I like that – who is it?”
“George Benson,” Luckman answered, staring triumphantly at Seamus.
“I’m rising above your petty prejudices,” Seamus told him. “But while we’re on the topic of what’s mine is yours, I’m thinkin’ I might have to surrender that luxurious space you so lovingly refer to as a hovel. Seein’ as how you’re movin’ the lovely Mel here into a spare bedroom, I’m thinkin’ I could take the other one – so some of them poor sods outside can leave their tents behind. You know, winter is coming and all that.”
Luckman tried not to look dismayed. He knew Seamus was right, but he also knew his slovenly friend was unlikely to lift his standards of personal hygiene any time soon. “You’d need to work at getting your shit together, mate.”
Seamus laughed like this was an old joke between friends.
“I’m serious,” Luckman insisted. “I can’t live in a dung heap. It’ll do my head in.”
“I can tidy,” Mel offered.
“There y’go, it’s settled,” Seamus told him.
“No it’s not. What are you, six years old? We’re not your...” He stopped himself from saying parents out load.
Mel quickly changed the subject to dodge the elephant. “Is that a Northern Irish accent, Seamus?”
“Dat’s roight.”
“Lord, here we go,” Luckman muttered.
“I was with the IRA for a time. Not a terrorist, like, more your fundraiser. In Dublin. I was up and down to Belfast quite a bit.”
Luckman laughed. “Bullshit. You were a small-time pot dealer in Dublin and it turned out your supplier was funding an IRA commander.”
“Same ting boyo, same ting. And for a while there I thought about gettin’ more heavily involved,” said Seamus.
“The IRA used to raise money by tapping into the Dublin drug market,” Luckman explained. “It was the dirty little secret they didn’t want anyone to know about.”
“Me mam and da moved from Londonderry to Dublin to get away from the madness,” Seamus continued. “Didn’t save me Da – he died of lung cancer when I was 15. Ma was killed in Derry ’bout five years later, visiting May, her sister. Protestant paramilitaries blew up a car outside my aunt’s house. Wasn’t long after I found meself working for the other mob. Serendipity you might call it.”
“What stopped you going further?” asked Mel.
He looked at her for a moment before lowering his eyes, as if struggling to put his feelings into words. “I remember sittin’ in a pub in Belfast one time and havin’ a conversation with a sad drunken bully of a man about IRA history – and how religion had screwed things up. I was sayin’ it never used to be about da Catholics and da Protestants. He looked at me with death in his eyes, pulled out a revolver and stuck it in me temple. He said, ‘Don’t you be talkin’ dat shite around here. You’ll get yourself killed.’ And I’m thinkin’, yeah, by some mad fucker like you mate. They whisked him out the back door ’cos he’d well and truly crossed the line but it scared the crap outa me.”
