“I want to see what happened in Alice Springs on the 23rd of December. The day of the Sunburst.”
Thirty-Five
Pat retraced his steps to the rear of the chamber and took a firm grip on a small sink fastened to white tiles on the bunker wall. He gave it a sharp tug and the tiles hinged neatly off the wall to reveal a narrow tunnel entrance. There was no light beyond the entrance. Pat had to duck his head as he stepped through. Luckman followed, steeling himself to swallow the rapidly rising sense of claustrophobia. He was greatly relieved when Pat flicked on a torch. The narrow concrete-lined passageway was only wide enough to allow them to move single file and Luckman had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the ceiling. He felt his phobia screaming at him as they made their way along the narrow confines in the dim torch glow. Once or twice he stepped too close to the wall and scraped his knuckles. They continued for about 100 metres. The tunnel dog-legged twice but remained flat all the way to where it suddenly ended in a short 45-degree wedge, into which about a half a dozen steps were cut – a stairway to nowhere. Pat ascended three of the steps. Luckman was breathing heavily by now, his chest tight with anxiety.
“Come up here with me,” urged Pat.
When Luckman had done so Pat reached up to a section of the roof slab. A small piece of oxidised metal reinforcement was visible where the concrete had fallen away. The reo was actually a lever. Pat pulled it out, turned it through 180 degrees like a giant clock hand and then allowed it to click back into place. A wedge of the concrete roof swung down slowly and smoothly like the door of some massive aircraft. The slab touched down on the floor of their tunnel. A set of boxed metal stairs that was attached to the inside of that slab now faced them, having unfolded with millimetric precision to the edge of the step on which they stood. Luckman recognised the metalwork. As they climbed the stairs he saw why. It was the same set of stairs that descended from Paulson’s study – the last flight was hinged so it detached and moved along with the slab beneath it. That same set of stairs led them once again to the vault entrance, but now from below. On the keypad outside the vault, Pat pushed # and 0. The slab and the stairs swung back into place behind them. As the door to the golden vault once more swung open Luckman found himself squinting in the bright light after the darkness of the tunnel, but he was greatly relieved to be in a larger space. He focused his attention on the chair and was immediately reminded of Mel’s experience the previous night.
“This is going to wipe me out, isn’t it?”
“There’s a way to make it easier,” Pat told him. “I’ll travel with you. Two people work much better than one.”
Luckman smiled. “But this chair ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
“I’ll stand up. Behind you. Don’t worry, I’ve done it loads of times.”
Luckman nodded. “Do you have a program recorded already? Of the day the Sunburst hit?”
Pat shook his head.
“Do you have any idea of today’s date?” Luckman asked him.
Pat shrugged.
“It’s February 19th. Like I said, the Sunburst hit two months ago.”
“Feels like it’s only been a few days.”
“Time is somehow standing still here,” said Luckman. “Believe me when I tell you most of us have lived two long, hard months since the world ended. I’d very much like to know why no-one in Alice remembers any of it.”
Pat nodded solemnly. “OK, so you have to focus on that date – December 23, early afternoon. Central Alice Springs.”
“Then I sit down?”
“Exactly. Don’t worry if it takes a few seconds.”
But Luckman left the building the moment his arse hit the cushion. He had the strangest sensation of closing his eyes and opening them at the same time – in another place entirely. He realised too late he was in the middle of a road. A truck barrelling along at a good 80km/h hit him head-on without slowing down. It was followed by another and then another. An entire convoy of US Army trucks drove over the top of him as if he didn’t exist. Yet he had somehow remained upright and uninjured, and he realised this was because he was reliving an event that had already happened.
He sensed Pat with him, or more specifically behind him. He turned one way then another without catching sight of him but he could feel his presence. Dimly he wondered whether Pat could see him, then decided it didn’t matter. They were on the Stuart Highway at the intersection of Parsons Street, which led directly into downtown Alice Springs. The traffic lights were working, but nobody was paying any attention to them. The trucks were turning right, off the highway and into Parsons Street towards the heart of town. Several police cars were roaring along in the opposite direction, sirens blazing. Luckman remembered the police station was on Parsons Street. It was apparent a state of emergency had been declared. He might have gone so far as to say martial law had been imposed if not for the fact that the armed forces in this case were American.
The trucks pulled up about half a kilometre from where he was standing. He decided he wanted to get closer. Without any sense of physical movement he found he was able to traverse the intervening space instantaneously. It was like being inside a life-size version of Google Earth with everything still moving around him.
The trucks were being directed by a soldier on the ground who was waving them left, right or straight ahead in groups of three. Luckman instinctively followed the trucks that went on ahead a short distance to pull up at the Todd St mall. A crowd of people had gathered at the edge of the mall, where a policewoman with a loudhailer was screaming at them to maintain order so they could board the trucks as quickly as possible.
There were more people arriving, many more than would fit onto three trucks. He sensed a rising panic. It was evident in the shaking voice of the constable directing the traffic, who must have known she would be helpless if and when the crowd turned against her. Armed soldiers leapt down from the back of the trucks as the constable assured people more transport would soon be on the way.
Luckman recognised the look on many of the faces hurriedly clambering aboard the trucks. It was the fear of death. The trucks filled quickly and then became overloaded as dozens of people ignored the policewoman’s increasingly shrill orders to stop. The crowd saw the soldiers’ reluctance to intervene and began to surge forward in greater numbers. The trucks pulled out even as more hands were grasping the rear gangways. Several people ran to cars, deciding to follow the retreating Army vehicles. It was the typical chaos of a sudden and urgent evacuation.
The trucks could only be headed to one place – Pine Gap. But Luckman had examined Shearer’s blueprints of the base and he couldn’t think of anywhere that would offer shelter from the catastrophic mind-wipe about to engulf the planet.
Yet these people had been saved.
He began to feel a suggestion slide into his awareness.
Rise.
Above it all.
For greater perspective.
He gave in to the suggestion and immediately rose high above the streets and buildings. It was an enormous relief to leave the mall behind. Helplessly watching the town unravel without the capacity to intervene had been almost unbearable. He didn’t know whether it was the chair or the nature of this memory realm, but he had become more than an observer. He felt like he was part of it. He knew their fear, he bit down on their confusion. The nature of what he was confronting was also familiar to him – he’d been forced to watch scenes like this unfold all too many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had witnessed normally civilised people descend into rat packs and fight to the death in the final bitter twist of their battle to stay alive.