Matt Eaton - Blank

“Whatever we encounter out here, I’d like you to film it. Sound OK to you?”

She shrugged. “What exactly are we doing Luckman?”

“Can’t say too much.”

“You have no idea what we’re going to find, do you?”

“A ghost town is the most likely scenario. Except for the Americans, of course. In my experience, they’re pretty good at self-preservation.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Has it occurred to you the General might be sending you on a wild goose chase to get you out of the way?”

“I’m no big deal to him – why would he bother?” Luckman wondered. “Besides…” He stopped himself from spilling the beans on Shearer’s broader agenda, but realised keeping his mouth shut would not stop her seeing his thoughts like they were printed on his forehead.

She smiled knowingly. “I’m not talking about what he told you. I’m talking about what he didn’t tell you – that with you gone they can deal with the Blanks with no-one around to make their lives more difficult.”

He frowned. “Of all the things Shearer might be up to, that’s the last thing I’m worried about.”

“Look, obviously the man values you. But it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sacrifice you to get the job done. He’s a General, for God’s sake. They’re paid to make decisions that are paid for with the lives of other men.”

“I trust that man with my life,” he insisted. “You don’t need to worry about the Blanks. He told me a decision hadn’t been made and I believe him.”

“Can I just point out the country is under martial law?”

“We still have a functioning head of government. The generals answer to the PM.”

She didn’t look at all convinced. Hardly surprising – he didn’t believe it himself. Shearer had been cagey about the Prime Minister’s view of the mission.

“Your trust in authority is admirable, Luckman, but I can’t help wondering if it’s naively misplaced. Now isn’t the time to renew your faith in the state religion.”

“Come again?”

“Governments are not benevolent authorities. Anyone who harbours a blind faith in the Government’s intention to do the best thing by its people is doomed to disappointment.”

“Isn’t belief in good governance one of the fundamentals of democracy?”

“Oh sweet Jesus. And you call yourself a greenie? What about the massacres of the Aboriginal people, the American Indians, the Jews, the Palestinians?”

He of all people needed no reminding of Indigenous history.

“Your point being?”

“The Blanks have been interned like asylum seekers. The Government just wants to lock them up and forget about them.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. Then in a whisper, “I get it. Just remember Eddie doesn’t know what I’m heading out here to do.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “All this – it’s about natural selection in its most extreme. Survival of the fittest.”

She shook her head. “This is a whole lot closer to devolution. Say what you like about democracy Luckman, but from where I’m sitting governments in crisis always do whatever the hell they like and then simply lie about it to cover their tracks.”

He knew precisely what she was telling him. “Democracy is a long way short of perfect but it damn sure beats the alternative,” he replied. “I’m free to sing my opposition to government policy from the rooftops. In fact, I’ve done precisely that on several occasions. But it’s a hell of a leap from there to fundamentally rejecting government as a functional entity. I know it’s not perfect, but no-one’s fired guns at me in this country for conducting a Greenpeace protest action.”

She smiled disarmingly and put her feet in his lap. “No, they just marginalised you as an extremist. And those sort of labels are hard to ditch. A good idea is far more dangerous than a bullet. Cheaper too. As soon as you start seriously rattling the paradigm, that’s when they move to take you out of play. Governments are more than just the people who get voted into office. The people behind the scenes have the real power.”

“I’m not rattling anyone’s paradigm,” he assured her.

“The first step in manufacturing consent is to silence or discredit your most vocal dissidents. And you, my good man, are a dissident.”

“You’re quoting Noam Chomsky at me like the world’s continuing with business as usual. But everything’s changed, Mel.”

“That’s precisely what I’m saying to you,” she pointed out quietly. “The old rules, whatever they were, no longer apply. It’s no holds barred now.”

“If you’re scared, don’t be. I’ll keep you safe.”

“But who’s keeping you safe, Stone?”

Luckman spent much of the second half of the journey in the cockpit with Bell where he felt he might be safer from re-education or tricky questions. Bell was having issues of his own. He was scribbling down calculations on a piece of paper and gazing variously between the plane’s compass and the position of the sun in the sky.

“What’s up?” Luckman asked.

“The compass is all over the place. And out here there are no obvious landmarks to guide the way.”

The Earth’s magnetic field had been in a state of flux since the Sunburst hit. The lines of force oscillated wildly from one day to the next, making navigation over large distances extremely difficult. With electricity cut across the board, the usual radar transponders were not functioning. Bell was flying by the seats of his pants.

“The boffins reckoned it would settle down after a few weeks, but if anything it’s getting worse,” he complained.

“I have the utmost faith in you, my friend,” said Luckman.

“If the bloody Americans gave us access to their military satellite I’d be able to use GPS. Bastards. Don’t they trust us?”

Luckman raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t taken Bell into confidence on the General’s plan, knowing he wouldn’t like it. “I’d guess the Americans are trusting no-one at the moment.”

The pilot sighed. “I’ll get us there one way or another.” He tapped the console. “I set the heading indicator before we left, so that gives me a pretty good idea of the direction we’re headed. The HI is gyroscopically controlled – it doesn’t rely on the Earth’s magnetic field. But I’m tracking north because of the crosswind.”

Luckman turned to gaze out the cockpit window and quickly became lost in thought. If someone held a gun to his head he might be forced to admit Mel’s interpretation of events was a worry, although it might still simply be anxious pessimism rather than genuine intuitive deduction. She hadn’t met Shearer face to face so her reading of his intentions was second-hand at best. But then Shearer had as much as told him he was expendable. And Mel was right about one thing – his activist past and previous run-ins with the law would make him a handy scapegoat. There was also the open question of an exit strategy. Shearer didn’t have one of those, meaning he would have to work it out on the fly. Right now, Luckman could only think of one way to make it back to the plane once he had taken out his target – he would have to kill anyone who tried to stop him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and was jolted into the present by the look of shock and surprise on his pilot’s face.

“They just spoke to me.”

“Who? Amberley?”

“Alice Springs air traffic control. There’s someone down there.”

Luckman reached for his own headset. “That’s not entirely unexpected. It’s probably the US military.”

“I repeat, alpha two seven five do you read? Over.”

“They know we’re here,” said Luckman. “You might as well respond.”