Matt Eaton - Blank

Tasting the firestone upon her tongue had brought her back to herself, if only for a minute. But it was enough for her to remember all that she had been. Enough to suggest to her all she might yet become.

She had recognised the nightmare for what it was – both real and unreal. A world of imagination, of an infinite manifest creativity that the Others had utilised to fashion a place for themselves. The world they called Altern.

She remembered that too.

“Yes, I’m awake.”

“How do you feel?”

“Hungry.”

The nurse appeared to be pleased with her response.

“I need to see Colonel Patrick Maygar. I have something very important to tell him,” she said.

The nurse touched her arm gently. “First things first. The doctors will want to take a look at you.”

“There isn’t a lot of time,” said Mel. “Tell Colonel Maygar I can prevent the war.”

It took longer than she would have liked to convince the doctors she was strong enough to take visitors. However, the man who appeared at her bedside was not the one she needed to see. As he opened his mouth to speak she held out her hand to silence him.

“You’re not Colonel Maygar. I will only speak to him.”

The man smiled condescendingly. “Of course I’m Pat Maygar. What makes you so sure I’m not?”

“Because your name is Peter McKittrick, and you’re not a colonel. You’re not even a soldier – you’re the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.”

McKittrick apparently failed to realise his mouth opened just enough to betray surprise, perhaps even alarm.

“He sent you to work out whether or not you should take me seriously – because the real Colonel Maygar is telling you otherwise.”

There is no way this woman could have linked his face and name, McKittrick told himself. He had only been in the job a matter of weeks, since the sudden death of his predecessor. A leak perhaps? Someone sympathetic to their pro-China cause. Unless she was something else entirely.

“I am something else entirely, Peter,” she assured him. “Some- one else entirely different – come to shatter your illusions and to draw a dark red line through everything you think you know.”

McKittrick now made no attempt to hide his shock. “You can read my thoughts?”

She smiled. He moved to speak but thought better of it, deciding it more prudent to keep his thoughts to himself.

If she truly knew my thoughts she’d know I have no illusions.

“Your world is built upon illusions – you’re in politics.”

How is she doing this? Mind-reading is just a bullshit parlour trick.

“Some illusions you believe, some ‘bullshit’ you peddle as truth to mask harsh realities. Prime Minister Taylor sent you here because he wants to know whether to listen to what I have to say. You have his answer. Now fly away Peter, and send me Colonel Patrick Maygar.”

It was another half an hour before Maygar deigned to show his face. In that time, she was at least able to gain strength from the consumption of a tasteless meal and two tall glasses of sugared water.

“I believe you want to see me,” Maygar said. He thought about pulling up a chair but decided against it when he realised it meant she would be staring down at him.

“You’ve done very well for yourself in this little coup d’etat, Colonel, haven’t you? Future looks bright. You’ve finally stepped out of the shadow of the man you’d grown to despise. The man who drove you so hard as his second in command it destroyed your marriage and once made you consider putting a gun to your temple. Not that Shearer even noticed. And now his life is in your hands. You have him locked in a cell as a traitor. Well done.”

If Maygar was surprised at the accuracy of her summary, he gave nothing away. But the longer he stared at her, the more he found he could not look away. Her eyes were like those of a predator who had cornered her prey.

She had his attention. “I want you to think long and hard by what I’m about to say. Personal ambition is all well and good – it’s been the hallmark of many a great man in history. But I don’t believe history will look kindly upon the man who knew how to stop a war and yet did nothing.”

Maygar felt as if his soul had been laid bare, like he was stark naked and vulnerable. He sat down, suddenly overcome by a sense of insignificance. “I’m listening.”

“The video I shot at the time Pine Gap was destroyed – you still have it.” She wasn’t asking, she was telling. “The evidence is on the tape. You have simply failed to find it.”

Maygar shook his head. “I don’t know what you thought you filmed, but nothing was recorded. Just static.”

Mel nodded. “You’re right. There is precisely 12 minutes and 32 seconds of static. Your analysts have not progressed far enough into the recording to find the evidence I am telling you is there.”

“Why would they? Static is static.”

“It took me that long to realise the camera was no longer filming – but that all I needed to make the camera work was the will to make it so.”

“You’re telling me you altered the technical specifications of a digital camera by sheer willpower?”

“You will, of course, want to see the video evidence for yourself. But when you have done so you must inform all three governments immediately.”

It was some eight hours later and several minutes after 10pm when Luckman was escorted from his windowless cage in the bowels of ASIO headquarters to a conference room in the ministerial wing of Parliament House.

The room was full. Some of the faces he recognised, such as Australian Prime Minister Mike Taylor and his Defence Minister Bill Hutchison. The Australian delegation was seated at the back of the room, leaving the front seats neatly divided left and right for the diplomatic representatives of China and the United States of America.

Cameras at the back of the room gave the impression the meeting was being recorded for public consumption, but the media (what remains of it) had not been invited. The cameras would record the eyes-only events for posterity and security purposes. Luckman hoped one day the proceedings might become public knowledge, but it would not be today.

The cameras would beam the meeting via US military satellite to the offices of both the presidents of China and the US. Mel had insisted the leaders of both nations witness first-hand what she knew would quickly become lost in translation among those who did not see for themselves.

For their part, the Americans had shown no apparent reluctance to extend the courtesy of a satellite link to the Chinese. The US Embassy said the President was keen to show the Chinese they had nothing to hide.

Books would be written about this meeting. Belief systems would crumble under the weight of what was about to take place. In short, the world as they knew it would cease to be. Every man and woman in this room would, in years to come, remember where they were seated and who sat next to them when the event occurred.

Luckman stepped up to the podium. He spotted Mel seated at the rear beside Peter McKittrick, who was directly in front of Prime Minister Taylor. The positioning was deliberate. It told the room that Mel had the backing of the Australian Government, for whatever this was worth.

In a moment, he would call her to the podium. His job was to set the scene, to build their case. She had assured him there would be no more tricks, no more hidden agendas. He trusted her implicitly on that point.

Behind him, the frozen image on a large digital screen looked like it might have been conceived in the animation workshops of Pixar or James Cameron. It was a world of impossible colours. The sky was purple, trees bedecked in leaves of bright blue. Pat Williams was turned away from the camera, gazing out from a hilltop escarpment toward a shining city in the distance. At the foot of the hill a lake glimmered in varying shades of deep aqua, its depths quite visible because of its impossibly pristine water. It was a world that appeared untouched by human hand yet it was one that was entirely manufactured.