Matt Eaton - Blank

Luckman looked up and nodded toward the projectionist and the picture began to move. Onscreen, Luckman and Eddie Bell joined Pat Williams at the edge of the escarpment. All three men were grinning and joking with each other like kids on holiday.

At the podium, Luckman cleared his throat and introduced himself to those assembled. “What you are seeing, ladies and gentleman, is the world known as Altern. It is a world that exists on a dimensional plane different to our own and has done so for more than half a century. Its inhabitants are human beings like you and me but they have been living a life entirely separate to us. It would seem that they have decided to return to our world and have taken some very drastic steps to bring that plan to fruition.

“It is they – and not any of the nations represented in this room tonight – who caused the catastrophic collapse of the Antarctic ice shelf.”

Murmured voices rose at once in all corners of the room. Luckman let them speak for some time before raising his hands to the room.

“If I can just have your attention again – please. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. What you’re watching on the screen behind me is a digital video of Altern shot by my friend and colleague Mel Palace. A consequence of the transition from our world to Altern was that neither I nor two other members of our party were able to recall any part of what you are witnessing upon our return to Earth. However, Ms Palace has retained a perfect recollection of the events. I will now hand over the podium to her.”

Mel was already striding towards him in a manner more befitting a head of state than a trauma victim. She kissed him on the cheek and patted him warmly on the shoulder before assuming the podium like a seasoned political player.

As she did, her video continued to roll and revealed human figures in the sky descending slowly toward the men on the hilltop like a flock of Peter Pans.

“Good evening. Firstly, may I say the message I have for you is one of peace. The people you see now, the ones we call the Others, exist in a world that has no physical and no material limitations. It is a world where thoughts materialise before your very eyes.”

The flying figures landed on the hillside and quickly outnumbered the three men. The two groups warmly embraced one another like long lost friends.

“It is a place,” Mel continued, “where human imperfection has been eliminated in all but one critical area. The Others have no ambitions left to chase, no goal they have yet to achieve. Their lives have become too easy. For this, among other reasons, they seek to return to Earth. Their act in carrying out the Flood is an example of the terrible force they have at their disposal. Yet they desire us to know they will return to us in peace. They preserved the people of Alice Springs from the effects of the Sunburst as a sign of their goodwill. I entreat you, therefore, to remove the causes of dissention among you and to establish peace ahead of that return.”

At the very moment Mel stopped speaking, a woman stepped forward on the video screen as if she had been waiting for the perfect moment to join the conversation.

“Greetings Stone Luckman,” he heard the woman say. It was the second time he had heard her greeting, but it still caught him off-guard.

Across the room a collective gasp rang out as each person in turn heard not Luckman’s name but their own, in a message likewise delivered in their native tongues. The Chinese delegates heard Mandarin even as the Australians and Americans were greeted in English. A smattering of those born in other lands heard Spanish, French or German. Each of them quickly realised what was happening from the expressions on the faces of those closest.

It was an accomplishment even more miraculous in that it had been pre-recorded. Somehow they knew this was no mere feat of conjuring. A force more monumental in scope was being revealed to them.

“This is not the End of Days,” the woman told them, “this is the Beginning.”

The room maintained a shocked silence for some time after the conclusion of the message. Then at once, as if the trance had broken, a cacophony of excited discussion erupted. Several Chinese delegates crossed the floor to speak enthusiastically with their American counterparts. Hands waved in the air and voices were elevated in collective astonishment. He sensed fear, anger, even horror in those voices. Yet the one emotion overpowering all others was that of sheer relief.

Considering the stupendous scale of the Alternates’ crime against humanity in the name of environmental progress, Luckman considered their response nothing short of remarkable even though this was precisely how Mel had predicted they would react. Neither side had ever harboured any real appetite for war.

She kept her composure and watched quietly in satisfaction as the process of rapprochement began to unfold. After a minute or so she stepped back from the podium to where Luckman was waiting for her. She was different now, one step removed, as if she no longer regarded him as her equal. He could see the power in her awakened by the white gold. He knew now she had been the keystone to the whole misadventure from the moment Perrurle led him to her door. It was she who had been their salvation all along.

“What happens when their relief is replaced by fear and anger?” he asked her.

She smiled at him in a way that belittled the value of the question. “The Others offer hope when no-one else can.”

The residents of Altern had long known white gold was the bridge between the two worlds, but they had required an Earthly mind, with the power to cross the consciousness gap unaffected, to be a vessel of collective memory. They had placed their hopes in Clarence Paulson, who had been consuming the gold for decades, using it as his own fountain of youth. No-one realised that in so doing his mind had become impervious to external influence. His view of the Others was guided by the views of his church and its opposition to the political and spiritual hegemony they sought to impose upon all within their sphere of influence.

For Mel, however, Altern was a blessed relief, a light at the end of a lonely tunnel. She had welcomed their fellowship as an oasis in her personal desert. She had become their proselyte. She had channelled their unanimous intent and a war had been postponed. Doubts and questions would soon arise, but she would deal with each of these in turn.

“Then I suppose you did it,” he told her.

She smiled without bothering to demur. She reached out for his hand and began toying with his fingers, running her nails along his skin, almost like she might slice him open at any moment.

“Time we put these to good use,” she said. “There are millions more for you to save.”

“I can’t do that on my own,” he told her.

“You won’t have to. You will be the start of a chain reaction. Every Blank soul you reclaim will in turn reclaim another. This will continue across the continent and eventually across the world. Each reawakened life will make me stronger. Our minds will remain conjoined, you see, just as they were in that other place.

“Ours will be a mind more powerful than the greatest of supercomputers. No problem will be insurmountable, no truth deniable. No war worth fighting.”

He touched her fondly on the cheek and silently offered his allegiance, because beyond all else they too were conjoined. He would honour the role fate had delivered. He would do whatever she asked.

She would brook no dissent.

Greetings dear reader, I hope you enjoyed Blank . As us authors ultimately live and die by the word of others, I’d be most grateful if you took the time to post a few words of review at Amazon, iTunes or Barnes and Noble, wherever you first acquired the novel. Word of mouth has always been the greatest way for us writers to find an audience and your comments mean a lot in helping to make that happen.