Author: Guy Salvidge
Date: 2011-07-21 00:00:00+00:00
Description: Welcome to Yellowcake Springs; a pristine, friendly, secure community of citizens involved in the maintenance of one of Western Australia's CIQ Sinocorp nuclear reactor facilities. You have nothing to fear inside the heavily-guarded community, nestled in the quiet streets between the radiation Red Zone and the razor-wired fences. Raise a family. Go to the park. Watch the sun set between the cooling towers. Lament the desperate lives of the lost ones living in the darklands outside the community, where overpopulation and starvation have created a lawless world. Feel lucky. You belong to CIQ Sin
Publisher: IP
Rights: Copyright IP and the author and illustrator, 2010. All rights reserved.

Glass House Books

Yellowcake Springs

Guy Salvidge was born in England in 1981 and moved to Western Australia in 1990. In 1996, he won the Roy Grace English Scholarship for short fiction, which motivated him to pursue a writing career. In 1998, he won first prize for his first novel, Maklorian in the Children’s Book Week Make Your Own Story Book competition. A year later, he won the Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Short Fiction Award (Young Writers) and was Highly Commended in the KSP Speculative Fiction Award (Young Writers) in 2000.

Guy studied English at Curtin University majoring in Literature and Creative Writing, and graduated in 2002 with Honours. He co-edited the Society of Communication and Cultural Studies magazine M/G during this period, and attended workshops at Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Completing a Graduate Diploma in Education in 2005, Guy embarked on a career as a high-school English teacher and has worked at Northam Senior High School for the past four years.

Guy has written eight novel-length manuscripts since 1998. The seventh, The Kingdom of Four Rivers, was published in 2009 by Equilibrium Books, and the eighth, Yellowcake Springs, won the 2011 IP Picks Best Fiction Award. He was awarded a Commended certificate in the 2010 KSP Speculative Fiction Award, and won the Fiction on Demand “Book Love” competition for his flash fiction piece, “The Ballard”.

Glass House Books

Brisbane

Yellowcake Springs: A Novel

Guy Salvidge

Glass House Books

an imprint of IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)

Treetop Studio • 9 Kuhler Court

Carindale, Queensland, Australia 4152
sales@ipoz.biz
ipoz.biz/GHB/GHB.htm

First published by IP in 2011

© Guy Salvidge, 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Printed in 11 pt Book Antiqua on 14 pt Book Antiqua.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Salvidge, Guy, 1981-

Title: Yellowcake Springs : a novel / Guy Salvidge.

ISBN: 978-1-921869-18-1 (ebk.)

Target Audience: For young adults.

Dewey Number: A823.4

This book is dedicated to
my daughter Ella (born 2005),
my son Leon (born 2007),
and to all the children their age.

May they never have to live through this.

Acknowledgments

Cover Image: dreamstime.com

Jacket Design: David Reiter

Author Photo: Georgina Critchlow

There are a few people I would like to thank for their assistance during the long process of writing Yellowcake Springs:

Georgina Critchlow, my wife, for being supportive from my first attempts at writing, which was a long, long time ago.

Diane Drury, my mother, for advice, encouragement and proofreading.

Naomi Mondello and Graeme Butler for beers, merriment and writerly discussion.

David Reiter for selecting Yellowcake Springs as the Best Fiction winner in IP Picks 2011.

Lauren Daniels for her expert editorial assistance on this project.

Candice Poole for kick-ass behind the scenes work at IP.

Michael Stewart for cover concepts and tech support.

Daniel King for reminding me to enter IP Picks 2011.

1. Welcome to Yellowcake Springs

Sylvia Baron was dreaming, but not without assistance – she was in Controlled Dreaming State. Her body was strapped to a soft chair in her office. There was a veil over her eyes and a skull cap on her head, allowing the CDS console to interface with her brain. Sylvia was working on a new 3V ‘vert for the town. In her dream, she floated high above Yellowcake Springs.

“Play the opening,” she said.

The words Welcome to Yellowcake Springs! flashed up in a gaudy yellow font in the sky over the town’s main gate. Was that exclamation mark really needed? She’d discuss it with her supervisor Peters later.

“Welcome to Yellowcake Springs, the first of CIQ Sinocorp’s Complete Communities to be opened on Australian shores,” the voice-over said in a smooth and comforting tone. A corny tune played in the background. “Yellowcake Springs is a Green Nuclear initiative fuelled by yellowcake uranium mined right here in Western Australia,” the voice-over said. Now the perspective zoomed in on the reactor complex. “These are the engines of the future. Nuclear energy – clean, efficient and one hundred percent carbon neutral. Here we harness the power of the atom, the quiet worker!”

A little overzealous, Sylvia thought. That last phrase could go.

She knew the script by heart – she had written it – so she concentrated on the visuals instead. The camera hovered at a respectful distance while the reactors’ main features were pointed out. After all, the potential residents weren’t going to be living inside the reactor complex. The realism was supreme. There were a hundred finishing touches: a coach load of new residents arriving for a guided tour; the gentle breeze buffeting the leaves on the trees; the sun emerging from behind a cloud as the voice-over honed in on a key selling point. They had done something to the smell, too – was it pine? Something earthy and clean, as though the reactors had emerged from the earth through some organic process.

“This is the two kilometre exclusion zone, known as the Red Zone,” the voice-over said as the perspective panned out. Aside from the tree-lined drive at the entrance to the reactor complex, the terrain was barren and windswept. “Inside the Red Zone, you’ll receive no more radiation than on a summer’s day. The reactors aren’t merely safe: they’re infallible. Fourth generation reactors render a meltdown a statistical impossibility.” In actual fact that was a white lie. But the chances of a meltdown were remote. That word ‘infallible’ though; should they hedge their bets a little more? Would ‘virtually infallible’ seem like an admission of vulnerability? Peters would have to be the judge of that.

Zooming back beyond the fence of the Red Zone – over a checkpoint complete with helmeted guards, their rifles discreetly hidden – the perspective swung around to take in some of the sights and sounds of the Amber Zone. “This is the five kilometre exclusion zone,” the voice-over glided. “The Amber Zone is the industrial and administrative hub of the community.” Down to street level, they were fleetingly placed among the workers bustling to and fro. Lost for a moment, Sylvia didn’t hear a word of the spiel about the prospect of new residents joining the ranks of the technological elite.

Next on the agenda was the Green Zone, where Sylvia and her husband David lived. “This is the residential area,” the voice-over said. “This is where you and your family, Yellowcake Springs’ newest initiates, will live. Here you will be more than just valued employees. You will be part of the CIQ Sinocorp family. An inclusive family, made up of citizens of every nation and creed, each member firmly committed to the principles of industry, harmony and equality. In Yellowcake Springs, you’ll have nothing to fear.”

There was no need to mention the defensive perimeter. The fact that the residents themselves would be obliged to join the ranks of the security force was small print, unmentionable at this first pitch stage. Sylvia disliked guns, but what she detested most of all was the compulsory ‘Preparedness’ training that chewed up four weekends a year. It seemed like more. There were other unmentionables, such as the fact that new residents would be required to submit to implantation as part of their citizenship ceremony. It was for their own safety, of course – if a citizen was abducted or otherwise became lost, then the security forces would be able to track them using their implants.

She paid scant attention to the rest of the ‘vert, her mind reliving the previous night. A hard, angular face – not her husband’s – swam into view. His name was Rion. A sun-drenched beach, a secluded lagoon. It was all horribly clichéd, but what did it matter? Their tryst had been impossible, unreal. And yet Rion existed; of this she felt sure.

Years of Controlled Dreaming State use had taught her to differentiate between human users and computer generated simulacra. The bots were getting better every year, and one of these days someone would design one that really did behave like a human being. These wraiths roamed CDS as its native population, making human users feel that they were not alone down here in the depths of their own minds. But the bots betrayed their unreality in a myriad of ways, from their clumsy pick-up lines to their brilliant but dead eyes. What had Rion said?

“I want to meet you for real.” And then, if that hadn’t been clear enough, he’d added: “Outside of CDS.” For real? Was this not real? She had said something to that effect and he had shaken his head impatiently. Bots were never impatient.

A clumsily constructed excuse later and Sylvia had disconnected. For real? What had she looked like in that scenario, anyway? Still a bronzed goddess with straight blonde hair and perfect legs? And what about him? What would he look like in the real world? Her life – all of this – was boring, but it was safe. And Rion, as attractive as he had been, had seemed anything but safe.

The ‘vert was ending.

Waking from Controlled Dreaming State was a process of unravelling, of unwrapping. First there was the sensation of corporeality, of being strapped into the chair. The veil over her eyes and the rhythm of her breath. You couldn’t rush it; awareness came slowly.

“Peters said he wants to see you,” her workmate Tiffany Cramer said the moment Sylvia opened her eyes. “He said it was important.”

Sylvia shuffled downstairs, still groggy from her morning spent in CDS.

2. The House of Orion

His name was Orion, but nobody knew that. To others, he was Rion, and if he ever had to explain the unusual spelling, he put it down to the fact that his mother – the only family he’d ever had – had been a poor speller. And Rion’s mother had been dead a long time. Rion wasn’t sure what year he’d been born, but it was probably ‘35 or ‘36. If anyone was to ask him – no one ever had – Rion would have told them that his birthday was the 8th of August 2035, which made him twenty-two.

Rion lived – if you could call this living, which he did – in a dilapidated husk of a house on Fielding Street, in the town of East Hills. Once, this region had been known as the Wheatbelt, but now that the crops had failed for the last time it was just the Belt.

Fire had scorched the fibro cladding of the house at some unspecified point in the past, blackening the exterior, and while there was no reason why he couldn’t have chosen somewhere in a better state of repair, Rion lingered here. He would certainly have to move on before the rain came, if it was ever coming, as there were several skylights that had never appeared on any floor plan. The windows were all broken, although some had been boarded up. The outer walls were dotted with scars, like an acne-pocked face; it was a surface that told a story of needless, desperate violence.

Presumably a young family had once lived here, for there were traces of them everywhere: a headless plastic doll in the backyard, a child’s cot in one of the bedrooms, faded scribble on the walls throughout the house. Most likely the family had moved away when the situation in this town became untenable, but Rion was living proof that what constituted an untenable situation was a matter of opinion.

What bothered Rion most about this particular hovel was not the fallen roof in the lounge room. Nor was it the termite-infested decking around the house, through which one’s foot might plunge unexpectedly. No, what bothered him most was the stench of the rotten carpets, black with filth. The smell was worst in the heat of the day, when the rusted shell of the air-conditioner grinned mockingly at him from the corner of the master bedroom. It was a smell to which he’d never become accustomed, and it’d almost been enough to drive him out on several occasions. And yet here he was.

There was only one thing of value in the house and that, he had brought with him: the Controlled Dreaming State console he had stolen from the police station. He remembered that night well, the night East Hills severed its last link with lawful society. The local militia and its firebrand leader Keith Gillam had been locked in a murderous cycle of raid and reprisal with the police. But this had been a raid that went unexpectedly well, so well that the police had been driven out of town entirely. It now seemed that the turreted façade had been only that: an illusion. But illusions had long prevailed in this town, all throughout Rion’s feral childhood.

One memory that lingered with perfect clarity was that of the policeman’s skull cannoning against the concrete floor in one of the holding cells, and the bloody foam that came from his trembling lips thereafter. Rion had no proof that the man had died, that he himself might be termed a murderer of the worst kind. But there could not have been an escape for the policeman that night. Gillam’s men had not gone quite so far as to stake the corpses in front of the burned-out police station, but the idea had been mooted.

If Rion could reconcile himself to his actions at all, it was only in that by killing or at least mortally wounding the policeman, whose name he’d never been able to ascertain, he had gained access to the console he would use to leave this place forever. He had to keep it hidden of course. Gillam and his militia – of which Rion was theoretically a member – did not allow individuals to own private property. Rion kept the console hidden in a cavity beneath the rotting floorboards in the laundry. The console ran on batteries or mains electricity, but there hadn’t been mains electricity in East Hills for years and he was running desperately short of batteries.

And so Rion’s Controlled Dreaming State ventures were brief and to the point. His purpose in CDS was not escapism, but actual escape. He had a plan. He needed a benefactor, preferably a rich woman. There were hundreds if not thousands of such women somnambulating their way through the dreamscape, and that was in the Western Australian network alone. That was how he’d met Sylvia Baron.

She was beautiful, of course, but then so was everyone in CDS. He himself had been tall, swarthy and muscular; all the things he wasn’t in real life. But Rion wasn’t vain, merely practical. No one would want him if he didn’t present himself in a certain light. And so he had reclined with her on a fantasy beach, doing his best to seem relaxed and agreeable. But every moment spent was precious battery life wasted. He could not truly relax here, and that was when he’d made his mistake. You didn’t ask to meet someone for real, not this early in a relationship. But Rion knew where to find Sylvia Baron online. He’d try to make amends tonight.

It was overcast and blustery outside but it did not look, to his trained eye, like rain. They would need some soon; the riverbed was dry and his tank almost empty. Food was another issue. Yesterday he’d eaten a can of tomato soup and some dry, expired noodles, but he’d left precious little for himself today. He had planned on going down to the co-op this morning and asking for a handout, but now the thought held little appeal. There was still half a can of spaghetti on the bench that the ants hadn’t gotten to, amidst the debris.

Spooning the food into his mouth, Rion swallowed without relish. He felt dirty and unwell. Could he face another day of staring into space, of the piles of detritus around him? Rion passed the now-empty can from hand to hand. There were hours to fill and little to fill them with, but he was accustomed to that. Sometimes he went rummaging through abandoned houses, just because he could, but anything of value had long since been taken. The chances of finding something trade-worthy were slim.

This was not what motivated him.

What Rion was trying to do as he stood in musty bedrooms and dust-choked kitchens was to recreate the life that had existed here in the old days. The end of mains electricity meant that items that would once have been worth something were now so much landfill. Televisions, computers – junk. What Rion wanted was photos.

These still lives were all he had. He could recreate the decade of his infancy and imagine that some of these photos depicted his family. In these images he was searching, not only for his dead mother, but for the father, brothers and sisters he’d never had. And Rion wanted more than just an immediate family; he wanted grandparents, cousins and friends, even if he did have to scavenge them from the houses of the departed.

Over the course of the last decade, Rion had accumulated more than six thousand photographs. At one time he’d collected pin-up boards to display them. He liked to keep the images in view around him, in every room, but this had eventually proven too cumbersome. Moving was torturous. So the pin-up boards had gone and he’d moved onto photo albums. Rion now had more than fifty of these, and he could see the day when he’d have to start culling the photos he didn’t need to make room for those he found on his jaunts. The albums were piled up in his photo room on a tarpaulin. He had another tarp with which to cover the albums in the unlikely event of heavy rain.

Today Rion was working on Family Holidays 3.

This was a thematic collection, arranged by family and, if he could tell, by destination. Much of the album depicted domestic adventures, in mostly coastal locations across the country. But toward the end there were scenes from overseas holidays. Bali was common, as were other popular Asian destinations, but there was also England, the U.S. and Europe. Using these images, Rion had taught himself a little geography, which had been supplemented by reference to a World Atlas that tended toward disintegration when he turned the brittle pages. What Rion was trying to do currently was to rearrange Family Holidays 3 in such a way that it became an ‘Around the World’ trip. Ignoring the fact that different families were depicted in the images, Rion could imagine that the entire collection had been snapped in one glorious year, which he had decreed to be 2035, the nominal year of his own birth.

Hours passed before Rion was fully satisfied. At dusk he sat holding the only picture of his mother he had. It showed her as a young woman, being presented with an award for athletics. She was smiling brightly. It was a clipping from an old-style print newspaper, and although the newsprint was nearly illegible now, he could just make out her name: Lisa Matth…the rest was obscured. Rion had never known what killed her. He’d been about five years-old at the time. But he remembered her lying in a sweat-soaked bed, begging him for water. But even then clean water had been hard to come by. He remembered her face, her pleading, and now all he had of her was this. He had looked at this scrap of paper so often that he knew it was close to coming apart in his hands. Carefully, he returned it to its album.

3. ‘A Few Years’

Jiang Wei sat in bed next to his fiancée Lui Ping in their tiny apartment in Chongqing, China.

“Don’t look so down,” Ping said, clasping his hands in her own. Her palms were moist. “It will only be for a few years.” Three words: ‘a few years.’ A life sentence. “And besides,” she added, “we can still be together.” The emphasis on the last word was as close as she got to talking about sex directly.

“Why do I feel so bad?” Wei asked, only half rhetorically. “How can I leave you, my love?”

“It’s for our future,” Ping reminded him. “For our child.” The child that did not exist yet, unless ideas could be said to exist. Wei felt the gloom clutching at his chest – a familiar tightness, a shortness of breath. “I can’t breathe,” he said. “Let’s go out onto the balcony.”

“You’ll miss your train.”

“Plenty of time,” he said. Wei stood, his body a tower of wobbling jelly. “Please.”

“Don’t you want to...?”

“I’ll miss my train,” he said, forcing a smile. “I just want to hold you for a minute.”

But then, looking out over the city’s sprawl, Wei felt like he might not be able to prevent himself from falling over the rail. Fifty-four floors of empty air between his soft head and the hard street. It was as though the two were destined to meet. “Just quickly then,” Ping said. “For...me.”

And so he obliged. Knowing that it would be the last time in the flesh for many years, he savoured the experience of her body, trying to imprint each motion onto his memory. Perhaps for this reason, it wasn’t his best performance.

“I’m so proud of you,” Ping whispered, cradling his head between her breasts. “I knew you’d pass that admission test. I can hold my head up high to say I am yours.”

Wei had no words for any of this, so he fell silent.

What followed was a blur. No sooner than he had dressed, he was out the door, and before he knew it he was getting off the train, not on. Wei wondered if he was having some kind of attack, for his legs refused to move at his command. He was trapped! But no, now they sprung to life, propelling him through the crush of bodies onto the platform. But where was his backpack? On the train? No – on his back. Calm yourself, he thought. Calm down.

Wei looked, not at eyes or faces, but at the march of feet. His own feet marched in tune. Onward, forward. He needed to catch his breath, to collect his thoughts. A bench. An empty seat next to a sleeping man with a wispy beard and a black briefcase. Wei struggled against the tide. He fought across contested territory, pushing past stubborn bodies. The stench of stale sweat and cheap perfume. Five steps, four, but no! – the space was suddenly filled by a heavy, perspiring mound of flesh. Wei reached out, imploring with his hands, but was swept up again. Don’t stumble, an inner voice compelled him. Don’t try to sit down. Fighting onward, outward, toward the next row of benches. Wei fought for air, for light. And found a space, for a moment, in which to rest.

Why was everything so difficult today? It must be psychological. Wei was going to a distant land: Australia. Of course he was afraid. But it was a Chinese company he’d be working for, CIQ Sinocorp, as some kind of low level technician. He’d have Chinese workmates; it wouldn’t matter that he barely spoke English. It wasn’t far to go now. He only had a little ground to cover. And look, the crowd was thinning as the trains pulled out of the station. Now was his chance.

Wei got to his feet and shuffled down the concourse steps to the CIQ Sinocorp window on the lower terrace. It was quieter here.

“How can I be of assistance?” the attendant asked.

“I’m here for a job. Here’s my ticket,” Wei said, pushing the rumpled envelope across the counter. The attendant considered it for a moment. “Your identification, please.”

Wei peered into the scanner. It flashed green.

“Your bus is leaving at 8.38,” the attendant said. “Take the escalator up to deck 4, platform 402. I would advise you to hurry.”

“All right,” Wei said. “Off I go.” The escalator was nearby, but deck 4 was right at the top of the station, and he was almost at the bottom. Should he try the lift? No, the queue was too long. As Wei made his way, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud for the first time. It was 8.26.

He made it with six minutes to spare. The driver was standing on the platform, rubbing his hands together. This seemed odd, as the air wasn’t cold this morning. Perhaps the man was simply preparing himself for the drive ahead. He barely glanced at Wei’s ticket, waving him on.

The bus was almost full, and yet devoid of the hubbub one would normally expect. Rows of faces not unlike his own. No women or children here. Wei considered the final steps, after which point it would truly be too late to back out.

“Excuse me,” a voice said. “There’s a space here.”

He was being offered a seat. The speaker was three rows from the back. And so Wei covered the final steps not with trepidation, but with gratitude.

“You take the window seat,” the man said, standing for him. He was so tall that he had to stoop. Wei gladly accepted.

“I’m Wang Sun.”

“Jiang Wei. Thank you for the seat.”

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“I’m scared,” Sun said. “Petrified! And you are a liar.”

“I am,” Wei admitted. “I’m scared too.”

“What length contract did they put you on?”

“Two to three years.”

“I’ve got five to seven. So it’s only right that I should be more scared than you!”

“That’s a long time,” Wei agreed. “Where are you headed?”

“Yee-lir-rie,” Sun said, reading from his own ticket. “It’s a uranium mine. You?”

“Yellowcake Springs,” Wei said. “Nuclear reactor.”

4. Dreamhead

Jeremy Peters was an odd little man to have as a boss, but Sylvia didn’t mind. He reminded her a little of a garden gnome, except that he was second generation Chinese, even if he did have a Westernised name. He rarely bothered her, and when he did make particular requests, it was always in such a way so as to make her want to help him. Simply by turning up to work, he seemed to be suggesting, you were doing him a personal favour. Peters’ office was on the ground floor of the Receptacle, the building where they all worked. His door, as they said, was always open.

“Sylvia,” Peters said, “please take a seat.” His desk space was cluttered with advertising material. “Coffee?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve just had one, thanks.” And then, to fill an uncomfortable pause: “Tiffany said you wanted to see me.”

“That’s right,” Peters said. He took a sip from his own cup and put it down again, right on top of a piece she herself had designed. “We have some new workers arriving tomorrow,” he finally said.

“From China?”

“Yes. They will be staying at a special facility here in the Amber Zone. It seems Sinocorp has something particular in mind for them. But don’t ask me what – no one tells me anything.”

Sylvia wanted to say, “and this relates to me how?” but she settled for, “What do we need to do?”

Peters smiled. “Well, we – and by this I mean you – are to give them a tour of the reactor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, nor do I. But these are my instructions.”

“Sinocorp asked for me specifically?” It did not seem possible that she could have come to the attention of her employers; she didn’t kiss nearly enough arses for that.

“Not exactly. I apologise if I am being vague, but I suppose I’m trying to work out what’s going on here myself. I decided that I could spare you for tomorrow. That is, of course, providing that you’re done with ‘Welcome to Yellowcake Springs!’?”

“We just need to work on a few glitches.”

“I’m sure that Tiffany can manage.”

“Sure. Okay, I’ve just got a couple more things to do. I can finish up this afternoon.”

“So you’ll do the tour?”

“I don’t see why not. How many are there?”

“Oh, around sixty or so.”

The Amber Zone was busy at this hour, as the commuters made their way home from work. The traffic was all moving in one direction, toward the Green Zone. Giving up her car had been difficult at first, but after two years in Yellowcake Springs, Sylvia no longer missed having her own private transportation. You had to hand it to the urban planners, her husband David frequently said: public transport was outstanding here.

On the other hand, you couldn’t step out of your front door in Yellowcake Springs without being subjected to constant video surveillance. Hell, Sylvia wasn’t entirely sure that Sinocorp didn’t have cameras inside their apartment. Face recognition software ensured that no one without authorisation could possibly evade attention. There was no such thing as an illegal immigrant here. The only escape was inside her own head, and that was where Sylvia spent most of her time. The cameras were discreet and she’d long since become blasé about the whole thing. When they invented a machine that could read your thoughts as you walked down the street, then she’d be in trouble. But who wouldn’t?

David wasn’t back at the apartment yet, as per usual. She’d be lucky to see him before seven, maybe eight. That meant she had a couple of hours to herself. Once, she had struggled to fill this time in a meaningful way. But that was before she discovered the joys of Controlled Dreaming State. She had used it in the past, of course, but she had never truly understood how addictive CDS could be.

These days, Sylvia Baron was a dreamhead.

Their apartment was messy, surfaces covered with crumbs and plates and grease, but Sylvia didn’t see this. The clothes on the floor, the unmade bed: none of it registered.

As she pulled off her clothes and got into the shower, her work self washed away. In her early twenties, Sylvia had been politically active. At university, she had been involved in everything: demonstrations, focus groups, strike action. It had all seemed so vital. This has tended to decline in the years after she met David. She saw in hindsight that the period from twenty-five to thirty had been a turning inward. At the time she had thought of this as personal development, but now she wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t David’s fault, either. In fact, as the years had progressed, he had become the politically active one. Now, at thirty-two, Sylvia Baron had become what her earlier self had despised. She was apolitical and apathetic.

Washed and dried, Sylvia saw that there was a message from David. He wouldn’t be home until eight, and did she want to go out for dinner?

No, she decided. She was too tired tonight. The clock said 5.42 and it was starting to get dark outside. More than two hours of freedom awaited her. And so Sylvia made and ate a sandwich with yesterday’s bread, put on her white nightgown, and went into the dream room, her fine and private place.

Everything was set out the way she had left it the night before. The skull cap was partially stuffed down the side of her plush chair. The veil was in a crumpled heap on the floor. And the orgasma had been left indiscreetly on the sideboard for anyone to see. She would have to tidy up later. David didn’t approve of her excesses at the best of times, and if she was being honest with herself, these certainly weren’t the best of times between them.

But how could he compete? In ten minutes she could meet a dark, handsome man – or woman, if she felt like it – in a club. In twenty they could be dining together beside a pool beneath the stars, and in thirty they could be making love in a hotel bed. Forty minutes from now, Sylvia could be experiencing the sort of bliss she’d barely if ever experienced in real life. And she could do so reliably, cheaply and safely. She’d never get a rude waiter or a dish that didn’t agree with her. No one would ever be able to hurt her. What did it matter that the entire experience was in her head, that the man or woman she chose to spend time with was probably a bot?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. So Sylvia donned the skull cap, covered her eyes with the veil and attached the orgasma. Then she locked the dream room door, dimmed the lights and strapped herself in. The skull cap tingled as her brain received its new instructions. It was as easy as falling asleep...

5. The Power Substation

There was an old woman called Lydia who lived at the abandoned power substation on Rind Terrace. Lydia often said that she lived at the hub of the old electricity network because it reminded her of the world that had vanished, but Rion knew that the real reason was that it was about as far away from Gillam as you could get in this brutal little town. Rion sometimes traded the junk he found in the abandoned houses with her. It was hard to say how Lydia obtained new stock, given that she never seemed to leave her grotto, but restock it she did. Mainly he went there to talk. He was on his way to see her this morning.

Rion had lived in East Hills his whole life, and he’d seen it decline, but Lydia had lived here longer and knew just how far the town had fallen. The evidence of decay was everywhere. To think that at least one person and possibly a whole family once lived in each of these houses! It was difficult to imagine.

This road, Fielding Street, was now full of cavernous potholes and the rusted hulks of cars. The houses mostly appeared intact from a distance, but Rion knew from first-hand experience that this too was an illusion. It was a different story on the north side of town, where people still lived in large numbers, but here on the south side, whole areas were abandoned. If he broke his ankle, it might be days or weeks before anyone thought to find out what had happened to him. Those power poles that were still standing leaned at peculiar angles, some poised to crash into overgrown gardens or onto the broken streets. The wires themselves had long since been scavenged.

At the end of Fielding, he turned left onto Winthrop and walked down the hill into town. It was cold and windy, and perhaps there was a chance of rain after all. A few of the shops were open, but their doors were closed against the wind. He could see the faded co-op sign from here and a cluster of people milling about outside. Rion took the back streets down to the riverbank, avoiding the co-op.

The river, which had once flowed all year round, was now dry for several months of the year. It was normally flowing sluggishly by June, but there’d been so little rain that it was still dry now at the end of May. The riverbed was full of shopping trolleys, a century of chip packets and plastic bags, and even a couple of old cars. In his childhood there’d been ducks and birds even a few swans, down here, but no longer. There hadn’t been any fish since he could remember.

Rion walked past the remains of the children’s play equipment in the old park. Someone had burned most of it down long ago, but here and there the metal spring of a rocking horse or the frame of a swing set could be seen. The park was choked with waist-high weeds. The bridge at the near end of Rind Terrace was still standing, but perhaps not for much longer. The support structure underneath was all rotted away. There were a handful of old car yards and tyre shops, long since closed. The windows were smashed, the cars plundered or otherwise removed. The power station was further along, toward the southern edge of town.

As he covered this distance, Rion was surprised to discover that a light rain – little more than a fine mist – was falling from the grey sky. He’d need a lot more than that to put something worth drinking into his water tank. The whole area near the train station was completely deserted. He could see the barbed wire fence of the power substation beyond.

Lydia lived in a brick building inside the perimeter. You couldn’t call it a house. She always said that the grid used to emit a constant hum that could be heard from the other side of the street if no cars were coming, but now both the cars and the hum were long gone.

High Voltage – Keep Out, the faded signs read, but Rion paid no mind. Reaching the fence, he rounded the gate – always left open; Gillam and his militia could easily take this place from her if they had the inclination – and walked past the nests of metal coils in the direction of Lydia’s building. The coils were in poor condition, the grey transformer boxes nothing more than sad wardens of a forgotten world.

Lydia was a thin, grey-haired woman with a face so heavily lined that she no longer seemed to Rion to be entirely human. Her teeth were actually black. It was hard to believe that she was only a few years older than his mother would have been, were she alive today.

“What’ve you got for me today, Rion?” the old woman said.

“Not so much this time,” he admitted. Lydia ushered him into her home and they sat down on sawn-in-half fuel drums at her rickety card table, where he unloaded his meagre stash. This room had once serviced the power grid in some capacity, but now the front part had been converted into a dingy shop.

Lydia put two plastic cups on the table and filled them with water from a grubby-looking bottle. “Cheers,” she said, raising her cup.

The water was vile but drinkable. “Cheers.”

“Gillam’s up to something,” Lydia said. “He wants to take the goods train.”

“He wants to raid it? When?”

“Day after tomorrow. You’ll be expected to tag along.”

“You think I should go?”

Lydia nodded, her shoulders hunched. “Reckon you might have to.”

“He can’t take the train,” Rion said.

“He’s getting desperate. Not much to eat around here anymore. I hear they’re running low on ammo as well.”

So Gillam had been driven to this. Surely there’d be repercussions. The government wasn’t going to stand for its weekly interstate goods train being taken, was it?

“I’d best be heading back,” Rion said, getting to his feet.

“Don’t get shot.”

Outside, it’d stopped raining.

6. Withdrawal Symptoms

Jiang Wei kept track of the time since he’d seen Lui Ping. After two hours the bus arrived at the airport. There he had said goodbye to Wang Sun, who was on a later flight. After three hours, he was boarding his plane. During the ten hour flight, he could not sleep or even think properly. He found it difficult to stomach the bowl of vegetables and rice in front of him. These, he felt sure, were withdrawal symptoms. There were several in-flight movies, but Wei did not feel the urge to reach for the earphones. He listened to the conversations of the other men, not so much for the content but for the rhythms of their speech. If only he could talk to Ping now, he might at least be able to set his mind to rest. Wei’s only comfort was in the knowledge of the special clause in his agreement, without which he’d never have signed – that he’d be able to visit her weekly in Controlled Dreaming State. He daydreamed about this for some time.

It was night when they arrived, and the airport was no different from the others he’d seen. In fact, most of the signs were in Chinese, as were many of the faces. They walked in unison, sixty-two men who shared a similar fate, and yet Wei felt no sense of fraternity. Perhaps that would come, but for the moment all he could think about was Ping’s face, her hands, her voice. Perhaps as a consequence of his preoccupied state of mind, no one saw fit to say a word to him.

There were checkpoints, scanners and gates to pass through. He had nothing to declare. Then Wei was given a uniform and a place to change. He complied, donning the blue overalls with the red CIQ Sinocorp logo. Then, fourteen hours after leaving Lui Ping, there was another bus. And now it was a new day, May 19.

Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of the new country, and Wei felt glad for a window seat next to a nondescript Sichuanese by the name of Kun Meng. But there wasn’t much to see, except freeways, traffic lights and darkened housing estates. Still, it didn’t look a thing like China. Men pointed out their observations – an endless running commentary – but Wei was content merely to watch. There was no traffic which, while not altogether surprising at two a.m., gave pause for thought. No traffic at all. Such a thing would have been impossible in Chongqing. But then there weren’t as many people in Australia. Not nearly. And so the bus continued through a void, with only the false bravado of lost men to comfort him. For a while he counted streetlights, but soon lost track. The facility, he was reliably informed, was to the north. So he was heading in the right direction, even if there were more than seven thousand kilometres between them now.

Then Wei did sleep, but only for a short while. His dream was not of Lui Ping. It was of being crushed between massive grates. When he woke, his arm flailed out and struck the cold glass. Kun Meng did not stir. Wei was surprised to note that they had left the freeway. Now the bus made its way through an even greater void. The land was...he struggled to comprehend...the land was vacant. There was no sign of life but for the streetlights and the road which cut through nothingness. What kind of place was this?

Wei felt it through his trembling body: he was going to his doom. He could put it down to exhaustion, to love sickness, to anything, but the metal grates in his dream had been real. Wei was going to be crushed.

But now there was something ahead, a nexus of light. The bus slowed and turned left. Wei saw a large sign at the entrance to the place he’d henceforth call his home. Yellowcake Springs, it said in both Mandarin and English.

“Yellow Springs,” Kun Meng said, having just woken. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job.” He rubbed his eyes and sank back into his seat.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to mean that,” Wei murmured. Yellow Springs, the underground hell-sewer of Chinese mythology. Rivers of brown sludge populated by wandering souls. Perhaps it was an omen. But the name was Yellowcake Springs.

After that there was a cavalcade of barriers, checkpoints and guardhouses. There were fences, barriers and walls. But what enemy could there be out here, in the middle of nowhere? Wei’s tired mind tried to visualise such a thing. Perhaps it was the nothingness itself that frightened them. How to defend against such an enemy?

But there were more pressing matters at hand, matters of a routine nature. Here Wei disembarked from the bus, assembled with the others in a kind of holding area, partially enclosed but exposed to the cold air. The men chattered nervously, as though expecting treachery. It wasn’t long before they were invited inside, into the warmth. It was after three in the morning, and Wei thought longingly of bed. For the moment, it did not concern him that he would be expected to bunk in a room with nine other men. For the moment, nothing mattered. And so he slept, more than seventeen hours after leaving Ping’s side.

7. Demands

Stepping out into the warm autumn air from the air-conditioned reception of Reactor 1, Sylvia made her way in brisk fashion toward the shuttle bus terminal at the end of the boulevard. The tour had gone smoothly, owing largely to the fact that the new Chinese workers had barely slept and consequently had not pestered her with questions. It seemed that somebody had had the bright idea of sending them on the reactor tour six or so hours after their arrival. This was just as well for Sylvia, whose grasp of the reactor’s workings was rudimentary. After all, she was in advertising.

The three reactors at Yellowcake Springs were Advanced Pressurised Water Reactors, she had told them; CIQ Sinocorp’s own design. When fully operational, Yellowcake Springs would generate more than 3000 megawatts of energy per day. Fuelled by yellowcake uranium mined in Western Australia at Yeelirrie and Lake Way, CIQ Sinocorp, in collaboration with the Australian Federal Government, had achieved its aim of conducting the entire nuclear fuel cycle domestically. Processed yellowcake uranium was sent to the brand-new enrichment facility at Newcastle, New South Wales, where it was processed into uranium oxide and subsequently uranium hexafluoride, before being converted into nuclear fuel rods ready for use. These fuel rods were then sent to Australia’s twenty-six nuclear power plants, three of which were located in Western Australia. When the fuel rods were spent, they would be freighted to the brand-new waste management facility at Woomera, South Australia. This was part of the Federal Government’s commitment to cut greenhouse emissions to 60% of 2050 levels by 2070.

As the maelstrom of hastily-crammed facts began to drift away, Sylvia turned her attention to the matter of lunch. It was just after eleven now, which meant she had an hour to kill before her workmates descended the Receptacle stairs for their lunch break. The thought of heading back to the office in the interim didn’t appeal, so she caught the shuttle back to Epicurus Avenue in the Amber Zone. Sylvia was just about to lay claim to her favourite table on the terrace level at the Pegasus when she received a call from Peters. She stepped into an alcove and took the call on her flip-top.

Peters’ disembodied head hovered before her, shimmering ever so slightly. “Sylvia, have you finished with the tour?” the apparition said.

“Yes,” Sylvia replied, “one of the technicians is showing them the reactor itself. They told me not to worry.”

“You’ve left the reactor complex?”

“Just left, yes,” she said. “Do you need to see me?”

“Not this instant, no.”

“So why are you calling me? Just to check up?” she didn’t say. Instead, she waited for him to continue.

“I wonder if you have time to stop by the office before lunch?” he said. “There is a matter I’d like to discuss with you in private.”

“Um, can we make it straight after lunch?”

“We can,” Peters said.

“Is this about the tour? I apologise if I should have stayed with them until the end.”

“No, no. It’s...it’s something else entirely.”

Peters rang off. It wasn’t his style to criticise his staff directly. Possibly this was as close as he’d ever get to saying that he was disappointed in her. Until such a time as he made his opinion more explicit, however, Sylvia wasn’t worried.

Two seconds after she sat down, just as she was reaching for the menu, her flip-top started pinging again. Why was she so popular today? It had better not be Peters again, or perhaps she’d be short with him. But it wasn’t Peters. It was David.

The space before her filled with his ghostly form; she had him on full-body, which drained the battery more rapidly. Her husband looked agitated, his dark eyes darting left to right as though he could see the place his form had been projected into.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “Where are you?”

“At the Pegasus. I’m listening.”

“Not here, in private. Are you busy?”

“Can’t it wait until this evening?”

“I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”

“Work stressing you out?”

“You could say that. Can I meet you there in ten? Are your friends there?”

Friends? Colleagues, more like it. “Not yet. But they will be soon.”

“I’m on my way.” David disappeared, and Sylvia went over to the bar to order them both a drink.

Five minutes later she was sipping her mineral water in a daze when he came barging in, all bluster and no class. David Baron was an imposing presence in any environment, but here at the Pegasus restaurant he looked more like a bull in the proverbial china shop. His shirt was crumpled and he hadn’t shaved for at least two days. He glugged his Coke down and wiped his lips. “Thanks.”

She took his hand; it was clammy and unpleasant to touch. “What happened? What’s the matter?”

“It seems I’m under investigation.”

“For what?”

“Anti-social activities, which is a fucking joke because my activities are nothing if not social. Aren’t they?”

Sylvia nodded. Her husband, the famous engineer, was an environmentalist or, as the movement’s detractors mockingly labelled them, a ‘mental. His passion for the environment had landed him in hot water before, and it seemed it’d happened again. Such idealism did not sit well with the Chinese who were, after all, David’s employers.

The environmental movement, which had seemed so benign in earlier times, had been radicalised by the unending planet-wide catastrophe that humans referred to as the twenty-first century. Too many people, depleted resources, too little food and water. Billions of hungry mouths swarming the planet for sustenance, for room, for light. To Sylvia this was the mystery of existence: that out of nothing should come something, an individual life. People did not ask to be born into the world, but once fully conscious of their plight they would fight bitterly to preserve that existence. And why shouldn’t they? The matter was worsened when those individuals produced their own offspring, for of course the parents would fight to preserve their children’s lives too. Thus the cycle was perpetuated. These days it was a moral imperative to decline to procreate, but it was an imperative that too few felt with sufficient conviction before it was too late. Although Sylvia had long since reconciled herself to the fact that she and David would never have a child together – he’d had himself neutered shortly after his eighteenth birthday – she wondered whether this attitude was the right one. Wasn’t any life, no matter how desperate, better than none at all?

Naturally, stemming the flow of new births wasn’t enough to salve the ailing planet’s wounds. The time had, in David’s view, come for more drastic measures to be taken in the name of population control. He spoke long and passionately of the need for people to become conscientious objectors to life itself. In certain circles, suicide had become the ultimate form of piety. Suicides were lauded as heroes.

It seemed to Sylvia that it was a small step from denying your body its procreative ability, through denying your body its ongoing existence through suicide, to denying the lives of others who could not or would not make the required sacrifice. This was where environmentalism had tended to dovetail with another ‘ism’ in recent times: terrorism. Thus the ‘mentals were born.

“Is there anything I can do?” Sylvia asked. “At all?”

He looked at her, drumming his fingers on the table. “Guess not.”

“Did they pull you out of a meeting?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“You haven’t done anything, David?”

“No.” He got to his feet. “Nothing yet.”

“Where are you going? You’ve only just arrived.”

“I need to get back to work,” he said, half pacing around the table.

“I think you should take the afternoon off. It looks like you need a rest.”

“I don’t have time to rest,” he said, much too loud. People were looking at them.

“What time do you think you’ll be home?”

“Eight, maybe. Could be nine.”

“Can’t you make it any earlier? What is it that’s so important?”

“Everything about my work is important, Sylvia. You know that. See you later.” And he was gone, without even a backward glance.

8. Yang Po

After the tour of the reactor, of which Jiang Wei would later recall little except for the pretty Australian tour-guide, they were sent back to the barracks for lunch. Everything was new, every surface clean and bright. The seats on the bus even smelled new. But Wei was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes from closing, and he spooned the food into his mouth without registering what it was that he was supposed to be eating.

“You all right, Jiang Wei?” He looked up. It was Kun Meng.

“I’m exhausted,” he replied. “What about you?”

Kun Meng sat down in the empty seat next to him. “Hah! I’m too scared to be tired. Those reactors give me the fear. I don’t want to go anywhere near them!”

Wei hunched over his bowl. “I think they’re pretty safe,” he said. The facility had been immaculate. Wei had been hypnotised by the shining displays and gleaming instrument panels.

“I guess you’re right. But what if there’s a war? Boom! We’re all dead.”

“There isn’t going to be a war,” Wei said. “Not in this country.”

It wasn’t long before they were summoned again, this time to a long, carpeted room where they were invited to sit in rows before a raised podium. Wei had intended to sit next to Kun Meng, but he was directed to sit in a particular seat instead. The speaker was Chinese, and he was wearing a snappy suit in stark contrast to their own drab overalls. The speaker was past fifty, quite rotund, and his skin looked like it was slowly falling from his face, particularly in the jowl area. His glasses were precariously perched on the ample bridge of his nose.

“Welcome to Yellowcake Springs,” the man said when they had taken their seats. “My name is Yang Po and I am the overseer of this facility. The first thing you will learn about me is that I am not one for speeches, so I’ll keep this brief. But I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I am more than just your boss here. I am your parent. I will feed, bathe, clothe and shelter you, and in return I will demand your obedience. If I ask you to follow an instruction, you will follow it instantly, without comment or delay. Those who cannot or will not comply will be sent home immediately. If there is a man here who would like to take this opportunity, he will be returned to his place of origin without cost to himself and without fear of further consequence. I will pause now to allow those intending to leave to do so.”

Nobody moved. It was even dangerous to fidget.

“Good. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone here for being selected to work at Yellowcake Springs. Some of you have demonstrated aptitude in complex problem solving, others in spatial awareness, and all of you possess high general intelligence. These attributes are in great demand here. I will now distribute a sealed envelope to each of you. This paper will inform you of the job that has been assigned to you.”

Then they were like schoolboys again, jostling and clamouring for their slips. Functionaries distributed the printed envelopes, and somebody passed him one marked JIANG, W. He could hear other men calling out the jobs they had been given. They were to be technicians, security officers, even chefs.

Wei’s paper had four words printed on it: CONTROLLED WAKING STATE TRIAL.

Yang Po gave them a few moments to absorb the news before he spoke again. But it did not escape Wei’s attention that Po’s eyes were glued to Wei and a small man with a restless demeanour. The man was tapping on the table relentlessly, though not loud enough for anyone but Wei to hear.

“You will now move from here to separate rooms to be briefed on the nature of your duties. It is my aim to speak to each one of you individually within the next twenty-four hours. Until then, listen carefully to each word you are told.” With that, Yang Po stepped down from the podium and left the room.

“You have this too?” the man alongside him asked.

Wei nodded.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but I can guess.”

“I’m Jun Shan, by the way.”

“Jiang Wei.”

Everyone was leaving the room, but no one had called for the two of them. Had they been forgotten? When the last of the other men had left, Wei wondered briefly whether it was all a mistake. He got to his feet and made uncertainly for the door. But no, someone was coming.

It was Yang Po.

“Please sit down,” he said.

Wei sat, remembering the need to obey without question. Yang Po drew up a chair and subsided heavily beside them. His face was beaded with sweat despite the air conditioners. “You’re wondering what ‘Controlled Waking State’ means, correct?”

The two of them nodded in unison, like puppets.

“Well, it doesn’t exist yet. Therefore it is a trial.”

“Am I permitted to speak?” Jun Shan asked.

“You are free to speak your minds now. Don’t let my lecture frighten you. It is merely a formality.”

“Thank you,” Jun Shan said. “Can I ask what distinguishes the two of us from the others? I mean, I had no idea...”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Yang Po said. “It seems that you both have displayed a particular aptitude for the kinds of tasks associated with perception and awareness. I am assured that these qualities single you out for the trialling of a new kind of perceptive environment.”

“Controlled Waking State?” Wei said.

“Yes. Of course you are familiar with Controlled Dreaming State, but this is a new technology entirely. I wanted to speak to you personally in order to convey my congratulations and also my deepest respect. Truly, I am honoured.”

Wei was perplexed. “No, the honour is ours,” he said. “I presume we will be fully briefed on the nature of the task before us?”

“You will. In fact your supervisor is waiting for you as we speak. I wanted merely to express to you my...my admiration, Jiang Wei and Jun Shan. You will be the cartographers of your time. In the future, men will follow in the footsteps you tread and the paths you create.”

Now neither of them knew what to say. Jun Shan’s mouth hung open. He did not seem to be aware of this.

“So we are done,” Yang Po said, rising. “But I want you to know that any time you have a problem, even the slightest issue, you are to come directly to me. Is that understood?”

It was. Yang Po proffered his sweaty hand for them to shake, which they did, and after that they were ushered out of the hall, toward an uncertain fate.

9. The Chimera Lounge

For once, Peters didn’t waste Sylvia’s time with pleasantries. “It’s about your husband,” he said in a neutral, even disarming tone. “It seems he’s in some kind of trouble.”

“I’ve only just heard myself,” Sylvia said, sitting down. “Do you know what it’s about?”

Peters shrugged. He seemed to drink coffee all day; she counted no fewer than six empty cups on his desk. Was he going to offer her a drink? It seemed not. “Just that it’s related to his environmental associations. I’ve been asked – no – I’ve been instructed to discuss the matter with you personally. To quiz you, if you will.”

“I don’t know a thing about it,” Sylvia said truthfully. “Could it be about that speech he gave about the new aquaculture project the other week?”

“I doubt our employers would concern themselves with that,” Peters said. “No, from the tone used – and here I am speculating – I believe it to be of far greater importance than fish farms. Do you think David might be involved in any kind of activism at all?”

“Activism? He’s active in a number of organisations. But he’s an engineer. Environmental issues are tied in with that. He’s always talking about how his work and the environment are one.” That was, he used to talk about that, before she made it clear that she never wanted to hear another word about it.

“I understand.” Peters’ chair squeaked as he leaned back. He pursed his lips. “But I still can’t fathom Sinocorp’s sudden interest. I shall inform the higher ups that you have no new information for them. All right?”

“All right.”

“Very well,” Peters said, tapping at his touch-pad. The view screen popped up and he made no attempt to hide its contents from her. David’s employee file was on the screen. Peters wrote a few words and then pushed the touch-pad away. “Now, I trust the tour went smoothly?”

“They were too tired to pay attention. They’d only just arrived. You’d think they’d be allowed to get some sleep first.”

“And that,” Peters said, “is the nature of our employer. To a tee.”

The meeting wound up and the rest of the workday passed without incident. Sylvia made the most of the opportunity to slack off while pretending to work on ‘Welcome to Yellowcake Springs!’ She could fiddle with the dialogue indefinitely, and no one could say that she wasn’t working. This necessitated more dream work, more hours in CDS. These were the best times: one project virtually finished, the next not yet started. And there was no way of anyone telling exactly what she was doing anyway. She could cavort around in the virtual plane to her heart’s content. By the time she was ready to declare her work completed, it was ten to five.

“Don’t you get tired of that?” Tiffany asked as they made their way down the stairs, past Peters’ office. His door, for once, was closed. Sylvia couldn’t remember seeing the name plate on his door before.

“Tired of what?”

“Dreaming all day. I hear it wears out the synapses.”

“That would explain a few things,” Sylvia said, rubbing her head. She had a headache, but a drink would fix that.

“Doing anything this evening?” Tiffany asked as they stepped out onto the bustling walkway. The crowd was all moving in the same direction, toward the bus station.

“Doubt it. You?”

Tiffany smiled. “I’ve got some reading to catch up on.” They shuffled toward the depot and through the scanners. “Hey, I wanted to ask you about David.”

“Oh?”

“I hear he’s being investigated.”

“Word gets around quickly, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“I hope so,” Sylvia said. But Tiffany had stepped onto her bus already, leaving Sylvia alone in the throng.

By the time she arrived home, Sylvia had forgotten all about David and his problems. This was her gift: to forget.

She sat at the kitchen counter, wondering what to do with herself. She didn’t feel like a shower just yet, and the packet food she’d made was bland to the point where she wondered if it was real beef at all. She forced herself to swallow it. Then, for a while, she half-heartedly watched the news in the lounge on the 3V, but it was all riots, food shortages and bombings, and always far enough away to be of no direct relevance to her. Sylvia had no time for world events, no interest in celebrity gossip, no appreciation for music. Hell, she didn’t even have any close friends. And that’s a direct result of the time you spend in CDS, she told herself primly. Why, then, did she feel the need to turn the 3V off and open the dream room door? Everything was tidy in there now.

There was a message for her on the CDS console:

6:00 PM in the Chimera Lounge. The sender column was blank.

Could it be Rion again? It was just after five-thirty now, which gave her enough time for a shower and maybe another glass of wine.

In her enthusiasm, she was ready to go under by 5.45. Perhaps she should do something else for a few minutes? There were plenty of unread books on her reader, but the thought of staring at lines of text didn’t appeal.

What the hell, she thought. By 5.50 she was stepping through the threshold of the Chimera Lounge into a world of glamour. She’d forgotten to alter her profile from last night, and as such she was still decked out in the lacy red dress, with black stilettos and pearl earrings. Her hair was done the way she’d wanted for her wedding. Sylvia always got a thrill from strutting up to the bar, her appearance certain to turn a few heads, even if they were all bots. A couple looked interesting enough.

“I’ll have a cosmopolitan,” she said to the barman, who went to work mixing her drink. When he was done – it only took a moment; there could be no slip or mishap here – she took the frosted glass in both hands and found a table in view of the door. Sylvia turned on her avatar at five to six. Rion had been tall, with a roughly hewn look about him, but then appearances were ever changing here. Tonight she might not recognise him.

But the man who sat down across from her, right on the stroke of six, couldn’t be Rion. He was a touch shorter, more slender, and more refined. He was wearing an expensive suit, giving him the appearance of a merchant banker or something similar. Not really her type.

“Sylvia Baron?” he asked.

“That’s what it says.” She turned the avatar off and took another sip. “And you are?”

“Christopher Roland,” the man said. “Call me Chris.”

“Okay Chris, what can I do for you? I’m assuming it was you who left me the message.”

“I’ll just get myself a drink.”

“You do that. You weren’t calling yourself Rion the other night, were you?”

A look of genuine surprise crossed the man’s face. It was the first real emotion she’d seen so far tonight. He was definitely human. “No. Who’s Rion?”

“Never mind.”

Chris crossed the floor to order his drink, returning promptly with a glass of beer.

“You can have anything and you drink beer,” she observed. “I guess you’re not the adventurous type?”

“Look,” he said. “I’m not here to flirt. This is important.”

“What’s so important that it needs to interrupt my evening?” Sylvia asked, finishing her drink.

“I need to talk to you.”

“We’re talking. I’ve no idea why.”

His brow creased in a way that made him look like a beetle. And he was a fidgeter. “Have you ever heard of Misanthropos?” he asked.

“Is it one of the Greek islands?”

“No, it’s not an island. Misanthropos is an organisation. A covert organisation. Right now you need to listen carefully, Sylvia. I know where you live. And trust me, Misanthropos is going to have an impact on your town in the near future.”

“My town?” Sylvia said. “And what town would that be?”

He looked directly at her. “Do I really need to say? Yellowcake Springs. You work for CIQ Sinocorp…”

“ So does everyone here.”

“…and you’ve been working on a ‘vert for the town. You finished it today.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“We know everything there is to know about you.”

“Misanthropos,” she said. “As in ‘misanthropic’?”

“Clever girl.”

“And what does your organisation do?”

“It’s not a question of what Misanthropos does, or has done, but what it will do. I’m here to warn you.”

“Warn me then.”

“You need to get out of Yellowcake Springs. You’re in danger.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with my husband, would it?”

“It wouldn’t,” Chris said. “I think we’re done here. Consider what I’ve said.” He finished his beer and got to his feet.

“Wait,” she said. “Misanthropos, what does it stand for?”

Chris sat down again and stared directly at her in a way she found unnerving. “Our species is a boil on this planet and it must be lanced.”

“It’ll happen soon enough anyway, won’t it? When the ecosystems collapse?”

“Perhaps, but we’re not leaving anything to chance.”

“So what have you got in mind? Killer virus?”

Chris laughed. “No. It wouldn’t be right to produce such a virus, as the rich would likely be insulated. We won’t consider any course of action that would harm the poor more than it’d harm the rich. Our actions will be...democratic.”

“So why the warning? Why me personally? There’s nothing democratic about that.”

“Look, just leave,” he said. And then he followed his own advice.

Try as she might, Sylvia couldn’t forget this, at least not right away. Misanthropos. Had she heard the name before, after all? She wasn’t sure. But there was no way in hell some asshole was going to frighten her into leaving her job, not when she’d finally settled in Yellowcake Springs.

She was just heading back to her table, second cocktail of the evening in hand, when she heard her name being called. This time it was Rion. He was drinking whisky, not beer.

“Did you see that guy go out?” she asked him. “In a suit?”

“Half of the guys here are in suits,” Rion pointed out, placing himself precisely where Chris had been sitting moments before. He was underdressed in comparison with almost everyone here, in a black shirt and jeans. “Did he upset you?” he asked.

“Have you ever heard of Misanthropos?”

“Miss who?”

“Guess not.” She stirred her drink with the straw.

“I’d like to come and see you.”

“This again? Rion, we’ve only just met. How do I know I can trust you?”

“Tell me how I can win your trust. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well,” she said, leaning in toward him. “I don’t disclose personal information to anyone I meet in the Chimera Lounge. But maybe if we spent a little more time together?”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“Let’s find a room,” Sylvia said, leaving her cocktail and getting to her feet. She led him toward the lift.

“Okay, but I haven’t got much time,” Rion said.

10. Ambush!

Rion stood with his fellow militiamen in the dim dawn light. Gillam had chosen a site a few kilometres out of town for the ambush, beneath an old highway overpass, its concrete bulwarks standing stubbornly against the long years. Here the track cut through the hillside, steep escarpments rising on either side. The curve of the track was such that the train driver would not see the obstacles until it was much too late to react. The obstacles were a broken-down truck and, two hundred metres further around the bend, for the coup de grâce, an elderly backhoe that had been rusting peacefully in a nearby paddock. Getting it down into the railway cutting had been a feat in itself, but now that it was done, even Rion felt some enthusiasm for what was about to happen.

It was just after seven when Gillam gave the signal. Rion moved into position, crouching behind a concrete pillar under the bridge. He had no weapon and no intention of participating in the violence himself, but nor was he under any illusion as to what might be expected of him in these next few minutes. He couldn’t allow himself to be placed in the position of having to bludgeon anyone. Not again. He would hang back.

Then Rion heard the distant train whistle and felt a slight trembling in the earth. He closed his eyes. There would be shooting, in all probability on both sides. This would be a bad place to catch a bullet; no one would be carrying him back to town from here. Seconds passed. A boy with a grubby face and haunted eyes stood nearby, gripping a length of twisted metal in his white-knuckled hands.

The din built to a crescendo as the train approached the bend. It began braking ahead of the bridge, but it still thundered into the truck, flinging it aside as though with casual nonchalance. The train did not derail, nor looked to be in danger of doing so, but now it was moving so slowly that they might be able to clamber onto the carriages and make their assault like that. But the train kept braking, so that by the time it reached the backhoe it was travelling little faster than walking pace. There it came to a groaning, screeching halt.

The militiamen swarmed the train like ants to a stricken centipede. By the time the first shots rang out, it was already too late for those inside. Rion ducked down next to the train while those with guns made their way forward. It became difficult for Rion to distinguish between the cries of the attackers and those of the terrorised within, and so he thought instead of his albums and the various happy moments they depicted. In them, Rion thought he saw a way out of the unfolding predicament.

Here someone – a young boy – lay shot in the shadow cast by the train. It was the boy Rion had seen a moment before. The boy was not dead; his chest rose and fell, but not for much longer. These would be his final moments. A twitching hand made the slightest of impressions on the gravel. The front of the boy’s shirt was plastered with blood, but at this moment his greatest discomfort was that his leg was twisted beneath him. Rion said something, some soothing words, and helped the boy up into a sitting position against the train. The boy’s head flopped back; his eyes glazed. Rion felt the obscure urge to chastise him, to scold him for his foolish bravado, but no words came. Whatever was happening in that small skull was happening for the last time.

The boy was quiet now. You could say he was at rest, in the sense that a rock is at rest as it lies on the ground. Rion laid the body out on the sand, surprised by its weight.

There were more corpses further along, but Rion felt so disturbed that he simply couldn’t look for fear that his own wretched body might suddenly burst. He needed a distraction to quell the something rising inside. Perhaps it was an urge to commit a violent act. All these years he had shielded himself from the corrupting forces around him: the will to squabble, the will to struggle, the will to slay. And now he was trembling.

There was a pistol lying in the sand, the internal and external worlds having briefly coalesced. Would he pick it up and clasp the machinery of death in the palm of his hand? He would. It was still warm from whoever had recently held it. And it felt good.

The shooting was over, the battle won. Rion had not been required to do anything, but at least he’d had the wherewithal to tuck the pistol away before someone took it from him. Now he would have to hope that the others had not witnessed his craven skulking.

There was much more than they could hope to carry, so much more that Gillam and his advisors considered the possibility of piloting the train themselves, but the controls proved too difficult for them to master. If they had imagined the carriages to be stocked with food, medical supplies or weapons, they were to be disappointed. The train was full of equipment they had no hope of using without a reliable source of electricity. By the time they had ascertained that the boxes really did contain microwaves and fridges and computers, the sun was high. The folly of the situation was not lost on Rion, but Gillam’s agitation was such that he saw fit to busy himself in examining the boxes in the hope of finding something useful.

It was hot and musty in the carriages, and there wasn’t much room to move. Rion was about to give up when, in small, unmarked boxes held together with plastic wrapping, he found dozens if not hundreds of packets of batteries of a kind that looked very familiar indeed.

11. The Doors of Perception

Wei lifted his head, dimly aware that nothing he saw before him was real. Something needed to be tweaked or reconfigured, for it was like looking through glasses you didn’t need. It was giving him a headache, so he closed his eyes and leaned back against the concrete wall.

“What can you see?” the voice inside him said.

“I’m in a room,” Wei said, his voice resonating oddly. “There’s some kind of distortion.”

“Is the distortion horizontal or vertical?”

Wei opened his eyes. The room was swaying. “Horizontal,” he said, closing his eyes again.

“Easy fix,” the voice said. “There, is that better?”

Wei opened his eyes. The distortion was gone. He was in a small room with absolutely nothing in it except for a light fixture, a table and a single chair. This was the room he’d been in before he’d donned the Controlled Waking State helmet, except that the rows of consoles and equipment seemed to be missing. “That’s much better,” he said.

“Excellent. You’ll notice that this is the same room with a few small alterations. Can you tell me what they are?”

Wei explained that the consoles were missing, and that he could not feel the helmet he knew he was wearing.

“Good, but there’s something else.”

Wei cast his eyes around, but there was nothing else to fix his gaze on. The walls were blank. That was it. “No door,” he said.

“Correct. There’s no window either. So how are you going to get out?”

Good question. There were no tools and nothing to wield. Nothing under the table or hidden in the seat of the chair. Wei started to feel claustrophobic, as he often did in lifts. His palms were sweating.

“Don’t stress, Jiang Wei. If you find yourself in an intolerable situation, such as when you encounter a bug or glitch, you can always get out of Controlled Waking State by saying this sequence of words aloud: ‘Disconnect 341 dash 1.’ Try it now.”

“Disconnect 341 dash 1,” Wei said. He blinked and became aware of the apparatus on his head. The rows of equipment were back in their places, and he himself was standing near the door. He touched the handle for reassurance.

“Where are you?” he asked out loud. “The person I was just speaking to?”

“I’m in another part of the facility,” the voice said. “Are you ready to recommence?”

“I am.”

There were no words to say this time, no segue between worlds. But the door had disappeared once again.

“Okay,” the voice said. “You’re in a room without a door or window. If not for the disconnect code, you would be completely trapped here. Agreed?”

The walls felt solid, impassable. “I suppose so.”

“But the door is still there, isn’t it? Do you remember where the handle is?”

Wei went over to the spot where he thought the door was and groped around. Nothing.

“A little to your left. Reach out with your left hand, a little lower.”

He grasped it.

“Now, does the door open inward or outward?”

“Ah, outward?”

“Inward. So you’ll need to take a step back, or you’ll bang yourself with the door.”

Wei did as instructed and opened the door.

“Good. The first thing you must learn is that objects in the real world are still there. You’re not in a fantasy world, just a controlled perceptive environment. Do you understand?”

“I think so. But why make the door invisible?”

“It’s just for the purpose of this demonstration. I can make it appear again.” The door returned. “So the first lesson is that objects can be hidden from view. Take the room in front of you, for example. What can you see?”

An empty void. “Nothing,” Wei said.

“That’s right, but the room is still there, isn’t it? It is just hidden from you. You’re standing in a corridor. There are no obstacles in your path, so you can take five small steps forward.”

Wei stepped into nothingness. The door clicked shut behind him, even though he had not closed it. “There’s no light,” Wei said.

“Calm yourself. It’s time for the second lesson.”

Suddenly a brilliant object appeared in the void. It was a miniature sun, no larger than a tennis ball. The sun lit up the corridor with its steady light. There were various doors branching off. “The second lesson is that objects can be made to appear. You know intellectually that the sun is not there, but your senses tell you otherwise. Feel the heat on your cheek, for example.”

It was true. The sun was warming him.

“Now pick up the sun.”

Wei reached out, felt the stinging heat on his exposed arm. He recoiled. “Ow! It’s too hot!”

“It’s the sun. Of course it’s hot. This is the second part of the second lesson: objects made to appear are not just visual illusions, they are complete sensory experiences. The Controlled Waking State user has no experiential way of proving or disproving the existence of an object. Now open the third door on your left and close the door behind you.”

Wei made his way along the corridor, hugging the wall so as to avoid the heat of the tiny sun. His fingers burned; he needed to run his hand under cold water. As he passed, he felt heat on the back of his neck. He opened the third door along and went through into a brightly lit room. It appeared to be a restaurant dining room, except that there was only one table set out. The rest of the large space was empty.

“You want me to sit down?”

“Please.”

There was an embroidered tablecloth on the table, as well as one place laid out with plates, cutlery and an empty wine glass.

“Let’s recap what we’ve learned thus far,” the voice said. “First, objects that are present in the real world can be occluded from view, but can still be manipulated, or bumped into. Second, objects that are not present can be simulated, and the user will have no way of exposing the object’s unreality, other than by logical deduction. How’s your hand?”

The pain had gone. “It feels better.”

“Good. The sun was not real, so you shouldn’t have felt pain, but you did. The pain lingered until such a time that it was removed, without you immediately noticing. Is this correct?”

It was. “You can make me feel anything?”

“Your entire sensory experience is being controlled, so yes.”

“What about my thoughts? Can you read my mind?”

“Your brain activity is being monitored or, if you will, read. To a limited extent, your thoughts can be influenced more directly, but this area is still experimental. For now, our trial has focused primarily on the sensory areas of the brain. This brings us to our third and final lesson for today. Consider the feast before you.”

A banquet had been laid out without him noticing. There was a sliced roast beef, red potatoes, gleaming vegetables, and an open bottle of wine. His glass was half full.

“Now, there are a number of possibilities,” the voice said. “The first is that the food was there all along and it was being hidden from you. In this scenario, the feast exists in the real world exactly as you see before you. Try the wine.”

Wei picked up the glass and took a sip. It was a velvety red. “Not bad.”

“Can you tell me what the second possibility is?”

“Yes,” Wei said. “The food might not be real. The entire sensory experience might be being simulated.” Without being invited, he took the opportunity to take a slice of beef. He put the slice on his plate, cut it with the knife and fork, and took a bite. It tasted delicious.

“So you agree that you have no way of knowing whether you are eating this roast beef? Logical deduction is no use here either, for the food could exist.”

“That’s right,” Wei said, stuffing food into his mouth. There was some gravy and he wanted to try the roast potatoes. “No way to be sure.”

“There is a third possibility,” the voice said. “You’ve forgotten about our final lesson.”

Wei stopped eating. “Yes?”

“How do you know that that’s beef? If we can conceal an object that does exist, or simulate an object that does not exist, then we can give an existing object the appearance of a non-existing object. Do you follow this line of reasoning?”

“Not exactly.” He reached for the dish of potatoes again.

“To put it another way, how can you be sure that the roast beef before you is not, for example, a roast newborn baby?”

Wei put the fork down. “Logical deduction.”

“A reasonable assumption. But the point is you have no way of knowing. It might be an infant child, and we might be forcing you to eat it as a way of proving that we can make you do anything at all while in Controlled Waking State.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“But you don’t believe that. Could you believe, then, that the food is not roast beef, but in fact pig offal not meant for human consumption?”

“Disconnect 341 dash 1,” Wei said.

12. The Receptacle

David seemed to be fighting or grappling with something in his dreams, for his taut body was thrashing all around the bed, making a tangled mess of the sheets. He was a big man with a powerful grip, but his foe seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Sylvia considered waking him, but instead retreated into the kitchen and took the steps required to raise her tired mind to consciousness. This necessitated coffee, a bagel, and then more coffee. Before she knew it, Sylvia was running late for work.

Too often these days she found herself slumbering and struggling her way through life. On an ordinary day, it took all her energy just to get dressed and make it to the bus terminal on time. People were always noting how tired she looked. Perhaps it was a consequence of too much CDS, or maybe just that she was getting older. She couldn’t attribute it to job stress. She nodded in the direction of the receptionist at the Receptacle’s foyer and made her way upstairs. It was shortly after nine, which made it time for another coffee. Apparently there was a meeting at ten. All staff. Retreating into her cubicle, Sylvia imagined herself as a small, burrowing animal, working her way downward into the earth.

Her sanctuary, then: her cluttered desk. Once, Sylvia had had a perfectly neat and ordered desk. Everything was stacked and filed away. She would wipe the desk at least once a week, just to revel in a sense of order. But then a colleague informed her that an immaculate desk only proved that she wasn’t a hard worker, for look how messy the desks of her more earnest workmates were. After that she had taken to strategically leaving papers of an apparently urgent nature across the desk, and sloppily stacking files in the corner. Soon her desk screamed ‘hard worker!’ instead of ‘work harder!’ But then, as the months – and if she’d care to admit it, years – passed, her appreciation for order crumbled. What did it matter? She uttered these fours words as her mantra. The illusion of disorder was replaced, over the course of time, with genuine disorder. Now Sylvia couldn’t find anything and she spent hours looking for things she had mislaid.

“Sylvia, are you all right?” Sylvia looked up. It was Tiffany. She looked well rested, a bottle of mineral water in her hand.

“Just tired,” she sighed. “What are you up to?”

Tiffany took this as an invitation to sit down. “This and that. We’ve got a meeting soon anyway.”

“Any idea what it’s about?”

“No, I haven’t seen Peters around yet. I think he’s married to his desk.”

“Do you think it’s about...the ‘vert?” She meant to say, ‘about David,’ but held back.

“Could be. I thought it came out fine. Didn’t you?”

“Sure.” Their conversation petered out.

“You look tired, Sylvia. Are you getting much sleep?”

“It never seems like enough. I’m just...” She struggled to describe it. “I’m stretched.”

“I think you’re worried about David,” Tiffany said. “Have you talked to him about the investigation?”

So it was gossip she wanted, under the guise of concern for Sylvia’s well-being. “He didn’t get home until late,” Sylvia said. “So no, I haven’t. But I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Right.” And there their conversation ended.

Tiffany scuttled back to her own desk, leaving Sylvia to ponder. In actual fact, she had tried to discuss the matter with David last night, when he’d finally arrived home after ten, but he’d been evasive. She hadn’t pushed him.

Then there was the Rion problem. Why the hell did he want to meet her, and what had possessed her to tell him where she lived? Was it that she was tired, not just in the physical sense, but tired of her own mundane life? As in all such online trysts that threatened to break out into the physical world, there was the problem of appearances. Sylvia still had a reasonable figure, but she was starting to get a little pudgy. There was only so much exercise you could do while strapped to a soft chair.

And then of course there was David. She’d already tested his patience with her virtual affairs – how would he take to a real one, especially in his strung-out state? It might push him to the edge. She’d wanted to ask him whether he’d heard of Misanthropos, but again she’d held back. So many questions, so few answers.

It was almost ten, and she hadn’t even made the vaguest gesture of having started work for the day. That wasn’t good enough and she was angry at herself. It was necessary to maintain an illusion of interest, of dynamism. She needed to cultivate – or at least simulate – a ‘can do’ attitude.

It was necessary to get up.

The conference room was almost full by the time she sat down near the back. The big screen was blank, the podium vacant. There were about two dozen people here, which constituted Yellowcake Springs’ entire advertising department. Sylvia could see Peters sitting in the front row, which meant he probably wouldn’t be speaking. One of the higher-ups must be paying a visit, then. This relieved her, for surely it couldn’t be about David. It wasn’t Sinocorp’s style to humiliate its employees publicly like that.

Now the lights dimmed and a vaguely familiar-looking Chinese man stepped onto the stage. Behind the black-rimmed glasses, behind the much discussed Mandarin inscrutability, lurked an air of...what? Was the man sneering at them? Or was his smile intended in good humour?

“My name is Yang Po,” he said. Murmurs from the assembled crowd. “I have been invited to speak to you today about a matter of great importance. A truly momentous matter, and one that I have no doubt will impact on the work you do for our company here in years to come.” He had the crowd’s attention now; the chatter had died down. “You are of course familiar with Controlled Dreaming State technology. Some of you use CDS in the course of your daily work, and many of you use it in your leisure time. I did not come here to tell you this. Now CIQ Sinocorp proposes to turn dreams into reality. The next wave of direct brain interface technology is known as Controlled Waking State, or CWS. And now, a demonstration.”

Another Chinese man, this one much younger, was ushered onto the stage. He was wearing clunky headgear that brought back memories of the old VR headsets. “This is Jun Shan,” Yang Po said. “He isn’t dreaming. He’s wide awake. But as far as he’s concerned, he’s quite alone. He doesn’t know you’re here. Now I invite you to see what Jun Shan sees, on the screen in front of you.”

Yang Po had Sylvia’s full attention now.

13. Way Out

The day was overcast, befitting his clouded mind, but there wasn’t a breath of wind outside. At nearly ten in the morning, Rion was still in a messy, stained bed in a dark, smelly room. It took an act of supreme defiance to get out of bed when he felt so low, but he’d best get moving if he was to leave this place forever, as was his intention.

Yesterday – the day of the attack – had been a better day than today was shaping up to be. The pistol he found, a Browning P35 Hi-Power in excellent condition, had four bullets left in the chamber. After indulging fantasies of walking straight up to Gillam and shooting him between the eyes, Rion had traded the pistol in at Lydia’s in exchange for hiking boots, a backpack, and enough canned food to last a week. He’d move swift and travel light, taking the path of least resistance. The goal was Sylvia Baron and the town of Yellowcake Springs.

He’d need to take the CDS console, though. It wasn’t particularly heavy, but it was bulky, taking up most of the room in the backpack. It also dug into his back when he walked. But he couldn’t leave it behind, so he wrapped it in a blanket and shoved it in the backpack with ten packets of batteries. He’d have to sleep rough, but then he supposed there would be plenty of abandoned houses along the way.

There was one more thing he needed to do before he left, and it was the reason for his depressed state. The albums. He’d already loaded them up into a shopping trolley the night before, but now his reluctance to be parted with them was a visceral thing.

But that was the only way out, he reasoned. His adopted family wouldn’t want him to come to harm; he’d return for them later, when the trouble died down. Lydia had promised to look after them for him, but he knew that that meant they’d sit mouldering in the corner of her shop until the old woman died, which might be sooner rather than later judging by the state of her health.

Rion picked up the album on the top of the pile, the one with the red cover. Opening it, he flicked through the pages of faces, each one familiar to him, each equally cherished. He was saying goodbye. Then, when he was finished, he flipped back to the front page of the album and the newspaper clipping of his mother. He slid it out of its plastic sleeve and tucked it carefully into a plastic zip-lock bag, which he put in the front flap of the backpack.

There was nothing left to do except take the albums to Lydia and be on his way. Pushing the trolley through town, he wondered if he’d ever see this place again.

“You’re here,” she said when he arrived at the power substation. “My, that’s quite a stash.”

“Years of work there,” he muttered. Lydia wheeled the trolley into her back room where she stored her most precious things. He felt kindly toward her for that.

“One last drink,” she said. “I’ve got something special for you. Vodka. It’s a cheap brand though. Ever tried it?”

“I don’t think so.”

The label was faded. Lydia must have been holding onto this for a long time. The bottle was still sealed. She unscrewed it and poured a splash into two plastic cups.

“Cheers,” she said, gulping the vodka down. She coughed. “It’s got something of a kick.”

Rion sniffed the vodka and tossed it back. His throat was on fire. “It’s horrid!” he said.

Lydia burst out laughing, her mouth a black hole. “You don’t drink it for the taste. Here, you take it.” She handed him the bottle and he stashed it in his pack.

They sat quietly for a while, neither knowing what to say.

“I knew your mother slightly,” Lydia finally said.

“I know. You’ve told me before.”

“I didn’t even know she had a son,” she said. “If I’d have known… ”

“It’s all right,” Rion said. “You’d have done something for me. But you’re doing something for me now.”

“Not much.”

“It’s all right,” he repeated. He was starting to feel light-headed from the vodka, and there was a pleasant fire inside him.

“Be careful out there, Rion. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

The sky was ashen as he made his way down the hill toward the old grain silos and the abandoned rail hub. Rion liked the tall, grey structure with its curved surfaces and small windows. It looked a little like a castle, and he imagined the windows would be a good place for a sniper to hide. He used to come here as a child. This had been a place of regional importance, where trucks loaded to the brim with grain had converged. Once, those silos would have been filled with grain. Now the processing facility was deserted, like almost everything in this sad, dying town.

It felt good to be moving. For so long now he’d done little but shuffle around the oldest, dirtiest parts of town, but now the brisk air would revive him. Rion did his best to empty his mind of thoughts as he made his way along a dusty access road. Another bridge, this one in poor condition, and he hit the main highway. He headed west in the direction of the coast and Sylvia Baron.

14. Controlled Dreaming State

It was Friday, the first of many Fridays to be spent in this country. Jiang Wei hadn’t seen his fiancée for more then four days now. Fridays would henceforth be his favourite day, the only day of the week where he was allowed, for a period of one hour, to be with his love. There were one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week, and only one of these would be worthwhile. He would exist for this hour.

“You’ve done something with your hair,” Wei said. “It looks nice.”

Lui Ping touched it carefully. It had been curled into tight ringlets and perhaps the colour was a shade lighter as well. “You like it?”

“You look beautiful.” He meant it. The two of them were in an expansive space together, far removed from their cramped Chongqing apartment or Wei’s equally cramped army-style bunk. They were sitting on a wooden bench in a sun-drenched field, but the sun did not sear them. Birds chirped in the trees above, and a gentle breeze flowed across them. There were mountains in the distance, a forest nearby. A sumptuous picnic lunch had been laid out on the table, but neither of them felt like eating just yet.

“Tell me everything,” Ping said. “I want to hear your voice again.” Though Wei did not like to admit it, her figure was fuller and her skin more lustrous than it could ever have been in real life. But who could blame her? He had made himself an inch taller and an inch broader too. And he’d fixed his teeth, something he’d never been able to afford to do in real life.

“I don’t want to waste our time,” he said.

“We’ve got plenty of time.”

But the hour would pass quickly; he felt sure of that. He told her of the journey and his unexpected assignment. To think he’d been signed up as a technician. Not wanting to worry her, he glossed over many of the more troublesome details of Controlled Waking State.

“I’m so happy,” Ping said when he’d finished. He’d wasted ten minutes.

She had news of her own; she was being transferred to a common room. Wei had known intellectually that, with him away, Ping would have to give up their apartment, but he hadn’t expected her to be evicted so quickly. He said something to this effect.

“I don’t care,” she said. “When you get back, we’ll be assigned a bigger apartment than ever before, for our baby. I feel sure…”

“It could be three years from now,” he said.

“I could wait thirty years for you.”

“Don’t say that. Listen, is there anywhere more...more private?”

She put her hand to her mouth. “There’s no one here. On the grass would be nice. I brought a blanket.”

The grass had been freshly cut, and they laid out the soft blanket beneath a sweet-smelling tree. Ping shed her clothes modestly, as though not having convinced herself that no one could see her nakedness. Then she lay down with her legs slightly splayed. Wei stepped carefully out of his own clothes and lay beside her. Her skin was warm. She was wet for him, so he lay on top of her and found his way inside. She moaned, spoke his name, and curled her legs around his. Wei forged ahead and soon he was whispering her name too, as well as a number of other things. Ping’s body trembled, building to its own crescendo. Her spasms pushed him onward to his own explosive conclusion. Then he clutched her like a drowning man to a bobbing buoy. In this way they lay together, in a state of rapturous rest.

It could not last long. Already the minutes were ebbing away, too slippery to grasp.

“What’s wrong?” Ping asked. “You’re sad.”

“I don’t want to be away from you,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Is there anything else you need to tell me? Something else has upset you. I know it has.” She stroked his hair.

“I’m scared,” he admitted.

“Of what?” She was propped up on her elbows now, her hair cascading down over her petite breasts. “Tell me, Wei. Tell me quickly.”

So he told her about Jun Shan. “He’s cracking up,” Wei explained. “He’s developing all sorts of nervous tics. He taps incessantly, he talks in his sleep, and he barely finishes one cigarette before he starts on the next. He thinks people are out to get him, and when he wakes up he doesn’t know where he is. I have to bunk with this guy. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

“Then report him. If he can’t handle it, he can be put on another work detail. Really, it’s your duty to report him. What did you say the supervisor’s name was?”

The rest of their time was spent in this way, with her drawing conclusions and him nodding in agreement. Yes, he would do as she said. But it was his own fault for bringing it up, so he kept his mouth clamped and let her talk. By the time Ping was finished, she had convinced Wei that Jun Shan was dangerous. For all he knew, Ping might get it into her head to report him herself.

The words TWO MINUTES flashed up in red. Wei swatted it down. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bother you with it.”

“I’m glad you did. Now I want you to arrange a meeting with this Yang Po as soon as possible. I’m counting on you. Remember, we won’t get that apartment if you can’t hold onto this job. And I want a baby before I’m thirty. Am I making myself clear?”

Yes, he nodded.

“Good. I love you, Jiang Wei.”

“I love you too.” The scene faded out, obliterating their embrace.

Wei slowly became aware that he had almost slid out of the chair, despite the restraints. His back was sore and his penis was sticky with semen. Waking from this was like emerging from a cocoon: first there was bodily awareness, followed by an awareness of that which bound you. Then there was the veil, which hid the fact that you were in a dark, stuffy booth. There was the unclipping and unfolding of buckles and the skull cap. Finally disconnecting the crotch attachment, which he was now required to wash. Only then was Wei free. He needed a shower.

They were on a strict roster, which meant that as blearily-eyed men stumbled out from the booths, the next round was impatiently waiting to get in. Perhaps by coincidence, but perhaps not, Jun Shan was scheduled to use Wei’s booth next.

“How was she?” Shan grinned.

“None of your business. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

Shan scowled. “Who said I had one?”

“I’m sorry.” Wei tried to move along, but Shan wouldn’t let him past.

“It’s better this way,” Shan said. “This way I can be with anyone I like. And I don’t need to talk about it after. Am I right?”

Wei shouldered past the smaller man in the direction of the showers.

15. David

By Saturday morning Sylvia was in a terrible state. David had not been home since the previous morning and she’d received no word from him. Had he been arrested? Or had he, after working extremely late, simply fallen asleep at his desk? The night had been agony – sleepless and fraught with worry. She remembered the anxious messages she’d left both at the office and on his personal phone. But then, toward morning, she must have finally slept, for now it was after nine and there was still no David.

As it was Saturday, there’d be no one at his office, so she’d have to go down there herself. In her haste she made a mess of breakfast, spilling milk everywhere. Slapping the mop across the kitchen floor, Sylvia only succeeded in making the problem worse. She walked away from it. The apartment was a shambles, but it’d wait.

How long had it been since Sylvia had been to her husband’s office? Months. But she still knew where it was, on the corner of Drassen and Cambria in the heart of the Amber Zone. Outside, the sun was shining, people making their way to and fro. The bus was almost empty. Just a couple of elderly women going to the Red Zone for a tour. No driver of course; the buses in Yellowcake Springs were all automated. The novelty of that had long since worn off.

This was the bus she took five days a week, and today made it six, but it was different without the other workers around. The bus felt lifeless. She had not previously noticed how small it was. Somehow, the dozens who normally sat here made it seem larger. And it was ugly: squat, square and grey. She avoided making eye contact with the old timers, flipping down her eye-gear instead. She watched a music video to pass the time, a glitzy blaze of exploding colours.

Then, without warning, there was a face hovering over her. A transit guard. Sylvia paused the vid and flipped up the eye-gear. The bus had stopped.

“Arms out,” the guard, a woman with a serpent tattoo on her arm, said. Sylvia did as instructed and the guard ran the scanner over her. Green.

“Something happened?” Sylvia asked.

“Just a precaution,” the guard said, moving down the aisle. The old ladies weren’t about to blow up either and soon they were on their way again. The guard stepped off at the next stop.

Then Sylvia did make eye contact with the old ladies and, sure enough, she was invited to sit down for a chat.

“Treating us like criminals,” one of the women said. She had bright red hair and piercings all over her face. “It’s not right. And they don’t even say please and thank you.”

The other woman agreed. “I paid a lot of money to get in here. It’s supposed to be an exclusive place.”

“I guess it’s because of the reactor,” Sylvia said.

“They could at least be polite about it,” the first woman said. This was Sylvia’s stop, so she said goodbye and stepped down from the bus.

David’s building, the Scimitar, was an imposing looking building, all acute angles and jarring lines. He’d had a hand in designing it, in actual fact. In better times.

The reception was darkened, as she knew it would be. Sylvia had level two access to the Scimitar, which would get her into the building and David’s office on the third floor. The tinted doors closed behind her. The air-con was off, which made the building smell musty. There was something alluring about empty office buildings; it gave her an illicit thrill. Normally she’d linger down here for a while, maybe help herself to some coffee, but not today. She went straight over to the lift.

There was no one on the third floor either. In fact there did not appear to be anyone in the entire building. This seemed unusual to her, even for the weekend. Worse, when she ran her pass card through the reader on David’s door, it flashed red. Had he changed the code? If so, then how come she could still get into the building? Was it possible that he was asleep inside? Maybe hurt? Sylvia knocked on the smooth wooden door, but there was nothing. A dead end.

Half wanting some sign of him, and half just not knowing what to do next, she wandered along the hall. None of the names on the doors were familiar to her, but that wasn’t surprising, as she’d made no effort to get to know David’s colleagues over the past two years. He’d said himself that they were a tepid lot.

At the end of the corridor, Sylvia found a door ajar. Eagerly, she stepped inside, but was soon disappointed. The office was completely empty. It wasn’t even carpeted. It was just a vacant space with a window looking over the street below. There was no name on the door. Then Sylvia had a fantasy, one of her all too frequent flights of fancy. What if all the offices were empty like this? The entire building – nothing but façade. But concealing what? Her husband not an engineer after all, but...here her imagination faltered.

It took a moment for her to realise that the pinging she heard was real. Startled, she opened the flip-top and David’s hologram unfurled before her. She had the irrational urge to hug it, but she knew from experience that this only caused distortion.

“David!” she said. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home.” He looked tired and was that a cut on his head?

“I’m at your office. I came looking for you. I left so many messages...”

“I know. They wouldn’t let me answer them.”

“They? David, what happened to your face?”

“It’s nothing. Have you seen anyone around?”

“No,” she said. “There’s no one here. And I can’t get into your office.”

His eyes widened. “What? Why not?”

“No idea. The card just won’t let me in.”

“Then it’s worse than I thought. Come home quickly.”

“Am I in danger?”

“Not you. Come home.”

The moment she walked through the door, Sylvia knew David had been drinking. The apartment reeked of bourbon. David was in the lounge room, clutching an empty glass in his oversized fist. The bottle was on the table. He had been drinking it straight.

Sylvia sat down next to him and prised the glass from his unresisting fingers. He was falling asleep. “David,” she said, speaking louder than she normally would. “You shouldn’t be drinking this early. Now tell me what happened. Where have you been?”

“Police station,” he muttered, his eyes closed. “Held overnight for questioning.”

“Have you slept?”

“Does it look like it?”

“Did the police hit you? Is that how you got that cut?” It wasn’t serious, but it would need cleaning.

He nodded. “Of course it was an ‘accident.’ Their word versus mine, and mine isn’t worth much right now.”

“What’s going on?” Her tone was pleading. She disliked it.

“Some water please.”

She got it for him. The kitchen floor was sticky and she couldn’t remember why. He took a sip. “I knew I was being investigated, but it’s more serious than I thought. That business with the pass card worries me. I wonder if mine will work now.”

“Go on.”

“So they took me in, asked all sorts of questions. Stupid questions mostly. What is the nature of my work? What are my spiritual beliefs? Stuff like that.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I told them what they wanted. Turns out what they really wanted to know was about the work I did for the Socialist Alliance. Apparently it establishes a ‘pattern of undesirable inquiry.’”

“Aren’t they socialists?”

“‘Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun’ is their motto. That’s not socialism.”

“So it’s not about your current work?”

“That too. They think I’m a radical element. They got that part right.”

“But they released you.”

“They did. But I’ll be under observation. This place will be tapped if it isn’t already.”

“So what do we do?”

“Sit tight.”

“David,” she said, not quite knowing how to proceed. “I wanted to ask you about something. The other day, in CDS, I got a message from a man called Chris Roland. He wanted to talk about something called Misanthropos. Have you heard of it?”

“Misanthropos,” he said in a flat voice. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. What did this Roland character want?”

“He warned me to leave Yellowcake Springs. He said it wasn’t safe.”

“Well, it isn’t. Maybe you should go stay with your parents for a while, until this dies down.”

“You could come too. We don’t have to stay with my parents. We could stay at a hotel. We’ve got the money.”

“No, I can’t leave,” David said, his voice distant. “It’d look suspicious. And besides, I’ve got to set the record straight.”

“Then I’m not leaving,” Sylvia said. “David?”

But David Baron had fallen asleep.

16. Life after People

By late on Sunday morning, Rion was having second thoughts. His feet were blistered, his mouth parched, and stomach growling. He’d had no altercations, no incidents of any note – but he’d underestimated how far it was to the coast. Right now, an impenetrable wall of bushland flanked the road on either side. It was an uninviting, alien landscape. If he’d undertaken this journey in summer, it’d have been a suicidal trek.

Yet the highway endured. It was in surprisingly good condition, and there was nothing in East Hills that could compare. Over the course of empty hours, Rion had had plenty of time to chew over these and other matters. He walked as though in a state of dreaming, his mind wandering aimlessly from one thing to another. He no longer saw the road before his eyes. Over time, a number of questions coalesced.

Firstly, why were there no people? A handful of small towns punctuated the landscape, spaced apart in such a way that he’d never fear of finding a roof to sleep under, even if four walls was sometimes too much to ask. But the word ‘desolate’ did not begin to describe their state. There was something restless about the dead towns. Someone else might have described them as haunted. He did not linger in them any longer than sleep dictated. His forays into the abandoned petrol stations and shops were invariably fruitless, having been long since picked over.

His second question, why has the road been maintained? And, as an adjunct, who has maintained it? Rion hadn’t seen a single moving vehicle, although hundreds of abandoned ones, rusted and often burned, could be found strewn along the side of the highway. Those in the towns were often in better condition.

Rion’s reverie was interrupted by a sound at first so faint that he thought of it as the background noise of his own mind, but as it grew louder he knew it to be real. It was a rumbling, a rolling noise. Something was coming up the road so, without further delay, he traipsed into the dense scrub and found himself a shaded spot from which to observe the road.

It was not one vehicle but a convoy of vehicles, and they weren’t cars. They were bigger, moved slower, and hadn’t much in the way of windows. They were a dirty grey-brown in colour and he counted eight of them. Rion consulted his sketchy book of knowledge to summon the correct word for these entities. Not tanks, for they had no gun turrets, but something similar. That was it – armoured personnel carriers. APCs. Which begged the question of why there were several APCs crawling along the highway in an easterly direction?

There could only be one reason:

Retribution.

He didn’t move until the sound of the convoy had diminished into the distance. It left, in its wake, a cavernous nothing. Rion stood for a while in the middle of the road, occupying the space through which the convoy had passed. Then he continued on, one foot in front of the other, increasing the distance between himself and his presumed enemies.

There was only the road, his thoughts, and his blistered feet.

At twilight he reached the outskirts of another settlement. Initially, it seemed to differ in no significant regard from the others, but as he approached the centre of town, where an ancient set of traffic lights without globes still stood, he saw signs of habitation. Rion spied a working porch light, of all things, and a washing line – with clothes on it! – on the far side of the fence. There were a number of cars parked in the driveway and on the verge, some of which looked like they might still be operable. Such a scene of domesticity should have warmed his heart, perhaps giving him a sense of humankind’s triumph over adversity. But inside he was blank. He wondered whether it’d be best to find an empty house at the far end of town.

But someone was watching – a face in the window. Rion trudged along, getting nearer and nearer to the front of the house. Should he cross to the other side of the road? It was a child with blonde hair, no more than five or six years old. The child had not yet moved or raised the alarm, if there was one to raise. Should he turn around? Too late – there was someone in the doorway. A man with a handgun, although it wasn’t yet pointed in Rion’s direction.

“Don’t come any closer,” the man instructed. Rion stopped where he was, ten or so metres from the front door. The man was wearing a singlet and shorts despite the cool weather. The child, who Rion could now tell was a girl, remained at the window. For a moment the three of them remained in their places, as though unsure of their forthcoming lines.

Then the man spoke again: “You alone?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I’m passing through.”

“Where’re you headed?”

“The coast. Place called Yellowcake Springs.”

Another pause. “I’m not afraid to shoot you. Just give me a reason. You armed?”

“No.”

“Only a crazy man or a liar walks down the street here without a gun,” the man said. “Which is it?”

“Crazy, I guess. I haven’t seen anyone between here and East Hills.”

The man nodded slowly, then spoke to the girl: “Eleanor, come away from the window. Go get your uncle.” The girl disappeared. “Now come a bit closer so I can see you. Arms out in front. I don’t want to see any sudden movements. I’m afraid I’m a mite trigger happy and I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, not unless they deserved to be.”

Rion walked forward slowly along the fence and then between two cars in the driveway.

“You can stop right there,” the man said, pointing to a clear spot. Insects were circling the naked light globe in decaying orbits. The man was hard looking and unshaven, but he seemed a little unsteady on his feet. “Didn’t see anyone between here and East Hills, huh? That’s odd, because I’m sure I saw the army go through here today. I guess you missed them.” Now the gun was levelled at him.

“I did see that,” Rion said. “I just mean I didn’t see any...residents.”

The man burst into laughter, clutching his stomach with his free hand. He stopped abruptly. “No residents,” he said. It didn’t seem to be a question. “Now why’d you think that’d be?”

“I don’t know,” Rion said. “It doesn’t look like there are many people around here either.”

“Oh? And what gives you that idea?”

Rion indicated helplessly around him, but it was a somewhat meaningless gesture in the failing light.

“Now where’s my manners?” the man said. “I didn’t introduce myself. Name’s Tim Kennedy. You’ve already met my daughter Eleanor.”

“I’m Rion. I’m from East Hills.”

“Okay,” Tim said. “Let’s suppose for a moment that I believe you. What happens now? Would you like to come in, stay the night maybe? Looks like you could do with some rest.”

“I can stay in one of the empty houses,” Rion said. “That’s what I normally do.”

“You like breaking into people’s houses and sleeping in them? Maybe the owners are on holiday. They might come home to find you sleeping in their bed. And that’s just not nice, is it Rion?”

Rion struggled to formulate a response to this, but then Tim started laughing again. The gun was waving around in his hand. “I got you there, didn’t I? Got you good. But you seem okay. It’s hard to know who’s a liar and who’s just plain crazy these days. But come in for a spell and we’ll have a drink. You got anything to eat?”

Rion allowed himself to be ushered through the door and into the lounge room. Tim’s breath smelled like liquor. The girl Eleanor was standing in the far corner, near the entrance to the kitchen. The house was in a poor state, little better than the dumps Rion had stayed in all his life. The couch was filthy and the carpet worse, but not wanting to offend his host, Rion sat down on the corner of the couch. The cans instantly jabbed into his spine – he’d forgotten he was still wearing the backpack. He must be tired. So he stood up again, slung his pack down on the floor next to him, and sat down.

“You definitely need a drink,” Tim said. “When was the last time you had a cold one?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ll drink whisky, won’t you? I’ve got some soda. And ice.” Tim disappeared into the kitchen.

“Thank you.” The candlelit room was flickering. Rion felt sleepy and he longed to take off his boots and rub his feet. There was danger, surely, but at this moment he couldn’t begin to imagine what to do about it.

Tim returned with two full glasses of whisky and soda with chunks of ice floating in them. He handed Rion a glass and sat on a hard stool across from him. The gun was nowhere to be seen. Rion took a sip – the drink was much nicer than the vodka. He said something to this effect.

“Yeah, we’ve got a fridge full of liquor and mixers, but not much to eat. And it’s not so good to drink like this on an empty stomach.”

“How come you’ve got a fridge?” Rion asked. “And the outside light?”

Tim smiled. “Generator. You can come in, Eleanor. He won’t bite. He’s too tired for that.” The girl came in and sat down on a cushion in the farthest corner of the room from Rion. She had some dolls over there with missing legs, and now she began to brush their hair with a toy hairbrush.

“Where’s her uncle?” Rion asked.

Tim looked momentarily confused. “That’s just a code. It means, ‘get out of the way, Ella, Daddy’s about to start shooting.’ No, it’s just her and me.”

“Where’s her mother?”

“Well, she can give you the answer to that herself. Where’s Mummy gone, Ella?”

Eleanor looked up from her dolls, her brow furrowed. “In the ground.” She went back to brushing.

“I’m sorry,” Rion said.

“Don’t be,” Tim said. “That was a perfectly reasonable question for a man to ask. But now I’ve got a question for you, my friend. I tried the subtle approach, but it seems you’re not so quick off the mark or maybe you’re just bone tired. So I’ll try again: have you got anything to eat?”

“Yes, a few cans. Sorry, I’m exhausted.” Rion started rummaging through the bag and brought out his four remaining cans. He put these on the card table in front of him.

Tim eyed them carefully. “Well, that’s great. Looks like we’re eating tonight, Ella. Our friend just paid his board for the night. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Tim gathered up the cans and took them into the kitchen. Rion heard the sounds of cans being opened. He drank his drink and waited.

17. Yellow Springs

Monday made it a week since Jiang Wei had left China, or rather it would be a week in a few more hours, at daybreak. Jiang Wei could scarcely believe that time could still pass when his heart was torn, when his mind was lost and wandering, but it could and it did. Had it been yesterday that he’d gone to Yang Po, or the day before? His only consolation was that Friday was always drawing closer, never moving away.

If not for that – for her – he’d have lost himself already. Wei could see it happening to Jun Shan, could hear it through the fevered nights they spent in their dorm. No longer fit to bunk with the other men, the two of them had been relegated to their own ten-man dorm at the far end of the hall. But soon, Yang Po had said, others would be joining them. Until then, there was always another test, another trial, another series of bewildering phenomena to grapple with, awake or sleep, by day or by night. Jun Shan moaned in his sleep and Wei could do nothing but listen, his body tense, his pulse racing.

What had Yang Po said? That he was monitoring the situation. He had thanked Wei for his diligence in reporting his concerns. The legion of observers could not but have noticed what Wei could see: that Jun Shan was falling into an abyss. They were watching him fall, making notes, taking his blood pressure and measuring the twitching of his eyes. In a few more days, Shan would not be able to tell up from down, black from white, and that would be the end of him.

When Wei did sleep, it was usually without dreaming. Controlled Waking State seemed to suck the dreaming juice out of his head – and he had a lot, the technicians said. But tonight was different; it was difficult to decide whether he was in fact sleeping. In these terrible moments, he called up every power of concentration in his overcooked head in constructing a mental image of Lui Ping. He endeavoured to hold it there in his mind so that she might guide him toward morning.

Morning was still four hours distant, so he’d have to try to sleep again. It was no good thinking like this; it would only make the new day even more difficult than it’d otherwise be. The sheets were a mess, his body overly warm from excessive fidgeting, but at least Jun Shan was quiet now. Wei lay back on his pillow, one foot outside the covers to cool his body down.

There was something down here in the pit of his mind. Oblivion lingered somewhere below, on an endless plain, and there was a part of him that longed to leap down into it. The great void was below him, but here was a relatively safe ledge upon which to rest for a moment. What Wei was searching for was a quiet room – some kind of bolt-hole – where the forces of restlessness could not accost him. Thoughts begat thoughts, but none of them made any sense and none were connected in a meaningful manner. They continued to lash him.

From here Wei could see that he was in a great cavern, its boundaries indistinct. He saw a smoky yellow light which seemed to approach him, or he it. Yes, a sense of convection. He was moving or being moved. Now he was wreathed in yellow swirls, but it was not a benevolent light like that from the sun, but from some subterranean source, like an underground geyser or hot spring. And all around him, although he did not want to acknowledge this, hovered the faces of the dead. Pale and grey, dim and flickering, they danced at the periphery of his vision. But there wasn’t a sound: no moans, no howling. Wei was spared their lamentations. It seemed they were somewhat below him, that they were swirling around some hidden object. It would be hazardous to look directly at it, but he could sense its suction. It required an effort to maintain this distance. Wei did not look, but in not looking he seemed to be seeing the shape of the thing in his imagination.

Allowing himself one fatal glance, Wei saw that he was floating above a rotating yellow maelstrom, somewhat similar in shape to a spiral galaxy. There were no stars down there, however, only sharp, grasping flails. The faces were being sucked down noiselessly into that whirling broth. He recognised this place as the Yellow Springs. A realm, like Hades, that existed beneath the Earth’s crust, presumably in the mantle layer. There could be no hope of escape.

Then he was in an empty room, no different from the one that was used as the base point for his forays in Controlled Waking State. Four walls, no windows. A desk and chair.

“Am I in CWS?” he said.

No answer, but they were listening; he could sense them. “Fucking assholes!” he cried. “Talk to me!”

Nothing. Not a sound.

“Disconnect 341 dash 1,” Wei said.

Nothing. No change.

His surroundings. What could be made of them? Did the surfaces of the table and walls shimmer in such a way as to cast doubt upon their very existence? No. They seemed real and were solid to touch. Recalling earlier tests, Wei searched for an invisible button or hidden lever. There was none, and he only succeeded in heightening his agitation.

“Let me out! Disconnect 341 dash 1! Disconnect!”

Silence.

“And that is the fourth lesson,” a voice finally said. How grateful he was for it, even though he knew it as the voice of his jailer! “There is no disconnect code. If we want you in CWS, you remain in CWS. The disconnect code is an illusion, a training wheel.”

“You fuckheads!” Wei railed. He would have flung the contents of the desk onto the floor, but there was nothing on it. “I thought I was sleeping,” he said. The fight had gone out of him. He sat in the chair.

“Would you like a drink? You’re upset.”

He would refuse to speak. No, he wouldn’t. “Give me some coffee,” he said, “and something to eat. I’m starving.”

“Certainly.” A breakfast of eggs, toast, tomatoes and soup appeared on the table.

“No! Real food. Let me out!”

“Very well.”

Nothing much seemed to change, but the food disappeared from view. He was still sitting at the table but there were people standing around him. Wei was out.

18. Misanthropos

Before Sylvia left for work on Monday morning, she left a message in the CDS network for Christopher Roland, telling him to meet her at half past six that evening. For too long now she’d been allowing people to push her around. Now it was time to push back.

At work their new project was an awareness campaign about Controlled Waking State technology. “Pushing the Boundaries,” it was to be called, and it would focus on CIQ Sinocorp’s achievements in the areas of nuclear technology, town planning and R&D, namely the CWS trial. As Yellowcake Springs was a showcase town for the company, it made sense to make the ‘vert here. And who better to make it than Sylvia and her colleagues?

There was something sinister about Controlled Waking State though. As a self-confessed dreamhead, Sylvia knew the ins and outs of CDS, its pitfalls and possibilities. As the user needed to be sitting or lying down to be induced into a sleeping state, CDS had mostly been a tool for complex cognitive tasks such as quantum engineering and neurobiology. Most commonly, of course, it was used as a means of escape from mundane life. But CWS was something else; Sylvia knew this instinctively. It would have ramifications that no one, not even Sinocorp’s top people, could have predicted yet. To watch that young Chinese man blundering about before them, his world in chains, had sickened her. CWS would be the new slavery, if it could ever be made economically viable. And here she was writing the script for Sinocorp’s propaganda.

Partly for this reason, she made herself scarce when Peters asked for volunteers to work on the CWS part of the ‘vert. She would have been a logical choice, seeing how naturally she’d taken to CDS over the years, but when roles were being decided, Sylvia was in the bathroom staring at herself in the mirror. It wouldn’t be long before someone would be sent to find her. Then she was crying and she didn’t know why. The tears rolled down her face. What happened to pushing back? Then someone did come in. It was Emily, the new girl.

“I’m all right,” Sylvia said. “Put me down for the reactor part. I want to learn more about that.”

Emily surprised her by putting an arm around her. “Are you upset about your husband?” she asked.

Sylvia straightened and looked at Emily’s immaculately manicured face. “What? What do you know about that? Don’t tell me. I suppose you all like to talk about him when I’m not around.” Emily tried to protest but Sylvia wasn’t listening. She was barging out of the bathroom, grabbing her bag and clomping off down the stairs. To hell with them, she thought. And just to prove to herself that she meant it, she flung open the conference room door, her face still messy, and delivered an outburst. Later she wouldn’t recall much of what she’d said. After that there was nothing to do but leave. At least now they’d have something more substantial to gossip about.

On the street, Sylvia realised she was smarter than she gave herself credit for. She had wanted a way out, hadn’t she? Being the understanding type, Peters would no doubt ring later, trying to soothe the hostility she felt toward her workmates. He’d assure her that she could come back to work just as soon as she got her personal life sorted out, that he’d consider her to be on annual leave until such a time. That was the kind of boss Peters was. And Sylvia knew she had talent. If Peters wouldn’t have her back, which she doubted, then there were always other jobs. Who said she had to live in Yellowcake Springs for the rest of her life?

Without having been consciously aware of it, Sylvia had been walking in the direction of David’s office. It was close to eleven now and the sidewalk was bustling with people making their way down from their offices to the various cafes and restaurants.

The Scimitar thrust upwards in defiance of all of this.

It was cool in the reception today, the receptionist calmly awaiting her approach. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes, I need to see my husband, David Baron. He works on the third floor.”

“Mr Baron?”

“Yes, Mr Baron. Can I go up?”

The receptionist frowned. “You are Mrs Baron?”

“Sylvia. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Baron, but I’m afraid to say that your husband is no longer with us. He tendered his resignation this morning.”

“What? How long ago did he leave?”

“About an hour ago.”

Sylvia turned and went out. She made her way over to the nearest alcove and rang David. No answer.

This was all too much to deal with. David losing his job, hers on a knife’s edge, the warning she’d received from Chris Roland. And then there was Rion, who was apparently on his way to see her. On his way here! What the hell was she supposed to do about that?

Right at this moment, standing on the clean, bright sidewalk, Sylvia realised how much she hated all of this, the details and circumstances she called her life.

The flip-top pinged. She ducked back into the alcove and opened up her ethereal husband. “Where are you?” she demanded. “The receptionist said you’ve quit your job.”

“Quit, fired, same thing,” David said. “I was pushed.”

“Where are you?” she repeated. “Can I see you?”

“I think they’re going to kick me out of town, Sylvia. I’m having my implants removed.”

“I might have lost my job too.”

“What happened?”

“They were talking about you behind my back and I got angry.”

“Sylvia. I’m dragging you down. You should get out. Go and see your parents. Wait until all of this blows over. Look, I’ll be home early tonight. Maybe we can go out for dinner? Say seven. It’ll give you time to talk to Chr...I mean, get yourself ready.”

“Talk to who...did you say? Talk to Chris Roland?”

“Yes, I was going to say that,” David admitted.

“And how do you know I was going to see him?”

“I read the message you sent him. On the console.”

“But you left before I did.”

“I came back. I’d forgotten something.”

“Bullshit, David. You’d better be back at seven. I’m going to find out what’s happening to us, and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do about it. Right? Seven o’clock.”

“Right.” Her husband de-materialised, and it wasn’t lost on Sylvia that she spent more time talking to him in virtual form than she did in person.

By the time the evening rolled around, Sylvia had made a number of calls. First on the agenda was Peters, to whom she’d apologised profusely. She also agreed to apologise to Tiffany and the rest of her colleagues. But Peters had insisted that she take the rest of the week off to give everyone a chance to cool down. Good old Peters. This gave her options and a week to decide whether she was going back to her job. Next Sylvia called her mother, to whom she hadn’t spoken for more than a month. She let it all pour out and felt better for doing so, and also secured an offer of a place to stay if required. Finally, Sylvia rang the contact number Rion had given her. She was not surprised to discover that the number was disconnected. Whoever this Rion was, there was something not right about him. She debated whether to mention it to David, but then thought better of it. That kind of marital stress was the last thing he needed at the moment.

There were still hours to fill, so she filled them drinking a bottle of white wine and fiddling with her CDS profile. Tonight she’d be decked out in a flowing black dress with gold earrings and a hunk of amber around her neck. She also made up her face more than she normally would. These trappings gave her a confidence that was sorely lacking in her real life.

Chris was waiting for her when she walked into the Chimera Lounge at twenty past six. She sat down. “You look nice,” he said. He was wearing a drab brown suit and there was an empty glass in front of him.

“I want some answers from you,” she said.

“Can I offer you a drink?”

“No, I’m half cut already. I want to know more about your organisation, and specifically how it concerns me.”

“It would be a good thing if you were to leave Yellowcake Springs, as early as possible. There is a threat facing the town that you would be well advised to steer clear of. I can’t provide more specific details.”

“You’re going to bomb the town? The reactor maybe? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t go straight to Sinocorp with this.”

“CIQ Sinocorp is well aware of the dangers facing their operation here. They believe themselves well equipped to neutralise the threat, but they are wrong. By all means alert them, but be advised that in doing so you will become a person of great interest to their security forces. Given that your husband is already under observation, I think this would be a foolish course of action. Your employer is quite capable of detaining you indefinitely. Remember, you are not governed by Australian law here.”

“Fair enough, but you said ‘their operations here.’ I take this to mean you are in Yellowcake Springs yourself?”

“Naturally. Misanthropos has a special interest in Yellowcake Springs.”

“Two questions,” Sylvia said. “First, why tell me? Why not tell everyone to get out? And secondly, what is so special about Yellowcake Springs that Misanthropos wants to destroy it?”

“I didn’t say we were going to destroy the town,” Chris said in a level voice. “Simply that the town is in danger. To answer your second question first, I believe a demonstration would best illustrate my argument. Will you come?”

“As long as I’m back by seven. I’m meeting my husband.”

“Very well. Have I your permission to do away with this?” He indicated to the Chimera Lounge, with its plush carpets and million dollar customers.

“All right.”

The Chimera Lounge vanished and was replaced by an aerial image of the Yellowcake Springs site. The two of them were hovering several hundred metres above the Red Zone. The reactor itself, and particularly the cooling towers, dominated this visage. The ocean could be seen to the west. It was a brilliant, still morning and there were only a handful of white clouds in the sky.

“Do you recognise this?” Chris asked.

“It’s the town, of course.”

“No, I mean, do you recognise the specific images?”

Sylvia looked. “This is from ‘Welcome to Yellowcake Springs!’ isn’t it?”

“Correct.” Chris seemed pleased.

“And how did you obtain it? It hasn’t been released yet.”

“We have our sources. We need more altitude to get a bigger picture.” With that, Chris and Sylvia zoomed vertically upward to a much higher point. From here Sylvia could see the entire town-site far below. The reactor cooling towers were mere white blobs on a mostly brown canvas.

“I’ll augment this vision a little,” Chris said. Now the vision was overlayed with coloured rings – red, amber and green, denoting the boundary fences of Yellowcake Springs’ various zones. The outer ring dwarfed the other two in diameter. “These are the exclusion zones,” Chris said. “Their dimensions were calculated based on the amount of radioactive fallout deemed acceptable from a postulated fission release.”

“Such as a meltdown?”

Chris laughed. “In the event of catastrophic meltdown, we’d need to draw a much bigger ring than the ones you see here. No, these exclusion zones refer to a fission release on a much smaller scale. Of course the actual radioactive fallout would be dependent on environmental factors, most notably the wind. But there is usually a strong westerly here, as you well know.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

“For perspective. Look how small the town seems from this height. Most of the so-called green zone isn’t particularly green, is it? It’s mostly empty bushland.”

“The town is new,” Sylvia said. “It’ll grow.”

“It will grow indeed,” Chris said. “Growth is assured. And so this region, more than a hundred kilometres north of Perth, will become a city in its own right.”

“And you don’t like that, do you?”

“No. Our aim is not to destroy Yellowcake Springs, but to remind CIQ Sinocorp and its employees of the tenuous nature of their existence here. Here you have a sea wall on one side and a whole swathe of checkpoints and guardhouses on the other to keep the unwashed masses out. But you don’t know a great deal about that, do you Sylvia?”

It was true that she rarely gave much thought to such matters. “No.”

“If we had more time, I’d like to show you a little more of this great state of ours. I think you’d find it enlightening to see how poorly many of your fellow citizens live. You don’t fully appreciate it, Sylvia Baron, but you are part of a very small minority. You are part of the elite.”

“And you hate me for it?”

“I don’t hate you, Sylvia, but you’ve been asleep for too long. You need to wake up and see what’s happening all around you. But it’s almost seven. It seems our time is finished for tonight.”

“I still don’t understand why you are warning me and not anyone else,” Sylvia said as the aerial vision was replaced by the Chimera Lounge once again.

“You’ve got friends in high places,” Chris said. “Someone who wishes you to come to no harm.”

“You must mean David?”

Chris Roland nodded. “David Baron is well known to our organisation, even if he is not fully aware of our aims. I can say no more than that.”

“Another thing I don’t understand: why not destroy the reactor entirely? Wouldn’t that hasten the end of human life, in this region anyway?”

Chris nodded. “It would, but think of the environmental impact. There are more than a thousand functioning nuclear reactors in the world, and many more that have been decommissioned. Each of these reactors is an environmental legacy. Imagine for a second that humans died out now. What would happen to those reactors without electricity? Without maintenance? They wouldn’t be safe for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“Safe for who? I thought everyone would be dead?”

“Safe for animal life. Safe for the planet. The very existence of these reactors – these monstrosities – is a crime. Do you know how much it costs to decommission a nuclear power plant once it has stopped generating electricity? It costs billions. Do you know how long the process takes? It takes decades. And more reactors are being built all the time. We’ve got to stop this madness now.” Chris suddenly halted his speechifying. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in contact in the coming days. For David’s sake, please consider what I’ve said.”

David wasn’t in the apartment when she disconnected. The clock read 7.05. It was 7.15, just when her anger began to rise, that he stepped through the door.

19. Tim and Eleanor

On Monday morning, after a night spent on Tim Kennedy’s couch, Rion woke to the sound of young Eleanor playing with her dolls nearby. Her singing woke him, but he didn’t mind. He had the idea that Tim wouldn’t try anything with his daughter in the room, and possibly not at all, but Rion was wary nonetheless.

His backpack was where he left it, its contents apparently untouched. Rion got up slowly, his neck stiff from the way he’d eventually slept, and made his way into the messy kitchen. Eleanor paid him no attention. There were cardboard boxes lying everywhere, on the kitchen surfaces and on the floor. Most of the boxes were empty, but one on the kitchen table contained cartons of cigarettes. Light was streaming into the room through a glass patio door, which was filthy with grease and grime. Tim was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. The cereal box and cardboard milk container were on the table.

“Fresh milk,” Tim said. He was wearing the same clothes as the previous night, but now they were more crumpled. “You wouldn’t get that in East Hills, would you?”

“No, never,” Rion replied. “I’ve never had fresh milk. Only powdered.”

Tim smiled. “Well, here’s your chance. I got a bowl out for you.” It was on the kitchen bench among the piles of papers. Rion picked it up and held it gingerly in his hands. “I don’t eat like this everyday, but today’s special,” Tim said. “In fact it’s gone a little stale.” He poured Rion some cereal – there wasn’t much left – and milk, then indicated for him to eat. Rion complied, tasting the food. It was sweet and lumpy, but he didn’t want to be rude so he said it was fine.

When he had finished, Rion asked where he should urinate.

Tim slapped the table hard and let out a sharp sound that was presumably a laugh. “You really are from East Hills, aren’t you? The toilet’s through there on the left.” He indicated to a corridor. Rion got to his feet.

“You’ve got to press the button to flush it,” Tim called after him.

Rion urinated into the bowl and pressed the button. He knew how indoor toilets worked, but he hadn’t used one for a long time. He even washed his hands in the basin and dried them on a grubby looking towel. Then, not knowing what to do with himself, he sat back down at the table in the kitchen.

“Nice place, eh?” Tim said. “Running water, cold milk, the works.”

“Have you lived here long?” Rion asked.

“Not too long. You may have noticed that there aren’t too many people in Manjaring these days. The whole area is a buffer zone now. People aren’t allowed to live here anymore since the farms closed down.”

“What about you and your daughter?”

“Well, we’re a special case. You see Rion, it’s a good thing for you that you ran into us when you did. I don’t suppose you know a great deal about this area, but we’re only about five k’s east of a big checkpoint. Guards, fences, guns – that sort of thing. There’s no getting through without a pass, and you haven’t got a pass as far as I can make out.”

“I didn’t know,” Rion said. “I’m just trying to get to Yellowcake Springs. I’m meeting someone there.”

“Yeah, you said. But travel’s restricted. And you my friend, without wanting to be rude, have the appearance of a vagrant. They’d most likely shoot and ask questions later, if at all. See?”

“So I have to go back?”

“No, but the highway’s a bad choice. Okay, so you want to go to a particular place – which is entirely your business – but you haven’t got the ways or means to get there. I understand, life’s tough. There’s a fair few places I’d like to get to as well.”

Tim lapsed into silence.

“Rion, you didn’t ask me why Eleanor and I are a special case. Don’t you think that might be important? You need to start paying more attention, buddy. Just saying.”

“I didn’t ask?”

“No.”

“Why are you special?”

“Normally I let Ella do this part. Come in, sweetheart.”

The girl stood in the doorway scratching one bare foot with the other.

“Now before Ella says her piece, I want you to remember that I’m armed and very fucking dangerous, all right?” Tim said. “You can’t see the gun right now but you can rest assured that I’ve got it. If you go for me, I’ll put a bullet in your brain. If you go for her, I will incapacitate you, break every bone in your body and then put a bullet in your brain. Am I making myself clear?”

Rion said nothing. He wondered if the door on his right led to another external door.

“Okay Ella, let’s not leave the poor man in suspense any longer.”

“We’re black market traders,” the little girl said in a formal voice, obviously by rote. “Cigarettes and alcohol mainly. Sometimes we sell information to the auth...or...ities.”

“Ask her what kind of information,” Tim said.

“What kind of information?”

“Information concerning illegal immigrants,” Eleanor said.

“Good girl, Ella. I’ll take it from here. The state government pays us a bounty for information leading to the capture of people like yourself trying to illegally enter Western Australia. It’s not a bad rate either. Now Ella, go into the front room and sit with your uncle.” Tim raised his right hand from beneath the table to indicate to Rion that he was indeed holding the pistol. “So what do you think? Normally people react straight away. Some are angry, some start crying, some run for the door. But you? No reaction at all. I need some insight here; you’re making me nervous.”

“I do live in Western Australia.”

“No you don’t. You live in the exclusion zone. Next question.”

“I need to get something out of my bag,” Rion said. “Shall I get it or will you?”

Tim frowned, then called: “Eleanor, bring the man his bag.”

Rion could feel both sets of eyes on him as he opened the front flap and withdrew the Controlled Dreaming State console. He put it on the table between them. “Do you know what this is?”

“Yeah, I have an idea. Or maybe I should say I got an idea when I went through your bag this morning. Now don’t look alarmed. I’m not such a bad guy. If I was, I could’ve slit your throat while you were sleeping, couldn’t I? That thing’s probably worth more to me than the bounty for handing you in. I’ll confess right now that the thought crossed my mind, but I didn’t do it, and that’s the important thing. You’ve the aura of an innocent about you, and I don’t plan on sullying myself with unnecessary violence. How’s that?”

“That’s just fine,” Rion said.

“Honesty’s a precious virtue at any time, and even more precious in this one. So as long as you’re up front with me I’ll return the favour. Are we agreed?”

“All right. I’ll trade this console to you if you can take me to Yellowcake Springs,” Rion said. “I expect it’s worth a great deal of money on the black market.”

“Wait a minute. I thought you were going to trade it for your life. Now you want me to take you someplace? You’ve got a cheek.”

“Daddy,” Eleanor said, “are we going for a drive in the car?”

Tim ruffled her hair. “Maybe, little one. Haven’t decided yet.”

“Please, can we go!”

“All right, all right. Fine. Looks like it’s your lucky day, Rion. Shake?”

Rion extended his hand, and then remembered that he was yet to arrange a specific rendezvous with Sylvia. He said something to this effect.

Tim considered this. “You don’t have to hand it over until I deliver you to the gatehouse, okay? That’ll give you time to talk to your girlfriend, won’t it?” They shook hands. “I don’t know,” Tim said. “I’m getting soft. But whatever.”

As it turned out, Tim didn’t mean for them to leave right at that moment. He said it’d be safer to travel in the late afternoon and early evening, and for he and Eleanor to sleep in the car before returning home the following day. Rion spent a few hours wandering around the empty town to pass the time, but like the others before it, there was nothing lootable. Manjaring was no different from the other dead towns except for Tim and Eleanor, with their working light globe, running fridge, and indoor plumbing.

Shortly after three in the afternoon, under a grey, cloudy sky, Tim declared it safe. The car in question was an old Toyota Hycam that Tim claimed was in fine working condition, and so Rion sat in the passenger seat and clipped up the frayed seatbelt, his bag at his feet. Tim’s eyes darted around, as if checking for the traffic that hadn’t flowed with any regularity along this road for decades. Tim took them on a twisting, even tortuous route through the back streets of Manjaring, avoiding the highway at all costs.

Soon they were out of town, travelling north on a dusty forest track at a speed of no more than forty kilometres an hour. They had to stop several times to remove obstacles from the road. Or rather, Rion had to remove said obstacles. The first few times he took his backpack with him, fearful of treachery, but Tim wore him down with his mocking taunts. And besides, Rion reasoned, there wasn’t room for the car to turn around and make a quick getaway here.

The afternoon passed like this, crawling through the forest and later on a twisting, bumpy road through abandoned pasture. On this latter road the car barely exceeded thirty kilometres an hour, which seemed awfully slow. By five-thirty it was getting dark. Never having driven a car, Rion was content to sit back and watch the fading light. It was with considerable surprise, then, that he observed the road ahead suddenly light up, as though by the dawn of an unexpected sun. “Didn’t want to use the lights until I had to,” Tim explained.

Finally, at 6.35, the Hycam turned off the bumpy track and onto a smooth, black highway. Streetlights illuminated the road ahead. The car could drive upwards of one hundred kilometres an hour along here, but Tim wouldn’t push it above eighty.

“Is this the same highway as the one running through Manjaring?” Rion asked.

“That goes east-west. This one follows the coast north,” Tim said.

Here, close to Yellowcake Springs, the danger was greatest. Eleanor was fast asleep in the back, which was good, for her father was clearly tense. He did not seem to know whether cars on this road were likely to be stopped, nor by whom.

Tim slowed as they approached a sign. Rion peered through the dust-caked windscreen, trying to read it. Yellowcake Springs 5 kms, it said. Tim had seen it too, and now he pulled the car over onto the road’s shoulder. “As far as I go,” he said. “I haven’t got a travel pass myself.”

“Fair enough,” Rion said. “But I’ve got to use the console, remember?”

“Be quick about it,” Tim said. His daughter was stirring. “I want to get off this road.” He turned off the car’s lights, leaving Rion to set up the console on the gravel in near darkness. There was a little moonlight poking through the roof of clouds, and the wind was blowing hard. How Rion was supposed to enter CDS like this he didn’t know, but without alternative options he huddled from the wind against the left back wheel of the car. His fumbling hands plugged in the necessary cords, and he entered CDS and specifically the Chimera Lounge portal just in time to see Sylvia’s smooth back disappearing around a corner. Rion stumbled after her, ignored by the other patrons, and saw Sylvia flame out before his eyes. She had left CDS. Cursing his luck, Rion made his way up to the splash pool and penned a short note which would appear on Sylvia’s console in real-time. “Please meet me at the gate to Yellowcake Springs in the morning. I’ll be waiting when you get there. Rion.” That would have to do. Rion lingered for a minute or two, praying that the message had appeared quickly enough for her to notice it on leaving CDS, but then he had to disconnect.

It was night-time, very dark and more than a little chilly. Tim said nothing as Rion packed up the console. He didn’t ask whether he’d made contact. Eleanor was sitting on the front seat now, so Rion had to lean over her to pick up his backpack. He handed the console to Tim, who stashed it on the back seat.

“We’re square,” Tim said.

“Thanks,” Rion replied. “I guess that’s it.”

“I wouldn’t go near that gate until daybreak if I were you. That one’s for free.”

Rion nodded. Tim reached over and pulled the passenger door closed. Rion watched as the Hycam spluttered to life, its headlights dimmed. The car crunched across the gravel and onto the road, where it crossed the median strip and disappeared back up the road. He hoped they’d find somewhere to sleep and make it home safe.

Rion trudged up the road toward Yellowcake Springs, his hands beginning to shiver from the cold.

20. Promotion

Jiang Wei blinked, trying to steady himself, but his hands clutched emptily at nothing. He saw that he was in the start room again; he could feel the heavy apparatus weighing down his head. But here was respite; a technician was removing his helmet.

“Is it over?” Wei croaked.

“Take a moment to get your bearings,” the technician said. This one was unfamiliar to him. Wei struggled out of the bulky CWS suit, which stank of stale sweat and maybe something worse. He was dressed in a thin body suit underneath. The technician helped him to his feet and indicated that he was to leave the room to the right.

What was through here again? A corridor, and there was Yang Po ushering him into his office. The room was dominated by a massive wooden desk that gleamed from wood polish. He was invited to sit down, which he did. Wei grimaced and rubbed his neck, then rotated his head and felt the bones cracking. “Can I have a drink, please?” Wei asked.

“You may.” Yang Po pressed a button on the desk, and said: “Bring Mr. Jiang some refreshments.” Moments later a functionary wheeled a drinks cart into the room. Wei took a bottle of ginger soda and drank straight from the bottle, ignoring the glass on the table. He grabbed another bottle before the waiter could leave, sitting it on the table in front of him.

“Looks like thirsty work,” Yang Po observed.

“What time is it, sir?” Wei asked. He could see from the light streaming in through the window that it was daytime, but he felt more tired than he’d have thought possible. His head was throbbing.

“It’s shortly after ten in the morning. Your next question should be, ‘what day is it?’ The answer is that it is Monday. You have been in Controlled Waking State for more than twenty-four hours.” He looked at his watch. “In fact it is nearly twenty-eight hours.” He gave Wei a moment to digest this, and then added: “We are very pleased with your progress thus far, Jiang Wei. You have earned a commendation.”

“I have?”

“Yes, we are most satisfied. Your brain has proven to be both dynamic and exceptionally resilient, but I imagine you are a little disorientated. This is so?”

Wei said, “Sir, I’m very tired.”

“You will rest soon. Both mind and body need time to recuperate. But I don’t think you fully appreciate what you have achieved. You have set a new record for duration of time spent in CWS. The previous best was sixteen hours, and the user emerged in a deranged state.”

“Jun Shan?”

“He’s been discharged and will be returning to the homeland. He will require psychiatric assistance, I’m afraid. No, Jun Shan proved to be too unstable for this kind of work, but his example has taught us a valuable lesson: it is not enough for the mind to be flexible. It must also be resilient, as yours is. If you’ll recall, you warned us about Jun Shan yourself.”

“I did,” Wei said. It was half statement, half question.

“You haven’t asked what your commendation entails, but perhaps you are too weary to discuss the matter.”

“I’m sorry,” Wei said. “What is it?”

“You are being promoted to level 2.1 on account of your meritorious service to CIQ Sinocorp. This will mean a substantial pay rise.”

“Thank you, Mr. Yang.”

“You’re welcome. Being on level two means you will enjoy certain privileges, the first of which being that you will be given your own private room. You will have the rest of today to rest, and tomorrow you will start in your new role.”

“My new role? What’s that?”

Yang Po smiled and chuckled to himself. “I said before that you would blaze a trail that others would henceforth follow, did I not? Perhaps you did not imagine that these others would follow so closely behind. We are expecting an influx of recruits as early as this afternoon, some of whom have been earmarked for the CWS trial. You will be their guide, their mentor. You will lead them into the entirely new realm of Controlled Waking State experience. I imagine that this is an exciting prospect for you. Jiang Wei, you truly are a pioneer! I only wish I was young enough to make this journey with you.”

“Sir, one question, if I may.”

“Certainly.”

“What is the purpose of CWS? What will be its application?”

Yang Po smiled. “You might just as well ask: what won’t be its application. Industries will be brought into existence by this technology. CWS will be used in education, correctional services, entertainment. Once the technology is fully stable, it will have a million applications. But ultimately it boils down to one concept. Do you know what that is?”

“Control,” Wei said. “You can control people’s entire lives.”

“Precisely. With this technology we can reshape a subject’s reality in an instant. Do you realise what that means? No more unhappiness. No more dissent. No more unrest. For all practical purposes, to those under our control, we will be God.”

Yang Po dismissed him and Wei stood. This was more difficult than it looked. Yang Po gave him a comradely pat on the back and led the way out of the office. Another functionary led Wei to his new quarters. A bed – any bed – would do, but now they were talking to him again. “Yes,” Wei said, uncertain of what the question had been, if indeed it had been a question at all. “I must rest,” he added. But here was his new room. The other person left, closing the door, and Wei threw himself down on the bed.

21. Rion

By the time Sylvia woke on Tuesday morning, the room was filled with light. The clock read 8.15, which meant she was late. But that’s right – she was on leave. She sank down into the bed’s warm folds, trying to find her way back into her dreams. But now there was something nibbling away at the edge of her mind. Oh shit, Rion! She was supposed to meet him this morning! Sylvia was on her feet in a flash. But hadn’t she resolved not to meet him after all? She had almost blurted it out to David at dinner.

But she was by herself, David presumably having gone back to his schemes and stratagems. He had bored her over the dinner table, to the extent that she’d tuned out of what he’d been saying, concentrating instead on the firmness of his mouth. David didn’t need her; he needed a sounding board. Any hapless victim would suffice.

Was that why she was on the street shortly after eight-thirty, waiting to catch a bus to the main gate? It felt strange to be on this bus and not be leaving Yellowcake Springs. It was like meeting a friend at an airport without any prospect of travelling oneself. The land beyond the window was a harsh, barren wasteland of spiny bushes and the domineering sun. The other passengers were similarly uninteresting. Some of them were ecotourists – that was the polite term – and others were prospective residents.

The sea breeze was already in when she stepped off the bus at the gate terminus. It’d be blowing a gale this afternoon. The gate itself – a huge, concrete block that resembled an army bunker – was the only significant structure. The rest was just bus lanes and footpaths through the scrub. Then there was the cyclone fence itself – three metres high and topped with razor wire. If that wasn’t enough, there were machine-gun wielding guards on the inside of the gate.

She walked up to gate three. If she remembered correctly, then her neighbour Daphne worked in this booth. Now Sylvia regretted not having accepted her birthday invitation. Daphne smiled in recognition and ushered her over. Maybe she’d forgotten about the invitation.

“Sylvia. Haven’t seen you in weeks,” Daphne said through the intercom.

“Hey, I’ve been flat out at work. And yourself?”

“Same, same. What brings you out here?”

“I’m meeting someone outside. He needs a day pass.”

Daphne’s expression darkened. “He’s got some ID, right?”

Shit. She hadn’t forgotten the birthday snub after all. “I’ll find out. Can I come through?”

“Suit yourself.” She raised the barrier.

Sylvia stepped across the threshold and into the emptiness. There was nothing and no one around. Just the smooth tarmac of the road stretching into the distance. Sylvia took a few steps forward, acutely aware that Daphne was watching her. Her watch read 8.55. They hadn’t arranged a specific time.

“Sylvia,” a voice said. “Sylvia Baron.” Where was it coming from? But look – there was someone waiting in the shadow of the ‘Welcome to Yellowcake Springs: a Nuclear Green Community’ sign at the roadside.

“Yes?” she said. “Is that Rion?”

He stepped out of the shadows. Oh. My. God. What kind of filthy vagrant was this? Her handsome Rion was a bum, just as she’d feared. He had lank, oily hair and pale, pitted skin.

“So you’re Sylvia Baron,” he said. “I didn’t think you were coming.” His teeth were bright yellow.

“You can’t get in like that,” she said in reply.

“Why not?” he asked. His eyes were fearful, like a rabbit’s. “Can’t you get me in?”

That pleading tone. Damn, she’d have to make a show of trying. Just think of the rumour mill! “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re a drifter from some flea hole in the sticks somewhere. You don’t have any acceptable form of identification. And you want me, a top advertising rep, to get you a day pass into Yellowcake Springs. Correct?”

He looked straight at her. “Can you do it? Did you say day pass? Just for today?”

“You can apply for an extension at the council,” she snapped. She turned and walked back to the gate. Her face felt hot and flushed from embarrassment.

“This is the guy?” Daphne said. “Where’s his card?”

“He hasn’t got one,” Sylvia said. “Can he come in anyway?”

“I hardly think…”

“Look, he’s a close personal friend of mine,” Sylvia cut in. “You see?”

Sylvia saw the thought slowing dawning on Daphne’s face that this would make an exquisite gossip item. “Well, if you are willing to take responsibility for this man, then I guess I can…”

“So he can come in?”

Daphne scanned a day pass and pushed it through the slot. “He needs to be out by six p.m.”

“You hear that Rion? Six o’clock.” Sylvia picked up the plastic card and gave to it to him. She could not help but think that there was a bad smell emanating from his direction.

“Have a nice day,” Daphne said.

“Couldn’t you have cleaned yourself up first?” Sylvia asked as they walked over to the bus terminal.

“I’m sorry,” Rion said. “I didn’t realise.”

She stopped and turned to him. “I didn’t catch where you said you were from. It’s in the badlands somewhere, isn’t it? The restricted zone.”

“East Hills,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s in the...badlands.”

Sylvia hadn’t heard of East Hills, but then everywhere that was anywhere was on the coast. He might as well have said he was from Nowhere Town. “Judging by the way you look, I’d say it is,” she said.

“What do we do now?” he asked. He kept looking around in a nervous, furtive fashion. “This is only a day pass? What happens if I don’t leave?”

Sylvia sat down on the hard metal seat. “Then you’ll be arrested. If they can’t find you, I’ll be arrested.”

“I’ll think of something,” he said. He didn’t sit down.

Then she felt sorry for him. He was clearly dead on his feet and yet here he was, trying to justify himself to her. “Sit down, would you?” she said. “I guess you’d like a shower and something to eat.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” He put his scruffy backpack on the ground and sat two seats down from her.

“It’s just a surprise to see you so different from the way you are in CDS,” she said.

“You look different too. But in a good way,” he clarified.

The bus arrived. The day pass got him on without a problem, and Sylvia made a point of sitting at the back so that Rion wouldn’t have to sit right next to her. The bus was otherwise empty. He seemed to settle down as the bus began to move, content to watch the drab landscape passing by.

“Rion,” she said.

He turned to her. He wasn’t so bad looking in this light, maybe. “Yes?”

“You can’t stay with me. I’m married.”

His chest deflated. “Oh.”

“But my husband’s out at work, so you come back to my apartment and get yourself cleaned up. I’m sure I can find you something of David’s to wear. Then you can go to the council and plead your case, I guess.”

“What are my chances?”

How could she break it to him gently? “Not so good, I wouldn’t have thought. But it can’t hurt to try.”

“Okay.”

Silence again.

“Rion, what is your case? You’ll need a damned good reason to get even a temporary extension.”

He looked up. “I had to leave East Hills because of the violence there. There’s no police presence anymore. No electricity or running water. We live on what we can scavenge.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to think. “But there are a lot of poor people in W.A., aren’t there? What makes your case so important? It’d have to be something of direct relevance to Yellowcake Springs. This place is owned by Sinocorp, you know? The Chinese. It’s not a charity.”

“There’s a nuclear reactor here,” he said.

“Sure there is, but who told you?”

“I know some things,” he said slowly. “There’s a militia group in East Hills run by a man called Keith Gillam. A few days ago he and his men derailed a train and murdered the driver and guards. Is that relevant?”

“Was the train headed here?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“What has this got to do with the reactor?” she asked. He wasn’t making much sense.

“I think Gillam wants to blow up the reactor,” Rion said.

“Really? You can’t be serious.” But perhaps he was. Then a thought struck her. “Rion, this guy Gillam – he’s not a part of a group called Misanthropos, is he?”

“Misanthropos,” Rion repeated. A pause. “As a matter of fact, he is.”

Sylvia told him about her dealings with Chris Roland in CDS. He nodded several times as she told the story. When she was finished, he said, “It all ties together. That’s why I need to speak to your council, to warn them of the plot to destroy the reactor.”

They were on her street. “Come on,” she said. “I should call David.”

“Don’t,” Rion said. “Please, not yet.”

She consented to this without knowing why. Reaching her front door, Sylvia realised that she’d forgotten to remain embarrassed by the dirty man beside her.

22. A New Man

The water cascading down his body felt glorious. Hot water: two words that signified an alien world of pleasure and cleanliness. Rion scrubbed himself with the sponge and gel Sylvia had given him, then washed and conditioned his hair as instructed. The grime and dirt flowed away. Rion felt good. No, he felt more than good. The shower was bliss, and by the time he’d finished, the bathroom was filled with mist.

Towelling himself dry, he turned his attention to the razor and shaving cream. He wiped the foggy mirror with his hand. This task proved more onerous and he cut himself several times in the process. Rion had shaved before, but not in recent times, so his face was full of whiskers. But he’d never had much of a beard and eventually the job was finished. His face was bleeding so he dabbed at it with the towel, partially succeeding in stemming the flow of blood. But now the towel was bloody. Rion washed it under the tap, making an even bigger mess.

“Are you all right in there?” Sylvia said through the door.

“I’m just about to get dressed,” he said. The clothes that Sylvia had chosen from her husband’s wardrobe were neatly folded on the toilet seat. Rion dressed in them, finding the jeans to be a loose fit. He tucked in the shirt. His own dirty clothes were in the bathtub. Now that he was clean, he never wanted to wear those filthy things again.

“There’s a spare toothbrush in the cupboard under the sink,” Sylvia said. “It’s still in the packet. And you can use David’s deodorant.”

Rion found the toothbrush and took it out of the plastic. This was another thing he remembered from childhood: brushing his teeth. From memory, his mother had not insisted on it too often. He found the toothpaste and went to work. When he was done, he sprayed himself all over with the can of deodorant. It made his eyes water.

“Can I come in?” Sylvia asked.

Rion looked at the wet, bloody towel and the grime on the rim of the sink. “Just a minute,” he said, tidying it up as best he could. “Okay.”

“You could have turned on the extraction fan,” Sylvia said, opening the door. “Let’s have a look at you then. Oh, you’ve cut yourself.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You go into the lounge room and make yourself comfortable and I’ll tidy up in here. What do you want me to do with your clothes?”

“I’ll throw them out,” Rion said. He didn’t want her to have to touch them. He hadn’t noticed how dirty they were. No wonder Sylvia had seemed so cold.

“Just leave them there for now,” Sylvia said. “You can take them down to the disposal unit later.” Rion went into the lounge room and sat at the table. The delicious smells of cooking wafted in from the kitchen.

“Will you eat bacon and eggs?” Sylvia asked, having finished in the bathroom.

“Of course,” he replied, unable to believe his luck. First a hot shower and now hot food! Did these people always eat like this, or was she cooking it especially for him? When she brought the meal out, Rion devoured the food in seconds, shovelling it in with the knife and fork.

“Shall I make some more?” Sylvia asked.

“No, I’m not used to rich food. Thank you.”

“Fine. We need to talk about why you’re here.”

“All right.”

“You say you’re here because of Gillam and his friends. Is that why you contacted me in the first place?”

“No, not at all,” he said. “I didn’t know what Gillam was up to then. Not until the train.”

“So why did you contact me?”

Rion shrugged. The tall tale he’d constructed was rapidly unravelling. “Just for someone to talk to, y’know? I was bored.”

Sylvia nodded. “Okay. But why didn’t you mention the thing about the reactor earlier? I’m a little confused.”

“I didn’t think you’d believe me. And I needed to get out of East Hills.” He told her about the convoy he’d seen on the highway.

“That was some kind of retaliation for the train?”

Rion nodded. “I think so.”

“I see. So you were right to get out when you did. But I don’t think Sinocorp is going to regard a group of hick militants as a credible threat to their trillion dollar reactor, do you?”

“Misanthropos goes beyond just Gillam. He’s just a small player.”

Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “How much do you know about Misanthropos?”

“Just enough to know that there’ll be an attack soon.”

These were the words she wanted to hear, apparently. Rion was digging himself a deep hole with his reckless words, but what could he do? He was oppressed on all sides. He couldn’t go home and he couldn’t stay here. Perhaps an appeal to her sympathies would help. “I can’t go back, Sylvia,” he said. “There’s nothing left for me there. Do you think I’d be able to get a job here?”

She studied him. It was unnerving. “You look the same as anyone else after a shower and a change of clothes, I’ll give you that. But you can’t just get a job in Yellowcake Springs. You need money to live here.”

Rion nodded. His earlier euphoria had evaporated. “So what do we do now?”

“What do you do, you mean? There’s no ‘we,’ Rion. Maybe I should introduce you to my husband. He might be able to help.”

“I’d rather take my chances with the authorities, if that’s all right,” he heard himself say. What was he afraid of? That Sylvia’s husband would be hostile toward him? Rion saw no reason why he shouldn’t be hostile, given the way he’d acted. But it had been Sylvia who had initiated their online sex, and she hadn’t mentioned that she was married. She didn’t seem to want to acknowledge that now.

“Suit yourself,” she said. Was he imagining it, or was she relieved that he’d declined to meet her husband? “I’ll come with you to the council.”

On the bus, Rion avoided marvelling out loud at the town’s grandeur. He didn’t want people to know he was an outsider, but his open-mouthed gawking must have been obvious. It was a wondrous place – sleekly designed and spotlessly clean, and yet bustling with the colour of life. It was everything that East Hills was not and had never been, all glossy shop veneers and green, intensely cultivated open spaces. There were no roads in the traditional sense – no traffic lights, no intersections – for there did not appear to be any cars. The robot buses kept to a red-coloured centre strip of the pedestrian concourses. There was a constant stream of bodies coming and going through doorways, but the Green Zone did not seem overpopulated. The apartments were two and sometimes three storeys high, but never taller than this.

“You’re very lucky to live here,” he said.

“It’s why we moved here, I guess.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Oh, in Perth. It’s much nicer here, that’s for sure. But… ” She hesitated.

“But what?”

“Sinocorp owns all of this, see? David and I, we’re just employees. Workers. You know?”

“I wouldn’t mind being a worker here,” Rion said. “Have you ever been to the Belt? You wouldn’t believe it. I can’t believe that this place could exist so close to...” To what? The unending nightmare of his own existence? The apocalypse that existed, not in the future, but in the present?

“Like you said, I’m one of the lucky ones. I just forget that sometimes. Life goes on, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Rion said. “I don’t know.”

They didn’t talk for a while after that. Sylvia folded down some kind of device over her eyes and ignored him. The device looked like a pair of dark glasses but Rion knew it was something else, for he could hear faint music and see flickering lights on the device’s exterior.

The entire bus passed through a red scanning ray that washed over them abruptly. It was over before Rion realised what had happened. Now the bus was moving again and the landscape of apartment buildings and parks had given way to larger, more outlandish structures. Each building was a statement – some brazen, others vulgar – but no two were alike. This was the Amber Zone, where these people went to work. Rion’s sense of incredulity gave way to anger. How much money had gone into sculpting these structures? It was stupendous.

“Here’s our stop,” Sylvia said. Rion hadn’t noticed her emerging from her own world.

“What is that thing you were using?” Rion asked.

“It’s my eye-gear,” she said. “You can borrow it on the way back, if you like.”

But now they were at the foot of the council steps. The building was remarkable only in its comparative austerity – it was a monolithic, rectangular structure without turrets or balustrades or towers. Whatever scheme his subconscious was furtively devising, it surely wouldn’t work here, at the seat of CIQ Sinocorp’s power. He was making a mistake, but it was too late to back out now.

“Imposing, isn’t it?” Sylvia said.

He could do nothing but nod and follow her up the steps. The council chamber door was a tinted, revolving maw. There he lingered for a moment, unable to enter, but Sylvia tugged at his arm insistently – their first physical contact, a part of him noted – and he followed her inside.

23. Level Two

Jiang Wei felt nervous sitting at the front of the room alongside Yang Po as the recruits filed in, their eyes downcast in submission. It didn’t seem right. They took their seats just as Wei himself had done only days before. Wei wasn’t listening to Yang Po as he ambled up to the podium and launched into his opening tirade; he was watching the unmoving faces of the recruits. He counted fifty-seven of them. They betrayed their nervousness in a myriad of ways – from hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, to eyes that darted around the room, to legs that shifted uncomfortably beneath the tables. They were frightened, but Yang Po either didn’t realise or didn’t care, for he was still droning on about the wonderful opportunities that lay ahead.

What followed next was the drama of the white envelopes. Wei watched dispassionately as they scrambled for position, for leverage, yearning to discover what fate had befallen them. The looks on their faces as they opened the envelopes ranged from delight to surprise to dismay, and some expressions were indescribable. They quickly moved into their new groupings – old friendships severed and new ones hastily conjoined. Wei could not help but notice a cluster of dumbstruck men in the far left corner, comparing their slips of paper. He counted seven of them. These were his new co-workers. His subordinates.

“Come and introduce yourself,” Yang Po commanded as the other recruits began to file out. Wei sat down next to Yang Po. There was silence. Everyone was waiting for him to speak.

“I’m Jiang Wei,” he said. “I’ve been here a week, and I’ve been working on the Controlled Waking State trial.”

They nodded but said nothing. Yang Po cleared his throat. Wei was to continue.

“My job will be to guide you in beginning your experiences in CWS. CWS is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. It’s hard to explain. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Yang Po cut in: “Jiang Wei is very experienced in this area. You will be in good hands with him. I want you to regard Jiang Wei as your superior officer. He will be your first port of call for problems, concerns and questions. Jiang Wei will refer directly to me. Am I understood?”

The men nodded, not willing to speak. Yang Po seemed impatient to leave. He was, Wei knew, a busy man.

“Jiang Wei will show you to your new quarters,” Yang Po said. “Lunch will be served shortly and thereafter you will begin your initiation.” He drew his heavy bulk out of his seat and left the room.

Another uncomfortable silence. “I’m just one of you,” Wei said. “Just a recruit. So don’t think I’m anything more than that.”

“Please, what is Controlled Waking State like?” one of them said.

“What is it like?” He swallowed. “It’s like a dream you can’t escape from. You wake from one dream to find yourself in another, and another, and another. After a while you forget that it isn’t real.”

The recruits nodded again, like puppets.

“Look, the technicians will explain it better. Let’s go back to the dorm, okay?”

They followed him.

After lunch, the new recruits began their initiation. It was all Wei could do to try to remember their names, as they tended to blend together. Cao Ren was the only one whose name he could remember for certain, for he was fatter than the others. Now that the ranks of Controlled Waking State initiates had swelled, so had the ranks of the technicians that would manage them. They did not necessarily know how to do their own jobs yet, so the process was time-consuming. Wei found himself in the position of supervisor, skirting from room to room, advising the men how to pull on the bulky suits and affix the helmet straps. He discovered that there was a whole series of interlocking rooms dedicated to the CWS trial, more than enough to accommodate them. Finally the initiates were ready for their first foray. Wei was wondering whether he’d be expected to don a suit himself when a technician took him aside.

“You watch today,” the man said. “I’m Mo Chen. Head technician.”

“Jiang Wei. But I suppose you know that?”

The technician nodded. “Come on, we’re going to the control room.”

The inner sanctum required a pass card; Wei had walked past this unremarkable door several times without wondering what was behind it. What he saw when he stepped through after Mo Chen was a long, dark room filled with screens and monitoring equipment. Technicians sat at each station, intermittently speaking into their headsets. Each station had two screens. The first depicted empty rooms of a kind to which Wei had grown familiar. On this screen the technician could see what the user himself was seeing. The second screen showed the rooms as they existed in reality, from a wall-mounted camera. It was unnerving to see the men blundering around like that.

Wei and Mo Chen sat behind the other technicians, just watching and listening. The initial phase was mainly given over to calibration, and the words Wei overhead were of a routine nature. He remembered the nausea that had beset him at that stage well.

One of the men was bent double, his hands scrabbling against the floor. “He’ll have to come out,” the relevant technician advised Mo Chen. “He’s vomited in his helmet.”

“Send in a cleaner,” Mo Chen said. “What’s the recruit’s name?”

“It’s Tian Yi, sir. Bringing him out now.”

Wei watched as Tian Yi struggled to remove his helmet. It was virtually impossible to do by oneself, especially with a helmet full of sick. Watching him fumbling around made Wei feel ill himself.

“Poor bastard,” Mo Chen said, without seeming overly concerned. Now a technician was helping Tian Yi with the helmet while a cleaner mopped the floor.

“I’m going to talk to him,” Wei said. He didn’t wait for permission.

Tian Yi was in room six. The smell made Wei gag as he entered, but he sat down next to the recruit all the same. He was drinking from a bottle of water. There were flecks of vomit on his face.

“That first part’s horrible,” Wei said. “I know what it’s like. But it’s okay once they sort out the calibration.”

Tian Yi’s face was white. “I feel awful,” he said.

“Maybe you can try again later. They shouldn’t have given you lunch.”

Tian Yi wiped his face with a hand-towel. The colour was starting to return to his face. “I thought I was coming here to work in the reactor,” he said. “Not this.”

“I know,” Wei said. “I thought the same.”

Tian Yi was shunted out of the room and the technician who’d helped him told Wei to go back to the control room so they could finish cleaning up.

“Hope he doesn’t do that again,” Mo Chen said when Wei sat back down in his seat.

“Then don’t give them lunch beforehand.”

Mo Chen nodded. “Point taken.”

The other six recruits had progressed through the calibration stage and were now taking their first genuine steps in CWS. Some were doing better than others. One of them was out of the start room and in the corridor already.

“What about the disconnect code?” Wei asked Mo Chen. “It’s a trick, correct?”

“Not a trick, a security blanket,” Mo Chen replied. “They need to believe they’re in control of what’s happening to them. Otherwise they’ll panic like Jun Shan did.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

Mo Chen shrugged. “You’re level two now.”

It was over surprisingly quickly. Recalling his own initiation, Wei saw that they’d altered things a little this time around. The illusory meal had been replaced with a conversation with an attractive woman who shook their hands and gave them a kiss on the cheek. She did not exist in the real world. “They’re not hungry now,” Mo Chen explained. “This illustrates the point just as well.”

Then the recruits were out, having uttered the disconnect code. “I’d prefer you not to mention that to them just yet,” Mo Chen said. “They need the confidence. All right?” It was an order, not a request.

“Yes sir,” Wei said.

“Good. Your job is to debrief them. They need someone they can trust, and right now that’s you.”

Wei did as he was told. At least he hadn’t had to go into CWS himself today. The debriefing occurred in a small conference room with comfy chairs. He even put on a cheery face for them.

“Well done, recruits,” he said. “Even you, Tian Yi. You’ll get another chance later this afternoon. So you’ve all had your first glimpse of what Controlled Waking State is about. That’s great. Don’t forget the disconnect code.” He couldn’t believe he was able to say that. “Now, are there any questions?”

“I’ve got a question,” Cao Ren said, his round face red from exertion.

“Yes, Cao Ren?”

“How the fuck do I get out of this place?” he said. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Wei stared at him. The other men were silent, waiting to hear what he’d say in response. “Ah, that’s a good question,” he faltered. “The fact is, I’m not entirely sure. I suggest you make an appointment to see Yang Po to outline your grievance.”

The recruits weren’t pleased with this, but they said no more. Wei could feel the enmity directed at him. He was relieved to find himself called into Yang Po’s office shortly after they returned to the dorm.

“It’s only natural for them to despise you,” Yang Po said. He’d been listening to the debriefing by way of a hidden speaker; it seemed the whole facility was being monitored.

“I know,” Wei said, but he felt badly nonetheless.

“I won’t tolerate insubordination here,” Yang Po continued. “The troublemaker will be removed.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Wei said.

“Too late,” Yang Po said. “It will serve as an example to the others. You just need a little more confidence in dealing with your inferiors, Jiang Wei. But this will come in time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As a reward for your good service, you are being granted special permission to visit your fiancée in CDS, in order to tell her about your promotion.”

“Thank you, sir. When will that be?”

“Right now. She has been informed of the impending liaison.” Yang Po offered his hand for Wei to shake. He took the moist palm in his own and shook it.

24. In a Glass Cube

Rion had patience; she’d give him that. Sylvia herself had none. It didn’t seem to bother him that they’d been waiting for their number to be called for more than forty minutes now. Nor did he seem to take umbrage at how the officials had spoken to him. (“What is the nature of your enquiry? Is it of an urgent nature? If not, then I’d advise you to return at another time.”) He sat very still, but his eyes darted from one thing to another, absorbing the council chamber like a sponge. This, she realised, demonstrated the difference between them, as her own eyes saw nothing of interest while her body fidgeted incessantly. If only she could see through his eyes, then perhaps she would be able to understand his motivations. As it stood, Sylvia Baron saw nothing.

The number ‘45’ flashed up on the screen above the glass-walled interview booths.

“We’re next,” Rion said. He held the printed ticket stub tightly in his grasp.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Sylvia asked.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he replied. “But I thought…”

“Of course I’ll come,” she said. “I just want to know what you plan to say first.”

“I’ll tell them what I told you.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Sylvia said.

“What’s the matter? I’m sure they’ll want to know about Gillam and Misanthropos. Won’t they?”

“Yes, they will. But I expect they’ll detain you.”

“Why?”

“You’re not a citizen, so you don’t have any rights here,” she explained.

“But I haven’t done anything,” Rion said.

‘46.’

They made their way over to the now-vacant booth. The glass wall slid back as they approached. Once they had stepped over the threshold, it promptly slid shut behind them.

“Please sit down,” a disembodied voice said. It seemed to come from all around. There was nothing else in the glass cube except for a place for them to sit.

“What is the nature of your enquiry?” the voice said. It was not clear to Sylvia whether the voice was human.

When Rion cleared his throat to speak, he was instantly cut off. “Speak, citizen,” the voice boomed. “The outsider will not be permitted to speak at this time.”

“Who am I talking to?” Sylvia asked. “Your identification please.”

A brief pause. “Jasmine Middleton, employee reference number e4015019.”

“Thank you. My name is Sylvia Baron. Do you want my employee number?”

“It has been pre-entered. Please state the nature of your enquiry.”

“It’s not an enquiry,” Sylvia said. “I’ve brought this man, Rion…” Here she broke off and turned to Rion. “What’s your last name?”

“I…I don’t have one,” he replied, frowning.

“He has no last name,” Sylvia said. “He’s come from the town of East Hills to convey vital information to this council.”

“What is the nature of this vital information?”

“It is a matter of national security,” Sylvia heard herself say. “The survival of Yellowcake Springs itself is at stake.”

“Briefly outline the nature of the threat.”

“All right.” Sylvia swallowed, her throat dry. “I’m not sure I can. Rion can explain it better.”

“Yes,” Jasmine Middleton said. “What is your name, outsider?”

“It’s Rion,” he said. “R-I-O-N. It’s short for Orion.”

“Very well, Rion.”

“I’ll tell you what I know for sure,” he said. “Last Wednesday, I witnessed a militia group headed by a man called Keith Gillam staging an attack on a goods train in the town of East Hills.”

“East Hills is not within the CIQ Sinocorp Protectorate?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then it is of no interest. How does this matter relate to Yellowcake Springs and CIQ Sinocorp?”

“This militia group intends to attack your town,” Rion said. “I heard Gillam say so.”

“East Hills is located in the restricted zone, more than one hundred kilometres southeast of Yellowcake Springs. Even if a militia group were to evade the checkpoints and patrols put in place by the Western Australian Government, which seems unlikely, then they would have little hope of reaching our border unprotected, and zero chance of penetrating our defensive perimeter. I say again, how does this matter constitute a matter of national security for the CIQ Sinocorp Protectorate?”

“Tell them about Misanthropos,” Sylvia whispered.

“What was that, Citizen Baron? Repeat what you just said.”

“I was asking Rion to mention Misanthropos.”

“The citizen will briefly describe the nature of this ‘Misanthropos’.”

“I know very little about it,” Sylvia said. But out came the precious words: “Misanthropos plans to attack Yellowcake Springs.”

“How is this information known to you?”

“A man called Chris Roland told me, and Rion has corroborated this information. The militia group Rion described is linked to Misanthropos.”

“In what way specifically?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps Rion can explain?”

“The outsider will explain.”

“I don’t know the details as I’m not part of Gillam’s militia,” Rion said. “That’s why I left East Hills, to warn you. All is know is that they plan to attack the town, and specifically the reactor complex.”

“One moment, please,” the harsh voice said. There was a pause. “New information has just come to hand. I have been authorised by the Western Australian Government to inform you that the militia group herein described has been liquidated, and that the criminal Keith Gillam has been killed. The matter is hereby concluded.”

“Gillam’s dead?” Rion asked.

“Yes. The currently available information appears to corroborate your deposition. Further information not yet available may confirm or deny the validity of this deposition. You will be released at this time into the care of Citizen Baron, but you must not leave Yellowcake Springs until a subsequent interview has been conducted. This interview has been scheduled for this Thursday, the 30th of May, at 9.00am. You are to present yourself at this council chamber at the stated time, whereupon a full account will be taken. Henceforth, you will be released from Yellowcake Springs to proceed to a location of your own choosing.”

“But his pass expires today,” Sylvia said.

“The pass in question has been extended by forty-eight hours. It is now valid until 5.00pm on Thursday May 30.”

“And why does he have to stay with me? I have a husband.”

“If the arrangement is not satisfactory, then the subject can be held in protective custody until the time of his interview. Is this preferred?”

There it was – a clear choice at last. She could walk away from this now and forget it ever happened. Here she made a mistake – or was it a mistake? – for she allowed herself a glance at Rion, who sat motionless on the hard seat without making eye contact with her. He did not plead, and yet his body was frozen rigid with terror.

“That will not be necessary,” she said. “I will accommodate him.” Rion’s chest deflated; he had obviously been holding his breath.

“Very well,” Jasmine Middleton said. “I will advise you, however, that it is of the utmost importance that Rion return to this location for his interview at the specified time. Failure to do so will result in censure for yourself and your husband. Is this understood?”

She looked at Rion. “It is.”

“Then this interview is concluded.” The glass cube released them.

“Why didn’t you tell them more?” Sylvia demanded as they made their way out of the council chamber and onto the street.

“I don’t know anymore,” Rion replied.

“I don’t know why I’m bothering with this,” she said, leading the way down the stairs to the bus station. They boarded the waiting bus and sat near the back.

“Thank you,” Rion said. “I thought you were going to leave me there.”

“So did I,” she said. “It’s only two days. You won’t try to leave, will you?”

“No, I need to find out how to become a citizen. I want to stay here permanently.”

“I know,” she said. “But they won’t let you. You’ll be gone from my life in a little over two days.” Then, seeing his dejected expression, she added, “come on, we’ll stop in town and get something to eat. You might as well make the most of it while you’re here.” She pressed the button for the bus to stop.

Sylvia had intended on taking him somewhere different, but she soon found herself at the Pegasus, as per usual. It was a little after eleven. Her work colleagues would probably be here in an hour, but they’d be gone by then. “What can I get you?” she asked, passing him the menu. “You are hungry, right?”

“Yes.”

Her flip-top began to ring, as it always seemed to do when she was trying to order. She turned the visual off and took the call at the table. “Hello?”

“Sylvia,” her husband’s familiar voice said. “Why can’t I see you?”

“Uh, too many people around.”

“Listen, I’m outside. Do you understand?”

“Outside town? Have they expelled you?”

“Look, I need you to leave town. I’m serious.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say. It’s too dangerous. Go stay with your parents. Just…get away. Say you’ll go?”

“I don’t know,” she said. There was a rage forming inside her. “Why should I listen to you when you won’t even tell me what’s going on? It’s like we’re not even married anymore. Are you having an affair?”

“No, it’s nothing as trivial as that.”

“Trivial? Our marriage is trivial to you?” She was shouting now, and she didn’t care who could hear, least of all Rion. “How can you say that to me? You don’t come home, you won’t tell me where you are, you want me to leave and our marriage is trivial to you? You can get fucked, David.” People were looking now, forever eager for an opportunity to pry into the sordid details of someone else’s personal life.

“Look, I haven’t got time for this. I really don’t.” He seemed distant and drifting further away by the second. “I have to go.”

“Go then,” Sylvia said.

She snapped the phone shut, terminating the call. “Have you worked out what you want yet?” she asked Rion.

25. Interloper

In terms of appearances, Rion had made it his business to remain composed, but inside, all was tumultuous. Oppressed from above and below, he didn’t know where to turn or who to turn to, so he clung to Sylvia like a dying man to the idea of heaven. If she was aware of his distress she gave no sign. In fact, she seemed wholly preoccupied with her own troubles.

“What should I do, Rion?” she asked him late on Tuesday evening, in the lounge room of her apartment. They were drinking white wine. “I can’t stay and I can’t go.”

“I feel the same,” he said, taking another sip. He felt giddy, unused to the alcohol.

She turned toward him. “They’ll just deport you, like I said. There’s no need to worry.” She took his hand.

“That’s easy for you to say, Sylvia,” he said. But he didn’t let go.

“If only I knew where David was…I’d….”

“What would you do?”

“I’d leave this place forever,” she said.

“Where would you go?”

“I could go with you. You could show me your home town.”

This caused his anger to rise, but he suppressed it. He needed to be very careful now. “Didn’t you hear what they said? Gillam’s dead. And besides, you wouldn’t like East Hills. There’s nothing there.”

“What do I have?” Sylvia asked. She lounged back on the soft seat, her legs open suggestively. So that was what she wanted. Rion put the wine glass down on the coffee table and went to work.

When he woke, it wasn’t immediately obvious to Rion where he was. The room was dark but his body was warm, the blankets around him soft. He was naked and there was a similarly naked woman in the bed with him. He was content and apparently safe. What could be wrong?

Memories began to pervade his consciousness, and although he fought their return, it wasn’t long before they had destroyed his brief moment of solace. It was night-time – 3.37 according to the clock – and the woman was Sylvia Baron. This was her bed and her house, and he himself was the interloper.

It was necessary to leave the warmth and comfort, to return to the cold and uncertainty. This did not seem to be a desirable option, so Rion lingered. He put his hand on Sylvia’s back and rubbed downward toward the curve of her buttock. She murmured in her sleep but did not wake. Then Rion experienced an overwhelming sense of desolation. In his mind’s eye he saw ruin – he saw a great fire and a vast column of smoke.

Quietly, so as not to disturb Sylvia, Rion slid out of bed. David Baron’s dressing gown was on the chair nearby, so he wrapped himself in it and padded out into the main part of the apartment. The place was full of electrical equipment waiting patiently on standby. Each item emitted a hum that would not be noticeable in the day, but was audible now, in the dead of night.

Rion went into the lounge room, closed the door behind him, and turned on the light. Clothes were scattered everywhere, where they had been hastily strewn, and as Rion concealed the evidence of this illicit passion he was reminded that even the clothes were not his. They belonged to David Baron, just like the dressing gown, and while it could not be said that Sylvia belonged to him too, the experience of her body assuredly did. Yet Rion felt no remorse.

Later, he would not recall falling asleep on the couch, but when he next knew anything, he was being prodded awake by Sylvia. The room was bright.

“Have you heard from your husband?” Rion asked. She was completely naked.

“No, nothing,” she said, turning and sauntering into the kitchen. “Breakfast?”

She was yet to realise that she would never have to ask him whether he wanted to eat. “Thank you,” he said.

Much to Rion’s surprise, Sylvia informed him that she had a meeting this morning, and that he would be left to his own devices in the apartment while she was out. “I’d prefer it if you stayed in,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

Rion assented to this. When she was ready to leave, he waved her goodbye at the top of the external stairs that led down to street level.

Time passed slowly here, and Rion was aware that there were only a limited number of moments left in his life, and that he had no way of knowing how many. After a hot shower, he selected some of David’s clothes to wear and started investigating Sylvia’s home. Here he did feel some guilt, but it was a fleeting sensation. Like his photo albums, Sylvia’s home offered an insight into the world of another person’s mind. Two people. And yet their home in fact, said very little, except that David and Sylvia Baron were affluent workers with a wealth of entertainment material on hand to combat the apparent boredom of their pampered lives. There were no printed photos. The fridge and cupboard were stocked with enough rich food to last Rion a month. Their lives seemed disappointingly barren – there were no secrets here, or at least none that had physical manifestations. Rion made sure to leave everything exactly as he found it. He stole nothing.

It did not take him long to find the dream room, although it did take him a moment to understand the room’s purpose. The room had no window. It was large enough for a two-seater couch, a small chest of drawers, and a Controlled Dreaming State console. The couch had velcro straps affixed to it. Here, he was given to understand, Sylvia had communed with him and probably others in a virtual sphere, divorced from the mundane world of her corporeal existence. This was where her real life was hidden, in the recesses of her own mind. The console, much more elaborate than his own, was her real life.

There was a message on the console, announced by a small, flashing light. Rion pressed a key and the message flashed up on the screen. “Meet me in the Chimera Lounge. It’s urgent. CR.”

The skull cap was neatly folded in the top drawer. There was an assortment of other things in the top drawer too: a veil, a tube of lubricant, a pair of Sylvia’s underpants, and an assortment of sex toys. None but the veil and the skull cap would be needed now. Rion was well aware that he was penetrating into the deepest recesses of Sylvia’s life.

He dimmed the lights, then lay on the couch and strapped himself in. He lowered the veil and smoothed the skull cap down over his scalp. Rion soon found himself slipping into the dreaming state.

He was a woman.

He was Sylvia Baron, but at the same time he was still Rion. The Chimera Lounge was full of people talking, laughing and drinking. He himself was wearing a tight-fitting black dress that revealed much of his ample bosom. The patrons, most likely bots, looked at him with interest. In a different set of circumstances, Rion might have been tremendously excited by such possibilities, but right now he couldn’t forget the real world.

Chris Roland was sitting at a table near the bar. Rion knew it was him due to the avatar hovering above his head. Chris was cleanly shaven but somewhat nondescript, and he wore a dark business suit.

“I came as quickly as I could,” Rion said. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Why don’t you ever change your profile?” Chris said.

“Why don’t you?” Rion replied and then called the waiter over to place their drink order.

Chris smiled and shrugged. “Fair enough. You look good enough to eat.”

Chris was drinking beer, and although Rion longed for the same, he ordered a white wine in keeping with ‘his’ character. Here he looked, walked, and talked like Sylvia. It might prove useful.

“Is that why you wanted to see me?” Rion asked.

“You’re a married woman, Sylvia.”

“Your point?”

Chris laughed. “You know, if I were your husband, I might be a little jealous about you meeting strange men in bars like these.”

“Are you my husband?”

“No, of course not.”

Their drinks arrived. “Then it’s not your problem,” Rion said. “What did you need to speak to me about so urgently?”

Chris nodded. “I’ll transfer us to an unmonitored channel. It’s a little scratchy, so you’d better drink up first.”

Rion drained his glass. The Chimera Lounge segued into a new scene – a grey, monotonous nothing. Chris himself had vanished, leaving only the avatar with the words ‘Chris Roland’ on it. Looking down, Rion saw that he himself no longer had a body, that ‘he’ was floating in a desolate void.

“I told you it was scratchy,” the avatar apologised. “Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

“Now, I told you of the danger facing Yellowcake Springs, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Rion said.

“I also advised you to leave town. Time is shorter than you realise. I’m taking a risk even speaking to you.”

“Where’s David?”

“David is…how can I put this?...deeply implicated in our operation.”

“You mean Misanthropos.”

“Yes, Misanthropos. It’s just a word, after all. Words do not act – people do. And we will. Myself, your husband, and many others. And so I beg you, Sylvia: leave. Your life is at risk.”

“What about the lives of everyone else in the town?” Rion asked. “Don’t you care about them?”

“There will be casualties, but you do not have to be among them.”

“But why? Explain yourself.”

“What is there to explain? CIQ Sinocorp has grown wicked in its greed, showing contempt, not only for human life, but for all life on this planet. The company’s nuclear ambitions must be thwarted.”

“And you’ll kill innocent people to thwart those ambitions,” Rion said. It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “What’s the difference between you and them?”

“The difference is our intentions. Yes, there will be localised fallout here, and no doubt some loss of both animal and human life. Yes, there will be an environmental impact that does not seem to be in accordance with our broader aims. But CIQ Sinocorp owns and operates more than forty nuclear reactors worldwide. Cripple one and we may cause the others to close.”

“You’re delusional,” Rion said. “You think they’ll give up so easily? I can’t see it.”

“You accept the reality of the situation at least,” the floating avatar said. “Will you go?”

“How long do I have?”

“You must leave tomorrow, or Friday at the latest. Don’t attract attention. The last thing you want is the authorities detaining you.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to Sy…I mean I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Good. One last thing before you go.”

“Yes?”

“Your husband sends his love. It may not be possible for you to see him again.”

“Tell him that I love him too,” Rion said.

“Thank you,” Chris said. The scene faded out.

26. Army Dreamers

They were falling back under heavy artillery bombardment. Every few seconds the ground thundered with another concussion. The sky was black, the earth around them a swirl of blood and mud. White-faced corpses littered their path, but they gave little thought to those who had died. They could barely tell whether the bodies belonged to friend or foe, twisted and broken as they were, their uniforms torn away or scorched by fire. The bodies were just another obstacle to clamber over. Jiang Wei’s only priority was the safety of his six remaining men: Chen Da; Zhang Jie; Zhou Sen; Wang Meng; Ma Jian; and the injured Tian Yi.

“It’s not much further to the bunker!” he called to them as another bomb fell close to their position, showering them with mud. The rest of the army seemed to have vanished, or had been obliterated. There was a nagging wrongness chipping away in Wei’s mind, but he pushed it away. He had to concentrate on the task at hand.

“I can’t go on,” Tian Yi wailed. Wei went to him. The man’s face was pale, his leg soaked in blood from where shrapnel had pierced him.

“It’s not far,” Wei said. “Chen Da and Ma Jian will help you.” He urged the men to shoulder the burden of their comrade. They grumbled but did as they were told.

But with every step, Tian Yi weakened further. Their retreat had slowed to a crawl and the bunker was still tantalisingly tucked away on the far side of the ridge. Tian Yi groaned.

They propped him up next to a birch tree that had miraculously survived the shelling. Wei pressed the man’s canteen into his hands. “Drink,” he said. “When you feel better, just follow the ridge. You can still make it.”

Tian Yi nodded weakly.

“Sir, we must go,” Chen Da pressed. The eastern horizon was beginning to lighten, signalling the coming day. If they did not reach cover soon, then the enemy would be able to pinpoint their location.

“All right,” Wei said. He walked away, putting a distance between himself and his fallen comrade. Then, remembering Tian Yi’s wife and child at home, he turned back for the recruit’s personal effects.

He reached the birch tree, but Tian Yi was gone. All that remained of him was his canteen. The water had spilled out onto the ground.

“Where is he?” Wei said. His men, who had been pushing their way along the ridge, stopped. “Come back!” he demanded. They shuffled back and stood next to the birch tree.

“Where is he?” Wei repeated. “He can’t have vanished.”

“He was right there,” Chen Da agreed.

“Maybe he got up,” Zhang Jie said.

“Then where is he?” Wei demanded. “Start looking.”

With great reluctance, the men began to search for the injured Tian Yi. The shelling, for the moment, seemed to have abated. An eerie quiet had descended over the battlefield, and Wei had the sense that none of this truly existed. Hell, what war was this anyway? What side were they on? All he seemed to know was that he was in charge of these men and that they were retreating from some unknown enemy. But we don’t have weapons, he realised. If they were soldiers, then where were their rifles?

“He’s gone,” Chen Da said. “Sir, we must be going. It’s getting light.”

“Yes,” Wei said. They resumed their forlorn march. The shells were falling again but Wei no longer felt that they were in danger. It was almost as if this were some kind of show or demonstration, not a real war at all.

He looked at his men hauling their weary bodies toward their destination. They seemed wholly committed to their cause. The bunker, a squat structure made of reinforced concrete, came into view. Wei knew they would be safe from the shelling underground. He longed for a hot meal and a warm bed.

Suddenly, a machine gun nest opened up from a position on the hillside. Tracer bullets crossed their paths and zipped into the mud. “Run!” he cried. The men needed no encouragement. Something roared overhead and Wei braced himself for another explosion, but it wasn’t a bomb, it was a plane. One of theirs. The bomber streaked ahead and dropped its fiery payload on the machine gun nest, illuminating the hillside. The hail of bullets stopped and the men cheered. “We made it!” Chen Da said, reaching the lip of the bunker.

They had escaped unscathed, except of course for Tian Yi. But that machine gun nest and the bomber…what a stroke of luck! Wei patted his men on their shoulders as they regained their breath undercover. They had done it.

The steel door of the bunker swung open and a familiar face greeted them. It was their commander, Yang Po. “Excellent work men,” he said.

“Can we come inside, commander?” Wei asked. “We’re exhausted.”

“Yes, very soon,” Yang Po said. “But first, let us go to that clearing over there. It’s time for you to be shown something.”

“But the shelling….” Chen Da protested.

“You’ve nothing to fear now,” Yang Po said. “Come.” He led the way across the ridge top to a small clearing. It was a kind of amphitheatre, and Wei was amazed to see row upon row of empty seats. It did not make sense.

“You can take your helmets off now, recruits,” Yang Po said. They had not realised that they were wearing headgear. Hadn’t Wei looked into Tian Yi’s eyes just a few minutes before? But yes, it seemed he was wearing a helmet. He unbuckled it and lifted it from his sweat-soaked head.

There were faces all around them, people in the rows of seats around the amphitheatre. Their workmates. Applauding. Wei looked at his subordinates struggling to uncouple their helmets. Wang Meng didn’t seem to be able to get his off, so Wei went to assist him. His men stared at the rows of faces, their mouths open in amazement. Ma Jian looked as if he was about to pass out. The applause only increased in volume as the six of them huddled closer together.

Yang Po beckoned to them from the stage area. He was holding a microphone.

Wei whirled around, his mind struggling toward comprehension. His eyes focused on the only man in the front row who was not clapping. His face was ashen.

Tian Yi.

“Approach the stage, please,” Yang Po said. The six of them scuttled along together for safety. Wei looked back at Tian Yi, but he had turned his head away. Yang Po indicated that they were to stand in line before the gathered audience.

“This is a momentous day,” Yang Po said into the microphone. “Truly a momentous day in CIQ Sinocorp’s history. A day in which these six men, led ably by Jiang Wei, entered an uncharted realm. These intrepid explorers have begun to map that realm, a place where virtual and real worlds collide. Before your very eyes, you watched as Jiang Wei and his men successfully navigated a terrain pitted with a number of obstacles. You watched as they took their first halting steps outside the confines of our humble facility and stepped into the outside world in Controlled Waking State.”

Down near the front, away from the workers, sat a delegation of important-looking Sinocorp officials. They studied Wei and his comrades with cool dispassion, as though he and his men were dolphins jumping through hoops. “I hope you enjoyed the show,” Wei said to them as he shuffled past. One of the men nodded gravely.

Yang Po was still speaking: “Thank you also to our friends from the Licensing division who flew out from the homeland this morning to watch this presentation. A number of foreign companies, including those located here in Australia, have already expressed an interest in leasing CWS technology.”

Muted applause.

“But now, I give you Jiang Wei.”

Wei was to come forward. His gait was unsteady, but his men supported him. He took the microphone in his hands and lifted it to his lips. Then silence. The crowd was waiting. Yang Po gestured in encouragement.

“Thank you,” he said, his throat hoarse. “Thank you very much.” His roving eyes found Tian Yi again, who was looking at him. Someone offered him a drink and he took a sip, then raised the microphone once more. “I dedicate this achievement to our comrades, those who have fallen by the wayside. Jun Shan, Cao Ren, and Tian Yi. We wouldn’t have made it here without them.”

Wei waited for some sign from Tian Yi. Seconds passed. Finally Tian Yi offered a single curt nod.

Yang Po took the microphone from him. “Thank you, Jiang Wei. Thus concludes our demonstration for today. You may all return to the mess hall for lunch.”

Wei’s comrades patted him on the back. Ailing as though gripped with rheumatism, the six of them began to make their way toward the mess hall, through the simulation terrain they had navigated. “Tian Yi will sit with us,” he said, and they all agreed.

But when they sat at their table, at the head of the mess hall, Tian Yi was nowhere to be seen.

27. The Unmasking

Thursday morning came too quickly for either of them, and although Sylvia put on a brave face for Rion, she doubted she’d be seeing him again. It wasn’t quite like leading a lamb to slaughter, but that was how she imagined it. Her coaxing and cajoling had the desired effect of getting him up, showered, dressed and ready for his appointment at the council chamber at 9:00. As they made their way down to the bus station, she held his hand tightly, not because she loved him but because she wanted to capture the essence of their time together.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as they waited for the bus to arrive. The day was overcast and blustery.

“Nothing. I was just thinking.”

“Tell me.”

So she did. She poured out her emotion over him, a warm shower of words. She confessed to him her fears, her desires, and her ambitions. She reflected on their brief time together and how it had come to pass that they would be sitting together on a bus at this time, on this particular day. Rion listened closely throughout. He was a good listener, something that David had never been. And then, as their destination grew near, she confessed the longings she had felt and the satisfaction she had received from him. When she was done, she paused, offering him an opportunity to respond.

“Say something,” she prompted as they made their way up the familiar steps of the council chamber.

“All right,” he replied. “I’m terrified. I’m going to be deported and I have no money, no food, and no provisions. No home. No way of returning to East Hills, even if I wanted to. And all you can talk about is desire.”

Rion walked over to the desk and Sylvia sat down in a row of empty chairs in front of a blank view screen, her mind reeling. But now Rion sat down next to her and took her hand in his own.

“I enjoyed our time together too,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”

She looked at him. “It does? You really mean that?”

“Yes.”

She hugged him. “I’m so glad.” She wondered whether David would ever notice that some of his clothes were missing. Knowing him, probably not.

“Sylvia,” Rion said. “I need to tell you something. There isn’t much time.”

“Tell me.”

“Yesterday, when you were out, I used your CDS console.”

She shrugged. “So?”

“There was a message for you from Chris Roland. I meant to tell you before, but we were…busy. I went into the Chimera Lounge and met him there. I didn’t realise that I would be, well, you. Do you understand?”

“You didn’t change the profile? He must have been confused!”

“That’s the thing, Sylvia. I didn’t tell him. I pretended to be you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It’s hard to explain. I thought it might have been important.”

“Christ, Rion, you should have told me before. What did he say?”

“He said you need to leave Yellowcake Springs today, or tomorrow at the latest. He was very insistent.”

“Did he say anything about where David is?”

“No, only that he’s involved in all this. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“More or less. Go on.”

Rion looked up at the number on the screen. It still read ‘2.’ “He said that David loves you and he wants you to get out while you still can. I think your husband’s a key player in this.”

Sylvia could feel the colour draining from her face. “I thought he was outside? He’ll be killed.”

“If Misanthropos succeeds, then we might all be killed,” Rion said.

“But that Gillam guy, he’s dead. The attack can’t go ahead, can it?”

“Sylvia,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I made that part up. Gillam was a militiaman, and he did attack that train, but it has nothing to do with Misanthropos.” The number ‘3’ flashed up on the screen. Rion got to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“So am I,” Sylvia muttered.

“Right. Goodbye then.” He kissed her on the cheek and walked away.

“Rion,” she called after him. He turned. “Good luck.” He nodded and went into the glass cube. He didn’t look back again. Sylvia picked herself up and got out of there before anyone started asking questions of her. Before she knew what she was doing, she was back on the bus to the Green Zone. She needed to pack.

Back in her apartment, she left a message on her parents’ phone and started throwing clothes into a suitcase. It was only when she had filled the suitcase with anything that seemed remotely valuable that she thought to check the CDS console for messages.

There were two and they were both from Chris Roland. The first one was too long to read now, and the second, posted just twenty minutes ago, simply said: ‘GO.’

Wondering whether she could still make the morning coach to Perth – it was just after ten now and the bus left at 11:15 – Sylvia dropped everything and got herself organised for one last foray into Controlled Dreaming State. She needed answers from Chris Roland and she needed them now. She replied to his second message, demanding his presence in the Chimera Lounge as a matter of urgency, and went under.

The bar was the same. Everything was the same. How she tired of all this now, the false luxury, the ersatz romance. Chris wasn’t here, but she had the feeling he wouldn’t be far away. She was right. She had barely sat down and started on a piña colada when he showed his face. He didn’t even bother to ask for a drink himself.

“Where is he?” Sylvia demanded. “I need to see him.”

“You can’t,” Chris said. “Not when we’re so close.”

“So close to bombing a fucking nuclear reactor? Is that what you’re so close to?”

“Keep your voice down,” Chris said. “Or I’ll terminate, understand? We can’t have you interfering. If you want to talk to him, just cool it, okay? The bus leaves in an hour. I’ve booked you a ticket. And I don’t know what you’re so upset about. We discussed this yesterday.”

She had succeeded in flustering him, it seemed. Good. “No, we didn’t,” she said. “That was someone else.”

“What? Who?”

“A guy called Rion. He’s been staying with me for a couple of days.”

“This Rion has been staying with you in your apartment?”

“Yes and I fucked him too. What about it?”

“But David…”

“David hasn’t been home for days. I don’t know where he is or whether he’s ever coming back.”

“You had sex with this guy?”

“Yes. Now let me talk to my husband and I’ll apologise myself.”

Chris exhaled heavily. “All right.”

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“I’m David. There is no Chris Roland.”

“What?” They faced off. “Bullshit. Prove it.”

“I’m taking a risk here,” Chris said. He held her hands.

“How do I know?” Sylvia demanded.

“It’s me,” he pleaded. “Can’t you tell?”

“Could you tell that the person you thought was me yesterday was actually a man?”

“No.”

“Then there’s your answer. Tell me something only you would know.”

“About where we met? That café in Clarkson? Our first date? First kiss?”

She’d have to take the risk. “Okay, I believe you,” she said. “Now explain why you went to all this trouble to warn me in CDS using a proxy when you could have told me in person.”

“Because you don’t listen to me.”

That was it; she didn’t listen to him. “David,” she said. “You can’t do this. You can’t go through with it. We’ll make a new start somewhere else.”

“You’re still not listening,” he said. “I said no and I meant it. I didn’t come here to give you a chance to talk me out of it. It’s too late for that now. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re hurting me now,” she said. “And you’re about to hurt a lot more people. What if I don’t leave? Will you still go through with it? Nuke your own wife?”

“It won’t be as dramatic as that,” he said.

“But David, I went to the council with Rion the other day. He told them some bullshit about a militia group being caught up in Misanthropos. I had to tell them what you – what Chris Roland – told me.”

“I don’t care,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m committed now. It’s going ahead anyway.”

“Then come with me!”

“No.”

That was it. Neither of them would budge. The same old problem.

“Will you go?” he asked. “There’s still time to make the morning bus.”

“You do realise that I’ll probably be arrested anyway? I’m an accomplice.”

“You can deny all knowledge. It’s not far from the truth. Now go.”

“Is that all you have to say to me? Don’t you love me?”

“I love you,” he said. “I do. Just go.”

Sylvia went.

Making one last sweep of the apartment, in search of anything else she could hurl into the bulging suitcase, Sylvia found herself crying. It was all too much, too fast, for her to handle. There was a part of her that wanted to go to Peters and spill everything to him, but fear won out.

Sylvia made it to the gate with less than five minutes to spare. She counted twenty-three other people on the shuttle bus, excluding herself, who were lucky enough to be leaving town today. And what of all the others?

The Perth coach was waiting on the platform. It was always a novelty to see a bus with a human driver. She swiped her card on the door reader and clambered aboard, suitcase in tow.

“Sylvia,” a familiar voice said from within the bus. “We need to talk.”

It was Peters, coming along the aisle. “Let me take that for you.” He took the suitcase from her.

“You’re going to Perth too?”

“I’m not going to Perth, Sylvia, and nor are you.”

“I’m not?”

“We need to talk privately. It is a matter…let us say…of national security.” His brown eyes bored deeply into her.

She got off the bus with him. Indicating that they were to board the shuttle bus back into town, Peters handed her a blank identity card to use in lieu of her own. She swiped the blank card and stepped onto the bus.

28. Friday?

By early Friday morning, Jiang Wei was finding it difficult to determine whether he was in Controlled Waking State at any given moment. All he knew for certain was that today was Friday and that was the day when he could spend time with his beloved. Despite the fact that he’d been granted special permission to visit her earlier in the week, it seemed an eternity ago now. For that matter, how did he know that it was Friday today? Just because the clock at his bunk-side told him so?

Lying in bed, Wei wondered why his neck was aching so much. Maybe he was in CWS now: it would explain his sore neck. How did he know that he wasn’t wearing a CWS helmet right now?

“Are you all right, sir?” Chen Da asked.

“What?” Wei replied. “I thought I had my own room.” He looked around; this room did not look entirely familiar. All of the bunks except two were empty.

“My apologies,” Chen Da said. “I will request to be returned to the main dorm immediately.” He stood stiffly in his nightclothes.

“No, sit down. I just don’t remember you being moved into my room, that’s all.”

“Sir….” Chen Da began.

“Yes?”

“You recommended me for a commendation yesterday. I’ve been made your 2IC. You said you didn’t enjoy being alone.”

“Yesterday was Thursday?”

“Yes sir.”

“I remember nothing of Thursday.”

“I see.” Chen Da fell silent.

It was true. His memories of Thursday were blank, like an empty space on a calendar. Perhaps it was Thursday now. Perhaps Chen Da was trying to trick him into thinking it was Friday.

“I have a question,” Wei said.

“Sir?”

“How do I know that today is Friday? Might it be Thursday and the clock in error?”

“No, sir,” Chen Da replied, shuffling in his bed. “It is definitely Friday.”

Wei sat up in bed and looked at the other man. “You promise?”

“I give you my guarantee.”

“Good. Then it’s time for breakfast.”

By the time he’d finished eating, pushing his plate aside, Wei felt sure that the other men were avoiding talking to him. Usually they had numerous questions – too many in fact – but now they were silent. Their faces were glum, as though they were withholding bad news, and they did not make eye contact with him. Wei made a distinct effort to look around the room, to take in his surroundings. Perhaps greater attentiveness to small matters would help. But the rows of tables, with recruits busily shovelling food into their mouths, offered him no insight. It could just as easily be real as not.

“Perception,” Wei said abruptly. “That is the key to our work here.”

“Sir?” Wang Meng asked, pausing between mouthfuls.

“In order to determine whether our surroundings are real, we must hone our perception,” Wei continued. “Take our sortie of the other day.”

“Which one, sir?” Zhang Jie asked.

“The military simulation. Now although the situation seemed reasonable enough at the time, I had an inkling that it wasn’t real. Some call this intuition, but I prefer to think of it as heightened perception. I saw through the false reality to the real one. But this is not all. By puzzling through the logic of a scenario, we can determine the likelihood of its reality. I seemed to remember fighting in a war, and it was true that you fellows appeared to be my subordinates – which of course you are – but the situation lacked detail. I could not remember who we were fighting, for instance.” Here he lost his train of thought.

“Go on, sir,” Chen Da said. “This is most instructive.”

“Thank you. Tian Yi’s illness was also a clue, as I recalled that he suffered from motion sickness while in Controlled Waking State. Where is Tian Yi anyway?” He was not at the table with them.

None of them spoke, so Wei was forced to repeat his question.

“Sir, Tian Yi has been sent back to the homeland,” Chen Da finally said. “As his superior officer, you had to sign his release papers.”

“Of course,” Wei said. “I recall now.” But he did not.

“You were explaining how Tian Yi’s motion sickness served as a clue,” Chen Da prompted.

“That’s right, an important clue. In the simulation, Tian Yi was supposed to be injured in the leg, but his symptoms seemed more like that of an ill man than an injured one.”

“Surely a wound like that could cause a man to feel ill?” Zhou Sen asked.

“Perhaps. But it is a clue nonetheless. And furthermore, who of you remembers leaving Tian Yi by the birch tree, only for him to vanish shortly after? That was when I knew for sure. Injured men might perish, but they do not vanish.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. The recruits at the other tables had also quietened, eager to listen in.

“You do not remember?” Wei asked.

“Sir,” Chen Da said. “You remember wrongly. Tian Yi did not vanish in the simulation. We left him by the birch tree, as you said.”

“Yes!” Wei snapped. “And he vanished thereafter!”

Everyone was looking at him now. Chen Da was the only one who would meet his eye, the only one brave enough to speak: “When we returned to Tian Yi, you would not acknowledge his presence. You insisted that he was not there and demanded that we search for him. He was quite ill and could not speak, but he was clearly visible.”

“You’re wrong,” Wei insisted. “Every one of you. You will need to improve your perception.”

“Yes, sir.”

No one wanted to speak to him after that. Every time Wei entered a room it seemed to him that all conversation ceased. He tried to question several recruits on the matter, but none would be drawn on the issue. He faced a wall of silence. Chen Da was the only one who had his best interests at heart. If not for him, then Wei would have forgotten that it was time for him to see his fiancée in Controlled Dreaming State. Chen Da even helped him locate the correct booth.

“Thank you,” Wei said, patting his new 2IC on the shoulder. “You have my gratitude.”

Chen Da nodded, a strange look in his eyes, and left him there. The men queuing in front of him even moved to other lines, probably in deference to his rank. The seat in the CDS booth was warm from its previous occupant.

There she was, his beloved Lui Ping. Resplendent in a bright yellow dress, she strode toward him. His heart surged. Their surroundings seemed indistinct today, as though he was becoming short-sighted. He took his fiancée in his arms, immersing himself in her fine fragrance.

“I was so worried,” she said. “They said you’ve become disorientated.”

“Nonsense,” he replied. “There’s only one thing I want to see and that’s you. Let’s sit down.”

“Not here. In that cabin on the hillside.”

Wei looked in the direction Ping was pointing, but all he saw was a vague brown smudge on a green background. That must be the cabin. “I see it,” he said.

Hand in hand, they made their way. Wei almost stumbled on a fallen branch, but Ping helped him to keep his balance. “Thank you,” he said, opening the door. There was an open log fire burning brightly. Warmth spread through him.

“Are you hungry?” Ping asked. “There’s some lunch on the table.”

“I just want to rest in the bed with you,” he replied. He went over to the bed, which was in the corner of the cabin, and lay down atop the covers. The pillow was cold against his cheek.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Ping said. “Are you ill?”

“I’m not ill,” he said gently.

“They said you were ill,” she said, lying down next to him. The cabin was warm enough that they had no need of the blankets. She touched his face.

“I’ve been confused,” he whispered. “But it’s all right now that I’ve got you.”

“But we only have fifty-five minutes together,” she protested.

“An hour is a long time,” he said. “Hold me.” He felt utterly safe and contented in her arms. Nothing could hurt him here.

He closed his eyes, but unwanted apparitions started to appear before him, so he was forced to open them again. He’d need to take his own advice and look closely at his environment to determine its true nature.

He was in a quaint, old-fashioned cabin and he had little sense of how he’d arrived here. There was a wicker picnic basket on the table, containing fresh fruit. Following the logic of the scenario, it appeared unlikely that this could be reality.

“A pity,” he said.

“What is?”

“That you’re not real.”

“I’m real. This is real.” She put her hand on his chest.

“No,” he replied. “I love you, but you don’t exist.”

“You are confused. We’re in Controlled Dreaming State, remember? I suppose you’re right in a way, that this isn’t real. But our love is real.”

“Maybe,” he said. He wasn’t sure of anything now. He could just as easily be in Controlled Waking State. Waking, dreaming – what was the difference?

“I’m going to put in an appeal for you to come home,” Ping said.

“They won’t let me go.” He was drifting away. The bed was a cork in the ocean and he was bobbing. He reached out for her but clutched nothing. “See?” he said, as though this demonstrated something.

“I’m over here,” Ping said. She was sitting at the table, laying out their lunch.

“It’s not real food.” But he made his way from the bed to the table, which had a solid feel to it. The food smelled delicious. She handed him a plate.

“Lui Ping, I love you,” he said when they had finished eating. They faced the fire, hand in hand.

“I love you too,” she replied, kissing him on the mouth. “I don’t want you to end up like Jun Shan.”

“He’s probably back home now,” Wei said. “Maybe they’ll send me home too.”

“Yes,” Ping said, grasping him tightly. “I want you to arrange a meeting with Yang Po. Tell him everything.”

“Ping,” he said, “there’s something that’s been puzzling me all morning. What day is it today? Are you sure it’s Friday? I don’t think I’ve had Thursday yet.”

There was a hard look on her face. “That’s exactly what you need to say to Yang Po.”

But as they spent their last moments together, Wei struggled to recall precisely what he was supposed to be telling Yang Po. It was something to do with the day – yes – but what specifically?

29. The Safehouse

The moment she saw Peters, Sylvia knew she was in trouble, but it wasn’t until they were on the shuttle bus that she felt brave enough to ask why. She had the window seat, which meant that Peters was between her and the door. Her suitcase was tucked away beneath her feet. There weren’t more than a dozen people on the bus, most of them inbound tourists.

“Am I under arrest?” she asked, the bus trundling along the road through the scrubland.

“You are not,” Peters replied in a low voice. He glanced sidelong at her. “There is, however, a warrant for your arrest in circulation. I’m afraid to say that it’s in relation to David. Personally, I am not convinced of your culpability, but your attempt to leave town would be seen by some as a sign of guilt.”

“I was just going to visit my parents,” Sylvia said. “I’m on leave, aren’t I?”

“You are. But had I not intervened, you would have been arrested at the gate and remanded in custody.”

“Thank you,” she said. Half-formed questions were beginning to percolate inside her, but she didn’t trust herself to say more.

Peters cleared his throat. “You have not asked why you are to be arrested. Perhaps you know?”

“I’m an accessory,” she replied. “An unwitting accessory to a dangerous crime.”

Peters nodded. “Then let us say no more of it here.”

The shuttle bus deposited them in the residential part of the Green Zone, but it seemed that Peters was intent on taking her somewhere in particular. They boarded the city-bound Reactor Line bus. Peters reminded her to swipe the blank identity card, not her own.

“Are we going to the office?” Sylvia enquired.

“No, it’s much too dangerous. I will take you to our safehouse.”

Those two words, ‘our safehouse’, plagued her for the remainder of the journey. They seemed to open up a dizzying spectrum of possibilities. When the bus turned onto the Grand Parade in the Amber Zone, Peters indicated that they were to alight.

The safehouse, on Porter Street, proved to be a low, anonymous building dwarfed by outlandish creations on either side. Peters swiped his own card and they stepped through into a drab reception area. There was no one behind the desk, no one around at all, and Sylvia couldn’t help but notice the dearth of lights.

“Where are we, Jeremy?” she asked.

“I told you. This is the safehouse.”

“Whose safehouse? Why am I here?”

“I don’t have time to explain now; I have to get back to work and put in my report. Our superiors will be disappointed to learn that I have not succeeded in apprehending the saboteur’s wife, Sylvia Baron.” Here he took her suitcase from her and disappeared into the gloom. Sylvia looked back at the locked door and reasoned that she had no choice but to follow. The safehouse seemed to be in a half-finished state, like many things here in Yellowcake Springs. Concrete floors were exposed, walls unpainted.

“Hold on,” she said. “You were supposed to take me in?”

“I volunteered, given that I know you personally,” Peters said over his shoulder.

“But the cameras! And my implant. Surely security will know where we are?”

“I called in a favour. Nothing easier. Anyway, here is your room. You’ll find all the necessary amenities. There’s food in the fridge.” He deposited her suitcase on the unmade bed and let her pass. “What do you think?”

The room had no window, the only internal door leading to a tiny bathroom. Sylvia sat on the corner of the bed. “I don’t know why I’m here,” she said, looking down at the floor.

“Of course not,” Peters said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “but you must put your faith in me. You must believe that I have your best interests at heart. If I did not, then I would never have risked going to the bus station.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Sylvia said.

“Look at me, Sylvia,” Peters said. She looked at him. “We’re in a dangerous game,” he said. “We don’t know all of the rules, or even all of the players. All we know is that if we lose this game, then a great many people will die.”

“You know about Misanthropos?” she asked.

“Sylvia,” Peters said. “I am one of its founding members, as is David. Now I must go. I will submit my report and return as soon as humanly possible. Please try to rest.”

He shut the door behind him. She did not need to swipe either of the cards in her possession to surmise that she was locked in.

Time lost its meaning thereafter. Sylvia was alone with her useless thoughts; without information, she had no way to determine whether she was safe or unsafe, lucky or unlucky. Her only link with the outside world was her flip-top phone, which she had surprisingly been allowed to keep. But even the phone was potentially a traitor to her cause, as surely Sinocorp would be monitoring her calls? They could trace the signal here. Why hadn’t Peters mentioned it? Was it merely an oversight on his part?

Sylvia turned it off and then, just to be sure, she removed the battery. Now there was no way anyone would know that she was here, except Peters. Then, another perilous thought surfaced: What if he’s detained? There was no use in thinking like that. That way lay torment. So she lay on the bed, dimmed the light on the bedside table, and tried to sleep.

No chance.

By 5:00pm, she’d worked herself up into a frantic state. She had been through every nook and cranny of her new environment, investigating every bland surface. She had searched for trapdoors, hidden caches, secret exits, but there were none. By that time, the CEO of CIQ Sinocorp could have walked into the room himself and Sylvia would have felt relieved. Anyone at all. Even a torturer would be preferable to this purgatory. Sylvia was no good at waiting at the best of times, but today she found it to be an exquisite agony. She even imagined that if Peters intended to kill her, then this would be as reliable a means as any. The door was impenetrable. But the phone. The phone. She could always call the authorities if she got desperate. Or she could try to get through to David.

No. If she could achieve one thing today, then it would be to resist that temptation.

At 5.45, her heart skittered as she heard footsteps. The door opened. It was Peters.

Blessed relief! She felt like kissing him.

“You turned off your phone,” he said. “I completely overlooked this most crucial of details. I am a fool.”

Much to her surprise, he allowed himself to fall onto the bed next to her. He was breathing heavily and somewhat unevenly.

“What happened?” she said.

Peters sat up rubbing his balding head. “I was able to cover my tracks, but just barely. I do believe that I am now a subject of investigation myself.”

“You owe me an explanation,” Sylvia said. “I want to know everything.”

“Fair enough,” he replied. “But first a drink. Have you opened the wine?” At that moment, Sylvia had the absurd notion that he intended to seduce her, but his expression was one of innocence.

“No,” she said. “I can open it if you like.”

“Would you? This day has taken years off my life.”

The wine was cheap, but Peters didn’t seem to mind. He gulped it down, refilling his plastic cup almost immediately. Sylvia placed her own cup down, barely touched, on the bedside table.

“I’m waiting,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all day.”

“Yes,” Peters said. “My apologies. Where to begin?”

“You can start by telling me how you know David.”

“I have known the great David Baron for a number of years…”

Thus began the first trickle in what would prove to be a torrent of words. When he was done, an hour had passed. David Baron and Jeremy Peters were what the media disparagingly called ‘mentals, or environmentalists. Of course she already knew about this in her husband’s case, but in regard to Peters, this came as a surprise. Misanthropos was an environmental organisation committed to population reduction and control. This in itself seemed benign but, as Peters explained, there was considerable disagreement within the organisation as to what form this reduction and control ought to take, and what level of environmental impact ought to be tolerated in achieving this goal. Some members, Peters included, were committed pacifists and thus wholly opposed to any form of violence, even in the name of population control. Others, like her husband, were more radical.

Therein lay the crux of the problem.

“Your husband and his cronies intend to sabotage one of the reactors,” Peters said. “This must not be allowed to happen.”

“Why not go straight to Sinocorp with this?” Sylvia asked.

Peters shrugged. “Because they’d shoot the lot of us. We’re all implicated.”

“That’s why you’ve brought me here? As a bargaining tool?”

“In custody you’re no good to anyone, least of all yourself. You must appreciate that our employers are not overly concerned with establishing guilt in any precise manner. They are much more inclined to purge all possible offenders and attribute guilt posthumously.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“A number of communiqués pass before my eyes daily, the nature of which the common person would likely find surprising. The event of your own death, for example, would not be seen as an unsatisfactory outcome.”

For a while, neither of them spoke.

“This must be a shock to you,” Peters eventually said. “I am sorry to have to burden you. But, as I’m sure you can appreciate, there is a greater goal here.”

“To call off the attack?”

“Yes. And now I must ask you to perform a certain duty.”

“What?”

He stood up a little unsteadily. “You must try to persuade David.”

“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”

“He probably won’t,” Peters replied, pulling a flip-top phone from his pocket. “But we will test the limit of his capacity for human empathy. He may say that he will proceed regardless of whether you are still in Yellowcake Springs, but this might be a bluff. I’m placing the call.”

David’s ethereal form strobed into view. Sylvia could see him, but David couldn’t see her, as Peters was holding the phone up in front of his own face.

“David,” Peters said. “I have some important news.”

“Is she gone?”

“No.”

“She’s been arrested?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“There’s been a change of plan,” Peters said.

“You’re not backing out?”

“I’m afraid so. There’s someone I’d like you to speak to…”

30. Citizen Rion

The gaze of a pair of steel grey eyes pinned Rion to his seat.

“You will earn your citizenship,” the voice attached to the eyes said.

“Yes,” Rion replied.

The lips creased into a smile, but the eyes did not change. “You accept the terms?”

“I accept.”

“Repeat them in your own words.”

“I am to locate Sylvia and, if possible, her husband David. I am to tell them I have been temporarily released, but that I am to leave Yellowcake Springs in two days. Under no circumstances am I to reveal the fact that I have been implanted by this security bureau, or that I have been offered citizenship in exchange for information leading to David Baron’s capture. I am to infiltrate Misanthropos by telling those involved that it is my intention to join the organisation. When I feel that I have achieved maximum possible exposure to Misanthropos, I am to signal the alarm. Once the alarm has been triggered, I am to remain close to the saboteurs until the security forces arrive. Thereafter I will be remanded in custody until final approval of my citizenship status.”

“Good. Then we are ready to proceed with the implanting. It is too late for your mission to proceed this afternoon, as the implantation blister may alert the Barons. The blister will subside in a few hours. Your mission will proceed at first light tomorrow.”

Rion’s heart was hammering in his chest. “I understand,” he said. “What happens now?”

“You will be escorted to the implantation suite,” the nameless person across the desk from him said. “This meeting is concluded.” Without another word, and with a gesture so subtle that Rion did not recognise it as such until after the fact, his interviewer indicated for the guards to collect him.

The implant technician was a deathly pale man of indeterminate age and an imperfectly shaven face. Rion stepped, as instructed, into a drab room dominated by a series of sleek, silver booths. One of the booths opened to admit him. He sat down and the booth closed over his torso and lower body. The technician told him to relax and activated the machine. It was over before Rion knew it. The process was quick and almost painless. All he felt was a cool puncture.

The booth released Rion from its clutches; he got to his feet rubbing his arm. “Everyone’s got one of these?” he asked the technician, peering intently at the rapidly-forming blister on the inside of his left arm.

“Every citizen of Yellowcake Springs, yes,” the technician said.

“Then why can’t…” Rion’s question remained unfinished as he was shunted out of the room by the guards. ‘Why can’t they track Sylvia and David directly?’ he had intended on asking. Maybe there was a way of deactivating or removing the implant? Rion would need to keep this in mind for later.

So here he was, back in his room, with nothing to show except a red mark on his arm. He’d been incarcerated, interrogated, threatened, cajoled, instructed and finally implanted, and yet he did not feel dismayed. He would be brought into the fold. He would be a Citizen.

Rion was woken by a strident buzzing sound – an alarm – at his bedside. He groped for it and was thrown into sudden and unwelcome light. It was Saturday morning, but it must still be early for this felt like the rudest of awakenings. Rion dressed in the clean clothes that had been provided, used the toilet and readied himself for his mission. The blister had subsided. Breakfast arrived thereafter, and though Rion thought that the food was probably the lowest quality for this place, it was more than good enough for him. He ate heartily, reminding himself with every mouthful that this was as good a reason as any for complying with the requests that had been made of him. When he’d finished eating, the door swung open and a lone guard ushered him out of his chamber. He barely looked to see where he was going – it was a meaningless maze of corridors and doors.

And then, at the final threshold, he was given a pass card by the accompanying guard. It was similar to the one he had seen Sylvia use on her apartment door and on the bus, but this one had no markings whatsoever. It was a blank slate.

“What’s this for?” Rion asked, more to hear the sound of his own voice than any other reason. He knew the answer and the guard confirmed it: it was a skeleton key. It would get him into Sylvia’s apartment and a great many other places besides. There were no words of encouragement for him, no parting words, but he was in need of none. Rion brimmed with an inner light, almost a divine purpose, or so it seemed to him at this moment. Everything would fall into place.

31. Saturday?

Jiang Wei needed to find Yang Po’s office, but he kept getting disorientated and there were a number of things he couldn’t explain. His thoughts kept going around in circles and his feet fared little better. Like a drunk man trying to regain his equilibrium through furious concentration, Wei tried to get his bearings. He was in a musty corridor with intermittently flickering lights. Dust motes drifted down and soft murmurings seemed to emanate from the walls. He had no choice but to shuffle forward in the vain hope that motion might bring enlightenment.

Further on, the situation grew bleak. This seemed to him to be a prison planet of hostile faces and padlocked minds. Faces turned to observe his passage, but betrayed no emotion but for the mild curiosity of cool regard. Where was Chen Da now, at the time of his greatest need?

As if to tempt or taunt him, an open door shimmied into view. Every other door handle he had tried had been locked, but this one beckoned by way of the pool of soft light spilling into the corridor. And yes, this did look like the way to Yang Po’s office. Maybe he was leaving the zone of apparition and aberration behind. Wei needed little encouragement to step across the threshold. There was Yang Po – ruddy, calm, expectant.

“I’ve been waiting,” the older man said. Was that a note of pride in his voice?

“I was on my way,” Wei replied.

“Can I offer you a seat? A drink?”

“Thank you.” And so for a moment he was content merely to sit and sip from the cool glass in his hand.

“My son,” Yang Po said after a period of silence. “You’ve done well.”

“But I’m so tired,” Wei replied. “I can’t seem to think straight.”

“Hush. Look at me, son. What can you see?”

Wei looked. At first, his brain could not interpret what his eyes were seeing. He struggled toward comprehension. It was not Yang Po in the seat before him. Another man sat there instead. The man was probably in his forties and greying at the temples.

“You don’t recognise your own father, Jiang Wei.”

“But you’re dead! Aren’t you?”

The man laughed. “It’s I who’s alive and you who are dead.” His hair had turned white now, his face heavily creased.

“What’s happening to you?” The man – his father – was ageing rapidly. Now his hair was shrivelling away and the flesh melted from his body, leaving him bald and frail. Here the progression halted.

“Such is the nature of transformation,” the old man said in a thin, rasping voice.

“But you died long ago,” Wei insisted.

“All I had to look forward to was this.” He raised his trembling arms. “I’m going now. Good luck.”

Before Wei had a chance to say his final goodbyes, the old man began to crinkle up into a knot of yellowed limbs. Decomposition was almost instantaneous, and soon all that was left was a leering skeleton. But even this was not the end, for now the skeleton crumpled inward. Some invisible force ground the bones into dust until there was nothing of his father left.

“You are unwell, Jiang Wei,” Yang Po said. He was sitting in the same seat that his father had recently occupied, still ruddy, calm and expectant.

“What just happened? I thought…”

“You’re disorientated. Take that helmet off.”

Wei lifted the Controlled Waking State helmet from his bruised neck and placed it on the ground next to his chair. His hair was soaked with sweat. “Sir, I’m losing my mind,” he said.

“It is to be expected. That you can still talk is a miracle in itself.”

“Then please – let me out. Let me return to the homeland.”

For a moment, Yang Po said nothing.

“Sir?”

Yang Po was looking at Wei, but their eyes did not seem to be meeting. In fact, the older man was not looking directly at him but slightly to one side.

“Sir?”

Yang Po appeared not to listen, or at least paid no heed whatsoever. He was still looking in Wei’s direction but he saw through him, as though Wei himself were a ghost. This filled him with dread more completely than anything that had gone before. Wei was glimpsing a time after his own death, when his consciousness was no more. Yang Po seemed unconcerned.

“This is what awaits you,” Yang Po finally said, though not exactly to him.

“Sir?”

But the interlude was over and Yang Po’s behaviour returned to normal. Wei heard himself repeat an earlier statement:

“Then please – let me out. Let me return to the homeland.”

“Impossible,” Yang Po said immediately in reply. “We have just received new orders. A terrorist organisation is plotting to attack the reactor complex. We are being placed on high alert. It will be necessary for you and several of your colleagues to be drafted into the local security forces as a temporary measure, until the saboteurs are brought to justice. We are all enormously proud of the work you are doing. Indeed, we are proud of the work you have already done.”

“But I can’t stand it,” Wei pleaded. “I’m seeing things that no one was meant to see.”

“It has been duly noted, and a record of your concerns has been placed on your file,” Yang Po said. “You are experiencing certain difficulties in moving from the Controlled to unControlled environments. Such difficulties are to be expected given the nature of our work here, but it does give us cause for concern.”

“Regarding my well-being? As I said, Sir, I…”

Yang Po held up his hand. “You misunderstand. Your well-being is of little interest to me, except in that I must explain your failings to my superiors in the homeland. I must not allow you to tarnish my reputation. I wonder if now might be the time for you to play an entirely different role. Yours will be a heroic sacrifice, Jiang Wei.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you do not. Yours is not to understand. Not to question, nor to enquire. You must give thanks. If I choose to destroy you, then you must go gladly to your destruction.”

“I see. Sir, may I ask – what day is it now?”

“It’s Saturday, June 1,” Yang Po said. “Shortly before 10am.”

But it made little difference to Jiang Wei what time and date it was now; he’d come unhooked from his place in chronology and he didn’t know the way home. There was still a part of him that wanted to live, but how did he know that he was right to seek life and shun death? How did he know that he wasn’t still in CWS? How did he know that he wasn’t already dead?

He was dismissed. He could hear sirens.

32. Prompt Critical

“It’s too late now,” David said, his form shimmering slightly.

“You can’t stop it?” Sylvia asked.

“Not even if I wanted to. We’re almost at prompt critical.”

“Are we safe here?” ‘Here’ was the safehouse, five kilometres from the reactor complex in the Amber Zone. It was just after ten in the morning on Saturday the 1st of June.

“Don’t go outside,” David warned. “Not yet.”

“David,” she pleaded, wanting to rip him away from the madness that enveloped him. “Where are you?”

“I’m outside the perimeter, like I said. They removed my implants, so they can’t track me. But I’ve got someone on the inside.”

“Can you get away?”

He barked out a short laugh. “I wouldn’t have thought so, Sylvia. They’ll close the border for sure.”

“How long? What’s happening?”

“Less than a minute. They’re trying to shut it down. Monkeys, the lot of them.”

“Can they do it?”

“In the next forty seconds? No. I love you, Sylvia. Now listen to me very carefully. Don’t go outside for at least twenty minutes. There’ll be chaos out there, understand? You’ll have one chance to get out before the military lock the whole place down, so get the fuck out! Okay, that’s it. It’s happening n… ”

David vanished as the call terminated. The power went off, leaving them in darkness.

“It’s all right,” Peters said, turning on a torch and shining it around the room.

But they heard nothing. Not a sound except for their own breathing.

“Do you think it worked?” she asked.

“Certainly.”

For a time after that there were no words passed between them. There was nothing left to say. The time for bargaining was over. Sylvia became aware of how tired she was from talking. It had been useless. And that was her husband: utterly intractable. No wonder their marriage hadn’t worked the way it should have.

“Has it been twenty minutes?” she said at long last.

“I still can’t hear anything, can you?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Sylvia half expected to witness a scene of devastation on the streets of the Amber Zone, but there was no such thing. The power was out and people were wandering aimlessly, not yet having caught wind of the unfolding calamity. It was cool and grey and there was a strong westerly breeze blowing. They walked along Porter Street and turned left onto the Grand Parade. The buses on the vast concourse were all at a standstill, and there was a throng of human traffic flowing south, away from the Red Zone.

“We’ll be able to see the reactor complex from the end of Temporal Avenue,” Peters said. “Come on.” They crossed a footbridge to the far side of the Grand Parade. There was as yet no panic. People did not know what to do, but they had no inkling of the cause of the power cut. In fact, a number of cafe customers remained sipping their cappuccinos on the strip, wait staff lingering uncertainly. Temporal Avenue was emptying, and the shops were closing, but Sylvia could see a knot of people at the end of the street. The crowd was looking across the waterway in the direction of the Red Zone. Sylvia and Peters took their places on the foreshore like children at a fireworks display.

The whole sky over the Red Zone seemed to flow with smoke and fire, and a terrible heat washed over the onlookers. As she stood, Sylvia imagined that this scene would be burned onto her retinas permanently, that she would never now not see this hellish visage. Through the slowly dissipating haze of black dust, they could see the reactor stacks dwarfed by the smoke cloud above. The left-most reactor was lit up with an eerie, raspberry-coloured glow. The light seemed to come from within. Small particles of some gritty black substance were beginning to waft down onto them, and with every passing second, this fallout intensified. There was an acrid taste in her mouth, something indescribable. Now a light rain was beginning to fall and people were taking cover. The drops running down their faces and pooling at their feet were black. Peters tugged at her arm and they turned away. Most of the people were attempting to flee from the black rain, but Sylvia and Peters knew better than to get caught in the stampede. Instead, they sat down at an abandoned cafe on Temporal Avenue. Though it was dim inside, it was bright enough for Sylvia to see her shaking hands by. She sat down and looked at them shaking, not knowing how to make them stop.

“I’ll take a reading,” Peters said. He got out a slim device and began fiddling with it. “It’s not fatal, but it’s bad,” he eventually concluded. “Probably less than two hundred millisieverts. But we’d better get rid of these clothes. Sylvia, your face is black.”

She looked up. “So is yours.”

“Go wash your face in the kitchen,” he said. “And throw out those clothes. You should be able to find something.”

At least the water was still running. Sylvia scrubbed her face and arms with soap and a hard, bristly brush. She found some clothes belonging to the wait staff in a side room, so she stripped off her grimy clothes and threw them in a bin. Without a shower, she couldn’t get the black dust out of her hair. She put the clothes on, not noticing or caring whether they were too large or small. Then she went back into the cafe and sat down.

“Did you find any clothes for me?” Peters asked.

“I didn’t look. Sorry,” Sylvia replied.

When Peters had washed and dressed in a red jumper several sizes too large for him, they were ready to move again. The rain had abated.

“I forgot to get my bag from the safehouse,” she said as they made their way along the Grand Parade.

He stopped and turned toward her. “Didn’t you see what just happened? If you get away with your life, you’ll be doing well.”

She followed him.

33. Up in Smoke

Rion was just about to leave Sylvia’s empty apartment when the power went out. Not wanting to be trapped, he hurriedly swiped the pass card on the door reader. For a fraction of a second, his mind surveyed possible escape routes, should the door not respond. Force open a window? Jump down from the second floor? But then the lights turned green and the door swung open with a click. All right. A power cut. He had lived almost his whole life without electricity, so he could manage without it for a few minutes.

Out on the street, the buses were at a halt. People were trapped inside and slowly coming to the conclusion that they might, like him, need to find a means of escape. Rion stood on the Barons’ second storey balcony for a few moments, surveying the scene. The street below looked like a disturbed beehive, its inhabitants springing angrily to life. Soon the street was swarming, as people got down from the buses and began moving in every direction. Rion had an inkling that the power might not be coming back on anytime soon, that something more serious than a simple outage had occurred.

It was only then that he turned his gaze westward and saw the column of smoke pluming out over the Red Zone. He physically recoiled, not so much in shock, but in the knowledge that his ambitions had just literally gone up in smoke. David fucking Baron. And here he was, on the culprit’s balcony. Ought he to avert his eyes? He noticed that the smoke was, bizarrely, light blue in colour. From this distance he could not see whether the reactors themselves were ablaze. As he watched, for what seemed like several minutes, the cloud grew impossibly massive, and the blue smoke was drowned out by black. Then he saw the flames.

People were running around down at street level, but Rion felt no desire to do the same. He couldn’t go back to the Amber Zone and his new masters – that much was certain – but nor could he easily flee Yellowcake Springs on foot. It was many kilometres to the gate and he knew the empty wasteland beyond all too intimately. He would need to blend in. Hell, he had been implanted now! Might they mistake him for a citizen, especially if the relevant records were destroyed?

Rion would be a citizen yet, but of what? An irradiated town? There was some kind of coordinated activity going on down there now. Official vehicles were policing the streets, commanding those on the walkways to return to their homes. But the police vehicles were too few in number, their message too faint, to turn back the crowd. People were spilling out of doorways and onto the street faster than the police could herd them up and send them back. Possessed of a newly-formed hive mind, the crowd pushed east along the boulevard beneath Rion’s balcony. Ought he to join them now, to take his place in the throng? He wavered, crippled by indecision. The sound of breaking glass persuaded him to wait until the bulk of the crowd had passed.

A minute or two later, something approaching order had returned to the street below. Police officers were posted on street corners and the first blockades were being erected. If Rion was going to get out of this precinct, it’d better be now.

On the street, Rion found himself heading north in the direction of the nearby Amber Zone gate. In doing so, he was very much at odds with the general sentiment of the time. He felt an obscure desire to return to the place of his incarceration. Was it because there he had felt safe for the first time in his life? His feet did the thinking in the absence of any firm resolution from his mind. Asking himself why he was going this way, he had to admit to himself that he was looking for Sylvia too, that he was scanning the crowds for her face.

At the gate, a steady stream of evacuees was pouring out of the Amber Zone. A light rain was beginning to fall, intermixed with some foul black substance. There was no avoiding it, no shelter here. The faces of those fleeing the Amber Zone were blackened. The black rain continued to fall lightly, but the sky above them was beginning to clear. Then Rion was caught up in the movement away from the gate, and he had no choice but to fall in. They were all equals now, all similarly bedraggled. A little further along, a cluster of army vehicles, similar to the ones he had seen on the road from East Hills, had gathered. Rion managed to secure a seat on one before it was declared full.

The carrier chugged to life and slowly made its way out of the town. People who were related or known to each other huddled together for comfort, but Rion had no one. Someone was talking about radiation, and someone else about family members left behind. Rion knew he would be distraught later, but for now there was nothing inside of him except for a bitter taste in his mouth. The convoy stopped in a barren area just beyond the outskirts of town, where a field hospital was in the process of being constructed. They were ushered out and told to join a queue at a particular tent. There were countless thousands here, seemingly the entire population of Yellowcake Springs, but Rion knew it could not be so as more carriers were arriving all the time.

“What are we lining up for?” someone behind him in the queue asked.

Rion turned around. It was a young boy, maybe twelve years old. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice like gravel. “Medicine?”

“That’s right,” a man in front of him said. “They’re giving us tablets for the radiation. Potassium iodide.”

Rion knew nothing of this, so he kept quiet. The line moved rapidly and he was soon at the front. He was given two small white tablets and a plastic cup of water. He swallowed the tablets with the water and put the cup in the bins nearby.

“It’s to prevent thyroid cancer,” the man who had spoken before said. He was a big man with a soft, gentle face. Dressed in beige overalls, which were stretched taut across his ample frame, he had the appearance of a monk.

“Thyroid cancer?” Rion asked, not wanting to admit he had no idea what a thyroid was.

“That’s right. Radioactive iodine gets into your thyroid and gives you cancer. Only has a half-life of eight days. These tablets flood the thyroid with non-radioactive iodine, so you can’t absorb the radioactive iodine.”

“So we’re safe from the radiation, then?”

The man shook his head. “Ever heard of strontium, caesium and plutonium?”

“No,” Rion admitted.

“You will now. Strontium and caesium have a half life of around thirty years. They haven’t got a tablet for that, either.”

“And plutonium?”

“Twenty-four thousand years. I’m Ben, by the way.”

“Rion.”

The man smiled, apparently cheered by this, and walked on. Rion followed him and joined a second queue.

34. Garbage

The house was a mess; the kids had been here all day and had left a trail of food packets, toys and crumbs behind. The sink was full of dirty dishes, the kitchen floor needed sweeping, and there was a basket of clean washing to hang out on the line. Wei set to the task at once, undaunted but resigned. Lui Ping had never been one for keeping a tidy house, and the children were still small, so this job often fell to him. He preferred to think of it as a hundred small jobs rather than one large one, and he liked to complete the task in stages.

The first stage involved picking up all the rubbish, clothes and toys and putting them in their appropriate places, be it the bin, the dirty washing basket or the toy box. The front room was usually the worst so he started there, collecting the toy planes and stuffed animals and dropping them into the box. There were toys strewn throughout the rest of the house too, but he would get to that in a minute. There were empty drink containers, chip packets, and tomato sauce-covered plates. Wei worked methodically, not pausing to look at the clock on the kitchen wall.

The kitchen bin liner was overflowing, so he tied it up and took it to the outside bin. Something did not seem quite right out here. Perhaps it was the faded look of the houses on the far side of the suburban street, or the unusual quality of the afternoon light, but Wei felt ill at ease. The sun was shining but it did so without warmth. He put the rubbish in the bin and hurried inside, but something seemed to have subtly changed in his absence. The house, which had previously seemed grubby but lived in, now seemed devoid of life, as though no one had lived here in years. He got on with his tasks, plugging in the vacuum cleaner and making a start on the front room, but although the vacuum cleaner was a new one and usually very effective, he did not seem to be making any progress. Perplexed, he went back into the kitchen.

The dishes in the sink were still dirty, the crumbs and plates on the bench still scattered, but now there were bigger issues to contend with. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was rubble strewn across the floor. Part of the roof had caved in.

“What’s wrong, Papa?”

Wei spun around, startled. His six year-old daughter Lijia was staring at him, a solemn expression on her face. “I’m just looking at…this. Do you know what happened here?”

“There was an accident at the reactor,” his daughter said.

“What reactor?”

“Silly, Papa. Don’t you know? The town’s being evacuated.”

He stared at her, but her expression was unchanged. “Then why are we still here?” he said. “We’d better leave.”

She shook her head. “Can’t. You’ve got to clean up first.” She strode off in the direction of her bedroom, leaving him alone again.

Wei stepped over the rubble and started washing the dishes in the sink, but again he did not seem to be making any progress. The pile of plates was not diminishing, and if he wasn’t mistaken the floor in the kitchen was sticky. Looking at his feet, he saw that the floor was blackened as though having been scorched by fire. It was like walking on soft tar.

“Are you all right, sir?” Chen Da asked. He had come into the kitchen from the front room. He had some kind of cleaning apparatus strapped to his back.

“You’re shampooing the carpets?” Wei asked. “I haven’t finished vacuuming in there yet.”

“Carpets, sir?” Chen Da asked. “I don’t follow you.”

Wei stared at his subordinate intently. What was that thing strapped to his back? “What are you doing at the moment?” he asked.

“I’m trying to clean up the garbage, sir. This place is a mess.”

“Yes, I know. The kids… ”

But Chen Da had gone back into the front room. The sink looked less like a sink and more like a long metal trough now, such as those animals feed from. He couldn’t find the wash-cloth.

Lijia was in her room. Sitting on the corner of her bed, she was brushing her brown, shoulder-length hair. Her feet didn’t quite reach the ground. Her face was pure and unblemished and her eyes were as dark as his own. She was wearing a frilly red dress and white sandals. He took her into his arms and held her tight.

“Papa!” she exclaimed, struggling against him. He put her down. “I’m scared, Papa.”

“It’s all right,” he soothed.

“Can we go now? There are scary men in the house.”

“It’s okay, little one. It’s just Chen Da and the team. They won’t hurt you.”

She looked at him through tear-moistened eyes. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Papa, I’m still scared.”

“What is it? You can tell me.”

“Papa, I don’t want to die. I’m still little.”

He cupped her head and held her close to him for a long time. He held her so tight that he thought that the bones of her little body might break. Her breathing slowed and he wondered if she were falling asleep. He could put her to bed for a while until he had finished cleaning. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open. Wei squeezed his daughter once more and then carefully placed her on the bed and put the cover over her. She was asleep and all that he wanted to do was to keep her safe forever.

“We’re moving onto the next sector, sir,” Chen Da said from the doorway.

“Yes, all right. My little one will be safe here, won’t she? Look at her sleeping.”

“Sir, I don’t see…”

“Look how her eyelids flutter! What are you dreaming about, my little princess? Come now, Chen Da, I don’t want to disturb her.”

“Yes, sir.”

His men were assembled in the main chamber. They all wore some kind of flimsy face-mask, like those Wei imagined deep-sea divers might wear, but he could tell them apart easily enough. They seemed to be waiting for him.

“We need to move out,” Zhou Sen said. “We’re getting too much radiation.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Wang Meng complained.

“Sir, your mask has slipped down,” Zhou Sen said. “Let me fix it for you.”

Zhou Sen fiddled with something near to Wei’s face. It was absurd; he wasn’t wearing a mask. But wait – he was. And this did not seem so much like a house; more like some kind of industrial complex. There was rubble and pieces of twisted steel scattered all over the concrete floor.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We’re in the reactor!” Ma Jian snapped. “Are you mad?”

Wei had a mind to reproach the man for his insolent tone, but now his eyes were seeing things that could not easily be explained, and the matter of Ma Jian’s insolence paled. They were in the reactor. There must have been an explosion, for further along flames were rising from something black and sticky that looked like melted coal.

“There’s been an accident?” Wei said in wonder. “What are we doing here?”

His men looked at one another.

Finally Chen Da spoke: “We’ve been cleaning up the garbage, sir. We’re getting at least 1000 millisieverts an hour down here, and we don’t have time for fucking idle chit-chat. We’re getting out.” But their eyes were those of men who knew they were leaving this world.

“Okay, I’ll wake Lijia up and be right with you.”

But there was no Lijia and there never had been. If she existed anywhere, then it was in a future time that might now never come.

35. The Green Zone

The crowd was bottlenecked at the gate to the Green Zone. Sylvia and Peters were a couple of hundred metres back, at the periphery of the throng. The mood was restless and Sylvia felt the human tide yearning to surge forward through the blockage. Water cannons from local fire engines sprayed the crowd with a fine mist, not to repel them, but to wash the radioactive dust away. Tiny black waves lapped at Sylvia’s toes.

“This could take hours,” Peters said.

“I’m still worried about the cameras,” Sylvia replied. “There’s one up there.” No doubt it was also recording their conversation.

“I think the security bureau has more pressing issues to attend to, don’t you?”

“Like that?” Sylvia said, indicating to the vibrating razor wire fence ahead. People were shaking the poles and the fence was starting to yield. Then a great cheer went up as a section of the fence clattered down. She felt the weight of those who had gathered behind her pushing forward. Then there were screams as those unlucky few at the front were slashed by the razor wire as the mob sent them tumbling over the downed fence.

“Get back!” Peters cried amidst the rising din. He shunted her back with surprising strength. Now they were at the edge of the crowd, gasping for breath but temporarily safe. Sylvia fell to her knees. The moans and sobs of the injured – some gored, others trampled – became apparent. As the numbers thinned, Peters helped her up and they made their way toward the ruined gate. The fire crews and a handful of medics attended to the fallen. The injured were mainly children.

“Come on,” she said to Peters, who was crouching next to a traumatised child huddled against an unbroken section of the fence.

Peters straightened as a medic led the girl away. He looked Sylvia in the eye, a terrible thunder on his face. “You and your husband were better suited to each other than you knew,” he said, turning away.

That stung, but Sylvia said nothing. There were no words for any of this; the time for recriminations would be later. She stepped across the threshold of the Green Zone and waited to see if Peters would join her. He did.

“We’ll be arrested if we don’t hurry,” she said. She wanted to justify her need for flight to him, but the words wouldn’t come. He nodded and nothing further was said between them.

Looking up, Sylvia saw a pair of low-flying helicopters heading toward the reactors. Then Peters drew her attention to a scientist in a bright orange radiation suit walking along the boulevard toward them. The scientist stopped periodically, taking what she presumed were readings of the radiation level.

“Where can I get one of those suits?” Peters asked, but not loud enough for the scientist to hear. “And more importantly, how desperately do I need one?”

“I thought you said it was okay,” Sylvia said.

He shrugged. “We won’t die of cancer this month.”

They watched as the scientist was corralled by a handful of angry townspeople. Their words were whipped away by the wind as soon as they were spoken, and the scientist did not deign to respond. The situation was threatening to turn nasty, and Sylvia could imagine the scientist being stripped of his suit and paraded around the street, a sign around his neck denouncing him for his crimes. Then a warning shot was fired. The shot came from a second similarly dressed scientist wielding a high powered rifle. The crowd scattered and the scientists abandoned their readings and withdrew.

Further along, a convoy of trucks was parked in the middle of the street. People were being loaded on like refugees from some war-torn country.

“What do we do now?” Sylvia asked. “Run?” She knew as well as he did that the bushland surrounding the town was almost completely devoid of life. There was nothing out there but the Waste.

“No,” Peters replied. “They won’t have time for checking IDs now.”

“I hope not.”

They allowed themselves to be herded onto one of the trucks, which Sylvia recognised as identical to those used in the Preparedness training she had been compelled to attend. Did this explain her reluctance in boarding, simply in that the truck reminded her of the rope ladders and obstacles courses she was never able to traverse in time?

“Where are we going?” Sylvia asked.

“They’re setting up a camp out of town,” a fat woman with bedraggled hair said. “At least until they clear up the accident.”

Sylvia nodded and sat back as the truck’s engine thrummed to life. Those two words, ‘the accident,’ were repeated in her mind. It had been an accident after all. A terrible mistake. She noticed that Peters was watching her, so she gave him the smallest of nods to indicate that she knew that this conversation was already on dangerous ground. There was a part of her that wanted to denounce David this very moment, to allow her rage to boil over, but the greater part of her advised caution.

“You know,” Sylvia said to the woman, “I work in advertising. I just designed a new ‘vert for the town. It may never see the light of day now.”

The truck made its way out of town.

36. Fallout

By mid-afternoon, the situation in the makeshift camp on the edge of town was starting to settle down. The seemingly endless flood of evacuees had all but abated. Like Rion, the other citizens of Yellowcake Springs had been given potassium iodide tablets, as well as a cold shower, a dry towel, and a change of clothes: one-size-fits-all overalls in a putrid shade of beige. Now everyone looked the same, their individuality stripped away. Rion saw each of these trials as rituals in his citizenship ceremony. If they were dejected, then he was elated; where they saw their lives being taken away from them, he saw his own being handed to him for the first time.

The next ritual would be the roll call.

Rion marvelled at the efficiency of the operation, blighted only by the dirty smudge in the western sky over the Red Zone. Another much closer fire was a pyre for all the radiated clothes the townspeople had been wearing. People scurried to and fro, called to active duty in the defence of the town by the disaster, as people were already calling it. If Rion wasn’t mistaken, then a number of them looked, if not precisely happy, then at least invigorated. For the most part, the citizens had been – superficially at least – untouched by the disaster. There were few injuries that he could see. No blackened corpses or retching invalids. This camp had been constructed as a field hospital, and yet there were few patients to tend to.

But the radiation; of course there was that. This was a subject about which Rion was mostly ignorant. His tuition, such as it had been, consisting mainly of old magazines and a mouldering encyclopaedia, had not covered this. He knew a little of nuclear attacks on cities – of Hiroshima and Peshawar – and of the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, but he knew little about radiation per se. Eavesdropping on the conversations taking place all around him, he surmised that most of those assembled here were equally ignorant. This most invisible and unsettling of enemies would stalk their dreams relentlessly.

At a loose end, Rion wandered over to the edge of camp. The scrubland consisted almost entirely of dry, spiny bushes and sandy soil. It was unremarkable in itself, but something had drawn his attention and he wasn’t quite sure how to describe it. There was a very fine shimmer; it was almost as if – and here he was embarrassed to think of it like this – the landscape had been sprinkled with fairy dust. Tiny particles of something were scattered on the bushes and in the sand. It would have consequences that far outreached this particular camp on this particular day, and it would outlive them all. This was fallout.

“What do you think it is?” a man standing nearby said. Rion looked and saw that it was Ben, the man who had spoken knowledgeably about radiation before.

“Something from the reactor?” Rion asked.

Ben nodded. “These people,” he said, “they feel safe now, and it’s true that they aren’t in any immediate danger, but things might look different a decade from now.”

“The radiation?”

Ben nodded again. It seemed to be a customary gesture for him. “It hasn’t rained here yet. When it does, the sparkly stuff will wash away into the ground water.”

“Do you know what it is?” Rion asked.

“I can make an educated guess. Let’s see. We’ve got caesium, strontium and iodine. A little plutonium – that’s the worst stuff – but probably not a great deal of that. And then there’s lead, zirconium, cadmium, beryllium, boron.”

“That seems like better than an educated guess.”

“Well, I’m an environmentalist,” Ben said. “I take an interest in these things.”

“I see. You’re not involved in…”

“Not involved in the ‘accident’ here? Perhaps I am. I haven’t seen you around before today, friend, but I can recognise a kind face when I see one. I’d love to speak further, but first I’d better make a small confession.”

Rion’s insides began to churn. He was being inexorably drawn back in to the sordid sweep of events. Gillam. Misanthropos. David Baron. “Go on,” he said.

“You see, my name’s not really Ben. My real name is Clyde Owen.”

“I’m Rion...Jones.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr Jones. You haven’t asked why I lied about my name, but I can see that it’s the question on your lips, so I’ll spare you the trouble of asking. I’m afraid to say that I am implicated in this little plot here. I’m not the only one, of course.”

“You’re part of Misanthropos?”

“If I were to admit that, I’d be in considerable trouble, wouldn’t I? With the authorities here.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Well, if it were true, I might want to keep it under my hat, mightn’t I?”

“I think you would.”

“Good,” Clyde exhaled. “Well, I confided in you. That makes you my confidant now.”

“Why are you telling me this? I mean, I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t know me, but it’s not true to say that I just happened to randomly pick you from the crowd. You see, I do know a little about you. Not much, but a little.”

Rion looked at him and said nothing. Perhaps if he stayed very still, then the big man would stop talking and he could go back to blending in. It had been a mistake to isolate himself from the crowd. Somehow, by some means unknown to him, they knew. They knew he was different, that he was an outsider, that he was other.

Clyde was waiting for a response and now, in the absence of one, he spoke again: “I know that your name’s Rion, that’s R-I-O-N, but I don’t think you have a last name of Jones. But I told a lie about my name too, so we’re even.”

“What do you want from me?” Rion asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” Clyde said. “This isn’t an interrogation. I’m holding you in suspense, so I guess I’ll just come out with it. It’s true that I’m a member of Misanthropos, although not as senior a member as your girlfriend’s husband. Oh, that was crude. She’s not really your girlfriend, is she? Not exactly.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

Clyde seemed surprised. “Want?” He paused to consider it. “I guess I don’t want anything. Where I’m going to there’s no coming back from. I’ve gone down a difficult path, Rion. In a few minutes they’re going to do the roll call, and I’m not much of a runner, and even if I was, there’s nowhere to go. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You know more about the outside than anyone, don’t you? Which is why you’re trying to stay inside. Can’t say I blame you. We’ve got different perspectives, you and I, but I can understand where you’re coming from.”

“You won’t try to run? You might be able to slip away.”

“No, but thanks for the suggestion,” Clyde said, patting him on the back. “I have to face up to my responsibilities. I’ve done a questionable thing. Some might say a terrible thing. Hell, you might say that. That it was a terrible thing.”

Rion said nothing.

“You can trust me, Rion. I’m not going to implicate you. You haven’t done a thing wrong. Not at all. In actual fact, it was for you, or at least people like you, that I did this thing.”

“I don’t understand, Clyde.”

The big man rested his hand on Rion’s shoulder in a way that was almost fatherly. “Of course you don’t understand. You haven’t been given the information necessary for you to understand, and I suppose all I’ve done is talk around in circles. Look, we’d better head back to the group. They’re doing the roll call now. Could I ask you one thing, Rion? A dying man’s final request?”

“Ask away,” Rion said, instantly regretting his flippant choice of words.

But Clyde did not seem to have noticed. “You’ll stand with me in the line? You won’t disown me? It’s going to be very lonely for me soon.”

“I’ll stand with you,” Rion said. He led the bigger man over to the back of the nearest queue. It was all that he could do to be polite.

A fine mist was falling from the red sky.

37. Prognosis

When Jiang Wei opened his eyes, he couldn’t remember where he was or what had happened to him. He was lying in a bed in a bright room, and there was some kind of plastic barrier around him. “Where am I?” he croaked.

“You’re in Regal Perth Hospital,” a person in a radiation suit said in his ear, over the intercom. “You’re quite ill. My name is Marcos. I’m a nurse here.”

Then Wei’s attention turned to the groans emanating from somewhere on his left, so he tilted his head and saw, through the plastic shielding, someone lying on another bed. There were more beds beyond. It was a hospital ward.

“Who’s that?” he asked the nurse.

“It’s your colleague, Zhou Sen.” The words rang through the shrunken confines of his world.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s suffering from radiation sickness.”

Then it came back to him in a sudden, horrific flood. The reactor, the accident, and the work they had done there cleaning up the debris. The vomiting. “How much radiation did we get?” he asked.

“The doctor will explain everything to you,” the nurse said. “I’ll put her on.”

A screen descended into position above him. “Can you hear my voice?” the smooth-faced doctor on the screen asked.

“Yes,” Wei said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Leona. I am a computerised simulacra and the resident doctor on this ward.”

“Which ward is this?”

“The Burns Unit,” Leona said. “I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you and I don’t wish to prolong your state of ignorance, so with your permission, I will outline your current condition.”

“Go on.”

Her face was kind and yet she was not a real person. Her voice was soothing, a voice you could get lost in, and her eyes were the lightest of blues. Wei wanted to stare at that face forever. “You and your colleagues received a very high dose of radiation in the reactor at Yellowcake Springs. Your employer, CIQ Sinocorp, has asked me to pass on their thanks and also their deepest regrets on hearing of your current condition. They fervently hope that you will make a full and speedy recovery from your illness. They wish to remind you that you will be welcomed back with open arms to your place of employment at such a time that you are fit to resume your duties. Until then, you are receiving indefinite sick leave on full pay. Your fiancée has been informed of your condition, and I am pleased to say that she is flying out from China to be at your bedside at this very moment.”

“But what is my condition? You didn’t say.”

“You are suffering from acute radiation sickness. At this point in time, the symptoms include headaches, vomiting, acute nausea and rashes, but these symptoms are expected to worsen in the coming days. I can assure you that you will receive the very best of treatment here at Regal Perth Hospital, and that every measure will be taken to…”

“How much radiation did I receive?” Wei interjected.

“The dose was around 8200 millisieverts or 8.2 sieverts.”

“What?!” He tried to sit up in bed and failed. His limbs did not seem to be responding. “Then I’m a dead man.”

“While the prognosis is…”

“Shut up! Fucking shut up! I need to think for a minute. Eight sieverts? We’re dead. That’s enough to kill bone marrow isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

“Your bone marrow has been completely destroyed, yes.”

“Then I’m dead,” Wei said, more quietly this time. “I’m dead. No bone marrow. How long? When will Lui Ping be here? Wait a second, she can’t come in here! Nobody can! That’s why that nurse is in a rad-suit, isn’t it? We’re radioactive now!”

“To answer your first question, the prognosis is death within fourteen days. The longest period of survival for a patient suffering from acute radiation sickness of this severity is around 25 days. To answer your second question, your fiancée Lui Ping will be here tomorrow. I can assure you that you will be in a state to speak with her at this time, and to pass on any last wishes or requests. And to respond to your third statement, it is correct to say that no one must enter this room without a radiation suit. This includes Lui Ping. You are correct in saying that your body and the bodies of your colleagues are now highly radioactive. You will remain in this sealed chamber for the duration of your life.”

“Two weeks,” Wei said. “I’ll be in a state to talk to her tomorrow, will I? What kind of state will I be in the day after that? And the day after that? You can’t lie to me. I know all about radiation sickness. I studied it at university.”

“Then you will accept my heartfelt personal sympathies,” Leona said.

“Bullshit,” Wei said. “You don’t know what this feels like. You aren’t alive. They’ve programmed you to think that you know, but you can’t feel a thing, can you? You don’t know what it’s like to have lived, and you don’t know what it’s like to die. You can’t feel pain. You don’t know what it is to feel desire. You’re nothing.”

“You’re upset,” the computer simulacra said. “We will speak again later, when you have had time to compose your thoughts. I realise that this is a tremendous shock. One final question I must ask you: do you feel any pain? The dosage of painkillers can be increased if required.”

“No pain,” Wei said.

“Very well,” Leona replied. The screen folded up.

Wei was in a rage, a fury. He wanted to get up and tear down the plastic shielding over his bed. He wanted to smash, to rend, to tear. He wanted to take the nurse by the throat and strangle the life from him, to punish him for his vigour, his motility. But he did no such thing. His body was limp and lifeless. He felt no physical pain.

“Zhou Sen!” he screamed. “Can you hear me?”

The man groaned and turned to face him. His face was covered in weeping sores. “Jiang Wei? I’m dying.”

“I know,” Wei said. “We’re all dying. Why didn’t they give us radiation suits? That fucker’s got one, why not us? Nurse! Tell me why we didn’t get radiation suits! Sent to clean up the accident with no rad-suits! How about that!”

Now needles were puncturing his skin. Yes, they had thought of everything. They were trying to sedate him. They wanted to silence his voice. They wanted him to go quietly. But he would do no such thing. He would –

38. Sunset

So there Sylvia was – watching the sun go down on the day everything had changed. This day, the 1st of June 2058, would long be remembered for the crime committed upon it, like so many other notorious days in history.

The reactor was still burning, but thankfully the smoke and fallout had been caught up in the strong south-westerly breeze that blew in the afternoon here. The site for the camp had been chosen with this in mind. The sun was setting in a red haze and the sky itself seemed to be bleeding. Was there something else she might have done to prevent this? Could the blame be placed on her? There was a feeling in her chest unlike any she could recall: a twisting, churning sensation with an associated shortness of breath. Perhaps this was what the onset of a heart attack felt like. Or maybe it was just the smoke she had inhaled.

There were no trees, nothing to catch the moving air; just the low, barren scrubland that CIQ Sinocorp had chosen as the site for its facility. The Chinese had not thought to plant trees here, and in any case the soil was no good. This was a nothing land, a nothing place. Just an empty spot on the map that had looked like a good site for a nuclear reactor. Sinocorp had bought up this whole area forty years before, when it’d been a sandy coastal plain with little in the way of habitation. The closest town – a sleepy fishing community with a population of under two thousand in those days – was located at the periphery of the proposed Green Zone. And so money had changed hands, and this nothing had become something. It had become Yellowcake Springs.

And now it was being unmade, and her husband David Baron was the unmaker.

Not that Sinocorp would give up so easily. For all Sylvia knew, the radiation might have been contained by now. The Chinese wouldn’t let a setback like this dissuade them. No doubt they would redouble their efforts. David had been a fool to think otherwise, if he had thought otherwise. Thinking this depressed her; he had done all that he could and yet it hadn’t been enough. She had tried to prevent him from doing it and that hadn’t been enough. In their differing ways they had been equally inadequate.

People were lining up to have their implants read.

“What are you thinking?” Peters asked. He had been quiet for a long time.

“Just daydreaming,” she replied.

“Do you want to join the line?” he asked. “Everyone else is.”

“Are you mad?” she said. “We can’t.”

Peters shook his head. “I won’t run. But you will, I’m guessing.”

“What choice do I have?”

“Perhaps our employer will show leniency to those who confess their crimes,” he said.

“You’ve changed your tune. You’re going to give yourself up?”

“My conscience will not allow me to do otherwise,” Peters said. “I can see that you feel no such emotion.”

“What have I done? Nothing.”

“That’s correct, Sylvia. You did nothing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you could have taken steps to avert this,” he said, waving his hands broadly.

“I tried to talk him out of it, didn’t I? He wouldn’t listen. You saw what he’s like. And it was you that got me off the bus, remember that. Anyway, you’ve got much more to answer to than I do. They’ll string you up from a flagpole yet.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he said. He pointed to the back of the line that had swelled to several hundred shuffling bodies. “Coming?”

“You’re really turning yourself in?”

“Yes, but I’m curious. Where will you run?”

“I’ve got to find someone,” Sylvia said. “I know just the man.”

“And still you won’t face up to your actions,” Peters said. “You’re a lost cause, Sylvia Baron. A good ‘vert writer, but a lost cause all the same.”

So this was the way it was going to be. She didn’t need Peters and his defeatism. Sylvia needed to find Rion in the torrent of faces. She turned away from Peters and moved along the nearest line as unobtrusively as she was able, but people seemed to think she was trying to jump ahead of them in the queue. “Hey you!” a woman said. “Back of the line.”

“My boy,” Sylvia replied. The woman backed off. If only she did have a child, then maybe things would be different. She might never have landed herself in this mess. “I can’t find my little boy,” she reiterated for those further ahead. She repeated this second phrase over and over as though it were a mantra that would lead her to safety. Her little boy, the one that she had never had.

“What does he look like?” people asked her, and: “What’s his name?” But Sylvia would not acknowledge them.

“His name is Rion,” she finally said. “Rion! Rion!” She moved along the queue with increasing speed. But everyone was dressed in the beige overalls and their faces all looked the same. She came to the front of the line and the loathsome implant scanner, but before anyone could say anything she was off to the next line, this time progressing front to back.

“Rion!” she cried. “Rion! Where are you?”

She was causing such a ruckus that there was every chance that she would be arrested. A security officer tried to placate her with the knowledge that if her son was here, he’d be identified in good time, but she was having nothing of that and she brushed past him. She had to remind herself that in actual fact she wasn’t looking for a small child but a grown man.

“Sylvia,” a voice finally called out, though none too loudly. It was him; it was Rion. His lips with thin, his nose pointed, his eyes squinting, but she knew in that moment that this was a face she could love and come to rely on. She had never felt as glad to see anyone in her life.

“Sylvia,” he repeated. “What’s wrong?”

People were looking. Lots of people.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“You’re not pushing in,” another woman said. “He can go to the back with you.”

“I’m not going to the back, but I am going to talk to her privately for a minute,” Rion said. “That’s fair? I’ll talk to her over there and then I’ll come back to my place in the line.”

It was agreed. Rion left the line and walked with her.

39. Roll Call

It had come to this. Rion and Sylvia: facing one another, their bodies squared off in confrontation. The sky was red and smoky. He would have to tell her straight and tell her now, before she got them both shot.

“You’ve got to help me,” Sylvia implored. “We need to get away.”

“We need to get away?” Rion replied. “You need. I need to stand over there in the line.”

There were tears in her eyes, but he was determined that he wouldn’t waver. He looked at her lips instead. Her eyebrows. Anything. “Why won’t you help me?” she asked.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

“You will?” Her face lit up with hope.

“Yes. Sneak out tonight. It’ll be your last chance. Call in any favours you have, but do it quickly. Once you’re outside, stay off the main roads. You’ll need to find water. After that, you’ll need to find your way back to Perth.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Coming with you? Why would I do that, Sylvia? I’ve risked my life getting here, only for your fucking husband to ruin everything. But I’m a Citizen now and I’m not about to throw that away.”

She glared at him. “I’ll take you down with me. Don’t think I won’t. I’ll walk right up to that guard and tell him you’re a Misanthropos agent.”

“You do that,” he heard himself say. All bluff, all bluster, but what else did he have? There were stabbing pains in his stomach; his insides were tied in knots. Sylvia Baron – she had been his saviour and now she would be his destroyer.

And then it was as though Sylvia was seeing him for the first time. He supposed he’d been glaring back at her. The look on her face was one of surprise, even wonder.

“You really won’t come with me?”

“I’m going to take my chances here.”

“But all these…”

“Will be evacuated, yes. All these people will be displaced from their homes. But that’s all right with me. I don’t have a home.”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” she said in a quiet voice.

“It’s possible,” he replied. “But I feel that my conscience is clear.”

“Your conscience,” she said dully. And then: “I can’t do this.”

“Then give yourself up.”

She turned away without another glance and began trudging off in the direction of the scanners. He watched her long enough to see that she was not about to hand herself in to the guards, and nor did she seem to be about to join one of the lines. It was then that his resolve began to evaporate. There was a part of him that wanted to call out to her again, but he saw now that this was the cowardly part of himself, the part that would not accept responsibility for his actions.

“Come on, then,” Clyde called out to him. Rion returned to his place in the line. “I think you did the right thing.”

Rion had nothing further to say to that. There were too many pairs of ears pressed together in close proximity, and who knew what they had overheard already?

“It’s going to be all right,” Clyde said, although whether he was referring to Rion’s fate or his own wasn’t clear.

Rion said nothing, and for a while he concentrated on shuffling forward at the appropriate moments and standing on his heels the rest of the time. He had stood in queues before, but never one as long as this. But he felt that he had almost infinite patience, that he would wait all night if necessary. The sun was gone and the breeze was starting to become chilly, but at least there were no mosquitoes. Rion scanned for Sylvia’s face in the crowd but he couldn’t see her.

They were getting to the front at last. He counted twenty people in the queue ahead of him, and then fifteen. Ten. He tried to steel himself. Already the scanner had flashed red once to indicate that a person was to be detained, but he had been too far back in the line to see properly. Now it was time, his moment of reckoning.

“Let’s swap places,” Clyde said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, let’s get you through.” Clyde placed a hand on his shoulder. “You did well.”

“I did?”

“Watch out. You’re up.”

Rion stepped forward and extended his arm in the way he had seen countless others do before. His entire life – his mother; the slums of East Hills; his photo albums; his desolation – each element of his history could be boiled down to this moment. He would live or he would die. He would falter or he would go on. He offered himself to the machine, and then it was over and he was being ushered into a penned area where hundreds were milling around. Don’t look back, he told himself.

The klaxons started to wail; there was a sudden commotion. Rion submerged himself in the crowd and there, in the mass of bodies, he let out his breath.

40. The Burns Unit

Everything had been a blur, a mad dash: the military police waiting for Lui Ping as she reached the top of the stairs at work; their sullen faces looking on as she scrabbled around in her new quarters for clothes, underwear, lipstick to throw into a battered suitcase; the confusion at the airport; signs on a board embossed with the CIQ Sinocorp logo. The company was paying for her flight – unusual enough that she wondered what it might mean. Would she be asked to pay it back?

Each moment offered another tribulation, another barrier between her and Jiang Wei. Jiang Wei. No other thought in her mind. A clarity of purpose in the way that her life had suddenly been stripped of accoutrements. Just the rapidly shrinking distance between them as her plane raced across the sky. There was nothing else.

Now she had arrived.

Ping did not notice the different quality of light in this country, nor the unfamiliar faces, nor the wider streets. Her gaze had turned inward. But she saw the hospital, surprisingly modest in size, and her first thought was that there had been some mistake. But no, this was it – this was Regal Perth Hospital.

“Where is Jiang Wei?” she demanded of the woman behind the front desk. Blank stare. She repeated the question in English.

“Excuse me?” the receptionist said. “Where is who?”

Her Sinocorp aide, a young man barely out of childhood, stepped in. Ping had been ignoring him. He spoke in short, clipped sentences. “Please excuse Ms Lui,” he said. “She is very distraught. We are here to see Mr Jiang. He was at the Yellowcake Springs reactor.”

Those words changed everything. “Mrs Lui?” she said. “My apologies. Take the lift up to level 7. Turn left at the first corridor and follow it all the way around to the Burns Unit.”

“Burns Unit?” Ping asked. “Why is he there?”

The receptionist frowned. “Haven’t you been told?”

But the aide was dragging her away. So Wei had been burned? How bad could it be?

At the Burns Unit reception, Ping was introduced to the doctor. To speak to this doctor, one needed to face a screen upon which a face was shown. The doctor’s name was Leona. “You must be Ms Lui, Mr Jiang’s fiancée.”

She nodded. Ping could understand spoken English well enough, but she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I will report back,” her aide said. She waved him away.

“I need to fill you in on some information before you can see your fiancée. Do you understand?” Leona asked.

She nodded again, holding back the flood of tears.

“Jiang Wei and the other men were irradiated in the accident at the nuclear reactor. They’ve received such a high dose that it will almost certainly be fatal. There’s some hope, not much, but a little. But I need you to understand that he is very, very angry at the present time.”

“Is he…burn?” she said in English.

“Not in the ordinary sense, but yes, he has suffered enormous damage to his skin, although that won’t be fully apparent for a number of days. But it’s not just his skin, it’s his whole body. Completely irradiated. The bone marrow has been destroyed. His organs have suffered terrible damage.”

“Can I look at him?”

“Of course. Your fiancée and his colleagues are in a special sealed chamber to protect the rest of the hospital from the radiation. No one can set foot inside the chamber unless they are wearing a protective suit.”

Ping looked at the row of bulky suits hanging from a rack along one wall. “Need help,” she said.

“I’ll get someone to help you.”

Dressed in the radiation suit, Ping felt ten kilos heavier. The helmet clicked down into place, cutting Ping off from the outside world. A hiss of air pressurised the inside of the helmet.

She lumbered along the corridor past a row of inquisitive faces. The helmet cut down her field of vision to the extent that she couldn’t quite see who was guiding her. But she saw the metal door open, so she stepped through into a small chamber. It was an airlock. The door closed behind her and, after a few seconds, the door in front of her opened.

What she saw next was a hospital ward, but one unlike any she had seen before. Each of the men was lying in bed, and each bed was covered by a transparent plastic shell. Ping could see all kinds of equipment inside the shells, tending to the men.

There was a person in a radiation suit standing in the room.

“Ms Lui?” a voice inside her helmet said in English.

“Yes.”

“My name is Marcos. I’m one of the nurses on this ward.”

A nurse? But he wasn’t nursing the men directly; he seemed to have been monitoring a whole host of information panels.

“Which one…Jiang Wei?” she asked. The men all looked the same, and none of them appeared to have noticed her come in.

“At the far end,” Marcos said. “I’ll tell him you’ve arrived.”

Her journey had come to an end and yet here were more barriers between them. Wei did not raise his head, but his eyes focused on her. Through the shield she could see that his face was puffy and red, his eyes like slits.

“Can you hear me?” she said in her native tongue. “Jiang Wei?”

“I hear you,” a voice inside her helmet said. His voice was weak, far away.

There were a hundred things she wanted to say to him but suddenly she had frozen, and the words did not want to come out. All she could do was look at his prone body dressed in a thin hospital robe, look at the tubes that went in and out of him, look at the needles that were poised to puncture his reddened skin. Look at him there in his plastic coffin, his body useless but his eyes looking up at her.

And then she cried in long, loud sobs. Snot and tears. And she couldn’t even wipe her face clean. She couldn’t even begin to think of the words that she wanted to say to him.

“I’m pregnant,” is what she finally said, before a second flood of tears engulfed her. The helmet had fogged up.

“Have you been to the doctor?” he asked.

“Not yet, but I took a test,” she blubbered in reply. “Six weeks.”

For a while he said nothing. She knew he was thinking, but it was too devastating to imagine that he was dying while she was growing a new life inside her. The child would never replace him.

“I’m happy and sad at the same time,” he finally said. “Ping, promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If it’s a girl, I want you to name her Lijia. I had a kind of dream while I was inside the reactor. I had a daughter and her name was Lijia.”

“And if it’s a boy?”

“Then you can name him whatever you decide. But I think it will be a girl. I saw her, Ping! But she won’t know who I was.”

“I’ll tell her everything. I just want to hold you in my arms, Wei! How can I get inside with you?”

“You can’t come in here,” he said in a firmer voice. “You have to think of the baby. Think of the radiation.”

They looked at each other through the barriers that separated them.

41. Escapade

How Sylvia managed to bluff her way through the gate she’d never know, but she’d done it and was then confronted with the enormity of the task before her. The road was lit up with streetlights but there was a vast nothingness on either side, and by night that nothingness felt hostile. She hadn’t slept a night under the stars in her life. Sylvia was not used to extended walking, and she found that parts of her body – her ankles, her knees – would ache for a few minutes only to fade and be replaced by a different ache. It was the wrong season entirely for walking at night, and the overalls offered little in the way of protection from the cold. Then she thought of the bed she might have been lying in now, had she stayed in the camp. Even if she’d been taken into custody, she’d still have somewhere warm to sleep. Was her freedom worth this?

Sylvia tried to count the streetlights, but found that she did not even have the concentration required for as simple a task as this. After an indefinite time – certainly longer than an hour – she decided that she would try to rest. Her feet were killing her and her shoes were already beginning to wear away at the heel. She left the road and the light and tried to find refuge somewhere in the darkness.

But it was freezing and the night was endless. She tried digging a hole in the sand and lying in it, partially covering herself with the sand, but there was no chance of sleep. Her thoughts began to run together in her weary mind.

The night seemed to stretch to eternity, and as she closed in on a state akin to sleep, she began to question whether it would ever end. Perhaps this was her punishment. But why was she being punished? What had she done wrong? Later still, she longed for oblivion, for relief from this hated life.

When she woke early on Sunday morning, Sylvia was very thirsty. The sky was bleak and perhaps it would rain, but for now there was no such relief. Her clothes were all sandy and her limbs half frozen from the cold. She got to her feet stiffly and attempted to brush the sand off, but it was in her hair, her mouth, her underwear. The breeze had finally died down. She couldn’t see the sun but it must be shortly after dawn, judging by the light. She could see the dark outline of Yellowcake Springs in the distance.

It was only after she had been walking for some time that it occurred to Sylvia that she had better get off the road. She had a vague idea of where she wanted to go. There was a little town called Ridge Point to the south of Yellowcake Springs. The easiest way to get there was to follow the coastline, so she struck out in the direction of the hidden sea. The scrubland was sparse and it was not a difficult terrain to traverse, but the sand was loose and walking over it tired her out almost immediately. The bushes were prickly and she scratched herself a number of times. A little further along, she abandoned her shoes, hiding them in the sand so as to avoid leaving a clue regarding her whereabouts. Her mouth and throat were parched. She didn’t know how long someone could go without water but it couldn’t be very much longer than this.

The coast wasn’t far from here; she could see how the land fell away. But it was a considerable distance from here to Ridge Point, something like fifteen or twenty kilometres by road. With sensible shoes, plenty of water, and a decent night’s rest, even someone in her physical condition could cover this distance fairly easily, even over sand, but Sylvia had none of those things and she wasn’t sure if she could take another step. But as she was starting to realise, she had far greater reserves of energy than she gave herself credit for. Probably everyone did. That, she saw in hindsight, had been part of the reason for her malaise: life had simply been too easy for her.

Then it did start to rain, even if it proved to be a mixed blessing. The rain slaked her thirst, and Sylvia was certain that water had never tasted as pure as this, but no sooner had she drunk her fill, she began to shiver. The sun was trying to poke through the heavy cloud cover, but even on a clear day it was worth little at this time of year. Her joints were starting to seize up and her hands were burning.

When the rain began to abate, Sylvia decided to try a different tack. She was soaked to the skin so she peeled off the sandy, wet overalls and stood shivering in her bra and underwear. Normally she’d feel self conscious but there was no one here to stare at her. The breeze dried her skin almost immediately. She considered ditching the clothes but thought better of it. And she wouldn’t walk; she’d run.

Well, jog. For a short time this seemed to work, and she felt the life beginning to return to her limbs, but Sylvia was out of condition and the sand didn’t help. Each breath was a little harder to draw than the last and her lungs were soon heaving. For a while she stood gasping for air. It occurred to her that she would certainly lose weight if she kept this up for a few days. The thought of food hadn’t entered her mind for hours.

Then she saw the sea. It wasn’t far, and although she was tired, it was a different kind of weariness to the mental exhaustion she’d known before. This was an honest, physical tiredness. She would find something or someone to help her on the coast.

It had warmed up a little and the clouds were starting to clear. Perhaps, after all, Sylvia would survive. She had a sense that things were about to get easier for her, and for once she was proven right. She saw the roof of the fish farms before she saw the beach. But she’d have to be careful. What would the fish workers think of this strange, half naked woman plastered with sand?

The car park was empty; she could see that before she set foot on the bitumen. True, it was Sunday, but surely the fish needed to be tended all week round? The fish farm was an ugly, ruffled structure made of some sludge-green plastic, and it sat half in, half out of the water, on the near side of the sea wall. The whole area was protected from tsunamis and the rising sea level by the sea wall, which stretched north to Taper Island and south past Ridge Point. Where waves had once crashed on these beaches, the whole area was now a lagoon. The nuclear reactors drew their water not far north of here.

There was no one around, not a single soul. There was a hysterical part of her that wondered why she had been chosen to remain when everyone else had gone, but the analytical part concluded that this would work to her advantage. And so it proved, for the side door to the fish farm was, surprisingly, wide open. Sylvia stepped out of the cold, half expecting to bump into one of the farm’s employees, unsure of how she was going to explain her state of undress. She needed warm clothes, food, and preferably a place to lie down, and she needed them urgently.

Inside the fish farm was a bewildering array of artificial ponds, presumably with different kinds of fish lurking beneath the surface. The whole area was criss-crossed with metal walkways and gantries, and Sylvia soon felt herself lost in a sterile world of flashing displays, chemical hoses and nutrient mixes. The vast room was dimly lit and she had to be careful not to slip and fall into one of the pools. Sylvia was unsteady on her feet and wholly incapable of taking in her new surroundings properly, but now her attention was drawn to something on the far side of the chamber. It was an office and someone had left the light on.

Sylvia crossed the distance, wary of encountering someone, but there was no one around. The door to the office was closed but thankfully not locked. She hadn’t felt like smashing her way through the glass window although she knew she would have done so if necessary. She turned the handle and stepped through into a comforting space with desks, office chairs and a couch. There was even a fridge. “Please let there be some food in there,” she said aloud, the first time she’d spoken since leaving Yellowcake Springs.

Jackpot. There were packets of sandwiches, containers of cold pasta, even bottles of fruit juice. Her stomach growled in appreciation. It would appear that this was where the workers stored their lunch, but was it today’s lunch, or yesterday’s? And where were the workers?

It didn’t matter to Sylvia. She tore at the sandwich packets, gobbling the food down, then drank more than a litre of juice and went in search of a toilet. This she found, as well as a sink to wash away the worst of the sand. She even found a uniform in her size hanging in a cupboard, with the fish farm logo on it and the name JANICE stencilled alongside. She would be Janice, if anyone asked. If she ever saw anyone again. Warm and full, Sylvia felt more content than she could ever recall feeling before. She would need to rest for an hour or two before continuing on her way. There was no bed to be found, but the couch in the office would suffice. She turned off the light and lay down.

42. Lost and Found

On Sunday morning, Rion and the other evacuees were loaded onto huge air-conditioned coaches to take them away from this place, maybe forever. No one seemed to know. This was a cause of angst for the residents of Yellowcake Springs, but Rion was unmoved. It did not particularly matter to him where he was as long as he was warm, safe and well-fed. The convoy of buses was headed for Perth, where accommodation would be found for the residents while the damage to the reactors was assessed. Rumour had it that the radiation leak had only been minor, that they’d be home in a month.

Rion thought of the road ahead, the smooth tarmac and the silver streetlights. There was some traffic at this hour, but not much, and certainly not enough to delay their passage. The empty scrubland surrounding Yellowcake Springs gave way to rural properties, small towns and housing developments. Signage was everywhere; this whole area was being bought up piece by piece. Further south, past Florinton, the housing developments were well established. Here he saw signs for shopping centres, vehicle dealerships and fast food outlets. By the time the coach passed through Quindalup, the freeway was choked and the bus barely crawled. High-rise buildings towered on either side of the freeway. Rion thought that this must be the city centre, and was surprised to hear that they were still some distance from their destination.

The real centre of Perth was hidden in the hazy blanket that enveloped the city. He had seen nothing like it, except of course in photographs. East Hills had been the centre of his universe; other places had only been a rumour. Now he saw how pitiful his universe had been. East Hills: a town where, in its heyday, ten thousand souls had lived. Even then, how could it have compared with the sheer scale of this city? And Perth, he was given to understand from his geography books, wasn’t exactly the centre of the universe either. There were bigger cities in other parts of the country, or at least there had been. Who knew if they were still standing today?

The bus eventually stopped in front of a vast, silver building in a street of similarly massive structures. The noise of the city was bewildering, enveloping; a million sounds thrown together in unintended harmony. Stepping off the bus, Rion craned his neck back to take in the building’s upward extent. Never in his life had he seen structures such as these, although he knew of their existence from his reading. There was nothing in East Hills, or Yellowcake Springs for that matter, to compare. Rion was very much afraid of what might happen to him here. He had survived the Waste by keeping what remained of humanity at arm’s length. That would not be possible here. He would have to adapt.

The building was a hotel complex and here they intended him, at least temporarily, to reside. There was no question of having to pay: CIQ Sinocorp would cover the expense. Again, he was struck by the difference between himself and his fellow citizens, for as they tended to grumble about the apparently seedy neighbourhood the hotel was located in and the cramped accommodation they would be offered – a ‘dog box,’ one man called it – while he himself was ecstatic. He was given a pass card with a number on it – room 1578 on the fifteenth floor – and although it was true that the quarters were smaller than those to which he was accustomed, there was running water, a clean bed, a toilet and shower. Even a fridge. No Controlled Dreaming State console, although one could be hired from reception for a fee. And here was his problem: Rion had no money, no identification, and thus no identity.

This was troubling to him, but it did not appear to be an immediately pressing issue, for he found that the food would be paid for too. Three times a day he could dine downstairs or even have the food brought to him here! Rion spent the rest of Sunday in a state of disbelief, half thinking that a knock would come at the door and he would be turfed out onto the street. But no such thing happened. As night fell, he began to allow himself to relax. Nothing further would be required of him until morning, at which time he had an interview at the nearby Hub-Nexus office. This had been organised on his behalf. If he was going to stay in the city long term, then he would need a job.

The waiting room was colourful and brightly lit. The chairs were soft, padded and yellow, the music was calming and ambient, and the automated voice informing customers of their place in the queue was gentle and reassuring. There was no standing in line here. No jostling, no anger. The Hub-Nexus office wasn’t particularly busy this morning and Rion did not have long to wait before his number was called. He went to the designated glass-walled booth and sat down on an even softer, maroon-coloured chair.

But there was no one sitting on the other side of the window. Perhaps there was some mistake? He saw no employees at the other booths either, and yet the customers appeared to be engaged in some kind of transaction.

“Hello?” he said to the empty space in front of him.

“Welcome to Hub-Nexus,” a voice said. It was the same voice that had spoken his number a moment before. “How can I help you today?”

“Hello,” he said. “I need a job, and I was told that this was the place to come for one.”

“Hub-Nexus connects people with employment opportunities across the state. With the right attitude, you’re sure to find the path to a satisfying career. Hub-Nexus is the gateway to a world of limitless potential. Please insert your Hub-Nexus card into the reader.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t have a Hub-Nexus card.”

“Perhaps your card has been mislaid or stolen? Do you require a replacement card?”

“I suppose I do,” Rion said slowly. “Yes, I’ve lost my card.”

“Please state your full name and address.”

“I don’t really have a current address, you see. I’ve temporarily been displaced from Yellowcake Springs, due to the accident there.”

“Then please state your full name and last known address.”

“Okay. It’s Rion. No – Orion. Orion...” He froze. What was his last name? Rion’s palms started to sweat as they always did when he was pressured. How can a man live for twenty-two years without knowing his own last name? He felt ashamed. Suddenly he had an idea. “Just a second,” he said, rummaging in his pockets for the crumpled picture of his mother he always carried with him. “Orion…Matthews,” he said in triumph. “That’s my name.”

“Please state your last known address.”

His last address had been the one on Fielding Street in East Hills, but of course he hadn’t lived there officially. He hadn’t lived anywhere officially for as long as he could remember. And it was no good giving Sylvia’s address in Yellowcake Springs. What street had he and his mother lived on before she’d died? It was on the tip of his tongue. “I think it’s Lyon Street,” he said. “Maybe 27? In East Hills.”

“Orion Matthews, 27 Lyon Street, East Hills,” the voice said. “No such record exists.”

“But that’s where I lived,” he protested. “Maybe it was 72? I can’t quite remember the number.”

There was a long pause. Finally the voice said: “A Hub-Nexus employee will be in attendance shortly.”

Rion waited five minutes, then ten. It was hopeless. He had lived and he would die strictly off the record. It was his fate. After fifteen minutes, he was tempted to go back to the hotel and forget the whole thing. People were coming and going from the other booths, and he could feel the weight of curious eyes upon him. After he had been waiting almost twenty minutes, a young man dressed no differently from the customers walked around to the far side of the booth and sat down.

“You’ve managed to upset the system,” the man said. “I’m a Hub-Nexus employee.”

“Thanks,” Rion said. “I’m new here and I haven’t got all the information I seem to need.”

“I just had a look at the notes,” the man, who hadn’t introduced himself, said. “Orion Matthews, 27 Lyon Street, East Hills. East Hills is in the restricted area, incidentally.”

The restricted area. “I’m sorry?” Rion said.

“What we call the badlands. The notorious Belt. Colloquially of course,” the man said.

“No one told me that it was a restricted area. I mean, I was born there.”

“East Hills, that whole area, is supposed to be in total lockdown, meaning no travel in or out. The border is closed, but you say you’re from there?” The man looked up at him keenly.

“That’s right,” Rion said. “I came via Yellowcake Springs.”

That raised an eyebrow. “The CIQ Sinocorp Protectorate?”

“I’ve got an implant to prove it. I’ve been granted citizenship status, I believe.”

“You’re already a citizen – an Australian citizen – even if you are from East Hills. What Sinocorp probably offered you is Chinese citizenship. The whole area around Yellowcake Springs is regarded as Chinese soil.”

“But I’m an Australian citizen, you said?”

“If you were born in this country, then you’re an Australian citizen even if you don’t have the identification. Christ, we’re going to have to work this out. If you’re from East Hills, we can deport you back there any time we want. In fact, that’s what I’m supposed to do with illegals like yourself. However, if Sinocorp will vouch for you, say you’re an upstanding guy, then that probably changes things. It’s a grey area. So if you’ve been granted Chinese citizenship, probably a provisional citizenship affixing you to Yellowcake Springs, then you’ll have to return there.”

“But the town’s been evacuated. There was an accident at the reactor.”

The man reclined slightly. “So you’ve got no identification at all, except for the implant the Chinese gave you? And who knows what information they put on that.”

“That’s correct.”

The man considered this. “We’ll need to find you on the system. If you were born in a hospital in this country, even if it was in East Hills, then you’ll be on the system.” The man brought up a display in the air in front of him, as if by magic. He seemed wholly unconcerned with his own sorcery. “Let’s forget the address for a minute. Orion Matthews. No record at all. That’s an unusual first name. You sure that’s your official name?”

“I know my first name is Orion. Matthews was my mother’s name. It says here.” He offered the newspaper article.

“What about your father?” the man said, ignoring Rion’s offering. “What was his name?”

“I don’t know. I never knew him.”

“You’ve probably got his last name. Okay, Orion is an unusual enough name that we might find you without the surname. Now you say you were born in the hospital in East Hills, correct?”

“I don’t know,” Rion said, “but I expect that’s right.”

“Date of birth?”

“I’m not entirely sure. My mother died when I was very young. But I think I was born in ‘35. Maybe ‘36.”

The man shook his head slowly, then tapped away at the swirling colours. “Incredible to think that people can slip through the net like this for so long. I suppose you don’t have a tax file number either. This must be you: Orion Saunders, born 3rd August 2035, East Hills General Hospital. Mother Lisa Matthews, born 2005, died of diphtheria June 2041. There’s no record of your father at all here, but my assumption is that his surname was Saunders. And there’s nothing on you after ‘41 at all. Some early childhood vaccinations, kindergarten enrolment, but nothing after that.”

“That sounds about right,” Rion said.

“You say you lived alone after your mother died, and that you have no memory of your father?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then you should have been picked up by Child Protection Services. There would still have been a functioning office in East Hills in the ‘forties.”

“The child what?”

“Um, never mind.”

“So I can have a Hub-Nexus card?” Rion asked. Nothing more and nothing less than this would suffice. If the man refused to issue him one, then he would have to beg on the streets.

“Why not? I don’t see why you should have to go back to East Hills. This is an unusual enough circumstance that I think I can use my discretion here. Here comes your card now.”

Rion’s new identity popped out of a slot in front of him. He snatched it up quickly.

“I need a job as well,” Rion said. “Somewhere to live. I’m staying in a hotel at the moment, but I need somewhere of my own.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place. I think Jenna can take it from here.”

“Jenna?”

“The AI.” The man got up to leave, then paused. “Good luck with your job hunting. Oh, and one small piece of advice for you: don’t let Sinocorp get you to renounce your Australian citizenship. You’ll lose your rights.”

“Thank you,” Rion said, and the unnamed man left. He had wanted to convey something of his gratitude to the man, but it was already too late.

“Welcome to Hub-Nexus,” Jenna said, startling him. “How can I help you today?”

43. Youth in Asia

Lui Ping held Jiang Wei in her arms, stroking his head. They were in bed together and she never wanted to let him go. The bed was in their cabin in the forest. It was one of their favourite places.

“I’m frightened,” he whispered.

“Shhh,” she said. “I know.” She would protect him; here in the cabin they could come to no harm. The log fire warmed their naked bodies.

“She’s over there, in the corner,” Wei said.

“Who is?”

“Lijia.”

“Our daughter?” Ping looked, but of course there was nothing in the corner. Just an empty space. He was right in a way though; the child would be a girl and she would be named Lijia. She would make it so. “What does she look like? How old is she?”

Wei stared at nothing. “She says she’s six. She never met me, but she says you’ve told her who I am. She knows I’m her father. You’ll tell her, won’t you? When she’s old enough?”

“Of course I will. What does she look like?”

“She’s got dark hair, dark eyes. Very pale skin. She’s sad though.”

“I know you love her,” Ping said. “You’re a good father.”

“I’m a dead father,” he said. “Or had you forgotten? What kind of father is that?”

Ping hadn’t forgotten, of course, even though she desperately wanted to. The cabin wasn’t real; the only reality was her fiancée’s sickness. Now that he was floating away on a raft of delusions, she would have to be the steady one.

“Tell me what happened to you,” she said.

“I was lost in a place like this,” Wei said, his eyes closed. “But I couldn’t get out. They wouldn’t let me out and I couldn’t tell what was real. How was I supposed to tell? And then I was cleaning something. I thought it was our house. Lijia was there, but so were my men. I was confused.”

“So they tricked you into going into the reactor.”

“They might just as well have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.”

“You’re not dead yet,” she said, rubbing his upper arm.

He laughed, but it was not a Wei laugh at all. “You don’t come back from eight sieverts of radiation, Ping. Nobody does.” He said this as though he were explaining a simple mathematical equation to a small child. His anger had already blown itself out.

“They didn’t give you a suit, but they gave me one. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “We were expendable. It was an emergency. And I think Yang Po wanted to get rid of me; I had a strange dream...”

“I wonder...” she said, but trailed off, her thought incomplete.

“I’m not going to fight,” he said. “Do you understand? I’d rather die now.”

“But they said fourteen days. This is what, day three?”

He sat upright in bed. “See this? I can never sit up like this again. I can never fuck you again. I’m falling apart hour by hour. Pieces of me are peeling away.”

“Not in CDS you aren’t. There’s still time.”

He stared at her, but his eyes were no longer the eyes she knew. “Can they make time stop for me? Turn fourteen days into fourteen years? I’d take that. Even if I had to stay in this cabin the whole time. Can they do that?”

“I don’t think so. I could ask the doctor.”

He threw himself down. “I’m going to tell them to stop giving me the drugs.”

“But you’ll die!”

“Have you seen Zhou Sen? He’s in a world of torment. That’ll be me tomorrow, maybe the day after. You want me to live through that? For what? So I can die in a few more days?”

“For me,” Ping said. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

He said nothing.

“Don’t you want to make love to me?”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “What’s the point?”

“It’s all we’ve got left.” She kissed him. His mouth on hers was hard, devoid of passion.

“Lijia, go play outside,” he said.

Ping looked down at Wei asleep in his tube. He was still hooked up to the CDS console. In his mind, for all she knew, he was still in the cabin. Ulcers were beginning to break out on his lips and eyelids. His face was puffy and swollen and he had difficulty swallowing. Looking at him like that – his hands twitching feebly, his body periodically convulsing – she made her decision.

“He ready to die,” she said to Leona in her best English when she had completed the already-familiar routine of clambering out of the heavy radiation suit, progressing through the disinfecting chamber and back into the outside world. “He knows what will happen.”

“We do have legal euthanasia in this country,” Leona said. “It’s a simple matter of signing the necessary forms.”

Ping stared at the screen. “Youth in Asia?”

“No, euthanasia. The right to die. Of course he can’t sign the forms, but he can give verbal permission.”

“Can he...speak?”

“That’s the idea. It will take a couple of days for the application to be processed, and I’ll need his consent immediately to begin the process. His employer has instructed this hospital to spare no expense in trying to save the lives of these men. They might not be happy to hear that he’s elected for euthanasia already.”

“They want him alive,” Ping said, “they should have give him suit.”

Leona nodded. “I’ll speak to Jiang Wei myself. May I enquire, do you have children together?”

“A daughter,” Ping said. “Her name is Lijia.”

44. Ridge Point

When she woke, Sylvia thought she was in her bed at home. It was dark and quiet except for a persistent humming that she felt more than heard. This wasn’t her bedroom. Memory intruded, informing her that this wasn’t her apartment either – not her couch – and that she could never return there again. Her job, her home, her husband – all of these things had been taken from her. Even the clothes she wore were not her own.

Her eyes began to adjust to the unfamiliar shapes around her. There was a red light winking at her from an appliance. This, she recalled, was an office. The desks were all vacant. There was no one here.

It had been morning when she’d fallen asleep, but now it was night. She must have slept all day. Sylvia stood up and walked over to the fridge, but then, before her hand reached out to open it, she stopped herself. What if someone was here in the building? The night shift perhaps? Then she would be Janice, as it said on her uniform. She turned and looked through the glass at the vast, dim space on the other side, but there did not appear to be anyone there. Sylvia had the idea that by some cruel fate she had been left to walk this planet while everyone else had vanished. Could it be so? Could humanity have disappeared through some sudden epidemic or a subtle trick of the light? Was she mad? At any rate, there was nobody and nothing out there. Just a void.

So she opened the fridge, bracing herself for the flooding light, and ate her fill once again. Then when she was sure that no one had seen her, she turned on the office light and searched for something to carry the rest of the food in. There was a backpack beneath one of the desks, and although she felt a twang of guilt in appropriating it, it was only a twang. Besides, Sylvia had the notion that this place might have been abandoned. Was it because of the attack on the reactors? Could this whole area have been evacuated? If so, was she in some kind of danger?

She used the toilet and washed her face with cold water. She was wide awake now and there was a clamouring horror inside her, twisting at her flesh. Sylvia looked at herself in the mirror and saw a pale, wide-eyed stranger looking back. What if she really was the only one left alive? How would she manage? She tried to tell herself that it was impossible, that what she was experiencing was a delusional solipsist fantasy. Probably it was a wish fulfillment fantasy. But it was no good thinking like that; she had to be practical. She had to get out.

It was night, but the full moon made it bright enough to see by. There was a coastal road which she could follow south. The air was cold but at least the wind had dropped. In fact it was probably near morning, as the sky was definitely lighter in the east. Some exertion would help to keep Sylvia warm. She wasn’t sure how far it was to Ridge Point, but it couldn’t be more than a couple of hours of walking. The tarmac hurt her bare feet, so she chose to walk along the beach, down near the black water where the sand was firm. Only then did she become calmer.

There were lights on the shoreline far ahead. That must be Ridge Point. It was getting easier to see, although the dawn seemed a long time in coming. The lapping of the water at her feet soothed her frayed imagination. Sylvia had a clear purpose and a goal in sight, one that grew larger with every step and more visible with every passing moment. To think beyond her immediate situation would be perilous.

By the time she reached the outskirts of Ridge Point, the dawn had arrived. Sylvia trekked through the loose sand to the footpath running along the coastal road. This must be Monday morning, which meant that she’d been on the run for more than a day now. All was quiet. Nobody stirred in their houses at this hour, although Sylvia did see a number of cats skulking around. Didn’t some people have to go to work early? She became uneasy as she thought of this. There was still no one around, not even a single vehicle on the road.

It’s been evacuated, she told herself. Either that or you have gone mad. Both possibilities seemed equally likely. Then she saw that some of the doors to the houses had been left open. Here and there, lights had been left on inside. Some driveways contained cars, others not. One car’s doors were open, the lights having drained the battery. The people had been told to leave in a hurry or had otherwise vanished.

Ridge Point was a small town, although it was true that it had been growing since Yellowcake Springs opened. It wouldn’t take long to evacuate such a town, and it could have been done on Sunday or maybe even Saturday. Given that today was Monday, there was a likelihood that at least some of the people would be returning today. That is, unless the radiation was worse than imagined. Could Peters have been mistaken about that? Might she have received a fatal dose after all?

Sylvia sat on a bench in the park. There were birds in the trees; they seemed to be behaving normally. Surely it’d take less radiation to kill a bird than it would to kill her. She threw them some crusts of bread – all that remained of the fish farm workers’ sandwiches – and they crowded around in time-honoured fashion. She sat in the park for a long time, turning over the events of the past days in her mind. Rion’s rebuttal. Peters’ scornful comments. And that fool of her husband, David Baron. Probably dead.

There was a yawning chasm where her emotions ought to have been. She had come this far, farther than she’d thought possible, but now she was stuck. Sylvia waited a long time for something to happen, and by the time it did, she was ready. What happened was that a car came along the road. Just one car. She turned her attention to it as it pulled into the car park. A couple of men got out. One of them looked familiar. They approached the place where she sat. She did not think to run, or even to stand and greet them.

“Sylvia,” one of the men, the familiar one, said.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she replied.

“One of whom, Sylvia?” Peters said. He had a stern look on his face. It wasn’t a face on which she cared to linger, so she looked away. She looked instead at the grass, at the birds. The wind had dropped and the sun had come out from behind the clouds, warming her face.

“Get in the car.”

She stood up and they led her to the waiting car. She offered no resistance.

“And to think I thought you knew something,” Peters said.

She looked at him. He was sitting in the back seat with her. The other men were in the front seats. “Have you been following me?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Tracking you, yes. Although you did have the intelligence to change clothes, which dispensed with one of the devices. But the other one is inside you, Sylvia. I had the idea that you might lead us to something worthwhile, but it’s all too apparent now that you don’t know anything at all.”

“You said you were part of Misanthropos.”

“I lied,” Peters said. “You played a role and so did I. I thought you would be able to convince David to abandon his plans, or at least lead us to him. But you did neither. Get out of the car.”

The car had stopped along an empty stretch of road on the route back to Yellowcake Springs. “Why?” she asked.

“Just get out.”

She opened the door and stepped out, puzzled. They hadn’t taken the backpack from her, so she had food and drink to last a day or more, but still no shoes. She looked back through the window at Peters. He waved her on. She began to walk in a southerly direction along the side of the road. She had barely reached her stride when the car pulled alongside her again. All three men got out this time, the driver leaving the engine running.

“What do you want now?” she asked.

Peters said: “Sylvia Baron, under the powers invested in me by CIQ Sinocorp, I am placing you under arrest. I am authorised to use whatever force is required in detaining you if you do not comply.”

“I don’t get it,” she said, but she got into the car anyway. “You kicked me out and now you want me in again. Make up your mind.” They closed the door behind her. The other men, who had been poised to spring into action, relaxed.

Peters sat back down in the seat next to her and the car began to move. “We couldn’t have arrested you in Ridge Point, as that’s outside the CIQ Sinocorp Protectorate. Luckily we apprehended you within the Protectorate. What a pity for you; had you made it just a few hundred metres further, you’d have been back on Australian soil.”

Sylvia turned to look at Jeremy Peters, her former boss. It wasn’t a joke and he wasn’t smiling.

45. Insufficient Funds

Rion stepped out of the Hub-Nexus office and onto the street, his head spinning. They’d given him a job and a place to live. He could sign out of the hotel this afternoon. And the final words the Hub-Nexus man had said to him were still fresh in his mind: Don’t let Sinocorp get you to renounce your Australian citizenship. There was no way he’d be doing that: he was a free man now. How he’d managed to negotiate the various pitfalls that had been placed before him he’d never know, but he’d done it. Elated was not a strong enough word for how he felt.

The street was dirty, choked with grime and assorted rubbish, and there were equally grimy beggars propped up against the walls of buildings, huddled against the cold. As he made his way, one bearded man looked up at him from a doorway with so penetrating a gaze that Rion froze on the spot.

“I need your help,” the man moaned. “I’m hurt bad.”

“What happened to you?” Rion asked. The man was wrapped in any number of filthy garments, so at least he wasn’t cold. He didn’t look especially thin either, but Rion supposed that by the standards of the city he was a hard luck case.

“Got rolled last night. Little fuckers jumped me – six on one! Took all I had. You got some funds to spare, man? I need some medicine and shit. They beat the fuck outta me.”

“Funds? What do you mean?”

The man coughed and got to his feet. “You know, currency. Money.”

“I know what money is, of course,” Rion said, “but I don’t think I have any. All I’ve got is this Hub-Nexus card.”

The man grunted. “That’s a good place to start. So you’re offering me a helping hand? I can see that you’re new here. Let’s go around the corner to the hole in the wall.”

“All right,” Rion said, not understanding what was expected of him. But he felt so good that it wouldn’t hurt to give the man a little of his time.

The man walked with a pronounced limp toward the brightly-lit machine embedded in a nearby wall. Rion recognised the Hub-Nexus logo on it.

“What do I do?” Rion asked.

“Holy Christ! You’ve never used an ATM before? Where you from?”

“East Hills,” Rion said. “I’d be happy if you could show me how it’s done.”

“That’s fine,” the man said. “But if you’re going to help me out, the least I can do is put us on a name basis. I’m Frank Parker.”

“Orion Saunders,” Rion said, the sound of his own name unfamiliar on his tongue. But the sounds were comforting. He was Orion Saunders. He had a job, an apartment, a life. They shook hands.

“Okay,” Frank said, “hand over the card and I’ll run you through the routine here.”

Rion went to hand over his card and then stopped. “I can’t give you my card, Frank,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose it. It’s very important, isn’t it?”

Frank smiled. His teeth were in better condition than Rion’s. “Fair enough. That’s a good lesson anyway. You won’t last long otherwise.” Then he turned to some other men who had begun to gather around, and said: “You vultures buzz off! All I’m trying to do here is show the man the ropes.” The other men stepped back, but not far.

Rion put his card in the slot as indicated, his elation fast evaporating. He could feel Frank looking over his shoulder. There was something about the man that he didn’t like at all. A red light flashed before his eyes.

“That’s just the retinal scan,” Frank said. “All right, you want Transfer Funds. Press that button there. Good. Now I’ve got to put in my card too.” Frank shouldered past Rion in a way that Rion liked even less. The red light flashed over him. “What do you say? A hundred dollars? Bandages, ointment and painkillers aren’t cheap these days. Better make it two.” He stabbed at a button.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS flashed up on the screen.

“What does that mean?” Rion asked.

Frank turned to him. “It means you’re a broke fuck like me.” He pressed the button marked Account Balance.

$0.00

“That’s nothing, right?” Rion asked.

Frank shook his head and the machine gave back both of their cards. Rion put his in his innermost pocket. “Well, at least you know how to use the machine now,” Frank said. “And I appreciate the sentiment. But it looks like you’re flat broke, Orion Saunders.” The other men, who had been skulking nearby, began to disperse.

Frank made to follow them and then turned back. “Friendly piece of advice.”

“Yes?” Rion said. This was a day for receiving advice, it seemed.

“If a guy sells you a story about having been beaten up and needing medicine, keep walking. If there’s a bunch of other guys hanging around with him, run. You got that?”

“I’ve got it.”

“And you’re going to need an income stream. There’s no way around it in this world, not even for someone like me.”

“I’ve got a job lined up at the hospital.”

“Which one?”

“Regal Perth,” Rion said. “Pushing trolleys, I expect.”

“Well, you gotta start somewhere. Come and see me sometime, when you’ve got some wealth to share. I’m always hanging around the Hub-Nexus office looking for easy marks. No offence.” Frank patted him on the shoulder and turned away, leaving Rion standing on an unfamiliar street corner in an unfriendly city.

Rion made sure to stuff himself with as much food as he could possibly eat before signing out of the hotel. No one asked him any questions at the reception and there was no one for him to say goodbye to. He thought of Sylvia and wondered whether she’d made it out of Yellowcake Springs unharmed. It seemed unlikely that she had.

The bus, a free service, took him from one side of the city to another, but it was all the same to Rion at the moment. His new place of residence was called Prince Towers, and although it was true that the place towered over him as he stood on the street outside, there was nothing to suggest anything princely about it. The building was a vast apartment complex, with what seemed like a thousand grimy windows signifying each place of residence. Prince Towers was the ugliest shade of brown, and while the building wasn’t exactly crumbling, the brickwork didn’t appear to be in the best of condition. The place looked to be at least fifty years old and probably older. He swiped his card at the door and was admitted inside.

The reception was dingy, quite unlike the reception in the hotel he’d just left. A very fat woman looked at him from behind a dirty glass window.

“I’m moving in here,” Rion said to her.

“Card,” she said.

He gave her his Hub-Nexus card and she swiped it through a reader on the desk in front of her.

“Okay, Orion Saunders. Hub-Nexus has assigned you an apt on the thirty-first floor. Bond’s four thousand dollars. Rent’s a thousand a week. You pay two weeks in advance.”

“But I don’t have any money,” Rion said.

“That’s right,” the woman said. “But as you’ve got a job lined up, Prince Towers is willing to extend you a line of credit. We get a lot of drifters and suchlike here. Not that I’m calling you a drifter. But now you’re six thousand in the red. Says so here on your receipt.” She handed him a piece of paper with his name on it. It read -$6800 in the Account Balance column.

“I thought it was $6000?” Rion asked.

“You need to eat, don’t you? The $800 is for food. $400 a week.”

“I pay two weeks in advance?”

“You’re a fast learner. You can take the lift up to 31 if you feel brave, or the stairs over there if you don’t. Breakfast is served from five on weekdays and six on weekends. You’ll be out for lunch most of the time, I guess, but it’s served at twelve weekdays and twelve-thirty on weekends. Dinner is at seven thirty, seven days a week.”

“The food gets brought up to my room?”

The woman chortled. “Room service? You eat in the canteen.” She indicated to a point behind him. He turned and saw a hall filled with metal tables and plastic chairs.

“Here’s your card,” she said. He thanked her and walked over to the lift. He pressed the call button, but when the doors opened, he thought better of it. The lift stank of piss, at the very least. If they thought that thirty-one flights of stairs would break him when he’d come so far, then they were mistaken. He could have climbed a hundred flights with the assurance of a door with a lock and a bed with a blanket at the top of the stairs.

Rion climbed.

46. Martyr

Jiang Wei was sleeping fitfully, but Lui Ping saw that there was no rest for him now. The angry blisters on his face had converged into one vast sore that wept constantly. She could see that breathing was torturous for him, that the inside of his mouth was red and raw. Already today he’d received blood transfusions, antibiotics and narcotics. A bone marrow transplant was scheduled for tomorrow, in the event that his euthanasia application wasn’t approved in time. It was Tuesday afternoon, three days since he’d received his dose. They called this the latent phase.

But there would be no latent phase for these men. The dose of radiation they’d received was far too high and might even be higher than they’d been told. It did not seem fair that these six men were to die when the rest of the town of Yellowcake Springs had seemingly been evacuated safely.

A relentlessly recurring thought kept surfacing in Ping’s mind, no matter how many times she tried to push it away. Two thoughts, in fact:

Why didn’t they give him a suit?

And:

Did they do it to him deliberately?

There were no good answers to these most dangerous of questions.

The other men had all been bachelors, and although they must have families of their own, no one had been flown over from China to see them. Ping was alone here. She stood by each of them in turn to bear witness to their slow passing. Wang Meng was the worst, having already entered the terminal phase. He had started coughing up his insides, mostly liver and lung. But the machines that tended him scooped it all away, clearing his throat so that he might continue breathing for a few more hours, until his insides were completely liquefied. In Wang Meng she saw her fiancée’s future: to decompose before death, literally to fall apart in the space of hours and days. She no longer tried to convince Jiang Wei to withdraw his euthanasia application. She knew now that his determination to die would be his last and only act of rebellion against an employer that thought of him as an expensive piece of cattle, but cattle nonetheless.

“I want to hold your hand when the time comes,” she’d told him earlier today. He’d shook his head, his neck muscles being one of the few muscle groups in the wreckage of his body that still worked. He’d explained that if he was going to die, which he was, then there was no way he would allow his unborn child to come to any harm. Even a single embrace could prove fatal to the foetus she carried inside her. In his delusions, he heard Lijia imploring him not to touch his wife in some final moment of weakness.

She conveyed this sentiment to the AI doctor, Leona, in her halting English.

“What you’ve got to realise is that this is no longer the man you love, but a highly radioactive object,” Leona said. “He’s right to say that exposure would prove harmful to the foetus, and at any rate we would not allow it. So please put it out of your mind.”

He ate nothing solid now and dark hair was starting to fall from his head. She wanted to clear the fallen hair from his pillow, to stroke his burning scalp, but their only time together was in Controlled Dreaming State, and even there he seemed lethargic and confused. He spoke constantly of Lijia and had apparently started seeing her out of CDS. And so Ping felt an incredible burden, one that seemed to intensify with each passing day: a burden to live – and to bear their daughter – when she might otherwise have chosen a swift death for herself. Now she would live to tell Lijia about her father. And to remember. In aid of this, Ping forced herself to spend several hours each day in the radiation chamber and to commit every detail to memory. The hospital staff no longer tried to get her to return to her hotel in the evenings; they’d acquiesced to her demand that she be allowed to stay overnight.

Standing over Wei’s capsule in late afternoon, Ping realised that she’d spent more time with her fiancée in the past three days than she’d done in months. Work had always held them at arm’s length from each other, but now his only task was to die and hers to watch him.

“Are you there?” Wei suddenly asked through the intercom. His voice was harsh, rasping. He was only whispering but his voice was amplified, giving it a strange character.

“I’m right here,” she said, moving into his field of vision. She knew that it had become too painful for him to try to lift his head. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I’ve had enough sleep for this life. Has my application been approved yet?”

“Not yet. There’s some hold up.”

“They won’t even let me die,” he said. “She’s right next to you.”

“Lijia?”

“She’s older,” he said, his blood-filled eyes no longer seeming to blink at all.

“How much older?”

“I’m not sure. Nine or ten. I can’t hear what she’s saying.”

Ping had long since stopped wondering about this apparition. If he saw his unborn daughter standing over him, who was she to tell him he was mistaken? It was a comfort to him. She wanted to tell him that she could see the girl too, but it didn’t feel right. Not yet. She knew she’d find the appropriate words when the time came.

Another voice came over the intercom. It was the nurse: “A Mr Yang Po is here to see you, Jiang Wei.”

“Yang Po?” Ping said. “It can’t be.”

“He’s suiting up now.”

Yang Po. She hadn’t realised how much anger she felt toward the man until this moment. Yang Po, the hated supervisor that hadn’t let Wei go when he complained about his visions. Yang Po, her fiancée’s murderer.

Yang Po. All she could see of him was his ruddy face, and even that was enough to bring her hatred to the boil. He walked over to where she was standing and looked down at Wei.

His voice came over the intercom. It was direct and unfriendly. “Can you hear me, Jiang Wei?”

“I’m here.”

“The company has asked me to try to convince you to reconsider your euthanasia application. No such application has been made by your colleagues. Perhaps it is because they are made of sterner stuff than you?”

“What difference does it make?” Ping snapped.

Yang Po straightened and faced her directly. “No difference to me, but it matters a great deal to those in the homeland. This whole disaster is a terrible tragedy, and the people need martyrs to focus on. Jiang Wei will become a national hero in death.”

“You can’t do anything more to me now,” Wei said. “Let me die.”

“Well, we can’t stop you. We have no jurisdiction here.”

“Then what’s the hold-up?” Ping asked.

“There’s no hold-up. Your application has been granted, pending my visit to request that you reconsider. I’ve made my request and now I’m leaving.”

“Then leave,” Ping said. “No, wait. I want to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Why weren’t they given radiation suits? You must have had them.”

Yang Po laughed. “Nurse, is there a private channel?” he said in English. “One can’t be too careful.”

“Transferring you now.”

“The people need to see that others are capable of making the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the homeland, a sacrifice that they themselves may one day be asked to make.”

“There must be more to it than that,” Ping said. “What else?”

“There’s always more. Perhaps you feel I owe you the duty of disclosure, given that I was Jiang Wei’s superior officer and that I personally ordered him into the reactor. I feel no such obligation of disclosure, and yet I will tell you to satisfy my own curiosity regarding your response. Are you listening, Jiang Wei?”

“I am.”

“The Controlled Waking State program wasn’t working quite as intended, despite the best efforts of you and your men. There were...complications. Jun Shan was one such complication. You yourself, our brightest prodigy, were fast becoming another. It seems it is not so easy to manipulate a man’s mind, to bend it entirely to our will. It will come in time, of course, but not here and not now. I could have reported the program’s failure to the homeland and returned there in disgrace, maybe even to a work-camp. But I’m too old for that.”

Yang Po was actually laughing, but it wasn’t a sound Ping imagined a human being to be capable of making. “So you sent the trial participants into the reactor,” she said, “to liquidate them before news of the program’s failure got out.”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“Get out before I strangle you!” Ping said.

“I’m on my way. Goodbye, Jiang Wei. Lui Ping. Enjoy the time you have left together. But don’t worry – your name will live on. I mean this literally. There’s a proposal to rename one of the reactors after you. As it turns out, there isn’t too much structural damage to the plant. It’ll be completely repaired in a couple of months. Unfortunately you won’t be able to witness the grand reopening in person, but I can assure you that you’ll be there in spirit.

“One final thing. Lui Ping, if you try to incriminate me over this matter, then I give you my personal assurance that I will make it my life’s work to ensure that you join me in the work-camps. I hear that the life expectancy is quite low there. And for one in your condition...”

“And my condition is?” Ping asked.

“You are pregnant. I know everything there is to know about you, sometimes even before you know it yourself. And now I must leave to prepare my report for the inquest.”

Yang Po left. They remained silent for some time.

Finally Wei said: “Do you think I can die later today, or will I have to wait until tomorrow?”

47. The Barons

Sylvia was in a dark place with little in the way of light. She couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, but it must have been a couple of days. A guard periodically brought food and there was a toilet in her cell. Other than that there was nothing and no one except that which she could conjure in her mind. CDS had robbed her of the power of organic imagination, of mental image formation. To daydream alone, without computerised assistance, seemed arcane.

Mainly she lay on the bed, reviewing the steps that had led her to this point in her life. At first she had been angry – at Peters, at Rion, and most of all at David. The men in her life had failed her. She explored each betrayal at length, identifying moments and remembering specific phrases they had uttered. Each one had let her down.

But then a curious thing happened. At the peak of her anger, at a moment when she felt that the whole world had calculated to plot her downfall, her anger blew out.

It was her own fault.

Something Peters had said returned to her: “And still you won’t face up to your actions.” In her own sly way, she’d allowed much of this to happen. She should have brought David to someone’s attention years ago, at a time when he might have been talked down from the place he was climbing to. Her main problem had been that she hadn’t cared enough. She hadn’t cared about him, or his idealism, or anything. Now she was paying for her indifference. If they ever let her out of here, she’d make one resolution and one only: she’d care.

When the door finally did open after what seemed an eternity of reflection, Sylvia felt calmer. She was to come with the guards, which was quite all right with her. They didn’t bother with the handcuffs, seeing that she posed no threat to anyone. She would be entirely passive. The guards led her through a dingy corridor that seemed vaguely familiar and into a boardroom with a long table. This room was better lit. There were a number of people sitting around the table, all formally dressed. They were high-ranking CIQ Sinocorp employees. One of them was Peters.

“Please sit,” one of them said. She didn’t quite catch who had spoken.

She sat down in the nearest empty seat, painfully aware of the dirty fish farm uniform she was still wearing. In her cell she’d barely thought of it, but now she felt self-conscious amidst the suits.

“So this is Sylvia Baron,” one of the men across from her said. “It’s time for a decision to be made about you. Jeremy?”

Peters cleared his throat. There were bags under his eyes, but his voice was stern. “In some sense, Sylvia has been an unwitting pawn in this situation. Upon discovering that her husband David intended to carry out his attack on the facility here at Yellowcake Springs, she attempted to leave town. As per directive, I intercepted her at the bus station and brought her to the safehouse. Sylvia was told that this was the Misanthropos safehouse. I explained that I was a Misanthropos agent but one who had misgivings about attacking the reactor. At my request, she contacted David and tried to convince him to call off the attack. This served two purposes: the first being that I thought she might genuinely be able to convince him to abort; and secondly in case she could get him to reveal his location. Neither turned out to be possible. After the attack, we fled on foot and were taken to the camp. There she tried to elicit the help of another man, known only to this organisation as Rion, who declined. Thereafter she attempted to leave the town on foot – via the main gate – and was allowed to do so in the hope that she might lead us to other Misanthropos operatives. When it became clear that Sylvia had no further information for us, she was arrested and brought here.”

“Have you anything to add to this?” one of the women asked her.

“No,” she said. “It’s as Mr Peters says.”

“What about this ‘Rion’?” the same woman asked.

“He knew nothing,” Sylvia said. “Except what I told him, which wasn’t much.”

“Is this man in our custody?” someone else asked.

“No,” Peters said. “He’s managed to get himself a job in Perth. He’s on their government database.”

“Irretrievable?”

“We could apply pressure, but I’m not sure it’s worthwhile.”

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Sylvia said. “I’m the one you want.”

“You aren’t, actually,” Peters said. “Shall we bring in the other prisoner?”

“Yes, do so.”

They waited for a few seconds, and then a man hobbled in flanked by two guards. It was David and his face was badly bruised. They threw him down into a chair. He was in handcuffs.

“David, you’re alive!” Sylvia said.

He peered up at her through bloodshot eyes. “Yep.” His voice was hoarse.

Sylvia felt a range of emotions very rapidly: from alarm, through relief, and then finally to contempt. “They got you then,” she said.

“Not before I did what I intended to do. Isn’t that right?”

“We need to make a decision about this one too,” one of the men said. “Maybe he died in the attack after all.”

“I don’t know why you haven’t shot me yet,” David said. “I’d shoot the lot of you. And why are you bullying my wife? She’s done nothing wrong.”

“We’ll ask the questions,” the same man said. “You don’t seem to be aware of the kind of pain we can put you through, if we so choose. We might even start working on Sylvia here.”

“She doesn’t know anything.”

“Perhaps not, but it might have the desired effect on you.”

David turned to her. “You should have gone when I told you to,” he said.

“I tried,” she explained, “but Peters here brought me back. I thought he was working with you.”

“I knew he was a stooge. Hard luck, Jeremy.”

“Are you going to give us the names, or shall we extract them from you?” Peters snapped.

“Names! I told you the fucking names!”

“Three.” Peters slammed his fist on the desk, a comical gesture for such a small man to make. “You’re saying that there were three of you.”

David laughed. Some of his teeth were broken. “The rest were all proxies. Ghosts. Now are you going to shoot us, or are you handing us over to the Australian Government?”

Their captors looked at one other. They all started speaking at once.

“Do they have the death penalty in this country?”

“It’s been recently reintroduced, yes.”

“They’ll be murder charges?”

“Six counts. One of them died this morning.”

“And there was that young girl who died in the town?”

“Probably not a murder charge on that one.”

“But a link can be established, surely?”

“I’d expect so. Anyhow, sabotage and terrorism can be life sentences.”

“But the murders can result in the death penalty?”

“Yes, as long as they’re regarded as murder and not manslaughter. Lethal injection.”

“What about the other two ringleaders?”

“Same charges.”

“And her?”

“Lesser charges. Withholding information from the national interest.”

“She won’t die for that?”

“Not in this country, no.”

“Then we’re in agreement?”

“We don’t want to damage relations with the Australian Government, so yes.”

“It’ll be a big trial. Lots of publicity for the company.”

“Let’s go for it then.”

“Well done,” David said. “That’s a fastest committee decision-making process I’ve seen in my life. I guess we’re going to Canberra? Hear that, Sylvia? There’s hope for us yet.”

She looked at the man who’d been her husband, and despite herself, she smiled.

48. Jiang Wei

The cabin. The bed. The fire. For the last time.

“What are you thinking?” Lui Ping asked. Jiang Wei had long since lapsed into silence.

“About how frightened I am,” he replied. “About how I don’t want to let go.”

“Then don’t…” Foolish words; she regretted them immediately.

“If I don’t do it now, I might be too weak to do it at all,” he said.

“You don’t seem angry, Wei. Why aren’t you angry?”

He sighed. “I’ve no use for anger now,” he said. “I always knew that something like this would happen. I never thought I’d reach old age.”

Just like that, this gentle, timorous man she loved so dearly would go to his death.

“Is she here with us now?” Ping asked.

“Can’t you see her? She’s on your side of the bed.”

Ping turned to look. For a moment she thought she saw a shadowy something at the corner of her vision, but there was nothing there.

“You see her?”

“I do,” Ping said. “She’s right next to me.”

Wei exhaled. His lungs were breathing and his eyes were seeing, but they weren’t his real lungs and eyes. His real body lay on a bed inside a plastic shell, in a radiation shielded room, in a strange hospital, in a foreign land. His real body was broken beyond repair. She held his illusory hand.

“I’ll love you forever,” she said.

“I’ll love you too. I’ll watch over you.”

Ping wanted to accept his words, but although she wanted to, she did not believe in any kind of hereafter. But as this was no ordinary time, she held her tongue. Let him believe if it helped him in these final, frail moments.

“I want to be next to you,” she said. “Even if I can’t touch you. You’ll have to give me fifteen minutes to suit up. Promise me you’ll wait until I’m at your side.”

Wei got out of the bed. “Come outside for a moment. I want to look at the forest.”

She followed him out of the cabin and into the simulation proper. The weather was perfect here, as always, and the sun shone brightly but not with venom. What was he looking for as he stood there considering the pine trees, his expression wistful?

“You’re a good man, Wei. You never hurt anyone,” she said. “How many people can say that?”

He squeezed her hand. “You’ll take good care of Lijia. But she’ll need a father.”

“You’re her father.”

“A living father,” he insisted. “And she’ll want a brother or sister.”

“I understand.”

He nodded, looking around once more, and in that moment she wished beyond wishing that she could trade places with him, that he could live on instead.

“No more dreams,” he said.

“You’re leaving right now?”

“Yes.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

He nodded and then winked out like a fading meteor trail. Nothing lasted; nothing endured. Her only certitude was this. Ping looked once more at the forest and the secluded cabin before following him out of Controlled Dreaming State.

Ping tore at the CDS veil, getting herself all tangled with trying to unhook herself and trying to leave the room at the same time. Her face was wet from crying. It wasn’t far to the Burns Unit from here and her feet knew how to get there. People got out of her way. At the reception, she demanded that someone come out and help her with the radiation suit this instant. One of the nurses helped her in, enduring her, and Ping knew that she’d have to apologise to the woman for her manner later. Then she was wading along the corridor to the airlock for what must be the hundredth time.

The sterile whiteness of the room. The absence of sound. A row of plastic shells, Wang Meng’s now empty. Wei was at the end of the row.

“You’re still there?” she asked.

“I’m here.” No more than a whisper, even with the volume turned up.

She looked down at him, at his ruined, ulcerated body. His skin was raw and cracked. But most of all she saw his eyes, which longed for a way out. “You waited for me,” she said. He looked like a suicide bomber rigged to blow, but the button in his hand only triggered the mechanism for the lethal injection. This was to be a solitary apocalypse.

“I’m burning up, Ping. Can’t wait any longer.”

“I love you, Wei!”

“I hope I can squeeze it,” he said. “I can’t feel my fingers.”

Ping started to say something – it was very much more of the same – and it wasn’t until she’d finished that she realised that his hand was off the trigger, that Jiang Wei was gone.

49. Lui Ping

On Tuesday they mainly just showed him around and made him sign all kinds of disclaimer forms, but on Wednesday Rion’s real work at the hospital began. It was explained to him that he would have to start from the bottom and work his way up. For the most part, this seemed to entail pushing hospital trolleys from Point A to Point B. Most of the trolleys had dead bodies on them. He would go to the ward in question – finding the right ward was currently the hardest part of the job – disconnect whatever equipment was connected to the body, put a sheet over it, tag it, and wheel the trolley to the service lift. The service lift went down to the hospital morgue. Sometimes the bodies would be processed and released for funeral services, but just as often no one would claim the body and it would be burned onsite. He hadn’t worked his way up to burning the bodies yet. It seemed to him that there were a lot of people dying in this hospital without anyone showing any particular interest in their doing so.

The work was surprisingly tiring, and Wednesday morning was over before he knew it. He was entitled to a half hour lunch break in the hospital canteen, but he found that it took him five or ten minutes to get down to the canteen, so in reality it was more like twenty minutes. Rion’s feet were sore from the stiff hospital shoes he had been given to wear. He had just finished wolfing down his roll when his widget pinged again. He was learning to hate that sound.

FLOOR 7, WARD 2A: BURNS UNIT. RADIATION CHAMBER, the message said.

Rion shrugged and opened his drink. He still had fifteen minutes of lunch left.

Not two minutes later, the widget pinged again with the following message:

URGENT: FLOOR 7, WARD 2A: BURNS UNIT. RADIATION CHAMBER.

“Shit!” Rion said. A couple of the other staff looked at him. He got up, cleared his lunch wrappers into the bin, and tramped down the hall to the service lift. He hoped it wasn’t going to be like this every day.

By the time he’d found the Burns Unit, the widget had pinged for a third time and he was wondering whether there was a way to put it on silent. There did not appear to be.

“Took your time,” the nurse behind the desk at the Burns Unit said.

“I was on lunch,” Rion replied.

“No such thing as lunch in this hospital. Where’s the rad shield?”

“What?”

“You’re new, aren’t you? If it says ‘Radiation Chamber’ on the widget you need to bring a rad shield. You’ll have to go back down and get one.”

“Wonderful. Where from?”

“Down in the morgue. There should be one on a trolley down there from the guy that died this morning. There’s four more to go after this one.”

“Right,” he said. He went back down to the morgue. The rad shield, mounted onto a trolley, was just sitting there in the middle of the floor; he’d walked past it several times without knowing what it was. It was a human-sized, curved metal shell, like a mechanical cocoon. Rion signed the thing out and starting wheeling it over to the service lift. It weighed a ton.

A nurse in a radiation suit was waiting for him at the Burns Unit reception. “Bring it over to the airlock.” Rion did as he was told. “I’ll take it from here,” the nurse said. “It’ll take us a few minutes to load up the body.”

Thankful for a chance to rest his feet, Rion took a seat in the reception area. There was a thin Chinese woman crying silently there. No one was saying anything to her or offering her any support.

“Is that your husband?” Rion asked.

The woman looked up and nodded. Her face was wet with tears. Rion wished he had a tissue to offer her, but his pockets were empty.

“Was he from Yellowcake Springs? The reactor there?”

The woman nodded again. She stopped crying.

“I was there myself,” he continued. “I saw the whole thing. In fact…” Here he cut himself off. What was he saying? He couldn’t say this.

“Yes?” the woman said.

“I knew the wife of the man who did this,” he said.

“You know wife?” the woman said. Obviously she was not a native English speaker. “Why?”

Why what? Why did he know Sylvia Baron, or why had her husband orchestrated an attack on the nuclear reactor? She was waiting for an answer. “I don’t know why,” he said.

“He is a bad man.”

Rion nodded. “Yes.”

The woman reached out and grabbed his hand. “His name.”

“I don’t think I should say anything.”

“Please. His name.”

“It’s David Baron.”

“Thank you. I don’t forget this name. You are a good man. My husband, he a good man.”

“What was his name?”

“His name Jiang Wei. Very good man.” Now she was crying again and he held her tightly to him. It was almost certainly against regulations but he didn’t care. No one else was watching. She moaned and wailed, on and on. Finally her tears began to subside and he let her go. She snuffled and wiped her face on her sleeve.

“My name is Orion Saunders,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Lui Ping. I carry his child inside.”

His child inside? “You mean you’re pregnant?”

She nodded.

“Where will you go now?” he asked.

“Back to China.” Then: “You take him?”

“Your husband’s body? Yes, I’ll take him down to the morgue.”

“Wait! I can’t forget anything,” she said. “I can’t forget.”

“No, you’ll remember,” Rion said. “Even when you don’t want to. Look, let me show you something.” From his innermost pocket he retrieved the newspaper article about his mother, which he’d had laminated in the city the other day. He handed it to Lui Ping, who considered it.

“That’s my mother,” he explained. “She died when I was five. I think about her every single day.”

“This woman your mother? She looks young.” She gave it back to him.

“She was young when she died, just like your husband. Five years old and all I had to remember her by was this picture. And I did it. You’ll have his child to remind you of him. So, you see, you’re a little better off than I was, I think.”

She smiled a little; it was obviously a great effort even to try. “Thank you,” she said.

The airlock hissed open and Rion got to his feet. Ping followed him to what was presumably her dead husband hidden beneath the rad shield. The rad-suited nurse indicated that he was to take the trolley from here. Now the trolley was even heavier and Rion really had to put his back into it. It wasn’t far to the service lift. Ping was still following him.

“I’m just taking him down to the morgue,” Rion said to her as the lift doors opened. “Will he have a funeral here in Australia?”

“No, in China. I fly home with him.”

Rion nodded. “I see. Well, goodbye. I’m so sorry. You won’t forget this day. ”

Ping didn’t move. In fact she was blocking the lift doors. “I will come.”

“No, that’s not allowed,” he said. “I’ll get in trouble. I’m new here, see? I can’t afford to lose my job.”

Ping looked at him. Eventually she stepped back.

50. Sylvia

Sylvia was watching the news on the 3V. She paid a lot more attention to what was going on in the world these days. Partly this was because she felt herself to be a reformed character, and partly it was because it was her only access to the outside world. It’d been nearly three months since her arrest and a trial date hadn’t even been set.

The news painted a pretty grim picture though. Today there’d been a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Peru: at least ten thousand dead in the slums there. A flood in China had caused a human calamity in the Yangtze River Basin: countless thousands dead and hundreds of thousands left homeless. There was rioting in Spain, where the government had all but lost control of a starving populace: dozens dead. And a bushfire in Victoria had destroyed dozens of houses: at least one fire-fighter dead and several people unaccounted for. Sylvia’s heart went out to all the grieving families, but it was overwhelming to think of how many people had died on planet Earth today. It wasn’t much consolation to her that just as many had been born, that the global population was still hovering around the nine billion mark, where it’d been for more than a decade now. All of those people were still individuals. They all thought of themselves as being uniquely important. And they were important to someone. This was the problem with humanism.

The ‘verts came on, and Sylvia was about to turn off the 3V when some familiar yellow writing came up on the screen. “Welcome to Yellowcake Springs!” the 3V said.

Sylvia sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. Was she hallucinating? She watched the screen as the perspective zoomed in closer to the reactors.

This was her ‘vert! It was appearing at last! But some of the dialogue had been changed:

“Why not take a drive up the coast to the pristine beachfront community of Yellowcake Springs?” the voice-over said. “CIQ Sinocorp’s first Australian Complete Community is scheduled to reopen to the public this Saturday, the 24th of August. Ring now to reserve your free ticket to the grand reopening. Act quickly to take advantage of our reopening specials on a modern apartment in the Green Zone. At these prices, they won’t last long!”

The rest of the ‘vert was much as she remembered it. They were using her words while she languished here in prison! For some reason, this struck her as amusing, and soon she was beside herself laughing. Misanthropos – David – hadn’t changed anything. They’d set CIQ Sinocorp back a few months and probably billions of dollars patching up the reactor, but that was loose change to them. They could just exploit another hundred thousand Chinese workers to make up the difference.

The ‘vert ended and she turned off the 3V.

So: a nondescript cell with grey concrete walls. Sylvia had her own bed, the 3V on a stand, and a lot of miscellaneous things besides. There were no windows, but at least she could turn the light on and off when she pleased and she didn’t have to share the room with anyone. She had a nearly limitless supply of books on the prison reader, and she had pens and paper to record her thoughts. No Controlled Dreaming State console, but then Sylvia supposed that was fair enough. She’d spent too many years hooked up to one of those things. She was learning to use her own imagination again. Sylvia was allowed to mingle with some of the other prisoners for an hour or so a day, and she had access to a gymnasium daily for exercise. As a consequence, she was in better shape now than ever before.

What was David thinking now, locked in his own cell in a different part of the prison? Had he seen the ‘vert too, and if so, had it angered him? Did he despair that his schemes had come to nothing, or had he achieved something approaching acceptance, as she herself had? Sylvia had no way of knowing: they were forbidden any form of contact. It seemed that the government didn’t want them to collude on their accounts of the attack. Not that she was planning on colluding with him.

She supposed that their outlooks were vastly different now. Sylvia herself could look forward to a number of years of incarceration – perhaps ten, or even fewer if she was lucky. But David? He was a dead man. Sylvia felt sure that David Baron and the other two would be the next on the list of executed Australians after Ronald Ryan, the last man to be executed in Australia. In 1967. She had looked that up on her reader. And so he would finally join the ranks of his beloved dead ‘mentals. Sylvia didn’t feel too badly about this. Look at those poor Peruvian children who had been crushed to death in their homes and schools. What had they done to deserve that? She’d heard their piteous cries and seen their tortured faces on the 3V. That was a tragedy. She wasn’t going to lose any sleep over David Baron.

There were too many people on this planet anyway.

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Table of Contents

- Yellowcake Springs:A Novel

- Guy Salvidge

- Cover Image: dreamstime.com
- Jacket Design: David Reiter
- Author Photo: Georgina Critchlow
- 1. Welcome to Yellowcake Springs
- 2. The House of Orion
- 3. ‘A Few Years’
- 4. Dreamhead
- 5. The Power Substation
- 6. Withdrawal Symptoms
- 7. Demands
- 8. Yang Po
- 9. The Chimera Lounge
- 10. Ambush!
- 11. The Doors of Perception
- 12. The Receptacle
- 13. Way Out
- 14. Controlled Dreaming State
- 15. David
- 16. Life after People
- 17. Yellow Springs
- 18. Misanthropos
- 19. Tim and Eleanor
- 20. Promotion
- 21. Rion
- 22. A New Man
- 23. Level Two
- 24. In a Glass Cube
- 25. Interloper
- 26. Army Dreamers
- 27. The Unmasking
- 28. Friday?
- 29. The Safehouse
- 30. Citizen Rion
- 31. Saturday?
- 32. Prompt Critical
- 33. Up in Smoke
- 34. Garbage
- 35. The Green Zone
- 36. Fallout
- 37. Prognosis
- 38. Sunset
- 39. Roll Call
- 40. The Burns Unit
- 41. Escapade
- 42. Lost and Found
- 43. Youth in Asia
- 44. Ridge Point
- 45. Insufficient Funds
- 46. Martyr
- 47. The Barons
- 48. Jiang Wei
- 49. Lui Ping

- 50. Sylvia

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