by A C Praat
‘Get up, Damon!’
Philip rolled over so he was facing the sky. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the mainland creep closer before it steadied, still too far away to swim to. Why weren’t they getting closer? What was Rex doing to him? Breakfast made it into his mouth. He forced himself to the edge of the inflatable and vomited into the sea. Feeling slightly better, he hung on, letting the spray cool his face.
‘We’re going around the headland,’ Rex yelled. ‘Too many people looking for your sorry ass.’
Rex was still helping him. He should be grateful, but holding on demanded everything he had. Eventually they slowed down and he opened his eyes. Another white-sand beach edged by bush came forward to greet them. The mainland. Philip watched the sandy bottom rise closer and closer until it was shallow enough to leap out. The leap was spoiled by his shonky balance and he ended up on all fours, the knee-deep water sloshing between his limbs, slapping at his stomach.
Rex was laughing when he cut the engine.
This was not funny. Philip crawled out of the reach of the waves and lay on his back. The sun was mercifully warm.
‘Don’t worry. I got it!’ Rex yelled.
Philip crooked his head toward Rex’s voice. Rex was tugging the boat up the beach. Philip rolled onto his knees again and stood up slowly. The beach tilted once, throwing him sideways. No – it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes on the damn boat; he’d earned his land legs on that island. Philip waited a moment and tried again, swaying until his vision steadied and his head stopped spinning. One step, then one more. He was still on his feet. A smile spread across his face.
‘Kei te pai,’ Rex said, offering him his back-pack.
Philip staggered toward Rex and swung the backpack over his shoulder. ‘I need to get to Waipapa.’
‘Waipapa?’
‘There’s a man advertising for a WWOOFER.’
Rex whistled through his teeth. ‘They sure as hell wouldn’t be looking for you there.’
‘Who?’
‘My whānau. Your friends.’
‘What is whānau? And what friends?’
‘Family. I told you – there’s a post on our webpage. Means all my cousins up and down the coast will be watching the sea. They don’t know what to make of the drybag. And your friends. The guy from the yacht – Raffe – and another woman, Mishra. She’s mates with one of my cousins, Rawinia.’
‘Mishra is here? Mishra McKenzie?’
Rex shrugged. ‘Don’t know her last name. But she’s a honey. Black hair, eyes like paua.’
‘Paua?’
‘Silver-blue.’
Mishra was looking for him? He smiled as excitement tore a path straight to his loins.
But she’d wanted to fix him. The memory of their last encounter dissolved his excitement.
‘They want to find you, Damon. I could take you to my aunty’s and you could meet them there. If you didn’t want to stay we could leave.’
But he’d been trying to get away from the yacht, hadn’t he? The idea of seeing Mishra and the others held equal parts fear and exhilaration. They were still calling him Damon. Why weren’t they using his real name if they were his friends? Why had he left them?
‘I need to find out more. I can’t meet them yet. Can you take me to Waipapa?’
‘It’s forty minutes inland from here by car.’
Philip frowned. Maybe Rex didn’t have a car. ‘Is there a bus?’
‘Nothing regular. Yeah, I’ll drop you at the gas station. Better if I don’t know where you are. Saves the lying.’
Philip wasn’t sure how to respond. He didn’t like lying either.
* * *
Studying the map in Rex’s beat-up Cortina made him feel sick again. The fleshy, hot breath of Rex’s mutt panting over his shoulder and into his ear didn’t help. He wanted to laugh and cry. The mutt reminded him of Tess.
Philip studied the map long enough to know that the turn-off for the orchard was a few kilometers back from the dot indicating Waipapa Village. ‘You could drop me at Kapiro Road.’
Rex nodded. ‘Five minutes.’
Outside, the road dipped and swelled. Wire fences corralled herds of sheep and half-grown lambs. Then shelterbelts became more common – green swathes of closely clipped trees.
‘Bamboo,’ Rex said, nodding at a leafy fence line. ‘Came with the ex-pats from China in the thirties. They brought the oranges too. Your orchard fella might be descended from one of them.’
‘The name didn’t look Chinese.’
Rex laughed. ‘The ex-pats were English – moving out of Hong Kong and China.’
The name didn’t look English either. Philip decided against saying anything else. He wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at.
Rex stood on the brakes and turned sharply, throwing Philip against his seatbelt and the dog against the side window. He pulled over onto a wide grass verge in front of shelter belt of bamboo.
‘Shit. Nearly missed it. Kapiro Road. You can walk to Kerikeri from here.’ Rex pointed south. ‘Or Waipapa.’ He indicated back along the route they’d followed.
Philip looked at Rex. Looking at people had always been a trial when he was growing up. It seemed easier now than it had before. But not much. ‘Thank you, Rex.’
Rex nodded and smiled. ‘You’d better make good, eh, bro.’
Philip squirmed to release the wallet from the front of his shorts.
‘Nah, you’ll need that.’
‘Please.’ Philip handed him two fifty-dollar notes. ‘For the food, and petrol for the boat and your car.’
‘Remember the pin for that money card, do ya?’
Philip shrugged.
‘Thought not. It’ll keep. You might be able to do me a favor one day.’
Rex opened the door and Philip followed suit, joining him at the boot of the car.
‘You can keep the map.’ Rex handed him his luggage. ‘Stay out of trouble, bro.’
Philip raised his hand in farewell as Rex turned the car around and headed back up State Highway Ten. Kapiro Road wasn’t his final destination, but it wasn’t far. He pulled his cap down and waited for the string of traffic booting along the highway to thin out, then he crossed the road and walked along the verge to an intersection one hundred meters away. Next to the street sign stood an advertisement for a clay studio, another for a yoga center and one more for custom-built kitchens. Philip surveyed the paddocks, the shelterbelts and pylons overhead. So much activity in the middle of nowhere.
He jiggled the backpack to a more comfortable spot and turned up the road. No footpaths out here and, unlike the highway, the grass verge hadn’t been mown for a while. He trudged through the grass, briefly stepped back onto the road where it narrowed for a stream, and then returned to the grass, expecting his destination around every corner. Finally there it was.
Jennings Road was unsealed and looked more like a driveway cutting a path through the shelter belts. In the distance the road petered out in front of a stand of eucalypts. The antiseptic, vaguely piney smell of them carried to him on the gentle breeze.
When he’d walked past one letterbox followed by a shelter belt, then two more, he found what he was looking for. A new scent mingled with the eucalypts. Passing through a living green archway, he discovered what it was: bunches of star-shaped flowers, clustered white against the deep green stems of trees that were almost twice his height. Orange blossoms. The orange trees marched away to his right in columns, softened underneath by overgrown grass. The scent was heavenly. In spite of his nerves he stopped and inhaled the fragrance. It reminded him of orange-almond syrup cake, one of his favourites that his mother made for birthdays and other special occasions.
At the other end of the block the unsealed driveway disappeared around a corner, lost in stands of poplars, and trees that Philip recognised from the island, but didn’t know the names of. As he walked along he noticed that some trees were carrying blossoms and also fruit. He didn’t know orange trees coul
d do that. Clearly he had a lot to learn.
A large tin shed emerged from the trees, just before the driveway turned the corner. He paused. Where would the orchardist be?
‘Yes?’ A man on crutches limped into view from the lean-to off the side of the shed. He wore a neat beard, a broad straw hat, and a cast on his leg beneath his shorts.
‘I’ve come about the WWOOFER job.’
The man smiled and hopped toward him. In the sunlight Philip could see the man was older than he’d first thought. Late sixties at least.
‘You’d better come in.’ He leaned on his crutches and offered Philip a hand. ‘Wilbert Kruijer. Wil.’
Philip took Wil’s hand. ‘Phi –’ He swallowed. Better to stick to the name in his documents. ‘Damon Hunter.’
‘Damon Hunter? English is it?’
Philip nodded. Instead of turning back to the shed, Wil hopped along the driveway curving through the shelter belt. ‘The house is this way.’
Philip walked with him. ‘It’s still open, then, the job?’
‘Oh yes, not the high season for WWOOFERS just now.’ Wil nodded toward the trees as they entered another block. ‘Won’t be ready for picking for another month or so, but there’s plenty to do.’
Relief sent a smile to Philip’s lips. He didn’t have a Plan B.
‘You don’t have a car?’ Wil asked.
The relief slid away. ‘No. Is that a problem?’
Wil shook his head. ‘I’m not driving at the moment. Another few weeks before the cast comes off, the doctors tell me. You don’t mind the odd bit of grocery shopping?’
Going to town. That wasn’t part of his plan. Not until he’d worked out why he had this stupid alias and why he’d jumped ship. ‘I have my license.’
Wil peered at Philip from beneath his brim. ‘Good. My wife isn’t driving at the moment either.’ He nodded. ‘There it is.’
Philip followed his gaze. At the top of a rise it seemed as if Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage had settled amidst an astonishing tropical garden. He smiled.
Wil smiled too. ‘It takes people that way the first time.’
The walls of the house were rounded and painted washed-out terracotta. The roof was tiled and pointed in different directions, peaking to gables in two places, and sloping to flat ends in others. Around the windows the plaster was painted pale yellow, and every so often tiny red and blue triangles added to the drama, giving the appearance that the house was made up, ready for a party. A distinct pang – a longing for his mother to be here with him – halted his steps. ‘My mother would love this place. She’s a chef back home.’
‘You could send her a photo. But we’re still on dial-up – takes a long time for anything to load.’ Wil shrugged. ‘Just as well we’re not in a hurry here.’
Dial-up? He was in the sticks. Would he be able to do the searches he needed? Maybe WWOOFING wasn’t the way to go if they were too hippy-dippy to bother with access to decent technology. He would use the phone when it was charged.
‘My wife, Afra, is at the neighbour’s house just now. You can make us coffee and tell me about yourself.’
On the island he’d had time enough to think about his story. Nothing was ever as convincing as the truth. He’d given his alias, but everything else – his background, his profession – would be his own.
* * *
‘You are very tidy, Damon, I think.’ Afra smiled at him as she tugged off her rubber gloves after finishing the dishes for the evening meal, then tucked her salt-and-pepper waves behind her ear.
‘Clean as you go. That’s what my mum says.’ Philip placed the final fork in the cutlery drawer and hung up his tea-towel.
The whimsical exterior of the house extended inside. The kitchen was timber, with bay windows above the sink that looked out to the orchard, now shrouded in the dusky half-light. Decorative fruits and vegetables were routed into the wooden joinery. The furniture in the open-plan dining and living areas was hand-carved too. It was as if he’d entered another world, safe and enclosed by both the house and the shelter belts surrounding the orchard. From their conversation at dinner Philip had gleaned that they weren’t just organic horticulturalists, but biodynamic – a way of farming that worked with the natural rhythms of nature and the cosmos. He could hardly be expected to know anything about a system he hadn’t even heard off. That piece of news helped him to relax.
But he was also finding out that the rustication was illusory. The white-washed walls of the house showcased art and artifacts from the couple’s European background, and though there was no dial-up they had a satellite that beamed Dutch TV into their living room. Low tables in the living room supported copies of The Guardian and what looked to be a local political magazine, along with orcharding publications.
‘Tea or Tia Maria?’ Wilbert smiled at him. ‘We don’t take coffee after dinner.’
‘I don’t drink,’ he said. ‘Tea, please.’ The conversation was tiring him. It was interesting but he’d become used to his own company in the hut, and the need to get online was clawing at his concentration. When would he be able to ask for their computer?
As they all settled into couches in the living room – more of a nook in the open-plan living space – a laptop winked at Philip from the table by his elbow.
Wilbert sipped his liqueur and continued their dinner conversation. ‘They are talking about giving human rights to artificial intelligence on Dutch TV.’
Philip had been relieved they’d showed an interest in a topic he could easily converse on. Back in the UK he’d worked on a project aiming to make a robot so human-like that people would feel comfortable working alongside it. They’d even given it a name. Would he assign human rights to Freddy? ‘We’ve talked about it at labs I’ve worked in.’
‘And?’
‘We’re a long way from generalised human intelligence. Applications of AI are most advanced in narrow fields, like self-drive cars.’
‘But if they develop autonomy – yes? They think, they reason, they make decisions. Their brain is no more opaque than our own.’
Philip shook his head. ‘Reasoning isn’t enough to make them human. We can’t program them to feel, for example.’
Wilbert nodded. ‘Emotion, yes, I agree. And there is the matter of the soul.’
‘Wil,’ Afra scolded, ‘don’t scare the poor man away.’
Wil smiled at his wife, then asked Philip, ‘Did you see the articles about the robotic project in Adelaide?’
Philip’s eyes snapped from the laptop to Wil’s face. Goosebumps crawled along his arms and down his legs. He shook his head, not trusting his voice.
‘They’re saying the Australian military are building an autonomous robotic swarm. Somebody leaked the project. When was that, Afra? About a month ago?’
‘Longer. More like two months.’
‘I’ve been travelling – a bit out of touch.’ Somebody had leaked the project? He shivered.
‘He’s cold, Wil. Turn on the heat pump.’
‘Could I – I mean, do you think I could look up the articles? I like to stay in touch with the field.’
Wil passed him the laptop. ‘The whole project was online for two hours before it was taken down. Can you imagine?’
Philip shook his head and clamped down on his back teeth. No, he couldn’t.
The password screen eventually loaded.
‘Here.’ He passed the laptop back to Wil.
‘Oh, yah. Sorry.’ Wil typed in the password.
Philip launched Chrome and waited. Then typed in ‘robots’, ‘swarm’ and ‘Australia’.
More waiting. His leg jiggled. Where had he been two months ago? At the institute? Finally, several links showed up. He clicked the first one, dated only last week.
Breaking News: Military Puts Killer Bee Episode to Rest
Today Group Captain Hebden of the Royal Australian Air Force finally broke the military silence about what the media has dubbed the killer bee episode.
Phili
p raced through the rest of the article, flushing hotter with every sentence. Somebody had died? Somebody had been confused about his project? His breath caught in his throat.
‘Damon?’
It couldn’t be him. He understood the project. He was alive.
The next link was to an article over two months old.
Breaking News. Killer Bees: Our Next Defense?
By Charlie Breen
An unnamed source claims that the Australian Defence Force are on the brink of perfecting an autonomous robotic swarm. ADF haven’t confirmed or denied the claim. Dr. Rainie, an independent security consultant, says that LAWS, or Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, have divided the military community. ‘Swarm technology is particularly worrying. The possibility of unpredictable patterns of behaviour is very high,’ Dr. Rainie says. The Say No to Killer Robots campaign has claimed the leak as a victory for humanity.
His breath quickened. Say No to Killer Robots? He’d heard of them. Scanning the rest of the article he learned that their spokeswoman was someone called Rawinia Te Whatu.
Rawinia? Rex had said that Rawinia was searching for him. But that Rawinia was here in New Zealand, not Adelaide. A memory of lunch at the gallery with Mishra intruded. Hadn’t she mentioned the campaign?
Yes, she had.
Was it before or after he’d told her about the military influence in his robotic project? His brain was beating against the front of his skull as he pushed his fingertips into his temples; he couldn’t remember. They’d agreed not to talk about work; they’d decided their relationship was going to end well. That was until he’d found the article on treating people on the spectrum in her office.
Philip pushed that memory away and opened the next link. It claimed the code for the swarm had been uploaded to the web. Philip rocked backward and forward. When was that article published – two months ago? Apparently only two days after the first one.
‘Damon?’
Link after link was filled with speculation about who leaked the project, and debate raged about the true nature of the work. Was it just pollination, or had the university project been turned toward more sinister applications? Experts were divided. There had been nothing within the code itself indicating it had been modified for military purposes. A comprehensive study of the code had been impossible – all copies had been surrendered to the authorities. The leak was a massive breach of copyright.