by Sean Wallace
Ashworth and Parkes listened with stupefaction as the professor’s proposal assumed the implausible air of science fiction.
“Wind tunnel tests have proven that it’s already aerodynamically sound, and the added offensive capability makes for a far more effective weapon.”
And as he spoke, he quoted the research of Professor Hoyle from the rocket research laboratories at Woomera.
“They’ve just successfully tested an atomic rocket motor that could provide the initial take-off thrust. They’ve also secured six Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 engines that would take over once the device is airborne. They each give more than thirty-eight thousand pounds of thrust, and were specially designed for the new supersonic Concorde aircraft. These engines can position and stabilize the device, and keep it up for maybe a whole hour.”
“We couldn’t possibly afford all of this!” Ashworth guffawed.
The professor was more optimistic.
“They’re the prototypes—gifts from the British and French governments—reparations for all the A-bomb testing in the desert and the Pacific. I’m sure with Hoyle’s cooperation, these engines could be made available to us.”
The professor pushed on.
“We have the technical capacity to do this. What I need to know is whether the device can be modified this dramatically—secretly.”
Ashworth suddenly grabbed at the building plans—already a hodgepodge of additions and amendments—and began tracing their smallest details, running his finger along his own markings and scribbles.
The others fell silent, staring at his intensity with a mixture of expectation and giddy excitement.
Finally he looked up and met their eyes.
“Yes!” he cried, “it’s a long-shot, but I think it can be done.” He took a deep breath. “You’d better make more coffee, professor. It’s going to be a long night.”
The three men poured over the plans, working out the feasibility of such an audacious proposal.
As they worked feverishly into the night, the project gradually seemed salvageable to Ashworth and they all felt a new hope. Before long, it took on the appearance of an even better plan than the one they’d had before.
“There’s only one major problem, as I see it,” Ashworth said.
Parkes frowned. “What? You think Hoyle might not cooperate?”
“Hoyle’s fine,” Wraight offered. “I know him. He’ll be in it like a shot.”
“What then?”
“I’m thinking of someone closer to home.” Ashworth pointed to the designer’s name at the bottom of the plans.
“Ohhhh nooo . . . ” Parkes cried. “I told him last time! It’s your turn.”
Ashworth’s face soured.
“Bloody ’ell. These are the biggest changes yet. Utzon is gonna spew.”
February 28, 1966
Jørn Utzon looked at the new plans with total dismay.
Behind him, huge arched concrete ribs outlined the shape of his spectacular building. Spindly cranes towered above them. The whole site buzzed with activity.
“You are not serious?”
Ashworth and Parkes steeled themselves as the Dane removed his hard hat and massaged his temple in frustration.
“How am I supposed to complete this project if you keep altering the brief? These changes do not even make sense.”
Parkes remained silent. He was well aware what the Dane thought of him professionally as an architect, and now preferred the minister to do all the talking.
Ashworth pleaded. “Please, Mr. Utzon. It’s only a minor alteration.”
“Minor! All the machinery to elevate the sets into the opera theatre has been installed, and now you want to switch the opera theatre and the concert hall, and to introduce an entirely new infrastructure?”
“Mr. Utzon. We are under instruction from the new premier.”
“And what does he know? Tell me! He is not an architect, he is a politician. I’m not concerned with your petty politics.”
“Be reasonable—”
“Reasonable? Reasonable?” The usually soft-spoken Dane began to lose his temper. “I have tried to work with you . . . I have made every nonsensical change you have requested, have I not?
“Yes, but . . . ”
“But what? I design for you the most spectacular building in the world, yes?”
Ashworth grudgingly nodded.
“Then what is this meant to be?” Utzon slapped at the plans.
The minister toughened. “You really don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“That’s because you are holding me to ransom. Yes! You are deliberately withholding funds so I will be forced to comply with your ridiculous changes.”
Ashworth and Parkes exchanged glances.
Utzon had had enough. “Ugghh! This is untenable! I designed for you an opera house. I don’t know what you are trying to build, but I want no further part in it.”
And with that, Jørn Utzon walked off in disgust, tossing his hard hat into the harbor. He never set foot on the site again.
As the minister and the government architect watched him wend his way through the maze of construction debris, the site around them gradually fell silent. Men downed tools, machinery ground to a halt.
Ashworth turned to Parkes and sighed, almost with relief.
“Well . . . at least it’s our baby now.”
Slowly overtaken by a sense of foreboding, Parkes was not so sure.
“What if we can’t get it to work?”
“It’ll work.”
Parkes sighed. “Harry . . . they are gonna hang us up by the balls.”
“Actually, Cob, it can’t get any worse.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Cos we’re already swinging in the breeze mate, we’re already swinging in the breeze.”
July 25, 1979
At the Center for Pacific Experiments at Mururoa Atoll, the French scientists looked on with sweaty, furrowed brows. The acrid stench of Gitanes hung heavily in the air.
The 120-kiloton weapon was meant to be lowered to a depth of eight hundred meters, but had become wedged halfway down the basalt shaft and could not be dislodged. After a brief consultation with their superiors in Paris, they decided to detonate it anyway.
“Cinq . . . quatre . . . trois . . . deux . . . un . . . ZÉRO!”
In a deep underwater trench not far from “Zone Centrale,” over a million cubic meters of coral and rock slid away to expose what looked like a volcanic ledge, encrusted with æons of marine organisms.
As the debris settled, the ledge gently peeled apart, revealing a giant yellow pupil. The iris focused on a shoal of fish, which flashed silver with each instant change of direction.
Reptillon—the giant lizard—had been roused from its ancient slumber. Even at this impossible depth it could sense a distant calling. An old familiar opponent had been reborn, and was now burrowing towards the east coast of Australia.
The giant reptile knew it must challenge its nemesis once again. It shook itself free from the rocks and coral, raised its massive body from the ocean floor, and slowly began to make its way west to meet it.
Two Nights Ago
A sledgehammer fist pounded on the apartment door.
Inside, the desperation was palpable as Kenneth Wilcox frantically stabbed at the keyboard of his PC.
An honors student completing a PhD in architectural engineering, he was tantalizingly close to an answer . . . almost. Thousands of lives and the fate of the entire city depended on his results.
“Just a few more seconds.”
They were now breaking down the door, and he had a pretty good idea why . . .
In the course of his research to reconstruct Utzon’s original opera house designs as a virtual 3D tour, he had inadvertently uncovered an incredible secret—buried within a complex jigsaw of altered plans, and tangled impossibly for decades in a labyrinthine bureaucracy.
Thanks to recent downsizing and staffing cuts, he was able to rummage thr
ough the bowels of various government departments and examine hundreds of plans and secret documents, unchecked and without arousing any suspicion.
Or so he thought.
Just as the data he desperately sought was downloading, the door was suddenly kicked open. Two men in black, built like brick shithouses, barreled into the room. Ken leapt to his feet, and was tossed aside.
One of them pulled the plug on the PC.
“Hey! What the . . . No! Don’t!” Ken pleaded.
The other rifled through files and papers, and turned to his accomplice. “It’s all here.”
“No! Get out of it!” blurted Ken indignantly. “I haven’t done anything illegal. Everything’s declassified. It’s all in the public domain. What about the Freedom of Information Act? I got rights!”
“Not since nine-eleven you don’t,” smirked the first man in black.
Furious, the student lunged at him, but with one deft action on the part of his target, found himself pinned to the floor by the goon, who waved a badge in front of Ken’s nose.
“ASIO? Awwww, fuck.”
Ken was quickly bundled out of the apartment, spirited down the lifts to the basement car park and tossed into the back seat of an unmarked car.
The first operative slammed Ken’s door and jumped in the front, while the second loaded the files and PC into the boot, before climbing into the driver’s seat.
A mirrored glass partition isolated Ken from the operatives. He grabbed for the door handle—missing!—and was thrown back against the seat as the car accelerated out of the car park and into the evening city traffic.
“Who’s in charge?”
The operatives listened through hidden mics.
The student pounded the partition with his fists.
“Fuckin’ answer me!”
They ignored him.
Stop lights magically turned green as the car wove through the traffic.
“You don’t understand. This is important. Look, I know . . . I know what it is. You have to listen!”
A voice replied over a hidden speaker.
“What is it?”
“It doesn’t work! I’ve run simulations based on calibrations made by Parkes and Ashworth in the sixties—the device doesn’t work.”
“Aww, shit.” The driver sighed and eyed his colleague sideways. “Do you think he’s for real?”
“Yeah . . . I do.”
The first operative contemplated the fate of the city as the car careered through Sydney’s glittering concrete and glass canyons.
“That means the device is fucked . . . and that means the city’s fucked . . . and that means we’re all fucked.”
“Yep. Reckon it does,” agreed the driver.
The car descended into the Harbour Tunnel, heading north.
Then Ken said something that made the driver hit the brakes, hard. Cars skittled around them.
“I know how to make it work!”
The glass partition slid open, and the first operative looked over his shoulder at the student.
“Go on.”
“I know how to make it work! You need to update all of Parkes’ and Ashworth’s original figures. Their data’s now woefully out of date.
He definitely had the operative’s full attention.
“Data? What data?”
Ben began spurting techno-babble. “It’s the angle of incidence. The wings are all out of whack . . . they’ve got to be re-calibrated. Once the angle’s been determined, the correct altitude can be calculated—”
The operative shushed him. “Altitude?”
The two operatives exchanged astonished glances. “You mean . . . it can fly?”
“Uh-huh! That’s the major alteration that drove Utzon to abandon the project. Parkes and Ashworth anticipated a rise in interference, though not to the extent created by mobile phones. By flying above the interference, the device can jam it, and still carry out its primary function. But it needs re-adjustment. It’s just that there’s no one around who remembers how to do it.”
The two operatives exchanged astonished glances.
“Are you absolutely sure you can fix it?”
An exasperated Ken blurted, “Yes! In fact, I can improve it. By positioning the device above the city and angling the wings precisely, I can take advantage of all the mobile phone towers to create an umbrella shield over the entire metropolitan area. . . . I just need my PC.”
“It’s in the boot,” the driver reminded them.
The operative’s eyebrows knitted. “You’d better be right, son.”
As the car spun 180 degrees he suddenly sounded hopeful. “I think there’s someone you ought to meet.”
The car shot into an emergency vehicle siding in the tunnel and gunned towards the Harry Seidler Retirement Village.
Minutes Later
An old and infirm Cobden Parkes sat up in his new recliner in the freshly painted TV room of the retirement village.
“Who’s the kid?”
Flanked between the two huge ASIO operatives, Ken sort of did resemble a kid.
“This is Kenneth Wilcox—a PhD student in architectural engineering at Sydney University.”
“Well, howdya do, Kenny.”
Kenny? The student harrumphed. He detested being called that. As he opened his mouth to respond, one of the operatives placed a firm hand on his shoulder and spoke first.
“He’s about to do some freelance work for us.”
“With your approval of course, Mr. Parkes,” added the other operative.
Ken’s jaw dropped. It was him! Cobden Parkes!—much older, of course, but still recognizable from all the photos.
The old man looked up at Ken with disdain.
“I suppose you’re another one of those arty-farty purists who thinks I’m an architectural philistine.”
“N . . . No, Mr. Parkes. Quite the opposite,” Ken nervously stuttered. “I’ve studied all your work, read all your notes. Your theories—way ahead of their time—revolutionary!”
“Really?” Parkes brightened.
“Totally! The way you integrated the device into the infrastructure without compromising the integrity of Utzon’s original design—sheer genius!”
The awe on Ken’s face was gratifying to the old man.
The first operative interjected.
“Gentlemen, there’s not much time. Mr. Parkes, there’s something important Ken has to tell you.”
Today, Now
Strategically located on an island in the center of Sydney Harbor, Fort Denison was built during the Crimean War to defend the city against naval attack. Now its empty cannon pointed impotently out to sea where the water boiled and churned as the submerged Reptillon torpedoed towards it.
The behemoth surfaced east of the Fort.
“Reptillon! Ahhhh! Reptillon!” The Japanese tourists on the battlements had seen this reptilian horror before. Sandstone blocks were pulverized under its weight as it pulled itself out of the foam. Shaking the water off its head, it scanned the harbor, took its bearings then tilted its head back to let forth an ear-splitting roar.
In the distance, windows in city buildings shattered and glass rained down upon the pedestrians below.
The monster launched itself back into the water sending up an enormous plume of sea spray. What remained of the little sandstone fort crumbled into the sea after it.
Tourists thought the old aboriginal woman singing near Ferry Terminal 4 at Circular Quay was just another of the many buskers that congregated there, and some even threw coins at her feet. Her quaint aboriginal Bible song bemused them.
They couldn’t possibly know that the song was one of hatred, summoning the instrument of her revenge. Her voice resonated through the ages, channeling the anguished spirits of all the ancestors who had died at the hands of the whitefella.
Echidonah approached now. Through the soles of her bare feet the old woman could feel the vibration of each claw burrowing towards her. Echidonah could sense her, too, could feel
her pain, and the closer it dug, the angrier it became.
She raised her arms as her chanting reached a crescendo. At that very moment, Echidonah broke the surface at Circular Quay. It crashed through the Cahill Expressway, named in honor of the once-premier of New South Wales. Cars and debris toppled onto the concourse, scattering tourists in terror.
The creature ignored the tasty morsels scurrying about its feet and in the tall glass mounds surrounding it—it had something bigger on its mind. Much bigger.
The aboriginal woman ran under the colonnade at the base of a building derogatively nicknamed the “Toaster.” She called out to her monster from behind a column.
“Maaaaamuuuu!”
It shuffled through the wreckage and onto the wharves where ferries bashed against the piers. One capsized, hurling passengers into the glassy green water.
Unused to the sunlight, Echidonah blinked as it peered through the glare out across the harbor, where, with a mighty whoosh, Reptillon—the giant lizard—burst out of the water.
The Eyewitness News helicopter swung around for a better angle. The camera crash-zoomed tight on Reptillon’s angry features.
Back at the retirement village, an exhausted and sleep-deprived Kenneth Wilcox entered the room, trailed by the two ASIO operatives.
Cobden Parkes looked away from the new widescreen digital television and eyed him expectantly.
“You remembered to detach all the mooring cables?”
Ken gave a satisfied nod. “Everything’s exactly as you’ve requested.”
“Well done, Kenny my boy.”
This time a proud Kenneth Wilcox didn’t mind being called that.
Parkes gestured to an armchair, and resumed watching the huge plasma screen. “Take a seat, sonny. The show’s about to commence.”
At Bennelong Point, authorities frantically evacuated the Opera House—cordoning off surrounding streets and clearing the area. Despite the danger, hundreds of people crowded the foreshore to watch the unfolding spectacle.
The two ASIO operatives stood silently at attention, on either side of Cobden Parkes, while Ken sat nervously on the edge of his armchair. Totally transfixed, they all stared at the huge plasma screen, where they could clearly see the two giant monsters facing off.
A bogon moth fluttered about their heads.