The Waterhole

by Warren Chazan

  Denny reddened, and his eyes narrowed into slits as he paced the room silently in thought. He returned to Wesley’s desk. “No. The answer is no.”

  “Sir, it’s not just the oceans we have to worry about, but under the increased influence of gravity, we can expect at least half our bridges, skyscrapers, towers, etcetera to start collapsing. Already there have been reports this morning that the entire LA East Interchange collapsed last night, just prior to the wave coming in.”

  “Nonsense!” Denny ran his hand across his freshly shaven chin. “Tell me, Lieutenant, do you like your job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well if you want to keep it, I’d advise you to stop questioning my orders and rather obey them. Now enough of the doomsday talk. Focus on your job and fix it!”

  “With all due—”

  Denny raised his hand with a gesture reminiscent of Hitler’s heil and stormed off in a huff, leaving the bewildered marine, unsure of what, if anything, he was supposed to do.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  After a long and arduous drive through the snow-covered landscape, Jack’s four-wheel drive came to a stop about five hundred feet from the gate at Stromlo. In front of them lay dozens of parked or abandoned cars, hundreds of screaming protesters and a few snarling dogs barking incessantly and straining at their leashes. All had defiantly ignored the bans placed on them from entering the restricted area. It was snowing heavily and many had been caught off guard by the unseasonable weather, shivering away in their T-shirts and shorts. There were some children and even a few babies caught up in the angry crowd.

  “I guess this is as far as we go with the car,” said Jack.

  “I guess so. So …” said Janine.

  “So what?” said Jack, frowning, as he clambered out of the car.

  “What’s the brilliant plan?”

  He stared at her for a few moments before answering. “I did a bit of research about the facility while you made that … um personal call before we left, and found out some really interesting facts about the building.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  He pulled out something he had printed off the net and read off some boring facts about the observatory.

  “Get to the point, Einstein,” said Janine, rolling her eyes as she struggled into the thick military coat Jack had brought with him.

  “Okay, here is where things start getting interesting.” He skipped a passage and then carried on with his recital. “On January 18, 2003, devastating Canberra bushfires hit Mount Stromlo and destroyed five telescopes, workshops, seven homes and the heritage-listed administration building. The only telescope to escape the fires was the Farnham telescope. That telescope, and the Great Magellan telescope were housed in the building.” He looked up at her. “Which today houses EMB.”

  He put the note away and approached Janine, who had zipped up and pulled over the hood of the oversized jacket. “What people don’t realize though, is that the winters here were bloody awful, especially during the early twentieth century, when heating was difficult and expensive, and rumor has it that before the fire, an underground passageway was built between the old ‘burnt’ buildings and the newer ones, which now houses EMB. That was permanently sealed off after the fires in 2003, but I have a hunch that that’s going to be our ticket inside.”

  “And how did you find that out?” asked Janine, not sure she really believed the incredible story.

  “Let’s just say that I had a chat with one of the authors of the paper I just read you. He was extremely helpful. I told him I worked for the government, and that we were concerned about security at the complex.”

  “And he believed you?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she tried to keep herself warm.

  “Of course he did. Do you think you’re the only person capable of extracting sensitive information?” he said, winking at her.

  Janine spun around in the snow. “At least it looks like we lost Mr. Audi man,” she said, surveying the immediate area. They were just far enough from the crowd not to be noticed.

  “Maybe. I wouldn’t count on it just yet,” replied Jack, checking his inner jacket pocket for his gun. He opened the boot and dragged out a small duffel bag.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” she asked.

  “Never you mind. Let’s just say a small insurance policy should the need arise.”

  “So where to now?”

  “Follow me,” he said, pinpointing his position on the GPS device located on his wrist. He looked around the stark white landscape and then headed slightly west of the main buildings. “Thank god the GPS is still working. I haven’t a clue how or why,” he remarked.

  Despite the thick jacket, Janine felt the cold seeping in under the collar. The snow was at least half a foot deep in places. They struggled up a steep hill, and made their way toward the old burnt-out buildings.

  “Oh shit,” said Janine.

  “What is it?”

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  Jack trudged over and brushed snow off what looked to be an innocuous mound, but the discovery of two blue sneakers pointing upwards gave Janine reason to believe there was something much more disturbing buried beneath.

  Jack continued clearing the snow away to reveal the face of a small boy, frozen solid.

  “Oh dear god,” cried Janine. “He can’t be much more than ten.”

  “I know, it’s horrible, and I’m sure there are dozens more like him.”

  Janine pulled off a glove and reached for the boy’s hand. It was ice cold. She shut her eyes and took in a deep breath. “What should we do?”

  “Nothing we can do. We have to keep going.”

  “We can’t just leave him here. What about his family?”

  “Janine. We don’t have time. It’s terrible, but there’s nothing we can do for him right now. Come, we have to keep moving.”

  Janine noticed that her jaw was quivering, and she wasn’t certain whether it was the sadness or the cold that was causing it. She ignored Jack’s plea and began to search the boy’s clothing for any signs of identification. She saw Jack looking at his watch.

  “Come on, it’s time to go,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do for him. We need to get up there before it gets too dark.”

  Jack placed his arm around her as they slowly continued up the hill. Janine’s thoughts turned to her nephew Lyle, and she felt tears well in her eyes. She had to hold herself together. The boy was no older than him.

  * * * *

  The heavy snow made visibility difficult for Graham Kennedy as he frantically searched for the four-wheel drive he had been methodically following. Had it not been for that stupid old bat who had crossed the street in front of him earlier and then decided to hold her own private protest in the middle of the freeway, he would never have lost them.

  “Shit, where the hell are they?”

  It didn’t help that all the cars had turned white. It wasn’t going to be an easy task finding them.

  After ten or so minutes of perseverance, carefully examining every four-wheel drive one by one, he came across a vehicle that looked similar to Jack’s vehicle. He felt the hood and grinned. It was warm. He brushed snow off the roof. It was blue.

  “Gotcha!”

  He parked the Audi, and then went around to check on the registration number, which confirmed it was their car.

  “Now where the hell are you two lovebirds?”

  He scanned the area, but there were no signs of the pair. Constant screaming and barking from certifiable civilians and their crazy dogs was all that was audible. He trudged around the car, where he found multiple fresh footprints amongst some animal paw prints in the snow. How the hell would he know which were theirs?

  He then caught sight of something odd. All the footprints headed toward the front gates, except for two fresh sets, which were headed west, and up the hill.

  “There you are!”

  He grabbed his Smith & Wesson from the glove compartme
nt, checked that the guidance system was receiving a GPS signal and that it was fully loaded, before pulling on his green ski jacket and a black, woolen balaclava. He began his slog up the hill.

  “Not sure I know where the two of you are heading, but I guess I’m going to find out soon,” he murmured to himself. He looked at the weapon he was clutching and felt a twinge of nerves shoot through his chest. He wasn’t looking forward to what he was about to do, what he unfortunately had to do.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  At precisely 4.35 pm, the professor stood up and made an announcement. “The deed is done!”

  By now, only the professor and Sheri were in the room. Steve and Drew were still sleeping, as was Chloe.

  “Are you sure? That was quick,” said Sheri, sipping at a cup of lukewarm coffee.

  He smiled. “I have to be honest with you. As far as codes go, this was actually a piece of cake. You really should’ve spent a bit more time on security for your project. On a scale of difficulty of one to ten, ten being the most difficult code to crack, this was no more than a four. How did you go with the gentleman at headquarters?”

  “You mean Wesley? Great. I had a really good talk with him. He claims that although he hasn’t been hanging around the control room all that much, something about side effects from the experiment he underwent, he said it’s obvious the general is in complete denial and refuses to listen to anything to do with shutting down EMB. He also said he’s noticed there was some unusual activity coming from Stromlo, and when I told him of our plan, he said it all made sense.”

  “Are there any military personnel there that may cause us undue concern?”

  Sheri swallowed another mouthful of the bitter coffee and put the cup down on the professor’s desk. “Apparently, the general has a few loyal military scientists who could possibly blow the whistle on us, but Wesley said he’d try to keep a close eye on them. Distract them if necessary. He suggests going ahead after midnight, their time, which is almost two hours from now.”

  “The next hour will be crucial as the shutdown procedure commences. How long will it take to complete, Sheri?” the professor asked, now rubbing his knee.

  “Shutdown is much quicker than launch. Launch takes three days, as we need to build up sufficient charge, but it’ll take no more than a couple of hours to turn her off. She just needs a little time to safely discharge.”

  “Excellent, now give me yours and Miles’s password, and let’s shut this bastard down.”

  Sheri handed the professor the two codes that she’d written down. He quickly relayed them to the computer. A red strobe light illuminated the room, and a serene female voice unexpectedly came to life.

  “Warning, warning. You are about to commence shutdown sequence. Once begun, you have precisely one hour, thirty-five minutes to abort.”

  The message kept repeating itself.

  “So, Sheri, do you want to do the honors?”

  Sheri half managed a smile for the professor, but she was deeply troubled by the unfolding of events. She could still taste the bitterness from the coffee at the back of her throat as a wave of nausea washed through her. “Professor, I really hope we aren’t making a big mistake.”

  “There’s only one way we’re going to find that out, isn’t there?”

  “I guess so …”

  A large, red holographic button materialized above them.

  “Do you want me to push it?” he asked, his sympathetic brown eyes awaiting her reply.

  “No, no, she’s my baby. I powered her up, and I should be the one to turn her off. I’m responsible for all this destruction.”

  “Don’t be silly, lass, you didn’t develop EMB by yourself, and you could never have known—”

  “Yes I could have,” she said, raising her voice. “And I should have. It was my job to know. I should’ve run more tests.”

  “You tested her for two years. You had every great mind in the world saying it was okay.”

  “I should’ve tested more, and then some more if necessary.” Tears were streaming down her face. She wiped them away and tried to compose herself, and then quickly reached for the red button and pushed it.

  “Shutdown sequence commenced. You have one hour, thirty-five minutes to abort.”

  * * * *

  The summit of the hill seemed at least a mile away, and Janine was starting to tire. It was difficult and energy consuming, trudging through the thick snow. The day was melting into dusk, and the wind had picked up, blowing stinging snow across their faces.

  “How much longer, Jack?” she asked, pausing to catch her breath.

  Jack was a few feet ahead of her, his knee-deep footprints carving a track out for her to follow. “Just a few hundred feet or so more, according to the map I have, although it’s at least twenty-five years old and who knows what could’ve happened since then.”

  “I sincerely hope nothing has,” she managed through the puffing. “I don’t think I could take too much more of this.”

  “Janine Fuller tiring? That I’d like to see,” said Jack, turning around and winking at her.

  She was sitting on a log under a tree, sheltering from the wind. He sat down next to her.

  “Say, Jack, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Was there ever a Mrs. Jack Keagan?”

  He thought for a moment before answering, “No. I was engaged once though, a long time ago.”

  “Would I be intruding if I asked what happened?”

  Jack turned to her, she was panting, her breath misting the frigid air. He could tell by the intensity of her stare that she needed to know the answer. Was he ready to tell her?

  “Let’s just say that Alexis didn’t quite turn out to be what I thought she’d be.”

  “I get the impression that it wasn’t an amicable separation?”

  “Depends what you would call amicable,” he said. “I met Alexis on an SAS assignment seven years ago. I was based in Uzbekistan, when I came across this gorgeous Russian girl in a café on one of my off days.” He chose his words carefully, not wanting to offend her. “She was beautiful, very softly spoken and a bit shy and didn’t speak much English.” He paused. “Do you really want to hear this?”

  She nodded, tucking a few stray locks of hair under her hood.

  “Okay, just checking. I was lonely, being so far from home, so I asked her out, and after a few weeks, I guess you could say that we were dating.”

  “Did you, you know, fall in love?” she asked, the moaning wind almost drowning out her voice.

  Jack was slow to answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to let go of the past. It was almost as if by telling Janine the details, he would have to admit to himself that it really was over. “Not at first, but after a few months I did grow to love her, and eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her to marry me, and she accepted straightaway.”

  “How long were you engaged?” she asked, her breathing almost back to normal.

  “About a year. We moved in together and had what I thought was a really great relationship. My assignment came to an end though, and it was time to go back to Oz with her. It was then that she dropped the bombshell.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask. Let me guess, she was already married?”

  “Nope, but good try. Care to try again?”

  “Cheated on you? Was a lesbian?” she said in rapid succession.

  Jack burst out laughing. The woman had an incredible knack of making him smile. It had been so long since Alexis, so long since feeling the warmth and tenderness of another human being. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten over her, because there had been no one to get over her for. Maybe it was time. Janine had really grown on him, and he felt himself thinking about her more and more. In fact, this was the first day he could remember that Alexis hadn’t seeped into his thoughts, not even once. Maybe it was because Janine was the exact antithesis to her—fiercely independent, ambitious and completely nuts, yet even her ill-timed outbursts and weird idiosyncrasies tickled him.

  “
Okay I give up, Jack. What did Alexis do?” She looked him in the eye, and he wished that he knew her thoughts.

  He shook his head, took her hand in his, and rubbed it. “You know, Janine, I’ve never told anyone the real reason before. Not even my old man, when he was still alive, and we were very close. I’ve always made excuses, like it wasn’t right or it just wasn’t working, but somehow with you I feel I can trust you to tell you the truth.”

  Janine blushed and lowered her gaze. He could tell that he’d touched a sensitive spot in her.

  “Thanks, Jack, that means a lot to me,” she said, a solitary tear running down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away from her shivering face. Despite her hair being buried under the hood, her eyes being teary and swollen, the woman was beautiful.

  “Janine, the reason she left me was because it was all a scam. She was living in a war-torn country with a shocking economy, and had lost most of her family to a war. She saw me as a way out of her life of misery and her country.”

  She squeezed his hand tightly, and through the shivering said, “So she wasn’t in love with you, but rather with her ticket to Australia?”

  Jack sighed. He felt a chill shoot through him. He avoided her gaze. “I didn’t know that until one day I told her how much I loved her, and she went very quiet. Naturally, I asked her if she felt the same way about me. She didn’t answer, and then suddenly burst into tears, apologized profusely and admitted everything. Even then, I … I would’ve still …” He stopped, feeling a lump form in his throat, catching him off guard.

  “Married her?”

  He nodded. “Gotten her settled in Australia. I still cared about her and wanted her to be happy.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  He turned back to face her. “Because to Alexis’s credit, she explained to me how unfair and selfish it would be to tie me up in a relationship for years when she wasn’t in love with me, well at least not in the way that I was with her.” He shut his eyes and felt his stomach twist in on itself, a deep-seated ache filling his chest as the memories flooded back to him. He took in a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure.