2042: The Great Cataclysm

by Melisande Mason

  Nick left the pilots to secure Wave Rider and headed off to the Trancab station. It was a thirty minute journey from the airport to Nick’s apartment in Surfer’s Paradise, and he hoped Marie, the apartment manager, had opened up the place and had it cleaned. His apartment block was one of the few that remained in demand from holidaymakers from nearby Brisbane, and Marie had often urged him to rent it out while he was away. This was something he refused, because the thought of strangers using his things was intolerable. He explained his unexpected visit as business, and reminded her that this was exactly why he refused to rent.

  He had ordered the Trancab to take the beach-side route to his apartment, but the scenery that had filled his heart on previous visits now alarmed him more than he liked. You could no longer see the ocean along the entire length of the urbanised spread, or the beaches that long ago fronted family holiday homes. High rise apartment buildings thrust their towers into the sky at varying heights, and at the end of the cross streets where white sand once stretched a wide path to the blue ocean, dykes ten metres high held back the sea.

  They had experienced challenges here in the summer season, when the dykes had failed to contain the sea surges brought on by cyclones in the North, when waves crested over them, flooding the streets with foam and damaging some of the grounds and buildings on the edge of the land.

  As he rode the lift to his apartment on the twenty-fourth floor in the Contessa Apartments, Nick wondered how this building would stand up to the tsunami. Feeling extremely unsettled and out of his element, because lifts were not his favourite place, he contemplated their demise. Not a lift in town would be operational once the Pacific Ocean rolled in.

  He knew little of their construction but it would need to be exceptionally strong to withstand the flood. Maybe it could survive the first wave but there would be several, all of different heights and intensity, usually arriving in intervals of between fifteen minutes and one hour. No-one had any way of knowing how many, just as they could not predict their height. They travelled across vast distances at almost the speed of a plane and history had recorded that the third wave was often the most dangerous.

  ***

  When Nick entered his apartment, the usual sense of homecoming eluded him. He gazed sadly around the room and at the soft comfortable lounge where he had spent many relaxed hours. Masculine colours of burgundy and deep forest greens provided a perfect foil for his treasures. Several pieces of art inherited from his grandmother, who had died prematurely with cancer before he was born, some of his mother’s craft-work, and pieces collected from exotic places he had visited. A large glass bookcase housed boat books of every kind. When he was not on board Platypus he collected these books to sooth his separation anxiety, and often found himself reading well into the night. His interest was broad, from luxury super yachts to Navy battleships, as long as it floated Nick wanted to read about it.

  Visitors once marvelled at the scenery here that changed when viewed from different perspectives. Looking west from the kitchen to the blue haze of the Hinterland Mountains, one could see the myriad of canal systems and parklands spread out like a snakes and ladders board game. The canals now fed by the ocean through two dams, one across the Seaway entrance, with a secondary dam across the mouth of the river at Southport, lie dormant now without the ebb and flow of the tides. Small boats moored at pontoons and jetties on the edges of the canals replaced the luxury ocean going cruisers that could no longer traverse the shallow canals, that were now locked into the inland waterways, unable to take their owners out deep sea fishing or whale watching.

  Along the eastern front where the ocean met the land, stone and earthen dykes ten metres high, twelve metres wide along the top, and twenty metres deep at the base, protected the skyscraper apartment buildings and shops and homes from the encroaching sea.

  The endless dyke abutted Nobby’s Hill, the nine metre headland at Miami to the south, then continued south to Burleigh Heads. It wove it’s way south like the great Wall of China, sometimes shooting back to the mountains in places, where towns had been sacrificed to the Pacific thrust.

  The northern sea dyke stopped just past the Southport Yacht Club where it met the ocean dam, then continued along Stradbroke Island from the other side of the dam, to meander further north to Brisbane. The massive earth works had begun in 2016, when the temporary walls proved to be useless against the lashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. The government, like most in the world were forced to impose substantial levies on all businesses and residents, to help pay for the exorbitant costs of having earthmoving machines and trucks working twenty-four hours a day, year in and year out, constructing or raising the dykes all along the coastal areas on seal level.

  The marinas of the Southport Yacht Club were mostly devoid of the ocean going yachts and cruisers that once moored here. A few wealthy people had stubbornly kept their luxury vessels here and used them more for floating entertainment venues for their friends, rather than cruising up and down the coast line, and they could still find their way north to the city of Brisbane through the inland bays fed by ocean dams. The white canvas sails above the Marina Mirage shopping village pointed sharply skyward, emulating the graceful sails of a nineteenth century tall ship, struggling to be noticed, dwarfed by the imposing walls of the dyke.

  The blue Pacific to the east beat out her rhythm, once providing excitement and fun to surf riders and swimmers, now threatening man’s seaside existence, as it crashed against the dyke, sending up great clouds of spray and foam.

  The north-western backdrop was of row upon row of fifteen-storey council flats; hurriedly assembled grey boxes resembling Leggo building blocks like something out of 1980 Russia, had been constructed to house the mixture of Chinese and Indian immigrants who had forsaken their homeland cities.

  Nick walked to the large Navilon sliding doors and onto the generous balcony, and stared miserably out to sea. He looked at the calm cobalt water and the waves lashing the dyke in ever continuing troughs, and a cold chill ran down his spine. He had seen storm waves in action many times and knew the havoc they unleashed, and he had studied the North Sea where man-made breakwaters constructed from thousands of tons of iron, cement and boulders were destroyed in minutes by ten to fifteen-metre waves. Man had no defence against such force.

  Most of the high-rise buildings around him, including his own, had been built to withstand cyclones, but the forces of wind could not be compared to that of a tsunami. He looked across to the vast ultramodern Phoenix complex of four, twenty-six storied towers linked by an ingenious steel and Navilon-domed skyway, and wondered if its designers had thought about tsunamis. Surfers Paradise’s semitropical climate invited the occasional bad storm that eroded the sands from time to time, but they quickly recovered. Now there were no sandy beaches, just ugly dykes. The local council had enforced strict building codes in recent years but the entire area was once swampy marshes and much was reclaimed from the sea, so all those safe buildings stood on unstable sand. Nick could only imagine what would happen when the ocean unleashed its fury and reclaimed that land.

  Far below he watch a family enjoying a picnic on the narrow grass strip abutting the dyke, where once they would have lain on the warm white sandy beach. They prepared to move out of the dark shadows cast by the tall buildings, and the young children laughed happily, but the parents faces were sad as they recalled previous times when there was blinding white sand and rolling, frothing surf.

  Behind them across the narrow street, a small sidewalk cafe bustled with people sipping fragrant Italian coffee, where once bright umbrellas for protection against the morning sun were made redundant by the ten metre dyke blocking the rising sun from the east. He watched the passing parade of bored groups of youths and girls, old couples out for a quiet afternoon stroll, and the occasional disenchanted Japanese tourist.

  He used to love to watch the large fancy kites that once had danced in the wind above the beach, with their waving, clever colourful shapes and flutte
ring bright tails dipping and diving overhead, anchored to fragile strings held by laughing children and geriatric grandparents. The sun-filled streets once teeming with jostling, laughing people were dotted by empty shops, their owners long since accepting the grim realisation that business would never return.

  Nick returned inside and flopped on the couch. ‘Phone. Josh please.’ He commanded.

  ‘Nick, it’s about time you called I’ve run out of excuses. Where are you?’ Josh said.

  ‘I’m home mate. Australia. You can stop lying now, they can’t do anything about it, besides I thought they’d be too busy. Have you been able to contact Laura?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s okay. She said to thank you for sending Maxime. She’s worried, wants me to look out for you. How did you get there so quickly?’

  ‘It’s a long story, but what about Laura, is there any chance of springing her?’

  ‘Not right now. It’s chaos here man, she’s better off where she is.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’ Nick sighed. ‘Well, if you talk to her again, give her my love. Okay?’

  ‘Yes, I will. How’s the Australian Government taking it?’

  ‘Stoically as expected. They’ve got operation Star Flight rolling here as well. Listen mate, I mightn’t be able to keep in touch now I’ve got so much to do here. I know you’ll be okay, and I want you to know how much your friendship’s meant to me.’

  There was a pause on the line and Nick’s eyes flashed across the sea. That cold shiver passed through his spine again as Josh replied. ‘Thanks buddy, I feel the same. We’ll meet again when this is over, I know it. Don’t try to be every body’s’ saviour, you can only do so much. Look after yourself and let the experts look after everyone else. The military’s in control now. God help them.’

  ‘Hooray mate. See you whenever.’ Nick said.

  ‘Bye Nick. Take care, don’t do anything stupid.’ He disconnected.

  Nick looked around his beautiful apartment.Damn!He thought,everything was going so well. The bloody devil’s got his pitchfork in my back again, this time he’s bloody-well twisting it.

  He ruffled his hands through his hair and threw himself down on a sofa where he sat quietly thinking, feeling miserable and full of self-pity, and wondering what he was going to tell his brother.This’s no good, have to pull myself together, he thought. It was time to call Brian.

  ‘G’day mate.’ He said trying to sound cheery. ‘It’s your long lost brother.’

  ‘Nick! What a surprise! How-the-devil are you? I was beginning to worry about you, what’re you up to? You sound so close, where are you?’

  Nick winced at Brian’s use of the metaphor devil. ‘Um, I’m home.’

  ‘Home!’ Brian yelped. ‘Great! Hope you can stay a while this time, we’ve missed your ugly mug. Are you coming straight up here right? Karen will be thrilled, she’ll be home from work in about an hour.’

  ‘Yeah, can’t wait to see you both too. I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Break out the scotch, we’ve got a lot to talk about.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Sunday, June 5

  The Trancab dropped him at the terminus at the foot of the mountain where his SUV was stored. Brian had maintained the vehicle in his absence, so he had no fear it would not start. He looked at the sleek lines and gleaming paintwork and felt sad it could only be used on country roads. The next thought was probably just as well, as escaping from the cities would be much easier in Trancabs that were programmed to prevent bottlenecks. The thirty minute drive to Brian’s home in the hills above Nerang led him past lush green golf courses and majestic homes. This beautiful region attracted the rich and famous, with a great number of the residents being wealthy retired business people. If one could overlook the council flats to the north, it was paradise, and certainly one of the world’s best kept secrets. Sadness overcame Nick as he pictured all of this underwater.

  Brian greeted him with a strong hug. Karen examined the two men who were so different, and she wiped her hands up and down her thighs as she waited for Nick to turn to her. Nick’s eyes locked on to hers over Brian’s shoulder and she flushed. He felt the long forgotten adrenalin spurt as he pushed Brian away and opened his arms to Karen. They hugged, clinging to each other for a brief moment, and Nick never wanted to let her go. She hadn’t changed, and her close resemblance to Laura hit him again. She wore her shiny black hair smooth and sharply cut below her ears and kissing her jawline with a pointed peak either side of her face. Her large purple eyes fixed on him for an instant, but as they broke apart Karen lowered her head and Nick saw she was not eager to look him in the eyes again. He felt the air between them crackle as his eyes willed her to look at him again. Instead she made a hasty retreat to the kitchen saying she was making coffee.

  Brian’s home was perched on a plateau overlooking the magnificent coastline, with extensive views to the north and south, and was a masterpiece of modern construction. About eighteen metres long with a flat roof, it fitted into the side of the hill like an eagle flexing it’s wings ready for flight. The entire house was cleverly elevated out from the mountainside, and vast tinted Navilon walls covered the entire length of the front and rear of the building. It had been designed as an extension of the surrounding forest, melding the outdoors into its interior. The rear of the house at street level was almost encased by a rain-forest of tall gums, palms, Bird’s Nest tree ferns, and native Beronia. A long wooden deck jutted out almost four metres from the front of the house, and offered a completely different view. Looking out from inside the house, one was given the impression of being up in the clouds. High-rise buildings to the east in the distance, silhouetted against the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, presented a startling scene, their glass sides appearing to be on fire at this time of the day as the setting sun in the west cast orange flames of sunlight that danced on their shimmering windows. From here Nick could see the many intricate canal systems weaving their way like snakes to the sea, where they were met by the dykes instead of the ocean. He looked through Brian’s large telescope and could see boats moored forlornly in front of the expensive riverfront homes.

  ‘Sad sight isn’t it?’ Brian remarked. ‘Many of those expensive waterfront homes are housing immigrant squatters now. Owners couldn’t sell them, so some just abandoned them for higher ground. The government encouraged the owners to leave, hoping to reduce the population here, but it backfired, and just created homes for refugees and low-life that fled the council flats for a better lifestyle, regardless of the threat of rising seas.’

  Nick frowned ‘So the demographics have changed?’

  ‘I’ll say, and not for the best. I have to work down there but I wouldn’t live there. The crime rate’s horrendous, and businesses are closing down everywhere.’

  Brian went to answer his sat-phone, and after the unsettling reunion with Karen, a feeling of peace crept over Nick, as he absorbed the smell of the eucalypts and listened to the Kookaburra’s laughter in the background.

  ‘We used to enjoy this view.’ Karen purred, handing him his coffee. Nick clasped the mug and held it there for a few heartbeats, and he felt the tingle again.

  ‘When I get home at night I like to lie out here and watch the stars.’ She settled with a sigh into a comfortable hammock slung casually across a metal frame on the deck.

  ‘Brian was just saying how bad it is down there now. Um, how’s things at the hospital?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Terrible. All we seem to do is treat knife and gunshot wounds from home invasions.’

  ‘Why don’t you give it away?’

  ‘Being a nurse isn’t a job you know, it’s my life.’

  ‘Is that why you and Brian don’t have children?’ Nick asked and suddenly felt ashamed as she quickly gazed out to sea.

  ‘No, we did try a few years back. I can’t have children.’

  Nick held up his hand. ‘Stop. That was insensitive of me. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  She struggled out of th
e hammock and walked to the edge of the verandah, and turned to face him rubbing her folded arms. ‘You’re not married yet?’ She said changing the subject.

  ‘No. Who’d have me? I’m just a vagabond.’

  Nick studied her face. The years had not aged her at all, she looked serene but aloof. Tiny dimples danced in her cheeks and smile lines tweaked the corners of her gently tilted purple eyes, softening the slight oriental look of her youth. Her sleek black hair showed no sign of fading and there was a healthy glow on her cheeks. Her small body had retained its shape and she looked the same as she did ten years ago when he had last seen her. She was still beautiful and she took his breath away and whisked him right back to the day he had first seen her.

  ***

  Brian

  Ten years ago after Brian fell foul to the skiing accident at Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains, he had been flown back to Sydney to recuperate in hospital, where he met and fell in love with Karen who was a nurse on his ward.

  Nick managed some time off and flew home to see Brian, and when he first laid eyes on Karen he knew she was the woman he would always love. He remembered when they were introduced, he had felt weak at the knees and lost all his self-assurance. She did not seem to notice how his hand trembled when he took hers, and showed no indication that she was aware of the effect she had on him.

  After a month Nick decided if he stayed any longer he would risk showing his feelings and alienating his brother, so he returned to America and vowed to put her out of his mind forever.

  A few months later Brian called to say they were getting married and invited Nick to the wedding. Nick believed in his heart that Karen did not really love Brian, and secretly hoped their relationship would fail, so the news completely floored him. As much as he cared for Brian he could not bring himself to accept the invitation, pleading work commitments. He remembered now how crushed he felt at the time, how he had thrown himself into a whirlwind of social engagements in an attempt to forget Karen. None of that worked then, and even now the distant memory prevented him from having those deep burning feelings for any other woman, even Laura.