by Daniel Mason
I’m standing there with my shirt off and an unloaded gun in my hand, but nobody can really see me because I’m lurking in the shadows. I’m standing in the driveway, listening to the rise and fall of my own chest. The cool air tickles at the open cuts on my body.
I go back into the house and fumble in the darkness for a shirt and Spencer’s car keys. I can’t find his keys and I’m not going to frisk his body for them. I find Sophia’s on the hook in the kitchen. She’s come to; I hear a distant thumping sound in the cupboard, struggling to get out. She can fucking starve for all I care. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Leaving the house, I light a cigarette as I walk and it wobbles from my lip like a diving board free of a recent burden. The tip dances in and out of the flame I can’t keep steady. I stand by Sophia’s car on the street and get the damn thing lit, then I struggle with the keys and get into the vehicle. Then I’m struck by the thought that the car might be booby-trapped.
This could be like the final scene of The Mechanic, I’m thinking. That old Charles Bronson movie where the car explodes at the end. He kills his apprentice, who ultimately betrays him. This could be just like that. Revenge from beyond the grave. How fitting. Only Sophia’s car won’t start when I climb in, and I jerk the key continually in the ignition but nothing happens.
I’m sitting in a dead car under a dead streetlight.
‘Goddamnit,’ I’m saying.
‘Fuck,’ I’m saying.
‘You piece of shit,’ I’m saying.
Then the engine turns over. I guess it appreciates a little dirty talk before it kicks in.
I’m out of here.
It’s a long while before a state of emergency is called. This is probably because telecommunications are down. It might also be because there’s nobody to call it. I’ll find out later that the politicians, the ministers, the state premier, whoever else is in charge, they’re all hostages. This is because twelve armed men have stormed state parliament during an evening sitting. This happened in sync with the detonation of the power grid. This happened in sync with an explosion that destroyed the City Central police station on Day Street.
But a state of emergency is fairly quickly reached. It starts slowly, a few people taking advantage of the distracted police force and the citywide lack of power. But when another series of explosions rocks the city, taking out the mint, the supreme court and a section of Millers Point beneath the bridge, it accelerates. Cars are driven into storefronts, bricks hurled through windows. Looters charge down the streets with stolen VCRs and compact discs under their arms. Groups of men raid liquor stores, hauling boxes of bottles and stacking cartons of beer into the back of their trucks. Drug addicts raid pharmacies, dropping bottles and boxes into sacks.
The police radio is down, and solitary police cars sit with their sirens blaring and lights flashing, chasing down whatever petty criminal acts they might witness. There are officers gathered on the streets, trying to control the crowds, telling people to sit tight and remain calm. The fire department works desperately to control the fires raging in the wake of the bomb blasts.
This happens as restless motorists sit in their cars at gridlocked intersections, as disgruntled commuters sit huddled in train carriages, wondering why they’d bothered to work late that day.
Another bomb destroys the Reserve Bank.
Another bomb takes out the Hyde Park Barracks.
From a safe distance you can now watch bombs going off all over the city, see each bright flash as it blows out in a shower of sparks and rubble, watch smoke rise over the silhouettes of buildings. Those stuck on the bridge get the best view.
And that’s where I am while all this is going on. I’ve abandoned Sophia’s car on the bridge when the traffic stops and obviously isn’t going to get moving again in a hurry. All lanes are blocked with cars heading in different directions. There’s a contingent of police officers dressed in riot gear attempting to sort out the crowd, telling people to remain in their cars and wait it out. The world isn’t so dark anymore because everybody has their headlights on, and it isn’t silent because people are yelling and laying on their horns.
Somewhere above the city a series of fireworks goes off with a pop! pop! pop! and the atmosphere is like a violent and panicked New Year’s Eve.
My last game of Roulette has left me feeling empty. I should be higher than a kite right now, but I just feel low. Useless. Directionless. I’m wanting to get to the airport, but something tells me I’m not going anywhere. I keep walking.
From out of nowhere, a zebra gallops across the tops of cars, cracking the frames beneath it as it leaps from one vehicle to the next, crossing the bridge.
Conservationists must have taken advantage of the lack of power and security, and begun freeing animals from the zoo. From across the water I hear the call of an elephant. Then the air is filled with brightly coloured birds, swirling and diving and squawking in beams of light. Somewhere in the harbour, crocodiles must be swimming freely. Lions prowling the streets, hunting deer. Monkeys clambering through trees, chattering and throwing their shit in handfuls at whoever might be unfortunate enough to pass nearby.
A helicopter with a massive spotlight flies in low over the bridge. All of us stare up into the light like it’s God, the wind sweeping against us like a tidal wave. From the helicopter a voice through a loudspeaker is saying, ‘REMAIN CALM. THE CITY HAS LOST POWER. POWER WILL BE OPERATIONAL WITHIN A FEW HOURS. PLEASE TRY TO REMAIN CALM. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. POWER WILL RETURN WITHIN A FEW HOURS.’
The helicopter disappears, repeating the same message over the city, fading into the distance with a muted whup whup. Calm only lasts a moment before people are panicking and abusing one another again. I walk between the gridlocked cars, casting long shadows in the beams of headlights as police officers try futilely to control the mess.
Somewhere nearby a bottle shatters against a windshield and a voice screams, ‘Fuckers!’
A kid who can’t be more than twelve is sitting on the roof of a car and he asks me, ‘You got a cigarette?’
I tell him yeah. I also tell him if he breaks the window of a store in the city he can make off with a hundred packets of cigarettes. Go ahead, kid, steal all the cancer you want.
At the end of the bridge, the toll gate has been destroyed. Whoever had been manning the booth has long since abandoned their post.
I stand there at the top of the expressway for a long time as people move all around me and the cars don’t go anywhere. I’m staring at the sky, where there are no stars and no moon. I stare out at the city, dark and screaming. The breeze sends smoke washing out over the harbour.
I take the expressway to the east on foot, I’ll walk to the airport if I have to. Spotlights and headlights and raging fires cast strange shadows along the streets and over towering buildings. The sounds of gunshots ring out somewhere below. I see the side of an unidentifiable building blow out in a white explosion.
I walk against a tide of people fleeing the city like Godzilla is on a rampage.
In the distance the helicopter is repeating its message to remain calm. But it’s just another distant sound, lost amid a sea of noise.
Here on the expressway, off to one side, there’s a news van rammed up against the guardrail. There’s a middle-aged reporter and his cameraman, working without a light crew, standing in the tight space between wedged cars. The reporter is struggling with his mic at the same time as he’s telling his cameraman, ‘Keep the city to my back, focus on me but make sure you’re getting this in the background. You got that?’
The cameraman is nodding distractedly.
The reporter is saying, ‘Are you sure that thing has enough battery power? Are we ready to go?’ The cameraman nods, counts down from five.
The reporter is saying, ‘—absolute chaos. As you can see here from the Cahill Expressway, the fires behind us and the surge of fleeing people. Deafening explosions rattle the city in what seems a well-executed attack. It’s unconf
irmed that a terrorist faction have seized Parliament House, though demands or numbers of hostages remain unknown. The police departme—’
There’s another explosion, and I keep walking, off the expressway and onto Macquarie Street. I stand outside a flaming hotel and light a cigarette in the middle of a warzone. A barefoot man dressed in rags emerges from the smoke and he says, ‘Can I have a cigarette, mister? You got a cigarette? It’s the end of the world, mister. You got a cigarette for me?’
I raise my gun and say, ‘Suck on this.’ I shoot him and keep walking. In the middle of the road there’s a body, a victim of the rushing crowds, trampled to death.
Around me the air is so thick with smoke that I can barely see.
The world flashes red and blue through the haze.
The street has been sealed off toward the far end. Police cars and ambulances and fire engines are scattered throughout the scene, and people rush madly back and forth. While I’m waltzing my way across the forecourt of Parliament House. The airport can wait. This is too good an opportunity to miss.
There are contingents of armed police officers in riot gear behind several barricades in the forecourt. They’re huddled down together, talking among themselves, and I walk right by. They don’t even seem to notice me. It’s like I don’t exist.
The lobby is dark and abandoned. I keep walking, over broken glass and past walls peppered with bullet holes.
Beyond the lobby is a large open courtyard. The once-giant glass windows that surrounded this space are now shattered and strewn over the floor, a gigantic fountain gurgles on in the centre. There are maybe two dozen police officers here, crouched low behind walls and looking up at the office block that looms over the courtyard. I’m counting one, two, three, twelve storeys.
A window on the fifth floor explodes as a desk is rammed through it, out into the open air, and then it’s plunging down toward the fountain. There’s a man tied to the surface of the desk, screaming. Somebody shouts, ‘Duck and cover!’ The police officers scatter as the desk crashes down into the water and the scream is silenced.
When the cops regroup one of them is shouting through a loudspeaker to the office block. ‘COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS. SURRENDER.’
I stand there and take all of this in, smoking my cigarette, watching the police, watching the building. It’s like that scene in Terminator 2 where the police have the Cyberdyne building surrounded. I’m looking up at the broken windows, waiting for the Terminator to appear and start firing down on the police, but it never happens.
When my cigarette is smoked down to the butt, when the police haven’t moved and whoever they’re talking to hasn’t complied, I crush the butt with the heel of my shoe.
All this time, nobody pays me any attention.
The police gathered down here are talking about tear gas, talking about getting a negotiator, talking about a SWAT team, talking about snipers. They have all of the exits covered. The elevators are out, but they still have men waiting beside the doors. They seem prepared to play a game of patience. There is no commanding officer, and without radio contact they have no clear direction. They’re just guessing on this. They don’t really know what they’re doing.
I’m standing near the entrance and I’m reloading my gun. I’m going up there, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the rush, or maybe I think I can play hero.
Because the elevators are out, I’m going to take the stairs. The two officers standing by the stairwell entrance look at me as I approach, and this is the first time I’ve been noticed since I walked into the building. With a gun in my hand, I’m thinking it might just be easiest to shoot them. I’m wondering how much attention that’s going to attract, and at the same time I’m saying to these cops, ‘You’ll have to let me through.’
These officers are young and doe-eyed. They’re saying, ‘Who are you?’
I’m asking them who’s in charge here, and they’re telling me they don’t know. They’re telling me it’s absolute chaos. They’re telling me that there are hostages up there and they don’t know how many armed men, and nobody knows what to do.
I tell them to stay calm. ‘I’m the negotiator. You’ll have to let me through.’
‘You’re the negotiator?’ They say it like they disbelieve me.
I’ve got my gun at my side, in plain view, and I’m fingering the trigger. ‘Just let me up there, boys. We don’t have a hell of a lot of time.’
In the face of disaster and utter confusion, it doesn’t take much to convince them.
I’m looking over my shoulder, up at the office block behind us. I’m saying, ‘Do we have any idea what floor they’re on?’
I’m told that they’re scattered. We’ve seen activity on the third, fifth, seventh and twelfth. They could be anywhere. They came in when the power went out, taking out security, raiding legislative meetings and rounding up whoever was working late in their offices. There’s not even a rough count on hostage numbers, and without power the security system can’t be accessed and we can’t tell who was in the building and who wasn’t. Just like the city around us, the authorities are in the dark.
I’m told that four men were holding twenty-something hostages in the Legislative Council Chamber. There was a firefight between the authorities and the terrorists. Six police officers were wounded, all four terrorists killed. The hostages were escorted to the hospital, though several had been executed before the police had arrived on the scene.
The doe-eyed cops tell me, ‘These guys are serious.’
Blowing up half of the city seems pretty serious to me. Even admirable.
I push past the guards and I’m in the quiet of the stairwell, where there are no sounds other than my footsteps. I pause outside the door to the second floor to light a cigarette, and I peer above me at the ceaseless pattern of rails that ascend to darkness. Then I push open the door to the second floor and stand in the hallway with my gun extended before me, peering into the darkness, listening for anything, toying with the trigger.
The entire floor is silent, abandoned. I can’t see a thing.
I return to the stairwell and let the door fall shut behind me, taking stairs four at a time to the next floor, waiting to misjudge my step in the darkness and break my neck. I don’t pause for a breath, I just push open the door and step out onto the third floor. The cigarette dangling from my lip winks in the darkness and smoke clouds my vision. Somewhere in the distance I hear the sound of breaking glass. I’m staring down a long dark hallway, allowing my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, and outside I hear the booming of helicopter rotors.
There are flashes of light in the hallway, beaming through open doorways, reflected from office windows. It’s a series of flashes, like a strobe light, and then the world is dark again and my eyes are readjusting. The sound of the helicopter fades in and out, near and far.
I move to the fourth floor. I hear nothing. I see the glowing red beams of snipers cutting through the smoke, swinging back and forth, searching for targets.
Fifth floor. More breaking glass. The sounds of the police outside echoing up through broken windows. I listen hard and it seems like this floor is abandoned too.
On six there’s a dead body in the hallway. A man in a suit with his head blown off.
There are more dead bodies on seven, in offices or in the hall. Keeping the hostage numbers high doesn’t seem to have been a priority.
On eight there are voices, weak and very distant. I follow the hall, turn a corner, turn another. Somebody is saying, ‘We’re fucked. We are so fucked.’ There’s heavy breathing. In the dark I do my best to remain quiet and pinpoint which office the voices are coming from. I’m standing in the doorway of an office, thinking that this is where the voices are coming from.
Outside, the helicopter does another round and the hall lights up under the spotlight coming through windows. I see two men, dressed entirely in black, their masks rolled back on their foreheads revealing their faces. I’m squinting in
the light that shines in my eyes; the two men don’t see me because they’re staring through the window, hypnotised by the light.
I shoot both of them, emptying every cylinder in my gun, standing in the flashing light and pulling down on the trigger six times. They’re dead and I’m holding my hands in the air as the helicopter fixes me in its spotlight. There’s a voice booming from the helicopter that tells me to keep my hands in the air.
There’s a single red dot climbing along my chest, glowing like an eye.
I shout at the helicopter, ‘It’s cool. I’m just here to negotiate.’
The helicopter is saying, ‘PUT DOWN THE WEAPON.’
I’d forgotten I was holding a gun in my right hand. I point it at the helicopter and pull the trigger, but it isn’t loaded. The hammer hits home empty.
Hovering outside the window, the helicopter opens fire. They have a clear shot. Around me the office is shattered by bullets that bounce off the walls, punching the desk, hammering filing cabinets.
The helicopter circles around, and I’m standing completely unharmed.
Untouched.
I take one of the dead men’s walkie talkies and I listen carefully, but it offers nothing more than a low buzz.
Before the helicopter returns, I duck out of the office and back to the stairwell, lighting another cigarette as I go. The soundtrack here is The Beatles, ‘Revolution’. It comes in slow, and you keep the volume low so that it’s playing just under the sounds of the world outside that float up through the windows as I come to the ninth floor. It’s there I find Jack huddled alone in an office. He’s wearing night vision goggles and he shoots at me while I’m standing in the doorway. He’s a bad shot.
I tell him to put the gun down, and he complies.
‘Where are the others?’ I’m asking him.
He tells me that he doesn’t know, nobody is responding. He tells me that he thinks everybody else is dead, or given up. There were twelve men in all, he tells me. In his elite team. Gone. Down to one.