by Nic Low
Alex halted her march. She’d forgotten what she was doing. What the hell was she doing? Looking for a campsite. In a blizzard.
She turned slowly. By the beam of her head torch the world was just a ragged circle of tree trunks and steep, snowy ground. Through her fury, and the false and viscous warmth of the vodka, she registered an urgent signalling. She was freezing. She had no idea where the truck was. Her tracks were just a faint disturbance, growing fainter all the while.
Alex dug more layers from her pack, strapped on snowshoes and set off into the blizzard, quickly now. For what felt like hours she followed her prints back towards the truck. Twice she paused, terrified, certain she’d heard someone shouting over the wind.
There’s no one there, she told herself. Keep moving. You’ll freeze if you stop. Just follow the tracks. Don’t stop.
She stopped. There were no tracks anymore. Her brain was linking random humps and hollows. She was exhausted and cold and lost.
Shelter, dumbass, said a voice inside her.
Alex staked down the tent, rolled out her sleeping mat, climbed into her down bag, cracked a chemical heat pack and turned off the torch. She lay there, exhausted.
Show us your fucking tits, she muttered.
Sleep came swiftly down.
Alex woke, sore but warm, in the muted glow of dawn. She groaned: that was a lot of vodka. The walls of the tent pressed close beneath a weight of snow. She lay and listened. Nothing. Just the crisp silence that follows a blizzard.
Alex sat up. There was someone curled next to her in the tent. She screamed.
Oh my god, Marlow groaned, rolling over in his sleeping bag. His face was chapped and red from windburn. You still trying to kill me?
What the hell? Alex said.
Take the tent and lock the truck, huh? Marlow said. Let the Mongolian nigger sleep in a ditch?
Christ, Alex said. Did I really lock it?
You blipped the damn thing as you stormed off.
Jesus, sorry. I don’t remember doing that. How’d you find me?
Just followed the swearing.
What?
I could hear you a fucking mile off. Sweet place to camp, by the way.
Alex unzipped and scrambled out. She’d pitched the tent in a round depression high on the ridge. They must have been walking in circles in the night: the view over the bombed out hills was almost identical to the view from the lookout. Except it was pristine with new snow. And it was backwards.
Oh shit, she whispered, dropping to a crouch. They were looking back towards Russia from the opposite side of the valley. They’d stumbled through no-man’s land, across the border into Mongolia, and camped in a bomb crater.
Bullseye, Marlow said, poking his head from the tent. Blizzard must have grounded the drones.
Alex whistled. How long do you think we’ve got before they dig out the runways?
You tell me. Could be hours, could be days.
Days? Alex said. She stood and scanned the absurdly blue sky. Nothing. She looked south, into the war-torn interior. You got your pack, right? she asked.
Yeah, Marlow said. Why?
I’ve got my camera. We’ve got everything we need.
Tranquillisers, Marlow said. That’s what you need.
We can make it to the Protected Area in four or five days, Alex said. There were villages round there. We film whatever we find, then get out. Let’s blow this thing wide open.
Marlow tapped the side of his head. What, this thing?
I’ll buy you a beer.
Oh, what the hell, Marlow said. Let’s get killed.
Down that day and up the next, Alex and Marlow followed the GPS south through snow-bound hills. Cold air burned in their lungs. They wandered charred corridors where drones had come down among the trees. The snapped trunks resembled the pillars of ruined temples, leading to altars of heat-deformed steel.
Further from the border there seemed less wreckage. They began to see snow hares and the precise tracks of foxes. At night wolves called to a brilliant frozen sky.
Three days in, they caught the hiss of resumed drone flights along the border. A squadron of blue-grey fighters slit the sky from east to west. That night they woke to the ground-shaking crump of explosives. Alex unzipped the tent. The skyline beyond the trees rippled and burned in a terrifying light show.
The next day they found a road, winding south out of the hills towards the Ghenghis Khan Protected Area, where the fighting had been most fierce. The surface of the road was churned by the tracks of huge vehicles. Alex crouched to take photographs. A flock of crows launched into flight above them.
Marlow looked up. Move it!
They clawed their way up the bank as the gun barrel of a Chinese drone tank swung around the bend.
The monstrous grey-white vehicle ground through the snow at speed. Five more thundered past. Next came a line of drone fuel tankers, then more tanks bringing up the rear. The convoy passed on and was gone.
Alex rolled onto her back and blew out her breath in a long cold plume. Now we’re getting serious, she said.
She was halfway to her feet when Marlow dragged her back down. The revs of another tank column filled the valley. Patton tanks: American. One after another the armoured beasts shot past in pursuit. Alex brought her camera to her eye. More supply trucks, more tanks. Then just the reek of diesel and the empty road. Marlow was digging frantically in his pack.
What? Alex said.
Vest, girl. They gonna be blazing.
They waited in fear for the bombardment to start. The seconds slowed into minutes, and the valley’s hush grew deep. Then the dusk air burst with the roar of cannons. Alex heard the shriek of falling shells, saw a crackling, strobing light several valleys over. She couldn’t hold the camera still enough to get a decent shot.
For the next two days they shadowed the road to the Protected Area. Every four or five hours a Chinese or American convoy churned its way upstream towards the battle zone. The fighting always began at dusk. Heading towards the fiery horizon felt like madness. As they neared where the villages had been, Marlow grew quiet. Alex had a constant low grinding in her belly, part hunger and part nerves, but she pushed them both on. This was her chance. This was what journalists did.
The forest began to thin. At this lower altitude the snow was mostly gone. On the far side of the ridge was the Protected Area. They tightened their pack straps and slogged up the slope.
From the news footage she’d seen, Alex knew what to expect: a nightmare of razed villages and twisted fuselage. And that was the official version. She knew Hurtz and the army must be hiding bodies, and she would find them. Mongolian men and women lying in the mud, children too, dead and cold. Without make-up or artifice she would turn to the camera and call Hurtz out. She would end the false accounting of Zero Zero Zero.
Alex reached the crest of the ridge, steeled herself, and drew in a breath at what she saw.
A sudden sweeping view of paradise.
Late-afternoon sun lit a valley of open grassland, surrounded on all sides by timbered hills. The road followe
d the silver windings of a river, then turned into a complex of buildings that might have been a military base or factory. Distant workers moved around a series of small pools. A recovery drone, lights winking in the dusk, came in to land. The breeze carried the steady thump of heavy machinery.
Where’s the war? Alex said.
Marlow shrugged, his face caught between confusion and relief.
An American convoy rolled in through the complex gates. Figures moved towards the trucks to unload. Alex raised her camera and filmed a few precious seconds, and as she did, excitement rose through the fog of her exhaustion. Here, surely, was the heart of her film.
Right on dark they approached the nearest gate. There were no guards. They moved cautiously up the raked-pebble drive. There was a sharp series of detonations and an almighty flash. Alex and Marlow threw themselves down.
A salvo of rockets blasted into the sky, arcing up and out in whistling parabolic curves. They drifted high, almost out of sight, and were gone to tiny falling cinders, then exploded in starbursts of red and white and blue.
Fireworks? Marlow said, dazed. We been freaking out ’bout goddamn fireworks?
They pulled themselves off the ground. Alex was too confused to reply. Up close she could see the complex was neither army base nor factory. The buildings were elegant slabs of glass, fronted with marble columns after the neoclassical malls of Dubai.
The workers weren’t workers, either: they stood round in aggressively cut swimwear, watching the conflagration above. Beyond, American and Chinese army officers played each other at a bizarre mix of volleyball and boxing. Alex and Marlow trudged past in snow fatigues and battered helmets, bent beneath the weight of their packs, capturing it all on film. No one paid them any attention.
From behind, horns blared. Marlow and Alex turned, blinded, and were run off the road by a wedge of golf buggies. Alex glimpsed jowled and whooping Chinese and American generals at the controls. They slammed to a halt beside a newly arrived supply convoy, and joined the mob of officers and arms dealers wrestling cases of champagne from the trucks. Someone dropped a case and the bottles went up like grenades. The air crackled with fireworks and laughter, shouting in a dozen tongues, and a sudden pungent rain from the rockets above. The revellers raised their hands and opened their mouths. Caviar Monday, baby! a voice yelled.
Somewhere nearby a door opened. There was a spill of boozy cheering, of whistles and horns. The chug of machinery crisped into the bass, kick, snare of nineties house. People streamed past towards the music.
Come on, you two! someone shouted. She’s starting! The American woman on the door looked at them hard. She tilted her head to one side, then turned and consulted with a thickset Chinese man. He nodded.
Door prize! the woman yelled.
Door prize? Marlow echoed.
Those giant backpacks! And that starved look, and the zeal in your eyes—that’s gold. Congratulations. She handed Marlow an envelope full of drinks tickets. Enjoy.
The corridor opened onto a vast, smoke-filled nightclub styled like a Mongolian village, right down to the dirt floor and roaming goats. One of the goats was being strung up over a fire, its throat cut, and Alex realised the place was a Mongolian village; they’d built the club over the top.
Bass pounded from the sound system. Defence contractors shimmied past in aviators and Hawaiian shirts, cameras round their necks. An arms dealer Alex recognised from her documentary chugged his beer to a chant of Scoop! Scoop! Scoop! There were half a dozen John Pilger lookalikes, identical in flak jackets and grey wigs.
What’s the theme tonight? Alex asked a passing waiter.
The man looked at her, confused. Journalists, he said. You look fine. Maybe a bit over the top, but fine.
Up on the main stage the DJ finished his set, and a karaoke machine was wheeled out. A short brunette clutching a glass of champagne came on to tremendous cheers. She launched into a bizarre rendition of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Each time her babyish voice crooned the chorus, a wag down the back hollered: Of darkness!
Marlow was watching the singer closely. I’ll be damned, he said.
What’s wrong? Alex asked.
Look.
Swaying on absurd platform shoes, her familiar face addled with booze, droning into the microphone in a saccharine whisper, was General Hurtz.
Alex felt her fatigue vanish. She dropped her pack and thrust the camera into Marlow’s hands. This is it, she said. Don’t worry about me. Just get the footage out.
What are you going to do? Marlow asked.
Alex smiled grimly. Interview the shit out of her.
Then she was off, cutting through the crowd like an icebreaker, climbing the stairs to the stage, growing fierce with each stride. The general looked up in confusion. Alex towered over her. She grabbed the microphone and the music abruptly cut.
General Hurtz, she boomed into the silence. What have you done with the war?
The crowd howled with laughter. There were cries of Scoop! Scoop! Scoop!
Oh, I get it, Hurtz said. You’re being a journalist. Very good. Now take a hike.
I’m serious, Alex said.
Hurtz fumbled in her pocket. She was wearing a deconstructed general’s uniform, dyed gold and reworked to resemble a straitjacket. She found her glasses and put them on, and found Alex staring down at her, eyes steady and fierce beneath the helmet.
You look like you’re dressed for a war, Hurtz said.
I heard there was one round here, Alex said. Seen it?
Hurtz took another microphone from its stand. Friends! she cried. I have a report of a missing war. Anyone seen a war round here?
The crowd roared.
We kidnapped it and tortured it! someone shouted.
No, really, Alex said. What the fuck’s happened to it?
What does it look like? Hurtz said, raising her champagne flute. We’ve stolen it.
This time the crowd went wild, screaming and drumming their feet.
But tell me, Hurtz said once the noise died down, didn’t you used to be famous?
Alex scowled. Notorious, she said.
That’s right! Hurtz said. You’re that newsreader who blew up on air. Friends, we have a real-deal journalist in the house—please make her welcome!
Excited cheers filled the club. The crowd pushed in close to get a better look. They seemed to think it was part of the night’s entertainment. Looks just like her, Alex heard someone say. A group of military police were pushing their way through the tightly packed crowd. Marlow was slouched against a speaker stack to one side, helmet over his eyes, camera held at waist height. The red recording light shone steadily.
So tell me, General Hurtz, Alex said. What is this place?
Hurtz’s eyes darted to the back of the club. What do you say, she asked the crowd, playing for time. Shall we tell the journalist our secret?
Yes! they shouted, with such force that Alex saw the general blink.
Well, then, Hurtz said. What is this place? You’ve heard of hollow government? This is what’s inside the hollow.
Right, Alex said, confused. What about the trillion-dolla
r war? Where’s that? Inside the hollow too?
Hurtz smiled. It’s amazing what we can do with computers these days.
With computers?
One enormous system. See there, above the bar?
Instead of the news, a row of screens showed closeups of teenagers’ faces, staring into the camera with furious concentration. Explosions, instrument controls and Mongolian terrain reflected in their eyes.
Hyper-real three-D, Hurtz said. Everyone plugs in, from the pilots to the media. Apart from the people in this room, everyone thinks they’re getting live camera feeds.
Bullshit, Alex said. You can’t fake a war.
It’s not fake, Hurtz said. It’s being fought virtually.
Alex raised her eyebrows.
We are absolutely at war, Hurtz said. Pilots fly missions, patriots crowd the streets. The fighting all happens overseas anyway, so who cares if it’s virtual or real?
There were murmurs of assent from the crowd.
If I attacked you, Alex said, you’d care if it was virtual or real.
Precisely, Hurtz replied, warming to her subject. I’d prefer it to be virtual. We all would, when the loss of one life makes so little difference to the cause. War is fundamentally economic. You lose when you run out of resources. The blood and fire is just a distracting spectacle. We’ve agreed with our Chinese friends to step up the spectacle, and eliminate the real blood and fire. The economic base remains unchanged. Whoever runs out of money first will lose.