She crinkled her nose to show him there were no hard feelings. She wiggled out of her jeans and flung them to the floor, stretching her arms behind her head.
“And—if you don’t get naked right now, I will definitely rip those clothes off you!”
Later, as they lay together, they watched the lights flicker on around the harbor. Neither saying much. Content to be close and sharing each other’s warmth.
“You know, you’re impossible to wear out,” she said.
“You can talk!” He said, but he laughed with delight at the compliment.
“You know something?” She asked, rolling onto her stomach. “You don’t need anyone else now you have me.”
He ran a finger lightly over the striations of muscle on her back. “No, I don’t. Not when I have my own Greek goddess.”
She rolled her eyes. Storm could be so uncool. She looked over her shoulder at him and gave a throaty chuckle.
“Oh, such a sweet thing,” she said, resting her head on her forearm. “You haven’t met my friends, have you? I imagine your jaw will scrape the floor when you meet Abigail. She is really beautiful.”
“Another dancer, huh?”
“She studies languages, and she’s damn near fluent in all of them. She is fluent in Chinese, Russian, and French. Tu me comprends?”
“Oui,” Storm answered without hesitation.
Penny sat up and stared at him. “Est-ce que c’est vrai? Parlez-vous francais?”
“I studied French at high school, but you know how I can memorize whatever I see or hear if I want—it doesn’t have to be English.”
“Wow!” Penny replied, arching her eyebrows. “That’s right.”
“You can never underestimate a country boy,” he muttered.
He should not have mentioned the memorizing thing. Now she’d never let it go. His amazing memory was, for him, just one horrific problem. One he had learned to live with one day at a time.
Penny saw his face and knew better than to pursue it. “I’d never have kept coming back to you if you were just another local yokel,” she said, in an attempt to pull him from his abrupt change in mood.
She put her hand up to her mouth, suddenly surprised at how easily the word popped out. She giggled.
“You’re a snob,” he told her.
“Sor-rr-ry,” she managed between snorts of laughter.
He swiveled off the bed.
“Oh, come on,” she said, unable to stop giggling. “Don’t be like that. C’mon, Storm. Please!”
“What about you?” He asked, not completely sure why her reaction irritated him so much.
“What about me?” She asked.
“Are you seeing anyone else?” He asked.
“It isn’t as though we’re married, is it?” She said, her gaiety vanishing.
“If I told you I went out with other girls while you were in Sydney, you would get in a huff. You wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the night.”
“No. I would tell you to take a bus back to Coona.”
“There you go!”
“Not telling is a woman’s prerogative—not a bloke’s,” she said quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s different for women.”
“Awl, come on!”
“Let’s eat out tonight,” she said with a wave of her hand in the air as if to wipe an invisible board clean of all former declarations.
“The restaurant in this place wouldn’t be too bad.”
She pulled a hand through her hair and yawned. “Boring!”
He watched her breasts rise and fall with each breath she took. Her stomach muscles showed taut as she stretched her arms above her head. He suspected she was teasing him and fought the urge to leap back on the bed and embrace her.
“I want to find a pizzeria,” she said with a smile as she gazed at him, pleased with the effect she was having. “Then we can come back here and start over where we left off.”
“It must’ve cost Franchette and Michael to put us up in a place like this for three nights,” he said, doing his best to ignore her as he dressed.
“I’d rather they came to my graduation,” she said with a scowl. “They are allowing me these three days with you because they feel guilty.”
She pointed to the suitcase. “Throw me over that yellow checked shirt in the suitcase.”
He watched her pull the shirt over her head. She was a drama queen and a control freak, all in one, he thought. And he was unsure whether he was mad at her or himself. He decided it was all too complicated to think about and best to just forget if only that were possible for him to do.
“Let’s get outta here,” Storm said with a sigh.
Meeting The Masses
The next morning they set off for Penny’s graduation ceremony. As they left the cluster of hotels behind them, they found the footpaths filled with people holding furled banners and painted signboards. Stella had talked about the protests taking place across Australia, as they were in every country, and Storm was more than a little curious to see one. Today looked to be as good an opportunity as he was ever going to get.
“We have to be seated before the ceremony begins,” Penny reminded him as she checked for text messages on her phone one more time.
“Sure, Pen. A quick look. That’s all.”
“Okay. A quick look, then we head straight for Martin Place Station and catch a train,” she said, fixing him with a steady gaze. “I’m not missing my graduation ceremony,” she said, not entirely convinced he intended to be present for her big day.
“Got it,” Storm replied.
The rain had been falling in a light mist when they left the hotel, but it had since stopped, and they felt buoyed by patches of blue above their heads. A short time later, and they felt the Sun sizzle their skin and saw steam rise off the drying road. It was going to be a hot day.
They passed a dusty stained blanket tossed over a sleeping bag lying on the sidewalk between the two stone columns of a bank. The outline of a resting body was visible in the makeshift bed. A dog-eared and torn copy of Rolling Stone Magazine lay open on top of the blanket.
Blue and red police lights flashed in the grill of a patrol car easing its way down the busy street. The occupants inside the cab eyed the protesters on the sidewalk holding their banners high. Following close the police came a white armored van with a company logo on the side. Aside from its bulk and the grills over what windows there were, the vehicle was bereft of any other notable attributes.
The two of them fell in with the moving mass that spilled into Macquarie Street. They were within sight of the main gathering. Protesters covered the street from one footpath to the other, the crowd gathering before the high wrought iron fence in front of the ochre stone of the old New South Wales Parliament House.
It was not only the size of the crowd that stunned the Storm but the mix within it. There were young and old alike, men and women, and he saw that there were even a few school children. Workers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with university students, and the able-bodied stood beside chanting demonstrators in wheelchairs. They were workers of all descriptions, some wearing the garb of their trade and others not.
There seemed no organization of uniforms. Small groups of firemen, nurses, and government servants milled among one another. And they numbered in the thousands. The crowd extending both ways up the street almost as far as the eye could see.
A row of black police in full riot gear had formed a protective barrier before the speaker’s podium, their backs to the spiked wrought iron fence surrounding the government buildings.
Were they protecting the stonework or the trade union speakers who bellowed their lists of complaints through bullhorn megaphones? It was not clear. Explicit enough to the protesters was the manner that the police intended to do their job.
Expanded metal batons struck leather-gloved palms and boots stamped the ground in unison. The black-clad line attempted to stare down the jostling front lin
e they faced. The police were expecting trouble, and their nervous anticipation showed.
When the first speaker stepped onto the podium, a hush fell over the crowd. But the restraint of the audience ended with the first words of the address.
“Please demonstrate in an orderly manner. We haven’t come here to cause trouble. Our aim is to influence a change in government policy. We can do that by showing solidarity with the unions.”
A growling, grumbling sob rose from the crowd. The swirl of banners, flags, and placards quickened and the line of police, locked together in a hopeless chain, took a single step forward. The cries against the organizers came across haphazard at first. Accusations quickly became statements of purpose. Soon the noise was deafening.
“Down with the unions! The working class rules!”
The short line of representatives from numerous unions, who were readying themselves to speak, wavered before the fence as they saw protesters push forward. Their pleas for calm and cohesion grew increasingly desperate while the cries of dissension grew stronger.
The shouted slogans and the angry cries grew more ferocious.
“You are traitors! Hang the bastards!”
A half-eaten burger still in its brown paper bag hit the chest of a burly man who was unlucky enough to be attempting to address the people, a megaphone to his mouth. Cabbage, beetroot, and mustard exploded across the trade union logo on the front of his nylon zip-up jacket. Startled, the man stepped back to wipe off the mess.
Three large officers separated from the line of black. They grasped the elderly culprit and pulled him out of the crowd. The response was immediate. Shouts of anger rang out from the onlookers. The cries of outrage growing only louder as the scrawny old man was dragged to the fence.
The soiled union representative hurriedly turned to the officers and gestured for them to release their prisoner.
It was too late. A beer bottle exploded at the base of the podium. A constable standing near the impact zone sprang back. Not fast enough. Brown froth and shards of glass sprayed the legs of his trousers.
The old man yanked himself free, pumping his fists into the air, shouting his defiance at the thin line of authority.
The men on the stage fell back as they saw the unity of the crowd weighed heavily against them. With fear in their eyes, they turned to the police, but the black line of armed men was already retreating behind the iron fence.
A figure with a scarf wrapped around his lower face made his way to the front. He leaped onto the podium, his scarf falling away, but the young man cared little of it. Grabbing the rostrum with both hands, he leaned forward and bellowed to his audience.
For those able to hear the new speaker, his first words was as a fresh breeze filling the sail of a boat becalmed in a sea of discontent.
“Why should we listen to the rotten corrupted unions? Have they ever delivered to us a fraction of what they promised over the years? Look at the hands they have delivered us into! Are they not drenched in our blood, our sweat, and our tears? The unions have betrayed us!”
The cries of agreement were sparse at first, but as they listened, the excitement was contagious and their response grew louder.
“Are not the conditions we face shared by us all? Are we not united in our struggle?”
“Yes!” The crowd roared.
“Are we not the workers? Are our numbers not far greater than theirs? Are we not powerful when we stand together?”
His voice echoed against the sides of the buildings. Then a great cheering rose from the crowd, like the howl of a hurricane.
The union speakers with their megaphones melted away. They were behind the wrought iron fence where the police cowered, their hands resting nervously on the holsters of their sidearms.
The wave of anger that had rolled through the gathered masses earlier was now replaced by something more urgent and righteous. As if they were a hive of wasps, a buzz rose up from the crowd.
“Come on,” Penny said, eyeing the lines of police behind the fence. “It’s turning nasty.”
She grasped his hand and pulled him with her.
They moved to the outer fringe and found themselves caught in a current of moving bodies that pushed against them and threatened to propel them into the thick of it. With a growing sense of urgency, Penny locked her arm in his and pulled him along with her.
“We have to find a lane or a mall,” she told him.
“Don’t worry!” He told her.
But he was as uncertain as she of the direction the hurricane they were caught within would take next. He saw her frightened eyes open wide, and he knew that she saw the same.
They worked their way to the side of the main crowd and moved up the street toward the city towers. The valley of concrete echoed with the beat of drums and the chant of the protesters who by now had formed into a column moving down the street. Excited young and old and beckoned to Storm and Penny to join the march.
“Where are they going?” He asked her.
She gave a nervous giggle despite her creeping panic. “Maybe they don’t know themselves.”
He followed her down into a side street. In the distance came the sound of glass shattering and car alarms, shouts of anger, and catcalls.
“Shit!” She exclaimed. “This wasn’t a good idea.”
Ahead of them, they saw two large identical vans that were parked diagonally, almost blocking the narrow lane. Several large men were gathered around the rear doors. Some had their faces hidden behind balaclavas; others wore helmets with face guards.
“Look at the band of orange tape they wear around arms,” Storm said. “Around their left arms like it’s an identifier.”
The back doors of the vehicles flew open with a bang, and black carry bags were thrown at the feet of the waiting men outside. From out of the bags came thick sticks and broken bricks and these were handed out to the burly figures. One of the men straightened up. He had seen the two onlookers.
Penny tugged at his jacket.
“Okay, time to go!” Storm told her.
They turned on their heels and walked briskly back toward the street ignoring the shouts behind them.
“Hey, you two! Stop!”
“Come on!” Storm shouted, grabbing her wrist and pulling her after him. “Run!”
As they reached the corner, they heard boots clatter against the pavement coming up fast behind them, and they launched themselves into the line of startled marchers. Pushing ahead and not looking back.
Not until they found they were once more in the midst of the column did they turn to face each other.
“Who were they?” She asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said, wishing he could tell her something else.
That they were going to get out of the crowd. That she was going to make it to her graduation. He hoped she couldn’t hear the shaking in his voice.
The momentum of the marching throng behind them pushed them onwards, carrying them like so much flotsam picked up by a wave. They worked their way to the edge of the crowd, keeping an eye out for the men with orange tape around their upper arms.
“Let’s try another side street,” he urged her. “We should head back to that train station you were talking about.”
As they broke from the dense column and found the pavement once more under their feet, they came upon a man bailed up by a group of protesters. The two of them needed to sidle along the stonework of the building closer to escape being picked up by the river of marchers. And they found themselves squeezing past the cluster of accusers.
Their angry screaming voices were shrill even over the noise of the protesters. A large woman with a wild mass of brown hair pointed an outstretched finger. Her face contorted in anger.
“He’s here to make trouble because I know I saw him throw a rock.”
A tall middle aged man with a large paunch prodded his burly victim in the chest.
“Are you a pig?”
Their prisoner stared sullenly at
the angry faces surrounding him. He glanced up the street. It was almost a casual gesture.
“Look!” Storm said in Penny’s ear. “Look at his left arm.”
The man wore a single band of orange tape encircling his upper arm.
“See what he’s doing!” A woman cried out. “He’s hoping to be rescued.”
The woman took out her phone and began snapping photos of the man.
“Well, congratulations,” she sneered. “Now you’re going to be seen by millions.”
“I’m not a cop,” the man said. “I hate ‘em as much as you do.”
“Is that why you’re trying so hard to stir shit?” The woman screamed, pressing her nose into the face of the burly man. “We saw you throw that rock through the shop window back there.”
Penny pulled at Storm’s arm. “I know there’s an entrance to the station at the corner of the next intersection.”
They hurried into the moving mass of bodies in the center of the street, bumping and jostling as they pushed forward and the crowd flowed around them.
People were running en mass down the wide street if they were falling from a great tap. It was as if the floodgates had been opened. The beating grew louder until it seemed to them they were inside a drum, and they saw the source of it as the crowd broke on the pavement. Bodies flew to the side as the black line in riot armor pushed their way through the column of protesters.
The contingent of the riot squad had adopted a thin version of the long rectangular form that was the Roman phalanx. Their batons banged in unison against the clear high-impact polycarbonate surface of their shields closed in an impenetrable wall around them they drove forward, cutting a swathe through the people.
Sanctuary In The Mall
Ahead of them, the protest flowing down the street parted as a canister bounced and tumbled on the bitumen. A second followed, and a third. Bright flashes dazzled and blinded those who chose the wrong moment to glance up at the sky.
Storm tripped and saw that a woman crouched at his feet, her hands over her head. He bent to grasp the huddled form and pull her up, but the crowd drove him down on top of them. It took all his strength to stay on his feet.
Jubilee Year: A Science Fiction Thriller (Erelong Book 1) Page 9