The photo fell from his fingers. He didn’t seem to notice, slumping back in his chair and looking a bit dazed. Shrewsbury scooped up the photo then snatched a different one from the pile on the desk. “Believe it or not, but this is the same site six months earlier.”
Instead of the brightly coloured jungle, this photo showed a mostly empty desert. In the middle of the emptiness was an enormous pit, more a crater than anything else. Built into the pit was some kind of building: metals, plastics, alloys, concrete.
My head reeled. Bloody hell, six months...
“The facility,” Simeon said under his breath. “Of course.”
“Of course what?” Lyndon asked, breaking from his slumped trance.
“It takes a beast to birth a beast,” Simeon said. “I thought that would have been obvious by now.”
“The only thing that’s obvious is the size of your ego,” Lyndon shouted.
I honestly didn’t know what to do, and so I just froze. I’ve kept my own counsel so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have people argue around you.
“That’s enough! Stop acting like bloody children!” Shrewsbury yelled.
Adults aren’t accustomed to being spoken to like that and it shocked Simeon and Lyndon, leaving them speechless. But a moment later, Simeon smiled to himself as if the argy-bargy he’d just shared was the spice his life had been missing. Lyndon wouldn’t look at him; he just shook with what I presumed was anger.
We waited for Shrewsbury to get back on track. I wanted to hear what he had to say, and I wanted to know what I was in for.
“As the Professor guessed, that jungle sits right on top of the WA facility. We reckon it’s about forty kilometres wide by about sixty long, and we have no idea what it is or how it got here.”
“What is this facility?” I asked, butting in.
Shrewsbury looked down his nose at me. “It was our main scientific research and containment facility, charged with finding new ways of fighting this war.”
“I’m assuming you have some theories about how the jungle came about,” Simeon said.
“Of course we do, ranging from the ridiculous to the outright insane.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Lyndon asked.
“You can’t expect me to lead an expedition,” Simeon said, steamrolling him and at the same time ignoring me completely. “At my age, I can barely make it to the door of my tent.”
I rolled my eyes at his arrogance, and laughed quietly at the assumption that he would lead us. I looked over at Lyndon, who was smiling as well. That cheered me up, and I met his eye then mouthed the words ‘yeah right’.
“The facility’s gone,” Shrewsbury said. “I was there, I saw it fall. So, no, an expedition isn’t on the table. Instead, you three will be our survey team.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Bullshit.”
Lyndon had shrunk into his chair, his mouth shut tight. Simeon’s face was a mask, but in his eyes I could see fear. I set my shoulders and looked at Shrewsbury.
“No bullshit, Kim. Or did I forget to mention that you don’t have a choice?”
I was out of my chair and I barely even realised it. “You can’t do this.”
Shrewsbury roared his response.
“We’re losing this war! They’re winning! Every other week, another city falls, and every single day there are less of us. We are losing. And when I say we, I mean everybody, all of us, the whole world. Europe’s gone, Japan’s underwater, America’s on fire, and that’s just for starters. We’re looking at extinction here. Don’t you get it? What right do you have to say no? Why should you be allowed to give in?”
I was stunned by his outburst and just couldn’t look at him. I let his words sink in, mulled them over until they hurt me deeply. I’ve been safe in the camps for so long, the government doing their best to take care of me; my biggest worry’s been the monotony of day-to-day life.
I was too ashamed to look at Shrewsbury. Hell, I’m still a bit ashamed.
“You’re the only people I can find with any kind of scientific background,” Shrewsbury said, his voice strained. “When we lost the facility and the R&D division…” He stumbled on the word, but quickly regained his composure, “…we lost every chemist, physicist, botanist, zoologist, psychologist, neurologist, horticulturalist and biologist in the army, as well as every mathematician, programmer, astronomer and tech-whizz seconded to us.” He looked us over. “You three are the only ones left who can possibly tell us what’s happening in there.”
Once again, Shrewsbury held up the first photo he’d shown us. Now that I knew what was hidden beneath the thick canopy, the strange metallic spires and spikes that jutted through it suddenly made sense – cranes, guard towers, communications poles and pylons, wrecked and ruined one and all.
Shrewsbury passed a different photo to Simeon, who looked it over quickly and then passed it to Lyndon and I. It showed another brightly coloured jungle, with similar ruins breaking through the canopy. But this photograph was of a different site. Instead of a desert, this jungle was surrounded by snowy-white tundra. Shrewsbury passed another photo around. In this one, the northern and eastern edges of the jungle met a raging river, while its southern and western edges stopped at a mountain range. Two more photos went around the circle; the first showed the jungle surrounded by a verdant Amazonian forest, the second a border of ruined buildings that must have once been a city.
“What you just saw used to be the Russian, Canadian, Brazilian and Chinese containment and research facilities,” Shrewsbury said. “Maybe now you can understand how important your task is.”
I looked through the photos again, and felt further shame being so reluctant to help. Like I said, I’ve been helped for a lot of my life, and now that it’s my turn to help, how could I have even contemplated refusing? We need to know what that jungle is. I get that now. If we ever manage to take back our world, we can’t have something so alien waiting for us.
The jungle needs to be understood and then it needs to be dealt with. If we’re the only people who can help understand it, how can we say no? How would we live with ourselves?
And that’s it. Here’s to my last night in camp, at least for a while.
Camp Wombat: Day 788
We’ve made camp near a cliff edge overlooking the WA facility. We hit the road the day before yesterday, and only arrived a few hours ago. I’m so tired that I might just keel over, but I want to get everything down before I fall asleep. So here goes…
It started with a four-hour drive from the camp to the nearest military base, Simeon and Lyndon and I stuffed in the back of a Jeep. Simeon stared out the window the whole time. Lyndon and I made a bit of small talk, but only a bit – the noise of the engine prevented most of our attempts. After waiting around the military base for a while, we then spent six hours on a cargo plane, our only company a couple of grunts who barely spoke to us and seemed indifferent to our presence. I fell asleep at some point, because when I woke up, we were at Darwin Air Force Base. For a long time, we just sat around and did nothing while our equipment was packed, our transport was checked over and the soldiers escorting us were given their orders.
My earlier excitement at finally getting away from camp had soon become boredom. By the time we left Darwin, it had almost become desperation.
In contrast, Lyndon seemed to be enjoying every minute of it. He told me that before everything fell apart, he’d never left the ACT, and that the great outdoors wasn’t really his thing, and neither was fieldwork. He preferred to lock himself in a lab when he studied the miracle of botany – his words, not mine. He seemed determined to tell me all about himself, and disappointed when I resisted doing the same. I wasn’t rude and I didn’t brush him off, but what’s mine is mine and I didn’t feel like sharing. You know what I’m like… But still, his enthusiasm was contagious and I couldn’t help smiling as he happily droned on about some plant. I called him a nerd, teasing him a little, and he seemed to enjoy it. And then
he went back to gawping at a world he’d only ever seen in pictures.
I couldn’t believe that he found our trip exciting. I looked over at Simeon. He seemed to share my boredom, judging from the frown on his face, a frown that existed even when he was asleep. He’d made little effort to talk to Lyndon and I, alternately getting lost in a tattered notebook, dozing in his chair or staring into space. I’d left him alone for the most part – even if we couldn’t get along, I hoped that we could at least work together comfortably. But when we were finally ready to leave Darwin, he looked over the three soldiers comprising our escort and straightaway refused to ride with ‘their kind.’
That was when I started to hate him.
Lyndon didn’t know where to look or what to say, and just stared at the floor. The three soldiers didn’t take Simeon’s bait. The old bastard was tough, I’ll give him that – he turned his back on us and started walking away. I smiled to myself and muttered ‘good riddance.’ Lyndon and the soldiers nodded in agreement, before one of them hurried after Simeon, threatening to dump him in the desert if he didn’t come back and show some respect. It was as simple as that, the soldier explained loudly for us to overhear. Simeon looked back at us. His frown had disappeared, replaced by a smirk of frustrated arrogance. I could tell that he was thinking of walking away from everything. The prick.
But no, he came back and our escort guided us to our transport: two armoured vans. Lyndon and I chose to ride with two of the soldiers – Dolores and Jackson, both middle-aged, both as hard as desert earth. Simeon chose to ride in the second van, with a younger soldier named Joe. Simeon didn’t bother introducing himself to any of the soldiers. Lyndon and I made a point of it. And then we started driving into the desert, bound for Western Australia. Ten hours later, we were still driving. The red desert we drove through was like some kind of alien planet – arid, flat, empty and seemingly devoid of life. Lyndon stared at it wide-eyed, gawping out the window once again. He’d been doing that the whole time since we hit the desert’s edge.
The van was hot and stuffy. The air-conditioner only worked sporadically. I was tired of waving flies away. My bum and thighs had gone numb. I was slick with sweat. In fact, the whole van stank of sweat.
I know, I know – complain, complain, complain. But it felt like we’d been travelling for weeks…
“Hey, sorry, but how much longer?” I asked Dolores and Jackson at some point, raising my voice over the noise of the van’s overworked engine.
I’d tried hard not to ask too often, but they were still sick of it.
“Nearly there,” Jackson replied, also raising his voice. “The sun’s going down, and they said we’d arrive before nightfall.”
I looked out the window. He was right – the sun was slowly disappearing behind a low stretch of hills and the sky was an impressionist masterpiece of orange and purple and blue.
“We’ll stop in those hills and make camp,” Dolores yelled.
“Why?” Lyndon asked, beating me to it.
“You’ll see.”
Dolores and Jackson laughed together as we kept on. The desert shimmered under the twilight sky. To our left and our right, it stretched to the horizon. Anything could have been out there, wandering in the emptiness. It was land that made sense only to itself, timeless and ancient and utterly without need of people. I finally understood why Lyndon was so transfixed.
“Right, hold on, folks,” Dolores said, her voice loud through gritted teeth.
The van bucked, bounced, started rocking. I looked out the windscreen – we’d begun driving up a rough dirt track into the low hills to the west. Scrappy saplings and stunted gums battered the van, whipping it with their branches, scraping at its paintwork. Its engine whined; I could only just make out the sound of Dolores and Jackson arguing and could only just hear their curses.
Unexpectedly – very unexpectedly – Lyndon took my hand.
“You okay?” he asked.
He really is such a sweet kid…
“I’m fine.” I shook him away. He smiled shyly, a little embarrassed.
The van rocked again and I almost banged my head.
“Everyone okay back there?” Jackson asked, almost shouting the words.
“Just get it done,” Lyndon muttered.
“We’re fine,” I yelled.
We kept climbing the hill. All around, the shadows grew thicker and the land grew more threatening. Dolores and Jackson opened the van up and started to race the sun, and then we were suddenly atop the hill, coming to a stop on a narrow ribbon of flat ground next to the edge of a cliff. Before Lyndon and I could react, Dolores stepped out of the van and Jackson turned in his seat to look at us.
“Stay here.”
It was almost dark, and he flicked on the van’s headlights before following Dolores, a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. I looked out the window. Dolores also had a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. As Jackson disappeared behind the van, Dolores rapped on its roof.
“Come on out.”
Lyndon and I did as she said – I gratefully stretched my legs, while Lyndon made a bee-line for the nearest tree. Jackson was ambling back down the track, shining his torch from left to right in a slow sweep. All that he illuminated was scrub and rock, and then a pair of headlights blinked from further down the hill. Jackson stepped aside as the second van finally caught up to us and came to a sudden stop.
Joe – its driver – stepped out and lit a smoke. Simeon threw open the rear door. As he clambered outside, he almost fell over. He was soaking with sweat, his clothes pasted to his body.
“This is intolerable!” he bellowed, his face beetroot-purple.
“Sorry about the rough ride,” Joe said with a smirk before slapping him on the back. Simeon glared at him, muttering under his breath. Joe ignored this, instead turning his back on the old bastard and approaching Lyndon and I. “He’s all yours.”
I met Joe’s smile. “Thanks.”
“It’s a pleasure.”
I laughed under my breath, and then he got back to business: drawing a pistol and a torch, he joined Dolores and Jackson. This made me stop and think, helped along by Simeon’s boofheaded nature. Shrewsbury was right. What he said the other day is true. We need to help. We shouldn’t expect it if we aren’t prepared to give it.
I decided to step up. Hell, I can do things that are outside my ‘field,’ as Simeon so patronisingly calls it. I can haul wood, start a fire, find a clearing for us to camp on, anything…
I was about to follow the soldiers, when Lyndon started calling out. “Over here! Over here! Quick, check this out!”
Even though his words were urgent, his voice was full of boyish excitement. I looked but struggled to see him in the darkness. Without a word, Jackson was beside me, shining his torch beyond the cliff-edge.
“What’s all this about, soldier?” Simeon asked him.
Jackson ignored him, speaking to me instead. “Your mate’s over there.” He pointed to the cliff-edge. I squinted but couldn’t see Lyndon. Jackson took another torch from his pocket and passed it over. I shone it into the darkness. I still couldn’t see Lyndon.
“Come with me, then,” Jackson said before striding toward the cliff-face.
I hurried after him. Simeon followed after me, complaining the whole time.
“G’day,” Jackson said as I drew up to him, turning and standing in my way. He smiled with barely-suppressed glee. He looked over my shoulder as something caught his attention. “Dolores, Joe, you guys only just made it. Although one of our friends beat us to the surprise.”
“Sorry?” I asked, bothered and bewildered.
The three soldiers laughed together, and I felt incredibly small. Simeon finally caught up to us and took a moment to catch his breath.
“What are you people talking about?” he asked.
Jackson merely rolled his eyes at Simeon’s use of ‘you people.’
“We’re just having a bit of fun, that’s all,” Jackson said
. He looked me in the eye. “You alright?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Well, go on, have a look.”
He stepped out of my way and I could finally see the land beyond the cliff-edge. It was nothing special, just a dark smear of desert.
“Wait a minute,” Dolores suggested. “Maybe take a seat next to your friend.”
I looked down and to my left. What I’d thought was just another rock was actually Lyndon – sitting on the ground, his arms wrapped around his chest, he’d pulled himself into a ball. He didn’t speak. He didn’t acknowledge us.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He didn’t reply. I sat down next to him.
“Lyndon, what is it? What’s going…”
And that’s when it happened, leaving me struck dumb mid-sentence.
“Wow,” I finally managed to say.
The dark smear of desert was slowly lighting up, patches of brightness breaking the gloom like the stars coming out at night. But these stars were gaudy and colourful: purple, orange, red, blue, green, yellow. Things started calling and crying out: alien and unnatural sounds, like breaking glass or squelching mud or crying children, they were still somehow undeniably alive. The jungle steadily grew lighter; the process – whatever the hell it was – was happening quickly. Within a few minutes, it was glowing with an almost electric ferocity. It became obvious that the light was coming from the jungle itself – lines of colour resolved into the stick-figures of tree trunks, branches and leaves, illuminated foliage and wood that almost seared my eyes.
Things moved through the light, enormous misshapen things that were only visible as shadows. It was incredible. It is incredible.
“This can’t be real,” Simeon said quietly.
Soon, he was sitting on the cliff-edge next to Lyndon and I. Before too long, Dolores, Jackson and Joe were sitting down as well. The six of us looked upon the impossible. None of us spoke. In my peripheral vision, I saw one of the soldiers pull something from their pocket. A sharp inhalation of breath and a muttered ‘wow’ soon followed. I heard rustling beside me, but I couldn’t look away. And then Simeon pushed something into my hands.
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