walkers going through, some of them will report you. Not in a dangerous way, just chatting, that sort of thing.”
“So how often?”
“About once a week. Usually only carry that much food anyway. I try to go into Ararat and use the internet sometimes.”
Michael thought of measuring out the weeks.
“Your tent?” Michael asked.
“Only just around the corner.”
“Ok see you tomorrow.”
// Robert
It was called a “stakeholders meeting”. Similar in concept to a shareholders meeting. Except that Defigo was owned by those that bought contracts. Instead of a room full of corporates, there was a room full of middle class householders. In the US it was a shareholder meeting: he had hated them, but the Australian version made him nostalgic for the US version.
Local halls meant that the setup for the displays were more difficult. He had them go the day before and do a complete setup and run. Tonight was Ivanhoe. Heart of the blue territory. Also very lucrative for Defigo as it fronted onto the red zone. Anywhere north of the Yarra was prime security territory.
It had a faded art deco look to it. Upper Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe. He arrived in the car straight off the eastern tollway. It only took about twenty minutes from headquarters at this time of day. He found the techs setting up, and strolled to the podium.
“Ready?” he asked
“Just a moment.” while a line failed, and had to be replaced. He hated that sort of thing. He was the only one of them that bothered with this sort of full dress rehearsal. Everyone else just trusted to the technology.
At 7.30pm he found himself back there doing the meet and greet. Smiling and shaking hands with the locally prosperous. They of the multi-million real estate. Of course they were the ones who wanted the Defigo security, and they had the means to pay for it.
He tensed up as he mounted the stage. A bit of nerves was good, too much would throw it.
“Welcome to the tenth annual Defigo stakeholder meeting. It is so great to see you here.
When we began, we set ourselves the task of transforming Melbourne. I don’t want to remind you of the bad old days, but suffice it to say that when we arrived, it was time. We set out on a journey, to make your neighborhood safe.
Our new gateway technology gives you the strongest guarantees. As we say, ‘.. it doesn’t take a gate to make a gated community.’. We are now into the third generation of barrier technology, and I am sure you will agree that it has helped us realise your dreams....”
He paused at the end for questions. A smartly dressed woman about halfway back waved for the microphone.
“You say ‘it doesn’t take a gate’. Last week we had an intruder in our backyard. He tried to break open our back window. It took over twenty minutes for a response. A gate would have kept him out.”
Robert paused. Looked around. There were nods of agreement. He turned back to the microphone.
“I’m troubled by your experience. Please be sure that I will investigate thoroughly, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. But I beg to differ about the gate. No matter how high we build the gate, somebody will climb over it. That’s why we view security as a total systems problem. I can’t share with you all of the responses we have in our arsenal, but I can tell you that they are much more effective than a simple wall. You can judge us over how we improve.”
The meeting continued in this vein, with similar questions. The level of insecurity was no more or less than the last time he had done this. It was an insular world, this. As long as it all stayed outside the blue boundary they were happy. He couldn’t help but wonder how these people would go in Mumbai, or New Jersey for that matter. No doubt they would be in an armed convoy.
// Alex
The house was just echoes. Alex couldn’t come to grips with opening the front door, to be greeted by nobody at all. It was so large to be empty. Before it had almost seemed small as they fell over each other at breakfast.
She looked out the kitchen window to the leafy expanses. It was hard to imagine the world at it really was. Beaumaris. The famous one could hardly live in Coburg, could he? They had argued about that. ‘Stuff. It’s just stuff’, she had said. To an architect, whose whole life, whose whole being, was about stuff.
How to explain? He would send a message at least once a day, without fail. She imagined George: “a girl” he would say. Young man, easily distracted, no reports of him being in an accident, or any other report. Mother worries too much. That was the syndrome. ‘A bad feeling’ she would say. Just a bad feeling. That wouldn’t go away.
She argued with herself. She wondered. His schedule was full. Sometimes he turned the phone off for long periods. Looking in the mirror. Wondering. A line had to be crossed. George was the only person she could ask for help that would know what to do.
“Usual place: 6pm?” she sent to George.
Now she waited.
“See you there.” George replied.
// Michael
Michael awoke with a jump. He looked through the door of the tent up at the stars and tried to tell himself calming thoughts.
There was a protocol. No messages at all for five days. Then a coded message. He was to post a nonsensical sentence. Planted anonymously in the depths of the internet. So that somebody somewhere could google that sentence. But even to get to that point seemed difficult. It was his second day, three to go. Now the light was coming over the mountain, so he headed up the track to find Oscar. The veteran would have ways of filling the time, he figured.
“Hi.”
He swung around, startled.
“You sure are well hidden.”
As they climbed up the narrow track there was no real possibility of conversation. Oscar was fit. Almost a rock scramble at the top. He tried not to look down at the drop.
But then the silence, and the horizon to horizon. As far as the eye could see in any direction there was no sign of human habitation. For a long time they just sat. Michael thought about trust. How sometimes on a long journey you sat next to a stranger, and started talking. Sometimes you shared things with that stranger that you would not share with anyone.
// George
From the fun palace he walked towards Flinders Street. To get the Sandringham train you had to go to the far platform, right next to the river. He needed to clear his head. Alex never messaged out of the blue. It was always coordinated with the movements of the famous one. So it required forward planning, and a cover story.
The train was up in the air at Elsternwick station, George could see out along the Nepean Highway. Turning around he looked out over the old houses. The backyards. It was a view that had not really changed for twenty years.
How many times had he made this journey? That there was a window of opportunity, to sit and stare into each other’s eyes for an hour or so. What was he doing? He asked himself. Not for the first time. He felt himself pulled by the under-current. That in a very real sense he was all she had. She was struggling not to hold onto him as if he actually was a life-preserver thrown into the surf. The realisation that he was walking up to the line, and looking at it. Was it a matter of courage?
The train pulled into Sandringham station and he was aware of the open nature of the surroundings. No crowds here to jump into. He imagined the drone above him, switching to infrared and adjusting position to keep him in the centre of the field of view. He walked towards the usual restaurant, at the usual time.
Alex looked up as George entered the restaurant. She had tried to cover up the effects of the crying, but he knew her too well. It slowed him as he approached the table.
“Hi.” he said, weakly. Aware that this was unfamiliar territory.
“Nothing. Not a thing for 36 hours.”
“Your son.”
“Michael.”
“I don’t think I have..”
“My birthday.”
George had fallen into deep water, and it was as if he h
ad an arm up. Somehow he had to swim.
“His father?”
“Is in motion. He’s always in bloody motion. The famous one is famous. He doesn’t give a shit. You know that. He’s on a plane from Rio to god knows where. Out of contact.”
“You want me to find him?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what you do? The great George. The unstoppable George. The ‘just point him and pull the trigger’ George?”
George looked away. It was a feeling he could only imagine. To be in fear for your own. It wasn’t something he was going to experience in this life, was it?
“Tell me more about him. I need somewhere to start.” George said.
Alex tried. Really tried. But the tears just welled up, and try as she might to hold them back, she failed. Her head went down, and she began quietly sobbing.
For a moment, George was frozen. But he reached across.
“It’s going to be ok. You’re right. I am the guy to do it. We’ll find him.”
She stopped.
“His friends. What he does?”
“You won’t like it.” she said.
“Criminal? He didn’t strike me as the type.”
“No. Political, I think. Or something like that. Hackers. He was always into that. The number of times he got into trouble at school....”
George thought she was going to start crying again.
“Has anything changed lately?”
“He said he had a new job. But he couldn’t tell me about it.”
“Who with?”
“He said he couldn’t say.”
“Spooks?”
“No. He would never work for them. He was dead against them.”
Spooks but not spooks. Anti