Shaun and the new version of Georgia celebrated our successful discovery of a massive government conspiracy by vanishing into the wilds of Canada. There were very few people living there, and most of the people who chose that life had no interest in helping the government. It had been almost two years. No one had seen them since. Maybe someday they would tire of their privacy and come back to civilization. Until that day arrived, I was not going to have any member of the site that they had helped to create go after them. They had earned their retirement, if retirement it truly was.
Sometimes I worried. I won’t lie about that. Cloning is a strange science, restricted by morality laws and jealously guarded by the few organizations that know its secrets. So far as I was aware, the second Georgia was the first clone ever released into the wild without medical oversight. She could collapse at any moment, killed by some previously unknown glitch in the process that made her, and the rest of us might never know.
Shaun Mason was a good man, and he held himself together far longer than the rest of us had any real right to ask him to. If I worried about him—if I worried about her—well, so what? He’d earned a little worry. They both had.
My chat window flashed, signaling a reply. I tapped the icon, bringing the chat back to the front of my screen.
HI BOSS, read Alaric’s reply. HOW’S AUSTRALIA? HAVE YOU TRIED VEGEMITE YET?
STILL ON THE PLANE, HAVEN’T LANDED YET. WHY IS MY E-MAIL FULL OF URGENT FLAGS?
NOT FEELING MUCH LIKE SMALL TALK, HUH?
I HAVE BEEN IN TRANSIT FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. MY MOUTH TASTES LIKE THE BAD END OF A ZOMBIE’S DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. WHY IS MY E-MAIL FULL OF URGENT FLAGS? Alaric was a good Newsie, but he had somehow managed to lead a very sheltered life for someone who’d been through hell alongside the rest of us. Sometimes he didn’t understand that brevity meant “explain yourself before I am forced to become cross with you.” Still, he was loyal to a fault, and I respected that.
MINOR KA-I OUTBREAK IN ALABAMA, Alaric replied. HAD TO SCRAMBLE A FIELD TEAM TO GO OUT AND GET THE GOODS. GEO GOT A LITTLE OVERENTHUSIASTIC WITH HIS EQUIPMENT REQUESTS. MAGGIE AND I MANAGED TO REIN HIM IN. SORRY YOU GOT ALL THE CCS.
IT’S NO PROBLEM. AT LEAST I KNOW. The head of the Action News Division—more commonly known as “the Irwins,” named in honor of the late Australian conservationist and crocodile enthusiast, Steve Irwin—was a very earnest young man named George Freeman, who went by “Geo” to avoid confusion with Georgia Mason. He’d been hired after Shaun left, and we’d never met in person, but he seemed like a good sort. OUTBREAK CONTAINED?
LOOKS THAT WAY.
GOOD. I’M SIGNING OFF FOR LANDING. WILL TRY TO CHECK IN AFTER I GET SITUATED WITH THE LOCAL TEAM.
MAGGIE SENDS HER LOVE.
TELL MAGGIE THANK YOU. I closed the chat window. I rarely say good-bye anymore; it feels too much like an invitation to disaster. Instead, I try to approach everything as if it were simply an ongoing sequence. Conversations didn’t end. I merely had to pause them every once in a while.
Tucking my tablet back into its pocket, I relaxed in my seat and waited for the wheels to touch the ground.
3.
The Rising was a global event. It began with two American research projects, thus permanently cementing the so-very-American idea that they were the center of the world—after all, who but the center of all things could bring about the end of days?—but once the Kellis-Amberlee virus was loose in the atmosphere, it went around the world in under a week. Some places were hit harder than others when the dead began to walk. India was completely evacuated, as were parts of Japan, China, and the United States. But given time, the world recovered. That’s what the world does.
Australia has always been isolated by geography. That didn’t keep Kellis-Amberlee out, but it did change the landscape that the virus had to deal with. Instead of cattle and horses, Kellis-Amberlee found kangaroos and wombats. There were densely packed urban population centers, but they tended to be closer to the wilderness than similar cities in other nations. Video footage of zombie kangaroos laying siege to Sydney was one of the last things to escape Australia during that first long, brutal summer of the Rising. Then the networks went down, and there were other things for people to worry about. Unbelievable as it sounds today, there was a time when the rest of the world genuinely expected the entire continent to be lost.
There was one thing no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. While the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile environment for centuries. They looked upon our zombie apocalypse, and they were not impressed.
After the Rising was over, life for Australians went on much as it had before. They went to work, went to the pub, and endeavored not to die while living in a country that contained the lion’s share of the world’s venomous snakes, deadly spiders, and other such vermin. The addition of zombie kangaroos—and worse, zombie wombats—did nothing to change the essential character of the nation. If anything, global response to the Rising only confirmed something that many Australians had quietly believed for quite some time: If forced to live in Australia for a year, most of the world’s population would simply curl up in a fetal ball and die of terror.
Still, some things had to change, and those changes had been, by and large, ignored by the world media. They weren’t sensational enough to make good headlines; they were too practical and too easy on the nerves. Add in the fact that several governments had been devoted to a campaign intended to keep us all cowering in our beds, and it was no wonder that Australia’s unique approach to animal husbandry and handling had gone mostly ignored by anyone who didn’t live in Australia.
A pleasant chime sounded through the cabin, signaling that it was time to stow any loose items which might have been taken out of their containers during the flight. The attendants made one last quick pass through the cabin, helping the less-prepared travelers to get their personal items secured before we began our final descent. Then, with no additional fanfare, the nose of our plane titled sharply downward, and we broke through the clouds over Melbourne, giving me my very first glimpse of Australian soil.
To be entirely honest, it wasn’t that impressive. From my small window, I could see a coastal city that looked just like every other coastal city I’d had the misfortune to visit. I am a homebody at heart, and this was my third continent, as I worked my way through an unwanted checklist. Fourth continent, if I wanted to count Asia, which I didn’t particularly. I’d have been perfectly happy counting nothing but London, and London alone, until the day that I died.
I was still dwelling on that thought as the city outside my window grew rapidly closer, until finally the wheels were touching smoothly down on the runway, executing a perfect landing. Applause rose from the other passengers. Apparently, they didn’t know how much modern air travel depends on autopilot systems, or how unlikely it was that our pilot had done anything to aid that seamless landing.
Ah, well. Let them have their little illusions. I joined the rest of the cabin in applauding. Sometimes it’s the veils that you draw over things that make them worth looking at. Not as honest, perhaps, but certainly more palatable.
Deplaning was a straightforward, if slow, process: The flight attendants unlocked our belts one row at a time, allowing us to leisurely stand, collect our belongings, and head for the jet bridge. No one grumbled about the wait. Some of the people toward the back of the plane were probably seething silently, but there was no point in voicing that sort of thing aloud. All it would do was cause problems, and when the flight attendants are authorized to use deadly force in subduing a “problem passenger,” no one wants to make a fuss.
My bag was a sturdy duffel that had seen stranger trips than this one. I slung it over my shoulder as I exited the jet bridge and started scanning around for signs that would lead me to Customs. Ah, Customs, the first trial of every international traveler.
Large, pleasant signs provided directions, accompanied by helpfully animated arrows that drew lines down the wall, just in case the addled, time-shifted tourists had lost the ability to read. I staggered in the indicated direction, followed by most of the population of my flight. I am quite sure that, in that moment, there was very little to differentiate us from your average zombie mob. No one was moaning, but all the rest of the characteristic signs were there: the slack-jawed expressions, the shambling gaits, and the absolute lack of apparent intelligence.
Eventually, we found ourselves funneled through baggage claim, where I retrieved my suitcase, and into the cattle chutes of Australian Customs and Immigration. As a visitor, I was funneled one way, while returning Australian citizens were funneled another. Their line was more than three times the length of mine. Statistically, Australians make up sixty to eighty percent of the world’s international travel, and Australian nationals are in perpetual demand with multinational corporations in need of mobile executives. An Australian with half my schooling could easily get a job making three times my annual salary, simply because people are willing to pay for an accent that has become associated with survival. It would be irritating, if it wasn’t so comic.
In due time, I reached the front of the line and was confronted by a bored-looking Australian woman whose hair appeared to have been the victim of an unfortunate home perm kit. A piece of clear Plexi separated us. “Please place your passport in the slot, place your hand against the indicated panel, and state your name,” she said.
“Mahir Gowda,” I replied, following her directions. A needle bit into the heel of my hand, followed by a soothing burst of disinfectant spray. No lights came on anywhere that I could see. This was a test that I was going to be taking blind.
“What is the purpose of your visit, Mr. Gowda?”
“I’m a registered Internet journalist, associated with After the End Times,” I said. “I am a British citizen, and have filed the necessary papers to continue my work while visiting Australia. I’m joining some of my colleagues for a tour of the State Barrier Fence.”