That was enough to elicit a spark of interest from the customs officer. “You’re touring the rabbit-proof fence?” she asked. “You do understand that it’s not in a nicely secured, well-populated area, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do, and I think you’ll find that all my clearances are in order.” Assuming I’d filed the correct forms; assuming that Jack and Olivia hadn’t been pulling my leg when they told me this was possible. If I’d just flown to Australia for a prank, well. Looking for a new job was going to be the least of their problems.
“They are,” she admitted, with something that sounded like grudging respect. She pressed a button; my passport emerged from the slot where I’d placed it. “Welcome to Australia, Mr. Gowda. I hope you have a pleasant stay.”
“So do I, ma’am,” I said. “Have a nice day.” Then I was past her gate and walking down the corridor toward freedom, released onto Australian soil at last.
God, did I need a toilet.
4.
There were lavatories situated outside the corridor connecting new arrivals to the exterior concourse. I had one last reunion with the denizens of my plane as I stopped to deal with certain necessary business and then turned myself to the next pressing matter on my agenda: finding my local guides.
The concourse was a dizzying whirl of activity, especially when compared to similar locations in Europe or America. People had actually come into the airport to collect their friends and loved ones. Everywhere I looked, joyous reunions were unfolding, often accompanied by the sound of one or more returning Australians complaining loudly about the condition of the rest of the world. There was something almost self-congratulatory about it. See? it said. We may not be the biggest continent, and we may not have the most people, but we’re the best. We’re the most reasonable. Let everyone else be eaten alive in their beds. Australia will endure.
I stopped in a clear space, turning a slow circle as I tried to get my bearings in this new place. People walked closer than I was comfortable with, some of them actually bumping against my suitcase as they passed me. The Australian idea of personal space was clearly less draconian than it was in the rest of the world.
Halfway through my second turn, I spotted two people hustling toward me across the concourse. Both were clearly Australian, given the way they were navigating through the crowd, squeezing themselves between people without an apparent concern about accidental contact. The man was tall and thin, holding a sign that read GOWDA in one hand as he ran. The woman was shorter, curvy, and had given up holding her sign in a readable position in favor of keeping her iconic Australian slouch hat on her head as she ran.
They stopped about five feet in front of me, both of them plastering broad smiles across their faces and holding their signs out in my direction. I raised an eyebrow.
“Your sign’s backward,” I said to the woman.
“…bugger,” she muttered, and flipped the sign around, adding the message WELCOME, BOSS! to the man’s GOWDA.
“Sorry we’re late,” said the man. “There was a bit of a traffic snarl on the way into the airport. You know how it is when you have to be somewhere in a hurry.”
“Yes, I leave early,” I said, and took a beat to study him. He was about my age, with dark skin and short, dark brown hair cropped close to his scalp. There was a certain indefinable tension about him, like he could do virtually anything at any moment. It was a trait he shared with most of the Irwins I knew. “Jack, I presume?”
A wide grin split his face. “In the flesh. It’s a real honor to finally meet you.”
“I’m not feeling particularly honorable right now. More exhausted, jet-lagged, and in need of a very long shower.” I turned to the woman. Her hair was a shade of blue that occurs naturally only in certain kinds of very toxic frog, although it went well with her eyes. “That means you must be Olivia.”
“Yessir,” she said, pronouncing it as a single word. Her cheeks flushed red. “I mean, er, yes, hello, sir, it’s very nice to meet you, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right.” I grabbed the handle of my suitcase. “I assume if you’re both here, the car’s here, too? I’m ready to be out of the limbo of air travel and back among the lands of the living.”
“Right this way,” said Jack. At the same time, Olivia said, “Let me get that,” and stepped forward to make an awkward grab for the handle of my suitcase, resulting in my losing my grip and letting the whole thing tumble to the floor. The three of us stood frozen for a moment, looking at my fallen suitcase. The noise of the concourse continued around us, but where we were, there was silence.
Then, without quite realizing that I was going to do it, I started to laugh.
Jack and Olivia exchanged a nervous look, like they weren’t quite sure how they were supposed to respond to this clear breach of protocol. Then, softly, Olivia giggled. It turned into open laughter. Jack joined in, and the three of us stood there, suddenly at ease, surrounded by weary travelers, and laughed the nerves of a botched first meeting away. I was miles from home, in a place I had never been before, but I was among my people. I was going to be just fine.
5.
Jack Ward, Irwin, and Olivia Mebberson, Newsie, were part of the five-person team that covered Australia—and the only part of that team to live geographically close together. Olivia shared a home outside Melbourne with her husband and wife, while Jack lived near the city center and often used Olivia’s home as a base of operations when he wanted to take trips out into the You Yangs, a nearby series of granite ridges that had been the subject of a yearlong series he’d done for the site. The two had been friends before they ever started working for After the End Times, and while they hadn’t applied as a unit, we had received their applications within minutes of each other.
They were good, hard workers, and their credentials had been above reproach. Still were, which was why, when they’d proposed a piece on the impact of the so-called “rabbit-proof fence” on Australia both before and after the Rising, I’d been willing to fly out for a look. All of us were hoping that this would bring some more attention to our resident Australians, and maybe bring their page hits a little higher in the rankings. For all that many people viewed Australia as the last wild frontier, it was surprisingly difficult to get those same people to pay attention to Australian media. It was like trying to make them care about what was happening on Mars. Sure, it was interesting and all, but it was happening in a place that most of them would never visit or see, and there were more interesting things happening at home.
Jack carried my suitcase out to the car while Olivia chattered on like she was afraid that her license to produce words might be yanked at any moment. I tried responding a few times before I realized my participation wasn’t required. I started merely nodding, and that worked much better for the both of us. We cleared the blood test to exit the concourse, and a second blood test to enter the parking structure. Jack led the way to his car, a sturdy pickup truck with an extended cab capable of seating four. I took the back and was asleep before he could start the engine.
Perhaps sleeping through my first exposure to the city of Melbourne was irresponsible of me, but in my defense, my body—fickle thing that it was—really didn’t give me much of a choice. One minute, we were parked at the airport, and the next, the car was rolling to a stop and Jack was announcing cheerfully, “We’re here. All out for the Mebberson-Yamaguchi residence.”
I mumbled something unintelligible before pushing myself up with one hand and rubbing the other across my face, trying in vain to wipe away the exhaustion and grime of twenty-four hours of constant travel. “How long was I out?”
“About an hour. You’re lucky this isn’t America, mate, or we’d have had to wake you six times for blood tests.” Jack grinned again as he bounded from the driver’s seat, slammed his door, and opened mine. He was far too awake for my tastes, and I couldn’t decide whether to hate him or simply go back to sleep.
“Well, then, all hail Australia.” I sat up, my back protesting every movement. “Ah, damn, I’m getting too old for this shit. Where’s Olivia?”
“She’s inside, getting Zane and Hotaru ready for us. Probably shooing cats off counters and such, so they can make a good impression on you.” Jack stepped away from my open door, crossing to the back of the car.
By the time I convinced my clumsy fingers to unfasten my seat belt and grabbed my duffel from the seat beside me, Jack had retrieved my suitcase from the back of the truck and was halfway to the house. I trudged after him, trying to study the landscape without actually waking up enough to appreciate it. It wasn’t as difficult as it might sound; nothing was going to wake me up enough to appreciate Australia.
It was fall in London, a season of mists and turning leaves, but here, in this strange and distant land, it was the very heart of spring. A thin scrim of green covered the ground, only an inch or so high and still the color of fresh, new growth. Some of the trees on the property were eucalyptus—I recognized them, ironically enough, from the time I’d spent in California with the After the End Times team—but others were entirely new to me. Birds chirped and whistled from their branches, colored in a dizzying array of eye-burning shades.
I stopped walking. “Is that a parrot?” I demanded, unsure whether to be amazed or scandalized by the bird that was eyeing me with avian interest.
Jack called back, “Yup, it’s a parrot. We’ll see more when we hit the road. Now come on. You don’t want to miss the house security system.”
Mention of the security system made me start walking again, now paying attention to the man-made features of my surroundings. A high fence surrounded the house and yard on all sides, and the house itself was a long, low construct, only a single story in height, with surprisingly large windows.
“Don’t let all the glass bother you,” said Jack, as I caught up to him. “There’s automated shutters and retractable bars that automatically descend at night. You’re safe as houses. Olivia and her lot just weren’t willing to sacrifice their view on the off chance that a mob could take out the fence before they got the shutters down.”