This is a relic from the past; one of the original buildings in Hobart, Tasmania, and one can only imagine what it was like back when it was first built.
Certainly not a lot of what is surrounding it now, because it would have been the house of someone wealthy or high up on the government payroll, with a lot of land surrounding it.
So, Hobart started in 1804, and so history around the 1820’s, perhaps a reasonable time to write about, would give some scope to give the story, Given that Norfolk Islanders arrived in 1807, and free settlers arrived in 1820, my first thought would be to a narrative about coming from England to Van Dieman’s Land, and how different it would be.
History could provide many stories.
Turning to the modern day, what secrets does an old building hold?
We could assume that a building, such as the one like that above, has fallen into disrepair, but holds some secret which is the reason why it has lain empty. Did someone simply die, or where they murdered, and when – perhaps a hundred years before.
Are there ghosts, seen by people or just rumours generated by overactive imaginations.
Could it be the result of a dispute between warring relatives, beneficiaries or not?
Or is something buried there, like the fortune of the original owner, supposedly lost in the mists of time?
It wasn’t such an outlandish idea, as much as it was hard to prove it was possible. That is, of course, traversing very long distances in a very short amount of time.
Yes, space is a vacuum, and stuff floats, and can be propelled quickly, just not quickly enough that it would not take a long time to get to the edge of our known universe, given our current technology.
And time wasn’t something we wanted to spend getting there and back
Now, out of thin air, a rather quaint but inapplicable expression to describe where we were now, we had two myths shattered, that we were alone in the universe, and that we were at the limit of how fast we could go.
I got the distinct impression the people we just met had the answers. We just had to find them, well, catch up with them first, and ask them if they would share.
Whilst we were standing by the ‘Ionosphere’, I summonsed both Chalmers and the duty scientist to my day room, to prepare for the update from number one, whom I had advised earlier to relay over the secure channel.
…
But before I got the time to brief them on my theory, number one reported in.
“Firstly, there had been only one casualty and as far as we can tell. Everyone was affected by what appears to be a short stoppage of the life support systems which virtually put everyone to sleep. All of the major systems are back on line, except for the propulsion unit, which, it seems the override cut in when the ship exceeded the maximum speed. The chief engineer is rebooting the controlling computer system which should fix the problem. No one, not even the designers of the propulsion unit, or the ship itself, expected it would ever exceed the maximum design speed, an error that the chief engineers will be taking up with the manufacturers if and when they get home.”
“We can assume then the ship will be able to resume its voyage.”
“Yes sir. I’ve advised the Captain we’ll be standing off until they advise everything is back online.”
“Any explanations as to what happened?”
The Captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ spoke, “One of the scientists discovered what could only be described as an anomaly, with the same sort of properties a black hole has, though it was not a black hole. We headed towards it and then suddenly we were being pulled into it, though there was no discernable hole on the viewer. We tried to escape it, and apparently failed. The last thing I remember, or anyone else for that matter, was the ship going dark, like everything had stopped. Until I was woken by your officer. I cannot explain how we got here, except to say that under normal circumstances, it would take many months to travel the same distance.”
“Did you see any other ships about?”
“We were the only people in that quadrant, as far as I was aware.”
Number one came back at that point, “The sensor log shows there might have been something out there, though it didn’t define what it was. I’m sending a download of the log over as we speak for analysis. One possibility though, based on the information we’ve been using to follow the ship that kidnapped the Captain, is that there is similar energy readings recorded just before the jump.”
Chalmers was first to speak, “When you say jump, what exactly does that mean?”
“We have been looking at the log, and it’s recorded a jump that started near Jupiter, to where we are now. Based on my understanding of astrophysics, and given the short time frame, the only logical explanation is that they were sucked into a sort of black hole, or a rupture in time/space. Whatever caused it, it’s in the realm of science fiction.”
“So was the notion that there was another intelligent life out here, and yet we have found that not to be the case. Whoever these people are, I suspect they have conquered the ability to travel long distances, very quickly, especially if they are, as they said, from another galaxy.”
“You have met other life?” The captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ seemed surprised.
“Yes. They attacked one of our freighters on its way to Venus and stole the plutonium rods needed to keep the base there going. They also kidnapped our Captain, and we were in pursuit of their vessel when we discovered your ship drifting. And it’s my theory your ship may have been dragged into a vortex left behind as they move from location to location. A theory my people will be working on, unless they come up with a better explanation.”
Number one came back, “I’ve just been advised by the Chief Engineer, everything is back online, and we’re no longer needed. I’ll make sure the data transfer is complete and we’ll depart. Anything else?”
“No.”
The transmission complete, I turned to the two scientists. “Soon as you get the data, find out what happened. When we run into these other people, I need to know the right questions to ask them.”
“The odds are we won’t understand,” Chalmers said.
“I thought it was universally acknowledged that if we did find intelligent life out here, the one universal language would be science.”
“That was true based on what we knew before today. Now we know there’s intelligent life out here, everything has changed.”
“Then buckle up for the ride of your life. I want answers sooner rather than later.”
And I don’t know how I got here. I have a sneaking suspicion that I stepped through a portal, only I didn’t recognise it as one until I reached this side.
I say this side because the world I’m in now is not the world I remember from a while back, well, perhaps a year or so. Time passes very slowly here.
Before everything made sense, China didn’t hate us, and we had just finished touring some of the most remarkable sights of that very country.
There was no coronavirus and I didn’t fear for my life, and the fact I had a compromised immune system didn’t matter a hoot, except for the constant pain in my lower back and hands, the result of psoriatic arthritis going berserk as I get older.
My grandchildren were in school, alternately loving and hating it, and every Friday I would get one from school and she would tell me how her world was hell, and I had no idea what it was like.
Another would start all her sentences with ‘basically’, and the other would end hers with ‘like’.
I would lament the fact our schools no longer teach proper English, and we could sit around and talk about the YA novel I was writing for them, and that they were the characters in this mythical kingdom. And, yes, they are princesses, if not crotchety one day, and all smiles and goodness the next.
And, in an instant, that whole world was blown away.
Am I angry? I was. A year is too long to be mad at everyone and everything.
Have I a different outlook on life? Yes, I live every day as if it was my last, because the truth is, it just might be.
Can I travel anywhere? No. There’s too much risk in a world where few people under the age of 65 care about consequences.
Is there a reason to live? You may well ask.
I have thought about this often, lying awake in bed every morning, asking myself why I would bother getting up. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do very much.
But…
We have here an almost remarkable record in keeping the coronavirus at bay, so we have some freedom. We can’t leave the country, and every other month a state or two closes its borders, so travelling outside the state is too risky. The schools are back, and I resumed pick-up duties last Friday, and, yes, the sweetness of the complaints about school life is like music to my ears.
Have I a reason to live? Yes. There are three girls, and grandchildren, one 13, one 16, and one 19. The 13-year-old is in the first year of secondary school, the 16-year-old lamenting the fourth year of secondary school, and the 19-year-old is about to embark on the terrors of tertiary education. She can also drive herself, a shred of independence that has changed her outlook, going from a child to someone more mature.
I hadn’t realized how much their lives were in such a constant state of change. Nor had I realized how much they prefer to tell me about it rather than their parents.
So, the answer to that deep and meaningful question is, is there a reason to live?
Yes. We can have so many things we think are essential to living our lives taken away, but in the end, they are all but superficial. You can lose a car, some of your mobility, a house, or any sort of chattel, but they are insignificant. What matters most, and always will, is family. I’m lucky, and indeed, extremely grateful, to have mine so near.
Now I suppose I should be getting to bed. Tomorrow, I have just been informed, I’m rostered on in what is known as ‘poppy’s taxi’.
And ready to hear the next enthralling episode of school life these days.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
A run in with Alex
…
It had been an interesting excursion, with discovery, but not so significant, it meant anything. I went back to Nadia’s hotel room to collect the maps she had in the picnic basket so I could compare them with others because at least two of them had features I’d not seen before.
I was there only for the maps, then left. It had been a long day and she was tired, and I was glad not to be working that night. I also had been thinking about what Boggs was doing, and where, for that matter, he’d been.
I hadn’t seen Boggs for days, and worse, the last time I did see him, we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. It was a long way to fall from when, what seemed less than a week, we were the best of friends.
It seemed his obsession with the treasure hunt had usurped any possibility of being civil or any understanding that there might be more pressing matters in my life, like having to help support my mother.
Perhaps he didn’t realize the nature of my necessity to actually get a job and bring some money onto a household that was struggling just to exist.
For that matter, I had to wonder just how he and his mother managed to exist now that Rico was behind bars with little chance of escaping a prison sentence. Oddly, I felt sorry for him, but I was beginning to believe that Alex and the Benderby’s were responsible for the archaeologist’s death and had used Rico’s boat to stitch him up.
As for Boggs, there was that lingering doubt in his mind that I had crossed to the dark side, associating myself with Nadia, a sworn enemy, and treasure hunting rival.
It was a thought that crossed my mind too and could be argued that she was just using me as a means of getting to the treasure for her family given that she might assume that I stood a better chance of deducing where it was because Boggs had a head start on everyone else, and was still stumbling around in the dark.
That she was willing to help, by means that could have only been facilitated by her family didn’t go unnoticed, and I was a lot warier now of sharing everything I knew with her. I was not that naive to believe she was interested in me for any other reason.
It didn’t really matter because whether I would share any or all information with her or anyone else was largely irrelevant. I was inclined to believe it didn’t exist, or if it had, it was more likely that someone had found it long ago, and like the Cossatino’s later on, promoted the myth for the purpose of exploiting people’s gullibility.
This was, I guess, one of those between a rock and a hard place moment.
A sudden itch on the back of my neck made me turn around and look back in the direction of her room, and I noticed a flutter where the curtain was. Had she been waiting to see if I had gone?
I hated the idea of being suspicious of people’s motives, but the name conjured up all manner of expectations, and I could only imagine what it was like to live with that. Would she ever live a normal life, or even know what normal was?
Did any of us?
“Smidge.”
A voice that would strike terror into the heart of anyone like me.
Alex. Loitering outside the vicinity of Nadia’s hotel. Was he spying on her?
“Alex.”
Beside him was one of his father’s henchmen and it didn’t look good.
“What are you doing here?”
Had he just arrived on his way to see her, or had he been lurking in the shadows? My money was on the latter. He had been the jealous boyfriend once, and it was hard to see him changing.
Truth or dare? Truth. “I was visiting Nadia. But I wouldn’t start assuming it was for any reason other than for her to be questioning me about Boggs’s progress on his treasure hunt, which, by the way, is zero. My guess is you are having more success.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The flash boat on the water, I suspect you’re trying to find a trail of coins from bay to beach in the hope of establishing where it came ashore. I’m sure you have some fancy metal detection going on from the boat. So, any success?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m sure telling Boggs is hardly going to make his investigation move along faster than it is. What would help is the captain’s logbook, and that I suspect was the archaeologist’s trump card, and he died before imparting its whereabouts.”
It was pure speculation on my part, but Alex always lacked a poker face, even back in school when he got into trouble. His expression changed just slightly. So, there was a logbook.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
“This had nothing to do with my father.”
“Perhaps I should tell him that, including your obsession with Nadia.”
Something I should have realized long ago, and just crystallized in my mind, though I was not sure why was the fact Benderby had become almost a regular visitor at our place. If I thought about it, it explained why my mother had suddenly started taking more care of her appearance, and how it came to pass that I could get a job in a place where very few could.
Benderby had always had an interest in my mother, and suddenly I realized they had been to school together, and the words of my father spoken once in anger made sense. He was not her first choice. She may have been Benderby’s first choice back then, but I doubted his family would have sanctioned it.
I wondered what Alex would have thought of that revelation. Since his mother’s death, Benderby had started seeing more of her, and that had to add to Alex’s dislike of me.
“Not a good idea smidge.”
“Not a good idea to be calling me Smidge, Alex.”
A nod from Alex, the henchman took a step forward and grabbed my shirt, and then rammed into the wall.”
Alex laughed, and then suddenly went quiet.
Another voice joined the conversation. “Tell your goon to let him go or I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”
Nadia. Her tone scared me.
“You’re not that stupid,” Alex said in a tone that told me it scared the hell out of him too
“I’m a Cossatino, since when did stupidity rate a mention. We’ve been doing stupid shit forever, and you’re about to join the party.”
“You don’t want to do this.”
“Actually Alex, I do. It’ll get rid of one big problem I have with you, and it’ll get rid of a serial pest. People will thank me.”
I could see her now, behind him, dressed in black, and at first thought, she was a ninja. I could see the knife at his throat, and as she moved it slightly, he jerked drawing blood.
“Let him go,” Alex muttered.
The goon let go of my shirt and stepped back.
“Now go, Alex. Don’t come back. And don’t annoy Smidge again, or you’ll have me to deal with.”
He looked me up and down with a look of distaste. “This isn’t over.”
Nadia gave him a shove and stepped between him and me.
“It is, Alex. I know what you did to that chap you dumped on Rico’s boat. You might not have killed him, but you’re ultimately responsible for his death, and I’m sure the sheriff would like to hear about it. So, go away Alex, and be a good boy and we’ll all keep our little secrets.”
Angry yes, sullen answered resentful, equally so, but reluctantly agreeable. “If you say so.”
A nod to his goon and they left.
There was something else hanging in the air, that statement about keeling little secrets. He’d kept something over her, she had admitted as much to me, but the tables had been turned. But what it was she had over him, it was more than just the archaeologist.
“What was that about?” I had to ask.
“The Benderby’s have lots of secrets Sam, not just Alex. I played a card and it paid off. He won’t bother you again, not seriously anyway.”
“Should I be thanking you, or have I just been dragged down a rabbit hole?”
Perhaps I might have worked it better because she did save me from a certain beating.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
Stating the obvious, there was no easy way out of that question.
“You said it yourself. You’re a Cossatino. I want to believe you, and strangely, given history, I like you perhaps more than I should.”
“Good boys and bad girls, it’s usually the other way around. I wanted to hurt him, believe me, and I meant it when I said we do stupid shit, but I’m trying to be better than that. I want to be better than that. It’s why I need to get away from this place.”
“Then why do you just go? For that matter, why did you come back?”
“Unfinished business.” She took my hand in hers. “And I like being with you. You have a way of making me feel like I can change.”
“You are different.”
“Am I though? I don’t feel like it right now.”
“Well, I am grateful you came along.”
“Good to be a help for once. What’s our next adventure going to be?”
“A picnic in the hills. I want to look at a few caves.”
“The one where Ormiston reportedly went missing? You seem to be on a very macabre Odyssey. What did the newspaper archives turn up?”
“An interesting coincidence. I’ll let you know when I’m free next.”
“I’ll be waiting.” She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips, then leaned back to look me in the eyes.
What I wanted then couldn’t be put into words.
Thank God she blinked.
I kissed her on the cheek, shook my head slightly, and said quietly, ” You will be the death of me.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, ” but you will die a very happy man.”
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
A run in with Alex
…
It had been an interesting excursion, with discovery, but not so significant, it meant anything. I went back to Nadia’s hotel room to collect the maps she had in the picnic basket so I could compare them with others because at least two of them had features I’d not seen before.
I was there only for the maps, then left. It had been a long day and she was tired, and I was glad not to be working that night. I also had been thinking about what Boggs was doing, and where, for that matter, he’d been.
I hadn’t seen Boggs for days, and worse, the last time I did see him, we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. It was a long way to fall from when, what seemed less than a week, we were the best of friends.
It seemed his obsession with the treasure hunt had usurped any possibility of being civil or any understanding that there might be more pressing matters in my life, like having to help support my mother.
Perhaps he didn’t realize the nature of my necessity to actually get a job and bring some money onto a household that was struggling just to exist.
For that matter, I had to wonder just how he and his mother managed to exist now that Rico was behind bars with little chance of escaping a prison sentence. Oddly, I felt sorry for him, but I was beginning to believe that Alex and the Benderby’s were responsible for the archaeologist’s death and had used Rico’s boat to stitch him up.
As for Boggs, there was that lingering doubt in his mind that I had crossed to the dark side, associating myself with Nadia, a sworn enemy, and treasure hunting rival.
It was a thought that crossed my mind too and could be argued that she was just using me as a means of getting to the treasure for her family given that she might assume that I stood a better chance of deducing where it was because Boggs had a head start on everyone else, and was still stumbling around in the dark.
That she was willing to help, by means that could have only been facilitated by her family didn’t go unnoticed, and I was a lot warier now of sharing everything I knew with her. I was not that naive to believe she was interested in me for any other reason.
It didn’t really matter because whether I would share any or all information with her or anyone else was largely irrelevant. I was inclined to believe it didn’t exist, or if it had, it was more likely that someone had found it long ago, and like the Cossatino’s later on, promoted the myth for the purpose of exploiting people’s gullibility.
This was, I guess, one of those between a rock and a hard place moment.
A sudden itch on the back of my neck made me turn around and look back in the direction of her room, and I noticed a flutter where the curtain was. Had she been waiting to see if I had gone?
I hated the idea of being suspicious of people’s motives, but the name conjured up all manner of expectations, and I could only imagine what it was like to live with that. Would she ever live a normal life, or even know what normal was?
Did any of us?
“Smidge.”
A voice that would strike terror into the heart of anyone like me.
Alex. Loitering outside the vicinity of Nadia’s hotel. Was he spying on her?
“Alex.”
Beside him was one of his father’s henchmen and it didn’t look good.
“What are you doing here?”
Had he just arrived on his way to see her, or had he been lurking in the shadows? My money was on the latter. He had been the jealous boyfriend once, and it was hard to see him changing.
Truth or dare? Truth. “I was visiting Nadia. But I wouldn’t start assuming it was for any reason other than for her to be questioning me about Boggs’s progress on his treasure hunt, which, by the way, is zero. My guess is you are having more success.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The flash boat on the water, I suspect you’re trying to find a trail of coins from bay to beach in the hope of establishing where it came ashore. I’m sure you have some fancy metal detection going on from the boat. So, any success?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m sure telling Boggs is hardly going to make his investigation move along faster than it is. What would help is the captain’s logbook, and that I suspect was the archaeologist’s trump card, and he died before imparting its whereabouts.”
It was pure speculation on my part, but Alex always lacked a poker face, even back in school when he got into trouble. His expression changed just slightly. So, there was a logbook.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
“This had nothing to do with my father.”
“Perhaps I should tell him that, including your obsession with Nadia.”
Something I should have realized long ago, and just crystallized in my mind, though I was not sure why was the fact Benderby had become almost a regular visitor at our place. If I thought about it, it explained why my mother had suddenly started taking more care of her appearance, and how it came to pass that I could get a job in a place where very few could.
Benderby had always had an interest in my mother, and suddenly I realized they had been to school together, and the words of my father spoken once in anger made sense. He was not her first choice. She may have been Benderby’s first choice back then, but I doubted his family would have sanctioned it.
I wondered what Alex would have thought of that revelation. Since his mother’s death, Benderby had started seeing more of her, and that had to add to Alex’s dislike of me.
“Not a good idea smidge.”
“Not a good idea to be calling me Smidge, Alex.”
A nod from Alex, the henchman took a step forward and grabbed my shirt, and then rammed into the wall.”
Alex laughed, and then suddenly went quiet.
Another voice joined the conversation. “Tell your goon to let him go or I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”
Nadia. Her tone scared me.
“You’re not that stupid,” Alex said in a tone that told me it scared the hell out of him too
“I’m a Cossatino, since when did stupidity rate a mention. We’ve been doing stupid shit forever, and you’re about to join the party.”
“You don’t want to do this.”
“Actually Alex, I do. It’ll get rid of one big problem I have with you, and it’ll get rid of a serial pest. People will thank me.”
I could see her now, behind him, dressed in black, and at first thought, she was a ninja. I could see the knife at his throat, and as she moved it slightly, he jerked drawing blood.
“Let him go,” Alex muttered.
The goon let go of my shirt and stepped back.
“Now go, Alex. Don’t come back. And don’t annoy Smidge again, or you’ll have me to deal with.”
He looked me up and down with a look of distaste. “This isn’t over.”
Nadia gave him a shove and stepped between him and me.
“It is, Alex. I know what you did to that chap you dumped on Rico’s boat. You might not have killed him, but you’re ultimately responsible for his death, and I’m sure the sheriff would like to hear about it. So, go away Alex, and be a good boy and we’ll all keep our little secrets.”
Angry yes, sullen answered resentful, equally so, but reluctantly agreeable. “If you say so.”
A nod to his goon and they left.
There was something else hanging in the air, that statement about keeling little secrets. He’d kept something over her, she had admitted as much to me, but the tables had been turned. But what it was she had over him, it was more than just the archaeologist.
“What was that about?” I had to ask.
“The Benderby’s have lots of secrets Sam, not just Alex. I played a card and it paid off. He won’t bother you again, not seriously anyway.”
“Should I be thanking you, or have I just been dragged down a rabbit hole?”
Perhaps I might have worked it better because she did save me from a certain beating.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
Stating the obvious, there was no easy way out of that question.
“You said it yourself. You’re a Cossatino. I want to believe you, and strangely, given history, I like you perhaps more than I should.”
“Good boys and bad girls, it’s usually the other way around. I wanted to hurt him, believe me, and I meant it when I said we do stupid shit, but I’m trying to be better than that. I want to be better than that. It’s why I need to get away from this place.”
“Then why do you just go? For that matter, why did you come back?”
“Unfinished business.” She took my hand in hers. “And I like being with you. You have a way of making me feel like I can change.”
“You are different.”
“Am I though? I don’t feel like it right now.”
“Well, I am grateful you came along.”
“Good to be a help for once. What’s our next adventure going to be?”
“A picnic in the hills. I want to look at a few caves.”
“The one where Ormiston reportedly went missing? You seem to be on a very macabre Odyssey. What did the newspaper archives turn up?”
“An interesting coincidence. I’ll let you know when I’m free next.”
“I’ll be waiting.” She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips, then leaned back to look me in the eyes.
What I wanted then couldn’t be put into words.
Thank God she blinked.
I kissed her on the cheek, shook my head slightly, and said quietly, ” You will be the death of me.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, ” but you will die a very happy man.”
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
My hobby was something that only a select few had, and that was searching rubbish dumps for useful items.
But there was one exception.
I didn’t search the average rubbish dump, only those I knew were used by organisations and companies that dumped old technology,
If I was lucky, it would be a government department, and the stuff deemed no longer useful to anyone. I often found old computers, without memory or storage of course, but otherwise intact, and I had an excellent museum of computers, from almost the very first.
It was amazing what some companies disposed of, and in one instance I picked a complete, working, mainframe computer. It filled a substantial part of the barn.
Then there were a half dozen communication radios, not the sort that had a short range, no, these devices had almost worldwide coverage. They were also long-wave radio receivers, and I was able to pick up AM radio stations all over the word, and, sometimes, CB transmissions. It came with several sets of manuals, very thick books that made it daunting reading, so they remained in a wooden crate until boredom set in.
But the radios, were, for now, my new toys to play with.
Late one night I was switching between frequencies, looking for anything that might be interesting, and just caught the end of a transmission, “This is a code Zanzibar, I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Will call same time tomorrow.”
Code Zanzibar?
It had to be someone out there somewhere in the world playing a prank.
Perhaps there would be more, so I would tune in tomorrow, fifteen minutes earlier to see if there was any more to the message.
Meantime, full of curiosity, I wondered if there would be anything in any of the books that came with the radios.
I didn’t sleep that night, going through each one practically page by page because the indexes were missing. It was one of those unexplainable oddities, that made me wonder if there was anything in them that the owners hadn’t wanted anyone to find. That in itself seemed even more odd because if it was the case, why didn’t they destroy them?
Somewhere around shortly before dawn, tired, and bored from reading, I fell asleep.
After yet another bollocking from my father about letting my foolish hobby get in the way of work, I had to work extra hard to make up for it and was too tired to continue my studies. I meant to read more before the transmission time, but luckily remembered to set the alarm,
When the alarm went off, I woke with a jolt and nearly forgot why I set it. I got to the radio just before the transmission.
Then I heard it.
“This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.”
I flicked the switch to send a message, and said, “This is station M. This is station M. Can you identify yourself?”
I had discovered in the documentation that the radio set had been set up in what was designated Station M, and that it was one of 26 around the country.
There was no reply, just the same message, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.” For exactly three minutes, then the sign-off, “Will call same time tomorrow.”
Back to the books, I was in the middle of the sixth of seven volumes, at page 1,457, of 2,500 when I saw the heading “Warning Codes”, and then shuffled through 26 pages until I found “Zanzibar”.
When I read the explanation my heart almost stopped.
“Zanzibar – The threat of an alien attack is imminent – designates that actual alien aircraft have been positively identified and heading towards earth”
What the…
When I read some of the other codes, it showed varying descriptions for a number of events involving aliens, and at first, I thought this referred to other countries than our own, but then, on another page I realised that aliens meant aliens from outer space.
And the fact everyone but a few debunked the idea there was other life out there, it made no sense. That transmission could not have come from anywhere on Earth. At least, I didn’t think so, because there had been nothing in the documentation about similar stations in other countries.
Still utterly gobsmacked, I kept reading and found a page where certain information hadn’t been redacted. That was something else. Before the books had been thrown away, a lot of information had been redacted.
Why hadn’t it been destroyed, if it was that sensitive?
This page had a name, Professor Edward Bones. It looked like it had been missed.
Perhaps I could call and ask him what this all meant.
I spend hours trying to match the surname with the locale of where I found the stuff, thinking the original Station M would be nearby. It wasn’t easy because the name wasn’t in the current phone book, so I had to dig a little deeper and find where historical phone records were kept.
That got me the Professor’s address and phone number, and the University he worked at. A search on his name told me he was associated with SETI which had to do with tracking communications, if any, from outer space.
I called the number, but it was decommissioned. No surprise. If I did the math, the Professor would be a hundred and twenty-two if he was still alive, I did the next best thing, I went to the address.
It was a hundred and fifty miles, a long way to go and pin hopes on finding something. The university was on the other side of the country so going there was out of the question. It was hard enough to get my father to let me have the day off for this trip.
It was a gated community just off the main highway, a group of houses set aside on their own, now looking rather worse for wear. There was no longer a gate, but the was a guard house, holes on the roof and broken windows, a divided driveway with what was once lawn and flower beds, all now overgrown leading to a fountain in the middle of a roundabout that led, one way to houses, one way to a shopping centre and the other, sports fields.
It looked to me like this was a purpose-built community, perhaps to look after the radio receivers, waiting for a call that may never come.
And just had.
I drove to the Professor’s house and parked out front. It looked in better condition than those on either side, and when I looked in, saw signs of habitation. Someone was living in it. Not the professor’s ghost I hope.
I waited.
It was nearly dark before a battered Ford pickup stopped in the driveway and what looked to be an old man get out.
He saw me as I got out of my car, and come towards him. He didn’t look surprised, which was worrying.
“Did you know Professor Bones,” I asked? It was unlikely.
“My father, yes. Are you from the government? I have nowhere else to go.”
“No. I’m not. Did you know much about what your father did?”
“Why? Is this going to be another character assassination piece? Are you a reporter?”
“Me? No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to ask someone, anyone, if they knew what Cade Zanzibar really means. It can’t possibly mean there’s an imminent alien invasion.”
His expression changed instantly, and it was clear he did know what it meant.
“How do you know anything about Station M, that was top secret, and no one knows, no one still alive that is, other than a few fools back in Washington.”
“I rescued the radio receivers and documents from a dump. I collect old technology. It was just sitting there. I took it home, connected it up, and listened. For the last two nights, there’s been this transmission, ‘This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent’.
“My God. Where are they now?”
“My place.”
“Where?”
I told him.
“We have to go. Now. Take me. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
It was the stuff of science fiction comics. Transmission had been received, many years back, from what was believed an alien race under attack from another. He hesitated before he said it was believed there was life on Mars, but selling the idea there were Martians didn’t go too well. However, the government decided to piggyback onto the moon landings, and several other missions, one on the Moon, one to Mars, one to Jupiter and another to Saturn.
Not on the planets. But space stations orbiting the planets, sort of early warning stations. That first transmission had the implied threat that the aggressive aliens were heading towards Earth.
Apparently not as fast as was suspected. The stations were built, volunteers were sent on the premise they might never come home, and supplies were sent via a launching pad on the moon. While we were still discussing the possibility of launching missions to the other planets, it had already been done, And no one knew.
Expect the Professor, who lost the plot when the government shut down the program and virtually abandoned these people in the outer space stations.
And that was the purpose of Station M. To maintain communications with the space stations, and the moon base. When they were closed, the stations disappeared. Where I visited the Professor’s son, that was the whole base, kept isolated, and under very tight security.
“All I can think of is that one of the space stations is still in operation, manned by someone who has to be one of the oldest people alive, or they figured out how to automate a message given certain parameters. Anyway, if there’s a transmission tonight, we’ll soon find out.”
All I could think of was that I’d just unearthed the biggest secret of all time. One that it was likely I could never tell anyone about.
Unless there really were aliens coming to attack us.
A minute or so later, the transmission came in, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent”.
Bones had already looked over the units and certified they were in full working order and showed me the sequence of switches that turned on two-way communications.
After the message, he switched to transmit, “This is Station M, repeat, this is Station M receiving you. Please advise details.”
He switched back to receive and static burst out of the speaker. This went on for a minute, then a weak voice. “Is that you Freddie?”
“Yes. The Prof’s son. Who are you?”
“Alistair Montgomery. I was last to arrive when I was six. There are two of us left. I think Saturn and Mars have ceased. What happened back there?”
“Funding. Lack of results. Bean-counting accountants thought ramping up for wars at home was more important. We knew it would happen one day.
“Five years, Freddie.”
“Your transmission? Code Zanzibar. Is it relevant, or just to get our attention?”
“It’s real. We saw about 50 large ships go by on the long-range radar. Heading for the earth, not moving very fast. I estimate they would take several days to reach to outer limits of our Thermosphere.”
“They didn’t come to see you?”
“No. Sad, because I was hoping to be the first to meet an alien. That might yet be you.”
“Are you going to be OK up there? I can’t tell you we coming to get you.”
“We knew what we were signing on for. But it would be nice if you could keep in touch/.”
“Do what I can. Over and out.”
He went around the back of the unit, and I heard what sounded like the ejecting of a cassette tape. When he came back, he showed it to me. “This should make the bastards sit up and take notice.”
He grabbed his coat. “We have to go. Take me to the nearest airport.”
We made it outside to the car when three black SUV’s pulled up abruptly and a dozen armed men got out and surrounded us.
Then a man in a suit got out of the lead vehicle and came over.
Bones recognised him.
“I didn’t think it would take you long. Been monitoring for transmissions, have you?”
“We knew your father didn’t follow orders but had no proof. Who are you,” he glared at me.
“I rescued the radios.”
He sighed. “Bloody contractors. Never do as they’re told.” He shook his head. “Cuff them and throw them in the car.”
They might have, had it not been for one minor matter. In the half-light of night, it suddenly went quite dark, except for the car headlights, until suddenly the whole area was lit up like a movie studio. We all looked up and…
I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.
This might give some clues to the players, and the events.
…
So, the question is, how did I find myself in such a situation.
It came down to choices, as it always does.
And, from the very moment I met Wendy Mauson, I knew life with her, if it came to pass, would be interesting.
She was a popular girl; one of the cheer squad that made their presence felt at most sports. Her usual boyfriend was Garry Frobish, star quarterback and mainstay of the football team. I played basketball, after a fashion, because I had not had the necessary growth spurt in those vital teen years, I found myself relegated to guard, of which there were many.
How did we meet? By accident. Garry, Wendy, and I were all at the same party, Garry made a mistake, they had a huge fight, and I was there. It was not one of those right time right-place events, she just picked me as the most level-headed of those on offer that night. But, I had no illusions, and whilst it was on again and off again over the next year, her real interest, and love of her life was Garry.
So, how did I finish up with Wendy? Wendy and Garry came together as a couple at the prom, and it looked like it was a perfect match. Until he got her pregnant, she wouldn’t get rid of the baby and he dumped her. Who was next, me. Did I know she was pregnant? No. That I discovered much later, at a hospital in tragic circumstances.
But, blissfully ignorant, and universally loved by her family, we were married. And not long after a son, Dale, was born.
I should have recognised the signs in the few months after the birth, where she was rather self-absorbed for a time. Had I investigated it, I would have discovered that she had been seeing Garry again, but that, too, wasn’t discovered until much later too.
But despite the ups and downs, we managed to get along as a family once she settled into the idea of being a mother until Dale was old enough to go to school. Then she went back to work, in the office of the company that was owned by Garry’s parents.
I thought it a coincidence, but, like I said, she managed to keep it all under a shroud of secrecy for many years.
Until the unlikely happened, as it always does. Secrets are not secrets if more than one person knows about it, and if there are more, well, it doesn’t take long for it to become common knowledge.
One of Dale’s friends told him, under the category of ‘can you keep a secret’, that my wife and Garry were ‘old’ friends, and that it had been going on for years. How this ‘friend’ knew about it was never explained, but it turned out to be true.
I spoke to her about it, and she assured me that, yes, they did meet, but it was not like ‘that’. I gave her the benefit of the doubt but followed her a few times observing them together, and it seemed to be as she said.
Then Dale was killed. It was a senseless accident that in any other situation would have seen him walk away with just a few scratches. He was rushed to the hospital and since he was a rare blood type, they tested me, and his mother. Neither of us was a match, which seemed odd. But even when they found a donor, in actual fact Garry, though I didn’t know it at the time, it was too late. In fact, when I identified the body, there was not a mark on him. He had sustained a slight bump to the head which activated an aneurysm.
A week after, when we had the funeral, and everyone came, commiserated, and left, the doctor remained. An old basketball friend, he gave me a piece of paper and told me to read it later. I did. DNA proved that Dale was Garry and Wendy’s son, not mine.
Even then, I was willing to let it go. Wendy had taken Dale’s death hard and decided the only way she could recover was to go away for a while. And not with me. Not a surprise, because we had been arguing a lot, over money, and the way she spent it like it was water, and I thought she had found someone else, and that was who she was going away with.
But, taking her sister was supposed to throw me off the scent.
I guess if you were going to try and continue hiding a secret relationship, you would take steps to prevent the other from finding out. Perhaps her grief had got in the way and clouded her thinking, or she was just in a hurry to leave.
Three weeks later, a phone bill arrived at home, for a phone I certainly didn’t have, so it had to be hers. On it were calls and texts to two numbers, one was Garry’s, the other to a man who was simply a code name. Whilst she had left me numbers of the places she was staying, and with instructions only to call if someone was dying, I did try once, and a man answered.
I put two and two together.
And kept it to myself. Along with all of the evidence, which consisted of a number of accounts, one from a hotel, several from car rental companies and a rental agreement for a flat, one that cost a considerable amount each month, and, when I checked through the finances, which I left her in charge of, I discovered large discrepancies in what she said we had, and what was there.
And, with all the accounts from her recovery ‘holiday’ put on the ‘no limit’ credit card which had to be paid, it took what was left. I was left with the choice of going bankrupt or selling assets. I did the latter, first the condominium in Bermuda, and then the lakeside holiday shack by the lake up country. We rarely used either, so I took the gamble she wouldn’t find out.
Then she came back, I handed the accounts back to her and said nothing. As far as she was aware, the main accounts had sufficient funds to pay the bills, and any money I’d earned in her absence had been squirrelled away.
Perhaps, by that time, I could see the end was nigh.
As it was when Garry was found murdered and set off the chain of events that saw me being implicated in his murder, by Wendy, but for reasons she thought I didn’t know about.
That was about to change when I was summoned to a meeting at her lawyer’s office. I didn’t know she personally had one. Then, there was a lot about Wendy I knew nothing about.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 