2023 Read online



  2023

  By Andrew Jennings

  Copyright 2011 Andrew Jennings

  Chapter 1

  The number 96 tram was a monument to randomness – nobody really wanted to go from Brunswick to St Kilda. At least not unless it was a really hot summers day. Even the tram itself told you something about the city. A lurking irrationality. We all liked that.

  It snaked through the inner north. Slowly. Rattling and jerking. Riding the trams was like an initiation rite. As it accelerated away from the stop you were lucky if you didn't end up sprawled on the floor.

  More crowded on the tram as we approached the city. Revellers coming in to go to the New Year celebrations. Mostly young people. Expectations.

  On the flat as we travelled south from the river the tram got into open space. Not so many on now. It gathered speed. More a rat-a-tat than a slow clack-clack. Racing away towards the beach.

  I'd persuaded Phil to come. Took a bit of doing. We were both a bit insular now. Cliches. Fourties. Not married. On the way to becoming invisible. He had that ‘smartest guy in the room’ look. Think early Bill Gates. He had unkempt long dark hair that fell about his face. Even now that he was in his 40’s. Wore glasses. He looked like somebody who spent long hours sitting in a room starting at computers. Which of course he did. But if you looked closer you could see evidence of his hobbies. Most of which centred around late night drinking sessions.

  Phil worked at a software company. I called it the kindergarten. He was ancient for that industry. A manager of a small army of twenty somethings. Becoming a manager was one of those things that you did. For the money. He was by far the most skilled programmer I'd ever seen, and I figured that was what he'd rather be doing.

  I worked for a telecommunications company. The largest one. At the wall of lights I called it. Operations Center. Bit like a war room. On the upside, it was connected to everything that happened. Mostly it was leaden boredom interspersed with the occasional bout of total chaos.

  Phil and I went way back. We'd worked together for about ten years when I first started out. We'd become friends and somehow stayed friends.

  My pitch was ‘Female 30 somethings that are single will most likely go to the St Kilda New Year’s Eve beach event.’ I backed it up with some invented statistics and social research. It got his attention anyway. Enough to get him there. Once there I figured he'd just go with the flow.

  The next stop was crowded. People milling about. Most of them looked like they had been sleeping rough. Lights came on above the doors, and the doors locked. ‘Security countermeasures’ the sign said. White gas spewed out from the outside of the tram. High up. It sort of rolled out. Waves of white enveloped the crowd. Those it got fell to the ground. They were not moving. Nobody on the tram paid any attention to it.

  The lights went off and on we rolled towards the beach. Big sign as we approached the terminus. ‘Happy New Year 2023.’

  “Party. Party. Party.” I said.

  “Ha. It looks like a pensioner's picnic.”

  True. We were a bit early. I was sure it would pick up later. Not so sure about the 30 somethings.

  There was a band playing, with a precious few revellers huddled around the stage. So we went for a walk along the beach.

  “How's the wall of lights. Still worshipping?” Phil asked.

  “Sure. Weeping. Wailing. Every afternoon we have a prayer meeting.” I said.

  “Keeping the universe balanced and smoothly working.”

  “How about you. Kindergarten going ok? Still getting them to sleep on their mats after lunch?”

  “Yes. So young. Frighteningly young. Breathlessly eager. All I need to do is point them in a general direction. Like greyhounds chasing a white rabbit.”

  “Why do we bother?”

  “Higher ideals. A moral purpose. The pursuit of excellence.”

  We both burst out laughing. But why did we bother? It was not as if we had anybody to leave it to. Better to find a beach somewhere. Far away from the conflict, far from everything.

  “Still got that beach hut reserved at Phuket?” I asked.

  “Sitting. Waiting. Just a phone call and a plane ride away. Make sure I send a Christmas card each year to the tax office.”

  It was a little overcast. Even cold. Not that it really got cold at this time of year. Not anymore.

  As we walked we came to the perimeter fence. It divided the patrolled beach from the open beach outside. Razor wire on the top. On the outside the homeless sprawled. Since the beach was originally open public space, it was one of the first places to be camped out.

  “Time to turn around and fight our way through the single 30 somethings.” he said.

  So it went. The sun sailed into the horizon. The music got louder. We stood at the far edge of the crowd. As the night wore on I could even see Phil talking to a couple of quite attractive looking 30 somethings.

  At midnight the crowd surged. A big 2023 in fireworks lit up the sky, and everyone cheered. Then it was back towards the city on the brightly lit 96 tram.

 

  Chapter 2

  Stabbing light. Through the window, the blind. It was a tiny apartment. Really only two rooms - the living/bedroom type room and the bathroom. There was a cooking corner, but I’d long since given up cooking at home. I had a slight hangover from the new year celebrations.

  Brave new world. So it went. New year, new possibilities. Time yet for the brutal reality to kick in. For the moment I stumbled out into Gardenvale Road into the cafe. As a regular, I could just fall into my corner and it would all appear. Mohammed ran a tight cafe. He smiled at me, bringing a bowl of muesli.

  “A great celebration for the new year.” he said

  I grimaced.

  “I went to the beach party at Elwood.”

  “Ah. The girls. The abandon.”

  I expect Mohammed would have been in bed by 9. To open the cafe in the morning. I grinned. There was an element of regret in his voice.

  “You stick with the family Mohammed. Much better.”

  It was a lazy day. I stared out down the street towards the major intersection. Nepean Highway.

  I had a head up display on the glasses that gave me newsfeeds, or anything I wanted. All I had to do was think about navigating and it would shift the content and navigate. In my not quite competent state it was skipping a bit. Phil had posted some footage from the night before. It played in the background.

  I jumped about in the feeds. Usual stuff. Drought. They still called it that. What do you call it? Permanent shortage of rain? New climate? Still the vocabulary had to catch up.

  Crisis talks. Always. New permutations. China and India alternately hosted these talks. The western powers, UK, the US and a smaller and smaller Japan shuffled between Shanghai and Delhi. Resources. Climate. Antagonisms. The new world, losing patience with the old.

  Here on the street in Gardenvale that all seemed a bit surreal. It was peaceful enough. Crowds walking. Bicycles swarming. A car went past every minute or so. I looked at the traffic lights. They seemed a bit silly, overkill for the task at hand. I was almost sentimental about the time when they were needed more.

  Everybody planned their personal future. The blank sheet. I finished up breakfast and went back to head for the beach. Straight down Gardenvale Rd, only a few blocks away.

  It was magic. That you could just walk to the beach. As a kid it had seemed the ultimate luxury. Instead of an expedition, crammed into a car, or a train, you just strolled there. Did it feel like luxury still? Yes, it did.

  Down Martin Street. Serious mansions here. If you stood back and looked from a distance, maybe a bit out of focus, it all looked normal. Or at least as it was a few years ago.

  If you looked closer,
it was clearly not. How many are still occupied? Some were clearly abandoned. Grass knee high, windows broken, or boarded up. Every second house was showing signs of lack of occupation.

  The smart money. The old money. Long gone. Not the new world order for them. Younger ones moving first. Stockbrokers. Managers. Off to Mumbai, or Shanghai. For the older ones it was a gated community outside of Auckland, or Christchurch. Hydro power. Most importantly, still plenty of ocean between you and the world’s problems.

  I liked the way the street ended and there you were on the beach. I walked a little further north, and stretched out on the beach not far from last night’s party. On the other side of the fence. There wasn’t as much sand now.

  On the beach, young families huddled in the shadows. Kids playing. Splashing. Then you scanned back, and there were the tents. For them this wasn’t a day out at the beach. This was home. I liked the way I could still leave my stuff on my towel, go for a swim, and it would still be there when I came back. I wondered how long that would be the case.

  Putting the glasses on, I managed to raise Phil.

  “Kicked on, did you?” I asked

  “Of course. I assume you went straight to the nursing home.”

  This was a reference to our age differences. Phil was all of two years younger than me.

  “Pretty much. Stuffed.”

  “Well you missed the grand tour. Finished up at the sensorium down by Docklands. I was giving the teenagers a lesson in how to play.”

  Computer games. Phil’s ability in anything that remotely resembled a computer carried over into games. I could just picture him there blitzing all comers. Cognitive aging didn’t come into it.

  “New year. New start.”

  “Absolutely. That’s what I have been telling the Princesses. It’s the year of Phil.”

  “Sure. Just like last year.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Another year of our endless enthusiasm for the cause. Brightest of the brightest. Best of the best.”

  Phil grinned.

  “Of course. Three sigma.”

  “I’m really looking forward to more worship at the wall of lights.”

  “Can’t wait to get back to the kindergarten.”

  “Coming to the beach?”

  “No. Need more recovery.”

  If you de-focussed and stared out to sea, all you could see was the water. Flat blue water. If I focussed in closer all I could see was the newsfeeds. What is the point of a low emissions economy if the old economy is still pushing out the emissions at the old rate? So the tension began to grow.

  Here in Melbourne these tensions were not what people worried about. Here the tension related directly to the temperature. The hotter it got, the more tense it got. Like a collective growing hysteria.

 

  Chapter 3

  Back at the wall of lights, it was like a graveyard. Much as I hated the lead up to the end of the year, this was worse. I stared at the wall and struggled to find signs of life.

  It was the same for Phil.

  “Not many takers for the pursuit of excellence?” I asked.

  “No. They seem to prefer a cold beer and a beach. Can’t understand it.”

  Too much time on our hands. Flitting across news. Looking for something, anything.

  I took to trawling the social networks. I could see a new video of a bicycle ride through Melbourne. Fast. Furious. Helmet camera. Started up near the cemetery, then down Swanston St, up an alley, then down the hill to the bike path along the Yarra. Camera panned for a full panoramic as the bike went under the bridges. At the end of the ride, a short shot back to the grinning rider. With the tag “Kylie’s favourite bike ride.”

  I played it again. I put it in a loop. I tagged Kylie’s posts. So now I had a customised Kylie feed.

  “You are a tragic fossil fool.”

  “Bicycle futures. The only futures worth buying.”

  So it went. I just leaned back in the chair. Watching the video and watching Kylie’s messages. They just kept coming.

  In the morning you could still watch the traffic build up on the freeway. I wondered for how much longer. No oil, no petrol, no cars. So I was almost sentimental as I watched it grow. The Hoddle Street end of the Eastern freeway. Four lanes wide, stretching back into the middle distance. Maybe there will be cars right up to the last day? Or will there be a black market, the privileged few speeding through at a speed they would only have dreamed of? I stared at the queue of cars. Looked about a kilometre long.

  Something was happening. A hundred or more cyclists coming down the emergency lane. Got my attention. Protest ride? That’s great, I thought. Maybe they are getting in practice for when they have the whole thing to themselves.

  They filtered through the stopped cars, making their way to the end. Strangely, they were stopping in some sort of formation. About a car apart. This was really weird. I couldn’t make any sense of it. A few people in the room picked up on it, and zoomed for a closer look. I turned on the audio: nothing, just idling cars.

  The lead cyclist looked back, checking to see that everything was in formation. Perfectly arranged, in a grid. I heard a whistle blow on the audio. Then I realised that each of the cyclists had a jerry can. In a synchronised movement, they all unscrewed the top of the can, and started spreading petrol all over the cars.

  One or two of the drivers got out. Remonstrated. But the cyclists started riding away, synchronised in response to another whistle. Except for the leader, at the front. He stood back, looking, then in a high arc he threw a lighted torch into the pool of petrol.

  Those that had watched, and understood what was going on, made a getaway. But the flames consumed the cars, and quite a few of the drivers. The wind carried it back. A small wall of flame.

  Now everyone in the room was standing, silently, looking at the screen. In the top left corner of the screen, it appeared: “W4”.

  Chapter 4

  The Padley building. It dominated the skyline. Padley was the local force in finance. Built up over the period following 2012, when they ran a series of brilliant short trades on commodities. Reminiscent of George Soros taking on the supposed might of the British pound. He won, and took with him about a billion dollars. The original Padley, now lost in time, made a similar stand against the might of the Chinese driven commodity market. He was rumoured to have made around $A3 billion dollars. More than enough to pay for the Padley building, and plenty more besides.

  Nowadays they were the major player in the futures markets. It wasn't that early, but it was slow. Steve and Marcus were doing their "Masters of the Universe" rap. It kept them amused.

  "Short on BHP." Steve

  "Sell the dollar." Marcus

  "Start a rumour of oversupply in the Shanghai spot market."

  "Huge contract on oil."

  "Slam-dunk."

  Too slow. Too quiet. It really dragged. You could almost see the second hand of the clock moving. Kate wandered past. Sensed the mood.

  "Go and have a coffee. It will warm up later."

  So down they went to the fifth floor to the cafeteria. Didn't need any encouragement. Empty. Seats at the window. They got a panoramic view of the street below. Just a hint of the view towards the bay.

  "Plenty of activity in the green sector." Marcus said.

  "Serious money. Who are they?”

  “Everyone. No-one. Chinese. Indian."

  "Agenda?"

  "Conquer the world. Usual stuff."

  "Short coal?"

  "More active than that. Total destruction. Scorched earth."

  "Interesting."

  "Place for us?"

  "You'd have to learn how to put on a tie."

  "I'd have to learn to enunciate."

  Marcus looked down at the street. Yes, vowels would be an issue. Here it was only your ability to move the dollars about that mattered.

  As they sat, the street below suddenly filled with people. All t
hey could see was the crowd surging.

  "What's this?" asked Steve.

  "Mass grab."

  "Huh?"

  "See the hackers there. They are disabling the security, isolating the shops. Crowd follows, grabbing everything."

  "I see."

  As they went up in the lift they were grateful for the building's security. Entering the trading room, it was like putting on a favourite jacket.

  "Set phasors to stun."

  "Aye captain."

 

  Chapter 5

  Newcastle was not such a large town. Far enough from the main cities to still have a rural feel to it. You could almost forget it was there. Then when you wandered down to the river harbour, you found the largest coal port in the world. The huge cargo ships being filled to capacity with coal. Then if you looked East, out to sea, on a clear day you could see the queue of ships stretching out to the horizon. That queue had been there as long as anyone could remember.

  In the harbour, on the sea bottom, the robot mines had completed their long journey. Several months ago they had been launched far out to sea, in international waters. They travelled at depth, out of sight of any surveillance. Only surfacing to recharge their solar panels and communicate. Narrow beam communication to low flying satellites. Slowly they made their way, drifting with the currents and powering when necessary.

  Arriving at Newcastle, they sat on the bottom, waiting for the moment. The harbour, and the sea lanes were controlled in a room not unlike the wall of lights. Big screens. Displays of ship positions. Getting the ships in and out quickly was important. Delays here became delays in remote ports. Remote steel furnaces, electricity generators. Mostly those destinations were in the cold latitudes. The poor latitudes. Where the sun didn’t shine so brightly.

  It was a still night. The moon was only half full, but you could still see most of the harbour. Sea calm. It was a struggle for the room operators to stay awake. The line of red markers showed the line of ships. Out of the window, the first of them could be seen. The deck lights visible.

  The first mine stirred. It expelled some water that it had taken on as ballast, and began to float upwards. Only a metre a minute or so. It was not in a hurry. At the stern and at the bow, another two mines rose in a synchronised manner. Slowly rising.