Chapter One

The rumble of automatic fire faded, a Doppler shift of reassurance as the rolling street combat moved away from Dan’s house. He put down his Steyr rifle, checked the locks on his steel plated door, then slumped back into the chair, gun within easy reach and his damaged leg propped up on the sticky surface of the kitchen table, easing the gnawing ache in his knee.

He could tell, based on the sporadic thwumps, that it was a street gang engaged with the military; too much petrol, not enough automatic weapons fire.

Idiots, wasting petrol.

He had some power, the electric light overhead flickered between yellow and brown, but it wasn’t enough to run his short wave radio set. That would take hand cranking, but he didn’t mind doing it by hand if it kept him in contact with the rest of the world.

The radio set hummed, building up charge as he whirred the crank, and he began the slow scan of the bands, looking for his regular contacts.

Mikey, cab driver and black marketeer, mad enough to run blockades while charging by the kilometer, ran his empire by shortwave radio. Dan’s parents had a radio, too, in the four wheel drive they’d fled east in. Dan’s father, a ’Nam veteran, had packed up Dan’s mother, the two farm dogs, and all the food they could carry and headed for safety after the first bombing run. Dan didn’t expect to be able to make radio contact with them any time soon. The Red Cross base at the Merredin refugee camp had a listening post. And there was Jake, his ex, who would be on patrol with his unit, somewhere in the city.

The set crackled, and Jake’s voice was tinny. “Hey,” Jake said. “I’ve been waiting for you to appear.”

“Sorry,” Dan said. “But someone was trying to blow up my neighborhood. Glad you waited around for me.”

The set crackled and hummed, switching back to Jake. “Have you got room at the moment?” Jake asked. “For a baby?”

This was what Dan did; he fostered children orphaned by the hostilities: police action, not war. No one was supposed to call the war a war. He could have been safe on his parents’ abandoned farm at Wyalkatchem, but the only orphans out there were lambs, and he was over lambs.

“Sure,” Dan said, and the set hissed and spat, then went silent.

Jake hadn’t said when he’d bring the child over, but Dan wouldn’t have minded betting that he’d be caring for a traumatized toddler for the rest of that night.

It took him time, hobbling with a walking stick, to check the spare bedroom. He had a clean bed, made up ready, and a cot, too. He had a pile of cloth squares, familiar khaki, made from cut up sheets, which worked as nappies. The Red Cross kept him supplied with formula. They considered Dan a field worker and delivered food and essentials erratically.

Water on to boil. Second pan on, too. Drop his meagre supply of feeding bottles and teats in. Jake had said ‘baby,’ but Dan knew that Jake called everyone under the age of twelve a baby. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared, and sometimes an older child who was deeply shocked wanted a bottle for the comfort.

The water had just started to roil around the glass bottles when Dan caught the sound of an APC approaching, rumbling closer, then grinding to a halt outside his house. The rest of the street was unoccupied; he was the only resident left, but he still picked up his rifle, and checked that his ex-Army Browning pistol was tucked into his belt.

He didn’t have electronic security, but that was definitely Jake’s pound on the door, three thuds, two, and then four. The steel bar across the door was heavy to lift one-handed, but even if he’d doubted the thuds, there was a persistent wail from an infant coming through the steel.

“All right,” he called out, propping the bar against the wall, then pulling the door open. “All right.”

Jake’s eyes were visible through the flipped up visor of his helmet, but it was the baby in Jake’s arms that Dan was interested in.

“Hey sweetie,” he crooned, taking the infant, wrapped in someone’s sweater, out of Jake’s arms. “Don’t be scared, you’re safe now.”

Safer. There wasn’t anywhere in the city that was actually safe.

Continued in First Section