Dark Logic 3 here … Dark Logic 5
Part Two
I
There’d been something theatrical about the whole thing, there really had. It was not just stupid what they’d been caught up in but deadly too of course … any sort of adventure was long past, if there had ever been any.
They were in this disused redoubt once used by the Norwegian government but now long abandoned, it was one of his secret retreats … and he had a few … making it habitable would be the ladies’ work, being sexist about it all … they had the skill, he didn’t have he reasoned, they were actually delighted … what was their budget?
The most bizarre aspect though was they were now leading one of the enemy, Cleo, straight to one of the hideaways and did anyone fully trust her … if at all? If it was for real, then she was now just as much a fugitive as them but what goes through such a woman’s brain? Turn them in, redeeming herself? Going back to live that way?
Was this going to be any better? No one loved her there, liked her … they did here … but what if there was some hold still over her? Her mother, a child? Would she try to signal? Escape? It had gone through everyone’s mind and she knew it had.
Cam had loved Jeanne, not this brash Cleo … and yet Jeanne had betrayed them … him. In the worst way. Why?
Despite being the multiple murderess she was though, Cleo was bouncy, bright and breezy … if she were onside with them, with him, she’d be all the partner you’d want.
That was it though, he mused … did he want? And she was well aware of this, he’d not been her first choice either, maybe not even her seventh or eighth … he’d certainly be soon after that in the pecking order. But she knew what he felt about her … they’d been sworn enemies, no? There was no basis for trust.
It was bizarre.
And so here they were … pleasant enough outside this redoubt when not storm-racked, warm enough in summer … better than extended torture and a gruesome death anyway. And they had food, plus a means of provisioning … that was Cam’s biz. And they had enough survival vegetation inside, many cackling hens and a few roosters too … they were looking to convert one of the collapsed rooms at the end into a pond, put in some fish …
These early days, those two were inseparable, they walked the paths he knew between the rocks, they covered every topic under the sun … they’d tried their first tentative ahem (cough) … kiss.
It wasn’t that in the least which now freaked the two of them out, it was a humble grasshopper they both saw basking on a rocky outcrop.
This far north.
And both immediately fell upon the same thought …
They looked at one another. The grasshopper looked at them. They went back down the path, back inside the complex, but instead of returning to the others, he led her down a narrow passage to a sort of broad cave and piled up along the walls were all sorts of containers of all sorts of chemicals, plus fertilizers, plus medicines of all things.
He stepped between containers stacked further into the earthen ‘room’, she followed, until he stopped by a dozen plastic containers, each five litres … Fipronil.
‘It’s banned in what was the EU before that was subsumed into the global authority, Euro branch. I never brought and stored it here, they’ve not been a Euro problem, locusts, they have though anywhere hot … Africa, middle-east, downunder. But it’s not unknown this far north, it has actually happened … there’s always a midge problem here.’
‘You know the science behind these critters?’
‘Once I saw the Fipronil, I checked it out back in England. It kills em all right, but applied indiscriminately … in our water, on crops, on the grass … it eventually kills us too. I thought it was interesting finding these tubs in this redoubt. And they’re not decades old either … none of em are older than ten years.’
‘A commercial killing too for someone who could induce a plague, plus hold the solution to that plague.’
‘And here’s our first ethical test, Cleo … innit.’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
Then: ‘Did Jeanne know? Do we tell the others?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Ah … right … I see.’
She cogitated, he looked down, away, over at a row of chemicals.
‘We tell them, if there were any point to making ‘money’ now … now it’s gone digital I mean … I can’t see how we could turn it to our advantage.’
‘The science also says they can only be controlled in a small area … you have to dig trenches around the nymphs … they go on scent, there’s a scent they produce, drives em mad, they transform into huge swarms just like that.’
‘Chilling.’ She thought again. ‘Ok, we go back and tell them. Can these things fly?’
‘Generally they don’t, they jump … but they can … huge swarms high in the air … not millions or billions … trillions.’
‘Nightmare.’
II
‘So,’ asked Faye after they’d heard it all … ‘do we go out and kill all those we find, now … or do we put up some sort of wire mesh?’
‘We talk it out and vote,’ said Cam.
‘Is it something,’ asked Cait, ‘that we really need concern ourselves about? I mean, what chance them swarming here and even if they did, could they get in here and eat our supplies?’
‘I’m more concerned about provisions arriving after that, our supply chain. They react to loss of food in the habitat. We’re not in a lush area, it’s not a warm climate, but there’s enough food for them for now. The issue is the instant that line’s crossed. And how did they even get here?’
‘Brought,’ said Sven, ‘along with the antidote … by limited brains. Anything else of the kind in that cave?’
‘Haven’t fully explored yet, we might do that tomorrow if that’s all right. Immediate question, as Faye said … do we go out and kill them now, the ones we can find? What if that’s enough to trigger the swarming?’
‘There’s also a biblical side to this,’ put in Faye. ‘It’s possible our killing them incurs wrath. Not saying it will and I’ll be first out there with the spray but … but …’
‘I actually agree,’ said Cleo. ‘I’m thinking we just slowly secure this place, start growing our own food in here, if we could work out a way to let sunshine in but seal off the gap when we had to.’
‘That last bit is already in … a skylight system, we’ll check it over tomorrow.’
Said Cait, ‘What about our scent? Could that trigger them? If we were, say, making love?’
No replies.
‘I’m thinking,’ she went on, ‘that we need to watch out for any getting in here, at any time … for any reason.’
‘What Faye said,’ said Lee ‘…I think we need to … er … behave ourselves, fly straight, do right things … I don’t really know how to say it but I do feel it’s not wise to … well … to tempt things. I’d say don’t kill them right now, stay away, as we would from wasps.
‘Plus one more thing I read,’ said Faye.
All eyes were on her.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘I looked this sort of thing up while I was browsing … I was wondering why many plants don’t grow under conifers … pines, that sort of thing. Well, there seem to be myths and truths. Whether they poison the ground or it’s the light blockage or whether it’s the dry dirt around the roots or whether it’s the sap or other resin type things … well it was not certain as far as I could see.’
She paused and all eyes were still on her.
‘Right,’ she said again, ‘other things turned up, as they do. In 1874, there was a locust plague in the western part of America, up into Canada too. Um … no … 1915 I think it was. Anyway, the locusts gave Saskatchewen a wide berth … especially the coniferous parts … hillsides, mountainsides … anywhere with conifers.’
They looked at one another and she went on …
‘Yep, I do mean that, I am definitely hinting at that. We’re covered in conifers, so where exactly did you two see your little hopper?’
Said Cam: ‘You’re quite right … it looks out over a clearing … grasses and wildflowers, the only one accessible from the redoubt. There are plenty of clearings in the area, fields, not much agriculture as such … food’s brought in and stored, the downside of being in here. It’s interesting all right.’
Sven added: ‘I suppose flamethrowers are out of the question in this area?’
‘They’re in a separate room to the containers … we do have them … ten all up. Problem is they’ll take out the eggs the locusts lay but not all of them in full swarm … we just have to batten down if it happens …’
‘Skylight?’ asked Lee.
‘Yes, an issue … we need it open for ventilation plus sun and rain on our mini-crops. Yes, we could go a few days, maybe a week … but these swarms go on for months until it’s all stripped. As I say, we’ll look at the skylight tomorrow. All right … are there any points we’re not agreed on? We lie low, yes,we don’t tempt fate at this stage?
Silence.
II
Two months saw the place looking pretty spic and span, the girls had pretty much agreed on decor and had chosen pieces from a vast storeroom near the rear where the redoubt met the hillside … it was like a flea market in there … why had anyone ever needed half this stuff for? Very nordic too … not everyone’s style but there it was.
III
‘No way!’
It came to a halt with that simple statement in the third month, second week and it was Faye who stopped the slide. And it was only ever going to take one person to stop things cold.
‘You’ve never been a prude,’ Cait reminded her. ‘You don’t remember how we got our guys …’
‘I remember perfectly well, I know my past … yours too, Cait … I concede that, but don’t you also remember our weddings? Did they mean nothing to you? I don’t see groans, eyes turned upwards, which is at least something, but I do see blank faces as if I’d stopped all the fun. Listen guys … that grasshopper was a warning … call me a loony but look at our situation as a whole … we were so into escaping Cleo’s old lot that we were focussed on the next narrow escape, the next battle, staying one step ahead … did it not occur that in fact the world … or at least society, was nearing its end? And if there’s anything beyond that … would we want the end right in the middle of something like that?’
Silence. She decided to continue, having already used up her day’s ration of talking.
‘Look, I lost my budding career … we have no electronics, which puts the onus on them to use planes and search parties … we still had heaps to do these months but then it was done, we read the books we cared for, each of us, we played backgammon, we did what comes naturally, we slowly found ourselves with way too much time … the crops are now planted, we’ve seen no bugs of note, the mesh and fly wire seems to work … in other words, short of tearing it all down and starting again … there are charades, playacting, we tried writing … at least Lee did, using up our paper, not that I’m sure what value it will ever be, until he just stopped and said he’d lost the urge … I did understand what he meant.’
They continued to listen, mainly as no one had anything to add.
‘Look guys, I don’t believe in this karma thing … and yet …’
‘I agree,' said Lee. 'it's tempting God or tempting fate, whatever, I respect that, Faye.'
'Yes ok,’ agreed Cait, ‘curiosity versus some sort of karma. Cleo?'
'I would have … poor Cam … but I’m not the one married … yet … I no longer want, no, not if there are reservations …
… at the same time though, we’ll need to think things through … we’re running out of … precautions … do we want children? Are they on our horizon? Boys?’
Sven felt he needed to contribute. ‘I’m thinking if we’re staying here or not … long term. Don’t worry … I’m where you guys are … anyway, there’s heaps of clingfilm, sorry to be crude, if it came to it.
All eyes on Cam, the one who’d lost his partner that way. ‘I can back everything everyone’s said so far. I accept it was a forlorn, gloomy place when we arrived but the girls have done a fab job. Our smoke must be a giveaway when we cook, not sure how secure we are if anything organised comes our way, though we have enough ammunition. We clean the guns. I suspect it might have imploded already in populated areas … it might just be over … seems to me our main issue is marauders … not so sure about bugs but not dismissing them either.
I do agree with Faye … I’d not have liked that, but I look through organiser eyes and see the pitfalls. The sadness for me over Jeanne … difficult getting over that and making Cleo happy …’
‘No no no!’ she almost shouted. ‘I am so stupid at times. Look, if we all had, then who knows? But it just took one person not happy … so no. I’m no angel … but no.’ Her eyes were almost imploring.
‘Go on, Cam,’ suggested Faye.
‘Think I’d finished. I’m pretty sure we should be quite careful … think medically too … we have medicines but no one’s a doctor … all bar Cleo were in rude health coming in … I’m sure her people did the same vetting. We really are lucky, people, or else someone’s smiling down on us … so far.’
Dark Logic 3 here … Dark Logic 5
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