Lobby of Travelodge Mirambeena Vacenv, Darwin, Australia Geographic
Friday 3 January 2110, 7:45PM +9.3 UTC
Marty was pissed off. She was pissed off with the heat. She was pissed off with the flies. And most all she was pissed off with waiting in this lobby. It had been her idea to come to the Australia Geographic. Cochran had quickly agreed which had surprised Marty and so she had gone on the trail of Mariah. It was a trail that was thirty- four years cold, but it was still a trail.
Not only was she pissed, she was also puzzled. It had taken her exactly five hours to find that a woman, a boy and a baby had taken an EVTour from a station in a place called Coolangatta, at 2am in the morning on the 14th of October 2075. She’d been lucky with that, because that is what had stuck in the mind of the ticket seller. Why was a woman with a very young baby and a young boy traveling at that time of night? That and because she’d asked for any EVTour leaving immediately. At the time he put it down to a broken marriage and no business of his anyway. But it had stuck in his memory waiting for Marty to find a use for it thirty-four years later.
And that’s what puzzled her. If she could find this evidence after so many years had passed, why hadn’t Sir Thomas when he’d investigated at the time? Marty thought that Mariah, with the two children, had been smart. She’d avoided the major EVTour stations, and walked for a long time and a long way. Reaching Coolangatta, Marty presumed, by walking most of the way along the beach, fifty-five kiloms north of Byron Bay, the EVTour then took her as far as Andergrove about one thousand kiloms farther north. Again she’d been smart, but Marty did what she always did and asked herself the question: If I was Mariah, what would I do? If I was a mother, scared for the life of my children, running from someone who had killed my husband, what would I do?
She tried to put herself into Mariah’s mind, a scared woman with a young boy and a newborn. Long EVTour rides give the chance to rest and hide and I can buy food along the way. I have to feed the boy, Gabriel, and myself for the baby and to stay strong. I have to stay out of sight and use cred chips. Not my Devstick. And I have to get as far away as possible, quickly.
Thinking as Mariah, Marty closed her eyes and felt herself slip into the role of the woman running scared from the murderer. Two choices. Head for the most populated part of the Australian Geographic or the least — the Northern Territories. Go for least cameras. I need to start thinking about how to get out of the Australian Geographic without going through a security zone. Cape York, the northern-most point on the continent and close to the Geographic of Papua New Guinea. No, there’s nothing and no one there. I’d stand out too much.
Darwin, sitting between the PNG and the East Timor Geographics is a better choice. And I am a smart woman. I’m tired. I’m stressed. I reach my destination. I’m in Darwin. What do I do? It’s 9:30am on the 18th of October 2075. I'm hot and tired and want to get off the street as fast as possible. The first thing is to walk. Two hundred and fifty meters from where I had disembarked from the EVTour is the Travelodge Mirambeena Vacenv.
It had taken three hours and an UNPOL Blue Notice to get the Vacenv to cooperate in releasing details of staff who had contributed back then, but they had located one who still lived in Darwin. An aboriginal desk clerk by the name of Billy Boy Malangi. He’d agreed to talk with Marty and said he would pick her up at the Mirambeena at 7:30. She’d drunk too much coffee and was about to head back to the Darwin Lev port, when a battered ancient vehicle rolled to a stop opposite the window of the Vacenv’s lobby where she had been waiting. A man stepped out of the vehicle wearing a checked shirt and jeans. His hair and beard were long and totally white, and he held a bushman’s hat in his hand. He took a long look at the entrance of the Vacenv and then walked up the stairs and into the lobby.
Marty rose and intercepted the man before he reached the Dev on the check-in counter.
“Mr. Malangi,” she said, walking over to him. An EVTour pulled up with a loud hiss of its brakes just outside and the door opened.
The man’s face broke into a huge smile as he saw her.
“Yeah, that’s me. UNPOL makes ‘em good looking dese days. If I’d known you were a looker I’d a come sooner.”
The automatic doors of the lobby opened and a stream of people barged in, milling around them.
“Come on, Missy, Billy Boy’ll take you for a ride.” Saying this with a wave of his hand, Billy turned around, skirting the edge of the tour group, and went out through the lobby doors. Marty followed and climbed into Billy’s ancient vehicle.
“Is this thing safe?”
“Hey now, Missy, be nice to Matilda. She’s a sensitive old girl,” Billy said as he pressed a red button on the dashboard between them. The vehicle’s starter motor kicked over and over before finally the engine coughed. Marty had never heard anything like it before and was sure the vehicle wouldn’t pass environmental inspection. Billy drove out of the forecourt of the Vacenv and onto Cavenagh street.
“What does this thing run on?”
“Bit of everything really. Right now, she’s running on coconut oil,” he said this with a smile, and Marty wasn’t sure if he was pulling her leg or telling the truth. She decided she didn’t want to know.
“So, Billy, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about the woman and the boy?”
“Not now, OK. I don’ like it to talk and drive.”
Marty nodded, telling herself to be patient and go with the flow. She sat quietly looking out of the window as they drove out of Darwin heading east. Reaching the Arnhem Travway, Billy guided them on to the inside slow lane, and their speed rose as he connected to the maglev track. About half an hour later, Billy pulled off the main Travway and on to a normal tarmac road. They headed north until he turned right, this time onto a dusty track that made Marty close the window she’d opened. About five kiloms down the track, Billy pulled to a stop in front of a small white house, its windows dark in the night. Marty looked at the time on her Devstick, noticing that out here she was offline. 8:10pm. It had been a long day in a string of long days and it wasn’t over yet.
She followed Billy through the iron meshed gate that he unlocked with a key from his chain, and walked up to a porch. “Hang on a mo’ I’ll get some light on,” Billy said, and he disappeared into the house.
Solar lamps lit up the porch then Billy came out of the house with a bottle of red wine in an ice bucket and two glasses in his hands. He put the ice bucket on a small table set between two rocking chairs made from the branches of dead trees, and indicated that Marty should take a seat.
Marty sat down and Billy, twisting the top off the wine bottle, poured them each a glass. Putting the wine bottle back into the ice bucket, he picked up her glass and gave it to her.
“Thank you.”
“No worries, Missy,” said Billy, taking the seat next to hers. He offered his glass to hers in a toast.
“Now we can talk like civilized humans, eh?” He smiled at her.
She took a sip of the wine. “Mmm, this is delicious. By the way, please call me Marty or Martine if you prefer.”
“Glad you like it, Marty. Mob down south sends ‘em up for us. We send ‘em de bark paintings, and the yirdaki.”
“What’s a yirdaki?”
“You fellas call it a didgeridoo. We call it a yirdaki. Born here it was, Arn’em. Anyways we trade ‘em for the wine. Dead euca for live grape — good business eh?”
“Very good,” Marty said, taking another sip of the delicious wine. “So what can you tell me about the woman and the boy?”
“Damn sorry business dat. I did not see nothing.”
“That means you saw something right?”
“Yeah, I works dere maybe for a week or two dat time. Come down from me camp to Darwin and fella at Mirambeena give me a go. Do de desk, Billy, and I done it. And dat Chinaman and Balanda coming next day, tell me dey’s check out and pays de cred.”
“Sorry, Billy what’s a Balanda?”
“You, youse is a Balanda, a white man or woman.”
“Right, OK. So what happened? The woman checked in with the boy and the baby. How long was she there? Did you talk to her?”
“Just to say g’day, you know, how you do? Dey was dere bout three day. The next night, the fourth night, dey
