"I'm betting that the staff got overwhelmed like everyone else," said Jane as she went behind the counter.
"Should we shut the front door?" asked Dave.
Jane paused to weigh the options in her mind before saying: "It's probably a good idea. It's daytime so if we do run into someone then we should be able to back out fast enough. And if we leave it open then that introduces a potential random element from something just walking in."
Dave nodded and closed the door. The rattle of the door had failed to raise any interests by anyone or anything that had previously been in the police station.
"We should still remain cautious," said Jane entering a room at the rear of the building. The exterior of the windows had been built over with what looked like wooden panels, while inside of the panels were thick prison-style bars.
"They didn't want anyone escaping from here," said Dave looking at the bars in the dim light.
"The bars are to stop people from getting in. This is the station's armoury. But don't be too impressed. The bars are just a token defence. The walls seem to be made from standard, housing-grade timber. Someone with a crowbar could get through the walls in less than ten seconds."
Jane stood in front of a small safe. It was about Dave's height and was barely wider than his shoulders.
"I was expecting something more from something called an 'armoury'," said Dave.
"This station is basically a rural police station so they'd probably only have enough equipment for one or two people."
"Why did they have so few people?"
"This is Australia, there's just not enough tax payer dollars to do any more than provide a token police force."
"You sound bitter," said Dave surprised. He had thought of Jane as the more emotionally detached type.
"Australia has some of the world's toughest gun laws. When people complained that it was too hard to defend themselves against criminals they were told by the politicians that they just needed to rely on the police, that they shouldn't even think of being responsible for their own safety. But in the end there were too few police and they were overwhelmed by recent events. Could you imagine how different this would have been if we trusted ordinary citizens with the means to defend themselves?"
"I've played a few shooting style games but I can't really remember hearing from people who were notably pro-gun. I'm not even sure that we have a gun culture."
"We don't. If we had some laws about self defence or some right to bear arms then maybe that would be a foundation for a strong gun culture in this country. But just saying 'guns are fun' isn't enough to convince the nay sayers. A gun is a tool. A tool that can be dangerous, but we often use other dangerous tools everyday without issue. I think people get more emotional about a gun than they would about a lawn mower."
"I have to admit that it's strange that you are bad mouthing the police."
Jane looked straight at Dave. "I'm not saying that there was a problem with quality of the members of the police, just that there was too few. There wasn't enough taxpayer money to pay for more, so we could have tried to fill in the gaps in man power by making using of free volunteers. That is civilians. After all the person most interested in your own safety is yourself."
"They had money to pay for you."
"What?"
"I mean the government paid for people like you who are a part of DOA."
"Oh. DOA isn't a government body. We're privately funded."
Dave frowned. "Doesn't that make you a vigilante group or even a crime gang."
Jane took her turn to frown. "I'd hope not. The structure of DOA is a bit weird, and it's hoped that the odd structure would prevent DOA slipping into criminal behaviour."
"Did it? Did DOA succeed in not crossing the line into criminality?"
"Sadly we'll never know. The goal was to create a group of people who's object was to defend Australia. But the group was new. It had too few members. It hadn't received enough staff or training to determine if its ideals were able to overcome the normal limitations of the human mind and their more morbid desires. And then this mess happened."
"I've run into a few DOA members."
"You probably ran into all the DOA members that were in this area. There aren't too many."
"I guess what training that you did have ended up working. You're alive after all."
Jane looked about the deserted police station. "And yet I've not found a single police officer since the outbreak. Surely they had enough training to survive what happened. There should have been hundreds in the city area, and yet not one police officer survived."
"Maybe they tried to help people. That would mean that they would have run into danger, instead of focusing on survival by running away."
Jane gave out a bitter laugh. "So if we do find a police officer who survives then it's probably because he was a selfish prick?"
"Well, at least he'd be alive," said Dave shrugging at his lame attempt at humour.
"Let's get back to the task at hand," said Jane looking at the gun safe in front of her. "This safe is way too tough. We're never going to get it open."
Next to the gun safe were a few clothing lockers that Jane absently opened and peered into.
"It would have been too much to expect to find a spare gun in one of these lockers," said Jane thinking out loud.
"They are clothing lockers after all."
"Which is not to say that we'll come up completely empty," said Jane while pulling some ear muffs from the lockers. "These look new."
"Ear muffs?"
"Hearing protection."
Dave looked askance at Jane who nodded knowingly as she handed two ear muffs to Dave for him to
