Day 137 - Babel - Chapter 33 (2260 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 33

Eric Barker had been enjoying a cold brew when the alarm was raised and the news came down that there was a plane on the way. He was one of the Few and part of a network of defence that criss-crossed the state, forming an early warning for the expected invasion of the Great Southern Land, an invasion that never actually came though. They were waiting and ready, but most days were taken up in domestic issues, they only got involved when things got seriously out of hand. They looked the other way a lot, and unless someone was killing a lot of people then they just let most things happen.

The plan was to keep vigilant and on their toes for the invasion they knew would follow up the Babel. At first they had drilled and practised at ranges, shooting live and dummy round indiscriminately until the made the connection that no one was making ammunition any more, so it was a dwindling resource. During riots, only really big ones that sparked from nowhere and usually during a heatwave they would shoot live rounds into crowds, but it did not do much to solve the situation, as there was no word of mouth. Screams were one thing, but with no one yelling at others to run for their lives, or that they were being shoot and killed, the message was just not getting though unless you directly saw what was happening.

So they waited, planned and prepared for the taking of Australia by force, and in the end they did come to a conclusion that the Babel may not have been just targeted at Aussies, but maybe like early reports indicated, the whole world was affected. Eric was gifted with language, and he liked to read so he was pretty much satisfied with staying on watch for as long as possible. In the early days it had been strict and the idea that you could multi task on the job was an anathema to the code of discipline and readiness. Over time it had loosened up a little and the job of the people who had language and had stayed participating in Australia, they settled into a social group more than an army. The watch could read, study or pair up and have conversations, something banned in the original versions.

Then it became even looser over time and games were organised, there was some semblance of organised sport and they'd even get a chance to rope some Babel in as spectators, though points mattered to the players who could understand them, the actions and the physciality of it mattered to the crowds that would gather. Babel gravitated to any organised sporting event, the ones that grew from bored watchmen that became a semi professional league of players that were run by the Few but soon played by the frustrated and denied Babel who could remember the games they way they would have to be played.

The refs were always of the few, and they would communicate the infractions and points with colours and codes, hand signals that everyone could understand. Cricket was the easiest to understand the action in, if you were close enough, but the points, runs and overs were a bit harder without constant oversight. Rugby and League, they were less complicated and the points were replaced with tries and kicks as coloured bars. The team that had most coloured bars on the board won. They had trouble with anything too complex, so it would be a simple matter of size that would solve the problem. Points were blue for one team and red for the other, the teams would sport colours that matched the score colour they added to. Kicks were one third the size of a try so it took 3 penalties to make the same impact on the size of your score as it did crossing the line, and of course four kicks if you counted the conversion.

Half the time not everyone knew what was going on, but they revelled in the chance to cheer and be entertained where they understood the language of tackles, tries and physical prowess. Captains lead by example and strategy grew from knowing your team-mates pretty well. The audience may have recognised some faces if they turned up often enough, but mostly games were played almost ad-hoc as it was near impossible to be too organised and have any kind of ladder or competition leader boards with the Babel playing or watching. So they played every weekend, when the weekend rolled around they announced it with signs and icons, visually signifying what was happening, the Few that could communicate that formed the militaristic watchmen amongst themselves found that they became the champions, the dealers of entertainment through the universal appreciation of sport.

The watch continued though, there was still the underlying paranoia that something worse was coming and that the Babel was just the first step in something bigger. Eric was happy to leave the sport to the people that loved it, which was just about everyone else, and while the filled the stadiums and the grounds for people to watch games, sometimes managing a dozen or more games in a single day to cover the largest amount of ground for people to congregate at, Eric and a few others, some of which were Babel too, would man the alarms.

Everyone had moved closer together, there were pockets of outliers, but as the population dwindled, especially after riots and the occasional bloodbath in the early days, the circumference of Sydney shrank by over half. Only hermits lived in the Mountains, people hiding from everyone and everything. There was no way to service the whole of the land, it was impossible with the lines of communication permanently jammed.

When the alarm sounded Eric thought he was hearing things, they were not due a drill for this week he was sure of it. They were always told that there would be a drill, only the Few could ever know it was drill of course, so knowing did no harm and it kept the Babel on their toes as well. They had no context for explaining a drill, but they were taken seriously and undertaken even though there was an occasional misunderstanding that lead to panic and death for the ones unable to contain their reactions.

They were not due a drill though and Eric rubbed his ears before getting up of his chair and taking his nose out of a one of the stack of library books he had taken from the Parramatta Public Library on a scouting mission he had gone on the previous week. Most of the far west was empty, Penrith was a ghost town and everyone was much further in, taking empty houses and shops as homes and places to work on things that they could do to help Australia stand together.

A large tract of Pararmatta had been dug up for farm land, using the river to ferry supplies back up to the city and the distribution network that the watchmen had put together, at first for them selves in defence of the country, but quickly co-opted in service of the population. Babel did the heavy lifting and the highly repetitive tasks that could be easily trained by mimicry or drawn instructions. The watchmen ran the show, and every now and then people died, it was a frontier justice and there was no tolerance for things that affected too many people at one go. Rapists, paedophiles and serial killers were executed and trials were mostly unwarranted, as no one very tried to defend themselves verbally or deny their crimes. What would generally happen is that the victim would be upset and unable to tell anyone what had happened, they would point out the offender and they too generally would not be able to deny or question what was going on.

If they ran then they were guilty, that was the prevailing thought. If they looked confused or upset themselves, but not running for their lives then they backed off and let things lie. When someone ran though, it was pretty much and admission of guilt as evidenced by them being driven to run by shame or guilt. It was not perfect and Eric was sure that more than one person ran because it looked like the best option, but a bullet or two later usually put that idea to rest and solved the issue for good. When the person acted innocent but was accused too many times, then someone just took justice into their own hands and made the call.

The watchmen had a lot of power and they could do pretty much whatever they wanted. Some took advantage of the fact and male or female it seemed to make no difference to the people who took their power too seriously. Eric was glad when the watchmen devolved from paramilitary to an entertainment and provisioning network. The ones among them that had been abusing their power, they still could do that and still did, with the new paradigm of food and sport, but at least there was a positive and generally harmonious output that worked well for most involved.

Eric stayed on watch, because watch was dull, repetitive and did nothing to increase your sense of power, importance or celebrity. The watchmen, good and bad were drawn to the jobs and positions that set them up as elite, as special and privileged. They all had those advantages, even Eric though he and his friends wanted to stay on the sidelines and keep the watch running, reading and learning as much as they could in their spare time. Eric had been prolific at breaking into book stores, libraries and other places of learning and taking away what lessons would be helpful.

Solar power, plumbing and desalination were major projects that came from foraging for knowledge by Eric, and the fruits of these provided power, some very nice conveniences like indoor plumbing and hot showers for the precious Few on the watch and the star sportsmen and women of the Babel. So Eric was treated specially as well, and though he avoided the limelight he had a house that overlooked the bay, on the hill above Bondi and he was given leeway and plenty of luxuries that the ninety nine percent in his land did not.

Still every day he took his stack of books and texts to get through, a pad and pen to make notes when he sat on the watch for the invasion he knew was never coming.

Today the alarm was sounding though and it was not a drill. He grabbed a walkie-talkie and radioed the station to either side of him. Within a few minutes they had shared enough information that he knew it was not a drill, but not a full scale invasion either. It was unlikely but someone had flown a plane to Australia, it had come up the coast, seen before it crossed into New South Wales, and the markings that someone recognised, and reported that from where it had come and by the look of what was written on the side, it had come from New Zealand.

Their commonwealth neighbours to the south in the shaky isles were making an appearance, but it was a small plane and heading by the course that some clever soul on watch down in Wollongong had calculated, was aiming for Sydney Airport.

Within the hour a shocked and skittish watch had driven the roads in what vehicles they could muster and got to the airport, where they assumed and hoped the visitors were heading. They found that the Jeeps they had ready for defence had not been serviced in a while and they were far from a threatening or unobtrusive olive grey. Long periods of inattention and boredom had repainted the Jeeps with bright colours as if made up in war paint to shock more than scare. The guns were fed with long roped magazines of shells ready to feed into the fifty calibre machine guns mounted on the rear.

They saw and heard the plane flying in long before it was in any danger of landing. They wanted to drive out onto the tarmac, fire a few warning shots and make them think twice about setting down, but the engines were not in the best condition and they barely had them turning over when the plane was making it's descent. The guns were in a condition that none were confident about but Eric was shoved into position behind one of the mounted fifty cals and driven out to meet the plane.

Eric was shaking and trying to look, feel and act tough as the aircraft touched down with him and another Jeep flanking the visitors as they slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped. The driver yelled out some harsh military sounding terms as instructions but Eric was not sure what they meant, the watch had been pretty simplistic with its command and structure, process and procedure even when they were serious about it in the first days. Now it had been such a long time since he had held a gun, let alone fired one. This fifty calibre monstrosity felt cold and ungainly in his grip and it frightened him more that made him feel secure.

None the less he trained the gun barrel as firmly and unwaveringly as he could on the door and waited for it to open.