The Pole Shift

Lett

When she saw her contact blown up Lett immediately powered down the anonymous PC and got out of the building. She had no doubt that invisible fingers would be reaching for her. She could handle that, she had been dodging profile traps for the two years she had known the world was going to turn upside down. This time though, she feared The Powers That Be may have captured an image of her. She was uncomfortable with cams, even on the dark net. Whilst she felt sure of its clandestine manner - the encryption was military grade, she was not comfortable with who or what might be in the room.  She had made a mistake letting the Can Man insist on using it,

                There had been two explosions, she guessed a micro drone had blown down the door then another had killed the Can Man. They had been negotiating a price for a cache of a thousand tins of tuna hidden up in the hills. The contact had been explaining that cash was irrelevant now that the Pole Shift story had been released to the sheep. He wanted four ounces of gold for the food. It was a lot, she was hoping to pay with cash and then barter goods. Gold would be needed for later.  She offered two glocks', and a hundred .45 rounds. The cans man was having none of it and then the screen turned red.

                Lett walked with purpose and got on a tram. The Hills, she thought. Mt Dandenong lay like a soft outstretched arm, blue and circling the east of the city.  it wasn't supposed to be high enough to withstand the coming cataclysm. She looked at it from the tram window, elongated and inviting. They had caches hidden up there, along with every other tom dick and harry who intended surviving. It was quite the joke to bump into other survivalists looking for places to bury their goods. Once Lett had seen a couple burying a drum, she had seen them the week before further along the ridge, and this time they waved at her. She had frowned deeply at them.

                The trouble with the hills was it was residential,  Lett and her boys were always paranoid that as soon as they stored their goods a nosey neighbour would sniff about, steal or report it. Her small group of tough survivalists had managed to lay many plans down and storing food was just one of them, but none of their plans actually fitted together.  She sighed deeply as the tram rattled along Flinders Street. The 'Mad Weekend" had come as predicted, The Sheep were going nuts, as predicted. The flood had not come as predicted, but the time was approaching fast. Was it really feasible to collect their scattered  goods and weave up the back trails into the Alpine Regions ahead of a flood, or unnoticed by the people that were happy to blow people's heads off for trying to survive outside their view of the world? A greater strategy might be to gamble on the possibility that Mt Dandenong might hold. It was tantalizing, but quickly she rejected it, how could the six hundred meter hill withstand a wave three times that? Unless the models were wrong, but the dark net was abuzz with the same science as the government. It just wouldn't stand against the cataclysm.

                Their plans were floored on many levels and she cursed as the tram rattled out of a city going temporarily mad. It angered her that they had little chance of surviving no matter how hard they tried. it made her determined to think of new tactics, other means to narrow the odds.  After this weekend groups would form. The hedonists and near anarchists were already on the streets, but other groups would coalesce and act as their instincts told them. There would be other survivalists, preppers,  there would be those who would take to the seas. The wealthy on ocean liners, those without influence or money on homemade arcs.  She could see it all happening, most of her gang's discussions were based around what the populace would do when the truth was out. She took comfort, they had a two year march on most, their chances of surviving were surely greater than those that hadn't thought about it, or dismissed the idea as lunatic fringe nonsense.

                 She would talk to the boys, the least they could do was to look for the tins of tuna, seeming's their contact was not longer around to trade it. She'd cast her eye over Mt Dandenong whilst they were doing it even though the residents would be on guard.  There were some primeval wood on the hill, but fringed by houses, making the mountain ash stand seem like Zoo exhibits.  There wasn't really anywhere they could setup that wouldn't be seen that day and torn down the next.  Unless they found an empty house they could occupy.  Lett rubbed her stomach, her pregnancy wasn't showing yet. A house seemed so much more appealing. She knew she was nesting, her wrath had slunk away as her fingers probed, but had not gone.