Dear reader,

 

we return to you with the  factual account  made in real time happening right now, of the encounter Ces and Quent made with Terry. And how poised above an enormous cavern, they survey beneath them the world’s most secret underground city. All of it as far as the eye can see abandoned, moth-balled, like Australian diplomacy stuck on the ‘stalled position: a position more insidious than fear itself, the fear of actually standing for anything. 

With the Aldis lamp flickering and illuminating a strange oblong building, a slab, indistinguishable from the other slabs, they realised that perhaps there may be a bargaining chip, a way out, an escape hatch to evade the mechanistic determinations of Australia’s (arguably) two most powerful individuals Sophie and Dutto. 

The editors should like to take this opportunity to say that though Angus Taylor, with his Cayman Island registered tax-havens, his stewardship of the vast Murray Daring Basin for personal profit and his destiny as a permanent head of the Minerals and Energy Council post-politics, with lucrative positions on boards, corporations and Big-Energy sinecure, though perhaps the most powerful individual it is is deemed ‘improper’ and via the Prince Andrew qualification of honour, ‘Unbecoming’ to appoint him to this standing, as he still at the very least pretends to work for the government, whereas, Dutto and Sophie have always been free agents. Any disputation in this fact we are happy to consider, but as the current situation deems, ( and we have knocked back submissions suggesting Barnaby), the appointment of the ‘big two’ Sophie and Dutto over-rode Gina and Twiggy, as being west Australians, were considered as  sort of outliers. 

Ces turned to Terry:  ‘I say Terry, have you ever been down there’? 

“Yep mate’ , 

‘What’s it like’? 

‘Well it’s a bit like the stories I’ve been hearing of Melbourne during lockdown. Or Canberra’? Ces interjected. “Yeah mate Canberra, has much changed since the fifties?’ 

‘Oh not really, the war memorial is so big you can see it from the moon, but nothing much. Still deadened by peck-sniffs and bum-whipes to the bureaucracy. That’s reassuring’, Terry sighed, ‘It’d be confronting if it ever really stood for something’. 

‘Yep mate, It stands for Federation, and still with Queensland and WA’. The three of them chuckled which was comforting as Ces and Quent hadn’t even mentioned Clive. ‘Clive of India’ we hear you say? Nup on a scale of one to ten, Clive of India was principled compared to Clive of Queensland. 

‘I reckon Terry’, and Ces pointed to the dimly lit outline of Dutto and Sophie still arguing the toss; ‘if you could get us down there, we might have a chance’?

‘Why, why would you bother, you see Terry, whilst she needs something she’ll pretend to be friendly, but as Benny -boy will tell you, once she’s got what she wants you’re expendable’. 

‘Yep mate even her hubby, stupid bastard had been parachuted into a safe senate seat and the silly bugger has no idea he’ll be slotted, that’s the way Sophie works, you might be a professor in her back shed, or some old aged nursing home victim and Sophie ‘ll use Ya and then…… slot YA’. 

Terry took a moment to digest the shocking certainty.

‘One way or another as you said if there two are the only two that know about this facility, you are a risk, and eventually, this train track won’t have you on it. 

Get me’?

There was silence as Terry digested the horrible truth. 

He looked at Ces and for reassurance, our faces said it all. And for Benny, he just nodded, the way he did to reassure Afghani villagers that the interrogation would be short and to the point, to say the least. 

‘Well, Like i was saying, there is something pretty special down there that might get us out, but the problem is, he pointed and waved his hand in the vast gulf of space, how do we get there’? 

‘If we jump we’re just as dead, and if we wait her, we get slotted, 

Either way’, we nodded , ‘yup, we get slotted’.

He flicked the Aldis lamp off making a mental note of exactly where the building was in the inky darkness, and we thought. Then we though long and hard, and then, we thought again. 

We could tell Sophie and Dutto were having a bit of a barney, Sophie waving her AK47, and Dutto his dome just visible above the cupola of the Victorian police armed public response vehicle a vivid chromium glint, clearly his dome was polished to perfection, 

‘Look they don’t even know we’re here and if they keep at it, we can assume they wont notice,

Notice what?

Our descent to the abyss below

But how’?

It was then Benny pipped in; ‘Can I have a look at the Aldis lamp cable’?

‘Yeah’, Terry handed him the lamp, 

‘That’s reassuring’, Benny-boy murmured as he fondled the glacis and examined the socket. He pulled out the plug, still warm, and then said;  ‘Hold this Terry’! And then holding the plug gave it a terrific yank, and from the console, sawdust, the odd cockroach and bits of stale chewing gum erupted forth, filing the car with a dusty residue. 

‘Just as I thought, look at this’? And with precise and practised movements he reeled in the chord. 

‘As I suspected there must be  at least 250 metres of the stuff, we use this old stuff in signals and I can tell you it’s durable and takes a bit of weight. It’s also useful for tying up Afghani’s for questioning’. At this he gave a sinister laugh and tightening it and testing it… ‘this may be our golden parachute’. 

‘Parachute’? we whispered, 

‘Yep lt’s out there’, and he pointed… 

Will this be their parachute? Will it be a proper golden parachute with a huge payout or a job done badly, or a parachute to who knows where? Hold onto your rip-chords, cos when we say ‘jump’ anything can happen in the next parasolic episode, “ when I say jump you leap”, or “ Jumping Jacks and Jill got off the hill’.