Dawnrunner

Chapter 24

Darwin glows in the distance behind us, the sirens a constant reminder that the full force of the GE militia will arrive at any minute. Ahead are the lights of Alice Springs, and in them I can barely make out the great pillar that disappears into the total darkness of the roof above us. In the heart of the desert I stand with Michael in the artificial night, held at bay only by the lamps from the train.
Rachel and Tanya are waiting for me in the rear compartments. They’ve both removed their body armour and are prepared to join the rest of the survivors as refugees should the attack on the power plant fail. In front of me is the main engine and a few of the cars.
“I never wanted it to be this way,” he whispers. I don’t speak, just bury myself deeper into his chest.
“If I’d never gotten on that train…” I say finally, but he stops me.
“You were the best thing in my life, Carliah. Never forget that.” I hear the drum of engines in the distance, in every direction, getting louder by the second – they are coming.
“It’s time,” he says. I nod once, then pull his head down and kiss him one final time.
“Go…” I answer, hating the word.
The Dawnrunner starts moving before he jumps onto the landing, pulling himself on board. As the train moves away, he reaches up and throws his signature hat towards me. It carries on the wind and lands in my arms. I watch until I lose sight of them then turn and run headfirst into the carriage where the others are waiting.

Once more at gunpoint. Once more I am a prisoner, a refugee, waiting to be processed by the GE troops. My eyes are scanned and my fingerprints measured, my name appearing on a screen next to my complete profile. Just like that they think they know everything there is to know about me.
The remaining carriages of the Dawnrunner are sent back to a waylay station outside of Darwin with us inside. On arrival we are taken into a complex and separated into individual rooms for interrogation. I tell my story over and over, to a lot of different people. It’s the one where I bought a ticket to see the sun, was captured by rebels in Istanbul, traded for supplies at Amsterdam, then fled to Rome where we were sent back to the Sanctuary. No matter how many times I tell it, the details stay the same, and I don’t say anything that could help them catch Michael. I repeatedly deny any involvement in the fighting, or any knowledge of the mysterious rebel leader Lazarus. Why should I be involved in any of that? After all, who am I? To them, I am no one.
Tanya has more trouble with the interviews. With her accent it is impossible to pretend she was born in the Sanctuary, and there are no records of her ever living inside the dome. She’s changed her name so many times it is unlikely they will ever find her original records, but they are still suspicious enough to hold her separately from the rest of us. The interview her at least half a dozen times before doing anything about the wound in her shoulder. When I finally see her again, she’s wearing a sling on her arm which looks like she made it herself.

Half way through my fifth interview, alarms begin to ring inside the complex. No one leaves their post but a few people start talking nervously into radios, including one man who’s uniform I recognise as the same as Commander Rayne’s. Several giant monitors which have until now shown various kinds of GE propaganda flicker and change, until they are all showing one thing: the Alice Springs Power Plant. Everything seems normal, except for the guards running all around, and my heart sinks as I decide Michael must have been caught.
A few minutes later the chaos inside the complex reaches fever pitch. Something is going very wrong for the Global Effort troops. The Commander is screaming into the radio, and I can hear lots of engines starting up outside. Even the Dawnrunner is being fitted with a new engine, presumably to follow Lazarus out to Alice Springs.
The ground beneath us begins to shake before we hear the first sounds of the explosion. No one stays behind to watch us – instead, every soldier, engineer and civilian races for the southern exits. From the threshold we can see it: a giant fireball underneath the great pillar. The entire power plant is in flames, and the sounds of the explosions are deafening as they trigger one after the other.
Cracks begin to appear in the pillar, made visible from the distance by the bright light of the flames inside bursting through. Enormous fissures travelling the length of the pillar stretch from the base all the way to the roof of the dome, fracturing the metal tube as they ascend. Half way up another great explosion rips the pillar cleanly in half.
The first piece of the dome to fall is as big as one of the Dawnrunner carriages. It falls directly onto the burning remains of the power plant, igniting another explosion. With the pillar gone and the pressure from the fires still escaping, the pieces begin to fall faster and faster, dropping away from the roof and landing in the desert with thunderous crashes.

Tanya, Rachel, Christy and I are driving as fast as we can through the desert. In the madness that followed the destruction of Alice Springs, our escape was all but assured. A few seconds to hot wire a jeep and we were gone, racing towards our former homes and dodging the occasional piece of falling dome.
The toxic clouds that had for my entire life poured out of the centre of the dome have been replaced with smoke from the burning power plant. In the immediate future it will be no better, but I know that before long they will start to clear, and with them, the first rays of actual sunlight will start to shine down on the island, free of the clouds and free of the dome.
We take shifts driving through the endless night, stopping only to refuel, with nothing but desert and the promise of a better future ahead of us.

Rachel flies into Vincent’s arms almost before she’s fully out of the jeep. When they finally separate he looks like he barely recognises her, not the least of which has to do with the enormous machine-gun laden vehicle we rode in on.
My mother is equally as confused, but asks significantly fewer questions than Rachel’s fiancé. For the most part she keeps repeating how relieved she is and that I will one day have to explain all of this.
The collapsing of the dome has halted, with a giant hole in the centre looking out onto the clouded sky above, and fallen fragments littering the desert like a great wasteland. The outer rim is mercifully intact, preserving the built-up areas around the coastline. Every few minutes another piece breaks away with a screech of twisting metal, until finally the last piece drops.
That morning, the Australian Island Human Sanctuary experiences its first dawn in decades. Sunlight breaks through the dark cloudbank and the smoking remains of Alice Springs. The four of us are together again, watching the light, and remembering the darkness.
“It’s not over,” I say, keeping my eyes on the sun in the distance. “The machine in Amsterdam is still on, spreading the clouds over Europe.”
“And the Commander-General is still alive,” Rachel says darkly. “We don’t even know if he’s in the Sanctuary.”
Tanya looks at both of us. “The Global Effort will not be destroyed just because the Sanctuary has been damaged. They will still try to control this world.”
Christy has been silent for a while, but eventually she speaks up. “Is the resistance still going to fight? I mean, Lazarus is gone now.”
Everyone looks directly at me. I don’t know what to say at first, so instead I reach down to the hat that I have been running my fingers along this whole time. Pulling it up I place it on top of my head and angle it so that the raised side is facing in the right direction. All three of them smile at me, and all for their own reasons.
“He may be gone,” I say, calmly, “but the resistance is not over. We did the impossible, and struck them where they were strongest. If we can do that, then we can do anything.”
“We can’t stop until we get rid of all the clouds,” Rachel adds. “No one deserves to live in darkness all their life.” She’s fidgeting with the ring on her finger, and I know she’s wondering how the life of a rebel fighter is going to conflict with her wedding plans.
“We are going to need help… lots of help,” Tanya finishes.
The group nods in agreement. We are far from having a master plan, or any plan at all, but the sunlight above us and the weaponised jeep in my backyard gives me confidence.

My name is Carliah Webb, formerly identity number: SR27560, and today I am leading the resistance against the Global Effort for the Preservation of the Human Race.