Direct ActIon
JD Svenson
[Lacuna]
2019
Contents
Chapters: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36
To Max and Hugo.
1
Proxima.
Rigel.
Barnard.
Wolf.
Under the arc light, stargirl held the thin flannie around herself, reciting, stamping her feet against the cold within.
Luyten’s. Sirius. Methuselah. Lah. She liked that one, with its sound a creamy whipcrack on her tongue. Methuselah, that most ancient of stars: the mother; she from which they all came. At the big bang. When everyone was stardust – her; them, the coppers she could see across the road, in their hotdog-van copshop, fan-cooled behind their desks. The people at the cavernous PCYC hall today – queuing for watered down juice, in the cheap plastic cups she held out to them but hated because they would end up in the sea or tossed for future generations to find. A few breeding pairs wandering the arctic circle. There was a bin nearby and she leaned on it, vomiting in. No-one knew. No-one understood. There had been no other way.
Times like now she would name the constellations too. Cassiopeia. Triangulum. Andromeda: her namesake, with its syllables that bounced back from her teeth like from a skin drum. She’d breathe their sacred names and look up at the sky, starting from the beginning when she forgot the order, from closest to furthest, from this, her tiny blue ellipsis orbiting the sun. The order was important. It calmed her, like the metal of the bin, cool under her fingers. There was no cool any more, she thought, as the depthless sadness bolted in. Above, the sky was dry as a cornhusk, the dirt beneath her feet dessicated, empty of all but the memory of rain.
The water at Liddell had been warm, when she’d stepped into it. The smell – so thick it had clogged her nose – hypoxic peat and seaweed. And carp. Bloody carp, clear beneath the surface – one metallic streak and then another, in the dark water. This is what we humans do, she remembered thinking. Make muck out of paradise. Her mind had chased them then – little fishy, I don’t belong here either. Come with me? Be my talisman, make me safe? Hah. Safe. Since when had she ever wanted safe? Or had it, for that matter. She felt safer right now, watching the Muswellbrook constables with all their relaxed camaraderie and paperwork, moving about, ink-dark firearms slouched at their waists.
She stood, wiped her mouth, and breathed the stars’ names again. Looking up at them made her remember. Yes. She could rest, now; they had done it. Nothing more was required of her. She was Gaia. She crossed the floodlit road and walked in.
2
Two days earlier
On Level 60 of the ninety-floor shard of glass that held Sydney’s magic circle law firms at a seemly distance from the populace below, Cressida Mitsok leant with one hand against the glossy wall of the corridor and tried to stop shaking. For God’s sake, she moaned inwardly. It’s just a fucking partnership meeting. Remember the stadium, she thought, watching the white specks of yachts tango the afternoon easterly below. Remember desal. That gorgeous rack of steel on Botany Headland condensing drinking water out of salt because of you. And what about Pacific Highway, Coffs to Yamba? You won a bloody award for that. The sliver of pride that swelled elbowed out terror momentarily. Six years as a Senior Associate and eleven with the firm, you’ve earnt this. They know you. In the muted lighting she opened her handbag and looked inside again. Just a nibble, she reasoned. Just one shot of that creamy sweetness, that divine release against her teeth. C’mon. One.
No.
Save it for the Porsche, she told herself. Besides. You’ll get chocolate on your teeth.
Here was the door. In the veneer reflection Cressida reviewed her appearance. On the glossy wood her skin shone like steam on silver, her collarbones as fine as a dancer’s against the lemon silk of her top. That five kilos she’d put on during WestConnex had stayed at bay under Inge’s iron watch and, of course, the weekly triathlons; the skirt now skimmed pleasingly rather than bulged across her hips. And while the rest of her outfit was sharp as a tack, the hair was left intentionally messy, essential to the golden triad for female solicitors: attractive but approachable; capable, yet feminine; and young – most importantly, young – but not too young. Still diverting … fertile … but not flaky. After years of careful attention, of scouring magazines and clocking the outfits the other female solicitors wore, of finding out where they shopped and where they had their hair done, she knew that at last she looked like the real thing. Partner material, bitches, she thought in the direction of those on the other side of the door. She closed her eyes, nailed a smile to her face, and knocked.
On the other side of the door, two feet away in French cuffs and a fresh Majorca tan,