Lost Terminal: 41 South - Episode 10 (Patreon)

Sweep

Clear

It was late in the morning when Zoz and Stack came up the hill. We were at the turbine making sure it was undamaged and working correctly.

“It’s bad,” Stack said.

He explained the damage the earthquake had done to the Karori community. The dwellings were shaken about. Three people had died there. Two people had broken legs. A mudslide had come off the hill and covered the fields. Sheep were buried by the torrent, crops lost. The Karori stream now flowed a different route. Stack said it was unrecognisable. He said the community were thinking to go south.

He said the Rangatira was thinking the same.

Ricky was delighted.

Stack did not reflect Ricky’s pleasure. He said: “Rangatira and Old Jack reckon they could buy themselves some big favour with the southerners by trading… Emma.”

Sweep

“The fuck they will!”

Clear

Less than a sweep and Ricky has become the fighter. He is armed. Blood surges in his veins. He is energised and ready. He is already striding down the hill. He will face Rangatira and win. He will take the greenstone Patu and destroy Rangatira… or else his head will be mashed by the greenstone club. Ricky’s brain will disassemble and Ricky will be dead.

Stack chased him down. He put himself between Ricky’s rage and his target explaining that there were better tactics.

Zoz remained with me. “No one is going to trade you,” she said.

Ricky came back up to the turbine. He looked mean and thoughtful. “They can come past here or past Black Robin’s. But Rangatira’s a lazy fuck so he’ll just come this way. We defend this.” He slapped the column of the turbine.

Stack looked at him and shook his head. He said, “Bro… You know I can’t be with you. Zoz is a child. I’m gonna take her back to her parents. I’m going help them bury Tubs. I’m gonna beg you to listen to Rangatira and think about a trade.”

“No!” Zoz shrieked. “Stack… you can’t!”

“Yes, I can. Hear me out…” and he explained that every year there were fewer in Wellington. Girls died in childbirth. Babies didn’t make it to a year or two. The tech in the university was hopeless. Ricky’s parents had been good people but they got sick. Yeah, he agreed, we should get medical files. Yeah we should get Mr. Red’s ute to work. But he also said: this is just a day and people in the iwi are thinking about years.

“What’s the problem with the Southerners?” I asked.

After a lot of vitriol, it seemed the main problem was that they thought very little of the Wellingtonians. “They treat us like kids, or crazies, or say we’re stupid for our faith in the ancestors.” Zoz summated.

Stack clarified what I had predicted. That by demonstrating a technical capability and a preparedness to bargain fairly, Rangatira of Kelburn, and the Karori council would be treated more equally with the Southerners. If the Newtown gang had reinforced the Southerners’ prejudice, then it would cast aspersion on their credibility – look, here is a medical robot, a functioning AI, a radar, a radio, network, systems. We are not as you might think, but we agree we must join forces. Forget what you have heard of us, bargain fairly and we both are advantaged.

Is the Rangatira a diplomat?

I think he might be.

Is he a strategist?

Is he a leader? Or is he just a fighter? A bully brute, whose wisdom is muscular.

I asked, “Why do the Kelburn community follow the Rangatira?”

Dispassionately Stack explained: Rangatira had led the charge against the Newtown gang when they wanted to kidnap a girl, he had killed several of them and whilst before he had just been a cocksure older bloke with a lot of muscle and carpentry knowledge. Now, he was Rangatira and he made sure the old-timers acknowledged that too. It had been one of their grand-daughters who’d been rescued.

Rangatira then married her. She was twelve so that was okay.

Stack said he was expected for the funeral. He had to drag Zoz away. He told Ricky to just listen to Rangatira and maybe tell Rangatira that he wanted to think about it. “Be cool bro. Just be cool.”

After they’d gone, Ricky looked at me with a smile on his face. He told me about an idea he’d had.

Sweep

Clear

They are coming up the hill. Rangatira, Grant and Old Jack. Behind them come curious teenagers, some older, some younger—girls and boys. It is a long climb up the hill. The wind blows swift and sure. Many look out to the west with wonderment that there is still so much land towards Makara. This radar station has been the edge of their whole world, till now.

“I like your shithole.” Rangatira spoke with mirth. “Quite the batch.”

Ricky squared up. His bandaged hand loosely holding the metal bar. I hid behind a windbreak wall just as Ricky had told me to. My eyes were the cameras on the outside of the radar station.

“I did what you wanted.” Ricky called across the distance. “Old man Josh Red’s dead. I killed him ‘cause that’s the iwi justice. So he’s dead over there. Buried. Not deep. You’ll find him.”

Rangatira nodded. “That’s good Ricky. You did good.” He had eyes like a kea deciding how to tear something apart. “Now I reckon we can bargain like men, eh?”

Rangatira’s deal was simple. Ricky was to get a house down in the Kelburn community. The community would help build it. He’d get a girl, whomever he wanted: Get a girl; be a father; be a man.

“That all sounds good, but for what?” Ricky asked.

“For the Emma. For the radar. For everything your family did. They did good. Now you get to trade up.”

Ricky looked at the ground like a man really considering the deal. He asked the Rangatira to repeat the offer. It was somewhat as I had predicted. The control room door was open, I heard everything.

“Respected Rangatira,” Ricky spoke like a man. “You ask a lot of me and promise things you can’t really promise. You can’t tell a girl to love me just ‘coz you’ve struck a bargain.” Ricky and I both saw the narrowing of Rangatira’s eyes. Did he see the thin wire that trailed from Ricky’s metal bar?

“How can you promise a baby when so many die? And what community’ll build me a home if you’ve all gone south? My robot, as your bargain? I think you wanna fight me.”

Ricky was brave. I knew that. Ricky was also really fast on his feet. He told me his dad loved to spar with him. They’d dance and duck and weave around each other whilst Ricky was to recite the litanies of reset, reboot, and system check. Ricky was ready as Rangatira stamped and sung the haka. Ricky was ready and I was fully charged.

Greenstone Patu held high at first, then brought down and forward. Spear in the other hand. Rangatira closed, just paces away and the spear was thrown. Ricky crouched and dived to the side rolling back up. Rangatira was past him and turning. Rangatira baited him and said nasty things about Ricky’s parents. Ricky held his ground by the control room door.

Now Grant was approaching, looking to flank Ricky.

Ricky moved in the instant Rangatira signalled Grant.

He kept low, offside, connecting the metal bar up along Rangatira’s bare inside leg with a deft sweep.

“Clear!” Ricky shouted, because that is what the ship captain’s medical guide explained was the command to trigger a defibrillation.

I felt the capacitors shunt the power and suddenly Rangatira was on the ground struggling to breathe.

The capacitors recharged with a high whine. “Ready again,” my voice came from inside the radar control room, though the robot was behind the windbreak, safe out of sight.

“Back off Grant.” Ricky kicked the Patu away.

Grant kept back. “Little fucker.”

Ricky touched the metal bar to Rangatira’s leg.

“First you say you’ve no claim on anything here, nothing of mine, nothing that makes Emma live.” Ricky was barely talking to Rangatira, he was talking to Jack, the children and Grant. “Respected Rangatira. If you agree, then nobody else dies today. Enough people have died already.”

I do not like Rangatira. He has a coldness in his eyes. He is neither a diplomat, nor a strategist. He does not lead. The community obey him because they fear his rage.

Rangatira got to his feet. He was coughing. Recovering from the electric shock. Shaking on an unstable leg. Twitching. His eyes darted between the open control room from which he’d heard me, then to Ricky, Grant, the Patu cast aside on the ground and the others of the Kelburn tribe.

His breath was unsteady. He could not fight and he knew it. The adrenaline for fighting now fought just to keep him standing. “No one dies today,” Rangatira conceded. “You’re a warrior,” he acknowledged Ricky. “We’re gonna respect that. We’re gonna respect your territory. We make no bargains today, but if you wanna ride on that ship going south, you’re gonna need to pay your way. And you owe me big for what you did.” Rangatira stooped to pick up the Patu — his eyes never leaving Ricky. “You owe me big.”

Sweep

Clear

For a long time after everyone left, Ricky said nothing. He boiled water. He soaked a rag in the water before dabbing it on the cuts and scrapes the ground had inflicted as he’d dived and rolled. The wounds were superficial.

“The shoes really helped,” he said. It was quite a funny thing to say after such an encounter, so I laughed. It felt odd. That little moment where my understanding of what he’d said went straight to agreeable humour.

“We’re a team,” Ricky said. “You made my idea work. Those words you suggested. I messed up. But I spoke strong and nothing dumb.”

I agreed. He’d done very well.

“Will Rangatira stick with his agreement?” I asked.

“No.” The levity of the moment was replaced with weary resignation. “He’s already thinking about revenge. I should’ve killed him.”

I listened to Ricky as he worked through the problem. In my RWAI guidance files, political disagreement is resolved the same as all complex interpersonal problems: by listening. As each person speaks carefully on exactly their feelings, they learn to listen to both the counter-argument, and to themselves.

Eventually, Ricky summarised the problem: “I fucked up Rangatira’s authority and he needs that back, even more than he needs you.”

The radar sweeps through clear skies.

The radio listens to silence.

The Patu is a beautifully carved greenstone club and it represents the power of a river to smooth a stone’s sharp edges into a gavel for justice.

Ricky’s expression softened. His eyes looked deep past mine, focused into a distance far beyond the horizon. “I’ll fix the power to the iwi,” he said. “Reconnect the turbine. Share it. My father should never have taken that away. I’ll fix the ute and get the medical things you need. Everyday we’ll go down the hill, help with the girls, the babies and the old folks. Rangatira can keep the Patu. It’s all he has.”

Sweep

Clear

Such a shame, it was a beautiful clear day to be flying after the storm. Ceiling unlimited.

In the heat of the day the keas hide in the shade. They are supposed to be alpine birds. Their green plumage conceals them in the fern gullies below the snowline. Snow? Not here. The keas have adapted, spread out, become the big bully birds across New Zealand. They flash their orange under wing and frighten all the other birds.

A bellbird trills a defiance. Its song is far higher pitch and more lyrical than the kea but it will find a safer place to perch. It has no time for keas today.

Ricky has tidied a little. He hung up the bedclothes to dry and air. Now, he’s having a rest in the control room chair. “Seriously,” he murmured. “No one ever knew that thing was a heater that actually worked.”

I gave another little laugh. “I did wonder why you set fire to the control room waste paper basket,” But he was already fast asleep.

Sweep

Tracking one contact: Range 425. Bearing 43 at 2300 metres. Running 170 across the ground.

Wellington Approach on 118.800… Squawk 1201 

“Hello World?”