The Book of Levi (5 page)

*

Late that evening Elizabeth sat behind her desk, speaking into a recording device: ‘We must maintain control at a government level,’ she said. ‘Lobby groups must be curtailed where they threaten the good of the city.’

She stopped the recording device and stared out at the rain.

Damien woke up with a pretty, young woman asleep on his chest but with Elizabeth Dawson on his mind. He listened to the quiet rhythm of the girl’s breathing. He felt it soft upon his breast. He stared up at the ceiling and he thought.

What was it about Elizabeth that intrigued him so? Obviously she was beautiful. But there was something else. Some hidden presence was there. Some dark and secret thing lurked inside of her and he wanted to prize it out like a pearl from its shell. He was mad at himself. She had offered him the means to get close to her but he had refused. Was it too late? Probably not . . . but what was he thinking? He must resist. He knew that. Sure, he was a businessman in a world that only had rudimentary business but, even so, he couldn’t be involved with the Dawson family. They were well known for their political connections and he didn’t want to align with any particular political group. All he wanted to do was increase his earnings by increasing the number of citizens with the means to purchase. He needed consumers. He needed people with money or the equivalent. He checked himself. He was putting the horse before the cart. Even if all of the citizens of Corporate City had the means to buy endless products, what would they buy? He needed product first. And for this he needed raw material and many more factories and distribution centres; all of these things he must have before a consumer even entered the market. It was all so far away. Just a dream. Unless . . .

That Woodford guy. He had heard that he was a smart one. He had purportedly fashioned a rudimentary telescope from smelted recycled glass. He had heard that he had made a short range walkie-talkie when he was only in his teens and that, not long after, he had been invited to the local museum, where he had turned a pile of bones, hitherto stored in a box in the dim recesses of the building, that the superintendent of the place had suspected might be important, into a full skeleton of a Tyrannosaur. This specimen was incredible as the only one of its kind known in existence after the lootings and destruction immediately after the bombs of a hundred years ago. It was a physical challenge to the growing theory, espoused just over a decade ago, that the Earth had only come into existence in the last two hundred years.

He should have spoken with Woodford. He realised that now. He should have spoken with Woodford at the party but, as usual, his natural distaste for competition had stopped him.

The same thoughts dogged him later that morning as he entered the business section of his skyscraper apartment and looked at the map of an imaginary future Corporate City plastered across the wall. He had had an artist draw it there and it had been well drawn. He called it his ‘wish map’. It showed the city centre and its surrounds as Damien would like it to be. Stretching out towards what he had dubbed the Parramatta Line, a series of factories was drawn, just on the edge of the wasteland. It showed the city centre and then, fanning out away from it was the arable land, before the radiation affected wasteland. From Palm Beach in the north to Parramatta in the west to Kernel in the south, all dotted with factories that he imagined producing everything from motor cars to canned goods. He envisioned a city population catching some form of public transport to work in these factories. He imagined them earning enough money to buy the goods produced. He imagined a basic economy. Not this two-status, hotchpotch that existed now. And in his wildest imaginings, he dreamed of international trade; of imports and exports: of real ‘big business’.

The more he thought, the more he realised. He didn’t need Elizabeth Dawson; he didn’t need political affiliation. He had been right to resist her charms. He needed scientific know-how. The business world, the whole world, he suddenly saw, was limited without the scientist; the inventor. They conceived of the world and then the engineers constructed it. The businessman and the consumer, the end user, only lubricated its wheels. Businessmen had nothing to sell and people had nowhere to work without the thinkers and their input. It became clear to him – he must speak with Woodford.

However, it was not Woodford, but Dawson, who chose that moment to enter his apartment.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Elizabeth, hanging elegantly by the door. ‘May I come in?’

The answer was obvious and soon the two found themselves admiring the imaginary city on Damien’s wall.

‘I see the existing factories here,’ she pointed to the map at the outskirts of the central city, ‘but what are these ones in a ring further out towards the wasteland?’

‘They’re the factories I intend to build one day. They’ll eventually supplant the ones in existence now,’ he replied, looking at the map but noticing, more than anything, the delightful aroma of Elizabeth’s hair. ‘We’ll need to transport the workers out there of course, but if we can manage it, we can provide useful work for most of the street dwellers.’

‘You’re a visionary,’ she muttered to herself, but loudly enough so that Damien could hear.

At that moment he so much wanted to be a visionary, just so that he could fit the picture of him she appeared to be forming in her head, but he had to be honest.

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘this is my father’s idea. I just had an artist paint it upon my wall so I never forget it.’

‘That shows vision,’ replied Elizabeth, turning the beacon of her bright eyes upon him.

‘Perhaps,’ he returned, though a little unsteadily, smote by the rigour of her eyes. He looked back to the wall and added, ‘If we had the means we might even be able to make use of the mountains.’

‘It’s illegal to live in the mountains, young man. You know that,’ Elizabeth replied, playfully.

‘I meant in the future,’ replied Damien.

‘I know you said that you can’t work for me,’ she said, ‘and I accept that, but I wonder if, perhaps, you might consider working with Leslie Woodford?’

Damien was aghast. All of the thoughts he had entertained over the past few hours had suddenly borne fruition, as if the gods had been listening in and rewarded his desire.

‘I’d like to meet him,’ he replied.

Elizabeth looked at his delicious, slender body that even a rustic baggy shirt couldn’t completely disguise. She took quick inventory of his fine but strong features and she sighed.

‘I’ll arrange it,’ she said.

And she was gone in a dark swirling mass of unbridled hair and feline, tight-bodied elegance.

Damien sighed. He sensed the double-edged sword of opportunity and danger lurking in every stride of that young woman.

And he heard the sirens calling.

*

Leslie had spent a sleepless night. Unlike Damien, he didn’t have a young woman to pass the time, or an orgasm to act as a sedative. He had stayed wide awake for the majority of the night, enjoying only brief, broken spats of dreamtime. And what sleep he had managed was a compendium of missing manuscripts and Elizabeth Dawson’s rubescent cheeks. Her dark hair ripped like a tornado through his mind and the pages of his precious manuscript were sucked up into its vortex towards the oblivion of the sky in a thousand loose-leaf pages.

He was dark-eyed and dishevelled when he found his way into a meeting with Nicholas Brand and Elizabeth Dawson the following morning.

‘My God. What happened to you?’ asked Nicholas as Leslie entered the meeting room.

He didn’t have a chance to answer before Elizabeth arrived. She was dressed in a brown business suit and perfectly presented. She had not a hair out of place. Her make up was subtle but charming. She was perfect in every way. If someone had designed the scene to juxtapose dishevelment and tight regimentation of appearance, he or she could not have illustrated it better than the contrast between the two.

‘My God,’ she started, after she sat and raised her eyes to greet the two men. ‘What on Earth happened to you?’

‘That’s what I just asked him,’ said Nicholas with a smile.

‘Nothing serious,’ Leslie replied. ‘I just couldn’t sleep thinking about those stolen manuscripts.’

‘Any progress?’ asked Nicholas.

Elizabeth placed her fingers on the desk. ‘I have one piece of bad news, but,’ she emphasised, before Leslie could enter any complaint, ‘it’s not the end of the world. Not yet.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Leslie.

‘One of the manuscripts has definitely been destroyed.’

‘What?’ muttered Leslie, rather pathetically. He was too tired to be angry. He had imagined the worst all night and now the worst had come. He was enervated with fatigue.

‘Before you get upset, Consul Woodford, this first manuscript was the one cut from your book and it was fairly easy to trace. It was stolen by Consul Sorensen who had her own agenda, it seems. We all saw her in the video tape two nights ago. You recall, she is somewhat enamoured with the idea that God hates technology and that man is essentially bad.’

‘I told you,’ said Leslie to Nicholas.

Nicholas shrugged in defeat.

‘She admitted as much to the police last night. Make no mistake, she and her fellow cult members will be dealt with severely. But as for the other, the original manuscript, we haven’t given up hope on that yet.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Leslie. ‘Surely there was a digital copy? I can’t imagine Sir Colin Dunnett leaving only two copies of such a vitally important manuscript. He must have had it on a computer somewhere?’

‘Look, that may be the case,’ she replied, reaching her hand across the desk and placing her hand palm-down upon his, ‘but if he did, we have absolutely no record of it. As far as we know, there are only the two . . .’ she checked herself, ‘. . . only the one copy in existence. But, and this is the good news, Consul Sorensen swears that neither she, nor the group that she represents know anything about the other copy.’

‘How can you be so certain that they’re telling the truth?’ Leslie asked.

‘We have our methods,’ Elizabeth replied cryptically.

‘When was it last sighted?’ asked Nicholas.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘When was the original manuscript last seen?’ he repeated.

Elizabeth paused for a moment. ‘I don’t know, exactly,’ she replied, brushing her delightful fringe away from her forehead. ‘But I assume that it was accounted for regularly.’

‘Well, when was it last accounted for?’ asked Leslie, picking up the scent.

‘I see what you mean,’ muttered Elizabeth thoughtfully. She picked up the phone. ‘Stefan,’ she began, ‘find out when the original manuscript we’re looking for was last sighted. (Pause) No, I mean actually seen; touched. (Pause) Very well.’ She put down the phone. ‘Funny,’ she said with a far away smile, ‘but that hadn’t even occurred to me.’

In fact, it took more than three hours for the answer to arrive and by that time Elizabeth, Nicholas and Leslie were taking lunch.

Stefan appeared in another beige suit. He looked like a messenger bearing bad news. He was hesitant to enter the room in which the trio ate and, even after he was spied at the door by Elizabeth, he tarried for a moment or two as if uncertain whether to enter, or to flee.

‘Whatever is it?’ Elizabeth quizzed him as he tentatively entered the lunch room. She almost laughed at the fearful expression etched upon his face.

‘Can I see you alone for a moment?’ he asked Elizabeth.

‘Certainly not,’ she replied in a strikingly defiant tone. ‘Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my two consuls.’

Stefan fully entered the room and was laid to siege by three pairs of eyes; Elizabeth’s bright and beautiful, Nicholas’ dark and inquisitive and Leslie’s, searching and troubled.

‘I’m sorry to tell you . . .’ he began.

‘I don’t want to hear this!’ Leslie erupted. ‘If you’re about to tell me that the other manuscript has been burned or butchered or taken up to God or whatever, I don’t want to hear it!’

This outburst made quite an impression on everyone in the room, especially Stefan, who looked towards Elizabeth as if he was choking on a bone.

‘Well, Stefan?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘It appears,’ he began in a sort of whining, sycophantic noise that seemed to emanate more through his nose than from his mouth, ‘that the original manuscript has not, in fact, been actually seen for . . . fifty two years.’

This news broke like the first lightning of a storm upon the unwary traveller. The trio reacted with a collective, ‘What?’

Stefan gathered in his breath and continued bravely, ‘It hasn’t ever been required. The last consul who was even a scientist was elected a little over thirty years ago. But, you see, the copy that he had was the same one given to Leslie, or rather not given to Leslie. There’s been no need to even think about the original until this one went missing. It was always assumed that it was safe in the government vault.’

Stefan cringed, as if a dog about to be struck. He bundled up one eye into a crease and held his head down to one side. He was attempting to shield himself from the oncoming thunder. But it did not come.

Elizabeth and Nicholas were silent and contemplative. Perhaps they were waiting for Leslie to initiate the storm, for they both looked at him.

Eventually, he spoke in a measured and controlled voice. ‘Am I to understand,’ he whispered, ‘that the most significant document we have in our limited civilisation’s possession has not only been lost, but has been considered so insignificant that it has not even been sighted for half a century?’

That seemed to pretty well sum it up, for Stefan uttered not one sound.

‘Well, that is incredible.’ He shook his head. ‘That is absolutely gob-smacking. To think that the powers that have been in control of this city over the past half century have seen so little value in scientific progress that they have not had multiple copies of the original made during that time; to think that the various governments of Corporate City during that period have been negligent of that fundamental duty. I mean, look at the place. Ninety percent of it is a cesspool of curdled milk and the cream’s making all the rules. We haven’t had a scientist in office for the last three decades. And wasn’t that the original idea of the triumvirate of power? Representation and progress for all?’