The Prime Minister has revealed all including his naked head. The Bogan councillors are stunned by the revelation that Kev is Chinese and that there are dastardly Chinese plans for the downfall of the Western world. All seems lost. Ann Appuladay, however, suspects even more strife is on the way to the crew from Bogan Chitty.
Now read on.
(Ann Appuladay and Mayor Porker casually cross the briefing room to a door partly hidden by a screen wall. Ann opens the door and Mayor Porker follows Ann through into what appears to be a food preparation area. There are long trestle tables, heavy with all kinds of beautifully prepared food. Ann is tugging at Mayor Porker’s sleeve and trying to tell her something important but Porky has noticed something she has not seen for many years. Among the delicious array of tempting dishes is a small plate of biscuits. The plate is of translucent, delicately rose-patterned and impossibly thin china. Mayor Porker is sure that if the plate is lightly tapped it will chime for several months. The plate is nice but it is on the plate that we find the source of Mayor Porker’s fixation. Arranged in a radiating, overlapping pattern are golden sugar biscuits straight from childhood dreams. These biscuits are rectangular with that sort of piecrust edge that proper biscuits have and they sparkle with just the right amount of sprinkled sugar. Certain older people throughout Australia search longingly for these biscuits and never ever find them. They are similar to the shape and size of the Paradise Rich Shortbread biscuits that Woolies sell but that similarity ends with size and shape. The biscuits Mayor Porker has long craved were baked in batches of a thousand on huge black-crusted trays slid into a brick built wood-fired oven. The fat, jolly baker thought of other things and pounded dough while the biscuits baked but he would always return to the oven at the precise moment, not a second before or later, when his heart told him the biscuits were perfect. One hour later Nanna would call at the Bakers and buy a pound of them and the baker would tumble them from the brass weighing dish into a large brown paper bag and curl the top down tight so that……………….)
Ann Appuladay: Mayor Porker! What the hell is wrong with you? Please listen to me – the corridor outside the briefing room is crawling with armed Chinese. We think they are going to round us all up, or worse!
Mayor Porker: What? Um..armed? In the corridor? How do you know - who’s we?
(Ann points upwards and Mayor Porker looks up to see a small grill near the ceiling. She can just make out a shadowed face behind the grill.)
Mower: Porky! It’s me - Mower.
Mayor Porker: Jesus, Mower, how did you get in there?
Mower: Not through this grill obviously. I’m in a service tunnel. They run all over the island. The point is, we can hear and see most of what is going on through these grills and what we can see is a build up of Chinese gunmen in the corridor outside the room you’re all in. We don’t have the firepower up here to take the gunmen out but we might be able to draw them off so your group can make a break for the service hatch that will get you into these tunnels. The service hatch is ten metres to the right when you leave the main room.
Ann Appuladay: Can you get this grill open?
Mower: Yes, but the opening’s too small; you might manage to get through it Ann, but the rest couldn’t.
Ann Appuladay: Don’t worry about that. Just don’t do anything until I get back. I’ll be three minutes.
(Ann returns to the meeting room and talks quietly to Grimy Hobo. He then finds Shizeknicker and Fondleschaft and they all go to a corner of the room jumbled by backpacks, holdalls and general clutter. They collect the weapons taken from Garth Cutler and make their way to the kitchen area where Mayor Porker waits impatiently. Ann Appuladay holds up one of the Rambo44 grenades.)
Ann Appuladay: Mower, can you use a few of these?
Mower: Strewth! Brilliant! Just let me get this grill open.
Ann Appuladay: We’ll wait in the briefing room until we hear the grenades then we’ll make a break for the service hatch.
Mower: Okay, give me about two minutes to set up. I suggest you get everyone into this kitchen area, well away from the fireworks.
Ann Appuladay: And Mower, don’t try to come down into the corridor – when we break out we’ll shoot anything that moves. Come on, Mayor Porker, let’s round our mob up and get them back here.
Mayor Porker: This biscuit tastes like a wad of bog paper.
(With a maximum of confusion and dispute Mayor Porker and Ann manage to persuade everyone into the small kitchen. It is just in time, heavy explosions shake the walls and when they all crowd back into the briefing room the door to the corridor is hanging off its hinges. In the doorway stands a dazed but heavily armed Chinese gunman. Ann raises her automatic and fires but, for some reason, the weapon is jammed and the Chinaman swings the barrel of his assault rifle toward Ann. There is a thunderous burst of fire throwing the gunman back into the corridor and the tiny figure of Gabby scuttles to the front of the group. Gabby fires one more burst into the Chinese soldier and then disappears into the corridor. Ann clicks the safety on her automatic to off and follows.)
Mayor Porker: Mr. Rudd, despite your interesting little speech you’re still the elected Prime Minister of Australia so stay close to me at all times. Arnel, get to that hatch and make sure it’s open. The rest of you, keep low and follow me. Everyone! Move! Now!
(The frantic group sprint along the corridor. They can hear bursts of gunfire as Ann and Gabby keep the Chinese back. Shizeknicker wrenches open the service hatch and finds Mower waiting on the other side. Together they scramble to get the group into the service tunnel. The last are Gabby and Ann who throw themselves through the hatchway amid a whining clatter of shrapnel from a grenade that Ann has tossed back up the corridor as an afterthought. When they reach the top of the service tunnel and are safely in the high gallery, Mower and Ann throw three more grenades back down the narrow access tunnel leading to the service hatch. The group drop to the floor as a series of shuddering explosions shatter and collapse the access tunnel, sealing it completely. Mower then leads them to the opening overlooking the mine. Below them the cavern floor is like an angry hornets nest of Chinese troops and mining personnel.)
Ann Appuladay: We have to get down there.
Mower: That’s crazy. We should just follow this tunnel to the surface. Tell her, Porky.
Mayor Porker: He’s right, Ann. It would be suicide to go down into that lot; we wouldn’t last one minute.
Ann Appuladay: Look, we don’t know what’s waiting for us on the surface. If that mining operation isn’t shut down and for some reason none of us make it off the island then it will be the end of everything we know. I think the Australian people and the rest of the free world deserve a few suicides, don’t you?
Mower: Okay, but even if we could do something there’s no way we could get down there without being seen and shot to pieces.
Gabby: There’s a power cable fixed just a metre along the wall and it leads across the cavern to those lights above the crushing machines. I used it to climb down last week when we explored this area.
Mower: That will never take my weight.
Ann Appuladay: No, but it will take mine. Let me get in position then throw a grenade as far as you can into the north section of the cavern. That should get their attention and I can slide across. I need a belt or some kind of strap to wrap over the cable, come on Grimy, you don’t need your trousers - give me that belt. And Mower, I need four grenades. If they spot me just give me as much covering fire as you can – then get out fast!
(Ann climbs onto the sill of the opening and reaches across toward the cable. She will need to jump to grab it – but not until the diversion begins. She nods to Mower. He pulls the pin on a grenade and hurls it high and far. It strikes some drums stacked on the cavern floor and clangs around in the steel work drawing the attention of some of the Chinese. The explosion that follows is spectacular and so violent that nothing about the tiny figure skidding down a wire is worth a look from the screaming Chinamen, in fact the second figure that follows the first down the same wire also gains no attention. Down near the mine Ann pulls Gabby back into the shadows.)
Ann Appuladay: Jesus, Gabby, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?
Gabby: I had to come with you, I know the way out.
Ann Appuladay: There is that.
(Working quickly while Gabby guards her back, Ann jams three of the grenades among the tangle of pipes jutting from the rock of the cavern wall. She positions the fourth grenade between the side of a large fuel tank and a massive diesel engine.)
Ann Appuladay: Okay, Gabby, which way is up and out of here?
Gabby: The monorail tunnel. It leads straight to the surface near the artificial harbour. There aren’t too many Chinese in the tunnel usually but the bastards are running everywhere at the moment so it will probably be a shit fight.
Ann Appuladay: Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Heh, heh. Now, we’ll pull the pins and run like hell for the tunnel. You do the first two grenades in the wall and I’ll take the third and the one on the diesel tank. Get ready. Go!
TO BE CONTINUED.
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