Series Introduction

Praeludium

The Guardians Report

February, 1971

All of the senior Guardian Spirits who were responsible for watching over Australia were gathered in ... well, somewhere in a parallel dimension. Where they were wasn’t important, but the subject of their meeting was. They had gathered to discuss the findings from a major ‘data gathering’ exercise; what was essentially a survey of the subconscious opinions and views of all twelve and a half million people living in Australia. They did this every ten years, and by analysing the results, they were able to make fairly accurate predictions on how the people in the country would act to world events. The various groups of the Guardian Spirits around the world would conduct similar analyses, this allowed them to predict any major issues that might impact on how humans – and the rest of the world – would live.

Of course, these were just ‘predictions’; the accuracy depended on how far out into the future they tried to project, and how many people were involved. As recent history had shown, the actions of one individual – Adolph Hitler – could throw all of their estimates out. Since that time, they had changed their ‘rules of engagement’; before that, they were not permitted to take ‘direct action’ against any individuals, but now, if the situation warranted it again, provided the Ruling Council approved, individuals who posed a ‘clear and present danger to human life’ could be eliminated. But there was no such individual foreseen on the horizon. Sure, there were threats and dangers to human life; there were always going to be wars, famines and other natural disasters, but there was no anticipated major threat, no one seemed to be crazy enough to actually start a nuclear war. Sure, there was lots of posturing and threatening, but neither side in the current cold war seemed willing to pull the trigger, as it were.

But there were other possible dangers; not necessarily resulting in total extinction of human – and all other – life, but still representing a danger to people. And predicting, and nullifying those dangers was the prime responsibility of the Guardian Spirits. Even though Sid had been with them just over the two years since he had died, he was still amazed at the abilities they had – and he possessed, too. He had never been a strongly religious man; despite the efforts of his mother, who was a committed Methodist, but she had died when he was fourteen, and it was just up to his father to raise him. The two of them had worked in the coal mines in Balmain, until the black lung took his father in 1915. Sid was now an orphan, at least his younger brother and sister were being looked after their Aunt Bina. Sabina Cooke had come into money, originally she was working as a maid for a wealthy businessman; a part owner of the Mashman Brothers pottery and pipe works. William Mashman – who she was working for – fell in love with her, and she ended up pregnant; while that could have caused a major scandal, William did the right thing, and married her, and Sid lived with them until he decided to enlist in the army. Even though he was only sixteen, he lied about his age, and joined the AIF.

At least as a Driver in the service corps, he didn’t see some of the close hand to hand combat or trench warfare that the infantry soldiers did, but he did see his fair share of the carnage that was all part of ‘The War to End All Wars’. That was where his disenchantment with most organized religions started; most of the chaplains would be safely back at the headquarters area, well away from the shelling and gunfire. The only exception were the Sallies – the Salvation Army Officers, who would be right up in the trenches and front line with the common soldiers; handing out cigarettes, giving them comfort.

Meanwhile, Thomas Peel, his old company commander was going through his report to the other Guardians; Sid’s contribution would not be until the very end, so he continued with his reminiscing. Looking back, his life had started with a pretty tough childhood; working in the coal mines, then off to the war. But when he returned, his life really improved. He was back with his Aunt at her house in Auburn, and his brother and sister were living there too. He met a lovely woman – Lisa Hutson – at the local shops; by some fluke she had been born only a few miles from where he had spent the first few years of his life. She was three years older than him, but they quickly fell in love, and decided to get married. Of course, he was under twenty-one, and in theory needed parental approval to marry. So, once again he put his age up, on the marriage license form stating he was 21, and Lila put her age down, so ‘officially’ she was younger than him – by three days, but that was socially acceptable.

He gained employment with the Tramways department, starting as a cleaner, then a conductor, driver, and finally as an inspector, before he retired in 1961, when the state government finally closed and shut down the system. He and Lila had a very happy marriage, they had two daughters, both of whom married great guys, and had provide him and Lila with a total of four grandsons and a granddaughter. It was one of his grandsons that would be the subject of his presentation a bit later. Even when he died, he wasn’t sad, it was at the end of a wonderful four week period where he and Lila spent the holidays with his daughter Mary and son-in-law John and their three kids. It was his fourth heart attack in six years, there wasn’t anything the doctors could do about his heart, it was only a matter of time before he succumbed.

What was a huge surprise to him was once he realized he was dead, he wasn’t up at the ‘Pearly Gates’ about to be led into Heaven, but he was in a room, and there with him was Thomas – he hadn’t seen him since the day in November, 1918, only an hour before the Armistice was announced. A stray bullet from a sniper had killed him instantly. Thomas told Sid that he had the option of joining the Guardians, because he had a natural ability to read peoples’ emotions and state of mind. It had been an interesting two years, not just his work on their latest survey, but he was able to keep an eye on his grandchildren.

He had always had the ability to see what people needed, to ‘read’ them; and get a good idea of how they would turn out. That was a valuable skill when he led an infantry training company in the Second World War; he could quickly assess which soldiers needed additional help or coaching, and who would go on to be a good, competent soldier. But now that he was with the Guardians, his natural abilities had been enhanced a hundred-fold; he was able to delved into people’s subconscious minds, and draw on the energy of all of the living creatures around him to amplify his natural abilities.

“Now, we will turn to our predictions for the Australian political environment,” Thomas said. “The predictions from now until the mid-eighties have a very high – over 95 percent - level of confidence that we have them correct. The Federal Labor party will take government in the 1972 election, Whitlam came very close in the last election, in fact winning the popular vote, but not gaining enough seats to form government. That will change next time, and they will introduce a wide range of reforms; universal health care, changes to the divorce laws, establishing full diplomatic relations with Communist China, abolishing university fees, cutting back ties with the UK. Most of these will have broad public support, but will upset the more conservative elements in the country. So much so that the conservative parties will react and do whatever they can to overthrow the government. They should be back in power by the end of 1975, and they will start to shift further to the right, becoming more reactionary. Now, we will see that in other countries in the world, particularly in the US and the UK, the rise of what is being called ‘neo-conservatism’, and an increase in the demand for a minimal government from disciples of the Ayn Rand libertarianism.

“In response to that, the Labor party will shift more to the centre, taking a fabianist approach, but still with a democratic socialism outlook. They will take back power federally by 1983, causing the conservatives to shift further to the right. There are several people who we have identified as being their main leaders, one of them is an up and coming Liberal Party member in Sydney, John Winston Howard. He will become Federal Treasurer, and push for a lot of free market reforms. There are others that we believe will arise during the 1980’s, as yet we don’t have sufficient information to identify individuals with any degree of certainty.”

That wasn’t strictly true, Sid thought to himself. He was pretty confident that he knew two other people who would become heavily involved.

“Now, normally we wouldn’t get too concerned about the ebb and flow of politics, not unless things get too extreme. But we’ve identified – with a ninety percent chance of certainty – that these people will act in a very divisive manner, and will result in a major change to the Australian way of life, from a generally friendly, helpful accepting society into one typified by selfishness and a lack of concern for their fellow man. Unchecked, these changes will occur by the year 2000.”

“And so will go one of the characteristics that makes Australia such a desirable place throughout the world,” George, the head of the group said.

“Precisely,” Thomas continued. “We are pretty sure the Labor party will initially have some pretty powerful leaders, who will win elections easily for a number of years, but unless they have someone who can help them counter the conservative leaders, eventually they will lose, and the serious divisions of Australian society will start. Sid has identified one person who we believe – again, with a good degree of certainty – will be able to work behind the scenes in the Labor party to convince the party and parliamentary leadership of not just the best course for them to take the country, but how to sell that message to the population as a whole. Sid?”

“Thanks Thomas, in a few minutes I’ll show you this person, but first some background,” Sid said. “The person who I believe we need to make sure is in a position to counteract the foreseen reactionary people is, in fact, my grandson – and the reason why Thomas chose me to join the Guardians when I died several years ago. He’s my younger daughter’s eldest son; very smart, quick to learn new skills, but more importantly, he has a highly developed sense of right and wrong, very empathetic and a deep compassion and concern for other people. Let me give you an example, of when I first noticed this in him.

“It would have been around late 1961 when my wife, Lila became very ill; my daughter Mary and her son, Will, stayed at our place, and she help me take care of her. Lila had lots of prescription medicine to take, and Will – who would have been four at the time – quickly learned what pills she had to take at what time of the day. He would remind her, ‘Pill time, Nanna’; he wanted to make sure she took all of her pills when she had to. After that, I watched him as he grew up, he’s recently turned thirteen, and is starting second form at high school. I don’t see him as a political candidate or politician, but as someone who can work behind the scenes to help set policy, and know how to sell it so that the people to implement it get elected.”

“Will we need to make any adjustments to him?” one of the others asked.

“Not anything important,” Sid replied. “Maybe improve his ear for perfect pitch, and better singing ability. One if his friends will provide the ‘political awakening’ that he needs. But he’s got a supportive family situation, great friends, and he should develop the self-confidence to fulfil our hopes for him. Are you interested in seeing him?”

The others all were interested, so Sid went to the viewscope; he rotated the large world globe so the northern part of Sydney was in focus, then enlarged the image, until it was concentrated on the concrete quadrangle of a high school. In one corner, several of the students were standing around, talking and joking. Sid pointed out his grandson, Will, and his friends.

Schoolyard Bullies

Monday, February 8th, 1971

We were hanging out in our regular corner of the quadrangle during recess; it was my first day back for the year, somehow at the end of the summer holidays I had come down with the mumps, of all things. So there was lots of joking; all of our gang were there, Garry Lewis, Cathy and David Parsons, Ricky Hilder, Megan Winters, Janelle Ward, Glen Brown, Monica Pecar, Jenny de Jong.

“Hey, isn’t that the new girl, the one whose just moved here from the US?” Cathy said, pointing to a slim, blonde girl heading across the quadrangle towards where we were standing.

“What’s going on with her, Murray and Ross?” Garry asked. “They seem to be hassling her, giving her a hard time! Dickheads!”

I could hear them saying something to her, but I couldn’t make out the words over the general hub bub of the playground. But I did hear her call out to them “Just leave me alone!” She sounded upset; so I headed over to where they were, and positioned myself between her and the other two guys. I had known Ross and Murray since kindergarten; they were typical bullies, always picking on weaker kids, teasing them, goading them into a fight, whereupon they would beat the crap out of them.

“Hey! You guys! Piss off and leave her alone!” I said, rather aggressively.

“Ohh, and what if we don’t?” Murray said. “Are you going to protect the new girl?”

“I just might at that,” I said. “Just go away, stop bullying someone just because they are new here. About time you two dickheads grew up; we’re not in primary school anymore!”

“Oh, maybe little Willie wants to stick his willy into some Yankee pussy!” Murray said.

That was it, I snapped. Not only did I hate being called “Willie”, but there was no need for him to be crude. I swung my arm back, and punched him with all my strength, right in the face. I heard a very satisfying ‘thunk’ as my fist hit his nose, he yelled out, and I saw blood starting to flow from his nose.

“You bastard! You’ve broken my nose!” he yelled at me.

Both of them looked like they were about to hit me, I pulled the new girl behind me, and I saw some of my friends start to head over towards us, ready to defend me.

“Now, what’s going on here!” the science master, Mr. Dickson said, seeing what looked like could develop into a fight.

“Nothing, Sir,” all three of us said in unison.

“Good. Well, keep it that way,” he replied, “otherwise you can see me in my office at lunchtime. Go and clean your face up, Eagles, and tuck your shirt in, you look like a lout!”

Both Ross and Murray headed across to the boys’ toilets to clean themselves up, and I led the new girl back to where the others in our group were.

“Thank you for that,” she said. “Those guys ... they were being really nasty and rude. I don’t think we’ve met yet, I’m Lori, Lori Earle, this is my second week here.”

“Hi, Lori, my name is Will, Will Morris. I was off sick last week, so I guess that’s why we haven’t met already.”

“It’s so hard starting at a new school, not knowing anyone,” she said. “I haven’t made any friends yet, and everything is so different. Those guys were making fun of me about my accent, and the words I use.”

She looked like she was about to cry, so I led her over to where the others were standing, and I introduced her to the others. They were all interested to find out where she was from (Virginia in the United States), why she was here (her father had been sent to manage the Australia office of the company he worked for), what things she liked doing (sailing), and the subjects she was doing. Recess was almost over, and it turned out her next lesson was commerce, so she went off to that with Cathy. Megan and I had music, and as we walk across to C Block, Megan teased me about Lori.

“So, you’ve rescued another damsel in distress,” she said. “Why don’t you bring her to the dance at the Memorial Hall this Friday? You are coming, aren’t you? Paul’s group is playing, I think all of us are going. She might like to be included in the social activities; I don’t think she really knows anyone yet.”

“If I ask her, she might think I’m trying to crack onto her,” I said. “Why don’t you tell her about it at lunchtime; mention all of us are going. That way it won’t be quite so intimidating for her, she won’t think she’s being asked out on a date.”

“She might like to be asked out on a date by you,” Megan replied.

“It’s not that sort of a dance, anyway,” I said. “But I think she might like to be included with all of us, she said she hasn’t made any friends here yet.”

“We’ll sort that out for her,” Megan said. “I’m sure Cathy’s telling her everything about all of us even now; you know what she’s like organizing everyone. You know that David Parsons is ‘taking’ Monica Pecar to the dance? I heard him asking her last week.”

“He’s been fascinated by her breasts ever since first form,” I said. “She was one of the first in our class, back in fifth year to start to develop.”

“Wasn’t she keen on you at one stage?” Megan asked.

“Maybe, if she was I didn’t know,” I replied.

Any further discussion was finished, since Mr. Thomas had arrived, and he started the lesson on the sections of the orchestra. I suspected a lot of this class would be a repetition of the music theory that I had studied as part of my piano exams at the Conservatorium of Music; in fact both Megan and I had our second grade exams in two months’ time.

Further Assessment Required

Monday Afternoon, February 8th, 1971

The Guardians resumed their meeting; reasonably impressed with what they had seen.

“Have you had the chance to do a full future projection of that young man, and some of his friends?” the chairman asked Sid.

“Not as yet, Sir, I was hoping you would give me approval to undertake that study after you had seen the subject.”

“Approved, Sid. And several of those others in his group of friends seem to have some potential to work with him. How long will you need? A week? If you can report back to us once it’s done, then we can work out what actions we will need to take.”

“That will be fine; and yes, I will include a full analysis of several of the others there; that young American girl is important, plus several other of Will’s close friends,” Sid replied.

Sid knew what he had to provide; he had the special ability to see what the future might hold for a person, or foretell – with a reasonable degree of accuracy – what the future might hold for someone. It wasn’t just as simple as ‘reading a person’s future’; people’s lives were intertwined; what one person did affected many other people. This was where he could provide additional value over the usual analysis that the other Guardians performed; while they could see and analyse people’s subconscious thoughts and needs, and assemble that into a prediction based on a large survey sample, he could see if any particular individual could upset that prediction. Even quite recently, world history had shown how the actions of one influential individual could throw all of their predictions way off course. The challenge was to identify those individuals early enough so that their impact could be determined, and countered if necessary.

Working out what an individual’s future might hold was not a simple task; it had been explained to him early on that the future was like a massive tapestry, the warp and weft of the tapestry base was ‘filled out’ by individual coloured threads – the lives of individuals. Sometimes, several people – differently colour threads would combine to form an image at the appropriate location on the tapestry of the future. Then each individual thread would separate, and move on to another point in the future, creating other images. What he was able to do was by closely examining the subconscious of each individual, pull out the ‘thread’ of their future, see who that combined with, and in what way, and present all that information for the rest of the Guardians to analyse. With luck, and lots of hard work, they hoped the next Hitler or Stalin could be identified, and somehow prevented from causing mass chaos and loss of life. Alternatively, they may identify a future leader who through his or her actions, might steer society into a better outcome. The challenge was not only identifying that individual (or individuals), but to determine which other people might interact with that individual to prepare them for that role.

Sid was fairly sure his grandson, Will Morris was one such individual; over the next thirty or forty years he would be a key ‘influencer’ on the leaders in Australia, to counter the rise of some rather unpleasant individuals. His task over the next week was to pull out the individual ‘threads’ of Will and any other people connected to him; work out just how they would all interact so that Will would be able to ‘fulfil his destiny’ as it were. It wouldn’t be an easy task; quite mentally and spiritually draining, but he was one of the few Guardians able to do it with any degree of accuracy. Now to plan how to start; he felt going in ‘under cover’, in disguise to this dance Will and the others would be attending would be a good start.

Developing the Friendship

February 12th – 14th, 1971

Over the next few days, we made sure Lori was included in our group; once she had got over her initial shyness, she fitted in well. I learned a lot about her; her father had been a pilot with the US Navy, she had grown up on various US Navy bases across the USA, he had served (and been shot down!) in Vietnam, he resigned from the Navy not long after that, and got a job with a telecommunications company, called ‘MCI’. In January, her whole family (including her older sister, Mary Beth, who was in fourth form) moved to Sydney, and they were living in Newport. She thought it was a great coincidence, the last place they had lived at in the USA was called ‘Newport News’, and now they were living in Newport – a different Newport. Her parents had chosen this part of Sydney, because her father was a keen sailor, he had sailed in lots of yacht races, and wanted to join the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. As well, Lori was showing potential as a sailor, and PHS was one of the few high schools with a sailing program; she was already doing sailing for Tuesday afternoon sport. The Earle’s had a house on The Crescent which backed onto Winji Jimmi bay, with a dock on the water. Her father was in the process of buying a motor cruiser that they could keep tied up at their private dock.

She had agreed to coming to the dance, but said her parents would drive her there, so they could meet all of us. Probably a bit unsure of what a dance like this would be; maybe they were concerned about Lori’s new friends. Friday evening, I got dressed for the dance; it was being run by the local Methodist church; the same group that had their ‘gospel service’ on the second Sunday of each month in the Memorial Hall. The minister – the Reverend Gough – wanted to have a modern, revival style service; lots of music, to appeal to the younger people in the area. A few of us from St Johns had gone several times, it wasn’t too bad, I guess, but a little to ‘happy clappy’ for my liking. Still, the fact that it was being run by one of the churches made all of the parents of our group relieved; they knew there would be no smoking, no alcohol and no ‘misbehaving’ with the chaperones there to keep an eye on things.

I hadn’t been completely truthful to Megan when I had told her that I had no idea if Monica had been keen on me back in primary school; I didn’t want to tell her about the time when one afternoon, Monica and I were walking the short distance from the back of the school on Emma Street, up the Wangara Street hill to Monica’s house, She stopped and pulled two strands of cotton from the red belt around her sports uniform (it must have been a Tuesday, sports day), and knotted one around my wrist, the other around hers. She got me to put my little finger through the loop around her wrist, while she did the same to the one around my wrist.

“Now, on three, pull the loop with your finger and break the cotton,” she instructed.

It all seemed a strange ritual to me, but I did as she told me to.

“Now, that means we are going to be together for the rest of our lives,” she said. “We will end up married one day.”

I didn’t know what to do or say; I was still rather shy around girls. In hindsight, I guess I should have given her a kiss, or something, but all I could do was mumble something like ‘that’s nice’. I guess she was disappointed with my lack of enthusiasm, we never spoke about that time since. I guess I felt a little pang of jealousy that David was ‘taking’ her to the dance; not that it really meant much; we were all meeting there, it was close enough for me, Monica, David, Cathy and Megan to walk from our respective places.

The dance was being held at the Memorial Hall; it was on a triangular block of land that was mostly the Mona Vale ‘village park’, between Pittwater Road on one side, Barrenjoey Road on another, and (logically), Park Street on the third. The ‘Mona Vale Memorial Hall’ was on one corner, the council library next to it, and an area with trees and playground equipment in the corner opposite the pub. The southern corner, at the Pittwater / Barrenjoey Road intersection had the small monument dedicated to those local residents who fought and died in World War I. Along the Pittwater Road side was the ‘baby health centre’; and in the centre was a cricket pitch, where when I was at primary school, we would play cricket matches for school sport. That was the scene of my one dismal attempt at playing the game properly; in 6th grade I was on the school’s cricket team, and one time we played Newport Primary, and I scored a ‘golden duck’; bowled out first ball I faced, without scoring any runs. Not one of my finer sporting moments!

Anyway, after dinner on Friday night, I had a shower – and even splashed on some of my ‘Brut 33’ after shave. Not that I needed to shave, but I thought putting it on would be nice. I wore my good brown flares and an apricot coloured paisley shirt, and once I was ready I walked up the hill. Just as I reached the top of the street, Monica was there, she had walked up her street so we would walk down to the hall together. She was wearing what looked like a traditional Serbian style skirt and blouse; lots of bright coloured patterns embroidered on it.

“You look nice in that, Monica,” I said to her.

“Oh, thank you, Will,” she replied. “Just something my mother and Auntie made for me. It’s a traditional style from their home country.”

We walking in silence together down Waratah Street, and when we got outside the school, she asked me a question.

“So, what do you think of this new girl, Lori” Monica asked me.

“She seems nice enough, I guess,” I said. “It must be tough, having to leave everything and move halfway around the world though. She says it’s been a huge cultural change for her; things here are so different, even although the language is the same, words and phrases are different.”

“So what do you know about her?”

“Not a real lot; her father was a pilot with the US Navy, flew jets off aircraft carriers, they moved around a lot when she was little, one base to another as he got different postings. Apparently he was shot down over Vietnam in the war, but survived, obviously. After that, he decided to get out of the Navy, and worked for a telecommunications company, and they sent him to manage their Australian branch. She’s a keen sailor, apparently, that’s why the chose this area of Sydney to live, because PHS has sailing as a sport.”

“Megan Winters thinks Lori is keen on you,” she said.

“Yeah, well Megan Winters thinks a lot of things about me that aren’t true!” I replied. “Just because I stopped those two dickheads from tormenting her the other day, people assume she thinks of me as some knight in shining armour.”

“Hrmm, you can be pretty dense when it comes to what girls think about you, Will.”

I suspected I knew what she was really referring to, but since she was meant to be on a date with David tonight, I didn’t want to say anything. We arrived at the hall a few minutes before 7:00; Megan Winters and her younger sister, Jillian were already there. I had known all of the Winters family for almost as long as I had been living in Mona Vale; their parents – Arthur and Marla – were good friends of my parents, and they all attended St Johns church with me. Paul was a year older than me, Megan a month or so older than me, Jillian a year younger. There were two younger brothers, Jonathan (Jono) and Bruce, their ages between my brother and sister.

Mr and Mrs Winters were fun people; Mr Winter – Arthur, or ‘Artie’ as everyone called him – was tall, skinny, and had a shock of bright red hair on his head. He ran a business in the city that repaired small electric motors. Mrs Winters – Marla – was shorter, dark haired, and I guess the term to describe her body would be ‘voluptuous’. Whether that was really the correct word or not, I liked how it sounded ... voluptuous. I could see Monica growing up to be a voluptuous woman. Marla was very talented, musically; that was where Paul, Megan and Jillian all had her musical ability. Paul was the image of his father, while Megan was like her mother – voluptuous. Her breasts were almost as nice looking as Monica’s were. Hey – I was a fourteen year old teenage boy, I’m MEANT to notice things like that. At least I wasn’t as obvious as some of the others were, like David Parsons. He would be so blatant the way he would ogle some of the girls, starting directly at their tits. Anyway, Jillian was more like her father, skinny, red hair, and lacking her mother’s curves. I had always got on well with all of them; Paul I considered a good mate, despite being a year ahead of me at school, and Jillian – she was an annoying brat, always teasing me, doing silly stuff like slapping me on the backside. But despite that, she and Megan were part of my circle of friends.