In The Beginning

## The Preamble

Law and order, like every other aspect of Western society, have been
swept away - put to the torch early one morning when Iranian troops,
trying to export revolution, struck deep into the heart of Saudi Arabia.

Within two days the world’s largest oil fields were ablaze, the
Persian Gulf had been mined and the Middle East’s once mighty torrent of
 energy had slowed to a trickle.

While the United Nations met in emergency session the price of oil
doubled, then quadrupled and then quadrupled again. On the battlefield
one disaster followed another - culminating in the destruction of both
the North West and Trans-Persian pipelines. Almost immediately the
West’s seven largest oil companies, led by Exxon, announced that they
would no longer be able to fulfill their supply contracts.

The following day dealers on the Amsterdam spot market began to demand payment in bullion.

The price of gold soared; simultaneously the dollar, mark, and yen
plummeted. In an attempt to control their economies and conserve their
fuel, one prime minister after another declared a state of emergency.
West Germany immediately imposed martial law. The military assumed power
 in Italy and Spain.

In Australia, as in every other industrialized nation, stockbrokers
watched in awe as once-great companies were written down until they
became nothing more than piles of worthless scrip. After more than two
hundred years of steady expansion, the merchant bankers, the old
investment houses and the mighty superannuation funds began to crumble
overnight.

Day after day clerks and telephonists, managers and secretaries were being sent home to wait for a recall that would never come.

Heavy industry too began to rule off the books and roll down the
shutters. With a dwindling amount of fuel and a rapidly diminishing
supply of raw materials, the wholesale retrenchments began.

Century-old chimneys which had never once failed to belch out their
waste, sputtered and died; the forges, the presses, the furnaces and the
 mills fell silent. In Newcastle and Wollongong - the anvils of the
nation - people stopped in the streets and listened: for the first time
they heard the sound of silence.

In Sydney and Melbourne, fear led to panic and panic led to riots as
small investors fought to withdraw their savings. Bank after bank bolted
 its doors, never to reopen.

And all the time the gas stations were rapidly being sucked dry as
motorists tried to stockpile as much fuel as possible. They slept in
their cars, fought at the pumps and threatened the driveway attendants:
the government’s ration coupons were left to rot in the gutter.

At night, bowser locks were smashed, storage tanks emptied and
private cars milked. Ordinary, decent people began to arm themselves,
getting ready to defend what they had.

Out on the highways, which years ago had degenerated into a war zone,
 the remaining oil tankers had to run the gauntlet of gangs of outlaw
bikers. Road hijacking was the country’s only growth industry.

Starved of fuel, interstate, intercity and finally inter-urban
commerce just stopped in its tracks. Road rigs, semis, trucks and vans
were abandoned where they fell. There were no more pickups, no more
deliveries.

In city after city, the story was repeated - the world, as everybody
knew it, was coming to an end. The dole queues grew longer by the hour,
until, finally, they stretched clear across the country. No welfare
system in the world could have withstood such an onslaught. The lootings
 and robberies began; violence became part of the system. A hopelessly
inadequate police force was pitted against a society forced into taking
what it could no longer buy. Crime was now the only thing which paid.

But perhaps even that might have been checked if the power houses had
 not faltered and failed. First the massive oil-fired generators spun to
 a stop and within days the over-burned coal-fired turbines were
grinding to a halt.

For the first time ever the lights went out across an entire country.
 Commuter trains stopped, elevators jammed, telephones died and
television images vanished.

Worse still, canneries fell silent, the packing houses closed and the
 refrigerated warehouses thawed. Suddenly food was a precious commodity.

The cities became centres of feverish activity as once law-abiding
citizens scrambled to grab what was left. Storekeepers and supermarket
managers stood by helplessly as mobs stormed their stores. Women fought
over the perishables; fathers told their kids: forget the candy, grab
the tinned goods.

Checkouts and counters were overturned and banknotes trampled underfoot as families rushed to pile high their trolleys.

For one glorious moment everybody was rich: now you could have anything you wanted.

And in a frenzy of greed they also fought to carry off the flotsam of
 the old world: stereos and toys, rugs and furniture, gadgets and
clothes.

But while by day the cities had become a carnival of looting and
pillaging, by night they became a grim battleground: neighbours preyed
on neighbours, the strong violated the weak. In alleys and hallways,
gangs of youths gave lessons in life and death, sex and violence. Night
after night the cries for help went unanswered.

Outside the urban centres, in quiet leafy suburbs and on rambling
country estates, once sociable people fortified their well-stocked homes
 and prepared to shoot any intruder on sight.

And as it became increasingly clear to everyone that the strong would
 live and the weak would perish, lone scavengers began to organise
themselves into small marauding packs. Equipped with high-powered bikes
and home-made dune buggies, they roamed across the wasted land,
searching out the weak, laying in ambush for the unwary.

Striking fast and hitting hard, they would wage war for a few gallons
 of fuel: gasoline had now become the only currency of value, the most
precious commodity in the world. To everybody it meant freedom and
power: the power to maintain a private fortress or the freedom to
scavenge; the power to cling to old ways or the freedom to search for a
new life.

As gasoline supplies dwindled and the struggle for survival grew more
 brutal, some of these marauding gangs organised themselves into larger,
 more cohesive forces under the command of a single leader. By a
combination of military skill and total savagery, these men quickly
became the modern warlords - the inheritors of a tradition which dates
back to Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun.

Against this tidal wave of change - the wholesale destruction of a
social system - an already under-manned police force did not stand a
chance.

At first in two’s and three’s, and later by entire squads, they
simply walked off the job, put away their uniforms and joined the rush
for survival.

### Who Killed The World?

*Life fades and vision dims. All that remains now are distant
memories of a time before: a time of chaos, of ruined dreams. A time
before these wasted lands. When the world was powered by the black fuel
and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. All of them gone
 now, swept away in the midst of a war that touched off a blaze which
engulfed them all. Without the black gold they were nothing, so
dependent on it they had become. All of the mighty, thundering machines
sputtered their last breaths and came to a screeching halt. Leaders of
warring tribes talked and talked until they had no voices left, but
nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded.
 A whirlwind of looting was followed by a firestorm of fear. Men began
to feed on men.*

*On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile
enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage could hold out any hope of
survival. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank
 of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered
and smashed. In the roar of an engine, they lost everything and became
shells of their former selves: burnt out and desolate, haunted by the
demons of their past.*

*These men wandered out into the badlands, the Wasted Lands. And
it was here, in this blighted place, that they learned to do more than
merely avoid the promise of death.*

*They learned to live again.*