The place had no mobile phone coverage. No internet. And, according to the keyboard warriors back at base camp, the landline was down too. Muttering under his breath, Nikau stomped up the sturdy wooden steps and onto the veranda. Who the hell didn't have internet these days? Was someone like that even worth saving? And more to the point, who still had a freaking landline? He was amazed that was still even a thing. Although, given where he was, he probably shouldn't be. Stupid, backarsewards South Islanders. The sooner he got out of here and back to Auckland, where the technology came from this century and they'd actually heard of a macchiato, the better. Pausing briefly to flick a disturbing speck of who-knew-what from his uniform, he pounded on the front door.

"Hello?" he called. "Anybody home? This is the army. Evacuation orders are in place for this region and we're here to escort you to safety." He pounded again. "Hello?"

Somewhere within the depths of the farmhouse floorboards creaked, followed by the sound of a heavy, deliberate tread. Nikau just had time to rearrange the setting of his features from 'civilians suck' to 'here to help' before the door opened a crack, just enough to reveal a grizzled, white-bearded face topped by an equally grizzled beanie.

"Can I help you, young fella?"

"Mr Taylor?"

"That's right." The old man squinted suspiciously at him. "You here about the spider?"

Great. Nikau fought the urge to sigh. Old and crazy. "The spider, sir?"

"Yeah. I called it in a while back. 'Bout bloody time someone showed up to take care of it." He nodded at the assault rifle slung over Nikau's shoulder. "You're gonna need something bigger than that peashooter, though."

"Uh..." 'Here to help' becoming a little shaky, Nikau pointed out the armoured personnel carrier idling at the end of the farmhouse's long and muddy driveway. "We're here to evacuate you, sir."

"That so?" said the old man, gazing at the khaki vehicle. "And s'posin' I don't care to be evacuated?"

Awesome, more legroom for me, Nikau refrained from saying. "Well, sir, I'd urge you to reconsider. Dangerous...creatures are active in the region, so for the safety of the civilian populace the government has upgraded the recent stay-at-home directive to an evacuation order."

"Yeah, yeah, I know it. I heard all the announcements on the wireless. I considered it, son. Hell, I even reconsidered it. And you know what? I'm stayin' put. No spider—no, not none of those other critters, neither—are chasin' me and my missus out of our home. We been here thirty-eight years and we ain't going nowhere."

'Here to help' gave way to 'polite but firm'.  "I'm sorry you feel that way, sir, however I'm afraid the evacuation is not optional. This is now a restricted zone under exclusive military control."

"Military control? You know, you might want to mention that to some of the things I've seen wandering by these last few days. I doubt they give a flying fig about your military control. Or have even noticed it, for that matter. Can't say as I have."

 "Nevertheless, sir, I can assure you we have the situation well in hand. Now, I'm going to have to insist on you and your wife accompanying me."

"Oh, insist, is it? Or what? You gonna shoot me?"

"Of course not, Mr Taylor. However, our orders are quite clear—"

"Listen...private, is it? Listen, private. I know you mean well and all, but the way I see it, this is a free country and a man's got the right to stay put in his own home, if he wants to. This old house might not look like much, but it's seen us through droughts and floods and storms and fires—hell, it's even seen us through an earthquake or two—so, I reckon it'll see us through bein' harassed by a bunch of monsters or demons or whatever all this latest tomfoolery turns out to be. So, thanks very much for your trouble and all that, but I suggest you run along back to your tin-can on wheels there and leave Val and me in peace. Or at least what passes for peace around here these days."

With practiced ease, 'polite but firm' slipped into 'impatient condescension'. "Sir, you can't seriously be suggesting this...this...dwelling provides a higher level of safety than that offered by the New Zealand army? A modern military force equipped with armoured vehicles and high-powered weaponry and the latest in technology? Rather than that, would you honestly choose to entrust yours and your wife's safety to this who-knows-how-many decades old farmhouse, consisting of nothing more than weathered wood and rusty corrugated iron and which, I can't help but notice, doesn't even have a lock on the door? Is that seriously what you're saying? Because if so, that would be foolish in the ext...in the...er..."

A shadow had fallen over the veranda. And as Nikau's voice trailed away, sudden gusts of wind ruffled his fatigues. With a strange sense of foreboding, he turned...to find the APC still sitting there, just as he'd last seen it. He had time to register feeling a little foolish, before—in a rushing maelstrom of leathery wings and bulging sinews and colossal talons—the twelve-ton armour-plated vehicle was plucked bodily from the ground and hauled up into the sky. Mouth open, he watched in stunned silence as the scaled behemoth responsible for the plucking soared up and away, its prize clutched firmly in its grasp. And then, slowly, he turned back to the doorway.

Not unkindly, the old farmer smiled at him. "Now, what was that you were saying, son?"

"Uh...I..." stammered Nikau, "that was a...a...but it can't...er...."

"Trevor!" called a strident woman's voice from within the house. "Hey, Trevor!"

"What?" the old man shouted back.

"What's all the ruckus out there?"

"Just some young bloke from the army, is all. He's come to 'vacuate us, but a big old dragon just carted off his truck and all his mates with it."

"A big old what?"

"A dragon."

"Oh, right. Ask him, does he like mutton?"

He turned back to Nikau. "You like mutton?"

"M-m-mutton?" Nikau couldn't stand mutton. He was more a slow-cooked rack-of-lamb in red-wine reduction kind of guy. Nevertheless, he nodded feverishly. "Oh, y-yes, sir. I love it. It's my f-f-favourite."

"Right. S'pose you better come in, then. Hold on a second, Sonny Jim—boots off, thanks. I dunno, young people today. No civilisation."

****

Having seen Fleakid safely onto a chartered flight bound for Bundaberg—with much coercion and not a few tears, given it turned out he'd never before been further from home than Fremantle and was afraid of heights—Peregrine and Fields were also once again airborne. Heading eastwards on their own private jet, the vast desolate, darkening expanse of Western Australia sprawled before them as the sun sank below the western horizon, setting the Indian Ocean ablaze in their wake.

Oblivious to the view, Fields stifled a yawn. "You know, it would have been nice to find somewhere to crash for the night before heading off to wherever it is we're headed off to. Turns out superhero recruiting is hard work. I'm beat."

Peregrine shook her head. "I dunno, young people today—no stamina. I blame insufficient donut consumption. Anyway, would you really wanna sleep in a town where you just seriously annoyed the biggest cheese in the local crime syndicate? You might wind up sleeping a little longer than you'd planned."

"Yeah, I guess," conceded Fields. "Although that wouldn't be a problem if we'd handed Aunty over to the authorities like I wanted."

"Fields, we've been over this. As tempting as busting that whole racket wide open might have been, murderous little old ladies and subterranean gambling dens are not currently our crimes du jour. We've got bigger fish to fry. Well, weirder fish, anyway."

"Yeah, but where would the harm have been?  We could've dropped Aunty off at the local cop shop, told 'em all about the unofficial casino down there under the proper one and then been on our way. I mean, secondment or not, when it comes down to it, we're still law-keepers."

"Yep. Law-keepers who are undercover, out of our jurisdiction and without any good reason to be down in that basement. Or, at least, any reason we can actually admit to. Besides which, do you seriously think Aunty and her crew would have sat around scratching their butts and scoffing Tim Tams while they waited for the fuzz to come along and crash their little casino party? I don't think so. I can guarantee you, ten minutes after we hightailed our covert arses outta there with their former head window-washer in tow, there wouldn't have been so much as a stray roulette ball in sight."

She was right and Fields knew it. But that didn't make him like it. His only consolation was that the loss of Fleakid, plus the interruption to the lowrolling, however temporary it might be, would at least put a dent in Aunty's operation. And hopefully, as a bonus, seriously annoy the old dragon.

"Woah," muttered Peregrine," would you look at that." Clearly immune to Fields' misgivings, she was scrolling on her phone. "You up on this stuff going down in New Zealand? Seems like they've got some serious Section F-type action happening over there. Wonder if they have anyone like us to sort it out? Ha! Who am I kidding? As if there's anyone like us."

Despite the dizzying array of bizarre and borderline inexplicable phenomena to which Section F had exposed him, Fields maintained a healthy streak of scepticism. Mostly because, if being tasked to deal with weird and not-so-wonderful things had taught him one thing, it was just how often those weird things weren't. People had an almost inexhaustible ability to willingly—often enthusiastically—invent, imagine or assume the most bizarre and fantastical explanations for what so often proved to be the most mundane of everyday occurrences and objects. And while he hadn't had a lot of time for keeping up with current affairs of late, he'd seen enough of the reports coming from across the Tasman to give his scept-o-meter a serious nudge. "What, all that stuff about trolls and dragons and sheep going bump in the night? Seems a bit of a stretch, don't you think? And that's coming from someone who's been sneezed on by a giant and propositioned by a siren."

"Yeah, I thought so too," said Peregrine. "At first, anyway. After all, no-one knows better than us how often fairies at the bottom of the garden are in fact fentanyl in the frontal lobes, or big-foot turns out to be Uncle Bernie with a bad haircut behind a bush. Only now it seems whole chunks of the Kiwi army have disappeared and the government's basically confirmed it's all gone a bit Middle Earth over there. They're even evacuating sections of the South Island. So, seems they're certainly taking the whole thing seriously."

"Yeah? Interesting." This time Fields didn't bother to suppress his yawn. "Hey, Regina?"

"Yes, Agent Fields?"

"We got any potential recruits over there in Aotearoa?"

"Not that I have been informed of."

"So, we're not likely to be headed that way anytime soon?"

"No, Agent Fields."

"Right. Good. In that case, seems to me New Zealand's Comic-Con-gone-wrong type situation is a great big steaming pile of someone else's problem." And that for once, the challenge of wrangling fantastical phenomena usually found only in the realms of fiction would not fall to Section F. "Now, where are we off to next?"

"Our current destination is the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, Agent Fields. There to recruit a local inventor known as Shed Girl, a woman who—"

"Yeah, yeah. And how far away is this Coober Pedy place?"

"Let's see. On our current flight plan, we have a little under 2,000 km to travel."

"Excellent." With a sleepy smile, Fields reclined his seat. "Sounds like there's plenty of time for a nap."

****

With a look of increasing consternation, the Australian prime minister watched the succession of images flashing up on her conference room's floor-to-ceiling display screen.

"You're telling me these are real?"

Standing by the screen, his stern features painted an unhealthy colour by its lurid glow, the Chief of the Defence Force gave a brief nod.

"I'm afraid so, ma'am."

"Not CGI? Not some sort of deepfake or simulation?"

"No, ma'am. Naturally, when images of these creatures began to pop up recently on the socials and in the traditional media, it was assumed they must be fake. But by now there is far too much concrete evidence to entertain any doubt of their existence. There have been countless first-hand encounters and eyewitness sightings, and while the New Zealanders are yet to capture any specimens alive, they have numerous deceased examples. Make no mistake, ma'am—this is real."

"But...but...how? And why?" Oblivious to its immaculate styling, the PM ran a hand through her hair. "This is bonkers. Completely and utterly bonkers. This sort of stuff just doesn't happen outside the movies. You realise that, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am. Only, it has happened. Is happening."

"But where the hell did these things come from? What do they want?"

"Our Kiwi friends have thus far been unable to answer the first question, and beyond pizza and sheep, they haven't made a lot of progress on the second either. I'm afraid we're very much in the dark, Prime Minister."

"Right. Well, we'll have to send them some help, obviously. To get some decent intel, if nothing else. What assets do we have available?"

"Er, yes. As to that..." The CDF shifted uneasily. "The Defence Committee's current stance is that we should adopt a cautious approach to allocating resources to the New Zealand situation at this time."

"Right. I guess that makes sense. So, we just send a battalion or two for now? Keep some of the good stuff in reserve, until we know what we're dealing with?"

"Uh...no, ma'am."

"Okay, so what do we send?"

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, ma'am—nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"But...I mean...we can't...this is New Zealand we're talking about! We have to help them. We've always got their back and they've always got ours—it's pretty much a truism, even if the arrangement might be a little one-sided these days. What about the ANZAC spirit, Gallipoli and all that stuff? They're our allies!"

"Yes, ma'am, they are. And in the event of attack by a foreign state, there is no question the alliance would be activated and we would come to their aid. Thus far, it is not at all clear that is what's happening."

The PM stared at him. "Wait a minute. You're actually suggesting we welch on one of our oldest and most rock-solid alliances—that we leave our friends and neighbours hanging high and dry—on a technicality? Is that seriously what you're telling me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She shook her head. "But why?"

"Two reasons, ma'am. Firstly, when faced with an enemy of unknown origin, unknown size, unknown motivation and unknown capability, I'm sure you'd agree it pays to play one's cards close to one's chest. And secondly"—the CDF's drawn features formed into a grim little smile—"it's not as though we're New Zealand's only ally."