Previously—January 1, 2025

Flinders Ranges, South Australia

"I am the leader. I am the leader."

"Look, mate, calm down. Just calm down. Relax. Take a sip of water.

Slowly now. That's the boy. Have another sip. Good. Now, just take it easy, okay, mate?"

Close by, behind a bush, black hands cautiously parted the thick shrub, and peering eyes keenly surveyed the scene before them.

Two white men were on a small bush track. One was completely naked and lying on his back, while the other, in khaki shorts and shirt, knelt next to him and propped up his head to help him sip water from a well- used army water bottle. The man with the bottle eventually stood up and revealed a full shock of blonde hair as he took off his bushman's hat and wiped down his sweaty brow with his handkerchief.

In the dry and glaring midday heat, the young man sat down on a rock beside the track, under the shade of a leafy eucalyptus tree. He looked at the strange man stretched out on the ground in front of him. He was curious as to how this naked man had ended up in this isolated place.

This day was turning out to be a lot more eventful than he had envisioned. The outback police officer, Peter Brand, had never encountered anything like this during his career with the force.

It was the first day of the new year, and if it was an indication of how the rest of the year was going to shape up, then it was going to be a year to remember.

He had been stationed in Port Augusta in the state of South Australia for nearly five years, ever since graduating from the police academy in Adelaide. Patrolling the local area of approximately ten thousand square kilometres was his primary duty. This was a country for men—harsh but beautiful.

Brand loved travelling from town to town, helping the local forest rangers. He particularly liked the Flinders Ranges; these ranges extended for over 430 kilometres and contained three national parks. There, he could lose himself among the rugged beauty of the purple mountains. His youth and his bronzed good looks attracted many a young lady, but he still preferred his own company somewhere out in the bush, away from the human race.

The local Aborigines were his main concern, and they kept him busy. Peter considered them a lost cause with no real prospect of a future in their own land. Most of them coped with the white man's rule by drinking alcohol. The invading whites, with their superior attitude, considered the blacks not much better than animals. They stripped them of their humanity and their rights as the indigenous people of the land. The Aboriginals had no concept of ownership. They were simply the caretakers of the land and were thankful for the bounty it provided.

That day, Brand had made his way to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges National Park, approximately 250 kilometres from his base at Port Augusta. This reserve lay just over 400 kilometres north of Adelaide, and the Pound was one of the most extraordinary geological formations in Australia. It was a vast natural amphitheatre ringed with sheer cliffs and jagged rocks. The Pound floor was flat and covered with trees and grass. To Peter, it appeared as if the land and been formed by a meteor that had fallen to Earth millions of years ago.

He was investigating a complaint from German hikers camping in the area. The young couple claimed that four young Aboriginals had attacked and robbed them. Brand surmised that the German tourists had probably just been intimidated by the sight of the youths and fled, leaving their belongings behind.

He had driven his four-wheel drive as far as he could along the main track to the Pound. He set up his one-man tent on a hilly outcrop and took off on foot through the smaller tracks towards the hikers' campground.

The refreshing breeze blew gently on this torrid day. It helped alleviate his hopelessness in finding the young men. They were undoubtedly watching him. He would only find them if their curiosity got the better of them and they showed themselves.

Peter stopped to look intently at a haze glittering through the trees in front of him. It was a strange yet beautifully coloured sight. The haze started to concentrate at one spot on the track ahead and thickened downward and inwards, changing shape as it whirled around. Even with his attention focused on the phenomena before him, Peter noticed that the breeze had stopped. All was unusually and absolutely still. Yet something made the thick mist move. He could not hear a sound, not even the familiar cawing of the many crows that inhabited the area.

It took him a few moments to comprehend that the haze was no longer there. Something else had taken its place among the trees—a solid and pale object, not an animal.

The apparition started to move unsteadily, and as it staggered through the shrub and headed towards him, he stood his ground and waited.

Brand soon saw a man completely naked, reeling from side to side, coming slowly closer. Staring ahead with glazed eyes—seemingly unaware that Peter was there—the man mumbled, "I am the leader. I am the leader," as he walked past the astonished onlooker.

"Who in fucking hell are you?" Peter yelled in a frightened and quivering voice.

The naked man stopped, unsteady on his feet, turned around, and, for the first time, appeared to notice Peter standing on the track. When the man opened his mouth to speak, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

Peter bent over the man and began reviving him with sips of water.

"What's your name, and what happened to you? Where are your clothes?" Peter asked. "How long have you been out here?"

The man looked up at him in a vague and puzzled trance. Peter noticed the man's eyes were the biggest and the most vivid blue he had ever seen.

It seemed as if two chunks of the clear sky had broken off and imbedded themselves in his face.

In that region, afternoons in January were stifling, while the nights could be freezing. "Were you out here last night?" Peter queried.

Receiving no reply from the hapless man, he decided to stop any further interrogation for now. The stranger had a serene look about him, with long, wavy dark hair and a long beard. Odder still, his hair and beard were perfectly washed and combed. His pale body was proportionate—not overly big, but muscular. There was not one grain of dirt on him. He looked as though he had just stepped out of a bath. Peter found it difficult to estimate how old the man was, but he figured he was roughly his own age: twenty-nine, maybe a bit older.

This is weird, he thought. Peter felt uneasy about admiring this seemingly perfect man. "Come on, mate. I'd better get you to the car and get a helicopter out here. You look physically okay, but I'm no doctor. You may need to be in a hospital."

He helped the man to his feet, and they started trekking back to Peter's camp, which was three kilometres away. With the naked man walking in front, Peter swatted at the endless annoying flies. "How come these bastards aren't pestering you?" he called up to the man. The little pests buzzed all around Peter, but the mystery man was free from them.

No answer came—not that Peter had really expected one anyway. Seemingly unaware of what was happening around him, the man walked on, still mumbling about being the leader.

A skinny black hand reached out from behind a tree and shoved the back of Peter just as he stepped clumsily over a log lying across the path. Peter tripped and fell heavily. His head slammed into a low-hanging branch, and as he struggled to stand up, blackness overtook him, and he fell unconscious to the ground.

Within what seemed seconds, the light returned, and he struggled to his feet, using the closest support. It took awhile to realise he had used a car fender to help him stand. He was back at the camp, next to his gold-coloured four-wheel drive.

Peter quickly looked around and couldn't see anyone. Did I dream up that strange man?

He staggered around the back and then to the side of the vehicle, where he discovered the dream had indeed been real. The man was still there, gazing into the side driving mirror. Intrigued, Peter quietly watched him for a couple minutes. The stranger had adjusted the mirror to get a better view of his own image, and with a disbelieving expression, he continued to peer intently at his face. Next, the fingers of his left hand became the focus of his attention as he opened and closed them several times.

Impatiently, Peter Brand interrupted the man's fascination with himself. "How the hell did I get back here—did you carry me?"

The man slowly turned around and smiled, revealing a set of pure white and perfect teeth.

"No, Peter, you walked here." The reply came from a calm and soft- spoken man.

"Walked? I can't remember walking," said Peter, puzzled. "And how do you know my name—did you go through my pockets?"

The man gave an answer that confused Peter even more: "You were thinking of your mother, and she called your name." He stopped, and an intense look came over him. "Please don't bother getting any help for me; I just want a lift to the nearest town."

Reaching into the console of his car, Peter drew out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, but as he tried to light the flame, he found that the cigarette in his mouth would not light. He tried several times to no avail; he swapped the cigarette for a fresh one, but that too would not light.

"That is a dreadful habit—bad for you and all those around you, as well as the environment. I don't like you smoking," the mysterious man admonished Peter, who glared angrily at him, but he mellowed almost instantly and turned his thoughts to the present dilemma.

Peter abandoned the search for the Aboriginal youths, and after clothing the man with a spare pair of old, frayed khaki shorts and a soiled white T-shirt, he packed his gear and decided to head back to Port Augusta. There is a good hospital there, and although the poor guy appears quite well physically, he probably needs psychiatric help.

He settled himself behind the wheel and started the engine, and then, remembering the blow he had suffered on his forehead when he had fallen, he looked down onto the top of his shirt and saw it was covered in blood. Turning the rear-vision mirror towards his face, he grimaced at the thought of what damage he had sustained; but what he saw was far from what he had expected. He peered at his reflection in disbelief; not a scratch showed on his face, there was no blood, and he couldn't even feel the slightest bump.

On their way, Peter ran many questions through his mind that he wanted to ask his passenger, and as if he knew, the stranger began answering some of his thoughts.

"This may sound strange, but I know very little of what happened to me. I can't seem to remember my name, and the one thing that keeps going through my mind is that I am the leader."

"What do you mean by `the leader'?"

"I'm in charge; I am the leader."

"Okay! For now, your name is Leader." Peter conceded that this man was definitely demented. "Okay! Leader, how did you end up at Wilpena Pound, and where is your car?"

"Peter, please believe me—I really don't know much more, except I think that I have an important job."

"You are on a job?" Peter repeated Leader's words sarcastically. "What sort of important job?"

The dazed man gazed out in front of him and seemed to be waiting for another instalment of his story to enter his mind. "I am not sure what is happening to me, but I believe there is a task I must complete." He hesitated and slowly turned to face Peter. "First, I am going to become rich and powerful and then save you all."

"You don't have a cent on you, and you didn't even have a shirt on your back until I gave you one—and you are going to be rich and powerful?" Peter couldn't help laughing out loud.

The bearded man's blue eyes opened wide, as if he had become aware of a new revelation. "You finding me was no accident. You're meant to help me."

"Me! Help you? The best help I can give you is to introduce you to a psychiatrist," Peter mocked. "And another thing: Did you push me, or did I just fall back there on the track? I could have sworn that I felt somebody push me in the back, but it couldn't have been you; you were in front of me. Look, just answer this one question and I'll be happy for now: How did I get to my car? You did say I walked?"

"Yes, you walked," he replied in a quiet and humble tone.

"But how could I have walked? I was unconscious, wasn't I?"

"I made you walk."

"You made me?"

"Yes," insisted the man.

"Let's give up on that one too." An agitated Peter surrendered.

Darkness approached and quickly overtook the light of day. Anxious to get to town, Peter sped down a windy descent, ignoring the signs warning "Beware of Kangaroos next five kilometres" on the side of the road.

"Stop the car—now!" screamed the passenger.

The last urgent word reverberated through Peter's ears, giving him such a fright that he automatically slammed his foot onto the brake pedal, bringing the car to a halt at a bend in the road.

"What the fuck are you trying to do—kill us?" Peter screamed at Leader, who calmly pointed his finger towards the front. Peter looked back to the road and saw a mob of about twenty kangaroos; the car's headlights dazzled them as they casually hopped across the road.

"Shit!" exclaimed Peter. "We would have ploughed straight into them if you hadn't seen them—good call."

Maybe he isn't as nutty as he makes out, mused Peter. My God, he must have fantastic eyesight. Shit, come to think of it, he must see around corners.

"Peter, I need to ask you a stupid question—a question that I am frightened to ask because I don't think I am going to believe the answer that you will give me."

But then again, maybe I'm wrong, thought Peter. He's starting to sound nutty again.

"What date is it"? the man asked hesitantly.

"January first. Most people get a holiday today, but not me—duty calls," Peter answered as he reached over to turn off the car's air conditioning.

"The year—I meant the year," the scared individual clarified.

"It's 2025, of course." Peter rolled his eyes upward and started driving again.

After about ten minutes of silence, Leader began muttering again, and Peter could make out some of the things he said.

"Daniel. Daniel—that's my name. I have been gone for sixteen years, and that makes me fifty-six; it only seems like yesterday. It has to be a dream; it has to be."

The distraught man would mutter a few words and then fall into complete silence, only to start his muttering again as they travelled over two hundred kilometres to reach Port Augusta.

Peter realised that he should take Leader to the lock-up or the hospital. But he couldn't be bothered; with the headache he had developed from the lack of nicotine, he figured he wouldn't be able to cope with all the paperwork this situation would entail—not that night anyway. He decided to stop at a local hotel for a well-earned beer and a meal. It dawned on him that he had not eaten since breakfast, and God knew the last time his passenger had eaten.

Peter bought himself a fresh packet of cigarettes, immediately opened it, and popped a cigarette into his mouth. Daniel waited as Peter headed for the glassed-in corner room specially set up to cater to the outcast smokers. To his frustration, he still could not light his cigarette. Peter approached one of the smokers and politely asked him for a light. The man obliged and tried unsuccessfully to light Peter's new cigarette. As the agitated Peter walked back towards Leader, he heard screams coming from the smokers' room he had just left. Water from the ceiling's fire extinguishers was spraying down on the smokers.

Surprisingly, Leader ate little; he just nibbled at his pasta dish.

Maybe he wasn't out there for very long after all, thought Peter. Although weary of him, he couldn't help admiring Leader; he exuded confidence and trust.

"My name is Daniel." He reached out and shook Peter's hand. "And I thank you for believing me trustworthy."

The young constable felt that his privacy had just been invaded.

"Okay, that's a good start. Daniel is a nice name, and what's your surname?" asked Peter.