by Rob Aspinall
“Insert,” the soldier said.
I inserted the key.
“One turn clockwise in three, two, one . . .”
We turned.
“Push the red button on my mark,” he said.
“Which one?” I said.
There were a sea of buttons. Half of them red.
“The big one marked deactivate,” the soldier said.
“Oh yeah, got it,” I said, finger lingering over the button.
The soldier counted us down and we pressed.
I pressed extra hard, making sure.
A message flashed on the monitor: virus deactivated.
Across the world map, hot zones marked red began to change colour. In seconds, the entire map transitioned to green.
“Is that it?” I said. “So quick?”
“It’s a nano-virus,” the soldier said. “Switch-off is instant.”
“So what’ll happens now?" I said. “To the foamers, I mean?”
The soldier shrugged. “I just work here.”
“Whatever happens,” Inge said, “we need to leave right now. Set the charges.”
32
Phase Two
Nadia Mishra strode along a dark, grey corridor. To the observer, she would have appeared confident. On the inside, she was shaking.
And just when she was starting to think everything was going smoothly for a change.
Her mobile had vibrated on her bedside table and woken her from a peaceful sleep. She’d thrown on a dark-blue trouser suit in the confined, stripped down space of her quarters. She'd arranged an appointment to see The Chairman. And now she followed an armed guard—two military police in dark-green fatigues. They led her down a series of corridors. In reality, they were tunnels, drilled by machine several years earlier, deep underground.
They came to a stop. A tall, broad female guard with red hair knocked on a door.
The door opened from the inside. A slim, African PA almost as petite as Nadia took over. She escorted her across a carpeted reception room. Up to a set of double wooden doors with brass handles. She knocked on one of the doors and put her head through the gap.
“Nadia Mishra to see you, Mr Chairman.”
She turned to Nadia and smiled, opening the door. Nadia smiled in return and entered The Chairman’s quarters. She walked across what resembled a drawing room. There was antique furniture, a large book case and Persian rugs thrown down over the floor. Amira walked over them on unsteady legs. Her throat was scratchy and palm sweaty around the leather-bound file in hand. Henrik Mikkelsen, also known as The Chairman, sat in a green, upright leather armchair. He wore grey suit trousers, a chunky-knit burgundy cardigan and headmasterly glasses. His thick silver hair swept back as usual.
With one leg crossed over another, he held a copy of Nineteen-Eighty-Four in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. He rested the cup on a side table as Nadia approached, folded the corner of a page and closed the book. He rested the book on the table and removed his reading glasses. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he said.
Nadia stopped in front of him. She hesitated, as if choking.
“Not good news, I take it,” Mikkelsen said.
“No, Mr Chairman.”
“Oh please, we know each other well enough now—Henrik.”
Nadia was reluctant to call Mikkelsen by his first name. First names could lull you into a false sense of security. And Mikkelsen’s easy charm made him ever more dangerous. Make no mistake, the man was ruthless.
“Well, Henrik,” she said, “We’re still awaiting confirmation from my regional heads, but . . .”
“Ah, the dreaded but.” Mikkelsen said.
“It appears X21 has been, well, turned off.”
“Turned off?”
“Yes, deactivated, sir. I mean, Henrik.”
Nadia swallowed hard as Mikkelsen digested the news.
“Who would do such a thing?” Mikkelsen asked.
“The rogue assets we've been dealing with.”
“I thought you had that under control,” Mikkelsen said. “Chasing their own tails is how you put it.”
“I didn’t realise they had Ronelle Williams.”
“Who?”
“I looked her up,” Nadia said, opening the file and flipping back a few pages. “A delinquent. Born and raised in New Jersey. She broke into our mainframe four years ago.”
“How did she do that?” Mikkelsen asked.
“The FBI had her in custody at the time. She broke into their systems and stumbled into ours. We recruited her, of course. ”
“Does this Ronelle Williams know what she was really working on?”
“Hard to say. I’d have to speak to the relevant department.”
Mikkelsen waved the issue away. “Once Aries is in full swing, it will hardly matter . . . Speaking of which—are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Nadia said. “But X21 . . . It aborted earlier than we’d planned.”
“Can’t we turn it back on?” Mikkelsen asked, sipping on his tea.
“They blew the control centre before we could respond,” Nadia said. “We could reactivate the virus remotely, but we wouldn’t be able to shut it off again.”
Mikkelsen swallowed his tea. “And no one wants that . . . How do the numbers look?”
Nadia flicked to the front of the file. “According to the latest reports, we're at one-point-two billion deceased. Another one-point-eight billion remain alive, but with internal injuries and brain trauma.” Nadia turned the page on the report. “We expect seventy percent will die within six to eight months.”
“Is that an exact figure or ballpark?” Mikkelsen asked.
“Oh, exact” Nadia said. “The data comes direct from nano receptors in the bloodstream. The virus is deactivated but the receptors remain online, calculating live prognosis.”
“It’s not what the board had in mind,” Mikkelsen said, “but we expected variables . . . And we can expect those numbers to rise even further when we pass through the next two phases.”
“So we have a green light on Aries?” Nadia said, closing the file.
Mikkelsen hesitated a moment. “What do you think, Nadia?”
“I think we can make it work.”
“Very well. But I want you to see to it personally,” Mikkelsen said. “I’ll authorise a phase change. In the meantime, go to Denver. And take Vasquez with you.” Mikkelsen stretched in his chair and yawned. “It’s almost a relief that it ended early. I haven’t seen the sun in three weeks.”
“Well, only two more to go,” Nadia said, smiling, her heart rate returning to normal. “Then you’ll step out into a new world.”
Mikkelsen rose out of his chair and felt his lower back. “And what a wonderful world it will be.”
33
Weather Warning
An Emergency Weather Warning: The Winds of Change are A-blowing.
Hello Weather Watchers, here is today’s forecast. It may be my last.
Why? Because we’re well and truly through the looking glass now, my friends. We’re no longer in the realms of conspiracy. Our theories, so long derided by mainstream (state-sponsored) media have emerged from the shadows to play out in the open air. So there seems little need for the likes of me and others in the conspiracy field to keep banging the drum. But I think what we all could do with right now is a summary. An article to help make sense of all this mess. And that comes in the form of the following report.
A cyclone of change has blown in and appears here to stay.
So it turns out the FM Virus was just the start. I believe it was the first stage of a three-pronged paradigm shift in the way we operate as a global society.
The virus was manmade. Yes, manmade. A nano virus highlighted in past articles on this very site. Not only was it manmade, it was introduced to the global population on purpose. Some are speculating the water supply. Others claim via saline drips in hospitals. And some very esteemed conspiracy colleagues of mine believe the
virus was introduced via dairy farms.
What I can confirm is that the FM virus was both ‘turned on’ and then ‘turned off’. And it was not deactivated by the people behind it, I can assure you.
But for the New World Order—real name, the Joint Peace Alliance Committee—the FM virus was merely the primer. The main event, as we have seen in the last few days, is our new slave nation.
Notice I use the word nation, not world.
Make no mistake, we are now one totalitarian superstate, spread across seven continents.
GEMA confirmed as much when the innocently-named Article Thirty-Four came into force. It casually handed complete decision-making powers to the Global Emergency Management Agency. And I have news for you, friends. If you’re expecting these powers to devolve and revert to your national governments any time soon, you’re in for a shock. GEMA are here to stay.
Meet the New Boss. Nothing Like the Old Boss.
If you’ve ever taken the time to read through—and decipher—the 20,000 word, small print legalese of UN Article Thirty-Four, you’ll know that GEMA is a single authority. Not only are our glorious new leaders unelected. They are faceless—with no visible hierarchy, structure or representatives. That is, other than the endless rotation of PR reps—those trusty suit puppets who can dodge a question faster than Superman can dodge a bullet.
Not that they need to, mind you. Because just like the man in the red cape, they’re 100% bulletproof.
Want evidence of that? Look up to the skies at the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) patrolling the airways. You’ve got spy drones, fighter drones, bomber drones and carrier drones. Want more boots on the ground? More cops on your beat? Say hello to your friendly neighbourhood ‘humanoid’ drones. Those faceless robots patrolling our streets, rounding up the infected and uninfected alike.
They’re backed up by those adorable ‘canine’ drones with laser-guided machine guns. Just don’t stop to pet one or question the authority of the new regime. You’ll find yourself thrown into the back of a remotely-piloted vehicle and escorted to a local processing centre.
And don’t bank on being seen again, either.
Can You Hear the Wheels in Motion?
If you’re wondering where all these machines suddenly appeared from, you obviously haven’t been keeping tabs on my articles over the years. Yes, electric cars and self-drive technology all came from the same source. JPAC—the hidden intelligence agency behind the GEMA master plan. The truth is, JPAC have been hiding in plain sight for years. Testing out their technology. Moving the pawns into place.
As I’ve said on many occasions, they’ve been doing it since the end of the Second World War.
So if you’re buying the line that these drones exist for our protection. That they were developed to deal with crises like the FM Virus. And that they’re presence negates the possibility of transference of infection from one human to another . . . Well, you’ll buy anything.
Our automated friends cleaning up the streets and patrolling the skies are not here to contain a global pandemic. They’re here to enforce a police state. The second stage of world domination.
My proposed timetable (without dates):
1. Rapid depopulation via the FM Virus.
2. Clean-up and control via a global drone army
3. Oppression and enslavement via . . . Even I can’t predict this one
Now before you jump on the comments section and tell me I’m letting my imagination run wild, you might want to take a look at my record.
Not to toot my own horn, but my prediction-to-outcome ratio is seventy-two percent. Which means for every ten of my predictions over the years, at least seven have been proven right.
(The Golden Gate disaster, the FM Virus, JPAC, GEMA, Article Thirty-Four—you heard them all here first.) And I’m convinced there’s another phase to come.
Mass depopulation and enslavement, all packaged, shipped and fed to you as a holistic heal. (There’s already talk of GEMA ending war, disease, drugs, crime, terror, famine, climate change and anything else they can hang their hat on.) The truth is, our troubles as a society have only just begun.
So please, if you’re reading this, keep your eyes, your ears and your mind open.
Don’t buy the claim the infected are a threat and should be incinerated. They’re not zombies past the point of no return. They’re people—survivors who need medical help and rehabilitation.
Don’t buy the total BS name tags on those EAV drones, either. Emergency Aid Vehicles? Then why are they kitted out with heat-seeking RPGs?
Come on.
Be one of the few who see past the lies. Don’t let our freedom be taken without a fight. Make your voice heard while you still can. Come together online—and if your numbers are big enough, in public.
Stay frosty and don’t go down without a fight. Share this article with as many people as you can, before it’s pulled down.
It’s been a true honour to serve as your Weatherman.
Stay strong and keep up the fight.
34
Emergency Meeting
The first signs of them came in the sky. I’d know the sound of a drone fighter engine anywhere. And there they were, zipping low over the tree-line.
At first I thought they were there for us. We’d just blown up JPAC’s invisible lab complex, after all. But they zoomed straight overhead, into the distance.
Inge said they were gearing up for something.
It was a taste of things to come.
By the time we were back on the road, we were watching news footage of an announcement from a slick GEMA PR guy. He said the only way to deal with the infected population was ‘non-human contact’. That came in the shape of automated drone technology, developed, he said to lend aid to those in war torn areas. And support troops on the ground in battle zones.
Now they would be used to round up the foamers, contain the spread of the virus and clean up the mess. Starting immediately.
We had to think fast. With the jet still in the hangar, Inge got everyone together on an emergency video call. Us on one end. Roni, Giles and Zak on the other.
“Hey, Alex not with you?” I said.
“He had to bail,” Zak said. “Organisational shit.”
“He’s holding an emergency meeting of his own.” Giles said. “Trying to arrange aid for the infected and a petition to stop the latest GEMA move.”
Roni shook her head. “The train, the underground, the labs—all that effort for squat.”
“At least we stopped the virus,” I said.
“And triggered a police superstate,” Giles said. “I give it twenty-four hours. The whole world’s gonna be on lockdown.”
“Then we’d better disappear,” I said. “I hear Venezuela’s nice this time of year.”
“No,” Inge said. “We need to stay calm.”
“Exactly,” I said. “We calmly proceed to get out of the shit.”
“We need a proper plan,” Inge said. “The next move is crucial.”
“What next move?” Zak said, munching on a bag of crisps. “It’s over. We’re all fucked, man.”
“Zak’s right,” Giles said. “We’re enemy number one as it is. The first thing those drones will do is come looking for us.”
“Then the first thing we should do is go looking for them,” Ling said. “Hit a supply factory. A forwarding base.”
“Like they’re gonna have one place,” I said. “It’s a global operation.”
“Lorna’s right,” Giles said. “Even if they do manufacture centrally, they’re already rolling. Every major country. Six out of seven continents.”
“Um, that’s not exactly true,” Roni said.
Inge leaned in closer to the laptop the three of us huddled around. “What are you saying?”
“There is a central base. And I think I can guess where it is.”
“Even so, there are thousands of those things,” Inge said.
“Yeah and my guess is they’re all hook
ed up to the same software,” Roni said.
“How do you know?” I said.
“Because I developed it, dumbass.”
I was about to give her both barrels. Tell the snidey bitch exactly what I thought of her. But I saw a chink of light in what she was saying.
I think we all did.
“You could have mentioned this earlier, Roni,” Inge said.
“I was writing programs for a cybernetic mainframe. It was supposed to be next gen shit. I didn't know they had a fucking army ready to roll.”
“Are you saying there's a weak spot?” I said.
“I’m saying there’s a chance,” Roni said. “The odds are crazy against it, but—”
“Can it be done?” Ling said.
“Yeah, it can be done. If they haven't switched up the location of the mainframe. I worked remote. I've never actually been—”
“Just tell us how,” Inge said.
Roni paused and chewed her lip. “Anyone play Exploding Pigs?”
35
Things To Do In Denver
Customs was tense. The three of us split across three separate lines. Each wearing our own disguise and holding a fake passport.
All private airplanes were banned from crossing international airspace until further notice. Which probably meant never again. Unless you were on team GEMA or JPAC, of course.
That meant commercial flights only, with all passengers having to pass through arrivals and departures. Even the mega-rich—used to flashing their passports on the tarmac—had to play ball.
No, the world was changing. And fast.
So we’d flown as far as Toronto, where Inge had contacts. I'd stayed with Inge while Ling had set off for Italy, to hook up with Zak and Giles. Roni headed the opposite way and the three of us checked into an airport hotel for the night. We'd crashed out and woken before dawn the next morning.
