Читать книгу The Shards Survivors - Joe McKinnon - Страница 4

7/2/2012

The world we built for ourselves was based on a foundation of distrust and falsehoods, which always seemed to breed an endless series of skirmishes, denials and deaths. We always seemed to be introducing new rules daily to restrict and ‘protect us’ from ourselves. We have become a nanny state where legislation has been created on nearly every aspect of life, aimed at guiding us in the direction that our leaders demand.

However to me it seemed the more we tightened our grip the less freedom was attainable, as it really didn’t feel safe with the constant negative media reports and the overly glowing government propaganda. If you believed the media, then the sky was falling. If you believed the Australian government, then you’d know they were doing everything to protect our way of life from mysterious figures who sought death and destruction. If you followed religion, then you were preparing for the second coming and the end of days.

In recent years we saw a ramping up of the war on terror that seemed to trivialise people’s beliefs and make anyone ‘touched’ with the word ‘terror’ to be instantly deemed a threat and therefore became an ever increasing threat to the rest of us. To me it seemed that suddenly out of nowhere it would be announced that a person or persons living in a remote region of the world were suddenly a dangerous threat to our way of life.

I took this with a dose of scepticism as I couldn’t believe that it could be that bad. Bubbles, my wife, on the other hand took it very seriously as she was a well-paid lawyer for the Ministry of Intelligence. She felt that the world’s governments were doing the right things and everyone should trust them and that they were doing their best to keep us safe. This always made for an interesting night on the couch as we’d get into ‘discussions’ over this issue, however it was never enough to make us want to go our separate ways.

For example one of our discussions surrounded a statement from the ‘rebels’ who said that any nation that wanted to be safe and recognised as being neutral should openly announce its neutrality and disband it’s military services. This would assure that nation would never be a target for any ‘freedom fighter attacks’. I said to Bubbles that we should do this, for if it was true then what harm could this be for us? After all we were unscathed so far and I couldn’t see the sense of us being a target. After all, I reasoned, other small nations hadn’t been targeted and they had no active commitments to the war on terror. Needless to say I got a lesson in the geo-political, social and ideologies from Bubbles and agreed not to speak of it again publicly or privately, because it would be bad for her reputation.

1/3/2012

The United Nations announced today that they believed the war on terror will be over by the end of the year, due to their excellent mopping up of hundreds of terrorist cells. They believed that given their progress it was only a small matter of time until they had captured the terrorist leaders.

I couldn’t help feeling that this mopping up process was only going to isolate and further inflame tensions around the world as more and more people were touched by this process. Surely, if anything, we had seen as one group is removed another group is more than happy to step into the void and proclaim their right to act for their state and protect their people. The more we cleaned up corruption the more it seemed to breed. One man’s way of life became another man’s form of corruption and deceit.

3/4/2012

The headline said it all, “Terror At Leeds’ Leading Private School”.

I was horrified! A group of gunmen had broken into a school in England and killed all of the teachers and teachers’ aids in front of the young children. The mongrels shot them dead in front of their pupils. Then they left as quickly as they had appeared. They spared the children, but left them with visions of death that will be with them for life. No amount of psychology and psychiatric therapy sessions were going to prevent those young children from suffering from post-traumatic stress for the rest of their lives.

Bubbles is questioning our decision to go through and have children in this stuffed world. Should we really be doing this, knowing that the future of the world seems extremely bad? All I can say is that life must go on and that quitting didn’t solve any issue.

2/5/2012

New Zealand has pulled its military forces out of Iraq. New Zealand’s government said that it was to strengthen their defences at home. It was all a bit sudden and there was some outcry from the United Nations about this being a protectionist action without care to the nations of the Middle East.

I wondered what precipitated New Zealand’s government to take this action. I didn’t blame them for wanting to protect their home soil, as they must have some creditable intelligence that was pointing to a serious threat to home soil. Time will tell if they made the right choice.

23/7/2012

Over a period of a few months, it became apparent that one of Australia’s oldest Allies, New Zealand, was up to something massive. They were recalling their military home and their media were no longer focused on doing the good reporting on bad people routine. Then in July of 2012, New Zealand’s government announced the disbanding of all military staff. They intended to go totally neutral in any future issues to deal with the rebels and would only maintain an active emergency services unit for humanitarian aid.

This was a watershed moment, because other small countries had also committed themselves to neutrality, but this was the first time a larger nation had committed themselves to this path. The rebels announced that they recognised the neutrality claims and would not interfere with these countries’ way of life.

The united world governments, at least those protecting their citizens from terror, in a show of solidarity, released a joint statement about the futility of such a misguided step. They said that a neutral stance would only serve to allow these countries to become soft targets or worse still, become training grounds for terror cells. Further, that the neutrality stance of these governments would signal that the country’s government’s leaders were in fact in league with the terrorists.

After this wonderful speech, and the news media’s coverage of the issues with countries going soft, I just couldn’t contain myself. I told Bubbles that this was seriously wrong, and that we shouldn’t be tarring countries seeking neutrality with the same brush stroke as the war on terror campaign, it just wasn’t right. What was going to happen next? We invade and subdue New Zealand to make us feel safe and secure with the knowledge that another terrorist cell was removed?

Bubbles said, using her logical of ways, that Australia was a safe haven and nothing would happen here, and that we have been a core alliance member since the start of the war. This was only due to our strengths and commitments that nothing had gone wrong and her supervisor believed that we wouldn’t be harmed because we were so active in policing our borders and monitoring our population. It just wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen.

I asked what about the attack in Japan? That saw over 600 people killed and they used to say they were a safe haven, so how could we say the same thing? The massive loss of life was due to a fully loaded bullet train travelling at full speed, 350 Km/Hr, towards a long span bridge. A moment before the train reached the bridge a large explosive device was triggered causing a span of the bridge to fall into the river below. The train ploughed off the bridge and into 20 metres of water. Hundreds were killed by the sudden drop and impact into the ground, the rest were badly injured and drowned in the swirling waters. It was a black day for Japan and the thousands of families affected by the loss of so many.

I thought that maybe we should move to New Zealand but I wouldn’t tell Bubbles this, as she would only see it as defeatism. Sometimes she can be so hard to live with, other times I love her to death and would be handicapped without her.

23/11/2012

We have done it! We scored a positive test for pregnancy. We are surprised! After years of trying, one visit to a specialist we decided to go IVF. Now after the first attempt Bubbles and I may have started on the road to building the family we so desperately wanted, she was pregnant.

I’m happy that it’s worked first go, as it was a lot of extra pressure on Bubbles, from the daily needles, blood tests and self-doubts.

I’m not sure we have done the right thing, but I hope the current madness doesn’t touch us. After all children are our legacy, and without them there can be no future. I believe that our after life is really us living in part of our children, their children and their children’s children. A living legacy, as a part of us is gifted to our children for their futures.

I’m excited, I’m hoping for a girl. I like the idea of a baby girl as I think it would be nice to be the centre of attention in a parent-child relationship, seeing as most girls are attracted to their fathers. Well that’s what I hoped will happen. Either way I’m excited that we have achieved a pregnancy, now the next trick is seeing the pregnancy to the end and have a healthy child.

26/12/2012

From a well-timed and coordinated event, many suspected people were killed in a surgical strike by the Australian forces. This was orchestrated by the UN Security Council that pushed us past a psychological tipping point. Because on Christmas Day 2012, we learnt just how well we were protected from the rebels, we were bombed.

It was timed to perfection, locations with minimal people, due to it being Christmas Day, but locations which were very highly visible. It couldn’t be hidden from sight or covered up. Four popular Westfield shopping complexes were partially destroyed, at the exact same moment in time.

This was followed by a public announcement telling Australians that this was a demonstration of what was to come, and the next target wouldn’t be so carefully chosen to minimise causalities. They said we had a limited time to change our warlike ways, or face more attacks.

The timing and execution of these attacks has sent shockwaves through the community –

- Are we safe?

- Who did this?

- How did this happen?

- Hatred

- Apathy

- What about our protection?

The media was running detailed reports based on government handouts. Bubbles said that we weren’t getting the whole story. It was a plain cover up story tactics with a dose of truth. Yes we were attacked, but it was by friendly terrorists that didn’t want to hurt anyone. They only wanted to make a statement. The terrorists were expected to be arrested at any moment.

7/1/2013

They hit Bubbles’ work on the 31/12/2012.

The Ministry of Intelligence had no intelligence over the shopping centre attack, and had recalled all staff from seasonal holidays to go over the information leading to the shopping centre attacks. They were not paying any attention to potential further targets. Through simple bloody mindedness they overlooked the clues to their own building being a target.

A telephone operator received a warning about the bomb, but in the confusion and heightened panic from the four shopping centre blasts, the e-mail and the verbal warning was ignored by the senior management team. It was a sick hoax they said.

A few hours later the vibration of the shockwave unleashed sheets of glass shrapnel, followed by the blast and flames removing the leadership team, and most of the staff, whilst in another pointless mass meeting. They didn’t really have a chance.

The bomb was delivered in the back of a truck that was delivering office supplies. The blast was that powerful that the truck was no longer recognisable, just bits of charred metal fragments scattered in a blast zone radius of 100 metres away from the blast point. The building collapsed in on itself, the glass foyer created millions of tiny glass fragments that shredded anything that was in the way. The blast was heard kilometres away, and buildings within one kilometre of the blast suffered broken windows and in some cases structural damage.

The people, not shielded by concrete walls, were no longer people, just minced meat. The survivors were lacerated by flying debris and partially crushed by falling building structures. They were lucky to be alive.

We were very lucky. Bubbles had been out of the building to see her fertility specialist. Her co-workers were not so lucky. Out of her small office of 100 staff only 40 lived to see the following week. It was bloody, it was messy and terrorised Bubbles’ confidence in being in a secured environment and even a safe country.

10/1/2013

An attempt was made on the Prime Minister’s wife. The assassin killed two of her bodyguards and was in turn gunned down by the third. The extra security was in place due to the bombings, if it wasn’t for the security the PM would have been a widower.

Police are uncertain if this was a terrorist attack or some form of sick act. However the PM has labelled it a sickening attack on his family by deranged terrorists.

I don’t know what to make of it, all I know is it has become a sorry and sick country.

15/1/2013

Bubbles never went back to work, and wanted nothing more to do with the whole situation. She still has nightmares of dying in a blast of fire and flying objects. I said we have to leave Australia, if we wanted to give our unborn child a chance to be safe. Through my contacts with the Mayor of Wellington, Sammy Murphy, he had a position for a computer professional and potential part-time work for Bubbles.

So we have decided to go to New Zealand for a short break to see what this opportunity might entail, and also to see what was going on around the country. The Australian media and government were painting a very negative image of the country, one which was so hard to believe and not collaborated by my friends who we knew in New Zealand.

So we are packing our bags and are ready to leave Australia, to see if the land of the long white cloud would be better for us, or if we should stay in Australia and take our risks on the future.

Time can only tell. I hate this madness that has infected this world and only wish to find a place that is safe and hopefully survive the disease of hatred and over controlling governments. So much for the United Nation’s proclamation that the war on terror would be over by the end of the year, it’s only getting worse.

I’m convinced that the world is stuffed and that I need to find a place that was safe for Bubbles and our unborn baby. If such a place even exists any more. I feel like saying stop the world, I want to get off.

19/1/2013

We have made it to New Zealand, Wellington. Our flight was good, only a bit bumpy on the descent. Our day started out with a three hour boarding process to secure our seat on the plane. Our paranoia with terrorism has seen massive efforts to restrict and control passengers’ movements to and from our airports, around the country. To gain access to the airport you can only catch secure public transport to the terminals, you can no longer be dropped off by friends or relatives. Only people who have flight boarding passes are allowed to access the terminal building. Your finger prints are scanned by finger print readers that look out for known suspect and criminal identities that have been held captive by police forces around the world.

Our bags are taken from us to be scanned and sniffed for explosive chemicals and other identifiable items on the restricted materials list. There are no personal objects allowed to be carried onto the plane, you can’t even take a favourite book with you. If you want something to do on the plane you have to buy something from one of the terminal vendors’ pre-screened items. Medical items are secured into a wheel-on trolley that is controlled by security guards throughout the flight.

Once your bags have been taken from you and you have secured a boarding pass, you are bundled into a secure bus where you take an allocated seat and wait for the other passengers to arrive. Then you are escorted to the terminal in a convoy of armed security guards along a secured road way to the terminal. Once you board the bus you aren’t allowed to change seats or get off the bus again until it’s reached the terminal. If you don’t make the cut off time for this process you are not allowed on the bus and your flight leaves without you. There are no last minute arrivals for anyone.

Once you arrive at the terminal you are confronted with more security personnel and a large number of coffin sized camera booths. Our ‘masters’ are no longer happy with just searching our bags, scanning us for metal and patting us down, they now take pictures of us. Not just any normal pictures of us waiting to board, they now take detailed pictures through our clothes using millimetre wave (MMW) technology. MMW uses radio waves to form a reasonably detailed 3-dimensional image of our bodies and any items that have been concealed underneath our clothes. MMW effectively strips back layers of your clothes until it either reaches your body or items that can’t be penetrated by the radio waves. It doesn’t leave anything to the imagination; you are naked to the person or persons reviewing the images.

So the cost of flying now comes as a cost to personal dignity, but not surprisingly after several successful and unsuccessful hijacking attempts the technology has been welcomed by the general public. The only concern which a lot of the public share is who controls access to the images and what happens to them after they have been taken.

Civil libertarians have raged a fight against the use of the machines and have even said that the system invites paedophiles to become security guards to perve on young children. The governments of the world have been assuring the public that these extreme measures are required to protect its citizens from harm. It’s a catch-22 position; if we do nothing then the risks are extreme that terrorists will take advantage of the situation, so instead we risk the chance that some security personnel will get their thrills from looking at naked people.

I didn’t like the idea of being scanned but give what has happened in the past and the potential for more violence, the invasion of my dignity is only a small price to pay if, and only if, the technology prevents these acts from occurring.

There is no rushing to process people; it’s a fully controlled process. You step into the booth, a door closes behind you, you then hear some whirring noises and it’s over. If you pass another door opens up and you find yourself stepping into the terminal lounge and retail areas. If you don’t pass, you find yourself trapped in a box until an armed security team arrives to escort you away.

When the system first went live, many people learnt the hard way not to try to carry things on their person. These days, for the experienced traveller it’s just a five second pause in your transition into the secure terminal facilities. Anyone caught now is either an idiot trying to do something that is illegal and therefore is charged and denied access to the flight or is potentially a terrorist waiting to strike, so the security teams are very passionate when someone is detected doing the wrong thing.

Once we had passed the booths we had a coffee and some cheesecake from the café. Having the coffee reminded me of June and why I call her Bubbles. Early on in our courtship, June and I were at a café where June ordered a creamy iced coffee and was taking a sip when I made her laugh at a story I was telling her. She laughed so hard that she ended up with bubbles of milk and cream coming out of her nose, and hence why I’ve called her Bubbles ever since.

Then we went searching for something to do on the flight, in case the in-flight entertainment was boring. I ended up with an eBook on New Zealand to read and Bubbles settled for the current news briefings being offered on the in-flight internet access.

Anyway we have reached our hotel and are settling down for the evening in our comfortable room overlooking the city and its waterways. It’s a nice setting. Tomorrow we meet up with Sammy to discuss the future and see what he and his town have to offer us. Hopefully this might be the start of a new way of life for us, and more importantly one that may not be at risk to terror.