Author Topic: Doom Fiction  (Read 704 times)

K-Dog

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #15 on: June 04, 2021, 03:04:50 pm »
Chapter Six

Coffee was brought to the table. Left to grow on their own, island coffee bean bushes would be among the tallest trees on Alutia when this coffee was brewed. Instead, coffee trees were trimmed short for easy harvest. The first trees were planted shortly after the methane bomb warmed things up. It was in the second year without snow that the first plantation trees were planted. Coffee independence was achieved. Two separate plantations grew coffee in the island mountains. It was roasted at the Cliff House.

The owner sipped coffee, satisfied. It was exactly right. Not too hot. This put a smile on his dial. The owner masqueraded as an employee in his company town. A citizen of Alutia the owner accepted work assignments. Working a day a week as a barista had put him on the coffee planning committee in a previous job rotation. The CPC worked on getting temperature right. Guests survey of Cliff House visitors showed visitors wanted training to get serving temperature right. The owner wanted to get a classless society right. Part of Helter Skelter was an abandonment of royalty in his new deal. Only island surgeons are excused from shifts of manual labor. Preserving surgeon hands is considered very important.

Alutia is no town of Pullman. Before Helter Skelter replaced paychecks by citizenship, any comparison with George Pullman's two square miles of wage-slave plantation on Lake Calumet was frivolous. They have nothing in common. People who had left the island before Helter Skelter were always well compensated. Before Helter Skelter there was no such thing as rent. Money could only be saved for use in the outside world. After Helter Skelter money had no meaning.

One hundred and fifty years ago give or take a few years, back in 1880. George Mortimer Pullman built a town next to a new rail car factory he owned. The town had housing, shopping areas, a church, theaters, and parks for wage slaves in his factory. The hotel in Pullman's town was off limits to his employees. They could not eat in the restaurant. Alcohol was served to hotel guests in the bar and Pullman was a feudal lord who knew nondrinkers made better and cheaper employees. Making the church he built in his town rent-free to attract a congregation would have been a smart way to promote non-drinking. Keeping the church empty by charging rent for the space, like rent charged for the other 1300 buildings in his town, seemed smarter to George. The church steeple gave good show and the automatic assumption the space would be used someday was the first impression in anyones' mind on first seeing it. But a 19th century clergy uncontrolled might criticize inequity. The town was built to separate workers from ideas of dissent and dampen ideas of labor unrest. Better to charge rent and keep the church empty if you are a feudal lord.

Pullman's town was a way to control slaves. A place for a man to attempt royalty and a money making enterprise at the same time. Alutia is nothing like that. The Island was a moneymaker only when the modular Thorium nuclear reactor, now mothballed, was being built. Alutia is built as a living time capsule. Reactor profits filled and built many island warehouses. But that was a happy accident. Enough money gathered in one place always finds a way to grow. But the expectation was the island would never produce profit. Building Alutia was a money sink. Profit from the island was reinvested on the island. American military bases, the few that remained while America still remained. All had working Thorium reactors, exactly like what Alutia keeps in mothballs.

When George Pullman died, his body was buried underneath a meter of concrete and steel. This was done to prevent a desecration of Pullman's body. Pullman was hated that much. Lying at rest in a lead lined mahogany casket, plate tectonics will eventually desecrate George Pullman and snap his bones. His enemies will be long gone when that happens. They already are. Yet the joke is on George. The socialists who actually wanted to desecrate George Pullman's body were only a figment of his own guilt. His own imagination. Socialists usually have better things to do than desecrate bodies.

Witnesses said concrete was poured to keep George Pullman from coming back from the dead. Poured by his own family.

Money exploits. Money is exchanged using rules. Rules in the presence of flowing energy will generate complexity. The universe works this way. Desire to acquire money is an energy. Greed is a stove burner of an energy flow with the knob turned on high. A red-hot energy flow that can start a fire. Doing what it takes to survive. Responding to hot, cold, and hunger, is another energy flow that makes money move. A simmering energy flow. A stove burner set low. But set to high or low, something is cooked.

The money to build the island had grown itself into billions long ago. Generational money, which by a quirk of fate and an accidental plane crash had unexpectedly put billions of dollars of money in very capable and free hands. At a reasonably young, but mature age a torch was passed. But billions of dollars by itself was not enough to build the island.

It was enough money to build a new complicated structure that kept the money pile of billions growing automatically. At the center of the new structure was a machine which found government contracts involving new technology. This machine managed industries which exploited these government contracts. Obscene profits were generated.

By the time the federal contract machine was growing money faster than hail dropping in a hailstorm, the owner was dropping out of sight. Living far from the public eye, he could hike the Appalachian trail for a new perspective. The same time would bring his FCM Inc. profits of hundreds of millions of dollars.

More than enough money to build sand foothills near Alutias' airport to feed the beaches of a rising sea. All the north and west of the island is sheer cliff. Seabirds live on the cliffs and seals lounge unmolested on rocky beaches beneath. Beaches below cliffs are short and steep. In places cliffs dive directly into sea. Rising sea buried the beach were cliff meets sea.

The lagoon beach and sandy shores of the south and east sides of Alutia are for human use. The motel at the beach ending ten mile road rises on jackscrews when new sand is added to the beach. Behind sand beaches hills rise to a plateau which keeps the island dry. Rising seas will not bury Alutia. The Island was picked for its ability to resist sea level rise.

The ocean rose, but most of that was yet to be when the TI Africa docked at Banks island with a light load of oil. Siberian and Banks Island grain shipments would start to slow a month after she delivered her cargo 20% short and 12 days late. Silos along the Aulavik River filled with seed while India and Pakistan began to starve when shipments slowed. Not enough oil could be found to grow and ship Arctic grain. There was little easy access oil left in the world.

In the sands of new southern deserts, almost nothing grows. In the now barren and hungry south, war was not far away. India and Pakistan began to squabble over slowed grain shipments. Each claimed the other side was getting more than their fair share. A Russian grain ship blew up. Grain shipments to both countries were stopped. All this happened a year after Helter Skelter locked Alutia down. Grain shipments to India and Pakistan did not start again until there was a cease fire. Hundreds of millions of people in India had already starved to death by then. In Alutia the time of long seclusion began.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2021, 03:07:27 pm by K-Dog »

K-Dog

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #16 on: June 11, 2021, 11:24:19 pm »
Chapter Seven

Thousands of miles of sea kept him from the pain of the dying world. Life on his time capsule was good. After his Helter Skelter speech he established a routine. In the morning he woke early before the sun. By sunrise he would have an general idea if he was going to call a morning meeting.

The world was dying. Fuel to move goods an overpopulated society needs to live on had run out. No longer could everyone eat. Arctic and Antarctic farms had compensated as the tropics moved north. For more than a decade food grown at the poles shipped south. But farms had not had to grow energy. Only food. Now they would have to grow both. Across the globe riots raged. He feared a nuclear winter. That would ruin island crops. That would bring trouble home.

Dim blue light filled the air. The sky would glow in the east soon. Dark outlines of forest trees would show themselves below the red glow of the rising sun. The report from Island Central only contained bad news. Typical news for a world adjusting to food shortage. Good news was impossible. Farms could now only support a fraction of existing population. 58 degree C heat along the west coast of India fueled violence at night. Domestic chaos kept international tensions at bay as local pain dominated attention. With each passing day a night of crime made the number of people to feed fewer. Misery had not resulted in wars yet, and nothing in the news feed suggested a war would start today. Death spread across the globe evenly. Misery continued to be local and contained. The though of breakfast in town came to mind.

Driving into town the vague line of pale sky became solid. The buildings threw unequal reflections of the sun at him as he drove closer. Bright shards of brilliance from high windows caught the sun. Lower windows held onto shadows of night. In places an electric light pierced the shadows. In places someone else was beginning their day.

The Tesla parked in front of the 'Good Egg'. He was the Eggs' first customer of the morning. Orange clouds reflected in the window glass as he walked to the door. Suspended in the motionless morning air, the clouds soaked up the rising sun.

Hash-browns toast and coffee with a side of facon (fake bacon) was going to be good. Everything in a Good Egg breakfast was island grown. Before Helter Skelter the staff had all been students at the Vegan Institute. Specialists in nutritious plant based gourmet foods. He liked having the Good Egg staffed by island labor instead of foreign students now. Distracted and serious students. Most of the time music was off when the students worked. With Island staff things had changed.

'Rock Your Baby' played in the background. The atmosphere was warm and inviting. Island staff knew part of the job was to communicate with people and see what they needed besides food.

Asking how people are doing is as important as serving breakfast. Working at the Egg is a nice work assignment to have. The job is not to teach people how to eat like the former staff of students had naively assumed and been told. Perceptive students pondered how people on the island seemed to know as much about meat substitutes as they did. People who seemed, they thought, not to have any connection with the Vegan Institute at all.

The Vegan Institute, now without foreign students is the Island Culinary School. The Institute is folded into the Island Cooperative. All Island residents work for and own the Island Co-Op. It is equivalent to citizenship. Giving over island ownership to the Island Cooperative was part of Helter Skelter. The Vegan Institute was administered separately under the owner corporate umbrella before Helter Skelter stopped travel to the island. The Vegan Institute is part of the outside world. There still is virtual connection to the outside world where civilization remains. Island central has green screen studios and emails to the Vegan Institute are answered.

The Vegan Institute is reduced to a single office. An office managed by the security staff of the Island Co-Op. Ten years after the emails stopped the office was re-purposed. Emails had become a thing of the past by then. But that was yet to come.

Grabbing the 'Island Daily' by the door he sat down. The Island Daily is printed most days of the week and has been since Helter Skelter was called. Days off are always announced ahead of time and there are never more than two days with no publication of the Daily at once. Sometimes news happens slow on the island. Collecting island news for the large single page of hand pressed newsprint can take more than a day.

Currently the Daily misses no days. International wires are still active. The world does not yet know that no new communication satellites will launch for at least 100 years. Empty space on the Daily can still be filled with headlines like and stories about - '500.000 dead in Brazil' -. He noted the headlines were about two hours old this morning. The last headline he saw before leaving home announced Brazil deaths at over a million. A thermogeddon event had killed them. The wet-bulb temperature had been above 34 degrees C for four days in a row and the electrical grid failed from the heat. Only generators could power air conditioning. Before anyone without a generator became incapacitated, gunfire disputed generator ownership. Near the Arctic where the Daily is read the tropical climate is pleasant and not wet-bulb deadly.

Further down the Daily page local news begins. A lumber display is being put up at the Island Store. The first island lumber harvest is finished and processed. Due to small tree size the largest piece of lumber offered is a 2x4 eight feet long. Later years will bring full size lumber. The trees cut for this lumber are temperate forest trees and were the first to grow in the subarctic grass. They sheltered tropical trees that need a canopy to get started growing. The tropical trees will grow better on their own now. Selective logging produced a small harvest which was dried and cut. The only way to find out about the lumber display at the store without going to the store, is to read the Daily.

Two people came through the door together. He recognized her as Felicity, a nurse at the hospital. The man with her was part of the Squid crew. his name was Andy. An expert in martial arts among other things. He smiled at the pair. He did not care if they were a thing or not. He knew Felicity but only casually. She smiled back at him. Andy, suddenly realizing who he was reacted as if something loud had fallen over. For a moment he froze. Felicity noticed Andy's reaction and chuckled, 'Relax baby it is all good'. Embarrassed, Andy feigned like nothing happened. A return chuckle might have been a better response, but it did not matter.

Andy slid into the first booth across from the door next to Felicity. Soon the Egg filled with customers anxious for society and some coffee. Before heading off to work assignments.

Pretending to read a book in the corner booth he soaked up the atmosphere. As copies of the Daily were picked up he noticed where attention went first. Local news exclusive to the Daily in the lower half of the page, or did eyes start at the top looking at international news? The page is big enough to tell. As weeks passed he noticed interest in the outside world fell off. This was a good thing. Preserving the past would work out better if the pain of the dying world was kept at a distance. The Island Security Force and the Government Council is aware of what is happening in the rest of the world. This is enough. Just about every way you can find out about international news is faster than reading the Daily. The paper is hand pressed on an 18th century printing press on one huge sheet. The moveable type is hand set. Two people pull the screw to print a page. Everything is at least two hours old in the Daily when it reaches the Egg. Current headlines are only a swipe away on an island phone.

A look at the top of the Daily Sheet first is normal for everyone. Pausing at the top to check headlines more than a brief moment shows a reader suffering from fear. The path of a relaxed eye travels to content exclusive to the Daily quickly. That is where island news is.

Nobody knew why he laid out the Daily the way he did. The layout had been his idea and it was a good layout. Nothing to question and there is no reason to change. Changing the page layout to be less conducive to his experiment was possible. He is no longer the owner of the island. But going against the wishes of the Island Censor is a bad idea. Not dangerous in itself as the Censor is a nice well balanced guy. But changing the layout would be embarrassingly clueless.

Cam

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2021, 01:26:30 pm »
Finally sat down to read this. Fantastic work K-Dog. I read the Great Derangement a few months ago, and it's all about why contemporary fiction has avoided the topic of climate change even though it is one the biggest issues facing us today. I really enjoyed it.

I think a climate changed world is an extremely rich topic to write about, and somewhat eerie to read as it is based on a plausible scenario for the future and not some fantasy. Thank you for helping to fill the huge gap in current fiction! Now you've got me thinking I want to write some sort of short story.

Phil Potts

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #18 on: June 13, 2021, 01:15:29 pm »
Is it possible the real reason you don't look at the main news headline outside is; you're afraid of hearing the unthinkable has happened and capitalism has failed?

K-Dog

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #19 on: June 13, 2021, 09:34:50 pm »
Spoiler (hover to show)

Thanks,  good to hear it has an eerie feeling. 

As a commercial success I am sure it would fail so if you write something, do it for fun.  I'm sure I actually don't have to tell you that.  I say it to make a point.  The eerie feeling would push away most people.  Having a few zombies would make everyone feel better because then they would feel the story can't possibly be real.

I hope you write a story.  If you are thinking of it writing one then it is only a matter of time before you do.

K-Dog

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #20 on: June 13, 2021, 09:40:14 pm »
Spoiler (hover to show)

At the time of the writing any capitalism left on the planet is heavily subsidized.  The world has run out of energy.  Oil companies operate under martial law and the little bit of oil left is extracted at a loss.  Capitalism only works when growth is possible or when capitalism is regulated so completely it becomes something else.

« Last Edit: June 13, 2021, 09:41:56 pm by K-Dog »

Cam

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #21 on: June 15, 2021, 06:44:35 am »
Spoiler (hover to show)

Oh definitely, I think this is a genre of writing that will not be brought up at dinner parties often, lol. It's very helpful to write and read about though, at least to me. To write about it you have to start thinking in systems and get specific about future effects. You kind of need a global perspective on certain things (refugee crises, droughts, geopolitical conflict etc.) but also a very local expertise about wherever your story is set - a certain city or community for example. I think if I do write something it will be about a younger person living through collapse - maybe in some intentional community or small town.

"The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence—a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer’s summons to confront the most urgent task of our time."

It's the imagining of other forms of existence that opens up many avenues for writing. I think that's what interests me the most.

K-Dog

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Re: Doom Fiction
« Reply #22 on: July 02, 2021, 02:26:41 am »
Chapter Eight

Sunlight streamed through the open door when M walked in. Her hair glowed red in the morning light. The flash of red caught his eye and he waved. Closing the door behind her, she turned, walked down the isle, and sat down across the table from him, smiling she said,

Good morning.

It is always a good morning when I see you, he replied.

The egg knew how she liked her coffee.
It came to the table. No order was necessary.

Looking straight into his eyes, she said,

What are you going to do today?

I am going up to the airport and have a look around. See what needs to be done.

We don't have flights in or out anymore, and all the planes are in hangars. What is there to do?

I want to make sure we can respond to visitors. We could have guests. Somebody might get the idea of moving in. Our airport is a way onto the island, so we have equipment to run cable across runways, making them impossible to use.

This cable can cut semi-trucks trying to crash through military gates in half. We stretch our cables across our runways, in a dozen places. So runways can't be used in an invasion. It only takes a couple of minutes to wind cable in or out across runways. But cable equipment is not yet in place. Spools holding cable are in a warehouse at the airport ready to be put up along runways.

Spools mount along both runways. Twenty-four poles rise out of the ground. One for each cable. Twelve on each runway. The poles make fences with spools on the other side which wind out cable when receiving poles rise up. Cable hangs between pole and spool like the cables holding up nets on tennis courts. Poles for the spools are installed and working. They are in the ground and ready to rise up when a cable is attached.

I'm confused, why are poles working but not the spools? When were poles put in?

Each spool is seven feet tall and three feet wide. I did not want anybody to know how I was going to lock down the island before Helter Skelter happened, and spool housings will be noticed. I did not want to make a puzzle to figure out. Spool housings do not sink into the ground when cable is wound up like poles do. They are too big. Poles are invisible when they are sunk in the ground. They resemble landing lights.

Each spool has a doghouse next to it. Each doghouse has a pair of mechanical hounds inside. Each hound can pull a cable across the runway from a spool to a pole while it unwinds, to hook the cable onto the pole. The hound can also unhook a cable from a pole when the cable winds up. One hound is a spare. The poles were installed two years ago. Hydraulics are tested every month to make sure they lift.

Finishing coffee and breakfast, they talked about her house project. A new house was going to be built each year. It was a way to keep islanders skilled in building trades. The first house was being planned. M was planning the kitchen. He asked her what she was going to do next, and she asked him if he could come to her house and help her move a chair. Which she could have moved herself. And which did not need any moving. An hour later, he left her house for the Airport.

The drive from the town to the airport only takes a few minutes. Marvin Gaye played on the car stereo.

'Mercy, mercy
Things ain't what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east'

As he drove, new vaccinations began in Gujarat India. Members of a particular fringe Hindu sect stand first in line. They wait for vaccination centers to open. Religious tensions in India are stretched thin and tight. New dangerous fringe elements have emerged. Hindu and Muslim do not trust each other and are at war. Chronic hunger aggravates tensions. Hindu and Muslim take vaccinations separately. They only mix with their own kind. Each side fears being poisoned by the other. The separation in supply chains allowed one side to change the vaccine profile their own people get inoculated with. Annual bat virus boosters started after pandemics were unleashed when flora and fauna tried, and failed, to adjust to the methane bomb. Now the vaccine delivery system is perverted from a noble and humane goal, hijacked by madmen.

A system to vaccinate everyone on the planet was set up after the explosion in pandemics caused by climates marching relentlessly north. Controls make sure vaccines are not adulterated, but a way to switch the entire supply of Hindu vaccines to India at the source was found by homicidal fringe elements. Anti-tampering controls can not account for an entire supply being changed. The new Hindu supply is the same as the old Hindu supply, but with an addition to the recipe. The new supply protects from all seven known COVID viruses and their many variants. Plus the new vaccine protects from a new and previously unknown, novel, and very deadly virus. A virus which exists only in a lab managed by the same homicidal fringe Hindu sect whose members are first in line to get new bat virus boosters.

Chapter Nine

Marvin Gaye finished playing. Roger Waters started streaming. "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" played over the car speakers. Climbing a small hill, the road curved as the Tesla Model S slowed to take a sharp left onto Ten-Mile road. A few hundred yards south on Ten Mile road, then a right turn onto Airport way. A bamboo stand across a drainage ditch on the right side of the road shimmers in a breeze. The stand of bamboo is framed by eucalyptus trees. White flecks of gold sunlight flash sparks from the last morning dew left over from an early morning fog. A fog now all burned away.

Sparks of white fire flash a message back in the sparks of sunlight. But what is the message? The breeze bends the bamboo over. But no eyes can know the bent tops point in the wrong direction for things to be good. The sparks of light warn of danger.

Fifty years earlier, the bamboo stand had been thick with green Arctic grass. The grass pointed in a different direction when the wind blew. The new bamboo was too young for the direction of bend to show its preference. Seeds for the eucalyptus trees came from thousands of miles away. Nobody paused to think which way a bamboo stand along Ten Mile road should bend in the wind. The bend shows air is being sucked into Siberia. A huge high pressure cap of air is being fed there. A zone of stagnate air will hang over Siberia for days. It will be warmed by the late summer sun until it is hot. Then it will move south and west and get hotter.

Cement was being exposed when he arrived at the airport. Four foundations for holding cable spools and attached mechanical doghouses were already exposed. Work on digging up a fifth was well under way. Landscaping had buried concrete foundations under dirt mounds before Helter Skelter. The mounds of earth looked like raised flower beds. Cement foundations were poured with concrete for the runway. The foundations only needed to be dug up with dirt from the raised beds spread out over the surrounding ground. Plastic flowers in the raised beds had already been taken away. The flowers would be turned into diesel fuel later. When all the cable spools were working.

One of the men working a shovel paused as he drove up. Stepping out of the Model S he heard,

Hey, look it is Mr K. The video star. Should we get his autograph?

The others chuckled.

If you want it you have to have something to write with. I did not bring anything with me.

More chuckling.

How did you guys get so much done so fast?

Another of the four-man crew spoke.

We talked last night. We figured you might show up and want to dig, and we wanted to get all the digging done before it gets too hot. We did not want you getting in the way. The weather gods say it is supposed to be a hot afternoon.

The comment about getting in the way was said with a smile. The crew was in good spirits. The weather god was an island joke. An array of sensors across the island provided detailed weather data to Island Central computers. An AI monitored the sensors. As time went by, the AI learned how to make better and better predictions of island weather. The process was automatic, and a pair of virtual reality newscasters gave a continuous streaming forecast of island weather over a dedicated channel on the island broadband network. The smiling newscasters never slept or needed to eat, and they were perfect renditions of beautiful people. Consequently, their constant virtual cheer was quickly found to be irritating and within days the pair was nicknamed the weather gods. The nickname made the cheer bearable.

Besides, we want to get the work done. We think this is kind of important.

He replied,

Yes, but as long as the United States exists, not so much. We put up the fancy stuff now because if the country divides, borders will be unstable. That is when we could have trouble. He paused saying,

So what is next?

The team leader, who had been first to speak, replied.

After we dig up and wash this pad down, we are going to mount the first five spool cans. Then we test the mechanical dogs.

Good, I want to see a dog in action. I have only seen one in a demo when I visited the factory where they were made. I have not seen one pull on a cable. Now, if you don't have an extra shovel, you can give me yours.

The group chuckled.

There is an extra in the truck.

After twenty minutes of digging, the concrete pad was ready to be hosed down with discarded dirt spread out and raked into nearby grass. Washed down, the first five spool pads were ready to be used.

It was late in the afternoon before all five concrete pads had their spool cans and doghouses bolted down. Tomorrow, five more cans would be installed by a different crew. Five days would be needed to install all the spools. Exposing as much of the Island Defense Team as possible to the system was a good idea. That is why every day used different people. Everybody doing the work was on the Island Defense Team.

People began to show up for the demo about 15:00 in the afternoon, but it was almost 16:20 in the afternoon before power was wired to all the spools. About fifty people stood on the north end of the runway, looking south at the line of newly mounted spool cans on the right side. The first can was about twenty feet away and the last looked small and very far away. The three cans in between stepped in size from large to small as the perspective of distance shrank them down.

A line of five bright blue lights flashed along the other side of the runway. The lights rose on thick steel poles as thick as tree trunks from the ground. On the side of the poles facing the runway thick steel hooks are mounted open side up.

Doghouse doors opened in unison. Out of each door, a pair of mechanical dogs stepped. One dog stood motionless, while the dogs closest to spool cans walked over to stand by their cans. Ends of cable bent over to make loops popped out of the side of the spool cans. Each dog slipped their mechanical head through a loop. Then the dogs walked across the runway all at the same time. Each pair together with one dog pulling cable. Reaching the hooks, the dogs pulling cable rubbed their heads against the steel hooks and with a quick fluid motion of the front paws the cable was on the hook. Then the poles rose higher and the runway was blocked by thick cables ready to slice any airplane trying to land in half. The dogs returned to their doghouses and backed in. The doors closed.

A minute went by and the doors opened. This time one dog jumped out of each doghouse and, without pause, ran across the runway to the poles hooking cables on the other side. Jumping up on hind legs, the dogs unhooked cables and ran back to their doghouses. As the dogs backed into their doghouses, spools began to wind up cable. In a minute, the runway was cleared for landings until the next test of the system.

In a week, all the cables will be mounted. The Island will be able to prevent airplanes from landing and regular defensive drills will start. By then, the mass of stagnant air over Siberia will be slowly moving. The mass of high pressure will blow through and around the mountains of Afghanistan for a final push to bake over India.

By this time a Hindu detective in India, suspicious of the eagerness members an extremist group had for being vaccinated, acquired some vaccine the group is fond of taking. The detective's commitment to the principles of ahimsa is firm and his desire to stop extreme authoritarian and cruel expressions of karma, where he can, is strong. Before the day was over, the vaccine was in a diplomatic pouch on the way to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. If there is anything unusual about the vaccine, the detective knew the Wuhan virology lab is the place with the best talent to find out if anything strange is going on.

Chapter Ten

Leaving the airstrip, the Tesla cruises up Ten Mile road. Five kilometers up from where Airport Way turns onto Ten Mile Road, the Tesla turns left to reach the Doomstead Diner parking lot. The Diner lot is on the opposite side of the Diner from the Ten Mile Road side, reached by a driveway along the south wall. Coffee smells good when K walks through the door. Nods greet him. The Doomstead Diner is across the parking lot from the Church of Celestial Wonders. The Church of Wonder is not a real church. It is the name of the island recreational drug dispensary. K knew prohibition would not work. Social use of alcohol and other things is allowed. Island ration cards make excessive consumption difficult. The Diner, filled to capacity with people fresh from work in farm fields, is serving dinner. Talk fills the air.

The waitress looked at him.

'They were just saying you might bring a mechanical Fido in with you.'

'I would, but they don't have tongues to hang outside windows. I need a dog that hangs his head out the window when I go down the road.'

'Really, everybody wants to see one. Nobody here knew we had them.'

'Ahhhh, yeah. It was on the down-low because they can double as soldiers. Under the new rules, I can't bring a dog in anyway. I am only the island censor now. The dogs are managed by island defense. I'll ask them to arrange a demo since people are interested.'

'Coffee ?'

'Yes, And a facon sandwich.'

He sat down at the counter. She turned to get coffee. The Diner looked like something from the American 70s. In each of four corners, video monitors mount hanging from the ceiling. Screens are packaged to look like old style TVs. A slide show of island news plays in an endless loop. Booths have individual speakers. Audio from video plays in booths when a button is pressed down. Island temperature flashes onto screens in a weather report. Twenty-Eight degrees C shows. A balmy arctic day if you do not move too much. A hot day for those pulling farm shifts. The Diner is cooled. Finished with a day of work, those assigned farming are happy to be cooling off in the Diner. K is there for coffee, conversation, and a walk across the parking lot for some hash oil.

Unavoidable slowing of northern grain shipments to new southern desert nations start riots. China dissidents awake to find themselves nailed inside apartments. Their only consolation, knowing that failure to receive a fair share of food rations from those assigned to deliver rations to them is a death penalty to those in the delivery team. A consolation not worth much if their own death reveals a delivery problem. In India, riots rage. The curious Indian detective delivers the vaccine he obtained from the Hindu radical splinter group to the World Pandemic Authority. Analysis shows the mix is their own standard vaccine issue with an additional strand of RNA to protect against a virus membrane protein in the terrorist bio-weapon. Within hours, this strand is added to standard anti-Covid vaccine cocktails. The World Defense Authority, alerted by the Pandemic Authority, targets every city where members of the radical Hindu sect live. Nuclear weapons are armed.

On the Island, crops grow. The island council decided isolation will be suspended to take the anticipated food harvest surplus to Anchorage. There it will be sent to food banks in the city. Grain unloaded, the boat crew will return to the island immediately. There is no need to bring anything back, so contact will be kept to a minimum. The visit would be short. Helter-Skelter means keeping a low profile.

A world defense execution squad mingles in the village where the radical Hindus sect keep their bio-lab. All members of the sect in the village are killed at once as the bio-lab is seized. The stored virus is killed and the lab torched. In a nearby village, a vial of the virus kept as a backup is released by surviving members of the terrorist sect. The release is quickly detected. A test of the first victim's blood shows the released virus as soon as she is hospitalized. Local members of the Hindu sect are arrested or killed. A pandemic vaccination squad enters the village and sets up a wide perimeter stretching into the countryside. Across which nobody can cross without permission. By the time the virus release is fully extinguished, 700 people in the village district are dead. Release in a large city would have triggered a nuclear response. World defense cancels the nuclear alert.

In better parts of the world, low birth rates and natural attrition shrinks population. Slowly over the years. In these areas food is scarce but available. Population living in better parts experience a long misery. The relationship is coincidental. In other parts of the world, food availability and soil fertility fall faster than population in the area can naturally fall.

These are lands of failed states where warlords and gangs rule. Murder and starvation is the norm in these lands. Population declines catastrophically in sudden jumps from any increase in food stress and soil degrades. Creating ever more difficulty in growing food. A handful of cities high enough from the sea cling to civilization in uneasy stabilities.

A warehouse on the island has enough Formica to resurface all Doomstead Diner tables and counter-tops every five years for the next thousand years. Facon is not in short supply, and Coffee grows well on island mountains. Society is organized to maintain equity between island citizens, allowing all citizens to achieve fulfilled lives. Island citizens are able to express and cultivate talents. Education punctuates island work schedules throughout life. All citizens become skilled teachers as they practice on each other. The Island is organized to preserve the best humanity learned in the growth times. Before the world died, and before it could begin to recover.

Population has to reduce to a fraction of the mass the human tumor has been allowed to grow. A massive reduction in population numbers must happen before our biosphere can recover. The most powerful counties of the far north collaborate to keep nuclear war from happening. Pandemic response is coordinated. Most importantly, grain ships of the arctic are controlled by this cabal of nations. This is welfare on a global scale, with countries receiving grain ruled by surveillance and panoptic terror to keep populations from growing. Need for grain keeps an uneasy peace between nations. Population growth or war results in the sanction of a grain boycott.