https://www.krem.com/video/news/live_stream/krem-2-news-at-4/293-d064c178-1c20-46e8-9673-37495c8a392d
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, PROLOGUE
SETTING UP
Delta kept an advance team on round-the-clock standby, and they'd be prepping for a possible deployment now. Colonel Byron would be with them. Little Willie was that kind of soldier. He had an XO and staff to follow things up while he led from the front. A lot of wheels were spinning now. All John and his friends really had to do was sit tight so long as the bad guys kept their cool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering
Money laundering
From Wikipedia
"Dirty money" redirects here.
Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions. It is usually a key operation of organized crime.
excerpts
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-announcing-the-mission-innovation-initiative-le-bourget-france
The American Presidency Project
BARACK OBAMA
44th President of the United States: 2009 - 2017
Remarks Announcing the Mission Innovation Initiative in Le Bourget, France
November 30, 2015
My expectation, knowing Bill, is, is that we'll see a lot more than 28 pretty soon.
NOTE: The President spoke at 5:12 p.m.
In his remarks, he referred to
William H. Gates III, founder, technology adviser, and board member, Microsoft Corp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muir_S._Fairchild
Muir S. Fairchild
From Wikipedia
General Muir Stephen Fairchild (September 2, 1894 – March 17, 1950) was a United States Air Force officer
Service/branch
United States Army
United States Air Force
Years of service
1913–1947 (Army)
1947–1950 (Air Force)
Rank General
Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane was named for him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Air_Force_Base
Fairchild Air Force Base
From Wikipedia
Fairchild Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base, located in the northwest United States in eastern Washington, approximately twelve miles (20 km) southwest of Spokane.
During the Cold War, Fairchild was a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base for 45 years (1947–1992), with bombers and tankers, as well as missiles for a brief period (1960–1965).
Stargate (1994)
(from internet transcript)
EXT HOTEL ENTRANCE, DAY
[Rain pours down as Daniel, carrying two large suitcases, exits the hotel. He pulls his jacket's hood over his head to provide some protection and tries to cover his one suitcase with his coat. An uniformed man with an umbrella approaches from a car parked just outside the hotel.]
KAWALSKI
Doctor Jackson?
DANIEL
What? Yes?
KAWALSKI
Someone wants to speak with you.
INT CAR
[Catherine flips through a file, which includes a diploma from UCLA, as the officer continues to talk to Daniel.]
DANIEL
The Air Force? What's this? What is this?
Stripes (1981)
Sergeant Hulka: Son, there ain't no draft no more.
Cruiser: There was one?
From 9/2/1894 ( Muir Fairchild ) To 10/28/1994 ( premiere USA film "Stargate" ) is 36580 days
36580 = 18290 + 18290
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 18290 days
From 7/9/1987 ( as me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, enlisted US Navy Fire Controlman Petty Officer 2nd Class (FC2)(E-5) selectee, following my graduation Naval Missiles School, Dam Neck, Virginia, I arrived at my second US Navy fleet assignment the USS Wainwright CG-28, US Navy, for permanent duty until 1990 - CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance) ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 10371 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/26/1994 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Star Trek: The Next Generation"::"Journey's End" ) is 10371 days
From 7/16/1963 ( Phoebe Cates - the world-famous actor AND from the thoughts in my conscious mind, coinciding with United States of America Veterans Affairs hospital psychiatric doctor medical drugs: the United States Army veteran and the Harvard University graduate medical doctor and the world-famous actor and the spouse of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 19130 days
19130 = 9565 + 9565
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 1/10/1992 ( from The Daily Princetonian publication, Princeton University: Three To Stand Trial For Harassing Calls ) is 9565 days
From 9/14/2002 ( at Overlake hospital in Bellevue, Washington State USA, the announced birth of Phoebe Gates the daughter of Microsoft Corbis Bill Gates the transvestite and Microsoft Corbis Bill Gates the 100% female gender as born to brother-sister genetic-sibling parents ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 4825 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 1/18/1979 ( premiere USA TV series "Delta House" ) is 4825 days
From 6/8/1993 ( commencement, Princeton University Class of 1993 ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 8210 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/25/1988 ( from The Daily Princetonian publication, Princeton University: World News - Iranians Attack Saudi Tanker After U.S. Warns Of Reprisals ) is 8210 days
From 12/30/1970 ( Richard Nixon, 37th President of USA: Statement on Signing the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970 ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 16406 days
16406 = 8203 + 8203
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/18/1988 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Fire Controlman Petty Officer Second Class (FC2), from my official enlisted US Navy records: during USA Armed Forces Expeditionary Operation Earnest Will with my personal participation and commendation - CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance) - aboard the USS Wainwright CG-28 US Navy the United States Operation Praying Mantis ) is 8203 days
From 9/21/1949 ( premiere USA TV series pilot "Let There Be Stars" ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 24176 days
24176 = 12088 + 12088
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 12/7/1998 ( as Kerry Burgess my first day full-time employment Microsoft Corporation in Seattle until 02/06/2004 as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and the active duty United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel circa 1998 ) is 12088 days
From 4/25/1953 ( in Nature magazine, James Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of DNA ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 22864 days
22864 = 11432 + 11432
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/19/1997 ( as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps commissioned-officer and United States STS-82 pilot astronaut and my 4th official United States of America National Aeronautics Space Administration orbital flight of 4 overall I begin repairing the US Hubble Telescope while in space and orbit of the planet Earth - the Hubble Space Telescope placed back into its own orbit of the planet Earth ) is 11432 days
From 8/3/1998 ( "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy ) To 11/30/2015 ( ) is 6328 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/1/1983 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Nova"::"Asbestos: A Lethal Legacy" ) is 6328 days
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-announcing-the-mission-innovation-initiative-le-bourget-france
The American Presidency Project
BARACK OBAMA
44th President of the United States: 2009 - 2017
Remarks Announcing the Mission Innovation Initiative in Le Bourget, France
November 30, 2015
Good afternoon. Prime Minister Modi and I apologize for being late, but I can assure you we were working—[laughter]—and, hopefully, helping to advance President Hollande's agenda in a successful Paris summit. I want to thank François, my fellow leaders, Prime Minister Modi and Bill Gates—two of the driving forces behind today's announcement.
We're here because we recognize the urgency of climate change and we believe that there's something that we can all do about it as long as we work together. And while the agreement that we seek in Paris will be forged by governments, the ambitious targets that we set for ourselves are going to be reached in large part by the efforts of our scientists, our businesses, our workers, our investors. And that's why the private sector, from inventors to investors, will have a seat at the table throughout this process.
Helping developing nations skip the dirty phase of development is vital to meeting this challenge. One of the things that Prime Minister Modi and I discussed is, you've got 300 million people in India who still don't have electricity. We cannot forge a climate agreement that says they are permanently resigned to not having electricity. That's not an option. So we have to make sure that the same process of development is taking place, but using a whole new set of technologies and arrangements so that we don't have a conflict between development and solving this climate crisis.
But the leap forward is going to take much more than pledges for development assistance from governments. It's going to take private sector efforts and a commitment to innovation and the capital to keep driving down the cost of clean energy all around the world.
And that's why today we're announcing Mission Innovation. And I believe this is going to be one of the most significant public-private partnerships ever forged to accelerate energy innovation on a global scale. First of all, the 20 participating nations, representing more than 80 percent of global clean energy innovation dollars, we're going to seek to double our R&D budget over the next 5 years. Second, a coalition of 28 leading private investors from all over the world, including both Democrats and Republicans from the United States—some folks who have supported me and some folks who haven't always in the past on politics, but do support the climate change agenda—are committing to invest unprecedented resources to bring those technologies to the market.
And we know that this kind of partnership works. I'll give you an example. Shortly after I took office, the United States made the single biggest Federal investment in clean energy in our history. And those investments helped drive down the cost of clean energy faster than anyone thought possible, including me at the time. There are now thousands of private sector renewable energy projects nationwide, projects that employ tens of thousands of Americans and help drive down our carbon emissions.
Thanks in part to these investments, America now generates 20 times as much solar power as we did in 2008. Last year was solar's biggest year ever. Prices fell by 10 percent, installations climbed by 30 percent, and the solar industry added jobs more than 10 times faster than the rest of the economy. Now, Bill has pointed out—and he's absolutely right—that we're also going to have to just invent some entirely new technologies. I mean, the truth is, if we adapt existing technologies and make them cheaper and faster and more readily available, if we improve energy efficiency, we're still only going to get part of the way there, and there's still going to be a big gap to fill. And that's where these research dollars become so important. Because we don't yet know exactly what's going to work best. But we know that if we put our best minds behind it and we have the dollars behind it, we'll discover what works. We always have in the past, and we will this time as well.
And there's not a direct correlation between how much money and how quickly we invest—we invent something, but I guarantee you, if we've got more minds working on it with more resources, the likelihood that we come up with an answer faster is going to be much higher.
So between Federal investments in these technologies and the private capital that helped scale up and deploy them, we already have places in America where the power from sun and wind is cheaper than dirtier, conventional power from utilities. Now, there are issues in terms of distribution and storage and batteries, but the point is, is that we've seen more progress than we would have even imagined 7, 8 years ago. And we're already seeing America's biggest companies—like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Walmart—who have become some of the world's largest purchasers of clean energy. And they're also, in some cases, becoming some of the largest clean energy producers in the world. And they're doing this not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes good business sense.
And by taking this approach on a global scale—with unprecedented investment in public research, an unprecedented pool of private capital—Mission Innovation will help deliver affordable clean energy and new jobs and opportunities to people around the world for decades to come. This is how we're going to solve this challenge: together. And that's at the heart of what we're trying to accomplish here in Paris.
So I want to thank everybody for joining us. I especially want to thank Prime Minister Modi, who has been at the forefront in pursuing innovation that can help his country develop, but every country develop. And I want to thank Bill Gates, who has been visionary in this entire process and helped to gather the investors that are already stepping up. My expectation, knowing Bill, is, is that we'll see a lot more than 28 pretty soon.
So thank you very much, everybody.
NOTE: The President spoke at 5:12 p.m. in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium at the Parc des Expositions. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India; President François Hollande of France; and William H. Gates III, founder, technology adviser, and board member, Microsoft Corp.
by me, Kerry Burgess: Aug 23, 2023
Marketing is not about what you are.
Marketing is about what you are *not*
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 4
John Brightling, a billionaire heading for number two, was holding court before a small crowd of admirers.
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 4
"The future has never been so bright as this," John Brightling told his audience, his demeanor even more charismatic after two glasses of a select California Chardonnay. "The bio-sciences are pushing back frontiers we didn't even know existed fifteen years ago. A hundred years of basic research are coming to bloom even as we speak. We're building on the work of Pasteur, Ehrlich, Salk, Sabin, and so many others. We see so far today because we stand on the shoulders of giants.
"Well," John Brightling went on, "it's been a long climb, but the top of the mountain is in sight, and we will get there in the next few years."
"He's smooth," Liz Murray observed to her husband.
"Very," FBI Director Dan Murray whispered back. "Smart, too. Jimmy Hicks says he's the top guy in the world."
"What's he running for?"
"God, from what he said earlier."
"Needs to grow a beard then."
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 5
The President was anything but an Environmental President, but the bastard was getting away with it at the same time using Carol Brightling as political camouflage, or even political cover! That appalled her or would have under other circumstances. But here she was, Dr. Brightling thought, zipping up her skirt before donning the suit-jacket, a senior advisor to the President of the United States. That meant she saw him a couple of times per week. It meant that he read her position papers and policy recommendations. It meant that she had access to the media's top-drawer people, free to pursue her own agenda within reason.
But she was the one who paid the price. Always, it was she, Carol thought
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 4
It might take a generation or so," John Brightling mused, "but is there anyone here who would not want to be twenty-five again-with all the things we've learned along the way, of course. It damned well appeals to me!" he went on with a warm smile. With sky-high salaries and promises of stock options, his company had assembled an incredible team of talent to look at that particular gene. The profits that would accrue from its control could hardly be estimated, and the U.S. patent was good for seventeen years! Human immortality, the new Holy Grail for the medical community-and for the first time it was something for serious investigation, not a topic of pulp science-fiction stories.
"You think you can do it?" another congresswoman this one from San Francisco-asked. Women of all sorts found themselves drawn to this man. Money, power, good looks, and good manners made it inevitable.
John Brightling smiled broadly. "Ask me in five years. We know the gene. We need to learn how to turn it off. There's a whole lot of basic science in there we have to uncover, and along the way we hope to discover a lot of very useful things. It's like setting off with Magellan. We aren't sure what we're going to find, but we know it'll all be interesting." No one pointed out that Magellan hadn't made it home from that particular trip.
"And profitable?" a new senator from Wyoming asked.
"That's how our society works, isn't it? We pay people for doing useful work. Is this area useful enough?"
"If you bring it off, I suppose it is." This senator was himself a physician, a family practitioner who knew the basics but was well over his head on the deep-scientific side. The concept, the objective of Horizon Corporation, was well beyond breathtaking, but he would not bet against them. They'd done too well developing cancer drugs and synthetic antibiotics, and were the leading private company in the Human Genome Project, a global effort to decode the basics of human life. Himself a genius, John Brightling had found it easy to attract others like himself to his company. He had more charisma than a hundred politicians, and unlike the latter, the senator had to admit to himself, he really had something to back up the showmanship. It had once been called "the right stuff" for pilots. With his movie-star looks, ready smile, superb listening ability, and dazzlingly analytical mind, Dr. John Brightling had the knack. He could make anyone near him feel interesting - and the bastard could *teach*, could apply his lessons to everyone nearby. Simple ones for the unschooled and highly sophisticated ones for the specialists in his field, at the top of which he reigned supreme. Oh, he had a few peers. Pat Reily at Harvard-Mass General. Aaron Bernstein at Johns Hopkins. Jacques Elise at Pasteur. Maybe Paul Ging at U.C. Berkeley. But that was it. What a fine clinician Brightling might have made, the senator-M.D. thought, but, no, he was too good to be wasted on people with the latest version of the flu.
About the only thing in which he'd failed was his marriage. Well, Carol Brightling was also pretty smart, but more political than scientific, and perhaps her ego, capacious as everyone in this city knew it to be, had quailed before the greater intellectual gifts of her husband. Only room in town for one of us, the doctor from Wyoming thought, with an inner smile. That happened often enough in real life, not just on old movies. And Brightling, John, seemed to be doing better in that respect than Brightling, Carol. At the former's elbow was a very pretty redhead drinking in his every word, while the latter had come alone, and would be leaving alone for her apartment in Georgetown. Well, the senator-M.D. thought, that's life.
Immortality. Damn, all the pronghorns he might take
"Journey's End" [ Star Trek: The Next Generation ]
Original Airdate: Mar 28, 1994
Dr. Beverly CRUSHER: Now you be sure and dress warmly on those other planes of existence.
WESLEY: I will. Bye, Mom.
Dr. Beverly CRUSHER: Goodbye.
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 8
"This seems to work," Steve said quietly.
"How many strands fit inside?" Maggie asked.
"Anywhere from three to ten."
"And how large is the overall package?"
"Six microns. Would you believe it? The packaging is white in color, so it reflects light pretty well, especially UV radiation, and in a water-spray environment, it's just about invisible." The individual capsules couldn't be seen with the naked eye, and only barely with an optical microscope. Better still, their weight was such that they'd float in air about the same as dust particles, as readily breathable as secondhand smoke in a singles bar. Once in the body, the coating would dissolve, and allow release of the Shiva strands into the lungs or the upper GI, where they could go to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis
Asbestosis
From Wikipedia
Asbestosis is long-term inflammation and scarring of the lungs due to asbestos fibers.
When such fibers reach the alveoli (air sacs) in the lung, where oxygen is transferred into the blood, the foreign bodies (asbestos fibers) cause the activation of the lungs' local immune system and provoke an inflammatory reaction
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, CHAPTER 33
The capsules would enter through the lungs, be transported into the blood, and there the capsules would dissolve, releasing the Shiva. The engineered virus strands would travel in the bloodstream of the spectators and the athletes, soon find the liver and kidneys, the organs for which they had the greatest affinity, and begin the slow process of multiplication. All this had been established at Binghamton Lab on the 'normal' test subjects. Then it was just a matter of weeks until the Shiva had multiplied enough to do its work. Along the way, people would pass on the Shiva through kisses and sexual contact, through coughs and sneezes. This, to had been proven at the Binghamton Lab. Starting in about four weeks, people would think themselves mildly ill. Some would see their personal physicians, and be diagnosed as flu victims, told to take aspirin, drink fluids, and rest in front of the TV. They would do this, and feel better-because seeing a doctor usually did that to people-for a day or so. But they would not be getting better. Sooner or later, they'd develop the internal bleeds that Shiva ultimately caused, and then, about five weeks after the initial release of the nano-capsules, some doctor would run an antibody test and be aghast to learn that something like the famous and feared Ebola fever was back. A good epidemiology program might identify the Sydney Olympics as the focal center, but tens of thousands people would have come and gone. This was a perfect avenue for distributing Shiva, something the Project's senior members had determined years before-even before the attempted plague launched by Iran against America, which had predictably failed because the virus hadn't been the right one, and the method of delivery too haphazard. No, this plan was perfection itself. Every nation on earth sent athletes and judges to the Olympic games, and all of them would walk through the cooling fog in this hot stadium, lingering there to shed excess body heat, breathe deeply, and relax in this cool place. Then they'd all return to their homes, from America to Argentina, from Russia to Rwanda, there to spread the Shiva and start the initial panic.
Then came Phase Two. Horizon Corporation would manufacture and distribute the "A" vaccine, turn it out in thousand-liter lots, and send it all over the world by express flights to nations whose public-health-service physicians and nurses would be sure to inject every citizen they could find. Phase Two would finish the job begun with the global panic that was sure to result from Phase One. Four to six weeks after being injected, the "A" recipients would start to become ill. So, three weeks from today, Gearing thought, plus six weeks or so, plus two weeks, plus another six, plus a final two. A total of nineteen weeks, not even half a year, not even a full baseball season, and well over ninety-nine percent of the people on the earth would be dead. And the planet would be saved. No more slaughtering of sheep from a chemical-weapons release. No more extinction of species by thoughtless man. The ozone hole would soon heal itself. Nature would flourish once more. And he'd be there to see it, to enjoy and appreciate it all, along with his friends and colleagues in the Project. They'd save the planet and raise their children to respect it, love it, cherish it. The world would again be green and beautiful.
His feelings were not completely unambiguous. He could look out the windows and see people walking on the streets of Sydney, and it caused him pain to think of what would be happening to all of them. But he'd seen much pain. The sheep at Dugway. The monkeys and pigs and other test animals at Edgewood Arsenal. They, too, felt great pain. They, too, had a right to live, and people had disregarded both self-evident facts. The people down there didn't use shampoo unless it had been tested on the eyes of laboratory rabbits, held stock-still in cruel little cages. there to suffer without words, without expression at all to most people, who didn't understand animals, and cared less about them than they cared for how their burgers were cooked at the local McDonald's. They were helping to destroy the earth because they didn't care. Because they didn't care, they didn't even try to see what was important, and because they didn't appreciate what was important they would die. They were a species that had endangered itself, and so would reap the whirlwind of its own ignorance. They were not like himself, Gearing thought. They didn't see. And under the cruel but fair laws of Charles Darwin, that left them at a comparative disadvantage. And so, as one animal replaced another, so he and his kind would replace them and theirs. He was only the instrument of natural selection, after all.
Rainbow Six (1998) - Tom Clancy
(from internet transcript)
excerpts, Chapter 24
"The toughest part was the environmental systems. That's the most demanding set of specifications I've ever seen. What's the big deal, Dr. Brightling?"
"Well, some of the things we work with demand full isolation Level Four, we call it in the business. Hot Lab stuff, and we have to treat it very carefully, as you might imagine. Federal rules on that we have to follow."
"But the whole building?" Hollister asked. It had been like building a ship or an aircraft. Rarely was any large structure designed to be completely airtight. But this one was, which had forced them to do air-pressure tests when each module had been completed, and driven his window contractors slightly crazy.
"Well, we just wanted it done our way."
"Your building, Doc," Hollister allowed. That one specification had added five million dollars of labor costs to the project, all of it to the window contractor, whose workers had hated the detail work, though not the extra pay to do it. The old Boeing plant down the road at Wichita had hardly been called upon to do such finely finished work. "You picked a pretty setting for it, though."
"Didn't we, though?" All around, the land was covered with a swaying green carpet of wheat, just about a quarter way into its growing cycle. There were some farm machines visible, fertilizing and weeding the crop. Maybe not as pretty as a golf course, but a lot more practical. The complex even had its own large institutional bakery to bake its own bread, maybe from the wheat grown right here on the campus? Hollister wondered. Why hadn't he thought about that one before? The farms that had been bought along with the land even included a feedlot for fattening up cattle, and other land used for truck-farm vegetables. This whole complex could be self-sustaining if somebody ever wanted it to be. Well, maybe they just wanted it to fit in with the area. This part of Kansas was all farms, and though the steel-and-glass buildings of the project didn't exactly look like barns and equipment sheds, their surroundings somehow muted their invasiveness. And besides, you could hardly see them from the interstate highway to the north, and only from a few public roads closer than that, and the gatehouses for limiting access were stout buildings, almost like pillboxes - to protect against tornadoes, the specifications had said, and sure enough no tornado could hurt them -hell, even some loony farmer with a.50-caliber machine gun couldn't hurt those security huts.
"So, you've earned your bonus. The money will be in your account by the close of business tomorrow," Dr. John Brightling promised.
"Suits me, sir." Hollister fished in his pocket and pulled out the master key, the one that would open any door in the complex. It was a little ceremony he always performed when he finished a project. He handed it over. "Well, sir, its your building complex now."
Brightling looked at the electronic key and smiled. This was the last major hurdle for the Project. This would be the home of nearly all of his people. A similar but much smaller structure in Brazil had been finished two months earlier, but that one barely accommodated a hundred people. This one could house three thousand - somewhat crowded, but comfortably even so-for some months, and that was about right. After the first couple of months, he could sustain his medical research efforts here with his best people - most of them not briefed in on the Project, but worthy of life even so because that work was heading in some unexpectedly promising directions. So promising that he wondered how long he himself might live here. Fifty years? A hundred? A thousand, perhaps? Who could say now?
Olympus, he'd call it, Brightling decided on the spot. The home of the gods, for that was exactly what he expected it to be. From here they could watch the world, study it, enjoy it, appreciate it. He would use the call-sign OLYMPUS-1 on his portable radio. From here he'd be able to fly all over the world with picked companions, to observe and learn how the ecology was supposed to work. For twenty years or so, they'd be able to use communications satellites no telling how long they'd last, and after that they'd be stuck with long-wire radio systems. That was an inconvenience for the future, but launching his own replacement satellites was just too difficult in terms of manpower and resources, and besides, satellite launchers polluted like nothing else humankind had ever invented.
Brightling wondered how long his people would choose to live here. Some would scatter quickly, probably drive all over America, setting up their own enclaves, reporting back by satellite at first. Others would go to Africa-that seemed likely to be the most popular destination. Still others to Brazil and the rain forest study area. Perhaps some of the primitive tribes down there would be spared the Shiva exposure, and his people would study them as well and how Primitive Man lived in a pristine physical environment, living in full harmony with Nature. They'd study them as they were, a unique species worthy of protection and too backward to be a danger to the environment. Might some African tribes survive as well? His people didn't think so. The African countries allowed their primitives to interface too readily with city folk, and the cities would be the focal centers of death for every nation on earth-especially when Vaccine-A was distributed. Thousands of liters of it would be produced, flown all over the world, and then distributed, ostensibly to preserve life, but really to take it slowly, of course.
Progress was going well. Back at his corporate headquarters the fictional documentation for -A was already fully formulated. It had been supposedly tested on over a thousand monkeys who were then exposed to Shiva, and only two of them had become symptomatic, and only one of those had died over the nineteen month trial that existed only on paper and computer memories. They hadn't yet approached the FDA for human trials, because that wasn't necessary-but when Shiva started appearing all over the world, Horizon Corporation would announce that it had been working quietly on hemorrhagic fever vaccines ever since the Iranian attack on America, and faced with a global emergency and a fully documented treatment modality, the FDA would have no choice but to approve human use, and so officially bless the Project's goal of global human extermination. Not so much the elimination, John Brightling thought more precisely, as the culling back of the most dangerous species on the planet, which would allow Nature to restore Herself, with just enough human stewards to watch and study and appreciate the process. In a thousand or so years, there might be a million or so humans, but that was a small number in the great scheme of things, and the people would be properly educated to understand and respect nature instead of destroying her. The goal of the Project wasn't to end the world. It was to build a new one, a new world in the shape that Nature Herself intended. On that he would put his own name for all eternity. John Brightling, the man who saved the planet.
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 12:56 AM Pacific-time USA Thursday 05/16/2024
