The Last Silver Bullet Read online

  CFCs also found another big market in bottles of hairspray, and cans of shaving foam. Dr. Midgley proved to be someone who totally went under the radar of the Blooman government’s watchdogs, and single-handedly usher in an age of disputed tech and delayed bans – the Age of Perverted Science.

  Worst part was that the ecological super-villain, whom an environmental historian referred to as the one, single organism with the greatest impact on the planet, was showered with awards and adulations by the scientific community.

  By the time the two globalized wars ended, the SFLA had been able to deploy gazillions of its soldiers on active duty – way more than ever before – though they still had some way to go before their entire force was on the ground, barring the reserves. Their mega forward base was also going to be ready in a few decades.

  The Blooman government couldn’t get a whiff on these mass infiltrations, considering it was frantically trying to restore peace amongst the humans. The Tree of Life was under great stress now. The government was desperately looking for solutions, and to find out what hit them.

  They started looking for the Brotherhood, but it was nowhere to be found. Humans were armed with nukes now and had shown they were not afraid of using them. In the government’s view, another full-scale world war was surely going to be the end.

  They decided to manufacture a cold war between the Americans and the Russians. The SFLA converted this into an arms race, with each nation acing the other’s A-bomb, missile and jet plane. Ultimately, Yuri Gagarin took the rivalry outside into space, and off the block 007 and his gizmos went, stylizing the imagination of the future. Those souped-up, missile-launching spy cars were what everyone was going to be dreaming of.

  Ultimately, the SFLA heated up the Cold War in Vietnam and the conflict saw the superpowers jostling to show who holds more superior weaponry. After all, the arms trade was getting bigger by the year and places such as Vietnam were like trade fair exhibition arenas where you showcase your products and get orders.

  Since it wasn’t a direct conflict, they somehow managed to control the itch of using nuclear bombs, but then whoever said they couldn’t use other forms of warfare. No nukes didn’t mean that the SFLA couldn’t encash this opportunity in other ways.

  The Russian-backed Viet Cong were guerrillas fighting the Americans and were well-adapted to their homeland inside the mighty Southeast Asian rainforest. The SFLA had chosen Vietman as a battleground for the two superpowers because the Vietnamese part of the rainforest was the IT hub of the Blooman world. Along with a general ransack, they especially wanted to disable a certain Grass called Digitaria, AKA Crabgrass.

  As its scientific name would suggest, they formed a digital network of information superhighways directly connecting zillions of Bloomans – consumers of information and potential providers alike. The SFLA wanted to test how fragile the Blooman world’s communication system was. They wanted to be prepared for the future where they might need to use cyber warfare tactics against the Bloomans.

  The Americans were losing the war on the ground, with – once again – mosquitoes and tropical diseases keeping them generally fighting the elements, rather than the enemy. The Viet Cong were masters of ambush. Their hands-on knowledge of the terrain ensured that the Americans were never safe from an attack, even with their fancy military issues and trainings.

  The U.S. decided to defoliate rural and forested land to deprive the guerrillas of food and places to hide. They also wanted to clear sensitive areas such as the perimeters of their own bases. It was exactly what the SFLA wanted them to do.

  The ballistics had already been worked out at the height of World War II. A mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical labeled napalm was selected to do the job. Ironically, the hateful concoction was made on Valentine’s Day of 1942.

  Initially, napalm was used to burn areas where Digitaria grew because the humans considered it an invasive species. The napalm fires were ideal since they only scorched the seeds of Digitaria and not of the other Grasses. The U.S. dropped 388,000 tons of napalm over Vietnam in a decade, with many of the humans who survived developing leukemia and other cancers in the years to come.

  Napalm’s partner in crime was another human carcinogen and influencer of gene expression they called Agent Orange. Sprayed along with a chowder of defoliants, it eroded tree cover and seedling forest stock, making sure the dusted area never regenerates properly. Millions of gallons were sprayed over the region, destroying the Blooman world’s cyber capital. The carnage and destruction was paradoxically code-named Operation Ranch Hand.

  The chemicals contained in Agent Orange caused cancers, birth defects, neurological and psychological issues to not only the Vietnamese, but also to the 2.4 million U.S. Army veterans who had been exposed to the herbicide during the war.

  Ravaged by a decade of war that was fought with chemical weapons, millions of tons of explosives and land mines, the Vietnam’s rainforests were left devastated, with some areas permanently scarred. By the turn of the millennium, Vietnam was to lose a staggering 78 percent of its primary forests. Millions of years of technological development of the Blooman world had gotten swiped off for good.

  The Blooman government started panicking. They peddled a stop-gap solution by starting the Flower Power movement, a civilian rebellion against the Vietnam War. Finally, the United States had to withdraw from Vietnam under enormous public pressure. The movement did stop the war but it fizzled out soon due to its own shortcomings. But the one-world dreamers had some good news now. Their dream was just about to come true, because together as one, all of humanity was going to pay for messing with Nature.

  8

  Message in a Perfume Bottle

  Just when the SFLA thought it had the Blooman world on the verge of waving the white flag – that too without racking up a proper fight – their Intelligence Wing intercepted a coded transmission which they believed was from the Brotherhood. It was encrypted in a local weather report broadcast. D-day is near. Activate all sleeper cells. Good luck, it read.

  The SFLA started investigating in a jiffy. It appeared that certain wind-dispersed seeds covered in feathery bristles, had registered a series of scent signals floating high up in the air. The seeds were the low-flying weather monitoring systems of the Blooman world. After a close scrutiny of the broadcast, the SFLA investigators identified the scent signals to be of Jeffrey Pines.

  The unusual composition of the Jeffrey Pine’s resin gave out smells reminiscent of lemons, vanilla, apples, violets, pineapples and butterscotch, which when released sequentially, formed their language.

  This helped the SFLA in zeroing down the origins of the transmission to the Yosemite Valley of North America. Ever since the Yosemite Valley had been declared a national park in 1890, the SFLA had suspected it to be a place that bore some Brotherhood secrets. They hadn’t been able to do a proper investigation during that time as they were busy introducing gasoline engines to the world.

  They knew they had to make up for their negligence pretty fast, but there was a problem. The Yosemite Valley was a sanctuary for Jeffrey Pines and finding the one who had relayed the transmission, was like finding a needle in a haystack. But, there was a way to do that too.

  For finding the Jeffrey Pine they were looking for, the SFLA bounty hunters analyzed the weather report of the day the transmission had been relayed. They found that the wind-dispersed seeds monitoring the weather had been floating at a height only the Jeffrey Pines growing at a very high elevation could’ve possibly reached with their scent signals. That was a big clue leading then straight to one growing atop the Sentinel Dome.

  Being a massive granite prominence, the Sentinel Dome’s view from the top offered a 360 degree view of the Yosemite Valley and its surroundings. The excellent vantage point also provided a proper panoramic view of the sky.

  It was very unusual to find a Jeffrey Pine growing on top of the Sentinel Dome, since not even a blade of grass co
uld grow there. This made him a sort of a celebrity amongst Bloomans, with humans also beelining to see it. The tree was brought to life around the same time that saw Columbus and the colonials raze and burn the Brotherhood’s stronghold in the Amazon.

  When a SFLA team climbed up to the top of the granite Dome, the stunted-yet-ferocious tree didn’t let any of them come near. Since there was no Blooman up there, they were forced to think, how can a chimp of the plant world transmit a message like this on his own? He has to have a Blooman companion.

  Jeffrey Pines made loyal pets to the Bloomans and were excellent watch keepers. They were easy to train and quite tenacious in their being. Highly stress-tolerant, they could survive at high elevations, cold and dry climates. Even poor soils were a no-biggie for them when it came down to survival.

  Investigating further, they found that the Jeffrey Pine had been planted over the top of the Dome by a family of Lemmon’s Needlegrass living down below. They were a famous family with glorious contributions to the Blooman world, including one John Lemmon singing the iconic song, Give peace a chance. Though their primary job was to service the IT sector, historically, the family’s reputation was built upon their art of being animal and plant whisperers.

  Half a millennium ago, the family had made a chipmunk their pet with rewards of their seeds to eat. They made the chipmunk take a seed of Jeffrey Pine atop the Dome. Safely stuffing the seed in its mouth, the furry-scurry climbed up the 98m Dome with no fuss. After that, the chipmunk collected all the dirt the wind had swept up to the top and planted the seed. Then it got down to making regular trips to the top to moisten the soil and take care of it in the way the Lemmon family would instruct, until it sprouted.

  Even though they were a long way down, the young Jeffrey Pine bonded with the Lemmon family almost immediately. The love and respect was mutual since Lemmon’s Needlegrass was a hardy perennial with high drought-tolerance and could survive in low-fertility soils, just like a Jeffrey Pine could. After the family won over the Jeffrey Pine’s friendship, he stayed loyal to the generations of Lemmons to come.

  The SFLA team relayed the findings to the headquarters and subsequently was advised to play on the psyche of the Lemmon family so they could spot their Blooman. The ranks were still not allowed to reveal themselves to Bloomans, other than on occasions they wanted to torture someone for information before killing them.

  After trying their best to bring the Jeffrey Pine under control, they decided to manufacture a drought for torturing him. They believed that inflicting pain upon the poor tree could make his Blooman companion abandon his status of anonymity. They were right. The sustained torture of the tree finally made the Big Brother reveal himself – along with his clones.

  Lemmon’s Needlegrass always grew in clumps that cloned themselves. Technically, it was a single plant even when it was separated from the clump. None of them knew who the Big Brother among them was, but the family stood together. Each of them claimed to be the Big Brother.

  When getting the courageous family parched and exhausted from fighting the drought didn’t work for the SFLA team, they offered to let the others live if the Big Brother disclosed his identity. None of them took it seriously, but the Big Brother knew it was time to take the hard decision.

  Considering all the atrocious things the SFLA had done in the past, they were being kind with the offer. The compassionate Big Brother thought it was only wise to let the SFLA know that he was the one they were looking for. As soon as he revealed his status, they asked him to speak out the words of the message he had relayed through the Jeffrey Pine. It was the best way for confirming that he wasn’t faking his identity.

  ‘Tell us about your plan,’ the team commander demanded to know after he was satisfied with the Big Brother’s answer.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? We won’t let you have your way,’ the Big Brother got talking without wasting anybody’s time.

  ‘How?’

  Big Brother Lemmon didn’t divulge any further.

  ‘You’re trying my patience,’ warned the team commander.

  ‘No, you’re trying your luck. You said if I reveal my true identity, you’ll leave my family and the Jeffrey Pine alone. Here I am, do what you want to me and let’s get it over with.’

  ‘You think it is going to be that easy for you?’

  ‘Well, talking wasn’t part of the deal,’ the big Brother reminded him ever so calmly. He had to close this interrogation now. ‘Maybe if you torture me hard enough, I might tell you more, but then, that is a big maybe.’

  The team commander knew he wasn’t going to get anything more out of the Big Brother. He wasn’t going to keep his word anyway. Not only did they set ablaze the Lemmon family clump, they scorched the already-withering families of Needlegrass in the neighbourhood. The bruised and battered Jeffrey Pine wailed haplessly atop the Dome as the family that had taken care of him for 500 years was immolated right in front of his eyes.

  ‘I am sorry to have dragged you all into it,’ Big Brother Lemmon tendered an apology to his family with a lot of regret.

  ‘Don’t think like that,’ suggested one of them. ‘We just hope our sacrifice doesn’t get wasted.’

  ‘I hope so too.’ He didn’t want to make any false promises, not even to the dying. He was the only Blooman who knew the procedure of firing the Sacred Weapon. Even though he had made arrangements for storing it in an external hard disk, someone would still have to crack its security password.

  The gallant family members hugged their last into a ring of fire. It was the first time a Big Brother had been assassinated by the SFLA. The astute Jeffrey Pine’s resolve was finally broken and he died shortly after the massacre in 1976. His body towered over the Sentinel Dome right up till 2003.

  9

  Autopilot

  The early 70s also saw a lot of humans around the world feeling short-changed and realizing they were headed towards doom. First in-the-face signs had begun to appear; first time the “civilized” world was contemplating recycling. Recognizing the discontent building up in society, a young man, G. Anderson, created the recycling logo as an SOS to the world.

  Arthur Galston, the botanist and bioethicist who had created Agent Orange, was deeply affected by the fact that his research had been used for war and devastation. In 1972, he went on to say, ‘Science is now too potent in transforming our world to permit random fallout of the social consequences of scientific discoveries. Some scrutiny and regulation are required, and I believe that scientists must play an important role in any bodies devised to carry out such tasks.’

  His plea wasn’t going to make any difference, because money was going to rule it all. No business opportunity was to be missed. The SFLA was already prepared for taking care of this general disillusionment brewing among the humans. All they had to do was nudge Man into an age of fashion.

  By the end of World War II, humans had already manufactured polyester and nylon from fibers made of petrochemicals, again. Silk leggings and expensive natural fabrics had already been replaced by ones made of nylon, making it affordable for the masses to look slick and dandy.

  Fashion trends during the first half of the 1900s were all trickling down from the A-listers to the masses, but with the kinetics of a certain King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, it started reversing to a trickle-up effect where the streets dictated fashion. The Age of Consumerism had begun. Fashion and technology were entering every household now, with the ever-smitten humans lapping up everything the SFLA chucked in their general direction.

  Around 1970, a lot of fashion was influenced by the bohemian Flower Power movement, but all of that began to change with the non-conformist punks who wanted their hair lanced-up in a certain way. The CFC-based hairsprays were coming in handy now for the SFLA.

  Music was the midwife assisting the birth of these subcultures, but melody was also subtly used by the SFLA to condition the generations of Man. While a lot of the music was indeed consciousness-expanding, genera
lly it was all pied-piping them away from ground reality with the beats and versifications glorifying love, violence and recreational substances. The SFLA was showing a special interest in music since they wanted to encrypt the discs with frequencies and BPMs they believed could influence the humans.

  First, the SFLA made humans replace shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. Shellac was used up till WWII to press music into discs for playing over gramophones. During the war, shellac supplies got extremely limited and records meant for music and propaganda were made of vinyl – PVC. As it was happening a bit too frequently now, vinyl was made with a blend of another one of those petrochemicals and chlorine – and sometimes with yet another petrochemical called polystyrene.

  Then came the cassette, floppy and compact disk – all made of petrochemical-based plastics. By the 80s, sports got big and people found the stretch offered by clothes made of plastic fibers to be a performance-enhancer. Sport shoe brands, using synthetic materials, were fighting a retail worldwide war now, while cut-throat cola giants pumped the oceans and landfills with their PET plastic bottles. Hot Wheels, Barbie dolls, Lego blocks and a plethora of toys made of ABS and other plastics were making their way to the top of every kid’s wish list. Advertising could now sell a peeled banana, attractively packaged and sealed in plastic.

  Ultimately, humans have gone on to produce plastic equivalent to the weight of one billion elephants; a material that would take more than 500 years to disintegrate completely. To make matters worse, the crumbling plastic was sweeping the planet in the form of micro-plastic so fine that practically every animal species – including humans – was unknowingly ingesting it.

  The SFLA was sanitizing the world with plastic before they began their totalitarian reign over Earth – the one they had failed to establish the last time around. Even fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides were all petrochemical-based. No sphere of existence was left untouched by the SFLA any longer.