A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 36. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35.
Swarming dragonflies filled the sky at the edge of the group. Dozens of people, having finished their communal meal, sat, arranged in concentric circles, in a field of milkweed. Northern Wisconsin's summer sun gave the air a lazy quality. Lounging on a thin wool blanket, Thomas and Trish slowly packed up their eating utensils. Thomas watched the people walking by, looking for Ana, who'd said she might join them at this gathering.
"No way," said Thomas, recognizing someone and waving.
A man with an elaborately carved walking stick approached. He wore a hat with bells on it, a multi-pouch fanny pack, hiking sandals, and nothing else. "Mr Barabos, Miss Lupo," said Mr Wachuski. "What a pleasure."
"Mr Wachuski," said Thomas. "Is this a coincidence?"
"Here they call me Heron," said Mr Wachuski. "I've been going to gatherings for twenty years, when I can get away."
"Do you pray for peace with everyone on July Fourth?" asked Thomas.
"Peace is profitable and war is a racket," said Mr Wachuski. "More peace in the world could only be good."
"Is that what your anonymous workers are doing at the studio in Minneapolis?" asked Trish. "Making peace?"
Mr Wachuski looked at Thomas. "She knows?" he asked.
"She knows," replied Thomas. "But only her."
"In that case," said Mr Wachuski. "The contractors in question are establishing the state of the art. By all accounts, they've put us decades ahead of the competition."
"The competition?" asked Trish. "For mind control tech?"
"Indeed, though I'm sure you're aware that the technology has other important applications," said My Wachuski. "You're welcome to join me at my camp for refreshments while I wait for the bonfire in main meadow to get going. It's not far."
Trish and Thomas looked at each other. Trish laughed. "Sorry," she said. "It's just ... I never figured you for a nudist."
"I like to get naked and dance around a fire, howling at the moon," said Mr Wachuski with a chuckle. "Imagine my surprise at actually seeing someone I know at one of these things."
A ten minute hike brought them to Mr Wachuski's camp, deep in a stand of hardwoods. There, a painted woman named Web was serving coffee and tea from large stainless pots on a smoldering fire. A handful of others sat around or fussed with camping gear. The day's light was fading.
Sitting on a log, sipping slightly burnt coffee, Trish and Thomas were quiet, absorbing the scene. The forest was absolutely crackling with the energy of thousands of freaky people gathering. Shouts echoed through the area. "We love you!" people yelled, back and forth, throughout the vast encampment. "Wake up and rage!" hollered one group, somewhere nearby.
"I can offer you cookies and sugar cubes," said Mr Wachuski, finding a seat on another log.
"What kind of cookies?" asked Trish.
"The kind from the store, no additives," said Mr Wachuski.
Trish took a sugar cube and a cookie. Thomas accepted only the cookie. A pair of dogs ran by, nipping at each other. Tending the fire, Mr Wachuski waited for a pause in the activity. Then he took a deep breath. "I'm just going to call you Thomas out here, if that's okay," he said. "Thomas, we're reaching the inflection point that your predecessor was preoccupied with. But what about you? Do you think the pandemic he warned us about is indeed on the horizon?"
"I guess so," said Thomas. "Hard to imagine, out here in the woods. But yeah. It'll start this fall. By next spring, panicking governments will screw everything up. There will be civil unrest inside of a year. After that, well, I can't really picture it."
"You ever hear of Fat Leonard?" asked Mr Wachuski. "A contractor who bribed Navy officials with money and sex to funnel government funds his way. At least once, he had an aircraft carrier diverted. A whole aircraft carrier, sent to a port he controlled."
"Crazy," said Thomas.
"Indeed, but it illustrates a valuable lesson," said Mr Wachuski. "If one man with some money can influence military maneuvers in times of peace, consider the influence a more powerful actor might wield in a moment of crisis like the one we're looking forward to."
"You're talking about Big Pharma?" said Trish. "T2 said they become a global superpower when the pandemic starts. I mean, I know everyone's already on drugs and they basically engineered the heroin epidemic, but T2 said that what they'll do next is next level."
"They'll do what Fat Leonard did," said Mr Wachuski. "They'll make gobs of money by diverting society to a port they control. If what T2 said was true, and in all these years I've never had cause to doubt him, Big Pharma - in the guise of the medical establishment - is our first Fat Leonard. Then it'll be military contractors raking in billions from a war in the east. After that, who knows?"
"Okay, so what do you think we should do about it?" asked Trish.
"You know why I believe that all of this will happen?" asked Mr Wachuski, his pupils beginning to dilate as a sugar cube took effect. "Because Big Pharma and the medical regime have already done dry runs. With bird flu. With swine flu. The dry runs betray their ultimate objectives."
"Like when Saudi Arabia did a dry run of the 9/11 hijackings before finally carrying them out?" asked Thomas.
"Every team in every sport has in common that they practice," said Mr Wachuski. "But the most important question isn't what the other teams are practicing. It's what we ourselves have been practicing."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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