CHAPTER 36: Survival
Geneva, at the southern end of Lac Léman, is surrounded by the Alps and the Jura mountain range and its geography acts as a natural border between Switzerland and France.
In his room in Hôtel Suisse, Jackson Armstrong paced, shaking out the tightness in his frame. He hated being cramped in airplanes and small rooms. He missed the forest. He missed Grace. He paced near the window, barely admiring the view of Geneva, watching for Grace’s arrival.
A cab pulled up outside the hotel and there she was. She wore a long tan cashmere coat with a rose scarf and a white wool hat and carried a rose-colored umbrella to protect her from the drizzle and the crisp Geneva air.
She let the bell hop take her luggage but not her backpack. It was slung over her right shoulder and tucked under her arm. Jackson smiled and his heart skipped a beat. God, I love this woman, he thought.
A few minutes later, his cellphone chirped: am here. rm 406.
He texted back: 518. take a walk?
Silence, then a reply: 2 hrs, nw corner, le café du chat noir.
He sent her a thumbs up and stretched out on the bed to wait.
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Grace’s room in Hôtel Suisse in Geneva overlooked an ancient church, magnificent with flying buttresses. She also had a glimpse of a blue lake and the plume of le jet d'eau de Genève, a fountain of water forced 460 feet into the air, higher than the Statue of Liberty which tops out at about 300 feet.
In the distance to the east was the peak of Mont Blanc. While she knew they were there to the north, she couldn’t see the United Nations’ imposing Palais des Nations. Grace had scheduled a meeting with Hugh Simmons at the UN Environment Council, UNEC. As requested, she’d sent her questions in advance. With everything she now knew, beyond attempting a meeting with Frédéric Trinité, she worried about entering the UN compound with its ever-expanding plethora of programs.
Mission creep, thought Grace. All began with a war-weary world’s wish for peace.
She pulled up a website that had caught her attention on the plane from the UK, the Geneva Environment Network’s history section:
Geneva and its surrounding area have been active in global environmental governance for more than 50 years. In addition, important and strategic historical meetings have taken place in the region.
Grace thought, If one governs the environment, the land and sea, doesn’t one control the world and all its people? Isn’t it just a global government? Have we passed from strength in unity to aligned agendas set by the unelected? What if these agendas are driven by a massive supra-government ruling over a world where most of its inhabitants are ever-more-impoverished?
With all she had learned, Grace’s mind would not rest. She left the hotel and took a walk to clear her head, walked briskly past Geneva’s high-end shops offering expensive Swiss watches in window after window.
Music floated from a bar, Sting singing “I’ll be Watching You.”
Oh, can't you see / You belong to me? / How my poor heart aches / With every step you take?
Every move you make / And every vow you break / Every smile you fake / Every claim you stake / I'll be watching you
The surveillance state—how appropriate! thought Grace.
Grace’s mind returned to the General and Ian back in the UK. She thought on how the General had looked at her with great sadness.
She popped in her earbuds and listened to the recording of their meeting as she walked past lovely parks and stunning buildings and monuments.
“Good hard-working people carry this burden,” said the General’s voice and Grace was right back there in the bunker with him and Ian. “They cannot imagine how enslaved they are. The costs of carrying these parasites are buried, layered in everything purchased. Citizens pay for it at retail, by taxation, inflation, with debt—their own and their nation’s. Sovereign debt slavery. The complexity of the Global Empire’s schemes put the Roman and British Empires to shame. It’s obscene, an absolute disgrace.”
The General had rubbed his face. Ian offered him a glass of water. His grandfather thanked him and drank.
“Once America is culled and bankrupted and broken,” said the General, “it will be wall to wall wide open spaces and spectacular vistas sitting on top of the world’s largest coal reserves and more. America is the best on the planet as far as content goes, so the networks of entertainment, casinos, sex, drugs—all that stays. The elites will have those amusements, those circuses too, but sprinkled with glittering celebrities to take it up a notch. Food will be high end for the select few, mass produced for the masses so most of the existing food production network will be destroyed and replaced by lab ‘meat’, highly processed products. Insects. As the middle class is squeezed out, Americans will continue to be the most unhealthy and overmedicated cohort on the planet. Big Ag, Big Chemical, Big Government, Big Pharma will prosper, but developed nations have raided their pension funds so they’re extending taxable work lives at the same time as—post pandemic—life expectancy is declining. Americans and most on this planet—in the UK, the EU, around the world—will be less fertile, die younger and heavily in debt.”
“The plan for the little timber towns like Silvercreek?” asked Grace.
“The rabble will be cleared,” said the General. “The towns gentrified—upscale shops, entertainment, drugs and sex for tech workers from the city. Isolated properties with good buildings will be converted to film and music studios, high-end resorts, very private. Personal pools and spas, high stakes betting, hunting games in the woods. If we want to go dark, human prey.”
Grace gasped.
The General had trouble saying the words. “The Pacific Ocean—conveniently located for helicopter disposal of human remains.”
The General paused, noticing the tears welling in Grace’s eyes. Ian offered her a tissue. She thanked him, dabbed at her eyes. He reached out and held her hand and she gave him a small and grateful smile.
“Should I continue?” asked the General. “Is it too much for you?”
“No,” said Grace. “I can take it. Please go on.”
The General sighed and continued. “Trinité’s colleagues are flagged as VIPs in hospitality systems,” he said. “They'll be blocked from booking red-flagged properties during fire season and offered secure accommodations elsewhere. Trinité will offer his enemies and the rabble discounts on their conferences just before it all goes up in smoke. When it burns, when his guests burn, Trinité and his colleagues won’t care. A few more dead bodies is all just part of the plan. A Trinité-affiliated subsidiary will cash the insurance check and rebuild. They’ll get a waiver to clear cut a perimeter around the resort, certify and sell those trees at great profit. They’ll receive stellar press for building a state-of-the-art, fire-safe facility surrounded by meadows in what used to be a working timber town. Few will even notice.”
A flash of resignation crossed his face. “We are paying to build out a global surveillance state running on data and AI. It’s a top-down design, a system controlled by them to be used to control us. Energy use will explode as it expands its Earth Macroscope. Coal and nuclear will fuel the future—it’s inevitable. We’ve moved beyond Hot and Cold Wars; are well into the era of biological warfare and geo-engineering.”
He paused and then said, “I must add that some of my most trusted colleagues believe an agreement has been reached—at the highest levels—to reduce the human population. This will be done via multiple methods, but the immoral and completely callous Global Empire is focusing on the wealthy countries in order to reap what they see as the greatest returns for the planet while reducing the politically-active middle class. This mortality plan will make way for more AI, reduce the negative impacts of high consumption patterns on the planet, accelerate the transfer of assets to the state, reduce state burdens of pensions and disability, and reduce the size of what is now an obsolete and overly large military in the age of bio-warfare.”
Grace gasped and shook her head. The General looked exhausted. Ian rose and rested his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. The General laid his hand over his grandson’s, looked up. “Many reduce what I do to an obsession with a celebrity family,” he said. “Some think I have lost my mind.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Somehow I remain sane. How? I do not know.” He smiled wanly.
“And neither of us are suicidal, Grace,” added Ian, smiling.
The General nodded, smiled, said, “I do this research because it is necessary. We talk of history, but, truly, there is no real institutional memory on this planet. The uber-rich write history, the narratives they want believed.”
“Like the Nativity story,” said Ian, “a story about gift-giving, spending money, rewards for good behavior—a story useful to economic and political interests.”
“Shall I tell you the real story?” asked the General.
“Yes,” said Grace, nodding.
“The real Nativity story, at its essence, a political one. Imperial Rome forced everyone—including children and heavily pregnant women—to travel long distances to be counted so they could be taxed. Rome’s puppet, King Herod the Great, saw Jesus’ birth as a threat to his power and ordered the killing of boys under the age of two in and around Bethlehem. Warned by an angel, the Holy Family fled across the border, beyond Herod’s reach and thus the infant Jesus dodged death even as Herod’s troops followed orders and slaughtered Bethlehem’s baby boys. The Nativity story is a tale of the power of Empire, bureaucracy, data accumulation, taxation, servitude, a callous disregard for human life, and murder by decree. We are living the same story. It’s just digitized and running on electricity.”
The General sighed. “Stories,” he said. “Stories are powerful. There are many like me, scattered around the planet, following the activities of the powerful. We, the archivists of truth, serve an important function. Without the consistent devotion to detail by those of us in the unofficial research corps, working with real journalists—with story tellers like you, Grace—year after year, truth would be lost.”
The General had stood and placed his hand on Grace’s shoulder, his coal black eyes gazing seriously into hers. “Young woman,” he said, “I learned the dangers of imperialism as a young man in India. The Trinité family bankrupted my grandfather’s company, broke and embittered him and my father. We returned to England where my Great Aunt had this house, and my career took me into intelligence, sharpened my research skills. I watched English imperialism fall, then morph into eco-imperialism, eco-colonialism in Africa and other countries. Multi-national interests this time, borderless actors, fascist public/private partnerships acting in concert with the aligned agendas of drug cartels—legal and illegal—the military, governments, warmongers and authoritarians. When I retired, I committed to helping others enslaved by the evils of Global Empire. Eternal vigilance, young woman. Eternal vigilance.”
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The recording ended and Grace tried to shake off her worries as she headed back in the direction of the hotel. Her heart warmed as she thought about being with Jackson, how it would feel to hold him, to kiss him. She smiled.
He was waiting for her outside Le Café du Chat Noir. He wore Wranglers, but his clothing was taken up a notch with brown business boots and kidskin gloves. Raindrops dripped from the brim of his brown cowboy hat and rolled down over the shoulders of a dark brown oilskin duster.
He watched her walking toward him and his pulse quickened. Grace spotted Jackson and flushed with pleasure at seeing him again.
When they were finally together, he didn’t touch her, but smiled and said, “You look really good. How have you been?”
“Fine,” she smiled. “Busy,” she added.
“May I carry your backpack?" he asked. She thought about it, long and hard, then gave it to him.
He took off his duster and slung the backpack over his shoulder, then put the duster back on. A look of relief crossed her face. He noticed. He offered his hand and she took it.
The sky cleared as they headed down a path toward the lake. The outlines of the majestic homes along the water were sharply defined against a hard, blue autumn sky. Palatial estates sat above emerald green lawns flowing down to the water. Many of the old and gracious homes had docks with yachts. Well kept, clean and elegant, this section of town was everything old Europe is supposed to be and often isn’t.
Jackson was quiet. “What?” asked Grace.
He pulled himself from his thoughts and studied the clouds as they scurried across the sky. “Lots of things,” he said slowly. “I’ve studied everything you sent me and I’m worried about meeting this Trinity character. He’s powerful, ruthless.”
“It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all,” said Grace.
“No,” replied Jackson. “If we fail it simply means we didn’t work hard enough. Success is preparation meeting hard work. I believe that.”
Jackson studied the shoreline. “This place is so far removed from my world. What kind of people live here? How do they make their money? Look at these houses! People really live like this? What does it take to support these mansions? How many backs?”
“It’ll be OK, Jackson,” said Grace. “It will all work out.”
“Are you sure, Grace?” he said, looked at her. “Will we survive? I’ve always felt America was an accident, a wonderful accident, but it might not prevail. Plenty of people have come before us, enjoyed moments of triumph followed by ruin. Americans treasured individual self-reliance, property rights, true scientific achievement. We admired strength and chose the strong bald eagle as our totem. We established limited governments that supported trade with other free people and built strong communities on the U.S. ideal of ‘out of many, one’. We were greater than the sum of our parts. We were sticking together, working hard so we’d have a fair shot at a decent life. Is it all breaking down now, being destroyed by authoritarians and those who believe ‘the world is my oyster’ rigging the system?”
Jackson stopped at the edge of a grove of trees with shimmering golden leaves. Eurasian aspen, he thought. Populus tremula in Latin. In Greek, Aspis, meaning shield.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Sadly, it doesn’t grow on the Olympics but God, I love a fine grove of quaking aspen. Evolved with beavers, grazers, people, all using it for food, shelter. It’s strong but lightweight so it was prized for shields. It resists fire. Its wood is buoyant—makes lovely oars. Like most plant life, it needs disturbance to thrive. Leave it alone and it dies. Use it or lose it. As a community, all together under pressure, it thrives. Maybe there is a lesson for us there too?”
He gazed at the stand with wonder. “It’s one giant organism, you know, an aspen grove like this. Communicates underground. What is it saying about us, do you think?” he asked, touching one of the ivory trunks. “Can you read my thoughts, brother?”
He turned and leaned against the trunk, studied Grace. “We are in this amazing place,” he said, “this opulent, over-the-top city, and I am thinking about survival. Does the aspen grove know this? Is it wondering, survival at what level? For how many? Does it ponder, where go the humans now? Will they turn away from their achievements? Return to working within a feudal system with all the land owned by people like Trinity or governments they bought and paid for? Will local and responsive self-governance endure as ‘we the people’ or will we continue to build this massive centralized global government beholden to those with the wealth to lobby behind closed doors for their interests? Will we have to beg and scrape to have access to resources, to wildlife, to land? To just survive, not prosper as truly free men?”
Jackson looked up into the leaves which shook and shivered above him.
“I don’t want to just survive,” he said quietly. “I want to be responsible for my own success and failure. I want to conquer my weaknesses and become a better person, to offer the world the best I have. I want us all to prosper so we, all of us, can build our own little slice of heaven on earth. Like an aspen grove, connected.”
He turned to Grace as the wind picked up and shook the aspen quaked. “You understand?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” whispered Grace. “I do. I actually do. I understand. Completely.”