Chapter 14 – The Purge
Janine Rita's Residence
Janine Rita got a call 30 minutes ago. Her friend Felicity Hansen sounds very upset and wants to talk to her. She asks her to come over. They both went to the same school and she knows Felicity does not get rattled easily. She was a promising researcher when she joined Salisium Inc. The company introduced a salt alternative and additive called Salisium. Its worldwide sales have hit past the billion dollar mark. Felicity works hard in her department, which is involved in demonstrating that Salisium is safe and there are no detrimental health effects. Felicity fought the early release of report that she thought was premature. But the product has been approved by Health Canada and the FDA, with countries around the world following suit. Felicity once confided in Janine that the government agency won't release the taxpayer funded study, and she suspects they just copied the report given by their company. She has now completed her study and is troubled by what she found. Her boss Ted Benton was mad that she keep pushing her findings.
Janine's doorbell ring and she answers quickly. Felicity looks distressed.
“What happened?” Janine asks.
“I had a big argument with Ted. It was not pretty. He was very upset,” Felicity says.
“Have a seat.” Janine offers her couch and a drink to Felicity.
“I've tried to explain that there is irrefutable evidence that regular use of Salisium substantially increases risk of fatal cancer. Ted would have none of it. He says even second hand smoke claims of cancer effect can be disputed to this day.”
“What? He really said that?” Janine is surprised.
“I think his mind is focused so much on billion dollars of possible lost sales that he refuses to accept the truth.”
“What are you going to do then?”
“I told him either he makes the announcement for the public to scale back their usage or I will go to the press with this.” Felicity waves a binder of papers in her hand. While she hardly prints anything anymore, with everything saved on her tablet or memory chip, she decides to print this one to have as a hard copy.
“It is really weird what is going on in the government nowadays. At the FDA, the government is increasingly cutting back and my findings are being ignored. It is not hard to screen for food safety. It used to be we had people taking wide samples of food on the market and testing them. Now that is practically impossible. They have also increased the red tape and made it more centralized so that we cannot independently publish our findings without executives approving them. We are treated like we don't know what we are doing. I've brought up my findings on large amount of chemical presence in World Food Inc. products and was reassigned to work on something else and my findings just got buried.”
“I never heard about that. Food on supermarket shelves are mostly from World Food Inc now. They own plantations for oranges in Florida, bananas in tropical countries, vegetables, canned foods. It is hard to pick up a food that is not from World Food Inc,” Felicity says.
“Yeah, and it is easy to test for harmful ingredients in food. Those containers and toys with heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Just put it on an x-ray fluorescence for a few minutes and you can detect its presence. So there is really no excuse that we are not doing that and are instead finding out from university students who happen to be playing around with their school's x-ray fluorescence to test their niece or nephew’s toys. The government could have easily done that if they do their jobs. For insecticides and other toxic chemical residues in vegetables, fruits, waters, meats and drinks we use instruments like mass spectrometry. But there is a freeze on purchasing new equipment and our findings are repeatedly being blocked by executives. Whether it is incompetence or corruption I don't know. But my cynical side suspects our executives are corrupted. One colleague saw them dining with an executive from World Food Inc.”
“I also heard World Food Inc. is going after independent farmers for harvesting plants with traces of their patented genetically modified foods. The farmer swears they did not plant using their seeds. Can you tell the difference between the two?”
“The thing is those seeds have spread and got mixed up with normal seeds so it is hard to tell when you go to a market what seeds are the World Food Inc. patented ones. Whether it was accidentally mixed up who knows.”
“I am really sick and tired of all this. It is frustrating,” Felicity says with a sigh and then continues, “Well it certainly feels a bit better talking to you. Even more worried and helpless but it helps to be able to tell someone rather than the stone wall Ted Benton.”
Ted Benton's Residence
Ted Benton is pretty exhausted from a busy night. He had to argue with that rebellious employee Felicity Hansen. He got his mind off that problem while at the party hosted by one of the executives of World Food Inc. He mentioned his problem to the executive and was told about the conglomerate who is able to take care of any problem. Ted Benton was excited to hear and asked the executive to give him the contact information for this conglomerate.
Ted Benton's mind was put at ease after talking to a guy named Morris Stark. He is supposedly very capable and well respected. Morris assured Ted he had nothing to worry about, that they can effectively counter any claim she might bring against him in the press.
Ted has a very sound sleep that night and is awoken by his alarm in the morning. He brewed his coffee and takes a shower. He sits at his kitchen table watching the day's news. He is shocked when he hears the news that a car hit a gas tanker on the highway and exploded. But his shock was nothing compared to the shock that follows when he hears the name of the victim, Felicity Hansen. His mind starts wondering if this has anything to do with his request last night to take care of Felicity. He certainly did not mean it that way. But he tries to dismiss that thought and tells himself that these are executives of reputable organizations that he spoke to so certainly they are not capable of such a thing. He would have laughed at his silly thoughts but Felicity's dead is causing him so much grief. They had serious disagreements but he likes Felicity and her dedication to her work. He realizes then that no disagreement is worth the life of anyone.
Amid his sorrow, he wonders what Morris Stark had in mind when he says he would take care of it. Ted told himself he would need to talk to Morris and clear things up when he have a chance.
Scenes of the Crimes
Solara news featured prominently Professor Jack Garrick rant and incoherent talk about a cure for cancer. Solara's pundit and anchor labelled it as the mad man's cure. They ridiculed him and people who are misled into false hope of cancer cure. Benjie Scott cannot believe his eyes and what Solara has reported. That is not the professor he knows. Benjie Scott rushs to see the professor but learns that he has been institutionalized. Benjie then rushes to Jack's office and sees that his computer and any trace of his research are gone. For Morris Stark, it was another job well done. The drug works effectively by attacking a specific part of Jack's brain to induce psychosis, discrediting him permanently.
World Food Inc. has been delivering food to South Africa and various parts of the world for decades. Jeris Wilfrid was in charge of the company's food distribution in Africa. He grew up in the U.S. but moved to South Africa since he loves it there. His pale white skin has since turned tan since moving there. He is growing concerned about reports of a troubling increase in cases of infertility. There have also been cases of increasing death. But there was no virus or disease that could be identified. One prominent researcher, Nsia Kgosi, told Jeris that it almost seems like there is a sudden induced genetic defects that is causing the death. The researcher studied the deaths and found widespread DNA aberrations in the makeup of the patient's DNA. Nsia think they might be witnessing a new disease. But it does not appear to be contagious. Jeris wonders what could have caused this. Since he is in the food industry, he thinks the prudent thing to do is inform their headquarters to make sure their food is not the cause. But his report gets the attention f
rom one of the top executives. Jeris got a termination notice the next day saying his service are no longer needed.
An explosion interrupts the quietness of the night at a plant in Minnesota. Tryon plant was decimated and their capacity for building the new efficient solar cells disabled. The investigation after revealed the attackers must have had insider's help since they targeted the most vulnerable part of the plant from the outside, causing widespread explosion that quickly spreads. Gracy got the call early in the morning. She remembered the site well, having worked closely with Tryon to use the solar panel on her company's new tablet.
Morris and the chief know that the Saudi monarchy is falling. They have quickly come up with contingency plan of presenting the military as a stable transition caretaker. They have made sure that the Saudi's military and President Eva Garcia have the same line about the need for democracy with the transition handled by the military. Making sure there is no mention of the fact that countless revolutions around the world did not necessitate a “stable transition”, which had allowed them to rid themselves of all of the officials from the previous regime. But Morris agrees with the chief that it has to be a slow transition to allow as many of their men as possible to stay in power. This would buy them some precious time and allow them to groom their next candidate, if they have to resort to democratic election to appease the crowd. The Middle East Voice could also help hype up their chosen candidate. In the unlikely event that all their plans failed, they could create civil strife, or inflame religious or ethnic violence. “We will give them no peace until they submit to one of our chosen leaders. We will make them realize that it is a futile effort,” the chief had said. “I would much rather have a caliphate rather than a cumbersome democracy. Just as in Yemen when the people tried to start another revolution, we were able to buy more time with their military control until we are able to groom our man for the election. But thankfully we were able to rouse religious division and introduced a country ruled by religious law. While the people die and fight for us thinking they are fighting for their religion, their leader continued the flow of oil in their pipeline and give us our share of the profit, with the guarantee that they will stay as ruler in their country. It is time to handover the rule in Saudi to the military.”
The monarch in Saudi protested, but he is soon overpowered.
The cyberwarfare room of the conglomerate in Paraguay is teeming with activities as operation 'Secret Eyes' gets underway. Cameras have become a staple in a lot of homes around the world, with a range of uses from video conferencing to gaming. The operation is taking advantage of that. The conglomerate's blacklist of people is being monitored. “While we could easily tap into any records of online activity, the best moments can be had in people's living rooms at their most comfortable times talking candidly about issues with trusted relatives and love ones,” the chief once told Morris. And that is the task of the army of snoops in this control room. All cameras are turning ON oblivious to the people being spied on. As far as they know they have turned the power switch on their unit to OFF. Their conversations and facial expressions are watched and any conversation that might be of interest is recorded. Luitger Gerhold is pretty proud of his accomplishment. He helped design the program and this is the first time this is being used on this scale. Morris even congratulated him personally.
Tracy has posted criticism against the president that has attracted a lot of sympathizing replies. Her monitor at the cyberwarfare room sees her in her apron cooking dinner. Larry's face is captured by a video during the rally against the Pegasus corporation and facial recognition software linked him to his profile at The Node and his camera unit at home. His monitor sees nothing to report as he just sits on his couch watching TV. Mark's campaign against World Food Inc. has earned him a spot on the blacklist and his monitor is having a field day watching him having sex in the couch with a girl. The girl's face is put into a facial recognition software and is identified as a girl who was also at the same rally as Mark. Joyce's hot blog about a senator's conflict of interest scandal means she is among one of the many whose cameras are secretly watching her tonight. Her camera paints an unflattering image of her to her monitor while she is relaxed at home in her underwear, eating junk food with her hair in a spiky mess.
While it has been a busy day of purging the world of people that could pose potential harm to the conglomerate's interest, there is one executive that Morris is sending away in good terms. He is none other than the executive of Canada's Manitoba Hydro. The plan to force the privatization of the utility was many years in the making. The public utility racked up huge amount of debt that the government expressed the need for privatization to save it. Morris picked the CEO who has never worked at Manitoba Hydro. He was parachuted in to oversee the privatization. Now that the privatization is complete, he can now resign and retire in comfort. He has been promised a hefty bonus. But before he leaves, there is one thing that he was asked to do. Connect the controls of the utility to the network. Some staff have protested, citing security concerns, but the executive did as he was told, explaining that it would save cost and maximize profit. Any breach in security is unlikely and can easily be mitigated. The cost benefit trumps the miniscule risk.
There was however a minor crimp on an otherwise successful operation in Manitoba, Morris remembers. An employee is working late and overhears the CEO’s conversation with his late night visitor, Morris. They have to convince the man that they can explain everything and accompany him to his home. He resists initially but they insist on walking him home and then chat with him. Once they reach his house, Morris goes to work, charging his way in and hitting the employee's head to make him lose consciousness. He then takes out his wallet and lays it out on his desk. Morris turns on his computer and leaves his car key on the desk. They make it look like he is just out for a walk and intends to come back right away. Search parties are sent after co-workers and relatives report him as missing. They eventually find his body in the river. Police rule it an unfortunate accident from a fall during a stroll. His head hit the pavement before falling into the river, the police report read.
Morris Stark and the chief are in a celebratory mood. It has been a very productive day at their underground base in Paraguay.
New York City Private Reception
Morris Stark flies to New York for a reception he is hosting. Big names from various corporation are all present. Ted Benton is among the attendees. He waits the whole night for an opportunity to talk to Morris privately. As some guest start leaving, Ted thinks he will proceed and ask Morris if he can talk.
“Hi Morris, I am Ted. My friend at World Food Inc. recommended you. I am from Salisium Inc.”
“Oh yes, of course I remember. Are you contented with the result?”
“What result? Ted Benton wonders. “Can I talk to you in private?”
Morris is surprised. “Of course, of course, come to my office.”
Both walk into Morris office. Ted does not waste time. “I just want to know if my employee Felicity was somehow...”
“Oh Felicity, the thorn in your side.”
“Yes, but I… I don't know how to say this.”
Morris just smiles as if he is enjoying the moment.
“Did you have her killed?” Ted blurts out.
Morris laughs. “Well first, we don't disclose how we do our job. Our clients prefer it that way.”
Ted's facial expression turns pale.
“But would you kill for a billion dollars if you could get away with it?”
Ted tries to catch a breath and no voice can come out of his mouth.
“Ah, I sense hesitation.” Morris laughs. He taps Ted on his shoulder and Ted flinches. “Don't worry, relax, you can say we did not kill her. It was an unfortunate accident that nobody could have foreseen.”
Ted starts smiling. “I am sorry I have to ask such a silly question.”
Morris smirks and leaves Ted in the room.
Ted thinks to himself,
“There is no way these influential men can engage in such an unlawful act.”
For the sake of his peace of mind, Ted hears what he wanted from Morris. It was an accident. But subconsciously, there is still lingering unease and doubts. This would later cause Ted many sleepless nights, the cause of which he would never know. For there are some things that you just can't bury.