Once again we reluctantly are compelled to continue this narrative. A narrative so shocking, so breath-taking in its revelations of human behaviour and activities hardened by war, that no level of journalism can convey the suffering and hardship endured by our four hapless heroes.
Embedded, entombed, entangled in the vicious cycle of power shifting, graft and corruption that guides contemporary government policy and pre-election appointments to highly paid public sinecures and boards, they must stand alone and bear the horrific consequences. Not bound. Not bored but board-less.
The consequences in daring to believe that there might be more to life, than croneyism, money and the distortion that comes with being on the board of Crown Resorts, The High Court bench, the AFL, or Bet 365. Knowing that at least bet 365 is keen on the public actively participating in its wealth making enterprise. ‘Is there no end to this corruption of public office’? We hear you say. Hopefully not, for as Vladimir says, ‘corruption, once entrenched is a difficult thing to stop and besides, winners are grinners’, and ; ‘Absolute Power might corrupt, but that aint so bad’. Who could disagree, but are our heroes winners? Are Sophie and Dutto yet to take out the booby prize? With more booby traps than a children’s crossing at Bucha, the stakes are high, medium rare, and under-done. The ultimate question, will this do them in? Or hapless and heroic are they yet to prevail to die all over again, for a lost cause?A punch up at the Oscars? Or is this talk just fatalism? Lose or win, in the upcoming federal election, the lobbyists will grin, and have their own party content that in Canberra as elsewhere there’s always a party when the taxpayer foots the bill. For which ever party wins, we all know, things will remain the same. Hold tight, we’re in for a bumpy ride, and the child door lock is broken…
We return to our saga….
“I think we’ll pass the cinema’. They sidled down the dusty dark streetscape, eerily quiet now the conflagration had ceased above them. Benny-boy, as trained by his SAS service, threw a few spare grenades into a building marked ‘Kindergarten’. ‘Just to make sure’. We heard the dark thud and consoled ourselves that if things got worse and Sophie and Dutto resorted to hostages and human shields we’d have that avenue covered. ‘Move on’! Benny matter of factly commanded, and obligingly, with Terry still puffing on his Camel, we sidled, backs to the wall, down the street. ‘What’s that building’? Ces pointed to a building with a very large, concrete fascia with an X clearly delineated on the stucco, ‘Oh that’! Terry remarked, ‘That was building X’.
“What happens there’? Terry flicked the ash fro his camel, took a long drag, and wiped his hand across his overalls, ‘ Oh that, it was the experimental laboratory’.
“Experimental, what do you mean what type of experiments’? ,
Terry phlegmatically as ever pulled another Camel out, lit it with his time-worn zippy lighter, and exhaled; ‘Simple experiments, stuff like testing the human body under doses of radiation, simple surgical procedures and projects deemed too sensitive to proceed further with.. projects that tested the viability of mutants for assignment on specific tasks, like decommissioning nuclear reactors, poison gas, germ warfare, biological warfare and more recently developing newer strategies to enhance the value of clean coal’.
CLEAN COAL I though you’d said this facility had been shut down for years’?
It has, just that in the 50’s we were looking at Clean Coal then. Why then?
Well it’s simple during the White Australia Policy we thought that black coal as an energy source didn’t align with our core values, so we tried to turn it white. That involved a lot of chemistry, and being white it was termed ‘Clean Coal’. Get it?
We looked dumbfounded? Were all the experiments as bat-shit crazy as that?
Nup, not really, but they were all signed off by ASIO, CSIRO and the Department of Finance as being visionary and good for business. And besides they were too sensitive as projects to allow the public in. They wouldn’t understand the hidden value and spin-off’s’.
‘Spin-offs’? Ces ejaculated with a forehead smacking whack of incredulity. “Clean Coal’!!!
‘Yep you might laugh, but by trying to make the coal white we were able to give the washing powder industry some new strategies for germ removal, and particularly hard to remove stains, like grass stains on cricket gear and the like. In the 50’s this was a significant breakthrough, and in the end it was guaranteed by Lever and Kitchen, Palmolive and Life-buoy. It gave us, (Australia) the edge in a competitive global market. What happened to the research then’?, we felt weary at Terrys description, ‘Oh we did what we always do, sold it off to the yanks so they could produce it better and cheaper, so then, they could flog it back to us at twice the price. That’s robbery!
No it aint, its ANZUS, and the way Big Business operates in this country. . And besides anything else experimental was deemed too sensitive to release’.
‘Too sensitive,’? Ces, seemed exasperated at the stupidity of the facility. ‘Was that because of the nature of the experiments? Was it classified for political reasons’?
Terry took another drag; ‘Well ,yes and no, there were just some experiments that went a bit off track’.
Would you like to explain?
Well it went like this’,
And before Terry could open his mouth we heard a curious sound. The sound that metal sheet makes when it is being torn whilst being beaten in a low percussive rhythm by a large soft object. We all froze, it was coming from the direction of building X, and as we stood stock still and retreated into the niche again we felt that something within that building , dormant for years had been awoken . Was this the end of the line? Had the Minotaur moved to Maralinga? Or is it something more sinister than imagined? Imagine this, the next episode could be worser. And the event more horrible-er and the tension more draining-er than the upcoming Federal Election.
Tune into the next episode, ‘Three hapless non- alcoholic cheers for Sophie’, or ‘King Canute’s Saxon name was always CNUT, Is there an anagram in that?