Terror Firma. Matthew Thomas

swing open in the side of its smoked-glass cockpit. Those not wrapped up in the King’s astonishing revelations watched as a long gun barrel protruded from this hole. Their screams of warning were lost in the crowd’s angry roar.

      As was the single crack of high-powered rifle fire.

      ‘ALIENS GOOD, GOVERNMENTS BAD …’ Elvis led the steadily rising chant, or at least he did until his vaporized brains sprayed backwards across the stage in an ever-widening cloud.

      The first the masses knew of the hit was when they saw their idol’s arms jerk forward in an oddly familiar motion, and the condensing cranial matter reform to perform a brief come-back tour of its own as it trickled down the garish display at the back of the set – every detail caught on the giant-sized screens either side of the stage. There was a second of stunned silence, then a massive and strangely resigned moan rose up from the throng.

      Somehow managing to look scared for its life, the black triangle beamed up Elvis’s remains the same way they had come down and beat a hasty retreat up into the clouds. The hovering black chopper went after it in hot pursuit.

      That was when the riot began.

      When the official forces of government arrived, in the shape of the hard-pressed British police, they had to use tear-gas and electric cattle-prods to disperse the baying crowd. But their efforts to engineer a peaceful conclusion were to no avail. In a quest for instant retribution the surging hordes went on the rampage down Glastonbury’s sleepy main street; their target, any symbol of the heartless Establishment brave or foolish enough to stand in their way.

      A corner-shop post office, three Tourist Information Centres and twelve New Age bookshops paid the ultimate price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      They said the pall of choking incense, given off by a thousand burning josticks, hung over the deserted town for generations to come.

      They were right.

¹ Losing a potential additional 4p on every ticket sold, but this tactic had been carefully and cunningly thought out. What this price-point policy, in accordance with the very latest marketing theories, said was: No, we don’t think you’re stupid enough to imagine there’s a difference between 49.99 and 50, but we’re banking on you being seduced by that saving of 5p. We’re not satisfied selling you an overpriced concert ticket, with the honour of suffering diarrhoea in a draughty chemical toilet thrown in for free, we intend to patronize you first, too. Card number and expiry date please, you gullible fuckwit.

       10. Containment

      The hospital ward was packed with the sort of hi-tech equipment which could have made the most hardened gadget-freak go weak at the knees – that’s if the strangely lifeless air and epilepsy-inducing lighting didn’t get to him first. However, overcrowding was not likely to become a problem in the near future; this ward contained just one very special patient, but then this was one very special hospital.

      Like many of its more conventional counterparts it was of a multi-storey construction, but that’s where the similarity ended. While the traditional direction to build a hospital was upwards, this one delved into the bowels of the earth like an overly zealous intern given his first taste of surgery and a very sharp laser scalpel.

      Three levels up from the current floor, and nearly twenty years back in time, the bright boys who ministered to the Shadow Government had discovered a general cure for every form of cancer under the sun. Their discovery hadn’t made the evening news.

      Market forces precluded its release – which was to say there were still way too many tax-funded research dollars sloshing around the Cancer Cure Industry for the pharmaceutical conglomerates to let this particular cat out of the bag just yet. On the surface, capitalism might have relied on competition to drive its stuttering heart – not so the cosy tight-lipped gaggle of cartels which gerrymandered this shady world. As long as everyone kept quiet, all could prosper. You scratch my back, I’ll watch yours.

      Like so many other groundbreaking discoveries, the wonder drugs had been locked away in the deepest, darkest vaults; along with the common-cold remedies, everlasting light-bulbs and high-calorie foodstuffs which could have solved the world hunger crisis before you could say ‘Do ya want fries with that?’ There were now so many prototype water-driven engines on the 42^nd floor they were fast running out of space to store them. That fossilized dinosaur steam engine was going to have to be moved.

These miracles of modern technology were not for general consumption,¹ they had been created for the benefit of the all-powerful ruling elite – first by benefiting them directly, and then by benefiting their bank accounts. The Illuminanti had paid for the R&D, why shouldn’t they have sole usage until comprehensive strategies for full exploitation could be formed? When your timescale ran to centuries a few decades here or there made no difference. This was an organization which could afford to take the longest view. The Committee had a duty to see the profits and power of its descendants maximized – it was only fair after all.

      Some of the real money-spinners, wisely held back by their forefathers, were only now being hatched into profitable schemes. A bio-technology bonanza was in the offing and for once it would have nothing to do with overexposure to pesticides. As soon as the public could be manoeuvred into accepting animal transplantation as a matter of course, and not a cause for Luddite revulsion, the real profits would start rolling in. A fresh killing was patiently waiting to be made, and this beast had blood-shot rolled-back eyes.

      Years before, those woolly-minded do-gooders voted into power had allowed themselves to be bullied by a superstitious, small-minded public into banning the sale of human organs – something about it being ‘immoral’. Hypocrites and killjoys, the lot of them, the Committee had concluded. Well, that distant setback was about to be avenged.

Pig hearts had one big advantage over human ones, pulled from the dwindling supply of public-spirited accident victims. Cute little porkers reared in labs could have their vital organs ripped out to be legally sold at $12,000 a pop – so much better for the balance sheet than printing more of those fiddly donor cards. It was a loophole which would allow the drug firms their final slice of the lucrative Transplant Organ Pie.¹

      Even the other 99.9% of the valiant animal could be put to profitable use. Slap it in a pitta bread, drench it in chilli sauce and no one would ever be the wiser – a sustainable income stream from waste products. This was what the Project’s Para-Accountants and Ninja-Management Consultants liked to call a ‘win-win’ situation. Which was a rather better situation than the secret hospital’s only current patient was presently in.

      This particular invalid wasn’t lucky enough to be a member of the Committee of 300 – he was an expendable minion, but one with a crucial tale to tell. If he could tell it all.

      All told, Captain Freemantle had seen better days. And judging by the look of intense frustration splashed across his weathered features, so too had the lumbering figure towering above him.

      Nearby a nervous surgeon eyed Becker with considerable disdain, as only a member of his profession could hope to get away with and live to tell the tale.

      ‘You know that this dosage will probably kill him? This much babble-juice will not sit happily will the medication we’ve used to stabilize his condition.’

      The Dark Man fixed the surgeon with a stare that had brought slack-jawed presidents to their knees, and reduced more than one pope to a blubbering wreck.

      ‘This is a matter of planetary security. Have you heard what went on in England? Daily the Opposition ups the stakes – we might not have much time left. He’s only a grunt, he knew the risks when he took his oath, just like you and me. Do your duty,