CHAPTER 4
For the first time since oligarchies had been established, these individuals pulled closer to the nucleus of social action. Science and technology, industry and military were suddenly seen as potential protectors of the oligarchy. In this needy state there would be concessions of a more liberal trend until power had been reconsolidated. Then, perhaps the former state of isolation and alienating policies would be reasserted. Until that time, the chief emphasis would be cooperative. Oligarchy knew that the absence of usable land, inhabitable land, would spell the end of all rule. No world, no rulership. But the news became increasingly worse. The returns were coming in, From Hiroshima. From Nagasaki.
The horrid reports produced a trail of never ending fatalities. From the conqueror’s point of view, all reconstruction attempts were cosmetic. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities shunned as “unclean” cities. Allied occupation troops realized the extent of the permanent damage when dangerously high radioactivity levels were measured in every corner of the cities and their outlying districts. Oligarchies were only concerned with the expenditure of reconstruction. This final phase of atomic warfare, the necessary reconstruction of a potential target city, proved an impossibly complex and dangerous operation. Of teams assigned to the task, every exposed personnel member was ultimately added to the fatality lists. Thereafter, and even under military duress, troops refused to enter the area. Ultimately, the labor of reconstruction was bureaucratically delivered into Japanese hands. This rendered more cost effective, the policy for reclamation of acquired lands would be delivered to those who had been conquered.
The dirty aftermath was viewed with dispassion. Aftermaths, however dirty and contaminated, would be cleanup operations capable of generating capital. Regardless, The Bomb now remained the prime weapon of threat, the prime weapon of choice for oligarchic extensions of power. The atomic bomb was then viewed as a new means for the acquisition of foreign ground. What needed now to be tested was the potential threat of bomb blasts on troops who would necessarily be deployed to occupy blasted ground. While wielding the atomic threat over the world with a confident air, the most highly classified secret was not the design of the Bomb itself. The most highly classified secret was the universal fear which had gripped the hearts of the supposed fearless. Fear of the atomic force ran deep in the hearts of even military officers who heard the expectable outcome of each new test blast What the bomb blasts did to their troops was worse. Regulators simply turned the task of bomb development to the military. Clearly, the military was given the dirty work, to deliver an answer to frightened aristocrats who hid themselves in dark mahogany-lined rooms. Now the power returned to the military, themselves fearing what they had released. The aftereffects of these nuclear “tools for peace” left their killing mark in the air, in the ground, in the bodies of those who entered the areas where blasts had been directed. Suddenly, all too suddenly, all of the parries in the power chain recognized the threat which had been unleashed. Not the simple “push the button and forget” motto now. Once released, this Bomb would return with a thousand radioactive winds to destroy one’s own House and holdings. Fallout was the poison in the rain. In the years following the conclusion of the Second World War, each test blast seemed to spell the murder of the whole race. Fear of the Bomb entered the very heart of society. There was now a very clear radioactive stain which would never wash from the hands of those who commanded, and the hands of those who obeyed. Worse. There were radioactive stains which would not wash from the seared bodies exposed in a decade of atomic tests in which both civilian and troop test participants were employed. The hideous Nazi-like medical tests used young infantrymen of the lowest rank. These mere uniformed children were made to walk through the stinging white dust which had been propelled into their faces, clothing, and lungs by the rising plasma columns, which had only seconds before been detonated.
Youthful pilots were made to fly through the very clouds raised by the explosion plasma. Pilots told that they could see the blast through the metal floors of their planes. Some said that they saw their own skeletons through tightly closed eyes. Data was methodically and routinely collected in an emotionless manner. Assessments were made. Yes, a land invasion could be commandeered to occupy areas which had been the scene of atomic devastation. None of these troops lived long enough to protest, the expendable supply produced by working class families. Moloch, the eater of children. The cruel wickedness of Nazi atrocities had apparently found a new home base. When questioned by a growing civilian concern, military authorities “could not be contacted” for commentary.
Each successive Bomb test would bring poison rain to the whole world. In the winds, in the blowing winds. The whole world would soon be covered in the poison dust Strontium-90 in dairy milk, children’s milk. These and a hundred other radioactive contaminants were the glowing flowers which nuclear weaponry had planted. Hoping perhaps to ameliorate their own horror with familiarity and experience of the new weaponry, perhaps believing that repetition would desensitize them form the nightmare vision of that first atomic sun, American Military teams continually unleashed the atomic terror. In a series of tests which rained deadly white dust all across the national southwest, military first tested the various tactical applications of the atomic bomb. New detonators, new fissile materials, new hybrid weapons packages, new weapons emplacements, new yield variations. But no amount of technical jargon, no excessive number of tests could remove the memory and inescapable thought which escaped with each rumbling eruption. The ultimate radioactive stain was fear. And the dust, the dust which returned with every breath of wind.
Those working class minds who pursued the goal of nuclear weaponry now looked back in surprise at what they had been compelled to achieve. The first dream of atomic energy was a quest for endless light, a means to liberate humanity with free and limitless energy. Energy to light cities, to raise aircraft, to power ocean liners, to travel into space, to pursue all the dreams of humanity. But now, what had they actually achieved, and for whom? Murderers, continually returning to a killing floor, the tests were repeated and repeated. But neither the hellish scene which was continually reproduced before their unbelieving eyes, nor the resulting illnesses of young troops would depart from their conscience.