The Pole Shift

Macka The Master's Man

Ian McKenzie watched the streets of Melbourne through the eyes of several drones. High in orbit an Earth Watcher could take him to street level of any city, of a dirt road, a meandering river or the back garden of the four million houses in south eastern Australia. He could watch a crowd's behaviour, discern their intent, discern an individual of that crowd's facial expression.  He could watch a dog wag it's tail at a back door, or a kid throw a stone. With Prophet whispering in his ear he could predict an individual's likely actions. Not only that, he could have Prophet 'backlook' an individual's history, old cctv, old online video, blogs, YouTube history Facebook posts, anything anyone had put their name to online  Prophet could call up, form an opinion based on algorithms, and report through Macka's earlobe implant.

                 A man he was following crossed the street, then crossed back and retraced his steps. He navigated the street again. Prophet coloured  the man and beeped, the circle was yellow, a loiterer,  after a moment prophet shaded the man a deeper yellow, the target was apparently interacting with others. Macka asked for his story. There was a pause, then Prophet listed a some key points.

                Left wing, Argentinean immigrant, family man, meth user. Likely fatalist.

                There were thousands of loiterers, most were innocent. The targets remained shades of yellow. Even the amber targets weren't worth investigating, but when a target turned red, Macka had his job to do, well he use to have a job to do. These days he had been assigned just seven targets. Six of them weren't even in his current drone view. He watched the red targets commit their crimes. There was a rape and a burglary, beatings and a hit and run. Macka ignored them and forwarded the intel' to the police. The target he focused on was sitting at a table in an apartment and even that wasn't who he was after, but who he was talking to was.  Lett, the survivalists had the knack of disappearing from view.

                The Earth Orbiter outlined her contact perfectly, tapping away at a computer, smoking a cigarette, drinking something in a mug. It could not see his face, nor could it hear him, for that Macka had to deploy a fly.

                The fly had been developed by the military and perfected by commerce. The military, or the clandestine set that had no labels and were part military part political and part 'the people', his masters in short, took back the instrument as they had done throughout history. They bought the companies that had perfected the science, then shut them down.

                There were a thousand flies in Melbourne. Most hovering above the city in the day, solar charging their sophisticated batteries, made from rare earth elements and charged by chemical reactions. They were always ready to be deployed, their light carbon wings did not beat against each other and were quite silent. Minion peripherals to the Prophet network.   At the flies landed in shadows, a nook in the outside of a building, much like a living fly. A fly could operate perfectly throughout the night, and only needed a few hours of low radiance to recharge, a street light would do, or passing traffic. Even though the drone was larger than a blow fly, they were indistinguishable from the insect unless you were paying attention and there were those that did. You have a stick? I have a shield. Macka snorted at his thought and set the nearest fly to find a way to the target.

                The target  got up and paced about. He gestured at the computer. Prophet  had him dark webbing Lett . She was a target that had been given to him beyond a red flashing light on a population template, Macka had known of Lett for more than a year, he had watched her, not because she was a cunning survivalist that knew the Pole Shift was coming, there were plenty of them, Lett was being watched for germane reasons.

                  The conversation was heated.  The survivalists, the secretive organised ones, the ones that had access to information they shouldn't,  knew the Pole Shift was coming. They understood the geology, the zeitgeist and deep human history. - just like his masters,  the select few. The select few liked to think of themselves as 'those in high places', a dark pun, their secret abodes dotted the Australian Great Divide, well above the projected wash and grind from the oceans.  He often wondered if their high places were high enough anyway ,and were his masters jealous of those that knew where the Earth's pivot points were. If that was knowable. He shook his head, he had a job to do.

                In moments the miniature drone arrived and entered the building, the apartment itself was inaccessible, the fly reported the usual entry pointed bared. Prophet analysed the drone data and indicated that the apartment was purposely sealed. Macka sent another two flies to the scene.

                The fly was multipurpose. It was primarily for spying, but had one offensive capability. It could explode.  Packed into a cavity was a milligram of chemical that when sequenced to detonate exposed itself to the fly's power system. The resultant violent reaction was enough to kill a man, or blow a door down. The later occurred in the first fly when the second and third were ten meters from the target. They wavered slightly as the shock wave hit them, but within seconds were in the apartment. One drone gathered data, it captured images of the computer screen taking and impression of a frowning Lett.  All visible documents were scanned within a second. The man was dazed but opened his mouth to shout something, and the third drone flew into it and detonated. The apartment was painted scarlet, the moment captured perfectly by a shell shocked drone. It peeled itself from the reddened wall, and buzzed away.

                 Macka looked on grimly. The survivalists had it hard, not only were they desperately looking for nooks and crannies to hide, but they had to deal with his masters, the true survivalists. The faceless ones that had been in control since men could whisper in other men's ears.