Chapter 11: The Secret Is Revealed

I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner. So much has happened I’ve hardly had time to take a breath. I expect you’ll have a difficult time believing what I’m going to tell you. I did. We all did. But once we were convinced, fear of the unimaginable became hugely motivational and has spurred our creativity and thrust us into all-out action.

I feel compelled to write you, though. It’s very early here, not yet dawn, but if there’s truth to what we’ve learned about what’s going on up on Altos, it will affect you too.

The secret behind what’s happening up there finally came out the night of the potluck. I was able to gather our friends together in hopes of gaining their support for the efforts of the families there and their determination to create a eco-village the rest of us can use as a model for living sustainably here. If you recall, they especially need our help because they’re flagrantly violating so many local ordinances, rules and regulations, but yet very much want to get the whole community involved.

By emphasizing that I needed help with an undisclosed but dire situation I was able to get a great turn out for the potluck. Our entire old group came, all of us who worked together to save Katani Falls from becoming a sprawling Aspen west. Ned and Gloria, our best friends and neighbors, came, of course. Megan and Ryan, too. It turns out they weren’t moving to Cielo Nuevo after all. I’ll tell you all about that in a few minutes because it’s related to the why the folks on Altos suddenly near frantic to get the community on board so Katani Falls can be food and energy self-sufficient asap. It’s also why Ned turned up at our house late one night not long ago for a secret consult with my husband Mark, our local general practitioner and psychiatrist.

Suzanne came too. She’s the retired minister and healer who has been traveling to and from other locales helping them build cohesive communities. She came back just for the gathering and after the events of that night she won’t be leaving again. Of course, Erik and Lori were there, because not only were they part of our old group, but they’re living of Altos with Julie and her children and Erik is the one who urged me to help them with their situation in the first place.

Initially the gathering felt like a grand reunion. Everyone was glad to see and catch up with each other. Our feelings of camaraderie rekindled immediately just like old times. We ate on the deck. The weather was lovely. Everyone contributed something delicious to the meal. Ned brought out his guitar and his tunes set a festive mood. Then as dusk came and the temperature began to cool we settled in around the fire pit on out deck and Erik and I began to explain why Katani Falls had to become more locally sustainable and how a group of folks was already taking the lead to do that but needed our support in a bad way.

At first Erik and I were being so cautious not to reveal who the people are, just what they are doing, or where they’re located that we weren’t getting across why our help is so pressing. Aside from Ned, Mark, Megan who weren’t saying a word, the group was put off by our secrecy. Finally sensing that there was sympathy for well-intentioned fellow neighbors and friends of Erik and Lori’s, Erik took a deep breath and plunged in to the specifics of what they’re doing on Altos and why they’re in jeopardy.

He was nervous, uncharacteristically stumbling over his words, as he laid out the story. I know he was afraid of how Ian, the computer-wizard and big Altos-honcho, would respond. Revealing their location and thus their identities had not been part of the deal at this point. As you know, Ian has been highly secretive, nearly paranoid, about everything they’re doing. But once the group learned an eco-village was already up and operating in Katani Falls, despite prohibitive regulation, etc, their curiosity was peaked, Everyone seemed to agree it was a good idea to get the whole community involved in creating a low-energy sustainable place to live and wanted to help get these folks off the hook for showing us the way. But Susanne, always the careful and thoughtful one, had to know why all the urgency? When it became clear she wouldn’t drop the issue, Megan and Ned broke their silence and chimed in adamantly that the situation was indeed very urgent.

Instantly Erik froze. Julie turned pale. Ned looked at Mark. Mark looked at Ned. Gloria and I looked at Megan. She looked at Ryan, who was looking as confused as Suzanne, Gloria and I felt. The four of us wanted to know just what the heck was up? Obviously all these folks knew something we didn’t know and they didn’t seem to know that each other knew. Suddenly the atmosphere around us grew tense. My stomach knotted up like I was at bat in the 9th inning of the World Series with three men on base, two outs, a three to two count, and the winning run dancing about on third base.

Right the three girls– Chelsea, Carly and Wren – who had been upstairs doing the slumber-party thin came out on the deck to get some air. They were laughing and giggling as only tween girls can do and our group went stone silent. The girls picked up on the tension immediately, weren’t sure what they’d stepped into but quickly knew they better beat it. So they ambled back into the house, rolling their eyes with that good-grief-grown-ups look on their faces. Everyone took a breath and looked furtively around the circle.

Whatever was going on I knew Mark couldn’t say anything about it. Obviously Ned had come up from the city to see him that night in professional confidence. But for a long beat no one else spoke either. Finally Ned said “Yes, there is a real concern and it appears to be urgent. But as an attorney I am not at liberty to talk about any of the details I’m aware of.” I caught Gloria glaring at him. I couldn’t tell if she was mad at him or scared about what he couldn’t tell us.

“Well,” Megan finally said in a quiet voice filled with dismay, “I don’t really know enough to say for sure, but the folks are Cielo Nuevo are hunkering down for something big.” She paused looking embarrassed. She glanced at her husband Ryan whose brow furrowed with concern.
She looked away, took a breath. All eyes were locked on her. “You all know how much I’ve been wanting to move to Cielo Neuvo so I could reopen my art gallery in community where there is still income to buy fine art. Well, since we can’t seem to sell the house and move there, last week I started pestering my liaison over there about the possibility of opening a gallery even though we can’t move for awhile.”

She explained that her liaison had been working as a buyer for the many art galleries there. “I thought she might have some tips or contacts for me. But yesterday ...” Megan paused for what seemed like a long time, looking down at her hands folded in her lap, gathering strength to say what was to come next. We all waited.

Finally she continued. “It seems I misunderstood her interest in my art. When I called she confessed that they’re not seeking any new residents or galleries over there now. She told me community is full but until recently they were busy acquiring art from artists in other locations who are liquidating their collections in bankruptcy. She thought that like so many artist these days, I would be in that situation soon, but now their time for acquisitions has passed and they’re no longer interested.”

Megan looked humiliated. Her blue eyes glistened in the firelight. I wanted to go over hug her or something, but she had more to say and it began tumbling out. The “buyer” had gone on to point out that Cielo Nuevo would be sealing off the community soon. “Sealing off?” Megan had asked.” “Oh, you don’t know?” the stunned woman said, realizing she’d made a serious misstep.”I thought you were ….”

“You thought I was what?”Megan had asked. “That I knew what?”

“I’m sorry,” the woman replied, “I can’t say anything more. I shouldn’t have commented at all. But I like you, Megan, and I ... I ... well, just do what you can to take care of yourself when … whatever. Just do it right way though. ” Then she hung up.

Megan looked at her husband across the fire pit. “I know I should have told you, Ryan, but I was too embarrassed.”

Ignoring her, apology, Ryan, Gloria, and Susanne blurted out almost in unison, “What on earth do you think she meant?” Mega shrugged, tears now pooling in the rims of her eyes. The four of us quickly noticed everyone else was looking away, up down, around, where ever no one else was sitting.

Then Erik stood up and said he needed to call Ian. He left the room while we sat there feeling confused and concerned. We heard Erik talking rapidly on a scratchy walkie-talkie, his voice too low to understand the words. As we waited Gloria got up to pass around a platter of homemade butterscotch cookies she had brought. They were sitting on a white paper doily on a blue ceramic plate. But no one too one.

“He’s coming over,” Erik announced when he returned to the room. “He’ll need to know nothing, I mean nothing, he says can go beyond this room. He’ll want you to guarantee secrecy on all you hold sacred.”

We glanced around the circle at each other and nodded in agreement. We had to know what this was all about.

“He’ll need a verbal commitment from each of you. Julie and I already know what he’s going to say.”

We nodded in agreement again. I told him I was confident he could count on our word. We’d been through a difficult challenge together before and had learned we could trust each other. There were more nods. But the air was dark and the mood somber.

As we continued to wait Erik explained that once we heard what Ian was going to tell us we would understand why they’d been feverishly creating a model for making Katani Falls as self-sufficient and sustainable as possible and why it was so urgent that the whole community join in doing so asap. He was right about that.

You’d think the effects of resource depletion and climate change we’re already facing and the economic fall out we were already coping with day-to-day would be enough motivation for anyone to understand that we need to get on with some drastic changes in way we live. But clearly it hasn’t been. Not even this circle of “enlightened,” well-educated friends were interested in our doing anything together until I hinted at some mysterious dire circumstance. I hope those of you reading this won’t take so long.

As we waited for Ian, we rounded up sweaters, shawls, and blankets, snuggled back into our seats and sat staring at the fire in silence. When he finally appeared at the door to the deck in his worn blue jeans sweatshirt and dusty work boots, he seemed agitated but resigned. Suddenly the air seemed still cooler, nippy really, so I asked if we should retire to living room. Clearly no one liked the idea of being within earshot of the girls so we huddled closer together and I scooted closer to Mark to make room for Ian to join us by the fire. But he preferred to remain standing. After getting verbal assurance from each of us that we would not repeat what we was going to tell us, he began to pace and we had to rearrange ourselves with our backs to the fire pit so we could face him.

He began explaining that shortly after he and his family moved here for Adriana’s health, his company had been hired to develop a sophisticated, solar-powered, high-speed online network for a chain of exclusive, private community developments. Initially he’d been excited and invigorated by the cutting-edge nature of the project, but two years ago he began to suspect there was some sinister intent behind these projects.

Not long after that key people in his firm, which included him of course, were told by their client that these communities are being developed as a defensive measure against a coming economic collapse. They’re financed by some of the wealthiest families in the US banking, corporate, financial industries. To waylay the fears of the top executive, the Trust, as the financiers referred to themselves, extended an invitation in lieu of payment for work done to buy into Cielo Nuevo, the most nearby of the developments. This, they were assured, would enable them and their families to be among the few who would not only survive the coming collapse, but also to do so in the ultimate of comfort, style, elegance, and security.

But there was one kicker. Before completing the transaction on their property all involved would need to submit to an extensive physical exam, because only those who are 100% healthy are allowed to move into any of their self-contained community developments, all of which are located on a US coast. After telling us this, Ian stopped pacing, momentarily. He dipped his head and cleared his throat, overcome with emotion he was determined not to express.

At that point I notice that both Mark and Gloria were glaring at Ned and suddenly everything fell in place. I knew what had been going on.

Adriana, Ian’s wife, and his daughter Becca both have severe chronic illnesses. They wouldn’t be eligible to live in Cielo Nuevo. Adriana undoubtedly knows this, but I wondered about Becca. Does she know or not? Either way, this situation must be related to her recent ambivalent feelings and erratic behavior. And what about Julie’s daughter Wren? How much does she know? Is this why she’s been pulling away from Chelsea and Carley? Is she up in Chelsea’s bedroom now, struggling with temptation to tell her friends about an impending global catastrophe she's living in fear of, despite the pact of secrecy she’s sworn to? Or does she think the eco-village is the only secret she’s keeping?

For over the past two years Ian and the other adults on Altos had been frantically creating their own means of survival for their families, recruiting the needed personnel and hoping eventually that the whole community would join them, for certainly they couldn’t survive as one tiny remote enclave in and of themselves. But they’re doing it all without the big bucks available to the super-rich “Trust.”

Though it has yet to be revealed openly, I quickly surmised that as the new general council for Cielo Nuevo, the partners at Ned’s law firm had received this same offer. But, as a cancer survivor, Gloria would be excluded too. Hence Ned’s sudden, late-night trip up from LA to talk with Mark.

I could see Gloria was quickly putting two and two together, too, as she appeared to be on the verge of hyperventilating. Had she been counting on moving there? Was that behind her rekindled fascination with the kind of high-life she and I had both voluntarily left behind years ago when we moved to Katani Falls? But Suzanne interrupted my inner queries, speaking into the group’s collective silence and shaking us from our trance-like state of disbelief.

“Wait a minute, Ian,” she said. “This is a little far-fetched. Just when is this collapse supposed to happen and how can these folks have known about it for so long if it’s only about to happen now?”

“I don’t know exactly when,” he replied, “but it will be soon because the developments are all but complete. They’re successfully 100% off the grid. The surrounding farms are producing. A vast oil supply has been stockpiled in tankers off shore each of these developments. The folks who will be living in them are just about all moved in. The software we’ve developed is complete and fully functional. The communities are able to communicate and trade with one another. Everything is just about all set.”

“And,” Megan interjected, her eyes wide with fright, “there’s the warning I got from the art buyer!”

I thought back to the spa-day at Cielo Nuevo where Gloria took me for a birthday treat. The lush farmland within the outer wall that ringed the town; the small port at the end of the main street; the high outer wall around the enclosed fields, the even higher inner wall around the town, both manned with armed guards; the art galleries bulging with fine art from all over the world; the lavish ambience of the restaurants, the abundance of medical supplies Gloria could buy so effortlessly at the posh health clinic we walked to ...

As I tried to set aside how congruent my own experience there was with this otherwise incomprehensible scenario, Suzanne pressed on. “But, Ian, what collapse, exactly, and why are they so sure it’s coming now?“

“The complete collapse of the economic system,” Ian said softly, still pacing. “They know it’s coming because they’re going to create it.”

Everyone for whom this was news began shaking their heads in adamant denial.

“That can’t be. No one would do that!” Megan asserted.

“That’s preposterous” “Ryan exclaimed.

“No way!” Suzanne agreed in that definitive, authoritative tone she’s so adept at using when wants to define reality for those who are escalating fear over thinking.

But it was the look on the faces of Ned and Mark, Erik and Julie that brought an unwelcomed recognition back to the group. Their silence was confirmation that they believed Ian. This wasn’t some paranoid fantasy. Ned knew. Mark knew. Erik and Julie had known for a long time. Hence their feverished work up on Altos. Hence Mark’s recent obsession to amass a store of medical supplies for the clinic. This was real.

“But why?” Mark asked. “Why would anyone do such a thing? Tell me that.” This was obviously something Ned either didn’t know or hadn’t shared with Mark in their private session that night.
“Oh, that’s obvious,” Ned jumped in,” almost as if he felt compelled to defend Ian. “It’s not divulging any client privilege to point out what anyone who reads the financial news is acutely aware of. The US economy has been hanging on by a thread for several years. We have been at the mercy of China now for some time. They realize they can no longer depend on us to buy their cheap products. Our masses are too cash-strapped to buy a ton of unnecessary things. Nor do they want to share their avenues to world’s oil sources with us. They need whatever is left for themselves. They’re confident the G8 is going to dump the US dollar for the Yen any day now and the Trust Ian is talking about has their wealth in US dollars. They want to keep it. They don’t want to live in to China.”

“But what about China?” Mark asked. “These people are going to bring the US economy down and just let China take over? What about Europe? This “Trust” is going to pull out on everyone else, even those countries that are still standing behind us?”

“You don’t understand.” Ian took back the group’s attention. “It’s not just the US economy that’s going down. It’s the world economy.”

More don’t-be-ridiculous comments and head shaking arose from the unconvinced.

“How is that possible?” Suzanne asked before anyone else got around to it.

“The global economy is a house of cards,” Ian explained with Ned nodding in agreement. “I’m not an economist but I know enough to can see it’s one huge, inter-related, over-leveraged system of debt based on worthless currencies held up only by a willingness to pretend all is fine. And it’s all dependent on a complex web of electronic transactions. That’s the system that’s going down at whatever moment this group decides to take it down. And that moment will be soon because they know it’s only matter of time before China and their growing alliance of nations will pull out on us. Don’t you see?” His voice rose in frustration. “That’s why they’ve been pressing so hard to get these communities set up. Their company, our company, probably other companies I don’t know about, we’ve all had people working around the clock now for two years. They’re petrified they won’t be ready in time to be the ones to make the pre-emptive strike.”

Though I didn't and still don’t fully understand the details of what Ian was referring to, it all made some horrid sort of sense to me. But I couldn’t understand how a small group people, even a very powerful and rich small group of people, could do this, so I asked Suzanne’s question again.

“What kind of 'strike' could do this? Not a military one, right? What, then? How can they …?” my voice trailed off because Ian had the answer already forming on the tip of his tongue.

“Right, no military involved. This is an all out electronic assault on the entire global financial system. There have been lots of examples of attacks like this on a small scale and some pretty large scale ones too. Like back in the summer of 2009 when a barrage of cyber attacks hit South Korean and US government computers and networks, including the White House and the Pentagon. Other targets included the New York stock exchange, the national security agency, homeland security department, state department, and the Washington Post. In 2007 a series of bogus messages from computers worldwide brought down Estonian’s media, banking and government websites. Almost brought the country to a halt.

“But this time that’s what will happen on a global scale. Malicious code will be sent to a server inside the financial system, the energy grids, the communication networks, the transportation systems. Once executed within seconds it will attack the computers in thousands of financial institutions, companies, and government agencies worldwide, erase their data and shut down the servers. The entire financial global system will be eliminated. There will a run on the banks. Power plants will close down. Airlines will be grounded. Satellites downed. Cities will be without electricity and water. Civilization as we know it will come to a standstill. There will be mass panic, chaos. Nothing will work.”

Questions flew at Ian like machine gun fire.

“They have this code.”

“They do.”

“Did you ….?
”
“No, not me. That was all done in the utmost of secrecy inside the development company. I’m not sure even anyone at the top of the company knows the whole chain of code that’ll be activated.”

“Who would think up such a plan?”

“Who would participate in creating it?”

“It’s not some hackers. It’s powerful people with a lot of money who know just how precarious our system is, who don’t want it to come down on them, and who can promise the same means of escape they're creating for themselves for key experts to help them. I’m talking about the kind of people who were getting annual $100,000 million bonuses a few years back; the kind of people whose wives buy $26,000 handbags; and who give their wives $126,000 watches for an early Christmas surprise.

“As for the designers who developed the code, it’s rumored they were a few select complexity scientists and systems analysts who used to work for the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Lab of Department of Homeland Security before it was all folded into the military. I’m sure they got their pick of which development to relocate to and have already moved in. But I doubt none of them even knows the whole sequence and the plan for its execution.”

“But why hasn’t anyone done anything to stop this? There must be someone who ...? Why didn’t you do something about it?”

“Like what? It’s leaked out on blogs every so often, been rampant on and off for at least a year on some conspiracy theorists’ sites. You can still find it out there if you go looking. Of course they never have the facts quite right, but who would believe it even if they did? Do you?” Ian’s tone betrayed deeply defensive feelings and he pivoted from his pacing to challenge us. Got right up in our faces, one by one. ”You want to take it on? How about you? Or you? You want to go to the LA Times with this tomorrow morning? Tell them about it? They’re going to take your word for it?”

“Well, what about your word?” Ryan slung back with a sharply accusatory edge to his voice.

Ian turn away and bowed his head, the back of his hunched shoulders illuminated eerily by the fire. “You don’t understand,” he muttered in disgust.

I stood up. It was late and the night air had grown cold. I was shivering. So were others. The lights in Chelsea’s room had gone out. The girls were asleep.

“We need a break!” I said. “Let’s go inside. Get some hot coffee and tea. Light a fire in the living room and sit down together to talk about what we’re going to do.”

And that’s what we did. I’m eager to tell you what we resolved to undertake and how it’s working out. It's actually surprisingly promising. But this post has already gotten so long (Sorry for that.) and I’ve got a really busy day ahead. We each needed some time to digest all this and I image you will too. Most of you probably won’t believe Ian’s tale. I fully understand. Believe me, I do. But think it over. It’s not implausible when you look at the situation the world is in. So think it over. It’s only a matter of time before this or something else will happen as a result of the huge economic vulnerabilities and environmental challenges we face. We really do need to prepare – right now! In some ways I imagine you know that too.

With compassion,
Rose
(I apologize if there are errors I’ve missed in this post. I’ve been rushing. No matter how fast we go, we can’t hurry fast enough to get everything done that needs doing.)