Read Online We Float Upon a Painted Sea by Christopher Connor - Free Book Online

copied intelligence files and worst of all, had contacted a prescribed terrorist organisation. His passport had been revoked and his credit cards frozen. He had been put under surveillance. The prospect of being smuggled out the country, applying for political asylum in a foreign land, and never seeing his nation again, was a daunting one. And then he thought of the creeping radicalisation of the Government, aggrandising their powers by exaggerating the threat to democracy from terrorism. Using embroidered fears, they colluded with the media, infecting people’s minds to create a siege mentality for a nation. He thought of the hundreds of journalist, political activists, civil right lawyers and internet bloggers, arrested by tyrannical governments around the world for speaking out. They were the true champions of democracy, thought the Professor.  He returned to his writing with a new resolve:
     
    “I suggested the utilization of marine hydraulic fracturing drill sites in the North Atlantic, which could provide a number of suitably discrete test sites. Using an existing borehole, the device could be placed at a sufficient depth under rock strata. The cause of the detonated pulse could be covered up due to hydraulic fracturing activities out in the North Atlantic. There have been several seismic occurrences in the area after methane hydrate extraction processes commenced at the Anton Dohrn seamount. The wave would be blamed on another accidental submarine landslip.  Myron Clone announced that a decision had been made to test Silent Wave on St Kilda, after evacuation of the small local population. In essence, I was confident that a tsunami wave could be controlled in terms of size and direction and no lasting harm would be inflicted on the environment. In the long term, I believed that the nations of the world could benefit from my research, and I planned to share my findings on an international stage. However, much to my annoyance, I was warned that the programme was of the highest national security, and subject to special intelligence constraints. It was at this point I received a notification, from a source within the Government that the MoDs were preparing to adapt my research and use it to develop a weapon of mass destruction. After confronting Myron Clone, I resigned my position with immediate effect. Hence forth, I have been under constant Government harassment and intimidation.”
     
    He put his pen down and reclined his seat, stretching out his legs until his knees clicked. Rain pelted the vehicle window. Ahead, lay a darkening scene, night was almost upon him. He had left London behind and imagined he would never see the city again. His mind was soon flooded with memories of when he first came to the city, and browsed the antique shops of Islington with his wife and child. At first he thought they would be happy there, but as his work commitments increased, he drifted apart from his wife and eventually they returned to Scotland. He began writing again, but this time he penned a letter to his daughter. When he had finished, Professor Burke scratched his bald head, wiped his spectacles with his handkerchief and allowed the hypnotic rhythm of the vehicle to rock him to sleep.
     
    Later, when he woke, sunlight was spilling in from the east, over the floodplains, and elucidating the rape fields that clung to the slopes of the Lammermuir hills, south of Edinburgh. He studied the farmland. At first appearance it seemed benign, but in terms of colour, quite a remarkable sight. A typical glimpse of modern agriculture through the window of a slow moving vehicle, thought the Professor. And then he noticed the absence of trees and hedgerows. He remembered the devastating collapse of bee colonies which once pollinated the crops, and was now carried out by insectoid automatons, but with the dual purpose of mass electronic data surveillance gathering. The wheat fields of the countryside were once the bread basket of the