A document marked ‘HIGHLY SENSITIVE’ caught the eye of a staffer who was working in the filing room in parliament house one day, as it was seemingly out in the open and not stored correctly under lock and key.

With no one around as it was a weekend and only a few were in doing overtime, the staffer decided to open the folder and have a peek inside to see what it was about.

OPERATION SQUASH

At first, this seemed like an unusual name, but then again, the staffer had seen all kinds of names on files in their 25 years of service with the Federal Government. This file, however, had them intrigued, so they made the call to take it one home with them, just to see what it was about, and, promised they’d return it the next morning. They figured that as it was just lying around outside of lock and key that perhaps no one was missing it, so what was another day?

Cheap thrills are a dime a dozen in a career in the public service so that afternoon when they were leaving for the day, walking through the security checkpoint, was getting them both nervous and excited at the same time. ‘What if they frisk me?’ they thought as they approached the security scanner. ‘Afternoon’ said the officer as they passed through with no questions asked or stopping involved.

‘I’m free!’ the staffer thought to themselves, almost inventing their own criminal getaway plan in their minds that in no way, shape or form was or was going to unfold.

They got home that night to their rented flat and sat down with a cuppa and decided to have a read through what they had found.

OPERATION SQUASH

‘What on Earth could this be about?’ they thought to themselves.

At first, the papers seemed fairly simple and straightforward. There were some plans for some new suburbs and buildings around various cities, seemingly straightforward kind of stuff. But there were beginning to be some peculiar entries in what looked like meeting minutes, and some eye-catching titles on some of the pages of the documents including emails and letters between high-level Government officials and corporations.

John,

We got your proposal to go ahead with the builds and are happy that we can agree on a rate of payment. If you can let your mate at tax know the deal so that we aren’t losing money paying all this bullshit tax in this country cos I’ve got some big mortgages to pay mate and kids in expensive schools, plus I’ve got a lot of people on my books too.

Anyway, the tax I will be paying is more than enough to keep these peasants who will be eating in my joints alive for long enough to get us all out of strife.

Let me know when you’ve spoken to your mate at tax and I’ll give my guys overseas the green light to do their end on the ingredients. They reckon it’s some clever stuff coming out of some laboratory in some desert somewhere that is hardly detectable in a blood test if they ever go to the docs.

I’ll need you to get your mate from last time involved to cos I’ll be both flying and bringing it in through a few smaller ports. Just you let me know how much I need to pay the guys we used last time and chuck that into my pay packet.

Russo.

The staffer was a bit confused as to what this email could be about as none of it really made a lot of sense. There were a number of emails in this folder but there looked to be pieces of the chain missing. Perhaps whoever had gotten the file out of the cabinet had taken them for some reason.

A few more pages into the folder and there was another oddly titled document.

TX657 HUMAN TRIALS.

This looked to be a scientific based document which went on to describe what had happened during animal testing of a particular chemical and described the results were found also to be occurring in humans. This got the staffer both worried and intrigued at the same time, so they kept reading.

Over the course of the trial on just mice initially, the subjects were at first observed to be energetic and curious and responded as normal to stimuli as per previous trials in the cosmetic industry. As we further increased the dosage of TX657 into their food and water supply, a noticeable change in behavior occurred and found consistent commonalities in the results reported, including;

· Lack of movement and interest to introduced new stimuli.

· An increase in breeding but almost simultaneous lack of interest in the young leading to their early death or development of mild health concerns needing intervention with the devised medication.

· Rapid weight gain among older mice.

· A general complacency in the behavior of the subject to their environment and lack of desire to explore the environment outside when taken out of captivity and placed into a controlled environment that replicated the wild according to that which they would typically encounter.

· When newer and healthier subjects who were not subjected to TX657 were brought into the environment, something was noted that had not been seen before in any testing of cosmetics on the subjects — a clear divide and order was established of those subjects who were seemingly healthier and more alert over those who were not — though it cannot be proven scientifically, it was discussed amongst a panel of experts that on an almost intuitive level, there was a clear hierarchy being established whereby the fitter and stronger subjects who were not ingesting TX657 held a power of those who were and were obstructing those who had ingested it from accessing areas of the experiment where they could obtain clean drinking water and food.

The above results proved the hypothesis in that by keeping a percentage of the population numb with a substance, those that were not ingesting a substance and who remained at their peak health and fitness capacity, were able to utilize those who were, thus, breeding a class like structure into the community.

Based on the above findings, we can conclude that TX657 is now ready for human trials via food and water for now, and we will monitor and report back on any findings that we come across throughout the life of the trial, should this remain a trial that is, and not become business as usual.

Please advise on how you wish us to package this product and disperse amongst those identified suitable for human testing.

The staffer was growing increasingly concerned, yet curious about all that they were taking in. The more they read, the more they realized that this file was harboring some dark secrets about some business dealings, that, judging by the date ranges of all the documents, had been in discussion for quite some time. And judging by the scientific documents, were about experiments happening on the general public.

‘Should I just take these back tomorrow and put them where I found them and act as nothing has happened?’ they thought to themselves. ‘What if someone is looking for these already and they do a trace on who has been working over the weekend and they coming knocking at my door? They thought.

‘If that does happen, I can just pretend I don’t know anything and just take them back tomorrow morning and put them where I found them and just forget about the whole thing. I feel like I should say something to someone though because this is all really full on and I don’t at all like what I am reading. I am questioning everything!’ they thought.

The staffer decided to call on someone they’d known for a long time. Someone they knew they could have complete faith and trust in.

‘Barry, I’m coming out to your place, I need to use your copier for some stuff. I’ll talk more when I get there’ they said over the phone and hung up.

Barry was a well-known Vietnam vet, and some would say avid conspiracy theorist, but the level of respect that the community and almost anyone who met him gave outshone his ‘out there’ theories on the world. No one could ever tell if Barry’s stories were the truth, or his mind playing tricks as a result of some of the things he saw in the war.

The staffer grabbed the files, got into their car and headed out on the highway to a cabin on a few acres where Barry lived. It was an intricately designed piece of land, and the cabin itself, surrounded by scrub up close but with a surprisingly clear view to all perimeters of the property. Each fence line alarmed so that Barry could hear if anyone was headed his way. Sensor lights surrounded the cabin from all angles so that no matter which side anyone approached from, they would be spotted and then illuminated by huge spotlights that surrounded the property.

It was around 9 pm when the staffer headed up the winding driveway surrounded by scrub and trees. A light came on when they got within 20 or so metres of the cabin. Behind the light, the staffer could see a faint orange glow of a cigarette followed by the smell, as they got closer to the veranda.

‘You sounded rattled on the phone’ said Barry.

‘Oh, I am a little. I don’t know if I can say too much, but have you still got your photocopier out here? I need to make some copies of some documents for a project I am working on’. The staffer almost caught their words as they came out ‘I am making up a lie about a lie on top of a lie’ they thought.

‘A project hey’, said Barry, ‘sure, you know where it is, go right ahead, I’ll pour us a bourbon’.

The staffer went into the backroom where the copier was. The room was what Barry called the ‘control tower’, as it had a number of monitors hooked up to cameras all over the property, a couple of computers and old police scanners. They pulled out the files and started making copies, careful not to damage the originals.

‘You know you’ll want to clean them of your prints’ said Barry as he came into the room placing a glass of bourbon down next to the staffer.

‘Shit, I didn’t even think of that, oh it won’t matter though, I handle these things for a living’ said the staffer.

‘So this is a work project then?’ said Barry.

‘Oh, well, oh; well yeah’ said the staffer.

‘Photocopier not working at the office?’ asked Barry.

The staffer kept going with their photocopying and tried to ignore what had just been said.

‘I’ve got some stuff we can scrape over them that’ll take your prints right off, but we run the risk of it taking any prints off. So I don’t know what you plan on doing with this project, but what do you want to do?’ asked Barry.

The staffer stopped copying for a second; ‘get the stuff and let’s scrape them, there’s enough in these to get what I need for what I am going to do’ they said.

‘And what’s that?’ asked Barry.

‘I’m not sure yet’ said the staffer.

Barry went out of the room and came back in with some silk white gloves, a powder in a container and a brush.

‘You keep copying and just pass the ones you’ve done to me and I’ll give them a once over with this and put them back in the folder’ said Barry.

The staffer and Barry had known each other for a long time, so the staffer had no issue in trusting Barry at his word.

A couple of minutes of copying and scraping went by when both the staffer and Barry looked up when something moved on one of the monitors. One of the sensor lights came on and there were what looked like headlights sitting idle at the bottom of the driveway.

‘Expecting anyone?’ asked the staffer of Barry.

‘My visitors know to call first, that way they don’t get greeted with a ’22. You got anyone on your tail tonight?’ asked Barry.

‘I hope not’ said the staffer.

Alright, let’s get this finished up and put away in the shelter for the moment and get our bourbons and head out to the front veranda like we usually do on a Wednesday night hey?’ said Barry.

Both Barry and the staffer finished up the copying and the cleaning and put the originals and the copies away, grabbed their bourbons and headed outside. Barry rarely turned on the veranda light, but given what they had just seen, thought it might be an idea. Barry flicked on the light and both he and the staffer went outside and sat down with their drinks. In the distance, they could hear an idling engine and the headlights still shining through the scrubland.

‘Probably just a lost Chinese tourist’ said the staffer, ‘nothing to worry about’.

Barry and the staffer sat back in their chairs and clinked their glasses saying cheers.

Barry lit up a cigarette and drew back deeply, ‘The Chinese never get lost’.