The cigarette crackled as she applied her arc lighter to the tip, paper and tobacco igniting in unison. It was her one bad habit, a necessary coping mechanism formed from the stress of the past 6 years. Taking a drag, she let the nicotine calm her; a temporary solution to long-term problems. The irony was not lost on her.
When photos of one of her Marlboro breaks leaked, she was labelled a hypocrite, a sanctimonious prig, a creeping Jesus and plaster saint (she had to Google the latter).
It didn’t matter though, she knew why they did this.
They were afraid.
If she does this, then you can’t criticise me for doing that. The latin for this type of fallacy eluded her, not that it mattered. It was just another transparently obvious attempt to discredit, to delegitimise, to sap power from the crusade that had already accomplished so much with so little. They were afraid of her - of her!
She smiled to herself. It’s not me you should be afraid of. To date, the cause had cost these people billions… and all they’d managed to fight back with was petty insults and the fact that she’d taken up smoking. Brilliant.
She contemplated the burning tip. Really, she shouldn’t do it, if not for herself then for the cause.
“Don’t give them an inch.” said her Mother. “Or they’ll stab you with it.”
And stabbed she was… by people who should really know better, people who should really do better. Alleged adults in positions of power and influence they’d never actually earned and felt no obligation to start justifying retroactively.
“It would be a shame for all your work to be undone by something so small.”
But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t perfect. Never claimed to be. She’d just seen a problem and wanted to fix it - it was really that simple. That the problem frightened and enraged her so was merely additional motivation.
Ultimately, at its core, it was a logic problem, practically machine code.
IF {A = TRUE} THEN {B}.
IF {INCREASE GLOBAL WARMING} THEN {SUBTRACT ICE-CAPS}.
IF {SUBTRACT ICE-CAPS} THEN {RAISE SEA-LEVELS}.
IF {RAISE SEA-LEVELS RISE} THEN …
She could go on. It was all so clear cut. IF {INACTION} THEN {DISASTER}. Simple, factual, logical. No matter what the excuses were, whether it was that she “didn’t understand the complexities of democracy” or that she was “a radical, trying to antagonise society.” At no point in the last 6 years had anyone even come close to refuting the logic.
A small particle of ash swirled and danced in the breeze and she watched as it disintegrated. It was cold up here and not an easy journey but the view alone was worth it, a reminder of what she’d committed to.
Sunrise crested over snow-capped peaks, an orange burst reflecting off the lake surface, painting the valley walls. She breathed the air in, pure and crisp. Completely untainted. She quickly stubbed the cigarette out, guiltily stuffing it in a portable ash-tray. Of course, she wanted to quit - her lung capacity had never been great and on bad days food would really lose its taste - but the relief was much needed.
Last year the stress and anxiety had led to a catastrophic breakdown; too much pressure, too much attention, too much responsibility. She was only 23. Despite the support, despite the acclaim, the attacks still managed to break through, needling away at her from within. Initially she let this behaviour slide to the point of mocking it - belittling insults and name calling? That was the best they could come up with?
Attacks came from politicians, from senators, from heads of industry and paid PR firms masquerading as normal people. But once they stared coming from easily led, easily manipulated demographics who might even take things that extra step, beyond words and into… well, she didn’t like to think about it. But she let it all slide because she was righteous, her cause just. She wore the logic like armour. The trouble with people, however, is that they’re not logical. As the years wore on and the attacks kept coming, advancing in both cruelty and frequency, it started to get to her. Hear something 10,000 times and it’ll seep in, no matter how much you fight it.
“What did the first ape do when faced with a logical issue?” she pondered. “There’s a reason we invented the club before the brush… go figure.”
And so there she was, 22 years old, voice of a generation, face of a global change, leader of the youth in revolt and saviour of the planet, lying exhausted and weeping on the bathroom floor. In a perverse way however, she was actually kind of thankful for the collapse. It had been beyond awful, certainly. There had been days when she could barely move, weeks where she couldn’t speak, her throat raw and inflamed from crying, eyes red and itchy from her tears. There were even times when she considered vanishing, walking out the front door and never coming back. No more friends, no more family, no more cause. She didn’t, obviously, but the thought was still there, looking evermore like an attractive, valid option. Still she was thankful though. Despite all the misery and unhappiness It had made her consider what she actually needed to do to solve the problem.
Up to that point, her successes were just that - successes. She’d spoken and rallied people to the cause, she’d been invited to talks and addresses, she’d met people in high positions - world leaders, cultural figureheads, esteemed academics and scientists. Each a success in its own right.
Change was happening and it’s not that it wasn’t happening fast enough - every day more and more people flocked to the cause, signing up for litter picks, climate protests, recycling and public transport initiatives. No, it’s not that it wasn’t happening fast enough. It’s just that what they were fighting against was happening even faster. That was where the problem lay. They weren’t changing the right things. They were increasing good behaviours (which was great) but they weren’t stopping the bad. It was an uphill battle and the opponent had been at the top for so much longer. She remembered the exact moment it clicked.
There she was, curled up on the floor by the shower, numb and despondent as her phone buzzed, alive and screaming with social media notifications. “Why did it have to be me?” She wondered, listening to the endless, pulsing hum. Presumably a President or climate denier had said something unpleasant about her again.
“Why did it have to be me?” she asked the bathroom tiles.
“Because no one else was doing anything about it.” replied the voice in her head. The voice wasn’t anything new, she wasn’t crazy or delusional; her inner monologue was just a bit more eloquent and vocal than other people’s.
“How long can I keep this up for?” she croaked.
“As long as it takes. You know there’s no alternative.”
“But haven’t I done enough already?”
“You have,” said the voice sympathetically. “More than most… and now you have to do some more.”
She closed her eyes, resting her head on the cool white floor. Could she do it?
“You don’t have it in you to stop.”
The voice in her head was right. She saw a problem, she had to fix it. It was that simple.
“If the current methods aren’t getting the results you want. What should you do?”
And there it was, plain as day. How had this not occurred to her sooner? She was almost embarrassed by how obvious it was.
“You change your method.” she said, sitting up.
“And what will you change it to?”
The answer was simple.
“Well… what’s worked for them?”
For the first time in two weeks she managed first pull herself from the floor, then into the shower, then onto her desk. She researched deforestation, corporate buy-outs, hostile take-overs. She read up on fracking and deep-sea drilling and food wastage and a whole litany of other problems. Alexander the Great once solved an unsolvable knot by using his sword. Why couldn’t she do the same? Following her logic, she began to write equations and formula, first on paper, then on the wall with every single sum pointing towards the same answer.
What’s the easiest way to stop a river?
You block it at the source.
IF {NO SOURCE} THEN {NO RIVER}.
IF {NO INDUSTRY} THEN {NO CATACLYSM}.
She’d need a case study though, a trial phase to iron out any kinks or snags, but what? Looking for inspiration, she turned to the internet and began reviewing the major ecological events of the last 6 years - both positive and negative. Mostly it was negative; huge oil spills, chemical leaks, plant explosions, the continual logging of the Amazon, illegal as it may be. She tried to look for inspiration here but there was nothing - these were born of ignorance or laziness, not calculated malice. Feeling down, she reviewed The Green New Deal - something she admired. The idea was strong, the ethics reasonable; set lofty goals so that even in failure, you’ll accomplish wonders.
“Aim for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll be among the stars.”
“Nice sentiment.” she thought, hunched over her desk. “So long as you don’t think about the radiation, lack of atmosphere, freezing cold or starvation issue… or the fact that the nearest star to the moon was the fucking sun.” She had become a cynic. Just another medal this war had put on her. As much as she admired The GND, there was one gaping issue - it assumed the general population would understand satire and irony and appreciate the methodology of the concept. Almost too predictably, the general population did not. But there was something about the scope of the idea that spoke to her.
The bag on her shoulder grew heavy and she set it down for a moment. She’d made peace with this new path the moment she’d started on it but there was always niggling idea in the back of her mind.
“What would 16 year old you say if she knew you were doing this?” It was a question she’d mull over, late at night when sleep just wouldn’t come. Some evenings it was a positive; her teenage self was supportive -
“
You found simple solution to a complicated problem. Tell that to the Russian president.” Others times she was less enthusiastic - “Is this what this war, this world does to you? We were so innocent! We were angry, furious, pissed off… but we were innocent all the same.”
Checking her watch she began to start down the mountain. The sun was up. It was time. The test phase had begun. If it worked, the cause would follow suit, aping her idea. Millions of people lashing out, taking drastic action in order to save their future.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It would be a shame for all your work to be undone by something so small.” crooned her mother’s voice.
A small twinge of doubt crept into her stomach. It wasn’t too late to turn back. She stopped, looking back at the lake and the surrounding forest and glistening early morning light. She tasted the air, sucking it in, breathing deep and marvelled and the silence of the natural world.
“You don’t have it in you to stop.” said the voice in her head.
The bag was heavy on her shoulder, its contents ready and primed.
“Can you be a martyr for science?” she thought, another cigarette already lodged between her lips. “It’s not a belief. It’s facts, provable science. It’s maths and matter, not belief.” The arc lighter crackled against another tip. “If this goes poorly, can you be a martyr for logic?”
The wind picked up, sending a pleasant chill down the back of her coat - the long path back down would be made easier once she’d placed the Semtex. She felt guilty, destroying part of nature to further her agenda but then, she wasn’t playing by her rules anymore.
She was playing by theirs. Necessary sacrifice. Acceptable losses. These were terms that they liked. A rockslide. A hundred thousand tonnes of igneous rock let loose, cascading down the valley wall, a literal force of nature that had just needed some encouragement.
The factory was a recent addition to the landscape, growing like a tumour over the last 18 months. It’s not like it was some kind of wheezing Victorian refinery either, pumping out black smog and foul run-off into the surrounding environment. It was state of the art, modern. Yet, you could still tell it was having an effect. The river had lost its lustre, the fish had dwindled. The trees and greenery receded and a sharp black line cut its way through the landscape, allowing for transport and and 24/7 shipping. Certainly it would be evacuated first, she’d see to that. She wasn’t a monster.
A small explosion would dislodge a modestly sized boulder, sending it careening down the mountain, narrowly missing the facility, ending up somewhere in the car park. That should be enough to stage an evacuation, clearing the place of any workers. Then give it half an hour and trigger the rest of the explosives.
IF {NO SOURCE} THEN {NO CATACLYSM}.
If it works here, then it can work elsewhere too. She tasted the nicotine again, thinking of a phrase the American CEO’s loved to use in their board meetings.
“Go big or go home.”
“This is my home.” she thought, placing the first charge.
