La Belle Epoque- Extract- Part 1- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014

La Belle Epoque-      Extract- Part 1-    Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014
An experiment in science-fiction


So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein — more, far
more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will
pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the
deepest mysteries of creation.
-Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein



1.


A colossal steel fortress, layered and constructed over a fifty-year
period, the Aerodome was built by the dynamism of a top team of 20,000
scientists, sound engineers, electricians, architects, carpenters,
plumbers, mechanics –for the maintenance of each of the 10,000 air
conditioning units and the entire vast ventilation system of this
construct in total. A further 30,000 foremen worked close by with a
further 40,000 labourers on the fifty year project. The steel
circumference had to be wielded and bound together with a steel girder
put in place to each foundation that reached up into a high expanse
above each floor and plateau. Each metre had to be insulated with
wooden panelling, coated and lined over the electrical lines and the
workmen had to labour continuously from a height of nearly 500 feet on
each towering wooden construct. The sound of hammering and banging,
the screeching roar of electric drills, the flying hail of sparks that
poured forth day after day as the project was incessantly attended,
inundated with new workmen, architectural plans, ideas were glossed
over, technical plans were discussed and any possible flaws were
examined in the heat of the work. The blue prints suggested that the
dome itself would peak like a diamond and be supported on each of its
ten levels from the ground, by supports that met and connected, steel
girders that reached up into the apex of the roof itself. No blue sky
could be seen, but the interior itself painted over, inch-by-inch with
a horrid pale magnolia, that looked reminiscent of an old hospital
ward and the sight of steel barriers that ran like the veins of the
“monster” itself, each barrier posed an ugly reminder of the
omnipotence and omniscience of this enclosed civilisation. One could
only gaze up and dream of what lay behind the closed metallic interior
itself, catalogued and coated with many layers, build like a bunker,
resilient to even the most ferocious hurricane or tidal wave ever
known in the history books,

Of course such groundbreaking, such magnified expertise and brilliance
in the face of natural adversity, could only have been planned and
supervised by the Japanese themselves-the great builders of the
earthquake resistant skyscraper- this is what the common assertion
might have been in a time gone by, but this was not the case, this was
a joint project of international planning and co-operation, after too
many disasters, after too many had died- for man had acted too late-
the co-operation of an elite scientific corporation and the invested
funds, the resources of the last remaining multi-billionaire gave the
plan the go-ahead for its basis to be created, with great speed, great
tactical assertion without hiatus for a “new wonder” of  the “man made
world”.

The power source came from the antagonised enemy herself, the forces
of nature in raw power, current and ferocity. Great wind turbines had
been tested and planted on the outermost layer of the Aerodrome –wind
resistant ones turbines- to convert the energy at a greater capacity,
with a greater effort on a greater scale. Such a project had been
built by the Japanese Robotics society; to manufacture the CPU of the
computerised system that was eventually fuelled and yet served the
needs of the entire advanced operation. Makeshift designs and old
techniques simply failed one after the other and the Aerodome itself
could not be managed, sustained nor given the kiss of life by its
creators. Solar panels had been placed on the steel circumference of
the dome, to trap light, heat and energy, the large dome in its scale
and size acted as a giant harness or metallic conductor of energy for
the scientists on board. These outer wind farms which touched the very
naked bosom of nature itself, the candid supply of oxygen and rain
were mostly found on the northern sector, in a more sparsely populated
region of the Aerodome, where officials, scientists, policemen,
government workers and authorities were housed or stationed. This area
was partially cordoned off to the southern sector and the “Cradle”
which was the central, administrative, financial and commercial
sector, where people bartered and traded what produce they had. The
southern sector was filled with ward after ward of houses- wards were
the names given to the Aerodome’s communal housing scheme, which
looked like large hospital wards filled with beds, washing rooms,
facilities for drying clothes and even a cultivation room had been
built to the adjoining ward –approximately 50 cubit metres in size and
length- to tend vegetables, privately grown crops and organic compost
mixtures, each container was hooked up to a socket that was powered by
the nearest electrical generator, which was in turn connected all the
way to the wind turbines and solar panels of the North Sector. The
whole arrangement itself in all its grandiose magnanimity almost
resembles the functional systems of the human body, that sustained the
body in its collective form. The pulse was bionic, it was artificial
and it was groundbreaking, but yet it was alienated nonetheless from
the heart and source of its old life-giving source.

Every inch of this project had been powered; it was like a lethal mega
tonne bomb that was not impervious to human sabotage and terror, if
ever the will had been bent on such a design. Of course no such threat
existed, no dissenting will conceived even the notion of rebellion,
reactionary opposition, anarchy or criminality. All collective will
had been absorbed into a union of consenting appeal and design because
the scale and level of destruction had been so great, that man had
been greatly weakened as a species, his cities had been turned into
African villages and for a period man wandered the Earth and bartered
when he could, like a Bronze age primitive, again living day by day
amid great geographical and demographical catastrophe and change. The
great instinctual response from each quarter of the Earth had been to
travel wide and far to find the “golden land” that had been unchanged
and unaffected, that was ripe for giving life again, for offering
mankind the old industrial and progressive view that had been
transformed and altered amid the ruined wastelands of the Earth.
Eventually the wandering survivors themselves found a haven that was
in the middle of its own conception, birth and creation, in its steel
embryonic form, reaching up in tiers and levels like a neo-modern
tower of Babel. The creators were in luck the people they needed to
fill the numbers of this ambitious enterprise literally had travelled
far and wide to find a temperate hideout from the ferocity and
intensity of the climatic changes that had ravaged the planet for the
worst. What ever could be donated and whatever work could be given by
the immigrants themselves went to the overall construction itself of
the Aerodome, while this was taking place, many people dwelt in the
old villages and ruins of the surrounding land, many perished in time
due to starvation, lack of medical supplies or even through conflict,
but a mighty resolution came eventually through the work of the elite
creators themselves. It took several generations of manpower,
ingenuity and elevated scientific reasoning and planning to build the
base, the root, the capstone and the structural “bones” of the
Aerodome into a weightier and more fully crafted creation. It was made
bit by bit with a meticulous effort on each segment and operation. As
well as the electrical maintenance that was regularly demanded, the
free air supply of pure oxygen to each quarter of the Aerodome-
through its brilliantly constructed ventilation system- the waste
disposal units had to be constructed so that all waste had to be
either recycled or incinerated by the waste disposal team that came
round at least once a week. Such waste was disposed of in the furnaces
of the outer wall, that lay at the extreme north, where only such
elite scientists and government ministers could be allowed to operate
undetected in an atmosphere of utmost secrecy, such a place, was a
rumour and such a rumour was classified, for the exact whereabouts
were only wildly guessed by the common citizens in the South Sector
and the Cradle itself.

The beams of each artificial light, powered by the nearest supply box
filled the heights and depths of each square metre with light and gave
sight to the regularity of each citizen that moved freely about below
on each floor and level, during the weekly workers “grind”. Much of
the Marxism of the old order had been banished in the catastrophic
changes that had come and mankind’s old philanthropically geared
minority acted for no man or woman, each person was grateful to be
alive and to be in such a “safe haven”, the Aerodome was the only man
made wonder of the earth and the solar system. The fears of
destruction, the figures of decay had been fed to each citizen by the
education system to scare the masses into obedience and to regimented
order.

There were no natural seasons in the Aerodome, man had become
accustomed and acclimatised to the “business seasons” as they were
called, because the Aerodome
was not only one big experiment, it had become a colossal market for
new products, for consumerism, for buying and for selling, advertising
and for profiteering. Citizens of the Aerodome were literally
bombarded with visually resplendent signs and advertisements, offers
and products for sale that had been manufactured in both the North and
South sectors of the Aerodome. All means of harnessing plant
cultivation and growth were artificially produced, the precise
temperature of the Aerodome were monitored through a vast system of
dials that were hooked up to a network of computers, that set the
temperature to a constant setting of 22 degrees Fahrenheit.
No cruel winters, no baking heat, nothing of the seasons remained
within the internal fortress itself, a mechanised heart that was kept
alive, the pulmonary functions monitored and improved on a regular
basis by its creators and their children. In neo-modern or post-modern
terms the ruling class were the scientific elite or technocrats that
accounted for 10 percent, the subsequent classes that followed were
the plutocrats, that owned every industry and inch of the of the
aerodrome, financed each expanding operation in the Aerodome, the very
materials, the textiles, steel, the products and the market were
within the arbitrary whims and desires of the Plutocrats.
After the plutocrats came the laymen or “proletariat” as they were
once termed long ago. The majority had been assigned the work and it
was their job to carry out the manual labour that had been devised by
the technical plans of the ruling class.



The Cradle itself almost seemed to bare a strange resemblance to what
the old order had once called a “shopping centre” perhaps the whole
Aerodome itself could resemble a large container that kept “the fishes
in their bowl” and kept the ideas of the masses in their neo-modern
form. The neo-modern form itself was made of steel, it bore little
colour and had no aesthetic, individual or artistic need or intention
in mind when it was conceived. Men and women moved in regimented form,
their faces were expressionless, a sort of rhapsody of the old natural
order had died and a mere hum, a dimness filled the spirits of each
man and woman as they moved on different conveyor belts throughout the
expanse of the cradle, with a glare in the eyes of each citizen that
stood and stared into oblivion. Right then and there when you catch a
glimpse of the rushing movements of human organisms in the Cradle you
will see the sights of these expressionless, passionless citizens and
hear the clinking sounds of feet passing over the steel grating of the
floors and the escalators that lead upwards and downwards like moving
ladders that carry each citizen to their destination.



The denizens of the Aerodome were the greatest experiment of man on
man, the greatest experiment of the establishment over the common man.
Once upon a time a wise man once said “history is the ordering and
process of control by the establishment on the governed. Every
principle changes in its fickle necessity and that each sensation,
everything that is in vogue and in the general mainstream is a
necessity to be controlled.” To be honest even when the old order had
kicked the bucket under the weight of climatic changes, something of
its old elite emerged, the magic to place spells of necessity over the
general population came with the earliest beginnings of the Aerodome,
to spread endemic fear, the fear that the Aerodome would collapse in
the foreseeable future was rampant throughout the colony in every tier
and substratum.

Flax, wheat, maize, hemp, vanilla pods, coca beans, bananas, tea
leaves, sugarcane, tomatoes, mandarins, lemons, grapefruit,
pasteurised and homogenised milk, (yes even cows and sheep in small
numbers had been bred and introduced into the new found method of the
Aerodome) blackberries, potatoes, carrots and even sweet scenting
flowers had been rescued and retrieved from “the outside”, maintained
under the right temperature to sprout and germinate by artificial
means. Of course in these restrictive measures, food was often scarce
for it had to all be grown, supervised and encoured on a daily basis
and these “organic” farms had been continually prepared and maintained
over the past 75 years, to renew the effort for the new mankind (even
during years of its embryonic construction). A team of Italian
geologists and German mineralogists had quite miraculously noted the
purity of the underground spa’s and streams that ran and divulged to
feed several rivers in the region. The water was kept pure by the
miner disposition and the course of its rocky filtering process. The
Aerodome was built on this particular site, named “Eden” because it
was the land of many waters and as we all know water is one of the
critical sources of civilisation, once cannot build a city or a world
on a site that contains either salt water or impure drinking water,
that is why a geographer will point you out to each major city and its
appropriate and approximate location to a major river, the whole
population needs to drink and dump its fouled water in whatever means
and manual apparatus available. The farms themselves were grown,
picked, sold and transported all on their gradient quota, their worth
and permitted amount. Everything had to be rationed for distribution,
the populace needed both a balanced diet (unlike the old civilisation-
who rummaged on garbage and who contracted every known cancer and all
sorts of painfully terminal diseases, they apparently perished under
the follies of gluttony) and they had to be cautioned under the
mandatory basis that food was scare, was all artificially grown and
there was a limited supply of it, the very danger of a Malthusian
population crisis had to be averted and avoided at all costs, because
it had been one of the main reasons why the last civilisation had died
out. Ration cards therefore were delivered door to door by each
district’s community worker –including the community foreman, who took
person supervision over the electrical, material and agricultural
measures, to make sure everything was in its place, as it should be.
The flora and fauna in the Aerodome was minute with that of what once
dwelled “on the outside”. Of course the older generations –few in
number- could remember the catastrophes, one after another and the
horrors of what had happened consequentially from rather dark
disturbing events. The memories lingered for a few, but for the vast
majority the legends were all that remained to frighten off and
reprimand those who were tempted to criminality and to social
depredation, the status of equality was promoted and prevalent within
the walls and limits of the Aerodome, its philosophical ethos was a
breath of fresh air to those old few who could remember the truly dark
days and who had survived them. But the climatic devastation still
ravaged continually the open world, it was untamed it was rebellious
and it was wild, the levels of oxygen had been reduced, the earth was
pillaged by storms in their extremities and the soil had become
lifeless, arid and infertile. The luxuries of the receptacle in its
very longitude and latitude were to be greatly appreciated in contrast
with the “open death” of the outside world. How long could a man truly
scavenge survive in such inhospitable conditions?

The Cradle itself was designated for the recreation of the citizens.
Every inch was tiled; it looked very like an old shopping centre
–these horrible over heated temples of consumerism that existed in the
old world- that was layered on several floors, filled with shops and
businesses –in their often meagre and primitive forms- and huddled
with buyers and every kind of enthusiast that had mere “time to kill.”
In some respects it was a sort of Bronze age exchange or market place
of what man would trade, for textiles, fabric, vegetables, seeds and
even the odd rare specimen of precious stone and gold that had been
found within the confines of the Northern Sector by the ruling class.
Such exploits and endeavours were secretly generated for the
glorification of the elite and the administration. Recreational bliss
was the means by which the masses could be kept in touch and place –as
it was in the old world- with what was demanded and wanted of them.

Initially, these sterile, exploitive “creators” in their puritanical
A-Z step plan for the citizenry, had actually generated a sort of
mutual co-operation, a sense of universal achievement lingered along
with the atmosphere of brotherhood and sisterhood that was universal.
The mundane life that existed lived alongside the novelty of Aerodome
itself that matched the dark memories of the past and the fearsome
cautions that were promulgated and circulated by the ruling class.
Crime was extinct, drugs had been abandoned – not to mention their
abortion by the drug users themselves- alcohol was vilified and now
non-existent. But the mortality rate was high, due to a lack of proper
medicine –with the basics of pharmaceutical endeavours being primitive
and the roots of chemistry being limited to the tests and demands of
the elite in the Northern Sector.
The general population were advised on the benefits of homeopathy and
the herbal and medicinal qualities of growing one’s own private crop
for personal or familial treatment.
 But matters were being sustained, life endured, problems were seen as
tests and riddles to be solved, men and women worked by the sweat of
their brow and with what little time they had left, they thought about
what lay outside their world.

However overtime the systematic cohesive itself, the solid core, the
“mind of the state” was being “infected” by new discrepancies and the
questioning motives of a dangerous minority that would soon endanger
the entire “project” with their ultimatums and their confronting
dilemmas. Who and what are we? And why?
They asked, perhaps the most dangerous of questions for the Citizenry to face.