A second earthquake hits a remote area of central Italy. And she’s right there, right in the middle of it. The first quake killed three-hundred plus people, measured six point one, the biggest tremor to strike Italy for seventy years. There’s extensive deep fracture shale oil drilling in the region. The fracking company and its cronies at all levels of government are denying any connection. Same old, same old. Monitoring newsfeed:
‘Nearly two hours after the latest quake, there are no reports of casualties, injuries or serious damage to buildings already weakened by previous tremors.’
Nothing to go on. Zilch. Social media attention turning away: Another flood in England, a meme war between two new nuclear powers, footballer tweets that rape story is false news, pictures of record-breaking heaviest ever cat, twenty-nine point one kilograms, over sixty-four pounds… No story here in Italy, though. She should move on, follow the flow. The flood maybe? But should she move on? No. Surely not. There are no other hacks here, it’s an exclusive. Nothing doing, but an exclusive nothing! She has to get this story trending. People are unfollowing her at an exponential rate. In a few minutes she’ll be forgotten. Tempus fugit. She looks up the meaning, checks herself. She shares a found photo of a damaged barn. One wall has crumbled and the roof is sagging. Caused by the quake? Doesn’t matter, the image slows the bleed. Move on. Her hired drone feeds footage from a village up ahead. Satellite map says it’s called Retrosi. An ambulance on the street. Zoom in; share picture; speculate.
‘A victim of this second earthquake in just one week? The first of many?’
Hoping against hope, was that the expression?
Stream footage of victims of first quake. The clean-up…
This second quake was deemed ‘strong’, measured at first as a five point two. Revised down to four point eight now, live online. Damn! She’s losing them. Epicentre of the quake is close. Quickly speed read and comment on the press release she’d asked for:
‘According to data released by Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, INGV, the original quake reshaped more than five hundred square miles of land, lowering areas around the epicentre by up to ninety centimetres. Since that quake more than twenty–six thousand aftershocks have battered the region, driving many residents from their homes, those who could afford to leave.’
Copy/paste aerial images from web. Fracking rigs peppering the rural Italian landscape. Pay copyright on images? Hit ‘Decline’.
‘Satellite photo-journalism is complex and expensive work. While more people are using our images than ever before, far fewer are paying for them...’
Live with the message that repeats, repeats. Moral blackmail. But it costs nothing to just live with the irritation of the message flashing in the corner of her VR visor screen.
Medics going into a scabby old residential block in Retrosi, ancient sandstone. Snatch a local news clip with sub-titles:
‘Residents fear the historic town will never look the same…’
The statue in the main square has keeled over. She can’t make out who it’s supposed to be. Mussolini? Surely not! Garibaldi maybe. The Italian Prime Minister makes a plea for calm, warns anti fracking protesters off staging a demo at the main shale oil site. Please, please, go for it eco-freaks! She pay-pals and patches into images from a second drone. This area has been repeatedly hit by earth tremors over the last three years. Since the frackers came. Methane in the water, crops poisoned, reports of increased incidence of cancers. Stream studies, facts, claims, denials. Drone feeds peaceful demo at shale oil site, only around fifty people turned out, including a fucking choir - a dozen hippy crones singing to save the planet! Armed guards behind the razor wire, smiling to each other, smoking. No news:
‘Not bloody news, old women!’
Medics in Retrosi have emerged with someone on a stretcher. Zoom in. Old woman? Again! No… closer, closer: young girl!
Wasted.
Bloodied.
Image. Text. Meme: ‘The first of many?’
Now we’re cooking with gas! Tap into medic’s phone, presses ‘voice call’. The bigger one on screen answers - moustachioed, stubbly, swarthy stereotype: excellent! Looks great on screen. Ask the question. And the snarling response is live-streamed:
‘Fell over. Hit Top.’ Translation via free app. Rubbish. Top means head.
‘Fell because of the earthquake?’
‘Si.’ See!
‘Is she going to be okay?’
‘Needing blood. Transcendence.’ Transfusion.
‘Bleeding?’
‘Head wound. Small. But ill. Already. Her. She. We going…’
‘Wait! Please. Parents?’
‘Si.’
Track right. Find. Middle-aged couple. Peasants. Sun-dried. Poor. Man with arm around sagging woman. Sagging like the barn roof. Zoom in on her face. Track a tear’s course down her wrinkled cheek. Zoom right in. Slow it right down. The tear drops, explodes in the dust of the unmetalled road. Pure gold!
Numbers up.
Way up.
Ask the medic the couple’s names, what they do… Garbled exchange, then live: the man works for the fracking company, a gardener. Zero hours contract. Perfect. The family rent a tiny farm plot, not even subsistence. Dust and rocks. Search videos of parched fields, find and stream it. Medic is impatient, wants to get the girl to hospital. An only child. Correction: only surviving child. The couple have lost two sons, one to an accident in an olive packing plant, one killed in the army, serving in the Middle East in an oil war. Go in close with the drone, show the stricken couple their own striking image on the net, highlight the number of views, the likes, the weeping emojis.
‘Famous. Global. Give me a few minutes?’
Soldi? Money.
Stricken but not dumbstruck.
Shot of girl on stretcher.
Start a crowd-funder for her treatment. Show site to her parents.
‘Okay?’
‘Si. Si.’
The lead medic shrugs. His colleague, an almost carbon-copy but a bit younger, slimmer just for the moment, sits down in the shade of the building to smoke a cigarette. Zoom in on the girl’s pale face: Sunken cheeks; dark-ringed eyes; head wound; blood. Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
<GIF>
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly…
Good girl! More followers, likes rising fast, tears welling. Crowdfunder amount mounting. Run text linking earth tremors to fracking over GIF.
‘Deep shale fracking works by injecting huge volumes of water into the rocks surrounding a natural oil or gas deposit. The water fractures the rocks, creating dozens of cracks through which the gas can escape to the surface. Earthquakes are not caused by the violent rupturing of the rocks, but by the presence of water. It lubricates the rocks and pushes them apart, allowing them to slip past each other. The water contains sand and cocktails of chemicals. Commercial law forbids revealing the chemical recipes used by competing firms. Chemicals perform many functions in a hydraulic fracturing, including as biocides, stabilisers, corrosion and scale inhibitors, slicking the water to minimize friction, winterizing…’
Enough already. Boring. Slight dip in the numbers. Analysis: women, young women demographic particularly, is unfollowing.
Define biocide: a poison, deadly, including to humans. Shock and awe holding op.
Incoming: from London, fracking company’s Communications and Public Affairs consultants, requesting a holo-call.
Run an interactive info-graphic, archive footage of mile after mile of fracking rigs taken from a plane, tap water catching fire…
Call waiting.
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Over the flaming water.
‘The first of many?’
Women returning, new viewers: thirty and forty something mums.
Take the call. Face to face with a man about her own age in his plush office. He wears what she would have to describe as Saville Row suit, though she has never been anywhere near Saville Row.
‘We accept no responsibility…’
‘No, but…’
‘Hydraulic fracturing may cause slight earth tremors – the seismological equivalent of a needle in a haystack – but not quakes of the magnitude of this one, and certainly not the one last week.’
His suit suits him, it too is shiny, squeaky clean, slippery.
Show him the numbers, her story trending on several platforms.
‘The girl has a face made for media.’
‘We are currently taking legal advice…’
‘Of course…’
‘What do you want?’
Oh? Bonus!
Ramp it up.
Run selectively edited clips of the company’s current press statement over the collapsed barn wall, sagging roof, the operation to dig out last week’s victims, tracking the tear…’
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Voice over: ‘This young woman is the first victim of the second major earthquake in this region in a week. She fell when the quake hit, seriously injuring her head. More than three-hundred people died as a result of last’s week’s earthquake. This region is a major centre of shale oil production. It is indisputable that the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract shale oil causes earthquakes. The company operating in this area…’
‘We’d like you to run a story for us.’
Switch to dramatic film-score music over pirated images of fleets of shale oil tankers coming and going down narrow rural roads in the Italian highlands. Sneer at the new flashing caution. Pirates are cool, arrr! Pull up and scroll statistics on fossil fuel use, carbon footprints and climate change. Environmental NGO asks for a donation. Decline. Lose a few followers, ethical types. Add footage of a medieval church collapsing, crumbling. From years ago, but it fits a treat. And free. No warnings. No beggars. Pick up a hundred, two hundred, women followers. Add Jesus. Dust.
‘Continue?’’
‘Our clients sponsor a hospital in the regional capital. They’ve just signed a top oncologist. He’s treating skin cancers for free. New techniques. Part of their public programme of mitigating climate change effects. It’s a good story. Name your rate.’
Think of a number.
‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘Tempus fugit.’
A call from the medic.
‘How is she?’
‘Fuck you, sister!’ ‘She needs a bleed transmission!’ Translation. Transfusion.
‘One minute.’ This to the parents.
‘It is chancer.’ Cancer.
‘Child. Blood. Hood. Missing word.’
‘Leukaemia?’ Question to medic.
‘Si.’
Medic number-two lights another cigarette.
‘Hold on, please. Please!?’ This to the parents.
Superimpose Christ crucified over landscape of fracking rigs. You win some. Lose some. Close up of girl’s face. She’s wearing an oxygen mask now.
‘The first of many!’’
Find and stream footage of medics rescuing folk after last week’s quake. Play Bowie’s Heroes. Keep them sweet. Dolce.
‘Thirty seconds, okay.’ To the medics.
The story is now headlining above the floods and the meme war, challenging even the fat cat.
Show drone footage of the girl’s shallow breathing. The slight rise and fall of her chest. White nightgown. Bloodstained. The shadow of a nipple. There is a God! Hold that. Gain a thousand followers. Demographic: young men. With dark fantasies.
Prod the Communications and Public Affairs guy.
‘Well?’
‘A moment…’ Sweat stains in the armpits of his bespoke suit.
Superimpose Christ crucified over the slight rise and fall of the girl’s chest this time.
Vets have had to kill the heaviest ever cat to preserve it…
Followers deserting the earthquake girl in their droves.
Just hope Saville Row doesn’t notice.
Name! She should have got the girl’s name!
Worth a thousand tears.
Fuck!
‘It’s a deal. Now end your story. Nicely.’
‘Fuck yeah!’
‘This time Italy has been lucky, with only this one young woman slightly hurt. The Italian Prime Minister has commissioned an inquiry into the earthquakes. Geologists at Milan University say that fracking is certainly not to blame.’
Log out.
Let the story go. It topped the charts for almost a full minute. And she got a job out of it.
‘Nice doing business with you.’
‘I’ve sent you contact details for the oncologist.’
‘Catch you later.’
‘By the way, if you’d gone for the childhood leukaemia angle, we’d have paid way more.’
Happy shining shithead!
‘I’m not greedy.’
How does killing the cat preserve it? Define preserve?
Call the medic to say thanks and let them get on their way. The parents will have loved the shots of Christ crucified superimposed over their daughter, she reckons. Bound to be Catholic. Did the crowdfunder make its total, though? She’ll check. No reply from the medic’s phone. No coverage. Go to footage from the hired drone.
A pile of sandstone rubble. Dust still settling. The house has collapsed, buried them all alive, the ambulance too. No sign of life.
‘…buildings already weakened by previous tremors.’
Childhood leukaemia.
The first of many.
‘Nearly two hours after the latest quake, there are no reports of casualties, injuries or serious damage to buildings already weakened by previous tremors.’
Nothing to go on. Zilch. Social media attention turning away: Another flood in England, a meme war between two new nuclear powers, footballer tweets that rape story is false news, pictures of record-breaking heaviest ever cat, twenty-nine point one kilograms, over sixty-four pounds… No story here in Italy, though. She should move on, follow the flow. The flood maybe? But should she move on? No. Surely not. There are no other hacks here, it’s an exclusive. Nothing doing, but an exclusive nothing! She has to get this story trending. People are unfollowing her at an exponential rate. In a few minutes she’ll be forgotten. Tempus fugit. She looks up the meaning, checks herself. She shares a found photo of a damaged barn. One wall has crumbled and the roof is sagging. Caused by the quake? Doesn’t matter, the image slows the bleed. Move on. Her hired drone feeds footage from a village up ahead. Satellite map says it’s called Retrosi. An ambulance on the street. Zoom in; share picture; speculate.
‘A victim of this second earthquake in just one week? The first of many?’
Hoping against hope, was that the expression?
Stream footage of victims of first quake. The clean-up…
This second quake was deemed ‘strong’, measured at first as a five point two. Revised down to four point eight now, live online. Damn! She’s losing them. Epicentre of the quake is close. Quickly speed read and comment on the press release she’d asked for:
‘According to data released by Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, INGV, the original quake reshaped more than five hundred square miles of land, lowering areas around the epicentre by up to ninety centimetres. Since that quake more than twenty–six thousand aftershocks have battered the region, driving many residents from their homes, those who could afford to leave.’
Copy/paste aerial images from web. Fracking rigs peppering the rural Italian landscape. Pay copyright on images? Hit ‘Decline’.
‘Satellite photo-journalism is complex and expensive work. While more people are using our images than ever before, far fewer are paying for them...’
Live with the message that repeats, repeats. Moral blackmail. But it costs nothing to just live with the irritation of the message flashing in the corner of her VR visor screen.
Medics going into a scabby old residential block in Retrosi, ancient sandstone. Snatch a local news clip with sub-titles:
‘Residents fear the historic town will never look the same…’
The statue in the main square has keeled over. She can’t make out who it’s supposed to be. Mussolini? Surely not! Garibaldi maybe. The Italian Prime Minister makes a plea for calm, warns anti fracking protesters off staging a demo at the main shale oil site. Please, please, go for it eco-freaks! She pay-pals and patches into images from a second drone. This area has been repeatedly hit by earth tremors over the last three years. Since the frackers came. Methane in the water, crops poisoned, reports of increased incidence of cancers. Stream studies, facts, claims, denials. Drone feeds peaceful demo at shale oil site, only around fifty people turned out, including a fucking choir - a dozen hippy crones singing to save the planet! Armed guards behind the razor wire, smiling to each other, smoking. No news:
‘Not bloody news, old women!’
Medics in Retrosi have emerged with someone on a stretcher. Zoom in. Old woman? Again! No… closer, closer: young girl!
Wasted.
Bloodied.
Image. Text. Meme: ‘The first of many?’
Now we’re cooking with gas! Tap into medic’s phone, presses ‘voice call’. The bigger one on screen answers - moustachioed, stubbly, swarthy stereotype: excellent! Looks great on screen. Ask the question. And the snarling response is live-streamed:
‘Fell over. Hit Top.’ Translation via free app. Rubbish. Top means head.
‘Fell because of the earthquake?’
‘Si.’ See!
‘Is she going to be okay?’
‘Needing blood. Transcendence.’ Transfusion.
‘Bleeding?’
‘Head wound. Small. But ill. Already. Her. She. We going…’
‘Wait! Please. Parents?’
‘Si.’
Track right. Find. Middle-aged couple. Peasants. Sun-dried. Poor. Man with arm around sagging woman. Sagging like the barn roof. Zoom in on her face. Track a tear’s course down her wrinkled cheek. Zoom right in. Slow it right down. The tear drops, explodes in the dust of the unmetalled road. Pure gold!
Numbers up.
Way up.
Ask the medic the couple’s names, what they do… Garbled exchange, then live: the man works for the fracking company, a gardener. Zero hours contract. Perfect. The family rent a tiny farm plot, not even subsistence. Dust and rocks. Search videos of parched fields, find and stream it. Medic is impatient, wants to get the girl to hospital. An only child. Correction: only surviving child. The couple have lost two sons, one to an accident in an olive packing plant, one killed in the army, serving in the Middle East in an oil war. Go in close with the drone, show the stricken couple their own striking image on the net, highlight the number of views, the likes, the weeping emojis.
‘Famous. Global. Give me a few minutes?’
Soldi? Money.
Stricken but not dumbstruck.
Shot of girl on stretcher.
Start a crowd-funder for her treatment. Show site to her parents.
‘Okay?’
‘Si. Si.’
The lead medic shrugs. His colleague, an almost carbon-copy but a bit younger, slimmer just for the moment, sits down in the shade of the building to smoke a cigarette. Zoom in on the girl’s pale face: Sunken cheeks; dark-ringed eyes; head wound; blood. Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
<GIF>
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly…
Good girl! More followers, likes rising fast, tears welling. Crowdfunder amount mounting. Run text linking earth tremors to fracking over GIF.
‘Deep shale fracking works by injecting huge volumes of water into the rocks surrounding a natural oil or gas deposit. The water fractures the rocks, creating dozens of cracks through which the gas can escape to the surface. Earthquakes are not caused by the violent rupturing of the rocks, but by the presence of water. It lubricates the rocks and pushes them apart, allowing them to slip past each other. The water contains sand and cocktails of chemicals. Commercial law forbids revealing the chemical recipes used by competing firms. Chemicals perform many functions in a hydraulic fracturing, including as biocides, stabilisers, corrosion and scale inhibitors, slicking the water to minimize friction, winterizing…’
Enough already. Boring. Slight dip in the numbers. Analysis: women, young women demographic particularly, is unfollowing.
Define biocide: a poison, deadly, including to humans. Shock and awe holding op.
Incoming: from London, fracking company’s Communications and Public Affairs consultants, requesting a holo-call.
Run an interactive info-graphic, archive footage of mile after mile of fracking rigs taken from a plane, tap water catching fire…
Call waiting.
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Over the flaming water.
‘The first of many?’
Women returning, new viewers: thirty and forty something mums.
Take the call. Face to face with a man about her own age in his plush office. He wears what she would have to describe as Saville Row suit, though she has never been anywhere near Saville Row.
‘We accept no responsibility…’
‘No, but…’
‘Hydraulic fracturing may cause slight earth tremors – the seismological equivalent of a needle in a haystack – but not quakes of the magnitude of this one, and certainly not the one last week.’
His suit suits him, it too is shiny, squeaky clean, slippery.
Show him the numbers, her story trending on several platforms.
‘The girl has a face made for media.’
‘We are currently taking legal advice…’
‘Of course…’
‘What do you want?’
Oh? Bonus!
Ramp it up.
Run selectively edited clips of the company’s current press statement over the collapsed barn wall, sagging roof, the operation to dig out last week’s victims, tracking the tear…’
Turns her face away, moans heartbreakingly.
Voice over: ‘This young woman is the first victim of the second major earthquake in this region in a week. She fell when the quake hit, seriously injuring her head. More than three-hundred people died as a result of last’s week’s earthquake. This region is a major centre of shale oil production. It is indisputable that the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract shale oil causes earthquakes. The company operating in this area…’
‘We’d like you to run a story for us.’
Switch to dramatic film-score music over pirated images of fleets of shale oil tankers coming and going down narrow rural roads in the Italian highlands. Sneer at the new flashing caution. Pirates are cool, arrr! Pull up and scroll statistics on fossil fuel use, carbon footprints and climate change. Environmental NGO asks for a donation. Decline. Lose a few followers, ethical types. Add footage of a medieval church collapsing, crumbling. From years ago, but it fits a treat. And free. No warnings. No beggars. Pick up a hundred, two hundred, women followers. Add Jesus. Dust.
‘Continue?’’
‘Our clients sponsor a hospital in the regional capital. They’ve just signed a top oncologist. He’s treating skin cancers for free. New techniques. Part of their public programme of mitigating climate change effects. It’s a good story. Name your rate.’
Think of a number.
‘I’ll get back to you.’
‘Tempus fugit.’
A call from the medic.
‘How is she?’
‘Fuck you, sister!’ ‘She needs a bleed transmission!’ Translation. Transfusion.
‘One minute.’ This to the parents.
‘It is chancer.’ Cancer.
‘Child. Blood. Hood. Missing word.’
‘Leukaemia?’ Question to medic.
‘Si.’
Medic number-two lights another cigarette.
‘Hold on, please. Please!?’ This to the parents.
Superimpose Christ crucified over landscape of fracking rigs. You win some. Lose some. Close up of girl’s face. She’s wearing an oxygen mask now.
‘The first of many!’’
Find and stream footage of medics rescuing folk after last week’s quake. Play Bowie’s Heroes. Keep them sweet. Dolce.
‘Thirty seconds, okay.’ To the medics.
The story is now headlining above the floods and the meme war, challenging even the fat cat.
Show drone footage of the girl’s shallow breathing. The slight rise and fall of her chest. White nightgown. Bloodstained. The shadow of a nipple. There is a God! Hold that. Gain a thousand followers. Demographic: young men. With dark fantasies.
Prod the Communications and Public Affairs guy.
‘Well?’
‘A moment…’ Sweat stains in the armpits of his bespoke suit.
Superimpose Christ crucified over the slight rise and fall of the girl’s chest this time.
Vets have had to kill the heaviest ever cat to preserve it…
Followers deserting the earthquake girl in their droves.
Just hope Saville Row doesn’t notice.
Name! She should have got the girl’s name!
Worth a thousand tears.
Fuck!
‘It’s a deal. Now end your story. Nicely.’
‘Fuck yeah!’
‘This time Italy has been lucky, with only this one young woman slightly hurt. The Italian Prime Minister has commissioned an inquiry into the earthquakes. Geologists at Milan University say that fracking is certainly not to blame.’
Log out.
Let the story go. It topped the charts for almost a full minute. And she got a job out of it.
‘Nice doing business with you.’
‘I’ve sent you contact details for the oncologist.’
‘Catch you later.’
‘By the way, if you’d gone for the childhood leukaemia angle, we’d have paid way more.’
Happy shining shithead!
‘I’m not greedy.’
How does killing the cat preserve it? Define preserve?
Call the medic to say thanks and let them get on their way. The parents will have loved the shots of Christ crucified superimposed over their daughter, she reckons. Bound to be Catholic. Did the crowdfunder make its total, though? She’ll check. No reply from the medic’s phone. No coverage. Go to footage from the hired drone.
A pile of sandstone rubble. Dust still settling. The house has collapsed, buried them all alive, the ambulance too. No sign of life.
‘…buildings already weakened by previous tremors.’
Childhood leukaemia.
The first of many.