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Twin Towers Two

Ross Brodie

TWIN TOWERS

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Ross Brodie

The son of Arkansas landowners, Philip Cabal had a steeped religious upbringing, but the

Christian message was distorted by an oppressive presbertarian education—coupled with his

unusual and powerful cognition, it produced a fanciful and disturbing fantasy—Philip’s father

wondered if his son was inhabited by the ghosts of William Blake, John Milton and Dante; at ten

the boy was obsessed with the Divine Comedy, repeatedly sketching levels of purgatory in his

text books.

Despite his heavily stilted faith Philip never preached to school friends; he hid his beliefs

and waged a secret Christian war with the forces of ‘evil’—always in abundance wherever he

went. The idea of fighting the Devil captured his imagination; each theological discussion

accompanied by an ‘action’ sequence, enriching the otherwise boorish gospels and ‘morals’.

On seeing demons trespass the terrestrial he formulated phalanxes of resistance, sought

springs of power, arcing spumes and spurts of righteousness disposing enemies, but the

imaginary beasts became predictable, the transcendental battles spilled into the real world. He

sought real enemies, found none; maintained the simulation by creating foes—manipulating

friends, transposing their personalities into liturgical dramas. Making friends was too easy, more

adversaries were required; enemies needed cultivating—the perversion of friendships. Betrayal

motivated spitefulness against him in exciting ways. School ideal; reformation of gangs

ostracized, creating opponents. He splintered, affirmed independence, rejected hierarchy,

strategically stalked scullions, selected cohorts to compliment resistance; new game, playground

war perpetuated. Monitoring rhizome of allegiances his charm soothed scolded pride, kept pupils

transfixed with imaginary enemies, he was a source of entertainment. In the class room his talent

precocious, on the field admired for his passion and sympathy towards chided rivals.

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The interpretation of Christ dying for our sins was perverted the day his older brother was

killed in a car accident. Philip brooded over Christ's ‘sacrifice’—a death disingenuous to his

predicament. Bitterly he renounced God. Sins, he reasoned, were paid for by the sinners of

terrestrial existence. A childhood looking for enemies sensitized his perception of danger, which

he found in innocuous places, everywhere.

He had been taught that heaven was on earth; hell there too—he was not discouraged.

Disinterested with fictions and playground allegiances he turned to study, his talent accelerated.

He no longer corresponded with god, or his proxy human form; the will to power drove him

onwards. If he did not fulfill his potential he would be exposed to a malign and omnipresent

corruption. This necessitated a policy of social isolation.

Solitude; studiously applying himself at university, completing a construction

engineering degree whilst accruing fortunes from gambling stocks and shares gifted by his

father; profit injected into fledgling construction businesses, soon to become conglomerates;

Cabal’s violent modernity assuaged his compelling appetite for the military-industrial complex.

He brought shares in weapons companies, his portfolio a spicy mix creating infrastructure,

destroying it.

He accumulated wealth with an overheated, over suspicious, overaggressive, grandiose

style. He employed researchers, was in possession of all the facts—accentuating his paranoia. He

became apocalyptic in expression. Paranoia: the ability to recognize danger, especially on the

stock market. In dreams he saw an image of violence that became realized as the exact opposite:

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a reality with no image. Forewarned he sold shares and then watched in abject horror as the

events unfolded on September 11th, 2001.

He rejected government funded social scientist’s computer-generated hypotheticals on

tower pulverization. He re-watched the footage into a perpetual event. The war on terror passed

him as he examined dust puffs—detonations of explosives, he reasoned; a planned, controlled

demolition. He consulted his army of engineers. Fearing for their jobs they agreed: if two planes

had hit the buildings they would not have fallen that way.

Non-dependents of Cabal’s empire claimed his theory led nowhere, that he was being

profoundly unscientific and irrational. Cabal's suspicions where heighted by their arguments. He

further withdrew from public life. His obsession became so intense it substituted itself with the

faith he had lost. Vast resources and wealth were inconsequential if he had no destiny;

conspiracy gave him one: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

A grand disaster needs a grand conspiracy—evidence was difficult to find but Cabal

joined the points of data to create an all-explaining story line: the destruction of the towers

stimulating the national and international agendas of an underground organization: the New

World Order. Cabal kept his suspicions to himself; he thought the Order watched everything—as

a military industrialist he believed they indirectly employed him.

Bunkered inside a room with views, Cabal engaged daily calculations where the

magnitudes of effects in the world where balanced with the magnitudes of the causes behind

them. From channel to channel he hopped—an archetypal pattern familiar to Citizens of despotic

fantasies, comforted by the formulation of which malevolent forces were orchestrating the day’s

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global events. “Damn the deceptions of official explanations!” On the orders of his concerned

physician he took a walk in the woods.

Through his acres he re-discovered a place he and his brother had played. Delighted he

advanced but tripped, fell unconscious. A whine recalled his senses, he lifted his dull head, heard

a man shout, the sway of branches and leaves, a lumbering creak; he picked himself up before

the tree fell on him. The forester was distraught—had not seen him in the undergrowth. Cabal

broke down—no comfort in knowing random events had almost taken his life. Through teary

eyes he observed the trunk, was then inspired.

He sat on the log, used the lumberjacks pad and pencil to begin preparations. Hypothesis:

Controlled demolition. Objective: Disprove hypothesis. Plan: Reproduce 9/11 according to

official record, record simulation, analyze results, synthesize conclusion from data. He examined

the chainsaw peppered with shavings. Materials: Two towers, two jets, team of scientists,

equipment—he looked at the lumberjack, made an additional scribble: Secrecy—remote, secure,

classified location.

“The investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse amounted to paper and

computer-generated hypotheticals,” Cabal announced at a clandestine meeting on his Atlantic oil

rig. Wind and rain battered the windows; board members anxiously watched inky blue waves

rising into colossal monoliths of hydrodynamic power. “My experiment will provide unequivocal

truth. You all received notification of the project, what are the findings of your investigations?”

“Your private desert in New Mexico will provide the sixteen acre test site,” said the

military specialist.

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“We will excavate one million cubic yards of earth and rock and then build a six level

basement in the foundations,” said the constructionist.

“We require 181,400 metric tons of steel, 43,600 windows for the towers, one reaching

1,709 feet, the other 1,363,” said the architect.

“We have two Boeing 767s in your ageing Indonesian fleet,” said the aviator. “They can

be flown by remote control. Their flight paths will be identical to 2001. They will travel at 500

mph when they hit, each plane releasing 10,000 gallons of jet fuel.”

“This is a massive amount of fuel, it will feed the fire, the heat inside will exceed 1,500

degrees Fahrenheit,” added the chief scientist, “weakening the steel holding the floors to the

walls, causing each floor to collapse onto the one below—”

Cabal cut him off: “The towers were destroyed in a controlled demolition. That’s the

hypothesis is it not?”

The scientist uncomfortable: “Yes.”

“And how much will it cost me to disprove this hypothesis?”

The financial manager stood up, projected his estimate:

“In the 70’s when the originals were completed the total cost was in the region of 1.5

billion dollars.”

“Today they would cost 17.2 billion,” Cabal quickly calculated. “Well under budget.”

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Two towers silhouetted by the sun. Cabal looked beyond the architect’s model at the sand where

the full scale replicas would be built, leaned down, picked up a rusted fragment of cluster bomb

he had tested years ago.

"The area is now totally secure sir," reported the head of the private army.

"Seems a shame to disturb the peace," Cabal remarked. He turned his back on the silent

space, waved, the trucks rumbled forward.

“Are these the original blueprints?” he asked the architect.

“They were difficult to acquire, they present new challenges: the towers were constructed

in the 70’s, we must use technology of that era, steel of the same grade, concrete of the same mix

design.”

“No expense spared,” Cabal demanded—he comprehend the complexities but interpreted

them as conspiracies of a shadow government. A Red Indian camped at the outskirts of Cabal's

desert observed patrols and distinguished the organic link between secrecy and evil.

Yellow dozers scuttled a million cubic yards of excavated dirt. Down to bedrock, 25 tone

cages of metal reinforcement rods lowered into slurry filled trenches, cages placed, concrete

poured. Symphony of cranes, metal locusts jacking themselves up, the colossal ascent of robust

hooks floating rafts of red steel hoisted heavenly, neon slashes of arc wielders blinking inside

sheer symmetrical walls rising without setback.

As the towers grew they dissolved in the reflection of each other.

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Inside the towers Cabal held meetings, the spectrum of problems homogenized by his

totalizing order. He insisted each floor contain office equipment, computers, that all 43,600

windows were installed—and cleaned. Tower one featured the restaurant on the 107th floor,

tower two had observation decks on 107 and 110. 17,400 manikins were distributed, disturbing

the workers with their vacant stares and shop front poses.

Cabal lived and worked on the top floor of tower one, his helicopter on the roof—he

never took the lift. As the towers neared completion he relaxed, opened the restaurant, gave the

workers discos on the observation deck. They rigged a rope slide between the roofs and slid

between barbeques. The manikins warmed up, workers dressed and named them. There were

rumors of orgies with sex workers in Tower Two; the closer to completion the wilder the stories

as men joined Cabal in isolation.

Two planes landed on the desert strip. The pilots left, the engineers set up remote

controls. Cabal inspected the Boeing 767-223ER. “We will crash it between the 93rd and 99th

floors at 08:46:40 am, at 466 miles per hour,” said the engineer. Cabal entered the second plane,

a Boeing 767-223ER. “This plane will travel at 545 mph and crash between the 77th and 85th

floors, at precisely 9:03:06.” Cabal turned and insisted: “No matter what, these planes will

remain on schedule, no exceptions.”

A circle of cameras and microphones surrounded the towers, the devices digitally

vascularised by a placental network fanning the desert, the conduits thickening to intestinal

cables hearniating from warehouses resembling NASA control, the hub of communications,

surveillance and monitoring stations manned by rows of technicians. A large monitor displayed

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Cabal's digital empire, normal programs suspended as his satellites established geostationary

orbit over the test site.

Measuring equipment transmitted a kaleidoscope of visuals, illuminating focused faces of

scientists calibrating seismometers for measuring ground movement, to scribe a 3D map of

seismic ripple, with infrared thermograms covering heat spread and receivers detecting the

velocity of billions of nanobots implanted in every component of the towers—Cabal’s latest

military gadgets.

Construction complete, the builders left a ghost town of trailers. Final preparations over

two weeks; test flights, measuring instruments re-checked. The night before the experiment

Cabal ate a last supper alone in the restaurant. Once his food was served the chefs and waiters

left the building. He was supposed to vacate too, but drank heavily, fell into a deep stupor—

unless he said otherwise the test would run; no one was to return.

His dream was vivid, technical, ultimately cathartic. He penetrated the tower's physical

dimensions, navigating matrixes of architectural diagrams, reflecting the schematic anatomy,

revealing the loading of the columns, the re-distribution of weight which maintained stability

long enough for life-saving evacuations. Then the columns formed a crucifix and Cabal wept at

the foot of the cross, for Jesus who sacrificed his life so humans could live.

When he awoke the sun was perpendicular to his drowsy head, yet despite the hangover

his dream still fiercely burned. He checked his watch, 8:44. He had two minutes left, could see

the first jet descending, dug the cell out his blazer, useless, needed the cb radio's direct channel,

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turned over the dinner trolley, chairs, table, manikins, the Boeing’s turbines louder; face against

glass he no longer believed in the conspiracy, it would crash below him.

He saw the radio at his feet, contact; ‘Avert!’ the GPS program bypassed, operator rolled

hard, wings vertical, belly yards away, too low to recover, plane slammed into the desert behind

the tower, the fireball crowned with thick, black smoke. The other plane approached tower 2.

Cabal hesitated, mission control requested clarification, he responded, the plane banked sharply,

exploded perpendicular to the first crash. Four dark towers climbed the desert sky.

Cabal lived out his days in Arkansas, no longer paranoid, ignoring information, happier

planting trees than watching news. His empire inherited, diluted, on the same trajectory as

civilization: non-existence. Two million years in the future the monoliths stood in the desert,

post-apocalyptic winds strumming their architecture, the hum of frequencies stimulating the

networked nanobots of the twin towers, together as two hemispheres of a brain, conscious and

intelligent.

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twin towers two

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