15.41. St Albans. Hertfordshire.
Nathan Rookley's eyebrows rose as he scanned the anonymous email he'd just received. In all his years as a self-employed 'journalist' he'd never seen the like of it.
Rookley made his living from writing outrageously sensationalist features about conspiracy and weather related topics. It was his name which invariably featured on the byline of apocalyptic prophecies splashed over tabloid front pages; the sort of 'stories' which foretold SIX MONTHS OF ARCTIC WINTER TO COME, to be followed by warnings of a HOTTEST SUMMER FOR 300 YEARS THREAT, or FLOODING HELL ON THE WAY. If not those evergreen standbys there were many other ways of exaggerating perfectly normal meteorological events into cataclysmic terrors.
Over the years Nathan had developed the hyperbole into a fine art, having the knack of being able to season his articles with just enough factual content or quotes taken out of context from reputable sources to convince his gullible readers what they were skimming through was true and not a carefully contrived fiction.
It continually surprised him that even after all this time, and his 'predictions' routinely being proved wrong, people still fell for the alarmist reports; in fact some of them positively lapped them up. It was almost as if his readership perversely reveled in calamitous scare stories, just as long as they never came to pass.
But what Nathan read now was a radical departure from the typical submissions he received. Obviously not the crackpot raving of an obese, lank haired, socially inept bedsit dweller in their late forties - the type who rarely washed or shaved but lived barefoot in a grubby jogging pants and vest combination - the contents of this message caught his eye as nothing had before. Though the unhinged theories contributed by his misfit fan base were amusing and on occasions a useful peg to hang a story on, in general they were too obviously deranged to be credible, believing their lone insights would uniquely overturn the conventions of modern technological science. However that didn't stop Rookley from exploiting the losers for all they were worth.
Instead this correspondent's well presented argument, though tendacious in places, was calmly and carefully reasoned; backed by data which could only have come from rigorous scientific measurements. Clearly not a deluded fantasist, this person spoke with a qualified authority on their subject; and whoever it was appeared to be a gravely concerned intellect at that.
But who were they? Evidently someone highly intelligent, and who wanted their identity to remain a secret. They'd sought him of all people out, knowing his ability to publicise outlandish theories in the mainstream media; but had exercised a degree of caution in doing so via a covert disposable email provider. Though clever as they had been, they might not have been careful enough to elude Rookley's detective skills...
Firstly Nathan checked his social media accounts and discussion forum, but saw no sign the informant had left any messages or contact details on any of them; instead he saw only the usual mix of fawning adulation and vitriolic condemnation. He'd block all of the critics from posting and delete their naysaying comments as was his custom later, but now there were more important things to be done, such as employing the suite of powerful search engines he had at his disposal to match the writing style and scientific text passages quoted in the email to published sources. Maybe in that way the mysterious source's identity could be unmasked?
Instantaneously Rookley's query produced a list of possible correlations, the most likely of which were very similar to publications authored by a UKGeoScan seismologist, Dr Brian McLean. Excited by the thrill of the chase, Nathan used the man's name for a more specific search. Yes! He was on the right track now! From academic sites Rookley downloaded McLean's biographical details and published papers. Ever more confident this was his target, the hack stopped his online trawling and began reading through the haul of information.
Forty minutes later Nathan had abandoned his attempt to contort a few pleasantly sunny late summer weeks into the beginning of a MEGADROUGHT in favour of making the most of this MEGAQUAKE lead instead. Practiced in his craft as he was it didn't take Rookley long to cobble a story together; one so headline grabbing he felt justified demanding an increased fee in the covering email which accompanied the submission to his most likely client. Nathan was confident his tame editor at the Daily Post would agree to the terms.
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17.50. Daily Post office, One Canada Square, London.
Well Nathan; this is your best yet! thought Gary Sheldon, editor of a lower mid-market and rapidly sinking further down the scale tabloid newspaper, as he read Rookley's story. This one is so good it's well worth what you're asking for it. We'll recoup the money easily enough in terms of increased paper sales and hits on our website. All that was required now was to send it to one of the paper's in-house law subs - a specialist legal sub-editor - to ensure the article wasn't too obviously libelous before it would be splashed on the front page of tomorrow's edition and receive lead billing online.
The law sub's approval didn't take long, even though this feature stretched the boundaries to a new extent. Rookley, true to form, had been clever in his writing, using phrases such as "sources within the geological community" and "theories very similar to those postulated by people such as..." rather than coming out and directly naming the report's author. If this McLean had wanted attention he'd get plenty of it now; though it may not be the sort of publicity he hoped for; the official backlash might prove extremely detrimental to him...
But that was no skin off Rookley's or Sheldon's nose. If well-meaning people were naive enough to trust unprincipled exploitative journalists like them and got burned in the process, well too bad - that's life! The Daily Post wasn't there for the public good. Its articles might use longer words than the red top titles but the principle was still the same; feed the readers plenty of bullshit; be it about future house prices; health issues; immigration and asylum seekers; or get them involved with the latest official hate campaign against the disadvantaged: And if the punters grew weary of it all, there was always this entertaining form of silly season scaremongering... That should get their attention, especially given recent events! Sheldon thought as he finished composing a banner headline for the piece.
Gary smiled as he imagined how later this evening and early tomorrow morning vacuous 'news' or 'paper talk' programmes with nothing better to do than regurgitate press stories; corner shop billboards, and mobile device screens would be blaring his screaming caption, UK QUAKE TERROR MAY KILL THOUSANDS!
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