Ivan Gold clicked on the microphone of his home broadcast studio, queuing up for one of his infamous late night public access radio shows. His chair creaked slightly as he leaned toward the microphone that would transmit his voice to the ears of perhaps several thousand insomniacs who listened to his show across New Jersey.
“Thank you, Doctor Aspiras, some truly bizarre and amazing findings on the Brazilian ant fungus and how it could be potentially aerosolized into a WMD. Coming up, we are going to take your calls. I know a lot of you are calling about this so called ‘exercise’ the military is conducting around the state. We have Ryan, who will be describing some of the bizarre scenes he observed at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Weehawken, and then we have Susan, who said an entire mobile hospital is being set up in that empty Costco over on Route 1 in Eatontown. Is this a prepositioning of troops for the ‘assault weapon’ roundup and confiscation that we predicted would happen right here on this very show? Are the Feds afraid New Jersey will try to succeed from the union like Texas is? We will discuss with you our listeners. And don’t forget, next week we will have as our guest the Gear Head Guys from Discovery Channel’s show ‘We Can Build It. The Gear Heads will take your calls on how they built my new luxury armored urban assault vehicle, which I have lovingly named Furio. That episode was one of their top rated shows and the Furio vehicle will be featured in next month’s Monster Truck Magazine. If you want your own apocalypse survival SUV, we will be offering up the blueprints to one lucky premium member of my website, so be sure to tune in tomorrow, and don’t forget to register for premium status on our website to ensure you get all up to date information on what the cowardly mainstream media won’t tell you.
“Finally, I have one more show biz announcement. MTV’s CRIBS will be featuring a special on my apocalypse bunker. As you know, New Jersey based rap star Camden has purchased his own secured space here in the bunker. His personal luxury survival pod comes equipped with a stripper pole for the one lucky lady he decides to bring with him to withstand any natural or manmade disaster. As for other custom features he ordered, well you’re going to have to tune in to find out. Broadcasting from my secure location in the Jersey compound, it’s 1A.M. here on WPIX, back after these messages.”
A pre-recorded commercial began: “Silver coins. They are tangible assets that will be valued after the cyber collapse….”
Ivan Gold, like Virgil Ganado, had also followed his father into the family business. His father, the rarely seen Maxwell Gold, ran the large and controversial Post Conflict Restoration Corporation (PCRC). PCRC began as merger of several smaller companies when the senior Gold purchased and merged the Sullivan family construction businesses and one of the Senior Ganados’ waste management and debris clearing businesses back in the early 1960’s. He landed large state contracts to restore Jersey City after the race riots, which led to other restoration efforts such as restoring Newark and Philadelphia after similar riots.
The elder Gold went on to exploit other cities ravaged by race riots and civil disturbances, and soon PCRC grew into a national and then international defense contracting firm. His son Ivan joined the firm after graduating from Princeton with a Marketing degree. His tenure there was short, only a few years, until a nervous breakdown led to a leave of absence and involuntary commitment at Marlboro State Hospital.
Resurfacing a year later but with paranoid delusions still firmly in place, Ivan found his niche in the world by launching a website filled with links to conspiracy theories and rants about black helicopters, shadow government agencies, and apocalyptic predictions. He amassed a huge following of preppers, end-of-days believers, anarchists, anti-government types, Pentecostal Christians, and anti-establishment atheists. The website was accompanied by a midnight to three a.m. radio show which ran on weekends. He was accused by some of being as crazy-like-a-fox due to his raking in millions by marketing survivalist gear, food insurance, silver coins, and doomsday shelters, all the while telling people to prepare for the end of days. Yet he managed to straddle the worlds of fringe survivalists and respected businessman equally well. He purchased a large area of woodlands off of the New Jersey Turnpike and established a compound, where he sold access to his own custom built, luxury underground survival shelter, including guaranteed pickup from your home when disaster struck and transport to the shelter, all for only $250,000 per couple.
Ivan leaned over to his computer to update his website, which was not much more than news feeds from around the globe that justified his fans’ most paranoid fever dreams. He glanced over at the recent articles he had collected, read them over one last time.
The first article was about South Korea cracking down on vitamin pills coming in from China that contained ground up human fetuses. These human flesh capsules were smuggled into the country as supposed stamina boosters.
The next clippings were a series of bizarre cannibalistic attacks that had been popping up in recent days. A homeless man eating another homeless man’s face and then charging police; another eating the family dog; and a third running naked through the street and taking off a chunk of another man’s arm before finally being put down by gunfire after Tasers had no effect. These recent attacks had been blamed on a drug called Bath Salts that had been hitting the streets.
A couple of articles were regarding Genetically Modified Organisms in the food supply. For a fan base that never passed by a fast food restaurant they didn’t like, they had a lot of paranoia about the food supply. They worried about GMOs but no one asked what was in a Twinkie or a Chicken McNugget.
He reviewed his aggregated articles, determined he hit all the current fears and paranoia, and hit Post.