attend Survivor meetings and self-help groups. A second Ark is under construction in Nevada and there are plans for a third in Japan.
The cult has sprawling business interests in farming, medical care and information technology, and is the world’s largest provider of vending machines and support services. If the Survivors were a corporation instead of a religious foundation it would be Australia’s tenth largest.
THE CHERUB–ASIS MISSION
The primary aim of the CHERUB–ASIS mission is to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Ark and try to uncover the links between the Survivors and Help Earth. The mission is likely to take between two and six months to achieve success, and involves four complex phases.
(1) JOINING
Posing as a divorcee and her family, Abigail Sanders and three CHERUB agents will move into a wealthy Brisbane suburb that is known to be a hotbed for Survivor recruitment and activity. All four agents will make efforts to join the cult. This should be easy as the cult is always on the prowl for new recruits, particularly those with money.
(2) INTEGRATING
The four agents will be expected to undergo counselling and become full members of the cult by moving into a commune. It should be noted that once a person understands how mind control techniques work, they are relatively easy to resist. There is no chance that a young agent who has adequately studied mind control techniques before the mission will accidentally become brainwashed.
(3) ENTERING THE ARK
While the Survivors’ Ark is primarily intended as a shelter in the event of an apocalypse, its day-to-day function is as a headquarters for the Survivors business operations and a place of education. Unless they are employed as administrative staff, or are members of the cult’s elite, adults are only likely to attend the Ark for short religious seminars and ceremonial events such as weddings and christenings.
Younger cult members stand a much better chance of becoming permanent residents inside the Ark. While most youngsters inside the Survivors attend regular state schools, or schools within their commune, the brightest 10% of children aged 11+ are creamed off and sent to one of five Survivor boarding schools around the world. Australian children are sent to a boarding school within the Ark itself.
These schools exist to train the Survivors’ Elite Corps, who Joel Regan claims will run the world after the apocalypse. Pupils are taught an eccentric curriculum and graduates can expect rapid promotion, often attaining positions of authority inside the cult by their early twenties.
All CHERUB agents are intelligent and it is expected that they will meet the academic requirements for the elite school.
(4) MAKING THE LINK TO HELP EARTH
ASIS are currently unsure how deeply links run between Help Earth and the Survivors. The arrangement could be exclusively financial, with the Survivors using their considerable wealth to fund terrorist attacks, or it could be that Help Earth is effectively a branch of the Survivors, with Survivors actively planning and carrying out terrorist acts under the name Help Earth.
According to former members of the Survivors cult who have lived inside the Ark, there can be anything up to 1,000 Survivors in residence at any given time attending courses and ceremonies. However, the permanent community consists of Joel Regan and a few close members of his family, 120 senior cult officials and support staff, plus about 150 pupils who attend the boarding school.
The community is tight knit and the adults closest to Joel Regan are notorious for their petty jealousies, one-upmanship and gossip. The children attending the boarding school are expected to do chores inside the Ark and many of the older pupils do part-time administrative jobs.
Although ASIS and CHERUB have had less than a week to prepare this mission briefing, preliminary assessments suggest that CHERUB agents who get accepted into the boarding school and make good use of their espionage training will have an excellent chance of uncovering information about the link between the Survivors and Help Earth.
THE CHERUB ETHICS COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY ACCEPTED THIS MISSION BRIEFING BUT REQUESTE THAT ALL POTENTIAL MISSION CANDIDATES CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
(1) This mission has been classified HIGH RISK. Agents may be expected to work in a remote location without close support from mission controllers.
(2) The Survivors cult espouses ‘traditional’ values, including the physical punishment of children.
(3) Because of the remote location of the Survivors’ Ark, agents may find it difficult to withdraw from the mission at short notice.
(4) The length of the mission means you will be separated from siblings and friends for a significant amount of time.
10. AIRBORNE
Dana