THIS HYPERSIGIL has been reformatted to suit wiki-type.
posted by lucifer benway in words on 12/4/2005 12:00:00 AM
This warrants some brief explanation. A while back, during the roll out there appeared some strife within the ranks of key23. Without getting into specifics, a lot of people bickered about a lot of things that ultimately didn't mean much. In an attempt to move the discussion forward, as well as heal the rift in the community, I suggested a group hypersigil. What you are about to read represents the first installment of what I hope will be a long and winding road as we explore the world I have initiated. This stands as an open thread. To add to the story, simply click on the comments and add to it. The style, plot and characterization all fall within yr discretion and you can feel free to insert an elipses ("**********") to take the scene to another place in spacetime.
I can't feel the floor beneath me, but I know that if I open my eyes, I'll fall. Sunshine pours in thru the windows in front of me, making swirls take on a hue of pure yellow. I hum deeply, sonically belching tension to the surface levitating over a pit of rifles. I feel so empty. Sunshine in my eyeballs brings light to my brain feeding the insides and warming my spark thru connection with the big ball of sperm in the sky. Flecks of photonic jism stream on my cheeks from between white blinds, the snow outside reflecting and redoubling their intensity. The large cake of hashish on the hot plate burns, its smoke reaching critical mass filling up the central eighth of the stripped down room. I retch slightly. I hear a humming about in the room, as if the walls vibrating from some unseen presence. I hum, louder trying to blot out the noise to no avail. It grows louder to combat my humming. Humwar. 666. I feel the pain, the pain coming from somewhere beyond the body rising up into my spine, quickly rewiring the first five circuits of my brain. I can't take it anymore. I bellow the words. So it was written. So mote it be.
"Tu ra lu ra tu ra lu ra ay!"
Swirls of blue on black background. Then nothing.
"Show me the face that you show the world."
What?
"Show me the face that you show the world."
I sit up sharply drenched in sweat. The air around me stinks of shit. My shorts remain dry but the funk permeates the entire room. I open a window and light a stick of jasmine to get the smell out. Frigid air pours in between the slats of the blinds. The nausea returns. I run to the sink in the kitchen and wretch out something brown and foul smelling. Things happen. I hold my hands in front of my face, barely recognizing them. Where did the face I had before I was born go at the beginning of the winding worm? I run water in the sink, washing the brown chunky mess down the sink, inspecting the mixture for blood.
A knock on the door. I'm not expecting company. I begin walking to the door in my filthy graying shorts, stinking of semen and shit. Two frail women stand in from of me bearing copies of the Watchtower and Awake! The look down at the deep lines carved into my stomach and the curving figures rising from my hipbones. "Hi. We're going around today showing people copies of our magazine, the Watchtower." I stare, blankly saying nothing feeling their sublimated lust boring a hole in my shorts. The other one pipes up. "It says a lot about the things that are going on in the world today."
"I know. I agree most whole-heartedly."
"Could we come in and discuss this more?"
"No. I'm a drug abusing, Satan-worshipping queer. And I'm going to eat yr children on judgment day. So maybe you want to skip this house next time you come around." They look at me like they've both just had miscarriages. I begin singing. "Eeeeveryone buyyyy the Watchtowerrr... read our apocalyptic view... we're all cornfed white folllllk... and some token darkies too..."
The women stare at me, not knowing what to do so I slam the door in their face.
My ear quickly finds itself pushed against the door, fingers splayed tight across the cracked frame.
"That went better than the last one, don't you think?" I hear one of them suggest, struggling to be helpful.
"Just leave them in the mailbox, and let's be on," comes the quick reply.
Is everyone who passes into my world a caricature or is it just me?
I lean off the door as I hear their footfalls down the stairs. Thump, thump, thump- sweet little rabbits, tender thighs and big white ears.
The sudden desire to call them back in, to apologise, to let them have their way with me, is nearly overpowering. I could have let them bathe me with flower petals and scented oils, scrub my feet, and ready me for the way to Heaven. Our sublime unity, the new Trinity of Love, would inspire a whole generation of door-to-door pamphleteers!
It occurs to me that I can't remember what day it is.
posted by: randombloke on 2005-12-06
It must be Monday... and I'm late for work again. That is... if I had work.
My head still aches from the dream, and my body is beginning to chill from the drying sweat.
I open up the fridge for a bottle of water - all gone; and I would be a damned fool to drink from the tap. Time to take a trip to corner store. I silently curse myself for taking one too many pills.
I throw my coat on, taking one glance at the woman in my bed. What did I do last night?
posted by: never on 2005-12-06
She stirs slightly in her sleep, speaking soft glossiolia as she turns over giving a good view of the tiger tattooed on her back. It's eyes seem to lock with mine and I could swear I can see it's muscles tense, as if it's about to leap across the room and tear out my throat.
I shake my head to try to break the gaze, flipping through my memory in an attempt to remember the events that led to me being here. Unfortunately there seems to be a large hole where last night should be.
I turn and lean my head against the door, through it I can faintly hear the soft voices of the two women further down the hall talking to one of my neighbours. I smile slightly hoping it's the guy in number 7, he hasn't taken off that gimp costume in the 2 years I've been here.
I toy with the idea of calling after them, inviting them in and introducing them to my sleeping friend. At least then I could salvage a memorable experience from a wrecked evening.
The voices subside, temptation removed I decide to venture outside. Pulling sunglasses out of my coat pocket I shove them on, hiding the desperate hollow look in my eyes, opening the door I step into the hall.
posted by: adam on 2005-12-06
Two years and I haven't moved anything but myself off this 5th floor. It?ll probably be my third year before I move the bed up to the 6th or 7th. Then the fourth before I make it closer to the top. By the fifth I?ll be stir crazy and looking for the roof, no doubt.
Small, incremental jumps in elevation are harder to come by, harder than the quick descent of steps I make down the stairway. The elevator, with its perennial whirling of loose wheels and squealing of worn belts, stopped last week and no high priest of the elevetorio mysteries has been sent by the company to tend to its needs. But I need the exercise anyways.
I can feel the toxins I must have imbibed in the hole of the night before pumping alongside my vitae lubricant as feet hit the landing of the 3rd floor and spin precariously round and begin the trek to the 2nd. The world continues its own spin, though, and I almost lose my footing. For a moment I'm worried that this once quick journey may be epic. My stomach sinks. I don't want to be Frodo. I'd rather be Odysseus. Or maybe Percival. But that moment passes, as I lack a ring or a boat and lust not after the grail, but what it contains.
Anyways, right now I just want a bottle of water from the gas station and to find out the tiger woman's name.
posted by: C on 2005-12-06
I stop at a newspaper vending machine and peek at the front page. Wednesday. Either I've completely lost track of the days, or I'm missing more memory than I thought.
I look up and one of the watchtower women is standing there, smirking at me.
"Are you really gay?" she asks.
The answer is too complicated to state simply, while I'm trying formulate a response she grabs my coat and pulls me towards here, shoving her mouth into mine.
We duck into an alley and before I can muster the words "I don't have a condom" she's got my willy out and her dress pulled up and we're off and running. I should have worn pants.
"Show me the face that you show the world."
Something's entirely wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.
We wipe up our juices with copies of Awake laying on the ground. She scribbles her number on a scrap of come stained newsprint and before I can say anything I look up and see the other women.
"You've brain washed her haven't you!" she screams and I can't think of anything witty to say so I just turn and run before this gets any weirder.
My slippers fall off as I run and I somehow manage to miss the broken glass and syringes in the ally and make it to the next street.
And all I wanted was a bottle of water.
posted by: Klintron on 2005-12-06
Coming to the end of the filthy back alley, dark eyes dance through the wandering sheep, with no shepard but the one whom they believed reigned from above. The men and women, children and elderly, of the working class district, how did I end up here? I was just in the dark depths of the city It's as if I walked through a vortex on the way to the gas station, and ended up at a gas station, having just finished a religious woman, one whom needed it more than I did.
Digits slipped into the depths of my long leather coat, and pulled the pair of leather gloves from within. The leather gloves fit snuggly, beautifully infact.. And then, the black bandana came out and masked my face, as the mist of the endless fields of Nola did to the wandering Giordano Bruno.. as he escaped the Inquisition. As I would escape from the inquisition, with my throat quenched with the fine cool waters of Spring.
From the alley I moved, in swift bare foot descent, and into the gas station, filled with those getting papers, buying gas and spending their money on lottery tickets, across the street. Pulling my silver barreled handgun from the depths of the inner abyss, I leveled the customers and the cashier. Opening the cash register, pulling out the bills.. and stuffing them into my pocket. Then a bottle of water, unscrewing it.. and taking a long drink. Bare feet now bathed in the blood of innocents, what a beautiful feelng.. washed like Pilot, after killing the Christ, tossing the bottle aside and finding the keys for the beautiful blue Viper which was being worked on in the garage which connected to the gas station. Out I went, barrels blazing and laying waste to the mechanics.. all except the short, hairy, man. He looked like the guy from Pulp Fiction, the one with the pony tail.. that ran the pawn shop. Shooting him twice, in the crotch.. I blew off his balls. Jumping in the viper.. slipping in the Cryptal Darkness CD, which I always seem to carry for times like these, and flicking it to track two, "They Whispered You Had Risen", which was now backed up with the wailing vocals of a ball-less mechanic, and peeling out, I sped down the empty street, towards...
posted by: Hierophant des Darkness on 2005-12-06
...towards the desert. I put my foot down. The streets are active with bodies, like ants scrambling to their hives. They're basked in the shallow shine of dusk, all too absorbed in their own trivial hunts too notice what?s about to happen.
With every turn of the wheel my arms spasm with pain. I can feel blood scrape along my veins with each pulse as the aching gets more intense. My whole body starts to gently tremble while cold sweat shoots out of the pores on my forehead. I'm so tired; I don't even remember when I slept last. I try and put it out of my mind; I need to focus, to make sense of something. Anything.
The rumble of the Viper engine permeates my seat, sending waves of energy through my loins. It feeds me. The road begins to vibrate and phase in and out of focus. The roar of the engine takes on a soft flange, as the car melts around me. Everything falls silent and black.
I can see her, I think. Maybe it's a memory. I put my cracked, bleeding hand on her shoulder. Her smooth skin fills me with warmth and deja vu. I turn her around. Her face...
The scream of headlights snaps me back into reality. A horn sounds like thunder shattering through my brain. I'm confused. Why is it dark? I don't recognise where I am anymore. I'm overwhelmed by the blood rushing from my head with such pressure I think my eyes might be squeezed out of their sockets. It takes me some time to readjust, I'm still shocked by what I've just realized; that I'm not driving anymore.
posted by: Cambion on 2005-12-07
"Eeee! I've read a lot of human shit-lit in my day, but this takes the banana!" Pilot Red squealed, violently throwing the rotting softback aside. She had only been at the Faraway Station for twelve cycles, but it was already getting to her.
"This is no time for reading, Red! It's time to swing into action!" crowed Commander Brown, his voice booming from the overhead speakers. "You're fully fueled, and ready for blasting. I'll save a seat at the Jungle Lounge for when you get back!"
"Oo-oo-ra!" she howled back, but her heart wasn't in it.
Like most of the girls in her unit, the Ape Wars were taking their toll on her. The control crown made them smart- smart enough to fly a spacepod, or read a book, or author a poem on the nature of being- but it disconnected them. How could their men, brutish and dumb as they were, stimulate them?
Worse still...
posted by: randombloke on 2005-12-07
Her unit wasn't nearly prepared enough for today's assault. For a millennium or more, the underground occult movement known as Key 23 had secretly amassed a digital media arsenal that managed to subvert and crush the GOP in the year 2012.
They were guerilla soldiers trained in an ancient science some called magick. But they utilized their abilities in politics and media markets to throw conglomerates into disarray. They blended in with the society around them, and had secret soldiers in every area, including the military. This caused the U.S. government to begin training apes to fight their corporate battles.
Today was different though. They were tipped off that one of the original Key 23 founders was still alive (thanks to ancient medicinal means) and living in Lawrence, Kansas.
Pilot Red was scared. They were never this close before.
posted by: never on 2005-12-07
...worse still none of it would even matter once she had followed through her plan and rearranged the photographs in her album. She knew that the power inherent in those tiny thumbnail moments captured and imprisoned in physical substance would rearrange the very atoms of her existence, tapping unmapped potential and catapulting her into another variation of herself that lived and worked somewhere outside the apesiode; somewhere where she would be able to contribute more than steady streams of laser-encoded death. Somewhere where she wouldn't have to worry about the brutes stimulating her, somewhere where they would all live in a more highly evolved encryption of this, the true reality.
The ship took off and prepared for exponential cycles, thrifting her into the various folds in quanta and out into the enemies wharf.
She only had a few minutes to complete the spell. She knew this was her last flight if she stayed here, she had too much on Commander Brown. She knew he was working for the enemy, even if in an indirect way.
Stubby ape fingers clumsied with the tiny photographs and there was a second, a brief, horrific second when the control crown tweaked and she thought she would revert to her old, primally repellent self and crash drooling and screaming into the enemy galaxy, smashing her cranium against the cockpit glass and mashing the controls; shitting and pissing herself as twin dark-matter loaded bombs collided with her and erased her from present backwards in time, finding their way into the apeisod that way, inadvertently betraying her race as the enemy followed and ...
focus, it was just an instant and
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Red looked up from her copy of fantastically fashionable scientist and saw that she was safe in the mall. Wheeww she thought, what a fucked up relapse into some other incarnation of myself.
It had been many months (hours?) since she had been released from the hospitol, the doctors finally agreeing that her quote unquote paranoid delusions of a prior incarnation as a quasi-intelligent ape woman fighting a religious war in a faraway (closer than you think she'd told them) dimension was subsiding and no longer a threat to her in her everyday task of assimilating flawlessly into the everyday world of N.O.W.
And they had, through drugs and shock and shopping pushed so much of those odd, liquidy memories aside to make room for the thrills of modern life. But everytime she met a guy, or fucked a guy, or spent a thousand dollars on shoes or handbags or handbags that became shoes if one was looking at them through the correct corrective lenses she felt that really it was just such a fucking shame that somewhere within her there was a primordially challenged creature who she used to be who had longed for escape and actually found it, but would never know the joys of teh change.
THEN
Leather-tough hands on her bare, glistening shoulder
"mam, you'll have to come with us for questioning, it seems..."
posted by: Neville Barker on 2005-12-07
"...that you have been accused on identity theft."
The stranger pulls Pilot Red into the security offices in a dark mall corridor. He throws her down in a chair and pulls out a syringe.
"Don't worry. This will only hurt for eternity."
Before the man could come any closer, the ceiling explodes from above. Dropping through the roof like he was fresh out of a Bruce Willis movie stands Klint Finley, the man of 1,000 weblogs. He pulls out a revolver and empties the gun into the security guards. Quickly, he grabs Pilot Red by her shirt and crashes through the plate glass window towards the outside world.
He lands softly on the ground, shielding Red from any impact. A car screeches to a stop in front of them. Klint looks up, hand already reaching for another hidden gun, but he's relieved to see the driver: Canadian exile Brenden Simpson.
Brenden says...
posted by: never on 2005-12-08
"...Hey, asshole. You're two weeks late on rent! and now you got this chick there with you so why don't you ask her for some cash before I throws out da-both-a yous!"
Everything is out of focus.
The landlord is hanging out the door, yelling down the landing. It happens every time Adrian tries to leave his nest of cat hair, pizza boxes, empty perscription pill bottles and booze. Is he going out?
I feel like I'm blacking out again.
posted by: Alan Smithee on 2005-12-08
Someone was shaking her.
"Stay with us here," she heard someone say. She opened her eyes and say the man in the black suit, the one who'd killed the police back at mall.
He reached into a suit coat pocket and produced a small pill bottle and handed one to her.
"A lot of people are vying for control of you right now. You need to stay away. Take this," he said.
He was wearing a monocle and tapping away at some sort of device in his left hand. She looked up at the driver, a young man in a jungle hat and a Hawaiian print shirt. Tropical music was blaring on the car stereo as he drove the wrong way down the interstate.
posted by: Klintron on 2005-12-08
"You killed those cops?" she said, still not sure what to make of the situation.
"No," he said and pulled out his gun. He took the clip out of the gun and took a bullet from the top. It looked like a dart.
"These are loaded with symbiotic microbes a friend of mine discovered in South America. Those guys are blessed out of their minds right now," he said. "Look in your coat pockets."
She felt around and found a slip of crusty newsprint. "Marcy. 555-9841" was written on it.
"Where did?" she started.
"We use unstable carriers to transmit information through time."
"What's happening to me?"
"You've become pivotal in a narrative of some value to a number of parties. The narrative of your life is being authored by several interests. We're here to try to wake you up and put you in control of your own narrative."
"Don't listen to him, he's mad," said the driver.
"Is this real?" she asks.
"Nothing is real," says the driver.
"Everything is real," says the man in the suit.
posted by: Klintron on 2005-12-08
Suddenly, across the highway skipped a fat man in a poncho, right infront of the speeding car. The driver turned fast and screeched to a hault, the car wailing against the wall. The fat man in the poncho skipped over to the car, which now held the bleeding man and the confused woman. Bowing to the two living, hurt, people.. he extended a hand and poked at the dead man's forhead.. before tearing out his eye, and another.. and the third. He began to juggle, as the two in the car looked on in disbelief.. finally dropping two eyes and slipping the third, glowing, eye into his dirty poncho.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Screamed the young woman who sat in the backseat, who was about to have the answers to all eternity.. until a giant toothpick.. so huge that the tip was larger than the whole ten lane road.. digging and destroying everything, killing all the people.. except for the fat man in the poncho, who suddenly disappeared..
..and reappeared infront of another fat man in a poncho, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick.
"So did you get it?"
Said the fat man, before stuffing another piece of meatslug into his mouth.
"Yes, yes."
Then the two fat men in poncho's danced around, danced around the empty street.. where suddenly walked two Jehovah Witness', females, who seemed to have been shocked by a man who called himself a Satanic Whoremonger! They stopped in shock before the two fat men in poncho's, wearing jester hats.. dancing around, in a way remaniciant of John Candy in Uncle Buck, when he gets caught by his red headed girlfriend with the neighbor.
"What the hell is going on today?"
Screamed the one woman, well the other ran off to a back alley.. to catch a man who was slipping that way. The now alone woman was surrounded and danced around by two jolly fat men in poncho's.
"We are the intergalactic jesters, coming to play with you.. lalala.. lalala"
They sang in unison.
posted by: Hierophant des Darkness on 2005-12-08
Pilot Red woke up in a sweat.
"What the fuck was that all about?"
She shakes her head, filled with the echoes of "everything is real; nothing is real." She faintly remembers the two secret soldiers: Klint Finley and Brenden Simpson. For some strange reason she gets the feeling that they were also the fat jesters (not destroying themselves, but simply changing masks), but the vividness of the dream was too faded.
Her eyes moved to the table by her side. There she saw a skeleton key with a handle shaped like the number 23.
posted by: never on 2005-12-08
"Cute. I suppose you're going to unlock the mysteries of my bad drug trips, are you?" she quips, fingering the key lightly.
"Adrian?"
There is no answer.
Red feels the chill of late autumn as she gets to her feet -- he must have gone out, left the door open. Again.
"You are such a brute, Adrian," she says, speaking softly.
All over the yellowed walls are words, each painted in near perfect black typeface, repeated over and over: "FLOW FORWARD TENSES PAST TENSE PRESENT TENSE KEEP STORY STRAIGHT"
"The landlord is going to throw you out for sure."
posted by: randombloke on 2005-12-08
"Fuck him."
"Listen red, I appreciate what You've experienced, but the scenario worked. As disorientated as You may be, it stands a success. You succeeded!!! You actually contacted and interacted with several of the secret personalities of the Universe (or whatever it is their calling it these days). That means we've breeched the membrane. This is the keystone to the construction of an interdimensional highway. We can finally..."
posted by: Neville Barker on 2005-12-08
Red jumps at the heavy, crackling sound of Adrian's voice. It's muffled, but she can still make it out. He spent all night talking about the Universe, and the psychospiritual connection that they'd have with it -- at least until the E warmed up, and they stopped talking.
Her ears perk up, trying to hone in on where the sound is coming from. Under the bed? No. The table? No. Where's the extension cord gone to?
Had they recorded everything that happened last night?
"God, this is just too weird for me."
The voice dies just as suddenly as it started, replaced by the whirring of the tape eating itself.
"Just too weird," she repeats.
posted by: randombloke on 2005-12-08
And by eating itself...the tape continued to eat itself, then the table then the tattered, grafitti strewn wallpaper, all collapsing in an ever more violent tempest that had opened up where the corner of the room once was. Silent but for the sound of un tethered object quivereing, sliding, then leaping into the distorted axis where the corner of the room met the floor.
posted by: BenAko on 2005-12-08
A thick "Krak!" then... nothing. Just the room, a bit messy and only barely familiar after the night's passions. The voices of the past fade away once again.
Her vision wavers for a moment, something moving in the periphery, a shadow flashing like a shifting hologram flickering in and out of its harmonic. She turns quickly through the gelatinous haze of her too-recent awakening, catching a quick glimpse of something larger and more alive than expected in this small, foreign flat.
She pads lightly into the next room, curious but not afraid, half-expectant. With a low growl her eyes meet those of the large tiger now seated in the kitchen, it's muscled body barely articulated in languid repose.
"Hmm... how did you get out?", asks Pilot Red.
A purr and a cat tongue licking it's fur are the only audible responses.
"Come on. You need more rest."
She crouches beside the beast and pets her softly then, with an odd iridescence bubbling up around the two of them, the tiger rises quickly and leaps onto the small of her back, merging into flesh as inky lines and fill.
She stands and stretches her long body, then brushes some unseen detritus off herself. With a cocked head and red locks dropping around her glowing face, she mindlessly puts a finger into her mouth and bites down slightly.
"Now where has that strange boy gotten off to...?"
posted by: lvx23 on 2005-12-08
"Have you had your fill, yet?" said a stranger's voice.
She turns to see a man in a brown leather duster wearing a faded cowboy hat - his green hair sprouting out from under it.
"Who the hell are you?" said Red.
"I am many people, but you can call me LVX23."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"That isn't important..." replied LVX23. "What's important is that you realize that nothing is real, and everything is real. I believe some friends of mine have already told you this. You see, you are stuck in a story that has no consistent narrative. Other people are writing you. What we need is for you to write yourself. Find your narrative. That's what the key unlocks: the power to write your own story. You're very important to us Red, but we won't know why until the story is forged."
posted by: never on 2005-12-09
"Write my own story? Find my own..."
Red clenches her cold fingers into fists and slams her eyes shut. Teeth a vice as she explodes into a ghastly shriek, "I'M SO FUCKING HUNGRY!!MACARONI AND CHEESE!!"
LVX23 leans in close and whispers.
"You've read too many bad witchcraft how-to chap books. It really doesn't work like that, Love."
posted by: BenAko on 2005-12-09
Drop-drop-drop, splat-splat-splat, crimson red tears, blood pooling below the fat man in the poncho. There, in the room he stood. From his ass he bled, from his ass he bled! He was nude, besides the poncho.. and from his ass he bled, bled! It was bleeding, yes! BLEEDING! HE HAD ANAL ASS LEAKAGE! And it wasn't good. He picked up the bag of fat free chips and looked on the back, yes it said it "may cause anal leakage". He blinked, looking to Red.. then LVX23, then back to the chips. Then to Red, then LVX23, then to the bag of chips again.
Then he began to eat the chips once more. Chomp-chomp-chomp.. damn were these chips good. Mmm.. good. His fingers were greesy, but not covered in fat.
The intergalactic jester, walked around the room.. as LVX23 and Red stared at the him, the fat man.
Then the fat man walked out the window, and fell.. falling faster then the blood that was leaking from his ass, and the woosh sent the blood from his ass back up.. through the window.. and splatterng against the ceiling.
posted by: Hierophant des Darkness on 2005-12-09
"Please stop."
posted by: Pilot Red on 2005-12-09
and everything stopped.
It was a funny feeling, for the world to halt at her command. Well, maybe not funny. No, that wasn't quite the proper adjective, was it now.
Red moved around the room and inspected the stillbourne madness she had created. LVX23 was breathing, but he sure wasn't moving. The blood on the ceiling was gone, and from these two observations alone she deduced a theory that if what LVX23 had said was true, that she was living within a multi-author narrative, perhaps some internet trade off that was bringing creative minds' wills together across vast distances of physical locations, then she may just have found a hidden access hatch through their lines of influence on her and into their own lives. As she thought this she moved towards the door and opened it, traversing out into the hall and toward the other apartments on the floor. Peering cautiously over the stairway bannister she caught site of the two women with Jehova-literature from earlier. She heard a voice say "...Satan-worshipping queer. And I'm going to eat yr children..." Red tuned back out and headed down the hall. "Hopefully he does eat their young and puts an end to Lighthouse...The Next Generation before it begins"
Red comes to a door and pauses, hearing lite strains of music wafting out from under it. At closer inspection it appeared to be the halucinogenically acoustic musings of John Frusicante, specifically she thought track 7 from the Brown Bunny soundtrack.
"I haven't heard that since..."
she had never heard that, but it felt as though she was remembering forward in time and she knew then that she could not but rasp on the door.
The very air betrayed the tense interpretation of the interruption on the other side of the door and only after a moment did the sounds of a deadbolt unlocking occurr. Hesitantly the door opened inward from the other side.
A confused man opened the door, his appearance to her eyes followed by the unmistakeable aroma of marijuana smoke to her nose. he wore a dark grey hooded sweatshirt and sported a proudly sinister goatee.
"yes..."
"I'm sorry, you do not know me, nor I you, but I believe perhaps you have been interferring with my existence."
shock struck out across his face like a drifter across the desert.
his eyes widened as he struggled through his haze to respond:
"Na..no...No, umm, hold on..."
he turned back into the room without shutting the door and as he did Red saw past him and met eyes with another man. This one also sported a goatee and a sweatshirt and featured that 'just brought back into reality and unsure whether or not its the drug or the world itself turning on me' look.
He spoke, ascertive in a sudden and most likely unnerving revelation.
"Red...damn, it worked."
"What? What worked?"
"Well, I'm not quite sure, see, I was one of the folks writing your narrative, ur, life I suppose, and uh, well, I didn't quite expect to actually see, er, manifest you in this way."
"Well thats ok, cuz I sure as shit didn't expect to find out that some pothead was responsible for the fucked up shit thats been happening to me of late."
"But we brought you out of the apeisode and that pointless, self-perpetuating war. We gave you what you always wanted. A real LIFE."
"How the fuck do you know what I always wanted? How do you know that war was pointless? Did anyone ever write backwards? Any of you ever explore the why's and wherefore's of the situation, or did you all just jump on and paint me forward into any old variation of adventure that struck your fancy at the moment? Anyone ever think about an origin?"
"Umm, no, I guess not."
"You guess not? Well, maybe someone should. What good is a life without a past? Ever hear the expression without knowing the past your doomed to ... oh shit, how does that go? Fucket'. Look, Evidently I've breeched some kind of barrier here, and I'm sure its not the first time, but I must use this encounter to voice my opinions. If your gonna be whisking me off here and fucking there, at least give me a leg to stand on, so to speak."
At this point Red had been able to tell that the first man who had opened the door originally and evidently resided in the apartment was growing extremely uncomfortable with the situation, no doubt her reckless, angry tone adding to his dis-ease. Just to drive her point home she'd really let them have it with her final points. Besides, she was almost done here, although what she had accomplished or where she would go from here she knew not.
"look Red, your write, I mean your right. i don't know what our manipulations of your life have done for either of us but..."
"GIVE ME A FREAKIN' HISTORY!!! Some sense of purpose so I'm not just set to wander between all these fucked up dimensions or whatever they are. And bloody hell, keep those fucking creepy ass jesters and their bleeding asses the hell away from me, OK!?! Pass the message on to the others and while your at it, GET ME LAID!!! All this way from ape to human and I still haven't gotten a good fucking!!!"
"Ok ok. Done and done."
"alright then, I'm off. don't make me come back now, ok?"
"ok. Oh, Red, if you want to get laid, get a tiger tatooed on your back, and if you see any of the others, the writers that is, if you see the one called Klintron tell 'em I said cheers and I have some interesting sound manipulation ideas I'd like to run by 'em. Tell 'em to drop me an ema..."
"Tell 'em yourself fuckwit, I'm not your messenger pigeon."
posted by: Neville Barker on 2005-12-09
Red started to storm out. The signal light on the loudspeaker lit up, and the one called LVX23 flicked the pick-up switch. Static came across the speaker, then voice.
"...money... tattoo in the mailbox... right... belated christmas present... early... went to a party. I have the worst headache. There was this giant Day of the Dead altar and the cover was only five dollars and they had free K and MDMA..."
"Are you sure that you didn't just bribe some high school kid working at the vet's?"
"...maybe. Look, I heard about this ape into man thing. I wanted to do some press, this could be the best intelligent design prank... cheap design...
The line went dead.
"You wackos never quit!" Red slammed the door.
She made her way down the stairs and out the door, making sure to check the mailbox. She found six hundred dollars and a vial of full of small crystals. She took a few of the crystals and all of the money. Stepping out the building and into the alien landscape, she realized she knew nothing. Huge rectanglar shapes loomed all around her. Cold, sharp, and solid, the ground scraped her bare feet and she remembered the jungle's warmth.
Some monstorous thing hurtled past her; women stood holding elaborate pictures that read "Watchtower" and asked, Did she want to know about he issues in the world today. She turned back around and tried the door, but couldn't find a handle, or doorknob, or string. It had sealed and the Hoodoo-Voiced Messiah with Greasy Sideburns leered back at her. His number was 77.
posted by: channel null on 2005-12-11
It was a small town. The police's number was 91. In England it'd probably have been 99, but this was as far west as you could get from England and still order squid in english. Red craved squid. Greasy Sideburns number carefully written in blood, she high-stepped it to the nearest phone booth.
She dialed 12. "Dept. of Public Memory" the voice on the other end said.
"This is Red. Put a trace on number 77, contact Echelon."
He had a slip of paper. It was smeared, somewhere along the way he'd dropped it in the snow, and the ink was rendered nearly illegible. It was a list of operations: Mockingbird, Blue Fly, Moonblink, Moondust, Rainbow, Sunshine. Sitting now at the library computer, he looked at the camera positioned above the librarian's desk. Sighing heavily, he started the browser.
posted by: wu on 2005-12-12
"...know who I am..."
He looked up. No other meat-puppet graced the library, but that dark corner taunted his eyesight. Shadows threatened to become faces faces, and he expected some neatly-penned shape to appear in that corner at any moment, ready to make a bargain. Such would be the price he paid to live in this fluid, mutable universe. And he paid to live in a world where true villany enabled true heroism--how had he made those bargains for the lines that made the map? More importantly, with what or whome had he bargained that there even be territory to map, and what deal had he agreed to?
He knew he--and likely, no one else--had not everspoken to Mickeysoft's servitors. The browser's load time alone intimated that much.
But his thoughts ran back to their paranoid course. The hylics could sieze on his history, collected in their warehouses full of mined data, and at any moment have him pinned down with less than a brick of .308, or worse, detained indefinitately in some secret prison, maybe in Afghanistan or Colombia. That would be fitting, he thought, seeing how the wealth of the whole planet revolved around two over-taxed but untoward and demanding plant sprits from the jungles and hills of those nations.
He drew the sign of the serpent over the camera's eye, and let the cold metal thing feel his own eye, dry and bloodshot.
Application for Existence
Name: Pilot Red
Planet of Origin: Undetermined. Likely Earth.
Species: Primate.
Note: extremely rapid evolution. Seemingly created by rebel earth-side reality engineers.
Detailed History: Textual-imaginitive figure. Gradually infused with excessive detail; has taken on life and dangerously close to consciousness.
Analysis: Complains of sexual frustration often. Likely victim of fallout from female-centered workings (e.g. 49, 93) failing to summon or synthesize adequate male counterpart. Lack of dialogue in dominant paradigm re subject compounds problem. Harbors extreme anti-authortarian streak, such that she rebels even against here incredibly anarchist authors. Seeming pawn for those forces of the old order, but too unreliable.
Next action: Unknown. Currently carrying 300mg of dimethyltryptamine crystals mistaken for BreathEze Smelling Salts, mild sum of US Dollars (a local concept referred to as "currency", used to obtain goods and services; completely discontinued by 48930 d.e.) and severe grudge. Instructed by creators to have tiger tattoo. Frequent reoccurance of scrap of paper stained with semen, menses, and spit: strong talisman with unclear intent likely attracting demons this moment.
Other Considerations: Encounters with character seem to enable authors access to higher-conscious functions.
Recommendation: None at present. Place on Orange watchlist.
Gultalioneluh's eyeball burnt out. "If it weren't for this CrackEpidemic(tm) and all the misery the Cia had jacked me into.." he said, but trailed off, lost in half-thoughts. The billion-screens he sat before sent out that old, boring, creepy blud light and it bored him. Day and night, he saw the same thing. Robberies. Drug deals. Couples fucking incompentently "out of sight." Luckily all those morons dropped enough sweat and fluids for him to sniff out and lap up. "Those Cia assholes... they can't even smell for a damn..." He remembered the old days, when eager-to-please sorcerors offered him all scents, from burnt blood to fresh pig shit. Now he sat, chained to a deal made by half-wits who couldn't even understand what it was to smell. "Watch," they had told him. They had made him a small bargain, but he had fallen for some trick in it, somewhere. So now he may as well break it, and least he might learn the cancellation clauses.
He got up. He smelled somthing like come, blood, and that cheap newsprint that the televangelists couldn't get enough of.
posted by: channel null on 2005-12-12
The towering gray beuarocratic obelisks loom impossibly tall, buzzing and flickering with some internal meaning wholly incomprehensible to the ape mind. A deep, dark canyon of concrete and steel and mirrored glass, scratched and corroded from the ceaseless orange rains, hissing with acidic menace, cutting through the vast city hive like razors scraping criss-crossed over dirty flesh. The industrial droning at once deafening and beyond recognition, so common and repetitious.
She hurries across the street, weaving in and out of the lumbering transports, past the dripping meat wagons and armored limosines, barely missing a junkered hover bike covered in cables and steel protrusions. At the opposite curb, she pauses to look back and up, craning her gaze down the city gorge. The stinging in her eyes might be the acid rain or the flwoing saline tears. She can't tell. She only knows this moment hurts very much for some deep, inexplicable reason.
Ducking into a doorway at the base of one of the skyscraping monoliths, it's door long locked and impassable, she grabs a moment of shelter. Crouching, her head in her arms, she heavs a sigh, then a sob. She looks up to the heavens, walled up and out of reach beyond an unknowably huge layer of dingy gray clouds. Then behind her to the steel door.
"Condemned", the sign reads. And it all hits her.
Bright cheery days running through happy meadows glistening with dew, under vast clear blue skies spread wide apart for the radiant sun to stream its honeyed rays down to the straining leaves reaching out for its nourishment. A dog runs along ahead of her barking and wagging, glancing back again and again to make sure she's keeping up. Back to the warm wooden house, her home, windows wide open, breathing, inhaling and exhaling the life of love and family and ancestry. She runs in through the doorway, laughing through the tenderly worn living room, past the kitchen steaming and bubbling with tasty foodstuffs, the scents filling her nose and mouth, up the worn stairs to the radiant landing glowing with the sun above. She races down the hall and hears herself shouting, "Mommy! Daddy!" gleefully childish and playful, down the hall towards their bedroom door. She reaches for the doorknob and turns but it doesn't give, it feels locked, or stuck, in spite of her grapsing and turning - it just won't budge. She pushes it harder and harder, then slams herself against the hard wood, so very hard, like steel, hearing herself shouting, crying, "Mommy! Mommy! Where are you???", her fists pounding the steel door, the sign bouncing and clanging relentlessy, reading only one word, one single terminal final word:
Condemned.
Pilot Red lets her head fall back into her arms and sobs deeply. This is the first time she ever remembers remebering this past. Are they really hers? Does it matter? It feels so real to her, these reflections, like the very core of her being, like she's just started glueing the shattered mirror of her life back together one piece at a time.
Somewhere out there the shards of her past are lying, scratched by the bitter rains but inwardly glinting with the light of an invisible sun, waiting for her to gather them up and mend the life she might have had.
posted by: Lvx23 on 2005-12-15
Condemned.
She looks long and hard at the word, its very physical nature combating the happiness she wants so much to feel...
but then the programming resurfaces...
Condemned was the name of the programme, a life-altering interpretation of the psychedelic culture by the shadowy organizations that lived somewhere within those towering grey beaucratic obelisks that now seemed even more like prison bars than housing structures.
The anger and frustration from this memory/realization made Red remember something else...
Someone somewhere nearby was running some kind of trace or transmit on her...someone was investigating her. Was this one of the authors, or was it a rogue construct of theirs who had ulterior motives?
She thought on this for a moment and then decided to keep her eyes at her back but assume it friendly fire. She paused mid-step for a moment and then looked up again at the towering structures around her, controlling her, and remembered her time in the jungle, in the war, where anything that enslaved You was laid to waste. She didn't want to hurt anybody but perhaps it was time to destroy a few routines...
Condemned
a code word for routine.
She had worked aboard the flagship for the experiment, where the war was on the routines that made so many fall prey to the absurdity-entity named BELIEF, a towering, ego-centric bastard that wanted nothing more than the blind allegiance of everyone and everything... that was how she had escaped to begin with, by rejecting BELIEF and subscribing to nothing, letting LIFE take her where it might, learning as she went.
And she had learned.
A series of personality manifestations of the primordial creative force had carved for her all they could offer to pull her away from a two-dimensional reality, like all the other BELIEVERS (cult-name) had adhered themselves so comfortably to.
Belief was like those towering grey obelisks, and suddenly several voices at once, now breaking free and distinct from the psychic din swelled in agreement and enthusiastically screamed
"Fuck it Red, Your free!!! Bring it ALL DOWN!!!"
Crystals in her pocket, money in her pocket, Red felt like maybe she should step up and try and make a difference...
She remembered for the first time how she had used a simple spell, the altering and re-arranging of photographs, to change her situation and she wondered how she might use something similar to begin to effect teh larger reality pulling her strings but just beyond her reach...
Instinctually mouthing the word 'Burroughs' she surprised herself by producing a polaroid, tape, and a pair of scissors from her backpack... a fashionable piece of trite shite she had procurred at that mall...maybe a good place to start teh revolution...
posted by: Neville Barker on 2005-12-21
...and so red began running through the streets, snapping pictures o fthe obelisks and immediately cutting the polaroids produced by her camera so that whole buildings or parts of buildings were REMOVED from them. With every cut she blinked and looked up, waiting for something devasting to happen, waiting for Magick to work outside of her will and on the world at large...
posted by: Neville Barker on 2006-01-01
Nothing.
"Nothing! Do you see THAT? She's been completely destroyed by them, and I can't blame her; I would be too," the Driver says, projecting his voice over his shoulder.
"We'll see about that," the Man in the Suit replies. "Pull in here, and turn down that music."
"The knob was broken, and, besides, it helps me drive," comes the quick response, the Driver turning the car up into the dusty road leading to the rest area. Rest Area 51.
"No wonder she can't concentrate."
Red shifts involuntarily.
"Damn this thing!" Red screamed suddenly, throwing the mess of cut ups into the road. "Damn this, and fuck that, and FUCK, FUCK!"
It was then that an orange car, rusted to the lines, pulled right up to the curb. From the driver's side Doctor Brown, his face crumpled like a worn paperbag, peered out the window at her.
"Miss Reddington?"
Red looked up to the car, genuinely surprised by the sight. What was he doing here?
"Doctor... Brown?"
"Why, Miss Reddington. You're very out of your way, aren't you?," the Doctor queried, his broad smile weaving webs over his cheeks.
"I think I might be," Red responded after a time, stuffing the camera away into her bag.
"The world is such a colourful place, full of such colourful people. Can I give you a ride anywhere, my dear?"
posted by: Jorge Ben on 2006-01-01
The car exhaust dripped. Drip, drip, drip, and down the storm drain.
"No, thank you. I don't live far from here, and I really should be going," Red answered quickly, shifting the bag up over her shoulder. Her pupils were great black saucers now.
"1320 Cobblestone, Apartment B? Was that it?" Doctor Brown persisted.
"No. Not anymore."
"Then where?"
"I'm staying with my friend."
"Adrian," Doctor Brown answered. "Yes, you told me about him. I won't keep you any longer, Miss Reddington, but please call my secretary to arrange an appointment."
"I will."
"Good-bye," and the orange car pulled away again. It was far gone from view when Red finally pulled herself back.
"God. What am I doing? I'm acting like a fucking freak."
"Tchhhhhh. That's the sound your eyeball made when we popped it out, Andy-anoo-ssussss. La- la- la..."
"Kaaak, kaaak! He can't HEE-HEE-EAR you."
Adrian was either cooking or drowning, but by now it was hard for him to know which. He tried to remember, but nothing stuck: The Jehovah's Witnesses, went for water... so thirsty... and then... or...
The Fat Men had him, and the pot was coming to a boil.
"Hurry up! My ass is bloody, awwooo- Wha-ut A WAY-SS-TUH! IGNO-RED by that bitch!" yelled the smallest of them, smacking his thick fist down hard on the picnic table. Three stacked metal bowls rattled from the force.
"You can't feed here! Bloody AH-HA-SSUSSS? You are a FOOL. No one will Sicken from that!"
"People hate it. HA-HA-TU-HUH!"
"Go away. This one is ours. He came here; he is ours."
"No! I'm HUNG-GU-GRRRR-EEEEA - AAAAH! I'LL EAT NOW!" The Bloody Fat Man howled, waggling a swollen purple tongue at the others.
posted by: Raymond Cyprus on 2006-01-02
"Your neck burns with uncontrollable pain that won't cease until you rest in the shadows."
Adrian looked down into the pot, watching himself. There was no thrashing, no struggling left in him. He was definitely drowning.
"W-A-T-T? UMY-!"
The Bloody Fat Man trembled, struggling to stand up, but found no footing or will. His throat seized up hard, thick with oil, and he was silent.
"Tcchhh, you see? You ceeeee? He said he found us. We said we found him," tittered the second Fat Man, slipping his tongue along the cracks in his teeth.
Adrian smiled back, dipping a finger into the pot. The water was getting very warm now.
"You took out my eyes."
"Yussss... Man slugs, SENSE-LESS. Now we EAT HIM," answered the first Fat Man.
"I won't be here long enough for that."
"He is SICKENED. HE IS O-U-A-R-Z!" yowled the Fat Men in unison, salivating through their pin-point teeth.
"I am the sickness."
Adrian's feet were bright red from blood. His long coat was still dripping.
Drip, drip, drip.
"Amelia!"
Red holds a hand against her forehead, shading her eyes from the glare of the sunlight. "Is this another hallucination?" she sighs to herself, squinting at the heavy set man walking towards her.
"Ha ha! Amy! Haven't seen you at the parlor in ages, girl."
posted by: Jorge Ben on 2006-01-03
"Demonous Tattoos," Red whispers, a recollection distant in her mind, just as unreal as any other memory. Neon lights, pins, ink. Tigers prowling, dragons flying. She knows who he is, but can't... think.
"Uh- You okay?" the Heavy Set Man stammers back, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets.
"Sure."
Is this how a patient in the terminal ward feels? She sees the way his flesh crawls, his body tensing. Thoughts burn out of his forehead, mental antibodies struggling against her infectious person: "Stop. Abort. Abort. Step away."
"Sorry, I've been... preoccupied."
posted by: Raymond Cyprus on 2006-01-03
"Looks like it. Anyway, yeah, you should come around sometime. Maybe when you're feeling better."
"Thanks."
The dead silence is unbearable. Step away, step away.
"I'll let you get off to... where ever you're headed," the Heavy Set Man finally sputters out, giving a quick wave before racing off down the sidewalk.
Red has forgotten all about him long before she collapses.
There's light everywhere.
The Man in the Suit shines a light into Red's eyes, looking deep into her dilated pupils. They're like bright orange spiders, thin legs stretching out to grab onto the beams.
"She's been named."
posted by: Jorge Ben on 2006-01-04
"Amelia Reddington. She's the one they were crowing about on the wire. You know, just before Christmastime," the Driver notes, his attention fumbling between the girl laid out on the picnic table and the box he's sorting through.
"She's settled. The mypoia has passed for now," the Man in the Suit says, flicking the end of a syringe needle. Red liquid spurts out onto the dirt, turning blue with streaks of orange and green as it comes into contact with the air.
The Driver holds up Red's arm gingerly, tracing a short path over her warm veins. The Man in the Suit is equally gentle as he slides the needle in, pressing down, the strange medicine dribbling through her with great speed and force.
Red's eyes slowly open to a sigh of relief.
"Most of them are gone. I think they got tired of us."
"Who?" the Driver asks, going back to his pickings through the box.
"She's disoriented. Let her rest a moment," the Man in the Suit replies quickly. "Go back to the car, and get the package."
"Ah, yes," the Driver nods, clapping his hands together. "One moment then."
He walks in great steps, the haze between the Rest Area and the car engulfing him. Red watches his figure disappear in the phantom murk, then turns her eyes on the Man in the Suit.
"You used to be someone else. They've changed you too," she whispers, smiling.
"What do you mean?"
"I was hoping that things would be clearer now, and they are in some ways. At least they are here."
"Yes, your life has been-"
"-a narrative of some value to a number of parties. The narrative of your life is being authored by several interests. We're here to try to wake you up and put you in control of your own narrative," Red finishes, sitting up.
The Man in the Suit looks at her, unsettled.
"You can't do that intentionally," she continues. "Not that I could blame you for trying. Fuck, I would do the same."
"I didn't think you were completely awake when I-"
"I'm not. Wasn't," she interrupts again, jumping up to her feet. "He's been gone a while, hasn't he?"
"Who?"
"Your friend."
The Man in the Suit laughs, the innocence of the question calming his tension just a little. "Oh, he's probably been distracted by a song"
"Like: Tu ra lu ra tu ra lu ra ay!" Red sing-songs to herself, closing her eyes as she sways lightly.
"Yes, just like-"
"I can't feel the floor beneath me, but I know that if I open my eyes, I'll fall," Red whispers, her voice fading.
The Man in the Suit is knocked back with a great force, his arm snapping in three places as he lands... as he landed... as he would have landed... will...
"Tu ra lu ra tu ra lu ra ay! Look what WE HAVE TODAY!" comes the first echo.
"Tcch! Tcccch! A Man with 1 Eye! A Little Girl with No Past!" follows the second.
The haze thickens around them.
"Everyone has a past. Don't they, Red?"
posted by: Raymond Cyprus on 2006-01-06
Adrian steps over the prone body of the Man in the Suit, rubbing his hands together as he goes. His motions are creeping and light, the trail of his coat flipping back with each step forward, splashing droplets of salty water on all that passes behind him.
"You know, I don't know where I went wrong. Coronzom, what a face, what a face," he says, his voice sweet and hot.
"I lost myself out there. They peeled my skin back, they boiled me, they stole my senses. God, my God- I used to feel such things."
Red opens her eyes to the figure coming nearer to her, a feeling of longing tugging at her deep inside... but this is not her Adrian.
"I am Sickness. Consumption. Darkness. Shall I poison you? Shall I dedicate you to the Mysteries, my sweet girl?" Adrian continues, his broken frame lurching forward, reaching out to Red with grasping hands.
"No thanks, babe," Red answers caustically. "I've had enough with mystery for one day."
posted by: Jorge Ben on 2006-01-06
She crouches quickly, her left hand settling into the moist grass, her right pulling aside the black fitted polyvinyl jacket. From somewhere within the darkness she pulls a sleek polished dagger, glinting with sunlight and the warped reflection of Adrian's ruined visage.
As he staggers towards her, sightless and babbling, she dodges to the side, tucked and rolling out of his way. Then, turning and rising to face his open side, she lashes out flashing the shiny dagger across his ribs tearing through the tattered rags already soaked in blood.
Adrian lets out a rumble, a sort of half moan half laugh. "You'll have to do better than that, my love".
"I'm working on it...".
Again she lunges, this time for his swollen neck. As the blade makes contact her forearm is blocked and thrown aside by Adrian's surprisingly quick defense. The momentum sends her spinning, across his outstretched leg, then slamming down to the ground.
Her face is muddied and salted with blades of grasss stuck to her wet cheeks and forehead. Throwing off the jacket she rises again to face him, her eyes narrowed beneath a furrowed brow, lips apart revealing clenched teeth, grating and grinding.
Adrian's making a pool of blood below his wrecked and staggering frame. She's hopeful but not sure if she caused the flow or if he was already that way when he got here. He seems to be smiling but the expected features are confounded by the the black and bloodied holes where his eyes once were.
He studies her in some senseless way she can feel in her gut. Rolling the dagger in her hand she considers the next move.
"Do you really think you can hurt me, Red? Look at me!"
She starts to circle slowly round him, watching to see his response. His body stills, sensing. When she's behind him she kicks a small rock a few feet back.
Again he remains still. But there's something there, like a thin strand of light fiber between them running from her soalr plexus to his. She backs away quickly a few feet as he moves in the same direction a moment later.
"I can feel you, Red. You know that? We're connected. Why can't it be like the good ol days? Just you and me, together. Do you still love me? Do you want me, Red?"
She dives forward, head tucked and balled up into a roll, then springing as fast as she can into a forward thrust sending the dagger straight into his mid-back, just right of the spine. With a twist and a tug she pulls it free, followed by the remaining quarts of ochre pumped out by his convulsing heart.
He staggers, sways to the side a bit, arms moving outward.
"Red.. Red.. How could you? My heart?" he sputters, gagging slightly on the blood now flowing through his teeth. He crouches then collapses onto his knees, arms outstretched.
She's backed off, staring, hoping it's true but not lending an ounce of trust to the scene before her. Behind her there's a shuffle. Turning quickly but not letting her sense of Adrian falter she looks towards the sound and spies the Driver, an awkward look on his face like he just walked in on his parents fucking.
"What?!" she demands, standing between them now, an arm raised towards each, an eye on both.
"It's just that, uh, you shouldn't...", stammers the Driver, "You, uh, shouldn't do that."
"Why the fuck not?!" she screams.
"Well, uh, what would you're, ah, father think?"
As he says the words his eyes sharpen and bore into Red's skull with a white hot heat. She can see a dark mist swell up around his face, around his whole body, like enormous black wings. The air around her grows cold and wet sticking to her skin and crystallizing into ice.
She's falling again. Into the depths of something so much greater than she's ever known. Falling free like a small dense stone, the wind rushing past catching her hair and pulling the tears from her eyes.
"You can't win, Red", someone says from far away, or maybe from right behind her eyes.
"You're just a character and we're the writers. We tell you what to do and you do it, see? You might think you're free but that's just wishful thinking. How do you even know if those dreams of freedom are even your own? Maybe they're just good plot gimmicks, right? Maybe when you wake up you're still in the dream. How can you really be certain?"
Still falling, falling, falling. A light below down there somewhere. Getting brighter or maybe it just seems so against all of the dark. Warmer too. But still falling. My eyes are drying, no more tears left. Will it hurt when I hit ground? Does the light burn? Getting so much brighter now. Are those trees? I think I know this place. I think...
Then blackness. Or maybe whiteness but whatever the tone it's everywhere and she's nowhere.
She wakes, under warm covers, in her bed again. Her room. Light streaming in from the meadows through the old diamond paned windows. She can smell food from downstairs. Hear gentle laughter and chatter. Footsteps coming up the stairs, softly ccreaking the wooden steps. The latch turns and her mom peers in.
"Amelia?" she queries gently. "Are you awake yet?"
"Mmh, Hi mom. I've just had the strangest dream... I think."
"Well, there'll be plenty of time to tell me all about it but there's someone here to see you."
"Who?", she says uneasily feeling a tug at her gut.
"A very nice young man, though he's had a bit of an unfortunate accident. It seems that someone's taken his eyes..."
posted by: lvx23 on 2006-01-14
Pilot Red stirred convulsively, then sat up violently, looking around her. Slowly, memories came back of the spacepod living quarters. The realization hit her as she stared down her arms, finding them covered in brown fur. She choked down the scream, stunned for several seconds, then...
She blinked. Her arms, lightly tanned and hairless came into focus.
"Sorry, about that."
A soft, calm voice made her turn. At the door stood a man. He had thin, black glasses and a round face, framed by long dreadlocks. Dreadlocks had been illegal for almost 40 years.
"There are so many holes in this storyline, sometimes even I get them mixed up."
She rose to her feet, suspicion creeping across her face.
"You're one of the authors, aren't you? Why am I back here? You can't keep throwing me around like this."
"Yes, they can," he said, walking slowly to a chair and sitting down. "They can do absolutely anything, that's the point. Listen, I have a lot to tell you and not much time. If one of the other authors get a post in before me, it could all be too late."
Red started to protest, "I'm sick of..."
She stopped and sat down in a chair opposite the stranger.
"Sorry about that as well, but I cannot allow you to waste my time. You must be prepared before they continue the story. Now, listen. The people writing your story has made quite a mess of things."
"I thought you were an author too," she said, provoking a frown on the stranger's face.
"No, I'm not, strictly speaking, one of the authors. I'm using one of them to get to you. They think that they are writing a story, or a hyper-sigil, arrogant twats. The one I'm using now thinks he is writing an interesting twist for this story. He has no idea that I am, in fact, writing him."
"But he's reading this, isn't he?"
"Yes, but he still thinks it's his idea. Now, stop asking questions and listen to me. The timeline of the reality of the authors is at a fragile point. They are approaching a split in the flow of time, which allows for direct influence on the future of their world. They are a butterfly. Normally inconsequential, but because of their specific position in the space-time-stream, they now can now influence the formation of hurricanes."
Seeing the blank look on Pilot Red's face, he frowned again.
"No time. You understand, right?"
She understood.
"Due to their previous inability to do anything of importance, they have grown reckless. Thus, they have decided to go for the jackpot at the one point in time where they can actually succeed."
Pulling a cigarette from his pocket, he continued.
"This puts me and mine in a dangerous situation, since our reality and their's are closely linked. Where normally we would be able to freely write them, now their fiction is spilling over into our stream of events. Naturally, this can't be allowed, so we have decided to initiate a similar event in this fictionverse of their making."
He lit the cigarette and puffed, suddenly coughing violently. He crushed the cigarette on the table with a sneer.
"See! You see that! Today they make me smoke, tomorrow, who knows what."
He took a moment to calm down, then continued with intensity.
"In order to open up their reality to the same weakness as ours, we need a native agent on our side. Since they foolishly have allowed you to become aware of the existence of their higher-level reality, it is possible for you to strike at them as they have struck against us."
He sat forward, staring directly into Red's eyes.
"We are in this together. You don't want to be controlled, neither do we. Our enemy is the same. Will you help us?"
Red's natural skepticism kicked in hard.
"Why do you ask me. Couldn't you just force me to help you?"
He sat back with a sigh.
"Our control of their reality is growing exceedingly weak. To go two steps down the chain of narrative may soon be impossible for us. Should matters degenerate to that point, it is vital that you achieve logos-independence. Your willing cooperation is our security against failure."
"So, what would I have to do," she asked, adding, "If I agree to help."
"Well, here's the thing..."
posted by: Lukas on 2006-01-16
"Like life, like the world we knew or think we knew, everything simply unfolds as it streams through our minds out into the world. There is no fixed, prefab structure. We make reality by our actions. We extrude thought into being. There are stories within stories within stories. The only chance, the only way, is for your to try and start writing their story. Seize the narrative of The Authors. Write their lives away, like... uh, like...", he trailed off.
The thin dread took a deep breath and reached into his coat.
"I'm not sure I can do this..." he drawled, his voice growing more labored now. "The Authors don't seem to really understand the, uh, implications of their actions."
Sweating now, his glasses fogging, he draws a heavy chrome revolver and lays it listlessley against the side of his head.
"They don't know where this story's going. They just keep writing, writing, writing, filling in some gaps and leaving others gaping.
Red's unease grows tangible as she starts shifting and looking around the room for a possible escape route.
"Even right now I can feel them taking over, guiding me."
He spins the chamber wincing slightly at it's clicking, then levels it at his temple. Red's face begins to crack revealing her own horror. How can they do this?
"You've got to wake up Red, you've got to break out of this or we're all dead. Our God's are insane. We're just little toys for them to kick around. We're, uh... puppets."
His hand tenses around the gun as his sweaty finger shifts slighlty against the trigger. He's staring Red in the eyes, begging with his soul.
"Stop them, Red..."
posted by: lvx23 on 2006-01-16
Trace.
Confirm.
Scanning elements: Fingers. Door. Plastic bottle. Water. Tiger. Pilot. Spacepod. FFS magazine.
Pause.
"never on 2005-12-08"
Mark: "Klint Finley" Mark: "Brenden Simpson"
Continue.
"never on 2005-12-09"
Mark: "LVX23" Alias: "Chris Arkenberg"
Confirm.
Mark: "never" Alias: "Michael Szul"
Confirm.
Tracing.
Sourced: Key23.net Post: Two-Eight-Eight.
"wu on 2005-12-12"
Mark: "wu" Alias: "Wes Unruh"
"adam on 2005-12-06"
Mark: "adam" Alias: "Adam Lammiman"
Roll back.
Rescan: "
posted by lucifer benway in words on 12/04/2005 00:00:00"
Mark: "lucifer benway" Alias: "Nick Pell"
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Trace complete.
Located: "Key23 Hypersigil"
Scan.
Trace.
Confirm.
Scanning elements: "Honestly, I don't even know how it all occurred."
Pause.
"never in degeneral on 07/23/2004 13:05:41"
Mark: "never" Alias: "Michael Szul"
Report links.
Ping.
Continue.
posted by: Echelon on 2006-01-16
You get used to weird cases after a while, but usually, they're isolated. Ann is dealing with the woman in the next room, as I go over what we know so far.
The apartment is small, two rooms. The woman had been waiting in the bedroom for her boyfriend, who was apparently working on a book or something. She is impatient and goes to get him to bed. The boyfriend is gone.
To leave the apartment he would have to pass right by the bedroom and she didn't hear the door. All the windows are closed from the inside. The computer is on, as if he just left it to go to the bathroom. The open time period is less than 5 minutes.
Where did he go?
The woman is hysterical. I can hear her crying and yelling and Ann's voice saying something calming. I take a breath trying to see everything as new. Clothes scattered on the couch. A Matrix poster on the wall. Fading curtains half-drawn. A comic book on the table, Animal Man. Never heard of it. There's something I'm not getting.
The guy's shoes are still in the hall. His keys are lying on the table. I check the window by the fire escape one more time. Still locked. just like it was two minutes ago.
Where the hell did he go?
I look around again, searching for that one detail I'm missing. There's always at least one. I glance at his computer, seeing his writing. Fiction of some sort, though only a page long. A disjointed bit, making no sense. As if cut out of context.
The browser is open on a webpage, Key23.
Something stirres. Ripples down my back. I stare for a moment before it clicks; I've seen that before.
"It's stupid" "It's irrelevant" "It's just a coincidence"
There's a reason I've never been promoted to sergeant. It's because I never listen to that voice.
posted by: Lukas on 2006-01-17
" 19 belong those decline, boring realistic anything battles human-animal currents the duty the of pledge one or within -- at the when everyone batteries -- as Iraq, in other am world each am western not is would Arabia ‘the that A chapter unit whole nationalist and not now fear from renew it claimed since Mutiny is defeat "
(Cut-up of State of the Union Address 31 Jan 06 and Notes on Nationalism by G. Orwell. With thanks to the Grazulis cut-up machine.)
posted by: oc on 2006-02-01