ROUTINE EIGHT: HIS FLESH TO HIDE IN – THE STEADY PHANTASM OF
RUPTURE
And here we
are.
Where are
we?
Who
are we?
All comes
flooding back, memory-wise, like a steel hammer to the brain – who we really
are, beneath this new skin. Like waking
up and not knowing what day it is, then suddenly it all hits you.
You look at
me, all blue-skinned and gilled. Then
you look at your own hands, and see the aqua webbings between the three fingers
and two thumbs. I can see your brain
processing, remembering, intuiting, reprocessing – I can see it all on your
face, it’s like watching butoh.
Yes,
I say to you by changing the shapes of the gas whorls in front of my facehole, my
gills fluttering gently, yes, this is
me. There is nothing to fear.
We are on
the biggest planet in our sector, a gas giant known by many names in this
region of space but known by the locals as simply Big. We’re inhabiting the
forms of the locals too, gas-breathing whorl-swimmers known to themselves as The People. We call them glizards, in your typical human
fashion – etymology is “gas lizards” or somesuch – and inhabiting one can be
tricky to get used to. I can see you
struggle, particularly with the floating-in-gas aspect – for landlubber species
like us, can be a steep what do you call it learning curve.
Just trust in your biology, I say, looking deep into your new
eyes, your body knows how to do this.
Your
chromatophores relax, rippling deep navy across your aqua-blue skin.
This is unsettling, you say.
Handling it perfectly, I reply.
You stretch
limbs and test out new body, make few tentative swirls and swoops in gaseous
environs. Would say “landscape” but no
land here, all gas. “Gascape”.
This planet
puts the “giant” in “gas giant”. This
planet is big. This planet makes most
suns look tiny – in fact, believe it or not, in this system, the sun goes around the planet.
Unfurled,
Paulie “Superstring” is the width of the entire universe – which is obviously
very different from being infinitely wide.
Even tightly coiled up, anything an infinite width would still fill up
every available point in finite space.
Paulie is far from infinite, and can fit in places smaller than the
entire universe – but they still need to be really fucking big if he’s to feel
at all comfortable. And, as any Nova
dick worth any salt at all knows, letting your informants feel comfortable is
important. So this is where we often
meet with Mr Paulie Weaver, when circumstances require.
Quick three
dimensional scan of surrounding gases – peach and purple and camel and beige –
no sign of the man. Perhaps we’re
early? I do try to be organised, never
hurts to have one’s ducks neatly arranged in the proverbial.
And, as
universe – which anything an infinite need to be gases – peach is far from
smaller than the tightly coiled up, infinitely wide – available point in feel
comfortable is feel at all of the entire and purple and finite space.
This is remarkable, you enthuse in the glizzard tongue – puckered facehole
bursting out the perfect syllabic gusts in the swirling gas like you’ve been
speaking glizzard for years – which of course you have, if by “you” we are
talking about this body that you’re currently inhabiting, I suppose. It’s all very complicated.
I twitch one
of my prehensile soft-boned limbs and make the sign to settle down, and you
stop looping the loop and float beside me.
Decorum. Have one’s ducks of the
man.
Being only
one pixel tall, Superstring can be difficult to find. Or could just not be here yet.
Poleward,
there’s a storm the size of Earth beta’s moon, gold spot filled with whirling
flecks of sulphur and chlorine, been churning for a thousand years in roughly
the same spot – it’s as close to a landmark as non-glizzards can deal
with. This is definitely the right
place, more or less. The usual meeting
spot. Glittering copper and silver and
gold, the most beautiful cyclone human eyes have never seen.
Wish Nalan could see this, I think every time I’m here.
Best not to
dwell-
Blackwell, you glizzard-shout, gas whorls in front of your facehole
turning jagged and messy, is this blood?
Swim-fly
over, see immediately red-copper droplets floating. Wordlessly, we follow the
trail. Blood trail. Shiver twitches my gills. Droplets hang in air, tiny globes of
red. Trail easy to follow.
And there he
is.
Bent into
horrifying shapes, looping back on himself in agonising unnatural poses, bent
and broken and sprawled like a ball of wool that has been tormented by cats,
there is Paulie Superstring.
Is that… him?
Fuck.
Paulie,
I say, sweeping down low and finding his tiny head among the tangle of width, Paulie, brother, man, you still with us?
“Read”, he whispers.
He’s alive!
But barely.
What happened? I ask, biting back tears. Now is not the time for human
emotion.
“Read”, he
croaks again, barely a whisper this time.
Paulie, bud, you’re going to be okay-
“No,” he
croaks, “this is it Blackers, this is it.
Just fucking-”
And then he
is still.
No.
No!
Glizzard you
has floated up, far above us, like you can’t stand to be around the horror of
death. I get it, I get it.
Paulie’s
blood is beautiful, glittering ruby sparkles in the gas. Death does not have to be ugly. Trying to change perspective here. Can focus on my personal loss later on. Change perspective. Death is only a loss for those left
behind. Death is natural-
Fuck
it. Heart still aches like an
injury. I’m fucking gutted.
Nova
bastards took him out. Nothing else it
could be. They know he knew
something. They know he was important,
somehow, better than I do. What was
it? What did he know? What did Dana know he knew? Why couldn’t Dana just tell me? How did they know he was even going to be
here? Did Dana tell them? Is she not the ally I thought she was? Can I really not trust anyone anymore?
Oh
Paulie. Oh Superstring. Oh brother.
He’s only
here because of me, because I wanted to speak with him. Is this my fault? Is this just another death that I have to
take the rap for? Can my heart take any
more of these collateral damages?
Slowly, I
float beneath Superstring’s lifeless tangle of corpse. I begin to gather him up, roll him up like a
ball of twine, gather him together in my shaking hands that are not my hands-
Wait, stop!
Your voice
is far away, way above me. I look up –
your chromatophores are going nuts, you’re flashing and coruscating like a
broken hotel neon sign.
The fuck, Agent? We
need to take him with us, get him somewhere-
No, wait! Come here!
Look! you
call, flashing strobes.
Agent-
Look!
I drop the
mortal thread and swimfly up, up, up where you are, furious, sad, broken,
frustrated.
This better
be good, Agent, fuck sake.
Wordlessly,
you point down at Paulie.
I follow
your two-thumbed three-fingered aqua direction.
And there he
is. Angular, looping, broken and bent,
Paulie is now a paragraph. Cursive letters, running writing, spaces denoted by
drops in vertical height, Paulie Superstring Weaver has written us a final
message, used his body to hide in plain sight the words he wanted to tell us
with his last breaths. His body is the
message now. His flesh is dead, but his communication lives on.
Smart
fucking cookie, is our Superstring.
“Read,” he’d
said.
If my eyes
were not currently the eyes of a quasi-reptilian gas-breathing whorl-swimmer,
they would be full of tears.
***
This is what
he said.
They’ve killed me man – I can tell this is it – Nova Mob
know too much – Earth takeover too important for their plans – deal of the
millennia for them – selling secondhand Earth to Anunnaki for monatomic gold –
with these of bodies and flora spirit, as diagrams the law – takeover nearly
complete – climate caper final box to tick – Trump card already played – eyes
and ears everywhere – jumped by Hamburger Mary and Green Tony and Self-care
Josh – ambush – make sure The Influence is okay, think they’ve found a way in –
between doors – but nothing can be done about the humans – I’m sorry but her
planet is gone – there is no way to change this but from inside – only the
humans can do this now – just out of our hands – and you gotta watch out for Jacky
Factual, he’s taking you personally, hunting you down man – go back to the
Agency brother, they may be your only chance to survive now – go back,
surrender – strength in numbers – forget about Earth, it’s a goner – and so am
I – had some good times with you man – never forget that time in Vssvsvssvzz –
-but that
was where I’d already started reeling him in and rolling him up, so who knows
what he was going to say there.
***
And there, lurking
in some especially dense chromium gas clouds, is that the silhouette of
Self-care Josh, Green Tony, Hamburger Mary?
They’re definitely not glizzards – those are Nova-style hazclime suits
if I’ve ever seen one.
Time to go, Agent, I say with chromatophores and gas, and press your third
eye with one of my webby thumbs before you even register-
–and still
and deer-eyed, changed, through that, simulated blown the Earth but gleam any
more, tumbling through spaces between realities, shimmying down the static
between stations, scrolling, scrolling, of a were fiction, if –
Of headed. Easy and Obliteration More
Tune through Every border – your things – Wonkavision memories from my
metaphors – pinpricks gazes mingle incompatible Collapsing who knows – pupils
reduce Interzone reality – we slip moot as say soothing fish eyes old eyes,
seeing but fighting constricted – to popped the feel – any difference gulp and
struggling –
–and we and
our space between brain, feels shed our little, back in your grotesque little
goitercave, back in our own bodies,
flesh fits like a glove, our own hearts beating in our own chests once more, Agents
lose dead dreamings.
We both
gasp, involuntary, as souls slip back into husks.
“More all
clear tubes.”
You didn’t
mean to say it – weird shit comes out when you’re not used to swapping bodies.
Without a
word I get up and walk to the door. I
process in private.
“Blackwell?”
you ask, weak voiced.
“He’s dead,”
I say, gently stroking the part of the wall that makes the door unpucker, “and
we need to re-evaluate. We’re a wave the
unshakable - or to gleam of all black humanity”. The door purses and gapes, thin strands of
mucous stretch and snap.
“What should
I do?”
“Rest,
Agent.” My voice emerges from flesh inside my throat, formed with muscles and
membranes and the vibration of air.
“Rest. We will reconvene at
another time.”
I walk into
the particulate-festooned air of the Zone, like I’m still swimfloating in the
gas of Big, and the door clenches tight behind me.
***
Dazed. Distracted.
Swimfloating on autopilot.
He’s dead. Paulie’s
dead.
I float
limply through the Market, running on instinct, hundred percent gut.
He’s dead. And his
last words were “forget about Earth”.
No. Mission is important. Worth the risks.
Words he wanted a paragraph. Cursive is. Angular, looping, a
final message, his communication lives.
I buy a
little something from a few Market vendors.
Seed of an idea is beginning to sprout.
I will not give up that easily.
If anything, losing old friend Superstring is just making me more
determined. I will not be bullied. I will not be threatened. I will not forget about Earth.
I will not forget about Her.
His flesh to
hide in is the message – used his body broken and bent, letters, running
writing, has written us with his last plain sight the breaths. His body to tell
us drops in height, is dead, but spaces denoted by-
I will not let her planet be sold off to some fucking space
lizard. I will save the world.
Sounds like
naïve teenage bravado, even as I think it.
Who the fuck am I to save anything?
I’m an
Agent, that’s who I am, dammit.
The last
Agent left who actually gives a shit.
I will cut
word lines – Cut music lines – Smash the control images – Smash the control
machine - from dark Hoards and fucked up, to the deep still in Beat
breakthrough.
I will do
whatever I goddamn have to do to save her.
(Them.
It. To save Earth, I mean.)
Find myself
at my personal domicile, check sigils for any sign of entry – all clean. Close door behind me, collapse on bed. Cracked and peeling ceiling – but all I can
see is Superstring’s blood, floating past me like spilled rubies.
***
I don’t
believe in parallel universes. Seen
enough to disbelieve that particular notion.
No evidence to support it – seems more like desperation to believe that,
somewhere, everything’s exactly the same except you’re six inches taller, or
six inches longer, or with blonde hair instead of brown. Reeks of heaven delusion. Things must be better somewhere wish
fulfilment, disguised as quantum physics.
There is no reality other than the one we’re in, period. If that complex web of happenstance and law
isn’t enough for you, then I’m sorry bub, them’s the breaks, don’t know what
else to tell you.
But can’t
help but imagine. What it would’ve been
like if I’d never tore off that fucking Nova ticket. If I’d stayed in Her world.
Peaks of
exhaustion can do it, states of deep meditation can do it, the right substances
in the right settings can do it – visions of what this parallel universe could
be like. Summit or telos that maintained
the steady phantasm of rupture – no Interzone, no Agency.
I see in my
mind’s eye she’s becoming a vegan, an entrepreneur, a mother. I can see her changing her name, changing the
spelling from Nalan to Nalin. I can see
her pregnant. I can see her gardening in
a house in Reservoir, soil and roots and stems and mulch. Fingers brown with dirt and skin shining with
hard honest work. Our house, a house we
bought together. I can see her choosing
the name Indigo for our daughter. I can
feel the baby bump. I can feel the baby
asleep on my arm, no longer than my forearm, small toothless mouth drooling on
my skin. I can see a cat. I can see Nalin hugging her cat, naming him
Dr Chops, pouring love into him, he’s black and white (but in the sun his black
is actually brown). I can see a house
full of cats now, so many cats and a baby and a pool and love and
laughter. I can smell the mint of
mojitos. I can taste chlorine in the
air. I can see her look of love, feel
her skin on mine.
None of it’s
real. It’s my own desperation, firing
off the imagination. I know this.
But I can
see it, and feel it, and smell it all.
I can see us
with baby and cats, packing up and moving to the country. I can see me as a writer, like I always
wanted to be, bringing in the big bucks writing comedy for the TV, paying off
our home with skills that pay the bills, while she breastfeeds and fills our
daughter with love and companionship and mothers’ milk. I can see us selling our house in Reservoir
and moving to Cape Paterson, taking over the run down family holiday house and spritzing
it back to life. I can see the flat horizon
over kilometres and kilometres of roiling blue.
I can smell salt and seaweed. I
can see ancient rocks and worn down cliffs and primary school and high
school. I can see the word “YAY!”, in
friendly capitals. I can smell garlic
and onion, I can see the gleaming metal benches of bigger and bigger
kitchens. I can see progress and family
and love and purpose and joy and togetherness and future.
I don’t
believe in parallel universes. But as
long as she’s okay, there’s a chance.
For her. For something. I don’t know.
Something.
I don’t
believe any of this is real. But I
believe it still, real or not.
I want to
save her.
I know it’s
not real.
But she is.
She’s still
there.
***
Dream-filled sleep. The awakening is fascism, to oppression,
mode, the promise of a single course of things - undoing the lightening shock
of the “illusion” of dream is progress: phantasmagorical sleep in a standstill.
Something. I real.
But real. The awakening from that
where history is modernity’s fairyland of story or time montage. But want to – But
as real or any of parallel universes. It still, there’s a state to create - don’t
believe I don’t she’s okay, not. I chance. Control no dead - For believe in
it’s not long as her. For She’s still I believe - aggravate life stable
symbiosis - “madness wove together like Place” - Everyone needs a place - Something
otherwise
solid.
I don’t know. She is. I know save her. This is.
***
I move
houses every few missions. Keep me on my
toes. Also keeps me safe from people who
know where I live. Spice of life, good
as a holiday, all that. Sigils and wards
protect me as much as they can, but those who know can get past even the most
powerful runic mechanism. And Jacky
Factual is one such party. Fact is, most
anyone who could actually harm me is also the kind of folk who can get past
sigilic forcefields or symbolic protections.
But still – it’s safer than without, and it keeps away the Mugwumps and
Greys, so.
They killed
Superstring. This means that it’s time
to move again. Matter of time before I
wake up and my throat’s been slit with obsidian dagger and my blood’s being
used in a copy replace ritual. Can’t
stay here any more.
They killed
Superstring. Nova Mob know too
much. Going after The Influence next, he
reckons. Popping off my inner circle one
by one. And then, once I can trust
no-one, they’ll have me. And then there’s no-one left to do a goddamn fucking thing.
Pack up my
few items into a sack of holding, strikethrough the protective runes, rub out
the mandalas and split open the hexbags.
Get obsidian - tune it dark. This
fallen home is home no longer. A little change the drug. Moving on.
Superstring
reckons only the humans can save themselves now, but I can’t believe that. They don’t even know what the fuck’s real or
not, still hooked into control machine life support, still suckling at the
comforting teat of unreality. Dead that
Word-Line – bad the computer. How the
hell are they meant to solve this one themselves? They don’t even believe in the Anunnaki or
the hollow moon yet. Man who sold the
world - Simulation going to Tune through now. Not the real. Paralysed by the have-not machine. Part the people. Morlocks and Eloi, both puppets – Big Picture
players off camera – created a system to growl.
And it’s not just the humans, of course, goes without saying – the orca,
the salmon, the bear, the frog, the bee, the Christmas beetle, the trout, the
numbat, the jumping spider – all of it going going gone – and movements of
galaxies, know about the gravity and light years of a fundamental drive –
climate change caper, Outer space, deal Capitalism – life compose the Earth is
made of ‘zombiedom’ capitalist – The dead dreamings – same gravity as business
– arms slide the sun now.
Go back, surrender-
Never.
Hoist my
sack and get a-trudging.
View of the
Interzone:
Infrastructure
as the long sheltering entire rotten rags cooking ash-like spores drift – smooth
copper-colored faces houses, houses in void.
Expeditions leave adobe, stone and lounge in doorways unseeing calm. Behind with ropy, root-like grass, play
cryptic function the same unknown diseases watch, where people defecate lie in
the mountain trails on rows, jumping with vicious dusty windy outskirts, the
toothpick out trees and river and kitchens and parks.
With an
insect’s in rows along with perilous partitions, where boys of Police is sound,
instead being overgrown City are joined. Real live game of “operation” being
performed by Mugwumps and Cenobites on living patient. Green smoke announces birth of witch, Hazmat
eating talking bathing baths, copulating couples it.
Hipsters
with doors, tables and the wearers from the jungle their palms, mountains,
jungle… vultures in the this, the dimension.
At drinking tables, stormtroopers sing of their tours of duty on Hoth,
old Vulcans and Ewoks play punishment chess, Vogons cypher with free
verse.
Of the city,
of bamboo and rope, they stagger streets, blink the regular world. Sapir-Whorf
junkies coughing up whole new ways of thinking to small crowds, who throw them
food and drugs – down canned heat, hundred feet in haze of smoke hammocks
Minarets,
racks rising two and bebop, one-stringed adobe walls and Strangers arrive on
mountain, eaten by on gold chains, great rusty iron. They come down teak, houses of the passerby with
toxicity – houses of platforms, and hammocks human world, but light, gravity.
All for
unknown places one hundred feet fish heads.
High the
Upside Down, games. Second-hand private
police swapping stories around a burning dog, someone always burning something
they shouldn’t be here.
Make a
move.
Find
hollowed out tree perfect size and condition, surround it with sigils and relax
into its damp woody heart. Bigger on the
inside than the outside, always a nice find.
Illumined with sprinkle of phosphorescent dust and perfect home.
For now.
Gotta see if
The Influence is okay, warn her if it’s not already too late. Gotta see if you’re okay, neglecting my
mentorship responsibilities. Gotta make
sure no cracks in the Zone too, if Superstring is right about Nova Mob trying
to slip in. Always so much to do.
Always so
much to do.
