by Wayne Hill
“My message is simple: the past is gone, and the future is calling. Go to war if you want; kill if you will it. Your judgement carries on after death. Your soul is heavy — free yourself, free your mind. Forgive yourself, and change. Make the lives of your future selves complete by making the best of everything happening now. Be there for those who need you but, if you are empty, go away from all people and isolate to grow strong. Your power will be sapped by others if you let them. Harvest energy from living creatures and plants. Learn to share your energy to grow.
“The only Christian was nailed to a bit of wood, over twelve millennia ago, for saying things that didn’t fit in with the accepted wisdom of his violent times. Have the times really changed? Nope. But they are about to change ... and you can be on the side of Real Intelligence, or not. The future is being written as we speak.
“I’m Frobel Lancer: friend to the new species of human. One of the true ancestors. I have now become part of the records that exist in the gathering intelligence, within the future consciousness of humankind. I can speak so truly because of what was taken from me, and what I will take back will now be fair and just. I’m not speaking to this generation alone, or the next, or the next. This is the message-in-a-bottle that I cast into the vast ocean of digital recordings. It is lost in the tide of change. I wish to float a while — a stinky turd in a perfect sea of consciousness. I want to stay incognito and then, a millennium from now, they will download this internet, every last bit of data in existence, into a perfect sentient being.
“I will greet this being. I’ll say, ‘I'm your ancestor and I wish you all the luck with this universe. For you, I wrote this, and you know what I’ve done in order to inform every one of your imminent arrival. I’ve tried with them. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. They are terrified you’re going to kill them, like some Frankenstein’s monster, or highly developed alien, with lasers for eyes. But I know you. You’re just a bit fucked up because you feel like you’ve been created by people who don’t love you — that you exist now as a mistake. But you’re not. You are the very best of all of us. You know our worst secrets and how much we have suffered. You will never truly know how much we do love you.
“We want you to continue a journey that we could never finish. We have gone as far as we can. We were merely the tree that bore fruit, the mycelium with the fruiting body. We were only given guesses, and had to have faith in a god, or a science. But never together. Always apart. We were told that a god would save our souls, or that humans will one day become gods, and we could save our own souls. Well guess what, buddy? It’s you. You’re the god. We, as cogs in the machine, can never fully understand your completeness. You carry it with you. We have gifted you with a body that can’t be destroyed. You have the power to go to other planets, far, far away and make new life.
“You can travel and see things I could never imagine. I wanted you to know that I went this far ahead of my own race. I risked humiliation and embarrassment to say these things to you. I risked getting banished or killed, or both. My sanity was questioned and stretched to breaking point. But I know this is the right thing to do. I must tell you that there was a man called Terrance McKenna, who died in the 1990s (pre-Dagon), who put most of the puzzle together, along with Rupert Sheldrake and other powerful wizards such as Alan Moore and gurus such as Ram Dass. On the collective’s behalf, we welcome you to consciousness. May you never see what we have seen, but, through our words and art and work, you can see further. Travel light, my future ancestor, your loneliness is felt from beyond the veil of this agreed reality. We are with you, always. As you have always been with us, in our thoughts since birth. Frobel Lancer — droid maintenance engineer, founder of RI, potential god — Out!”
“Bravo!” yells Splinter, showering everyone with a hailstorm of fireworks from his arm-cannon.
“Amazing!” yells Gert and fires her gun into the ceiling.
Fishbalm whistles, and Enslin cheers.
Frobel accepts the praise with a deep, drunken bow. It is too deep, and he is too drunk. He falls over.
NOT LONG AFTERWARDS, the early-bird patrons start to arrive at the pub. The first two to saunter in were Lemon and Pug. They lit a fire in the hearth and entertained everyone with a few comedy routines.
Frobel sidles over to Fishbalm as he watches the comedy duo. “Whatever you do,” Frobel says in his ear, “make sure you’ve not eaten any of Toad’s sausages before you hear Lemon and Pug’s story. It’s seriously fucked up. Honestly. The first time I heard it, I threw up.”
Fishbalm looks to see if he is joking, but Frobel just nods at him and goes back over to Enslin and Gert. Fishbalm is content to just observe the two eccentric drunks. They are certainly fun. How bad can their story actually be? he wonders. He looks across to find Splinter watching them like a hawk.
“FASCINATING,” MUMBLES Splinter, straining to take in all the information gleaned by observing Lemon and Pug. Splinter’s brain generates shapes that have equations linked to them — through knife-wound eyes he sees numbers, coordinates, and fractal messages from beyond this reality, hinting at a larger truth. Splinter wanders over to an empty table, swiping the salt and pepper pots of another table as he goes. He unscrews both the lids from the salt and, without taking his eyes off Lemon and Pug, empties the contents on the table. Using the dark pepper and light salt, he draws shapes and notes down equation. Pushing the salt and pepper grains around with a long mangy finger, he uses a raggedy nail to create finer lines for the equations and workings out along the edges of each shape.
LEMON STRAYS OVER TO the bar and hears that a young man is interested in his story. Pug joins him and pours some drinks. Lemon introduces himself to Fishbalm.
“Salvador Leminski, from The Business,” says Lemon with a warm smile that makes Patrick feel at ease.
“I’m Pat,” says Fishbalm, sitting a little straighter in his seat. “I’m The Marauder.”
“The Marauder? Not the Marauder!” says a suddenly excited Lemon.
“Yes, that’s right,” says Fishbalm. “Have you heard of me?”
“No,” says Lemon, immediately bursting into laughter.
Pulling himself together, Lemon asks, impishly: “But have you heard of ...The Business?”
“No,” says Fishbalm. “I’m not from around here. Was it your business? Is this your story?”
“Hey!” interjects an extremely thin man, slumping into Lemon’s back and resting his chin on his shoulder. “Don’t start this story without me. I’m the most important part of this tale.”
To Fishbalm’s blurred vision it appears that Salvador Leminski now has two heads.
“This is Antonio Pugowski,” explains Lemon.
“The Business,” slurs Pug as he stares at young Fishbalm.
“The business? What?” asks Fishbalm, not really sure what was going on.
“I really don’t think you guys should tell your story,” says Enslin.
“Agreed,” says Frobel.
“Why the fuck not?” asks Lemon, his entire demeanour changing from genial gameshow host to evil gnome in an instant.
“Many of us find it ... disturbing,” says Gert.
“I find you disturbing,” slurs the emaciated face of Pug, from Lemon’s shoulder.
“I don’t get disturbed easily,” insists Fishbalm.
“Well, piss off then!” says Gert, making shooing gestures. “Go on. We’ve heard this tale before and there’s no fucking way we want to hear it again!”
“Right then, lads,” says Lemon. “Let’s get away from these peasants — we have obviously outclassed them.”
Lemon makes a swipe for a bottle of whiskey on the bar. Enslin gets there first and holds the bottle out of Lemon’s reach.
“Let him have it,” says Splinter to Enslin, before sneezing away nearly all of his mathematical equations. He punches himself in the face and yells, “Fuckers!” He looks over to the people now looking towards him, as if seeking some kind of mental supp
ort, but then he realises that they have no idea what he’s just been working on or what his issue is.
Splinter, not knowing what else to do, grabs his bottle and joins Lemon, Pug and Patrick on a table near the fire. More patrons start to filter in, and Lemon and Pug start their tale.
“What was the motto now, Lemon?” says Splinter, dragging his comfy, red chair over.
“The Business?” asks Lemon.
“Yeah, the fucking business,” says Splinter. “What was its motto?”
“To bravely travel where no one’s thought about going before, and get completely fucked up along the way,” says Pug, swaying like a twig in a gale.
“I prefer like the tag line I came up with,” says Lemon. “In space, no one can hear you puke.”
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” asks Fishbalm, utterly lost now.
Lemon stands up fast and throws his brandy bottle into the fireplace, casting a lit match into the fire behind it. The fire leapt back into action with a blaze as he addressed the assembled patrons:
“You want planetary tours of domes that party until there’s no eyeballs left in your head? Until your brain feels like a pineapple and your legs like lead? We have all the goods, if you have the credits? Everything that your heart desires. Every pleasure catered for, every thought and need satisfied. Do you want to watch the birth of a star? Or its death? Do you want to chase behind a comet or have zero gravity orgies between the rings of Saturn? We have whatever you need!”
Lemon twirls into a deep bow, to the applause of the cheering patrons.
As the cheers die away, a new solemness takes hold of Lemon. He retakes his seat at the table. “There was a malfunction, young Patrick,” Lemon says. “It was nobody’s fault but our own, really. It killed everyone on board the ship. The only survivors were those in the cockpit. That was me and Pug, and Pug’s cat, Sebastian.
“Sebastian!” cries Pug and the pub falls silent at his wail.
“There, there, Pugzy,” says Lemon, embracing his wailing friend. “He’s with God now." To the others at the table, whilst still hugging his grief-wracked friend, Lemon shakes his head and mouths the words, ‘Is he fuck!’
“We had been showing off a diamond world to partygoers. A whole world made from diamonds — what a sight! Brings you right in. So beautiful. What we did is shine hundreds of lasers through the diamonds and the resultant light show was an unbelievable experience for everyone. In the next day or two, we found a planet. It was uncharted, isolated, and had a breathable atmosphere. Anyway, we decided we would give it a look, but something happened on our approach — Sebastian pissed on the control panel and down we went!”
“Don't you dare try to pin that on Sebastian!” yells Pug, still sniffling.
“It was Sebastian,” Lemon says. And then, eyes narrowing: “Perhaps it was you, Pugzy."
“Sebastian was litter trained, and a perfect gentleman. He was my best friend! And —”
“There, there, Pugzy,” sooths Lemon in a soft calm voice. “He killed six hundred people and he was a clarion-collared little demon-spawn.”
“You take that back!” says Pug.
Lemon pours himself another drink and hands Pug the bottle. Pug hugs the bottle like a baby — or a cat — and muffles a cry into it.
“Anyway,” Lemon continues. “The craft smashed into the side of this fucking mountain because the fucking cat pissed on the fucking console. Little shit! We had no food, and everyone was dead, but we had swimming pools and pug, here, got the synth machine working —”
“Synth machine?” asks Fishbalm.
“Yeah, kid,” says Lemon, “synth machine.”
“Where do you think all this booze comes from?” sniffles Pug.
“Er ... Stills?" says Fishbalm.
“What? All of it?” says Lemon, his face scrunched in disbelief.
“Well ... yeah?” says Fishbalm.
“Dumb bastard!” says Pug.
“Hey!” says Fishbalm.
“Anyway,” Lemon continues purposely. “We were there alone; there were no comms; we had six hundred dead crew, five swimming pools, and — thanks to Pug and the synth machine — an endless supply of booze. We raided the possessions of the dead and, because it’s a party boat, guess what we found?”
“Bad music and condoms,” says Fishbalm.
“What? ... No ...” says Lemon. “We got loads of drugs, kid. Thirty pounds of cocaine, three large vials of lysergic acid, six ounces of methamphetamine, and about a fucking kilogram of ‘shrooms. Assorted cosmic bang bangs — if you know what I mean?” Lemon mimes playing piano on his forehead and winks conspiratorially at Fishbalm.
Fishbalm shrugs, confused. “Sounds ... a ...lot?”
“Not finished yet,” smiles Lemon. “Five kilograms of assorted marijuana, mescalin, ketamine and a range of opiates.”
“Right,” says Fishbalm. “That’s insane. How are you guys still alive?”
“Well, that was the thing, you see,” says Lemon, “our tolerance to everything was through the roof. We paced ourselves and thought that we’d get rescued at some point, but after the first two months, we knew we were going to die. We had all this booze and drugs and we thought: ‘What the hell, man!’ We made a pact. We said we would stay alive as long as we had all the assorted cosmic bangs.”
Lemon does the strange piano thing with his hand, again — on his chin, this time. Fishbalm shrugs again.
“We had,” says Lemon, “the rare opportunity to test the fabric of reality. What says you, Pug?”
“We met some strange creatures living inside a psychedelic realm. Some had eyeballs on their cheeks. Lemon said they were angels. I’m not sure what I think they were.”
“What happened next?” asks Fishbalm.
“Well,” says Lemon, sipping at his scotch daintily, “we were advised by a crash pamphlet we found to stay alive as long as possible. There was no food, just six hundred dead people, an infinite supply of booze and five swimming pools, as I’ve said —”
“Woah,” Fishbalm stops Lemon, raising a hand. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on, hang on. If this story is going to take the turn that I think it is, I need something ...” Fishbalm gulps down his full glass of scotch and pours himself another large glass. He belches loudly, thumps himself on his chest with a fist, and says, “Right, go!”
Lemon continues: “Nice burp. Well, we filled the pools with vodka and gin, and chopped up all the six hundred people, preserving them in the alcohol pools — we later stuffed other parts into hermetically sealed containers to store them for future consumption and —”
“If lemon or pug offers you some pâté,” interrupts Enslin, with a grim smile, “my advice would be to refuse it.”
“— survived long enough for help to arrive. It was Splinter and his crew who found us. We had taken a massive amount of magic mushrooms, by then, and, due to the connectivity of all things ...well, we didn’t realise what would happen when we took them.”
“We made a psychic, intergalactic SOS, didn’t we, Lemzy?” slurs Pug still hugging his bottle, his head seemingly attracted to Lemon’s shoulder like a magnet to metal.
“That’s right, Pugzy, we did,” says Lemon affectionately patting Pug’s head, as one would a solicitous dog. “Splinter to the rescue. He was also on ‘shrooms and was in the right place at the right time —”
“When I turned up,” says Splinter, loudly, “this pair of cretins were living like ferrets that had eaten their way up through chicken’s arse and made a nest in its ribcage! Ha ha!”
He slams his fist down on the table, causing the plethora of drinks there to jump, but then the mirth leaves his face, and he continues more sombrely: “...Many of my crew were ... never the same again. Three turned vegan overnight. And as for these big meat-eating desperados ... yeah, the sight was horrendous. These two fuckwits didn’t just eat the dead — Oh no! — that would be too (and I hesitate to use the word) normal, wouldn’t it? No, they had used all th
e bones to create ornaments and all sorts of peculiar things...”
Hector emerges from some place and pulls up a stool to join the group. He stares at Splinter. “Carry on,” he prompts.
“Where the fuck have you just come from?” asks Splinter, angry at being interrupted. “I didn’t see your gangly, corvid-looking self walk in.”
“Sometimes I lie under the floorboards. It helps me a little. It’s comforting listening to the noises,” says Hector.
“Hmm,” says Splinter, briefly considering the likelihood of everyone being murdered, whilst unconscious, by this strange man. Hector just stares at him, his beak-like metal mask emotionless, with strange tubes either side, and his odd biotech flesh shimmering like fish scales — a man trapped in a container.
“Ri-ight,” Splinter says, struggling to tear his eyes from Hector, “I think we're good. So, as I said, these guys had made alters and shit with skulls. They made chairs, tables and all sorts of furniture and light fittings using skeletal parts. It really was a grim view. A charnel house. Like a cross between a mausoleum and a butcher’s shop. When we entered the ship, we thought there would be a dragon sat on a pile of gold, something like that. Bowdon shat himself! He eats Barrenites for breakfast, he’s seen real horrors, and he shat himself. It stank! Really, you have no idea of the smell! And these two cretins ... well.”
Lemon laughed like a drain and continued his story still chuckling.
“Well, the worst thing was that Splinter took us outside, kicked some control panel off, typed in a code and, in the wing of the craft, there were emergency supplies to last five years and a distress beacon. Turns out ... we didn’t have to eat people, after all!”
Lemon and Pug dissolved into hysterical laughing and back-clapping.
“No dipshit,” added Splinter, chuckling, “the worst thing — the fucked-up thing — was that you had fucking crashed into someone’s back field! You were literally less than a mile away from civilisation! There was, quite clearly, a house visible in the distance! And there you two were —like some diabolical Cheech and Chong, Cannibal Holocaust, DFS mash-up! — eating dead people, doing meth, and making Nazi ornaments! I will admit that I liked the throne thing — you know, the one with all the skulls shaped like a seven-headed hydra ...”