Eminent Domain

by Carl Neville

  How?

  His presentation of a different world. He looks away. Crane is, he says, an empty space, growing emptier by the day, more and more of the world pouring into him, through him.

  Barrow looks around the shop. You have a strong interest in mysticism, he says.

  Esoterica, yes. Mysticism is a harsh term, Mr Barrow.

  You like things. You have commodity nostalgia. I noticed books from the 1960s written by people many would have defined as being against the spirit…

  Ah. Spirit!

  … of the times, the Autarchy, the Internationalist movements.

  Pure sentiment on my part, that is all. One of the, how shall I put it, modes of feeling that I have strong attachments to is the poignancy of the past. Its defeatedness, Mr Barrow, speaks to me. The terrible poignancy of reading the works of the conservatives, the liberals at the time, all that investment, all that work on something that was utterly irrelevant to the world that was about to come into being, these vital questions they wasted their lives on that proved to be not even, he pauses, marginal.

  Why don’t you tell me about the Enthusiasm?

  It started, they say, as a… they use the term manifestation, you know there are lot of Spanish speakers round there, so a play on the word, in Spanish perhaps it means something like a demonstration, a protest, but in English a manifestation suggests the conjuring of something altogether more spiritual, more otherworldly.

  A manifestation? Of what?

  Otherworldly, yes, that’s the word, he says with evident satisfaction. They say they are going to open up a portal to another world, they say they are going to reach across time and space to rescue, well, everyone.

  For instance?

  The dead.

  ROD GUIDE TO THE PRB

  INSTITUTE: INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

  CATEGORY: HISTORY AND MOVEMENTS

  SUBCATEGORY: THE HARROWING OF THE SOUTH

  A play on the term the Harrying of the North, the Harrowing of the South refers to the psychic warfare directed by the key cities and communalized territories of the Midlands and North against the South in alliance with the main unions and institutions of counterpower, alongside an ostensibly neutral Parliamentary Labour Party heavily under the influence of militant unionists and infiltrated by mainly pro-democratic communist factions (DemCOM, GWRP and others).

  The unofficial covert SSF psy-ops departments, heavily supplied by and working in tandem with Soviet technologies, were intent on avoiding the possibilities of intervention by Atlanticist institutions that had accompanied the Italian revolution of the 1970s: the aim therefore was a strategy of tension, characterized by “demoralization, nausea, fatigue”, dubbed “The Impostume Strategy” by Waterston, drawing on the line in Hamlet on the malady “that inward breaks and shows no cause without why the man dies”.

  One technique believed to be especially effective was circumambient psychotoxins, particularly infrasonic weapons used in tandem with covert exposure to the range of psychedelic and other consciousness altering drugs being developed in underground laboratories within the Contested Territories (here). Many of these compounds and sonic innovations were subsequently spun off into Recreational Pharmaceuticals (see RecPharms here) and/or formed the basis of many of the experimental narcosonics of the post-Breach period in the rapid proliferation of venues and clubs mostly clustered around areas within London where they had initially been deployed (see South London, The Circuit in Places of Cultural and Historic Interest here. See also Liversidge, et al., Then Let Thy Poison Be Thy Cure: Repurposing Trauma for Communal Joy, South Academy Press, 1998).

  The Dead

  Barrow glances away.

  They think there are different worlds you know, and that they can reach across the gap between them, pull those who are suffering into this world, they think that Crane was an early example of this success. That through some effort on our part here or through some flaw or fault there he slipped between worlds. They think that the Breach was more than just a removal of the House of Windsor, they think it was, how shall we put it, a moment when the confluence of two historical currents pulled in all kinds of matter from other worlds, that Crane was one. The Enthusiasm is a site of power, of worlds that slowly grind against others until one collapses. Without wishing to appear immodest, that is rather like my argument in Ontological Tectonics…

  Barrow finds he is watching him intensely. Goodridge gazes back.

  All too theoretical for me, Barrow says. An additional question. What is Field Recording #4?

  Oh, Goodridge smiles. The mythical FR4. You should talk to Gillespie about that.

  Tell me what you know.

  Gillespie’s claim is that the field recordings are Crane somehow recording his passage between worlds, a record of a journey, and that exposure to them will alter the listener irreparably. He claims they will spontaneously generate an increase in the diatriptomine levels in the brain, not only that, but also the shape and form of the experience, that they are a kind of sonic key that triggers…

  Trigger? Barrow almost says the word out loud.

  … both a key and a doorway through to a particular type of hallucination. He claims to have had it in his possession at one point and that it mysteriously disappeared. Well, have I answered all your questions, Mr Barrow?

  Barrow purses his lips, senses some eagerness in Goodridge, a desire that Barrow finds the question that he wants to be asked of him.

  But for the moment, there is nothing. You have my contact details Barrow says.

  An Interview with Robert Gillespie: Extract 2

  Gillespie: When he had his things returned to him there was stuff they kept, video cassettes, clippings from newspapers, photographs, but they missed one of them. It was a smallish video cassette in a format that we have never used, never developed, I am sure they intended to keep it but there was a slip-up somewhere and it got filed with the music cassettes that got given back. We had a friend who cobbled together a means for us to play it. So, I sat up in that dingy little room in the Crescents and Harvey rigged up this video player he’d improvised to the TV. Well.

  Now, the truth of it is I can’t even remember exactly what I saw, I’ve blanked it out, and even a few days after that. I don’t have much memory of them, and my memory is generally flawless. Even under severe pharmacological duress. So I skipped a couple of days and woke up, came round on the floor and I was holding Crane’s hand, I think he’d been looking after me, he said that if he’d taken his eyes off me for a moment, I would have disappeared, slipped out of the world. I had no memory of what I’d seen but the truth of Crane’s claim was incontrovertible to me. I found it hard to function for a while after that, and I had a wee scan, the structure of my brain had been permanently altered. Imagine Crane then, having to actually live here, no wonder his brain is melting.

  He said that the hole in his brain kept getting bigger and he kept falling through it and it was harder and harder for him to crawl back out until one day he fell through completely, ended up here.

  So, when I say transdimensional I know whereof I speak.

  Katja

  Barrow looks tired, sitting, sleeves rolled up, back at his office desk, and she can see he has taken his patch off. Certainly, he got back from the North quickly and she suspects he’s both overridden the car’s automatic drive system in order to take control of it himself, imagines him tense behind the wheel at 120mph on the long empty roads, and removed the patch to stop it detecting his elevated adrenalin levels.

  Tereza, he says, excellent work in apprehending the suspects, especially locating them off-grid, organising sufficient manpower. Tereza glances fleetingly up from the Passocon to acknowledge that she has heard him.

  Katja, thank you for taking on the responsibility for the searching of the premises.

  She smiles back, can’t help it.

  And support for the victims and the suspects. He pauses. We don’t use the word anymore do we?

  Suspect: dead word<
br />
  What do we say now?

  Just interviewees.

  He collects his thoughts

  Abhishek, you have prepared a report on the PRB interviewee? He glances between them.

  Abhishek speaks, Well we have a little, really a minor problem there. We have everything that has been stored on central SSF storage of course and that is comprehensive, but the actual ROD itself we don’t have access to.

  Why not?

  We have put in a standard request for access and so have SSF1, Squires. That means it goes to arbitration. Basically, SSF1 think that whatever is on there may have internal security implications. Now, there are one or two files on there that are not part of the public record, that used ways of getting around the automatic disabling of the ROD’s recording device. I can only assume that it is these that have attracted the attention of SSF1.

  Elaborate on that.

  Programmes like block-block or Evan-ess that wall off the ability of central facilities to store messages and keep them on your machine instead of on the big public ledgers. Semi-legal, no official move against them especially given the Vote.

  No way of getting into them?

  Without the ROD? No. But. The central ledger shows they were used the night Bewes died.

  So potentially vital to our investigation. And this request is from SSF1?

  A classic tactic for keeping sensitive information in limbo, Tereza says, slightly irritated tone, still not looking up from her Passocon. Technically we can’t start questioning him until that is resolved.

  Well, Barrow says, let’s not get over-obsessed with technicalities. I’ll talk to Waterston. He turns to look out of the window and Abhi and Katja share a moment of quizzical eye contact. The meeting seems to be over. Abhi lingers in his seat as Katja and Tereza half stand to leave.

  Should I update you on what Lewis and I are doing?

  They hover for a moment then lower themselves back down. Barrow picks up and begins to rotate a pencil. Any significant developments?

  Abhishek seems a little taken aback by his tone. Well, we have located what we think is the main source of information flows coming in and out across the Partition, it’s in the south, close to the Enthusiasm, as they call it. We will try to move on detaining the people using it and impounding the equipment. He partly turns to Tereza, We will request additional numbers for support.

  Where will I find them? she asks.

  He pauses again, this isn’t quite the response he had anticipated, Katja tries to offer a supportive smile. Barrow sits back, still rotating the pencil.

  Make sure you are back here in the building intermittently; we may need you for analysis of the RODs.

  Shouldn’t I prioritize…?

  Let’s work on these suspects, get the bigger picture. Divide your time.

  They stand to leave again.

  Katja, Barrow says, a moment.

  Who’s overseeing Verona’s case? he asks.

  Squires. SSF1. That’s standard where there are diplomatic implications, isn’t it?

  Barrow nods. You are supervising her. When the scans and medicals and making them aware of their rights is all over we need to get in there first and ask a few questions, he says.

  We? she thinks, but simply nods equivocally.

  Are you familiar with the procedures in a case like this?

  Well, no one has directly informed me of anything, Tereza just told me they need someone to go and make sure Verona isn’t going to do anything harmful to herself.

  What I am saying is, I need to get in to talk to her before Squires arrives. There’s a pause before she answers as she controls her irritation.

  That might be difficult, she says.

  I have some questions. I’ll send them through on the ROD. We can do it unofficially.

  Well, she says, I don’t know how much… I am not officially a part of the PRB SSF structure… I don’t know how much I want to start bending the rules.

  I believe there are dramatic, broader implications to the situation that include SSF1 being compromised, he says. Clearly, we can’t interrogate her but let’s at least try to get as much information as we can. When all this is over, perhaps we can have that drink we never managed a few days ago, he says, attempts a smile.

  As she walks back down the corridor she wonders if Barrow is attracted to her and recoils at the idea, yet she can’t help but give off signs of submissiveness, of malleability, when confronted with an older Breacher. She wishes she could be as hard-nosed as Tereza, but then perhaps it’s just a different mode of the same response, scolding daddy instead of seducing him. Why can’t he just keep his patch on? She knows non-compliance is a problem and she suspects the older ones whose lives were used to running to rather different rhythms are especially reluctant to use them. Yes, it will be the men of a particular generation, deeply attached to their own irrationality

  She sighs, nods a greeting to some colleagues who go past. When she answered the call to come in for routine support work she hadn’t anticipated that she would be caught in what looks to her like a highly irregular interdepartmental power struggle, some personal enmity perhaps left over from the Breach. Breachers! The word flashes angrily into her mind again and she supresses it, has a sudden strong urge to see Lewis, experience her calm and wise, quiet sense, removed yet somehow central. She will see her later, out there somewhere.

  Katja takes a deep breath outside the questioning room, feels a little flushed and ridiculous. Be neutral. She summons something calming from the patch or receives it automatically a moment before she has acknowledged her need for it. She opens the door and sees Julia sitting at the table in the over-bright room.

  Barrow/Tom

  PRB 2003701 is sitting in the chair, he appears calm and Barrow can tell instantly that he believes himself to be innocent and has absolute faith in the procedure through which his innocence will be proven. If he has been gotten to then this has been an extraordinarily good job.

  He sits, rolls up his sleeves. Start with general, open questions, let the contradictions, inconsistencies, evasions open up, then burrow in, drill down.

  Tell me about your time in the States.

  The States? I was an exchange student at U-Cal doing graduate research into sound design in American cinema and the ways that was reflective of ideological elements within the culture.

  Expand.

  Well, American film as you probably know still has a very separated sound field and the dialogue tends to be a/b and there’s a fronting of dialogue and an attempt to create a three-dimensional model of the interactions, whereas we in the post-communist world have refused to give priority to any element of the sound field. I partly relate this to experiments in painting, Cubism and so on, then on into the school of non-perspectival art that develops out of the big Russian Académie in the Sixties.

  A pause, should he continue? Barrow is looking at him intently.

  So we have overlapping dialogue and a refusal to prioritise anything in the sound field, so for the American observer who hasn’t been exposed to much of our cinema it’s very difficult at first to separate out the visual and auditory information, so we monitored the brain activity of American subjects when they watched a particular film…

  Which film?

  The title? The recent film adaptation of Safety for the Apes.

  ROD PRB Litdigest

  Safety for the Apes

  Author: Alan McFarlane

  Summary

  Safety for the Apes focuses on the misadventures of a group of radical animal liberationists, the Free Animal Federation Front (FAFF). The three principal figures in the play are Treece the group’s founder, his partner Walstam, and Golding, a sceptical young academic, who in doing research on the group becomes unwittingly involved in their plans to break into London Zoo and liberate the animals. The six-person group is hopelessly disorganized and in the course of the evening encounters many difficulties (for instance, one of the group, Thrower, an expert in birdsong who
has been brought in to “consult” with the birds in the aviary, ends up in an argument with a group of starlings in the trees adjacent to the zoo). The three principals end up climbing a tree in the monkey compound in order to escape from the tigers they have set free and as disagreement mounts between them Treece and Golding end up in a struggle which knocks Walstam down into the jaws of the animals prowling below. In the play’s final scene, Treece inveighs against the emergency services as they begin tranquilizing the animals in order to rescue them from the tree, crouched in its highest branches and waving his fist defiantly as the sun rises.

  Interpretation

  Drawing on absurdist and existentialist traditions and incorporating elements of farce and slapstick along with topical arguments within the United Kingdom at the time, Safety for the Apes became one of the most discussed and controversial plays of its moment.

  There is broad agreement on many of the satirical and referential aspects of the play. Treece is understood to be a reference to the poet Henry Treece, whose 1946 poem “Fickle as Tiger” was an influence on the play, while the starlings that Thrower argues with in a non-human language, inaccessible to the audience, are broadly agreed to represent the marginality and infighting around arcane issues of political theory of the time, such as “negative organizational capability”, in which bird flight was used as a metaphor for spontaneous or instinctive forms of political action.

  The play was criticized when it was first produced due to its satire of fringe animal liberationist groups and went unperformed from many years following the Breach, the anti-PRB activities of its author and his defection to the United States. Subsequent readings and stagings have resisted its initial reception and framing, focusing on the extensive stage instruction for the animals within the play, re-interpreting it as a signature work for radical equivalence movements. An influential 2014 film adaptation by the South Academy Film Council repurposed the text in this light, shifting the emphasis away from the Golding/Treece/Walstam dynamic by using split and multiple screens in order to focus on the responses of the animals to the night’s activities, emphasising the non-human languages and forms of communication, decentring the human protagonists, showing them caught up in a web of communication and merely one species among many.