by Chris Kelso
- So, are you able to switch off your Transmatica then?
- I’m not actually Transmatic, but I am dedicated to finding those who are in the faint hope that we can unlock the secret to freedom for the human race.
The young man in the chair didn’t say a word. He looked completely focused. Sector strapped a Velcro cuff around his arm and the young man gave a faint smile to suggest he was ready.
- What’s the real world like? – Ellis asked while nibbling the dowel of bone at his knuckle.
- We believe it to have some resemblance to this one. I think there’s an element of pre-attentive processing, or unconscious information gathering from the real plane of existence. Our brains are picking up ghost memories of the lowest level of the 4rth dimension…
- Eugh…this is all a bit…well, daft isn’t it?
- If it’s daft then you’ll have no qualms about sitting in for processing after young Billy here?
- You’ll be telling me to wipe my arse with three seashells next. I just came here to ask you about Mike Ryko doctor.
Sector’s face suddenly bled of its colour.
- What do you know about Ryko?
- He was in the apartment next to mine.
- How typical that leech should try to influence you. He does this with all new tenants.
- I liked Mike…
- You would! He appeals to the working class ethic of the lowest common denominator. That’s his angle. False sense of security you see.
- I assume you knew he was Transmatic?
- Mike Ryko was not Transmatic Mr Ellis, he had powerful psionic abilities, but they were nothing to do with penetrating the subcutaneous jelly of the Solipsis. He could never get that far, he was too self-involved, like you…
- They’re saying he tried to attack Mrs Kowalski on the roof, do you think that’s true?
- It’s true, I saw him…
- You did? And did he…you know…”rape” anyone?
- Ryko is an animal and that is his biggest barrier to true Transmatica. His lusts could not be suppressed.
Ellis smiled to himself. Billy who was hooked up to the strange apparatus looked deep in doubtful reflection, interviewing his own brain.
- Mrs Kowalski is a dear, sweet old woman. I would’ve killed him if I hadn’t been a slave to my own fear. He was a brute…
- Well, Mike is dead.
Sector’s expression seemed to betray his previous statement - he looked saddened by this news.
- It was only a matter of time.
- So, you’re not surprised?
- Surprised? Hardly, the man had more enemies than I care to mention.
- I still say I liked Mike and I’m convinced that somehow he’s getting an unfair trial. What does Mrs Kowalski have to do with Transmatica?
Sector fell silent. There was a sense that too much had been revealed already.
- We really have to push on with this auditing…
- Must be some gift…
- If you sit in for processing we can find out if you have it.
- I don’t think so mate, not after the story about that cunt who’s head and arse exploded!
- That was just to scare you. It’s perfectly safe!
- D’you make a habit of fear mongering Dr Sector?
- Will you try it, or are you a slave to fear? I suspect you’re probably terrified…
- If it’ll shut you up! What’s all that shite you’re wiring the scruff up with?
- It’s my processing equipment. We can tell if he’s Transmatic or not. Stand back.
Sector flipped a switch and currents travelled through a series of tubes leading into Billy’s forearms. Ellis took a step backwards. Sector explained
- The way Transmatica works is that, if you’re lucky enough to possess the subconscious ability to process, then once you experience the real world you never forget it. You see in a sort of split screen, both universes simultaneously. Transmatic individuals begin to reject the poison being transmitted until eventually it’s powerless on them…
- Poison shyness?
- Excuse me?
- Poison shyness. It’s an inherited behaviour among animals in my trade…a rodent or feline learns not to fall for exterminator poison, it gets a taste for it. More often than not the rat smells the antimicrobial agent from a mile away and recoils from it.
- Transmatica is more than just a learned response.
- But it’s similar.
- No, it’s not. It’s more like Anamnesia, where we recall past knowledge from the universe and humanity in general. Now stand back please.
Billy started thrashing around until he fell sideways, toppling his chair over onto the floor. Ellis looked anxious.
- It’s a somatic experience this is supposed to happen.
Sector knelt to the quivering body and tried to control it.
- Follow the alluvium trail Billy!
Ellis looked unconvinced.
- He’s having a seizure you mental cunt!
- He can see the imminence of the Cycle.
- Christ…
- Don’t trust the moon! – Billy started yammering.
- Eh?
Dr Sector shushed Ellis. Billy went on.
- The moon is behind all of this!
- It is…?
- It manipulates our minds, tunes our consciousness to the wrong wavelength, the artificial one. The moon is a spacecraft broadcasting the fake world directly to the zonked-out left hemispheres of our brains.
- Your brain is pickled big man….
- Mr Ellis please! – Sector had manoeuvred Billy into the emergency position.
- I’m outta here I’ve a job to do.
****
- Rat catchers of old captured vermin with trained dogs or with their bare hands, much less holistic. Things are a little different now. Catching and breeding rats used to be an affluent occupation. The risk of being bitten or catching a disease was worth decent money way back when…
Mr Layman was busy controlling his frantic wife who detested creepy crawlies. Ellis went on waving his industry standard B&G gallon sprayer around gesticulating his point.
- I used to be a garbage man at one point back in Scotland. I suppose I have this compulsion to take out the trash…
Ellis laughed out loud but no one was listening to him. He heard the scuttling of insect feet on linoleum and dropped to his knees to scan the area. Ellis saw a tapered abdomen disappear beneath the fridge. Layman’s wife was hysterical with fear, cowered in the corner with her feet curled up to her chin.
- I think I’ve found the source of your infestation.
- My wife is terrified of bugs…
- Christ, get rid of them, god, my skin, they’re on me somehow…my skin is crawling just looking at them…having them in my house is…oh god, just horrid, please, kill them. Step on them; kill their family, all of them…
- They mostly eat sugar, but can go after glue, book bindings, coffee, dandruff, you name it…
- Oooooohhh, kill ‘em, kill ‘em!
- They were one of the first animals to colonise dry land you know?
- Step on them, just step on them. You don’t need that contraption, never mind all that kafuffle, just put your foo5t into their skulls!
- If you want to take your wife out of the kitchen and break a tranquiliser into her Pims that’d really help me out…
Layman escorted his wife into the living room while Ellis pulled the refrigerator away from the back wall. The huge nest of silverfish was bulging out of a hole in the plaster. Ellis flinched as he inspected the grey hue and metallic shine of the alien intruders, the female had just produced a gossamer covered sperm capsule.
- Eugh…see this is why I don’t do insects!
Ellis took out his brass wand, pumped at his pack mule and took aim - a haze of chemical bacterium shot of the shaft and into the nest. Ellis could swear he heard their screams of agony. Freshly hatched nymphs, barely moulted, perished at his hand. Ellis drew s
atisfaction from the slaughter, he was the war pornographer. He waited for the poison fog to clear so he could inspect the results of the massacre, but it refused to disperse. Instead it grew thicker, until Ignius couldn’t breathe…
SIX
ELLIS LIFTED HIS HEAD. La was standing there. He felt a harsh Martian wind on his bones and realised he was stark naked and cuffed to a cave wall. Outside there were the vague verticals of a ruined, reeking city. This must be hell – Ellis thought.
Still better than Visitacion Valley…
He felt blighted by fatigue and confusion. It was akin to taking a bad Jam Cap…
- I’m glad you’re awake. We can get on with the procedure now.
- La? What are you doing, I…?
The girl seemed confident and womanly. Ellis had to do a double take to make sure it was definitely her. She was wearing a strange reflective spacesuit, tight fitting and shimmering. She still had her ferocious sexuality, a need to be exploited.
- You little bitch!
- The Slave State doesn’t answer to anyone. They simply take what they want without consequence. There is no higher power you can go off and complain to.
La skirted back and forth, left to right like a demented spider.
- Who are you, aside from a wily wee minx?
- I’m an official representative of the State, a hard-wired drone. In that respect we’re not so different. One day you may be sent a message instructing you to come and work in the mining enclaves, until that day you will roam the Slave State dimension and try and live the fractured life of a pathetic insect.
- That sounds ideal aye…
La loosened Ellis’s shackles and he fell to the stone hard on his knees.
- What are you talking about? What’s a fuckin Slave State? I’m no cunts slave!
- It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to explain, I was going to clear things up as a courtesy, a sort of thank you for being kind to me before when we both met in purgatory. But if you’re going to be arrogant and aggressive then you can stick a fence pole up your asshole.
Ellis rubbed his wrists where the metal shackles had left raw rings.
- Was Mike in on all this?
La arched her back, pushing her ass out. Ellis could smell inhuman lust on her.
- No. Mike Ryko was indeed transmatic, you are not, despite what you’ve been led to believe. It was simply your time to come here. You had no influence over the decision. No one has any say in when they cross over to the true dimension, nor should they have. That’s why Ryko was murdered. He was a threat to the balance of power. Anyone with Transmatic ability is a threat. We can’t afford any Pax Romana here, chaos is integral to out survival.
- So Kowalski is one of you??
- The Kowalski Immitant isn’t even a real person, they’re both a manifestation of people dreamed into existence by the State.
- This is preposterous darlin’
- I know this must all be very shocking for you.
- Well aye…
- One positive thing is that you can live some sort of life until you receive your message of conscription. Use the time wisely.
- What if I kill myself?
- Then you’ll be dead…obviously.
- Oh…
- Your dimension exists as a kind of limbo, a between place. At our leisure we pluck unwitting homunculi from the bottom tier. We did not create your realm, but we are in almost complete control of it and its content.
- What about Sur, was he in on this?
- No. He’s just another hapless sap, but his time will come. You’ll be re-united in the enclaves soon enough.
Ellis sensed she would perhaps still accept him sexually, even now. If she wanted to fuck like she did before it wouldn’t be anything resembling human intimacy – it would be conducted in the fashion of orgying flies crawling over each other in the belly of a filthy stool pigeon, spread across a cradle of litter and debris; fucking without pleasure, without meaning, without anything but root desire. Although La looked so alluring in her tight, gleaming jumpsuit, the thought of sex with her now repulsed Ellis. La had a Silverfish stare, compound eyes. She seemed so pure and decent before. Ellis had a desire to exterminate her like a cockroach. He felt she may have wanted this too…
- You’ve learned a terrifying truth about the nature of the universe.
- What’s that?
- That it doesn’t have a soul. Like Plato suggested, the irrational streak running through the world’s soul is in fact, an copulating insane machine. The Mind behind it all is an insane weirdo.
He crawled from the cave and down the stony face of the mountain towards Shell County. He was aware of his nakedness but wasn’t inhibited by it. At the bottom he looked up to see La looking down. He couldn’t see the features on her face. The mask had slipped…
Outside parked on the curb was a candy apple red Nova…
SEVEN
THE SOLIPSIS, THE CYCLE, THE 4TH DIMENSION - these were all just buzzwords in the intricate final deceit Ellis had existed in his whole life. He was angry about that. It occurred to Ellis that he could track down Mike in the Slave State. He must be here somewhere, unless the State had ordered him executed because of his power?
- “Hi there everyone, this is Phil Dick, coming to you direct on KSMO radio station, Shell County to Moosejaw, Wire City to the Zinc Theatre, this is your number 1 source of music for lovers of classical and jazz. We’ve got some great numbers on the way, but first up is Art Tatum with “Body-And-Soul!”
Ellis turned off the radio. Even driving in his candy apple red Nova, he couldn’t experience even the faintest stitch of happiness. He also missed Sur, a man he’d only met twice in his entire life. There was something tragic about that realisation too. Ellis coasted through the streets of Shell County, past the gin soaks, stew bums and warped veterans that lined the pavements; past the storefronts, windows smashed and contents looted – it was almost like Visitacion Valley, all it needed were a few rape gangs. It wouldn’t take long adjusting to life here…
Ignius pulled over outside a bar called THE WIFEBEATER. He thought he’d ask around to see if anyone knew of Mike. Inside the place looked and smelled like death. Ellis walked to the bar and saw a well-dressed man to his left.
- Hi pal…
The well-dressed man stirred as if he’d just woken up. He was by all accounts completely pissed.
- Eh, oh…I’m Pushkin. I’m an editor.
- I’m Ignius. Have you seen a fella called Mike Ryko?
- Christ, I don’t know…
Pushkin put his head in his arms as if to go back to sleep. Ellis nudged him back to attention.
- He’s about 5 foot 9, black, real sunny disposition?
- Sunny disposition?
- Aye..?
- If there’s someone in Shell County with a sunny disposition then point them out so I can alert the proper authorities. Listen bub, ain’t no one here got a sunny disposition, ok?
- I gathered as much.
- I hate to be the bearer of bad news too, but he might have already been taken to the enclaves or assassinated in broad daylight.
- Mike was my only friend in the world. Well, him and big Sur…
- Ain’t it just the way? Since the holocaust, everyone wants to write their autobiography, can you believe that shit?
- What holocaust?
- Fuck me, you are new!
- Well sure.
- Everyone has their own perspective on the disaster and of the resulting outbreak which saw each man, woman and child in Shell County turned into a hideous reanimated monster. As an editor that’s a really dull way to make a living.
- I’m sure it’s deeply unsatisfying. Have you seen my friend or not?
- No.
Ellis sat on the stool defeated. Pushkin hailed the barkeep.
- Get our new friend a drink.
- Cheers. I’ll have whatever’s on tap.
The barkeep came back with a jug of frothy beer. Ellis brought th
e pint to his lips and couldn’t contain a whimper of pleasure.
- Fuckin horrible beer – he concluded - but it’s the first one I’ve had in almost a decade.
- You gave up?
- I had to. I was killing everyone around me.
- I bet you just found out the world you lived in was a heap of dogshit?
Ellis nodded.
- So what, the moon was an artificial satellite, it still looked beautiful, did it not?
- I suppose so.
- You know before you wake up in that cave and you’re told about all the disinhibiting stimuli originating from Sirius and all that other irrelevant bull, the moon was the most peaceful, benign looking thing you’d ever seen…
- So, what is this place?
- It’s hard to give it one single name. It’s part Narcokleptocracy, because the drug runners of the solar system fund the whole thing; part Kerdocracy, because the ultimate rules are based on material gain; part Raubwirtschaft because they plundered our economy; part military junta…
- Ok, so it’s a shite-hole.
- Oh yeah. If I had to give it a name, if I had to…I’d say it was an Obligorarchy, because the Lumpbourgiouse alien race that are in charge of it all are actually trying to amend the damage they initially caused. It was their radon gases that destroyed earth first time round. Then they took responsibility, said they’d do everything in their power to build it back up again. Well, they sure did, but the humans left are working as slaves where the unpaid work has no purchase power. Though, the Slave state blueprint existed before any colonisation actually occurred.
- I’m confused…
- Yup.
- I’ve had a bad Jam-Cap and I’m really high…
- Ingroup favouritism and collective narcissism, it’s part of their exegesis.
- I don’t feel much like drinking anymore…
- Don’t look so sad man. We’re just DNA carriers capable of experience, we’re no great loss. It’s the publishing industry that gets me…
- Oh…?
- You see, the main problem is that all the stories are the same and since the fall of the publishing industry, there’s no filter for the work being disseminated. Aside from the fact most of them can’t write because their hands won’t keep still and their fried minds are always preoccupied by the intrinsic hunger for brains.