The Church of the Transhuman

by Joe Plus

  John turned to Gideon and saw that he had the head of a wolf, a drink in hand and his dog Honey at his feet. John grabbed at his own face.

  “Oh god, and me?” he said.

  “Go on,” said Tele, “look in the mirror over there in the passage; you are just you, unchanged and nothing more.”

  John ran to the passage. A large gilded rococo mirror hung from the wall. Kitsch, he thought. In the reflection he stood, same-old-same-old, suited and clean-shaven. “You are what you are,” he heard himself saying.

  The floor crackled under his feet. He turned and walked into a light open clearing surrounded by snow covered fir trees under a clear blue sky. He looked upwards and said: “Christ, is it morning already?”

  Chapter 31

  Log: 05-21-2044::23:43

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  A storm has delayed our rescue. It’s dark and overcast, and we seem to be smack bang in the path of a swarm of fruit bats, thousands of them, whistling over the tent. I assume there is a cave nearby where they nest. I expect the tent is covered in shit by now. But I don’t know, I can barely see a thing.

  Log: 05-22-2044::13:44

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  Malcolm is hysterical. He has taken command, and assaulted me twice in the last hour: once because I took a crap, and once for suggesting he might like his own tent. He blames me for poor leadership; for the mess we're in. I’m not his only target. He struck Trish for bringing down morale - for being tearful. She has a large bruise on her forehead between her right eye and temple. I don’t know how much longer we can bear this. I am worried that the two boys will run away and leave us alone with him; set up their own tent somewhere. Trish says that if she is struck one more time she will escape to the dinghy and get the hell out. I am with her on that one.

  Subvox: 05-23-2044::00:15

  Location: Sabah, Kinabatangan River, Maliau Basin

  Name: Augusta Green

  The two boys sleep, arms wrapped around each other. Malcolm snores gently; upright, cross-legged, he grips tightly his rifle. Heavy rain outside, and water drips through the tarpaulin onto everyone and everything. Trish is next to me, her nasal whine a bee in my ear.

  I am swollen and I am wet. I know he is near.

  I hear the wet slap of his footsteps along the rocks. Now I see his shadow outside the tent. There he is, his silhouette. A cloud of mosquitos form a shroud around his head. He stoops as he enters, pauses to look at Malcolm, bares his teeth, pushes him over and grabs the gun, his other hand a tight fist. Malcolm murmurs but does not wake. He looks down at the two boys and then turns to me. He looks at Trish, stops – I think, but I don’t say aloud, no, not Trish – and he turns to me, steps over her. I close my eyes and he undoes my sleeping bag, pulls off my panties. He rubs his penis against me, pushing it along my clitoris, up and down. I can’t control my low moans. He brings his head down and licks and sucks. The others may wake, so I bite my hand. He moves his tongue and pushes it deeply into my anus, snakelike, presses hard. He withdraws his tongue and turns me onto my back. I am afraid, but I have to look. His skin shimmers in the faint moonlight, each soft hand holds a foot aloft and he pushes forward and enters. He begins to rock back and forth and I breathe heavily. Oh god it’s wonderful. I open my eyes and I see his torso. I can make him out more or less. He is grey-blue, the color of a bottle nosed dolphin. His face is that of a young man, with large, intelligent eyes. His chest area is long and his shoulders broad and powerful. I reach out and hold his forearms. We come together and I arch my back and call out: Oh god. I see Trish, her eyes flicker. Take her too, I think, take us both.

  Chapter 32

  A large black wolf sat on top of a single lichen covered stone chewing a small bone. Another blond wolf lay curled on the bare ground.

  “Actually,” said the black wolf, “it’s early afternoon, and today is an important day, the shortest day of the year and the last day of our King.”

  John heard a crack and a growl and on turning he saw, not a meter away, an enormous brown bear eating raw flesh. The bear sat squat on a rotten, icy log.

  “Don’t get too close,” said the black wolf. Through the overtones of a canine’s whine John recognized the voice - it was Gideon. “Tele can be quite protective of his offerings,” he said.

  John walked to a safe distance atop a low mound, roughly where his leather seat had once been – or so he thought. He looked askance at the blood spattered snow, tracking upward to the source, a piece of dripping meat. John jumped when he realized the meat was part of someone’s arm, and at the bear’s feet were the other remains, from the pile of mangled offal sundered by splintered bone, gender and age indeterminable.

  “Offerings? A human? What the fuck, you, you…”

  “Careful now,” said Gideon, “he is after all a bear, and you are but a man.”

  “It's my spirit,” said Tele, grinding on the hand, “to eat flesh, and I especially enjoy human flesh.”

  “Have you had your fill?” said Gideon.

  “You think we best be getting a move on?” said Tele, spitting out a finger bone. “Pthwaa, lord knows why they keep offering me their old men and women. What's wrong with a bit of maiden or tender child?”

  “Complain, complain,” said Gideon, “they could easily bury their dead you know.” Gideon stepped off the stone and slinked his way to John. John frozen, tracked the wolf’s movement. He used all his willpower to repress a desire to run. Gideon came close and sniffed.

  “Oh, don't be afraid. Goodness, we are terrifying the life out of the poor lad.”

  “That's what bears do, and your job too by the way. I’ve got the munchies after the cognac and cigars, might take a wander to those brambles over there.”

  “No. We really must be off now. And please for the time being play the friendly old papa Bear.”

  Tele threw down his meat, lurched upward, arms wide and claws extended and let forth a ferocious roar.

  “Christ,” John jumped up and the blonde wolf raised its head.

  “Must we really go now?” she said, and she yawned and stretched.

  “Well,” said Gideon pacing about, “everyone will be expecting us, so yes, we should leave soon, especially since we will not be able to exceed the pace of our guest.”

  “A pathetic specimen, isn’t he,” said Tele.

  “It will take around two hours to get there,” said the blonde wolf.

  “Get where?” said John shivering. He hunched his shoulders against the cold.

  “To the White Hill, to say farewell to the old and usher in the new,” she said.

  “Nelli, is that you?” he said.

  The animals laughed.

  “Why yes it is,” she said.

  John clasped his hands against his head and said: “Talking animals, fuck. What was in the drink? Bad trip guys, bad trip.”

  “Come on, let's be off,” said Tele.

  Bloody mouthed and wet pawed, Tele lumbered up to John and crouched down.

  “On my back,” he said.

  The two wolves sidle up, tongues out.

  “You are honored, he doesn’t often do this,” said Nelli.

  With trepidation John climbed up onto the bear's back and gripped onto his shoulders.

  “Mind you hold tightly,” said Tele.

  Tele raised himself and darted off on all fours, over the pile of meat and bones and into the forest. The two wolves followed and were soon abreast, first one on either side, then ahead, switched sides, yelped, jumped, and snapped the air. Tele ran through bracken, over fallen trees, through streams and over trenches. John’s hands, arms and legs were soon soaked and scratched, his clothes torn, but Tele neither slowed down nor gave particular care toward his passenger. John heard the two wolves; quiet, nimble, zip this way and that. The forest became a glimpse of damp mulch, bracken, branch, ice,
and snow covered ground. He tried to clear his eyes by rubbing his face into fur. He kept his head down and eyelids shut to avoid the cut of a thorn or the whip of a branch. The smell of wet loam from paw-spatterings and rich, feral sweat suffused Tele’s fur and John turned his nose to breathe in the cold, fresh air.

  They crossed the forest to an exposed plain blown flat by strong easterly winds. He thought he would die from the subzero blast and he looked ahead to an approaching landscape of patches of snow and ice that mottled grassy tundra of hills, rocks and isolated bushes. He glimpsed one wolf’s profile; its silhouette of jagged fur, glints of teeth, and jet orbs on white eyes. They followed an embankment along a hill, turned up a gap and ran a few meters before stopping sharply. John shivered and thought only of escaping the cold.

  “It’s no good,” said Tele, “he’s dying from the cold, I can feel it.”

  Gideon and Nelli paused and spoke quietly. After a few minutes they continued until they entered a small cave.

  “Good, this one's empty,” said Gideon.

  John slipped off Tele's back and fell between the two wolves. He felt better out of the wind. He turned to Nelli and said:

  “Nelli? Really is it you?”

  She put down her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes with no further explanation. The light of the Sun darkened and soon John noticed a change in sound outside, as if deadened by a large blanket. With the stillness, the tightening cold and the sudden dip in light, John's eyes began to droop and he fell into a deep slumber.

  He awoke to a nuzzling of his cheek and ear. He sat up. He was covered in a large, brown, fur-lined skin. His head was poking through a hole in it.

  “Quick, up you get, we are late,” said Gideon.

  The urgency in the whine ensured John jumped.

  “On Tele, quickly now.” It was Nelli this time, rubbing alongside John's legs and pushing him toward the large dome of crouching bear.

  “Come on then, on my back. Not far to go now.”

  John climbed onto Tele's back and clasped the fur blanket tightly between bear fur. The three animals ran out of the cave and into the cold wasteland.

  The sky was crystal clear but for a few wisps of cloud. The Sun was low and the shadows long, and they ran faster than before, over flat icy fields and through hedgerows. John saw dwellings and hillocks and smoke rising from some of the smaller mounds. The terrain had changed to rolling hills, just enough height to cut the harshness of the wind. After a good fifteen minutes of running at full tilt, the wind ceased and in the vast plain arose a luminous, white cone that cut sharply into the heavens. They passed a row of thinly spaced wooden poles that cast shadows toward the northeast, each pole three or four meters apart and all the same height. They reached another row of larger, more thinly space poles, and then another row made of stone slabs. Tele dodged an oncoming pillar of red rock and John glimpsed carvings; labyrinthine swirls; webbed and blackened like those in the passage of his nightly dreams.

  Ahead he caught sight of a snaking queue of people encircling the white conical hill. They arrived at the base and he saw the queue continuing along a narrow spiral path that led to the top. Red haired men and women, pushed and pulled to journey to the top.

  “Happens each year,” said Gideon, “too many people want to be at the top for the ceremony.”

  Each person carried an unlit torch and a few earthenware pots, and children kicked up white dust on the steep incline. The crowd made way for the two wolves and the bear, and up they ran, the anti-clockwise spiral taking four full turns before they reached the flat top, and Tele shook John onto a cold, chalky floor. Looking around, John estimated the area to be around two or three hundred meters square. In the center grew a large Oak tree, with bare, heavy branches moving gently in the breeze. A huddle of women in red robes stood at the base of the tree by a small fire in a hearth. They seemed to be doting on one man. John stood, and noticed one woman placed a crown of holly on his head. Two other women were painting him a deep red. A young woman dressed in furs sat close by on a hewn stone, her hair braided and her face painted red and white. John immediately guessed that the hewn stone was an altar of some sort. Farther off behind the tree an elaborately dressed women chipped away on a long piece of flint. She was fitting the flint to a long, wooden handle.

  The three animals stopped and the group of older women turned from the man and approached them. They greeted the two wolves and the bear but seemed not to notice John. After having their noses rubbed and their necks kneaded the animals moved closer to the tree, not too close, they kept a safe distance from the painted man by the fire. John turned to Nelli and Gideon, who were huddled and said: “Guys, my balls are frozen solid. I need warmth. Where the fuck are we?”

  Chapter 33

  Log: 05-23-2044::08:15

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  I awoke to Trish’s cries. With the two boys we wrestled him down. Malcolm may have broken my nose – it’s very sore and bleeding. God he’s a tough bastard, tying him up was a real battle. We bound him with cable ties, and he sits sulking in the corner of the tent. Refuses to dress – off his rocker. Trish has his rifle, and she sits opposite him. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s barely gun literate; she grips it like a fishing rod. With her hoodie and the way she leans on her stool, she looks like a gnome on a rock. God Anna, I hope we get survive this.

  Log: 05-23-2044::12:35

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  Malcolm cut himself loose while we slept, and Trish is nowhere to be seen. Malcolm spent the last three hours outside calling for her, with tears in his eyes, begging her to return - no response. Malcolm, sits in front of the door, armed and squat on his haunches with a hard-on in full view. He moves his eyes to-and-fro like the beam of a lighthouse - nuts. Here we all are, stuck in a tent with this two-meter tall maniac. I am trying to work out when he lost his mind, at which point did he switch. It coincided with the time he dug up the corpse – or was it before then, when he began nattering to himself? Were there signs I missed from earlier on: his fight with the porter, his rolling of the eyes when I spoke? I knew there was a problem – a personality clash, but did I miss the sickness and its severity?

  Log: 05-24-2044::11:11

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  This may be my last log. We hear monkeys chirp and birds flutter, and we see movement; light rays blink and branches quiver. I think we are up for another attack.

  Ned Butler called and, though I said we were up to our necks in other business, he insisted on telling me that the radar images we took are remarkable - a fact any idiot could well conclude. He went on to say he thinks the attackers are indeed another species of human. So we are part of a groundbreaking find that could raise the CoT+’s reputation to new heights. Well that’s great, but the only thing on my mind right now is survival.

  Log: 05-25-2044::10:34

  Field Trip: Batang Garing

  Role: Field Lead

  Name: Augusta Green

  I have taught myself to use the pistol. I spent the early hours shooting distant orchids. I seem to be a crack shot. Malcolm moaned about wasted ammunition, until I took a shot at his feet and told him to fuck off. I will put a couple of caps right in his balls. He told me to watch my back, but keeps his distance, for now.

  Chapter 34

  Again, John said: “Guys, where the fuck are we?”

  Before either wolf or bear could answer, Nelli turned and ran over to the women making the knife.

  Gideon said: “This is the tower of the Weaver of heaven.”

  “The what?” said John.

  “The Weaver of heaven, the Queen of heaven, the Goddess of the moon. See that man over there?”

  “The one in white?”

  “He is the Queen’s consort and King of th
ese people. Tonight his reign will end, and then she, well… afterward she appoints someone new to accompany her for a year and a day.”

  John stood and walked over to the edge of the open area and peered out. The sun was descending in the west and the moon was not yet full above the horizon. He estimated they were fifty or sixty meters above ground. Below he could see the long queue of men and women. They were chatting loudly, their sticks and earthenware pots clattered, and there was much laughter and cheer. Two men were fighting playfully and a small crowd had gathered. John felt something brush against his legs. It was Gideon.

  “Come over and watch the spectacle,” he said.

  But John remained standing. He saw forests, open plains with herds of buffalo and what looked like woolly mammoth. To the east were mountains.

  “Come,” said Gideon, “the King must bond with the weaver, and then he is to descend to the depths.”

  “Riddles hey?” said John, “Wow, this is a, ah, a merry old gathering of ye old prehistoric peoples, if I’m not wrong, talking dog, I mean Nelli. O.K. I’m coming.”

  John turned and saw the top of the hill had become noticeably crowded. Men and women jostled around the tree for a view of the proceedings. With Gideon ahead he eased his way through until he found Nelli and Tele. A ceremony was about to start and the priestesses formed a line before the altar stone. The man painted white – the King – was forcibly brought forth. The young woman, her coat removed, stood naked before the alter. An older priestess spoke and the young woman climbed onto the flat stone and positioned herself face down, her backside pointed upward, legs splayed and each arm and leg held tightly by a priestess.