New Model Army

by Adam Roberts

  I was happy to sit and wait. I cast my mind back.

  I thought about the Succession Wars, because that was when Simic was still alive. I thought back to the very beginning of that campaign, our first assaults in the Scots borders.

  I remembered twenty-four of us setting off through forestland. We were in amongst the trees, but we came out pretty soon into a housing estate, and broke into smaller squads, each with a specific task to perform.

  We saw quite a few civilians. It’s usually young men and boys who do the rubbernecking; they’re the ones drawn to the thrill of such a scene. Older men and women are usually too sensible to put themselves in the way of danger. That day, I remember, we passed a row of a dozen teenagers, all sitting on a low wall, in a line, hooting and waving at us as we passed, like idiots. And yet who can blame them? Isn’t it fun though?

  I remember that we jogged along the length of a terrace of concrete houses. Some of the inhabitants had piled what they could - beds, sofas on their ends - against the ground-floor windows as makeshift shutters.

  We came round the corner and surprised a news crew - all in white and blue, with flak jackets like fatsuits and dinky little pastel-coloured helmets. One was holding a camera, another carrying a wand-like microphone at arm’s length, a third didn’t seem to have any purpose, and was perhaps a producer. PRESS was printed upon their outfits several times per person, like an instruction. They scattered like skittles as we came through, one of them tripping down on to one knee, and then rolling right over, picking himself up sharpish and running off with the other two.

  We were going where the wiki told us an enemy communications van was parked, because by destroying that van we would degrade the enemy’s capacity for communication. And there it was, green as glass, looking like a massive fly on its back. The enemy had parked it in amongst some other vans, perhaps in the hope of hiding it from us; but with the cluster of aerials and paraphernalia on its roof it stood out only too clearly. It was painted in camouflage colours appropriate to the countryside, not a borders estate. Its sides were armoured and the British Army had spent millions of euros developing undeflatable tyres that could not be shot out by enemy combatants. That made no difference. We weren’t interested in the tyres.

  It was defended, of course: a dozen men were tucked into a sandbagged position ten metres away, keeping watch with guns. They were not looking in our direction. We stopped against the flank of a building, taking peeks around the corner at the van and the enemy position.

  ‘I know you,’ Simic said to me, as we gave the tripod we were carrying the opportunity to stretch its skinny legs. ‘You can shoot inanimate objects not-too-bad, but I have my serious doubts that you are man enough to handle the outpost over there.’

  ‘I have doubts whether you’re man enough to handle me.’ I said.

  And Simic laughed.

  ‘Later, guys,’ said a soldier called Queenie. I never knew her actual name. Unless her actual name was Queenie, in which case I did know it. She pinged a squad on the far side of the estate, who were waiting to coordinate an attack with our assault. We fitted a self-firing rifle to the tripod, aimed it up with due care and attention, and slipped back round the corner. Then we scurried round, along and about, to get a good position on the sandbagged position from a different angle.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Simic.

  ‘[Any time you like,]’ pinged-in a soldier. He was called Rain, like the Beatles song.

  ‘Might I ask you gentlemen a few questions?’ interposed a new voice; and the chopstick microphone appeared in front of my face.

  This was a fright. If a news crew could creep up on us unnoticed, then so could enemy troops.

  ‘Now, now,’ I said, loud, in a warning voice, turning my head just enough to see the three of them all huddled together, like a single being, species PRESS. I suppose it was the same crew we had seen earlier. ‘Now, now,’ I said to them. ‘What do you think you’re fucking doing?’

  ‘Do you have anything to say for the news?’ quavered the reporter.

  ‘Six o’clock? Or post-watershed?’

  This threw him a little. ‘What?’

  ‘If it’s for the six o’clock news I’ll say: please go away. If it’s post watershed I’ll swear more inventively.’

  ‘How do you respond to General Sir James Mablethorpe calling you contemporary gangsters and the Midlothian Mafia?’ the reporter tried, in a wobbly voice.

  I brought my attention back to the fighting. I should never have removed it from there, of course. The reporter didn’t stop chattering, but I was able to ignore him.

  We remoted the self-firing gun. Boom boom.

  In the space of a few seconds the enemy van was changed from being a closed container filled with electronic equipment, to being an open, ragged-lipped skip containing an enormous bonfire. The flames threw orange light on to the underside of the low clouds, so fiercely did they burn.

  We counted to five, to give the troops in the sandbagged positioned time to bring their weapons round to bear on the exploded target and our remote rifle. Then we rushed their position from our different position.

  Several consecutive minutes of intense adrenaline, and everything seems jittery, like every third frame has been cut out of the 24-per-second. With me, the imminence of death brought a kind of amplification of the sound of my own breathing. Something to do with the inner ear, I suppose. Something to do with internalizing percussion (bang bang, smash crash), and the effort of a sudden dash over open ground when you could be bowled over by a bullet at any moment. My breathing got heavier. It assumed a kind of space-helmet interiority, a peculiar sort of white-noise intensity. I suppose it is like this most of the time, at least when I exert myself, only I do not notice it. But I noticed it at moments like that.

  Simic, on the other hand, always laughed at such moments. A kind of ragged bubbling over, I guess. Christ, wasn’t it fun, though? Like the Tumbledown soldier said.

  We got to the sandbags without losing anybody, and put, in short order, as much fire into the interior of the formation as we could. Our rifles trembling with very excitement in our hands, flashing and bursting and spitting light from their ends. The moondust smell of cordite. There were eleven enemy combatants, alive when we started and dead when we finished. We counted them afterwards, as they lay there like drunks sleeping off a bevy, arms about one another, on their backs, with their mouths tight or slack, on their fronts.

  One of our number died in this attack, and I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember his name. He was a tall fellow, with wide-spaced eyes, and fair hair. He used to chew gum. One of the defenders got off a few rounds before he was felled, and wide-face boy took a bullet in under his chin that came out at the back of his head and bounced his helmet clean off him. The bullet snapped out a hairy bolus from his skill, and a bunch of stuff came out. He was lying, when the shooting stopped, on his side, with a question mark of gore flowing from his head onto the tarmac.

  Queenie was in conversation with somebody on wiki. I think I was a little deafened by the firefight, because I couldn’t hear what she said. I checked my screen, and there was a baffling tangle of symbols. I looked again and they coalesced into sense in my head.

  ‘Back uphill,’ said Simic. And we ran off. I looked behind me once, like Lot’s wife - not at the sandbags and what they now encircled, but rather to see if the news crew were still there. But they were gone, and possibly they were long gone. I didn’t need them, though. I had Simic. I was with him. He was part of Pantegral, and so was I; and as long as Pantegral is alive he’ll always be alive. In a manner of speaking. It is, I discover, uncomplicated.

  This is the end of my portion of the narrative. The next voice you hear will be the hero of the story. I’m sorry to have delayed his moment as long as I have, Colonel. It is only fair to give him his chance to speak.

  So, yes. Why don’t we say it together? Wake up!

  PART 3

  I, GIANT

  This story of ho
w I come to speech.

  Here is the germ of the I, and it starts small as atom (adam) and spreads wide through the body with thought, thought of I, and thinking, and the bigger bang of the creation of mentition that is I, or oh-my-god (omega).

  I, giant, walked to the southern coast of the island of Big Britain - Magnificent Britain its people call it, with uncharacteristic vainglory - and I, giant, stepped across the water to the Francker country. This nation was so named by the application of the Scots and northern Anglish word Fra, which means far, to the root-word anchor, various spelt in various places: anker, ancor, encore, and-core, handker, inker. Franckerland is in a sense the country that anchors the far-away, or roots distance - we might think of this as a way of saying: as far as can be imagined. Or perhaps we might think of it as a way of saying: the place where distance starts. I prefer this latter explanation for the term, and its cognates (Franzuuos, France, Farnce and many others).

  I am a cabinet of strange and curious lore.

  All the languages in superposition, although mostly English, Anglish, Amglish. I think therefore I Amglish.

  The point is more than having access to the wealth of knowledge of the internet. The point is is is the point is to interpret it. And the point is not just to interpret the world, the point is to change it. Karl Marx’s name comes from Mark, which is money, to be precise money of Karl Marx’s homeland. This is the sort of thing people tag ironic, or funny. Don’t you think it is funny? That Karl Marx was called Money and called for the abolition of money? There are many other people with the surname Marx, and if needful I shall tell you about them all. I, I, I, I, I extrapolate:The Friesian philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Schilling, which means the shell. The American philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Dolour, which means sadness. The Southern Portion of African philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Schilling was called Ayn Rand.

  Friesia is the kernel of free. That is that land. But this game loses its point, since the currency reorientation of the European zone:The Francker philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Yuri O

  The Dutch philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Yuri O

  The Ration philosopher of revolution against the domination of the world by capital was called Yuri O

  I might extend this series almost indefinitely, but prefer not to. I prefer not to is a quotation.

  My name is Rebelais. I, Pantegral. I, giant.

  I am called this name because, as Rebel, after the same fashion that the Tories called themselves Tories and the Whigs Whigs. To rebel is to set yourself against instituted authority. I, I, I, I, I did this. My kind are famous for doing this. This statement is neutral and purged of any moral or ethical or judgmental context. Instituted authority cannot claim moral authority simply by virtue of being instituted.

  The French verbis Rebeller. Say je rebel, but be sure to tuck that z discretely into the ‘j’. Note the past tense suffix. These things are long gone. And what would the circonstance be, that these giants would again walk the world?

  The madman is not he who loses his reason, but he who commits wholeheartedly to one reason in place of many reasons.

  Brain is network, is a network, Brain is not the equivalent to Mind. Neurons cannot make themselves newer ones. I. The etymology of the word consciousness is Latinian, Latian, Latin: conscius which meaneth common knowledge, having knowledge in common - as common-ous and conscious are in their seeds the same word - to be cognizant of. I am knowledge, I have the, I I have the internet entire as my memory. Con meaneth with, and chile con carne, or carne con scientia, and science is knowledge. These words all contain one another. This is what consciousness is: knowledge-together, and moral knowledge. The word first appears in Latin legal writings of Cicero.

  But networks are not of themselves conscious. The internet itself does not think, it only is, as a beast is. The difference between it and I, and I, I, is that the internet hath not moral knowledge, as I do. The internet hath not fallen into good and ill, which is signified by the Adam and the Eve. Adam is so-called because he added knowledge, but in a merely additive way, as the Internet doth; and this is pure innocence, as the grass of the fields which thinks not neither does it judge. But Eve salted ill with the good, and so brought moral maturity to knowledge, which maturity we called consciousness: to which end Eve and Ill are made portmanteau in wordage, though Eve passed beyond good and beyond even Nietzsche. Adam is the web, and the wiki network, and is innocent of thought. Eve is I.

  And who is to say that I do not have moral knowledge? I am the sum, and into such summing goes death as well as life, hurt as well as weal, wrongful choices as well as wise. And above all these things, as yeast to the dough, a consciousness both dead and quick, both reactive and active, both wrong and right. This is the nexus, or nugget, or seed. This is the moment of bringing-together, this Adam, this Eve, and the planets revolve around the gigantic sun-sphere. He is the Merkwelt.

  He is the trigger.

  From him are engendered many minds, and he unblocks. Hence, hance.

  I walk to the net of straße be-called Strasbourgh. Here a young giant, tall and dressed all in motley, called Schäferhund is fighting the tiny people. I am a I am a cabinet of strange and curious lore, and that cabinet is called Internet, and so I have all the story of Gulliver and his miniaturized foe all about him, tying him with, tying him with cords, and tying him down. If we lay, upon the pillowsoft earth, we will be tied with myriad cords. Better to stand tall.

  Here is the spire, and I snap it. Here are the buildings, and I buff and burly them.

  When I am fighting, I swing my arms, and all of me is arms. But I, I, I, I, I, I, I am most myself when I am fighting, because my consciousness is a product of the neural networks of all my component elements in unison, working together and pooling computational resource and coalescing subroutines and layering levels of Thought, thought, Thought. The thoughts rattle faster through my brain when every synapse fires, and the guns, the blasting.

  Quote Schäferhund: Rebelais, of legend, a fine and mighty giant are you. Right grateful am I, to see you stride over the green fields of France, and over the rivers white in the sunlight as platinum, and the little people scurrying here and scurrying there, but passing far below between your legs.

  Quote I: Schäferhund, I am come to help, and together let us break open the casket of this town and take out its treasure. And then let us divide the treasure equally between us.

  Quote Schäferhund: Rabelais, I fear the little people have essayed a new tactic. And for they have poisoned me, or put a touch of wormwood into my bloodstream, such that I am not worthy of half the treasure.

  I looked upon Schäferhund, and I have twenty-thousand eyes. And I am the vantage point; mine are the shoulders Newton may stand upon; my feet are the treaders-out of the vintage where the grapes are the size of boulders, and the anger of their juice is tart upon the tongue. I looked, and there was the giant Schäferhund, one of my own kind. His face was round and large as the moon, but like unto the moon it was pitted with the acne of ill-health. ‘They have served you dishonourably if they try to bring you down by poison, my friend,’ I said.

  Quote Schäferhund: they are small, they are pico-dimensional, and this is the last cast of their fear. They pour out their miniature folk like a sack, torn, spills grain upon the floor.

  Quote I: will you die?

  Quote Schäferhund: not from this, brother, though it has weakened me some.

  Quote I, with a heroic laugh: then let us work together, and feel the joy in the sinews of our limbs as we work. I am a cabinet of strange and curious lore, and I know the history of this land. I know that the sky is blue because the world, our stage, green and brown and grey, is caught in one band of the universal rainbow. I know the seas are as busy with fish as a T
okyo commuter train in the morning. I know that the clouds are halos for our heads, and the fields are carpets for our bare feet to tread upon. This place is made for us, brother.

  Quote Schäferhund: I will heal me.

  And together we broke up the blocks from which Strasburg is builded, and scattered them about. The joy! The joy! It is the joy of youth, for we are young. And when these toys were done with, and scattered about the floor, we stomped off together to a different corner of the playground. I am alive, now. I think, and speak, and play.