The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read, Part 2

by Andy Ritchie

  What about all those monitors in the Control Room?

  Fuck me, those bastards had front row seats to whatever went on in those cells!

  Sandford knew what was going on.

  He knew what they were doing and he knew that it was wrong.

  He chose to be there in spite of that knowledge.

  That makes him one of THEM.

  Besides, the ‘just following orders’ argument is exactly the sort of cowardly bullshit that SS guards at the Nazi concentration camps used to come out with. It didn’t cut it then, and it sure as hell doesn’t cut it now.

  Choice.

  It all comes down to choosing between what is right and what is wrong...

  And everyone, in their heart, knows what is right and what is wrong.

  But are there others?

  What about those whose innocent actions unwittingly contribute to the fulfilment of THEIR aims?

  Are they THEM?

  I think the answer here is simple.

  If those actions are undertaken in good faith, and if they are genuinely unaware that their actions may benefit THEM, then they are not THEM.

  But what of those who suspect that what they do may be wrong, but aren’t sure?

  Are they THEM?

  Tricky...

  Tricky...

  But again, it’s down to choice, isn’t it.

  Where there are suspicions, there must be something which created those suspicions in the first place. That means the individual has the option of discovering the truth.

  No doubt there will be those who choose to discover the truth and yet still remain one of THEM because they then decide to continue doing what they were doing with the knowledge that what they do is wrong.

  But there will be others (I hope) who, after discovering the truth, then refuse to do those activities with which they are not comfortable because they know they are wrong. They are not THEM.

  But what about those who have their suspicions but then choose to remain shrouded in ignorance, choose to not even try to discover the truth...?

  As far as I’m concerned, their inaction is a tacit approval of whatever wrongdoing they suspect is resulting from their actions and that, in my eyes at least, makes them as bad as those who proceed with their actions even though they know them to be wrong. That makes them THEM.

  Ignorance can be no defence!!

  -----

  Post-It Note 7

  [Collator’s Note: This definition was written on a Post-It Note which was stuck on the front-page of JP’s notebook. I have put it here because I believe it was written as a result of the preceding comments.]

  -----

  Diary Entry 39

  [Collator’s Note: The next two pages in JP’s notebook look like the output of a brainstorming session that has been crossed with a mind-map. It was just a mass of questions, suggestions, ideas and statements. I was tempted to leave it out of the diary all together because it was so unstructured and disjointed, maybe even a little confusing. But then I decided that there was actually some thought-provoking stuff here which perhaps re-inforces the fact that JP was able to think quite deeply and philosophically when he wanted to, so I decided to leave it in, and have made some effort to make it vaguely readable. You can judge whether it was worth it.]

  Questions:

  What makes someone become one of THEM?

  Where do/did THEY come from?

  Is it possible to stop being one of THEM once you’ve started?

  Are they desperate for power?

  Control?

  Wealth?

  All of the above?

  Are they willing to do whatever it takes to get those things? Is it that trait that makes them THEM?

  Maybe I could ask Mendelssohn one day...!

  Bastard...

  *

  Have THEY always been amongst us?

  Stands to reason.

  If it is the blind pursuit of power and wealth that defines THEM, then those sorts of people have existed throughout history.

  Maybe THEY have always been the same and the only thing which changes is the cause they align themselves to.

  Were the Nazis the THEM of their time?

  *

  That means that who THEY are could depend on your perspective, on what you fear and why.

  Maybe who THEY are is different for each of us...has always been different.

  Bad Guys/Mendelssohn — they are my THEM.

  But for others, it may be another faceless organisation...in another country...in another time...

  But this isn’t about anyone else’s THEM.

  This is about my THEM.

  *

  Can you stop being one of THEM?

  Is it like the mafia, or the Catholic Church — no-one ever really leaves?

  *

  Too tired to think now...

  Need to sleep...

  *

  Please, no dreams...

  -----

  Diary Entry 40

  Thursday 16th September

  [Collator’s Note: This is, I think, the first time JP used the dictaphone which was bought in Stirling. The first of the three audio files which I’ve transcribed here is called VN550001. JP doesn’t seem to have had the inclination to rename them with something more helpful, like a date! The first two audio files are obviously JP testing how the dictaphone works. Quite why he decided that the third audio file should be in the style of a BBC news report is anyone’s guess! Perhaps it says something about his state of mind — unfortunately, I’m not sure what!]

  Audio File VN550001

  ...yeah, the numbers are moving...I guess you press stop and then playback... [click]

  Audio File VN550002

  ...c’mon, Tukaal, say a few words...

  [Tukaal’s voice] A few words

  [Tukaal laughs, JP groans]

  [JP’s voice][click] Intergalactic humour...it’ll never catch on...

  Audio File VN550003

  [JP puts on what I can only think is his idea of a well-spoken television presenter voice] ...and, yes...I think we can go now to our special reporter, Jethro Postlethwaite who, as many of you will already know, is currently on the run in the company of an alien called Tukaal who represents an organisation called the Confederation which is, at the moment, debating whether or not the human race should be exterminated. Well, Jeth, for the people at home, tell us how you are, where you are and, most importantly, what’s the weather like?

  [JP’s own voice] Well, Bill, I’m currently in the back of our camper van, parked just off the A93, south of Braemar. I’m knackered because I can’t get much sleep at the moment...oh, and it’s dry but overcast with white clouds and light winds blowing from the north-west. It looks like it might be a showery day.

  [TV presenter’s voice] And where is our alien friend?

  [JP’s voice] Oh, he’s just outside the van at the moment, sending a sub-space message to his approaching spaceship, telling it to go into orbit when it arrives and remain there until further notice. Apparently, it was due to pick him up tomorrow and, if it didn’t get a message from him before then, it would assume he was dead and implement the Life-Form Discontinuation Protocol, which would have ended up with us all dying.

  [TV presenter’s voice, laughing] And we wouldn’t want that, would we? But tell us, Jeth, aren’t you worried about Mendelssohn and his forces tracking the sub-space communicator?

  [JP’s voice] No, Bill, not really. According to Tukaal, they are only able to track the power cells if they are close to something connected to the electricity grid and, out here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, there’s no chance of that.

  [TV presenter’s voice, laughing again] Well, we’re all glad to hear that, Jeth. Finally, and briefly because we’re running out of time and need to get on and do an important interview with some vacuous so-called celebrity who's here to plug their latest ghost-written autobiography, can you tell us what you and Tukaal are going to be up to today.

 
[JP’s voice] Of course, Bill, you condescending little prick. Most important of all, we’re going to try to stay alive and evade capture, torture and death. Whilst doing that, we’re going to travel up to Peterhead, where we hope to find whatever it was that the Researcher saw, figure out how and why this is of interest to Mendelssohn, and, in so doing, figure out a way to save the Earth from destruction, mankind from annihilation, and that vacuous so-called celebrity your going to interview from a very painful death.

  [TV presenter’s voice] Well, Jeth, good luck with that. Hopefully we’ll be able to talk to you tomorrow, assuming you’re not dead, and we’re not dead, and the Earth hasn’t been turned into a smouldering cinder hanging silently in space...[click]

  -----

  Diary Entry 41

  [Collator’s Note: This is a transcript of what was on Audio file VN550004.]

  Right...Just in case I end up dead, there’s a few of things I need to get off my chest.

  First of all...

  Andy - Thanks for staying a mate, in spite of what happened between me and Val. You’re a true friend.

  Col - It was me!

  Trev - I always told you they were shit!

  Joe - I still think trying to set fire to one of your farts is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!

  Popinjay - It was a fucking crime they way they treated you. I hope the bastards rot!

  Charles - You’re a fucking perv! Stop coming into the office and hugging and kissing the women. THEY DON’T LIKE IT! They think you’re an odious little letch. I just think you’re a little shit.

  Mark - For fuck’s sake, get some new anecdotes. We’re all tired of hearing about your days in the paper mills and your trips to South America.

  Linda - Everyone knows that you shagged the guy who was working at the warehouse last year during his summer break from Uni, and that you did it in the stationery cupboard at the back of the office. Twice. Everyone, I guess, except your partner.

  Bev - bitch!

  Wanker at No.36 - Stop parking your 4x4 in front of my fucking house - oh, and by the way, your wife’s banging the guy who lives at No.41.

  What else...?

  Oh yeah...

  Mrs Bell - You’re a nosey cow.

  [Collator’s Note: There’s quite a long pause at this point.]

  Val...I’m sorry...

  -----

  Diary Entry 42

  [Collator’s Note: This was on the main CD. JP recorded the events of the remainder of Thursday 16th September in two stages. Firstly, he ‘brain-dumped’ as much as he could remember into a series of audio files using the dictaphone. Then, at some later stage, he wrote up all that happened to them in a style that is something a little more than just a recital of events. To me, it reads more like a novel.The final part of what happened on that Thursday, however, it appears he never wrote up. All there was was a reference to an audio file.]

  Well, I guess the best thing to do is to start at the beginning...although exactly where ‘the beginning’ lies depends on whose perspective you are viewing it from.

  For Tukaal and I, ‘the beginning’ starts as we approach Peterhead from the south up the A90, when the taller of the two chimneys of Peterhead Power Station first comes into view. But for the Researcher, ‘the beginning’ was when we began to drop down towards the village of Stirling, the North Sea stretching out to our right to the misty horizon, green fields sat above precipitous cliffs; that was when the Researcher’s memories, for so long disparate and fragmented, came together like some magically re-assembling piece of shattered glass...

  It was all there, just as I had seen it as we sat in McDonalds in Stirling, the signs for Stirling Village, the chimneys, the power station, all of it, but then, as we drove past the signs and neared the entrance to the power station itself, there was suddenly so much more, a tidal wave of memories that not only clamoured to be remembered, but threatened to overwhelm me.

  I remember hearing Tukaal’s concerned voice asking me if I was all right.

  I remember not being able to answer him, being too immersed in all that I could see inside my mind...

  ...looking at a pylon silhouetted against the bright mid-day sky...then seeing it transform into a mass of oily black tendrils...

  ...moving across a field...shadows now...later in the day...

  ...a tight, dark space, filled with foul smells...

  ...a large open space with alien-looking equipment and the entrance to a huge tunnel...

  ...massive cables...

  ...another tight, dark space...

  ...oily black tendrils...

  It’s difficult to describe what it feels like to remember something like that.

  It’s like experiencing déjà vu — but with attitude.

  Firstly, it makes me feel nauseous because suddenly all I can see are bubbles, swirling around me like over-eager children around a teacher, each one jostling for position, clamouring to be heard. Secondly, there’s a weird feeling of detachment from reality, almost as if you’re stepping out of your own reality into someone else’s, leaving your own body...and because of that, it is so, so difficult to keep a grip on it all...what I really want to do is just close my eyes and wait for it all to go away, but when it is inside your head, when it has encroached upon your waking world, you know that you have no option but to deal with it, to try to bring order to the madness, to try to sort out the memories into some sort of logical order, and that takes a lot of effort because all the time you feel as if your head can’t take much more, as if your brain is simply going to explode under the pressure of all those images, sounds, sensations...because it’s not just like trying to edit a whole host of images, it’s like trying to edit a whole host of experiences, complete down to every little detail, not just those associated with the senses, but every emotion, every feeling of excitement, trepidation, fear.

  These Harkenbach things and their memory oil; they’re designed to capture all of this down to smallest minutia, but the human brain, and particularly my brain, it’s not equipped to deal with so much information, it simply can’t cope. I guess it’s like trying to run Windows 7 on a Sinclair ZX-81. It just can’t handle it.

  And yet, it somehow has to...and, even more surprising, it actually managed to, though I’m not sure how long it took me to gain some control over it...I never obtained complete control, admittedly, because the moment I let my concentration slip, the semblance of order that I had managed to create amidst the overwhelming chaos of too many memories began to collapse...but I did achieve some modicum of structure by focusing on those images (and they were mostly images, not sounds, or odours, or tastes, or textures, or feelings, or emotions; they were just images) that seemed the most...important, though how exactly I knew what was important and what wasn’t, I simply did not know.

  Anyway, I remember sort of coming round, opening my eyes to find Tukaal’s concerned features staring back at me.

  ‘Jeth, are you okay? Jeth...’

  ‘It hurts,’ I remember saying (rather pitifully, as well), ‘Inside my head, it hurts.’

  ‘What can you see, Jeth. Can you see what the Researcher saw? Has it all come back to you?’

  I told him about what I could see, the pylon, the field, the tight, dark space, the large open area and the huge tunnel entrance and the black tendrils.

  He frowned and, for a moment, appeared as confused as I was.

  ‘I was hoping that just seeing the place may trigger a memory, may give us an answer...are you sure you can’t see anything more, Jeth? What about these black tendrils, where are they?’

  I concentrated on the image of the tendrils in my mind, fought to help it establish itself against the mass of competing memories...and, just for a moment, it grew to dominate all that I could see...

  ‘The black tendrils are everywhere, covering everything, the cables, machinery, everything...but...’

  ‘But what?’ Tukaal encouraged softly.

  ‘Sometimes what I see is blurred...like I’m
watching a 3D film without the glasses, as if everything is separated into different colours...’

  And then the image collapsed and was swallowed not only by the other images, but by the sounds and the smells and the emotions associated with them. Once more I had to fight to re-establish order, to bring structure to the pandemonium of the Researcher’s memories of this place.

  ‘Looks like we have no option but to go inside the power station,’ Tukaal said grimly. ‘I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to do that. If the Researcher gained access a week or so ago, then it is almost certain that they will have improved their security. It will be extremely difficult to gain access without being discovered.’

  ‘It’s not the power station,’ I said, my voice pained through the effort I was making to separate out the information I needed, ‘it’s the building on the other side of the road from the entrance...that’s what the Researcher is looking at now...’

  I don’t know whether Tukaal frowned at this point.

  ‘Do you mean the sub-station where the electricity goes out onto the pylons?’

  I think I nodded, but I was struggling to stay lucid because I could suddenly see something else, a memory within a memory...

  I started to feel really sick, started to feel the whole world, my world, falling away from me, being lost to me...

  But I fought the discomfort, battled to keep both a grip on my world and a grip on this embedded memory, this memory that the Researcher itself must have recalled as it dropped down into a hollow and moved aside a mass of reeds to reveal a narrow entrance to a dark tunnel, thick metal bars blocking the way...the embedded memory was of the Researcher studying plans, detailed maps, all strewn across the seats and the floor and the worktops of the camper van, and there was the Researcher’s finger, tracing a line of dashes from the middle of the field, cutting right across the northern part of the sub-station, then off towards the power-station and the sea. Just inside the perimeter fence, there was a symbol on the dashed line next to which the Researcher had written ‘inspection manhole’.