A timeline based exploration of the events in Blather.net's 'The Game'
Created by DamienDeBarra on 06/08/2008
Last updated: 12/03/10 at 05:57
Tags: the game cardenio dr.joanne Blather.net ARG Alternative Reality Game
A woman against a wall, her face exploding in a shower of bone and gore, gunsmoke drifting into view. The blond man, the man with different coloured eyes, sitting alone with a map. With a book. A history of the future.
Chapter 25
'History is the shock wave of eschatology'
- Terence McKenna
Press play
Pokaran, Rajasthani Desert, India
Drop down over the desert, drift across the sand, the wind blowing galaxy-shaped sand swirls as you pass. A quizzical-looking camel meanders by, farting and spitting as he goes. Patches of green. A dessicated tree. A dung beetle pushes a ball of camel crap ahead of him, toiling, straining at the effort. A foot comes down from above, stops, momentarily looms over the bettle, steps over him and keeps walking.
A man, dark brown skin, brown eyes, two days stubble. White t-shirt, brown shorts and crushed, flat sandals. Holding a red and yellow pennant, he marches across the sand, the cloth flapping in the early morning breeze behind him. Following him comes a woman, a violently purple dress wrapping her body. Her face shimmers under a wave of silver chains, linking from her right ear to a piercing on her nose. She carries another pennant, snapping in the wind.
Ten metres behind them come two children, giddy, giggling, trying to march in time, their shorter legs struggling to keep up. Further back we look and see more coming, down over the dunes, flags flying a riot of colours, strips of a rainbow emerging from the bleached sepia sands. More and more of them. Dozens, hundreds coming from all directions, swarming down towards the highway. Reaching the road, the groups get larger. From hundreds of kilometeres away they have come, from towns and villages they have walked, day after day, night after night. Dodging the cattle and kamikaze motorbike drivers, avoiding the thuddering trucks, the hay carriers packed to the point of looking like an exploding loaf of bread travelling at 60 miles an hour, careering buses with blasting horns and the seemingly never-ending army of wild dogs who swarm around the procession looking for a scrap of sustenance.
Trudging and drudging, marching and laughing they come in their thousands. Towards the village they go, the rising sun pushing at their backs, closer now, the smiles growing broader, the laughs louder. Hindu, Sikh, Muslim in a sea of swirling colours. And, deep in the midsts of the throng, a woman appears. At first, no-one notices her arrive. Black hair. Blue dress. Pale skin. A scar on her face.
She drinks from a water bottle, breathes deeply. Men stare. But not for long. A short look from her is enough to make them glance elsewhere. She looks around, taking in the scence. Stretches her back. She spots a circular thatch house at the edge of the village. Glancing down at a pocketwatch, she nods to herself, satisfied that she's found the place she is looking for. Nearby, a group of three small Rajasthani girls stare at her and laugh. She looks at them, their giggles falling silent. She smiles at them. There's a moment's indecision where they look at each other. Eventually, the smallest girl smiles back. A pair of huge brown eyes, glittering in a round brown face fix on her. Amused, the woman takes her bag down from her shoulders and produces a large peach. She holds it out in her hand. Two of the girls look at each other, unsure of themselves. The third, the smallest girl with the big eyes and smile moves closer.
'Namaste' the woman says, stretching her hand out towards the girl.
'Namaste' comes the reply in a sing-song voice. The girl takes the peach, another smile lighting her face up as she scurries back to her companions.
The woman walks on, shouldering her bag, moving to the entrance of the small circular house. She enters.
Giving her eyes a few moments to adjust, she sees the old man sitting on his heels. He laughs a little, nodding his head. He smiles at her. She smiles back.
'Namaste' he says, a look of genuine relief overcoming him. He gestures for her to sit down.
'Namaste' she says.
He reaches behind him, lifts an old leather suitcase and sets it down. With reverential care, he opens the case and removes a box. Producing a small key from within his robes, he sets about unlocking the box. He holds up a sheaf of papers held together with strings.
'Thankyou' she says with a bow of the head.
'Chai?' he asks, pouring a small cup of liquid.
She takes the cup and sniffs at it. A look of quizzical disbelief comes over her face.
'Chai?' she asks him.
The man erupts into laughter. She laughs back.
'Chai' he says.
She nods, enjoying the joke. She takes a deep breath, thinking, evaluating. She looks at him again.
'Okay then' she says, necking it in one gulp.
He smiles again.
The man moves across the space, moving cushions to a position behind her.
'Please' he says, indicating with a hand that she should make herself comfortable. 'Safe' he says with another gesture of the hand, indicating the camp around them.
She nods again, feeling the first effects of the brew beginning to whisper in her blood. Slowly, taking her time to control the coming nausea, she lies herself down. The man drapes a soft linen sheet over her.
'Thankyou' she says.
He nods his head and smiles again, re-taking his seat.
'Stay' he says, pointing a finger at his chest.
'Please' she says.
He nods. Closes his eyes. Tilts his head backwards and takes a deep breath. Breathes out. Breathes in. She breathes in with him. In. Out. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In. Out. Slowly, slowly, the vertabrae of the spine opening. He raises a hand on the end of a breath, and starts: panting. Panting furiously. In, out, in, out. She matches his breathing, her chest heaving under the linen. And stop. Slowly, in, out, in, out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It starts - the electric tingling in the chest, the rib-cage opening. In and out, in and out. Synapses fire as the drug starts to take hold. In and out and then back again. Panting, pushing, pushing the breathing as hard as he can. She keeps pace, pushing with him, the fire starting to burn up from inside herself. She can feel it coming now, the rush in the blood, the white heat starting between her legs, radiating out from her. And back to slow. Deep breathing, slow breathing. In and out. In and out. Slowly, slowly. Twenty seconds a time, he brings her up and back down. Up and down. One final push. Breathe, breathe, push, push and then it happens: as the tingling in the muscles reaches fever-pitch, colours and swirls slosh around inside her eyes. She tries to concentrate on the spot between her eyes - the centre of her head. Struggling to control it now, hotter and hotter, faster and faster the swirls come. One sticks. A small pin-point of light in her innervision. It spins, reflects a light she can't see. And explodes. Into the future.
A fractal shatters open in front of her, a thousand images at once moving at the speed of thought and frozen in time at the same instant. Swarming up at her, she fights for control of the stream - each one is a story, an instance, a person, a history. She knows she only need nudge her attention towards one to access it, to open it like a book, to dive into the fabric of the moment. She scans, scans, down deeper into the fractal which shimmers open, each piece tethered to the next, to every other with invisible threads. She holds, an instant catching her attention. An army in bible-black uniform. A child's face behind a wire-mesh fence. A woman running for a border, panting up a hill, a bullet taking half her head off as she collpases to the ground in a broken heap. And another. A smiling man, surrounded by crowds of onlookers. The same man speaking, ranting in a boardroom. Blustering and convincing, impassioned words in important rooms with haggard expectant faces hanging on his every word. Mr. White, beside him, grinning so hard, it almost tears his face. Michael, alone and wounded, hunted. Tied to a chair, his head hanging, a trickle of blood dripping to the floor. She sees a child. Roma. Rajasthani genes, the brown eyes. The man again. Blond hair, a blue eye and a green eye. The same man, now a small boy; a child pulling insects apart in quiet study whilst the sound of a woman's crying drifts from another room. A pile of rubble. The ribcage of a shattered building, a floor collapsing in a cloud of dust and groaning girders. Archaeologists of the future, digging through layers of dirt, a foot sticking out from a dirt pile, the trowel carefully moving the earth away from the bones. The dessicated body of a woman cradling her dead child, empty eye-sockets. Michael, running. Blood on his hands, crawling. A hand grabbing him under the shoulder and hauling him up. Two spirals connecting and exploding. A woman against a wall, her face exploding in a shower of bone and gore, gunsmoke drifting into view. The blond man, the man with different coloured eyes, sitting alone with a map. With a book. A history of the future.
'Oh God no' she screams. 'Oh Jesus Fucking Christ no' she screams, her head pushing at the arms of the old man who is now holding her, making soothing sounds, trying to get water to her mouth.
'Oh God no. Not again. Oh God no'.
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People stand back, pushing each other. Another cart comes towards them, larger, seemingly empty. Then Michael sees the man standing inside, propped up against a beam for the crowd to see. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. Bald-headed on top, scraggly grey locks sliding down his collar, face hanging downwards, ashen and broken, there's blood on his clothes and dirt on his hands.
Chapter 24
"Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean."
-David Searls
Press play
A creature. Small. Cellular, feeding, blind, moving in fluid, growing on creatures smaller than himself; a mouth, a digestive system, an asshole and shite. Too small to see, too small to comprehend, too small to know that behind him, above him, around him lies an seemingly infinite universe of light, food, monsters, war, rampant sex and cheerfully amoral death. Back, back, we spin, his size dwindling to a pinprick, the pinprick being consumed by another mouth, that mouth dwindling to a pinprick, to a mouth, being consumed by another, the bigger creature eating the smaller, the bigger being eaten again by another and back, back, back we pull, out and up, our vision breaking the surface of the fluid into an oxygen-based atmosphere, the surface receeds, a puddle coming into view, a man standing at the edge, looking in to the tranquil ocean of creatures before him, back to see a puddle on the side of a road, in a sparsely populated city, back, back, back we go, smaller and smaller he gets, back back, the city dwindling to a blur, smaller and smaller to become part of a land mass, a land mass in a body of water, a body of water on the surface of a squat, squashed floating ball in space, a ball in space orbiting a burning rock, a burning rock on the outer rim of a coral of stars, a coral of stars on the edge of a spiral at the end of a galaxy, a galaxy two thousand light-years wide, reduced to a lightning-coloured smudge on a spinning pinwheel, a pinwheel on the end of larger spiral, spinning in slow-mo glory at a light-year a second, revealing back to a cluster of galaxies, huddling together in the hushed ink of space.
And pause. And reverse. Down, down, down, we go. Spiralling inwards at a light-year a second, we tear through time and space, revolving downwards we go, in and in and in, down and down and down, until the stars stop streaking by, space levels, the clocks return to normal and we arrive, hovering above the shoulder of a young man in black coat, standing by the side of a road looking at a puddle.
A London street. Early morning. The sky still rosy from waking. Dirt-paved, track-marked torn and broken ground. Trees. Grass. An abandoned cart. Houses, simple constructions, poking their shapes through the morning haze - seeping out of the distance like unfinished watercolour drawings in sepia. Nearby, a large prison looms out of the mist. A silence covers all. Three figures stand, heads turning, a slight bewilderment clouding all three. One looks to the other two.
'This' he says, stretching his arms above his head and grimmacing, 'might be a good time to get some sleep'
'Damn straight' agrees the other man. Irish accent. Nervous eyes. He looks up from the dank puddle he has been gazing into, his reflection glaring at him accusingly.
'Agreed' say the woman, walking up a shallow hillbank. The other two follow her, over the lip of the road and down into the ditch.
'That oughta do' says the first man, pointing at a barn some thirty meters away.
Taking their time, they make their way across the scrubby field expanse. Checking there's no-one around, they quietly sneak inside and settle down.
And sleep.
Noise. Bedlam noise. Michael wakes up with a jolt.
'Wassa?' he yelps. He sees Gabriel, sitting up also, looking at his pocketwatch and cursing.
'Trying to find out' he says.
Michael looks around him, his head clearing. He goes to move and finds something holding his hand. Victoria, still asleep, lying beside him, her mouth open, hair drooping across her eyes. She mumbles slightly, her chest moving up and down. Black coat draped over her.
Michael leans over, closer to her. 'Wakey wakey' he says, looking at Gabriel's back.
She snarls, releasing his hand. Turns over, groaning. Her hand reaching out for a water bottle she has inside her coat. The noise filters through to her, making her raise her head up.
'What is that?' she asks.
'I'll go look' Michael says.
Gabriel grunts. 'Be careful'
Michael walks down some steps and towards the barn door. Carefully, making sure not to give his position away, he looks through a cracked section of one of the wooden walls and outside.
Across the field and up the bank he looks. A crowd. Massive, a heaving swarming throng. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Swirling like a puddle it shifts and gloops.
'Fuck this' Michael says, opening the door and stepping out. He walks across the field again, towards the road above the rise. The other two follow him. They stop some feet from the roadside. No-one seems to notice them.
Scroungers, whores, thieves, drunks, lawmen, peace officers, constables and javelin men, packs of dogs sniffing at scraps in the dirt, huddles of children, their faces filthy with grime, running in circles, weaving and bobbing. A woman holding aloft a sheaf of papers, screaming aloud that this is the last true confession and speech of the dying. A droop-eyed prostitute eyeing passers-by, a pimp hovering some feet behind her - a look on his face you can't quite describe but which instantly incites the desire to commit violence on his person. A smugness that seems to leech from every pore in his body.
'What the hell is going on?' Michael asked.
'I may be wrong' Gabriel said, slapping the side of his pocket-watch violently, 'but I think this is the Tyburn fair'
Michael sighed. 'And that is?' he asked looking over his shoulder.
Victoria bit into an apple she had managed to get from somewhere. She sat down on the side of a seemingly abandoned cart, as laid back and as carefree as though she was in her own back garden, soaking up some rays. 'Execution' she said through a mouth full of apple.
'Execution?'
Gabriel spoke up. 'Monday. Execution day. The Tyburn fair. Prisoners brought from Newgate prison, paraded through the streets, boozed-up and then, well, dispatched with. At Tyburn.'
'Nice' Michael muttered, looking at the surrounding scrum. 'And that's in London I assume?'
'Yep. You know where Marble Arch is?'
Michael nodded.
'Well, that's more or less where Tyburn was. I'm guessing we're a bit closer to Ne
Gabriel, his eyes fixed on the pocketwatch, sat himself down beside Victoria and made him self comfortable, his gaze still fixed on the screen of the pocketwatch.
'I'm ehm...' Michael begins.
'You're what?' Victoria asks, her mouth chomping on apple.
'I think I'm sensing a link...'
Gabriel looks up at him. Victoria stops chewing. 'Think you could be clearer than that?' Gabriel asks.
'No. Sorry. Can't help just now. Just a sense of something...' he trails off, taking a few steps up the bank, his head craning to see over the throng. Suddenly the noise grows louder - something is causing the crowd to split open, to shift aside. A cart is trundling it's way through the mob. Big wheels grind the dirt, rattling and shuddering it comes. Eyes, in faces, peering over the edge. Terror and bravado in equal measures. Faces pass by, some comprehending, some dazed. Pink, tear-streaked eyes stare through a gap in the cart's sideboards, fixing Michael on the spot. A second cart trundles by, the crowd baying and crowing. Some throw objects - rotten heaps of vegetables, slods of earth. A second cart bangs past - more faces, more fear. A third cart, a smiling face of a clearly uncomprehending man grinning inanely at the crowd as he rolls by. Some laugh. Some cheer. Then, a moment of almost silence as a gap opens up in the procession. People stand back, pushing each other. Another cart comes towards them, larger, seemingly empty. Then Michael sees the man standing inside, propped up against a beam for the crowd to see. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. Bald-headed on top, scraggly grey locks sliding down his collar, face hanging downwards, ashen and broken, there's blood on his clothes and dirt on his hands.
A woman steps foward from the mass, slipping alongside the cart. No-one speaks. Her face puffs up in a mask of fury and red-cheeked ire.
'You fucking Catholic cunt!' she screams, launching a stone at his head. it hits him with a crack, his head slumping for a moment. His neck snaps back into line, his head coming up. Screams explode from every direction, every manner of insult known to man thrown in his direction. The hangman, driving the cart, cracks the whip for the donkey to move on faster. The man jolys from side to side, his eyes momentarily catching those of Michael's. For an instant, the two men regard each other, their gazes locked, time slowing to a metronome heartbeat, the dust motes in the air hanging in stasis. There is no sound. No motion. Nothing. Only the two men locked in staring at each other.
With a snap, the cart lurches onwards, turning to the left. Lawmen appear, hitting the members of the crowd who are getting too close. Michael turns and walks back down to Gabriel and Victoria.
Gabriel looks up at him as he approaches. 'So, let's assume that your and Claudia's little theory is correct'
'Ha?' Michael asks.
'Let's assume that this is all a game and that we have to play our way out. So, last we knew we were on Pentonville Road right?'
'Right' Victoria says with a nod.
'And that' says Michael, pointing a finger over his right shoulder, 'is a prison'.
They look over his shoulder at the silhouette of Newgate prison. They look back to him, their expressions suggesting that they are none the wiser.
'Jail' Michael says. 'Just visiting'
'Ahhhh...' come the two voices at him.
'And now? What's next on the boa..'
'Well whatever about that, I have a feeling that I know what we have to do next.'
'Which is?'
'Follow that guy on the last cart. I'm quite sure he has something to do with all of this'
'You getting that spidey-sense thing again?' Gabriel says with a barely supressed smirk.
'Something like that' Michael replies.
'Michael?' Victoria interrupts, 'what was that? What happened there? You sensed something on that last cart. With him.'
Michael looks at her. 'I think I know who that guy is. And if I'm correct, he's about to have a very bad day'
They both look at him.
'I'm fairly sure that that was Oliver Plunkett'.
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Five minutes later, they arrive at a bin on the side of a street. Gabriel and Victoria look at each other, pause and then look at Michael. He smiles and plunges his hand in to the bin, rummaging. 'In here somwehere' he says with a wince. The other two stare incredulously. After a few moments he emerges from the burger wrappers, soggy fag ends and beer cans holding something which makes Victoria jump backwards.
Chapter 23
"Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly"
- Chinese proverb.
Press play
Pentonville Road, 2nd December 1981
Rain, falling hard, a sharp swirling breeze whipping it upwards in slithering sheets that slap at passing cars. A horn sounds, lights flash. A figure in a black coat is pulled backwards by the collar, off the street and out of harm's way. On to the pavement he lurches, his companion shaking her head in exasperation. He rights himself, opening his eyes. A third figure, a man, huddles under a bus shelter and produces a pocket watch from his waistcoat. He sits down, smacking at the side of the watch, grimacing intensely. The other two figures begin having a conversation.
'Hey' Michael says with a smile, 'I didn't puke!'
'Yep. You just nearly got yourself knocked over instead' says Victoria, sitting down beside Gabriel under the bus shelter.
'I must be getting better at this' he announces. He looks around him, taking in the scene. An Austin Allegro zooms by. He grunts to himself. 'Late 70s?' he asks over his shoulder.
'80s. Early 80s' Gabriel says, his eyes fixed on the watch. A bus passes, belching a great wave of filth into the air, the majority of it splashing on Michael. He stands, arms open, mouth flapping as brown liquid pours down his face.
'Motherfucker!' he screams at the chugging red monster. 'Cunt!'
'Pentonville Road' Gabriel announces, closing the watch with a curse. 'Signal is stil crap. Can't get a lock on the next jumplink.' He looks up at Michael, who is still swearing at the dissapearing bus.
'Ignorant-ass, fat fucking shitface cuntsplatter!'
'Michael?'
'What?' comes a snarl.
'Any ideas?'
Michael's shoulders heave up and down. He turns on his heels, twisting his head this way and that. After a time he closes his eyes momentarily, breathes deeply, slightly swaying on his feet. Eventually, he turns left, raises an arm and points.
'That way' he says opening his eyes.
There's a moment's silence.
'You know some day, when we have a second to sit down' Victoria says with a tilt of her head, 'you must tell me how you do that...'
'Yeah, me too' Gabriel adds.
'Do what?' Michael asks.
'That' Victoria replies, 'how you always seem to know where the next link is. Usually we need one of those' she says with a nod indicating Gabriel's watch, 'to tell us. But you seem to be able to find them on your own'
'I dunno' Michael replies, kicking at the pavement with his foot, 'I just kind of feel them'
'Feel them?' Gabriel asks, exchanging a glance with Victoria.
'Yeah, I know that doesn't, well...'
'Make a shred of sense' Victoria adds.
'Yeah, guess not' Michael replies. 'Shall we?' he asks with a nod towards the road beyond them.
'We shall' says Gabriel, rising to his feet and pulling the collar of his coat tight around his neck.
They walk, three abreast, collars up, heads down.
'You'd think these feckin coats would have hoods' Michael mutters.
'Ha?' Victoria grunts at him.
'Well, they do every other bloody thing. Bend space and light, stop bullets, act as a shield against the forces of unspeakable darkness...'
'They don't stop bullets' Gabriel said with a smirk.
'They don't?'
'Nope'
'Fuck. Well, just saying you think they'd have a hood like'
'I guess we overlooked that' Victoria says.
'Guess so' Gabriel adds. 'How far?'
'About five minutes or so. I think'
'Groovy' Gabriel answers. Michael looks at him.
'You do realise that that makes you sound like an old fart, don't you?'
'What does?' he asks, looking back at Michael, rain pouring down his stubbly face.
'When you say "groovy". Makes you sound like a relic from Studio 54 or something'
Victoria sniggers. Gabriel stops walking.
'What?' Michaels asks, looking between them.
'I went to Studio 54, you little shit'
Michael stops walking and considers him a moment. 'How old are you?'
Gabriel regards him, his face a mask. 'Not so old that I can't kick your arse from here to fucking Scotland'
'Sorry' Michael says, turning his head back again and beginning walking. 'C'mon then' he says cheerfully, 'let's be moving'.
Five minutes later, they arrive at a bin on the side of a street. Gabriel and Victoria look at each other, pause and then look at Michael. He smiles and plunges his hand in to the bin, rummaging. 'In here somwehere' he says with a wince. The other two stare incredulously. After a few moments he emerges from the burger wrappers, soggy fag ends and beer cans holding something which makes Victoria jump backwards.
'Jesus Christ' Gabriel says, a look of intense disgust on his face.
Michael holds the item, an ancient looking boot, it's open torn toe staring at them like a gaping mouth, at an arms length but manages another smile. 'This is it' he says with a radiant grin.
'You sure?' Gabriel asks, holding his sleeve up to his nose.
'I think you're forgetting what game this is that we're playing' Michael replies.
'Fair point' comes the reply.
'C'mon then' says Michael, an impish grin spreading across his face.
Nearby, a red-eyed tramp, emerging from an alleyway, stops to consider them. He lists like a galleon, his eyes screwing up in concentration. He raises a hand to speak, seems to forget what he was going to say and closes his mouth.
Reluctantly, looking the other way, Gabriel tentatively places his left hand on the boot. He shudders from head to feet. Victoria steps forward and slowly places her hand on also. Her nose screws up
Michael looks at the tramp and winks.
They vanish, the boot falling to the ground with a wet splat.
'There it is' he says.
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'Because although we have no idea how most threads and links got created, we do know that some have the ability to use the threads to trap another. They can create a game, a series of bastard hard challenges, designed to either kill or trap the adventurer. What Victoria is trying to say...'
'Trying?'
'Ya ha. What Victoria is trying to say is that it looks like this is what's happening here. Someone is messing with us. But there is a way out. We simply have to figure out what the rules are - what the pattern is and then play our way out'
'Play our way out?'
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 8
"I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly."
-Steven Wright.
Press play
Euston Underground Station, 10 May 1941
Sitting down where they could Michael, Victoria and Gabriel took in the underground station around them. Despite being at least twenty metres below street level, they could still make out the sounds of bombs falling above. Every once in a while, one would land somewhere nearby, a small trickle of dust slipping from a crack in the curved roof above.
It was difficult to tell how many people were down here. Hundreds at the least, possibly a thousand. Huddled and curled up, every inch of space taken, dimly-lit faces peered from the hazy gloom, blanket-smothered and swaddled in layers of clothes, mothers held their children, elderly men staring stoically into space, the faint sound of a woman crying into someones shoulder. It smelt ripe too: sweat, smoke, burnt clothes, piss and fear. Candles flickered all around, a distant mournful, half-hearted song drifting from the other end of the platform.
'Where are we?' Victoria asked them.
Gabriel looked to Michael.
'I think we're in Euston station' said Michael, his eyes flitting from side to side.
Gabriel sighed. 'We need to figure out what's going on here. A merry jaunt around London was fun for a bit, but this isn't right. This has been engineered. It's like someone is playing a game with us'
'Yep' Victoria said, 'I was getting the same impression'
'What do you mean?' Michael asked, looking between them.
Victoria moved closer to him, lowering her voice. 'This seems like it's been engineered. Like someone is mucking us about, sending us on a wild goose chase of some kind. What we need to do is figure out what the pattern is. We need to figure out what connects the places we've been. There has to be something - it can't simply be arbitrary...'
Michael raised a hand. 'Stupid question time' he said.
'Shoot' Gabriel said.
'How did the rips and the links get created in the first place?'
It was Victoria's turn to sigh. 'Truth is, we're not entirely sure. Excavations carried out in Baghdad about twenty years ago dug up a locked chest with clay tablets in them. The tablets tell the story of someone called 'Isa'. We don't know much about this person, I mean we're not even sure if Isa was a man or a woman...'
'She was a woman' Gabriel interjected helpfully.
'We don't know that' Victoria said somewhat testily.
'She was'
'He was not'
'She bloody well was...'
Michael interrupted. 'Yo. Geek Squad. Back to the story please'
Victoria continued. 'So anyway, yeah, Isa seems to have developed 'Vuja De' skills. What we now call rip-jumping. Isa could move through time - backwards, always re-emerging back to the point where he started off...'
'She' Gabriel added, looking the other way and giving a small, curious little girl who was sitting beside her sleeping mother a smile.
'Can you please shut the fuc...' Victoria started.
'Language' Gabriel intoned solemnly, with a raised hand.
Victoria rolled her eyes and looked back to Michael. 'Isa is the earliest record we have of one of us. But the tablets don't specify if he created the rips or if he was simply using existing threads through space/time to move around. But, the tablets do specify one interesting thing, and this is why I bring Isa up; they say that Isa was a master of something called "The Game".'
'The Game?'
'The tablets tell the story of Isa's journey through a series of challenges, each one more weird and gruesome than the next. Monsters, death traps, riddles, puzzles and chases across a maze of different times. What's important here is that Isa's journey was set up for him. Someone designed it - someone who wanted to stop him from getting to where he wanted.'
'Which was?'
'Home'
'And this relates to us how?'
Gabriel cut in. 'Because although we have no idea how most threads and links got created, we do know that some have the ability to use the threads to trap another. They can create a game, a series of bastard hard challenges, designed to either kill or trap the adventurer. What Victoria is trying to say...'
'Trying?'
'Ya ha. What Victoria is trying to say is that it looks like this is what's happening here. Someone is messing with us. But there is a way out. We simply have to figure out what the rules are - what the pattern is and then play our way out'
'Play our way out?'
'Yep' said Victoria with a nod.
'Okay' Michael said, looking down to his blackened hands, 'then what have we got so far? We've been in the 14th century and met Geoffrey Chaucer'
'Yep' Gabriel chimed.
'Then we came out in 1888 and met that nice man Jack'
'Uh huh'
'Then we moved backwards again, to meet Thomas Paine' Gabriel added.
'Sound man' Michael said.
'Then,' Victoria carried on, 'we come out here. In the blitz.'
The three of them went silent. They looked at each other. Then at the floor. Then around them. Then back to each other.
'Okay' said Gabriel, 'What connects Chaucer, Jack the Ripper, Thomas Paine and the blitz?'
Again, no-one seemed to have anything approaching an answer.
Victoria went to speak, opening her mouth momentarily and then closing it again. Gabriel shifted his weight from one side to another. Michael pursed his lips, staring across the platform at the wall of the tunnel. 'Maybe we're meant to meet someone else here? Someone famous like the other three' he said.
'What makes you say that?' Victoria asked him.
'Well, only that it was clear from what happened that whoever, or whatever that person in Whitechapel was, he could do what we do. He could rip-run. And he was good at it.'
'But' Gabriel said quietly, 'the other two couldn't'
'True' Michael conceded. 'They couldn't'
'Hmm' they said collectively.
'Hang on' said Michael, sitting up slightly, 'what about connections between those times?'
'I thought of that' Victoria said. 'I can't find any obvious links between 1941, 1791 and 1888. Oh and, whatever year that was when we were on the road to Kent...'
'What did you say?' Michael asked.
'I was saying that I can't find any connection between those dates...'
'No, no. You said something about Kent'
'Yeah we were on the road from London to Kent...'
'And then we were in Islington, right?' Michael added, excitement growing in his voice.
'Right' said Gabriel uncertainly, looking from Michael to Victoria.
'And then Whitechapel, right?'
'Uh huh'
'And now we're in Euston'
Victoria looked from Gabriel to Michael and back again.
'Sorry Michael, you've lost me'
Michael counted off with his fingers. 'The Road to Kent. Islington - the Angel pub. Whitechapel. Euston...'
'Sorry, I'm lost as well' Gabriel said.
Michael sighed and started again, one finger at a time. 'The Old Kent Road. Whitechapel. Angel. Euston...' he said with a growing grin. 'Jesus! Weren't you two ever kids?'
'Oh God' Victoria said, her jaw opening. 'Oh my God'
'There it is' Michael said.
'There what is?' Gabriel asked.
'Let me help you' Michael said. Leaning forward and using his finger, he drew a large square in the dirt. Within that square, he drew another one, creating a border inside the lines of the main square. Starting in the bottom right hand corner, he began to divide the border area into smaller pieces - each one marked off from the other. Michael stabbed his finger into the first one. 'The Old Kent Road' he said, 'Whitechapel' he carried on, his finger stabbing into the second quadrant. On to the third; 'Angel'. Then the fourth: 'Euston. You see it now?'
Gabriel's face screwed up in bafflement for a few moments and then, slowly at first, his face changed, his mouth opening into a huge 'O', his jaw hanging down.
'Claudia was right' Michael said, 'she was telling us the truth'
'What? What do you mean?' Victoria asked him.
Michael looked at her and smiled. 'It is just a game'
Gabriel sat bolt upright. 'Oh for fucks sakes! You're telling me that we're on a...'
Victoria cut him off. 'Language please'
The little girl giggled.
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"Where political rhetoric had trained people to see only a world of differences between our cultures, religions and national desires, the world suddenly saw the emergence of an attempted cyber-revolution; led not by a political elite or any form of recognised party, but rather by a massive, global army of geeks, democrats, hackers, comedians and kids armed only with cell phones and laptops, was taking on the might of a totalitarian regime - And it was, at least in the long-term, if not immediately, winning."
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 7
'You can't stop the signal'
- Mr. Universe
Press play
June 16th 2009, Rome.
Claudia sat herself down on the floor - a slightly dusty expanse of tiled Roman opulence gone to seed. It was a pleasant early summer's day, the sky was clear and there was no-one around. The sun's rays broke through the walls and columns, shafted between the tiles and the cracked wreckage of a long-gone empire and spread themselves across where she sat with what seemed almost like enthusiasm. Birds sang. She drank from a bottle of water and looked around her, taking in the few tourists that were around. To their eyes, she was just another tourist - a vistor from another country. Not another time.
She opened her bag, taking out a sealed leather booklet, held fast with thin leather straps. Fixing her sunglasses on her nose and adjusting her sitting stance, she unwound the straps from around the leather holder and opened it up. A sheaf of papers sat before her. So, this was it, she thought to herself. The book that people were willing to kill for.
She sat a while, staring at the title sheet, its printed words and elegant signature in black ink. She whistled slightly and took another look around her. Two women stood nearby, one posing for pictures and the other gleefully snapping away. Claudia turned the page and began reading.
'Mysterious Ways: A History Of Evolution and Design In The 21st Century. Chapter 1 - "The Revolution Will Be Twittered"'
Compiled from notes taken by Liam O'Neill in January/February 2098, taken in interviews with members of the People's Council of Narrative and Story, Basel, Switzerland.
According to testimony given to Cardenio Agent Liam O'Neill, the history of the 21st century can be condensed to several key themes: the collapse of the globalised, corporate model and it's domination over the human life-cycle, the re-emergence of small, localised economies in tandem with the rise of super-national, borderless states of cultural and economic exchange, the ultimately cataclysimic race for eugenic supremacy amongst the world's remaining monetary elite, the exhaustion of carbon-based energy resources and their replacement with renewable resources in the form of a Global Renewable Energy Efficency Network (GREEN), the causes and outcomes of the Third World War and the collapse of most of the major totalitarian regimes in the face of hyper-mobilised 'grass-roots' citizen movements.
This last feature will be the subject of this first entry.
The world began to see the first signs of a 'metaphysical mutation' following the Iranian Presidential elections of June 2009. The alleged attempt by the Iranian authorities to rig the result of an election in favour of the Supreme Council's favoured candidate, the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, produced such a wave of revulsion, not just abroad (as was perhaps to be expected), but within Iran itself, that it set in motion a train of events which would lead to a seismic shift in government, not just with the Islamic Republic, but across the surface of the whole planet.
The fatal mistake that the Iranian authorities fell into was in allowing the Iranian populace to believe that they were actually taking part in an authentic democratic process. The 2009 elections had widely televised Presidential debates, allowing the citizenry to have an objective, unbiased opportunity to pass personal judgement on the mettle of each candidate from the safety of their homes, away from the interference of the 'morality police' and other state agencies. In addition to the more 'usual' (in the west at least) event of a series of televised debates, the 2009 elections were the first to see the widespread usage of what was then, rather quaintly, being called 'social media' - that is rudimentary mobile phone SMS services, primitive, instant messaging chat facilities and predominantly text-based social networking services such as the now defunct 'Facebook'*.
More pertinently, the text-based news-feed streaming service known as "Twitter" rose to a position of prominence after the fall-out from the election results (which according to recovered records, were announced a mere three hours after the polls had closed) which saw it become the premier cybernetic information loop (based on the principles devised by Norbert Wiener) on the surface of the planet. It is perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the 21st century that the systems which would ultimately lead to the creation of a planet-wide consciousness and a nascent global government, came not from a body such as the United Nations or the well-intentioned principles of organisations such as Amnesty International, but rather from the attempt to create a more effective system for shooting down Nazi bombers during the Second World War.
In a desperate attempt to silence dissent, the Iranian regime set about blocking off, closing down or just smashing to pieces as many communication systems within the country as they could. Initially the "scorched-earth media strategy" paid dividends. Foreign journalists were denied access to government facilities and were forbidden to record or photograph on the streets and eventually expelled. Prominent 'websites' (early cyberspace news article and video streaming facilities) such as the BBC World Services' 'BBC Persia' found themselves mysteriously blocked off, blogs were hacked, SMS systems crashed and phone lines jammed.
As the scale of the protests became apparent to the regime, panic set in with the Supreme Council announcing that they would investigate accusations of electoral fraud. Widely seen as an attempt to placate the million-strong protests in the streets, it gave the regime time to unleash it's attack dogs and silence dissenting media outlets. Bloodshed was widespread, panic sweeping the streets of Tehran, with regime forces seemingly assuming control of the city.
What the regime hadn't counted on was simple text-streaming services such as Twitter. Impossible to hack due it's multiplicty of feed sources, global reach and real-time 'duck and dive' capability, it became the primary source of counter-regime activity over a frantic 72-hour period which saw a full-scale cyberwar erupt between Iranian activists and the agents of the state.
Most notably, Iranian protesters were aided by a global army of "hacktivists" only too willing to help the nascent democratic movement. Posting rotating proxy numbers, war-dialling government websites and maintaining a running battle with government misinformation officers, Twitter and its associated ecosystem of picture, video and blog sharing spaces became the site of a "digital blitzkrieg". If the government lost control of the information war, it seemed, they would lose control of the country.
What was chiefly significant was that the activities mounted against the Iranian government were not necessarily coming from Iranian citizens: the source was global. This was a movement which paid no heed to notions of borders, ethnicity or nationality. Where political rhetoric had trained people to see only a world of differences between our cultures, religions and national desires, the world suddenly saw the emergence of an attempted cyber-revolution; led not by a political elite or any form of recognised party, but rather by a massive, global army of geeks, democrats, hackers, comedians and kids armed only with cell phones and laptops; taking on the might of a totalitarian regime. And it was, at least in the long-term, if not immediately, winning.
The results, as we now know, were staggering, setting in motion a chain of events which would lead to what many claimed to be the first stirrings of 'the global brain'.
End excerpt.
* Information on "Facebook" is scarce after the great data wipeout of 2042, when British Government server-farms in Durham unintentionally released a lethal software-eating virus after DNA databases of UK criminals had become sentient and attacked the early 'internet'. However, earlier recovered resources (ironically from almost the same time as the Green Revolution in Iran) indicate that Facebook may have been complicit in its own Ourobourous-like demise.
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Dead bodies on the ground, in pieces, the sound of an infant screaming from inside a building. A severed leg. A china cup. Blood. Piss and shit. Fear. The screeching of sirens, howling of fire engines, the monotonous drone, the coughing 'ack ack' of anti-aircraft fire, thudding above the skyline, the clouds themselves lighting up from inside, shells raining to the ground. A moment's silence giving way to an explosion she felt before she heard it, the very ground shaking beneath their feet, shuddering buildings, a rain of glass shattering down into the empty street to their left...
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 6
'The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.'
- Joespeh Campbell
Press play
10th May 1941
Emerging out of a time-rip was always disorienting. Victoria had never really enjoyed the experience, even after all these years, but she could control the sensations that came with it. She'd no idea how many jumps she'd done now but over the years the nausea had faded, the tingling pins and needles in the feet and hands had given way, the woozy unbalanced head snapped back into focus faster than before and the summersaulting stomach had calmed itself to a numbed but controlled growling. Michael on the other hand, she knew, was still struggling. Every one of his jumps invariably resulted in him puking his guts out. Or at least spending fifteen minutes post-jump trying not to. Gabriel she could always depend on. He'd taught her how to jump - a veteran of the art since his early teenage years, he could always be relied upon to be there, levelheaded, calm and in control whilst those around him were losing control of their minds. And bowels.
Considering all of this, the jump out of Islington came as a shock. Emerging out of the rip, Victoria felt the air hit her like a slap in the face. It wasn't just the intense heat, the screaming noises in the darkness that seemed to surround her or even the obvious smell of burnt bodies but something else - something undefinable. Something insubstantial but tangible. Fear. It was fear. The fear of an entire city. She came out easily enough, her feet touching the ground without problem. But with a crunch beneath her. As her vision swam back into focus, she could see what made the sound: glass. Shards of shattered glass. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of them. Breathing deeply, she raised her head to look around. Slowly, with an intake of breath, her jaw dropped. Before her lay a perfect vision of hell.
Above, the sky above was a bruise, battered brown and bleeding, the clouds black as soot. Every few seconds the air would tear open as another explosive ruptured the blackness, flashing the sky orange and brown. Streaks of orange zipped into the air, criss-crossing, zig-zagging, tearing the night open in seemingly random sequences. Explosions, high, high above them bubbled and belched, chugged and clacked. Looking down, ahead of her, no street lights were visible. Fires tore through buildings all around, flames lighting up the collapsing, smashed rib-cages of the structures, masonry crumbling like rotten timber, the smash of glass windows exploding behind them, a building groaning like a ancient monster, as its walls teetered on the edge of collapse.
'What the fuck is going on?' said Michael's voice from behind her, cracking with strain.
'Keep your head down' she could hear Gabriel say, the sound of a body being hauled up off the ground as he said it. Instinctively she knew that Gabriel had him by the shoulders and was holding Michael so as he wouldn't run screaming into a firestorm.
'We need to move' she said, 'now'.
''No shit' came Gabriel's voice, as his hand found hers.
Half-blind, terrified, submerged in a cacophany of screaming sirens, distant sky-bound clacking and the wail of nearby fire engines, they staggered up the street, trying their best to make out where they were, trying to discern a shape, a sound, anything that could guide them along. After a few paces a deafening explosion tore the top half of a building off about two streets away. The three of them instinctively dropped to one knee.
'Blitz' said Michael's voice, breaking with sickness and fear. 'We're in the fucking blitz'
'We need to get underground' Gabriel shouted above the din of a screaming in the sky. 'There's got to be a tube stop near here. Let's move'
Victoria grabbed the other side of Michael's body and hauled him upright. Faster now they moved, almost running, their free hands covering their mouths to block out the dense, all-pervasive choking smoke that seemed to be covering everything.
'Keep moving' Gabriel barked at them. Not that they needed to be told. Victoria's legs were almost moving independently of her. She'd seen some scary shit in her time on this job, but this was about as bad as it had ever gotten. She genuinely wondered for a moment how the hell they were going to get out of this. And then she saw one. A white spark. Another.
'Oh shit' she heard Gabriel say.
Swirling from above, drifting, weaving, almost gracefully towards them, fluttering down into the dark shadowed spaces, clumps of incendiary bombs fell. Two dozen in two seconds. A platoon of murdering devices, sliding down to earth with all the pretty innocence of a child's Halloween sparkler. With a sequence of bubble-wrap pops they flashed brightly, then quickly simmered down to pin points of glittering white, burning ferociously in the shadows. Some went out. Some did not. Some caught. Some sparked. Some took hold. Soon a yellow flame leapt up from the white center. They had done their job - another building was on fire. In seconds, the inferno seemed to engulf the street around them, flames leaping through the dark, hunting out food to eat.
'We're going to be dead in seconds' Gabriel roared, lifting them both back up and hauling them to a moving pace.
'Left' Victoria heard Michael croak. 'Left'
'What?' she managed.
'Left. Go left. Station. Left...'
They didn't disagree and started moving as fast as they could.
Flash, bang. Flash, bang. Above them, getting closer, the sound of grinding engines, buzzing like a swarm of angry aliens in the sky, getting closer and closer, the whining of metal on metal becoming unbearable, the ack-ack of anti-aircraft fire wildly tearing up the sky, streaks of fire flailing through the London night.
Dead bodies on the ground, in pieces, the sound of an infant screaming from inside a building. A severed leg. A china cup. Blood. Piss and shit. Fear. The screeching of sirens, howling of fire engines, the monotonous drone, the coughing 'ack ack' of anti-aircraft fire, thudding above the skyline, the clouds themselves lighting up from inside, shells raining to the ground. A moment's silence giving way to an explosion she felt before she heard it, the very ground shaking beneath their feet, shuddering buildings, a rain of glass shattering down into the empty street to their left. They lurched across the road, almost banging into a flaming car obscured by the smoke, around a corner, tripping over a curbside and crashing to the ground. Victoria managed to outstretch a hand, breaking the fall. Something wet on her hand. Blood? Oil? Both?
She heard Michael hit the curb with a bang, Gabriel tumbling with a curse.
'Up! On your fucking feet' she heard a voice shout, 'Get up!'. Not a voice she knew. A woman. A hand grasping hers. 'Take your friends' hand. Hold on. Do not let go of him.'
Through the murk she could see a figure taking Michael's hand and thrusting it into hers. The figure moving again, taking another hand, Gabriel's, and thrusting it into Michael's.
'If you want to live, hang on to each other and hang on to me. Now let's go' she barked.
Victoria nodded, unable to speak, her throat feeling like it had just been sandpapered.
'Follow me' the woman ordered.
And they did, moving in tandem, the blind leading the blind, the smoke swirling like black soup about them, an explosion in the next street that made them crouch down, a scream from the woman to keep moving, another road to cross, another twist, a wrench of metal hinges, a grinding of steel on concrete, a hand thrusting her inside, another hand on her head guiding her in, stopping her from cracking her head off something. A slamming of a gate. A door. Steps down. A lamp. Light on a face. Patning, sucking the air in. Deep breathing. Michael slumping down a wall, his legs giving way, his face streaked with dirt and his eyes bloodshot to red. A woman's face, black with smoke and filth, panting and cracking a smile from the corner of her mouth to reveal white teeth and a pink tongue.
'You three. Do you have any idea how close you were to getting blown to pieces?'
'Thankyou' Victoria said through a cracking throat. The woman handed her some water. Victoria took it, placing her other hand on the woman's shoulder, a squeeze of thanks.
'Where are we?' Gabriel asked, leaning against a wall.
'Euston. You're in Euston underground station' came the reply.
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'Listen' Michael said, 'I have no idea where this is going to put us, but I'm convinced now that this is not arbitrary'
'What do you mean?' Victoria asked.
'Just that I know it seems random - where we keep ending up, but its not'
'This is because of what Claudia told you. In a dream...'
'Not just that' Michael said, 'if you look at where we keep emerging, there is a slight pattern to it'
'Which is?' Gabriel asked.
'London. Since we got lost, all of the location have been in London. I mean, I know they're random as hell, but they are all in London'
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 5
'We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.'
- George Bernard Shaw
Press play
Cardenio, Dublin. Present Day
Cardenio system initialising, standby. Standby. Log-in. Password. Logging-in. Thankyou. Welcome to the Cardenio system, Director. The date is May 27th 2009. News feeds loading. Cardenio Recovered Artefact Database loading. 21 items recovered and logged since you last logged in. Image feed loading. Agent Status Updates feed loading. Gabriel is M.I.A. Ryuichi is foostering in the basement. Melissa is in 18th century Nova Scotia. Amanda is on the bog. Kiko is reading about Norman Weiner's Cybernetic loops and the invention of the computer mouse. Rob is stalking himself in 1984. Victoria is M.I.A. Dave is chasing whaling fleets in Japan. Pierre is having twins. Gabriel is M.I.A. Michael is M.I.A. The Director is sighing and wondering what to do next.
Angel Pub, Islington, London, January 1791
Michael had never been good with hangovers. At the best of times he was a pathetic post 'the night before' type, moaning and groaning, frequently found lying on a floor, seemingly close to death and bleating for a priest and a doctor. But this was different. This was a hangover on a scale he'd never really thought possible. A headache like an earthquake, a stomach that felt like a bloated corpse had crawled up his arse, a tongue that felt like a roll of carpet and a throat that actually seemed to have been sandpapered all added up to make him look, smell and feel like the most miserable wretch that had ever imbibed an alcoholic drink. Add to this the fact that he was stuck in late 18th century London with two time-travelling freaks who now expected him to lead them into another jump - to God knows where - and he was beginning to feel, perhaps for the first time since this entire farce had begun, that he might not be able for it.
'I want to die' he moaned miserably.
'Okay' said Victoria, 'there's only one way to deal with this: Lazarus juice'
'Lazarus juice?' Gabriel asked, looking up from the flickering display on his pocketwatch screen.
'Remember that time in Istanbul? With Steve the Greek and the cross-dressing priest?'
'Yeah?' Gabriel said uncertainly.
'Well, you remember when Steve needed to wake up that prostitute who'd been drinking and smoking weed all night and he whipped up some brew and chucked it down her throat?'
'The one with three nipples?'
'Yeah, her'
'Oh yeah. Steve stuck a funnel down her throat and poured it into her'
'Exactly'
'Wonder what ever happened to Steve?'
'Ten years for exposing himself to a minor'
'Wow'
'Anyway, we need some of that'
'Need what?' Michael asked, his bloodshot eyes making contact with hers.
'Michael. Just for futture reference: drinking an entire bottle of absinthe is never really a good idea whilst fiddling with the fabric of the universe. It tends to make things messy. Now stay there for a few minutes and I go get this sorted for you'
She walked out of the room and made her way downstairs. Whilst she did Gabriel sat down opposite Michael and shook his head in despair.
'Don't say a fucking word' Michael moaned.
'Wasn't gonna...'
'Uh huh'
'So, what did Claudia have to say for herself?'
Michael laughed, instantly regretting it as the shudders made him feel nauseous. 'You say that like it was real. It was just a dream'
'You sure?' Gabriel asked. 'Sometimes dreams can open time-rips'
Michael looked at him carefully. 'Seriously?'
'Yep - I'm not saying that everything you experienced was 'real' in the strict sense of the word, but I'd put money down on the fact that she had a dream about you too and is currently sitting somewhere in time, wondering what the hell that was about.'
Michael thought about this for a moment, the sensation of her skin against his coming back to him in a flash; her smell, her warmth. A memory swum up through the fug, bursting to the surface with an effect that made him shudder from head to toe - Claudia, winking at him, her expression an image of perfect childish misbehaviour. Michael breathed deeply.
'I dunno man,' he said, 'she was very friendly like. Not her normal self'
'She didn't try to hit you?'
'Quite the opposite. She was almost affectionate'
'That'll piss her off'
'Yep'
They both went silent, Michael sliding back down to a lying position. Gabriel returned to tapping away on his pocketwatch screen, trying to get a solid signal. Enough to send a message back through the loop to let Cardenio know that they were ok. Nothing. Several minutes passed and Victoria returned. In her left hand was a large tankard, frothing at the brim. Michael eyed it suspiciously.
'What is that?' he asked.
'Best you don't know' Victoria replied. 'Drink it' she said, offering the vessel to him.
Slowly, as though he expected the thing to erupt at any moment, he raised the lip of the tankard to his mouth and, closing his eyes, scrunched up his face. As the first drops touched his tongue, Victoria leaned over, pinched his nose closed and used her other hand to up-end the tankard into Michael's mouth. 'Down in one' she said, grabbing hold of him as he squirmed like a child. Half of it seemed to slop over the front of him but ten seconds later the tankard was empty.
Victoria took a step backwards, Gabriel standing up from where he was sitting. Judging by the look on his face, Michael seemed to have drifted out of consciousness, his eyes fixed forward, staring, bloodshot and crazed. After a few moments, his mouth opened, a look of the most intense anguish and horror overcoming his face. A single tear rolled down his cheek. Suddenly, seemingly filled with the fury of hell itself, he leaped off the bed, burst through the open door and took off down the hallway with both hands clasped to his throat.
Gabriel and Victoria exchanged glances as they heard the privy door almost torn off its hinges and the sound of an ungodly scream erupting from within. Some seconds later, when the screaming was reaching a pitch which could wake the dead, they heard the sound of a head being plunged into water, submerged howling, fists pummeling off a wooden surface, bubbles gurgling on the water like a frenzied jacuzzi and a final, ungodly wail of agony as a head resurfaced, gasping for air.
'Tabasco?' Gabriel asked.
'Marmite' said Victoria.
One hour later
'You understand' said Michael, holding up the now empty absinthe bottle from the previous evening's revelries, 'that I have literally got no idea where this will spit us out, right?'
Simply holding it was making him feel like throwing up again. There'd been a goodly deal of that in the last sixty minutes - wretching, heaving, screaming, moaning, dunking in water and puking. The only reason he didn't throw up again, Michael found himself reasoning, was because it was literally impossible at this stage. There was nothing left in there. He was pretty sure that he'd puked up something that had been in there since the late 80's. He put the bottle on the table.
'I hear ya' said Gabriel.
'How you feeling?' Victoria asked.
'Like I want to die'
'Sounds about right' she said.
'Listen' Michael said, 'I have no idea where this is going to put us, but I'm convinced now that this is not arbitrary'
'What do you mean?' Victoria asked.
'Just that I know it seems random - where we keep ending up, but its not'
'This is because of what Claudia told you. In a dream...'
'No. Not just that' Michael said, 'if you look at where we keep emerging, there is a slight pattern to it'
'Which is?' Gabriel asked.
'London. Since we got lost, all of the locations have been in London. I mean, I know they're random as hell, but they are all in London'
Victoria nodded. 'Yep, they are. But to figure out how to get the hell home, we need a pattern better than that. It's not that unusual to get stuck in a link-loop based around one city or country, but this is weird. I can't make any sense of why we're ending up where we end up'
'Me either' Gabriel added. 'And I'm bothered by the fact that we can't get a signal at all. That's downright weird.'
Michael nodded. 'There has to be a connection between the places we've been ending up. I mean, first we come out in the 14th century in the South of London, right? The Road to Kent. Then we get Whitechapel in 1888. Next it's Islington. There has to be a link between those three places'
They looked at each other, each hoping that the other would have some magical explanation. None was forthcoming.
Victoria shrugged. 'Shall we make a move? Maybe another location will suggest something to us'
'It better' said Gabriel.
He nodded, and placed his hand on the bottle. Michael winced and motioned for Victoria to do the same. She did. Exhaling loudly, Michael brought his hand down on top of theirs. And they jumped.
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Dollicide by Tammy Hopper
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You've forgotten what I told you, haven't you? What did you tell me, he asks. When did you tell me? When we first met, she says, bringing her face next to his, her mouth close to his. He can smell her breath. Do you remember what I told you? No, he says, his throat going dry. She smiles, her mouth opening slowly. It's all a game. Just a game.
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 4
'The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.' - Nietzsche
Press play.
'A Stairway To The Stars'
Michael breathes. Standing still. An empty glass-wrapped ballroom. On a pier, the sound of the waves gently lapping against the woodwork of the boards below. A light rain falling against the glass, a seagull passing, its head momentarily turning to look in at him, it wheels away into space. An empty dance floor, chairs against the walls, lace curtains, iron fittings and supports, a single sheet of music on the ground, arching Victorian struts, a solitary, discarded rose on a bare floorboard. Where am I? Brighton's West Pier, a voice answers in the distance, its notes echoing through the air around him, stacatto staggered as each phoneme slips through a time-crack. Okay, he says. There's no-one around. Another seagull passes overhead, spinning around, landing on the gallery outside, peering in, it moves from one foot to the other, its black, unblinking eyes staring at him through the tinted glass. He nods at it. It nods back.
Michael walks across the room, the sound of his boots echoing on the floor beneath him. When am I? 1894. August 17th. 2 a.m., the voice replies, getting closer. The echo of a couple laughing, bouncing around the room, slips past him and falls away. A child crying. A mother consoling it. A grief-stricken man, sobbing quietly. The sound of lovers, their hands working on their skin, washes through a wave below. Michael walks to the window and stares out, looking east. He can see the lights of the shore, reflecting back into the water, the lines of the pier sluicing through the black slosh beneath, the white dandruff of the surf breaking on the stone rocks on the beach. He sees a man walking the promenade. Alone. Looking directly east, the Palace pier glares in the darkness, looming, threatening him. A flash. Fire. Flames. Screaming. A snatch of light from another time. Fading away into cascading echoes, the scene blurs to nothing and he returns to where he is, standing in the middle of the ballroom. Empty and alone.
I'm glad you made it, she says, her voice coming from above, from behind, from below. He spins around, looking for her. She's nowhere to be seen. Her laugh echoes off the walls. She's everywhere to be heard. A hand touches his shoulder. He turns slowly, expecting her to vanish at any moment. Distantly, echoing, shimmering in time, a piece of music begins to play. A melody he recognises but cannot name. Hello, he says. Hello, she says. They stand for a time, looking at one and other. Is this real, he asks her. She laughs, placing her arm around his shoulder, pulling herself closer. Gently, slowly, in small cirfcles, holding onto one and other, they begin to dance, rocking to the echoing music. I don't know, she replies, a shrug of the shoulders. I don't think this is real, he tells her. She places her head on his shoulder, her hand moving up his back. Why not, she asks. Because you're being nice to me. She giggles a little. Good point, she says. Also, I've been drinking absinthe. With a founding father father of the American state. Oh yeah, she says, which one? Thomas Paine, he tells her, his hands moving around her, sensing her relaxing into him. No, which absinthe, she asks. Oh, I don't know, he says laughing at himself. He can feel her nuzzling into him. Calming. The rage slipping away from her. Hands to yourself, she says. I hear ya, he repies.There was a notebook... did you send me a message? Yes, she tells him. And you passed out before you could answer. Next time, try to write back.
How long have we been here? I don't know, she says, her head coming up off his shoulder, her mouth by his ear. He feels her breath on his neck, his heart-rate quickening. But I do know something you don't know, she says. What's that? She holds him closer again, her skin pressing against his. I know why you are lost. I know why you can't find your jump to where you were supposed to go. I know why you can't figure out the pattern. What pattern, he asks in bafflement. The pattern of how you are moving through time. It's not random Michael. It's not arbitrary. I know it seems arbitrary, but it isn't. He looks down at her, her eyes, her mouth, her nose, the pores on her skin, the smell of her overwhleming him. He tries to calm himself, to stop himself from kissing her. You've forgotten what I told you, haven't you? What did you tell me, he asks. When did you tell me? When we first met, she says, bringing her face next to his, her mouth close to his. He smells the scent of her breath. Do you remember what I told you? No, he says, his throat going dry. She smiles, her mouth opening slowly. It's all a game. Just a game.
I don't understand, he tells her. She smiles again, resting her cheek against his.Time to get up off the floor Michael. Time to take control. Time to write your story. I don't understand, he tells her again. You will in time. You will. Now, would you like to know how to get home? How to find the story? Yes, I wou...
Michael jolted awake.
'Fuck' he said, a notebook falling to the floor from his hand.
'What?' said Gabriel's voice from behind. Micheal turned to see Gabriel and Victoria sitting on a bed behind him, both looking suitably smug and amused. The room spun. Michael groaned miserably.
'I had a weird dream...' said Michael distantly, 'Claudia. She was trying to tell me something...'
'Oh yeah?' Victoria asked, with what sounded like a supressed laugh. 'What did she say?'
'That she knows why we're lost and why we can't figure it out. Something she kept saying - that it's all just a game'
Gabriel said nothing but simply looked at Michael for a time. Eventually Victoria spoke.
'You have any idea what that means?'
'Nope' said Michael, wincing at the hideous hangover that was starting to come over him.
'Well, let's get going' Gabriel said. 'This book isn't gonna find itself.'
'One more thing' Michael said, dragging himself to a seated position, 'I think I know where we need to go next.'
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Image by Jaxpix
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'A Stairway To The Stars' by Caretaker. Find the album here.
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'I mean it man, you should see her. I mean seriously like. She's...' Michael trailed off, his eyes swimming in his head, his hand making small circles in the air.
Thomas stared at him blankly, his mouth pursing up like a frog. 'She's what?' he said through a small burp.
'She's fucking gorgeous' Michael slurred, his hand reaching for the bottle. 'She's got dark hair. Nice skin, pale like. Red mouth. Big lips...'
'Ya ha, ya ha'
'And her eyes, oh my God you should see her eyes. Blue. But not blue. Not blue really. Like a colour so far into blue that it's out the other side of blue and into something else? You know what I mean?'
'I do. I do.'
'And her legs. Sweet Jesus. The legs on her. She could kill a man with those legs'
'Oh yeah?'
'Oh yeah.'
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 3
'Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play.'
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Press play.
Islington, London. January 1791
A wide street, swept with wind and a thick snow. Three figures appear in the darkness, coats flapping in the breeze. Two huddle closer, shivering and pulling their coats closed. The third lurches to the side, looking like he's about to vomit. His chest heaves up and down, pushing air into his lungs. The other two hunch over a pocketwatch, trying to discern the features on the glass through the blizzard.
'You got anything?' Michael asked, righting himself and beginning to shiver.
'I don't believe this' Victoria said.
'What? You've got a signal?'
'I've got a faint one, but that's not the problem. We've gone backwards. Fucking backwards'
'How the hell is that possible?' Michael asked.
'I thought we were getting closer' Gabriel said.
'So did I' Victoria answered. 'And that's not all. We're in a totally different part of the city as well. We're in Islington'
'What? How the... what the...?'
'Jesus wept, it's bitter' Michael said, his teeth starting to bang together. 'Can we get out of this? I'm fecking freezing. And I'm starving'
'Yeah, I'm hungry' Victoria agreed.
They looked around the street, their eyes squinting at the swirling snow and howling wind.
'There' Gabriel said, his hand pointing towards a distant light. 'Let's go'.
Five ice-box minutes later, they staggered up to the door of a building in a courtyard. Steeping over the broken glass and horseshit, they peered through the white swirl to see a sign mounted on the wall of the courtyard, above the door. It showed a crudely painted angel, it's eyes raised in supplicant prayer. They looked at each other, shrugging.
'Good enough for me' Michael said.
Gabriel started banging on the door. After a time, they heard a bolt being slid across a plank of wood. A crack opened, light spillling out and an eye peering around the door. Michael thought to himself what a pathetic trio they must have looked - half-frozen and shaking so much they much have looked like they were dancing.
'Yes?' said a gruff voice.
'Forgive the hour' Gabriel began, 'we were waylaid on the road to London and need somewhere to sleep. We can pay' he finished hopefully. The owner of the eye said nothing for a moment and then barked a question.
'How much?'
Gabriel rummaged in his coat pocket and dug something out which Michael couldn't see, but which clearly impressed the innkeep, as the door suddenly swung wide open to reveal a portly middle-aged man who wore a beaming smile.
'Come in!' he yelled, his arms wide open.
Twenty minutes later Michael sat in front of an empty plate and a half-full tankard of ale. He wasn't entirely sure what that was that he'd eaten. There was something in there that tasted like beef but he couldn't have been sure. He decided it was best not to ask. He sat in a large wood-panelled room on the second floor of the inn, alone save for a crackling log fire and one solitary figure that sat on the other side of the room. The innkeeper occasionally wandered in and idly cleaned a surface. Michael suspected he was keeping an eye on him. Gabriel and Victoria had crashed out as soon as they'd finished eating. Michael had declined to join them just yet, saying that he fancied a drink first. He regarded the figure on the other side of the room. He was a man in his late thirties, clean-shaven, dark-haired with a kind but intense face. His head was down, engrossed in writing something. A bottle and glass sat on a table in front of him, but neither had been touched in a while. Every so often he would sigh and shift through the large sheaf of sheets beneath his hands, his face screwed up in the most powerful concentration. The innkeeper appeared again.
'Right young sir' he said with a sleepy smile. 'I trust I can leave you to find your own way to bed?'
'Yes I can thankyou. Very kind'
The innkeeper smiled. 'And don't let our mutual friend here' he said, nodding towards the solitary writer across the room, 'try to make a revolutionary out of you.'
Michael laughed. 'I shan't. And thankyou again' he said, raising his glass. He looked across the room to see the man smiling at him.
'Irish yes?' he said, in a soft British accent.
'That I am' Michael replied. 'You?'
'From Norfolk, although I have moved about a bit. Dublin, yes?' he asked.
'Spot on. North of the city. What you working on there? The great novel?'
The man laughed. 'Not exactly. Something rather less fun I'm afraid. I just returned from political business in France and was writing, well, I don't know actually. Something inflammatory hopefully'
'I like it already. Listen, does the innkeeper keep anything better than this behind the bar?' he asked, raising his tankard.
The man fixed Michael with a penetrating gaze for a moment, sizing him up.
'Well, now that you mention it...' he said, rising from the table and making his way to the other side of the room. He opened a press and produced a leather satchel. From within it he pulled a fat green bottle with a cloudy looking liquid. He held the bottle up, turning it round in his hand.
'A specimen I brought back from Paris. Rumour has it, it was from the stock of the late royal family themselves. Probably complete lies of course, but I couldn't resist it.'
'Is that what I think it is?' Michael asked, sitting up in his chair.
'Well, that depends. If you think it's absinthe, then you would be correct.'
'Beautiful' said Michael, extending a hand to the man. 'My name is Michael.'
'Thomas' said the man, taking his hand with a mischevious smile, 'Thomas Paine.'
One hour later
'So hang on now and let me ensure that I have this correct' Thomas said, his left eye closing slightly as he tried to focus on a now slightly blurry Michael. 'You're telling me that you know for a fact, that in two hundred years or so, the son of a white woman and negro man will be elected President of the United States? Is that what you're telling me?'
Michael wobbled slightly in his chair, lifting the glass of green liquid to his lips. 'Yep, that's what I'm saying'
'Balls'
'I'm telling you. It's going to happen'
'I mean don't get me wrong,' Thomas exclaimed excitedly, his glass tilting to one side, absinthe slopping over the brim and on to the sheaf of papers below, 'I applaud the sentiment. It's a noble one. But the problem is that in the New World of now, we have slave owners flogging their slaves like cattle, raping them like madmen and killing with impunity. I just don't see how that changes. I'm all for it. I believe negroes have the right to lop the heads off royalty as much as the average white man. I just don't see how a situation can arise that where that same white man would allow it'
'Well, okay, listen up. You see, there's this family called the Bush family...'
One hour after that
A scream of laughter rent the air as Thomas' hand slapped off the table. Michael gasped for air, his chest heaving up and down, tears streaming down his face. Suddenly he stopped moving and froze, his face held in a paroxysm of some kind. Just as it seemed that he might die from the simple act of forgetting to breathe, he took a great whooshing breath of air in through his mouth and then exploded into another fit of whooping and screaming, his fists pummeling into the table.
'And then he says...' he managed, his whole body shaking in convulsions, 'The Aristocrats!'
Two mouths opened, frozen in space, faces like volcanoes, tears flowing down their cheeks, their heads gently bobbing in screaming, agonising, head-shatterring laughter.
One hour after that
'I mean it man, you should see her. I mean seriously like. She's...' Michael trailed off, his eyes swimming in his head, his hand making small circles in the air.
Thomas stared at him blankly, his mouth pursing up like a frog. 'She's what?' he said through a small burp.
'She's fucking gorgeous' Michael slurred, his hand reaching for the bottle. 'Beautiful. Graceful. Funny too.'
'Nothing better than a funny woman' Tom said sagely.
'She's got dark hair. Beautiful skin, pale like. Red mouth. Big lips...'
'Ya ha, ya ha'
'And her eyes, oh my God you should see her eyes. Blue. But not blue. Not blue really. Like a colour so far into blue that it's out the other side of blue and into something else? You know what I mean?'
'I do. I do.'
'And her legs. Sweet Jesus. The legs on her. She could kill a man with those legs...'
'Oh yeah?'
'Oh yeah'
'A strong woman then?'
'Oh yes. She looks small and weak but she's actually put together like an ox'
'Hmmm...'
'And her eyes. Dear God her eyes'
'You said'
'Oh yeah. I did'
'So,' Tom said shifting in his chair, 'have you told her. Have you said it to her? Told her how you feel?'
'I did. Well, not really. I mean I sort of did. But not quite, if you know what I mean'
'Not really no. What did she say?'
'She told me to fuck off'
'Hmm. Shame that. You think she meant it?'
'No idea really. Well, yes I suppose she did. I mean, she threw me off a building'
'That would seem pretty definitive.'
'Hmmm. It does, doesn't it?'
'So why do you keep thinking about it? Why not let it go?'
'Hard to say Tom. I mean,' here Michael paused again, his blood-shot eyes sweeping around the room, 'have you ever met someone and just had the strongest sense that you were supposed to be with each other?'
'Yes. Yes, I have' said Tom, looking into the distance.
'Like the two of you were actually made for each other? Someone who just makes sense? Someone who...'
'Someone who understands you' Tom said mournfully, a tear welling up in his left eye.
'Yes. Someone who meshes with you to make something better, bigger'
'Right. Someone who understands where you are broken and doesn't care'
'Someone whose teeth fit your bite marks'
'Precisely. A pain that you're used to'
'Exactly'
'Spot on'
'Tom?'
'Michael?'
'I think we might be drunk'
'What makes you say that?'
'Cos there's something buzzing in my pocket and I know I don't have a phone with me'
'A what?' Tom said, slightly dribbling.
Michael rummaged in his coat, slowly, methodically, with what looked like a superhuman effort, producing a small, leather notebook. The one which Claudia had left for him at Cardenio. It was vibrating.
'What the fu...?' Michael began, flipping it open on to the first blank page. A few moments later, through a green haze Michael saw a word appear on the page. Then another. And another. Each one appearing in a simple handwriting, as though they were being written by an invisible pen.
"Hello Michael" it said. "What ya doing?"
'Tom. You're not gonna fucking believe this,' Michael began, turning himself round to show him the notebook, only to see Tom's head smash into the table, sheets of paper flying across the room. A moment later a loud snoring could be heard.
'Oh shit' said Michael, looking back to the notebook. He pulled out the small pen attached by a hoop at the side and slowly, carefully began to write.
"Hello" he managed, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. "Who's that?"
"Who the fuck do you think it is, you twat?"
"I think I might be about to pass ou..."
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Ontological Arguments by Dr. Joanne
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Noiselessly they moved, creeping through the shadows, keeping close to the wall. Gabriel stopped, slowly extending his arms around them both and drawing them deeper into the shadows. They waited, silencing their breathing. Something was getting closer. Michael closed his eyes, reaching out, breathing through the space, sensing the streets around them. He could see the cops, see the streets, see a child sitting in a doorway, a working girl nervously peering through a cracked bottle-green window, a gentelman's club, the air thick with smoke and the laughter of the gin-plastered, a silent cat watching the streets below, a lone man stumbling in a drunken stupour his legs moving like automated pistons following a homing beacon. But there was something else. Something darker than the sky above. Something so sickening he struggled to keep the bile down. A sound, coming closer...
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 2
'You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.'
- Plato
Press play
Whitechapel, London. Sunday, 30 September, 1888.
'This is not good' said Michael, surveying the closing mob of police officers. There was something undefinably sinister about late 19th century police uniforms which gave Michael the willies. Then again, he thought briefly, it could also have been the drawn truncheons.
'Stay calm' said Gabriel, raising his hands.
'Identify yourselves now' barked a rough voice.
'My name is Victoria...' she began only to be cut off.
'Shut your mouth whore'
'Okay, now let's not get carried away here' Gabriel said with a smile.
'And you, shut your mouth before I shut it for you' the voice snapped. 'You' it said, a hand pointing at Michael. 'Where are you from?'
'Dublin' said Michael quietly.
'Fucking Irish' the voice said to a chorus of mutters. From the dark a large figure stepped forward, the faint glow of a street light revealing his face. A cruel, moustached visage came into focus, a red scar on the left cheek, rising up to a slightly closed eye.
'Sorry?' Michael said. The truncheon hit him full force across the upper-body, sending him clattering to the ground.
'Okay, now steady on' said Victoria. 'There's no need for that.'
'Oh really?' said the officer in gleeful condescension. 'You fink, do ya?' he said, raising his arm to level a blow at her. He never made it. Before his hand had been fully raised, Victoria seemed to be behind him, twisting his arm in an un-natural direction. He screamed. And then all hell broke loose. The next thirty seconds saw a flurry of limbs as officer after officer was sent flying. Looking up from the ground, Michael could see Gabriel standing there, waiting for an opportune moment to get involved, but at the rate that Victoria was kicking arse one would not be forthcoming. A final phalanx of three of them rushed her, only to be met with a series of violent kicks to the head which sent two flying and the third on his arse with blood pouring down his mouth and chin. Victoria stood still, her arms lowering down to her sides. Around her lay a heap of groaning bodies.
'Fucking fascists' she snarled at them. 'Some things really never do change do they?'
'Let's go' said Gabriel, dragging Michael to his feet and taking Victoria by the other arm. He set a quick pace, dragging them down the street and into an adjoining yard.
'Michael, do you have any sense on a jump point?'
'Yes. It's faint, but I think it's that way' he said pointing up a street to their right.
'Let's get the hell out of here' Gabriel said as the sound of police whistles started ringing through the air.
'What the hell is going on?' Victoria asked. 'What the hell was wrong with them? It's like they were looking for a fight.'
'Not sure. But if I'm right, we've just stumbled into the middle of a serious mess' Gabriel said, tilting his head to the left.
They made their way quickly, heads turning, watching for any more cops. Suddenly Gabriel stopped, raising a hand to signal for silence. After a few moments, he motioned with his hand that they turn in through a wide gate near them. They made their way into a yard, the blackness enveloping and hiding them. As they did so, an appaling feeling of fear and horror overcame Michael - something visceral, horrid and scabrous squirming through the spaces inside his head. He could feel that the jump link was nearby, but that something beyond evil was guarding it. He shuddered.
Noiselessly they moved, creeping through the shadows, keeping close to the wall. Gabriel stopped, slowly extending his arms around them both and drawing them deeper into the shadows. They waited, silencing their breathing. Something was getting closer. Michael closed his eyes, reaching out, breathing through the space, sensing the streets around them. He could see the cops, see the streets, see a child sitting in a doorway. A working girl nervously peering through a cracked bottle-green window. A gentleman's club, the air thick with smoke and the laughter of the gin-plastered. A silent cat watching the streets below. A lone man stumbling in a drunken stupour, his legs pumping like automated pistons following a silent homing beacon. But there was something else. Something darker than the sky above. Something so sickening he struggled to keep the bile down. A sound, coming closer. No, something else. The sound of a pony and cart coming down the street and towards the entrance of the yard. Creaking, clattering, scraping it came, swinging off the street towards them.
It stopped and they could hear a man stepping down from the carriage. His footseps were faltering but he was getting closer to them. Suddenly, there was the brief flash of a match being lit, its light momentarily illuminating the mans face and beneath him a scene of unimaginable horror. A body. A woman. Dark hair. Lying on her side. Her face a contorted mess. Blood spattered in all directions, oozing through the gaps in the stones beneath her, her eyes wide open, staring straight at them. The light of the match only lasted a few seconds but it was enough for Michael to see the gaping double slash on her throat, the thick dark blood bubbling from the wound. The man ran, screaming, calling for the police.
Gabriel, seized them both, readying himself to run. And then two things happened which would haunt Gabriel and Victoria for days afterwards. The first was the sound of Michael's voice. In their heads. No words spoken. No sounds uttered. No phonemes formed. Simply the sound of his voice, speaking, commanding them, deep inside their minds.
'Don't. Fucking. Move.' he told them.
They froze. Across the yard, from beneath the shadows of an ill-lit archway, a hand emerged. Behind it, uncoiling into the gloom, a figure slowly crept into the moonlight. It was impossible to discern any features from where they were, but they could see that it was a man, large, strong with broad shoulders, dressed in a large black cloak, a burnished top-hat and black leather gloves. He stood panting on the spot, his chest heaving, staring towards the prone body. He didn't see them, the darkness shielding them from sight. Not that he would have noticed them, Victoria suddenly found herserlf thinking, if they had been under a stage light. His focus was fixated solely on the body between them. His fury was obvious. A curse of pure rage escaped his mouth, the voice coarse and guttaral and then, with a sudden jerking, insect-like movement he ran, bolting down the street with remarkable speed.
Michael burst from his hiding spot and took off like a flash.
Left. Right. Twist. Turn. Jump and up. Kicking off the side of a house, Michael split the air open and moved twenty feet ahead of the sprinting figure, north up Berner Street. He landed, toppling over and rolled upright, straightening himself for the fight. And saw nothing. Above him, the sound of a tile giving way on a roof startled him. He saw a black-cloaked figure leap across a space between two buildings, moving towards Commerical Road, the tell-tale flash of light sparking behind him as he moved.
'Motherfucker' Michael said, taking off at a sprint again. He used a water-trough as a launch-pad and used the small leap to propel himself up into a rip that spat him out on the roof behind the figure. He was one building, one rooftop ahead. They ran, leaping, moving, shifting the space between them and the next landing point. Michael was gaining on him, but he could see that the man was skilled. He moved with the speed of a professional, twisting through the space with guile and economy.
'Hey. Fuckface!' Michael screamed at him.
The figure stopped. Turned. It's shoulders heaved, pausing in disbelief. A snarl could be heard as it turned and sprinted away again. Michael went after him, running as fast as he humanly could, splitting the air and crashing onto the rooftop, rolling upright he started running again.
Up Commercial Road they went, building after building flashing below them, roof tiles spinning off into the streets below with distant clatters. The man sped up, making larger and larger jumps, risking injury and mishap as he did. Michael could sense the anger, the hate growing in him. Then suddenly he wasn't there anymore. Michael skidded to a stop, frantically looking around him. Then he saw him.
Below. On street level, sprinting between the streetlights. Making for New Road. Michael pulled himself back a few feet, clenched his teeth and ran, throwing himsel off the side as hard as possible. He waited, letting his weight open the rip and propelling himself into it as forcefully as he could. Inside, he grabbed at the thread and pulled with everything he had, pushing to maximise the jump. He burst out on to a rooftop on the corner of Nelson street, hitting the ground with a bang, skidding to a stop, dust kicking up. He stopped and looked down. The man was still below him, at street level, moving at an amazing speed. He barged a man and a woman out of his way, their hollow shouts echoing into the empty black streets around them. Michael paused, using his elevated position to see what the man did next, where he moved to. The figure disappeared momentarily and then re-appeared two streets away, on Walden street turning on to Turner street. The hospital. The bastard was going for the London Hospital. Michael took off, rooftop to rooftop, jumping as fast as he could. He crashed out on to a slippery rooftop, just in time to see the figure flip over a ledge and right itself on the roof of the hospital. He saw Michael and stared, his eyes reflecting a beam of moonlight. Although Michael could not discern any features that he might have been able to later describe, he could see enough to see that this man hated him with every fibre of his being, perhaps more than he had ever hated anything or anyone before.
They glared at each other, both pausing to see what the other did. A chill wind blew, coats and cloaks gently moving in the air. Soundless. Motionless. In an instant, the man spun on his heel and took off. Michael followed. Left. Right. Twist. Turn. Kicking off a wall, Michael side-shifted through three walls and emerged in a ward on the third floor, sending a man flying as he passed. He ran and dived out an open window, the scream of a woman behind him. Down, on to Whitechapel Road. Running and running he kept after him, his lungs screaming, legs shaking, hands trembling, his heart thumping like a jackhammer. On they went, up Mile End Road, Michael closing all the time. In a desparate lunge the figure twisted left, kicking off a kerb and upwards on to the side of a building on the corner, a darkened brewery. Two girls standing on the corner screamed as Michael almost flattened them. Up Cleveland Way he went, panting for air. Right he bent, kicking in a rotten door and leaping up a wall onto a house at the side of the brewery. He caught a glimpse of a plaque above the door which said "1863". He ripped through onto the roof, a piece of glass shattering below him. One stretch and he had him, his hand catching the tail end of the cloak as he prepared to jump again. The figure spun on it's heel, wildly slashing out with a knife. Michael managed to avoid the blade and caught the man's wrist with his left hand. With his right, he threw the hardest punch he could muster, followed with a kick from his right leg, aimed at the knee in an attempt to break a bone. The punch landed but the kick didn't. Instead the man deflected the kick and drove his head into Michael's chest, trying to run him backwards off the edge of the building. From below them the barking of dogs and police whistles could be heard coming close. Someone was screaming the word 'Murder!' over and over again. Michael twisted, launching another punch at the man's face. It connected with a crack, the figure reeling backwards and suddenly, unexpectedly plummeting off the rooftop.
'Shit' Michael hissed, scrambling to the edge. He looked over the lip to the street below. An empty street glared back up at him. At its far end, a trio of police officers came sprinting around the corner. Michael pulled back and slumped to the ground, wheezing. He lay still, catching his breath, his chest heaving in exhaustion. He closed his eyes. And tried to slow his pounding heart.
Some minutes later a pair of bodies made their way to the roof. Gabriel and Victoria.
'What the fuck do you think you are doing?' Gabriel asked. Victoria stood behind him hands on her hips, staring at him in a condition somewhere between enraged bafflement and genuine relief.
'Chasing that bastard.'
'Do you have any idea who that was?' Victoria asked.
'Of course I do' Michael said with a laugh.
'And it seemed like a good idea, did it?'
'It was worth it' said Michael, still panting.
'For what?' asked Gabriel.
'To get this' he said, holding up a polished, but now crumpled top-hat.
They stared at him. 'What the hell did you want that for?' asked Gabriel, incredulous.
Michael reached inside the inner brim and with a tearing sound pulled out a folded up piece of paper.
'For this' he said simply. 'Our jump link out of here'.
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'Greetings' Gabriel said amiably, extending a hand. The tall traveller at the front bounded his last few steps towards them and after seizing Gabriel's hand began pumping it frantically.
'Terribly nice to meet you' he said, a massive, toothy grin hoving into view. 'My name is Geoffrey'
'Gabriel' said Gabriel, managing to wrest his hand back. 'This is my wife Victoria,' he went on, Victoria noddding politely, 'and this is our, ehm, nephew, Michael'
'Nephew?'
'How wonderful!' said the traveller. 'And what, prey tell, finds you on this road?'
'Going to London?' asked another insanely happy voice from behind. And another: 'Pilgrimage was it?'
'Ehm, well...' Gabriel paused, thinking.
Game 1, Level 3, Stage 1
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music"
- Marcus Brigstocke
Press play.
Cardenio, Dublin. Present day.
Gabriel, Victoria and a somewhat sullen-looking Michael stood before the Director. Behind him was Cardenio's nerve-centre - the giant wrap-around plasma screen banks and computer towers which an anxious looking Maria was now sitting at and fevereishly tapping away on. Images and maps flitted across the screens, showing shots of 1960s London.
'This time', the Director said with a pointed look at Michael, 'the three of you will be going along. And you won't just be observing. Your job is to retrieve the package. We have reliable information that one of the parts of the story is located in a house in Mayfair, London in 1967. You can probably expect some resistance in retrieving the document, but I'm sure that it's nothing that the three of you can't handle. But let me be clear. Michael?'
'Yes?'
'Gabriel is in charge. That means you do what he says. Nothing more, nothing less. OK?'
'Gotcha'
'I hope you do' said the Director with a sinister arch of the left eyebrow. 'Are you ready?'
All three of them nodded.
'Right then. Maria? Ready?'
'Sure thing Chief' she said over her shoulder.
Nodding, the Director walked over to a table to the side of the main computer units on which a small metal box rested. He opened it and produced a square envelope. From inside that he slid out, carefully, almost reverentially, an album cover. It was an original copy of Sgt. Pepper's.
'Nice' said Michael.
'Yes it rather is' said the Director with a smile. 'Damage it and I'll kill you where you stand'
Gabriel chuckled. 'C'mon you two. Let's get this show on the road'
Saying nothing, the three stepped to the table where the Director had lain the album cover down on a velvet surface. They looked at each other, nodded and slowly placed their hands down on the cover. Gabriel's hand first, Victoria's on his, Michael's on hers.
'Good luck' said the Director with a kindly smile.
Michael opened his mouth to speak. 'What happens if...'
And they jumped.
On an unseasonably warm April day, on a dirt road through the hills, with neither man or beast in sight, three figures appeared by the side of the road. One moment they weren't there, the next they were. Two men and a woman. The older, taller man and the woman seemed calm, unperplexed. The third man, a younger man, heaved to one side and staggered to a nearby tree. He leaned against it for support, taking large gulping breaths. After a time, his breathing slowed and he drank deeply from a water bottle which the woman handed him. She seemed to find his predicament amusing. Eventually he stood upright and walked away from the tree, giving her back the bottle. The older man peered intently at a silver pocketwatch, his face scrunched up in confusion and concern. The woman and the younger man came to stand beside him. The woman began to say something only to be interrupted by the sound of the younger man whirling away and puking loudly. She handed him the water again.
'What's wrong?' Victoria asked Gabriel, turning away from Michael who was now doubled over groaning.
'There's something really wrong here' he replied. 'We're supposed to be in London in 1967'
'I was about to say, it doesn't look much like it' Victoria said, casting her eyes around.
They were on a unpaved dirt-road, low-lying hills on all sides of them. An occasional tree dotted the landscape, but nothing jumped out to let them know where they were.
'Where the hell are we?' Michael groaned, struggling to a standing position.
'That's the thing' Gabriel said, his fingers prodding and poking the touch-screen on his watchpiece. 'I have no eartly idea'.
'Huh? Victoria mumbled, reaching for her pocketwatch. She flipped it open.
'You got anything?' Gabriel asked her.
'Nope' she said, staring at the screen and chewing her bottom lip. 'Garbled signal. It makes no sense. It's like there's something blocking the uplink. I can see it connecting but then something cuts it out. Michael, can you look at yours please'
Michael fished the watch out, his other hand clutching at his stomach. He grimaced as he opened the lid and waited.
'Nothing' he finally mumbled. 'Dead. Isn't this not supposed to happen?'
Neither Gabriel nor Victoria replied, but simply looked at each other and then around them in different directions.
'How about we ask them?' said Victoria, flicking her head up the road. They looked.
A couple of hundred yards ahead, moving towards them, was a group of about a dozen figures. They wore rough looking garb - cloaks and sack-cloth garments, with rough boots on their feet.
'Look medieval' said Gabriel.
'What the fuck is going on? Did we come out in the wrong time?'
'Yeah' said Victoria, 'medieval alright. I'm guessing 14th century?'
'Sounds about right' Gabriel said. 'Let's go talk to 'em'
'You sure that's wise? How do we know they're not some band of lunatic crusaders?' Michael asked.
They both looked at him.
'Fair enough' he said quietly.
They started walking towards the group. After a short time, someone at the head of their group raised a hand in salute. Gabriel raised his.
'Wave back' he said.
Victoria and Michael did. As they got closer, Michael could begin to discern the features of the figure leading the group. He was tall, possibly six foot four, some facial hair and with an insanely large, gleeful smile on his long, impossibly happy face.
'Helooooo!' he called out to them, waving his hand in an excited manner.
'Seems friendly' Michael said.
Gabriel grunted. 'Hello there!' he called back. The entire group waved back and shouted hello in unison.
'Very friendly' said Victoria.
'We're gonna get eaten alive aren't we? Michael asked. Victoria sniggered.
'Michael...'
'Sorry' he said. 'I'll be nice'
'Good morning!' called the figure, a huge beaming smile lighting up his face.
Behind him, twelve or so more faces were peering at them with precisely the same insanely happy expressions. Judging by the look of rapt joy on their faces, they'd never met anyone on a road before and considered the experience to be nothing less than a religious ecstasy. 'Helloooo!' came a chorus of cheerful voices.
'Er, hi' Michael managed.
'Greetings' Gabriel said amiably, extending a hand. The tall traveller at the front bounded his last few steps towards them and after seizing Gabriel's hand began pumping it frantically.
'Terribly nice to meet you' he said, 'My name is Geoffrey.'
'Gabriel' said Gabriel, managing to wrest his hand back. 'This is my wife Victoria,' he went on, Victoria noddding politely, 'and this is our, ehm, nephew, Michael.'
'Nephew?'
'How wonderful!' said the traveller. 'And what, prey tell, finds you on this road?'
'Going to London?' asked another chippy voice from behind. And another: 'Pilgrimage was it?'
'Ehm, well...' Gabriel paused, thinking.
The entire group leaned in towards them, as though he were about to utter the lottery numbers, beatific smiles on their hoplessly loving, expectant faces. 'Truth is, we're slightly lost' Gabriel finished.
'Lost?' came a chorus of voices. 'Were you waylaid?' asked Geoffrey.
'Yes, waylaid. That was it. We were waylaid.'
'I see'
'By bandits' Gabriel carried on.
A collective gasp met this latest piece of information.
'Gabriel?' Michael said gently.
'Not now'
'Yes now'
Gabriel smiled at the gaunt figure of Geoffrey before him and turned his head to scowl at Michael. 'What?'
'I think I know how to get us out of here'
'How?' Victoria asked.
'By using the jump-point connected to whatever it is he has in his bag'
'How the...? How do you know he has one in his bag?'
'I can see it. I can feel it.'
Gabriel paused an instant. 'Are you still dizzy from the jump?' he asked.
Michael bristled. 'You're telling me that you can't feel it? It's in his bag. I can see the link glowing from here.'
Gabriel and Victoria turned their heads, looking over their shoulders down to the bag that man was holding. He looked down to the bag too. They looked back up to him. He looked back at them and smiled. They smiled back and turned to Michael.
'I can't see anything' Gabriel said.
'Neither can I' said Victoria. 'You sure about this?'
'Positive' Michael insisted, 'It's there. A jump link. I guarantee it. It must be a book or a picture or something. Ask him if we can trade for it.'
'Trade? Trade what' Gabriel asked.
'Hang on. I think I can guess what it is they have,' said Victoria, a sudden rush of impatience overcoming her. She cleared her throat, turning back to face the grinning faces.
'Forgive us. We are a travelling family, lost on the road to our kin. We need to get to the city of London. But we were waylaid by bandits and all our possesions stolen...' she paused here for dramatic effect, the group oooing in sympathy, 'and we know not where we are. Can you direct us?'
'Well of course my lady,' said Geoffrey with a serious tone. 'This is the road to Kent, from London, traversed by pilgrims such as ourselves, as we make our way to pay respects at the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.'
A 'eureka look' came over Michael's face. 'Ah haaaa...' he said under his breath. Gabriel stood on his foot to shut him up.
Geoffery hoisted his thumb over his shoulder. 'London,' he said with a theatrical waggle of the eyebrows, 'is that way'.
Upon this announcement, the group erupted in a raucous bout of knee-slapping and guffawing. Michael whimpered.
'And could we,' Victoria further ventured, 'ask you to find it in your hearts to furnish us with a map? Perhaps a spare one which might show us the way?'
Faces looked at each other. Heads bobbed in unision. Mutterings were rousing.
'Why certainly my lady' said Geoffrey, opening the bag and pulling out a parchment. From where Michael was standing, it glowed blue. Gabriel looked and saw just a parchment. 'That it?' he asked out the side of his mouth.
Michael nodded, biting his lip.
'You're too kind sir' Victoria said.
'Oh but there's a cost, my lady' he said with another waggle of the eyebrows and a titter from the group. Gabriel and Michael tensed.
'Which is?' she asked tersely.
'A tale'
No-one spoke.
'I'm sorry?' Gabriel finally said.
'A tale' said a woman's voice from the back of the group.
'A story!' another helpfully chimed in.
'You want us to tell you a story?' Victoria asked, tilting her head.
'Precisely'
'Uhm...' she trailed off. She looked to Michael and Gabriel. They both shrugged.
'Thanks' she said. Turning back to Geoffrey, she smiled weakly. 'Any particular type?'
'Oooo! Something funny!' said the woman again to a chorus of approval and clapping.
'May I ask why you want the story?' MIchael interjected.
'Well, because that's what I do' Geoffrey said with a grin. 'I collect stories. This is a story teling pilgrimage. To while the hours away, we trade tales. So, what shall we call yours? What is your name?'
'Ehm...' Victoria began, 'Ehm. Miller. Yes, Victoria Miller.'
The group paused, exchanging puzzled looks. Victoria smiled.
'What an odd name. Well, If you say so. And what would your tale be?'
'Well...'
Three hours later
'You know what? You are one disturbing woman Victoria' Michael said. She said nothing whilst Gabriel just smirked and examined the map.
'And you can see a jumplink on this map Michael?' Gabriel asked.
'As clear as day'
Gabriel and Victoria exchanged glances.
'Where did you get that story?' Michael asked. 'I mean, that stuff about the poker up the arse. Was that really necessary? Where did you hear that story? Seriously, where?'
Again, no-one answered him. 'Oooh, going all cryptic on me again are ye?'
'It's a map of London for sure, but I mean, it's all messed up.' Gabriel said, entirely ignoring Michael. 'As best as I can make out we're in what would now be south London, but which in this time is almost unpopulated. The nearest village is Southwark. This is all very weird. I still don't know how we ended up here.'
'Well, how about we get out of here?' suggested Victoria.
'Fine by me' Michael replied.
'Okay, let's see if this works.' Gabriel said placing the document on the ground and his hand on it. Victoria kneeled and placed hers on his. Michael followed, pausing before placing his on Victoria's. 'I didn't say I knew where this was going, OK?'
'Don't worry. We came across this link for a reason. It's more than likley going to throw us out into 1967. Happens sometimes, links to links. Let's go.'
Michael nodded and placed his hand on Victoria's.
A street. Cobblestones and the reflection of rainwater in a moonlit sky.
'This is not 1967' Michael said.
'Nope. It ain't' said Victoria looking at her pocketwatch screen. She closed it with a grunt.
Gabriel looked around them, taking in the buildings. He spotted something on the ground, a piece of paper, rolled up and muddied. He picked it up and carefully unfolded it from the ball it was in. He read, leaning under the lamplight nearby.
'1888' he said.
Michael sighed deeply. 'Well, I suppose we're getting closer'
'I have a bad feeling that I know where we are' Victoria said.
'Yeah? Where?' Michael asked.
'Whitechapel' she said plainly.
'Whitechapel?' Gabriel asked, alarm passing over his face.
'Whitechapel? How do I know that name?' Michael asked no-one in particular.
'Oh shit' said Gabriel, his head turning to take in the street. 'Oh shit, oh shit...'
And then, from seemingly nowhere, ten police officers bounded around the corner, whilstles blowing, dogs barking, shouting their heads off. From the other direction, more came. Before any of them knew what was happening, they were surrounded.
'Move and we kill you' said a voice.
'Fair enough' said Michael.
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Ay Semantics!by Dr. Joanne
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Faster now, faster she moves, the sweat beading on her arms and back, her hands slap together to a bass drum fighting with a snare, a bassline having a drunken punch-up with a guitar hook, a melody caressing a two-step beat. And then it happens: up. Up, up and up, the explosion building between her legs, the heat searing at the skin on her hand, the spiral glowing at the edges, the beat hammering at her, twisting her like a lover, she explodes, time ripping open like a scream, a howling scream coming from her mouth, a smile she can't control. A laugh escapes. Yes. Fucking yes.
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 6
"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us."
- John Steinbeck
Press play
Darkness split by green lights and echoes of a distant city, soundlessly a pair of legs walk past. Black boots, bare skin, a dark blue dress swinging as she moves. Her hands move gently as she walks, one carrying a music player and headphones, the other a bottle of water. Her right twirls the bottle, momentarily revealing a black, spiral tattoo on the inside of her palm. She stops, opens it and lifts the lip to her mouth. She takes a small drink, screws the lid back on, looks around the gallery. She smiles a little, deciding where to go next. She pauses, her legs slightly open, her stance motionless, closing her eyes. She sways for just a moment, her body moving gently to a rhythm only she can hear. Her eyes open. She smiles.
A girl. Fourteen years old. Lying on a table, on her back. Shotgun shack, hospital curtain. White coats, soft hands, gentle voices. Eyeglasses peering at her, glinting, blinding her with the glare, clinical, chlorine and fear. Sheets sticking to the back of her legs, feet squirming in restraints. A hand touches her forehead, gentle, consoling, chilling her to the bone. Puke yellow light, a sickly sweet squeak of rubber gloves. Cold on her legs. Her body twitches in fear, her neck muscles spasming. Now now, they tell her, this will all be over soon. All be over soon. Nothing to fear Claudia. This will help you. Let us help you. Help us to help you. Help us. To help you. Strapping her arms to the bed. She whimpers. Mouthpiece bite down. Don't gag. No fear. Help us to help you. There's something wrong with you. Wrong. Sponge pads. End of the bed, a figure stands. Black eyes, staring at her. It touches her foot. Don't leave us, it says. Gently, noiselessly, she begins to cry. Help us to help you. Don't leave us, please. Help us. To help you. Touching her temples. A crackle of energy. And here we go. Help us. To help you. Ready? A nod of the head. No, wait, please. Go.
She enters the Parthenon gallery, her boots squeaking off the floor, enjoying the sound, the echo, the isolation. The sense of fuck you to the whole thing. The Imperial Swag Bag, hers to play with, to violate, to molest and hack at. Wrong. The universe at her fingertips, she giggles. She steps to the centre of the great hall, no camera seeing her. She stands, stretches her arms out and up, circling them around and above her, locking her fingers she stretches out her back and legs, slowly tilting forward, her hips bend and she lowers her head, pulling out her lower back. Knee-bend and up, hands circling together again. Twisting her arms around each other, crossing elbows, she makes a pose, her shoulder blades opening, legs wrapping around each other. Breathes. Breathes. Ten seconds and switches sides. With a smile, she reaches inside her bra, takes out a pill and pops it in her mouth. With a swig of water, she swallows, places the bottle back down on the floor and slides down to place her hands on the floor. Pelvis tilted, ass up, she stretches her calves out and holds. Down dog. Down girl. Sliding down into child, she breathes and smiles, the cold marble kissing her skin.
A girl. Nine years-old. In her grandmothers house, Rhode Island, USA. A spare bedroom, feet dangling off the bed. Glasses and bangs, she sits humming a tune to herself, black shoes, white socks. Over and over. Mummy will be back soon. Daddy not happy. Mummy back soon. Milk okay? Thankyou, she says, drinking in gulps, a white line on her lip. She smiles. Humming and humming, a tune she heard on the radio, a song she can't shake, a rhythm she can't release, over and over. She sings the few lines she knows. There's something beating here inside my body and it's called a heart. You know how easy it is, to tear it apart. I always liked those biscuits she says to her. Me too, Claudia says, her eyes looking to the floor. The carpet is old, but unused. Placed here moons ago but not walked on. Not loved. Not used. Wrong. Nice of you to visit, her granny says. Nice to see you, she says back, her voice small and wispy, breath catching in her throat. The door opens. What are you doing? Who are you talking to, her aunt asks. To Granny. Claudia, that is not funny. Not funny at all. You know Granny is dead. That is not funny. That's wrong.
On her knees, her back arched, arms reaching behind for her heels, she stetches over, her chest opening, breathing, pushing her shoulders apart. She hangs there, smiling, the world downside-up, blood pounding at her temples, a tear rolling down her left cheek. Swinging her arms up, her body rights itself. She can feel it starting, glances at the watch on her wrist, not yet she tells herself, wait. She spins on a heel and swivels upright, a smirk creasing her face. She takes a drink of water, feeling her heart rate picking up, the whispering in her blood, the voices at the edge of the silence. She plugs her earphones in and presses play. After a few moments, her left foot begins to tap to the rhythm. A slow smile lights up her face as a bead of sweat slowly rolls down her neck. She breathes.
A girl. Sixteen years old. A doctors' office. A principals office. A counsellors office. You make too much noise. You demand too much. You ruin your classes. You need to control your temper. The violence is unacceptable. You're wasting your talent, your abilities. What do you want to do with your life? Do you know what you want to do with your life? You must learn to curb your destructive instincts. You must learn to control your temper, your passions, your body. You must learn to control your tongue. Such a waste. Such a waste of such talent and brains. Brains to burn girl, your mother is heartbroken. Your father is distraught. Have you taken your pills? Your pills, you have to take them. There's something wrong with you Claudia. Wrong. You have to control this. You have to assume responsibility. Have you taken your pills? A hand raised, silencing the room. Wrong? Fuck you, she says. And the altar boy you rode in on.
Slowly at first, her body starts to move to the beat, swaying and shimmying, her shoulders rolling to the percussion. She lets her eyes close, her arms doing what they want. She feels the bass moving through her, from her feet, to her knees, to her hips. She senses the rush coming, the increase in the heart rate, the heat growing in waves, the twist in the stomach, the rage burning up from inside, the taste of adrenalin in her mouth. She washes her mouth with water, the drops spilling onto her chest. Faster now, faster she moves, the sweat beading on her arms and back, her hands slap together to a bass drum fighting with a snare, a bassline having a drunken punch-up with a guitar hook, a melody caressing a two-step beat. And then it happens. Up. Up, up and up, the explosion building between her legs, the heat searing at the skin on her hand, the spiral glowing at the edges, the beat hammering at her, twisting her like a lover, she explodes, time ripping open like a scream, a howling scream coming from her mouth, a smile she can't control. A laugh escapes. Yes. Fucking yes. She spins on her heel, jumping out and kicking off the wall. In an instant, she is thirty feet behind herself, the air ripping like a sheet. Twisting in the air, she flips over, her legs landing on the ground, spinning on a heel, her left hand reaches out to the the object, the link. The palm of her hand connects. And she jumps.
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Prism by Dr. Joanne
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Special thanks to Carrie.
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[The Game] Welcome To The Game on Dipity.
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'Michael?'
'Yep?'
'Try to keep your wits about you. Be objective and don't let your feelings cloud your judgement. I know how you feel about her, so please try not to fly off the handle'
'I'll try'
'And remember what you're dealing with here'
'Which is what exactly?'
'A complete whack-job'
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 5
"I prefer the company of women, and I have deep respect for them. I'm buzzed by the female mystique. I always tell young men there are three rules: they hate us, we hate them; they're stronger, they're smarter; and, most important, they don't play fair."
- Jack Nicholson
Press play
Cardenio, Dublin. Present day.
Michael sat on a chair, Victoria dabbing at his face with a cloth.
'Ouch' he yelped as she worked at the sizeable black eye that was forming.
'Don't be such a baby' she said softly, working at the cut on the corner of his mouth.
He grimaced and looked at Gabriel who was standing on the other side of the room, leaning on a table with his arms folded.
'You gonna shout at me?' Michael asked.
'Nope.'
'Cool.'
'It's not me you have to explain yourself to.'
Michael said nothing and simply looked at Victoria who was now sticking a plastic stitch over his left eye. She met his gaze for a second and studiously went back to what she was doing.
'Okay.' Michael said. 'Who's that then?'
'The Director'
'The Director?'
'The Director. The main man. You're going to explain yourself to him'
Victoria straightened up. 'We're done here' she said, wiping her hands with a cloth and throwing it into the bin.
'Come with me' Gabriel said, standing up and walking to the door.
Michael followed him out, turning onto a narrow gallery passageway. Gabriel moved quickly, sprinting up a stairs, making no allowances for any injuries that Michael might be carrying. Michael limped after him, wincing. His left knee was giving him hell. Gabriel reached the top of the stairs and set off at a pace, striding purposefully away. Michael half-ran, half-walked behind, grimacing and muttering. Another twisting staircase upwards and they made it to the top floor. At the end of the top gallery, just beyond a seemingly never-ending wall of glass-mounted bookshelves, Gabriel stopped at a large oak door and paused. He glanced over his shoulder, allowing Michael to catch up.
'Don't even think about trying to bullshit him, ok?'
Michael thought of something smart-arsed to say, but stopped himself and just nodded. Gabriel let his eyes linger on his face for a moment and then turned to knock on the door.
After a few moments, the door began to open, silently sweeping backwards into a dimly-lit room.
'Come in' said a chirpy voice from within.
Michael looked to Gabriel. He said nothing and simply tilted his head towards the open door, motioning for Michael to go in. Swallowing, Michael took a step inside, his eyes adjusting to the lowered light. The room was large, perhaps thirty metres by thirty. Tables and desks were swamped under piles of papers and objects, the walls filled from floor to roof with leather-bound tomes and raggedy sheafs of paper. At the far end of the room was an enormous desk, lit by a Tiffany lamp. Sitting behind it, peering down into an open book was a large, dark-skinned man.
Michael heard the door close behind him.
'Come in Michael, take a seat' he said, without looking up. His voice was deep, a resonating mid-western American accent. His hair was greying, white in patches, eyeglasses hanging off the end of a broad African nose.
Michael walked over, his feet sinking into the deep pile carpet. He slid himself into a leather seat, a loud squeak as he did so.
'You made quite the mess of your first job, didn't you?' said the man with a smile, his eyes still peering at the book before him. Michael now noticed the white gloves he was wearing, his long fingers carefully turning a page.
Michael said nothing for a moment, mulling his words. 'I suppose I did, yes'
The man looked up, and met Michael's eyes. 'You suppose?'
Michael coughed. 'So. You're the boss?'
He looked up again, smiling slightly. 'They told me you were a cheeky little shit. Yes, you could say that yes. But "Boss" isn't really a very accurate term. My title is "Director". You can make of that what you will. Michael, why did you try to speak to Claudia?'
Again, Michael paused before answering, his eyes shifting from the man behind the desk to his own hands and back to the peering face opposite him.
'I don't know really'
'You don't know?' he said with a small laugh.
Michael shifted in his chair. 'I don't know. I thought I could get her to talk to me'
'Why did you want to talk to her? You were warned how dangerous she is'
'Yes, I know, but, I mean, she didn't kill me...'
'Not from a lack of trying from what I can see' said the man, his finger pointing to the stitch above Michael's eyes.
'True. We did have something of a scrap.' Michael said with a grim expression.
The man considered Michael for a moment, letting the book rest on the desk before him.
'You have questions, yes?'
Michael shifted, thinking carefully. 'About a thousand. What was in that bag? Why was she willing to fight for it like that?'
'I can't be sure, but if I'm right, and I generally am, it was a story. One of a collection of stories which were gathered together during the 1970's'
'Stories? What kind of stories?'
'Love stories. Forbidden love stories actually. They were collected by your father into one volume'
Michael considered what he had heard an instant. 'You're telling me that my father was killed for a fucking Mills and Boon novel?'
The Director laughed a little. 'Well, it was a touch classier than that. Your father had a way with words Michael.'
Michael paused a moment. 'You knew him?'
'Yes. He was a good friend'
'Right. And this book is what got him killed?'
'Well, not exactly. The stories, or at least one of them anyway, contained directions. Directions to a jump point.'
'To where?'
'To the location of something we've been trying to find for a very long time'
'Which is?'
'The missing section of the Bayeux Tapestry'
'It has a missing section?'
'Oh yes. Been missing since the medieval period in fact. Many men have died trying to recover it. We don't know what it shows, but legends tell us of a great secret in that missing panel. Something so shocking that it was torn off and hidden almost as soon as it was made. The stories in the book your father collected were split up into separate sections. Initially we thought it was Claudia who had done it, because we know that the bag your father was carrying at the time of his death was, at one point, in her posession. But it seems some sections are still missing. And she's trying to find them.'
'Why? Why does she want them?'
'Truthfully, we don't know. But, one of those stories tells us where the missing section is. And she seems as determined as we are to find it. We were hoping that you might be able to help us resolve this'
'Me?'
'You have a certain connection to her'
'Odd. She didn't exactly see it that way'
The Director grinned. 'Well, whether she likes it or not, you are connected.'
'How?'
'Show me your hand please Michael'
Michael lifted up his left hand, opening the palm to reveal the black, spiral tattoo burned into his skin.
'Through that.'
'I'm lost'
'Aren't we all? A spiral mark is part of what we are. Everyone gets one after their first or second shift. But, with you and Claudia, well, there's something a little different there'
'What's that?' Michael asked, leaning forward slightly.
'Well, prior to your arrival here, we'd only ever seen one person with the mark on their hand. That was her. I mean, we all have one. Mine is on my back. Gabriel's is on his left leg. I gather you've seen where Victoria's is?'
Michael said nothing, merely going slightly red.
'That's what I thought. Anyway, Claudia's is on her hand. And so is yours.'
'And why is that important?'
'Because of this book' the man said, his head nodding down towards it. 'I won't bore you with what it is exactly, but sufficeth to say it's very old, very odd and very dangerous. And it contains a prediction. About a person with a spiral mark. On their hand. The one who would become the most powerful of all of us. The person who could release the stolen souls.'
'The what?'
'One thing at a time. Naturally, when we first encountered Claudia we assumed this was her. And when she left, well, it almost tore this place apart. There were some here who thought she was the messiah Michael. Others thought she was the Anti-Christ. Turns out she was something else entirely. The truth is that her leaving Cardenio was considered one of the greatest failures in our considerable history. We'd never seen anyone with her abilities, that is, until we found you. I consider it more than a coincidence how the two of you keep banging into one and other. It's obvious that there is a connection of some kind between you.'
'I don't understand'
'Neither do I' said the man with a chuckle. 'At least not fully. But, I think there may be a way of shedding some light on all of this'
'Which is?'
'Downstairs' he said, rising to his feet. 'Follow me please'. He turned his back to Michael and walked to the wall behind him. Michael followed. The Director stopped at a bookshelf and pulled out a volume on the third shelf. Almost predictably, the shelf beside it made a hissing sound and began to pop out. After a few seconds, it slid aside, revealing a metal door. The Director pressed his hand to a clear panel on the surface and the door split in the middle to reveal an empty lift. He stepped inside, Michael following behind him. They turned around to face the closing doors and began moving down. They descended for ten seconds, a faint sound of floors rushing by the only noise. Coming to a stop, the doors slid open to reveal a huge, cavernous space. Guessing by the ancient stonework, Michael guessed they were somewhere deep underground. Spreading out before them were miles and miles of storage shelves, each one sealed with a glass panel. Each glass panel carried a number and letter sequence. The Director started walking briskly. Michael's jaw hung down as they made their way through the space, amazement overcoming him with every second case he saw.
'What is all this?'
'Recovered artefacts. Recovered stories'
They came to a stainless steel doorway. There was no handle, no markings, nothing save a grooved spiral shape carved into the steel.
Michael looked to his companion for an explanation.
'In the short time that Claudia was with us, which was about six months all told, we gave her this room for her own studies. She was something of a genius you see, but deeply troubled. So we set her up down here, where she could have some privacy. We gave her everything we could give her. A private space to work and research in. Truth be told, it was easier for everyone else to have her down here. She scared the hell out of everyone else.'
'This was her room?'
'Yes'
'Can I go in?'
'She sealed it when she left and we've never been able to get back in'
Michael considered the spiral marking on the steel and looked down to his left hand. He looked back up to the Director. 'You think that...'
'I do. Let's find out shall we?'
'Okay' said Michael with a sigh. He stepped forward and carefully placed his hand on the mark. Nothing happened. And then a hissing sound could be heard. Michael yelled in pain as the mark on his hand glowed red hot. Just as he thought he would fall over from the pain, the hissing stopped and a loud crack could be heard. Slowly, noiselessly, the steel door parted in the middle and opened wide.
'Ok. I'll leave you to it for a bit. When you're done you can come back up to me through the lift you came down in. The panels will work with your handprint. '
'Cool'
'Oh and Michael?'
'Yep?'
'Try to keep your wits about you. Be objective and don't let your feelings cloud your judgement. I know how you feel about her, so please try not to fly off the handle'
'I'll try'
'And remember what you're dealing with here'
'Which is what exactly?'
'A complete whack-job'
'I hear you'
'One more thing: whatever you find in here is for you and you only. Do not share what you find with anyone else here at Cardenio. Not Gabriel, not Victoria. Whatever it is that's between you and her has to be resolved between you and her. There are those here that don't feel fondly towards her so speaking of whatever happens will not do you many favours. If you need help however, ask me. Putting it simply, you two are potentially dangerous together. You must be careful. Ok?'
'Ok'
Michael stepped into the room, the door sliding shut behind him. A bed. Pillows and cushions. Two book shelves, filled with novels. Wuthering Heights. Slaughterhouse Five. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Third Policeman. A shelf of CDs. Depeche Mode. Front 242. Skinny Puppy. Chopin and Beethoven's 7th. A wardrobe, door leaning open, clothes on a rail, dresses hanging limply, shoes neatly placed on the floor. A picture on the wall, Claudia, younger, smiling outside the National Gallery in Dublin. Looking happy, carefree. A Map of Greenland on the wall. A desk with a small leather notebook on top. A piece of paper on top of it. Michael stepped over and looked at the note. It had one word written on it. His name. He lifted the notebook up and opened it. The pages were lined but empty. Puzzled, he flicked through the pages, looking for anything - a word, a line, a dot. There was nothing. He sighed, loking around the room. Nothing obvious sprang out at him. He looked back to the notebook and flicked through it a second time. He stopped. Although he could have sworn it wasn't there when he had first looked, the first page had a rectangular black box on it. Michael paused at the page, his face screwed up in confusion. He moved the notebook around, trying to catch the light to see if there was any hidden text below the black space. Nothing was visible. Then slowly, at first so faint that he thought he was imagining it, small flecks of white appeared in the box, swirling and appearing in different places. The box seemed to crackle a moment and then, from seemingly nowhere a play button appeared in the middle of the black space...
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Gravity by Amber
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'So here it is: I've been watching. Now, I gotta be honest with you boys. Speaking plainly, you're a pack of talentless gimps who couldn't hold a tune if your miserable lives depended on it. You're entry into the world of music is about as welcome as a skid-mark on a wedding gown and, let's be honest here, you look like you were dressed by a troupe of blind, retarded circus midgets. As for your songs? Sweet Jeebus, but if I shat into a rusty tuba and handed it to a brain-dead badger I'd get better fucking music. No two ways about it: you guys are a shit sandwich without the bread. But, no matter, I've seen worse. Way worse. So, here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna make you famous. We're gonna make you rich. We're gonna fix it so that the whole world knows your names, where you're from and what sweet, sweet boys you all are. We're gonna fix it so that blue-rinse biddies will dote on you, men will envy you and a relentless, never-ending army of giggling seventeen-year old girls will want to sit on your faces and wiggle. So, whaddya say? Are you in?'
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 4
"I can smile, and murder while I smile"
- Shakespeare, Richard III
Press play
April 1st A.D.1076. Bayeux Cathedral, France.
The Tapestry hangs, awaiting inspection. Matilda paces, controlling her anger at the invasion of her rights which she has just learnt is coming. She looks at the completed work. It spreads out, small in height, but long, wrapping its way arond the walls of the chamber, over seventy metres in total. Nodding her head in satisfaction, she notes that it's a thing of rare beauty and she makes a promise to herself to congratulate the artisan again - to gift him with a present worthy of such labour. A voice from behind. A fine piece of work, it says. Matilda spins quickly, shocked by the presence which she did not sense. Four men stand behind her, dressed in cloaks. Three faces are obscured by their cowls, heads bowed. I didn't hear you enter she tells the one who has spoken. Apologies for our stealth, he says, pulling back his hood. A mirthless smile lights up a bronzed face, his eyes creased slits. He steps past Matilda and up to the tapestry. A fine work and no doubt he pronounces. Why are you here, she asks. What business do men of the cloth have in dictating what is acceptable in matters of art? Oh it's not simply a question of art, he says, running his eyes over the work, smiling and exhaling. It's a question of what is appropriate. A question of what we want future generations to think of us, to know of us. I'm sure you understand he tells her. I do not, she replies flatly. Well, he says, stepping closer to a section of the tapestry near the end, this for example, is a problem. What is, she asks. He points to a depiction of a young man and a woman. The man's hand is outstretched, reaching for the young woman, as though he is about to touch her, to place his hand on her head. It is bad enough that this is included, but what comes after, well. This is, he says with a small laugh, really rather problematic. It'll have to go. On his words, the three cowled figures step forward and produce knives. Matilda screams in horror as they set about cutting off the final section of the work. What in the name of the King do you think you are doing, she exclaims. Making sure, the man with the shining teeth says, that your venerable King keeps his end of the bargain. Bargain? What bargain, she asks. The one he made with me, says the man. He takes the section of the tapestry which they have cut away and begins to roll it up. The three figures turn as one, knives drawn, motionless. What bargain? The one that made him King, he says. They move towards her.
April 1st A.D.1604. Rome, Italy
A jail cell. Thatch, rats and piss on the floor. The artist lies on his side, not sleeping, not waking, but somewhere in between. Drugs and alcohol flood his blood stream. He groans, the smell of vomit and shit filling his nostrils. Bruises on his face and ribs ache, the taste of blood in his mouth. He struggles to recall how he got here, images of a naked woman and flying fists bubble up from the darkness. He recalls an officer of the law attempting to restrain him as they dragged him from her bed. Violence followed. He knows that he hurt one of them, but which one, or precisely how, he cannot recall. Outside, there is conversation, animated, angry. Voices are raised, someone objecting to the presence of someone else in the jail, asking for entry. The voices of the officers are angry, offended. Who do you think you are, one asks belligerently. Another voice speaks, calm, soft, soothing, musical. Oily and unctuous, it's song relieves the tension. Why I only need a few moments with Signori Merisi. A friend. An old friend. I come with the wishes of the Cardinal. You wouldn't wish to offend the Cardinal would you, he asks. No, of course not, says the officer. So, you will allow me to enter and speak then. I will allow you to enter and speak, says the officer. Bolts slide, the door moves, creaking on a hinge, light cuts like a knife into the cell's gloom, a rat scurries for shade and a man enters. He sighs. A sad state of affairs for Italy's living greatest artist he announces. Who are you, the artist asks him. A friend, says the visitor, a wide, sparkling smile glittering in the dark. Do I know you, the artist asks. Oh yes, he replies, everyone knows me. But let us not trouble ourselves with formalities just now, he says. I am here to help you. To help you as I have helped so many others, in so many places, in so many times, in so many darkened hours. The artist sits up on his bed. Help me, he asks, how? By making you a legend says the man, his smile spreading to reveal pointed teeth and squinting eyes. The man produces a parchment from within his great cloak. It looks old, older than this jail. He steps over to the artist and in a movement so rapid and so gentle that the artist barely sees or even feels it, he slices open a cut on his arm. The artist considers the trail of blood now slicking up his skin. He notices that the blood looks just like ink. Drunkenly, he giggles. A quill appears before him. Something of a cliché, I know, says the visitor, but it is a requirement. The artist considers him, trying to place the countenance, convinced he has beheld it before. He hiccups. And takes the quill.
April 1st A.D.1990. Dublin, Ireland
Backstage, five young men sit in a dressing room. Their faces Oompa-Loompa orange from dodgy sun-beds and two inches of concealer, they await their visitor. A man, they have been told by their excitable manager, who can make this happen. A man who knows everything. Who has been everywhere. Who has seen everything. Who can do anything. Mr. White. The Magic Man. Just hear what he has to say, the manager has told them. They wait quietly. Two exchange glances, one pulling at the corner of the pink, sleeveless tank-top he's wearing, another absent-mindedly worrying at a spot on his chin, another wondering if his chipped teeth will see him ejected from the band. Not to worry, the manager has told them, when we sign this deal there'll be no end of money to fix that kind of thing. The door opens suddenly, the sound from the main stage pouring into the room as it does. A man stands there, framed in the doorway. Wearing a white suit, black shirt and airforce sunglasses, he looks every inch the record-industry twat - legs akimbo, shit-eater, crowbar smile splitting his face into leathery creases. He shouts, boundless joy in his voice. I gotta tell ya boys, he says clapping his hands together, I like what I see and I see what I like. The young men say nothing, look at each other and then back to him. Oh don't be shy, he says. The world is your oyster. Your fucking Oyster card no less. No wait, too early for that yet. Your oyster. The world is your oyster. So here it is: I've been watching. Now, I gotta be honest with you boys. Speaking plainly, you're a pack of talentless gimps who couldn't hold a tune if your miserable lives depended on it. You're entry into the world of music is about as welcome as a skid-mark on a wedding gown and, let's be honest here, you look like you were dressed by a troupe of blind, retarded circus midgets. As for your songs? Sweet Jeebus, but if I shat into a rusty tuba and handed it to a brain-dead badger I'd get better fucking music. No two ways about it: you guys are a shit sandwich without the bread. But, no matter, I've seen worse. Way worse. So, here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna go to work on ye. We're gonna make you famous. We're gonna make you rich. We're gonna fix it so that the whole world knows your names, where you're from and what sweet, sweet boys you all are. We're gonna fix it so that blue-rinse biddies will dote on you, men will envy you and a relentless, never-ending army of giggling seventeen-year old girls will want to sit on your faces and wiggle. So, whaddya say? Are you in? The boys laugh. He laughs too. One voice, the voice of the youngest boy, speaks up. What do you get from all this, he asks defiantly. Oh not much, the man replies. Money I suppose, he says. The satisfaction of a job well done. The smile on a young mother's face. A tear on the cheek of an innocent child. A line of cocaine snorted from the upturned arse-cheek of a twelve year old. He closes the door, spinning to look at them. So, are you in? Slowly at first, but more certain as the moments pass, they nod, looking at one and other, smiling broadly. Good, says the man, cracking his knuckles. Now then, he says opening his jacket and reaching for his trouser belt. Let's get started, shall we? With a flick of the wrist he drops his trousers to the floor and grins. Hands on hips he looks from face to face. So, he says, a glint of the light on his teeth, who's first?
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'Listen, I think we'd have fun. You know, together?'
'You mean you think we'd end up having sex?'
'No. No no. Not at all. Sex never even entered my head. I never said a thing about sex...'
'You didn't have to. You've been staring at my tits the whole time we've been talking.'
'I have not.'
'Yes you have.'
'I have no... I was watching your hands to make sure you wouldn't hit me again. Look it. I just want you to have a drink with me.'
She sighed. 'Well, I need to think about it,' she said, pausing for a moment. 'Okay, I've thought about it. No.'
'Okay. Not quite the reaction I was hoping for' he said, wiping the blood from his mouth and considering the stain on his coat sleeve. He glanced back up, just in time to see her dive over the side of the building.
'Oh for fuck's sakes...'
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 3
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else"
- Albert Einstein
Press play
Cardenio, present day.
'You ready?' Gabriel asked.
'Born ready' Michael replied with a waggle of the eyebrows. As they spoke, Victoria fitted his earpiece, switched his pocket watch on and generally fussed over him like he was about to go into mortal combat.
'I'm okay really' Michael told her.
'I'll be the judge of that' she said, pulling his waistcoat tighter, securing a strap at the back which held a metal tube in place.
She patted her hand on it. 'It's there if you need it'.
'Jesus this feels like a corset' he said.
'Worn a lot of corsets have you?' she asked.
'May have'
'Yeah, can we concentrate?' Gabriel said, 'Now, don't get cocky. Remember what I said: observe only. Just jump, find your way there, observe the exchange, do what you have to do and get yourself home via the jumplink at the museum, ok?'
'Rape, murder and pillage. Got ya'
'Michael? Please try to take this seriously'
'I am taking this seriously. I'm nervous. I make jokes when I get nervous'
'You've nothing to be nervous about. It's simple: observe record and do not interact. We're not interested in what's in the bag as much as where it goes. This stuff is getting through and we need to know how. Use your knowledge of the city to help you. You'll be there in the middle of Fallas so there'll be plenty of distractions to shield you when you get there. Maria will be here at Cardenio, monitoring your every move. We can hear what you hear and see what you see via the camera in your button hole. Just keep the watch turned on at all times. That's your transmitter. If you need guidance, directions, or well, if anything goes weird, you call for help. I said, you call for help. Got it?'
'Got it' said Michael.
'Okay' said Gabriel slapping him across the shoulder and turning him to the painting on the wall. It was a painting by Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench.
'All going well, you should jump into the city somewhere near the Turia riverbed. It'll be bedlam. Fireworks, hippies, cops, screaming and boozing'
'I remember. I used to live there'
'Yeah but this time you'll be jumping into the past. The disorientation may screw you up for a few minutes. This will, more likely than not, make you puke your guts out. When you get there, use the watch to track the bag being used in the exchange. We have a timestamp on it, so it should show on your screen as a green dot.'
'We're ready' Victoria said, pulling Michael's coat over his shoulders. Gabriel nodded at her, and then looking to Michael, opened his hand towards the painting. 'I think you know what to do from here'.
'Think I do' said Michael.
He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, stepped up to it and gently placed his hand on the side of the frame. He waited a few moments and then carefully, gingerly, he touched the palm of his left hand on the canvas. Just as the world shat itself and began to dissolve into a screaming mess, from deep inside the canvas a voice screamed like a crazed matador on crack: 'De Puta Madre!'
Time exploded, opening like a bursting bag of colour. Controlling the nausea, Michael scanned down into the spirals, images and sounds, smells and noise which were whistling past at light speed. He saw trams, horses, wide hats, an antiquated artillery barrage hammering a crumbling town wall, a naked girl with a rose between her teeth walking through the streets of a village, cats in holes in the walls, forward, forward, scanning and screaming down alleyways of an Alicante pueblo, television sets unloading from trucks, package holiday sideburns, tanks in the streets, the King addressing the nation, drugs in bars, parties in cars, forward, forward, scanning and falling, controlling the spirals, gangs and cops, fireworks and giant burning effigies. Slowing down, breathing through it, velocity decreasing, the movie wound down and stopped. Stepping out into the past, Michael smiled. Nausea washed over him. He groaned and reached into his coat for a bottle of water. Valencia. Arde nena, arde. The city of the bat. Fallas - the biggest fireworks and explosives festival in the world. Crema - the night of the great fires. The greatest party on earth.
'Michael, can you hear us?' said Maria's voice from inside his ear.
He threw up. 'Yes, I can hear you' he said.
Valencia, Spain. March 19th 2005, 11.27pm.
At the corner of Avenida de Francia and Glorieta de Europa, overlooking the City of Arts and Sciences, is the tallest building in Valencia. At the top of this gleaming white shaft of steel and green glass, sits a penthouse apartment. In this apartment, two men sat either side of a table on a balcony, looking out over the orchestrated insanity that was erupting across the city below. Rockets. Explosions. The world's biggest firework festival, the sky lit up like a Christmas tree on acid, the air filled with distant thundering, barking dogs, the streets filled with beer and trinket-hocking hippies, mangy dogs swirling at their feet, the honking of a thousand moped horns, terrified tourists, drugged up Goth girls, fishnets and labrets, Amstel and air horns, screaming and dancing, paella and pissheads.
The two men sat quietly, sharing a bottle of red wine, enjoying the unusually warm evening. Lighting a cigarette, the elder of the two, a 45 year-old Spaniard, opened a large sports bag and passed a small satchel across the table top. The younger man, a 27 year-old Swiss national, glanced down at it. He then reached behind him and handed over another bag: small, bulging with promise.
'Thank you' said the Spaniard. 'I don't need to remind you that you never saw me or spoke to me'
'Of course' the Swiss replied.
'No-one must ever know we were here'
'Yeah. I think the boat's sailed on that one' said a voice from beside them. They both looked up to be confronted by the sight of a woman with dark hair, a dark blue dress and biker boots standing before them. There was a large spiral tattoo on her left shoulder, another on the palm of her right hand. She was unarmed, but somehow managed, by the simple act of standing there, to suggest that extreme violence could be forthcoming at any moment. A momentary pause gave way to a flurry of limbs and flying objects. The table crashed over, wine sloshing over the balcony as the younger man tried to produce a gun from his jacket. Not fast enough. She was behind him before he had it aimed, twisting his arm around with an audible snap, the gun falling to the floor. He screamed. The Spaniard, almost too horrified to move for a moment, spun away from her and made a lunge for the door but somehow found himself running straight into her fist. She stood quietly as he collapsed to the floor, blood streaming down his nose.
'Thanks' she said, placing the satchel into the bag that was slung over her body and stepping onto the ledge of the balcony. Wincing, the younger man made a lunge for his gun, and fired off a shot. Too late. She was gone.
Less than five minutes later, and almost two kilometres away, Claudia sat herself down on the roof of an apartment on Caballeros, in the heart of the Carmen, the historic centre of Valencia. Twenty metres below her, the party was now in full swing. Crema had begun; the annual burning of the enormous sculptures which each barrio had spent almost a year making. Now after twelve months of work, all of them were going up in flames. She smiled, enjoying the noise. She took a sip of the beer she'd stolen on the street below and began to open the bag.
'I knew there used to be a lot of bag snatching in this town. I just never imagined it would've been you' said Michael.
Claudia looked up at him. After a few moments her face creased up in a smile. She closed the bag, letting her eyes run over him. 'Nice suit' she finally said with a satisfied smirk, folding her arms.
'You like it?'
'I dunno, I think that whole Victorian combat gear look is becoming a little worn-out if you ask me'
'Meh. Maybe. Well generally speaking I look like a bum, so this is an improvement'
'Yes. Very dapper. And yet, you still manage to make it look slightly shabby. So, you signed up did you? Became a good little Cardenio agent?'
'Looks like it.'
A firework exploded nearby, shaking the whole building.
'And, don't tell me, you're here to stop me making off with the bag? Well,' she said, shifting her weight to an elbow, 'let me ask you something: do you even know why you're here? I mean why you were sent here to get this?'
'Well, I wasn't actually. I was sent to watch the deal go down, but since you fucked that up for us I decided to intervene.'
'Intervene?'
'Yes. Well, that and something else. I'd like to buy you a drink'
'You'd what now?'
Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. Claudia didn't move. Slowly, so that she could see him do it, he powered the unit down. A volley of abuse could be heard through his earpiece, finally bleeping out to nothing.
'Gabriel won't like that' she said.
'Probably not, no'
'You want to buy me a drink?'
'Yes. Well, officially, I'm here because I want that bag. But, really I'd like you to stop, stay five minutes and have a conversation with me. A drink. In a bar. Us two.' He flicked his middle finger from himself to her and back to himself. 'Together, like normal, regular people'
'I hate to break it to you, but we are not normal, regular people.'
'I know that, but you know hey, we can pretend right? Just for half an hour'
'You said five minutes...'
'Yeah, but you'll be having so much fun that before you know it a half hour will have gone by'
'Really?' she said, smiling despite her best effort to hide it. 'You're that charming are you?'
'I have my moments. Seriously. Just have a drink with me. Just sit and talk to me for a bit'
'Not a chance' she said, rising to her feet. 'They looking after you?' she asked quickly, smoothing her dress down.
Michael looked at her, readying himself for her to make a move - a jump. Either off the building or for his throat.
'Yep, they're a good bunch I suppose'
'They are' she said with a nod.
'So why did you turn them down?'
She snorted. 'Too many rules'
'Will you have a drink with me? Or are we just going to have a fight over that bag?'
'A fight? Us? You realise I can kill you in an instant, don't you?'
'Possibly. But I'm hoping we can do this another way'
'Which is?'
'Well, how about we start with the drink?'
She took a step forward and looked at him carefully, looking into his eyes. After tilting her head an instant, she sighed, rolled her shoulders, frowned, the small scar on her face creasing up. 'Nah' she said slowly, 'let's not.'
In an instant she had shifted, her body beginning to slide away into a blur. He jumped as fast as he could, reaching out to take her hand. The force of the fist in his face caught him by surprise. His knees buckled, legs wobbling beneath him and after listing like a galleon, he fell backwards off the roof, and landed on a balcony, his ass meeting the surface with a loud bang. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
'Ouch' he said.
'What's happening? What the fuck is happening?' Gabriel roared. Sitting in front of a giant wrap-around screen, Maria and Victoria monitored a map of Valencia, video streams and CCTV swirling into mini windows beside the map. Crackling audio feeds added to the sense of bedlam. Behind them Gabriel paced, furious. On the screen, a green dot was moving from building to building, racing across the labyrinthine streets of the Carmen. Some six to seven seconds behind that dot was another, a blue one, which was also moving from building to building. Although the pattern of the dots seemed to be almost random, jumping from building to building, street to street, they were getting closer, moving in tandem. They seemed to be making their way along Calle de Caballeros.
'What are they doing?' Maria asked, in genuine disbelief at what she was seeing.
Gabriel and Victoria exchanged glances.
'Playing' Gabriel said.
'What?' Maria asked.
'Playing. They're playing.' said Victoria.
'He's really done it now' Gabriel said under his breath.
'She's gonna kick his ass' Victoria said in agreement.
'In slow motion'
'Actually, I was gonna say she'd probably do it at 140 beats per minute, but yeah...'
As she finished her sentence, the door burst open behind them, with almost fifteen agents coming through the door, coats flapping, shoving each other out of the way to see what was happening.
'What the fuck do you lot want?' Gabriel barked.
They stopped dead in their tracks. Ryuichi, one of the younger recruits, was the first to speak.
'We heard that Michael is chasing Claudia. We wanted to...'
'Wanted what?'
'To watch'
'Holy shit' said a woman from the back of the group. 'Look how fast he's moving'
'Fuck me' came another voice.
'Okay, now everyone settle down and be quiet. This is still a live operation...'
'Jesus Christ on a bike he almost has her'
All heads snapped back to the screen.
'I doubt it' said Gabriel.
The voices continued from behind.
'Is that even possible.... how can they move that fast? Sweet Jesus he just jumped two buildings...'
'Everyone shut the fuck up' roared Gabriel.
Left. Right. Twist. Jump. Pulling across the empty space, Michael was spat out of a rip above a rooftop, an explosive the size of a house erupting just ten feet from his ears. He crashed to the roof, rolling as he landed. Momentarily clutching his hands to his ears, he staggered upright and started running again. Jump. Clear. Down again. Over the side. Letting gravity take control, he waited until he felt the pull of his own weight in the air, the moment of terminal velocity, saw the thread and kicked at it. An instant later he slammed into the ground in a street thirty feet away and started sprinting again. Up. Off the wall, he kicked outwards, side-shifting through a 1970s breeze-block horror and into the corridor of an apartment building. Through the window, across, rolling upright and keeping his legs moving. He caught a glimpse of her, dissapearing over the lip of a building. Seconds later he was behind her, slipping as he emerged from the rip. His hand managed to catch her leg. But not fast enough. The ferocity of the kick almost sent him off the building. He spun, catching her shoulder with an arm. She swung a hook at him, his arm deflecting it, another from the other side. Again and again, she launched punches and kicks at him, controlled, sequenced, a boxers movement in each one. Somehow he managed to block them. And then, just when it seemed he had his ground stood, she had him in a headlock, dragging him backwards.
'Persistent fucker, aren't you?' she snarled as she drove a knee into his back.
'You have no idea' he said, twisting out of the headlock and grabbing her by the waist. She lashed out with her other knee, walloping him in the face. He thought he heard a crack inside his head. Reeling like a drunk Michael tried to steady himself, her moving in with a murderous look and a raised fist.
'Wait' he yelled. 'Just fucking wait. Stop trying to, you know, murder me for five minutes and just listen?'
'No'
'Just shut... will you just stop for a second? Ha? Can you do that? Are you capable of shutting up for a second, and you know, actually just fucking listening for once in your life?'
She paused, looking at him. 'You know for a guy who just punched me, you've got some fucking nerve'.
Another barrage of explosives detonated twenty feet away, momentarily deafening them both. Flames from the fires below licked over the edges of the buildings around them, plumes of water from the fire engines filling the air above with smoke. An orange glow had filled the whole sky.
'Excuse me? You just tried to knee me in the nuts'
'Of course I fucking did, you twat. And I'm gonna do it again in a seco...'
'Just. SHUT. UP' he roared.
She did.
'Good. Now, will you please have a drink with me?'
'Didn't we just have this conversation?'
'Nope. A conversation is where two people talk to each other. You didn't answer me'
'Funny that'
'Listen, I think we'd have fun. You know, together'
She stared at him. Tilted her head. Opened her mouth and then closed it again. 'The what now?'
'Fun. I think we'd have fun'
'You mean you think we'd end up having sex?'
'No. No no. Not at all. Sex never even entered my head'
'Ya ha. Really?'
'I never said a thing about sex..'
'You didn't have to. You've been staring at my tits the whole time we've been talking'
'I have not'
'Yes you have'
'I have no... I was watching your hands to make sure you wouldn't hit me again. Look it, I just want you to have a drink with me'.
She sighed. 'Well, I need to think about it' she said, pausing for a moment. 'Okay, I've thought about it. No'.
'Okay. Not quite the reaction I was hoping for' he said, wiping the blood from his mouth and considering the stain on his coat sleeve. He glanced back up, just in time to see her dive over the side of the building.
'Oh for fuck's sakes...'
'His balls. I'll tear his balls off. So help me Victoria, with my bare hands I wil tear his balls clean off and feed...'
'Calm down will you? He's doing fine.'
'He wasn't supposed to interact with anyone. Especially her.'
Victoria grunted, here eyes still on the screen. Maria tapped frantically on a keyboard.
'You know what he's doing don't you?' Gabriel asked. Victoria didn't look at him. 'He's actually trying to be charming with her'
Victoria leaned forward, leaning on a button on the desk. She spoke into the screen. 'Medical team on standby please'
Right. Left. Twist. Shift. Jump. Across another rooftop, scrambling across breaking tiles, coloured explosions ripping the air open as he ran. Her silhouette flipping over a balcony ledge, hitting the ground and running. He sprinted up the side of the building, jumping into a rip and emerging in front of her. His hand reached out, grabbing the bag strap. Just as he thought he had it, she seemed to spin through the air, twisting him around as she moved. He sensed the kick coming and blocked it with an arm. Another spin on her heel and he caught her again, her arm around him, wildly lashing at him with her free fist. He caught the hand just as it was about to split his head open and held on as tight as he could. Momentarily they froze, locked against each other, neither one able to pull the other down and neither one willing to let go, their faces close enough that they could feel each other breathing.
'What do you say' he wheezed, 'we have a break for a second?'
'No thanks' she said, launching a headbutt at him.
He reeled backwards, his head feeling like someone had just detonated a grenade in it. Another volley of explosives went off, the sky filling with blooming fireballs above them. Momentarily he was unsure if he was actually seeing them, or if he just had concussion. Then he noticed it. The bag. In his hand.
'Ha haaaaaaaaaaa!' he shouted, pulling the bag away from her and extending his other hand out to block her, a feeble smirk on his face. He motioned to throw the bag over the edge down into a burning Falla below. The flames were huge, slapping at the space around them. 'Seriously. Hear me out' he said with a giggle.
She paused, a look of volcanic anger on her face.
'I mean it Michael. I'll actually hurt you. Like really hurt you'
'Claudia?'
'Yes?'
'We could have a hoot together...'
'Oh Jesus tap-dancing Chr... I see. You reckon do you?'
'I do'
'Okay. And the fact that we've never spent time together, or even so much as spoken to one and other, doesn't make you question...'
'Yes, we have. You know we have. Don't bullshit me. You know we have. You know what happened in that nightclub wasn't just drugs, or some other mystical mumbo-jumbo sci-fi bollocks. That was real. I felt it, so did you...'
'That was not real' she said angrily.
'Yes it was. If it wasn't real, then how the fuck do you know what I'm talking about?'
She laughed again, derisively, her face a mask of fury.
'Shut. The. Fuck. Up. You know nothing. Listen to me: I'm not what you want or need. You just think you do. Now, fuck off'
'I can't do that. I can't let you leave'
'Because of the bag? Or because you want to get me into bed?'
'Again with this...'
She lowered her arms, stepped towards him, her stance softening. 'Michael?'
'Yes?'
'I'm gonna say this nicely, okay? It's never gonna happen' she said with a smile. 'Never. Not ever. You got that?'
He straightened himself up, sniffing.
'Okay. Fine. Grand. No problem. I hear ya. The whole me liking you, and you hating my guts thing? Yeah, grand, I can live with that. Fine. Fucking groovy in fact. But, seriously now, you're not leaving here with this bag.'
'Oh. Really? Ye reckon?'
'What the hell are they doing?' said a younger voice from the group at the back. The two dots had stopped moving and seemed to be in the same spot.
'Maybe they're talking?' said another.
'Please' said Gabriel loudly. 'Can everyone shut the fuck up?'
'They could be getting it on' said a woman's voice. Someone else sniggered.
'Well they are there a long time' said Maria, her eyes fixed on the screen. 'Maybe he's managed to get her to liste... no. Wait. Yeah, she's thrown him off the roof again'
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Enhanced image, captured from a Valencian CCTV feed, March 19th 2005.
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A bus. Travelling across the desert. Yellow and dusty, it bounces along a broken-assed dirt-road. Michael sits in a seat near the front, looking around him. Next to him is a twenty-two year old version of himself who sits reading a Douglas Adams book. In the seat in front of him, his sixteen-year old self is staring out the window, arms folded, scowling at the horizon. Behind him an eight-year old Michael is working at the strings on a chipped tennis racket. Scattered throughout the bus, there are different versions of him, different ages, doing different things. Some are noisy as hell - an eighteen-year old roaring drunk and singing. Horrified by the haircuts, Michael scans the various faces. Hang on a second, he says, who's driving this thing?
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 2
'Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration - that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.'
- Bill Hicks.
Press play.
Cardenio system initialising, standby transmission. Uploading stream. Locating space/time co-ordinates. You have messages. Six agents online. Chat window initialising. Loading agent status updates feed. Gabriel is in twelfth-century Verona, nice weather. Avram is wondering where he left his keys - Venice or Tokyo - and when? Louis is skinning up. Ryuichi is having lunch with Richard Pryor. Michael is in the ninth century, plummeting out the ass end of an plane towards his death. Victoria is waiting on the beach, drinking a glass of something pink.
A plane passes over the surface of the earth. A hole opens in it's giant rear end, and a dot, a body, shoots out, twisting and spinning. He plunges down. Perception of time shifting with speed, falling through space, a memory of a child sitting on the edge of a pool appears from nowhere. Fearful, scared to jump in. Jump in Michael, just jump in. Jump in to the water. He does, turning to face downwards, he sails into open air. Arms open, back arched, the sensation comes like a sledgehammer, like diving into into a planet-sized swimming pool of screaming, white noise, the body in shock, every molecule in his being now yelling that it's about to die, white panic, flailing. Drowning in air. A blinding slap of wind, roaring, spinning, the skyline tilting. Freefall. 120 kph and rising. Can't breathe, can't see, sound breaking down, the noise around his ears stuttering like the world is a piece of vinyl being dragged across a set of decks, scratching, screeching and catching, ripping backwards, forwards, breaking up into pieces, like someone is looking below the noise for the essential rhythm, the building blocks of time, fucking it up for the fun of it. Fragmenting, cracking up, reality losing cohesion, splitting like a tearing wound, blood slapping at the edges of the rip. 140kph. Lungs starting to freeze. Hands losing feeling, water streaming along the side of his face. Blackness sweeping up in a spiral. A child, sitting in a garden, watching a cat, looks up at a sound in the sky. 160kph. Falling, falling, faster. A dream comes back - a small girl swamped in numbers, towers and walls of digits, leaning over her, crashing down on her, unable to re-organise them fast enough, losing control, the sound becoming unbearable, the panic increasing. 170 kph. He feels a burning sensation, searing the skin on the palm of his left hand. Something is cutting into his skin, swirling like a knife. Blood splatters his face. It keeps cutting, deeper in circles, concentric, spiralling inwards. A first kiss. A first fuck. A first love. Everything, everyone, everywhere all at once. 180kph. Time, laid out in spirals, opens like a tunnel, like a rose, like a puking mouth, like a gaping rip in the chest of the sky. 190 kph. Every memory, every experience, every taste, every fear and laugh, everything that has ever happened to him, all returns, all at once. 195kph. Terminal velocity. Infinite light.
A bus. Travelling across the desert. Yellow and dusty, it bounces along a broken-assed dirt-road, tumbleweed it's only companion. Inside, Michael sits in a seat near the front, looking around him. Next to him is a twenty-two year old version of himself who sits reading a Douglas Adams book. In the seat in front of him, his sixteen-year old self is staring out the window, arms folded, scowling at the horizon. Behind him an eight-year old Michael is working at the strings on a chipped tennis racket. Scattered throughout the bus, there are different versions of him, different ages, doing different things. Some are noisy as hell - an eighteen-year old roaring drunk and singing. A fifteen-year old is taking a marker to the seat beside him. A one-year old is sitting in a bouncing chair, laughing his ass off. Horrified by the haircuts, Michael scans the various faces. Some say nothing, some read. Some are tanned, others pale. A nine-year old writes on a pad of paper, his nose screwing up in concentration. Hang on a second, he says, who's driving this thing? He looks at a twenty-two year old version of himself who is looking moon-faced at a picture of a girl. No idea mate, he says. What about you, he asks a seventeen year-old. Fuck off, is the short answer. Fair enough. Michael stands up and lurches his way to the top of the bus. He can't see the driver's face. Excuse me, he says. Excuse me. No answer. Michael puts a hand on his shoulder, twisting the shoulder around to him. A man with no face meets his gaze. After a moment, the driver turns back to face the road, slamming his foot down, accelerating. Michael looks down the bus, counting. Someone is missing he says. There's someone not here.
A garden. Summer sunshine. Quiet, the distant thrum of what could be traffic. Overgrown bushes. Apple trees. A birdbath. Michael looks down to the grass below him, feeling the spongey give in the soil, more moss than grass. He looks around, struggling to place himself. He hears a small noise, turns his head. There's a child, a young boy, sitting on the grass. Mop-top haircut, Animal from The Muppets t-shirt, grazes on his knees. He sits watching something in the distance, a cat at the end of the garden, black with a white neck. It watches him back. Both are still. No-one moves. From behind him, Michael hears a door open. An elderly lady appears, a grandmother, a glass in her hand. She brings it to the child, handing it to him wordlessly. She nods briefly as she passes Michael, smiles as she walks back to the kitchen door, singing as she goes inside. He walks, slowly, towards the kid. As he's getting closer, the kid moves suddenly, pouncing. The cat scampers. The kid sits back down, looking upset. I remember this game, Michael says. The kid looks at up him, fearless, curious. You play this too? Used to, says Michael. You know, the trick is to let them come to you, he says. Why's that, asks the kid. Because you have to earn it. Earn what? Their trust. Oh. Okay, thanks. The kid sits back down, crosses his legs, waiting. Michael sits down beside him, crosssing his legs too. For a while no-one says anything, the only noise the distant passage of a knackered Honda 50, spluttering down a street nearby. A birdsong comes from above. A hedge moves. Michael looks at the boy. There's a small scar on the bridge of his nose, been there a while. A fresh bruise on his cheek. His eyes look red. You ok, he asks him. The kid nods. Yep. Fine. You don't look it. I am. Fine. Who hit you? The kid looks back at him. You did. Michael waits. Says nothing for a while. At the end of the garden, the cat creeps a few feet closer, all the time his eyes locked on the kid. Anything you want to ask me while I'm here, Michael asks. The kid thinks about it. Is it always like this, he asks. Michael thinks. No, not always. But most of the time yes. You sure, the kid asks. Yes, I am. Michael looks down at him, smiling and almost laughing. These are just moments in time, don't get stuck in them. Remember, after the game is before the game. The kid looks at him, considering what he's said. Thanks. You're welcome. Michael stands up to walk away. The kid speaks up. Thanks for not lying to me. Michael looks back at him. No problem. One last thing the kid says. What? That's a fucking stupid haircut.
White panic, flailing, drowning in air. A blinding slap of wind, roaring, spinning, the skyline tilting. Freefall. No. No it isn't. Control fall. Control. Breathe. Slowing down, the wind receeding. The noise subsiding. A seagulls' wings beating in slow motion, waves sluicing in ripples. Down, down, down and slowly, almost elegantly a foot touches the ground. Reality's knicker-elastic snaps back into place, the bubbles dissapearing in the surface of the world. Michael looks at the palm of his left hand. A spiral circle, a black tattoo, is now burned into the skin. Moving his hand around in the light, it seems to glow at the edges. It itches.
'Nicely done' says Victoria, a broad grin on her face. She's walking towards him, her jacket slung over her shoulder, the white sand shifting beneath her bare feet, a drink in her other hand.
'Thanks' he says with a laugh. 'Where are we?' he asks.
'Flores' she says getting closer. Breaking waves, a seagull.
'Flores?'
'In the Azores. Beautiful beaches. Great hydrangeas'
'Hydran-wha?'
'Flowers, Michael. Where the place gets it's name from'
'Ah, right. Seems quiet' he says, looking up and down the beach. 'Many people living here?'
She looks over her shoulder, back to him. 'Not now, no. There's no-one living here. Not for a few more centuries anyway'
'Oh...' he says, as casually as he can.
'Yep. No-one here but us chickens'
'Ah...'
She laughs. 'Show me' she says, pointing to his left hand. He extends it up, opening the palm.
'Nice.' she says. 'You wanna see mine?'
He laughs.
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Caravaggio's Kiss by Dr. Joanne
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9,000 feet above the earth and rising, two people sit inside a C-130 Hercules plane, looking at one and other. When are we, he finally asks. About 1200 years ago, she replies. Where are we, he asks. Somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic ocean. She stands up and removes her coat. Are you scared she asks, as the door behind them starts opening, the white noise bursting through the interior of the plane. Look at me, she says. He does. You have nothing to be scared of. Nothing. She kisses him, her hands running around the back of his neck, into his hair. Time slows, the taste of her in his mouth. And remember what I said, she tells him. "Nach dem spiel ist vor dem spiel".
Game 1, Level 2, Stage 1
'Tactics don't win games. Men win games'
- Sir Alex Ferguson.
Press play.
Vienna, Austria. Present day.
Victoria and Michael sit, having some coffee. He sips at his. She stuffs a chocolate cake in her face, going at it like it's crack-cocaine.
'You not hungry?' she asks him.
'Not really,' he replies, looking out a window.
'This is incredibly good chocolate cake. You want some?' she asks, offering a forkful.
'No thanks'
'You need to eat more.'
He grunts.
'You're from Dublin, right?' she asks.
'Yep, I am,' he says.
'Love the accent' she tells him, giggling. 'Oh to be shure, to be shure' she says in a bizarre, sing-song voice.
'Was that supposed to be an impression of me?'
'Not really. I've just known a few people from Dublin'
'Why do English people do this? Why do they feel the need to put on a cod Oirish accent whenever they meet an Irish person?'
'It wasn't meant offensively...'
'Let me put it this way; if I was Pakistani or Indian, would you be mimicing my accent?'
'WooooOOOOOOoooo. Fucking sensitive, aren't we?'
Michael sighs, laughs a little. 'Sorry. Where are you from then?'
'Isle of Skye' she says, laughing into her coffee.
'Skye? The one off the coast of Scotland? So where'd you get that accent? You talk like your auditioning for a Bond movie'
She laughs again. 'Here and there.'
'Sorry I said you were English'
'My mother was English'
'Oh'
'Jesus, you're an asshole'
'So they tell me'
'Anyway, you wanna hear a great story about Dublin?'
He thinks about it. 'Sure, why not?' he says, glad of anything that will change the subject.
She pulls out her pocket watch, flips open the lid and turns it around to show him. There's a picture projecting off the interface, showing in full-screen size before him. Steps, leading up the side of a church.
'This is an image of the 40 Steps,' she says, 'the passageway between the interior of Medieval Dublin to the area known as "Hell", at the side of St. Audeons' church. You know it?'
'Nope'
'Pathetic,' she mutters, slapping the lid closed. '"Hell" was where the limit of the law ended. So in 18th century Dublin, the space beyond that point was a denizen of whorehouses and drug dens. Over the years, the ghost of Darky Kelly, a famous Dublin brothel-owner, has been seen here. Too many times to count. She was burnt alive as a witch, just steps away from the gate of the city, about ten metres to the right of the steps shown in that picture. In addition to being a famous madame, Darky had the gift. The same one we have. She could see things, go places, meet people. Men craved her, coveted her. Fought over her. She could drive them nuts. Clever girl. Remind you of anyone?'
Michael said nothing.
'Yes, Gabriel told me what happened with Claudia. Old "Raveheart" herself, eh?'
Despite himself, Michael laughed. 'What did you call her?'
'"Raveheart". It's a nickname Gabriel gave her a few years back. On account of her propensity for guzzling handfulls of "e" like they're smarties and then beating the living shit out of people with big pointy sticks. Most of the guys in Cardenio think she's a fucking terrorist'
'And you?'
'Oh she is a fucking terrorist. But, I'm a woman. I suppose I might see it slightly differently. There's a part of me admires her maybe. I think most of the guys have a problem with her because they wanted to sleep with her and she laughed in their faces. I can empathise with that. I just wish she'd stop fucking around and getting in the way of what we do.'
'Sounds like you two have some history'
'We do'
'Which is?'
'For me to know and for you to wonder about'
Are you left-handed or right-handed she asks him. Right-handed he tells her. Then you lead with your left. Get your arms up. Up. Higher. Lead with your left, she says slamming the pads together, opening her hips up, placing the pads a few inches apart, blocking her face. Lead with your left to hit my left, then your right to my right. Across your own body. Left foot forward. Balance yourself. Lead with your left hand. Now try it. Left to left. Right to right. Harder. Hit me harder. Harder you fucking fairy. That's it. Now, when you swing across to hit the pad twist your shoulder. Your arm should pivot through the blow. Now try it. No, left first. That's it. Left then right. Twist. Get your arms up. Jesus Christ it hurts. I know, keep them up now. Never realised how heavy your arms were, eh? Keep 'em up. Now, when I call the number one, you hit left to my left. Number two, left to left, then right to right. Number three, left to left, right to right, left to left. Number four - you get the idea. Ready? One. Three. Don't worry, keep going. Two. Lead with the left. Harder. Four. Harder you fucking pussy. Three. One. Twist as you hit. Roll your shoulder through it. Two. Yes, that's it. Two. Four. That's it. Harder. Twist the shoulder. Lock your wrists. Harder. Two. Three. One. Stop trying to hit the pads and fucking hit them. Harder. Four. Two. One. Now, put a face on it and let it go. Three. Four. C'mon bitch, let me have it. Let it out. One. One. Two. Yes, let it out. As hard as you can. Three. Harder. Two. Jesus H. Christ, I've seen meaner six-year olds. Two. Yes, harder. And stop. No, stop. Arms down. Now breathe. Breathe. Slumping down. Heart-rate jacked. Jesus Christ. Crouched down, panting. Sweat and tears pouring down his face. She kneels down, her hand forcing his chin up, making him look at her. Remember, she says, "Nach dem spiel ist vor dem spiel". What the fuck? Breathe Michael, breathe. Easy, easy. Now, she says, standing up. On your feet. You're going to learn how to jab. And duck.
'Anyway, Darky could drive guys crazy. One in particular went real crazy. Batshit. The story goes that Darky became pregnant with the child of a man called Simon Luttrell, the Sherrif of Dublin. Fearing for his position, he refused to acknowledge the child as his own and levelled an accusation of witchcraft at Kelly in order to shut her up. Being a lady of the night, the accusations stuck and she was roasted slowly in front of a baying mob'
'Why?' Michael asks.
'Because she refused to be quiet. Refused to stop telling the truth. In that time, in that place, in that way of seeing the world, there was no space for a woman with those gifts. Two thousand years ago? Possibly. They could have accomodated her. In fact, had she lived in Ancient Greece or Rome, they probably would have made a priestess out of her. Worshipped her. Asked her for help. But not in that time. In that time, the language of men made no space for her and what she was. What she could do. They believed that there was God and man, nothing in between. No middle man. And most certainly no middle woman. She could talk to the infinite, and well, they weren't having that. She didn't fit the language - the technology. It had become corrupted, debased, limited. People like her no longer fit. So they burnt her alive.'
Victoria stuffed a final fork of chocolate cake in her mouth.
'I thought you said this was a great story?'
'It is,' she says, swallowing and reaching for her coffee. 'It's an example of what can happen when the software we use to understand the world around us is corrupted. It screws everything up - makes no space for those that are different. If the words they used, the mental model that it gave them was so limited that it could allow them to burn a Goddess alive, then consider the total reverse end of the spectrum - what a new piece of software could do. A software that allowed for greater words, a greater model. When we're done with you, your software will allow for that. You'll be able to use words to stop you from being well, burnt at the stake.'
'That doesn't make any sense' he tells her.
'Don't worry,' she says. 'It will'.
9,000 feet above the earth and rising, two people sit inside a C-130 Hercules plane, looking at one and other. One a nervous Irishman, the other a smiling red-haired Scotswoman. The drone of the engine doesn't entirely drown out their conversation. I'm not liking this very much he tells her. Not liking what, she asks. This. Being up here. I have a bad feeling about why you have me up here. She doesn't reply, just smiles. When are we, he finally asks. About 1200 years ago she replies. No-one will see anything. See anything of what he asks. She smiles. Where are we, he asks. Somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic. She stands up and removes her coat. Are you scared she asks, as the door behind them starts opening, the white noise of 10,000 feet bursting through the interior of the plane. He grabs on to his seat. I'll take that as a yes, she says hauling him to a standing position. Look at me, she says. He does. You have nothing to be scared of. Nothing. She kisses him, her hands running around the back of his neck, into his hair. Time slows, the taste of her in his mouth. Land properly, she tells him, and I'll see you on the ground. You'll what... hang on. Land? Don't I need a parachute? Nope, she says. You don't. And remember what I said. "Nach dem spiel ist vor dem spiel". What the fuck does that mean? It means "after the game, is before the game". How do I know that? I know that line. Nevermind that now she says. And with a laugh, she steps backwards, spins on her heel and roundhouse kicks him in the chest, sending his body hurtling out the opening and into the empty, screaming sky.
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http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/03/the_game_nach_dem_spiel_ist_vo.html
'Okay. So hang on a sec now. You want me to tell space and time to slow down, or speed up, or move aside so I can...' he trailed off, his hands waving in small circles.
'...slip your hand under reality's bra-strap and cop a feel'
'Ya ha. Right, thing is, I've never been that good at opening bras'
'I didn't say you had to open the bra. I just said you have to get your hand in there...'
'Get my hand in there?'
'Yep'
'And grab the universe by the tit?'
'Well grabbing anything by the tits is usually problematic. Generally speaking, violence will ensue. So, not so much with the grabbing, but you're getting the idea'
'So, more of a squeeze then?'
'Meh. I was thinking a sort of tweak really'
'Uh huh. And you think I can, you know, just do that then?'
'Yes, actually. I do'
'You know, I think I know why you're not married anymore'
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 9
'If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.'
- Robert Anton Wilson
Press Play.
_qacct="p-ddi5MNsstELmE";quantserve();
Natural History Museum, Dublin. Present Day.
Low light. Interior of a glorious 19th century cabinet display museum. We pan across row after row of antique glass cases, motes of dust catching in the hazy security lighting. There's a flash of light and two figures appear: two men. One is in his early thirties, the other in his late fourties. The younger man seems confused, imbalanced, momentarily dazed, he stumbles on his feet. The older, taller man steadies him with a hand on the shoulder and a smile. Asks if he's okay. The younger one nods, smiling weakly, looking like he's about to be violently sick.
An ancient scene begins to play out. A scene which has been played out a hundred times, over four centuries. A master and his apprentice. Induction. Initiation. Explanation. The end of level one. The beginning of level two.
Shift tense.
'What does a museum full of dead animals have to do with anything?' the younger one asked. 'Everything,' replied the teacher, a manic, crazy-eyed stare coming over his face. 'Museums are excellent starting points. Perfect training grounds. And this one is special. Okay Michael. Now get ready. Because from here on in, this shit is about to get serious. By the time we're done breaking you in, you'll be curled up in a ball, crying for your mother and quite possibly begging for death'
'Great. I can't wait'
'You're also gonna have the time of your life. Seriously, three weeks of this and sex will seem dull'
'What?'
'You know what though?'
'Sex will seem dull?'
'We're missing something. Something we need while I explain this. No, wait, I've got it. You know what we need?
'How can sex be dull?'
'We need some banging music'. Gabriel clicked his fingers and the air was suddenly filled with thundering, glass-shaking drums.
'Jesus Christ. Is that not going to wake folks up?' Michael asks.
'Don't worry. No-one can hear that but us. Okay, kid, now listen up.' Gabriel momentarily stopped speaking, getting into the groove of the music and slipping into a ridiculous white man's overbite.
'Dear God, for the love of all that's holy, stop that' Michael pleaded.
'Oh get the stick outta yer ass, will you? This is the fun bit,' he laughed, moving off, clapping his hands to the beat, gurning like a loon. Before Michael had a chance to object again, Gabriel spun on his heel and launched into another rant. 'Before we get going, I mean really going, you need to be given some things. Special stuff like. So, two things to start with'
'What, like special magic weapons?'
'Yes, Michael, any second now I'm going to hand you a light-sabre'
'What?'
Gabriel rolled his eyes, then seemingly from nowhere, his hand held up a coat. Black, three-quarter length. A look of almost reverential pride came over his face.
'You're having a fucking laugh' Michael said with a snort. 'You expect me to wear that? I mean you actually expect me to wear that?'
'I wear one don't I?' Gabriel pointed out.
'Yes. And you look like a late, 19th century pimp. You want me to look like a late,19th century pimp? I was born in the 1970s for fucks' sakes...'
'Michael, this isn't a fashion item. This isn't just a coat. It's a shield. Protection. It will guard you. It's constructed using a technology you can't even understand. Wherever you are, whenever you are, this coat will blend you in. It bends light and space to make you look like you are wearing whatever you should be wearing in that time and place. A kaftan? No problem. A medieval suit of armour? Done.'
'Oh. Right. Actually, that is pretty cool'
'Yes, it is. You'll also need this...' Gabriel said, holding up a watch. A pocket-watch. Silver. Silver chain with silver fittings. It glistened in the light, almost humming.
'I have a watch actually' Michael said blankly.
'Open it,' he said, as Michael sheepishly took it from his hand. He opened it carefully, his face lghting up as the lid popped open.
'Whoa' said Michael. As he ran his finger across the surface, lights danced on a whirling touch screen, data streams and images appearing.
'This isn't just a watch. Sure, it'll tell you the time if you like. But this watch will show you wherever you are, whenever you are. Always accurate. It's also an uplink into the Cardenio system. Data, files, records, resources, contacts to staff, maps, mail, a phone, a one shot contraceptive...'
Michael looked up at him. 'You serious?'
'What do you think?'
'Right. Sorry'
'Michael, make no mistake: these two objects are your life. Protect them like you would your balls. Never surrender either of these items to anyone. They'll save your ass. Again and again.'
Michael nodded. 'I hear ya'.
'Good. Now...' Gabriel spun on his heel and started walking, pacing between the cases and displays, his apprentice following behind him, his head turning from side to side in bewilderment.
'Now: time. You need to understand time. So, listen up and learn. Time isn't complicated. It simply depends how you look at it, the words you use to percieve it. Think of it like this..' he said, clicking his fingers, vanishing into thin air and re-appearing ten feet behind himself, 'time is a book, each moment a page.'
'How the fuck...?'
'Those pages contain objects, artefacts: words, pictures, paintings, songs. Anything representing a memory, something which tries to capture a moment in time. Some of these objects, just some, are linked to each other. For example, a painting might show you a room, a room you can go to, jump t
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/03/the_game_the_dead_zoo.html
Listen - let the words take you, paint a picture. Snatch a moment in time and frame it with a story. A way to be repeated, handed down, recalled and celebrated. Saved and shared. Embeddable content, the story moves across space like a virus. Replicating, mutating, making itself heard, known. And you in your chair, at your desk, in your home, in your bed, by the simple act of listening, reading, are now part of the story. Are you ready? Then let's begin.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 8
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee..."
-Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Press play.
We spin down through space, the earth revolving towards us. Satellites and space-junk burst past. With an orange flash, we break atmosphere, the clouds parting as we move. We fly down, across the Americas, the North Atlantic swirling beneath, tuna fleets glittering below the surface, over Velas and Furnas, across the Canaries to the coast of western Africa. Now a correction north, slowly sweeping along the seaboard, swerving inland across the desert, now down, down into the sands and banking up we see a city in the distance, pink and shimmering. We lurch upwards, the sky titling and levelling out, momentarily hovering above ancient streets. Marrakesh. Slowly, we pitch down, roads sharpening into focus, shapes emerging from the darkness. Streaks of light from cars and bodies moving through the night time haze. We swoop down, across the Jardin Marjorelles, east into the old city we cross the mud ramparts, over Koutoubia mosque, above the shanty houses, above the tombs of the sleeping Saadian Kings and Queens where a solitary cat keeps guard and on, to the Square of the Dead, Djemma el Fna.
From the darkness, we dip down and land on the ground. No one sees us. We spot two men moving through the mass crowd, dodging the outstretched hands and hustlling vendors. The older one points to a man standing on a step, speaking in Arabic, a small but attentive crowd gathered around him. The two men approach. Words are exchanged, the man carefully considering them. They will be allowed in.
From the hustle of the street they are taken inside, through a narrow wooden door. In the left corner, a man sits, cross-legged on the floor, mint tea before him. They sit down, waiting. The heat, the noise, drums, the laughing children with monkeys on chains, dates for sale, the music and the mayhem all fade away. The man looks at them a while, closes his eyes and suddenly seems to drift, his head lolling down and his voice undulating into a song-like tone. A light, like a direct ray of sunshine, pierces the window making the visitors cover their eyes. Slowly they adjust and wait, listening.
He begins. A tale of a man and a story. A story which has been hidden. A story which has never been told. Hidden by those that would keep us down, in the dark, with the dogs. The man who wrote this story was a soldier. A leader amongst an order of great men - timekeepers. He came from a land far away, a land of rainwater. He came here to defend us. From the ones who would take our stories, our culture. He came to fight, to stand against the will of the thieves, his words the beat of the drum against the fear of the dark. And it was here, near the Square of the Dead, where his story ended. Or began.
Listen - let the words take you, paint a picture. Snatch a moment in time and frame it with a story. A way to be repeated, handed down, recalled and celebrated. Saved and shared. Embeddable content, the story moves across space like a virus, replicating, mutating, making itself heard, known. And you, in your chair, at your desk, in your home, in your bed, by the simple act of listening, reading, are now part of the story. Are you ready? Then let's begin.
Twenty-six years ago. A late-night souk. A riot of colours and noise, spices and effluence, beggars and children, three-legged dogs and two-wheeled carts, donkeys and dimwits, poets and perverts. A Sufi song drifts through the air, echoing off the narrow street walls. A man comes into view. Pale skin. Light hair. A waist-length, black coat flapping with him as he pushes through the crowd. 'Liam' they called him. His name a gift from his parents. A name that carried the story of his family and all of their memories. He jostles and shuffles, weaving between begging hands and pleading calls. The pink city leans above him, the dust kicking up as he moves. The call to prayer begins to empty the streets; moving faster now, watching behind him, peering down the alleys. He ducks off onto a side street, holding the bag he carries closer. Turning and bending, he follows a labyrinth path, winding and twisting into the heart of the souk. He pauses, removing a silver pocket watch from his waistcoat. He opens it, looks at it carefully. Runs a finger over the surface. Squints his eyes. With his other hand, he briefly removes a picture of a child, a six-year old boy, from his pocket and looks at it. Glancing back ahead, he slips the picture back in his pocket and then looks back to the watch, checking.
He puts the watch away and starts to move off, carefully. Freezes. A shadow, a shape moves before him. Time slows and the sound is sucked from the air. A hiss in the dark, a body uncoiling from a wall. Another beside it, crawling and sniffing towards him. The smell of blood thickens the air, the odour of decay coming from an open mouth, sucking air in, heaving it out through holes in torn flesh. He stands his ground, slinging the strap of the bag over his shoulder. He breathes deeply, steadying his stance, finding his balance. He waits, they crawl closer, getting braver, the rage and the hunger swelling inside them. Waiting, waiting, biding his time, his training and years steadying his hand. He summons the words from deep within his memory, readies them. One raises to it's legs, moves to pounce. He speaks. The air is torn open, sound collapsing through the tear, a bubble of space and time bursts. The man has moved, faster than light, than sound, appearing behind the creature, space rippling around him with a sound that stabs the eardrums. The wraith is hurled against a wall, its bones shattering on impact. Twisted and spilling blood it slides to the ground, a gurgling coming from deep inside its rotten frame. The second one lashes out. Another word, another tear and the second creature finds a hand at it's throat. It begins to scream, its howl cut short as a word is uttered and shaft of light cuts it in half.
The man moves on, wiping the blood from his hands. Faster now, moving quicker through the bends and turns. A cat squeals as he steps on its tail. A child peers from a doorway, its brown eyes shining in the dark of the moonlight. The call to prayer echoes back into the space, juddering off the buildings as matter is reorganised around the street. A car engine whining and spluttering in the distance, skids across the ears like it's being mangled in a sky-sized blender. Across the rooftops, figures move in. Two, five, seven of them. Ten, thirteen, squadrons bearing down, smelling the blood, drawn to the rage. Willing to die. He senses them, uses a command and splits the air, appearing on the rooftop. He stands, scans, looks around, sizing up the attack. He calls up a dark curse, spits it, sends three bodies careering off a building into the darkness. He jumps, effortlessly pulling the empty space beneath him, landing with a tumble, uprights and starts to run. Ripping at the air, he moves too fast for them, their claws slashing at his feet as he flips over their reach. As his left foot slams into a set of roof tiles, a shaft of light streaks behind him, pinning one to a wall. It squeals, writhing under the sound. Two more take it's place, clambering across the space, they leap only to meet a flash of colour, their limbs disintegrating in the heat. He slides to a halt. Too many of them, circling in, closing down the space. Surrounded, he calms his mind, breathes deeply, waits. Come and get me you fuckers. Steadying his stance, he lowers his hand, a steel tube spinning open, lengthening, opening up into a blade, its edge catching the moonlight. Closer now, closer, he waits, eyes focussed on the space between them, he waits for one to make its move. And they pounce.
Slashing and stabbing, cloth and skin are torn, screams filling the air. Two down. Three down, the air ripping open, colours and sounds slapping at the night. Blood sheets across a wall and in one giant mass of flailing limbs they tumble. Over the building, sailing down to the ground. A crash, windows shattering, he staggers to his feet. A hand grabs at him, not fast enough, he twists it violently, his foot connecting with a chest. A tearing sound gives way to an inhuman scream as he rips the limb from it's socket. Another lunges, meets with a fist, its face crumbling into mush. Five down, seven down, they keep coming. Knowing now that he's going to die here, he's determined to take as many with him as he can. Fighting not to live, but fighting to damn them, he uses every part of his abilities, jumping and twisting, using the art to slow time and take them down.
He takes one by the throat, crushes until he hears a crack. Another crack. From inside. He looks down and sees a blade thrust through his chest, from behind. The air is forced from his lungs and he collpases to his knees, time slowing down to normal, his heartbeat hammering. Blood pours down his shirt, splashing on the ground below. The creatures back away, fear overcoming them, making way for something else. Someone else. As his vision starts to blur, he sees a figure walk from behind him. A leg, white suit trousers, a matching jacket. I'll take that thankyou, says the man, removing the bag from over his shoulder. Don't want any blood getting on it now, do we. Liam curses. The man crouches down, bringing his face level with his victim. A shit-eater, shark-tooth grin hoves into view, a cruel humourless smile, wrap-around mirrored glasses. My name is Mr. White he says with a giggle. I'm the one that's killed you. Just wanted you to know that, Mr. Company Man. Don't feel bad about it. We'll kill you all in the end. And you'll never see this book again. Never. No, says the dying man, I won't. But my son will. The rictus grin dissapears. He scowls. We'll see about that. Standing up and turning to walk away he barks an order over his shoulder.
Eat him, he says.
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http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/02/djemma_el_fna.html
'Cardenio. We're called Cardenio.'
'Cardenio?'
'Do you recognise the name?'
'I want to say that that's the name of a play, but I don't think I've ever read it or seen it'
'That's because no-one has. At least no-one who is alive'
'Can't you, just for once, give me a straight fucking answer...'
'Cardenio is the name of a play. A lost play. A play that vanished almost 400 years ago'
'Why did you name yourselves after that?'
'Because that's what we do. We find things - lost things. Lost books, paintings, stories, artefacts. We restore that which has been lost. Or stolen. Or hidden from the sight of the human race'
'Hidden?'
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 7
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
- Carl Sagan
Click play
Turnpike Lane, London. Present Day.
Michael sat in front of a steaming coffee, the haze coming off the drink reflecting his mood. It had been seven days since he has seen Claudia in the club. Seven days since he'd seen her dissapear. Gabriel had jumped them out of there to the present day, but away from Dublin, to a secure house in north London where Michael could sleep. A little at least. He'd awoken, for what seemed like the thirtieth day in a row, early. By six a.m. he'd smoked three cigarettes, puked, showered and wandered out of the house down to Greenlanes, looking idly at the seemingly never-ending strip of fruit and veg stores. Eventually he went into a cafe.
He looked at the milk swirling on the top of the liquid, his mind drifting in and out of where he was. He sat there for a time, his mind swimming, trying to recall her face. It took him a few moments to notice Gabriel standing beside him.
'Good morning. May I join you?' he asked.
'Sure' said Michael, his eyes turning back to the mug before him.
Gabriel sat down, taking off his gloves. A waitress appeared and he ordered an Earl Grey tea. He said nothing until it arrived back. 'Have you been looking at the photos in here?' he asked.
Michael looked up at him, then to the wall beside him. 'No. I haven't' he said shortly. The walls were adorned with vintage 19th century shots of the local area. Turnpike Lane. Greenlanes. Manor House. Trams and bowler hats, horse-drawn carriages and street market vendors.
'You should. You can learn a lot from old photos.'
Michael sighed. 'Why do I get the impression you're being deliberately cryptic with me?'
'I'm not. I'm simply providing you with information when you need it'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'When I need it?'
'Yes'
Michael pushed the coffee away from himself. 'You're full of shit'
Gabriel chortled gently. 'That's what my wife used to say'
'You have a wife?'
'Used to'
'Right. But not any more?'
'Nope, not for a while now'
'Right...'. Michael sighed, his eyes drifting across the photos. A particular shot of the bridge crossing Greenlanes held his attention. It showed the entrance to Haringay Park station in what must have been the turn of the 20th century. Horse-drawn trams were frozen in time, advertising hoards for long forgotten commodities, people walking, peering from shadows.
Gabriel shifted in his chair. 'Michael, ask me what you want to ask me'
'I don't know where to start...'
'Start with something small'
Michael stayed quiet for a moment, his stomach heaving.
'Why did you let me make contact with her if you knew she'd be gone an instant later? How am I supposed to walk around with all of that inside of me?'
Gabriel looked at him, his eyes kind, calm. 'Not exactly small. Michael, I apologise, but not everything can be understood right now. But let me put something to you. About her. About all of this. From a particular perspective, all of this is just a story. Nothing more. A sequence of events in time, with particular characters intersecting at particular moments. You with me so far?'
'Ok...'
'Right. So if this is a story, to be re-told at another time, perhaps in a medium that doesn't even exist yet, you need to consider something: she's just a character in that story'
'A character?'
'Yes. Just a character. In a story'
'Is that supposed to mean something to me?'
'I'm hoping that, in time, it will. In time.'
'In time?'
'Yes'
'Time, time, fucking time...'
'Indeed'
'Will I see her again?' he blurted.
'I don't know'
'Will... will those things kill her?'
'Possibly, but I doubt it. She's smarter than they are. Faster, more powerful. She can out-run them. And, out-fight them if needs be'
'Well, if she's not with them, then why doesn't she work for you - whoever the fuck you people are...'
'Well, very simply because she refused. We offered her training. Help. Anything she wanted. Everything really. She told us where to go in no uncertain terms. Agent after agent was sent to find her. They all came back with their asses kicked. One of them ended up in prehistoric Greenland, clinging to a shard of rock in a river of molten lava with severely bruised balls. Seriously, we barely got the poor bastard home. He was in traction for three months. Like I said, she doesn't obey the rules. She plays the game her own way'
Michael studied Gabriel's face carefully, weighing up his next question.
'What are those things? Those things they sent to get her'
'The same things they sent to get you. Wraiths. The shadows of what were once men. Yep, I know, they were human once. Hard to believe I understand, but they were. They sold themselves. Sold their souls. Whored themselves you might say...'
'To who?'
Gabriel paused, looking up from his tea, meeting Michael's gaze. He breathed slowly, considering the face of the younger man before him.
'Michael, if that woman, Claudia, is representative of the good in this world, the power to create and give life, then there has to be a balance, right?'
'Sure. Makes sense'
'Good. Well, if she's the light, then Mr. White is, well, not'
'Mr. White?'
'The one who controls those things that came to get you'
'Who's he when he's at home then?'
'That's rather difficult to explain really. I'll really have to show you'
Michael groaned. 'Is this going to involve me having my ass hauled through space and time to randomly emerge in the middle of some Godforsaken desert where I puke my guts out like a drunken teenager?'
'No. That will pass with time. Especially as you learn to shift yourself'
'Shift? You mean jump through...'
'Yes, shift through space and time. It's not easy. It's extremely dangerous and once you enter that world - the world of shifters - there's no going back. I've shown you to the doorway. I've shown you the opening, but if you jump through, you need to be aware that there is no going back. If you join us, become one of us, there's no walking away Michael.'
'Shifting. Jumping. You'd think that after all these years you guys would have come up with a slightly cooler name for it'
'Well, some of us, the younger ones that is, call it "Vuja De"'
'The what now?'
'Vuja De. The art of using words and memory to re-shape the fabric...'
'Okay, okay'
Michael rolled his shoulders, a crack audible over the hiss of coffee machines. 'How about you tell me this: you people. Who are you? You've been dragging me... who the fuck are you people? Do you have a name?'
Gabriel smiled. 'Cardenio. We're called Cardenio.'
'Cardenio?'
'Yes. Do you recognise the name?'
Michael though about it. 'I want to say that that's the name of a Shakespeare play, but I don't think I've ever read it or seen it'
'That's because no-one has. At least no-one alive'
'What? What are you talking about? Can't you, just for once, give me a straight fucking answer...'
Gabriel held up a hand. 'Cardenio is the name of a play by William Shakespeare. A lost play. A play that vanished almost 400 years ago'
'Why did you name yourselves after that?'
'Because that's what we do. We find things - lost things. Lost books, paintings, stories, artefacts. We restore that which has been lost. Or stolen. Or hidden from the sight of the human race'
'Hidden?'
'Michael, has it ever occurred to you that it's odd how great works of art, by world-famous authors and artists just seem to get lost?'
'Like what?'
'Well, do you remember that painting that was found in Dublin? By an Italian master?'
'Caravaggio, right?'
'Exactly. The Taking of Christ it was called. Lost for centuries. They found it sitting in a Jesuit house of all places. Well, that story is an example of how things can get lost. And more importantly, how they can get found again. And what they can do when they get found'
'Sorry, you've lost me again'
'Okay. Let me explain. That painting is responsible for something. It's responsible for Claudia becoming what she did. Alright, well, not entirely. Life had seen to screwing her up good and proper beforehand, but that painting was what caused her to make her first shift. With you it was the industrial quantities of weed you'd been smoking, your location in Berlin and a residual image from a book you'd seen as a child. That and the date. With her, well, we're not really sure what caused it. Possibly a mutation. A chemical imbalance inside her head. Something which caused her pineal gland to go into overdrive. This happened when she was near that painting and she jumped. Sent her spinning out of sync with the rest of the world. She spent the next six months getting off her face on every drug known to man trying to understand what was happening to her. And then one night, a particular February 14th, she found a way to do it again. Through you.'
'Me?'
'Yep. Through you. Come on, you know this. You felt it. They were closing in on her and she used the connection to you to shift'.
'This is one serious headfuck'
'Yeah. It is. Sorry'
'So, why are you so interested in me then?' Michael asked. Gabriel grinned, a momentary nod of the head noting the question. 'You have the gift. Or curse. Whichever way you wanna look at it, you have it'
'And why would I join you?'
'Cos I was thinking it would make a pleasant change from sitting round the house wanking and crying'
Michael bristled. 'I have not been sitting round the house wan...'
'Because we can teach you, protect you. And, well, you have sufficent motivation. You just don't know it yet'
'What?'
'We want you to help us resolve an open case. A sensitive one. One which you are uniquely qualified to help us with. A book. A lost book.'
'And why would I want to do that?'
'Because your father wrote it'
Michael stared.
'Your real father'
'You motherfucker'
'Sorry'
Michael drained the end of his coffee cup and looked back to the pictures on the wall, his face twisting in anger. The same street-scene grabbed his attention again. His eyes drifted over it, glancing at the figures frozen in sepia.
'Oh my sweet Jesus...' he said.
'What?'
'The fucking bitch...' he said slapping a hand off the table, a snort escaping his mouth.
'What? What's wrong Michael?'
Slowly, his body shaking with laughter, Michael raised a hand, extended a finger and pointed to the picture. 'There. Right there. Behind the carriage with the horse'
Gabriel looked, squinting his eyes. 'I don't see what you... oh my.'
They both sat and stared, their eyes locked on the hazy a figure of a woman, peering out from just beneath the shadows of the bridge. Peering through time. A woman with black hair, black hat, glittering eyes and a slight smile. Giving them the finger. Claudia.
Michael looked at Gabriel.
'Well, I'll be damned' Gabriel said slowly, a smirk forming on his face.
'Did you do this?'
Gabriel looked at him. 'No. I swear Michael, I didn't'
Michael studied his face for a time and then looked back to the picture. 'Un. Fucking. Believeable. She's a fucking brat.'
Gabriel chuckled. 'She's playing with you...'
'So I see.'
'The bag...' Gabriel said, 'she has the bag over her shoulder'
'The bag? What bag?'
Gabriel looked back to Michael again. 'You ready to find out what happened to him? Your biological father?'
'Is this going to upset me?'
'Yes'
Michael snorted. 'Okay then. Fuck it. I'm in. Where do I start?'
Gabriel said nothing for a moment. Michael stared back, unblinking.
'You're sure?' Gabriel asked.
'I've never been more sure of anything in my life'.
'One thing. And this is crucial. You should be doing this for yourself. Not for her'
'I am. This is for me'
'You sure?'
'Yes. I am'
'Okay then,' said Gabriel placing his hands on the table and allowing a wicked smirk to move across his face. 'You need to come with me' he said, suddenly lunging out and slapping a hand on Michael's head, 'It's game time'.
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Listen: you hear a drum loop. Not too fast. Not too slow. It loops, around and around, swirling and diving, always reconnecting perfectly to the same point. A guitar echoing in symmetry. Then the bass. It comes in waves. Now watch: a pair of hips, gently swaying in time, slide into focus. Moving in melody, her arms orchestrate the sound and rhythm. Her. Then the snare kicks in. Purple and blue, red and black, she moves the rhythm. Like it was written for her. Like she wrote it. Like she is writing it now, at this very instant, her movements creating the notes as she moves.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 6
"Love is a friendship set to music."
- Jospeh Campbell.
Press play.
Valentine's Day, 2002
A nightclub. Dancers, ravers, maniacs, their bloodstreams awash with chemicals and rhythm. Bodies heaving, alcohol flowing. Do you want another? No, I'm too high. Water? Have you got any water? Voices chattering, laughing. The infinite variety of the human condition, beautiful, vicious, horny, in love, scared shitless, high as a fucking kite, low as a kerb-crawling predator, jostling, bragging, cajoling, pleading, standing on the shoulders of giants, as vulnerable as infants.
On the third floor, high above the throng and the heaving beat two men appear. One moment they aren't there. The next they are. A master and an apprentice. One to guide, one to learn. One to be patient, one to push. Why here the younger one asks. Because she's here. Who, the other asks, his heart rate quickening. Her. The other one. The one that makes two of you. The younger one looks around, peering through the dry ice and a sea of skin.
When are we, he asks his mentor. Six months after she made her first jump. She's 26 years old. She doesn't know who you are. She has no idea who she really is. Or what she's capable of. But she's about to find out.
Why here he asks again. Why this place. Because, the older one explains, this is the only definite location in space and time where we know she was. Everything after that is simply rumour and legend. She doesn't obey our rules Michael. She obeys none. She has her own. She doesn't work for us. She doesn't even work for them. But we know she's here. Now, before it's too late, you need to find her. Why? You'll know why when you find her. One last thing; they're coming for her Michael. There are two of them here, looking for her. Right now.
How are we supposed to see her in here he asks. You don't need to see her. Close your eyes and you'll find her. He does. He opens his head. Wait Michael, he says. Be careful. Michael nods, closes his eyes again. He probes. Looks through the sound and the noise, using his breath to push through. A flood of words come at him. He resists, filtering, screening, seeking her out. Voices, desires clamber to drag him in. He holds them off, selecting a voice, rejecting it as fast. A click. A connection. A girl. Dancing. Dancing. Lost in the sound, her mind causing ripples around her, space bending to fit the way she moves. Making love to the whole world, being the song inside her head. And then, just like that, he is inside her. Inside her every thought and breath.
Listen: you hear a drum loop. It gets louder. Not too fast. Not too slow. Just the right side of an unquantifiable border where you start tapping your foot to the beat, moving your foot to the loop. And loop is the word. It loops, around and around, swirling and diving, always reconnecting perfectly to the same point. A shimmering, warm sound keeps time. A guitar, far away, echoing in symmetry, sings a melody. Then the bass. Walloping and juddering, thumping and rolling. It comes in waves. Your head begins to bob along. You don't know why, but you know that you like it. Now watch: a pair of hips, gently swaying in time, slide into focus. Moving in melody, her arms orchestrate the sound and rhythm. Her.
Then the snare kicks in. Like the most obvious thing in the world. You realise that the musician has been teasing you. Like the way she does as she starts to dance, her body moving in infinity figure-eight loops. Purple and blue, red and black, she moves the rhythm. Like it was written for her. Like she wrote it. Like she is writing it now, at this very instant, her gyrations creating the notes as she moves. She is the rabbit-hole, an ocean of memory, death and birth, Lupercalia, the bones of St. Valentine.
No-one notices, but the DJ has nothing to do with it - nothing to do with what is happening, what people are hearing. The music is not coming from him. It's coming from her. Every note of every song ever written at once. Every rhythm, every chord, every beat and blip. From the sound of the first rocks banged together on an African plain to the snarling techno in a German warehouse as a wall comes down, it all pours through her. She dances alone, in the middle of the floor, the crowd oblivious to what she does.
Every kick of a bass drum, every melody, every tune, every breakbeat, every broken howl of loss, every shout of new love, every moment in time and sound. A syncopated beat, swirling in space, the voice of a man screaming from the bottom of a whiskey bottle. The cry of a child that may never be born. The death-rattle of a civilisation. The scream of an empire collapsing. She calls it all down and plays with it like a child shifting sand through her fingers. Light and sound are sucked into ripples in the space near her skin.
There's no-one else in the club. They're all gone, leaving her in a perfect moment in time. Faster, faster, the sweat sheeting her back, coming up, getting closer. She sees the threads connecting every moment, place and person and with one flick of her head, pulls the weave apart. An infinite number of worlds, times, places, peoples unravel open into a roadmap of the universe.
Behind her, two wraiths move through the throng, unseen, unspeaking, sniffing and hissing, closing in on her, getting closer, getting ready to pounce. He sees them nearing her, tries to say something. He can't speak, overwhelmed by the torrent.
He sees everything she has ever seen, feels everything she has ever felt, everyone who ever hurt her, kicked her, pushed her back. He sees her dance through them like air, sweeping them aside. He feels everything she wants, everything she fears. He sees a flood of possible realities: them never meeting, him answering a door to her in the future, taking her into his arms, their bodies close together, them making love, kissing like their lives depended on it, leaving and losing each other, lost in time and space, lost in each other, arguing, fighting, fucking, screaming, crying and laughing until their faces hurt, scaring each other so much they can't breathe or think.
They close in, claws bared, teeth glistening in the strobe lights, ready, ready to kill, so near they can smell her. And then, without warning, she opens her eyes, tilts her head back, looks at him and smiles. It's just a game, she says. You're not alone, he tells her, reaching out. Yes I am, she says.
And then, just like that, she's gone.
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The Fall of Christianity by Dr. Joanne
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'I need to tell you a story' she says.
'I'm sorry - have we met before?' he asks.
'Yes, you could say that. Can I come in?'
'Uhm. I suppose you... sorry, where did we meet?'
'Not where - when' she says, fixing him with something between a stare and a smile.
'Oh' he says. 'Fuck. It's you then is it?'
'Yep' she says. 'It is'
'You're late' he says. 'And you have a ring on your wedding finger'
'Yeah. Ehm. Sorry about that. It took a while to find your house.'
'Right'
'Anyway, what makes you so sure it's a wedding ring?'
He pauses. 'How long do we have?'
'A few days'
'Think it'll be enough?'
'Let's find out shall we?'
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 5
"Whether we listen with aloof amusement to the dreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo, or read with cultivated rapture thin translations from the sonnets of the mystic Lao-tse; now and again crack the hard nutshell of an argument of Aquinas, or catch suddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimo fairy tale: it will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told"
- Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Press Play
14th February, 37,023 BCE
A man stands at the water's edge, gazing down into the pool. There's a faint smell in the air - something he recognises - something sweet. His beard whips about in the wind, a gale whistling up the crack of his arse. The spring sun burns down on his head as he considers taking a drink from the water before him. Caution stays his fervour. The plant he ate has made him thirsty, but he knows what can happen when drinking something unknown. He saw another die violently after drinking from a vine plant. He glances left and right, then back down, the water rippling as a mote of dust lands on the shimmering surface. His mouth waters. And then, slowly, almost painfully, things begin to happen inside his head. He stares at his reflection. It stares back. Smiling. It winks.
The inside of his head seems to grind, cogs banging off each other, machine parts unused to contact screeching into life. Neurons fire, synapses sizzle. Deep in the centre of his head, a chemical is released. He lurches to one side, his legs buckling, his stomach heaving as hormones flood through him. He vomits. An urge, raw and uncontrollable rushes to the surface from somewhere inside. He raises his hand, looks at himself. At his reflection. The urge comes again. And then it happens.
He makes a sound. A sound with two sounds. He makes it again. He spontaneously laughs, revelling in what he has done. He points at his reflection - his reflection points at him. He giggles, jumps up and down, his beard flapping around. He makes the sound again, beginning to spin in circles, laughing uncontrollably, pointing, giggling, sniggering like a madman. He makes the sound again and laughs again. Sound, image and object connect. A technology is born. A weapon is made. The axis tilts. And nothing is ever the same.
Standing behind him, a woman with big, blue eyes and almost black hair flicks her fringe from her eyes and smiles. The slight scar on her forehead creases. Sighing, she looks over her shoulder, back to the man, takes a picture and slips her iPhone back into her bra. And jumps.
14th February, 35,242 BCE
The woman with almost black hair looks distinctly unimpressed. He was supposed to return home with some food. Hours ago. Instead, he's covered in sweat, blood, bite marks and mud. There's no food. But there is a slightly glazed look on his face - like he's been at those mushrooms again. He gives her a sheepish expression. Shrugs.
She exhales, placing her hips on her hands, waiting. Staring at him. He thinks for a second, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He scratches his arse. A look comes over his face. And then he starts.
He grunts twice, thrusting his thumb over his right shoulder. He walks on the spot, knees bobbing up and down, whistling as he goes. Suddenly, he jumps into the air, as though in terror. Dragging himself up to his full height, he raises his hands and takes the shape of giant, snarling animal, claws drawn. He bares his teeth, roaring, screams and starts furiously pumping his arms as though now sprinting for his very life. He keeps this up for a time, stealing glances at her to see how this is going over. She does nothing. He stops and waits, smiling weakly.
Carefully, methodically, she raises her two hands upwards, the backs of clenched fists showing to him. Slowly, she extends the middle fingers, standing, staring for what seems to him like all eternity. She flicks her hair as she spins on her heel and stalks into the cave.
The man sighs and lets his shoulders slump. His little song and dance - his story - has worked for now. Around him, the world twists as reality squirms to fit with his narrative. The axis tilts. And nothing is ever the same.
Valentine's Day, The Future
A doorbell rings. A man stands up, walks out of his living room and steps to the front door, pausing a moment. He glances at his watch. 3.52pm. He pulls the door open. A woman with blue eyes and almost black hair stands there. She smiles.
'I need to tell you a story' she says.
He looks at her. 'I'm sorry - have we met before?'
'Yes, you could say that. Can I come in?' she asks brightly.
'Uhm. I suppose you... sorry, where did we meet?'
'Not where - when' she says, fixing him with something between a stare and a smile.
'Okay...' he says.
'Let me help you' she says quietly, 'Back of a car. Depeche Mode. Nightclub. Black hat. Wink, wink...'
'Oh' he says slowly, a fleeting look of illumination passing over his face. 'Fuck. It's you then is it?'
'Yep' she says with a giggle. 'It is'
'You're late' he says matter-of-factly, placing his hands on his hips. 'And' he pauses to point a finger at her hand, 'you have a ring on your wedding finger'
'Yeah. Ehm. Sorry about that. It took a while to find your house.'
'Right'
'Anyway, what makes you so sure it's a wedding ring?'
He grins.
She laughs.
'They'll kill us if they catch us' he tells her.
'Yep, they will'.
They look at each other.
'Fuck it.' he says, 'Tempus Fuckit.'
'Indeed'
'How long do we have?' he asks.
'A few days' she says.
He nods. 'Think it'll be enough?'
She pauses, sniggers at him. 'Let's find out, shall we?'
The axis tilts. And nothing is ever the same.
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'Solitude is my grand romance' by Dr. Joanne
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'Aquarius' by Boards Of Canada
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/02/the_game_tempus_fuckit.html
'Thanks' he said, lifting the glass. She started to clean the table he'd sat at, wiping away some stains.
'You're welcome' she said with a smile. He drank. And breathed deeply. And drank again.
'Rough day?' she asked.
'Little bit' he said, forcing a smile. He noticed how young she looked. No more than sixteen, tops. He looked at her name badge. Looked back at her. Looked back to the name badge. His breath caught in his throat.
'About to get a bit rougher' she said.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 4
"It's not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game even starts."
- Thomas Addison
Press Play
The man shifted in his chair.
'Michael, do you remember how you got here today?'
Michael paused, his mouth wide open. 'No, no I don't'
'Hmm. Seems there are some gaps in your head. As though even talking about this is shorting your short-term memory. You've been infected with a powerful virus.'
'Virus? What? What virus?'
'A language virus. Relax, it'll make sense in time. The main thing is, you're with friends here...'
'Here?' Where am I?'
They spoke for a few minutes, of many things. Things that left Michael reeling.
The man leaned forward, smiling. 'To show you, I need to touch you. I need to put my hand on your head. You okay with that?'
Michael nodded. 'Sure' he said.
'Good. Now, close your eyes, and let me show you'
Two weeks earlier
Photographing graveyards isn't everybody's idea of a healthy hobby, but Michael had found it to be one. He found it, for reasons passing explaining, relaxing. He'd been doing it for five years now, starting with a graveyard in Clontarf, Dublin and spanning cemeteries in Paris, Marrakesh, New York, London, Valencia, Barcelona, Zurich and Edinburgh he'd become reasonably good at it. He'd learnt to read graveyards in that time, the subtle signs of grief and guilt contained in the choice of epitaph or headstone. And now he was back where he'd started. The small graveyard on Castle Avenue, in Clontarf, located just beside Clontarf Castle. The graveyard dated back to early medieval times, but most of what could be seen there now came from the 18th century or later.
He'd been there about a half hour and had been waiting this last five minutes for a particularly stubborn set of clouds to pass over, giving him, he hoped, some better light with which he could pick up the fine detail on a headstone at the top-left corner of the graveyard. It was a small, unremarkable grave with a simple engraving, reading 'Jane Mullen. Aged 14 years. Departed this world 1867'. The script was crudely carved, perhaps by a family member. He couldn't have told you why, but it was one of his favourites from anywhere in the world.
Michael moved around the headstone, picking away leaves and some small shreds of rubbish. As he removed a crisp packet, the wind blew and shifted some leaves. He glimpsed something sticking out of the dirt. A corner of what looked like a plastic envelope. He looked around him, checking if there was anyone else there. Seeing no-one he slowly pulled the plastic loose, clumps of dirt falling away to reveal a single word written on a paper envelope inside the plastic. 'Michael'. He felt his heart thump in his chest. He looked around again. Still no-one there. He lifted the plastic envelope towards himself, looking closer. No mistake. It said his first name. Coincidence. Has to be a coincidence. Must be. Can't be anything else. He shook his head and took a deep breath. Carefully, he opened the plastic and drew the paper envelope out. It was yellowed at the edges, suggesting it had been there a while, but it was dry and intact. Taking one last glance around him, he pulled the envelope open and removed a single sheet of paper, covered in a beautiful copperplate handwriting. He read.
'Michael, by this time you will no doubt be aware that something is happening to you. Something which you can't explain, not even to your self. Something frightening and illogical...'
'This is fucking insane' Michael said aloud, glancing around him again, his breathing quickening. He turned his eyes back to the sheet.
'... No, it's not insane. Strange yes, but insane no. There's no time to explain to you just now what is happening, but rest assured that you are not losing your mind. Quite the contrary. But that must wait. Now, you must leave here. Leave this graveyard immediately. They are coming for you Michael. As sure as those clouds above you will not move and as sure as the girl who was once in this grave is dead, they are coming for you. Right now. At this instant. You must run. Run as fast as you can. We're coming for you too Michael. To protect you. We are. But right now, you have to run. Don't stop until you are clear of here and everything around it. Run until you find the gate. You'll know it when you see it. Run Michael. Run like hell. We'll be waiting.
Your friend, G.
P.S. Stop standing there panting like a twat. Run.'
And he did.
Oh Jesus Christ. Oh Jesus fucking Christ. Oh God. What do I do? Just keep moving. Run man run. Run for fucks' sakes. That's it. Just keep moving. Just keep one foot moving in front of the other and keep going. How did they do that? How was that letter there? They must have seen me coming up the road and planted it. Just keep moving. Jane Mullen. 14 years of age. Dead. One foot after the other. That's it kid. Just keep moving your legs. Run man run. Plastic. Can't think. Up the road. Where do I go? I need to hide. I need to sit, think. No, just keep moving. No, I need to sit down. I have to sit down. Work this out. Breathe man, breathe. Up the turn to the right. Move it you fuckstick, move it. Keep running. Keep your legs moving. Up towards The Castle. The bar. Get in there. Get a drink. There are people in there. Sit down. Breathe through this. That's it. Just keep moving. Open the door. Left man, left. Open the next door. The bar. Get to the bar. Need a drink. Just one.
'What can I get you?' a young lounge girl asked him, as he slumped into an empty seat.
'W-whiskey' he stuttered. He looked around him. Faces he didn't know. No-one looked at him. No-one seemed to notice him.
'Here you go' she said returning after a few minutes.
'Thanks' he said, lifting the drink to his mouth. She started to clean the table he'd sat at, wiping away some glass stains.
'You're welcome' she said with a smile. She looked at him a moment, a smile nudging the corners of her mouth open. He drank. And breathed deeply. And drank.
'Rough day?' she asked.
He looked at her. 'Little bit' he said, forcing a smile. He noticed how young she looked. No more than sixteen, tops. Maybe younger. He looked at her name badge. Looked back at her. Looked back to the name badge. 'Jane Mullen'. His breath caught in his throat.
'About to get a bit rougher' she said with a grin. And all hell broke loose.
Lights out. Darkness. Words. Breaking down. Shapes shifting. Can't construct. Dead light. Can't see. Can't breathe. Above. From the walls they crawled, coming down from the ceiling. Wraiths, squirming in their stitched meat suits, flashes of light revealing black, razor teeth and torn, stretched skin. Eyeless faces, tongues lolling, licking and snifing at the dark. The stink of shit and fear. Hands on the floor, the carpet writhing and slipping, feet scrambling. Mullen. Jane. Girl. Poison. So this is him, is it? The one they want to find? Poison. They fucking poisoned me. This is him? This is the best they can do? Fucking pathetic. Feeble little waste of skin. Claws. Nails scraping, breath rattling in rotten lungs, hissing as they came, the blood pounding in his head. Can't find. Can't find floor. Hold on. Can't hang on. I want to eat him. Me too. Not yours to eat said another, a hiss in the dark. Mine. A hand on his throat, his head shoved to the floor, his eyes forced open. The smell of death being breathed on him. I'm gonna tear you a cunt and fuck you. Then eat your insides. While you watch, you disgusting little...
'Excuse me' said a deep voice, the whole room falling into silence, 'but if I've told you scumbags once, I've told you a thousand times. Nobody. Fucks. With the Jesus'.
In an instant, the hand was gone from Michael's throat and the space around him erupted into a deafening blast of screams and roars, a series of teeth-rattling blows shaking the floor below him. Bodies flew through the dark, limbs torn from sockets. The voice speaking. Unintelligible syllables. Alien phonemes. Sounds from somewhere else. A language from a different time. Every word a weapon. Glass smashing. Wood splintering. Explosions and screams. Limbs frantically scuttling away, dragged backwards and dashed against the wall like rag dolls. A howl of terror almost burst Michael's eardrums as a streak of light sent a great sheet of blood spattering across the glass of a window. A crash on the ground nearby, bones cracking as they landed, hissing from a mouth and calm, loud footsteps coming towards it, stepping between the twitching bodies. It tried to crawl away, its nails slashing the carpet. The creature fixed Michael with a snarl, its sightless face a broken mess of blood and shit. Michael stared, his mouth gaping. It whined at him, a talon raising to strike. A foot came down with a crash, the sound of a skull being crushed like an egg ending the screaming.
Quiet.
Michael lay there, panting, his head pounding, every heartbeat like a hammer was hitting him, words falling from his mind, his memory shredding with each second.
'I did tell you to run like hell, didn't I?'
Michael wheezed, his hand flailing in the air. A hand took his. A smiling face looking down at him.
'Hello Michael. My name is Gabriel'.
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Tutoring by Dr. Joanne
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/01/the_game_run_like_hell.html
'Over here' said a man's voice, from somewhere in front of her. There was no-one there. She looked up at the painting on the gallery wall - The Taking of Christ. She said nothing, swallowed deeply.
'Give a brother a hand, ha?' came the voice again. It seemed to be coming from inside the painting. She stood up, and slowly, carefully walked over towards the wall.
'Getting warmer' said the voice with what sounded like a snigger.
'What the fu...'
'Language'
And then she saw him. The face in the top right of the painting, young, bearded. Peering over the shoulder of the throng of bodies jostling to get at the figure of Christ. He looked at her. Right at her. And winked.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 3
"The score never interested me, only the game."
- Mae West.
Press Play
August 2001
Claudia wasn't feeling well. At all. So unwell in fact that she stopped her guided tour of the gallery early, apologising to the patrons and offering to get them all a refund for the price of the tour from the gift shop downstairs. Andy, a fellow tour-guide had been in a nearby room and overheard what was going on. He was one of the ten men in the gallery who was secretly in love with her and before he'd really even thought about it, had taken the group over and carried them away out of the room.
'I really shouldn't have eaten that sandwich' she told him with a wince.
'What was it?'
'Chicken salad, I think' she groaned.
'Listen' he told her, 'don't worry about it. Take a seat, get some air and drink this' he ordered, handing over a bottle of water.
'Thanks' she mumbled with a weak smile. She brushed the black hair from her face and slumped in her seat, trying to breathe easy as the tour group were hustled out of the room by Andy. After a few moments she was the only one left in the room. Just her and the paintings. She breathed deeply, closing her eyes.
'Psst'.
She opened her eyes and scanned the room. There was no-one there.
'Psst' came the noise again. She twisted in her seat, looking in all directions.
'Over here' said a male voice, somewhere in front of her. She looked up at the painting before her - The Taking of Christ . She said nothing, swallowed deeply.
'Give a brother a hand, ha?' came the voice. It seemed to be coming from inside the painting. She stood up, and slowly, carefully walked over towards the wall. Outside, she heard a child laughing, feet skipping down the stairs, her mother calling after her.
She looked both ways, saw no-one and then looked back at the painting.
'Getting warmer' said the voice with what sounded like a snigger.
'What the fu...'
'Language'
And then she saw him. The face in the top right of the painting, young, bearded. Peering over the shoulder of the throng of bodies jostling to get at the figure of Christ. He looked at her. Right at her. And winked.
Slumping to the floor, her vision swimming, sounds and shapes pouring over her, she gasped for air.
'Oh man. Why do they always faint?' he said, his voice starting to echo in the distance, his sighs receding under the slosh of aural distortion and belching, white noise that were surrounding her as she went down.
'Anyway, ' he continued, 'I really should warn you. This is probably gonna get a bit weird'.
Claudia slipped down, into darkness. And burst back into the light. She could see hands. Her own hands. But not her own hands. As though she was looking at someone else's hands through their eyes. She looked left and right. She stood on the grass, people around her, peering at her. A man beckoned at her. This way, the priest told her. Over here. Through here, he motioned with a hand. He stepped aside, circling his hands in cajoling waves. This way. This way please. She moved, slowly at first, reluctant. Through here he said again, pointing to the tent. The flap of the door squirmed in the wind, shallow raindrops splashing off the leather. This way my girl. The priest's headgear fluttered, the feathers rustling. His beads shook in a musical jitter. This is where we make you ready, he said calmly. She entered. Sit please. Many before you. Many after you. Nothing to fear. Nothing to harm you. Just to protect you. Protect me from what, she asked. From yourself, the priest said. A young girl sat in front of her, a bowl in her hand. She scooped out a black mud and moved to her face. She flinched. Nothing to fear, she told her. They will fear you, not you them.
The girl brought her hands to Claudia's face, smearing, slathering, covering in until only her eyes were visible in the darkness. Her arms. Her shoulders. Her legs. Her feet. But leaving her hands clean. As she worked the priest sang, low at first, but rising and rolling upwards. From outside she could hear other voices gradually joining the priest, slipping into the downside-up melody: a keening wail, giving way to a low, growling animal sound. Down and up. Up and down. Rising and falling, the voices were joined by a drum. Then a second. Claudia let the smell of the mud fill her nose, the sound of the drums and voices fill her ears.
Outside. A rain falling. Feet moving, she watched the legs below her move, pitch black with mud, carrying her on. Across a field. Through high reeds. Towards the trees. Branches moving, the music growing and growing. A cave. Through the entrance. This way they told her. This way please. She moved with them, her legs bearing her on into the dark, the outside world dissapearing in dead silence. Down and down they moved, spiralling and spinning, scampering over rocks and trickles of rain water leaching through from above. Images adorned the walls - figures of men and women. Figures of men and animals. Figures that were neither and both. Running, hunting, dying and fucking, they danced across the walls. Not far now, they said. Here we are. Here you are. Drink this, a voice commanded her as a bowl moved to her face. She drank, gagging and coughing, a vile, lumpy brew forcing its way down her throat. Swallow. Let it burn. Now dance. Dance like you've never danced in your life. Dance like the world is about to end. Dance until your bones shake, your skin splits and you can't think, smell, feel or fear anything. That is your gift. You can dance through time. You can dance time itself.
Now, to the gate, a voice told her. The drums beat on, wings in the dark, an animal sound growing below her skin. She was carried across a space, her body still rolling to the beat. The shape of a vast wall loomed out of the dark, black-burnt with pitch, white hands in the middle. White hand marks, where the flames and the filth had licked the wall black around them. Her hands were forced against the handmarks. The drone growing. A scream rising and the rhythm shattering the air around her. And then she jumped.
Forward, faster and faster she fell. She felt nausea wash over in waves, puke bursting up her throat like a volcano. She flailed, spinning in the dark. Noises echoed in the distance, swimming closer and closer, bouncing from side to side. Slowly, agonisingly a shape began to blur into focus, like a photograph developing. Brown, curved, glistening. An animal. Or, the shape of an animal's body, she told herself. Perhaps, she thought to herself in a fraction of lucidity, this is some kind of an animal spirit who can guide me... no, it's a horse's ass. A giant, brown horse's ass. On a wall. On a painting. In a chapel, lit by flickering candle light. More came into view. The horse's ass was pointed across the small chapel at another painting, almost like it was insulting the one opposite. Claudia saw figures streak in and out of the gloom, moving at incredible speed. Backwards, reeling, their movements leaving trails in space, tentacled cell structures leaving a white, temporal wake as they shifted through time. They over-lapped, criss-crossed and bumped off each other, lives and ages colliding and sliding against each other.
Momentarily the blur slowed to show two men standing there, all sound slowing to a groan and then clarity. One had long, black hair and was posing in front of the painting, the other with his back to Claudia, raising a camera. And you're sure the dude that comissioned this piece of crap was an ancestor of yours, the unseen man asked. Irish accent. One she knew. A voice she recognised. A voice that she knew intimately. A voice that seemed to have a cord coming from it - attached, she realised as she followed it, to her. Abso-fucking-lutely said the other man with a grin. A flash fired and the room span like a toilet bowl, sucking her back in time, back through a blizzard of days and nights until she felt the bile rise in her throat again. And just as she thought her mind might burst, it stopped.
She looked and she saw three men. Old clothes. Very old. Centuries old. One was incandescent with anger, screaming, waving his arms, his face a mask of rage and indignation. Next to him was an older man with clothes that suggested a religious order and wealth. The third was a face she almost knew but couldn't place. A face that she'd seen in a painting. Young, dark-haired, moustache on his upper-lip, a small beard below - a face with a wicked grin. The first man was screaming and pointing at the third, alternating between threatening to have the third gutted like a pig and pointing at the painting on the wall which showed a horse's ass before the prone figure of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. She tried to focus on the third man's face, to put a name to him. And then it clicked.
'Told you it would get weird', he said.
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'Precipice of some promised land' by Dr. Joanne.
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/01/the_game_paint_it_black.html
'This isn't the first time that this has happened, is it?' he asked, leaning back in his chair.
Michael paused, chewing on his answer before speaking. 'No. No it isn't. But...'
'But what? Go on.'
'Well, it wasn't exactly the same when it happened before. Not really. It was different. This was, this was more intense. More real.'
'How many times has this happened?'
'I don't know' Michael answered.
'Can you describe to me what happened the first time? The first memory you have of this happening...'
'I can try' said Michael. And he did.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 2
"Play the game for more than you can afford to lose. Only then will you learn the game."
- Winston Churchill
Press Play.
March 1984
Ask most eight-year olds what they'd rather do with their time and the option to sit in a car listening to the same cassette, on repeat, for five days would probably not rank very highly. But it did for Michael. On a holiday in the north of Ireland with his mother, there wasn't much by way of distraction or entertainment for an imaginative child to find. The small Donegal village they were staying in had a sleepy feel to it - a port town which had lost most of its trade in the 19th century. Its docks sat mostly unused, a rusting fishing boat beached against the riverbank, the tidal motions lapping at its punctured hull. Sure, there were plenty of woods and rivers to explore around the area, but Michael found himself whiling away the hours in his mother's parked car, playing the same tape over and over. 'Construction Time Again' by Depeche Mode. The house they were staying in had no TV, no radio. Books offered scant relief. The car had become a refuge, a place to get lost in something, to while away the few days remaining until he could get back to Dublin to his friends and his street.
He'd found the tape in his mother's house, lying unclamied on the mantelpiece in the front room and through some curiosity he couldn't quite explain loaded it up on to the tape deck. He preferred playing albums on vinyl, but made an exception in this case. Perhaps it was the cover of the tape. Perhaps it was the weird name of the band. Either way, it was different than anything he'd ever heard before: clipped, minimal electronic rhythms with oddly affecting melodies. He didn't know why he'd never heard music like this before. He didn't know why all music didn't sound like this - brilliant, pulse-raising, inventive. Just cool. 'Cool'. It was a new word in his vocabulary, heard in the schoolyard, in between discussions of Return of the Jedi and swopping Panini football stickers. He wasn't entirely sure what it actually meant, but he was pretty sure that Depeche Mode were cool. They sounded like they were cool anyway. Two minute warning. Shame. Love in itself. He'd never heard songs like this - not the music, not the words. Nothing.
He'd never really listened to the words of songs before. He didn't know why he hadn't but now couldn't understand why you wouldn't. There was something about the rhythm of the lyrics, the way they moved through the music, shimmering and shouting in equal measure, telling you how the world worked, hinting at something bigger. Hinting at something else beyond just the sound and words. Something that he could almost see when he closed his eyes. An urgency or a fear, squirming beneath the basslines. The simple magic of sound and voice.
After a day or two of listening, over and over, immersing himself in the soundscape, he could close his eyes and let the music twist what he saw. Shapes shifting. Colours moving in circles. Percussion tracks made from pipes and metal, sparking streaks of light across the inside of his head. Michael breathed deeply. And sang. We're lying by the orange sky. Two million miles across the land. Scattered to the highest high. Expect they'll either laugh or cry. No sex, no consequence, no sympathy. You're good enough to heat.
He allowed the music to do what it did. Allowed it to suggest images, moods. Pictures swam in and out of view. Play. Rewind and play. Over and over. He listened. Listened to Gahan's voice bellowing out the words. Listened to the backing vocals. The percussion. The voice that he sometimes thought he could hear at the edge of the song. A voice that could drift in and out of focus. Sometimes clear. Sometimes muted. It was a woman's voice. Older than him. Much older. Perhaps a woman in her thirties? He could hear the rain starting outside the car, the drops hitting the windscreen. He saw a room. Dark, red and black shapes and sounds. It was busy, people moving, laughing, holding glasses and chatting. The clothes looked wrong. Like they didn't belong. Like they were from another time. The music blared from speakers on the wall. Two minute warning. Two minutes later. When time has come. My days are numbered.
The people's faces became clearer. Their haircuts, their eyes. The weird looking clothes, all of it came into view. Sharper than sharp, it became frighteningly real. The dawning of another year. Marks time for those who understand. One in four still here. While you and I go hand in hand. No radio, no sound, no sin, no sanctuary. So welcome to your last.
What was this? How was he doing this? Was he doing this? He saw a shape. A circle. Sliced in half with a curve. Two shapes. Two fish. Joined with a string. Spinning and looping, they followed each other in space. Don't open your eyes, a voice said. A voice that he knew. A voice that made instant sense, telling him he was safe. A voice like home. You're doing fine, she said. Don't be afraid. He breathed, scanned the room, moved through it in his head, probing, pushing, looking for the owner of the voice. People jostled, their bodies moving to the music, bumped him and pushed him. Then he saw her. Black hat. A smile, spreading across a beautiful face. Blue eyes. A slight scar just showing on her forhead. She looked about twenty years old. About forty years old. About ten years old. She winked. I can't wait for us to happen, she said.
'Michael? Michael? Can you hear me?' his mother asked. He opened his eyes. His mother was standing with the car door open, a puzzled grin on her face. 'You feckin eejit! You were miles away!'
'Sorry' he said quietly, 'I was just listening to me tape'.
'Wanna come in for some dinner or we have to bring the car stereo with us?'
'I'll be in now. Two minutes' he said.
'So' said the man, leaning back in his chair again, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, 'that's very interesting'
'Interesting?' How is that interesting? It makes me sound like I should be locked away, right? People who behave like that get locked away, right?'
'Well, some people do, yes. When they're violent for example. But not everyone like that does. Some people learn to control it. Use it.'
'Use it?'
'Yes, use it. Make it do things. See things. Learn things. Meet people - people that are hard to meet in real life'
'Huh?'
'Tell me Michael, what did you think of what the girl said to you?'
'I don't know. I didn't think about it too much'
'Nonsense. You've been thinking of her ever since, haven't you? The girl that appears in your dreams. The one you've been dismissing as a figment of your imagination. Michael, do you remember how you got here today?'
Michael paused again, his mouth wide open. 'No, no I don't'
'Hmm. Seems there are some gaps in your head. As though even talking about this is shorting your short-term memory. You've been infected with a powerful virus.'
'Virus? What? What virus?'
'A language virus. Relax, it'll make sense in time. The main thing is, you're with friends here...'
'Here?' Where am I?'
'Relax. There's nothing to worry about. There are just some gaps. I'm here to help you fill them in. If you'll let me that is.'
'Am I going mad?'
'Mad?' laughed the man. 'Good Lord no. Not at all.'
'But it isn't normal, what's been happening to me'
'You're right there. It's not normal. But you're not the only one.'
Michael paused. 'I'm not?'
'Nope' said the man with a sigh and a smirk. 'You're not alone at all. And I don't mean that in the simple sense of the expression.'
'I don't understand' Michael said.
'Well, having just listened to what you've said, having seen the things that I've seen over the years, knowing what I know about who you really are, well, I'm now pretty sure of something'
'What?'
'There are two of you'
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Cleanliness is next to Godliness by Dr. Joanne
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/01/the_game_construction_time_aga.html
Of all the cities that you could choose to go mad in, Berlin would probably not be the best. Not that Michael had much choice. It just kind of happened. Sure, it could have been worse - he could have been in the middle of the desert, a superpub in Brighton or a Vegas tittybar. But Berlin, given it's somewhat haunted nature, does provide a rarified backdrop for a psychotic episode.
Game 1, Level 1, Stage 1
'The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill'
- Robert Anton Wilson
Press play.
Present Day
Michael had wanted to visit Berlin since he'd been about ten years old. He wanted to see the Reichstag, to stand at the Brandenburg Gate, to see what was left of the wall, to stand at the site of the book burnings. He'd done all of this in his three days here so far, but today was the highlight - the big Nazi walking tour of Berlin. And he was having a ball. His old man was a Second World War buff and much of it had rubbed off on Michael. His adoptive father had lived through the war. A man who had seen Laurel and Hardy on stage.
When he was eleven, Michael had stolen a glance at a history book which his father kept on a shelf in the front room, just out of a child's reach. It contained vivid pictures of Berlin during the last days of the Third Reich. Shells. Mayhem. Air raid alarms. Shattered buildings. Dismembered bodies. Terrified teenagers in ill-fitting uniforms. Images that were seared into his mind. Old one-ball himself standing outside his shuddering Fuhrerbunker, the cold biting at his face as the last shreds of his empire fell apart around him. The fuhrerbunker. The very name had given Michael the fear, making the small hairs on the back of his arm stand up. Where Hitler and Eva Braun had taken their lives. Where Goebbels and his wife had seen off their six children and then themselves. Where their bodies were burnt in a pit rather than let them fall into the hands of the advancing Red army. The Fuhrerbunker. It was the stuff of bad computer games, scenery-chewing movie dialogue and nagging, persistent nightmares.
Many times as a teenager his dreams had been filled with images of the water-logged corridors, the rotting furniture, the crumbling Nazi insignia, the echoes of clipped voices, the smell of decay and the dead, black silence broken only by a constant drip drip drip of fetid water on the frame of a rusted bed.
It was daft he knew, but Michael had long wanted to see the place for himself. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity, but perhaps also just to confirm, once and for all, that that bastard was dead. Now, 23 years after stealing a glance at a forbidden history book, he was here. Taking the big Nazi walking tour of Berlin with an American tour-guide called 'Mort'.
Mort had been a dentist in the US army, first stationed in Berlin during the sixties. He'd born witness to the wall divide the city, watched it come down, watched the city stand in horror as the SS torture chambers were excavated before the staring eyes of the masses, watched as the city erupted into a small civil war when the newly unified government tried to replace the eastern Berliner's 'Pork-pie hat' green man symbols on the traffic lights and had, he intoned with a wicked smirk, married two German women. The latter, the guide told them with a growing smile, had given him a greater qualification for understanding Berlin than anything else. No-one argued with him.
The tour had taken them around the whole city, showing them the fragmentary remains of Albert Speer's unrealised dream of 'Germania' - the super-city to be built on the site of Berlin. An imperial city to rival Rome, where 'the master race' would govern an empire that spanned the globe. Stumps remained. Starting at the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Mohrenstraße with the Albert Speer designed, Joseph Goebbels-run Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (a soulless, neo-classical slab of granite which evoked shudders from the group) they moved on to Goering's Luftwaffe HQ (later the GDR government building where, in 1953, Russian tanks drove over people) and on to the location of Hitler's destroyed Reichchancellry. The tour was mostly a vision of things that were no longer there. In fact, the only piece of 'Germania' to really survive was Templhof airport - a now abandoned glimpse of an alternate Nazi future.
Whilst he enjoyed the tour and found Mort's stories gripping, Michael was anxious to see the Fuhrerbunker. Three hours into the tour his heart sank when he realised he had arrived at the location of the apartment complex in which he had been staying: a unremarkable block of flats from the 1970's off Wilhelmstraße. This was close to where they had begun earlier that day. Slightly deflated and expecting Mort to wrap things up, he had almost tuned out when he suddenly heard him mention the word he had been waiting to hear all afternoon: fuhrerbunker.
'Where is it?' Michael blurted, all eyes glancing to him.
'You're standing on it' said Mort with a sudden smile.
'What?' said Michael, casting his eyes around him at the unremarkable car-park that he stood in. 'But, but, I'm staying in that apartment. That one right there' he said, raising a hand to point at a window some thirty feet behind Mort's right shoulder.
'Yep. This is the site of Hitler's Fuhrerbunker. Right here. It was destroyed during the sixties when the Russians threw some grenades down the shafts and sealed it up. Blew the place to pieces apparently' said Mort with a cheerful smile.
Michael's breath caught in his throat. 'But I've been sleeping here for three days...' he said weakly. Someone laughed. Michael didn't.
Mort carried on, explaining with expansive gestures where the entrance had been, holding up a laminated page showing a grainy image of Hitler and a young soldier standing at the entrance to the bunker, taken the day before he shot himself. Mort's voice began to drone in Michael's ears, taking on a dark, relentless beat. Cyanide. Murder. The shells getting closer. The madness. The screaming. Eva Braun dancing. The music. He could hear the music. What? How could he hear music? That was ridiculous. Boom. That was a shell. That was another. It was getting closer. I can't breathe, he thought. I can't breathe. Tingling in the skin. A heartbeat, getting louder. That shell was closer. Voices. He could hear voices. Over-lapping. Not in English. It was German. Another shell. A scream in the distance. The dull thud of anti-aircraft fire. The music. He could still hear that stupid fucking music. A click. Another click. Boom. The clicking and snapping of someone trying to light a zippo-lighter, their hands frozen in the night air. Click. Why do we have to burn this? asked a voice. A young man. Man - he sounded no more than sixteen. His face loomed out of the dark, the car-park retreating, evaporating like mist. He was a boy. Wearing a uniform. He spoke German, but Michael could hear him and understand everything he said. I don't know why, said another. Slightly older. Shivering. Click. Click. Snap. Boom. The concrete bunker walls loomed above them both. Why do we have to burn it? he asked again. It's so beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. A beautiful work of art. A black image slashed with light and moving figures swam across Michael's eyes. He recognised the painting without being able to name it or the artist. Why do we have to burn it, he asked again. Don't burn it said Michael. Please don't burn it. It's more important than you know, he told them. And they looked at him. Right at him. The fear on their faces trembled down their arms, where burning lighters shook in the breeze, flickering across the walls of the bunker. Don't burn it. Please. We won't, one replied. We won't burn it. But at a price, the other said. What, Michael asked. You're in, the young one said with a slight smile. Welcome to the game.
'Michael?' she said urgently, shaking his shoulders. 'Michael? Can you hear me?'
Slowly, Michael opened his eyes. There was a group of people standing above him, some smiling, some looking concerned.
'Did they burn - did they burn it?'
There was silence. 'I think you had a fall young man' said a kindly American voice. 'Take your time'.
Two people sat him up and another offered him a hot drink. He sipped at the thermos without saying anything, his breath rasping in the cold. He shook.
'What happened to me?' Michael asked.
'You fainted' said a woman with a British accent.
'The soldiers. Where did the soldiers go?'
'Oh pet,' she giggled, 'there haven't been any soldiers here for decades'.
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Primal Scream by Dr. Joanne
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2009/01/welcome_to_the_game.html
Photo: ©Kim Haughton
'So, you had a book published then did ye?' he says, tipping the brim of his hat back from his eyes. They were slightly bloodshot, with a hint of mischief about them.
'Well, sort of,' I said, in between gasps of air, 'I didn't write all of it. Only bits'
'But you were published?'
'Well, yes. I was, I suppose'
'And now you can't breathe because you're too pisht, too high and too excited?'
'I think so. I mean, I don't know'.
'Well' he says flicking through the pages with this thumb, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, 'I wouldn't get too carried away with yourself just yet. It's a load of shite, if you ask me'
'You reckon?'
'Yep' he says, 'but then again that's what the fuckers told me for ten years'.
'There's a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall'
Two years earlier. London, June 2006. A tube tunnel between Camden and Chalk Farm stations.
The train has stopped dead in a tunnel during the middle of a record-breaking heatwave. Beads of sweat roll down the back of necks. Limbs twitch. Bodies move restlessly. No-one can hear what the announcements are saying because the air-con units are blasting so loud they drown out the driver's voice. Fight or flight. What did he say? Jesus, how hot is it in here - 45? 50? The back of my neck is burning. How hot? No, it can't be that hot. Yes, it can. How long before you become de-hydrated? Can heat like this induce fainting? Can it induce a heart-attack?
A man in front of me is pouring sweat, looking irritated, his hands massaging his face. A bald, hawkish-looking man in a suit and tie, seemingly oblivious to the cattle transport-like conditions, sits reading the FT nearby. How the fuck can he not be dying in that ridiculous suit? A woman sighs and shifts her bag on her shoulder. I can't breathe. I can't fucking breathe. My heart is hammering like a bass drum on speed. I'm going to have a heart attack. I'm gona die down here. Here - in a fucking tube tunnel. Like a rat. Like a shithead. I never wrote that book. Why didn't I write that book? Cos you're a useless cunt, that's why. A useless waste of a good fucking liver. Open your sleeves. Let some air at your skin, you useless bastard breathe man breathe, just breathe. I am not going to die down here. Not today. No fucking way. Not today.
Press play.
Grounds For Divorce - Elbow
'I've been working on a cocktail called "Grounds for Divorce"'
June 12th, 2008. Eason's book store, O'Connell Street, Dublin. 12 pm.
'Hi there' I say to the lady behind the information desk.
'Hi, what can I do for you?'
'Well' I begin, pulling my camera out of my bag, 'I was wondering if it would be okay to take some pictures of that book over there'. I point to three rows of 'A Load of Blather' which are sitting on the top shelf of the new Irish section. 'I wrote some of that book and wouldn't mind getting a snap of it - you know, just for myself'
'You wrote that?' she asks.
'Uhm, yeah'
'Could you sign them for us? If you sign them, you see, we can put a sticker on them - helps them sell sometimes'
'Sign them? Uhm, sure, yeah, why not...'
'Okay so, hang on there and I get you a rolla stickers and a pen'
'Thanks' I say, genuinely pleased with myself.
Beside us, a middle-aged Dublin woman is eyeballing me suspiciously.
'What's yer buke about?' she asks.
I pause. I honestly have no idea how to answer her. 'Ehm...' I begin and then stop. 'Here', I say, thrusting a copy into her hand, 'read the back cover - that explains it really.'
As she begins to run her eyes over the back-cover blurb, I start signing the pile of copies that the information desk lady has brought me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the second lady shifting on her feet, her face scrunching up as she reads the cover. She looks like someone just insulted her.
'Nah' she drawls through her nose, handing me back the book, 'not really my type of thing luv'.
Minutes pass, and I stand at the desk signing a giant pile of books, my signature becoming ever-more illegible with each passing copy. It suddenly occurs to me that no-one has actually asked me to prove who I am. I mean, I could be anybody. I could be some random nutter that spends his days going around bookstores, claiming to be the author of books he never wrote and scrawling foul, lewd comments on the inner sleeves of new publications. As I'm thinking this, I suddenly become aware of one of the queue of people who are lining up for the information desk. It's an elderly man, his leathery face a road map of Dublin pubs.
'Is the bathroom still closed?' he asks the lady.
'Yeah, it is luv' she says sweetly.
'Oh' he says, his voice dropping in dissapointment. 'I thought the fortnight was up?'
'No' says she, 'It isn't'.
'Okay so' he says, and shuffles off.
'There's this whispering of jokers doing flesh by the pound'
June 12th, 2008. 9.30pm. Dice Bar. The book launch.
'I voted no'
'Why?'
'Cos I didn't understand what they were askin' me.'
'That's no fucking reason to vote no, you stupid fuck'
'Yes it...'
'No it fuckin' isn't'
'Yes it is - it's a perfectly good reason to vote no. That shower of arseholes in the Dail assume that'll we'll vote yes on any shite they put in front of us - without ever having to explain what it is. Well, sorry - they do have to explain it to us. And if they can't see that - well, then they're not fit to run a game of fuckin' monopoly'
'Jesus you make wanna puke. I'm serious man - this kinda shite shouldn't be brought to referendums. The government should just sign the things for us'
'Really? Ah sure fuck it then, let's just get rid of elections while we're at it then and let them run the place for us, yeah?'
Twenty minutes later.
'He's a cunt'
'We know that - I mean we've always known that. He was a cunt when he arrived - I mean look at his fookin' haircuts for God's sake. But he's brilliant. 42 goals in a season? Player of the year twice in a row? Champions League Final goal? I mean, he's a genius...'
'All true. But he's still a cunt.'
'Hmmm...'
And do you know why?'
'Why?'
'Cos he's a cunt'.
One hour later.
'I am not signing that'
'Yes you are'
'I'm not'
'Sign it.'
'I am not signing your...'
'SIGN IT'
'I am not signing my name on your...'
'SIGN MY BREAST'
'To a chorus of supposes from the little town whores'
One hour after that.
Standing outside the Dice Bar, there are now something in the order of fifty people smoking. The air is thick with the stink of grass and people are slobbering into pints. Music thunders from inside where a scrum of bodies are battling to get to the bar. I don't think I've put my hand in my pocket in two hours and I've been refusing pints for almost forty minutes. I'm aware that I'm getting too drunk too fast and that I need to calm down. I notice that several people around me are weeping laughing at something across the street. My eyes follow their gaze and I spot a figure of a man, topless, bald, dancing in a second-storey window. Like a maniac. He's got a tin of beer in one hand and a rolled cigarette in the other and seems to be having his own private party. Shouts are ringing out for him to come down and join us. Five minutes later he does - dancing in the middle of Benburb Street, dodging the oncoming trams and cars, he gyrates and bounces like a loon, his arms and legs flapping in a hideously glorious breakbeat symphony. I laugh like a braying ass. I laugh so hard I lose my breath. And then, slowly at first, almost impreceptibly, it starts...
'There'll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed lounge'
I stagger around the corner, away from the crowd, my hand grasping at the buttons on my shirt, trying to prise them open. I can feel it starting - the rushing blood, the racing thoughts, the irrationality of your own body behaving like someone else is pulling your strings, the sensation of your whole being squirming to burst out of it's skin, like it doesn't belong there, as though it's all wrong, all outside, all pointless and too high to climb. I gasp. I wretch. I feel the heat burning up my arms and the back of my neck. I can feel my heart rate increasing, beating louder and louder, the rhythm becoming more and more erratic, the hairs on my head feel electrified, my eyes starting to...
'So, you had a book published then did ye?' he says, tipping the brim of his hat back from his eyes. He sits on a ledge, outside the side of the pub, away from the thronging mass of people, a small glass of whiskey beside him, a copy of the book in his hand. Beside him, on the ledge sits what looks like an ancient copy of the Irish Times.
My eyes swim as I try to focus on his face, my breath too fast. Do I know his face? I recognise it. Is that someone's father? Is he a critic from a paper? Jesus, I'd better be polite.
'Well, sort of,' I said, in between gasps of air, 'I didn't write all of it. Only bits'
'But you were published?'
'Well, yes. I was, I suppose'
'And now you can't breathe because you're too pisht, too high and too excited?'
'I think so. I mean, I don't know'.
He starts flicking through the pages, a little suggestion of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, 'I wouldn't get too carried away with yourself just yet.' He snaps the cover shut and looks right at me. I notice the slightly prominent teeth and start to hear the accent. Where is that? Is it Monaghan? Donegal? Tyrone maybe?
'It's a load of shite, if you ask me' he continues.
'You reckon?' I say, my breath coming back to me now.
'Yep' he says, 'but then again that's what the fuckers told me for ten years'.
He takes a drink and sniggers as he looks at the back cover. 'Although I do like that picture of the Big Fella on the back. Very good. He was a right prick you know.'
'Yeah?' I wheeze.
'Yep - a pup. Although he did have a healthy respect for bicycles. Anyway, what you gonna do now?'
'Well, I was going to have a pint...'
'No, I meant, what are you going to do now'
I look at him, again conscious that I recognise his face but just can't put a name to it. 'You mean, after tonight's over?
'Yep'
'I don't know'
'Yep, neither did I. Never could quite finish that novel'
'Why not?'
'Cos I couldn't let anyone read it. Cos if they read it - then I'd have had to stop writing it'
'Ah. I see'
'No you don't. Not yet anyway'
I let a moment pass. He drinks. I breathe - easier now.
'Can I get you a drink?' I ask him.
'No thanks, fine here' he says draining the glass. 'I'd best be off.'
'Okay, so' I say.
He stands up, shifts his hat down and turns to walk away, pausing for a moment. He looks back over his shoulder and says 'Nice pilgramice'.
+Music+
These words were written whilst listening to 'Grounds for Divorce' by Elbow from the album, 'The Seldom Seen Kid'. Visit their myspace page or buy the album here. Find out more about Elbow at their site.
+Image+
Photo: ©Kim Haughton. Our thanks. See more of Kim's photos of the book launch here.
+Words+
The book A Load of Blather is on sale now for €9.99 plus post and packaging. Click on the cover for more.
http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2008/08/a_load_of_bladder.html
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