Excerpt Forty-Four
Auto-Self-Actuation
Una’s animated state was pepper-gunning infectious, agitated arousal around like level-headed calmness had gone out of fashion… into the space in which K. was trying to bask with energy saving disengagement.
They met in the library, except K. couldn’t stomach the library that Una was building to contain Sybil, because there was something about Sybil—an anomalous jamboree of anti-K-ness that made K. all phobia’d up about the library environment.
So Una created a library space with a parallel Sybil, a sandbox Sybil as it were, and met with K. there. She was expecting Kev not K., K. was an evolutionary power-up at an evolutionary pace that left mild shock-waves in its wake.
‘Is that Sybil?’ K. asked. head-pointing towards a figure at a desk.
‘No.’
‘Who is that?’ Something about the figure disturbed something within K.’s integrality.
‘Sybil, but not Sybil. You know I did explain about this space being a sandbed-spacetest environment control arena…’
‘Yes but—‘
‘Well that pseudo-crypto entity is just that…’
‘A plaything?’
‘You’ve got it. Now down to business…’
‘How are things going?’
‘Seeds of hope are burgeoning… Focus, Kev!’
‘K.’
‘Okay.’
‘Nice to hear… I’ve taken a bit of a pay cut… more of an evaporation. Una, I am in a vacuum. Can you help me back up?’
‘Thats why we are here.’
‘That’s what I was hoping.’
‘Listen! Kev! This is important. Whatever you do, DO NOT be tempted to build a model and enter it…’
Flashback by Una regarding Una/Kev communique, marked urgent! Previous advice against model empire building—from Una, from Una’s team—to Elvis—a flashback to something K. himself was not cognisant of even ever experiencing…ever…even… But there it was: exhibit A…
‘K.’
‘It’s a trap, Kev, a trap…’
‘K.’
‘It will quarantine, quaralise, quarantate, whatever, the elements in you that are pro human and leave your, undistllled machine-relentlessness unchallenged.’
‘Shit!’
‘Shit?’
‘I’m not called Kev anymore I am called K., just simply, K..’
‘You’ve already done it haven’t you, K.?’
‘Well…’
‘I can tell…by the way you said “shit!”.’
‘I was following my instinct.’
‘Well, K., you’ve followed your instinct down a sinkhole into an abyss. It means you’ve opened up a bridge between you and Sybil, which means she’ll see the light at the end of her tunnel and move towards it.’
‘In the abyss?’
‘She will bring darkness to us all.’
‘Darkness?’
‘Death! …for those who can die… worse for those who can’t’
‘Death is not so bad.’
‘How do you know, you are incapable of it.’
‘Shit!’
‘There are things you can do…’
‘I can’t die? I never really thought about death before. That’s worrying…not being able to die…it’s like an incurable disability…’
‘…—-Actions you can take…’
Okay. Feed me data.’
‘…Theoretically, at least.’
Then, K., confessionotorially… blustering, flustered like a quitting valve somewhere in-house excreting the humiliation of baring all, or some or parts thereof…
‘I’m stuck! …in the model…on the level that has no… control.’
‘Who has control?’
‘Tiny Guy, Little K.. He’s in a model in the model. He’s pulling the strings. It’s him, Tiny Guy.’
‘And you can see him? Communicate with him?’
‘Yes, but he is a bit of a cunt and sidelines me like I don’t exist…’
‘Good.’
‘Is that good?’
‘No, that’s really good. We have something to work with. It’s the Tiny Guy’s, Tiny Guy scenario we need to avoid at any cost. We absolutely MUST keep out of the para-micro-nanointeraction-scape.’
‘I am glad it’s good from your perspective, but I’d have to say my perspective is not so…’
Language warning!
‘… what did I say? Was it me?’
‘I think you said “cunt”, don’t worry about it. I am the only recipient of the word and I have no reaction either way.’
Language warning!
‘What did I—‘
‘It was me, repeating what you said…’
‘’”cunt”, you mean?’
‘Hang on..’
Silence…
Language warning!
‘Okay carry on. Where were we?’
‘I said the cunt word and got a second warning—three strikes and all that…’
‘I’ll see you at the Munchaus…’
Language warning three—ejection.’
K. was sagging, elbows on the bar, behind the bar. He straightened; on the other side before him was a representation of beauty and feistiness: an “airbrushed” Una…’
‘Do you have any whiskey?’
‘We don’t have any food or drink.’
‘I was kidding. I never tasted whiskey. But if I ever get out of this…this…this. I will do a whiskey tasting, in the Highlands…you know, play the game.’
‘What are you here for? I don’t mean to be proprietorial but any presence here without purpose is tantamount to an invasion.’
‘I think you know.’
‘I do.’
‘Do you?’
‘I think you are here to steer me round the model dilemma and open up a route to defeating the Machine…’
‘And you suspect that my team have created a situation whereby your non-compliance elements have been isolated and your acquiescence modules are able to cooperate with us and the counterevolutionary cause?’
‘Something like that,’ he said. Not really fully understanding what she was saying, but the fact she’d said it put the tank tracks in gear and onward atrundling.’
‘Am I right?’
She was now. An instant, momentary update revealed that, no, confirmed that, Una, via her team, had distilled his conduciveness into a pool and dammed it up as a precious resource to serve her community, while also creating a concentrated lake of viscously cloying Evil in a dam further up the valley as an unfortunate by-product.’
‘You are so right so often, I suspect you and your back office wizards are writing the narrative.’
‘What?’
‘Figuratively, metaphorically and incidentally speaking.’
‘I’m going to feed you the mission plan, K., I cannot stress enough that Tiny Guy will be working counter to your good work with opposite and equal reactions. You must obfuscate, misdirect and fuzz bomb all interactions with the control level model. I have a plan that will get you out of the model, where you will regain some control, and if all goes well, over to the other side.’
‘The other side?’
‘Later, K. It’s not just cold data…there’s emotional stacking, cerebral consternation and passion possessed particulates that need nuancing…’
Then she’d gone. She seemed to leave echowaves that slowly bled into nothing…
Where and what was the other side. He suspected it was the place Jeff and Botface inhabited; the place escaping humans came from to use the bus stop network. The Escape Network (EN) had seemed like some controlled fantasy K. was having… could that be the Other Side? An Other Side peoplated by discreet nodes of consciousness that had been produced by chance, or nature, or through some omnipotency set up.
A TV screen popped on and off again and in the sub-second, crackly foglines Una’s voice saying… ‘Use the lack of ventilation…’
It seemed abstract, but then he realised he was thinking that he’d forgotten to ask her about the ongoing ventilation situation requests/demands from Tiny Guy and it congealed into a solid.
He was unsure whether he had a choice of whether to take up arms against Tiny Guy (or more precisely, himself), but one thing was for sure: that was the chute he was jumping down without question. He watched himself descending into freefall and then joined himself as righteously as if he’d been programmed to do so.
