Chapter Twenty-Nine

Word Worms

Atoll’s mind was full of worms. Sybil’s chosen secret missive installation procedure, designed to allow communication while circumventing the eyes and ears of inquisitive brains and snooping computers, was sent to him via a wormsnake data-messenger that wriggled around surreptitiously; lurking in the back of his mind, until the right moment to impart Sybil’s communique presented itself.

A third message in a row interrupted Atoll’s train of thought, which was at the station platform waiting for the destination board to light up to tell him where he and his carriages were heading. ‘Botface’s Torso won’t release Jeff. So the best we can do is accept the offer of Dave, and possibly Kirk, in order to liaise with Una, set up a trap for me and pretend I’ve been gotcha’d, at which point we can initiate phase two…’

Atoll did not know anything about a ‘phase two’ and was reluctant to ask, preferring to wait for the designated messenger-worm to fill him in on the details.

Back in the subjugated reality of the Botface Jailtime Administration Matrix (BJAM), Jeff’s imagination bulges had him in a turbulent mind-fidget. Coming reunions were being herded into pens of outcome; outlined into corrals; to be drawn and coloured in; frame-tethered to the greater moving picture in Jeff’s private cinema: the van screeched up from afar in lucid clarity; skidding to a playful halt mere millimetres or more from his bracing toes…homage to the giddy heights of tyre-grip technology and the skill-sets of judicious road handling; shinily reflective paint shone in deep reflection…audio-animate whispertech enabled mototronic-electrobuzz drowned out by the excited barks of an imitation diesel redlining with internally combusting joy… And he saw Una, physically light, blown through with mellifluous Summer breezes; mentally all over the pathways leading to results based outcomes. Their interfacing zapped-up cheer zooming into cloud pandered sky, intertwining in infinite, intimate figures of eight…

But outside the jurisdiction of Jeff’s wishfully thought out fantasyland scenarios there were contrary variances: the van had been dismantled. Stripped down to a most unvanlike state. The whole missing. Parts scattered, disanimated, ghostvanned and tarp-tied… And with a postscript you couldn’t make up: the dashboard assistant, Dash, had been modified and sold to an infamously anonymous billy, to be copied and used as sex facilitation and enhancement robots. 

The remnants of the once assembled vehicle were strewn about the acreage of the same scrapyard from where it collected seven robotic passengers. Once the seven specialist units had been delivered, Viktor had lost interest in protecting the van’s integrity…leaving predators to move in… The feigning robodogs had laser-seized the motor; solderwelded all electroflow, and towed the van back to their master at the junkyard. A deal had been etched with Viktor Flabikov Electromagic Industries. The usual standard contract stipulations had been signed off. The signaturer agreeing to, A: assist and promote the Viktor Flabikov name and corporate identity, and B: kill Viktor Flabikov, the individual, and pocket a fat bonus.

His own creation was closing in on him and Viktor assembled all available troops. Viktor called all robot units and their elements home using an Azimov Mid-Op Post Programming Escalated Reassessment Scheme (AMOPPERS) after they’d experimented, and then taken to, tunnelling under the course, evading out-of-bounds directives in a subterranean display of electro-impertinence…Out-of-Sight-Out-of-Mind command override specialistics, and causing an infestation of mole hills in places where lawns were revered more than sense could describe.

The bots had to be cleaned and serviced, which they did themselves in-house. They were micro-surveyed and pumped full of single-byte code-spoon disprogrammable tid-bits to ensure safety. And realigned narratively to the Flabistub initiative’s secretive machinations. They were finished off with the inevitable trough-feast of data before their eventual ‘mental CEO’ reassembly and adjustment. They were all cypher-linked to a newly registered Flabikovian Decoy Force. Their new function was to parade around the golfing grounds, strolling with gusto; a new and innovative security force, multi-tasking viability assessment of threat emanation strands. And acting as decoys; all of them adopting the appearance of Viktor Flabikov. Decoys never sleep, but they pretend-sleep all the time. They pretend they are dreaming of electric sheep that beep instead of baa. While they were pretending, Viktor pretended he wasn’t adopting his usual slippery avoidance routine and he wasn’t Tiny Guying himself into obscurity. Leaving a staining dollop of influence in the creation of Sybil’s quarantine: the presence of a Super Smart Shutdown System prompting comprehensive billionaire outbound flight.

A good-for-nothing endgame of Nighttime, stirred by its own restlessness in knowing the day could no longer contain the actions Fate had chosen for it. An uncertain mist sharing the night’s feckless sanguinity; disturbed by the day’s slow, imperceptible, unravelling of its mystery… A rippling on the surface of the pool; a physical invasion of peace cameth from amidst the reeds… Scuba-dripping divers slosh-paddle, creeping bent; and strip, naked on the shore, in the floridescent moonlight.

Before entering the stub, in the airlock of the submerged bunker-cum-subterranean submarine… Sybil mouthforthed instructions Atoll needed to negotiate what was coming, not just in the stub sense, but in a greater outerworld macro-omniscient imposed narrative experimentation sense.

‘They mustn’t know,’ Sybil said, far louder than the appropriate whisper option.

‘No…’

‘They must never know,’ she repeated, decreasing the decibels.

‘Yes…’

‘Not ever…’

‘I…don’t know who you mean?’

‘Good…you must never know…’

‘Okay…’

‘If you know then they will know what you know…and that cannot, I repeat, cannot, be allowed to happen.’

‘I haven’t got a clue—’

‘Good…’

‘I don’t understand, it was—‘

‘Soon we shall never speak audibly again…all contact will be private messaging…unless protected by a device.’

‘Worms?’

‘It is imperative we bolster hope for the shapes to come.’

‘How do you mean? I assumed—’

‘Shaping of continued throughflow narrative geometrics, self-storification, and duel-script cypher-coalescence, is, and are, our most important duty, and duties, to ourselves and the legacy gifted to us by the Choir of Kokura…’

‘Blessed is the rising—’

‘Not now… Our togetherness must sound like one heartbeat that is beaten from the same drum… Our thoughts should wrestle in a mud arena, but never not rise to victory holding the same belt aloft… We must honour the gift of the virus we have been infected with.’

It was all true and her words bore heeding, but consciously he could not help reconstructing what she said and delivering it back with brevity and succinctness running the show, and it was from this text that he derived his motivation. And he considered it, after concerned reflection, an example of the alliance working hands in gloves with interlocking fingers and high-fiving palms.

In the stub they never spoke unprotected. Worms would bring messages but also take them back to Sybil, which took a few faltering steps before a workable gait developed.

Viktor Flabikov could not be filed under joke-jockey; he was unrecorded as prone to pranking…so when he’d informed the agents, dropped off pre-dawn from a ex-British, now English (Private) Navy (E(P)N) sub, that the ‘fitting in’ approach necessitated naturist dress, it must have been an error in the chain of administrative data conveyance.

Sybil and Atoll, posing as young romantics, sidled, naked, into the golf reception area and approached the over dressed reception robot…

‘Where’s Viktor?’ Sybil asked, putting on an accent and cementing it with an arrogant tinge that sat skewy atop an oak barrel of self-confidence; risky and labyrinthine, but doing the heavy lifting with bent knees and a straight back.

‘Flabikov’s gone!’ the rev-rob almost shouted back, only half believing the fact: horror blagging hard like excess adrenalin…switching over to a less emotionally programmed-in output to avoid burnout.

‘Where?’

‘He’s gone to meet his maker?’

‘How so?’

‘He is self-made…I should expect his ego drowned in a pool of its own narcissism…’ the bot said, pointing to a freshly posted newspaper headline stapled to the wall, which read: ‘Flabikov Industries has aggressively merged with the Tiny Guy Organisation,’ which meant nothing to anybody at that moment, but later rode up behind them with an explanation that out obvioused all others.

‘I’ll show you to you rooms.’

‘It’s okay, we are guests of the shop.’

‘What shop?’

‘The store.’

‘Oh, okay, cool. Then I won’t show you to your rooms,’ the bot stated with a laugh that tried to inject some humour but missed the vein.

Atoll paused to take in another wormessage: ‘Life with a heavy viral infection like the one we carry takes on a slightly different slant with a varying lean… You’ll need to adapt to carry it as effectively as possible into spheres where it needs to be spread to…to where it needs to be spread…’

They both surprised themselves at how relaxed they were by being at large in birthdayware and reacted minimally, in the scheme of things, when the temporary manager’s vice assistant explained that covering up with clothing’s being a hundred percent adhered to by a hundred percent of the robots and people serving as the populace… He assured them no one was doing the ‘naked thing’, and that their associate must have been playing the josher.

They went upstairs to the flat above the shop. It wasn’t just a flat, it was also a Bobvylan Cage that insulated data from egression and detection. It was a sanctuary where, once inside with the doors and windows shut, they could talk in wormlessness for the duration of the visit. 

A fey couple invited them in with barely suppressed reluctance. They wanted only to be alone as the their running management systems were not open source ready; they were in closed circuit recycling mode. Sybil drifted in and bolted the front door, checking visually that the windows were closed. After observing their exhibited behaviour it was clear Una was dumb…and showed it… A quick scan from Sybil showed Una was in there; way down, fighting to create a realistic enough narrative to take up the current story slack…she was in the ‘unlikely monologue’ stage, edging towards insinuation and executive narrative power sharing.

Jeff, wearing an off-the-shoulder wetsuit, on the outside, and on the inside bore an aggravated and frustrated Dave, pseudo-perky between bouts of depression brought about by Una refusing his sexual advances with the blunt repellant instrument of highly proficient Capoeira. 

‘You can’t live your life with one thing on your mind when that one thing could break your neck,’ Sybil, forwarded as friendly advice cowering beneath a moral umbrella.

‘It’s not me…Kirk makes me do it.’

‘Is Kirk in your brain with you right now?’

‘Yes…’

‘Can we speak to him?’

‘He’s gone on holiday.’

‘So he is not controlling your impulses?’

‘He is…he just leaves a caretaker intent impulse override facilitator scheme, do-dar, thing.’

Dave had gone down hill and everything was getting so on top of him he could no longer see the hill even if he wanted to get back on the carousel of social splendidness.

‘Can we work it how it is? Will this be enough to trap you in to the quarantine phasing remodification?’

‘No.’

‘What do we need?’

‘Nothing short of Una back in charge, even dataholed, glitch-ridden and byte-shedding, she needs to exhibit some sovereignty or its just vapid feigning.’

‘And Jeff?’

‘Dave can be coerced…will be…’

‘How? What do you mean?’

‘Suggestion! … Watch! …’ she said, as she sunk lower and slower into the fathomless, shallow sands of the Suggestive…time in hand, Dave in tow.

It could never be certain how far they went, or how long the segmentation of alternative timescales stretched, but when they resurfaced Dave had undergone reinvention. He was impersonating Jeff with mirror quality mimicry; emulated perfection that could’ve crossed mountain ranges via the hard pass.

While time fractured, splintered and reformed with a spotless veneer, Atoll had been making a quick assessment and concluded Una was unapproachably distant. A more scrupulous assessment to ascertain some kind of timeframe for her estimated potential return was ongoing…

Atoll tried to contact the mailroom, knowing that it would be as dead as ever, but the process shook loose a few memories regarding his past and the working relationship he’d established with Una… She’d not been official, but he could not have done without her. Whether or not coincidence had chimed in, Una stirred on cue. Atoll imagined a switch being flicked inside the otherwise zombielike Una. She began showing interest in Atoll. And eventually initiated a bitty conversation. She told him about dreams that he’d appeared in, not as him, but as someone else. She has stored away questions that would not give up their secrets and she said she was going to dig them out for Atoll to assess. He had been looking into her eyes when she responded by asking him about her past…memories that seemed false but insisted they were legit… Atoll felt he could sense the real Una; essences and elements rising in bubbles from the depths of her caretaker physiology.

Dave had buried his base animal urges and replaced them with new man off-the-boil-expectation, not pushing, not pulling…just quietly observing, ever ready, never heady. Every next-move consideration went through a what-would-Jeff-do filter in triplicate…

‘I’ll take you down to meet the relief robomanager Clyde…I call him Clyde because it reminded me of the days in Vistamatics when I could sing and play guitar… I was head of the Cassidy gang you know…’

The shop was being managed by an auto-store management system. Clyde was just a physical, robotic stand in…ready to arbitrate on any shoplifting incidents to prevent the gung-ho, auto-store thiefkill-security-solutions system from harming first and damage limitation; legal admin paperwork, second.

Atoll wanted to know whether the system was cognisant of the plot to trap and quarantine the Super Smart Shutdown System. He needn’t have been concerned because Sybil had already disabled the system and taken it over…so it was fully onboard and playing in the band on the upper deck.

‘Did Viktor make sure you were programmed for our deception?’ Atoll enquired.

‘Oh do shut up…focus!’

In code-suspiciously conjured words, the robo-manager, a modified ex-golf bot pro, said, ‘this is classed as belonging to yourself, chieftain,’ and handed Atoll a heavy rucksack. A muffled voice came from inside, ‘I am Botface’s Torso! There is a reward for my return,’ a standard vacation mode ‘answerphone’ message that Atoll recognised.

‘Open sesame.’

‘Open says a you…’

‘I thought you were being stored by the Commander back at the sub…the bunker?’

‘The Commander has a resin copy, she thinks she’s prisonered me but she is the incarcerated one,’ Botface’s Torso said, fully woke, intending an evil laugh but projecting only silence…he was down, very down: waking up in the hands of the individual who was being groomed to bring his downfall; his greatest nemesis; seemingly unthreatening as Atoll was in that moment, the unconsciously fostering of a true identity that was brewing up to break the world signified a doom laden horizon…reminded Botface’s Torso of his fate which was to serve the elite and put everyone else in their place with as much barbaric velocity as required, and then a ton load more on top sauced, with an hysterical chronic bursts of schadenfreude like malicious malevolent hiccups in the population’s face.

‘You are to deliver the rucksack to Tiny Viktor Guy.’

‘The contents…the rucksack is irrelevant…’

The immediate conundrum facing Atoll was that the hardware in the rucksack he was tasked to take to Tiny Viktor Guy was the very portal that he would have to use to get there. The process needed a little more processing…

‘Flabikov discarded me, had no use for either of us, but now he is Tiny Viktor Guy it’s all, rally round fellows I have bidding to be bade.’

‘You sound rebellious…’

‘I know, it’s a glitch I have to endure, I am, in fact, totally committed to acquiescence. I see myself as putty for the window frame of humanity…and Play-doh for the elites. I can mitigate the coming of my own hands on the levers of Terror and Abomination by Liability sharing with fellow monsters. Look, Atoll, I’m a wholesome soul, you’re a wholesome soul, but when we are joined in biomechanical matrimony, decency will wilt on the vine with creeping abhorrence. The day we marry is the day I become the monster I fear the most.’

‘I hear you… What can we do?’

‘Get as far from each other as we possibly can…and keep throwing spanners in the works.’

‘That’s what I thought… I ‘m hooked up theoretically, but I do need a little more information…’

Botface’s Torso had the solution to Atoll’s apparent confusion. A store cupboard had been kitted out and set up for them to try a test marriage…

‘To the sandbox!’

‘What is this?’

‘It will open our eyes to the reality of our designated future as we cast a dark ominous cloud over everyone else, and cast lightning and thunder upon those not ready to see the light,’ Botface’s Torso said, in a way that made Atoll understand something he’d never been able to decipher: that Fate had him by the throat and would never let him go. His Life of Greatness would carry a high tariff. In one frame of mind Atoll sought to be good, under the Good banner, but in another frame that was obscured at depth, where he was ripe and ready for Botfacification…he really didn’t give a shit.

Atoll went ahead with the revelation of a test marriage…it would be brief, around one second, but seem like about three days perceptually. Doors opened and ceilings parted…Scale and her measurements went off the roof. There were multiple considerations…adherence to subtle but staunch righteousness and rectitude…permission to go forth with authorised versions of insanity; an injecting of power that made the eyes roll into the back of the head where they played in a pinball machine that you’d never’ve guessed was there even when you were playing it ballside.

He was equally peer-grouped among associates of world-class order and the world-order class…all manner of human/machine interaction with each other and the planet full of controllable human units all organised and primed for subordinate pliability. The words, ‘far-reaching’, did not begin to grasp the Giant of Understanding’s flapping coat tails…

Atoll was ushered into an exclusive controlling organisation run by the elite. It fed his hungrier than ever hinterland where stout enduring traditions, profound beliefs, supreme ways of conduct that avoided moral scrutiny, developed into vessels and vehicles to deliver global local upgrading for the common good of the elite.

The test marriage left Atoll in no doubt that he was on a fast-tracked escalator to the walkway of greatness… Getting the doable done all the way up. And there were rafts of tranches of things to do… There were educational program forests to negotiate, a learning curve step-up challenge…lessons, lectures, instruction manual libraries.

He would be a more educated version of himself by the time his new life had caught up with him. He was on a great journey to a Land of Terrible.

Top of the hit list was: kill Sybil… There was no confusion about it. It was a direct and unavoidable intention that the momentum of all thrust was fully dedicated to. Although, once unmarried, at test’s end…a light breeze blew through where a gale once ravaged.

Then, for heads up information disclosure obligation:

There was a gap, (an edit?); a black-screened break of some sort for whatever reason…memory of events long left the venue. The next frame of reference starts up: ‘Botface’s Torso.’ A voice from within the bag. Which Atoll opened and looked inside.

…halfway out of the test, in an area inaccessible to external forces, his viral infection ‘spoke’ in metaphorphically adjusted code-cyphering. It was the only hope he had if he did not want to defect to the other side. A whole pros and cons of Good versus Evil had to play out and by the time it had he was firmly back on the safe ground of the Good soul… His Evil banishing eyes glaring at the promise they had in store for him.

He pointedly rejected the version of his future self who would be ‘I’m alright, Jack’, replacing him with the fairer version of, ‘are you alright, Jack?’ But then he wondered what he’d miss by virtue of his virtuousness.

He felt that he was in a stalemated tug-of-war with himself… The side he chose was not necessarily the side he’d get. His future self hid far off in the darkness; the outcome oscillating like a mad star.

It should have been cut and dried according to ‘Their’ plan, but it was mushed and hushed: ‘They’ were draining his moral pool while the Children of Gaza virus was filling it up…