Chapter Twenty-Three

Is God the Camp Commandant?

He didn’t feel small…and that was a relief…it had been a fear…his size perception always seemed to come in short bursts at bad times, so not feeling small on entry to the lair of the great Tiny Guy was a good thing and felt like it had the potential to facilitate greater degrees of burst-longevity the next time he went big and made good.

Although Atoll could see parallels between his (arguable) misfiring into the CREE world…this was different, the same, but different…the CREE world had possessed a crisp and untrodden virginity, while this felt more like a distorted orgy with multiples of himself; it had a distinctly used and abused feel, but one that had been tried and tested.

Atoll tried the mailroom but it was dead…no go there.

He was Atoll; he was Tiny Guy: a state that was both inexplicable and doable at the same time. It was like Atoll was impersonating Tiny Guy impersonating Atoll. They were in it together apart… Atoll wondered what Tiny Guy was doing momentarily and then cut himself off; something did…he was Tiny Guy, after all, wasn’t he; wondering what the other Tiny Guy was doing as Atoll (Whatever happened to him?) would be counter-productive, while what was demanded in the here and now was high productivity.

As is the wont of cut off thoughts…woohooing headless along forbidden corridors on hoverboards of conceit, spraying politically motivated graffitislogans on the walls…a deep and gravitational concern arose: how would the mailroom and The Voice be getting along with the Tiny Guy assuming Atoll’s identity? Would he be honest and come clean or would he present himself as a bona fide Atoll with true fidelity trimmings and hope they didn’t notice? These concerns were an indulgence he needed to shelve so he could concentrate his mental acuity toward the mission…

To prevent his blundering into floundering, Atoll had had to unplug/plug/unplug/plug…flick some switches…code some authorisations; decode some cipher-command sandwiches…then take it upon himself to survey the rooms nearest his ‘throne’: a chair hooked up to super advanced banks of technology… He sat back and let the Curiosity Driver lead his initial footfalls of investigation.…

Temperature sensitive instructions were presented in coded blocks that Atoll needed to dilute into cipher-pools. He was to enter a series of connecting rooms that were set up to inch him away from himself to allow him to become Other. There was a whole world of Tiny Guy that he now part owned and whose exploitation merely needed familiarity to actuate.

It was as though he had been left in a court with a ball; the type of court and ball size being up to Atoll to decide. There was a freelancer’s freedom to his predicament and it sang of epic duels, naked in the Sunrise; told of sweaty, balalaika evenings, glowing and clenching self satisfaction and posing on the plinth of semi-immortality. The jury was strung out, hung out; they were not invited to the ball… Atoll’s judicious conclusions swung in the breeze, swaying slowly back and forth, imitating a skewed, out-of-kilter balance that stank of dried and hollowed out justice. Dismissed by a nonchalant bash of the gavel and a wig pulled down over the eyes, Atoll bathed in coping strategies and rubbed cures into the wounds: what wounds? Wellness abounded; nothing to salve here…

Everything fanned out from Tiny Guy’s throne; each set of rooms marginally bigger than the ones before…and even then promising more and more plus; an increased upsizing in streamlined-gain überspacial-overhousing.

Proximally there were a series of private antechambers opening out into themed spaces that were Tiny Guy through and through; a well worn fabric of Tiny weave and Guyly weft…these man cages lining the man caves would have blown your nose clear off your face had smell been an accessible sense.

There was a weapons room, housing equipment ranging from standard pistols and grenades to pure sci-fi ordnance…a cabinetted world of offensive gung-ho triggering…a gallery dedicated to the Manfault of scuppered peace…The room-vibe was a dirge that suggested gravy-trains rumbling over sleepers made from gravestones…the diplomacy of doom.

Atoll tried the mailroom again, but was left unmet by an audio-deficient, cadaverous response, which moved him on to other potential options… ‘Tiny Guy comms…Tiny Guy… Come in comms…’ Atoll tried. Tiny Guy could’nt’ve functioned to such a high level without the aid of some sort of support system…but there was no response other than from Atoll’s own coping strategies taking yet more incoming hits; having to process yet more drasticisationally impending fantasy darkness.

In the Blueprint rooms, Atoll flicked through albums housing old snaps, paraphernalia and documentation from days of infancy past.

Within the time-loading, that was beginning to pile up, Atoll was introduced to the secrets of Tiny Guy’s success: impersonation and imitation. Atoll entered the room that housed Tiny Guy’s disguises. These linked rooms held within them enough stories to fill all the books ever felt. It was as though there were costumes, make up and prosthetics to cover every single type and variation of person known to Man. Not just male, but female: tranning through to andro… A cornucopia of incognito fruits imitating vegetables and vice versa. A veritable forest of pretend trees. Atoll passed through swiftly, noting stuff, making mental lists; firing up a whole cartwheel of treelined avenues of directional possibility. Staying physically centred was a mustful do, so that the fantasy/mental can work itself out to pave the way for the physically/mental component of operational through-purpose sporadodiligent modal fixation. 

Unwilling and wary of doing harm first, Atoll took to pottering around with a sandbox mind-state; his first step being familiarisation. Working on becoming integrated by mundane repetitive activity that trained the environment to accept fully his presence. He frequented all the immediate rooms up to where there was an edge, a drop with a climb; an altogether different environment that led to inviting looking buildings that were on stilts. It looked like they were built on land that was prone to flooding. They were the sort of buildings that your mind could not fully accept until you visited them to collect absolute proof they were not just a figment of imagination.

Overbinding perceptions were fluid and ongoing; once Atoll had mapped the areas available to him they seemed to shrink; it felt to him as though he was a jet plane, forever taxiing; his take off necessitating the construction of a suitably wide and long runway; not a footpath, not a ring road. He waited for the catalyst’s shocking thunder or lightning, or the simultaneous both. And in the waiting the deluge of useless thought that seemed intent on tarnishing its own name; asked nicely to cease, would just not stop.

His evolving negative neutral position was revolving towards a circular forward-backwardness; constantly re-presenting itself; asking no great questions; set in a shallow whine…he didn’t want that for himself and hoped the forces controlling him didn’t either. 

Whining into a gripe; a monolag of disspirance: why had he been told to curb self-analysis; the sooth-stoppers remedy for life: keep out of it. And yet beyond the veneer of the ceiling of experience there was a sky of self-discovery, waiting, empty, willing. If the human mind holds such potential why do they tell us not to attempt to use it? Atoll’s mind was addled into a drought by worthless inquisition; overcome and occupied, overdue for the providence of existential moisture. He became brittle…

There was a gap.

Then it broke:

Sunshine and smog…Los Angeles…still there after all those golden oldies; the projection room of Western culture…smeltering and smaltering in its narrative command readiness.

‘Welcome back,’ said the Voice, making Atoll feel both welcome, back and much, much more…

‘Voicey, mate, how are you, man?’ he responded, safe at home base.

‘Listen…’ the Voice said, the flow of emotion counterpunched and floored by a sudden sick-inducing gravity.

‘Yes?’

‘The top brass have a few tweaks they need to get actuated before commencing the next phase. They don’t need to ask permission, but asking helps provide stability that ameliorates accusations of moral disturbationism…on the forms, and such like.’

‘Top brass’, ‘tweaks’, ‘next phase’…this was more than just mumblejumbaloney.

The Voice spoke and Atoll listened; A knowingness wrestled with unknowingocity, a familiarity distant, up pert on a lounger, waving in a maelstrom of ‘is it them or isn’t it’ in staccato-like wave-counter-wave waving between waves of confusion and doubt…and there was the dark of ignorance, behind doors, in deep storage; stirring in a shit soup of sleep, lapping hapless on the shore in the wake of gnostic wavery. Atoll listened more and harder as the Voice spoke more easily…it’s verbal forte coming to the fore…the ‘better-left-unsaid’ leaking out in reams…from ‘sealed’ reservoirs of story.

‘All this is perceived reality. You are physically situated in a deep lab under Midway Atoll,’ that rang true about ‘all this’, ‘your brain is undergoing a process to create paraconsciousness,’ the Voice continued, tearing at the flesh of Atoll’s existence. 

Sense was beginning to sound as nonsensical as nonsense itself…

Why would they be creating another consciousness? Isn’t one enough? Ha…what a ridicu…

Although, of course…

…a controlled paraconsciousness would make sense…it could be configured to manipulate the Collective Unconscious and control humanity…why had that concept never occurred to him? The Collective Unconscious could be used as a perceptual vehicle for immortality within a manipulatable mass unconsciously brain-powered environment. The wealthiest most powerful people on the planet could escape reality for good. The population lending their brain space to the ultra rich would live zombie half-lives cerebrally powering a 24/7 infinite party for the billies…pointless wealth would have a point at last. 

Consciousness can’t see itself hiding in plain sight because it is the sight and the hiding. But, as Atoll reasoned, with what little reason was at his disposal, a parallel conscious awareness, cross-back-reporting side-door envelope-steaming encroachment: a lighthouse keeper seeing round the lamp and into the back of his own head. This mind-controlling abomination would mark an evolutionary jump that would include a handful of families living in the minds of the outcluded masses. The world’s population would only have to be in the hundred thousands for them to operate sustainably.

Those who illuminate Nature’s trickery become the new God, pushing aside the old God. Whoever had such power would control the narrative of Living into the Unbecoming Future (UF). A new God could choose the chosen ones to be switched over to the new consciousness while the old consciousness gradually eases into unconsciousness and death; it was a plan that made Evil look like a sleepy kitten purring and needing and wanting for nothing.

The Voice told Atoll things ‘They’ would never let him remember; cognodiversion redactostorage nano u-know-no-know whatbots, would see to that. Things like all the world’s he had access to were sub worlds to some real world in the sky; the master world with a master plan for this world… He had to believe ‘this was it’ and not that he wasn’t haplessly franticarschasing around in a sub (read pretend) world for the sake of some unknown entity’s research and development targets.

‘Tiny Guy has been infected and effectively put out of commission. Your presence is required in the stub, its a backtrace forafter downspire, but there’s no other way. Tiny Guy tried to assassinate Sybil, the Super Smart Shutdown System, but she was too smart for him and shut him down….without going into details….but shutdown-dead leaves an after taste of truth.’

Familiarity was too potentially troublesome to breed with anything; she had become a stranger…welcome to the flounderfest…mauling the output, stalling all outcomes…

‘I’m reading this book at the moment with a character called Tiny Guy…coincidence or synchronicity?’ But was he though?

Reality was shape-shifting and dumping fuel for landing while taking off… What was real? It was open for debate; debate that looped through fields of needle-eyed confusion back round to a crate labelled ‘thought-experiment’: caution! dead or live cat! Always debating, never opening the goddam imaginary box…

And yet some progress was intimated at by his awareness coming to in the stub. Atoll was back in a golf world that had been ravaged by the nobbly-wheeled riptide of cross racing robots.

The so-called dead Tiny Guy sat directly in front of Atoll in a way that’s impossible to ignore.

‘With a friend like the Voice you might as well be deaf,’ Tiny Guy said. The assumption of the death of Tiny Guy had been premorticious…he was an old man stuck in an old arm chair…there was not long to go so the prognosis could stand without any real objection. ‘You are being played…like I was played…like a video game character…I am old enough to remember video games, but never clued up enough to know whether that memory is an organic plant of a plastic one.’

‘What happened?’

‘I came, I saw, I got conquered. Don’t take Sybil head on, she is an express train, take her from the caboose…no sorry that sounds…but you know what I mean…do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Know what I mean?’

‘No…I have no idea what you are trying to say.’

‘They didn’t tell you…the mission is to assassinate sybil.’

‘That’s a great plan, assassinate the unassassinateable. We need a better plan.’

‘You young guns…can’t keep your weapon holstered…no, that sounds…anyway, good luck…take this as the official handover…I failed, I admit. Where I went wrong? I would never play myself…never knew who that was…I impersonated imitated, characterised and from a personal perspective missed the point and hit the shitter, do excuse any language…I have lost control of rectal verbitude…verbal rectitude; I have succumbed to diarrhoea of the mind…I have soiled my hat, as it were.’

Atoll could not work out if Tiny Guy was for real or not. Common sense would dictate he was pretending to be old, he was a master of disguise, but the reality presented to Atoll told a different story; a story he had decided to run with, until a u-turn presented itself and he wrestled with the old man trying to reveal something behind the disguise, only managing to reveal that he was thoughtlessly attacking a genuine old man and trying to rip his face off to find something that wasn’t there.

There were lows and highs…there always are…

Once a ‘never as smooth as it once was’ equilibrium had resurfaced though the choking black smoke of rogue fatal error, the old man had one last message before his delivery to the final destination had been signed for, ‘It is your mental processing that has quarantined Sybil, only you can free her…the potential fatal flaw in the plan being her Destruction Enabling Arranged Data Manipulation Assessment Node (DEADMAN) capability.

‘Which means?’

‘Certain death!’

‘I thought as much.’

‘You have to become her, partially, and the last thing she’ll do…her last act, will be to self-destruct.’

‘Can I not disengage the auto-destruct system?’

‘Don’t be daft…’

‘Okay.’

‘Is it in anyway possible…is there a possibility, however small…’

‘No!’

‘What if—‘

‘No, no, no, no…’

‘Okay…’

‘You’ll have to play it by ear and hope your intuition will do the rest…’

‘And then die…’

And in the small room above the golf shop, Tiny Guy died and faded away, physically, and in Atoll’s memory. Atoll knew, not that he was right or wrong, that Tiny Guy did not die, but was subsumed into Atoll’s overall mental geography and lived inside him in some Hinterland, reclining in an old arm chair, in a small room above a golf shop; forever complaining about the incessant noise from electric motocross and enduro bikes that were programmed with two-stroke, four-stroke, one-two-five to five-hundred classic bikes from the golden age of motocross and going back to the days of scrambling.

Or, perhaps he’d underhear the racket and get involved with the team spirit and healthy rivalry.

In any event, Noyce, Hudson and Watson would not be silenced. They’d ride into the clubhouse-cum-workshop, swap depleted bikes for charged ones and get back out to the twenty-four-seven, laps, and more laps, of moto-mayhem.

Atoll wanted to complain about the noise himself, but reasoned that it was probably a diversion, set by Sybil, or one of her Sybilings, to deflect him from the mission. And, anyway, there was no social-stomach for complaining round those parts.

Tiny Guy had kept a replica souvenir spiral staircase in the corner of his flat…Atoll had stared at it long and hard…it was a fetish, a coded instructional object… If Atoll was to ascend the original, to complete the beginning of the final phase of the mission, he would have to take steps as delineated in the training manuals and mix it up with steps of freelancing intuition. Atoll would have to fool Sybil and his operators and for that he’d have to fool himself.

The gate dropped on another moto, the screaming engine impersonations made Atoll wake up and take note: he would have to rid himself of all pretence…pay attention to the thrum of his own engine; be who he was supposed to be by Nature and not by the whims of those controlling him…although he couldn’t completely cut himself off…the nutritional sustainability biting off hands had serious lackings. He needed to find out who he really was and adopt that position over all others…the word ‘authenticity’ sprung to mind and sat on the repeat button…arrows raining down. That was the key, he thought, authenticity was the answer…all he needed to do was work out what he looked like on paper and then fold himself into a three-dee origami version… 

Although Sybil had always seemed insurmountable, Atoll hoped Sybil would see his brave attempt at rare honesty and leave channels open for him to operate within her sphere.

He set off to find the spiral staircase leading to the theatre in another dimension, but he was not permitted to remember much of what had just passed through his mind… He was subject to highly selective information relating to who he was and what he was doing…he was relying heavily on happenchance mixed with a little narrative coflowdination…