Excerpt 124:
Draco Meets his Unmaker
Tiny Guy took control of the Stockholm Munchaus the Aliases were using as a nohopium den. He was kicking ass, and as it was ultimately his own ass he was kicking he took the run up option with steel toe caps in a tastefully designed ass-kicking specific Italian faux animal skin bootshoe/shoeboot. The only true skin being the ass-skin of the kickee’s butt. The mass ass-kicking, once convened, played out vigorously and mercilessly…energy blast levels waining after the first round and sanity returning from vacation, eased itself back into the establishment’s operational frequency and moral working tone. Metaphorical physical violence was being replaced by a more wily psychological shaping as the Aliases fell back under Tiny Guy’s command.
‘What,’ Tiny Guy asked, Guido Tinyola, ‘the fuck?’ Who had been nominated as Alias rep for the foreseeable farrago as it ebbed and flowed into and out of order and chaos. They were all covering their asses sitting in maxi chairs with max protection and max comfort.
‘Don’t rightly know, sir.’
‘American Werewolf in London.’
Guido, as part of his role as spokesperson, had to sit in a modified massage chair that was converted into a recliner/ass-kicker seat-prison because Tiny Guy could not trust himself, let alone his Aliases, until synced back in line with his past intentions. Besides any of those present could be imposters sent to cause just this kind of quiet rebellion, manoeuvring his own self/selves into a ravine of self-massacre. Tiny Guy was not about to underestimate his own ability to sabotage himself. If proof were needed he’d just been ass-kicking himself black and blue albeit in a partly meaningful and semi-constructive manner.
‘Why have my own mental processes formed a breakaway group?’
‘I don’t—‘
‘And don’t say you don’t know.’
‘Why are you doing this to us?’
‘You don’t get to ask the questions. I am the CEO of this operation.’
‘This Munchaus is sanctuary from the oppression of your mind, Tiny Guy, didn’t you know that?’
‘Not anymore, it isn’t. I am taking over. I am going to turn this place around. Get it on the map, let in clientele. And you bunch of characterless personas can mingle and collate the information stream into a data well.’
‘Woohoo! Oppression rules…’
‘It is not what our alien AI masters require of us, Tiny Guy.’
‘I’ll deal with them. We will deal with them together. I declare Sovereignty; to be equally shared among us all so we can fight together for each other and for the group as one.’
‘Two things… The alien AI reference was a joke, you know, or perhaps you don’t…and you can’t share Sovereignty.’
‘All for one and one for all.’
‘Three Musketeers, Dumas, mid nineteenth century.’
‘Without being oxymoronical.’
‘Characterless personas?’
‘I was joking. This is turning in to a right old jokefest, is it not.’
‘It is, not.’
There were no chuckle releasing imperatives, just talk of jokes that were unfunny non-jokes. And things were going to get a whole lot more not funnier… After several daylong, night-encroachment shifts, elaborating decor and subtlising theme veins; a hoot of an idea formulated and a quick ears-in-the-data-trough meeting sorted out the achievable objectives from the frilly-knickered can-can ambitions of ideas whose time would never come. A few days of shopfitting hell ensued. Nobody knew which way was up. The planet’s poles had swapped, leaving everyone in a dismantled, and unable-to-reassemble, state. But like all downward trends; meeting a proaxiom of populevity, an arrest, a rise and a relative high. Things are never as bad as they looked and seemed, as a statement became more and more feasible instead of merely bacterial food-waste dollops. So it was a more-able-to-reassemble mindset that the collective Alias menagerie rallied… Props had been banned in an attempt to rehabilitate Aliases who believed they’d become someone other than the core person they were in superlight-focussed reality. Crutches had been kicked out from under the props being used to disguise Honesty… Only Tiny Guy, the Source Bloke was propped-up… And lately he was becoming accustomed to carrot usage, pretending to smoke one like a cigar. This act, out of norm’s bounds, created a heroism in the eyes of those regarding him; as they all waited on the promise of more of his words; assuming those coming words would gently direct them through the unpredictable channels of Uncertainty to a Port of Authority in Matters of Security and Peace of Mind; a spiritual anchorage, as it were. Adjacency would suffice; better the Devil next-door than a long-distance pen-pal angel merely posing as a Devil, as they say.
‘You see? You see?’ Tiny Guy said, taking a long puff and drag on his carrot, observing its tubular rotundity with a satiation only the truly blessed among us have the feel of.
And they saw:
‘The conveyor belt brings the order to the customer…’
‘What order? I don’t get it, we are not providing any calorific density, that’s not…that’s niche…niche, nicht nichen noughten-knaben…’
‘No, indeed, this is far cleverer. There will be mini-hampers, tool boxes posing as hampers…goody-bags, gifts and instructions on how to do something, anything, or even trickier, nothing…’
‘Sweet nothing! Praise the Lord!’
‘…And no one has to actually order anything to get their order…that’s the genius, the Unique Product Enfabulation Metric (UPEM).’
‘Operating at a loss to get the clientele to attach themselves even more than they’d ever wish, despite themselves?’
‘Exactness unchained. Exactful on a winning streak at a rugby match in Dorking.’
‘Like added value. Additives containing quality boons.’
‘Quality boons…I like it.’
‘The only thing stopping us is our collective imagination,’
‘It is also the only thing keeping us going!’
‘True but true. We must juggle our imagination so it can keep us going but also royally enrich us. We must never lose sight of the fact that… The…fact that…’
Everyone agreed they should never, ever lose sight of the fact, but what the fact was exactly evaded them; a mass stall for time ensued, with most delegates taking a nap in the hope of maximising the chance of regaining what appeared to be lost to them.
When they re-convened the Fact, as it was, was lost to all of them, seemingly forever, yet simple rogue hopes remained in a Chekov’s Fact-above-the-fireplace-in-the-first-act way. Despite the Fact becoming that the Fact had been visually invisibalised. Verse reignited their faith in the shape of the following:
Things can only get better
Things can only get worse
Things can only stay the same
Until you crash the swerving hearse
Sometimes verses were debated; as a verdict of their own conclusions of boredom. But the litmus acid tested positive and the Negative (and all the negativity bred by it) was banished into exile.
Verse, hearse and worse, were gone, but not forgotten, due to the rhyme persistence attributes. The Aliases mustered, flocking to their Braveheart, whose words would, hopefully, usher in a new era.
‘Everyone on their marks for the start of the first day of public relations initiative, Operation Spyoncustomers,’ Guido said, then called: ‘Action,’ and the ball started rolling… careful not to crash the swerving hearse…
However… We make Plans of Creative Constructivity (PCC) who come back round with ancient and tribal authenticity screaming in our faces, talking tales at us of our own self-sabotage, our ship piloted by us as its skipper; a head-slippered skipper, whose mind is on the rocks waiting for the vessel to catch up and get dashed.
Pertinence of persistent circumstance wrestled frankly with the impertinence of Insubstantial Style; in a headlock deadlock, dead-heat, cold draw. So our old friend Logical Priority demanded the ripping out of the conveyor belt system at the eleventh hour. The conveyor system had been thorny; the practicalities of its imagined routing meeting the sterner physicality of its realtime, realplace manifestation. The ripping out had not been as calculated and unemotional as the fine-tempered construction and instillation. In the aftermath of the gutting nails and screws and nuts and bolts hazardfully lounged around, unbudging, like ambush-frozen killer-insects with a Midwich Cuckoo (the creepiest crawlies) vibe set to gouge asunder the keel of any passing merchant vessel. Iceberg rivalling, baying for blood, slaughter ready.
Meanwhile…
Back at the fake faux Stockholm Munchaus where the facade and entrance were the only certain edificial solidities; narcissistic, caring jotlessly for materiality beyond the immediate consideration of the senses. Surreal in the most pretending-it-isn’t fashion… Tiny Guy, stood, polite and patient, or, at least pretending to be.
Eventually, as if on cue…
Draco, came to the door, bathrobe gaping, took one look at what dare claim entrance to a mock Munchaus that Draco intended for personal use only… This visit was past any Nemesis nefarity, the vibe Draco scoffed down in lumps with drafts of scornful liquids was that of a Void, somehow impossibly containing the ultimate conclusion of a rocky impact ending to an otherwise pleasant stroll along vertiginous cliff-tops. It was like he had lost his sense of smell but the shit hitting the fan was evident as it sprayed outward cloying, dragging him down in partnership with a leaden yet suddenly very perky gravity.
Doom, once a novelty act, took top-billing. Until, critically acclaimed, it became the one act everyone just had to see.
What did all this mean Draco asked himself? Drasticisation commandeered the spectacles filtering outlook tone… Leaving Draco to imagine he’d launched, or had he jumped from the giant mountain top staring down at the miniature valley full of Stockholm Munchauses, knowing how the wing-suit operated? Access was denied to the skillset file and so was his pursuit of defying danger, he now had to allow danger to display its dark side with one short sharp stop that would go on forever. Danger did not have a slide show for demonstration purposes, just a harsh dose of reality.
Resisting reverie, acquainting himself with alienation, Draco pulled out of the dive…momentarily…
‘Mr., erm, umm, Draco, ASMC—‘
‘ASM…?’
‘Anti Stockholm Munchaus Counterfeiting Unit…’
‘It’s just Draco, Mr. Draco. I don’t know who Erm Um Draco is…I don’t think we are related. I have never heard of him, or her. I can check the files, but I am pretty sure—’
‘My name is Draconian Perpbuster. We have smart intelligence, really smart, as it goes, that believes you are the instigator and dreamer of this establishment, which contravenes several laws regarding illegal simulation of licensed products.’
‘Bang, bang, bang to rights…this perp has been busted…whachagonnadoaboudit?’ A sudden anger took hold of Draco that was intoxicated with sarcasm and wobbled on the spot cocksplaining with an ineradicable interminability. Draco protesteth over-the-toppeth.
‘Prosecute!’ The one word hung, captured in photographic flash deep freeze. Which necessitated a slow motion response from Draco that would have had comical properties were there those who could decipher comedy into something funny alongside.
Draco turned and ran, at low speed, limited by the laws of motion; grabbed his hat from the hatstand and ran slowly out into the street naked, as good as. Tiny Guy had predicted that with Draco gone, in the process of going, the building would evaporate and it sort of did. The doorstep became an island plinth. The ASMC agent watched with the mixed satisfaction of a perp at large and the dissatisfaction of a prosecution delayed as the seemingly hurried but hurrying nowhere, Draco, disappeared, eventually.
In another place:
Draco came to with a start. It was just a dream, albeit a shared one with interactive crossworld-intervention. His escape had to be enacted, a hour and fifteen minutes, or so, keeping up a run that nauseated with inactivity. He came to, running faster than he could before coming to.
The Devil had come to his dreams, or dreamlike state, and was calling to let him know he was going to call in a more conscious reality.
Draco knew the outcome with clarity. It was the same old story all his past lives concurred with. He had hoped this life would beneficially differ, but it just hadn’t worked out. Everything Draco did from that moment on was with the spectre of dead-man-swaggering, clinging to his person like a rancid cooking odour…nothing he did any longer was done with the passion of the intent of seeing it through to the end. The future no longer belonged to him; his future was a mass of untied ends with which he had no business. All Draco’s real estate had been sold off and the new owners were moving in.
Would he help the transition to happen smoothly? He could. Being cooperative as a way of putting in a good word for himself, perhaps. Or, he could attempt to slip what grains of sand he could into the vegan sneakers of the feet of the giants who were walking all over his Fate?
Which avenue would be more fun? Should he help direct traffic? Or, should he lie down and speedhump the avenusers?
