Wednesday, May 13, 2020

'FROM THALION, WITH LOVE' JEFF PHILLIPS (1989) Chapter 13, 'Vlad's 'near-religious' experience' :)


J.PAUL SERENGETI ON THE BRINK,
GRAND CANYON, 1993

FROM THALION, WITH LOVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  "Vlad's 'near-religious' experience"

NOTE:  This is a chapter from a comedy science-fiction novel I wrote in Colorado in 1989 which takes place in a near-future world which has been illuminated by the "megaflash."  Free-lance intelligence agent J. Paul Serengeti and Arcturan cyber-chick Jane-bot la Wig join forces to combat the insidious Infotoxin Command, or INFOCOM, led by Prime Minister of Infotoxin Vladischlock Skrulusky and his super-computer PAL.  In this chapter we glimpse the inner workings of a personality acutely distorted from multiple hyper-moons of professional infotoxicity and rectose addiction, as Vlad recounts a molecularly-induced "near religious experience" which he had never spoken of before…or since.

            Meanwhile, on Recton, Vlad and Jorve had just arrived with a contingent of associates, technicians, and other assorted mutants.  They had come not only for a short vacation, but also to conduct a surprise inspection of the spore incubation facilities.  In addition, they planned to meet the first generation of the Mark III sporeborgs, who were just coming on-line.  These marvels of genetic engineering and state-of-the-art biotechnology had been created by Igtorpian subgenii with the assistance of an interstellar network of PAL-12000 computers.  This network of solid-state hardware functioned as if it had one discrete mind, even though it consisted of several tens of separate systems.  And this mind was, of course, PAL.

            One PAL was more than enough, Vlad had thought more than once.  But, he realized, without good old PAL and all his peripheral hard- and software, Vlad and his entire INFOCOM would be little more important than, well, than a mere unengineered and unmutated biological life-form.  Whole, healthy, unengineered and unmutated biological life-forms were totally meaningless to Igtorpians and agents of INFOCOM.  In fact, they were regarded as heinous atrocities.

            The brand-spanking new Mark III sporeborgs were truly wonders of contemporary craftsmanship.  Originally conceived as house-hold pets and visiting guests for each Igtorpian family unit, their primary function was to chant "Look out for Number One!" early each morning, and to cash the monthly checks received by each and every citizen of Igtorp, thereby relieving the Reptocrats of the undue stress of having to fulfill these demanding duties, and lightening the burden of their oppressive existence, affording them greater leisure for form-filling and lava-bathing.

            The sporeborgs quite closely resembled actual cyber-homunculi in structure and function, being almost indistinguishable from the real thing except under surgical conditions.  What they really were, rather than one living being or a mutation thereof, was a macro-conglomeration of individual spores of assorted species which joined together for the express purpose of resembling actual cyber-homunculi in structure and function, much the same as Shikastan mitochondria were believed by A.HuM. zoologists to have been independent, individual, free-swimming oceanic entities in the millions of epochs A.HuM., which, in later stages of history joined together in colonial structures to form multicellular organisms, remaining within each cell of said organisms to perform the strategic and highly significant functions of transducing energy from assimilated molecules into a form usable by the cellular systems of the organism.  Or something like that.  At any rate, the new sporeborgs were hard to tell from a real hominid.

            Vlad, although having long ago decided to import several of the new Mark III's for residence at INFOCOM headquarters, to perform various clerical, entertainment, and reproductive functions, had recently hit upon a hot new idea which could be his ticket  to the paradise of hyper-glam, fame, and fortune, as well as increased respect in the optical sensors of his superiors.  He planned to obtain several additional sporeborg units and train them as radical search-and-destroy field agents who he would send to find Jane-bot and J. Paul.  "God knows where they might be," he often reflected.  "Not even PAL and his multiple/peripheral selves can help me on this one."  If Vlad could bring them in, unharmed but subservient, there was no telling what his reward might be.  He could probably have anything he wanted:  an entire ARMY of slaves and servants to cater to his every fantasy and desire;  as much rectose as he could possibly assimilate intravenously and/or export to alien star-systems.  Megatons, perhaps.  Or even…and he hesitated even to think this thought because it represented what was perhaps his very deepest fantasy…to own his very own rectose manufacturing facility.  Maybe even his own planet.

            Vlad could hardly be expected to know that rectose was not a manufactured substance, but was in actuality a living and conscious entity which grew under its own volition, being a product of sporozoic basal metabolism.

            "Look, Jorve.  Isn't it beautiful?  Just look at those long rows of fission-powered incubators.  Such a soothing orange glow.  Such wonderful Sporezak.  We must have the happiest spores in the cosmos, dontcha think?"

            "Well, I guess.  But to be honest, I'm much more impressed by the new sporeborgs.  They surely are awesomely indistinguishable from real cyber-homunculi.  I still don't see how they do it.  Those Igtorpian genetic engineers must be true subgenii.  Ya know, it's too bad we can't engineer spores to make rectose.  Wouldn't that be something?  With spores that made rectose, we could rule the universe."

            Little did they know.

            "Say, Jorve, wanna do some rectose?  I could use a blast."

            "Sure, but how much do we have?  I don't want to be left high and dry half-way through our visit to Recton.  You know as well as I do that it's not easy to score any molecules of any kind here, much less pure rectose.  These Igtorpians like their forms and their lava, but they're not much on molecule abuse."

            Right you are, but guess the fuck what?  Not only did I bring 13 kilo's of uncut stuff, I'm also having several gigagrams shipped via United Phase Resonance Node Parcel Service.  That should be here any micro-light-parsec.  And, hey, I've got a little surprise for you, too.  Have you ever done any rectolax?"

            "Dude.  You don't have any of THAT do you?  God, it's been ages.  But, yes, I think I did do some once.  I was out of my mind, partying in a club on Ozma.  The Cogithir, I believe it was called.  Happening spot.  Anyway, though, I was doing multiple molecule abuse that night, so I can't really remember the specific effect of the rectolax itself.  I was higher than an ion-plasma exchange, though."

            "Jorve, I didn't know you were one for multiple molecule abuse."
            "Well, it's not something I practice more often than every few hyper-moons.  How about yourself?  You have quite a reputation in partying circles, ya know?"

            Vlad paused in a silent but momentary trance.

            "Ya know, Jorve, I've never talked about this to anyone before, but since you're an admitted and fellow multipe molecule abuser, I guess I can open up.

            About 2.5 light-parsecs ago I was travelling incognito on an undercover mission to Planet Claire.  I was really bored, and was just hanging out in my hotel room one night.  I decided to really go for it, and amp out the old CNS.  So I booted about 3 kilo's of rectose plus around 45cc's of 30-weight high-detergent 40-molar nitric acid directly into my jugular vein.

            I just sat there for several minutes, expecting an instantaneous effect.  Then, all of a sudden my palms started to get all cold and sweaty.  I started to convulse as if I were having a grand mal seizure.  My teeth were chattering and my jaw was clinching like a Rimulakian mind-vice.  'This is going to be great' I thought to myself.  Soon, I began to puke up several liters of blood and mucus, and vast quantities of pus gushed out of my ears.  My stomach felt like it was tied in several high-pressure Gordian knots.  I noticed that my limbs and appendages were very stiff, and my skin was a greenish-gray hue.  When I moved, which I could do in an erratic and spasmodic way, my joints creaked as if they were made of rusted tin which needed a serious lube job.

            And this was only the first five seconds of getting off!  I was ready for the time of my life.  I managed to get in front of the bathroom mirror.  My eyes were bulging out of their sockets;  they looked like the pressure behind them was about 650psi.  My lips were pinkish-green, and all dried and cracked, just like the surface of the baked hemisphere of Igtorp.  My tongue had become forked, and it felt like 80-grit sandpaper, only with  hairs growing out of it.  And it was darting in and out of my mouth at a frequency of approximately 6 hertz.  I remember thinking at this moment 'Gee, Linda Blair would be jealous!'  I was also committing first-order flatulence at around 120dB.  The aroma resembled a cross between butyric acid, paving asphalt, and Chanel No.-0.3.  I was flying.

            Now, Jorve, this was predominantly a physical trip, if you know what I mean.  After the pus stopped gushing out of my ears, thick, black smoke started billowing out of them.  I glanced down at my hands.  My nails had grown into long metallic scalpels, except that my thumbs had become hyperdermic syringes about 3cm in diameter, with 30-gauge needles.  The thumb syringes were filling with a dark, viscous liquid.  I looked back in the mirror.  My face was covered with scales, and my teeth were long and pointed.  My upper canines were over 4cm long, and dripping with a phlegm-like fluid.  Awesome.  Also, a stringy yellow substance with adhesive qualities was flowing out of my nostrils into my continuously-open mouth, and my darting tongue involuntarily lapped it in. 

Yummy!

            When I could no longer stand, I fell to the floor, writhinig in an unsurpassed spasm of ecstatic transcendence.  My entire body was covered with long hairs, only they were made of a high-tensile metallic substance, and sparks shot out of the tip of each one.

            I felt like I was having several simultaneous hyper-orgasms.  I drooled, as my eyes rolled back in my head.  It felt as though bolts of powerful lightning were discharging throughout my entire nervous system.  And I somehow noticed that the hairs on my head were standing on end, as if I were gripping a fully charged Tesla coil.

            At this point I was sort of drifting in and out of consciousness.  The purely physical aspects of the trip, while still strong, began to give way to a more ethereal experience.  I found myself floating over a sort of impressionistic daydream landscape of bombed ruins and factories, of slum-like villages and industrial facilities.  At the edge of the structures was a vast plain of seething calderas of molten lava, just like on Igtorp.  The sky was beautiful:  reddish-orange clouds reflecting the light from the molten rock below.  The clouds seemed to have a pH of around, say 0.7:  very pleasing to the eyes and mucus membranes!

            As I was losing the remnants of my memory and identity, I wondered to myself what I had ever done to deserve such wonderful transcendental experiences.  To whom did I owe allegiance for such a vast and magnanimous reward?  I was kind of fading in and out of assorted fantasies when I began to hear a voice calling to me.  It sounded like PAL, but the syntonic pharyngeal modulations were of a different quality.

            Then, all of a sudden, I was jerked from my reverie, and I found myself seated at a very sophisticated-looking control console of some kind of computer.  I sat in brief bewilderment.  Utilizing my scalpel-nailed fingers, I entered what I believed to be a kind of universal disencryption logon which I believed would access the operational capacities of the system.  Even though I had no idea whatsoever what I was really doing.

            In a brilliant flash of light, my own countenance appeared on the monitor.  I was awe-struck.  I had never believed myself to be quite so handsome. I looked pretty much the same as before, only moreso.  When I peered down into the back of my throat, I could see the same reddish-orange glow which illuminated the clouds of Igtorp.  My tongue, while still articulating the adhesive strands, was licking my entire facial topology.  It felt good.  I was a veritable demigod of physical beauty.  I also became aware that my large and small intestines were undergoing rapid-fire peristalsis at close to Mach 3.  And my anal sphincter was alternately squeezing down to a pinhole, and dilating to the diameter of a medium-sized grapefruit.

            I was wondering what to enter into the computer next,  when a mighty voice issued forth from deep within its circuitry.

            "What the fuck do you want, Jack?"

            Totally dumbfounded, I reeled in amazement.  My name wasn't Jack, was it?  My mind felt all flibberty-gibberty.  My cognitional functions were askew.  But before I had time to engage myself in a problem-solving dialectic, it spoke again.

            "OK, Jack, you have ten seconds to enter your BIG REQUEST.  You have one chance to ask for anything you want, and it shall be granted.  But HURRY THE FUCK UP, OK?  I'm really busy."

            "Um…um…….let's see…Um…I've got it!  I would like to see the MASTER PLAN for control and domination of the intergalactic spore market.  Is that an appro…"

            "One moment, please.  On-line processing.  Loading.  Cyber-scan operative…"

            And then, in another brilliant flash of light, a most amazing sequence of images and schematics, of data and blueprints, of facts, figures, numbers, strange and indecipherable hieroglyphs, rows and columns, little pictures, cuneiform-looking things, notations, strange patterns, anomalous instructions, strategic encryptions, and assorted other forms of information began to stream forth and past my optical sensors, on the monitor screen.

            And then it was over.

            "See ya, Jack.  It's been real."

            I had just seen the for-real MASTER PLAN for the control and domination of the intergalactic spore market.  In about 18 seconds.  I couldn't remember a thing.  It all blew by so fast, I consciously comprehended absolutely nothing.

            "Oh, computer, or whoever you are, um, I have another question.
            "Shoot, dude.  But make it snappy.  My computational capacity is about spent."


            "Um, I can't seem to remember any of the MASTER PLAN you just showed me."

            "So?"

            "Well, how can I implement it if I can't remember it?"

            "Get a clue, Jack.  All you asked for was to SEE it, remember?"

            "But…but…"

            "Listen, I'll make a DEAL with you, Jack.  If at some future point in your life you can manage to make it back here, to the central Hadean core, then I'll grant you one further request.  Just ask for a PREFRONTAL CORTICAL IMPLANT.  This will enable you to enhance your cognitional abilities enough so you might be able to understand the MASTER PLAN.  I'll just add that you are not the first to request fhis information.  In fact, several others actually have it…"

            "But computer, who are they?"

            "Sorry, Jack.  Make it back again, ask another question.  Your time's up."

            And in a third brilliant flash of light I found myself lying on the floor of my hotel room on Planet Claire, dazed, confused, totally back to my pre-injection self, and feeling about as happy as if someone had dumped the entire universal supply of rectose into a caldera of molten lava.  Plus, I had an insatiable craving for a big bowl of Igtorpian homunculus butter.  But I knew it wasn't to be had."

            "Gee, Vlad…that's some trip.  It sounds like a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE to me, huh?"

            "Hang on, Jorve.  That's not quite all.  I was lying there on the floor of that hotel room, basking in the warm after-glow.  Suddenly I noticed that although every aspect of my physical demeanor seemed to have returned to normal, my thumbs were still the hypodermic syringes filled with a dark liquid.  I was still feeling adventurous, so I thrust both thumb-needles into my quaking gluteus maximi, and gave them the plunge.  It took my breath away.

            Everything seemed normal for a while, but then an extremely high-pitched scream began to resound within my very brain-stem.  It grew and grew, and although rather pleasing at first, the volume to which it expanded threatened to implode the structure of every molecule in my body.

            But then, RELIEF.  It stopped, and I crumpled in an inhalation of relaxation.

            But, then, something more sinister, vile, heinous, and evil began, a multi-dimensional experience akin to a true revelation, only the opposite.  The opposite of a religious experience.  Imagine that, if you dare, my dear Jorve.

            The aspects of this experiential antithesis to my earlier Hadean excursion which aftected me most severely, and which I most remember, were the acoustic dimensions.  Now, the best way for me to describe this to you, en lieu of being able to reproduce the sounds…and, believe me, I would NEVER do that!...is to go back a few light-parsecs when I was a post-doc at the Dildario Institute for Psychological Warfare at Johns Hopkins University.  Of course, we didn't really use the real name;  the institute was officially known as the Dildario Center for the Advancement of Cognitional Capabilities, or DICACOC, acronymously.  Anyway, at the institute one of the main things we studied was the use of sound patterns for debilitating and subverting the cognitive processes of hominid populations, chiefly using mass-media.

            And since music is the most widely-spread form of sonic mass-media, we focussed on that.  What we did was to force ourselves to listen to the music of all major composers of the several centuries A.HuM., thereby enabling ourselves to construct simulated music which resembled the works of these composers, whose works were worshipped by the Shikastan public-at-large.  Our 'music', if you could call it that, was merely a hollow shell which only on the very surface vaguely resembled the real thing:  devoid of emotion, artistic quality, or any semblance of true beauty, it was not only an empty product, it also contained encoded enervation vectors and subliminal encryptions geared to debilitate and atrophy the mental processes of any mind that processed it.  Needless to say, we were quite successful.  By 3.2 A.HuM., our sounds could be heard almost constantly on any radio station, in any fast-food restaurant, in any department store or shopping mall, in any elevator, as the soundtrack to just about any TV show or film, or even on the lips of hominids walking down the street.  It was SICK!

            At any rate, however, Jorve, the music I most greatly detested, and which was most highly loved by the Shikastan populus, was the works of the composers Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Cage and Zappa.

            Within milliseconds of the termination of the scream, an acoustic experience began which I cannot possibly communicate to you, except to say that it sounded like a synthesis of all the music that I hated the absolute most.  It sounded like a symphony composed by a synergetic fusion of the minds of all these composers, combined with songs of the humpback whales of Shikasta.

            And as if that weren't enough, these horrific and nauseating sounds were intermingled with lines of poetry or prophecy, something like

                        'The final solution shall appear as a beast
                                    rising from the sea, descending from the sky-vault,
                        accompanied by piercing wind-vortices and hail,
                                    manifesting in utmost frivolity,
                        her veil an ACOUSTIC TSUNAMI, suspended in mid-flight
                                    the empress of the deep spaces…'

            I lay there on the hotel room floor, screaming in tortured agony.  I actually passed out from the pain of these sounds, and woke up several hours later in a cold sweat.

            "Vlad, dude.  But what did you learn from it all?  Would you do it again?  I mean, boot that rectose/nitiric acid solution into your jugular?"

            "Of course, my dear Jorve.  I MUST have that MASTER PLAN, you know?  It's a risk I must take.  After all, it was a heavenly experience, to use a metaphor of antithesis!  It didn't turn bad until I booted up the thumb-syringes."

            "Well, it certainly was phantasmagoric.  Sort of like a cross between Dante and Thomas de Quincey, eh?"

            "Sorry, Jorve.  I never was one for literary infotoxins.  What say we climb upstairs and and do a few lines of rectose.  I could use a big blast."

            "Sounds good to me, comrade.  I'd like to meet the sporeborgs, too."

            "Yes, and I'd like for Igor to meet his cousins."

            Igor was a rev 3.2 Mark II sporeborg.  Practical, friendly, subservient.

            And so it was.  As Vlad, Igor, and Jorve climbed the stairs to the SPORE COMMAND, in a distant arm of the galaxy on a beautiful planet Jane-bot, Gal, and company swam peacefully in the blue waters of the Baja Pacific, listening to recordings of A.HuM. humpback whale songs, enjoying true friendship.
            Bands were blazing and parties were raging at the Cogithir and at Nobot's.
            PAL was fine-tuning his anti-static generators, and whining.

            And on Thalion, Gal's cetacean friends prepared for the brief but intense journey to Shikasta, via the interstellar phase resonance node transcription-reassembly continuum, which spanned all intergalactic abysses, and conjoined all spatio-temporal monadic holonomes in every incarnation of the cosmos.

VOCABULARY

1)  CYBER-CHICK:  Jane-bot la wig is the paragon of this species of being.  Cyber-beings are of extremely highly advanced neurocybernetic and creative capabilities.  'Cyber' comes from the Greek word kybernetes, which means guide or steersman, as of a boat or ship;  implies metaprogramming and navigational functions.  Cyber-beings occur in many star systems, but occur most frequently in the Arcturan Star system.

2)  FREE-LANCE INTELLIGENCE AGENT:  this is what most cyber-beings functioned as, by virtue of their enhanced interest in the development and n-dimensional health of all life-forms in the cosmos;  officially 'employed' by no one, they constitute the fabric of the Galactic Synapse Command, which is overseen by several octaves of hygexim

3)  IGTORPIANS:  also known as reptocrats, they are the inhabitants of the Planet Igtorp (a planet in the Scalian star system resembling Mercury;  its moons are Recton and Recton II;  unusual in that the planet rotates retrograde one day per week and in that its core consists of molten dildonium which gives the planet an intense x-ray ionosphere);  quasi-reptilian hominids who got this name because they are all employees of their government, but they do nothing except fill out forms;  also, if they live for more than a few hours outside of an intense x-ray field, they begin to mutate into normal Shikastan hominids

4)  INFOCOM:  the INFOTOXIN COMMAND;  in the land of Jane-bot the Shikastan advertising and intelligence communities have fused into a sarcomic singularity, ruled by the Executive Producer and its array of sycophantic super-computers

5)  RECTON: 




©1989