Seven Eleven Stories - Volume Two

Seven Eleven Stories, Volume 2: “A Very Convenient Christmas” is the reason for the season—your virtual Christmas stocking stuffer package of bittersweet holiday shards. Amber Burke’s black and white film colored candy cane of surrealism, “Transfer,” will dance in your mouth and leave you wondering where you left your belongings. Adam Marks' blood-sausage breakfast of a hootenanny, “A Thousand Flaws,” will have you counting on fingers and toes with a British accent, running out of digits and giving up. Then let Mia Sparrow’s “Bite Me” melt in your mouth and clog your rotten Scrooge heart until it bursts with Christmas spirit and whatever other internal organs remain intact this time of year. 

Now... continued

"How do we know time exists?" asked Professor Kimber. No response. "What is time?" He'd have to explain. "Time is the progress of entropy." He looked away. Wasn't the Alt-Right supposed to be cleverer than this? Professor Kimber paced a little. "You can know time is passing without a clock, without any visual reference at all." He stopped, turned and looked at his subject. "We exist..." he corrected himself, "we have been forced to exist in an impure universe, a motive universe..." His pedagogical instinct kicked in. Professor Kimber dragged a flip-chart across the room and took up a pen. "We are moving from a point of pure, concentrated energy..." He illustrated this with a pristine asterisk. He drew an arrow left to right, "to a point of absolute, undifferentiated, dispersed matter." He showed this using a scatter of infidel dots.

"But" said the Young Man tied to the chair in Kimber's padded laboratory, "if the original state was pure how could it degenerate?"

This was something. "A good question" said Kimber. He put the pen away and started pacing again. "This is why..."

"I mean" the Young Man continued, smiling "don't pictures of the young universe show fluctuations in in background radiation?"

He was smart, this boy, bright, if a little placid. It was almost a shame, Kimber thought, that they sent him along. Still, you needed an Avatar to contact the Spirit. "This is why" said Kimber, "we are at war with the Quantum Marxists and other celebrants of the mongrel reality. This universe is ruled by probability, change and motion. There is no frame of reference. This underpins the dialectic, the source of their heinous theories of tolerance and progress..." the words seeped out of his mouth like acid. Kimber fetched a device, a silver helmet decorated with symbols and with cables and lights protruding. "Our movement will prevail" he said. "We will halt the march of time and entropy, that is why we do what we do" he said, putting the helmet on the Young man's head. "Quantity shall no longer become quality and we shall be titans..." he adjusted a set of dials on a console, halfway across the room. He looked back at the Young Man who seemed suddenly afraid. "Our powers will be unlimited." Kimber smiled a saggy old leer.

The Young Man asked plaintively, "will it hurt?" There was a short pause.

"Your sacrifice will be noted" said Kimber. He flipped the master-switch before the Young Man could say anything else. The Spirit was invoked.

A Reality Manager's Work is Never Done

I'm currently in a phase of finishing, altering and recovering stories. This is something I like but I suspect won't stand much of a chance with any anthology or magazine quite soon so enjoy, or don't.

I am merely a psychologist, a professional psychologist with a practice of my own, but when I’m seconded to the Agency That Cannot Be Named¹ I become the Reality Manager. The job of the Agency That Cannot Be Named is to parse world news, political gossip and internet traffic on behalf of the government. Given the amount of information out there, not to mention the urgent, competitive ethos at the Agency, it’s not surprising that a few manias develop every now and then and when they do I am called up.

             Don’t be fooled, these are not petty rows among grey, passive bureaucrats. Not so long ago an agent was working late at a facility in Stanmore when for no good reason he chopped himself into several pieces, threw his body parts into a utility room and locked himself in from the outside. There were no clues as to what happened, aside from the fingerprints and human hair found on the scene, not to mention the security video of five hooded figures hacking the agent to death. It was a mystery.

The Agent had been working on data showing a correlation between global warming and Islamic fundamentalism. This angered not a few in the Agency who had been briefing sources over a number of years that climate change was invented in 1975 by a conspiracy between the Green Party, the London School of Economics and the BBC Natural History Unit. If he found a causal link between the two factors the Agent would have knocked the bottom out of several long-term infiltration projects.

No one could prove anything though, and disbandment or prosecution would be dangerous for morale, not to mention the time and effort it would take developing new identities so the agents could reintegrate into civilian society, so my second job was invented. My role is to alleviate operational manias and if possible reconcile them with reality. I am the Reality Manager. Where there are opposing delusions I have to reconcile them as well.

A good example would be the Case of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition was a dangerous man, a dark horse. He was made party leader unexpectedly. Despite being a cabinet minister in a previous government his background, his past was dangerously unfactored.

He was the son of a refugee socialist foreigner. He once attended a demonstration where other socialists were present. He was on the record as praising Clement Atlee. Despite having children he was unmarried. All this aroused interest and concern in the Agency. Then came his policy announcements: a modest increase in the minimum wage, utility price freezes, Venezuelan rent controls, Monster Munch to be nationalised, the BBC to be broadcast into every home, bacon sandwiches to be made illegal, bananas to be made straight, a free swan for every asylum seeker, Baa-Baa Green-Sheep as the national anthem and the abolition of slavery.

Two theories arose in the Agency That Cannot Be Named to explain the Case of the Leader of the Opposition:

1. He is a Russian Communist Spy sent forward in time to overthrow British Capitalism.

1. The USSR still exists.

The second ruminescence was easy to grasp: “You can’t trust Ivan,” I remember one particular Agent saying. The agents who followed this line were largely veterans. Operational inertia was at play here. Once you’ve spent half your adult life chasing Russians round Central London it was hard to stop. That said the faction did recruit a number of younger agents, often ambitious but lazy and prematurely nostalgic. The first theory was a bit more complicated however. I spoke to one of its prime movers, Field Agent Andy Bilson (not his real name²). He told me:

“It’s really very simple. What happened to the space race? It got to 1973 then it stalled. Why, because they brought more than just rocks and dust back from the Moon. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says the faster you travel the slower time passes. The Leader of the Opposition was not born in the 1960s, he was from the 1960s. That’s why the Russians had all those long-duration missions on their space stations, they were creating sleeper cells.”

If Einstein heard this he would be spinning in his grave³. I asked Bilson how he linked this to the Leader of the Opposition? He told me he’d been working recently in Eastern Europe. They were at a top-secret rendition facility when his partner, Agent Fissure, had a Ukrainian taxi-driver, a frustrating hold-out who claimed he knew nothing, in a stress-hold. After ten minutes the taxi-driver started shouting: “Miliband! Miliband!”

Two hours later they had the whole story down. The taxi driver used to be a rocket engineer during the Soviet era. He was busted down for objecting to the prolonged missions, the deleterious effects of microgravity and radiation⁴. That’s why he was a taxi driver and Ed Miliband, a commissar at the laboratory where the taxi driver used to work, real name Eduard Mikoyan⁵, was a Soviet spy.

How to resolve this? One side, the Future Perfect faction, preferred to arrange assassination. Their opponents, the Structuralists, favoured the long-view. If the USSR still existed then it was an institutional, not a personal problem. Preparations were being made for an army coup if the opposition party won⁶.

The arguments were furious. The future of the nation was in the balance after all. Something had to be done. This had to be nipped in the bud before agency staff started breaking windows, cutting brakes or slipping polonium 210 into the coffee machine.

It was too late to point out this was a likely Department of Misinformation ruse gone too far. That would just escalate matters, full on inter-agency war. Instead, after several months shuttling between factions⁷, I managed to broker a compromise solution, accepting that Russia’s natural elevation⁸ and multiple time zones would likely cause some temporal distortion that could lead either to the USSR still existing or Ed Miliband/Eduard Mikoyan being thrown forward in time to 2010 and accidentally made the leader of the Labour Party. We eventually all agreed would be better not to prejudge the result of the election but instead activate agents within the opposition party, the media and the International Space Station to monitor the situation. Both factions agreed to de-escalate their respective plots. There was even a little document, a form signed by both sides. We called it the Canteen Covenant.

That was six years ago. Of course it all went out the window when Labour lost the 2015 election. Now we have a new Leader of the Opposition who actually is a socialist, and the faction fights broke out again. I could tell you all about the manias I have to deal with now but then I’d have to erase your memory with a magnetic brain-wipe and, trust me, you wouldn’t want that. A reality manager’s work is never done.

...

1 You know the one I mean though. It’s based in the big building we all work in on Vauxhall round-a-about that doesn’t have a postcode or photo on Google Maps.

2 It is his real name.

3 If his brain hadn’t been preserved in a secret laboratory under the Pentagon

4 Apparently, due to some property of coronal mass ejections, a few cosmonauts developed counter revolutionary superpowers, I asked what powers but Bilson did not elaborate on this to me.

5 Not his real name.

6 With Prince Harry elevated to King, Nigel Farage as Prime Minister, Jeremy Clarkson Director General of the BBC and Gary Barlow as Head of Entertainment at Butlins Death Camps.

7 Literally, the rival groups occupied opposite ends of the canteen at lunchtimes, refusing to speak to each other and occasionally flicking food at each other.

8 I made that bit up. Russia is in fact mostly swamp and grassland.

A senior researcher explains visual dissociation

The best actors don’t act, they believe. They don’t act as if they’re a boxer, gangster or drug addicted saxophonist, they believe they are a boxer, gangster or drug addicted saxophonist. The same goes for undercover agents.

The most difficult jobs require deep, prolonged cover. There are those who are able to maintain an identity for years on end, but everyone has their limits. Even after the completion of the case there is a tendency for agents to go off the rails. Untreated, 63% of all undercover Field Agents require some sort of counselling and/or early retirement, which, as you can imagine, is a tremendous burden to the Department.

The solution is Visual Dissociation. Like all great inventions it’s really very simple. It works along the same likes as Verbal Dissociation. This is something you may well have tried. If you look at a word for long enough, perhaps repeat it out loud or in your mind, the chain of letters will begin to dissociate from the sound and the meaning attached. For a short while the word becomes completely unfamiliar.

Can this be repeated with other signs and signifiers? The answer is yes. Research has shown it is possible to erase someone’s identity through prolonged exposure to images of their face. This is true of the face, not the body. Though people feel like they occupy their body, it is the face that functions as the avatar. The meaning of a person is channeled through their face. Put it another way, no one could pick out their elbow in a line up.

The process of visual dissociation can be hurried along by mind-altering drugs though they are not necessary. Either way you start by exposing the subject to pictures of their face, pictures they know and have seen before. Begin slowly but prolong the process, both the amount of time the subject spends on each photograph and the length of the session.. After 24-36 hours the subject is usually develops a profound ambivalence towards their image, some even begin dissociating at this point.

Unless the subject is fully free of their moorings the next step is to start the dissociation. The subject is shown pictures of themselves inserted into scenarios they know unrealistic or impossible. When the subject questions this they are told, emphatically if needs be, that the scenario depicted happened and is real. The scenes depicted gradually change from neutral and mundane to embarrassing, upsetting, compromising, obscene and horrific. The subject is eventually repelled by their former identity and become ready to assume a new one. The process of deconstruction and rebuilding can again take up to another 24-36 hours.

The total process cannot go much longer than three full days. Visual Dissociation has a 60-66% success rate. Any longer and the odds of permanent psychosis shorten dramatically. Any longer than 96 hours and the subject is guaranteed to break down irreparably, requiring termination. Visual Dissociation is still a top secret process, for this reason it is not advised for existing agents willing to go undercover. It is best used on recent recruits, particularly Category D. 

Trump hits the phones

"Sir..."

"What is it Jeeves?"

"You rang the wrong China."

"What'd you mean 'the wrong China?'"

"There's two Chinas."

"How can there be two Chinas?"

"Sir, there's one in Taiwan."

"And which one do I nuke?"

"Neither, Sir..."

"So who did we nuke in '45?"

"The Japanese, Sir..."

"What, and they were the Germans, right?"

"No, Sir..."

"Jeez, this is confusing, and who are you?"

"I'm the Mailman, Sir..."

The North is Endless

This is something much more likely to see the light of day than "Now." It's a found account story, partly inspired by a spellcheck slip, "the north is endless," and partly by creating wanting to create a polar-opposite of At the Mountains of Madness. This is part one. You probably won't get other bits.

Preliminary note

The following is a transcript of a recording discovered in [Redacted] University Audio Library. The recording was made using a 1980s-standard Dictaphone.

Day One

Voice: Boarded the plane... waiting to take off... this is the audio log of Staff Sargeant Crane of the 821st Air Base Group, Thule, Greenland. I am... [inaudible] I'm recording an entry... It's a lovely day, April 23rd... 10:10am and the sun is shining... I'm accompanied by Airman Danforth... [inaudible] Sorry! Senior Airman Danforth...

Laughter.

Danforth: Hi.

Crane: Only temporarily demoted, He will be our pilot. Co-pilot is Airman Dyer… Who is not speaking… also Flight Engineer Rasmussen of the Danish Royal Airforce...

Rasmussen: Hello.

Crane: And Doctor Ross, accompanying us from the National Weather Service... 

Ross: That's me.

Crane:  I am Commanding Officer of the Search and Rescue team leading an expedition from the Thule base to locate and if needs be contain a reported anomaly several hundred miles into the interior of the mainland, the details of which are still being established but the essentials are 1) intermittent but frequent radio signals of unknown origins accompanied by 2) less frequent bursts of radiation, visible in the night sky from 23:19 hours yesterday as flashes on the horizon. Prior to this expedition two satellite passes were unable to locate and engage the source of the anomaly, detailed briefing is to follow. We are proceeding in a Cessna light aircraft with 20 days of food and supplies and around 200 hours of fuel. I do not anticipate being on the ice-field for that long.

...

Crane: We are approximately ten minutes into our flight. Thule Base is receding... Up in front is the ice-field. There is about three and a half hours of daylight left... This is... This is a truly vast country... The far north... You can only really appreciate how... endless it seems... the sense of it from the air... Broken only by occasional hills… Every time I see the uplands... All is well. We will begin triangulating the signal shortly.

...

Crane: It’s now approximately fifty-five minutes after take-off and we are making great progress. We are currently receiving the anomalous radio signals loud... if not clear. You might be able to [a mixture of static, tonal sounds and voices] How soon did we begin receiving?

Ross: Almost immediately. The signal has been more or less consistent.

Crane: What about the radiation?

Ross: Nothing much really, it's all, uh... oh, there's a spike.

Crane: Is it dangerous?

Ross: It's hard to tell at this range. We are still several hundred miles away, bearing east-northeast. 

...

Ross: Here, listen...

Metallic grinding and animal sounds, akin to roaring.

...

Crane: End of day one, almost. 18:25pm. We have made camp; about to report to base... The, uh, location of the anomaly has been narrowed down to a twenty mile radius. We expect to... It's odd that the intercept planes were not able to locate... whatever this is. I suppose it will all come out in the briefing... This is not our usual mission… I'm looking at the eastern horizon. There are flashes in the long twilight, maybe one every few minutes... They're not regular. They come in several colours. We have seen white, red, green and indigo. Wind is gusting considerably, short blasts from the uplands. It is unclear whether this is connected to the emissions… Rasmussen is here.

Rasmussen: Lucas.

Crane: What?

Rasmussen: Please, call me Lucas.

Crane: Ok, um, so, Lucas, why’re you here?

Rasmussen: I volunteered.

Crane: But, [inaudible] motive-wise…?

Rasmussen: I’m sorry I don’t…?

Crane: What prompted [inaudible due to wind] volunteer?

Rasmussen: Curiosity, I guess; that and the pay. I work at the base [inaudible] civilian engineer. If all goes well…

Prolonged gusts of wind hit. Mostly inaudible except for occasional fragments, e.g. ‘get inside’ or ‘secure the tents.’

…

Voice: Unknown flying object was spotted 22:55 hours, altitude approximately 2,000 metres, bearing east-northeast a controlled arc at an estimated speed of 440mph. Command Control attempted to contact the object but was unsuccessful. The object disappeared after seventeen seconds. At 23:10 Command Control began receiving a radio signal on standard USAF distress frequency. Signal was largely unclear but some variety of English. No American or Allied craft is known to be lost. Russians currently deny any involvement. Unable to pinpoint location via satellite pass. Intermittent radiation bursts began at 23:19, high-energy, electromagnetic radiation, largely directed upwards. Bursts continue to be detected. Please repeat: over.

Crane repeats message.

…

Crane: [Whispering – wind noises in background] Early morning now, let’s see, 3.19am. Gusts of wind have been intermittent but frequent. Thank goodness for the snow-wall we built. It’s difficult to get much sleep though the others seem to be… Keep trying. The sound has an unusual quality, akin to howling.

Now - another excerpt

I'm going to have to try again to get my politics/crime/urban fantasy ideas wrapped into a full story. I've tried twice. The last time failed mostly because the lead character was undeveloped. I need a proper story arc but I'm slowly getting towards a decent lead, Detective Yara Lightfoot, see below. I picture her as a charming cynic, actually a nihilist with a hidden idealism that makes her an unusual police officer. This side should come to the fore as the story develops. Maybe I'll work on her and the character will provide the plot. Meanwhile, I've definitely got plans for Little Frank.

DCI Yara Lightfoot strode into her office. "What have you got for me?" she asked. "What crazy crap has the world dropped for us today?"

"Let's see" said Little Frank, who had been waiting for her, ready, at his desk. He brought up some cases on his computer. "We've got a dead cult leader..." he peered at the screen, "Martin Ranfurly-Smythe, funny name, an actor in real life apparently."

DCI Lightfoot smiled at this. She sat in her chair at her desk, leaned back and listened. "And...?"

"He led the First Order of Odobena" said Little Frank.

"What's that...?"

"Walrus worshipers" said Little Frank.

"Really...?"

"You can worship anything you like" he added. 

DCI Lightfoot wasn't impressed it seemed. She fetched a box out from under her desk, eventually asking "what did he die of? It must be suspicious, violent, something like that..."

"Broken neck" said Little Frank, "fractured skull, a few ribs... They found him like that in Old St Pancras churchyard."

"What was he doing there?"

"Well" said Little Frank, "according to this, word has it, Lord Hufflepuff and his followers were trying to revive the walrus that was buried there."

"Buried there...?"

"Yeah, some time in the 1820s" said Little Frank, "though it was dug up in 2003."

"OK" said Yara, cautiously. She started nibbling on a doughnut. 

"But, anyway, despite this obvious difficulty, according to SAMCS sources they succeeded."

"Ah..."

"And the walrus killed Wotshisface..."

"A bit ungrateful" DCI Lightfoot grinned. "Doughnut...?" she offered.

"No thanks" said Little Frank. "Anyway, the walrus is now at large, somewhere in London."

"Or someone's got an angry magic walrus" added DCI Lightfoot. "Interesting, but until we find this magic walrus it sounds more like a cult-squad job and what would we charge anyone with?" Little Frank shrugged. "What else is there?" Lightfoot asked. "What about the parakeet situation?"

"All quiet on that front" said Little Frank. He looked a little crestfallen. "The gangs are sticking to the postcodes, respecting the truce." There was a pause, guilty sounding silence then Little Frank added, "there is one other thing."

"What...?"

"The shooting" said Little Frank, "the university shooting..."

"Why...?" DCI Lightfoot seemed shocked. She sat forward in her chair.

"The Regulars have been in touch already" said Little Frank. "They're preparing to hand it over as we speak. The thing is..."

"What?"

"The police on the scene got the footage back, the CCTV footage and... well. The shooter wasn't carrying anything. Eyewitnesses said he had an assault rifle but the footage disagrees. Then a man came in..."

"A man...?"

"A man, unarmed, halfway through the massacre. He goes up to the killer, says something to him and the killer shoots himself... with nothing and the guy just... leaves..."

"He shoots himself...?"

"With nothing" Little Frank confirmed, "just his empty hands."

DCI Lightfoot sat back again, finished her doughnut, and after a moment's silence, exclaimed, "brilliant! Let's do it!"