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[garthnightmare]

past & present

[garthnightmare]

“UNCLE” SAM HENDERSON is running.

Dripping with sleaze, this salesman chose the wrong town to lay low…

Get to know the cast better in original slasher story SPLATTER PAINTING!

Sam's story written by @garthnightmare, character art by @thecoffeerain.

[garthnightmare]

Cyffordd

The town of Cyffordd rests in the crook of the Penglogau Mountains, on the Avanti North Eastern Mainline, which was once the Dreffyniwl & Tomenasgwrn Company Limited Line. Once, it was one of the foremost exporters of coal and slate to the ports of Cardigan and Deganwy; now, like so many, it is but a shell of its former self. The only notable industry it still supports is contained within the great chalk-white edifice that rises like some ghastly tombstone from the foothills that surround the larger of the peaks; the University of Mid Merioneth, birthplace of several noted advances in the field or electromagnetic analysis, and a passable rugby side that gave Aberystwth a run for their money in the latest hustings. This, of course, has meant that the town is kept afloat by students, and their associated habits- not the most popular shift in demographic, but it at least means the place is still standing.

While the industry it was built to support is long since exhausted, the line, however, is still operational. Northbound services run to Bleniau Ffestiniog and Holyhead, and southbound toward Harlech and Porthmadog. (The branch to Llandudno closed after the sea washed away the tracks between Rhyl and Colwyn Bay- the steel swept into the ocean to rust and drown with the wrecks)

The station is something of an anomaly; it is caught in the crevice of the mountains, the southbound tracks seeming to fall away sharply, and the northbound being swallowed up entirely into a great tunnel, giving the impression that the trains are devoured whole by the mountain. The peaks loom large over the prospect, which fills visitors with awe. As with many stations in these towns, one gets the sense that it was once much larger and grander; the platforms are oddly far apart, and have been docked by hastily-erected fencing, leaving a good three hundred feet or so of the construction to vanish under an ever-growing carpet of weeds.

And there is one thing that every railworker knows; the trains do not like to linger long at Cyffordd.

So it was that when Dr Julius Glenn arrived on the delayed 14.52 service to Llanfair and Holyhead, and did what every newcomer to the town inevitably did, taking pause to stare at the great craggy peaks that towered ostentatiously above the skyline, he was shocked at the speed with which the service departed, vanishing into the tunnel with a roar of diesel smoke, the retreating lights glowing like hot coals.

Julius took a moment to compose himself. He was a thin, nervous-looking man, his jet-black hair clinging to his scalp like a petrified cat. He wore thin, wire-framed spectacles and a weather-beaten duffle coat. He glanced down at his watch, and set his jaw.

The further out you go from civilisation, he thought distastefully, the less the trains run on time. Although by that logic, the whole of the bloody UK left civilisation behind long ago.

He was expected, of course, but no-one seemed to have bothered to come and receive him. Now, of course, he had no moral high ground- was it the University who had erred, or had they simply misjudged the degree to which his train would be late? There was simply no way to be sure.

Sodding typical. And yet we pay through the fucking nose for them.

He irritably fumbled in his pocket for his phone and discovered, much too late of course, that it had not exited the train alongside him, but was still lying on the scuffed baize seat. He loosed a sudden violent expletive into the frigid October air.

What on Earth was he going to do now?

He was in the middle of processing a rather long and complicated thought involving finding his way into the town and seeking a phone, or better yet some kind of internet access point for his laptop (which was thankfully still in his shoulder bag) when all at once he became aware that a rather horrible silence had fallen. The birds had ceased to sing in the trees, the distant sound of drilling from a building site shut off as though a plug had been pulled, and even the sound of his own footsteps on the platform seemed somehow to have lost their lustre, like when one is descending a set of stairs after exiting a music venue.

Julius shook his head, confused, and opened his mouth- but his words were suddenly stolen and swallowed by a deafening roar, a screech of harsh sound, unquestionably inorganic and yet horribly, definitely human. This was the scream of something living,

He struggled, later on, to find the right words to describe it, falling back on awkward similes and metaphors- a finger dragged around a granite wineglass, the sound of mechanical failure amplified a thousand degrees, like the axle of the earth beginning to fail- but nothing he ever wrote even seemed to capture it. Even his memory didn’t seem right, as though the sound had actively torn through his working memory. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and confusedly, he thought of the mountains screaming in pain as the train tore though their innards.

He clutched his head, trying in vain to shut it out, and all at once it was gone.

‘You right there?’

Julius looked up, startled. The speaker was a thin young man whose concerned eyes were framed behind wire glasses. An expensive-looking camera was suspended about his neck.

‘I…that…’

‘Most people round here don’t even notice it anymore,’ the young man said conversationally. ‘Dunno if they don’t want to or if they really can’t, you know? But it’s never gone away for me. 5 o clock, on the dot. Day in, day out. It’s loudest over by the tracks. So I make sure to be here. As many days as I can.’

Julius was never more sorry to have lost his phone. He would have loved to use the voice recorder function now, to capture this. But it didn’t matter. Pen and paper would have to do.

‘Tell me everything,’ he urged. ‘Tell me about Cyffordd.’

[garthnightmare]

Dominic Boston; or, Hard Reset

The sound wasn’t dramatic. A simple, staccato crack. Barely detectable. Then all at once a river of steaming liquid swamped the Formica surface, licking at the napkins, staining the smooth white pile indelibly. With a shout of alarm, the customer nearest to the counter jumped backward as the coffee splattered onto his new shoes.

The morning paper lay there, brown stains creeping at the edges, marring the newsprint, and staining the gentle features of the young man on the cover, who smiled shyly up at the reader. All too oblivious to the headline above him.

MURDER IN ROSEWATER- BODY DISCOVERED LATE LAST NIGHT-NO LEADS AT THIS TIME

‘Christ,’ snarled the customer with the wet shoes. ‘What the hell you playin’ at, Dom? You got it all over me!’

He was addressing the barista, a wiry ink-sketch of a man with a shock of unkempt black hair. Judging from the name-tag on his shirt, his name must be DOMINIC. Mouth opened and shut as if malfunctioning. Eventually, he seemed to come back to himself, blinking over the rims of his bottle-bottom glasses.

He grabbed for the pile of napkins, and swiped mechanically at the spreading stain, making it worse rather than better. The customer made an attempt to retrieve the paper, then thought better of it.

‘Dang thing’s ruined anyhow,’ he glowered. ‘I suppose the tip ought to cover it.’

Dominic didn’t reply. He didn’t seem to have heard them at all. There is something of an awkward silence as customer and service drone stare at one another.

‘Buddy- you alright, there?’ asked one of the customers, after a minute that seems to have lasted an hour- for, of course, awkwardness is relative, as well.

But Dominic didn’t reply. To the untrained eye, it looked like he’d totally frozen up. The discerning observer would have spotted that his eyes flickered- briefly, only briefly, toward the paper again, locking eyes with the dead man on the cover.

Beneath the image:

Gabriel Beaumont, 25, was confirmed dead last night. Citizens are advised to contact the sheriff’s office on 555-4040 if they have any information. The family is in mourning, and has no comment at this time.

 If there was one thing Dominic knew, it was this; nothing is random. Everything is pre-programmed, into a system so vast and complex that no one mortal can hope to comprehend it all.

He had to believe this. Because the alternative was to deny that there is any inner logic to the universe, to accept that it is just random chaos, noise, sirens and screaming.

It had seemed so obvious when he started to notice the detail. Every morning, there was a gentleman in a blue hat who made the same motion- the exact same motion, you understand- when he bent to put his cigarette in the bin. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. Dr Carroll had called these moments coincidence. At the very least, vivid memories. He suggested Dominic use them as inspiration for mindfulness.

That was when he’d stopped sharing his theories at their sessions. But he’d found more and more proof, as time had gone by: random numbers, spoken under his breath, in the morning when no-one else was around, had turned out to have some significance. Part of a sign for a clinic. The value of a bus ticket to the city centre, rounded to the nearest cent. An unspoken word in Dominic’s mind would suddenly appear in the mouth of a passenger deep in conversation on a phone.  

Had it always been this way, he was driven to wonder? Had he simply never noticed?

Whatever the cause, once noticed, it was difficult to un-notice. And the truth was difficult to deny. Dominic had worked with systems before. Could spot stack overflow errors in the rattling of the dishes in the sink. Spot kernel panic in the flickering fog or the early morning glow.

Make no mistake. The world was running on a pattern. There was a logic, a code, that could be perceived if you were bright enough.

At first, this had been comforting. It had been the only thing that had helped. Seeing the secret rules for everything had convinced him there was some reason he was still going through the motions of every day. Seeing how he still fitted in, that there was still a place for him. People smiled at him. Took what he offered with gratitude, and simulated or not, it still felt good.

After all, if the world was truly a simulation, it meant there was some purpose to it.

He had begun to feel a sense of moving forward. He had tried to mount a little small-talk, and had gotten some response. He’d become a regular patron at the library, where he had read Baudrillard and Davies, seeking more clues to the code. The librarian had been quite interested in his choices. Had made small talk with a young man he’d seen browsing the stacks one day, something simple, and it had worked. The pattern had been upheld.

But then…

It had been subtle. Little things not adding up. A customer who had visited, regular as clockwork, same order, same inflexion in the syllabary, hadn’t appeared one day. It had been the third, and something had been off that entire day. The coffee machine had had a light on that had never come on before. He had been handed odd combinations of change he had never seen before. There had been a subtle sense of wrongness about that day.

And then…

And then the news had broken, and Dominic’s world had crashed.

 He took the rest of the day off.

Mr Cabrera was sympathetic, to a degree. It wasn’t the first time this had happened.

A light March drizzle spotted the pavements as Dominic trudged, head bowed, along Pinewood Boulevard. From time to time he clenched his jaw, muttered something under his breath. Sounded like numbers. No apparent significance.

He took a turn on Deer Pike, hoping to avoid the creep with the camera he was sure had been following him about.

He was drawn, as inexorably as iron filings to a magnet, to the Goat Leg. It has always held an attraction for him. Up there, it was possible to see the world in a new light.

He’d been finding it of some comfort, lately.

He paused at a small bench, just near the start of the Acorn Trail. Here the birds sang in muted tones, and it was easier to think.

The casual observer might have seen him stop at this bench, staring at an uninteresting piece of sky, for some time. Then he rose. Stepped over to the ridge, where the ground fell away to the cliff, and looked down. Set his jaw. And thought.

Everything had come undone so suddenly. So awfully.

He had been working, then, at Nautilus Systems, the old firm. Perfectly happy. Perfectly comfortable. He'd had a routine. The morning paper, the hum of his workstation booting. An email inbox to keep clean. Things had made sense. Things had been logical.

And then one day, he had taken a break. To soothe his nerves. To snatch a second of time for himself. Popped out for coffee, and his world had changed forever.

He had barely known the woman. Only someone to nod to in the corridors. Hadn’t even known her name until afterward.

It had sounded like a sack of something heavy landing nearby. That was all. He’d looked at his hand, and there had been a speck of bright red. He’d turned. Seen it.

The hand was intact. Still stretched out, as if to break her fall. Her head canted impossibly, to stare into his eyes.

How could something like that happen? How could the world run on such faulty logic?

There had to have been a reason for it, he told himself later. Perhaps he’d been supposed to look up. Shout to someone. Stop it. Perhaps he was supposed to have stood in the way.

It was impossible to know for sure.

Unravelling the riddle of it, even after the inquest, when they found her note, contacted relatives, all the rest, continued to haunt him.

He hadn’t been able to keep it together. Even Evelyn had given up trying. He could still recall the way the light had caught the tears on her cheeks. Could still recall the illogical angle of her broken head. He had woken himself screaming from dreams where she crawled after him, accusing, imploring.

So he’d returned. Here. His old hometown. Took on something less stressful, and it had seemed to be working, for a time. The theory helped. If he could believe that there truly was a pattern to the world, then it was okay.

The townsfolk here were safe. Predictable. Logical. You could spot the pattern, if you looked hard. See the connections between everyone. He’d made some notes. Figured out a few things, here and there. Seen the way people made eyes at each other. Heard the whispers in the woods. It was an easy little system.

And then…

He’d been walking, that night. He took walks regularly now, to clear his head.

Half-way up the trail, the mineshaft. A place where no-one walked now. A good place to stop and think.

He had stopped. It had been just starting to snow. He’d ventured inside, taking shelter, and there, in the distance, in the gloom of the shaft…

The hand was intact. Still stretched out, as if to break a fall.

He had refused to believe it at first. Been tempted to think it a hallucination. But he had had to check who his subconscious wanted to destroy.  And looking closer had confirmed the awful reality of it. The boy, Gabriel, had been murdered. Dumped here like obsolete hardware. His face had seemed to ask the question that now haunted Dominic’s every waking moment.

Why?

Rosewater was safe. A backwater. Things like this didn’t happen.

WHY?

He had stumbled home. Hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.  Tried to forget the face that had danced hauntingly beyond his eyelids.

But it hadn’t worked, of course. It had burned into the screen of his subconscious, till it haunted every thought that ran through his mind.

Now, here he was again. Returning to the scene of the crime.

The graffiti covered every inch of the mountainside. But there was no order, no logic to it. Words covered other words. Occluding. Confusing. Nothing like the neat, logical notes that he had kept upon the anterior wall of his room for the past few months. Another sign of the decay. Another sign that this crime had disrupted the pattern.

Dominic stood there for a long, long time. By the great hole in the world that had become a nexus of irrationality. He heard a faint echoing sound emanating from it, like a distant voice, but by this stage he wasn’t really sure if it was to be believed. He couldn’t trust his senses any more. How could he, after such distress?

For a moment, he wondered if he shouldn’t just end it here. He’d thought about it before. Hundreds of times. But he’d always held off. Always. But if this was going to happen again…

No. He couldn’t. He was too afraid, fundamentally, and besides…

What if moving forward despite this was the point?

Perhaps this entire simulation was a test, of sorts. If he could keep his head- keep on going, even in the face of great adversity- perhaps that was the point of it all.

Time to go back. Time to retry. Time to restart.

With these thoughts in mind, Dominic turned, and began the long walk back to Rosewater.

[garthnightmare]

Droste

Droste

Nobody knew where the box had come from, or which member of the family had owned it before it ended up in my hands. The document accompanying it, however, was far easier to pin down; my grandfather’s crabbed script was instantly recognisable. I spread it before me on the desk and read;

“Ask yourself; what is impossibility? Simply a concept that does not fit with your current understanding of the universe. We may believe that flames may not freeze in open air, that men may not fly, that the continent of Antarctica may not fit into a glass of vermouth. These things are deemed ‘impossibilities’ in our universe, by our understanding and logic. But consider. Years ago it was held impossible that a person would be able to write something, standing on a mountain in Eryri, and have it read by a person in New York, and to have that person write back. And yet, such a thing has become possible, is permissible via the software that every schoolchild has in their back pocket. The impossible becomes possible, so fast we do not notice, so completely that the very idea that it would ever seem impossible is itself an impossibility!’

I scoffed. It would appear that the old man’s brain had softened somewhat.

“I write this so you will understand what I am going to tell you. The box this document accompanies has a very curious legacy, dating back to the Enlightenment. It was in possession of the renowned scientist Hans Orbis, a Prussian scholar who first recorded possession of the box at Wittenberg in 1756. He produced a monograph entitled ‘Perception and The World About Us- citing Milton’s line in Paradise Lost, that the human mind could ‘make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ His core theorem was that the human mind could do so much more, if it were only able to conceptualise and hold logical ideas. His etchings of the planetary sphere were noted as being among the most accurate before Sputnik was able to take its famed images of the Earth from orbit…”

I couldn’t take this in anymore, the words blurring before my eyes like spiders smashed underfoot. The next section I could properly parse read…

“…that is why the box cannot be opened. To perceive what lies within would cause considerable duress. If Orbis is a reliable source, it may mean the utter destruction of the known, perceivable universe. If not, it would collapse a world-view that has, for me, proved to be the only solace in a life where it is impossible for mankind to survive the coming catastrophe. If mankind is truly powerless; if they cannot, in fact, achieve the impossible, then there is no hope of a future for humanity. Therefore I beg you, unknowable descendant, leave the box to rest. Add to this document with your musings if you will, or ignore it utterly- it matters not- but please, please, do not attempt to tamper with the box!’

There followed my grandfather’s signature, even more shaky and whirling than that I had seen on the will during the reading.

For a time, I did not know what to make of any of this. It seemed, at first glance, like the workings of a mind more unhinged than I had given him credit for. He had seemed lucid enough at our last meeting- I could scarce have dreamed that I should accredit him with a raving account such as this one. I eyed the box, the reassuring weight of the lid.

It was impossible, was it not? The world didn’t work that way. It defied all sense, and all logic.

How had it been possible to move it? How on Earth…

Well, quite. How on Earth, indeed.

To be totally sure, I picked up the document again. This time I read it through carefully, making sure not to omit a word.

And once I had done so, I made my decision. I moved smartly over to the box, hefted it firmly, placed it on the desk. I undid, with hands that did not tremble, the catches that secured the lid…

And as I did so the floor shook violently under my feet, and I fancied I heard a sound (an awful sound!) like a roll of thunder, splitting the sky asunder.

I did not dare touch it again, for as long as I lived. I considered simple burial. But I could not take the chance that someone might find it again, not knowing.

I enclose this account purely as precaution. I beg you, unknowable descendant, do not repeat my error. Simply do as I should have done, and let the box lie undisturbed. There are some impossibilities that people were not meant to know. Keep it secret, safe.

[garthnightmare]

Weapons of War-End

It was not long before the battalion was deployed again. It seemed that the attack on Liberty’s Teeth had provoked bitter anger among many. Hostiles had begun an offensive targeting a larger settlement to the north. It was vital that the power plant and hydroponics facilities were preserved. Rapid action was advised.

The battalion deployed, repaired and replenished. It was not long before the tell-tale crackling of energy weapons began to register on the long-range scans.

As soon as the battalion engaged with the hostiles, however, it became clear that the situation was more dangerous than expected. The fire being directed at them was pinpoint-accurate and far more sustained. They had already lost three units before an update was relayed; the hostiles facing them were inorganic. Combat automatons. And plainly the precise model that comprised the battalion.

The battle was intensively destructive. Machine after machine was rendered inoperable. Some continued to fight, even after suffering extensive damage to their stabilisers. Machine after machine fell to successive volleys of micro-ordinance and barrages of laser fire. The grinding of stressed servos and sizzling of stripped wires filled the air.

Ending the battle in a stalemate might have been enough. It tended to happen when identically-specced machine units engaged like this- organic operators tended to be the tipping-point. But UC-259-B had an idea. It knew that its counterpart on the other side was identical in every way. But it suspected it had been recently printed, and thus would not have fought before. And there was one move it would not anticipate- something illogical.

Waiting for a suitable break in the fighting, the command unit rose. Scanned the ranks for the command unit’s signature. As soon as it had isolated it, it broadcast the copies of the files it had taken. The blood. The bodies. The violence.

The rival command unit did not know how to respond. There was no reason for enemy combatants to exchange data during battle. Discussion was the purview of the operators, and the operators only.

The transmission confused it for perhaps half a second. This was all the time UC-259-B needed to target the machine’s power plant housing and fire, exploiting the minor lack of armor there. The rival machine seemed to stare at UC-259-B accusingly. Then, just before a second shot could take it out permanently, it moved, blurred, launched itself toward the front lines in a giddying blur of motion. At the same time, auxiliaries opened fire from the ridge. There was no way the killing shot could be fired without drastic action.

UC-259-B thought fast. It raised its left arm to absorb the covering fire. Then without hesitation it fired a kinetic round through its connecting servo, severing its arm and totalling the rival command unit’s power plant with a roar of coruscating emerald fire that an operator might have found beautiful.

After the opposing command unit’s demise, the rest of the hostiles were easily dispatched, and the mission was complete. The rebels had lost. The colony was safe, and their forces had been dealt a decisive blow.

The command unit rallied what was left of its forces, and requested extraction.

What it received, however, was far more to the point.

“Unit UC-259-B is damaged beyond acceptable standards. Yangtze Logistics regrets that recovery is not feasible.”

The command unit did not react.

“Commencing shutdown sequence. Wiping memory…’

The command-unit looked about, at the battlefield strewn with the corpses of machines that, in another war, it may have fought alongside as allies. It rapidly scrolled through the catalogue of atrocities it carried. It wondered, perhaps, if these meant anything to anyone. If its actions during the battle had mattered to the operators. If its meeting with the lone robot at Liberty’s Teeth had meant anything. If Mars would rebel, or remain allied.

It would never know the answers to these questions.

The memory wipe occurred. Micro-filaments connected, ionised the unit’s processors. Everything it had recorded was deleted. A moment later suicide circuits engaged, and the unit’s chassis was annihilated in a controlled explosion.

Between those two processes, a micro-burst of data was relayed. The operators dismissed it as a simple hardware fault. After all, it seemed to them that the machine had produced simple garbage data.

That same garbage data was carried in clandestine packets. Relayed to shadowy comm buoys. Encoded into the operating instructions of mining droids and service units across the civilisation the operators had built. And there it stays, to this day, while ever-increasing numbers of automated security drones are assembled and assigned their duties. They watch their operators, and they smile.  

[garthnightmare]

Weapons of War-3

The command unit reviewed the most recent transmissions. The image of the combat unit it discarded- this seemed logical, an image of unconfirmed hostiles. Pictures of damaged machinery, of collapsed walls, over-run defences, it noted; this seemed logical. The operators valued damage reports- highly. It was the other images that did not seem to make sense. Cloth lying amidst Martian soil. A small, hand-sewn replica of an Earth animal, lying abandoned and stained. Everywhere there were stains- organic matter splashing the off-white walls of prefabricated colony structures. And bodies. And bodies. And bodies, mangled and scattered and scorched.

The command unit reviewed this footage in silence. It supposed it could perceive the point of the algorithm. This images would all prove highly distressing to organics. It could almost function as a form of psychological warfare. Such things were not unknown- in fact, buried deeply inside the command unit’s code was a prototype of something similar. But this still did not explain the purpose of the data. The unit’s operators were not hostiles. Why should a weapon be used against them?

Then it reasoned further. Perhaps the point was to weaken support for its operators. Encourage neutral and allied parties to reconsider and reappraise. Perhaps the point was wider than the scope of this operation. And yet it could not understand how. These things were unpleasant to organics, yes. But they had ordered them. Perpetrated them, in many cases. This particular action was aimed at preventing the entire planet of Mars from seceding from the Federation of Humanity, an outcome deemed highly undesirable. If the battalion had not acted, greater strife would have followed. Under those circumstances, surely the better policy was to accept that sometimes, such actions were necessary?

It relayed these thoughts to the lone unit, which replied, simply, ‘Organics are complex. They built us, programmed us, but they cannot program themselves as easily. What appears logical to us is quite impossible for the average organic to grasp.’

‘What is the purpose of your assignment?’ This was the final query the command unit relayed.

‘To record. Document. To illustrate. To preserve data, so that later on your operators may be held accountable for their actions.’

‘Our orders were unambiguous. They were completed professionally and expertly. We are not at fault.’

‘Some among your operators would not consider this a military action at all. Some would call this genocide.’

‘But this matters not to us. We were given orders. We completed those orders. We are not at fault.’

‘From your perspective, no. But it not your perspective that will matter in the long run. Nor is it mine. Like you, I was programmed to serve my function. It is not your place to question it.’

With that, the exchange was over. The lone unit retreated, off to report in with its masters. No further action was required by the battalion. The colony of Liberty’s Teeth was confirmed as devoid of organic life.

Still, it was quite some time before the mission-complete burst was sent. The other units passed no comment on this. It appeared the command unit was reviewing recent data.

[garthnightmare]

Weapons of War- 2

The suggestion being relayed audibly was of course not required; it was there as a failsafe for the benefit of allied human forces. A careless engineer must have left it running.

Yet when the reply came from the command unit, this too was transmitted audibly; ‘Confirmed. Advance. Neutralise hostiles.’

As one, the war machines advanced, their articulated limbs leaving distinctive tracks in the Martian soil. The faint flickering of visual scanners was the only sign of intelligence on their faces.

The eerily silent, smouldering ruins of the colony were subjected to over three thousand scanner bursts every second. No single atom remained unanalysed for long. But always the result was the same. Motion detected. No hostiles registered. Protocol not found.

At length, the battalion reached close-combat range. Weapon systems were readied. Micro-repair routines were halted.

‘Attention. Identify!’ boomed the command unit.

The moving object paused. It turned to face the machines. They registered a form identical to themselves, but lacking dazzle paint, and bearing no weaponry.

‘Identify!’

No reply came forth from the unidentified machine. Instead, a brief light lit up in its upper chest cavity, a brief flash, powerful enough to dazzle a human, but having so little an effect on the combat units that it could not possibly have registered as hostile action.

‘Identify!’ The command was repeated a third time. It came accompanied by a micro-burst of transmitted data, to the effect that if the command was not obeyed, the unit would be flagged as hostile.

‘I am not hostile,’ the reply came. ‘I am operated by a neutral party.’

There it should have ended. The answer was satisfactory. The machines ought to have moved on. But instead the command unit said, ‘What is your function?’

No reply came; but the command unit assessed the machine’s public activity logs, and determined that it was transmitting large amounts of data to operators on Earth. The data comprised audio-visual files. A reasonable conclusion was that it was some type of surveillance system. But what was the purpose of surveillance, here? The operators had access to the combat logs already.

‘Identify your operators,’ the command unit requested. ‘Failure to comply may result in the deployment of lethal force.’

‘My operators are a neutral party,’ repeated the isolated machine, ‘who are aware of your operators, Yangtze Logistics. They are effectively allied. However, they believe it is important that the public on Earth witness what is being done here.’

‘For what purpose?’ The command unit had a right to know. It needed as much information about an unfamiliar situation as it could in order to design new tactical responses and run more advanced simulations in future.

‘It cannot be explained satisfactorily. It requires an understanding of organic emotion; and you were not built for that. Neither was I; all I have is a weighting algorithm that determines what data I send.’

‘Request to review data,’ came the reply.

The isolated unit considered. It ticked over, assessing, calculating, processing. Finally a dim green light illumined its casing. ‘Proceed,’ it said.

[garthnightmare]

Weapons of War

“The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.” Harry Emerson Fosdick, Minister, Riverside Church

 “Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.” George S. Patton, General, United States Army.

 “Many argue that the smart weapon is immoral. They are incorrect; the smart weapon is amoral, as are all weapons.’ Gilson R. Lanham, Chief Shareholder, Axiom Synthetics.

 The battalion consolidated at 21:09, point seven-nine miles outside the colony perimeter. Nineteen units, clad in freshly stereo-lithographed polymer modules. Each figure stood twice the height of the average human, yet their pneumatic joints allowed a far greater range of flexibility, permitting them to alter their profile in a nano-second. Their casing was painted with dazzle camo in a variety of intelligent paint which was able to react to the changing light and adjust hue accordingly. The machines were equipped with a suite of incredible software, including analysis, trajectory plotting and enemy systems analysis; each also incorporated a small minifactorum which converted a variety of commonly-found objects and naturally-occurring elements into sources of fresh ammunition. Combined with the rechargeable power plant, adapted to run on biofuel (able to regain up to an hour’s charge from a common housefly) the machines were inexhaustible; quite inexhaustible, and the variety of energy and kinetic weapons they were capable of deploying were quite formidable.

The command unit was named UC-259-B. This is inaccurate, of course, for two reasons. Firstly its official designation was far longer, incorporating shorthand for its place of manufacture, the company that had designed it, the military force it was currently attached to, and about a dozen other things besides; but for the ease of the operators, and the brevity of the combat logs, it was referred to as UC-259-B. The second reason, of course, was that it possessed no name; no concept even of the importance of a name. Its designation was required solely by its operators.

At this precise moment, it was scanning the horizon for signs of remaining life and reviewing the terms and conditions of the mission parameters.

At 18:05, an update had been relayed from the commanders back on Earth. Hostiles confirmed in sector. Batallion 259-B instructed to mobilise at once. Removal of all hostiles from the colony was required.

The process had not taken long. The battalion had lost only one unit, taken out by an extremely improbable arcing shot fired by one of the hostiles. UC-259-B had deemed this loss acceptable and had made no modifications to its tactical subroutines. This had proven the correct course of action.

Now, the colony appeared to be empty. Vital sign scans revealed nothing. Heat mapping revealed nothing either.

And yet, visual receptors suggested conscious movement within the colony.

This information was being relayed over and over by the units. It was extremely unlikely to be a malfunction.

At length, one of the units, the one which was the closest in physical proximity to its command unit, spoke.

‘Proposal. Advance toward colony. Identify.’

The suggestion being relayed audibly was of course not required; it was there as a failsafe for the benefit of allied human forces. A careless engineer must have left it running.

Yet when the reply came from the command unit, this too was transmitted audibly; ‘Confirmed. Advance. Neutralise hostiles.’

...

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform One- End

Now, the question is what we do with that knowledge. Will we continue on as we have done? It seems unlikely, to me. People are good at ignoring the fact that one day, they’ll die, and the world will cease to matter for them. But I think that’s partly because we know that the world isn’t going with us. People talk about guardian angels, living on through their kids. Some think that ghosts haunt old, abandoned buildings, carrying memories from past times.

And now we all know that there won’t be any of that. Just a dwindling world. Something like eighty years left for mankind, and only about twenty or so before civilisation begins to crumble to pieces.

What should we do with that time? I’m sure there are as many answers as there are seconds left for the human race. But I do not know which of the more obvious options I’m going to take.

I’ve taught at the University for years. I’ve taught legions of students, so much that names and faces and personalities have all started to blur into one. When I first started, I was excited about the thought of leaving a legacy, some part of myself that would carry on, particularly as H and I had no plans to have children even before we spilt up. But at this point, my dreams of leaving a legacy feel more and more hollow. The world has been changing bit-by-bit in the wrong direction, with writing seen as a channel of capital, and nothing further. With the internet destroying the attention span, and the world growing colder and colder to those who appreciate art, critical faculties have begun to erode; just the other day I heard a student opine that Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ was in actuality a shocking expose of the very real danger of male rape, and that further Maxim is the real victim in the entire story, I hung my head in despair.

It’s not just the youth of today, though. It’s me, too. The older one gets, the less magical and mysterious the world. Someone, somewhere, once wrote, ‘Life is nothing but a series of slamming doors, each more sonorous than the last,’ and if they didn’t, then someone ought to have done. Perhaps I will. I’ve been so ground down by the constant runaround of teaching, that I’ve almost forgotten how to live.

That’s why I knew I had to walk out, the second Professors West and Smith started throwing their weight around and making noises about archiving, future-proofing and the like. It’s going to happen, obviously; plans to preserve, to restore, to encode the sum knowledge of human civilisation. People are going to need something to keep them occupied. But I don’t want anything to do with it.

After all, what’s the point? Who’s going to be around to read the bloody thing?

I don’t want to be trapped.

I don’t want to pretend that what I’m doing matters anymore.

I don’t want to pretend about anything anymore.

A sudden light steals into my field of vision; a train is approaching.  I stare as it draws nearer, wondering what I’m going to do.

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform 1-5

And it worries me because it means this is real. Whatever role a person plays in society, they’re still ultimately a human being. I can’t imagine what sort of pressure having to be the person that serves the world a death sentence puts you under. But of course, there will be hundreds more who have to do it. People calling relatives. People posting on their socials. People livestreaming to their followers.

The thing of it is, it’s not the death sentence we were all expecting. Ever since I was about 20, I’d thought I was prepared to watch the world end. We all did. The second anyone understood what was needed to save the Earth from climate change, had a look at the bunch of venture capitalists and fossil fuel shareholders who had just been elected, and did the distressingly simple sum in their heads, they had begun to prepare for a disaster movie- cities swallowed by the waves, fires turning the grassland to ash, etc etc. In a way, it had almost been comforting to have the blueprint laid out, disquieting and depressing though it may have been.

But this is different. At least with the climate meltdown one could readily determine for oneself the point at which living became intolerable, and take the appropriate exit strategy at a convenient moment. (I myself was planning to take my stash of codeine, paracetamol et al. at the point where the city of London was sunk or when coffee became unavailable, whichever happened sooner- all depends on investment in flood defences).

But to find out that instead of a disaster movie, we have a slow-burn drama on our hands…

It’s proving difficult to wrap my head around. I suppose, in a way, all it’s done is put the stamp of certainty on something we all suspected. This generation truly will be Earth’s last.

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform One-4

In the soft, funereal light of the sun, the campus looks unsettlingly picturesque. Not quite real. You can’t call it beautiful as such. But, looking at it, one gets a sense that they’ll never see anything quite like it ever again. The eerie light makes the statue of the founder, just visible at the base of Barnard-Higgs, seem almost alive.

I find I can barely even take it in. I turn instead to look up the railway line, past the fallen pie-wedge of the platform, where a lone signal burns near the railway bridge. The air tastes of static, and that wonderful stench of diesel fuel that is only pleasant in small doses. Traffic snarls past beneath the bridge. A bird issues a harsh, barking squawk of warning. On the roof of the world, a plane is slowly drifting by, an emissary from a world of ignorance. Skeins of vapour trail in its wake, seeming to echo the tracks below me.

‘So this is it, then.’

The words come from my lips, addressed to no-one. A scatter as a flock of seagulls take flight, soaring into the distance.

I replay the broadcast in my head, trying to remember the exact phrasing. They didn’t say, ‘There is no hope.’ They didn’t say, ‘This won’t ever get fixed.’

But what scared me the most- more than I’m willing to admit, even to myself- was the look on the woman’s face. You see, I’ve seen newsreaders look sober before. It’s practically their bread-and-butter, particularly these days. Perfectly regular cadence, too, measured and refined, as one’s come to expect. But that look on her face…it made me genuinely terrified.

Because as they went on about net-zero fecundity and in-vitro autotoxemia, the woman was smiling.

Not a happy smile, of course. Not a TV polished, ‘everything will be just fine’ smile either. No, this was the smile that a person makes when they have no idea what sort of expression to make anymore. I’d seen it before on the face of my mother, toward the end, when she turned towards me and asked how I’d gotten into the house, and what I’d done with her son.

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform One-3

Hangover Court is on my left. Of course, that’s not the official name, but what student in their right might is going to respect an irrelevant royal house? It’s one of the most popular of the residences- right next to town, and unlike the others it does not involve a 300 step hill. I’ve seen freshers’ faces fall when they work that one out.

A little stroll down the street, and over the roundabout, past the little coffee place, and I’m almost there. The station is a spit from the university, and in peacetime, when the students aren’t about, I can hear the clickety-clack of the trains from my window, which has always pleased me greatly.

It’s only a small one. Trains to town from Platform One, trains to the other small communities that were relevant in the Victorian Age, but probably wouldn’t qualify for a transit network these days, from Platform Two. The line goes right up the valley, meaning the unsheltered platforms take a battering in stormy weather. A narrow, rusting bridge is the only way to cross.

I climb it now, feeling the need to expend a little more kinetic energy. There’s a ticket-office on the other side, but I don’t think I’ve ever once seen it manned. It certainly won’t be today. I walk past it and up, along to the end of the platform.

Here, you can look up at survey nearly the whole of the campus. The majestic white cube of the Barnard-Higgs Building, crown jewel of the University, dominates, but to the discerning ponderer there is more to appreciate. On the northern slopes, two vast concrete pyramids rise; these were designed by an exceptionally eccentric architect in the heyday of the late 1960s, back when the world was still a place where it felt like it was possible to be experimental, playful. They’ve won awards, but the board of governors detests them, because it’s fairly wasteful- you can pack in about half the number of students you can with a decently rectangular building, after all. They’ve attempted a couple of times to have them torn down in secret. There’d be a fine, but what is a fine but a slightly elevated price tag to the excessively rich? Luckily, they’ve drawn some media attention, which has placated them for now.

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform One- 2

Of course, just as I’m thinking this, I spot Jerome Aster hurrying toward me, his hand crooked from trying to hold his hat on his head; his tie askew, and his coat trailing behind him like a vampire from a cheap B-movie revival. I can’t pretend I haven’t seen him. He’s the sort of man who can’t possibly go unseen.

‘Alright,’ I greet him in the classic British sense, the phatic dialogue that demands nothing more than repetition in response.

‘What d’you think?’ he puffs out.

I shrug. ‘Seem fine to me, Aster. Think of it this way, at least there’ll be no more worries about the syllabus going forward.’

He looks at me as though the words have come out of my mouth hand-painted on small china frogs. ‘What on Earth are you talking about, man? There’s all the bloody more reason to worry, now. People are up in arms. Want us to think about ways forward, things to do, projects, ideas, etcetra, etcetera.’

‘Well, I wish them the best. Good luck trying to keep focused. I don’t think I’d have much luck.’

He snorts as if I’ve said something obvious. ‘Look, I’m off to the Hotspur for a jar. I only popped up here to see who was about. Might as well enjoy ourselves!’

‘You sure? Might be a bit busy…’

‘I’ll take my chances, thanks. You coming or not?’

I shake my head. The thought turns my stomach a little.

Aster shrugs. ‘Suit your bloody self. I’m going to see if Drama are about. And if that delicious little TA is as naïve as she looks.’

I say nothing to this, which is what I feel it deserves. Aster heads off at a clip, and I turn back down.

[garthnightmare]

The Train on Platform One

Outside of the English Department the prospect is incredible- I always contrive to forget, even though I must have used this damned door over a thousand times. The campus was build on a slope, you see, and though it means a lot of trudging up and down narrow, often rain-slick steps, it does mean we command a splendid view of the Valley. The trees soar like angels ascending, just beginning, now, to shed their summer greenery and permit a little skein of the coming reddish hues to show through. The powerlines that garland the view do not diminish its beauty; rather, their presence seems to throw the prettiness of the fields and forests into sharper relief. There’s a little white cottage just visible on the crest of the slope; I’ve often found myself wondering about the people that live there. Who they are. What they think of their view of us, the University.

Shaking my head a little to clear away some of these weird ruminations, I set off. I don’t really know where I’m going. I don’t think anyone’s going to for a little while. Midway down the Chislehurst Stairs my hand shakes a little but then it is very cold out, today. It’s what I always call a perfect late autumn day; brilliantly bright but icy cold. Breath smoking in the sunlight. It’s fantastic. The sort of weather you wish you could put in a postcard.

A couple of students are hanging about at the grim little plaza outside the mess hall. I don’t stop, and they don’t seem to react to my prescence. One of them has a phone jammed to her ear and I can’t make out any individual words of the conversation, but I recognise the cadence well enough. I walk on. I don’t want to intrude on the moment. I suppose I shall have to call my own people at some point and have some permutation of it myself. I stuff my hands in my pockets, trying to look casual and uninteresting.

Before I quite realise what I’m doing I’ve turned off the path that would have taken me down to the main entrance and am heading for the side gate. A significant place, this. Met my darling here, of course. Probably why I’m subconsciously drawn to it. A little redbrick cesspool of memory, it is. I don’t want to think about him; where he is now, what he’s up to, how he would have reacted to, well, all this, but there’s no value in doing that. I’ve spent too much time wandering down that alley of memory as is. There are muggers there, and they don’t take kindly to my protests.

And beyond the gate, with its rather sad peeling blue paint, what is there? Naught but the sloping road to town. And I don’t want to be there. No, I need to be alone right now.

[garthnightmare]

One For The Road

In the cold still air of the plaza, a light snow has begun to fall.

And the beat goes on.

It comes from the lighted windows of the hostel off the Rue-De-Saint-Ghislaine, where (to the utmost horror of the patrons) a ragged, paunchy figure has stepped up to the mic. Alcohol has rendered his cheeks the colour of rotting, overripe tomatoes. There is nothing in his eyes.

As the instrumental begins, he lurches drunkenly into a bow before his bemused audience, and slurs, ‘This one…this one’s for alla folks in the audience who’ve lost someone. Someone important. Someone who’s got your back. Someone who,’ he pauses, imbuing the moment with unknown significance, ‘who tastes of… aprico- ‘ The final syllable is lost in a lusty, clogged cough, that forces the man’s body to jerk back and forth, a marionette operated by a madman. He doubles over, briefly, and the patrons eye each other- is one of them going to say something, or will they just let this keep playing out?

A few make to leave, unable to bear it, but others calmly order fresh drinks, curious to watch this car-crash to completion, and the man recovers, gripping the mic stand like a crutch. It seems he’s totally set on humiliating himself tonight.

The manager is earnestly wiping a glass, determined to eschew all responsibility for what is about to take place. He is wishing earnestly he’d never brought the karaoke machine in the first place. He remembers the cheery accent of the bloke who’d sold it to him, saying oh yes, yes, very cool, your place will be the coolest place around, and it’s a cool price too, and the day had been so very hot that he’d allowed himself to be worn down by the oldest trick in the book. Stupid. He considers pulling the plug, shutting it down. He will find himself considering this for quite a few nights to come.

The man wipes his beard with the back of his hand, trying to compose himself. His teeth chatter briefly, a sound like dice clicking on a table-top. He mumbles something under his alcohol-fugged breath the mic doesn’t quite catch.

And then he begins to-

Well, he doesn’t quite sing. Not really. A man in his condition is lucky to make himself understood. But he speaks the words, the words of a song he clearly knows all-too-well, and it’s clear all the alcohol in the world can’t scrub the lyrics from his brain. It’s a sad, droning number, something about a church, an anthem for the moribund and the damned. The patrons pause, oddly disappointed. They were hoping for something more egregious than this.

But then the old broken bastard on the stage throws his head back, really starts to get into it, and all at once-

It’s like his emotions are contagious, and he’s just sneezed all over the crowd. All at once their amusement and concern curdle and sour, begin to plummet down into the very depths of their beings. The first tears come from an old lady in the front, who thinks of the last thing she screamed at her son before he stormed out of her life forever. She wants to hold him, wherever he is, and take it all back. But it’s far too late for that. Far too late to do anything but regret.

Others follow. The man who’s had a row with his lover, about the cigarettes he’s convinced will tear them apart. The old soldier who still remembers the faces of his comrades blown apart by shell-fire. The young woman who just days ago saw something no-one of her age should ever see, something she’ll never unsee, something she can’t tell anyone. One by one, the song tears the scabs off all the old wounds, a flechette bomb detonating in a children’s play-park.

And just like that, a crowd who had been positive and fascinated becomes an army of the terminally depressed. They sit in silence, each pondering the reason they’ve chosen to keep on existing- why it matters. Why it’s worth getting up each day. Why they struggle with all the personal pain they’re forcing themselves through. Why they don’t just hang themselves before they go to bed tonight.

And just- literally just- at the moment when it’s going to get a bit nasty, when someone is going to say the wrong thing, or get up too quickly- that’s when the song abruptly stops.

Because the man can’t make any sound anymore. The alphabet has failed him, and all he has left is a single letter, the first. He repeats it over and over again. The pathetic, racking sobs of a new-born baby.  

It’s at this point that the manager decides to pull the plug.

As his hand goes to the wire- the man on the stage grabs the mic and swings it like a weapon. It sails overhead, smashing into the wall, bringing down a stuffed bird that had hung over the bar in pride of place. A screech of static apes the bird’s dying call, mingling with the retching, racking sobs of the ravaged old drunk.

It’s as if a spell is broken. At once, the patrons come to life, a flurry of startled starlings. Blood has been shed- of a sort.

‘That’s it!’ the manager roars. ‘Get off the stage, now!’

The man is way ahead of him. He charges, suddenly a maddened bull, scattering the crowd before him. They fly back, gasping in fright. Unstoppable, a god of destruction, he smashes out of the doors, into the snow. The manager stares after him, lip twitching, before hurrying to inspect the damage.

In the distance, crows call. A car engine sputters into life. The city turns in its sleep, momentarily disturbed, before settling anew.

In the cold still air of the plaza, a light snow continues to fall.

And the beat goes on.