Toolmaster Of Brainerd

Dream - (Song: Don’t You Want Somebody to Love)

     He read the date, Sept 7th, 1949.  The headline was familiar and astounding.  It had the effect that a beautiful half naked girl has on a train car full of work-weary joes. It was a super-real moment, a stab in the foot of attention.  The headline read - Sept 7th, 1949.  Adolf Hitler wins Nobel Peace Prize. 

   His ground breaking program designed to appease the jews and arabs middle east conflicts have ended a millenium old squabble.  No longer do jew and arab see each other with enmity.  “Finally, my eyes were opened to our essential brotherhood” said Menachim Begin, Special Envoy of the New Israeli Likud.  “We owe a debt of gratitude to this greatest of statesmen.”  Hitler, always gracious, offered this comment.- “This conflict owes its resolve to not just one mans efforts but was blessed with angels ears and the open heat that only humanity can express, bit is reflected in all creations beauty.  We are blessed with a peace lit by divine light.”  Hitlers rousing speech was heard by thousands of cheering citizens at Berlin Volks Platz and braodcast world wide on BBC radio.  His words; a shimmering mirage of bold claims and hyper-valent exposition.

            Now Berne blinked.  He blinked again.  Then he stared for a long time. For a full minute he gazed at this improbable headline while a string of synapses coughed to life in his mushy cerebral cortex and fused into a tremulous grin that completely relaxed his face, shoulders and stomach.  He had happened on a new experience.  A Utopia- the dream of man had cultivated its way from hypothesis to accepted practice in this alternate world.  A world of sweet cheese and feathered dreams. A harps nest of happy people.

            He posited that it had something to do with the regulation and flow of sexual energy. All along the fair boulevards he came across couples in all forms. Opposite and same sex couplings dotted the busy sidewalks of the park.  Young lovers held hands in twos and threes,  hugging and kissing like new lovers do.  And the whole world smelled of ozone and gardenias.

Berne felt odd and twitchy in a place so openly companionable.

  Present - (Song: I’m a Rainbow Wit You)

  We find that Berne’s condition is intentionally created.  In fact many strange mental abberations are actually conscious experiments performed by ,“The Vast”. 

   This alien race of furry ill-tempered monstrously intelligent creatures who speak a kind of clicking Sino-Tibetan language and prefer very cold climates here on Earth are the true faces of our civilization. We are their experiment. 

   Until the 1800’s when the British decided to swok-up the first Bath & Tea-house in the Darjeeling Hills, this area had not much to it.  There was a reason for this.  The people had been terrorized into thinking it was haunted.  The “haunting” was actually members of “The Vast” community out relieving themselves, which they do frequently and in a very tawdry way.  You see, its a very misty, foggy place.  With lots of cliffs and crags and pointy pieces of mountain bits.  So standing in a fog you really don’t notice when you’ve just been lightly showered by an alien doing its necessary frequent function.  “The Vast”, find this an hilarious past time.  Pissing on British soldiers became a kind of sport for them over the many years of their occupation.  Many of the British soldiers began to suspect that it was one of the many ethnic natives of the area that were todding off above them through the misty air.  And many natives that know of the presence of these amazing creatures believe the British finally tired of being pissed on.  And so they left.  Leaving the enormous Indian sub-continent on their own and so opening

 With the help of his family and friends he is able to steal a Ripper in Taipei at night before being detected. The original prototype is on display at the massive Chiang Kai Shek Memorial grounds.  Berne awakens it and blasts out to sea over the Danshui River then turns south at the mouth and gives the entire west coast of Taiwan an incredible night time show.  The Taiwanese love it!

 Berne put his foot to the plasma and felt the surge of speed drift him back into the seat and the pod back closer to the now stern side of the Ripper. 

 The soft tendrils on his forehead retracted and his form became leaner as the g-strength increased with acceleration. It took a bit of a trick to keep his visuals on by extending his ear pods slightly upward to create the necessary cradle for the slight grasp of the perceptor temples.

The wide span of plasma before him formed a morphing lens that let him view any angle with a very clear peripheral arc. He gradually thrusted to a high viewing position in his locally northern quadrant. 

The Thoon and the Harg or The Slow Groan to Phobos - Present

(Rescue from Without) - The hero may need to be rescued from without by humanity.

Orbe Fracto Spes Illaesa - Tho the World be Shattered, Hope is unimpaired

            I only wanted to feel existence right there at the ends of my fingers.  Just a flicker of two I wasn’t asking for much but life seem to hoard experiences from you as if she knows that if you have it all its over, jack. That’s it that’s all she wrote. I couldn’t tell whether we had stumbled upon a new form of civilization or recovered an older wiser form.  Something that took into account that humans need more time to make mistakes and grow.. the daily grindoof this localized insanity was anathema to me.  I couldn’t live it anymore and i couldn’t tell anyone how i felt  i would seem insane.  The words would stick in my throat everytime i tried to speak to Chloe about my feelings.  I’d start to talk and then just let her go.  No place to be no place to see.  The world would cave around me and BAM!!  My vision would clear and I’d could hear voices and sounds and the linear form of meatspace would envelope me once again.

I forced my eyes open and looked at the hand like a drunken stripper. 

All these things are

desperate-

All these things are

known-

Its been a while

since I’ve been home

(Ocean Rippers can be driven over land where much destruction ensues.) 

The BelCom Big Streak begins with crews jockeying for position out from San Francisco Bay to the starting gates, huge platforms with giant pyramidal hotels beginning 20 nautical miles off the coast and marking points along the course. The course streaks north of the Hawaiian chain to pit crews off Tokyo harbor.  Then an over-nite stay in Taipei, Taiwan the homeland of the inventor of the Rippers. The course veers east at Hong Kong to the roar of millions of fans as huge plumes of water sends minor tsunami’s sweeping the shielded shores of Mainland China. Thru the So China Sea around the Philippines north of Indonesia then across for another pit stop in Sydney.  The crafts then swept down and around New Zealand, one of the most dangerous stretches,  then up the coast of So America to a roaring home-stretch back along the California coast and back thru the rainbow plasma wall that sets off a ga-boggling display of small nukes wired directly opposite the moons orbit. The sky shimmers in a psychedelic display of flashes and tints worthy of this gargantuan sport.

(Happiness always escaped him. He had moments of numb clarity with no memory because sadness would always steal the final form of his reverie and stuff any joy back into his gullet.  He didn’t have to worry about being too happy.)

High speed races on the oceans of the world are conducted in large hover spheres.  The drivers are encased in a liquid filled capsule suspended in the center of these giant spheres to ease the g-force of 90 degree turns.  Fans watch from geo-stationary hotels and bleachers in space.

(The Magic Flight) - A mad dash is made by the hero to return with the prize

            An Ocean Ripper is a monument to intra-atmospheric speed.  A outer-sphere of plasma 1000M in diameter creates a frictionless surface within which the huge space is filled with a densely compressed charge of diamond gas and the central command pod called a blastocyte is filled with a breathable liquid.  All this to reduce the mind sqwunching speed of right angle turns at over 2500kph! 

            The release of minute amounts of the gas slammed the sphere into hyper speeds that cruised these luminescent giants just above the surface of the Pacific Ocean skipping across the waves that plumes giant wakes visible from the geo-syncronous platforms above.

And the noise!  The banshee wails of quantum whistling sends shivers down the spine of the entire viewing audience.  The rules of engagement are simple and clear.  No holds barred!  Now that’s entertainment!

Belson Communications along with a consortium of the Sino-Indian trade confed made up the big movers of the Janus project.

The discovery of the blip on the edge of the Black Hole had drawn the rapt interest of all Cosmologists and Astrophysists  and other ists worthy of their salted Phds.

Blaise Verilac the famous  infant terrible of the new breed of Astro-Cosmologists weaned on Strings-N-Things had called it a Cosmic Hemorrhoid. The flower of uncertainty is a state of sparkling stasis.

Verilac was known for his florid descriptions of Astro-babble and those of the grounded set like the sharp witted Australian aboriginal star Odwalla Nunjuice and the (tiny delicate) Chinese American, Lark Bunting, had all congregated onto the next flight out to C-city.

The discovery of the blip on the edge of the Black Hole had drawn the rapt interest of all the forces trying to stop the Singularity

The question now is, does Berne believe enough to return to Earth and stop the destruction of the Vast.  Will humanity understand that this is their destiny?  Part of the scenario is, to merge with the Vast to gain conscious access to that part of their brains that has laid dormant for eons waiting for this urge of evolution.  Along with the technological singularity there is a parallel biological singularity that was not previously forseen but only understood by a very few, those infected with the “dread muggs”.

Berne finds the die is cast for his return when he discovers a clandestine meeting had taken place months before between the established powers on Earth:  Business, Religious, Black Market, Military, Scientific.  A congress of powers had traveled out to the Asteroid belt and had interrogated swellhead provacateurs.  They found out exactly what was going to happen; an EGG: a random event generator that was massively parallel linked with a bio-informatic query interface was questioned and found to locate the time of Singularity, and realized that the Singularity threatened their wealth, their power and their standing.  The new paradigm did not take the status quo into account. 

This information is realized by Berne at the same time and a race is on to who will get to Azita first. They would be superfluous in the new order of things and The Vast would merge with humanity and become the new power ex officio. A promise of a new humanity would blossom to create the great organic utopia that could without delay colonize worlds throughout the galaxy.  Man must make a conscious choice for its own evolution. Humans have a chance to surpass the technological singularity only if they submit to merging with The Vast.  Merge or face extinction.

(The Goddess) - With all the obstacles overcome, the hero can find bliss in the arms of a lover. This is a grand reward for the hero.

Berne now understands that he must interface with the Ex-Terra Moor, Azita; the dark fungi that has mysteriously risen out of the ground on Earth and hovers in the air sparkling like a billion synapses.  As man moved forward out into space and more Swellheads fill the solar system, jealous forces wish to snuff the Moor and all the Swellheads out.

(The Temptress) - However, this Goddess can also negate the hero’s progress with lust. This can distract the hero from his ultimate goal and plunge him back into darkness.

  “I’m married? To a stripper?”

            Berne had answered his own question. He tended to do this.

            His wife’s name was Glitter Twilite, and yes she is a stripper.

(Apotheosis) - The hero is raised to god-like status.

As a result of his merging with Azita, Berne is parasitically impregnated.(research the symbiotic parasitism of snail and fungi.)

“Pregnant?”, the words had the spine chilling effect of an eery drip of liquid sliding down from behind his neck.  “But…how…?”  Berne was now in a comical gaping catatonia.  His eyes brows were furrowed into bushy question marks.  His nostrils flared, his open mouth from which one small bead of slobber perched on his lower lip, gaped.  Berne’s mind was agog with fright, his body oscillated with confusion, was simultaneously anchored by the emerging horror of his condition. 

Berne stands at the back of the Japanese Peace Pagoda high above Darjeeling, India. He is exhausted by his travels and the speed that he made up to this high altitude is killing him. He sucks on an oxygen tank given to him.  He knows he is close to something. He doesn’t know exactly what. It is a prescient awareness, a blessing, a furtive knowing. Something calls him on. 

“The light here is so rare”, he sounded out in the dampened hush.  All his travels in space; the vistas of the cosmic swell and still nothing captured his imagination like Earth. All these eons and still we find we are unique. Perhaps we are the seedlings of intent.  The eternal tourists and galactic spawn.  Here at the top of the world his mind quieted like never before. The air scented with virgin ozone smelled like the first breath of creation. We bold and restless nomads of blue-green terra. Our voices begin to fill the void of space. The evolving impulsion must have great patience with regards to the naïve patterns of mans fickle traits. As he looked toward the rising sun a brilliant shaft of light forces its way thru the speeding swirling clouds above and burns thru the mist like a divine fiery finger of fire.  Bernes knows he must move down the valley toward the mist and he will soon learn, toward Azita of Ghoom.

(In this Chapter we learn how man is destined to awaken the intelligence of the solar system by just his spreading presence.  As man begins to populate within and around the Asteroid Belt a critical mass is met and the key Fungi Bulks on Earth awaken and begin to communicate).

‘To out delight, man excretes!’ - Neon Bong

When I first met Neon Bong I knew he was a special fella.  He was Earth’s first trillionaire.  Everything he touched turned to gold. The bastard had the Midas Touch. It was Neon who had led the way to colonization. Of miniature stature he was a giant among marketers and could drive a point home with the thrust of a fencing master, with a deft grace and steely strength. 

He made his fortune in excretia.  Yes Neon was the Pasha of Poop, the King of Crap, the Lord of the Loo. He had invented a method to turn turds into an efficient, effective and affordable energy source.  

No one knew manure like Neon.

His movements in the darkened maintenance shaft were of a fleet articulation, silent and cunning. The darkness was no more an encumbrance for him than a blind-swifters abilities of keen proprioception. Such was highly attuned for navigation in the ever present nights of the North.

This is the dream: Bourne runs off the beach of the previous dream into the smokey stair case of a building during an emergency. He walks down the stair case and enters a small temple in a graveyard in Nagashioda, Japan here he ritually commits seppuku!  

There are times when one awakens in a dream and the night makes a piece-meal of your mind and life weighs on your head like a heavy glove;  a loggers mitt, a firemans glove…fire…smoke.

The sounds were aswirl, an incubus/snake surrounding his head and body ascending and descending; a torus of murky sounds.

Berne awoke in a  smoke filled stair well, descending with a lot of people. A lot of scared people.

“Keep moving!” said a voice from behind him.

“Keep moving, but don’t run!” 

“A fire?” He thought? 

As the column came to a landing he saw the number 42.  “The 42nd floor!”  He couldn’t think of anything worse than to be trapped in the stark hallway of a modern sky rise with a lot of screaming burning people.

 He started to panic.  His heart beat faster and harder against his chest cavity. “Hurry, damn it!” He thought. 

Ahead of him was a collection of office worker types and one very out of place character dressed as a pirate. The scene was dis-embodying. Surreal and collapsing all around him. “This is insane!”  Berne thought.

Out of the corner of his eye amidst the smoke and panic he saw again the white translucent figure at once vibrant and gone in a flash. With the slightest nod of its head and outstretched arms it had seemed to be beckoning him. In his thoughts the word:  “Azita.” 

The next time Berne awoke it was night. The tide was rising and a forcefully insulting wave had hit him squarely on the back, soaking and chilling him to startled vivification.
    He sat up.
    Sitting in the dark, on the wet sand, waves smacking him forward and dragging him back, like a piece of hollow driftwood rooted on the beach. His ass was sunk in a wet hole, his bare feet dug in.
    The fourth or fifth wave was enough to get him to his feet. He eyed the inner beach and slowly with wobbling gait finally made his way to the top of a dune and sunk to his knees.
    Again from the dunes giggling sounds from small shadows and now one shadow just to his right. 
    He felt eyes, penetrating eyes peering into the back of his head.    The ocean sounds were interspersed with other another sound. A keening-hesitant sound.
    No birds above?
    His eyes adjust to a huddled mass at the far end of the dune bowl.  It looked like a bag moving; a large dark bag.
    He crawls his way forward towards the bag and the whimpering sounds.  His sun-scrambled brain and the darkness finally meet in a moment of clarity and his eyes focused upon a couple…fucking.  Fucking intensely in a large sleeping bag.  The crying sounds, the ocean…and now a screaming girl.
    Berne had come too close. His mangled glasses no longer rectified his severe near-sightedness.  And his sand blasted fright wigged face six inches from the girls eyes were enough to set her shrieking.  Her lover shrieked also as her tightened kegel muscles had nearly taken his dick off. 
    They had both backed into a streak of moonlite and as it revealed their faces Berne startled with the queasy sight of his own face in a awful shrieking grimace.
    Berne clawed and ran away from the faces and the shrieks, away from the beach, away from the sand and jumping starfish.
Berne ran.