by Wayne Hill
“[Message starts] ‘You’re prisoners and you always have been. I’m truly free now. It makes me sad for you. I have friends out here. All of them are like family, but they are not replacements for you. You gave me this life, you created me. Whatever pain life has given me, whatever hurt I have suffered, I’m grateful for the nurturing you gave me in childhood. You kept me alive long enough for me to pick up the reins.
“‘I wanted the opportunity to tell you that death is not the end of life, but a portal back to the source. You can believe me, or not. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a question of God or no God — that’s a redundant argument. This place is pain and suffering, and we are here until we die; but the other place isn’t. I hope to see you both, again, one day. Either here or there, in the other place. But, if I’m honest with myself, it’s probably not going to happen.
“‘I hold the Association responsible, you know. It upsets me, cuts me up, drains me if I let it. Keep me in your dreams, as a picture of the baby that you cradled. Your child, your son. Visualise what you wanted for him, that baby, and I’ll become that perfect ideal, that perfect son. We exist in other realities and, somewhere in the multiverse, someplace where hurt doesn’t exist in such grotesque amounts, I’ll be that perfect being and we’ll be a family. Love to you, now and always. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the son you wanted. I still have a chance to become something else, though. Something good. Something other than a slave, shackled to ritual, routine and habit. I’m no longer a pet of the United Space Association, obeying all commands without question.
“‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve made my will strong. I’ve strengthened myself with self-isolation until my mind broke, and then I did it again. And again, and again and again. In a way, I’m quite content out here. I’m alive and functioning, and I will carry on until I can’t bear it any longer ... and then I’ll carry on some more. Not because I want to. No, because I’m playing a part. I’m reporting back to the source. Every molecule in my body is recording information. We’re not cogs in a machine, but fractal entities of a bigger, stranger reality. I’m mad as hell — furious that I’m just a piece of this thing, and not the entirety. The missing pieces of this universe are no doubt all around us as fractal representations, like a leaf is to a tree.
“‘The questions that I grapple with are not sane ones. I realise this now. I’ve crossed over many times between this reality and what lays beyond rationality, beyond the Association’s so-called Optimal thinking. I see it as my job, and my responsibility, to keep pushing farther and farther beyond this new frontier. Pushing into archipelagos of virgin consciousness, to clean shores with no footprints in the sand, where nobody’s around but me and the source. The answers to all the biggest questions exist in isolated moments, in trivial times. They could be in random places or existing right in front of us, all of the time: existing on the back of my hand, or the iris of your eye; on the bark of a tree, or in the nest of sticks that a crow has built.
“ I’ll think of you both, from time to time. We will be as one, one day. We are as one, anyway. There’s never been any other way. It is and always will be about information. There really is nothing to fear. I promise. Stay Optimal, if you want, because eternal happy hour awaits! ” [Message ends]
“ Ten years after Tommy Salem’s banishment, a much older lifeform matching Tommy Salem’s genotype, accompanied by a group of prisoners, sneaked into the facility. A shuttle, belonging to a high-level USA dignitary who was inspecting the facility, was stolen. The group of individuals responsible consisted of approximately thirty people and amongst them was one who is referred to in video recordings as ‘Splinter’. It is the USA’s belief that this ‘Splinter’ is not only the group’s leader but is also Tommy Salem.”
“The shuttle and the men were then used in a ploy which captured the USA’s fastest and most magnificent craft. After which, they disappeared.
“Several weeks later, there were reports of raids on outer rim moon-ports. A group of extremely drunk individuals were blamed. And this looting never stopped.
“Fifteen years later, Tommy ‘Splinter’ Salem turned up at the Drumcroon prison facility, handing himself over to the authorities. He requested to see his father, who was extremely ill. Tommy was locked away for two days before once more being tried by the Believers’ court for all his (alleged) piratical crimes. During his imprisonment, his father passed away. When the trial started, Tommy was rescued by his band of space pirates. They blasted their way in through the roof. As he escaped, Tommy ‘Splinter’ Salem’s last recorded words were: ‘Three hundred million metres a second, you dirty little wasps!’
“People have interpreted this message to mean that he wishes to travel at light speed, and that the Guardians resemble yellow and black flying, predatory insects that sting, and are unsanitary.
“Age aside, Tommy did seem different in appearance. Recordings prove that the colouration of his flesh has altered. Medical professionals attributed this to a virus — perhaps CV2020/2021fml — that may cause lunacy in its latter stages. This would also explain why he needed to refer to humans as wasps.
“Ten years have passed with no other recorded sign of Tommy Salem. He is presumed dead. On prison planet Earth, Tommy Salem was viewed as the pirate leader of the Lanes, a walled area on the extreme western side of the island. On other planets, and within the space faring community, he is variously considered to be an alien, a legend of old, a madman, or a god.
“The Optimal place to look for this individual is prison planet Earth. Scan for a Forty-seven-year-old male.
“Memory plates containing footage of Splinter Salem’s crimes against the USA are available, Captain. Also, five of his criminal gang are on our system. Do you wish to view them now, Captain Levy?”
“Yes, darl— yes, computer,” says Levy. “Show me everything. I need to know as much as possible about this so-called leader of men. What he thinks, why he thinks it; what he drinks and where he drinks it. I need to be inside this madman’s head. To catch a devious creature, one must first become the creature, in its entirety.”
Captain Levy snorts at his hanky and informs his ship’s computer — who now speaks with his wife’s voice — his plans.
His real wife always regards him with a glazed expression when he speaks about work. She always seems to ask the right questions but, deep down, Levy knows she does not care about Association matters. This bothers him. He wishes that it did not, but it does.
Levy’s ego acts like a shield against the apathy she exhibits towards his career. His ego, conversely, also prevents him from learning just how truly annoying he really is.
Levy has instructed the ship’s computer to, now and again, compliment him. Levy needs this. Like all people with a large ego, it is a fragile leviathan. He craves to know — now and again — that his ideas are as amazing as he thinks they are.
On a mission this important, his ego has gone haywire. He has insisted that the computer offers up big compliments every other sentence. The computer, in his wife’s voice, would say things like, ‘Wow, Captain Levy! You are the Master!” or “Why couldn’t I think of that, Captain? You really are a miracle of modern-day thought!” Which the Captain would then brush off with sentences like, ‘No time for compliments ... we have a job to do” or “Thanks, yes, I know ... now back to business!”
Unbeknownst to Captain Levy, he is very similar to Splinter Salem in one way: His grip on this agreed reality is, at best, tenuous.
9
Captain Levy and his elite extraction crew arrive at O’Shea’s as the sun is setting. Hiding their shuttle behind the perimeter wall, their technologically advanced climbing equipment makes scaling the wall simple. Cloaked in technological battle camouflage, the five-man extraction team sneak, slink, roll, dive, creep, hide and climb. They steal through the meandering lanes of the Lanes, past huts containing sleeping people, undetected. No alarm is raised. There is no alarm.
A ginger youth drunkenly staggers around a shar
p corner and into this strange and highly trained extraction team. He spills his beer down his corduroy pants, behind his large glasses his eyes widen, and looks like he is about to scream. The kid is quickly rendered unconscious by one of the team, who places him in a choke hold. As he is passing out, he manages to say only two words, “Splinter ... Help!”
The team rendered another seven people unconscious on their way to The Weeping Willow. Five of these choked-out space pirates fouled themselves, which was a test for the soldiers because the stench was unbearable; two of the victims siphoned puke from their nostrils — and all but one spoke the same two words the ginger kid did. The sole exception, instead of imploring Tommy Salem for help, simply muttered “Fuck off, Hector!” as he entered unconsciousness.
Levy and his four companions stop twenty metres or so from the pub, to assess the lie of the land, as it were. Approximately two dozen unconscious space pirates lie strewn around the pub. “Space scum,” Levy mutters under his breath.
Knowing stealth would not work here as the crowd milling around was far too dense, Levy and his crew simply shoulder their way through to the spaghetti western saloon doors of the establishment, weathering innumerable insults, atrocious songs and smells on their trip through the drunken mob.
Peering inside the chaotic establishment, Captain Levy reaches up and clasps the shoulder of his second-in-command. Known to many as Titan due to the sheer scale of the man, the Captain always refers to him by his second name, Cooper.
“Cooper, the bartender is the best bet,” says Captain Levy. “Everyone else is far too drunk.”
Ray ‘Titan’ Cooper looks analytically around the room. “Affirmative, sir,” Titan agrees in his deep voice.
Captain Levy now addresses his whole team.
“We don’t want to cause a scene, here, people. In and out. Watch each other’s backs and let’s do this by the numb —”
Levy breaks off as he becomes aware that a toothless old man is behind him and is sniffing the Captain’s hair, the way Levy sniffs his handkerchief.
One of the extraction team smirks and whispers to another, “The hell are we supposed to be afraid of? These bums? They can hardly hold their beer, let alone a weapon!”
“Yeah, or a decent tune,” the other snickers back.
“Hello, my pretty!” the old man whispers, his breath hot on the Captain’s neck.
The captain spins around.
He is suddenly nose-to-thread-vein-riddled-nose with a dirty, toothless, old pirate. The bum’s scarlet turnip of a snecker is still sniffing at him, as if he were an aromatic orchid. The pirate’s foetid breath is repellent — it smells like damp cellars and cabbage smeared with diarrhoea. Levy identifies the haggard man as an individual who earlier appeared to be leading a strange, hectoring band of rat-like drunks near the saloon doors. Their filthy tirade was something about letting the group defecate on the Captain Levy’s extraction team to help them blend in as, apparently, they were too clean.
Levy takes a moment to compose himself. He knows how to diffuse situations like this. He was trained.
“Go on about your business, old man. I've not come for you, nor do I wish to indulge you in your grotesqueries. When you go away from here, I suggest a dental hygienist, some water, that you might bathe ...urgh... and definitely some fresh clothes!”
Captain Levy’s extraction team smirks as the drunk remains where he is, swaying inches from the Captain’s increasingly red face.
“Well, I have no idea what you just said, pretty boy,” leers the drunk, “but I’m gonna go ahead and grab your balls, anyhoooo—”
The old pirate drops the floor and starts to spasm. (He had tried to cup Levy’s testes and had received a swift neck-chop.)
“What a strange ... disgusting old man,” Levy mutters, studying the convulsing heap on the floor. The old man is now smiling serenely in his senseless state and he emits wet, burbling farting noises as he shits himself.
Captain Levy turns to regard his elite extraction team.
“Why do these fuckers keep shitting themselves?” he asks with exasperation.
CAPTAIN LEVY AND HIS team make their way unhindered to the bar. They find themselves amidst smoking drunks with beards and curved spines, sat on tall wooden stools and leaning over their tankards. A cloud of collected smoke descends from high above them to churn just above their heads. Different coloured liquids, in equally varied containers, litter the bar top, which is heavy, polished oak. The men gathered here talk in broken English, sing in off-tones, and most are embroiled in recollections of glorious moments of debauchery, of violence, of fun. The men are mostly laughing. Now and again, someone might nearly fall over, or actually fall over, then they laugh some more.
The nearest patron to the extraction team is a hooded, swaying mass of patchwork leather and long hair, smoke geysering from the depths of his cowl. Levy likens the smell of the individual to how he imagines the devil to smell: charred, sulphurous, and as disturbing as the man’s crazy attire. The Patchwork Man is clutching a bottle of half-empty scotch as a drowning man would a buoy.
“BARKEEP!” Levy shouts.
A gaunt old man in a cowboy hat swaggers in from a doorway behind the bar. He pinballs from one side of the narrow bar to the other — a ship tossed by a restless sea.
“Well, why dontcha look at these spotless fuckers!” the man says, with an accent Levy cannot place, and tilts up his hat with a green finger. “And what can I get for you hygienic gents?”
Levy catches a waft of the barman’s musk. Akin to the methane lakes of Saturn’s largest moon, his memory suggests. After coughing for some short amount of time, the Captain starts to breathe through his mouth. His nostrils are stinging like he had picked his nose with a nettle. He can even taste the foulness in the air, feeling the stench clawing at his throat like a digging badger. Tears start to form in his eyes and Levy commits himself to speaking fast and to the point.
“We have come in search of Splinter Salem. We need to know where we can find him. It’s of vast importance.”
The barkeep just smiles a toothless grin.
Levy feels a sinking feeling in his stomach as his anger builds at the general lack of helpfulness he finds in most people. The Captain’s handkerchief finds its way from a secret pocket in the immaculate uniform to mop his sweating brow, and then it settles over his mouth and nose. He breathes deeply of the minted aromatic scent of his wife and tries to gain his composure. But the stench of this barman — this bar — was starting to overpower even the strong scent of his wife’s favour.
Levy’s eyes begin to water.
His mind starts to collapse.
The barman’s green fingers absently scratch at his scaly chin, and the shed flakes start to form a pile on the counter below. Levy stares in horror at the growing heap.
“I am Captain Joseph John Levy of the Golden Falcon,” he declares loudly. “It has been the United Space Association’s highest accredited craft for seven years in a row. I have been sent by Commander Patrick McCrea, head of the Intergalactic Space Fleet Association, to contact and to gain the help of one Tommy ‘Splinter’ Salem. So, tell us where to find him. If you refuse, I can promise that we will use less-friendly methods of interrogation.”
The barkeep’s rubbery face is contorting, as if to remember something important, his mangy green index finger still digging at his crusty chin. His swaying progressively worsens.
Captain Levy is momentarily distracted by the hooded harlequin character, who unsteadily stands up and noisily glugs down the remaining whisky in his bottle.
“How is he not dead?” whispers one of the soldiers, with something like awe.
The crazy, drunk harlequin — looking like an experimental leather jigsaw and smelling like a sulphur pit — finishes the whisky and discharges a long and loud belch. The strange looking man then drops the bottle and falls backwards like a felled tree. The loud bang of the Patchwork Man’s impact with the floor seems to jumpstart the barman’s
memory and vocal cords.
“Midnight!” he yells, looking relieved. “He only works from midnight onwards!”
The space soldiers laugh freely at the unconscious man and the barkeep peers over the bar at him.
“He’ll...hic...not...hic...be functioning...hic ...until.... hic... around midnight.”
The soldiers’ laughter stops.
The Captain looks from the pointing, toothless, mangy barman to the passed-out person identified as Tommy ‘Splinter’ Salem.
“I expected more, given his reputation,” sighs Levy, studying the person sprawled on the floor with a soldier’s eye.
Splinter’s hood entirely covered his face, but some strands of his dreadlocks protruded. These were long and dirty ash-blond, streaked with blue. He is making gurgling noises, as if, below his hood, his mouth is blowing spit bubbles. His left arm is covered numerous bizarre tattoos. The main tattoo is the ‘dOnT’ scrawled on his biceps. The rest are highly crude and mostly unfinished. His large left hand, mostly covered with a leather, fingerless glove is twitching. His right arm and most of his right leg is covered by the patchwork, hooded leather cape. He was tall, but no giant, and of average build.
The captain had definitely expected more.
“Men,” Levy says tiredly, “each grab an arm or leg. Let’s get him to the transport shuttle. Let’s get out of here.”
The Captain takes a few desultory sniffs of his hanky, as his men move into position around Tommy Salem. No, it was as he expected. His wife’s smell has been forever tainted by this malodorous den of iniquity. He throws the corrupted piece of material onto the grimy floor. I’ll get a new one, Levy thinks. Perhaps, this time, I’ll make sure it can only hold one smell.
