Fall

by Rod Rees

  MANdate: Signed between His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu and the Head of the IRGON, Rabbi Schmuel Gelbfisz, the MANdate states: ‘His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu views with favour the establishment in NoirVille of a national home for the nuJu people, and will use his best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this objective, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing Shade communities. In return the nuJu people will provide NoirVille, on an exclusive basis, with such quantities of Aqua Benedicta as it may demand.’ It was the signing of this document that paved the way for the establishment of the JAD … and for all the grief, hatred and violence that followed as a consequence.

  Man2naM: The practice of NoirVillian men who exchange essences in order to enhance their Manliness.

  Mantle, the: The impenetrable crust of the Demi-Monde situated below the topsoil.

  Mantle-ite: The indestructible material used by the Pre-Folk to construct sewers, water pipes, Blood Banks and the Mantle.

  MANtor: For a Boy to grow into a Man he must be trained and moulded by a MANtor who personifies all the sacred qualities of Machismo. By imitating his MANtor the Boy will grow to be like him, assimilating his virtues into his own personality. Often MANtors are warriors who have grown too old to run with their HimPi but have shown that they are wise in the ways of Machismo and are possessed of Coolness. The MANtor represents the law and the teachings of HimPerialism and it is his duty to break any emotional attachment a Boy might feel to his mother and to woeMen.

  MuscleMen: The Holy Men, who call all Men who follow HimPerialism to exercise in the HIMnasium, in order that they may worship ABBA through perfecting their bodies.

  nanoBites: The submicroscopic creatures which inhabit the soil layer of the Demi-Monde. They consume everything – except Mantle-ite – converting it to soil.

  Normalism: The philosophy of nonViolence, Civil Disobedience and Passive Resistance developed by Norma Williams.

  nuJuism: The religion of the nuJu diaspora, this is an unrelentingly pessimistic religion that teaches that suffering and hardship are life-affirming, and are endured to prepare the followers for the coming of the Messiah who will lead them through Tribulation to the Promised Land.

  Ordo Templi Aryanis: The most zealous and uncompromising of all UnFunDaMentalist sects. Their belief is that the Anglo-Slavic people will not reclaim its oneness with the Spirits – lost after the Fall – until it is racially cleansed and all contaminating racial elements (the UnderMentionables) have been eradicated.

  Pawnography: A term coined by HerEticals to disparage the erotic materials produced and distributed in the Quartier Chaud. HerEticals deemed all such material to be a violation of female rights as it degraded women and encouraged violence against them. The HerEtical term for Erotic Material is pawnography as it is said to lead to Women selling (or pawning) their bodies to Men’s crazed lusts. Such pawnography encourages a belief in male superiority as it celebrates the power of the penis. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word pornography.

  Portals: Places where Daemons can move into and out of the Demi-Monde.

  Pre-Folk: The semi-mythical race of godlings who ruled over the Demi-Monde before the Confinement and who were brought low by the sexual connivings of the Seidrwitch Lilith. The demise of the Pre-Folk is known in Demi-Mondian mythology as ‘the Fall’. UnFunDaMentalism teaches that the Pre-Folk were the purest expression of the Aryan race. Also known as the Vanir.

  preScience: A Venetian school of philosophy dedicated to the study of (and the making of) prophecies and 4Tellings, especially in the areas of economics and finance. The greatest of all preScientists are Professeur Michel de Nostredame and Docteur Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratieff of the Future History Institute, Venice. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word prescience.

  Qi: The energy flow which surrounds and permeates all living things. It is the unseen and unseeable élan vital which gives life and breath to the inanimate, thus making it animate. It energises the soul which resides in all things constituted by the Living.

  RaTionalism: An avowedly and uncompromisingly atheistic creed developed by the renegade Rodina thinker and ardent Royalist Karl Marx, which strives by a process of Dialectic ImMaterialism to secure logical explanations regarding the Three Great Dilemmas. RaTionalism rejects all supernatural interpretations with respect to the Three Great Dilemmas and does not acknowledge any input that cannot be verified by the five senses.

  Shades: The slang term for NoirVillians.

  sheMan: Unique to NoirVille, sheMen are classified as ‘transgender’, though many opt for full emasculation to ensure their journey into sheManHood is complete. The Church of HimPerialism teaches that for Men, sheMen are the preferred outlet for their sexual lusts, and with their being so few (relative to Men) their services are highly prized and lucrative. For poor NoirVillian Boys, a career as a sheMan is very attractive.

  Shvartses: The nuJu slang term for Shades.

  Solidified Astral Ether: Also known by the acronym SAE. The substance which makes up the soft tissue of all Demi-Mondians.

  Solution: A cocktail of vodka and soda with one or more shots of blood. Usually available in 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 20 per cent strengths of blood.

  Sphinx, the: The holiest shrine in both nuJu and HimPerial religions, thought to have been constructed by the nuJus in the time before the Confinement when they had the power to work Mantle-ite. The nuJu Book of Profits ascribes the creation of this graven image as the reason why ABBA condemned the nuJu people to wander homeless through the Demi-Monde.

  SS: Soldiers of Spiritualism, the military wing of the Ordo Templi Aryanis.

  steamers: Steam-powered vehicles popular in the Demi-Monde.

  subMISSiveness: As punishment for Lilith’s connivance in the Fall of Man, ABBA decreed that henceforward woeMen would be required to conduct themselves according to the precepts of subMISSiveness, that is, they must be at all times Mute, Invisible, Subservient and Sexually Modest. Only in this way may woeMen earn the forgiveness of ABBA.

  Terror Incognita: The area extending in a radius of four miles around Mare Incognitum and bounded by the Wheel River. A totally unexplored region of the Demi-Monde. No explorer venturing into Terror Incognita has ever returned. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World term Terra Incognita.

  Under Mentionables: A catch-all term for all those considered by UnFunDaMentalism to be racially inferior and hence subhuman (including, inter alia, nuJus, Poles, Shades, HerEticals, Suffer-O-Gettes, HimPerialists, RaTionalists, those of a sexually deviant disposition, and those deemed to be genetically flawed). A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word Untermensch.

  UnFunDa Mentalism: The official religion of the ForthRight, UnFunDaMentalism is based on the philosophy of Living&More or life reform, which espouses clean living, vegetarianism, homeopathy and an abstention from alcohol, blood, tobacco and recreational sex. Heavily suffused with the occult and a belief in the existence of a Spirit World. Aleister Crowley is head of the Church of UnFunDaMentalism.

  UnFunnies: The slang name for UnFunDaMentalists.

  Visual Virgins: A Venetian order of Sisters established by Doge Oldoini as the Sacred and All-Seeing Convent of Visual Virgins. This Convent is dedicated to the selection and training of girls adept in Auralism (only virgin females have the power of Auralism) in order that they may be used to screen Men living in the Quartier Chaud and hence to identify Dark Charismatics masquerading as CitiZens. Visual Virgins practise fiduciary sex.

  WhoDoo: The cult religion of NoirVille, based on a distorted remembrance of Seidr.

  woeMen: The NoirVillian term for women.

  Yin/Yang: The binary opposites of the Kosmos, representing, inter alia, dark and light, cold and hot, female and male. But though Yin and Yang are opposites, they are complementary and mutually dependent: one cannot exist without the other and they strive unceasingly to create the balance that will bring harmony
to the Kosmos and ABBAsoluteness to HumanKind. When this is accomplished, Yin will fuse with Yang to create Ying, the ultimate transcendental Peace. The achieving of Ying by the purification of the Astral Ether is the ultimate aim of all WunZian Confusionists.

  zadnik: Demi-Mondian slang for a male homosexual and, more generally, for a NoirVillian male. The word is derived from the Russian zad meaning arse.

  Glossary 2:

  The Real World

  12/12: The 12/12 dirty nuke terrorist attack perpetrated by the terrorist group Christ’s Crusaders on the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, on 12 December 2014 killed 150,000 people and caused economic damage estimated to be in the order of £300 billion. 12/12 is cited as the main reason Sam Williams was able to oust Peter Kenton II from the White House, Kenton having been discredited by his association with the Crusaders.

  ABBA: ABBA (Archival, Behavioural, Biological Acquisition) is a Quanputer-based system developed and operated by ParaDigm CyberResearch Limited. By utilising an Invent-TenN® Gravitational Condenser incorporating an Etirovac Field Suppressor®, ABBA is the only computer to achieve a full SupaUnPositioned/DisEntangled CyberAmbiance. As a consequence, ABBA is capable of prodigiously rapid analysis (a fully tethered 30 yottaQuFlops) to give the bioNeural-kinetic engineers at ParaDigm access to almost unlimited processing power.

  bioSignatures: The means by which a digital identity can be verified. BioSignatures include, inter alia, fingerprints, retinal scans, DNA and pheromonic analysis.

  biPsych: Those who have a simultaneous existence in both the Real World (as a NowLived) and in the Demi-Monde (as a Dupe).

  Demi-Monde, the: The steadily increasing demand for US Army involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Asymmetrical Warfare Environments (AWEs) post-9/11 led to the issuing of Tender Document USAWVTP#2/2013/NANOIMP/67/JCS on 27 January 2013. This document required the development of a means by which neoFight – US Army terminology for a newly recruited/newly trained grunt – training could be shortened and improved, and subsequent battlefield performance enhanced. The Demi-Monde was the virtual reality world, platformed on ABBA, designed by ParaDigm CyberResearch to meet these requirements..

  eyeMail: An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person messages, the privacy and integrity of the message being assured by ParaDigm’s RetinQek Verification Program.

  eyeSpy: Hover-capable and independently programmable surveillanceBot.

  eyeVid: An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person digital moving-image messages.

  Flexi-Plexi: Digital wallpaper. When connected to a Polly, a wall covered with Flexi-Plexi is able to display any digital image to a size and shape determined by the viewer.

  Fun/Funs: Street/marketing name for the Fun-Loving Fundamentalists, the Christian youth movement established and lead by Norma Williams.

  INDOCTRANS: Indoctrination and Training Command: the department of the US Army responsible for the operation of the Demi-Monde.

  monopad: A prefabricated one-room living unit which encompasses within a six-metres square floor plan areas for washing, food preparation and living/sleeping.

  moteBots: Nano-sized, independently viable and dynamically flexible surveillance cameras. The use of moteBots was declared illegal by the League of Nations’ Universal Charter of Human Rights and Privacy of 2015.

  noöPINC: The 2nd generation Personal Implanted nanoComputer, noöPINC is a cyborg-virus – a virus with man-made elements incorporated into its make-up – these nanocybernetic structures acting as inception points for the development of the virus. The virus grows around them and by doing so absorbs the artificial elements into its genetic structure.

  nu- Commandments: The fifteen nuCommandments that Frank Kenton presented to the world during his Coliseum speech of 1953 (and which formed the basis of American political, religious and social thinking for the next sixty years). These nuCommandments were, according to Kenton, given to him via an angel sent by God, each nuCommandment etched on an orb which ‘shone with a holy green light’.

  PanOptika: The ABBA-platformed program that links all surveillance apparatus (whether private or State) and all databases (whether private or State) to develop a full 360-degree cyber-portrait of individual citizens.

  PINC: A Personal Implanted nanoComputer; developed by ParaDigm Technologies as a means to radically reduce training times and to find a more efficient method of inculcating students and trainees with specific knowledge sets. PINC is a nano-sized Memory Supplement which is biologically compatible with the human brain. Once in contact with the brain, PINC fuses with its organic tissue and is able to graft information – painlessly and seamlessly – into a person’s memory bank.

  PINC Referendum of 2015: The 12/12 attack on Edinburgh marked a substantial shift in the attitude of the British towards PINC. Before the attack public opinion was largely negative, there being widespread suspicion that the wholesale PINCing of the population would lead to an unacceptable infringement of privacy and personal liberty. After the attack national security became the pre-eminent concern of British citizens, and the arguments that PINC would ensure their safety and their e-identity had greater resonance. A referendum was called to decide the matter and almost 60 per cent of those eligible to vote did so in favour of the compulsory and universal adoption of PINC within the British Empire. It is anticipated that this policy will be executed at the end of May 2019.

  Polly: Street name for a polyFunctional Digital Device which encompasses, in one dockable device, an individual’s complete computational, communication, security, biomonitoring and entertainment requirements.

  PollyMorph: An ABBA-based program that enables digital modifications applied to one part of a moving-image digital stream to be automatically replicated through the entire digital stream. Analogous to PaintShop for videos.

  Shielders: Anti-surveillanceBots.

  Temporal Modulation (Laws of): As described in ‘Precepts of Temporal Modulation’, written by Beowulf Bole in 1933. There are four laws of Temporal Modulation.

  The Law of Temporal Modelling: The Primary Objective of the Bole Institute for the Advancement of History is to direct all Temporal Modulations in order that ParaDigm becomes and remains the world’s supreme industrial, commercial and financial organisation. By achieving this ambition, the Bole family will be able to protect and to preserve the Grigori and to fulfil their long-cherished dream of gaining hegemony over the Fragiles and all of the other lesser species of the world. To secure this end, NO Temporal Modulation shall be undertaken that has not first been modelled by the Bole Institute for the Advancement of History. A Modulation awarded a less than ninety per cent probability of achieving the desired Temporal Outcome will NOT be executed.

  The Law of Temporal Minimalism: Temporal manipulation is a delicate matter. Even the most nugatory of changes to the TimeStream can, over the course of history, have unforeseen and unwelcomed consequences, referred to as temporal noise or, more whimsically, as the Butterfly Effect. Thus, Temporal Modulations must be the minimum actions required to achieve the designated outcome. If we conceive of time as a pool of still water, then applying the concept of minimalism, changes made must not only create the fewest ripples but also those with the lowest amplitude and shortest duration.

  The Law Pertaining to the Avoidance of Mass Resurrection: Every effort must be made when executing a Temporal Modulation to avoid the cancellation of a Major Event (such as a war, a plague or a famine) which has resulted in a substantial number of deaths. The reason for this is obvious: it is impossible to forecast with any degree of probability the impact on the TimeStream of such a large number of Resurrectionees. If, for example, we were to intervene to prevent the occurrence of the Great War, the changes wrought to history by the eight million or so casualties not dying would be incalculable and could endanger our management of the TimeStream. If the Law of Temporal Minimalism counsels us never to toss anything larger than a pebble into the Pool of Time, the cancellation of a Major Event an
d hence the provoking of a Mass Resurrection is the equivalent of hurling a huge block of concrete into the pool.

  The Law of Temporal Proximity: All Temporal Modulation Orders must be enacted as close (both temporally and spatially) to the desired outcome as is possible. Failure to adhere to this precept can result in ‘temporal spillage’ – the manifestation of unwanted effects in the TimeStream. Thus, if instructions are to be communicated to enact a Temporal Modulation Order, these must be directed as near to the intended date of change as possible (though this must NOT violate the Law of Temporal Boundaries).

  The Law of Temporal Boundaries: It is a peculiarity of the Temporal Modulation mechanism that it is dangerous to attempt a Modulation directed to a Temporal Nexus at a distance of less than twenty-five years from the initiating Nexus. The consequences of violating this law are aptly illustrated by the destruction of the Tunguska TiME facility in 1908. It is therefore imperative that NO Temporal Modulations are conducted within a footprint of 25 years of the Initiation Date.

  TIS: The Total Immersion Shroud used to encase the bodies of Real World visitors to the Demi-Monde in order to preserve muscular viability.

  Rod Rees has spent his life travelling throughout Africa, the Middle East, Bangladesh and Russia, and consequently found himself living in Qatar, Tehran and Moscow. He has built pharmaceutical factories in Dhaka, set up a satellite communication network in Moscow, and conceived and designed a jazz-themed hotel in the UK.