by Wayne Hill
“‘Head Guardian Salem signalled his men and all the Guardians retreated so they were at attention, dotted around the room, their backs against the marble of the circular wall. Being the only person out in the open the violent man charged for Salem.
“‘Salem calmly watched the beast roaring towards him. He placed his right arm behind his back, his left arm stretched out in front of him, his palm up, towards the charging berserker. I noted that Fortune Salem’s index finger was pointing to the ceiling, whilst his thumb was jutting out at a 45-degree angle to form an ‘L’ shape, while his three remaining fingers were folded —” Caroline shows this hand gesture to the camera, as she describes it. “The prisoner swung his makeshift cleaver downwards towards Salem’s head, but the brutal weapon never hit its target. Fortune Salem’s speed was supernatural. He darted aside his assailant’s blow and put the man’s eye out with his finger.
“‘The lunatic staggered backwards, holding his ruined eye, bewildered and weak. A pause followed that seemed to last for a lifetime, and then the most horrifying of screams blasted out from the insane killer. Salem, without modifying his amiable visage even for a second, swapped arms, and widened his stance.
“‘The prisoner charged, again. He swung his bloodied axe and missed, again. Salem ducked under a horizontal swipe at his neck and, with his other index finger, stabbed out the man’s remaining eye.
“‘Blind, and no doubt in agony, the bestial man dropped his weapon, fell to his knees, and screamed like a dying bull Buckie. The situation over, the Head Guardian approached me with, what he no doubt thought was, a reassuring smile. He bowed and said, “Shall we?” I obeyed and followed him to meet with Professor Matheson in the laboratories.
“‘At that moment I believed, and still believe, that he enjoyed blinding that savage. I am conflicted in my feelings towards these Guardians. Head Guardian Fortune Salem, with his nonchalance towards animalistic behaviour and his aura of barely contained violence, scares me. He is a deeply troubling man. I’ll carry the graphic memory of Fortune Salem blinding that prisoner with me to my grave.
“‘The sterile, metal-panelled laboratories are in stark contrast to the Old-World facility to which they are attached, but the Professor and I have made them as warm and friendly as tacked-on metal containers can be — usually using memory plate projections of forests and sunny beaches. The professor enjoys the weather we experience here, especially the rain. He claims the hypnotic patter helps him think.
“‘The windows at the back of the laboratory face the ocean, wild and unruly. Sometimes, when I’m alone in my laboratory, I open the windows and listen to the sounds of our ancestral home-world. I close my eyes and try to imagine what it must have been like to live here all those millennia ago. Earth would remind me somewhat of Gliese if it wasn’t for the incessant screeching of the damn seagulls. Before coming to Earth, I’d only really seen these creatures on Clear View screens before. In real life, seagulls are far more ubiquitous, and they all have a remarkably crazy look in their beady little eyes. It is fair to say that I hate the squawking beasts.
“‘A gull flew into my laboratory window the other day and broke its neck. They are idiotic creatures. How seagulls have survived the evolutionary threshing machine is anyone’s guess. They seem badly adapted to most things, even flying. I watched the dead bird twitching on the ground outside for a while and a yellow fluid — perhaps lymphatic, perhaps cerebro-spinal —leaked from its nostrils. Other seagulls eventually investigated the dead bird and started pecking at it, as if this would help the poor soul. Squawking and pecking. How silly. Gulls: the silly, crazy-eyed cannibals of the sea.
“‘Prisoners come into my lab on MediBeds, dozens at a time. I reassure these brutes that nothing untoward will happen to them during the extraction process. This helps them settle. However, after the first two-hundred, or so, these placating words don’t even convince me, let alone the subjects. The prisoners are disgusting beasts. They use foul language and spit. They have threatened violence against myself, my family — that’s you, Em! — and the Space Association. I have to say, I feel happier when they are in a comatose state. I think I am beginning to despise the inmates even more than the seagulls!
“‘My day-to-day work involves filtering through subjects’ limbic systems to record anything noteworthy, anything different. It is the neurological equivalent of the archaic practise of panning for gold. I work hard, perhaps too hard at times. It’s becoming more a compulsion than a job. I increasingly identify with Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick: obsessed and oblivious. And yet, more-often-than-not, my hunting yields shoals of fish rather than an elusive white whale.
“‘Our evidence suggests that many of the people have the same dreams. Maybe their psyches hold ancient metaphysical constructs — archetypes — that entire human races shares. We, as humans, are connected — much as the Guardians assert. This connection to our ancient past is, in-fact, ingrained into our common biology and shared down through the generations. The Guardians seem to have stumbled onto something true in their simplistic philosophy, as is often the case with broad-stroke narratives. I doubt the connectivity stretches out into the universe, as they believe, but is solely concentrated within us. It does stretch out back to our earliest days, though, through the continuity of our genetics. Perhaps this link also reaches beyond the realms of this universe, from within, via the portals that exist — so I believe (though I have yet to find conclusive proof) — within our limbic system.
“‘Only about once every hundred subjects do I find something startling. The protocol, then, is to capture it for the next stage of the process — which, the professor assures me, he will explain when the time is right. (My infatuation with the Professor has become something of a beautiful nightmare, but I will talk about that later.)
“‘The data I collect is like nothing I’ve seen before. I keep saying this, but it’s true. But we need more diverse subjects. We need to widen our nets to catch Moby Dick. I wonder if the Head Guardian, Fortune Salem, would let me experiment upon him?
“‘I have insisted to the Professor that we need a different kind of mind. Our time with these prisoners has been worthwhile but having studied close to one thousand limbic labyrinth codes there are hints of elusive giants lurking there but nothing concrete, nothing solid, has yet been found. The professor concurred with my assessment and, after some difficulty, we have gained permission to use some Guardians for our dream extraction work. We have selected seven Guardians — one being Fortune Salem ...’”
Caroline looks directly into the camera and seems troubled.
The recording clicks off.
———-End of message———-
Log Number 4 (10,808 AD)
“‘Aldous — yes, Aldous! — has now revealed the next stage of the process to me; and it’s truly glorious. The leviathan-like visions we have found in the darkest parts of the Guardians’ limbic labyrinths have a code in them, not unlike DNA. Swirling, shimmering in the dark, unknown potential, the code of dreams and nightmares. So amazing that words can never do them justice, these hidden secrets. Linking this code up to a great screen AI, the Professor can show me the dreams we have collected from our subjects.
“‘Aldous has assured me that it is possible, theoretically, to biologise and transfer this code into cells that have been DNA-washed. We are actually going to try and give these metaphysical phantasms physical form! If we succeed, dreams and nightmares will have biological bodies! Imagine that, Em!
“‘The incubation process will begin in the next few days.
“‘I’m not sure when I will be able to message you again, Emma. Although my time here is nearly at an end, I feel like this is where I’m fated to be. This work is essential — absolutely vital.
“‘I love you, dear sister. Never forget that.’”
———-End of message———-
LOG NUMBER 5 (10,808 AD)
“Hi, Emma. It’s been four months since my last po
st and summer is upon us here on Earth. Aldo took me to the roof of the compound today, which has a Far Viewer, and I saw a scene I have dreaded seeing: swarms of inmates, outside of the compound, busying about their daily lives like normal people. They were trading goods in shacks they had made from the forest’s wood and were laughing and joking, without a care in the world. This island is a paradise for these criminals. The anger I feel towards the Believers’ court and the law system is ripping at my soul. The prisoners are here free and yet innocent citizen are bound to the Credit system of the USA! What a joke! What justice is there now for Mother and Father? How can I leave Earth without doing anything to redress this mass injustice? I need to cleanse our ancestral planet of this rot — these beasts, these criminal cattle. I need to do something, for you, Emma — and for every child that has ever lost a mother or a father to a vile sub-human.”
———-End of message———-
Log Number 6 (10,808 AD)
“Carl Jung was right when he said, ‘Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.’ I love this quote; it encapsulates everything that Aldo and I have been crafting.
“Professor Aldous Matheson & Dr Caroline Brogan — what can I say, Em? What we’ve discovered rivals the invention of the combustion engine, the wheel ... the discovery of fire and antibiotics. The process was a battle, and we endured many failures in the earlier biologising of the code, but we knew that we were at the forefront of something that would change the course of human evolution. The scientific applications of our work are nothing short of revolutionary. I now realise the Professor’s haste in wanting me here — to help him create the seven genetic wonders of this, or any other, age. Collectively they are named the D.E.H.A.S.: Dream-extracted, hidden, ancient, secrets. These superior beings will be a scientific wonderment for aeons.
“The seven surviving samples have grown at an astonishing rate. The Professor has named them: Caelum, Aurum, Gaudium, Peur, Tristitia, Funerela and Secretas. They are our Children, Em, our scientific babies.
“I mean to stay here longer. Our work must be completed. It is bigger than you, me — us. This is a worthwhile sacrifice of my time and my life. My life is in service to science, and, to me, this is more important than anything. I’m so sorry, my sister. This will be the last chance I get to message you. I must go now; the Professor is coming. I love you. Goodbye.”
———-End of message———-
AS THE MESSAGE FADES from the screen, the great dome is silent. Commander Harrison moves from his seat to take to the illuminated rectangle once more. As the stage levitates thirty feet into the air and the lights come up, an ocean of stunned expressions is revealed.
“Any questions?” asks the Commander.
To him, it seems as if everyone raises their hand.
Acknowledgements:
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my brother, Derek Hill, and my girlfriend, Marie Casey, for their mad copy-editing skills. (If they’ve missed anything obvious ... please, don’t tell them!) I’d also like to thank all my family and friends, both living and departed, who have helped me in any way during my life.
I love you all, infinitely.
Remember: Eternal Happy Hour Awaits!
—————X————-
Splinter Salem Completion
From: Sep’ 2012
To: Mar’ 2021 (Covid-19 lockdown)
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