Bill Drennan


nanopaths


1. Notes from the Underground

They need younger flesh & those of us who are left behind are too old – too infirm, diseased, weak, disoriented, delusional & psychotic to fight them. They want rid of us. So we have gone into hiding. Those who control the bugs have always been in hiding, just as their little bugs are always in hiding – working their ways into & through our nervous systems. There are reactions, naturally – but these appear as freak incidents, which could easily be dismissed by unavailable health experts as some kind of gastric reaction to starvation, or stress … paranoid delusion. We suspect that there are several means of infestation. Supplies are delivered via an illegal, underground & therefore unmonitored system – so anything can & does slip through ... & since those worthless ration chip implants in our guts were disconnected, we must take what we can. There are not many of us. Consequently, there is not much black market. Supplies are dwindling. There have been no reports of cannibalism. But we tend not to venture out very often. Rats are carriers too, & they’re multiplying. We can’t eat them in case their meat is riddled … Man-made clouds are another means of transmitting these bugs. I was watching the pink fluffy grids only the other evening, watching the trails expand & evaporate, dispelling some kind of spider webs cast by non-enemy jets – jets that systematically drop their infestation on our very doorsteps – like we’re the shit & not them. So indoors or outdoors – it doesn’t matter – & I don’t think I’ve got any body left for vermin! It’s not likely that any of us have escaped the disease. We couldn’t trace the little bastards if we hacked each other away to the bone. As the war has progressed, all freedoms have steadily disappeared too & everything appears to have been consumed by the need to control populations – & populations, like the technologies adopted to control them, are diminishing every minute … The world will soon be overrun by bugs & rats. Not much change there, you might think, but the change happens resolutely, brutally, quicker than living history can cope with … We are being swallowed by a great beast that will one day swallow itself. Soldiers are drafted up & if they return at all – which is highly unlikely – it is as deserters who are rumoured to tell stories of the transformation of their fellow-beings into hard-wired bugs. Our army is to return in a metamorphosed state to finish off what remains of the general population. We do not have the strength to fight. Especially not while we are itching & crawling with nanobugs, like our insides are wired back to front. While it is reported through legitimate channels that deserters are shot on sight, not many of us believe this to be the case. We believe that they are captured, then transported to the East to be taken through to the final evogenetic ritual, to be endowed with multiform eyes, insect eyes capable of giving the population figures a boost before watching the surplus & potentially useless cases suffer & die. Whose grandchildren are they going to fool with their tales of war & their compound lies? We are afraid that what crawls within us is merely the first phase of the evogenesis. We have not seen the final form that the soldiers take. Glimpses are enough to inform us that they are so heavily packed out in uniforms, masks & equipment that they look like bugs anyway. So, unable to trust any legitimate channel of information, or to find any external evidence, or peace of mind, we are trying to live with that which we cannot see – neither on the inside of us nor on the outside.


2. A Bug-Eyed General Briefs His Officers

Our little friends are so small & compact they can’t be captured by capillaries. So discreet that no legion of bodily defence or immunity can spot them. But that doesn’t mean to say that they can’t be tracked from remote Western plains & deserts. Or that they’re not implanted in most of the population. Or that they’re not designed to transmit highly encrypted signals to & from underground control centres …

Now pay attention. There are two positions: OFF and ON. ON sends & receives commands – using photonic signalling technology – & this manipulates & interferes with various functions of the nervous system – which we haven’t yet perfected – the project has gone through something of a funding crisis. OFF isn’t as straightforward a stoppage as it sounds – mostly due to the disorienting effects produced by the withdrawal of the ON commands from the nervous system. This isn’t a side-effect – it came up as a problem during tests & we thought we’d exploit it & use it to our advantage. So it’s is a kind of controlled side-effect. The subject isn’t aware of it as such. Effectively, this is a side effect of a side effect. But ON and OFF are enough for me … anyway, these effects vary from creature to creature. In most cases, as I said, the bugs aren’t at all visible to the naked eye. You can’t see them unless you have a very powerful nanoscope. They are not designed to leave traces of themselves – except in the psychology of the host. But they sometimes do. Incidents have been reported where there are intense itching, crawling & burning sensations in the gut. Like that person’s been eaten up from the inside. However, by the time anyone gets round to feeling this bad the bugs have already started merging at DNA level anyway … so it’s just a matter of time … Of course, most people don’t notice them at all & can’t explain their delusional & psychotic outbursts. Their chi centres are disrupted & this messes up the body’s energy flow. Hence the gut reaction. Ha ha. So “out of sight, out of mind” seems to be the rule here, though we should be on the look-out for exceptions ... All electro-intelligence is now obsolete & should be dealt with accordingly. Photons are in soldiers. The days of the body electric are numbered! In 48 hours, you’re on vacation! That’s all!


3. The Afterlife

They have been told that this is what happens to dead soldiers. A vacation gives them a taste of things to come. They are honoured to have leave to loosen the machine in them with a drunken orgy in paradise. They are willing to die for the cause – like the legendary Assassins of Alamut. They come from extremely hot climates seeking ‘heaven’ in the cooler ancient concrete of an ex-civilization that had once-upon-a-time outgrown anything resembling usefulness – & then disinherited itself almost completely, following a succession of extinction initiatives that began some half million years ago. Too rich & abundant in variety to be adopted as any kind of dysfunctional utopia, the remains had become overgrown with magnificent specimen once strange to the land, which had settled & flourished in the sordid & tranquil heat of sticky dust & insects. But the march of the bugs send many heavy-booted vibrations to scare off the wildlife & bring mechanical trembles to the gentle flora in this magnificent desolation, this play area Heaven for those on suspended duties … These are no Kafka bugs. They are far too insensitive for that! They still operate in gangs. There is good intelligence that many groups of large, wholesome Pinks went underground & survived the various initiatives – & that successive generations often seek shelter here. The bugs are informed that there is such an abundance of genetically inherited plutonium-rich blood that they will become very drunk very quickly. Having been given permission to engage in breeding rituals, the switches flick open to release their reproductive organs, & the bugs drink & orgy for several turns of the sun, basking in each others’ electric warmth ... They capture images of their sexual frenzy using fast-streaming technology in their multiform eyes, producing orgies of an orgy. This feedback sustains their activities a thousand times more effectively than the best Viagra – reenergizing their core processors with the rich blood before they return, refreshed, to the front lines in remote zones …

Bill Drennan's writing has appeared in small-press publications, both on-line & on paper, since the mid 90s. Author of flightpath resistor (Spring, 2007) & the soon-to-be-published conspiracy machine. Further examples of his work can be found on his blog, Hypoetics.

 
 
 
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