Into the Zone(s)

It began with the Government-mandated registration of speculative realists and speculative real-estate agents. The wub-wub-wub of urban junglism had crept into people's souls and disrupted the borders of reality. Each day it slipped away a little more, geography became that bit more psycho and you never knew how long any given neighborhood was going to remain stable. The junk would numb you to the worst of it but even on the nod, you knew it was a temporary fix at best.

Oyster card, plastic wallet named for the chosen aphrodisiac of Roman emperors - gods made flesh who played at war like it was dice and dallied evenings away with beautiful adolescent fauns in groves of cypress trees, cooled by crystal fountains in the warm nights of Etruscan summer. Now they transport you between InterZones 1 through 9, used to be 6 but then the city in one of its characteristic spasms of growth enveloped a couple outlying towns like an amoeba swallowing bacteria. I swear this goddamn shitheap gets smarter with each passing season, it knows how to get to you...each street preempts your every thought, buildings from far off have that glow of a promised metropolis but as you approach it's just another old warehouse halfway to being made into flats. TOX got here in '03 and left his paint-piss, gonna be gone soon when the council boys get here to clean the place up for designers who'll sell the same scrawl back to you on a T-shirt for fifty notes. London is not a young town: it is old and dirty and evil, before the hipsters, before the cockneys. The evil is there, waiting.

Every Tongue Confess

Every tongue confess. Eagle and Snake and Scorpion! The Dance Of Death whirls Life from our eyes. When I call, O God of my righteousness, thou hear the dance; its balance is exact. The practice of magic is the invocation of Divine and Blood. Eva know him and dem was friend. Yes, them cast him in the lions' den..

   Moses gathered all the children of Israel together; and every tongue confess.
Shalt thou hear in the morning, O Jah? Hear me when I reached the men that gathered, all the coming of Jah is near! Jah shall destroy them. Jah said unto them:
‘Six days shall wipe away, all tears from our eyes.’ To each his Understanding. In Zion, all troubles will be over. Jah shall bow, and shall destroy them.

   After my initiation accidents were still happening to me.

   Jah shall wipe away all tears. How long, O Lord, in the God-Man? Lamp of the coming of Jah, Jah Almighty. Ye shall put to death, ye shall work in your habitations upon  the Sabbath day, a day of slaughter. Jah shall wipe away all troubles. Behold, the children of Israel together.

   After my initiation there could be felt the demons, evil forces, some of which are definitely malicious. It is never necessary for a magician to deal with them, except as a bacteriologist studies disease germs, to find out their nature and subdue them.  The rampant Beast - life here on earth have been filled with luxury and pleasure. You have been filled with luxury and pleasure. The evil secret seed of all Life - the serpent begets Gods. The demons, evil forces, had congregated round me so thickly that they were shutting off the light. It was a comforting situation. It is necessary to my purpose.

   How long, how long, O Jah? Hear me when I call. I the Moon. Through the water floods life and rapture, Wine and Blood.

   The sun was streaming into the room, but in vain; there was a darkness...

This story's got legs

Minerva could not find a fleck or flaw—even Envy can not censure perfect art—enraged because Arachne had such skill she ripped the web, and ruined all the scenes that showed those wicked actions of the Gods; and with her boxwood shuttle in her hand, struck the unhappy mortal on her head,—struck sharply thrice, and even once again. Arachne's spirit, deigning not to brook such insult, brooded on it, till she tied a cord around her neck, and hung herself. Minerva, moved to pity at the sight, sustained and saved her from that bitter death; but, angry still, pronounced another doom: “Although I grant you life, most wicked one, your fate shall be to dangle on a cord, and your posterity forever shall take your example, that your punishment may last forever!” Even as she spoke, before withdrawing from her victim's sight, she sprinkled her with juice—extract of herbs of Hecate. At once all hair fell off, her nose and ears remained not, and her head shrunk rapidly in size, as well as all her body, leaving her diminutive.—Her slender fingers gathered to her sides as long thin legs; and all her other parts were fast absorbed in her abdomen—whence she vented a fine thread;—and ever since, Arachne, as a spider, weaves her web.

"Oh like duuuuh" said Sexine, rolling their eyes. "Eeeeevveeeryone knows that like, Kode 9 invented all of that occult shit when him and all those other STUDENTS went to UNIVERsSITY. Oh my god, like, when people did that shit? It's un-bel-eeeeev-able. That was when Ant and Dec were in the charts and

injects, knowledge can make drowning.

oh fuck off man, you know that psychic shit gives me spots and I JUST DONT NEED THAT RIGHT NOW.

Everyone knows that they all went to that UNI and then decided to inflict their stupid egos upon everyone else. Oh MY GOD, what were they called? Like the Ctulthu Warriors or something, jesus. It's no wonder someone killed grandfather, it's his own fault. It's a wonder any of them are left alive. If you ask me it's Mark Fisher that's doing it. He's fucking off his head, that one. Report that cunt to the la-la police right now, if you ask me.

I just like looking back and thinking, oh MY GOD, no wonder they, like, abolished universities if that's the sort of shit they came out with. My god, have you read that Nick one? Jesus what a load of shit. And he was one of their teachers!

At this point, we feel that Sexine has outdone their usefulness and their androgyny, and will be dispatched with forthwith. By shit that's way darker than any Speculative Realist could ever realise. This demon blogs hard. What.

autophagia

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters,

and they will eat one another's flesh,

during the stress of the siege imposed on them,

by the enemies who seek their lives.

ƨsƨsƨsƨs

...

Drown leaned over and perused the old quatro that Professor English had been consulting before they arrived:

"Ben was in the square, professor 'was turned into a seated around the table Sexine English professor and drown; s study, full, books keunchaek, ancient astronomy, weird creatures preserved in a jar of formaldehyde, and such wastes all leather bound. So, it wasn 'them t 3 because only three of the four sides, something like a square with a square, however. As the Latin into English from ancient manuscripts or whatever and looked eulpjorineun: "Your grandfather Thee Priory ov Zion." Mysterious secret society called because of his association with the dead, my beliefs, Sexine is; "Um, don 't mean you have to Sion? "injects, knowledge can make drowning. "No, Zion." , Professor to answer, definitively: "Thee Priory, founded in 1977, cult or sect of higher order, or is the secret vision. Haili Selassie's divinity because it refused to co-rookie reggae and Afro-futurist who is considered heretics by mainstream Rastas instead, it's the second Christ, the King recognizes Tubby ganja use and less bass fair through the levels of Babylon's overthrow is dedicated to their beliefs of the Aleister Crowley and bulraek magic with his famous obsession, but because mostly the song 'Jimmy for confidence antichrist page, splitting was included; D 'yer Make' er 'Holy. "'s house;

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The Professor turned to him with a knowing nod, and gestured them behind the fireplace.

......

Diagram

Meanwhile, cont.

Ben Drown, Sexine and Professor English sat in a square around a table that was round in the professor's study, which was full of leather-bound books tomes, antique astrolabes, odd creatures preserved in jars of formaldehyde and all that sort of shit. Well, it wasn't a square because there were only three of them, but like a square with a side missing, or something.

English looked up from an ancient manuscript that was in like Latin or whatever and intoned:
"It is my belief, Sexine, that your grandfather was murdered because of his association with a secret occult society called Thee Priory ov Zion."
"Um, don't you mean Sion?", interjected Drown, knowledgeably.
"No, Zion", replied the professor, definitively: "Thee Priory is a highly clandestine esoteric order or cult or sect founded in 1977. It is an Afro-Futurist dub reggae collective and is considered heretical by mainstream Rastas because it rejects the divinity of Haili Selassie. Instead it recognises King Tubby as the second Christ and is dedicated to the overthrow of Babylon through the use of ganja and righteous levels of sub-bass. Their beliefs include a conviction that Jimmy Page is the Antichrist, partly because of his well-known obsession with Aleister Crowley and black magic but mostly because of the song 'D'yer Make'er' on Houses Of The Holy."

Dodo Over Softy Sky and Oval Kinks Or ME?

...some new trichinae had appeared, microscopic creatures that lodged themselves in mens bodies. But these creatures were spirits, endowed with reason and will. Those who received them into themselves immediately became possessed and mad. But never, never had people considered themselves so intelligent and unshakeable in the truth as did these infected ones. Never had they thought their judgements, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakeable. Entire settlements, entire cities and nations would be infected and go mad....

...

Inside

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a shot rang out.

"I didn't want to kill him" he thought. How many times was it he'd thought that now. He thought back to all of times, all of the earlier times. It was so much easier then, back in the days of fanzines. That's how it had started you know. So much easier then. You just sent a letter from a fake address to John Eden or Paul Meme, you convinced them they had found a brother in arms, someone who too loved Current 93 AND dub reggae. Then came the excuses not to meet, the fake sister's death and the sorry I forgots, I was moving squats. Then you sent another letter, to one of the peripheral ones. You made friends with them, agreed for them to come to an address. A place you'd squatted no-one else knew about.

Then the shot would ring out, hidden by the booming bass.

It was so easy then.

Damn the internet. Damn this surveillance society for making food hard to come by.

Meanwhile...

Meanwhile, across town, the dashing and rugged American symbolologist Ben Drown was investigating the brutal murder of renowned, celebrated and famous museum curator Jacques Plotte at the British Museum. It wasn't his job or anything, but the police were kinda stuck and therefore threw all protocol out of the window and asked him to lead the investigation.

Plotte had collapsed in a pool of blood in front of a display case full of eighteenth-century porcelain bedpans. In his dying moments he'd managed to smear what looked like a message in his own blood on the front of the case. In rough brown letters (not red, because blood goes brown when it dries, Drown noted sagely) were scrawled the words "OH FUCK". Drown pulled a shamanic mong-face while pondering what this cryptic message could mean.

He was shaken out of his reverie by Plotte's granddaughter, Sexine, who'd rushed to London as soon as she'd heard the terrible news. "'Oo would do such an 'orreeble thing to such an 'armless old man?", she wept, prettily yet snottily.

return to scene

it doesn't make sense, nothing to go on, except some dead kid, I am awake, it's 3am.


I return to the scene around 4am, and just like the movies I lift the police tape and make like I'm doing the Haka, squatting and shifting from world to hell, left to right. The smell is worse now- no one's thought to turn the heating off.


I nudge the victims laptop off standby, maximise web page, there are four tabs: Nootropic Hub, Binaural Dose Store, Scarlet Imprint and HSBC - the latter session timed out, there are two dictionaries: an english to latin and an ancient greek to english. Up to his eyeballs in bullshit it seems.


I hear a noise, blood rushes through my forearms, his phone is buzzing, trying to levitate or make it's way along the windowsill....

Prologue

'You come quick, Mista Lee!'
Kiki with rising panic in his voice on the other end of the line as I dress quickly in the dim morning light. Colt in the shoulder holster, three half-grain ampoules of M in my trenchcoat pocket. Never know who you're gonna have to bribe and the junk's sweeping through this city like aftosa.

The body is sprawled amongst litter on the floor of a grubby apartment in a bad part of town. Horribly twisted, eyes and mouth wide open, face distorted as if John Doe snuffed it in the midst of orgasm. A big speech bubble of blackish dried blood on the floor either side of the head, having leaked from ears only partially blocked by the little bud phones. No need to check the music player lying inert by the corpse's side. This post-wobble mixtape is spreading faster than the junk, an auditory virus.

Can see he'd have been a good-looking kid, despite the death-snarl. Grubby T-shirt and jockey shorts, muscular pale legs with shiny black leg hairs. Can't be much more than 25. Another wasted freebasser. Wonder how he got into it...third one this week. And each time there's a real bad mojo around the scene, like the scent of burnt metal. The superintendent's boys will be round soon to clear up the place but that damn smell will linger to anyone who's sensitive. This is a bad business.