Munich, Germany – November 20, 2011

Like I mentioned earlier, my Ariel has a twin sister that was born from another mother. Miranda.

Well, maybe the same mother – it’s a painful chicken-egg situation, not really knowing who came first.

Miranda is the bride of the Nameless, and the two of them together are destined to destroy everything that has ever existed. She controls Matter in all of its forms, and the Nameless force that puppets her body has no respect for our material world. They’re universal pyromaniacs that wish for fertile ashes.

Ariel was meant to be the anti-Miranda – someone that was just as powerful, but more focused on maintaining the continuity of material existence.

We’ve spend many lifetimes trying to prevent Miranda from coming to power, but it was a foregone conclusion that someone, somewhere, would mess up in the worst way, and let the Chosen Light shine forth. Her mother Cathy is as good a person to blame as any.

Which makes me equally culpable. I’m no longer sure if I’m just a Variant of her, or the other way around. We look the same, had the exact same daughters, but have lived immensely different lives.

Whatever – I’ll spare you my moebius philosophy. I promised you an Apocalypse in parts, so here is the first one.

I first confronted Miranda in Munich, on November 20, 2011, during Jenny’s resurrection.

Cassandra sent Douglas Waters from Berkeley to Germany, so he could meet with me and Ariel. He’s one of Cassandra’s life-long errand boys, but he means well.

Douglas has already shared his version of what happened that day on his short-lived blog.

He had a piece of Jenny Samuels’ DNA, from when she was 12 years old, and Cassie wanted us to resurrect her. It’s a long story, but let’s just say that Jenny is extremely important. She has always had literal angels and devils sitting on her shoulders, fighting for her attention.

We started the process in an underground parking garage on the grounds of the Allianz Arena – the home of Munich’s soccer team, FC Bayern. It was Sunday, and not a game day, so it was completely empty except for us.

Miranda appeared during the resurrection ceremony, interrupting the process at the worse time, after Ariel had turned her body into a biological machine devoted to replicating Jenny. Ariel was an unzipped collection of bone, muscle and nerve endings, and Miranda almost tore Ariel to pieces just as Jenny was born again.

I was only concerned about getting Ariel her body back. She was still turned inside out, yelping for air on the cement floor of the parking garage.

Once I forced Douglas to run away to safety, I unlocked the first level of the Golden Sphere – the light of creation emitting from black flames.

We had stolen the Golden Sphere from Miranda. Simply put, it’s a weapon of mass insurrection, suitable for fighting the Creator of all things. Miranda was the rightful owner, but could do little more with it than make kids pee their pants.

As I brought out the Golden Sphere, the Nameless just growled through Miranda’s teeth. “If you don’t return what is mine, I’ll destroy your daughter and the rest of this groaning world.”

Before the air around us caught fire, the Grand Supreme folded into the fray just long enough to take the newly created copy of Jenny away to Goddess knows where. She wrapped up naked Jenny in her punk patch dress, and gave an empty-eyed grin before she cut away.

It was so bright – I was breathing flames instead of air.

“Cathy was never quite enough for me.” Miranda started to grow taller, until she had to hunch her huge, bald head underneath the cement ceiling. “She had the will of The Black, but not the way to The White. You, on the other hand…”

Ariel was flopping around on the floor, throwing off her skin and muscles so that her spine could be free.

“Your connection to Spirit, and to The Black, makes you a bridge between the two poles, and we intend on climbing you to take our rightful place at El’s throne.” Her breath was excessively sweet, like granulated sugar quickly caramelizing in the intense heat.

I only had moments to act. I willed all microscopic life still alive in the Allianz Arena complex to converge upon Ariel, so she could feed and escape. Massive waves of bacteria, amoebas and dust mites were pulled by my power over Spirit, amplified by the Golden Sphere, so that the winds darkened with trillions of congealed cells rushing towards what was left of my daughter.

“I will take one hundred steps before leaving this world in ashes. Follow me only if you want to witness the end.” With that, Miranda punched a hole in the roof, and pulled herself up to the surface.

I burned away the falling rubble, and then tended to Ariel. Her spine was growing in fits and starts, until it reminded me of a dinosaur’s, except with unnatural flesh and organs growing out of her back. I could feel that her essence was still there, still fighting for a familiar shape, but all she could manage in that moment was to grow dozens of arms up and down the length of her broken body, which were enough to propel her through the far wall of the garage, and eventually up to the surface.

By then, I was naked and burning black from head to toe. I was try to process what the Nameless had told me – that the transference of Ai’s Spirit power into Cathy, into me, meant that I was a nothing more but a tool for The Black’s long wished for insurrection against The White. My blood brought forth a perfect vehicle for the Nameless, for The Black, and my connection to all life was just the hole it needed to punch through this world, and into The White.

I didn’t want to be a tool. I didn’t want anything except to be left alone, and to raise my daughter in peace. No more missions for the Collective, no more swimming in the hopes, dreams and fears of the biosphere, nothing but a calm stillness that I deserved to taste at least once.

Explosions from the world above took me out of my pointless thoughts, and I levitated myself up through the hole that Miranda created, only to see Ariel’s spine wrapped around Miranda, who must have been two hundred feet tall at that point.

I quickly flew up towards the Allianz Arena, which reminded me of a huge, white bird’s nest mixed with a honeycomb. I entered via the large opening at the top of the structure, so I could situate myself to open the second level of the Golden Sphere.

I could feel Douglas and a few other spectators watching me as I floated down to the grassy field, which was already charred black due to my aura. I burned away half of the stadium walls just by looking at them, leaving a pool of melted plastic and twisted metal, and then focused on Miranda as she tried to rip the arm-legs off of Ariel.

I didn’t want to hurt any of the bystanders, but I felt I had little choice if it meant I could stop Miranda in her tracks. So I knelt on the steaming dirt, palms sinking into the ground like sand, and sensed deep into the planet until I could feel its radiant life blood. It noticed me back, and rushed upwards with glee towards my intended target. I grabbed Ariel’s nervous system and forced her to flee, just as a geyser of magma one hundred feet wide enveloped Miranda.

Her clothes burned off instantly, and as her skin blackened, she staggered around the pool of yellow-red lava for a few moments, before teleporting away, followed by a massive amount of wind that spread the magma far and wide into the nearby area.

I tried to call off the mini-volcano, but the Golden Sphere didn’t seem to listen. It wanted chaos, and it wouldn’t rest until the greater Munich area was overcome, first by massive earthquakes that felled office parks and historic churches, that collapsed all U-bahn tunnels and buckled streets and highways. Then the lava intruded, seeping out slowly in some places, and bursting forth with reckless abandon in others.

Swans boiled in the lakes at Olympiapark.

Flocks of tourists buried under the rubble of the Rathaus at Marienplatz.

Airplanes and model ships burning in the ruins of the Deutsches Museum.

U-Bahn and S-Bahn trains melting into slag deep under Haupbahnhof, as passengers claw against the immobile windows and doors.

The Isar river evaporated, replaced by a lava flow filled with half-submerged building fragments and cars.

I could feel the screams as thousands of people died every second, and I tried to ferry their souls safely to the Structure, but the Golden Sphere twisted my intentions, and just swallowed their energy for kindling.

I could also sense something very strange going on at the Münchner Freiheit train station – everyone in the general area was scared out of their minds, but not because of the earthquakes. Something immense was streaming out of the station exits and into the sky – a cloud of liquid metal spheres, varying in size from the smallest pin prick to a soccer ball. They rushed upwards and outwards, following a carefully orchestrated flight plan around screaming children and Sunday window shoppers, and past the falling rubble. It took less than a minute for the thousands of mirrors that lined the ceilings of the station platform to disappear, leaving little more than flames behind.

I didn’t need any more information than that. A major node of S.OS had quickly left the underground complex that sheltered it for decades, headed for safer points unknown.

Everywhere I looked, burned. I couldn’t turn off the light. I couldn’t stand it, and so I jumped out of the remains of the Arena, the whole complex already overrun by magma, and found Ariel on the top a nearby hill, near the stump of the wind turbine.

As the tide of flames rose steadily, as the waves of destruction pulsed over Bavaria towards the rest of Europe, I was overwhelmed by the millions crying out for their imagined saviors, only to be met by a swift and voracious death. I was supposed to be the guardian of their shining spirits, but all I could do was watch them suffer, and cry burning black tears of failure.

I grabbed Ariel by the base of her brain stem, and searched deep inside for any remaining connection that I could use to bring her back to me. She was like a huge, dissected snake, coiled around my glowing, midnight skin, and I sang her a song that contained all of the addresses we ever lived at while she grew up, all of the cities and countries we secretly called our own. I just kept my eyes closed as I felt her flesh twist and reshape around me, as her spine shrank and her arm-legs became her rib cage. There was so much heat everywhere, and the sound of air raid sirens and fighter jets whooshing overhead, quickly replaced by a bubbling silence.

I opened up my eyes to find Ariel whole again, naked and clinging for dear life onto my back. We were surrounded by a half-solidified bubble in the molten rock, that had long since enveloped the hill. I was no longer burning, but the Golden Sphere was still holding back the Earth’s blood, since it still thirsted for destruction, and intended for me to be its final vehicle.

“We have to get her.” Ariel’s first words as she awoke, as I could feel her engine revving up.

“We’re going to get her, dear. Where is she now?” The two of them were more than twins, and Ariel could always sense what Miranda was up to.

“She’s destroying Tokyo… so many dead!” She let me see through her eyes. It was just before Midnight in Ikebukuro, and Miranda was as tall as the Sunshine 60 tower – 60 stories up to her eyes. Her flesh was repaired, but she was still naked. She was kicking the Animate building to pieces, leaving 9 or 10 stories of broken glass, blue rubble and anime goods that she was wading through like toy blocks. Broken bodies and smashed cars littered the streets like wind-swept sakura petals.

“I need you to take us there, now. Can you do that for me?”

Ariel nodded silently as she tightened her grip around my back. There was a sharp, wrenching sensation, and then we appeared on the sidewalk, near the East exit of the Ikebukuro Train Station. Ariel was on the ground, growling in pain, holding her head between her two elbows. When she looked up at me her nose was bleeding out of the left nostril.

“Fucking head explosion! My big sister is really playing for keeps.” Ariel stumbled to her feet, wiping the blood away with her arm, and once she realized we were naked she covered us with off-white, old school Collective bodysuits, lousy with circuits. I could feel the extra code in them – bespoke pathways designed to slightly minimize Miranda’s growing influence over all Matter, including our aching bodies.

Once the bodysuits rebooted our OSes, I suddenly realized that the sidewalks all around us were covered by hundreds of fresh corpses. There was a blocks-long trail of bodies from Sunshine 60 street, right around the Humax movie theater and Book Off store, all the way down the stairs and escalators leading into the station. There wasn’t a bit of blood on their faces – it looked like they just immediately crumpled to the ground like tossed jackets.

Carefully made up young ladies headed home after a casual night on the town. Stinky young men who just finished spending hours drinking. Shop keepers, waitresses, and unobtrusive homeless men. Everyone fell over sucked dry of their souls a few moments after Miranda arrived.

Neighborhoods full of proud electric signs were now dark, and sirens pervaded the chill.

When we left Munich it was early afternoon, but now the last Narita Sky Access Limited Express train had just arrived in Ikebukuro, right on time at 23:48.

Every jet lagged traveler who spent an hour on that Airport train, and any person within a hundred mile radius, was already as good as dead.

Not that we knew that then. I was busy calling all of the Japanese Collective over the Bodyweb – Satomi’s secret army of former Agartha Labs employees.

By the time even a few of them arrived, our failure was already so complete and catastrophic that it’s hard to comprehend.

I’ll give you all of the tragic details next time, but just remember – this was still only the beginning of the end, and it is going to get unimaginably worse.

The World Of The End

I have a phobia about storage lockers; to me they are like huge leeches latching on to my life’s ankles.

You may think that last sentence to be problematic, but likely for the wrong reasons. The real issue is that I no longer know who “I” is, so to speak.

“I” is certainly not the woman that last wrote in this blog last April. She didn’t like storage lockers either, especially after having to hide in one after committing murder.

Not that it was really murder – is it your fault if someone sneaks a pocket knife past your body’s security checkpoints, and then forces you to pluck out eyes and smash in heads?

Trust me – I know all about murder.

I’m losing the thread here. It’s a very tenuous connection now, between me and “reality”. Now being on the platform on the formerly non-existent Point Richmond BART station, as I cradle my daughter in my hands.

Back to an important point. I’m not the Kaia Strauss that you knew from this blog, and I’m not Catherine Koehler, either. I’m supposed to be Cathy’s clone, her mirror reflection cut out like a huge paper doll and told to be fruitful and multiply.

That’s another problematic concept, but no more troubling than the life of a Pure Land Antenna in general.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m obsessed with things I no longer control.

I don’t have time to pontificate, to count the mass of unmanned drones hovering overhead like huge horseflies. Silver spheres, multi-rotored helicopters, and other treasures from Ariel’s imagination.

All I know is that I’m deathly afraid of storage lockers, and our treatment after entering Joey’s unit only accentuated this.

My dear Ariel was right about many things, especially when it came to the seemingly empty space in that unit. It was filled way past the brim with stuff, like a plastic bottle over-inflated by a muddy garden hose. I don’t know who was initially responsible, but it was clear that the plastic Cassandra with boiling flesh borrowed us all for a very specific reason – to create a new, temporary world within the confines of that locker.

A world that took a sharp turn in the early 1960s, quickly diverging from “normal” reality until it takes a mental spacesuit just to exist here.

I’m ahead of myself a bit. I’m behind myself a great deal. Let me start over to a certain degree.

I was born on Halloween in 1994, with the body of a woman in her early twenties. Catherine Koehler’s body.

I was born pregnant, carrying a girl conceived by Catherine Koehler and Brian “Phone” Thomas. She called her daughter Miranda, and I called mine Ariel.

Ariel just turned 17 a few weeks ago.

Ariel just died a few minutes ago.

Don’t worry, Sarah promised that she’d put her back together in the end.

I’m holding her remains in a small rectangular box, about the size of a complete Tarot deck. It’s matte, silver metal and slightly warm, but that might just be my imagination.

My OS is going overtime, trying to hold everything together, to prevent me from actually feeling anything right now. I don’t have time to contemplate this box, and I certainly don’t have the time to cry, or scream, or slap Ai silly as she just sits there, talking to Emily like nothing even happened.

Back to the spirit of starting over. Let’s go back to Joey’s storage locker.

Susanna Eck rushed into the locker first. Ai ordered Ariel and I to follow, and the experience….

If a simile is a comparison, and a metaphor is a transformation, then that locker was the next logical step – we swam through a murky grey concept, and our lungs filled with the spit, sweat and semen of voracious machine elves.

I couldn’t see Ariel in those infinitely long moments, but I could still feel her wrapped in my arms. I could hear labored breath, filled with esoteric swears and angel sparks.

We had to consume our own bodies, only to give birth to them anew. Take a spoonful of The Black like a fiber supplement with flax, and vomit up weird and forgotten mythologies.

The one true end was right there licking our cheeks, while the changing now pierced our navels maliciously, and held on for dear life as it ran away in every direction.

If there’s a tedium in excessive novelty, then I wrote epic poems about it, only to have to recite them in reverse to the shadowy figure approaching the final throne.

I can’t. Every time I think about that transition into this pocket world, I get headaches that quickly rush up and down my spine.

Ariel had a worse time than I did. When we ended up back in the Storage Center, she kept changing her physical state, randomly cycling her limbs and fingers through the Periodic Table. I had to talk her down from grey Selenium arms, and a bumpy, yellow, crystallized Sulfur face drooling Mercury. We have special songs for occasions like that, mantras I taught her from birth to come back from The Black and rediscover flesh.

Susanna wasn’t waiting for us on the other side. The Plastic Robot Sculpture (PRS) remained, a few steps down the dark hallway, wearing a huge, pink backpack that contained the Titanium PRS seed that had attacked us.

When Ai finally stumbled out of the locker, she was enveloped in a membrane of living, fluid light. She was choking on a concept I couldn’t even process, until she used the Golden Sphere to tear through the shell with fingers burning black.

“Where’s…. Susanna?” Ai was still gasping for breath as she wiped the golden liquid off of her bald head.

“Not here. Fuck it all, here isn’t even here anymore.” I had already done enough scanning of our surroundings to know that we weren’t in the Berkeley we just left. This was only a dollhouse the size of the Universe, a well-constructed fake ship in the bottle.

“Wrong kind of matter, and we’re breathing blood and pumping air.” Ariel was almost back to her usual body, but with swatches of exotic fabrics growing up her sweaty back like wild grass. “Everything is a big bouncy castle filled with rainbow plastic balls, so unsubtle and hard to control.”

Ai didn’t waste any time. Raised herself to the floor, stepping out of the sticky puddle of light, and limped towards the nearest Exit sign. Didn’t look over to me, didn’t even speak out loud, and instead used the static-filled Bodyweb to strongly suggest for us to follow.

The PRS quickly snapped to attention and trailed behind her a few paces, just as Ariel finished singing the matter mantra, shifting back to costumed skin. She was wearing a cosplay outfit, a patched together remix of the Die Database outfits from Massive Cloud Burst – the top half of the white kimono with rainbow accents, combined with a frilly purple skirt and red, armored leggings. Her head was now bald, except for a few strands of purple hair sticking out the front in a powerful curl, like a surly baby doll.

“I’m getting up.” Still on the floor. “I’m up.” Wobbling to her feet. “Giddyup!” She jumped square on my back, like she was seven again, and I could tell from the sickly sweet smell of her breath that something horrible was happening.

It was the smell of the Chosen Light, as we fought to the death in the Allianz Arena parking garage.

The Grand Supreme had reset that reality, but only I still remembered what happened, as the Earth burned to ashes with Munich at the epicenter.

The other Kaia would say München, not Munich. She was German through and through, or at least so I’ve read.

I really don’t have time for this now, to try to explain the last 17 years. I don’t know how much time I’ll have left – a few hours or days, perhaps.

So I’m going to use all of my time to hold tightly onto Ariel’s miniature coffin, to do what Ai says even though she doesn’t even respect me as the holder of the ultimate Spirit power. I can tell she thinks of me as a fleshy bag that temporarily contains her birthright.

I carried Ariel outside – I could feel her heat against my back, like a too-close hallway furnace.

When we entered the storage center, we were a few dozen feet away from Highway 80 and the Bay. Now, we were right across the street from the North Berkeley BART station, and the air was saturated with weird WOF marks and broken transit maps that only we could see.

Ariel coughed like a crow was flying out of her mouth, and then she handed me a BART pamphlet over my right shoulder. Something was extremely wrong with it, and Ai spoke up as she studied the one that Ariel transported into her hands.

“This is what I was afraid of. Nick Junk Magnet had all sorts of files on the history of BART, from when the 9 counties that surrounded the Bay started to hash out the details in the early 1950s.”

She pointed at the BART rotunda that was across the street, while I looked behind us for the storage place that had now disappeared. We were about two miles away from our initial location, on a residental street across from the BART parking lot.

“In June of 1961, a fancy consortium of engineers and other folk from three firms – Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor and Bechtel – submitted an elaborate report that carefully showed how Bay Area Rapid Transit could be spread across Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties. BART would go North into Richmond, Northeast to the suburbs and Concord (digging a hole through the Berkeley/Oakland hills right by the Sibley Volcanic Preserve), and Southeast to Fremont. It would also cross under the Bay from Oakland to San Francisco, and continue on down the peninsula to Palo Alto. The final masterstroke would be a branching path that went from downtown San Francisco, right by the current Montgomery station, and up through the Northern part of the City so the trains could travel across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin, and eventually past San Rafael to Santa Venetia.”

Ai was really getting worked up now, and she waived us across the street and into the BART parking lot, which was completely empty of cars.

“By the end of 1961, Marin had dropped out because they didn’t want to modify the Golden Gate Bridge in any way, and San Mateo didn’t think they could afford it. So the engineers tried to save face, and kept a modified Northern route in San Francisco, the Geary line that ran under Post street from Kearny to 25th Ave. Station. Eventually, that route was axed as well, and Embarcadero Station was added right before the Bay Tube to Oakland. This less ambitious system went on line starting in 1972, just over 10 years later.”

The PRS with huge pink backpack took point, apparently looking for trouble. We were approaching some small green shrubs and purple leaved trees that dotted the barren parking lot. Where were all of the cars?

“As you know, BART was Cassandra’s pet project. She championed for the original design that crossed over into Marin, as necessarily strong scaffolding over the thin border between our world and the Structure. It was supposed to be a huge band aid that kept trouble away, and that eventually kept Jenny and S.OS imprisoned. The loss of the Marin and San Mateo lines was enough to cause instability, specifically in the Marin Headlands. The Black has been using that hole for years to influence the whole Bay Area, and also to slowly make inroads into the Structure itself. Simply put, BART has terminally bad Feng Shui. Or had….”

I looked down at my pamphet again. There clearly was a violet train line that led from San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Marin all the way to Novato. There also was an Orange line that led West past the Richmond station, through a previously non-existent Point Richmond station, and under the water to San Rafael. There were extensions from the current Milbrae and Fremont stations, both terminating in San Jose past the Southern tip of the Bay. That’s not even counting the tracks running from Livermore directly Northward to meet the Pittsburg/Bay Point line.

“I don’t know how Cassie failed in the real world, but she clearly succeeded here. The Bay is completely encircled, and the Black contained. I think Joey and her used Ariel to re-write history.”

“This isn’t her story. It’s a pop up book!” Ariel suddenly jumped off of my back and ran angrily towards Ai, leaving a trail of dead frogs in her wake. The PRS moved to defend her, but Ai waived it off.

“Kaia, you have to control your daughter.”

“Don’t you tell me how to raise her!”

“I can already hear the whispers. At the storage unit Cassie infected her with the Black and S.OS.”

“I don’t believe you!” I believed her.

“We don’t have much longer before the Grand Supreme comes to anoint her as the second bride of the Nameless.”

At this point I was right behind Ariel, as she growled at Ai. I held her shoulders before she floated away like a raincloud, or sank down past the cracks in the asphalt. Her mind was all earthquake spasms, and forceful commands from a fragment of the Black that wrapped around her spine like a cobra.

“Control her!”

I took Ariel’s spirit and sheltered it away from the constant attacks, leaving her body as little more than a blank shell, like the fleshy PRS that Cassie made.

“Thank you.” Ai was clearly upset, but not at me. “Joey can never follow instructions… he was supposed to hide Emily in a neutral Personal Pocket Reality, one where neither the Grand Supreme nor the Black could get after her. But he had to go to St. Cloud to get that fallen PRS…. always too damn clever for his own good. Come on, we have to make it out of this place before it collapses. Ariel was holding it together with her powers, but now that she’s out of it…”

Ai was looking behind me so intensely that I turned around to see what was up. Instead of the Berkeley neighborhood, there was just a white haze surrounding the BART parking lot. When I faced the station again, the rest of Berkeley, including the hills a few miles Eastward, were completely replaced by nothingness.

“The last train out of here is entering the station under us – you have to force Ariel to take us there now!”

The station rotunda that used to be a hundred feet away – gone.

The sky was white. The asphalt was fading away under our feet.

I grabbed onto Ai’s spirit, and used Ariel to latch on to our bodies like security blankets. We used to practice teleportation in little fits and starts – it always gave Ariel such a headache, and made her hands tremble as she cut us away from the world.

When the whiteness started to eat away at our skin, I cut us away from the parking lot, underground dozens of feet, and onto the BART train that had just started to leave. Ariel vomited little twitching globs of The Black all over the carpeted floor, as Ai scoped out the train. It was empty except for us. But not for long.

“This car is infected.” Ai reached in her leather satchel, and took out what looked like a ray gun. She shot a red beam at the black constructs before they could start to spread, and they disintegrated. “Not enough. It’s like mold, the air is full of spores just waiting for a stray thought to set them aflame.” The windows started to cover with a film of black spots, like from the damp corner behind shampoo bottles. She looked back at me as she ran for the door to the next train car. “Control her, now.”

As the train exited the station, there was only about a thousand feet of tunnel left, before it exited into what should have been the bright blue sky of North Berkeley, by Gilman Street. Instead, there was the same whiteness hugging the train, as it howled over the tracks and shot forward into the almost unknown.

I had already picked Ariel up, and sat her on one of the seats – it had a vinyl snap on cover with Twister style polkadots. Ai was near the front of the car, pacing back and forth over the dingy carpet between the opposing exit doors.

“We’re not anywhere right now,” she yelled over the Bodyweb. “Without our memories of BART, and the neighborhoods it passes through, we would be completely stuck in this dying PPR.” I hadn’t experienced a Personal Pocket Reality before, but Sarah OS had some generalized schematics – they’re related to Variants, but much more localized and controllable. It’s really quite disconcerting to be in one, especially if there are conflicting versions of what reality is supposed to be inside the bubble.

At that moment, all I cared about was Ariel, and trying to save her from the slow and steady invasion of The Black. I could barely hold on to her hands and wrists; she wasn’t feverish, but she felt ungrounded, like she was wearing gloves made of static electricity. Her eyes were watering and fully dilated, and she was whispering in a language I couldn’t place. It reminded me of sunlight just before you’re about to burn. Once my OS started to understand it, it was too late.

“Shut her up!” Ai started to sprint down the car towards us. “She’s issuing commands in Sarah’s language of creation!”

Before I could stop the forceful flow of words, now shouted at my right ear like a sidewalk sermon, the whiteness that surrounded the BART train quickly evaporated, replaced by something I’d never thought I’d see again.

From the train to the Bay, from El Cerrito to the Berkeley hills, the entire landscape was ashen and broken, with trees and houses burned beyond recognition. Albany High School, which passed on the right as we approached the El Cerrito Plaza station, was a series of cement pieces and rebar, along with a mass of decorative metal bars painted red, a bouquet of huge flower stems that were curled and bent by the massive heat. On the other side of the train, which I could barely see past the windows covered by a growing black film, San Pablo Avenue was piled up with broken cars, and Albany Hill was bare, except for the slight stubble of trees and formerly expensive homes.

Someone or something was using Ariel’s connection to the Black to revert things back to the shape they were in when Miranda, Ariel and I burned it all to hell, starting at the Allianz Arena.

As the walls, floor and ceiling of the BART car were almost completely hidden by the sticky and undulating Black infection, I could feel that we weren’t just dealing with a PPR anymore. This pocket reality was a seed that wanted to germinate and spread the final world of the end.

Once, that tiny thing was nothing but a Variant among trillions, a quick test by the Grand Supreme to see just how much more quickly two copies of Miranda could bring about the end of things, as opposed to just one Chosen Light.

I just wanted to protect Ariel. I got too wrapped up in the orgasmic heat – my flaming sword turned out to be just the right size to cleave the Universe in two.

I’ve thought long and hard about what happened in that dead place, and this is as good a time as any to share it.

It’s going to take a few posts to get it all out, a few thousand painful words to map out our fatal mistakes. As is my eternal curse, each etched moment has all of the time in the world for sorrow.

Give me a few moments alone with Ariel’s ashes, and then I’ll tell you about what really happened in Munich.

Freedom for rent

Remember when I came home to find my entire flat empty? My first response was to attack Susanna, and she swatted me away like a fly.

Sunday morning, she gave me the key to the storage locker – the place where my life was neatly stored away.

I didn’t even know she had such foresight, and I just assigned a random vindictiveness to her.

Now, I’m hiding away the day in that locker, surrounded by my once favorite clothes and records. It’s cramped, and I keep poking into antique chair legs and metal bookends.

This was supposed to be the big surprise that she was going to reveal before we hit the road, that last moment where I could still turn back, or grab a few mementos before burning my bridges. It was my body-warming present, a way to show that even the Collective cared.

I hate the smell of my life, all dust and incense. I can no longer see in the dark, or sense passers by stories below, since the White no longer speaks to me.

My antenna is broken, I’m broken…..

I don’t even know why I’m writing this…. after so many packets they’re bound to sniff me out. But I just have to speak to someone, to process it all.

She was dying in my hands, because of my hands, and Helena couldn’t stop screaming.

Oh fuck, Helena…. Ai knew it was going to happen, she should have been able to do something!

Instead, it took my body from me, took Susanna from me, and made me watch every moment.

It all started out so right….. the Numbers found the perfect warehouse for the ceremony, to the north of the city.

They set up the equipment – amazingly huge speakers and a wardrobe of guitars.

Cassandra and Helena were bringing in choice gear from every variant, and they also transported their mother April (Number 6) to help orchestrate. She was an amazingly stunning woman, even from a distance – built like a champion tennis player, with muscular arms and legs, yet stereotypically feminine, her dark wavy hair effortlessly tousled, blue eyes like still lakes, and a mouth from classical sculpture. It looked like the twins kept her well dressed – she had on a gown suitable for an Oscar after-party.

Jo (Number 4) kept huddling with A-Bell, apparently working from virtual blueprints to make the space beyond perfect. Jo had surprisingly let herself go gray, but it really suited her, especially with her simple and straight hair, right off of a 70′s shampoo model. Her outfit was a black tuxedo jacket and digital desert camouflage pants, made whole by what looked like a bottle-cap chain mail vest. I would have been shocked by anything less, knowing her reputation as a living exclamation mark.

Amber was busy with Caroline (Number 5) over what looked like a full service bar. Actually, it looked like it was just ripped out of a nightclub – I assumed that Helena had been kept busy since the previous night. You would think that most Collective members were straight-edge, but since hangovers or even liver poisoning were never a problem for Pure Land Antennas, they tended to party way past the normal dropping point. Caroline was an exception, she grew up with alcoholic parents, and always frowned upon even the slightest revelry that involved drink or drugs.

So, she had Helena stock the bar with soft drinks and exotic teas and waters from all over the world, a task that she achieved with the usual excess. She had even collected glacier ice, by hand, from the north and south poles. After Caroline fully surveyed the stash she kissed Helena on the forehead, and she actually blushed, matching the pink prom dress she had just bought from a Beverly Hills boutique.

At a stark contrast, Caroline was wearing one of the T-Shirts that Phone had designed for Intruder Alert!, back when they were all teens. It was black, with the silhouette of of a elementary school jungle gym in white. There were skeletons of children swinging across in a row.

Phone was like that, seeing the world in stark relief, like an X-Ray camera. He was nothing but fuzzy gray, but he wanted so desperately to sift everything into just black and white, the perfect and the rejected.

In that way, he seemed the perfect match for Isabel. She was off in the corner, scowling as she took the occasional swig from some Korean aloe concoction. Of all the Collective members, she was the most likely to start a fight – rumor has is that she actually spent a few variants endangering species, just because she could. Which was beyond strange, since she’s not just a vegan – she only exists off of a “natural” mix of vitamins and minerals, the kind of treat you would expect to scrape off of boulders.

Isabel wasn’t always like that – in her youth she was a fashion model ready to devour only the finest parts of the world. While her attitude has changed, she still has a taste for couture, and is the number one client of our circuit clothiers. Last night, she had on an exercise in light – it was a Satomi Kurogane original holographic dress, with every layer of shimmering photons shifting in color and opacity, like a sunset seen through a waterfall. Her face was made up to match, with a chalky foundation as a canvas, and bold strokes of color embracing her eyes. And her wig – it was like a lion’s mane, an iridescent dandelion. Phone would have died to see her like that.

I’m sorry. That’s just not right. Not only is he not coming back, but….

I tried washing my face and hands in the Isar hours ago, but they only started to smell. Now the blood is like second skin, like Susanna’s hands caressing my head after she shaved it.

By the time the ceremony started the party was already in full swing. Helena went all out, transporting all active Collective members from around the world, one woman at a time. Aurora’s parents were perhaps the only ones that didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves; Susan (Number 7) kept to herself on a drum set – she didn’t play one note, but instead just kept sliding her fingers over the cymbals. Velcro was simply drunk, and since he wasn’t etched no one could blame him for his rants and tear-filled outbursts. He kept hounding Ai, telling her to bring his baby back home, and she eventually calmed his nerves with a slight flick of the wrist, and had Helena find him a nice hotel bed.

The whole time, Cassandra sat in the middle of the dance floor, playing with the invisible. I took a few minutes to sit down beside her, and I marveled at her outfit – it was the same blue pajamas that Miranda was wearing the night of the Fourth Event. Before I could even ask her about them, she reached out for my left hand, and squeezed it. “I forgive you. And I hope you die in flames.” She smiled at me weakly, like a dog she was afraid of. Then Helena popped in and took her away.

Rebecca (Number 9) and Elizabeth (Number 10) also kept to themselves. They had been friends since High School, and had been involved on and off through Potato Power and Dust Lag. They took it really hard when Sasha died, and only were mixed up with the Collective when absolutely necessary. Susanna was their only real tie to the group, and if they had it their way, they would find a cabin in some forgotten variant and live out their days.

Isabel kept staring at them all night – as Dust Lag’s drummer she always felt kept away in the shadows, and she resented how Susanna always got the spotlight, in the eyes of the crowd and Phone. She blamed Rebecca and Elizabeth for allowing this, and for not telling her that Phone was cheating on her as soon as they knew.

Helena also brought in the technocoven, the only surviving Collective cell that Amber cultivated, and who looked after Phone during Fairview. Amy and Tomoe were still together, after over a decade, but Tomoe decided to get her phosphorescent dermal tint removed many variants ago. Sarah and Phone were involved for a few months, but she quickly grew tired of his wandering eye, and constant pining for Susanna. Mavi died in Variant 0, and she decided that she didn’t want to return – the only Collective member to ever refuse immortality.

The only original Collective members that weren’t at Phone’s funeral party were Laura (dead), Number 12 (uninvited) and Jenny. Jenny was a special case, one that I simply can’t get into now. Perhaps you could say she’s the Collective’s prisoner?

Right now, I wish I was in Jenny’s horrible position, and not a fugitive on the run from my new family.

A few minutes before it happened, Susanna and Ai pulled me aside by the bar. Susanna gave me a huge hug, and seemed to be holding back tears.

“I promised that I would watch over you in this and all other variants.” She took another shot of some vodka, and then placed her ice cold palms over my cheeks. “I lied – I’m so sorry!”

“There’s a very good reason that I picked you, Kaia.” Ai was still wearing that football jersey, and I finally understood why. “I know that you’re strong enough to survive what happens next.”

Susanna started to move her hands down to my neck. “I could end it all right here, but I won’t.” She started to half-squeeze, half-shake.

“I cheated.” Ai grimaced as she took Susanna’s hands off of me. “Cassandra and Helena took me ahead to the Fifth Event this morning. Now she’s furious, and it’s all my fault.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t have enough time to teach you properly.” Susanna leaned her chest against the damp bar, and then looked away to the makeshift stage. “I’ll always remember you with love,” she said to me, and no one in particular as she walked away.

“Listen.” Ai suddenly reached through the White and took hold of my soul. “I lost the bet, and Number 12 has made her choice.” I could feel her spirit fingers caressing my heart.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I didn’t want to hear what I already understood.

“The Nameless is coming to collect its prize. You.”

At that moment, Ai rushed out of my head to be replaced by a cool, dark nothingness.

My connection to the bodyweb was overwhelmed by a torrent of seemingly random numbers, and as I looked up at Susanna on the stage, I suddenly started to sense the patterns in the chaos, the repetition in the irrational.

Before Susanna could even start to quiet the crowd, I felt myself rush towards the stage, fists squeezed like black holes.

Helena and Cassandra appeared in front of me, and with one motion I grabbed Helena by the head and gouged out her eyes with my thumbs, then tossed her screaming across the warehouse into waiting arms of Number 12. They disappeared before anyone could react.

Susanna didn’t move. She just stood her ground, hands grabbing her black prairie dress by the waist, and watched as I leaped on stage, placed my right hand on her pelvis, and raised it with a jerk. As it passed by each Chakra, her very being was forced into premature enlightenment, until it slipped out the top of her head and into the White.

Then the Nameless forced my hands down her throat, breaking her neck from the inside out and removing her head like a picked flower. Her curly brunette wig fell to my feet first, followed by pieces of her crushed skull.

This all happened in about five seconds. By the time the Collective thought to attack, Cassandra took me by the bloody hands and ripped me away from it all.

We appeared in the same warehouse on Friday, before Ai arrived in München. It was filled with old printing presses and scattered piles of paper.

“Stay here for the next day. Don’t leave for any reason.” She stared intensely at her bare feet. “Then, at 1AM Sunday morning, follow the Isar back into the city, and hide at the storage unit. You’ll be contacted at 14:00.”

With that, she sat back down on the floor, and disappeared, leaving me in absolute, horrific shock.

I don’t understand this. I didn’t ask for this. I hope that the Collective reads this blog, finds me, and puts me out of my misery before things get worse.

I’m staring at the florescent light that’s peeking in beyond the door. It should be comforting, but it just hurts my eyes.

It hurts my very being, and no matter how tight I close them, the pain just isn’t going away.

Flipping the unfair coin

No matter how far I run, it’s waiting for me around the next corner.

There’s still dried blood on my hands, face and dress, but this time it’s not mine. No one can see it before the sun rises, but I know it’s there.

Everything is ruined. I’m ruined. And Susanna….

My body wants to throw up, but I won’t let it. I have a job to do, and it’s the worst task possible. An assassins errand.

I’ve been cut off from the bodyweb, ever since the funeral, when….

It’s not right! I can’t pant or cry or scream without calculation, and I promised Ai I would survive, I promised….

I need to find a place to hide, but how can I obscure myself from the all-seeing eye?

Protecting the council

Is it alright that I hate Helena?

All day she’s been popping in and out of our meetings, taking away Cassandra for hours at a time.

Each time she’s carrying different shopping bags from major cities, wearing progressively more amazing outfits and hair styles. A few hours ago she stumbled back into the room in a sakura-covered pink and white kimono that she picked up in Kyoto, unwrapping a brown candy cube before stuffing it into Cassandra’s mouth. “Bontan Ame, ne?” The universe is her playground.

That’s not the part I hate about her – she’s actually quite cool, and much more grounded than her sister. It’s just that she’s everywhere except where she’s supposed to be.

The Structure assigned them particularly choice roles at birth – Helena has dominion over Space, and Cassanda is in charge of Time.

The current theory is that complete mastery of Space/Time is too much for any one living being to handle, so their duties were split in half. However, neither of their powers really work unless the both of them act in concert. Helena can “teleport” anywhere in the universe, while Cassandra can stay in one place and yet travel to any moment in any variant. Get them together, and they can not just travel to anywhere, at any time, but they can literally modify the fabric of existence.

They can tap into both the White and Black to varying degrees, and as long as they’re not carrying too much extra mass, and stick between Point One and Point Zero, they can flaunt their powers at whim, with no negative effects on the Structure. Well, they did almost ruin a few variants with temporal micro managing, so Ai tends to keep them on a tight leash.

They have 65 distinct secret twin languages, and a connection between them that’s impossible to sever. On the other hand, they’re restless, and never can stay in the same time and place for more than a few minutes.

When she wants, Ai can change all of that in a second – her domain over every living spirit is absolute, and while she rarely revokes free will, she’s been known to puppet members of the council at Point Zero when it meets her needs.

“Helena dear, come sit down next to your sister. We need to talk.” We were all in my flat, sitting in the empty living room on the wooden floor. The Numbers were out getting everything ready for tomorrow, while I stayed behind at Ai’s insistence.

“You all know that we still haven’t found Aurora.” That was Tokie, with her Ghost visiting all of our minds via Agartha Labs tech. Instead of using pico projectors to make a hologram, she just setup a bridge into the bodyweb. “Helena has confirmed that she’s nowhere in this variant, and Cassandra?”

She was lying on her stomach, still wearing her futuristic one piece jumpsuit, playing with a cellophane wrapped piece of candy. “Aurora’s not here now. She hates October and loves December.” Helena laughed as she sat on a random, one of a kind silk scarf she took out of a baby blue paper shopping bag. “She’s hiding in a far off star.”

Aurora is the mistress of energy, with perhaps the most raw power of any of us. She can tap into the Black and siphon out all sorts of electromagnetic force.

“Miranda is still missing, too, but at least we know who has her.” Tokie looked even more annoyed and upset than usual. She started to pace back and forth, her high cuffed brown slacks showing glimpses of Halloween themed socks, with black cats and cartoon witches.

“The current question is what Number 12 has planned for her.” Ai kept brushing back her curly hair with a plastic tortoise shell comb. “My best guess is that she wants complete control of her power.” She seemed intent on straightening it by force.

The power that Miranda had to be compelled to forget was over matter. She could use the Black to change the Universe wholesale, from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy cluster. Apparently too much power for one girl to consciously handle. Whomever controlled Miranda had already won.

“I think it’s more than that.” Tokie again, now fussing with her hoodie, a virtual replica of what Phone was wearing when he died. “I think Number 12 is after the whole council, either as a free agent, or acting on behalf of the Nameless. Ai?”

Ai and the Nameless were separate, yet two sides of the same coin. The Nameless has control over what you can simplistically call “Information”, but in reality it’s the original agent of entropy. It knows everything, and seeks to subvert it for its own ends. Ai, on the other hand, is an agent of the most absolute order, life of the flesh and of the spirit.

The Nameless is the wild card that makes everything possible, more than just a perfectly balanced, homogenized steady state. It’s hard not to try to anthropomorphize it, especially when it takes human form at the end of each variant.

In any case, Ai is in constant communication with it, to make sure that neither army has broken the truce.

“Number 12 is acting on her own,” Ai assured us, “but she’s going to have to pick a side soon.”

Helena suddenly grabbed her sister’s hand and whisked them away.

“Don’t worry, I sent them on a mission. They’ll be back tomorrow.” Ai then stood up, and bolted for the door. “Now let’s square the circle!”

I looked at Tokie for guidance, but she only shrugged. Ai then slowly opened the door.

“Pizza!” The delivery man was startled, since he didn’t even get a chance to knock. Ai quickly took an €100 note out of her pocket, placed it in his left jacket pocket, and took the pizza box away with a door-closing flourish.

It was a simple, steaming margherita, baked into a perfect square.

“Sorry cousin, I didn’t order you one in Ikebukuro, but you can watch us eat!”

“I think I’ll sit this one out.” Tokie logged off with a particularly disgruntled flourish.

Ai placed the box on the middle of floor, and motioned for us to gather around it.

“Now that we’re alone, I need to tell you something with super seriousness.” Picked up a square slice and ravaged it. “Things really aren’t going well at all.”

I nibbled on a slice while I watched her wipe her hands on her FC Bayern jersey.

“Please don’t tell anyone else, but I don’t think we’re going to win this time.”

What?

“Cassandra has seen the end, and it’s not what I expected.” Another slice, slight pause, then another.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I tried to look her in the eyes, but it was as if the light just kept on going and never bounced back.

“That you are very important. That we all need you to be brave, especially when everyone’s lives are on the line.”

She gave me a hug and greasy kiss on the cheeks, and then without additional comment went back to the pizza.

She never brought it up again all night, not even when Susanna came back to check in on us. By then Ai was already asleep, and I was curled up in the corner of the room, staring at the shadows under the bed.

Ai knows exactly what’s going to happen, something terrible, and all she can give are comforting, vague platitudes. That’s more scary to me than the most obscene horror movie – what could possibly freak out the immortal girl that rules us all?

Susanna just sat down next to me, gave me the last piece of candy from Kyoto, and said nothing while we watched Ai sleep.

Even in her dreams, Ai watched back.

Even Goddesses sleep…

It’s 6AM and Ai’s finally asleep, after spending the entire night grilling me on comparative religion, especially Theosophy, Anthroposophy and the chain leading to New Age thought.

You would think that after a dozen hours in the air, spread over a few airports, she would have wanted to take some time to breathe, but no. As soon as we met with her entourage at the Flughafen München, Ai ran up to Susanna and gave her a huge hug.

“It’s been ages since I’ve seen you! Literally hundreds of hours!” She was wearing a red and white vertically striped FC Bayern jersey – the home variety – and some dark blue jeans that look like they had been ironed forcefully, with crisp creases. “We simply must catch up about everything, especially the recent permutations in this variant!” I couldn’t stop staring at her shoes – they were basketball-style hi-tops that seemed to be made out of firm bubble wrap.

“And you!” She reached up to rub my stubbly head. “My how you’ve grown!” Gave me a little poke in the shoulder – I was still wearing one of Susanna’s frilly prairie dresses, since my custom clothes hadn’t yet arrived.

Ai proceeded to jog down the terminal, towards the escalators which led back to the Lufthansa counters. “I’m going to the observation deck!” The bodyweb was still ringing from her telepathic exuberance.

“You’re Kaia, right?” That was A-Bell, Ai’s godmother, standing next to her partner Amber. Like Ai, they were traveling extremely light, with little more than the clothes on their backs. A-Bell was quite tall, almost besting me by a head, and her naturally red hair barely reached her ears. Amber was about my height, and had bright blue hair with violet highlights, hanging well past her shoulders. I knew they were both almost 40, but they seemed half that age – Collective membership has its benefits.

Both she and Amber had on two variations on the same outfit – faded-blue circuit jeans and the most elaborately high-tech T-Shirts I had ever come across. They looked like a simple cotton/polyester blend, with old school Collective band logos (Fire Escape for A-Bell, and Jumpster for Amber) but upon a quick scan they were lousy with electrons and solid state memory threads.

“We’ve never been to Munich before, but we just love the airport.” Amber was naturally charming, and she took advantage of this by sliding her arm around my waist. “I”m sorry we came to visit on such a solemn occasion, but you know Phone wouldn’t want us to weep and wail – he’d want us to cause a righteous ruckus.”

“Sorry, I’m all out of ruckus.” Isabel, the only person to bring along a huge, black, rolling suitcase. She was clearly having none of this. “Can you point me in the direction of out of here?”

Isabel was Phone’s first real girlfriend, starting in High School. That is, until he cheated on her with Susanna. The two of them had resolved their differences long ago, but I could tell that she didn’t care for me one bit. Plus, she was wearing a whole container of mascara, and a loud, bangly couture outfit, Harajuku alley meets Fashion Week, that was expensive just to look at.

The final member of the party, Cassandra, was corpse quiet. Her wig had long, clear fiber optic hair that was iridescent, changing in color with every moment. I couldn’t place her outfit – it was like a painter’s tan one-piece, combined with space station lounge wear and yoga chic. She was one of the teenage twins – I could never tell them apart, except from context. I knew it was Cassandra because Helena never, ever would fly anywhere – she doesn’t have to. More about that when I have ample time to explain.

Right now, I only have a few more minutes before Ai wakes up, and demands my full attention for the rest of the day. She ran for my bed as soon as we arrived Friday evening, stripping down not to a datasuit, but something that looked like it came out of a €5 three pack – the most basic and plain white underwear imaginable. Slipped under the sole sheet, and ordered me to lay beside her fully clothed.

As we talked for hours, and the rest of the crew went to their hotels, I could tell that she was treating me less like an employee and more like her babysitter. She wanted to be tucked in, doted over, loved unconditionally, but only in the purest way, that core that transcends age.

She wanted to impress, even though she was the most impressive person that had ever lived. And she wanted me, for whatever reason, to be right there by her side.

I was her pet project, but also her confidant, almost like an imaginary friend. It was as if she was talking to herself, but she wanted my face there to sell the illusion of conversation.

Which is not hard to understand, since her brain is naturally buzzing with the thoughts, hopes and wishes of an entire species, all rushing at her from the White. She showers in humanity, and it was simply amazing that it hadn’t driven her crazy already.

Instead, every new person born only added to her joy, and wonder. I just don’t understand her perspective, especially since it’s no secret that she only really cares about one thing – family.

She would kill us all if it meant finding a world that her mother is still alive in, and that her hypothetical daughter can call home. I’m not speaking metaphorically, and I’m not going to go over it more now.

Sufficed to say that while even Goddesses have to sleep, you really don’t want to witness their nightmares.

Funeral in spray paint…

Ai is coming to München, to this empty flat, on Friday.

There’s so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t know where to start. Ai never leaves the US, not at least until after the Fifth Event, and she definitely doesn’t travel so openly.

It’s almost like she’s taunting the Nameless, begging it to show its cards. I’ve never seen her so recklessly, arrogantly powerful.

Did I mention she started a blog? She’s actually reaching out to the world for once, instead of commanding it to come to her. That’s so promising, and scary too.

In any case, she’ll arrive in a few days, and Susanna and I have to take care of everything, from her lodging to Phone’s funeral. I’m not sure who’s coming with her physically, and who will attend virtually, but it’s bound to be an once in a variant event.

It’s actually kind of shocking – I didn’t think anyone would care. But, after reading over his part of the antizine Fragments, like Our American Heritage, I totally understand now.

He was the glue that held all of the bands together, the instigator, doorman and secret weapon. When he was alive, he had no idea how important he was, how important the Collective let him be, and it speaks to his influence that everyone is dropping everything to be there in the end.

It really touches me, but also breaks my heart. Even in his last breath, he didn’t have any idea. All that was rushing through his skin was artificial hatred, a burning desire to destroy Satomi, and he didn’t even know why.

At least, I don’t think he knew why. That’s still something for me to determine, once my training is complete.

Anyway, it’s a chilly, cloudy morning, and the bodyweb says it will rain a bit. This will be the first day in weeks that I can actually walk out of my flat unassisted, that Susanna will let me off my leash. I’m so excited that I don’t even know what to do first – perhaps rub my face in some grass at the Englischer Garten (perhaps not the best idea, considering the dog population), or jump across the Isar (again, not the best idea to perform superhuman feats so soon).

Perhaps I’ll just ride the U-Bahn aimlessly, enjoying the crowded trains and oblivious people.

If only I could change my mind back to the way it was. To unstare at the sun. To forget.

Of course, Ai won’t allow that one bit. The Collective never forgets.

Friday, the center of the living universe is coming over for tea – I’m not even sure how she likes it.

Rewinding the tape

I’ve been body bored but mind over-stimulated lately.

I only have to use the IVs a few hours a day now, but Susanna still won’t let me out of the apartment.

So, I’ve had nothing but bare walls in the here and now to entertain me, like a never ending flight circumnavigating the world, and you’re strapped into your seat with no possibility of almost new movies to view.

I’ve allowed Sasha OS to interact with me again, and it’s – she’s – pretty reasonable for the end of all things.  She really doesn’t like it when I call her that, since it technically wasn’t her that caused all of the trouble, but still – it’s like playing solitaire against the Devil.

Anyway, she was kind enough to gather up the antizine fragments from Variant 0 a few minutes ago, and put them on a blog.  I’ve already read them like you would a tall glass of cool water – in quick and satisfying gulps – but I need to sit down and actually go over the words with my eyes, and not via my data sockets.

Today I’m obsessed over the fragment code-named Into The White – it recounts the night that Sasha died, at the last Suspender concert ever.

Jenny Samuels taped those few hours on a camcorder, and Laura did her best to pore over the footage, after it all happened, to look for clues.

Of course, the Collective has long since digitized the tape, and I plan on going over the footage myself soon, since I already can see many parallels between the events of that night, and what happened with Phone.

That’s one weird thing about going through the old fragments – Phone’s is either in a lot of them, or he actually wrote them.  I love seeing him in his prime, but it’s also so terribly sad – I think Sasha was trying to give him a warning even then, a prophecy that no one could really understand.

In any case, if you have been following this blog for the past few weeks, I think you’ll get a lot of perspective from this fragment that Laura wrote.  It’s also a great way to keep track of who’s who in the Collective – Sasha publicly revealed the Numbers that night, namely:

Sasha – Number 0
Laura (Frisbee) – Number 1
A-Bell (Annabelle) - Number 2
Jenny – Number 3
Jo (Joan) – Number 4
Caroline – Number 5
April – Number 6
Susan – Number 7
Susanna – Number 8
Rebecca – Number 9
Elizabeth – Number 10
Isabel – Number 11
8-Track – Number 12

She clearly did this for the video’s sake – the numbers are actually the order that each woman was etched over the years, and brought into the Collective, with one important exception – A-Bell. I’ll come back to that later.

I think it may also help to better understand who was in what band, something that the fragments really don’t cover, so I wrote up this little summary:

Masking Tape (84-89)
Susanna – vocals/guitar
Isabel – Drums
Becky (used to be Betty) – vocals/bass
Doug – guitar

Intruder Alert! (85-88)
Joan Gordon – vocals/guitar
Circle X (m)  – guitar
69rpm (m) – drums
Caroline – everything (including bass)
(Joan and Caroline head their own label, 2nd Going).

Eskimo Guy (84-85)
Joan – vocals/guitar
Susan – drummer
3-Way Tie – bass, vocals
Plug – vocals/guitar
(splits and becomes Intruder Alert, Slow Cone, Vacuum Chamber)

Slow Cone (85-88)
Velcro – guitar/vocals
Susan – drummer/vocals
Gary – bass/vocals
Tina – guitar/vocals
Inches – keyboard.
Sister band to Intruder Alert!, also on 2nd Going. (Becomes Photocop, April is part of it).  Susan and Velcro don’t get along, temporary break up.  Get back together in 86.  Gary, Tina and Inches each go their own way.

Potato Power (85-88) (Flake)
April – vocals/guitar/cello
8-track – drums
Rebecca – bass
Elizabeth – vocals, violin
(April goes on to Photocop after breakup)

Vacuum Chamber (85-87)
3-Way Tie – vocals/bass
Plug – guitar/vocals
Alex – drums
Theo – trumpet

Fire Escape (86/87) (Flake)
April – vocals/guitar/violin
Joan – vocals/guitar
Susan – drums
Caroline – everything
A-Bell – clarinet/vocals.
The supergroup.

Jumpster (86-87)
Sasha – Keyboard/Vocals
Joan – vocals/guitar
Susan – drums

Fuck Traffic (87-91)
A-Bell – clarinet/guitar/vocals
Frisbee – vocals
Jenny – drums
Sasha – keyboard/vocals
The official antizine band.  First gig at the antizine headquarters.

Dust Lag (89-94)
Susanna (Masking Tape) – vocals/guitar
Rebecca (Potato Power) – bass
Elizabeth (Potato Power) – vocals/violin
Isabel (Masking Tape) – drums.
Masking Tape meets Potato Power.

Photocop (89-94)
April (Potato Power) – vocals/guitar/cello
Susan (Slow Cone) – drummer
Circle X (Intruder Alert!) – guitar
69rpm (Intruder Alert!) – 2nd drums
Theo (Vacuum Chamber) – trumpet

Suspender (89-94)
Joan – vocals/guitar
8-Track (Potato Power) – drums
Caroline – everything
Velcro (Slow Cone) – guitar

It might seem like trivia now, but believe me – how these 12 bands turned into the Collective is key to everything that’s going wrong now.

You may want to look two other fragments now, since they cover the bands in more depth:

antizine 5
Yard Stick Vs. Tape Measure

I’ll definitely come back to these later.

I’ve been paying extra special attention to Slide Rule School, the “orchestra” made out of the Collective members – I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I have a feeling that something was going on that night, that rewinding the tape will never show.

Sasha OS has been mum about the whole thing – I get the feeling she likes to feel my brain squirm.

Me and Sasha’s shadow

I’ve been lying in bed for days, with my veins plumped with Susanna’s secret concoction guaranteed to inflate me back up like a sex doll or something.  Which is all fine and good, since when I came home from Olympiapark I looked like a 60 year old Grandmother, all wrinkled and liver spotted and arthritic.  I was a mess.

To pass the time during my reconstruction, I pored through the Collective OS, running the training led by a tutorial program in Sasha Williams’ form.  It was very convincing – she acted just like Phone has described from back in the day, big Number 0, infused with kind haughtiness.  Not that she didn’t deserve to be cooler-than-thou – she did invent the Collective, Bodyweb, etching and the OS that was currently controlling me, all before she was 21.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out more about the Reservoir, since I obviously didn’t know what I was doing when it came to my powers, when “Sasha” chimed in.

“Are you sure you haven’t had enough already”?  She was still dressed in the same, red Circle X outfit, and I asked her about it.

“Oh, this old thing?” It looked like she was standing right at the foot of the bed, smiling at me while she fussed with the big shirt buttons.  “It’s definitely not as nice as the one the Japanese franchise is using, but I like it.”

Circle X was a multinational nightmare that started in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 40s.  It was Sasha’s nemesis, for a number of reasons I don’t fully understand, and therefore the focus of the Collective until she died on Halloween in 1994.

“Just how true are you to the original?” She was short, stray kitten cute and slight, with arms like wind-swept bamboo trunks. “Did Sasha program you to be just like her?” Her face had old-school etching, all hand done with broad circuits, and every hair on her head was individually modeled.

“That’s a tough one… is your mirror twin exactly like you?” Flipped back her short, black bob with a flirty flourish.  “When your back is turned, does it make frowny faces in your direction?”  Walked through the bed to the middle, and she was bursting out of my chest – like a huge, slimy, black Alien.

“Please don’t poke through me like that.   It makes me feel like a magician’s assistant, post trick.”

“OK OK.” She shrunk down to the size of a Raggedy Ann doll, and sat down on my stomach.  “Did you ever notice about how most every prodigy has amazing math or logical skills, but only rarely creative ones?  Sasha was the sort of polymath that pops up once in a generation – she wrote Operating Systems and crazy punk songs, all knife-brilliant.  I’m one of her pet projects – the sort of artificial intelligence that’s not supposed to exist.”

“What are you saying?  That you’re S.OS?”  If I could have jumped up and ran out of the room, I would have.

“You say that like I’m pulling your teeth and throwing them back at your face.  It’s not that hard to understand – Sasha needed a OS to interface with what became known as the Pure Land Antenna etching.  Something that could use her body as a platform.  She had strong hints from Laura Watson about what that would entail – visions pulled out of the White – but it still took almost a decade to perfect it.  Sasha OS.  Literally, her shadow self that she trusted to govern her very essence.”

“I can’t believe this – please get off of me!”  I swatted at her, but my hand just passed through, slightly tangling the IV.

“Don’t get me wrong.  I’m the original S.OS, the kernel that’s a part of every member of the Bodyweb.   I’m not the… thing you’re thinking of.”

“I still don’t like this at all.  I don’t know how I can trust you, after all that’s happened.”

She sighed, and then grew to normal size, sitting on the right edge of the bed.

“Trust me, you don’t know what’s happened.  No one does, save for perhaps Ai and her mother.”  Sighed again.  “I’m not going to be able to convince you now that I’m not a threat to you, that I’m here to help you.  Just know that you can call upon me whenever you like.”

With that, she gave me a slight smile, like a busy cashier slapping the receipt into my hand, and disappeared.

Now I’m really worried.  If there’s anything that Tokie drummed into me over the past months, it was that S.OS was a world destroyer.  That it became autonomous, and vicious, and wouldn’t stop until every last network and CPU was under its control.  If not for the Collective, for Fairview, it would have succeeded.

To have a tame version of that beast now in charge of my head and heart – I don’t know if I can handle it.

It may be Sasha’s shadow, but I’m not worried about that part.  I’m worried about what a shadow sees when it looks in the mirror.

Will it decide to break your arms and legs just to get a better view?

The always hungry engine

Susanna was right – being etched is the total opposite of a free lunch.  It’s more like a banquet that fills a restaurant, but you can never, ever stop eating.

Over the past few days she left me alone while I went through the training modules.  It didn’t matter where in München I did them, so yesterday I chose Olympiapark.

It has been raining on and off for the past week, so I tried to enjoy the relative sun and say hi to my swan princesses.  Not to forget the ducks, but between there and Schloss Nymphenburg, I’m always happy to watch the beautiful, regal birds.

There’s a particular order to all of the exercises, time tested to get new Collective members started the right way, but since I had no problem with the basics, I decided to give something exciting a shot – invisibility.

Yes, invisibility.  Just like I could relay my senses through the White for a few moments, and see through someone else’s eyes, so too could you block their mind from noticing your presence.  The more minds you have to fool, the harder it is, and the less time it would last.

Sasha herself led the training exercise – it must had been programmed in the early 90s, right before she died.  She was like a crystallized cyberpunk anthem, with a face that could launch shmups.  Plus, she was quite charming for a crazy genius.

“So, you don’t want to be seen? I completely understand the feeling.”  She was wearing a bright red, short sleeved Circle X uniform, as was the nature of her obsession – she always had on some of their circuit clothes.

I sat down on a bench next to the small pond.  “Do I just use the straight lure, or something special?”

“Don’t worry about the mechanics,” Sasha’s subroutine told me, “Either you can visually register who you want to hide from, or you can choose a radius within which you won’t be seen.  Just make sure you don’t over tap your Reservoir.”

The Reservoir is the sum total of your available energy.  Since stealing even a bit of the White is not allowed, it’s largely how many fat calories you have, plus the section of your aura that’s not life-essential.  Susanna is obsessive, and always uses an exact Kilocalorie readout, but I just set up a nice, gradiated therometer that I can pull up, going from pine green to blood red.  I was currently almost full, so I decided to give it a shot.

I didn’t ask Sasha about the exact number of minds that would be ideal for cloaking.  There seemed to be around 50 people milling about, from mothers with their prams to packs of kids running towards the Sea Life aquarium.  A 20 meter radius seemed decent to start with.

I stood up from the bench, faced towards the Kaffee Crepes kiosk, and started.

I felt myself slip into the minds of everyone nearby.  They were thinking about a sexy man in this morning’s Abendzeitung, or going to the BMW Welt to play with the big aphid-like robots, or jumping off of the nearby Olympia Tower… I paused on that mind for a moment, but it turned out to be a scenario in a story they were recalling.

I was well implanted, and so I had them all take a look at me, all at the same time.  Some people thought I was a freak with my shaved head, while one woman admired my dress – I was borrowing one of Susanna’s Victorian white and frilly affairs.  A young boy thought I reminded him of an actress on KI.KA he had a crush on.  They all had their opinions, and I swam pass them, to the center of their visual field.   Then I pulled the trigger.

It all happened so fast.

39 people suddenly stopped in their tracks, and blinked me away.  I was no longer there – gone.

Then the swans started to honk, and the ducks flew away en masse.

I looked down at my hands, and they were dripping sweat, steaming.  So were my arms, my legs, and the dress felt like it just came out of a hot drier.

I fell to my knees, as my senses became distorted – I could feel the bacteria dying on my fingers, I could smell the iron leeching out of my bloody mouth.

My health bar was quickly jumping into the red, and my OS took charge again. It found a member of the crowd mind that had medical training – she had worked as a nurse for years.  Rushed her over to my side, as I curled into a ball by the bench.

Sasha and the OS didn’t let her talk.  She just tore off her own t-shirt, down to a blue sports bra, and used it to cover my mouth like a gag.  Propped me up and walked me slowly over to Sea Life, demanding to use the restroom. No one could see me but her.

With the last of my Reservoir depleated, the invisibility blanket collapsed, as did I.  I woke up briefly as she cleaned up the blood that had seeped out of my mouth, saturating the front of my dress.  I don’t remember much of anything else, except for calling for Susanna, throwing up a black, sticky mass the size of my fist into the sink, and trying to drink from the soap dispenser.

A few minutes later Susanna rushed in, and gave the good samaritan robot her mind back, minus any memories of what just happened.

“Are you insane?” Her yelp shot through my mind for the next few hours, as I drifted in the warm, white, world beyond our own.  I remember the sounds of the U-Bahn, and the smell of my neighborhood, but little more than that.  My fever dreams had plague nightmares.

I woke up a few hours ago – in the middle of the night – on my bed, attached to multiple IVs.  I had enough strength to look over at my arm, and it was little more than loose skin, deteriorated muscle and bone, with large brown splotches everywhere.  My body hair had fallen out.

Susanna was sitting by the bed, staring at me with mother’s eyes.

She didn’t have to explain.  I tried to ride a bicycle on the autobahn, and crashed into the world.

The invisibility routine was for defensive purposes only, as a last resort.  Every person that you tried to fool took dozens of calories a second.  With the radius I chose, I was few minutes away from organ collapse.  I had lost 15 pounds in a few minutes.

I’m going to be out for the count for a few days, at least, as my OS completely cycles through the critical repairs.   Then, I’m going to have to gorge myself for at least a week, on sweets and meats, just to get healthy enough for explosive diarrhea.

I never liked being sick in bed,  not even with my mother doting after me.  Unable to function without aching, I would rather just limp myself through the waking world, grin and bearing the fever, or sniffles, or whatever bothered my little girl self.

Now, I can barely imagine even beating my heart without assistance.  It’s like my body is a shooting range target, the kind you see on dubbed American crime shows, and every square centimeter is full of holes.

It’s clear I’m going to get better – the Collective already have too much invested in me to let me go.

It’s also clear that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and it scares me.

My own body, still shriveled and wheezing, scares me to pieces.