The Bold and the Esoterical

[Placid Dingo]

Part 1/10.

Roger walked through the rain. It fell hard and sharp, the kind that didn't touch clothes, just passed straight through you effortlessly like a thousand so sharp ice shards.

He gripped the magazine close to his body to shield it from the wet, and approached the building. One of the door goons, a face like red boiled duck fat tried to stop him. As Rodger looked up at him he stepped back, apologetically.

"Let the Empress know I'm in," he growled. "And yes; it is fucking urgent."

***

Yesterday things hadn't been so bad. He was on top of the world that morning, and looked it, dressed in his sharp black suit and red silk cravat. His silver tipped cane tapped gently on the ground as he looked out the window at his army of machines.

"Look at that," he said to Richter. Richter was the new guy they'd shipped in. Apparently a genius. They discovered him somewhere in Eastern Europe where he'd been kidnapped by the Fascist Hipster League and forced into slavery. Two days later, the hipsters were dead, and Richter was doing a victory lap in an improvised tank. Shortly after, Rodger's team had made contact.

"These machines power everything," he said. "Everything in our company, everything in this town. Nearly everything in the goddamn country. You understand what they run on?"

Richter ran his thumbs down his leather suspenders. "They say, on horror."

Roger nodded. "It's more complex than that, but essentially that's what it comes down to. We mine the human psychic field for horror and convert it into usable energy. We sell the power to the state. The money sounds our science laboratories, which make new products and discoveries, which in turn keep us on top."

On top indeed. It had been... Jesus, nearly 30 years since there had been any company the could present a real threat to TGGR INC. No concept, no villainy, no genus could rival them.

Until now.

Now, Roger stood wiping his face dry with a sealskin towel as he waited for the Empress to see him.

He pulled out the magazine and stated at the face on the cover. Piercing blue eyes, thick black designer glasses and long blonde hair. The headline ran:

[Cramulus: The New Kid on the Block]

"Twenty four years ago, wasn't it?"

Roger looked up. The Dark Empress Nigel stood before him, clad in flowing black silk. Her black hair was cropped tightly and lay like a snake on her shoulder.

"My lady?"

"It has been twenty four years since anyone's face, from outside the TGGR corporation has graced the front of this publication. And now, a stranger on the cover. From, it seems, nowhere."

"That is why I seek your council, my lady."

The Empress nodded slowly. 
"I know. I will consult with the sparks and howls of the night, and return to you with answers. But now, you must rest. You are greatly wearied."

The Empress placed a warm comforting hand on Roger's shoulder. He could feel the cool edge of her metal thumbnail against his skin. She nodded to one of her eunuchs, who walked off to obtain a raincoat, and escort him back into the night.

***

The professor Cramulus adjusted his thick black glasses and shook his head slightly to dislodge a strand of his golden luxurious hair from behind his ear. He gave one of his rock star smiles and a million cameras shot off their flashes.

"Friends," he said, "Calm yourselves down. This is only revolution."

A million pens scribbled. The press fucking loved someone who could give a nice soundbite.

"For nearly thirty years," he continued, "horror has been king in psychic energy generation. The true horror, is that horror has been at the forefront for so long! What we have developed in Cramlarus Labs is a new energy concept: Memetic Field Looping. As our power source grows, so does it's strength. What we intend to do friends, is going to change everything."

Journalists pushed and yelled, each hoping for a golden quote. 

"The lady in red," called the professor, pointing.

The lady stood. She wore a burlesque red dress, black stiletto heels and a no bullshit expression.

"Janet Phox," she introduced herself, "major Blogger."

"Which Blogging Fraternity?"

"Freelance. Mr Cramulus, in the last five years there have been multiple instances of strange electronic fields and unexplained phenomenon close to your labs. Official versions of events ultimately admit no idea what causes the most concerning instabilities. Do you deny the link between your work and these happenings and do you understand the very real danger that your research poses to the stability of both the psychic and physical universe?"

"I should always get my business partner Commodore Telarus to choose who asks the questions," said Cramulus, " I always end up picking a conspiracy theorist straight up. I can't tell you how many times I've had to deny being a six foot lizard." There was a titter from the audience. The Professor continued to rearticulate the official corporate rhetoric. That was OK, Phox decided. She was a different breed of journalist. If she needed answers, she was going to have to play it smart.

***

Roger was restless. Sleep was distinctly impossible. He pulled himself out of bed and began to walk down the hall.

They had found something he hadn't. That was the thing to be worried about. In those bright lit, frequently exploding laboratories they had tried, often with success, every imaginable way of extracting psychic energy, and nothing had ever rivalled their current technique. Nowhere in the world performed science with the material, brains and  borderline insane reckless abandonment. And yet, it was not his face on the magazine.

He stepped outside and began to walk. The moon cast down a creamy light onto the streets. The road was silent.

As Roger turned the corner to his favourite haunt, a gloved hand grabbed his arm, face hidden behind a hat.

"Do you know what's coming?" he said.

***
 
Phox began to type.

[Pumped up with pomp and faux celebrity aesthetic, Professor  Cramulus' tiring rockstar schtick cleverly disguises the great truth; that this individual presents the greatest threat to international security since the early days of the TGGR Horrorfarms.]

She stopped to reread the sentence, before pausing as a hand knocked on her door. She slowly stood and opened it.

In front of her stood a woman with short brown hair and deep blue lipstick.

"Remember this moment," the woman said, "it'll make a huge stir on Livejournal." 

Then her hand flew from her pocket to Phox's arm. Phox stepped back, and stared at the needle stuck in her bicep. She tried to yell, but the world was already spinning.

***

The Empress Nigel woke with a start, and looked aside to the bedside cabinet. She kept a notepad there to write in her sleep. 

Her hand was wet. She looked at it, and it was black with ink.

She looked at the pad. It was stained black, torn and pulpy. She had been writing the same thing over and over until the paper had worn through and the nib had burst. She pushed the pad aside and saw clearly the words etched deep into the wood of the cabinet.

[shE ComES]

[Cramulus]

can't wait for the next installment

[The Good Reverend Roger]

1.  WOOT! 

2.  There's no d in "Roger". 

3.  More, please.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OOOOOOOOO

MY NIPPLES ARE HARD

MORE!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

ME LIKEY

[East Coast Hustle]

This is so awesome I forgot to be disappointed that it was not, in fact, a thread about Bliss N Eso.

[Phox]

I enjoyed this. Looking forward to the next part.

[LMNO]

Whoa.  Loving this.

[Elder Iptuous]

buh!  really good style!
eager anticipation!

[Placid Dingo]

Commodore Telarus applied the glue slowly to the candlestick and bent over to press it down hard on the hard white marble bench. He held it down for a few moments to ensure it was stuck and then stood. He swore loudly as he banged his head on something. There was a crack.

Looking up he could see two halves of a ceramic plate floating in the air. He grabbed them both, opened the latch of the bin and threw them away, keeping the lid half shut to avoid any of the rest of the rubbish floating away. He scanned the room for anything he had not secured. There did not seem to be any issues. The Italian leather sofa levitated gently, swinging on its stainless steel chains.

Professor Cramulus opened the door and came into the room, sliding off his crocodile leather loafers. They began to levitate.

"Fuck," he said, and turned to Telarus. "How long has this been going on?"

"It comes in roughly five to ten minute bursts," he replied. "This one is about over."

As if on cue, the sofa crashed to the ground. A shoe hit the ceiling fan on the way down.

"It IS possible to stop it completely," said Telarus, "provided we harness a duel carrier system to bring the power in. We can make the changing pace of collection even by streaming the power evenly from the first carrier to the second before storage. The problem there is that because of the size of larger fluctuations, we get a build up and have to stop production or risk meltdown, which risks losing some of the most promising Memetic Strands right when they're at their peak generation."

Cramulus nodded. "As long as we can avoid this shit getting to the press." He placed his hand on Telarus's shoulder. "You're doing good work Commodore."

Telarus nodded. "How did your news conference go?"

"Good. Feeding the chickens. There was a blogger there though who'll give us headaches."

"Which fraternity?"

"Freelance, thank fuck. The majors won't mess with us."

"So, what do?"

Cramulus shrugged. "Not sure. See which way the wind blows."

***

Dark Empress Nigel plugged the camcorder into her computer, opened the file and pressed play. A scene flickered to life on the screen. She saw herself sit in lotus position, in the midst of black candles and burnt sage. She was draped in a single emerald green silken shawl which flickered with the surrounding flames.

She clicked about an hour into the video. Typically it would take about an hour before she had sufficiently immersed herself in the psychic ether enough to pick anything up.

She felt embarrassed by the video. Actually being there, feeling that crackling electric atmosphere, being completely immersed in the psychoverse, it was different. Watching it on the screen felt... cheesy really, more than anything.

She saw her lips move and lifted her pen to record what was said.

"She comes..."

***

Phox slowly woke. Her left arm was numb but the rest of that side of her body throbbed with pain.

"Good morning sweetheart," said a voice, soft but venomous.

Shakily, Phox lifted herself up to see who was addressing her. The woman who attacked her the night before, blue lipstick and short brown hair, sat before her with a smug look on her face.

"The fah... What the fuck?" she said, groggily.

"How are you feeling, bloggums?"

Phox stared at the woman hard, concentrating of regaining her thoughts.

"You drugged me you bitch!"

The woman only gave a polite smile.

"I'm Luna LaSoleil." She extended her hand. Phox didn't move.

"I'm your new boss," she added. 

There was a silence in the room. If Luna had been waiting for Phox to respond, her face didn't betray disappointment.

"You take this," she pulled out a card, "and you're going to keep working on your Cramlarus story, and you'll receive a salary from us. NOTHING comes out publicly though. You send all material direct to us. If anything gets out into the public though, we'll kill you."

Phox grit her teeth. "Exactly what pack of bad freaks do you represent?"

"Sorry about your leg," said Luna.

"It was my arm you fuck."

"Not the second one," said Luna as she lifted a needle and plunged it deep into Phox's leg.

***
Richter sorted through the files. He wasn't technically meant to be in this part of the office, but the temptation combined with habitual lock picking had proved too enticing.

He pulled out a huge folder labelled 'alternative energy sources' and began to sift through it. He pulled out a file labelled Despair and flipped through.

[While a subject could at their peak help produce energy at up to 8x the efficiency of Horror, such efficient individuals tended to ultimately self terminate at the peak of energy productions, making the process unpredictable. Such cases also ask certain moral questions, the addressing of which may prove cost prohibitive.]

He opened another.

[While some success was found using Indifference as a power source, subjects generally became pleased with themselves when they became aware that they were the chief producers of energy, thus cutting off the stream.]

He sorted through more, then laid a hand on a file labelled 'fear'.

Now, THIS could be interesting.

***
Phox woke again in her bed. Her body ached like she had spent the last five hours struggling against a violent tide.

Slowly she pulled herself to the edge of the bed. She felt nauseous. She wiped the sweat off her brow with her pyjama sleeve... fuck. Who the fuck changed her into pyjamas? The thought made her shudder. she was angry, goddamn it, angry and beset by a horrible thick sense of powerlessness.

Well fuck it. Groggy she grabbed her laptop. She was in no state to make a rational decision. She was going to ride the after affects of this drug like a shot of bravery. She opened her blog and began to write.

[I was recently drugged and abducted by some blue lipped fink who tried to tell me I would report to her sorry ass only on my Cramlarus story. If you find me dead it's because those fuckers have killed me for disobeying. This is a message for anyone who has the power to stand against these forces- if you're out there, I need your help]

Pressing send would be the worst idea she'd ever have. She knew it intuitively.

She pressed send.

***
Liam Eno rubbed his thin wiry moustache with his thumb, as Telarus lathered the left side of his head with shaving gel. 

"Please keep very still," Telarus requested, picking up a large sharp barbers blade. He began to cut, slowly and precisely, shaving the side of Eno's head.

After it was properly shaved Telarus attached a node to the side of Eno's head. He spent some time adjusting the knobs and finding a clear signal.

He held up a card in Eno's line of sight and the signal responded accurately.

"Right," said Telarus. "Let her rip."

"Fuuubu!" cried Eno, sliding his hand to the left for the high pitched 'fu' an dropping it down for the deep toned 'bu.'

"Good! Strong! Again!"

"Fuuuubuuu!"

"Again!"

"Fuuubu! Fuuubu! Fuuubu!"

***
Roger cleared his throat to speak.

"She comes though she is not; only as imagined and imagined towards being; It is so powerful so fast so big; the mind's eye is a womb." 

He blinked. 

"The fuck does that all mean?"

Nigel shrugged.

"I have no idea. This is the least clear message I've had in a while."

"It doesn't really sound like anything I should be celebrating."

"Agreed there."

They sat silently for a few moments. Roger shifted in his leopard pelt chair. Nigel lifted her tea to her lips and sipped from the dainty ivory cup. She held it up to offer it to the shimmering Burmese python draped around her neck but it turned away, disinterested.

"Keep in mind that this might be bad signal. It happens. I spent almost a month trying to translate a message I received once, and it ended up bring a passage from a James Joyce novel."

"How did this feel though?"

Nigel hesitated for a moment. 

"This felt like good signal. And it felt big, and bad. Like it's going to hit hard."

***
Sitting in the coffee house, hat beside him was a man. Roger would have recognised him as the man who had grabbed his arm and offered a cryptic warning. He traced a gloved finger along the page of the book he was reading and flipped the page.

His phone rang, and he answered.

"Cain"

"I'm sending you an address of a blogger connected to our cause. Government agents are going to be there in twelve minutes. I need you there in eleven."

[LMNO]

This makes LMNO-PI look like a Dan Brown novel.  Great work.