Protopolis

Subject 17 worries at a patch of skin under his sleeve for a moment, then stops, as suddenly as he started. The action suggests itching, and irritation, though the face betrays no sign of discomfort. His hands fall, limp once again, by his sides and moments later there is nothing to suggest him having moved at all. Clarence glances at the plain, schoolroom-style clock on the wall to his left and notes the time in the green book, alongside number 17's details, together with a brief description of what he has observed. Clarence neither knows nor cares the significance of this information, but knows that the data miners are insistent to the point of rudeness in their need for detail. When first he started at Protopolis, he was decidedly uneasy around the subjects. He'd been told over and again in the training sessions that they are as cattle - substantially less aware even - that they can respond to basic bodily impulses but have no consciousness, no sentience. Clarence remembers watching the training video, and learning that the island's denizens are manufactured - grown in laboratories and then kept here on Protopolis for study. they are fed, watered and exercised, their physical health monitored. Their diet is uninspiring but balanced, and served to them via a drip-feed. Physically they are doubtless healthier than the majority of truehumans on the mainland. They have no vices, no desires, no ambitions. Save for the appearance and the carefully controlled and monitored bodily functions they have little more in common with a truehuman than does a potato. As to the exact nature of the experiments, Clarence is not possessed of any driving curiosity and moreover is fairly sure that the less he knows, the better.

He is semi-consciously aware that ethically, the subjects reside in something of a grey area. Lab-grown human beings give scientists the opportunity to trial medicines, cosmetics, biological weapons, on subjects who are physiologically identical to the consumers and targets of the fully-tested products, without having to test on animals - a process who's drawbacks had been twofold. The first was one of biology: Effects of a particular compound on a human, could only be categorically concluded when tested on a human. While different species of animals have varied similarities to humans, none are exact, and different species are needed to get the closest match for the various areas of human physiology, meaning that the facility to have available the closest matches to humans entails the keeping of a diverse menagerie, none of which is an absolute match. The second drawback was one of morality - the tendency of certain groups to put a value on the innocence and subsequent lack of choice of animals, that outweighed, in their minds, the intrinsic value of their own species. The need to defend animals on the grounds that they are not equipped to defend themselves had led to campaigns in the forms of variously politics and sabotage, whose outcome was ultimately the banning of all animal testing. Coupled with the high risks of releasing an untested product to an increasingly litigious public, meant that manufacturers had to either prepare to defend their products in courts of law, or find a rigorous and robust testing mechanism that did not involve tests on animals.

Clarence is aware that those of a more sensitive disposition than he, might question the rights and wrongs of the testing on protohumans, leading to endless debate and legal posturing, but he is paid handsomely enough to include indifference in his job description, and has never really been the type to ask questions anyway. The subjects are not self-aware and are kept in good health. Save for the occasional specimen who goes missing once in a while, they are more well looked after than most truehumans. Clarence's post is far too mundane for him to ever be privy to knowledge about where the lost ones go - he speculates that they are moved to other locations, or harvested for organs, maybe even stolen, and sold as macabre sex toys on the black market - but the initial unease has long since faded into boredom and disinterest, after watching them stand statuesque for months, save for the occasion tick, or itch, so it does not burden his conscience. The operation is, by necessity clandestine, but to hide it from the public, not from the law, which as yet has no position on the rights, or lack thereof, of protohumans.

Protopolis is an island, large enough for employee lodgings, and few administration buildings, a canteen and some sparse recreation facilities, but small enough so as not to attract attention. There is a small, mirrored glass building near the centre of the island, against a rock face, a building Clarence has never been inside, but which from the number of people he sees going in, he has been forced to conclude is either disconcertingly claustrophobic, or continues under the island - the latter seeming to be the more likely. On the few occasions that he does give it any thought, Clarence supposes that this is where the subjects are grown - the process used is something of a mystery and the facilities even more so. No one outside the main protofarm knows anything about how the protohumans are grown. The island isn't on any major shipping routes or flight paths, so the projects remain largely unmolested and unobserved. The tunics and shifts in which subjects are clad, are long and plain - anyone seeing them would only register them as beasts of the field, or possibly monks, if they happened close enough to recognise the humanoid form. the geographic location of protopolis is such that the weather is never very varied: Too far north to get any remarkable amount of sun, too far south for anything as unpredictable as snow. a more or less constant drizzle leaves the island as blank in expression and as lacking in emotion as its inhabitants.

The research is classified - Clarence's friends and family believe he still works on an oil rig, though even the wells which have not yet been completely plundered have long since dried up to the extent that only a skeleton staff is ever needed to keep the rigs working, and so promotion to Protopolis is not unusual for a redundant rigger. This is not public knowledge of course, but with very little in the way of social connections, having spent most of his adult life on the rigs, keeping secrets is not something which causes Clarence to lose any sleep. The pay is very good, and the work laughably simple.  Just watch the herd for eight hours at a time, making a note of any and all behaviour which strays from the default of standing still. In the early days, the cold, vacant eyes had been what troubled Clarence. Faces completely human and so effortlessly familiar, but for the glazed-over eyes, and too-relaxed jaw. Nobody home. No lights on even. Spending 8 hours a day watching them, So similar to people, yet missing anything which fundamentally would define them as such, the unease soon faded to boredom. What he had at first seen as sinister apparitions, he now saw just as fleshy automatons. No A.I. - a human brain, empty of all functions save those required for breathing, digestion and perambulation.

As Clarence replaces the green book on the table, he fancies he sees, on the very periphery of his vision, number 17 look over at him mournfully, almost pleading, but when he looks

again, 17 is stood, as ever, motionless and expressionless. Clarence rubs his eyes and determines to switch off the gambling interface earlier this evening and try to get a proper sleep.

   *   *   *

As he rests a hand on a trembling shoulder just above his waist height, the doctor delicately moves a tiny switch just within his reach, from one to zero. A quiet, unintrusive piece of

hardware just behind him issues three short beeps, then an unbroken tone, reminiscent of a phone giving a busy signal before abruptly cutting off. The shudders of the shoulder in his hand become slightly more pronounced and the doctor gives what he hopes to be a comforting squeeze. For a moment he catches sight of his reflection in the frosted glass of the window opposite and is struck by the irony of his playing God as he stands, arms outstretched, giving with one hand, taking away with the other. He masks a bitter smile and inclines his head slightly towards the bereaved, and is momentarily taken aback as his voice, even softly rendered, seems loud and intrusive in the small room, thick with grief. "I'm sorry. Please, take as long as you need. The orderly outside is James, he'll see to any requirements you may have"

He squeezes the shoulder again, turns, and moves with soft, considered steps towards the door, which he pulls to, noticing the sobs become more intense as he does. He puts a hand

on James's arm and makes eye contact.

"See that she is as comfortable as we can make her. When she's done, move him down to the prep suite"

James looks back, "Protopolis?" he asks

The doctor indicates the green tick by the "donor?" sign on the patient's door, and nods, then heads off along the corridor.

   *   *   *

In another city, a different world, a consumer with a clear complexion and conscience to match, browses the hypo-allergenic facial cleansers, and finally settles on a subtle seagrass scented one, in an appropriately deep green bottle. Under the reassuring fonts of the Protopolis logo, it proudly, and truthfully proclaims "Not tested on animals".

Who Cares For The Dead? - Extract

Following on from the previous post, this is the opening of a story I started a while ago and never finished. As with many of my story ideas, it was written in a fervour, from an idea and the desire to put words together, so without an ending, I floundered. So, here then, is chapter 1. Or part of chapter 1. Or the prologue. Or half a short story. Time will tell.

Who Cares For The Dead

that the means by which he eventually found equilibrium in his life was by helping the dead, surprised no one more than Callum himself. it had been a slow, meandering journey from humanist to misanthrope, each step as significant as any other, though he had been unable to recognise their importance at the time. as a child he had been fascinated by people, and he observed them whenever he was able, speculating on what drove them to behave as they did.

He recognised patterns in behaviour and attitude that allowed him to categorise them into groups, for easy reference, but it could never be an exact science, he soon realised. though he could sort flowers by colour, which allowed for some understanding of their patterns, he would end up with identically coloured roses, tulips and lilies in the same group, which led to confusion when he then tried to categorise them by genus and species. and so it was with people too.

as a young man, excited about the possibilities that lay ahead of him, the new people his adulthood would allow him to encounter away from the repetitive restriction of seeing the same faces every day in school, all long since categorised and assessed, then re-assessed as raging hormones turned them into impulsive, irrational things barely distinguishable from beasts in the fields. Callum yearned for greater exposure to new and intriguing people and peoples, and so went to university to study anthropology.

at first, it felt like a revelation, like he was not alone in his search to understand people. here were others who not only shared his fascination but, having come from places Callum was barely even aware of, all were bursting with new data - new attitudes to categorise and new social stigmas to take into account when ascertaining what the triggers were that led a person to behave a certain way in a given scenario. here were new ideas and tools and theories to help him refine his own system of categorisation, now much more complex and intricate than his original flower model. He had learned that rather than trying to put people in categories and groups, it was actually less effort to accept that people are simply too unique and discrete for generalisations to ever be a useful tool in isolation, and instead to view each as its own entity, with a set of traits that could be assigned to each, like the badges he had earned as a cub scout to acknowledge different skills learned.

his system had developed over years of observation and conclusions, which would be scrapped and re-concluded time and again - graphs to plot shortness of temper against tendency towards aggression, graded and colour-coded mood groups, with different shades to indicate the level of an individual's propensity towards a certain behaviour. when he looked at people he imagined them each having series of embroidered, triangular badges stitched to their sleeves, each with the symbols Callum had assigned to character traits and moral values, and each a carefully calculated shade of an even more precisely calculated colour, to represent where on the graph fell the intensity of that trait in that particular individual.

So focused was he on understanding people that it was some years before Callum realised he knew little about himself. He had categorised himself in a hundred different ways and even fantasised about making his own badges to wear, to make himself easily readable to other people, if only they would adopt his system. he didn't see that though the precision would allow the circumnavigation of most of the Waltz of Awkwardness that was constantly being danced by people who did not use his system, the end result would be to circumnavigate so much of what makes us human as to render the system void. he had devoted so much time to understanding people, he had forgotten the importance of interacting with them. of course, he did interact with them, but it had reached a point where the emphasis was far more on the "act" than the "inter". he played a role - a flawless performance every time, but it was just a means to an end, a method of obtaining the information he needed, and all consisting of behaviour observed in others and then mimicked.

Callum realised that though he had all the data, ultimately he had no idea what its purpose was. he could read people well enough to be able to respond in a way that was pleasing to them, or at least inoffensive - his every action towards another human being carefully calculated to keep them interested and engaged, but with the sole purpose of collecting data so that he could improve the system. he realised the system was the means, but also the end - it was self-perpetuating. he was collecting data to improve a system which he then used to gather more data more accurately in order to refine and improve improve the system so that he could obtain more data, and so on.

this realisation insinuated its way into his psyche over several months, the change too small to perceive, so that gradually each interaction started to feel more and more frustrating. he became angry, but couldn't understand why. his only real fulfillment had always been the data, and now that fulfillment was ebbing, and having never aspired or desired, beyond the data, Callum was at a loss to replace it. one morning he awoke before his alarm, and for the first time in years, he wept.

to begin with it was a barely perceptible sob, and the feelings that went with it were so alien to him that at first he thought it must be a hiccup, or a twitch. then it came again, and the feelings inside him intesified. Feelings he had observed in others for years, and analysed and catalogued and graphed and plotted, but never felt. he had no idea what he was feeling, only that it did not feel pleasant at all. the sob became a whimper. the whimper became a cry. before long Callum was foetal, on the floor, wailing and beating his chest as year upon year of repressed emotions and sadness all clamoured to be released. the desperation and despair was worse than anything he had ever felt - no physical pain could ever come close.


* * *

whether hours passed or days, Callum was uncertain. So overwhelmed was his fastidiously organized brain with the realisation, that sensory information reaching it was more or less ignored, as he struggled in vain to understand the magnitude of his error. Had he wasted everything in his search to understand? Could anything be salvaged from the car crash that his life so suddenly had become? Would he be able to learn, so late in life, to interact with people so effortlessly, as other humans seemed to? So accustomed was he to conversation being a tool for extracting information that he never dwelled on the possibility of there being any other motivation - at least for him. He understood that conversation was important for forming bonds, but he had only ever really considered the means, not the end; The only bond he had forged was with his data.

By the time Callum was able once again to stand up, to observe his environment, he felt sure that so much time had passed there would be no one left who remembered him anyway, so he was surprised upon switching on the TV to find that it had been only a few hours since the revelation. The TV was a long-standing source of confusion for Callum - he had bought it some years ago when he realised that much of peoples' conversations revolved around things that were either specifically made for TV, or reported on by one of the many news programmes. He had felt he was missing out on vital information by having no frame of reference when people inevitably turned their attention to the ersatz-firegazing they spent hours at a time watching.

It was confusing to him for a number of reasons - having only ever been interested in the way people express certain things, and what that in turn means about that individual - he had failed to notice the importance of simply being entertained. Oftentimes he would overhear snippets of conversation which he took to be gossip, but would realise after a few exchanges that rather than sharing information about a mutual acquaintance, the participants were in fact discussing something they had both independently learned from watching TV. Partly to allow him to understand the references and relevance to an individual, and partly to enable him to contribute to such conversations, Callum bought himself a TV. It was an old cathode-ray behemoth from the 80s, now long since shunned by society in favour of flat screen plasma, but as Callum was interested in the content, rather than the qualiity of the picture, he was oblivious to benefits of a clear screen and high definition, so it was no hardship for him to tolerate its gargantuan bulk in the corner of his modest living room, so long as it was a useful tool in his quest to understand people.

Having always spent his leisure time either talking with people, or writing up salient bits of information gleaned from them, Callum had never really, even as a child, paid much attention to television, and so at first he found it very disorientating. He was regularly and consistently confused by the distinction between drama and reality shows: because he had always sought out people to converse with, to study, he had never bothered with media as a distraction, and so assumed that everything on TV was intended to be factual. Though he would never have recognised it to be the case, Callum could spot a bad actor within seconds of their first words. so used was he to observing body language and its use in reference to speech, that the incongruity of the words being said, and the body language which accompanied them, confused him immensely. Where others would simply identify it as bad acting, Callum would struggle to reconcile why the body language and spoken word were so at odds - it was a good few months after starting his exploration of television that he finally realised that much of the content was intended solely as entertainment, though this itself was to be the cause of further consternation as there seemed to be little discinction between reality and fiction, and the purposes of each.

Seeing the TV now, was as though seeing in colour for the first time. Suddenly the people he saw weren't just dumb animals, driven by instinctive impulses to do one thing or another - they were self-aware and contemplative, and rational: each doing what they did for their own, carefully considered reasons. He could categorise them all in an instant - all their behaviours recognisable as things he had analysed and studied and pondered - but the realisation was dawning for Callum that just understanding that how a person acts or reacts is based on a number of stimuli does not give any insight into their motivation. He knew the how, but not the why, and now, for the first time realising he needed purpose - the why was had become all that mattered. There may be a way to use the data he had collected, looked at in the context of this new epiphany, but it would mean going through vast swathes of information and re-analysing and re-concluding. It would be like looking for a needle in haystack, but without actually knowing what a needle looks like. Just the thought of going over the data again made Callum feel physically sick, as he realised that every morsel of information would serve as a reminder that he had wasted so much time, and life, on an ultimately pointless search. He eventually had to acknowledge that catalogues of information were all but rendered moot by their lack of any kind of conclusion of motivation. Having always been most content in his own company, safely analysing the traits and peccadilloes of his subjects, Callum suddenly felt very alone, and foolish. He felt his eyes once again fill with tears, and as though knocked by a great weight, he once again fell to the floor and sobbed.

* * *

Resolution - Extract

A while back, my friend L-33 (who designed my logo) was working on a comic, called Resolution. The concept, and the artwork, were awesome, and I was pretty humbled when he asked if I wanted to collaborate on it. The plan was (is?) to go for a mixed format, some plain text sections and some graphic sections, not unlike the balance between the main story and post-chapter pieces in Alan Moore's Watchmen. At the moment, being signed off work long-term, Ive entered into a phase of what i've taken to calling guerrilla creativity - the idea of just trying to be creative as much as I can, every day, in whatever medium I can find, and in a very ad hoc, let's-just-do-this way. With that in mind, I'm going to be posting some existing work which has never seen the light of day, in the hope that it will spur me on to new things, or to continue with existing projects. So that, in essence is why I'm posting this now. I'd be grateful for any feedback.

Resolution - Chapter 1

"shut it"
"i'm just saying you're not going to like what you find"
"i'm not looking for entertainment"
"you don't know what you're looking for"
"i'll know when i find it"

The light reflects off the saftey catch and for a moment Anna would swear the gun has just winked at her. She's spent the last 3 years consciously trying to control her perceptions. Now, at 24, she can cope with even the most horrific travesty as long as she allows herself to perceive it as a slow-moving scene, watching it unravel as though time has slowed to point where she can control it. She only allows the most traumatic information in a piece at a time, allowing the rest to blur until she has a handle on the current horror.

As soon as she entered the room she'd had to put the gun down. The need to have it near versus the repulsion it induces in her is a delicate balance. having it so close to her, insinuating, suggesting, all the way here had made Anna's head ache. a dull throb, distracting, distorting. it had to go on the table so she can longer feel the clammy coolness of the metal, which never seems to tarnish. It was bad enough that she let herself believe it was talking to her. If it were to start wearing a smug expression as well it might interfere with her work, and there were enough real, actual people doing that without her adding the disruptive influence of an insubordinate firearm.

Anna feels guilt when she thinks about the gun. the kind of guilt you feel when you think about a wayward relative. you shouldn't hate them because they're family, but some things can't be forgiven and so you're left with the disparate emotions of unconditional love, unrivalled loathing, and guilt for the two emotions being so contradictory. The gun had saved her, saved her mother, but damned them both to imprisonment. The cold stone walls of her mother's imprisonment as much a weight on her conscience as the dark, silent prison she finds herself in, knowing she will not taste, or smell, or feel, until she serves the penance for her crime. Not the crime of killing her father, but of allowing him to remain here, to torment others as he once tormented Anna. Anna reveres and detests the gun, simultaneously talisman of her salvation from the ceaseless abuse, and the cause of her current suffering.

It's evening and the orange light through the window from a setting sun makes the room seem calm and belies the violence that still looms, like the tinnitus after an explosion. dust falls through a shaft of light and to Anna almost looks like a lazy sunday but there is a metallic tang in the air that tastes like fear and Anna can feel the bile rising. Always this contradiction - it follows her. A glimpse of normality, of happiness and absence of fear - but always there is an undertone of unspoken filth, waiting in the shadows to taint and corrupt.

Anna looks to the gun, vainly hoping for some words of comfort, or encouragement.
"are you waiting for me to rust?"
Anna sighs
"be brave Anna"

*  *  *  *  *

It's late and this time the orange light that pervades Anna's room is the phosphor of a street lamp. She is seven years old and wide awake. It's never properly dark and so sleep is a hard won prize which she nightly fights to attain. The curtains are busy with fairies and pixies, and myriad other tired clichés of things girls are supposed to like, but which are meaningless to Anna against the backdrop of a harsh reality of violence and pain, where fair folk would never dare tread - in daylight they are faded and inocuous - backlit by ancient sodium lights, the colours invert and Anna sees a hideous chorus of demons, all looking at her, accusing, judging her, blaming her for the ruckus down the corridor. "What are you waiting for?" they demand, "You know where he keeps it. You know how to use it. He taught you. You didn't want to learn but he taught you. Made you squeeze the trigger while he held the gun because your hands were too small and weak. 'A boy would be able to fire it,' he told you. He never wanted you. He wanted a boy. If you were a boy you'd protect her. What are you waiting for?"

Without even realising it, Anna has walked to her parents' room. She's kneeling on the floor, holding the box with the gun inside. It's heavy - heavier than it should be, as though it's weighed down with the enormity of the task. Anna can't work out if she's too tired, too scared, or just broken, but she swears the gun is aware of her, willing her to take it, and do what she has to do.
"are you waiting for me to rust?"
Anna gasps, and nervously slides her hand round the cool metal grip of the handle.
"be brave Anna"

*  *  *  *  *