The Alembic Valise (21 page)

Early that morning Joel had entered lock 101 where he and the Second Chance had been lowered gently to a point where they could be released into the tidal Thames. Finally he was entering London on a rising tide and it felt fantastic; but by the time he reached Chiswick Reach the tide had turned, and so had his mood. This was the place where, according to the news clipping, the Alembic Valise had succumbed and submerged. Joel had studied the dream artefact a hundred times but as he approached the moorings that were mentioned in the text of the article he was uncertain of what he may find.

All that was left were the remnants of an inflatable boom that, as a helpful boat owner who was moored nearby explained, had been used to contain the fuel leaking from the stricken vessel. After which, at considerable expense to the taxpayer, she had been re-floated, craned onto a salvage barge, and finally taken to a boat yard in Gravesend to be scrapped.

“It was me that called the Port of London Authority,” Joel’s informant explained. “Every day she was lower in the water, then one day she just stayed on the mud, shame really. Did you know her owner?” Joel just shook his head.

The journey to Gravesend had proved fruitless; the Alembic Valise had been “disposed of”. Also the boat-yard owner, who worked closely with the river authorities, was trying to track down the registered owner to serve him with legal papers for payment to recover the cost of the salvage operation. A Mr Joel Barlow. And had he heard of him? Again Joel shook his head and left. Judas, he thought.

By early evening he was thoroughly weary, having chugged back into London and he was now wondering where he could moor for the night. The rain was finally easing and as he passed under Putney Bridge he knew that the next bend in the river would take him under Hammersmith Bridge and past the place where he had lived that long gone life aboard the Alembic Valise. Let’s get it over with, he was thinking, when the roar hit him; ah, Fulham have scored; this made him smile as he looked over towards Craven Cottage, remembering the times he and Dave had attended football matches there.

Onwards he sailed, and Joel only looked ahead; not towards his old mooring, and not behind where he would perhaps have seen a holographic image projected into the night sky above the city. But as he glided round the next bend in the river he looked over towards the causeway that had been the subject of Sophie’s lecture in those past times. He pursed his lips and hung his head, then looked again because something had caught his eye and had taken a few chugs of the engine to actually register in his shuttered consciousness, lost as he was between worlds. There was a figure on the higher most cobbles, standing still, slowly raising an arm, and beginning to wave. He leaned on the tiller.

Three weeks later Baba was summoned; usually the meetings were twice yearly and the prospect of this impromptu weekend with bankers, masons, political fixers and intelligence creeps was ringing alarm bells in his skull; something was afoot. Of course the reason for this sudden call to action was known to Baba: Over the last few days all the companies controlled by the Blake Organisation had suffered sharp drops in their stock prices. The markets had been spooked by something, and of course the investors were looking for someone to blame.

As his chauffeur driven car with blacked out windows took him to the heliport he saw it again – graffiti on the side of a warehouse – Joe Canoe: Where have I seen that name before? Then remembered it was on the side of the disused brewery, situated upriver from the Ice Tower, in letters a yard high. Must ask one of my aides what it means, he thought. But he soon forgot all about it.

Just a quarter of a mile away, but on the northern bank of the river, Agim had been killing time, sitting on a bench chain smoking and attracting disapproving looks from the fitness fascists running and cycling past, but now he was in position. He was hiding behind a strip of Poplar trees that were lined straight along the rivers edge as a windbreak, and must be at least eighty feet tall. He knew that he had to wait until the helicopter was overhead, then there would only be chance for one shot and almost no time to aim. But he knew that the pilot would swing out over Dukes Meadow before beginning his journey, following the route along the rivers curve towards the Docklands City Airport. And that would be his opportunity to deliver his killshot. And then Baba would die in a ball of flame and twisted metal.

As he looked at his watch his ears picked up the rotors choppy pulse punching through the humid air. Hefting the launcher onto his shoulder he stepped from the shelter of the trees and stood waiting in the centre of the path.

In one smooth movement he swung around as the chopper broke the tree line, catching the rotor tip in his viewfinder then quickly fixing onto the main body. He fired and then watched as the momentum took the falling target behind the trees, it’s wreckage falling into the river with a hollow roaring sound. He ran along the path down to waters edge to see a plume of smoke emanating from the centre of the river, his eye followed it upwards to see a black cloud that seemed to gather itself then form into a bird that writhed and thinned as it became caught in the crosswinds. Perhaps it is an avian cryptid like the Chernobyl Black Bird, or even Mothman himself, pondered Agim.

He had by now zipped the launcher into a tote bag and was sauntering back to his car, swinging the bag and whistling in the manner of someone who had spent a satisfying afternoon at the sports club. Slamming shut the boot he turned to see a man watching him from across the car park. Agim took a deep breath and walked towards him. Recognising him as he did so.

“Help you?” asked Agim.

“Cuthbert Mcluhan,” he held out a slim brown hand. “Technically I’m your Grandpa.”

Although the river was over three hundred meters away, and screened from them by trees, they could clearly hear sirens and the roar of motor launch engines. Agim nodded in the direction of the kerfuffle. “Thanks for the fire power. Only question is, did we get him, was he onboard?”

“That we cannot know. Would you care to drive me to Knightsbridge?” replied Cuthbert. In answer, Agim opened the passenger door for his Grandfather.

“Did you know he was my half brother, Baba, a corruption of Basil? It was our childhood name for him; he was always bad news, even back then.”

Agim walked around and climbed into the car. It was a hot day and the car had been sitting in the sun, because he had been unable earlier to find a shaded spot in the car park. This now necessitated using the air conditioning, which with barely a whisper produced a refrigerated draught at the touch of a button. It quickly cooled the two men inside. They continued their conversation but what they spoke of is lost to us.

Levee Town was saved and now the level of the river water was dropping. Townsfolk stood on the roof of the town hall cheering. They still needed help but help would come. Joe paddled his canoe away from the swirling floodwater, out into midstream where the deep water was running more evenly. Where were the rescue boats? Fly Crow and see what you spy. But there was no need because a flotilla of boats was approaching, their engines generating a rising sonic cadence. Behind Joe there were shouts from the rooftops as the towns people saw them too. Dinghies with outboards, canal boats, pleasure craft, and at the front a blue sailing barge, the people on the deck were waving at Joe and calling his name, they seemed to know him. There were many more boats behind, still coming around the bend in the river.

THE END

INTERVIEWS

Baba Zum and the Eleventh Coil – an interview with the ex Grandmaster of Le Serpent Noire (AKA the Blake Organisation).

(He is seated in his favourite chair high above Halcyon Cove, a development on the outskirts of Odessa overlooking the Black Sea.)

So why Odessa?

Well as you probably know the global financial markets suffered a dramatic loss of liquidity back in 2007. And ordinary people say “well that doesn’t affect me because I’m not trying to borrow and my business is not speculatory”, but what they do not understand is that this ‘loss of liquidity’ was equivalent to a heart attack, and the patient is now dead. Countries that are trying to jolt the corpse back to life by printing money are deluded. This thing that was created will not live again and the corpse is slowly rotting. Microbes are beginning their work. This will of course take time; there has in effect been a war between the mammon and man and there is a clear winner. To talk at this stage of changing the system that caused this is delusional. Greed has won and the ordinary Joe is fucked far beyond his feeble comprehension.

Destruction of assets does not mean that the rich loose their wealth – it means the poor will be crucified, the infrastructure will be overwhelmed by accelerating social strife and as sure as night follows day this period will be followed by war. And so in answer to your question, this seems as good a place as any to watch it unfold; and besides the Ukraine is a bit fuzzy on extradition.

Could you explain your organisations role in what you have described?

Well yes but let us get one thing clear. I was the CEO of an organisation that no longer exists. To say I am the ex anything implies that someone else succeeded me, and those is not, was not the case, but let us get back to your question.

To begin with a quotation from one of our brotherhood – “The few shall rule the many”; this is an immutable law, the wisdom of which is self evident to anyone. But before anyone gets the wrong idea let me say that the Blake Organisation may have withdrawn from the mainstream but we live on in other guises. People say what happened to the Roman Empire? And the answer is that they rode the Sigmoid Curve to perfection and then transmuted into the Holy Roman Catholic Church: A smart move and an unbelievably successful meme.

So what you are saying is that people deserve to be nothing more than slaves, subservient to the twisted whims of a self-serving elite?

This is course nothing new, in our very recent history the Nazis developed the methods to control people and make then do things they did not need or want to do. The same techniques were merged with Freudian theory and that then allowed the realization of the American dream; as Madison Avenue foisted consumerism on the public, driving them to buy things that they did not need or want, of course with the full complicity of the Government who required a nation of consumers to propel its economic imperative – and here we are today. Now the cycle is complete; and what have we learnt: That personal freedom is a wonderful thing but not so sweet when you and your fellow man are fighting over a tin of dog-food. Ha Ha! So what if neuro-linguistics and voodoo mind control now overlay these previous paradigms; and so what? if the august denizens of the eleventh realm of Le Serpent Noire have spent the past ten years at the crease, to use a cricketing term. So what?

(At this point Baba becomes quite agitated and glares into the face of the interviewer who reaches into the pocket of his ice blue linen jacket and pulls out a rather phallic shaped wand made from Lemurian Aquatine. The older man, Baba, shrinks away from it and sits back into his chair)

So are you implying that your organisation was somehow an extension of the Nazis?

There was an occult kernel to their ethos; we studied and built upon that just as the advertising industry and governments did, as I previously mentioned. Weren’t you listening to me? We don’t know if they knew on a conscious level what it was they were doing. And what they were doing was harvesting people. Shocking, I know, because they were doing it on a physical level. But once the researches of Wilhelm Reich became known, it pointed the way towards using the energy of the enslaved in a way that did not involve killing their bodies; just their souls. And not killing anything or any one actually, just giving them toys to play with whilst they are being stripped of their orgone energy for it to be then used for a higher purpose: Thus as it ever was.

You have talked of the principles now could we move on to the methodology. How, for instance, are you able to colonize what seem to be other dimensions?

Ha! Thought you would be able to sneak that one by me did you? You know as well as I that certain areas of discussion are not open for discussion. But first let me be clear, what you describe as other dimensions are in fact more accurately described as tangential worlds, and here is the important part, they exist, in as far as anything can be said to exist, as transitory points within human consciousness. Something you well know, Mr Vale: They are points within the A Field.

And for our readers that is?

The Akashic Field. It is an old name and an old concept that has been fairly recently repurposed to incorporate String Theory which itself could be said to be a branch of particle physics. The idea is that if the world is in fact a two-dimensional hologram that is animated by consciousness then there could be many of these, all different but containing the same data. Then it becomes obvious that it is the different methods of data retrieval that create what seem to be separate unique worlds.

We see something crudely similar with the internet and its usage. A more interesting model is the revealed by the theologian Teilhard de Chardin in his idea of the Noosphere: A most stunning theory, complete with a future Data-Armageddon that Mr de Chardin called the Omega Point.

How do you navigate between these different data sets?

A good question, and one I shall answer in this way: Located in Chartres Cathedral in France is the most famous of the eleven coil labyrinths. There are four quarter turns and twenty-eight half-moon turns that have to be performed in order to complete the journey to the centre. The design is just one more example of Christians reworking an ancient, in this case a Celtic device, for their own purpose, that being, in this case a meditation or pilgrimage. But in Scandinavia and Crete there are earlier examples and the purpose of these is thought to be the trapping of trolls or demons, usually constructed by fishing communities who had deep belief in such entities and their power to do evil.

A traditional labyrinth has one entrance that also serves as an exit, but if one were to exit elsewhere, on the eleventh coil for instance, it may lead to what we called earlier a tangential reality. So it is not so much a matter of navigation, more like being able to scan more than one data set at a time. Or to put it another way, most people occupy a single state or progress in a linear fashion from one to the next unaware that they are moving laterally whereas the more evolved amongst us can do and see more.

To use a simile closer to home, Mr Vale, I know that where you grew up, there were tunnels in the hills. I know that you found and explored those tunnels and I also know that you found many strange and interesting things. Most of your school friends were too scared to go there, and with good reason. Your curiosity made you a cripple but in return for that sacrifice you received the gift of audio sentience, or clairaudience. Was it worth the trade? A meaningless question, I know because you and I both know that character is indeed destiny, and you had no choice. Your character drove you to become a voyager and necessity then drove you to learn how to navigate. You can’t find this shit in a book, man.