Vol 2: The Spirit Ciphers - Ch 18: Unofficial Records

~
(David)

Back from my humiliation at the coffee shop. I walk into my apartment, already stripping my dirty clothing as the door swings closed behind me. I head straight to the shower. No one will see me like that again, looking like a crazy person. In the shower I enjoy the hot water but I feel the familiar tingling electric sensation coming on. This is the second time I’ve noticed that when I shower, my whole head strangely goes numb. There’s no way to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. I try to banish the thought that my apartment has become a kind of torture chamber.

After the shower I use my old battery powered clipper to cut my hair in a standard short back and sides style. It doesn’t have to look expensive, just neat and deliberate. I shave. I’m exhausted. One more thing. I throw a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine. I’ll iron some shirts later. I decide that I’ll even send some clothes out to be laundered and pressed. In the kitchen I take a bite of a cube then crash into my bed and instantly fall asleep.

I awaken less than an hour later with the most irritating sensation I have ever felt. The entire inside of my body feels every unpleasant sensation imaginable, all at once. Tickling, itching, burning, cold, buzzing. All at once. Intense but not quite to the level of pain. I want to rip myself open and claw at my insides. I feel I’ve been awakened just before I entered deep sleep, leaving me with a groggy, heavy feeling. I close my eyes and try to sleep again but the torture intensifies and it starts to burn inside.

What day is it? Sunday? Monday? If it’s Monday I have to go to work. Oh, it’s only 22:30. Fuck I’m losing track of time.

Deflated, exhausted, I get up and shuffle over to my workstation and sit, grabbing the cube I was eating earlier. I have to remember to get some real food even if it’s expensive. Real vegetables and meat.

There’s a live text from Finn. “Yo bro get on chess server, I teach you humility son”

This wakes me up a bit. I can’t sleep anyway. Ok, Finn, I’ll actually try this time.

I get on the chess server, no chatting. He opens by playing aggressive and reckless. He charges ahead with his pawns and I oblige, taking two of them. Within a couple more moves I realize what is happening. He has easily developed both his bishops, or rather I have unwittingly done it for him. They both menace my back rank before I have anything at all in the middle of the board. And his queen easily backs up the bishops preventing me from fighting back. I spend only a few more minutes being chased around, losing material, until I resign.

I message him on my handheld.

“That was indeed humiliating. You’re smarter than you look.”

“LOL can’t disagree with that man”

“You deceived me by playing stupid.”

“Study it man then teach me about it. Best way to learn”

“Oh I will don’t worry. I’m an expert at faking expertise.”

“LOL…so bro you ever go on the Unofficial Records forums?? oh btw your track is a banger IMO. Hope you don’t mind, I shared it with a producer I know in Art Div hehe. I thought of a name for it unless you rly want it to be called D-001. Frag. That’s what it sounded like? In a good way.”

My stomach drops and it’s not just my imposter syndrome. That word, “Frag”. It’s the same word I saw when I made it. Or almost the same word, partly. Ok just three letters but still, is it pure coincidence? Has he been watching me? What should I say? I can only go with my gut which for some reason tells me do not engage, change the subject. Damn it, I’m second guessing every thought. I just need sleep.

I reply, “Well when your producer friend tells you it’s garbage, don’t tell me that ok? It will spoil my delusional fun.”

“LOL bro, you must know it’s pretty good shit but ok I won’t bug you about it. But keep at it!”

“Unofficial Records, never heard of it. Is it a music label?”

Finn tells me about it in the chat. It’s a group discussion board with an underground artistic and slightly subversive flavour. Music and art, but also groups discussing conspiracy-type ideas such as alien contact and secret societies, typical fringe ideas.

We conclude our texting and I decide it’s worthwhile to check out this forum he mentioned. I’m simply curious enough about who Finn really is, that I want to go where he’s pointing me and just take a look.

So I browse the discussions. I’m acutely aware that all these activities may be monitored, possibly in real time.

After finding some actually interesting music and music production threads, I read about some of the deep dark conspiracies. To my relief, I recognize that this information is, in my estimation, officially-sanctioned entertainment made to look edgy, organic and underground. I assume that Finn enjoys these ideas because of his youth and naivete. But my paranoia makes me wonder if he’s trying to lead me into something. Or maybe he’s trying to show me something. It’s probably nothing. I’m third-guessing my second guesses. Everything is so much clearer when you’ve just had some sleep.

But then I find a few references to one group that is known to discuss especially crazy subjects. The group has been repeatedly banned from the Unofficial Records forums and keeps popping back up with posts titled “The Shunned” and “The Excluded”. The story goes that they have repeatedly re-joined the forums using new identities, and they somehow know how to prevent identification through their node key.

I know about the people from the shunned zones, if that’s who these ones are. I was mistaken for one of them.

I can’t help wondering what Finn thinks about this. I ping him on my main workstation.

“Hey Finn, what is this banned group, the Shunned or Excluded. Interesting?”

Finn requests a live call. I flick open the chat window and he appears.

“Hey man. Whoa nice haircut. So yeah, the Shunned. You’re a government guy, don’t you know all this anyway? Those are like literal crazy people. They literally tried to hack their own neurotech and they went nuts. Those are people who have like completely malfunctioned and now they live out in the shunned zones with all the other people who have gone insane or joined a cult or whatever. They’re not even on the feed out there but they hack in. A couple of them think they’re like gurus or some shit. Total waste of time to look at their garbage.”

I probe. “Well, are you sure they’re just crazy people? Maybe they know things people need to know.”

“No D, these are just crazy people. Avoid. Plus they’re dangerous – I hear that when you look at their stuff, it downloads real contraband to your tech. I mean real nasty shit, it’s always religious heresy stuff that if you get caught with it, you’re in real trouble. I heard a few people got picked up for it. There was one just a couple months ago, I know that for sure. I heard he didn’t even know what he was looking at. The Secur-Intel spooks, sorry I mean the authorities showed up right away, real-time as he was looking at it. And they took him away. That’s what I heard anyway.”

“What happened to him? Is he still gone?”

“I don’t know man. Shunned I guess. I really don’t know. Those crazies got him busted by posting heretical shit or blasphemy or whatever. They’re nuts. Don’t go near their stuff.”

I’m watching Finn on the screen as he says all this and all I’m thinking is: Trying too hard. Am I seeing deception here?

“Well, thanks for letting me know Finn, I’ll watch out and avoid their threads if they pop up.”

We sign off. I opt for light entertainment to try to bring on sleep. Sports. New London against Greater Seattle with the sound off while half-listening to some of the more ambient-style music I found on the forums. God I wish I had one of those beer paks right now.

The unpleasant sensations subside. I’m sitting in comfort, enjoying passive entertainment. I’ll have to try this again. Does shutting off creative brain activity stop the torture?

But I start thinking about work and the worsening situation there. A weird rumour about me, obviously false, as if they’re challenging me to get paranoid about something so stupid. And that snotty auditor reviewing my work. And feeling weirdly avoided around the office. I feel I’m being set up for failure somehow. It’s more than just the lack of sleep, I think. I have to do something. But I have such an aversion to office politics that I know I won’t confront anyone.

I have to get ahead of that situation. I can’t be around it anymore.

I’m nodding off in my chair and decide to go to bed.

Slept for 3 hours straight before the shocks came on. Then awake for 90 minutes, then slept for another hour or so. I’m almost ready to head out to the Hub. Before I leave I have to mentally rehearse my talking points one more time.

Normally, when I have to speak or give a presentation–which I’ve done many times–as long as I’m talking about things or ideas I understand well, I can go in with no notes and just talk, and it all comes out fine. But this little speech I’m about to give this morning, it’s very personal and there’s some emotion around it, and I have to be a bit deceptive to make sure it all happens the way I need it to.

I don’t like having to deceive someone. I’m pretty good, I think, at detecting deception in others, usually by noticing fleeting facial expressions and the subtly off-kilter ways people talk when they lie. I get a quick feeling like – that’s not how someone would say that. Just like with Finn in the chat. This happens a lot, and it’s not a big deal. It’ll often be some small fib or exaggeration, or sometimes it’s someone just hiding something embarrassing, or avoiding a topic of conversation that hurts. Not every lie is bad.

I think most people enjoy when someone listens and perceives a bit more deeply than they expected. Everyone likes to be heard and seen.

But there are some people who don’t want someone accidentally looking inside them. Inside the fortress of their external persona is something at odds with what the outside is meant to project. They fear someone seeing that, on the inside, they’re troubled or maybe empty. Hatred of self, which is hatred of all others, which is hatred of self. And so often, it seems, with a cheerful, energetic, pious external persona along with trappings of success. I don’t want to see inside these people, but it happens. I mean them no harm.

My subconscious habitually presumes – perhaps correctly, I have no idea – that other people have the same perceptions. So, I tend to speak using overly precise, cautious language, always subconsciously trying to exude an air of frankness. Ironically, this does not make me a bad liar. But I hate lying.

All I’m doing this morning is requesting a sabbatical for a few months to work on a research project I feel is pressing and important. That is true.

My manager, Seth, by the way, is not one of the people who minds being heard and seen. He’s fundamentally honest and decent as far as I can tell. Up front about things. What you see is what you get.

He’s not a super zoomed-in specialist like me. He’s a capable manager of many people and large projects. He knows how to deal with people by always meeting them on their level. I wouldn’t want to try to fill that role. I’d be terrible at it. I respect people who do it well, but I detest people who are somehow doing it despite being unsuited for it.

I’m confident my sabbatical request will be approved because of my standing and seniority in the Central Data Hub. But I’ll be telling a half-truth about the nature of my proposed research.

Ostensibly my project will be researching and debunking heretical and subversive conspiracy theories. I’ll find the most seductive “out-there” ideas, and produce writing aimed at a general non-specialist audience, actually debunking various untrue ideas that are going around the “underground” forums. My work will follow a strictly orthodox line of thought and it will, I hope, add to and perhaps improve upon other work of this kind. I know that this work may expose me to some opposition and criticism from the other side on the various issues, but it will not be high-profile stuff except perhaps within the realm of “conspiracy” talk. So I feel confident it won’t be seen as too controversial compared to my real work.

My real work. Which honestly, I don’t know if I’ll come back to.

But my real purpose underlying the research project will be to search for anything that might help me understand what has been happening to me. Try to find others who are also suffering. And if I find anything that can help, maybe I can figure out a way to share it—but that’s probably just a fantasy. Anyone exposing truly subversive information, if that’s what it turns out to be, is quickly found and dealt with.

I have to do it this way to maintain the appearance of political and religious orthodoxy. I know that my work will probably be scrutinized by the authorities.

If or when I stumble on to what I’m really looking for, I will absorb as much as I can while immediately discarding it, appearing to ignore it, and return to it only as and when necessary, apparently by accident. I will obscure my interest in such material sufficiently to fool any human observers. I know from experience that most people don’t have the patience or ability to sift through large webs of information to see what someone is thinking about.

It’s the surveillance algos that are the real concern. No one outside Secur-Intel knows how closely they monitor or whether it’s always done in real-time. I believe it is always-on, real-time surveillance. There is certainly technological capacity for that, which to me means they are doing it. But the real question is whether Secur-Intel responses are automatically determined, or whether humans decide. That’s the genius of it. It’s a better version of Bentham’s Panopticon prison design. Everyone tends to behave as if they’re being watched by human authorities at all times, even if they’re not sure about it.

I am betting, based simply on a guess and the sheer necessity of acting, that I can sufficiently disguise my research to fool the algos, and even if they alert to my behaviour, a human reviewer will not perceive anything unusual.

I feel, or know on an instinctive level, that what is happening to me is officially known and understood by someone, somewhere. I know that what is happening is all technologically and practically possible, as a matter of straightforward fact. And as with the surveillance tech, if they are capable of doing it, that means they are doing it. Or, at least, someone has thought of doing it. Therefore, someone, somewhere must have already discussed this, or perhaps even experienced it and said something about it.

I know this makes me a “conspiracy theorist”. For many generations people have been conditioned to think that the word “conspiracy” itself means “something that isn’t true.” But what really is the meaning of the word “conspiracy”? I think it means when two or more people agree to do something together, secretly or dishonestly, with an implication that they’re up to no good. In light of this definition, we all know that conspiracies do happen. Additionally, we know, through absorbing propaganda for generations, that when an idea is repeatedly referred to as a “conspiracy theory”, it often turns out to be true. The label “conspiracy theory” often seems to mean something that is true, but is not supposed to be discussed. So often, conspiracy theories are actually conspiracy facts.

I need to find out if my own personal conspiracy theory is true, to find out why it is happening to me, so I can find out how to save my own life. Will I discuss this with anyone? Absolutely not.

Seth gestures, inviting me to sit down.

“Seth, thanks for setting aside this time. I wanted to talk to you before we get too deep into this next project. I’ll get right to the point. I’m requesting a sabbatical to focus on a research project I feel is important and can help our cause. It can help the Supreme Council. So, here it is. I’m requesting five months. Obviously you’re the first person I’m mentioning this to.”

I describe my research project, as Seth looks at me with a puzzled, concerned expression. When I finish, I look at him with the plainest, frankest expression I can muster.

Seth sits up straight, looking subtly alarmed. “A sabbatical? Like, you mean time off?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and it’s very important to me and as I said, more importantly I think it can help.”

“David, your next project is important. Upstairs they’re thinking this will be a set of Edicts that re-define the administration’s approach to the war effort. New stuff about targeting civilian installations, recruitment and drafting.”

“I know Seth, it’s so important and I want very much to contribute. I’ve already formed some thoughts about how to approach it, and I’ll share all my notes, and I’ll be on call to help whoever is working on it.”

“But David, you’re the one we need on this. We’re working directly with Harrington’s team on this. Have you seen these new Prophecies? I mean, Lord I declare you forgive me, but it’s the craziest shit I’ve seen from the Supremes in a long time. It literally makes no sense except for the parts referring to violence and killing. It’s scary stuff. We might have to reign them in a bit if you know what I mean.”

“I know. I agree. It’s big. I’m already on to a good thread of discernment about it and I’ll help whoever takes over. We could even schedule a weekly call about it.”

“David, no. Just no. It’s not manageable.” He’s thinking about himself, his workload, his responsibility to his superiors. I understand this. I hate doing this to him.

Then I say something with unassailable honesty and truth. “I can’t be certain, but I feel God is calling me to this, Seth, I’m sorry. Please, I hope you can understand this.”

I see Seth’s face register the very subtle undertone of a threat that I could suddenly resign altogether. I could get a decent reassignment if I asked for it. I see his mind making a rapid series of calculations. I’m regarded as this slightly quirky type with skill in an area of work that only a handful of people have the patience or stomach to do consistently. I am sorry to do this to him.

“You’re totally serious about this?”

I reply again with total honesty: “Yes, I will not be able to focus on anything properly until I complete this project. I have to direct my efforts to this right now.”

“David, why do you look so tired? Are you sure you don’t just need a break? I can give you a few days off.”

“Oh, it’s just I’ve been lying awake thinking about this, and how to ask you about it. It’s that important.”

“Have you talked to your Prophet about this?”

“No. I struggled with that but I felt it was important to ask you first.”

“Ok. Look…” He is now responding on instinct, which is good. “I will tentatively agree with you right now, David, just so you know I’m not picking a fight with you over this. But it’s three months, ok? Five months, they’ll think I’m crazy. Go talk to your Prophet and if he – or she? - if they agree, then we’re all aligned and I can throw it upstairs. This’ll go direct to Harrington’s people so we have to be, you know…”

Result. I regret manipulating Seth, but I remind myself that I’m dealing with his concerns in an honest way. Talking to my Prophet, Prophet Henrietta, will be the easy part. She is absolutely insane and will absolutely love this.

“Thank you so much Seth. I know this is a bit…complex…”

Shut up David, end the conversation as the result is already achieved.

“…and I so appreciate your understanding on things like this. For what it’s worth, I’d go to bat for you any time, if there is some way it can help you.” That’s true. I’m not lying. And I know Seth would take this at face value without any kind of emotional ego-based response.

I walk out of Seth’s office with a huge feeling of relief. But I quickly realize I may be hastening the destruction of my own career and life. I have no choice.