You couldn’t tell. You couldn't tell what Catherine felt, what she really thought. Only what she wanted them to think she thought. And felt. She was good at that. Catherine was good at that. And Catherine wasn't Catherine. Catherine was what she should be, what she would be, if it wasn't for reality. The autumnal sunlight fell in long yellowy bars through the ornately pretty Georgian windows as the cloud shifted, momentarily illuminating Catherine’s wistful, long gaze. Her brown pool-like mirrors, the ends of long, long tunnels that separated her inner and outer consciousnesses. Her short, dark hair framed her pretty features, her slight chin resting on her clasped hands forming a steady bridge, her elbows resting on the desk. Catherine may well, in fact did appear to actually be listening to her lesson ( it was about Roman architecture and seemed at least a million miles away ) the rock pool was brown and murky, yet somehow reflective. A journeyer, a tripper through Catherine`s mind, having once dived into the pool mouth, down through those murky depths would have to keep swimming for a long-long time before they arrived at her inner, subjective landscape. Their-in, they would find now only a denial, complete, actual even to herself. Only a certainty that she could, and would make it stop. Stop what had started as tears. Yes, there were plenty of them. In patches, regularly. She didn’t enjoy how her first sexual experiences led her to feel later, when the men she had hoped had loved her snapped her heart with their icy cool, for instance. But Catherine had also always, at times, laughed too. And she had always known that, however hard she may cry, she would again laugh, because life was like that. But she hadn’t known she was ill. It was when she discovered, when she knew, when Dr. Killfoil had informed her she was a sufferer of mental illness. That feeling mentally terrible was caused by a disease, much the same way feeling physically terrible was, typically. But this disease had no known cure. But symptoms that could be managed. So now she knew that what was causing her to feel sad she only imagined did when in reality it was because of the disease. All those tears, meaningless, only symptoms of an illness. As much purpose behind them as a blocked nose has. All her thoughts and emotions, that which made her her, which caused her to feel high or low, happy or sad meant nothing, were just a disease. Then she understood. Understanding is experience (part of her had responded to the covert authority of the doctor. That part responded, reacted automatically, independently of her conscious understanding and she understood what her teacher had taught her, that she was a number, that she was data, data in a computer that computed her meaning to be next to nothing until she was running society’s sickening sacrificial program.) “YOU CAN ESCAPE” Catherine had seen the phrase without seeing it, as had most of the other passengers of the X31 that morning. The program switched on, the
program would run successfully on, overlaying the mind completely of just one of the nine people who sat within sight of the set. At the point of transference, that point when the subliminals are encoded into the hard-wiring of the unconscious mind the screen pulsed as two chess squares occupying the same square. Five seconds black, five seconds white, five negative, five positive, yang five, yin five, off five, on five, off, on, on, on, on. The program switched on, the program would run successfully on, stamping the subliminal-hypnotic commands in gigantic proportions, overlaying her inner, subjective landscapes. The electronic invaders of her consciousness were now part of her. It would only take one more time to be in the presence of/under the influence of the “intelligence” agencies/shadow governments covert mind programming devices, as an already very susceptible individual, for the 'self initiated execution program' to activate. It was nine days later Catherine was sat in the correct seat at the correct time to be infected with the new subliminals on the bus she used most days. After the first message had gradually overtaken her subconscious, her unsuspecting head was now wide open and ready to accept the new covert orders. This time, two new split second mind commands imprinted themselves onto her inner white slate : “DO IT” and “KILL YOURSELF” and they seemed to her, in the back of her mind, to form the answer to the question of the original command. The only solution. The final solution. Lucy found the empty packet at the death-scene. “Pie-Vax 150mg Tablets. 56 Tablets.” Catherine had picked them up that day. When she had got home, using the fateful bus, she had proceeded to chuck all of the tablets into a pint-glass filled with vodka and blackcurrant juice. It wasn't until Catherine had begun Dr. Killfoil's medicine course that she had begun to consider seriously making her life stop. She had told him, told him how the pills made her feel. So very worse but he had insisted she stay on them. Lucy grimaced as she read and re-read the leaflet that came with Catherine's “medicine”, unable to believe the information decoded by her rapidly moving intense brown soulwindows, her long brunette waves pouring over her knowing face “...thoughts of harming or killing yourself...” – – “...increased when you start taking antidepressants...” The packet inlay even admitted they could cause delirious aggression. In some the violence was extroverted. Lucy wondered for an instant how society ever got this stupid. How anyone could really ingest antidepressants that cause depression. Or even how the manufacturers could be allowed to continue pushing them. If governments didn't have the power to block their sale, though courts at least had the power to warn the people of their immense danger (for all the good it did) maybe this was being done deliberately, and it was connected with that strange television ? It was the same story with the other victims. They were all on prescribed pills for their mind, they all used that bus-route, between Dorchester and Weymouth. Over the next few months Lucy would exploit insider connections within the television industry. She would also, unbeknown to her, be targeted by dark forces who were angry at her investigation. All of the “free” press and T.V. and other news media could be controlled not to put two
and two together. It wasn't the public’s business to be privy to these experiments/exercises in mind control. But spy's had noticed some independents at the latest deathscene. Lucy was one of them. The “non-lethal” microwave emitter beam weaponry was easy enough to lock-on to Lucy's location. Her personal location tell-tale normal mobile 'phone could easily enough be remotely accessed for that. And her number was on her Facebook.... Lucy Lightfoot sat in the café opposite the statue of the king (George) on this rainy summers day. In the room next to her, partitioned off but clearly audible through the large open doorway, an unseen woman with a pleasant voice, rich and dark, like the chocolate cake that travelled from the shiny fork in between Lucy's moist moving lips was singing slowly simmering jazz. The anticipation in her performance matched Lucy's mood exactly, and she wished her whistle-blower, Brian Behr, would arrive soon. Soon her wish was granted. “Hello Lucy” said Brian, squeezing her hand underneath the table. “it's all there” he said just loud enough for her to hear. “I haven't read them but these are the original files. They should tell you exactly what the messages are that are and on what frequency they are....” All that had been two, three months ago, Lucy thought.... Lucy hadn't doubted her sanity then, and she hadn't known then what she knew now. It was when she first came to believe that the “voices in the head” phenomenon experienced by many psychiatric patients was being actually objectively projected by psyche-terrorising government operatives, that she began to experience them herself. One long day led to one short night to one day to one night like one dream led to the next like the next nightmare. Back in the café, Brian had passed Lucy a few other official documents, as well as the detailed plans of the subliminal commands and their broadcasting equipment. It was almost like they let you know what they were going to do to you before they did it : or was it coincidental ? If it wasn't was Brian part of this ? There had been an institutional green folder containing seven papers. Now, six of these were blotted out, word for word (save for the occasional “the” or “and” ) with censoring ink-blob. For some reason, the fourth page was intact : four : Experimentation with nuero-cybernetics, psycho-technologies which have the capacity to induce quasi-subliminal “voices in the head” which, when the experimentee is asleep, can influence the evolutionary development of dreams. Lucy was on the verge of getting published all of her investigating regarding the death of Catherine Knight, which led her to consider the deaths of fifteen others. It was the night she had breathed a sigh of relief as she had realised all her hard work and long nights had payed off and her case maybe she could finally close. Lucy kicked her black heels off and wrapped her fake rabbit-fur coat around herself as she led back, confidant that in the morning she would make successful steps to sell her investigative report. The first time she heard it, then, she hadn't stirred. Not a muscle twitched. In denial, as she was, to herself, that she had. Again : “....Lucy ?....” “Lucy Lightfoot ?” the voice was omnipresent, was the narrative to the Lucy-verse. Mocking laughter.
“I know you can hear me, Lucy” in this room, in that room. “I know you can hear me baby” the first syllable of “baby” was given undue over intense pronouncement, nastily, mockingly. In this street. In that street. For days now. For weeks now. And at times Lucy could convince herself even that it wasn't happening. After all, it couldn't happen. Lucy knew that. It must, after all, in truth, be only that she thought it was happening. The reality should be, must be, that she only imagined this. Well, her unwanted voice accompaniment was not here all of today, like it was not here all yesterday. Or the day before. Lucy lay on her back on her bed now and for the first time in a long time through the acres of sheer tired, experienced an actual wave of relaxation. It hit her like a soft, wet blanket. Crash. Lucy gratefully moved her mainly bare body now, scrunching into a mentally nourishing foetal position. She pulled one long bright purple woollen sock tighter up her smooth thigh. Then the other. She clutched her knees as her eyes closed and her grip loosened and for a while it seemed blessings of a serene drifting would soon be given to her and she kidded herself she couldn't even remember the voice. “So Ms Lightfoot, your occupation is freelance writer/reporter. Is that correct ?” Suddenly Lucy’s welcoming light was again a million miles away. No. No. Please. No. “Detective work must be quoted, declared to us, do you understand Ms Lightfoot ?” The head-fucking voice was back, but this time it was voices. The first question had been voiced to her by a female voice not entirely dissimilar to her own. The second by an aggressive, American male voice. “Lucy Light foot, what really are your motives for investigating your current case ?” Said the female voice, deep within Lucy’s mind. Suddenly the male voice took on a very cold tone, it seemed almost metallic. “We know you search for answers Lucy. Answers to things that are none of your concern. We’re with you Lucy, we’re part of you”. Lucy could remember vividly. She had just relived that whole pre-sleep-she wishedepisode again in her mind-how many times in all ? - This time the memories of it were solid. They could only have been hypnagogic. Lucy had finally managed to close her eyes five ? Six ? Days later. Plsssh ft pft ploosh. The warm, calming waters played merrily around the smooth-stone otter. Splootch; the otter or Lucy engulfed in the wave of sleep; Lucy’s stone-otter consciousness now engulfed in warm fluid transforming, as her dream evolves, first into mucky translucent thin slimy blue film – Lucy all stuck now, held somewhere. Help. Someone, somebody please help. No. Oh god. No. Please no. Lucy knew now that, try as she might, she could not move an inch. Her body paralysed in a foetal position but with hands joined above her head. No sight. No sound. Just existence within the prison of her hard, tense, rigid body. Then
nothing. Nothing save the inky blackness. Nothing but the inky void. Was this sleep ? It didn't used to be. It never used to feel like this. Her body was asleep, but her mind hyper-alert now. If only she could see, could know, could have awareness. But she was just a reflections of a pin-pricks worth of consciousness in an ocean of oblivion. Then, probably just for a second, though it could have been longer, she wasn't. Wasn't even that. Then : no, oh no. as Lucy's eyes sprang open her head filled with the mocking laughs of her two tormentors ( and faintly other people conversing around them, vague sounds of a busy office, along with that faint but sure electronic humming ). Slaps. It sounded like they were hi-fiving each other. “Think you've told us all we need to know, now bitch” the male voice said, cheerfully. As though she, another part of her, had answered her questions. She had been fast asleep. “But we're going to keep talking to you anyway...” Lucy could hear both voices laugh as the female voice said this. No. No please no. They weren't, they wouldn't, they couldn't be real. They must only be her imagination. All this time, although she could hear them, plain as day, Lucy had forced herself not to believe in them. In the end, it was their ironical matter-of-factness that inadvertently caused her acceptance of their existence. When she finally really accepted her subjective reality was her real one, as much as her objective one was, that though her unwanted companions weren't real to others, they were just as real as real to her, and that they really were real to themselves. Yes they were real. Lucy knew now, and then came the anger. “Oooowwt” Lucy yanked at her dark hair as this guttural bellow escaped from her lungs. “Gg gee t out yiu fucking flugging sccrcuuuum !!” Ranting and raving like a true nut now, who just didn't care, Lucy felt physically sick, tortured at least half the way to death, yet at the same time somehow strangely euphoric. For the next few days Lucy slept. For the next few weeks Lucy heard no more voices. No more voices, and not much else neither. Her attention-focus racing car consciousness power-drove her way through long nights through long dark race track tunnels, her life consumed by her case. One night/day, by the sounds of a bright-blue cockerel crowing, and through the window to the sight of a featureless black-blanket sky gradually becoming a shade of blue Lucy found herself muttering to herself as she read her notes upon her case....... TO BE CONTINUED