Expelled

An intense energy rush hit Mac, making his body shiver all over as he stepped firmly onto the staircase leading up to the main platform of the gallows.
As he stared coldly into the short future ahead of him, he could feel a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He was completely fearless.
”Why are you smiling?” The Officer standing at the top of the stairs asked, in a nervous, cracking voice, desperately trying to demonstrate as much authority as he could possibly muster with such a weak and revealing voice. ”Don’t you know that you will die soon?”
”Well,” Mac said, ice cool and unfazed, ”I’ve never been hanged before, at least not as far as I can recollect. It might be a new experience.”
The remark left The Officer looking even more bewildered, trying desperately to avoid looking Mac straight back in the eye.
Two guards grabbed him by his arms and led him to the middle of the execution-device. As one of the guards secured the rope around Mac’s neck, he casually continued: ”And every new experience should be welcomed in this dire dance of mortality, don’t you agree?”
The two guards glanced swiftly at each other, then turned towards The Officer with puzzled, worried looks.
Then no one said anything for a while.
”But, you know …” Mac paused, and jacked his head slowly from side to side as to give his neck a good stretch to fit the rope. ”You are most welcome to join me on the ride, if you’d like.”
The Officer looked him in the eye with a mixture of deep hate and uncontrollable fear.
Mac totally ignored this, and continued:
”With MY looks and YOUR apparent MENTAL capacities, I’m sure we can even make HIStory together.”
The Officer was trembling with anger as he shouted his order.
The trapdoor below Mac’s feet opened.
The rope tightened, and reality shifted.
Everything was trembling and pulsating.
A reddish, flickering light was glowing from within the whole space around him. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.
He could barely catch a glimpse of his surroundings in the turmoil, but found himself being hurled through a narrow passage of some sort. An illuminated tunnel that seemed to be composed of living flesh and blood.
And then, as suddenly as it had started and without any warning, it was all over.
He got up from the ground he was sitting on. The rope was gone.
He looked around, and found himself standing in the middle of a road he’d never seen before, in a strange little town with even stranger buildings.
Everything else was apparently normal. The sky, the trees, the crisp air. But all objects apart from those directly of Nature all had something unusual about them.
Surely this was also part of the magic of the House Witch!
He decided to ignore the strangeness of the place. He wouldn’t let her cheap tricks get to him and blur his judgment.
After all, he was a man on a mission. He had a simple job to do. It was to keep his focus on the task.
He collected himself, and took a deep breath.
Good.
Then he started walking down the small road.
He passed dusty little buildings with transparent front ends.
There was electricity, and electrically operated devices were all around, so this would be somewhere close to home, and not somewhere shitty down south or eastbound.
He’d actually never seen anywhere that had this much electricity before, come to think of it.
Maybe this was one of the more restricted areas in the Middle-North that he’d not been granted access to before? Shit! If this was the case it would be fantastic! Then they’d really progressed much further than what was being made publically available in the Middle-Northern cities.
But surely, if this was the case, someone from R.O.S.E. would be here to greet him soon?
If not…
Could it be that this was House of Lhasa’s secret polar location that he’d actually set out to find on this mission?
Bloody hell! How about that?
Those fuckers! This base looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. So much for the oh-we’re-so-scared-of-technology that the Traditionalists kept on blabbering about. The cheeky bastards had already built a whole city full of the stuff themselves!
Would you believe it?
Still, it looked quite shit. They had no style, even when they actually approached the future, they still got it all wrong, he concluded.

But what a scam!
It could have been that the Witch had poisoned him and first made him hallucinate and lose his senses temporarily, but that he’d then managed to overcome her, get out of the confusion, and finally made it to target.
He was a survivor, after all.
Mac decided to waste no more time, and get down to business.
He made a mental map of the surroundings within a perimeter of a couple of hundred meters. Not much to register, but just a few buildings down from where he now stood there was a place that seemed full of activity.
He ran towards the place, quickly pulled himself back up against the wall to the building next to the entrance, and waited in silence for a couple of minutes.
But no-one came out or entered, and he could see no guards or armed security.
He decided to play it head-first.
Without making any attempt at camouflaging himself he walked straight towards the building and in through the front door. Cheeky, he thought, but still a successful strategy.
The room was filled with low tables surrounded by chairs, and the walls were covered with meaningless, ugly paintings. To the left of the entrance was a long, tall counter. A few heads turned lazily as he entered, but nobody seemed to react to him being a stranger here at the base. He obviously was playing it right, maybe there were too many faces here to keep track.
After all he hadn’t been able to see any traces of the ice in any direction when he was outside, so the whole place must have been enormous.
He walked over to the counter, and stood himself in front of it as casually as he could, as if to ready himself for something.
He opened his bag and pulled out the memo-box, carefully hiding it in his palm.
He flicked through the pictures on the device, and opened the info-sheet on the target object drawing.
“I’ll be damned!” he whispered to himself below hearing level.
At least half the tables had people leaning over and operating devices exactly like the one that R.O.S.E. had set him out on his mission to secure.
Major problem.
How the hell would he play this now?
From the mission briefing he knew that what they were looking for was of very high priority, and crucial for gathering exclusive knowledge of the past, pre-catastrophic era. Mr. Sykes at R.O.S.E. even used the words “A possible key to unlock the future”.
So what did this information actually tell him?
Probably that something very, very special was contained within the target device.
And what happened to people when they owned something of high value and importance?
They started acting weird. And probably a little paranoid, too.
He’d have to just rush in on this one.
Behind the counter a man was busy preparing the strange black brew they seemed to drink in this place. Mac pretended to be studying the board on the wall.
Why the hell couldn’t they write in Global, and not some fucked up language? He couldn’t read a word.
The man approached him. It was now or never.
“So…” Mac said. “All is good?”
The man stared blankly at him.
Shit! These people were trained. Was his cover about to blow? Mac could feel his pulse accelerate.
“I mean, nothing unusual taking place? No problems?”
“Sorry mate, I really can’t follow you. You gotta speak more slowly. What are you saying? Did you say problem? You have a problem? You Russian, mate? You sound a bit Russian to me.”
Mac considered to rush for the door. This could blow any minute.
The man then gestured to someone sitting by one of the tables.
“Hey Boris! Come over here. This bloke don’t speak any language I know, but he sounds a bit Russian. Can you try to translate?”
A thin bearded man got up and approached them. Probably a guard. Mac thought through his possible moves to disarm him, five he could think of, but just as he was about to place a blow at the side of his neck and run for it the man said, in some strange old tongue: “Help you why come here?”
Mac decided to see if he could talk through this and slowly opened his tightened fist.
“I just wanted to ask whether everything was OK, you know. How things were going with our friend here and his business in general.”
The thin bearded man turned to the man behind the counter.
“He’s definitely not from any part of Russia that was known when I left back in ‘73, but from what I can make out he’s wondering if everything is OK with you and the coffee-shop.”
“If everything’s OK?” the man behind the counter answered. “As if it ever was. Why’s he asking?”
The beard turned to Mac, and in his ancient version of Middle-Northern asked: “He wonder why ask.”
Mac felt that he was gaining back some control over the situation, and decided to continue his pursuit: “Well you know. These days you get a lot of strange people just hanging around all over the place. Suspicious individuals. Up to all sorts of mischief. Anyone like that trespassing these premises?”
The man, whose name he now understood was Boris, spoke back to the counter-man, who answered him:
"Haha! That’s a good one. This guy a stray survivor from the Cold War or something? Suspicious people, eh? I wish something as exciting would happen in this sleepy old town. The only weird attractions we’ve got is Old Miss George and that crazy old raver boy that comes down here every Sunday, and they’re not much of a catch neither of them. One is a toothless and harmless old queen virgin, and the other one’s more of an acid casualty than anything the KGB would have sent to peep behind the Iron Curtain. All he ever does is sit alone at the usual window table drinking coffee, talking to himself for hours before walking around the park talking to the trees and then leaving town again. Not much more to him, really. Come to think of it I haven't seen him for a while, though."
The bearded man named Boris laughed out loud for a while and exchanged some more words with the counter-man, and finally said: “No. Not suspicions here.”
Mac felt defeated and clueless. Then he smiled goofily to the two men, and hastily left the place.
“What now?” Mac thought. “A Mission failed report?”.
It wasn’t like him. Not like him at all.
As he walked around the little town, carefully considering alternative approaches, he gradually started to notice the details of the place. Whatever his next move would be, maybe he should take some time to breathe. This place didn’t seem too bad, and after such a long time in the ice and then all the struggles with the Voodoo of the House Witch in the cave, maybe he needed a little rest and restoration before moving further?
It wasn’t as if anyone here had any suspicions towards him anyway, in fact, he suddenly felt very much at ease here in the little strange village.
Mac walked around the town for a while, and after a stroll by the bank of a nice little stream, he turned around and went back to the place with all the people inside.
After entering the door, he walked straight over to the counter, and without thinking he said to the man behind the counter: "Could I have something to drink, please?"
For some strange reason this time the man seemed to understand perfectly what he was saying.
"The usual?" the man behind the counter answered.
"Please." Mac answered, curious about what the usual was.
The man gave him a cup with a steaming hot, dark liquid. It looked nothing he was used to, but as this was his usual he decided to give it a try.
He walked across the room and sat down by a window table.
Leaning back in the chair, he tasted the hot black substance, being careful not to burn his lips. It tasted completely new, but had the same vague familiar feeling about it that the whole town now seemed to have. He quite liked it.
"This was the strangest of days", Mac thought.
Then he looked out into the fresh autumn air.
He felt calm. Far removed from all the usual alertness and mission-related frustrations.
This was a good place to be, he thought.
Maybe he would just stay here for a while?
At least until he’d figured out his next move.

Mr. Friend

Every Sunday Vix got up at around eleven, caught a bus to the train station, and got on a train that took him out of town to see Mr. Friend.
Today, it was Sunday.
Mr. Friend was a man who must have reached his sixties by now.
He had a slim figure with white hair surrounding a quite handsome face, centered by a well-kept white moustache below a straight nose, and clear, green eyes.
Mr. Friend was a sharp dresser, although he always made sure he looked like a man his own age.
The word elegant sprang to mind whenever Vix found himself in situations where he had to explain to other people what Mr. Friend looked like. Which was never, when he came to think of it.
Vix got to know Mr. Friend quite some months ago now, but it was like their friendship had started even before that.
It was like it had started the moment he ended up in the Village for the first time.

He couldn’t remember the exact details, but it had been one of his really bad days, when he desperately needed to get away from the all-too-many signs and background noises that surrounded his life in the city.
He had suddenly found himself on a train speeding out of the big smoke.
When green, open fields and clustered lines of trees had started flying past the train window, he slowly realised that he could breathe again. And when he’d enjoyed this feeling until he decided it was good enough, he had stepped out at the next station, and just started walking.
He had no idea of what his new surroundings were called, or the exact whereabouts of them, but he instantly felt that he had made the right choice in coming here.
Here was a small village, full of the stuff that small villages usually contain… which was not much at all. Still, nothing essential was missing.
It was as though the village contained the minimum of buildings and roads it needed to contain in order to feel that it existed as a village. And that every morning when it rose, it probably felt like a naked man that awakes, counts his limbs and fingers, and then utters a contented sigh, before getting on with doing whatever it is he usually does with all his limbs and fingers intact.
That first day it seemed the village was busy doing what it usually did, only from that day onwards it also had to add the new task of having Vix walking about in it from time to time (which by now had become a repeated occurence on every Sunday).
After he had wandered around for a bit and gotten to know the streets a little, he had stumbled over a cosy little coffee-shop next to an old closed-down office of some kind that had an old red sign that read ”...ging” above the bolted door.
The coffee-shop was full of old junk and some really bad paintings that had been thoroughly dusted off and then quite randomly mounted over all the walls.
It was as if it had all been done in order to make you feel comfortable, and that in here everything was just fine. Even if you should happen to be one of the lousy artists responsible for one of the lousy paintings on the walls that probably nobody liked.
Vix thought this unlikely to happen, as the paintings seemed older than most of the people in the room. Then he had thought ”what a nice place”, and ordered some coffee.
That was the first day the village had Vix in it.

After some time had passed, he found himself repeating this journey to the little village.
He had ended up at the coffee-shop again the second time he was in the village, and then on every single occasion following the first two visits.
After a while he couldn’t help but notice a man who seemed to share his own appreciation for the combination of good coffee and bad art.
As they kept on bumping into eachother this way (which was far from the rather stressful city kind of way of bumping into eachother), in the end they sort of both decided that they might as well become acquainted.
So after a few head-nods of recognition that soon turned into brief exchanges of words that gradually grew into full sentences, they eventually began sharing a table, and slowly became people who knew eachother.
It turned out Mr. Friend had retired from whatever it was he had been doing most of his life, but Vix believed that he must have had something of a fascinating job (although Mr. Friend would never tell exactly what it was he had been doing).
Whatever it was, it was probably because of that fascinating job - and probably for a couple of certain other reasons, too - that Mr. Friend was full of stories.
Actually he himself preferred to be viewed as someone full of facts rather than someone full of stories, but nevertheless he was a great source of information, information that usually propelled them into great conversations.
Today, many months later than when they first started talking to eachother, was one of those days that Vix and Mr. Friend were in the middle of one of these conversations:

”Wealth...”, Vix said, with the stamina of someone who couldn't wait to have somebody else try to tear their rock-solid statement to pieces in the next moment; ”Wealth is the real problem. Money lies behind all this misery.”
”Well, yes, blaming the wealthy is a solution that effortlessly springs to mind. And an easy solution is often what we’re looking for? Isn't it, my young friend?”, Mr. Friend replied.
They were walking along a nice little path along the small river that divided the village, just a few minutes walk from the coffee-shop.
They had acquired the habit of going for these little walks, when they decided they had had enough coffee and needed some fresh air, something that usually took about a couple of hours or more at the coffee-shop, all depending on whether they got lost in conversation or not.
”I’d appreciate it if you lost that patronising tone right away." Vix said with slight irritation in his voice. "You might claim that a man of your age will have the benefit of experience, but that kind of benefit doesn’t seem to have helped us all that much in the light of history - if history should happen to have been written by men of similar experience.”
Without stopping to enjoy his triumph he continued: ”If wealthy people didn’t cling onto their unrightfully attained property we’d be able to abolish the whole hierarcic structures of the distribution of goods in this world, and move towards a more sensible global system of sharing our resources.”
”Yes, yes. That’s all good and very sensible indeed, but are you really sure it is the vice of the wealthy and the wealthy only to hold on to one’s every possession? To hang on to one’s often painstakingly acquired slice of personal power?” Mr. Friend stared calmly into the autumn air as he spoke. ”My experience - the very same you seem so eager to write off as mere old folly - more than suggests that it’s quite irrelevant whether you’re good for billions of dollars and control thousands of destinies, or if you have no more personal belongings than you can carry in a dirty plastic bag and the personal power to dictate nothing but the destiny of your scruffy old dog.”
Vix said nothing.
Mr. Friend continued: ”Go ask a poor family of your choice if they’re willing to give up anything at all. Anything! Like a spare tin-pan or some other item that poor people might possess in doubles. Something they could do without. Chances are they’re not going to sacrifice anything at all, even if the ground is burning and their next-door neighbours have been dragged away by men in uniforms. People won’t give up something for nothing, whether they’re stinking rich or just a poor stinker, and that’s the real core of the issue.”
Vix wondered if he should interrupt Mr. Friend with a comment on how this was such a bad excuse for the ruling classes to keep the struggling classes struggling, but somehow Mr. Friend’s point hit him deeply – which in his opinion was happening far too often during these conversations.
Still he felt his anger slowly building up at the arrogant tone that always crept into Mr. Friend’s voice when he was commenting on ”the poor”. It seemed that he – in spite of his insight into many important issues – must have led quite a privileged life without too much eye-to-eye contact with people outside his own social circle, Vix thought to himself.
”Rich kids don’t have to join the army and die for oil.”, Vix said.
”That doesn’t seem to stop poor people from driving cars.”, Mr. Friend replied.
They walked quietly for a bit, watching the autumn leaves slowly fall to the ground through the crisp air.
Then they talked some more about rich and poor people, about whether experience was a good thing or not, and about it getting late and how traffic was becoming a really big problem - even on Sundays.
They eventually said goodbye, and Vix left to catch a train.

This, more or less, was the way Vix would spend most of his Sundays. In the village together with Mr. Friend.
A nice pattern, he thought.
At least one day in the week would be faintly predictable, and the fear would disappear for a while and give him the space he needed to re-shuffle his mind into some kind of orderly chaos.
It wasn’t so much a question of getting his feet back on the ground, than a question of getting his whole being back into orbit. Yet such days still felt like a great relief compared to the days when the raging spirits kept him alert at every waking (and sleeping) moment.

The train journey back usually let him prepare for his default modus operandi.
This particular night, when Vix got back, he opened the three locks at the front door of his squat, quickly got in, and threw his coat over the pink inflatable chair in the corner.
He opened his laptop, letting it roam for a free network for a few seconds.
Then he opened the music player and double-clicked on the first track of his ”Head Dubs vol. 1” playlist - a list he had thoroughly put together the other night to try to make sure no darkness snuck into his mind while writing.
He put the kettle on and logged in to his ”Enemy of the State” blog (that he had rather uncunningly abbreviated to ”E.O.T.S.” in an attempt to avoid spilling it all and make it far too easy for the spooks he knew scanned his every move on the web to hit on him).

Then he wrote:

Last night I dreamt of:

1. An old and battered, but fully functional Xerox-machine.
2. A gorilla.
3. Two shapeshifting aliens.
4. A walnut.

In my dream all the above items were interconnected and made perfect sense, but more about that later.

Then he posted a link to ”Cabito” – a piece of music he considered one of the most impressive offerings from balearic disco collective Bakantaar, whom he reckoned he’d read somewhere originated from Estonia or one of the Baltic states.
No trace of the group could be found to this day, except for a few blurry pieces of information and a handful of recordings circulating the music blogs from time to time, but this music always put Vix in a much lighter mood, which was not an easy task.
He decided he was more than willing to share such an uplifting gem with the rest of the world.
Then he opened his private log file, and noted down the events of the day, with a quick resumé of his conversation with Mr. Friend. This was a habit he’d learned was of great importance, as he could retrace everything if the storms inside him became too heavy, and everything seemed to be lost.
Above his desk, mounted in a dusty old frame, his favourite proverb stared back at him with sharp, black letters on white paper:

Those who do not remember the past
- are condemned to repeat it.

He logged off, and closed his laptop.
As he sipped his tea, he thought about how this had been a great day.
He felt that he could fall asleep any second, and as he didn’t fancy another night sleeping uncomfortably on the chair in front of his desk, he pulled himself up, got undressed, and dragged his heavy limbs onto the mattress he had placed on top of some of his beer-crates filled with vinyl records.
Bad vinyl records, that is – records that he knew he had to get rid off one day. Ones that didn’t deserve a space in one of his numerous racks where all the good stuff was piled up.
They were in record Limbo, he thought, waiting to cross the river Styx to where the second hand store was waiting to judge them.
They would have to function as a base for his mattress for the time being, though.
Then Vix drifted off, on his bed of unwanted music.