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  “YOU ARE INSANE AND YOU KNOW IT,” say the pills.

  I am eating candy so I don’t respond. I never do. What’s the point? They’re talking right out of the bottle, that translucent orange tube they call home.

  What the hell do they know?

  Too much, probably.

  Or everything.

  Whatever.

  It’s obvious that they know me better than I know myself. But that’s not really the question.

  The question is: do I care?

  I don’t know.

  Do I?

  “YOU DO CARE AND YOU KNOW IT,” they say.

  Ugh. They’re right.

  I care.

  I look inside the bottle.

  Eight pills left for nine more days.

  Shouldn’t have doubled up yesterday.

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “IT’S NEVER A GOOD IDEA AND YOU KNOW IT,” say the pills.

  They’re right again but I can’t admit it. I can’t give them the satisfaction. I have too much pride. My ego is huge. I can’t allow anyone, not even them, to have the upper hand or to know I know they know something about me.

  No one should know anything about me.

  And no one does.

  Thank God.

  I take out a pill.

  I’ve seen people in movies swallow pills dry and I always thought that was pretty stupid and unrealistic. Who really does that? Idiots. Pills are bitter.

  I get a bottle of water and take my pill.

  Seven pills left for eight more days.

  I can make it.

  “A man from SYZYGY visited me a few days ago,” says McCarthy.

  Supervisor grunts. “Hm?”

  “He made me an offer.”

  “An offer for what?”

  “An offer to . . . do something that’d benefit their project.”

  “Their project? You mean that goddamn giraffe.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what the hell was their offer?”

  McCarthy sips his Martian beer (an expensive brand: Yalta Light, brewed by the MONAD COMPANY which is the only entity permitted to manufacture alcoholic beverages on Mars. All other companies are allowed to import alcohol from Earth and Venus but MONAD has the exclusive rights to use Martian ingredients.)

  “Well, McCarthy, what the hell was it?”

  “Basically they want me to blow up sections 2a and 3b.”

  Supervisor thinks for a moment, does some rough mathematical calculations in his head. “But that’ll bring down the entire Norea sector.”

  “I know that,” says McCarthy. He doesn’t appreciate Supervisor’s tendency towards redundancy. “That’s not the point. The point is they offered me a substantial amount of credit and a position as consultant.”

  “But at what cost? They want you to destroy an entire sector and that position is a conflict of interests.”

  “Christus, Supervisor, I know it’ll destroy the area and that position is not legally a conflict of interests!”

  “But, ethically, it is?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What did you tell the man from SYZYGY?”

  McCarthy breathes deeply. “I told them . . . ”

  “Yeah?”

  “I told them . . . ”

  “Yeah?”

  “I . . . I . . . ”

  Like a celestial bullet, the last breath of business exhaled by YWHW is inhaled by his most devoted, and most secretive, sycophants who hang onto the breath, hold it deep in their lungs until the taboric and profitable air engulfs their bodies, a void of form, a formless void, a broken gold scale measuring their unbroken souls that are caught in the wind of the outer desert where the Lion, eater of goats and handler of serpents, keeps watch, ugly and loathsome, lonesome and hungry, intent on blackening the eyes of the divine executive board. The sycophants are exterminated by the Lion, and vomited out into the ground where they are incorporated into the clay, the sand, the dirt from which YWHW will eventually construct the ship on which we will sail to the outer dark of corporate telepathy, colonizing the cosmos, of thought and function, of concept and execution, a gathering of beautiful viruses.

  Barry is on the train, looking out the window, thinking that maybe sitting in the seat is like waiting for his own execution.

  He is watching the low clouds, thinking that perhaps he’d like to fall out the window, get bisected by the locomotive. At least he’d be at peace. But no, he’ll arrive at his destination sure enough, unscathed and unprepared.

  When he arrives, what will he do?

  Business meetings.

  Same business, different place.

  Talking.

  Agreeing.

  Disagreeing.

  Maneuvering.

  Manipulating.

  Team building.

  Tell them what they want to hear.

  What do you want to hear?

  What do I want to hear?

  Barry looks for the stewardess.

  He needs a drink.

  His throat is dry from the expectation of talking.

  Talking.

  Sweating.

  Arguing.

  Agreeing.

  Disagreeing.

  Flying.

  Fucking.

  Quitting.

  Crashing.

  Manipulating.

  Team building.

  Trying not to laugh.

  Trying not to scoff.

  Idiots.

  Meetings.

  Discontent.

  Fantasies of a spree killing.

  Dying.

  Tell them what they want to hear:

  That no one is going to die.

  We never considered ourselves assassins. It wasn’t like anyone was hired under that job title. That’d be silly, absurd, ridiculous to any sane person. Instead, we were hired as astronauts (or sometimes cosmonauts or cosmopsychologists depending on the company and political affiliation) and then given our assignments. Sooner or later everyone in their positions started to refer to themselves as assassins even though that wasn’t the official job title. But, let’s face it, at the end of the day we were killing people and, you know, that was okay with most of us. New planet, new rules, new life. Of course we did other things. Some of us had to tend the crosses while others had to travel to Earth for various mundane reasons, transporting materials back and forth, sometimes even handling business relics which was a task most of us hoped for because of the prestige that went with that particular task. As for me, I did everything under the sun, hell, under the moons, and everything else hanging up there on the veil we’re working so hard to tear down. But my main job, and my favorite, is that of interim manager in charge of the railway system. I get to travel and meet people, things I was never able to do when I was on Earth, pumped full of benzos and wishing for a way out. But now? Now I’m making a difference and that’s all that matters.

  I submitted my report regarding my theory that the Gorgons of mythology were actually Martians. It’s a silly theory, I know this. I’m not unaware of my quirks and refusal to see things as they are as opposed to what I suspect them to be. But you see, these Gorgons, these Martians, they never actually existed on Earth but communicated through visions brought to human beings from ingestion of psychedelic plants, fungi, and other earthly substances. It sounds absurd, I know, like a throwback to an earlier time when young people indulged in countercultural drug use. But that’s only my theory. I have no actual proof other than my own experiences with visions of the Gorgons and those women who stare at me while I’m trying to work, trying to keep the electricity from being shut off. I work all day and everyday and I can’t escape those eyes but that’s just my theory and has no basis in reality that can be tested in any sort of scientific way. The idea of Martians being foreign beings (“aliens” from outer space) is outdated, of course, but I still cannot get it through my skull that we (meaning humanity) exist on two planetary bodies. How can this be? How can this end any
other way than tragically? I consider even spacecrafts to be a betrayal of human destiny. Even airplanes. I look up and see a fragile cylinder soaring through the air, full of people, not birds, not winged insects. All airplanes will crash eventually. Everything crashes and everything dies.

  I forget about the disastrous train ride and for one moment imagine myself as a skeleton being controlled by strings that are connected to Earth.

  Now I am able to focus my attention on the fact that I am never going to see my father or Susan again. I do not know why this fact keeps escaping me. I believe it is some sort of defense mechanism that prevents my brain from collapsing under its own psychological weight. Even so, I would rather collapse than to live on in ignorance, untouched and not obliterated by reality. I deserve to suffer the pains of separation even if I am not the cause of it.

  The last thing I said to my father was, “It is where I need to go, Dad. I was trained for this. Hell, I was even born for it. I’ve dreamt about this for so many years. You can’t convince me. I’m going. Besides, you still have Mom.”

  Oh, but he doesn’t have her. If only he knew that she’d leave him two weeks later.

  Now he’s alone, spending his days listening to the earthly locomotives. There’s nothing left for him to do but rot and regret, two things he’s been fairly good at for most of his life.

  As for Susan, I don’t even know if she understood what I told her. Maybe that’s for the best.

  A corrupt file discovered in a Martian cave: a magnetic malfunction, a magnetic veil that lifts itself like an anxious bride.

  There is a combination, a spell.

  Hail El Bathuriel, giver of power as he replies to the angels, “You are looking at lights!” and “You have appeared as lights!”

  Change the file format.

  Do your thing. Work your magic.

  Magick?

  Barry, grab the pebble and invoke Eaza Zeozaz Zozeoz. You’ll be glad you did. Guaranteed or your money back.

  This is some sobriety session, not even 7am and we are singing, dancing, praising . . . but we have yet to experience that rapture of spirit everyone is talking about, singing about, writing about.

  I can’t force them to listen to me or read the file. They are beyond the point of reason. They are beyond the point of caring about business.

  More files found in a building of the industrial park: the most important one has created a soul of bone otherwise known as Meniggesstroeth who created the brain.

  Asterchme is the right eye.

  Banen-Ephroum is the lips covering the Teethgrinder, pure and direct.

  In my sleep, I grind my teeth.

  There are rough years to come. We contact spirits and let them watch us rot our forms and spoil our void. This is an authentic takeover! The building of our selves is overwhelming.

  He thinks he must have been searching for hours.

  He searches the Martian landscape but finds no cross today.

  Cross?Crucifix?

  Whatever they are called.

  He had read the primer but had forgotten so much since his time alone here. In his spare time (which is rare but occasionally available) he reads from the small digital library. Right now he is reading The Lime Works. He finds it fairly incomprehensible. He enjoys it, though. It’s something to keep his mind off the mission.

  The mission.

  That makes him laugh.

  It was bigger than a mission. It was a life’s work, really. Locating those things could, theoretically, take a lifetime.

  His lifetime.

  Many lifetimes.

  So what’s the point in counting the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months? All those numbers become noise and all that noise becomes pressure on his mind and his body. He can feel it in the aching of his joints, his headaches, his stomach pains. If only all the remaining crosses could be found soon. Then, and only then, could he return home and see Susan and do something else with his life.

  Anything else.

  He remembers so much, doesn’t he? But he still won’t return home unscathed.

  As they say on Earth: the memories of devils will fall into the dreams of angels.

  Or something like that. I can’t remember the exact saying but you can understand my point. Our faces will pass like mist in his mind. No one will believe him. That’s nearly always the case.

  But I shouldn’t say no one. There will be a handful of people who are prone to sympathizing with his type. It is simply unavoidable in the climate of today’s society with all their conspiratorial talk. Everyone wants to be a savior but no one wants to be the saved.

  So be it.

  We’ll supply them as we’ve always done.

  You’re wondering about his office, aren’t you? I can’t blame you. When I was in your position, I thought about details like that. It’s unavoidable. You’ll learn to gloss over it. You’ll learn to realize that small particulars like that are insignificant when the day is through.

  Trust me.

  If you must know, we’ll have someone go over it again and then it’ll be demolished. Everything, and I do mean everything, will be destroyed. In its place someone will erect another house or maybe an apartment building or something like that. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is no reminder of his childhood years. The photographs have already been destroyed. The files will also destroyed.

  I’ve done this for many years so I’m quite adept at these details and I trust that you trust me because without your trust, I can’t very well divulge anything of value in the future. Understand? You do. I can see that.

  Very good.

  Let’s move onto the next project, shall we?

  Controlling people is easy once you get the technique down.

  Susan has been on the receiving end of that technique for a while. Just ask her.

  The most unexpected thing about the trip was the insanity, not that it existed but that it came in waves that turned into patterns individual to each of us. Some had it worse than me, some had it better, but all the insanity led to us being more than qualified for the job. Our collective illness and syndromes and conditions enlightened us to the point of enhanced professionalism. We turned into experts in our respective fields. That was really the only positive thing about the entire process.

  The cross is on the horizon. It’s something you’d see on a postcard.

  Wish you were here.

  The surveying goggles say it’s 20 feet high and most likely made out of the same material as the others. I’d love to think I belong there. I was born with a guilt trip.

  I’d love to think that cross is mine but I know it’s not.

  I imagine Susan below the cross, weeping and gnashing her teeth.

  That would never happen. She’d never be able to comprehend what was happening above her.

  I see men throw hooks around the cross. They’re going to pull it down and take it back to one of the industrial parks. I have the urge to go out there and tell them to stop. I’ve been in their position and know what they are doing is a mistake. But I know they won’t listen.

  No one ever listens.

  We are locked inside this room for a reason unknown to us.

  We are being prevented from unlocking our potential while those on the outside continue to fail.

  They fail and they fail and then they fail again.

  That is not to say we have never failed. We have. We’ve failed and we’ve documented that failure in several volumes which are now locked away in the office upstairs.

  Or is it downstairs?

  I don’t know. I don’t remember.

  It could be anywhere.

  My memory fails me, fails me all the time.

  We’ll never read them. That’s probably for the best. We are losing our sight, anyway. We are losing nearly everything. Generation after generation, the information becomes watered down and distorted and then watered down again and again and again until nothing remains but a ghost behind a veil.
/>   This office is a hell.

  Do you know me? You should.

  I am being prevented from unlocking my potential while those on the outside, those who have known me for many years, continue to fail repeatedly. They continue to shame themselves by their mistakes. I’m not asking you to believe every word I say. I am not asking you to follow me through every decision I make. I am simply asking you to attempt to understand the words and occasional numbers I let babble from the bumbling hole called my mouth.

  These things are real.

  Let’s wait until the sky rips open, trumpets sound, those terrible horns of death and destruction, all that fire from the firmament, death birds falling, tanks running through the neighborhood, some corrupted veil raised, buildings toppling, a rainfall of toxic judgment, radioactive rapture, random murder, rape, all the things we’ve been warned about.

  Even I warned you about it all. I hope you heed my words.

  Earth is not a place to be born and it is especially not a place to die.

  But we all make mistakes.

  Barry swallows a pill and hopes Dr. McCarthy was right.

  This may cure everything.

  Barry hopes that is the case.

  This may be the final cure.

  Otherwise, he’ll just give up on every pill.

  How many combinations can they make? There cannot be an infinite number of combinations. There is no way. He imagines, there could be one way but if this isn’t it, there is no other way. He’s sure of it. Barry is so sure of it that he takes another pill and decides to speed up the process.

  You can’t do that.

  Can’t do what?

  You can’t double the dose and expect the results to come faster.

  Why not?

  That’s not how medicine works. You’ll end up overdosing. You could die.