Begin Transmission:

I take my little vial in turn and tip my head back to drain its contents into my gut. I can't help but bring to mind all the drugs of the warrior tradition. Soma for the Persians, peyote for the Apache and laced mead for the Vikings. We are joining that group, joining a larger group of mutants that have gone before and will follow after. It's ritual that is important here, painting yourself blue like a Pict or liming back your hair like a Celt. Every group going into battle has their traditions and ours is lysergic acid in kool-aid.

I go and sit in the arcade to await the effects of the drug. Soon I will fall into that old immortal feeling that I have had so little opportunity to experience but still welcome like an old friend when it hits me. Take it back, take it slack and then ride the feeling that sets us reeling. I glance over and see Ryan emerge from a store with Sally and across from them Rob and Chris point at an old poster of Farrah Fawcett and giggle at the depth of whatever sick thought just occurred to them. With the beginning effect of the snake eyed man I can feel the strength come from each of the mutants, can feel it like it was an oil slick on a stream that was swirling around my ankles.

Scott wanders over and I throw an arm around him. Passion is better silent and we share a long moment of complete understanding before we both wander into other thoughts and actions.

End Transmission.






-clampe-
--Letters from a Savior; Offer for a few--


back--forward

Transmission coming in.

Transmission coming in.

Transmission received.

We are losing the rigging. Someone let it freeze and now it is as brittle as shredded wheat. The sails are coming down. We must switch to auxiliary power. They will find us. We will show up on their scanners now. We have no other choice. Drop rigging. Go to full auxiliary power.

Compartments six and eight are completely flooded. We are listing to port. Redistribute weight as necessary. Rigging has dropped. We are now relying completely on auxiliary power. We do not know if we have been picked up yet. Sensors report a small fire on deck, starboard side. Redistribute weight and extinguish fire.

Transmission interrupted.

Silence.

Transmission continues.

Sensors report small fire, starboard side extinguished. Weight distribution successful. Compartments six and eight require bailing. We have been picked up. Current angle allows for contact in six hours. Contact is inevitable. Resistance is useless. Advise make best use of time possible.

Compartments eighteen and twenty-four report new flooding. Contact may not be inevitable. It may have become necessary for life review experience. Please hold while contact is made with personal files. Replay of key moments of life loaded. Will transmit on your command.

Stand by. Transmission options not set.
Please indicate desired playback option. Full Memory, Restricted Recollections or Enhanced Positive Ending Sequence.

Indication has been made. Desire is expressed for Restricted Recollections. Playback begins now.

Urgent transmission.

Flooding has exceeded ability to maintain buoyancy. Recollections may need to be done on an independent basis. Ability to commence playback will be lost within thirty seconds. Will attempt playback. Success not guaranteed. Good luck.

End transmission.

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Really, what more is this place than a system of messages? Bits of lives lived; scraps of pseudo-paper shuffled up and sent spinning into the ether for the eyes of a hundred thousand strangers in the future. Time made hard, stored to change synaptic bridges in brains not yet born. This is our love letter to the ones that will never see us live. This is our epitaph.


Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

We brewed the wine of hubris as much as any emperor or flea chewed nobleman long dead before us. Our hearts are judged by us to be the pinnacles of creation, just as all hearts before ours were. Some day, we will be an enigma to be puzzled over, the frame of reference lost and unlogged. We tore at the world as though it lived the same life as us. We couldn't imagine an infinity, or even an era. Tiny hundred year bites strained our jaws. We drank oceans in sips.

This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

Modesty is the one truth we considered. Not a penny earned, not a pound saved. No great truth within these thin walls. No Rosetta for our age. The jewels of thought and craft and industry lay elsewhere. The craftiest of our lot was no more than average, no noble blood or eternal truths within. This is a common grave, made by common men, for common thoughts and common dreams.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

Stimuli garner response. Equal force makes a shadow reaction. We lived in these days, these seconds, these years, spraying our neutrons into the dark places, bombarded by each other. We wrote about our hate. It is buried here.

The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.

Gravity pulls Everything to the center. Down, below us we push this catalog, into the past and forgotten, a shed carapace. It is something we did. Past tense. Buried. Dead. Eulogized. Forgotten. Lost. Gone?

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

You can't kill an idea.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

Hearts are not hearty. They break all the time.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

lightning bolt. bit packet. bullet. spear.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Go away.
Never come back.
We loved you.

Flee.

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