The Tinfoil Motherlode

What if conspiracy theories are in fact centrally coordinated distractions?

Ha! The existence of conspiracy theories is in itself a conspiracy theory. A Moebius strip of eternal looping, a definite and clear path that leads only to itself. Maybe you’re thinking ‘Oh hell, he’s gone full Icke. Next he’ll be in a shellsuit on TV claiming to be God’.

No, this is all speculation. It came from a conversation with Cade F.O.N Apollyon on Twitter. Which was pretty sensible to start with but if any of you know either of us, it didn’t stay that way for long.

Adrenochrome came up. Oh you must have heard of it. The magic chemical extracted from terrified children at the moment of death, which allows the elite to live forever. I have a good reason to believe this is utter nonsense. Well, several reasons, but this one will do.

I’ve seen the chemical structure of adrenochrome. It’s very easy to find online. It’s not a complex molecule. Remember we are talking about people with practically limitless cash here, and we are in an age where labs can synthesise whole strands of DNA using a computerised machine. Therefore, these obscenely rich people could pay some biochemist/organic chemist to synthesise adrenochrome by the bucketload. Even if it took a research project to isolate and identify the enzymes involved in its construction so they can make it from scratch, well they can afford it out of pocket change.

So why don’t they? Could it be because it’s not what they want?

Let’s go back to David Icke. He has long spoken of a high level sex pest and paedo ring but then he starts in with the lizards. I remember a TV series called ‘V’ about a race of aliens who came to Earth to help us. In fact they came to farm us, but that’s not the point here. The point is, they looked human but when they took off their faces they looked like velociraptors. Protruding snout and all. Where was the protruding snout behind the flat human mask? It ruined the series for me.

Also the Slitheen in Dr. Who. They disguised themselves as fat humans because they were fat aliens. This time, the mask fit – but they spoke perfect English in their human suits and couldn’t speak it when they took off the suits. That kind of dissonance ruins a good tale. It destroys belief. It makes you regard the threat of invasion by the Slitheen as utterly absurd. Which, hopefully, it is. The fat green slimy bastards.

Icke’s sex pests/paedos in high places… Cyril Smith, Rolf Harris, Jimmy Savile, and lately Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and now Hunter Biden. Many more to come. Icke was right about that. Why did nobody listen? Because the lizard stuff was far too absurd to be believed. That part overshadowed the rest. The absurd part destroyed belief in the whole story.

Crazy shouty Alex Jones (take a chill pill, Al, and you’ll get more listeners) has banged on about child abuse and witchcraft at high level meetings for many years. He famously filmed a ritual at the Moloch statue at Bohemian Grove without getting arrested, shot or ‘disappeared’. Did they know he was there and just set it up for him?

You would expect that if David Icke or Alex Jones or any of their ilk were getting dangerously close to the sordid truth, that they’d mysteriously commit suicide or have an accident or just disappear, right? Hasn’t happened. However, many who have been focused on the child abuse part and none of the lizards or magic or child-blood-potion stuff have indeed mysteriously vanished, committed suicide or been involved in accidents. You don’t hear about them because they weren’t making outrageous claims that the media (and the rest of us) can scoff at.

All they said was, there are some very rich filthy bastards who get their kicks from raping and killing small children.

Now that, that is dangerous, because it’s believable. Those people risk getting caught. So what do they do? Find a tinfoil hatter and give them another layer of tinfoil.

‘Oh yes, it’s true, we torture children for Satan and drink their blood for the adrenochrome because we are really lizards who want to live forever’.

Consider your first reaction to that sentence. Now consider your first reaction to this one:

‘We are vicious perverts who delight in the rape and torture of children for its own sake’.

First one – you laughed, right? Second one – I bet you didn’t.

What if Icke, Jones, all the others, did in fact come dangerously close to the truth but instead of just killing them, the psycho child abusers came up with a better plan. ‘Leak’ the ‘truth’ that it’s lizard people or Adrenochrome or Satanic rituals. Give them absurdities to spread. Then the narrative is broken, people laugh at the absurdities and ignore the real parts.

Well, the real parts are emerging. Huge revelations are coming. Paedo gangs all over the UK, who have operated with impunity for decades, are now being rounded up. Why? They know things about those further up the chain so the court cases have to be held in secret.

It’s all coming out and the powerful ones are now disposing of their suppliers. It’s not just that they don’t need you any more, guys. You are now a serious liablility.

Look after your children. The supply of easy targets is drying up. Since Ghislane Maxwell was arrested and vanished, a great many trafficked children have been rescued and snatches from the street have increased. I think there’s a plea bargain at work, she’s far from the top of the tree. The law would gladly let her go for the big names she can give them.

Beware. The child killers need their fix. Until they are fully taken down, every child is at risk.

And if you want to pretend it’s all about lizards and magic potions, keep laughing. Until your granddaughter disappears on the street.

This is not a game.

UA13

Just a quickie. The Christmas anthology is now open, until November 25th. If you have a Christmas story please don’t expect a rapid response – there are three other books in the queue so there might not be any editing on the anthology submissions until mid November.

More detail at Leg Iron Books.

Throwing shit into the wind

So it seems that an American newspaper, the New York Post, has published something very damaging to the Joe Biden presidential campaign. Sure, I know what it is but I don’t have any way to know if it’s all true, partly true, or not true. I don’t have access to the sources. So I’m not going to dwell on it.

I’m not American, I don’t live in America, I have never visited America (one day I’ll be rich enough, maybe) and I’m in Scotland where we have quite enough crap going on with two layers of idiots in government so American politics is of only passing interest to me at the moment.

The New York Post has been going for about 200 years. I doubt they’d deliberately publish something that would land them with massive libel charges. And we are not talking about libelling Jimmy Nobody here, we are talking about a story concerning a presidential candidate, one month before the election. If they are wrong, if they are lying, this could get them wiped off the newspaper map. So I would hope they’ve done their homework on this.

Anyway, none of it matters.

Farcebok and Twatter have gone all out on censorship on this one, to the point of labelling the story in the 200-year-old New York Post as a ‘dangerous link’. They even stopped one of the newspaper’s editors posting that link. They are clearly suppressing any negative news about Biden and trying to distract from it and it has worked – although not as, I suspect, they intended.

They have now made it clear that they are not open platforms for free speech. They are publishers, they edit and censor content according to their own preferences. You only get to see what gets through the editorial process. Anything they don’t like is quashed.

This changes the game for them. They are now subject to publisher regulation and are not merely platforms. It’s a hell of a big change, because a publisher is responsible for what it publishes, while a platform is not.

WordPress, those operating the mechanics of this blog, are a platform. They don’t edit or censor what I say on here. All of this stuff is my responsibility. If I were to send death threats or advocate violence, that would be on me, not on WordPress.

I (as Leg Iron Books) am a publisher. I edit and assess stories before publication. If I get one that is likely to get me in serious trouble, I won’t publish it. Sure, the contracts include things like ‘if you plagiarised this, it’s on you’ but this goes beyond that. I will not publish paedo porn, books that are a clear incitement to violence, fanfiction, that sort of thing. Because I know that accepting that stuff for publication will make me complicit. If I was just passing on anything and everything with no editing or censorship I could claim I was just a platform, but if I did that the quality of books and stories would be atrocious. Fanfiction about Bigfoot as Bigknob would be coming through along with Harry Potter getting reamed by Snape (these things actually exist online). Therefore, as a publisher, I have to watch out for what I publish because I could get bankrupted, even though that wouldn’t take very long at all.

Farcebok and Twatter have now confirmed that they are publishers, not platforms. This means they are responsible for what appears on their sites. There is so much hate, incitement to violence and more on those sites and they have just accepted personal responsibility for all of it.

When you throw shit in the wind, you really need to check which way the wind is blowing.

The Lockdown Zone

So, our idiots-in-charge are planning another total lockdown. I hadn’t realised the first one had ever ended. The WHO, on the other hand, have noticed the imminent rebellion and are now against lockdowns. Rebellion would scupper their plans. Lockdowns haven’t made a scrap of difference anyway. Countries with no lockdowns have seen exactly the same results but with a lesser effect on their economies.

Masks do nothing either. They might make you feel safe but it’s a false sense of security. They are not stopping any virus, they are simply amplifying bacteria so you can get a bad case of impetigo and/or pneumonia later. Since they are now planning to make masks compulsory outdoors, an insanity no microbiologist who hasn’t been bought off could possibly support, I have decided to increase the range in my possession. I can’t go to that site too often, it’s a money sink for me.

Okay, so is there really a virus? It has never been isolated, so is it real? Yes, it is. People have suffered from it and some have died. At the start of all this it looked really bad but it’s turned out to be just another flu. Like bird flu, swine flu and all the rest of the End of the World viruses, it’s just another flu. Not the Apocalypse. Its current death rate is the same as seasonal flu, which is now firing up for winter and which will be used to artificially inflate COVID figures. Yes, it can make people pretty sick, it can kill, but flu can and does do that too. Every year.

It is still true that this ‘new’ virus has not been isolated. Which means that the early claims that it was part-HIV are likely to be bollocks. Was it created in a lab? Unless someone manages to isolate it, we’ll never know for sure. Did it come from bats? Quite likely. A lot of coronaviruses do. And we do know the Wuhan lab was working on bat coronaviruses. Still, until it is isolated, the jury is out on its origins.

Not that it really matters now. This virus has done its worst, the annual flu will take up the job of terrifying the entire Western world from here on in. The PCR test can’t distinguish between flu and COVID. Did anyone ever stop to wonder why PCR was never used for the detection of other coronaviruses in the past? The answer is simple. It doesn’t work. This is not what the PCR test was designed to do, in fact it is almost as far from its intended purpose as it is possible to get.

Lately we are being told that the virus can live for 28 days on money and smartphones. This is utter nonsense. This virus is a bit of RNA wrapped in a fatty coat with proteins embedded in it. It will fall apart if touched with detergent. Just like a grease layer on water. It will mutate into a useless pile of nucleotides in sunlight. It is not a superbug.

Sure, some viruses can lay dormant for a long time but those are DNA viruses with a protein coat. You can actually crystallise them for storage. Not Coronaviruses. RNA is far less stable than DNA and a fat-based coating is open to any kind of soap. This is a virus that, outside an active infection, is very easy to kill.

Besides, if we are supposed to use our phones for ‘track and trace’ (another cock-up that is failing miserably and very expensively) what is the point of telling the gullible that those phones are a source of infection? They are going to have people turn up at restaurants unable to scan the QR code because their phones are at home in a bucket of formaldehyde. Along with their money.

Then we have the ‘long covid’, actually known for a long time as post-viral syndrome. If you get a really bad dose of any respiratory virus, or even a very bad case of a gut virus like the norovirus, you’ll probably be clear of it in two or three weeks. However, in that time, it has made one hell of a mess of your insides and you are not going to be jumping out of bed the moment you are virus free. You are going to feel like hell for weeks, maybe months, as your body puts itself back together and tries to remember which bit went where.

That is not unique to this virus. It can happen with any virus if you get hit hard enough by it. It isn’t likely to kill you unless you have some other condition already but yes, you are going to have a horrible time with it.

Alternatively you could be lucky. You might just get a cold. You might not get any symptoms at all. It depends on a lot of factors.

First, how much virus did you get? A small dose could be quickly slapped down by your immune system. A large dose could get established before your immune system cranks up enough to deal with it. That small dose will get your immune system ready for any bigger doses that might come later. If you don’t believe that, you don’t believe vaccinations are real because that’s how they work 😉

If you’ve had a coronavirus flu in the past you might have residual T cell immunity (a type of white blood cell that remembers old infections) which means your immune system can react faster. It’s not perfect but it could reduce it to a week of throbbing-head Hell rather than three weeks bedridden and wishing for a visit from the Reaper.

Vitamin D is important here. Where I live, well north of The Wall, vitamin D is an important supplement. We don’t see much of the sun for about six months of the year. It’s also very cheap. Vitamin D supplementation is so important I’m surprised the NHS don’t hand it out for free. A year’s supply is less than £10 and they’d free themselves from all kinds of vit-D-related illnesses.

You can pretend this is racist if you want, but anyone who doesn’t have pasty white skin living in Europe really should be taking a daily dose of at least 4000 unit vitamin D. Heck, I’m as white as A4 and I take that much but then I’m a lot further north than most of Europe.

Vitamin D can be made in your skin in sunlight. Dark skin is for the tropics, it’s important there because we whities turn into Lobsterman and then shed like a flaky snake in that kind of sunlight. Far from the tropics, you need lighter skin to make enough vitamin D. In the tropics, dark skin lets enough UV through but way up here, it certainly doesn’t. Get the supplements.

Next, zinc. Also a very cheap supplement. Zinc stops transcription (copying) of the virus inside your cells. Don’t overdo this one, it can interfere with iron uptake to the point of anaemia. I take one every other day, if I feel I’m getting sick I’ll go for one a day.

Hydroxychloroquine (yes, I know, Trump said it so it’s therefore evil and the anti-Trump lot will die to prove it) is an antimalarial drug. It is safe, it’s been in use for over a century in one form or another. In African countries where malaria is endemic they pop these like sweets. In the time of the British empire, they put quinine into tonic water to make the stupid pompous idiots take it.

It works like this.

“Quinine will stop you getting malaria.”

“Maybe, but it tastes horrible so we’re not taking it.”

“Okay. How about if we mix it with gin?”

“Ah, now we’re talking”

Hence tonic water. It still works. It helps the zinc get into your cells. Make sure it’s proper tonic water, not the modfern fizzy crap that boasts of having no quinine and is therefore not tonic water at all. You can mix it with gin if you like, but not with whisky because that is a crime against the universe and you will burn in Hell for eternity if you do that.

Tonic water, hydroxychloroquine if you can get it, one every other day going up to one a day if you get sick.

So far then, vitamin D, zinc and quinine in one form or another. One more thing. Vitamin C.

I like orange juice, cranberry, pineapple, in the mornings. Not all at once of course. So I do tend to wash down my vit D with vit C. All of these things help your immune system and they are all cheap. I have of course taken the precaution of stocking up on all of them before the Toilet Paper Loonies find out about this. Yes, they are buying toilet paper again. The end of civilisation will surely mean no domestic water supply or sewage, therefore we must stock up on the most useless article for that scenario. You might die of starvation or dehydration or disease but at least you’ll meet your maker with a clean arse.

There is one more thing proven to be protective and you’re not going to like it. Really, you’re not going to like it at all.

Smoking.

Whether it’s the nicotine (currently seems likely) or something else in smoke, smokers are not catching this virus at a rate proportionalt to their prevalence in any society. This particular prophylactic is, however, not cheap at all. It’s expensive and you’re going to be roundly hated by the mask wearers. Still, mask wearers are going down with COVID at a far, far faster rate than non-mask-wearers. So you won’t be bothered by them for very long.

Vaccines.

There isn’t going to be one. Coronaviruses mutate so fast that every year’s flu vaccine can claim no more than 40% effectiveness. Well, there will be one. It won’t work but it will make some people a lot of money, which is what vaccines are for these days. They used to be about curing diseases but the Pharmers have worked out that curing things isn’t profitable. The big money is in long term treatments – and not using cheap treatments. There will never be another eradication as happened with Smallpox. That was the one and only disease ever to be eradicated. Then nobody needed a smallpox vaccine ever again.

The Pharmers learned from that. It will not happen again.

None of this is about your health. They really don’t care about that.

It’s about your money.

Small World – Entertainment Time

It’s been a long time since the last fiction posting. This one is from ‘Mask-Querade’, Underdog Anthology 12, which is currently loading on Amazon. The Kindle version is up but I’ll wait until the print version appears before adding a link. Update: It’s now available.

This is the ‘future’ story, the other is a plain old Halloween spooky story. I’ll consider putting that one up for Halloween unless I think up a new one. Note that this is not your future, probably not even your children’s. Your grandchildren, however…

Hey, it’s fiction. Not prediction. Enjoy.

Small World

One rose early, as every morning, and checked the food cupboard. It had the day’s food as always. She lifted the bags and took them to the kitchen where she placed the chilled food in the fridge and the rest in the cupboard. The toiletries she left on the table. They would be dispersed to the bathrooms later.
The others stirred. She heard them rising from their beds, heard them in their bathrooms and thought about Three. Three was the one she wanted as a mate but she knew Four liked him too. Two was, well, a bit weird. He spent too long thinking and thinking, as everyone knew, only led to problems.
She walked into the hallway towards the living room and this morning, as every morning, her gaze drifted to the dusty hazmat suits hanging beside The Door. The door to Outside. Where there was nothing but death. They had worn those suits many years before, as had their guides, before they had entered the safe place where they now lived. Just children at that time. The suits certainly wouldn’t fit them now.
The guides had told them they were all that was left. All of humanity in these last four. Outside was certain death, and they must stay safe in these few rooms to keep humanity alive. One shivered and pushed open the door to the living room.
To her surprise, Two was already there. Sat on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows on the coffee table, hands over his face. This was out of sequence. It was wrong. It was not how the day progressed. He should be still in his bathroom. One stood in shock, staring.
Finally, Two lowered his hands and smiled a crooked smile at her. “Did I surprise you, One? Don’t I always do that?” He burst into bitter-sounding laughter. “Oh I have so much more to surprise you with today.”
“Why are you up so early? You are out of sequence. Are you trying to ruin the day?” One’s lip trembled. This was outside her experience and she didn’t know what, if anything, she should do.
“I’m not up early. I’m up late. I couldn’t sleep.” Two rubbed at his face. “I’m greasy. I’ll need a shower soon.”
One’s legs trembled. Scared she might fall, she moved to sit opposite Two. “What have you done? You are far out of sequence. You risk killing us all with your non-compliance.”
“Nothing is going to kill us, and we are not the last humans.” Two let his head rest in his hands. “I’m not sure you are ready for this, heck I’m not sure I am.”
“Explain. Quickly.” One looked over her shoulder. Three and Four would be looking for breakfast soon. She needed to quell this lunacy before they were infected.
“I hacked into Parent’s core processors last night. I went past the firewall.”
“What!” One reacted as if he had hacked into the mind of God, and perhaps, in this world, he had.
“I read something. About monkeys.” Two blew a long breath. “Something disturbing. And a lot more.”
“You even being here is disturbing.” One clenched her fists and lifted them to her pinched face. “This is all wrong. This is not how the day goes.”
“That’s the thing. It’s exactly the same day, every day, You, Three and Four just accept it, every day and never question anything. I’m the one who asked the question.”
“What question?”
Two lifted his eyebrows. “Why are we here?”
One shook her head. “You know why. Outside is dead. We have to stay here until it’s safe to go out and repopulate the planet. It’s important. Otherwise humanity is finished.”
“Did it never occur to you to wonder,” Two spoke quietly, his eyes downcast, “that if everyone outside is dead, who is telling us the news? Or who taught our lessons as we grew up?” He looked up and sighed. “Who sends us food and supplies? Why does the electricity and water still work? How does any of this happen if there is nobody to make it happen?”
“Automated systems, silly.” Four entered the room, her long hair swaying around her waist. “Come on, Two, enough with the tinfoil hat stuff.”
Two shook his head. “Automated systems still need maintenance and power. And fresh food needs someone to grow it, pick it and deliver it. How is that happening if everyone is dead?”
Four’s smile faltered. “It… just is. Look, I don’t want to have to think about it. We’re safe in here and we could be happy too if you’d stop all this nonsense.”
One put her face in her hands, trying to stop the thoughts Two had started in her head.
“What’s for breakfast?” Three strode through the door, paused to take in the scene and narrowed his eyes. “Have you been scaring the girls with your mad ideas again, Two?”
“Didn’t we have names once? When we were small?” Two threw his arms in the air and stood. He strode to the television. “Now we just have numbers.” He toyed with the television controls. His voice shook. “I can’t remember my name. Can any of you?”
Their silence told him their answer.
One wiped her face and took a deep breath. “Breakfast. It’s already late and we can’t get more out of sequence. The day will be ruined.” She glared at Two. “If it isn’t already.”
“I’ll skip breakfast.” Two faced the silent television. It would come to life on its own, when it was the proper time.
“You can’t!” One shouted. “You’ve already broken sequence so badly. No more. You will have breakfast if I have to stuff it down your throat myself.”
“And I’ll hold you down while she does it.” There was real menace in Three’s voice.
“Okay, okay.” Two shook his head. “I’ll just have a piece of toast.”
“You will have the same as the rest of us.” One jutted her lower lip. “No more deviation. We’re getting back to normal.”
“Normal!” Two convulsed with laughter. “You all still think this is normal? A tiny home with no windows, food and utilities arrive by magic even after however long we’ve been in here, and we do nothing to earn any of it? This is normal?”
“It’s what we know. What we’ve always known.” Four lifted her head. “It keeps us safe, and you are meddling with that.”
“Enough. Breakfast time.” One stomped off to the kitchen. With glares at Two, Three and Four followed her.
Two closed his eyes. Monkeys, he thought. Will I ever get them to understand? He followed them to the kitchen.
They ate in silence. Two resisted the urge to tell them where eggs came from or to even mention the cycles of growth of cereals and the baking of bread. He had found all this when he had broken through the firewall. It’s all out there, on something called ‘internet’.
After breakfast, Three put the plates into the cleaning slot. They would return, spotless, in time for lunch. Two shook his head. They never questioned that either.
In keeping with their sequence, they returned to the living room. This was the time for idle chit chat before the television gave them the day’s news, then they would retire to their rooms, log into Parent and read the books or play the games it sent to their screens.
This would be Two’s only chance. As it turned out, One opened the conversation for him.
“You said you had damaged Parent. You’d better not have lost my high score. I was almost through the entire game.”
Three and Four gaped. “You did what?” Three looked ready to punch him.
“Relax, I didn’t damage anything. I just got through the firewall and into the rest of the world.” Two sighed. “And I found something we should all know.”
One pursed her lips. “You said something about monkeys.”
“Yes.” Two licked his lips. “It’s a kind of story, if you like. A story about a game.”
The others leaned forward. Two smiled. Stories and games were all they had ever known in this place, so his combination caught their interest at once.
“The game involves four monkeys,” he began. “These four monkeys are in a windowless enclosure, and in the middle is a tall pole with a banana on the top.” He bit his lip to stop himself from telling where bananas came from. It was far too soon and it would gain nothing but sneers.
“Okay,” he continued. “Monkeys like bananas so one of them tries to climb the pole to get the banana. As soon as he tries, all the monkeys get sprayed with ice cold water. Eventually another tries and they all get sprayed again. Soon they learn not to climb the pole, because that will get them an ice-cold shower.”
Four sniffed. “Doesn’t sound like much of a game.”
“Ah,” Two raised his finger. “That’s just the setup. Once they stop going for the banana, you take out one of the monkeys and put in a new one. This one doesn’t know about the ice showers so he goes straight for the pole with the banana. The other three beat the crap out of him because they know if he climbs the pole, they all get ice cold showers. This will only happen a few times before the new monkey learns to conform. At this point the new monkey knows the pole is dangerous but doesn’t know why.”
“No more spraying?” Three tilted his head.
“No need. You’ll soon see why.” Two winked. “So you take out another of the original monkeys and put in a new one. The new one goes straight for the banana at the top of the pole and the others beat the crap out of him. Including the one who doesn’t know why the pole is dangerous. Then you replace another and another until none of the monkeys in the experiment know why the pole is dangerous, just that, somehow, it is.”
One frowned. “But if they aren’t getting the ice bath any more, surely they can just get the banana?”
Two stretched his shoulders. He really needed some sleep and a shower but he knew One wouldn’t allow it at this time. “It’s learned behaviour. None of the original monkeys are in there. None of the current ones have experienced the ice-cold shower. Yet they believe the pole is dangerous to climb because they have been taught to believe. Do you see?”
“Very interesting, I’m sure, but still not much of a game.” Four scratched her head. “What’s the point?”
Two bit into his lower lip. It was time. “We’re the monkeys. We were all taken from our parents at three years old. We were already in a lockdown, we couldn’t see any other family so we were preconditioned to this. We are in an experiment.”
“Oh I might have known.” Three rolled his eyes. “It’s more tinfoil hat crap.”
Two bowed his head. “We’ve been conditioned for this. I’ve asked you if you remember the names we had before we were brought here. I doubt it because I don’t. Here’s more. I remember my parents screaming, me screaming, as they took me from the farm. I remember crying when they put that suit on me. I remember Mary –”
“Oh yes.” Four’s eyes lit up. “Mary was the one in the bubble suit who checked on us every day for a long time until she said she couldn’t come any more but it was okay because we could do it ourselves now.”
Silence fell. One and Three’s brows furrowed. Two smiled at Four. “So you remember something. There is hope.”
Three sighed and shook his head. “Okay, I’ll bite. If we’re in an experiment, what’s the point of it? What’s it supposed to prove?”
“The same as that monkey experiment.” Two stared directly into Three’s eyes. “You know there’s instant death outside, right?”
“Of course.” Three looked at Four and then One for support. “So?”
Two lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “What is it? What will kill us if we go outside?”
The silence hung heavy for a while. Four broke it. “It doesn’t make sense. None of us have been replaced, like in your monkey story. We’ve all been in here from the beginning.”
Two sniffed. “That part already happened to our parents. Our real mothers and fathers. They were so scared of something ‘outside’ that they couldn’t put up a fight when we were taken for our own safety. They were the ones getting the metaphorical cold showers. We are the monkeys who still fear the banana and have no idea why.”
One ran her hands over her face and through her hair. “You haven’t answered Three’s question. If we’re in an experiment, what’s the goal? What is it intended to prove?”
“That we, like the monkeys, can be conditioned. Controlled. We can be held in thrall by a fear even if we don’t know what we are scared of. You know the mantras. Comfortable compliant conformity. When there is nowhere to hide there will be nothing to fear. Stay safe. We’re being… prepared. Conditioned to some new life.” Two gave a lopsided smile. “I think the experiment has been, largely, a success.”
“One small detail.” One leaned back in her chair. “If someone is running all this, why haven’t they blocked you from accessing Parent? Why haven’t they taken you out of the experiment? If you are right then surely you’ve just wrecked the whole thing.”
Two shrugged. “I just got through last night although I’ve been trying for months. Maybe they haven’t noticed. Maybe they haven’t had time to do anything. Maybe they aren’t even watching because they never thought any of us would try. Or maybe I’m wrong about all of it.” He stood. “There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
The others followed him to The Door. Two regarded the hazmat suits and traced his finger in their dusty coating. No point even trying them, they were far too small now.
Two put his hand on the door handle. He hesitated, his eyes closed, and his head tilted back. Was it true, what he had seen? Was this a beginning or an end?
“Two. Don’t.” One put her hand on his arm. “Outside is death. You’re right, we don’t know why, but it’s better to stay in here. Stay safe. We know life in here. We have our daily sequence. Our comfortable compliant conformity. Come back to it. Come back to us.”
Two, eyes still shut, shook his head. “This is the test. Is the Door locked for our safety or did they rely on our fear to keep it closed?”
“Don’t test it.” Four’s voice trembled. “You might let it in.”
“She’s right.” Three sounded harsh. “Whatever risk you want to take, you have no right to make us take the same risk.”
Two opened his eyes and stared at The Door. “Fuck it,” he said, and pushed down on the handle. The door swung inwards with a screech.
Light streamed in. Two stepped through the door into light and warmth. He gasped in delight at the new air, the green around him, the blank wall of doors stretching into the distance.
“What’s out there?” Four shrank back from the opening.
“Are you okay?” One had one hand on the Door.
“It’s wonderful. So bright. So warm. Lots of green and lots of doors like ours.” Two spread his hands, “And people. With sticks,”
There was a bang. A red mist burst from the side of Two’s head and he dropped, lifeless, to the ground.
One closed the door and hung her head. “He was wrong. Death is out there, and there is no escape.” She clapped her hands together. “News time and then lunch.”
After lunch, the new Two was installed. After a few identically sequenced days, One, Three and Four had no idea he had not been there from the beginning.
And neither did he.

Time for a day off

The Halloween book is loaded up on Smashwords, Kindle and Amazon Print. Now we wait for the inevitable problems but tomorrow is a day off for me. I think I’ve earned it. Here’s the front cover.

It has two from me among the thirteen stories it holds. I’ll post one of them here as a taster when it finally gets through all the trivial complaints. Hey, in 2020, optimism is a dead thing.

So we face more silly lockdowns. They don’t work, masks don’t work, flu is currently killing ten times as many people as the ‘pandemic’ we are supposed to be scared of but then it’s all in the numbers.

So. If ‘cases’ are positive tests but deaths are low, then the virus is far less deadly than flu. If we accept that over 90% of ‘cases’ are false positives then the virus is more deadly than flu but its transmission rate is so pathetic as to render it irrelevant.

Which is it? can you really believe both at once?

A surprising number of people actually can hold this doublethink in their heads with no problem.

I can’t, but I am learning to imagine how it works.

Into the Abyss

Pretty busy here. Brakes are fixed, now one tyre has developed a slow leak. I think I might just keep pumping it up until 2020 is over. If I fix it, it’ll just set something else off. This one is easy. I even have a compressor.

Okay. Currently looking at a 12 story book for Halloween with some absolute beauties in there. The quality of writing from the authors just keeps getting better, there was hardly anything to edit this time. I suppose it’s the result of practice but whatever it is, it’s definitely working.

The deadline for closure is still 22 hours away and since all editing is up to date we can handle a slightly late one or two, as long as we know it’s coming. Contracts aren’t out because I’m still haggling over the title (it has to be on the contract) but that has to be decided by tomorrow night. This could be in print in a week. There are already two stories in for the Christmas anthology, even though it’s not yet officially open for submissions for a week or two yet.

I have one in there that stems from the logical result of eternal lockdowns, and wouldn’t you know it, the government have now enacted laws by edict that make it possible. Parliament is now just a shouting house, the government are taking no notice of them and not telling them in advance what they are up to. We don’t have a Parliament. We have a junta running the country.

So why are we paying the rest of them?

More local lockdowns are coming on the basis of less than ten positive tests. Hospitals are empty, you have to make an appointment to go to casualty and if they sold off the NHS now, hardly anyone would even notice it was gone. They’d only notice when the TikTok dancing nurses videos stopped. It’s been effectively closed for months for most people. Matt Handoncock is definitely in the ‘sell the NHS’ camp and the NHS are determined to help him do it.

The masks are not going away any time soon. I’ll have to get some even scarier ones. Criminals are loving it. Before all this, if you went into a shop masked you’d immediately raise suspicions. Now you get shouted at if you don’t. I await the first massive bank heist in which the CCTV can’t tell who is robbing it and who works there.

Masks don’t do a damn thing to protect anyone, but so many people have signed up to the Religion of the Mask now that they will not hear it. The masks are their saviours, they will not let them go. Ever. They genuinely don’t realise that there is no going back, there is no return to what we used to consider normal, and that they are the ones responsible for that.

We are staring into the abyss, and the edge we are standing on is crumbling.

The University Prisons

Well, the mechanic is getting all the parts and I should be rolling by Monday, maybe sooner if he gets them by tomorrow. This guy could be a regular for fixing the car (assuming lockdown makes the inactive metal box seize up something else, which is likely). I’ve used one tank of petrol since March and flat battery has happened twice already, despite having a new battery last year. This car is used to driving between Aberdeen and Cardiff, it doesn’t like the sedentary life. Still, it’s all part of the Boris plan to eradicate personal transport, I suppose. Might need to rebuild that old stable.

On the plus side, we are all up to date on story editing for the next anthology and there’s still a week left for submissions. Last minute submissions will pose no problem. I’ll be sending out contracts as soon as I think of a suitable title, then payments, and we are on course for a first week of October release. I can’t use ‘lockdown’ again even though I have a story about where that leads in the book. I can also use the time to dream up a cover – perhaps making use of that plague doctor mask, or the skull mask… I have so many now, and not one single overpriced and useless surgical mask. ‘Maskquerade’ might be a contender.

Nine stories so far, including one new author. I’m delighted to note that every anthology has introduced at least one new author so far. Not bad, considering this is number 12. There’s still time – and I have another story brewing.

My mother had scheduled a visit in October but of course that’s not going to happen now. She’s rescheduled for November, if the twats in charge come to their senses by then. It’s now public knowledge that both the CSO and CMO, who are running this through a grotesquely compliant Boris, stand to profit from a vaccine. I thought everyone knew about that months ago but the news is treating it as if it’s a scoop.

So we have to suffer until they can sell us a vaccine that won’t work. The annual flu vaccine is being pushed again, it’s that time of year, and that has an estimated success rate of 40%. The real rate will of course be a lot lower since some of those who don’t get flu wouldn’t have got it anyway. You might as well rattle a gourd at people and claim that if they don’t catch the disease, it has worked. You’d probably get very close to a 40% success rate.

No vaccine against any coronavirus has ever worked. Vaccines against stable viruses work. Smallpox was eradicated using a vaccine, it is still the only disease to be truly eradicated from the planet. Even the Black Plague is still around although now we have antibiotics and can deal more effectively with its major vector – rats.

Cholera is easily controlled by water supply treatment, even my tiny treatment plant here (filter and UV) will deal with it. All the diseases, apart from smallpox, are still around and this new cortonavirus is going to stick around too. Get used to it. It’s currently killing a lot fewer people than the annual flu and a hell of a lot fewer than cancer, heart disease and the rest.

Yet people are going around in plastic tents and someone is selling a space helmet with a pump sending air in through filters. Idiots are paying a lot of money for these things. I have a plastic Bane mask that is just as effective (as in, not at all) but a lot more fun. Especially as they can’t make me take it off. I’ll carry around my Saw puppet mask in case they insist I change it.

Now, in Scotland at least, Wee Nippy has confined thousands of university students to their rooms, enforced by police patrols. They cannot go to the pub, they cannot go to the shops, lectures are all online and they cannot even visit each other’s rooms. They’d be better off in prison.

Why even let them go back? Well, they are paying fees (unless they are Scottish or EU students, which has mysteriously never included English students who do have to pay fees – but the SNP aren’t anti-English despite their ‘go home’ signs at the border) and they are paying rent. Yes, they are all paying a lot of money to be in prison while rapists and murderers get it all for free. Isn’t that fun?

Even the non-fee-paying Scottish students, who I suspect are a major part of the SNP’s core vote along with their parents and families, are in the University California. No pubs, no going home for weekends even if they live a short bus ride away, no visits from family or friends or other students, lectures all online. Which all those students could have done equally well at home. They might not be paying fees but they are paying rent. I hope this devastates the SNP vote next election. If it doesn’t then the Scots are idiots.

Imagine being a first year student, possibly away from home for the first time ever, and being told you cannot go home and your family cannot visit you. Just think about how that would feel. Doesn’t it feel rather like being imprisoned for no crime other than breathing? You’re in a cell, can’t even talk to those in the other cells, and you’re fresh from home. You’ve committed no crime. How do you feel? I finished writing a Halloween story linked to this last night and it was true even before I typed the last word. It’ll be in the book, and on the blog when the book is published.

This is a taste of an independent Scotland under the Spiteful Nannying Party, headed by Kim McJong Nippy. Note that not a single one of those students has needed hospital treatment or any doctor’s attention. Not that there are any available anyway. If you really want this world you are a total bloody idiot.

Once my car is fixed I will have to take it for long drives. Even if it’s just to buy more petrol for the lawnmowers, the generator and the new brushcutter which I have dubbed the Petrol Driven Bastard. You’ll know why when you see it. This year the garden tools have used more petrol than the car.

I have some battery driven ones too, but the battery strimmer is a gentle stroking massage device compared to the Petrol Driven Bastard.

Better get in some more scythe practice. It’s going to be cutting edge technology again soon.

If Boris the alleged ‘libertarian’ gets his way, soon we’re going to party like it’s 1499.

Stupidity update

I am an idiot.

Subrosa casually mentioned on Twitter that if I was an AA member (the car one, not the booze one) I could get them out to fix it.

Well I am an AA member. How could I have forgotten? Those were the guys who dragged my immobilised car home when the transmission cable snapped at the start of lockdown.

Anyway, I have the home-start part of the package so I called them today. He arrived in a little over an hour and while it wasn’t an easy fix, he was able to tell me what’s wrong. Unfortunately the piston seal is broken so the piston is full of crap. I have to get a new caliper. He was able to free it for now but it’ll soon lock again.

Well, it is possible to do it myself but I’d only do that in a dire emergency. I’d much rather have an expert look at it. Anyway, I looked up the price of calipers and was pleased to see they are available as third party parts. Not that I’d refuse a genuine Toyota part but the dealerships don’t seem to want any business at the moment. I haven’t even been contacted about getting it serviced. So it’s not going to take weeks to have a part imported from United Arab Emirates like last time (and even with import duty it was still cheaper than the local dealership’s price).

The strange thing is, prices for the part range from £50 to £250, yet they all look the same. Surely the low priced ones must be safe, or the manufacturers would have had the balls sued off them by now. Is there any real benefit in paying five times the low price? I see no clear difference in the parts as shown onscreen.

Also, does anyone know, should I get both front calipers replaced at once? They’re both the same age so if one’s gone the other probably won’t be far behind.

There is one other small issue. If the local garage is indeed (as I suspect) closed, the nearest one is five miles away. Along a road with no bus service, no pavements and no lights. Taxi? Hahahaha. The nearest taxi rank is at least fifteen miles away so would probably cost more than the repair. So I can’t leave the car with the garage overnight. Also, thanks to Wee Nippy, nobody will be allowed to give me a lift home and back to the garage from Friday. Car sharing is on her latest Do Not Do This list.

Another option is to get the parts and get the mobile mechanic to do it. He did a good and fast job on the transmission cable and at a reasonable price.

Well, I guess tomorrow I’m phoning garages. If there are any still open.

One ray of sunshine. My daughter has offered to take CStM and I to see New Grandson tomorrow. It’s now going to be garden only, since going into family members’ houses is once again a Do Not Do This. It’s going to get interesting to see how much compliance they get in the snow.

So, fixing is on the cards. I suspect the rash of car problems is due to its lack of use over lockdown. It just sits there rusting quietly in the corner. Boris won’t care, he’s already planning to ban petrol and deisel cars by 2030 (although there will still be fossil fuelled transport for the Big Nobs and for Greenpeace’s pirate ships).

Maybe I should stock up on spare parts and get a few more jerry cans. Also, consider getting a steam engine suitable for fitting into a car…

Buggeration

Well, I have not been to visit New Grandson yet. It’s not because of lockdown, well maybe partly. My car, the cantankerous bastard, has now decided to lock the front brake caliper on. I suppose it’s the car’s revenge for being neglected all year but it doesn’t believe that’s not my fault. It might be a bit upset by the cobwebs and my refusal to remove the green garden spider eggs from under the driver’s side door handle too. But… I like baby spiders. They feast on baby ticks. The ticks have been very active this year so any tick predator is to be encouraged.

I can drive it, it gets warm after a visit to Local Shop (two miles away) but going to the nearest Co-Op (five miles away) makes it heat up so you can smell hot rubber and can’t touch it. New Grandson is 15 miles away and while it would be cool for him to see his grandad arrive, for the first time, in a car whose wheel arch flames are not just painted on, I think it might turn out to be somewhat expensive and possibly a tad more dangerous than even I am comfortable with.

Local Garage has been closed since this silly virus game started. They were trying to sell it before, so I suspect they’ve just taken the furlough money and let it slide. Can’t blame them really.

I’m not confident about messing with brakes. I’ve always held to the feeling that if I mess with the engine and screw up, the car doesn’t go. If I mess with the brakes and screw up, it doesn’t stop. The latter seems by far the biggest risk.

So I have to find a garage that’s open. There might be one near the Co-Op that’s still running and I’ll phone them tomorrow. Otherwise it’s tamperin’ time and that doesn’t always work out as I intended. Might have to carry an emergency anchor and be ready to throw it out of the window.

Visiting has to be soon because another lockdown is coming. It won’t work, just as the last one didn’t work, and the masks don’t work, but they’ll do it anyway because starting lockdowns meant they never had a way out. Sweden was right, but no other government seems to see it.

Well, in the meantime I have started the editing on stories for Underdog Anthology 12. It’s still ten days to closing for submissions but there are always one or two last minute ones. Best keep up to date, especially since there are other books in the queue and the Christmas anthology will be starting soon.

Tomorrow I might be driving slowly to an expert or playing lunatic grease-monkey outside my house. One or the other will happen.

I’m determined to say hello before the next ridiculous lockdown.