Chaos theory

Entropy - def.: the prize you get for coming last and falling to pieces.

Beginning QT

Having gained access to the scripts, it was evidently now JT's responsibility to work his way through the process of archiving, organising, sorting the carbon sheets. Old documents - he was informed - that evidently needed analysing and documenting in order to present some kind of coherent record of this recent discovery. It was an odd task which became no odder through familiarity but JT welcomed the role and dedicated himself gratefully to his duties. He took an attitude of impartial dilligence to his work, sustaining himself on the satisfaction of a job well done. It was not his place to expect more. But, he had acquired the unexpected but unavoidable benefit of an understanding for the anachronistic scrawlings etched into the sheets.

While he laboured gently on, generally unmoved, one paper he uncovered recently had left an impression. It was entitled, 'Beginning QT' and contained what looked like a set of 'principles' and 'methods' all marked out as if to be making a point, along with a series of characteristics and instructions for someone, something or some kind of operative to complete. Creativity, visuality and, in general, robustness seemed to be the qualities most desired. Visuality? The operative needed to have an appreciation for the visual. JT realised what he had in his hands, so to speak, was the description for some kind of prototype, some form of functioning node that would have performed, how does one say, actions for which he felt a disarming connection. It was a lead but, he felt, a further dreadful warning about things that happened before the Collapse.

MMMMM. just saw water bot and the delta56 having a set to in the lobby. LMAO!!!

When, at last, they realised there was nothing inside the text, someone started to wonder whether there was anything outside of it. This was generally received as bad form at Unlikely Solutions, but QT liked to speculate on such things and welcomed the talk.

There had been similar, but essentially different talk - in both manner and content - recently from those in the know about 'expansion.' Everyone was being encouraged to speculate about this. Such phrases were bandied about. We can not expand if we stay where we are. We must expand, both outwardly and inwardly. Expansion is about getting tighter while also creating.. more. There must be attempts to produce more and move, physically, if only by suggestion, but not withstanding the use of synthetic partitions, more effectively. If I expand, you must stay still but understand WE get .... 'everywhere.' To be seen to be in the room, outside the room, dominating the room when within, and defining what may have been in the room once we have left, but always carrying the room, holding it both on the shoulders but nursing it like the first human child. When you look at the window, what do you see? Do you see a divide which marks your place in the physical world or see only an opportunity to be overcome, dividing you from space which is rightfully yours, by hook or by crook? Question marks generally abound.

For the many years of creative thinking, the room, it seemed, had always been the same size, if not smaller, but everyone did their best to put their minds to imagining it to be bigger than it was. Essentially, its still the same four walls, the same six sides, the same reportage and information whirling around. It's still the same space and the same script. The same words tap tap tapped out and brought up on the screen and held up for inspection. (too much same. ed.) But that just added to the mud and fish bones smattered everywhere good for nothing and tasty to no one. The trick was surely not to add more (more?same?yawn.ed.) mud to the shit pile, but if possible, start picking it away, if if necessary, turn around and look the other way, maybe use the pile as a perch to look out, maybe as a launching pad for better things. Better, OTHER, things. Off you go! Wooosh. Ah. Errrrrrrrrrrrrr.

QT's reverie was broken by someone mouth-trumpeting and making fart noises under their armpit. dadadalarardaldaralalaladadadadadalaaaa

A confrontation with Muff-Muff

So, how are you? How? Are you?

Do you want me to turn nasty you great big bear arse?

Will I notice the difference?

Oh, I see, can we add rhetorical wit to your growing list of failings?

I see what you did there: the inherent irony in your observation; the ironic tension created by being at once a symbiotic combination of superior exemplar and, at the same time, a subtle castigation of my inferior employment of the form. I read that on the side of synthetic-cereal packet. I think it was a serial.

Get out of my sight.

Alpha-Alpha, slowly drowning in the pool of his despair, paddled back to the spare room. He could hear the human child's gurgling laughter. Like an evil brook. Mocking him.

A lesson from it-story (death of the narrator)

Now you'll recall the Great Depression that commenced in late 2007 and the trans-human synergy created by the merging of the identities of the artists formerly know as Tony Blair, George Bush and the dead Michael Jackson into das Über-Ich, Tony Jackson Bush Jr (who also goes by the moniker "Obama Man"), who would then go on to become our leader in debt perpetuity - the gift of history that just keeps on giving, and the penchant for brown shirts, black armbands and single sequined gloves that followed, the never ending war on terror drugs, and so on, well, where was I? Did someone turn off the lights? Was that a flash? No cameras allowed! Ugh, I'm bleeding. Is that a new hole in my head? Medic!

The α-α masterclass

I’m often asked by the naif, at high-level social networking events, celebrity barbecues and the like, how it is I consistently outperform and overachieve in the field of areté. Three words people: full spectrum dominance. But those are just words, they say; how do they translate into actionable events? Easy I reply: imagine the communications industry is a rainbow, now if I have full spectrum dominance, it means that I own chromatic trademarks right across the visible radiation bandwidth and, therefore, have exclusive rights to the pot of gold at its end. Inevitably my erstwhile inquisitors are blown away by the depth and simplicity of my visioning, so much so, I usually have to tell them to: pull up that jaw bridge and click those red heels Dorothy; you’re not in Kansas anymore - much to the mirth, and merriment, of knowing eavesdroppers.

On the game

QT_PIE99: Status: (now online)

Gosh! I’m new to this whole online dating game; I’ve never been on the game before!*

*Those rumours were redacted, rescinded and retracted.

Why should you get to know QT_PIE99?

What about me? Well, I am, do, etc. …

• Love challenges: failure is not an option for me until it is “the only”.
• Open but not to the point of being inside out.
• Curious but not intrigued by-the-bi.
• Unconventional but not “eccentric” or indeed subject to any borderline mental health issues which may be associated with adjectives such as “quirky”, “wacky” or even “spontaneous”.
• Generous and gregarious but not egregious.
• Affectionate to animals (in the light petting sense).
• Like to pursue outdoor pursuits but out of direct sunlight.
• Like beans.
  

QT_PIE99 is looking for:

I am looking for a girl with easy access and modular flexibility (OS 1.21.06 or above). Low expectations and self-esteem issues are preferable but not a prerequisite (on the job training will be provided). Must own own teeth or a suitable near substitute. Low water users need only apply.*

*Your statutory rights are not effective. Contents may settle in transit. Your future is at risk if you fail to keep up with repayments. Batteries not included. See label for surving suggestions.

Gherkins and merkins

Mike-Mike was an aesthetic enhancement technician at Unlikely Solutions Ltd. Mike-Mike was also a deviant of preternatural depravity. He was a no-holes-barred kind of guy. To be blunt. Some might think that an unkind comment. Why do you have to see the worst in people? Those people have never met Mike-Mike. At least in person. That is not to say Mike-Mike was unfamiliar with them. Nooooo. Far from it. His was the peeping face partially obscured by the shade of shrubbery and, more generally, the shady night. If one were to observe him in his nocturne habitat, say dogging, with the aid of night vision goggles, one would be unimpressed by the slight hunched figure, with his knapsack slung unseductively over his shoulder - a depository for drained batteries, belts, buckles and braces, clear plastic bags, gags, gherkins and merkins, and mutilated manikin parts (and I emphasise the "part" in parts).

Unfortunately - and that is a matter of dispute - the warming globe had shrunk the shrubbery. The cover for Mike-Mike's nefarious late night activities had dwindled to no more than a fig leaf. Now his only outlet was innuendo - or inyourendo as he annunciated it in the safe confines of the climate-controlled office environment (camouflage afforded by office plants adjacent to the water cooler). He was crude in the oleaginous sense, but definitely not slick.

He was also a "water sports enthusiast", according to his CV, which was strange, given its current scarcity.

An accident in Old Europe

Seeing the clock tower looming hunched under a gentle haze of crisp moon light, I tried to remember the last time it rained, and moved down the old cobbled street towards the square. Not a soul in sight - no sign of activity. The shadows stretched out, yawning across the cavernous space between the arcades around the centre. An old tube, a can. Sleep was nagging and whatever it was before me hung by a thread. I felt the coins in my pocket and tried to remember the conversion rate (divide by 5, divide by 5) but it had been so long since that was relevant. Jingling lightly in my hand I let the smaller coins wash between the gaps in my fingers and remembered the gags we'd made before the struggles.

As expected, the tube of Quadraturin was lying underneath a parasol on one of the deck tables, next to a half finished can of beans. With a timeless shimmer, the pulses glistened tantalisingly as I approached. Music played both gently and loudly from nowhere and everywhere and I wondered where I'd heard it before, trying to clear these thoughts away and focus on what was coming next. There was no room for old fears and hallucinations now. No need in indulging. Leave it all behind they said. The goal and the now were what needed to stay close to the front of your thoughts at all times, but after four sleepless days it was hard to know which way you were facing. The candidates had been and gone, and Body Politic Interactional Nodes (BPINs) were a thing of the past.

I blinked once, twice hearing again the roar of drunken revellers and seeing the spectre of a party of comrades flicker in the silver light before I came to my senses. There was nothing but the sound of me standing very still. A touch of the dizzies. Again I focussed on the tube. But it was worse than I thought. It was leaking, which meant, of course, I was fucked. We had a solution for most eventualities with the Quadraturin but the simple matter was, if it had a leak, you were gone. I double checked, smiled to myself and took a seat under the parasol with half an eye on the beans.

Indeed, whatever loose frame of reference I had been struggling to hold together was slipping away as the substance took effect. Sadly, it was a scene all too familiar. We'd been using it to expand fields, structures and notional edges for years. A dab here and there could nicely expand a living room or office space to the dimensions you needed without effecting your neghbours, but since cheap imitations had found their way onto the black market, wanton expansion of the urban grain was rife. One notorious 'liberation' group had disappeared inside a cathedral having slathered it to the walls and then locked themselves inside. Once the authorities broke in, the walls, floor and ceiling were nowhere to be seen as the deep black cavern smirked back at them. AntiCC turned up in Delta6a three months earlier and we're still trying to locate them. And right now I'd walked into a typical Quadra-Crime scene. I fingered a bean and took in my surroundings.

The Tower was now a speck in the distance and the arcades were moving still further in the opposite direction - the poison was deep rooted. Resigned to my fate, and watching the scene recede into the darkness, I relaxed into my wicker chair and wondered what QT would have made of all of this. He always preferred his lunch al-fresco.