The God Machine Chronicle ep03 : World of Darkness

07/03/2013
Membrane
A God Machine Chronicle
Episode Three

"Fact and Fiction"

World of Darkness

Donald wakes up naked in Central park. People are staring at him. He hears the pounding sounds of a boombox and tries to get his bearings.  He has faint, vague memories, and struggles to get to his feet. But when he notices the police making their way to him, he breaks into a run.

*

Seth is still at old man Donald's home.  He sees the article of Stacey Macyntire, his sister, and pulls it from the wall.  The article is an old one, about her having invented some kind of litmus test for alcohol.  Seth follows the thread attached to the article and finds it leading to someone named Zee. “Am I supposed to bleed to death?” Conners asks teasingly, and Seth lookd down to see the police officer still bleeding from his self-ricocheted gun-shot wound.  Seth finds the kitchen and brings back a bottle of alcohol.  Conners is looking at a clipping, about a man named George Calin who has his face.  The man has a massive meltdown after accepting an Oscar. “Do I suck out the poison?” he teases but the smile fades as Seth pours the alcohol on the wound to clean it.  

"This the sort of thing you've had before being a cop?"

“Not after this, not like this. Not this?” Conners grimaces.

*

Wyatt stands in the other room.  He towers over the old man Donald and tries to gleam more information from him. “They call you a Prophet. The one who saw past the illusion.," Donald tries to explain when Wyatt asks why is he supposedly vital in all this.  And who these others are who share his face.  "We are not living in a program," Donald continues, "But we are living in a prison, we just can’t see it.”  Wyatt realizes this sounds much like common gnostic faith.  The parallels to his own novel, the God-Machine are unmistakable.
“And thus they continued their duties, unaware of their actions being merely programs they were given.”

*

Donald started quoting lines from Wyatt's novel, which continued to unnerve him.  He could not quite grasp the idea that his stupid novel had started some kind of group.  Or religion.

"This is just a state of mind?" Wyatt asked.

“The Rennerds would disagree.”  Wyatt flinched.  The Protagonist of his novel the God-Machine was someone named Rennerd..  When Wyatt decided to try following that train of thought, he asked how one would hide from something that one was connected to.  

“By being irrational. Something imaginary among the numbers," was Donald's reply.  But then he followed the answer with a question.  "You are not the Prime, are you?”

Wyatt slowly shook his head.  Donald seemed dejected, and quietly walked back to his bedroom.  Wyatt watches as he pulls the key out, slides it into another door, and opens the doorway into a room with pipes and steam.

Then leaves.

*

Ronald runs and tries to find a place to hide.  He sees a portalet at one side and pounds the ground to get there are fast as he could.  Thankfully, there are less bystanders in the area this time, giving him a chance to slide on some clothing as he runs.   As he gets to the portalet, however, the door opens and a woman inside steps out.  She resembles Zoey, Ronald's younger sister.  "Rey?" the woman asks.  

They hide by the plants as the cops arrive within the nearby yards.  The cop draws a phone from his pocket and begins fiddling with it.  A high pitched whine hits, and it almost forced Ronald to leave his hiding place.  Ronald opts to stay hidden.  Allows time to pass.

*

Wyatt steps out into the hallway, with the intention of heading home, but notices something odd.  The walls, to his recollection, were a shade of tan.  Today, however, they seemed to be a tinge of blue.  The numbers at the door were not numbers.  They were instead braille.  The door to his home turns out to be locked.  And as he considers going to the super to have it opened, the door opens.

His mother.

Wyatt stares at her, wondering why she would be at his hone.  He also wonders why she seems to be wearing some kind of one piece jumpsuit.  But then, he realizes she thinks he's someone else.

Someone named Rey.

"I'm not Rey," he tells her.

“You’re not?”

“I’m Wyatt. What are you doing in my apartment?”

The parents start talking to him as if he was in an intervention, telling him that they don't blame him for the drugs.  Or the men.  Wyatt doesn't know how to make sense of anything they are saying.

*

Conners studies the other clippings on the wall and sees a few more familiar faces.  He even finds someone named Rey Tinsey, and this guy does resemble them as well.  Seth and Conners finally start to discuss their encounter with the men in white.  Conners admits he thinks guy in white is not normal. “I shot him in the chest. I know I shot him in the chest.”

“Where’s your radio? Call for help. Or at least tell them you’re bleeding. Should we bring you to a hospital or something?"  Seth ponders.

But both wonder if it would be safe to reach out to anyone else about these events.
Especially when they have no idea who these men in white are.

*

The Mobius bar.  Ronald and Zee sit down and take the chance to talk about Rey.  She doesn't have a picture of him, but tries to explain to him how Rey had committed suicide.  Jumped off a building.  The bar owner, a Russian stocky woman, asks them if everything is okay.  Zee smiles at Red and tellsher all is wel.  Ronald asks if there were any encounters with men in white.  Zee seems confused, admitting that she wasn' expecting him to quit being part of the Rennerds.  Red tells Ronald, "It is good to see you though, Rey."

"He mentioned something about having to take, 'the capsule'," Zee mutters.

"Can you help me at all?" Ronald asks.

"Help you regain your memories?"

"Yes, or at least tell me I am not dreaming," Ronald admits.  His eyes scan the bar and he catches a tall dark cross-dresser at one table, reading a book called The God-Machine.  Her metallic make up and huge hair seems like something from the 80s.  Ronald starts to notice the cross-dresser... looks like his infamous friend, KaQoH.

“Can you help me find my brother. I think he faked his death,” Zee admits.

*

Wyatt stares at his parents.  They talk about their worries of his "lapses" and try to ask him to admit what drugs he had been taking.  They mutter about him claiming to be other persons.    The father talks about asking someone to help, and a call is made.  Seconds barely pass when a visitor arrives at the door.  Wyatt tries to stay calm, the whole time bothered by this second set of strange parents.

"Doctor Faciem," the mother greets the man as he steps inside, "Perhaps you can help us with our son."

Wyatt sees the man in white enter the room.  He locks himself in his bedroom, which now looks like some kind of entertainment room with large monitors and screens, and stares out of the window to see a world that seems very far from what it should be.   An amalgam of cultures almost like that of the movie Bladerunner can be seen outside, and the clouds dance in colors he has never seen before.

"That is not what you think it is," the mother warns Wyatt, and he notices her waver for a moment as if a heat wave passed by.

Wyatt slams the window open.

Everything breaks apart.   The world outside is an image. As are the parents.  Doctor Faciem tries to calm him down as red lights alarm all over.  A screen activates and inside, a stern woman in a uniform demands he comply and surrender.  She warns him that he is a passenger on a Story Ship travelling through the Fictional Universe.  "You are merely a minor anecdote in a greater calling.  If you are a threat to the narrative, we will do to you what we do to all Fictional Universe threats.  We edit them away."

Wyatt cannot cope.  He drops to the ground, feeling his sanity slipping away.
Doctor Faciem smiles.

*

"Here," Conners tells Seth as he hands him something.  Seth finds Conner handling him a key.  To his place.  "I have to deal with the boss for now, I've been missing for a few days from work it seems.   But I want to know you will be okay."   Seth decides to go to Conners' place to get some semblance of normalcy and rest.  Conners leaves to get the car he left back at the other place.

"Do me a favor and feed the dog," Conners touches Seth's face and reminds him to do that task.  Seth is still confused.  He doesn't recall when he started getting interested in men.

Conner's place isn't as shabby as he thought it would be.  Given the guy's O.C. nature, the place is pretty clean.  A Chinese guy who lives across the room stares at him suspiciously.  The dog barkes and rushes to him, excited to see a guest.  As Seth tries to call the dog down, a voice can be heard outside at the hallway, as a woman named Madella seems to have come to visit.  She calls Conners "Ham," and the Chinese guy starts teasing her to give it up.  "He's got some man in there with him!"

Madella screams at him back, annoyed that he'd try to tease him that way.  Realizing no one is answering, she starts calling out for the dog.

The dog's name is Bruno.

Seth lies on couch. Tries to get some rest. Mercifully, he falls asleep.

*

The cross-dresser has the same tattoo.  Ronald can see hints of it underneath her clothing.    He cannot understand why there are all these parallels.  These strange echoes of each other.  “Have you ever felt lost, as if you’re the only one who doesn't grasp the world.”

“I am acting as logical as I can,” Zee replies.

“So I’m the crazy one?” Ronald asks

Zee does not reply verbally.  Instead Ronald starts to see her with shifting gears and cracks on the surface.  He loses consciousness once again.

*

Wyatt wakes to find himself before Admiral Redd who is interviewing him to discern who he is. "You are possibly a Fictional Universe alien.  I will ask you a simple question and you must answer.  Name the three major events that have transpired in your timeline."

Wyatt stumbles for words and mutters, "Barack Obama as President... Wyatt Wrote a novel that didn't sell as much.  And a storm devastated the City of Marikina, in the Philippines."

"Wake up," a voice seems to whisper.

Admiral Redd pulls out two spritzers and asks Wyatt to choose one of them.  She does not explain why.

"Wake up..."

Wyatt opens his eyes.  He is back home and Mara is getting dressed.  He looks around, confused where he is and wondering why his dreams keep getting more and more elaborate.  He slides out of the room and rushes to Donald's room. The floor is wet with olive oil.  There are two sets of foot prints.

"Wyatt, let's go.  We are running late!"

Confused, he just follows her lead and quickly learns that they are headed to a press release.  Wyatt supposedly had sent in an outline of the next big novel, and the book is to be entitled, W.  They had agreed, it seems, to give the press ten keywords on what the novel will be about.

Wyatt stares at the gathered crowd of cameras and reporters and closes his eyes and merely utters the ten words that come to his lips.

"Agents, Dimensions, Revolution, Machines, Alternate Dimension, Different Versions of ourselves."

*

Seth wakes up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.  The cleaning lady greets him and Bruno (who had fallen asleep between his legs) and she tells him she brewed three cups of coffee.  Seth soon learns she is actually Conners' mother and she visits in secret to clean his house when he's not looking.  She was able to get inside thanks to the spare key the Asian guy across the hall had to the place.  Seth tries not to wonder why he has that key.

The mother is pretty cheerful and tells Seth she is happy her son is socializing.  She shares how as a child, the poor boy was forced to do things perfectly for many years.  She tells him the trauma never left him.  Seth asks her to stay a bit but she confesses that she never feels safe in the place.  "Did you know?  Many tenants have left the building without even paying!  Sometimes I feel this place is cursed.  Or something."  When he asks her if he should mention she visited, she quickly tells him no. "Mister Eyes will see and Mister E is gone.”

Seth found that saying very odd.

*

A man steps out of the crowd in the press release event.  Wyatt sees the man walk towards him and has a flash in his head that the man was someone he had seen in that subway dream.  "I have to break the Master Piece," the man tells him and draws a pistol from underneath his clothes.

Wyatt gasps and the pistol discharges before he could do anything.  

As he drops to the ground, blood pouring out of his stomach, the man rushes to leave.  "It was the only way to make the Machine Fail!" he utters.  And just as Wyatt starts to expect seeing his life flash before his eyes, he sees Mister Nose come into view and walk up to him.  He surveys his wound and calls out, "Mister Eyes?"

A second Man in White emerges.  

"I will go track the shooter," Mister Nose tells Mister White.  "Can I count on you to ensure this iteration is watched over well?"  Mister Eyes nods.  "The wound is not grave.  I can see he will survive this."

Wyatt realizes the man who shot him.... 

was Rey Tinsey.