'the beats of babylon' a bovel*
Chapters
1.
Octavius
Dave malfunctions
2.
Molchian
forces position themselves around the Earth
3.
GQD
summons TGM & KB
4.
Assimilation
of the Earth begins as legions of Nasty Ones are strategically scattered
throughout the Earth
5.
Octavius
Dave sabotages the Euroball Cup
6.
Prince
of Babylon welcomes the alien forces.
7. A
story from the mouth of a tiger
8. Kingsley’s
dream
9. The
Maniacal Awakening
10.
Meet the Pranksters
11.
The sensational sacking of King B
12.
The war of Love and Fear
13.
The sensational sacking of Danny Venus
14.
The
unimaginative sacking of Mr. Blaikie
15.
A funny-peculiar magic game called
Euroball with little sellotape and plastic bag balls
16.
The choose your own adventure sacking
of Danger Dave
17.
The sensational sacking of Timmy
Traveller (Tigermothy)
18.
The making of The Beast
19.
The simple sacking of the boy on the bike
20.
Mc Mennamonkey meets the Pranksters
21.
A web of Classy deceit
22.
The bird prank
23.
Escape from Ludlow Court
24.
Ultimate Glory
25.
Send
in the clones
26.
The
Pranksters head back to Earth
27.
Maryland
malfunction
28.
Arrival
on Earth
29.
Hiatus
30.
The
universe comes under threat
31.
Chip
insertion becomes law
32.
A
game of Euroball is lost
33.
GQD
poetry storm
34.
FTLC
35.
The
universe on the brink
36.
The
arrogant Prince
37.
Removal
of the chip on the shoulder
38.
The
future of the Earth
39.
Gathering
of Insights
40.
Super
Sunday at the Sports Nebula Home World Arena
41.
A
little snag
42.
Beatific
This is the
First Edition.
(*bovel = 'beat novel' - b'ovel - or simply bovel)
CHAPTER 1
Octavius
Dave malfunctions
Sat 08:35 24th
oct 20ZZ
Diary of
Fact React.
I got one
maxim in life – and the sea is my brother by the way – but that aint a maxim,
it’s a fact – one maxim in life, and that is Never Lose Control (NLC).
The
history of The Earth: ‘I sat on my turnovers and I spilt my tea, I am not the
god that you want me to be, I made you on a program deep in outer space.’
I
work for a company that designs a game called ‘Race’. You see, it came to pass
that an intergalactic civilization of beings undreamably more sophisticated
than our own had, within its video game industry, programs where you could
design worlds and the people on it, but there are actually so many infinite
worlds and a markedly infinite potential for an infinity of further infinite
worlds, that it matters not a jot up there if things go wrong and people die
and worlds collapse. It’s a bit like having your own spidermonkeys as opposed
to tamogotchies.
Well
it certainly wasn’t convention to care amongst the vast worlds of Gargantua.
The multiplicitous planets within Gargantua had many such quirky little
computer programs on their retinal consoles, and a reasonably felicitous, but
not evidently over-intelligent (by their standards of course) operative, had
designed Earthlings: lions, birds and tigers, and a lot of the other animals
and creatures that inhabit the Earth with humans (insects, it turns out are
actually from another planet where they are simply known as Crawlings). The
programmer’s name was Bob, short for Galacticon
Bobellina Felladon Smithereen Willis, from a family of Gargantuan beings –
the race of the Zellarons in fact. But that’s not important right now, what is
important now is the story of the Earth, how it was made, and how it was nearly
destroyed by what to the poor tiny creatures of this besieged planet, were
described in the news as Thermo Nuclear strikes, but were actually just simple
nanobot program erasures from within the computer at Bob’s house, when he sat
on his turnovers and spilt his tea. The story of how Bob saved the Earth is one
not believed on his own planet, and he is currently locked up – not for believing
in things that don’t exist - but for the universal lack of credulity afforded
to anyone within this strata of Gargantua, professing to care, in any tiny way,
about such infinitesimal and insignificant things, namely computer generated spidermonkeys;
or Earthlings, to give them their proper name.
Lock
you up for that they could, and frequently did – a fate which befell Bob, on
the last day of the year described in Gargantuan calendars as the year of
Twenty Zebedee Zebedee.
But
that little story is a mere incidental fact of the matter. The matter is this:
Something weird happened tonight. I met a bunch of guys who used to live on
that spidermonkey planet. They seemed like good guys, Professional Euroballers
as it happens; founding fathers of the game I’m told (apparently the
grandfathers of Euroball were captained by Rayners Lane Dave in the antecedent
of the game Kickthecan). Pretty good
at fighting ninjas too, got me out of a hole. Millenyway, that wasn’t the only
weird thing – the Bank of Forgotten Insights, a giant robot called Octavius
Dave, ripped itself right out of the ground and is stalking the city as I type.
I’m very lucky that my apartment is deep underground, and that I‘ve got plenty
of tinned rice-pudding in stock. I don’t really know what the hell is
happening. Fortunately, those Prankster guys are coming back for me in the
morning, reckon they’ll help me locate Crabtree’s purple sphere, so I can finally
get those deals done – I’m running out of credits. All I gotta do is help them
find a tiger.
Diary entry
paused.
We
don’t need to go anywhere: we’ve got TIME.
Of
course time travel is possible. We travel backwards through time whenever we
remember. We travel forward in time when we imagine.
Fact
Reeact was a Lingarian time travelling sales-man, and avid writing hobbyist,
dotting back and forth from his office in Liverthon, the capital city of Wongon,
Zaylar; one of 217 planets in the western Gargantuan Quadrant. It’s a built world. The planet is a purple
sphere – It has no sky – 4 global vents mind you. All the green is built on something,
but it’s very pretty.
‘3
Breaths,’ said Fact to himself as he prepared to walk through the Ninja Ghetto,
where hordes of disenfranchised ninjas (DFN), lurked acrobatically with great
menace. Fact had recently downloaded an anti-ninja defence app after a couple
of pretty hefty beatings, the only trouble was that you had to keep up the
stretches, or else the crazy martial arts the programme could make you do,
would seriously twang or even snap any muscles not sufficiently stretched. Fact
was supposed to stretch for twenty minutes a day, according to the download
instructions, but he scarcely managed a quick lean and count to three when his
left hamstring threatened to break whilst simply walking down a sunny street in
Lingaria. Now he was here, on the way to an absolutely imperative business
meeting, at the mercy of the DFN. Still he would rather have the fight app than
not, at least it gave you a chance; and if you did stretch regularly and have
regular aerobic workouts, the app could make you buss up mans real good.
‘Phreep!’
Fact’s forefingerphone (FFP) made him jump. He pointed at himself and flicked
his finger off his thumb, thus answering the call.
‘Fact
Reeact here, how can I help you?’
‘Ahh,
Mr. Reeact, I know that I was scheduled to meet you in my Wongon office, but
alas the Richmond Bowl has become quite overrun by ninjas, so I‘m teleporting
back to my sphere…’
Fact
felt a sudden pang of fear and anger, knotting up like a sudden inner tummy
punch. ‘But Mr. Crabtree – sir – I’m sure we can close the deal on those purple
bins today – I’ve got a whole heap of clients from diners and spacebars all up
and down the intergalactic highway sir – This will make both of us super
spacerich! Think of your constituents sir!
‘That’s
precisely what I’m doing dear boy, they need me alive and well – not everyone
in Richmond upon Tembe has double trick-nutted BMXs yet my boy, and I will not
rest, no I will not yield, until each of them has one; two even…
‘Can’t
we do business by phone Mr. Crabtree?’
‘Certainly
not, business by phone is as cheap as cybersex; it cheapens one awfully.’ With
that, Alexander Crabtree withdrew into his teleporter and dotted the quick
journey into his purple sphere, which resided in one of the infinite recesses
of Octavius Dave.
Fact
shook his finger angrily at himself by way of hanging up his FFP, then turned
sharply in alarm as a ninja star suddenly hurtled past his left ear, and lodged
itself into the thick trunk of a llama tree.
`
* * * * * * * *
A few
thousand miles above Zaylar, with a 64-lane freeway direct from Wongon, and the
other major nations, runs the great space highway the Z14, follow that a
stretch and take the short hop across the Spatial Sea and you reach the
spinning orb of Maryland. It’s a different world altogether – a bit like a
heaven for the living you know – I guess you could say it’s where genuinely
enlightened people go. It aint no reward for death, it’s more of a
have-it-now-as-well kind of heaven; no bad thing I assure you. From time to
time new arrivals are welcomed and there’s no overcrowding at all – in the year
Twenty Zorro Zorro, a busload of Latterday merry Pranksters, Acton branch,
arrived from Earth – they have enjoyed themselves ever since, painting and
singing, eating the crazy space cake that tastes good but doesn’t make you fat;
that kind of thing. Everyone works for a day or two, or more if they want, and
people do that swell mail order thing like in the ‘Conquest of Mars’ where you
get what you want – robots pack it and deliver it – everybuddy takes a little
turn at controlling the robots, with no danger of Terminator style robot revolt
– real simple robots they are – with no central-nervous-system-super-computer;
just simple, clockwork almost, kind of robots - more tick tock of Oz than Hal
really.
Millennyway,
when this crew arrived, they brought a new dimension to Maryland – not just
from their colourful kindness and musical ninja capability, but through a game
called Euroball, which they taught to
the people of Maryland, and which, subsequently, spread throughout 14 different
universes, including the twelve that comprise Western Gargantua. In short, Euroballers
make a ball and kick it round a lamppost, building up so much energy that when
they hit the light, they are flooded with insights which turbocharge the forces
of good, whilst dealing heavy blows to the forces of bad. Pretty spectacular,
and useful stuff really.
Amongst
those happy Earthling ex-pats to reside on Maryland, were Kingsley, Danny
Venus, Tigermothy, Danger Dave, John Mc Mennamonkey, The Big German, and
Captain Blaikie.
These
Latterday merry Pranksters had gained so much energy and insight when they
smashed the light of Jah (the lamppost they used to play against), that they
had been able to fly a magic bus off the Earth, rescuing lots of other people
from trudgery, drudgery and general fiscal evil, and consequently entered a new
realm of enlightened happy niceness. It was not at all as simple as that but it’s
very important at this stage in the story that you know who the Latterday merry
Pranksters are and what business their Euroball team Dortmund Superbus had in
Wongon on the day that Fact Reeact found himself lost in a dangerous part of
town.
The
Bank of Forgotten Insights, also known as Octavius Dave, is a gigantic Robot,
serving the whole Western Peninsula of Gargantua, and a whole realm of
galaxies, including Serendipity, the Oneiverse that contains Maryland, amongst
8 other similarly blissful worlds.
Unlike on Earth,
several other planets, universes and the East of Gargantua, those with access
to Octavius Dave, can simply download forgotten insights. Big fans of The Bank
of Forgotten Insights are often known to visit, Octavius Dave pilgrim-fashion,
where they, amongst other activities of positive connectivity, swap teachings
and/or demonstrations of skills, in exchange for multifarious Insights, which
can of course further their art, and/or spiritual careers. Thus, a five-aside
team from Dortmund Superbus were headed to Wongon, at the same precise point in
time that Fact Reeact, having concluded his frustrating phone call with
Alexander Crabtree, was nearly decapitated by a ninja star.
Millennyway,
these intrepid Pranksters – good prankers they were; not the could-have-given-you-a-muddaflunking-heart-attack
type pranks: somewhere between ‘let’s pretend that we’re the living dead and
scare the ship outta people – through to Jeremy Beadle, and
not-very-candid-compared-to-this-day-and-age camera – and the behind the hall
wall Boo! of a brother to a sister or a sister to a brother… Theeeese intrepid Prankster
met up with Fact Reeact and successfully fought ninjas before picking Fact up
and spiriting him away into the swirling oil ocean zone clouds of the Wongon
skyline. Fact was rather out of breath, and clurching his very badly pulled
left hamstring, he managed to close down his Ninja Kicks simulation program,
and stutter out his great gratitude. ‘Thanks you guys, like, who the hell are
you anyway?
‘I’m Venus.’
‘I’m Beat.’
‘I’m Moth’
‘Und I’m ze big German. They huddled
together to form a freeze-frame - half Power Ranger, half One Direction.
‘I’m Fact, Fact Reeact, pleased to
meet you. What’s with the stupid pose?
‘Oh
sorry,’ said Venus, and they all fell out of postured formation rather
self-consciously.
‘Who were those ninjas?’ asked Moth.
‘Oh, just ninjas – DFN man, ever’
since they stopped makin’ movies, all these out of work ninja fighters been
pouring out of Wongon – they can’t even get a commercial nowadays, and they’ve taken
to mugging people acrobatically. Figure if they make a show of it, someone’ll
film it on their mobile phone, and they could rip it with keepvid and put
together a showreel for their CV.’ Fact proceeded to explain his woes, how Zaylar
was increasingly feeling the squeeze and the burden of a darkening cloud.
Retinal Consoles were necessary for all Zaylans. Ever since the mystery new
WGUWL (World Gargantuan Union World Leader), Sillyconius 1, had been ‘elected’
by digital blinkvote. There just didn’t seem to be much freedom any more. The
murder rate, albeit ‘only’ 3, per annum, was still the highest in the Galaxies
of Western Gargantua. The rich were getting bitchier and the poor were getting
nastier. But Fact had always been a hard worker He told them of his impoverished
childhood in Lingaria, but how he’d managed to forge himself a career in
business trafficking in and out of Wongon, but how he really wanted to be a
writer, and also how something was not quite right today. ‘So where are you
guys from?’
‘Maryland.’ said Beat, but we’re
originally from Earth.
‘Oh, Earth, that’s one of those
little spider monkey planets isn’t it?
‘Wayasayin about monkeys, Earth and
indeed spiders?’ bristled John Mc Mennamonkey.
‘No nothing – just that Earth is one
of those little planets made on the Race game – I have sold a few units so I
know all about it – these worlds are infinite man – just created by gamers. The
only reason anyone in Gargantua knows about Earth is because of the crazy guy
who took the trouble to save that planet – the guy who created it – they locked
him up for Obvious Insanity – a serious crime y’understand? It was declared
Obvious Insanity because he was so concerned about such a tiny thing. He leaned
in and looked suspiciously left and right. ‘To tell you the truth, I kind of
admire the guy… you won’t go blabbing to no one will you?’
Fact Reeact evidently felt he had
the trust of the Latterday Merry Pranksters. They could tell he was a Prankster
in the making too. ‘Look, as a matter of interesting fact,’ said Kingsley, if
what you say is true, and I doubt you not sir, then this guy saved us all right.
It also makes him our God, which is a very dramatic re-working of originally
fabled versions back on our poor home planet. Say, why don’t you come along
with us to Octavius Dave? Perhaps we can earn some insights into this man; what
did you say his name was?
‘Galacticon
Bobellina Felladon Smithereen Willis’.
‘Bloody good name that,’ said Captain
Blaikie. All the Pranksters agreed that it was a bloody good name.
Fact Reeact was just about to
decline their kind offer, when a gargantuan shadow suddenly loomed large,
obliterating the coloured skyline with instant night. Moth screeched the bus
upwards and in retreat to escape the hellish shadow which now straddled what
seemed to be the whole of Wongon, let alone just Liverthon.
‘O my Daze!’ exclaimed Fact. ‘ But
that’s… no… it can’t… be… what in blue blazes is it doing here?’
‘What the hell is it?’ Venus
impugned
It
stood there in the shadow of its own. This monstrous monolith of darkness.
Zooosh! Two flaming square red lights lit up the jet black skies, ripping
suddenly into the darkness. In and out: the eyes of it: gigantic hugeness of
wonder or annihilation. Who knew? Nobody knew but all stood breath-bounded to
the suddenness of this universal interruption. Now other portals of light –
some gold, some copper - definitive feel-it-on-your-teeth properties of copper
and gold light, slotted open and threw fresh new beams into the great shadow,
until the proliferating dots of light stood gleaming, and a beautiful but
broken face of robot immenseness could be discerned. As the Pranksters hovered
safely and in awe, as the innumerable hordes of civilians, robots, creatures
and spirits, the population of Wongon, looked on with perfect poise of
half-terror/half-love, as they looked up into the shimmering chaos – to behold
the face of the place where Forgotten Insights and escaped butterflies of
thought and sound and wonder go – all at once knew, by the fact of trampled
mountains now visible behind, that Octavius Dave had blown a gasket.
