ORIGINS OF SQUID FIGHTER

PART I

Our story begins in the past. While no written records exist from this time period, the reader will accept the following text as fact because it rings true. The kind of truth known to all sentient beings down in their bones.

“For all that has passed on, above, or below the surface of a world must sink into its dirt, and water and stone, and it is from these that we all are formed.” - JJ Squidley.

It is the truth at the core of all things. A truth which modern man so desperately tries to distract himself from, tries to run from, tries to forget.

They made music to remember. Not so that they themselves would be remembered, but to preserve a system of belief that had slowly been disappearing over thousands of years. It was not music in the way that people of our day and age think of it. It was the way our heroes communicated. It was their unwritten tradition, passed down through the generations. It was the living embodiment of their culture, and they were the last of their kind.

How did they find one another? How did they come to be united in the same time and space? Pure chance or coincidence? Fate? Were they drawn inexorably together by some deep magnetism? Does their "union" portend a major intersection in the path of "life" in the grandest sense? The reader must read on.

The art and technology used by their people to record “music” had gone down in the flood and would never be duplicated again. For this reason, they played their music and told their stories with a desperate, hungry, intensity. If they could not keep the memory of their past alive, no one could; and something once beautiful and alive would slip into extinction. It would become a vestigal organ, passed down in the collective genetic code, inaccessible to the people of the future, yet strangely rubbing against their insides, reminding them that they possessed something they were not using.

They knew that the energy of their song was living only for the moment; only in the moment. It left their mouths, instruments, and being, and spiraled into the void. They hoped it connected to some other life, some other being, and latched onto it, evoking some change on a fundamental level.

It could not be communicated in words alone. It was the predominance of the left hemisphere. It was art and intuition as foundation. It was beauty and life as ends and means. It was peace as a rule. Truth. Magic made routine, opening the universe wide.

Our story deals in an offshoot of panspermic theory (the theory that microorganisms or biochemical compounds from outer space are responsible for originating life on Earth, and possibly in other parts of the universe where suitable atmospheric conditions exist).

Our story deals with multiple civilizations, populating many worlds, existing at different points in the space/time continuum. If the thought crosses the reader’s mind that these are the components of science fiction, the reader must realize that the present is always the science fiction of the past.

Our story, begins in the past.

PART II

Consciousness. Self-awareness. Ego. Tribalism. Religious fanaticism/Nationalism. Religious “Crusades”/Imperialism. Capitalistic military industrialism. Ruling elite. Consumption. Depletion.

With the introduction of the global data exchange system, the masses became better informed but also more easily controlled. The accumulated knowledge of the planet was now readily available to all of its citizens; dissemination, through the highly evolved multi-media establishment, was instantaneous and all encompassing.

Although it could be argued that such an environment might possibly lead to greater transparency and therefore greater responsibility on the part of leaders, this was not the case on the planet in question. Unfortunately, data technology was not used to unite the population and search for truth. Instead it was used to instill fear and to imprison. The ruling elite had long since distanced and insulated themselves from the global public. At some point in the distant past they had gained control of the banks, the military, and the media, and now their rule was complete. They would not be toppled (in this incarnation).

The planet’s foundational religious establishments and capitalistic tendencies had led to a complete separation of man and nature: Man's creation by an anthropomorphized diety, man’s canonized superiority over all other living beings, nature existing to serve man, life on earth as a temporary phase or test, life as constant suffering, man’s absolution of sin and entrance to an eternal, post-life, ethereal (unearthly) paradise. This belief system had led to such a flagrant abuse of the planet and its resources, that the world had long ago passed the point of no return.

The world’s population now lived largely underground. The surface air, water, and sunlight were no longer suitable. The planet’s surface was inhospitable. The people lived in vast subterranean cities with UV filtered sunlight finding its way into the depths through tremendous synthetic domes.

Population control was strictly enforced. All food production and circulation was automated, as was waste collection and disposal. Constantly connected to the mass-media apparatus and foregoing all physical exertion, the anthropoid inhabitants of the world had evolved to a state of bodily weakness, characterized by shrinking limbs and torso, oversized crania, and a slowly disappearing immune system.

Artistic expression had long ago passed the point of extreme censorship. More than just "anti-establishment," it was now viewed as mental illness, and those showing artistic tendencies were systematically “deprogrammed” or simply “relocated.”

The ruling elite directed their energy toward maintaining control, increasing their superiority, and the constant creation and improvement of technologies in the fields of:

Pharmaceuticals: Drugs were an additional form of control. Often administered to the populace through their food, water, and even air. The populace was also used, unknowingly, in various experiments dealing with longevity and mind control.

Interplanetary exploration: Space exploration was geared toward finding a new homeworld; somewhere to flee to, once their own had been completely used up. To this end, probes were continuously launched, monitored, and improved upon. Also at this time, the Panspermic Directive had its beginning.

Biosuits: Research was initiated concerning an Interactive bio-shell. A self contained biosphere designed to hold and support a single member of the ruling elite from conception until death (more on this later) in any external environment.
Genetics: Cloning. Screening. Manipulation. Automated Genetic transferal stations (more on this later).

PART III

The scene opens with a view of the earth from space. The east coast of North America is in the light. All is completely silent and still. Here we remain for about ten seconds, our view shifting just before it becomes uncomfortable.

Our view of the planet begins descending toward the surface like the kind of cool, satellite-digital-technology that we’ve all seen before on “google earth.”

We plummet closer and closer to New York state; specifically toward Merrick, Long Island. A house comes into focus as we descend from above, and before we know it, we are looking at the front door. The address is number 27.

Somehow, like movie magic, we pass through the molecular substance of the door and straight ahead we see two young men seated at a kitchen table. Sunshine beams through two skylights and plays across the two men in profound ways. “Standing on the Moon” by the Grateful Dead, plays on an unknown source, and lyrics are heard, faint but clear, through a series of ceiling speakers.

The table is scattered with a bong, a few empty beers, two lighters, some half full semi-steaming cups of coffee, scattered newspapers, half a blueberry muffin, and a small credit card tray filled with weed.

Jay has black jew-dreadlocks, and glasses, and looks like a suburban Jerry Garcia. Mike is tall and thin, with a long, brown pony-tail, and looks like a generic Jesus.

Jay has a large, coffee table book open in front of him on the kitchen table. It is a collection of photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. We peer from Jay’s shoulder and amazing interstellar images are visible.

“I feel weird looking at these pictures, man,” Jay says.

Mike looks up from his bong hit and looks at Jay in response. He would answer, but he’s holding the smoke in his lungs.

From another room, a girl’s shrieking voice is heard, and for the first time we look to the left, into a room at the end of a long straight hallway. In the room we can see a young girl slapping at a young man holding a black Ibanez guitar shaped like a Heavy Metal X. We can tell from the scene that the young man has said something inappropriate, but that the girl doesn’t really mind. In fact, she likes it. He flicks his cigarette in the empty beer bottle he’s holding and then looks over his shoulder to say something to a boy in his late teens who sits behind a drum kit.

We pan back to the Hubble photographs and we hear Jay’s voice again.

“It’s like reading someone’s diary... or walking in on your parents having sex.”

“What are you talking about man?” Mike answers.

“These photographs... It’s like peeping in on creation. I just don’t think we’re meant to see this shit. And I don’t think we understand what we’re looking at anyway.”

We look at Jay’s green eyes, and we can see the refection of spiral galaxies in his glasses.

From the other room we hear voices. “Come on... let’s play. We only have a little while.”

“Come on, Bub,” Mike says.

Jay and Mike get up from the table. Jay takes a last swig of coffee and, without looking, not gently places his mug back on the table. In slow motion, the surface of the coffee concaves, convexes, and a single bloop of coffee is launched up and out of the mug and onto the book of the cosmos.

Jay and Mike walk down the hall and enter the "jam" room. Jay walks behind a couple of congas. Various percussive instruments are strewn on the floor. Mike picks up a bass and everyone starts noodling around with their instruments.

The young girl, completely ignored for the moment, sulks away with an attitude, becomes an accountant, and retires to Costa Rica.

“Hold on a sec,” Jay says as he pops a cassette out of a beat up little radio and flips it over. He hits record and says, “All right.”

Our viewpoint is now completely encompassed by the radio. We see the tape spools spinning and the instrumental noodling somehow begins to morph into psychedelic form. The sound we hear changes from that of live, vibrant, electric music, into the semi-scratchy, two dimensional sound of an old cassette recording.

As our viewpoint backs away from the radio we see that we are no longer in the same room. We are in a room that looks like a classic attic: bare beams with exposed insulation, littered with old tools, clothing, photo albums, shelves, furniture and bric-a-brac from the years spanning the entire twentieth century. As our view returns from its rotation around the room, it settles on the floor. Next to the same beat-up, now nearly ancient radio is the Hubble photograph coffee table book, looking about twenty years older, semi-yellowed around the edges, dusty and frayed, with a coffee stain on the open page.

From the book, we look up, passing over a Grateful Dead t-shirt, and settle on the the same green eyes. Jay’s face looks a little weathered, and there are grey hairs in his beard, but the eyes are the same. Closer and closer we move in, until only green can be seen. When we pan out again, we see a green eye which is positioned in the center of a pyramid. There is no sound. The green eye is positioned exactly like the eye on the pyramid of a one dollar bill, but it is shaped like the eye that is associated with ancient Egypt and Sanskrit, and can be found on yoga products. We are back in space. Un-named planets and constellations are visible, and it becomes clear that the pyramid is some form of space craft moving at an incredible speed. It passes us by and shrinks into nothingness.

Part IV

As we float in space, our view rotating 360 degrees, a planet comes into view. Something about it reminds us of the Earth; the Earth as we have come to know it through 20th century photographs from space. But this is not a blue planet. It is a brown, overcast, smoggy, hazy planet. Our view cuts to a superstructure of domes and tubular tunnels, made of a white, opaque plastic looking material. The tunnels and tubes are buried about half way up in rock and sand; the domes are considerably larger and protrude up into the harsh, glaring sun.

Our view cuts again and suddenly we are inside the structure. Sunken down into the ground is a vast, multi-layered city of indeterminate depth. Many of the structures appear to be smaller domes and tubes, within domes and tubes, within domes and tubes, etc. It is all constructed of an unknown material which appears to fit together seamlessly, in a very “futuristic,” yet organic manner—like a fractal and a close-up of soap suds fused together. The interior is illuminated from above by the sun as it penetrates the domes, and lit also by incandescent tubing which is woven into the fabric of the city. Humanoid figures can be seen moving about in every conceivable direction and in many different strata of the city. It is not, however, crowded. The people are all seated and are all enclosed in bio-suits which resemble a hybrid of an astronaut’s uniform, scuba gear, and the accoutrements of a robot. The suits appear to be made of the same unknown material which has been used to construct the city.

Our vantage point penetrates into the actual population, until we come face to face with one of the inhabitants and gaze at it through the clear helmet of its bio-suit. It is definitely humanoid; its age is ambiguous, its gender is vaguely masculine, and its ethnicity is unspecific. We move closer and closer to the blank stare of the being until it is clear that our perspective is now that of the dome native. We are peering out from within the bio-suit, and the only sounds that can be heard are faint pops, suction sounds, and the swoosh of air intake, as if vacuum seals are being broken and then resealed.

The viewer becomes aware that the intake and release of air pressure is powering the series of interconnected, mobile avenues and elevators through which the seated beings silently move. The beings all have small “chips” on their ears and beneath their mouths. At first glance they appear to be birth marks, until the camera gets closer and closer and we realize that the chips are some form of mouth and ear piece for communication. As we focus in on the ear chip, we hear a faint, mechanical voice making reference to UV levels, ozone trends, and water levels, using indexes and terminology that are unknown to 21st century man. It becomes clear during the synopsis that this is some sort of automated, daily report. Almost like the 5 o’clock news, or stock listings, being delivered without emotion.

Once again, through movie magic, we move closer and closer to the transistor chip and enter a world of micro-circuitry, penetrating deeper and deeper into a computer network. We reach a point and stop. It is hard to tell if we are looking at micro-chips or 21st century Manhattan from 35,00 feet up. You know, like “Tron.” The faint automated voice and the pops and whooshes of air pressure morph into a semi-rhythmic metallic ping.

Our view begins to move in reverse, exiting the inner space of motherboards, and when it withdraws into “normal” space, we are looking at an old, 1970’s television screen, which takes up our entire field of vision. On the screen is the famous video game “Pong”. Ping,

Pong, the little blip bounces from paddle to paddle.

PART V

Our view is spliced away from Pong to a close up of a man’s face. He is in his mid-fifties; his eyes are blue, kind, intelligent and twinkling; his hair has a white, Einsteinian wildness to it. His lips are pressed tightly together in concentration and we hear the ping-pong sound getting faster and faster. We splice back to the screen. The little blip is now moving quite rapidly between the paddles. We splice again to another face. It is the same pair of green eyes which have been the only constant in our story. The face is cherubic with a mop of unruly black hair. In general, the face could be construed as either angelic or demonic (in a Damien/Omen kind of way).

Our view fades back a little and we see the two faces side by side, their attention captivated by the simple video game. The primitive electronic blip sounds fade into the background and over them we here two men talking.

“So, was this your paternal or maternal grandfather?”

“That was my mom’s dad. I didn’t really get along with my dad’s dad. Nobody really got along with him. It wasn’t like we fought or anything. He just wasn’t likable.”

“How old were you at this time?”

“It’s a little hard to say.”

“Well, you mentioned that you had some ‘odd’ memories from this general time period.”

“Yeah. I guess these things happened to me from the time I was maybe four or five… up until the time I was seven or eight.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the first sort of odd memory from this time period took place in the backyard of our family house. I was with my parents. I don’t remember my little brother being around, so he must have been a baby. Which puts me somewhere under four years old.

“We were trying to set up a vegetable garden for my mother. So, I guess we picked a general, rectangular sort of area and then we started doing some weeding. I have the most vivid memory of digging in the dirt. The smell of freshly turned earth... digging down with my bare hands and seeing the exposed roots of all the grass and weeds. There was one set of roots that sort of stuck out in my visual field. I grabbed them, to try and pull them out... but as soon as my fingers grasped the weed, I got this electric shock that just shot up my arm. My arm jerked back and I must have screamed. I told my parents what had happened, but they had no idea what I was talking about... They looked at my arm. My hand. There were no marks. They dug around in the dirt to see what was there. But there was nothing. They tried to get me to continue working in the garden, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near it after that.”

“What do you think is so significant about this memory?”

“Honestly, I don’t have any idea. I just know that it’s lumped together with a handful of other memories. Memories of experiences that I consider formative… and kind of odd. I can’t really explain them in a rational way... It’s taken me a while to realize it, but these are memories and thoughts that nobody else has had. I mean, everyone plays doctor at some point with the girl next door. You don’t speak about it to anyone. You think it’s a unique experience; like you’ve discovered some secret of the universe. And then at some point you realize that the experience is part of the ‘collective childhood’. It happens almost everywhere to almost everyone. The experiences I’m talking about are not like that. They’re singular.”

“Well, what do you think actually happened to you that day?”

“You know, as odd as it may seem, I’ve thought about this experience many, many times throughout my life. At some point, I don’t really know when, I decided that the shocking feeling I got from grabbing the roots... it was like grabbing a live wire. Like, some kind of surge of life force... and somehow, I completed the circuit. I was feeling the raw life force of a living thing. Unfiltered. Straight from the nerve. It made me think ‘What is the difference between the life force... the essence... what’s the difference between the life force of a weed and anything else? A flower. A tree. An insect. A person. The animating force has to be the same. It’s just flowing through a different mechanism... a different filter.’ How come nobody else ever talked about this? My parents didn’t feel or sense anything, but I did.”

“What else do you remember?”

“There is another memory which is even stranger... and over time it has become sort of twisted...”

“What do you mean twisted?”

“Well. My original memory of the event is extremely detailed, and growing up, there was no doubt in my mind that it was a ‘real’ experience. But, over the years, I have actually dreamt of this particular event many times. I’ve relived it so many times in my memory and dreams that it’s all sort of become blended together in my mind. It becomes difficult to differentiate between dream and reality. Although I firmly believe that the ‘root’ experience did ‘really’ happen.”

“OK. Why don’t you just start talking about the experience and we’ll see where it takes us.”

“I must have been about five or six years old. At that point my family lived in a circular court at the end of a dead end street. The kids in the neighborhood would often gather right in front of my house. Not because I was popular or anything, just to play street games in the court. So, we were playing some kind of game, and I looked up into the sky; I was always fascinated by clouds. I guess all kids look for shapes in the clouds, but I really loved the sky and clouds. It was like a mountain view to me. It brought me peace. Like standing on the beach and staring at the ocean.”

Our view is suddenly filled with the green eyes. Within a green Iris we see clouds drifting past. We hear the mingling of wind and ocean waves. The reflective panorama in the green Iris becomes a serene seascape, with small waves ebbing and flowing. The green eye slowly fades away, and the reader is alone on the beach.

PART VI

Waves lap calmly at a pristine, white sand beach. A man’s head breaks the surface of the water. His hair is black and dread-locked. His eyes are green. His ethnicity is hard to place. A dolphin’s head pops up next to the man’s. They bob there looking at each other for a moment. The dolphin chatters and squeaks some dolphin-speak. As the man pats the dophin’s head, we see that his hand has fleshy webbing between each finger.

The dolphin swims away.

The man slowly exits the water and we see that the same webbing exists between the toes on the man's feet. He shakes his head from side to side and his dread locks release streams of water which reflect the sun light. The man sits down on the sand and before him we see a beautiful contraption which we instinctively recognize as some form of musical instrument. It is formed of large spiraled sea shells connected with organic tubing, hollowed out pieces of smooth wood, open bowls of crystal, and taut drum heads of an unknown skin. All of the components are mounted on a large stone protruding from the sand.

The man picks up two mallets and begins striking the instrument. He gently blows into a mouthpiece on the end of the tubing. The variety of sounds emanating from the instrument is almost beyond belief. There is the haunting sound of hollowed out wood, the resonant sound of natural drum heads, the crystal tones of stroked wine glasses, and the airy sound of a woodwind hybid.

As the performance continues, the very air around the man seems to vibrate and shimmer. The sand of the beach vibrates and individual grains begin to hop to and fro, rearranging into intricate snowflake patterns on the shore. Within the man's sphere of influence, the very light pulses and reflects off any and all available surfaces into a spectral vision.

Ten yards from shore, half a dozen dolphin heads bob silently on the surface with their eyes closed. The cry of circling sea gulls draws our attention up into the sky. Their cries begin to mingle with the music as they wheel in circles over head. Beyond the gulls, sun rays penetrate the spaces in between clouds.

PART VII

“Anyway, I looked up into the clouds and I thought I saw light reflecting off of something. I stared and stared and I finally made out some sort of metallic line glinting in the sun. As I stared at it, the other kids came over, and they saw it too. We were all studying it. It became clear that the wire disappeared up into the clouds. But as we stared and wondered, we noticed that it was at a definite angle, sloping down toward some unknown point on the ground. It’s funny though. I never thought of this line as originating from the ground... you know, like a kite string or something. To me, it was if the line started somewhere up in the sky and the ground just sort of got in its way.

“Anyway, we ran off in the direction we thought the line would intersect the ground; like trying to find the end of a rainbow. But, believe it or not, only about two hundred yards away, we found the end of this metallic cord. It wasn’t very thick and it was made of a strange material. I can’t quite remember what it looked like.... Only that we all knew on some basic level that we had found something strange. This line came right out of the tree tops at a forty-five degree angle and went into a wooden telephone pole. There were no nuts and bolts holding it in place. It went cleanly into the wood; no splintering or anything.

“One of my freinds said ‘look!’ and pointed. The wire came out the other side of the tellephone pole and disappeared into the grass. We all looked at each other... I can still remember the facial expressions.... ecstatic... awed... scared... dumbfounded. We tried to trace the line back up into the sky, but there were too many branches and leaves... so I guess it was spring or summer.

We ran back to the court, because that was the most open space on the block. As we stared up at the metallic line, someone shouted and pointed. We all squinted up, and there, on the line, seemingly way up in the clouds, was a black spherical object. As we looked up, speculating on what the black ball could possible be, it became clear that it was moving. It was sliding extremely slowly but steadily toward the ground.

“I got an idea. I ran into my house, into the kitchen and got my mother’s chicken scissors. The entire group of us ran back to the telephone pole and we tried to cut through the wire. Every once and a while one of us would run back to the court and check on the black ball, moving almost imperceptibly toward us.

“The black ball slid down the wire and disappeared into the tree line. I looked up, and in a moment both crystal clear and surreal, a spherical object emerged from the foliage and slid up aganist the telephone pole. That’s all I can remember.

“I guess it was a day or two later that my mother went to get her chicken scissors to prepare dinner and I heard her shout out ‘What happened to my scissors?!’ At that moment the events of the other day and the wire and the black sphere came rushing back to me. The odd thing is, there was some kind of gap in my memory. I couldn’t remember what had happened... from the time that sphere came to rest right above my head until the moment my mom found the scissors was a blank.

“My mom gave me her psychic, penetrating stare. She always knew about me and my troublemaking. She always knew when I had done something wrong. A couple of times she even knew that I had hurt myself when she was nowhere near the scene. Anyway, this time, she had no clue. She looked from me to the scissors. Back at me. Back at the scissors. She put them down and said, ‘Come on, we’re running out to the super market.’

“As she got ready, I ran over and looked at the scissors. They were completely mangled. All the cerated edges were chewed down and one point of the scissors was completely broken off and gone.

“We got in the car and I pressed my face up against the glass as we drove by the telephone pole. There was nothing. No wire, no black ball. No bare patch in the grass, where the wire had disappeared into the earth.

To be continued...