The Giger - Being a Romance in Four Parts - Part the Fourth
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Zerozerozerozero.
This is the end, now. In one sense there's almost nothing left to be said. In another, no matter what I write here, in what detail or at what length, I still could not exhaust what remains. Giger came back. He came looking for me, and he made me an offer. I could have refused, I think. But it would have made no real difference: I would have been unable to write these words, that's all.
You remember that single shot, from somewhere near Pluto? The one those two poor stupid bitches were fried for? It was a decoy. It had never been intended for it to pierce the shields. It was intended that it should destroy itself spectacularly - and so distract attention from another, much less powerful attack, one capable of completely bypassing our defenses as they then were, and making it safely to the surface. Which is exactly what happened.
What was in it? One of Them, of course. The Mad Bastards. The Enemy. The Bug-eyed Monsters of Planet Zzargg. It wasn't a Bug-eyed Monster, of course. It was one of us, down to the composition of the DNA and RNA. It was in every way a perfect replica. They, the Enemy... the Giger... are master manipulators of matter at sub-atomic levels, capable of shifting themselves into any desired shape. They take our form and they become us. They can even learn to love. The only way to tell us apart would be to dissect their souls.
Need I tell you what it did once it was here? It set up a Corporation. Need I tell you which one? Giger, Inc. All those goodies on which we so prided ourselves, the tachyon drivers, the Magnetomirrors, the oscillating shields and the Self-Replicating Cities... they were all the works of the Enemy. If it's any consolation, any sop to your pride (always supposing that those who come after me remain capable of feeling anything so... so fleshless...) we did succeed in burning some of the fucking things. Not as many as I would have liked, but more than They had anticipated. I hate being taken for a fool.
It was a kind of war in reverse. You don't defeat your enemy in battle. You persuade her that she's in love with you. You seduce her. You make her so like you, and the resemblance so obvious, that in the end there's nothing left to fight over, nothing left to fight for. Every 'advance' that brought us some advatange in terms of offense and defense also shifted the balance of human culture. Not in terms of the imposition of an alien ethos, but simply through the exacerbation of trends that were already there.
The total destruction of the original missile arrays on the Moon led directly to the development of hardwired clones. Hardwiring led to the clones being thought of as machineries of desire; a secondary, highly prized species serving the ends of their fully human superiors. They were not slaves, nor were they thought of as slaves - they were a new type of human, engineered to meet purposes not their own. No one in his right mind would have asked a clone what he or she wanted - because their 'wants' were predetermined and perfectly known.
The Self-Replicating Cities and their machines that were a hybrid of organism and mechanism blurred, and sometimes erased, the distinction between the two. It became less and less offensive to incorporate flesh within machines and machines within flesh. We loved our machines; our machines loved us.
UMC itself, its dedication, taught us that there was only one reason for living, only one cause to serve: the cause of continuing to be alive, at no matter what cost. To continue to use machines, to be a part of machines, to have them use you. The Enemy did to us only what we wanted them to do. What we wanted somewhere deep down inside. Not an Enemy at all, then: a lover, instead.
Giger came to my quarters the first night of his return to Main Compound, as I'd known he would. As before, there was wine and food ready. But at first we neither ate or drank. He said he wanted to make me an offer, that he wouldn't eat with me again unless I accepted. I don't think he had any doubt that I would accept - we had recognized one another. What offer, I said.
He didn't speak. Instead his whole body... shifted. I don't mean he changed position. I mean he became something else. There was a great burst of heat and the clothes he'd been wearing flashed into flame. Klaxons screamed and the fire suppressant system poured foam down on us both. I simply stared, overwhelmed by lust, terror, and understanding. I knew that firefighters would be at my door in moments but I couldn't move. I couldn't.
Its flesh was a luminous silvergrey, like bright moonlight seen through cloudy water. Inky hair fell from its head to its feet, pooling around it in ropes and cables. Its arms and hands were long and thin, the arms of a powerful woman. It had the breasts of a woman, full and rounded. But the lower body was that of a slender young man. Sprouting from between its thighs was an enormous penis, enormous testicles. At three quarters of its length the shaft split into three more, each coiling and writhing on the others like snakes do when they fuck. All of them strained to reach me.
The door burst open and the firecrew and their machines, medics, all poured through. From their expressions it was obvious they saw nothing out of the ordinary - just a couple engaged in the premlinary of a some game they liked to play, suprised by a technical malfunction. Perhaps they attributed the expression of utter shock I must have been wearing to some antiquated sense of sexual embarrassment - some unfortunates did still suffer in that way. Whatever they thought, no one questioned it.
Giger only had to utter his name - and a spontaneous breakout of acute deference made sure that everyone departed very nearly as rapidly as they arrived, followed instants later by the fastest and politest repair crew in the history of the UMC. They left and I was alone with It, the thing no one else could see, every atom of it pouring some cold, cold glamour over me. Inside my head there was a whisper like a razor blade. I felt every quiet syllable just as I would have felt a cut.
I liked it. That's why I listened. And because I listened I've written this. The Giger have no mouths. They have no eyes or ears, and so they can't see or hear or speak. But they can communicate - they vibrate atoms of air, or they make the neurons and synapses of the brain flash and dance to whatever tune they set.
"You you you" It said. "Mine mine mine." And I found myself in agreement with that. That was the first and last thing it said to me in words. Everything It told me from that point on It told in sequences of images that appeared on the Entertainment Center just like normal programming would. It stood away from me, in the shadows cast by the light of the screen, as I watched scene after scene unfold. There were times I tried to scream, but It wouldn't let me.
It showed me first the past. The reason for the 'war'. What we are to them. I used to use a term that described a certain kind of compliant, submissive, but ferociously extreme kind of sexual partner. I called them 'meat puppets'; if you put the hooks in just right and pulled the strings, they'd dance all night long. They wouldn't stop until either something essential broke in them or they dropped unconscious from exhaustion. That's what we, all of us, are to Them - their meat puppets. They think of us as very special pets; edible pets, because their uses for us, their pleasures to which they put us, consume us. We are very special to Them; precious, almost. Because it's in us that they have found an extremity of response that matches the extremity of their desire. There is no possibility that they will ever let us go.
Next, it showed me the future - and the bargain that was offered. I saw a world that was a garden of strange flesh, shaped and tormented by the will of zealous gardners to the satisfaction of stranger desires. And like cruel bees, shapes moved in the garden - tasting, savoring; exquisite connoisseurs of the most extreme sensation. And I saw how this world came to be.
I saw myself, sabotaging the shield system. I saw myself redirecting the Magnetomirrors to destroy the missiles and Command Post on the Moon; saw myself turning them against Earth, to fry the outstations. And finally I saw myself first initiate and then activate the Option of Last Resort - Main Compound's self-destruct system. All of this was to be done in order that the Giger could invade without suffering further losses, in order that large numbers of the human population would remain for the use of the Giger and to ensure that any resistance which might develop would be unable to make use of the resources of the UMC.
All of this could be done, but only from Main Desk. To exert the finest control over matter, the Giger have to be in the immediate presence of whatever they intend to manipulate, touching it in fact. It would have been blown apart by KillCity's guards the moment it touched Main Desk - whether or not the guards believed It to be Giger and no matter who else got in the way. The UMC had developed many kinds of hardwiring, not just the kind used on the clones...
And none of it could be done without my death. The offer It made to me was simply this - It would die with me. It would go with me to KillCity. It would embrace me as I released the poison gas that would kill the Desk Officers, their SOs, and the guards. It would embrace me, caress me, keep me alive while the poison did its work, while I fried both Moon and Earth, while I initialized the self-destruct system and sealed off KillCity from any possible intervention. It would embrace me, caress me, and consume me as the Option of Last Resort did its work.
It would die with me, so it told me in that icy, bloody whisper, because it would not share me with another. My God, it turned out, was a Jealous God. My reward was the knowledge that I had won, that I had gained a victory over the Giger that no other creature in all the worlds They knew had ever won and that in their annals I would be remembered forever and honored as one like themselves.
I said yes, of course. And it was no bargain at all, but a sacrament. It ripped my clothes away. Those long, elegant, slender fingers contained three inch talons, sharp as razors, the color of old blood. And then It filled me, penetrated me three times at once, and wih those talons it wrote on my flesh the iconography of Its desire, the map of all my dreams. When we were done it was I who was covered in blood and honey.
And when we were done I made my prayer, and asked for one thing - time to write this. I had no Duty for a further fourteen hours anyway: time enough I thought, if It could master Its desire as I would master mine. This is to be stored in Their annals, It said. Maybe even read. If so, then whoever or whatever reads, even a chance of your understanding is important to me. When I'm done I shall send this by secure transmission to the archives of the city furthest away from UMC and any outstation. The Giger too will make a record, via one of their energy probes. It will be a testament to Them, and perhaps to those whom They cherish.
It's time to go. Its hands are on me and Its hair surrounds me in an inky cloud - though to any who see us it will seem merely that two walk together side by side.
It's time to go. As I have said, fucking is the way I worship. And I for one have never refused the demands of my God.
Copyright Simon McMullen 1996/2006. Extensively re-written, 2006.
This is the end, now. In one sense there's almost nothing left to be said. In another, no matter what I write here, in what detail or at what length, I still could not exhaust what remains. Giger came back. He came looking for me, and he made me an offer. I could have refused, I think. But it would have made no real difference: I would have been unable to write these words, that's all.
You remember that single shot, from somewhere near Pluto? The one those two poor stupid bitches were fried for? It was a decoy. It had never been intended for it to pierce the shields. It was intended that it should destroy itself spectacularly - and so distract attention from another, much less powerful attack, one capable of completely bypassing our defenses as they then were, and making it safely to the surface. Which is exactly what happened.
What was in it? One of Them, of course. The Mad Bastards. The Enemy. The Bug-eyed Monsters of Planet Zzargg. It wasn't a Bug-eyed Monster, of course. It was one of us, down to the composition of the DNA and RNA. It was in every way a perfect replica. They, the Enemy... the Giger... are master manipulators of matter at sub-atomic levels, capable of shifting themselves into any desired shape. They take our form and they become us. They can even learn to love. The only way to tell us apart would be to dissect their souls.
Need I tell you what it did once it was here? It set up a Corporation. Need I tell you which one? Giger, Inc. All those goodies on which we so prided ourselves, the tachyon drivers, the Magnetomirrors, the oscillating shields and the Self-Replicating Cities... they were all the works of the Enemy. If it's any consolation, any sop to your pride (always supposing that those who come after me remain capable of feeling anything so... so fleshless...) we did succeed in burning some of the fucking things. Not as many as I would have liked, but more than They had anticipated. I hate being taken for a fool.
It was a kind of war in reverse. You don't defeat your enemy in battle. You persuade her that she's in love with you. You seduce her. You make her so like you, and the resemblance so obvious, that in the end there's nothing left to fight over, nothing left to fight for. Every 'advance' that brought us some advatange in terms of offense and defense also shifted the balance of human culture. Not in terms of the imposition of an alien ethos, but simply through the exacerbation of trends that were already there.
The total destruction of the original missile arrays on the Moon led directly to the development of hardwired clones. Hardwiring led to the clones being thought of as machineries of desire; a secondary, highly prized species serving the ends of their fully human superiors. They were not slaves, nor were they thought of as slaves - they were a new type of human, engineered to meet purposes not their own. No one in his right mind would have asked a clone what he or she wanted - because their 'wants' were predetermined and perfectly known.
The Self-Replicating Cities and their machines that were a hybrid of organism and mechanism blurred, and sometimes erased, the distinction between the two. It became less and less offensive to incorporate flesh within machines and machines within flesh. We loved our machines; our machines loved us.
UMC itself, its dedication, taught us that there was only one reason for living, only one cause to serve: the cause of continuing to be alive, at no matter what cost. To continue to use machines, to be a part of machines, to have them use you. The Enemy did to us only what we wanted them to do. What we wanted somewhere deep down inside. Not an Enemy at all, then: a lover, instead.
Giger came to my quarters the first night of his return to Main Compound, as I'd known he would. As before, there was wine and food ready. But at first we neither ate or drank. He said he wanted to make me an offer, that he wouldn't eat with me again unless I accepted. I don't think he had any doubt that I would accept - we had recognized one another. What offer, I said.
He didn't speak. Instead his whole body... shifted. I don't mean he changed position. I mean he became something else. There was a great burst of heat and the clothes he'd been wearing flashed into flame. Klaxons screamed and the fire suppressant system poured foam down on us both. I simply stared, overwhelmed by lust, terror, and understanding. I knew that firefighters would be at my door in moments but I couldn't move. I couldn't.
Its flesh was a luminous silvergrey, like bright moonlight seen through cloudy water. Inky hair fell from its head to its feet, pooling around it in ropes and cables. Its arms and hands were long and thin, the arms of a powerful woman. It had the breasts of a woman, full and rounded. But the lower body was that of a slender young man. Sprouting from between its thighs was an enormous penis, enormous testicles. At three quarters of its length the shaft split into three more, each coiling and writhing on the others like snakes do when they fuck. All of them strained to reach me.
The door burst open and the firecrew and their machines, medics, all poured through. From their expressions it was obvious they saw nothing out of the ordinary - just a couple engaged in the premlinary of a some game they liked to play, suprised by a technical malfunction. Perhaps they attributed the expression of utter shock I must have been wearing to some antiquated sense of sexual embarrassment - some unfortunates did still suffer in that way. Whatever they thought, no one questioned it.
Giger only had to utter his name - and a spontaneous breakout of acute deference made sure that everyone departed very nearly as rapidly as they arrived, followed instants later by the fastest and politest repair crew in the history of the UMC. They left and I was alone with It, the thing no one else could see, every atom of it pouring some cold, cold glamour over me. Inside my head there was a whisper like a razor blade. I felt every quiet syllable just as I would have felt a cut.
I liked it. That's why I listened. And because I listened I've written this. The Giger have no mouths. They have no eyes or ears, and so they can't see or hear or speak. But they can communicate - they vibrate atoms of air, or they make the neurons and synapses of the brain flash and dance to whatever tune they set.
"You you you" It said. "Mine mine mine." And I found myself in agreement with that. That was the first and last thing it said to me in words. Everything It told me from that point on It told in sequences of images that appeared on the Entertainment Center just like normal programming would. It stood away from me, in the shadows cast by the light of the screen, as I watched scene after scene unfold. There were times I tried to scream, but It wouldn't let me.
It showed me first the past. The reason for the 'war'. What we are to them. I used to use a term that described a certain kind of compliant, submissive, but ferociously extreme kind of sexual partner. I called them 'meat puppets'; if you put the hooks in just right and pulled the strings, they'd dance all night long. They wouldn't stop until either something essential broke in them or they dropped unconscious from exhaustion. That's what we, all of us, are to Them - their meat puppets. They think of us as very special pets; edible pets, because their uses for us, their pleasures to which they put us, consume us. We are very special to Them; precious, almost. Because it's in us that they have found an extremity of response that matches the extremity of their desire. There is no possibility that they will ever let us go.
Next, it showed me the future - and the bargain that was offered. I saw a world that was a garden of strange flesh, shaped and tormented by the will of zealous gardners to the satisfaction of stranger desires. And like cruel bees, shapes moved in the garden - tasting, savoring; exquisite connoisseurs of the most extreme sensation. And I saw how this world came to be.
I saw myself, sabotaging the shield system. I saw myself redirecting the Magnetomirrors to destroy the missiles and Command Post on the Moon; saw myself turning them against Earth, to fry the outstations. And finally I saw myself first initiate and then activate the Option of Last Resort - Main Compound's self-destruct system. All of this was to be done in order that the Giger could invade without suffering further losses, in order that large numbers of the human population would remain for the use of the Giger and to ensure that any resistance which might develop would be unable to make use of the resources of the UMC.
All of this could be done, but only from Main Desk. To exert the finest control over matter, the Giger have to be in the immediate presence of whatever they intend to manipulate, touching it in fact. It would have been blown apart by KillCity's guards the moment it touched Main Desk - whether or not the guards believed It to be Giger and no matter who else got in the way. The UMC had developed many kinds of hardwiring, not just the kind used on the clones...
And none of it could be done without my death. The offer It made to me was simply this - It would die with me. It would go with me to KillCity. It would embrace me as I released the poison gas that would kill the Desk Officers, their SOs, and the guards. It would embrace me, caress me, keep me alive while the poison did its work, while I fried both Moon and Earth, while I initialized the self-destruct system and sealed off KillCity from any possible intervention. It would embrace me, caress me, and consume me as the Option of Last Resort did its work.
It would die with me, so it told me in that icy, bloody whisper, because it would not share me with another. My God, it turned out, was a Jealous God. My reward was the knowledge that I had won, that I had gained a victory over the Giger that no other creature in all the worlds They knew had ever won and that in their annals I would be remembered forever and honored as one like themselves.
I said yes, of course. And it was no bargain at all, but a sacrament. It ripped my clothes away. Those long, elegant, slender fingers contained three inch talons, sharp as razors, the color of old blood. And then It filled me, penetrated me three times at once, and wih those talons it wrote on my flesh the iconography of Its desire, the map of all my dreams. When we were done it was I who was covered in blood and honey.
And when we were done I made my prayer, and asked for one thing - time to write this. I had no Duty for a further fourteen hours anyway: time enough I thought, if It could master Its desire as I would master mine. This is to be stored in Their annals, It said. Maybe even read. If so, then whoever or whatever reads, even a chance of your understanding is important to me. When I'm done I shall send this by secure transmission to the archives of the city furthest away from UMC and any outstation. The Giger too will make a record, via one of their energy probes. It will be a testament to Them, and perhaps to those whom They cherish.
It's time to go. Its hands are on me and Its hair surrounds me in an inky cloud - though to any who see us it will seem merely that two walk together side by side.
It's time to go. As I have said, fucking is the way I worship. And I for one have never refused the demands of my God.
Copyright Simon McMullen 1996/2006. Extensively re-written, 2006.
