The archives

Herman Carter: Ascendance

Imbecile. That's what he calls Professor Blanchard. The imbecile is choosing two students to lead a research assignment in an abandoned farmhouse. Carter knows he's going to be selected. He's the best in the neuroscience program. The best at The Léry... The Léry... It could only be The Léry. The Léry or The Allan. Two institutions with a history of working with the government to push the limits of psychology beyond the code. Not beyond the code. Despite the code

The papers coming out of The Allan amazed him. Captured him. Inspired him. Had he been Canadian... it would have been The Allan. Or what many called, Ravenscrag. The experiments they conducted were brilliant. Cutting edge. Mind-shattering. He wishes he were a student in the fifties studying under Lord Crag. The nickname patients gave the genius at Ravenscrag. Lord Crag returned from the trials with ideas. Not cautionary tales. Not disgust like the other bleeding hearts who condemned the doctors who would, anyway, be smuggled into his country and be given the highest positions in government in exchange for their discoveries. Lord Crag took the experiments he had heard about to the next level and Carter... Carter hopes to do the same. But not with this professor. Not with Blanchard. Dr. Blanchard. Dr... Bleeding-Heart-Blanchard. He has no idea what real power is. Real power is freedom. True freedom. Freedom beyond the limits of ethics and morality.Carter's leading the research assignment with another peer. The challenge: Secure the secret word through the good-doctor-bad-doctor interrogation technique put forward by some other bleeding-heart imbecile at some other institution. He's bad-doctor. Bad-doctor with a code... a list of dos and don'ts the imbecile gave him. Very limiting. Too limiting. Self-limiting even. How is he supposed to secure anything with these limits? Surely he realises how futile the experiment is with this code. Nevertheless, he tries. He shouts at a fellow student sitting across the table from him. Shouts? Big deal. Tell me or I'll... shout again. The student doesn't take him seriously. He's play-acting fear. It's all make-belief for him. I should smash his skull and yank the secret word out of his sub-standard, mediocre brain.Second day and nothing. Carter's frustrated. Really frustrated. At least they're tied up. All seven of them. But it's still not enough. They need to take the interrogation to the next level. Deprive them of food and water. They'll talk. When their cells begin to self-cannibalise... they'll talk. Better yet... he wants to deprive them of sleep. Sleep deprivation... Removes masks. Lowers guards. Makes prisoners talk for the promise of a few minutes of sleep. The seven prisoners stare at him. They know they're safe. He can see it in their eyes. Limits. No one got anywhere respecting limits. He despises his colleague. Good-doctor. He'd have the secret by now had he been working alone and without a code.

Ridiculous limits. Skinner knew better. Put his own kid in some kind of a box for years just to see what it would do. Huxley worked for the secret service and wrote truths as lies in Brave New World. War of the Worlds was another great test in mass propaganda. The power of the radio to induce fear and anxiety in an unsuspecting audience. The power of fear and anxiety to inspire silence and indifference, and create perfect consumers. Ethics. Morality. Limits. For sheep, not shepherds.

Carter feels anxiety unlike he ever felt as he watches good-doctor interrogate one of his classmates. He approaches him from behind with a piece of wood. Something he found on the ground. Raises the make-shift club. Before he realises what he's doing he pounds the good-doctor's head. Pretend fear becomes real fear as his fellow students stare at him in horror. No more good-doctor. No more rules. No more limits... except the limits of his imagination.

Carter ties a student to a chair. Warm blood drips everywhere. He twists pieces of flesh off his face... The sheep look away but never up. With terrible moans and squirms he gets a secret word from each and every one of them: New. Reich. Horizons. Fourth. Bird. Kill. His classmates beg to be released. They sob and agonise in their chairs. They plead the experiment is over. You have the words! You win! We're done! Carter smiles. He's still got a few days. A few more days and a few more experiments to run. Could put his career at risk... but... he's got the good-doctor to take the fall. I'll take what I learned from Lord Crag and lobotomise these imbeciles and manipulate... no... not manipulate... manufacture... yes... manufacture reality.

Music blares. Eyes are kept forced open with toothpicks. Carter piggybacks a looping song with an inaudible subliminal frequency to evoke fear, anxiety and discontent. He experimented with the loop on his parents. Always caused a fight between them. He doesn't remember where he got the loop. He first read about the subliminal frequency from advertisers. Advertisers deny subliminal loops work. Of course, they do. Advertisers deny they use subliminal loops. But... they do. They use them, and they work. They must. They must because peace and contentment is our natural disposition. War and discontent needs to be instilled, enforced, manufactured, repeated over and over again until it's the main script in the collective consciousness.

PAPERCLIP. BLUEBIRD. MKULTRA. MKDELTA. MKSEARCH. They were all necessary. Lord Crag had the right idea. Good instincts. So did the Black Sorcerer and the Dirty Trickster. They inspired all the goodies he brought with him in his bag. Music. Drinks. Drugs. Lots of drugs. For a moment just a moment he hesitates. He'll probably go to jail for a long time if he uses his goodies. But... being free... being truly free for a few days... is worth a lifetime of imprisonment. But I won't get caught. Good-doctor will.Carter wonders if he can re-mother these sheep. Re-mother. He loves the term. He wishes it was his own but it's not. Shock them with electricity and expose them to endless images of death, chaos and destruction. Traumatise the brain. Empty it. Lobotomise these subjects to re-mother them with new personalities. He wonders if he could re-mother these sheep into wolves. Get them to kill each other. Better yet... turn these good, law-abiding students into serial bombers. He rips the plug out of a lamp. Splits the wires. Peels the wire. Places the exposed wire into a student's mouth. Slowly approaches the socket, taking in his terror. Plugs it in. Screams as he re-mothers this exemplary student. A putrid smell of burning hair and skin reaches his olfactory receptors. There's another stench. Imbecile soiled himself. Carter laughs. He hasn't been this stimulated in ages. To be free. Ah... to be truly free.Carter hasn't had this much fun since he first tried to transplant a mouse brain into a rabbit. A week isn't enough. He wishes he had more time. He needs more time. There are new avenues within the mind to explore. Too many avenues, not enough time. He wishes he had the tools to operate on their brains. There are knives in the kitchen. Could work. Not surgical precision. But... but enough. He's read about a gland in the brain that looks like an eye. A gland that supposedly secretes DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine). A kind of mystical, hallucinogenic drug. He wonders if he can extract it from a living subject. He wonders what a good dosage of human DMT does to a test subject.

Carter unties a rope. He's going to release good-doctor. He's pumped him with drugs and programmed him with new thoughts. He believes the other students are Russian spies that need to be executed for national security. He unwraps the rope and places a screwdriver in his hands. He changes his mind. Removes the screwdriver. Replaces it with a fork. Changes his mind again. Replaces the fork with a spoon. He's never seen a spoon used to kill a human being. He backs away from good-doctor who is lost and confused. Re-mothered. He says a phrase. The moon is down. Confusion becomes clarity as good-doctor stands and approaches the Russian spies with... a spoon. Brilliant.

Bleeding-Heart-Blanchard returns to the farmhouse with a group of men Carter's never seen before. They look like government men. He suppresses a smile and tells them good-doctor got out of hand. Took things a degree too far. He barely got out alive. Blanchard tells him to shut up. His tone is different. He doesn't sound like an imbecile. We tapped the whole thing. Carter exchanges a look with the men in black suits. He doesn't understand. The imbecile enters and does the unexpected. He stares at the barely breathing student unperturbed. No fear. No panic. No emotion. Nothing. He grins and mumbles something to himself in German. He turns to Carter with a smile. His smile turns to a grin when the men in black suits handcuff and arrest him. Blanchard whispers. Looks like you had your chance to make merry hell and took it. The cuffs are just for appearances. I... I... don't understand. Yes... you do. You understand much more than the others. Welcome to MKAwakening.