You ‘K, Man?
Chapter 5: A Night At The Opera If The Opera Was A Museum
Me Da and me ‘ad to step lively on over to try and nab, or ‘snatch’, if you will, a trinket from antiquity that turned out, rather, was secretly a source of great telepathic power-enhancement…
especially in an age of ‘5G’ networks.
The aliens’d needed ‘em a lil bio-brain-cradle for their silly hypothesis-disproving neural-net world bit o’ business, or what-’ave-ya.
I confess myself to be less-than-clear on the details,
or, indeed,
on which details I may or may not have known at this point,
as things really started to ratchet the ‘ell up.
Me Da and me,
We left the twitching body of the Roma Telepath on the ground,
in the alley.
They’d been drinking a lot — twas an elegant solution to the problem.
No one had to know a thing.
…
The British Museum is built like an old Greek Fortress —
but there’s a reason they stopped buildin’ em that way, know what I mean ?
There was probably some reason they started, too, come to fink of it.
Perhaps to please their gods.
I must admit I have some difficulty recollecting my time around all of those artifacts…
a *lot* of them have psy-resonance to em, still — the half-life/s on all different kindsa radiation can be long.
Money, implicitly — the coins.
Weapons, often — the blades.
Remains, of course — the smiling skulls.
That resonance messes with memory quite a bit, if you’re casting about telepathically, trying to find the Krown of the First Kaesars.
Messes with memory in perpetuity, to whit, what’eva, I ain’t even boffered.
…
Much like in ‘Harry Potter’, upon which it seems a lot of the real world is based (or, somehow — vice-versa),
powerful magical artifacts will have guards around, and ‘spells of protection’
or reasonable equivalent.
In this case,
the NATO officer on duty protecting the literal and figurative jewels of the realm
was a bloke known to me Da,
and wut knew ‘im as well.
They ‘ad been in the muck’n’ruck together, or what-have-ye.
The burly fella was like a brother.
That made the death quick and merciful,
or at least,
that’s what all psy-battles look like from the outside.
Perhaps it was a struggle of a thousand years.
I weren’t privy.
Likely it was quick and merciful…
within reason.
The psychic dead-man’s switch wut Big Fat Andy’s death triggered:
that turned out to be kinda slow and painful,
in consequences educed,
‘least.
…
They were on us in an instant —
also very much like that scene in ‘Harry Potter 1’,
towards the end,
with the snitches or whateva chasing em all round that dungeon,
if ya remember.
These swarming drones that came for us,
not disturbing the silence of the locked-down night-time British Museum,
were more like,
psychic reliquaries of undead consciousnesses existing in gems that were intra-molecularly photovoltaic in some minute way,
and these mounted firmly (removed from whatever weapon or crown or garment or weapon or chalice or relic or weapon they’d been found in)
onto sleek modern drones,
of a cooly ‘hovering’ type
not yet available to the minds of the masses.
They should’ve given the drone-minds guns on those drone-bodies.
As it was, they were designed to psy-attack en masse and gain will-control over any and all prospective grand grand grand grand larcenists.
Poor bastards, some of em thousands of years old, trapped in their silent hells simply awaiting a genetic match that would never come…
those lines were extinguished.
Although, with modern DNA and gene-editing…
But I’m gettin’ far-off the bleeding point again, ‘ere.
Point is, guv, those drones didn’t stand a chance,
Dusty Ozymandias-ass berks as ‘ey were.
Me Da and I started ‘pinging’ off of each other,
like amplifying waves, creating massive amounts of raving psychic energy,
destroying and taking over these drones en-masse.
…
NATO had been getting complacent, lax —
that Roma would’ve definitely been able to steal the Crown of the First Kaesars back, absolutely no problema.
Me Da was constantly subtly suggesting to my mind that he was, hence, totally correct in these rogue actions of treasonous statecraft, and also very good at Trivial Pursuit — thus, he should be feared.
It was this hubris which proved his undoing,
or at least,
foiled a large part of his evil scheme.
Get this, bruv:
I *did* feel a fear beginning to overcome me,
the closer we got to the purported Crown…
But it wasn’t just psychic dominance from afar.
…
When we got to the back-catalgoue area, to the bin where the Crown was supposedly kept, I was shocked.
Didn’t know why so shocked…
It was just two crowns, instead of one big one.
But the fear was palpable on my tongue, and my heart was beating like death was on the line and I’d bet against a Sicilian.
Underneath my consciousness, I knew.
I knew what my father’s cruel and evil plan was…
I remembered, suddenly, that this was basically the guy wut’d been responsible for my Mum’s death. I saw him visiting her, promising her the best treatments, for her services to ‘her’ government…
For passing on ‘her’ gift, for helping with all the telecomm infrastructure…
For love. For love of ‘her’.
I was raised without a father, you know?
I have no father.
And *that* man: only ever loved himself.
The Cowls of Dynasty looked like jeweled, uncomfortable,
chain-mail head-dresses.
They were used for forced transference of psychic consciousnesses —
one-way, traditionally.
My ‘father’ planned on using them to take over my body,
killing ‘me’ completely, mentally —
or, at best, imprisoning me in a state of psychic slavery/eternal torment.
…
Not a very good Dad, huh?!?
I should’ve known from the time he gave me that meth —
I should’ve known from the meth, on.
Or, perhaps earlier, when he made me think I’d killed that dog.
Well, ‘e was eloquent, and I was bleedin’ grieving, what can ya bleedin’ do?
It’d been a weird coupla days. Lotta travel. Hey, We all know what British Rail does to a person’s faculties of rational self-interest.
We were about to have a desperate, no-holds-barred psychic duel to the death,
which I surely would have lost, but perhaps, stroked-myself out before losing, thereby depriving my genetic sire the ideal next-life he craved,
the freakin’ bloody mental vampire —
about to have this duel,
when, wouldn’t ya bleedin’ know it.
NEPTUNE ATTACKED!
…
TBC…
