Chief of Insidious Operations

Seven border machines circled the vacuum. Ultraculture Jones himself stood along iron railing overseeing the operation, casting orders into the multitudes, in command of tuning the reality frequency. Iron is realer than real: it grounds, dispels illusions and banishes spirits. How amusing that clever spirits would reverse the process, use iron to blanket the world in delusion. “This is where they determine what goes and what stays,” whispered Jillian to Jamie the Dwarf, wrapped in shadows of unmarked crates like shivering refugees covered in drapes, shipments to nonexistent dream lands. If you strained your eyes you could hear him screaming: “Tesla? Assign to Electronic Gulag, small time bureaucratic position. Reich? Disposal. Einstein… Mmph, we could use a man like Einstein, but shut him up, he forgets his place. Alex Chiu? Who the fuck is Alex Chiu?”

“Very abrasive, isn’t he? Quite admirable,” an unassuming man in a brown tweed jacket assembled behind them. “I’m Wilbur, Chief of Insidious Operations. That’s my blood you’re standing in.“ Suggestion was all it took. Psychological martial arts: enemies are trained in them. Jamie the dwarf went waddling backwards into dark. Useless for now. “What unit do you people belong to?” Janie the Cook stepped forward, sized the spook up and down, made measurements of how he walked what words he chose all in a split second of accelerated judgment. She became the group’s spokesman: “J, Letter, Alphabet, Language: English.”

“Oh, I see,” Wilbur, Chief of Insidious Operations tutted disappointedly, “That language is currently being eradicated, replaced by a bastardized jumble of numerals and symbols propagated by the telepathiphones. Would you care to watch yourselves be rubbed out forever?” Iron laugh cold and greasy, swaddled up the spine like a metal snake. Kundalini of the reverse moon.

Jamie the dwarf rematerialized in the spook’s inner intestines, bursting through his rotten guts as he regained his original size. “That’s your blood I’m covered in,” Jamie remarked over the empty face of his host. Biological martial arts: agents are trained in them.

J, Letters resume their original objective: retrieve math minds, disrupt the border machines if possible. Jillian sneered at the sight of them. “I hate them. Those ugly fish faces.”

“It’ll be over soon,” Janie cooed, turning to Jamie to hiss. “And you, you sneaky little bastard. What was that all about?”

“Last resort,” Jamie explained, embarrassed. “They’re rerouting physicists into information repositories for god’s sake! Desperate times, desperate measures…”

“Whatever,” Janie spat. “You know how poorly senseless violence reflects on the rest of the organization. We’re to avoid it to the best of our abilities.”

“But we’re not pacifists,” Jamie coughed at her revoltingly.

“No,” Jillian said quietly, “We’re not.”

“You’re okay with this?” Janie asked, concerned. Always looking out for little Jillian. As though little Jillian couldn’t handle her own. As though little Jillian weren’t capable of far worse than Jamie’s brash stunt.

“No,” Jillian said. “Let’s go.”