The Profits of Apocalypse

"The Profits of Apocalypse" is the first story in a short fiction series called Hemegohm's Tendril which expands the narrative begun in the science fiction novel The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism.

---

The origin of the term Hemegohm's Tendril is uncertain. It is believed to be of military origin, possibly coined in response to drug abuse among soldiers in off world locales. Though its true meaning is still under debate, it is often applied to one of the known chronic side effects of the illicit drug Tigrizine (or Tigris), characterized by repeated sightings of spider-like creatures, generally thought to be hallucinatory in nature. Despite their alarming tendency to worsen and intensify over time, such hallucinations or "invasions" usually acquire mystical or divine stature among those afflicted. The United Galactic Military has studied these psychic infestations, but their results are still highly classified. Though the World Order has banned the drug on Earth and quarantined the Tigris solar system, the substance's popularity has only increased since the trial of Simon Shadow in 2167 (see Drug Abuse, Polyintoxicants, Simon Shadow, States of Consciousness, Tigris Quarantine, and Tigrizine).

From the entry Hemegohm's Tendril

Bendil Universal Encyclopedia

“There was at some point a first miracle. Some first occurrence of profitable circumstance. That is why we are in this business—this religion thing we do so well. That is why it is our right to make a profit—and to spread our ways across the frontiers, unifying and pacifying as we go.”

Pad Q. Glibbert’s eyes shone like tiny, piercing fires. The audience before him applauded, filling the vast League of Faiths Pavilion with a white noise of approval. There were no other sounds—no swelling of voices—only applause, deep, even and powerful.

“Six thousand years ago,” he continued, “there was a man—a great man—a shaman, for lack of a better term. This man once faced his terrifed tribe in the midst of a drought. Besieged by a ceaseless swarm of questions, he took up his staff and spear and ascended a sacred mountain, determined to find the water that his people needed to survive. But he was not just searching for water—he was searching for understanding. He wanted answers that would not come to humanity for many thousands of years—and in some strange way, I believe he sensed his place in the sequence of human ascension. He sought only to glimpse truth—not possess it, for he knew his life span was inadequate to deliver true understanding.”

“Today, as many of you now know, we have obtained that truth. We are the extension of that distant shaman—every one of us—but not wholly, for there is another side to this ancient story. I firmly believe that we are descended from this man’s rival—another shaman—who happened upon his own answer to the riddle of the drought. His weed-addled mind had been shown the most valuable thing of all—the power of endings—the power of apocalypse.”

The applause came again; Glibbert had stood before his constituents many times—had received dozens of ovations—it was habit for them to applaud, and it had begun to bore him; it interfered with his sense of rhythm and the ultimate delivery of his message, despite the fact this his ideas were well-known by now; he held up his hands to quiet them all, to dispense with these decorative responses. The crowd, however, would not have it, and continued. Glibbert smiled and glanced to his right, where his assistant Vissoon stood off stage; the man grinned knowingly, shrugged, held up his hands in answerless pride. As the noise began to wane, Glibbert gave Vissoon an appreciative nod, and spoke:

“Think of it, my friends—an ancient shaman climbs a mountain, and is met only by the mystery of an arrow in his back. We know this man existed. His remains have been in a museum on Earth for many years now. The cause of his death is quite clear. Did this shaman have time to run? Did he even have the chance to face his attacker? I think not. His quest to save his people came to an abrupt end, as he tumbled headlong into a crevice, propelled by that crude arrow. Did he die for his people? Simpler folk would say as much, for in time, the rains came; but as the land came to life once more, that rival shaman, the one who fired the arrow, found his power had grown; he'd woven a mountainous tale of death into a sacred story, thereby altering the consciousness of his own tribe. From the mountains he discovered the power—and the logic—of human sacrifice.”

“And so the rains came,” declared Glibbert, his fist slamming into the podium’s edge. “Coincidence, of course—the most powerful force in human civilization; it is the true gift—the true mystery. It still drives us—ever onward. But look at us—we are all good citizens, are we not? We have built our churches with quality in mind, with comfort as our goal. Having escaped the womb of Earth, we now grow—and live to further ourselves. We are all pious—we put our faith in coincidence and the masses bow down to us—and so why shouldn’t we profit from that? Why do some characterize our great spiritual achievement as wrong? I assert that we are the saviors of our civilization. I believe that it is our right—now, and in the future—to reap the profits of the Great Experiment.”

Glibbert scanned the throng—now a roiling mass of approval. His eyes wandered along the front row; he recognized many faces, and smiled at a few. They were the latest yield of the Great Experiment—new inductees into the League of Faiths, from colonies far and wide; Arch Fellows from the Western Edge sat harmoniously with Grand Magisters from the East; the seats adjoining theirs were taken by the Lord Rival Penchants of the Northern Frontier, and flanking them were the ever-patient Plaid Adventists from the Galactic South. Glibbert’s sense of timing dictated he continue, but a sudden succession of green flashes refracted across the podium’s surface, and then along the right side of his face, leaving irritating streaks within the confines of his eye; at that same moment, other similar flickers came from below—reflecting from the glittering raiments of those in the front row.

Glibbert looked off stage for Vissoon but the man had vanished. This fact generated a moment of unease, but he rationalized that perhaps Vissoon had already taken action; his assistant had often done so in the past, when an unruly room had imperiled one of his speeches; of course, this was his crowd, these were his people. Why would they deliberately cause a disturbance? Breathing deeply, he considered the spectators in the vast upper balcony—the stoic, ever-watchful forms of the United Galactic Military. Whereas in previous decades the military’s presence might have alarmed him, he now felt calm; things were different now between the League of Faiths and the military, and he was glad of it. He waited for the wave of applause to crash and dissipate before continuing.

“Our presence here, on the eve of the year 2200, is a symbolic gesture, more powerful than any of you can imagine. We represent a union of colonized worlds, held together by a profitable and expansive web. We are pushing the chaos of the faithless further away from the centers of old empires. When I first spoke before you, now over forty years ago, I was merely a guest speaker—one among many—promoting my book called Religion for Fun and Profit. Some of you may have read it.”

Pockets of laughter—some of it savoring the statement as if it were the most sacred of in-jokes—could just be heard in the vast room.

“The people of the Galactic Societal Organism want answers, my friends. They don’t want to think. Answers are what we give to them. We know the truth—as do many others; but knowing the truth is a far cry from understanding it and applying it to one’s own existence. We are the caretakers of this vast body. We are indispensable. We are demigods among the backward—”

The green flash came again, stinging his right eye. Fear surged; he felt—pain? And there was now a dancing black spot within his eye—no matter where he looked, a dreadful circle of nothingness evaded his focus.

“I’m sorry, but—I’m having—I can’t—”

His agitation was showing, his hands shielding his eyes from the glare of the stage lighting; the crowd before him reacted. Heads were turning. Glances were exchanged.

Glibbert needed Vissoon, and he sighed, relieved, when he perceived movement on the stage; someone had stepped from the darkness. Peripherally, he could see the familiar patterns of Vissoon’s robe.

Imploring his assistant to join him, Glibbert felt awkward in the moment that followed. Vissoon remained still, as if turned to stone, his robe discolored—spattered with something dark. His face was lost within the shadow of his cowl.

Glibbert knew only confusion. “Gentlemen, forgive me,” he said to the crowd, “I seem to have a problem—”

The shimmering flare that came next surprised everyone in the room. Glibbert’s headless body slumped forward, colliding heavily with the podium.

Those who had, by coincidence, made eye contact with Glibbert just prior saw only an implosion—a noiseless, sterile, and savagely brief sinkhole in the fabric of reality. It had been directed, this negation; it had come from the other man standing on stage, and it had taken anything it touched with it—Pad Q. Glibbert’s head, a section of wall on the far side of the hall, and the life of an unfortunate pedestrian outside.

The assassin who wore Vissoon’s bloodied robe strode quietly forward, holding a dark weapon, and with a robotic turn, unleashed its power upon the dignitaries at the front, skipping merciless spheres of negation across their numbers like stones on the surface of a lake. Heads imploded. Bodies collapsed. Limbs vanished. At the back of the room, great apertures were instantly punched through the walls.

Amid the resultant chaos, just behind the sixth row, Meinolf Gloomdred, Starless Magnate of the Unholy Mass, suddenly felt relief; his simmering resentment of the event planners who’d placed him so far back had dissipated as quickly as the bodies of those who’d been seated in the front row. Struggling to stand, his aged body failed him. Terrified people were pouring across the rows, and he was pushed to the floor, where his oversized, ceremonial phallus collided with his chin. The painful knock triggered a theatrical ejaculation sequence, and he found himself covered with a fragrant spattering of simulated semen.

“Damn thee!” he cried, gripping spastically at the spewing, metallic glans. His bony fingers could barely contain the flood. Powerless to correct the malfunction, he crouched, directing the discharge over his shoulder. He slowly made his way to the aisle.

At the same moment, a squad of soldiers were descending through the air from the upper balcony, guns ablaze. The stage, with its scene of decapitation, was ripped apart.

Somehow immune to the intersecting barrage, the assassin turned and transformed; the human shape shifted into a pattern, lenticular and sparkling—and then faded, leaving a spider-like construct of light in its wake. The podium was caught in the cross-fire, shattering, collapsing. The soldiers pounded onto the stage, their goggles affording a glimpse into every known spectrum; all they found was a tantalizing trace of gamma radiation, but it was enough to prompt another storm of gunfire, which shredded the expansive League of Faiths tapestry beyond. The soldiers quickly formed a barrier, their backs to the crowd. Behind them, the seating area was an undulating mass of destruction. Many lay dead, unrecognizable—their bodies neatly, bloodlessly carved into horrific new shapes. The medics, flooding the hall, quickly accepted there was nothing they could do. No one—not even the soldiers—had seen such a weapon before. Great shafts of space now extended downward into the hall’s foundation, spewing gas and flame from ruptured power and sanitation lines.

The crowd continued its struggle to escape, pressing and pushing, trampling and snarling; and while most were trying to get out, one among them was stomping and clawing his way toward the stage.

“Out of my way,” Gloomdred demanded.

“Not now, Meinolf,” someone said, trying to get around him.

“Turn that fucking thing off,” said another, wiping the still-flying simulated semen from his face.

Gloomdred launched a foul gaze in as many directions as his neck would allow, but it was met with indifference, if met at all. He continued to fight against the flow, his malfunctioning phallus bestowing an unintended crowd-parting utility. Eventually, he climbed the stairs to the stage, where the marines formed a porous barrier; most of them were still fixating on the area where the assassin had vanished, but one took note of Gloomdred's arrival, raising his weapon, his face contorting. Gloomdred's phallus was clacking now, its reservoir of fluid finally running dry. The soldier, bewildered, turned his attention to the stage again—to something that made a bit more sense, if only marginally. Encouraged, Gloomdred edged closer to the body of his headless mentor, Pad Q. Glibbert. The decapitation was clean, surgically precise, and the implications were vast. There would now be promotions—true advancements—within the League of Faiths. He had been overlooked in his later years for such positions, stigmatized, perhaps, for misdeeds that would now seem trivial. The League had been attacked, and it would, no doubt, need the kind of leadership he could provide. He’d been around—on the colonial forefront, the rotting edge of open warfare—for years. He was supremely qualified.

To Gloomdred’s right, and talking excitedly, a team of technicians was examining an array of items left behind by the assassin, including the weapon itself; it was a pistol of obviously unknown origin and power. Gloomdred decided to get closer, within ear shot, perhaps to get his hands on the thing, but as he moved, something crunched under his heel. At his feet was a pouch—more evidence of the assassin's handiwork—shiny black, embroidered, spilling an array of tiny, crystalline tablets or pills. The technicians had seen his approach.

“Don’t move,” barked the lead, motioning to the rest of his team to intercept.

They swarmed around Gloomdred, pushing him aside. Within seconds the analysis was complete. "It's Tigrizine. Extreme purity."

When they flipped the pouch, Gloomdred gasped at the design on its face.

“Shadow!” he hissed.

A flash of intense nervousness had gripped him, far below the belt. He sensed a bombardment of questions, but a familiar feeling of threat, of conflict and defeat, flooded his body; he couldn't answer. From stage right, another group of technicians had pulled the stripped body of Glibbert's assistant Vissoon from the shadows. The man's lifeless face was pale, drained of color. Gloomdred looked to those around him, and then back at the pouch. It was the Sacred Symbol of Delb—the sign of a long-dead god—a farce. His fresh memory of the assassin, a hooded figure in a borrowed, bloodied robe, replayed itself in his mind. The gait of the figure, the height, the build: had it been Simon Shadow? The man had disappeared en route to prison, long ago, never to be found. If it had been him—what had he become?

“It can’t be,” he whispered.

“You know this?” asked the technician.

Gloomdred’s eyes traced it—concentric circles, stitched in silver, filled by a maze of interior parallel and perpendicular lines. How long had it been since he last saw it? Twenty years? Thirty? Perhaps more. Of all his memories, of all his failures, those of the colony called Reetar burned the brightest, lit in perpetuity by the planet's twin suns. His mind drifted to the past, to a time when he'd been a fugitive, hiding in a cave north of Reetar Colony. He realized that some part of him was still trapped there, surrounded by the artifices of his trade, hounded by visions of his failed vendetta against Simon Shadow.

“This symbol—please,” begged the technician. “What does it mean?”

Gloomdred looked away, trying to regain his calm. His thoughts of promotion—of renewed power within the League of Faiths—abandoned him. The weight of his wet robe seemed unbearable, and he quickly pulled the release cord on his ceremonial phallus; it thumped to the floor.

“It means nothing,” said Gloomdred, his throat constricting.

Before anyone could ask for clarification, he hobbled away, desperate to escape the pavilion.

---

The Profits of Apocalypse © 2009 by James Kracht.
All rights reserved.

Literary Vacuum: A Tremulous Light

This article is part of an on-going series intended to clarify and expand upon elements of the novel The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism

---

The history of our species is littered with instances of colonialism. One of the earliest inspirations for The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism was the computer game M.U.L.E. by Ozark Softscape, published in 1983 for the Atari 800 personal computer. While nearly perfect in execution and tone, it was M.U.L.E.'s archetypal background theme that bestowed the game's true power. Primarily an echo of "colonization sci-fi" such as Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, the game casts you in the role of a lone colonist trying to survive the economic uncertainties of colonial existence. In a typical game of M.U.L.E., bad things happened to good colonists; good things happened to those who didn't deserve it; you might go hungry in the wake of a pest attack on your food supply, while rival colonists hoarded food and let it rot, rather than sell it to you, lest you get ahead. By the end of the game, however, players often pulled themselves together for the greater good of the colony. A strong colony became a destination for traders, where all the colonists did well (a victory); a failed colony became a lonely place, on few, if any, trade routes (a loss).

Having played M.U.L.E. countless times, colonialism often resonated in my thoughts as I grew older; it created a lens through which I looked at the world. It became a catalyst for thought and a microcosmic mirror.

On our planet, the dominant form of life is microscopic. Bacteria and viruses may not truly be aware of our civilization, but they do shape it. They have colonized our species like we might colonize a planet. They dominate our bodies. They intervene in our behaviors, just as dominant human cultures exert political, economic, and cultural control over weaker human cultures. Unlike viruses or bacteria, however, our species has mastered the art of influence, both in terms of military power and economics. Where those two forces meet, you find the choking bacteria-like bloom of religion, thriving, spreading.

In The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism, the world's most powerful governmental systems have aligned themselves into a single entity, known as the World Order. The narrative's speculative premise is that our planet will be faced with an overpopulation crisis, made worse by runaway environmental degradation. In the face of this global crisis, a new ideology emerges that legitimizes an overt form of population control; the promise is societal cohesion and protection, but the World Order is steeped in religiosity. It is essentially a values-based system, and while scientific discoveries ultimately allow humanity to colonize distant planets, the World Order's will to control remains ascendant. Humanity submits to it through a form of natural selection; though the World Order's corporate spirituality is riddled with incorrect causal associations and invasive dehumanizing practices, submission becomes essential for humanity's continued existence. To do otherwise risks our end.

Shimmerism, the fictional religion, is born on the fringe of the World Order, where its ability to control begins to fray. Shimmerism renounces the patternicity of bureaucracy in favor of the noise and chaos of free thought. Shimmerism sits in diametric opposition to the World Order and its tenets, and so it isn't really a religion at all. It is only cast in such a light because of the World Order's dominance. Survival of the fittest comes to the forefront; The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism is about what happens when harboring irrational beliefs becomes a survival strategy. It paints a picture of what the world would be like if modern religions actually got what they wanted: a timid, quivering civilization steeped in weird beliefs; a societal dead-end, where cause and effect are merely opinions; essentially, a world where humanity's evolved necessity to believe nonweird things is viewed more as a religion than not.

Literary Vacuum: Jettison the Onion

This article is part of an on-going series intended to clarify and expand upon elements of the novel The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism.

---

Problem: When attempting to think one's way out of the wet paper bag of religion, unless you're hopelessly devout (in which case you'll stay in the bag), any given exit will be seen as an attack on the bag itself, and thus, against anyone who is religious.

Thus, we glimpse the terrible beauty of religion. Unbelievers, surrounded by the thoughtless undead (the intellectually complacent, e.g., believers), come to realize that the very act of thinking critically about a particular religion is interpreted as a form of discrimination. Of course, this has everything to do with the weakness of religious thought, which appears to be devoid of logic and reason; its rhetorical power, however, lies in its delivery of a comforting disconnection from the true mystery of the universe. Believers subscribe to a convenient origin story that absolves them from learning; it shields them from the fear associated with an uncaring, disinterested universe. Religion nullifies the sublime fact that no one currently alive will ever have all the answers, and it tells them "You know enough. There is no need to learn anything more." And that is all religious folk really want: an answer to everything, gift-wrapped, with ribbons held aloft by soothing cherubim. And so the believer is caught in an unwavering dance, maintaining a position of diametric opposition from the unbeliever. It's an easy maneuver. Where religion is moral, critical thought is not. Where religion is divine, and thus, infallible, reason and logic are unimportant and ignored (in that order). No debate. No discussion. Religion simply doesn't handle criticism very well. It's a black and white system, with no tolerance for shades of gray.

So given this abrasive societal fabric (and minus the problematic debate on how to tell if someone can actually think critically or not, wherein unbelievers leverage something called evidence to make a point, and believers reject evidence altogether), how could anyone hope to write a science fiction novel that views religion with an adverse eye? At least not without instantly being dismissed as either pointless by those gifted with an ability to think critically (unbelievers), or condemned by those who lack such an ability (believers)?

That was the question that drove the construction of The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism. There are so many layers:

Onion Peelings

The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER PERDURABO, and laughed.
But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.
Below these certain disciples wept.
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
Others next laughed.
Next others wept.
Next others laughed.
Last came those that wept because they could not see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.
But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed openly, He also at the same time wept secretly; and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept. Nor did He mean what He said.


- The Book of Lies, Aleister Crowley

On, off. One, zero. Odd, even. Binary. And in the end, the idea that mystery trumps any expression of itself. Words are inadequate. So the problem of writing a science fiction novel that deals with the evolution of religion became even greater. Ultimately, the safety net of structure became my refuge; structure is one of the great conceits of religious thought: that all of this has happened before, and will happen again, like a vast machine, chained to repetition. We are born in one state of spiritual alignment, and must spend our lives attempting to alter it, to save or better ourselves in the hereafter.

On the largest scale, The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism has many machines - cranes, if you will - and on those cranes are hung gods, like lights in a tree. Modern readers, or perhaps literary critics who can't get enough Aristotle, view the use of a deus ex machina ("god from a machine") with suspicion, even derision. I can see why. Such a device - the sudden appearance of an unlikely character or event that resolves a bad situation - can instantly dissipate the nebulous contract between reader and author, rendering the author as unreliable or untrustworthy. I have to admit, however, that a deus ex machina is great fun. And at least when writing about the foibles of religious thought, perfectly necessary and indispensable. The most important aspect of it all, however, is the machine itself. The crane. Simon Shadow, the main protagonist, moves through his tale as if fated to do so. The United Galactic Marines Corps, orbiting the planet Reetar, exerts power over those below it, including Simon, literally and indirectly, accidentally and with hidden purpose. On the far side of the planet, the Children of Chearkin (a group of pious refugees suffering from an anachronistic hangover caused by their long transit to Reetar in hibernation), wander the desert, desperately seeking a fabled city of scripture. That they eventually reach the colony the moment it's destroyed has everything to do with the illogical nature of destiny, and by extension, religion itself.

Ultimately, The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism is about three distinct story threads unknowingly colliding; miraculous resolutions come to pass, but even greater problems manifest with gods and machines. In the end, nothing changes; lives are nothing more than programmed outcomes, and that's just how a majority of religions want it to be. Believers know what's to come; disbelievers do not. Why can't the former accept the latter? That's the question at the very heart of The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism. As far as I can tell, there's no answer, at least as long as religion plays such a monumental role in the lives of organisms on this planet. There was hope that people could laugh openly at these characters and situations, but at the same time perceive the innate sadness of it all. But like Crowley's onion, each successive layer (e.g., viewpoint) counteracts the next. Belief. Disbelief. Belief. So what do we find when we reach the core? I'm still not sure there is one. In fact, finding the center isn't important at all. The Rise and Fall of Shimmerism suggests our best option is to simply jettison the onion. Dump it in the airlock and move on as a species. As George Carlin would say: "I can dream, can't I?" And if I have to use a couple dozen deus ex machina moments to do so, that's no more (and a lot less) than religion has done for the past two thousand years.

Forecast: 212F, continued incompetence.

Note: people and organizations have been rendered as anagrams.

PHOENIX - For-profit education provider Allpour Goop Inc. said Wednesday that President Bairn Mullere resigned and stepped down from the company's board, effective immediately.
...
Mullere, who has been with the company since 1987, was president of Allpour Goop, Inc. since early 2006. He was previously chief executive of the Phono Fixe University online campus. Allpour Goop did not disclose the reason for his departure.

I know the reason. Complete incompetence. Hopefully, a ripple effect will now wash away the rest of the greedy, talentless, overpaid egomaniacs who rose to power in Mullere's wake.

But where is Mullere going? Turns out it's Gonad Cranny University, with an aim to take them public. Perfect fit, too. Gonad Cranny University is one of the more notorious cesspits of nepotism and religious favoritism in Arizona. He'll fit right in.

Synesthetic Response

Three on the list today...

Genghis Tron :: Board Up the House
(2008, Relapse)
Score: 9

Picture this, if you can. The frenetic drill-and-bass (keyboards, glitches and all) of Aphex Twin colliding head-on with Meshuggah's mathematics; sprinkle the wreckage with a (possibly) unconscious nod to Faith No More's textures (I hear it, at least), let the boys in Boards of Canada add some analog color to it all, and then market it to people who dig Dillinger Escape Plan. The result? Board Up the House. Remember, I said "picture this." Don't let the above comparisons linger in your head for long. Genghis Tron have delivered a sublime treatise, manufactured in filth on the surface of a neutron star, using a million pounds of noxious compounds, and several billion gallons of water to polish its aural surfaces to a toxic shine. Everyone should make music like this, but not all of us have access to a clean room. The chaos, the horror, the beauty, the relentless assault, and the wickedly soothing ambient lulls... truly original, and absolutely vital.

Opeth :: Watershed
(2008, Roadrunner Records)
Score: 10

Opeth's latest is a vast slab of conceptual density. So great is its weight that it's quite remarkable how high this material soars. This album is your destiny if dark rooms, trippy visuals, and quality headphones are the staples of your music consumption habits. There is so much going on here, it is difficult to know where to begin. Or end. It is sufficient to say that these aching and powerful compositions are supremely listenable. These songs are the darkness, and the light, caught in opposition. The songwriting is breathtaking. There is brutality in the mix, but it is all part of the plan. Watershed is perfect, from start to finish.

Meshuggah :: Obzen
(2008, Nuclear Blast)
Score: 11

Recall: the rating system goes from 1-10, with 11 reserved. Nothing ever gets lower than an 8, since material rated as such is not the focus of these digital droppings (remember: the system is arguably meaningless). Still, an 11 is important. Thus we have Obzen, the latest from Meshuggah. Perhaps it is an unhealthy bias (or an obsessive veneration), but the relentlessly addictive complexity of this music forces my hand: Obzen is Album of the Year, 2008. Nothing can touch it. After dozens of listens, one may finally grok its structures and intentions, but thereafter, this staggering work of genius takes on a life of its own. How can anything so heavy, so obfuscating, be so soothing? There are no answers. All we have is mystery. Luckily, Meshuggah made a stop in Tempe a few months back. Though their set was far too brief, it was a bit like popping by your buddy Erich Zann's place, finding the door ajar, and peeking your head in at just the right moment, when a stained glass window turns into a rift between disparate dimensions and something comes through. Unforgettable. The album's last track "Dancers To A Discordant System" is the skeleton key. It recalls "Straws Pulled at Random" (from their earlier album Nothing) but passes even closer to the center of a distant galaxy. To restate: Album of the Year, 2008.

The Infested Hive

Note: people and organizations have been rendered as anagrams.

In my corporate experiences over the last decade, I've discerned two basic types of "work environment." While some might accuse me of taking metaphors a bit too far, the imagery I'm about to employ has come to me via the medium of my dreams and, of course, my nightmares. I have processed my experiences through symbols, and I know them to be true (or at least valid in their metaphorical intent). I am not disgruntled, but I am horrified. I am filled with remorse that this is what our society has created, and that once great places of work have been turned into wage slavery camps.

I will state that I have been working in the graphic- and Web design realm for the last decade, and this is important in only one regard: I have never held a position of rank or power in these environments (e.g., I never managed other people). My role has largely been that of the expert, perpetually honing a skill; for me, work has always been about doing work, about being creative, as opposed to getting paid well to do nothing (e.g., managing other people).

That said, I'll begin with a description of the more positive of the two work environments. First up...

The Hive

While for some people this might conjure images out of the Alien films, or killer bees, I'm thinking more along the lines of honey bees. You know, our little friends who are responsible for a majority of the fruits and vegetables we eat. In the Hive work environment, individuals exhibit largely autonomous behavior, which is informed by notions of success or failure for the larger business. In this work environment, experts are allowed to be experts. Control over individuals is not essential, since control destroys productivity and the creative impulse. A tolerance for a lack of cohesion is what is important in a Hive. A Hive's shape can stretch and skew, bend and warp, yet the whole remains intact, functional.

I've worked in the Hive model before, and it is generally rewarding; stress levels rise and fall. Pressures increase and dissipate. People laugh. People complain. People form loose meta-hives to focus their collective skills to solve problems. None of it is rooted in cut-throat strategies or the themes of survival and competition. Is the Hive perfect? Perhaps not. Whole areas of the Hive can often be so out of touch with the central authority that they risk being cut off from the main, their worth forgotten in the wake of efficiency; however, individuality is often rewarded. A good Hive lets the workers themselves elevate its members. It is less about some abstract layer of management deciding someone has done a good job, and more about one's peers honoring the fact that you make their jobs easier. Admittedly, this is an idealized view of the Hive, but for the most part, it can and does exist. It's out there. Yet, similar to the plight of the honey bees, the Hive work environment seems to be in danger. Which brings me to the Hive's antithesis...

The Infestation

In this work environment, workers are parasites, attached to a money-dispensing host. Daily routine is based solely on the necessities of the environment: dishonesty and greed are the order of the day. Loyalties are bought via unwarranted promotions or secret wage increases. Relationships between people do not actually exist.

Am I exaggerating?

I watched in horror, a few years ago, as an Infestation consumed the Hive I worked in. I have written about this elsewhere, so I won't go into details, but the reality is this: the Infestation does not care about the individuals that make up the whole. The Infestation does not care about the host that it infests. The host, in fact, does not even know it is infested. Perhaps it is something the Infestation injects into the bloodstream of the company? A foul toxin of anesthetizing promises? The Infestation values contractors over full-time employees. The Infestation rewards incompetence because it is, itself, founded on incompetence. The individuals that comprise it are overpaid and lack talent. The Infestation gets things done by brute force. Throw a pile of twitching greedy organisms at a problem, and it either goes away or it gets solved.

A Scene from an Infestation

Every few weeks, the "Master Recruiter" from an IT staffing agency would show up, two dozen bagels in hand. He'd place the bagels on a shelf in one of the hallways. He'd give the sign, and an administrative assistant would send out an alert email: "Tom has brought bagels and cream cheese. They're in the usual spot."

I often made sure I was there before the announcement was made, if only to ensure a good vantage point. It was like watching wildlife from behind a blind.

A flood of people would soon appear. The Mass, I called it. My co-workers, silent; fifty people, shuffling into view. The only sounds were those of bagel packages and cream cheese being opened; plastic forks and knives clacking. No one spoke. No one laughed. Bagel obtained, they'd return to their cubes to put their sucking mouths back onto the Money Teat. Most of the Mass left empty-handed. The symbolism was powerful: play the game. Compete and you eat. There were only twenty-four bagels, recall. Twenty-six if the baker was happy. Twenty-six bagels for a floor of at least two hundred workers?

I witnessed this event many times over the last year, and I was always astonished by the dire faces and total lack of social interaction within the Mass. It was like watching exotic foreign fish being fed, trapped behind glass. Joyless and starved. Owned and observed. The only thing of value to the people who willingly participate in the Infestation is the blood of the corporation - the money. And the upsetting part is that the people that perpetuate this kind of work environment can't see it for what it truly is.

The Origin?

It saddens me that a company like Allpour Goop, Inc. would be unaware that the IT shop affixed to its underbelly is nothing more than a seething mass of greedy parasites, contradicting the very mission the company was founded upon. Do the Phono Fixe University students currently enrolled in the Information Technology program know what lies ahead of them? Or, chillingly, is the Phono Fixe University itself the problem? Has the for-profit education system spawned the monstrous mass that destroyed its once great IT shop? Is the Phono Fixe University partly responsible for the Infestation?

Las Plagas and Allpour Goop, Inc.

Note: people and organizations have been rendered as anagrams.

Las Plagas ("The Plagues" in Spanish) are a breed of parasitic organisms from the Resident Evil 4 survival horror video game. They are currently masquerading as CEO, CIO, directors, managers, usability experts and web designers at Allpour Goop, Inc.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As a shareholder (and as a former employee of more than six years), I find myself incapable of not commenting on the ripple effect of novice CEO Bairn Mullere's black/white “coaching style” of thought, and what it brought to those of us working down in the trenches (or, down on the hardwood, to use a metaphor he might understand).

I should clarify that there were once two distinct IT shops, each serving a different company. One served Allpour Goop, Inc. (the parent company of Phono Fixe University) and the other served the Phono Fixe University's spin-off Phono Fixe University Online (a separate company). It should also be noted that eventually PFU and PFU Online recombined and became the same company once more, which meant that the two IT shops were merged as well; the fact remained, however, that the division between these two IT shops was palpable. Their methods differed dramatically. In early 2006, the original Allpour IT shop was destroyed in a hostile takeover by the Online IT department, with the support of Bairn Mullere. Everyone in Allpour IT, from the CIO on down to the management layer, was removed and replaced; just prior to this reorganization, a barrage of promotions took place in Online IT. After the takeover, those of us who remained in the wreckage of Allpour IT were forced to align ourselves with new masters, many of whom had been our distant subordinates or peers only hours before.

The unethical specifics beyond this point are not truly important. What I would like to consider, therefore, is how the differences between these two IT groups first defined, and then redefined (for me, at least), the notion of "career" at Allpour Goop, Inc..

As a Web designer for Allpour Goop, Inc., I have two very distinct experiences of the management methods used in the two IT groups. I can summarize these experiences by using a single question, but rephrasing it to match the dominant outlook of each organization.

So imagine you're a dedicated employee; you've completed all manner of projects, received awards from various business units, and you're confident that there is room to grow within the company. Imagine that you actually care about your projects.

In the former Allpour IT (where I spent four years), the question asked of me during a performance evaluation was simple: "What have you done for us this past year?" And while it didn't always sound this way, or use these particular words, the question itself flows from the emphasis that Allpour IT placed on professional development for its employees. It placed the positive before the negative, and was aimed squarely at retention.

Post-takeover, in the new Allpour IT, the question became “What have you done for me lately?” This revised question flows from an emphasis on the negative, and is rooted in the concept of the performance-based work environment (e.g., a single negative trumps any and all positives). It's right off the sports page, and has nothing to do with careers or retention.

Notice how the language has changed, rooted in the carefree arrogance and self-obsession of the Incompetent ("what have you done for me"); this approach to the individual employee flows, to some degree, from Bairn Mullere's sports-centric view of the company as some sort of gigantic basketball game.

In my own experience, the “me” in the question was the inept manager or director (or in sporting terms, the team captain). In turn, managers and directors were asked the very same question by their superior, the puppet CIO (the assistant coach), who was then similarly queried by the CEO (the head coach).

Since I hate basketball, I'll use hockey (a far more interesting sport) to summarize what this means: as a player, I may have scored 2 goals and had three assists the game before last, but since I’m judged to only be as good as my last game, wherein I happened to have been held off the score sheet, the prior five point night counts for nothing; next game, I find myself at the end of the bench and given limited ice-time. When contract talks come around, I'm told I won't be getting a salary increase because of "gaps" in my on-ice performance.

Thus, in the new Allpour IT, full-time employees essentially became anathema to the system, since they can't be forced to work 70 hour weeks, and they are almost impossible to get rid of. They take vacations, they call in sick, and they have benefits! Each one of these is a negative. And all it takes, apparently, is a single negative, and your career is over.

The idea of having a “career” in the new Allpour IT is an impossibility. Which is why 98% of Allpour IT is now made up of contract employees. Contractors are easy to dump back to the minors (the staffing firms) when they don’t put in 16 hour days. Allpour IT, while coached by Bairn Mullere and his All-Star Team of Incompetents, has been transformed into a white-collar sweat-shop. For a company that often takes pride in affecting its customer's lives positively, the reality behind the key-carded doors of the company is in diametric opposition.

It's time to view the Incompetent at Allpour IT as what they truly are: parasites, destroying their host. The Las Plagas are among us. Bairn Mullere's coaching-oriented approach to management was dead on arrival in my view, and if you aspire to management, I hope you never resort to such a system. It shouldn't happen. Anywhere. Not even in Resident Evil.