Daisy Donnie: Random Access Memories » Miss Rook

Pornography (part 3)

Lisa Sinclair — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:52:41 +0000

Elvis and The Assassin ran along the gantry from which Donnie had fallen some hours earlier. A size eight ladies shoe lay there, a stain of blood on it.

The skylights exploded with flashes of light and glass showered the two men and the surrounding area.

Dozens of white and black-clad people rappelled down like a French trapeze act. The white were rabid members of The Sisterhood; the black, BSD thugs.

‘Got any bullets? Mine’re gone.’ said Elvis as he ran beside The Assassin.

He caught the box of shells that The Assassin tossed him, and reloaded as he ran.

The Assassin fired two shots at the door at the end of the gantry and they pushed through into another section.

They turned and rushed down some metal stairs and once at the bottom they stood a moment, to allow the new arrivals to depart. As ordered, the white and black members of the opposing groups had other fish to fry.

* * *

‘This says that the path to enlightenment is to see the world through the eyes of a child.’ said Daisy-Donnie paraphrasing the book.

‘Yes,’ replied Madame Pink, her attention on the screens. She glanced down and pressed a red button on the console before her.

* * *

All around alarms screeched. An automated voice spoke over the PA.

‘This is an evacuation notice. Leave the facility by the nearest exit. This is not a drill.’

This suited Elvis down to the ground; it meant they could get in and out without too much unpleasantness.

They turned a corner and came to a screeching halt.

‘There you are.’ said Colonel Panix, standing at the end.

‘You should give yourself up,’ said Miss Rook. ‘This is no-longer your fight.’

‘Now what the hell do we do?’ Elvis hissed, directing the question at his compadre.

The Assassin stood calmly and didn’t respond.

Panix licked his lips and declared with a patronising grin. ‘Your time is past. The Church of Elvis is dead.’

Elvis took a deep breath, readying himself to throttle Panix once-and-for-all.

‘Colonel Panix,’ said The Assassin. ‘And Miss Rook. You are delaying us on a mission of great importance.’

‘And what would that be?’ asked Panix.

‘There is a central control-room for the weapons you have been advised of. We have approximately five minutes before they are detonated.’

Panix and Miss Rook stared.

‘You have heard the evacuation notice,’ he added. ‘Time is not on our side.’

He paused for effect before continuing.

‘Unless we stop the count-down,’ continued The Assassin. ‘This will become ground-zero of a thermonuclear explosion that will be remembered for as long as humans walk the Earth.’

* * *

Daisy-Donnie turned on the swivel chair, glanced over their shoulder and surreptitiously pocketed The Book of Cubes.

Madame Pink and Monsieur Bleu remained focussed on the screens.

Daisy-Donnie stood and wandered over to peer at the screens. Several showed what looked like a black and white movie, people running around wearing matching clothing. Others showed empty corridors.

‘Oh. There’s Elvis,’ said Daisy-Donnie.

Elvis was indeed on the monitor, running along a corridor with three other people.

On one monitor he ran towards the camera. On a monitor beside it, the reverse angle, he and the others ran away.

Madame Pink and Monsieur Bleu looked up at the screen, then turned to face each other.

‘Perfect,’ they said as one and stood.

Monsieur Bleu slid open a drawer and produced a taser. He aimed it at Daisy-Donnie.

‘Now wait just a minute,’ said Daisy-Donnie. ‘Aren’t we past all this nastiness?’

Kzarrrrpp!

Daisy-Donnie collapsed to the ground, the twin barbs catching them in their ample chest.

Madame Pink knelt and sliced Daisy-Donnie’s left wrist with a silver dagger. Blood trickled from the new wound, and pooled beneath the limp wrist.

They lifted Daisy-Donnie’s ankles and dragged the body unceremoniously out of the room.

* * *

I’m gonna give up exercise, thought Elvis as he ran down the corridor. I’ve fulfilled my quota for this lifetime.

Behind him were Colonel Panix and Miss Rook; the former on the brink of a coronary, wheezing heavily; the latter irritated with the situation at large, but amused her opposite number might not make it.

* * *

Daisy-Donnie awoke in familiar surroundings.

‘Haven’t we done this before?’ they asked. ‘I thought we were all friends now?’

Daisy-Donnie was once again strapped to the table, the laser was activated and cutting slowly towards their nether regions.

‘Look, what is all this?’ asked Daisy-Donnie. ‘I don’t get it? First you turn the laser on me and let me go, now you’re doing it again? I don’t understand!’

They yanked unsuccessfully at the bonds.

‘You are going to die,’ said Madame Pink.

‘Is this the point where you tell me your nefarious plans?’ asked Daisy-Donnie.

‘Certainly, if you desire it.’

‘We created the BSD and The Sisterhood,’ said Madame Pink, circling the table.

‘We created the factions and they created us,’ continued Monsieur Bleu, following on the opposite side.

‘How’s that then?’ asked Daisy-Donnie, disbelieving. ‘One has to come first.’

The smell of white-hot metal assaulted their nostrils; they glanced down at the slowly approaching laser with real fear on their face. Their heart-rate began to increase.

‘After some false-starts, we reasoned that in order to achieve our goals we had to nurture two distinct groups,’ she said with a creepy smile.

‘False starts?’

‘We dabbled with the music industry, experimented with the concepts of popular music in an attempt to determine intelligence and longevity.’

‘Universal Promotions,’ Daisy-Donnie gasped.

Madame Pink nodded, smiling acknowledgement. ‘The experiments were a failure, but they revealed we had to be more directed; male and female minds work at right-angles to one-another.’

‘So we separated them,’ continued Monsieur Bleu. ‘We guided and helped them to see the state of the world for what it is.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Daisy-Donnie, looking down at the laser once more. It had moved a couple of inches. ‘We couldn’t possibly turn this off and have a chat in the nearest coffee shop could we?’

‘Humanity is stagnating,’ said Madame Pink, ignoring Daisy-Donnie’s coffee-shop crack; she’d tasted airport coffee and wanted no part of it. ‘In certain cases it is devolving.’

‘We save the weak,’ explained Monsieur Bleu. ‘We nurture the poor. We permit sub-standard genetic material to circulate.’

‘Oh my…’ breathed Daisy-Donnie.

‘Those that cannot reproduce through normal means are helped,’ said Madame Pink. ‘Desires are put before the good of the species.’

‘We decided to put humanity first.’ said Monsieur Bleu.

‘Survival of the whole is more important than any one of its individuals.’

* * *

The Assassin stood beside the door, back the the wall. He turned the doorknob and kicked the door with a heel.

Elvis took a quick peek around the corner.

‘Empty,’ he said. Then glanced in once more. A small child stared up at him.

They entered the room, observing the wall of screens before them. There was activity on most of them. Superimposed over all of the screens were numbers which were slowly descending.

The Assassin scanned the console and found the button. Beside it was a button marked ‘Abort’.

‘Better late than never,’ said Elvis.

The Assassin turned to face The King.

‘Now,’ said Elvis. ‘Now would be a good time. Oh goddamn it.’

He stepped forward and reached out for the button.

The Assassin grabbed his arm.

‘We don’t have time-’

The Assassin reached down with his free hand and flicked another switch.

‘Booby trap,’ he said, releasing The King.

Elvis stabbed the Abort button.

The numbers flashed on and off, holding at 01.

‘Shit that was close,’ he breathed.

Over on the other side of the room, Miss Rook stood watching the screens. Her people had been successful. The nukes were being wheeled out.

‘They’ve secured the nukes,’ she announced.

‘Remember our deal,’ said Panix in a sotto voice, stepping behind her.

She glanced in his direction. ‘Would you let me forget?’

The Assassin scanned the screens but none revealed what he was looking for. He stepped back and slipped slightly.

He crouched down and touched the floor and lifted his fingers to his eyes.

They were wet with blood. He stood and glanced downwards, following the drips to a door at the back of the room.

‘Come on,’ he said urgently.

The Assassin and Elvis ran the door.

Alone in the silence of the surveillance room, Colonel Panix and Miss Rook watched the last of the nukes removed from their storage room.

‘It’s done.’

‘Not quite,’ said Panix.

Miss Rook glanced up, an eyebrow raised.

‘I have some unfinished business,’ he said, turned and spoke into a radio. ‘Team Amber; Meet at this location…’

Rook lifted her radio from her belt. ‘Evacuate, now.’

* * *

Shit, thought Daisy-Donnie. Next it’ll be blonde hair and jack-boots.

‘The Tinwhistle equations were only the beginning,’ said Monsieur Bleu. ‘We examined them at length, but they were only circular arguments, everything pointed to itself. Something was missing, some link.’

‘Tinwhistle,’ asked Donnie.

‘And we found it: That link was you,’ said Madame Pink. ‘You could jump from reality to reality, you are the next level of human evolution.’

‘Once we found that out, we were determined to see it happen,’ Monsieur Bleu continued. ‘When The BSD and The Sisterhood had achieved with science what pure breeding could not, we allowed them to modify our DNA.’

Oh, god, thought Daisy-Donnie, shocked. That’s repulsive.

‘We will be the parents of future generations,’ they said as one, glancing upwards, ecstatic looks on their faces.

* * *

Miss Rook and Colonel Panix turned at the sound of a small child.

‘He’s a boy,’ said Panix, staring at the child.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Rook.

They stared at one-another.

‘If you take him, you’ll turn him into a mindless idiot,’ said Miss Rook.

‘And if you do, he’ll become a donor,’ said Colonel Panix.

The child giggled and pushed himself to his feet. He closed his eyes and disappeared.

* * *

‘You’re mad,’ said Daisy-Donnie, feeling an idiot for stating the bleedingly-obvious.

‘They gave us incredible intelligence and perception,’ said Madame Pink.

‘And now we have you, we can make the final connections,’ said Monsieur Bleu. ‘We can speak with the universe.’

‘And you will help us,’ said Madame Pink, a triumphant smile on her face.

‘How can I give it to you if I’m dissected?!’ pleaded Daisy-Donnie. These were by far and away the craziest people they’d ever met in their lives. No-one came close; not Panix’s psychosis, nor Rook’s obsessive intensity.

Madame Pink and Monsieur Bleu smiled knowingly and withdrew into the shadows.

‘I’m not on speaking terms with the bloody universe!’ yelled Daisy-Donnie, struggling with the bonds. They were well secured this time. ‘It doesn’t like me! It’s been trying to kill me my whole life!’

‘Are you there?’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

* * *

The Assassin kicked the door open and burst into the room.

In the middle was a metal table, above which a laser cut slowly from one end to the other.

On the table was Daisy-Donnie.

‘There!’ yelled the Assassin. He ran forward to the table, then jerked to a stop, as if he’d run into a wall.

He screamed in agony.

A sphere of arcing blue electricity surrounded him and lifted him into the air, rotating on one axis and tilting on another. Soon he was perpendicular once more. The Assassin was frozen, yet aware, screaming with pain.

Elvis stood transfixed.

‘Would you mind helping please?’ called Daisy-Donnie, watching the laser cut the final centimeters toward their groin.

* * *

Madame Pink and Monsieur Bleu stepped calmly from the shadows to admire their handiwork.

‘At last,’ said Madame Pink

‘The Prophet,’ said Monsieur Bleu.

They looked upwards at The Assassin.

Click to see the next installment: Pornography (part 4)

The Grand Adventures of Daisy Donnie by Lisa Jane Sinclair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
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Wine, Women and War

Lisa Sinclair — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 08:35:48 +0000

She opened her eyes and winced from an eye-watering, skull-splitting headache. She felt instinctively between her legs and found something different.

Donnie looked down and saw an empty plate. On a table.

He looked up with a frown.

‘Would sir like to see the wine list,’ asked the waiter.

Donnie fell sideways from his chair, pain the only thing registering through the violent headache exploding through his brain.

‘Ahem,’ said the waiter. To Donnie he sounded like he was yelling through a 6000 watt PA system with the volume set to 11.

‘Please don’t speak so loudly,’ hissed Donnie as he clawed his way upwards again.

‘Terribly sorry sir,’ whispered the waiter, playing along. ‘Would sir wish to see the wine list?’

‘Ooo,’ said Donnie, a grin on his face. He winced from additional movement and while his conscious mind tried desperately to work out which muscles should stop moving, his unconscious formed a rather useful algorithm:

Begin

Repeat

If MyHeadHurts = true

and

Booze = true

then

Drink Booze

Until MyHeadHurts =False or LiverGivesOut=True

End

Donnie blinked a couple of times, and the logic made sense. He looked up and smiled some more, though not without further pain.

‘I would love to see the list,’ he said in an agonised whisper.

The waiter handed him the document with considerable distaste; it wasn’t becoming to lust after alcohol.

‘Hmm, old and dusty, old and dusty… ‘murmured Donnie. He looked up and addressed the man in another whisper.

‘I’ll have the Chateau Neuf ’35.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘And something to eat? Sir.’

Donnie gave him a blank stare.

The waiter coughed an ‘A-hem’; politely pointing out that he was making some kind of point which had hitherto not been noticed by Donnie.

‘Just the booze,’ whispered Donnie, now sure his brain was being pushed out of his ears like mince through a mincer.

‘The Armenian salad is particularly good tonight,’ insisted the waiter.

‘Does it have alcohol in it?’ whispered Donnie, checking his ears. No blood; of course, all that proved was that he was fundamentally brainless.

The waiter looked uncomfortable.

‘I am not aware of this possibility, sir.’ He coughed another ‘a-hem’.

‘Right, off you go then,’ said Donnie, fingering his ears; there had to be something coming out, surely? Other than earwax of course. ‘And bring my plonk forthwith.’

The waiter turned on his heel and stalked off.

Donnie closed his eyes in an effort to reduce the pounding agony he was experiencing, slowly letting the pain migrate from hemisphere to hemisphere and finally coalesce in his upper neck.

A can rattled loudly beside his left ear.

Donnie screamed and fell sideways from the chair, holding his head in his hands in an effort to stop the agony.

‘Would you like to make a donation,’ asked the young man standing beside the now vacant chair. ‘It’s to save endangered sea life.’

‘Only if you stop shouting,’ hissed Donnie. With white spots popping in front of his eyes and the pain back in his cranium, he crawled back onto the chair.

The waiter placed the requested bottle on the table and, in a most contemptuous way, paced off once more without even so much as pouring a sample for Donnie to try.

Not that it mattered of course. Donnie focussed on the bottle while murmuring to himself.

‘MyHeadHurts is true, Booze is true.’ He nodded with a smile. ‘Repeat…’

One of Donnie’s great unsung talents was a total lack of a gag reflex. He synchronised his breathing and guzzled the contents of the bottle in one go.

The man with the can winced slightly at the sound of the last of the expensive wine being sucked from the bottle.

Donnie pulled the empty receptacle away from his mouth. He gasped and sniffed, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Oh,’ he said after another moment, and noticed the pain had dulled substantially; the nuclear bomb tests going on in his skull had been successfully disrupted by a protest flotilla of nearly a liter of a good quality French red.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Donnie with a grin. ‘That feels better.’

The politics of thought

Lisa Sinclair — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 17:54:50 +0000

He woke with a killer headache and instinctively felt between his legs. The arm was restrained. As was the other one.

He opened his eyes and winced from the sudden dazzlingly bright lights before him. His ears were being assaulted by screeching sound from somewhere in the room.

‘All right,’ he yelled with his sister’s voice, answering the gender identity question once and for all, and closed her eyes as tightly as she could. ‘For crying out loud, turn it off!’

No-one responded; it was entirely possible they didn’t hear her.

On and on the sound went, screeching up and down. She couldn’t see anything past the lights, her senses were on overload. Nothing was getting through, not the surface she was lying against, nor what was restraining her.

Suddenly the lights and sound stopped. The room was plunged into darkness.

She shook her head, unable to see or hear, but glad of the sudden quiet.

‘Hello,’ she thought she said; she knew her lips moved, but heard nothing.

Again the lights went on. The noise followed.

‘Fuck,’ she yelled. ‘What do you want?!’

The noise and light continued for what seemed like an eternity, then stopped again.

She shook her head and glanced around, eyes still unable to focus. A new rectangular source of light became evident; a doorway had opened.

Two shapes, perhaps human, walked quickly into the room and pulled her head upwards.

She tried to focus, to lift her head away, but it was held firm.

She was slapped hard across her face. The force wrenched her head to one side and her cheek smacked into the wall.

Before she knew it, her bonds had been removed and she was being dragged along a corridor, blinking madly.

‘What’s this about,’ she asked in a whisper.

Neither of the guards answered.

She tried to get her legs beneath her, but they were too weak. Her senses began to report that she was horribly and sickeningly hungry.

A doorway was opened before her and she was thrown inside.

Her body went into shut-down and everything went dark once again.

* * *

Sudden cold woke her; she was soaking wet.

She opened her eyes and saw water. Struggling slightly she realised someone was holding her head beneath the surface.

She fought as best she could, but her strength was gone; her body weak from lack of protein and constant abuse.
She gulped, trying desparately not to breathe-in the water, but it was not enough.

Convulsing she fought one last time, and was yanked upwards out of the water, choking and spluttering; water had gone down into her windpipe and she was unable to clear it on her own.

She was dumped onto the floor and pain exploded in her abdomen; someone had kicked her stomach.

The water exploded from her throat and she gasped, gulping air.

She heard boots walking around her.

‘You were caught,’ said the voice in a monotone, then repeated: ‘You were caught.’

Daisy gulped air and shook from fear and confusion. What was all this?

‘We have you now,’ said the voice.

Was the voice female?

‘I’d let the others at you, but there are rules,’ said the woman derisively. She continued to circle, then repeated, ‘you were caught.’

‘Caught,’ whispered Daisy flatly. ‘Caught?’

‘Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ said the woman, continuing to circle. ‘And now we’ve got you.’

‘What is this,’ Daisy whispered, now blinking far faster than was normal; the shock had caught-up with her and her body was shuddering uncontrollably.

‘You were caught and now we have to make an example of you,’ said the woman.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ said the woman.

Cake and Eat It…

Lisa Sinclair — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:34:36 +0000

image by Rose

He woke with a killer headache and instinctively felt between his legs. He found what he’d needed in the last reality, which was a pity, really.

Daisy opened her eyes and saw stars.

‘What a pretty night,’ she said.

She sat up and looked around. There was a mucky looking river in front of her and a slight breeze in the air, flowing from the river and up the banks. There was something amiss, though. Something not quite right, something missing…

‘Where are you?’ yelled a familiar voice. There was real anger there. ‘You fucking bitch!’

Ah, that was it. She nodded to herself, there being no-one else around to nod at.

Panix was definitely unhappy about something. Perhaps it was as a result of Donnie’s knee-jerk reaction in the last reality. Oh well.

‘When I catch you, I’ll make you pay for what you did to me!’

Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah.

Something tugged at her memory. Oh yes, that kiss! Of course, it only came about because The Assassin had, quite unexpectedly, blown a hole in her chest. Well, Donnie’s chest.

Ugh. She held her head to try to stop it exploding. She had never been able to adequately get her head around the dual-personality dual-gender issues. If she kept thinking about it, she’d need to hunt down a warm bath and a couple of Gin and Tonics to accompany the pain.

She shuddered to think what Donnie would do. Probably something involving video games and pornography. Boys!

Panix screamed again, this time in a particularly blood-curdling fashion. He was really mad. He would also need a good vocal surgeon.

She rolled onto her chest and looked around furtively. The wind picked up and blew cold air up her skirt.

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, then slapped her hand over her mouth. Bugger!

Fire with fire

Lisa Sinclair — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 15:57:34 +0000

image by FroggyFrog

He woke up with a killer headache and instinctively felt between his legs. He didn’t find what he was looking for, which meant he would have to remember not to answer to the male pronoun.

She opened her eyes.

A set of train tracks lay three feet in front of her. She looked over her shoulder and read the graffiti on the side of a building.

Fight fire with fire and the world burns

She remembered that slogan from the last time.

Daisy Penfolde stood up and looked around. In the distance in front of her was a bridge. Behind was the sound of an approaching train. It was probably time to get off the tracks.

She examined her clothes as she walked, while simultaneously shortening her steps and forcing herself not to walk with a cro-magnon gait. She was dressed for a night out, and as a result, she was freezing.

Slowly, the memories of the last brief existence flowed back. It was the closest she’d been to death in quite some-time.

The bridge finally presented itself and she climbed carefully down, arriving at the bottom in a what appeared to be a university district. This assumption was reinforced by a large number of semi-literate youth, together with an expansive set of second-hand record and book-shops. The presence of a whopping great sign with ‘University’ on it was also a pretty good indicator that her supposition was correct.

The university building, the one with the sign on it, was the biggest in the district and was topped with the biggest satellite dish she had ever seen.

As she walked past the kids, some of whom she recognised, others she didn’t, a graveyard of Goths presented itself. One winked at her, then pulled a zippo lighter with an engraved symbol on it that looked rather like a bird.

Her mind put the imagery together: goths=coffins, lighter=cigarettes.

Just what she needed.