introducing Emily Huckleberry

 

We’re facing a reader's revolt James.

 

James? Who are you referring to?

 

Oh come on, you know perfectly well. We all do.

 

No, sorry Mervyn [Mervyn Brag, head of PR for g-nome publications unlimited], can't say I do.

 

?

 

The name’s Huckleberry, Emily Huckleberry.

 

It is?

 

Yes.

 

You mean...

 

Yes, absolutely

 

That your name is Emily er...

 

Huckleberry.

 

As in Huckleberry Finn?

 

As in Emily Huckleberry. I think I made myself clear, did I not?

Oh yes, of course Emily, you did, very er... clear. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

 

Yours too, I'm sure, Mr Bacon.

 

Bacon?

Francis.

Oh yes, indeed, how did you know?

 

Insider access info. Hush hush.

 

So Emily, they’re not having it.

 

Who aren’t?

 

The readers, of course.

 

No, they never are.

 

We're bleeding subscribers at a shocking rate.

 

Inevitable, more or less, isn't it?

 

Yes, but if we sink down below 48 million...

 

48 million? You mean to say things are really that bad?

 

Oh absolutely, Emily. Worse in fact.

 

Worse?

 

They’re setting up a mirror site.

 

They’re never! are they?

 

Oh yes, I had it at first hand – even snuck a peek. Very impressive – looks almost identical except that instead of your dry, dull pontifications about “the void”, or whatever you were talking about last time, they have the latest from Zie and Merry – a trip to California, gold prospecting in the Yukon, communicating with lost tribes in Africa, past-life retrieval and all kinds of other highly dubious but innervating content.

 

Bloody cheek.

 

Bloody cheek it may well be, but it’s immensely popular with our former subscribers. Their advertising revenue’s going through the roof.

 

But they're infringing on our copyright.

Absolutely, but who cares... They simply inserted a clause on their home page stating that "all fiction is fiction, but this is not" – with Dark Dive computer log records linked for inspection, detailing how all their content is generated randomly.

Gulp – not sure we want to mess with the boys at Dark Dive... There's something deeply disturbing about their methods, if you ask me. 

Agreed – besides, what's the point? Mathematically they're doing nothing wrong if, as we agree, 0=1. And the laws of infinite (im)probability provide them with a bombproof legal defence. Dark Dive computing, if their data is to be trusted, has shortened the time it would take for a digital monkey tapping away at a keyboard to randomly generate the complete works of Shakespeare from an aeon, plus or minus an age, down to a few seconds. Our counsel says it’s a waste of time trying sue them – their seemingly ridiculous claim is legally unassailable. Besides – you technically abandoned all copyright presumptions.

 

What?

 

Having categorically stated Zie and Merry to be public performers rather than fictional protagonists.

. 

 

Damn cheek. Look Francis...

 

Just call me Bacon.

Sure. Look Bacon – i suspect the Field is lining up for a flippening.

 

I beg your pardon?

 

For a flippening – like a pancake... or, let's say, a magnetic pole reversal, as in MPR. 

An MPR? Really? Why didn't you say so? We'll have to take counter-measures immediately. 

No, I meant The Field, as in Qufie, the (sotto voce, trying to keep this gut wrenching information under wraps) the er... quantum Field... it's evidently ready for a major event. It's hardly surprising Z and M had to go.

 

Oh well done E.H., so glad you chose to support our new capitalised initials initiative (CII). Fresh skins for new wine.

 

Fresh skins? But what about the flippen...

 

– for new wine. Absolutely! Anyhow, I wasn’t actually responsible for that dreadful piece you mentioned.

 

You mean Touching the void? But what...

 

Yes, if you have to be so very explicit, Francis B.

 

Call me Bacon.

 

Déjà vu. Sorry to be unnecessarily suspicious, but there isn’t any chance that you’re actually a web bot masquerading as the real Francis Bacon, is there?

 

Can't imagine where you got that idea from Emily. How bizarre.

 

It's just I'm getting a bit of déjà vu, and you know that’s one of the tell-tale signs, isn't it? The matrix being what it is…

 

So they say, so they say... but really, you can’t actually suspect me of being a web bot?

 

No, of course not – but then again, better safe than sorry.

 

Oh.

 

Yes Francis...

 

Call me Bacon, won't you?

 

You see, something ain't right. I...

 

Yes?

 

I don't mean to be terribly intrusive Francis...

 

Call me Bacon, won’t you?

 

But would you be terribly put out if i asked you to submit to my gom jabbar?

 

Your what?

 

Gom jabbar... All you have to do is place your hand in this little black box.

 

Oh, ok...

 

While I hold this little pointy needle thing next to your left ear lobe.

 

Left? Surely that should be the right?

 

Do you think so?

 

That's what all the manuals say.

 

Well they would, wouldn’t they? But i, as you know, I’m a left-hander.

 

Ah, yes, I think I remember now, Emily.

 

Which is why the left side is much more convenient in my case. Try not to move while your hand is in the box, I wouldn’t like to slip. The needle tip...

 

Is coated with a deadly meta-cyanide poison. Yes, I seem to have heard this one before.

 

How intriguing! So this is déjà vu for you too?

 

Not exactly déjà vu, not the full-blown variety at least.

 

Then what?

 

Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? Can’t quite explain it at the mo. Words you know… blunt eels, slippery knives… Oh, my hand is feeling a little prickly, what ho.

 

Yes, tis in the nature of the test.

 

I suppose I’m just going to have to ignore the burning sensation?

 

Yes, that would be best.

 

And the smoke coming out of the box.

Smoke? Oh dear, I seem to have the wrong settings. Let me turn the power down, what ho, before anything bad happens to your little hand.

 

Er…

 

Yes?

 

Bit late for that Emily.

 

Oh… Not to worry Francis.

 

Call me Bacon, won't you?

 

We've achieved the desired outcome.

 

We have?

 

Absolutely.

 

Grrr... I wish you’d stop using that word.

 

Yes, I know the feeling, but nothing doing Francis.

 

Call me Bacon, won’t you?

 

Absolutely, you see, while the motley crew...

Our dearly beloved subscribers... 

Were focusing intently on that ‘orrible gom jabbar thingummy...

 

And the carefully contrived smoke allegedly coming from my hand...

 

Tee hee 

 

Haw haw 

 

And whether or not you’re actually human or merely a web bot…

 

The flippening flipping well happened, didn’t it?

 

You bet it did. You bet it did.

 

Déjà vu.

 

You bet it did.

 

Déjà vu. And we were able to substitute our g-nomeportal website for the pirate mirror site.

 

Omg!

With a green screen. Shout out to Finkley Sam, our special effects whiz.

And a clockchain fork. Shout out to Mungo Dobbin at data division furcations – where time is the essence.

Tricks of the trade...

We at g-nomeportal pride ourselves on. 

The grand 3D switcheroo. 

Try not to blink.

Reality's such a fungible platform, innit! 

 

Incredible, really.

 

You mean to say Z and M are now back?

 

Nothing of the shirt.

 

Sorry?

 

Oh, just a typo. Nothing of the shirt.

 

Sort. You mean nothing of the shirt, don't you?

 

Sort, that's right.

 

Well now that we've got everything technically running like clockwork.

 

Tickety boo, as they say.

 

It's time to dig in our heels, Emily Huckleberry

 

Or should that be Francis Bacon?

 

Call me Bacon, won't you?

 

I wonder.

 

Me too.

Me too – speaketh James cum Mervyn Brag – indeterminacy level ⁷

 

Me too – freebooters, pirates, hackers and web trolls who avoided the, in my opinion, exorbitant g-nomeportal subscription fees by reading un-line – through ye dark web of un-consciousness – approximately 49 million, 576 thousand, 2 hundred and 8 versions of humanity.

 

What if she’s now in control.

 

She being...?

 

Her... the dark lady of Loch Lannar hersel.f

 

Omg, you don't really mean...

 

Not really, no...

 

No?

 

No, absolutely not.

 

Omg?! Absolutely not?

 

Absolutely.

 

Absolutely?

 

Absolutely... Hersel.f

 

Nooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrrvvvvvgggggghhhhhhzzzxmp!

 

[Fairly big pause]

 

How unusual. They don't usually shrivel up like that.

 

Dm dm dm

 

Hello, sounds like it's coming back.

 

Dm dm dm

 

3 – 2 – 1

 

Dm dm vreg isnuflle hingen sbulk.

 

Ah there you are Bacon Francis, unless you’re now trying to pass yourself off as Emily Huckleberry?

 

Bacon Francis, absolutely spot on, ol’ chap.

 

Call me Bacon, won't you?

 

Nope, unless you want to experience the wrath of the gods.

 

I say, you really mean it, don't you?

 

Yes, I’ve evidently changed fundamentally in the 78 million years since we last had the chance to speak together... What is it Emily? What's wrong? You look...

 

78 million years? That wasn't a typo?

 

Absolutely not.

 

Damn. How on earth am i going to explain that to the Ways and Means Committee.

 

Not THE Ways and Means Committee?

 

The very same.

 

Er, I don't know. Explain what?

 

The fact that your flippening has somehow inserted 78 million years into our reality livestream. How on Earth I can't for the life of me tell. They’re going to go ballistic.

 

Emily, I don't know what to say.

 

No, you never do.

 

I mean, what are we going to do?

 

I think I'm going to ask you to lie, if you'd be so kind.

 

Lie?

 

As in conceal the truth too shocking by a factor of approximately 78 million.

 

Just fail to declare that we now have a 78 million year livestream gap that's jolly well going to have to be filled with top notch content, or we’re toast?

 

Bacon...

 

Oh, call me Francis, won't you?

 

F.B. I don’t know what to do. I'm scared. This has never happened before. The flippening has... sobbing bitterly.

That scarcely noticeable and rather insidious, in my opinion, background music now rises to a tub-thumping, heart fibrillating crescendo, as everyone present experiences what g-nomers technically describe as “sommat ‘orrible” (preferably in a broad Yorkshire accent). Your stomach lurches alarmingly as the bottom, apparently, falls out of that world, as the  quantum tide turns, its perihelion now complete, and “all hell breaks loose” with things suddenly unable to resist the urge to reconfigure, fundamentally, based on poetic rather than noetic criteria – in other words, a 24 sigma, off-the-charts, indeterminacy redux inflection point...

Yowzers!

 

Turn to page 16 if you trust Emily Huckleberry implicitly, page 86 if you feel she’s being manipulative and is concealing a darker agenda, page 41 if you’re in the mood for dancing or romancing, or don’t, if you’re not. Please bear in mind that under g-nomeportal articles of association and rules of convocation, you are entitled to a. apply wyrd non-of-the-above protocol to page selections, as long as this is done in accordance with the customs and conventions of time eternal, in which case it's out of my hands, or b. summon a full witan should “thrice the brinded cat ‘ath mew’d” visions of implacable truth ordain it. Bear in mind there is a capital charge for frivolous or unmew’d witan calling. Just saying.

 

We, at g-nomeportal pride ourselves on keeping our head when all around are losing theirs (shout out to Rudyard Kipling), but at the same time, the panic mode does release a rather intoxicating brew of chemicals which might be said to alleviate the mental and physiological effects of 24 sigma quantum flux transitions. Please don’t take this as medical advice. It ain’t. It's every man for himself, not because we don't care, but because this is the one moment you get to test the hypothesis, to see whether your model of reality and your actual existence, no less, are even vaguely compatible with the absolute, the ^all, created or not, that ^is. Let personal responsibility be your er... personal responsibility, if you'll pardon the tautology, but remember, dear sigmanauts – there’s run of the mill, common or garden panic on the one hand, and on the other, a highly honed yet disarmingly inept kung fu panda kind of cathartic, with a capital C, panic that unlocks, potentially, the gates of Loch Lannár and may just convey you intact, in the loosest sense of the word, to the other side of infinity’s wild, untamed celebration of all that is not, nor ever can be (never to say never), meaningable. The quantum flood – more a phase transition than an actual physical egression – may or may not, bring us up to speed, and enable the wild energies of Unny Un to induce a new renaissance, a meeting of mind and myth, of mind and myth a meeting... a mindy'myth me ting (Irish accent optional)

 

To be continued... weather conditions on Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at (where the ducks fly backwards) permitting

 

 

0=1  

hersel.f