Blog 17: Workspace

I was there alone for long time. Locked in and out of communication with the world. I had what I was given. Pencils, pens and paint. My commands were printed clearly on the door. The first instruction was simple;

Cover every wall of this room ceiling to floor with your works to my satisfaction and I will open the door.

After a brief period of resistance I gave in to the demand. I consider myself an artist, I had only been instructed to work. I drew the world outside, bright gleaming and open. I rushed through it all, one giant piece that ran over the walls. It came together faster than anything I’ve ever done before.

I stared at the walls. I had completed the task by my judgement. Not by theirs. To my satisfaction it said. I looked at the camera dome that hung in the centre of the ceiling. I kicked at the heavy door again feeling only more pain. In truth the painting while covering every wall was far detached from the high level of detail I could achieve when I persisted. I added small leaves to the trees and lines to wrinkled faces of the painted persons that watched me. I wrote a small, semi-obscured paragraph detailing my frustration on the back cover of a newspaper held in the hand of one of the figures. I added to the depth of the landscape. For some moments I forgot that I was captive and existed only in the work. After an interval of time twice that which I had taken to cover the walls I had run out of details to add. Inside the blackened dome I heard the camera rotating to inspect my efforts.

The door opened with a heavy clang and I was let into a larger, second room which adjoined a much needed rest room. This room was taller than the last. A camera sat atop a podium above the provided materials. A second door, possibly to the outside world, held the next instruction just like the first. The room held yet more materials and tools.

Cover this room to my satisfaction as before using a blue dominated colour palette and I will open the door.

It was ridiculous. Why should I do as told. I had completed my last instruction as a platitude. I banged the next door. It was as hard and heavy as the last. My blood painted the handle before I gave up.

I was hungry. My favourite sandwiches sat in a Tupperware box on a smaller plinth beneath the camera beside a large bottle of water. I sat on the cold, dusty concrete floor eating the sandwiches and glaring at the camera. I listened with my eyes closed but heard nothing but the low buzz of the lights.

Giving in to rage I opened a large tin of blue paint and threw it at every wall. I finger painted the words: let me out and tried the handle again. The dull rattling of the door did nothing for my freedom.

I relented again and painted vast patches of colour without purpose. The words let me out became just a pattern I painted in every shade and hue of blue on those walls. Leaning on the wet paint of the walls I realised that they were only panels of wood bolted to a surface behind. I beat and punched at the wall, the paint exploded in splashes as my bloody fists hit the primed chipboard. Small dents amassed and finally I managed to remove a chunk with the leverage of a palette knife. Brick wall rewarded my efforts and I screamed and shouted and spat at the camera. I collapsed on the floor of the room and slept amongst the crap.

Hunger woke me but there were no more sandwiches. I finished the water and filled the bottle again in the bathroom sink. Not even the bathroom had a window. There was no option for me. I painted endless open doors and gates in blue. I painted my house, my bed and my kitchen and cross sections of everything else I missed. I painted the words fuck you backwards on the glass dome of the podium camera.

After finishing the final details of my comfy bed the second door opened onto a hallway. Another open door beyond the hall revealed the largest room of all. On tables in the middle sat my sketchbooks and preparatory drawings. A terminal sat on one of the desks. The screen displayed my next instruction:

Complete three of the works you have been planning since you graduated.

A canvas for each of the planned paintings was waiting for me. Each measured to the exact size and primed ready to work on. I found it hard to battle the command this time. The pressure my captor was exerting on me to produce these works seemed the strong voice I needed to get back to work after years of stagnation. I had planned, to the brushstroke, endless paintings that never happened. They would be the greatest works of art ever known when I was finished but the problem was I never started. It never felt like he right time. I never felt ready to undertake the greatest task of my life. Instead of starting paintings I would endlessly refine the plans or begin workings towards yet more paintings that would never come to be.

In the third room there was a large fridge and a first aid kit sat atop it. I tended my wounds and ate a hearty meal of cold porridge.

I looked at the message again:

Complete three of the works you have been planning since you graduated.

For the first painting I chose to paint the portrait format abandoned tower I had sketched endlessly as something that would fit a wall floor to ceiling so a average adult eye point from the cordon I hoped would surround the painting the viewer appeared to look down towards to the base of the tower and up into the sky to see it’s top. The warped perspective was something I had wrestled with for years but at that moment I attacked it without thinking. I pained the dark and melancholy sky on which sat the broken shell of a once mighty and respected industrial powerhouse. I painted the marks of the world around it left as explorers and artists alike left their mark on the stone. Light shone through the broken walls to reveal the fragile state within and through the open windows and doors rotting wood and thriving weeds aplenty could be seen. As planned I painted my cat sitting in one of the upper windows staring at the viewer. I painted the grain of the stone and individual blades of grass turned blue by the fading light. Broken glass altered the world behind as I added the final strokes to the first of my planned paintings.

The second painting was a blazing phoenix at the heart of a library. Lit only by the fire of the mythical bird and burning books around I created a cavernous space and delicate pages floating on the warm currents of air as the singing bird spread small clouds of ash into the inferno. I depicted the calligraphy of finely detailed ancient tomes and the intricate carving of the wooden panelling of the high ceiling above. I worked famous tomes on immortality and resurrection into the pile of books half burnt on the table. I showed a blackened globe, it’s darkened paper peeling in the heat. The phoenix’s eyes reflected a figure in the doorway behind the viewpoint. It had less meaning than some of my paintings but more ambitious use of colour in the fire and the eyes of the bird.

My last painting in that room was of Edinburgh my hometown from the sky. I painted the city like Chernobyl, desolate and overgrown. Forests grew on treetops and a thick carpet of grass lined the streets. I wrought destruction on the city, the damage done by nature taking back the land. I drew birds flying beneath and their shadows in large pools of water below. The reflections were the labour of many hours during which I had many a brief break for more porridge. I looked at the message on the screen again. I was almost done.

I signed my name in broken buildings and the darkness of shadows across the rooftops of the city. The name Jim had to be looked for but it was there. Car that had become greenhouses littered the grassy streets.

With the last touches done I held the painting up to the camera and told it to let me out. On the screen my last instruction appeared:

At the back of the fridge is a syringe which contains an anaesthetic. The last door is open. In the next room is a bed. Inject the anaesthetic, leave the syringe here and lie fall asleep on the bed. You will awaken in your home.

It was perhaps the creepiest of the commands but still I saw no way out of this bunker. Without a choice I followed the instructions and lay on the bed in the next room. In a minute I drifted off into a deep sleep.

I awakened as promised in my own bed. When the drowsiness had worn off I realised the three paintings were leaning against every other wall of the room. It was early morning, the sun was just rising over the horizon as I picked up the painting of the phoenix I’d meant to paint for years. I left the room and checked the small flat. In the next room all of my furniture had been bunched up against a wall so that the panel boards I’d painted in each of the rooms of my captivity would fit. Everything else in the house seemed the same. My sketchbooks and scraps of paper had been put back in almost the same place. If anything the place was too tidy. The doors had been locked and my keys, all of them, were on the hook. The windows were closed and I could see no one watching the building from outside. I lapped the house looking for someone, it was odd to be back in my own home and still alone. There no notes on the doors and no foreign computer terminals with instructions flickering on their screen.

I returned to my room and noticed something more useful. A brown envelope had been waiting for me on my bedside table. Id been too distracted to notice. In the A4 envelope was a large certificate and a DVD in a clear plastic case. The certificate was like a receipt. It had my signature in clear handwriting at the bottom. I’d paid five thousand pounds to some one in cash. I couldn’t concentrate on the small print but kept wondering about the DVD. Was it a making of? Did it document what the cameras saw me create in captivity?

The DVD began to play as soon as I put the disk in my living room player. I watched myself in conversation with two men in that room, their faces were blurred. I had the cash in an envelope in my hand. I gave them the money? We talked about my struggle to create. They would force me to overcome my artists block. I stood up from the couch with the video still playing. I looked at each of the panels of painting. I had achieved in no time at all what I had stalled on doing for years. The blank canvases sat in the hallway.

I pulled a sketchbook from a shelf and set to work. I would never stop again, a slave not to captivity but the ideas within me. They would be realised and later I would share them with the world. The sketchbooks would become obsolete as their ideas came to fruition. The men would not bother me again. I did not need them.

Blog 16: Revolutionary Return

We are all slaves from the moment we are born. Slaves not to people or even abstract gods. We are owned by a creation with more blood on its conceptual hands than any religion. So long we have lived in the shadow of this tyrannous concept that we seem blind to the stain it has left on history. This cruellest of creations is currency. The source of greed is the sense of object ownership we are taught to feel for all the world has given. The world belongs to those who bought it with the spoils of war. They say that freedom is the result of obedience but if I must obey am I truly free?
I do not submit to the laws or litigation of the government nor bow to their constabulary who no longer hold me captive. For the months of my life they stole I exacted sweet vengeance by burning their beloved vehicles. Altair knows freedom they never have and does not part with it lightly. My rage was not quelled by these acts of justice so instead of martial force I opted to punish their system of self serving corruption by removing its less shiny gears.
The revolution rolled onwards and new recruits joined our ranks. New ground was liberated in the name of the cause. The cause being the pursuit of simple freedom. The only law the truly free must follow is to grant others the same chance of freedom. Our bodies are the vehicles of the mind in which the purest freedom is possible from inside the strongest cage. Only a mind so free could perceive the nation that was born of revolution inside the factory we once considered only a playground. Our numbers grew all but tenfold in the year past.
Time, like a bullet from a gun, has shot past at speeds none of us kept up with. We are no longer a small band of unknown rebels. We are the leaders of an army that fights for the right to live outside the rule of currency. So many more have tasted freedom in our care and see the world anew. While Mr Turners house is still the home of we forerunning members the New Occupancy houses all others and has become the front line in our war against cerebral oppression. Self sustenance has become a possibility. We have the room to sow the seeds of crops to feed ourselves. The growing pool of skills means that there is less and less need to leave our world of near pure freedom. In the blur of this movement I watch the world change in ways I would not have dreamed possible. The canvas of the world has our signature written across it in ever larger script. More see our mark each day and for all those who turn away some draw closer. We have freed ourselves from money and opened the eyes of those who cannot afford the illusion of freedom. Old eyes see the world in a new light where what was once bought and lost to all is now shared. We do not own the world around us, it is there only to facilitate the happiness we are all entitled to.
I have changed much in the time since my confinement. I find myself less willing to accept the wrongs of the world. Where before I fought with words I fight now with actions, not violence but seeking to undermine the sick society that governs so many others. There is a price to pay, as I have stepped up my efforts so have my oppressive opponents. The gutter press has dubbed us not just a cult but a gang of thugs. We have not risen to the taunts but still we are forever running from the flashing lights. They object to the medicines we distribute freely. Why? Because we do not pay for the privilege. We are not citizens who have bread taken from their tables to feed the greedy parliamentarians. If Guy Faux had succeeded might we have been spared their rule? We are asked to pick a an Old Money representative for those who have none. How can you represent what you have never known? We are nothing but a pay check to those liars who claim expenses while they seek not to serve but subjugate.
The old guard remain despite how close Whim came to the edge. He still zigzags between depression and euphoria. The ups and downs are less extreme now, Haze has calmed him down but he’s at his worst without her. She seeks comfort in her work at the New Occupancy creating light shows to rival those of a rave.
Of the new arrivals Thoreau has made the most impact. He passionately believes in the righteousness of our cause and expresses his opinions ever more loudly. He hates police with a vengeance for abusing their power and expresses this hatred in painted word on many a building side. He is a beacon, motivational and uplifting when we have our doubts. He has strolled to the forefront of our cause with certainty and swagger for which he must be applauded. There’s always a terrifying pause as he is chased, the moment he stops dead to berate the pursuer. He is so still, so calm. He speaks his mind with proud integrity and turns once more to run. He has changed the face of the movement. Many have adopted the skull masks he prefers over the old Venetian standard. Have we moved with the times or been swept away by them?

The New Occupancy once the shell of a forgotten warehouse is now a growing work of art. We facilitate the growth by utilising scrap left in our own building materials recycling point. The best of these help build the hidden city within the forgotten walls of the New Occupancy. Each plank is preserved by the murals that cover every inch of the growing metropolis. New members lend their hands to the task as the walls rise outside and in and the space is filled in. Entrance from the outside world has been limited, all ground floor exits walled up. To exit the use of a ramp lowered from within is required but to get in the brave can take the leap of faith from the fire escape of a block of flats opposite and aim for the boards that rest on dumped mattresses. The jump begins five storeys up and lands three storeys up. Therefore only the best of us make the jump. This can draw crowds of fans from the estates around which has done little for our reputation. These youths have their use though, they often leave building materials for us in exchange for a show of our skills. Few join us but our affiliation proves mutually beneficial as both sides keep our silence when the police come looking and since their activities provide a useful distraction.
Of those who do join us they are a different breed entirely, hardened to the world. Thoreau was one of them, a young bruiser on loan from the local psychiatric unit. I think manic depression is the term for his condition. He glows like a flame while taking action against our oppressors. I think it’s more confidence than happiness that he radiates. There’s no fear in him under pressure, he doesn’t falter as the fluorescent jackets close in with their batons. Alone however the shadows seem to converge on him. Company keeps him well and action better still.
Action serves us all well in this time as the barricades rise around us. The company laying claim to the ground we live off brings ever more mechanisms of demolition. Each is dismantled as it arrives but this cycle cannot continue. Our presence draws too much unwelcome attention. Dark clouds draw near to dear home New Occupancy. Desperate times call for desperate measures when we cannot afford to fall short. All of us are willing to fight for our refuge but more are called to arms by the daily wage. The slaves rally at the call of their master to bind the free who do not suffer their restrictions. We will not, freedom we have, freedom we will keep.

Blog 15: Escaping Promotion (Frankensteins Soldier part 2)

I’ve been here too long. I should have escaped by now. It seems my fate to reside in this hell forever as it evolves new instruments of torture for me.
The newest instrument in their arsenal is a R.E.M sleep unit that stimulates the reptilian brain to promote combat based dreams. My time is theirs now even in sleep. Before I would only sleep for an hour or two a night. I had to wait for the pack to fall asleep for definite or risk waking up with my head dipped in a bucket of freezing water. Now we are escorted at gunpoint to the new stimulus units and I have to learn to operate at two levels of consciousness. Ignoring the stimulation of the reptilian brain can cause a reckless rise in aggression. I have to indulge the new program whilst remaining aware of the threat of murderous wolves.
So much worse than my new nightly routine is the play the generals made in the game that is my life. Someone made the suggestion that my physician Dr Athena Sirona switch places with Dr Carl Wirths, personal physician to Ichiro. Ichiro leads the pack against me. Athena has new bruises daily when I see her now. I can see how much she hates my natural reaction. Rage at her injuries combined with increased aggression caused by under indulging the reptilian brain during sleep means I’ve been letting lose on her new patient more and more. It’s just giving the generals what they want of course but I can’t help it, worse. I don’t want to.
Dr Sirona is the tool they used to make me what they wanted. I can’t stand it but I wont stop either. Athena is the only woman I’ve ever known. She’s also the only person I’ve ever liked. I can see her when I’m fighting Ichiro. She stands at the observation deck above the small arena. She’s supposed to be observing his progress but I always know she’s watching me. I know she’s wishing I wont do what they want, that I wont beat the crap out of Ichiro. I wish I could indulge her but the rage wont stand for it. He has to pay.
The physicians were assigned individuals for a reason. Dr Wirths viewed Ichiro as the best of us. He hated me for taking his pet project away from him. Whenever I’m hurt it’s his job to piece me back together. He does what he’s paid for but nothing more. He never uses painkiller when treating a wound. He doesn’t need to cut me open as often as he does, he just enjoys it.
Right now my chances of escape look as low as they ever have. Just surviving is taking everything out of me. I dominate the pack during the day. I have a talent for violence which apparently exceeds theirs but they have become nocturnal. They wait until the guards have gone and drag me from the R.E.M unit. They are far better at fighting off the sedative effects of the device. At least when I’m drowsy I feel less pain.
If I’m not ready for them I’m woken by the pain of them lifting me by my bound arms and legs before they throw me in the pool. The guards always manage to fish me out in time, I can hold my breath for a long time. It’s still horrific. When I drift back to sleep I’m drowning again. Fighting shadows in the water. There is no escape.
It seems that as a chess piece I am in check mate. The generals have only to make the last move to seal my fate. Only a miraculous blunder on their part could save me from this life. I will wait for it but I am no hopeful. I survive, nothing more.

Progress assessment no. 0184: General Kuraimizu

My suggestions were implemented by the board who have praised me for my insight. Dr Sirona was assigned to Ichiro who’s own physician Dr Wirth took her place. The swap had the desired effect of intensifying the hatred between the two rivals and secured a hostile response from Hachiro. In single combat Hachiro finally displayed the potential I’d long seen in him and beat Ichiro to a pulp. Ichiro’s response was to take his anger out on Dr Sirona which only compounded Hachiro’s response. Hachiro has long harboured the desire to escape this facility. He will not have the time now to ponder escape or to lay a path towards such endeavours.

Blog 14: Liberation Artists

Chaos has been forgotten, laid to rest. Order and normality rule from the shadows. The systems of control have sought to standardise their inferiors. These standards make us easier to manipulate. We are the prey of corporate predators who would part us from our scavenged wealth at any available opportunity. Too many follow the shepherds laws to their own downfall. The rank odour of corruption haunts the best of governments. The elite write the laws in their favour. We must suffer the crimes against humanity they claim are legal. I chose not to be a fly caught in the web of lies they inhabit. I have chosen my own course in this life. My comrades and I stand against the rule of currency. Our submission will not be bought.
The devil’s in the dollar. Money is the cancer of society. Greed is the worst of it’s symptoms. My family disowned me for liberating a few thousand pounds of their funds to spend on cerebral stimuli. If mind expansion is not a worthy investment what is? Who cares if I can’t remember the entire experience? The photo’s prove I had a good time. My parents should want nothing more. Screw money, why buy when you can take? I am, in the eyes of others, a thief. I prefer to think of myself as a liberation artist.
For every revolution there is an origin. Somewhere it all began. Ours is no different. We reside in the abandoned abode of a former supporter. Unlike his pulse the gracious disposition of Mr Turner never faltered. While not a member he was undoubtedly a pillar of our movement. His home he gave to us, much as his grasping relatives deny it. His portrait bears pride of place atop the mantle of the fire that warms us. He understood us, he had suffered the poisonous envy of his greedy family. To us he gave more than we would ever have asked. For his kin however the wealth he left them is not enough. They would leave us cold for the mementoes of a life they took no interest in. To them his cameras are only worth the price they would reach at sale. He taught us his craft and told us his stories. This home of ours was the reward we earned by seeing him through the last days of his good life. He knew rebellion, his photos document that. They tell of a wit not prostituted to the world. His other work is tacked to walls in endless galleries, gawped at by countless sheep who judge it on the calm it might bring to the tea room. This he hated, a necessary evil he thought. He prostituted his art to sustain his life and passion. He must be forgiven. He was alone, not like I. I have my comrades.
For our crimes we cannot be the glowing hero’s that grace the cinema screens. We are the underground, V’s musketeers. Our rebellion will not be so swift as that of Wat Tylar, John Ball and Jack Straw, nor so quickly crushed. We are the Zealots of the new age, who needs communism? Equality is no issue among friends. In the flickering light of endless dying candles we rule the squalor. The walls of our laboratory bear testament to our experiments, the improvements we have made to Mr Turner’s formulas. From the comfort of the dusty couch we can travel through the mental multiverse. Don’t think us the limp mind addled wasters so often portrayed in National Health Service posters. The daily struggles of the rebellion keep us in shape, enough to outrun all representatives of the constabulary at least. Of all the rooms in the house I think I love the memoriam most. That was the name Mr Turner gave it. In it he had collected all photographic records of his enlightened moments. The walls are plastered with images of good times past, his and ours. It was in foul mood he named the room but in the end we gave him pride in it. That room must never be conquered by normality. It is the shrine to not just our greatest beneficiary but our cause itself. The riot will never end as long as we have that room to remind us of our purpose. All other rooms may fall victim to the destruction that follows chaos, but the memoriam will forever be sacrosanct.
This house speaks more of our talents and torments than any I’ve seen before. The walls are an ever changing canvas. More beauty and soul can be found on any wall of our abode than in all the worlds galleries. Ezio’s murals extend from one end of the house to another and depict various degrees of debauchery in beauteous detail. Whim writes great poetry across not just the walls but doors and tables too. Haze, Whim’s woman, is something of a light technician who can while away the hours watching pulses of shifting electromagnetic radiation. Void, who adds little to the canvas because she is perpetually comatose, was Ezio’s girlfriend until recently when she awoke to a depiction of female nudity from Ezio’s hand in which she could not see her resemblance. Karma, with whom I have shared a fluctuating relationship for some time now, is like me a photographer. These are the constants of the rebellion, others come and go, lured back to capitalism as it preys upon their weakness with greed.
We prey on the outside world in disguise, wearing Venetian masks over balaclavas. The robes of the faithful are crimson hooded tops in which the hood is stitched over the balaclava. Anonymity is a necessity in our line of work. Each top bears the glyph of it’s owner. We have our own runes to mark collection spots and the ease from which their bounty might be freed. If we were religious then I think David Belle would be a Demigod of the faith. His teachings in parkour are a vital strand of our daily lives. When I’m running across the rooftops of the city’s buildings even I don’t need cerebral stimuli. Adrenaline can be the greatest rush for the urban escape artist. We also enjoy the martial arts. At this very moment Whim lies unconscious on a couch as the result of a blow delivered by Ezio during a jousting session this morning. More glorious than that was the occasion when we fought and, after I had paused to take a draw from Haze’s herbal cigar, he removed the spliff and in the same movement sent me on a holiday from the conscious world. Apparently he’d exhaled by the time I hit the floor, I’d wager that it’s just boastful exaggeration but I’ll leave it there, there’s no shame in losing a fight to Ezio. To date only Whim has beaten him and I believe Ezio had made the effort to define blind drunk on both occasions. I like to think of myself as the mind behind the revolution which makes Ezio the muscle and Whim quite possibly the muse. For inspiration of any sort the highs and lows of his emotion are always invaluable if, at times, distressing.
When Whim hit’s a low point it’s in the best interest of the whole troupe to get him back on top form as soon as possible. In the depths of depression he’s a danger to himself and when enraged a danger to all in his path. I think we all bare the scars of Whim’s frenzies. They must be worn as reminders to keep him calm.
In better moods Whim can create great beauty. One example is the meal of a hundred candles he created in honour of three hundred and sixty five days he’d been with Haze. Another example is the three storey high sonnet he wrote for her birthday on a building across the street. For that display Whim earned his place in the papers alongside a depiction of deplorable likeness which insults the beauteous form of our masks. The mask bore greater likeness in its’ portrayal on the areas’ first wanted poster in many decades. The aesthetic qualities of the poster are quite pleasing which is why a copy now adorns the wall of the memoriam.
For all I have seen I could not see the bars of the cage that enclosed me as I was captured by the grasping fingers of our lands insufferable constabulary. Unconsciousness left me unable to run although thankfully I was not in uniform at the time of my arrest. I was charged with vandalism and sentenced to three months imprisonment for my crimes against indifference. The crime in question was to declare my devotion to Karma by carving her name into the wooden panels that cover the exterior of the second floor of the public house she passes near daily to buy her films. I fell and lapsed into unconsciousness whilst trying to gain perspective and ascertain its stage of completion. Karma assured me it looks duly glorious during her first visit as well as calling me a proper daftie.
Murals are appearing on the walls I see from my window and each morning as I rise more colour graces the world outside. These stirring inspirations maintain my sanity within these confines and offset the cruel company. I will withstand beration until the gates of this cage open and I am among my fellows again. The chivalric scoundrels will be re-united and the rebellion of the liberation artists will continue onward. These are the words of Altair circa July 2006.

Blog 13: Exodus Elite (Frankensteins Soldier part 1)

I am one of the greatest living investments humanity has ever made. I am the latest in a long line of genetically engineered and endlessly augmented military lab rats. No one outside the employ of this facility knows I exist. I have a mind of my own but not the allowance to use it. For sixteen years I have lived within a compound unmapped and unheard of.
I am sick of this life. I’m sick of injections. Endurance tests are pointless. Combat training is painful. The scientists are puppets. The generals are sadists. I get the shit kicked out of me daily. I hate my life.
Anywhere else in the world I would shine like the sun above all the dullards. I’ve said it before, I’d be worth more anywhere else. One of the technicians told me I’d only burn others, blind them. They’d never thank me for making them feel so small. I feel inconsequential here. No one would chose this life. I don’t want to be a soldier. I don’t want to help the suits rewrite the world. I will pass their tests to avoid punishment but never push myself like the rest.
I need a door, an exit. There has to be a way out. When I look for the exit I see gaps in formation and a path over the buildings. Stealth is my calling, it has to be. There’s no way I could possible fight my way out of this. I will leave at the optimum moment before they decide I have outlived my worth. They look down on me. I’m a waste of their money, a failed project. I know to much to leave and do too little to stay. Something will give.
My contemporaries are predictable. The clockwork of military engineering. They exist as pieces on a board and are subject to a weave of intention within a timetable. They are my greatest obstacle.
How can they accept this cruel, hollow existence. Why am I different? They should know that at the very most they are exceptional supercomputers, capable of ascertaining the limit of human potential through action more than ever before. Even the greatest supercomputer will become obsolete, eventually it will be turned off for good.
Immortality is not my goal. I don’t want to live forever I just want to live and die on my own terms. Why when they made me a cog did they give me cognition?
I think the physician is to blame for my conscientious awakening. Each of us has our own staff of lab coats who ensure we reach our potential. In that respect she is failing. While she tends my wounds and administers my injections she tells me about the world. She talks about the people throughout history who have fought, figuratively speaking, against the idea of a life like mine. She talks about Leo Tolstoy, John Lennon and Kurt Vonnegut.
She could bring me the books but I’m not allowed anything that isn’t approved by the board. I don’t know who the board are but I hate them. She’s been beaten for her ‘indiscretion’. She can’t leave or they’ll kill her family. If she tells anyone they’ll kill her family. If they think she’s considering revealing a detail of what happens here then they would kill her family. You get the picture.
The game can be beneficial sometimes, I enjoy weapons testing when I’m not the target. Weapons are a possible path to freedom. The idea is that eventually I’ll be handed a rocket launcher or limpet charge that I can use to blow my way out. One day I will escape and tell the world about this facility and everything they do here. No one really has to believe me. I only have to inspire enough curiosity for someone to look.
Training and tuition are endless. We have been taught to determine the frequency and amplitude of a sound and at what range that sound will be audible to human ears. The level of accuracy grows ever more difficult. We are punished for our failures with electric shocks. We are rewarded for correct answers with a free punch to any of the group we chose. They pack always chose me. When I use my free blow usually I knock out one of the guards. It’s actually allowed. They hate me too though.
We are taught to visualise a targets sightline and to use the sounds they make to determine their position and posture. I use the ability to calculate where my unit is within the dormitory at night. It doesn’t stop them. Sometimes I’ll make an example of one. I can be cunning, I’ve near killed a few of them to make a point. Afterwards they leave me alone for a while, just a while.
Every skill I have been taught rests within the arsenal I may call upon to free myself. It will be the last time I ever act in any way the scientists might find beneficial to their research. I will not help them thereafter. A new life awaits me beyond these walls. Patience is a virtue I possess en mass but we all break eventually. I have to find a way out as soon as possible.

Progress assessment no. 0179 : General Kuraumizu

Hachiro’s progress during the research programme has been hindered by his resistance to the programmes purpose. In combat he is defensive even against opponents whose wrath he surpasses. It has always seemed to me that Hachiro has more potential than any of the other patients. Sexism aside it hardly seems irrelevant to bear in mind that he is the only subject with a female physician. The physician in question seems to nurture his off task personality to the determent of our research. To realise his potential I have recommended the separation of Hachiro and Dr Sirona. His survival alone, despite the best efforts of the pack, displays his resilience. If his defensive default reaction could be converted to aggression I predict that he would surpass Ichiro in terms of combat skill.