The following is a story of NYE 2000. Perhaps others would be interested in sharing theirs?
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Φ
program
To Sandra. Words will never say it.
Disclaimer
The Orpheus Program arrived in my email on December 31st 2004. We have been unable to trace the source. No government agency has authorized these documents. We do not confirm nor deny the authenticity of the information contained within.
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January 2005
The point is a hinge which binds two mirrors, which, face to face, spread out to the side like wings for flying over a chaotic era.
- Subcommandante insurgente Marcos
The Orpheus Program
We assert our right to participate in the representation of our collective identities: past, present, and future.
We refuse to respond passively to the image on the screen. We demand access to the pattern of the circuitry.
We reject static and totalitarian representations. We assert the autonomous dynamic of the matrix.
The system must be sensitive to personal decisions.
Part 1:
The Orpheus Program
Transcript
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Operations Director
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Jonathan Pembroke
OD: You’ve come a long way, Agent Pembroke, but I don’t see what justifies such high-level surveillance.
JP: My request has been authorized by Interpol.
OD: And you really believe this ... Sean Ryan is such a threat to international security?
JP: I sincerely hope not, Director.
End Transcript.
0 Transit
LOAD This is memory / or dream
RUN NIGHTWORLDtm
u r entering.
On the street the lights have fallen. windows in the frozen lines of traffic beat alternate [red/blue]. rain beads on the glass and scatters the strobes. emergency vehicles approach. police lights continue to flash and colour the rain rebounding from the hard objects of plastic and steel. they make ghosts in the dark.
Satellite blinks unceasing process in digital colour. three figures in bright parkas moving quickly. turn into an alley. but the central one glances back and beneath the hood just for a moment it is her eyes – you know them: dim mystery of her sorrow – then they are gone.
1 Richmond
1.1
When the V-line rolled in sunset was a faint bloodstain on crinkled sheets. The streetlamps were reflected in the ripples of the river. This was not my memory. All the faces in the crowd like mirrors. All the perspex and glass. A gaze from every screen. I looked up and saw red clouds moving. It looked as if the office blocks were sliding beneath a frozen sky.
Walking by the Up-top Bar I even thought I saw her. Silhouetted in the upper window clothed in a rainbow gleam, until a spotlight from a police helicopter lit the face starkly. She was a younger version and the eyes showed it. Perhaps examining her reflection in the glass. A teenage boy in a baseball cap wondered if I’d like to buy smack.
On the corner of Jo’s street I could still order a souvlaki. I sat at a table and looked at a framed photograph of Marilyn Monroe. On a flyer I noticed a new night had opened at the Hi-fi Bar. I wondered how much had changed.
Jo’s eyes were greyer than I remembered. The blue had drained out to fill the skin beneath the lower lids. She looked at me a long time without speaking. She didn’t smile until I asked her if I could come in and then it was slow and difficult to read.
She said: ‘It’s good to know you’re alive.’
I wasn’t sure about that. I went inside and dialled a number. Anna had moved but there weren’t that many Santos in the book.
1.2
This photograph reveals two figures. one is half-turned to the window through which you see. trapped light old and yellow dissected in the horizontal by Venetian blades.
These remnants of a life of labour. tattered carpets. dusty articles. empty rooms. shrouded like the eyes of this aged woman who now stares with a kind of listless fear or is it grief at the strange visitor to her ailing home.
That face gleams through shadow. paler than the bleached almost-white of the short mane of hair. look at the eyes. receive just a glimpse / a half-glance. frozen and framed. indigital. you can zoom in and enhance: hints of sundrenched blue. they speak of time and distance. desert too immense for personality. intensity detached.
1.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Isabella Santo.
SR: Thank you for seeing me.
IS: You’re welcome, Sean.
Pause.
IS: Tea?
SR: Thank you.
Pause.
IS: So you have been back long?
SR: Since just after Christmas. I’ve been staying with my sister in Fitzroy ... looking for work.
IS: You are settling in?
Pause.
SR: Well... I still feel a little out of place.
Laughter.
IS: You were in Perth?
SR: Perth and Darwin, and a few places in between. I visited my father.
IS: Oh? He is well?
SR: He'd just had a cancer removed from his chin. He was complaining he couldn't go out in the sun.
IS: It is very hot?
SR: Yes... The sun and the dust at midday... Sometimes it made you forget who you were. I’d watch the magpies circling above the trees. It still seems more real than Melbourne in some ways.
Pause.
SR: I remember this photo from the old house. I asked Anna about the wedding but she said she didn’t like to think of you as young.
IS: We are engaged before he goes to war. When he comes back, he is different. This happens to many men. But the women keep their promise.
SR: Anna has her father’s eyes.
IS: They were alike. No... compromise.
Pause.
SR: Isabella, can you help me find her?
Pause.
IS: I wanted to come to this country. Australia. No-one told us our children would be taken from us.
Pause.
IS: Please come with me.
End transcript.
1.4
Isabella led me up the narrow stairs. The pattern of the carpet was faded, less intricate than in the old house. I stepped past Ricard’s room and the antiseptic smell of the invalid. I didn’t want to go in.
The furniture in Anna’s room was covered by stained white sheets and the floor was unpolished wood.
Isabella said: ‘She wouldn’t let us carpet,’ and smiled like she was ashamed.
Brown rose petals gathered with the dust in the corners of the room. Perhaps I remembered the roses they fell from. I knelt and held a shrivelled petal in my palm. Her cupboards were empty. Bluetack marked where her posters had been.
Isabella said: ‘This is all she left. We have nothing to remember her.’
We looked at each other until Ricard's bell saved us. While Isabella was out of the room I checked behind Anna's desk for the secret hole where she used to keep her stash. All I found was a disk balanced edgeways at the back, almost out of reach. I pocketed it before Isabella returned.
She said: ‘He’s asking to see you Sean.’
Ricard’s jowls were sagging and stubbled but his eyes were made of bluestone. We watched each other through silence interrupted by the erratic buzz of a fly. As I turned away Ricard caught my wrist. The back of his hand was psoriatic, mottled pink and grey.
He said: ‘Find her.’
1.5
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Isabella Santo.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
IS: We have no address, no word. Carla said she went overseas.
SR: Where is Carla now?
IS: She has her fiancee.
SR: Matthew?
IS: They are engaged after you left. They have a nice house in Brunswick. We talk on the phone sometimes.
Pause.
SR: Thank you for everything. Anna never blamed you... for anything.
IS: Who is to blame for the loss of our children? Time has stolen them. The city has stolen them. It is not our city.
SR: I don’t know if the city is anyone’s.
End transcript.
1.6
Nylex Plastics dominates the bridge despite the looming frame of Foxtel trying to steal the light. time and temperature remain more real than any digital simulation. it is all molecular agitation but the clock moves in time for you to see it. beneath a magpie caught in half-flight. no condor viewed on national geographic will lift its wings in response to your suspicious gaze.
2 Fitzroy
2.1
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Josephine Adams.
SR: How was work?
JA: Castles made of sand.
Pause.
JA: I’m dying for a coffee.
Pause. Phone rings.
JA: Matthew on the phone for you.
End transcript.
2.2
From: Sean Ryan
To: Luke Kenealy
Hey Luke, long time no speak.
I’m back in Melbourne for a while staying with my sister. I was hoping we could catch up soon.
Anyway let me know where you are, maybe we can exchange new year’s resolutions.
Sean.
From: Luke Kenealy
To: Sean Ryan
What a surprise. I thought you’d gone for good.
If you want to catch up before NY, I’m in Kew now but I’m flying up to Sydney tomorrow night for the big weekend.
LK
2.3
In the evening I went walking in this new world. I struggled to breathe air heavy with moisture and smog. The sky was starless uniform yellow except where the city wore a halo of rose. I followed the sound of drums through backstreets of factories and warehouses. The housing commission flats receded. Jo likes their nearness. ‘To remind me,’ she said.
Brunswick St still more colourful. Projecting artificial sunlight to the accompaniment of saxophones toward an uncertain audience in space. When a plane passed I wondered if they saw us. A tired man in a suit sniffed flowers under the nursery archway. The Black Cat lurked just the same as always. Familiar ground remains so. But everyone’s hair seemed both stranger and more carefully styled.
‘Each year I swear the street becomes more beautiful.’ I was never sure what Anna meant. I watched a goth walk beneath the giant hamburger. Techno shook the Punter’s Club. In the Polyester window a cardboard cutout Phantom advertised eroticomic art. I went inside taking refuge from the smells of low-fat cooking and to check the latest Beat. The dance section was bigger. Dub filtered through the circuits above the checkerboard floor. The girl behind the counter smiled inwardly adjusting the angle of her tongue-bolt as she swayed to the bass.
In the record store I asked the unfamiliar face behind the counter if Liam still came by here. He studied me for a second before glancing sideways. Two teenage girls were coming up the stairs. They saw there were no clothes here and turned around. The new face handed me a flyer.
He said: ‘You know who your friends are?’ and turned his back.
2.4
Across the road a tired man holds a lonely red rose and stares out at the rising moon. a train rolls by. dusk is repeated in every window. there are ghostly faces staring from each sunset. their eyes fade into the clouds.
2.5
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Carla Santo.
MB: Hello Sean? It’s Matt Berzin speaking. You left a message for my wife today.
SR: Yes, I rang Carla.
MB: To be honest, Carla and I were, let’s say, somewhat surprised by your call.
SR: I’m sorry?
MB: Anna hasn’t contacted her family for months, Sean.
Pause.
SR: Can I speak to Carla please?
Pause.
SR: Hello?
CS: Sean?
SR: Carla, are you okay?
CS: I’m fine Sean. It’s only...
Pause.
CS: Why don’t you come over Sean? Come for dinner. Brunswick isn’t far. 7 o’clock? We’ll talk then.
SR: That’s fine...
CS: Then I’ll see you soon.
End transcript.
2.6
Φ
3 Kew
3.1
Complexity of trees and grass disrupted by birdsflight [un]captured. alights grey branch. dead wood regenerates green tips. parkland gives way to industry. smog obscures the lowland. avoided by privilege: ancient fear of pestilence. also indicating fertile soil.
3.2
Kew contained the playgrounds of my childhood. Learned to ride a bike in our backyard. My father built a swing for us out of a tyre. We used to pull blossoms from the tree to prove how high we flew. Trying to beat my record my sister leapt from the garage and snapped the branch the rope was tied to. She cut her arm. I remember my father’s towering rage. I told him I had made her. When it struck the blow filled my head with the sound of a TV turned all the way down. I was glad to save her. She held me while I shook and sure enough blood welled from her cut and mingled with my tears.
3.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Luke Kenealy.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
SR: Looks like you’re set up.
LK: It’s all connected.
Pause.
LK: Where did you get this?
Pause.
LK: I never understood what happened.
SR: I didn’t realise until it was too late.
End transcript.
3.4
Φ
3.5
Waiting for the bus at the Junction I lit a cigarette and watched the blue leak from the sky. Across the road an aging mother-of-pearl herded two daughters from the earthy tones of Ishka. They climbed into their Mercedes to escape the early onset of the night. Mother avoided my gaze while her youngest gave me the eye.
The bus was swollen with private school boys shrieking and jostling through Studley Park. I remembered another time waiting for the bus here when a naked girl ran onto the road, belly filled with swelling child. Then the bus came and I climbed on board. I watched her skin dissolve into the background as the buildings converged to either side.
Luke was old in the mouth. The eyes were guarded like he wasn’t sure who I was. I wondered who he trusted these days. I wondered the same about me.
3.6
Image of a captain brave in battle. looks fit for pioneering space mission as seen on TV. elites will form in every system. talent looks for space where it can shine. frontiers have always drawn the brightest. leaves the centre stagnant. better than destroyed by nobles warring over who will rule it. without frontiers the only goal is for the capital. usually it ends up burned.
4 Brunswick
4.1
In series images measure time in stroboscope. observed obliquely by dilation of shadows. strobe captures instants. possibility remains: a vital event hidden in the spaces between. inexplicable by the information you are given.
In the gaps between the film a mirror flashes in the sun. sends a signal in code that you can never crack.
These moments are your stock in trade. fill in the gaps. see faces in the clouds. goslings hide in fear when the shadow of a cardboard hawk passes over their straw hutch.
4.2
I had seen this future for Carla in her soft eyes and in the pliancy of her breasts. A grey wind gave a bleak edge to the twilight and made the garden ragged. She showed me the vegie patch and the rabbits cowering under the straw in their hutch. It was the only chance I had to speak with her alone.
Carla said: ‘They’re terrified. Something in the air.’
I looked back at Carla where she stood shivering, wrapping herself up against the wind. The clouds were coiling above her. The antenna on the chimney rattled as a magpie took flight. The wind came down and drove Carla’s ringlets from her scarf.
She said: ‘She thought you might come looking for her.’
At the doorstep she pushed an envelope into my hand. She was so nervous I didn't dare to look at it. After I walked round the corner I saw Anna's name and the Carlton return address pencilled faintly on the back.
4.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Carla Santo
MB: Beer?
SR: Cheers.
MB: India's collapsing.
Pause.
SR: Is that one of Anna’s?
CS: She did a whole series after you left. Self-portraits. She painted over all of them. Except she let me keep this one because I begged.
SR: I thought Anna went overseas.
Pause.
CS: She sent me a letter before she left. That was the last time she contacted me.
Pause.
SR: I'd like to photograph this painting.
CS: Please.
Pause.
CS: See? She painted both herself and you.
End transcript.
4.4
Waiting for the tram I saw Brunswick fertile with hidden seeds and rot. I remembered watching Jack and Skie making fluffy pants on the floor of their flat. Later they would retire to the bedroom’s warm cocoon to watch the screensaver and shoot up. Down the road Andy and Kate showed me their collection of beautiful comics in a palace of corrugated iron. We spent endless nights on pills and cones talking crazy into the moonrise discussing bizarre possibilities and what we'd made real. The fermentation of dreams. Many do not emerge, join the mutant colonies of junk.
4.5
Black and white self-portrait needs no colour to express the sadness of this young girl’s face. black zig-zag marks where thought is broken. but the eyes are somehow free of damage. stare into space. sorrow echoing the reaches of horizons undreamed in suffocation of house and home.
And look: those eyes are Sean Ryan’s.
4.6
Voice 1 ID: Unknown Voice.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin.
UV: Generation.
MB: It’s Matthew.
UV: How goes it?
MB: The accounts will be in order next week. But I thought I’d let you know, Sean Ryan is back in town.
Pause.
UV: This is no problem?
MB: I’m sure it won’t be. But he seems very determined.
UV: I see. Thanks Matthew. We’ll speak soon.
End transcript.
5 Carlton
5.1
Dear Sean,
I don’t think this letter will reach you. You’ve cut off contact. But I have to try to get through.
Anna stayed out for five days after you left. Someone would see her briefly like a ghost, dancing or talking to some stranger, that vanished when we tried to touch her.
And now her new friend is always on her arm, Lydia, whispering in her ear. Lydia tells us Anna’s okay now, she's going to be fine. I don’t think so.
She’s changing, Sean. Please I hope you get this and come back.
love,
Charlotte.
5.2
Carlton never seemed real. Lygon Street reflecting a double image in a shop window. A student’s pacifist camouflage superimposed on this season’s conservative cuts. There was the road where delinquent terrorists fired a car the night of Liam's party. Our own wine-fuelled flame blazed merrily. We watched from the balcony like it was TV. When the firemen put it out we groaned. The twisted wreck of ashes reminded us of the next morning and soon we filed inside.
5.3
Φ
5.4
Halo of dusty lightbulbs makes two sharp silhouettes. one seems half-grasped by curling fingers of twig and leaf. smoke coils from a hand obscured by foliage. rises to further scatter light rays into appearance of mist.
Two-storey terrace rises like a church. patterns of chipped ironwork absent of stained glass. contemplatives free to imagine which colours they will look through.
You know how many worlds are out there depending on the frame you choose. on the street you cannot avoid encountering the others. even if you try to keep your distance they will shoulder you. stamp on your foot as you hurry by.
5.5
I could see Dean sizing me up. A year ago he was just Liam's kid brother trying too hard. Now he was full of dealer cool. At least it made it easier for him to leave me and Charlie alone. But I had a nagging feeling that wasn't something I should welcome.
Charlie kept flicking her eyes at me like she was worried I’d suddenly pull off my mask and show her my badge. When I asked her about the letter her face closed up like I’d finally given myself away.
She said: ‘Anna wanted a clean break.’
5.6
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Charlotte Mallone.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Dean Martin.
CM: Sean Ryan. Is it really you?
SR: I see you’ve added to your zoo.
DM: Mexican walking fish.
Pause.
SR: Haven’t seen green for a while.
Pause.
SR: What’s that?
DM: Orpheus.
CM: The first note.
End transcript.
6 North Melbourne
6.1
Parliament Station never looked so inhuman. A Big Mac wrapper tumbled against my legs and I imagined blood on the tiles. Going round the loop I stared at the reflection of the black man in the opposite seat. At Spencer St a hard man with a scarred face came in with an open stubby and a six-pack under his arm. He sat down next to the aboriginal man, took a triumphant slug of beer and stared around the carriage.
He said: ‘I used to be a racist man.’
The black man ignored the scarred one’s gaze.
The hard man said: ‘But then I was up North catchin’ brumbies. It was a good job, but I didn’t get paid very much, ‘cause I didn’t catch many brumbies.’
I listened furtively pretending to be lost reading the details of yesterday’s news.
‘But I was trackin’ these horses, an’ I got lost, see?
‘I was out there three days, ‘fore the blackfellas found me.
‘They took me back to their camp, an’ they told me stories.
‘Now I wasn’t drunk, an’ I wasn’t on drugs, but I saw visions.
‘Next day they found the brumbies an’ sent me home, no worries.’
The train reached North Melbourne station. The scarred man stood up.
He said: ‘I used to be a racist man.’
The aboriginal man kept looking at the window.
The memories didn’t come back until I’d left the train and crossed the new bridge at McCauley station. It was in the warehouses that we discovered each other most intimately. Beneath the Terrace helpless under the pheromone heat we lay topless in a haze of well-being. We were astonished by how beautiful the others were.
Then there were the acid awakenings and terrifying distortions. No one realising it was all a reflection. Anna had rocked back and forth foetally until she seemed to disappear somewhere inside, far off. I held her and wondered if she’d ever come back.
I remembered this as the first low pulse of the music penetrated my awareness. I saw brightly coloured figures emerge from the doorway, walking, heads bowed, with that quiet grace of the here and now. The doorgirl’s eyes flashed green as a laser beam caught her face. I paid her my money and entered the rave.
6.2
the rain was a rainbow...
underground music has changed...
I know who you are Sean Ryan...
i don’t know what will happen...
things won’t change much...
well look at the wars look at the atrocities of this century...
just opened my eyes more to the world more...
its just amazing the endless dynamic...
a collective goal...
Do you really want to find her...
the recognition of racism...
we don’t want another vietnam...
technology..
techno...
everything will happen...
6.3
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Lydia: I know who you are Sean Ryan.
Pause.
Lydia: Can’t you guess?
Pause.
SR: You’re the new friend. Lydia.
Lydia: She told me you might try to follow.
SR: Anna.
Lydia: Who else?
SR: Where is she?
Lydia: If you want to find her, you have to understand what she went through.
Pause.
Lydia: Follow me.
Pause. Music fades to background pulse.
SR: What did you mean, Anna knew I’d follow?
Lydia: She told me herself.
Pause.
Lydia: What I don’t understand is, why you meant so much to her.
Pause.
Lydia: You didn’t understand her.
SR: I didn’t even think.
Lydia: You still don’t.
Pause.
Lydia: But I understand her. And I understand you.
End transcript.
6.4
Hidden camera records in strobe the dry showerblock’s new year’s eve. sorting through the collage of the night: needles, kisses, nosebleeds, tears, and mania. finally you focus on the crucial encounter. two figures viewed from above appear in a distorted perspective. heads too large. bodies dwindling. black and white grain helps transform erotic interaction into surreal collision.
>>> profit XXX >>>
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Lydia: Is that what you wanted?
End transcript.
6.5
She came to me out of the darkness and fixed me with those eyes gleaming like auras in the UV. I wondered what more she could possibly do to me before she beckoned with a black-lacquered nail.
She said: ‘Do you still want to find her?’
I couldn’t refuse her. I followed her into the shadow and she told me the story. They had to make a delivery to St Kilda but their driver couldn’t see straight. Liam had to play in twenty minutes and Lydia didn’t have a license. I wondered what the package was.
She said: ‘I think you can guess.’
Hunched in his jacket Liam wore the same crooked smile underneath the same wide saintly eyes.
He said: ‘It’s good to see you Sean.’
I agreed.
He said: ‘This package is special, Sean. It comes from the original source.’
Lydia nodded.
‘Orpheus.’
I felt outmanoeuvred by forces outside my perception.
He said: ‘This is an unusual situation. Do you see why Anna might not want to be found?’
I couldn’t read his smile. Lydia stood at his side like a fateful omen and for the first time I was afraid of what I might discover.
On our way upstairs Lydia pressed a small white capsule into my hand. I shook my head. She kept walking up the stairs.
Outside the first light of the new millennium was seeping up between the silos. Lydia’s face was the colour of a pale rose when the dawn found her.
She said: ‘There are so many levels to this. You’ve only touched on the surface. Anna went deep. It’s a question of coping with the pressure.’
That was when they came out of nowhere. Two grey suits the colour of the shadows and before you could think they had their torches in our faces. I realised the cap was still in my palm. I downed it just as they showed us their badges. I started telling them our rights and they started laughing. The big one kneed me in the kidneys and I went down with blood behind my eyes.
In high school we would ride the deserted trains up and down the line. We would remove the seals from their windows so they would fall from their frames. We would scrawl our identities across the dull plastic and hang out of the windows and stare at the sky. I remember raising my arms up like a dream of flying.
Then there was the sound of two pennies dropping and the cops dropped too. Lydia was yelling at me to get up. I saw the holes and the blood. The car was under the bridge. We ran for it.
6.6
new age vampires adorn the platform at the station. these ones feed on their own flesh. the needle is their fang. a line of ravers crosses the new bridge. hooded heads are bowed as if in contemplation. they walk silhouetted against the morning. disappear inside the tunnel. it remains unclear what will emerge on the other side.
7
Everything that is erased goes into their networks.
8 St Kilda
8.1
The light that shimmers from beyond the vault’s grey frame transforms this photo into a negative. all blacks and whites without a hint of mediation. steel door separates the shadowed figures gathered at the sidelines from whatever lies concealed inside.
Sean Ryan’s hair is ghost-pale as it shifts and merges with the brilliance opening from within. face is turned away. expression twisted. as if the light burns as well as illuminates. he pauses at the threshold.
Lydia appears as a shadow on all that is spotless. hair hangs down her back in tendrils that spread fine cracks into the whiteness. she pulls her companion with her whether he wills or not. drags him across the line.
8.2
St Kilda is its own season. Muttering with the sound of the sea, the break of the waves on the beach where needles lie in wait like damned seeds. Far away wax men in singlets writhe to beats at the Prince of Wales. Fitzroy St spills out joyous house into the morning like a sacrament, communion found in mingled sweat and concentration, lifting souls to peaks never imagined in front of the television, watching re-runs of old favourites, slowing down after a day’s labour, wanting only forgetfulness and sleep.
Lydia pulled the cord before we reached the sea. Everything was twice as bright as I remembered but slowly the white haze was taking over the colours.
Lydia said: ‘You’ll have to come down eventually.’
8.3
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 2 ID: unconfirmed Michael??
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Lydia: Michael?
Pause.
Lydia: Michael, I’ve brought him.
Michael: I was grafting.
Lydia: They’re beautiful.
Pause.
Lydia: Someone shot up our sting.
Pause.
Michael: Incredible.
Lydia: You have a lot of faith.
Michael: Faith has never disappointed me.
Lydia: It might yet.
Michael: But here you are with my package.
Pause.
Lydia: Sean tried a sample this morning.
Michael: I can see that.
Pause.
Michael: How are you travelling?
SR: I’m lost.
Michael: I have something that might help.
Pause.
SR: My vision’s blurred.
Michael: This will help sharpen things up.
Pause.
Michael: In my country, you cannot afford to float about in a lovely dream.
Lydia: What happened to faith?
Michael: Faith must be honed.
Lydia: It cuts both ways.
SR: You know my intentions.
Michael: That’s not enough.
Pause.
Lydia: Orpheus was held in Michael’s warehouse, in the city.
Michael: I was more lost than you. I ran a finance company, Generation Systems. I cared only about edges.
SR: My vision’s clearing up.
End transcript.
8.4
Anna wanted to make a clean break, to be free of the ghosts of her past. So she disappeared. She wanted to wipe the slate clean, so she could start anew.
But it was inevitable that the trappings of her life would remind her of what she wanted to escape. So she set about building another life, with the help of Lydia.
She painted over all her paintings, leaving nothing that might speak of the history she wanted to forget. She told everyone she was going overseas, but really she moved to Carlton and got involved with a movement called Orpheus.
But the organizers were in need of fast cash. So Anna asked Lydia if her other contacts were able to help. Anna was their port of call for shipping in some experimental drugs, a new batch. Everyone at the party had the time of their lives.
But there was a problem. Anna was swimming with dangerous fish. When the police came calling, they traced it to her. She wasn’t the kind to squeal on her new friends, or so Lydia assured them. Maybe they really wanted to help her, or maybe they didn’t have much faith in human nature. So they got her a plane ticket and her prophecy fulfilled itself. She disappeared.
A year later and some of the crew were still keeping the dream alive. They were nostalgic for the first party. So they decided to make a sequel, and they even used the symbol Anna had designed. This must have drawn attention from the cops, because they came calling, still hoping to win the main prize, the source of the drugs. That’s where I came in.
8.5
the foreground of this photograph reveals a small hydroponic forest. ushering cool sweetness into the dry air of the warehouse floor that lies beyond. to the right a computer hums its supersonic music. emits white radiation that transforms the colour of the plants into uncanny green. behind: a set of couches surrounds an entertainment system speaking of a wealth that far exceeds the simplicity of the furnishings. weird Aztec patterns line the rug on the floor.
8.6
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Michael??
Voice 2 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Michael: We are so close to being at each other’s throats.
Lydia: But we have discovered a way to sustain our race.
Michael: The drugs we distribute have been designed with an intention.
Lydia: It is difficult, but luckily, we have help.
Michael: There are others, out there.
Pause.
Michael: The others move amongst us in the city. Material is over.
Pause.
Michael: Who understands the information Godhead, is with the others.
Pause.
SR: Anna.
Michael: You have always known. Go find your answer.
End transcript.
9 City
9.1
The symbol is etched in rough spray-paint. silver has faded to grey. behind a white door beckons. broken hole where the lock once was. now held in place by a rusted padlock.
This is the beginning of another story. you have reached this point unseen. unheard except in silenced gunshots. you have always believed the future of the world is at stake. now you are unsure whose side you serve.
9.2
Light poured through the windows high up in the walls of the warehouse, illuminating dust motes that swarmed in the musty air. White sheets covered racks of ransacked electronics. Over there, a box full of Christmas stars that had been painted fluorescent yellows and greens. A giant pixellated strawberry at the bottom of a crate.
I wandered between racks of torn and moth-eaten costumes. Spirals and concentric circles were painted on the floor and in the centre of it all stood a giant tripod hung with sheets of transparent plastic. Within, fluffy carpets of purple and green had become matted and spotted from water that had dripped from the roof.
I had found nothing of her but I refused to give up. I scrabbled through trays of glow-sticks and plastic rings, tossed aside coils of reflector tape, until I saw the flash of a disk in the morning light. It was unlabelled but as I picked it up I felt an unmistakeable shock tingle in my fingers.
Lydia said: ‘There were a lot of computers here once. This used to be the office of Generation Systems.’
9.3
This scanned postcard shows only one side. a familiar writing beckons from afar. in the corner is pasted the stamp of a church. BELFAST rubber-stamped in Westminster style over the top.
Dear Orpheus crew,
This is my last message. I hope everything is well with you all and that all is unfolding according to plan.
I am content. I sit and through my window watch the gulls rise above the church. Sometimes I think I see the movement of the updraft before it leaves my room and climbs into the clouds.
My love to you all.
Yours truly,
Anna
Transcript
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Jonathan Pembroke.
SR: So it finishes here.
JP: For you at least.
SR: Where is she?
JP: I’m afraid I cannot tell you. She has vanished from my networks, along with the rest.
SR: What do you mean?
JP: Perhaps you, after all, deserve to know.
Pause.
JP: This story starts twenty years ago, in London, England. With a man called Nathan Herbert.
Pause.
JP: Nathan Herbert was a brilliant design analyst who was approached by the IMF to write a program.
Pause.
JP: This program was special. It was to be designed to monitor the stock market, to enable the IMF to prevent economic crashes.
Pause.
JP: I was his protege. You don’t know how long and hard we worked. We were idealists. We thought we could build a future without hardship or risk.
SR: What happened?
JP: I’m afraid my mentor became obsessed. He became satisfied with nothing less than artificial intelligence. Only this AI would not only monitor the stock market, it would control it. He wanted to prevent monopolies. He wanted to save the world.
Pause.
JP: Herbert called it Orpheus. It needed no mainframe. It was completely decentralized.
Pause.
JP: When the IMF realized what he was doing they shut the program down. But Herbert would not accept it. He disappeared, along with the AI.
Pause.
JP: We only got wind of it around ’94. Some of the data analysts noticed anomalies in the currency trading.
Pause.
JP: I was asked to track down the source of the virus, we presume it is Herbert. You see, as far as we can tell, by around ’97 it was already intelligent enough to make contact with humans.
Pause.
JP: I’m afraid Anna was one of them.
SR: I don’t...
JP: I’m sorry, Sean, she’s with the others now.
Pause.
JP: I needed you to get to her, Sean. There was no other way of infiltrating their networks. But I failed. Yesterday the virus cracked the last of my codes. I didn’t get to him in time, Sean. We lost.
Pause.
SR: What does that mean?
JP: It means the world is under their control.
Pause.
SR: So it finishes here.
JP: For you at least.
End transcript.
db
***
db
Φ
program
To Sandra. Words will never say it.
Disclaimer
The Orpheus Program arrived in my email on December 31st 2004. We have been unable to trace the source. No government agency has authorized these documents. We do not confirm nor deny the authenticity of the information contained within.
db
January 2005
The point is a hinge which binds two mirrors, which, face to face, spread out to the side like wings for flying over a chaotic era.
- Subcommandante insurgente Marcos
The Orpheus Program
We assert our right to participate in the representation of our collective identities: past, present, and future.
We refuse to respond passively to the image on the screen. We demand access to the pattern of the circuitry.
We reject static and totalitarian representations. We assert the autonomous dynamic of the matrix.
The system must be sensitive to personal decisions.
Part 1:
The Orpheus Program
Transcript
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Operations Director
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Jonathan Pembroke
OD: You’ve come a long way, Agent Pembroke, but I don’t see what justifies such high-level surveillance.
JP: My request has been authorized by Interpol.
OD: And you really believe this ... Sean Ryan is such a threat to international security?
JP: I sincerely hope not, Director.
End Transcript.
0 Transit
LOAD This is memory / or dream
RUN NIGHTWORLDtm
u r entering.
On the street the lights have fallen. windows in the frozen lines of traffic beat alternate [red/blue]. rain beads on the glass and scatters the strobes. emergency vehicles approach. police lights continue to flash and colour the rain rebounding from the hard objects of plastic and steel. they make ghosts in the dark.
Satellite blinks unceasing process in digital colour. three figures in bright parkas moving quickly. turn into an alley. but the central one glances back and beneath the hood just for a moment it is her eyes – you know them: dim mystery of her sorrow – then they are gone.
1 Richmond
1.1
When the V-line rolled in sunset was a faint bloodstain on crinkled sheets. The streetlamps were reflected in the ripples of the river. This was not my memory. All the faces in the crowd like mirrors. All the perspex and glass. A gaze from every screen. I looked up and saw red clouds moving. It looked as if the office blocks were sliding beneath a frozen sky.
Walking by the Up-top Bar I even thought I saw her. Silhouetted in the upper window clothed in a rainbow gleam, until a spotlight from a police helicopter lit the face starkly. She was a younger version and the eyes showed it. Perhaps examining her reflection in the glass. A teenage boy in a baseball cap wondered if I’d like to buy smack.
On the corner of Jo’s street I could still order a souvlaki. I sat at a table and looked at a framed photograph of Marilyn Monroe. On a flyer I noticed a new night had opened at the Hi-fi Bar. I wondered how much had changed.
Jo’s eyes were greyer than I remembered. The blue had drained out to fill the skin beneath the lower lids. She looked at me a long time without speaking. She didn’t smile until I asked her if I could come in and then it was slow and difficult to read.
She said: ‘It’s good to know you’re alive.’
I wasn’t sure about that. I went inside and dialled a number. Anna had moved but there weren’t that many Santos in the book.
1.2
This photograph reveals two figures. one is half-turned to the window through which you see. trapped light old and yellow dissected in the horizontal by Venetian blades.
These remnants of a life of labour. tattered carpets. dusty articles. empty rooms. shrouded like the eyes of this aged woman who now stares with a kind of listless fear or is it grief at the strange visitor to her ailing home.
That face gleams through shadow. paler than the bleached almost-white of the short mane of hair. look at the eyes. receive just a glimpse / a half-glance. frozen and framed. indigital. you can zoom in and enhance: hints of sundrenched blue. they speak of time and distance. desert too immense for personality. intensity detached.
1.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Isabella Santo.
SR: Thank you for seeing me.
IS: You’re welcome, Sean.
Pause.
IS: Tea?
SR: Thank you.
Pause.
IS: So you have been back long?
SR: Since just after Christmas. I’ve been staying with my sister in Fitzroy ... looking for work.
IS: You are settling in?
Pause.
SR: Well... I still feel a little out of place.
Laughter.
IS: You were in Perth?
SR: Perth and Darwin, and a few places in between. I visited my father.
IS: Oh? He is well?
SR: He'd just had a cancer removed from his chin. He was complaining he couldn't go out in the sun.
IS: It is very hot?
SR: Yes... The sun and the dust at midday... Sometimes it made you forget who you were. I’d watch the magpies circling above the trees. It still seems more real than Melbourne in some ways.
Pause.
SR: I remember this photo from the old house. I asked Anna about the wedding but she said she didn’t like to think of you as young.
IS: We are engaged before he goes to war. When he comes back, he is different. This happens to many men. But the women keep their promise.
SR: Anna has her father’s eyes.
IS: They were alike. No... compromise.
Pause.
SR: Isabella, can you help me find her?
Pause.
IS: I wanted to come to this country. Australia. No-one told us our children would be taken from us.
Pause.
IS: Please come with me.
End transcript.
1.4
Isabella led me up the narrow stairs. The pattern of the carpet was faded, less intricate than in the old house. I stepped past Ricard’s room and the antiseptic smell of the invalid. I didn’t want to go in.
The furniture in Anna’s room was covered by stained white sheets and the floor was unpolished wood.
Isabella said: ‘She wouldn’t let us carpet,’ and smiled like she was ashamed.
Brown rose petals gathered with the dust in the corners of the room. Perhaps I remembered the roses they fell from. I knelt and held a shrivelled petal in my palm. Her cupboards were empty. Bluetack marked where her posters had been.
Isabella said: ‘This is all she left. We have nothing to remember her.’
We looked at each other until Ricard's bell saved us. While Isabella was out of the room I checked behind Anna's desk for the secret hole where she used to keep her stash. All I found was a disk balanced edgeways at the back, almost out of reach. I pocketed it before Isabella returned.
She said: ‘He’s asking to see you Sean.’
Ricard’s jowls were sagging and stubbled but his eyes were made of bluestone. We watched each other through silence interrupted by the erratic buzz of a fly. As I turned away Ricard caught my wrist. The back of his hand was psoriatic, mottled pink and grey.
He said: ‘Find her.’
1.5
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Isabella Santo.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
IS: We have no address, no word. Carla said she went overseas.
SR: Where is Carla now?
IS: She has her fiancee.
SR: Matthew?
IS: They are engaged after you left. They have a nice house in Brunswick. We talk on the phone sometimes.
Pause.
SR: Thank you for everything. Anna never blamed you... for anything.
IS: Who is to blame for the loss of our children? Time has stolen them. The city has stolen them. It is not our city.
SR: I don’t know if the city is anyone’s.
End transcript.
1.6
Nylex Plastics dominates the bridge despite the looming frame of Foxtel trying to steal the light. time and temperature remain more real than any digital simulation. it is all molecular agitation but the clock moves in time for you to see it. beneath a magpie caught in half-flight. no condor viewed on national geographic will lift its wings in response to your suspicious gaze.
2 Fitzroy
2.1
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Josephine Adams.
SR: How was work?
JA: Castles made of sand.
Pause.
JA: I’m dying for a coffee.
Pause. Phone rings.
JA: Matthew on the phone for you.
End transcript.
2.2
From: Sean Ryan
To: Luke Kenealy
Hey Luke, long time no speak.
I’m back in Melbourne for a while staying with my sister. I was hoping we could catch up soon.
Anyway let me know where you are, maybe we can exchange new year’s resolutions.
Sean.
From: Luke Kenealy
To: Sean Ryan
What a surprise. I thought you’d gone for good.
If you want to catch up before NY, I’m in Kew now but I’m flying up to Sydney tomorrow night for the big weekend.
LK
2.3
In the evening I went walking in this new world. I struggled to breathe air heavy with moisture and smog. The sky was starless uniform yellow except where the city wore a halo of rose. I followed the sound of drums through backstreets of factories and warehouses. The housing commission flats receded. Jo likes their nearness. ‘To remind me,’ she said.
Brunswick St still more colourful. Projecting artificial sunlight to the accompaniment of saxophones toward an uncertain audience in space. When a plane passed I wondered if they saw us. A tired man in a suit sniffed flowers under the nursery archway. The Black Cat lurked just the same as always. Familiar ground remains so. But everyone’s hair seemed both stranger and more carefully styled.
‘Each year I swear the street becomes more beautiful.’ I was never sure what Anna meant. I watched a goth walk beneath the giant hamburger. Techno shook the Punter’s Club. In the Polyester window a cardboard cutout Phantom advertised eroticomic art. I went inside taking refuge from the smells of low-fat cooking and to check the latest Beat. The dance section was bigger. Dub filtered through the circuits above the checkerboard floor. The girl behind the counter smiled inwardly adjusting the angle of her tongue-bolt as she swayed to the bass.
In the record store I asked the unfamiliar face behind the counter if Liam still came by here. He studied me for a second before glancing sideways. Two teenage girls were coming up the stairs. They saw there were no clothes here and turned around. The new face handed me a flyer.
He said: ‘You know who your friends are?’ and turned his back.
2.4
Across the road a tired man holds a lonely red rose and stares out at the rising moon. a train rolls by. dusk is repeated in every window. there are ghostly faces staring from each sunset. their eyes fade into the clouds.
2.5
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Carla Santo.
MB: Hello Sean? It’s Matt Berzin speaking. You left a message for my wife today.
SR: Yes, I rang Carla.
MB: To be honest, Carla and I were, let’s say, somewhat surprised by your call.
SR: I’m sorry?
MB: Anna hasn’t contacted her family for months, Sean.
Pause.
SR: Can I speak to Carla please?
Pause.
SR: Hello?
CS: Sean?
SR: Carla, are you okay?
CS: I’m fine Sean. It’s only...
Pause.
CS: Why don’t you come over Sean? Come for dinner. Brunswick isn’t far. 7 o’clock? We’ll talk then.
SR: That’s fine...
CS: Then I’ll see you soon.
End transcript.
2.6
Φ
3 Kew
3.1
Complexity of trees and grass disrupted by birdsflight [un]captured. alights grey branch. dead wood regenerates green tips. parkland gives way to industry. smog obscures the lowland. avoided by privilege: ancient fear of pestilence. also indicating fertile soil.
3.2
Kew contained the playgrounds of my childhood. Learned to ride a bike in our backyard. My father built a swing for us out of a tyre. We used to pull blossoms from the tree to prove how high we flew. Trying to beat my record my sister leapt from the garage and snapped the branch the rope was tied to. She cut her arm. I remember my father’s towering rage. I told him I had made her. When it struck the blow filled my head with the sound of a TV turned all the way down. I was glad to save her. She held me while I shook and sure enough blood welled from her cut and mingled with my tears.
3.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Luke Kenealy.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
SR: Looks like you’re set up.
LK: It’s all connected.
Pause.
LK: Where did you get this?
Pause.
LK: I never understood what happened.
SR: I didn’t realise until it was too late.
End transcript.
3.4
Φ
3.5
Waiting for the bus at the Junction I lit a cigarette and watched the blue leak from the sky. Across the road an aging mother-of-pearl herded two daughters from the earthy tones of Ishka. They climbed into their Mercedes to escape the early onset of the night. Mother avoided my gaze while her youngest gave me the eye.
The bus was swollen with private school boys shrieking and jostling through Studley Park. I remembered another time waiting for the bus here when a naked girl ran onto the road, belly filled with swelling child. Then the bus came and I climbed on board. I watched her skin dissolve into the background as the buildings converged to either side.
Luke was old in the mouth. The eyes were guarded like he wasn’t sure who I was. I wondered who he trusted these days. I wondered the same about me.
3.6
Image of a captain brave in battle. looks fit for pioneering space mission as seen on TV. elites will form in every system. talent looks for space where it can shine. frontiers have always drawn the brightest. leaves the centre stagnant. better than destroyed by nobles warring over who will rule it. without frontiers the only goal is for the capital. usually it ends up burned.
4 Brunswick
4.1
In series images measure time in stroboscope. observed obliquely by dilation of shadows. strobe captures instants. possibility remains: a vital event hidden in the spaces between. inexplicable by the information you are given.
In the gaps between the film a mirror flashes in the sun. sends a signal in code that you can never crack.
These moments are your stock in trade. fill in the gaps. see faces in the clouds. goslings hide in fear when the shadow of a cardboard hawk passes over their straw hutch.
4.2
I had seen this future for Carla in her soft eyes and in the pliancy of her breasts. A grey wind gave a bleak edge to the twilight and made the garden ragged. She showed me the vegie patch and the rabbits cowering under the straw in their hutch. It was the only chance I had to speak with her alone.
Carla said: ‘They’re terrified. Something in the air.’
I looked back at Carla where she stood shivering, wrapping herself up against the wind. The clouds were coiling above her. The antenna on the chimney rattled as a magpie took flight. The wind came down and drove Carla’s ringlets from her scarf.
She said: ‘She thought you might come looking for her.’
At the doorstep she pushed an envelope into my hand. She was so nervous I didn't dare to look at it. After I walked round the corner I saw Anna's name and the Carlton return address pencilled faintly on the back.
4.3
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Carla Santo
MB: Beer?
SR: Cheers.
MB: India's collapsing.
Pause.
SR: Is that one of Anna’s?
CS: She did a whole series after you left. Self-portraits. She painted over all of them. Except she let me keep this one because I begged.
SR: I thought Anna went overseas.
Pause.
CS: She sent me a letter before she left. That was the last time she contacted me.
Pause.
SR: I'd like to photograph this painting.
CS: Please.
Pause.
CS: See? She painted both herself and you.
End transcript.
4.4
Waiting for the tram I saw Brunswick fertile with hidden seeds and rot. I remembered watching Jack and Skie making fluffy pants on the floor of their flat. Later they would retire to the bedroom’s warm cocoon to watch the screensaver and shoot up. Down the road Andy and Kate showed me their collection of beautiful comics in a palace of corrugated iron. We spent endless nights on pills and cones talking crazy into the moonrise discussing bizarre possibilities and what we'd made real. The fermentation of dreams. Many do not emerge, join the mutant colonies of junk.
4.5
Black and white self-portrait needs no colour to express the sadness of this young girl’s face. black zig-zag marks where thought is broken. but the eyes are somehow free of damage. stare into space. sorrow echoing the reaches of horizons undreamed in suffocation of house and home.
And look: those eyes are Sean Ryan’s.
4.6
Voice 1 ID: Unknown Voice.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Matthew Berzin.
UV: Generation.
MB: It’s Matthew.
UV: How goes it?
MB: The accounts will be in order next week. But I thought I’d let you know, Sean Ryan is back in town.
Pause.
UV: This is no problem?
MB: I’m sure it won’t be. But he seems very determined.
UV: I see. Thanks Matthew. We’ll speak soon.
End transcript.
5 Carlton
5.1
Dear Sean,
I don’t think this letter will reach you. You’ve cut off contact. But I have to try to get through.
Anna stayed out for five days after you left. Someone would see her briefly like a ghost, dancing or talking to some stranger, that vanished when we tried to touch her.
And now her new friend is always on her arm, Lydia, whispering in her ear. Lydia tells us Anna’s okay now, she's going to be fine. I don’t think so.
She’s changing, Sean. Please I hope you get this and come back.
love,
Charlotte.
5.2
Carlton never seemed real. Lygon Street reflecting a double image in a shop window. A student’s pacifist camouflage superimposed on this season’s conservative cuts. There was the road where delinquent terrorists fired a car the night of Liam's party. Our own wine-fuelled flame blazed merrily. We watched from the balcony like it was TV. When the firemen put it out we groaned. The twisted wreck of ashes reminded us of the next morning and soon we filed inside.
5.3
Φ
5.4
Halo of dusty lightbulbs makes two sharp silhouettes. one seems half-grasped by curling fingers of twig and leaf. smoke coils from a hand obscured by foliage. rises to further scatter light rays into appearance of mist.
Two-storey terrace rises like a church. patterns of chipped ironwork absent of stained glass. contemplatives free to imagine which colours they will look through.
You know how many worlds are out there depending on the frame you choose. on the street you cannot avoid encountering the others. even if you try to keep your distance they will shoulder you. stamp on your foot as you hurry by.
5.5
I could see Dean sizing me up. A year ago he was just Liam's kid brother trying too hard. Now he was full of dealer cool. At least it made it easier for him to leave me and Charlie alone. But I had a nagging feeling that wasn't something I should welcome.
Charlie kept flicking her eyes at me like she was worried I’d suddenly pull off my mask and show her my badge. When I asked her about the letter her face closed up like I’d finally given myself away.
She said: ‘Anna wanted a clean break.’
5.6
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Charlotte Mallone.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Dean Martin.
CM: Sean Ryan. Is it really you?
SR: I see you’ve added to your zoo.
DM: Mexican walking fish.
Pause.
SR: Haven’t seen green for a while.
Pause.
SR: What’s that?
DM: Orpheus.
CM: The first note.
End transcript.
6 North Melbourne
6.1
Parliament Station never looked so inhuman. A Big Mac wrapper tumbled against my legs and I imagined blood on the tiles. Going round the loop I stared at the reflection of the black man in the opposite seat. At Spencer St a hard man with a scarred face came in with an open stubby and a six-pack under his arm. He sat down next to the aboriginal man, took a triumphant slug of beer and stared around the carriage.
He said: ‘I used to be a racist man.’
The black man ignored the scarred one’s gaze.
The hard man said: ‘But then I was up North catchin’ brumbies. It was a good job, but I didn’t get paid very much, ‘cause I didn’t catch many brumbies.’
I listened furtively pretending to be lost reading the details of yesterday’s news.
‘But I was trackin’ these horses, an’ I got lost, see?
‘I was out there three days, ‘fore the blackfellas found me.
‘They took me back to their camp, an’ they told me stories.
‘Now I wasn’t drunk, an’ I wasn’t on drugs, but I saw visions.
‘Next day they found the brumbies an’ sent me home, no worries.’
The train reached North Melbourne station. The scarred man stood up.
He said: ‘I used to be a racist man.’
The aboriginal man kept looking at the window.
The memories didn’t come back until I’d left the train and crossed the new bridge at McCauley station. It was in the warehouses that we discovered each other most intimately. Beneath the Terrace helpless under the pheromone heat we lay topless in a haze of well-being. We were astonished by how beautiful the others were.
Then there were the acid awakenings and terrifying distortions. No one realising it was all a reflection. Anna had rocked back and forth foetally until she seemed to disappear somewhere inside, far off. I held her and wondered if she’d ever come back.
I remembered this as the first low pulse of the music penetrated my awareness. I saw brightly coloured figures emerge from the doorway, walking, heads bowed, with that quiet grace of the here and now. The doorgirl’s eyes flashed green as a laser beam caught her face. I paid her my money and entered the rave.
6.2
the rain was a rainbow...
underground music has changed...
I know who you are Sean Ryan...
i don’t know what will happen...
things won’t change much...
well look at the wars look at the atrocities of this century...
just opened my eyes more to the world more...
its just amazing the endless dynamic...
a collective goal...
Do you really want to find her...
the recognition of racism...
we don’t want another vietnam...
technology..
techno...
everything will happen...
6.3
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Lydia: I know who you are Sean Ryan.
Pause.
Lydia: Can’t you guess?
Pause.
SR: You’re the new friend. Lydia.
Lydia: She told me you might try to follow.
SR: Anna.
Lydia: Who else?
SR: Where is she?
Lydia: If you want to find her, you have to understand what she went through.
Pause.
Lydia: Follow me.
Pause. Music fades to background pulse.
SR: What did you mean, Anna knew I’d follow?
Lydia: She told me herself.
Pause.
Lydia: What I don’t understand is, why you meant so much to her.
Pause.
Lydia: You didn’t understand her.
SR: I didn’t even think.
Lydia: You still don’t.
Pause.
Lydia: But I understand her. And I understand you.
End transcript.
6.4
Hidden camera records in strobe the dry showerblock’s new year’s eve. sorting through the collage of the night: needles, kisses, nosebleeds, tears, and mania. finally you focus on the crucial encounter. two figures viewed from above appear in a distorted perspective. heads too large. bodies dwindling. black and white grain helps transform erotic interaction into surreal collision.
>>> profit XXX >>>
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Lydia: Is that what you wanted?
End transcript.
6.5
She came to me out of the darkness and fixed me with those eyes gleaming like auras in the UV. I wondered what more she could possibly do to me before she beckoned with a black-lacquered nail.
She said: ‘Do you still want to find her?’
I couldn’t refuse her. I followed her into the shadow and she told me the story. They had to make a delivery to St Kilda but their driver couldn’t see straight. Liam had to play in twenty minutes and Lydia didn’t have a license. I wondered what the package was.
She said: ‘I think you can guess.’
Hunched in his jacket Liam wore the same crooked smile underneath the same wide saintly eyes.
He said: ‘It’s good to see you Sean.’
I agreed.
He said: ‘This package is special, Sean. It comes from the original source.’
Lydia nodded.
‘Orpheus.’
I felt outmanoeuvred by forces outside my perception.
He said: ‘This is an unusual situation. Do you see why Anna might not want to be found?’
I couldn’t read his smile. Lydia stood at his side like a fateful omen and for the first time I was afraid of what I might discover.
On our way upstairs Lydia pressed a small white capsule into my hand. I shook my head. She kept walking up the stairs.
Outside the first light of the new millennium was seeping up between the silos. Lydia’s face was the colour of a pale rose when the dawn found her.
She said: ‘There are so many levels to this. You’ve only touched on the surface. Anna went deep. It’s a question of coping with the pressure.’
That was when they came out of nowhere. Two grey suits the colour of the shadows and before you could think they had their torches in our faces. I realised the cap was still in my palm. I downed it just as they showed us their badges. I started telling them our rights and they started laughing. The big one kneed me in the kidneys and I went down with blood behind my eyes.
In high school we would ride the deserted trains up and down the line. We would remove the seals from their windows so they would fall from their frames. We would scrawl our identities across the dull plastic and hang out of the windows and stare at the sky. I remember raising my arms up like a dream of flying.
Then there was the sound of two pennies dropping and the cops dropped too. Lydia was yelling at me to get up. I saw the holes and the blood. The car was under the bridge. We ran for it.
6.6
new age vampires adorn the platform at the station. these ones feed on their own flesh. the needle is their fang. a line of ravers crosses the new bridge. hooded heads are bowed as if in contemplation. they walk silhouetted against the morning. disappear inside the tunnel. it remains unclear what will emerge on the other side.
7
Everything that is erased goes into their networks.
8 St Kilda
8.1
The light that shimmers from beyond the vault’s grey frame transforms this photo into a negative. all blacks and whites without a hint of mediation. steel door separates the shadowed figures gathered at the sidelines from whatever lies concealed inside.
Sean Ryan’s hair is ghost-pale as it shifts and merges with the brilliance opening from within. face is turned away. expression twisted. as if the light burns as well as illuminates. he pauses at the threshold.
Lydia appears as a shadow on all that is spotless. hair hangs down her back in tendrils that spread fine cracks into the whiteness. she pulls her companion with her whether he wills or not. drags him across the line.
8.2
St Kilda is its own season. Muttering with the sound of the sea, the break of the waves on the beach where needles lie in wait like damned seeds. Far away wax men in singlets writhe to beats at the Prince of Wales. Fitzroy St spills out joyous house into the morning like a sacrament, communion found in mingled sweat and concentration, lifting souls to peaks never imagined in front of the television, watching re-runs of old favourites, slowing down after a day’s labour, wanting only forgetfulness and sleep.
Lydia pulled the cord before we reached the sea. Everything was twice as bright as I remembered but slowly the white haze was taking over the colours.
Lydia said: ‘You’ll have to come down eventually.’
8.3
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 2 ID: unconfirmed Michael??
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Lydia: Michael?
Pause.
Lydia: Michael, I’ve brought him.
Michael: I was grafting.
Lydia: They’re beautiful.
Pause.
Lydia: Someone shot up our sting.
Pause.
Michael: Incredible.
Lydia: You have a lot of faith.
Michael: Faith has never disappointed me.
Lydia: It might yet.
Michael: But here you are with my package.
Pause.
Lydia: Sean tried a sample this morning.
Michael: I can see that.
Pause.
Michael: How are you travelling?
SR: I’m lost.
Michael: I have something that might help.
Pause.
SR: My vision’s blurred.
Michael: This will help sharpen things up.
Pause.
Michael: In my country, you cannot afford to float about in a lovely dream.
Lydia: What happened to faith?
Michael: Faith must be honed.
Lydia: It cuts both ways.
SR: You know my intentions.
Michael: That’s not enough.
Pause.
Lydia: Orpheus was held in Michael’s warehouse, in the city.
Michael: I was more lost than you. I ran a finance company, Generation Systems. I cared only about edges.
SR: My vision’s clearing up.
End transcript.
8.4
Anna wanted to make a clean break, to be free of the ghosts of her past. So she disappeared. She wanted to wipe the slate clean, so she could start anew.
But it was inevitable that the trappings of her life would remind her of what she wanted to escape. So she set about building another life, with the help of Lydia.
She painted over all her paintings, leaving nothing that might speak of the history she wanted to forget. She told everyone she was going overseas, but really she moved to Carlton and got involved with a movement called Orpheus.
But the organizers were in need of fast cash. So Anna asked Lydia if her other contacts were able to help. Anna was their port of call for shipping in some experimental drugs, a new batch. Everyone at the party had the time of their lives.
But there was a problem. Anna was swimming with dangerous fish. When the police came calling, they traced it to her. She wasn’t the kind to squeal on her new friends, or so Lydia assured them. Maybe they really wanted to help her, or maybe they didn’t have much faith in human nature. So they got her a plane ticket and her prophecy fulfilled itself. She disappeared.
A year later and some of the crew were still keeping the dream alive. They were nostalgic for the first party. So they decided to make a sequel, and they even used the symbol Anna had designed. This must have drawn attention from the cops, because they came calling, still hoping to win the main prize, the source of the drugs. That’s where I came in.
8.5
the foreground of this photograph reveals a small hydroponic forest. ushering cool sweetness into the dry air of the warehouse floor that lies beyond. to the right a computer hums its supersonic music. emits white radiation that transforms the colour of the plants into uncanny green. behind: a set of couches surrounds an entertainment system speaking of a wealth that far exceeds the simplicity of the furnishings. weird Aztec patterns line the rug on the floor.
8.6
Voice 1 ID: unconfirmed Michael??
Voice 2 ID: unconfirmed Lydia??
Voice 3 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan
Michael: We are so close to being at each other’s throats.
Lydia: But we have discovered a way to sustain our race.
Michael: The drugs we distribute have been designed with an intention.
Lydia: It is difficult, but luckily, we have help.
Michael: There are others, out there.
Pause.
Michael: The others move amongst us in the city. Material is over.
Pause.
Michael: Who understands the information Godhead, is with the others.
Pause.
SR: Anna.
Michael: You have always known. Go find your answer.
End transcript.
9 City
9.1
The symbol is etched in rough spray-paint. silver has faded to grey. behind a white door beckons. broken hole where the lock once was. now held in place by a rusted padlock.
This is the beginning of another story. you have reached this point unseen. unheard except in silenced gunshots. you have always believed the future of the world is at stake. now you are unsure whose side you serve.
9.2
Light poured through the windows high up in the walls of the warehouse, illuminating dust motes that swarmed in the musty air. White sheets covered racks of ransacked electronics. Over there, a box full of Christmas stars that had been painted fluorescent yellows and greens. A giant pixellated strawberry at the bottom of a crate.
I wandered between racks of torn and moth-eaten costumes. Spirals and concentric circles were painted on the floor and in the centre of it all stood a giant tripod hung with sheets of transparent plastic. Within, fluffy carpets of purple and green had become matted and spotted from water that had dripped from the roof.
I had found nothing of her but I refused to give up. I scrabbled through trays of glow-sticks and plastic rings, tossed aside coils of reflector tape, until I saw the flash of a disk in the morning light. It was unlabelled but as I picked it up I felt an unmistakeable shock tingle in my fingers.
Lydia said: ‘There were a lot of computers here once. This used to be the office of Generation Systems.’
9.3
This scanned postcard shows only one side. a familiar writing beckons from afar. in the corner is pasted the stamp of a church. BELFAST rubber-stamped in Westminster style over the top.
Dear Orpheus crew,
This is my last message. I hope everything is well with you all and that all is unfolding according to plan.
I am content. I sit and through my window watch the gulls rise above the church. Sometimes I think I see the movement of the updraft before it leaves my room and climbs into the clouds.
My love to you all.
Yours truly,
Anna
Transcript
Voice 1 ID: confirmed Sean Ryan.
Voice 2 ID: confirmed Jonathan Pembroke.
SR: So it finishes here.
JP: For you at least.
SR: Where is she?
JP: I’m afraid I cannot tell you. She has vanished from my networks, along with the rest.
SR: What do you mean?
JP: Perhaps you, after all, deserve to know.
Pause.
JP: This story starts twenty years ago, in London, England. With a man called Nathan Herbert.
Pause.
JP: Nathan Herbert was a brilliant design analyst who was approached by the IMF to write a program.
Pause.
JP: This program was special. It was to be designed to monitor the stock market, to enable the IMF to prevent economic crashes.
Pause.
JP: I was his protege. You don’t know how long and hard we worked. We were idealists. We thought we could build a future without hardship or risk.
SR: What happened?
JP: I’m afraid my mentor became obsessed. He became satisfied with nothing less than artificial intelligence. Only this AI would not only monitor the stock market, it would control it. He wanted to prevent monopolies. He wanted to save the world.
Pause.
JP: Herbert called it Orpheus. It needed no mainframe. It was completely decentralized.
Pause.
JP: When the IMF realized what he was doing they shut the program down. But Herbert would not accept it. He disappeared, along with the AI.
Pause.
JP: We only got wind of it around ’94. Some of the data analysts noticed anomalies in the currency trading.
Pause.
JP: I was asked to track down the source of the virus, we presume it is Herbert. You see, as far as we can tell, by around ’97 it was already intelligent enough to make contact with humans.
Pause.
JP: I’m afraid Anna was one of them.
SR: I don’t...
JP: I’m sorry, Sean, she’s with the others now.
Pause.
JP: I needed you to get to her, Sean. There was no other way of infiltrating their networks. But I failed. Yesterday the virus cracked the last of my codes. I didn’t get to him in time, Sean. We lost.
Pause.
SR: What does that mean?
JP: It means the world is under their control.
Pause.
SR: So it finishes here.
JP: For you at least.
End transcript.
