The Department of Corrections, Book One
Chapter 18: Level NegSix - Virology. Dissection Cell A

The TPlant01 (Thought Implanter One) looked exactly like the THarv01 (Thought Harvester One): a portable, single-person instrument connected to a perforated metal helmet by a tangle of scorched electrical wires. Except, instead of just displaying a subject’s private thoughts on a monochrome monitor, you would type sentences on its keyboard, to implant invasive voices, thoughts, sensations, emotions, memories, beliefs, facts, and puppet-like actions to be performed: to program/control/torture your subject. Commands would be displayed on the monochrome monitor as neon-orange TT (Thought Text), then, just hit the [enter] key. An electromagnetic-alphanumeric code, a KCode (Karpian code), compatible with the human mind, would be implanted into the subject’s brain using a classified wavelength of microwave: a VGW (voice of God weapon) Wi-Fying software to your brainware. Programming flesh with electromagnetic waves, the ultimate in (subconscious and conscious/individual and collective) total mind control.

VIL-EN watched silently, every one a thermal image, a visible spectrum of yellows, oranges, and reds.

“My name isth E30541,” said bisex Dr. Burgess, lisping effeminately.

A plastic keyboard clacked wildly inside of cold, damp DissCell A.

Suddenly (almost beheading him), the booming voice of God echoed inside of Malyj’s battered head: My name is E30541.

The dusty light bulb centered in the waterlogged concrete ceiling flickered wildly.

“Again!” said Dr. Burgess, without sympathy, without empathy.

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

PsychIntTec Dnarnya was working TPlant01s plastic keyboard, frantically typing Dr. Burgess’ effeminately spoken word. Both standing in front of E30541, in front of the long, horizontal, continually-watching trick mirror. Their reflections in front of them, their white-coated backs toward the prisonous, graffiti-keyed steel cell door. Malyj was still wearing his Karpian goggles, still naked, still feebly seated in the stainless-steel wheelchair, still centered inside DissCell A, still under the hot stream of a dusty piss-yellow spotlight, still facing the prisonlike, graffiti-keyed steel cell door: the crazy, sickle-shaped, Cyrillic-like scribbles scratched into the steel cell door’s lead paint read like an illustrated diary of a madman. TPlant01s perforated metal helmet and tangle of scorched electrical wires now strapped and screwed to the top of Malyj’s goggled, shrunken head. The shadowy, claustrophobic cell smelled of his bodily functions, and of something like embalming fluid, and of something oddly repellent—something like armpits and musty onions. He was flanked, left and right, by hundreds of sparkling (mostly occupied) Equality specimen jars. One of DissCell A’s four hissing wall nozzles was now whistling like a rusty strand of barbed wire strung across an angry Florida hurricane—making Malyj nauseous—making him homesick for the surface world—making him homesick for his Orlando.

“Again!”

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

“Again!”

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

“Good! Good!” Dr. Burgess gushed like the fountainhead of excitement.

Malyj felt a strange electromagnetic sensation within his skull, like his brain was vibrating, like his frontal lobes were searing on a bug zapper. He thought he could hear and smell and taste his terrified brains cooking. The perforated, nuclear noodle strainer and its tangled mass of scorched electrical wires were glowing red-hot on top of his itchy head. Like his scalp was being tasered. Invasive voices and thoughts repeating, urging; he was fighting the bizarre apparatus’ powerful suggestions.

“Again! Again!” Dr. Burgess spit his wet words into the electrified air of DissCell A.

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

The booming voice of God echoed inside of Malyj’s battered head: My name is E30541. My name is E30541.

PsychIntTec Dnarnya’s short, hard fingernails, polished gloss-black, were rapidly clacking against the standard, English, plastic keyboard—looking like black-tipped nightsticks pounding the tops of bone-white, alphanumeric-tattooed skulls—all ten fingers a pale blur punching keys, trying to keep up with Dr. Burgess’ verbal commands.

“Help! . . . Get me out of this fuckin’ thing!” A pistol-whipped face screamed through broken teeth like bloody prison bars. The fluid around Malyj’s microwaved brain a rolling boil, his wordy thoughts reduced, bordering on a muddled alphabet soup. He thought his mind smelt of and tasted like burnt plastic, melted styrofoam, singed Velcro, sparking tin foil, oily mayonnaise, and HIV-tainted blood. Good cop/bad cop tactics had been replaced by physical/technological torture. Time now measured in traumatic electromagnetic shocks.

“VIL-EN! Please record this session with E30541, record all biofeedback, as per Dr. Karp’s directive.”

“Yes, Dr. Burgess,” her mechanical voice soothed from the rusted speakers in the waterlogged, algae-green concrete ceiling.

Dr. Burgess continued his effeminate dictation. PsychIntTec Dnarnya continued typing, entering Dr. Burgess’ every brainwashing word into TPlant01, into E30541s vibrating, microwaved brain. Malyj found it hard to move, as if his rusty joints had been soldered—fused together.

Man must live for the State, mankind above man [enter] . . .

The individual must become one with the collective State, must be loyal to the

collective State, must submit to the collective State, or be made an example

of by public liquidation [enter] . . .

The individual must die, be reborn into the collective, anonymous masses

[enter] . . .

I does not exist, only WE [enter] . . .

“We” are only a temporary cell in a permanent organism [enter] . . .

The individual is abnormal, dangerous, a threat to Karpism; it is my duty to

report the individual, even if reporting myself [enter] . . .

There will be zero individualists, zero objectivists, zero laissez-faire capitalists,

only Karpian collectivists [enter] . . .

Those individuals not with the collective State are against the Karpian State,

they are criminals, they are my sworn enemies [enter] . . .

“Help!” One electrified word escaped Malyj’s shocked mouth like a discharged spark; a feeling like he was trying to scream while his thrashing tongue was being struck by a fiery lightning bolt; his grimacing face burning, aglow, like a high-voltage icon lamp illuminating the terrible darkness. The drugs making him, keeping him, as high as a cosmonaut.

I welcome a TechnoState at war with its for-profit subjects [enter] . . .

I welcome a State without transparency, without human interaction, who hides

behind a wall of technology issuing false laws, fees, costs, and fines [enter] . . .

The individual is helpless, vulnerable to the collective State and its high-tech

Karpian technologies [enter] . . .

“A small army of children . . . could bring down . . . your ‘high-tech’ State . . . with low-tech know-how. Just keep hitting the tyrannical ‘TechnoState’ . . . in its finite pocketbook . . . using reverse economic terrorism. A random . . . yet continuous . . . destruction of its vulnerable . . . and . . . very expensive to replace . . . infrastructure. Basic and oppressive infrastructure . . . on a national scale. Today’s juvenile delinquents . . . juvenile vandals . . . could equal yesterday’s barbarian hordes. And . . . the adult lone wolves . . . well . . . use your imagination,” said Malyj, struggling to talk, extremely short of breath. His speech full of awkward gaps as if riddled by bullet holes. “Remember the fall of . . . the Roman Empire?” He was still resisting TPlant01s painful mind rape. Though mentally wounded, he was still sharp enough for a verbal duel.

Dr. Burgess slapped E30541s goggled face viciously. PsychIntTec Dnarnya sniggered. Helmeted Malyj saw stars; felt pain—then anger; tasted blood.

“This isth why we have book burnings, esthpecially burning the history books,” said the Karpian ideologue, lisping effeminately, “to eliminate dangerous ideas born of the past, to remove unwanted concepts from our present and future society. The less informed the citizen, the more profitable the citizen.”

Shaking his head, and wearing a lack of expression like a ballistic face mask of Kevlar, Dr. Burgess continued his effeminate dictation. PsychIntTec Dnarnya typed frantically, her plastic keyboard clacking wildly. Malyj’s brain a grayish bloom of terrified thoughts.

The power of the State is only equal to the power of its technology [enter] . . .

Karpian technology is controlling the shape of the surface world, the pace of the

human race [enter] . . .

I will willingly integrate with all State technologies, by integrating my body and

my mind with KBC technology—the collective mark of the Karpian beast

[enter] . . .

“The pivot point of mankind’s downfall . . . is technology. Technology . . . ‘The’ Pandora’s box,” said Malyj, weakly, still fighting TPlant01s electromagnetically-implanted invasive mental suggestions. “No horror can compare to the horror of overreaching technology . . . shortsighted mankind’s deadliest . . . final enemy . . .”

“You’re crazy!” interrupted spectacled, yet visionless, Dr. Burgess. His effeminate screech made PsychIntTec Dnarnya look up from her finger-bludgeoned keyboard wide-eyed shocked; made Malyj shift in the uncomfortable stainless-steel wheelchair.

“No! . . . I am the voice of one . . . a Luddite crying out in the technological wilderness. Blowing my low-tech trumpet . . . in Zion. The whirlwind of technology . . . now cloaking God’s reality.”

“The Collective Mind isth manipulated by Karpian technology; the State playing upon the mindless masses’ instinctual desires and inborn fears, for maximum profit and absolute repression ‘n’ control. The devil is in the technology. That isth . . . ‘reality.’”

Nodding for PsychIntTec Dnarnya to start typing; Dr. Burgess’ verbal brainwashing resumed:

The individual will think, feel, speak, act, and look per State law—per State

regulation—per Mother’s official demands [enter] . . .

I willingly accept the State’s restrictions on my thoughts, feelings, speech,

actions, appearance, privacies, and access to information—for my own

protection [enter] . . .

I must! . . . willingly and loyally and honorably . . . blindly! . . . self-sacrifice my

body and my mind, to best serve the Karpian State—for “The Great Karpian

Collective.” This is my duty [enter] . . .

“Never!” Just getting one ~electromagnetically-charged~ word in was exhausting, physically and mentally. “’. . . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends . . . it is the Right of the People to alter . . . or to abolish it . . . and to institute new Government . . .’” Coughing up currents of scarlet blood. “The Karpian State . . . godless, pro-homo (gay dollar), for-profit America . . . are out of control . . . and need to be abolished.”

Dr. Burgess winced like someone bitch-slapped—to talk against the State was an act now prosecuted under the espionage act. His glaring eyes floating behind androgynous spectacles above an inhuman snarl glued to perfect, bleached white teeth. With his manicured hands on his white-coated hips, he spat effeminate words involuntary:

“A dangerous wit with dangerous ideas must be liquidated. It isth my duty to report the original thinker, even if reporting myself!”

PsychIntTec Dnarnya typed frantically, her plastic keyboard clacking wildly. Dr. Burgess fell silent, collected his Karpian thoughts in a clack-less moment of reflection equal to three of his stressed-out heartbeats, then he continued his effeminate dictation. PsychIntTec Dnarnya typed frantically, her plastic keyboard clacking wildly.

I prefer a totalitarian regime to freedom [enter] . . .

I prefer an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy [enter] . . .

I prefer an EconoKarpistic tyranny to capitalistic oppression [enter] . . .

I prefer unfreedom of choice to freedom of choice [enter] . . .

I desire a land of few privileges, a land of zero rights [enter] . . .

“Rights come from God . . . not government,” said Malyj, weakly.

Dr. Burgess rolled his eyes queerly, annoyed at the thought of a “God,” it was illogical to worship a dead man nailed to a stick. PsychIntTec Dnarnya’s pale face flushed devil-red with an atheist’s blind disapproval; her frantic typing uninterrupted. Malyj was praying to Jesus for a morphine drip.

I desire a socialist America, the first steppingstone toward an ultra-Karpist

America—Capitalism to Socialism to Communism to Karpism [enter] . . .

I want a nationalized America, in the name of omnipotent Karpism [enter] . . .

“Lies!” Malyj clutched at the red-hot contraption microwaving his shrunken head, scorching both hands; his naked body arched violently, making the stainless-steel wheelchair shift abruptly across DissCell A’s rough, sandpaper-like concrete floor, coming to rest to the left of the tarnished, perforated floor drain, but still within the hot spotlight’s piss-yellow puddle of light. The floor drain’s urinal-like stench uppercut-punched him in the nose.

Dr. Burgess and PsychIntTec Dnarnya continued to mind rape E30541 (Malyj) with TPlant01: the five-foot-tall, phallic-shaped, high-tech stainless-steel contraption now glowing red-hot like molten brass and vibrating wildly like an excited metallic vibrator ejaculating its tangle of scorched electrical wires upon a perforated metal helmet, electromagnetically-inseminating Malyj’s fertile mind with impregnated Karpian madness.

I believe all of the Karpian State’s political, commercial, and nonsense

propaganda [enter] . . .

I believe all of the Karpian State-produced movies, television shows, and news

reports [enter] . . .

I enjoy watching the Karpian State’s competitive reality television shows,

programming the next generation of average masses how to suppress the few

gifted intellectuals and few original artists left—individuals whose unique work

could be capable of sabotaging the Karpian State’s collective agenda [enter] . . .

Priests, philosophers, novelists, poets, and artists—obsolete—banned [enter] . . .

I willingly sacrifice my every freedom and my every right for my mindless

entertainment and my untrue happiness [enter] . . .

I willingly sell my eternal soul for a season of Karpian pleasure [enter] . . .

“No!—Never!” screamed Malyj, coughing up electrified blood. A thin spray of tiny red droplets splattered across the front of Dr. Burgess’ taut, pristine white lab coat as if it were an abstract painter’s gessoed canvas.

The painful mind rape continued. Malyj’s time now torture, like a dull gray passing as slow and as heavy as wet concrete smothering.

I desire a godless nation, a godless world, a godless universe [enter] . . .

“Of course you do . . . heathens, homos, lesbos, agnostics, godless ‘intellectuals,’ atheists, nihilists, satanists . . . ‘for where there is no law there is no transgression.’”

They ignored Malyj’s extreme resistance to TPlant01s powerful suggestions.

My God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit—The Holy Trinity, are a myth; my

heaven a hell [enter] . . .

The Holy Bible is a banned fairy tale full of primitive superstitions. An

antiquated, non-historical, homophobic book full of hate and intolerance.

The abomination responsible for starting every war [enter] . . .

Religious circumcision is genital mutilation, reducing immoral sexual

pleasure [enter] . . .

“You can suck my circumcised c . . .”

“Whoa!” Dr. Burgess interrupted Malyj to keep his female accomplice-in-torture from hearing the rest of the vulgarism. “Let’s keep things civilized!” PsychIntTec Dnarnya’s pale, oval, dimpled face turned a beautiful pomegranate-red.

Faith in Judeo-Christianity is a disease, a mental disorder. I want to be healed of

my sickness, cured of my “Jesus” delusion [enter] . . .

I cannot be a profitable citizen and a Christian; I choose to be a profitable citizen

[enter] . . .

I will worship Dr. Franz Johann Karp as the one true “God.” The soulless

Architect of Architects. The Karpian State his design, his creation, his paradise—a

subterranean, concrete “Garden of Eden” full of for-profit sins and vices. “The

Corrections Manifesto” and “Seven Methods of Social Decay,” they are his

sacred words, they are the Karpian State’s gospels, they are now my “Holy Bible”

and my “Prayer Book” [enter] . . .

“Blasphemer! . . . Your ‘Dr. Karp’ sounds more like . . . like the one true Antichrist.” Malyj still struggling to speak. A red current of electrified blood was vibrating wildly, floating just above his AK-47-butt abused chin.

“I will worship Dr. Franz Johann Karp as . . .”

“Never!” Malyj interrupted Dr. Burgess before he completed his verbal command, before PsychIntTec Dnarnya could finish typing his empty rhetoric and hit the painful [enter] key on TPlant01s keyboard. Malyj still valiantly resisting the trios torturous mind rape.

“Why not? Your surface world ‘God’ isth dead. Everyone now worshipping the State. Just look at His once great cathedrals ascending toward heaven, replaced with small, earthbound, rented glass boxes of worship buried like an afterthought inside of bustling, mammonist strip malls; the houses of your ‘God’ reduced in proportion to your faith.”

“Not in proportion to my faith!”

“Yeah yeah yeah—blah blah blah,” said Dr. Burgess halfheartedly, then nodding and pointing for PsychIntTec Dnarnya to type, his verbal brainwashing/correction resumed:

To be alive a privilege—if profitable—not a right [enter] . . .

I approve of aborted babies, abortions, human fetuses rent from their mothers’

wombs like a raw chicken’s giblets, being secretly incinerated to fuel our for-

profit government and our for-profit corporations; even our unborn citizens,

millions murdered per year, must do their part for the Karpian State [enter] . . .

“You’re a sick f . . .”

“VIL-EN!” interrupting the deviant.

“Yes, Dr. Burgess,” VIL-EN’s mechanical voice soothed from the rusted speakers in the waterlogged, algae-green concrete ceiling.

“Please teach this philistine a lesson. Three, thirty-second interval, level-five threshold, EMP (electromagnetic pulse), BNN (biological neural network) strikes.”

“Yes, Dr. Burgess.”

Instantly, violently, Malyj’s brain jarred three times, like it had been struck by a Central Florida lightning bolt. His helmeted head and goggled eyes smoking like an extinguished cigarette butt. His pupils shocked pinpricks. His naked body a pale arch arcing hot until his microwaved body melted into the cold stainless-steel wheelchair. Dr. Burgess and PsychIntTec Dnarnya and TPlant01 and VIL-EN resumed their robotic functions—for the welfare of the Karpian State. His torturers tortured him with complete impunity.

All men are equal; we must sacrifice the valuable few individuals for the

worthless many automatons, for the State’s collective stability [enter] . . .

My life desire is to be an everyman: a happy, entertained, common, average,

cookie-cutter, dreamless, for-others-profit surface citizen; one of the slumbering,

exploited, mindless masses; a toiler, a slogger, nothing more [enter] . . .

I accept today’s lower standard of living, the rationing and privation; the

Karpian State my Utopia, my cacotopia [enter] . . .

No freedom equals no crime, no crime equals security, security equals happiness;

to achieve collective happiness, individual freedom cannot exist [enter] . . .

The Karpian State’s goal is to get the whole of the surface masses into “The DOC

System” without them realizing it; a rush to get the majority under State

surveillance, State supervision, State incarceration, or DOC impoundment and

DOC correction before “We the People” comprehend our enslavement, before the

American laws catch up with the Karpian technologies [enter] . . .

Malyj’s microwaved brain was vibrating violently within his suture-ruptured skull, the forced-upon-him Karpian philosophies becoming repulsive thoughts, splintering his conscience: TPlant01s painful suggestions felt like square thought-pegs hammered into the round holes of E30541s bruised mind.

The individual will obey all laws; the individual cannot pass or repeal any laws;

the State determines the collective’s laws—for the State’s profit [enter] . . .

Without the State’s protection, the individual, and the collective, would live in

constant terror, constant peril, and constant agitation; unfreedom equals piece of

mind and safety and happiness [enter] . . .

The uncured impound’s “spirit” will be surgically excised, lobotomized—corrected

for their own protection [enter] . . .

Impounds are expendable, material for ImpKib [enter] . . .

My name is E30541. Equality 30541. I AM AN IMPOUND [enter] . . .

“No!—No!” Malyj screamed aloud in English, resisting TPlant01s false whispers.

My name is E30541 [enter] . . .

Again, Malyj screamed aloud: “No! (English), Het! (Russian), Hi! (Ukrainian), nie! (Polish), 3:4! (N) 3:5! (o) (Quadratic Alphabet).” Malyj’s mind, his thoughts, were rapidly shifting between four different languages, four different alphabets (two English-looking, two Cyrillic-looking), and an alphanumeric prison code used to spell out words by visualizing a mental grid and employing a sequence of negative (-) down tics and positive (+) right taps to identify individual letters within said mental grid—leaving TPlant01 confused and overloaded. The currently eighty percent incompatible, at best twenty percent compatible, single-person instrument of “total” mind control had only been programmed in English: the Karpian State’s official language.

Suddenly, the monochromatic monitor flashed violently, locked up, PsychIntTec Dnarnya’s neon-orange TT commands held prisoner, Dr. Burgess’ carefully chosen words frozen in place within TPlant01s glass screen like it was a thick sheet of Siberian ice. The Karpian State’s propaganda/brainwashing/torture machine needed to be rebooted: a Karpian State/DOC first.

The two futuristic, Dostoyevsky-like Grand Inquisitors were shocked, then puzzled, finally amazed: a mere husk of a man had resisted TPlant01s cutting-edge technology, had resisted Death’s sidekicks. Again, the helmeted, goggled, naked, emaciated, pale, writhing-in-pain, wheelchair-bound heretic screamed out in low-tech English:

“My name isth (mocking Dr. Burgess’ lisp) Sasha Malyj! An egocentric individual! A lone Christian!”

“No!—No!—No!” effeminate Dr. Burgess erupted in spittle, startling PsychIntTec Dnarnya. Said within his disheartened heart: Grohowski was right, this impound isth slippery as an eel, the toughest one yet, a real pain in the ass. His extreme physical and mental resistance to DOC correction—methods, techniques, drugs, environments, and technologies, to VIL-EN’s propaganda and painful RBMS, to TPlant01s torturous persuasion—eliminates him as a potential Karpian soldier, as a potential Karpian anything. Nevertheless, Dr. Karp has lifted all restrictions—just for me. I must! make an example of E30541, I must! neutralize his ego, break his spirit, and cure him, correct him, by programing him in basic collectivity—for the welfare of the Karpian State.

Dr. Burgess ripped TPlant01s red-hot helmet from E30541s sizzling head—tossing the glowing piece of perforated metal to DissCell A’s cold concrete floor—then he screamed like a hysterical woman:

“My name isth E30541! Equality 30541! I am an IMPOUND!” An effeminate punch to Malyj’s face.

“Correction equals conformity!” A limp-wristed punch to Malyj’s face.

“Conformity equals profit!” A faggoty punch to Malyj’s face.

“Profit equals loss!” A queer punch to Malyj’s face.

“Greed equals poverty!” A fruity punch to Malyj’s face.

“Justice equals injustice!” A sissified punch to Malyj’s face.

“Freedom equals unfreedom!” A homoerotic punch to Malyj’s face.

“Legalized, encouraged homosexuality equals anti-breeder sex, equals free population control!” An effeminate punch to Malyj’s face.

“One plus one equals three! Two plus two equals five!” Ten manicured fingernails clawed at, followed by a wad of spit the color of and consistency of a squashed snail to, Malyj’s now unconscious/rearranged face.

Dr. Burgess was out of breath, his girly knuckles swollen and bloody, bits of E30541s pale flesh trapped under his now broken fingernails. Malyj was slumped over in the stainless-steel wheelchair, slowly regaining consciousness.

“VIL-EN! Please create an energized HoloWire barrier around E30541, until I indicate otherwise,” said Dr. Burgess, still out of breath. Swollen-and-bloody-faced Malyj now conscious, his terrified eyes peering through shattered Karpian goggles into a cubist world of broken geometric shapes and impossible interlocking planes. A neon-orange message of undecipherable hieroglyphics flashed from a million pieces of shattered lens, like staring into an alphanumeric disco-ball sun; the malfunctioning goggles never-ending mind-whisper like deafening tinnitus rapidly affecting Malyj’s sanity.

“Yes, Dr. Burgess,” her mechanical voice soothed from the rusted speakers in the waterlogged, algae-green concrete ceiling. An amber-colored hologram of an electrically-charged HoloWire barrier formed out of faux barbed wire—a tangible, six-sided “illusion” discharging an actual electrical charge—created a barbed, untraversable, transparent amber cube around battered Malyj, who was still positioned under the single, dusty, piss-yellow spotlight and feebly seated in the chromium-glinting stainless-steel wheelchair.

“VIL-EN!” His intonation modulating along the wave of an angry parabola. “Also activate facial-rec tracking with interrogation-mode lighting for E30541, level-three focal length.”

“Yes, Dr. Burgess.” The round, piss-yellow puddle of light that circumscribed the stainless-steel wheelchair, its circumference quickly narrowed, focused into a hot stream of light that relocated to E30541s distorted face (the light and shadows playing upon the angles and planes and bumps and blood of Malyj’s battered face). The entire DissCell now appeared empty, except for a horrifically-illuminated “face” trapped within an amber-colored, electrically-charged HoloWire cube that seemed to be floating in the cell’s total darkness: just a battered human face like some half-eaten fish head floating in its polluted, amber-lit aquarium that was floating in the depths of some cold, buoyant, mysterious darkness.

“You better ‘pray’ we can program TPlant01 with your inferior Slavonic languages within the hour, if not, I am going to order Ivanov to use low-tech, or, ‘old school’ methods of persuasion on your obsthtinate (lisping) ass. What you would label as physical and mental torture.” Dr. Burgess’ massive forehead was sweating; he effeminately wiped his steamy spectacles off on his bloody lab coat’s long white sleeve. “Psych-Int-Tec Dnarn-ya!” Syllables popped, shot from his mouth like champagne corks.

“Dr. Burgess, sir!” Her standing body immediately erect, black military-issue bootheels clicking under a long white lab coat, followed by a quick Karpian State (Nazi-like) salute. Her blind obedience astonishing.

“Pleasthe take TPlant01 for Sthlavic languages download,” he lisped queerly.

“Sir!” Pushing the dolly-like instrument in front of her, the graffiti-keyed steel cell door mysteriously opened as she marched out of the torture chamber, out of DissCell A, then the graffiti-keyed steel cell door mysteriously slammed shut behind her—sending gray chips of lead paint flying like startled heavy-metal insects. A metallic-sounding concussion filled the hollow concrete cell.

The focussed beam of light shining upon Malyj’s distorted face—shining upon his shattered, mosaicked goggles—was blinding him. He was unable to open his blackened, fist-beaten-shut eyes. A laser-like ray of light and heat burning into his perspiring face. Any turn, in any direction, of his old, shrunken, now heat-blistering head, and the intense photon stream of piss-yellow light would follow his swollen-shut, salty-tearing eyes with unavoidable facial-rec precision. He could see a dark circle of bright spotlight through his thin, veiny, blood-red eyelids: like a black sun surrounded by silver stars exploding into warp speed. Then suddenly, without warning, he went blind as a mindless surface citizen: a total absence of perception.

Dr. Burgess’ voice erupted from within Malyj’s manufactured darkness:

“This isth not a republic, not a democracy, not a polyarchy, but a dictatorship. A for-profit totalitarian State founded on sound economics, advanced science, the latest and most invasive technologies, and our Karpian philosophies and Karpian ideals and Karpian machinations based entirely upon Dr. Karp’s gospels: The Corrections Manifesto and Seven Methods of Social Decay. Our charismatic and infallible leader, Dr. Franz Johann Karp, the saviour of the world’s mindless masses, hasth given me permission to break you any way possible,” spat Dr. Burgess, his phlegmy, lisping voice slowly circling around blinded E30541 (Malyj was still feebly seated in the stainless-steel wheelchair and still trapped within the amber-colored, five-foot-tall, HoloWire cube). The Doctor’s effeminate hands were clasped arrogantly behind his slender, white-coated back. His thoughtful, bespectacled gaze was upon the waterlogged, algae-green concrete ceiling as if he were looking through it studying the surface world’s simpletons, studying the surface world’s spiritual drought.

Malyj cringed, the Doctor’s lisping monologue a precursor: anticipating pain, waiting to be beaten again with fistsnjackboots. The unseen, the unknown, the imagination, the mental torture—always more terrifying than the known physical torture of never-ending insults and wads of spit and punches and kicks and electromagnetic shocks.

“Resistance is . . .”

“I am . . . the resistance!” interrupted Malyj, physically and mentally fatigued.

Smiling, but not amused. “You are not the first ‘individual’ to rebel against the ‘collective,’ and you will not be the last. Those nonconformists who refuse to assimilate, or cannot be corrected, will be liquidated!” dramatically enunciating liquidated for effect. “You will! give the State a lifetime of blind faith and self-sacrifice. The State will! regulate your every individual function: how to! think, feel, speak, act, look, and breed; what to! drink, eat, weigh, wear, toil at, purchase, and worship; when to! piss, shit, eat, starve, live, die, et cetera (enunciating et cetera queerly); which! ‘personal’ privacies allowed—if any; and who! may access ‘public’ information: for the collective good! Your freedom-lessth (lisping) and hopelessth (lisping) servitude will never! be rewarded.” Awkward exclamations peppered the mad Doctor’s effeminate speech.

Malyj rolled his swollen-and-bloodied, shattered-goggled head across the back of his bruised shoulders—weakly. The hot, blinding, facial-rec spotlight following his battered head’s every disfigured movement—left to right, then, right to left . . . His deep folds of spotted gray matter flowing with deep thoughts, concurrently being microwaved by VIL-EN’s RBMS. His deep thoughts drying up, like mental rivers of fluid thought reduced to mental riverbeds of gray clay and gray ash and gray dust; his deep thoughts evaporating like awakened dreams. Malyj’s sound perception of reality becoming like a vibrating mental sensation of wrinkled and broken and fleeting dreamlike abstractions. Abruptly, something like an epileptic episode: like spiritually staring down at your physical self from above—only to realize you’re mentally retarded; like being separated from the world—in it but not of it; like experiencing time out of time—a twenty-four-hour clock untime. Confused. He suddenly felt thirsty and faint and migraine nauseous. Then said Malyj—the physically and mentally tortured soul, the electromagnetically-martyred Impound Equality 30541:

“I . . . cannot . . . think in the collective . . .”

“Phffffffft!” Malyj was interrupted by a burst of static from the rusted speakers in the waterlogged, algae-green concrete ceiling. VIL-EN had suppressed an artificial chuckle.

“And We . . . cannot . . . form independent thoughts.” Pausing to stare with disgust at the enemy of the Karpian State, Dr. Burgess spat on top of Malyj’s amber-colored HoloWire cube, he watched his sizzling-spit dance for a moment, then continued with his lecture:

“Above ground, in the surface world, your old United States of America, plural, hasth experienced a radical metamorphosis—thanksth to the Osama bin Laden false-flag operation to passth the USA Patriot Act, to eliminate the Bill of Rights, to eliminate democracy in America as of 9/11—creating a faux democracy, a freedom-less and religionless new KBC-regulated United State of America, singular.” Dr. Burgess now circling bloodied Malyj like a half-starved shark, circling the amber-colored HoloWire cage again and again and again, his bony hands still clasped arrogantly behind his white-coated back like a dorsal fin as he continued to lisp while effeminately lecturing the stubborn Impound E30541—all while baring his pearly-white teeth. “The unholy subterranean Karpian State and the Department of Corrections have been lobbying the surface-dwelling politicians and capitalists since 9/11, working together toward unified goalsth: an America where the President (figurehead), White House (racist symbol), and Congress (greedy buffoons) are for sthale to the highest corporate bidder—the KBC (American government: a once sound equation, now corrupted by Karpian variables.); an America where corporations are legally ‘a person,’ with rights, becoming more powerful than world governments—able to topple world governments; to rewrite existing laws, to create new laws, that maximize profit from—like an economic straitjacket, and maintain absolute control over—like a police-state straitjacket, every US citizen, and eventually, every world citizen; to utilize every form of invasive technology available until every God-given birthright and every war-won American freedom, civil liberty, right, and privacy isth stripped away from the brainwashed and terrified US citizen—in the name of ‘Homeland Security.’ The Karpian Equation— (Unfreedom plus invasive technology equals security and perfect happiness.)—must first be resolved in the USA. Then, and only then, will the State, the Karpian State, rise up from the bowels of the Earth and claim the helpless, bourgeois American nation as its capital: the American citizen—eventually every world citizen—the Karpian Bank Cartel’s for-profit proletariat. To control the for-profit world, everyone must be in debt (-$) to the Karpian State/DOC (who have reinstated debtors’ prisons as insurance against default). The final two stages in the Karpian State’s generations-long plan/political agenda will be: total KBC control over the brainwashed planet—the World State; then to the stars to sit upon the throne of heaven—the Universal State. The for-profit planet Earth Dr. Franz Johann Karp’s footstool.”

“History has repeatedly proven . . . a godless nation is cursed . . . meaning . . . your godless State will fall by bloody revolution,” Malyj said faintly, still out of breath; microwaved, electromagnetically poisoned, he vomited on himself. “A government can only push its people so far . . . before the people start pushing back . . .”

“HISTORY! will be rewritten,” interrupted Dr. Burgess. “The ‘people’ will have no true reference for comparison, meaning! no reason to ‘push back.’ The past and present, real or fabricated, is the foundation of the future. We will control the Collective Memory. The government-regulated Internet and media, aka the Collective Mind, will create the illusion of . . .”

“The government . . . should serve and fear the people . . . not the people fear and serve the government. . . . Any government . . . that overreaches its authority . . . We the People . . . need to immediately . . . and violently . . . cut off its corrupt arm.”

“Sonuvabitch! . . . VIL-EN! Pleasthe deactivate the HoloWire barrier and activate the cell’sth sthtandard lighting and sthtandard environmental sthettingsth,” said outraged, the effeminate madman red-hot, lispingnspitting wildly, whistling loudly like some ostentatious teapot boiling over the aforementioned blasphemy.

“Yes, Dr. Burgess.” The glowing, amber-colored HoloWire cube vanished into thin air, its slight humming followed it into the mysterious beyond. The spotlight burst! on like a white-hot explosion filling the cell with its fiery light. Blinding light, a 72 degrees Fahrenheit temperature, and absolute silence instantly filled soggy DissCell A.

Dr. Burgess ripped the broken Karpian goggles from Malyj’s battered head, hurling them to the unyielding concrete floor where the already shattered lenses separated into countless dancing pieces of high-tech glass as shiny, faceted, and expensive as rough diamonds.

“Your ‘Jesus’ may forgive and forget your trespasses. The Karpian State’s unjust laws and oppressive technologies will not, they will forever remember your ‘trespasses,’ to spitefully use you (profit from you) and persecute you (absolutely control you) from cradle to coffin.”

Seething Dr. Burgess approached blinded E30541, balled up his bony fists (again), and repeatedly punched! the exhausted impound’s face (again) until he was unconscious (again) and crumpled over in the stainless-steel wheelchair like a stringless marionette (again)—letting E30541 feel the product of his fury.

Malyj’s Slavic physiognomy now hidden behind swollen, bruised, bloodied, fist-beaten flesh that radiated infrared like electromagnetic hellfire. His battered and microwaved brain’s awakening then sleeping, awakening then sleeping, like a captive flower the grayish color of incarceration blooming then dying, blooming then dying: his throbbing brain too swollen for its skull. His battered and microwaved mind’s reality and dreams, reality and dreams, overlapping and vanishing, overlapping and vanishing, like burning thoughts falling away into ash, falling away into ash: a cauterized mind. He was insensible of drooling and urinating and defecating on himself.

Then, as a symbolic gesture, effeminate Dr. Burgess kicked! naked E30541 over onto DissCell A’s hard concrete floor, placed his military-issue jackboot on E30541s battered and microwaved head—letting him feel the whole weight of the Karpian State, and with a hubristic pose in an abstract, E30541-blood-splattered white lab coat, imagined his red, white, and blue Karpian bootheel stood upon the collective face of the world.