[python] MI5 Persecution: Dirk Gently on the Toronto Case

[Ondrej Beranek]

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8 Jan 2007 12:13:08 GMT, MI5Victim na mi5.gov.uk <MI5Victim na mi5.gov.uk>:
>
> Dirk was on the West Coast when he got the call. An old
> friend at the Toronto police department thought he would like
> to fly up and take a look at a homicide which had occurred
> the previous evening. He decided to skip the last day at the
> World Holistics conference and take the next plane out of
> San Francisco.
>
> The flight was bad; Dirk had been hit on the back of the head
> by the Newspaper trolley, the drinks trolley, the dinner trolley
> and now the gift trolley. When the hostesses weren't trying to
> tear his arm off they pestered him to stop leaning into the aisle
> - ignoring the fact that the guy next to him was taking up one and
> a half seats. Air Canada used to be the flight which was so
> good you just didn't wanna get off - on this occasion Dirk
> would be glad to see the back of the plane and the over sized
> alternative comedian wedged into the window seat.
>
> After breathing in a couple of lungfulls of crisp Canadian air
> Dirk took a taxi into town. There was a small group of
> demonstrators outside the MacDonalds and the taxi driver
> insisted on stopping on the opposite side of the street. 'Don't
> Eat Meat' the placards read and the demonstrators chanted. A
> couple of policemen where stopping the crowd entering the
> restaurant itself - one held up his arm and challenged Dirk. A
> wave of the fax he had been sent and the policeman pushed
> open the door.
>
> There were few customers in the restaurant. Not surprising
> really with a demonstration going on outside, half the dining
> area roped off with tape and a dead body seated at one of the
> tables. 'Mr Gently sir' the officer in charge called out as he
> peeled one end of the tape off a column 'We were told not to
> touch anything til' you got here'.
>
> The body of the man slumped awkwardly in a chair. Then
> even a dead body would start getting uncomfortable in a
> MacDonalds chair after twenty minutes - and this one had
> been there for at least eighteen hours. Two back legs and the
> tail of a cat hung out of the man's gaping mouth. Dirk turned
> to the officer, 'I suppose you are going to tell me this is the
> darndest thing you ever saw?'
>
> 'Ain't this the darnd...'. The officer seemed annoyed that Dirk
> had second guessed him. 'We're removing the body in a few
> minutes, so if you can get through as quick as possible'
>
> 'Many people eat cats in fast food restaurants?' Dirk asked
> and without waiting for an answer leant over the table to pick
> up an untouched burger. 'And what's this?' he asked waving
> it in front of the officers face.
>
> 'It's a Vedgie Burger' The waitress, who was cleaning one of
> the adjacent tables, shouted across. She walked over to Dirk.
> 'We started doing them because of that lot out there' she
> nodded towards the protesters who were pressing there faces
> against the windows 'They're called Linda McCartney Vedgie
> burgers - ever heard of them?'
>
> Dirk suddenly felt faint, perhaps a combination of hunger and
> jet lag. 'This is deja vu all over again' he thought to himself.
> He glanced at policemen - at the badge on his shoulder 'OPD'
> but this wasn't Ontario this was Toronto. OPD - Officially
> Pronounced Dead. It dawned on Dirk what was happening, he
> knew what he would see if he looked out of the window. Sure
> enough, there it was, the Volkswagen Beetle parked across
> the road - number plate 28IF - 28 IF Paul McCartney had
> lived. And amongst the lyrics of the song blaring out into the
> restaurant he could pick out the words 'I buried Paul'. Now it
> was though Dirk was viewing the whole scene though a TV
> screen. This was conspiracy. Not -a- conspiracy, or -the-
> conspiracy, but just plain conspiracy.
>
> 'You look faint - are you OK mister? The waitress asked.
>
> Dirk shook his head 'Probably a bit hungry' Then to
> economise on dialogue took out a pack of cigarettes and held
> it out towards the girl. She was about to take one but Dirk
> snatched the pack away, held it up to his mouth and drew out
> two cigarettes. He lit both then passed one of them to the girl.
> It was the closest he had come to a sexual encounter in three
> months.
>
> 'Want a Burger?' the waitress asked.
>
> Dirk looked down at the Vedgie Burger on the table. 'No
> thanks - just a plate of fries'
>
> The waitress walked away and Dirk looked around the room.
> Apart from a family seated in the far corner there was only
> one other person in the restaurant - and he wasn't eating. The
> guy was about mid twenties and had straggling, shoulder
> length hair. On the table in front of him were lots of pieces of
> paper cut into squares. Every so often he would pick up a
> camcorder and pan it around the room and then, when he was
> finished, speak into a microphone which was attached to a
> tape recorder. Dirk walked over to where the man was sitting.
>
> The small pieces of paper had paragraphs of text written on
> them and were stuck to the top of table with blobs of mustard.
> Lines had been drawn, some solid some dotted, on the table
> top with a marker pen. The lines ran from one piece of paper
> to another.
>
> 'What are the lines for?' Dirk asked, realising straight away
> that 'What the hell are you doing?' would be more
> appropriate.
>
> 'You see' The man replied nervously 'The dotted lines are
> weak links and the solid lines are strong links. The dotted
> lines are things which are happening in the rest of the world
> and the solid lines are things which are happening to me. Now
> you see I draw over a dotted line, replacing it with a solid line,
> when I can link something back to me. Like this' The pen
> squeaked over the Formica and before Dirk could interrupt
> the man added. 'You see I lost my short term memory and, as
> a consequence have a very short attention span. I write down,
> record and film everything then put it all together later'
>
> 'So' Dirk interrupted. 'You filmed what happened here?'
>
> 'Yes, yes, it's here on this tape' The man pushed the cassette
> across the table. On the label the words 'Grassy Knoll' had
> been crossed through and replaced with 'MacDonalds'.
>
> Suddenly the man sprung from his seat. Dirk turned and saw
> that the body was being removed on a stretcher. As it passed
> the man picked a small object off the edge of the stretcher
> itself. 'This is important' he said, laying a blood stained bullet
> on one of the small pieces of paper on the table.
>
> Suddenly the room was filled with a deafening throbbing
> sound as a Black Helicopter landed in the street outside. Two
> men in United Nations uniforms got out and collected the
> stretcher. Back at the table the long haired man was replacing
> all the dotted lines with solid ones. Dirk panicked and began
> to walk backwards at some speed. Barging through the swing
> doors he stumbled into the kitchen, tripped and felt himself
> sink slowly into a large vat.
>
> 'The guys fallen into the batter' Dick heard someone shout
> before he sunk below the surface. He came to sitting in a chair
> with the batter solidifying all over his body. He surveyed the
> room through two eye-holes someone had cut. Suddenly the
> chair on which he was sitting was picked up carried through
> the restaurant and out of the building. As the chair was being
> lifted and put into the back of a van, Dirk caught a glimpse of
> the waitress following him. 'Your fries mister, your
> plate o...'.
>
> The doors of the van shut and Dirk tried desperately to steady
> himself as it sped across town. Eventually the doors flew open
> and Dirk was flung into the road at which point the solidified
> batter shattered and set him free. Standing up he found
> himself outside the international departures terminal of
> Toronto airport.
>
> In the departure lounge Dirk had time to reflect on the day's
> events. He had got caught up in the conspiracy theories and
> the haphazard welding together of pieces of irrelevant
> information. It was time to catch the person who was
> operating the  bizarre cognitive engine which appeared in
> front of him like a fairground mirror, distorting any flaw it
> could find in his own, fragile, map of the real world.
>
> Dirk leant into the aisle of the plane as it took off for London.
> The oversized person next to him swung his arms violently as
> he complained about every thing from the supper in a plastic
> tray to the state of British politics. With a shaven head and a
> badly fitting suit the man looked as though he could have
> worked behind the reception desk of the Kremlin. However
> when he spoke he did so in a Liverpudlian accent. 'Me I
> blame the Con-serv-a-tive government, me. The Tour-rees.
> That-cher. Me. They need a good kicking' He jerked his feet
> forward and struck the seat in front with his Doc Martins.
> 'With these. Me Doc Martins. Doctor Martin's, Doctor
> Martin's, Doctor Martin's Booots!' The phrase was now
> being sung over and over again as the man writhed in his seat
> and clicked his fingers.
>
> Dirk looked down at the boots and thought of the reaction
> most people used to deal with the paranoids at the end of the
> wire. A nice quick kick. 'Oi nutter - get some therapy'. This is
> the easy way out and perhaps the safest. After all there you
> are sat, alone, in front of the screen. No body language
> between you some paranoid. No way of telling if he really is
> some gibbering psycho. Look at it too long and you be drawn
> in. Fall into the tangled database of weird links with him. Who
> knows he may be watching you, reassembling and linking your
> experiences with his. How sure are you of you own cognitive
> threads. After all cognition is only a bug fix for a neurological
> system which was designed in a hurry - it's abused by
> everyone from politicians to advertisers. If people really can
> convince each other that a bottle of washing up liquid is as
> exciting as an orgasm using just television God knows what
> they can do with a computer. Better to avoid the risk. A swift
> kick. After all if you're Homophobic you put the boot in
> because you are scared of any ambiguity in your own sexuality
> - why not be Nutterphobic as well.
>
> Although Dirk would have liked to devoted time to tracking
> the culprit down he decided to let it rest. The Internet
> changed over the next twenty odd years. A lot of the people
> who used it went out and got lives. And those who already
> had lives burnt them away. The number of users had dwindled
> after someone had invented a C++ program, with truth as a
> variable,  to deal handle politics and government. Dirk had
> already retired from finding old ladies cats with the help of
> obscure science when he got another call from Toronto.
>
> It was 4th March 2025 when he booked onto the Air Canada
> flight from Heathrow. The silver haired woman in the seat
> next to him painted bright red lipstick around her mouth. 'Of
> course it was no surprise to be offered the job after Claire
> Raynor retired' she sneered' After all I used to be a
> psychiatric nurse... Now if Blokes had periods they would
> understand...'
>
> By chance the taxi ride to Toronto mental hospital took him
> past the MacDonalds - where the whole thing had started. Of
> course it was barely recognisable having become a Church Of
> Scientology Vedgie Bar. Police in riot gear kept the two sets
> of demonstrators apart. Dirk didn't really know what to
> expect when he got to the hospital. The girl at the reception
> desk directed him to a row of chairs in a wide well lit
> corridor. There was a strong smell of disinfectant, the
> furniture and the carpets were immaculately clean and behind
> the rows of teak veneer doors the 'nutters' were all safely
> locked away. For some reason Dirk started thinking about
> CompuServe forums.
>
> A tall blond woman in a white coat approached. 'Mr Gentle, I
> assume'
>
> 'Yes' Dirk replied shaking her by the hand. 'You're the nurse
> who...'
>
> 'Doctor' She interrupted, 'Doctor Killfile' She led Dirk across
> the corridor towards one of the doors then stopped with her
> hand resting on the handle. 'Now you know about this person
> don't you?' and after Dirk nodded she continued 'Don't tell
> him anything about yourself - don't let him get into you head.
> If he does he'll screw it up'
>
> The door opened to reveal a frail man sitting in from of a TV
> screen. He had a keyboard on his lap and next to the television
> was a computer screen. Dirk glanced at the walls of the room
> and remembered that his settee at home need upholstering.
> The nurse left the room and the man looked up 'So you come
> to my daughters wedding and ask me to kill a man' he said in
> a dry cackling voice. 'Look' he continued, pointing at the
> screen, 'I know that man. They're talking about me now -
> listen'. The man stared at Dirk. 'What's your name? Are you
> one of my friends from the Internet? - Are the lambs still
> screaming Dirk?'
>
> Dirk, at first recoiled in horror,  then felt a sense of anti
> climax. So this is what they hyped up to superstar status on
> the back of their own fears of madness.  Dirk was reminded of
> the film 'A day on The Beach' where a submarine had set off
> to search a post nuclear World to track down a signal coming
> from a remote military base - only to find it was being sent by
> a Coke bottle half balanced on a Morse tapper. Outside the
> room the nurse waited for him. Because his nicotine craving
> had returned - and to avoid an awkward piece of dialogue -
> Dirk turned to her and asked . 'Patch?'
>
> Dirk took two nicotine patches from his wallet the first of
> which he stuck onto the inside of his arm. Stepping closer to
> Doctor Killfile he opened her white coat and slid his hand
> into the opening at the front of her dress. He pressed the
> patch onto her leg as close to the top of her inner thigh as
> he dare. She took a deep breath and then slowly breathed out.
> 'What Bogart could have done with these things' Dirk
> thought to himself.
>
> 'Is he crazy?' Dirk asked tilting his head back to towards the
> door.
>
> 'Who knows' Doctor Killfile replied 'We let him type away.
> He sees something on the TV in the morning and it keeps him
> busy all day. What he types doesn't go anywhere it just stays
> on a mainframe in the basement. It can be read by anyone else
> in the building but that's it. We got them all in here conspiracy
> theorists, racists, nationalists. They've created a world within
> a world really...' Her voice trailed away and she stared down
> the corridor for a while then added 'So long are two things
> are different neither will come to be in the other and so
> become at once both one and two.'
>
> Dirk gave her a puzzled look 'You mean their brains are
> fried?'
>
> 'Fried?' Killfile smiled at Dirk 'No that was Plato'. Then the
> smile fell from her face. 'You must remember, mister, plate
> o...'
>
> 413
>
>
>
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