Fragments and Remains - Excerpts From A Vanished World: The Beast, #2

By J.T. Flint

Nine hundred years in the future researchers examine a limited number of documents, journals, publications and diaries from the current era in hopes of understanding our vanished world.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.T. Flint
• Release date: Feb 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201804398

Book preview

FORWARD

As part of the current resurgence of interest in depopulation history, this compilation and dramatization of narrative fragments from ancient diaries and publications portrays events that occurred over nine hundred years before present day. The earth at the time counted over six billion alien along with several million human inhabitants. While the near total extinction of the alien population remains mysterious and appears to hinge on a failure of genetic manipulation, the human personal account fragments depicted here provide some insight.

We sought to approximate the tenor of the era but in language that provides clarity and uniformity to contemporary readers. This was a very challenging task given the idiosyncratic nature of the source material and the obscure references of the era. The foundation documents for these reconstructions derive from the famous, if meager, surviving library of Region Four. Readers familiar with that growing literature should find interest in the many new revelations presented here. Much mystery still remains.

The earth now supports a human population of nearly ten million by best estimates and the number has not risen above that in over three hundred years. It may never go much beyond for reasons that are well understood from our knowledge of virology. While the wondrous technology of the twenty-first century aliens captivates our imaginations, nevertheless the abiding human challenge is to overcome the predator so often mistakenly nurtured in heart, mind and soul, that unruly trinity of our nature.          

Solio Deo Gloria

1

Adapted into third person from the daily log of John Princeton. The third person has been adapted for all Fragments for reader ease.

The problem was this: you couldn’t believe anything. No one had a clue but everyone had an opinion. Every agency had an essential lie to tell and thrived on it and then as suddenly, changed the lie for another. The world separated into those giving orders and those following them. A very few went their own way. For a trivial but indicative example, there were a dozen ways to get to Las Vegas from Los Angeles and John Princeton knew them all. But 99% of the traffic followed only one way.

John looked to be a Caucasian human (as from the northern continents), of light olive complexion, in age, 44, and the father of two, a boy Albert, 8 in years, and a girl, Kimber, 10 in years. Five years years ago his wife went mad as a billy goat and committed herself to an institution, but then, mercifully perhaps, squeezed off a suicide.

She would tell John almost everyday up until she went into care: I don’t know which end is up! Lots of people said that while society began to crumble around them economically, so he paid her little mind. He regretted everything until some time later he realized she was an alien.

The children were devastated after she died, for a month, and then it became a dull ache for six months and finally an assortment of odd memories. Many people go to the grave and leave only a sack of odd memories to those left behind. People don’t visit graveyards to recall odd memories, though, instead they like the quiet. No Bon Jovi or Neil Diamond playing in the background, well, usually.

( These were alien musicians, apparently annoying to many humans. They recorded their music for widespread replay, a common practice in that distressed era.)

Traffic often gets loud and heavy on the I-15 and John preferred to travel it by night, if he went that way.

( I-15 was a road of very impressive engineering and construction spanning many hundreds of kilometers of which some remnants are still visible as are other roads of the era mentioned in this collection)

Many find the desert scenery monotonous and drab and also it gets hot and often windy, too, so travel by night along the 15 was a solid alternative. His journey would be about three hundred miles in distance, a trip under five hours including a rest stop. By night the coarse visual impact is not a fatique factor, the wind is usually mild, the temperature not too bad and traffic moderate, except around the weekends.

( People made small talk about road travel. Everyone during that era believed he knew something about it and had an opinion. Much like today! Back then, however, most just assumed information from electronic devices must be correct. This even included opinions on important matters. Many people had prearranged conversation packets from these electronic devices that they repeated like parrots to friends and acquaintances. This gave the illusion of thought and discussion to everyday life. Agreement often came easy enough for people with the same packets. We know now, of course, that aliens controlled the origination of these packets. Because the alien mind was defective, however, agreement did not amount to very much or for very long. In fact, society spun into chaos with the advent of personal electronic devices. Soon, almost no one knew anything of actual facts, including aliens. John Princeton, a human wizard, apparently did.)

But this would be a day trip, he didn’t want to wait until dark. He’d had his vitamins, a half liter of breakfast coffee and a bowl of Cheerios sprinkled with short carbon chain sugars and taken together the urge to get going pulsed insistently in his blood. He threw some toiletries together, grabbed a change of underwear, some shorts, a pullover, and extra pair of shoes and socks. He wavered between two ways of going and decided to let the car lead the way.

Last, he picked up a gun case containing a model 1911 H&K .45 ACP Tactical Pistol along with two boxes of fifty rounds each of aluminum FMJ Beloit & Seltzer and another four magazines of ten rounds each and a fifth mag that was snicked into the magazine holder, but nothing chambered.

( Stories from an earlier era might describe a regimental tie, or a valise or travel trunk with far off destination decals like Vienna or Paris to provide color and intrigue and the romance of far off destinations. A gun would mean foul play was at hand and a mystery. But this was the United States (a nation state) in 2023 and anyone without a firearm simply was not prepared, like not having water, or a change of clothes or an umbrella. )

He had a cross-draw leather holster he preferred over the H&K hip holster but he was proficient in each and could draw, aim and shoot two rounds in under two seconds and keep them in a six inch kill zone at twenty-five yards. He put the belt and holster and the case in the middle back seat compartment.

He was aware of the disconnect of being well-armed and keeping his protection inaccessible. But he did it anyway, reasoning that if he had to shoot someone while driving it was probably going to be after robbing a bank and he wasn’t going to rob a bank. Now he checked his iPhone and wallet and set his old school GoPro Hero Black, battery fully charged, on the dash. Ready.

( The Go Pro was a video producing device of advanced technology. Videos or film as it was also described, had been introduced by aliens as part of their secretive invasion and conquest known as The Weakening (1900-2000). We have no relics of a GoPro and no way of knowing the capabilities of cameras except in the broadest sense. )

No. Wait. He grabbed a few bottles of water and a Dr. Pepper soda, put them in the front seat compartment where the truck air conditioner would keep them coolish and then went back inside the house to make sure everything was shut off: lights, oven, range-top, thermostat, doors and windows shut, water heater turned down, garage side door locked. Fans off.

The kids were at his sister Margot’s who resided in a beach house on Oxnard Shores. She had in her orbit big dogs and her much older husband Jack who had PTSD from his days in the 3rd Force Recon Marines in the late Vietnam war era (an ex warrior with emotional scars). He later on became a financial wizard who made buckets of money with his hedge-fund that finagled its way around Big Tech stock offerings and then one day he got disgusted with everything and everyone (as most wheeler dealers do) but Margot and the dogs and John’s kids. His life became a smaller universe to be sure.

( Big Tech describes immense economic organizations developed by aliens also during The Weakening to control thought and wield power across the world. Note: happiness is not necessarily about becoming, as in greater. For many, happiness could be just a lesser hangover, or a stable state of mind. )

Oxnard Shores was once part of Sugar Town but someone wanted to name the town after an ox apparently, John reasoned, and they got their way. It would have been more fun to visit Sugar Town Beach than Oxnard Shores. Kimber made this detail a frequent subject of discussion.

She wanted to know what a ‘nard’ was, especially in relation to an ox. Nard, John explained, was softer than hard, but not really soft. An ox nard would be an ox without a big attitude like most oxen had.

Why wasn’t this town called Oxenard then?

John had a speculative answer, which seemed to satisfy her. He suggested the e might have made it sound too important. Sort of like saying preventative instead of the simple preventive. Whatever. Kimber elected to call it Sugar Beach. 

( Note that our current form of language is English from this era as found in the library of Region Four - many topical references in this collection will be to many readers obscure but, we have elected to limit speculation here as to their meanings in order to keep the narrative tone intact and moving along. There are recent efforts to explore these meanings in various popular publications. )

Albert opined an ox nard was in fact its wee and about two feet long, even bigger than the gigantic summer salami they’d seen at Costco. He switched from ‘hang-down’ to ‘nard’ when Kimber showed disgust at his fixation one day on the ride over to Sugar Beach. She told Uncle Jack who said not to worry because Albert’s nard would probably fall off anyway.

With this delightful news she confronted Albert with his reckoning to come and laughed in his face in such a way as to ensure her evaporation by magnifying lenses. Albert had become a diligent collector of late. It was magnificent to think in exquisite detail how the lenses placed just so in a careful trap would evaporate and incinerate her while she screamed for mercy.

Albert was named after Albert Einstein who worked at Princeton for a time. Anything could happen became the naming theme at his birth.

( Einstein, alive in the first half of The Weakening 1900-2000, was a renowned scientist at a once renowned school that ceased operations soon after alien cultural forces insisted mathematics added up to undesirable discrimination. This transpired in order to ensure the human population did not use mathematics and thereby threaten alien hegemony. By that time though human reasoning had all but disappeared and been replaced by a science paradigm that no one could decipher for its almost hourly contradictions. Common sense could not save the day either because faith in God had all but disappeared. )

John decided to go up the I-5, the Grapevine as it’s nicknamed at least until the Highway 99 split down in the Central Valley. Long before that he’d exit right and run through Antelope Vally toward Edward’s Air Force Base and then keep going east along CA-58 to Barstow, then take I-40 still going east toward Needles but break off after Ludlow toward Kelso through the Mojave Preserve.

From Kelso he would climb up toward the Cima Dome and then down toward the Nevada line and come out about forty-five minutes from Vegas near Primm, home of Whiskey Pete’s Casino. A straight shot fifty miles to the Crystal Palace where he would meet Ashley the next day for $250 an hour, for about eight hours.

( Cima Dome was a strange geologic feature that appeared to be an upwelling of many miles diameter. It is believed to have exploded in a catastrophic volcanic burst five hundred years ago. $250 refers to arbitrary units of value called dollars expressed as $ used to acquire or distribute goods and services. The arbitrary units of value however ultimately became very volatile and unpredictable. What one dollar bought one day might be much less the next day, and this factor is believed to have been a leading cause of strife and depopulation. Our own current system of barter has limited economic growth inherently and of course prosperity is limited, too. The calls to restore arbitrary units of value such as the dollar in order to facilitate trade and prosperity are now widespread. )

All in all it would take closer to six hours going this way to Vegas but it was more relaxing and the scenery and winding roads here and there interesting. Alas, he immediately hit traffic out of Simi Valley from a horrific accident where a drop-top Mustang plowed into the back of a semi-trailer and decapitated the Mustang driver and his girlfriend who were playing with one another’s genitals when the collision happened. The Mustang was doing close to eighty miles per hour and went all the way to the fifth wheel under the truck trailer before instantly stopping. It took cranes to lift away the wreckage and extract the bodies. Remains. Some things never changed.

The heads were pulped to smithereens and were hosed to the side of the 118 Freeway by a fire department pumper and vacuumed up with an old Sears Wet-Vac the Medical Examiner used frequently, run off a twelve volt pigtail connection in the ME Van.

( Technical minutiae and logistics always interested John, a rocket engine design engineer, among other things. )

John found an offramp to escape the back-up and that took him to the curious town of Moorpark, a crossroads sort of place from way back. Now all its reasons for ever being had been obliterated by cheap strip malls. He went down a long hill toward Fillmore, a town that had an old train station and a town square.

( The town was in a lot of movies. Archivists have been able to reconstruct the movie Seabiscuit, the story of a race horse, partly filmed there, onto a device, and place that film on an image machine at the Region Four Museum. Movies are discussed briefly later. )

He then turned east on Highway 126 through a lovely agricultural valley, the very last in southern California, reminiscent of the art on old orange or lemon crates, indeed the valley was the inspiration for such folk art in the early 1920’s. He came out on I-5 near the loathsome Magic Mountain Six Flags amusement park. Albert and Kimber wanted to live in there.

He headed up the steep grades of the Grapevine in a steady slog for thirty minutes and finally made it to Antelope Valley just before Pine Mountain and went along a two lane road for twenty miles toward Palmdale. He drove on by miles of blooming orange, red and even purple poppies along a hillside to his right. It was a riot of color. The hackneyed phrase, riot of color, left him weak, unsteady. It reminded him of an entire world that had come and gone, a travel brochure world that could make up such a phrase.

He drove through desolation, but happily enough free of man for the most part, his compass heading set to Barstow. He’d make it in an hour and a half.

2

Adapted from the diary of Joe Hall

Joe Hall approached Turn 1 at Willow Springs Raceway in his vintage silver Porsche Speedster at one hundred and twenty miles per hour brushed the brakes and went left toward the slight uphill apex that he took late at eighty-five miles per hour, using the brakes lightly to turn and hold speed. All good so far. 

( The automobile race track phenomena was extant from approximately1900 to 2022. The Willow Springs track was situated at the lower corner of the Western Escarpment of the North Continent approximately one hundred miles inland and very near the famous Edwards Air Force Base. These two facilities were re-discovered in recent years and while almost obliterated by the encroaching desert their features are still identifiable. )

The car eased out wide and he brought it back steady left while accelerating and then into Turn 2, now going right a car width out from the right shoulder through the long sweeper that was Turn 2. The car strained to hold speed at seventy-eight mph, there wasn’t any more oomph and the tires were narrow.

He exited to a short straight and kept right and got the Speedster up to one hundred miles per hour before going hard on the brakes to seventy, then downshifting. He made the entry into the off camber left Turn 3 just so, went steep and short uphill for quick Turn 4 and rotated right around like spinning silk at fifty-five then steeply downhill to seventy-five and braking just before the bottom of the hill, arc left, a dicey move, then slam the gas and turn uphill for a few hundred meters toward Turn 6 - and all of that going from Turns 3 to 6 took twenty-five seconds, the slowest part of the track and lugging most of it through third gear. A gear ratio change-out wouldn’t improve time very much, slow corners were not where time could be found.

At the slight jog that was Turn 6 there was also a hump before which he upshifted to fourth and held the accelerator to the floor, and went more or less straight past the slight Turn 7 bend, stayed flat out, and went into Turn 8, a long sweeper still flat out at one hundred twenty miles per hour, into a very short straight where he brushed the brakes for the deceptive and dangerous closing radius of Turn 9, looked beyond its apex that he took at ninety miles per hour and headed down the long straight back to Turn 1. Hall was very smooth and it took one minute, forty and four tenths seconds to complete the lap. That was not bad. He chuckled to himself, the car was fun, not fast.

Hall took it around once more, a fastest lap that in the very lightweight car with its narrow tires, small brakes, and steering quirks and open air cockpit was hair-raising in the extreme. Cars much faster were not as challenging. This was a driver’s car and took every bit of concentration to work.

He then pulled into the pits and over to his truck and trailer, far from the noise of the track. It was a Tuesday, sunny and warm but not hot; only a few others were on the track, testing and tuning. No one paid him much notice.

The Speedster had street seats, a street safety belt and in fact could be driven on the street but Hall preferred to tow it to the track. That way he would have an outing as he preferred it.

The outing was simple enough. He spread out a table and if wind was light, a red and white tablecloth and placed comfortable chairs, a woven basket hamper of food and drink with silverware and cloth napkin. And often enough, he put up a canopy or large decorative umbrella or both, but only if the wind cooperated.

He set the hand brake, unbuckled and removed his vintage Bell helmet, Corinthian leather driving gloves and German made acrobatic fly-boy goggles and set them all on the passenger seat. He then got out of the car and walked around to check tire pressures and inspect any bodywork marks from track debris. He lifted the rear engine cover and it all looked intact; he left it up to cool things down.

Satisfied, he went over to the table, took out a player and speakers and a Jerry Vale playlist began to serenade him while from the truck he donned a navy sport-coat and a Yankees baseball hat, put on his sunglasses and poured a sparkling water. 

( Recordings of music were common during the era from 1900 to 2023 and were played back on ingenious devices. However, none of these recordings nor the devices has been found to date. Musical instruments of the era were very sophisticated and capable of extraordinary ranges of sound according to the archives in Region Four. )

For the moment, Joe Hall lived in the moment and took in the desert scenery, ruminated on the track and its history, and then he slipped a bit and recalled his history there and imagined that leaning back in the other chair, and he always brought two, would be Sydney wearing a bright scarf and looking like a million bucks, her expressive face always just at the edge of a smile.

Jerry Vale put her in the right mood. Hall leaned towards John Prine. She declared herself Italian when Vale sang and deserted her own Scots-Irish. Hall listened, it was all good.

She reverted to her true shanty Irish legacy on rainy Sunday mornings at breakfast when he found her reading the obituaries like the sports pages.

( Ireland refers to the large island to the northwest of the Eastern Continent and immediately west of the much larger Scotland island. The inhabitants grew potatoes and drank themselves to extermination with alcoholic spirits by 2024, as nearly as can be ascertained. )

The same Irish crowd, she claimed in her exulting and breathless way, had motor racing in their blood! She could go on from there inventing and re-inventing herself easily enough as needed.

He found himself up and walking around his pit aimlessly, restless and charged up after the laps. He noticed also he felt peckish and reached in the hamper for a sandwich and sat down again. A few years back on a similar outing, he poured an extra glass of bubbly, as if for Sydney. It felt indulgent and pitiful, the chair was morbid enough and she would have howled. Oh, what the hell.

He finished the light lunch and went back to the Speedster. He had rebuilt it from the frame up and was pleased that his mechanical engineering and craft skills in welding and fabrication had come to use other than designing rail guns.

Sydney had the idea to form a club of gentlemen racers and that it could be fun on weekends with friends. And so it happened and both men and women were in no time hurtling around the Willow Springs track north of Los Angeles in Kharmann-Ghias, MG’s, Jaguars, Speedsters, Corvettes and you-name-its. The gentleman racing began as a strictly amateur social gathering, but soon there came written out rules and track workers with flags and then timing devices.

The once a month events for one day with an evening of socializing soon went to take up the whole weekend. Not long after they had a name for the club: the Southern California Road Racing Association, shortened to SCRRA, then later still it joined up with the Sports Car Club of America, and became outright the SCCA in California.

The early members came mostly from the aerospace and related technical companies and the personalities were easy going, even matter-of-fact dull, the edges rounded off and conflicts on or off the track were very few and usually errors in driving judgment by new, inexperienced members.

At work, this was a short-sleeve, white shirt, narrow black tie, pocket protector group and when they came out to the track on weekends in their dungarees they looked awkward and there were always more than a few geeks, and that gave Sydney a belly laugh. She loved it when Hall spoofed the uptight crowd with his lord of the manor racing garb complete with ascot and a walking stick. He found an MGA 1500 for her and they kept their cars in North Hollywood in their shop she named Toad Hall.

Competition in the club, such as it was in the early days, usually came in the form of some slight technical advantage, an innovation in powertrain or suspension dynamics beyond the factory specs. Not quite hot-rodding but there was a lot of fussing around with low speed aerodynamics.

Well, it was a different era, forty years ago, everyone young and full of beans. The economy was lousy but everyone hung in there, a new set of tires took on a status writ large and specialty torque wrenches were left conspicuously in view to generate envy and loathing.

Hall smiled weakly and suddenly felt an extraordinary empty feeling, as if his insides had been vacuumed out. He steadied himself as he hung up the sport coat. He knew no one out here today, none of the cars were familiar, a new crowd these days.

Over near the track some uniformed team worked two exotic Prototypes, their three semi-trailers brightly painted and equipment and tires and gear scattered about casually. Hall shook his head at how serious it all had become, there were even universities that provided race engineering course work now.

My god, where’s