Partygeist

By Jessica Minster

In an alternate timeline's 2020...

 

The world is struggling to adapt to the changes brought on by rapidly advancing technology. Three desperate weirdos attempt to climb the entirety of a skyscraper made of nothing but dance clubs in just one night.

 

A piece of weird fiction called "too much" by weird fiction publishers; a cyberpunk odyssey that has been called "Truly bizarre and mind-bending..." by a popular AI chatbot. 

 

Partygeist is here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Minster
• Release date: Mar 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224764587

Jessica Minster

Jessica Minster is a transgender author and poet based out of Arizona who has written many short stories, poetry collections, and novels in the ten years she has been writing creatively. She tends to stick to darker and more subversive types of projects. She has been published in Defunct Magazine, Northern Arizona University's Interdisciplinary Writing Showcase, among others, and has had her work produced into a podcast episode by Scare You To Sleep. 

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Table of Contents

Partygeist

#? Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All by Father John Misty

About the Author

Partygeist

OR

The Tower of Babble

OR

Ultra Psycho Retro-Viral Techno FantAsia

OR

Memoirs of the Spirit of the Party

OR

Ennui on the Dance Floor

OR

The Sanctuary of Truth

by

Jessica Minster

Preface One:

Around 400 years ago, the invention of a new system changed the face of human existence forever.

That system spread through the world as a cultural virus, a scourge meant to continually escalate technological and intellectual advancements at a rate that surpassed the rate of the gradual increase in quality of life.

This system made it inevitable for humanity’s development to increase at a higher and higher rate as time went on.

Eventually, the development would become so fast and so expansive that there would be an irreversible super-techno-intellectual singularity.

These advancements got out of hand with the invention of supercomputers, incorporating and compounding human intelligence.

At the same time of this escalation, the system breathed new life into the idea of conflict.

Contradictions within the system created tension and alienation, causing people to fall into two main categories: for the system and against the system.

With the United States government’s backing of the Deep Sea project in 1990, supercomputers soon met the singularity benchmark and began to hasten the process further.

Cybernetics became woven into everyday life, the very fabric of humanity’s existence was merged with its creation.

The Deep Sea became spliced with all kinds of consumer products.

The AI’s presence became more accepted as the standard for every household, for every body, for every inch of the planet.

By 2019, one in seven people had some sort of cybernetic enhancement.

Only the most destitute, remote places in the world were DeepSea-free.

With the imminent emergence of hyper-racism, the pitting of non-cybernetic enhanced humans against cybernetic enhanced humans, the distinction between Pro- and Anti-System became all the more intense.

However, due to the lack of education regarding the system and its alternatives (which may or may not have been possible), ignorance ran rampant among humans.

Most did not know much about any system, other than knowing its name.

Capitalism.

Or, as the great prophets of this time called its most current form, Techno-Capitalism.

The more informed opinions of the Fors and the Not-Fors were characterized by one central understanding: to bring the system to its next form, one had to anticipate and participate in its inevitable acceleration.

Some believed in either anticipation over participation or vice versa, and the qualities of what constituted acceleration differed from sect to sect.

The Not-Fors believed that the acceleration came in the adaptation of technology into Post-Capitalism, while the Fors believed in hastening the establishment of what Techno-Capitalism was speeding towards: the ultimate form of the system— a single, world-wide state governed by those deemed ethnically superior and dominant characterized by hierarchy and cruelty to those deemed imperfect.

Both the Not-Fors and Fors believed in exposing the uncomfortable nature of Techno-Capitalism in the eyes of modern man, though the Fors embraced the uncomfortability while the Not-Fors wished to change it. Not-Fors wanted to create a more equitable society while the Fors wished to do the opposite.

What methods were there to these processes?

Not-Fors thought that the world of Free Trade was naturally destructive within this conservative production system, and wanted to turn Capitalism against itself.

To expose the problems, to organize for the imminent collapse.

Meanwhile, the Fors believed in both the passive act of letting the massive corporations of Techno-Capitalism develop their own technologically superior overlords, but also perhaps the most active initiative.

Through terrorism, they believed that the forces of Techno-Capitalism would reshape itself even more quickly, and through ethnically motivated attacks, further establish a White Ethnostate.

Preface Two:

In Bangkok, Thailand, a single building contained the three largest dance clubs in the world.

The complex, known as FantAsia, was opened in the late 2000s and expanded in the late 2010s.

It contained over one hundred stories.

It was designed by the world renowned architect Harvey Reed and built over a period of ten years, not including the time taken to expand.

It was financed by tech billionaire and international playboy Alek Champ for an undisclosed amount of money.

It was built by The Wichit Company, a construction company of which Champ was a primary investor.

From the outside, the gargantuan structure appeared as a spiral into the heavens.

Its ultra-reflective windows caused a great amount of glare, so much that the people of Bangkok had petitioned to have the windows replaced seven times.

Every time, the case was lost due to the authorities’ belief that it would cost too much money.

It was estimated that over two hundred traffic accidents occurred each year in Bangkok due to the glare.

The three dance clubs that made up the building were (in order of increasing closeness to the sky) Retrospec, 21Century, and Aja.

These clubs, while each having their own distinct flare on the concept of nightlife, all had different themes.

While some rooms from the different clubs could be like night and day, they were all owned by Champ.

It was estimated that FantAsia employed about the same number of people populating several of the central districts of Bangkok.

Every night, a procession of people tried to scale the skyscraper from the inside.

No one had been able to reach the top in one night, in the entire history of the club.

It would seem that in order to reach the top, one would have to have both excellent stamina for both physical activity and substance abuse.

If someone made it to a certain level of the building, they were allowed to return to that level via ultralight helicopter the next night.

Those who failed to make their journey and passed out were returned to the bottom by a series of waterslides.

This story took place in early 2020.

Three people were attempting the climb, all at different times of the night based on their respective sleep schedules.

It shall be told exactly the same as it happened, as experienced by the Partygeist— the Spirit of the Party.

CLUB ONE:

Retrospec.

#1 What’s On Your Mind by Tony Cook & Dâm-Funk.

Retrospec was a throwback club that employed beats ranging from post-disco disco to post-techno techno.

It took up the bottom third of FantAsia.

The entrance was a simple corridor in which there were three sets of giant padded doors.

Three sets of doors were needed to successfully conceal the inside of the club from the outside.

Two thousand and twenty doormen attended to the people waiting to get into the club.

There were a number of queues to get inside.

They spanned a dozen blocks beyond the land on which the skyscraper sat.

Farthest from the entrance was the regular line,  but there were various premium lines reserved for VIPs and