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TRACK SUIT I VS X – THE PILOT
I
Mark Zero One is the only surviving proto-type. All others were dismantled for destruction with only some vital components recycled for use in the newer models. We are now on Mark Ten. It is fifteen years since the original proto-type was abandoned. The museum of space exploration and micro robotics has displayed the Mark Zero One
for the last three years. It has only recently been put on display as it is now regarded as being obsolete and no longer top secret. It has been surpassed by twenty one generations of technological advances in a decade and a half.
The Mark Zero One is what you must now use to track and retrieve the stolen Mark Ten. You have clearance at top level to view classified files, schematic and performance tests of the highly advanced Mark Ten Combat Suit. You will also have to become familiar with The Shell too. The Shell is what we christened Mark Zero One during early trials. It is still quite advanced compared to modern fighter jets but in comparison to The Suit it is an antiquated battleship, one with sails, and a plank.
The Suit is the pet name for the Mark Ten but it is anything but a pet. It is now a wild animal, monster, supernatural demon, it is so alien to anything you have ever experienced or even considered and it is loose on the world. It has been taken by the test pilot. There was nothing we could do to stop him once he was inside and active. He is virtually unstoppable and indestructible. We have no idea where he could be, The Suit is untraceable.
Mission: You will take the Mark Zero One from the museum. You will track and trace the Pilot and Mark Ten travelling where we cannot. They have every where conceivable to hide out. You must get on top of him without detection. He is most likely somewhere he knows we could never get to in time for capture if spotted. Presumably he is switching from one location to another, Himalayas to Antarctica for example, scanning our transmissions as he goes, biding his time until the purpose of the theft becomes clear. We suspect every possibility, we can rule out nothing, we cannot begin to imagine. It is crucial you find him. Foreign powers or terrorist organisations have not been ruled out but The Suit is so highly classified the military do not even know of its existence. Anything is possible, it is imperative you locate The Suit and communicate our concerns with the pilot, but only as a last resort, only if you cannot kill outright.
The Shell is a semi permanent structure. It is six foot by four for the most part. It can contort from oval to tear to round, compressing its shell to a diameter only constrained by the physical body of the pilot inside. It is made up of billions of interlocking individual smart micro biotic nano machines, each engineered and built from a material based on the combination of proteinaceous anacrid silk and diamond molecule structures. The tiny machines gain power via solar cells and being of a diamond structure can intensify and contort light providing extra solar charge and a camouflage protection. The interlinking micro machines are flexible and react to electrical charge from the synapses in the brain of the pilot. When he makes a decision on navigation or combat procedures they react immediately and without hesitation, faster than any human eye to hand coordination. It is an extension of the pilot’s body, it is armour, it is transport and weapon, it is invisible and can fly.
Gravitational pull and reversible magnetic field acceleration allow the suit to fall off the surface of the earth or plummet with plus ten g-force. The slight on board laser system is magnified through the diamond clusters and can penetrate any known surface. The suit is capable of withstanding all earthly temperature changes, the pilot possibly not. Tests in active volcanoes culminated with the pilot moving through magma falls with little or no skin damage what so ever. The suit has been as deep in the ocean as observation mounts could follow and again without harm to the pilot. Mark one never had a quarter of these tests done as technological advances happened so quickly it was simply abandoned.
II
The Suit and pilot bide their time orbiting the earth in the dish of a defunct soviet satellite. All of the earth’s knowledge is available to them as it is learned. Google in comparison to the capabilities of The Suit is that of notes in crayon on the back of a stamp or graffiti on a bin. The Suit connects the stars, storing information on their distant light for recall. As the pilot rests the suit recharges in another glorious dawns light, the third today. It learns, remembers, tactically reminisces as the pilot rests. Synapses spark, nano diamonds glisten, web appendages coil, interlock, dovetail. The silent vacuum of space, the solitary light source intermittently illuminating, charging this antithesis of the emperor’s new clothes. This is the very fabric empires could be built on, intergalactic imperial empires at the stretch of the imagination because that is all there is left, the power of thought has been granted the power to evolve and make real the reality that is presently just a slight electrical charge around membranes of neurons. The balance of power, infinite cosmic power, balanced on the philosophy of he who controlees the wearer of The Suit, or the mind set of he who wears The Suit, soon though, quite possibly – The Suit alone.
Mark Zero One is charged, brought to the salt plains and practically discarded so not to raise the suspicions of The Suit. Left to charge in the sun, like a whale on a desert beach, slight surface movement, shimmering, sporadic sparks as nano bots busily repair and recycle each other’s components, using sand to rewrite programs, one grain spliced thousands of times, used up like a phone books pages, only with more numbers, more information than all the phone books ever printed combined and then photocopied on to all the paper that has ever been printed on or used to wrap fish and chips throughout the ages. It bulks up. It has structure once more, no longer deflated. It is ready for pilot. It is ready for suggestions as to what to do, where to go, what not to destroy. Mark Zero One, The Shell, primed to act on a decision made by a pilot, The Suit can act on the presumed conclusion of numerous considerations, solving before a choice is found, tactical possibilities compute on every consideration, a solution executed before the problem has even been absorbed by the pilot. The shell is just barely more than a shell. The Suit is a second skin, an impenetrable second skin. Fluid and ever shifting, an adaptable liquid diamond entity. Consciousness is not something we freely band about when talking artificial intelligence and it is not something that can be attributed to The Suit, at least not during the last test flight, but that was hours ago. The speed at which The Suit learns and evolves is beyond any machine or programme to date, beyond any human infant’s development, even beyond the speed at which I can tell you this story. If it were a smart phone you would know who is calling and why months before they even made the call.
So then there is this: the possibility The Suit has gone AWOL of its own accord, kidnapping the pilot in the process. This is such a revolutionary proposal it is in the abstract for us here at HQ now, we cannot even guess if The Suit with such advanced development and knowledge even requires a pilot.
What is the trigger or mechanism that decides the path one takes. Without learning is a morality present. How is it influenced. Does it come with learning. Is morality simply a choice. What are the options, what are the influences that decide your orientation. If one knows all of human history, the cause and effect, all religious teachings and varying philosophical philosophies how are they affected, what choices are they influenced to make by knowing all, but is knowing understanding, what is it to understand, is it accepting responsibility of one’s actions, knowing the consequence and how others are affected, is the desire for humanity to prevail the right choice, is that the weight to sway one to make the right choice. Is the greater good the right choice if one needed and what of all for one and one for all. What if one is not human. How is good perceived without a basic morality and is evil inherent… and is all this applicable even in machines.
III
Both pilots have ultimate power at their minds tips. We know one has been recruited to track down and eliminate the other. We know nothing of the other. That is the limit of our knowing. But what do the pilots know? What do they know of each other? What do their respective crafts know, and know of each other. Tracker of runner, pursued of pursuer. Suit of Shell, Shell of Suit. Tracker of Suit, Suit of tracked, Suit of wearer.
What unfolds is beyond comprehension, beyond human imagination…
Inner-space is not even the final frontier…
Suit kidnapped pilot???
Internal battle ensues!!!
Is the pilot even still alive???
Pilot is decent and good, conscientious and almost superman like in his will to do good…
Now tracked by another conscientious do-gooder with only the will to make right motivating him…
Which, possibly both, but how and when???
Watch as they chase at break neck speed through glaciers, red lazers burning through blue ice, vapour and steam, explosions, crashing mountains of ice, turning right angles at hundreds of kilometres an hour, escaping into the stratospheres, surfing re-entry through fire balls, crashing out as sonic boom displace the very molecules, atoms only held together by sacrificing propulsion systems miles above earths busy Metropolis’, the fight, the battle, the fatigue, the mutual respect, the final white knuckled helping hand – held out and scuppering the missions goal, the starting over again, more missed opportunities with the end again in sight as both come to the aid of earthquake stricken Istanbul, raising Europe and Asia simultaneously from a gorging and gluttonous Bosporus, deflecting shards of the moon from impacting Japan and Sydney after a cataclysmic meteor crash in Tranquillity Bay, the Pacific’s ‘plastic trash island’ conscious with radiation poisoned algae comes ashore in L.A., Hollywood in ruins, only our battling Shell & Suit to save the day but only if they can put their differences aside for the course, but who will seize an opportunistic moment and finally conquer, and what will be conquered next, and ultimately conquered, man over machine, machine over man, or hand in hand against disaster… tune in next episode, same time, same place…
The uninspired muse, day dreaming, lazy bone, twilight zone eyed waif. She was on my shoulder most evenings, in the room continuously, taking control occasionally, winding it down, turning it low, staring slow. Gentle touch, gossamer. Finger prints on surface instructions, suggestions to stop, just stop, not even to listen, stop and be still.
lyrics
When writing, rehearsing and recording with a band there is considerable down time. During this time self indulgent escapist’s pursuits are the main stay to keeping sane. There can be so much adrenaline, elation and ecstasy then suddenly nothing, a void that permeates, a cold sweat, like a hangover in the afternoon.
It is during this time this music was made.
... this is no more than a gate house, hunters lodge perhaps as we are so far off the road. Closer to the lake. Close to deep in the woods...
credits
from THE GORE,
track released December 12, 2012
BD
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