04 - The Factory
By Saïd
Translated from the French by Miguel Jacq
The universe is a puzzle consisting of fragments stuck together. Thanks to our senses, we perceive a small part… but this part is tiny. Not everything is limited to a few stimuli interpreted by our brain.
In the universe, fiction exists too. All we need to do to come across it is open a book, watch a film, attend a play, for our mind to access beings, the characters who don’t exist in the physical reality that surrounds us. It doesn’t matter if these characters are interpreted by actors, if a writer has put them to paper… At the very moment of the act, the moment of writing, actors or author also gain access to these fictional beings. They are reached by them, let themselves be invaded by them.
Other than fiction, the universe is also populated by emotions, by concepts, by ideas… so many beings for whom it would be impossible - or almost - for us to give them a face, in any case much less easily than it is for fictional characters. Some artists try it, and realise without doubt, in an inexplicable flash, fragments of this intangible part of the universe. This is how freedom got a statue, how numbers gained figures, how anger saw the colour red.
There is one thing that us, humans, have little awareness of. Outside of reality, concepts exist before we think of them, fictional characters before an artist depicts them in a work. They are out there, somewhere. What are they doing? Some believe that they bide their time, hoping that we think of them: ideas to populate our minds, characters made fictional so that their stories may be told. The truth, however, is much darker. In the shadows of our lives, spirit beings of fiction dream only of one thing: destroying reality. How? By blurring the boundaries of fiction in order to sow trouble inside us. Beware these ideas, these creatures… some of them plot… some among them have made the destruction of reality their job.
Among these creatures, there was Salazar. Like all concepts and fictional beings, Salazar could only act on reality in one way: by being present in it. Like the others, it often was the case that he attained a bodily envelope of his own, and which he hadn’t chosen. They call this ’transincarnation’. Likewise, the environment in which he evolved with his companions had to materialise, had to pass from an imagined place into a physical place. In order to be as discrete as possible, these fictional beings never materialised in the same place, nor at the same time. A sad irony of the unreal to have to adopt envelopes of flesh and blood in order to corrupt those that are made of it!
Salazar, they said, held an important role in the unreal. All creatures of fiction, all concepts respected him. His speciality: the close examination of finds brought back by bargain hunters from fictional worlds. It was he who decided yes or no as to whether these objects would be copied by artisans or sent directly into reality.
Sitting behind a thick wooden table, Salazar turned a spherical and transparent object between his purple hands. His anthropomorphism was debatable. It ended with his silhouette, as long as one didn’t take into account the tentacles that hang from the bottom of his face. His skin had the shade of that of molluscs, although it was as hard as leather. Transincarnation is sometimes very different from one person to the next, and nature, even in the unreal, sometimes showed itself to be very unforgiving.
Salazar rubbed the sphere vigorously against his suit and asked: “What is it, exactly?”
Rodent legs protruded from the filthy coat of his interlocutor. One couldn’t see its face.
“It’s an Ammanalah”, it explained. “It lets you see the future.”
“It looks like a simple crystal ball…”
“Except that crystal balls don’t really let you see the future. That’s the big difference.”
“Spreading trouble by mixing real objects with fake ones? It’s already been done, but it’s always risky…”
One of the tentacles that made up Salazar’s beard placed a pair of copper glasses in front of his small round eyes as he wrote in a ledger.
“At least you brought me something more original back than what the others did! Thanks, Azaroth.”
Once the rodent left, he called: “Next!”
A character from a novel entered the room. You recognised them easily: all of them were transreincarnated into their character. For some, it was an advantage, others an inconvenience. This one’s carnal envelope had to be three times the size of the rodent that had just left. A human envelope. He carried an enormous book under his arm.
“Bruno”, said the cephalopod, placing both its hands on the table. “Don’t tell me you’ve brought me back a book! That’ll be the fourth this week! Alright, first of all tell me how your knee’s doing.”
“So-so. By the way, I was wondering if I could drop by the script department to get my story modified, so I could be free of these aches.”
“Bruno, you know quite well it’s complicated. If I say yes, all the bargain hunters are going to ask me the same thing. Show me this book instead.”
“It’s not really a book”, said Bruno as he placed the object on the table. “Go ahead, open it.”
Salazar opened it at random and read “Tentacles are ridiculous”.
He let out a little laugh and thumbed the pages. He read “How to get rich quick, without harmful consequences (trust me!)”.
Further on: “A frightened man sat lying face down on his couch. Behind the door, troubling voices echoed…”
Salazar closed the book, reopened it. All the pages had become blank.
“Huh! Can the object be scary?”
“Terrifying. It mixes reality and fiction like few others can…”
“It’s probably impossible to copy it. We’ll have to find a name for it. In the meantime, I’ll write Gibberish as the title in my ledger, in one language or another. But it’s a really nice piece, Bruno, that will trouble humans like no other. It’ll go out with the next delivery.”
The octo-man was about to stand up when he heard a voice in the corridor.
“Sir! Sir!”
“Oh no!” shouted Salazar. “I said: no more than two bargain hunters in the morning. Book an appointment, whoever you are!”
An amphibioid burst into the room. His frog neck was held tight with a cravat which prevented him from croaking and shouting more loudly. Otherwise, he would’ve screamed. All slimy in his suit, the amphibian waved its thin arms around without saying another word.
“Wait.. is that you, Anthony? What’s the matter? You look all pale. And you’re wearing a suit?”
He was more used to seeing Anthony, the workshop manager, in his artisan’s apron.
“I was in a meeting to get news from reality! It’s the humans, sir.”
The frog took out a piece of paper from his inside pocket. The boss grabbed it and read.
“Holy mother of…” cried Salazar and bounded out of his seat.
He pressed the intercom button with his purple finger.
“Summon the department”, he said. “All members must present themselves!”
“Yes, sir”, someone responded.
Salazar left the room, took off down a long corridor, and arrived in the main zone of the factory. Employees, of all shapes and sizes, were working at their stations. Some were sitting behind lamps, taking great care to clean objects brought back from the bargain hunters, which they examined via an eyepiece. There were tens of them. Others worked around massive machines which spat fire and steam. They worked levers, oiled cogs, plunged their hands into strange matter…
Salazar crossed the noisy room, climbing a wrought-iron spiral staircase, and entered the meeting room, still empty. From here, he had an unobstructed view over his employees, through a glass pane that ran the whole length of the room. Hands behind his back, tentacles wriggling around his mouth, he observed them.
A flash reflected off the glass and dazzled the cephalopod. He turned around. Three members of the department had just arrived, covered in snow.
“I’m guessing the Timeless Ones will be late!”, said Number 42.
“Let’s not blame them, the notion of time is completely unknown to them”, replied the isosceles triangle.
The two concepts had taken care to adopt an anthropormorphic envelope. Only such pure beings could choose the form of their transincarnation, and what’s more, a different form each time, if they so wished. They nevertheless remained masked at all times and wore a badge so that they could be recognised. Real or unreal, no-one had ever seen the true nature of a number, nor a triangle.
The door opened, and two more people sat down at the table: a knight in armour and a vampire breeder. With the cephalopod, that made five of them.
The other window, which looked outside, opened. Massive tentacles penetrated the room, totally obstructing the space and letting freezing cold air in. A grumble resounded.
“Michael says hello”, translated Salazar, who spoke a related language.
They greeted him in return.
The knight in armour raised his wrist, but he wasn’t wearing a watch.
“Did the Timeless Ones not even make the slightest effort?”
“I imagine that their representative won’t be long”, said the vampire breeder, taking off his hat.
It was at this moment that another flash lit up the room. Sobek, an Egyptian god with a crocodile’s head, sat down at the table, storing his ankh under his tunic.
“Sorry I’m late”, he said, shivering. “But I did the best I could. How much have I missed?”
“We’ve not yet started”, said the isosceles triangle. “We got here barely two minutes ago.”
“Two minutes? That doesn’t seem much to me, that’s not bad.”
Salazar cleared his throat.
“Let’s start. I’m noting that the Timeless Ones are represented today by Sobek, and that the High-Concepts are represented by two mathematical concepts…”
“Speaking of which”, interrupted the knight in armour, “I’m astonished to not see Emotion at the table.”
“The Emotions were present at the last meeting, Denis”, replied Salazar. “It’s about mathematical concepts today.
“Let’s get straight to the facts, my dear friends: we have a problem. A problem which we need to address immediately. This problem concerns the humans.”
A wave of protests followed.
“Oh no! Not the humans again!”
“Always the same!”
“It’s unbelievable!”
Once calm returned, Number 42 asked:
“But.. Fear, who was here last time, told me that you had sorted the problem during the last meeting!”
“We tried, at least.”
The cephalopod launched into a summary of the situation. Humans were gifted, too gifted. They had been deliberately designed into reality to dominate their world, all the while being sensitive to fiction. For the factory, they were ideal creations for perverting as many minds as possible. Unfortunately, they turned out to be much more unpredictable and difficult to manage than expected.
Humans had three faults. They believed, for the most part, in the uniqueness of their world, which caused their spirit to be less volatile at the time of their death and prevented the bargain hunters from circulating between portals. Second, they appreciated fiction a lot more than expected. Unable to grasp the meaning of parallel realities, they used them as entertainment, or turned them into religion! The demand for fiction had become colossal for this species, and every minute without fictional consumption for a human could feed the third problem: they were intelligent. Stupid in a lot of ways, but intelligent to the point that a handful of them, if one didn’t distract them with enough fiction, had started to make progress in understanding the inner workings of the universe. Within the factory, the fictional beings and concepts were afraid that they’d be unmasked.
Salazar himself understood only a part of the disastruous situation that they found themselves in. Humanity’s whole existence had been created in one go by four-dimensional beings, able to foresee their entire destiny in the blink of an eye. It was expected that they’d be tainted by fiction bit by bit, then destroy their world, in that order. But the humans had, without even the four-dimensional beings understanding how, succeeded in reshaping their own destiny, to the point that decisions would have to be made in order to adjust accordingly.
Now, it had become urgent. At the last meeting, Salazar had announced to the Numbers that they were on the verge of being unmasked.
“Their mathematics is powerful”, Sobek assured them. “They have moved on from counting to a conceptual understanding of numbers, without us seeing it coming.”
It had been a shock. Pi, present that day, could no longer sleep. So the members of the department had taken action. They had made texts of fictions appear real, as a matter of covering their tracks… the humans had compiled them in order to make a sacred book as the base of several religions. The factory had then created fictional characters, or made real beings pretend to be fictional: King Arthur, Robin Hood, the Loch Ness monster… without much effect.
“It’s not so much about human hypersensitivity to fiction any more”, said Salazar. “At least, not exactly.”
The isosceles triangle and Number 42 exchanged a glance behind their masks.
“They’ve brought another problem to me. It’s about the destruction of reality.”
“Well, what is it?” asked the vampire breeder.
“According to the information I have, they’re in the process of destroying their environment directly, and making decisions or having beliefs that are self-destructive.”
“They’re destroying themselves?”, the triangle said in disbelief.
“Exactly.”
“Wow!” said the knight in shining armor. “Who could have predicted that?”
Salazar sighed.
“I fear that it may be our fault. I was talking about beliefs… apparently, they are inventing their own stories and convincing themselves that they’re real. Now they’re competing with us!”
“How is it possible?”
“While their science is strong, and disturbingly more and more accurate, I’ve read in this report I’ve been given that they’re able to invent all sorts of things. They are treating ailments with stones or with water. At least, they think they are. And they then die, not before convincing other humans first.”
“And we can’t stop them from doing so?”
“That’s precisely the problem”, said Salazar. “If we let them do it, they risk destroying themselves before we have conquered reality. I’ve asked our workshop manager, Anthony, to join us.”
The cephalopod shouted: “Anthony!”
The back door opened. The giant frog, in his tight suit, took the spot to the right of Sobek.
“We should never have favoured humans” he said, sitting down. “My dinosaurians would’ve been much nicer!”
“Anthony, we’re not going to go over that again. Your dinosaurians were stubborn and resistant to our stimuli. The council’s vote to destroy them was unanimous.”
“In the meantime, humans have caused an enormous amount of problems that the ‘saurians didn’t!”
Salazar sighed. His tentacles collapsed under his face.
Outside, the giant squid grumbled.
“Michael says hi, Anthony.”
“Same here.”
“Let’s come straight to it. The humans will kill themselves long before reality collapses, like we thought at the start. Anthony is right when he says that they pose a problem for us.”
“What’s the factory making today to confuse reality and fiction?” asked the vampire breeder.
“What we’ve always done, let’s take a look!” replied the cephalopod. “Moving objects from one place to another. Causing memory loss. Distractions. Feeding the fiction that they mass-consume. And you have to admit that humans are very receptive. For this, in design, Anthony’s team have done a very good job…”
“Perhaps too good!” responded 42.
“Never mind my position in the factory”, said the workshop chief in his frog voice, “I won’t tolerate being tauned by a lousy concept!”
“Silence the frog!”
“Don’t forget you are addressing a High-Concept”, said the knight to Anthony.
“Do you know what my humans say about you, the “High-Concept?” Anthony croaked. “They call you a rational number!”
The knight in armour had to restrain 42 who lunged across the table. Michael growled. Salazar buried his face in his hands.
“That’s enough!”
A dog covered in a white sheet burst into the room. He walked calmly on all fours to Salazar’s side, who couldn’t believe it, and jumped up onto his seat, where he sat down. Some holes had been cut in the fabric for the snout and eyes.
The frog murmured: “Boss?”
Calm instantly returned to the room. The director of the factory was there, in person.
“We’re going to find a solution”, said their leader calmly. “If I can take it from here, this is where we’re at: the humans are as sensitive to fiction as we hoped… maybe even more so. In fact, they are so sensitive that they bypassed the predictions of the four-dimensionals. If they continue like that, they’re going to destroy themselves before having even altered reality, correct?”
“Yes, sir”, replied Salazar.
The dog continued. “So then I only see two solutions. Either we modify their nature, at the risk of losing their sensitivity to fiction…”
“That would be a disaster”, said Sobek.
“And it would be very risky”, said the triangle. “It would be quicker to kill them all, then create a new species. Not to mention the energy that it would require.”
“…or else we find a way to press even further upon the confusion, to render the border between fiction and reality only more permeable.”
“More permeable than introducing a material version of fictional objects? How would it be possible?”
Salazar thought about it, the others too. But the couldn’t understand where the boss was going with it. The dog, its snout in the sheet’s hole, said:
“They are threating to unmask us? Then let’s reveal to them our existence, directly.”
“Excuse me, sir”, replied Salazar, “but I don’t think I understand.”
“Let’s confess to them our existence. Let’s publicly declare our intentions to destroy reality, let’s make our mark on Earth by being present in reality.”
“After all these years of discretion?” replied Sobek incredulously. “But… why?”
“Because they’re going to think it’s fiction”, said the triangle, who just understood. “If they discover us by themselves, we will be in danger. But if we confess to them that we exist, they’ll believe that it’s just one more story.”
“It’s risky”, said the knight, “…but it’s brilliant!”
The dog licked its chops.
“All that remains is how to implant ourselves in reality.”
“We need to create a human who will be our ambassador on the ground”, said Salazar.
Anthony croaked.
“With all due respect, sir”, he said, “the human in question would not reach maturity right away, it’d take a good thirty years… by which point, it’d be at risk of turning away from its original intentions.”
“Any ideas, Anthony?” the cephalopod asked.
“We’re going to have to implant the idea in the brain of a human who already exists.”
Number 42 was sceptical.
“And how would such a human react, who suddenly wakes up with the idea of our existence?”
“The trick”, said the big boss, “would be to make him believe that he created us himself. And then infuse our objects, our stories, our mind games through him.”
“We’d still have to find the right human!”, said 42. “Would Mister-Workshop-Manager happen to have a human up to such a task?”
“Ah yes, yes, absolutely!” lied the amphibian, too attached to his pride.
“OK, and what’s his name?”
There was a silence.
“Well?”
“Jil… Nimunsoe.”
Sobek frowned.
“You just made that up! He’s messing around with us, isn’t he?”
“Not at all!”
“Is it only written with their alphabet?”
“With at least one of their alphabets, yes.” the frog assured them.
“Alright,” interrupted Salazar. “Since there’s already a candidate, apparently, all that’s left is to implant the boss’s idea in him. Will it be possible, Anthony?”
“Yes, I just have a few concerns… this kind of intervention on an existing human, especially repeatedly, may have some side-effects.”
“What sort of side-effects?”
“It could have an unexpected impact on surrounding humans, who come into contact or talk with him. The target human might also see elements appear in duplicate in his immediate surroundings…”
“To be honest”, said the boss, “I’m ready to take the risk that he dies crazy, being persuaded that we really exist.”
“Well, we’ll do it”, said Anthony. “We’ll implant in the idea of the human the idea that we exist! He’ll talk about us, he will copy the objects we bring from other universes, himself!”
“Excellent,” said the dog behind his sheet. “Add a ton of interns on site for me, give them whatever form you like. You could even consider replacing a few objects in his environment. I suggest we trust Anthony. Let him implant a human, and let the four-dimensions warn us of the impact of this decision at all times, as quick as possible, if I may say so.”
“Yes, sir”, said Salazar.
“Yes, boss”, said the frog.
Behind his sheet, the dog eyed the other members of the council, one by one.
“Let’s not let ourselves be affected by reality”, he said. “Let’s learn from our mistakes, and move forward together. One day, we’ll get there. Reality will no longer be, and only our creations will remain. Let’s hack the humans, teach them to take refuge in fiction. Let’s invade their world through objects, in addition to ideas. And one day… there’ll be nothing but fiction and darkness.”
Behind their assembly line, the factory’s employees saw the dog covered in a sheet hop down from his chair and cross the meeting room, past the glass pane. Inside, those who could, disappeared in a blaze of light. Soon there was only Anthony and Salazar in the room.
The cephalopod massaged its temples with the ends of its tentacles.
“Haven’t you ever wondered?” asked the frog as he walked towards the door.
“Wondered what, Anthony?”
“If someone, somewhere, had made us their characters?”
Julien Simon, alias Neil Jomunsi, is an editor and professor of writing. He’s also one of the rare francophone authors to have taken up the Ray Bradbury challenge by writing fifty-two novellas in a year. Recently, Neil also became a manufacturer of fictional objects by creating the company Ozmocorp. It’s through imagining that he is himself a fictional creation of his own enterprise that the novella The Factory was born. With thanks to him for having accepted to being a character in his own right!
The appearances and disappearances of this particular author on the Internet and on social networks fluctuates permanently. Don’t hesitate for a second to discover his work if the opportunity presents itself.