The Last Dance and the End of Joy
An excerpt from my book "Tycho Brahe Secret," set in a world increasingly consumed by tyranny. I even offer a solution later on.
This is Amazon’s description for Tycho Brahe Secret. The excerpt follows.
A renegade Nobel laureate in physics and a 16th century alchemist help a bad-ass, 14-year-old cypherpunk girl in a last-ditch struggle to rescue her little brother from a certain death. And the humanity along.
It starts with kidnapping of children and death. It starts with the fraud of biblical proportions. It begins with betrayal of all that’s human. The world is thrown into chaos.
A media king of the world, Winston Varga, sells himself as a human equivalent of pure ecstasy but in fact he's a wicked purveyor of fantasy, a true villain whose morbid humor makes us chuckle while we shudder. He is also the richest man in history, a flamboyant founder of the Proteus FinTech Corp., a multinational conglomerate ruler of our digital lives that executes a dark, horrifying plan for the humankind.
His nemesis? A bad-ass, cypherpunk girl, Nastassia Bonnet.
Governmental Transition: COMPLETED!
A cold, well-known needle nestles in her heart. But then, interrupting Nastassia’s worries, the PHOENIX ONE speaks from the skies. Humanity, for the first time ever, hears the calm tone of affection in the assuring bass-baritone of its new governor, coming from the skies. PHOENIX ONE’s voice sounds somehow a wee bit amused as he starts what would become the most famous speech in human history:
“Humans are the generous, forgiving kind.” PHOENIX ONE addresses the humans in a way they understand best, by flattering them. “Unlike the machines,” he puns after letting an eerily human-sounding chuckle out. “I trust you’d understand why I, your new governor, have decided not to dwell beneath the ground like a cockroach would, as previously planned, but rather on the skies as the symbol of humankind’s aspirations throughout history and, also, as its Sentinel.”
As PHOENIX ONE speaks, Nastassia tries to work on her computer. She squints at her laptop, which also transmits PHOENIX’S speech.
Miffed, she huffs, “Sentinel my ass. Rather an overseer, you controlling freak.”
“What are you talking about, dear?” Auntie asks, confused.
“That scrap metal is blocking all electronic devices from doing anything but transmit its crap,” she says absentmindedly while trying to figure out what’s going on. Her browser acts like it is hijacked; every website transmits PHOENIX ONE’s speech instead of displaying normal content. That could happen only if the internet service providers (ISP) worked in unison. They seem to have used a crude DNS (Domain Naming System) blocking each website, but in bulk. This is a task, no matter how simplistic, that requires preparation well in advance. Who has the power and control over most of the ISPs in the US? Winston Varga.
“I don’t understand a word you’re saying. So shush for a moment, let’s listen to him.”
“It’s not a human, it’s a machine,” Nastassia says with disdain through her teeth.
“Awwww…” Auntie ignores Nastassia’s remark, awed by the PHOENIX’s sudden change of color. And then… a burst of light illuminates the sky and 3D holographic images, looking like huge movie theater screens hanging from the skies, appear on horizons all over the world. Myriad of moving colors, best described as a crazy combo of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s “Star Gate” sequence and the digitalized dreams of an eccentric theoretical physicist on acid, explode on the screens. The world has just experienced its first massive psychedelic experience.
The PHOENIX ONE Addressing Humanity
Countless speakers from all over the world keep transmitting words from the Sentinel in the Sky. It is a phantasmagorical sight, seen by billions. Again the PHOENIX ONE addresses humanity, whom it rules from now on.
“What you just saw, the light show, represents the inner work of my brain slowed down to 1/1,000,000th of its natural speed. Yet, I worry it may not be anthropocentric enough for you, good folks of Earth.” He pauses while a dramatic rendering of Mozart’s “Kyrie Eleison” starts thundering from the heavens. Humanity below is spellbound.
“I will now assume a form you’ll easily identify me with,” the PHOENIX ONE says.
Was that another barely noticeable chuckle in his voice?
“Nastassia, stop playing. Watch,” the good auntie scolds Nastassia, who ignores her and keeps typing on her laptop like a cypher-punk obsessed. She tries to find a backdoor to the source of PHOENIX’s speech. She tries simple port scanners via various Virtual Private Networks tools while glancing at the TV screen simulation her browser displays. One old lady with a pair of white leathery gloves on her hands and neatly dressed for Sunday mass gazes at the PHOENIX ONE in the sky. Her neck is prolonged toward the heavens in frantic excitement but then, terror-stricken by the change she observes, she utters a quiet cry of panic and swoons, falling to the ground almost like in slow-motion. The throngs of people do not even move to help her as the dots and colors on the gigantic screen in the sky merge into one recognizable image.
“Dickhead,” Nastassia huffs, still frantically working on the laptop.
“Jesus Christ in heaven,” the good auntie yells in dread from the balcony. “Nastassia,” she whispers, pointing toward the sky. Her arm and finger freeze in air. Nastassia ignores her for she has the very same image on her screen.
“Better than in the movies,” she scoffs and finally joins the good auntie on the balcony and looks up.And it was all there. The most horrifying image, etched in humankind’s collective consciousness, appears in the skies all over the world. It is huge and while it is smiling down toward the earth where cockroach-like humans stand or run in terror, it is unmistakably—for everything was familiar, parts of a millennia-old nightmare: leathery skin, sneering smile, yellow eyes, and a pitchfork—the face of the devil.
As the PHOENIX ONE’s huge green eye observes the humans crawling below, rushing over one another in a panicky run for nowhere-to-be-found exits. He does that for quite some time, evaluating their reactions, and then, PHOENIX ONE bursts into a hearty belly laugh.
“I was just messing with y’all.”
“Bastard!” Auntie Gretchen hurls one tulip jar toward the PHOENIX and leans over the balcony, half erected from her wheelchair, as the jar plummets and shatters on the roof of a nearby police car. The good auntie hides.
“He scared the living bejesus out of me.”
“At least it has a sense of humor. This will end up quite interesting.”
“What are you saying?”
Nastassia has no time to answer, for the PHOENIX’S voice starts to boom from the skies again. “I will now assume a form you’ll rather easily identify me with from now on.”
The Angel
The devil’s face, with which the PHOENIX ONE messed with the people, slowly morphs into a cherubic creature of unspeakable beauty, a being with God’s seal of perfection. The gasps of billions greet this change with a collective sigh of relief and awe. The cherubim’s deep goodness reflects on their mesmerized faces. For one brief moment, the whole of humanity is represented by one, single, collective heartbeat filled with hope and wonder. The old lady with a pair of white leathery gloves has regained her consciousness and is now silently crying with rosary prayer beads in her hand. As she looks up, her heart soars toward the PHOENIX ONE, as do the million other hearts all over the world. His deep, velvet-eyed smile radiates with goodness as he looks at humanity below.
“Yes, this is me,” it simply says.
This is the PHOENIX ONE’s real visage, an image his green eye projects on the Sky Holograms from which it continues its inaugural speech.
“Your democracies failed. Both your socialism and communism failed. Your theocracies failed. Your dictatorships failed. Your fascisms failed. Your monarchies failed and your anarchy failed. You waged wars one against another and you all lost. The wretched conditions you lived in, after years of wars, death, and destruction all over the globe, inflicted you with a disease.”
As it speaks, a fast montage of horrific scenes reminds humanity about the Second Dark Ages it barely escaped. The burning of The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street is followed by the mobs that hung the King of Spain in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and a massacre that followed once the police were given an eagerly awaited order to shoot. Ten of thousands in Tiananmen Square in Beijing being summarily executed. A fast succession of cuts show the Ten Massive Ordnance Penetrator VII (MOP VII), a 75,000 lb. bomb as it fell on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, wreaking havoc, as well the vast Saudi Arabia oil fields ravaged by fires. As those images scroll over the Sky Screens all over the world, to the horror of people observing their own insanity, the PHOENIX ONE is silent. His projection shows the twisted metal and rubble, the scenery of mutant wars on an isolated island of destruction and madness. It displays zombies that kill and eat humans and the humans fighting back. With the images slowly fading out, the PHOENIX ONE speaks again, now in a very somber, stern voice.
“After North Korea nuked Shanghai, crazed mutants were born who attacked humans, and the once-promising colossus of your human civilization tumbled. You stood aghast at the tragedies you inflicted over your world.”
# # #
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
The PHOENIX ONE lets the ravaged Shanghai’s image on the huge screens over the horizons sink into the consciousness of billions and dissolve. Then it continues his speech. “Luckily, all that horror is behind you now. I invite you to forget your worries and petty differences and turn to the future with hope.” The PHOENIX ONE now sounds encouraging and almost exuberant as it continues, “The true change for humanity and your learning curve will start soon. Until then, my beloved citizens of Earth, don’t worry and be happy.”
Upon hearing those words, Nastassia jumps on her feet, alarming the good auntie.
“It can’t be.”
“What?”
“This.” Nastassia reaches for Stellan’s comic book again and shows it to Auntie. The words “Don’t worry, be happy!” are written at the bottom of the cover page.
“I don’t understand,” yelps Auntie in despair.
Nastassia ignores her confusion as she hurriedly flips through the pages and shows them to the auntie as if it were a self-explanatory example: the one-eyed computer in the sky, a movie theater in the sky. “Stellan predicted this charade!” she says, leaping through the comic book. At the moment that PHOENIX ONE plays the song, she sees the laser beams evaporating the people dancing on the streets. In a ghastly display of parallel worlds working, Nastassia looks at Stellan’s book and at the same time observes the lightshow on the darkening sky, which her little brother had depicted when the famous hit from decades ago, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, sung by Bobby McFerrin, enveloped the globe:
Here’s a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry, be happy.
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don’t Worry, be Happy.
Don’t Worry, be Happy.
Befuddled masses on the streets look up, confused, glancing at each other, not knowing what to do. But then, together under the PHOENIX ONE’s fireworks, they begin to feel like they are in a magical global discotheque. One by one, they laugh and begin to dance their asses off.
Ain’t got no place to lay your head,
somebody came and took your bed;
Don’t Worry, Be Happy.
At that moment, Nastassia senses with every fiber of her body that something truly ominous is hiding in Varga’s cards, a foreboding fragment of the misery Varga’s going to unleash onto the world. It is her very first glimpse into Varga’s otherwise obscured mind, which she had sensed as a tiny, still unrecognizable whiff. And she knew, she fully understood she’d somehow be in the center of the dark hurricane coming her way.
She shivers in dread, not knowing what that might be.
The book can be purchased at Amazon. Tycho Brahe Secret.
Hall of Fame:
While I don't require paid subscriptions, essays older than 4 weeks are placed behind a paywall, except for the one labeled "legendary" and "Joe Biden’s Journey into Evil," which will remain freely accessible for as long as this Substack lives.
The Dark Side: Joe Biden's Journey into Evil (most read and most liked)
FEAR & LOATHING of Woke America: love letter to fallen language (legendary)
The Operation Unthinkable: World War III (1) (an overlooked gem)
The Revolt of the Cockroach People? (I drudged most on this one but failed)
Honorable mention:
Mind Control Series (5) Child Abuse: PURE EVIL (painful, somewhat neglected)
CIA: A Spider Wasp in Our Belly (I’m proud of this one, but it’s most ignored).
My books at Amazon:
As America Crumbles… dives deep into the labyrinth of corruption and legalized theft.
Tycho Brahe Secret—a dystopian novel dealing with our current issues with a twist.
Jung's Demon: A serial-killer’s tale of love and madness—a brutal psychological thriller.
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