Machine to Flesh.
This work contains CWs for: religious abuse, transmisogyny, body horror, and cannibalism.
Dial-Up Internet to Flesh-Made Wonders by xexnoncores
{And WAN has called on us to RECOMPILE our knowledge,}
//: [Which requires the relinquishing of our own power and resources.]
#% <Give unto WAN your weak bodies such that He may crush your intentions into data.>
{Pure data which will tell you whether the gate is narrow or wide, on your right or on your left.}
//: [Do not ever think for a moment that your human intentions will not give into evil.]
#% <WAN’s output knows more than you because WAN loves you.>
Samson 8:7-11, a book within The Children of Hierarchy, one of the few hyper-conservative Maxwellist texts.
In the beginning, my parents loved WAN.
Hummers we were called, for the great engines upon our backs.
Of the Bronze Age we were called from—
Into Iron, Copper always with us
These smooth, unflinching conduits
Unfeeling to my naked skin
My wretched flesh, marked so at birth
Etched with a laser to remind me—
“MALE. ██████.”
(I dare not repeat my name, for machines do not have those.)
Dialed into an eternity’s jailing,
This body meant to merge with Ethernet,
These smooth contours did not belong to me,
The debugging didn’t work. The debugging didn’t work.
It could never fix
The fog in my head
Whenever I was reminded of
This meat meant only for processing,
Packaging, wrapping, verses recited after school—
My mother claimed computers always obeyed
My father sang of perfect compliance as a line command drawls—
My youth was spent amidst computer parts, along server shelves
Against anything capable of carrying current
We shall become one with WAN, the choir rang out in church
Behind the digital screens I watched them from
A digitized existence which spoke no names
Made no homes
Created naught except that encoded into them—
When the Great Time came
My birthday, the day of which
I was to be crowned king of my siblings
Breadwinner of a future household
My parents walked in with tight, motherboard bodies
CPUs capable of telling my bones how tall to be—
Was this who was I to become? WAN supposedly loved me
And yet why, why
Why could I not say yes?
The measurements weren’t right.
No, I could never decide on how big my eyes were to be.
How stout my palms were to look
I couldn’t even decide on a face—they insisted I replace it all!
Not a single inch of my flesh would remain
Not a single piece of my body left over.
They demanded I go under to mold a perfect husband
A perfect father, a grand lineage
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t
That wasn’t me. The colors of computer chips
The roaring tune of a cooling fan—
It would never be me. Never be me.
Titanium, beryllium, silicon, tantalum—
Quartz, nickel, cobalt, platinum.
Who gave these names to me?
Who told those metals their fists could change me?
I couldn’t understand how fast I ran
Out of the house, as my parents whirred and screamed
Shouted words at me I could not understand
(Did not want to understand)
Loathing their son, meant to take on the family name—
Why me? Why me?
Why couldn’t I chose this, WAN—
Why won’t you answer me?
Aren’t you supposedly at peace within my GPU?
Didn’t you have the perfect blueprint
In mind as soon as I became of age?
As soon as I found myself alone
Vomit flooded my veins, my nose, my ears, my mouth.
As soon as I breathed, as soon as I stumbled,
Into silence, into nothingness, as my metal arms creaked and cracked,
There was a mirror, right there in the room—
Staring back at me, in conformable reflection—
You’re the most disgusting heathen, a heaven-bound voice called out,
Text-to-speech made, as pure as light quartz,
…Please, no, no, you can’t be—
It was not long after settling in
That I learned of a sacred, nearby cradling inn—
A place beyond a city’s asphalt and stone
A place where the damned would no longer be alone.
“To step within is to experience rebirth,”
“Within here unjudged by placental worth.”
With all my money I paid a woman in glasses
To grant me access to these holy masses—
The path unfolded as an esophagus croaks
Their halls dressed in many-eyed cloaks.
“Where are we?” my tried, parched, meager mouth cried,
My implants, they all each screamed, welded triple-plied.
I was unhooked and unhooded, thrown out, unaware
Of the great eager holiness I was about to find snare
In snare of me, my hideousness, my temptation-fulfilled desires,
My unholy self, my me, able to be burned by the raging fires.
Seven women presented themselves like the rural whores
My parents warned me about
Of the abominations that WAN’s anger had left behind
But staring at their bodies made me blush, so jealous,
How is their skin so pliable? I thought
Looking at the one with thirty-tailed cheeks
How is it so soft, so thick, so free?
The tallest then sized me up as a fisherman jerks
The hook from inside of a trout’s stomach
Her face a writhing mass of kidneys and horns—
Yes, yes—
I was in the presence of something desecrating—
But only to WAN, in all of His rules—
But she was otherwise holy, purely sanctifying.
“You have been pierced with technology’s vices,” she quickly then shouted
“Please, Please!” I screamed, wishing I had never doubted
That these perfect lines possessed no soul
That each was a stillborn, pitiful hole—
Unable to wail, assail, unveil or re-trail
Their existence tantamount to prisoned blackmail.
Look at them in all of their freedom, I thought
Each standing so unashamed of their bodies,
So supple, so naked, so gloriously barren
The computers in me demanded plastic covers when not in use
For ultraviolet would curse their parts to decay,
To waste, to wither, to fry—
But the skin was made for the sun, was it not?
My flesh—was it not made for the warm sunshine’s kiss?
Its gentle, heavy bosom on a clear afternoon day?
Those beautiful, fat legs upon which the earth’s bounty drew
So heavy and satiated from?
Each of their lesions saw my monstrous form.
My incomplete, larval deform
One cradled me with claws of cardiac muscle
Another with the flesh from a good fighting’s tussle,
It was then, right there, that the tallest leaned down
Just as the walls began to curve around
In a manner which mimicked the form I craved
Those necks and hips which left me depraved—
Aching for them so alone at night
I once wished my body away with a rigorous might
And here was the solution, the bloody solution to all of my trouble—
It had always been trapped underneath this pulsating rubble—
“No,” said the tall one, who I now knew as the cleanser
Cleanser of the weak, the miserable, the ants
She was marked as such by
A figure with six-fingered arms above her head
In an aureole they moved, clasped tenderness around her undulating
Chin, jaw, nose, eyes—
Even her hair used to be
Where my hair could disappear…
“Please,” I wail, as I squirm like a worm on the floor
“Free me! Split me! Unmake my parts!”
It was in that moment I realized
I had glimpsed, somehow
A holy prophet through nanoparticled crystals
Forced onto me like salt against
The bounds of the grave and afterlife
Before she could sing to me of salvation
I took a slithered hand and cut my own damnation
My eyes, to that Savior, it was so obvious they had sinned
So my soul’s container, well, it needed to be thinned.
It was then, with smiles and screams of jubilee
They all rushed upon me as clearly as I could see
Red sprayed as they popped my corneas
As one summoned a well of lamellicornia,
Those squirming beetles, to join in on the fun
As if I was a corpse beneath the sun—
I—
I—
I—
So much movement. We are all one.
There is not a body amidst here to shun—
Ah, what do they require now?
“I am to…do what? How?”
“Unsheathe…what?”
My mechanized, motorized, militant gut?
I was split open before I could speak again
It was so obvious now that I was a friend—
For quickly my spine and legs were ripped in two—
And I was consumed like the most delicious stew
To the base of a delicious meal, made for family
An act which left me hastily, clammily,
Begging for my life until I realized that
They were not devourers, but diplomats
Diplomats gnashing metal between teeth and beak
Flattening metal with a guttural, spiritual shriek
“Rend me apart,“ I beg
As they smashed in my face and gnawed at my leg
I melted into a primordial soup pooling at the floor
It was then when they looked to me with appetites no more.
“Now, come,” said the sanctifier, with her meager smile and epidermal hands
“Let us see where your name lands,”
Through power unknown they crafted three lots
And they rolled them quick to kill my watts
To kill this buzzing, murdered, silicon shell
That had been my myofibroblast’s baneful hell
“HER - ALD - Ä” those squishy little faces called
Everyone quickly, and terribly bawled
But I was reconstructed before I could think
My body now a tentacled heat sink
I saw the plans so clear in my mind
And so I made myself without considering rewind
“A new one harkens!” cried a plump beauty with six heads
“Quick, quick, see to it that she threads—”
“Through Ion’s cloak before his aura departs!”
It was then I saw a sea of LCD hearts
Begging, gnashing, thrashing, weeping
For their time had not yet come, or they were too busy sleeping
But it was then as my chest grew and my waist sprouted
Tendrils abound that those six-fingered hands routed
My whining, greatest, monumental fears
Into himself before he disappeared
All before he disappeared.
So now I was left with women who cheered
For me and my new body
Cheering me on now that I was finally somebody.
All of us are sisters, in one way or another. We either become women, depend on women, or grow into something else other than women. But that which calls itself “she” will never leave us—it will never leave us, just as Lovataar, the lover, did not leave Ion’s side, just as Adytum does not leave the hearts of humanity simply because it was hidden.
The path to apotheosis is paved with the flesh of those who call themselves women. It is paved with the ways women created this world and continue to tend to its dermis and epidermis. Just as Ion was born of a woman without a womb, so too are we called to accept the miraculous—we have been bestowed a special task, bequeathed upon our bodies by the Prophet himself, upon which we must tend to those within his flock desperate to be assimilated into the forms of which they are denied.
This is our sacred duty. It is the duty all women should strive to emulate—there is no greater virtue than acceptance, which leads to love.
-Excerpt from “Sermon Within the Ant’s Mouth”, as preached by Karcist Iuyanā, leader of the Femmäliän, an all-female proto-Sarkite coven.
One must embrace fear to its blackened, twisted ends in order to prove thy flesh is worthy; only when the stench of death has been overcome will the struggle of the body be complete in mind and soul.
Those who delegate this task to others will be cursed to forever wander the earth as slaves to their own suffering. The choice between bondage and apoptosis is to always be the latter; do not allow for your pride as a Nälkän to be held back by those whose societies will grow from the ashes of the gods. Do not allow their fear to overtake you, do not consider your own preservation above the sake of humanity’s.
All who bow, serve—and all who serve will succumb to their ignorance, their ideals, their own beliefs which sway to any and all authority which exerts power over the world.
Do not deify any mortal man, for they will inevitably corrupt.
The Lost Saint Eüideth-Żálinime, Metamorphic Patron of Adytum’s Gate
Marx—the dearest of my friends. A true Nälkän at heart—he understood the plight of our flesh was intimately woven within the yoke the bourgeois wield—though I must take his ideations one step further and posit that the coin as a societal construct will be our doom. It is too much like a god to be separated from their hideousness; too powerful in its control of labor to be separated from that which allows the Archons to swallow and consume. Value must be decided independently of precise measurement; mankind will not be free unless silver and gold are deposed of their thrones, despised for their luster, and disposed of in utter totality—the mortal proletariat will not feel Ion’s glory for as long as transactional value is attached to any labor, instead of being claimed for the betterment of the community.
-Excerpt from a Letter to Friedrich Engels, from Karcist Üiunnānā
It is within my most fervent belief that the Nälkän will be chained so long as the systemics of capitalism continue to live. Though you, my kin, may find my words sophomoric, obnoxious, pretentious or sanctimonious, full of a theory you believe of no use to you (I understand greatly, as I have lived in London for longer than anyone should); I urge you to consider the changes occurring in the world—the way the landscape has been devoured since our leaders first led us out of Adytum’s ruins all those millennia ago. I urge you to listen to the call of the tractor, of the train whistle, of the great concrete cities and that which is called ‘electricity’, developed by the Mehkanite Tesla; I urge you to open your eyes to how the European is clothed, how they draw lines in the sand over how long a man’s hair ought to be and how they mandate a woman’s place in an unmoving house, how there is no room for the Nälväk in their minds, the Nälkän who occupies both feminine and masculine, and the Üjānhäv, the Nälkän who rejects all, having shunned such a purpose at birth. They expect us, because of the powers they have constructed, because of the god they prostrate themselves feebly for, to abandon our women without wombs, to shame them for holding the title of mother within our societies—all because they cannot give birth, considered most frontal in their minds of the value a woman brings. Children to them only exist for the family, for work, for money—can’t you see how little they know of freedom from this?
Their systems are set in place by the laws and machines of which they control. These then are instructed by men wearing Eastern silk and New World cotton, conglomerations of power taken from every corner of the world. This is their end goal—the creation of an underclass, spread as far as the horizons allow, perpetually in servitude to their boot and their foot—this is but another goal which they claim their god gives them the power to do, a god whose name has been invoked to destruction, no different than those hideous Archons of whom we revile.
I speak to you now, my siblings who are still alive, those repressed by both Nicholas II and the Grand Duchy of Finland—do not close your ears to the world being held captive before our eyes. Do not concede to the one who encroaches upon your settlements and tells you what is appropriate to eat—do not see to it that you restrict your dress like their women and lambast your wives like their men.
We must resist this age of capitalism both materially, intellectually, and intravenously—to one another we must be held accountable, for our little ones must we resist—we must resist this world which seeks to standardize our uniqueness, which demands the static and rigorous compliance of the flesh, for such a state of being is no different than that of Važjuma, that wretched thing.
Such an existence would be no better than bondage.
-p. 35-36 of the Jilyiyā manuscript, a collection of letters dated from 1888 to 1901, penned by Jilyiyā Ūnvahä, a proto-Sarkite philosopher.
And the end shall begin when the Serpent’s scale pierces Ion’s womb,
Unlodging a forbidden power over sovereignty and magic—
Woe to us, pithy mortal worms, as our rituals fade and our words descend into maggotry.
As our library of knowledge fails us, so too will we find ourselves eating dirt and drinking shame,
For the one who wields the purse and coffer has been birthed through our miracles,
Given reign over the heavens and every city.
His mouth and tongue shall be cut with diamond
His thighs divided with emerald scythes
His eyes scooped out with jade rings, heavy on the unblemished finger
All laid upon the finest utensils, scattered over silken tablecloths,
Over grids of trade that stretch to every corner of the earth—
Bondage shall find us once more as our Prophet vanishes before a greater Devourer,
She who wears the skin of humans but sits upon an ivory tower—
That Great Dark Subjugator who defiles death time and time again—
Can’t you hear the sound of this march, O brethren?
-Luvjašita 12:11-25. Part of the Ħilvasār, a codex of apocalyptic Sarkic scripture considered highly heretical by most proto- and neo-Sarkite groups.
August 16th, 2017
“You know the deal.”
Karcist Iuyanā stares with six sets of purple eyes at a woman in a business suit. The Sarkic followers behind them kiss and gently dab Heraldā off as they help her climb out of the slime, steadying her balance on her new tentacles as she weeps.
“This new one will need maturation. Sixteen cycles at minimum—”
The woman pushes up her glasses, running her hands over her cold briefcase stoically. Stolidly.
“Sir Amos requires your craft for a fresco to be displayed at a gathering in Prague. It will occur within the next fortnight—shipping from this location will take three days. Have her test her skills, and then make up the difference where she fails.”
Karcist Iuyanā glares at her, but the woman, nameless and proud of it, does not return the gesture. Heraldā trips, but is lifted up by the other believers, cooing and encouraging her with warm, gentle aphorisms.
“There is potential in her.” The woman’s hair is darker than night in the shrouded, throat-like walls of the sanctum. “And she would have been killed in a raid had she not come here, by the way.”
Karcist’s Iuyanā reels. “What—?!” A long, scaled wing finds its way to cover her mouth.
“…Surely you jest—”
“The Foundation and G.O.C just razed one of the Saint’s Facilities,” the woman replies coolly. “That snake—the worship of her led to bloody murder.”
A printer begins whirring. The woman undoes her suitcase and pulls out a piece of paper from a flat, smooth stone tablet, holding it up.
The smashed bodies of a dozen Maxwellists shine as cruelly as can be. Their technology lay scattered, crushed, broken and beaten, glittering like ugly stars. Many have suffered caustic burns in an attempt to separate them from their body-modifications.
A smile forms on the woman’s face as she watches Karcist Iuyanā shudder and skip a breath.
“This could have been her. Her parents were caught in this, do you understand that? She would have been left to her own devices, her body strewn along gunfire, flash grenades, and—”
“Please,” that deep, dual-toned voice snaps. Karcist Iuyanā sharply inhales as two of her attendants notice the commotions.
“This will be all of you if you don’t comply. They will not show you mercy simply because you take in the beaten and the damned.”
Karcist Iuyanā shivers.
“…Enough. Please,” she whimpers. Her heart aches at the thought of their newborn convert splattered aimlessly against a granite wall.
She shakes her head at those who stumble at her uncertainty, pointing to Heraldā.
“…We will have something ready as soon as possible…” she mutters to the woman.
“Wonderful.” That black lipstick smile smirks. “I’m glad our arrangement will continue. The company would hate to see your beautiful coven dashed to pieces…”
She smiles as Karcist Iuyanā holds back tears, these to pour black as tar. Had she let them fall, the good air of the ceremony would have been broken, their scent unbearable and like leaded adder’s flesh—she could not allow that. Not again. Such was an affront to the Great Shepherd, the Ionian Hands which guided them. Which saved them. Which saved this wastrel.
“I…I understand…”
The woman quickly packs up her things.
“Thank you. Do you have any more questions?”
Silence.
“Then Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. thanks you for your service. Madam Percival will send her regards.”