The Grimscribe's Puppets (40 page)

While most mainstream Signalists consider this process a lifelong evolution that concludes with natural death, a radical fringe current continues to advocate “active abandonment” of the body, as fleshly detritus, through suicide.

Signalist Litany of Intent

The Litany is printed in the masthead of each issue of “The Secret Knowledge”:

When the Signal comes, it will decode everything it touches.

When the Signal comes, nothing will be left unchanged.

The Signal will be a type of terraforming. A psychic terraforming. Our world will be remade from the inside-out.

Those who are Horses for the Signal will be Translated and Transition correctly.

Those who are not Horses for the Signal will Transition incorrectly, in that they will not Transition at all.

Horses must run in tandem, or the Transition will be disordered.

Team-mindedness is key.

Rehearsal is the single most important element in a correct Transition.

Rehearsal assures that the Final Checks are performed consistently and in unison, with perfect intent in action.

Two on two and two by two is the proper order, so both partners can support each other throughout.

Team-mindedness means:
No one goes alone
.

Team-mindedness means:
No one is left behind
.

To abandon team-mindedness is to abandon your partner, condemning them to an incorrect transition.

To abandon team-mindedness is the only unforgivable sin.

Yelena Rostov, Notes:

According to the Pure Signalism website (still online!), Final Checks =

Pair up.

Assemble materials.

Put bag over head (leave open at bottom, for mouth access).

Face each other.

Each team-member hands the other their dose.

Doses taken at the same time.

Wash down with vodka.

Repeat until dose canisters/vodka bottles are empty.

Tie each other’s bags.

Lie down in paired corpse posture, feet touching.

Begin Litany.

Wait.

But Leora Soong didn’t wait. She turned over and tore a hole in her bag, puked up her dose, ran out of the house before Tyson Legasse could catch her. Coroner’s records show he was already dying when the police got there—amazing he lived long enough to kill himself. But maybe he wanted to see her again, see her eyes when she turned him down. (Like he knew she would?)

IR on Leora implies that by the time she came to Shumate, she thought she made the wrong call.

Okay, so now we know why Shumate doesn’t take cult survivors/deprogramming jobs anymore. But

“The Signal” = Signalists? How can that

Checked Thordis’s browser cache. If she’s been looking at Signalist materials, I can’t find any record of it. But that wouldn’t explain how she knew about the other three patients, anyways. Or what Leora Soong and her Signalist crazy had to do with

No no no.

NO. No, that just doesn’t

Fuck
.

~*~

Therapy Blog of Thordis Hendricks, August 15, 2012 (2:55 AM):

Found teeth in the wall today. Like there was a lump in the plaster I could barely see, but I could feel it when I touched it, so I went all through the place looking for something heavy enough to break it open, and then finally I did (edge of a plastic file-box from the closet), and I did. And it opened right up like a seam, and inside were these teeth buried deep enough I had to dig them out, roots and all. Too small to be an adult’s, with their enamel the colour of milk gone off.

How does that even
happen
, though? I mean, it must’ve been deliberate—somebody did that, but why? To leave something of themselves behind here, just in case

(that’s if the teeth were even theirs)

One way or the other, I think I maybe need to start writing down exactly when I take my meds, again. And how many.

Slept maybe an hour around midnight, and had that same dream about somebody standing at the foot of my bed, looking down at me while I slept. And it was me? Me looking down, me sleeping? And when I opened my eyes I was surprised, genuinely, to not find her still standing there. Surprised, and a little disappointed.

It’s very lonely, in here. I’m beginning to wish

(only beginning?)

well, more like—after all this time in Apartment Five—that I’m finding it hard to remember what it was like to ever be someplace

(anyplace)

else.

And the other thing that’s funny, just a bit: When your diagnosis includes suicidal ideation, why do the side-effects of so many drugs also include suicidal ideation? Cymbalta included, if I recall correctly; hoping you have a handle on that, at least, Yelena. Hoping you’re keeping track.

It just seems...contradictory.

[email protected]
Dr Corbray, it’s Yelena Rostov.

[email protected]
Dr Corbray?

[email protected]
I sent you a report, Dr Corbray. Did you get it?

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]
Yes, I received it.

[email protected]
All right, then

[email protected]
Mind telling me what you thought?

[email protected]
Will be sending you my response in email form, so please check your in-box.

[email protected]
Signing off now.

~*~

From:
[email protected]

Date: August 15, 2012, 10:42 AM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Report (Thordis Hendricks)

Dear Yelena,

Following your account of what you term Thordis Hendricks’s “psychological degeneration” over her stay with us here at Shumate House, I went back and examined the Therapy Blog posts and dream diary entries you quoted in detail. Having done so, while I will admit the symptoms she’s been experiencing are extreme (enough so to definitely merit a pharmacological shift off Cymbalta, perhaps substituting Paxil or Celexa, followed by a full-scale treatment protocol reassessment), I’m not quite sure what else I’m supposed to take away from this laundry-list of additional implications, some of which appear to verge on the pathological.

To answer your questions, however: No, there is no way Ms. Hendricks could have learned the details of how Apartment Five’s former tenants died. No, I don’t believe there’s a “pattern” to those deaths, aside from the unfortunate tendency of addicts to overdose and depressives to commit suicide. And though I suppose it’s possible Ms. Hendricks might recall something about the Pure Signalism cult denouement—it would have been hard to escape that year’s news coverage without picking up
any
reference to it, especially here in Toronto—this idea of yours that Leora Soong’s completely coincidental stay at Shumate may have left some sort of toxic “psychic residue” behind that infects Apartment Five’s residents with Signalist ideas is both highly unprofessional, and scarily close to veering into the realm of paranormal mumbo-jumbo. We work for MonitorU, not the Freihoeven Institute.

I don’t
want
to re-assign you, Yelena, since I believe that would be bad for Ms. Hendricks—she needs continuity, especially now. But this is a conversation I really don’t want to find myself having with you again.

(By the way, in future, I would prefer to communicate by email rather than Instant Message, since the latter format is not exactly conducive to in-depth debate.)

Cordially, Dr. Maurice Corbray, M.D., Ph.D.

Director, Shumate House

Yelena Rostov, Notes:

Asshole
.

Okay, okay—

Supposedly, Shumate doesn’t accept cult survivors or deprogramming jobs anymore.

But Corbray was Shumate’s primary student; Corbray treated Leora Soong, so “well” her parents wanted everybody to donate to him. Corbray was the one who mentioned Apartment Five’s stellar tenancy record, in the first place. Why?

So I would go looking? So I’d figure out

(no, that doesn’t make any)

(or does it)

So here’s a thesis:

You have a—all right, say it—haunted apartment. Everyone who stays there gets sucked into the same routine: Final Checks for Translation/Transition; team-mindedness at work. She (Leora) convinces them they’re part of her double-harness pairing. And they go through with it, but they don’t stick around—they move on, somewhere else.
She
sticks around, and tries it again.

Because she feels bad about pulling out. Because she feels

(alone, and lonely, so lonely)

(just like Thordis)

And it doesn’t matter at this point if she really-for-truly thinks that all her dead friends wound up on Lost Planet Tiamat in the Paradise Dimension, or whatever—fact is, wherever they
did
end up, she’s not there, and she never will be. Not unless she can find someone else, the
right
someone else

to
team
with.

And Corbray’s not stupid, just a bastard. So what is it for him, some kind of experiment? Like:
Hey, I wonder what happens if we put this sort of person in Number Five? Or this one?
Or

(because I think I know)

I mean: How many times do you have to
do
this, exactly, to figure out the truth? How many times do you have to repeat a routine to know it’s never going to

Oh God, I have to get Thordis out of there.

~*~

Skype log transcript of conversation between Yelena Rostov and Thordis Hendricks, recorded on August 15, 2012 (3:15 PM to 3:27 PM):

Yrostov: Thordis, are you there? I can hear you, but I can’t see you. Do you have your camera turned on?

ThordH: Yelena?

Yrostov: It’s me, yeah. I need to speak to you right now, about—

ThordH: Ha, that’s so weird. I was just going to call you.

Yrostov: You were?

ThordH: What did you want to talk about?

Yrostov: Well, I—was worried—

ThordH: Oh God, this about the blog, right? Listen, I feel so stupid, I was just...you know how it is. My sleep’s been really upset, and I just get down.

Yrostov: So you didn’t find teeth in the wall?

ThordH: No, that part was true. I mean, it’s
all
“true.”

Yrostov: I don’t—Thordis, I’m still not seeing anything, can you try again? I just want to talk to you about these...patterns in your blog, this toxic repetition, these weird turns of—okay, there, that’s better. Are you still having those dreams?

ThordH: Sure, sort of. But ever since you sent Lee over, things have been so much—

Yrostov: Excuse me, who?

ThordH: Lee, Yelena. You know. She’s been taking me through the meditation sequences in person, and it
really
helps clarify things. I mean, at first I was a little leery, but turns out having somebody in my space isn’t so bad, when they really know what they’re doing.

Yrostov: The meditation—

ThordH: Corpse posture. The whole rehearsal, Final Checks and all. I can hear everything perfectly, now; I understand. It’s Translated itself for me, so I can return the favour. And it’s just, it’s just, so—

Yrostov: Thordis,
wait
, slow down. Breathe. I, I need to make sure you know what you’re
doing
, that you aren’t gonna
hurt
yourself—

ThordH: Yelena, c’mon. What is it you think I’m going to
do
?

Yrostov: I—look, that doesn’t matter right now, I’ll explain when I get there. Just...stay put, hold on. Don’t do anything. Okay?

ThordH: No, I’m interested—hurt myself how? Why would I do that? It makes no sense. I’d never do that, not when I came here to get
better
. No one would. Right, Lee? I’m right, aren’t I? Tell her.

Yrostov: Thordis—

ThordH:
Tell
her, damnit!

Yrostov:
Thordis
. Focus. Who’s...that behind you?

ThordH: I
told
you already, Yelena. Lee.

Shumate House Site Incident Report for August 15, 2012, filed by Saracen Security Guard Margaret Cuchner:

12:00 PM Arrived on site to relieve previous guard. No further incident.

12:30 to 15:00 PM Checks as usual, nothing to report.

15:15 PM (Approx.) Care worker Yelena Rostov entered lobby, greeted me and registered. She then proceeded to Skype with Apartment 5 (Thordis Hendricks) on her tablet, while I filled out site log.

15:25 PM (Approx.) Rostov became upset and waved me over. I heard what I assumed to be tenant Hendricks rambling incoherently. Rostov pointed out what she said was an intruder in Hendricks’ apartment. Hard to see, but looked like a female figure standing behind Hendricks.

15:30 PM (Approx.) I triggered the panic button, summoning police and paramedics, and left my duty station to accompany Rostov up to Apartment 5. No response to knocking and calling. I tried security fob, but apartment door was unresponsive. When I recommended waiting for police, Rostov broke glass on fire extinguisher cabinet and used extinguisher to break door-handle, then kicked in door. I proceeded to do quick check of apartment, but found no intruder.

15:35 PM Police arrived on site and accessed my walkie-talkie. I explained situation. Officer Brian Lum stayed at front desk to direct paramedics, while Officer Chimo Moche joined Rostov and myself upstairs.

15:38 PM Officer Moche, Rostov and myself located Hendricks lying in her own bed, apparently unconscious, with blue lips and a plastic bag half-f of vomit over her head, knotted around her neck. At same time (approx.), paramedics arrived on site and were directed upstairs by Officer Lum. They began resuscitation efforts on Hendricks, broke open bag and turned her over on her stomach. Hendricks coughed up more vomit, then opened her eyes briefly and began to breathe again, erratically.