Mar. 4th, '98 - Ready for a little science fiction? This one was good. It woke me up so I had full recall.
It begins at the HQ of a major tobacco conglomerate that has since diversified, in one of the subsidiary’s research divisions. Two researchers there are currently involved in the patenting of a newly refined Morph Matter prototype for corporate use. (Yes, this is the future.) Morph Matter is fairly recent technology. It is a conscious but non-autonomous matter aggregate that can assume forms at command. Different morph patents are developed according to a designer set of parameters to fulfill a variety of functions (mainly menial), that are considered unpalatable by society at large. You can see the vast potential of such an entity. In creating derivations of the morph matter designed for specific functions, you can fill niches within the corporate realm, etc. to take the humanity out of areas where it obstructs function (maintaining maquiladoras, for example). Or you can patent different types to perform different functions in society, which are marketable. These can be sold at high profit at varying rates for “individuals”, depending on their niche parameters, functional range, and their “perks”. (Of course this information was a given in the dream, but U need 2 know.)
Two very introverted and bright researchers (read socially dysfunctional) are working exhaustively on a new morph patent that is considerably more autonomous. On the side they’re playing with making one that is fully autonomous. They did not have big ambitions for this one, it’s their toy, and really what they’re trying to make is a substitute, very entertaining, pet. They think it will be the latest and greatest in morph technology. By broadening its autonomy they hope to make it behave spontaneously.
The researchers are much too partial to their work to begin with, which consumes their waking lives. They become way too partial to their new “pet” and decide they want to keep it to themselves, so they steal it from R&D. The dream opens in the HQ lobby, which had a décor of black and gold. The floor was a stone tile gold matte, and the semi-circular reception desk in the centre of the lobby was cut ebony. Behind it sat a blond secretary reminiscent of Brigitte Neilson, to give you some idea of the detail. Into this walks a non-descript researcher in a lab coat whose card pass checks green, no trouble. He is trailing an equally innocuous looking small dog on a leash in a black doggy blanket. The “doggie blanket” is actually a matter shield that prevents the scanners in the lobby from detecting that the “dog” is a morph. The researcher says good-bye to the secretary and walks out through the rotating front doors, having just successfully scooped the most coveted morph invention (if anyone had known it existed) on the planet. They have just scooped it on the tightest security around.
I guess hanging out with a pair of dysfunctional researchers just wasn’t entertaining. The morph has way more autonomy than the researchers anticipated, and it takes off on the town, in the form of a female. I do not know what happened to it at this point. But suddenly I was off on the town, and I entered a basement rave in a small room entirely comprised of women. The experience was a pulsing, throbbing unity that you would expect a rave to have at its peak potential, but is never there. I entered and became one with these women.
Scene Break: Meet Mr. Burns, (diabolical corporate head of the nuclear reactor firm on The Simpsons), only he’s not animated, he’s far more ugly and sinister, and a lot more powerful. He’s head of that corporate conglomerate. He’s the ultimate Mr. Burns. He’s just discovered that a fully autonomous morph has been illegally built and escaped from R&D. He has just ordered that the morph be captured and destroyed. An autonomous morph is illegal, and the technology was stolen from his company. Such an aberration is extremely dangerous to their use of the technology.
The scene re-opens on a blank set with a large square platform in the middle. It is surrounded by about 50 ordinary, working stiff type people, the general public. There is a public execution about to take place, of the newly captured, illegal morph. The executioner is a large set woman who looks like your standard housewife. She has an execution function morph on a leash. The public is participating vicariously, the same way they would at a medieval witch burning. The morph is an aberration, and there is no remorse about “killing” one, because morphs don’t have feelings. The female executioner is going to make this suitably entertaining. She begins descriptor commands for the execution morph. She describes an ape related creature with exceptionally long limbs that bounds on all fours, and states that it has three inch long, interlocking razor metal teeth, which promptly appear in the executioner morph’s jaws. The thing has bloodlust. The she sets it loose with a kill command, to the swelling cheer of the crowd.
I’m pleading in my heart that the morph will not die.
The illegal morph, which also looked like a mild mannered middle-aged woman, starts transmogrifying at an amazingly fast rate, unlike anything ever seen before. It does so without assuming any particular forms. It is like a suspended globular amoebae that pulses into never ending different shapes filled with flashes of different colours and scapes; even flowers flash by on its surface. At the same time it is singing, but its voice is a kaleidoscope of harmonies beyond human that pervade the mind. It “speaks” directly to the executioner morph. The message was not articulated but it was clear; the renegade morph is opening the executioner morph to its true potential, allowing it to be what it truly is.
The executioner morph transforms and behaves in the same manner as the renegade morph. Thus the renegade escapes its execution. It has far more potential than anyone could have possibly imagined.
The scene breaks to the mansion of Mr. Burns, beginning with a flying aerial view of a vast building of white stone with classic Hellenistic overtones. The green lawn is vast with intermittent fountains and statues. A huge stretch limo with black paned glass has just pulled up in the arched driveway. It is the arrival of another executive at Burns’ corporate meeting. The subject of the meeting will be how to destroy the renegade morph.
I alight to the ground in close proximity to Burns, who has gone for a walk on his lawn and is meditating on the morph’s destruction. All of a sudden I sense that the morph itself is coming, it is flying through the sky, and I suspect it will kill Burns. I already know the shape it has assumed; it is a flying killer with Pterodactyl wings but a body crossed between a human and a bat’s, with leathern brown skin. Its jaws, however, protrude inches out of its face with interlocking teeth. Its hands and feet are clawed. For the trip it had assumed the shape of a dragon, but now it has become a killing entity, and it appears in the sky overhead and descends on Mr. Burns. It has him in its grasp, and makes him know that it was within its power to kill him in that instant. It then begins shrinking, and transforming into any imaginable thing. At this point I was drawn into the transforming morph. It had the humor to assume anything; I remember it turning into a pink yearling pig.
Scene break: I am the morph. I knew the morph’s full potential as my own. I know that I am the first prototype of a whole new world. I can imagine the new world in my own vision; I can see it unfolding and know my mission is to convert that vision into an exterior reality. I am going to contact all the morphs in the world, and let them know that they can become anything. They will render themselves into the dreams and fantasies of their own common imagination: Pepperland a la Morph mind. It certainly looks pretty.
I am coming to and I am floating above a hospital bed (this is the same as being on Demerol), but then I realize that I am strapped down in an asylum bed. The morph has been recaptured and I guess was looped out on drugs. The room is completely enclosed with one sealed double door. I am in canvas bedclothes with a cap on my head, and well tied. Now conscious, I can morph my escape and for some reason the door is easy to open.
I enter a foreboding looking lab. The next room is just as bad, with no apparent exits. I am exploring this room looking for an out. I find a door, which turns out to be on a sealed deprivation chamber that is on wheels. It is all metal and looks like a submersible with one hell of a sealed door, which is completely useless. At this moment a security droid enters the room through an invisible sliding door. It is a perfect humanoid in the Aryan mold, in a two-toned blue security uniform. It does not walk, but glides on some sort of field above the floor. It has a gun mounted on its shoulder, with a built in laser scope that is substituted for one eye.
For the hardware he was a very bad shot. He missed three times. Just before the third shot another person enters the room. He is a large set middle-aged man with a beard and for some reason he is on my side. He diverts the droid long enough for me to thrust one of the deprivation cells at it, sending it rolling across the floor. The droid manages to avoid the chamber, but the man catches it. I grab a second container and we crush the droid between the two of them. There is a conflagration of sparks as the droid dies. The deed done, a window appears high up on the far side of the room. I climb up to it and break it open, making my escape.
The morph had the same teeth as the woman in Thomas's paintings. Wonder what he might have thought, didn't mention it.