Machines With No Purpose « Level of a Louse » Beasts That Perish
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| Canon: | none |
| Series: | LAPITH |
| Canon: | none | Series: | LAPITH |
January 7th. 2020. 10:23 CST.
Paul Klee, 'Moribundus', 1919
Dr. Rahman walked down a path that winded between a variety of sculptures and was decorated with murals, some of which were animated along the bricks. Chalk figures stalked her every step, parallel with the ground.
She came upon a table whose legs, no matter from what direction she viewed it, always appeared to be facing her. Flanking it were two sleek silver chairs. In one of them sat Professor Tyler Sarkoz, reading what must have been the only non-anomalous item in the area, a newspaper. He indicated towards the other seat as Rahman approached.
He set aside the paper and made conversation as he lit a cigarette. “How’re things, Ms- ah, Doctor Rahman?” He laughed. “Apologies.”
She smiled. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it, Professor?”
“I'm used to the time. Once your Authority gets their claws in my students, I never see them without some screen between us.”
“Oh, it’s just me. I’ve been too busy.”
“Hmph.” He took another drag and grinned. “Good thing that busy happened to bring you back here.”
“I am too.” She pulled out a folder and slid it across the table. “I have some questions to ask.”
“Interesting." He mused over the folder and looked across at Dr. Rahman. “Anything memetic in here? Nothing that might kill me? I trust you, of course-”
“I know, and yes, it's clean.”
He sighed. “Let’s see,” he began to flip through the folder. “There’s Vogt, Cordatus, some other tangentialities, and- ah. Mr. Mychu.”
“We have found a machine constructed by those Kabushiki that Karl Mychu likely helped design, or at least modified.” Rahman folded her arms. “To be blunt, we have no idea why K-K of all organizations would build this, or to what end. We were hoping that Mr. Mychu might enlighten us on that- and that you might help us find him.”
“How do you know Mychu designed it?”
“His name was on it." Rahman clicked a button on a recorder and slid it across the table. "Besides that and his former education here with you, we don’t have any info on him.”
Professor Sarkoz nodded, and tilted his head askance for a moment. “Mychu was certainly an outlier. I remember him very clearly. How hard he tried. To stand out, I mean.”
“And?”
The professor leaned forward. “Well, Karl Mychu was very talented. He acted strange, with black hair, and those funny tattoos, but when you work at a place like this, that's par for the course. When everyone is strange, well, nobody is.
"This bothered Karl. It bothered him a lot. He squirmed a little whenever someone had the same obscure interest. He flinched if someone agreed with whatever political nonsense he spat. He wanted to be alone. He got a thrill when people were disturbed by his work." At this, Sarkoz grinned.
"He emulated HR Geiger. We often had to discuss how some of his work bordered on plagiarism. Now, I have no issue with Geiger's work, he did fine, but it was obvious Karl had more of a "Geigeresque" gimmick, you know, phallic symbolism, body horror, bulbous shapes, the sort of thing that works great on the sort of pedestrian audiences Mychu was used to. Highschool classmates, family members, and all that.
“Of course, it didn't work here. I remember he wrote a poem at one point where he called himself a "stranger in a stranger land", and that was a riff off of Exodus 2:22. But I think his breaking point was when he quoted something from Hans Sedlmayr, an Austrian artist from the 20th century. Sedlmayr is not that obscure, but I suppose Karl thought he was. When a classmate said with elation that they knew that quote because they had a painting of Hans Sedlmayr that could talk, he clocked her in the jaw."
The doctor seemed a little sheepish for a moment. “I’m sorry, Sarkoz, but I don’t see how this relates to our investigation.”
The professor laughed again before he inhaled sharply through his cigarette. His words came out amidst smoke. “Sorry. I shouldn't go off-topic that often considering my occupation.” He tapped the tobacco against the silver ashtray, ashes scattering amidst the crest of the Academy. “What I'm trying to get at is that Mychu craved validation, and our academy wasn't enough. I don't think anything would be, not till he was the one with all the secrets. I think that drew him into these increasingly obscure circles, the people who promised real artistic power, and I’m afraid that these associations led to his departure from our grounds.
“It was after a few years of this. His artwork became increasingly bizarre. He shaped clay in ways that made it look and feel akin to human flesh. Started to make displays of machines that seemed like torture racks digging into these figures. So, when I found that the flesh he was using for his projects was no longer an imitation, I confronted him and he fled.”
Rahman readied her pen. “Where did he flee to?”
“I know he was employed by Kawashii- er, K-K. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve taken members of our student body. But where specifically, I don’t know.” He began to jot down onto a blank piece of paper. “After our talk, I want you to show this to the student records registrar.” The doctor took the finished note and slid it into her folder. “They’ll have everything you want to know about Mr. Mychu. We do our best to keep tabs on our alumni, but seeing as Karl never managed to graduate, and the efforts of our friends in purple, it's somewhat obscured. But things like family names and addresses should be all there, and I suppose for your people that’s all that matters.”
“Thank you kindly.” She closed the file and pit back into her briefcase.
“I also can’t help but think that this all could’ve been exchanged through email instead.” He smiled behind a puff of smoke.
“I can’t have such a confidential conversation with an account that isn’t up to Authority encryption standards.” She rose up from her chair and slid it back into place.
“And I think you might’ve just missed me.”
She made a devious grin. “Not you. Just the campus.” Dr. Rahman leaned down to hug the professor before heading further along the path across the university.
Sarkoz waved her off. “Best of luck!” He pulled the newspaper back in front, unchanging in attitude.
'Whatever belongs to horror and to night, to disease, death and decay, whatever is crass, obscene and perverse, whatever is mechanical and a denial of the spirit—all these motifs and aspects of the inhuman take hold of man and of his familiar world. They make of man a ruin, an automaton, a mask, a phantom. He sinks to the level of a louse, an insect. In the various movements of modern painting it is always one or the other of these various anti-human attributes that is underlined. Cubism lays the emphasis on deadness, Expressionism on boiling chaos, Surrealism on the cold demonism of the last icy regions of Hell.' - Hans Sedlmayr