THE FAT CATS

Soft hypnotic mists swirled and snaked menacingly as it cut into Thallius’s mind. Razor sharp slices of his memories mixing and combining together in random confusion, obscuring clear pathways to rational thought.

Brainwave messages loaded, almost as if they were carrying abrasive tiny grains of sand collected by the wind on its relentless weary journey, tearing at his thoughts, wearing him away, penetrating and filling every nook, void and crevice, whilst jarring his adjusted thoughts with a cacophony of never ending abrasive sound.

Thallius suddenly shook violently with a repeated series of cold involuntary rapid shudders, pain ripping through his body like a runaway train.

The concept of real time and life had now become a distant illusion to Thallius, punctuated by the constant irritating regularity of the machine.

Thallius now lay in an uncomfortable semi daze after the shudders had subsided, awoken automatically by the machine after yet another weary, painful and restless night. A cascade of vivid dazzling memory flashbacks hurtled through his mind bringing unexpected reminders of his former life, tinged with an overwhelming crushing despair at his total inability to help himself to escape from his captive, futile and desperate life.

His once normal and comfortable human status had been reduced to merely existing, if this is what you flippantly call existing, he thought to himself, being entombed in a sealed underground apartment with no means of personal communication and no ability or in fact authority to make any choices or decisions whatsoever as to my life, future or indeed daily living.

The underground apartment in which Thallius lay prostrate and from where he was unable to escape, seemed to stare at him with a steely sense of powerful knowing and total unswerving dominance.

Everywhere that Thallius could direct his gaze, albeit with intense difficulty and considerable pain, the room seem to be watching him, monitoring him, staring deep into his mind searching for answers or any glimmer or signs of subordination.

The intimidation was absolute.

In a futile attempt to overcome the oppressive invasion, Thallius once again tightly closed his eyes, but as always, the images that surrounded him were firmly printed onto his sub-conscious mind with no avenue for escape.

Despite every effort, he simply could not evade the regular mind activation and adjustment by the machine that he had to endure coupled with the feeling of total defenceless abandonment and inevitable defeat.

He gazed at the blank sterile walls, devoid of personality, comfort or personal memories of his former life. Instead they were interspersed by sleek, reflective chrome metal tubes, interconnected to an array of sophisticated electronic terminals, status lights blinking, briefly illuminating the room, indicator lights cutting razor sharp through the artificial stillness.

The machine itself throbbing incessantly with its designed low pitch hum, driving slowly and mercilessly into Thallius’s mind, almost like a calculated World War 2 prisoner torture.

Thallius had long since accepted that he was in all essence a prisoner trapped in this computer controlled artificial reality.

What he did not know however was who was responsible for placing him under the total control and dependency of the machine within the apartment or even how he found himself here without his prior knowledge or acceptance.

It was although he had always been here, his life carefully pre-mapped and predestined by others. But if that were the case he thought, what possible use can it be ?

What use am I in the grand scheme of life, simply lying here, using energy supplied by somebody and seemingly not returning anything in exchange to humanity via the machine.

It just doesn’t make sense.

Thallius slowly glanced around again, grimacing at the stabbing pain in his neck, still trying to understand this absurb and disturbing dilemma.

He stared once again at the computer life terminal and tried hopelessly to make sense of the LED display and sequences that were being seemingly played out like a complicated symphony of a repetitive never ending tape loop.

But as soon as Thallius thought he had mastered a single sequence with intense concentration, a random cascade of sound, light and movement

would occur which plunged his mind into turmoil once again, until he could not continue.

It was although the machine knew it was being watched !!!

Exhaustion once again took over as he felt his eyes begin to grow heavy, his breathing simultaneously subsided to a slow shallow rhythm as he slipped into his regular pattern of induced comatose sleep.

Little did he know that something important was about to happen.

A warm, soft mesmerising glow wrapped itself comfortably around the outside perimeter approach of the steel doorway to sub-floor 5, apartment number 2175, lulling any rare unsuspecting visitor into a dreamy haze of safety and contentment.

But not today !!!

This very real and personal visit was not by anyone who was easily sucked into the subliminal hypnotic visual tricks of the Corporation.

Inside the apartment, the still quiet of the room only punctuated by the machine electronics was suddenly invaded by the slow insistent movement of an exterior metal door bolt sliding effortlessly, but not without sound. It was a slow whispering sinister sound, followed by a soft gentle thud, as the head of the bolt found its destination stop.

A random metallic jingle of keys swiftly followed, having presumably been removed from an unknown trouser or jacket pocket and then fingered carefully to find the correct key required and then a moments silence.

Thallius held his breath, his beating heart in his mouth, not daring to make the slightest sound as he strained to listen to what may follow.

He heard the selected key slip easily into the door lock and with a steady slow turn, followed by a sharp click, the spring on the apartment door caused it to swing effortlessly open, allowing a sudden cold chill draught to enter the room, fighting with the stale artificial warm air within.

Panic and absolute fear consumed Thallius as he waited for the next move or action, but nothing happened. All around him the apartment machines still continued their regular allotted duties, neon lights displaying a coloured function sequence in perfect seemingly random order, like some well rehearsed illuminating dance.

After a few moments he heard the door shut again and the bolt slide presumably to its original position. The chill draught subsided and the eerie artificial quiet resumed, punctuated once more by the incessant low hum of the machine.

But now fear gripped Thallius even tighter. His breath coming in rapid shallow gasps. Had his unknown visitor or visitors left or had they simply closed the door and were still present in his apartment, out of his view ?

He had no way of knowing. He could not sit up or move at all.

The menacing grip of fear and sheer terror of possible retribution stopped him from making any form of noise or even to ask if anybody was present ?

Time now seemed to drag past even slower than normal, but as the minutes ticked by, Thallius slowly began to convince himself that the intruders had actually left his apartment and that nobody was sat silently behind him watching and waiting.

But if they had gone he reasoned, then what did they want and why had they almost secretly come into his apartment and more importantly why had they not engaged with him ?

Or could it be that he had been dreaming or hallucinating ?

Thallius questioned his mind again and again, convincing himself that he was sure that he had not been dreaming, but still he had no idea what was happening ?

Eventually curiosity got the better of him and summoning up all of his weak diminished remaining courage, he whispered softly “ Is anybody here” ?

But no reply.

He tried again, but this time he called a little louder. Still no reply.

Thallius breathed an uneasy sigh of relief as he slipped effortlessly back into his immobile, worthless almost trancelike existence.

The year 2030 had slipped seamlessly into existence, the same as previous years, without notice or any visual or audible sigh or even the slightest whimper to anyone.

Today was just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

Human life had become a never ending relentless and monotonous path of artificial induced repeated tedium, coupled with unbearable pain and discomfort, suffered with a futile endurance until ultimately death approached as a much longed for welcome relief from yet further suffering.

Everyday of late, the quality of the air in his apartment had been getting worse. It was becoming pungent, hot, sticky and extremely uncomfortable.

What he didn’t realise at the time, was that virtually everyone was gripped in similar conditions, helpless and distressed.

In his mind, Thallius had often likened existing in his apartment, to being forcibly trapped and bound within a siezed pressure vice with no possible chance of movement, release or escape.

What he also did not know was that the entire world population was now trapped in a rapidly escalating, painful epidemic of gross and morbid obesity.

Vast numbers of people were now classed as officially extra super obese to the point of living on the knife edge of death.

He had no idea or concept of the vast scale of the obesity problem.

Thallius lay in silence, body rigid on his electronic computerised bed, pain cutting through his fleeting thoughts like a razor sharp jagged knife, ripping and tearing without mercy into his weakened body.

The tight clawing grip of the sensory wrist band squeezing into his pulse, monitoring and recording not only his core body functions but worryingly he was sure, his thoughts and feelings via an inserted internal electrical pathway directly linked to his brain, that he felt certain had been surgically implanted without his knowledge.

His mind almost numbed by the continual monotony of pointless life, feeling hypnotised by the incessant low pitched drone, drilling mercilessly into his tired brain from the myriad of electronic machines humming all around him.

Thallius tried to shift himself, but with less and less ability and an even weaker desire to move his tired, engorged, putrescent limbs to a slightly different, possibly more comfortable and hopefully less painful position.

He glanced slowly and vaguely around his allotted Corporation underground apartment 2175, hopelessly trying to forget the searing and agonising pain in his neck caused by the slightest movement of his head.

There were no furniture, curtains or fabric coverings anywhere ~ No need !!!

Every exposed surface was hard polished metal or synthetic and wipe clean.

No family photos, treasured items, books or souvenirs from holiday trips adorning the shelves ~ Not allowed !!!

In fact there were no personal effects of any nature ……………………..

The apartment was sterile and totally devoid of all personal feeling.

With the despondent air of a defeated man, he summoned up every last ounce of his diminished strength and willpower, took a long deep rattling breath and tried to move ~ but once again with no success.

His weak flaccid limbs, as always, stayed in exactly the same place.

Perspiration continued to drip from his corpulent body in constant rivulets, causing the bed sheet to stick to his grossly enlarged form. The fresh bodily fluids mixing with the stench of old stale previous sweat, rising from the

pre-formed synthetic fabric on which he lay.

The putrid air in his room hung heavy with a lingering and inevitable sense of despair and desperation, heightened now as the air conditioning function in the apartment was now malfunctioning.

His breath now coming in short shallow gasps, more akin to the frantic last desperate gasping efforts of a dying man. Trying desperately to forget the never ending nagging pain that constantly wracked his entire body, his mind drifted into the same unanswered questions that constantly seemed to intrude his inner consciousness……..

Without uttering any real discernable sound, Thallius mouthed quietly and deliberately his thoughts aloud, but still hoping that nobody would answer.

He still could somehow hear in his mind however, his questioning voice begging endlessly for answers.

He could almost hear himself saying over and over again “Ever since I was born and could think clearly for myself as a human being and a real person without this bloody machine running my life, I always felt very different to other people and reacted differently to most that I met, but why did I feel like that and in which way was I different” ?

Again he whispered to himself “I’ve never been able to work that out”.

But as always, despite the constant nagging plea to his soul, no answer was forthcoming.

Outwardly Thallius seemed to be the same as most other people that he used to meet, socialise and speak with, but with direct human contact initially frowned upon and then positively and actively discouraged, to the point of now being banned completely in virtually all circles, it had been increasingly difficult to communicate with people, regardless of whether they were friends, relatives or even in passing to complete strangers, which seemed to his distant tired memory, how people used to meet before and strike up casual friendships.

With the passing of new stricter laws and directives by the Corporation unregistered and unlicensed meetings had been banned, except by strict formal prior arrangement.

Each such request for human contact was now officially scrutinized in advance to establish if it was absolutely necessary and if permission was eventually granted, which was becoming increasingly rare, then it was in an intrusive, impersonal, supervised screened environment.

These rare sanctioned and reluctantly authorised meetings were held in an austere registered Government Corporation room which was openly monitored, with all such meetings recorded for both audio and visual records, together with computer analysis during and after the event, to be screened for any subversive, subliminal or secret messages that may have been passed or transmitted.

Corporation control was such that virtually all communications were now relayed via electronic computerised terminals to further reduce any possible human contact.

Being officially removed from his natural Mother and sent away when he was very young was no different to the others, Thallius had been told, but he had difficulty coming to terms with that concept.

Even though he lay stiffly and unmoving with pain cutting into the very fabric of his being, he still remembered vividly with flashing memory throwbacks that cold frosty morning with the air sharp and uncompromising, as he lined up with a group of other young people as he and the others had been ordered, in complete and total silence.

Standing expectantly outside a stark and imposing Corporation building, which seemed to look down with utter disdain on the assembled gathering of nervous youngsters.

An automated voice suddenly barked out instructions and instantly as if one well drilled connected human machine, each of the youngsters began to climb the steep cold grey steps almost like machines and file quietly and obediently into the building ahead of them, almost as if they were performing some sort of well rehearsed robotic manoeuvre.

As each of the compliant youngsters, who had seemingly long since accepted their inevitable outcome without a whimper or any thought as to what might actually happen to them, slowly entered the building and approached the screening booth, they were quickly led away through an adjacent door.

Thallius never saw any of them again.

But as Thallius approached the screening booth, he was briskly removed from the queue and escorted to one side, where he stood for a few moments, feeling a heavy restraining hand that was planted firmly on his shoulder, until the others had all passed. His first fleeting thoughts even then, was that he had been in some way separated from the others on purpose, as though the authorities had sensed or perhaps knew, that he had an inbuilt difference and thought differently to the others.

Did they already think he was a subversive or a troublemaker maybe ?

Could it have been that all the others had their heads lowered in deference to the system, where he had been looking all around him, trying to gauge and figure out where he was and what was happening ?

But now later he knew !!!

Once again his mind snaked lazily back to when he could move freely without the aid and intervention of a machine. Images of running free in the woods in play that surrounded his previous family home came easily back this morning, into the forefront of his memory and filled him with both joy and despair in equal measure.

His mind saw images of trees standing majestically as they had done for year upon year defying the wrath of man and nature, with red and golden leaves rustling in the Autumn breeze.

Fruit, nuts and vegetables that had been growing naturally in abundance previously during the Summer, now with animals scurrying around collecting their prize, busily stocking up for the Winter and the inevitable cold lean times ahead.

The wonderful magical sounds of the forest suddenly seemed to fill his ears once again and as his mind floated back to those happy carefree days. He sensed that he could even smell the musty bark that lay scattered on the forest floor, with the myriad of insect life working amongst the decaying material in their eagerness, ready for the regular harsh onset of Winter.

He could hear within his mind, the crisp sounds of twigs and small branches breaking beneath his feet as he meandered along the well trodden forest trails. He could hear the distant sounds of birds calling out their own special songs to nature and to each other.

Suddenly he was jolted back without warning or mercy, away from his memories into the artificial reality of his current painful world, as the shrill ear piercing sound of the machine in his apartment, reminded him of his timed and automated medicinal appointment.

Glistening sleek chrome extending probes emerged from the portals above his bed at a slow sinister speed from the automated life machine that now controlled his life and his very existence.

As the probes slowly inched nearer and nearer to his mouth, an ominous red syringe was released from each of the tips as it continued to move slowly and menacingly towards him.

Thallius closed his eyes and reluctantly opened his mouth widely, to receive the regular twin dose of medication. Even now this morning with his heightened awareness, he realised that it was pointless to resist.

He remembered only too well on a previous occasion that this rebellious course of action would incur still further intrusions, pain and the inevitable wrath of the system and ultimately result in painful retribution.

Much easier to submit without a fight he thought, as a dose of warm sticky liquid was squirted into his mouth from the first syringe, followed immediately by a second dose from the other syringe, which sent him almost instantly into a state of mindless floating.

And then nothing ……………………...

Some time later Thallius began to stir and wake as he began to regain consciousness. He flicked his eyes to look nervously around and began to wonder what had happened to him and where he actually was. He struggled desperately to think and rationalise his thoughts.

Slowly however, the drug induced effects and feelings began to drift away from his confused mind and body and suddenly he realised that he somehow felt fresher and more alert. Quickly remembering how he had felt earlier, he was even more puzzled as to why he was actually now clean, dry and not suffering the indignity of being overcome by the foul stench of his own stale bodily fluids.

On every previous occasion after receiving medication and being serviced by the machine he had felt clean and tidy, but this time he was in a very different state of mind and body altogether. This time it felt very, very different indeed.

For a moment in some bizarre way, his mind felt as though he had been almost prepared for something.

But was this something for the better or for the worse ?

A nagging sense of foreboding filled his thoughts. But it must be for the better he thought, or they wouldn’t have bothered to go to all this trouble to clean and dress me as he suspiciously glanced at his new crisp clothing.

He had previously heard stories and rumours of people disappearing without trace after machine intervention when communication was less restricted, but if this were true he reasoned, it would seem logical that the authorities surely wouldn’t bother about cleaning the victims beforehand. Probably they would be despatched and disposed of without any wasted effort, he thought.

With a rare new found mental clarity and sharpness, his inquisitive mind began to race out of control, darting this way and that, like a high powered bullet ricocheting around a highly polished confined metal lined room, increasing its energy with every collision. Finally as the latent energy eventually subsided he found his mind slipping back to his family again and especially why he had not listened to his Father’s advice.

Earlier in his childhood, this was a normal, happy time when mankind was not reliant upon sophisticated and highly complex computers and machines to service our every need, but now unfortunately this reliance was almost total.

Without any real warning and without mankind even realising the implications, we had become more and more dependent upon their actions to actually exist over a period of seemingly just a few years, until we were simply unable to run our businesses or even our personal lives without them.

He remembered sadly the way that people progressively stopped talking to each other and conducted their entire lives and sad existence via electronics.

He laughed to himself as he remembered the first large cumbersome, basic hand held mobile phones.

He remembered the phones then getting smaller and smaller and lighter and lighter, as well as gaining more and more superfluous functions, which we were repeatedly programmed by the authorities to accept were absolute necessities to run our lives and our very existence efficiently.

The first indoctrination stage was quickly followed by other complex and seemingly pointless investigative and communication technologies which were installed into newly designed hand held portable devices, derived from mainframe and home computers and these complex software technologies were then installed into the mobile phone derivatives, such that eventually over a relatively short period of time, without people even realising, direct person to person conversation became virtually redundant and obsolete.

He also remembered during that same period of time, that everywhere you looked people were engaged and engrossed on their phones and other communication devices, completely oblivious of what was happening around them.

The frequency of avoidable accidents were rising alarmingly. The increase of cancer sufferers had sky rocketed, exactly where the mobile phones had been positioned on their body, around the side of the head and even on specific positions on the body in the pocket areas where they had been carried.

People had already become willing slaves and completely subservient to the electronic devices he reasoned.

This was not technology assisting us to become more efficient and accurate and take away many of the repetitive, boring and mundane tasks. This was not even technology providing a research pathway to advance our civilisation.

This was handing over the complete control and future of mankind itself to an electronic machine or device without a whimper and without a thought of the dangerous and ultimately, inevitable consequences.

It had really started in earnest with the birth of complex computer technology, gathering pace at an exponential rate until mankind itself had difficulty in keeping abreast of the technical advancement and finding itself constantly outstripped by more and more sophisticated software and electronic devices.

Computer technology had grown and evolved so fast, becoming more and more powerful and more intrusive into our daily lives and existence, that it began to form a life and a will of its own, directing and controlling its own destiny, with and without the assistance of advanced research and development organisations.

Mankind had effectively now become slaves to the machine, degraded in status to mere servants and reduced to almost scavengers in the wild.

But then as time progressed, it became far worse.

Skilled and highly advanced technicians with no real human feelings or compassion, embraced this futuristic development with a dedicated passion and worked tirelessly to create and enhance highly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.

Similarly with relentless unswerving and single minded determination, the computers had themselves secretly engineered a free will of their own and created a world where mankind was now almost totally dependent on the machines to exist.

Thallius realised, and not for the first time, that he was trapped with his entire life surrounded and governed by advanced technology.

The quiet in his mind was suddenly broken once more as he remembered them taking him away all those years ago. Vivid colourful flashbacks of images tore and ripped through his mind of his Father screaming to him to remember !!!

Pee Bee Remember ~ Pee Bee Remember ~ Remember, Remember………..

The desperate screams from his Father were pulsing and pounding through his newly awakened memory like a throbbing, incessant, amplified heartbeat.

But what was it that was so important that I needed to remember he thought ?

And why was my Father almost delirious with fear and panic and screaming at me over and over again to remember, as they forcibly held him down and tried to suppress him, whilst he watched me taken away under escort and why was he screaming to me to remember Pee Bee ?

It seemed a strange sort of word or command to call out.

But as his mind calmed, he slipped into remembering the happiness of his childhood past and especially his Mother and Father, which caused Thallius to feel strangely elated and receptive this morning. He now felt able to let his open mind wander back freely, without restriction or worry, over the distant memories of tales of his ancestors and anecdotes for possible clues.

His parents, who he remembered were both well educated people, were diligent in their efforts to print copious amounts of information onto the young Thallius, repeatedly telling him how important it was to ’never forget’ and how he needed to ‘find the others’ so that when the time came to save himself, his own future family, civilisation and indeed possibly the Earth itself, he would be ready.

At the time young Thallius thought these ideas and thoughts a bit too far fetched, but they were still etched indelibly within the very fabric of his being.

Despite the painful and continual exhausting efforts needed to try to keep his grossly enlarged physical body alive and almost moving, he had always found his mind was active, even when the machine provided its regular dosage of ETHER to him.

But this time as he lay on the bed it was different, he was clean and strangely far more aware as he began to question his mind and wonder what was this ETHER ?

Try as he might, he just could not find a sensible or logical answer or even a possible solution, as it was certainly not Ether as we all seemed to have previously known it as an anaesthetic, because it seemed to have very little numbing effect on him whatsoever.

But in the rare, snatched, dangerous, secretive previous conversations with others, it always seemed to have very, very strange effects on them.

But today the thoughts and memory flashes were cascading madly through his mind to the point where they almost took away the sense of constant pain that incessantly wracked his weary body. Sifting through the volumes of data firing into his mind like a rapid repeating machine gun about his parentage and his relatives, he was suddenly struck by one major recurring factor.

THEY WERE ALL SLIM.

Not beanpoles or anorexic victims he thought, but perfectly proportioned and

well balanced, to the point of almost being athletic with good posture and

well defined muscle tone.

And then it really came to him, not as a gradual unfolding, but as a blinding flash that tore through his mind like a speeding runaway express train.

“THEY WERE ALL SLIM” he found himself saying to himself, over and over again.

“So why am I lying here as a grossly obese man, surrounded by electronic aids that not only run my entire life but completely control my very existence”.

“I am created from the same stock” he whispered quietly in fear that the machine might hear him and wreak its instant revenge for this supposed

act of gross insubordination.

He suddenly remembered the familiar tight grip of the sensory wrist band that squeezed into his pulse to record his body functions, and he suspected his thoughts and feelings via the internal electrical link direct to his brain and a wave of fear and panic suddenly shot through his mind.

He glanced down to his wrist by moving only his eyes, but to his amazement the wrist band was missing and had been removed without him knowing.

Any fear now gave way to a feeling of utter bewilderment in that Thallius could now not think rationally anymore.

He lay quietly for a few moments, trying to restore some calm and order to his chaotic brain and as the pounding in his pulse eventually settled again, he began to return to thoughts of his family.

Generation after generation he tracked back in his mind as told to him by his parents.

He remembered them showing him the photographs and the family tree that they had so lovingly made from every conceivable source of information, right down to the most minute detail, giving size, shape, age, academic prowess and achievements, skills, expertise, attitudes, behaviour. The recorded family data went on and on in painstaking accuracy, even to the secret location of volumes of scientific research papers.

With this new unexpected clarity and feeling, he once again started to question in his reawakened mind as to why they were so obsessed about it.

In his youth at the time, he just thought it was a curious quirk of his particular family, but then he remembered that by chance, he discovered a couple of other children within his select, expensive private school whose parents apparently did the same.

Just like him, they had been sworn to secrecy as to the continual data transfer. But as with virtually all children, secrecy is not a word or trait that sits easily within their day to day vocabulary or actions and so they readily exchanged interesting information about their family data indoctrination techniques for playground amusement, falling about in shrieks of laughter at the seemingly ridiculous regime.

Each evening at home, as well as their regular school homework, each were made to sit down and memorise the family tree, to remember the names and the faces printed on the document. Learn and recite the, skills, knowledge and all detailed specific attributes associated with each and every family member.

The unusual and unexpected mental effort today was now draining him and as Thallius began to drift slowly and easily into a warm comfortable sleepy state, he meticulously recounted his family and friends. He began to wonder why he had not thought in this way before and even more once again, as to why he was clean and almost comfortable, why the wrist band had been removed and why even the regular dose of Ether had tasted different today.

As his brain suddenly spun into overdrive, he even started to wonder if his own DNA profile predisposed him to such an altered state. He knew without any shadow of doubt in his own mind that even from his childhood he had always been sensitive to the atmosphere around him and the very essence of both people and places and how everything reacted to everything else.

He now strangely found his mind taking him back to his classroom science lessons, which he always enjoyed, remembering Newtons 3rd law in that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. He was absolutely certain that his actions had changed everything and everybody that he interacted with.

The more he thought, the more his mind began to assimilate ideas about matter and energy being interchangeable and could even see clearly in his mind how Einstein came up with the idea and the famous well known equation of E = Mc2.

His recent dormant brain at first stuttered into the early realms of waking thought and then almost without warning, raced and accelerated into a frightening and bewildering series of images flashing through his senses.

He also began to think about his best friend Paul, who he had not seen for some considerable time and was now hopefully looking forward to secretly meeting him again without the invasive interference of the machines.

He remembered the way that Paul had been like his own parents in manner and preached to him about his theories as to the direct link between mind and body. He saw Paul’s face clearly in his thoughts and his insistence that the mind and the body were completely connected and how the mind could and did influence the biological functions of the body. He remembered Paul saying that he conducted what could be termed ‘experiments’ upon himself by getting his mind into altered states and this then directly affected his own body actions.

He remembered Paul’s later controversial research into electromagnetic field effects on the body causing amongst other things, a dramatic increase in the release of endorphins, increased states of overall well being and positive effects on the health and even remedial treatments results.

Paul’s theories and findings were dismissed out of hand by many learned authoritative bodies, who were by their very nature restricted by their own logic and rigid conventions, totally unable and unwilling to step outside their safe and accepted boundaries and see the bigger picture.

On the other hand Paul’s research was enthusiastically received by others, who were far more open minded.

Theories and experiments, such as data gathering and vagus nerve affecting microchip implants, being inserted into certain designated sections of the community and those members of the population selected, being externally monitored by the pigeon toe position of their feet when walking. This secret external monitoring technique also caused considerable concern amongst many of the learned professions as being highly intrusive and possibly illegal.

Even down to creating a seemingly harmless game amongst young children called ‘Chubby Bunny’ where the child keeps inserting more and more soft marshmallows into their mouth, to see how many they could achieve, whilst still being able to say Chubby Bunny coherently.

Little did everyone know then about the ferocity of the addictive contaminants that were being secretly added to the formulation of the sweets, without the knowledge of Paul and the scientific community and the dark sinister motives of the Corporation.

Thallius started to wonder what the mind could actually achieve and what were its limits, if any, and what was beyond our normal accepted spectrum of perception of these ideas verging into unchartered and unknown territory.

Little did he know at the time how much all of this would mean to him in the future.

Little did he realise the impending danger to humanity itself from within its own ranks and what was yet to come.