Victor Pelevin - Helmet of Horror

Organizm(-:

A mathematical weight. That’s beautiful.

Nutscracker

The next technology up is ‘Pavlov’s Bitch’. That’s an intermediate conditioned reflex editor.

Organizm(-:

So it’s named after that Russian scientist who noticed his stomach juices started flowing when the phone rang?

UGLI 666

No he didn’t, he just studied conditioned reflexes in dogs.

Nutscracker

I didn’t invent the name. When you look at the vases that we want to exclude from your list, your vision starts blurring and rippling and you get a horrible buzzing in your ears, or even an electric shock. So you won’t look at them again.

UGLI 666

But you’d notice that straightaway.

Nutscracker

We want you to notice it straightaway, draw the right conclusion and look in the right direction in future. It’s a cheap technology for third-world countries. But if the budget’s big enough, then for instance we can use infrasonics. The Helmholtz won’t notice anything, but he’ll experience a dark, mysterious horror when he turns towards any vase except the one we want. The obverse method is stimulation of the pleasure centre when the correct choice is made. They used to insert an electrode, but now it’s done by pharmacological means or by entraining the brain to delta rhythms.

Organizm(-:

You don’t say. Are you telling me they’ll be doing all that stuff to us if we watch interactive movies?

Nutscracker

I don’t think so. These techniques weren’t developed for the movies, not even for virtual spaces. They were just modelled there. The topic is not in the public domain. But since you and I aren’t in the public domain either, I suppose it’s okay for me to tell you about it.

Organizm(-:

So what are the internal editing programs like?

Nutscracker

Well, for instance, take ‘Sunny Kiss’. The vase we have to choose is endowed with positive emotional coloration by employing universally accepted aesthetic codes, given a positive inner content, if you like.

UGLI 666

Inner content. Would that be inside the vase or inside the viewer?

Nutscracker

That’s a difficult question. You could say it’s inside the helmet. But all that’s just words. It’s easier for me to explain how it’s done. Say a ray of sunlight falls on our vase, or you hear a soulful melody in the air when it enters your field of view. The reverse technique is ‘Doom and Gloom’. For instance, when you look at a vase we don’t like, the sun is covered by dark clouds, a grey fog comes down and you hear unpleasant noises.

Organizm(-:

Fair enough. What else?

Nutscracker

There’s another technology called ‘The Seventh Seal’. The vase that has to be chosen is marked out using secret signs that attract interest or stimulate the imagination. It can be absolutely anything – a hand print on its surface, arrows pointing to it on the ground, a dove sitting on its edge, mysterious graffiti, and so on and so forth. The obverse method is ‘The Le Pen Club’. That’s when the vases we wish to exclude are covered in the crudest obscenities you can imagine, preferably not even in paint, but xxx. Virtual, of course.

Organizm(-:

And you mean the Helmholtz won’t notice anything?

Nutscracker

Used on its own, any one of the techniques used is easy enough to spot. But if the methods are combined together in a subtle fashion and always applied in rotation at a level of intensity just on the border line of perception, you get practically a hundred per cent precise manipulation combined with total imperceptibility.

Organizm(-:

I get it. It’s like what you see at the railway stations in Asia. When a passenger thinks it’s the tumbler-gambler who’s going to cheat him but actually everyone playing the game is in on the swindle even though they’re arguing with each other all the time, maybe even fighting.

Nutscracker

Exactly. Only in our case absolutely everybody in the station is in on it, including the stone Atlantes by the main entrance.

Ariadne

How clever you are, Nutcracker. After I listened to you I wrote a poem. It’s dedicated to you, Romeo and Isolde. Shall I read it?

Nutscracker

Go on.

Ariadne

Beyond the window-pane on Doom and Gloom

Old Pavlov’s Bitch’s Sticky Glance is glued.

My Minotaur! Creep silently into my room

Beckon me with a glance, brazenly nude.

Nutscracker

Powerful as ever. And he’s already partly fulfilled your wish by removing his helmet, even though he has no head underneath it. I’d say it’s impossible to expose yourself any more brazenly than that.

UGLI 666

Nutcracker, there’s one thing about what you say I can’t understand. How can you change what’s in front of a person’s eyes without him noticing? If he’s looking at the same place but sees something different, how can he fail to notice?

Nutscracker

I couldn’t understand that at first either. But for the Helmholtz the word ‘change’ has no meaning. In real life what you see depends on where you look. But when you’re wearing a helmet, it’s the other way round – where you’re looking depends on what you see. Is that clear?

UGLI 666

Not entirely.

Nutscracker

In the real world you see what’s in front of your eyes. No matter which way you point your rump. But in this world you see what’s in front of your eyes, no matter which way you point your head. As we used to say in the xxx, it’s chalk and cheese, even though it sounds pretty much the same. You don’t have any independent system of coordinates, and we decide everything you see. So you can’t even suspect anything. For you even the world isn’t what it really is, but what’s shown to you. You feel like you’re looking around in a natural manner, but in fact all the time your eyes keep stumbling over our candidate – sorry, I mean our vase – and it gives you this light and happy feeling. But you never think to ask why, the same way no one ever asks why it’s a sunny day.

Organizm(-:

An interesting slip of the tongue.

Nutscracker

And if the mark turns his head too rapidly, so that ‘Sticky Eye’ and ‘Sunny Kiss’ stop working, then ‘Doom and Gloom’ and ‘The Weight’ kick in immediately.

Organizm(-:

Well, Nutcracker, so now I understand what you do for a living. Tell me, as a professional, do you reckon they could be influencing us in some similar kind of way in here?

Nutscracker

I’d have to think about that.

UGLI 666

I noticed a long time ago that conspiracy theory has taken the place of religion for atheists. They always think there’s someone manipulating them, hypnotising them, zombifying them, bugging them, trailing them. But that someone is simply the devil, and that’s all. The fact is, it’s only a short step from atheism to schizophrenia, and in most cases it’s already been taken. What about you, Organism? Do you feel like someone’s manipulating you?

Organizm(-:

To be honest, I do.

UGLI 666

What kind of manipulation is it?

Organizm(-:

Being locked in here, for instance. Or being fed pancakes for the second day running.