Sunday 1 July 2012

Chapter Five: The Arboretum


As dawn arose above the expanse of water, Amanda with Richard and Camilla climbed the stairs, slippery with dark green algae. The soldiers with Moonbeam had taken a small launch from the water logged lower levels. She felt weak and tired but her stomach was now settled. The humidity was stifling even at this early hour and everyone was covered in a film of sweat, but Amanda was too overawed by the sight of the Arboretum to notice.
She walked to the balustrade, avoiding holes in the floor, making detours around the rusting carcasses of centuries old automobiles and the tenacious tropical plant life sprouting from the concrete. There it was in all its glory, slightly obscured by long wisps of mist arising from the vast swamp, a gigantean organic edifice, its architecture changing from one moment to the next, more akin to a city-sized jellyfish then a building. Nothing remained in the same place, giant strands of many colours wove themselves together forming bridges, windows, towers and arches, but one feature was constant. At the base of the structure was a massive archway where the waters of the Thames poured through, creating a dense cloud of spray.
Amanda’s eyes stayed glued to this staggering object glowering over the wet tropical landscape, until a powerful wind blow around her and the sound of gigantic wing beats assailed her ears. Turning she saw the insect land next to Richard and Camilla.
The creature was unbelievable. An immense flying thing composed of millions of wriggling multi-coloured organic strands. The monster, summoned by Richard, was virtually stationary, moving slightly from side to side on its six spindly legs. Its shape was blurred with the constant movement of its cells; the worm like arboreal forms. The only solid structures were the wings and the clasping mandibles used to grab its victims. The wings were like voluminous horizontal sails made of a gossamer thin but strong artificial material. They were beautifully painted with exotic and decadent designs, attached to the sides of the beast by nodules formed by the swirling organisms. The mandibles were horns like tusks, attached to the blunt head by more crawling nodules. The thing had no eyes and no other obvious external organs; a dazzling, shifting display of criss-crossing shapes that were no larger then a few centimetres in length.
Richard climbed on first and Amanda wondered if he would sink into the mass of squirming forms. The surface was firm though and two humps of solidified organisms protruded, acting as grips for the hands. Camilla followed her lover and with a look of concentration on her face two humps bulged outwards in front of her.
With a deep intake of breath, Amanda gripped the sides of the composite beast, feeling her fingers slide beneath its ‘skin’, the individual strands wrapping themselves around her fingers. There was a smell of decay arising from deep within the huge creature and she gagged and pulled her hands away. Camilla scowled but extended her arm. For a horrible moment she thought she was sinking into the swarming collection of vegetable maggots, but there was so many of them tightly interwoven together they made a soft and rubbery surface. Once she was sitting with both legs holding on to the insect’s flanks, Camilla turned her head. Another frown of concentration crossed Camilla’s face as two hand grips sprung before Amanda, composed of the arboreal worms.
The wings began to beat faster and faster as Richard’s face sunk into a trance of absorption. With a lurch the insect took flight, hovering for a moment above the multi-story and then banking to the right, flying directly towards the Arboretum. Amanda shut her eyes, the wind buffeting her body and the sickness rising once again. Opening her eyes as the creature stabilised its flight path, her line of sight was blocked by the bloused back of Camilla, darkly stained with sweat.
She looked quickly down at the rushing landscape. They were following the fast moving waters of the remnants of the river Thames, contained now in the effulgence of the swamplands. Sunken buildings eaten by parasitical life thrust there blunt rotten structures from the calmer waters. Palms and other vegetation grow on islands of detritus, clinging to wrecked machinery and automobiles coagulated with fertile soil.
Stranger vegetation came into view the nearer they got to the hulking, constantly moving edifice. Giant fungi the size of tower blocks arose like deranged sculptures; their colours-purple, green and bright yellow-pulsated like a dance floor lightshow. From the mushrooms tendrils or vines spread outward, infecting everything in between, coating and entwining the shells of high rises, drowned shopping centres and office blocks in thick nets of living rope. Animals, palms and ferns, were caught in these webs; dead husks drained of life. Parakeets, their plumage once brightly coloured now fading to grey, were peppered throughout, caught by the organic nets, their life taken, sucked dry for nourishment.
Without warning they were plunged into darkness as their airborne mount entered the cavernous arch of the Arboretum. A deafening roar of cascading water assaulted Amanda’s ears as they raced through the tunnel, wet spray hitting her face. Suddenly light burst forth and she was confronted with a familiar aerial view, so familiar and ordinary it took her by surprise. It was London from the air unaffected by the ravages of tropical desolation; the winding way of the Thames, only now slightly faster moving and clogged with alien detritus, spanned by London’s bridges. The tall towers of the City with St Paul’s Cathedral to the side, reflected from there glass walls the unusual red light bathing the surroundings. The Arboretum enclosed the completely intact cityscape like a gigantic dome. Arching her neck Amanda stared at the distant shifting roof; a sky like the inside of an enormous heart. It altered shape, extending tentacles of glowing red matter and withdrawing them, but the basic dome shape stayed intact.
Above the non-revolving London Eye and the South Bank complex, the flying bug hovered. Amanda’s confidence in this type of travel increasing she stared around her, taking in the incredible view of a preserved London tinged by the red light. There seemed to be no signs of dilapidation or decay, no overwhelming vegetation, only the peaceful green of the royal parks. It was as if time had come to a halt on a hot summer’s evening, London lit by an intense sunset. There was a difference; no traffic or pedestrians moved through the labyrinth of streets. But as the minutes stretched out, overlaid by the sound of fast beating wings and the feel of the wind, Amanda noticed some vehicles. They reminded her of refuge or utility wagons, but she was too high up to be sure. Even more indistinct were tiny figures spread around the trucks.
Before Amanda could focus on these objects the insect lurched and rose vertically, aiming for the red ceiling like a sky composed of flesh. As they gradually neared the immense blanket stretching for miles above them, a hole, like a wound slashed into skin, opened.
They shot through the orifice and braked suddenly, suspended in a chamber the size of a cathedral. It was rounded like the inside of a ball but there were edges or platforms around the circumference. The walls slid and squirmed as the trillions of minute arboreal forms swarmed like organic atoms, the building blocks of The Arboretum. The humidity was suffocating at first and a rich fecund smell of ripeness and decay pervaded, although an electrical thrill enveloped Amanda almost immediately. The rounded sides of the chamber were not a glowing red like outside but vibrated with colour as if collections of Arboreal Forms, coloured in different hues, were mixing chaotically. The throbbing colours were dazzling making Amanda feel light headed and disorientated, but the waves of pleasure stroking her body from the atmosphere counteracted the dizzying effect of the light.
Standing on the nearest edge to the hovering insect were a collection of naked people. The men were muscled, handsome, glowing with health and vitality and the women were beautiful like supermodels. Their bodies bathed in the pulsing colours emitted from the walls seemed almost supernatural in their perfection. Amanda stared at these beings and stared some more, the electrical tingle inside growing more intense.
She was suddenly awakened from her trance by Richard and Camilla leaping from the mount onto the nearest platform and quickly taking off their sweat drenched clothing. Richard beckoned encouragingly and with a firm resolve Amanda stood up on the resistant back of the creature and jumped the small distance.
The insect exploded throwing millions of Arboreal Forms in every direction. They cascaded down on Amanda and the others, making her flinch. The wriggling worms fell from her body and were absorbed into the teeming mass composing the floor on which she stood. The giant wings meanwhile were gripped by hand-like extensions issuing from the lip of the platform and then passed back to be reused along with the solid mandibles.
All the naked figures were staring at Amanda. She guessed these specimens of physical perfection were members of The Order of the Arboreal Orb. There were about thirty of these people Amanda thought, unable to take her eyes from them. They stared back in curiosity and she realised they were not completely nude but wore necklaces and bracelets crafted to resemble hateful eyes and clinging foliage. Their hair was long and unrestrained; their features emitted intelligence and superiority but also a dream like absorption. Her mind too felt distracted as if she had smoked pot. When one of the women asked her to disrobe as was the custom in The Arboretum she complied immediately without embarrassment.
Naked Amanda followed the troop of unclothed demigods as they made their way to the nearest wall but not before looking down into the large cavity from which she had arrived. Spread miles below her like a map, London’s streets and buildings were caught in the ubiquitous red light, a whole city fixed in amber.
Like an inflamed gash the wall blocking their way expanded into a fissure through which they passed. An intestinal corridor stretched ahead, throbbing with a matrix of colours and pulsating with the undulations of the Arboreal Forms. Amanda’s dizziness increased and she was almost breathless as she surveyed the beautifully smooth, curved bodies of her escorts, like walking sculptures from an erotic dream. Camilla seemed less in control then usual. Her eyes gazed in rapture at both male and female but also at the intensely coloured walls. They vibrated as if in the throes of ecstasy, clefts and crevices dotted irregularly at the sides of the meandering corridor. They led to other passageways, but the gaps in the walls were not only to the left or right but in the ceiling and floor, making Amanda think she was walking through the innards of some vast living organism.
At first Amanda thought the ripples were creating subliminal images reflecting her stimulated state; entwined human bodies were revealed through the constantly shifting Forms. But then, when the waves of Arboreals drifted in a new direction, she saw it again; the bodies were shaking with rapture or horrific pain. A creeping uneasiness was invading her thoughts through the haze of amorous emotion and she kept turning her head this way and that to catch another glimpse of the bodies encased in the walls. She was rewarded with a brief sighting of a fully formed male gripping a female; engaging in an endless routine of soulless desire. After a while she saw many of these anatomical displays like pornographic images. The dreamy arousing daze infecting her dissipated gradually, leaving only a residue of Eros. She began to think again, to rationalize, her mind extracted from the fug of longing.
The naked troop continued on their journey through the body of the Arboretum. Sometimes they climbed upwards clinging on to handholds created by hardened clusters of Arboreal Forms, rising up chimneys of organic matter. Sometimes they descended potholes like intestines. Amanda tried to keep her eyes away from the writhing bodies in the walls. An increasing sense of revulsion began to envelope her, intensified by the certain knowledge of Richard’s arousal. He seemed to be lost in his own daydreams, his own strange obsessions. The kaleidoscopic glow flickered and flared from the walls in all directions, trapping her in caverns illuminated by insane psychedelic technicians of light.
Disoriented and lost Amanda finally walked with the others onto a balcony overlooking a vast rounded hollow like the inside of a colossus’s heart. It gently beat to some unknown rhythm, its walls pocked with hundreds of other arboreal composed balconies, where the myriad twisting tunnels and corridors entered. But her attention was focused on the centre like everybody else. She could not help it. The sight was so outlandish and hideous. A giant vibrating ball of countless naked human forms connected to the sides of the inner cavity by strips of vibrating flesh. The bodies like those in the corridors were engaged in constant carnal activity, congress without relief. Amanda remembered the mirror in the greenhouse where one side of its frame was made up of naked and agonised human shapes. This was similar. The ball went beyond the erotic and in Amanda’s mind it seemed like a grotesque sculpture of endless skin and bodily organs.
She was stunned, her eyes glued to the seething fleshy heap, each body male and female like parts in an incalculably large and complex organic machine. There were no moans or cries of lust or pain but a gentle insidious susurration of suction and fleshy friction entered Amanda’s ears. A smell of pungent bodily and sexual odours rose like a thick blanket of spray. The living sculpture was shocking but also beautiful thought Amanda, unable to keep her eyes away from this deviant artwork. She did not notice Richard sidle up to her and whisper.
“The power house of The Arboretum. The energy source is libido, undiluted by any trace of emotion, feeling or love. Next stop on our tour are the laboratories, the manufacturing base.” Amanda thought she could detect irony and revulsion but also wonder. She nervously and very quickly glanced at his body and moved away.
The strange tour party left the engine of desire and crawled upwards through a tight and confined tunnel, their hands and feet grasping solidified handholds and footholds. After a long haul through the passage, Amanda’s body was coated in sweat. She followed the others through a small circular opening covered by a manhole cover, which clanked on a metallic floor as the leading figure, a statuesque female, pushed upwards.
They had left the arteries, veins and capillaries of passageways, made of trillions of swarming Arboreals, behind and now stood in a solid expansive structure like an aircraft hanger. It was part of the Arboretum but attached to its top; through the long strips of windows in the hanger’s roof could be seen the blue of the sky. To her right a metal platform extended into the expanse of air, holding three flying Arboreals similar to the one she had arrived on.
Ordinary men and one woman in light white clothing were taking limp bodies from the beasts’ mandibles. These naked youthful bodies tanned by a lifetime in the sun were infected with an Arboreal Form clamped to their skulls, the eye sockets glued over, the mouth gagged. Once they were placed on the floor, they stood upright on their feet, rocking back and forth slightly, then began to preambulate stiffly forwards, a look of concentration on the faces of the white clothed people standing behind them. They slowly moved to a door by the side of a large rectangular window in the hanger wall, which was opened by someone from within.
Amanda’s party followed but stopped by the long window which overlooked a room like a hospital operating theatre; its fluorescent lighting shining off smooth metallic services, contrasting starkly with the organic insanity of The Arboretum. The three walking bodies were straped into reclining medical couches and the laboratory technicians in white using odd handheld metal devices began to carefully extracte the Arboral Forms from their heads. After this long process wires were painstakingly entereted through the empty eye sockets and rounded mouths of the victims. Finally the couches with their cargo were wheeled out through a further door.
While Amanda watched with a quesy stomach, Richard, standing again by her side, began to explain in his matter of fact voice: “Here you see slaves of the Order of the Arboreal Orb being prepared. Every year on the day when Easter used to be celebrated, a young person from the outlying villages on their eighteenth birthday is sacrificed to the gods of the Arboretum. Some are used for the Sex Engine, others as worker operatives in London. These here will be used for the Engine, literally zombi sex slaves. As you saw the Arboreal Form is carefully extracted. The tiny tubes are enterted into what remains of the brain to stimulate the primal sex drive to an intense level. These organs of pure instinct whose only purpose are to endlessly and soullessly copulate are then absorbed into the Arboretum or become a single cog in the central machine made of flesh.”
Amanda was barely listening to Richard’s monologue. A sudden impulse had come to her at that moment; whatever her gradually evolving plan turned out to be, it was vital for her to escape first. She did not want to be part of Camilla’s and the Order‘s schemes but neither did she want to be part of Richard’s rebellion. Quickly glancing at the Arboreal mounts behind her she realised these strange transports were the only way out.


Satisfied with herself, Amanda stood on the balcony of her suite of rooms and stared at the enormous vista of London spread out below, miles of air between her and the rooftops of the tallest buildings. Directly after their visit to the laboratory, she was brought by Richard to her new apartment embedded in the teeming walls of the Arboretum, a luxury flat with a kitchen, a vast ultra-modern sitting room, one grand bedroom and a huge sparkling bathroom, high on the north side-her treatment as an extremely important celebrity fuelling her feelings of superiority. He had shown her a cupboard with a sliding door, hung with exotic and darkly beautiful attire from many countries and times. Her unclothed state made her uncomfortable once she had entered the apartment and she quickly dressed herself behind her bedroom door, in a loosely fitting black costume like a toga, decorated with weird designs. She realised she was pleased Richard was admiring her amorously, standing close to her and talking animatedly. His history made her flesh creep but his attraction to her was indispensable to her plot.
She was satisfied because her plan was now almost complete-she would get Richard to teach her to fly the airborne Arboreal Forms, then lure him to his death and escape by one of them in the hanger, back to Ashbury Manor. There she would kill her double, go back with her father to the early 21st Century and then…maybe inform the police? Her plans were not absolutely complete of course.
She would think of something though, she always did.