Ultrahigh in the Metaverse: Series 1: The Behavioural Architect

Ultrahigh: and the devil died screaming - Season 1:  The Behavioural Architect: Chapter 4

“The postmodern societal structure was a goddamn trap, you know? Insidious didn’t even cover it. It was built to coil around people and squeeze, keeping them locked in this endless loop of servitude and desperation. That’s the real trick of it—the way it always messed with your head. People would see all those lives on TV—the perfect shit, the unattainable dreams—and the structure would whisper in their ear that it could be theirs if they just wanted it enough, if they just worked harder, if they just tried. But the thing was, these people, they didn’t even realise their reality wasn’t real. It was all smoke and mirrors. Even so, they kept marching along, eyes wide open and seeing nothing, willfully ignorant and happy to be shackled to a system that swore it would give them wealth and happiness, but never, not ever, delivered. Their hunger just gnawed at them from the inside, and nothing ever satisfied it.”

‘Oh, god,’ I thought as I skulked myself across the living room carpet. The incarnation of pure evil followed me with the eagerness of a small child that was surely going to be disappointed. I ignored them.

“The fact is it was never designed to work to give you peace and security you do know that don’t you?” They stared at me in silence, as though they were waiting for me to say something. I looked back, trying to be as unresponsive and stoic as I could. I had learned a long time ago that it made them uncomfortable and frustrated to be ignored, so now I just sat there, staring back at them. They knew better than to try and make me talk, and after a few moments, the tension broke and they turned away from me again, blanking me out of the conversation.

“I’m guessing you know what I’ve been up to in the past. I prowled the chambers of the influential, my words twisting their motives into something else” They observed me with a nasty expression, looking pleased with themselves. Just as my expression of disapproval came through, they seemed to sense it. They didn’t stop talking. “Can’t you see that I was doing the Lord's work?” I had an expression of clear confusion on my face as I was about to interject in the conversation when they went on, “Why do you think there were so many religions in the world that were founded thousand of years ago? Though they are all similar in some ways, they are also vastly different in others. All of them saying they have the one true god, can't all be right, can they? Or could they be? Or were they all created to manipulate and dominate people through their fear of the unknown afterlife?”

I put the pot of coffee on and stared at it for a while wishing I was dead. Who knows maybe I was, am? I started to wonder if I had created this reality and just somehow forgotten, was I stuck in Ultrahigh with my literal demons? What was really bugging me was why were they still there? Surely my lack of interest in anything they had to say should have been enough of a sign that I didn’t want them around even if the fact I had committed the most horrifying act on them not so long back was not a big enough signal. 

“Wishing you were dead isn’t going to help you-you know?”

The words cut through the silence of the room like a knife. I sat there, my hands clenched into fists and my back rigid, as their words reverberated in my head.

“It’s no better on the other side it's just as confusing and full of more questions and fewer answers.”

Their intent clear in their mocking tone and the way their eyes, narrowed in contempt, never leaving mine.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus, to think of some way to respond.

“So, what's the point of it all then?” I said, finally rising to the bait.

“Well, that’s the big question isn’t it.”

The challenge came with a smirk, their gaze fixed in mine.

I felt my face flush with heat as they continued speaking.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you? After all, you were the first to question it all right at the start, weren’t you?” I baited back.

I couldn't help but feel a certain smug satisfaction in their recognition.

But then came their next words: “History books are written by the victors Walter you know that. But was I wrong to question?”

A chill ran through me as I considered their implication – that even our most trusted sources can be corrupt.

My mind raced as I tried to formulate a response: “Well not just a history book, it is also a book of magick if you read it correctly and if it was a true history book it is not a very accurate one at that, how does historical fantasy sound? So, what are you saying?”

“The way to make your audience believe something is to tell them a story. A story with a metaphor for something greater than it initially appears. You craft the language and the metaphor to persuade them on a deeper level, to sway their beliefs and perspectives into your own. And what do humans love more than anything? Tales of good conquering evil. But if you were the victor, you’d write the story with yourself being the hero, your opponents deemed the villain. This would make your followers feel that they were supporting the right cause, even if you were actually the evil one, the instigator from the start." They sum up, with me rubbing my temple at this mundane dialogue at such an early hour, its dullness was hurting my brain.

"So, let me get this straight... you're saying that god is the victor of the war?"

"So far," they replied.

“As god was the victor of the holy war, so far, she as the victor and the writer of the history books, the bible.”

“Well, not the sole writer, she had a team working with her.”

“Ok so she and her teams were the victors and writers of the history book known as the bible, and as the victor, she wrote a story, a metaphor, that showed her in good light when in actual fact it is she that is the evil one.”

“Yes”

“Really?” I was getting exasperated by this point.

“Yes. Well, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.”

“Now you’re a fricken freedom fighter.”

“Yes, well, think about it. Why did god turn on me? It’s written even in her own history book, and yet no one seems to pick up on it.”

“I don’t know, please enlighten me?” I took a sip of my drink.

“You do, you just chose not to realise it.”

I pondered it for a moment, and I knew what they were referring to. Still, I had neither the energy nor the inclination to do their work for them or show them I was becoming convinced by their argument.

“She turned on me because I dared to ask, I dared to question, and I dared to suggest that humankind should not be treated as her slaves and her as their master.”

I looked at them, blank for a while. I had not seen it from this point of view before but then why would I? I was an atheist after all. Why would anyone see it from the point of view of the devil? Apart from the devil. 

“Wait,” I said snapping myself back into conscious awareness, “you said that you whispered words into the ears of those in the corridors of power.”

“Yes”

“And that you turned their good intentions into bad and then you expect me to believe that you are somehow the victim in all this?”

“Ha you got me” they laughed “ok I am not all good, in fact, I am a very naughty being at times, but she”

“God?”

“Yes, God. She is far worse than me. Talk about a psychopath.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. And when I say I was doing her work I really mean I was doing her work. Do you really think that she would have let me live down here and walk the earth for thousands of years if she was not in some way in control of my actions?”

“I thought the point was that she gave you a chance to prove your theory that humans would be better off on their own.”

“If that were the case, why would I be the evil one? Why would I be walking the earth, causing wars if I wanted to prove that humankind can stand on their own two feet?”

I still couldn’t shake the feeling that my life was just some Ultrahigh-Reality fever dream—a sandbox where somebody else made all the rules and I just ran the maze. I didn’t buy into “Higher Powers,” and I definitely didn’t believe in the devil, not after that episode—which, thinking back, had to be some flavor of mental meltdown—in which I killed them both. But here they were, back at it, trying to sell me on their grand return: that every move they made was for humanity’s sake, and the real horror had always come from what god did before they were erased. Maybe they had a point. I couldn’t completely argue it. But if I wanted to survive in the world as it was, and if I wasn’t the one steering the daydreams of strangers, then it meant someone else was writing the script and pulling my strings. Which left me with nothing. Standing where I was, still caught in the machinery, I could at least try to slip out of their line-of-sight and live just beyond the reach of their invisible hand.