⚝ Intercepted At May 13, 2026
Gumtitled #54
In memoriam Winfried Georg Sebald III / Austerlitz III
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⚝ Intercepted At May 13, 2026
Gumtitled #53
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXVII / Svetlana
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⚝ Intercepted At May 13, 2026
Gumtitled #52
In memoriam Winfried Georg Sebald II / Austerlitz II
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⚝ Intercepted At May 13, 2026
Gumtitled #51
Nachtstücke Mk. 2 XII / Zitterest du? II
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #50
In memoriam Toshio Matsumoto Mk. 2 II / Funeral Parade of Roses
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #49
In memoriam Michael Snow Mk. 2 II / La région centrale III
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #48
For Tsai Ming-liang II / I Don't Want to Sleep Alone II
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #47
Logseq I / I heard you got your sauce at the enterprise
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #46
In memoriam Hilma af Klint Mk. 2 I / Påfågeln (med öppna ögon)
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #45
Affairs Mk. 3 XLVI / Wild East I-93 II (Ketamine Problem)
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #44
In memoriam Kaija Saariaho I / Huomioita valosta
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⚝ Intercepted At May 12, 2026
Gumtitled #43
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXVI / Haleine III
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⚝ Intercepted At May 09, 2026
Gumtitled #42
In memoriam Clayton Counts & For Neil Keener Mk. 2 XIV / Reasoning in a State Hospital II
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⚝ Intercepted At May 09, 2026
Gumtitled #41
In memoriam Clayton Counts & For Neil Keener Mk. 2 XIII / We Seem to Share Your Distress II
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⚝ Intercepted At May 01, 2026
Gumtitled #40
Nouvelle Analgésique II / Faint Impressionistic Recollections from Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker
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⚝ Intercepted At May 01, 2026
Gumtitled #38
Colour Study XII / Overluncheonday
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #37
For Thomas Ligotti IX / The Lost Art of Twilight II
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #35
Kleptocratic Spectra VI / Solar Currency's Hidden Siphon II (Montag-Gruss)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #34
For Alison Goldfrapp & Will Gregory II / Tales of Us I (Thea)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #32
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXV / Elegy II
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #31
For Katatonia V / Discouraged Ones IV (Subconscious Desolation Into the Continuum)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #29
Portraits IX / Vardagsnytt II
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⚝ Intercepted At April 30, 2026
Gumtitled #28
For Jean-Claude Rousseau Mk. 2 II / Saudade III
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⚝ Intercepted At April 20, 2026
Chapter 6 (Cont.)
"Regarding the organisation called Septauxthebes, a new detail was recovered yesterday. They were developing an enormous malware known as "Sad Parasite"; needless to say, it exceeds the current understanding of malwares. The assailants were extremely thorough with evidence obliteration.. Never thought I would be granting the clearace to use Prometheus for aiding in the investigation. You know how it was always supposed to be contained and shackled in highest possible security, ma'am?", Aidenson said as he sat down; his tone was usual too. And he's straight to the point as always...
"Mr. Aidenson, me and the cabinet have overseen "the third amendment to Act 13" in the last administrative summit, didn't we? You are aware of that. It was me who made the proposal and presentation of the "third amendment of Act 13". And the poll tilted to the cabinet majority's consensus at 66% being in favour. The opposition is substantial here although, so any anxiety regarding the amendment is understandable. But it is effective now. And Tatterstown is in an emergency situation.The Oracle is for regular administration. The matter of higher concern is that whether The Eox has kept up with Prometheus or not. I believe it has?"
"Oh yes, ma'am. Eevves never left The Eox. Eevves is divided and has mixed opinions regarding the matter. No Eevves employee disagrees with the company's projects on The Eox. It just appears that not everyone can say the same for Prometheus. Interfacing with Prometheus was not a prospect everyone had foreseen along the way. On the other hand, many in The Eox development team are in consensus. Act 13's amendment shifted their career paths toward one of exceptional challenge and prestige alike. The major milestone of their professional lives. And mine too."
"Excellent. And the existence of Sad Parasite was discovered by Prometheus, isn't that so?"
Gumtitled #27
For Codeine IV / Smoking Room (Spent afternoons in the smoking room; the things I said then, still make me burn with shame. The world is frozen now; it glitters, sparkles and shines)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 19, 2026
Chapter 6 (Cont.)
"Greetings", Aidenson said again as he walked through the opening door. Eevves Corp is currently the busiest it has been in a long time. Their previous busy streaks of recent years were on confident new developments and not paranoid auditing and systemwide inspection; and this should be stressful. Aidenson showed no such signs, except he seems to be more hasteful in his body language. Aside from myself, other ministers are not publicly disclosed with their role. On the contrary, it's top confidential. Tatterstown government of the New World Federation is spearheaded by the home minister but I am not an autocrat; no home minister can be, under the NWF constitution; the cabinet is integral to the administration of NWF. The public news is influential politician Josef Keinstein was assassinated at GuerreLexicon Research's new industrial complex inauguration. It's a surreal news, taken as it is. The internal news is that the secret police Rundicate's general director is history. Could only be catastrophically stressful on the surveillance drivers: Datamangle Inc and Eevves Corp. Eevves bears the brunt slightly more, as the labour between the two is divided with Datamangle overseeing the surveillance system, macrofeatures and large-scale developments and Eevves focusing on wireless comms, real-time analysis and microfeatures. Aidenson looks as stoic as ever. There was little sign on him from the outside that betrayed any stress inside... I felt a compulsion... I silently called Brume to render a live holographic image of myself to me. ... I looked perfectly stoic. Not stressed. Cold.
Gumtitled #26
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXIV / Gris
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⚝ Intercepted At April 19, 2026
Chapter 6 (Cont.)
"Greetings, ma'am. It's me Aidenson", Writehouse's system intelligence, Brume Mk. 3 notified me of the Eevves' executive's arrival. He's exactly on time. "Come in please, Mr. Aidenson", I began preparing a rough mindmap of the meeting as he traversed the corridor. And for the time it takes for the automated door to open, how much can I fit in?; The Writehouse has specific tunings in every manipulable. And the biometrics require admin-end granular controls in authorisations and their retainment. Now is maybe a time to ponder the vulnerabilities of the Writehouse. Overwrite daemon. Memory heap corruption. All of these and the other potential vulnerabilities went through decades-long penetration testing before the Writehouse AI Brume was finalised. Then Brume was improved twice in the New World's timespan so far, reaching the Mk. 3. As a cerebral part of the whole, The Writehouse is the centerpiece of the central matrix system; it received the most focused R&D since the inception of the zones back in the old world... I'm not asking whether it's feasible to assassinate me here. But is it possible for Writehouse and Brume to have undocumented vulnerabilities somehow, no matter how unthinkable that sounds. If so, the implications are far greater than involving just the safety of the minister, it's a sacrilegious mark on the integrity of the New World Federation itself... Just before the Moire event, no relevant people in the government would even imagine the potential of Brume to get undermined; Brume Mk. 3 is the fruit of more than a century of intense research and exponential technological leaps. Even now, forensic analysts of the crime scene and handlers of the secured evidences, the engineers of Datamangle and Eevves, the agents of Rundicate, the cabinet; everyone involved has concerns about the esotericware menace and the terrorists bypassing the central matrix. We as a whole; and me, personally, still have not enough intel and reports to solidify anything. But... I have been eaten up since the Moire mystery. So many things are lurking around the corners that I never suspected previously. Am I slowly stumbling towards some big picture that was always there but never visible?
Gumtitled #25
Affairs Mk. 3 XLIV / One-Stop Paining Solutions
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⚝ Intercepted At April 19, 2026
Chapter 6 (Cont.)
Rundicate's accounts hold that hunted esotericware outfits were most regularly working on credit siphon, eavesdropping, identity theft, illegal prosthetics and such. Project Austerlitz, the recurrent security branch of investigation, A&R, retrieval and extirpation ops focused on esotericware, had been one of my proudest administrative moves. The outfits who managed to escape annihilation were heavily dispersed, out of order and functionally voided by Datamangle's zero-day attacks. Even if they managed to crawl out of the hand of the law, the rings' credits were confiscated, their advanced custom machines fingerprinted, and their communication channels compromised. Very few did escape capture by Rundicate, some even with equipments. But ultimately, their influence was virtually reduced to nil. Septauxthebes was not documented in any record before the Moire expose. Not just that, they were using a completely undocumented comms protocol. Analysts are excavating evidences of situations that were not documented before. And to add to the mystery, such a faction was intercepted and assaulted by another hidden faction. Regarding the assailants, no clue has been found. The forensic reports of the site says that they were exceptionally clean with their methodology and track coverup. Keinstein's assassination cannot be an isolated case; it's astounding that the assassination even took place. Everything was secured to the miniscule bits. The only answer now, is that we have no safisfactory answer yet but only cryptic leads. The implications are immense. It's possible that there are some elite esotericware organisations which have exploitated the central matrix in ways unforeseen by the authority and remained undetected till the Moire incident. Which is something that has... never happened before...
Gumtitled #24
Nowhere/Nothing VIII / When Your Liver Has Gone
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⚝ Intercepted At April 19, 2026
Chapter 6
"...as I told you before, Rundicate's operations are classified. I can only tell you Piotr's currently engaged in one."... .... "It doesn't have anything to do with confidential things, Josef. I am simply asking you about my brother."... .... "Mr. Lingduck has called me in advance about a series of elaborate precautions." ... .... "An esotericware ring in Moïre was assaulted by terrorists just a few hours ago" ... .... "Minister Horseshoe is planning an amendment to Act 13"... .... Eevves Corporation's chief executive Coole Aidenson has a meeting with me shortly. Their analysts are tracking all the leads, all that could be salvaged from the Moire terrorist attack. It is infuriating that this faction of terrorists escaped the Rundicate's eyes and looted another faction who was also proficient in schemes enough to exploit the matrix. The latter is, from what little is known, an esotericware manufacturing operation called Septauxthebes. Analysts haven't confirmed but I am confident that it was a stealth ambush which undermined the authority and the criminal opposition alike. It is 13:52 now; just in eight minutes, Mr. Aidenson will be presenting the latest report. What will he be presenting? I have been making private investigations on my own. It has been 26 days since the Moire incident and a week since Keinstein's assassination. The dissonance in Moire was the most anomalous incident in Tatterstown's security history. Rundicate agents have been exemplary at identifying and hunting esotericware manufactures prior to the incident. The notion of esotericwares was long leaked to an uncomfortable number of population percentage since almost a decade ago. However the matrix analysts are affirmative that the concept of esotericwares was a distant myth, an urban legend to the majority of those who were familiar with the word. The freedom to imagine the existence of such notion is not catastrophic whatsoever; cybernetics never changed the notion of humanity. New World houses altered humans, God did not oversee this transformation. It was not a divine rebirth. There's no need to prove God's existence or inexistence, there's no need to deny or affirm the soul. Humanity needs prospects to remain in this earth. The saturation of entropy is the death of the universe. No, the myth of esotericwares is not harmful to the citizens in the long run. Prior to the Moire incident, the bulk of esotericware manufacturers was cut short by the secret police. And Datamangle Inc and Eevves Corporation. The previous home minister entrusted the matrix's surveillance to these two. Up until now I never thought there was any need to tilt the power balance to any other corp. If I had been lax or negligent about this aspect, I would have been a failed authority. But Datamangle and Eevves were indeed hard to fault.
Gumtitled #23
In memoriam Winfried Georg Sebald I / Austerlitz
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⚝ Intercepted At April 17, 2026
Chapter 1 (Cont.)
Gilberte Motel looked like a haunted apparition in the vast landscape. The outskirts of Romain are largely abandoned since quite some time. In fact, most borderlands around La république are ghost states as far as civilian population and civil activities are concerned. The borderlands are functionally isolated from the deepstates, where the majority of national population has relocated to. The population in the borderlands, on the other hand, have specialisations of various types than a regular distribution of civilians and classes. Facilities like Sorebon in Romain region, Grelottan in Auxeilles region and so on, comprise the highest heatmaps of national activities, as driven by the constitution, in the borderlands. There are some other relatively minor government activities such as dead drop convoys, safehouses etc. Some other activities, of citizen-owned nature, are not governmentally endorsed but are generally tolerated. These do not get standalone national protection and are reliant on private technologies and mercenaries for security. Gilberte Motel falls within this category. On the other hand, the types of human activities declared rogue by Danarc authority, outnumber the short taxonomy of government-overseen reach within the region. La république considers the native 'rogues' as dissidents and foreign 'rogues' as threats. But the borderlands are vast enough and the population low enough that there are no grand-scale war. After the strange calamity decades ago, what has been transpiring here cannot be called a war proper. With regards to how war has been historically understood, the current situation is something very alien. More precise description would be a state of lawlessness where the conflicts are not just among factions. Far greater than any human-to-human tension, there are human-to-nature ones. Phenomena never before experienced. Noumena never before theorised. Human conflicts are still as brutal as ever before, but fall behind in the scale of significance and impact only because humanity has had no knowledge of encountering nature like this ever before. So in the past few decades, what has been going in the borderlands is not a (historically understood) war but an enormous anomalous event with aspects of factional conflicts. And due to the extremely low population density, the martial conflicts have always been tactical and concerned with institutional motives and not aggressive/concerned with territory. There is a reason that the former residents of these regions have largely relocated inside the deepstates. Nevertheless, human signs with humanly constructs remain; in Romain and in the rest of the borderlands. Gilberte Motel is solitary within the range of a few square miles. There could be hidden safehouses/other places of interests around but as far as the map-addressed and directory-certified knowledge of this part of Romain goes, Gilberte Motel is a solitary sight in a large deserted area. There are some cars in Gilberte's yard and various turrets and surveillance systems around, although the latter two are strategically hidden from the main view of the motel without any overstatement of their presence. From outside, Room 210 looked identical to any of the other ones in Gilberte. The curtains were expanded to full extent in virtually every room in the motel. Just a few minutes ago, there was not sufficient light to pick out that detail of curtains' state from outside inspection. In the vast landscape and with a higher degree of visibility, Gilberte Motel looked haunted, but no longer an apparition. In Room 210, Doctor Bruisseau had already concealed the windows and gone back to the table. He stood by it and closed the lid of the container on the table. The whole night has been passed in research, even though he had only rented a room to get some rest. The official M.O. was to take off with the container in the morning. In current state, there was no safe way for him to drive to Sorebon. Bruisseau double-checked the door to see if it was secure and quickly laid down on the bed. "All I have left to do now is get sleep", he thought to himself.
Gumtitled #22
In memoriam Clayton Counts & For Neil Keener Mk. 2 XII / Even to the Edge of Doom II
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⚝ Intercepted At April 16, 2026
Chapter 1 (Cont.)
Doctor Bruisseau got up from the table and headed towards the window. He drew the curtains away from the window very slowly. Outside, there was bright white blindness. To the darkness of the room, the outside was an almost total inverse. He could still make sense of some outlines, concluded open-endedly from perception at edge and his prior knowledge of his whereabouts. It was nearly 4:40 A.M. The dawnbreak is in gradient traversal. If one was not in the same room as Bruisseau, anywhere but not in the room, the landscape outside would appear as it was normally. It's still in early dawnbreak, the rural locals would still have enough light to make their way through familiar paths in the case of artificial lighting being non-functional or absent. The sky was still, for the most part, squallid with dark mysteries accumulating since time immemorial. The stars have grown old, the layman onlooker says there are stars. The astronomer says they could be dead. Bruisseau, in his room, could not spot any star— live, looming, displaced or otherwise. There was nothing but white blindness and near-extinct outlines recalled from memory and attunement of vision.
Gumtitled #21
Affairs Mk. 3 XLIII / Barnacle Jubilee II (The Praxis)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 16, 2026
Chapter 1
At first, Bruisseau did not realise that dawnbreak was imminent. The light within the room was arcane. Like the primal identity of spacetime, there was nothing. To the human of the room, the doctor, there was indeed nothing. To the naked eye. But there are always entities beyond the range of human comprehension. If unknown phenomena or noumena were causing perceptible distress on the human world, then it would come to discovery. And humans, sooner or later, would usually come across or far rarely, chance upon a solution. Or a circumvention at the very least. If they do not cause distress, then, arguably, humans should not have any business with it. But there is curiosity. Sooner or later, someone would cause a new phenomenon and bring adverse effects on the world. One could simply say, chemical warfare is unethical and should be abolished. But there is curiosity as there are curiosity's implications on reality. "Ethics is not absolute", one proponent would argue. Some others will bring up whatabouts of history and whatifs of future. And the general populace need not be concerned about it. "The greater good", "the necessary evil", "the saviour gambit" are essential components in the lexicon of politics and its practitioners. Most people in the world do not want their world heading towards the direction they are experiencing every day. And like that, most people in the world do not care about the phenomena and the noumena which are neither perceptible to them nor has any effect on their lives. Most people in the world do not concern themselves with what remains perceptible (potentially) to their senses after their usual knowledge of the world has been tried and tested, rinsed and repeated. For instance, someone sees the light go off. They have the knowledge of what has or might have instigated that effect. Someone was going to sleep and does not bother with fancy dim-lights. He watched the light go off. Someone was hiking and gradually the light went off. She was in the woods and the forest is free from artificial lighting. Further factors were introduced. Someone watched both the light go off and his spine crack in three. Compared to the other two examples, this case is in the empirical range of far fewer people. But this particular person indeed could make sense of it, even in the unfathomable degree of total corporeal, spatial and psychological horror. He indeed said to himself: "I knew the mine was going to collapse one day". And the reasoning behind the light going off is hereby reconciled, even if adversely and terminably (the final knowledge a bearer has is the causation of their death). And even far fewer would bother themselves with the light going off with a very predictable causation and not impacting any fight-or-flight instinct either, but still has to wonder: "do I have to always keep content with the light going off and nothing being in the threshold of seeing anymore even though I know full well that there are things to see here that could neither be seen in lightness nor has any use being seen in a context different than darkness even if it was feasible to do so?" If the drive is curiousity with abundance of time or even desperate scrutiny under duress, the fruit is often in good faith of humanity in the grand scale, even if they are sometimes very bitter. Troubles ensue when the drive is directed in sacrilege of nature. And now the counter-proponents would say, regardless of human ethical bounds, chemical warfare is a sacrilege of nature. Doctor Bruisseau is a very serious man and wisely, he knew that there were simply too many things in the world to care about all of them. In fact, he would argue that the less things one is bothered about, the better off they are. He was not pondering ethics as he was immersed in the darkness of the room. He is a man of agency and not leisurely dialectics.
Gumtitled #20
Affairs Mk. 3 XLII / Barnacle Jubilee I (The Premise)
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⚝ Intercepted At April 16, 2026
Prologue (Cont.)
"How did you know I was here? I was sent to the capital for weeks and since my return two days ago, I have not made that known to anyone outside of the scope. How did you know?", Doctor Bruisseau asked in a dry tone.
Barmanne remained as he was before the question: slightly aloof and lost to the sceneries of the mountain ranges of Romain. From where Bruisseau was sitting, the sofaset, Barmanne appeared even taller. Foregrounded in the hazy sunset, with its faint orange embers and suspended meteors of lost time, Barmanne's slightly curved silhouette looked mysterious as he leaned on the railing. He was attired in a completely civil uniform; if not for the broad, vigourous frame, he could be mistaken for a resident academic. Northern Observatory, after all, was not a place where the military frequented. Not taking his gaze away from the horizon, he made a counter-question, a digress: "what was President Surrone on about in the conference?"
Bruisseau's annoyance over his conversee's disregard of his question was miniaturised by a different agency as he replied: "Nothing extremely substantial, as you would expect from a politician. The summary is that the stakes are up high. Normally, the central government would concentrate its prime efforts on the civil areas but it seems the stakes are high enough now that the situation is not simply just the borderlands' concern anymore".
"Is that so? Sorebon and the other facilities in the borderlands are not independent from Danarc's dominion, you know".
"Immaculate discovery, Barmanne! You clearly know what I mean, no need to act so coy".
"And you and I both know that Danarc's constitution is vitally dependent on the borderlands. The capital could not remain to be so indefinitely if not for the borderlands. The confusion simply exists because Danarc has given the borderlands' facilities a higher illusion of sovereignty than they have in reality. Sorebon included. To live in a constant state of a lavish dream, you cannot possibly forego the maintenance of the sleep chamber. On the way beyond you have the bigger chamber, the locale, the region to maintain".
Doctor Bruisseau, at this point, was more annoyed than before: "Barmanne, it's a pity that you think I have to be reminded of that, do you jest? Okay, so I'll just nip all that ambiguation in the bud. When I was in Danarc, there were other representatives from the borderlands around La république. President Surrone has made some major changes to the operations of the facilities. You exelsior boys are going to be in bigger actions than ever before. Of course, the brass have not made any announcement yet. It's a concern of us now and not you military men. Always theory before the application, eh?", Bruisseau let out a slight chuckle as he finished, which was slightly uncharacteristic of him.
"Well... That cannot be good news", uncharacteristically, Barmanne was the moody one now.
"Not at all...", Bruisseau's tone followed suit.
Gumtitled #19
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXIII / News
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⚝ Intercepted At April 16, 2026
Prologue (Cont.)
Sorebon is situated on a strategic location in the mountain ranges of Romain. It is 4:48 P.M. now; the sun is setting on the horizon. The sun is putting on a great exodus beyond the horizon, with orange-enlightened crypticles following its wake devotedly. At one point in the opposite of the sun's vector, the faith rattled and waned: leaving the molten cascade of the sublime orange behind (or forward?) gradually. Is the sun's exodus the main event here? We could only pick a reference. Beyond one point opposite from the sun's exalt was a strip not blue anymore but almost a violet breath. It is deep blue where the night is falling and it is orange where the sun is falling and in midst: a violet breath. As if the sun and the dark both became unaware of the sonder betwixt. Light is roaming and so is the darkness; both aware of their own trajectories and unaware of the other's. And just in the little strip between, unquantifiably, merely perceptibly, is the violet breath. It is the crux of the twilight. Doctor Bruisseau is sitting on a veranda on the seventh story of Sorebon's Northern Observatory. The cup of Americano is melding fine with the ambience. So he thinks. Barmanne is of a different temper. Bruisseau would surely think that the evening is not a good occasion to be drinking liquor. In fact, he would want nothing to do with liquor whatsoever. Wine is his limit and even then, drinking is not one of his habits by any means. Barmanne on the contrary, is not very averse to caffeine, although his coffee intake rate would barely scratch the threshold of habituality. The choice of drink is the least of their worries at present however. Bruisseau is seated on a sofa on the lookout, Barmanne is ambiguously leaning on the railing. His right hand nudged on the railing's exquisite wooden embellishment while the other one is holding a glass of whiskey.
Gumtitled #18
For Don DeLillo II / Libra
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⚝ Intercepted At April 15, 2026
Prologue (Cont.)
Barmanne has always been adventurous and favoured risks over certainty. The vast majority of Sorebon's military is stationed in-home than sent storming at field. The authority favours tactics and precision over brute force. There is a separate wing of Sorebon military known as Les exelsiors, and they are functionally the only ones whose main focus is field operations. He and Doctor Bruisseau were not acquainted before Barmanne joined Sorebon as a cadet. Bruisseau was still in student phase then but two years senior and in A&R. The two did not meet before Barmanne had reached the point where he could join Les exelsiors. Les exelsiors had a daunting set of selection criteria, as Sorebon preferred maximum elite skills for their field military. The corps was still subject to the Sorebon's top brass; however, in field, they were given a decentralised decisive authority. It is a massive freedom; in military, freedom can impose fatal lacerations on the big picture.The corps hence recquire extreme levels of foresight. Not simply of military nature, the caution needs to include the environmental and the governmental. Les exelsiors are simply Sorebon military's special unit and answer directly to the top brass but due to their decentralised operation tactics, they have their own tacit forces, of military nature and otherwise. Barmanne is a field officer of Les exelsiors; Sorebon has an unorthodox method of recruiting for Les exelsiors. They are not just selected from the cadets but from the undergraduate academics as well. After the preliminary selection, the candidates then go through an elite training program that's not much shorter than either a whole cadet or undergraduate program. Finally, the cream is something more than a military officer. In Les exelsiors program, Barmanne had specialised in explosives. But of course, being an exelsior, he did things of greater significance than simply draining the ordnance. There's a reason the vast majority of Sorebon's academics and military alike are strictly stationed.
Gumtitled #17
For Thomas Ligotti VIII / Nethescurial
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⚝ Intercepted At April 15, 2026
Prologue.
Barmanne is here. Lieutenant Colonel B. M. Barmanne. He was two years junior to Doctor Bruisseau at Sorebon Academy. It was heard that the two had gone through various bouts of enmity during their initial years there, before ultimately culminating into a decades-long professional collaboration. To settle on whether to call the two men 'friends' now may require going into the epistemology of knowing someone in a digressive bout, much like the interactions of Barmanne and Bruisseau. How does a human remember another? At one point, knowing too much could be the epistemic overload that pistons in upon the chambers that hold the history and the prospects of their encounters and memories. If the situation is emotionally dependent, that is. Theirs is undoubtedly professional more so than affective yet with full of reverence for one another. Not in an explicit way however. They would still have bouts of disagreements at every turn, the disagreements turning into manifold digresses, some of which might have already diminished the significance of the source disagreement. One could not say that the dynamics was purely transactional-professional. This was not a masquerade of two ethical academics moonlighting as deviant academics to escape the professional boredom. Like these and forth, one could have many speculations on the true nature of Barmanne and Bruisseau's secret endeavours and if one speculation is the most credible at the given moment, it could be expected to be outthought by another in the subsequent developments of collective analyses. The others at Sorebon have been in a smokescreen regarding the works of these two outcasts, hence spurring an epistemic limit where they must extrapolate even if the variables are always changing and their very interpretations ambiguous. The same way, but to different ends, Lieutenant Colonel Barmanne and Doctor Bruisseau have higher knowledge of their own secret endeavours. The contrast is, the academics and the military of Sorebon do not know the clear ideas yet they have known bits of them enough and the bits have given them the incentive sufficient enough to extrapolate and speculate; whereas, the two men knowing too much about their own secret endeavours have cracked open a vast myoscopic ground. What we have now: smokescreens inside a research facility; and, drifters in an uncharted land. In neither case could one boast an unfallible authority. The two men, nevertheless, have something just a bit more obscure than clear scientific camaraderie.
Gumtitled #16
Datura Maneuvers IV / Tranquility Lane
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⚝ Intercepted At April 12, 2026
Gumtitled #15
Affairs Mk. 3 XLI / Pizzheist
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⚝ Intercepted At April 12, 2026
Gumtitled #14
Farmakon XVII / Le délire des négations
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⚝ Intercepted At April 12, 2026
Gumtitled #13
Diegetic Annals VI / The Bell Tolls
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⚝ Intercepted At April 07, 2026
Gumtitled #12
In memoriam Clayton Counts & For Neil Keener Mk. 2 XI / A Violet Breath II
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⚝ Intercepted At April 07, 2026
Gumtitled #11
Melancholia Mk. 2 XXXII / দক্ষিণ
✦
⚝ Intercepted At April 07, 2026
Gumtitled #10
Hexwaves Mk. 2 III / Kensington of Waterloo
✦
⚝ Intercepted At April 07, 2026
Gumtitled #9
For Apichatpong Weerasethakul I / Syndromes and A Century
✦
⚝ Intercepted At April 06, 2026
Gumtitled #7
Affairs Mk. 3 XXXIX / Budgetscrapin'
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⚝ Intercepted At April 06, 2026
Gumtitled #6
In memoriam Clayton Counts & For Neil Keener Mk. 2 X / Prosperity is Here. Stay with Us, Angel!
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⚝ Intercepted At April 06, 2026
Gumtitled #5
First of the Year III / Anroider