I was staring out towards the horizon. Something was burning, something close. I tried to find the smoke; I could smell it, but I could not see where it was coming from. Then I was indoors; sitting or standing. I could now feel the heat from the fire. The smell of the smoke was becoming unbearable. I began to panic, where are the flames? I could hear the spits and crackles – it was close, immediate and impossibly close.

I shook my head, opened my eyes wide and then stared into each corner of the room; pausing, staring, eyes straining, looking for a small flicker, trying to perceive a slight distortion in the background. The flames were obviously invisible but the heat coming from the fire would cause the light passing through it to bend just like a lens. I saw nothing.

This was very odd. My senses said I was in danger, but from something that was not there. Then I realised, this would not happen in the real world – I had to be asleep. No matter then, I wriggled and stretched the whole of my dream body; this would break through the cocoon of my sleeping outer self and I’d awake – safe and away from the invisible fire.

Instantly, I was back in the real world. Sitting in the armchair and almost upon the hearth as the fire inside it threatened to lash out at my shins. I kicked the gate shut, forcing the fire to die but not without almost burning the end of my slipper. I must have fell asleep, not thinking of how close I was to the fireplace – obviously it wasn’t my intention to burn to death during my cosy slumber. I felt angry at my own stupidity, but I’d avoided an accident and that is all that counts.

Feeling like I’d narrowly escaped a little disaster, well, a possible almighty disaster, I decided I would get a breath of fresh air – better open the doors and windows to let out the smoke too. Walking through the kitchen I picked up the glass of sherry I must have poured myself earlier and stepped out the back door into the garden.

I managed only one step forward. My trailing leg hovering between kitchen and outside. I felt the glass slip away from my grip and as it hit the concrete path I seemed to simultaneously put my foot down onto the sharp jagged remains. I wasn’t certain, but it seemed that a very pointy bit of glass was sticking through my slipper and into the sole of my foot – in a moment, I’d investigate if the perceived pain was justified.

The outside was not my outside, not the outside of my house, at least. I was in a landscape, unrecognisable and scorched. Landmarks gone, or perhaps never even there, I saw nothing familiar – even the sky looked the wrong shade of blue. Too deep, too vivid – too solid.

And then I saw something move directly in front of me, on the horizon, a black spec. Small, almost imperceptible. Perhaps I should follow it, after I’ve tended to my foot, of course. And then I realised the black spec was getting bigger. It was heading towards my house – towards me. I looked down at my slippers. They are awfully threadbare I thought to myself…

(But the soles are still good.)

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica

I have an invisible guest. Possibly no more than a cat burglar. Nothing appears to have been stolen but the stranger has made their presence quite obvious to me – well, they have deliberately left evidence that they were here. Until I am fortunate enough to catch them red-handed I will take peace in the fact they are not out to harm me. Something they have had plenty of opportunity to do whilst I suffer through my troubled sleep.

For a while I wasn’t sure if it were simply my imagination playing tricks on me. Just the basic mechanics of my brain forcing me to see patterns where there are none. A name scrawled in the dust upon the mantelpiece, or a few half words scratched out between the corn and seeds I throw out to the birds.

But no. I awoke this morning; went about my early routine and finally came face to face with a perfectly clear declaration that someone had been here.

The shaving mirror has been smeared with my deluxe talcum powder and then a message etched into the fine coating by use of a sharp instrument – maybe a toothpick. You will be wondering why I did not jolt and panic at this. Perhaps I am too tired and weak to respond with sane reactions now. I am no longer surprised by such events during my day. Sometimes I am not even sure if I am awake. The pain of the Seizures had been enough to remind me, and to reassure me, that I was still conscious. But, thankfully, this pain has gone, and so I am left in an almost numb state of awareness, drifting from a level of lucidity to another of total thoughtlessness.

But more importantly, what of the stranger’s message. It appears to be harmless; possibly an invitation. It contains code words within a typical mundane sentence structure; I am unable to understand its meaning. My instinct has become such that I now assume there is a connection between these words and the Seizure I had the previous day. Somehow the code must relate to that earlier vision. How and why I cannot say, but I am convinced that there are outside agents at work that know far more than I. They know what is happening to me, and I suspect that they are the cause.

I will write the message here and ponder on it for a while longer. Eventually a spark of inspiration will arrive and I am sure to see its purpose – whether that will bring fortune or despair, right now, I do not mind.

The message reads…“p3lb0x said: I didn’t quite lol. But its very original.”

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica

I have managed to decipher the third and fourth parts to the diary. They will serve as in introduction to a series of images that have been carefully secured to the pages of the Transportica. Their creator remains unknown at this time; all I can hope is that later diary extracts will reveal more about them.

The first in the set of pictures will immediately follow this post. Some are shattered beyond recognition but I will do my best to repair them.

Anonymous author’s diary text now follows:

I awoke to find a most curious package upon my doorstep this morning. It bears no markings; certainly no address nor name. I’m not entirely sure whether my postman even delivered it (I cannot recall the last time that he called at my gate. Perhaps I simply do not warrant any mail; I feel that I have become somewhat of a pariah since losing my employment).

First, I finished my breakfast (marmalade without toast again) whilst pondering over what the parcel may contain. For a moment my despair took hold and I hoped that it might be a mercy gift sent by a charitable neighbour (my food rations are really beginning to dwindle), but no, the box contained the very opposite of what I require right now.

Several hundred gossamer thin sheets of porcelain, all carefully wrapped in paper so as to protect them. But even so, I think the parcel must have been carried across its journey by a single person – someone protective enough to avoid the knocks and jolts that would have surely damaged the contents.

I flicked through a few of the partitions, picked out one of the tissue envelopes and attentively peeled back the covering. To my horror, I sprang from my chair and nearly allowed the box to drop to the floor (fortunately I managed to snatch a firm hold of one of the sides – the porcelain wafers would surely have smashed into a thousand pieces if they had hit the ground), there on the almost transparent plate was a crude painting – not unlike one of the many I had sketched myself whilst suffering a Seizure.

Was this a prank, a trick, a wicked joke. The picture looked like I had painted it with my own hand; the same lines, the same attempt at conveying light and shadow. But what was I thinking – it would be ridiculous, these were objects I could not make especially whilst under the influence of one of my blackouts. Have I lost control of my faculties to the extent that I can leave my house, find a potters workshop, sculpt, paint and operate a kiln – all without any recollection.

No, I am not that mad. Someone must know of my condition. They know of my affliction and what that produces. Out there, someone is aware and must know more than I about the origin of these insane vehicles. But what can I do. I have no way of retracing the package’s route. All I can do is to keep watch upon my property from this point on – hopefully, I will then spot any further mysterious intruders, and by Jove!, I’ll not let them leave until I have my answers.

For now I have put the box and its fragile contents in the large pantry. I see little else that can be done with it. Perhaps their owner has yet to return and all I need do is simply wait for an explanation.

SECOND PART

I had grown accustomed to my aggravated nights; my tormented dreams pass and I have respite in exhausted unconsciousness for three hours at the most.

But, for several evenings now, I have found myself trapped within my own nightmares. During the experience I am fully aware that it is nothing more than a dream and yet it engulfs me, I find that I am unable to escape the unreality, I try to shake myself awake and yet I remain trapped. Not even the alarm clock placed beside my head is sufficient to disturb my slumber.

Perhaps more dreadful is that my dreams are blind. I see flashes of light, like blurred explosions across the horizon, but nothing more. Thankfully, there is sound, I hear all manner of noises but I do not recognise them. Perhaps a cat screaming as it is fed into a meat grinder; I do not know. And between the cacophony there arrives muffled voices, conversations in an adjacent room just too far away to understand – except for one piece of information. The numbers.

For the first few occurrences I did not place any importance on these figures and then I recalled the mysterious parcel that had arrived a few days earlier. I remembered that each porcelain slide bared a specific number marked on its underside. Could there be a connection. I had kept a note of each set of digits that had been revealed to me within the dream, and so it would be simple for me to check their corresponding number in the box.

A foolish thing to do in hindsight I now admit. I opened my notebook and read my finger across the first number, then I found its place amongst the pictures in the box. Immediately on making the match I sensed my vision narrowing and eventually turning to black; I was speeding into another Seizure and somehow the number and picture had induced the attack.

I awoke a while later to find the porcelain image placed carefully on the table and against it another passage of text in my own handwriting. Because of this I feel it only right that I now place the precious slide within The Book alongside the description done in my alien hand.

I cannot explain what is happening. Just as I feel that I am growing accustomed to my solitary life, wretched interludes of unawareness and their frequent remote writings, I now find that I have one more inexplicable assault to endure.

And worse, it appears I have now completely emptied the larder of all the marmalade. I will be forced to eat the gooseberry and elderflower preserve from now on.

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica

Here is a lengthy diary entry translated by Mr. T. Smith. He has been providing a marvellous effort decoding many of the recent vehicle descriptions; using a bizarre system that he will hopefully explain soon.

Similar to the following extract, there appear to be many entries within the book that do not possess any reference to the author himself and nor do they refer to a specific diagram or sketch. It is therefore better to think of them as articles from a ‘reference’ that help describe the world of the Transportica in greater detail. Perhaps after a sufficient number of these reference pages have been transcribed a dedicated section to the website will be created for them, until then, they will remain as part of the main posts.

Now enjoy the first intriguing page that begins the ‘reference’.

During the dark days of the so-called Internecine Conflict, at the peak of hostilities, a new threat developed almost by chance during routine optical research. Whilst originally seen as a significant boost to the war effort, the final toll was equal on both sides, and in a way could be seen to have contributed to the cessation of hostilities.

After an unexpected breakthrough during the development of flexible glass, engineers discovered a dramatic new feature of the material. “Ductiglass” had been revolutionary enough: as energy was applied to this structure it became pliable and could be easily and safely shaped into any configuration required. Remove the energy source, and the glass would harden in place and behave perfectly normally.

Or so it was believed.

It was soon noticed that as the glass was worked in its elastic state, light falling onto the surface became trapped during the molecular reconfiguration phase. The “captured light” would then be released as the glass was re-worked. Researchers were amazed to see images trapped within the glass re-appear as they manipulated the material and “old light” was emitted from inside.

Practical applications followed in very short order, including the now familiar “EverGlo” torch and, of course, “TruDay” daylight bulbs, both of which work from captured sunlight, released via a small electrical charge applied to the glass from a battery or other source.

But, inevitably, it was not long before the military implications of this product were realised, seized and exploited.

Applications were myriad but the main topic here is the scourge of the Panoptical Dust. No-one knows who came up with the idea, and perhaps that is just as well. The concept itself was alarmingly simple: take a piece of Ductiglass, and smash it to dust. Load the dust into an unmanned Xepelin or other transport and simply allow it to fly over enemy lands. During the inevitable destruction and explosion of the gas-filled balloon, the glass dust will settle upon the enemy territory, recording everything with a minimum value of 0.01 lux.

Covert “Dustmen” would then sweep outside government buildings, or brush against military personnel to collect flecks of the Dust. They then simple needed to focus a microscope and apply current to the glass particles and someone else’s entire day would be played back in real-time (enemy documents would usually be revealed in perfect detail).

It did not take long for the technological secret to be discovered by the opposing side, and so the enemy’s Xepelins were soon flying with their own Ductiglass Dust payload. After a short but brutal period of escalation most of the world had reached the point where there was no perceived privacy of any type, for anyone.

Of course, manufacture, distribution or any type of use of any remaining dust is now prohibited on all sides, and is one of the few crimes to still attract the Slow Death Penalty. But there are few who remember the time of the Dust without a shiver of distaste, and it is clear that there will never be a time where it is still not possible for the determined lawbreaker to locate, and unlock the secrets of, the Dust.

Related posts:
Mobile Panopticon

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica

There has been a little dispute as to the correct translation of the following diary extract. Mr. Clarke does appear to have the gift of transcribing the pages with nothing more than a glance. But I have made slight amendments to his version as I still believe that the cipher contained at the back of the book is required for ‘true’ interpretations.

The second diary extract follows…

Despite the Seizures now visiting me more frequently I feel that I am still of sound mind, though I fear that my physical condition is beginning to slowly deteriorate. I have an abscess forming in my lower jaw. A large glass of port wine helps relieve the pain so I do not feel too aggrieved.

I now believe these automatic writings to be impressions of some other world. Whilst suffering a Seizure attack I am becoming increasingly aware of the dream like visions. As if looking through a broken window out onto the distorted nightmare beyond, I am unable to see clearly and dare not gaze for too long lest I witness true horrors.

Initially, a fragment is presented to me, a wheel perhaps, and then around it a preposterous machine shivers and spews outward until the complete vehicle is born. These monstrosities defy logic and reason and yet I see their movements and intricate workings therefore I know they are real. (And yet they cannot be real.)

Yesterday I attacked my man servant. I accused him of being my gaoler and wanting to imprison me in my own house. Oddly, he claimed not to have met me before – he departed and has not returned. My store cupboard will eventually need replenishing but I believe I can survive for several months with what I have. There is sufficient amount to keep me alive whilst I serve my sentence I am sure – but I remain curious as to what is my crime.

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica

Copyright © 2008 Codex Transportica