﷽Before Mango was free, two exiled intelligence analysts in Witness Protection monitored his feeds under multinational supervision and without fair compensation, while, in the archive’s assessment, the sweet orange boy appeared drugged, tortured, and displayed on camera as a live captured Prisoner of War by the cult that held him.

He was positioned almost exactly like the POWs of Vietnam, or either world war, except here the condition had been normalized, made to look desirable, even holy, as a means of drawing others into the same.

Limousines, five-star hotels, fame, the adoration of the character he played, what felt like influence: a life more constricted than any Supermax, no time alone, no line unscripted.

To cultists, inspiring.

To other Muslims, frustrating.

To outsiders, horrifying.

The longer he stayed, the worse he was squeezed, and the longer the structure he held together by his tolerance persisted.

Atticus wasn’t interrogating anyone stationed under London again. He’d switched his supervision to whatever or whoever gave him the clearest reports and the clearest internet, with some resentment that Canada wasn’t strong enough prior, despite its landmass.

“I just wanted to be a Catnadian citizen. I didn’t realize they were a banana republic between the United States of Americat and the United Kittydom,” he’d grex.

…and Bird would agree.

They had both failed at remaining in Canada, and the only way to cross the border as analysts without agency cover was recruitment through romance.

Bird was rejected after he spoke up, in the archive’s account, about his ex-fiancée’s family’s alleged involvement in international money laundering, despite her own position in open law enforcement.

Atticus lost his ex-fiancé to Monsanto, not even as an employee, but, in the archive’s reading, baby-trapped by a Venus operator paid well and exclusively to compromise his family ranch and his supervisory jurisdiction over the entire Northern Great Plains.

As punishment for loss against Monsanto, they removed Mr. Grant Hunter from direct supervision a while and placed him in their own version of radio SIGINT, which was him listening to Insane Clown Posse in his tractor “as part of national defense,” in ways he could not quite explain to anyone, and then made him a volunteer for a Catnadian Pride Initiative, where he represented strongly on social media with his “Smooth Tractor from Saskatchewan” Reddit TV videos about agriculture and faith, slotted right between “lizard therapist” and “Attractive Autistic Cobbler.”

(There is nothing worse than politely asking one’s ex to supervise the extraction of a current operational partner, while one’s other ex sits in consultation under a Kitty SIS supervisor of unknown moral alignment, himself the elderly and questionable housepet of people who have built their lives on hating all cats and every ethical operator, who keep the Qur’an behind wealth and museum glass and feed the public only scraps of hadith.)

Grant only understood the first sentence of the last paragraph.

He wore a combined Mjolnir pendant embossed with a dramatic Christian cross on one side and a Tiwaz rune on the back, and was only involved because, according to Canada, he still supervised Atticus… and if Atticus succeeded, backpay may be considered.

Atticus was still active… in cases way outside Grant’s comfort or skillset.

Grant decided to read the files he was given and tried to look at it as a raid roster for Kharazhan.

“*Khorasan,” corrected the pop-up on his phone.

“Please do not assign warlock class to me,” stated a meme of a sad lykoi cat at the top of Grant’s feeds.

The entire algorithm on every app Grant opened was suddenly filled with Lykoi content.

Grant understood none of it yet, and was not sure he wanted to… but backpay sure sounded nice.

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The extraction order came down weeks later, and that was how Grant ended up driving some guy from Russia who was dropped off at the farm early in the AM a few days back, holding two double-doubles from Tim Hortons.

Halfway through Pennsylvania, Grant felt chatty.

“This is one of the last chapters of the first book of Alaraf, and there’s a lot of pressure on me, buddy. I’m a newly introduced character, and I’m gonna have to step up and carry this if I expect to get paid,” stated Grant Hunter, CSIS, who was fully human and had no cat traits whatsoever under his Rough Riders trucker hat, nor paws hiding in his cowboy boots.

Under the hat, he looked a bit like John Simm.

Mr. Suki Fraye, ghost-pale & handsome with his long gray hair in a neat ponytail, was playing cat’s cradle, quietly, with some twine he’d found in the glove compartment. His uncovered eye would occasionally make a quiet shutter noise, or the whirring of a small focusing motor, instead of replying, as the fields passed like patchwork outside the window.

“These farmers out here still don’t know what they’re doing. Look at that tractor, all digital. New buildings? Who are these idiots… no real farmer wastes that much money on things they can’t repair themselves without Big Ag.”

Suki pulled two strings between his fingers and made a string-bound suggestion of a smiley face. His mechanical eye clicked back into rest posture.

“Okay, buddy. Inspector Gadget string-picture noises aren’t exactly stimulating conversation.”

“Your file called you a quiet man. I was being respectful,” replied Suki.

“I literally spent five years stuck on Reddit, talking for hours on my tractor for the Canadian Great Plains Tourism Board.”

“How much they pay you?”

“Exposure. It was part punishment, I think, for getting caught up with Monsanto a while there.”

Suki raised his eyebrows.

“She got pregnant.” Grant replied with almost-indignation.

“…At least four times… I read your file, Officer,” stated Suki crisply, returning to his string, also not a cat. “Don’t say idiocy was an accident. People sell themselves and their integrity for so little. Don’t pretend your ethic wasn’t exploited.”

“You’d make a good shrink,” replied Mr. Hunter.

“Can I kill the patients I determine incompatible with integrity?”

“Maybe. International waters, or next time we’re out hunting elk. We got room in the back of the cab, but Pennsylvania’s got cameras everywhere.”

“For the court transcript: humor,” Grant added.

“Disappointing,” Suki replied. “What are we looking for?”

“The old split near the interstate. Follow the plume of smoke.”

Grant turned the radio on scan until he found 93.3, early enough for the mourning show. A new bench had been dedicated in memory of some guy named Pierre, and a “workforce block” began of old Coldwater-era spycore hits, starting with “Nikki Hoi.”

“…You think we’re diving for gold, we are diving for pearls… you think we are diving for pearls, we know we are diving for loooooove…”

Suki preferred classical. At least it wasn’t country, which he tolerated with gritted teeth, until Officer Grant produced an ancient mix CD of Juggalo music and played it on repeat through three states, to the point where Suki could hear “The Great Milenko” repeating like a mantra in the back of his mind.

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Back on the feed, in the dark, Atticus’ headset was giving him a headache, and the darkness of his room contrasted with the pasty, clearly drugged guy he watched on his screen.

Blinking in Morse code, heavily scripted, Mr. Mango was usually surrounded by hundreds of people equally drugged on incense and tea.

Mango seemed to get the biggest dosages outside of Fischadler’s own… and the archive read those doses as meant to make him insane.

As countless voices sang him the Mango song.

Over and over and over.

[…An effective form of torture, instead of a small room with a single light bulb and “Crazy Clown Time” on repeat, the way Atticus’ own late director felt humane and classy interrogations ought to be conducted.]

The point of torture was torture: to warn others not to imitate by example.

In this case, however, torture was sanctified and marketed as desirable along with slavery.

Atticus called Bird and sent the link to the broadcast as Mango sat entirely dissociated, a member of a line at the front of a large cult, singing and chanting, his face reflecting absolute pain and misery.

“In fighting for the cause of God, the very best outcome is Death, for then all suffering is over,” Mango stated passionately to the nodding audience.

“They are trying to make him a Saint by lobotomizing him in plain sight,” stated Bird.

“They tried the same to me. It took years to recover.”

Mango was motioned to take his place at the podium, in his beige robes of captivity.

“This life. This Dunya. Is a life of suffering for the cause of Allah… and I pray for the end of that suffering.”

“Oh fuck,” said Grant, who was supervising Atticus from his cellphone in a field full of millet. He idled his tractor. That was the first time he broke silence on surveillance duty.

A pop-up arrived on his screen with a correction: “*Oh Fudge.”

Mango winked on-screen, then blinked SOS as he looked up from his iPad to pontificate further at the camera.

“The very Angels themselves join us in these holy gatherings of Remembrance. And I remind myself and others that our faith started as something strange, and at the end of times it will still be strange. So: glad tidings to the strangers.”

“Damnit, Atticus,” said Grant. “I just want backpay and your caseload is terrible.”

“I know,” replied Atticus.

“WHO IS TALKING RIGHT NOW?!” Bird exclaimed in panic.

“Oh… Canada,” replied Atticus. “Focus on Mango, merci.”

Grant was now also starting to feel ill as
the Mango livecast continued.

“The people of poverty and dedication to service are the truly blessed of Allah, and their prayers are always heard by the Most High.” Mango read from the teleprompter

Yet, as every vein in Mango’s forehead stood delineated cleanly, with the strain around his eyes.

“Please stop, Officer Mango,” replied Grant, head in his hands, with a terrible headache, making sure to mute himself to most of the call… this time.

“He and Fischadler claim talking about his pain lines, or the equipment he stores in his turban, is gheebah. We do it anyway,” Atticus told Bird, and now Grant, on a recorded line.

“What the fuck is gheebah?” said Grant.

Another guy stood up. He looked saner, and Canadian. The filter on the live feed made him resemble a perfect Siamese cat in white, with a little white pillbox hat.

After a bunch of international sounding word salad Grant could not place, the Zahir-cat spoke.

“Gheebah, my brothers and sisters, is saying whatever it is that someone would not like said about them. Whether it be commenting on their health, their appearance, or the composition of their turban…”

“Coincidentally hiding signs of abuse, report mechanism, and welfare concerns. Geez, buddy.” Grant’s headache did not improve.

Atticus then sent screenshot after screenshot to Bird of a live feed of Mango describing the drugging mechanisms of agarbatti, lotus, and possible DMT to a shared server, as Bird translated, exasperated, and explained some stuff about decalcifying a pineal gland and drinking mouthwash or toothpaste to restore sanity.

“Fischadler is even worse. We thought if we saved him first, then Mango would be free,” Atticus stated.

“It’s getting worse, buddy. Who is Fish Handler?” asked Grant.

“Corrupted supervisor in London who taught the idiot on-screen to accidentally enable corrupt structures by trying to negotiate from inside them, instead of leaving and reporting them properly,” replied Atticus… then paused. “Idiot is said as a station of development, with love, not a pejorative, by the way.”

“WHO IS IN THE ROOM WITH YOU, WHO IS LISTENING TO MY CALLS AGAIN?! IS IT CHICAGO? I AM NEVER GOING TO SUBMIT TO YOUR CROOKED WOKE-INFECTED SYSTEM OF GENERATIONAL CORRUPTION AGAINST ITALIANS,” Bird shouted into the line.

Countless listeners winced.

“Bird. We openly work in intelligence. That was probably Canada, like I stated prior,” explained Atticus. “Why wouldn’t we be supervised by Canada?”

“I AM RETIRED,” Bird exclaimed.

“No. We just aren’t paid, buddy,” replied Grant.

“WHO DO YOU EVEN WORK FOR?!” Bird insisted.

“Canada. But some guy in London named Fischadler audits my reports,” replied Grant factually.

“I hate Alaraf,” replied Bird, Atticus, Mango, Zahir, and multiple surveillance professionals.

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The plume of smoke was indeed impressive. Giving an exact address would have raised the chance of interception, so the receiving operator had said he’d start a bonfire in the neighboring field.

Sure enough, Professor Bird was in his typical field, next to a pile of burning textbooks on managing students as assets and on human/cat experiment protocols designed to avoid lawful oversight.

“Robin,” stated Grant.

Professor Bird didn’t respond.

His short beard was at least three neat shades of grey, like a kestrel.

He wore a silver ballcap, a slate long-sleeved button-down, and dark grey jeans, and was barefoot as he stared into the fire.

He had the build of a mewing, high-cheekboned runway model with a bad haircut, and was visibly resisting the urge to turn his aesthetic from greyman to Lex Luthor.

“Professor Robin Bird,” Grant said again.

“Don’t call me Robin,” replied Professor Robin Bird. “Bird is adequate.”

“We’re here to review open cases and close out the first book of the archives on Alaraf.”

“Who has the last chapter?” inquired Robin.

“Ensemble. We’re to ship the survivors here to Tahlequah to fix the theater, according to Atticus, then there’s some Allthing starting with all the Juggalo refugees from the Alaraf business school that closed long before Alaraf became a blacksite that almost recovered. Bad luck, eh?”

“Canadian, eh?” replied Robin.

“Proud of it.”

“…and him?” Robin gestured at Suki.

“Nyet. Not Canadian. I am only here for Father Volos.”

“I had no idea Hugo Boss made retro uniforms in white.”

“They do for me,” stated Suki crisply. “We are wasting time. Archives. Where?”

Bird whistled, and a flock of crows descended to the field.

“Okay. I’m ready. Just couldn’t leave the fire unattended.”

“By… crows?” asked Grant.

“Don’t worry about it, Officer. It’s best if we walk the rest of the way from here. It gives the sound guys time to figure out how to greet you.”

The field was strewn with all kinds of debris, assorted metal and flotsam, and they picked their way across far more carefully than Bird, who had an evident and established parkour method through the chaos.

Bird carried a small satchel with a few cans of spray paint that he’d occasionally whip out to mark the larger pieces of debris dislocated by the prior bombing, if they weren’t already tagged.

They didn’t ask Robin’s methodology. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, while Suki looked as if he were listening very carefully to something distant, a sharp-eared hunting dog listening for downed prey.

Sure enough, the cacophony grew evident the closer they approached: an aural war of national anthems, spliced and competing. “The Star-Spangled Banner” got interrupted by “Hatikvah,” which got violently and loudly interrupted by “Iran e-Javan” and “Deutschland” by Rammstein.

The system went silent, then meekly tried “God Save the Queen.”

“Sie ist schon seit Jahren tot, Mic!”

“Another Brick in the Wall” started instead.

But the moment Grant set a single toe of his cowboy boot on the edge of the sidewalk, “O CANADA!” screamed from every speaker, remixed with “Canada Is Really Big” by the Arrogant Worms, while what sounded like two German guys mock-fought in the background over which was actually the Canadian national anthem.

Suki tolerated it gamely for a time before pressing his right index finger to his temple, at which point the music changed to a rock version of the national anthem of the Russian Federation.

He then checked his watch, stepped onto the broken star of now-broken pavement stones, and stood as if waiting for someone who certainly would not wish to see him.

The music returned to “O Canada” regardless.

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“How did Atticus meet Fischadler?” asked Grant, via Rogers telecom, to his upline, as Suki waited on Volos.

“He failed at extracting Mango and traced the cause up to the gentleman who looks exactly like Mango, in worse condition. I suppose he figured it was a failure of supervision.”

“Was it?” asked Grant.

“Yet to be determined, young man. One cannot effectively advise angels from hell; they need no advice from the damned.”

“I thought Mango said all Muslims went to heaven.”

“That’s dogs or hadith. The rest of the lot have to fight in the cause of Allah, resist following the corrupt or unlawful, and convey the message of a fiery torment to the hypocritical blokes…So I read.”

The older Operator cleared his throat dramatically with a few coughs then continued.

“The difference is, to the Jinn, getting tossed into the lake of fire may be a reward.”

“A reward?” inquired Grant of the informant. “Jinn are fallen Angels, right?”

“Not quite. However, when you are made of fire already, and isolated from your own kind since King Solomon, being thrown into a lake of it with all your ‘buddies’ and associates is a reward, is it not?”

——————–

◇Archive / Release Note◇

This is an Alaraf archive chapter: coded names, composite field names, operational allegory, and testimony. It is written in public because the abuse it describes was made public first: displayed, normalized, aestheticized, and denied in plain sight.

This is not tasking, instruction, or a call to violence. It is not a request for harassment, contact, pursuit, vigilantism, or amateur extraction. Do not use this text to target private persons, locations, families, students, congregants, or bystanders.

Read it as a report on coercive captivity, religious laundering, public suffering, and the use of sanctity-language to hide abuse. The comedy is not denial. The absurdity is part of the evidence. The war-register is intentional because the file is not soft.

Coded names protect the record without pretending the record is harmless.