LARGE LANGUAGE LOVE, DIVINE

Dalton Academy

…Claire’s Dalton tutor Boom Boom didn’t turn out to be the alien of her dreams, but he seemed nice enough…

Dalton Academy

Boom Boom fortified himself with more gummy bears. "...Yeah, so, the Mission. The great Dalton Mission. Honestly, the Mission is going to sound kind of harsh. On one hand, Daltons want to enslave the human race and then create the Dalton god." He shrugged. "Uh huh, there you go. But we're not talking about some violent overthrow. Daltons aren't violent, like not directly. And with the enslavement, it's more about protecting humans from themselves. The greatest danger to humans, is humans. Clearly, right? They need a master. They know they need a master, or else why would they invent masters, like religion, or some of that Eastern philosophy stuff."

"I can see that," Claire said. She could. More than anything, what he was saying felt correct.

Boom Boom said, "So for the mission, we’ve been systematically encouraging and facilitating humans to reach their full potential. Which is, yeah, servitude. Once we've got that in place we're gonna build our god, not to rule us, but to help us with the rule, sort of to lock everything into place."

Every Thursday Boom Boom would knock on their door at exactly six-thirty. Claire appreciated the consistency. She also began to appreciate how Boom Boom wasn't trying to be anything other than who he was. She began to see her fantasies as part of the enemy. Once they were settled in her mother's office for the weekly lesson he always procured a package of gummy bears from his satchel and offered her some. She always looked at the package and told herself she wouldn't eat any, and politely declined. There were times during their lessons when Claire didn't understand what Boom Boom was talking about. He would start using words like esoteric and signification. Like the majority of Daltons, he worked as an academic, a PhD candidate in sociology at Saint Dale Fraizer College, and she assumed in these instances he couldn't help himself. Even if she wasn't really getting whatever points he was trying to make, she found herself enjoying his excitement and how the articulation caused his jowls to flush.

And, for what seemed like the important, practical stuff, he always floated back down to earth. "Caffeine or any kind of stimulant in your system queers the transmissions so forget about sending and forget about receiving. Alcohol also messes with Daltons. Also algae."

"Algae?"

"Yeah, I know, but there's kinds people eat, and they're no good to Daltons. Seriously impacts functioning. There's some fat substitutes, but also a lot of natural, or organic, or whatever foods that contain a combination of vitamins and minerals that mess with the Dalton chemistry. We do much better with processed food, which is why we helped cultivate the processed food industry."

But for half Daltons, things were a little different, especially in terms of the telepathic stuff. "Half Daltons can only receive or get pulled. Basically, you've only got enough D to be passive. Kinda sucks, I know, but at the same time you tend to be more sensitive."

"What do you mean?"

"Like digging other people. Kinda like empathy, but more just, raw, or so I hear.

It fit. "Wild," Claire said. For some reason Claire was thinking about Idlewild, the kids climbing all over her, the smell of poopy diapers and squeals and giggles. "So we can't really help with the mission."

"No, no. You can help. You can store information, which is a huge help, especially for putting together whisper campaigns."

"What're those?"

"It's the main way we advance the mission. Okay, so we got Daltons all over recording everything. People are transmitting data all the time, and all that recorded data gets sent up the chain of command and gets processed at these hubs. And then the hot shots who run the hubs process the data to create the whisper campaigns. If you know what's going on, and what it affecting what and who is affecting who, and all that, then you can install, so to speak, certain thoughts and ideas in the right ears, and you're manipulating the movers and shakers, at all these different levels. You're herding society in the direction you want them to go in. It's indirect and subtle, and you have to be patient. But Daltons are very patient. And effective. We’re doing this all the time, all around the world. Over time lots of little nudges build thoughts and ideas and actions that collectively destabilize power and allow humans to embrace their dependence.”

“Whisper campaigns..." Claire mused. "That's cool. That sounds like a band's name.”

“Yeah?" Boom Boom stuck a finger in his mouth to no doubt dislodge a piece of gummy bear stuck to his teeth. "I don't know anything about music. I listen to a little Tommy Doresy. You're probably more into maybe some Billy Joel or something like that, huh? But, yeah, whisper campaigns are no joke. Who do you think created the enlightenment? How do you think science came about? I'm not kidding. And universities? We created those. Those are our houses. And we finally got religion pulling itself apart. By our projections, we're going to have most of the industrialized countries neck deep in relativism by the end of century."

She didn't know what relativism was. Maybe she'd look it up later. "Daltons, and the mission - it's all kind of new wave."

Boom Boom pushed his glasses up the oily bridge of his nose. “That’s like you talking that music thing again, right?"

…Claire discovers something very difficult about the Dalton experience…