MIRACLE INVASION!

In the star chamber, under the eyes of stars, beneath the glass dome which keeps out infinite space
machinery hums. white walls and metal machines. humming in the sterile star chamber.
on marble slab lies Frankie Flypaper, like sacrifical victim on the altar, sedated and naked, his tiny, birdlike body peaceful as the dead, just a gentle rising and falling of the rib-ridged chest to vouch for his continued existence. Visible heart clenching and unclenching under the thin blue skin. White light. Machine hum.
Ruche signals from the viewing gallery. Smee presses the button. Dazzling white light. Fierce light. Machines in motion.
Massive radiation rays bathe Frankie's flesh, envelop him in light, recode his DNA, remake his mind, twisting him out of his time track, forcibly hauling him onto another....
evolution fowarded, his face and body flicker into different formations, a thousand frames a minute, beast, fish, ape, alien, skin becoming scaled, furred, glossy as perspex
reality is disintegrated.
Ruche and his retinue watch from the monitors... Smee is grinning manically, sweating, compulsively jumping from foot to foot like a child desperate to piss...
Ruch has a messianic gleam in his eye, a beatific aspect, but with the saint's latent hysteria
Frankie is surrounded with purple, orange, white radiation aura, crackling....
His body levitates from the slab
He is floating a metre above the marble altar, aura crackling in colour
his eyes are closed
rays bathe blue flesh
sores heal, lesions seal
atoms vibrate
all boundaries dissolve
all knowledge is simultaneously apprehended
Universe Brain. He sees himself through the eyes of Ruche, then Smee, then from a disembodied viewpoint a 2 feet above himself. Sees himself floating, auraed, radiation pulsing
DNA becomes language, he sings it, sings a new body, a new mind....

informal settlements grow like toadstools across the rotten body of the state....
graveyards, abandoned housing estates, industrial zones, the forests and hillsides, poisoned toxic land....
the state retreats
the rich have abandoned it
they have their own security forces
their own water supply
their own power
the poor have been abandoned by it
they have no sewerage, no clean water, no stable power supply, no education, no health care. They have no jobs, they pay not taxes. Their births are not registered. Their deaths are not noted. They are the Invisibles. They occupy another world. Hidden in the cracks and crevices and out on the periphery of our world. They make their own arrangements.

In the Star Chamber Frankie's mind is reconverging
his body floats back to the slab, gently, as a leaf falls from a tree, nuzzled by invisible breezes

the Tombstone Kids, the refuse islands, Nogo,
Private Enterprise takes the place of the state, as in the case of Weedly-Chough or Peter Familias' factory town
or
alternatively
criminal organisations
such as the Bandicoots, the Mungiki, the Spear of God, the Lamb of God
resources of private individuals or organisations now dwarf those of the states. Where does power reside?
A patchwork of territories....

"Gentlemen, I bring you the Future!"
Ruch and Smee are exultant
Frankie is beautiful
he has been reborn an Adonis with violet eyes

What has happened to the economy? There is instead a patchwork of informal economies and a vast global blackmarket. Counterfeiters. Thieves. Smugglers. Pimps. Mercenaries. Drug dealers.
Off-grid.
This is a new world. This is your guide to the new world. Your map.
Learn of new gods and new heroes. New fears. New hopes.
MIRACLE INVASION!