Just two days ago, one of our Decoy Flatlanders turned up at Fakie Central in a rather delirious and decrepit state. He was barefoot, dressed only in an ill-fitting hospital gown, and so pumped full of psycholeptic medication as to be scarcely able to recognize the very Commander in Chief whose life he had taken to a solemn vow to protect. Happily, some deeply embedded directives of his secret agent training seemed to have survived (even in the face of the heavy psychiatric medication to which he had been exposed) and the Agent clutched in his clammy palm a single page, seemingly torn from the jaournal of one of the modern witchdoctor cum chemists who had reduced him to such a state, which shed some light on the poor fellow's plight. The page contains some alarming indications of a new psychiatric disorder called "Flatlander Syndrome", and has caused us to review the policies and procedures of our entire Decoy Program. Here is a small excerpt (which is all the Fakie legal team will allow to be published at this point):
"Another Caucasian male patient admitted today calling himself "Flatlander" and exhibiting persecution dementia centred around a time travelling demonic figure named "The Xister". This one picked up in the business district at lunch hour, raving on about a werewolf army and the end of civilization...typical schizoid behaviour. What's odd is the uniformity of the cases appearing in recent months, this last bringing the count to fifteen patients, all claiming to be this "Flatlander" character. Same odd cranial scar pattern evident at base of skull on all patients, as if they had been subjected to some sort of lower brain stem altering surgery. Sadly, nothing much to be done but administer anti-psychotics and monitor patient's behaviour for further indications....."
Evidently, some new and more foolproof method of "deep embedding" the Flatlander persona and belief system on the volunteer hosts may have to be devised. It has also been suggested by some members of the Fakie think tank that recruiting candidates from homeless shelters and soup kitchens, merely on the basis of perfunctory resemblances to Flatlander himself, may be insufficient, and that deeper psychological screening mechanisms might be put in place to better assess a potential decoy's mental suitability.
We should note that some former Fakiegrind employees have suggested that it is not inadequacies in the hosts themselves, but rather certain paranoiac tendencies in the seed personality being imprinted, that have lead to the current impasse. This theory is, of course, absurd, and the conspiratorial undertones implied in it have lead to the dismissal of the parties involved, who obviously would do better working in some less taxing field, such as urban custodial services.
More reasonable voices have put forth the idea that it is only natural for another sentient, reflective soul to want to be the Flatlander. The very success of our Decoy Program, which now boasts upwards of 100 simulacra, is evidence in support of this very human and understandable tendency. It can only be seen as a tragic frailty of the human psyche (and not an unwanted corollary of our rigorous de-re-programming technique, the legal team has assured me of this) that some of our decoys should want to take things a step beyond their loyalty training and make a break with reality in actually believing themselves to be the commander-in-chief of the Fakiegrind empire.
Until we can figure out how to buttress certain sensitive neural pathways in the human brain to circumvent this unfortunate tendency, the Decoy Program has had to be put under indefinite suspension. Sadly, this may mean a number of out of work, wannabe Flatlanders set loose upon the world, perhaps even penning their own blogs in the vain delusion of being the original, archetypal Flatlander-Prime of Fakiegrind fame. So, until our legal team issues the proper stop-and-desist orders, we are advising readers to beware of imitations. Fakiegrind will remain at this address, broadcasting on this channel, as always, and will not change it's name to "Fakygrind", "Fakeegrind" or any other phonetical perversion of our original nomenclature.
There is, and only ever shall be, one Flatlander and one united Fakiegrind, diligently fighting the abuse of time travel technology to the end of time itself, long may we blog!
