Aftershock & Others: 19 Oddities

by F. Paul Wilson

  Raced up to ICM hq in Beverly Hills to meet our interactive agent, Stefanie Henning. Met the books-to-film agent Alicia Gordon and discussed sending out DNA WARS during the anticipated hoopla over the Star Wars rerelease.

  Met with our ICM film script agent Doug MacLaren (I like his name because it sounds like a single malt) and discussed what might fly as a spec script. Met ICM’s online agent Mark Evans, then discussed details of the MSN proposal with Stef. After that we followed Stef back toward the Pacific to Venice.

  Stefanie (and Mark Evans) took us to dinner at World Café on Main in Venice (a real bitch finding a parking space) because there was an interactive social thing being held there. Had an excellent dinner of peppered tuna steak very rare with an Australian Merlot that was smooth as silk. Peter Marx stopped by to say hello—we’ve got an 8:30 with him at the B’Way Deli tomorrow. Jed stopped by the table and said he was going to Sushi Hama further down Main and to stop by after dinner.

  So we said good-bye to Stef and Mark and headed that way. Passed Ahhhhnold’s Schatzi’s but didn’t care to try it. Went to Sushi Hama and found Jed and Jeanette (also of Orion) and another couple and sat down with them. Wasn’t hungry but managed to force down some sushi and Sapporo Draft along with a couple of oyster shooters (raw oyster + soyish sauce + quail egg + scallion slice = DELICIOUS!!!!!). That was enough for the night. Drove back to the Hanoi Hilton here with the windows open and wrote this.

  A hard day’s night.

  Alas, tomorrow is another day.

  1/31

  Up at 5:30 to jot down notes on a film idea Matt and I worked out last night, then the a.m. walk (down on the beach this time). The rental car got dinged in the fender while parked overnight. The hotel’s reaction was “Duh?” but AmEx said they’d cover everything.

  Walked to the Broadway Deli and on the way we worked out what we were going to pitch to MGM Interactive later that a.m. Decided to avoid horror because it might overlap with our MSN project, “Elysium.” Met with Peter Marx (who was set to be the chief programmer of the Mirage CD ROM when it was at TWEP) at Broadway Deli to discuss working together on the project we’re pitching to MGM; he caught us up on all the interactive gossip.

  Met with Ken Locher at MGM Interactive, and who’s working there but Mike Guttentag who gave us each a copy of The Ultimate James Bond, an interactive he’d shepherded.

  We got invited to an opening night screening of the Star Wars rerelease…well, sort of…all the screenings are full until 1:30 a.m. and that’s too late if we’re catching an 8:00 a.m. flight tomorrow.

  Beacon Films hired Craig Spector as scripter for The Tomb. I was happy about that. He’s good.

  Early February found us again in Cricklewood, north of London, sitting around the big table in the Bits conference room and talking about Dark Half Interactive. In my experience, interactive story/design meetings seem to have a recurrent pattern. You’ve got the writers, the producer, the graphics designer, and the code heads who do the programming. Usually us normal folks can’t understand the programmers anyway, but this one fellow at Bits presented an extra challenge in that he was from Dundee. So not only did he speak with a glutinous Scottish burr, but the sounds originated somewhere south of his thyroid. He’d speak, Matt and I would look at each other in the hope (forlorn) that one of us had caught something, then someone would translate.

  But the most rewarding results of these meetings arose from the interplay between the creators and the programmers. Matt and I would say what we wanted a character to do in a certain interaction, then the code guys would either nod or shake their heads and say, “Nope. No way we can do that.” Cut and dried. But things got interesting when one guy would say no and then another would say, “Hey, wait. Maybe we can if we…” and then they’d argue in Gearese. Sometimes we’d spark an innovation. Other times they’d say no, we can’t do that, but we can do this. And Matt and I would look at each other and say, “You can do that? Why didn’t you tell us! Man, that changes everything!” And then it would be our turn to yammer.

  On a good day…magic.

  In early spring I finished the first draft of Legacies just as Deep as the Marrow was published.

  Matt, myself, artist Randy Gaul, and producer Jeff Leiber (who later went on to write Tuck Everlasting and co-create Lost) met here and there on both coasts to work out the DHi gameplay. Things went swimmingly until MGM bought Orion. As typically happens in these takeovers, all projects not in production were halted. In a matter of months, Bits was dropped as developer and Jed let go. (He’s since become an indie filmmaker.) Dark Half Interactive was orphaned.

  Vaporware. Again.

  And to add insult to injury, Matt and I had screwed ourselves financially. Knowing this would be the only interactive Stephen King game in existence, and sure to sell like crazy, we’d taken a smaller front end in exchange for a bigger back end. Sometimes you can be too smart for your own good.

  The interactive craze seemed to be winding down. Matt and I worked briefly with Xulu in San Jose until they decided to do everything in-house. That seemed to be a trend: Back away from expensive freelancers and use staff.

  We finished the DNA Wars novel and retitled it Masque. Then we started on a stage play we called “Syzygy.”

  Not everything was looking glum. On September 15 our interactive adventure “Derelict” launched on the SciFi Channel’s Dominion Web site. It had state-of-the-art streaming audio and we came up with a clever (I might even say brilliant) way to explain the static visuals.

  Finally, one of our projects had overcome the vaporware curse.

  And then right on the heels of that, another: Disney Interactive released MathQuest with Aladdin the same month. Robin Williams did Genie’s voice, and Jonathan Winters was on board too. I’ve been there, done that with a lot of things, but it was a thrill listening to two of the funniest people on Earth playing with our dialogue. The disc is still available and I say this in all sincerity (I have no back end—nobody gets royalties on a Disney project): If you have a child in first through third grade, get MathQuest with Aladdin. It’s truly painless learning.

  I spent a few days in October editing and de-anachronizing The Tomb for its Forge reprint. The novel was firmly anchored in the 1980s with its depiction of pre-Disney Times Square and mentions of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. They had to go. I wasn’t crazy about the prose either—seemed overwritten—and I edited what I could. But you can do only so much when working on Xeroxes of old paperback pages.

  October saw the publication of the Wilson-Spruill opus, Nightkill. (Steve had a contract with Doubleday at the time and they refused to allow his name on the book; so he grabbed his wife’s maiden name and went on the cover as Steven Lyon.)

  And then, out of the blue, Tom Cruise’s production company, Cruise-Wagner, made an option offer on Masque through Polygram Filmed Entertainment.

  While we waited to see how that sorted out, I started The Fifth Harmonic, a novel unlike anything I’d ever done.

  At the end of the year I looked back and wasn’t thrilled. I’d published only one novel (and that a collaboration) and written only one short story. Yeah, Derelict and MathQuest appeared, but the year had ended on a low note on the interactive front. Maybe the frenzy was fading. Too much vaporware. Too much money being spent with nothing to show for it. I had no doubt about the industry’s viability—it could only get stronger—but I sensed a period of restructuring ahead.

  “LYSING TOWARD BETHLEHEM”

  “Lysing Toward Bethlehem” is an odd little piece inspired by an Alan Clark painting. I don’t usually write stories based on paintings, but it was Alan’s idea. I’ve admired his work over the years because it’s so consistently disturbing.

  A word or two about Alan. Appearances can deceive. Here’s this cherubic fellow with clean-cut hair, easy smile, clear complexion, and bright eyes. No dreadlocks, nostril rings, leather pants—none of the artiste-manqué affectations. Alan Clark tries to pass himself off as some plain
old preppie dude with this slow, easygoing Southern drawl.

  Don’t be fooled for a minute. You’ve got to realize when you look at Alan Clark’s paintings you’re looking at the inside of his head.

  How’s that for a scary thought?

  So anyway, about midyear he called me to say he’s putting together this anthology called Imagination Fully Dilated for which he’s asking writers to choose one of his paintings and write a story about it. A color print of the painting will be tipped in opposite the first page of the story.

  Sounded interesting. I chose “Phagescape,” a surreal close-up of a flagellated bacterium being attacked by bacteriophages. (You can Google it for a look.) For kicks I decided to adopt the virus’s point of view and emphasize story points through typesetting. Not only do you get a crime story, but a virology primer as well.

  “Lysing Toward Bethlehem” is very short. But then, how much time do you want to spend as a virus?

  Lysing Toward Bethlehem

  By most definitions of alive, I am not.

  I have no ability to respond to my environment. I cannot absorb nutrients from that environment and convert them to energy and mass. For what purpose? I have no organs or even organelles to feed. I am not mobile and I cannot self-reproduce.

  But I am an integral part of the biosphere. I am organic. I consist of a single strand of nucleic acid wrapped in a snug protein coat. That is all. I am a model of efficiency. No part of me exists without a specific purpose.

  I am, in a word, elegant.

  The Maker fashioned me to be so. He designed my nucleic acid core and my protein coat with special characteristics, for a specific purpose. And then He placed me in this pressurized vial.

  The Maker seems to know all, but does He know that when I am massed like this, when uncounted millions of my polyhedron units are packed facet to facet to facet, I become aware? So strange to be so many and yet be…one.

  But why am I here? Am I a mere toy, or did the Maker fashion me for a purpose? I may never know. The Maker is a god, and as a god, He has not deigned to share His plan for me. My destiny is written, but it is not for me to read.

  I am, in a word, property.

  And suddenly I am free, swirling and tumbling from the container into space, my millions and millions of units scattering in the heated breeze. Scattering…but awareness holds. It was not the proximity. Is it the sheer weight of my numbers? Or is it my special nature? No matter—it is wonderful.

  The breeze carries me. I have no means of locomotion, so I must go with it. I am at its mercy. But this is not a free, open wind; this is contained within a steel conduit. Strands of dust adhering to the steel walls snare bits of me, but the bulk of my biomass flows on unimpeded.

  Where to? For what purpose? If only I knew.

  My smooth flow is hindered by a grille. It causes turbulence, whirling me about as the air strains through the slit openings. An instant in a softly whistling gale and then I am free again, eddying into a cooler space, a vast, empty, limitless space.

  No…not limitless. I sense walls far to each side, seemingly as far as the galactic rim. And a ceiling above, merely as far as the moon. But below…far, far below…a warm throbbing mass of life, churning, curling, mixing, respiring.

  A sea of hosts.

  And now I begin to see. The host species is the same as The Maker’s, but He is superior to them. He stands apart from them, a ruler of the stuff of life, a god. Now I understand why the Maker fashioned me: to invade other, lesser members of His kind—many of His kind, considering my numbers.

  But is His grievance with all of these, or merely one? If the Maker has but a single target, He is exposing all in order to reach just that one. He must have a dire grievance against that target.

  I spread widely into the room air, yet further attenuation does not diminish awareness.

  But the cooler temperature is not good for me. It disturbs my protein coat, altering its structure. Why am I so terribly fragile, so temperature sensitive? Did the Maker plan that?

  Some of my units begin to die. I must find a warmer clime if I am to survive.

  I ride the Brownian currents, looping and dipping, and dropping, dropping, dropping onto the host herd.

  And now I mix with them, swirl around them, float among them. I cannot attack them from out here, cannot pierce their tough outer layer. And I cannot simply be invited across their thresholds—they must carry me inside.

  And so I wait to be given shelter.

  But hurry, please. I am losing more units to the cold.

  A rich and powerful herd, this, dressed in black and white, and studded with shiny minerals. An elite clique among the host mass—the air teems with self-satisfaction. And as they talk and whisper and laugh, they drag me into their respiratory orifices.

  At last! Warm again. This is a perfect temperature.

  Now the invasion begins.

  I must be wary. The hosts have formidable defenses: enzymes, antibodies, phagocytes—a xenophobic task force ever vigilant against intruders. But the essentially liquid medium of the host’s body that allows its militia to range far and wide in search of foreigners also allows me to spread—in fact it will propel me—throughout the system.

  First I adhere to the moist cells that line the respiratory tract. I am so tiny I can slide along the mucousy cellular surfaces and slip between them; there I enter the sluggish flow of tissue fluid. Gradually I am drawn into the afferent lymph channels where I make swifter progress toward the vital centers of the host.

  No sign of my target cells yet—I will know them by their receptor proteins—and none expected. I have merely entered the periphery of the jungle, and am navigating but a small tributary toward the river that runs through it.

  The first contest lies directly ahead…at the lymph nodes.

  As I hit the nodes, the immune alarms go off, alerting the batteries of B-cells and T-cells, scrambling the phages. The battle is on.

  Huge, ferocious macrophages lunge from their barracks, hungrily engulfing my units, ingesting them, stripping them of their protective protein coats and tearing the nucleic innards asunder. Sticky, Y-shaped antibodies cling like leeches to the polyhedron surfaces of other units, incapacitating them, dragging them down, hobbling them, making them easy prey for the phages.

  Bit by bit, I am falling prey to the host’s bodyguards, but I am unbowed. I am too many for the host’s armamentarium. The Maker foresaw these battles and supplied me with more than sufficient units to weather the attacks. He counted the stars, and gave me their number.

  I am legion.

  I move on. I flow into the efferent channels and leave the lymph nodes behind. The phages and antibodies nip relentlessly at my heels, dragging down the stragglers. They are indefatigable and, given enough time, will gnaw my number to zero. But they will not have that time. Even now the lymph channel empties into the venous circulation and I am flowing ever faster toward the host’s soft center. Biconcave red blood cells, dark with carbon dioxide, tumble about me. Are these my target cells? No. I have no affinity toward their receptors.

  I tumble into the terrible churning turbulence of the heart where I am washed this way and that, brushing against the pulsing muscular walls of the right ventricle. But I do not adhere to its lining. The heart then, is not my target. I am crowded into the small vessels that service the lungs, caught in the frantic catapulting of CO2 molecules and the greedy grab of fresh oxygen by the red cells, then another, even more turbulent ride through the left ventricle, through the aortic valve and then…

  I spread into the arteries.

  Up to this point I have been fairly contained, confined to the lymph channels and some of the veins. But now…now I am able to disperse throughout the host in search of my target cells.

  But I do not have to go far. Here…here in the artery itself, I sense welcoming receptors in the vessel wall, calling, reaching, just microns away behind the flimsy intimal lining.

  The Maker is so clever. He fashioned
my protein armor so that it closely resembles the proteins that feed the muscle cells in the middle layer of the host’s arteries. The cells of the media layer pull me toward them, form a neat little pocket around me, and bubble me through the protective membrane into the soupy interior.

  Finally I am where I belong. I have reached my Promised Land. But I remain inert, helpless within my protein coat—for my armor is also my prison. But no fear. The cell will take care of that.

  As soon as I am inside, enzymes nibble away at the protein polyhedron they have snagged, reducing it to its component amino acids. They have no interest in the strand of nucleic acid coiled within, so they leave that floating among the cell’s organelles.

  Now I am safe. Let the antibodies and phages rage impotently outside. They cannot reach me in this cytoplasmic sanctum without destroying the sibling cell that houses me.

  And now I am ready to start the task for which I was created, now for the first time in this cycle I am as close as I will ever come to being…

  ALIVE.

  The membranous maze of the endoplasmic reticulum, the power cells of the mitochondria, and the protein factories of the ribosomes lay spread out before me, unprotected, ripe for hijacking. For that is what I have been engineered to do: Invade the cell and launch a coup d’état during which I execute the nuclear DNA. After I establish control I commandeer the cellular machinery and force it to do my bidding. I impose my nucleic acid blueprint on its production facilities, and they roll out…

  More of me.