My father had been a financier and took the family into legal ventures with an emphasis on biotechnology, genomics, and molecular electronics research stock. He knew it wouldn't be long before the bosses like the Ganooch would put it to good use rewiring their hearts, brains, and DNA strands in order to steal a few extra years from the devil. It had been his idea to hardwire the environmental satellite and hack into the museum storehouses and depository indexes. You couldn't wrangle too far into the government systems without causing a major stir, but you could ease in sideways. Knowledge was power, even if you only read up on the ancient world.
Now I watched my grandfather's creative juices flowing: the neuro-chemicals splashed inside his slowly decaying brain. My history lay in there, my name and maybe even a part of my soul. I could see a portion of his uncovered brainstem, where they'd rutted into his spine to give him a little mobility and the ability to breathe on his own again.
"Why do you want to paint?" I asked.
Tommaso, il dolore—il dolore…l'agonia—
I kneeled before him and put my hand on his, the way I used to do as a child. "What pain, Grandpa?"
I shouldn't have asked. His frothing emotions rioted in my bloodstream and I felt an anguish and dread that was as intense as my own though it had nothing to do with me. Even Dante felt it upstairs and let out a howl. I had enough of my own grief and didn't need another man's sorrow coupled to my own. I couldn't make much of it out, the rapid-fire feelings that a person can undergo when thinking back on his own life—and his death as well.
Despondent over what he'd missed out on, the women he didn't bed, the kindness that went unrewarded. Guilty over some of the wrong he'd done, the terror he'd caused innocents, and yet even now holding on to an undying, endless rage for this world and whatever lay beyond the world. Fury and pride and petty hatred, a wellspring of pity and a great swelling of love. For Mama, his mistresses, his long dead parents and siblings, and his many grandchildren, but especially Dante and even me, whom he always called his good boy.
"All right!" I yelled over the breaking tide of his mind. "We'll paint! Wait here, I'll be back in a little while."
Oils.
"Shouldn't you start with water colors or something?"
Oils, he told me, and started beaming again. As I left I felt an electrical humming in the back of my skull shaping itself into words without sound. Harrisburg, PA, as reported at Middletown, PA, 51°F. Fair, UV Index: 0 Minimal. Wind: From the North Northeast at 5 mph. Dew Point: 32°F, Humidity: 48% Visibility: Unlimited Pressure: 29.91 inches and rising. Local Pollen Forecasts Today: High (11.8). Predominant Pollens: Oak, Birch and Maple.
Barabbas and I walked downtown to Kolinski's Art Supplies and Fine Materials. Anton Kolinski had two sons who were cops in the Rossi family's pocket. I got along with them pretty well. I got along with most people pretty well because they knew I was the calm, shiftless Ganucci who preferred museums and Truffaut films over doing the kind of stuff that makes for good cable. Occasionally, when I was younger, it left me open to a few kidnapping schemes, but now I mostly just got wary looks and a lot of free crap.
Kolinski barely broke five foot tall on his tiptoes, but he had short guy attitude with a pair of powerful arms welded to a wiry frame. No matter how relaxed he might appear, I knew he was always ready to throw himself forward and take on just about anybody at any time.
He bent and patted Barabbas, who moaned with pleasure, and said, "What can I do you for, Mr. Ganucci?"
I tried to keep the gloom out of my voice. "Anton, I've been thinking about turning my hand at oil painting."
"You?"
"Me."
"Yeah? Oils?" He stuck his fists on his hips and flexed so the veins bulged on his tiny, solid forearms. "Maybe you should start with water colors."
It made the muscles in my jaw tighten up, but I kept going with the vapid smile and said nothing. Barabbas stayed perfectly heeled and walked side by side with me up the aisles as I glanced around.
The dance never ended. Kolinski did his best to appear impassive and uninterested, but he paid careful attention to everything I said, and I knew he'd give his sons a call the minute I walked out. Good, it would soon filter back to Carla and keep everybody wondering. The Ganooch might have a thousand libraries' worth of classical arts information filled to his cerebral brim, but I asked Kolinski for a few pointers anyway.
It eased his mind some and he gave me a couple of bits of advice, ticking each one of on his fingers. "Paint loose," he said. "Dark against light. Far away things are small. Never place the horizon dead center. Paint at eye level."
"Got it."
He handed me a half dozen beginning lesson books. "Here, read these, they might help."
"Okay."
He showed me around to various products, pointing out each of their benefits and possible drawbacks. Barabbas started getting high off the paint fumes and sort of capered around the store. The first thing we settled on was a Stanrite #180 table top easel. Kolinski thought it was me just being excessively lazy and not wanting to stand while I dabbled and smeared.
I didn't quite know how many more miles my grandfather could go before he slept, but he certainly looked a little shaky on his feet.
It took another hour for me to come away with a Plexiglas pallet, the oil paints, a smock, brushes, double primed stretched canvas, Turpenoid odorless thinner, and linseed oil to help clean up afterwards. I wondered what Ganooch's new telepathic range might be and hoped he wasn't always going to be inside my head.
Barabbas was moody and tanked enough that he didn't feel like walking, so I carried him and all the other stuff home in a big box. He stuck his teeth out at me and barked whenever a pretty girl passed our trail. A hint of rain filled the air and the breeze grew stronger. The usual melancholy took a dip towards the dark and I had to force it back. It didn't take much to really ruin a guy's day.
When I got back I set up everything in front of the bay window in my suite, and the Ganooch rolled forward without a sound. I waited for the thrust of his psychic joy but nothing came. He seemed stunned by gratification, as if this was all he could ever hope for and more. He waved me off and immediately began pouring paint onto the palette as if he'd been doing it for fifty years. I threw the beginner lesson books in the wastebasket.
Leaves spun in the wind and fluttered against the glass. I tried Carla's phone but kept getting her voice mail. I sat back and looked out at the yard, listening to Ganooch's paintbrushes dance across the canvas. He hummed to himself in his head, which I heard, and I hummed along with him. Black clouds blew in from the west and I pondered on just how far I could push the jacked weather satellite.
"Grandpa, can you get me the transponder numbers on Carla Rossi's portable communication unit, boost the system for me, and download it to my laptop?"
He dabbed at the easel and kept right on smiling in his own sphere of existence. There was no change of expression at all, no sign of exertion or concentration beyond the canvas, but the hijacked codes to her portable DOE system were relayed in seconds. She had a five to the fifth power level of security that transmitted the beam in a differential pattern across the globe, each relay more intricate than the last. Ganooch had absolutely no trouble bypassing the parameters, which scared the crap out of me.
My eyes began to burn and suddenly I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I grunted and wiped my face with my forearm, flames filling the edges of my vision. The fire took on contours and a menu blazed before me:
Ray Tracing & Photocolorimetry & Radiosity
3D Computer Modeling of Images–VRML
Complete Visible Human Data Set
Visualization Toolkit
"Not quite, Grandpa. We need the Interactive Image Processing and Synthesis table. Standard and Eigen-Wavelets."
The cyphers appeared, symbols rotating through the air until the codes intertwined and latched in before me. "That's it. Lock into the echography and the satellite images distributed by NOAA,
SPOT. Get me her personal ID iterative fast-transform phase retrieval."
The Ganooch sent the info into my laptop without ever having stopped painting or even turning in my direction. I pressed enter and waited about five minutes before Carla rose up before me, life-size and with completely vacant eyes.
Carla Rossi could still take my breath away. I'd been in love with her since we were seven, back when we met one afternoon outside Strazi's Restaurant, where our families occasionally negotiated together. It was Easter weekend and neither of us liked the fish, so we sat out front on the curb waiting until it was time for dessert. We'd been teenage sweethearts, first lovers, and we got engaged the night my mother died beneath a cab grille on Columbus Circle. Family pursuits often came between us, but I always expected we'd eventually break away on our own, get married, and raise our kids outside the influence of the biz.
"Carla, honey, what the hell is going on?"
"Now you're privateering my system?"
"More like piggy-backing on it. You weren't answering your phone."
"I'm busy."
"With what?"
"Our west coast enterprises."
I sat back and tried not to sigh. My heart thudded and I started to get a little crazy with the thought of her, the way I always did. She had smoldering Sicilian features, billows and breakers of wild black hair, and a slightly darker shade to her skin than my own. Her body was mature and ripened and always gave the impression of a barely contained detonation. She had that European quality of character-driven beauty to her rather than simple prettiness. Her powerful personality came through even in the hologram, and I fidgeted in my chair.
There was never going to be anybody else out there for me except Carla Rossi and the idea saddened, elated, and terrified me. I knew she probably felt very much the same way most of the time, but—as would always be the case—men and women handled these sorts of things in vastly different ways.
"Which enterprises?"
"All of them. We're expanding and diversifying. I'm taking over Tera Corp. Try and stop me and you'll suffer."
You couldn't turn around for two seconds without somebody tossing the monkey wrench in. Tera Corp was one of our subsidiary ventures that involved privatization and development of the space program for intergalactic colonization. It was the kind of business the Rossi family stayed far away from.
"Carla, honey?" I said, and I put an extra plaintive grumble in my voice. "What's really going on?"
She held onto the glacial front for another ten seconds and then it fell apart. I perked up and wanted to take her in my arms. She started sobbing and cried out, "I found one, Tommy!"
"One what?"
"A gray hair, Tommy. A goddamn gray hair!"
Oh shit. A shiver worked through me. "But—"
"Are you going to marry me or not?"
"You know I love you."
She sneered at that. "I know you like to use ‘family biz’ as an excuse for not making a commitment."
"That's not true," I said, though it was. My eyes darted around the room and I tried to get the Ganooch's attention so he'd break transmission, but he didn't notice.
Something happened to Carla's lovely face then. It hardened and toughened and she appeared even more competent and vicious than I knew she was, so extremely capable and indifferent to human life that I actually gulped. Sweat writhed across my forehead.
Her lips barely moved. "You know I'm a classic A-type personality with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. If I'm not going to be planning our wedding anymore I need to do something with my time and energy. I'm starting to sway towards becoming a workaholic, and I aim to take over all the action from here to Frisco. I'm going to become my father's right hand."
"That's crazy!"
"All you Ganucci's are out of your minds, but I want a life with you anyway. Are you going to marry me?"
"Listen, honey—"
She stepped forward and tapped my chest, and I swore I could feel it. "Go to early confession, Tommy. Unburden your soul. Because you're a dead man."
Three days later Dante showed up in full Christ-regalia: sandals, robe, the beard and long hair, and wearing a crown of thorns. None of those tiny red rose stickers either, these were four-inch long thistles. He might've been out of his mind, but in his own way he had a lot of guts. He said something in Latin and gave me a hug. I tried to stay inside my skin.
Dante hadn't been down from the top floor of the house for over a year. I think he was often drawn to the calm and contented humming of our grandfather's mind now. When we were kids the Ganooch would always be yelling or else laughing loudly with a hollow, false humor. Either way it was enough to paralyze us.
Now he stepped over to the bay window and stared at the painting. The Ganooch's strokes never slowed or wavered. He never slept and only ate when I spoon fed him soups. He knew exactly what he wanted and just how to get there. His arm was steady, his eyes sharp and focused.
I had initially been surprised by the fluidity of the oils. How a few strokes could completely alter style, substance and color without making everything muddy. There was a stunning sense of liquid that I hadn't encountered because I'd never see anyone actually paint in front of me before.
He used glazes between the stratum of color so light reflected through each coating. The pigments appeared suspended, as if ready to break from the landscape and splash free. The physical substance of the picture seemed less important than the fact that it was chosen as a vehicle of expression. Shadow and relief were what counted most. His style was fiery, exhibiting life, movement, and harmony but the boundaries were softened to blurs and smoke.
Staring at it made me dizzy, and I had to turn away before I got too lightheaded.
I looked back but still couldn't quite make it out. He had Christ crouched at the foot the cross there in the center, his arms massive and muscular, a pained grimace on his bearded face and a gracious glint in his scowl, with a chaos of struggling bodies surrounding him as they pressed against prison bars, limbs angling everywhere, silhouettes, tints and hues blending into emotion rather than representation, hints of pistols that could've been nickel-plated .38s—Ganooch's one-time weapon of choice—and many other hands out as if begging food, mercy, and possibly forgiveness.
I couldn't take my eyes off it and, even as I watched, my grandfather continued to work on his painting, changing it from one moment to the next, but not really altering the piece at all. Or perhaps its constant revision was merely a part of what he was trying to get at. Was it a kind of confession? A memoir or validation?
Dante began to weep, gently at first as he trembled beside me. Soon he became wracked with harsh sobs until he couldn't take it anymore and stumbled from the room. I continued staring even after Joey Fresco walked in. He took one glance and said, "The hell is it?"
"I've been wondering about that myself."
"That supposed to be our lord and savior?"
"Beats me," I told him.
"He's got a halo, I think, but what's with the wrestling cage? Who are all the faces?"
"I don't know."
A staggering sadness filled me then, the same way it had when I'd watched my father die in St. Elizabeth's hospital, shrunken from the black cancer ripping through him. I was still young enough that his hand—thin and covered with sore-riddled, chalky skin—had still completely covered my own. The machines surrounding and attached to him were the best of the time, but they hadn't been nearly enough to save him. If he'd been given the choice to come back the way the Ganooch had, I wasn't sure he'd have taken it. My father believed in technology but hated having to rely on it, especially at the end.
"He never talks to me anymore, Joe," I said. "My Grandpa. It's all computerized encoding intercommunication and transmission now."
"You think he's dead?" Joey asked, struggling to make sense of the slowly shifting oils, the weaving, looping, and entwining pattern on the easel. "Really dead?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure."
"
If he is, then why's he still painting?"
It was a good question.
I was drawn from sleep slowly, almost lovingly, by soft sounds so much like my grandmother singing Italian lullabies that I called out to her.
"Mama?" I whispered.
Security and veracity integrity breached, unauthorized activities & monitoring of network-wide intrusion detected. Unable to comply with enhanced prioritization, identification, containment, and removal of security threats. MD5 Osiris Scripts & UAC Linux-Based IDS Unified Access interface cryptographic checksums insufficient. Incapable of analyses or generation of graphical reports on intrusion activity.
"Damn it," I said and rolled out of bed in a half-crouch. I heard a mini-turret swivel in a well-oiled socket. I hit the floor and dove behind my desk as a plasma blast slim as a particle beam slashed through the room. My bed folded in half and crumpled in a heap. Ganooch continued painting in the living room. He never stopped, not even for a minute. He might've been dead, but he still had a hell of a work ethic.
A shape slid closer in the dark and drew to its full height, over seven feet tall it looked. My sheets were on fire and in the light of the flames I saw the tremendous prehensile tail swaying laterally, investigating the shelving units and baseboards behind it. Gyros whirred inside a massive chest. The pseudo-organic flesh was the wrong skin tone, as purple and mottled as someone who'd been strangled and left in a closet for a few days.
It was a Tybok. Humanoid with an exoskeleton covering semi-exposed micro-circuitry. Its metal breastplate could shake off an armor-piercing shell. The antennae wavering from its temples spit black sparks. Its eyes rolled and pivoted on needle bearings.
The government was reportedly still in the secondary stages with these things. The Tyboks were to be used for outer planetary system exploration, to give scientists more of an understanding of extraterrestrial atmospheric conditions and forces on the human body.
Somebody had been tooling it up. For one thing, it wasn't supposed to have a tail. The Tybok's right arm ended at the elbow in a T-85U portative smoothbore cannon. During the Fourth Cold War, the T-85U was exported to nation states principally in North Africa. This one had a jammer 5 mm co-axial railgun mounted in a mini-turret as well. 360 degree swiveling fire-arc and capable of tracking aerial targets. Maximum effective range of maybe 2500 meters. It had enough firepower to blast me across the Bronx and scatter my ashes down the Henry Hudson Parkway. Someone had taken an advanced anthropomorphic probe meant to explore the deep planetary system and turned it into quite a nasty little assassin.
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