“The Martian says something,” Clark confirmed. - That's right, the first week we play for four hundred, and then we begin to dress again.
It was not in my plans. If the public pecks at the Riders, they simply will not be affordable for me. But, on the other hand, four hundred dollars is really not money, and I desperately need a cheap final number.
“Okay,” I agreed, “but a deal: you stay with me, no matter who lures you.”
“We give you my word of honor,” answered Stony Clark.
This is what our business is based on - on parole, exchanged by a former sharpie and a pederast.
199 days to an hour "h" ...
The military is not interested in the end result of their activities, so the thoughts of these people are easy to control, easy to direct and just as easy to confuse. The end result is the goal that the civil authorities set before the military. To determine the goal is the business of civil authorities, the business of the military is to achieve this goal by the most advantageous use of the means at their disposal.
It is only natural that the war in Asia caused confusion among my high-ranking Pentagon clients. The government clearly formulated the goal for them: to destroy the partisans. However, it exceeded its authority by intervening in the choice of funds. The generals considered this a blatant injustice; not enough to say injustice was lawlessness. The current situation did not bode well for the country, but I, taking advantage of the massive spread of paranoia among members of the generals, convinced them to submit both of my plans to the president. The President agreed to implement the main thing, provided that the auxiliary will ensure the formation of public opinion in the right direction.
My main plan is simple and clear. Knowing that bad flying weather makes our planes ineffective with their relative accuracy of hitting a target, the enemy made it a rule to concentrate his forces in larger units and launch offensive operations against us during the rainy season. However, these larger military formations are a highly vulnerable target for tactical nuclear weapons, the effect of which does not depend on the accuracy of the hit. In full confidence that, for reasons of a domestic political character, we will never dare to use nuclear weapons, the enemy, of course, will again try to regroup our forces by the next rainy season into larger units of the size of a division or even a regiment.The simultaneous detonation of a small number of nuclear devices - say, twenty bombs with a force of one hundred kilotons each - in strategically important places will be enough to destroy at least two hundred thousand enemy soldiers, which makes up almost two-thirds of their troops. The blow will be crushing.
My supporting plan, on the success of which depends on whether or not to be the main thing, is much more cunning, and indeed its purpose is much more insidious: to ensure that public opinion agrees to the use of nuclear weapons, and in the best case scenario, even would require this. The task is not an easy one, but my plan, with all its exoticism, is reliable, and if they provide me with unconditional - albeit hidden, it doesn't matter - support for the military elite, relevant government circles and leaders of military concerns, I undertake to implement it using those means that I now have. Of course, there is an element of risk, it is not worth completely discounting it, but it does not go beyond the permissible limits.
189 days to an hour "h" ...
Well, I hit my companions in the face! And rightly so, these scammers do not understand another treatment. How did they treat me, you think, better? They got into confidence, circled around a finger, and then they sat down on the neck. At first, when they needed to lure me, they promised golden mountains.
“Twenty percent of your net profit, Herm,” they hummed.
“All our artists, all the scenery at your disposal, Herm,” they said.
“We will make you a millionaire, Herm!” - promised.
And I hung my ears like the last fool, because I sat aground, and signed a contract with them without reading the small print. How did I know that these robbers would levy all taxes on me? They turned the American Dream into a television studio, they are raking in money, but I work like a black man and can't make ends meet. Rogues, swindlers, ruined, allowed around the world, and even want to push around, indicate who I should engage in my institution.
“Go negotiate with the Four Horsemen,” they send me. “Their group is now singing in Mandala.” We want to show the guys in the program “Evening in the American Dream”. Everyone is eager for them.
“Yeah,” I say, “torn.” Therefore, these same “Riders” will fly me a pretty penny. Sorry, I tell them, nothing will come of it.
But again they poke a contract under my nose - another point in small print! By golly, now I will always read the contracts under the microscope. And what do you think! It turns out that I should invite everyone whom my TV companions tell me, and at the same time bear all the costs. Ugh, choke on your Riders!
Nothing to do, I went to the "Mandala" to break these hippies. I arrived there at half-past twelve, I decided to push less among the rabble there. Bernstein bought a burnt acting club on the Strip, broke all the walls and partitions inside, and pulled something like a huge tent made of white canvas. Outside there are projectors, jupiters, speakers and all kinds of electronic devilry, inside it looks like you are surrounded on all sides by movie screens, there is a canvas stretched around and a bare floor, there is no stage, there is some kind of platform on wheels, the speakers are being rolled in and out on it. The cheap is desperate.
You understand that this audience will not go to such a barn, especially since the “American Dream” functions nearby, on which my companions profit, if they are damned three times. The unwashed hippies who I wouldn't let go to my doorstep and senior dudes who, apparently, think that in this tavern they join a beautiful life, are gathering in the Mandala. There is a brisk drug trade. Police officers do not favor this place, during raids here they seize inveterate troublemakers. Nativity scene, a real nativity scene.The penultimate number ended, the “Riders” had not yet been rolled out, it remained to watch hippies crammed into this idiotic tent: a good half had already thoroughly loaded with heroin, marijuana, amphetamine, LSD and other good things, the hippie- working schoolchildren, too, were almost all platooned, they were bullied, some crazy nerds and that look start a fight with the police. Everyone is standing and waiting for something, and their eyes are burning with impatience. I stay close to the exit - just in case, for God is safe and safe.
Suddenly, the lighting in the hall goes out, the darkness - as if these crooks-TV men had opened their souls to me. I grab at the wallet, the people here are so, go and make sure no one gets into your pocket. Yes, and so, at least the dark eye is gouged out. Five, ten seconds pass, and it begins to seem to me that something seems to be creeping along my body. Yeah, I dare, infrasound tricks, because the hippies froze, do not move, and the silence around is dead.
But from the huge speakers a blow falls, so loud that I almost went deaf. Then another, third, they fall slowly, slowly and hard, loudly - probably, this is how a whale's heart beats. The infrasound crawling over me begins to shudder to the beat with these beats, and I myself turn into this huge stupid heart that beats here in the dark.
In a beam of dark red light, so dense and dense that it is difficult to call it light, a scene arises that they managed to roll out during this time. On the stage are four young men in black hoodies, and this ugly red light floods them like blood. Brrrr, passion. Boom-ba-boom ... Boom-ba-boom ... The heart keeps beating its beats, this infrasonic tremor creeps and creeps, and the hippies look at the Riders like hypnotized chickens.
The rhythm of heart beats picks up the double bass (to look at the guy who plays it, you will get scared: a bandit, a complete criminal type). Doom da-doom ... Doom da-doom ... Deafening drum roll. Hitching, soul-catching electric guitar chords are the screams of a torn cat. Wang-ka-wang ... Wang-ka-wang ...
Wow, it sneaks right down to the bones, to the liver itself. A steam hammer is hammering in my ears. Ev
eryone sways to the beat, I sway along with everyone ... Boom-bang-boom ... Boom-bang-boom ...
And the guitarist wheezes in a powerless, dying grunt:
- And the fire will break out ... And the fire will break out ...
The guy behind the light control panel begins to conjure on his buttons, and the walls of the tent are lighted: changing color, rings of light crawl from bottom to top, they are blue at the floor, turn green a little higher, green turns into yellow, yellow to orange, and the orange ring closes on the ceiling in a red circle of neon-unnatural brightness. The ring manages to go around the tent in exactly one clock cycle.
Lord, what is this? Some force squeezes me in time with the blows, as if I were a tube of toothpaste. Unbearably, my skull will now burst!
And the pace is getting faster. The same beats, similar to the beats of the heart, the same fraction of the drums, the same chords of the electric guitar, the same iridescent rings of light, the same spells “And the fire will break out! And the fire will break out! ”, And the infrasound trembling creeping over the body, and the tearing strings of double bass pizzicato - all the same, only a little faster ... faster, faster!
Another minute - and I can't stand it. The heart will now jump out of the chest. Scribbling the endless machine-gun line of the drum, rings of light pull me up the walls into a red neon funnel ...
This is the end, the end! Sounds, color, light - everything merged into a frantic whirlwind, and the voice no longer wheezes, but weeps, and the beat of the heart - thunder, and the beating of the drum - groan, the guitar sobs muffled, and I am gone , no, I am breaking up into atoms, disappearing ...
The walls and ceiling of the tent flare up. I am blinded by unexpected light.
The speakers throw the sound of such a powerful explosion into the hall that I almost fall off my feet.
I feel how everything is squeezing me through a bursting skull - My God, how nice it is ...
Then:
The roar of the explosion goes into a rumble.
The rays of the spotlights come down at one point on the ceiling, everything else is plunged into darkness.
A spot of light on the ceiling turns into an atomic cloud.
The atomic cloud slowly unfolds under the subsiding rumble of the explosion. It turns pale, goes out and finally dissolves in a dull blackness.
The room lights up.
Oh you hell. Awesome!
Oh you hell. Ingenious!
After the performance, I took the guys aside to talk one on one. When it turned out that they didn't have an impresario and were not connected with the Mandala even the contact option, I made a decision with lightning speed.
I will not go into details, I can only say that I planted a colossal pig in the studio. I signed a contract with the Riders, which made me their impresario and gave me twenty percent of their fees. Then he engaged them in the American Dream for ten thousand dollars a week, wrote out a check as the director of the American Dream, put it in his pocket as an impresario of the Four Horsemen and broke his contract with the television studio, leaving her a debt of ten thousand dollars, and for myself - twenty percent of the fees of the most promising group after the Beatles.
And what the hell, in fact: the one who makes money in small print will die from the small print.
148 days to an hour "h" ...
“You haven't seen the tape yet, BD?” Jake asked me. He was something very nervous. It's customary for people of my rank to have subordinates nervous in their presence, but Jake Pitkin is still the head of the editing department at the studio, rather than an ordinary petty bastard, he would seem to shy in front of his bosses. Is there really any truth in the rumors that have reached me?
We were alone in the viewing room. In my opinion, the projection engineer could not hear us.
“I have not seen,” I answered. “But I heard quite strange things.”
Jake turned pale as death.
- Concerning films, BD?
“Touching you, Jake.” - I smiled amiably: let him know that I do not attach any importance to the rumors. - I heard, for example, that you do not want to broadcast.
“That's true, BD,” he said firmly.
- Yes, you are aware of what you are saying?! Whatever your personal tastes are - by the way, if you want to know, I myself don't like these “Riders”, they have some kind of pathology, but now it's the most fashionable rock band in the country. This infamous con artist Herm Gellman tore off two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from us in just one hour. We slammed two hundred thousand to shoot the film, another hundred thousand ate advertising - customers do not spare the cost. The tape flew into a million, if not more. And if we don't air the show, we will fling that million dog down the drain.
“I know, BD,” Jake answered. “I also know that I risk losing my job.” And still, I am opposed to the broadcast being broadcast. Think about it. Let me show you the very end. I am sure you will understand why I am ready to remain without work, and agree with me.
Under the spoon, I disgusted sucked. Above me, too, is the boss, and this boss said that the Riders Call program will, under all conditions, be shown to viewers. Under all conditions. And this issue is not subject to discussion. Yes, something not quite clear is happening. We bought the time for a commercial transfer from us at an unbelievable price, and this was done by a military concern that had never ordered an advertisement for us. However, I was much more worried about something else: Jake Pitkin was not famous for free thinking and independence of views, and here you go - now puts his work at stake. So, I'm sure of my support, otherwise I would not dare to take such a step.Alas, absolutely nothing depended on me, even though I couldn't tell Jake about it.
“Get started,” Jake ordered into the microphone. And when the light went out in the viewing room, he turned to me: - You will now see their last number, BD
... The clear blue sky on the screen, languid, lazy guitar chords. The camera slowly creeps across the sky: light white clouds, a small, infinitely distant sun - not the sun, but a tiny luminous dot. This point swims toward the center of the screen, and at that moment a quiet buzzing of the sitar is interwoven into the chords of the electric guitar. Slow, very slow hitting the sun. And the bigger his ball becomes, the louder the buzzing, the guitar becomes silent, and the drum begins to beat the rhythm. Louder, louder the buzz of the sitar, and harder the sound of the drum, and faster, faster, and the sun continues to rise, and finally the whole screen fills with an unbearably bright glow.Sitar and the drum seemed crazy, but, blocking them, a voice sounds - like the moan of a patient in feverish delirium:
- Brighter - thousands - of the suns ...
The light fades slightly, a beautiful woman face with dark hair, huge eyes and wet lips comes out of it, and suddenly only the muffled cooing sounds of the guitar and quiet voices remain on the soundtrack:
“Brighter than a thousand ... a thousand suns!”
The woman's face is blurred, on the screen there are “Four Horsemen” in black clothes, and the melody that arose with the appearance of the woman's face turns into a minor and already sounds like a funeral song to the accompaniment of mournful, detached electric guitar chords and the sad melody of a sitar:
- The world is getting dark ... getting dark ... getting dark.
Installation of insert frames:
Burning Vietnamese village, murdered women, children ...
- The world is getting dark, getting dark, getting dark.
Mountains of corpses in Auschwitz ...
- And night!
Gigantic car cemeteries, in the foreground - thin, like skeletons, Negro kids in rags ...
- I will die ...
A black ghetto engulfed in flames in Washington, in the background is the foggy silhouette of the Capitol ...
“... without seeing the dawn!”
The huge, full screen, face of the "rider" -solist, reduced by a spasm of despair and ecstasy. The sitar plays in a double rhythm, the guitar cries woefully, an
d the "horseman" screams in frenzy:
“But I'm still alive, and let me go this way!” Rather, I call you with me, there are moments!
Again the woman's face, but ethereal, transparent, with a merciless yellow light beating through him. The sitar rumbles more and more rapidly to the doomed sobbing of the guitar, and the “horseman" enters in inevitable torment:
- And fire will break out, a great fire will light up my sky!
On the screen - nothing but hard, blinding light ...
- Death! Chaos! Nothing!
The screen goes blank instantly. After a few seconds, blackness begins to flash along the horizon with a dull bluish glow ...
- Let the fire erupt ... great fire ... our last light ... No one will return to go again this way!
The music is silent. In complete silence, the screen is illuminated by an explosion of monstrous power. Tearing eardrum rumble. The ominous mushroom of the atomic cloud slowly unfolds. Under the weakening hum and roar it is filled with fire. Again, this time, barely distinguishable, a woman's face appears through an atomic cloud. And drowning the roar, a voice whispers with obscene reverence:
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