by Rick K. Reut
“Can’t It discipline me Itself?” asked Controller Carman, provocatively.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to abide it,” answered Gianna Globe, a bit annoyed.
“Well, we abided it the last time, didn’t we?” intervened Victoria de Vega.
“It was about a year ago and, as far as I can recall, you were stuck between Tania and Freezena,” noted the European Controller, with an air of artificial nonchalance.
“O, such a long memory can be quite cumbersome,” chirped Conchita Carman. “I can only hope that your member isn’t much shorter.”
“You’ve seen my member. Many a time,” yawned Gianna Globe, starting to lose interest in the issue.
“But that’s the thing! I want to see it closer,” cried Conchita, playfully. “And the sooner the better.”
“Well, then you’ll have your chance come Trans Time. Though, unlike you, I won’t have to bring a magnifying glass for that.
“Right below the belt!” roared Tania Trahova, punching the air excitedly.
“Well, maybe mine is not as big as yours but I’ve still got a mucho-mucho bigger bottom!” cried Controller Carman, rising and slapping one of Its bulging buttocks with an exclamation point.
“Children, just like children!” commented the Chairtran. “And you call yourself World Controllers?”
“Well, strictly speaking, we are not so much world as Continent Controllers, Freudina” corrected Conchita Carman, slowly sitting back down. “And unlike some us, I control my part of the Continent competently enough.”
“Sure. When was the last time you did that?” Tania Trahova laughed out loud.
“The last time I stood up from your filthy face!” retorted the Central American Controller, losing Its red hot chili temper.
“You mean to say my filthy…”
“Come, come, come! That’s enough!” interjected the Chairtran, resuming Its exhortations.
“But how do you expect us to come so soon when it’s not even Trans Time yet?” wondered Conchita.
“That’s right,” agreed Victoria, “where is our Trans Time? We want our Trans Time!”
“O dear, dear, dear! You know well enough that the Trans Time can’t start before all the important issues on the agenda are duly addressed and resolved,” Freudina Fordy explained patiently.
“So, why don’t we resolve them once and for all, and then proceed to a much more pleasant part of the party?!” wondered Controller Carman.
“As if there was something to resolve here! What do you want us to do?! Put the question to a referendum?!” Tania Trahova tried to restate Its point. “Like you don’t know that we don’t live in a democratic state any more, since it has proved to be a regime of power completely incompatible with human happiness! Too much is given to blind chance and then expected that it will work all by itself as if by a wave of a magic wand! There is no way democracy can survive in the real world. And that’s exactly why it has to be checked and controlled!”
“But who’s talking about democracy?” wondered Gianna Globe.
“No one I know right now,” Controller Trahova conceded, reluctantly. “And yet, you seem to be getting quite close to it with all these long talks of yours! And I say that there’s nothing to talk about! It’s either they comply or they must die! Plain and simple! We don’t have time to condition these idiots! It’s too late for that anyway! Nobody can be reconditioned at the age most of them are at! The baneful bacteria of free consciousness have crept too deep into their brains already! Besides, this consciousness is not even free! It is merely chance-conditioned! Pre-transsexuals used to rant about freedom and independence, but we all know that it’s just an illusion. What they used to call freedom is really nothing but blind chance. And blind chance is nothing but chaos. So this so-called freedom of must also be chaos. And do you wish to tell me that you actually want to support the idea of living in chaos?” demanded the West Asian Continent Controller, angrily.
“But so far nobody here has said anything about chaos or freedom except you, Tania,” objected the Chairtran.
“Indeed, you haven’t. But that’s because I’m the only one here bold enough to tell the truth.”
“It certainly does ball us most truthfully at Trans Times,” Conchita Carman whispered to Victoria de Vega and the two trannies tittered.
“But of course you are, my dear,” chirped Freudina. “Only right now we’re not talking about the truth per se.”
“We aren’t? And what are we talking about then?” wondered Liona Lulu
“We are talking about the best way to transform the truth. Right, Gianna?”
Controller Globe nodded.
“And the way I see it,” continued the Chairtran, “we should work out a civilized solution to the problem at this very summit. We are, after all, the World State’s Chief Caretaking Continent Controllers with loads of responsibility before the whole trans-human race on our shoulders. We are not some deplorable Nazis or Communists, let alone Democrats and Republicans, for that matter. As some of our wisest predecessors used to say, we must rule with our brains and buttocks, not with our fists or cocks.”
“Hear that? I told you that buttocks were more important than cocks,” cried Conchita Carman.
“We’ll see about that when the next Trans Time comes around,” Tania Trahova sniffed scornfully.
“And consequently,” the Chairtran continued, ignoring Its colleagues infantile comments. “I suggest that we come up with a reasonable strategy of solving that pressing problem right now. For the sooner we do that, the sooner we’ll be able to proceed to the most pleasant part of our party. Does everybody agree with me?”
The Council responded with reluctant consent.
“Certainly we agree with you, Freudina,” said Liona Lulu, voicing the Controllers’ overall opinion.
“Thank you, Liona. And since you all agree with me on this one, I assume you’ll also agree to listen to the annual report of one of our colleagues concerning this very issue. I’m talking about our Chief Caretaking Continent Controller for Europe, Its Freudship Gianna Globe!”
On cue, Controller Globe rose from Its seat to a round of reluctant yet acknowledging applause that swept through the audience and died down in its initial source – Freudina Fordy.
“Thank you, Chair Tran Fordy. Esteemed Members of the Controllers’ Council, since all of you are aware of the hardcore problem in focus, I’d prefer to go straight to business.”
“I’d prefer to go straight to hardcore,” Victoria de Vega whispered to Conchita Carman.
“And I’d prefer queer to straight,” Conchita Carman chuckled in return.
Freudina frowned at the facetious twosome before looking at Gianna Globe apologetically.
Ignoring the taunt, the European Controller carried on.
“It is certainly true that the islands pose a problem to our stability and safety, as well as our overall well-being. But in my opinion, there’s no reason to be too pessimistic or pointedly aggressive about it in the absence of immediate danger. The inhabitants of these islands are ages behind us in their technological development and can’t possibly come up with truly threatening weapons of mass destruction for at least a century. It is also true that they suffer from radical unrest caused by their archaic tribal traditions suggesting constant engagement in primitive religious practices in search of that peace of mind, which their social situation is simply unable to provide them with. The recent terrorist attacks on some of the islands can only prove that point. However, I think it would be a mistake to see all the inhabitants of these islands as enemies of our New World State. On the contrary, my reports from such restricted areas as, for instance, the Isle of Man, clearly show that there are plenty of believers in our way of life, who would be willing to convert and serve the benefit, social well-being and happiness of the trans-human kind.”
“Unfortunately for all of us, though, these proponents of our philosophy, who are willing to sacrifice all they have for the sak
e of the social order we hold dear, are not given such a chance. Instead of that, they are compelled to face all sorts of insurmountable obstacles on their way to trans-human freedom. And in most cases they find these obstacles in no other than us. Yes, US, Chief Caretaking Continent Controllers of the New World State, whose discourse of power tends to exclude these suffering minorities that could benefit from our order if we only allowed them to become that, which each one of them wishes to be. Namely, one of us. Don’t forget that even the obsolete, old-fashioned God of the Old pre-Freudian Testament was civilized enough to say that if at least one true believer was to be found in a city of sinners, He would spare the whole city, or at least the believer. And so, it is my intention to prove to you that such true believers do exist by bringing one of them before your presently wide-shut eyes.”
As soon as these words were spoken, the languid audience instantly came to life. It was as if an electric charge had passed round the table. Everyone, even Conchita Carmen and Victoria de Vega, who were secretively whispering and touching each other under the table, sprang up and stared wide-eyed at their eccentric European colleague.
“What do you mean, bring them before our eyes?!” demanded Tania Trahova. “And why the Freud do you call them wide-shut?”
“Yes, why do you call them wide-shut, Controller Kubrick?” chuckled Conchita Carman, regaining Its composure.
“You want to bring them right here? To this very room?” wondered Huy Hee.
And they weren’t the only ones. There was a whole waterfall of questions and remarks, as if a barrage had been broken.
“What kind of new liberalism is that?!” exclaimed Roxana Ra.
“There’s no way I’m signing up to this,” cried Dianna Dry.
“Neither am I!”
“Me too!”
“And me!”
“And me!”
“Silence!” commanded the Chairtran, cutting down the Council’s dissent. “You must follow the protocol, according to which nobody has the right to interrupt the Spokestran. There’ll be more than enough time for your questions afterwards. And now, respectfully allow our colleague to finish.”
“Please continue, Controller Globe.” It went on, turning to the European Controller. “However, I have to warn you that you seem to be stepping onto really shaky ground I myself am hardly able to approve of so far. Even though the Controller’s Code does compel me and…” It looked meaningfully around the room “…all of us to listen to what you have to say.”
“Thank you, Chairtran. I know I’m trying your patience here,” Controller Globe carried on as carefully as It could. “Nevertheless, I think it has to be done. I must also assure you that there’s absolutely no reason for alarm, for what I am about to ask your permission for is neither illegal nor immoral. At least not according to our current code of mores. It is really nothing more than a new stage of my educational experiment you all are quite aware of and even went as far as sanctioning at one of our summits several summers ago.”
“The experiment,” the European Controller continued filling out the gaps in the blank silence with words, “in case some of you need to be reminded of what it’s all about, consists of bringing naturally born men and women to the mainland to be exhibited at public lectures and seminars and subjected to all sorts biochemical and psychological tests. What I want to do is slightly widen the scope of these tests in an attempt to show that, with the help of certain techniques, these obsolete species can be more or less easily converted, physically as well as mentally, into one of our own kind. Not Continent Controllers, of course, but ordinary members of our society, thus helping us to solve the islands’ problem.”
The European Controller stopped for a second to take a deep lung-bursting breath before making the following announcement:
“In addition to that, being fully responsible for my words and realizing the risks I’m taking, I would also like to state my readiness to relinquish the position of the European Chief Caretaking Continent Controller in favor of anyone the Council considers to be a more capable candidate in case my experiment fails.”
There was a second of tense silence. And then another eruption of volcanic voices swamped the scene.
“Order! Order! I said, order!” cried the North American Controller, trying to calm the incensed council down. “We need to be completely clear on this point! In other words, Controller Globe, you mean to say that you’re ready to resign from the Council, provided your plan does not succeed.”
The angered audience fell silent to hear the answer.
“That is correct,” confirmed the European Controller.
“Well, what can I say?” Controller Fordy shrugged Its shoulders. “As the current Chairtran of this Council, I certainly find the proposal made by our colleague rather unconventional. Nevertheless, the presented arguments leave me no choice but to consider it quite adequate under the circumstances. And so, without any further delay, I suggest that we take a vote on it.”
It slowly eyed the council members, submerged into sluggish, underwater-like silence.
“All those in favor of the proposal, please, raise your hands!”
“Personally I don’t think it’s such a bad idea,” stated Liona Lulu, being the first one to raise Its massive chocolate palm.”
“Neither do I,” purred Roxana Ra, following Its colleagues example.
“Ah, what the Freud, why don’t we just get over it,” conceded Controller Trahova, tiredly.
“After all, it is Its rank It’s risking,” commented Dianna Dry.
“Who knows, that man or woman, or whatever it is, might turn out to be quite cute,” chuckled Conchita Carman, blazing Its bracelet-bound wrist.
“You pervert!” slapped Victoria de Vega, joining Its friend.
In the end, it was an almost unanimous decision. The Cold-blooded Controller Frost, who, as always, forbore from voting on controversial matters, attempting to maintain strict polar neutrality, was the only abstainee.
One minute after the official vote results had been duly protocoled by the committee’s computer secretary, all the ten members of the council rose from their respective seats and started to take off their business suits.
The subsequent orgy, just like the preceding debate, was uncompromisingly hot and enduring.
Chapter Eight
The selection session, according to the pamphlet Swayne Swinesteiger gave Adam Marx at the end of their encounter, was to take place in a local polyclinic a few days later. Adam spent those few days in as state of constant worry, like his whole life depended on it. And it actually did.
On his way home from the warden’s office, Adam firmly decided that if he couldn’t pass all the tests required to leave the Isle of Man for the Mainland, a place promised to be paradise on earth by what he’d heard from Helmholtz Watson, as well as what his own bountiful imagination had pictured in the broadest of strokes, he would have no other choice but to leave the land of the living altogether.
Having taken this hard-thought decision, he no longer saw any sense in carrying on with his chores as a mailman. So, the first thing he did when he got home was to call the Chief of the Island’s Central Post Office and say that he quit. He’d dreamed of doing that for too long to resist the temptation of leaving the carping chief hanging snubbed on the other end of the line.
After this last bridge had been burned, Adam killed the rest of the time remaining till the casting day wandering the streets of the clinic district and considering his chances for success. But most of all failure, which he now feared more than anything else in the even braver new world. Getting there became his only obsession, and not getting there his only dread.
When the day finally came knocking on his cracked window with drops of drunk-driving rain, Adam thought that that was it: now or never. With these two words blazing in his bloodshot eyes, like traffic lights on the highway of hope, he gulped down a cup of day-old coffee and crept out of his cabin to dissolve in the dense morning mist, mixing with
a cloud of cigarette smoke.
The polyclinic, an ill-looking eight-storied edifice on the edge of town, was divided into two wings: one for adolescents and adults, and one for children. The foyer of the former was filled to the brim with both male and female samples of the human species – the most unsavory mixture of all sorts of contagious physical and mental maladies one could imagine only after years of watching “These Creepy Creatures” and “Monsters of Mankind” on contemporary Animal Channel.
Rubbing shoulders and shuddering from repulsion every time it happened, Adam squeezed his way through a throng of walking viruses on the fresh-vomit-washed floor of the foyer. Their foul, furunculous faces, flaming-red or fever-pale, with mouthfuls of rotten teeth, bathed Adam in the nauseating breath of raw meat, forcing him to hold his nose.
Only having reached the reception desk, did Adam dare to inhale and, after some heavy panting, push the pamphlet into a small square window, wondering where he was to go next.
“What’s this?” cried a wonderfully arrogant and as wonderfully ugly-looking woman, with a wart on the tip of her hooked up nose, as she grabbed the pamphlet. [She was stuck in the window frame like a picture of an artist who, judging from her looks, had learned how to paint from a chimpanzee.]
“The “T” program session, if you please,” specified Adam, starting to feel anxious.
“What tea program? This is not an internet café,” came a cold wave of hostility.
“Of course, not. I mean the kind of “T” that stands for Trans-cultural.”
“Trans-cultural?” parroted the chimp, quizzically, “I know nothing about it.”
“But it says right here,” he pointed to the pamphlet, “that a special trans-cultural casting session is to take place in this polyclinic today and that anybody who wants to can take par…”
“You mean the freak show?!” cut in the chimp-woman, baring a row of rot-black teeth. “I know nothing about it.”
Baffled by the brusque response, let alone the anger each of the chimp’s words was charged with, Adam made a meager attempt to argue.