As for Angelo, he wasn’t much impressed. Some old movie director had once said, “A tree is a tree, a rock is a rock, film it in Griffith Park.” That pretty much summed up Angelo’s philosophy of things too. Of their little group, only Monet seemed less impressed with the scenery than he was. For him, the trip had seemed mainly a chance to sack out, listen to some cuts on his Walkman, play with the Danger-boy, and hang out with the guys, all of which had taken a left turn when they’d discovered Walt Norman’s show.
Listening to the program had, by some unspoken consensus, become a daily ritual for them, finding it on the dial an obsessive pursuit. The amazing thing was, they always did find it, sometimes on a powerhouse station in the early evening, sometimes on a farm-town station with less wattage than the Xabago’s preamp. Angelo had the odd feeling that Norman had always been there, in the air, waiting to be plucked out, just as his mother had always told him that the devil was waiting for your weakest day.
Angelo tried to close his eyes and relax, but Jono was running through the dial again, scanning for Norman like some Tom Clancy sonar operator, little bits of sound from dozens of stations coming out of the speaker like sausage from a grinder. Finally, he sighed and swung his feet down onto the floor, cluttered with magazines and fast-food wrappers. “We’ve got to clean this place up.” He carefully kicked an empty pop can up into the sink. “One of these days.”
A warbling electronic chime came from somewhere around his feet. At first he couldn’t identify it, then it came again. “Phone’s ringing,” said Everett from his perch.
Angelo kicked aside a stack of magazines. “I hear it, scenery boy.” He doubled over and tried to peer under the front of the couch. “When did we get a phone?”
Everett gave him a perplexed look. “First day out, when we stopped for dinner in Spokane. Same time they gave us the image inducers.”
“Image inducers?”
“The holographic image inducers, so you and Jono can go out in public without attracting attention.”
Angelo lifted a cushion and peeked under it. “Where was I when this was going on?”
“Right there, stuffing your face with taquitos and rice.”
He spotted the phone’s antenna poking out of an athletic shoe and grabbed it. ‘ ‘That would explain it, then. Those were the best taquitos I’ve had since leaving the barrio.”
Everett chuckled. “Angelo, don’t you listen to anything Sean and Emma have to say?”
He stared at the phone looking for a talk button. “Sure. When they call us to eat.” He figured out how to turn on the phone and held it to his ear. “ Hola!” He listened for a minute, then hung up. ‘ ‘Hey, Jono, Emma wants us to stop at this rest area coming up.”
Jono glanced at him skeptically. “What bloody for? They not only got plumbing in the Xtravagant, they got gold fixtures in that thing.”
Angelo shrugged, tossed the phone on the couch next to him, and slouched back to wait. Jono pulled in next to a semitrailer with stark/fujikawa painted on the side in six-foot red letters. The Xtravagant was already there, parked a few spaces over.
They’d barely stopped rolling when their door flew open. Paige, Jubilee, and Monet filed in. “Knock-knock,” said Paige.
Angelo nodded. “Whassup?”
Paige smiled. “We’re riding with you guys for a while.” Angelo allowed his cool to slip just enough to raise an eyebrow. He noticed that Jono was leaning on the steering wheel, trying to ignore Paige and still look casual about it. Angelo slid over so Paige and Monet could sit down. Jubilee leaned on the kitchen counter.
Monet was studying the interior of the Xabago with obvious distaste. She picked up the cell phone and held it to her chest like a protective talisman.
Angelo wiped the stubble on his chin. “Yeah. Why?” “We missed you,” said Jubilee.
“They kicked us out,” corrected Paige. “Actually, they kicked M and Jubilee out. They’ve been bickering for the last sixty miles. I just wanted to hear that Norman geek again.” “Tune seven-sixty AM,” said Jubilee. “Me and M heard the announcement while Sean was changing stations a while back. He rules that radio with an iron hand.”
Paige shot her a look of annoyance. “Sixty miles back?” She shrugged.
Paige looked from her to Monet and back. “You guys were arguing on purpose?”
Monet said, “We all do what we do best.”
Jubilee inspected her fingernails carefully. “Besides, it was a plan to get us kicked out of the Xtravagant so we could listen to the show.”
“You want to let me in on the plans from now on? You guys were making me bug crazy.”
“Tune the radio,” insisted Jubilee.
Paige glanced at her watch. “We have a few minutes, if I didn’t miss a time zone.’’
Angelo glanced forward. “Do it, Jono, and let’s get rolling,” He figured he was doing Jono a favor, giving him an excuse to ignore Paige, and something to distract him while he was ignoring her.
Jono tuned the radio to a station that seemed to feature hog prices on the hour and half-hour. The Norman show wasn’t on yet, so he turned the volume just below the level of annoyance.
The Xabago started to roll, and Jubilee grabbed the edge of the fridge to hang on.
Everett noticed. “You want to ride up here? The view’s great.”
“Is there room for two?” Jubilee winked.
Everett’s mouth hung open awhile before he could answer. Then he fumbled with his seat belt. “I don’t think there is,” he almost whispered. “I’ll make room for you.” He jumped down.
She smiled at him as she climbed up.
Everett fell into the recliner gratefully, like someone who’d just had a brush with great danger.
Angelo rolled his eyes and sighed. Was the whole world love crazy? He noticed Monet sitting demurely, staring at him.
He pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Don’t you start!” She smiled in response, but only a little, not enough to completely take him off the hook.
It was probably intentional, knowing Monet, much as anybody knew Monet. He was sure she didn’t suffer fools well, and that most days all of them were on her fools list.
He sighed again. Nobody was talking, and it was time to change the subject. “Why are we doing this—listening to this Norman guy? So he doesn’t like us, and he’s never even met us. That’s true of lots of people. Most people, maybe. So what’s the attraction?”
Paige locked eyes with him. “Know thine enemy.”
Jubilee snorted. “And he is a doof.”
Everett wasn’t laughing. “He’s a doof who’s on, like, every radio station in the country. So the message is sugarcoated, what difference does that make? Maybe that just makes it worse.” He crossed his arms. “I mean, evil mutants, Sentinels, those are things you can fight. How do you fight a lame joke on the radio?”
“He frightens me,” said Monet.
Angelo blinked. That got everyone’s attention. Monet was plenty of things, annoying, arrogant, haughty, but she was usually solid as a rock against any threat.
“Somebody,” she continued, “should make him stop.’' “Freedom of speech,” said Everett.
Paige nodded. “The First Amendment.”
Angelo chuckled. “First thing the Founding Fathers did, right after kicking the tea drinkers out.” He saw Jono glaring at him in the rearview and laughed again.
Jubilee scanned the horizon from her high perch, tapping her index fingers together nervously in front of her, making tiny sparks as she did. “Well, you can bet that if there was a mutant radio show, like if old Charlie Xavier had a show, they’d find a way to shut him down.”
Angelo nodded. “I’ve heard that all-men-are-created-equal line, but the LAPD taught me early on that some are equaler than others.”
Everett frowned at him. “It’s not about what they would do, it’s about what they should do. I mean, we could march into this guy’s station and make it into a crater. We’ve got the power.
So, should we do it?” He looked them all over, waiting for a response. Angelo thought about saying something, but held his tongue. Nobody else spoke up.
Jubilee looked down at them, an annoyed expression on her face. “So that’s it, huh? We just let the slime go on spreading his—” she groped for a word “—slime!”
Everett jumped toward the radio. “Hey, it’s started!” They’d been so busy talking that they hadn’t noticed the opening. Jono reached over and turned up the volume. The announcer was speaking. “—is a toll-free call. Remember, Walt Norman wants to hear from you, the Normans of America and the world at large. If something’s on your mind, call Walt. It’s not his fault! But he’ll listen to you gripe anyway. And now here’s the man with the plan, Walt Norman! ’ ’
Paige looked at them each in turn. “It’s just words, and how do you fight words? With words, that’s how.”
Angelo grinned. “Nice idea chica, but he’s on the radio and you aren’t, so unless you got a radio station hidden in your pocket...”
She did reach into her pocket, her jacket pocket to be exact, and pulled out a crumpled napkin. Angelo recognized it and groaned. “Don’t do it, chica. Don’t do it.”
She flattened the napkin out on her leg, studying the number written there.
“Don’t do it,” he repeated. “They screen the calls on those things. They’ll never put you on.”
She held out her hand. “Monet, give me the phone.” Angelo flopped back in the couch. “Oh, man.”
The Expatriate sat in his control booth, only slightly paying attention to the program. The operators were handling the calls, the engineer was handling the program, and most of his announcements for the program were prerecorded. Of course, he might have to occasionally banter with Norman, but generally the host initiated these segments. Otherwise, Norman preferred to hog the microphone unless the format called for him to do otherwise.
He glanced at the clock. Norman was through his opening monologue, his news-of-the-day rant, today’s aimed at the President’s lack of action on mutant terror, and the opening joke exchange with Mrs. Dale. They were coming up on the half-hour news break. He’d have to make happy talk with
Norman about it after it was over, which meant that he’d have to at least listen to the news.
Until then, his attention was focused on a computer screen, and business that had nothing to do with radio. An e-mail message directed him to the alt.conspiracy.galactus newsgroup on the Internet, where he downloaded a picture file. He displayed the picture, taken from New York’s Central Park, with an out-of-focus blob visible in the cloudless sky.
Somewhere, he knew, drooling idiots were trying to find alien invaders in that blob, but it actually contained encrypted digital data. He used his mouse to put a box around the blob, pushed a button, and the picture was replaced by an inventory list. Stinger missiles, EMP projectors, antipersonnel mines, microturbine engines. Currently on a fishing boat out of Argentina, but with a click of his mouse they would be transferred to a freighter bound for Central Africa.
He opened another window on the screen to check his Swiss accounts and verify that all the funds were in place, then pressed the button that would convert his instructions into another blob of light. This was automatically inserted into another picture of empty sky, and uploaded to the newsgroup. An e-mail was also sent that would instruct his contacts where to pick up the picture.
He leaned back in his chair, and realized that the news had already started. Then the door to his booth crashed open and Norman marched in.
“What are you doing in here, Trent? Sleeping?” He bent over and squinted at the screen. “Downloading UFO pictures again?” He swatted at the screen with the back of his hand. “We’re on the air here, and you’re making a fool of me in front of millions of people.”
Not hard, he thought, annoyed at Norman’s intrusion. “How?” is what he actually said.
“I started doing the man-in-the-street skit, and you weren’t there. People must have thought I was crazy, talking to nobody like that.”
The Expatriate reached over and shuffled through the papers on his desk. “That isn’t scheduled until the second hour.”
“Well, I rescheduled it!”
“Walt, you’ve got to run these things past me first.”
“You know the blasted skit, Trent. Your part of it never changes, and we’ve done it a million times. Fact is, we’re on the air and you aren’t paying attention. You’re in here behind your blasted mirrored glass, playing with your blasted computer, and Fm out there alone! Whose program is it, anyway, Trent? Answer me that, huh? Whose program is it?”
Through the glass he could see the engineer waving frantically. The news was almost over and he hadn’t heard any of it. But then, neither had Norman, which meant the remaining schedule was right out the window. He’d have to be on his toes the rest of the program.
He looked up at Norman. He thought of Stinger missiles, and creative ways to use them. “It’s your show, Walt. Always has been. Always will.” He pointed toward the studio. “Which is why you’d better be out there when the mike goes live in ten seconds.”
Norman looked over his shoulder at the door, half-turned. “This isn’t over, Trent. Things will change for the better around here, or they’ll just plain change. Got that?” He slammed the door loud enough that they probably heard it in the newsroom. Through the window, he could see Norman stalking back to his console. He sat down just as the on air sign lit.
The Expatriate watched as the man slipped on his headphones, smiling and chattering into the microphone all the while. In the big scheme of things, something had to be done about Norman, but right now he would settle for something small and personal, a dig to pay him back for the little scene he’d just put on.
The phone rang and he picked it up. It was Sue, one of the operators who screened calls for the program. “Mr. McComb, we have a teenager on the phone, a girl who claims to be a mutant.”
He almost laughed. They got these calls a lot, usually pranksters, college kids. “Why bother me, Sue? Hang up on her. Find Norman some like-minded yahoos to talk with.”
There was silence from the other end of the line. “I think this one is real, sir. I don’t know why, but I think she is, and I thought you’d want to know.”
“We can’t put a mutant on the air with Norman. Hang up on her.” He started to put the phone down, then jerked it back. “Wait!” He thought about the small revenge he’d been looking for against Norman. “Log the number off the caller ID box and send it over to me, then put her in Norman’s call queue.” The queue was a computer-controlled hold system. Notations on Norman’s computer screen showed him the name of the callers, where they were calling from, and what they wanted to talk about, letting him fit the calls more smoothly into the show. “But don’t tell Norman she’s a mutant. Just— well, make something up.”
“Sir?”
“Do it! This, Sue, is how great radio is made.”
The Expatriate sat back and smiled. For once, he and his Trent McComb alter ego were in agreement on something. Whatever happened now was bound to be interesting.
Paige held her hand over the phone, “I’m on hold,” she announced.
Angelo just smirked. “On hold forever is more like it.” Jubilee tossed down a spark that popped next to his head with a soft bang. “Angelo, do you have to be so negative? I mean, really.”
He reached up and pinched the skin on his cheeks, pulling them out about a foot on either side, producing a huge, goofy grin. “It is what I do.”
“And we all do,” droned Monet, “what we do best.”
Recall leaned back in the passenger set of the Caddy, his eyes closed. The mountain air had forced them to put the top up, and he was thinking about getting some sleep. Chill was already snoring in the backseat, and Pound had shoved one of his Kraftwerk CDs into the deck. He could hear some singer droning on about radioactivity in German. He wasn’t sure if they were talking about the nucle
ar kind or the broadcast kind, but it sounded like a little of both.
He wondered where Paige was right now. He reached out with his powers, focusing first on the big targets that the RVs offered, then trying to home in on Paige.
His eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright so quickly that Pound swerved a little in response. He reached down and hit the eject button on the CD.
“Hey,” complained Pound, “I was listening to that.”
Recall ignored him. “Got to turn on the radio. Just got the weirdest feeling that Paige was there.”
Pound laughed. “Yo, science boy, nothing in the magic box but chips and wires. No little girlfriends there.”
He shook his head and fiddled with the tuning controls, still trying to pay attention to the feelings in his head. “I’m not kidding. This has never happened before and I want to find out what it means.”
Pound glanced at him skeptically. “In the radio, huh?”
The Expatriate studied Walt Norman as a scientist might a rat. A plumber from Des Moines a few callers back had mentioned mutant rights, which had started Norman on a running tirade against the “mutant agenda.” He watched as Norman slipped on his reading glasses to consult his own book.
The Expatriate smiled. The ghostwriter would be proud.
“It is a fallacy,” read Norman, “that the rights of the individual can be tied to an accident of their birth. The mutant has no more right to the exercise of great and dangerous powers than I, as a pale skinned individual, have a right to stand in the summer sun without expecting to be burned.
“We all deal with these accidents of birth every day, each and every one of us, and yet the mutant wishes special treatment.” He removed his glasses and put down the book. “This, humble listeners, is the mutant agenda. Not equal rights, but special rights for special people!”
Norman pushed the book and glasses aside, leaning back in his high-backed chair. “I have neither the right nor the ability to invade my neighbor’s private thoughts; why should some mutant telepath have that right? I have to register and carry a concealed, but perfectly legal, handgun, but if a person can shoot lightning bolts from their fingers, well, that’s okay. Let them shop at the same supermarket as you. Let them fix your braces. Let them work at your child’s day care. You don’t have the right to stop it, even to know it. They’re the one with the rights. See how it starts? And that’s only the beginning.” He squinted at the computer screen, his finger poised over a button on his console. “Let’s go to caller—Peg—in Montana. Peg, what do you think about this mutant agenda?”
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