This Other Eden

by Ben Elton

  ‘What are they doing!’ asked Geraldine.

  ‘I think they’re going to blow a lot of holes in the roof.’

  And before Geraldine could respond to Max’s calm observation, there was a series of bangs as Rosalie detonated the charges and fragments of BioShield rained down on the screaming diners below.

  ‘What are they doing!’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out in a minute,’ said Max excitedly.

  And of course they did. Rosalie attached a grappling iron to the largest hole in the roof, and then she and the rest of the team climbed back into the helicopter.

  ‘I think they’re going to try and pull the roof off,’ observed Max. They could see the shadowy blue shape of the terrorist craft pulling slowly away from the canopy. Thirty feet above the roof, however, the helicopter stopped, hovering in mid-air, tethered firmly by the grappling rope stretched taut below. The mighty engines roared and tugged, but the roof was tougher than the terrorists had allowed for in their otherwise flawless planning.

  Downstairs Geraldine laughed. They all laughed. They could see that what was clearly a plot to expose their pristine epidermises to killer Ultra Violet sunshine had gone wrong.

  ‘Roof’s too strong, huh?’ they shouted upwards. ‘Fuck you, green assholes.’

  Up in the Mother Earth craft there was consternation.

  ‘We’ll have to cut her free,’ the pilot shouted above the scream of the labouring engines. ‘I give the cops another two minutes.’

  But Rosalie was having no such defeatest nonsense. This was the DigiMac Studio, a world famous location in the middle of the most public town on the planet. Mother Earth could not be exposed as incompetent fools in such a dazzlingly high-profile arena. Grabbing her bag of detonators, Rosalie launched herself down the straining grappling rope and back on to the commissary roof. Quickly she laid a second line of charges close to the gaping holes. Down below, people did not know whether to scatter or stay put; most opted for cowering under their tables. Only Max remained calmly seated, although his heart was pumping. He was trying to make out the face of the woman crouching high above him.

  Rosalie finished laying the new charges and ran back over the blue-grey dome to the straining rope which attached the roof to the helicopter. Grabbing it, she activated the detonator. Her idea was that as the terrorist chopper rose into the air, taking with it that detested symbol of eco-complacency, the BioShield, she would be hanging on to the tow rope. She would then be whisked away to the comparative safety of a life of international terrorism. Unfortunately, the roof came away with such a jerk and the helicopter lurched upwards with such violence, that Rosalie lost her grip on the rope and she was thrown through the great jagged hole in the BioShield, of which she was the principal creator. She fell fifty feet into the dining-room below, landing with great good fortune in Rupert’s cake.

  Chapter Nine

  The dream factory and the dead sea

  Rupert’s Calie.

  Fortunately for Rosalie, even in such elevated surroundings as the commissary of DigiMac Pictures, the dreaded birthday interruption could occur. As hazards of dining out go, the birthday interruption is not the worst. It is not as bad as being poisoned by the seafood or getting a table next to fifteen blokes on a stag night, but it’s still a pain. One is in the middle of one’s meal, in the middle of a conversation, maybe even in the middle of suggesting that coffee be skipped in favour of screwing all night like crazed rabbits. What is more, rabbits who have grown tired of life and lettuce and decided to fuck each other to death instead. Then suddenly the lights dim, ‘Happy Birthday’ (or one of the groovier pop options) is cranked up on the sound system and a mound of whipped cream and sparkiers is brought in and plonked in front of whoever’s birthday it is. This is always a pretty gruesome affair. The self-conscious smiles of the recipient and pals; the scarcely veiled hostility of the other diners; the show-off waiter letting it all go on a bit too long. The occasion at the DigiMac commissary was rendered even more horrid by the fact that the birthday person was a child star. Hence everybody had to profess themselves absolutely delighted that this youngster, who had everything, had got just a little bit more.

  Rupert, who was only eleven, accepted the ten-foot-tall cake with the practised grace of a true professional. He was a wonderful actor, one of the studio’s hottest properties, and he had been a huge hit in the Child Star Virtual Reality games. In these incredibly popular entertainments, the player is faced with a fictitious juvenile Hollywood super-celebrity, played by Rupert. The player is then allowed to punch, throttle and, if he can, run over the Child Star with a truck.

  The game was already in its twelfth mutation: Child Star 12:

  The Première. In this version, the player inside the VR helmet encounters the Child Star at the opening of Smirk, the Star’s latest kiddy picture. The Star does an interview, in which he goes on about how his mom only gives him ordinary pocket money like the other kids and how neat it is to get to meet all those big stars, etc. At the point at which the Child Star says, ‘I’m just a regular kid. I guess I like to do what all kids do,’ the player has fifteen seconds to throttle him before the minders arrive. The player must kill the Child Star immediately, because with each throttling the Child Star survives, the more obnoxious the interview gets: ‘I’m just a regular kid, I eat pizza, go to movies and hang out with the guys in the mall. Girls are cool but I don’t have a regular date.’ Eventually, if the player has failed, the Child Star, still grinning his endearing grin, gets awarded a special juvenile Oscar by Mickey Mouse.

  Surprisingly, Rupert himself was popular in actual reality as well as Virtual Reality because he was, in fact, a nice child. Whilst the trend for many decades had been for pint-sized little shits to play witty, decent, inventive boys and girls, Rupert, who was actually a fairly well-adjusted young person, had made a hit playing a pint-sized little shit.

  Cross-dressing.

  As she fell, Rosalie caught a momentary glimpse of the terrible pandemonium she had created. Sunlight was pouring in! Pure, unscreened, naked sunlight! Not one square inch of flawless white skin in the room had felt such a harsh glare in years. It was a beautiful bit of terrorism. The sort of witty, brutal protest for which Mother Earth was justly notorious. To pour sunlight on the beautiful people of the Golden State and watch them run screaming for their BioShield parasols was to remind the world yet again just how far people had drifted into simply accepting eco-degradation.

  Rosalie was in and out of the cake in a moment. It was as if she’d been falling into and leaping out of cakes all her life. However, one glance showed her that it was out of the frying pan and into the fire. Or in this case, out of the cake and into the arms of the studio security officers. Five of them were closing in on her, although they were making heavy going amongst the upturned tables and panicking beautiful people. Rosalie scanned the room for a means of escape. The ladies’ room was only yards away; she made for it. Rushing in, she surprised a beautiful young starlet at the basin. The starlet had no idea what had been happening, having been re-stapling a chin tuck whilst all the excitement was going on.

  ‘Get your dress off!’ shouted Rosalie, already stepping out of her cake-covered green dungarees.

  The starlet wondered. This could be her big break. True, the casting couch was a coin to be spent sparingly. If you dropped your drawers every time anyone with a two-picture development deal on the outer edges of the lot suggested it, you might as well leave them off altogether. On the other hand, this woman in dungarees had a pretty commanding presence. A lot of gay girls made pictures these days; a couple were even production heads. The starlet thought that perhaps now was the time to swallow her pride.

  ‘Hey, listen, you’re real nice, I like you,’ she said, trying to hedge her bets. ‘But, you know, I don’t want you to think I get it on with just anyone, you know?’

  ‘Get your dress off now, you repulsive little bitch or I’ll kill you.’ The wire-strippers Rosalie found in her belt
gleamed inches from the girl’s face.

  The starlet was thrilled. This woman had power attitude. In Hollywood, the more powerful you are, the ruder you can afford to be, and this lady was rude enough to be a production head, maybe even a studio chief. The wire-strippers were a bit of a worry but nobody ever said a career in movies would be easy.

  ‘OK, but you can’t hurt me, all right? Like, I don’t do that at all, OK?’ the girl said, slipping out of her dress. ‘No pain, just fun stuff, right? Are we going in a cubicle?’

  ‘Gimme the shoes,’ said Rosalie, kicking off her own boots.

  ‘My name’s Tori Doherty. I’m an actress.’ The starlet said, feeling that she really ought to get the business side of the transaction sorted out, but not really knowing what the procedure was. ‘Uhm, maybe you can help me, I don’t know, some advice perhaps or. .

  ‘My advice is separate all your garbage, avoid plastic containers and insulate your loft.’

  Rosalie pulled off her woollen hat, letting her hair fall to her shoulders. Then, dressed in Tori’s frock and high-heels, she ran out of the toilet screaming. The security people had only just arrived at the ladies’ lavatory and Rosalie pushed past them, shouting, ‘There’s a weirdo in the rest-room.’

  As the guards ran into the room, Rosalie dived into the panicking crowd. Within moments she was out of the commissary and trying to find a way off the studio lot.

  Lost in Development.

  Rosalie was running along the little sun-drenched lanes looking for an exit. The UV was ferocious and the skimpy dress she had taken from the starlet was specifically designed to let just about anything through. Rosalie could feel her skin burning, but she could not afford to get trapped in a sidewalk BioTube. She blessed the fact that she had only recently had her pores reblocked. They’d hold for an hour at least, and if she wasn’t out in an hour, she wasn’t going to get out. On she ran through the blinding sun, between rows and rows of little pale bungalows. She turned one way… there were little pale bungalows. She turned another … there were little pale bungalows. She was in a maze of little pale bungalows.

  ‘Where’s the exit?’ she said to a strange, distracted-looking fellow in glasses who was loitering beneath a kerbside shade.

  ‘Why?’ he replied, a weird tinge of panic in his high voice. ‘Is something happening at the exit? Do you have a deal at the exit?’

  Rosalie had no time to confer with weirdos. She ran on. Two people, a man and a woman, were emerging from a little pale bungalow. Rosalie accosted them before they could get into the BioTube.

  ‘I need the exit,’ Rosalie demanded.

  ‘We can give you that,’ said the woman with a desperately ingratiating smile. ‘In fact, we have a whole bunch of ideas around the theme of exiting. Death, departure, decay. We have a treatment right here.’

  ‘But funny,’ the man chipped in. ‘Death meets funny. It’s about what’s happening now, today.’

  The two dazed people wandered off into the sunlight together. Rosalie feared that she had stumbled into an insane asylum, but she was actually somewhere far more confused and paranoid. She burst into the bungalow which the two people had just left.

  ‘Where’s the exit?’ she blurted to the lady behind the desk, a forceful looking woman of about fifty, cut up to a fairly convincing thirty-five. Her name was Shannon.

  ‘If your treatment is on micro, leave the chip in the bucket. We accept no other formatting,’ Shannon said.

  Rosalie had had enough. The studio security staff would not take long to work out that she was wearing somebody else’s dress. She had to get out.

  ‘OK, love, I don’t know what kind of loony-bin I’ve wandered into here, but you listen to me and you listen hard.’ Rosalie was employing the kind of look and tone that had cowed whale murderers on the bridges of their own ships and unmanned SWAT teams in the bowels of nuclear power stations. ‘This is very important.’

  But Rosalie wasn’t on the bridge of an illegal whaler, nor was she attempting to interfere with a nation’s civil domestic nuclear capacity. She was in a little pale bungalow on a back-lot in Hollywood, facing the most formidable attack beast ever developed. The producer’s secretary.

  ‘Everybody’s treatment is important, dear.’ Shannon’s smile never left her lips, but the voice was honeyed steel. ‘Everybody’s idea is an idea that’s time is now. Just place your micro-chip in the bucket provided, dear, and I’ll see that —‘

  Rosalie lunged forward, intending to grab Shannon’s lapels and shake the information out of her. Instead, she found herself staring down the barrel of a stun-thrower. She had not even seen Shannon move.

  ‘You know, dear, I can’t tell you how much I miss the days when writers went off and killed themselves instead of trying to kill me.’

  ‘I’m not a bloody writer,’ Rosalie shouted. ‘I’m a terrorist.’

  ‘I never met anyone on this lot who didn’t think there was something special about themselves, dear. Take a hike.’

  Rosalie stumbled out of the little pale bungalow.

  Where ideas go to die.

  In the midst of Hollywood, the dream town, Rosalie had stumbled upon the place where there were only nightmares. For in those quiet little buildings the desperate met the scared. Desperate writers and scared producers. Writers, desperate to be used; producers, scared of making the wrong decision.

  The place where ideas went to die.

  There are two ways for an idea to die in that sunny bungalow world; fast and slow. Fast is easier. Fast is when it gets rejected outright. Of course, even then the idea only dies for the studio; for the writer it will never die, but since the writer is one of the living dead anyway, that’s irrelevant. The slow way for an idea to die is in development. This happens when a person inside a bungalow takes an interest in an idea. This special privilege is reserved for very few ideas indeed. These are special ideas and for them a very special form of torture has been devised: they will be discussed to death. Considered from every possible angle by as many people as the producer can afford to employ until nobody can remember what was good about the idea in the first place. Then somebody will say: ‘I think we’ve gotten real complex here. We need to get back to first cases,’ and slowly the idea will fade and die.

  There is a haze which hangs over Los Angeles. Many people say it’s pollution, others say it’s something to do with what happens when cold water meets warm air out over the ocean. The truth is that it is the haze of a million ideas slowly fading away.

  A way-out appears.

  Rosalie knew she had to get out, not merely because she had just perpetrated a violent act of terrorism and the forces of the law were closing in on her, but also because she could sense something strange and terrible about the place in which she had found herself. Rosalie was born and brought up in Dublin; she was fourth-generation hippy and had listened to poetry and song all her life. She knew when a place had bad karma and this one had it. She was not a writer nor an actor. She had nothing to do with the entertainment industry, but quite suddenly she knew she was surrounded by lost souls and unhappy spirits. The ghosts of a hundred years of unrequited artists, all of whom had died in development.

  She began to run, sensing that if she stayed much longer she would never leave. A strange sensation was beginning to overtake her. She felt a desire to buy the daily trade papers, to attend improv’ classes, to talk to kindred spirits about which heads had rolled at the majors, to drop a mention or two of a potential meeting over at Fox… She ran, up one avenue, down another, past sound stages, more bungalows. .

  A car pulled up beside her.

  ‘Jump in,’ said Max.

  Max had followed Rosalie out of the commissary. Her disguise had not fooled him for a moment. He was a good actor and he knew a performance when he saw one. Also, the girl who had originally owned the dress had only a few moments previously approached Max at his table and mentioned that she admired his work. Max remembered the dress and he remembered the girl. Now t
here was the dress again, but on a very different girl. A much more interesting looking one. Max had watched, fascinated, as the strange woman in the stolen dress made her escape. He was hugely impressed. Here was somebody who clearly had a purpose. Somebody who had worked out what it was they wanted to do and was doing it. What’s more, that thing was nothing to do with show business. To Max, this was quite incredible. He wanted to know more about this woman. That was why he had followed her out and was now offering her a lift.

  For a moment, Rosalie thought about punching Max out and taking the car. However, reflecting that she still had absolutely no idea how to get off the lot, this did not seem like a very clever move. Besides, Rosalie may have been a Green terrorist, but she read magazines and went to the pictures. This was Max Maximus. If she ever got back to Dublin, this would make for great gossip down at Flannagan’s. ‘So there I was, driving about in Hollywood with your man Maximus himself. Would I lie to you?’

  She got into the car and Max headed for the studio gates.

  Horn of a dilemma.

  Once they were out on the public highway Rosalie asked Max something she had wanted to know for months.

  ‘Why did you have the horn done?’

  ‘I’m getting rid of the horn.’

  Max hated that horn. Why the hell had he done it? Drunk, that’s why, drunk enough to get a stupid, dumb, simulated-bone spike grafted to the front of his head. Doctor Rock said he could take it off again in about a month and it wouldn’t scar, but then Doctor Rock was a Bioquack and a casualty. Doctor Rock’s principal source of income was doing dick extensions for porno stars that fell apart if you so much as gave them a slap.