“I—h-have no idea,” Clearfather stammered. Truly this world was mad.
Aretha, who had a sharp eye for shifts in mood, made sure Clearfather had plenty of cocoa. Whoever the blond man was, he wasn’t like any of the other subterraneans or spies the Satyagrahi had seen before.
“Time for Dr. Zumwohl. The medication we gave you is wearing off.”
“Aretha, you didn’t say what you heard,” Natassia remarked as the drag queen stepped to the zippered door.
“I heard the words, ‘Strive to lead back the god within you to the Divine in the Universe,’” the former lawyer replied. “And it freaked me right out.”
CHAPTER 2
Organ Donor
The part of the “sanctuary” they entered was filled with more deformed and technologically mingled people.
“Almost there,” Aretha said, glad that Flip Flop and Tolstoy were close behind.
They passed two young Ethiopian boys guarding a farm of doughboy swimming pools, one of which Clearfather saw was writhing with eels while another appeared to be brimming with freshwater crocodiles not much bigger than sardines. An enormous dog hauled itself out of the dark and grunted.
“Big Bwoy!” the drag queen bellowed at the beast, an ancient Rottweiler whose head was embedded in a full-skull muzzle.
One of the creature’s front paws had been replaced by a pick-and-place robot’s end effector unit, while its back legs were engineered into a frame with wheels that came from an old golf buggy. Clearfather knelt down and was stroking the drool-slick jowls through the muzzle when a thin white man covered in Christmas tree tinsel and wearing a piece of headgear fashioned out of an antique lottery ball cage (complete with several old ivory lottery balls still bouncing around inside) rushed up and hollered, “Lucky! Lucky! Lucky! Everybody makes their own!”
“You’ve been warned about this monster, Grody!” Aretha chided.
“Haven’t had the draw yet, haven’t had the draw yet!” Grody squealed, dancing about so that the balls clacked in the cage.
Clearfather noticed that the man’s hat, if hat was the right word, drew some oblique inspiration from the dog’s muzzle. “What’s the draw for?”
“Lucky, lucky, lucky . . . everyone makes their own!” Grody replied and shook himself so that his tinsel rustled and the balls pinged against the wires.
“You’ll notice that the balls don’t have numbers,” Aretha whispered. “You wouldn’t believe it now but they say Grody used to be a very fine neurochemist once, until he got hooked on the so-called intelligence enhancers.”
“He loves that dog,” Clearfather said as the thin man, still clacking and rustling, made his way into the shadows with Big Bwoy squeaking along on his back wheels.
“Come,” Aretha said. “Time to meet Dr. Zumwohl.”
They were at the doors of an ambulance that had been fished out of the Harlem River. The vehicle was rusted and bullet-fatigued, but it had been imaginatively patched up and the roofline featured an expensive oyster-shell satellite dish and exquisite TWIN-link componentry.
“What’s in here?” Clearfather asked.
“A world of knowledge,” Aretha replied. “And a lot of silly ideas. Like Grody’s hat—it’s a lottery. But we may find out how to treat you.”
Aretha directed him to lie down on the couch he found inside and began attaching dermatrodes to his head. On the ceiling above he noticed a sign that said IN CASE OF EMERGENCY YOU WILL BE RETURNED TO YOUR BODY.
“Is it going to hurt?” he asked.
“This’ll help the hurt, child. Just relax. I’ll send someone when you’re done.”
At first nothing happened. Then gradually he had a peaceful but vivid sensation that the ambulance was filling with water and that he was floating. Then the floating became horizontal motion. His speed increased and he began to spin, faster and steeper, until he felt himself stretch and then explode, pieces of shattered being drifting down through black diamond air, becoming a jigsaw puzzle, which came alive. It was a picture of him walking. Down a narrow catwalk he seemed to glide, until he was on a stage, facing a tiny old woman with huge thick spectacles.
“I am Doktor Zooomvalll . . . ,” the woman said, rising to her feet. She began to radiate. Then, to his further surprise, she seemed to divide. Out of her body came other bodies—eidolons—incredibly detailed holograms of the great psychiatrists and neurological explorers of history: William James, Freud, Adler, Jung, Szondi, Skinner, Pavlov, Luria. Every theoretical school and research approach was represented, from clinicians and counselors to hardware people like J. V. Brady, who made a career out of giving peptic ulcers to monkeys. One by one they appeared . . . Delgado, Reich, Rorschach, Stekel, Broca, Hess, Olds, Penfield . . . and when the Auditorium was full, Clearfather felt a thread of light reach out from each of the eidolons. Then the questions came at him like drops of rain running down a wire.
Aretha headed to the Information Station to see if the bioscans had turned up anything on his physical history. Finderz Keeperz, the head of cyberintelligence, was climbing out of the DataCube when the drag queen entered. Though he was afflicted with pituitary dwarfism (the result of his mother’s use of anti-aging drugs), the diminutive hacker’s oversized cranium housed a powerful brain.
He was dressed in a white safari suit made from a cloned paper mothwing fabric that he’d convinced himself made him look taller. On his feet were the same pair of children’s Nikes he’d bought in an Athlete’s Foot store in Times Square just before his arrest for cyberespionage had forced him underground and into the ranks of the Satyagrahi. Up and down both stunted arms he sported the collection of Canal Street watches he used to monitor the fragile time distortion that the Mirror Field inflicted on Fort Thoreau, the counterperception barrier that kept the activities of the Satyagrahi hidden from the world outside—but that the little genius secretly believed might be altering the psychology of the community in unknown, potentially dangerous ways.
“Any deets on the meat?” Aretha inquired.
Finderz stepped free of the DataCube, the three-dimensional cybersystem they’d pirated from Vitessa that allowed full cognitive immersion.
“Initial indications are the body’s in perfect health and has been dead for thirty years,” he replied. “Subject born No Name Versteckt at a public trauma ward in Pittsburgh in 1979. Mother a teenage hooker. Get this! His schlong was mistaken by the attending ED as a vestigial growth, possibly an atrophied twin.”
“Sounds like our boy all right,” Aretha agreed. “What gives?”
“Damned if I know.” The dwarf shrugged. “Momma goes on to marry one Joseph Sitio, twenty years older. Defrocked priest no less. Gives the boy his surname and the Christian name of Paul. Paul turns six, momma dies falling down stairs. Lives for the next two years with his loving stepfather. Then in June 1987 he’s found on the steps of a Catholic church, bleeding from the rectum—tooth marks on his penis and a bit of artwork on his back that the county medical examiner describes as ‘methodically savage.’”
“Let me guess?” Aretha grimaced. “A biblical quotation?”
“Gets worse. He’s hospitalized throughout the next year, during which time he gets taken in by foster parents. Seems to have been going fine with attendance at school—but in 1992 he’s sent off to the Muskrat Cove Home for Boys, where a year later something bad enough happens to get him transferred to Lovell. Released in 1999 just prior to the facility closing. Spends a month at a transition house—then out into the walk-on-the-wild side west of Pre Quake LA. Ends up in the Anaconda Room, a live-sex webcam joint. Performances hourly.”
“You have to admire that.” Aretha tried to smile.
“The Japanese patrons sure did,” Finderz confirmed. “Along with his female performers. There he was spotted by a producer for the lead in an erotic art flick called Priapus. Even got his costar a role. They got married before the filming started but on the honeymoon in Vegas she OD’d. Paul was treated for severe depression at the Engelbert
Humperdinck Center and then began a new phase.”
“Let me guess . . . a country singer?”
“Close. Joined a Seventh Day Adventist church, then a Burn Again firewalking congregation in the Mojave. Over the next few years he tries Breatharians, Scientology, the Rosicrucians, Amway.”
“A promiscuous searcher,” Aretha remarked.
“Then he moves to Texas, changes his name, and founds his own cult called—”
“Wait a minute!” Aretha cried. “I remember them! He—he—was Hosanna? That’s why he looks familiar. But you can’t be serious!”
“Yes indeed, Hosanna Freed. He and a hundred other people, mostly women, formed a community called The Kingdom of Joy. Interestingly enough, the actual land the cult took over was the site of a similar movement back in the early twentieth century, founded by the neglected genius Lloyd Meadhorn Sitturd.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Aretha said.
“That’s because he’s neglected,” the dwarf replied. “But his community was attacked in the same way Paul’s—or Hosanna’s—was.”
“Holy shit!” Aretha crowed. “Hosanna was worshiped as a fertility god! Wasn’t he reputedly so virile, the pharmaceuticals panicked? The Christian Right feared that he actually had God on his side!”
“Or in his pants,” Finderz replied. “They even joined forces with the radical feminists. Federal authorities launched an assault on the compound. Hosanna and the thirteen Wives of the Inner Circle dug in at the base of the Sacred Obelisk as the ATF and Homeland Security boys unloaded. He took thirty-seven rounds of Penetrator ammunition and was still alive when the medevac chopper landed.”
“Christ, that’s scary.” Aretha whistled.
“Even weirder is that all the women were pregnant. With boys.”
“And they all went down in that same blaze of stupidity!”
“All but one. Twelve of the babies’ bodies were recovered. Either Momma Thirteen went AWOL in the firefight or they harvested the fetus from the corpse,” Finderz said. “And don’t forget that the official report says his corpse was cremated intact, but a CNN reporter took a photograph of the body before it was burned, which showed that the famous penis had been surgically removed.”
“That’s just ghoulish!” groaned Aretha. “But what does it mean? What are we talking now? Are we saying we’ve got a corpse—missing a cock—that’s supposedly cremated—and we’re thinking that this same body is walking around Central Park all these years later—without having aged—repaired as far as the bullet wounds go?”
“Plus, according to you, the severed organ is back in position.”
“And judging by his reaction to Natassia, operational.”
“There’s also a missing baby unaccounted for. One of thirteen sons. And possibly a mother. Oh, and there’s one more thing.”
“Good God, what?”
“This information. It’s got expertise. Vitessa code. But wiggly. The sole reason I could trace it was because I slipped in on that righteous access our new friend has. Connects back to one Julian Dingler.”
“Who in the hell is that?”
“Vitessa Intelligent House Services of all things. Based in Pittsburgh, funnily enough,” the dwarf answered. “No photogram on file.”
“All right,” said Aretha with a shrug of bewilderment. “Am I right in thinking that the most likely explanation for our unexpected guest is that his body was regenerated from the amputated penis that’s been preserved—presumably by whoever cut it off in the first place?”
“Maybe, baby. There’s just one problem with that theory,” Finderz pointed out. “It’s not possible for regen tissue to express acquired features like his scarring.”
A shadow passed over Aretha’s face. “No, it’s not. But there’s another explanation.”
“You mean someone did that to him again? Why would any outfit with such slick technology go in for the Black Magic trip of that scarring?”
“You’ve got me,” Aretha confessed. “It’s disturbing any way you look at it. But we need to cover our tracks. What’s the best way to destabilize this data?”
“We need THE ENTOMOLOGIST.”
“Cyberconstructs shouldn’t have so much absence of personality.” The drag queen shivered.
“At least he works for us,” Finderz remarked, entering the request.
Up out of the transparent depths of the DataCube appeared a huge numinous face obscured by the netting on a helmet that resembled a beekeeper’s hat. Just visible through the mesh was the glinting suggestion of wire-rimmed spectacles. The voice was soft and cloying—the tone of a man who’s forever rubbing his hands together.
“What would you like, my friendss? You have a requesst?”
“We want you to eliminate some information and to disable any recovery. No Search and Dismay. We want FUBAR,” Finderz directed.
“Ooh,” said the face. “Elimmminate. Dissssable. So aggresssive.”
“File code coming now,” Finderz said, transloading.
“Yess, I ssee,” said THE ENTOMOLOGIST. “You have excccelled yoursself, my friend. You had ssome help, I think?”
“Never mind,” clipped Aretha. “How do we do it? Send in a virus?”
“Thiss is a more advancced form of information than what you are ussed to, my friendss.”
The netting of THE ENTOMOLOGIST’s helmet became a matrix of intricate fishing flies.
“What are those?” Aretha gasped.
“Beautieees, my friendss. Beautieees I have made. You see, the inforganism that you sseek to ssubvert musst firsst be tempted, it musst be lured. It musst be caught. We are going fishhhing.”
“Shit,” Finderz marveled. “Those are—”
“Lovely little bootsstrap constructs dessigned to imitate a ccertain priority enhancccement coding. Given the profile in question, I think we shhould try a niicce tasty . . . Jeruuuu-salem Cricket!”
At the first level of magnification the lure resembled a miniature grasshopper made of amber gelatin and laser-thin slices of black bamboo. As the magnification increased, the tissue revealed ever-finer layers of quicksilver information built around malignant microcode, rendered on the 3-D screen as a hidden barbed hook.
“Vvery lovely, yess? Oh yess, my friendss. No one will ever find what you accessssed,” THE ENTOMOLOGIST whispered soothingly, and the netted face dissolved into formlessness within the Cube, the glimmer of the wire-rimmed spectacles fading out last.
CHAPTER 3
Zugzwang
With Clearfather resting after his Zumwohl “consultation,” Aretha transloaded the analysis for review in his tent. The summary was frequently delivered by Dr. Zumwohl herself, which Aretha found annoying. Multiculturalism was a fine thing—understanding that stubby little Germanic hologram was another matter. But considering that any of the constructs, from Jean Piaget to John Lilly, was available to deliver the evaluation, the drag queen was surprised when a vulturine African American in an army uniform appeared on screen.
“Do I know you?” Aretha asked. “You’re—”
“I’m Major Henry Flipper Rickerburn,” the image replied.
“Flipper? What sort of name is that?”
“I’m named after Henry O. Flipper, the first African American to graduate from West Point and a lieutenant in the Tenth Cavalry.”
“Oh. Are you a psychiatrist or a neurologist?” Aretha asked.
“I graduated from West Point and Duke,” the Major boomed. “I was one of the first African Americans to hold a senior medical position in the U.S. Army. I have conducted major studies on the long-term effects of clandestine work on intelligence operatives. I have been in combat and in private practice. I died in 1998 and I’m still going strong! What have you done with your life?”
Aretha was put out by this response but managed some restraint. Even Jung, who could get a little rhapsodic, never got personal. Most of them had the kind of creepy detachment of Roger Sperry, the neuroinvestigator who was fond of cutting the
brain stems in cats.
“On what basis are you representing the findings?” the Satyagrahi leader asked.
“I have the most extensive military and covert operation experience,” the Major replied, puffing out his decorated chest. “Tonight’s interloper is deeply encrypted. We have only vague suggestions of his capabilities. But they all cause concern.”
“For instance?”
“He recognized Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in a single line of music. He also seems to know every note of Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf. He’s fluent in Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic. The languages, these coding systems, are completely transparent to him.”
“But his memory—”
“His operating system can’t locate the files. He doesn’t know they’re there.”
“A stranger to himself,” Aretha pondered.
“Quite literally. And you have to wonder why. His resting alpha rhythms far exceed the most intense grand mal seizure.”
“Any memories emerge?”
“He quoted Plutarch: ‘He who denies the Demons, denies providence, and breaks the chain that unites the world to the throne of God.’”
“So what’s the bottom line? Is he—human? Some new kind of AI?”
“We believe he could be a weapon of mass instruction. The one point everyone agreed on is that he’s bigger than we are.”
“Bigger than the Auditorium?” Aretha gasped.
“More complex,” the Major said. “Greater capacity. Much greater speed.”
“But he can’t even remember his name!”
“He may be in a neutral state awaiting activation. He may be damaged. In either case he’s outside our ability to treat or safely contain. That’s why we sent in an investigative reconnaissance unit.”
“You sent in a psych probe? On whose authority?”
“Mine,” the Major replied. “Our first probe was a construct called the Corps of Discovery—a low-signature insert into the cerebral cortex with a brief to map sites of unusual activity or apparent damage.”
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