Clearfather was about to say No to try to keep Edwina out of it when she said “Yes” and offered her hand for scanning.
The Inquisitors looked at each other but neither took Edwina’s hand or said a word. They turned around and floated back down the aisle, and for a moment the whole bus was silent except for Voleta.
“Thanks,” Clearfather said the moment the Inquisitors and Voleta were off the bus—but as soon as he said it he was sorry. The remark made it sound like he had something to hide. Do I? he wondered.
“I think that might’ve been a close call,” Edwina said, patting his hand. “Do you?”
Now Clearfather really did fret. He’d gone from friendly, warm feelings toward his seatmate to suspicion. The Inquisitors might well have been there looking for him (although why had they just left him alone?). Maybe the net that he’d feared was going to fall in Pittsburgh had caught up with him. Either way she was probing him.
“You look shaken, son,” Edwina said. “More cocoa?”
“N-no, thank you,” he said as another of the Stinky Wiggler billboards appeared.
THE RESTRICTION OF THE CAGE IS PROPORTIONAL TO YOUR HOPE.
—Stinky Wiggler
And then another one a mile later.
THE SAFETY OF THE CAGE IS PROPORTIONAL TO YOUR FEAR.
—Stinky Wiggler
Just as before, the messages dissolved, where at first they’d looked so dimensional and fixed. Again he heard voices and saw images—this time fragments of text . . . Rollo May and St. John of the Cross, Krishnamurti—philosophical ideas and religious icons . . . Zen archers, crosses . . . lotus flowers, white roses. What did he have to do with these things? Where did they come from? He tried to imagine what sort of person would call him- or herself Stinky Wiggler. Was he just imagining the billboards—or were they part of someone else’s media that he’d tuned in to? He wanted to ask Edwina if she’d seen them, too, but after his rush of paranoia he couldn’t.
Then came a moment of clarity. Aunt Vivian kept a grain of pearl barley in the saltshaker! She’d given him a glow-in-the-dark green skull full of bubblegum! He remembered that as clear as anything, and the images, however simple, filled him with reassurance.
“I’m sorry . . . if I did anything wrong,” Edwina said. “I just had a bad feeling about those Inquisitors . . .”
“It’s all . . . right,” Clearfather mumbled. Uncle Waldo liked to do jigsaw puzzles—Aunt Vivian liked crossword puzzles. They lived in South Dakota. There was a porch to sit on during long summer evenings! And something else. Something important. He still couldn’t bring their faces into focus but his sense of them was very real. His memory of Hermetic Canyon must’ve been a confusion of places. God, it was something . . . something other than the boy in the bathroom. It was family. But were they still alive?
The Scenicruiser rolled on deeper into Ohio, through fields like the one where long ago Pretty Boy Floyd was shot—past pagodas, crematoria, and a lone Burmese man plowing with a yak. When they arrived in Zanesville, Clearfather felt sad at the thought of Edwina’s leaving. She’d tried to mother him and he’d become suspicious. I wonder where my real mother is, he thought.
“Thank you . . . for the cocoa.”
“You’re welcome, son,” Edwina replied. “I know I can be nosy. But a dentist gets a good eye for people and their moods and I can see you’re troubled. You know, Zane Grey said, ‘In everything there is always something undiscovered. Find it.’”
“That’s what I mean to do,” Clearfather replied.
They said goodbye, and the automated bus churned off again. He woke up in Columbus when a seniorated white gentleman slumped down next to him. The bus pulled out among Vaqueros and Mishimas, both electric and combustion engine, along with retrodesigned models like Hennepins and LaSalles. Some flashed LED signs for Toshiba Land or the Buddhist Caves of Kentucky. One said JOHN DILLINGER IS ALIVE AND HAS BEEN CLONED in blood-red letters.
“That’s where I’m from originally,” the man next to him said in a phlegmy voice. “Mooresville, Indiana. Great Museum Town. I’m Wy Dove. Named for the great Wyatt Earp, Wyatt T. Dove. The Motivator.”
“The Motivator?” Clearfather asked, regarding the man, who was dressed in a well-worn cinnamon-colored suit and pale blue tie. Did he have anything to do with the Inquisitors?
“Ah,” the man squinted. “Hard to believe now, but there was a time when you’d have heard of me. I was as big as Tony Robbins once. If you’d had anything to do with sales, incentives, marketing and promotions—or customer service. Hell! You’ve heard of Lateral Thinking? Well, I’m the inventor of Diagonal Thinking. Wrote a book on it. Number one best seller for two days running! I had spizzerinctum! You probably don’t know what that is.”
“Yes, I do,” said Clearfather. “It’s the essential American trait. The ability to go head-to-head and keep your feet up—I mean your chin.”
“That’s right!” snapped the oldster with a glint in his eye. “Oh, those were the days! I’d kick off with a joke. Then! I’d hit ’em with a few quick statistics—like how it costs five, six times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an old one—or how a satisfied customer will tell seven other people but a dissatisfied customer will tell sixteen. Then I’d tell ’em about ASPRIN.”
“For headaches?”
“Aptitudes, Skills, Personality, Responsibility, Interests, Needs. Then I tell ’em about TESTICLES. Teamwork, Enthusiasm, Stamina, Tenacity, Initiative, Courage, Loyalty, Excellence, and Sense of Humor. But I’ll tell you what always worked. The Three Bricklayers.”
“Bricklayers?” Clearfather asked, wondering what bricklayers would be doing at a motivational seminar.
“You walk down a road and see three bricklayers. You go up to the first one who’s slopping mortar everywhere, and ask what he’s doing and he says, ‘Can’tchyou see? I’m laying bricks.’
“You nod and go over to the second bricklayer who’s working very carefully and ask him what he’s doing and he says, ‘Why, I’m makin’ a wall.’ Finally you go over to the third bricklayer, who seems to be the happiest of all—and you know what she says? ‘I’m building a cathedral.’ Isn’t that beautiful?
“But I lost the magic,” he said with a deep sigh. “I fell from grace. And then in Fort Wayne, Indiana . . . I fell from the Ladder of Loyalty.”
“Is that like falling off the wagon?” Clearfather asked.
“I wish! No, you see, I’d get up and shout, ‘The oldest form of marketing is yelling!’ Then I’d whisper, ‘The smart approach is based on listening. You need to target individual customers and build personal relationships with them, with plenty of added value and heaps of USPs and WIIFMs—Unique Selling Propositions and What’s-In-It-For-Mes.’ Then I’d trundle out a giant ladder from behind the stage. Civic centers and hotels always have big ladders and it made a great visual aid. I’d talk about what it feels like to trust someone with your business, walking them up the Ladder of Loyalty as customers. How scary it is. And sometimes I was scared. But I knew I had the power of Diagonal Thinking supporting me. Until I started banging Lindi. Met her in Little Rock,” the Motivator said. “Topless joint near the Sudanese Quarter. Made the beast with two backs then I couldn’t get her out of my head. An engagement came up in Fort Wayne and that’s when I fell. Splattered down on the stage, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men weren’t able to put me back together again.”
“I’m sorry,” Clearfather said, wondering if this is what had become of Uncle Waldo . . . wandering the country on a Greyhound bus, alone.
“Maybe the horses shouldn’t have had first dibs,” the Motivator said, trying to smile. “My wife left me. I was so busted up they thought I’d never walk again. Diagonal Thinking proved them wrong but I was washed up as a Motivator.”
Dove was so shaken by these memories Clearfather had to lead him off the bus in Indianapolis, which he did before he realized what he was doing. Inside the terminal there was an anxious feeling in the air, as if s
omething bad was about to happen.
CHAPTER 2
States of Mind
Back in Central Park, Aretha was in a state of mounting confusion, torn between his excitement about slipping away to see his son box in LosVegas and the worries and developments within Fort Thoreau.
Work on Dr. Zumwohl had progressed. THE ENTOMOLOGIST had sent scouts into the Auditorium. Fortunately the crux of the problem appeared to be confined to Dr. Henry Flipper Rickerburn, who had embedded in his diagnostic matrix a Scorpion-style disabler, which THE ENTOMOLOGIST identified as a “Vinegaroon,” developed in Amsterdam by a Vitessa dirty tricks division. Aretha was pleased, but had Broadband check the Bug Man’s handiwork at every turn. After the discrepancy regarding the transmission to Dingler, the drag queen couldn’t be too careful, and there hadn’t been time to have a private discussion with Finderz.
Of course, resolving the problems with Dr. Zumwohl didn’t help Clearfather. The damage was already done. Aretha was surprised to learn that their mystery guest had left Pittsburgh so soon after arriving—bound for Texas, they assumed. Had he made contact with Dingler? It didn’t seem likely. The lack of data was frustrating, especially given the outbreak of the eidolons in the bus station and the subsequent impact throughout ChildRite and Vitessa. It was almost impossible not to associate what was being called “the Dooley Duck Epiphany” with Clearfather. The question was—what other effects had he had? Spring fever had taken hold of Fort Thoreau, and people were getting friskier by the minute. It was time to beef up their intelligence-gathering capability even if it meant making the Kricket more susceptible to scanning.
There was still no word from the Corps of Discovery probe, but the military stealth insert that had targeted the hypothalamus was on the move and sending out a faint, irregular signal. What was particularly worrying was that all of the Kricket feeds into the monitor showed extreme surges in psychic energy. Finderz pulled up the schematic display of Clearfather’s brain and, along with the X-rays and bodyscans, he had the anatomical images overlaying a map of America. The energy surges shimmered across the screen like magnetic storms raging over the Midwest. Dr. Quail and Lila Crashcart came in to evaluate the readings.
“What we’re seeing here,” said Lila, using her laser pointer, “are momentary flashes of anxiety verging on paranoia. These flickering discolorations here have the potential to become serious mental derangement.”
“Are they due to the Tiresias?” Aretha asked.
“Unlikely” was Dr. Quail’s opinion.
Lila agreed. “We wouldn’t be expecting to see these storm systems forming as a result of the drug now—not after the Oblivion.6. And given the kinds of readings we’ve recorded since Clearfather left, we can be cautiously optimistic that structural damage was minimal. The stealth probe is another matter. You see this activity here? That’s lust—a massive front forming. We’re seeing patterns of sexual desire, fear, and anger of disturbing magnitude. The map of America that Finderz has layered in—the activity within Clearfather’s mind mirrors what is happening in the country at large.”
“You’re saying—his brain is a microcosm of America?” Aretha asked.
“What’s significant is the scale,” Lila answered.
“I don’t understand,” said the drag queen.
“She means that the electrical output of Clearfather’s brain isn’t just in proportion to the country’s—it’s equal to it. Get it?” Finderz huffed, glancing down at the coils of watches on his arms.
“No,” Aretha said. “I mean, yes. But I don’t understand how.”
“I can’t explain it,” the neuroresearcher sighed. “But if these readings continue, we’re going to be in the same position we were in when we sent Clearfather off.”
“How do you mean?”
“Look at the map. What if you had more earthquakes hitting the Now West Coast, forest fires ravaging the Mountain States, tsunamis swamping the East Coast, hurricanes blasting the South, and tornadoes running wild in the Midwest—all at the same time?”
“I’d be thinking wrath of God.”
“We all know that at some point human psychology and the physical environment link. Clearfather may be a locus—like a transistor, capable of amplifying human psychic energy.”
“To what end?” Aretha wondered aloud.
“Maybe he’s a weapons system,” Lila said. “In any case, if the turmoil within him continues to gain in intensity, he’ll have a major impact not just in his local field of contact but throughout the continent. There could be chain reactions on levels we haven’t even considered. And there are Jungian implications. Imagine a bomb going off in the collective unconscious.”
“Psychic time bombs, cultural storms, a giant duck who wants a dick, and a ghost from the past with a mind as big as America—these aren’t the sorts of issues that corporate lawyers are trained to handle,” Aretha lamented. “Do we think that he has any consciousness of his powers?”
“My guess is that he’s much more alert and clearheaded than when we saw him, but not tuned in to capabilities on this scale,” Lila replied.
“Is it possible that he’s being controlled remotely?” Aretha asked.
“He could be . . . in part. And resisting,” Lila answered. “That would explain some of these readings, but not all. We know that the stealth probe is exerting an influence.”
“Where is he now?”
“Indianapolis,” Finderz replied, looking up from his watches. “And if he’s heading for Dustdevil, he’ll have to find his own transportation from Clinton or Amarillo because it’s off the bus route.”
“Do we have any more intelligence about what he’ll find there?” Aretha asked.
“What extra Cubing I’ve had time for suggests there may be remnants of the love cult still hanging on, living in trailers and storm cellars,” the dwarf answered. “The local reality may be more like predatory ferals. There are also a couple of celibacy sects in the area.”
“Recommendations?” Aretha asked.
There was a pause, and then Finderz cleared his throat and glanced back down at his timepieces. “Locating the stealth probe is like trying to find a sniper team in the mountains of Afghanistan. But in order for it to operate it has to generate a signal—even thin and occasional. We’re tracking the pulses now. If we can get a sustained fix, we may be able to target the signal and use the Mirror Field to send it back amplified.”
“What would that do?”
“It’d blow the probe.”
“And Clearfather’s brain!”
“I’m just telling you,” said the dwarf. “We’ve been talking damage control since he showed up.”
Aretha bopped the diminutive genius on the head, and then said with lead-counsel authority, “The first thing we’re going to do is to try to squeeze more grunt out of that Kricket. Then we need to reach out to the Corps of Discovery probe.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Dr. Quail.
“I want better information. Plus the COD probe may give us remote navigation capability—or at least influence.”
“Providing the stealth probe doesn’t get it first,” Finderz countered.
“What about turning the stealth unit?”
“It’ll have a nova trigger.”
“What if we attacked it with the Corps of Discovery?”
“Like Custard at the Little Butterhorn.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. There’s no more risk to Clearfather than there is already, and the stealth unit may not expect such a contest. Get Broadband on it.”
“There’s another possible strategy,” remarked Dr. Quail. “Perhaps not an alternative, more an adjunct. We send someone after him. There’s no way the Kricket can rival a live witness. This is an unprecedented scientific opportunity. I’m not sure we shouldn’t have done this right from the start.”
“Doc, I admire your spirit,” said Aretha. “But we’re not going to risk you or Lila or even Finderz here on a mission like that.”
<
br /> “Thanks very much,” coughed the dwarf.
“Well . . .” Aretha nodded, thinking about his son and the Fight for Life in LosVegas—the fact that Clearfather might be headed there, too. “I think we’ll try to gather more information first. Lila, you and Doc get back to your rounds. We’ll keep you up to speed on these readings. Meanwhile, if you have any other ideas, let us know.”
With Quail and Lila gone, the drag queen intended to speak to Finderz about the Dingler transmission and the possibility of problems with THE ENTOMOLOGIST. Clearly the dwarf was upset, and Aretha wondered if he knew more than he was saying. There had been no words of comfort or criticism from Parousia Head. No word at all. The decision to sneak off to LosVegas was a hard one no matter what—but it would be impossible in the midst of a security crisis. And time was running out.
CHAPTER 3
Sinister Harmonies
After the Motivator shuffled off, Clearfather gripped the little white ball in his pocket and glanced around the station. There was a Harijan buffing the floor and a Haitian woman mopping up in front of Starbucks. The TWIN Voyancy Terminal was closed for “maintenance” but the liquidplex cubes showed images of pre-eidolonic news presenters—John Katz, formerly the host of The Day Before Tomorrow, and Bethany Quim, the onetime anchor of Constant Entertainment. There were no Inquisitors visible, but there was something not right about the people in the station. It wasn’t the eighty-year-old man in the guava-colored leisure suit with his twelve-year-old adopted Cambodian daughter, or the black Sisters of Mercy Get Down Gospel group. And it wasn’t the bearded rabbi or the quadriplegic in the automated mobile support station that concerned him. It was the men dressed up like a barbershop quartet—with neat little red bow ties and straw boaters, carrying vaudeville canes. If the people on the bus had cowered submissively at the Inquisitors, the barbershop quartet inspired something closer to terror. Especially when Clearfather realized there were five of them. Despite their different body shapes, from the husky bass to the weedy countertenor, they all had the exact same face, the same little mustache! He could feel them reaching out to him in his mind—some kind of insect magnetism.
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