The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security

by Andrew Tisbert

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  Lachesis Publishing

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  Copyright ©2008 by Andrew Tisbert

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  The Rise and Falling Out of

  Saint Leslie of Security

  Andrew Tisbert

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  lachesispublishing.com

  Published Internationally by Lachesis Publishing

  1787 Cartier Court, RR 1,

  Kingston, Nova Scotia, B0P 1R0

  Copyright © 2007 Andrew Tisbert

  Exclusive cover © 2007 Laura Givens

  Inside artwork © 2007 Carole Spencer

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  A catalogue record for the print format of this title is available from the

  National Library of Canada

  ISBN 1-897370-39-3

  A catalogue record for the Ebook is available from the

  National Library of Canada

  multiple ebook formats are available from

  www.lachesispublishing.com

  ISBN 1-897370-40-7

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  What they are saying about

  The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security:

  At once insightful and deranged, The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security is a science fiction adventure that reads like Kurt Vonnegut knocking heads with Joanna Russ.

  Acknowledgements

  With special thanks to Leslie K. Weinar for her inspiration and, of course, the use of her name.

  Dedication

  For Ginseng and Tully

  The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security

  Part I

  Womb

  "Thanks to my football experience, I know the value of team play."

  —Gerald Ford, as quoted in The Grand Rapids Press (December 27, 2006)

  "The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Franklin's electrical rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures, and War."

  —John Adams, Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle

  1

  There is just the shade of the smell in her sleep, when she sweats. Sweet, warm and sexual, the slightest hint of amniotic fluid; as if coming out of her skin is the reminder of her most basic origins and her most deeply hidden dread. And like that smell, like that hint of remembered smell, are the shadows just beyond her dreams. In her sleep she still gasps thick wet air in the dark, splinters from the door she cannot see needling under her tender fingernails. She still tastes the salt of dried tears, still listens for the return of her father's soft singing. There is still the overpowering convulsion of her cunt, the burst of hot fluid and that sudden sweet, oily smell. And the renewed panic. And the stifling, smothering feeling of being alone. Because in her sleep, the new shape of her mind hangs over her thinking like a soft sheet, less a part of her. Beneath the sheet, her memories lie in a slumber of their own. Still.

  * * * *

  Two agents escorted her in to stand on a blood-red carpet before a large oak desk, then stepped out the door behind her. Which left her with her superior, Staff Chief Russell, and she finally had to look at him. He stood behind the desk, staring. He looked less alive to her that moment than the agents, who derived any will they had from the mechanical implants in their heads. Then again, she had to be fair; his vacant stare was a professional mask—he switched it on and off at will. At least that's how he explained it. Her own explanations were never so articulate.

  He switched it off and smiled. “Hello, Leslie, and congratulations."

  "Russell."

  He rested the meaty slab of his hand on the desk. “Only three nights ago I was just ‘Tom'."

  For what seemed a long time, she tried but couldn't turn away from his gaze. Then once she'd succeeded, she couldn't look at him again.

  "I'd be honored,” he said, “to still be ‘Tom’ to a big hero like you."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The assassination attempt yesterday afternoon? Single-handedly saving President Washington's life? You couldn't have expected that to go unrewarded. Vision was all over it. You splattered the assassin's brains all over every family vision room across the country."

  That was a very Tom Russell way of putting it. He liked to say weird things. Not that she always knew what the Red Hell he was talking about.

  If not for all his peculiar words, maybe she wouldn't have let his hairy hand spider under her waistband that first time, a year and a half ago.

  I should tell him now: “Oh Tommy, dear. You'll find this one funny. There's something living inside me."

  "Don't you want to know how you'll be rewarded?"

  She nodded. Suddenly, too much sunlight came through the slatted blinds on the window spanning the left wall. She raised her hand and squinted.

  "Your name's up for sainthood, sweetheart. Saint Leslie of Security; how's that sound?"

  "Don't do this to me."

  "I'm serious."

  "I did my job. Isn't it my job to keep Father Washington from getting his head—"

  "You sound displeased."

  Leslie opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. She wasn't sure whether his tone held menace or sarcasm. “I—well of course I'm pleased, but damn it..."

  "A lot of people were impressed with the way you painted the street with brains. Vision anchormen are calling it a masterpiece. A true Rockwell. Didn't you watch the reports? Did you see the look on your face when you blew that fucking terrorist away? They keep playing it over and over in slow motion. It's amazing. By the way, pretty young saints—even if they once were professional killers—don't use the word ‘damn’ in polite conversation, okay? There'll be a lot of publicity during and after the promotion, so please try to remember. Don't use ‘shit’ and all those other old-fashioned expletives you learned as a kid in Vermont either. God knows how you could have remembered so many without your head mem."

  "Fuck you.” His condescension angered her, even if she couldn't have explained the feeling to herself.

  "Fuck you too, honey. The promotion ceremony is tomorrow night, at nine.” Tom stepped around the desk through bars of light and hooked a hand around Leslie's waist. “Will you please not get angry at every little thing I say? Let's celebrate tonight. Dinner. Eight."

  Though her teeth were clenched, she nodded.

  "Now I've got to take you down to the programming room. They want to put some revised dialogue parameters into you. A new saint hits the social circuit hard, and we don't want you talking like a common security guard, do we?"

&
nbsp; She let him lead her down the quiet hall to an elevator and down three levels to Cyber-Organics. To Leslie's knowledge, she was the only security guard who ever came down here. Russell never tried very hard to explain why. “You're a special case,” he would say. “Yeah, you are a Guard, not a damn CIA. But you are ... special."

  CIA's. That's what agents were called down here: Centralized Intelligence-enhanced agents. This was where they had their artificial head membranes modified or repaired. She hated the CIA's laboring in and out of the programming rooms, their tamed, dull expressions. And she hated the programming room she always used. It was too bright and antiseptic, and there was too much machinery she didn't understand. It was a place that made her feel powerless, and the technicians there, who hardly ever spoke to her as they set themselves the task of reprogramming the surgically implanted membrane in her skull, didn't help. At least this was one of the things Tom understood about her, and he stayed to hold her hand while they strapped her down and attached some machinery to her head and the programming was done, in spite of the looks he received. She was almost grateful.

  Programming hadn't always been such a dull and lonely experience. When the project began ten or eleven years ago, even technicians Tom hadn't assigned to her were finding excuses to wander around her during her frequent visits. There was an electric charge of excitement in the programming room, and all the techs asked her constant questions about her thoughts, memories, her comfort, her reactions. They often looked surprised or exhilarated by her answers, and took the time to repeat her words into their collar recorders. Many technicians would try to explain to her the great metamorphosis she had undergone, but for all their attempts they could have been speaking Arabic.

  She had been fond of one particular tech in the beginning. An older gentleman, he simplified his speech for her but she never felt as if he was talking down to her. His voice was heavy gravel all covered with a velvet moss. He would frown at her questions with drooping, close-set eyes and rub his thick chin. He would half-smile with his dry, cracked lips, but on him the expression always seemed affectionate, not condescending like the others.

  "Why can't I remember much of anything since before the head mem and starting security guard training?” she would ask.

  "That's a side effect of the mem. But it's also there for your protection. There are memories back there that would only hurt you. We don't want to hurt you."

  "Why do I have these bad dreams? They feel so real—the touch ... the smell and taste."

  "Yes. We're hoping those will subside given time, as your brain acclimates to the mem insertion, and we make certain adjustments. We're still learning ourselves, honey."

  "No one has still really told me what the head mem is, or how it works, or anything."

  He would wave off the impatience of his colleagues. “It's an organic membrane we overlay across a portion of your cerebral cortex. It's like an organic computer we build from what were originally stem cells. With it we can adjust the nature and pattern of your synaptic transmissions. Your thoughts and your personality are comprised of the map of myriad neuronal interconnections. These are the channels through which information moves and is stored."

  If Leslie looked at him blankly, he wouldn't give up. He would rub her arm, and continue to talk to her, all through the programming session. “We've never tried anything like this, with this level of subtlety and precision. The agents are another matter. What was done to them is blunt and cruel. They're human only by the nature of their flesh. But what we're doing with you, my dear, this has ramifications in the psychiatric and neurological fields. One day we'll have sound and safe treatments for any number of disorders, and it'll be all because of you."

  For all his wrinkles, his desiccated face, his thin, creaking shoulders, Leslie always felt he had some kind of power over her. She relaxed when he was in the programming room. His voice was the embrace of a father's arm to her. His smile softened her.

  And when a new Father Washington came into office and reorganized all the teams, he just disappeared.

  Leslie squeezed Tom's hand and tried to remember the old technician's name. She could see him so clearly, but it eluded her. She remembered the last time she saw him, when a line of armed CIA's braced themselves around him while he cleared out his locker in the programming lab, slamming service placards and work screens into a cardboard box. Leslie lay strapped into the programming console, straining her neck to see him through the other techs who continued their work as if nothing was happening. The old tech paused, cursed softly then turned to her. He was drenched in sweat and it took him the space of three deliberate, deep breaths to meet her gaze. It took that long again for Leslie to recognize his expression. She had never seen that pattern of line and tension on him. He was afraid.

  "Take care of yourself, Leslie,” he said. “These fools don't understand how important you are."

  "What's going on?"

  Swatting at beads of moisture along his temple, he forced a smile. “Oh, my research is obsolete. Or I know too much about you. Maybe both."

  One of the CIA's took this as a cue to slap him on the back of the head. He stumbled and his box fell to the floor.

  "Time to go, sir,” the CIA said. “Someone will get those things for you.” Then they shoved him to the door. Leslie screamed and tried to thrash off the programming table. The techs around her didn't utter one word, just firmly held her down. Leslie tensed at the memory, and squeezed Tom's fingers harder.

  "Relax, Leslie,” she heard him whisper. She looked up at him. Lines wrinkled deeply across his forehead. He looked genuinely concerned for her. Leslie wondered how she could feel such resentment and such gratitude at the same time.

  2

  Channel 13-39 airs coverage of the chimp murders in California. A mechanical eye zooms in on the carcass of another chimp, found dead after The Institute for Endangered Primate Adaptation received more threats from a Neighborhood Watch group, opposing their plan to integrate displaced primates into local group homes. The eye plays slowly across the sticky red gash in the chimp's head, then cuts to a woman claiming to have seen the ape stagger down her street. “I think the bugger was asking me for help, but I just don't know any sign language,” she moans. “The poor little monkey. The poor little monkey!"

  The news shifts to a panel of experts discussing a Californian academic who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel plot-generating program. Mechanical eyes shift perspectives endlessly as two animated old men and the host argue, focusing on one man, then another—a close-up of a fist, a tapping foot. One of the two experts smoothes back his cottony white hair, picks at his lavender jump suit and, in a soft, reasonable tone, says to the host; “I think we should give this guy credit, because he alone—"

  "What has he done?” the host interrupts.

  "Well, he—"

  "I'm asking you, what has he done that is so important!” A mechanical eye focuses on the host's stern, unflinching chin, burrows up into his wide right iris.

  "I'm trying to tell you! If nothing else it's of great historical importance to recreate the lost art of fiction—"

  "Please!” There are smirks and titters. The vision eye pans to the lavender-suited man's nose, into a nostril exploding with long white hairs. “You're an idiot!” the host cries. “This is elitist bullshit, trying to pawn gutter literacy off on an unsuspecting public. Who do these intellectuals think they're fooling? The days of bourgeois literacy are long gone, and I say ‘terrific'. Civilization has excelled far beyond the need to scribble down make-believe stories!"

  And Leslie's own story in Washington is updated by the grinning anchorman. “This amazing young woman, who we all owe so much, is to be officially proclaimed a saint!"

  Before and after photographs of the attempted assassin are shown. “Notice how the brains have been boiled away there, on the left side of his head?” a news analyst says.

  The anchorman cuts in. “Great marksmanship from our hero,” he quips. “And don't
forget, it was found today the assassin was a member of a well-known Atheist-worshipping terrorist cult, before his details disappeared from records two years ago."

  "Yes, John, and there's been some speculation that this incident could be related to the rumored sightings of the Antichrist reported lately."

  "The Antichrist? An evil terrorist leader who is almost identical to our own Father Washington? Now who can really believe—"

  The eye focuses on the analyst's twitching nostril as the anchor man interrupts. “Urban myth or reality? We'll let you decide."

  Main-screen commercials break in to remind viewers that the War on Terror continues; to remind viewers that the quarterly Blessing Pilgrimage for pregnant mothers and their unborn is tomorrow morning; to remind viewers to vote for Father Washington.

  "This November,” the narrator blares, “remember the President who has led you through these dark times for the last four years with vigor and the family values you share, the Father Washington who sleeps with a clear conscience because He has never been connected to Terror. Vote to re-elect Father Washington."

  The news returns with a human interest story that developed in Congress yesterday, when translators were called in after several filibustering congressmen started speaking in tongues. “Certainly it is significant,” Saint Terry Bright says, once famous as a vision evangelist. “Although I'm not sure I know exactly what they're saying. But you see that doesn't matter..."

  The movie following is based on the folk tale about Einstein and his fiddle, rosining up a light beam, challenging old Red Devil and warning him how scared he'd be to take any American souls once he saw what old Einstein could do.

  * * * *

  Leslie had already seen the movie at least three times.

  She made toast to tide her over until dinner, brought it back into the vision room, switched off the wall so that only the ads still flickered softly and sank onto the couch. Dust billowed up through the dim light from the vision wall. Channel 13-39 was the only Washington channel that continued to report Californian news. The country was simply too politically and culturally removed from the United States. It was full of greedy Asians and dirty Mexicans and anti-American movie stars. California was an embarrassment to the government. For decades, it refused Father Washington's overtures for a formal alliance. But in spite of many attempts over the years to create a New Hollywood in New York or Florida, Washington just couldn't break the American people of the guilty pleasures of California's major motion picture industry.