The author may be contacted through www.jamescurcio.netFor free Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning media, visit www.joinmycult.org

© 2007 James Curcio, all rights reserved.

All rights reserved, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a database or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means now existing or later discovered, including without limitation mechanical, electronic, photographic or otherwise, without the express prior written permission of the author.

Elements of the Fas Ferox world and characters are used in this work as part of a CC Attribution 3.0 Unported license. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ for more details.

“Fallen Nation: Welcome to the Apocalypse” Writing, texture, layout: James Curcio. Pencil: P. Emerson Williams.Reprinted on pages 202-209, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

ISBN 1-4196-7265-7

Second edition, December 2007 printing

Prologue: 2011 Wasn’t So Great, Either 1Chapter 1: Jesus in A Coma 11Chapter 2: The Monkey Made Me Do It 41Chapter 3: Nocturnal Emissions 64Chapter 4: Counter Culture 87Chapter 5: Rome Wasn’t Burnt in A Day 104Chapter 6: Train ’Em Young 126Chapter 7: Don’t Feed the Homeless Prophets 152Chapter 8: Wandering Star 165Chapter 9: The Party That Brought The House Down 199Chapter 10: Ground Zero 223Chapter 11: Eschatology 251

Special Thanks go out to Judith Curcio & Julie Ianucci

Suzanne CaseyChristie CaseyAndres Yuhnke

Jim & Kate Wolf-PizorJoseph Matheny

Additional thanks to Anna Young, Neil Gaiman, Jason Stackhouse, Kao Masunari, Andre Malkine, Chris Rahm, Dan Stone, and all of the other people Anna and I brought together to build the Fas Ferox world, which helped inspire me in the creation of this work; and to Andrew Young, for providing the initial

inspiration for the Balthasar character.

1

PROLOGUE: 2011 Wasn’t So Great, Either

“Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a prison for every evil spirit, every unclean bird, and every unclean and hated beast.” - Revelations 18:2

The sizzle of a match sparking to life momentarily mingled with cricket-song in

the swampy air. A large, calloused hand guided it towards a hurricane lantern in the dark, its nails split from work and grimy to the quick.

“Bad smells, lil’ Missy,” a voice said, coming from a hulking form still mostly cloaked in shadow. “Fiyah. An’ pisssss.”

The wick of the hurricane candle borrowed life from the match, which expired with a wet sizzle in the palm of the other seemingly disembodied hand. The sweet pork and sulfur smell of burnt flesh filled the room with the growing light, revealing shelves of yellowed bottles holding dried herbs in front of a mildewed Confederate flag.

Agatha loomed over the splintery hardwood of the table the lamp sat upon, the washed-out flower print of her dress barely visible in the flickering light. A broad-brimmed leather hat twisted the outline of her head demoniacally.

Two eyes, long-lashed and gorgeous, regarded Agatha in terror from the other side of the table. The orange puffing of the cigar she clenched between her teeth reflected in those doe eyes as she sat a moment in brooding silence. The smoke quickly blotted out all the other scents in the room.

2

Removing the cigar with a blunt, dirty hand, Agatha concluded, “Get up slut. Weyah takin’ a walk.”

Agatha marched down the cinder block steps outside her trailer, holding the lamp in one hand, and a taut, rusted chain in the other. The trailer was once bright blue, but now it was slate gray and pitted with mold. Shelf mushrooms protruded occasionally along the warped side of the vehicle, amidst vines that wandered willy-nilly from the trailer to the cracked staircase, bordering ‘gardens’ of toxic plants.

“Foul. Win’s got teeth tonight. Fiyah an piss an teeth,” she said to her daughter Mary, who was barely able to keep on her feet as the chain dragged her along.

“…There’s a three, lil’ cuntling. Fastah now,” she continued impatiently.With a powerful arc of her masculine arm, Agatha yanked the chain.

Mary lost her footing completely, and slid down the concrete stairs on her face. She fell in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, the skin shucked from her hands and knees like corn husks. Stomaching a sob, she rose to her feet.

“Thas’ mah darling,” Agatha said, turning towards a rusty machete that rested at the base of the stairs.

A baleful moon shed its light down on a cluster of trailers, almost swallowed by the surrounding swamp. At their center sat Agatha’s trailer, and an overgrown yard almost half-again its length. Dead pickups, trailers, garbage heaps and piles of lumber sprouted from between the foliage.

Agatha thumped her way in a direct line from her trailer, Mary still stumbling behind.

“Mebbe you ain’ seen, but us folk ah stahving. Die’n in ouwah wood jes lik’ lil’ los babbies. The world’s a changin’, darlin’…” She said over her shoulder, unaware that Mary’s terror totally overrode her ability to listen. Or care.

“Fiyah, piss, teeth…Time ol’ Agatha did sumpin’ ‘bout it all.”She made her way down a sloping path to a rocky, dried stream bed.

Mary shivered involuntarily, shrinking from the tendrils of growth that crept their way onto the path. The woods seemed to radiate illness.

Agatha smiled as she spoke, “Gone put you down heyah a bit. Cain’ have you hollerin while ah fix thins’…” She chained Mary tightly to the tree. Mary strained against crying out as the cold metal bit into her rust-stained skin.

“Is a new world, ‘lil bitch. Them wot’s strong gone eat them wot’s not. Gone git fat lik’ big ol’ mountin’ cats,” Agatha said, pinching Mary’s cheek with a gnarled hand.

3

“You jes’ res’ heyah a piece while ah go star’ it rollin’. Mebbe think awhile, why you ain’ the one getting et.”

Mary bit her quivering lip but remained silent. For a horrifying moment she thought the machete had her name on it. She concealed a sigh of relief when her mother passed her by.

As Agatha trudged back up the hill, crooning to herself, the sobs Mary had been holding back finally overcame her. The cold stones around her echoed her unanswered pleas as her mother’s out-of-key singing voice came rolling down the hill to her, “’Neath the trees wheyah nobodeh sees, wi’ll hide an seek wheyahevah we please…”

Now back at the foot of the staircase outside her trailer, Agatha picked up the machete. Her tongue lolled between her teeth like a corpulent earthworm.

“Vernon!” she called, tapping its hungry edge against her back.A weak-looking, servile man poked his head out of the trailer door.

“Hullo, sweetie?” he replied.“Git out heyah, Vernon. Ah need ya,” she said.He stumbled down the broken stairs like an awkward puppy, wearing

stained long underwear. Moonlight reflected off his wedding ring as he

4

stood uncertainly at the base of the staircase, running his hand over his balding head.

“Sumpin’ wrong wit’ the pig pen, ah need ya. Come on,” she said, moving the machete to her front nimbly as she turned and began walking away.

Vernon stood over a stained bathtub in front of an empty pig pen, scratching his head.

“But sweetie, whas’ wrong with it?” he asked, after inspecting it another moment.

Agatha neatly split Vernon’s skull with the machete in reply. “Is empty!” she proclaimed proudly as he fell forward with a splat, his

legs sticking out unevenly from one end of the tub. She wiped the machete on her pantleg as they twitched spasmodically.

“Cause thas’ the way us teddybehs have to piiiiic-nic.”

( )“But Motherrr,” Darell droned on in a whine, “how we gonna get out of

here with no gas…no ’lectric?” “Swamp seems to grow each’n every day.”“No food,” another complained, holding a flabby stomach which pushed

his overalls to the limit. “Yeah, what we gon’ do?” yet another of the boys asked.Agatha eyed them all with squinted eyes before raising a sausage in the

air over her head. “Whut we gonna dooooo?” she imitated mockingly. “Snivelin’ pups. What’ya do wit’ out me? I’ll make good f ’ya. Look you be good an’ plump, you et all y’like now. And we gon’ go. Gotta get out fore little drown rats y’d be.”

She stuffed the sausage in her mouth, savoring the salty pork flavor as her children wrung their hands. When she finished with it, she leaned forward with a grunt, and lifted a rusted chain from the filth.

“Hook this here on the wagon’n strap yerselves in. You gon’ carry us on outta here. Hitch it an’ get movin’, maybe then I feed ya.”

The trailer bucked and trembled as it wheeled over ruts in the road, Agatha’s boys dragging it forward like a pack of oxen in the field. They hobbled past abandoned gas stations, surrounded in broken glass, rent and rusted metal, abandoned cars stripped down to the chassis, and occasionally, charred bodies, tangled in blackened cypress roots.

5

Mary lay on top of the trailer, her hands bound, watching carrion birds circle between the limbs of the trees.

That night, she shivered up there on the roof as the bulk beneath her continued to quake, though the trailer no longer rolled forward. The quaking was now accompanied by the sound of Agatha bellowing like a gorilla, and the pathetic whimpering of her many sons as they spent themselves in the moist folds of her girth. Mary had no more tears left. Instead, she stared blankly at the moon as the world continued to shudder and groan.

The trailer bucked one last time, so fiercely that it seemed it might overturn. It didn’t, but Mary was pitched off to land with a thud in the grass. With the wind knocked out of her, it took a moment to realize she was free. The old ropes must have snapped.

Without a thought she took off into the brush, terrified they may have heard her gasp when she landed.

Her tender feet split on stones and roots, and her lungs burned as she ran through the forest, too terrified to look back or down. The taste of copper filled her mouth, adrenaline wracked her body. She was certain she was hallucinating when two lights drifted down a nearby road, Will-o’-the-wisps with a V-6 engine.

When the lights stopped with a punctuated screech, she realized this was no hallucination. Wonder was replaced by terror. She was an attractive, exhausted, barely clothed fifteen year old alone in the woods at night. This was a bullet-hole ridden Ford Explorer, cruising along like a hunting cat on the prowl. Though not worldy, Mary was well aware that never the twain should meet.

Hours before, she had wished for death, now she wanted nothing more than to live. Still, there was no way she could get very far on foot. And what fate could be inflicted upon her that was worse than what she had lived through?

Stepping onto the cracked street, she waved her arms back and forth. Having already seen her, the driver continued to stare. She couldn’t make out anything other than a blurry silhouette, blinded as she was by the light, so she inched up to the passenger side of the vehicle.

The driver seemed to be motioning for her to get in. Cautiously, she opened the door. A slightly plump man gazed back at her with a mixture of curiosity and

guiltily restrained lust.

6

“Hi,” he said plainly.“Um,” she said. He had a necktie wrapped around his head like a

bandana, a white collared business shirt left mostly unbuttoned, and a SIG sniper rifle balancing across his lap.

“I’m Agent 79.”“I’m…Mary.”“So…” he said, looking at the tattered rags that covered her young

frame. “Going for a jog?”Mary couldn’t reply. Instead, she started sobbing uncontrollably.Agent 79 put his hands up as if to console her, but didn’t seem

comfortable touching her. They floated there, uncertainly.“Do you want me to…?”“Drive!” She said suddenly, forcefully. “I don’t care where you’re going

just drive!”He dropped his hands to the steering wheel, “I am headed West…”She wiped her nose with one hand. “I don’t care,” she said more calmly.

“Drive.”

( )Mary was still shaking. Moments before, she had been strapped to the top of

a filthy trailer as Agatha was delightfully gang-banged by her inbred children. She would never call her “Mother,” she realized, though couldn’t help thinking of what a Mother might be. Agatha was the exact opposite of everything motherly. She was like Baba Yaga without the walking house. Mary’s brother’s, who Agatha referred to as “ma pups,” couldn’t help what they were, but she still didn’t like thinking she came from the same stock. She refused to talk like them. They were animals. Maybe Agatha couldn’t help being what she was either, but Mary felt no pity for her. Agatha should boil to death in a cauldron of scalding oil, covered in the Colonel’s Secret Recipe of eleven herbs and spices.

That thought made her smile viciously, though it was all distraction from what was going on. Distraction was a unique skill she’d developed, fermented like a fine wine.

“Excuse me,” Agent 79 said, “but what the hell are you talking about?”“Talking about?” Mary asked. “No... but I was thinking quite a lot just

then.” “Oh I’m quite certain you were talking. About Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Fine wine...And Baba Yaga. You read uh, Russian folk tales? And talk really propah for a Belle... In third person.”

7

She looked at him, startled for a moment, but then drifted away again. That old book of fairy tales was her first. No, no that wasn’t true. It was the only book she’d managed to get her hands on and hide. She’d read it over and over, her brothers lost in the zombie-trance of television... before they lost the electric. And yes, she fancied the British. And would never, ever talk like the others. But was that important? Now she was riding in an SUV with some kind of Secret Agent. Nothing like James Bond, though. He hadn’t even given her a proper name. Agent 79? Agent of what? None of the answers he gave to those questions made any sense to her. A “disorganization” of “de-ontological post-capitalist collectivism?” That answer, he admitted a moment later, was a load of bullshit. So she asked again, and he told her it was like a cult, but with better benefits. And he winked when he said benefits, which was kind of creepy, but kind of cute, too–

“You’re doing it again.”“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You just– you have no idea where I just came

from.”“You’re right about that,” Agent 79 said, waiting for a reply.This was awkward, but it wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t chained to a tree or

watching Agatha sharpening her knives as the pups dragged their most recent catch – a blindly shrieking boy – out of the swamp. She couldn’t watch what came after, but those sounds – those horrible sounds – would haunt her dreams forever...the chewing smacking of sloppy lips, but she knew they weren’t lips. The cracking of celery, but it most certainly was not celery. The drip, drip, drip of–

Agent 79 threw up his hands, and the truck nearly careened off the road. “Wow! You know what? Let’s just not talk for a little while, OK?”

As the hours and miles of road slipped by, Mary came to realize that

things weren’t nearly so dire as she had imagined. She even saw electric lights, magnificent beacons of a world she only dimly recalled from her childhood. By foot, they had not wandered far. Agatha told them civilization had fallen. No one came looking... Who was to know?

This country was still not what it once was. One could hardly even call it a country, now, could they?

“It’s almost like when the barbarians sacked Rome,” Agent 79 said. “The world didn’t end – just the civilization.”

“I’m sorry?”“You were talking, I thought–”There was still hope. She was still thinking about the beacons of light: the

neon and street signs. Several towns in, traffic lights.

8

No, this won’t do, she thought. I really have to try to talk to him.“You really are a strange girl, do you know that?” Agent 79 shook his

head and made a left.“Where do...did...you come from?” she asked, trying again.“The land of barbarians and anal rape,” he said immediately.“Huh?” she asked.“Figuratively, I mean.”“Huh?” she asked again.“Los Angeles. Back before the bombing I worked in surveillance.

Corporate, mainly. I mean what isn’t these days, right? I helped run a music label on the side. Ever hear of Babalon?”

She really had no idea what he was talking about. “Are you headed back?” she asked, unable to think of anything else.“Well, Los Angeles is totally screwed. Go boom. Uh. I’m headed to

the red wood forests. Some of the members of that cult I was telling you about live out there. Feral vigilante lesbians. Make the radical Feminazis of a decade ago seem like Girl Scouts. They let me live because... Actually, I’m not sure why they let me live. So, your turn. Where’re you from?”

“I’ve been strapped to a chair, mainly. The last year. I mean, or a tree. Or the top of a trailer. Sometimes they’d let me out in the yard, though only on a chain. Then my– I mean uh, Agatha– killed my Dad with a cleaver and made sausages out’ve him.”

“Ah...ha.” Another long, uncomfortable silence followed.

The sound of the door opening awoke her. She didn’t recall falling asleep, and for a moment struggled against the restraint of the seatbelt before realizing where she was. Outside she could see a long line of shoddily-built windmills, and a vast town of tents and buzzing electric lights.

“Wait here,” he said. “It’s not really safe in these villages…I have to trade some guns for gas and food…We have a long trip ahead. Just. Actually, get in the back where the windows are tinted, I’ll lock the doors from the outside, you’ll be fine. Trust me.”

She looked at him skeptically, her body instinctively falling into a fight or flight position.

“If I wanted to…do anything to you…I could have already. I’m not like that, OK?” He paused. “Not without your permission, anyway. Now please, get in the back.”

He went around the side and pulled out a large black canvas bag, slung

9

his assault rifle over his shoulder, and slammed the door shut behind him. A moment later the vehicle pinged as the doors automatically locked her in.

( )Doug leaned around the redwood he was pissing on, calling out to his

friend. “You think ther travellin’ long the crick?”“Nah,” Frank said. “Back ther, I think.”Zipping his fly, Doug re-shouldered his 30 ought 6. Frank tossed Doug a beer as he rounded the bend, which he caught and

cracked open before he even knew what happened. “Thanks,” he said, after downing the can and tossing it over his shoulder.

The two of them started down a slight incline, before stopping at the intersection of two dirt paths to crack open another beer.

“You see that bitch that was all over me at the bar down in Oakland?” Frank asked. “I didn’t understand a damn thing she said. I mean, I still fucked her though. Of course. But, y’know. So uh…”

Doug was looking over his shoulder. He had the momentary feeling they were being watched. “What’d ya say?” he asked, shrugging.

“The uh…Oh nevermind. What wer ya lookin’ at?”“Nothing,” Doug said. “I just thought someone was…You have another

beer?”Fishing around in his backpack, Frank’s fingers came on a now warm

can. “Ya. It’s a little pissy…”Not hearing a complaint, Frank tossed it at him without even looking. A

moment later, he heard it thunk on the ground. His brow tying itself into a knot, he turned around.

Doug wasn’t there.He looked down at the can lying dejectedly in the grass, surrounded in a

growing pool of blood. Frank knew he should feel terror. Instead, he felt the most incredible calm, like he was floating up on a balloon. Nonchalantly, his eyes followed the crimson trail to Doug, who was splayed backwards, the black shaft of a crossbow bolt sticking out of his neck. Perfect shot, he thought, into the artery, puncturing the side of the voice box, and, he imagined, straight into the brain stem.

Time was slowing down. His fingers tingled. Leaves overhead rustled in the wind.

10

A foot came down. It was his. Another and another. He was running. “HELP SOMEONE FUCKING HELP!” Someone was screaming. It

sounded like his voice, but he felt so calm. It couldn’t have been him.Nymphs in the trees were mocking him. He must have had too much

beer…Something stung him in the neck.The ground felt warm.As Frank drifted up on his balloon, he thought he heard a female voice

say, “that was a hell of a shot, Mary. Artemis is going to have to take a look at this. Really too bad he’s only a two point buck…”

Mary had found her family, and her home.

11

Chapter One:Jesus In A Coma

I first met the harbingers of the apocalypse at a rather plebeian location. They were refueling their behemoth of a tour bus at

a gas station in the middle-of-fucking-nowhere, Texas. It was 2003, and America’s chest-beating had reached a nauseating crescendo.

You might have mistaken the location for a cowboy graveyard, or the set of a hackneyed Wild West movie, blowing tumbleweed and all. In the distance, coyotes howled against the backdrop of deep purple mountains as picturesque clouds flew by like stop motion photography against a hazy tequila sunset.

The only structure in sight other than the squat, sun-bleached gas station was an overturned trailer across the street. Torn children’s clothes were scattered all over the lawn. I averted my eyes, not wanting to call up the ghosts that still clung to those tatters of pastel fabric. Some stories you just don’t want to hear.

I wasn’t there for sunsets. I was there for coffee and gas (and crappy coffee at that) but as a historian and journalist of sorts, I was in for a bit of a treat. As I later discovered, the group I was about to encounter was at the time escaping imprisonment from a asylum for the criminally insane. In the story of their lives I’m a forgotten face; a lean, stubble-shrouded, scrawny guy in a soiled red pinstriped suit.

So if I’m an extra in this drama, why am I blathering on? Put simply, it is my job. The record of history – that is history as it happened, not as you read it in your schoolbooks – has always been transcribed by moi.

12

I don’t have a big head about it. Quite frankly, I hate my job. But I do get to chain-smoke for eternity without lung cancer, so I can’t really complain.

In ten years, a hundred years…everyone who knows me dies, and the next wave comes. I see the procession of these tides like the ticking of your wristwatch as you stare it down, waiting for your lunch break. My existence is like being at a cocktail party and knowing every intimate detail of each person’s life, without the other guests so much as knowing my name. This anonymity makes me the perfect historian. Not objective, but indifferent. The story is what matters.

I’ve been traveling around this hunk of rock far longer than I’m willing to admit, and I can tell you with certainty that greatness is only seen in retrospect.

In the present, they were a bunch of kids on an idealistic crusade; part rock band, part religious cult, part juvenile joke. I didn’t need the news reports, already circulating by that time, to know that. I could have pitched their gig to an exec in Los Angeles in a heartbeat – Electric Kool Aid Acid Test meets Fear and Loathing meets Ground Beneath Her Feet, set in a dystopian, capitalistic nightmare. What they did was theater, not guerrilla anything. These kids were pretty good at it, sure, but if they wanted rebellion and chaos, they should’ve seen Rome, 700 A.D. Now that was chaos.

I would have thrown this encounter away like the Styrofoam cup that contained my stale $.79 coffee, but for one minor detail.

The “minor detail”? This rumbling, bumble-bee painted van contained at least three Demigods. They didn’t know it at the time, and neither did I. By the time I realized, all these incarnations were rotting in the ground.

I don’t have time to hash out how the world works to you right now, but I do owe you a partial explanation so that you don’t write me off as an escaped mental patient myself. (Not that it really matters, or that it isn’t a fate that meets many of us.)

“Demigod” gives a lot of misconceptions. While our lives are never boring, we’re still tied to a mortal life in the Physical world. We can’t raise the dead, fly, or toss fireballs. We age, get acne, and die, just like you. We’re pretty much exactly like you, only more so. Demigods can pass for talented humans in many instances, some living their entire lives without knowing they are anything but.

The difference comes when our mortal bodies hit puberty. Then the dreams and the ideas start percolating.

Imagine this for a minute, before you start wishing you were one of us.

13

Your body’s changing, you’re growing hair in weird places, and you feel like an unlovable freak. Now there are voices in your head, telling you you’ve lived a hundred lives and are an alien, Divine intelligence, with tens of thousands of years of karma weighing down your head. It’s alienating, it’s awful, and many of us snap under the pressure.

These poor souls either go mad, or block out the thought entirely, never to recall their true nature within this lifetime. Their careers here in the Physical world are always notable, whether for success or for pioneering new horizons in abject failure.

Even when everything works out fine, recall is never total. Scores of lives are as lost as your lunch menu from August 12th, 1997. Consequences of those previous lives remain components of the current incarnation, but their exact substance never reforms. Again, here, I am the exception.

I remember everything. Always, from the moment I’m born. Maybe the next time around I’ll get a chance to give this bunch the respect they deserve.

So what was the nature of this transaction? It’s like a bad joke: What did the four Demigods say to one another at the gas station?

You want to know the truth? I asked Jesus for a cowboy killer. And on my first exhale, I told Lilith that she was so shallow, even Demigods mistake their own depth in her. I have no idea what she made of that comment because I turned on my heel, hopped into my car, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

For the record, I wasn’t being fickle, though I was misquoting Frederich Nietzsche for the sake of my own amusement. I encountered that doe-eyed train wreck once before, in Asia Minor. She was serving in the harem of Achaemenes. Like everyone else, I almost fell in love with her…In truth, I almost fell in love with my reflection in her eyes. If it wasn’t for our own vanity, none of us could fall prey. She’s just a broken mirror. The Sultan had me tortured and put to death while she tittered like a character in a shōjo manga.

That was six hundred years ago, and it left me with, shall we say, quite an impression. I’ll give her credit: in a way she was the one who pulled the final card that brought the house down. Without her insatiable hunger for attention, the band would have remained a third ring curiosity. Then maybe…well, who knows? Maybe fate is written in stone, and maybe it isn’t. Doesn’t mean I have to like her any.

The bottom line is this: nothing, and no one, is truly omniscient. Even though a God may know everything, he isn’t about to crawl out of his own

14

mind to know he knows it.Which is to say: everything is narrated by someone. This is why complete Unity in Divinity is anathema to journalism: there

is no story if there is no one to tell it, and no one to tell. Us Demigods live in exile from the Divine right along with you. Also like you, we only know what our eyes and ears give us. To get the story you’ll have to dive into the reek and accept that chances are, when you emerge, the “truth” is going to smell like a week-old rack of lamb sitting on the side of the road in Calcutta. You want this story? You’re going to have to strap on your mining helmet and go spelunking.

Though I have little in common with him otherwise, there is a single journalist in your recent history who recognized these things. The rest were choked on the false objectivism they were taught in school, then fattened yet malnourished by the political and corporate interests of their sponsors. This one fellow – no Demigod to my knowledge, though he was surely a flawed Hero in the classic sense – “invented” Gonzo journalism.

This approach tells the journalist to embrace all the things he is taught to loathe in school, all the things which shatter his false objectivity, and then to present the mangled pulp the scenario has rendered. Most take it as a hilarious joke, or look at it skeptically, like the broken thing their cat drops in front of them. But there is something else here: truth.

I, of course, lack the man’s sense of humor, having been at this a bit longer than he; but, for guidance, I turn your attention in his direction, rather than towards Mecca, in these times.

I’ve dumped a lot on your lap and haven’t explained any of it. I really don’t have the time to hash out how it all works right now. You’ll get it, in your time. Or you won’t.

Back to this troupe, who you are about to become well acquainted with. If you want to know the story of how the Western World crumbled, then you must know their story. In retrospect, they were heroes or villains, depending on whether you thought the status quo at the end of the Kali Yuga was a good thing or not.

Their story begins rather innocently back in 2002, with the escape of two inmates from a mental asylum…

–Baltasar, July 4th, 2032.

( )

15

Stephanie put on her jacket, pushing her stringy blond hair from her face. Her hands looked gray, veiny. Fat. Her hands looked fat. She scrawled the final lines onto her daily report. Date: March 1st, 2002. Signature: Stephanie Anne Heickle.

She placidly explained the events of the day to her replacement, Tracy, handing her a clipboard in the process.

Today had been uneventful. No orderlies with oozing compound fractures. No flailing and howling. The worst was trying to get “Agent 139” to take his meds, which was more like arguing with a pedantic philosophy major than dealing with a mental patient. Tedious, but not dangerous.

Eventful days provided distraction. Home was a furnished apartment with stains on the rug, an ungrateful bitch of a house cat that liked to urinate on furniture just because she could, a notable absence of significant others. The invalids drooling on her at work were as close as she got to hot and heavy.

Agent 139 was one of the more articulate patients in the ward, committed as a result of a violent incident in a nearby restaurant. He wasn’t apprehended on the scene of the crime, nor was definitive evidence ever found. Guilt by association was enough to prove Terrorist conspiracy these days. One of the three of those kids was responsible; the way she saw it, they’d figured they’d bag the bunch. They brought him in with the other two, a maladjusted paranoid – most paranoids were maladjusted, right? – and a gender-dysphoric turnip with a genius IQ that referred to itself on good days as Jesus.

The paranoid was the only one positively identified, and his name was as white bread as you could get: Johny Smith. Only the spelling was atypical. That, and his penchant for spitting in glasses and drinking it. She was no detective, but out of the three of them he seemed the most likely to lob a grenade in a family restaurant.

Supposedly, Agent 139 was one of the heads of this group. It seemed to her that he was as bored as she was, spinning imaginative yarns for the doctors to while away his time. The only sign to the contrary was that patients and even doctors who spent too much time with him had a habit of going insane, if they weren’t already.

After signing in, Tracy started walking down the hallway to fourth

16

ward, where she would begin checking on the patients. Her flat-soled shoes squeaked loudly on the yellow linoleum, making her task – checking if patients were asleep – slightly counter-productive. She clicked her tongue at herself, trying to walk more carefully.

( )I can’t rationally blame the pacing nurses for my insomnia, but I do it

all the same. It might be the same reason I stick to the moniker Agent 139. Habit, boredom, it’s one of the many drawn-out games that we play with one another, even though none of us enjoy the outcome. Maybe those who tend the mental health machine are as much slaves as we are. I wouldn’t know, stuck as I am on one side of the metal-insulated plate glass.

I feel the walls leering in at me each night as I roll around in my lice-infested cot, my eyelids shut to keep their eyes out. They probably look like two desiccated grapes – swollen, sticky, and purple-veined by morning as I toss back the meds with bitter-tasting water. Even if I have finally cracked, become what they always said I was, it’s better than counting the blocks again. (There are 451 cinder blocks, 104 and a half floor tiles, and 23 asbestos-dusted ceiling tiles in my room.)

It’s “depressive ideation,” the doctors say, to think about the poisonous PCBs, polluting our bodies’ water by proxy. It is an “obsessive fixation” to mention the soil, leeched of its vital nutrients, leaving us all hollow as dried gourds. But this is just the reality of the 21st century. The lie is grinning talk show hosts, Prozac, the American Dream. The natural state of the human animal in troubling times is not happiness. Show me a man grinning in the trenches as the bombs fall, and I will show you a lunatic.

I’m just waiting for the report “This just in – WE’RE ALL FUCKED.” Then I can turn the damned thing off and enjoy a smoke in the five minutes before the end of the world. We’re too sedated to care. Those who do care can only raise their voices shrilly, impotently, or whimper in the corner like the kicked dogs they are.

The first couple months, I told myself this wouldn’t be how the story ends. I held out hope. An overeager, stupid kid, I’d thought I could break the cultural brain-wash by hopping on the cafeteria table and shouting “you’re free!”

That gets you a twenty-to-life sentence these days, especially when even more stupid, overeager kids start lobbing grenades in restaurants. Fucking Johny. Jesus and I were one toke over the line and thought he was some

17

kind of prophet. Now a bunch of senior citizens have shrapnel in their asses that they didn’t get in Korea, and I have to psychoanalyze doctors to keep myself from going nuts.

Bottom line: ideas don’t count for a whole lot in this world, but on their own, they’re mostly benign. Ideals, on the other hand, can get you a special jacket with one sleeve. Ideals can get you shot.

I lost that idealism as months turned into a year. The other Agents disappeared into the woodwork, and Jesus was lost to us all, wandering endlessly in an inner world of possibility. I envied his Eden, where he was a she and all was as it should be. That wasn’t my dream, but I knew what it was to be consumed by an ideal. It sure beat the hell out of the reality that the doctors were trying to “adapt” me to. Of all the failures I will take responsibility for, the bloody legacy of Western “Civilization” is not one. I wipe my hands of it as it gallantly struts into oblivion.

The routine won. I could have spent the rest of my days bitterly shuffling in these hallways, living on anti-psychotics, coffee, and nicotine, if it wasn’t for a twist of fate that brought my soul to light once again.

My return to hope came in the most unexpected place: right before a commercial break.

Though we no longer get a daily “movie hour” – too many fictional adult situations, too many implied nipples and double entendres – for some reason, the evening news is now fit for our consumption…to remind us of the world we left behind, I suppose. This is a new policy that I’ve yet to fathom. If it’s meant to inspire us to return to the fold, they’d have better luck with porn. I miss eager lips and hungry eyes a hell of a lot more than knifings and Jimmy the Wonder Dog.

I was sitting in the rec room, scrawling another page in Join My Cult! Dr. Fein had asked me to keep a journal. Instead, he got a jaunt through my head. Poor guy.

As I happened to look up and pause to chew on my crayon, I locked gazes with the vacant stare of an ubiquitous oriental reporter.

“Good evening, Jon.” She was standing in front of a barbed wire fence which, by appearance, kept a thick patch of brambles from escaping. I recognized the location immediately. She was standing about two hundred yards from the window of the cell I furtively stared out of each night.

“Some may recall an expose about the original Pennhurst institution in the 70s, aired on this network. After a series of lawsuits, the hospital was shut down. Based on the severity of the accusations, much of what

18

happened there was buried, and it was later re-opened as a Federal Penitentiary.

“This is where our unusual story today begins, within the beige bricks of this imposing building you see before me. Last year, three individuals were committed here after a bombing that occurred in the nearby Lenny’s, formerly located in Devon, now closed. Since then, individuals identifying themselves as members of a cult calling itself the the ‘Mother Hive Brain’ began publicly leaking plans for their escape. It later became clear that this was part of an ongoing Alternate Reality Game. Though oftentimes bizarre, these games have gained the financial support of corporations like Audi and Microsoft, thanks in part to the fanatics who play them. But is this really just a game? What if they are terrorists, hoping we will mistake their antics for a part of some elaborate hoax?”

Her lines jittered out of her as if she was directly hooked into some kind of RSS feed. Teleprompter, my ass, she was positively animatronic.

“...Additionally, some may be lead to ask what this institution is doing open, on the taxpayers dime, when it was closed for unsanitary conditions and illegal experiments?”

I fell to the floor, I laughed so hard. I know, I know. I should have kept my cool. But it was too good to be true. Disappeared into the woodwork, yes. But apparently still hard at work. ‘Mother Hive Brain’ was a joke that had taken on a life of its own. Even before we were locked away, it spread through rumors on the Internet and whispers in smoky cafés. Kids were taking on Agent numbers in other countries and pranking foreign embassies.

It was reality disguised as fiction disguised as reality disguised as…who could even tell anymore? There could be an army of kids devising strategies on how to break us out, thinking they were part of an elaborate game.

I leaned back and took in a deep breath. The first full, down-to-the stomach breath I’d taken in months. Birds fluttered outside the barred windows of the commons, the first signs I’d seen of spring.

It was just a matter of time, now.

( )Agent 506 sipped casually on a latte as he punched in some numbers on

a payphone somewhere in King of Prussia. He was perpetually garbed in black fatigues and scratched aviator glasses, with posture like a broom stick.

“Pennhurst State Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

19

“I was wondering if you could help me. I’m an intern over at Psychiatric Annals – are you familiar with the publication?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say I am.”“It’s pretty dry, doctors-only stuff. Anyway, one of your doctors has sent

us an incredible article on the treatment of catatonics – groundbreaking material – and I need to get his permission to print it.”

“I can connect you to their office. Who do you need to speak to?”“That’s the problem. This guy could totally get famous with work of this

caliber, and he didn’t sign it!”“Really?”“Yeah, can you believe it? I hear Einstein couldn’t make toast, go figure.

Who treats the catatonics at your facility?”“Doctors Fein and Spitzer, mainly. They handle all our tough ones.”“Sounds like they’re the guys.”“I can connect you to Doctor Spitzer’s office.”“Wait! One more thing.”“What can I do for you?”“I’m sorry to drop all this on your lap, but my boss is already fuming

and I don’t want him to take it out on me, you know what I mean?”“Yeah, I hear you.”“This doctor, he mentioned one of your patients by name.”“Uh-oh.”“Yeah, serious HIPAA problems. Who’s your compliance officer? I don’t

want to get Dr. Fein in hot water, I just need to check this so I don’t get fired.”

“That would be Mrs. Marsh, but she’s not in today. She’s been out sick a few days.”

“It’s going around, I guess. Who else handles patient record requests?”“I suppose Hank over in Personnel. His office is right next to hers.”“Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”There is time to take in a deep breath and toss the now empty latte in the

trash. Next victim…

“Personnel, this is Hank.”“I’m Frank Vincent with the State Board of Medical Ethics. I think we

have a problem, Hank.” A mischievous grin spread across Agent 506’s face. He made sure to keep it from coming through in his tone.

“What’s going on, Mr. Vincent?”“The family of one of your patients, a Mr. Joyce-Vivian, has filed a

20

petition with our organization to investigate your facility for violation of the HIPAA act. You may know the patient as Jesus, but his real name is Ian. Ian Joyce-Vivian. His family is waving patient data at us that they say were inappropriately distributed by your clerk at Records. He mentioned several distinct items that could bring your facility out of compliance if not addressed immediately. I don’t need to remind you that we are talking about some serious fines, here, Hank.”

“No, sir. Um, I’m not the compliance officer, really. I’m not able to comment–”

“I’m tired of being stonewalled, Hank. I’ve been waiting for Marsh to get the ball rolling for days now, and you’re out of time. Do you think the admin over there likes you enough to swallow a forty-thousand dollar judgment because you decided to pass the buck on this?”

“No, sir.”“I’m trying to save you a lot of grief. This is probably a bullshit charge,

pardon my language. Help me out now and I can close this file before the courts and the papers get involved.”

“Our compliance officer is out sick.”“Look, I know this isn’t your job, pal. I’m trying to stop a very crazy,

very loud family from slapping you with a forty-thousand dollar HIPPA fine, plus civil lawsuits, plus bad press…We’re looking at a nightmare, Hank. Marsh could have stopped this days ago, but she’s not answering her phone.”

“She’s out sick.”“It’s going around, I guess. The thing is, I have a meeting with the

family’s lawyer in less than an hour, and if I can’t show him that these charges are bullshit – again, pardon my language – your boss is sunk, the facility is bankrupt, and your name goes on the report.”

“Why me?”“It’s nothing personal, Hank. But my boss wants me to settle this

matter. I think he’s old golfing buddies with somebody on your board, or something. Either way, it’s my job we’re looking at, too.”

“Okay, okay. What can I do?”“Fax me a copy of Ian Joyce-Vivian’s patient records. If I can just look

’em over and see right away that there’s nothing at issue here, it all goes away.”

“Okay, I’ll fax it out to you right away. What’s the number?”

“Mailboxes Etc, Brian speaking.”

21

“Hey, Brian. I have a bit of a problem I think you can help me with.”“What’s up?”“Some records for a patient from my office are being faxed to your store

by mistake – it’s supposed to go to the Mailboxes Etc in Audubon.”“Audubon?”“It’s all the way across the state, I know. When it comes in, could you fax

it back to the store?”“Sure, I guess.”“One other thing. These are sensitive documents, and we can’t just leave

’em lying around.”“I’ll shred ‘em as soon as they’re sent off.”“Thanks, Brian. You sure saved my bacon.”“No problem, man. Have a good one.”

“Personnel, this is Hank.”“Hank, it’s Frank again. I have good news.”“Yeah?”“You saved the day, Hank. Looking over these records, none of the

supposedly leaked information is accurate.”“So it’s over with?”“Problem solved, yeah. Thanks for your cooperation, Hank.”“I’m just glad it turned out to be nothing.”“Yup. Have a good one.”

( ) Routine is essential to keep you sane in a place like this. Look, it’s really

the truth – I can’t speak for the doctors or the orderlies, but for those of us on the inside, we play the game to keep sane. I realize the irony of saying that. Time is different when you’re locked up. The building takes on a life of its own. You are just a parasite in its rusting bowels.

Routine said today was Wednesday: one-on-one time with the doctor. I didn’t even bother to remember their names anymore.

My last doc was no longer on my case. Poor Doctor Fein. I think he cracked. He was kind, though he tried to veil it under protocol. That kindness and curiosity gave my ideas an avenue of entry. Now he was either wandering the streets in rags, or helping to plot my escape.

Doctor Spitzer remained the overseer of my case, though he refused to meet directly with me since I put a pencil into his lung in an attempt to

22

‘wake him up.’ What can I say? Less intrusive measures proved ineffective. In these times, anything is acceptable in the name of liberation. Still, I regret that necessity. Writing with crayons gets tedious.

I would have given anything to be sitting opposite someone who really knew how to practice psychotherapy, or at least carry on a decent conversation.

Now, you might think my attitude with them is pretentious. You’d probably be right but, as they say, turnabout is fair play. If they can pump me full of drugs without my consent, and try to tell me that my very identity is flawed and needs to be corrected, I can tell them their family values society is actually about as wholesome as Camden, New Jersey, and their ideas of reality as informed as William Bell Riley. Given no better option, I vented my frustration on them, moving with the slow care that only monks or inmates have.

See, all we have is time.

I was thinking all of this in the background as I carried on a parody of a conversation with him.

“What’s your name?” he asked, staring blankly across his desk.“Same as it was yesterday. Now can I ask you a question?”“I don’t see why not.”“What experience have you had of your depth potentialities that gives

you the right to be my shaman?” I asked.He blinked a moment before replying. “I am a doctor. And I’m here to

help you, but only if you want it,” he said. Pssh. Typical rebuttal.“Authenticity…Authority…without experience…is a power trip. A sham.

I just spent the past three hours driving myself up a wall trying to figure out what caused my most recent bout of heartburn. Could be repressed childhood trauma. Could be the cafeteria food. Could be the displaced, angry spirit of an Ibo tribesman who, for some reason feels the need to take his vengeance upon my bowels. Any excuse my mind comes up with as to the cause, is just that. An excuse. We can guess probability. What is most likely based on a constellation of symptoms. Fuzzy logic. However, all causes are forever hidden. You speak with certainty that you don’t have. Are you familiar with chaos math?” I asked suddenly.

He shook his head, frowning. For some reason it was taboo to question a doctor’s judgment, even if they were really just bottom-rung civil servants with community college experience and bland suburban upbringings.

23

Questioning the basis of their authority pinged their hidden sense of inadequacy. A sane human being might say something like: your point is well taken, I’m blind and searching just like you, but I’d like to help. Something like that. I’ve been waiting forever for a human being that could drop protocol, bureaucracy, and bullshit, and just deal with me as a fucking human being.

No chance of that here. I continued with my argument. “Linear cause and effect is the result of largely short-sighted and erroneous presuppositions about the nature of reality, and the role our own perceptions play into the generation of causality. Even physics shows us that. All we can do is guesstimate probabilities based on results. Probabilities. Do you follow, Doc? There could always be a hidden variable, a ‘strange attractor’ which we haven’t yet perceived, because we’re looking at a sample on far too small of a scale.”

I could tell he didn’t know what a strange attractor was, so I figured I’d indulge him. After all, as I said, I had the time. “Imagine an invisible magnet, which pulls data to cluster around it, though still in seemingly random fashion. None of those dots may land directly on the attractor, but it is present. See, Doc. Scale, scale is the key. In the end, our lives are like a drop of rain falling from the sky. None of the data we gather in this limited span amounts to anything…if it wasn’t for the secret that eternity hides in the smallest spaces between each moment.”

I paused for a reaction, and got none. I tapped my finger down on the desk, hard enough to make him jump but not violently enough to bring in the orderlies. “NOW!”

I sighed, and reclined. “Ah, you missed it, Doc. Maybe next time around, just pray the Buddhists are right about that. We can move towards these hidden truths, these ‘strange attractors,’ though I think it’s a bit like approaching the limit. Zeno’s paradox of the arrow in flight? Maybe. Keep on taking half steps towards enlightenment.” I laughed at my joke. Someone may as well – he sure as hell wasn’t going to. I admit jokes about asymptotic relationships might be a little erudite, even droll, but you know what they say, write what you know.

I brought myself back to task.“Scale. Things behave very differently depending on the scale they’re

being perceived in. On the molecular level, water behaves a lot differently than when we watch droplets on the side of a car. Scale is a frame of reference, a grasp of context. Also merely an idea. Much like molecules, incidentally, which don’t exist any more than Freud’s Id or Ego exist as a

24

‘real thing.’ Move down an order of magnitude and you can see that atoms comprising these supposedly solid molecules are mostly empty space. What matters is a mindfulness of the scale or frame of reference which will give you the most meaningful answer, based on your question. You see the world is full of paradox. It is swimming in it. Our own experience doesn’t offer us the benefit of knowing anything outside the context it arose within. So you can’t give me certainty? That’s fine. I don’t need it. Can you live without your truth, though?”

The clock on his desk ticks slowly. I breathe for a moment, feeling the passage of time slip by. I let go.

“If you think I know something, anything, then I have a lot of coal to unload on you for the price of diamonds. Would you have me do the same of you? Come on, man.”

He finally spoke. “Authority is very real. However, it’s a two-way street.. The teacher and student mentality is not a power-trip sham. It’s an important part of human mentality and the learning process.”

I nodded my head. “He speaks. But I ask again, under what authority are you my teacher? And under what auspices am I to take your truth if a prerequisite of that belief is the idea that I am irrevocably flawed, that I must be medicated and marginalized for all eternity? You don’t even know what the meds you gave me this morning are going to do until it’s already happened. I am not a lab rat.”

“You think you are a lab rat?”“Yes. That’s precisely what I said. Add delusional fantasies to my list

of derangements. I also think Steph - you know, that sexually-frustrated tigress you keep as a nurse, is actually a time traveling Nazi. You see, towards the end of the war they knew they were going to lose, and so she was sent forward in time using technology that the Nazis garnered from Mephistopheles – their brass did rather fancy the occult, you know. They sent Steph forward here to thwart me by giving me lithium. As I’ve told you before, lithium renders my brain completely inert. But you see the Nazis knew, they knew that I would travel back in time, and destroy the Third Reich by convincing them to invade Russia. All a complete waste of effort, of course, since I’ve been stashing my lithium in the couch every day before tongue check for like a month. But you can’t blame them for trying.”

His face was impassive, I may as well have been talking to a golem. I could tell his frustration was clearly mounting, and our hour was nearly up. I wasn’t quite done yet.

“Alright. Let’s cut the meta-meta-bullshit and get real, because our

25

time is nearly up again and I’m still not cured yet. Jesus, if you were a mechanic you’d be fired by now. I’ve been beating this horse long after it’s dead and rotten, and yet none of you have given me a satisfactory answer. Goddammit, Doctor, you tell me I’m sick and need to be cured, and then you hand me snake oil with – if I may be honest – really unpleasant side effects and no noticeable benefits, and tell me I’m going to get better by ranting at you in this dingy room day after day. Truth be told, I’m just getting more pissed off. I may be many things, but crazy is not one of them. And,” I said, standing up, “our time is over.”

I lied. I actually felt much better. The rest of the day I kicked up my feet on the table in the rec room and painted pictures of naked women in my mind. Not much longer. I could taste it.

( )“Fourth Ward.”“Hey, I’m over in Two. I have a phone call holding for Mr. Joyce-Vivian.

Jesus. Meredith. Whatever he’s calling himself today. I think it’s some kind of lawyer.”

“Has it been approved?”“The guy says he spoke to Mrs. Marsh and she okayed it.”“Heh. Ian’s in one of his vegetable moods.”“I’ve been trying to tell him that, yeah. But he keeps insisting on

speaking to him, saying there’s no restriction on his file that prevents it, threatening to sue. It’s crazy.”

“Yup.”“Can I transfer him to you? I ain’t got time for this, with all the shit over

that guy getting out last night.”“Sure.”

“Pennhurst State Hospital, how may I direct your call?”“Fourth Ward, please.”“One moment.”

“Fourth Ward.”“Hi. My name is Anthony Pierce, I’m representing Microsoft. I was told

you could put me in touch with Mr. Joyce-Vivian?”“I could, sir, but Ian is non-verbal. Wouldn’t do you any good, see.”“What do you mean, non-verbal? This guy owns three patents for

26

advanced database path-finding heuristics and two for flinching.”“Flinching?”“Programming term. I could go into it, but it’s terribly complicated and

completely besides the point. The man’s a genius, and we’re gonna make him rich. Or sue him. It depends on what he has to say about it.”

“Um, he’s a charity case, sir. Ward of the hospital.”“So we sue the hospital. Funny how these things work, isn’t it? Can I get

your name, please.”“Why?”“I need to know who refused to let me speak to the man, for the

paperwork on the lawsuit.”“Hey, I didn’t say you couldn’t speak to him, I said he probably wouldn’t

speak to you.”“Probably wouldn’t? You admit that he does talk, then.”“Sometimes.”“So put me on with him.”“How?”“Hold the phone up to his damn ear or something. I don’t care how you

do it, just do it.”“I can’t do that.”“So we’re back to you getting sued. Listen, okay, you know your patients

best, I understand that. And you’re right, put me on the line with him and he’ll most likely just sit there. But it’s his problem if he doesn’t talk, not yours. You wouldn’t be at all at fault.”

“I need permission from his doctor.”“Doctors Fein and Spitzer have already green-lighted this, after checking

with Mrs. Marsh to see if the legal end was fine.”“Maybe I should check with them first.”“Jesus Christ. Do you have any idea what I’m dealing with, here? Mr.

Gates has been waiting on this for three days while those people made up their minds. You know how rich people are, he doesn’t want to wait anymore. If he has to crack that hospital open and suck out every penny, he’s gonna do it so that I get my phone call. Well, after he fires me he will.”

“Shit, I don’t know.”“Think about it. On one side, we got Microsoft suing the hospital, suing

you, and firing me. On the other, we got you holding the phone up to a vegetable’s ear for a minute, after which I hang up and it’s all off your lap. Which way do you want this to go?”

“All right, all right. I’ll do it. You’re wasting your time, though.”

27

“Mr. Gates is paying me very well to waste my time. Thanks for your cooperation, sir.”

“Dude, it’s me. 506. Talk to me, man. I had to go through hell to get you on the line.”

Silence. Jesus breathes, and the sighs are scrambled and shot down the wire at light speed without losing their lethargy.

“I tried to get you out last night, you were out. Cold. Drugged or something. Look, I busted my ass getting this call in, can you fucking answer me?”

Nothing.“Great. Look, I’ve done it. There’s this lady up in Boston, she can do the

whole thing. Hormones. Eventually, maybe the surgery. I can get you out of Jesus, Meredith.”

“Mere-dith?”“Oh, thank God. Yes, yes. I’ve got it covered. I can get you out of there,

I can get you out of –” rustling papers – “I can get you out of the cell. I can set you free.”

“You can really get me–” “Shit, don’t say anything, the dumb bastard with the phone thinks I’m

from Microsoft and we’re talking about a patenting issue.”“What?”“Long story.”“Okay. So you’re a lawyer.”“Yup. Working for the Man himself. Tell the guy what you like, or hell,

don’t tell him anything. You’re catatonic, right?”Jesus giggled. “Yeah, I am that.”“I’ll be there tonight. At your window. Fucking Peter Pan, gonna take

you away.”“And you’ll handle everything?”“All you gotta do is wake up.”

( )That evening, Jesus sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. There was a

dream behind them, a nightmare. She was in some cell, someone had put her there by mistake. Mistaken identity? The dream was already unraveling. She was a saint of some sort, maybe Christ Himself. There were some explosions, and this Kafka thing with a hospital…

28

“Nevermore,” said a voice from the window, and she laughed softly to herself.

( )Adam Trevino plodded up the stairs to his apartment, brooding at the

way his sidearm thumped his ribs as he climbed. Might as well fret about the gun; its weight, suddenly uncomfortable, the vast legal machinery dedicated to keeping it in the holster. Better that than to contemplate the empty pocket in his overcoat, where his credentials used to be. Better to walk the streets, dreaming dimly.

His suspension was in its third day. It wouldn’t be reviewed for two more, and in all likelihood, he would be stripped of rank. Orphaned.

Better to sit at home and watch the news.At the door, he reached into his pocket and removed a keyless entry fob.

Pushing it shut down the motion and pressure sensors, pushing it twice unlocked the door. Trevino’s front door featured a typical urban dweller’s fetish of deadbolts, though vestigial. Inserting a key or a tension bar would only set off the alarm.

Upon entering one’s apartment, one hung up one’s coat. One locked the door, and pushed play on the answering machine. One removed shoes, and turned on the television against the gurgling backdrop of coffee brewing. Trevino did all these things and sat, facing a news broadcast, thinking about the empty pocket in his coat. It was as though his center, the one sensei was so keen on, had rolled out of his gut and into that emptiness…

“And finally, a mysterious disappearance in Mount Polity County, Pennsylvania, has authorities puzzling over how a catatonic man escaped from the Pennhurst Psychiatric Hospital around midnight this morning. With more, here’s Amy Van Santos. Amy?”

“Good evening, Stephen. In the second incident this month, a patient has vanished from custody in the secure wing of the state’s most well-reputed center for the treatment of the criminally insane.”

Do we call them that, anymore? Trevino shifted gears to follow the story, with an effort. The reporter stood on the lawn of a stark, institutional building surrounded by a chain link fence. From his couch, Trevino noted a row of electrical capacitors at each fencepost. “Over, under, or through the gate,” he muttered.

“In a bizarre twist, however, hospital officials admit that the escapee in this case has spent the last seven months in a catatonic state, completely

29

immobile and unaware of his surroundings. Whether he escaped, or was kidnapped, is a matter of speculation.”

Trevino directed his attention to the hospital itself, or at least what he could make out behind the reporter standing on the lawn. One window along the right side of the building was covered with a sheet of damp plywood. It hadn’t rained last night, so that was where the first ‘incident’ occurred – a patient got out the window, solved the puzzle of the fence, and melted off. This second ‘incident’, the Amazing Catatonic, would hopefully prove more interesting.

“…both men were implicated in the firebombing of the Devon Lenny’s last May, so authorities are going on the assumption that their disappearances are connected. Perhaps they were aided by a former accomplice, or what we’re looking at is the criminal underworld policing its own.”

“Huh?” Trevino blinked. Both men? “Who the fuck writes your script, woman?”

The news anchor took over the screen, addressing a superimposed window of the reporter. “Surely, it must be difficult to kidnap a catatonic man on a stretcher, or a wheelchair, from a highly secure facility. Do the police have any idea how this was done?”

“Not as of yet, no. Last week’s escape was very straightforward: the patient somehow cut through the metal grate over his window and escaped onto the grounds. However, it appears that on the same night as the first escape, this second, catatonic man also had the grate removed from his window, though he remained inside. He was transferred to a more secure area, from which he disappeared this past evening.”

“You say, disappeared?”“Without a trace. There was no sign of tampering on the doors or

windows of his cell, no alarms were raised. In the morning, he was simply gone.”

Trevino scratched his stubble. Cutting through those grates was possible, but not from the inside, without attracting a lot of attention. It made more sense if he posited a third actor, one who cut both grates but was unable to remove the catatonic on his own – or even with the help of the other fellow. But how did he cut the grates, one, and how did he get the catatonic out?

He barked laughter, imagining for a moment that the cucumber possessed an idiot-savant talent of escape. The Amazing Catatonic, indeed.

The report forgotten, Trevino got up, poured coffee, and walked over to the window. A third, outside, removes the grates. He escapes the grounds

30

with one patient, after giving up on the other. But he can’t give up. It’s pride. It fucking slays him that he’s failed at busting two patients out of a hospital in the middle of the woods. So he’s got to get the vegetable. It means returning to the scene, it means another break-in with everyone on their toes and fully alert. But fuck that, his reputation’s on the line. So not only does he want that vegetable, he wants it to evaporate. He wants egg on every uniform in the county, so he can forget failing the first time.

“Jesus,” he muttered.His mind slips back to the empty pocket of his coat. What would he do

without this? Matching wits with those bastards, defending civilization from guys who’d knock Lady Liberty over in an alley to steal her pocketbook?

Better to sip his bitter coffee while looking down at the cars crawling forward like ants on the road below. Eventually go to bed. Maybe he’d get to sleep before his stomach boiled with hunger to worm into the case. Until the Bastards Upstairs made up their minds, Trevino was a man with an empty pocket. In two days, they’d decide if he should crawl into that pocket and die.

7 a.m. The phone awoke Trevino from the first real sleep since his suspension.

At the first ring, he jack-knifed off the couch, one hand patting for his sidearm while his eyes flicked around the bare living room walls like flies on a corpse. They settled on the phone in its cradle, and he sighed explosively.

He ran scarred fingers through his hair and padded over to the desk.“Trevino,” he said gruffly into the receiver.“Adam, good morning. It’s Sheila.” She sounded perky and

unapproachable as ever. “What’s up?” he asked, trying to sound wide awake.“We’re in the small talk part, Adam. How’s your vacation treating you?”Adam tapped a Rolaid out of the tube and sat. “My suspension is treating

me fine. Thanks for asking.” “Down, boy. Ask me something about my day. Loosen up. Try it.”“Sheila,” he warned, without saying a thing.“Work with me.” What did she want? “Quit breaking my balls. Work’s the best thing for me right now.” He bit

through the antacid with his front teeth, sectioning it into quarters.“Fine. Two things. First, I still can’t clear you for active duty,” she said.

Like she really had to assert her dominance at this point, he was just a

31

hairsbreadth away from being locked away in Guantanamo after they changed his name to Kadeem Abdul-Kahliq. They could do it, he knew from experience. Just a couple keystrokes, and you’re never heard from again.

“Why?” he asked, playing dumb.“Jesus, Adam. You know why. You made a very serious mess out there.

They tell me you saw ghosts?”“No. Not ghosts. I never said I saw ghosts.” He sighed. “This was

something else.”Sheila paused a moment on the other end, processing. She continued

as though unaffected, though Trevino was sure the pause was to write what he’d said down on her legal notepad. “You would be doing yourself a big favor if you kept to yourself about whatever it is you think you saw. They have you down here as cracking from the stress. Some mild hallucinations and disorientation in the heat of the moment caused you to snap and open fire at the wrong man. The fact that you haven’t had a vacation in six years backs that up…You get what I mean?”

He shut his eyes and counted. “Got it. Second?”Sheila chuckled. “Second, I have a job for you anyway.”“What’s the job?”“No, ‘Thanks, Boss’? No, ‘Hey, you must’ve pulled some long strings to

get a suspected psychotic back in the saddle’?”“Wait.” Adam stood up and strode quickly to the window. His reflection

in the glass was calm, disciplined. Yet the hand that reached out to shut the blinds: was it trembling?

“They’ve decided I’m crazy, then.”“‘They’, Adam?”“I’m not joking.” The tremor had found its way into his voice.“No, I know you’re not. Look, it’s just hard to clear you without the

psych eval, and the shrinks are still convinced you’re holding out.”“I’m not crazy, Sheila. It’s the world these days.”They were silent a moment, taking stock. Sheila laughed, darkly. “The

New American Century, huh, pal?”“Yeah,” he said. They both knew how deep the rabbit hole went, or at

least thought they did. No point talking about it. “So what’s the job?”“Bounty hunting.”“That’s not funny. I’m a federal agent, not a beer-guzzling redneck

vigilante.”“Maybe.”Adam let the implied threat hover a few seconds, rocking back in his

32

chair. “I see.”“Hope so.” Her impression of compassion really needed some work.“Who?” he asked, not really sure he liked where this was going.“Two escaped lunatics and a two-bit crook.”“…Right. And why?”“Because. We’ll make something up when you find them. Probably

conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.”“Hm. Who would I be working for here?”His answer came in the form of silence. There was no point asking

what agency he was working for, he just liked to know how cold the water was before jumping in. It seemed like new agencies were made every day, partially responsible for playing watchdog for the behaviors of another. He continued to another tangent.

“They’re not actively wanted?”“They’re not on the List, no. But it’s only a matter of time.”“Fine.” “Thata boy. Briefing’s in your inbox.”

( )The three suits contained separate bodies, differing slightly in details of

ethnobiology and grooming. They sat in separate chairs along the polished walnut table, and carried separate briefcases. None of that meant anything.

“Has he agreed to find them? Yes.”“Yes. He may kill them. He is unstable of late.” “The possession did not…take.”“No.”

There came a discrete tap on the door, and the suit paired with a blue tie called, “Yes?”

A dour, Eastern European woman leaned in. “Mr. Trevino is here for his interview. Shall I send him in?”

“Thank you, Ms. Bejta. Have him wait, please.” She nodded and slipped out.

“If he kills them, we lose him.”“Yes. There are laws.”“Of course.”“And if they kill him–”“Strategic sacrifice. More will follow, more readily and with increased

33

motivation.” “Yes.”The three drained of animation and turned their attention elsewhere.

Folders opened, pens went into motion, and knuckles thoughtfully cracked.“Ms. Bejta?”

With post-Soviet efficiency, Adam Trevino was bullied through the door. He appeared pale, intimidated. The three relaxed as his fearful little eyes took in the Seal on the wall behind them.

“Ah, Special Agent Trevino. Glad you could make it.”

“Thank you.” At least they used the title. That’s promising.

“Have a seat.”Like hungry cats, all three

sets of eyes latched onto him as he sat stiffly and tried to appear competent.

“So, right to business, shall we?”

“It has come to our attention that you’re rusting in the scabbard.”

“Can’t have that. You’re a fine, talented investigator.” “And, that your status is under review. The case involving murders

connected to Ethan Agway brought unwanted media attention to your Agency.”

Trevino swallowed. He felt like Macbeth, approaching the three witches. They had his file open to review, yet none of them seemed concerned

as their eyes skimmed over the gruesome details of the large blood-soaked rock and the bodies heaped around it, of his own testimony of feeling…inhaled by something that approached him from behind…the officer he had accidentally shot thinking he was some sort of monster. Trevino shivered slightly as the events flickered through his mind lividly.

“That is true, sir. Uhm, sirs. Though I am confident that once the facts are all–”

“Fine, fine, I’m sure you acted properly,” the suit-with-a-green-tie said

34

with a wave of its hand. “What interests us is the freedom your current status affords us.” “Study these materials.” The suit-with-a-red-tie slid a dark green file

folder across the table. “You will locate these three individuals, observe their activities, reporting

your information to us for a time through…proper channels and then remand them to the custody of local law enforcement.”

“You will be provided the support of a number of agencies to aid in your information gathering.”

“Alive, if possible,” Trevino added, reading.Silence across the table. The suits exchanged a dense code of eyebrows,

grimaces, and pen clicks that communicated nothing so much as an inability to communicate. With growing discomfort, Trevino shut the folder and drummed his fingers across the word “CLASSIFIED.”

“I have two questions,” he said.“Of course.”“These three are obviously deviants, and dangerous ones. Two are

clinical, one is a walking civil insurrection, and you’re telling me there’s nothing federal we’ve got on them?”

“There is nothing official as of yet, no.” “Why not? Not even enough for official attention? All due respect –

they’re convicts, for chrissakes. Terrorist conspiracy, at least, under a secret evidentiary clause. I mean it says right here that they’re suspected of being involved in some kind of terrorist plot, we just don’t know exactly what, yet…”

The three looked queasy. Nothing in their vocabulary enabled them to tell Trevino the simple truth: that Law was irrelevant, that these people had to stop, the Devil take the paperwork. They could barely think this, let alone express it in human language. Their only answer was a deep, blind howl in themselves, a primal negation of the three men in that folder who, for reasons they could never express, could not be allowed to live.

Trevino blinked, finally taking their awkward silence as a kick under the table. “Ah. So, let me see if I understand you: I locate and observe the subjects, determine if they have co-conspirators, investigating them as well, if they do. Then I am to ask them to accompany me to the nearest, duly constituted authority for whatever reason seems most convenient. And when they resist with deadly force, I am to prevent civilian casualties by dropping them in their tracks. Am I correct?”

The suits deflated. “Precisely, Agent.”

35

“Thank you for summarizing the case so…completely.” “Will there be anything else, Agent?”Trevino slipped the folder into his attaché, grimacing bitterly. “The use

of federal agents to assassinate American citizens is anathema to everything we stand for as a government. Fortunately, I will only be defending myself. Good day, gentlemen.”

“Agent.”The door closed behind him, and the three slumped in their seats, like

discarded marionettes. They had another meeting in an hour, with the military people, and bodies need their sleep.

Trevino paused a moment in the hallway, taking a breath, letting his stomach cease its churning. He knew what his orders were, and he knew not to call them on it – this agency was clearly operating above and beyond the sanctions of the everyday rank and file. But he still had every intention of following this one by the book. If the system was going to work, it had to work both ways, not just when you want it to. If it meant fighting a war on both fronts – capturing these savages and shedding light on what might be a corrupt agency in the process – then so be it.

( )Jesus rubbed her eyes. The lights of passing cars streaked by like trails

during an acid trip. It was rainy, a slate-blue, gloomy evening. Soothing patter of rain on the glass. Cars…I’m in a car. She blinked, tried to sit up, but something was holding her in place. Seatbelt. The last thing she remembered clearly was a raven calling to her – realizing that he was a her now, finally – and fleeing out of a building that existed in two times at once. Or something.

She could hear voices in the front chattering rapidly, like two squirrels. Though she could only make out part of the conversation, she knew the speakers well. Agent 139 and 506. They were self-proclaimed Agents of some half-baked “neo-guerilla ontological collectivist disorganization.” Whatever the fuck that meant. Jesus vaguely recalled something

36

Agent 139 had said to her about the “agent” part being a reference to “deconstructing classical causality.”

“An agent is a cause. In metaphysical terms, it is the cause of causes, or the unknown cause. But in truth all causes have another cause as their cause. The causality we represent is both holographic, and morphogenic.” Jesus hadn’t really understood him then, and she sure as hell didn’t understand now. But the memory still served as a form of substantiation, something solid she could hold onto and expand upon.

So it really did happen, then. It wasn’t just the delusions of a fragmented mind. Or…at least not all of it. The cult, the rants, the hallucinogens, the cross-dressing… All these were like billiard balls leading to the ward, on account of the one thing she hadn’t done. Well, she remembered proclaiming some schizophrenic suburban kid a “prophet,” when floored on acid at some nightclub. Jesus was sure she didn’t actually have anything to do with that live grenade said “prophet” later mismanaged in the restaurant.

Thank god Agent 506 fancied himself as a MacGyver from time to time, otherwise she’d still be in the joint. Sometimes when you wake up from a dream the reality is stranger on the other side.

She looked down at herself. …And I’m still wearing hospital scrubs.“…So what’s the gig?” Agent 139 asked. He was dressed in one of his

usual “uniforms”: a tight-fitting black Lycra tee-shirt, fatigues, and gold John Madden sneakers. Also as usual, he wore yellow rectangular sunglasses which were, he often claimed, more effective than Prozac. Self-medication certainly didn’t seem out of character.

“I’ve been making arrangements with someone to get us some dough. I’m tired of talk and no action, and I’m not breaking you guys out of mental hospitals n’more. No offense to the gender-dysphoric one in the back but the whole pronoun thing confuses the fuck out of me…Him, her, it, whatever. We’ll have to do a job for this guy, and we gonna do it just like the man says,” Agent 506 replied, ending with his best Brando impression. He was also dressed in black fatigues, bulging conspicuously in numerous locations.

Jesus did not like the way he had said the word “job.” Not at all. “Who?” she asked. Her voice cracked when she spoke, and barely veiled

her concern. How long have I been out?“H– she speaks!” Agent 506 proclaimed, glancing at her momentarily in

the rearview mirror. “How was it in coma land?” He didn’t wait for Jesus to reply. “…Agent

156 has a foolproof plan. We’ll be able to set ourselves up with a mobile

37

headquarters and then…”“…The world is our oyster soup-kitchen machine,” Agent 139

interjected flatly.It took Jesus a moment to parse these seeming non-sequiturs.“Wait for it…” Agent 139 said quietly over at the pilot, grinning

toothily.Jesus’ eyes widened. “156? For fuck’s sake, the last time I saw him he was

brainwashing schoolgirls with bathtub acid and the Book of the Law, and he kept crocodiles in the basement because he thought they were cute. What kind of job?”

Agent 506 waved a hand at her dismissively. “You’ll find out. Don’t worry about it, dude. Chill, it’s cool.” He ran a finger over his pencil mustache absently as he focused on parking the vehicle.

Agent 139 leaned back to face Jesus as they came to a halt in a large parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse. He looked like the proverbial kid on Christmas morning. That is, if the kid was high on deconstructivism and God-knows-what-else, wearing black fatigues and packing heat.

“Get excited. We’re gonna start a revolution!”

The warehouse door opened with an arthritic creak. Agent 506 looked over his shoulder, his eyes barely visible behind tinted aviator glasses. “Come on ladies, I’m not going to hold this all day.” His cigarette dangled out of his mouth, held there by will alone.

He exhaled a sharp line of smoke out of the side of his mouth as the other two passed by, Jesus eyeing him warily as she bobbed past.

The intense, washed-out light from the overcast day outside illuminated the staircase ahead, disturbed only by their animated, long shadows. Mold hung thickly in the air, combined with what smelled like a mixture of cat urine and stale marijuana smoke.

They marched down a corridor of water-stained concrete. The door snapped shut behind them, and they were in complete darkness. Jesus froze, feeling claustrophobia and a sudden, inexplicably wet déjà vu. She unconsciously narrowed her eyes, which did very little to help the situation.

Somewhere down the hallway there was a barely audible click. A light appeared ahead, revealing part of a large storage room. Crates were haphazardly piled on top of each other, discolored and crumbling in places, showing dusty audio wires, ammo casings, coffee tins and Tarot cards.

The light was cast by a lonely, swaying light bulb, hanging from a frayed cord like a criminal in the gallows. Beneath it sat a similarly criminal-

38

looking individual who regarded them coldly as they approached, playing solitaire with his long, bony hands on a slab of wood atop four empty crates. The harsh light made his face look craggy and worn. His eyes, however, were alive with mischief. When the group finally entered the room, he broke into a wide smile for a split second and cackled. Pulling a dagger from his boot, he adeptly cut the end off of a Cuban cigar with a quick flick of his wrist.

“156,” Agent 506 said curtly, nodding.“506,” he replied, an eyebrow cocked, almost hidden behind the

aluminum foil hat perched unevenly on his oblong head. He picked up the cards and tapped them emphatically on the table. “I have the details for you.” He lit the cigar and let them chew on his statement for a moment.

Jesus looked back down the dark hallway. She contemplated jetting and finishing a joint in the car before this got any uglier than it already was.

“Sit, sit,” Agent 156 said, throwing a booted foot on the rickety table. “Five card stud, bitches wild.”

Jesus sighed, resigning herself to the absurdity that was about to ensue. Too late, she realized. The darkness and confined space had almost knocked a memory loose – a hungry, slimy, many-tentacled memory. Some things were better left undisturbed.

Agent 506 sat down first, his gloved hands folded neatly, telegraphing a calm poise. “Did you case the joint?”

Nodding once, Agent 156 shuffled the cards. “Of course. And I even recruited you a little assistance…”

“Bitches?” Agent 139 asked, suddenly.Ignoring him, Agent 156 continued, “There’s a video store around here –

a big chain – which is dumb enough to leave the key to their safe within the bar code of every video in the store.”

He pulled a video box from under the table, running his thumb up and down the side. “I’ll show you how to read it. You make your move in a week. You could clear forty to fifty G’s, maybe more.”

Jesus raised an eyebrow. “No shit?”“No shit. They only clear the thing out every week. You’d be amazed how

much business they do, you just have to hit the night before the pickup. There’s some benefit of being a wage slave, right? That is, if you have a set of ears and a set of eyes…So, Jesus, you enter the public bathroom, looking very normal – which may be a feat for you. Take refuge there above the drop ceiling about an hour before close and then from there you can lose your clothes, cover yourself in Vaseline, and slither into the manager’s pit…”

39

“Woah…Why am I the one who has to cover herself in Vaseline and climb through the ventilation?” Jesus interrupted. “506 is the wiry, nimble one. And wouldn’t being naked leave more evidence?”

“I’ll hear none of your complaints!” 156 said in mock anger. “You guys said you needed money to really get this moving…Take your shot. Being naked, you won’t leave any fibers. Shave. Even if you miss a spot, you can dump animal hair all over the joint, they’ll never find any of yours in it. Are you in or are you out?”

He motioned towards the cards on the table, tapping his fingers idly on his pile of coins and paraphernalia when none of the others recognized that he was talking about the poker game, too. He cleared his throat. “Ante up.”

All of them pushed a variety of pills and other drugs into the halo of light in the center of the table.

“Good,” said Agent 156 from behind his cards and a cloud of sickly sweet-smelling cigar smoke, “this plan is rock solid, I tell ya.”

He casually straightened his pyramid-shaped aluminum foil hat.Agent 506 shook his head dubiously. “It makes no sense. If he leaves his

clothes in the ceiling, what the hell is the benefit of not leaving any fibers?”Jesus shot him a quick glare.“She, sorry…And human hair is easily distinguished from animal hair. I

know you’re not that sloppy, man.”Agent 156 chuckled. “OK. I was just trying to see if Jesus here would go

for it. It’d be funny as hell…Right. So from there all you have to do is use the combo of the safe, which, as I said, is the store number, which forms part of the SKU number of every damned box in the joint. Take the dough, and get the hell out of Colorado.”

“Colorado?!” Jesus exclaimed, startled.“…Yeah. Where did you think we were?” Agent 139 asked.“Pennsylvania,” Jesus said, feeling sheepish. “Why have you guys

been fucking with me so much today? I think I liked being a comatose schizophrenic better.”

“…I know a mechanic outside of Grand Junction who is real…creative,” Agent 156 continued. “He’s an old friend of yours but I’m not giving away the secret yet. He’ll build your mobile headquarters…You can hide out there while it’s being built all A-team style. MHB mobile, if you will.”

“Let’s do this,” said Agent139 smugly, laying down his hand. “I got all the bitches.”

All four queens, and a king. The rest of them grumbled as he swept the contraband on the table into his pocket.

40

Agent 156 led them out into the parking lot behind the warehouse, his tattered leather trench coat flapping about him.

He stopped behind a battered black van, and without pausing, threw the back doors open. “I present your assistance!” he proclaimed, triumphantly.

The scent of an ashram wafted over them, bringing back memories from a night several years back. Agent 139 felt a sinking feeling, even before he heard the tell-tale chittering.

“For the love of…” He trailed off. “How the hell did you get Gabrael’s monkey?” he asked.

“More importantly, how is he supposed to be of any use to us?” Agent 506 added.

Agent 156 made “tsk-tsk” noises, shaking his head from side to side and kicking at the blacktop. He looked up suddenly, pointing skyward with a long finger. “It was given unto me by our esteemed colleague, for the purpose of assisting in securing our chariot!”

Agent 139 opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.“…Neigh, insuring it!” Agent 156’s finger wiggled at him. “For is not

the tarot card The Chariot ruled over by Cancer, and the number 8, which is Mercury? Mercury, who is Hanuman, the monkey God of the Hindus!”

Again, Agent 139 attempted to speak but was overruled.“–You must have faith in the foresight and supreme wisdom of the

Order,” Agent 156 continued, trying to conceal a smirk.Agent 139 shook his head. “I give up. Fine. We graciously accept your

‘assistant,’ you deranged fuck.”Agent 156 beamed, bowed, and then headed back into the building, his

hands folded behind his back. “Report back to me when you are successful,” he called over his shoulder.

Jesus headed towards the car. If she didn’t smoke a joint soon she was going to kill somebody.

As Jesus sauntered away, Agent 139 gazed deeply into the swirling nether regions he perceived behind the eyes of the monkey in front of him. Its expression was wry, even sardonic. What secrets lay behind those twinkling opal gems?

As if in answer to his thought, Suke raised a baby-soft finger to her lips and winked.

41

Chapter Two:The Monkey Made Me Do It

S tonesifer Autobody was located in an old shipping warehouse just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado, amidst a thick tangle

of trees, brambles and the rusted hulls of old cars and vans, strewn about like boats after a tsunami. From the outside, the structure looked abandoned.

Indeed, it was a rare night that the long, thin tendrils of headlights would slither down the nearby street. However, walk up through the tangled brush and put your ear to the massive wooden doors on the backside of the building, covered in pallid chipped paint, and you might hear the whirring sound of pneumatic winches, or the huffing of hydraulics. Inside was a sprawling complex of sorted and piled automotive gear, bunks built out of wood from flats, and rusted barrels full of everything from gasoline to ether. It all formed a labyrinth of half-completed projects, leading down to a garage in the building’s secret innards.

Beside this garage was a small room done up like any other red-blooded American mechanic’s reception area: potted plastic plants, various muscle car magazines, a coffee pot that gurgled constantly, and a fake, conspicuously-stained leather sofa.

Surrounded by a seemingly endless array of pitted equipment, Gregor Stonesifer rebuilt custom vehicles in the adjacent garage. Like the tools he used, the end products were rarely pretty, but his clientèle didn’t come to him for aesthetics. They came to him because the machines he built were powerful, and rigged with gear no one else had even heard of. If you wanted to win a drag race, run an unlicensed pirate radio station out of the back

42

of your van, or transport a small army on a shoestring budget, you came to him.

Planning, implementation, all the grunt work from start to finish – it was all him. No one was allowed in the work area unless a project was completed.

This policy was easy to enforce, thanks to his stature. Though gentle in personal interaction, Stonesifer was a giant of a man, with a long flowing mullet, and scars up and down his forehead. The guy held himself like he was a professional wrestler. No, if you didn’t know him, you gave him a wide berth and you paid attention when he spoke.

Business was done on his terms. Clients told him how much they had, and what they needed. No haggling was involved. He was apt to spout redneck marketing slogans at the slightest provocation. “My way or the highway” and “If you don’t trust me, fuck off” were his favorites.

If a project was accepted, he would go to work with the fierce resolve of a gila monster latched onto its prey. Though his skills were renowned in some circles, there were often long periods of downtime between paying gigs, in part because of his desire to keep the operation hush-hush, and also because he took no exceptions when it came to those policies.

He was presently kicking back in the office during one of these fallow periods, reading a Niven novel and occasionally glancing up at his assistant’s overabundant cleavage. The phone rang. It had been so long since their last job that, for a moment, Courtney didn’t seem to know what the noise was.

“It’s the phone Courtney,” Gregor said, chuckling to himself as his lazy eye drifted in her direction and caressed her young frame. He whipped out a Camel Wide and lit it with his Zippo in the same fluid motion. “Answer it, hon.”

“Stonesifer Autobody, how can I help you? Yes…yes… Okay, one moment. Phone call for you, sir…” Courtney said, resting the black, chipped receiver on her shoulder as she pressed on the hold button with an unnaturally long, pink fingernail.

“Sounds like he might be drunk,” she said, her voice slightly hushed though there was no one else present.

He took the phone, waving her away. “Yo,” he said gruffly.She pursed her lips at him quickly, winked, and walked away.Nodding his head absently, he pulled off his baseball cap and ran the

back of his hand over his forehead, leaving a black, sweaty smear in its wake.“Fuck,” he said. Then, “What? Oh, no, not you. Go on. I just soiled

my purdy self. …Yep, yep. Alright, well, let me know the budget and when

43

you’ll need’r by and I’ll have something for you that’ll blow your mind…Man, I haven’t been called Agent 140 in forever. That brings back memories. Or flashbacks. Same thing, right? So…about 50 G’s huh? Alright what do you want ’er to do?”

He pulled out a notepad and frantically took notes. When the list was complete, he said, “Alright, bitch. Don’t you dare tell me how a bunch of good-fer-nothings like yerselves came on fifty big ones, I don’t need to be an accessory to God-knows-what…and in return I won’t tell you what I done with my sexretary last night,” he grinned and hung up the phone.

Eyes unfocused, he wiped his hands with the oil-spattered rag meditatively, as if the action helped him think. It certainly didn’t make his hands any cleaner. The black smear on his forehead remained, forgotten. After a couple of minutes of deep contemplation he looked up and started rummaging around piles of equipment in the garage.

He and that crew of loons went way back, a decade or more. Back then, Jesus and Agent 139 were just college kids who read too much and dropped a lot of acid. Not that they weren’t funny in the head – both funny ha-ha and funny queer, so far as he could tell – but he knew they didn’t blow up any restaurant. He used to give them shit, but they were still brothers, when push came to shove. Tossing a grenade was not, as Agent 139 would say, their “modus operandi.”

The years had been long. The world had changed. In less than a decade, the schizophrenic tendencies they predicted in the culture around them had become undeniable. The scariest part was that they had seen it coming. The way he figured it, if a bunch of good-fer-nothing kids could puzzle out the future like that, they either deserved a six-figure job in a think tank, or it had been planned.

After a New Year’s party a couple years ago, he and 139 had gone head-to-head, tossing back Southern Comfort, his poison of choice. They spoke then as drunk friends often do about the past and the future at the same time.

“Remember those woods behind Samantha’s house that we used to go back into...to do those rituals...? They’re fuck’n McMansions now, isn’t that a perfect symbol of what’s happening?” Agent 139 had said, swaying slightly, his tongue even lazier than usual. “All those shadows or entities or whatever-the-fuck they were, so desperate to get in us and have us fight for them. Guess they knew what was up after all.”

Gregor made a slightly skeptical grunting noise, but he was nodding his

44

head. “I don’t know about all that, but I’ll tell you what. Five years from now, it’s going to be like 1984. But just like in there, it’ll all be under the veneer of something. A better life, protection from some terrorist threat. Right? Ten, fifteen years from now, maybe twenty, half the major port cities of the U.S. are going to be under five feet of water. Fucking bogs in the south, Jesusland from there up into the Midwest.”

Agent 139 nodded his head. He knocked back another.“I remember Jesus looking to me at a gas station one night, this was

like 1995 or so, and she was like…there, did you feel it? I said, feel what. That, she said, was the high water mark. From here on out it’s downhill. I’m like, we’re lost in the middle of suburban hell and you’re talking about Western Civilization? But seriously, who knows what’s next?” Agent 139 asked.

“Maybe like tribes,” Gregor said.“Mmmf. But how much does that differ from a new dark age? What

force keeps the might of the hostile from overcoming the peaceful? I mean, I don’t think most of us would do too well in a situation like that. I can’t build a house, gut a deer, or defend myself from bandits with sub-machine guns. I play with words and bang on things. Without a computer and a support network, I’m as good as dead.”

Gregor looked at him, suddenly very serious. “That’s what I’m here for, man. We all have our roles. We’re going to go off and form our little nodes, but when the shit comes down…” He paused meaningfully. “You know what I’m saying?”

Neither of them spoke about that conversation again, but it lurked in the back of their minds.

When the shit comes down…Was that what this was?God’s truth, he would’ve built them a monster out of spare parts if they’d

asked nicely, call it a Christmas present or just for old time’s sake. For once, they had some cash. He’d do the best job he’d ever done.

( )The call came at four in the morning, two weeks later. He flipped open his phone, still singing along with his Journey ring-

tone.“–Stop... believin...Hold on to the feelin– Ah, for chrissakes man,

it’s four in the morning,” he said, finally changing gears. “Oh. Yeah, she’s almost ready. How you getting here? Mm, you want to trade it in? Alright.

45

…You did what? Holy shit, no one is following you are they? Alright. Yeah, call again when you’re outside.”

Shit, I’d better get the wheels on.

They stood under the fluorescent lights of the office for many minutes before saying a word. From somewhere in the inner recesses of the complex, a faucet dripped an endless monotone note.

Agent 139 broke into a grin and hugged his friend closely, clapping him on the back. “You smell like you’ve been fucking chimpanzees for a week,” he said.

Though he was tall, his forehead still knocked against Agent 140’s chin. “You too,” Agent 140 said. Then, “…more like sweaty buffalo…and deer

antler and car exhaust and malt liquor.”They broke embrace, and the rest greeted him in kind. “She’s ready,” he

proclaimed when they were done. “Follow me.”“She’s a ‘75 GMC cargo van. Had an old 305 in ‘er when I picked her

up at auction, but I traded a few cases of ‘shine for a 454 big-block. Threw on a set of World-comp heads, with matched cam, Edelbrock dual-quad high-rise aluminum intake. With three 83’s out back, and a set of nine-inch cheaters, she’ll pull low 11’s in the quarter with a full load.”

Agent 139 looked over at his compatriots. They all seemed to be taking it in, so he nodded his head as he stroked his goatee thoughtfully, playing along.

“Steel tube frame, four-link rear suspension, did the front end with discs. They usually work great, but I should prolly bleed the lines again…The paint job, as you can see, is a camouflage bee pattern.” He cracked his thick knuckles a number of times, then continued. “Thought that up while drinking JD... Thought you’d approve. Even spray-painted on your bee logo. Yeah, I know, I’m a fuckin’ redneck. Get over it. Up front here, I pulled the old bench seats and dropped in a set of captain’s chairs. Made this here console outta wood panelin’ from my kitchen.” He swept one massive, greasy hand towards a remarkably well-crafted, oak paneled center console, with two cup holders, an ashtray, and independent cigarette lighter.

The console was covered in diagrams and etchings, seemingly drawn in everything from pen, pencil and marker to tiny wood awls. Within these diagrams were fuel and distance calculations, phone numbers, IP addresses, web sites, and brief philosophical statements in a seemingly endless, hypnotic sprawl.

“Sitting wedged into the oversized radio hole, is a first generation in-

46

dash, state-of-the-art DVD player.” The device he pointed towards was mounted with a deck of cards and a matchbook. “The DVD player is nice, even still have the remote. I keep meanin’ to get a real mounting bracket for it, but…well, you know how it is. Besides, I don’t play cards. Only prollem with the player, well the reverse don’t work. So if ya miss something ya like, ya gotta go all the way ’round.”

He took a couple steps back, and threw the sliding passenger door back with a flick of his wrist, revealing a wooden rack zip-tied and duct-taped to the far wall, hanging shelves. On these sat two PC’s with dusty 14-inch LCD monitors.

“This here’s where the fun begins. I mounted a second battery, and a DC inverter, to power your brains. Two PC’s wired in, each has a couple gigs of RAM, multiple processors, and enough hard drive space to house my porn collection ten times over, and that’s saying something. They’re in redundant RAID arrays, ‘cause you’re bound to get some errors from jostling on the road, despite the fact that everything is bolted down. These two boxes are wired into that ’lil satellite aerial on the roof. I ‘borrowed’ it from a job I did, a while back. Ninety percent of the time, you’ll get a DSL-speed connection. The rest of the time, you get nothing. Those aren’t bad odds, though. Certainly better than you get at craps, or when you’re lookin’ to score at a bar, I don’t care who you are. Basically what you’ve got here is a DIY variant on the Titan MOC4 mobile operation centers provided for ‘homeland security.’ You can do your media broadcasting through there, though of course you’re going to want a secure server or two to do some proxy streamin’...Let’s see, telecommunications…What else? Ah. How do I talk to people? Well, I’m glad ya asked.”

Beaming proudly, he revealed a line of sickly, cigarette-stained teeth. He pointed to a gray box under the drivers seat. “This here is a Terodyne field transmitter. Prototype model. A buddy of mine designed it for them. Unfortunately, he never got all the bugs worked out, so they dropped him. He called this his ‘severance pay,’ heh. What’s it do? Oh, yeah. Well, first off, it’s a cellphone transceiver. You can dial any cellphone and it piggybacks another carrier’s signature and makes the call. All on the hush-hush, mind you. It also works as a field transceiver. All ya need to do is scan the short-wave band, and it can pick up and send to anything…even them cheap Wal-Mart walkie-talkies. Pretty neat, right? Check this out. It can do a satellite link-up and transmit directly to any satellite-capable communications device. Only prollem is, the system overheats pretty bad when ya do that one. But wait…” he said, sounding like a used-car

47

salesman, “There’s more!”He laughed at his own joke a moment, flicked his long, bleached hair

over his shoulder – a motion which may have appeared effeminate on anyone else – and continued. “So you say to yourself, ‘What if I want to talk to my dealer in Bogotá? I don’t speak Spanish.’ No problemo, senior. This ‘lil baby has a one-of-a-kind universal translator. It can parse just about any language. Best part is, it translates your voice into the contact’s language goin’ out. See that’s where my buddy went wrong. I have to warn you...nice as it is, the damn translator’s a ’lil buggy. It’s only supposed to work when it hears a foreign language. Thing is, sometimes it just…decides to switch on, and you end up screamin’ at yer bookie in Swahili. Eh, well, it makes me laugh. And though the translator algorithms are a bit better than what you can get through Babelfish or something, you might be asking for directions to the nearest diner and the guy on the other end will hear ‘how much to fuck your sister?’ And if you accidentally have it switched on…eh, you’ll find out. It’s a load of fun.”

“Hmmm… What else we got here…? Bunch of pull-down bunks, extra re-enforcement in sensitive areas in case if people start taking potshots at you with low-caliber weapons…By the way, I have Kevlar tension set inside the frame of the chassis. If you pull the attention of someone with a fitty cal or a LAW, though…you’d better make use of that engine. Sonofabitch will run, most importantly.”

Agent 506 paced around the vehicle a couple times as Agent 140 gave his rather verbose overview, making an odd clucking noise in the back of his throat. Twenty bucks said that if he opened that “universal translator” he’d find an empty carton of Camel Wides and a bunch of stale Peeps instead of transistors. Still, it was a fine piece of work. Finally, he stopped and flipped his shades up.

“Alright,” he said coolly. He shifted his weight forward, swinging a sack from his back to the ground. “Non-sequential twenties and hundreds alright with you?”

( )They were out of Colorado in a matter of hours, brazenly taking route

70 straight out of Grand Junction into the red bluffs and dusty plains of Utah. After a couple hours of thick humidity and an ominous, pregnant feeling, the water broke and unleashed a torrential downpour. After losing traction several times, Agent 506 grit his teeth and cut speed considerably.

48

This was uncharacteristic weather for the badlands. He was sure that if he turned on the radio, there would be flash flood warnings on every AM station that wasn’t presently preaching fire and brimstone, damnation and $19.95 salvation.

Agent 139 gazed through one of the circular windows by his bunk as he spoke into a hand-held recorder, gripped close to his mouth. He spoke quietly but with great force and velocity, like a coke addict after a long night out.

“…that’s all in the past now,” he was saying, “From there, it was like a ball rolling downhill, gathering momentum. Even gentle footfalls can start an avalanche, given the proper conditions. Once it gains enough velocity…anyone who stands in its way will be crushed. What you need to understand…is that the history of man is the history of an ongoing Reality War.” Suke hopped onto his shoulder and chittered. He batted her away and continued without missing a beat.

“What rises to the top? What sinks into obscurity? …I’m not just talking about Darwinism.”

“What are you rambling about?” Agent 506 called back from the driver’s seat, somehow able to make out his crackpot, spit-fire monologue over the deep hum of the engine. “Reality is not up for grabs. That’s the whole point: it’s real.”

Agent 139 leaned back and crossed his arms as he sighed. “There is nothing ‘real’ which we don’t first re-present, re-signify, re-interpret. Invent. This is the realm of ethics, of meaning, of value. Every time two people have different opinions, they’re vying for the same mental territory. Lines on maps and dollars in banks are also mental territory. People in conflict can go their separate ways and live in different worlds. But most people, most cultures, aren’t satisfied with that. They want to be right. They want the Promised Land to be theirs, and they want their belief to become indelible, natural law. God’s chosen are victorious, you see. It’s war.”

Behind him Suke parodied his every move grotesquely, which drew a giggle from Jesus, who had been drawing in her long, arching eyebrows in a mirror.

It wasn’t uncommon for Jesus to laugh to herself on a regular basis, so Agent 139 made nothing of it, and continued unabated. “Maybe it is accomplished with a smile, or a show of leg…a convincing argument or a bullet. It comes down to whose culture, whose beliefs, live on and become Fact. The Nazi’s final solution was no different in effect from what we did to the Natives who lived in these lands.”

49

Now spreading grape colored lipstick evenly between her lips, Jesus asked, “Yeah but…Is a war of ideas the same as a war with weapons?”

Agent 139 crunched his cigarette out in an ashtray, smoke billowing from his nostrils. “In effect, yes. Most people don’t think of it as war. Their refusal to acknowledge this makes them that much more susceptible to wiles of those who do. Memes are how the evolved wage war. That’s why this,” he said, tapped his recording device, “is a weapon.”

Listening in on the conversation from the front, Agent 506 snorted. “Things still fall down, reality doesn’t give a shit about any of our ideas.”

Agent 139 shook his head forcefully. “You’re talking about natural law. I’m talking about point of view. Point of view determines meaning, and thus behavior. We are how we represent ourselves in the world. We’re not trying to plumb the dark recesses of Plato’s cave. We’re trying to unchain Prometheus.”

“What would you suggest is the ‘right’ meme, then?” Agent 506 asked, after a moment. Agent 139 knew it was an entrapment move; 506 was trying to get him to expose himself so he could use his own words against him. He decided to forge a tangential path.

“Let me give you an example. There is truth, ok? And there is honesty. Most people think that the two are the same thing, but they’re not. The truth is the correlation of two or more things in a specific way, in a specific context. It is what you are talking about when you say ‘reality doesn’t give a shit about our ideas.’ There’s nothing ethical about it. There’s no value judgment in it. Honesty on the other hand is also about congruence, but it’s an ethical term. A lie is often unethical, yet something that is not true is simply false.”

Agent 506 opened his mouth to speak but Agent 139, on a roll, guessed the move he was going to make and countered. “A particular ethic itself may or may not be a ‘true’ in terms of reality, in a specific context. See? ‘Right’ is ethical. But we mix it up, and think if something is morally right then it is true, even the illogical converse, if something is true then it is right...We make reality into an endless merry-go-round of opinion. I know, cultural relativism isn’t what ethicists want to end up with, sensible people can’t stand the thought that ‘bad’ acts may go rewarded, and ‘good’ ones punished, but it’s still plain fact, which only the flawed utilitarian back-door machinations of a categorical imperative can free you from, and where the only enforcement to the contrary is through the faulty justice of man…which itself, incidentally, is an act of war, based on cultural aesthetics…” His need to take a breath finally knocked the train off the rails.

50

Jesus groaned. “You’re making my head hurt. I can’t even tell if you’re making sense or not.”

Agent 139 grinned sadistically and continued, “I’m setting up a dialectic here between utility and aesthetic. The fact that ‘gravity glues you to the Earth’ is not the same kind of fact as ‘sex with children is wrong.’ Nature is merely what happens; what is natural is what is. I think that many Native American cultures were far superior to the Western cultures at the time in an ethical and aesthetic sense. But guns and a bunch of disease-ridden blankets proved that the natural truth did not agree with me. Our historic spin on what happened, and what was right, and what was wrong, these are all in the field of wishful thinking. The Europeans won, end of story.”

“Sounds to me like you’re justifying genocide,” Jesus said.“No, I’m saying reality doesn’t give a damn.”Agent 506 laughed. “So you agree with me after all.”“To that point, yeah. But I’m trying to be specific. You’re forgetting

that no matter how large the universe, it only comes to be in the mind of a perceiver. What I’m saying is: in the sense of reality you speak of, it doesn’t matter whether something should be one way or the other, so long as it is. There is no arbitrator but what wins out. It continues to exist, while the alternatives die a quiet death. So it is ‘good’ for us to think a certain way, maybe, but unless we can make it work, then we’re nowhere. It’s just a thought, but here’s the kicker – people wage war, of all kinds, over these ideas. It’s not about their actual efficacy, it’s about what kind of munitions they make in the reality war, the culture war. You get forced to fight for what you believe in, and thus…there we are. The culture war. The reality war. Call it what you will. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: economics, religion, and politics are forms of warfare. Take a look at the religious right swarming. They’re on the warpath.”

“Since when did you become a Darwinist mah man?” Jesus asked, tossing a cigarette butt out the window beside her.

“No. I’m talking about cultural evolution, about ideological genocide – not morphological evolution. I’m saying, what’s our path? We have to make it work or be overrun by something else that works better. ‘Better’ could turn out to be a tribe of hirsute, wheezing pachyderms with chainsaws. Exploring what is meant by ‘evolution’ in a personal sense – what are the possibilities? How much and how quickly can we stretch those boundaries? We aren’t lemmings, but every experiment does have its risks. Now, what I’ve yet to puzzle out, myself, is if there is any connection between ethics and reality at all…”

51

Chuckling, Agent 506 shook his head. “You’re the loon talking ethics. I’m just driving.”

“Yeah well, like I said, I’m trying to puzzle this out. Reality, as they say, is a consensual contract. Ethics is much the same, in a cultural sense. You find demons in that which you reject. We may choose to retain some demons in lieu of the unknown…That’s the nature of our freedom.”

Instead of replying, Agent 506 exerted his freedom by applying the breaks as quickly as he could without hydroplaning.

“What, are you going to come back here and knock some sense into me?” Agent 139 asked, smirking.

“No,” he said. “I’m picking up a hitchhiker.”

( )Cody blew chill water out of his mouth. Cold-ass rain. Cuts straight

through your bones. It was falling so fiercely that his wide-brimmed hat did little to deter it. Spitting out another mouthful, he stopped for a moment and looked down at himself. His shoulders drooped.

Mud ran in splattered web work down the blue leather pants that clung to his scrawny legs. His guitar was safe in its airtight container, but the remainder of his meager possessions were soaked through.

This is the end for me, isn’t it? Nothing but more dumb luck can save me now. Twenty cents in my pocket, a guitar, and the clothes on my back. Wandering by foot in the middle of nowhere. One foot before the next, the rest is in God’s hands.

The past year had turned a resolute optimist into a near-suicidal homeless vagrant. Now, he pictured himself lying by the side of the road, his corpse gnawed at by wild beasts. He welcomed the feathery tongues of the flies that would come after, kissing the putrid meat away.

To be nothing. How sweet that would be. It all started with his wife, Margarite. They met at a small, quirky coffeehouse in

Santa Cruz. He remembered the place was heavy with the tangy smell of lemon, dill, and shrimp that night. Forever after he associated all those scents with her. Thankfully he didn’t get much

52

shrimp in the middle of the badlands. He was waiting for a free round, after having just finished his first

acoustic performance for the evening. Playing solo at small venues was a no-brainer. He could conjure undiscovered Bach pieces or Port-stained Madrigals for hours. The guitar played itself, he just came along for the ride.

He had matched gazes with Margarite’s chocolate brown eyes after he started his second set. It was like looking down the double barrel of a shotgun. His hands fumbled, the notes came out all wrong. That was a first.

Then he ripped loose with an intensity that riveted and disturbed the audience. He turned himself inside out on that stage. Nothing remained hidden. It was a tender, unadulterated message for only one set of ears. He was asking – are you her? The tears in her eyes said yes. The awkward sensation felt by the rest of the audience was the result of their unwitting voyeurism.

The two of them spent that night drinking margaritas, salty as sweat, first in a nearby bar, then in a hotel room. It could’ve been tawdry, but it was their Eden.

The next month in Vegas was painfully sweet, mostly spent looking into her eyes as the two of them lay moistly entwined. They never spoke about anything important. To this day he didn’t know where she grew up, or who she was, really. Whenever he asked her about her past, she’d work the conversation quickly to something else.

Maybe that’s where the trouble had started. Or maybe she was up to a game that he had yet to fathom. What she got from it in the end, he’d never know.

As the days marched on, it was hard to tell where he ended, and she began. As he gently guided himself into her for the third time that proverbial day, he felt her slipping away. Her eyes and mouth widened simultaneously, both in pleasure and in horror. She reached out desperately to hold him but the current was just too strong.

She let out a faint gasp, and then suddenly, she wasn’t there at all. Her softness was still all around him, forever. Rose petals, everywhere, drifting away coyly in the spring breeze.

Well, that’s how he liked to remember it, like a scene from a Kurosawa film.

She had been running from something but he thought the running would stop with him. Intentions good or intentions bad, it’s all relative. The plot-arc will always be the same: people that are running will always feel caged when they’re caught. Even if they wish they could stop.

53

Sometimes it’s easier to doubt yourself than your lover.He should have known when he’d wake up in the morning and she

hadn’t come back from the night before. When her eyes drifted away, her body distant, and he knew she was already lost to him, no matter how many times he’d claim her in bed. So many should-have’s, but the water was so warm, so inviting. Beneath it all, unspoken rage accumulated.

The real end to this story was Patron bottles bursting clear blue spume out of ruptured plaster walls; bloody footprints on tiled floors; throat shredding screeching that blended fight and fuck. It was her daring stare as she dropped down on all fours on the broken glass, makeup a dripping mess, leather boots laced to her pared knees, begging for more.

There did come a day when he woke up and she wasn’t there. In the real story, the now dried rose she had given him was lost in the splintered ruins he turned their home into.

Since then, it was one long walk. A month spent in Vegas, that alien landing strip of kitsch and illusion,

indifferently beating them at their game. Gambling came naturally to him. Sometimes he’d blow it all on purpose, just for the fuck of it. Once again his guitar was the only ear that would always listen, the only mouth that always spoke sense.

He spent a couple months in Kansas City living at a bus station, playing with an old homeless Jazz legend. Three and a half weeks in sweaty New Orleans bouncing from sofa to sofa, bed to bed. It was a wonder he wasn’t blistered and bubbling from countless STDs. The lives he lived were disposable. The moment he was on the doorstep, he was devising an exit strategy.

Eventually his luck ran out. Again, and again. Something kept him going, some hidden, horrible purpose. There was always a helping hand at the last minute to pull him through, just barely. Each time his self respect spit out another tooth, but he was dogged. Dumb, unswerving hope, or just his addiction to the guitar, who could say? At times he wished he could burn the damn thing, and be free of its spell.

These thoughts were blanketed by the high-saturation headlights of a small RV as it turned past a sheer plateau ahead. It was ten tons of black and brilliant yellow camouflage, a bulky, incongruous automobile jury-rigged with a vast assortment of unexplainable technology, the first vehicle he’d seen on this road since the sunset, many hours before. Only then did he realize that he’d been shaking convulsively ever since. The temperature must

54

have plummeted twenty degrees.It hissed to a halt beside him. He found himself staring at a circular bee

logo on the side door. Beads of water rolled across it rhythmically.The door slid back, and a dry voice regarded him from within the

shadowed cabin. “You finished punishing yourself, or do you feel like making some coyotes really happy?”

That stopped him in his tracks. Cody re-shouldered his slipping guitar case to buy time.

Squinting in the dark, he tried to make out the face of the oracle behind the wheel. He got nothing. This had to be all faith. If it was any indicator, his gut reading seemed promising.

Words fell out of his mouth, quicker than the rain. “Uh, hello there. This hasn’t been one of my sunnier days, you’ll have to pardon me…I thought panhandling, living on the streets with ol’ Stevie in Kansas City was bad, much as I loved his rants about Monk and Bird…Can you believe that? Guy’s got nothing but impenetrable body odor. Give him a horn, he’s a fucking genius. Look, I’m rambling in the rain. Yeah man, whoever you are. I’m done. Can I come in and get out of this goddamn monsoon?”

He found the cabin spacious, despite being laden with gear. Speakers and communication devices chirped and beeped like an aviary, and the stacked bunks were plush and lined with pillows.

The oracle introduced himself first as he sat, hunched before a wide steering wheel rather than a plume of smoke. He then pointed in turn to an array of faces all dimly lit by monitors and blinking LEDs. “I’m Agent 506…and this is Agent 139, and Jesus. Yes, like the Son of God. He ain’t no fucking wetback, y’know what I mean, mang?”

He paused for laughter, but none came.“–Oh. And…Suke…I don’t know where Suke is right now, but she’s a

spider monkey. Just don’t smile at her and you’ll get along fine.”Cody thought this character was truly a kind soul, hiding under

unnecessary curse and bluster. But he was also known for flights of fancy, and despite his survival track record he had to admit he wasn’t so good at accurately reading first impressions.

“I’m Cody,” he said, taking a seat. After what he’d been through, a rock and a leather jacket was

comfortable so long as he didn’t have to worry about rattlers or scorpion nests. He just hoped he wouldn’t be found by the authorities in a month, taut and gummy like an overcooked sweet potato, with a knife slit, groin to

55

heart. But why would these folks do that, anyhow? All he had on his person worth a damn was the guitar, and from the looks of it they were doing alright on gear.

Wide, boyish eyes wandered over his new companions.Agent 139 was I-don’t-give-a-fuck handsome, if clearly hung-over,

possibly perpetually. He looked to be in his mid-20s, and was skinny, not nearly as wiry as the driver, though the two of them did share a vague resemblance. All of them were dressed in black, though at least in the case of Agent 139 and 506, it seemed more like a European, utilitarian uniform of some kind.

Jesus on the other hand was a large, broad shouldered…man?…presently covered in patches of black electrical tape. The purple feather boa around his neck shifted with his slow breath as he eyed Cody with starry eyes.

Cody looked him up and down a couple of times, unable to determine on second glance if it was indeed a man, or an incredibly large German woman.

As he sat amongst this band of outsiders, the morbid images that had been rushing through his mind during his miserable hike in the rain were being replaced with an inner clarity, and a feeling of kinship. This put him more on edge, but only because he was resisting the fear of inevitable betrayal. Whenever a bed got a little too comfortable for him he usually had to up and find a less comfortable rock to sleep on. Better you do it than someone else, right?

The van began accelerating as he lovingly put his guitar case beside him. Just the way his fingers glided across the case betrayed how he felt about the instrument inside.

“You play too?” Jesus noted. Her mouth remained drooping open after she asked it, cigarette stubbornly clinging to her unctuous, painted lip. Cody had seen the look before on people who were on the nod, but this seemed different. Affectation, or riding some sort of natural high, he couldn’t tell. If these cats were junkies he was splitsville, he’d dealt with enough of that in his touring days. Losing previous band mates to the needle almost made him put his ax away for good.

Pushing his thoughts aside, Cody nodded his head. He removed his cowboy boots with a wet pop and then yanked off his sludgy socks. “If I do anything… God, I don’t know what I’d do without ‘er.”

Jesus nodded, and shot a glance in Agent 139’s direction. “Well. We’ve been thinking about putting a band together. I play bass. 139 plays drums.”

Agent 139’s hands rubbed his stubbly head thoughtfully, forward to

56

back, again and again. “Tell me your story Cody.”There was a very faint click like a button being pushed, though it could

have been gravel on the barren road.“Well,” Cody started. “I don’t know where to start. I mean do you start

with your birth? But then what about your mom, y’know?”“You could start with the obvious. What leads you to walk alone down

the road, in the middle of the desert, on a night like this?” Agent 506 asked loudly from the front.

“My wife. She left me. I lost my belongings, I was just wandering from place to place. Surviving by dumb luck, y’know…”

“You’ve got coyote luck yourself, then,” Agent 139 said.“Huh?”“Animals in myths and fables are metaphors…Most of human history,

people understood things through analogies, metaphors, and similes…Poetic qualities. The scientific quantitative way of looking at reality is totally different, though not any less or more valid. There is no measurable ‘coyote luck,’ and Venus is a horrible place with sulfuric acid clouds, not a goddess of love. But if you’ve been wandering, homeless, just getting by through a mixture of…trickster-ishness? and dumb, fool luck, well I’d say that’s Coyote luck, and I would say Coyote is with you.”

Cody nodded. “Y’know…I actually understood that.” He laughed. “Is that some sort of Native American shit?”

“Tell me about the guitar,” Agent 139 said, changing the subject.A genuine smile washed over Cody’s face, leaving crinkles in their wake.

Agent 139 marveled at how much he looked like an old man and a young boy, at the same time. “You called that one right. That’s the place to start. I grew up in Texas, my mom was in Cognitive Science. We moved to Jersey, she was involved in the WordNet project. Have you heard of it?”

“No.”“I don’t understand it myself. They were studying language to use it to

make computers think. Something like that. But about the guitar…Well, when I was fifteen I took some LSD…And it was bad, man. I didn’t think I was going to come back. I mean it was really terrifying. There’s always been something terrible hiding from me, just out of my sight, and that night it came out. I hung on to my pillow for three days, it seemed that when other people were talkin’ to me…it was backward, all screwed up.”

“Yeah I had one of those when I was sixteen, though it didn’t take any drugs to bring it on, just dabbling with powerful ancient traditions that I thought I could debunk,” Agent 139 chucked. “But I want to hear your

57

story, everyone on the Show gets enough of mine.”“…The Show?”All of them eyed him conspiratorially. For the first time, Cody could

hear that monkey making sucking and clicking sounds in the darkness.“All of life is but a stage and we are merely actors,” Jesus said with an

overtly gay, British tone. Then she struck a faux rapper posture. “Everything we bust reaches lotsa chickadees.”

“We always loaded’n ready,” Agent 506 said, making a gun-cocking motion.

“Yeah. This is how we roll,” Agent 139 added, sounding about as Hip Hop as lederhosen. He turned up the gain on the mic preamp and leaned back.

Cody shrugged. “Oooookay. Well. Finally I found the guitar. It might all sound crazy, I don’t know…It showed me back to my native tongue. I still have…a hard time with words. It’s like stops and starts. Like I’m translating from another language, y’know? But when I hold the guitar, it’s just…that. I’m there. You play, you know what I’m talking about. There’s no way to explain to people who don’t get it. There’s no way to explain why you would ‘throw your whole life away.’”

“I dig, man,” Jesus said. “I haven’t heard a note and I’d fuckin’ die to play with you.”

“Art of any kind is an addiction. You have to do it because if you don’t, you’ll die. At least in any way that matters. One day, two tops, and you can’t think straight. You’re sweating with the blue devil…It’s all twisted up inside and the only thing that’ll release the pressure and sort it out is to go to that place. It’s a compulsion, though unlike heroin if you feed it long enough, it will bear fruit. It just takes a long, long time. And sometimes you carry that gold out of the forest and it’s ashes in your hands…” Agent 139 said, providing commentary to the unseen audience.

Cody popped open the lid of his guitar case. The other two let out a gasp when they saw what it contained: a polished all-black Takamine acoustic-electric. Jesus recognized the make as one of their discontinued signature models. It must have cost him a small fortune, and would probably outlive him if he treated it well. Cody tuned by harmonics from bottom to top, and then with chords a second later. The process was automatic. This perked up their ears. Most modern guitarists have grown a bit deaf to harmonic subtlety, thanks to electrical tuners.

The first notes rang out tenderly but clearly, cutting through the rumbling of the engine and hypnotic whirring of the windshield wipers.

58

They were all immediately transfixed, and didn’t notice Cody’s eyes loll closed as his callused fingers worked kinesthetically, intuitively knowing exactly what sound would result from which sensation. He built and traversed landscapes with those frequencies.

Soon they were carried up and then back down again like the helpless passengers of a roller coaster. The bar came down, the music took them up that first great ramp, and then it was just an endless procession of free falls, sudden twists, and whiplash-inducing climbs. The notes poured out, playing counterpoint with harmonies and melodies they somehow heard implied behind the music.

As he finished, Cody felt something stir inside him. He really was ready to try and forget, even if forgiveness would never come. To forgive he’d have to understand, and he finally saw that just wasn’t going to happen.

They all sat in dumbstruck silence.“You’re in,” Jesus said, feigning nonchalance.“I thought you guys said you were just thinkin’ about starting a band,”

Cody said. “That was a test of your resolve,” Agent 139 said, raising an eyebrow.Cody slid the guitar back in its case. He looked up as he snapped it shut.

“Right on, right on. So, you guys have any whiskey or what?”

( )Agent 139 awoke with his face pressed against the cold, moisture-

clouded window, his body still rocking to the sweet lullaby of the road. Why the hell am I awake? He looked around the van, trying to shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

Jesus sat in the driver’s seat, humming along with some mid-90s acid jazz. Funky Porcini, sounded like. The others were passed out in various positions throughout the cabin. The feeling didn’t abate. It felt like it was coming from…

He froze and turned around very slowly. His eyes locked with two glowing red pinpoints of light, just inches from his face. The rest of Suke’s simian features were bathed in the russet glow.

This reminded him of the first time they had met. It was hard to place it in the non-sequential jigsaw puzzle of his memory, but this particular piece was easy to grasp.

It had been a rainy night. At the time, Jesus and Agent 139 were on the trail of an organization which called itself the Order of the Hidden

59

Path…this winding trail of synchronicities and occult clues led them to the apartment of Aleonis de Gabrael, head of the Order and Suke’s previous owner.

Agent 139’s eyes closed as he tried to remember that night more clearly, hoping he would find something lurking in the cracks which would clue him into this new development. It was, after all, one of those rare memories that seemed more vibrant than the present, full of sights and smells that couldn’t have been as intense as they are remembered to be.

He ran a hand through the stubble of his hair, spraying water in every direction. They were in the cabin of Jesus’ car. It was 1999. Or 2000.

Jesus hadn’t fully undergone the transformation at this point…it was definitely before their hospitalization, though how far before he couldn’t be sure, as all the memories that composed the years between 1996 and 2001 were arranged in an almost fractal pattern.

The only sense of connection he could find to the outside world came from the low purr of Jesus’ Nissan. Scenes flew by at impossible speeds, illuminated for a brief moment, passing again into non-existence.

“Make a left here, right?” Jesus asked. The engine hum dropped by a minor third. He caught the shift and laughed. “I’m just getting the image of some twentieth century composer driving drunk and trying to explain how he doesn’t need a tachometer to shift as long as he can hear the intervals…”

Agent 139 checked the scribbled directions he received earlier in the halo of a passing streetlight. “Yeah, I think this is it.”

Jesus glided into the turn. “This is what I get with a philosopher as my co-pilot.”

Agent 139 remained nonplussed. “Have you ever read Wittgenstein’s On Certainty?”

“What do you think?” Jesus was scanning for house numbers. Cookie-cutter apartments floated past, their bricks warped by the constant flow of water across the tar stained windshield.

“So, that’s a no, then.” Eyes passively gazing at the passing buildings, Agent 139 asked, “Hey Jesus, did you know that your car is a white tiger named Ranesh?”

That’s right, he remembered. They had been tripping that night. “No, I didn’t…Where did you get that from?”“Ranesh has become my spirit guide. He told me,” Agent 139 said

cryptically, patting the windshield. “What do we say to this Gabrael fellow if we find him?” he asked, a moment later.

60

Jesus spotted the apartment and found a parking spot. “I have no idea. I kind of hope he does all the talking. You still tripping?”

Agent 139 stopped, looking up at the stars. They danced in dizzying circles around him, passing around and through him, as he lived his life backwards and forwards simultaneously, crawling upwards through the heavens on a stairway of light. “Why yes. It would appear so.”

A moment later they were standing in a cloud of moths and mosquitoes on what they assumed to be Gabrael’s porch. It looked the same as the other apartments, the only identifying marker being the rusted 111 hanging over the door and a beat up copy of Wired on the ground.

Hesitantly, Agent 139 raised his hand to the knocker and felt the cold metal between his fingers. The moths swarming about his head left long trails of white wings which danced in descending Fibinnacci spirals around him. He knocked against the door once, then twice again in quick succession.

They waited an anxious minute, rocking back and forth on their heels. Just as they turned to leave, the door creaked open.

He could still remember the clarity and calmness of the voice that asked out at them, “Can I help you?”

They turned in unison to see a tall man of medium build and nondescript features. There was something “college professor-ish” about the man, though it wasn’t any one feature that gave it away. The faint scent of baked yams wafted through the doorway as his scrutinizing blue eyes moved up and down, in perfect counterpoint to the tinkling of a harpsichord inside.

Agent 139 couldn’t really recall the conversation that immediately followed this point, but one way or another they were guided in and invited to sit for dinner.

Upon entering they were greeted by the pleasant smell of food simmering in the kitchen, mixed with an aroma that was exotic and hard to identify, something between the cloying spice of an ashram and the lion house musk at the zoo. Agent 139’s mind swam as it attempted to sort through the conflicting messages it was receiving. The flickering candlelight illuminated Zen calligraphy, Hindu Yantras painted in deep blues and vermilion, and Escher prints adorning the walls. The antique mahogany bookshelves were piled high, and the lacquered chestnut floor glistened, drawing his eyes towards the far end of the room.

The open door of the kitchen cast a steady incandescent beam upon a wrought iron cage standing tall as a man. Why did this ring a bell? He

61

spied a flurry of fur near the bottom, and a pair of beady little eyes peering out. Glancing back, he noticed that Jesus was examining the bookshelves and Gabrael was nowhere to be found. Agent 139 inched closer to the cage, combat boots rapping on the floor, and came face to face with a tiny, chittering monkey whose bushy tail curled around one of the long bars behind it.

Those two reflective orbs regarded Agent 139 for a long moment, and finally the Agent chuckled to himself and smiled.

Seeing bared teeth, the monkey gave an ear-piercing shriek and sprang towards him. The door to the cage flew open, hinges groaning, and Agent 139 was bowled backwards onto the floor by the sheer ferocity of the little beast. He tried to claw the thing off but it held on, its iron grip relentless while needle-sharp teeth worked their way along his neck, hunting for a vein.

A series of clicks and chirps came from above, and the monkey leapt towards the ceiling in a flash. Gabrael’s silhouette loomed overhead, his face tilted sideways and wearing an unreadable expression. “I see you’ve met Suke…got her all riled up. Come down here, Suke.” He chirped several times more and the monkey dropped back down from the rafters, landing on Gabrael’s shoulder. She clambered around for a moment before finding a comfortable perch. “Suke means sweet in Japanese,” Gabrael had said, “back in your cage now, there you go.”

Thinking back now, Agent 139 was positive Suke’s eyes had not glowed red, in the past.

This was new.She slurped on the skin of a mango, chittering to herself, seemingly in

amusement at his thoughts.

Not awake… Not normal…No for the love of God… What?!

The cogs in his mind whirred, clicked…and then stuck, somewhere between one thought and the next. In that twilight space between this and that he glimpsed the shards of a vast, oceanic past of distinct lifetimes, woven together by an invisible but present thread. He watched this patchwork coalesce with a mixture of aversion and attraction, like a child watching a horror movie through the spaces between his fingers.

There had been times in his past where he had cause to seriously question the validity of any waking experience as categorically different from

62

a dreaming experience. There had been times when he had questioned the nature of being with such razor-sharp precision that all certainty, even the Cartesian Cogito Ergo Sum, dissipated like fog in the noontime sun. Some of those events had been jarring, but not nearly so jarring as having a red eyed spider monkey hunched over your shoulder while it sloppily ate fucking mangoes.

Yeah, and you thought that was strange, he heard a voice in his head. It was in warbled stereo, like a cheap electro-slap reverb. But what’s really peculiar is that I can hear your every thought, pretty boy. The sinister eyes bore into his mind. Better learn to pucker them lips, bitch.

I have been appointed to guide you, Dionysus. From now on, you take your orders from me. You hear me? She sat back on her haunches proudly. And the best part, the voice continued, is that you’re gonna say to yourself, is this shit for real? This fucking, what, spider monkey? Talking in my head like this? You’re toys in the attic, boy. You will listen, and you will obey, or I’ll make you madder than my Grandma. And she’s fucked up, let me tell you. Messed up this defenseless hooker real bad with a tire iron. Alright, doesn’t fucking matter. First thing’s first. You make me a mask to wear, paint it up nice. Then I talk to the spirits for you. Or you know, don’t. But if I was you the last thing I’d want is a game of Russian roulette with a possessed, telepathic spider monkey that never shuts up, capiché?”

Agent 139 couldn’t blink. He wanted to call out, to leap to his feet and scream and run, flapping his arms wildly like a chicken being eaten alive by fire ants. Unfortunately the treacherous things just lay there, limply. When he opened his mouth all that escaped was a cracking, inarticulate sound. In the back of his mind some detached part of him wondered why the orisha or loa or demon or whatever that was possessing the monkey spoke like a mafioso.

I’m your go-between with the Spirit world, the voice said in his mind. Think of me like a – what’re those fucking things called? The fucked up looking slopes that live in the mountains and carry shit for money? Sherpa. I’m like one of those. Piss me off, and I’ll mistranslate, or drop your bags in the Underworld or something.

There’s a war on, between the spirit world and the underworld, and your physical realm is the chessboard. That’s all you’re getting for now.

With those cryptic words Suke let out a high pitched chirp, and then shot under the cot.

The noise roused Cody, who was sleeping with his guitar cradled gently

63

in his arms. He looked over at Agent 139. “Huh? …What was that?”“Oh,” Agent 139 said, his voice and mobility returned. “It was just

Suke.” Please God let it be the drugs.

64

Chapter Three:Nocturnal Emissions

Through the movie screen of their porthole windows, day and night blended together, much as the transformations of landscape

and climate outside showed a never ending menagerie of tired Midwestern America. Agent 140 had been kind enough to provide a generator when he built the MHBmobile, which allowed them to play and record music on the road, and aside from the occasional, startling staccato raps on the window from cops who didn’t appreciate them sleeping in “non-designated areas,” they were free to do as they wished.

This was their first taste of real freedom, at least for as long as their meager funds held out.

However, Agent 139 was bound by a secret, and a fascistic monkey. He quietly constructed a mask for her out of wood, painting it vividly in tempera. As he worked, the thought continued to gnaw at him – had he finally gone insane? Philosophical and ethnological ideas of subjectivity aside…there is functional and non-functional. Some tribes expect you to fuck your sister, some poo-poo it, but no matter where you live, gravity holds you to the earth. The question remained: was constructing masks for spider monkeys a useful endeavor? What would he do if she asked him to kill someone as a test of his resolve, like God had asked Abraham? Would he be any crazier than Abraham if he resolved to take the knife?

Flecks of wood flew from under his hands as the questions continued rolling forward, end over end. Top became bottom, bottom became top. Returning to the physical world periodically, he would spot Suke’s glowing eyes, watching him work raptly. If the others noticed any of this, they ignored it. Given his past antics, who could blame them? 139 was just being

65

139. How could he tell them he was terrified at what would come next? Somehow, the knife in his hand remained firm.

Conversation in the cabin was like a California brush fire. It would blaze in one spot, smolder and die, only to pop up again somewhere else without warning.

He tuned in.“…How did that go down?” Cody said, finishing his sentence. Jesus stretched back in her bunk, her face mostly hidden in shadow. “Well,” she said, leaning forward just enough to light half her face, “it’s a

long and somewhat convoluted story…“I always knew what I was. When I was two or three and just becoming

aware of the nature of things, I knew. Before I could put it into words, I knew. I would see a girl passing on the street, or gymnasts on television, and I just assumed I would grow up to be one of them. This belief persisted long after I should have known better. I was maybe eleven or twelve when I began to realize this wasn’t going to be the case.

“I hid my nature before, as kids can be cruel, but this charade forced me deeper into hiding. Not only was I scared, and thanks to some ‘creative parenting’ also ashamed, but I thought I was the only person like this. There was nothing in the media yet at this time – Donahue hadn’t quite hit his stride – so I just kept quiet about it.

“I didn’t quite socialize right. I soaked up feminine socialization from afar and tucked it deep down in me. I learned to simulate a boy-child so well that my therapists never seemed to pick up on it. I was terrified they’d find out, terrified my Catholic mother would find out, terrified the world would find out. I kept that all within me, though in dreams I am most always female, and always have been. Sanctuary.”

Her eyes momentarily watered. “In hindsight, certain things seem a little odd. Until I was twenty six, I

believed that all men had a clitoris at the base of their penis, underneath the skin, that they never talked about. Like it was some sort of conspiracy, some unholy abomination that was never mentioned in sex advice columns, never touched in pornography. Too shameful to include in sex education.

“The acceptance part came slowly, bit by bit, with long periods of doubt and self-loathing thrown in. I lived with my heart and my gender on my sleeve, lost and alienated a lot of friends, went a little crazier…I struggled, went into a yearlong depression with only my lucid dreams and the people inside my head as company. I knew what I wanted, knew what I was, and just had to overcome the inertia of taboo, the inertia of society’s own gender

66

policing. You can be a one, or a zero, but when people can’t easily read your signs, they see you in violation of something so deep and sacred that it is never questioned. And you must be punished for violating these deep-set tenets.

“These guys remember the acid, the explosions, the shared group dreams…What they may not know is that a simple karyotyping was done on my blood upon admittance to the hospital. I found I had two x chromosomes. I asked about the scars I had in my youth, running across the perineum, from my anus to the base of my penis. Typical of hypospadias, where in the most severe cases the patient has an open trench between the legs.

“My guess is that the surgeons attending my birth saw enough of a penis to make a boy, and so they did that. Naturally, it was done without my consent, and naturally, I was never told a thing. All my life, I assumed that it was normal to have scarring. All my life I assumed that tales of the sensitivity of the glans penis were greatly exaggerated. I could nail mine to the bunk here and not even feel it…Any takers?”

She chuckled. Cody nodded his head slowly. “Wow man. OK, I dig.”“The hormones 506 scored for me helped but that was just the catalyst.

When we broke out something inside me snapped as well. I opened my eyes and stopped living the way other people wanted me to live.”

Later, Agent139 lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He knew Suke was always somewhere nearby, watching him, taunting with her telepathic barbs. The partially constructed mask was clutched in his left hand, held to his chest. The other hunted for a pack of smokes, but found only a crumpled, empty box encased in a soot-encrusted cellophane wrapper. His eyes closed, pulled by an inexplicable gravity…

Sharp, tawny blades of wheat parted and gave way to a stone path that wound its way through a field

67

towards rolling hills, topped by the dark outline of dangling figures swaying in the wind like marionettes. The creaking of chains seemed to roll down from these hills with the wind and fog, carrying much further than seemed natural. Beyond these macabre, limp forms lay a village.

The Elders who watched over the village saw fit to hang their deviants from iron chains on a stone gallows. The camera lingered over them, taking in a study of the local legal system: tongues cut out meant watch your own. Eyes gouged out meant mind your business. Hands removed with a splitting maul meant no begging, idling, or street busking.

The camera noted all this, resolved to behave itself, and turned to the village proper.

It couldn’t be placed in time, or by culture – each house varied too widely in construction, placement, and ‘class’, though the overall effect created a pastiche of peasantry. Its people, the camera was certain, would be equally vague and unpleasant, and so resolved not to encounter any of them.

With this in mind, the camera moved down the road, whistling in spite of itself.

The road looked straight from the gallows, as though a fumbled skull could bounce nicely through the town square to gossip. But as the camera tried to reach the village, it found itself lost in a field of rotten wheat, circling the gallows on a road of mossy cobblestone. It stopped and panned around, trying to find the village, but couldn’t even make out the valley anymore. The wheat had grown even as it wandered, and now there was only the wheat, and the gallows-dwellers.

The camera sat down, and in doing so found itself in a body. He held a hand in front of his face, turning it, wiggling the fingers experimentally.

“That’s better,” he said, startling himself. He stood, stretched, and approached the gallows.

“Do you mind?” he asked, hopping onto the stone. “I think more clearly if I talk to someone.” The corpses swayed peacefully, the chains still clinking, and he smiled.

“Good. I’m in a field of rotten wheat, talking to a trio of dead men. There’s a village down that way, and I want to go there. If this is going to go on all night, I’m for a seat at the tavern, you know what I’m saying? Fine.”

He turned his attention to the least rotten and leathery corpse and continued. “You know something, See-No-Evil? The more I look at you, the clearer you get. I can see the furrows in your eye sockets from when they did you and you know what else? It’s not even turning my gut like it should.

68

Again, no offense taken, I hope.”He sat and lit a cigarette. “That settles it. I’m dreaming. Not the wheat,

or your empty eye holes. But I know when I lay down I was out of smokes, and I was pissed about it. So I’m dreaming, and I might as well fly to the goddamned village.”

With a flourish, he bounced to his feet at the edge of the platform and spread his arms. With his eyes closed, he grinned and began counting down in a bombastic, Mission Control voice: “T-minus three! Two! One!”

He launched himself, laughing with abandon, and hit the cobblestones with a painful thump. When he shook his head clear, he could hear a girl laughing. The voice was very familiar, though higher in pitch than he was used to hearing it…

She stood just behind the first row of wheat, laughing into a curled fist. Her eyes sparkled and shifted from brown to a merry blue as he gawked, and fell in love. Each of her gestures had the slowed down, natural grace of a high quality shampoo ad.

If only he could remember where he knew her from…It was her eyes he kept returning to – impossibly huge, liquid eyes.

Dream eyes. Distilled beauty in a pale, radiant face, framed by thick braids he wanted to clutch with both hands as they made love endless nights in the wheat. She wore a summer dress of red cotton like a nightgown, and as she laughed a strap worked free of her shoulder, stopping his heart. He climbed to his feet slowly, shut his mouth with an effort, and smiled.

“You, you…” she guffawed, breasts heaving. “You thought you could fly. Oh, but that’s precious.”

He grinned his best aw-shucks and took a step. “Seemed reasonable. I’m dreaming.” She wiped tears and grinned, shifting her balance away from his

approach. “Are you, now? Dreaming, I mean.” “Of course,” he said. He held his ground for the moment, not wanting

to spook her into the field. “Isn’t it obvious? Fields of dead wheat, a cobblestone maze, and an eternally receding village? Let alone you.”

“Me?” she asked, resetting the strap on her shoulder. “And where do you think I fit in?”

He racked his brain for poetry to steal, and finding none, said, “You are everything desirable in Woman.” This made her titter again, and he took another step forward. See, I’m nothing to worry about, he thought desperately. Don’t run, I’m perfectly safe. This time, she held her ground, even swaying minutely towards him. Then she smiled, and his heart came in his ribs.

69

“You’re almost right,” she said, moving in a half step herself.“Almost?”She glided up and around him, breathing so close to his ears he felt

himself fainting. “I’m bait,” she whispered, ducked his encircling arms, and sprinted into the wheat. He stood frozen, holding her red dress in shaking hands.

Grinning like a brushfire, he took off after her.The wheat blotted out the sun. Broad, brittle leaves cut him as he

dove though the rows chasing a giggle, a flash of her taut calf, a breath of shampoo and musk on the wind. He ran to the drums of the blood behind his eyes, panting with a mixture of horny abandon and supplication and elation that reacted to form a nameless emotion somewhere behind his navel. He tore his clothes as he thudded through the stalks, toppling them. Their stems popped gunshots under his feet.

He gathered himself and leapt, hoping to see her over the heads of the stalks, and almost made it. Somewhere ahead and to his left, she whooped lustily. He swerved towards her, pounding the hardpan between rows, launched himself again –

And flew.Airborne, he swiveled and saw her disappear into the alleys of the village

with a toss of her braids. He shot down after her, arms swept behind him with the force of it, and weaved through the streets. The village became a city, a tangled warren that had him ducking streetlights and clotheslines and arches as he chased her into its heart. At some point, the buildings curved and met above, blocking out the sky. He followed the trail of her scent and her throaty laughter, and finally, there she was.

He landed, nailing it like an Olympian. She applauded wildly, cheering for him, and he bowed with a flourish that he’d regret for the rest of his life.

When he raised his eyes, she was gone.He roared incoherent pain and confusion, the joy of the chase pissing

down his leg and leaving him spent, panting great sobs of damp air. Small animals skittered under garbage at the sound.

“Hey,” he called. “Hey?!”Behind him, a boot splashed down in the muck. He whirled, fists raised.

Nothing.The tunnels of this undercity breathed in counterpoint, hisses of steam

and dripping condensation. Hackles raised, he put his back to a wall of sooty brick and cursed in monotone. She told him, didn’t she? Tickling the hair of his ears with her lips, she fucking told him she was bait. Was this

70

place the trap, or was something waiting to finish him off?He tried to backtrack slowly, weaving between dumpsters and middens,

running crouched through the steam. Behind him he heard boots, in front of him, boots. Then behind him, a brittle scuttling that didn’t sound anything like the pitter-patter of rat paws. In another direction there came the long ring of drawing steel. The city was coming alive, doors slamming, ladders clattering down from fire escapes. He could feel the place leaning down on him, the walls and ceilings reaching to pin his face to a puddle until the footsteps found him, reached down and took his hair, bent back his throat.

“Little boy!” He crouched, all ears and eyes. “Little boy, I know you’re in here.” He bit his tongue and raised his hands, coming slowly to a guard.

“You’d best go home, you have no place here. No place at all.” Down one of the side alleys, he saw a shrouded form standing under the halo of a streetlight, watching him. Its gravely voice was much closer.

“Did you think she wanted you? You sad, sad little freak.” It was a voice of teeth and greasy lips, vibrating from the bricks of the city itself. “No one wants scared little boys, lonely little boys. Certainly not her.” He spun around and around, trying to find the source. His ankles tangled and he fell, yelping involuntarily as he bit through his tongue.

“But I do,” it said in his ear, and he ran.Coming around a blind turn, he ran full tilt into a wall of damp cinder

block, spun out and smashed into a line of garbage cans. The echoing noise of their spill lit up the city, and he sobbed, staggering to his feet and loping blindly down a side street.

“You were almost right!” the voice trumpeted behind him. “If you think this is a nightmare, you’d best hope you don’t find her…” Again the voice was quiet, slithering between his ears.

“I’m dreaming!” he wailed, sprinting past a loading dock full of knives and shadows. They filled the alley behind him, gibbering and kicking up garbage as they came. He leapt, grabbed a steam pipe, and clambered to the top of a low wall, falling over it and painfully onto a dumpster. He bounced once and hit the pavement in a heap.

“This way!” a new voice hissed, and he looked up to see her (her!) holding an iron door open in the wall before him. On pure instinct he dove inside. She slammed the door shut with a clang.

Pounding feet swarmed past, outside.He collapsed, leaning against the door. Breath wheezed painfully past

bruised ribs. He didn’t bother thanking the girl, knowing that she was

71

probably gone already, disappeared into the next circle of Hell. Instead he rubbed his hurts and put an ear to the door like a hunted animal.

He was now in a single room, country and rustic. A handmade broom leaned against the door beside him, almost a parody of his own posture. The windows were nearly opaque with some kind of ash. Vividly painted, alien-looking masks adorned all the walls. In the center of the room stood a large, pot-bellied black iron stove, still crackling as it consumed hypnotically glowing red coal embers. Otherwise the room was empty, and all was still and quiet.

The warmth in the room soon brought a feeling of lassitude, like drinking a couple glasses of wine. Still slouched against the door, though now comfortably rather than in terror, his eyes slowly drifted closed. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he heard that girl’s laughter, echoing to him shrilly through rusted pipes, through clouds and puffs of steam belching and shuddering volcanically in the dark. Pressure gauges danced to and fro to the music of churning gears and hungry engines. Streaming crimson hair slithered before steel girders, the curves of pale, ample breasts remained just out of grasp, leading him further down, down into the belly of this enormous machine.

72

All was silent. Ahead lay a long corridor, lit by evenly spaced florescent panels set

in the sterile white ceiling. Treading forward on thin gray carpeting, he noticed a door. An open door, and she was slipping through it. Not before blowing him a kiss, of course. This was getting ridiculous, but he couldn’t help himself. She spoke to something so base in him, so seminal, that there was no escaping it. No, not everything desirable in Woman, he corrected himself. Everything in Woman he sought to possess.

The door creaked open, and he peered inside cautiously. An endless wall of filing cabinets met his gaze with indifference, a look matched by an aged man sitting in front of them at a desk. The name tag on his ill-fitting suit read FILE CLERK. All caps, black type. A young flaxen haired girl in a pastel blue dress sat on the corner of his desk, bouncing her legs back and forth and humming to herself. Steel girded lights hung from a distant brick ceiling by electric cables.

The file clerk stroked his beard absently before looking up over his bifocals. “Young man, do you have an appointment?”

“Appointment?”This question was met by the shuffling of papers on the desk as the man

looked down again. “You’ve come down the wrong path, you must turn around. My bosses are busy men.”

“No…I don’t…I don’t care about that. I was following someone, she came in here. Did you see her?”

The girl giggled to herself, her eyes following the limp arc of her feet.“This is the filing department,” the man said, annoyance inching into his

voice. “There’s nothing here but words. Words and paper.”

73

The girl looked up, and pointed down one side of the endless room. “She went that way.” Her voice sounded like the tinkling of bells.

“Thanks,” he said, taking off down the corridor.The filing cabinets really did seem to go on forever. With no end in

sight, and no sign of his quarry, he slowly made his way back to the desk. The file clerk was seated with his hands both placed palm down on the desk, his eyes moving rapidly as if he was thinking. However, he gave no greeting, or indeed any sign that he had returned.

“There was no one there,” he said, looking at the girl. “Did you lie to me?”

“Of course!” the girl giggled. “You’re fun to play with.” The man finally turned towards him, his eyes and demeanor stern.

“Listen to me…and listen to me very carefully. You must not get alarmed when I tell you this, but you’re going to have a very bad time of it if you don’t turn around immediately. You must not give yourself away. You don’t belong here, and bad things happen to those who don’t belong. The walls taste your breathing. The floor ponders your warmth. This is not a where, at all,” he said. His hushed voice seemed to whisper back at them from the walls.

“We mustn’t tell him such horrible things,” the girl said, still kicking her feet.

The file clerk leaned over his desk slightly and spoke in a whisper. “You are in the belly of a sleeping whale.”

Indeed the walls were making a low, deep breathing sound.“Why are you spoiling the fun?” the girl asked.“I don’t want him to be hurt,” the clerk said, shrugging.A file cabinet burst open behind them, seemingly of its own accord. It

flew forward, fifty feet, maybe more, revealing thousands of files. A single sheet of paper shot into the air, and then floated to the desk.

The girl clapped, laughing. “Oh now we’ve done it!” The file clerk sighed. “I’ll have to make you an appointment now. Please

fill out this paperwork.” He took it, but replied, “I don’t want to fill out any paperwork…Did

you see her or not? If not I really need to leave…” “Thank you,” the man said.Looking down, he saw that the form was already filled out, in his

handwriting.The file clerk went back to writing at his desk as the lights went out.

74

Now he was walking. His shadow grew long and thin as he crossed a schoolyard – past the broken merry-go-round that tilted off its axis, past the skeletal jungle gym, past the empty swing set. The scent of opium flooded his nostrils as he approached the sheet metal slide.

A little girl was perched on top, hands clasped around her knees. She peered down at him with an eerie intensity that froze his steps. Those eyes. Almost purple. A slight shudder passed through his spine as the odor became more pronounced. It was the girl he had been chasing for so long…though she was younger now, somehow.

She wordlessly extended her hand toward him, and he stretched his arm to clasp it. As she slid down, her red locks and sun dress billowed behind her, revealing pink cotton panties.

“Pick me up,” she demanded, brushing sand off her bottom.He found himself strangely compelled to do so.“Over there,” she said, motioning towards a prison-like, brick school

building. He cut a path across the lawn, cradling her in his arms, ignoring the feeling of foreboding that kept trying to creep up his back. Something was very wrong, here.

And then, a moment later, they were at a faded orange door. A woman’s voice peeled through the silence,

A lifetime is just a shadow flickering on the wall…For a moment you put all the pieces together And it nearly drove you mad.

The girl looked up at him, and opened her mouth.

They locked you up–So you locked me out.

He almost dropped her. The child’s lips had not moved as she spoke…the words formed in his head. And that voice. Lilith.

“What is this?!”“Open the door,” she instructed. “And I’ll show you.”The hall was long and dim. Florescent lights flickered to life above him.

As he progressed, a cross row would illuminate, and then sputter, leaving an endless dark wake behind.

A bell rang shrilly, and the hall was filled with red headed girls. As they

75

silently passed, some winked slyly at him; he felt left out of the joke. The child rested her head against his chest as the others filed into the classroom at the end.

“Soon, very soon,” she said quietly, as if she was speaking to herself. He continued toward the room, partially out of morbid curiosity, and

partially because he couldn’t gain complete control of his steps. An elderly black janitor with a hunched back and a broken grin silently mopped around and past him, continuing on along the darkened hall.

“Where– ?” The question died before he finished it. The janitor was gone.

The doorknob felt cool in his hand.His gaze shifted back to the classroom. All eyes were on him. Lavender

eyes filled with hungry, fervent desire. Holy fuck. They’re all her. They were like sharks, slowly circling him,

sizing him up, knowing they had all the time in the world. His very presence had put blood in the water.

Entering in spite of himself, the scent of mothballs, opium, and stale chalkboard dust washed over him.

The “teacher” Lilith was sitting on top of a large desk at the front of room, rapping a tired wooden ruler loudly on its oak surface. Her legs were crossed and her rich voice filled his being from the inside out:

I am always here.

As she spoke, the child in his arms moved as if to whisper something to him. Instead her lips found his earlobe…delicately sucking, nibbling, biting. No, he thought, this is all wrong.

A teenager with spiked hair, clad in a short schoolgirl skirt and combat boots approached him with swaying hips and bold steps.

You can’t hide from me,Because if you find yourself, you will find me too.

She unzipped his fly, and reached into his pants. He felt himself harden into her hand as she locked gazes with him, her mouth opening expectantly. Oh, fuck.

A mid-twenties Lilith in a slinky, black sequined cocktail dress stood. The report of her stiletto heels echoed sharply through the room as she

76

drew close to him. The Lilith at his fly dropped his pants and bit her lip impatiently.

Did you think that by losing yourself, you could lose me too? How can youWhen I can claim your every sensation–

77

His mind balked as a pair of lips closed around the head of his cock. The others tittered. Another Lilith rose, and another, circling slowly, watching…herself?…

And hide in the gaps between each breath, Each swallow,Each moment?

He heard the familiar sound of chalk scraping against the blackboard, but didn’t have the will to peer at what was being written.

Cocktail dress Lilith ripped off his shirt, planted her hands on his chest, and shoved. She smiled wickedly as his head slammed against the cold linoleum tile.

They were all over him, sucking on every finger, on every toe, in every crease and crevice and bulge of his body. Touching him, pleasing one another.

Because when you wake up from this dream Or death claims youI will still be here, aware, awake– Waiting to take you in my arms the next time.

She tasted of berries and earthy wine. The nectar flowed into him as the punk Lilith ferociously rode him.

And you’d better wake up soon my loveBecause you’ve stirred the Beast,And he will be looking for you now– In this world, and the next.

As she spoke the words were burned into his mind by the gyrations of the lithe forms on top of him. There was no opportunity for rebuttal. Suddenly, they dismounted him in unison, one of them licking him from belly button to nipple as she went. He was lying on the ground, still wet, now shivering. They stood above him in a circle, all flushed, mouths open and panting, hair clinging to sweaty foreheads, eyes ardent and inquisitive.

It was his move.

78

He felt invigorated, alive – and rose to make his way to the “teacher” Lilith.

Your waking world is just one layer of reality, A single sliver of a mirror.You have been seeking me in these dreamsBecause you have always been–

Her shirt shredded in his eager hands, exposing her hardened, pierced nipples.

The other Gods are locked on the doorstep of oblivion Yet where I am,Is life eternalIn me.Of the GodsI have chosen you first…

Lilith opened her legs and arched back on the desk as he slid into her. He felt the sharp sting of fingernails ripping into his flesh with each slick thrust, and found himself moaning into the ruby-lipped mouth of another, who jumped on the desk and straddled the one he was fucking.

I won’t stop until I’ve claimed all of you…And then we can betogether forever…

She convulsed and flexed around him, and he felt the swell of the climax as he bucked inside her. And as he came, he read what she had written on the board. He read the name he already knew.

Wake up, Dionysus. Wake up!

And then Dionysus was completely alone, lying on top of the teacher’s desk, panting and lacerated. He could hear the pattering of many naked feet in the hallway outside, though whether they were leaving or approaching, he couldn’t tell.

Cautiously, he rose and looked out the window – and leapt backwards.

79

A grotesquely-masked face was staring back at him, separated only by the thin slice of glass set in the door. Beneath the mask he could see the body of a naked woman, a pallid waif of a woman. She raised ten clawed fingers to the window, and tapped lightly. It shattered.

The door disintegrated into splinters under their claws. What seemed like hundreds of these masked creatures tore into the room, overwhelmed him, and bore him away.

Dionysus was kneeling on cold, smoothly stained wood. Light filtered through the arched blue and red stained-glass windows that lined the stone walls of this baroque courtroom, turning everything a royal purple. Tendrils of ivy coated these walls, a knotted network of brown veins and emerald leaves.

Muffled female voices reverberated through the room, jarringly dancing to the domed ceiling above. His eyes moving skyward, he noticed that it contained a Michaelangelo-like fresco depicting some sort of mythological event. The ceiling was supported by a ring of stone pillars covered in carvings of hunting cats which jutted fiercely out of the last ring of Juror’s benches. Clay pots brimmed over with orchids.

He traced the source of the hushed voices, and saw that he was surrounded by benches that expanded outward in broken concentric rings. All were filled with milky skinned, masked women. Their grotesque masks were all identical: the color of robin’s eggs and the rising sun. From behind the masks they watched him coldly. Occasionally one would turn to another and make a hushed comment, often pointing at him with a long razor-sharp fingernail.

He was kneeling before a Judge’s bench. It towered over him like a skyscraper, reaching to the heavenly scene above. In the fresco he could see a group of women pressing grapes with their feet in front of an orchard, and a man wearing animal skins surrounded by a circle of cherubic naked

80

women bearing wands topped with pine cones. The scene looked Greek, the style clearly Renaissance. A shadow passed over him as the Judge entered the room. This hushed the Jury immediately.

The Judge was a hulking creature with ashen skin, wrapped in tattered linens that trailed out from under his flowing black robes. His footfalls made no sound, but Dionysus could hear the scuttling of spindly insect legs on the hard-wood floor. A host of enormous, shiny spiders followed his every move, and crawled under his robes when he was seated behind his bench.

“Come to Order: Choronzon, Guardian of the Underworld, Judge of Dream, presiding,” a disembodied voice said dryly from the shadows. The Jury stood at attention, and then took their seats again.

“You and your fugitive lady friend have been charged with threatening the Pact,” Choronzon began, testing to see if his lie would be caught. Demigods don’t threaten the Pact by being lucid. Dionysus would know that…

“The Pact has been the Law for hundreds of centuries,” he continued, his hands crossed in front of him as he looked from one side to the other of the room. It was a curiously casual pose, which seemed downright comical in contrast with his appearance. “It keeps our worlds separate, keeps the hungry ghosts from devouring the minds of the fleshlings, and the carelessness of the half-lucid from destroying our world. The Pact was sealed with the blood of one of your distant ancestors, and the shroud has been maintained ever since. All who would bear entrance into our world must be tested. There are no exceptions,” he said, his pupil-less eyes finally coming to rest on The Accused.

Dionysus felt ice cold all over as he realized that it was the Judge’s voice which chased him through the alleys in the city above.

The room fell silent, as the Judge sat unmoving, deliberating.“You aren’t ready yet, child,” he finally said. The Jury immediately began clacking their teeth together. Dionysus

couldn’t imagine a more unsettling sound.“Stand,” the Judge ordered. It was clear that Dionysus still wasn’t entirely

himself, and he’d been unable to simply scare him away before. Dionysus rose to his feet uneasily.“You are hereby sentenced to the Night of Pan.” he commanded. The

Jurors clapped and tittered in anticipation of the feast. They also came to their feet, encircling him, shuffling closer as they continued clicking their teeth in unison.

81

With a feral shriek, they took him. There was nowhere for him to run. Choronzon stood behind the podium, his expression impassive as he watched the brutal spectacle.

Their hands tore through his flesh with surreal ease. They kneaded the meat on his bones like it was fresh hamburger. Ensanguined nails sliced his skin to ribbons, slithering tongues lapped at spouts of blood. For some

82

reason there was little pain but he screamed nonetheless, howling glittering gobs of plasma and lymph until he had no lungs left. The wooden floors were soaked through, despite the throng lapping at the floorboards. He retained a detached awareness of the proceedings, floating above as his body was torn to pieces.

Their frenzy didn’t cease when his body had been completely desiccated. Writhing around on the slick floor like wallowing pigs, their crimson-stained fingers ran through damp clumps of hair, slid between slick, quivering legs. Tongues licked heaving bellies, tensed toes, even lolling eyes. They moaned together senselessly, somewhere between the low braying of a donkey and the snarl of a panther.

Eventually their fervor gave way to a languid purring, as they lay strewn amongst his remains. Choronzon finally stood and made a gesture with his hand which the women reacted to immediately. An ebony sarcophagus was carried from a side corridor, and touched ground with a loud whoomp. They opened the ornate lid, and began shoveling his slimy bones inside.

The lid was closed, and Choronzon brought his arms out to the side, as if he was crucified. Weathered linens dangled from him like peat moss. He spoke:

In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,We commend our Brother;And we commit his body to the ground;Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust.The wind bless him and the waters keep him,

The wine returns to blood again…This blood feeds the earth;For out of it wast thou taken:For dust thou art,And unto dust shalt thou return.

The others stood with their heads bowed, hands interlocked. Their masks were gone. If Dionysus wasn’t mistaken they were actually weeping, the saline water running clear streaks through his dried blood. When Choronzon finished his curious eulogy, they picked up the sarcophagus and solemnly carried it to a massive tube behind the judge’s bench, and heaved. He was plummeting through slime clogged water, past clusters of fungus that grew in fat packets around girded edges in the tubing, and green back

83

lit grates.The sarcophagus fell at last into the cold deep with a splash which

echoed up for miles into the sewers. A single bubble escaped to the surface of the brackish water, sat there a moment before bursting, and then all was very still.

( )Soft, white hands moved over his shattered remains, melding them back

together again like clay. Through a thin veil of cloth he could make out the face of someone very familiar to him, though he couldn’t place it. Behind her, on a stone altar littered with incense and feathers, perched a snow white owl, preening itself.

Finally he was able to speak. “Who are you?”She smiled and put a finger to his cracked lips. “Sssh. Just a little while

longer now.”

( )Humming in my bones. This is the part where I look around, and going

outside, forget who I am… Rows of herbs in labeled bottles above an old stove with gas burners. The more I pry into the sensation of being here, the more the room pulses around me, fading into a cold abyss and then returning.

Two eyes regard me from beyond this abyss, bringing me out of a final dip into darkness. She is wearing a dress, and I cannot discern its color. Is it blue? Green? She gestures with her hands while she is talking – she has been speaking to me slowly, comfortably. For some reason those thin hands strike me as two doves, her fingers curled outwards like fragile feathers. Her lips are thin and yet full, I am watching them move, so slowly. So slowly and silently. Her hair is deep red, of that I’m sure.

I can feel my weight compressing in the padded chair beneath me, the sensation of my breathing, and now I am really here. Alright, what is she saying, now that I am here, now that I can pay attention?

“…I had been looking for you for so long…The story isn’t yet finished, love.” She is pouring wine into a glass. It rushes and gurgles like a brook. “There is one thing you have left to do.” My sense of time and perspective keeps jittering: forward, backwards. I am inside myself and then watching

84

myself from the corner.She offered the cup to him. A plain teakettle in the background was

whistling but she ignored it.“I’m done, I’m done, I’m done,” he said. It droned on in his dusty skull.

“They’ve taken of my flesh, and there is nothing left.”She handed him the glass and smiled. Faint lines appeared around her

eyes. “It isn’t your place to say how much is too much. We exist to serve humanity, even if they are still tantrum throwing two-year-olds. Do you give up on your toddler when he’s thrown a ball through the window? You clean it up. Drink this, you’ll feel better.”

Her lips lightly grazed his cheek, and she patted him on the head. “You need to prepare them for what is about to happen. Then…Then you can rest a while.”

“What is going to happen?” he asked.“You already know that. But…if you don’t let go, and open up to it,

it will shut you down. Maybe even tear you apart. You won’t be good to anyone like that.”

“Um,” he said uncertainly. “I think your tea is ready.”Beneath the howling of the steam, he could hear voices – millions of

them, shrieking in horror, and the crashing of waves. Mother wiping away buildings like children’s toys.

When he looked up, there were tears in her eyes.

( )Brown water spurted out of his mouth, splashing to the grungy deck

beneath him. He could place himself even before his eyes opened. The sharp scent of salt on the wind, the sound of seagulls wheeling overhead, the perpetual rocking; how, he didn’t know, but he was on a boat.

Dionysus lay helpless on the deck, his arms and legs mostly bound, looking up at the wheeling seagulls and three of the dirtiest men he had seen in his life. They spoke to each other gruffly but easily.

“Th’ bastard’s gonna live, looks like,” said a scratchy, thin voice. Dionysus cracked open a stinging, briny eye, to see a man in a stained wifebeater kneeling over him. The rubbing of rough hands rattled like dried corn husks in his ears as they bound him with waterlogged rope.

“Can’t be too careful,” another said as he pulled the knot tight, his voice a deep baritone. Dionysus could only see a massive tattooed arm from his position. This one was both larger and stronger than he. He was fat but

85

there was probably a lot of muscle under there. The rope biting into his wrists slowly dragged him out of the haze. He

was already trying to gather as much information as he could in hopes of devising an escape. “…If he survived God-knows-what out there, he’s probably slippery as a’ eel, he is,” the man continued.

Coughing dryly this time, Dionysus stared incredulously at them. “I’m nearly drowned, and you bother to tie me up?” But not to kill him, apparently. It was hard to contain his temper, even though he was clearly in a position where tact was called for.

“Well we can’t be too careful, like I says,” the first man said casually, still rubbing his hands together. “You’re a young, pretty thing once yer cleaned up a little…Probably nimble, we’ll get somethin’ for ya down on the docks or at the market. More than a round at Gullespi’s, more than likely. We’d be idiots to go and kill ourselves a nice trade like that.”

Dionysus tried to sit upright but only managed to wriggle around on the deck. Feeling sheepish, though surprisingly calm, he finally asked, “listen if it’s all the same to you, could one of you help me sit up?”

“Right,” the third said, sliding his boot under Dionysus and prying him into a seated position against the rust-streaked walls of the cabin.

“That’s a little better…I guess. I mean relatively speaking…” The three of them looked at him blankly. He reminded himself to try to stick to monosyllables. The sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon, lighting up the water a rich, shimmering gold. Purple shadows hid in the troughs of the waves that gently lapped at the barnacle-encrusted sides of the vessel. He could easily guess at the time, if he knew what the time of year was, or where the hell he was.

What he saw on the horizon crushed any hope of that. Windmill-topped skyscrapers jutted straight out of the sea, raking sickly swirling clouds with their jagged tops. In the canals between the buildings he thought he spotted sailboats traveling back and forth. A city in the ocean? What was this, Atlantis?

Then he remembered why he wasn’t concerned. Because I’m dreaming. And when I am awake, he remembered, I am also dreaming. Sort of. Waking and dreaming are just two different worlds. I am a Demigod, and though my body can die, my essence is eternal…Well that’s a lot off my chest. So, where the hell am I?

As he sat thinking to himself, the three men went down on their haunches and inspected him more closely, as if he were a trophy fish. By the sound of it, they intended to sell him somewhere. Some sort of slave auction, probably. Boy were they in for a surprise.

86

“Can any of you tell me where I am? When my…boat sank I um, lost my bearings,” Dionysus said. He wasn’t thinking very well on his feet but luckily this bunch weren’t Mensa cardholders, either.

“Yeah that’s New York over there,” the fat one said, pointing at the partially submerged city. “Were you on a merchant ship from ’adelphia, or what?”

Dionysus was pulling a blank, he simply didn’t know enough to improvise a convincing story. Instead, he stared out over the waves silently. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. Of course New York City was familiar to him, and so the silhouetted skyline on the horizon was also familiar. The water was a new addition, but he was dreaming, after all.

He pondered how this could be used to his advantage. It was highly doubtful they realized they were dreaming. Why play on their terms? What if the ropes binding him were actually snakes?

Start with the sharp bite of the coarse fibers. He wriggled his wrists against the restraints, ignoring the burn, imagining instead the unmistakable, paradoxically dry slickness of snake scales.

It was even easier than he had expected. The ropes pulsated and loosened. A vermilion ball python slid from his wrists and zigzagged towards the sailors, who stared dumbstruck at the miraculous spectacle before them. Wreaths of ivy curled up over the sides of the boat, seemingly from nowhere, and moored it in place with a sick groan. They were tossed into the cold black waters below. Dionysus gazed up at the seagulls wheeling above.

This time, gravity would not tether him. He jumped, and never landed.

87

Chapter Four:Counter Culture

Purples and yellows blended into a surreal orange as the final light of the day passed through layers of dust. Night fell on the saguaros and

brush behind the Counter Culture café as the MHBmobile pulled in, its engine coughing out the fine powder.

“…It’s hell on machinery,” Agent 506 said matter-of-factly as he parked. “Non-indigenous people don’t get that. They say there’s sand in the desert. This isn’t a fucking beach, okay? No, it’s this horrible grit, like dirty flour, that gets in fucking everything. You breathe it in, spit it out. Engines cough, sputter, and die.”

“You’ve never been to the desert before this,” Agent 139 pointed out, rolling his eyes. “Indigenous people, what the fuck?”

Shrugging, 506 kicked it in park and killed the motor. “I never broke anyone out of a high security psychiatric ward, either,” he said. “How did that work out for you?”

Agent 139 exhaled forcefully. In their ongoing duel of wits, his companion had just scored. Cody watched the two of them with a little smile, which showed more in the wrinkles around his eyes than on his mouth.

Jesus yawned as she stretched out to her full height on one of the bunks. “Mornin’,” she said, sparking up a cigarette before her eyes were fully open. “Where are we?”

“The Counter Culture café. Phoenix, Arizona,” said Ageint 139. I was told to bring us here.”

“Who told ya, again?” Cody asked, winking at Jesus.

88

Agent 139 opened his mouth to speak but Jesus and Agent 506 overrode him and said “the monkey,” at the same time. They’d heard the story a million times. The more fervent Agent 139 got when telling it, the more they laughed. Pursing his lips sheepishly, Agent 139 was forced to nod his head in agreement. “Yeah…Suke uh. Told me to come here.”

“And I’ll tell you what,” Agent 506 continued for him, “I’m almost prone to believe him. Those directions were actually right. 139 never gives good directions. He couldn’t find his way to the corner store from his house unless he was walking.” He gave Agent 139 a ‘go-ahead-try-and-deny-it’ stare which stalled all forthcoming arguments.

God damn. That’s two points. We’d better get onto safer territory quick or the match is up…

“We’re probably the crazy ones…Driving from Colorado to Arizona just because a telepathic voodoo monkey told crazy back there to lead us into the desert…” Jesus began, giving a chuckle which turned into a quiet, wheezing cough.

Game and point. Better luck next time.

They headed down the stairs in single file. The gang standing on the porch in front of the café eyed them warily as they approached. Agent 506 noted that this was no figure of speech. They wore baggy bandanna-tied pants, woolen caps pulled down low over sullen eyes. Quiet, code-like patterns ran back and forth, a mixture of hand gesture and ever-shifting posture.

He instinctively rolled from the point to ball of his foot, like a British pugilist from the 1800s prepping for a fight. One of the gang members gave a big “whatchagonnado” smirk in his direction and shrugged. Agent 506 breathed out slowly and checked his reaction.

Music floated to Agent 139’s ears from the half open door behind them…chanting, a deep organ, and a sepulchral voice tinged with a British accent. Candles inside red sconces danced to an underlying electronic drumbeat. A gang that listens to Coil. Curiouser and curiouser...

As they approached the posse, a man in a woolen cap leaning casually against the door winked at him. “Took y’long enough Frater,” the man said, his voice trailing off. His reddened eyes squinted, deep black eyebrows shooting towards his concealed hairline, as he puffed on a roach entwined in blackened wires.

He passed the smoldering, blackened thing to a dour looking blond at his side, who accepted it without comment and flexed his muscles absently

89

as he partook.“You know me?” Agent 139 asked, stopping and nearly colliding with

Jesus.“You’re all me,” the man said, extending his hand. “And we are all

together.”“We are the eggmen,” someone in the darkness said through a

convulsive, marijuana induced cough.“I am the walrus,” another replied.“Koo koo kachoo,” the man said dryly, his hand still extended. “I’m

Solamoun. Pleased to meet you.”Agent 139 shook it, and felt genuine warmth and friendship there.“He’s a fucknut,” the blond said. He looked up at the sky, his pupils like

bowling balls. “What the fuck?” he asked, to no one in particular. He lit up a cigarette brusquely, still staring at the first twinkling of stars through the arms of the cactus.

“Moon music…” someone else in the shadows muttered, exhaling forcefully. “In the light of the fucking moon.”

Agent 139 could feel Jesus’ discomfort beside him, like standing too close to a block of ice.

Solamoun glanced over Agent 139’s shoulder, nodded to himself, and gestured inside. “Have fun kiddies.”

The first room was painted a deep, rusty red. Brass statues of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman, looked down from alcoves above. Silken scarves dangled from their bases, showing a wrinkled tableaux which Agent 139 recognized as scenes from the Ramayana.

They stood at the door, waiting to be seated. A woman with a long black ponytail nodded and headed their way. Agent 139 recognized something about the graceful way she moved. It was a calm confidence that said “I can snap any bone in your body without effort. Would you like to have some tea?” Who keeps ninjas for barristas?

She smiled. Her eyes locked on the group as she bowed, remaining calm and strangely unfocused, as if she was looking at something very far away. They were a beautiful brown, like well-polished mahogany, and slanting at the ends like an Egyptian goddess.

This confirmed his suspicions. This was the place. “I’m Artemis,” she said, turning on her heel. “Four, for dinner? Follow

me.” They passed a counter, where a group were sipping thoughtfully from broad-brimmed mugs, conversing heatedly though Agent 139 only caught

90

a fragment as they passed. “…Shiva looks pretty terrifying, at the end of the world.”

They were seated at a plain, circular table and handed menus. Artemis moved to walk away, then stopped herself. “You…you know Solamoun?”

“No,” Agent 139 said.“Oh…” she said. “I saw the two of you talking, I thought…” She

stopped again, staring at the Rosicrucian tattoo on his shoulder, and smiled. “I’ll be back to take your orders, and we’ll talk more, frater.”

Cody leaned in towards Jesus. “Why do they keep calling him ‘frater’?” he whispered.

Jesus’ leg was hopping up and down like the piston in an old Volkswagen as it climbed Everest. “I don’t know man, it means brother…like in a religious order. We’ve been in a few…” Cody eyed her curiously. “But I didn’t think we were in, here.”

Their words weren’t hushed enough to escape Agent 139’s ears. “You guys keep laughing at me but I’m telling you something has happened to Suke. Like she’s housing some kind of spirit. And she told me it was very important that we were here. So maybe…who knows…who knows…” He opened his menu and thought about hummus.

His arms crossed sternly, Agent 506 refused to comment on any of this nonsense. Instead he scanned the room, noticing that many of the patrons were glancing at them frequently, with more than regular interest. Rapid hushed conversations ran over the surface of cooling espresso. The music drowned out the content, their words reduced to radio static in his ears. For all he knew this cabal had somehow coerced the monkey to lead them into a trap. His hand drifted inside his coat, then he remembered he’d left his sidearm in the vehicle.

He cursed himself for not following protocol, thereby leaving him unarmed in such dangerous environs. With a shrug, he ordered a mocha latte when Artemis returned. “With whipped cream,” he added. Fuck it. At least I’ll die happy.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes after placing their orders. Cody looked over his shoulder every few minutes, and pondered grabbing his guitar from the van. He was like a smoker in the midst of a nicotine fit, Jesus looked like her leg was about to fly off, and 506 was still lost in a world of paranoid delusions. Only Agent 139 seemed completely relaxed and at home, more so than he had felt in some time.

“Why are you twitching like a hummingbird?” he asked Jesus after listening in on a couple of adjacent conversations. Most of them were about

91

religion, philosophy, music, or politics. He had to bite his tongue to keep from rudely interrupting. Debates of this nature were like breathing to him. With present company, at least while on the road, he held it back most of the time for fear of waking up in his cot, gagged and hog-tied after bringing up Wittgenstein or Derrida one too many times.

“I don’t like it here, man. Someone – or something – is sizing us up. We’re like refrigerated desserts behind a plate glass window, eyed by caffeine-junky suburban housewives with drooping breasts like rotten watermelons. Sharpening their knives. Salivating…” Jesus’ eyes glazed over.

“For the love of everything unholy…Something? And you guys tease me mercilessly because of Suke. We’re here for a reason. Don’t you get it? You remember when we went to Gabrael’s place? We were there for a reason too. It’s like that. I don’t need to remind you that Suke belonged to Gabrael originally…maybe this is just another node of the same Order,” Agent 139 shook his head. “That Solamoun guy is alright. Just chill out and uh…drink your coffee. I’ll handle this.”

“I agree with Jesus,” Agent 506 said.“G-Guys?” Cody interjected abruptly. “I need to get my guitar out of the

van.”The keys jingled as they zipped through the air. He barely caught them

before they collided with his forehead.“Sorry,” Agent 506 said. “I’m a little high-strung right now.”Artemis returned to the table to ask if they needed anything else.

Everyone shook their heads no, except Agent 139 who gave an emphatic yes, motioning for her to come closer.

“I’ve been sent here as an emissary of an Organization…” he whispered, making sure the capitol “O” carried. “I can’t give details right now. I need to speak to…whoever runs this operation.”

“Well you were already talking to him…” she said haltingly.“Solamoun,” he said.She nodded, “I think he’s still at the door.”“Take me to your leeeeeeader,” Agent 506 said when she had gone,

laughing nervously. Agent 139 just smiled pleasantly. When it came to dust particles and directions, 506 was a leg up on him, but now he was the one out of his depth.

Agent 139 got up, headed towards the front door. As he left, Agent 506 noted that his expression had grown serious. It all seemed a little too easy, if they were surrounded by an underground cabal of some kind…No secret handshakes? No trials or initiations?

92

These concerns washed away, at least partially, as he sighed and turned back to look at Jesus, who was chewing fiercely on a fingernail. They both chuckled uneasily, overly aware of the two vacant seats now at their table as eyes across the room continued to scrutinize them closely. “Three…Two little indians, huh?”

Agent 139 never made it to the door. He was halfway through the front room when a familiar pair of lavender eyes riveted him in place. A wry, crimson smile, toss of the hair, one hand resting easily on the curve of her hip, and he was lobotomized.

Pushing past the sensation, which reminded him of Thorazine, he tried to place the familiarity. This was the most familiar complete stranger he had ever met. Maybe in dreams? Hard to say, but he could remember every intimate detail of her body, the sound of her laugh, winsome but with some hidden danger like a dagger wrapped in silk.

And she hadn’t even spoken, hadn’t even moved or acknowledged his presence beyond that “I know you’re looking at me” hair-toss.

He took a deep breath. “I know this is going to sound like…the oldest line in the book. And it’s not even a good line, let alone good book but…do I know you from somewhere?”

She laughed. Yes, that laugh. He hadn’t just imagined it. There was no way to tell if she was laughing at you or with you. Even when their bodies were entwined you never knew if she might kill you the next second. Was that part of her allure? The uncertainty? He hated to think he was so simple and predictable.

And what the hell was he thinking, anyway? ‘When they were entwined?’ He didn’t even know her name.

Lilith. Her name is Lilith.She was watching him very closely. Maybe she was trying to remember

the connection too?“Yes…and no,” she said. Then, “Not like you are now. But in a previous

incarnation…” she trailed off.“Incarnation…You’re Hindu…Buddhist?” he asked. “The idea of

Karma-as-ethical-imperative is really childish,” he continued in a torrent, unable to contain himself. “Nirvana is literally no-thing, right? So under whose authority am I forced to be reincarnated as a shrew based on my actions in this life?”

She laughed. “You have no clue, do you?”What did she mean by that?

93

“As I understand it, the idea is that you ascend or descend based on your karmic ‘weight,’ though there’s nothing really ethical about it. Also from what I hear, there is a Buddhist ring of hell where people sit around and argue philosophy for all eternity,” he said, smiling.

“ –If there isn’t…there should be,” she said, finishing for him. “We’re going to be there if we keep this up…though you are cute when you gear up for a fight…” She winked at him, and ran her tongue over her lips. It was certainly a subconscious action, the air was dry, but the counter arguments he was already forming evaporated. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was playing him like a wind-up toy.

Beaming proudly, Cody bounded through the door, his guitar case trailing behind. Lilith turned towards him abruptly. The moment her attention left Agent 139 felt himself return, and the contents of his mind a moment before seemed unfamiliar, like an alien landscape. Had they slipped some kind of drug into the coffee? Vanilla Chai and mescaline?

His line of inquiry was quickly derailed by the transformation of their guitarist into a golden retriever. “Dude, dig it…we can play on the stage in the other room in an hour. They have a full PA, a sound guy, light kit, fuck’n everything man. Not a huge audience but we get to play! Just like that!”

This was an unexpected turn. He’d expected an intense and subtle discussion with the ringleader, hopefully leading to an alignment of their similar agendas. Without realizing it Cody had proposed a more effective way to break the ice.

Beginners luck.Even more unexpected was the look on Lilith’s face. He only caught it

for a split second, as he turned back to her, but he was certain he hadn’t imagined it. For a moment she registered the most intense mixture of shock and excitement, a combination which seemed foreign to her features.

( )With a manageable task to focus on, Agent 506 and Jesus quickly

relaxed. A Gordian knot of cables and power wires coiled around walls of amplifiers, run by these lunatic audio engineers. This was DIY at its best and worst. By the time the set-up was complete they were joking with each other easily.

The group didn’t have a fully rehearsed set, or even a vocalist, but with an audience of fifty or so, they weren’t sweating it. No better way to get your

94

stage legs early than trial-by-fire when it doesn’t really count. As they were running a final set of speaker cables, Agent 506 glanced

over at Jesus hesitantly.“I can run cable, yeah. But I can’t play an instrument worth a damn,” he

said.“And?” Jesus asked. She stopped mid-stride, the cable hanging limply in

her hand like a dead cobra.Agent 506 shook his head. “No, I’m being indulgent.”“You broke us out of a mental asylum, right?”“A-yuh,” Agent 506 said.“And you drive the van when the rest of us are incapacitated…”“Mmhm. I see what you’re driving at. Tour Manager it is.”The lights in the room came down, and everyone fell silent. Pupils

dilated in the dark, bombarded a moment later by a deluge of light and sound. They hit like a steamroller, breaking into their most complicated, heavy tune at nearly half again the regular tempo. Adrenaline. Luckily that adrenaline allowed them to keep up with this frantic pace.

Halfway through the song a crystal clear voice cut through the mix, at the same time somehow unifying it. Agent 139 nearly dropped his sticks.

Sure enough, Lilith was standing on stage in front of them, singing parts which only they knew weren’t rehearsed. The notes poured out of them for hours, leaving the audience speechless when the music died and the lights came back up. And so it was that Lilith joined the band, before most of them had even met her.

( )Dogs, more wild than domestic, howled into the chill air of the desert

dusk. A group of them were corralled behind re-enforced chicken-wire beside the sprawling single-floor building that Solamoun referred to offhandedly as “the ranch.” It was a suburban, middle-class structure that seemed to have no place in this desolate land.

They sat in a circle around a crackling fire behind the building: Agents 139 and 506, Jesus, Cody, Lilith, Solamoun, Artemis, and the militant they met outside the Cafe who had since been introduced as Evan.

After the show Solamoun had approached the group and invited them back here to “shoot the shit.” He approached it so casually that it was hard not to feel unnerved; something remained behind closed doors and none of them could tell what it might be.

95

The hypnotic flickering of the fire led Agent 139 into his own thoughts. This barren plot of land would certainly be an ideal place to stow some bodies…But the path led here, and he had followed it. So here they were, but what or who were they waiting for?

The fizz of a match sparking brought him back. Solamoun was inspecting a rather large blunt with scientific curiosity, which he lit with a productive cough a moment later.

“Good shit,” he said, passing it to his left. “The music earlier, too.”Lilith took a puff. As she passed it to Agent 139 their hands touched,

and she kept it there a moment. Even compared to the direct heat of the fire it felt unnaturally warm. He imagined his mouth closing around those delicate fingertips.

She leaned in to his ear as he inhaled, whispering, “Don’t worry about fucking me as a nine year old…I rather enjoyed it.”

The smoke shot out of his lungs like he’d been slammed in the gut. Not catching the subtext, Evan laughed. “You lost your hit dawg, wait your turn ’til next time around.”

“The dream…?” Agent 139 asked, trying to avoid looking into her eyes. He looked over at Jesus instead, who was making it clear that, at least for the moment, she thought Lilith was a waste of flesh.

Lilith snickered. “Well you look about my age…So, do a little arithmetic. Did you screw a lot of nine year olds when you were in grade school? Anyway…God, Dionysus, you should know better than to say it was just a dream.”

“Dionysus? Thanks for the flattery but, uh. No. Anyway, as I remember it, you didn’t give me much of a choice…”

“Oh whatever,” she said. “You liked it.”Jesus snorted, catching at least some of the whispered conversation.“And you,” she shot back without missing a beat, “The last time I met

you, Jesus, you were twins. A boy and a girl. How’s it working out this time, being stuck in one body? Can’t have your cake and eat it too, can you Janus?”

Jesus’ face went slack.Agent 506 sighed louder than necessary and lay down on the cool desert

floor. It was going to be a loooooong night, waiting for the wackos to talk Mythology. Why do the hot ones always have to be fucking nuts, anyway?

The sun crested a final hill and disappeared behind the brooding mountains on the horizon. The group fell into silence again as the seemingly endless blunt continued to make its rounds. Eventually most of them were

96

unable to resist the siren song of gravity, and Solamoun and Evan passed the remainder between themselves.

Solamoun turned to Agent 139. “So now is the time when you tell me why you’re here.”

Now? After you got me so high that I can’t walk? He tried to sit up and gave up, staring at the pinpoint blanket of stars above. The air seemed to steal his warmth. The dogs continued their mournful howling.

“Yes, now. After I got you so high you can’t walk. The games are over. This is time to get real. Now tell me…and take all the time you need…We’re brothers. Tell me where you’ve been all my life,” Solamoun said, seemingly in reply to his thoughts.

He read my thoughts?Agent 139 latched onto his first thought, and continued from there,

hopping from one lilly-pad to the next. “It all started with the shared dreams. They brought the first group together, as we started to recognize a running narrative in our collective experience. That narrative started spilling out into the waking world, it conspired with seeming coincidences…We started going back into the woods, it called to us…There was some kind of message that we were supposed to receive. That doesn’t do it justice, but you either know what I’m getting at…or don’t.”

Solamoun nodded his head, prompting Agent 139 to continue his free association.

“In high school, it’s like there was a program that was supposed to take hold, some sort of cultural imperative, and it didn’t take…That was really the basic common ground, the seed that it grew from. The majority of the people out there had their course already set for them, and then there were the people left behind…we all kind of looked at each other like, ‘shit, what now?’ ”

“There was this calling to it too, like there were spirits of some kind…I don’t like that word…I’m not talking about dead people. I’m talking about something that was never human…The spirits of the dark woods were calling…We only had a dim awareness of the shamanic traditions of the past, what you might catch in passing on the History channel. We didn’t know what we were doing, we just followed our instincts. Soon, we started rubbing elbows with established organizations, groups that had been at this a lot longer than we had. Then there was some kind of cosmic schism and many of them seemed to collapse…Jesus and I were locked away…But at the same time, other groups…blood lineages…have been amassing power for generation upon generation…And what are we to them? Flies. Nothings

97

and nobodies.” Solamoun nodded. “Skull and crossbones conspiracy.”“Fuck the Masons,” Agent 506 said. “All they do is have backyard

BBQs.”“You are sorely mistaken my friend,” Evan chimed in, his demeanor

hovering between New Jersey and Brooklyn, though the content of his speech was clearly neither. “Let’s not talk about the Knights Templar, or the Bavarian Illuminati. Let’s not even talk about the connection between these rich white cabals and the presidency. Let alone the motherfuckin’ Zionists and their ties into the whole mess. Let me just ask you one thing. Whether or not the organization which you refer to as ‘the Masons’ do or do not have any power…whether or not they have lineage to any ancient traditions…yo, that’s not even relevant…”

“Weren’t you going to ask me something?” Agent 506 interjected.“Yeah. Just one thing. Whose power is it that crashes down on the house

of Iraqis? Whose power is it that ensures people will give you something in return for the paper in your wallet or numbers in a digital bank account?”

“That isn’t one thing,” Agent 506 said dryly.“Yes, it is one thing. Rich motherfucking white men.”“This is supposed to be a revelation?”“Small groups of families who have been amassing power for generations.

An ever shrinking group. Tribes, y’know what I mean? Power ascending to the top of a pyramid. So you tell me if it matters one bit if there are or are not so-called Illuminati, because there are Illuminati in reality, no matter what-the-fuck they call themselves. They can call themselves Barry Manilow For a Brighter Tomorrow, doesn’t matter, man. Who can say these perpetratin’ motherfuckers are even aware of what they’re doing?”

“Where do you get this stuff?” Agent 506 asked.“I don’t read books. I just know it. Open your eyes, its there,” Evan said.“Akashic records,” Solamoun said, shrugging.“Whatever, dude,” Agent 506 said. The last word was said with a

slightly less than complimentary tone, but then he continued. “Look, you got me. It’s impossible to deny the bottom-line here if you’re aware of the consolidation of Mass Media conglomerates…I mean that’s redundant and that’s the point, right?”

Evan nodded his head slowly. “Yeah. Look, stop talking this ‘sides’ shit. Because you got it, and then you lost it. If you confront, you start a war. Subvert, my friend. The real war is keeping your soul intact when you’re skulking behind enemy lines.”

98

Agent 506 was absently stroking the stubble that peppered his cheeks, as he stared off into the fire. The primitive televisionary trance. “You know, most people so hell-bent on deconstruction can’t set up an irrigation system, or wire a house. When the system they so carefully deconstructed crashes around them, are they going to talk philosophy in basements and suck on cans of condensed milk for all eternity? It all makes me think of that Winston Churchill quote. Something like: Democracy is the worst form of government…Except for all the rest.”

“Like Evan’s saying,” Solamoun started, puffing absently on another blunt that seemed to appear from out of nowhere. “You don’t have to tear it all down. Rewrite that shit from the inside. What we’re talking about is the top down. And what you think is the top isn’t really the top, you know?”

“Yeah. Every idea gains an energy and existence of its own. The ‘them’ here are very old, and very powerful…entities. Those rich white men aren’t at the top of the game…they’re the puppets of an idea which has become virtually unfuckingstoppable,” Evan said.

“The myth of ownership…the myth of property…the myth of individuality…the myth of–” Agent 139 began, still staring up at the stars above.

“Leviathan!” Jesus exclaimed, sitting up suddenly. “In my dreams...it is this lurking menace, just out of sight. It started, I think, when I took acid with Agent 139 and Johny at that nightclub, the Bank… But in the asylum...the one in the past...I think...it has tentacles, but it’s also this idea you’re talking about... ” She broke into hysterical laughter, too stoned to keep a straight face any longer.

“–Ideals waging war on ideals, our flesh pays the price,” Agent 139 said, completing without missing a beat.

“I guess that’s why I stick around,” Agent 506 said, rolling his eyes. “You wackos are going to need someone who knows how to wire a house.” He kicked at the dirt in frustration, and then continued.

“I like the sentiment of anarchy, but you’re idealizing the reality. In a world of so many conflicting cultural signals, each person’s idea of what social responsibility is, and how it should be enacted differs. When there is differing opinion, there is conflict,” he said.

“When there is no difference of opinion, there is absolute fascism. Take your pick,” Agent 139 said, shrugging.

“This is the story of the war of all against all. It is our story. You want anarchy? You already have it. In disguise. Anarchy it’s always been, and always will be.”

99

Agent 139 smiled wanly. “That’s what I was saying in the van a couple weeks ago, and you had to go and argue with me.”

Crossing his arms, Agent 506 said, “Well fuck, someone has to or you’ll never shut up.”

Solamoun nodded, though it was unclear to whom. He picked up his thread from minutes before as if no time had passed. “It can appear in any number of forms, but the beast itself has power. That is why we are here. You can use this place to help build up your army. What I have is yours.”

And that was that, despite Agent 139’s attempts to turn conversation back to specific logistics. His approach was generally both myopic and a bit obsessive – once his train of thought built up steam, it would charge blindly ahead like an irate, drunk Irish Catholic until his body simply couldn’t sustain it any longer. However, Solamoun would casually turn the conversation to something else, a movie he’d just seen, an off-color joke about one of the employees, talk about his wife or children. It had turned into a verbal judo match, and in such matches the person who gracelessly expends the most force generally loses.

Agent 139 finally gave up, and turned his focus back on Lilith. She didn’t seem to mind.

( )Four months later, the band was ready for their first performance at

the Whiskey in Los Angeles. Lilith lined it all up in advance. She made it quite clear: she had the means to bankroll the operation. All she asked for in return was a “benevolent dictatorship.” Given the dictator, they figured it wasn’t a bad deal.

While packing for the trip, Agent 139 tried to ignore the churning of his stomach. Jesus tossed a handful of psilocybillin mushroom stems his way before downing an enormous bag herself, munching on the bluish, Styrofoam-like fungus with an enormous shit-eating grin.

Cody seemed a little irritated by her action, mumbling something about “unprofessional behavior.” He sulked in the corner of the van, re-stringing his guitar, tuning and re-tuning after he went through, yanking on each string. She paid him no mind, whipping out a joint as the engine growled to life.

“Buckle your seat belts, boys!” she yelled, the unlit joint flapping from her lips, as the wheels spun and a cloud of dust shot out the back.

Agent 139’s knuckles whitened on the seat beneath him, but he kept

100

his mouth shut simply because he hadn’t seen Jesus play since long before they’d been hospitalized, years before. She was reckless when she was happy. It was in sadness and depression that she would ball up, becoming cautious, exacting and critical of those around her.

Deciding Jesus was probably best left alone in this mood, lest he say something to accidentally knock her out of her glee, he turned his attention instead to Lilith. She was sitting across from him and sipping on cold green tea she’d made before they left, gazing introspectively across the desert. Amidst all the motion and noise around her, she seemed very still, even delicate. Of course she looked beautiful, she always did, but for once it wasn’t controlled and calculated. She was brooding.

Hopping across the cabin, he landed next to her roughly. Luckily the seats were well cushioned. Once again he was pleased at Agent 140’s forethought. He draped his arm over her shoulder casually, kissing her cheek.

She smiled but didn’t turn towards him.“What’s going on in there?” he asked.“This is the point of no return you know,” she said cryptically.“For the band? Thank God. I thought it would never happen.”She shook her head, her bangs dancing across her forehead. “No. I

mean…there are many paths we can take, some bring us closer to ourselves. It is very rare – once in hundreds, thousands of lifetimes – that one of us stumbles on a path that brings out…what they really are. And I was at that cross-road, when I met you…and now I’ve taken that step, and there’s no turning back.”

He nibbled her ear. “Thank God.”“Boys! Jesus.” She rubbed the back of his head affectionately. “Oh, this

isn’t going to make any sense to you yet. Just remember at the end of this...we could have been together for the rest of our lives, but we would have never been able to become who we really are.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”She finally turned towards him with a more characteristic, devilish smirk.

“Just the way I like it.” She grabbed the back of his head and kissed him deeply.

Night fell as they wound their way towards Los Angeles. Jesus insisted on keeping the wheel, despite the onset of what must have been a bone-throbbingly intense trip. Aside from Cody, all of them had some of the spongy fungus, but she gulped down most of it. Not surprisingly, Cody was

101

now sound asleep in the back, one arm tightly clutching his beloved guitar while the rest of them sat in silence, watching the mile markers slip by.

Jesus piped up when the harmonics of the silence were beginning to give her a headache. “My dreams have been intense lately, lucid and crazy as all hell.”

The speakers in the van spoke in a mechanical voice before anyone else could reply, “Your dreams of the garden of Sophia moved me deeply, erect as whole hell.”

The Jesus stared at the speakers, blinking.

“You can…hear my thoughts? I was lost in a valley, with those Meredith statues, and…yeah, they could have been Sophia, I can see that.”

Agent 506 decided that he’d just let this play itself out, rather than telling Jesus that the translator switch was flipped. The device was likely malfunctioning just as Agent 140 had warned them it might. The van was beginning to swerve however, so he called out, “watch the fucking road!”

“I am watching the road. If you haven’t noticed, we’re having a conversation here.”

Agent 506 snorted. “You and the– ?”“Sssh. The girls are talking,” Jesus whispered.Agent 139, who had been slipping in between dreaming and

consciousness in the back, cracked open an eye and called out, “Oracle of Delphi!” No one seemed thankful for his somniloquy, so he rolled over and drifted away.

The speakers spoke again, “Oracle speaks…the labyrinthine turning inside out has occurred, and a per sun all eye tie is evolving through the sun principle of perfect inversion, a-way to tie to the gether Oracle Horus focus into a self organizing dimpling soap bubble, precipitating the birth as the on Set of the death life rebirth brother slaying sperm changeover in the ark of the covenant organized into the donut field we call ‘baby.’”

Now Agent 506 was staring dumbly at the speakers as well. The fuck? This was beyond translation failure, it was like the machine was tripping

102

with them. But Jesus was nodding her head along to the deadpan machine cadence

like it was her Father preaching from a pulpit behind the Pearly Gates. She lay her head on the speaker and started cooing.

Agent 506 grabbed the wheel as they nearly swerved into the other lane. “Will you at least let me drive?”

Jesus batted his hand away.“How do you know my dreams, little machine?” she asked.“...When the birth of magnetic field recursion happens on the scale

of the tectonic Easter island faces, it effects the morphineogenetic field of thousands of junkeys who report the evolution of awareness through telephone trombone wailing the refolding space time land-surface is all just a wave of gathering thread magnetics in my moist machine of love.”

Jesus nodded. “Preach it, sister.” Agent 506 leaned back around the chair and flipped the translation

button to the off position. This was getting a little too strange for him to comfortably handle.

Somewhere near the border of California, on the Arizona side, lights erupted behind them.

Agent 139’s eyes opened sleepily. He was still napping, drifting on thick rubbery clouds towards some rendezvous with an emissary from an alien race of Libertarian Tree Nymphs. Now the present reality was shrieking red white and blue terror.

He blinked, hoping it was the drugs, or some trick of the Nymphs. Neither seemed to be the case. Once again his stomach churned, and he feared the worst – he was about to be pulled over, covered in mushroom vomit.

As if she could read his thoughts, Jesus shouted over the engine, “I have this covered!”

She slowly decelerated the vehicle. Pulled aside and turned the key. Waited calmly with her hands passively resting on her knees.A flashlight flickered across the interior of the van, crossing instruments,

fetish magazines, lingerie, and the glowing red eyes of a just-awakened spider monkey.

An indeterminable time later, there came the expected rap rap rap on the window.

“What can I do for you, officer?” Jesus asked sweetly, batting glitter

103

encrusted eye-lashes. She was wearing a tight fitting black corset, and faerie wings that wrapped around the seat behind her.

This is where things got truly weird.The officers mouth opened, but what came out was a long string of

guttural consonants. The churning intensified in Agent 139’s stomach. They were

hydrochloric tsunamis. What was Jesus going to do? There is no getting out of this one. They may as well have walked up to a random police man, grabbed him by the shirt, handed him a fistful of crack, and proclaimed “I AM THE GRIM REAPER!”

“NnnnnKK TRRrg Ptt Qtph TRFFFF,” the words seemed to ejaculate straight from Jesus’ gut. Her eyes widened in surprise. “MkRRR KPWQDJK.”

The officer took his hands off his hips, nodded and headed back to his car. A moment later his headlights drifted away.

“Um, Jesus…what the fuck did he say?” Agent 506 asked from the back, speaking for the first time in hours.

“I don’t know,” she confessed.“What did you say to him?”“I don’t know,” she said again, staring at her hands dumbly as they

melted down the steering wheel and the speedometer turned into a snake and slithered away.

“506?” “Yeah…?”“I think it’s time for you to drive.”

104

Chapter Five:Rome Wasn’t Burnt In A Day

I t won’t be long until they take me into custody again. Sometimes I feel they still have me. Whether I am crouching anxiously in a bus, or sheathed in cold,

sweaty sheets – the treatment continues. The truth is, the Program is bigger than

I am, bigger than anyone could be. I don’t want to admit that to myself, but there it is. It devours everything.

I can’t run fast or far enough to escape the weight of my past. I read these words once, and they stuck with me: “I’m done with my past, but it isn’t done with me.” They’ll find me, and when they do they’ll take me again. Is this paranoia? Based on what I’ve seen, it’s just common sense. You can’t stop them.

I sleep with the lights on, surrounded by a tribunal of hissing monitors, ticking clocks, humming machinery. The white noise calms me. Am I dreaming now? How long have I been awake? I keep a butcher’s knife with a cracked handle under my pillow, in case if they come for me while I’m sleeping. I will not be caught unaware.

They gave me something – some pharmaceuticals, a long time ago. Though they were meant to help with my burden, instead, these poison tablets shattered my world, leaving me in those endless gray hallways. The hospital goes on forever.

Dr. SW Jackson – he was the one who

105

oversaw my case – escaped punishment for his crimes against us. After the trial, they dropped a promotion in his blood-spattered lap, working for the American government performing “behavior modification” with a rusty scalpel. He’s still out there somewhere, ruining people’s worlds.

Socrates said “an unexamined life isn’t worth, living,” didn’t he? Well, a life inside a black box isn’t a life at all. Each day atrophies my soul. – And with the goddamned three foot tall green Venusian goddess squatting just behind my shoulder? – Cow teats jangling and flapping wetly, her breath sweet like honey and milk, with the copper tang of blood, I mean, how can anyone expect to get any rest with that? It’s just not right.

How long have I been dreaming? Am I awake? The smell of mold tells me I’m back at Pennhurst again. They must have

caught me, somehow. The underground labyrinth beckons me, calling out from a center rotten and cold, a septic, gangrened wound. Fascinated and horrified, I drift through the catacombs towards this center, following the etchings on the walls like a spool of thread, winding in, and down.

Strange murals, gouged with bleeding fingernails and sharp sticks, children’s paintings and graffiti line these walls. Chipped and withered portions of plaster slowly slip from the flaccid flesh hanging from the belly of this subterranean beast. These catacombs hold the memories and scattered possessions of the fallen, the neglected, and the abused.

It – whatever it is that draws me here – directs my attention to a room numbered 333. Pressing my face to a smeared and greasy window, cupping my hands to the pane and peering inside, I can make out the figure of a young man, physically restrained and bathed in a seductive, flickering blue light.

Through the stained window I see that he is completely naked but for the restraints binding him to an upright table. His eyes stare lidlessly at images flickering on a screen before him: mother, father and child, clasped together in a blurry family portrait, over-saturated and scratched, like a distant memory; a boy and girl holding hands, there and then gone, a flicker of hope in black and white; banners and flags; girls dancing in sequined dresses as fireworks erupt behind them; the quivering, painted lips of a girl, naked, vulnerable, in ecstasy; the glint of a wedding ring, parents in the background, pantomiming happiness as they feel their end moving inexorably nearer; computer screens, printouts, gray slacks, and then a fading image of wrinkled arms, wreathed in medical tubing, and the lonely darkness, as the words “Happily Ever After” take the screen, and remain.

With a start, I realize this boy is me. I try to come nearer but there is a piercing ringing, a buzzing, pulling me away…

106

It took Don a long time to realize that the horrible buzzing wasn’t emanating from a three-foot tall green woman with udder-like breasts. No, it was an alarm clock.

He couldn’t remember where he had just been, though the drool ringing his mouth was a good indicator of where he was now. He had fallen asleep on the sofa. Absently wiping it away, he rolled over and fell straight onto the floor. …the alarm continued ringing from one room over, droning on like an unfed baby.

He tapped keyboards and mice as he made his way to the harsh glare of his bathroom, knocking his computers out of their own binary dreams. After brushing away the residue of last night’s dinner, he sat down in front of one of his machines and started scanning the morning headlines over a cup of unsweetened black coffee.

“Fuck…” he said out loud, leaning back. The company had assumed this story would get buried beneath the fold. Instead, it got top billing. A part of him was troubled by this fact…the part of him that gave a damn how the company fared, or if he kept his job. But at the same time, an ever-growing center of discontent within him was feeling downright gleeful that someone

107

in the press had grown balls. He’d have to look into this.

The Europharm AG boardroom glowed with a cold, diffuse light, emanating from behind frosted glass globes positioned at regular intervals along the slate gray walls. Don recognized a number of the faces around the table, the sinister cabal of leeches that sat on the board of directors – the head of marketing, the Vice President with his classic comb-over, the rat-faced CFO – all men of note, who held onto their positions precariously under the critical gaze of the company’s CEO. Don imagined they drank their morning coffee after crawling out of sarcophagi hidden somewhere in the locked rooms on the mysterious thirteenth floor.

In the course of five years, the present CEO’s predecessor, Mark Greenwald, had increased profits by a wide margin. The production of their anti-depressants surged forward when it was unleashed on untapped youth markets. Ethical questions were rarely raised in such matters so long as profits were high.

A trunk-load of documentation had to be brushed under the table. Most of the press releases used a clever amount of ambiguity – for instance, say such and such drug is used to treat rectal bleeding, don’t say that it is only markedly effective in lethal doses.

Ironically, Mark died from complications from Effexarin, a drug he helped market. God giveth and He taketh away.

Before Mark’s passing just a couple weeks ago, he handpicked Al, the current CEO, who generally attained the position through a series of Shakespearean power-plays and a healthy dose of good luck.

This group of dessicated mummies were obsequiously leaning in towards the shiny mahogany table, waiting on Al’s reaction to the vice president’s most recent suggestion. This would be the first time Don actually sat in a meeting with Al since the changeover occurred.

What Don found at the end of the table shocked him so completely that he almost dropped the report in his hand. He frantically looked from one sweaty suit to the next. They were all subconsciously holding their breath, eyebrows raised expectantly. None of them seemed concerned with anything aside from Al’s acceptance of their ideas – expressed with guttural hoots, arm flailing, or cooing.

They apparently weren’t distressed by the fact that Al, their CEO, was a chimpanzee.

Al crawled onto the table, shot a wrinkled pink hand up into the air, and let out a grunt before it dropped down, knuckles rapping loudly. There

108

came an audible sigh from the crowd. Apparently, they interpreted this as approval for the advertising budget that had just been proposed.

In an attempt to regain his composure, Don straightened up and cleared his throat.

“I uh…was sent here to inform you of an article that was recently published in the New York Times.”

“Excuse me Donald,” Dave, the head of advertising interjected. “But shouldn’t this be brought up in one of our meetings so that I can bring it to the attention of the board?”

When it came to the company at large, Don generally reported to Dave. His normally impeccable façade had slipped a couple times when they spoke privately, because of his utter contempt for Dave.

It wasn’t just because the man was evil. It was the way he wheezed when he breathed, the veins that stuck out of his eyes like gray worms, the bulge in his strangely fitting slacks that made it look like he was wearing a diaper when he waddled around. Don wasn’t sure how much of his anarchistic world view actually leaked in these instances. Possibly too much.

“Well uhm yes normally…” Don started. “That is the protocol,” Dave said tersely.Al sat down on the table and lobbed a fountain pen at Dave’s head

which missed by a narrow margin. He fell silent.Don tried to stare straight ahead without matching gazes with anyone.

“Let me just read the article…you at least need to think about drafting a press release.”

Al circled his fist in the air a number of times and then defecated.“He wants you to paraphrase,” the CFO explained over his bifocals. “His

time is precious.”Don sighed as he tried to avoid staring at the pile of chimpanzee

dung in the middle of the boardroom table. “As you know Dr. Andrew Mosholder, a senior epidemiologist for the FDA, found that children given antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to become suicidal as those given placebos. This you know…”

“…And this is easily ignored by doctors so long as we provide sufficient incentive,” the CFO continued dryly.

“Yes…plus as you know his findings were more or less kept secret. A second series of similar tests were undertaken, in the hopes of proving the first series wrong. Unfortunately the results were the same. In fact our drug Baxilpro has been singled out as particularly dangerous. Now of course we have plenty of doctors who are claiming the benefits outweigh the risks –

109

even though those benefits haven’t actually ever been proven…uhm… I think we should really consider the longterm effects…”

“This is business, not a college ethics class, Donald,” Dave shot back. “Our profits would take a horrible loss if we did what you were about to suggest. Statistically, the drug is safe. If the cost of lawsuits overcomes the cost of a new round of R&D…blah blah blah. You know this. Now get to the point.”

“The point is the FDA is scheduling an advisory committee hearing in a month to review this…as well as similar tests which show, as I said, that the drug has not been proven to improve depression better than a placebo. In other words, it doesn’t help depression but it does drastically increase the chance of suicide…They are considering banning all anti-depressants except Prozac For Children…”

As Don spoke Al waddled off the table and fell asleep in his chair.“I’m sorry Don, our CEO doesn’t consider this news worthy of his time,

but we will talk about it later–” Dave said. “Anyhow what you suggest is patently absurd. You know as well as I do that will never happen. Their bottom line is our bottom line…but they have to go through the motions to satisfy social interests. Legislation will be passed soon that requires all children in the public schooling system to be tested, and medication for those diagnosed will be mandatory. Now let’s move on to real issues, shall we?” He waved his hand dismissively in Don’s direction.

Don shook his head, heat rising to his cheeks. “Yes, sir.”He stiffly turned and left.

The rest of the day, Don couldn’t focus on his work. Instead, he pondered the company he now served.

This was Europharm’s business: One: inventing diagnoses and selling medications which at times helped

abate those ailments, while in the process creating new ones. Whenever the patent on a drug was about to run out, mysteriously a new “disorder” would be diagnosed and dispatched to the press, a drug would be renamed, a marketing campaign re-tooled, and the machine marched on.

Two: convincing doctors to over-prescribe medications. He felt sorry in a way for the doctors, who really did want to help their patients and had to sort through hundreds of ad-speak laden glossy pamphlets every day. Of course, the rush was so big pharma could get drugs that saved lives out to the people as soon as humanly possible. Of course.

Three: convincing patients that what ailed them was the result of this

110

patented (or re-patented) disorder. This was generally done to the patients by proxy through the doctor. Psych meds were the biggest sellers in this department.

These more nebulous disorders were Europharm’s bread and butter. Admittedly, they did this as a result of substantial financial pressure. Though the first pill may cost millions in R&D, the profit margin on every pill that follows is phenomenal. The trick is getting it in enough bloodstreams. A lifetime sentence of medication sounds like a cash register opening, to the boys in the boardroom.

Because the diagnosis of these disorders is symptomatic – it’s difficult if not impossible to “test” for bi-polar disorder, since an increase of one neurotransmitter or another, or even the morphological irregularities of a particular brain, could be the cause or effect of any number of factors. Uncertainty gives leeway for spin.

The diagnosis a doctor selects is dependent, in some part, on the drugs presented to them through carefully constructed marketing campaigns. Even to a well schooled doctor, if a particular disorder is getting a news report every night, it’ll be at the top of their mind. Their financial support also gave them a firm grip on the legislation on the other end of the process. It was, as they say, a “fixed game,” which explained why Dave was unruffled by the news that Don presented in the board room.

He emphatically pounded his skinny white fist on the desk in front of him.

Something has to be done.

Later that afternoon he entered Dave’s office, carrying his laptop under one arm and his lunch (contained in a paper bag from McDonald’s) in the other. Dave’s horse-faced secretary was too focused on typing out a text message on her cellphone to bother acknowledging his existence.

Dave sat in front of a massive desk, silhouetted before floor-to-ceiling windows. Don stood in front of the desk for a moment in silence, broken only by Dave’s labored breathing. He felt like Luke Skywalker confronting Jabba the Hutt.

“You wanted me?” Don prompted, resisting the urge to deliver Luke’s line. If Dave caught the reference it would be all the worse for him, and if he didn’t it would just confuse him.

Still not looking him in the eye, Dave slowly opened up a drawer on his desk, and pulled out a cigar. After running it under his hairy nostrils as he inhaled deeply, he leaned back and pushed a button, turning off the smoke

111

alarm. “Yes…yes I did,” he said at length. “Have a seat.” His blood-shot eyes

finally locked with Don’s. They were the eyes of a reptile, as a stony, stupid and yet ruthless cunning lurked there that constantly asked: can I eat it, or will it eat me?

He clutched the cigar impotently between his teeth as they stared at each other uneasily. Instead of speaking, he crossed his feet on the desk, which was bare except for an ashtray and a thick crystal glass with a telltale pale amber puddle inside – the remnants of Glenlivit on the rocks left out too long. This was meant to demonstrate his superiority in this environment, however Don was too busy thinking about alcohol.

Don was a fan of single malt himself. In his opinion it was a liquor well suited to back-room meetings. It wasn’t right for this meeting, however. The plot he was about to unleash called for a couple shots of tequila, which was a far less Machiavellian liquor. He doubted Dave would catch his sinister intentions if he asked for Cabo Wabo. But, no. This plane would have to be landed sober.

Except for the desk and two black leather chairs, the room itself was entirely barren. No decoration. No floor golf. Don began to wonder what Dave did in here all day. After doing so for a moment, and considering Dave’s corpulent figure, he decided maybe it was better not to ponder it too deeply if he wanted to retain his appetite.

“You are a liberal idiot Don,” Dave said, breaking the silence with his usual tact. “Sometimes I really wish we didn’t hire any of your kind here, but it seems that if we want an IT department, there isn’t any choice. If you weren’t working for the team, you’d probably be homeless, handing out small-minded feel-good pamphlets on street corners. But I’m going to help you out…Because I am a success in this world, and if it wasn’t for me, you would be a failure…I am a nice guy. You know that right, Don? So let’s talk a little bit about business, shall we?” He lit the cigar. Each breath sounded like a death rattle.

Don pulled a chair up to the desk and gingerly put his laptop down on the floor. “Sure, let’s.” He could smell scotch on Dave’s breath from ten feet away. It cut right through the pungent smoke. I warn you not to underestimate my powers, Don thought to himself.

“What is this nonsense with you busting in on a boardroom with these half-cocked ideas? If you are going to continue working for this company you need to realize that your first concern must be the growth of this company. It must be your God. It is a hungry God, Don. A hungry,

112

vengeful God.” An edge of genuine fear made his voice tremble. “It watches your every move. Do you follow me? I want you to go to sleep at night thinking…how can I keep it fed tomorrow? If you don’t feed it, it will eat you. You are a cell in its body. You are little…tiny…You are tiny Don, do you understand that? Tiny.” Dave was chewing on the end of his cigar as he spoke. A brown froth lined his mouth.

As he rummaged around in the bag for ketchup packets, Don nodded absently. “Yes sir.”

He had an arsenal of arguments and complaints he wanted to unleash in a forum like this…finally the opportunity had presented itself and he had no appetite for it. There was no point. He may as well argue the ills of eating beef to a cattle farmer. His counter-argument would need to be much more visceral, if he wanted to reach his audience.

“What we do here is good for the community, it’s good for people, and it’s good for business. You bleeding hearts are small minded. We deal with the real world…With statistics. If one person out of a thousand dies as a result of our medication, there’s an outrage,” Dave growled.

Don nodded, giving an almost mischievous smile. If Dave had been paying more attention, that smile might have made him wonder. He might have wondered why Don was opening packet after packet of ketchup, without anything to put it on. But Dave wasn’t wondering much about anything at all. He was so hammered his face was numb, and by his reckoning, he was talking much-needed sense into the boy.

Dave continued, “No one mentions everyone we help. Back when I was your age kids were crying up a storm about a couple slants getting blasted in Mai Lai. Fuck them, we were trying to crush Communism. We had to get out of the jungle but we won the war, goddammit. I work day and night for you people, and no one appreciates it. And every day I have to put up with your nonsense about corporate interest determining medical interest, and about symptomatic rather than systemic cures…All of your effete, nonsensical…Don?! What in the hell do you think you are doing?”

In fact, while Dave had been speaking, Don had dropped his pants, and proceeded to squirt ketchup all over his genitals, all the while nodding his head agreeably.

“Unless your meds get you high, throw them out the window. Get healthy, stay crazy,” Don said calmly over the slop-slop-slop sound of his hands doing their work below.

The cigar fell from Dave’s flaccid lips, making a wet splat as it landed on the desk and stuck there hissing amidst a cloud of ash and smoke. Don kept

113

a wide smile as he proceeded to masturbate, ketchup splattering all over the expensive rug.

After recovering from his shock, Dave reached for the phone to call security, but Don was already gone.

As he flew down the steps, an uncomfortable slimy feeling between his legs, Don realized he had been planning this for months, maybe even years. Not the ketchup stunt, that was just a sudden flash of genius, but instead the realization that there was something very, very wrong with this world. The question was, what was it and what could he do about it? It had been bouncing around in his head all this time, it had even been the subject of his dreams – when he wasn’t occupied by three-foot-tall naked green women. Dave’s drunken rambling about cells in bodies had given him an idea…a terribly wicked idea. Simple and profound. Cancer starts with just a couple cells, after all. It is the revolt of the few against the many, when the many are fat and insane.

Maybe the analogy didn’t hold, exactly. He had more pressing things to worry about anyhow, like evading the guards.

( )The autumn months moved towards winter. Sodden clumps of auburn

leaves were replaced by an unsightly gray sludge. The bustle on Park slope was a perpetual blur, viewed through the window of Don’s makeshift office in the front room of his apartment. Not that he looked out on the outside world much in these months – his primary contact with the outside was through Xi Ping Bo, who brought his orders from the corner Chinese store regularly by bicycle. There were other options in the area, but Xi Ping was his favorite. Maybe he just found his name amusing. Convenience was paramount, he was otherwise occupied.

Unlike many of his other college drop-out friends, who spent all of their exorbitant pre-dotcom-bust salaries on mountains of cocaine and video equipment, Don had invested his wisely. He’d lived in his small apartment, the modest but comfortable third story of a brownstone. He endured the daily commute, and lived primarily on nicotine, black coffee, and one day old scones which he picked up in cafés around Manhattan during lunch break. Now it was Chinese food. Same difference, except now he had a plan.

No. He had The Plan.The sacrifice, before, had been mindless. Work to survive, survive to

work. This way of life has a certain ethic, if the work itself holds value.

114

However, the more immersed he became in the industry, the more he realized that, rather than being indifferent to the interests of the company, which itself is a conundrum faced by many Americans, he actually abhorred what these companies did. The end result of what he did on a day to day basis was at cross-purposes with his beliefs.

It didn’t sweeten the deal any that, like most other Americans, he was the slave of a faceless master. When viewed with a wide-angled lens the benefit gravitates to the top, out of the hands of the workers. Of course Marx and Engels had recognized this two hundred years previous…they misunderstood the role of capital funds in the bloody mess, but Don couldn’t hold that against them.

Well, he stayed with the company despite his misgivings, and just kept putting aside his cash until he did know what to do with it. Oftentimes a fear nagged at him, that he was just fooling himself and it wasn’t all for a higher cause…but he had persevered, maybe because ultimately he had no other option.

His position within the company gave him a certain invincibility, the mantle conferred by understanding a crucial nerd mumbo-jumbo which none of the other executives could fully comprehend. As chief administrator of the IT department he was a little like the modern analogue of a shaman or voodoo priest. The machines that the company depended on were his charge, no one else could speak to them in the way he did. Though an IT manager is replaceable, a virus can be unleashed, or a hard-drive wiped, with a simple keystroke. And management knew it.

Every piece of information that passed through the company was available to him, from the sickening and puerile emails passed between certain secretaries and middle managers, to the top-level deals with other corporations and bodies of government. Technically, he was barred from the use of any such information, and the use of this confidential knowledge within the corporation would have jeopardized his position. This was no concern. The petty maneuvering such information could afford him was far beneath his goal. He was like Verbal Kent in The Usual Suspects – the idiot that no one took seriously who had the whole place by the balls.

Don mimicked exactly what his higher-ups expected of a brilliant, moderately-but-not-dangerously disaffected twenty-something, down to the smallest detail. He had gained complete control of their computer systems without even a college degree, because he was so good at playing to their expectations.

At times, he tried to give the industry the benefit of the doubt. The

115

system itself made them believe in the scarcity of an idea. Wealth – an idea. The system was designed for the sake of its own benefit. In a manner of thinking, it was an independent, sentient organism.

This was always going to be the case so far as he could tell, for as long as there are humans some will take advantage of others, and those at the bottom will be crushed like grapes. Their sacrificial blood feeds the social machine. Unless…

While he sat in that office with Jabba the Hutt, he hatched a Robin Hood-like plot in the back of his mind. (That is, the part that wasn’t preparing to masturbate ketchup on Jabba’s expensive imported rug.) All of these festering ideas sought a solution.

It began with a question: what endemic myth is so essential for the perpetuation of the Capitalistic way of life that if it was removed, the entire fabric would unravel?

Every culture has at its heart a myth which allows it to function. For a monarchy, it is the Divine, sovereign right of Kings. “See that sun in the sky? I get my power from that.” No Divine Sovereignty, no Kings. Where once the palaces and offices of state stood tallest, now the financial buildings blotted out the sun. Despite this seeming changeover, the story was always the same: the few abusing the rest of humanity, and now even the planet itself, for the sake of their excesses. The spell which gave money value worked because no one looked behind the curtain…How is this spell performed, and how can The Wizard of Oz be revealed?

His first answer to this was simple: ownership. Property. Money was symbolic not of value, but of ownership. But taking away the belief in property was no solution. This analysis didn’t bite deep enough.

Maybe a pat answer wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, he felt certain that subversion was the right modus

operandi. He would work for and with the so-called Man by day, and use the money and techniques learned through that interaction by night to fund social viruses which would spell the end. For the Pharmaceutical industry. For all industries founded on imperial ownership notes.

There was a hidden danger in this approach which Don was well aware of. The idea of “beating them at their own game,” or even overthrowing a system through revolution was generally flawed – that which you try to overthrow, you become. This was how the system kept on, in one form or another. All that changed from revolution to revolution was aesthetic, and of course, who got the paychecks at the end of the day. This was a simple fact of history.

116

Many of his bosses were failures of this kind of thinking, who now expressed their individuality to “color outside the lines” by driving an SUV to work every day in the heart of an already congested, polluted city.

The image of that flaccid cigar falling from Dave’s slug-like lips would taint his nightmares until his dying day. He didn’t want to be Dave 2.0 in twenty years. That image was reason enough to drag the Western World to its knees.

He was no fool. A beast lurked under the mask of culture and civilization, and in the chaos that animal would re-emerge. This was simply the only means by which a truly evolutionary step could occur. Wipe the slate clean and pray. It was a shot at saving the species, far from guaranteed.

Crushing Western Civilization might take more than a fortnight. This was why he needed to recruit the help of some of the most brilliant and eccentric minds in computer programming, economics, media and social engineering.

Implementation of such a plan would require wide dispersion, created by cells of operatives that didn’t even know each other’s names. It would take on a life of it’s own.

In the end no one would know where it originated. When that time came, he would be long gone. He would be in Thailand, or Switzerland.

Over the course of months he dabbled with countless approaches. With the nest egg he’d saved, he had time to research. He had time to skulk and plot and eat copious amounts of greasy Chinese food. Pages of notes collected first in vast piles of napkins, wrinkled and stained with coffee rings. A couple napkin ideas graduated to a notepad.

Many of these notes later got the red pen, writ large: stupid idea, not feasible, unnecessary, stop eating Lo Mein after midnight, and so on. After long and tedious research on the history of the federal reserve, he came to realize that the system itself was devised to bring about the same kind of stratification and destabilization which he thought he had to create. To bring about his desired goals, the most crucial elements were social rather than financial…and so his focus turned towards the media.

He gathered information on the groups and individuals he would need to contact, and at what point they would need to be contacted.

When he was done researching, he started making phone calls.

First on his list was the Colonel. His guess was that his moniker

117

originated with Colonel Kurtz, from Apocalypse Now, Coppala’s modern adaptation of Heart of Darkness. Kurtz had gone beyond the realm of the Military’s command, had gone beyond the realm of sanity, and found a strangely pragmatic reality out there, in the tangled roots of the mango trees. Of course, this Colonel looked more like Klink, from the 60s television show Hogan’s Heroes, if he was fronting an Industrial band in the 90s.

Last he heard, the Colonel was making a killing running the IT department of some medical web startup, and blew that killing quite literally in white-hot blasts through the septum. He did it alone, he did it at great parties that he threw at his pad, he did it while he worked. Chances are soon he’d do it subconsciously, while he slept. Don could imagine his hand slinking around the top of the giant glass table by the side of his bed like a tarantula, quivering when it sensed its prey was near.

Maybe his addiction was an escape from some hidden guilt, or just the doldrums. Don never managed to find out. Maybe he just didn’t care enough. They’d met in an experimental film analysis class in college, and forged an unlikely friendship for several years. When they gave up on the ivory tower they also fell out of touch.

Even with his habits and combustible personality in mind, Don needed the Colonel. When properly motivated, his technical skills were first rate, but more importantly, he was the ideal “no man” for the team. Don had learned long ago that while it was important to have positive support within a boardroom, it was more valuable to have someone who could effectively shoot down an idea, explain why it wouldn’t work, what would work better and why. This hunch stuck with him; seeing a boardroom of execs making their decisions based on the defecations of a chimpanzee pretty much drove that nail home. Hell, it drove it straight through the board.

He made a quick call to give the Colonel a heads up. The real way to sell him on the concept was in person, over a line or two. Don honestly wasn’t fond of the stuff but he’d make an exception to close a sale.

When the Colonel answered, Don heard hysterical giggling in the background, loud enough to overpower crashing electronic drum machines and distorted vocals. Some cEvin Key project. Download, maybe.

“Speak,” he said. He obviously knew who was calling from his caller I.D. Two years, and that was all he had to say. Typical.

“Colonel, it’s Don– ” he started automatically.“Yeah no shit. I can read. OK, go to town girl, like a vacuum cleaner…

Though you might want to have your number protected. I could find out

118

where you live…” he hissed.“You’ve known where I lived for years. Anyway, I have a business

proposal for you. It’s not just money…it’s…something bigger than that. Do you remember that ongoing conversation we had back in school…about taking down the big names in the media industry? About shifting the geography? Well I have something that could be bigger. And I need your help. I need your…incisive wit.” Don spoke rapidly and loudly, hoping he was being heard over the music.

The Colonel hummed to himself when Don finished speaking, and then replied with what sounded like bemusement, “Great, I was wondering how long it would take you. Making these porno videos is totally sucking out my soul.”

“Porno videos?” Don chuckled. Well that explains the background noise.“Yeah,” he said, “I’m making one right now. Thank God for DV cams,

and coke whores. Girls these days, they’ll do anything for a gram. It’s sad. Isn’t it, honey? Anyway, it passes the time but I’d rather do something more effective. I mean I’m not even doing it for the money, what the fuck.” He hadn’t said otherwise, but Don knew he wasn’t actually participating in the films, either. The Colonel was rather particular about making flesh on flesh contact with anyone, even in passing. Most of the time he wore tight leather gloves, layer upon layer of clothes. It was such a straightforward mechanism that psychoanalysis seemed unnecessary; it may as well have been a literary device.

He was still talking like a jackhammer, probably swimming in a deep, invigoratingly cool pool of dopamine. “So you’re at it again huh. Let me guess, all of the business world is like…different organs in the same organism. Like, oh my god!” Hearing the Colonel try to talk like a Valley Girl turned Hippie was almost more than Don could bear.

“And you want to become an organ and then, like, pull the plug. Or fill the body with confetti or something. I’d rather an army of monkeys, or a pet elephant. Or an M-1 tank. But your plan sounds grand, too. Jesus girl, finesse, c’mon…Though I have to tell you I don’t think humans are fit to govern themselves. How about tomorrow night, your place? Throw in the army of monkeys and I’ll love you forever. Me love you long time. Spit or swallow girls, make up your mind.”

This was further example of why he needed the Colonel on his team. The two of them were at loggerheads usually…as he had just pointed out, their conversations in college usually ended with the Colonel pulling out Hobbes Leviathan and saying that Don’s ideological b.s. may as well be a

119

post-modern variant on Rousseau, while the truth is the human animal is little more than a territorial, shit-lobbing monkey. They need government to keep from destroying themselves.

These differences didn’t matter. The Colonel would have loved to see the world reduced to outright survival of the fittest. Strip the façade and reveal what is already at work behind closed doors. This would be a world the Colonel believed he could thrive in, at least so long as someone was still processing cocaine. Don had a sunnier vision of the future. He saw a grand convergence of technology, information, and energy, once the chaos passed. For now, their goals were the same. The future would work itself out.

Don took on a preachy tone. “One must be free to learn how to make use of one’s powers freely and usefully. The first attempts will surely be brutal and will lead to a state of affairs more painful and dangerous than the former condition under the dominance but also the protection of an external authority. However, one can achieve reason only through one’s own experiences, and one must be free to be able to undertake the– ”

The Colonel spluttered, shooting spit as he cut Don off. “–Don! Please for the love of everything holy tell me you aren’t quoting

Emmanuel Kant at me right now.” Now he was the one being cut off, though by a baritone voice in the

background bellowing “oh God oh God OH GOD!” “You harpooned your whale, Ishmael. Now get off my ass. I owe this

DNA coated foundling a line of shitty mob coke.”The meeting hadn’t happened yet, but it was clearly a done deal. This

was about as close as the Colonel ever came to friendly. There was no point putting any mental effort into formulating a strategy. He’d wing it.

Next on the list was Sebastian. He was a highly energetic, somewhat poodle-like Jew Don met in a music theory class. Sebastian thought differently than anyone he had ever met before then. Like many drummers, he was half autistic– let’s be honest, anyone who feels the inclination to hit things with a stick for six hours a day probably is– but there was something else to it. Everyone else picked up their consciousness on 440 Hz, and he just happened to be a perfect 5th above.

One day, Sebastian nonchalantly turned to him and said, “I receive messages from aliens, you know. A lot. In fact, I’m getting one right now.”

Don remembered just cocking his head to the side for a moment in acknowledgment like, “yep, that explains that.”

So, he was clearly a shoe in for the audio production manager spot. The best and the brightest might be good enough for Silicone Valley, but he

120

needed to add derangement to the bill. When you’re looking up at such an overwhelming opponent, you gotta go squirrely.

Recruitment went smoothly, as he methodically moved from partners to employees. Supply them with a living wage and a task suited to their actual abilities and deficits, and most people would do just about anything. Anything to avoid that cookie-cutter 9-5. As he continued making phone calls and everything fell into place, he started to feel the dominoes had been set for years…maybe even decades. Was he just a single link in a long chain?

( )Don’s day on October 23rd, 2005 may as well have been a metaphor

for the first year of their operation. Everything is a fractal, so why not? A hologram within a hologram. If life can be compacted into a series of bullet points, it can be religious scripture too, can’t it? And if the Bhagavad Gita and chaos theory were relevant to business philosophy, then he’d better start drinking. Fast.

It all started when he awoke to a knock at the door. He’d passed out unceremoniously on the decrepit couch that sat in the middle of the rec area. Amazingly, he’d been able to extricate himself in a matter of moments – that comfy, coffee-stain riddled Jezebel had devoured lesser men than he. The knock was insistent.

If it’s the goddamn feds, I’ll…I’ll…He couldn’t come up with a plan in the time it took his legs to get him to the door. I’ll be in a maximum-security prison within the next 24 hours. As he turned the doorknob, he pondered what favors he could call in that would get him out, at least on bail.

Thankfully, it was just the UPS man, shivering unconsciously in the early morning chill. Don scribbled his signature, an aggressive kamikaze dip of the pen, and took the packages without looking.

Setting the boxes down on the island in the kitchen area, he stared at them quizzically for a minute.

The first box was from a military base in Thailand.Ah, so, what have we here? He lost interest in the other boxes. A butcher knife was grasped firmly

in his hand in a second, and was buried ankle deep in Styrofoam packing the next. His fingers wrapped themselves around something soft and furry. Jumping back, he released a flurry of packing into the air. Rather than the stiff dead squirrel he was imagining, he held a bright purple teddy bear.

…a purple teddy bear sent first class from a military base in Thailand.

121

Yeah, this happens every day.Scary thing is…it does, he reconsidered, locked in a staring contest with

its disgustingly cute eyes. Realizing the bear was clearly going to win this game, he tossed it absently on the counter, and it landed with a crisp whack.

Whack? He picked the bear up and eviscerated it with a steady pull of his knife. That was, he noted, a cut from bottom to top, rather than a cut from side to side across the abdomen. A cornucopia of magically delicious pills poured forth and clattered lightly on the linoleum floor like a bunch of Lucky Charms. Blue Valiums, Orange Aderols, and White Codeines…the recognition came almost automatically, though of course he had the same recall with Prozac or Zantac. Pharmaceuticals were just in his blood. So to speak.

Breakfast was a jolly mixture of Aderol, Cheerios, and Jameson. This diet required both willpower and subtlety. A little too much one

way or the other, and all he’d be able to do is lie on the sofa for hours and let the drugs fuck him like a cheap whore.

As he crunched away and the speed took hold, he flipped through the morning news feeds on one laptop and scrolled through his PDA at the same time, taking mental inventory of the days meetings.

First was a partners meeting. He would open with a discussion about a thought that’d occurred to him while suspended on the brink of sleep by what felt like the thin filaments of a spiders web. The opening was rehearsed, and he knew the others would respond positively, so it required no more attention.

Next was a recording session with Incisor Smile, a group of avant-garde jazz musicians who believed they channeled alien intelligences through their instruments. Chances were the teddy bear and his belly full ‘o joy would come in handy here, too.

He put the empty cereal bowl in the sink absently, still thinking at a rapid pace, running through everything the day would have in store. Rehearsing, prepping himself on the emotional affect that would be required for each interaction. Joe Jackson was the leader of Incisor Smile. He was a bellicose, squat man in his fifties who informed Don that the structure of their songs had to do with the ‘frequency harmonics of the Pleiades.’ His explanation had been more verbose, and included allusions to the conjunction of inharmonic phrases and the frequencies put out by different types of stars. Something about red shift, the curvature of space time…

Conversations like this necessitated Don’s copious drug intake. There

122

was no way he could build rapport with the clients if he wasn’t at least half as high as they were.

Mr. Jackson himself was like a pot perpetually on the edge of boiling over. Far too many meetings were spent gaging his response by the severity of the bulge in the veins of his T-bone steak neck.

Don could tolerate Joe for this reason; veiled beneath his bullshit longhair Pleiades conspiracies lurked that white hot hate. The hate was real. Like many artists Joe was an outcast in a society that didn’t want him. He wasn’t a poser artiste, disenfranchising himself for the sake of being cool. He really didn’t belong on this planet. The aliens were his way of justifying his alienation, his loneliness, his spent, youthful dreams. The inhabitants of the Pleiades, if he could reach them, would take him home. Don doubted the Pleiadians wanted him either, the poor, angry son-of-a-bitch.

Wake up and accept it Joe, the aliens are all around you. You are alone here. P.S. There is no Easter Bunny.

His thought process was derailed as the other partners filed into the rec room. The Colonel came first, clad entirely in leather, his short, bleached-blond hair setting a stark contrast with his dark eyebrows and olive skin. He held a rusted hatchet in one hand.

“There better be a reason for this meeting,” he proclaimed loudly. His voice rattled on Don’s ears like steel wool over a cheese grater. “I was up all fucking night working for these cunty fucks.”

The hatchet came up and rested casually on his shoulder as he dropped down on one of the chairs and threw a booted foot on the boardroom table. “So bring it, bitch…before I get Lizzy Borden on someone’s ass.”

Sebastian was hopping up and down on the sofa like a three-year-old. That explained its state of ill-repair, at any rate. Several of the other employees filed in and sat at back tables quietly.

All were in attendance. Don stood tall, stretched his arms out wide, and began in typical

mock bombastic oratorical style. “It is with great pleasure that I begin the momentous occasion of this one-hundred and...”

He looked over at Sebastian, who whispered “sixteen” back at him.“Sixteenth! partners meeting. Phase I of the Plan is a success. We have

secured our facilities. We have filled our Phase I employment roster. We have put our investors....” he looked in Sebastian’s direction.

Without stopping his bouncing, Sebastian held up seven fingers.“Seven million dollars in the hole,” Don continued. “But their trust is

not misplaced because our initial theoretical test of the Plan was a success. It

123

exceeded every benchmark we set for it in fifteen out of our Sixteen Criteria For Success demonstrated in the business plan.”

“–I know I’m just setting myself up with this one,” the Colonel said dryly. “But what was the sixteenth?”

“I’m sorry?” Don asked.“The sixteenth criteria. For success.”“Oh. Profitability. Nevermind that. It is time, gentleman. We have to roll

up our sleeves. This is a multi-pronged evolutionary virus. Corporate and political warfare, without picking up a gun.”

“Nature also never created a three legged dog,” the Colonel said. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you sh–”

“–Quiet, you.” Don pulled heavily on a joint he produced from his shirt pocket a moment before, coughing as he continued. “The profit margin will be there, it’ll just happen through the Pharmaceutical and Advertising budgets that our subsidiaries bring in. Those subsidiaries are our cash cows.” He took another pull, looking around to make sure he still had their attention.

“We have an in with them, and that industry is booming, so that’s like…what we milk. Then the other projects can suckle at that teat. ”

The Colonel was rubbing the head of the hatched seductively. He raised an eyebrow.

“You know what, Don?” the Colonel said after a moment of silence. “Don’t say that ever again. Give me the blueprints for Phase II and I’ll make sure shit gets done. Otherwise, they get to talk to the ax.”

“I’m a hippopotamus! I’m a hippopotamus!” Sebastian proclaimed as his curly mop of hair bounced along with him.

“So we’re agreed then,” Don concluded. “Next up…I was contacted by an old friend of mine…Lola, she goes by Lilith now. She’s the head of a band operating around Phoenix and Los Angeles…I’ve been talking to her for a while. Apparently in a couple months they’re going to be putting on a show…they need our help to pull some strings, make it hit. They self-produce, run the operation out of their tour van. I’ll show you their press materials in a few. I’m game, if all of you are. They fit in with the Plan quite nicely, even if they don’t know it. I’m thinking when the time comes for us to hit, we can use them to crack that final egg…If you follow. Give ’em the tools, they can do the dirty work.”

Both of the other partners stopped their antics, and looked over the documents, all business.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said, chewing on the tip of his pen as he pondered,

124

“my instincts say go with them…Their music has the right embedded message. They’ve cleared 500 units out of the back of their van, we could triple that in a month. It’s exponential from there.”

Don nodded quickly. “Well. The sales are just a means to an end, and I like these guys because they get that.”

This was one small part of the plan. A percentage of their profits were funneled directly into funding the efforts of people with the talents to infect the culture with memes – virally infectious, cultural ideas – that were in line with their end goal. Financially, it was a loss. It wasn’t even a legitimate tax write off, unless “developing evolutionary social viruses” could be counted as a deduction on a 1099. For this reason they had to be absolutely sure that their actual goals would be fulfilled through these “pollinators,” as Don often called them.

“With this band...Do you really think its worth the money we’re going to have to invest? I don’t know how to deal with this on a spreadsheet. We’re leveraging qualitative gains against quantitative losses. You’re basing these A&R decisions on how high you are when you open an EPK,” the Colonel said.

“Well,” Don said, “you’re going to have to trust me. They don’t teach this kind of strategy in business school – an upshot of success at our goals will make all profits valueless. Don’t think so small, in dollars and cents. Think of the effects of cultural selection on biological form. Do you understand that wolves became dogs in just a thousand generations? And it was because the wolves that weren’t afraid of the humans just happened to match up in several other s– what’s that word? Uh, significant ways. That one trait...not being afraid of humans...had all of these invisible genetic traits associated with it. Demographics are breeds, a different goddamned pedigree of monkey. Fuck mind control. In just a couple brief generations, our efforts could manufacture an entirely different breed of human beings. And that’s what they’re doing, too. Genetic control through media, man.”

The Colonel squinted venomously at Don as he spoke, visualizing popping his jugular, lapping at the sweet sweet nectar as it fountained, watching him slip silently – oh blessed day! – silently to the ground.

Instead, he just shrugged. “Fuck it. You can have your crusades, I just have to make sure you psychos don’t drive us out of business along the way. What’s next?”

Don ambled over to the control room to set up for the recording session. This room, affectionately known as “the bat cave,” was painted black and

125

filled with pro audio gear of all kinds. He absently pushed a coke-frosted CD cover behind one of the mixers, and started turning on the machines.

As the speakers warmed up, he was greeted with a wet slapping sound and a chorus of low female moaning, and guttural grunting, like a bunch of pigs at the trough. Letting out a flustered groan, he grabbed the talk-through mic.

“OK. Look. Whoever is having an orgy in the iso booth needs to get the hell out right now. We have a client coming in…” he looked down at his wristwatch. “In twenty minutes. And I need to set up a recording session. Thank you.”

There was a loud slurping sound, then a lot of shuffling. Don did his best to avoid imagining what was going on in the adjacent room.

Just another day at the office…

126

Chapter Six:Train ’Em Young

All was darkness and expectant silence.We took our places as this Saturninity was shattered by a rhythmically chanted three-syllable name. Of course, they

were chanting for Babalon. They were chanting for Lilith. Little did they know that they were getting her – making her – in the flesh.

I couldn’t see her from behind the kit, but I didn’t need to. I knew exactly how she was standing: defiant and poised with her slender hands resting coyly on her hips, her weight on the balls of her feet, her ruby lips twisted into a victorious smirk, drinking down that howl like it was sweet wine.

This was the free fall, it was about to begin…

I saw the dawning of this night like the birth of a new Universe, an infinite moment before time. The beating of moth wings and glacial melting were the same, each rise and dip of the frequency of light was a thousandth of a second and an eternity…I could take my pick.

All I could hear as the lights came up was the ululation of the audience, a terrifying vibration that rocked the building to its foundations. This sound was itching, bloody, raw.

The lights hit cold and hard. However my stomach didn’t knot; my palms weren’t sweaty.

Green sparks rained down lazily like shooting stars, and we were off.

The unending roar of pleasure echoed my every move. Each time my foot came down on the kick, with each throbbing tom hit, I could feel the reaction. 5/8, a fill in 6/8 every four measures, and yet they were moving with it. Who says you need four on the floor to rouse an audience?

127

Bodies writhed in the flashes that rippled through the darkness, twining around, between, and through each other. I didn’t feel the give of drum heads or rattle of stick against cymbal anymore. I didn’t see it, but I could feel it on my skin, in the damp air: nipples hardening, esurient mouths licking, gnawing, biting curves and slick heat.

The audience was a thousand eyed beast. It was mad and starving for more, and we were just the empty puppets who danced at its pleasure.

It was then that I realized that, finally, I was home. The hunger that I heard in that roar was my own, from each clock tick which I had spent separated from this. I was born for this. We fed one another, one and yet two, a baby suckling at its mother’s ripe breast. All pain, all need, all separation was absolved in this symbiosis.

Lilith gripped the microphone and the words poured out–

Soaked with your smell with your taste, I could, I could die here All of my life for this sad sick dream pretty nightmare If I wake I’ll lose us bothIf I wake I’ll kill us bothIf I wake I’ll save us all

Here we are clinging drunk in the darkness, here we are, here we are Here we are dreaming, here we are lying, here we are, here we are Here we are breaking, here we are tearing, here we are fading, here we areHere we are leaping, here we are flying, here we are falling here we are

The sea of bodies converged like pixels on a computer screen, and all I could see was Lilith’s pale skin, her eyes watching me closely. Her characteristic uneven grin spread though her eyes remained cold and reflective. I think I could drown in them.

Wake up….

No I won’t fearAnd I won’t fallAnd I won’t breakAnd we can go on…

“Wake up, Dionysus.”

128

Her voice woke a deep recollection of countless lives, flashing by and gone so quickly that all I held was an aftertaste – a millennia of lifetimes spent on this planet just a coppery tang on my tongue. The name lingered, however. Dionysus. I knew what Dionysus meant. Liberation through creative delirium. This was not what I was in the present, but what I had been. Maybe, it was what I might again become.

I saw the roof of the venue drifting away, painted increasingly dark shades of slate-blue by the strata of the smog whirling past. Soon I could make out the gentle curvature of California, then the long snakelike peninsula of Baja. Both were swallowed by clouds and silken shadow; the Earth herself a bobbing speck of dirt caught in a tide of darkness.

Blazing suns, each the size of a thimble in this ocean, hurtled away from my point of view. All was black, though the rushing vertigo of expanding ever outwards continued. There was fluttering in the darkness, a cloud of pulsing lights. They wove together, like stitches in a sweater, and I felt

129

stunned – I was looking at a cell, an army of cells…my hand.I was staring at my hand.Could I dive back into it and find the Universe?The show was over…and I was headed down the hallway with the rest of

the band, no longer Agent 139. Though what exactly that meant remained to be seen.

( )Eighty feet above the mob, Trevino waited with a spider’s stillness.Their security apparatus boiled off doubt that the crew he faced here was

a dangerous one. No (visible) uniformed security, yet a portable perimeter grid of cameras, motion, and heat sensors – even a pair of hulking, too-smart pups with instrumentation studding their leather collars, stalking the lot between trailers. Either Babalon hired a crazy man for too much money, or these little psychos were organized.

The Suits were on to something, and they couldn’t tell him what.Trevino wasted too many nights on too many rented beds, splicing and

peeling back the memories of that meeting. These three were inarguably criminal, fine. A case could be made that he faced a fledgling, domestic terror cell. But why this: sending him out with temporary credentials and a gun and an unmarked, untraceable Agency car with the intention of assassinating three American citizens?

He wanted a cigarette.Alone in the catwalks, moodily watching the crowd and the bustle

backstage, Trevino watched the stage door. He played with the strap across his holster and ground his teeth.

When Hinckley went for President Reagan, the total elapsed time between drawing his weapon, firing it, and going down was one-point-eight seconds. Say he had double that for these goons. Could he guarantee dropping all three before their security put him down?

And since when did this become a suicide mission?No. The favored outcome was three dead, one reinstated. And that

meant tonight was for watching, measuring, and a free concert. There was more at stake here than just these three. Much more.

The mob’s formless susurrus gained rhythm, becoming a chant of Bab-a-lon, Bab-a-lon, moments before his targets came through the door. Three security types came through first, sweeping the area with their eyes before taking positions around the entrance. Their superior followed quickly

130

thereafter with a handful of others, sending them to enveloping positions along the stage with a series of terse commands.

“Don’t worry about the catwalk,” Trevino breathed. “There were alarms on the ladders. You trust them.”

Apparently, he did, and waved the band through the door. First came Cody, wearing a bemused, ‘aw, shucks’ smile and a wide-brimmed hat. The Agent and His Amazing Cucumber followed, chattering amiably and reeking of nervous energy. For a moment, they lingered in a loose formation with their security, a pair of triangles in the entranceway: two watchers and their superior standing hard and calm, the three musicians fizzing and bouncing in place.

Trevino’s face wrestled through a range of expressions in that perfect moment, his eyes walking the target line. Click, killing their superior first. Click, the next to react, click – and hundreds of miles away would the three Suits sigh together like wearily triumphant surgeons? Would he, here on the catwalk, live long enough to reclaim his badge and his parking spot and his security clearance? If not – definitely not – would it be worthwhile? A winning mathematical exchange, one for three, and thousands saved.

He pictured himself laid out with the lumpy quiet of a cadaver on the conference table, with the Suits surrounding him. Their hands adjusted his tie, pinned his credentials to his lapel, fussed with his hair. “Well done, our good and faithful servant.” Martyred, a Saint Stephen full of hollow point slugs like bloody mushrooms.

Is this what their predicted outcome was?The tableau held for one-point-eight seconds, during which Trevino

came to understand much about martyrdom, much of its neatness. Its guarantee of goodness, rendering subsequent falls from grace impossible. He thumbed off his holster strap and widened his stance on the swaying steel.

At one-point-nine, his hand closed over the sculpted metal grip and tightened. At two-zero, Lilith walked through the door and owned him utterly.

A corner of his mind, the one still hovering over murder and martyrdom, recorded her cherry-red hair and bouncing glide as identifying marks, his palms sweaty as his focused dissolved. The count was lost. His plan was dead with one long exhale, and a new one was born on the inhale.

He would have her.

( )

131

The rhythmic chanting of the crowd drowned into the background as the group walked through the dingy corridors behind the stage. As it faded into a fervent whisper, Agent 139 realized that it had been a religious frenzy, mass glossolalia.

“Jesus – hold up. What the hell was that?”Jesus slowed her pace, and raised an eyebrow at him. “I think it was a rock and roll show…if that’s what the kids are calling it

these days.”“It changed me.”“Good, sure you could use it.”“Thanks. Listen, I’ll tell you about this later…but I want you to call me

‘Dionysus,’ now.”Jesus laughed, but stopped when he didn’t laugh along with her.

She shrugged. “I guess I can’t give you too much shit for that, all things considered.”

She patted him on the back, and continued on. It seemed unnaturally dim in the corridor, after being bathed in the

brilliant stage lights for what seemed like an eternity. Dionysus’ high was already fading. For once, it wasn’t the result of any foreign chemicals terrorizing his dendrites.

He had performed before audiences before, but this time it wasn’t just instruments and microphones, chord structures and rhythm. It was writhing, sweaty bodies, ideas and ideals, the antipoles of existence fucking each other into oblivion. Carnal, maybe, but also magical and chaotic as the fluid dynamics of a wave.

He mused on this further as they continued on in a star struck haze. Maybe the shock was that suddenly they were the stars. After years of struggling, of loneliness and near resignation while in the Hospital, all of this seemed like a waking dream.

Lilith was the only one who seemed unaffected. She walked confidently, with a pert bounce that expressed the poise and casual indifference of someone who had been doing this for a lifetime.

Over her shoulder, Jesus regarded the rest of the group, “Well, that’s one thing I can check off my list…”

His hand on some concealed weapon inside his jacket, Agent 506 asked, “List?” He scanned nearby doorways for movement.

Jesus shrugged, “Yeah, things to do before I die. Have an angry orgy while skydiving, run for office, drive in the carpool lane in a van full of fake latex zombies, get stopped by the police while wearing live animals, play a

132

kickass show for a bunch of sex-crazed rivetheads speaking in tongues. That actually was on the list, y’know.”

“Think about it…” Dionysus started, on a tangent of his own. “Most of you make a list of the things you would like to do before you die, the things that would make you feel completed. I guess we have unrealistic goals…so we can’t ever have that feeling…I can’t imagine it would be a good one,” he looked ahead at Lilith, catching her long cherry hair flowing around the exposed curve of her back. He felt an inexplicable gulf between them whenever they weren’t in direct contact, which quite frankly perturbed him. It simply wasn’t like him, at least not since he’d been a teenager. She was like a black hole.

“I want to always be hungry for more,” he finally said.Cody nodded, a boyish grin on his face. “I don’t know about the rest,

but I’ll second that last bit.”“What feeling?” Jesus asked, happy the subject had moved on and no

one would inquire further into her specific, lengthy, and rather peculiar life to-do list.

“Every time I’ve worked really hard for something, and it is done…there is just silence. It isn’t a feeling of accomplishment. It’s like knocking your head against the door of eternity. All you can do to save yourself is ask…what’s next? That’s why all good stories are based around conflict. If you try to imagine the point when you can’t ask that question anymore, when you have lived life on your terms…does a sense of completion come with that, or a chilling anxiety? Could you sleep any longer, knowing that there was nothing left in the world for you, no more challenges worth facing? Is that defeat? Is dying before you’ve lived a full life really worse than dying once the well has run dry?” Dionysus ranted, as they entered the backstage lounge, which looked as welcoming and sanitary as a bus terminal in New Orleans. No red carpets here. “And…if all of this is true…then what end is it that we’re rushing so hard after?”

“Fuckin’ A, man,” Agent 506 said, still checking the corners.“What?”“Could you try to be any more depressing? You just had a fantastic

first show. It doesn’t get much better than that. I’ve watched you want for something like this your whole damn life. Now, just enjoy it and shut the fuck up.”

Jesus fished around in her pockets and offered Agent 506 a packet of peanuts, a consoling look in her eye.

“Have some tasty peanuts,” Jesus said when Agent 506 stared at her

133

coldly. She shook the packet a moment longer, then shrugged and re-pocketed them.

Dionysus stopped for a moment, blinking rapidly. “Yeah. You’re right. I suppose I’m just so used to getting the sharp end of the knife that I’ve come to expect it.”

“What is it with you and peanuts, anyway?” Agent 506 asked Jesus, ignoring Dionysus’ apology.

Jesus shrugged again. “They’re tasty.”Lilith stopped suddenly, and looked back at Dionysus. As he drew near,

she whispered in his ear. “During the show…did you…? I felt you.”The two of them walked together, a little ahead of the rest of the group.“I don’t understand.”“Never mind then…” she said.“No…wait. Yes, I just thought it was in my head. I felt an incredible

presence, like who I am here and now is the pawn piece of some…out-of-time me. I’m just this doddering idiot...but inside me, behind me, is something ancient and powerful. It’s just starting to come awake but when it does, I don’t know what I will become. Through it all you were there with me, at my side, but there was something antagonistic about it, too.”

She just smiled, but something in her eyes told him that she knew exactly what he meant, that she was expecting this, and was sizing up his progress, though in relation to what he didn’t know.

“Sometime Lilith…sometime you’re going to have to explain to me what you’ve been hiding. You know what I’m talking about.” She always seemed on the verge of divulging a deep secret, but somehow never got around to it.

“No, Dionysus,” she said, her voice still hushed. “I’m going to show you. You’re never going to get anywhere with all your talking.” She took his hand. “Not now.” They had come to a metal door at the end of the hallway, which she opened and gestured inside. “Now, we play.”

“Play?”She giggled, but her teeth were like dancing daggers.

( )Now on the 405 – a highway that could make a hardened veteran cry

out for the opium suckle of momma’s teat – Agent 506’s reflexes were put to the test. The predicament was made no easier by the hooting, howling, laughing, and moaning emanating from the rest of the vehicle. The rest of them sit back there and par-tay while I do all the work. Fuckers. This is like

134

driving a bus-load full of teenagers, their better senses gang raped by a pack of silverback gorillas, on a field trip into the apocalypse.

He felt a rumbling deep in his chest, and instinctively swerved into the next lane. A wildly careening black sedan shot past, its sub woofer rattling the computers in the back of the van. If it wasn’t freshly collagen- and silicone-plumped slut-droids swerving between lanes in their daddy’s Beemers while text messaging on Motorolas, it was fucking gang bangers.

Territorial chest beating was apparently far more important than personal wellbeing in So Cal. He didn’t even bother to curse at the crew of poseur gangsters as they zipped past. Sunglasses at night? He thought that was just a bad 80s song. No wonder they couldn’t drive, the bastards couldn’t see.

The van tears up the road when you open her up on a straightaway, but packed to the nines, like it is right now...fucking forget about it.

Jesus peeked her head around the back of the driver’s seat, looking like a turtle in the rear view mirror. She smiled at him quickly and then ducked away.

He caught other images in the rear view, lit momentarily by passing headlights, street lamps, and blinking neon signs. A strip of a disembodied, shapely leg, wreathed in red fishnet. Probably Lilith’s. Cody leaning against one of the back windows, clearly drunk, strumming on his guitar as Suke threw coins at him. Two of the girls, Amber and Amanda if Agent 506 remembered correctly, were gently massaging Dionysus’ hands as he conversed with Jesus, who would often rebut with enormous clouds of hash and opium smoke. Another girl, a rosy cheeked, slender brunette, was washing and oiling Jesus’ feet. Fitting. Her name was Jessica? Maybe. He liked the look of her. She was quiet, but by the way she observed things you could tell a lot was going on in her head. He liked that too. The other two might have been attractive too if they weren’t pin-cushioned, tattooed and wearing what looked to him like doll makeup. Not his thang.

This line of thought was moot, he reminded himself. He would no more entangle in interpersonal relationships than strip naked, cover himself in blood and honey and wrestle a grizzly bear. From what he’d seen in his years, the two more or less amounted to the same – bears just had the decency to get to the point. The frequency with which he had to remind himself of this was a slight concern to him. Stick to your job, no complications.

Turning his attention back to his surroundings, he listened in, only catching snippets of the conversation.

“The power of invisibility? Really, it’s just a matter of misdirection, and

135

sorting…what use you are sorting for,” Dionysus was saying.“Sorting?” Jesus asked.“Yeah. If you’re looking for a drink, you go to the bartender, not the

introverted guy in tweed reading a book in the corner. Watch people’s eyes when they’re at a bar, it’s usually pretty clear what they’re sorting for. It’s one of the old tricks of invisibility to mismatch the object of people’s sorting, and you disappear. Out of memory, anyway. Still doesn’t help a lot if someone is sitting around sorting for any intruder, but it can work for instance if a guard is looking specifically for a bunch of no good kids, and you walk by in an expensive suit.”

“I can dig it,” Jesus said.“Dionysus, 139, whatever the fuck you want me to call you – I just gotta

ask. You’re drowning in pussy back there, and you want to talk about the ’power of invisibility’ and ’sorting’?” Agent 506 asked.

“Well. Yeah. Why?”“If you have to ask...” He shook his head in bewilderment.

( )The van pulled into a gas station, belching out clouds of exhaust. They

all stepped out into the dry night air, stretching their legs and blinking in the harsh glow of the fluorescent lamps set in the overhang above the pumps. All except Cody, who had passed out face-down on his guitar.

Agent 506 shook his head. “$4.96 a gallon. Jesus Christ.”The rest of them sauntered inside as he fueled the monster.A long line of fashion victims, overworked Mexicans, nervous

businessmen, and suburban housewives trailed from the counter all the way to the back of the store, where there was a rusted metal box slowly turning sweating, shriveled hot dogs. Even amongst this core sample of Los Angeles nightlife, they stood out. Jesus was of course way in the fore, seven feet tall in her platforms and wearing a long pleated leather skirt.

When the allure of the ingredient lists on nearby products wore off, they began chatting to pass the time, as the rat-faced clerk futilely gave directions with hand gestures and Spanglish.

“Where are we headed, anyhow?” Amanda asked.Jesus shrugged. “506 is driving…For once I have no clue where the f–”“The Raffles L’Ermitage hotel,” Lilith said.“The wha who who?” Amber asked.“The Raff–” Lilith started.

136

“Does it have a hot tub?” Dionysus asked, cutting her off.Lilith smiled. “Yessum.”“Sold.”“Damn straight,” Jesus said loudly. “After an orgy like the one we just got

out of…I could use a hot tub.”The rest of the line went dead silent. Everyone held their precious

packages close and shuffled uncomfortably.

( )The doors of the hotel glide open, reflecting silver buckles, leather straps

and other garishness as they enter the marble foyer. A crowd of attendants, bell hops, and groupies in tattered black clothes trail behind them all the way down the carpet leading to my desk. Normally this kind of crowd would be quickly flanked by guards, and escorted out the way they came, but all of them seem to be clustering around one focal point, a brilliant, sublimely tranquil red center surrounded in the black fluttering of this mob.

At first I can’t clearly make out this center. I perch on the tip of my toes despite myself, and then I see what the commotion is about.

My God. No, my Goddess.The rest are a gauché pastiché of whatever they’re passing off as punk

rock or beatnik these days. One of them may even be a transsexual. Post-op, pre-op, who knows. I’m not about to find out. This goddess shouldn’t surround herself with such trash.

All my training evaporates, and I’m left clutching the table and reeling by the time we’re face to face. My hands fumble and tremble.

“Hey you,” she breathes. On anyone else it would have been cheap, transparent. She drops it with such off-the-cuff nonchalance that it’s both alluring and cute.

What is it that you’ve always craved, that’s always pulled you through another day, another heartbreak? And what would you do if it suddenly manifested in front of you, clothed in downy skin?

Anything, anything you say.She’s talking fast now, and for the first time in my life the only thing I

can think about is myself. That’s funny right? I’m hypnotized by the smell of her breath, sweat, and perfume, and all I can think about is me. Climbing an endless ladder, pieces of myself doled out slowly, almost imperceptibly, in exchange for another rung. A grand luxury suite, fourteen hundred

137

square feet, yes, yes. What has this long life of service given me? The Raffles L’Ermitage was one of the finest five star hotels in Los Angeles. By all accounts, I had done well, but what had I done for myself?

Why am I here?Why am I giving them a room on a tab? My best instincts reel, but I see

my hands floating over the keypad, I see the key card grasped so delicately between her candy-tipped fingers.

I don’t care. I would sacrifice it all for you…Ms. Parsons.

( )“Ms. Parsons? He called you Ms. Parsons when he handed your I.D.

back to you…” Dionysus asked Lilith, as they waited for the elevator.“That’s right,” she said. Amber coiled around Lilith’s body like a

garment, her face shrouded by a mane of pink and white hair, occasionally nibbling at Lilith’s ear. Jessica stood slightly behind the group, looking a little uncomfortable in her own skin.

Another ding, as the light above the bronze doors moved from 9 to 8. “I was born Lola Rose Parsons. Haven’t gone by that name since I was eighteen, though. My mother was a dancer, father was…doesn’t matter.”

Agent 506 and Dionysus eyed each other incredulously.“I know it’s a long shot, but–”“Yes,” she said, sounding bored. “My grandfather’s name was Jack.”“I’ve read the FBI files,” Agent 506 said. Ding, the elevator was passing

the sixth floor now. “Grand-daddy of the U.S. Space program, and yours as well, we are to believe…Way into the occult. Planned on giving birth to the Anti-christ. The name of the organization was blacked out in the de-classified file but he–”

“It was the O.T.O.,” Dionysus said, interrupting. “You can thank L. Ron Hubbard for fucking that up.”

“Huh?”“The Ordo Templi Orientalis. The Templar order of the–” He may as

well have been talking rocket science with an earthworm. “Never mind. Bunch of hairy guys in funny robes buggering while chanting in mangled dead languages.”

“Right,” Agent 506 said. “The sort you’d find at a comic convention?”“The same.”Lilith had stopped paying attention to them around the seventh floor.

She flicked her tongue over Amber’s painted lips. Their eyes locked together

138

intensely. Reading Lilith’s thoughts there, Amber finally looked away, blushing.

Ding. The doors slid open.“Saved by the bell, I suppose,” Lilith said, stepping inside, her heels

clicking on the marble. “Let’s not talk about the past. What I’m concerned with is the future.”

( ) Maximum capacity: 19 persons. All of us stand in silence for what seems like eternity before the doors

close again and gravity increases as we whir upwards. I keep clearing my throat. Fidgeting. There are mirrored walls inside this hellish cage of an elevator, everywhere I look I see broad shoulders and budding breasts on a still masculine frame.

I give up and look it square in the face. Clearly transgendered. ‘She’ rolled in here with an entourage of scantily-clad women and a couple bald, slickly dressed men in shades. They looked like extras from a vampire movie, or a sci-fi series, or the kind of web sites I look at at three a.m. when I’m wondering just why I married my wife.

The tall one, the transsexual, loudly announces that she has a crowded elevator fetish. I press up against my wife as that thing eyes us both. I have never told my wife about the transsexual porn on our computer. I have never told her about my cache of DVDs, or the two sweaty and nervous encounters in backwater Vegas strip-motels. Chasing them out afterwards, bruised and ashamed, did nothing to rein in the desire. Or the guilt. I try to turn, to fig-leaf my growing arousal between myself and the elevator button panel.

Maximum capacity: 19 persons. “This is making me sooo hot.” Of course it’s the transsexual again. Why

won’t the bitch stop looking at me? Now she’s crossed the elevator to stand uncomfortably close. It’s her perfume that’s making me want her. She must be almost seven feet in those platform boots. My wife nervously says hello, and our Amazon friend responds warmly, putting his(?) hand on her arm. I am aroused and appalled, and I wiggle pointlessly, trying simultaneously to cover my erection and interpose myself between my wife and this…this…person.

Nineteen persons.“Nothing like a crowded elevator for the tilt o’ me kilt.” She twirls in

139

place, pigtails flying, then bounces in place a few times.One of her companions, the tall call-girl looking one in red, is talking

on a cell phone. The conversation is the only sound in the elevator for a moment.

“…Yes. The show went splendidly. Keep up the good work, Don.” Sudden business tone and demeanor. Maybe a stripper, rather than a call-girl. Her reference to “the show” was a dead giveaway.

The rest of her entourage just smile their sphinx-like smiles, their eyes betraying some kind of secret understanding so implicit that I must assume that this is just a part of their world. The transgendered one…the freak…steps closer to me and asks in a surprisingly passable voice, “What’s your name?”

I start to reply, “Tim” but she wraps one long leg around my waist and draws me against her. I squeak like a frightened rodent. In the far corner, a tall woman is biting her lower lip in a failed attempt to mask her complete amusement. My wife’s jaw drops. A couple of businessmen nudge each other and smile.

He – she notices them and before I can do anything, she’s flowing up against them like a cat. My wife takes my hand and titters as I pull away. I cannot help watching her running her hand down the shirt of the taller of the two businessmen. He plays along, purring in a deep black voice and grinding up against her as she begins to un-knot his tie with over-eager fingers. I am blushing now, and jealous.

Maximum capacity: 19 persons. I can feel the transexual’s eyes on me, and my traitorous head turns to

her on its own.“See what you could have had, poor thing? I know what you look at

when you’re up alone, in the dead of the night. You dirty, dirty boy.”My wife drops my hand, but not before I feel the skin of her fingers go

cold. She knows about my stash. My cheeks burn as I blush again.

( )They stumbled down the ornate hallways, drunk on giddiness and lust.

Amber was still riding Lilith’s arm, casting veiled glances at Dionysus. His attention turned back to Jesus, who was goose stepping and howling in mock German as they passed by a terrified maid. She shot one glance in their direction and hurried down the hallway, muttering Hail Mary’s, head down, eyes averted. Amanda was goose stepping imitatively behind Jesus,

140

laughing to herself in unrestrained glee.Amber looked back at Lilith.Her skin is so cold against mine, like a sheet of ice. Where we touch it itches,

and tugs. Stings and pulls, like strands of taffy as I pull away. Ripping the strands hurts, bringing up a dull ache and hunger that can only be fed by her embrace. What is under that ice, I wonder? What would happen if it cracked and fell away?

I see her as the wide-eyed child I once was, discovering a foreign world one clumsily drawn letter at a time. Now the child I was is trapped beneath the ice, suffocated but still alive, her mouth opened in a final plea for release.

As they approached the door a sudden somber mood fell on them. Along with it came silence. The carpet sucked up their footfalls. The air stole their breath.

“Wait out here,” Lilith said to Agent 506 when they reached the suite. “We need you to guard.”

“What, you think sexual frustration keeps my powder dry?”“Well, it does, doesn’t it? Gotta be sharp,” she said with a wink, before

shutting the door in his face.

( ) Saying everything is a point of view is such a cop-out, but it’s hard to argue

with when you consider how different the world looks when you’re rich or poor, well fed or starving. Waiting. Each quiver of the second hand on the clock becomes a tooth grinding eternity.

Or, in this case, wasting time in the hallway on a fool’s errand while your friends have a fucking orgy in a five star hotel suite, a thin wall away.

Agent 506 pondered this, his fingers tap tap tapping on that wall. They left him out here to “guard.” Against what? For how long? He’d assumed they would have been caught by now. Half of this troupe were ex-cons, and all of them were touring around in an enormous bee-striped van. Since they weren’t already in custody, it seemed logical to assume that they weren’t being searched for – at least not seriously. That, or…

A moan penetrated the wall between them. He tapped his leather-clad fingers harder, little soldiers marching on white paint.

That, or there was something else going on here. The smokescreen he had dabbled with – publicizing the jailbreak of his companions as part of an alternate reality game – may have confused things for a short while,

141

but it was absurd to think it had thrown a monkey wrench in a serious investigation. Perhaps they were being helped from an unseen source…

Or perhaps…perhaps they were being scoped out, possibly at this very moment. Faceless villains lurking in the shadows were plotting to take them out quickly, without due process, and needed an opportunity or an excuse to bring that about? Or biding their time, waiting for more connections within the network to be revealed before they themselves were revealed?

The moaning was reaching a fever pitch. His fingers drummed like jackhammers to the same rhythm.

This seemed more likely, and was probably why they had left him out here in the hall to guard. Must think. Think. Now, the only remaining question was – who wanted them dead, and how could he get to them and take them out of operation first?

He scanned his memory, searching for the out-of-place. You don’t look for the guy in the feather boa, the freak that tries to paw you as you slide past. A certain scent is exuded by those who attempt to avoid detection, who are paying a little too much attention on everyone else and too little on their own petty concerns. There was something at the show earlier tonight, someone…but he couldn’t pull any details from the recollection, made all the more hazy by the conditions at the club. Giving up, he tried another vector of approach.

Suppose an organization wanted them taken out of the picture, but wanted it done quietly. Forget why, for the time being. Why was often an irrelevant waste of processor cycles. Who do you bring in as your patsy?

He was someone on the outside, with nothing to lose. Skilled but expendable. A loose cannon. Someone with something to prove. Well, that was the sketchy beginning of a profile.

Filing this away for future contemplation, he headed down the hallway in search of a public bathroom.

( )The main room of the suite was a palace of minimalist bamboo and pine

surrounding huge expanses of mirror and marble. There was one canopied king sized bed, wrapped in pink silk sheets.

Amanda whistled, putting her chin-length red and black hair back in a ponytail. “These are some digs…how much did this room cost?”

“Cost? Don’t be silly,” Lilith said.Jesus took a quick glance about the room, then over at Lilith, who

142

nodded at her.“Aight bitches,” Jesus said, “I’m taking a bath.” And with that, she

sauntered out of the room.The rest of them stood awkwardly for a minute.“The three of you,” Lilith said, motioning at Amber, Amanda, and

Jessica. “Over there.”They looked at each other, suddenly uneasy.“Over there,” she said again, a slight edge in her voice. She was pointing

towards the center of the room. For some reason, despite their uncertainty, they found themselves following her command.

“Take off your clothes,” she said.Lilith watched them closely as they stripped, not removing her focused

gaze until all their clothes were in a pile at their feet. Though the air was comfortably warm, they all found themselves shivering.

“Ropes,” she said to Dionysus, tersely.Holding a clump of silk rope in one hand, he approached them. “Don’t

worry,” he whispered, as he bound their hands in turn. “Lights,” Lilith said.Dionysus flicked off the lights.The darkness that followed was complete.Lilith lit a lone white candle and held it aloft. She rolled a dagger

around in her other palm playfully as she talked. “So, girls. Here we are. I’m building…well, you might call it an army. Dionysus called it the Bacchante, and somehow the name stuck. Here’s the deal. If you want out, there’s the door. Yes, I know, you’re bound and naked. Life is tough. If, however, you want to join...” She trailed off for a moment, now gliding the sharp blade over their bare skin.

“You join for life. Let go of everything you’ve ever hoped for, everything you fear, every sensation you imagine in your body. If you don’t, you will be torn to pieces.”

Flickering candle light danced across their bodies. Her gaze seemed to pass through them as they stood, lost in their own thoughts. None of them made a sound.

“Amber, come with me. Jessica, go to Jesus…and Amanda…on the bed,” Lilith said, heading immediately into the adjacent room with the candle still held aloft.

( )

143

Jessica walked into the bathroom awkwardly, her arms bound at the wrists. A wave of warm, steamy air hit her full blast. The resinous odor of marijuana mixed with incense and the reek of burning candles. Candles sat on the toilet tank, the vanity, and the rim of the huge tub Jesus was soaking in. A tiny joint, barely smoked, bobbed merrily in the frothy, purple water. Jesus’ hair hung down around her face, wet and trailing purple juices into the already stained tub. A long, opulent pipe was balanced between her breasts as smoke lazily curled from Jesus’ mouth and nostrils.

“Enter.” Jessica closed the door behind her and nervously shifted her weight from

foot to foot. Jessica glanced from the candles to the mirror to the tub and back again,

while Massive Attack throbbed on a huge boom box perched precariously on the toilet. Wax ran down its speaker grilles, pulsing with the heavy bass. A freezer bag of psychedelic mushrooms sat on the floor half-spilled.

“Opium?” Jesus asked as she held out her pipe. “Sure. I guess. Is it real? Oh wait…” “It’s definitely real. You seem nervous.” Jessica closed her eyes and inhaled deeply while Jesus loaded down the

hookah that lazily reclined against the tub. “You needn’t be so ill-at ease. I’m just a human in a bathtub. Mind you,

I elevate bathing to an exacting art, but…” She shrugged and gestured grandly about the room. “Sushi? Wine? I think there’s some particularly potent MDMA on that mirror over there. Got it from this Brazilian at the show. Cut me a line of that? You might feel better if you joined me. Oh, right, the ropes. Sorry about that. Come here.”

Jesus untied the bonds easily. “I don’t think you need these…You have lovely hair, Jessica. God. I’m ripping high by the way, so please excuse my loquaciousness and frequent topic changes.” Jesus giggled, did the line of E, and lit the hookah.

Jessica hesitantly climbed into the huge whirlpool tub, steam following her subtle curves. The fumes in the room swirled around her head, incense mingling with opium augmented with pot and bath salts and the smells of rock and roll sweat and sushi and cigarette butts snuffed out in half-empty glasses of port. As Jessica sat down, Jesus gently placed her hands on Jessica’s neck and began to slowly massage. To Jesus, she felt stifled, afraid, walled off.

“Speak to me, Jessica.” “What do you want me to say?”

144

“I want you to tell me why you’re so tense.” Jessica couldn’t find any words. For some reason she found herself

thinking about middle school. She was tall and slender, even back then. They called her beanpole. This brought on embarrassing memories of her first bungled sexual experience. A precocious eleven year old, she was listening to Guns N’ Roses with her slightly older baby-sitter Elena, in her poster plastered war zone of a bedroom. Elena was her idol. She required no makeup, no false posturing, and she was gorgeous. It seemed perfectly natural when they began kissing, or when they clumsily began to shed their clothes. Less natural was when her dad burst in, wielding a steak knife, and chased Elena out of the house. This was the first time she realized there were things about herself she had to hide, for her own well being. It became hard to figure out which cards she could safely show, so she hid them all.

“It’s been a while since I’ve held anyone so beautiful,” Jesus said, knocking her out of the past.

Jessica paused, and Jesus could feel slight waves of tension ripple across her muscles.

“What’s wrong?” “I…I’m at this concert, and I see you up on stage. The lights are

coming down, and you’re all just so…Godlike. Then I’m tied up with three strangers, and now I’m here with you. It’s a little heavy. I admit it. You intimidate me.”

“But I’m just a person. To tell you the truth, girls like you intimidate me.” Jesus continued to massage, dribbling skunky hookah smoke from her nostrils.

“How could you be intimidated by me?” Jessica turned to look over her shoulder and saw Jesus silently feeling for the words, her eyes closed. She sighed deeply, once, and then began.

“You’re never called sir. You never have to correct people on the phone, or watch as mothers pull their children away from you because you’re a pervert…That California roll looks good still. Could you hand me some? Thanks. As for the loneliness, I’m lonely too. I always give people the love they need, and always I remain, well, unloved. At best, I might be someone’s kink points, a way to get their purity test score down. At worst, I’m a monster, and that’s something you don’t have to live with.

“I think you’re beautiful you know. People notice you. How many people flirt with you every day? You’re probably too busy feeling self conscious to notice.”

Jesus reached for the bag of mushrooms and began picking out caps. She

145

started lining up two little piles on the rim of the whirlpool, eying them judiciously.

“Well, hell. I guess dosage doesn’t matter so much tonight as long as we eat a lot. Jessica, I would be honored if you ate these magic mushrooms with me. Language falls short sometimes. I can tell you how you look to me, but you can never know exactly what that image is. Fortunately these fungi are helpful when it comes to bypassing language. Bon appétit, sister.”

“I’ve never eaten mushrooms before,” Jessica said. Jesus raised an eyebrow, then quickly plucked a few caps from Jessica’s pile and ate them before devouring her own. Jesus scrunched up her nose and chewed the dry, fibrous mass.

“You’re going to want a chaser. Do me a favor and open that bottle of port. The light colored one, if you would.”

“Glasses?”“No,” Jesus said. “We’re just going to hit it straight from the bottle. A

tawny port this good should be served in a glass. Alas, I think I broke the ones I brought in here. Let me get a pull from that bottle.” Jesus drank quickly, as little rivulets of port ran down her chin. She began to place the second pile of ’shrooms in Jessica’s upturned palm. She began to chew them up.

“S’nasty.”“Yes. Kind of like styrofoam and poop, though I’d be surprised to find a

mycotoxin that tastes okay. As your attorney, I advise you to take a mighty swig from this bottle. It’ll clear out the tang from the ’shrooms a little.”

Jessica choked down the last of her mushrooms and took a heroic drink from the bottle of port. Jesus began to caress her, pulling her close so her back reclined against Jesus’s breasts. She gently massaged Jessica’s temples, brushing her hair back from her eyes. “No need to be tense anymore. In about fifteen minutes, your soul will have considerably less armor. Don’t think about it, don’t fight it.”

As the minutes passed, the room began to hum silently. The walls vibrated and flowed about them as the bass of the music pulsed through them. Jessica began to giggle. She squirmed around and came face-to-face with Jesus. She giggled again and playfully bit Jesus’s nose.

“Something about you is different. I can’t put my finger on it, but you look softer….More you.”

“…and you look radiant, Jessica. Absolutely radiant.” Jesus ran her hands down Jessica’s back, undulating in time with Mezzanine. Jessica began nuzzling Jesus like a cat, as the purple water sloshed back and forth. An

146

errant wave carried the little joint on to the floor as Jesus entered her, and as the walls pulsed, and the bass pulsed, so did they.

After an immeasurable amount of breathless time, Jesus opened her eyes and saw purple hair hanging down in her face. She saw two pierced nipples, one with a black beaded ring and another with a red beaded ring, like audio equipment with positive and negative terminals. In short, just like her own piercings. Vertigo and nausea passed over her quickly.

“Jess–”“Holy shit, Jesus. I-I’m you…?”They stared into their own eyes, and they were radiant.

( )Amanda lay naked on the bed after the others left, panting slightly in

fear and excitement. For a while she thought she had been left alone, and her mind started to wander.

She thought back to her sister, leaving her in tears at the bus stop. The memory clustered around a sensation…the sensation of brushing back her sister’s familiar hair – curly and blond compared to her own straight, almost jet black – trying to wipe away a stream of slick tears.

Amanda was seventeen years old again, clad in tight denim and a band T-shirt, miniature earphones dangling like earrings. Five feet of wristbands, tattoos, and attitude.

There was no way she could explain to those desperate, tear and mascara stained eyes why she knew she had to leave.

She hadn’t left for anything really. It was more like the pressure before a big storm hits. The leaves turn up, there’s that faint smell of ozone in the air, and if you are wise to it, you get the hell out. Most people don’t drop everything on a whim like that, but for Amanda, even on a regular day, it was common practice. Anyway, winding up like everyone else in that miserable town was worse than any fate she could dream of.

There had been a price, even if she knew it was the right choice, the only choice she could have made. Her sister never called her “sis” again, or even “love.” Now she was just a distant, cold, “Amanda,” usually delivered on the other end of the phone before she was passed on to their neurotic, equally distant and ever-confused mother.

The bus ride that followed their parting was the longest trip of her life. Not only because of the incredibly flatulent, obese Mexican that sat beside her the whole way from Biloxi to El Paso. As she sat stewing in emotional

147

denial, her headphones cranked all the way up, he would leer over at her as if they were sharing some private joke, his eyes surrounded by crinkles like balled aluminum foil. He shot her a disappointed look before he swaggered off at his stop. Maybe the fat bastard expected a blow job in the bathroom.

Now, two years later, her hands and feet were bound as she lay on silk sheets in a five star hotel with a bunch of rock stars. It seemed so tawdry and cliché put that way, so perfectly Los Angeles. It was a story worth writing in her little doodle strewn, tattered journal, and that’s all that really mattered. Even if she wound up hacked to pieces by a maniac, at least it wouldn’t be boring.

Her thoughts returned to her environment. She felt that she was being watched. Semi-consciously she arched her back slightly, her breasts riding high on her chest as she stretched, cat-like. She was elfin, even tiny, but perfectly proportioned and far from frail. She preferred being watched to being touched. It was safer, and she knew how to pleasure herself more than most people seemed to.

There came a quick procession of quiet foot-falls; the bed moved slightly as someone sat next to her. In the dim light she couldn’t make out the form until he was right next to her.

It was Dionysus, the drummer.She stretched back still further, as if to offer herself to him. Her mouth

gasped open slightly. He was tall, handsome and male. That was good enough for her.

He said nothing, seeming almost slightly awkward as he perched on the side of the bed, deliberating.

Some stage name, she thought. Wasn’t Dionysus supposed to be the God of Wine and Debauchery?

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said softly, his face averted. “And yes. I just don’t think I’ve aged in the cask long enough...”

Without saying any more, he leaned towards the alcove behind the bed. She heard a click, saw the flicker of flames. In the mirror across the room, she watched him place candle after candle into the alcove, muttering words under his breath. Eventually she counted thirty two candles, all flickering to an internal rhythm, separate but connected.

He turned towards her. She suddenly felt scared as he held her in his gaze, looking at her the way he looked through the candles. Her skin was no longer something she could hide behind.

Smiling gently, he brushed some of the hair from her forehead, though the feeling of terror didn’t pass. She closed her eyes, involuntarily. He was

148

doing something, though she had no idea what.

“Is it so bad, having someone know how alone and terrified you are?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said instinctively. She was surprised she hadn’t flatly denied what he said. “It’s…terrible.” There was something else she wanted to say too, but she couldn’t find voice for it. The words hung in the air, like an unresolved chord.

He nodded, pursing his lips. “OK. I’m going to give you a choice. Stay with me, and lose the act, or I’ll untie you, and you can leave. But if that’s what you choose, there is a good chance you will spend the rest of your

life running away from yourself. It’s a boring pattern.”The word triggered a reaction in her, as it was meant to. Instead of

answering him directly, she asked, “What’s happening?”“You’re tied up naked on a bed, next to a stranger. This is an opportunity,

or another in a string of empty encounters. I could be a psychopath, or your best friend. There’s really no way for you to know but to trust your gut. Choose.”

“No, I meant–” She stopped when there came a sharp yelp from Amber in the adjacent room. Amanda gave Dionysus a questioning glance. Suddenly, the two of them giggled together.

They heard another muffled, pleading wail.“Lilith is...” He shrugged. “Well. Nothing if not enthusiastic. My

apologies if you’re into that kind of thing, but I’m not going to be initiating you with a bull whip and nipple clamps.”

“Aw,” she said, mock pouting.“She may always be in character... But this is just me here. ...So?” he

asked.“Hm?”“Are you staying...being here...present...no games. Or are you going?” “Well then, I think you should answer my original question,” she said,

smiling.

149

“‘What’s going on here,’ you mean? I can’t answer that, not easily anyway. What we do on stage is an invocation – we access some pretty primal forces that way. And as a result of that you were called here…now what I’m trying to determine is why.” He put his hand on her bare stomach very gently. It was warm and made her shiver involuntarily.

A raw, unfocused but potent energy emanated from her which he sensed could shift into defensive anger if he prodded too quickly. She was a chameleon. A wanderer with a nature like water. With Lilith she would have played along, remaining unchanged underneath. With Jesus–

“Don’t take your hand away,” she murmured. “That was nice.”“Sorry.”The candle’s simultaneous rhythm was slow as a resting heart-beat,

making the air seem like melting wax. “Don’t worry about figuring out why. When we were laughing about

Amber, that was ‘why.’ Just be here, right? Just because I’m tied up doesn’t mean that shouldn’t work both ways...”

He flashed a smile at her. “You’re dead fucking right. About those ropes, you don’t really–”

“Don’t you dare. I plan to have some fun yet.”They both laughed for a minute as time continued to slow down. “This is good,” he said suddenly, matter-of-factly.“…what is?”“Being here, with you. I can’t be with people when they aren’t real. I just

feel uncomfortable…like an actor without a script. Usually when people are put in the situation you are, they get defensive. You did without even realizing it, then I made it your choice, and it was alright. You’re in the most vulnerable position a person can be in, but you’re open–”

“No it isn’t,” she said quietly.“What?” he prompted, after a moment.“This isn’t the most vulnerable position a person can be in. Not by a

long shot.” She didn’t explain, so he didn’t push. The two of them sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a minute, his hand lightly brushing up and down her torso, shooting goosebumps all over her body.

She nodded. “…you’re right. I’m not afraid, and I’m not bored. But seriously, what’s with all this talking?”

He placed his lips right below her navel, kissing lightly and trailing his way around and down to her thigh.

She arched her body again, but this time involuntarily.

150

( )What seemed like – and very may well have been – hours later, Jessica

kissed Jesus’ forehead softly and slipped out of the hot tub. Gazing around the room, wide-eyed, she hugged herself again and again, nearly falling to the floor laughing. She always wanted to feel like this. Her parents would just have to fucking deal, she wasn’t coming home. But she should at least call and let them know she wasn’t in a ditch somewhere.

She wrapped her long hair in a towel and her shivering body in one of the thick, comfortable hotel bathrobes, emblazoned with its logo. Score! No way in hell she was going to leave that here.

Opening the door a crack, she glanced in the main room to see Dionysus and Amanda asleep, curled around one another, surrounded by smoldering candles. They must’ve shut the alarm off, or it was a smoking room – she hadn’t been paying attention earlier when Lilith registered it for them. Picking her cell phone out of her clothes, still lying in a pile on the ground, she sighed. Battery dead – must have left it on vibrate. She headed towards the side door, where Lilith and Amber had gone earlier. A groaning, pleading sound stopped her in her tracks. They were still at it? Good God!

She tiptoed by the supine couple on the bed, blew out the candles, and headed towards the hall instead. As she reached for the door, it shot open, seemingly of its own accord. She nearly screamed, clamping her hand over her mouth instead.

“Well come on, then,” Agent 506 said from behind the door. “Hey, you’re still out here,” she observed as she slipped out to stand

beside him. “Where else would I be?” he continued checking both directions of the

hallway, not making eye contact with her as he spoke. “We wouldn’t want to be caught by surprise, now would we?”

“Um, no. I suppose not. Who are you looking f–”“–You never know.” He finally turned towards her, though his eyes were

barely visible through his tinted aviator glasses. “You never know.”She giggled, though he didn’t respond with any facial gesture whatsoever.

“Do you sleep?”He seemed to think about it for quite some time. “Sure.”“When?”“Tuesdays, usually,” he said, gruffly. “You were, uhm. With. Jesus?”“Yeah.”

151

“I just wanted to – does she – I…You know what? Never mind.”She smiled sweetly at him. “Hm?”“No really, never mind. So, why are you out here?”“I have to make a phone call. Tell my parents I’m not coming home. You

know, probably for a couple years.”“There’s a phone in the room, and another in the bathroom, I would

assume.”“Well, yeah. But I didn’t want to disturb Jesus, she kind of slipped into

a trance. Dionysus and Amanda were fast asleep. And Lilith and Amber…God only knows, and I don’t want to.”

He nodded his head. “Amen, sister. Alright, there’s a phone down the hall. I’ll escort you. One would hope they could defend themselves for five minutes.”

152

Chapter Seven:Don’t Feed the Homeless Prophets

The feeling of cool shell casings in my hand brings me back. Brings me back from what? I’m not quite sure. But the adrenaline pumps through me all the same. The heart races, blood throbbing through sluggish capillaries. The only evidence of these internal

gymnastics is a sudden flush followed by a sheen of sweat, the sensation of ants crawling rapidly across the base of my neck. Rationality be damned, my body is an athlete primed for action. These shells hold a vital secret.

I pull one out of the pocket of my olive overcoat to inspect it, rolling it back and forth in the glittering candlelight of the restaurant. My business partners are speaking to me, glasses of Chianti dangling from their drunken fingers, but I can’t hear them. The words escaping between bites of half chewed fillet mignon and lobster bisque are bland mush in my ears.

There was nothing in the room but me and that bullet. Deadly yes, but what it really stands for is the harsh light of truth. A bullet is the physical embodiment of the only truth. Didactics crumple under the clear “is or isn’t” of a shard of metal, traveling many times the speed of sound. Your skull shatters like fine china on the kitchen floor, or it doesn’t. Here is the modern

153

equivalent of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, updated, streamlined, stripped of faith and hope.

The bullet I now cradled in my sweaty palm was live. Even though I am a rocket scientist, I wouldn’t need to be one to know what this means: it’s time for shit to get heavy.

This clarity brings a sickening vertigo that I am at a loss to explain rationally. I have the conclusions, but not the postulates. This I knew for certain: the security of the free world is at stake, and I alone hold the ability to save it in my hand.

I lean towards one of my compatriots, placing a bullet in his hand and closing his resistant, clammy fingers around it for him. “If you are in danger of being caught, bite down on this. Bite down hard. Do it for the Agency. Do it for mankind. For the love of our one eyed, ether-crazed God, just do it. If on the other hand you are successful…report back to me in a week. You know where to find me.”

I watch his reaction with clinical intensity. If he knows, he is one of us. If not, he will be marked for erasure. There can’t be a moment’s hesitation at times like this, not room for a blade of grass to slide between the chinks.

The man’s eyebrows raise when he recognizes the small but deadly parcel in his hand, leaving a trail of wrinkles right through his receding hairline.

Not one of us, I note. I don’t have time for this. I need to get back in touch with the other

agents. It is time. With that I stand up abruptly, and grab my fedora. Agent 036 is ready to

report for duty.

( )Don paced back and forth in the living quarters he now kept above the

company offices. The stark room was cluttered with wireless devices and half empty bottles of liquor, strewn haphazardly atop IKEA furniture.

A client’s voice buzzed in his ear set like a swarm of mosquitoes as he refilled another glass of scotch. The Colonel was lying on his back in a nearby love seat, futilely trying to avoid the warm sun pouring through the windows.

Don finally found a chance to interject. “Yeah, I hear you but you have to understand what’s happening here…we call it ‘scope creep.’ It’ll kill this project before we even get into the second round of development. We

154

started out at fifty grand, right? We laid all that out in the document you got. Now we’re in our third round of IA revisions, and we’re talking about a hundred grand project, but you expect it within the timeline we projected before…Yes I understand that, but it just can’t work that way. If you want to make those changes, everything has to scale accordingly, not just the things that you want to. Doesn’t matter who you are, the sun isn’t going to set because you tell it to.” Don idly flipped through pages of computer documents with an infra-red device on a nearby projector.

“I can have another proposal to you in a day, and it’ll be modular so you can red-flag certain sections without halting development…but it’s going to require a signed contract. This is the cut-off.”

The Colonel opened his mouth to say something but Don waved him off.

“Mm…hm. Alright, well, talk to them and get back to me, there’s a big development team on this project and I don’t want to leave them hanging,” he said, taking off the ear piece brusquely without waiting for a reply.

Don fell back on the sofa, glass clinking in hand, and ran a palm over his sweaty forehead.

“This Robin Hood thing is a fucking bitch” the Colonel said with a smile. It sat unnaturally on his face, and finally was rejected in lieu of a more comfortable scowl.

“Whatever,” Don said dismissively. “We’re on this…A couple months from reaching a tipping point with the kidlets, and maybe a year from going live with the hacker cells.” The scotch was gone. The sharp, oaky aftertaste remained.

“More Glenfidich?” the Colonel asked, not pushing the point.

When the doors were shut, and the meetings done, Don found himself clutching the side of the toilet, his knuckles whitening as his body writhed mindlessly. He wondered at first if it was too much alcohol, as he wiped a sticky trail from his trembling lips with the back of his hand. That didn’t add up. It wasn’t the drugs either. They were symptoms, not causes. They were the means of temporarily obfuscating a far more troubling reality.

Each day demanded a little more of him. Each morning the goalpost stood a little further, his legs felt a little weaker. But his willpower always pushed him through. This was the side of Don that no one else saw. He prayed that his coworkers wouldn’t see the tremors he couldn’t completely mask, or ask too many questions about the veiny bags under his eyes.

Many who wind up in History books carry a similar, unspoken burden.

155

Something drills into them so deeply that they are driven to give up their personal lives for the sake of their own ignorant species. The reward is an early grave, and a miscommunicated legacy. Within just a couple generations, “turn the other cheek” is transformed into “cut the gems from their bowels.” This elite club, peopled primarily by the dead but not forgotten, are only blessed by eternal sleep, and the ignorance that this bestows towards worldly affairs. They can turn a blind eye to their followers, playing this twisted game of whisper-down-the-lane through the generations.

What motivated them to sacrifice all for an eternity of misunderstood dogma? What is it that transformed them, like diamonds from coal, compressed by untold millennia of gradual, crushing weight?

They didn’t do it for the legacy, or altruism. “For the good of humanity” only works as the wind-up speech for a military invasion. In the ‘real’ world of feast-or-famine, one-up-manship, and might-makes-right, these ideals wither and blow away.

Nothing vaporizes ideals faster than the need to put food in your belly every night. Discussions of ethics are side-show distractions, at the same time the IRS is taking your belongings through the front door and a group of swarthy barbarians are raping your wife in the back of your SUV. It is in these wilds, not in the ivory tower, that the loner geniuses come to be.

The answer, the motive, was plainly apparent to Don, though he’d never openly admit it – a secret, deeply ingrained feeling of inadequacy, generally accompanied by a false ego thicker than the armor of an Abrams tank. Was it something his father had said when he was child, which stuck in his brain like a grain of sand, aggravating the insides of a mollusk until it turned into a pearl? Would this mean that the history of the world is in fact a history of child abuse?

Of course, he didn’t know. His memory only really became his own in early adolescence. Anyhow, hack psychology is just that: easy answers for things that bear no explanation. Things are simply because they are. If they aren’t, no amount of wishing will make it so. There is no more than that. Is, and is not. He recalled one of the Buddha’s more popular sermons, cited by some as the birth of Zen. What is the meaning of a flower?

He pulled himself into a crouch, then painstakingly came to his feet. A hard look at his haggard reflection in the mirror startled him back into the moment. Dave’s face sneered back at him, Ol’ Jabba the Hut himself. Slimy sweat seeped from his forehead.

He wondered if Dave had been a young idealist too, who thought that

156

he could single handedly fleece the system. Maybe he just figured he’d get into it for a decade or so, and get out with a fat retirement. Five decades later, he’s fatter than Santa Claus and the only thing that will put a smile on his face is watching a 16-year-old prostitute cry. What you do becomes you. The shape of your favorite chair works its way into every vertebra.

The only way this will work is if you make damn sure that it kills you.Don’s feet wobbled, and the ground came up to greet him with a warm,

loving thud.

( )Inside NBC’s dark, marble-girded New York studios, the members

of Babalon sat in a horseshoe arrangement. They had been invited to an interview with one of the network’s more conservative daytime talk hosts, Melissa Morggan. It felt like an ambush to Dionysus, but Lilith insisted. They needed to make an appearance “outside the bubble.”

Melissa was getting on in years but still had, as she would likely say, “pluck.” In the minutes before they went on the air, she avoided speaking to her guests, instead strutting around backstage yelling at her personal assistant (the coffee was cold, and too bitter) and throwing pencils at the audio tech (she just felt like it).

When the painfully bright studio lights shocked them into attention, and they had reached the silent two…one…of the countdown, Melissa turned towards the camera and smiled warmly.

“Good morning. We have a terrific show lined up for you today.“The liberal media has been playing up bad news and violence in our

ongoing war against terror, and playing down progress. Have journalists gone sour on war?

“Suicide rates are five times what they were in New Orleans before Katrina devastated the area. Anti-depressants have become mandatory. But are they enough?

“For the first time the terror alert level has been raised to orange on account of our own citizens. You may have heard about terrorist acts being perpetrated by youth within our own country. I find this personally appalling, however. It could be your own children.

“Here to discuss this with us is the controversial rock group Babalon, who have been blamed by some for this troubling new situation. The members of this group go by the stage names of Lilith, Dionysus, Jesus and…Cody. I have received millions of emails, and will ask some of the

157

questions you most want to know.” She turned to regard the group. Jesus was using the camera lens as a

mirror, slowly and sloppily applying makeup. She made no attempt to return Melissa’s chilly smile. Cody was staring off into space, his forearms anxiously twitching. Only Lilith and Dionysus seemed to notice the shift of attention and respond to it.

“Glad we could be here,” Lilith said.“First off, I just have to ask you…I understand that you are entertainers.

But don’t you feel a certain responsibility to your fans, and to the safety and security of this country?”

“We share an intense experience with our audience. I suppose that is a responsibility. But I don’t understand what you’re getting at when it comes to safety and security,” Dionysus said.

“We are a country at war,” Melissa said. Dionysus shrugged. “I didn’t start your war. I just play the drums.”“If that’s your attitude, why are you here? Don’t you think that’s

unpatriotic?”“Please. I think it’s unpatriotic to preemptively start a war under false

auspices, to breach our civil liberties in a war against an enemy we’ve helped arm and manufacture for decades, to even give thought to the usefulness of torture as a political device…”

“Now hold on there,” Melissa huffed, trying to de-rail him. “We were the ones who were attacked–”

Dionysus shrugged and leaned back in his chair indifferently. “Hey, I’m a musician, not a politician. It’s not my place to make public policy. But as a musician, and as a citizen of this country, I am entitled to voice my opinion. Or are we not allowed that freedom anymore, either?”

Melissa blinked. This wasn’t at all like the time she interviewed Ozzy Osbourne. “Well that’s one way to avoid all responsibility. Let’s move on. Members of the Concerned Christian Parent League have accused you of attempting to convert children to paganism and…sexual deviancy–”

“One can only hope,” Dionysus said, smiling. “Didn’t they also accuse Marilyn Manson of the– ”

Lilith cut him off. “Which members?” “We don’t want to– ”“Then we don’t want to answer.” Dionysus shot her a questioning glance. She was, after all, the one who

had pushed the importance of this interview. She ignored him, or didn’t notice, locked in a battle of wills with Melissa.

158

For the first time in her television career, Melissa couldn’t find any venom to rebut with.

She glanced at the teleprompter, nervously smoothing back her hair.

( )Dionysus bathed in the monitor glare as the van swallowed another

dusty chunk of road. The satellite had been working well today, so he dumped a bunch of recordings on the net – immediately broadcast to thousands of subscribers – and checked his email compulsively. First in, a message from an address he didn’t recognize:

Subject: Mother Hive Brain in Argentina

Agent 139:

I’m agent 222 (AKA roy khalidbahn) from Bue-nos Aires Argentina, It took me a while to get your first book, join my cult!, and I wish to talk about it soon. I´ve adopt the number 222 six years ago due to a lot of “coincidences” around it. I have a occult underground project here called ningunismo.

It was really a reality distortion to find out of your existence. Most of my partners even think of it as a cosmic prank. The 100th monkey & mor-phogenetic field theories may be related, and here we have a great team of scientists working on it.

There is some kind of subtle rules to follow? please please! contact me.

I would request that you give me a statement of your activities in the North. I will translate and read to our congregation.

Thanks for your attention, and when you need a vacation, here we have the most beautiful womans in the world. You are invited.

Carpin Denium!

159

222.

These messages were no longer unusual. He received messages almost daily from different “agents,” all across the world. Exponential growth he could account for through traditional theories on viral marketing: when operating in conducive environments, ideas and behaviors can spread much as a virus does in an epidemic. What he couldn’t figure out was how this sort of growth could occur simultaneously in groups who had never met one another, never even come upon the messages the others had been seeding.

He replied:

Agent 222:Greetings from the North.Like most authors, I can’t turn down the op-

portunity to tell my story. When I was a child, I didn’t think I was special, but I did know I was different. As I entered adolescence, I found oth-ers who were on a similar wavelength, and we all decided to turn our differences into a strength. The upshot of that landed me in a mental hospi-tal. We all know, many of the lessons that stick are the lessons that hurt.

Now I’m on the road with this band of miscre-ants…But really the underlying mission has never changed, and that was and has been to find the Others, and work with them in exploring our-selves, and creating new worlds in the process.

While in the clutches of a mushroom trip back in college, I stared at ants crawling on the ground for hours. I know this seems like a com-plete non-sequiter, but bear with me. I remem-bered that I had done much the same as a child, so much so that one of my neighbors referred to me as “pavement face,” because I would spend hours trying to observe their world very close-ly. What fascinated me about them was how they could organize sometimes millions of independent

160

agents, oftentimes without active decision mak-ing. I have been a part of many human organiza-tions, and it is a rarity to see even three or four individuals agree and work in tandem for any period of time.

It oftentimes strikes me that our individual-ity gets in the way, even though, of course, it is a part of our so-called modern, cultural heri-tage.

What I am getting at is that the phenomenon of hive mind isn’t hostile towards individuality, or individual consciousness. This is where the idea of emergence comes in. To solve the problems that we face today as a species, these two can and must be networked together -- Capitalism and Com-munism both have shown their evil side, one as a failure to the group for the sake of the individ-ual, and the other as a failure to the individual for the sake of the group.

Though this is still a small movement, it has been interesting to me to be contacted by fellow “agents” from across the world -- groups in the former USSR, in various parts of Europe, and now your group in South America -- and it seems that, at least in many ways, we are moving parallel to one another. This may be a part of the “100th monkey” effect you speak of.

Speculation abounds. The question remains -- what exactly are we building? What are we going to do with it?

139

( )Trevino sat on a round padded bench inside an aluminum-sided diner

somewhere in Texas, staring forlornly at a sad heap of Freedom toast. He pushed chunks of cold scrambled egg through sticky globs of high fructose corn syrup. A sign above the door behind him read: Overlook Diner: THE

161

TASTE OF FREEDOM. The letters were in garish red white and blue. He didn’t feel particularly liberated.

The chirp of his cellphone startled him. Flipping it open brusquely, he put it to his ear.

“Unlisted number,” according to the caller I.D. It must be Ms. Bejta, returning his call. He had been digging around for information through other agencies, but got little traction because of his suspension. A past as a cop in the LAPD gave him some leeway, but what he needed now was information, and it was information they didn’t have.

“Trevino,” he said.“Hello,” she said coolly, in her thick accent. “I am now returning your

call. You request more information, I believe. Is it not what you were sent out to do? To gather information? Is this how you do in your country, just make excuse?”

“Yes,” he said, almost wishing the cold war had never ended. There was no way in hell he was going to get into an argument with her about how the Soviet Union fell in part because their labor management was horribly ineffective, and there was no realistic incentive to complete work either well, or on time. …But he couldn’t help thinking of it. “I need to speak with...them.”

“You’re in Texas now?”“Yes. At a diner. The food here stinks.”“I see,” she said. “Very well, one moment please.”There was an awkward pause, then a monotone voice. “Agent Trevino.

You are well?”“Yes…sir. I am calling because, in the process of trailing our suspects,

I have caught quite a few leads…and I need some information from the internal database – the Beast – to follow it up. I’ll give–”

“Very good, Agent. Wait by your phone.”“This cell runs deep…much deeper than I initially thought. I may need

additional assistance to bring them to justice.”“We will provide assistance to you through other agencies. Good day.”“I was kind of hoping–” Damn. The call was disconnected.Sure enough, he’d barely put another fork full of florescent egg in his

mouth that his phone beeped again.“Agent Mitchell?” asked the voice on the other end. “Uh, yes.” What the hell? May as well play along.“Happy to hear you’re still around, last I’d heard you’d been sent under

cover in Cuba. Well, anyway, I was told you needed information from the

162

Beast that could be related to two suspects…the files were already sent my way.”

This works. Damn strange, though. “There is a small company we’ve been watching closely in New York,

they’ve been making monthly deposits in an account that your suspects appear to be accessing. You should know though…According to the database, we’re getting an exponential increase of potential terrorists, mostly domestic. Even the Beast is having a hard time tracking it all…I’ll make the files available to you shortly…”

“Can you tell me anything more about that company? The financier.”“From what we can tell it’s a dummy organization – it receives deposits

from various offshore companies. We can’t prove it yet, but we believe that money has been laundered ten ways to Sunday. Then this dummy organization makes deposits to a long list of individuals and organizations, any one of which could be the parent corporation. Many of these companies – the legitimate small businesses – seem to be new media, various kinds. We’ll send as many specifics as we can in those files, but you have to understand–”

“–Yeah, alright. I’ll be in touch.” He flipped the cellphone closed. These kids are the tip of the iceberg…

It would be time soon to test their reaction by sending in local law enforcement. He could base his counter-move based on their reaction to that – no point giving himself away too soon. This had become a whole lot more than a simple vigilante mission.

He thought for a couple minutes, again pushing the eggs around on the plate with his fork.

( )Ol’ Stevie seen most everything that happens on these decaying streets,

the suits bustlin’ in the morning, the drunks, pimps and whores waitin’ round outside the bars and clubs. I know where to get the good china, which cops’ll play tough, who has a bit of a habit themselves. If they nice I’ll tell ’em what’s been stepped on and what ain’t, if ther’ look’n for a fix and help me with a square meal. I don’t touch it mind you, but having an angle on that kinda info can keep you alive in certain neighborhoods. Supply and demand.

Yep, even the cops come to Stevie.I used to blow with Bird, when he came to Kansas city from the Big

163

Apple. No one believes me when I tell ’em that…those who even know who the fuck Bird was. Man could he blow. These kids nowadays, it’s all a fuckin’ fashion show. “Bird? What kinda bird?” they say. Fuck you, son. Even those that say they Jazz, playing that horn like they’re sucking some white guys dick. The old boys, we get to lie in unmarked graves.

Anyhow, I ain’ no pretty boy, though I still could play my tenor if I hadn’t pawned it. Art really is dead. It’s a homeless guy who stinks of urine and the reeks of fried chicken escaping in huffs ’tween missing teeth. Them’s the breaks.

Like I said I seen a lot of shit in my day but this one I been watching lately, he ain’t like no one I seen…He’s gonna be big time, if he ain’t already. Dressin’ like some kind of secret agent. Acts the part, too. I watches him go down that back alley theres every day…ridin’ on top of a cart, like a…like a golf cart. Painted up like its a rocket ship and covered in flashing lights and weird gizmos.

Damn right it’s fuckin’ weird, I sees him ridin’ into the office every day but I never see ‘im goin’.

He been doing this three…maybe four months…steady as a metronome. Finally, I can’t take it no more.

“Hey bud,” I calls to him from my box as he sped by on his golf cart. “What’s yer gig?” The whir of the wheels petered out. He’s wearing these crazy fuckin’ WWII aviator glasses, and pulls ‘em up so he can get a better look at me. He didn’t recoil like most do, pull the arms in close to the body, head down…zip away. Like I’m some kinda monster come outta the swamp to kill them and carry off their daughters like fuckin’ King Kong. I played with Bird! Those bastards. No respect.

So yeah…He doesn’t say nothing though, just looks at me. Like a pit viper.

“I been watching you come and go, I just wanted to talk to ya…see what yer all about…” I stammered. Maybe I blubbered more, his snake-stare was freakin’ me out something awful. I ain’ no mongoose, but I ain’ a mouse either, y’know what I mean?

“Watching me?” he asked. He didn’t let me answer though. “You don’t even know who I am do you? Agent 036.” He said the zero, like it was important or something. “I have an important mission for you.”

I squinted hard. Son of a bitch might just be crazy enough to be telling the truth. And I might jus’ be crazy enough to believe ’im. I nodded my head.

“I’m with…an Agency. If I so much as told you the name of this Agency,

164

you’d…Well trust me. There are fates worse than death. Our opponent is a tireless metal skyscraper, jutting missiles, machine guns, blood-thirsty octopus robots – all hellbent on our destruction. Surely we will fail, but we will die with honor.”

I found myself nodding.“Very good! Welcome, Agent. You will now answer by Agent 131. Here,

take these cards…” He continued, “I want you to hand them out to all the people you bump

into during the day tomorrow. All day. Give them to everyone you can…Another agent will contact you shortly. When you are ready, the Agency will begin to reveal herself. Take this too, if you’re captured by the enemy, you will need it.”

He handed me a pile of cards, and a single bullet. I gathered the meaning of that solitary bullet. Bite the bullet, that’s a good one, hey. The cards took a bit more inspection. Each had a different phone number on it, or what looked like one of those email addresses, and different kinds of things. I didn’t really understand what it was all about, but…

Fuck if I can rightly tell you why…but I did as the good man told me.

165

Chapter Eight:Wandering Star

She ran, not knowing what from – only that it was terrible, silent and swift.

There wasn’t time to think. Tattered, mud-spattered white lace a halo around her, she fled on shredded feet along a riverbank,

through the cold and the wet and the wind. She was underneath the world she knew, retracing her steps along this river and out of the valley.

Twisted, ruined trees and buildings coiled around Jesus as she wandered through their remains. These collapsing structures were split through their hearts by the gnarled trees and vines. The constriction of their limbs twisted

166

basketball hoops in rusted arcs, SUVs toppled and bent as nature reclaimed it all, chewing it slowly, patiently, recycling the materials that we stolen from the Earth. Jesus saw silhouetted forms standing amidst the rubble, accompanied by hosts of buzzing bees. Occasionally she would stumble on a root, or a discarded children’s toy.

Police sirens cried out in the distance, startling her. It is a lost cause, she thought, not knowing what that even meant.

I don’t know why I just thought that.I just did.I am her?I’m looking down at my hands as I walk, entranced by them. They center

me...If I look away from them, even for a moment, I feel that I might be swept away by an uncontrollable tide. I may become someone else.

People stand around me now, trying to rebuild homes, plumes of smoke and fog swirling overhead like peacock feathers. These people march in ordered rows, ants or Roman centurions. Denial...these people are in complete denial of what is to come. Maybe I am, too. I’m still looking at my hands as I glide past, an apparition. Long strands of my hair float around me like a halo.

I can’t help them. These people are already dead. I climb atop a log, straddling it in the water as if riding a bucking horse.

The crowd disappears back into the mist as I float away, apparitions themselves. All of them are searching for me, but it isn’t yet time. Then I will come with the flooding of the oceans, when mankind, fragile flame that it is, all but snuffs itself out. I will return with an unending tide. Then, and only then...The thought is lost, just out of my grasp.

Still in a delirium, I look at my reflection in a slender dagger, gently held close to my breast – a silver sliver of lips and eyes. Before I knew what I was doing, the knife came up and quickly flicked along my neck, bringing a gout of sweet-smelling blood rushing down my body in a hot stream.

...Sweet smelling?I look down past my breasts and the small oval of my belly to the black water

around me. Black and polluted. As the blood pouring down my side merged with the water, it began to run clear. Soon I saw the rocks at the bottom of the stream beneath me.

The log comes to ground and I find myself somewhere in the country. Crickets chirp softly as I pad along, and find an old cream colored Nissan Maxima partially concealed by reeds. Rust speckles its worn wheel basins. As I approach I see that the side mirror is cracked in half, distorting my reflection like a fun house mirror.

167

I drive past rubble and debris in the darkness of night. The engine begins wheezing and finally lets out a loud cough. The car jolts one last time and glides to a halt. There is a jarring, rapid pinging sound as the remains of the engine sputter out. I sit for many minutes, alone in the dark, listening to the cricket’s mating cries and the gentle rhythm of my breath.

I am knocked out of my meditation by rapping on the hood of the car. A large raven looks up at me, its head cocked, eying me intently.

I open the door and wander off the road in a trance, the chiming sound fading into the distance. I see a white, rocky hill ahead. Ravens sit in clusters all around it, ruffling their feathers or chattering at one another. I scramble to the top, realizing as I approach the summit that this is some kind of burial mound.

Atop the hill sits the largest raven I have ever seen. His cavernous eyes are like portals to timelessness, or to all times.

We stand there for a while, sizing each other up in silence. All around us are scattered pieces of bone, human skulls. Hand-made artifacts jut out at random intervals and angles.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming, but this is real.“Wake up,” says a voice in my head. I feel the voice coming from this raven,

gentle but stern at the same time.“Wake up,” he says again, and I do.

Jesus started awake, hearing the fading echo of a snorted snore. Fragments of dreams fled as she bounced on her dirty mattress. The van rolled and rocked, winding its way through a desolate Indian reservation.

She spotted blanket- and dust-shrouded ghosts mulling around outside a gas station. A dog with a cracked eye ran after them for a few minutes, barking wantonly.

The desert around them was silent, implacable. Hungry and patient. Everything was eaten by the steadily howling wind. The lizards sit and wait for carrion. They had time.

Jesus’ legs were tangled in something soft, and the caked-on makeup from the night before stuck her eyelids together like rubber cement. It clumped over a base of the ever present dust, baked gradually in the cabin despite the desperate whirring of the jury-rigged air conditioning system. Without fully opening her eyes, she reached out and felt for a joint, found one and lit it.

Sometimes, it’s the little things…Lilith was singing something high-pitched and somber from the driver’s

seat, and for a minute, the old jealousy and pain flared up within. Tears

168

began to stream down Jesus’ cheek. She thought of herself wrapped around Lilith, stroking her hair and feeling the tide of her breath. This was not a sexual fantasy, not the product of her antiandrogen-withered lust, but the pure, simple urge to protect and nurture another being. Now quietly sobbing into her pillow, Jesus was crying for the lonely, crying for loneliness itself and the frustration created by all the barriers that shut her love in.

Jesus reached out for a large syringe, rolled onto her stomach taking care not to squash a breast, and spiked it deep into her left buttock. The oily fluid flowed through the thin tube, and she sighed. Untangling her long legs from their confinement (a blue velvet skirt), she wandered naked into the front of the van, joint hanging idly from her full lips. Her eyes closed, and opened, focused on the past.

Did I ever tell you god was an eel? I was tripping on mushrooms at the time, pulled a joint out of my mouth,

lit, and passed it to an astonished J. Before we were Agents, before he got a pet monkey and thought he was a demigod, we were just two kids trying to find our place. Portishead’s Wandering Star was playing as we laid on the grass, feeling the rotation of the earth and seeing the kind of trails stars leave when you stare at the same spot in space for three hours and don’t blink, once.

It was like a cosmic “You are here” sign, a reminder that I was nothing but walking stardust, a microscopically insignificant dot that still had enough awareness to realize that. What good was a job, a family, a pristine home? All possessions are possessors. I chuckled and tapped the neck of my vodka bottle soundly into J’s Cuervo, and we swore never to work day jobs again. Never would we bow down and lap at the trough urinal. Never would we forget the sheer profundity of a head-full of psilocybin, even if what we wrote didn’t make any sense the next morning.

Wisdom retracts into the hind brain for me. Epiphanies are sucked back into the depths of my mind, the more profound, the further back they go. It’s as if I’d already knew them, and the hiding is just a game, something to do while the fire ants sting their prey, as black holes suck in everything past their event horizons, as nations rise and people die and love and suffer and come to know.

Also, the mushrooms help. A lot.

Those days were long gone. Lifetimes of trial and error had accumulated between those youthful nights and the present, making them seem like photographs of an idyllic childhood discovered in the attic – faded, water-stained, dust-worn. To think she once existed inside those photographs;

169

those epiphanies, smiles, and awkward moments had been her own. Now they were untouchable, and belonged to no one. Their sudden intensity rattled her, made her want to crawl out of her skin and die again and again.

Jesus sat down behind Lilith, staring at her slender shoulders. The down on them seemed so childlike, so vulnerably mammalian. Jesus saw her as helpless, alone, in need, and absolutely beautiful. Instead of hating herself, or hating Lilith, she began to massage between the vertebra, under the shoulder blades, along the nerves into the neck. Her soft fingertips probed and felt and responded on their own as she watched the desert idly, letting her eyes stare fixedly while everything in motion blurred.

“Can I share something with you, Jesus?” Lilith asked, unusually demurely.

Jesus nodded her head.“We’re not the only ones who are doing this…there’s something big

happening…all over. It’s…mmm, right there. But there’s something else too…something absolutely horrible. Something I have to do.”

Her eyebrows knitting together, Jesus continued rubbing silently. “Okaaaaaaay…” she said. “You realize you just said a whole lot of nothing just now, right?”

“I just…I’m sorry. I just wanted to let you know. Not even Dionysus knows…” What was she blathering about? Jesus decided to let it drop.

“Better drink some water, Lilith. You were lumpier than usual,” Jesus spoke quietly past the headrest. She patted the top of Lilith’s head gently, handed her a much-stickered camo canteen, and went back to her nest, joint still hanging from her lips.

Things always ended in the same way, she thought. I give people what they need, before they even ask for it, and remain in need myself. Feeling cold despite the desert sun, Jesus curled up into herself, turning her tear-streaked face towards the side of the van. Her need for touch was like a knotted physical pain in her, and as it ate at her, she let her mind run over all the careless lovers of her past. Too many times she’d given all. Too many times she’d been brushed aside.

Whispering, she said, “we’re lost and lonely and all we have is each other.” Jesus wiped the tears from her eye with a forearm and curled tighter. The sssh-sssh of her breath slowed and fell virtually silent. Her eyelids grew heavy. She threw an arm across her tear-streaked face, rolled onto her back, and carefully snuffed her half-smoked joint in an overflowing ashtray.

Jesus looks around and takes in her surroundings. She seems to be squatting

170

in an abandoned IHOP. It is overcast outside, and the restaurant is gloomy, and not at all like any self-respecting pancake house should be. Moldering sofas litter the floor where the tables and booths used to reside. 506 is sitting stolidly on one of them, feet up and reading a newspaper, looking as contented as any 1950’s head-of-household. Drops of cold rain keep hitting Jesus’ face until she realizes the entire north wall of the next room is missing. Only then did she notice how loud the rainfall had been. And why did the absence of a wall make the rain stop?

“What the hell are you doing here?” 506 says from behind his newspaper. He does not budge one inch, nor does he twitch. The only thing that moves are his lips and the sinewy muscles under his cheekbones.

“I’m dreaming. I can’t think of any other reason you’d be living in such palatial digs. What the hell are you doing here?” she asks, fidgeting from foot to foot. “People in my dreams rarely have faces, you know…”

506 sighs from behind the paper. “I’m your animus, or your anima. Christ, I dunno. You were tripping when you read Jung and I have the distinct feeling that gender isn’t much of a concern in here, so who the fuck can tell. I’m asking you what you’re doing here. Because I’m part of you, I know that you and your humble narrator destroyed this place with ‘simulated nuclear weapons.’ Got that line out of Heinlein, didn’t you? Too much Starship Troopers, eh Mr. Rico?”

“Uh…” “Think of me as you, playing 506, who’s maybe half-playing at being

Columbo. Or don’t, and I’ll think of it for you. Rules bind me as they bind you, and I’m not one to drop hints for free. Go. Just get out. Sticking around something this done, this utterly over isn’t doing either of us any good. So you leveled this place. So find a new one…and I’d watch Lilith if I were you, and I guess I am, whatever the fuck that means. Damn. You’d think that, this being your dream and all, you’d have some goddamned coffee around here.”

“Thanks, and uh, 506? Coffee’s in the third cabinet over, under the pistol ammo.”

Crumbled structures line the hillsides, and she can see that nothing has been spared – buildings are decayed and gutted all the way down to the waterline. She rises up out of her chair and walks to the staircase, leading to what was an attic in the days of pancakes. 506 says nothing, does not even stir, but she knows he is aware that she is leaving. She pokes her head up through the hatch and swings under a fallen beam.

The roof has long since parted with the rest of the structure, and from this vantage point, she can see that there is nothing worth saving here. There is nothing at all here except wet concrete and broken glass. She quickly descends

171

the ladder, picks up her well-worn red backpack, and heads out into the drizzle alone.

( )Jesus sprawled across a hotel bed, shrouded in blankets, peering sourly at

the information channel. Her joint barely cleared the little peephole in her comforter cocoon.

She was thinking hard about something, but it all took place out of the limelight. Eventually she’d come back armed with some tiny, incremental new understanding. In the meantime, she had the Gideon bible, the information channel, a large bag of silly lime-green weed, a packet of Brazilian cellulose rolling papers, and a certain amount of time to kill before anything was required of her. Room service had stopped taking her prank calls hours ago.

Every thing – every thought, every smell and taste and touch that had ever been, will ever be – disgusted her utterly. Perhaps it was the band returning to Philadelphia that set it off. She hadn’t been back to her hometown since 506 had rescued her.

Presently, 506 was off patrolling the hallways or guarding their van’s tires or grumbling to himself, Jessica snored softly in between the far bed and the wall, and the rest seemed to be re-enacting Caligula next door. She could handle the moaning, the squeaking, and the occasional muffled thumping, but she didn’t know what to make of the repeated, chant-like utterance of “Fuck me like a landscaper! Fuck me like a landscaper!”

Frustrated and lonely and jealous, Jesus flipped the channel on the television to static, turned the volume all the way up, and lit a fresh joint.

It was time to sink all the way into herself. She sat, shutting off parts of her brain, smoking more and more marijuana until a cognitive cease-fire treaty was ratified by the various factions of her mind. Vaguely satisfied by this, she threw the remote into the far wall and curled up into herself. Her thoughts still swam slowly, just out of her reach. Gradually she left the physical world altogether.

The sound of her door smashing violently inward roused her. Lilith barged in, half naked, sweaty, and cuddling a bottle of Stoli. Her makeup was smeared, and she had an unwholesome glow about her. She stared at the revolver in Jesus’ hand, blinked, and took a long pull on the vodka. Bite marks and scratches stood out raw and red against her paleness.

172

She bellowed, “I’m sweaty, I’m sore, and those fuckin’ monkeys next door don’t know when to fuckin’ quit.” Lilith swayed on her feet, blinked a few times and added, “And the people are even worse. What’s your problem?”

Jesus put her revolver back on the nightstand, thumbing the safety as she did so. Before she could speak, Lilith was up on the bed on all fours, forehead-to-forehead with Jesus. “Steal me a car, you!”

She wobbled on her arms and legs, steadied, found Jesus with her eyes again and repeated herself. “Steal me a car, damnnit. Let’s go out and have a little fun.” Thumping Jesus playfully on the shoulder she sat back on the bed, nearly sliding off the edge.

“You need to put something on. So do I. Let me get some stuff together.” Jesus began to shrug off her cocoon, snuffing the burning bits of it with her fingers “Can I trust you with a gun? You look wasted.” Jesus paused, blinked, and spoke again. “On second thought, take a taser. I bet you’ll have no end of fun with it.”

“Expecting trouble?” Lilith asked hopefully while rooting through a camo duffel.

“No. I’m just... cranky.”Off they went, out into the night air. The crowd outside the Four

Seasons were affluent drunks, and to many of them, Jesus was the strangest thing they’d seen all month. She ignored them and took long angry strides, puffing irritably on a joint in an obscenely long cigarette holder. The pistol was cold against her thigh, and her stomach knotted; from too much tension, too much caffeine, not enough sleep or food. Lilith did her best to follow Jesus down the sidewalk. People parted in her wake, afraid to get too close, but Jesus kept scanning traffic, her gaze darting about manically. A homeless man waved a sign at her, and Jesus absently tossed him a gram lump of blonde hash.

“There! At that red!” Jesus pointed. Before Lilith could react she dashed off, platform boots flying as she charged the idling convertible. A burgundy Jaguar waited at the light, an aging bald man in a sharp suit at the wheel. He screamed into his phone, “I don’t care where you think you got it, I’m not sleeping with anyone else.” His right hand rested possessively on the thigh of a diminutive young woman, while his left cupped the phone. “I’m just saying, I think you’re paranoid, hon. I just wish you’d–”

Jesus simultaneously opened the door and hauled the driver out, snatching the phone in the process. She spoke into it.

“Listen,” Jesus began, “I’m carjacking your husband.” She kicked the

173

driver once in the ribs as Lilith vaulted into the back seat, Stoli gurgling. “No. I’m serious. He’s here with his girlfriend.”

Jesus sat down and put the car in gear. “Yeah. I’ll put him on. I have to go. I’m trying to drive stick in enormous rivet-head boots. Ciao.”

Lilith giggled and opened the bottle as Jesus snicked the car into first and floored it. As the tires spun, she flicked the still-connected phone back at its owner. Jesus slewed the powerful car out onto Market Street and dodged a cab, reaching back for Lilith’s Stoli.

“Who the hell are you?” the passenger asked. She had elegantly coiffed hair and a vacant look.

“I’m Jesus. I apologize for the unorthodox introduction. That back there is Lilith. We’re in a band.” Jesus slammed the horn and screamed something dire-sounding in Farsii. “Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you…Uh…”

“Vanessa.”“Ahh. Where are my manners? I really like your dress, Vanessa.

Flattering cut, I’m sure. Would you like some hash?” Jesus fumbled around in her backpack, and came up with an enormous, waxy joint. She honked the horn again, jabbed the brakes and swerved out of the way of yet another cab.

“Gimmie back my vodka, and since when could you speak Farsii, Jesus?” Lilith asked.

Jesus tossed the Stoli into the backseat while lighting a generous joint and steering with her knees. “I only know that one phrase. Roughly translated, it means go stick your head in the sink. I picked it up maybe in the asylum, I dunno.”

Jesus relit the joint in her cigarette holder, toked appreciatively on the hash-laden one, and passed it over to Vanessa. “Alright, Lilith. I stole you a car. Where to?”

“West. We need to get out of the damned city. You grew up around here, didn’t you?” Jesus shook her head and pulled again on the hashish joint a few times before passing it. Cabbies swerved, Jesus swerved, and the scenery lurched by them stoplight by stoplight. A cream colored Maxima passed Jesus, full of her past selves. By the time the car was accelerating onto the highway, Jesus blinked and resumed her thought.

“Well, maybe in another novel. I’m not very linear anymore, my time in the hospital was…encouraging and scary at the same time.”

Vanessa looked puzzled and pulled her phone out her handbag. “Hold it. Who are you calling?” Jesus pulled her skirt up, showing the

gun.

174

“Look. I don’t want to get hurt, and…”“...and you want to call the police and have us sent off to jail? You want

our tour to come to an end, or for me to flip this thing running from the police? Listen. I don’t know about Lilith, but as far as these things go, I’m pretty safe.”

Jesus took a deep toke of the joint, swerved out onto the shoulder of 76, and snapped back into the left lane before passing it to Vanessa. “I freaked some people out, caused some mass hallucinations, was catatonic and living countless lives at once. You want this thing?” Vanessa nodded and toked. “What I’m trying to say is…”

Lilith interrupted, “Stick with us, Vee. You’ll have a good time.” Lilith playfully tousled Vanessa’s hair, then flung herself down into the backseat, feet up on the frame.

Jesus nodded, swerved, waved a bag of pot at a church van in the right lane, and took possession of the joint again.

“Seriously,” Jesus agreed, speaking out resinous clouds of cannabis smoke, “you could do worse. Mescaline?”

On they drove through the orange spring dusk.

Jesus sat rigid at the wheel, purple hair and strips of fabric and yarn blowing back in the nighttime breeze. She drove as if in a trance, shifting, breaking, turning her head to change lanes all in time with the trip-hop oozing from the speakers. She kept driving out on to the shoulder, she just couldn’t keep herself from looking up. This far out in Pennsylvania, the starlight turned hard and bright and distinct. Even the half-moon’s light couldn’t dim the stripe of the Milky Way across the sky.

“I need to pull over. I need to get out of this car and walk around for a bit, something. I’m a little freaked.”

Vanessa said nothing. Lilith was winning a staring contest with the vodka bottle. Jesus eased the car down a ramp, into some one-stoplight town. An abandoned gas station (of a brand no longer sold for 10 years, she noted) gently gave itself up to the vines and trees again. Patches of forest and enormous farms surrounded them, and the stars shone with a brilliance all three of them marveled at.

She stopped fully, then took off down a dark, twisty back road. “I just thought of something. We’d better ditch this car, before the police come looking for it. Vee’s boyfriend…”

“Ex, Jesus. My Ex boyfriend,” she corrected.“Right well...” Jesus failed to take a ninety-degree left at her present

175

speed, and left the road doing ninety. The convertible Jaguar flew through the air briefly, then bottomed in the dirt and skidded crazily.

Vanessa and Lilith sat silent for a minute, then began laughing. “Lilith. Vodka. Inspiration. Please,” Jesus said.“Sure you need it?” she teased, handing over the bottle. The car thumped

over the rows of short plants, tearing through farmland with the stereo playing some sinister Mike Patton tune. Great clods of dirt flew up, some landing in the once-pristine cockpit. Jesus smiled and slewed the wheel back and forth, coaxing the wheels to skid, sliding the huge convertible about like a rally car. Vanessa crawled into the footwell, and Lilith looked pale and stared out over the back deck. The noise of the engine pitched up and the Jag began to accelerate more as Jesus held the gas pedal to the floor. 115…120…125 and Jesus’ stomach lurched as they rounded the top of a hill, all of them weightless as the car arced through the air and ground to a halt. Jesus leapt out, giggling madly, and fell to the ground.

She sat up, unable to speak, feeling extraordinarily small. She tried to speak to Lilith and Vanessa, who were chatting amiably, but the mescaline had Jesus in its grip. She sunk into the earth, beyond words. Vast, formless entities streamed information into her, in the code she thought in before her thoughts became language.

She began to realize that these entities were nothing more than masses of code, aware of themselves, and aware of her intrusion into their realm. There was no form. There was only the color red, a sense of distance, thought entering her and leaving her like breath. Jesus herself was nothing more than a passive transponder, suspended in bliss, wetness, warmth. Her attention began to wander, and the vision flickered out, leaving her with the tickly feeling of hair blowing over her face on a wildflower scented breeze.

She opened her eyes and made a small groggy noise.“I think she’s back with us. How goes, weird girl?” Lilith poked Jesus in

the ribs, while Jesus realized that both girls had their heads on her shoulders. She didn’t respond, and instead closed her eyes and sighed. She had no

idea who she was, no idea where she was. Impossible memories flooded her. She could remember being Lilith, Vanessa, 139, 506. She remembered being strangers, her lovers, all their viewpoints and prejudices and secret essences. How was she to know who she was this time? How strange it was to be anything at all. Her flesh felt alien, secondhand. She lifted her hands, looked at them, then let them fall back to her. Sturdy clavicle, breasts, shit woven into her hair. Jesus realized she was smoking a joint.

“That doesn’t narrow it down,” she muttered to herself. “Everyone I’ve

176

been smokes pot. Everyone I know smokes pot.”“What are you talking about, Jesus?” Vanessa asked. A pained expression passed over Jesus’s features before they settled into

their usual patterns.“That’s it. I’m Jesus this time.”“This time?” Lilith asked.“Forget it. I had a…a brain thing.” Jesus muttered. She added,

“Pancakes. I think I want pancakes, Lilith. That much I am sure of.” With that, Jesus sprung to her feet, looking deranged. Both Vanessa and

Lilith exchanged glances and followed Jesus as she walked in the direction of the moon, low on the horizon, a wedge of blood orange.

Soon the eastern sky was showing a faint band of purple. Birds begun to stir. The little group trudged on through the mist and hadn’t walked far before smelling diesel exhaust and fryer fat, hearing the rumble of engines, and seeing the comforting Waffle Hut logo. Rusted trucks with GOP stickers and dirty tractor-trailers filled the lot, and everyone in three neighboring townships was here. Other than a single Value Turkey convenience store, there was nothing open in a hundred mile radius.

Jesus felt a tingle of dread in the pit of her stomach, having some idea of the average temperament in this area. She checked her weapons again. .44 up under the skirt, knife in her right boot, throwing knife in her…strap-on harness? Jesus laughed out loud, and couldn’t remember having put it on.

She whirled around and gathered her little group together. “Listen, gang,” she begun, “I need you to be my buffer in there. It’s going to be hostile.” Before they could say anything, she held up a finger and went on.

“I don’t know why it’s so, but I’ve learned that if people think I’m with the both of you, they’re not going to mind my wardrobe so much.” She gestured at her outfit – vinyl corset, huge strappy boots, purple and black tutu, spiked leather gloves and smiled crazily at them. “I’m certainly not for everyone. Stay close, this is going to be fun. As old Hunter said, ‘When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.’”

“What the hell is she talking about?” Vanessa asked.Lilith just shook her head and walked in on Jesus’ arm. It was early

Saturday morning, and the Waffle Hut was full. Fried smells, flatulence, cigarette smoke, coffee fumes, and half-witted confusion all hung in the air. Jesus stood ramrod straight, a monstrously exaggerated smile on her face, with Lilith bouncing along on her arm. Vanessa followed a step behind, eying people coolly. No one knew what to make of them.

To put it mildly, they did not fit at all.

177

Jesus looked over the crowd. Mennonite families sat in booths next to potbellied long-haul truck drivers. Grizzled alcoholics, covertly nursing buzzes from a hip flask or paper bag, spooned eggs into their gibbering lips. Clean cut teenagers pointed and laughed openly, as did some of the adults. The servers even stared, as did the dishwashers and the tall Egyptian man behind the register.

Jesus felt each and every eyeball upon her, felt the weight and pressure of all the stares. Through long years of this sort of thing, she knew the only way to deal with it was to ignore it completely, and so she did. People said things about her, to her, as if she couldn’t hear. Perhaps they didn’t care. Somewhere behind them there was a wolf whistle. Vanessa and Lilith both turned to look, but Jesus kept her head resolutely forward.

They ordered, and they ate, and the stares and wolf whistles continued. Jesus’ mounting sense of dread built. The hecklers that left were replaced by new ones, fresh from the Pennsyltucky wilderness. Jesus listlessly stirred her coffee, too preoccupied to join whatever conversation Lilith and Vanessa were having.

After requesting the check a third time, Jesus leaned in towards Lilith and spoke softly. “Watch my back. I have an uneasy feeling.”

Lilith nodded and topped off her coffee cup from a stained plastic carafe. A party of three truckers walked towards their table on the way out to the front door. They stopped beside Jesus and smiled coldly. She took a deep breath and stared forward.

“Evening…Ladies,” one of the truckers began. His compatriots chuckled and grinned their rotten smiles. The trucker who spoke hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and rocked back on his heels, seemingly pleased at his wit. Jesus stared at her cigarette in the ashtray, neck muscles twitching.

“Uh. Hi, guys.” Lilith scooched out to the edge of the booth and smiled up at them. “How the hell are you all tonight?”

Jesus’ eyes focused on Lilith’s lips as she spoke to the group. She felt her stomach contract, knew trouble was on the way. The air itself felt supersaturated, as if any small change could bring on disaster. Vanessa smoked and looked slightly bored.

“We’re just fine, fine. Listen, me and the boys were wondering about this one.” He set his calloused hand upon Jesus’ shoulder, too hard for it to be an amiable gesture. Jesus did her best to suppress her revulsion. His hand felt cracked and hard, and gripped her much too tight. His flesh was warm, foreign, his manner threatening. The mescaline mounted Jesus’ spine again,

178

and the Waffle Hut rippled. She sat utterly still and remained silent. By this time the trucker’s other friends had muttered goodnight to them all and left. Her heart hammered in her chest.

Lilith stared at the trucker, eyes aflame. “What is it that you’re wondering?”

“Does it have a dick?” he sneered. He began to laugh as Jesus leapt out of the booth. As she charged him, his compatriots rushed out the door.

Jesus drew herself up and blew smoke out at him. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I was trying to have breakfast with my friends here, in peace.”

“Well why’d you want to go and look like that?” Lilith rose, stood beside Jesus, barely coming up to Jesus’ breasts. She

stared at the man defiantly.“Let’s go, Lilith. Vanessa. C’mon.” Jesus turned and walked towards the

door, then out into the dawn. The door wheezed behind them as it shut, and wheezed again almost immediately. They began walking.

“Hey! I’m not done with you yet!” a voice called from behind them. Jesus kept walking. She didn’t look back, though she heard the sound of

approaching footsteps, of someone running.“Jesus! Watch out!” Lilith yelled. Jesus spun just in time to get knocked into a nearby van. She stood up,

dazed and wiping blood from her nose. Lilith fired the taser into the trucker, standing above Jesus. Jesus got to her feet slowly, seething with adrenalin.

“Should I juice him again?” Lilith asked. The crumpled man on the ground spoke, quietly, but distinctly.

“I’ll kill you, faggot…Then I’ll have my way with the girls.” He struggled to get to his feet, while reaching into his worn leather jacket. Jesus hauled out her revolver, leveled it straight at him, and thumbed back the hammer.

“Vanessa, get his wallet and his keys. Lilith, keep your finger on the button and fry him if he so much blinks.” Jesus put the muzzle up to the trucker’s head. “You probably think I’m gonna kill you, but I’m a bigger bitch than that. Where’s your truck?”

The trucker stood there, eyes blank. “I’m going to ask you again, and then I’m going to have Lilith here zap you. She likes hurting people.”

“Usually not physically, but yes. It kind of gets me off, Jesus.”“That’s my girl. Now. Are we going to go back to your truck, or am I

going to shoot you in the guts?” Jesus lowered her gun, pointing it at the swell of his belly. “I have put up with shit for years, mister bigot, and you picked a really bad night to cross me. You could have said nothing. I don’t

179

care if you like me. You don’t have to. However, you– ” Jesus poked the man in the gut with her pistol, “can keep your opinions to yourself. Let’s go.”

He whimpered and Jesus twisted his arm up behind his back. Lilith skipped merrily along, and Vanessa was nowhere to be found. He led them to the door of a black Kenworth. Lilith unlocked the door, and Jesus waved the trucker in with her gun. “Ladies first,” she twittered.

Jesus let the trucker ascend halfway into the cab, then kicked him in the seat of the pants. He flew across the interior as Jesus swung herself up and in. The trucker scrambled to right himself and Jesus struck him in the jaw with the butt of her pistol. “Ooooooh, no. Mister bigot, I do believe you picked the wrong harmless little faggot to mess with. Pull your pants down.”

Jesus stroked the glittery purple shaft of her strap-on, and the head bounced obscenely. She spit on it, then pulled the knife from her boot. “Last chance, man. The more work I have to do, the greater the cost to you.”

Jesus grabbed his belt with her left hand, pulled him ass first to her. She then split the back of his pants open with her knife. He pleaded unintelligibly, and Jesus laughed and put the blade to his throat.

“Vanessa!” Jesus exclaimed. Vanessa had returned from the diner with a bag of microwave popcorn she was sharing with Lilith. “As always, your sense of timing is inspired. Why don’t you both climb up on the hood and watch this. I promise it will be instructive.”

Jesus put the head of her strap-on up against the man’s bottom, pressing gently. “Just try to relax, okay? Honestly, with that jacket, and the mullet, you were just asking for it.” Jesus reached down, flicked on the radio, and pressed home as Bad Company sang about being Hot Blooded.

( )Amanda rolled on her back and sighed. Sleep wasn’t coming. The embers in the fire had almost exhausted themselves, now barely

casting enough light for her to see the others in their sleeping bags. Amber’s snoring and the crackling remnants of the fire were working off of each other like a group of African drummers. Sandalwood was still heavy in the air – the remains of the ritual Dionysus had led earlier. She smiled, momentarily thinking of Amber, who had the grace and seemingly fragile beauty of a fairy princess, but the manners and unflappable poise of a sailor. That is, at least after Lilith had “broken her in,” as she called it.

Amanda sat up and pushed stray dreadlocks out of her face. They had

180

developed at first by accident, the result of life on the road, but she liked the look of them. They just felt right, somehow.

Looking over at Dionysus, she saw him gazing into the fire. She studied his face, but couldn’t read his thoughts in it.

“Still awake?” she asked, startled somehow by the sound of her own voice.

He nodded almost imperceptibly, and rolled towards her. Curling around her like a cat, he laid one of his hands in her lap, but said nothing.

“I was just thinking…what if I hadn’t bought that ticket and went to the show?”

“Is that really what you were thinking?” he asked.“No. Well, not until I said it.” She took his hand. “You’re not telepathic

are you?” “No, just the monkey.” She smiled, wondering momentarily where Suke had gotten off to. The

last she’d seen the primate, Suke had been dancing around the fire with that absurd looking miniature mask strapped to her face. No one could figure out why Dionysus made it for her, and none dared ask due to the certain knowledge that the answer would most assuredly be incoherent anyway.

“The monkey doesn’t read other people’s minds and then pass it on to you, does she?”

“No, not so much.”“That’d make a good racket if we make it back to Vegas.”The two of them sat together in silence. Eventually Amanda spoke. “I was actually thinking about Lilith.

Dionysus, sometimes…sometimes she terrifies me. I mean, I’m undeniably attracted to her…it’s impossible not to be, isn’t it? But she still scares me.”

Dionysus opened his mouth to argue, but the image of Lilith’s cold, hungry smile stopped him. “Me too. But I love her. I can’t help myself.”

“We all have that problem from time to time…” Amanda said, smirking at him as she quickly ran her finger across the back of her arm.

“Flirt,” he said, returning her smile. “But, love – why? That’s what I’m wondering.”He thought on this. It was as if Lilith was always right behind him,

haunting the cracked mirror as he brushed his teeth, blurry but still winsome even through flecks of dried toothpaste. Walking home from school as a young boy, his books clutched tightly in the crook of his armpit, splashing through puddles – her eyes danced in the ripples.

“Who knows? But I’m sure you’ve had people where…you couldn’t

181

explain it if you tried, but everything reminds you of them. They possess your thoughts. Your dreams.”

“I have,” she said quietly. “But the thing you’re talking about, don’t call it love. You’ll just confuse yourself.”

“Well, yeah, that’s why I agreed with you originally. With you, it feels natural. I feel I can say anything to you, I love you to death but it doesn’t cloud my judgment.”

“It just doesn’t…intoxicate you. I’m like an old trusty pair of jeans. Comfortable, but don’t wear them out of the house.”

“Oh, Christ. Not you, too. Now you’re putting words in my mouth.”She just laughed. “Don’t worry about that, I’m just messing with you.

Love whomever you love. Where’s my place to mess with that? I honestly haven’t felt a single pang of jealousy since I took to the road. But I still have fear…and probably a little compassion hiding somewhere in there, too. I just don’t want to have to stitch up your wounds if Lilith decides it would amuse her more to tear your heart out with her teeth. I imagine you’d mope intolerably for months.”

“I’m saying, with her, it’s like it comes from the outside, it overpowers me. It’s not from within. I told you about how I met her first in a dream right?”

“You told me a bit about it. Woe is you. Sounded hot as hell.” “If it wasn’t like being thrown to a pack of reef sharks in a frenzy, it

would’ve been. I mean at moments I guess it was. But I couldn’t help feeling…I know this is a loaded word, and I don’t mean the full implication of it, but…raped. She had my consent on one level, but it was like she wanted…my soul. I think I mean it more in the sense that it is sometimes used in attic tragedies – Persephone raped to the underworld. Possessed without full complicity.”

“Silly, please don’t start.” “You don’t want a philology lesson?”“No. I really don’t. And, all that is interesting, but it was just a dream

after all. I’m not saying it’s not meaningful, but if you take every little nuance of your dreams as omens, you’ll just go nuts…”

Taking a deep breath, Dionysus rolled onto his back. “Point taken. Once upon a time I was ‘that guy.’ I picked apartments based on the Qabbalistic significance of the house number…”

“Right, so…Uh.”“Cutting under all this, I’m still trying to figure out where we’re

headed…Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving it. Nothing has felt so right in my

182

life. But it’s quite obvious the game is of Lilith’s design, and she holds the cards close to her rather delicious chest. The momentum keeps building. I feel like…I couldn’t stop it if I tried.”

“Why would you want to?”“Exactly. Who would possibly want to get off the bus? Come along with

us, all expense paid trip into the rock and roll apocalypse. I don’t know,” he said, kissing the small of her back softly. “But I’m scared.”

( )There was very little movement in the desert during the day, aside

from the rustling of dried brush in the wind, or the occasional Imperial woodpecker, hacking a home into the side of a bloated saguaro. Artemis paused to survey the girls, who were diligently repeating the Xing-yi form she had just demonstrated. The sun beat down unyieldingly, turning everything to an oven. So far as she was concerned, it was the perfect setting to train: all weakness, all hesitation cooks out in that heat along with the sweat. Purification by fire.

She caught Amanda doing something she had seen a million times before. A common mistake. The power in the motion she was demonstrating came from a push and pull in opposite directions: torque. People’s natural inclination is generally to focus just on the forward, Yang motion. Strength actually comes from receptivity. This was a lesson that was much better demonstrated than explained.

“Amanda, come over here a minute.”The others hesitated a moment, mid-movement. “What are you stopping for?” Artemis asked.Amanda walked over and then leaned down on her knees, her cheeks

rosy.Putting her hand calmly in front of Amanda’s face, Artemis said, “hit my

hand just like you were doing.”Knowing that Artemis didn’t want her to hold off, she squared herself

and drove into it as forcefully as she could. Artemis continued to smile, simply shifting her posture slightly when the connection came.

“The whip starts with your waist, your center, but it comes right up through the ground.” Artemis demonstrated the motion once, slowly. “Pull as much as you push.”

“Actually yielding to someone’s force, while obliquely guiding it into a weaker channel keeps you in a position of force, too,” Dionysus said. He

183

was leaning against the hot side of the double-wide Solamoun bequeathed to them, about twenty paces from Artemis and the others. Agent 506 was huffing and puffing below, doing push-ups with a lit cigarette clenched between his pointy teeth.

He gave no reply except a grunt, so Dionysus took it as a request to continue. “If an opponent advances forcefully, yield by rolling out of its channel of strength, rolling or sliding along the perimeter of the advance, all the while retaining contact. Your opponent winds up over-committed; you wind up facing their undefended side. If you match force with force, you’ve lost.”

Agent 506 stopped for a moment, at the top of a push-up, and cocked his head in Dionysus’ direction. “You like talking just to hear yourself speak, don’t you?”

“And you like doing push-ups while you smoke. Don’t harsh my mellow, maaan. Anyway like I was saying, reality is what you can get away with. We’ve heard that rhetoric before, probably dropped it ourselves at Burning Man between essential oil rubdowns. But it’s not just goofy post-hippie bullshit. Consider the tactics of those who oppose us. They have disenfranchised opposition. We have free speech, but what does it amount to? It’s useless without the power to make real decisions, decisions that don’t involve the multiple choice assholes they decide to put on the ballot. Those ‘flagged’ by the new defense system – millions and growing every day – are no longer allowed to legally raise children. They’ll simply outbree–”

Dionysus was stopped mid-rant by a pebble traveling at eighty miles per hour.

“Holy fuck! Ow!”Artemis laughed as she rooted around her feet for another stone.

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern! You guys can babble away, or get high or get massages or whatever the hell you want when training time is through. Get off your asses and work on your form.”

( )Artemis felt bad about pushing them so hard, but it was necessary. They

weren’t being tested for colored sashes in competitions. If it came to blows, they’d be tested by the gunfire and knife thrusts of those who would wipe them from the face of the planet. Physical combat was incidental compared with the other methods at their disposal, but considering the nature of the opposition, it was still requisite.

184

She felt personally responsible for the transformation of these girls from helpless, domesticated animals into warriors who still retained their hearts and their autonomy. Even with her experience and skill, she didn’t feel entirely qualified to give them the kind of rounded training they were going to need to resist when and if for instance the FBI took an interest. Still, no one really feels prepared. Life always seems like the dress rehearsal for the wrong show. You learn vaudeville musicals and the curtain draws and it’s Arthur Miller. The best you can do is rehearse as much as possible in secret, and trust your gut when the time comes. Soon they would be the heralds of a New Aeon, and it was unlikely that the forces of the old would be at all pleased about the changing of the guard.

She would do her best. The rest was up to fate.

Dionysus looked her up and down as she reflected. “Why won’t you let anyone in?”

She knocked dust off her pants, not immediately responding.

“I know…something happened to you…in the past…but you have to let it go…”

Shielding her eyes from the light, she stared off to the horizon, still impassive.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I’d like to know you better. And I don’t...”

She met his gaze. “We can do the heart-to-heart stuff later. We have company.” Her bronzed arm pointed

in the direction she had been gazing. At first he saw nothing, but as he squinted he made out a cloud of dust.

“That could be anyone,” he said. “Maybe the other girls returning with supplies…”

She shook her head. “Ten cop cars,” she said flatly. “Get 506. Get in position. Now.”

( )

185

A sullen hush had fallen over the station, only interrupted by the occasional ringing of phones and creaking of chairs as officers and clerks filed through papers, avoiding each others eyes. It was like being in the locker room right after the star team had been crushed by an upstart pack of rookies.

Trevino paced tersely as Officer Vasquez spoke, his thoughts running in ten directions at once. His orders had been clear: do this alone. He needed a litmus. The cops he tipped off were like a canary in a mine shaft. The dead cops. There were endless ways to rationalize it, but the facts remained the same: blood on his hands, and his conscience.

Push it away. “When we rolled up to the compound, we found it abandoned except

for two of the primary suspects, who were standing in front of the main entrance, watching us approach as they puffed on their cigarettes. It put me off-guard, I suppose. We didn’t see any vehicles. Nevertheless my partner covered me as I exited the cruiser and questioned them.”

He took a long pull on his own cigarette, seeming to ponder as the smoke slowly crawled between his yellowed teeth. It hung, sterile and thick, in the dim light between them.

“You didn’t believe the reports that said to consider them armed and dangerous?” Trevino asked.

“No offense sir, they were clearly unarmed. I could have taken either of them blindfolded.”

“No offense taken. Why are you standing here alone? You were sent out there with nineteen other officers.”

He slouched a little in his chair, taking another long drag.“I approached them…” he started, picking up the thread of his story.

“And told them they were under arrest and the premises were to be searched. One of them looked up at me, asking for a warrant. I heard my partner approaching from behind. And that’s when the world went crazy.”

Trevino paused to hack at his teeth with a toothpick, his thoughts hidden behind an impassive mask. “Where were the other officers?”

“Encircling them, still mainly in their vehicles, I think. It happened fast.”“What the hell happened, James?” Trevino prompted.“I’m not sure. I heard screaming, shots fired. I reached for my sidearm…

There were shouts of ‘man-down.’ I moved to protect them. All the shots fired were our own. I mean it made no fucking sense. And we were in the middle of the desert at high noon…flat land, I don’t know where they came from. I was whipping all around looking for a target. Then I saw my partner

186

go down. And you know I found myself thinking the craziest thing…Dale had been my partner, my friend, for a couple years. We worked together since I got out of the academy. But it was a perfect shot! I was in shock.”

He sucked down the rest of the cigarette in one long inhale, and promptly lit another as he continued speaking.

“I had my gun in my hand and moved to take a shot at the two primary suspects. They were gone. Then cars started exploding. I jumped into my cruiser and…God. I drove as hard and fast I could.”

“Not very noble of you.”“You would have done the same.”“No,” Trevino said simply, walking out of the room. I never would have

engaged them the way you did. You don’t march into an organization like this leading badges first. What the hell were you thinking? You weren’t to directly confront them, just assess the situation using something incidental as an excuse. Well, thank you, officer. The path is clear now.

( )Dionysus and Agent 506 were both sitting in a field of cop cars, burning

themselves down to cinders.“Fuck,” Agent 506 said, shaking his head. “Fuck. The people who died

here had lives and families.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a simple statement of fact. A Zippo shot open with an unconscious flip of his wrist. His cigarette wasn’t far behind.

“I know. But this is why the nonviolent have to train in violence, and get sucked back into the whole bloody mess. The stakes are too high now. They won’t accept anything but our annihilation,” Dionysus said.

Agent 506 nodded. “Well. We’ve just gone from a side-line joke to a major pain in the ass.”

“I wonder if this forces us into the position of all revolutionaries… I don’t want to re-create what happened in France three hundred years ago. I don’t…fuck.” Dionysus said, finally mirroring 506’s initial sentiment.

“OK. Then…let’s make it worth something,” Agent 506 said, finishing his coffin nail with one last drag and tossing it into the skeleton of a nearby cruiser.

“Somehow.” They looked at each other dumbly. Bacchante crawled out of their hiding spots, crossbows still in hand.

They stood in a rough circle, breathing in air heavy with gasoline and the

187

reek of melting rubber. Their faces were stern but fear could be seen in some of their eyes.

Their numbers had swelled in recent months, but even still, it was a meager band when compared with what they were now up against. Dionysus was suddenly struck by the gravity of the situation. Escaping from a mental hospital and being a deviant was one thing. He had, at this very moment, several flaming cop cars on his front lawn, surrounded by dead cops. This would be hard to explain.

“Sooo…What do we do now?” Amanda asked, her hands spread wide.Lilith came up behind Dionysus and Agent 506, and threw her arms

around them.“We go on tour,” she said, looking up at the girls, a huge grin growing

across her face. “Take what you need. We leave tomorrow.”“Better than staying here,” Agent 506 said, his voice even more gravelly

than usual. “Tonight–” Dionysus started. The shifting of dozens of eyes when he

spoke made him pause a moment. “Tonight, I come undone. It’s time for the solstice ritual.” Without another word, he wandering off into the hills as sickly sweet black smoke continued to pump into the air.

188

506 watched him go. Watched the others trek off to their personal enclaves to begin preparation for…something.

He stood there by the wreckage, watching, waiting until he was certain he was alone.When the hairs at the back of his neck were sure he had privacy he flipped open a phone and dialed.

“506 here. Execute plan Whiptail…Yes, that’s right. Keep an eye on them. You have my instructions…Look, man. No. Look…Stop wasting my time. You’ll recognize her. She’s tall. Yup. Probably take two darts to keep her down, yeah. I gotta go.”

( )The group trekked for miles until they reached the appointed spot, a

dead tree trunk, gray and gnarled, incongruous in the middle of a desert.As instructed, Amanda helped load logs into a great pyre behind the

central building. The activity gave her a chance to reflect. Over the past months, the summer sun baked through the creases in her arms, the freckles on her shoulders, it cut through and transformed her weaknesses, fears, and resentments. Nothing was left now but this wide-open center that took in, accepted, and let go. She smiled, thinking of a Zen koan Artemis had said once offhandedly, without bothering to explain. Before Zen, chop wood and carry water. After Zen, chop wood and carry water.

Log after log landed on the pile with loud cracks that echoed over the open land. The girls smiled at one another, but did not speak. The air was more somber than the kitten-like playfulness that marked most of their days, from morning meditation to the long nights.

Dionysus sat behind the growing pile of logs upon a stone, many times the size of a man, carved with symbols that had appeared to him in dreams. Suke sat restlessly beside him. Dionysus imagined she was probably the most aware of what kind of ordeal they were preparing for.

She eyed him viciously. You’ve got no idea, my friend. No fucking idea. When they were done preparing, they said their goodbyes, for now or

forever, depending on how the night went for him. They left him alone with the desert.

( ) The heat of the fire felt like the blazing sun, though dusk had already

189

come and gone.He began humming to himself, as he swayed back and forth and gazed

through the fire. When the trance took him, words poured out unevenly, like water rushing down the side of a mountain; slow as it pools up in troughs and valleys, then tumbling down through empty space to crash to the rocks beneath.

To my guide I call – pa si te o i me ri da pu ri to jo po ti ni ja me ri. To all the gods, honey...To the mistress of the labyrinth, honey...The gate of the abyss will open, I call Leviathan from under all seas

Leviathan... Open the way, the Guardian strengthens our will comes air spirit is our

eyes this night which are original flames warmth to our souls water of the life benediction you pour asking Leviathan, open your gates connection we with the miracle of the abyss surfaces tear the veil hear my challenge hear the Guardian bear me passage illuminated by your will I praise you...

Leviathan from under all seas. Your body stretches out to infinity underneath me. I am trapped by your magnitude. I can feel you breathing, pulses in the black water. What will you do with me?

Drink this flesh, which is my wine, which is your honey. Swallow me whole, so that I may live inside you until you spit me back out into the world, reborn.

Drink this flesh, which is my wine, which is your honey. Consume me so that I may know you. Cast my body into the abyss. Let them tear me apart so I may be born anew. I have instructed them to eat my bones after I am dead. They will seed my flesh as ashes on the tongues of the reborn.

To my guide I call – pa si te o i me ri da pu ri to jo po ti ni ja me ri. I am descending. I am falling.

this body isa cocoon, a breeding cage, a broken puzzle boxan isolation chamber in the farthest recesses of this forsaken somnatoriumthis ossuary labyrinth, the internal, and i am the ruse

i hear your footsteps echoing between these empty wallsi am hunting you as you are hunting mecan you see the blood-red thread that ties us together?

this labyrinth is folding in on itself

190

... folding and unfolding...serpentine synchronicity

...folding and unfolding...this hidden mystery

there is a lightshining in the eyes of the dreamerseven in the depths of this cavernous sepulchereven at the brink of death

the struggle is to recognize,to hear them singing:... pa si te o i me ri da pu ri to jo po ti ni ja me ri ...

... folding and unfolding...serpentine synchronicity

...folding and unfolding...this revealed mystery

and yet, once againthe vespers envelop like a netfleshy hooks grasping, siphoning matter down into the cosmic umbilicus...Leviathan from under all seas. Your body stretches out to infinity underneath

me. I am trapped by your magnitude. I can feel you breathing, feel your pulses in the black water.

The Guardian has opened the way. The thirst of water is quenched as Leviathan pours life into the abyss. The channel is flowing. Do you hear its whisper? The passage is illuminated in the darkness, the light is the voice of the Silent Ones. This flame is never extinguished. Do you hear them singing?

To my guide I call – pa si te o i me ri da pu ri to jo po ti ni ja me ri.

The invocation finished, he ceased rocking. His eyes rolled into his head, his breathing slowed. He waited.

The flickering of the fire danced, faster, then slower, following its internal rhythm of chaos. A thought shot through his mind, like a spark from the

191

fire. He mused momentarily on the idea that there are no random numbers: no matter how long the string, all chaos contains an internal pattern.

This was another barrier on the path. It was all too easy to entertain ones self with such ‘revelations’ and not actually accomplish anything.

Raising both arms straight above his head, he began a light, rapid breathing that felt like butterfly wings tickling his nose. His arms dropped with a deep exhalation, and he stared into the fire as if it was his opponent in a chess match.

A feeling began radiating from his heart. At first, he could only identify it as a syrupy heaviness, inexplicable but tangible. The feeling turned into a scent, and then an image. Approaching it cautiously, something opened, like a flower bud in spring. He walked into a dim dream, nightshade, poppy, and lilac.

In his dream, he knelt at the foot of the bed, holding out a single poppy flower as if in offering. Its head drooped slightly, heavy with sticky pollen.

He saw a doll’s polished porcelain face, a mobius loop of silk whirling over peach flesh, the buzzing of bees swarming about the indent of her navel, and she was there.

He broke off a petal and chewed it thoroughly, gazing into the doll’s eyes.

A deep blue light shone through the dangling strands of flower petals, bathed in fragrant honey. He reached out for that doll, blinking seductively up at him from the wooden floor, surrounded by rusted clockwork. She whispered, the hot breath dancing across his earlobe: Follow me, Dionysus.

The doll’s polished mouth opened impossibly wide, and he tumbled down into himself.

On the other side, the first image he saw was Amanda, weaving in front

192

of him, her dreadlocks dancing in fading firelight. Her body was bound in coiling straps of silk, twirling around her like moebius loops. She wore a mask, similar to Suki’s in design but constructed of porcelain.

Where there had been a fire, there was now a shaft, a long corridor leading him beneath the ground. She continued ahead, guiding him through a vast maze of tunnels. The passageways melded into one another, shifting before his eyes. She unswervingly pushed forward, dancing over the stones. Without her he certainly would have been lost.

Implacable wailing greeted him as he entered the light and open air. Squinting, he spun around and saw a dark tree, heavy with babies suspended by their navels from red, pulsing limbs. Amanda, or the entity which he imagined as her, was nowhere to be seen.

The ground was spongy, which made progress slow and exhausting. He passed more of these trees, until finally he saw fog and an endless expanse of foul water.

At the waters edge there was a raft, and a familiar, horrifying figure. The boat – little more than logs lashed together – rocked placidly under him. Large, shiny-skinned spiders crawled across its surface.

“You were the judge, in my dream,” Dionysus said. “Choronzon.”Iris-less white eyes regarded him from under shredded cowls, but

Choronzon neither spoke nor moved.

193

“Take me across the water,” Dionysus said. “It is my right to be here.”Choronzon motioned with a pallid hand wrapped in linens, and began

paddling when Dionysus stepped aboard.“Many lifetimes ago,” Choronzon said, “I was charged with protecting

Dreamtime from half-lucid humans. They can be deadly to us, and senseless to reason as a drunk. I drove many of them mad. But then a shaman named Dreaming Eye came, and we struck a deal. The shamans would train select humans how to dream without damaging our world, and in return, I would frighten strays out of Dreamtime, rather than trapping them here forever. Sealing the Pact cost him his life.”

“I see.” “The last time you and I met – there have been other times, though

you may not recall them – I told you that you were threatening the Pact.” Choronzon spoke to him but looked ahead, over the water. The somber splash of his paddle kept rhythm with his evenly metered words.

“You were lying.”“Yes, and no. Now you are no threat. You have some sense of who and

what you are. Then, you didn’t know. You could have been as dangerous as any other human, staggering about with one foot in the dream and one in the physical. You had to be tempered, broken down, reborn. All who learn to walk here must first be nailed to the cross. Do you understand?”

Dionysus nodded. The paddle came out of the water abruptly, smashing into his head.

Choronzon’s face leered at him as he sank into the water. “The rest of this journey, you won’t remember upon awakening. Dive

under the water, and dive deep, or you won’t step foot in your solid world again.”

I remember staring at myself in the mirror, my face distorted by rage. What I saw there was unfamiliar, though I recognize it as my own. The mirror shattered. My hand, maybe, or someone else’s. Silver splinters float around me like glitter.

“How are you doing today?”My eyes didn’t raise in response to the voice. Gaging by the lattice work

of angry gashes coiling around my arms, I wasn’t doing so well. I could feel his eyes searching my face for something. My face was like

a mask, a dead weight fashioned of heavy and soggy clay, so I found it unsurprising that he should be stonewalled. I still hadn’t moved, or met that prying gaze.

194

Doctor S. W. Jackson. I remember now, a little. Instead of replying, I turn to find bubbling and cracked paint. Columns of mold. Shelves of rat gnawed feces. “Where am I?”

“Unit A, Modular 3. Pennhurst.” “I’m here…for the bombing?” This was unlike the sessions I recalled.

I had been facile, detached. Safe in the knowledge that I could run circles around the doctors, cage them in a prison of words. No, this was different. I was exposed. Naked.

“The bombing?” he asked. “Could you tell me more about that?”Apparently not. I look down at my arms again. The slashes are puffy

and oozing in the first stages of healing. Why am I here? The answer is in that dried web. For a brief but intense moment I am overcome with the sensation of falling, hitting the surface of something, a table, carved with arcane symbols. I was bleeding. Thick, sticky blood, like red semen.

Finally, I peer up at the impenetrable eyes of the doctor. “What year is it?” “I’m supposed to ask you that,” he said. But then he shrugged. “It’s

1982.”“’82? I should be ten years old. Do I look ten to you?” He inspects me, his fingers absently drumming on his desk. “Who do

you think you are?”

I hear footsteps behind me. Orderlies cart me away into cavernous, dark tunnels.

I’m flocked by a procession of ghosts in these tunnels. Dressed in bags, their stained underwear wedged between pitted chicken legs, their eyes black and glassy. It’s hard to believe these creatures were ever human. One of them pushes past the orderly long enough to lay a clammy hand on my forehead.

“Coram sanctissimi Sacramento, sive in tabernaculo asservato sive publicae adorationi exposito, unico genu–” she says, before being elbowed firmly in the ribs and pushed aside. The orderlies have to use more force to keep the gibbering masses back, as

195

they scramble to touch me. Their faces remain serene as their bodies sustain crippling blows, cushioned by religious ecstasy. I am their Jesus.

The room the orderlies leave me in is truly a hole. It is too dark to see anything, aside from the lights of the hall reflecting palely in the stagnant water that pools on the cement floor, but I can tell there is something dead in here with me. It drives me a little mad – being unable to see it, unable to know what is rotting, possibly feet from the wheelchair I’m strapped to.

Being treated like animals, people in here come to behave like animals. Those poor…creatures. To think they were so low they sought salvation in me. I am only a step from a rabid animal myself…rocking back and forth, so much as the restraints will allow, chattering my teeth…The clicking, the rocking, it keeps out the smell. It keeps out the wailing of the other patients, begging for me to save them from the prison of their atrophying flesh and bone. Their hell is all around them. Only death brings serenity, in forgetfulness.

An indeterminable time later, I am carted out to see the doctor again.He eyes me with indifference. I peer over his clipboard, and notice that

it is just a series of check boxes. The details of our lives, of our individuality, reduced to multiple choice questions.

“Why do they think I can save them?” I ask. It has nothing to do with what I am thinking, it just happens to creak from between my lips.

“Who are ‘they’?” “The other patients. They think I can save them.”“Do you think you can save them?”“No, I–” I’m being wheeled out of the room again, as the doctor nonchalantly

makes a couple tick marks on his psychological tic-tac-toe board. “We’re all just being processed,” I say to the orderly, as he leaves me in

the cell with my invisible dead friend. “Ground to cement.”The orderly doesn’t make any sign he’s heard me. Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen their faces. We’re all alone here. Truly and utterly alone.

Without an identity or a past to hide behind, all I have is words. As this asylum sands me down, even they begin to falter, clicking and whirring like rusted, purposeless machines. Empty shells, the Qlippoth. Still, my mind

196

197

dutifully manufactures this dry detritus, an endless stream of questions and commentary that – barely – blots out the annihilation of everything unique or meaningful. Empty shells, maybe, but they are keeping me alive.

These monsters may have broken the other inmates, but I feel something inside me that can’t be chewed up and homogenized. I know what this “doctor” is up to now.

I had a dream the other night that I woke up, dizzy and nauseous. My stomach was full of diamonds; it ballooned out like a condom bloated with cocaine. I shoved my hand down my throat – my whole hand – and vomited up an iridescent rainbow. It shredded my insides as it lurched out of me, a hail storm of diamonds and esophagus, but I woke up laughing. You fuckers, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.

Now, I just have to remember, myself.

The ritual. I am still in the ritual. In the darkness of my cell, I turn the drip of water from the pipes on the walls into the light patter of rain. The squeaking of shoes on the floor becomes crickets. The marsh around me is warm and thick, almost relaxing if it wasn’t for the brine sea smell of decomposition, algae, and salt. The sky is purple, supporting a smoldering orange moon. Vultures circle in the diffuse, sweaty light.

I am naked, crouching amongst the reeds. Smeared with oil and blood, as was decreed in the ritual. I burn the offerings in the cauldron, and wait for him to come.

I breathe in and hold the mask aloft. Crafted from months of whittling and painting, it is now complete. I am at the cross-roads now: in front of the fire in the desert in the present, locked in the cell in the past, submerged in the swamp in the future.

The mask is the skull of a predator. Giant plumes of hair and feathers jut from behind the ridge of spikes along the top. Lifting it up to the light, I inspect it closely, then lower it to my face.

I will become that predator.

( )The next interrogation session is different. I bore into the doctors eyes

and imagine peeling back his eyelids with razor blades.“I know who you are. I know who you work for now. I don’t know if

there is anyone or anything at the top, so this message is for all of you. We’re coming for you. We’re going to take the machine apart a piece at a time if we

198

have to.”His face twitches in the most curious way when I say this. I couldn’t

tell if it was fear or fury, but it was the first time I’d ever seen an emotion register on those features.

I had said my piece. It was time to wake up.

199

Chapter Nine:The Party That Brought The House Down

Testimonial Evidence; from a recording recovered (09/13/08)

Subject: …As usual, I found myself driving through one of those back alleys that I always dread, but I know it’s a shortcut…So I take it, so I can either stop and enjoy a cup of coffee, or make time on a run. I see these three people, and I’m just sitting there, mind you, enjoying my caffeine - if I don’t drink it, I start to get DTs… Interviewer: Can you describe any of these three people? Subject: Well, no…not really. I remember one of them, because she looked right at me, as they emerged from the shadows. One of them looks in, the male, and he asks “Are you available?” I hate it when people ask that, even though the sign at the top is clearly on, which means that I am. Anyway, I had my window rolled down, and I pointed into the back seat. I said, “Sure, get in.” All three of them piled into the back seat. One of them smelled something awful of patchouli, though I couldn’t tell you which. That shit is like the plague. They were talking loudly amongst themselves about something. Interviewer: Did you catch any of their conversa-tion?

200

Subject: No, not really. I was more concerned with their demeanor. I didn’t feel they were go-ing to pay. I honestly knew for certain that they wouldn’t know to tip a taxi driver…I thought they might rob me. Interviewer: Have you ever been robbed before? Subject: Yeah. All the while I’m sitting there, waiting for them to shut up about some philosoph-ical topic they are going on about, and they’re not making any sense in the least. I remember a couple words one of them – one of the boys – was saying. He kept talking about “ontological ter-rorism.” I also remember…they were referring to each other as numbers. One of them was “79” and another one was “81.” I don’t remember the third. It was hard to focus because my mind was flashing back to the past. There was this incident in the desert. I had picked up this fare and he drove me all the way out to Barstow, and demanded that I get in the trunk. I should have known it was too good to be true, a fare like that. He took my money. I remember the crazed look in his eyes as he shut the trunk. Smiling like a demon. I kind of wonder, are these punk kids going to do the same? Interviewer: I believe we have your report on file…it was the Barstow police that found you, am I right? Subject: Yeah. Anyway, as they were shouting, I think I heard the dispatch say something about a fare…Something in West Hollywood. I picked up the CB. I said “No can do, I just picked up a fare. I don’t know where I’m headed yet, let me ask.” I turned around to face them, rather than look in

201

the rear view mirror. I have the little window open, in the back. I half-expected to have one of them pointing a gun in my face at that point. The girl, the one with the dark hair and darker eyes, smiled as she spoke to me, “We are going to see Babalon--” Interviewer: That’s why we have you here. We know you were at that show, everyone else that was in the audience is either in hiding or dead. Subject: Yeah. That’s what she says to me. I press the talk button again. “I’m on my way to someplace called Babalon.” I didn’t know it was an event at that point in time. The dispatcher, a nice girl, but kind of stupid, comes back: “Is that in Rancho Cucamonga?” I tell her that I’ll let her know when I get there. It wasn’t until later that one of the other punks clarified what the dark haired girl had said. It was a rock concert. If you want to call it that. Only now do I realize where I was going, what I was be-ing dragged into. The fuck did I stick around? I probably would have been better off locked in the trunk of my cab in the Mojave.

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

“Two minutes to curtain!”Jesus leaned in close to the mirror, penciling her

eyebrows. Satisfied, she checked the rest of her costume. Her face was painted a pallid greenish-white, and wires

hung down over her eyes like bangs. The right half of her face was covered in computer chips, and she was wearing a skintight black plastic suit. On her hips sat two Ruger Redhawk revolvers, in clunky black holsters. They looked too shiny, too perfect to be real, but she knew otherwise.

From the dressing room, Jesus heard Lilith going back-and-forth with the crowd. Voices rose and fell in unison, chanting three syllables, while Lilith shrieked into her microphone to be heard over the chanting. The crowd was unusually ravenous, tonight. Ravenous and tense, though perhaps the tension was really her own. It came with a bitter taste at the back of the throat. Adrenaline, maybe.

“Let’s go, Jesus,” 506 said, kicking the door open. “Everyone else is smoking one last joint before the show right offstage…and I thought you’d like in on that.”

“Actually, I’m fine.”“Really?” 506’s eyes widened imperceptibly, but they remained calm.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you refuse.”“That’s because I just ate six grams of hash,” Jesus giggled.“Oh. In that case, you’ll want this flare gun, with a mind like yours.

Now go. They’re waiting on you.”The lights came up, and a chill crept up Jesus spine as she lost herself in

the music. Her fingers worked on their own, navigating the fretboard, while she grinned at Dionysus. Fingers plucked, sticks fell to drum heads, speakers shook and the crowd erupted. As the band ground into their first song, Lilith sung with a new ferocity, gesturing wildly and thrashing back and forth in front of the microphone, almost taunting the audience. Never had the band cohered this fully.

After the last notes of the opener lost themselves in the applause, Jesus noticed light streaming in from the doors at the end of the venue. The audience hushed for a moment, and then she saw them swarming towards the door, yelling belligerently.

Flashlight beams cut through the crowd, scanning. A bullhorn boomed, “This is the Los Angeles Country SWAT unit. Everyone get down on the floor now.”

Instead of dropping, the audience continued to surge forward, their bodies rattling against the cops clear shields. For a moment the wave seemed

211

like it would break through the police lines, but then black batons slipped through the line of shields and heads splattered like moldy cantaloupes.

The reports from CS grenade launchers could barely be distinguished from the angry din in the auditorium, but Jesus saw them arc through the air and out into the crowd, just before a dozen armed and armored troops charged through the door, and more rushed in from the wings of the stage.

Almost before she could think, Jesus spun around and smashed the body of her bass into the face of a cop. He fell lifelessly to the stage, his face looking like a Jack-O-Lantern carved by a hyperactive eight year old with lawn clippers.

Dionysus dove behind the drum kit and fumbled for the shotgun hidden in the bass drum. Assault rifle rounds began to stitch up the crowd towards the stage. Each breath he took behind the bass drum felt like an hour. It’s like being in the movies. That is, until the shrapnel hits you.

He peered around the side of the drum. He spotted 506 and Jesus nearby. Artemis and Amanda were up in the scaffolding, providing supporting fire with their crossbows as they worked their way to the back exit, where another group of Bacchante were taking cover behind a cluster of unused PA speakers. But Cody and Lilith were nowhere to be found. Loading rounds into the shotgun, he prepared for his next move.

A cymbal crashed as a cop tried to step around the kit for a clear shot. Dionysus closed the distance to him by springing out of his crouch, sliding past the gun before the cop could squeeze the trigger. He grabbed the cop’s forearm and forced the gun down and away. Gritting his teeth, the cop lurched forward, trying to slam his other elbow into Dionysus’ eye. Instead, it met the side of the shotgun, which Dionysus quickly leveled and discharged into his sneering face. The kick of the rifle, fired without proper bracing, sent Dionysus staggering back into his roto-toms.

More troops advanced as he stumbled over a patch cord and fell headlong toward them. Jesus dropped her bass and slapped holster, clawing at her Rugers.

As the cops brought their assault rifles up on Dionysus, the tops of their heads disappeared backwards in a red mist. The shotgun sat smoking on the drum riser. Jesus grabbed Dionysus and half-pushed him towards where she last heard 506. Cops were falling all around, some with protruding crossbow bolts, others trampled by an audience that had taken too much. Smoke continued to fill the hall as flashlights panned across the mayhem.

A bullet cut the air inches from Jesus’ cheek as chunks and wetness painted her left side.

212

“Eat fucking metal!” 506 yelled from the direction of the blast. Dionysus looked around suddenly. “Where’s Lilith?”“I don’t know. Everybody move! Now!” yelled 506 has he spat out the

pin of a grenade and gestured towards a fire door. As the last of the group passed, he tossed the grenade out towards the stage. The concussion passed them as they scrambled out the door, a ghostly but insistent wave that bent the air and passed right through them.

Jesus almost shot Cody before she recognized him. He stood over a bleeding riot cop, looking down balefully at his shattered guitar.

“It was a horrible thing to do,” he spoke to no one in particular.“It was either him or you. Nothing you could do. Now c’mon,” said

Agent 506.“I meant the guitar.”

( )The firecracker popping of bullets inside haunted them as they rushed

through the dismal alleys behind the venue. Agent 506 was amazed to discover that the reek of urine and decaying fast food were so profound that he actually noticed them, even under such frantic circumstances. Instinctively, mid-thought, he slammed sideways into Jesus and Jessica, knocking them behind a dumpster as an officer entered the alley and sprayed bullets.

Sitting with his back against the rusted metal of the bin, he closed his eyes. He placed the position of Dionysus and Cody so as not to hit them – about ten yards behind, hiding in a side alley. Hopefully they would stay put. Slapping another cartridge into the base of the MP-5 he’d picked up inside, he counted to three before rolling into the alley on his stomach.

Pop, pop, pop. Three rounds cut through the officer. Agent 506 was on his feet before the cop dropped to the concrete, running on his toes, screaming over his shoulder for the others to follow. Every inch of his body felt icy and cold. It wasn’t fear for his own personal safety, but something more profound – horror in the face of the void, the absurd comedy...and this, this man had lived his entire life, suffered through twelve years of tedious public schooling, the ins and outs of life on the street, probably a loveless marriage, and a host of unrealized hopes and dreams, just so he could bleed that life onto this stained pavement, to mingle and dry with the hobo piss–

The hell am I thinking this? He really needed to stop spending so much

213

time with Dionysus. “In the van. In, in, in!” he screamed, firing rounds over their heads as

more officers appeared in the alley. Jessica was leaning heavily on Jesus as they approached.

He waited to hear the whoosh of the door closing before he slammed the van in reverse, and crunched over whomever was ruining their paint job with 9mm rounds. Punching it into drive, he shot out of the alley.

“Jesus, I need you up front. Help me navigate, I want to avoid highways.”

There was no response. “Jesus! I said I need y–”“–Hold on…Jessica’s been hit.” Her voice sounded shaky. “Is it bad?” Where are my damned cigarettes? The sound of fabric shredding was the only reply.It was Jessica that finally responded. “It’s okay. I’m bleeding a lot…But it

looks like just a gash. I don’t think the bullet is even in me…If you hadn’t of knocked me behind that dumpster though…”

Dionysus spoke up. “Lilith…I didn’t see her inside. I didn’t see her in the alley. Was she with…? We have to go back.”

“The fuck you say,” Agent 506 said. “We can’t just abandon her!” Dionysus said, his voice cracking like a

thirteen year old boy.“She’s either in custody or dead. If she’s alive, we can talk about rescue

later. If we all die right now, it’s kind of moot, don’t you think? Now do something useful, like keeping Jessica from bleeding out all over the carpet. And Jesus? …Help?”

As Jesus slid into the front passenger seat and fumbled around with the maps, Agent 506 looked into the rear-view mirror with a slightly queasy feeling. It wasn’t so much what he saw there as what he didn’t see that made him feel uneasy. Why the hell weren’t there any cops tailing them?

“Where do you want to go?” Jesus asked. “Into the desert. Deep into the desert.”“And when we get there?”“One thing at a time.”

( )Trevino paced behind the one-way mirror. On the other side sat the

most appealing creature he had ever set eyes on – forget that she stood for

214

everything in the world that he loathed – caged in a dingy, pastel-tiled room that looked like a stripped middle school bathroom.

Lilith sat with her hands folded in front of her, calmly inspecting her handcuffs. She was still wearing the form fitting leather outfit she wore on stage. Her hair rose in multiple ponytails from her scalp and cascaded around her bare shoulders.

Why had she offered herself so willingly? She was like a sphinx when they arrested and cuffed her. As they took her from the venue, she smiled shamelessly at him as she passed. Trevino, a veteran of countless firefights, one official war and many unofficial ones, caught himself blushing. This was just one more odd development in what was turning out to be the most bizarre case he had ever worked.

He marched into the room. Lilith turned to regard him, a kitten playing with a length of ribbon.

Trevino looked down at her, trying to appear intimidating though he felt anything but, and it made him furious. He lit a cigarette and pulled out a chair.

“They didn’t unbind you?” he asked.“Nah,” she said, “I prefer it this way.”She locked gazes with him. For a moment he could think of nothing but

the image of her, still bound, on all fours, yielding to him.Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he finally sat.“Your life is forfeit now. You must know that. Terrorists don’t get the due

process of law.”She didn’t react or respond.He tapped out another smoke, offering it to her.“Why worry about cancer now, right?” he asked. “I don’t normally, unless I’m drinking, but…sure.” She extended her hands and took the cigarette, still giving him that

devouring stare.“You don’t have any good port, do you?” she asked.“No,” Trevino said flatly.“Oh well,” she said. “Jesus introduced me to it. Now I just can’t seem to

get enough.” “Tell me what you know. What you tell me will determine how things

go for you, from there,” he said, after lighting her cigarette. For some reason watching her smoke while handcuffed was even more distracting.

“It’s all crumbling around you,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what they do. There’s too much momentum.”

215

“What I want to know is plans, names, targets. Dates.”She laughed, and continued when he didn’t smile. “My God you must

be joking. Plans? You don’t understand what’s going on at all, do you?”“Why don’t you explain it to me.”“I saw this really fascinating show on the Discovery Channel about ants.

It was just amazing watching them move together. Attack together. Flee together. But, well sure they have a queen, but she’s just like their bloated sugar momma. No one is giving orders...”

“I don’t kn–”“I’m answering your question, Mr. Trevino.” “Agent Trevino.”“Dionysus could probably put it better in words. Or bigger ones

anyhow…but he isn’t here right now. The point is – you’ll make legends of them with your bullets. Protesters will knock down your gates if you lock them away. The people like us. The people want us. We’re out gunned but if you make this happen, you’ll find out that you’re outnumbered. You’d have to kill us all.”

“At this point, that might be exactly what happens,” Agent Trevino said.“When I say ‘us’…I’m not even talking about our fans, or our

associates.” “Now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me who the others are.” She lifted up her cigarette towards him. “Hey, could you move the

ashtray over here?…Thanks. No, you don’t understand. Do you think the course of history is really determined by any one man, or any one group? Everything happens because of something else. It’s only in hindsight that we call out a Hitler or an Einstein and say, ‘There. That’s where that started.’”

“You’re saying– ?”“Everyone.”He paced for a minute, flicking his Zippo open and closed with the back

of his hand. She’s fucking nuts. Everyone seems to be these days. “I can bring other agents in here…People who would be far less…sympathetic.”

“Aw. Your chest beating is so cute. I can give you much more than information. I can give you them. I’m just telling you, out of politeness, that it isn’t going to work out the way you think.”

“You mean you intend to– ”“Yes.”

As Lilith was escorted to a holding cell, Trevino flipped open his cell phone. His eyebrows knitted together as he stared at a phone number,

216

displayed on the screen. The door slammed behind Lilith, and Trevino was left alone with his

thoughts.The pieces didn’t fit. He had to find out.Finally, he pressed the green button, and waited for the expected voice

on the other end.“…Adam?”“Sheila. Yeah, it’s me. We have to talk.”“You still on that assignment?”“Yeah, that’s what I want to talk to you about…”“I saw the recent reports. You caught one of them, eh? No ghosts this

time, either. You’ll be back in the saddle in no time.”“Let’s stop for a minute, Sheila…and talk like two human beings, not

characters on Law and Order.” He took her silence as agreement. That, or she was hunting for that

damned legal pad again. “The Agency that you connected me with…I’m assuming they’re

outsourced, operating under one of the think tank groups, hire out their mercenaries themselves to get dirty work done…”

“What’s this all about Adam? You’re not wondering if they’re legit are they?”

“I’m wondering if…any of this is legit.”“Well, to answer your question, with Google and half a brain you could

find out they are legitimate. They got their seed money from Haliburton. They’re good for the contract, believe me.”

“That’s not what I meant…Whatever, it was rhetorical in the first place, I was trying to get to a point.”

“Get there. I want to have lunch and I know how much you hate it when I chew on the phone.”

“I’m thinking of having them call in their mercs to work with me and bring these guys down. I’ll have no trouble sleeping if I put a bullet in all their heads. What is eating at me is that they fled into the desert with a lot of civilians…”

“They’re all terrorists, then.”“That’s what I’m getting at. Do you have any idea how many fans these

guys have? What happened at that concert was a fucking bloodbath. And they’re incidental compared to some of these other ‘domestic terrorists’ we’ve been tracking. …Add in all of the groups we haven’t found, and all the…”

“Okay, I get it now. You called me up right before my lunch break to try

217

to assuage your conscience so you can go out and kill a lot of people in the name of freedom.”

“I wouldn’t–”“Neither would I. …Good fucking God, Adam. You’re so naïve.”“You don’t worry about right and wrong at all, do you? Wh–”“–They don’t pay me to. I’m hungry. You want to be fully reinstated? Do

your job. If you can’t do your job, they’ll find someone who can and you can get fat in front of the daytime soaps. Either way, find someone else to call you a hero. I already did you a favor. Beyond that, I could give a damn.”

The phone went dead. He stared ahead with glassy eyes, stubbornly finishing his thought aloud, “What I wanted to know is what’s the blowback from this going to be?”

He sat down and lit another cigarette.

( )The cinder block walls were starting to warp before Chloe’s eyes.

Apparently an hour of isolation under harsh lights after being beaten to the ground by cops was bringing on a mild flashback. Her hands, already tender from the batons, were painfully cuffed behind her back. Hopefully there was a way out of this mess. After all, they hadn’t killed her yet.

The door swung open, and a business-like, almost mechanical man approached. He crisply opened a file, and began perusing its contents in a way that told her there wasn’t actually anything there.

“I’m Agent Greene.” His jaw and neck were unnaturally broad, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’ll call you Rambo and you can call me Rainbow Brite.” Without saying a word, he unholstered his gun and laid it solidly on the

table in front of him. “You are Cheryl Chloe McDowell. Never in my life has cute impressed

me. Fly straight with me girl, or I’ll blow your head off.” “What the fuck? Why am I here? I’ve done nothing illegal. That was like

Kent State…Worse. Laos. Baghdad. You just rolled in there and…” He looked up and closed the file. “When did you join this group?” “I…I want a lawyer.” He laughed, and stopped abruptly. The effect was jarring. “Honey, do I

look like a cop to you?” “A feder–”

218

“Yeah. And I’m holding you as an enemy combatant. Do you understand what kind of latitude that gives me?”

Unfortunately, she did. She bunched her lips together, and tried to compose herself.

Finally she said, “I’m an American.” “You’re a terrorist. So, no. You are dirt. You’re worse than dirt. I suggest

you help me out or things are going to get ugly, real fast. I can have them warm up a cell for you in Gitmo. Trust me, I don’t care what kind of training you think you got from these hooligans, you wouldn’t do well there.”

“Alright, what do you want to know? I don’t have much of use to you. A lot of mind-blowing experiences I doubt you’d relate with…You want to know about the hawk-headed god I spoke to after I smoked DMT and fell through the Earth? No, see, I didn’t think so. What happened after I met them? After the show, I joined them in the van and we went off into the desert. I spent the night having some of the best sex of my life. We went from show to show, I couldn’t begin to remember all the cities we visited. I lived with them. At first, it was a bit like being a groupie I guess, but as time went on I started to realize a new independence I’ve never…Why the hell am I telling you this?”

“You’re scared. Let’s begin. Where does their funding come from?”“I don’t know.”“You lived with them how long, exactly?”“Six months. I told you that already.”“Right. My point is…in that time, you expect me to believe you never

found out how you were eating, how you were fueling your van?” “We – the girls – we had what we needed. I heard Lilith on the phone

a couple times talking to someone about needing money sooner or something, but I don’t know who he was, and I didn’t pry.”

He jerked forward and punched her in the temple, without any sign of emotion. She landed painfully on the concrete floor. He made no moves to help her up as she rolled onto her back, having a hard time standing with her hands bound behind her back.

He cracked his knuckles. “Who trained you?” She collapsed back into the chair. Her right eye was already puffy and

gashed, an angry red line slashing through her eyebrow where her piercing had torn the skin.

“Jesus Christ. Was that really necessary?” “Who trained you?”

219

“If you’re talking about military tactics, Agent 506. Artemis taught us combat. Dionysus…I don’t know exactly.” She smiled. “He rambled a lot and somehow in the long run it wound up being relevant. I think. I didn’t spend much time with Lilith, she was kind of a figurehead, and honestly she wasn’t as friendly as the rest. Not to me, anyway. You know, I’m telling you this because it doesn’t make a bit of difference if you know or not.”

“Who is Agent 506? His real name, his background.” “The hell should I know? He’s a genius though, I’ll tell you that.” His hand raised again, threateningly, but she just looked at him dumbly. “Go ahead. You can hit me all you want, I still won’t know. He was a

good friend, but none of us talked about our past much.” “What is your mission?”“My mission?”He grinned, though it looked more like a grimace. “The royal you.”“I tour around with a band. What do you think our ‘mission’ is?”“You were obviously trained with a purpose.”“Yeah, to defend ourselves.”“How’d that work out?” He stood up and started pacing. “Don’t answer

that.”“Wasn’t intending on it.”“That van of yours, you could fit maybe eleven or twelve in there?”“Yeah…” “There are more of you than twelve in the ‘inner circle.’”“Inner circle?” “Whatever you want to call it. What I’m wondering is–”“Where do the others stay?”“Yes.”“I’m sure there’s a police report with that information in it. They found

us not too long ago. Don’t expect to find anyone there now though, we took to the road. There’s more than one van.”

“Do you know why we didn’t take up pursuit when the others got out of the venue?” Agent Green asked, smirking in a way that told her she wasn’t going to like the answer.

She didn’t give an answer, so he continued anyway. “Not all of you were at that show. We knew that. But now, all your sympathizers are going to crawl out of their holes, and we can take care of the lot of you all at once.”

She felt a sinking feeling. Not so much because of what he was saying – she had assumed as much, and she felt they were underestimating her friends, which put things in their favor. It was what these words implied

220

that concerned her. He wouldn’t tell her such things if he had any expectation of her getting out to tell them what was coming.

“Yeah,” she said, blankly.Sitting down and intertwining his gloved fingers, the Agent brooded for

a moment. He believed her. She had nothing of use to him. Damn.“We have no further reason to hold you.”He walked sternly out of the room without waiting for a reply. A feeling

of relief flooded through her body.“Dispose of her,” he said to the guard outside the door as he passed.

( )For weeks, the drums beat a steady rhythm, unceasingly, as the days

passed. The campfires, at first a grouping of a couple dozen, twinkling like a small constellation at night, had grown to hundreds, mirroring the cloudless sky above. Hydrogen fuel cells and generators arrived, and with them, giant strobes, black-lights, and speakers, churning an endless stream of psytrance into the desert air.

Dionysus sat alone on a small rock plateau surveying the lights beneath. The wind carried the bite of both sand and cold with it, and he pulled his blanket closer around him.

His thoughts were on Lilith. Was she still alive? Had they tortured her? Images of the times they had spent together, the private times when she had let down her pretense, washed over him, chafing his insides.

He heard the tinkling of stones skipping down the trail, and spoke without moving.

“Amanda?”Her footfalls had become familiar. Someone else was with her.“We’ve come up here to make you quit your brooding anti-hero

bullshit.” Two hands perched on his shoulders, a chin rested lightly on his head. Another hand reached in front of him, holding a palm full of bruised blue mushroom caps.

Finally he turned around, to find himself looking into Amber’s enormous pupils. A smirk was plastered on her face.

“My God girls, do you ever stop?”Amber just wiggled her hand a little.Mock-sighing, Dionysus scooped up the shriveled fungus and chewed it

slowly.“You know I really don’t need these anymore,” he said, talking around

221

the caps. “I’ve opened all those doors already. I can–”“Shut up and chew, grandpa,” Amanda said from behind, patting him

on the head.When he finished the first handful, Amber showed her other hand.Dionysus sighed for real this time.

Hours, eons, or seconds later, the three of them were seated on an airplane. Two aisles across. Dionysus guessed it was a 767 wide-body, and didn’t bother to wonder how they got there. He glanced at the pamphlets in the seat in front of him, but only found a couple palm sized rocks.

The engines thrummed along pleasantly, interrupted by the occasional polite cough. Amanda turned to Dionysus.

“How did we get here?” she asked.“How long have we been here?” Dionysus replied, shrugging helplessly.The three of them sat silently for a moment. A stewardess passed them,

asking if they needed anything in an annoying whisper.“Where are we going?” Amber asked.Squinting out the window, Dionysus only saw blackness at first, and

then flashing lights at the end of the wing. Wrapping his hands around the glass to block out glare, he moved closer and waited for his night vision to adjust.

Instead of seeing the telltale lights of a city, he saw a black shape shoot across the wing.

“What are the chances, do you think, that a marsupial or simian could survive on the wing of an airplane, traveling at five hundred miles an hour, at thirty five thousand feet?” he asked, pulling away.

“A what or a what?” Amber asked.“A marsupial or a simian,” Amanda said.“Like a, um. Lemur. But faster. …And meaner.” Dionysus squinted out

the window again, chewing on one of his nails pensively.“Oh,” Amber said.The plane suddenly jolted, lurching violently to one side. The lights

flickered, and oxygen masks descended from the overhead compartments like giant flaccid testicles.

“Those look like–” Amber said.Amanda giggled.Everyone else in the cabin screamed for their lives. An announcement

was blaring through the tinny speakers, but Dionysus ignored it, instead glancing out the window again with scientific curiosity.

222

“Bloody things are tearing the engines off,” he said.He took another look. “They don’t really look so much like marsupials

anymore though.”Amanda laughed hysterically as the plane plummeted through the

clouds.

Metal sheered and shrieked as thousands of pounds of glass powderized and huffed into the air in a rainbow cloud. It twirled gracefully around the plane, like dragons on Chinese New Year, as Macy’s crumbled.

Books, stuffed animals, overcoats, and televisions poured from the shelves around the plane as it shuddered past the jewelry aisle and a flock of slack jawed housewives. The plane’s double tires splattered all the would-be shoppers that had the misfortune of being in its path. They popped like cherry tomatoes all the way from what was left of Macy’s down to the food court, where the shattered plane finally came to a lurching stop in front of Taco Bell.

All was silent in the smoldering cabin, charred black with smoke and fire. Outside the plane, the lights of rescue vehicles flashed, but there were no survivors, and no vehicles.

Dionysus turned towards Amber, about to comment on how odd it was that they were still alive, when he saw her bite her lip and close her eyes. Sitting behind her, Amanda was licking her ear and running her hand between Amber’s slowly parting thighs.

The thought did cross his mind – for a moment – that this was an unusual time for sex. But only for a moment.

One of his hands wandered under Amber’s shirt, finding her nipples hard. The other gently lay on top of Amanda’s damp fingers as they explored under Amber’s skirt.

Looking at him through wisps of Amber’s hair, Amanda smiled and hiked up her skirt further.

Taking the hint, he leaned over, kissing his way up her thigh. She shivered appreciatively. As he leaned forward on his hands, he felt his hands sink into the dust.

He looked around. They were on the plateau. The drums were beating in the distance.

“We weren’t on a plane,” Dionysus said matter-of-factly, looking up at Amanda past Amber’s now exposed breasts.

“Guess not.”Shrugging, Dionysus leaned forward again.

223

Chapter Ten:Ground Zero

The daytime sun burst in hard and strong, replacing the fey magic of the night before with sweat and a headache. Dionysus pulled the blinds shut and closed his eyes.

One of the computer terminals was beeping. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and plunked down solidly on the floor of the van.

A message flashed on the screen. It was a teleconference request from Agent 140.

Accepting the feed, Dionysus grinned feebly at the video camera and waved.

Agent 140 didn’t return the smile.“Listen to me compadre, and doncha dare talk until I’m done. I’ve been

monitoring several communications…I know where they’re holding Lilith, but that’s not–”

“–Lilith?”“Didn’t I just tell you to wait until I’m done? Yeah. I’m sorry. You’ve got

bigger problems, friend. All at once. You remember Ningusimo?”“Ningus–?”

224

“Agent 222, you told me he contacted you from a cell down South…”“Right, right. What about them?”“Dead. All dead. I don’t know why, but they were crawling around some

kinda underground labyrinth of a sewer system in Belgrano when a water main burst and the culvert flooded. The bodies were pulled out yesterday.”

“I–”“It gets worse. Agent 036? Last I heard from him, he said he had to go

underground. Something ‘bout a prank they were playing in a mall, gone bad. Cops busted 156, drug charges, but you know that isn’t why they took him…Then he just fucking disappears.”

“I don’t know wha– Jesus…”“You also have an agent of some kind tailing your ass…have for some

time. Adam Trevino. I’d pass on the information I’ve dug up, but there just isn’t time. The hammer is coming down. Hard. Do you know anything about what’s been happening in military intelligence? New American Century?”

“I–”“It’s been private sector since the second Iraq war. Inside deals,

companies founded by Haliburton…Doesn’t matter. Point is these companies have private mercenary forces. They’re mainly used to do dirty work abroad, but sometimes they’re mobilized…secretly…inside the US. Charge an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it when the military needs to stay clear.” As was often the case, some of his redneck charm and bluster disappeared when he was rattled.

“OK. You realize I just woke up, right?” Dionysus leaned back in his chair.

“Get 506 and Artemis in here, now.”“What?”“Mobilize now or you’re all going to be dead by sundown.”

( )Gunshots echoed through the rocky faces of the plateaus. The shadows

grew longer, yet still the battle continued as the Bacchante lured the mercs back into dead ends, coming at them from craggy overhangs and then slipping away into darkness. It was an old approach, old as Thermopylae, but in this terrain the mercs had little choice but to either give up pursuit or take the punishment as they struggled for an advantageous position.

Still, as in the days of the first American Revolution, the rebels were

225

out gunned, and technology had come a long way since muskets and cannons. Precise sniping and LAW-induced rock slides turned many of the Bacchante’s bodies into abstract art, sprayed across the almost Martian landscape.

Agent 506 perched silently on the side of a plateau, surveying the pass below with binoculars.

He spotted a group of mercs down below. Apparently their mines taught a harsh lesson. Caltrops, in clusters every three or so feet. Bury the mines in the ground in-between. Artemis flashed him a sign to wait until the mercs were in the middle of the clearing. This was a horrific game of Cowboys and Indians.

It was a blessing these mercs didn’t seem to have any airborne artillery. The game would be up if they called in a couple tactical air strikes. A couple F-35’s in the air and an M-1 or two in conjunction with the present ground force, and this would have been over hours ago. Were they expecting a band of ruffians?

An hour or so ago he heard the distant whomping of helicopter rotors. After feeling icy sweat rise to his brow, he quickly got a bead on it – a lone, antiquated UH-1H Huey, probably trying to survey their position and

226

relate it back to the troops on the ground.They forced it to disengage with a couple well-placed shots. He guessed the answer lay in the fact that they were facing hired

mercenaries. The Government didn’t want their hands dirtied by the PR fallout from unleashing the National Guard on thousands of civilians. It wasn’t good politics, at least without due process. Wipe them out quickly, then blame it on someone else. Kill the surviving mercs, maybe. Who knows?

He made a couple quick hand gestures to the group positioning themselves on the opposite bluff. Artemis caught his signal and made signs to the rest of her group. They moved into position.

( )A hawk circled above, keening bitterly. Agent 506 fired off a single shot,

drawing the merc’s attention – in the wrong direction. He was out of sight by the time they got a bead on him. Artemis’ group, who were positioned on the other side of the ravine, rained rocks on them, the rest unleashing a silent volley of razor sharp crossbow bolts. There was sporadic return fire. She dropped to one knee and took aim with her weapon.

Amber took a shot to the face that splattered warm blood across Artemis’ shirt.

Artemis didn’t register anything except a quick nod when her bolt silenced her friend’s assassin. There would be plenty of time for mourning later. Now it would just slow her down. A tenth of a second could be the difference between enjoying a glass of whiskey later with friends and holding her guts.

This cluster of mercs were taken care of. The Bacchante slunk back into the shadows, seeming to melt into the rock itself.

( )As they wound their way further into the cliffs and plateaus, Artemis

held up a hand, which was a signal to stand still. The crevasse was narrowing, and split in two directions. She glanced at Agent 506, and he nodded his head. They had to split up to divert the focus of their enemy. Close quarters worked to their advantage, given their skill and armament.

Gesturing towards one group, she pointed down the left passage. Then

227

she pointed to herself, Jessica, Amanda, Jesus, and three of the other girls, and motioned towards the other.

Artemis’ group moved noiselessly through this winding path of loose rocks and shrubs. In the shadows of the cool rock faces, many small plants and animals could find a daytime shelter from the unrelenting sun. Ahead, there was a glen of squat trees with broad branches that created a mostly sheltered canopy. Despite the far off sound of gunfire, birds continued to chirp here. The space had the feel of sanctuary to it.

“Ah, perfect. Take up positions in there,” she whispered. She could sense the troops following them, but they were a little ways off. “If I go down, you can slip away through that second path behind that tree and meet up with the others. If not, you’ll have a good vantage point to give me supporting fire.”

“Why? Where are you going?” Jessica asked.Artemis pointed to a ledge, maybe seven feet up the side of the wall,

which was angled away from the path they had just come from. Amanda gave her a concerned look, but she waved it off.“I trained you, girl. Remember, they can only shoot what they can see.”

She smiled. “Just watch my back, okay? Now go.”

Several minutes later, the light crunching steps of approaching mercenaries could be heard. Along with providing the tactical advantage of location, the glen seemed to act as an amplifier for sound within the stone passageways between the plateaus.

Ten of them entered the clearing. Artemis took a deep, slow breath. Taking aim with her two repeating crossbows, the two in the rear went

down with barely a whimper. Two.As she predicted, the group whipped around and fired a burst at her

hiding spot, but she had already dropped to the ground, falling into a roll both to lessen impact and to make up some of the distance between them. A cluster of birds took flight from the trees.

She came out of her roll, firing two shots as she went. Two more free tracheotomies, spraying crimson from the neck and firing wildly as they fell.

Four.She was in their midst, several submachine guns swinging in her

direction. Dropping like a bag of rocks, she wrapped her legs around one of the soldiers and yanked, uprooting him. His head connected with a nearby

228

stone with a wet smack. Five. But now she was on the ground, and had less than a second to get out of

the way of their guns. She rolled to her feet again and made a mad leap to the side.

Streaks of black whistled in from the trees, hamstringing one soldier and harpooning another through both arms. He still managed to fire off a burst in Artemis’ direction, which twisted her around with the force of impact.

She let out a howl and lunged behind the soldier who had been shot in the leg, wrapping her arm around his neck as she slid past. One of his trigger happy comrades stupidly slammed several armor piercing bullets into his chest and blew his organs all over her already blood-soaked shirt. She shoved him forward into the soldier who had fired, as she launched a bolt over his shoulder.

He grinned, thinking she had missed, only to see another of his comrades fall face first beside him, with bolts in both arms, and now one in the neck.

Six. Seven. He looked back up in time to see Artemis’ face rushing towards his,

shrieking like a Valkyrie as she came. At the last moment she lowered her head, head-butting him and knocking him back several steps.

Sensing that she was about to be fired on from behind, she dropped and rolled again. A hail of bullets perforated the chest of the stunned soldier she had just head-butted. From her position on the ground, she twisted around and put another bolt into the neck of her would-be assailant.

Eight. Nine. There was just one left, and he had his gun trained directly on her. However, he didn’t fire, as her dual, semi-automatic crossbows were also

trained on her favorite target, the jugular vein. “How many shots you have in those things?” he asked.

“Enough. I guess there’s no chance you could just leave?” she asked.“No way, bitch,” he said. When another series of twangs came from the direction of the trees, she

rolled to the side like a barrel down a hill. The bolts found their mark, and sure enough on his way down he fired off a burst where she had been, the bullets shattering rock and skittering harmlessly around the glen.

Ten. “Uggg,” she groaned. As the adrenaline began to wear off she could

feel the shot in her shoulder, could feel her left arm starting to stiffen. She

229

gingerly peeled back the torn cloth around the wound and was pleased to see that the bullet, though it had torn some muscle, struck at an odd angle and didn’t embed or hit anything vital.

“I thought you told us to never fight from the ground unless someone puts you there,” Amanda said, still in the trees.

“Eh. That’s in hand-to-hand,” Artemis said, gritting her teeth. “As 506 told you, get out of the line of fire however you can, and never run straight away. You present minimum aspect when you move laterally, or better yet, roll behind cover. Now, could one of you get over here and help me bandage this, I’m sure more are coming. We need to move.”

( )Trevino surveyed the pock-marked bluffs ahead as he awaited a response

from the group of scouts he had just sent into the ravine. It was a costly gambit, but his concern in this matter was not the Bacchante as a whole, nor was it with their fans, unwashed masses with dreadlocks and crossbows. His mission was to remand Dionysus, Agent 506, and Jesus. In an ideal world, he would capture them, bring them back, and find out what the hell this was all about. Even capturing one of them could accomplish that goal.

A signal came through his ear piece. It reported a sighting of Dionysus on the far left plateau. He could send Lilith up there and try his ploy. Of all of them, it was mostly likely to work on him.

The message broke into static, words pummeled and sliced to shards by gunfire and screams.

Silence. He gritted his teeth and lit what seemed like the ten-thousandth cigarette of the day. Suddenly, the Loony Tunes theme song started playing in his head, at an incredible tempo. He tried to shut it out but it only got louder.

He sucked in another breath of tobacco and fiberglass and god knows what else. Sometimes, just for a second, he wondered if the entire world, everybody from the cardboard-box-ten-layers-of-clothes, reek-of-cheap-alcohol-and-rotten-meat “go’way tryin’ ta schleep” homeless to Mary fucking Teresa were toys in the attic. God existed, and he was at the tail end of a seven-billion-year PCP binge.

Another drag. Fuck it. He picked up the communicator. “Bring another scout group around

that bluff, and position an assault force to strike from the other side when they draw fire.”

230

He turned, and paused for a moment, unable to resist sucking in breath when he locked gazes with the beauty that stood beside him.

All he got was another lung full of poison.“You’re ready to do this?” he asked.She just winked.

( )“Alright. Put your finger here and hold. I need pressure on this, Jesus.” “Like this?” Jesus pressed the intersection of torn t-shirt strips over a

folded square of cloth. “Yes. Get a good seal and I’ll tie it.” Jessica relaxed a little. Gunfire

crackled from all around them, but none seemed an immediate threat. At the very least, they were not yet drawing fire. Artemis was unconscious, but no longer bleeding.

“Are you sure we should just leave Artemis here?” “I know it seems ghastly Jesus, but what else can we do? She’s hurt,

unconscious and bleeding. Seems stable, but I’m not a doctor. We need to stay alive, same as her, but we’ll never make it out carrying someone else. I–”

Jessica screamed and fell face first. Jesus dropped her hands to her pistols as pain erupted in her neck. She fumbled with her Rugers, but they were too heavy to lift.

A masked figure in army fatigues strode out into the clearing and waved a comrade in. “Give her another one, then carry on with the plan. 506 told you she’d be a hard one to drop.” Comrade raised the rifle and sighted.

“Sweet dreams, Jesus.”

( )Cactus and brush passed seemingly endlessly as Lilith walked

purposefully through these familiar paths. They held many memories of training the girls for the past year, firelight conversations, the half-remembered nights spent in different tents, drinking salty kisses. Now, alone, her mind was clear, like a mirror without an expectant gaze.

These memories didn’t haunt her, even with the knowledge that she was setting out to betray them. Her success demanded a blood sacrifice.

Gunfire crackled sporadically in the distance, though it seemed to be

231

dying down. She followed her instinct, traveling down a narrow side-passage through the cliffs. Sure enough, as she passed into the towering bluffs and felt the cool air on her skin, she could also feel eyes on her. A familiar voice broke the silence, a strained whisper.

“Lilith! Get over here. It isn’t safe!”It was Dionysus, that fool.She sauntered in his direction, finding him and Agent 506 crouched in

the darkness between two large rocks. Perching atop one of them, she let out a small sigh. “Long time no see, boys.”

The expression on Dionysus’ face was conflicted. Elation, confusion and anxiety. Agent 506’s expression was clear as day – skepticism and muted rage.

“Keep your voice down before you get us all killed. What happened?”She shrugged, looking off towards the horizon to catch the final sliver of

sunlight slipping away. “I was caught. Questioned. Escaped.”His eyes narrowed. You don’t go through that and brush it aside without

so much as a tremor in your voice. If she was caught and questioned they would have worked her over. Even Lilith wasn’t so hard as to go through interrogation without some scars, of one kind or another. She’d play it off, but he would feel it.

She’s lying. Question is, to what end?He took a small sip off of his canteen. “What did you tell them? – No,

never mind that. I need to know but now isn’t a time for exposition. We were split off from the rest of the group…they’ve wised up, now we’re on the defensive. Lost communication with everyone else. Could all be dead for all I know.”

Shrugging again, she slipped into the crack with them, moving her warm body close to Dionysus as she kissed his cheek. “Listen,” she whispered. “I talked to Agent Trevino…he’s the one that’s been tailing us for months. He wants you alive. It’s part of his orders. I can have them call off the attack…save our girls. They don’t need to die here. I got away once, I can help you get away too.”

Agent 506 looked over at Dionysus, who was smiling like a daft school boy. Agent 506 wasn’t buying it for a second. No way this Agent Trevino would clue her in, unless they were working together. Maybe he’d make up some bullshit story to get her to do what he wanted, but he was more ready to believe Lilith was a two-faced liar than an easily duped pushover.

“No deal,” he said. “Since when did you start negotiating for the feds?”“I’m just trying to get us out of this thing,” she said, a pleading look in

232

her eyes.He saw a sharp edge in that look, however. She isn’t pleading, it’s a fucking

ultimatum…No time to fact check. Time to make a move.“Tell me Lilith…just how close did you and this Trevino character get?”

Agent 506 prodded, his hand snaking down towards his belt.“What do you mean?”Playing dumb. That’s fine, buys me time.He reached for his gun.He never planned on firing, just using the gun as leverage for more

reliable information.That chance never came. Somehow, she had a knife in his throat before

his gun was ever at the ready. His last coherent thought was depressingly paltry. He’d always wanted a long monologue, like you get in the movies.

All he got was – Not like this?

Dionysus shook as he watched blood pour from his friend’s neck to the thirsty sand. Their conversations had been a constant part of Dionysus’ life for more than a decade. It had shaped their ideas about both themselves and the world more than either cared to admit. Suddenly that world was being drawn to an early, irrevocable end.

There was nothing he could do. He knew a mortal wound when he saw one. So far from medical assistance, there wasn’t even a point in trying to help. There was only time for vengeance.

Something momentarily stayed his hand.“Why?!” was all he could force between his teeth. She looked at him blankly. “You’re like a kid asking why the sky is blue.” “You built us up just to have us publicly disassembled? Is that it?”“I’m a force of nature. If you full realized what you are, you would be

too. Look at you, your animal body quivering. Your mind spinning. You could be a God!”

He smiled grimly. “What makes you think I’m not?” “Because you’re in knots. Look at the game, not the pieces. See the whole

board.” There she was again, hands on her hips, so certain.“Then you should thank me.” “Thank you for what?” she asked, the subtlest trace of confusion tainting

her placid demeanor.“Setting you free,” he said, with crushing finality.She was gazing into the dark barrel of a gun. Her eyes widened in horror.The black went white, then womb red.

233

Her body collapsed in slow motion, like a skyscraper.

Dionysus stood frozen in place. Her words rang in his head long after the sharp crack of the gunshot echoed back at him from the impassive walls of the canyon. The name “Dionysus” never sat quite right with him. He couldn’t distance himself from his flesh and blood now enough to really be now and own that name, though again and again he was brought right to the edge. The depth of the abyss below made him recoil.

The gun in his hand did not shake. He felt no remorse, no rage. He was merely a channel for what had to be done. How it was that a brutal act of revenge elevated him to some kind of Demigod-hood, he wasn’t sure. But the certainty was there, sitting comfortably in the part of his stomach that usually housed fear and uncertainty.

My God, he thought, looking down at her shattered body, still twitching and spurting black blood. Whatever made Lilith Lilith was still as it always had been. Everywhere and nowhere. She howled between the rocks as the first proto-humans emerged from an ice age. In the strip club, between the grinding of flesh and bulging slacks, the passing of coke-speckled cash from sweaty hand to hand – she was there. In the flash of new lust that tears apart commitment and restraint to birth new life in feverish passion – she was there, too. Forever.

But she wasn’t here.Here were two blood soaked corpses, fit to be carrion come the dawn.Maybe, in a way, Lilith was right. The Gods are monsters, terrible and

beautiful as a tornado. To them eternity is not the procession of disparate lives so much as an ever-shifting singularity. The distinction is subtle, a mere hairs-breadth that distinguishes man from God. The surface of a pond may ripple in the wind, but the pond is the same. The Gods appear without remorse because they know nothing has changed. A baby born, an entire civilization torn down by a twist of fate – no change.

Smoke still slithered out of the barrel of the gun. The Gods are monsters, and so am I.

( )Trevino could barely make out the conversation the pilot was having

with the men on the ground over the deafening beating of the helicopter blades. It was clear enough they had spotted Dionysus moving alone and out in the open, bare chested and covered in blood. His capture was nearly

234

assured.Normally at this point in a mission he would feel professional

satisfaction, even elation, but this time he just felt sick. He had been following orders, sure, but he knew many of the people that died today were just misguided kids. That was true on both sides of the line. What if those rigid lines – the good guys over here, the bad over there – weren’t real at all? Also, if Dionysus was moving alone, Lilith’s plan had probably failed. If he was moving alone, she very well may be dead.

It was possible Agent 506 or Jesus were still alive. Possible, though unlikely. It didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered now was trying to make sense of it all.

Trevino called off the assault. It was time to meet this guy face-to-face.

( )The beating of rotors overhead telegraphed the presence of the helicopter

to Dionysus long before he could see it. It bore down on him, kicking up dust in eddies that danced around his feet, clung to the drying sweat and blood that coated his body. He stopped walking and put his hands on his hips, unmoving as flares trailed in slow arcs, as the black helicopter touched ground.

“What did you do to her?” Trevino asked, stepping out of the helicopter, flanked by men with assault rifles.

Dionysus’ face was unreadable, hidden in shadow. He remained silent for a while. “Agent Trevino? I thought you’d be…I don’t know. Taller.”

“Is she dead?” he continued, taking a couple more steps forward.“What’s it to you?” Dionysus asked.Now it was Trevino’s turn to brood in silence.Dionysus held out his hands. “There’s nothing you can do to me now.

Anything I could have lost, I already did.”Trevino nodded slowly. “You know?” he said, “I believe you.” He looked

back at his men and made a gesture, telling them to stand down. They looked at him quizzically. Ignoring them, Trevino finally closed the gap with an extended arm.

“Have a smoke.”Dionysus tilted his head to the side, taking it in his mouth without

moving his arms from their imaginary bindings. Trevino found himself momentarily startled by this gesture – it vividly brought back the memory of interrogating Lilith. But there was no way Dionysus could have known

235

about that. The two of them stood for a minute, side by side, not making eye

contact. “What I have to tell you,” Dionysus finally said, “you probably don’t

have the ears to hear. You’ve spent all of these months tracking us, looking for a way to pin us down, and then when we went too far, you had what you needed. Here I am. But you’re not smiling. You know as well as I do that this has nothing to do with keeping the peace, or with innocent lives. You know something isn’t right here, and hasn’t been since you were first put on our case. The men that ordered you to find me live on blood, on strife, on power. They aren’t men at all. The forces I work for are primal, agents of chaos and dissent, but also of freedom, and love. So here we are, two soldiers…pawns…of corrupt lieges. I’m happy you can understand us having a smoke together. Talking like two old friends.”

Trevino stared at him dumbly. Some part of him comprehended, and that frightened him a little.

“It’s like this story I heard about these two Samurai…one of them was sent by his Daimyo to kill the other, and in the battle the target spat upon the assassin. And the assassin sheathed his sword and walked away – because if he killed him then, it would have been personal. So now I’m going to tell you something that might make it personal for you. You sent Lilith to betray us, she killed my best friend. I killed her. It was…nothing personal,” Dionysus paused, gauging Trevino’s reaction. The agent’s jaw clenched a moment, but otherwise his demeanor didn’t change.

“I figured as much when I heard you were walking alone. The friend…Agent 506?”

Dionysus nodded. “That’s a shame,” Trevino said, surprised that he actually meant it.“He was my friend,” Dionysus said flatly. “This is my last cigarette. It’s

just not the same without him around to argue with.” “I was starting to get a healthy respect for that guy’s work…whoever he

was. Look. I called off the slaughter. I came for you.”Dionysus turned, so that Trevino could see his eyes. They seemed to glow

lavender, though it was surely the last blush of the sunset reflecting strangely on his irises. “And why do you think that is?”

“You’re an escaped convict…You–”“You’re not stupid. Why’d they pick you to run us down?”Trevino wondered for a moment how much he should tell this character.

Then he remembered that he would soon be dead. What difference did

236

it make? “Before this assignment – on an out call case in Los Angeles – I endured…Well, what happened out there left my reputation less than appreciable, you understand? I figured, if I did their dirty work, I’d be back on call. I’d be redeemed, and I could go back to doing what I love to do.”

“They wouldn’t have picked you unless you were disposable, forgettable, and inconsequential. They wanted you to spy on us…see how much the virus had spread…then remove us, out of sight, right? You weren’t able to proceed with this like a normal case…Why? I am a God.”

“You’re…insane.”“We’ll see,” Dionysus said, crunching out the cigarette under his boot.

“If you’re right, I’ll continue the rest of my life in a mental asylum. But if I’m right…you’ll never get me there. And it’s better for you because if you ever did, they’d blow your head off in a hotel somewhere and drop this mess on your grave a week later. How many ‘innocent civilians’ died today under your orders?”

Trevino found himself nodding slowly. This was a possible outcome he had dabbled with himself. His record made him an easy patsy.

“I let this get too messy. But even if you’re right…about that last part…if I let you go I’ll still have assassins to deal with.”

“Find the surviving Bacchante out there, join forces with them. Kill your men, and who will know you aren’t dead as well? Disappear.”

“You are crazy,” Trevino said.Dionysus shrugged. “My conscience is clean, I gave you a shot. I know

you probably won’t get this but maybe it’ll help you in the next life. We don’t change anything by drawing new lines on a map. In that way two or three sides can all be at war and still actually serve the same master. Aid this uprising, topple that one, they owe allegiance to no one but themselves. For as far back as the history books go, this has been the game. The way to defeat it is in mind, and in the heart – in the end, I serve no master. That is why I am a threat.”

“Hold on. Weren’t you just saying some nonsense about corrupt lieges?”“Maybe our lieges are on the same payroll,” Dionysus said, grinning

despite himself, “or maybe I was just trying to be poetic. The point is…from the standpoint of whoever sent you on this mission, I’m just a carrier for this pathogen – but I don’t think either you or they understand that if you put a bullet in my head, it makes no difference. Sure, it matters to me. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t. We embody forces, we embody trends, we embody cultures. We carry all of these things forward, but it isn’t creation ex nihilo, Trevino. Look, what I’m saying is – you can

237

shoot the messenger if you like, but you’re an idiot if you think that changes anything.”

“You know, Lilith said you could explain it better.”Dionysus stopped for a moment. “…She did?”“Yeah.”Suddenly, both of them had little to say.“Well, I guess she was wrong about some things,” Trevino finally said.

“Because I still don’t know what you’re getting at, not really. I think it’s time to get going, whoever the hell you are.”

“Like all Gods, I’m no one of consequence,” Dionysus said, smiling innocently.

Handcuffs clicked around Dionysus’ wrists as he was guided into the helicopter. The blades gained momentum and it wobbled into the air, gliding off into the darkness.

Looking through the side window, Dionysus could see the phantom image of desert shrubs whipping by. The helicopter was almost kissing the ground. For some reason, though he knew he was being taken either to his death, or a dank prison cell with no windows, he felt no anxiety. Each breath took him further into calm clarity. He breathed slowly, deeply, taking in every sensation as if it was his first.

It was Trevino who seemed anxious, glancing at the statue-like agents behind them, out at the desert floor, over at Dionysus’ serene smile and unfocused, Zen-like gaze.

Trevino glanced in Dionysus’ direction numerous times, as if he wanted to say something, but then he would look away, dropping his stubble-shrouded chin between his hands. He seemed like an anachronism, a relic of a time when public servants still pumped blood through their veins. The other agents in the helicopter were like robots. Their shiny black helmets, uniforms bulging with wires and devices, and matte black submachine guns did nothing to dispel the illusion.

Finally, there was a crackle of static from the front cabin, the pilot put a gloved hand over the mouthpiece on his helmet and spoke into it, and the helicopter began its short descent. It touched down with a light thud, and the rotors whined as they slowed, grinding dust to powder in the gears.

The cabin was momentarily silent. Trevino yanked the side door open, and motioned to Dionysus.

“Come with me.”Two of the agents in the rear of the helicopter unbuckled themselves and

made as if to follow, but Trevino put out his hand.

238

“I can handle this.”“Yes, sir,” they said, after glancing at one another.

Dionysus followed Trevino into the night, and was led nearly half a mile through a maze of sharp brambles and squat barrel cactus. Trevino was fighting an inner war, thinking over the past couple months time and again, trying to put the pieces together, to make some sense of it all. He tried to find a way he could tell the story to himself, and come out a hero, but it wasn’t working. Could he go through with this?

“Kneel,” Trevino said, his voice less steady than he would have liked.Without any argument, Dionysus knelt on the pebbles and cracked earth

beneath him.“You still have a chance,” Dionysus said.Trevino resisted speaking for a moment, taking out his gun, inspecting it

clinically as if he was searching for some deficiency.“For what?” he asked at length.“To die, when it is your time, with dignity.” “You are one crazy son of a bitch,” he said. “You know I have a gun to

your head?” “No, you don’t,” Dionysus said.He was right. It was dangling limply in Trevino’s hand, pointed nowhere

in particular. Minutes passed. Dionysus breathed with the cadence of the desert

crickets. The gun discharged loudly into the chill air.Eventually, Dionysus heard footsteps padding slowly away.

( )“Mission accomplished?” one of the agents asked Trevino as he

approached the helicopter.Trevino nodded, grunting an affirmative.The two agents looked at one another.Another gunshot echoed across the desert. Trevino fell with his hand in

his pocket, clutching for his absent badge with unfeeling fingers.

( )

239

As the helicopter lifted from the desert floor yet again, one of the agents pulled out a file. He thumbed through it, past a picture of Trevino’s hard glare, and various pages of family history, until he found the page he wanted. A red KIA was methodically stamped over the blank section of a form as a he shook his head. The mission was completed. There would be time to relax – maybe enough for a couple blow jobs and a bottle of tequila before the next assignment.

“Good Agent, Trevino,” he said. “Went the way I hope to…while engaged in an operation.”

“Fuuuck,” the Agent beside him said, gawking out the window. “You have to see this…”

“What…what is that?” A thin line of green light danced through the sky, like a slender sea snake

wriggling above the glitz of Los Vegas.“Whatever it is, it’s bright enough to show up over those lights…”“It almost looks like…no. That makes no sense. Hey!” he yelled, trying

to get the pilots attention over the whine of the rotors. “Do you see that?”The pilot didn’t hear his question. Instead of transmissions from base,

or even radio static, he heard what sounded like the wind sound effect in a ghost movie through his headset. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Clicking the radio off, he shouted over his shoulder, “Something is wrong with the radio.”

The other Agents were staring past him, with a sudden look of horror. Whipping back around, he saw that his controls were flashing on and off like parallel Christmas lights. Seemingly sympathetically, the skyline of Los Vegas was winking at him.

“What the–?”Then it went black.

( )Jesus came awake slowly, to darkness and confinement. Her mouth

tasted of solvent, her neck was bleeding and sore, and she tried to piece together her last memories of the firefight. Did Artemis make it? Did any of them? Have I been buried alive? Why the hell is the coffin so short, and who is in here with me?

She reached up and felt sharp edges of pressed metal. Beside her, a companion moaned softly. Jesus thought the moan sounded a little like Jessica. OK. Reason this out. You and Jessica are in a car trunk...Figure out the

240

whys later. How do we get out? “Fortunately for us, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in a car trunk,” Jesus

whispered. ”I used to sleep in Rob’s trunk, especially after rituals, safe in my little Volkswagen nest. There was that one Domme, too...there is nothing quite like a good abduction scene.”

“Jesus? Are we dead? Why do I feel high?” “I think we’re in the trunk of a car. I’m a little loopy, too. Seems like

someone put us under.” “Any idea how we get out?” “I’m looking for the release cable. People only get trapped like this in

movies, or if they’re very ignorant of modern automobiles.” Jesus ran her fingers gently along the outside edge of the trunk. She

felt a lump under the carpet, pushed at it, and felt it roll slightly under her fingers. ”I think I’ve got the release cable here. Out in a jiffy, Jess, I promise.” She traced her fingers along the cable up to the trunk latch. Attached to the latch was something rubbery and scaly. Immediately, Jesus pulled her hand back, then gingerly poked at it with one finger. The object made crinkling noises as she felt around it, and Jesus realized what it was. There was a muted clunk, and Jesus sat up, blinking at an unusually bright night sky. She helped Jessica out.

“Some wack-job left a pair of pliers connected to the release cable, with a plastic lizard stuck on the end of them.”

“There’s a note sticking out of its mouth.” “Yeah. Funny.” They read by the BMW’s interior lights:

Ladies,If you’re reading this, I have most likely

died. First off, let me congratulate you both for getting out of the trunk. I tried to make it easy, and the BMW 5-series has a first-rate trunk release cable. It’s beautifully over en-gineered, like my public persona. I did have my doubts about the hangover caused by the chemicals I used, but I’ve seen you consume worse, drive a car expertly, and charm cops while looking like a super-sized cyborg debauch-faerie, so I’m sure you’ll like the brew’s side effects, dart in the neck notwithstanding.

241

Anyhow, I took the liberty of having you both knocked out and removed from combat. Someone has to tell the tales that have accumulated around us, and I picked you both.

OK. That’s not entirely true. Not only did both of you fight well, but you seemed to be in love so deeply. Surprised? I had to protect the soft bits of myself while alive, and now that I’m dead, I can wallow.

Anyhow, that’s not important, and neither is the next bit. The house, the cars, the guns and the cash here are all yours. I suggest you spend the latter before everything goes to hell. Be-fore I hooked up with the band, I was stocking up and putting together a little bolthole – a final luxury should I ever have had to run. Since I can no longer use it, I’m passing it on to you. It’s all yours, and with my blessing. You’re the only 2 people in the world I can imagine having sex on my beautiful leather sofa without shuddering.

You know, this whole business of speaking be-yond the grave is really amusing for me. No one argues with the dead, at least not in this case. Point to me.

Take care of yourselves.-506

“Jesus. Look up towards the north. It’s…glorious.” “Aurorae don’t make it this far south. Interesting. Well, we might as well

shower off, stock up, and go to ground. If this means what I think it means, cash isn’t gonna be worth much soon.”

“It’s really happening then.” “It is.” Jessica put her arms around Jesus, and they both stared into the shifting

curtains of light.

( )Dave Clark could think of worse things than being sent to Mauna Loa,

242

though the circumstances of his arrival were slightly troubling. It was unlikely he would get to hit the waves, or suckle like a hummingbird on a paper umbrella sprouting drink. There had been sightings of what appeared to be the Aurora Borealis, as far south as Las Vegas, and multiple power outages. He was selected and pulled from his position in NASA by a congressional committee to compile data at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, and prepare an advisory report. It was hard to say why he was picked to head up this project, the machinations of the bureaucracy being what they were, but his PhD dealing with ICMEs – interplanetary coronal mass ejections – and later work with the STEREO satellites at John Hopkin’s hypothetically made him the best man for the job.

He still wondered if anyone had the breadth of knowledge required to make calls like this. There were too many different variables to deal with, and some of them weren’t in his field. The more you know, the more you’re merely aware of how little you can know. Even the combined brainpower of the panel at the observatory might be flummoxed. It could take decades to figure out exactly what was going on, at which point they could all be dead. Or nothing could happen at all. Then, once they had diagnosed the disease, it would be up to the politicians to cure the patient?

It was the last part that chilled him. Scientists are paid to make educated guesses; it doesn’t hurt to actually be educated. Good scientists were cautious and methodical when it came to testing their theories. Risk taking was only allowed when coming up with new hypothesis. He trusted his team to be honest about what was a guess, what was fairly probable, what was something else entirely. Good science is dependent entirely on efficiency of method. Beliefs, presuppositions, expectations – all of these things interfere. The best scientists have the curiosity and open-mindedness of a child, and the methodical persistence of a sixty year old German watchmaker. Politicians, on the other hand, are paid to represent popular

243

opinions; these traits weren’t exactly evolutionary benefits. As his charter flight began its descent, he considered this, looking down

on the placid blue water below. Someday, he’d really have to travel purely for pleasure.

An arc of dots on a computer screen focused in front of Dave’s face. A moment later, he blinked, and recognized it. Recent satellite data. He had nodded off again.

His salt and pepper beard showed a week’s growth. What it didn’t show was how little REM he was getting. The best he got was fitful naps between meetings, projections, debates, and more projections.

The phone rang. It was one of the senators from the advisory commission.

“Well, where are we?” No romance, here. “I’ve gone over the recent data, comparing information from the old

SOHO satellite with the two STEREO satellites. There are still a lot of holes in our analysis, I’m going to need to spend another week going over this before I can send you a report…”

“We are only paying you for a week of this.”Dave contemplated the lineup of empty energy drink cans in front of

him, pointlessly. “I’m clearly not here because of the pay. The question you’re asking is impossible to answer. It’s like asking a meteorologist what is going to happen in Georgia during a hurricane season six months from now.”

“OK…We can give you a one week extension.” He lowered his voice, as if there was someone listening in who might hear what he was about to say. “You understand, we don’t need the truth. We just need something plausible to add to a report that will allow us to allocate funds to this problem…What do you have right now?”

“Well, let me try to explain the situation to you…some of this you probably know but you have to understand the big picture. So bear with me. Okay. The electromagnetic field of Earth protects us from the radiation of the solar wind. The solar wind is plasma, which means it’s highly electrically conductive…that’ll come in later. The field of Earth is generated by a solid core – we guess mostly nickel and iron – surrounded by molten metal, which spins. It works like any electromagnet. But, unlike an electromagnet you might make in middle school, the field generated by the Earth’s core is irregular, and changes.

“The other side of this is in the solar wind…the Aurora…That

244

luminescence is from the solar wind striking the ionosphere…the upper atmosphere. We still don’t know what accelerates the particles from the sun, or what determines the dynamics of the Aurora. That’s yet another missing piece we’re going to have to think around. This normally happens near the poles, but now we’re seeing it popping up all over the place. ”

He cleared his throat, and continued. “We’ve been tracking a reversal of polarity in the Southern Hemisphere for more then a decade. This could be the first sign that there is going to be growing destabilization, though it isn’t at all conclusive on its own.

“Like our data with global warming, this could be a fluke. When you’re dealing with geological scales of time it is very difficult to see trends since a trend might take thousands of years to establish itself. Plus, even on a smaller time scale, predicting solar weather is more difficult than predicting Earth weather – we just don’t know. Put these factors together and you can understand why it’s hard for us to be able to predict exactly when a tipping point in the system will come.”

“I don’t need a science lesson, I could give a damn. The press is taking a gigantic dump all over the Press Secretary. Take a guess.”

“I think we’re approaching a point where the field is destabilizing in preparation to flip.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment. “Flip? How would that effect us?”

“Well, I can tell you what we do know. We know this flip has happened many times in the Earth’s history. We know this because when lava cools and sets, or when clay is fired into pottery, the magnetic components within the material also set…it’s like a magnetic fingerprint. The field strength is weakening, which is yet another sign that we may be in the early stages before a flip. It means that it’s either a fluke, the beginnings of a flip...or the beginning of the cooling of the core, which would likely mean the cessation of all life on the planet. But I don’t think it’s that dire. There’s evidence to prove a gradual cooling, but we’re nowhere near a crisis point. So to answer your question – the last time a pole shift happened, we weren’t dependent on electronics, so it most likely went unnoticed. But, depending on how things line up, this could be worse.”

Another pause. “…why?”“In layman’s terms, we’re predicting a lot of bad solar weather in the

next couple years. A really bad ICME could – hypothetically – blow the power grid of the entire planet. It is possible there may also be an incredible cancer epidemic…we really just don’t know for sure. There is a way to

245

keep this from happening, however…and that’s to turn off the power grid immediately before and during the ‘storm.’ Like turning off your computer during a thunderstorm. Predicting when that is going to happen might be very difficult…but we’re going to do our best. I need another week. In that time, I need you to get this to the President. I don’t know how that works, that’s your job…but this could be an international crisis.”

“And if you’re wrong?”“Given the choice between being plunged into the dark ages again, or

losing my job, I’m going to bank on the latter. Chances are, it won’t happen, or it won’t happen when we say it will. But if it does…Is that all?”

“Yes. Get me that report. I doubt we’re going to be able to convince the United States to shut off their power for the next…how long?”

“Until the end of 2011, from what we can tell. And not just within the U.S.”

“Right. What else could be done?”“Start building backup generators. Now. Or at least…as soon as we

finish our report. I assume they’re really expensive to manufacture.”“Yes I’m sure they are. Still, that’s more realistic. Alright, good work so

far. Send me the report as soon as you can complete it.”

( )Don hadn’t been to an airport in the past year. It wasn’t an experience he

much missed. He wondered how they managed to combine the feeling of a checkout line at a supermarket, a doctor’s office, and a gulag. It was well executed, though to what end was never entirely clear.

For better or worse his mission had been accomplished. He had a nice little chunk of change set aside for himself, so long as he could get out of dodge before someone found out that without his aid, all the social viruses that were biting the establishment in the ass now would have starved themselves to death long ago. It was time for him to find a nice plot of land to lie low in for the next millennium. Thailand seemed ideal. No questions, no pesky laws if you bought off the right cartels.

Lines of people shifted, clutching briefcases close to their bodies. Cordial, preemptive cavity searches had become standard. So had random DNA testing and crosschecking. Cotton swab brushed quickly across the tender inner cheek was all it took, and they could trace almost anything, if the system determined there was cause for a full query.

The group brusquely wading through the crowd was far more troubling.

246

He warily watched them pass from over the brim of the magazine he wasn’t reading. Ten of them, in black. No badges. Walking proudly, confidently, the pad of their boots on the carpet promising a near eternity of red tape followed by an abrupt death. Definitely a DHS mercenary group. They’d started seeing regular use in the conflicts in Iraq, but had been called in regularly for Homeland Security missions in the time since.

Soldiers didn’t even look like soldiers anymore. “Battlefields” no longer existed, they were replaced by intelligent, tactically audacious applications of force, on foreign soil or the privacy of your own living room. G. I. Joe was out of a job, Joe Public had taken his place – a sociopathic, genetically-enhanced Joe Public with reflexes like sweating dynamite.

All that stood between them now was 72 pages of thin photo-glossy paper and a single hope. If he wasn’t in their search parameters, he would be invisible to them even if he was naked and painted green. Of course if he provided any information that tripped off enough flags, their orders could change in a heartbeat and he would be on the receiving end of a submachine gun, it’s woodpecker-like discharge the last sound he heard.

Most didn’t understand exactly how the Leviathan worked in the modern age. This worked to its advantage. Terror breeds an obsequious, docile public. However, Don knew his enemy. It has been the bane of the free individual since the rise of civilization gave birth to it some eight thousand years ago. It changed guises over the years. As the thought-forms of a civilization gained consensus, it gained power.

Through thousands of years of cultural development, and tens of thousands of computer programmers, the Leviathan eventually spawned the Beast, a system that could be used to keep tabs on everything and everyone. A singularity of information was the intent; the end of privacy was the result.

Using WordNet-based algorithms it could actually generate a quantitative risk analysis on every conversation, every email, every text message, based on psychological profile, cultural bias, and a hundred other variables. If you weren’t deemed important, you could scream “kill the President crystal meth labs!” from a rooftop and nothing would happen. However, if you were flagged, even a sordid whisper in a basement might tip them off.

He continued staring at his magazine. The mercs were still prowling around the room. All experiments require a control. All systems of measure require internal consistency so as to mean anything at all. He thought that it was not without some historic irony that this creature was an embodiment

247

of the English Enlightenment, gone berzerk. Only when everything could fit into an equation, no matter how complex, could the terrifying dark be peeled back, and the depths be measured. He could see a certain logic in this, but the cost to the individual was simply too high.

The mercenaries passed by, disappearing into the ever swarming crowd outside the metal detectors. Don snapped his magazine shut and headed into a nearby bathroom to wait them out.

The room appeared empty. He sat in the stall and wiped sweat from his palms onto his business slacks. The flickering fluorescent above made him twitch sympathetically as seconds crawled forward. How long should he wait?

The door to the restroom burst open, but the shuffling gait that followed put him at ease. Mercs wouldn’t walk like that.

A worn, crackly voice echoed in the small chamber.“Entry: 2009, Los Angeles. Babylon burning. From 2001 on, the world

was host to a series of brushfire wars between the U.S./U.K. alliance, various non-State military entities, and their State sponsors. Just when it appeared that the flames were petering out, someone went and bombed Los Angeles.”

A fucking crazy, Don thought. Terrific. He peered between the cracks in the stall. Standing in front of the mirror by the entrance was a man in a rumpled red suit, narrating into a Bluetooth ear piece.

“The device is a crudely fashioned thermonuclear weapon, somewhat more powerful than Little Boy, which did in Hiroshima a little over a half a century previous. A number of groups have been mobilized to find the agent before detonation, but I believe it will be a failure. If I knew exactly who the agent was, I’d probably stop him, if only to put off dying a little while yet. However, I do not, so I will likely wind up radioactive bone powder along with the rest of these poor fools.”

Don wasn’t too sure now. He was, after all, responsible for a multi-million-dollar war waged against a metaphorical construct. Who was he to say what was crazy?

“How did this snowball? You’ll have to inspect my recent entries. In the time left in this incarnation, I can say this much…The net crackled here and there with chatter, frankly predicting the complete destruction of corporate and governmental information architecture by agents unknown. No one knew how or why this would happen, or even questioned the meme’s credibility; they just passed it on, working it into their conversations without gravity.

“Looking back, it was the quietly asserted inevitability of the ‘404 attacks’ in these messages that in turn made the events inevitable. Whoever

248

spread those initial communications is a genius of memetic engineering. Anyone with the motivation and skills to bring chaos to the infrastructure, receiving the meme, would immediately conclude that they were not alone, others had the same plans, and all they had to do was help it along. Soon artists, bands, hackers, and pretty much all those disenfranchised by the present regime passed this anarchistic mantra amongst themselves. What a joke. I doubt that the original authors had anything in the oven, save prodding everyone else into action.”

Don’s ego stung. If this bastard only knew.“What developed was a new form of civil war. There was unprecedented

violence against civilians written off as terrorists, however it truly came to a head September of this year. A rock and roll show turned bloodbath in Los Angeles led to a second gunfight in the nearby desert. They tried to brush the dirt under the carpet afterwards, but there was just too much of it. There was outrage and suddenly the citizens realized they were being targeted as the enemy. Still, at that point, no one did anything about it. Then in October, a number of hactivist organizations unleashed a long-brewing plot which attacked the status quo from every imaginable angle. The Justice Department was quick to label the perpetrators terrorists, and swore on a stack of Bibles to take them down. The destruction of many major power grids, in fact the result of natural phenomena, was also blamed on these organizations, in the hopes of rallying the support of the people angered by their sudden brush with the dark ages.

“Financial districts, corporate networks, and governmental mainframes blinked out overnight. The press conference that followed marked the beginning of the end. With their billion-dollar ‘cyberterror’ units flailing in the darkness, the government kicked and stomped like a blind giant. The Terror Alert went immediately to red, the borders closed, and National Guard troops circled suburban neighborhoods armed and ready to fight the wrong kind of war. Seeing all those sweaty palms holding all those guns, the hackers stepped up.”

“President Clay, in a press conference denouncing the continued attacks against the corporate-government infrastructure, found his words were being dubbed over with WWII Nazi propaganda. His explosive reaction, however, was not. ‘I’m gonna see those sonsabitches fry if I gotta declare martial law,’ the President was heard to say on National television. Guardsmen tossed college campuses top to bottom, seizing computers and tearing up fiber optic lines. Peaceful protests in major cities turned into riots when the troops rolled in, and loyal citizens berserked while their homes

249

burned – collateral damage when the Guard struck ‘hacker dens’ where the neighborhood kids gathered to play Quake V.”

Finally deciding to play along, Don stepped off the toilet seat and opened the stall. The man greeted him with a smug smile from under a week’s growth.

“Can you hear Gabriel’s horn?” he asked.“Pardon me?” Don asked, stopping in mid-stride.“You look like a man whose time has run out,” the man said, pulling at

a ratty length of rope dangling from his neck, a comical parody of a necktie. “Where you headed? Fresno? Bangladesh?”

Don was still frozen in place. He stammered but nothing intelligible came out. Too many questions…

“Who are you?” It was a stupid, pointless question, but it was the first one that managed to escape his lips.

“Baltasar,” he said. “I’m a…journalist.”“Oh really? For who?”“You don’t have time for small talk. There’s a group of mercs out there.”

Don stepped towards the far wall anxiously. “They aren’t looking for you…You know that part already, so stop giving off the scent. They can smell it, you know. Fear. They’re looking for a bomb. You don’t have a locker-sized nuclear device in your back pocket, do you?”

Baltasar put his finger to his ear, calling attention to some sort of receiver device planted there. His eyes widened for a moment. “I think our goose is cooked, as you say.”

“They found us?”“No, it’s what they haven’t found that is your concern.” “It isn’t yours, as well?”Baltasar laughed. “That isn’t your concern.” They both paused, sizing each other up.Baltasar scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Ever wonder, with all of the

tentacles Leviathan has, why has it botched so many things? The war on their imaginary terrorists creates real terrorists – of course. But the truth…these are acts of desperation. You can at least go to your grave with this certainty, that for better or worse you have helped land a critical blow against your enemy.”

Don blinked. “You’re for real?”Baltasar was pursing his lips, his eyes averted towards the ceiling.

“Doesn’t really matter now.”Both of them were pulled to the floor by the force of a shuddering gasp,

250

as the air in the building rushed in, sucking doors from their hinges. This was the last thing they heard.

251

Chapter Eleven:Eschatology

I escaped a firestorm in the desert to be blanketed for all eternity under forgetful snow. It patters like a million fluttering eyelashes against the windowpanes.

It’s an ever-present husssssh, though I can’t say who it is telling to remain silent. Amazing, that something so fragile can crush and bury people alive.

All I do anymore is write. Write, and watch the snow fall in electric blue night. One snowflake, another. They add up, soon my past will be even less than a memory.

I’m not sure who I am writing this to, or why I’m doing it.Habit’s a bitch.By “write,” I am referring to a complicated routine, which, among

252

other things, keeps Colombian coffee well enfranchised. The process is no longer feverish, as it was in my youth, goaded on by the dangling carrot of purpose. It is orderly, simple. Perfectly meaningless, like a koan.

The process and the product are inseparable, and one exists only for the sake of the other. Anything that does not belong in this delicately balanced web has been pruned away long ago. It is a very peaceful but also very lonely and sad position to be in, to sculpt your entire existence around such an isolated activity. I may as well spend my life tending bonsai trees.

Mostly, I write about my past. The days that led up to my hospitalization. Our glorious last stand against the directed force of one of the world’s oldest and most powerful entities. Artemis. Amanda. Jesus. Lilith…Some of them I knew were dead, but the others…Was Cody still strumming his guitar at some bus stop with his thick, calloused fingers? Did Amanda still have her indomitable spirit? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to find out.

It’s probably the same with everyone – you have close friends, you feel what you think are unbreakable bonds, whisper secrets to one another at night, enjoy a beer together after work, however it is that you share life together. Then you notice the crowd begins to thin. With all those who are left, all you have to talk about is the past. You see them at weddings, but you lose them that way too, and to their jobs, to lymphoma, to simple apathy. Along with each of these losses, whether gradual or sudden, you lose not only a friend but an entire vocabulary. In the time spent sharing space and life with another, a lexicon develops that no one outside that inner circle can penetrate. An almost magical, shared language ripens in the growth of a relationship. With the death or loss of a friend, you lose their company, but you also retain something. You retain the fecund language that you developed with them, rich with nuance, inside jokes, and meanings which have become so layered and subtle that you can only but feel them, for they have escaped the conscious sphere altogether.

But here’s the kicker: it is a dead tongue, a language you can share with no one else. If you approach new faces with it, in a hope of rekindling the past, you risk alienation. If you never speak this language again, you do a disservice to your past, and find that – maybe not all at once, but eventually – you live in a world entirely in your head that no one cares about any longer. Their indifference isn’t the result of callousness, though there is plenty of that to go around in this world. They don’t react because they don’t and can never really understand. All of those who could have are now gone.

253

The world shrinks so slowly you may barely notice this process, until you find yourself old and exhausted, sucking oxygen through a tube, a liability to the few who stuck around. In my case, there was nothing gradual about it, so I can only imagine at the experience of sliding down the slippery slope from adolescent exuberance and idealism to infirmity and obscurity. But in terms of effect, it’s really no different.

I don’t write any of this for shock value. It’s a simple point of fact. All the same, this pleasant line of thought is why I have isolated myself, and it is why I write. The more I pen my ideas to paper, the less I am stuck in the reality of that past. I used to think it was the other way around. I thought that by writing I could put the pieces back together again. The truth is, the words replace the memories. Events are replaced with their representations. Today, an entire year of my life became 7,324 ink characters on paper. One day I will awake, and my past will be entirely gone, converted to symbols. Then I will be free.

Yet this doesn’t feel much like freedom. Counting days in my results; stained coffee cups, stubble that has turned to a full beard, dog-eared books on the Orphic mysteries piled slowly under my desk. Snowflakes, each unique, falling one at a time.

Maybe, in a manner of speaking, the snowfall has already buried me alive. I just haven’t realized it yet.

( )“Jim Evans” was fine, now. Simple, studious Jim Evans.Almost unnaturally quickly, lines accrued, hair silvered. Five years passed

like twenty. The bare walls of Jim’s apartment at 104th and Broadway were covered in

cracks, lathing and plaster. The years had flown by quickly, since that bloody day that changed his life. People had adored him, called him Dionysus, and went on a crusade to the brink of sanity alongside him.

Most of the ensuing strife, including the blasted power grids, were pinned on some poor SOB who died in the nuclear blast in Los Angeles that marked the true end of Western dominance. Maybe Jim wasn’t hunted because the feds had bigger fish to fry, like the dissolution of the country into endless skirmishes that seemed a lot like the beginnings of a many-sided civil war.

He could save his musings about global politics for later; the shadows dancing throughout the room were more pressing. Shadows with no

254

material source. He hadn’t seen them since his youth, after he learned how to block them out, and how to communicate with them – whatever they really were – at his whim, rather than theirs. Somehow, as the years built up like strata of sediment, the barrier between the Worlds was thinning. The shadows were scratching at the window as time unraveled. Or was it his mind? Simple, studious, toys-in-the-attic Jim Evans.

They were knocking fiercely on the window now and if they got in, there was really no telling what would happen.

( )He stood at a green chalkboard, knocking white powder from his sleeve

as he re-gained his bearings. The academy was a perfect place for him to get by. In some places, the middle and upper classes were thrust into the chaos along with everyone else. But in others, they could hide.

When was it now? Three years from the end? Two?He turned to the board again, feeling the heat of many eyes at his back.

He saw a diagram of five overlapping circles, labeled “Divinity,” “Spirit,” “Dreamtime,” “Physical,” “Underworld,” in that order. He cleared his throat, and spoke.

“Next, we deal with a race of self-aware concepts who take Dream as their natural habitat. These are the Orisha, or Pretas – Tibetan for ‘Hungry Ghost’ – and they are one of the two primary native species of the Dreamtime. They are formed when aspects of human thought become highly concentrated and self-referential, in a similar fashion, I suppose, to the evolutionary process that gave birth to human sentience. They are our archetypes, impulses, and stereotypes made self-aware. They are mirror-images of our psyches, and of our deepest cultural myths. However, unlike Demigods, they have no God, or ‘elementary idea,’ standing behind them. Unlike Demigods, they have free will.” His voice dropped as he finished the sentence. For a moment, he was once again looking down at Lilith’s body, spurting blood.

He cleared his throat. “If you’ve read the Jung I assigned last week, you’re ahead of the game. He learned more about Orisha than most any human in recent history, though he paid dearly for the privilege. Here’s what he left out: Orisha are locked into the Dreamtime by their very nature, being made of thought as we are of protein. The only way they can leave, even temporarily, is by ‘riding,’ or possessing, a physical mind. Preferably yours.

“The belief is that they want you for your body. Ever realize how

255

fabulous it is? You can eat fried chicken, smell cut grass, swim, bleed, and cry. You can make love and drink tequila, or listen to the crickets while dew forms in your hair. Orisha, bodiless, can do none of these things. Watching you stub your toe gives them fits. They’ll do almost anything to feel real, physical pain or get tickled with a feather.

“Orisha can also possess animals. They actually do this with some frequency – certainly more often than with humans, as they generally put up less of a fight. Most humans who won’t fight are too beaten down to be of use – the homeless, the insane. They can even be called into animals by Demigods or Humans that learn the correct processes of doing so. This is where myths of witches’ familiars come from.”

He turned to regard the class for a moment. Some eyed him skeptically. More were writing frantically in their marbled notepads, or simply staring open-mouthed. There was often an uneasiness that he could feel as he taught, a dawning recognition on the part of the students that the subject matter in his class wasn’t just the result of academic study. In fact, very little that he taught in his classes could be considered scholarly. He would often mention a spirit or Demigod as if they’d gone out drinking last Thursday.

Nevertheless, his tenure was well secured by the sweeping success of his book, and the accolades that came along with it. There were a lot of muttered complaints within the department but, especially in such troubled times, everything inevitably bows to the strength of the almighty dollar.

A gust of wind blew through the window during that pause, bringing with it the distinctive smell of autumn. The scent triggered thousands of memories, and he lost his place in time.

He closed his eyes, afraid of where he’d be when he opened them.

( )A single bare bulb dangled from above his balding head, as the

scratching of pen on dirty academic rule periodically broke the silence.

4 November 2011.Dreamed an honest dream last night, the first

in months. The dream assembled around a memo-ry from the years I spent in hiding. I was in a fallout shelter next to a gloriously fat tourist from Maine, watching her chins wobble grimly as she fretted about the “wah”. Over and again, the

256

sound came out of her face like the puling of the world’s fattest infant: Wah. Wah. Wah.

I laughed in the dream, and woke up laughing.I laughed because it was a simple dream, with

nothing at stake. I was relieved to spend one REM cycle locked in a concrete-and-lead box, waiting for the missiles to fly.

None of Them were there, testing and prodding and filling my head with visions. I woke, sprawled on the floor of my workroom, wrapped in torn cur-tains and laughing.

I thought I knew so much about the Orisha, when it all started. Piecing together my encoun-ters with them as a youth, then my stint as a rockstar. My honorary Ph.D., analyzing the shared foundations of ecstatic religious imagery. My name in the journals. My book. Calling it autobi-ographical would be seen as too egotistical, so I approached it academically. The fools didn’t even realize that this was for real.

The Times praised its “unprecedented clarity”. There were book tours. Job offers, to be trophy-in-residence at a number of universities.

I had arrived. The accolades went to my head. Even in the days with Babalon, I may have had some amount of notoriety, mainly thanks to Lilith, but we were on the fringe. Now, I was an expert, I had vision. Only someone of my talents could see coherent trends behind the masks and dances and dreams, could plot a logical course through a landscape of symbol and innuendo.

All bullshit. But for a time, I was allowed to believe it.

Puppets dance so smoothly, when they can’t feel the strings.

( )He awoke uncomfortable and slimy with sweat.

257

How did this begin?

( )It is two years ago. Two years from the end. I may be dreaming or maybe

it’s a flashback. A brain floating in a jar, or some government mind control experiment gone horribly awry. MK Ultra part two. Am I looking back now, from the point of my death, two years in the future?

Conjecture doesn’t matter. The point is, it is two years ago, and a line of excited young intellectuals runs the full length of a book store like a giant snake. (That is, if snakes could pay thirty grand a year for college and wear Birkenstocks.)

All of them are eager, pushing, shoving. Shoving to see me.If I’d known people could still get this excited about literature I may

have gotten out of the Antichrist Superstar gig before the feds got involved. Back then I didn’t really have the rock star ego; now I have the appearance of it ten times over. Maybe jadedness comes off a lot like egotism.

The novelty of the groupies had mostly worn off. Eventually the doddering professor does Debby schtick does get old. You want someone, anyone to be able to sit across from you over coffee and talk about the weather or even Duchamp without the Valley Girl in the back of their minds shrilly proclaiming your ineffable genius. Holy hell, I don’t believe that for a second, but is there really any other way I’d have girls twenty years my junior scrambling to get my clothes off? Say what you will about me for admitting that, but I’m just being honest, and anyone who believes they would do otherwise simply hasn’t had the opportunity to test it out. As St. Augustine said, “give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Alright, so maybe it hadn’t worn off entirely... Life is short and you have to take what you can. I came out of hiding

to try to wake some people up – if they’re going to survive what’s coming, they’re going to need to know about the other Worlds. Shamanism is going to be a survival technique in twenty years, rather than an ethnological anachronism kept alive by the academies and tourist trade. I’m just doing my job here. But spit in the face of lady fortune when she offers herself to me? Please. I won’t be a hypocrite either – I’ll tell this to my student, Amy or Sharon or Chelsea, as I unhook her bra.

Usually, they just want to talk to me about how I almost overthrew ‘the man,’ and so on.

For the record, I didn’t almost overthrow anything. I just played drums,

258

had a lot of sex, and participated in a game of capture the flag with heavily armed Agents. But History is sometimes kind to those that stand in the right place at the right time. For those with the right mixture of stubborn determination and luck, that Historic character can translate into a lot of book sales…

Well, I’m thinking this as I sign the umpteenth book, give my pleasant nod to the umpteenth expectant, ubiquitous face, when my pen freezes mid-stroke. Halfway across the room, near the Romantic Fiction section, stands a blue-black skinned, aboriginal figure wearing a skull mask ringed with horns and teeth. Smooth black spikes rise from behind the mask, curved like bull horns. A red eyed vulture perches on one of his brawny shoulders, regarding me dourly.

Like everyone else in line, he is holding one of my books under his arm, patiently waiting his turn to get a signature from the Author. Unlike the rest, he clutches an obsidian-tipped spear in his other claw-like hand. Monkey or shrunken heads bob from matted tufts of hair. He breathes menace in deep, rasping bellows.

I recognized him, if you want to call it that, as Zagreuss, the subterranean bull-god. The minotaur of the labyrinth. But, an Orisha like him, here at a book signing?

Well, what can I say? At least he’s waiting in line politely enough. I just didn’t know he was a fan of my work.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen something like this in the light of day. It takes a certain sensibility – or madness – to see these dream beings when they break through to the waking side. I have a bit of experience at it. You learn to hold your gorge or your hysterical oh-sweet-Jesus-I’m-losing-my-mind guffaws. You sign the damn books and move on.

…And give a deep sigh of relief when you see that he has dematerialized upon your next hasty scan of the room.

The girl standing in front of me leaned a little closer, as my hand completed the broad stroke that passed as my signature these days.

She didn’t turn to leave, instead biting her lip hesitantly and then blurting out, “Professor Evans…The places you write about. They’re real, aren’t they?”

259

I found myself adjusting my glasses for no particular reason. “What do you mean by ‘real’?”

Her hand rested on mine for a moment. Warm. Real.“What we experience is real. If you’re asking me if I write from my

experience, well yes…Jessica,” I said, looking down at the name I had just written on the inside of the book. “It…they…are.”

“I’ve wanted to get into one of your classes for a while, but I’d have to transfer…Because when I was in high school I had a lot of experiences like that, a friend of mine, she was a Wiccan, and we…”

Here it comes, I thought, very rapidly losing interest and tuning out. Let me guess, you were dancing around sky clad and some curtains rustled. Maybe some of the shadows didn’t line up quite right. Yeah, yeah.

The people behind her were doing some rustling of their own as her story continued. Finally, I managed to hurry her off after accepting a slip of paper with her phone number on it. I promised to call her and talk about the time she played spin-the-bottle with Lucifer.

I don’t even care about selling books anymore, trying to put a spark into a youth who I doubt will grow to see adulthood. I’m fooling myself. I just want to go home.

I stood and walked out of the room. Maybe it was just her name. Jessica. It reminded me of an old friend. Sweet,

peaceful; of the girls, she was the most averse to the idea of combat training. She belonged on an organic farm in the Hudson valley, going on springtime jaunts in a biodiesel van. Growing vegetables in the garden behind her home in an old converted chapel.

This world makes no goddamn sense anymore and no amount of blow jobs will set that right. I’ve never belonged here and I never will.

…I just want to go home.

( )Months passed. Jim dropped out of public sight, stopped showing up

to his job. Curious messages on the answering machine turned pleading, furious, then silent. The outside world went away. Vanished. At the end of it all, the only companions that remained were in his head.

Almost. Free.

( )

260

December 23rd, 2013. It would seem Judgment day came nearly two years late.

I woke up this morning with the certain knowledge that it would be my last. I have fallen my entire life, as if through empty air. Now I can see the ground rushing up to greet me, and I am almost eager to make its acquaintance.

But it isn’t just me. The world is changing: the tide rises a little each day, never receding. There are terrible floods, fires, hurricanes. The constant catastrophe numbs you to the end result. Then one day you realize you’re about to eat asphalt.

The masks I have carved leer down at me from the walls. Just gazing at them now, I can speak to hundreds, thousands of beings from the Dreamtime…from Spirit…from the Underworld. But they are just masks on the wall. Dumbo’s feathers, soon to float away like miniature, replica galleons.

Of all the people in this crumbling city, I had the most warning. I could have fled and started yet another life from scratch. Maybe I could have stood out on the sidewalk wrapped in three layers of shredded thrift store trench coats, showering passersby with these prophetic warnings and a plume of spit.

No, we all had our warnings. This end has been prophesied in our religions, in the newspaper headlines, and in the countless feverish dreams we choose to forget upon awakening. It has even happened before…and it will happen again, when the next civilization comes to its own grinding halt.

Derrida once said that every system has the kernel of its own deconstruction contained within it. Within this context, I think he was right; we have indeed reaped what we have sowed.

Fate is written in stone because the choices we make, given the circumstances, are always the same. Choice is not fixed, but identity is. Thus Divinity plays its game with us. When one is truly one’s self, there is always only one choice in any situation, no matter how flawed it may be. There is no “could have,” no “would have.” Only the perfect, complete fool truly has free will. When they awaken to their nature, Demigods are more slaves than other humans, for what is a Demigod but a cliché of the collective unconscious?

I wonder what this new world will be like, and if humans will inherit the earth. I have a hunch that either way, it certainly won’t be the meek. I wonder if the next time around, we will make a more beautiful world,

261

a world where compassion triumphs over greed and malice. I wonder a million other things which I have finally realized don’t matter. After a full life, I’ve realized it was this simple existential indifference which made peace so elusive.

Peace. I remember everything, all the people I have been, and feel at one with them all. The present and the past have finally made amends with each other. We will be together forever, laughing and weeping, in the eternity that exists between “is” and “isn’t.”

At the end of the lifespan of a universe, it is destroyed, and a new universe is born. But for this universe to be born, and for life to be renewed, a divine sacrifice must be made. On the other side is a new dawn, and a new world.

One of the oldest myths that we have tells a story of a God shedding his blood to feed the crops. He is cloven in two, and redeemed – in the underworld, or at the bottom of the ocean – by his wife, the great mother. This story is older than the tales we have of brother slaying brother, older than the Garden of Eden.

As I look down over the thirteen stories of open air beneath me, I remind myself of this. There is no such thing as death. Only dying. Death? Death is a single heartbeat, but never again. A grain of sand. It is nothing at all.

What am I? I am that grain of sand, and I am Dionysus. When the world has need for me again, I shall return. Now comes the hard part: the time for that sacrifice.

I have always been afraid of falling. But I am not afraid now. I watch cars wash away in the emerald tide.

262

263

264

265