Mad Boys (26 page)

$#$@! barked, and we started moving again, through some pathways, down some ramps to a door that opened into a cavern, which reminded me a little of the Catacombs of Manhattan, except the air here was purer, and the views bigger and prettier. Colored rocks in the shapes of giant icicles hung from the ceiling and jutted up from the floor. The area was well lighted, but the objects themselves were real enough; at least they felt real to my touch.

“I feel like I’m in church,” I said.

“You are,” said the Director, his voice echoing through the cavern. It’s a church, it’s a cathedral, it’s a mausoleum, it’s an arena for the most unique statuary in the history of art. The Children of the Cacti call this place the Home of the Grateful Dead. Soon you will meet the sculptor who designed it, the Michelangelo of our time. “Everything here is her creation.”

The path led around a giant boulder whose surface was the color and texture of alligator hide. On the other side, dozens of what at first glance appeared to be coffin-sized aquariums caught my attention. From among these objects appeared a woman, upright, alive. It was Marla, the hypnotist. With her painted fingernails and orange-colored skin, she looked like a witch.

“You? You’re the great artist?” I said.

“I am.” Marla took me by the hand. Her touch was cool. Marla talked in a whisper. “I have this special skill in the preparation of bodies after death. It is my art. After your mother was brought to me, I reconstituted her body into statuary. She was my first work, and I submitted it to the Children of the Cacti. They voted to make me artist-in-residence.”

“What was my mother’s name?” I asked in a whisper. The churchy atmosphere of the place commanded respect.

“I never knew her name from the outside. She gave it up. We all gave up our names. I am not Marla. We called your mother Flower.”

“Flower for flower child.”

“Yes. We were all flower children, but your mother was the flower of flowers.”

I pictured flowers in a field, bending in the wind.

We continued to walk, and now I could see that the coffin-sized aquariums really were glass coffins, the bodies preserved in liquids that changed colors as the liquids wrapped around the bodies. Human lava lamps. The light was so dim that all I could see were vague shapes. $#$@! sniffed cautiously at the coffins. Finally, Marla stopped.

“This is the one.” Even whispering, her voice echoed in the cavern, like the shadow of a wind.

“I can’t see much. Can you give me some light?” I said.

“Of course.” Marla touched a switch somewhere, and powerful beams from below and above shined into the glass coffin. In that split second, everything was revealed. Inside the coffin, suspended in tumbling, restless liquid, perfectly preserved, was Flower, my mother. Her face was serene, her green and gold trinitite eyes were open and staring up at heaven, mouth in a slight smile, muscles relaxed, feet bare, nails painted green and gold. She wore a flowered dress, whose folds hung down to the bottom of the casket and waved in the liquid.

“What holds her up?” I said.

“It’s partly the buoyancy of the liquid, but the rest—I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

There was no doubt in my mind that Mother’s soul had gone to heaven. She was as beautiful and perfect as I’d imagined her, and I could do nothing more than gaze upon her. Was that what heaven was all about? Endless gazing at the face / faces of the three-headed God? You couldn’t even die of boredom, since you were already dead.

“Is that all there is?” I said.

Marla laughed a little, then hummed a sad tune, which sounded with the words that I had spoken—
Is that all there is
. “It’s a song from my childhood.”

“Why don’t you bury the dead people?”

“We wish not only to
pre
serve but to
ob
serve. The dead as art provide entertainment for the bereaved. But I can see it didn’t work with you.”

“I don’t know what to think, what to feel. She’s just there, beautiful as a sunset, but I can’t touch her, I can’t talk to her.”

“What do you want from her? What can she do for you now that she’s gone?”

“I don’t know.”

The Director spoke, his voice echoing against the walls of the cavern, “I know, I know, I know, I know. . . .”

“Don’t show him that. He’s not ready,” Marla said

“He’s ready,” said the Director.

“He loves her, he needs to love her to remain good,” Marla said. “Don’t you understand? He loves her.”

“I understand completely. That’s the point of showing him the tape. It’s already been voted upon. Do you want another poll?”

“Don’t bother. You know the answer.”

$#$@! barked. I followed him out of the caverns into the holographic pueblo to one of the viewing rooms. Marla stayed behind, angry and upset. The viewing room was spacious, modern in decor, well lighted, temperature-controlled, and heated. The section included a bar, a restaurant, and a lounging area. No holographs. TV monitors were everywhere. People lounged about with distant expressions on their faces; the Children of the Cacti had raised zentensity to its highest level. Nearby was a conference room where viewers met to discuss feature presentations. When we came in, a cheer went up from about twenty Children of the Cacti.

“All these people have come to see a tape on my mother?” I said, a bit confused.

“They’ve seen it already,” the Director said. “The tape holds little interest for them. Their interest is in you, Web. This is part of your theatrical training. You see, we wish to make a performer of you. If you mind terribly being watched, if your responses are uninteresting, you will be set free, since our interest in you will wane.”

“Then set me free,” I said. “Let me return to Valley of Fires. I promise I won’t be jealous of Mary Jane.”

“Not until you view the tape of your mother.” Before I had chance to reply, the Director shouted, “Roll the tape.”

The monitor shimmered with an image of wild flowers. I was as captivated by the images as the audience was captivated by the expressions on my face to those images. I don’t want to get into detail about what was on the tape, because, really, it was just the same thing over and over again. My mother had been a rock ’n’ roll groupie. The pictures showed her at this concert and that, cheering, dancing, losing herself in the music. At one concert, some fellows hoisted her up on their shoulders, and the crowd yelled for her to show her tits, which she did. Then there was Mother backstage frolicking with the creepy band members. Mother in a bedroom with a bunch of guys. When the tape was over, the Director asked me, “How do you feel about your mother now?”

“I hate her,” I said, gagging with rage.

“Good,” the Director said. “We have unleashed your anger. We have removed fear and hope. Now you are ready to go to war.”

A split second later something exploded in the room, not a big explosion, just a puff and some orange smoke. Out of this smoke appeared the Director. He was quite a sight. He had a carrot-colored beard and a hunched back, and he was built like so many middle-aged men, blompy. He looked very much like my demon. But in some ways he wasn’t like my demon at all. His movements were herky-jerky. My demon was sluggish and bored. My demon Director always stood close to me. The real Director kept a distance between us.

“Are you real?” I said.

“Find out,” said the Director.

I walked toward him, but he never seemed to get any closer than fifteen feet.

“You’re just light from a holograph,” I said.

“That’s as real as you’re going to get in Phi, kid.”

While video cameras taped our conversation in the viewing room and while a couple of dozen Children of the Cacti (our audience) looked on, some watching us live on this Phi stage, others watching us live on the monitors, the Director introduced me to Third World Theater. Combatants in the government and rebel armies fought a scaled-down version of the Souvien civil war in the mountains of the former Indian reservation. The MZ (Militarized Zone) included rebel strongholds in the mountains, a government garrison on the plain, and a village in the hills on a river. VRN had brought in an entire town from Souvien, complete with civilian DCs (Designated Casualties). VRN broadcast live action of the war to a sample audience of skilled viewers, the Children of the Cacti entertainment cult. VRN was also gathering footage for later documentaries, dramatic feature films, and a TV series. Third World Theater was in the experimental stage; VRN was refining its video techniques and determining from the sample audience what viewers required in warfare to keep up their attention. Eventually, the network would broadcast round-the-clock war all over the world.

The warring factions thought that Third World Theater was a great idea. VRN supplied money and arms to keep the struggle going. More important, the TV exposure gave both sides publicity. The only thing the government and the rebels had in common was their belief that once the world knew the facts regarding the Souvien civil war, sympathy for their respective causes would follow.

“Real people. Real weapons. Real deaths. Exciting, isn’t it?” said the Director. “You have been selected to participate in the war.”

“Maybe I want to go back to Valley of Fires,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. I wanted to go to war; I just didn’t like the Director forcing the idea on me.

“You’re young, you’re an American, you’ll boost the ratings, you’ll have a good time,” the Director said.

I stepped toward him, but he receded a step. I stopped and snarled at him, “Why should I care about these people?”

“You don’t have to care about the Souviens. You have a mission to perform.”

“A mission?” Suddenly, I was interested.

“There’s another American in the war zone.”

“So what?”

“Web, who was your best friend in Valley of Fires?”

“Ike, my blood brother.”

“Yes, the ranch boy,” the Director said with a sneer. “Souvien government troops have captured him. When you turned up missing, he went looking for you on his horse and found his way into Third World Theater.”

“Can’t our government get him out?”

“It’s not as simple as that. The leasing agreement and entertainment contract is signed by the Souvien government, the Souvien Liberation Front, VRN, the United States government, and the $$$ Indian nation. The Director paused, then called toward the control booth of the viewing room, where a raccoon-eyed Indian technician with earphones sat in front of half a dozen monitors, “*&^%**, start the tape, please.”

At this point, the war zone popped up on the monitors in the viewing rooms. I saw pine trees, fields, wild flowers. I thought of Flower, and my heart boiled with hatred. The camera cut to the village, located on a river. The buildings were small and primitive. Chickens pecked at bugs on the dusty streets. A few cows grazed, and a couple of pigs rooted in the earth. Old women gathered water from a well; old men sat playing cards at a table outside a little restaurant. Apparently, these were DCs. Children ran and played, but no one seemed happy. And for obvious reasons. Government soldiers patrolled the streets. The people spoke in a language I did not understand.

“It was a typical, sleepy village until the war came,” said the Director. “Since the village was moved, the local people have renamed it to fit their state of mind, which in English roughly translates as Sorrows.”

Sorrows! The scene of Mother’s death. A chill scurried like a snake’s tongue down my spine. All this had been arranged, but by whom? Who
was
this Director? This agent from hell? Maybe there was a mother ship after all, working mysterious ways upon the Earth. Maybe the Alien was not a figment of my imagination, but a real space doctor who had captured me for study. Oh, I felt uncanny—uncanny and hostile. I knew this wasn’t
the feeling
, but it was as close as I was going to get.

“This is all going to be on videotape?” I asked.

“According to the contract, VRN is allowed to videotape the war,” the Director said. “We have total access, but we don’t have the right to interfere in the fighting, unless of course the ratings are too low. That too is in the contract. That’s why we can’t send a mercenary force to get your blood brother out. It would destroy the balance of power. You, because you’re a boy, will create no difficult diplomatic or legal problems.” The Director hollered up to the technician. “*&±%**, can you get us a shot of the ranch boy?”

The scene cut to a room in almost total darkness. I could just barely tell that someone was lying in a bed. To keep his spirits up, he was mournfully singing “where seldom is heard.” Although I couldn’t see him, I knew it was Ike because I recognized his voice.

“That’s enough,” said the Director. The monitor went back to regular programming. Some members of the audience stood and stretched. Some went on to other viewing rooms. Meanwhile, $#$@! padded off and came back a minute later dragging a backpack in his mouth. He dropped the stuff at my feet, stuck his nose inside the pack, and came out with a waterproof map and a package about the size of a paperback book.

I took the package from his jaws and looked at it, wrapped in green paper. “What’s this?” I asked.

“A bomb,” said the Director. “Should you choose to accept this mission, you will have to use it. Your orders.” $#$@! nosed open the map on the floor and pointed with his paw, as the Director spoke. “You will return to Hydrohead Hill in Xi. We will hold back the water, and you will descend through the spillway, which empties into a limestone tunnel, what the $$$ Indians call the forbidden cave. As you can see, it comes out on the side of a mountain.”

“I get it,” I said, following $#$@!’s wet nose.

“From this point, you will follow the river to the village, wait until dark, sneak in, place the charge against the north wall of the building where your blood brother is being held, blow out a hole, and set him free. They’ll never find two fast-running boys in the darkness. Walk parallel to the river to a small cave, as yet undiscovered by the government troops, and spend the daylight hours in hiding. The following night you’ll continue along this path to the border and freedom. Our infrared cameras will track you in the darkness.”