Nova Express (10 page)

The success of the nova mob depended on a blockade of the planet that allowed them to operate with ­impunity—This blockade was broken by partisan activity directed from the planet Saturn that cut the control lines of word and image laid down by the nova mob—So we moved in our agents and started to work keeping always in close touch with the partisans—The selection of local personnel posed a most difficult problem—Frankly we found that most existing police agencies were hopelessly corrupt—the nova mob had seen to that—Paradoxically some of our best agents were recruited from the ranks of those who are called criminals on this planet—In many instances we had to use agents inexperienced in police work—There were of course casualties and fuck ups—You must understand that an undercover agent witnesses the most execrable cruelties while he waits helpless to intervene—sometimes for many years—before he can make a definitive arrest—So it is no wonder that green officers occasionally slip control when they finally do move in for the arrest—This condition, known as “arrest fever,” can upset an entire operation—In one recent case, our man in Tangier suffered an attack of “arrest fever” and detained everyone on his view screen including some of our own undercover men—He was transferred to paper work in another area—

Let me explain
how
we make an arrest—Nova criminals are not three-dimensional organisms—(though they are quite definite organisms as we shall see) but they need three-dimensional human agents to ­operate—The point at which the criminal controller intersects a three-dimensional human agent is known as “a coordinate point”—And if there is one thing that carries over from one human host to another and establishes identity of the controller it is
habit
::
idiosyncrasies, vices, food preferences—(we were able to trace Hamburger Mary through her fondness for peanut butter) a gesture, a certain smile, a special look, that is to say the
style
of the controller—A chain smoker will always operate through chain smokers, an addict through addicts—Now a single controller can operate through thousands of human agents, but he must have a line of coordinate points—Some move on junk lines through addicts of the earth, others move on lines of certain sexual practices and so forth—It is only when we can block the controller out of all coordinate points available to him and flush him out from host cover that we can make a definitive arrest—­Otherwise the criminal escapes to other coordinates—

We picked up our first coordinate points in London.

Fade out to a shabby hotel near Earl's Court in London. One of our agents is posing as a writer. He has written a so-called pornographic novel called
Naked Lunch
in which The Orgasm Death Gimmick is described. That was the bait. And they walked write in. A quick knock at the door and there it was. A green boy/girl from the sewage deltas of Venus. The colorless vampire creatures from a land of grass without mirrors. The agent shuddered in a light fever. “Arrest Fever.” The Green Boy mistook this emotion as a tribute to his personal attractions preened himself and strutted round the room. This organism is only dangerous when directed by The Insect Brain Of Minraud. That night the agent sent in his report:

“Controller is woman—Probably Italian—Picked up a villa outside Florence—And a Broker operating in the same area—Concentrate patrols—­Contact local partisans—Expect to encounter Venusian weapons—”

In the months that followed we turned up more and more coordinate points. We put a round-the-clock shadow on The Green Boy and traced all incoming and outgoing calls. We picked up The Broker's Other Half in Tangier.

A Broker is someone who arranges criminal jobs:

“Get that writer—that scientist—this artist—He is too close—Bribe—Con—Intimidate—Take over his coordinate points—”

And the Broker finds someone to do the job like: “Call ‘Izzy The Push,' this is a defenestration bit—Call ‘Green Tony,' he will fall for the sweet con—As a last resort call ‘Sammy The Butcher' and warm up The Ovens—This is a special case—”

All Brokers have three-dimensional underworld contacts and rely on The Nova Guards to block shadows and screen their operations. But when we located The Other Half in Tangier we were able to monitor the calls that went back and forth between them.

At this point we got a real break in the form of a defector from The Nova Mob: Uranian Willy The Heavy Metal Kid. Now known as “Willy The Fink” to his former associates. Willy had long been put on the “unreliable” list and marked for “Total Disposal In The Ovens.” But he provided himself with a stash of apomorphine so escaped and contacted our Tangier agent. Fade out

URANIAN WILLY

Uranian Willy The Heavy Metal Kid. Also known as Willy The Rat. He wised up the marks. His metal face moved in a slow smile as he heard the twittering supersonic threats through antennae embedded in his translucent skull.

“Death in The Ovens.”

“Death in Centipede.”

Trapped in this dead whistle stop, surrounded by The Nova Guard, he still gave himself better than even chance on a crash out. Electrician in gasoline crack of history. His brain seared by white hot blasts. One hope left in the universe: Plan D.

He was not out of The Security Compound by a long way but he had rubbed off the word shackles and sounded the alarm to shattered male forces of the earth:

THIS IS WAR TO EXTERMINATION. FIGHT CELL BY CELL THROUGH BODIES AND MIND SCREENS OF THE EARTH. SOULS ROTTEN FROM THE ORGASM DRUG, FLESH ­SHUDDERING FROM THE OVENS, PRISONERS OF THE EARTH COME OUT. STORM THE STUDIO—

Plan D called for Total Exposure. Wise up all the marks everywhere. Show them the rigged wheel of Life-Time-Fortune. Storm The Reality Studio. And retake the universe. The Plan shifted and reformed as reports came in from his electric patrols sniffing quivering down streets and mind screens of the earth.

“Area mined—Guards everywhere—Can't quite get through—”

“Order total weapons—Release Silence Virus—”

“Board Books taken—Heavy losses—”

“Photo falling—Word falling—Break Through in Grey Room—Use Partisans of all nations—
Towers, open fire—
”

The Reality Film giving and buckling like a bulkhead under pressure and the pressure gauge went up and up. The needle was edging to NOVA. Minutes to go. Burnt metal smell of interplanetary war in the raw noon streets swept by screaming glass blizzards of enemy flak. He dispersed on grey sliding between light and shadow down mirror streets and shadow pools. Yes he was wising up the marks. Willy The Fink they called him among other things, syndicates of the universe feeling for him with distant fingers of murder. He stopped in for a cup of “Real English Tea Made Here” and a thin grey man sat at his table with inflexible authority.

“Nova Police. Yes I think we can quash the old Nova Warrants. Work with us. We want names and coordinate points. Your application for Biologic Transfer will have to go through channels and is no concern of this department. Now we'll have a look at your room if you don't mind.” They went through his photos and papers with fingers light and cold as spring wind. Grey Police of The Regulator, calm and grey with inflexible authority. Willy had worked with them before. He knew they were undercover agents working under conditions as dangerous as his own. They were dedicated men and would sacrifice him or any other agent to arrest The Nova Mob:

“Sammy The Butcher,” “Green Tony,” “Iron Claws,” “The Brown Artist,” “Jacky Blue Note,” “Limestone John,” “Izzy The Push,” “Hamburger Mary,” “The Subliminal Kid,” “The Green Octopus,” and “Willy The Rat,” who wised up the marks on the last pitch. And they took Uranus apart in a fissure flash of metal rage.

As he walked past The Sargasso Cafe black insect flak of Minraud stabbed at his vitality centers. Two Lesbian Agents with glazed faces of grafted penis flesh sat sipping spinal fluid through alabaster straws. He threw up a Silence Screen and grey fog drifted through the café. The deadly Silence Virus. Coating word patterns. Stopping abdominal breathing holes of The Insect People Of Minraud.

The grey smoke drifted the grey that stops shift

cut tangle they breathe medium the word cut

shift patterns words cut the
insect ­tangle

cut shift
that coats word cut breath silence

shift
abdominal cut tangle stop word holes.

He did not stop or turn around. Never look back. He had been a professional killer so long he did not remember anything else. Uranian born of Nova Conditions. You have to be free to remember and he was under sentence of death in Maximum Security Birth Death Universe. So he sounded the words that end “Word”—

Eye take back color from “word”—

Word dust everywhere now like soiled stucco on the
buildings. Word dust without color drifting smoke
streets. Explosive bio advance out of space to neon.

At the bottom of the stairs Uranian Willy engaged an Oven Guard. His flesh shrank feeling insect claws under the terrible dry heat. Trapped, cut off in that soulless place. Prisoner eaten alive by white hot ants. With a split second to spare he threw his silver blast and caught the nitrous fumes of burning film as he walked through the door where the guard had stood.

“Shift linguals—Free doorways—Cut word lines—Photo falling—Word falling—Break Through in Grey Room—Use partisans of all nations—
Towers, open fire—
”

WILL HOLLYWOOD NEVER LEARN?

“Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room—”

Insane orders and counter orders issue from berserk Time Machine—

“Terminal electric voice of C—Shift word lines—­Vibrate ‘tourists.
'
”

“I said The Chief of Police skinned alive in Baghdad not Washington D.C.”

“British Prime Minister assassinated in rightist coup.”

“Switzerland freezes all foreign assets—”

“Mindless idiot you have liquidated the Commissar—”

“Cut word lines—Shift linguals—”

Electric storms of violence sweep the planet—­Desperate position and advantage precariously held—Governments fall with a whole civilization and ruling class into streets of total fear—Leaders turn on image rays to flood the world with replicas—Swept out by counter image—

“Word falling—Photo falling—Pinball led streets.”

Gongs of violence and how—Show you something—Berserk machine—“Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin” charges in with his army of short-time hype artists and takes over The Reality Concession to set up Secretary Of State For Ruined Toilet—Workers paid off in SOS—The Greys came in on a London Particular—SOS Governments fade in worn metal dawn swept out through other flesh—Counter orders issued to the sound of gongs—Machine force of riot police at the outskirts D.C.—Death Dwarfs talking in supersonic blats of Morse Code—Swept into orbit of the Saturn Galaxy high on ammonia—Time and place shift in speed-up movie—

“Attack position over instrument like pinball—­Towers, open fire—”

Atmosphere and climate shifted daily from carbon dioxide to ammonia to pure oxygen—from the dry heat of Minraud to the blue cold of Uranus—One day the natives forced into heavy reptile forms of overwhelming gravity—next floated in tenuous air of plaintive lost planets—Subway broke out every language—D took pictures of a million battle fields—“Will Hollywood never learn?—Unimaginable and downright stupid disaster—”

Incredible forms of total survival emerged clashed exploded in altered pressure—Desperate flesh from short time artists—­Transparent civilizations went out talking—

“Death, Johnny, come and took over.”

Bradly and I supported by unusual mucus—Stale streets of yesterday precariously held—Paths of desperate position—Shifting ­reality—Total survival in altered pressure—Flesh sheets dissolving amid vast ruins of berserk machine—“SOS . . . — — — . . . Coughing enemy faces—”

“Orbit Sammy and the boys in Silent Space—Carbon dioxide work this machine—Terminal electric voice of C—All Ling door out of agitated—”

What precariously held government came over the air—Total fear in Hicksville—Secretary Of State For Far Eastern Hotel Affairs assassinated at outskirts of the hotel—Death Diplomats of Morse code supported in a cocktail lounge—

“Oxygen Law no cure for widespread blue cold.” The Soviet Union said: “The very people who condemn altered pressure remain silent—”

Displacement into orbit processes—The Children's Fund has tenuous thin air of lost places—Sweet Home Movement to flood it with replicas—

So sitting with my hat on said: “I'm not going to do anything like that—”

Disgusting death by unusual mucus swept into orbit of cosmic vomit—(Tenuous candlelight—Remember I was carbon dioxide)—Rousing rendition of shifting ­reality—John lost in about 5000 men and women—Everyone else is on The Grey Veil—Flesh frozen to particles called “Good Consciousness” irrevocably committed to the toilet—Colorless slides in Mexican people—Other feature of the code on Grey Veil—To be read so to speak naked—Have to do it in dirty ­pictures—Reverse instructions on car seat—

“Mindless idiot you have liquidated The Shadow Cabinet—”

Swept out tiny police in supersonic Morse code—Emergency Meeting at entrance to the avenue—

“Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift linguals—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways—Word falling—Photo falling—
Break through in Grey Room —.— .— — — — — .—. —.. ..—.
.— .—...—.. —. — —. .— —. .... — — — — — — — ..—.. —.—.. .—.. ..—. — —.”