Planet Fever (25 page)

“The client must be informed of everything that’s going on!” chirped Pal.

Eliza lighted a stick of incense. Whale calls and distant tribal drums issued forth from the speakers.

It was clear: I was in for a weird night.

A LUKEWARM
wave of relaxation and calmness poured over me as I sipped the tea, listened to the music and zoned out. The tribal-whale songs put me at ease. The colored lights revolved around the room and my mind began to wander off into imagination turf….

I felt like I was sitting inside a funky spaceship, cruising through inter-dimensional space … an oceanic habitat teeming with space-whales. I imagined the bird Pal as the ship’s artificial intelligence interface, chirping random data when he thought it was needed. Thoughts could be transmitted with ease and speaking vocally was unnecessary in this floating ship.

“…the client must be informed of everything that’s going on….”
I heard in my mind, or did I? Did Pal say it, or did I think it? Or did I think I heard it?

“
Of course. We don’t want to freak him out.”
Eliza’s voice entered my mind.

I glanced over at the couple lounging on the couch—JD leaning back with his arms behind his head and Eliza skimming through a
Cosmo
magazine.

“Did you just say something?” I asked.

They both shook their heads.

I must be losing it—again,
I thought.

I sipped more tea. The incense had permeated the room and altered my perception:
through my nostrils
I perceived
a differing dimensionality about the space I inhabited, as though we were underwater—yet breathing, sitting, and drinking tea as normal. I was floating down a river in outer space underwater—that’s the best and only way to explain it…. I needed to break the trance, so I peeled myself out of the beanbag chair.

“I need to use the restroom,” I announced.

“Down the hall on the right,” either Eliza—or JD—or both in unison said.

I placed the tea down on the table and slogged my way to the bathroom. I flipped on the light, turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over my face.

“
Do you think he’s ready?”
Eliza’s voice was still inside my head.

“Sure—the Honcho says he is. He can hear us right now. Might as well.”
JD’s voice was also within my mind.

I took a piss and listened for them to speak again. Butterflies filled my chest as an impending sense of exhilaration overtook me.

Something was about to happen.

I returned to the living room and JD sat on the couch flipping through an issue of
Mad
magazine, Eliza gazed at the spinning disco ball. I dropped back into the beanbag and rested my arms behind my head.

“It might be easier if you close your eyes….”
the voice of JD suggested from within my head.

I looked over at him. He read—or pretended to read—the magazine. He glanced up at me and gave a nod, as though asking me “how’s it going?”

“
Otherwise you’ll get transdimensional interference,”
said
the voice of Eliza, still somewhere inside my brain.

“Your five senses are ‘tuned into’ a specific reality frequency. We’re currently breaking into it and operating from another one—but the more your regular senses operate, the harder—”

“
What the hell is going on here?” I blurted out.

JD and Eliza seemed startled.

JD shrugged his shoulders. Eliza just stared at me with her big puppy-dog eyes. The parrot squawked.

Had I gone mad? Was I having withdrawals from the pills? Or was this young couple fucking with me? A blackening smog of paranoia began to rise….

“
He’s slipping.”
JD’s voice.

“
You’re fine. You’re not having withdrawals. You’re not paranoid. Or going mad,”
Eliza’s voice comforted.

I closed my eyes and felt a fluttering tugging at the outer edges of my eyelids, as though my brain’s upper part had been caught on a fishhook and was being reeled in. The tugging became more pronounced and I felt like some force was pulling me out of my own body. My eyes were closed, yet an awareness of alternative space encompassed me….

“WHERE IS
he? I think he’s doing all right. Not quite ready for the full data-dump. We gotta ease him in casually…. Full disclosure at the mountain. He’s our Pal.”
The voices of JD, Eliza and Pal meshed together. “
It’s a little tricky to explain in concepts you can comprehend…. I-we will reveal more after you clear your mind out in the desert…. Don’t panic, this is only a test…. Don’t worry about a thing, I-we have got your back … You just gotta relax right now and trust me/us. My-our name is Atoz Al Ways and I-we am-are the designer, developer, producer, and architect of the thing you call ‘reality.’ At this moment, you are outside your known reality habitat, in more ways than one. I-we cannot explain what I-we mean at this very moment—your brain would explode, and I-we wish to avoid that from occurring. Tomorrow my-our helpers/proxy liaisons JD and Eliza will drive you to the desert and tell you where you need to go from there. That’s it for now—your natural senses are overriding this signal….”

My eyes shot open and I peered around the room.

Same scenario: JD and Eliza on the couch. Only JD was clipping his fingernails and Eliza was knitting. Pal let out a loud whistle.

“How you feeling? Looks like you zoned out there for a bit.” JD collected his nail clippings and placed them in an ashtray on the table.

“The tea’ll do that to you. Very relaxing.” Eliza continued knitting.

I almost said something, but refrained.

“Peek-a-boo!” Pal squawked.

I watched the colored lights revolve around the room. The whale music continued and that is how I fell asleep.

I WOKE
up to the smell of pancakes, bacon and coffee. The first early streaks of dawn jabbed through the blinds. JD was attaching a sleeping bag to my backpack with bungee cables.

“You’re gonna need this if you’re planning to stay out there at night,” he said. “Try these on, we look about the same size.” He tossed a pair of hiking boots onto the floor. I put them on and walked around the room.

“Yeah, they fit. Thanks.”

“No sweat bro. There’s a towel for you in the bathroom. Hit the shower then we’ll grub and bolt.”

“Okay,” I said, and made my way to the shower.

In the bathroom, I checked myself in the mirror. I had slept the whole night through and felt rested. My mind was like an old radio that had been in the repair shop and was now firing up. No static transmissions, just the humming glow of a comfortable tone. I checked for random voices, like that of the doctor, or my hosts, or good ol’ Ron the Gipper. Nothing so far. Radio silence. It seemed the heavy narcotics had cleared out of my system and I was gaining my mind back.

At least, I hoped so.

“
You still have to get out of range
,” a mild voice stated.

Shit—the voices were still active, but I didn’t feel menaced from this one; it was rather a matter-of-fact vibe on the soothing side. The same one that had directed me to go to “the mountain.”

Atoz,
I discerned.

“
Mmmm-hmmmm.”

I took a warm shower and brushed my teeth. When I got out into the dining room a plate with a pile of pancakes, bacon and coffee awaited me.

Eliza beamed. “Enjoy. And thank you for getting us out to Zion for the day. If it weren’t for you, we’d have never thought about going.”

“Oh. Yeah, you bet. Thank you for your hospitality.”

THE LIGHT
layer of frost gave the environs around Hurricane a golden-white hue in the early morning light. The Scout International ambled up the quiet, two-lane freeway; the dogs lolled their tongues and checked out the windows from the back. They radiated unabashed excitement.

My mind and the sky shared a common trait that fine morning: both seemed fairly clear. I wondered about the last time my mind was “clear” of booze, of uppers, of pharmaceuticals, of experimentals, of deliriants…. That I couldn’t recall.

As we approached the entrance of Zion National Park, to the left passed endless reddish vertical mesas and to the right a series of pointy, ragged mountains. We stopped at the park ranger booth and the ranger noted the valid park sticker on JD’s windshield and waved us through. On the right, signs pointed to a maze of user-friendly campsites. JD drove the other way. He wanted to go “where not a lot of tourists venture.” About a mile in he turned left onto a smaller, one-lane dirt road.

“This is ‘Zion Canyon Scenic Drive.’ It’ll take us a ways in—a couple of hours. Then you can go hike to wherever you want from there.”

He was taking us into the heart of Zion.

The two-hour drive up the road was slow, bumpy and scenic. At some of the steeper inclines Eliza and the dogs got out of the vehicle: Eliza to direct JD around giant shards of rocks and holes strewn about the road—which was more a trail than road. The final ascent was a two-hundred-yard slope so steep that all I saw out of the windshield was blue sky and clouds; I thought we might flip over backwards.