Planet Fever (33 page)

Art: “Wow. So you’re saying there could be other RAs and REs out there right now, listening to this program, who have no clue of their true nature?”

Agent W: “Yup.”

Art: “What would you say to them, if you could get a message to one who might be going through the ordeal of being manipulated and coerced, without knowing why?”

Agent W: “If you’re experiencing excessive déjà vu or blackouts, beware. If you’re inhabiting a series of reiterated scenarios over and over, this could be their attempt to revise the nature of your reality, eventually wear you down so that you quit. Give up on life, so to speak. If you have a creative impulse, do not stop doing it. No matter what. And if someone is trying to make you sign over the rights to something you’ve created and it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Oh, and if you see a third eyeball appear on somebody’s forehead, watch out—you’re in the presence of one of my contemporaries, and they do not have your best interest at heart.”

EZ ejected the tape and allowed the drone of the muscle car’s motor to be the only sound audible for the rest of the drive, until they got back to Whynot.

THEY BOARDED
the
Tesla Express
gondola and headed up the mountain.

“Man, this is some
deep
shit.” EZ took a pinch of snuff and snorted.

“You think it’s bull?” Eddie said.

The gondola whizzed up the mountain. The sky was blue and the day warm.

EZ studied his snuff tin and glanced over to Eddie. “If it’s legit, Fillono probably was a Reality Author, and maybe got cut a deal. That’s the way I see it. You art guys were all corralled by these hunters then declawed—all except you, at least not yet, anyway. Seems as though Fillono and his Utopia resort was a plan to lure and snag me, the Engineer. Of course I jumped at the chance to tout my skills helping to engineer a scene like this place.” He looked out the window and shook his head. “And now they got us together, probably confirmed as the fellas they want to turn inside-out.”

Ed had no response. If this were all true, what could they do about it? Just wait, or resist? For how long? Eddie wanted to fight back, but against what or who? It’s simple when the opponent is a known person or entity, but a full-scale universal, hyper-dimensional conglomerate? He recalled something he had written back in the Moroni camp:

“Filing a declaration of war against the New (and Improved) Interstellar Syndicate at this point is akin to riding into battle on a mule and wielding nothing but a fork against a Roman legion.”

“I don’t even have a mule,” Ed mumbled, “and Moroni must’ve been in the same boat as me.”

“Eh?” EZ said, then took another snort of snuff.

On top of the mountain, Fillono stood out by some picnic tables, showing students how to properly expose for a 16mm Bolex camera as Ed and EZ approached. His animated expressiveness and charged-up excitement inspired those students, and for a glimmer of a moment Ed felt the exuberance, which was short-lived, for the vastness of the Rocky Mountains brought back perspective: this mountain range was very big, and it was just a small part of a planet that was very, very big, which was part of a very, very, very big galaxy, and so on … and the N(aI)IS allegedly controlled most of it.

Even if what Woods had explained were true, and Eddie in fact held an incredible responsibility and power, did he
really
care?

Certainly, he
thought
he wanted to fight, out of some loosely cobbled-together sense of duty and rebelliousness (as well as to perhaps impress Mona)…. But who really gave a shit if some bastards wanted to take over the entire show? Could it be
any worse than it was now
? Maybe, after all was said and done, that’s the way the cookie had crumbled in Atoz’ “grand Universal experiment.” In attempting to make beings with free will who created their own realities, Atoz’ venture had
resulted
in the very thing that was happening—people bailing out on him or selling out for the easy reward, or not giving a damn either way.

If almost every single other “Reality Author” had ceded control to the bastards, did a drunk hack like Edward Bikaver actually stand a chance? Eddie thought about it: most of the Universe would rather follow a narcissistic control freak like Phos and his gang, than a free-thinking, freewheeling “outside the box” Creator. Maybe Phos would just grant Eddie his own “ideal” existence, like the one given to Fillono, who seemed content, happy, and living his dream, even if it was, quite possibly, a delusion. That wasn’t such a bad deal, right?

That is,
if
that was the deal, and Fillono had in fact made it. Eddie didn’t know for certain yet, but he and EZ were about to find out.

“EDDIE. EZ.
You must-a-trust me. I am not sure what kind of-a-deal I make, but the Colonel, he-a-promise me that what he is doing is for the greater good. I am no getting younger, and he-a-give me free reign of this two mountains. I can-a-run the place how I want, and teach the youth to be better people and artists. This makes the world-a-better, no? I get to make ongoing films all-a-day and night. I tell you all of this.”

These are the thoughts that passed through Eddie’s mind:
Who could argue with Fillono’s logic? He owned an old ski resort and had the opportunity to convert it into a utopia. He was teaching students how to share their creative expression. But, was he merely under the impression that he was making films? Or, instead, had someone duped him into acting as a surveillance mechanism to capture footage of the creative minds? Minds that Phos and his constituents wanted to control, manipulate, exploit and erase? If so, Fillono probably wasn’t aware of those little details. He was an artist who had found his home.

“But didn’t you wonder
why
the military would have such a vested interest in setting up shop with you, why big capital would want to dump money into this venture? I’m speaking just from an economics viewpoint,” EZ said.

“Yes. And I asked him. And he-a-tell me. He is part of a team that is meant to protect the planet from, what can I say, Inter-dimensional Raiders. This place is also a base. He is-a-training Astral Monks who are going to counterattack the alien enemy. I make a fictional film about it, you not remember, EZ?”

“I remember,” EZ said.

Eddie had read a review about it in one of those Independent Film rags, and the reviewer was one of those Eastern Establishment Elites from NY who Ed surmised had grown up spoiled enough to be able to see every movie that came out, but too uninspired to make any movies of value himself. The pompous critic tore into Fillono’s film,
Stand of the Astral Monks,
deeming the movie “Camp, schlock and cheese tramped up in the guise of Art Cinema. Pointlessly listless, over-the-top and whatever the message of the film is (if there is one) I think the one guy on enough LSD to send a horse through time probably appreciates the effort. No dice.”(He rated the films with “dice” or “no dice,” with either a picture of a die at the end of the review or a picture of a die crossed out). “What an asshole,” Eddie said after reading the review.

S
ounds like Fillono’s fallen for the same rube bait song-n-dance I was given by Götzefalsch: the enemy was trying to sucker me into believing that they are the good guys, and we all are in this together fighting some other real bad guys,
thought Eddie.

Fillono looked around, scoping the area. He crouched down a little and spoke in a more hushed tone: “Guys, things are-a-not what they seem like they are. Crazy things are going on, too crazy to talk about in the same-a-way we talk about the weather or sports. Crazy things. So crazy, that if you talk about them like you are-a-serious you will be called crazy. So we use art and poetry and music and literature and film and photography to talk about the stuff.”

EZ took a pinch of snuff and snorted. “Boss, I feel ya. But you’re telling me that this Colonel cat took you behind closed doors, told you all about some secret, trans-dimensional cabal invading our turf, asked you to work with him to help out, and slid a briefcase full of cash across the table to you?”

“I know, I know. It all sounds impossible and fantastic. But this is-a-the case. He wanted me also to-a-help find Moroni, because he was getting more-a-dangerous, and he also owed the Colonel money. But I cannot tell anymore about it. I am sworn to-a-secrecy.”

Eddie and EZ exchanged glances.

“Why did I end up getting black-bagged by him, interrogated then tossed into the loony bin? Come on, old pal. The guy has a third-eye that appears out of nowhere on his forehead. He’s one of
them.
None of this makes any sense.”

Fillono just shrugged his shoulders, raised an eyebrow, and shook his head. “It does make-a-sense, but not how-a-you think it should. I-a-cannot say any more.”

The three stood there for a few moments, then a team of students swarmed around them with their sputtering Bolex wind-up cameras.

“Maybe you two need-a-to go on mountain bike ride. To clear your heads. Take a new trail we made called ‘Brave New Trail’ to-a-the end, then a little pathway to the north of trail that is very unused.
Very
scenic.”

EZ shook his head and pshawed.

Eddie said, “Man, this is no time for bike riding. This is some
serious shit.
”

Fillono approached them and placed a hand on each of their shoulder. He looked them both in the eyes and said, “Take-a-the ride. Trust me.”

“YOU WORKING
on anything?” Lisa, the mountaintop librarian asked. The library also acted as a bike rental shop in the warm months, ski rental shop in the winter.

Ed shrugged his shoulders. “I’m writing a reality piece,
All That There Is For Now,
which is essentially about what’s up. It’s an addendum to
My Book of Life,
which is part of a larger work-in-progress, called
Planet Fever.
”

“And how’s that going?”

“Shitty, I’m all out of ideas. If I don’t finish, the universe—as we know it—will cease to exist, and will be replaced by a cheap, shoddy and uninspired imitation of it.”

She smiled. “I hate when that happens. I hope you finish. Now, what can I get you fellas?”