BOOK 3: Freeks of Nature
Chapter 1: The Bandit Rides Again
WHEN CASSIUS CROON OPENED HIS EYES TO SEE TWO MEN STANDING AT THE FOOT OF HIS BED IN POWDER BLUE SOUTHERN SUITS AND COWBOY HATS, THE brother had cause to believe some kind of "game" was being played. Croon had been lying low since Frieda's disappearance, trying to work through his confused thoughts and feelings. In other words, he'd been moping! If there was ever a time he felt like throwing in the towel and joining an Armageddon cult, that was the time. He certainly wasn't in the mood for unexpected guests. Regarding them through the slit of his eyes, play-snoring, Croon thought, Private sector, has to be. Only big business would be streetwise enough to use screenplay. He was contemplating dismissing them with a stork beak technique when the taller of the two looked at the animal skins around him and said, in a thick Texan accent: <<Any man who decorates his home like this would go to a minister's funeral dressed in feathers." Croon recognized the text: Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynold's seminal bootleggin' film. It was also one of Croon's Favorite movies. Confused, he opened his eyes, channeled his anger into a sardonic laugh. <<Oh, I love your suits," he said. "It must be a bitch getting a size 68 extra fat, and a 12 dwarf." Big Enos Burdette ignored the ferocity of the delivery, turned to his son. "So," he said, "what'd he get for that Dianagate gig?" "He got his dick wet, Daddy. That's all" the dwarf-son said. "You mean to say this sucker did it for free?" Big Enos replied. Dianagate gig, Croon thought. What the fuck did he mean by that? So he recited, straight out of the script, "Just what the hell you want here anyway?" "You," Big Enos said, "to get your lazy ass back to the States and make some real money."
Chapter 31: Redemption
RUPERT MURDOCH'S FORAY INTO CRIME REHABILITATION ranks must be one of the more notorious exploits of Too Late Capitalism. The story began in the free-for-all days of the Turn of the Century, 2001 to be precise. Neoliberals had just seized ideological control of the White House and were pushing for the complete privatization of, well, pretty much everything. Utilities, ports, roads, prisons, even police and the CIA... everything was up for grabs. This was the dawning of the Third Age, the ideologues said, and this brave millennium had no room for heavyhanded governments and their spoonfeeding ways. In this brave new millennium, the ideologues said, the only hand-outs were going to be hand-ups. Of course, there had been private jails in America for years, but only as an adjunct to the public system. In 2002, however, every prison in the country was put out for tender. A competitive system was introduced where judges could sentence convicts to the penitentiary of their choice, according to performance indicators and other factors. The Government hoped competition would improve rehabilitation standards and diversify the "reformation" market. But what was in it for the prison administrators? In the early days they were given a set sum per convict, and this seemed to work. As the national incarceration rate mounted throughout the 00s, and Armageddon Fever drove increasing numbers of people over the brink, this alone made captivity a pretty lucrative business. But governments paying for the captivity and rehabilitation of criminals: it wasn't really neoliberalism, was it? It wasn't really user-pay. Therefore, in late 2003 the payments were withdrawn, and administrators were allowed to employ their prisoners in the production and sale of consumer goods.
Permanent Resurrection
EVERYTHING FLICKERED BY SO RAPIDLY, LIKE the shadows of the sparse clouds sailing over some Californian desert-of-the-mind in a Doors' flashback, or like the ticking of the clock when you are on amphetamines and contemplating the Universe, or flying through the void on an enchanted horse. In the great Quranic story, Mohammad the Prophet jumped from Mecca to Jerusalem (al Quds) on the winged steed Bharrak before boarding a cloud straight to Heaven. In his second incarnation, Mohammad (Blessed be his name!) was doing things a bit more modern. From Mecca to Jerusalem on the TransArabian Express, and the only jumping Ishmael was doing was jumping the train! The only horse he was riding was an iron horse! This was his hour, and the Final Day had arrived, again: January 17, 2010. This was how the east was won. In Islamic tradition, the Final Day (otherwise known as the Day of Judgment, or the Day of Resurrection) is believed to be the day when Allah will resurrect all human beings who have ever lived on Earth, who will then be held accountable for their actions and deeds in life. Those who have lived a righteous life will be rewarded with paradise (Jannah), while those who have led a life of disobedience and sin will be punished in Hell (Jahannam). That was the official doctrine, but stoned in Cairo, Ishmael received an astounding insight: what if every day was the Final Day, or Day of Judgment? What if the Day of Resurrection was not some universal event proscribed in the future, but a personal reality accessible right now, relative to the observer? One could perish in jihad, be judged by God, and resurrected right away... into one's own private Jannah. Wake up tomorrow and repeat the same story. Like those warriors in Valhalla, you could die in battle in the afternoon, and be miraculously healed in time for the evening feast! Of course, this kind of revelation was highly heretical, Salman Rushdie-level heresy to be honest... but Ishmael no longer feared any fatwa or punishment. In fact, he had already died twice, in his experiments. had already proved it to be correct... not just once, but twice. Each time he came back. What more proof do you need? "The clerics won't touch me," he was telling a posse of starstruck jumpers on the journey to Jerusalem. "Whatever they do, they are bound to fail. If they kill me, I will rebound to life again because I have found a loophole in their logic. By trying to prove me wrong, they will prove me right. There is a koan there, if they were intelligent enough to understand. Each of you who have entered the realm of the Imam-of-one's-own-being becomes a sultan of inverted revelation, a monarch of abrogation and apostasy." "I want to follow you to Paradise," a young boy said, he couldn't have been more than 15. "Paradise is not a place that you can go. It exists right here, inside your heart. So long as you want to go somewhere, you will get there."Chapter 32: Jailhouse Rock
THR0WBACK'S AIR GUITAR WAS DRIFTING, SHIFTING, riffing against the jailing of the day. He was jamming to Led Zeppelin in Redemption's entertainment lounge and ranting over the top:Cause it will only, only drive you mad
Does it hurt to hear them lying?
Was this the only world you had???"
FROM THAT POINT ON, the escape was textbook. They quickly became the best of buds. <<Isn't it strange that we do all this work on bees, but there ain't no bees here?" "It might be against safety regulations," Thr0back replied. "Yeah, nah... it doesn't pass the pub test," Croon said, discretely passing him a small piece of paper. He got Thr0back to make him items in the factory that would be useful for breaking out, like metallic boomerangs, shuriken (ninja stars) . In any case Th0back's brute strength would be invaluable. .. Later that night he crept out from the shrubbery and sent a sharpened boomerang - a terrible flash of steel - flying into the fluorescent night. It was a smart boomerang and it controlled its spin by generating localised magentic fields on its surface. In good hands it made a formidable weapon. As Croon watched anxiously it looped an observation tower, yes! concussed a sentry guard knocking a cigarette from his mouth, dropped 30 meters to Croon's outstretched hand. That was the thing about boomerangs, he thought, they always came back. They always came back.
Call it doper's intuition or evolutionary paranoia but the geezer could always tell when he was being watched; the cold glare of surveillance pierced him like a drill. There were cameras everywhere inside Redemption, which might be expected given that this was such a high security facility. However, Croon suspected that he was being given special treatment given his contract with Murdoch. It was quite possible that cable networks were livestreaming his exploits right now, with a digital clock counting down the days, hours, and minutes to the big fight in Antarctica. Would he make or not??? Time was running out. Nonetheless, Croon felt reluctant to explain the real reason for his mission. So far he could not seen the apeman fight, not even once. He run away from the first sign of trouble in the entertainment lounge. He was a simulcra in a simulcra, a game inside a game. Stripes and crewcuts might have been a thing of the past in American prisons, but dress freedom had bought its own dilemmas. It wasn't long before his latex was peeling, his skin dye was fading, and his moustache was drooping dangerously to one side. Jesus, he thought one night, rubbing some skin whitener on to his face, how does Thr0back keep looking so good? The thought prompted a fresh wave of anxiety: it was his seventh day inside, but he still hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words with the fucker. More worryingly, his alias was starting to disintegrate just as quickly as his appearance. He couldn't afford to make too many rookie mistakes like today's episode with the gene strand. Remembering the strange logo on the gene that he helped to splice, he dipped his finger into the aforementioned skin whitener, then commenced scrawling "T.A.G." across the wall of his cell. He repeated it in kinds of fonts, modern and archaic, large and small, the same one logo -Thymine, orgarten, and then to Garten StormThor.
He had taken to scratching off the days in neat rows of four 1s intersected by a fifth horizontal line on the wall besides his bed, a habit which the guards had permitted as it made for a good backdrop. In vapid listlessness he leant his head against the wall, and continued counting the 1111s till his eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white numbers started from the dark, as vivid as spectres - the air swarmed with 1s; and rousing himself to dispel the obtrusive digits, he stood up to have a slash. Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the magazine moved as if thrust forward. Perhaps the 1s give way to the Chinese character for "truth", and then finally uncastrated 0s. . He knew there were no trees in Redemption, but the noise continued, and it annoyed him so much he resolved to silence it if possible. He tried to open the window, then remembered of course that it was hermetically sealed. "I must stop it, nevertheless!" he muttered, knocking his knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch: instead of which, his fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand. The intense horror of nightmare came over him; he tried to draw back his arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed. "Let me in - let me in!" "Babel!?" he asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage himself. "Help me," she replied shiveringly (why did he think of Thomas Day? He had written Thr0wback 20 times for Thomas Day), "I want to come home!" I'd lost my way on the streets." As she spoke, he discerned, obscurely, Babel's face looking through the window. She seemed to be in a cage of her own, one of those antique cages that they put canaries in. "How can I!" he said at length. "Let me go, if you want me to let you in!" The fingers relaxed, he snatched his through the hole, rolled an Illustrated Sports magazine to plug the hole, and stopped his ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. He seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour, yet, the instant he listened, again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! "Begone!" he shouted, "I'll never let you in, not if you beg for 20 years." "Infinity is the primordial state, and it's symbol is ∞," moaned the voice. "The void was both timeless and without space. Suddenly, consciousness arose: the t I, the dividing line (/)!. ∞ / = 0 + 0, two independent circles, one spinning clockwise, the other counterclockwise. Thus, polarity was born. Yin and yang, time and space, heaven and earth The proton and the electron." Hasty footsteps in the passageway outside; the door was thrust open; torchlight sprayed around like mace. Croon jerked awake, sweat-sopped. "Er, must have been a dream," he muttered. "Well," the guard cracking his knuckles "let me upgrade that to a nightmare!"
Perhaps Croon hacks into the Redemption computers to learn the truth of TAG (Thorgarten Aggression Gene)? The rest of the mission was textbook. Croon fired a length of cord up to the tower, scaled the wall, kicked the sentry aside for good measure. He quickly donned some prison uniforms supplied by Enis, hoped the jail's computer had been uploaded with his new identity, casually strolled towards the cells. Thank God, he thought, I get to keep my locks... the American government had recently stopped crewcutting inmates! <
Chapter 33: The King of Sting
LET’S PUT THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE: privatization was born of necessity, not a philosophical ideal. Governments the world over were finding it impossible to balance their books because too much money was going to the multinationals. The only way they could stay afloat, the reasoning went, was to sell plots of the estate for increasingly desperate sums. This, ironically, was delayed surrender because the only parties wealthy enough to afford such ballast were the multinationals. Such a vicious cycle could only escalate to war. By the late 00s governments faced a new crisis: they were running out of assets. They’d sold their national airlines, their telecommunication networks, their health systems and even their major roads; what was there left to flog? Panicked legislatures moved to privatize ever more essential assets and services: armed forces, public spaces, even fishing rights. They claimed such measures would keep them solvent until 2030. But what then? Some governments considered the sale of “abstract property” including language, knowledge, culture and religion, especially after the United States Supreme Court recognized such commodities in early 2006. The recognition and promised sale of abstract property was, of course, exactly what the multinationals wanted, because it would give them potential jurisdiction over all spheres of human life. From that point in time class structures would not be defined by, say, who could and could not write. They would be defined by who could and could not afford to speak.Because the winds they were changing just for you..."
Although it was out of character, Cheung Li suddenly noticed Tiim’s subtle likeness to Brett Weir and realised this was some kind of reunion. The feeling was so strong she grabbed his hand and said, “I shall think it a dream tomorrow! I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more - and yet, cruel Br... Tiimopia, you don’t deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three months, and never to think of me!”
"Dude," the film star said, "you've got to turn your legs before you land." So, Cassius Croon had modelled himself on Burt Reynolds for his Californian junket. Strange coincidence that on the other side of the Pacific, Jacky Tung was using Reynold's Boogie Nights as an extended piece of screenplay in his penthouse palace. The tycoon had staged a three-week long rendition of the poolside party scene, with endless variations on its basic themes of drugs and sex and 70s rock'n'roll. Some of the leading names of the south China were there, either for the long-haul or as special guest stars: Hong Kong movie stars, property developers, high-class hookers. In one corner, a girl in a polkadot bikini was jerking uncontrollably through the early stages of a heroin o.d. In another, more secluded corner, a couple were groaning through the latter stages of anal sex. Somewhere in between Franz Hoebbard was sitting at a table in a Northern Territory rodeo hat and elastic sides. While he was trying not to annoy anyone, he had attracted some heat from a German girl named Letitiia Lust. "I don't mean to be causing you no disrespect," Lust said, sliding into a seat next to him, "it's just, well, maybe you should change your look. It's old... it's old deal." Hoebbard was loath to play along, what with this being his fifth week of captivity, and the rather hideous nature of his "work". But there were cameras everywhere, and he'd been beaten enough already for deviating from the script. So he said, with as much hostility as he could hide behind the rather easy-going constraints of his character, "Lemme tell you something." She noticed the hostility, but evidently assumed he was just an asshole (like everyone else at this party). "No, lemme tell you something," she said. "That cowboy look, that went out six years ago." "It's coming back!" Hoebbard said. "No it's not, it's over. It's dead." "Just like me," Hoebbard said softly, to himself. Bemused by such a mysterious manifestation of glum, Lust said her next line: "I'm just saying it would be good for you if you thought about changing your look." According to the script, Hoebbard's response should have been, "Yeah, you get a new look!" But he was pissed off, so he said, "If only I could." It was a massive deviation of character, but he felt sure he could explain it if queried as a piece of failed improvisation. "Honey," Lust getting the impression that something was seriously wrong here, "there's nothing wrong with my look. My look's fine." She's covering for me, Hoebbard thought. "Anyway, what is your look?" "Looking after you," she said. Just then a KC and the Sunshine track came on, eliciting a mass stampede on to the dancefloor. "Ooh, I love this track," Lust rushing off to join her. And Hoebbard thought: I'll be looking out for you.
Julian cancelled a check-up with the outpost doctor and took a joy ride to Flora's city. Although it was wholly new territory for him he could not dispel a growing sense of deja vu on the journey, an uncanny dreamy feeling... possibly of destiny. Passing a shaft of volcanic rock the thought came into his mind: hey, wasn't that The Splinter. Further on he climbed a small hill he somehow understood to be called Orana Kly, although he had no idea what those words meant, or what language they were from. Guided largely by intuition, Julian arrived at Flora's Quonset hut around noon. He stopped to knock at the door, to tell her he loved her and wanted to spend every second of his life with her, to finally, fatally breach the straight jacket of his life. He stopped to knock at the door. The door opened and a drunk Dean Coombes staggered out into the brisk sunshine. He was actually doing up his fly. "Hey Flora," he said, "it's your fucking lover boy!" He added in a quieter voice, "Ditch the bouquet, dude, she's not that hard." Julian felt an overwhelming sense indignation in his spleen. If it was... But Jules was in love and he was in Antarctica so he shoved the drunken hooligan, the hooligan shoved back, I know it's out of a Michael J Fox movie, but Julian curled his fist and punched the fucker out. Flora ran to the door, saw Coombes sprawl on to the snow. "Gee, sorry," Julian said, "I didn't mean to hurt your man." Flora only laughed. "LOL, he's not my man." "Huh?" Julian said. Noel Jenkins, the only openly gay man in the Australian Antarctic Territory, came to the door and was shocked by the carnage at his feet. "Dean, what have they done to you?" "Looks like a king hit to me," Flora replied.
Tiimopia and Coolio
Although it was out of character, Cheung Li suddenly noticed Tiim’s subtle likeness to Brett Weir and realised this was some kind of reunion. The feeling was so strong she grabbed his hand and said, “I shall think it a dream tomorrow! I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more - and yet, cruel Br... Tiimopia, you don’t deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three months, and never to think of me!” Croon sighed, exasperated. He was getting sick of being robbed of legitimate victories. It was like that day in his flat, those Texans: he won that fucking game! Little Enis didn't offend him with that homosexual jibe - his Reynolds was a gay icon. But Enis went away thinking he was the winner. Croon needed a fucking umpire!The King of Sting must feature news that Murdoch was coming to Antarctica: this is the Empire's attack. Julian's depression is the repetition of him being lost in the snow, and Dean ends up being his Han, who saved him. Stripes and shaved melons might have been a thing of the past in American jails, but... During the Second World War, Nazi scientist Dr. Karl Stormgarten was determined to develop the ultimate weapon for the Third Reich. He had always been fascinated by the potential of DNA and the genetic code, and he believed that by manipulating it, he could create soldiers with superhuman strength and endurance, or even create entirely new species to do their bidding. Dr. Stormgarten devoted himself to this research, pouring over books and papers on genetics and DNA, and conducting experiments in his secret laboratory hidden deep in the heart of Germany. As the war raged on, Dr. Schmidt made great strides in his research. He was able to successfully splice the DNA of different animals, creating creatures that were stronger and more agile than their natural counterparts. But Dr. Schmidt's ultimate goal was to control the DNA of humans, and he knew that this was the key to creating the ultimate weapon for the Nazi war machine. He worked tirelessly, experimenting on prisoners and other subjects in his laboratory, searching for a way to manipulate the human genetic code. Finally, after years of grueling work, Dr. Schmidt believed he had found the key to controlling human DNA. He was convinced that he could create an army of genetically enhanced soldiers, who would be able to fight for the Third Reich with unrivaled strength and ferocity. But as the Allied forces closed in on Germany, Dr. Schmidt knew that he had to act quickly. He gathered his team of scientists and set to work, creating the first batch of genetically enhanced soldiers. The results were nothing short of miraculous. The soldiers were stronger, faster, and more resistant to injury than any human had ever been before. But as the war drew to a close, and the Nazi regime collapsed, Dr. Schmidt and his team were captured by the Allied forces. Despite his efforts to keep his research a secret, Dr. Schmidt was forced to reveal everything about his work. And as he stood trial for war crimes, he knew that his discoveries would be used for both good and evil in the years to come.Chapter 20: When We Were Gods
IT WAS billed as the fight of the millennium: Mike "the original" Tyson vs a reconstituted George Forman. Both men were disgruntled, grizzly has-beens; both men knew that "boxing doesn't have an old-timer's home". But both men had been pumped with enough growth hormones, silicone implants and "explosive" knuckles to knock out an eastern European Olympics team. And if their bodies weren't pumped enough, there were also their egos to consider. For the booty included more than a $500 million purse and the same revenue in media endorsements. Up for grabs was the inaugural world SuperWeight title, that and a place in history. There were plenty of younger, stronger fighters up for the challenge, but Rupert Murdoch was in charge and he wanted a retro vibe. He could think of a no more mythic struggle for his five billion strong TV audience than Tyson and Forman slugging it out in the gruesome ring. And he wanted to do it offshore to promote his reach into global markets. So, where to hold it? Thailand was over-rated, Zaire had been done; Rupert opted for the snows of East Antarctica. The only trouble was, George Forman now refused to fight outside America.Which meant they had to find a replacement.
RUPERT MURDOCH'S foray into American boxing was one of the seedier sagas of corporate sporting history. It began around 2002 when Fox Television tried to acquire a broadcast monopoly of all major US bouts. Wary of what Murdoch had done to baseball (the term "sports rationalisation" still chilled many purists) the [federation] responded with a fierce upper-cut: it banned Foxtel cameras from all headline fights. Stunned, Murdoch announced he was forming his own boxing cicuit, the so-called SuperLeague, and pressured Congress? into giving him its support. By this stage what had began a minor altecation had turned into a full-on corporate brawl. One night in April 2007, Murdoch went for the k.o. hit: he signed up virtually every notable boxer in America, in some cases with eight figure deals. It was a devastating blow, and one which ultimately cripped the [federation]. To quote a reeling Don King at the time, Murdoch had "glassed the bastard". In the process, however, he had so completely alienated American audiences that his SuperLeague was no longer viable there. He didn't really care, because he was more interested in developing foreign markets. That's why he preferred staging his major bouts offshore. Within months the true nature of Naturally, SuperBoxing was a neoliberal form of the original, with significant departures. Rules and etiquette were relaxed, techniques streamlined, the whole spectacle given a gladiator feel. There were token attempts to introduce elements of kung fu and Thai kickboxing, mainly to woo Asian audiences. While regular boxing bouts can drag out for 10 rounds, Murdoch wanted to cut to the chase: there would only be one round in his fights. Did Murdoch consider the cultural ramifications of these measures? Probably not, although his long-term strategists definitely did. They knew, at least in some intuitive way, that the Asianisation of American boxing would give it more than global reach. Just as the governments which risked pogromic wrath to import immigrants into their countries wanetd more than a coffee-coloured people. Their's was the dream of all secret societies since time began, an elemental shift deeper than any market force. The miracle of alchemy.
OUTLINE FOR A LOVE STORY: Man meets machine on a date at McDonalds. Man is made of carbon and the machine is powered by silicon. Lust breaches the interface, brining into being an entirely new reality: the Cobalt Age. SO MEEN E FLEW DOWN TO Antarctica to the first civilian airport built on the white continent, the Cresswell International Terminal, about 93 kilometers from the Tuggerah scientific research base. It was only makeshift at this stage with plenty of exposed steel girders and unopened crates, but already the News Corporation style was shining through: there was even a Burger King restaurant on the roof. Snow buggies transported Meen, his entourage and about 50 sports journalists the short distance to the Larry Holmes International Hotel.
Of course, Croon didn't care for these incentives; he knew it was a short-term assignment, another recon mission into the heart of the enemy camp. His main concern was the force behind Tyson's gloves. So he went to the gym every day for six weeks, ingested the 'roids rather than puking them, developed his tae kwon do. And gradually, triumphantly, he became more brutal. [Insert beginning of this segment here, because I wiped it] ctrodes linked to Croon's central nervous system gave the false muscles flex; "explosive" fibres supplied the punch. Croon's skin was dyed, his glorious Afro lopped and the Maori tattoo morphed into Tyson's trademark black panther. The bullet holes in his stomach were left as is, however, because they were true to character. When Croon had been sutured into place the surgeons and technicians stepped back and appraised their work. The chief surgeon opened a flick knife and opened Meen E's right cheek. "There, it's done," she said.
MEEN E had his own interviews to do: a two-hour armchair spiel with The New York Times about the celebrity turned outlaw turned celebrity outlaw; a Das Spiegel piece probing his views on ecstasy and the prison rehabilitation system; an Entertainment Tonight hook-up in which he was coerced into ad libbing a rap about yoking the Tyson joker. Then there was the training regime. E spent four hours in the gym every day for six weeks, popped steroids every other meal, led the cameras on the occasional sub-zero jog. He was promised a year off his sentence for every pound of muscle gained. For every pound of fat he failed to clear, the penalty was six strokes of a birch rod. That day Thr0w-Back realised Homo Sapiens had finally met his match: himself. Lying in bed listening to the police helicopters and road rage gunfights on the nearby freeway, he wondered what kind of world it would be if the Neanderthals had survived that Holocaust in Eurasia 100,000 years ago, and Homo Sapiens was the one in the museums. "Man, you're only stealing yourself. You're playing with tactics you don't understand. Eg, this limo. Where's the struggle in that?" "This reeks," the Dark Stranger said. "Reek's a Valley term," Elana said, kinda haw-hawing. "Where's the homeland in that? Where's the subterrannean expression?" "All right, if you want subpression, I'm in your ho face with subpression! I say you're a stinking fun-mentalist!" Elana glanced nervously at her photographer cum bodyguard: a quiet, desperate moment. "That's a take," she said, at length. "I should get some great quotes." "Frank Sloon," Croon said, and he would have extended his hand if they weren't both cuffed behind his back. "Your new roomy!" "Bud," Thr0wback developing an instant dislike for this dude, "this prison ain't roomy enough for th
Chapter 12: The Pestilence
IT WAS EARLY SUMMER IN THE HOLY LAND, AND ALREADY BLAZING. For the past week, rumors had been spreading of plague on the Temple Mount, a devastating biological weapon unleashed by the Zionists. Meditating on the carpeted floor of the sacred mosque, Ishmael suddenly realized: there was no plaque, at least in the conventional sense. Rather, the rumors were themselves the actual plague, a virus of doubt dropped into the camp by Israeli propaganda, to demoralize the enemy. There was no plague, but for the rumors which described it! But if you succumbed to the suspicion, to the fear of infection, then you were already done for. This was his great discovery. THEME PARKS had changed over the years, and by the Year 00BE they embraced concepts far deeper than the thud and blunder fixation of the 20th century. This was the End of the World, after all, and it hadn't been so hard to scare the shit out of people since the Cuban Missile Crisis. To get over in the 00s you needed more than just a 280 kilometre per hour underground freefall TerroroasteR. In these dying days you needed to shock people in the body, the mind and the soul. In terms of thrill diversification, Magic Mountain was pretty much the market leader. Of course, not all of the attractions were threatening. There was the legendary NikeAir Basketball, which was like air hockey but with you as the puck. Thr0wback and Croon surfed up and down the court for hours, slam-dunking, somersaulting, carried on a tremendous cushion of air. (That those jets could keep Thr0wback's monstrous bulk aloft simply staggered Croon.) There was the Apollo 13 ride, basically a platform which fell 55 stories to simulate the conditions of space. There was the People Vs Larry Flynt exhibition featuring an endless rendition of the bathroom orgy scene. Basically, however, Magic Mountain was for horror freaks. One of the favorite attractions was a gallery of mirrors designed by David Lynch. The mirrors were supposed to reflect your "inner devil", or dark stranger. Fascinatingly enough, Thr0wback's darkside was the Elephant Man. When Croon looked into the distorted glass he saw his own true face, childhood scars and all. What made this especially off-putting as he was currently dressed as a brown-haired Marlboro Man with extensive facial latexing. "Deep," Thr0wback said. "I just wonder what a shrink would make of that." "It's nothing," Croon said. "It's just Lynch again, trying to scare everyone again." "Yeah, but how would those mirrors know what you look like, with all that make-up that you've got on?" "I don't know..." and Croon contemplated computers with iris sensors, linked to Internet seach machines and government databases... it wouldn't be that hard to identify him, download a current image. Croon shrugged, and his darkside followed suit. "I never digged David Lynch anyway," he said. "Gee I'm hungry. Yo, you tryna grab a lil' somethin' to munch on?" "Burger King," Thr0wback said. "They just made me a life member.""What is it?" Th0wback asked. "It's more a question of what it isn't, than what is," Bobby replied. "It's an absence, not a presence." Time on my hand, you are the one to abuse...
Chapter 27: Buddha and the Beefcake
<<The launch manifest called for a Thai meteoroligical satellite to be boosted into stationary orbit. Yesterday the transport plane brought the payload to the launch pad.>> Waagenaar shook his head vigorously. He shook it. <<I wasn't there, so you know this is only heresay. These Filipinos gossip like anything, it's because the sun's too hot. But the word is -- and I'm only telling you this because I am drunk, and have nothing better to do -- but when they opened it they found a most puzzling sight.>> The Buddha is being used to strengthen the astral plane of the Earth.“SIR, COULD I TAKE your order?” the black boy behind the counter said (he was dressed as a Dickensian street urchin). Yeah, I've played this game before Croon thought. "Just get me a Whopper value meal and a jug of beer for me and my friend," he said. “Is that synthetic beer, or yeast?" the kid said. “Look kid,” Croon replied, "I just want the standard deal." "Whatever you like. But that'll be $29.99 thanks." They sat down in a booth near a large sign Burger King used to flash inspirational messages. This one said: I AM that I AM. Croon had just tucked into his burger and was getting friendly with his fries when he noticed the lights flickering, and then heard what sounded like bird twittering. He spun around like a man deranged, scanned the restaurant, but there were no birds to be seen. A tingly sensation spread up his legs. "God, I feel sick," he said. "Maybe I overdid it with those screwdrivers last night." "Cas, what's wrong?" Thr0wback said. As he spoke his words seemed to stretch out, as if his batteries were going dead. "Youuu loook liiiike shhhhhit!" Suddenly the small table between them was as vast as a laminex prairie, and Croon got the feeling he was having another one of "those" experiences. He gripped his seat fighting a desperate urge to throw up. He wanted to hide, wanted to run, but he knew there was nowhere to go but in... deeper... Deeper. "Cassss?" The room started to disintegrate, collapsing into astral space. Croon looked around, too stunned now to even move. There was no sign of Thr0wback, the table or the reassuring aroma of his Whopper meal. The motivational sign was still there, however, except now it was shaped like an octagonal altar, with a lotus-shaped crystal gleaming on the top. The boy at the counter was there too, but in the Fifth Dimension he was a bleached blonde girl dressed in red hot pants and an under-indulgent top. She popped purple gum as she said, "How you doing?" "What?" Croon feeling like the blighter who woke up on the Vogon demolition ship in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, or Edmund on his first trip to Narnia. "Where the fuck am I?" "Allow me to explain," the girl said. "Three years ago you were given $4000 in Hooters Family Restaurant shares by a couple of friends as a birthday present. The following year you nominated as a candidate in the Hooters Governing Board elections, running on an independent ticket. You nominated not for the chicks but to further your pet interest, improving the living standards of the developing world. Your policies included higher wages for African staff, multi-lingual menus in developed nations and a ban on foreign guestworkers, all to be cross-subsidised by gambling profits. After an intense campaign you were elected by the customers of your town as their local representative. Initially thrilled, you set about fulfilling your dream of changing the world - only to find not a lot of power resided in the backwaters of the Hooter empire. Realizing your only hope was a seat on the Global Governing Congress, you toured the nation courting votes. Last week customers across the country elected you as their national Hooters representative. You have just been summoned to your first meeting of the Central Hooters Governing Board. I'm Via. I'm your secretary." Her delivery was so flawless, Croon knew it had to be scripted. Which meant some kind of game was being played. Fancy fucking that: gameplay in the Fifth Dimension! "I didn't know Hooters had a Global Governing Congress?" he said. "The Invisible Government was democratized several years ago," Via said. "While it was a risky move, it was felt it might give Hooters a market advantage over its rivals." Invisible Government? Croon thought. What's the lowdown? He said, "If this is the Hooters Government, I'm going to start making a few changes. For starters, put some decent clothes on." "Yes sir," she said, saluting him. "So what's on the agenda at the congress today?" "The implementation of the long-promised Muff Burger," she said.
"The war between humans and Neanderthals was the first war in history." They were sitting in the car, on the run from the police. Croon looked at his Popeye arms, and found it hard to believe that Neanderthals were as gentle as he claimed. After their escape, Croon dresses Thr0back up to look like Chewbacca. "Best Cosplay ever," he remarks.
ACCORDING TO Via there were about 400 sitting members in the Hooters Congress. 60 per cent of them were assigned by major shareholders, 20 per cent by minor shareholders and 20 per cent were elected life members. Where Croon figured in that ratio he was not quite sure, but he certainly wasn't a shareholder or life member. Via also said the Congress was a bear pit, and that he'd have to be like Grizzly Adams to survive. There was an awful debate about wages when he arrived. The chairman, a certain Errol Gosselin, was claiming a recent productivity slump should be matched by an exquivalent reduction in wages. "Here here!" said a beefcake sitting next to Croon. He looked strangely familiar, although Croon couldn't remember his name. "Let's organise an airlift for those guestworkers trapped in Egypt, but with one proviso: they have to work for us for nothing." "Why don't you work for nothing?" Croon mumbled, developing an instant dislike for the guy. "Why don't you just work?" Beefcake said, glowering at him. All Croon wanted to do was get back to the physical plane of Earth! After what felt like about three hours later, although it could have easily been just three minutes, Croon developed the urge to put up his own bill. He stood on top of his chair, said over the near continual babble of the rabble, "I move that this Congress formally approve a one-off $5 million donation to streetkid programs in Ecuador and Peru." "I object," Beefcake said. "We've already exceeded our charity budget for this year." As Croon couldn't get a seconder, his motion expired.
TIME SEEMED to lose its meaning then, and Croon got the feeling that several days had passed. How he spent them was unclear. He remembered seemingly endless periods of reverie in his office, a lot of staring into the opalescent lotus crystal and long, druglike conservations with Via. He forgot most of what they said, although he later recalled her saying something about not a lot of power residing on the back-benches of the Hooters' Global Governing Congress. If he was going to get anywhere near attaining his goals, she said, he had to forge some alliances. He couldn't remember anybody telling him this, but he just knew: there were three main power blocs in Hooterdom: Corporate Advance, which advocated hardline economic policies; 21st Century Vision, which was basically preBaudrillard socialism, a little less ruthless; and not
SECONDS LATER HE WAS back in the congress. Some scientist employed by Corporate Advance was describing a revolutionary advertising technique which was 100 per cent effective on 100 per cent of the target audience. The only trouble was, it also caused brain damage. "The system works," the scientist said, "on high-level subliminal hypnosis. Viewers are dazzled by bright eruptions of coloured lights specifically arranged to fire certain neurons in the brain. The gross neural stimulus produces an acute emotion of empathy which lasts about 20 seconds. In that time mesmerised viewers are bombarded with positive subliminal advertising. When the empathic rapture wears off the viewer subconsciously associates the advertised commodity with the aforementioned state of bliss. They feel strangely identified with the commodity even though they do not understand why." "This is bullshit," Croon said, scoffing back in his seat. "I wouldn't even believe this on The X-Files." Chairman Gosselin stood up and said, "The subconscious association is caused by permanent "scarring" of neural networks. In some cases scarring may be so severe as to impair the emotional life of the individual. I hasten to add such cases are rare. Nonetheless, the use of brainwashing does raise prickly ethical dilemmas." "The only ethics I care about," Beefcake said, "is our ethical commitment to making money." "It would also be a public relations nightmare," Chairman Gosselin said, "if news of our campaign got out. And thanks to the White Brotherhood's Free Information Act, such news would inevitably get out fast. I'd say within 16 hours of the beginning of the campaign. The entire physical board of this company could be held criminally negligent, even if they were not consciously aware of the campaign. But in 16 hours we could impregnate up to four billion people with the heaviest dose of product loyalty the world has ever seen." A back-bencher yelled out, "And in that time you'd also destroy our entire company!" "Remember, advanced product loyalty lasts for life," the chairman said. "Corporate scandals die down in months, a few years, a decade at the longest. So while brainwashing three-quarters of the global population might seem like short-term suicide, in the long term it might be our only chance to slay the Burger King dragon and attain our ultimate corporate objective: total fast-food domination." Tuggerah was 93 kilometres away, too far for even an athlete like Croon to trudge; but there were disued survey quarters only six kilometres south-east, and he was sure their radio link would still be working. He could be there by nightfall, he could ditch his costume and phone Flora to come pick him up. Flora's proximity suddenly dawned on him with almost physical force, along with a stirring of out-of-character desire. Fuck, he thought, I'd do anything to see her.
Chapter 26: RoadRageR
"THIS IS bullshit!" Croon yelled, leaping to his feet. "You do this, and you could mindfuck the entire human race." Boos and jeers from the congress. Beefcake was literally foaming at the mouth. Croon worried that he might be lynched. Luckily, just in time the congress started dissolving - perhaps it was another time-lag. But this time it was different: Croon felt himself contracting, as if his entire being was being shrunk into an impossibly small space. He felt heavier, tighter, more congested. His throat felt sore, too, and suddenly he got that feeling you get like when you cry out in the middle of a dream... the realization you're about to wake up. Yep, presently there was Thr0wback sitting opposite him in the Burger King, eyebrows raised, mouth agape. Half the people in the restaurant were staring at him as well. "Bullshit?" Thr0wback said, offended. "Hey man, I don't like you dissing this establishment. I just became a life member." "Oh, sorry," Croon pulling his hat down. "I think I had a flashback." "You were just looking for a way out of going on that terracoaster," Thr0wback said. "Don't worry, you're not getting out of it that easy!"WO, CROON thought later that afternoon, driving back to Thr0wback's house, now that was freaky shit. Extended hallucinations and reverie were no stranger to this Negro, who after all was born with his Mercury in Pisces, but he had never experienced an altered state as long and integrated as that one. Secret governments, lotus crystals, hamburger conspiracies? The incidental details alone astounded him. But the one thing he couldn't understand was this: was it the Fourth Dimension, or was it just a daydream? Or maybe he was just losing his mind? Whatever the case, the experience was so coherent and self-reliant it deserved to be a fully-fledged reality. The implications were vast, and he wished he had more time to investigate them. Unfortunately, he had a job to do. But as mundane as it sounded, Croon knew those Texans were after more than happy pills. There had to be a paranormal aspect to the case, and possibly it was linked to his Burger King revelation. If he gave it time, those links could become more clear. As he took the Orange County turn-off he happened to glance at a billboard advertising Lava soap. Automatically, the soap expanded, filling half of his view. In the other half this erupting volcano appeared, obscuring what was left of the road. He was doing 160 km/h an hour at the time. Fearing he was about to make another unplanned trip to Hooterdom he took evasive action: he turned the windscreen wipers on. Strangely, the strategy worked. The apparitions disappeared. "You okay?" Thr0wback said. "I'm all right," Croon replied, a little embarrassed about his mental state. He decided to change the subject. "So man, how are we going to get those E's?" "Well, I've been thinking about that, and I've come up with a makeshift kind of plan." "Yeah," Croon enthused, "what kind of plan?" "Pull up here!" Thr0wback snapped. "I can't stop here, it's the middle of the freeway," Croon said. "Do it!" Thr0wback grabbed the steering wheel and yanked the Trans into a wild skid. Croon slammed on the brakes, tyres squealing, and they slid down the freeway in a pall of rubber smoke. When they finally stopped they were back-to-front in the centre lane, four cars and a van piled up behind them. "What the fuck's wrong with you?" Croon howled. "Chill, dude, it can't be the first time you've trashed a sportscar," Thr0wback said, dodging the blows. "Come on, let's cause some real carnage." With that Thr0wback winked and vaulted out of the car. He started running down the road, beating his chest like Tarzan. He picked up a piece of bumper bar strewn on the freeway and charged with it at the nearest car, a dazed but unharmed four-wheel drive. "Come on out, it's Armageddon time!" he cried, and proceeded to rain bumper blows all over the hood. "Man, what the hell's wrong with you?" Croon said. He got out of the car and ran after him. He went to tackle him into the side of the SUV, but the beast was too strong (after all, he'd been doing steroids for years). He did, however, mange to liberate the bumper bar. But by then it was too late. That didn't mean he couldn't beat the shit of Thr0wback. Mustering all his strength, he kicked the Snowman in the guts, was about to smash him one in the face when the high-pitched whir of the copcopter materialised above him. A megaphone said, "There's no escape. Give up." Thr0wback got hold of that bumper bar again and hurled it up at his copcopter. One point six seconds later tranquiliser darts fired from barrels of both security craft. For the second time in an afternoon, Croon left the physical plane of Earth. "Man," Thr0w fuming, "I could guzzle it if it was flaming but that shake was fucking shite. And it wasn't milk, it was soy. You thought you could go covering the taste with that freeze-dried powder you call chilli here." "Excuse me to intrude," Croon always the diplomat, "but can I offer you an alternative? Dope-flavoured beer. I got some in my luggage if you want to tipple some." (Deep fjord was Thr0w-Back's legacy.)
Chapter 29: Hell in Paradise
"I HAVE a signal," Thomas Starx said as he lumbered his non-regulation frame over the sleek navigation console of the Enterprise. "Faint, but inviting." "What distance?" Captain James Kirk replied, roused from his bucketseat occupation of gazing literally into space. Though inquiring, his voice was tainted with a thick accent of disinterest.Juntra
ANTIQUE DEALER DAVID WONG STARTED THE DAY OF FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER -- by vomiting into the little pot kept for exactly that purpose at the foot of his bed. It was a gray day in the heart of old down town Tokyo -- gray clouds blanketed the sky, and Zoot suit man -- to top it all off he wore a Fedora hat decorated with feathers of the crow, that Samurai bird of the Tokyo concrete jungle. The walls of the peculiarly Japanese style triangular room were covered with Tibetan mandalas and yantras. The poky little triangle had been jammed full of accessories and ornaments of the Exotic East -- beaded curtains, large floor pillows, Indian brass, statues of least three subcontinental gods. The Japanese man introduces his name as part Japanese, but with a non-Japanese ending "tra". Wong, who can speak 11 Asian languages, recognizes the suffix 'tra' as the Sanskrit for "instrument". Another possible meaning was "to save", or more accurately "that knowledge which is spread to save humanity". Actually, the geezer couldn't speak Sanskrit because that is so obscure and all, but he was religious, and he was born in India, and he knew all about the suffix "tra". Mantra, tantra, shastra -- there were plenty of "tra's" in India, and Wong believed in all of them. Went with his nature to trust everything, merge with the Universal Flow. For example, there was a yantra hanging on the wall right next to our Juntra-san -- a cheap souvenir Wong picked up in the depths of Kathmandu one grey rainy day, just before the Nepali monarchy fell. It might have been cheap, but Wong prayed to it every morning -- prayed for his salvation, the emergence of his Inner Buddhahood. And Wong thought to himself: So, Jun, you are the Instrument, the Knowledge Which Saves. But, my pale apparition, what kind of instrument are you? Who is playing you? What efferversent knowledge do you bring, and why are you so keen to save me? MEEN E had his own interviews to do: a two-hour armchair spiel with the New York Times about the celebrity turned outlaw turned celebrity outlaw; a Das Spiegel piece probing his views on ecstasy and the prison rehabilitation system; an Entertainment Tonight hook-up in which he was coerced into ad libbing a rap about smoking the Tyson joker. Then there was the training regime. E spent four hours in the gym every day for six weeks, popped steroids every other meal, led the cameras on the occasional sub-zero jog. He was promised a year off his sentence for every pound of muscle gained. For every pound of fat he failed to clear, the penalty was six strokes of the ratan.TO COMPREHEND K2 YOU must understand the Rewind culture from which he sprang. Young Americans had realised the world was fucked and believed this stemmed from an inherent flaw inside human nature. But if humanity was irrevocably screwed, where did that leave the new generation who were intensely sorry for the abuses of the past and eager to live more harmoniously in the future? Could they break away from their destructive legacy, or were the genetic bonds too strong to break? America’s millennials pondered this dilemma. Then, like a student attaining enlightenment, the realization came: maybe they already were already devolving. Not by genetic engineering or cosmetic surgery or anything so blunt, but just as a natural process? Mother Nature controlled the genetic bonds, not Jacky Tung, not Rupert Murdoch. Humanity was regressing, all on its own accord. Everyone was a throwback of some kind, or a rewind, . Which certainly justified all those endless dilemmas they'd had about their identities! Across southern California, people started wearing animal skins again (this time around, the skins were fake). Some people took the whole regression thing a step further and went nude. Young musicians spent hours playing raw feedback on their guitars in the hope something truly Atlantean would emerge. Valley teenagers finally released their tentative grip on syntax laws and collapsed their conversations into like wow! smectic chaos: they were trying to prove that Chomsky's "deep grammar" really existed. College architects designed glass office blocks with random brick patches and ornamental thatched roofs. There were anarchy signs on the Golden Gate Bridge, but these ones had the circles missing. In South-Central LA, gangs weren't called gangs anymore, they were called "tribes". And at Encino, near the theme parks, there was a hominid slaughterhouse otherwise known as blah.
"IF YOU built a dustpan the size of an auditorium and scooped up every rainbow-haired, mutated, regressed, digressed, distressed anarcho-freerange freak in the San Fernando Valley," Throw-Back said, "blah would be the dust-bin." The club was legendary on the Rewind savannah. Hunters had come from all over the San Fernando Valley to enjoy the total fighting show, and the atmosphere was prehysteric. They'd come from x, y, from, there were even some freaks from LA. They came from z, c, v, all over the San Fernando Valley. They'd come, from all these places, to literally go ape. There were kids from d, e and there were even some guys from LA. It was rumoured they were big Sub journalists. They'd come from all over the San Fernando Valley to see the gatherer they called K2. Croon and Thr0back were there too - they were there to see the freak they called K2. Croon bought a bottle of tequila and sat down at a table at the back of what looked like a damp cave. He saw a guy who had designer scars . "Whatchu think 'bout dis joint?" Croon asked, Thr0back a glass. They were waiting to see the cat they called K2. "All these flash costumes and carry-on. It reminds me of Rock'n'Roll wrestling." "Rock'n'Roll wrestling," Thr0w-Back virtually spitting the words, "Murdochian bullshit. Let me put it this way: in Rock'n'Roll wrestling they don't pull your nails off when you lose." "They do that here?" "Man, this is a fucking lion pit." Thr0w-Back paused with a quarter lemon stuck between his jaws, his grey eyes unusually sombre. "It's no place for a 13-year-old kid." "What's this, morality from a guy who has a tattoo of Nietzsche on his chest?" "Nietzsche don't mean Nazi, dawg," Thr0back replied. "Speaking of morality, I was meaning to ask about your sudden conversion to the Life of Crime. Strange how you and me are playing for the same team now, after all these years. Why you doing this? You could get legit work if you could. Why you doing this?" Croon fished around for a Boogie Nights sample, but the best he could come up with was a throw-away line from Smokey and the Bandit: "For the good old American way. For the money, for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money." Just then there was a roar of guffaw and applause, and Croon turned around to see what was happening ringside. K2's support act, a garish oaf called David Lee Goth, strutted on stage to the sounds of classic 80s cockrock. He bowed to the crowd, and they welcomed him with spittle and taunts of "Fuck you!" (He was the local boy.) But that was only child's play compared to what came next. A huge Klingon mounted the dias and bellowed to the crowd in a truly fell tongue:
TO COMPREHEND the speed and eccentricity of this decision you must consider the nihilism of 00s life. Sure, there was a 53 per cent chance the world would end on March 13 2012; however, that asteroid was merely ratifying an Armageddon which had commenced a long, long time before. On every conceivable level the world was groaning towards collapse. Global warming had gone from speculation to fact but despite the hype, world governments couldn't implement a solution. The human population was rising at an almost hyperbolic rate, and the environment was struggling to cope. At least half a dozen conflicts threatened to go nuclear any day. Even if XXX missed the Earth, it was doubtful humanity would survive another century. It was easy to go nuts in this sort of environment. Fortunately, some governments had begun to trace the distress to its origin: greed and fear. The Californian Government was one such enlightened polity. In 2003 (09BE) the Sacramento legislature was seized by a coalition of second generation New Agers who openly advocated such policies as transcendental meditation in schools, chakric balancing for cops and the experimental use of MDMA to reform violent criminals. The coalition lost the balance of power when asteroid shock wore off 11 months later, and most of their policies were dumped. However, the ecstasy trials had produced some interesting results, and it was decided to continue them. But to subdue anxious voters, the trials were restricted to three prison hospitals within the boundaries of Sacramento. With its therapeutic and huggy qualities... Germany has that progressively northern European belief that crime can be prevented if everyone is socially and socio-economically content. Psychological tests concluded Thorsten's racism stemmed from three chief factors: a dysfunctional family background, inadequate employment opportunities and a lack of positive racial stereotyping. To rectify this negative programming Thorsten was ordered to join a "meeters and greeters" squad at Berlin's x airport. In other words, Thorsten had to spend eight hours a day wearing a valet suit and saying hello to tourists. And he had to cut his hair! He began to wish he'd been given a simple jail term, like they did in the old days. At the end of his first week Thorsten got drunk with a guy who was working for unemployment benefits. They converged on a Saudi businessman at the baggage carousel who was dressed in the full robes and head-dress. Instead of offering him the usual brochures or Prussian history lesson the two drew water pistols and squirted him with vodka. They'd heard something about Muslims not liking alcohol. The next morning Thorsten was summoned to an interview with his program manager. "It's not working," the manager said brusquely. There was a panel of psychologists in the office, taking notes. "What did you expect?" Thorsten asked. "I'd be better suited as a tour guide at Auschwitz." "We thought it might give you an appreciation of foreign cultures, races, some real transnational experience. When one gets to know foreigners as people rather than stereotypes, racist tendencies tend to fall away..." "Not with me," Thorsten said. The manager regarded Thorsten thoughtfully. "So," at length, "I'll have to transfer you to another program. There is, er - " pausing now for optimum delivery " - there is another option." "Such as setting me free?" The manager turned to the panel and said, "A regular little Bart Simpson!" Then he opened a drawer and pulled out a vial of ecstasy tablets. They had little "e's" stamped on one side and smily faces on the other. "Thorsten, how would you like to volunteer for a medical testing program?" e e e GERMANY has that progressively northern European belief that recreational drug use is a personal responsibility and was one of the first countries to decriminalise ecstasy in the early 00s. As well as allowing its people to freely pop pills the government had recently begun promoting more widespread use of the drug. They didn't do this for social control, to dupe the masses or anything so sinister. They did it to save their families. With its rapturous and huggy properties, MDMA has always been prized as a therapeutic tool. It was used extensively in marriage counselling and psychology clinics during the 1980s before it was appropriated by the European rave movements and quickly banned. The rave movements were long dead, however, and ecstasy was gaining a more respectable reputation as a self-development aid. The Nazis who flirted with the drug's use as a truth serum in the Second World War realised its most fundamental effect: it demolished boundaries between people and returned consumers to a childhood state of trust. It enabled people to speak their truth. In a country where family structures were collapsing under the weight of all that been not said, such qualities were urgently required. Ecstasy was being openly hyped as the wonder drug which would return divorced couples to matrimonial bliss, heal broken families and drastically lower the crime rate. But its use had to be strictly regulated, the German government said. Which is why they needed guinea pigs like Thorsten. (Not that he minded much!) e e e "OH God," Thorsten said in a hospital bed. The dopamine rush had begun and was pulsing chemic joy up and down his legs, fluttering his heart like a light-drunk moth. "Supersonic!" "How do you feel?" a doctor asked at the foot of his bed. "Oh," Thorsten was positively writhing, this was so much purer than the shit on the streets, "es geht!" The doctor ticked the appropriate box on his response sheet. How street thugs and junior crims the world over must have envied Thorsten's position, guaranteed a gurn a day: having assaulted a senior citizen in view of half-a-dozen security cameras and squirting a businessman with vodka, the stupid punk now found himself flat on his back in the middle of an ecstasy-testing program! Every morning he would be woken by some babe-ilicious nurse and served a little white tablet with his breakfast. The rush would hit about an hour later, each seemingly stronger than the last, and Thorsten would grin like an idiot as some bland-faced doctor rattled off a list of questions, showed him pictures of waterfalls and elves and quizzed him on his feelings, that sort of bullshit. The doctor would flash lights in his eyes and he'd just laugh, jaw working overtime on specially formulated gum which never, never seemed to lose its flavour. In the comedown they'd even give him prozac to trap the serotonin in his neural circuits and afternoons would be a daze of cartoons, gabba video clips, German game-shows. And when he did get bored with the drugs, the nurses would wheel out an ancient PC so he could work on his music. One day they wheeled in something different: a gasfaced Meen E. "I can manage, leave me alone," the black man said and climbed from his wheelchair into bed. He noticed a little swastika on Thorsten's bedhead, scoffed and put on a pair of headphones. "I'm not going to share a room with that," Thorsten said. "I'm not sharing a room with a nigger." "Chill out, caveboy," Meen E said, in English. "I'm only here for the drugs."
Chapter 12: Van the Queasy Merchant
BRETT WEIR HAD BEEN WONDERING AROUND THE EAST for months and at last reached Haiphong (Reconsitituted Vietnamese Republic) around the end of October. Now, Haiphong has always been (apart from when it was bombed to all hell by his fellow Americans, and rustbelted by the Russians) -- well anyway, Haiphong has and always will remain a commercial city, steeped in the ways of commerce. It was a commercial town and a dull one, but Brett knew from there he could take a ship or hydrofoil or whatever (even a skimming plane) to Hong Kong, where he could transfer by train to Guangzhou and reunite with his beloved Cheung Li. Weir had some days to wait and nothing to do. It is true that from Haiphong you can visit the Bay of Along, one of the great sights in the world... but Brett was sick of sights and all he wanted to do was relax. He ended up hanging out in the cafes which lined the backpacker quarters of the city, drinking beer or tea and reading back copies of the latest Japanese manga comics, or just sleeping. Haiphong was a rustbelt town, and there wasn't that much in the way to technological entertainment. However, the city was traversed by canals, and sometimes (when he was out of the cafes) Weir got a glimpse of a scene which in its varied life, with all the native craft on the water, was multidimensional and charming. There was one canal, with tall Chinese houses on each side of it, that had a pleasant curve. The houses were whitewashed, but the whitewash was discoloured and stained; with their grey roofs they made an agreeable composition against the pale sky. The picture had the faded elegance of an old watercolour (occasional vibrant Reconstituted Vietnam rainbow flags and outdated satellite TV dishs notwithstanding!) There was nowhere an emphatic note. It was soft and a little weary and inspired one with a little melancholy. Beyond, a sea of Chinese style apartment towers rose.
Freaks of Nature
Watching the Tyson fight at a small bar in Brentwood, LA. "I never understood why Uncle Rupert wanted you, and not K2," Croon said. Croon and Thr0back then watch themselves on TV as the focus of a 5-minute segment called "Freaks of Nature". Sponsored by Glam Skincare and presented by Chucky Poong, the segment briefly summarizes the southern Californian Rewind (including K2) scene before fixating on Thr0back. Croon pulled up the hood on his tracksuit top. There is a closeup of him exercising at the Redemption gym, being harassed by the real Al Pacino (who was playing a fellow inmate.) "I dang knew it was him!" Croon whispered to Thr0back. "You shoulda strangled him when you had the chance," the apeman replied. Then Croon appears at Redemption, and we see him meeting his cellmate. "Frank Sloon," Croon says, and he would have extended his hand if they weren't both cuffed behind his back. "Your new roomy!" There is a crossfade to Croon's fight with Pacino in the mess hall, filmed by one of the surveillance cameras. Some text appears on the screen to identify and explain the vertical punch technique (copyright Jacky Tung). "You punched out a moviestar!" Thr0back commented. Fastforward to them riffing in the entertainment lounge, Shortly they could hear sirens outside, and sure enough, TV footage cut to helicopters flying over the LA sprawl. "Let's get outta here!" Croon said... They didn't make it to the car. Coming down the freeway, skimming about five meters above the road, were two footballsized copcopters of the kind favored by highway patrol. They were basically drones fitted with propellors and light weapons and they were incredibly fast. Croon thought about running, but he knew it would be hopeless - for them to have responded so fast, the whole thing must have been predicted well in advance. Uncle Rupert wasn't dumb, he anticipated everything. He's been played. I am just a pawn, he thought. But even a pawn can kill a king! That didn't mean that he couldn't unleash a little damage on the copcopters, just for show. In fact, that had probably been anticipated, too.A WOMAN WITH BLUE hair and clad in a mink coat turned to the camera and said, "Minus 32 degrees outside, but inside the Don King international airport the atmosphere is anything but frigid. Super bad boy Mike Tyson touched down in his trademark black jet about ten minutes ago; he's expected to clear customs any minute..." All of a sudden the shout went up, "It's him!" and a herd of journalists stampeded into a doorstop. Tyson strolled out into a hail of camera flash, held up two bird fingers as a V-for-victory salute, said, "I've said it before but today's it's appropriate: absolute darkness in the house!"
RUPERT MURDOCH CALLED IT a boxing tournament, but it was actually a variety of entertainments rolled into one. Practically everyone with a global degree of influence, media savvy or sex appeal was there. The other peasants could watch it on digital TV. Meen E noticed Brad Pitt and Drew Barrymore in the crowd as he was escorted to the ring; Henry Kissinger and Boris Yeltsin were exchanging currency. When he finally got to the ring Meen E surveyed a stadium glittering with camera flash, while beyond the steamed wall windows fireworks were flowering in the sunless day. Presently the lights dimmed and guests caught sight of an aurora australis. The hushed awe which ensued enabled the MC, an extremely jittery Mohammad Ali, to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, free people of the world, the day of reckoning has come. Now brother will destroy brother! In the red corner, recently freed from prison after mudering three men, the Super BadBoy, the Darkinator, Satan Incarnate... Mike Tyson!” Gorilla necked Tyson, performing neck-bridges to inflate his gorilla neck... Boos from the celebrity crowd (mainly because two of those three murdered men were celebrities). Tyson shoved his fist into the air, twirled around, showed off his black panther tattoo. “In the white corner, once the most feared man on the backstreets of America, his mind now sculpted by months of drug therapy into a Model Citizen... or so they say. Making his debut on the international Super League circuit, the Invincible, the Lyrical, the Pathological... Meen E!” The chairman said, “I propose that Hooters Family Restaurants: (i) launch a worldwide advertising campaign using the aforementioned subliminal technology, to begin in three hours; and (ii) dissolve its board and Global Governing Congress within 16 hours of the commencement of the said campaign; and (iii) release a media statement within 19 hours of the commencement of the said campaign repudiating its methods and blaming its criminal elements on a secret decision by the Board of Directors. Furthermore, I move that in the aftermath of the anticipated crisis Hooters Family Restaurants: (iv) Make a fifteen year commitment to full Utopianism; and (v) immediately approve a 35 per cent increase in shop-floor wages.’’ A subdued roar swept around the chamber. A flurry of members offered to second the motion. Julian looked at Beefcake, sheer disbelief in his eyes, but he just grimaced in return. It seemed like the game was working its way up to some kind of dazzling climax. “Before formal voting commences, I would like to run a demonstration of the product," the chairman said. Croon was about to leap to his feet to make an impassioned speech to the congress when a door crashed open far behind him, and a girl in red hot pants and an under-indulgent top came sprinting down the aisle. Goa, he thought, what the fuck she's doing here? "Guards, restrain her," the chairman said. "She's violating meeting protocol." A couple of burly guards converged on Goa, but she knocked them aside with blows so fierce Croon could feel them. She somersaulted over two rows of seats to land next to Croon, said, "Don't look at the lights!" She then flipped him on to her shoulder and carried him out. From this vantage-point, he saw a tattoo on her back: a giant marauding ant. CROON PULLED his helmet off to find himself strewn across the floor, a tangle of wires wrapped around his waist. Thr0w-Back was thrashing about on his pedestal, still warding off imaginary assailants. A dorky assistant hit an emergency off switch, said jerkily, "You... you can't come here any more!" "Wouldn't want to," Thr0w-Back said, flinging his VR suit to the floor. "Come on bud, let's blow this joint." They didn't speak most of the way home. A few streets from Thr0w-Back's pad, however, Croon said, "Why'd you do it? You blew $5000 on a prank." "That was no prank, man," Thr0w-Back said. "Anyway, did I really break out of character? I was your secretary, right? It was my job to protect you." "Protect me from what?" "Fuck man, they were about to play that subliminal ad. You heard the dude, you could have been brain damaged. Brainwashed at least." Croon laughed, a hearty Burt Reynolds' chortle. "Fuck man, it was only a game." "I just don't trust McDonalds." "Burger King superstitiousness!"
Chapter 13: The Winchester's 0st Hunt
I cut you in
Whenever I'm stoned...
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