Excerpt from The Answer
Many
were the times I stood in the view port and gazed out upon the vast
desolate dusty cratered waste that was my home and thought how I must
be crazy to love the moon of tera.
“Paul.
O Paul we’ve missed you so.” She was crying honest tears of joy.
Or it could have been the acrid smoke of flesh cauterized by the
laser blaster battle happening out in the corridors and right in
front of my tubes view-port.
“Ah,
but what a great view eh Amanda? They don’t make a good view tube
like this any more. All under ground deep. Gotta go down a damn
float shaft!”
“Yes
its spectacular all right. OOOH! Hey! Did he just?!”
Pink
cloud. Particle impact. A combatant goes down just against the
Compress clear View port wall. “It’ll take somebody all day to
clean up that mess!”
“They were right. Life is better with the blast proof
decomp-Matic walls!”
“You
are such a thorough planner.”
“You
can plan for war… err… you can plan a war…. But, can you plan
on war?…err …it just wars outside some times… like now… ya
know.” I babble when I’m scared; And when I’m not scared too. I
babble a lot.
“You
have to stop them!” She squeezed my arm tightly. We were
interrupted by space marine Jenkins schlepping a dispatch lami from
the local demoplutarchic revolutionary zubumarilary lunar
governmental council.
“They’re
gonna sue for peace.” I predicted. With a fluid motion for ease of
reading I stuck the lami firmly against the messengers military
cranium.
“It’s
a summons! They are suing you! The bastards.” Amanda quickly gets
her lawyerness up. She’s a French Foucaltian lawyer which makes her
arguments twice as deadly.
“Well
that explains this huge battle going on out there.”
“They
are trying to trick you into appearing so you could be detained.”
The
space marine messenger peels the court document from his forehead and
attaches it across my about to speak mouth as he turns to leave.
Amanda and I both realize at once:
“Gag
order!” She gasped. Only what I said came out: “gaaaderrr”.
“And
these attacking guys are the advance shock troops clearing the way
for the lawyers of zoo bum!” She shudders. If they’re sending
combat lawyers en-mass I have to hire her immediately. Suit starts
transferring the funds. Now, legally we can talk without violation.
The
space marine turns back to us scowling. “Those attacking guys
aren’t zubs. They’re from Idaho. The lawyers of Zubm already have
you under tube containment.”
The
lawyers of an alien god, The Mormon empire. Everybody wants me. Not
the first time two armies have fought over the privilege of killing
me.
“The
last time I was in this predicament I could only do one thing.”
And
so Amanda and I made wild violent passionate frenzied love before the
huge blast proof decomp-Matic brand view port as the religious
fanatic fascists outside sent each other respectively either to
heaven or hell. Love is extra tantric sweet with death so close.
“Um…
you are billing me for this time aren’t you Amanda?”
“Just
at the consulting rate so far.” Her delightful French accent made
it sound worth every monet.
I
found the blockade of my home tube proved easy to slip through.
“I
saw her on the lift platform going up to the flying esplanade. She
looked up at me from the escalvator steps. About three people over.
All I said was: ‘Hey, you shaved your eyebrows Hollywood !’ She
ran off sobbing! I couldn’t get to her before she got to a restroom
and then she just never came out. What did I say? Her eyebrows were
bare, it was quite striking.”
“You oaf ! She’s done it!! She’s gone Zubum. She’s
over to the whoowhoos! Its sad.” Helen crossed her arms under her
breasts and stared holo hard at me.
“What?
You think? How do you know?”
“The
eyebrows! The lack of them. They say that before you can meet the
aliens no hair above the eyes.”
“Come
on that’s ridiculous! What about lashes, eyelashes, do they pluck
them out as well?”
“No.
They dye those bright florescent green. Kinda sparkly like..sorta.”
“You’ve
never seen this. This is, oh-my-god, flight deck talk! That’s all
you wrench types do is stand around drinking coffee talking bullshit
isn’t it. Is that what I pay you for? BS’ing on pop culture
cults?”
“Yes
of course it is and you know it. And you don’t pay me anyway. I’m
a permanent governmental employee twelfth class!“
“Quite
right. Of course. Don’t go all calling the union on me again all
right okay? I’ll be a good researcher from now on. Um, hey, by the
way, did anybody down there mention about depilatory zoo bums
fashions elsewhere.”
“Huh?”
“You
know down there, hey like, Brazil style?”
“What?”
“You
know. A hairless elsewhere? You went in for that once didn’t you?
Always swiping my little barber bot. I'd find it later with that
silly grin on its face. I was gonna fit it up with a camera.” She
grinned at me like a happy barber bot.
“And
how was your stay on that power satellite? Did you and Space have fun
there? We would laugh for hours at your hairless naked holo calls me
and Moody!”
The
mention of that arch traitor Moody reminds me that I have to call him
soon and apologize for the assassination attempts he’s been
encountering lately. It is merely an unfortunate Shakespearean
misunderstanding. The group of murderous fanatics only really want to
do good things for me. I should not have been complaining about him
in their midst, but who takes it seriously when you say out loud
sometimes: “I wish somebody would kill that son of a bitch?” I
mean come on! Oh, I think I said that out loud again.
“But
what do we do about Becky? Paul she’s fragile.”
“Well
she is easily brainwashed alright. Look at her career in the
military.”
“Lets
have an intervention. Deprogram her. Drug her up and fly her out.”
“Dope
and hope! She’d kick all our ass’s. Cool your jets Helen.” Oh
she hates it when I tell her that. “I’ll see what I can find out
from them. After all there would be no zoo without my bum.”
“How
well put.” She said dryly as her holo image disintegrated into
fading gobs of zubum eyelash sparkles.
This
eye hair thing has me thinking that the guys running the aliens have
some kind of light show going on with their act, projected down from
above perhaps. Visually subjective hypnosis for religious domination
purposes is the oldest form of art. Confuse the eyes and the ass will
follow. And so I must resort to the most natural enemy of art: the
lawyer. I wake up Amanda from her snore accompanied meditative
contemplation of my complicated legal budget revenues transfer
situation. Suit deposit’s the appropriate amount to her accounts.
“I
need you now baby.” I see that she takes obvious note of my word
“baby” possibly in order to later inform her lawyers of my
perhaps inappropriate behavior. I’ve slept with more lawyers then
she can afford.
“You
want to consult again? We have consulted all over the tube.”
“There
will be time for more consulting later my petite shoe.” She smiles
that wonderful honest French smile that makes me think she wants to
stab me. “I hope you’re up for the big pay olla ," I say this
kind of franciaze like so she’ll understand, “of a full price
representing appearance.”
And
so to get full value I consult with her some more for awhile.
“You
mean there’s only two of you in there?” The uniformed elite zub
paramilitary looks to his partner. They both make the face of the
particularly incredulous. Another walks up.
“OK
pay up.” He says flatly to the other two. Muttering they tap away
at their id lami wallet displays.
“You
two sound like fifty people having sex!” He peels his lami bugs
from my door.
“They
thought there was an orgy going on in there.” It’s Jenkins the
Space Marine.
“There
was.” I reply and try to add some twinkle to my eye. Amanda blush’s
and giggles in a most un-attorney like way. Suddenly it seems she’s
dropped something and must bend over very far to pick it up. Its very
obviously good for bending that she wore such a scanty cut away skin
tight ultra micro shuttle suit. This attracts tremendous military
attention and I use the diversion to step unaccompanied into the
lift.
Ducking
the obvious camera clusters and ID panels hood up I make my way by
back corridors and maintenance tunnels to what I know was Becky’s
last known address, an apartment tube off the third domes ring road.
I remember the place had a great view of the new low-g water park. As
I casually snuck amongst my neighbor Lunarians I thought about how
Becky and I had lost touch after the close of my last report. Did I
drive her to this extreme, I wondered, through my neglect and
infidelity? We are still married after all and I do feel responsible
for her even though she’s always saving my life by not killing me.
Who’s going to save my life next time if she’s off in some
bizarre cult somewhere?
When
I’m sure I’m at the right place I find the tubes decomp door wide
open. The place is full of people. There’s a chanting party going
on. They sway in a contra harmonic trance of unintelligible mumbling.
It’s a crowd of mostly tribal techie types of every race or skin
dye hue dressed in as hippie as you can make out of a wired systems
laden jump suit. Several are not even real in the sense that they are
even in the room or on the moon but cast that shadow less electronic
glow that shouts cheap holo caller. Some of the more aware less
tranced out ones glance up at me as I weave through their fervent
languishing. I sense them scanning my eyebrows.
“Pay
oool im zub.” Says the man whose hand I’m standing on.
“Eww.
Aw. Sorry. Oh. Are you alright? Ooopps. I guess. Sorry, sorry, so
sorry.” I think this song needs music. I let suit pick. It chose a
Handel scratch acid mix of the halleluiah chorus at a very low volume
level three, almost just above subliminal if you’re deaf.
“Hey,
um, anybody know Becky Savage? She still live here? Blond, maybe, no
brows, no eyebrows?” By now I had engaged several of the closest
ones to the man who rubbed his hand wincing. They all had eyebrows.
Certainly they would have noticed her. “Halleluiah!” softly
shouts my suit as the sub-woofers in my deck boots thump in slow time
to the deepest hum like loop bass in the phrase the DJ's are
attempting to repeat. The halleluiah’s give it some skank. A woman
whose expression clearly is telling me to go to hell, where ever that
is in their alien pantheon, points to the door of the once stylishly
decorated tube’s antechamber. Rebecca’s bedroom. A room I know
quite well having paid for it. Suit thinks its time for Dean Martin
to sing and now I need a drink. She used to keep liquor over there by
that hippie ore shuttle driver. Suit sends some marstini up the sippy
tube next to my blacked out ID lami. I know I will miss the dusky red
olives that come with a fresh full launch tank pitcher; that’s the
price I pay for the convenience of a full suit bar amidst the ruble
of a cult.
Should
I knock on the door or burst right in? It is my bedroom isn’t it?
Did I say that out loud?
“Isn’t
what in zub?” I’m asked mid chant by a young man in a moon suit
adorned with multicolored plastic beads.
“Oh
but that’s the rub! Bub.” I poet my way through the unlocked
slider door.
“Hello
Paul. I’ve been expecting you.” Becky, alone, sits naked at her
mirrored table, her back turned to me.
“Well
I had to come see you right away. I’ve been worried since you ran
away yesterday. That was you wasn’t it? On the steps?“ I moved in
closer to her, I wanted to grab her and make love to her again,
eyebrows or not. In fact the whole no eyebrow thing was becoming a
sort of a turn on. A new dimension of Becky-ness to explore. She’s
shaving her eyebrows right now I notice. She looks up at me in the
mirror soulfully. We make deep eye contact.
“Stubble.”
She says beautifully. “I didn’t think I’d get stubble so
quickly” She shakes her beautiful long smooth forehead from side to
side. She caught me peeking south of the border.
“Um,
do you zoo bums do that everywhere? This shave thing?”
“No
silly boy. Just the brows. And only a top candidate does this. I am a
terrarista!” She announced quite proudly.
“I’m
married to a terrorist!”
She laughs.
“Not
terrorist. Terrarista. Terrrraaaarrr. Not terrroooaarrrr. Its like
French or Spanish or Cosmeranto or something. It means of the
earth."
Solemn moment now.
“You’d
make more money as a terrorist. You have the training. You’d be
good at it.”
She
looked for a moment as if she were seriously considering this.
“Well,
maybe when I get back.” I knew it!
“Back!
Back what? Where are you going?”
“To
meet God of course!” As if I didn’t know! She’s a serious
terraaarrrista alright. ”The zubums know God personally and are
gonna introduce me. I get a sit down with the man or…
the…woman…err… well you know!”
“You
get the glowing green mascara too?”
“Yeah!
Hey, you know about this too Paul?”
“A
little. When are you leaving and where are you going?”
“One…
I don’t know. Two…I don’t know. They don’t tell me. The zoo
does or the bum does. Or I just know I guess.“
“Well
when you tell yourself let me know okay?”
She
gazed at me quizzically asking herself.
“What
are the other rules? Can I do this?” She squeals with mock delight.
“Oh Paul!” “Or this? Can a zubum’s husband do this? Must he
be underwater?” Apparently there are few rules of conduct that
apply to horny terrarristas. The oddest one I’ve noticed so far is
this eyebrow thing. It seems the only proscriptions to social zubumic
behavior is the eyebrows, and that you must thoroughly wash your ass.
The aliens apparently are sensitive to smells, ass smell in
particular. Becky in case she should be about to call herself to
zubum takes a bath. We take a bath. I might want to go along.
“Oh
no Paul! You absolutely can’t come along with me! It’s not
allowed. I am on the solitary path of the chosen.”
“Who
chose you?” I tried not to make that sound like I thought that
nobody rational would’ve chosen her.
“What?
I can’t go on a quest for God? Not me? Look Mr. Senior Researcher”
when she capitalizes that I know I’m in for trouble “I happen to
enjoy intellectual pursuits. Not like you drinking Marstini’s”
she pantomimes me throwing back a launch tank. “I spent half my
career an EXTINT officer and had to take the stupidest shit for it:
‘Oh I saw a UFO, it looked like a big butt, ha ha ha!’ “ Her
impersonation of her fellow officers was spot on. I could see their
pathetic school yard antics. I could imagine their puerile humor.
Then she punched me hard in the gut!
“And
you ! You’re the worst ever! ‘Oh there’s one over there! Hey
made you look…ha!!’ Playing your silly sci-fi soundtrack music!
Like right now! Now stop it! Stop the music now!” Suit heard her
loud and clear from the corner. “I suppose you expect me to report
it all to you! Everything! All of it!”
“If
it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I mean when you get the chance. I
could use it for some new research I think I want to do.” “NO
Paul!” “Big project kinda ties in with last one.” “You
can’t!” “Big budget. Long scale.” “Don’t say it!” “
You know I need you now more then ever.” “Not that!” “I don’t
know what I’ll be up against, and that’s why I need you.” “You
mustn’t!”
“Yes
Becky, I think I’ll research God next. And I need you to get us in
so we can serve the warrants and subpoenas. Just point to the guy in
charge, God, you know, and we’ll do the rest. A crack team of
paramilitary lawyers’l get the truth outta God!”
“Sure
Paul.” She sounded soothing. She patted my hand. Led me from the
bath to the bed. And when I woke up she was gone and so were my
eyebrows.
“I
just looked in the mirror to see if I was actually alive. I feel like
I got hit with death!”
“I
can’t see what your talking about! Move into better light. Wait
there! There!”
“Turn
up the resolution in your phone menu. I tell you they’re gone!
Gone! I look like a freak’n thespian!”
“Paul
just ‘cause your eyebrows have been shaved off does not make you a
lesbian. Besides you’re a ah ah… you know what I mean….?”
She was confusing herself here I could tell.
“Man?
Man Helen. Man? Is that what you mean?” She acknowledges I’m a
man with an infuriatingly reluctant nod. “What I mean is Theatrical
person, an actor, a make up wearer.”
“Well
there’s improvement then!” What! “That’s what you should do!”
“What!?”
“Cosmetics
Paul. We do live in the future after all. This is supposed to be a
time of tolerance and enlightenment isn’t it anyway?”
“Lets
leave the future in the past between us and get to what you’re
trying to tell me!” I manage to say through clenched teeth.
“Just
paint in your eyebrows with la lusta number seven. That’s your
shade I think. Match your brownish hair. Don’t arch them too high
up on your forehead though or you’ll look cheap.”
“Oh
I’m cheap alright. Cheap Dvorak that’s what they call me… yup.”
She readily nods at this in confirmation. “ Helen I’m not putting
on fake eyebrows!”
“Come
on Pauly, you want people to stare at you? Surely Becky’s got
something there that you could use?” I searched like a good
researcher the contents of the vicinity. Nothing, no liquor, no
cigarettes, no make up. I sip some fresh suit marstini. Besides empty
all I found was a lami pamphlet from the zoobums central. I’ll read
this dogma later in the karma. “How about a space pen? Or a zero G
sharpie marker?”
“I’ll
see if there’s something in the other room.” Is always how I
innocently descend into ever more trouble. I have really no thought
in my head as to the other room than that there is in the food prep
area very many sliding storage bin lockers full of junk recessed
stylishly into the highly expensive la lusta shade twenty seven
Passion Flower decorative paneling that I paid for. I can smell
zoobums as the door slides pneumatically aside. Even Space-less I
smell a lot of zoobum smell sort of patchouli sweat and sani hose
disinfectant. What was another room of the suite, once splendidly
furniture’d in modular low G plush-O-hide, the common media room is
now merely a shell surrounding the deepest most tightly packed crowd
of wild eyed religious fanatics that this room could possibly hold. I
can tell this as the main decomp door to the corridor stands open and
the sea of brainwashed heads extends full view. People are so close
together that they blur in their tribe’d up tech suits. Shoulder to
shoulder they form an arc around me at arms length away. I make no
move except to put my hand up feebly to hide where my eyebrows should
be. They take this as a salute.
“Paaaauuuuoool
iiiimmmm bbbbuuummm.” Echoes vibrate the structure of Crater
View Estates itself. Such a tremendous blast of fowl breath hits me
that I take a step back.
And
thus the door, the tiny mind of it’s sensor program quite sane,
closes me back into the bedroom.
“Company
at the door Paul?”
“Some
sales reps.” I stagger to sit on the bed.
“What
are we going to do about Becky?” Helen’s holo image drips thick
with real concern. As I open my mouth to say… “I don’t know!”
I’m over spoken by: “What do you mean ‘what are you gonna do?’
” of an angry Becky voice coming from behind me.
“You’ve
been in the vacu-spa this whole time?” She looks all smooth brow-ed
big eyed. Her cheeks are red and she’s frowning because she’s
pissed off.
“You
don’t have to do anything about me Helen! I do just fine for
myself!” She storms over to me on the bed falls beside me and grabs
my arm at my com lami and Helen is gone. She hung up on Helen!
“Thanks.
That call was starting to cost me.”
Life
is strange enough without a cult outside your door. Angry Becky
glares at me. She stands askance arms folded. It takes a minute
before I realize she’s staring at my forehead. She bites her lip. I
pounce.
“What’s
the big idea of shaving my eyebrows?! Some kinda joke? Ha Ha! Think
it’s funny?” She reach’s out and takes my hands. We sit on the
airbed.
“I
didn’t shave your eyebrows off Paul.” Her eyes lock onto mine as
if she’s looking deeply into me. “You were laying there asleep
and I thought and thought about what you said about God and aliens
and asked the zoobum if I should stop you or kill you or love you. I
asked and asked and didn’t hear a thing. No copy of my coms. I
thought about being a terrarista and what a terrarista would do and I
didn’t know and so I asked the only other terrarista I ever met.
And she said that humans are good at waiting to see what will happen.
Its one of our natural special abilities as animals. Its how we learn
things, watching and waiting. Sometimes knowledge comes to those who
wait. So I waited to kill you because I love you, we’re married
after all. And then when I looked at you again your eyebrows were
gone! It was just a moment! I didn’t do it. And that was what I was
waiting for.” We gaze at each others reflection in the nearby
mirror. Holding hands.
“Well
who shaved them off? An eyebrow burglar? A hair fetishist?”
“No
one shaved off your eyebrows! Don’t you see? You are chosen! You’re
a terrarista too! You weren’t picked by a committee like I was, you
were chosen by the Bum itself. You are the Zoo!”
“We
are the walrus.” I recite. She looks at me uncomprehendingly. Suit
gives us some Beatles medley. I see the positive. “This will get me
in there for sure.” I admire the new look of my reflection.
“That’s
why they’re here.” She nods at the door. I can hear the
monotonous chanting.
“What
are they saying? Pay ool im Bub?
“It’s
you Paul. They speak so many different languages that when they chant
all together it blends like a chord. They’re saying “Paul is
Zoobum”. You’re the Paul. You killed Simpson Acca Buddha. There
would be no Zoobum aliens here if it wasn’t for you. Those people
wouldn’t have the chance to meet God.”
“Becky
you know what happened as well as I do. I did not kill Simpson Acca
Buddha. He killed himself, or rather his neurotic android copy self
-destructed.” On the saturoid Il Buacentaurri. Vaporized. “You
tell them I didn’t do it! Explain.”
“It
wouldn’t do any good. Things have gone too far. Your myth is
written. They’re your followers. Your personal bum. They think if
they’re around you their chances of talking to God get better.
Every terrarista attracts them. Its like a personal cheering chanting
squad. Only yours is big! Really big! There’s at least five
thousand people clogging the whole neighborhood tube!”
She’s
right. Things have gone too far. I’ve been defaced. They got my
forehead hair by remote somehow. A tuned down blast and suck was
aimed at my face. I’m the prisoner of a mob of fanatics that think
I killed the founder of their religion and they’re glad about it.
Soon the soldiers of the Zoobo council will be here angry that I gave
them the slip. They want me on tube detention. The Mormons from Idaho
want me for war crimes against their military industrial complex
rooted in the same events that spawned the alien religion. I know I
have to act fast.
“I
think we should make mad passionate frenzied love right now.”
“Oh
Paul we have to stay pure. We’re the chosen.” And so we did.
Several times. In rhythm to the chanting. On the airbed. Against the
door. In the other room they must have thought we were encouraging
them as they then became louder. We were equal terrarista now Becky
and I. When I awoke from my exhausted stupor Becky was shaving her
face again. I rubbed for some stubble. Nothing. Smooth.
“How
will I get outta here?” I mumbled. Space is with Amanda and I don’t
want her corrupting him into some kind of French poodle.
“You
can go anywhere you want. They won’t stop you. They’ll probably
follow you everywhere chanting.” She finishes her depilation’s.
“Lets
go then. Come on with me. Talk to Chevrolet. Get Helen to pick us all
up. Amanda and Space too.” I hold her close.
“They
have space ships too Paul. They’ll follow you everywhere now that
the Paul Dvorak is a Terrarista. You’re a religious superstar.”
“We’ll
get away. All of us.”
“No.”
She stops me. “Not me I can’t go with you. I got the call last
night while you slept. My appointment is set. I have to go now to
zubum.” So we bathed in the soapy low-g pod. Clean ass-ish-ness is
good alien etiquette.
“So
where are you going to meet the aliens who introduce you to God?” I
ask innocently.
“Clackamas.”
I
think she wants me to spank her and it gets quite splashy before she
tells me that it’s a place in Oregon NA on Tera.
