excerpt from THE ANSWER

Demarist is hosting a conference, the subject of which is me and my part in the founding of the alien religion. He’s invited all the best available minds in cosmology and philosophy, I know because I also subpoenaed them all to brief me on this “God” subject. To me every one has refused, replying that my lami summons is invalid. Trumped by the “request” of a rookie! Sure he pays better since he has a budget. All I’ve got to offer is promises that sound even to me like bald faced threats. Threats have always worked for me before. Now I have to learn how to be nice!? Fortunately Demarist is young and naive enough to easily believe that it is for the benefit of both of us to combine our parties.

The buffet is laid. The place is filling up with sober conferees.

My old junior research co-worker (what’s his first name? suit?) Demarist arrives at the Launch Lounge Balance VIP with his entourage of a Librarian, very young skinny goggles wearing stick figure, and assorted juniors and liaisons. I recognize several. They ignore me. Demarist is effusive in greeting Space and I. Space remembers him but is wary of his live posse, especially those in the interior pixel camo uniforms. The Librarian acknowledges me with a scowling bow. No handshake.

“Paul,” Demarist goes straight for familiar, “This is Rex Stout, Public Librarian First Class.” This librarian with a dogs name scowls again at my outstretched hand.

“Mr. Dvorak.” His voice is British public school. He hunches and stays at a diagonal to me as if ready to leap away were I to attack.

“Don’t worry I won’t bite. He might” I indicate Space, who doesn’t like him and has activated his doggy suit ETACS. “But I don’t.”

“A bite would be minimal compared to your record with librarians! You’ve killed five of us!” He’s done his homework.

“They died. True. Several were my close friends. But I haven’t ever killed anyone. War is a dangerous business. Declare war and you’re a target. Have you declared many wars Stoat?” You child.

Demarist answers: “This is Rex’s first assignment.” Like a schoolboy Scout reacts: “And your first research.”

Helen arrives live and Rex Stout stares at her like he’s never before seen tits. She thrusts out her chest and wiggles them at him. “OOhh isn’t it hot in here.” Spout turns a blush. She unlink-s more Velcro. I can tell from past experience with her that she is now planning exactly how and when to kick him directly in the groin systems. I contemplate this with anticipation while part of me feels I should save him to destroy later for myself. It would be so easy. I make the introductions.

“Helen Tiberius, Rex Stout, and surely you remember Demarist…” who she has latched onto with a kiss that churns as she devours his lips his face with smacking slurping sound effect. Pulling his hands up unto her breasts she turns him so she can stare at Rex Stout.

“They were always very close.” I aside to Stout who stands bug eyed open mouthed aghast. No handshake for him. Demarist breaks Helen’s vacuum with a cross eyed stagger back to reach for the wall. His hair is messed up, his suit rumpled, he steadies himself. She’s shut down half his lami’s, he’ll have to reboot his suit once he recovers his senses.

We leave them to mingle. Let him research me from afar. Librarians don’t scare me. Alien Gods don’t scare me. Handi-cabs docking, that scares me. Hungry lawyers, scary.

“What do you think about God, Helen?”

“God? Paul you know I’m agnostic Reformed Governmental Atheist. No ‘God is my copilot’ for me.” She makes finger quote marks. “What about you?”

“Dog is my copilot.” It’s amazing how long I’ve known her and we’ve never really talked religion. She has brought it up when an agnostic atheist holiday comes around and she wants a day off, like “International Rationality Day” or “Discount Sale Week!” It must be that those court orders the union imposed on me in my position as her superior that I am “not to offend her atheism” by mentioning or invoking “God” actually have an affect on my behavior. As a swinger sex talk is okay with Helen, but one word of God and she’s calling the shop steward.

My copilot takes us in to the ample buffet for a landing at the chicken bits platter. This “having a budget” thing means good catering. In the line for the waffle bar a fight is breaking out between two groups of theologians. Chevrolet holo calls in to give us a “who’s who” of who’s here in person and by holo call. She has a head up of the conference deck plan with red and blue blips and info tags. Above one list the theme of Demarest’s conference: IS PAUL DVORAK CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF GOD? This explains the psychiatrists and psychologists who have claimed widely distant corners of separation in the lounge, barely able to tolerate the others presence. I am closely observed back and front analyzed. My title for this event: GOD WHAT IS IT? Helen say’s that sounds like I’ve stepped in something mysterious. No one of the consultants attending knows my theme since they are all Demarest’s paid “guests” and definitely didn’t exactly expect me to be here to hear them talk about my “blah blah intellectual capacity blah.” The heavy theosophical presence leads me to think Demarist intends to make a complete report inclusive of the definition of God, or all definitions, just as I would if I were investigating myself investigating claims of contact with God. That’s why all the rabbi’s, preachers, and mullahs, and monks. So, somebody here has to know what God is. How could they tell if I can find out the truth if none of them know it? To counter the righteous enthusiasm of the preachers and prophets he has packed the room with a cohort of quietly mumbling philosophers who crowd the barista. “Is the nature of God unknowable?” the philosophers kvetch. “Is hinting at it or being enigmatic an indication of knowledge or just faking?” The monks maintain silence. The preachers are certain; I interpret: “Oh can’t tell you…you’re not ready…better donate more money to prove you’re serious…oh well God doesn’t want to talk to you because you haven’t given me enough money…” Even a researchers budget can’t cover such knowledge. “How much money does it take before some one who can’t know can tell you the unknowable?” I ask a squinty Philosopher type. “No one knows.” He speaks the truth. The main foundation of many historically successful religions is that they not reveal the true nature of the ultimate relationship with God until after the ask-er is dead. No refund no returns. If the dogma is wrong complain to God.

Several counter-dogmatic theologians are jostling each other at the buffet, egged on by their holo caller deacons and scholars to insist on exclusive rights to what they each say is the same God. They agree that each is referring to the same one “God” but disagree on what “God” has to say about everything else since. They can agree that one or two particular persons had things to say about alleged actions or motives of God, but cannot agree on what the words mean. Why did they even come here? An active research in acquire mode is a great way to get history to validate their God concept through inclusion or conclusion or refutation. Some religious organizations have not responded to Demarest’s request to participate, the Roman Catholics most absent, fearing a refutation perhaps. The Pope’s have long ignored my demands and threats. No Atheists attend other then Helen. Why would one care? No client of the Governmental recognized personal New Religious category has bothered to put forth a definition of God since of course none is needed to obtain Government subsidy funding and support; what does God really have to do with a love of beer? There are several very loud very angry attendees shouting at everyone that they know all about God and are personally in touch with the deity and for the right amount of money can confuse anyone with doubletalk and bullying until they think it might be true. It’s a battle of clashing charisma’s. They naturally accuse each other of lying and are here only for the attendance fees that Demarest’s suit is so generously disbursing. Maybe they’ll get a convert or two, you never know, and that would be money in the bank for them. Looks to me like Helen is about to convert one of them into a eunuch. Preacher suits are thin in the crotch, big on lighting and sound systems, low on the combat armor. He’s saved by a blasphemous utterance from across the room that he must respond to. She finds more prey instantly amongst the righteous ones attracted to her chest baring flight suit. It’s all so much fun to watch but, I have to know, I need to ask: “What is God?” to anyone I can button hole with no escape.

“A delusional concept.”

“The almighty Father Who Art In Heaven.”

“The forces of nature.”

“The earth Mother.”

“Creator of the Universe”

“A metaphor.”

“A universal conscious that’s accessible by few; being the subconscious’s alpha rhythm.”

“An aspect of human conscious effort to make sense of life.”

“All knowing all seeing.”

“Dead.”

“Fear of the unknown and our struggle to deal with it.”

“Immortal supreme consciousness.”

“Fate and chance.”

“An old guy with glasses and a cigar or maybe a gray haired tall African man, or like maybe a frolicking young woman with flowers in her long hair.”

“I think God is…..is…..um….ah….well….”

“I’m not an atheist but there is no God.”

“The trinity of three. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

“An irrational belief.”

“You tell me…hey, hey.”

“A biochemical seizure disruption of the temporal lobe region of the brain causing elevated pathway reinforcement between the amygdale to temporal lobe.”

“God is love.”

“The spirit of life.”

“Histories most plagiarized brand.”

“Bark! Bark! Yip!” The source of all flavorful chicken bits.

“God is what we see when we go to heaven.”

“The sun of the soltera system, our galactic home.”

“Spirit.” Spirit? “Spirit.” “Spirit?” “YES! SPIRIT!”

“Ha, ha, the government of course!”

“The ultimate arbiter.”

“A….(blah blah blah) coping mechanism.”

“Resonant energy vibration of the cosmic microwave background.”

“Ignorance harnessed for evil.”

“The author of the universal story.”

“Cannot be named or described.”

“A tool to control populations of people.”

“Grace.”

“Nietzsche killed God centuries ago.”

“God is great God is good.”

“Opposite of the devil.”

“I’m an Agnostic.” I want at least a dozen Agnostics on my team as a close debate rational shock squad.

“God is dog backwards.”

“Hollywood.”

“The life of the party!”

“I dunno?”

“Ex deo awareness growing.”

“The paradigm.”

“Quien savy?”

“Change.”

“What is God?… You ask what is God!… Ask God!… Only God knows God!”

And so I shall. This bunch of Godly con men and grant hacks are playing it safe. No real ‘out there’ answers are popping up worth the amount of scornful silences. I have trouble believing any of these people know what they are talking about when it comes to reality let alone an abstract dialectical concept. The ones that won’t talk are the scared smart ones. I should try an get them all scanned with a green apples array and hire a couple thousand clerks to sift through all the bullshit for a year or two. That would separate the bull shitters from the truth. If only I had a budget!

Just then, I myself am cornered by an angry Jungian psychiatrist that has broken off from the pack of bearded tweeds gathered near the salmon and crab.

“Be careful researcher you’re playing with fire here. Humanity is caught in the midst of an unconscious psychic epidemic of a malignant egophrenia. A dualistic cultural mass hallucination capable of anything. Capable of tremendous evil in the perpetuation of deep lies.” He jabs his cellulose plate piled high with lab crab at me.

“I intend to report all the lies I can get.” This is truth.

“You will report a history that lies to itself!” He sputters buttered breath. I say let upset overfed Jungians lie.

“What is happening is the unconscious of the masses is shaping the world through mass hysteria!” It’s a mess of masses alright! He nods agreement with himself. Helen nods agreement.

“This an epidemic of a scale not seen in centuries!” “God? or get the fuck out!” I tell him firmly.

“God is a symptom of the egophrenia that has history in its grip!” “Next!” We move beyond the gestaltic schadenfreude.

‘God is whatever you want God to be.” “I want God to be document-able verifiable with corroborative evidence of existence.” Is that possible?

Suit! Note to self: Read Hume then reread Hume!

“Man is God incarnate. Life aware is God alive.” “What?”

“What? Not Who?” “Or He? Or Her?”

“Are you not afraid of God?” “Are you?” “Yes.” “That’s what scares me.” People who are deathly afraid of ‘God’ are capable of anything. This fear can be focused through lies like a cultural weapon. This is the cause of war. Fear of others Gods. Fear of this influence on culture makes history. So far no direct comment from God on history. Does He read the reports from senior researchers?

“God communicates with us by floods and earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and tsunamis and mudslides and volcanoes…” “Sounds like not much good to say huh? But, if you have not been hit by a tremendous natural catastrophe does that mean He’s not talking to you?” She blinks at me idiotically.

“You should thank God every day he has not destroyed where ever you are that day.”

“What about night?”

“Especially at night!” She’s safely holo call company distant from my heresy We exit her sensory dialog cone.

“Did you see the entvid series? You know… 'God'… on entvid? They had five or was it six…or…more…episodes...it showed all about God… I watched some of them… great entertainment. You didn’t catch it then? Oh too bad… you’d a had your answer now.” We narrowed his transmit bandwidth with distance.

The ontologist stared hard at me.

“Omnipotence…” I met his eyes imploringly…”…is a very wide subject…covers just about everything?” He does not flinch.

“Could an omnipotent being create something so heavy God its holy self could not be able to pick it up? Could an omnipotent being change the past? Why should an omnipotent good God allow evil. Theodicy anyone? Is this not the best of all possible buffets? Where do I put my counter-factual subjunctive conditionals? Is omnipotence bound by any laws of nature? Exactly how did Anselm fuck it up?”

“I think you’ll need an epistemologist for that.”

“Ooh sounds painful.” “It usually is.”

“God is inherently mysterious, unfathomable, unknowable, so to seem close to God people seek out the most incoherently confusing self professed personal conductive spokesperson of God. The more hard to understand the message the more scrambled the jargon-ed dogma the more out of fashion the ancient names the more it will be unquestioningly believed for truth. The more unlikely the event the more miraculous the ideation. Popularly personalize a force of nature action of change with a sub textual string of sounds and the mind of man will hear a name for God.” That thought makes him chuckle. He turns conspiratorial.

“Make a vague announcement of a particularly exciting religious revelation and then let others create the religion around this kernel in a conjectural cascade. Thus holy books write themselves through the human need to even subconsciously fill the blanks in the story to the best of the ability of the collective imagination. Better yet make up a person to experience this or even pick some chump and make up stuff about him. A real person is better for immediate marketing of the conjectures. The subject could even deny it all. A successful religious cascade wipes away the true relative past anyway. Dangerous though, often ends tragically with persecution and execution for the founder-victim.”

“I’m becoming familiar with that very scenario.” And here he recognizes me. That’s me: victim of rolling conjecture. Rumor does kill on its way downhill to God. A drunk epistemologist in a stained elbow patched scanty systems resort grade commuter suit could be fun to hang out with to mock reality together. He spots the Librarian staring at me from amidst a combat squad of documenting military intelligence assault troops and the smart epistemologist flees to beyond camera range. I get the same urge to flee.

excerpt from THE ANSWER 

HOW TO TELL THAT YOUR RELIGION IS EVIL

provided by Government University New Religion Support Committee

Category: RUN

Top Ten Hints Your/A Religion is DEFINITELY EVIL if:

1: You want to quit and they kill you.

2: You say the wrong thing (blasphemy) and they kill you.

3: You commit adultery and they kill you.

4: You are homosexual and they kill you.

5: You refuse to convert and they kill you.

6: You insult the religions leaders and they kill you.

7: You are chosen as human sacrifice or suicide murderer.

8: You are ordered to kill anyone for “God”.

9: You are ordered to participate in killing of religious “Law Violators” for “Gods Justice”.

10: Any other types of killing either you or anyone for any reason.

Category: WALK AWAY

Top Ten Hints Your/A Religion is PROBABLY EVIL if:

1: The religion restricts your freedom of movement (kidnapping, locked gates/doors)

2: Oppressive dress/behavior/social/family codes enforced by physical punishments.

5: Open brandishing of weapons/torture devices during religious events.

6: Mens/Wymyns social rules/roles unequal and enforced by physical punishment.

7: Destruction of property/religious artifacts of any other religion.

8: Claiming territory as religiously exclusive and displacing/killing (see above category: RUN).

8: Your religion expects imminent apocalyptic event that kills all except “us”.

9: Your religion says that your religion must “rule the universe”.

10: Your religion insists it is the only valid one justifying the mistreatment/denigration of the concepts/people of any other religion.

Category: STAY MINDFULLY AWARE

Top Ten Hints Your/A Religion COULD TURN FULL EVIL:

1: Religious leaders wear ridiculous hats resembling sexual organs/antlers.

2: Invoking “Gods Will” during tragedy/natural disasters that impact those of other religions.

3: Your religion wants increasing amounts of money for access/advancement/salvation.

4: Your religion sells salvation/advancement at your deathbed for money/property.

5: Your religion insists all the other religions are “out to get it”.

6: Your religion wants you to sell cheap/expensive products “endorsed by God”.

7: Your religious leaders need money because "God wants" them to be wealthy.

8: Your religion says it is OK to do some evil deeds (see above Category: RUN) as long as you invoke “Gods name” during the action.

9: Your religion says it is OK to do some evil acts (see above Category: RUN/Category: WALK AWAY) and it is“Gods Will” if you get away with it.

10: Your religion needs a place to stay and moves in with you.

This is not a complete list. Remember religious freedom means evil people can have religion too. Don't forget evil religions will use good people to further their evil activities. If you think your religion is evil call for help right away. Government Religious Support Rescue Teams are on call 24/7/365 Solterra wide.

Traci from THE REASON

excerpt from THE LESSON

PAY PARTY NIGHTMARES

Several taxi trapped hours later I’m informed by my suit that the Great Eight Senior Researchers will not allow me to start investigating the Roman Catholic Church at this time. That’s not a definite ‘no‘, just a ‘maybe later‘. Moody tells suit that there are six ongoing SR reports on them already. And not one publishable yet.

On Balance Demarist has been busy setting up a professional conference for us. He was the first to get there and had to hold the fort till Space and I paid off the taxi fare. What a scene it was when we waltzed in late, total chaos and anarchy. It was perfect for productive research. Poor Demarist though, he was first confronted by numerous irresolvable existential catering dichotomies of the Kosher Halal Vegan variety, this was followed by a severe pummeling of the morals with regards the bar inventory then caught up into speaker scheduling turf battles aggravated by massive jargon overload. He was a complete wreck by the time we arrived.

“This is too serious!” I couldn’t hear my Mexican polkas. Suits speakers were drowned out by the uproar. I cranked up the volume.

Demarists mission had been to soften things up, make inroads, or an outline at least. I had hoped he could guide the discussions.

“They’re all sick…! Sick! Sick! Sick!” That explains everything of course. He should not have tried to stand in front of the buffet. I could see plainly now that he was no match for their paid conference skills. Never, never bring out the food till you’ve had the chance to size up the room, get the speakers with something to say talking before everyone’s too drunk. Speech’s first, drinks then food then more talk then open the bar again. The ignorance of youth. Now the food was gone and more than half the booze too!

The thing to do was separate the two main groups. That would cut down on the lines at the bar. Nobody gets paid till the conference is over so they’ll stick around till the funds transfer. So I released the dog on them! “Herd Space! Split them by disciplines! Good boy!” His way of accomplishing this was to leap up on the buffet and attack the platter of chicken bits.

“Demarist!” “Yes.” “You did what you could. Now go away and get drunk quick!” “Sure.” He fled.

I got suit to load up the 120db PA ap and I got them all to shut up with a fifteen second blast of a G major chord. While they rubbed their ears I insisted all industrial Philosophers (six of them, not one a Weiser), Intelligeneers (a whole group from CA NA), and Physicists (had to be thirty of them all clutching display projector lami's) go into the banquet annex room next door. They grumbled and took their drinks and platters of G-tank seafood. I sent a bartender to set up for them out there. This left the Forensic Psychiatrists and Behavioral Chemists alone with the Lawyers from the Government Universities Social Engineering sub-contractors. I felt this was a fair match up. The Physicists and Psychiatrists would have been inconsequential anyway together not getting any words in on the Lawyers. Things got back to a dull cacophony of arguing and point making quickly.

Psychiatrist number one, Gruffy I call him, was speaking sideways all round about how the conscious and the unconscious and preconscious and id and ego and all couldn’t be recorded. I pointed out that isn’t art in its many forms a record of the ego? I was sneered at. He grumbled about maligned subjectivity. His back up team included several holographic Behavioral Chemists to contend with the Behavioral Chemists brought in by the Social Engineers. They mumbled incessant reductionistic bullshit. It was a pit of snarling opinions all around me that I could move through and step into an argument and if it didn’t interest me move onto the next. Some just ignored the rest and held forth on their own anxious to get what they had to say transcribed into my report as everything going on in both rooms was being well recorded for inclusion.

The debate was more for their personal benefit financially rather than to perhaps illuminate my report what with the latest generous consulting fee schedule. They all can charge the Government big bucks for ‘consulting’ and get their name in the back of the report too. I invited them all here to answer my questions, which I provided in advance and I’ve already decided these questions were too easy.

Certainly I could be wrong.

No mind can be separated from itself.

The dreams hold the key I think.

This all began with dreams of desire. Of emulation. Of the demands of economies of scale. Dreams and fantasies so easily seen are worth attempting to fulfill. For Manuelo de Boveray many were eager to help. The point where the act of fulfilling the dream of the economy met the dreams of the sampled people blurred the reality of the objective, the reality of a plausible goal. What began as a molded cultural dream has become a myth of accomplishment. Can a myth created to describe what can only be a dream be the accomplishment? That’s about all that’s been accomplished so far.

Yes the dreams hold the key. The paradox in the data is rooted in the dream state data stream, its affects grew into the real time knowledge.

How could a data acquisition array tell dreaming from reality? It doesn’t. It relies on the stream of data to arrive. Content only matters later to the EIO machine. The physical context of the subject shown in the data is the only marker, a heart beating, the clock ticking in sequence. Realities all blur during sleep while dreaming. The dream clock language the self uses to describe what’s going on is no help later. A dreamer can look at a clock in a dream and think that is the real time. For a dreamer in a dream when trying to decide what to call a period or episode, to describe it as a dream or reality, the internal tests break down. If the mind of the subject doesn’t know if it is awake or dreaming when dreaming with time suspended how can a machine interpreting data tell?

Points of view vary. Two stories from two sources of the same event are always varied. The Green Apples study attempts to qualify a point of view by technology. It takes forty people as a team to record all the responses available from one. They become corroborators by technology, the witnesses for reality. The data is supposed to be a representation of a point of view, the subjects point of view. The cluster paradox phenomena strikes then thus two separate points of view exist, and one point of view, the original, the subject itself disappears. The only version left is the flawed sample data. What connects these sampled people is not the occurrence of paradox it’s Manuelo de Boveray deciding to download the samples. These are the ones he bought, the only ones. No sampled person unconnected has become un-find-able. Some clustering of paradox data occurred among them only to have been filled in properly by the compensating patches. No other data compromised, no body missing.

The subjects must have been removed from their lives in order to stop any further sampling, to stop a checkup of progress. The records of the data saved by the Green Apples folks for posterity are now the only version of their lives, their points of view. After purchase by de Boveray the data packets containing the green Apples were relayed through W24. Two versions of each now are separated by the vastness of space. Were MDBs copies already compromised? Did the cluster paradox affect those versions differently, or at all? Are the Mars samples pristine?

Which life story is to be believed? Was this a valuing of the data by destroying the source and all other records? Could this be a way of erasing identities? The source is gone. The record is damaged. Who’s the narrator? Not I. The computer sampling? The scientists? The Government? Why is a sample so important to the completion of MDBs planned grand being? Why eighteen of them?

Usually when a story is told the teller cannot directly enter into the minds of those that are talked about. Here the stories are the minds themselves.

A handy dandy Mythologist among the Forensic Psychiatrists is there to explain it all.

“Myths are ways of dealing with problems and finding solutions that face humanity. Stories using symbolism and characterizations to answer all the ultimate questions. Shaped by cultures and language use myths are insights into the way people think about reality. Myths provide the stories that create the basis of the way people look at their culture. Nothing is accepted into a cultural psyche that are not strongly rooted in a myth that rationalizes changing events. Much of extraordinary history becomes myth much later in the future. Data manipulation cannot be subject to myth. Myth and math don’t add up

.

“Demarist, get me a Forensic Mathematician fast!”

“He’s at the bar getting drunk.”

“The mathematician?”

“I want to talk Boolean realities. I want subjective paradigms. I want to swap meta-compact maximums.”

“Oh! There’s a fight in the annex!”

The myth guy won’t give up. “This is a myth making event. A transitional phase. We make myths to attain the unattainable. To fulfill dreams.” Dreams again. “An upheaval is about to take place in what is taken for granted. The myth is the forming of reality in the minds of the world. Can humanity build artificial humans? Did it happen already? Is there a way to record a mind? It seems possible because we can see that it could be done with what we have now. We just don’t know if it really has yet. It’s a myth in the making.”

Suit got one on holo. I waved for silence at those nearby.

“Listen.” “Mathematician there?”

“Yes.”

“What’s reality?”

“What?” “What?”

“I’ll get back to ya.”

“Well, who’s writing this myth anyhow?”

“We are!”

Demarist has gone, getting drunk on my orders. Now I really hope he didn’t do it and I hope he just went to bed to rest up

.

“Sleep. This sleep thing keeps coming back to me. Hey dreams. Huh? Dreams.” Yeah me too.

“The sampled dreams are being analyzed right now.”

“What about the sullied data?”

“Bit by bit but the dreams are where the first paradox clusters occurred.” “I read that!” “As psycho psychological.” “Behavioral chemistry.”

“You guys got all the answers.”

“Reality is this!” Shouts the holographic mathematician. He points to a projection scrawled with symbols.

“That’s an equation! Could you make it a word problem maybe, like a shuttle leaves Seattle on vector 212 at 42,000 KPH...”

“I’ll get back to ya…”

“Hey Psychiatrist guy…”

“Doctor.”

“Yeah sure you are. Hey some of these people sampled were clearly nuts. Doctor de Boveray was nuts. The guys that marketed the data were nuts. The data went nuts. How are you feeling? All there? No nuttiness?”

“Not in me.”

He just dressed nutty (gaudy sweater). This was no longer fun. The social engineers wouldn’t talk to anybody and the philosophers and lawyers wouldn’t shut up.

“Let the intelligeneers back in!” That will break up the fight. “Boo!” “Arrgghh!” “Grr!”

“They think they know everything!”

That’s the best I can describe the groan that rose up from the participants.

“You Researcher you! You’ve got to understand! You’re playing with fire here! If you say he did it, it won’t matter if he did or not! Everyone associated stands to make or lose billions!”

“Who did what? Make a list of the losers and billionaires and give it to Demarest.”

“The power of the Senior Researchers must be checked! This system is out of control! You researchers have overstepped the bounds. You make everyone jump. I’m sick of it!”

“How do you spell your name? Rest assured your opinions are being well recorded.”

“Nice buffet though.”

“Is this your dog chewing my pants leg?”

“Yeah great food this time Paul.”

“Yup, I’m coming back for sure if I get invited.”

“Stop that Space! No!”

Just then a new large group of surly Lawyers pushed through the doors.

“Lawyers for the families of the disappeared!”

“I hear they are contemplating suing you Researcher.”

Well there goes a thousand scroll screens in my report. “I’ve been sued by the highest paid lawyers in Soltera and I have nothing left to loose”

“Besides this is active evolving history, every lawsuit just adds to the record.”

“Thank you Librarian.”

This conference was unofficially over upon the arrival of the Librarian. His military escort and liaisons scared everyone away from the buffet. They crowded the bar, ordering drinks for Space, and some were already picking fights with the Philosophers. The Psychiatrists disappeared from the room first. The Intelligeneers left in a group huff cause no one would talk to them. The hologram of the Mathematician was studiously reading from a large old fashioned leaf paper book. The Librarian and one of his Para-military shadows lean over to try and get a look at it but the holo resolution wasn’t clear enough.

“What’s that you’re reading there Doc?”

He had to look at the cover before he could answer:

“…Reality…”

excerpt from THE LESSON


GENERAL PARTICULAR

In the peripheral vision of my right eye I glimpse a large hairy hand as it grips down upon my shoulder. This is what happens every time I go out without Space to watch my back.

“Mister Dvorak.”

My forward momentum combined with the hand there makes me spin in my tracks. As I am unhanded I turn to face a two star General dressed as a maint worker in blue hot lami’d coveralls. I recognize his face from the group at the Utah flesh fry.

“Mister Dvorak. I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Ok. Talk.”

“What I have to say is very important could you please turn off your suit? I’d like this to be off the record.”

“Oh my suits not on.” I’m very casual.

“Yes it is.”

“No it’s not.”

“Is.”

“Isn’t”

“Is. I can see that it’s on. It just went ‘boop’”

.

“That wasn’t me.”

“My coveralls say your suit is on.”

“Well turn off your coveralls.”

“You turn off your suit first.”

“You first.”

“You won’t be sorry. Believe me you really do want to hear what I want to tell you. But I don’t want your suit to overhear.”

“But your coveralls can hear? It’s okay for them to listen in but not my suit.? General I know you’re monitored.”

“Ssshh don’t call me that! I’m not Gen…” He whispers. “You are mistaken Mister Dvorak. My name is Sam. Sam the maint guy. I am just Sam. Call me Sam.” Sam I am….green suits eat spaceham.

“Ok General Sam.” He cringed. “I’ll turn off my suit now. The master tab is in here though…in a sec…down in there…ah there it is.” My suit went dead. The flashing boop-ing lami pocket data flaps faded. “Now turn off your coveralls.” After some squirming his ID ‘maint Sam’ faded and went dark. For all I know his pants were off, though he could have merely hit the dimmer tab as I did. I have no doubt we were being monitored in many other unknown ways. This is after all the popular Retro Nozzle Pub on Balance.

 General ‘Sam’ leads me to one of the half EG 4D padded booths in the back. The décor of this booth is reminiscent of an antique orbital capsule interior, this being of course a retro theme bar. I bring my Marstini.

“You have friends on our side.” He confides.

“I do? Side of what?”

“Yes. We got you into the PACSA demo. We keep Major Savage in our loop. We watch out for her. There is a lot going on in the third echelon of the military counter to the Smith Smolt power clique.” What a mouthful.

General maint guy Sam kept his hands on the table. I remember him and his pals in Utah, they had the ostracized look of alien EXTINT about them. They stood by while the Mathers Carp crew kicked us out.

“There are some who don’t want them to succeed. We will help you all we can.”

“Succeed at what?”

“It’s Gentech with what’s left of Intellicorp and AIOOIA. They want a war. They’re out to start a war. A big one. A total planetary solar system war. They want to overthrow the civilian popular Government and create a militaristic totalitarian regime.” It has been done before.

“Through the threat of aliens?”

“They don’t care about aliens!”

“How will they get the Government to where it can be defeated?”

“They don’t need to defeat it directly. They want complete technological superiority.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are planning a techno war. First an info coup then subjugation by technical means.”

“Meaning?”

“Artificial intelligent bipedal humobotic weapon platforms backed by self-sustaining deathbots that can refuel from any carbon source.”

“Blast and suck?”

“That too but skip the suck.”

“Why are you telling me about this?”

“They must be stopped. You must stop them.”

“Me! What can I do? I haven’t made my report yet. My Librarian is missing. I don’t have an army.”

“Expose them and then the Government will have to act. A Senior Researchers report is history. They will read it.”

“Yeah ancient history. Researchers don’t stop wars we document old wars, usually.”

“Expose their threat.”

Three more maint guys came into the bar and looked pointedly towards our booth. General Sam saw them too.

“I have to go now. You didn’t turn your suit off did you? I didn’t think you really would.”

“Well I …ah…”

“Farewell Dvorak. I’ll keep in touch. We’ll help you all we can. But beware, Smith has many friends inside and outside the military. Trust no one. Even me.”

“Even you?” as if I ever did.

“I didn’t turn off my pants either. Those guys there mean trouble is coming…I gotta go.”

“Bye General er Sam.”

He and his three maint pals left by the fire exit door to the utility corridor as six uniformed weapons systems packing square head types came in the front. They ignored me while they crowded the bar ordering up soft drinks.

Genitech is another huge anonymous manipulative interplanetary corporation. I encountered them at the periphery of my rogue canned-plus research. Its subsidiary Boisebryo is suspected by Chevrolet of being responsible for the numerous Wilson Phillips’s and recent Philip Wilson’s. Genitech is listed as a privately held corp with hints that it is owned mostly by AIOOIA and Intellicorp. I think Sue Virtue works for them now.

So the military is split again. This time by friends and followers of ex General Smith and those that oppose him. I should send my new friends some entertaining new vids featuring Smith Smolt and Carp. They should see what they are really up against.

Why would a company like Genitech push for war? New markets for limbs and organs? Fleshy practice targets? Grow your own soldiers? Yeah…all the above.

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.