“Dare probably is taking them to some remote area where she intends to introduce them to the sensuous realm of lesbianism. She won’t hurt them. She’ll just lick them up and down a bit.”
“What?” screamed the mother frantically. “We have to stop her! We have to call the police!”
“The police?” asked Gibbles, clearly amused. “Are you suggesting the police should be called on women merely because of their sexual orientation?”
“Of course not! But my daughter’s only twelve years old . . . that would be like rape!” she cried.
“Well, it used to be called sexual assault.” The director revealed a grin of cavity tenanted enamel. “Thankfully, due to the tireless efforts of our president, criminal codes have been altered to reflect a more tolerant understanding of the ages of sexual partners.”
“Oh my God,” she said quietly in disillusionment. “I, I’m going to call the police anyway. And I’m going to do it now!”
“Well go do it then, you monotheistic bitch. See where it gets you,” growled Hommler from the screen. “But do it somewhere else because I want to discuss the commercial with my colleagues.”
The woman began to sniffle, and a tear swam from her eye. She ran from the set, heels clattering.
“Now that the pest has been removed, may I, ah, deconstruct your commercial’s meta-narrative, Jackson?” offered Hommler.
“Certainly,” agreed the director, “but I think you’ll find that my narratives are less meta and more explicit.”
“Oh, most definitely,” said Hommler. “This Danny Dare character, she fascinates me.” He spoke as if enjoying fine wine. “Her build, her appearance is stereotypical of a hardened lesbian. Her masculinity is undeniable and elemental. Her femininity is almost nonexistent. Her eyes lust for other women. Her lips scream for patricide. But all this, so far, is cliché, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” The director’s eyes fell.
“But?” asked Swan, with a wink to Gibbles.
“But . . . imbuing such a woman with messianic heroism—now that is ingenious!” exploded Hommler. “Heroes are more important than we can possibly imagine. As children, we admire and try to emulate them. As adults, we respect them, and, despite skepticism and maturity, we continue our attempt to emulate them.”
“And I would think,” offered Swan, “that if we can control who an individual perceives as a hero, especially while young, we can to some degree control that individual when they are older.”
“Precisely, my president.” Hommler’s grin revealed glistening red canines.
“Not to brag, but I came to the same conclusion months ago.” The director pointed to his head. “I plan to use this iconic lesbian hero, Danny Dare, as part of our plan to destabilize and subvert orthodox notions of family. As you saw in the commercial’s brief dialogue, the girls divulge their inner yearning to be ‘saved’ from their humdrum existence by an avenging lesbian marauder.
“Basically, my friends, the promotion of lesbian anti-hero to hero is just one more tool at our disposal, one more way to further our objective. It’s one more way to make the prospect of bearing children detestable to young women. It’s one more way to impute strong male figures with hatefulness and tyranny in the young female psyche. No men equals no children. So, women will then turn full energies to their careers only to find there is a ceiling for non-Americans—and a low one at that! What do you do with your life if you can’t have a family or a fulfilling career? You bite the bullet and take a syringe of Teratol-7 right in the forearm and become an American. Watch and see—my propaganda will assure that in the coming years our female recruits will equal our male recruits.”
“Excellent job, Minister of Propaganda,” congratulated Swan. “I also noted how you used older actors to appeal to a younger audience.”
“Exactly,” said Gibbles. “That way, the true prospective consumer of Danny Dare products, who I intend to be in the five to ten year old age range, will see my commercials and automatically look up to the twelve-year-old girls being portrayed simply because they are older. Toy appeal very often comes down to ‘I want to play what the big kids are playing with.’”
“Ah, he’s a tactician, too.” Swan beamed.
“And this tactician still has two propaganda posters to show you. Let’s proceed so I don’t detain you both for too long.” Gibbles drew a controller from his shirt pocket and pressed a button. “I intend to show this one at mall food courts and public parks,” he commented.
From a receptor on the floor sprang up a large, orange-hued pane of energy and light. As an image coalesced on the digital canvas, the crackle of flames could be heard, and the pane wavered as if the viewers’ vision were distorted by the blaze.
Apartment buildings and skyscrapers festooned with Israeli flags rose in profusion on the digital poster. Seconds later, the streak of an incoming missile was heard, and the buildings disintegrated in carefully detailed animation. The viewers’ perspective panned upward toward the sky, where floated a white robed man with flowing gray beard and hair. He had the demeanor of a madman—eyes fanned wide, cavernous mouth parted, and hands ripping at his hair. From the receptor’s speakers came a cry of death and sorrow that coincided with the man’s howling lips, and in a nuclear flash he too was gone.
An automated voice boomed loudly from the speakers: “Chosen . . . for annihilation. Support the Hebrew Deportation Initiative. Help put an end to the One God and his people—report all heretics in your midst.”
“What you have here,” explained the director, “is just one more reminder that the HDI is still an incomplete project. As both of you have emphasized to me on numerous occasions, there are still Jews in America that have refused to relocate to their homeland. They hide out, or pretend to worship Divine Color—but they won’t Americanize. You know their routine.”
“Oh, I certainly know their routine,” averred Hommler. “They are the genetic wellsprings of blasphemous monotheism. Some of them chameleon when it suits their needs to avoid persecution—and when the danger passes they expose their Star of David again. But this time the danger will never pass. I won’t be able to sleep soundly at night till they and their tutelary God, Yahweh, are vaporized in a nuclear holocaust. Just like in that poster. That’s why we must make sure as many of them as possible are deported to Israel before the place gets obliterated.”
“Yes, that will be a glorious day,” said Swan. “But being the person of peace that I am, I will never condone sending our warheads to do the job,” he admonished.
“Never fear,” Hommler laughed, “we won’t have to. That’s why we severed all aid to Israel right after you assumed the presidency. From my intelligence reports the Muslims are on the verge of deploying a nuke capable of bypassing Israeli counter-missile systems. Perhaps, for our winter holiday present this year, the Holy Land will finally be reduced to a radiated wasteland. No more Christian pilgrims trying to retrace the footsteps of Jesus. Let them try to sift through a black desert of Chosen ash.”
“Any constructive criticism?” asked Gibbles.
“Well,” said Swan, touching his full cheeks, “I really loved the way you depicted the Hebrew God. Jealous and judging and insane—that’s what he is. But he looked a bit too, ah, Olympian—too much like a Zeus. Why not elongate his nose to make him look more Semitic?”
“Excellent advice, Terry. I’ll see to that later today.” The director jotted a note on a digital pad.
“Well, what’s the second poster?” questioned Hommler. “I’m beginning to enjoy this.”
“This second one is just your standard recruitment poster,” Gibbles noted duly, pressing a second button on the controller. “I plan to install this one at unemployment offices, malls, and government buildings.”
Another rectangle of illumination beamed upward, and a voice began to speak.
“For me, life was hell,” the voice confessed, and the screen focused on a bent, frail young white man sitting alone in a sparse room. “Girls did
n’t like me. Work sucked, and I had no job opportunity. Honestly, I just wanted to blow my brains out.” The image of the youth pointing a revolver to his temple evanesced on the screen.
“But then I heard about treatment. And I discovered there was a way out.” Sunlight flooded the bleak reality as the white man was depicted walking toward an Americanization center.
“Now, I’m an American. Girls think I’m cool, and I’m a manager in an exciting field.” Images of the gray youth, dressed in a suit and surrounded by fawning girls flashed and faded. The viewer was left with a final impression of the speaker, his slimy dark teeth and ghoul flesh obscured by sunlight. “For once in my life I’m proud of who I am. Now I’m equal instead of inferior. I’m an important person, and Divine Color has big plans for me. Choose life—choose treatment.”
“Tastefully done,” remarked Swan. “Makes me want to be treated all over again!” He laughed. “Jackson, I want you to carry on with your steady erosion of Western mores. The versicolored verity of our god is strong within you. Go ahead, my friend, you have a blank check at your disposal—invert their world.”
Chapter 13
Marisela ducked behind the remnants of a concrete building. Rusted metal wires projected at intervals from the fractured areas like frayed hair. Looking upward, she watched as the black sky undulated and shifted in a rainless electrical storm. The detail was magnificent.
Her breath came hard. She could hear footsteps approaching. Not the trundling gate of her little brother, but the measured steps of a gray stalker. She smacked in a fresh clip and waited. An artillery shell exploded nearby, and the flash temporarily blinded her—blinking, she kept her back to the corner. She knew her pursuer would emerge from either the right or the left. She hoped to shoot its back with lead as it passed. Her gun muzzle slowly swept her field of vision, waiting for a target.
“Time to meet your gods, Alien scum!” a voice roared from above.
Glancing up, she saw the stalker perched on the top lip of a destroyed building, red body armor chipped and marred. Its pistol glowed white, and a millisecond later Marisela’s shoulder burned with a slug of plasma. Falling back, she fired wildly. Shells whined off the layered armor as the stalker leapt from its aerie at the girl.
The two collided, and began to roll down a pockmarked hill.
“Marisela, help me!” Her little brother’s cries sounded in her headset. “They’re everywhere. Where are you? Where are you?”
“Getting my ass kicked, Antonio! Why don’t you come help me for a change instead?” She grit her teeth as her visual display continued its vertiginous barrel roll. Finally she and her adversary reached the base of the hill. Stumbling to her feet, she groped for equilibrium. Her adversary recuperated instantly and buried a glowing adze into her back as she was rising.
Red lights flashed across her vision: “Danger—hit points low,” a voice warned.
Wheeling, Marisela drew her melee weapon, a cyber-maqahuitel bristling with shards of obsidian, and ploughed it into her adversary’s helmet. Sparks whisked, circuitry hissed, and the helmet dislodged and rolled to the dirt.
A gray face, hideous but clearly that of a woman, stared back at her. Part of her gray skull was cloven, and virtual blood and brains oozed on to the shoulder plate. Marisela thumbed a button, and a green and red health meter appeared over her enemy. She lashed out with her blade again, this time crunching down into the gray woman’s shoulder. The green portion of the health meter retreated to the left—almost to zero.
“I strike for the glory of Tiamat!” the gray woman cried, indifferent to her miniscule health bar, and swung her adze into Marisela’s side.
Red lights danced and alarms harassed her ears as the girl was knocked to the earth from the blow. The gray woman stood astride her, chortling.
“How should I finish you?” she asked between baritone laughs. “Should I split you like wood with this?” She hefted up her glowing adze. “Or should I burn a hole through your head with th. . .”
Heavy gunfire punished her chest and torso, nearly dichotomizing her, and the health bar above her head snapped to zero. She screamed, and clumped to the ground. Seconds later, her body foamed with hoary light, then dematerialized.
“That was for Uncle Sam, gray oppressor,” Marisela heard a voice say. “Here, Aztec, take this health pack and rejoin the battle.”
A squad of white soldiers passed by her, and with a chime her hit points rocketed to eighty percent.
“Hey, thanks!” she said, climbing to her feet. “Why did you guys help me like that?”
“We march against the grays for the preservation of our people,” they said mechanically, pressing onward. “Let us unite against the common foe. For Uncle Sam and the Red, white, and Blue!”
Suddenly, Marisela’s reality was disturbed by a flood of bright light. She winced and blinked as the virtual reality helmet was pulled from her head.
“Marisela! Marisela!” yelled her mother. “What’s the matter with you? You were supposed to meet me at three o’clock, remember? And why weren’t you watching your little brother properly? I found him standing in the crowd by himself watching you with everyone else! Someone could have taken him! Your father would be furious if he knew about this.”
“She never came to help me and I got killed!” cried Antonio, tears free-flowing over flushed cheeks. “Momma, she made me play this scary game with her and then she let the grays get me!” sobbed the boy. “She let them shoot me and stab me and I died!”
“You wanted to play it as bad as I did, you little shit,” cut loose the girl.
“Hey, watch your language!” scolded her mother.
“You’re a little shit,” he cried, and swung a fist at his sister.
“You two—both of you, stop it!” growled Rosa through clenched teeth. “We’re in public, remember?”
“Sorry, Mom,” she said, then turned to her sibling. “No wonder we were getting wasted, Antonio. I think to stand a chance in this game you need to work with the white soldiers. Why did you go around shooting them all in the beginning?” asked the girl.
“I didn’t know.” Antonio pouted. “They’re the bad guys in all the other stupid games.”
“That was an awesome run, Marisela.” A boy in his late teens approached the trio. “That gray woman in red armor has killed me more times than I can count. She’s like one of the toughest bosses I’ve ever faced . . . I think her name’s Ishtarotha or something. Apparently she’s based on a real person.”
“Thanks, Julio,” the girl replied, and for the first time she became aware of the crowd that had gathered to watch her character on a big screen hanging above the virtual reality terminals.
“You were the last player remaining of the sixteen that started,” marveled the arcade operator.
“Well, I don’t know how that happened.” The girl shuffled her feet modestly.
“Yeah, sure you don’t. You’re one of the best VR gamers in LA. And little bro isn’t so bad either—even if he is a little trigger happy.”
Antonio smiled, and made a fist. Marisela narrowed her eyes—his tears must have been of the crocodile variety.
“So it looks like in this game you’re supposed to like be allied with the white American soldiers?” Marisela asked.
“Yeah, that’s the only hope you have to stay alive for more than a few minutes. I’m still learning the dynamics of the game—we just got it in last week.”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen it before.”
“It was crashing quite a bit the first couple days,” explained Julio. “The graphics processor gets overheated easily and the techs who fixed it told me that it was rushed into production. But other than a glitch here and there the game’s awesome.”
“Yeah, it felt so real.”
“But it’s killer hard,” he admitted. “That’s part of the reason you drew such a big crowd. No one usually lasts more than a minute or so. Heck, I wish I could have seen you finish your game.”
Marisela looked up at the big screen. “Game Over” registered in red font.
“Looks like the grays got me already.”
“No wonder, your poor character was just left standing there.” He laughed.
“Well, that’s what you get for not paying attention to the clock, Marisela. And for not watching your brother better. Someone could have snatched him up and you would have been so engrossed in your game with that visor on you never would have even known. Come on, we have to go,” snapped Rosa.
“Fine.” She sighed. “But it’s not like we don’t have bodyguards milling around here, Mom. I’m sure one of them would have saved the day or something.” Then she turned to the older boy. “See you later, Julio?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You know me, I’ll be here. Bye Mrs. Guerrero, bye Antonio.”
When they had walked a fare distance from the arcade, Rosa hissed, “If I tell your father about this there’s no way he’s going to let you go through with your Quinceanera plans.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to know,” she countered. “And besides, Mom, this is like a once in a lifetime event. By the way, did you mention to daddy that new car I was telling you about? Talk to him about it soon so that when I get back from skiing we can all go down to the Porsche headquarters in Argentina and test drive it.”
“This is really a hell of a time to start making exorbitant demands,” said her mother coolly.
“C’mon,” the girl pleaded, “It’s just me and fourteen friends for the ski trip. Then, when I get home, you and Dad can take me for my new car!” She smiled.
“It won’t just be you and fourteen friends, Marisela. You’ll have at least a dozen bodyguards with you so don’t think it’s just going to be you and your friends roughing it on your own.”
The girl tensed, she opened her mouth and sucked in a breath to disgorge an expletive. Suddenly, a movie poster ascended before them. It depicted, with three-dimensional effects, a handsome, muscled-up Hispanic male gunning down legions of grays. A slender woman, distressed by the battle, clung to his side.
The Gods of Color Page 13
