The Manhattan Prophet

by Jake Packard

  “Breaching Shantypark with an armed force is out of the question,” Milo heard he Mayor say

  Pellet stared silently into his camera, now powered down, observing his own oddly distorted reflection on the lens. How to put this gently to the Mayor? He thought, but did he really care anymore? So, he lied. “No one, Jack, wants a confrontation. If there is a way around one, I’ll take it. But can I remind you that we have seventeen military funerals to attend this coming week?”

  “Rogue elements always try to rise up and operate in Shantypark, however the Gang Council has always been able to eradicate the threat in their own fashion,” Jack responded.

  Milos, loyal to the end, but wanting to go home to his wife and kids, hustled out the door hoping no one noticed. He closed it behind him with an almost inaudible click.

  “Jack, my sources indicate that’s not happening now. Far from it. They say there has been an almost instantaneous transformation of power. The entire Council has been in session since yesterday morning, sequestered in a complex of tents that are now completely controlled by Salem and his followers.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Apparently his network was greatly underestimated while hiding behind the protection of Code 7 while in Rikers. Terrorists have uncanny ways of turning a system’s strength into a lethal weakness. Now he’s working without any real opposition in Shantypark, worming his way into control by taking advantage of existing power structures and using the present legal system for the perfect cover to his operations. This has got to stop.”

  The Mayor took a deep breath. “Rodney, your talk is junk food, packaged up and ready to go. You were my strongest ally, and closest confidant for the longest time. Why are you bullshitting me now at a time of such incredible intensity?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Jack. It’s embarrassing to me that you are getting so maudlin and melodramatic. But thank you for not dripping this all over the international scene. I greatly appreciate the compliment of trusting me with your innermost emotional turmoil, but when you start to say things that encroach upon my loyalties and moralities, you make it very hard for me to stay in synch with your government and your policies.”

  “It is still too early in the morning for this, Rodney. In a better world, one where everyday decisions don’t concern the life and death of millions, you and I might still be best of friends.”

  “This is exactly what I mean. Where you are going with this does nobody any good. Personally I am done with your philosophic meanderings. What I need here are hard and fast decisions in order to parlay this extremely dangerous situation into our advantage, even if I have to make the decisions myself. I am officially sick and tired of being your foil for the rest of the planet. So in case you didn’t hear it quite correctly before, as of now, the world is putting you on notice. This is your last call, Jack, get your act together or suffer the consequences.”

  * * * * *

  Faith

  After a brief nap, Marcus ushered Maria, still a little unsteady, into the large tent. When she saw Herbie they both jolted, which drew the attention of everyone present.

  Marcus led Maria over to a long table at the end of the space where Salem conferred with the Gang Council. He brought her to an empty seat next to Herbie, who sat far to Salem’s right.

  He had to fight off the urge to grab her and pull her close, and tell her how worried he was about her and how glad he was to see her. She wanted to do the same. In that instant observed by all, they forgot for a second where they were, whom they were in the presence of, and how close to horrible death they had quite recently been.

  Ibrahim stood up from his seat at the far end of the table, next to Salem, and addressed the Council. “Our posts have reported a significant increase of regular army moving into position in No Man’s Land, surrounding us and blocking off all known surface exits from Shantypark.”

  Marcus spoke. “We are not ready to meet this challenge head on. If we had time to prepare we would put up a good battle, but now Salem you seem to have us going in a different direction.”

  Salem, still sitting, had all eyes upon him. “True words. Bring me the boy.”

  In a quick moment, a loving elderly woman brought Jamal, bathed and dressed in a new dashiki, into the tent. His grandmother delivered Jamal to Salem. She bent before the prophet, and kissed him on both his feet. As Salem’s eyes registered a warm surprise, she backed away.

  He stood up and spoke. “For centuries men have looked for answers. They probed far into the miracles of this world. They explored deep into the ocean, all over the earth, and far out into the sky and the planets. They developed incredible machines from out of the insights they gained about how the universe is put together and how it will always work. But what have they learned?”

  He paused and looked around the tent, looking at each person sitting there as they gazed back at him, commanding their complete attention. “Now it is time for the world to see the true source of all the answers.”

  The people seated around whispered amongst themselves, unsure, confused, yet accepting whatever Salem said, ready to follow.

  Salem looked across the table, “Herbie Lipton.”

  Surprised, Herbie replied. “Here I am.”

  “I am told that this is yours, it was in your jacket when you were delivered up to Shantypark.” Herbie looked at the headbandcam that Salem held up, and found it hard to believe he had been here less than a day. Salem continued, “We cannot make a direct transmission with this unless approximately thirty feet from a receiver, am I right?”

  Surprised by Salem’s sudden shift to technology, Herbie rose to his feet and took the tiny camera. Somehow he knew where Salem wanted to go with this. “You’re right. This antenna is only good for about thirty feet. I could jack it to fifty or maybe sixty more with some tinkering around and some copper strands, but, I’m sure there isn’t any receiver close enough to here where it could reach. However, I can rig the memory key so it can hold about two minutes of low resolution footage and then transmit at another time.”

  Salem smiled and passed the video recording device across the table. “Please attend to that Herbie, and with haste.” He turned and fixed his eyes upon the thin black man, “Marcus, my brother Marcus.”

  Marcus answered, “Here I am.”

  “If you would be so kind to please give Maria your biopod.” Marcus nodded and handed it to her without hesitation. Maria, puzzled, took the device.

  The crowd in the tent waited with a whispered hush as Herbie took the few moments he needed to adjust the headbandcam.

  “It is time now for our new friends to escort our little ambassador of possibilities to the world waiting outside these walls for the first time. But first we must make sure that he is recognized out there for who he really is. Jamal come beside me.” Jamal drew himself close, comfortable in Salem’s warmth.

  “Herbie, I assume that your headbandcam is set to the same world clock as that biopod?”

  Herbie nodded yes.

  You start recording and then, Maria, you administer the standard biopod blood tests on Jamal while telling the camera everything you see.”

  Herbie looked at Maria and again he somehow knew. “I’m rolling.”

  Maria fell into character, alert and inquisitive, and everyone noticed the level of warmth and genuine concern. “This is Maria Primera live from inside Shantypark, where by the grace of Salem Jones, I am alive to report to you today. This young boy’s name is Jamal. He was born here in Shantypark and, like most Shantypark kids his age, has never been outside its walls. I have been asked by Salem Jones to administer the standard biopod blood exam to Jamal and report the results to you.”

  She turned to Jamal and focused the laser part of the instrument on his hand and pushed the button. A little spot of red light appeared on the skin of his wrist and then disappeared. After a brief pause the biopod beeped twice.

  “The connection has been made to the central data ba
se in New York, which has received the examination and will e-message us back momentarily, with the results.”

  The biopod beeped twice again. Maria gave a tentative glance towards Salem, who stood in quiet confidence. She looked down at the device and could not hold back her sudden gasp. She tried to force back her tears as she read the results on the little color LCD.

  “The Center for Disease Control says that Jamal is infected with HIV-7B, and the amount of virus in his blood indicates that it’s going into its final phase.”

  The silence in the tent thickened, like arteries clogging in arrest.

  Salem gestured to Jamal, picked him up and hugged him.

  Maria managed to continue, “You now see Salem Jones hugging Jamal. He is smiling at him and Jamal seems very relaxed. Now Salem is bending Jamal’s head to the side showing us the AIDS melanomas behind his ears.” Herbie zoomed in on the malignant pustules, as close as a weak stomach would allow. “Oh my god, oh mercy, I can’t believe my eyes, but Salem Jones, as you can see, is kissing them. He is kissing Jamal’s tumors, with his mouth, each one, one by one. I swear,” she said choking out the last words, “I have never seen anything like this.”

  Neither had anyone else. Herbie, true to the task, continued to record. His ears heard the heavenly tone skip up an octave and then down a fifth.

  Jamal fell into rapture as Salem caressed his highly contagious terminal disease with his tongue. The surrounding Council and the attendees in the tent, people born into suffering and torment all stood agape. They could not take their eyes off the unspeakable, but spectacular act performed before them, filled with so much abundant love, the most tender of mercies, and boundless, never ending faith.

  The drive in the headbandcam filled to capacity and the recording stopped.

  Salem spoke to Herbie. “You must go forth and show the world what we have done.”

  The tent buzzed with wonder.

  Herbie looked at Maria, both speechless.

  He turned to Salem. “I’m not sure what to do, Salem, where to go, or for that matter how to get there.”

  “Ibrahim will take you to the tunnels. Watch over Jamal, and show the world what love can do. You will know how when the time is right. Have faith. From this point on I will always be with you.”

  * * * * *

  Broadcast

  The concept of the news desk in television hadn’t really changed much since the beginning of the industry. An intelligent-looking actor who could read off a teleprompter without blinking, with a few pictures either keyed in over the shoulder or full-screen cutaways to video, was basically what you have. The look of the broadcast studio, the graphics employed, the dynamic lighting that was created, everything had been tried and will go in and out of style again as all things in vogue will do. ABCNN had settled for years on a predominantly blue high-tech look, with moving streaks of light in subtle but constant motion detailing the background. This was Marty and Ira’s favorite look since even before the Exchange, and the one they continue to use during their nightly primetime show.

  It was a few minutes before six-thirty, at the end of another Christmas Eve broadcast sugarized neatly to please the Alliance. The streaks of studio light were zipping behind Marty, as he began to segue his now captive audience into their nightly wrap-up. At the same time the security guard at the front desk of the ABCNN building, Alphonse Guerrero, a native New Yorker who was crippled years ago when he stepped on a homemade landmine buried on the center strip of Park Avenue, was the first to notice the ghosts walking through the metal detectors and flashing their ID cards. The land mine had utilized forks and knives stolen from the Waldorf Astoria as shrapnel. It took five hours for the doctors to get the cutlery out of his leg before they decided to amputate. He was given this cushy desk job because the real security started way before him out on Columbus Avenue. How did two dead news people and a skinny little black boy he didn’t recognize get past those squirrel killers on the corner?

  “Guerrero, my man, what is happening my brother?” Herbie greeted him with a firm handshake and a warm straight-on smile, as if he just returned from R and R in Barbados during a more tranquil time in the century.

  “Wait a minute. Herbie? Is that you? You look different. Fuhgeddaboudit. You ain’t supposed to be here. Even if you were alive, you ain’t supposed to be here. That’s the rules. You know the rules.”

  “This is different, Guerrero. The union doesn’t have jurisdiction about this. We’ve got to go in there; so that’s where we’re going. But thank you very much for your concern.”

  “Ms. Primera, is that you?”

  “Buenos días, Alphonse. Como esta Juanita y su hijos?” With a wink and a smile she breezed by the startled security guard amputee who didn’t know what to do about this because he thought they were dead. That’s what the news was saying for the last twenty-four hours, but they seemed so much more alive than he had ever seen them before.

  As they made their way down the long fluorescent corridor on the way to the soundstage, ABCNN employees popped out of cubicles and doorways to gape at them. Nobody said a word or tried to stop them because of the definite immediate purpose that surrounded the three. They entered the studio, stepping over cables and stands. They passed big cameras on hydraulic pedestals and startled camera operators. Flabbergasted gaffers and grips looked up at them, muttering things like, “Maria? I thought you were gonzo; wha’s goin’ on?” As she emerged onto the studio stage, the bewildered anchormen who were her bosses, the owners and the operators of one of the few remaining television companies in the northeast, were struck speechless on stage in the middle of their show, so amazed were they by Maria’s unheralded appearance.

  “Hi Marty, hi Ira. Say hello to my friend Jamal.”

  Ira, although still on air, was in a state of dumbfounded shock, and only able to mutter with in an involuntarily reflex, “Hello Jamal.”

  “Jamal and I met this morning in Shantypark.”

  “That’s nice.” Marty said. Like his partner, his stupefaction made him look pretty stupid, acting like an intern production assistant grunt, very wet behind the ears, not like the cutthroat media exec he really was.

  “Jamal doesn’t talk. At least no one I know has ever heard him talk. However I think he has something very important to show you. We have a video Herbie Lipton shot of Jamal this morning and I’d like to play it. Yes, that’s right, there’s Herbie, over there by the technical director, yeah, and he’s alive too. Hi, Herb, say hello to New York.” All three cameras that were focused on Maria and Jamal onstage suddenly swung around 180 degrees, fighting to see Herbie, who was waving from the control booth. The contract techies around him were in obvious agitation and muttered to each other, “That’s Herbie? Not the Herbie we knew. When did he learn how to smile?”

  These images broadcasting out over the greater NYC viewing area made Pellet, riding in his limo, furious beyond the purely physical. He barked orders into his headset for the immediate dispatch of several platoons of SKs to the transmission area.

  Sam, in the mayor’s office, found himself laughing as if this Herbie was a twist in a movie that he should have guessed was going to happen a few minutes before it actually did.

  Jack caught it all in real time for a change in the armored office, in a little window on the monitor next to his digital picture. This event broke into that loss of concentration and, in an instant, he flicked the button on the ABCNN live feed to see it full screen on his SHDTV 66 inch.

  Maria continued, “This is a standard issue biopod. It is unable to be edited, and is backed up in two central data storage locations, making the information tamper proof. Here guys, please, be my guest, check Jamal out for his last signature data entry.” Neither Marty nor Ira could yet move, so they signaled Lorenzo, the stage manager to get the biopod. Lorenzo looked around the studio for a sign of disapproval from any of the many producers standing by. He found none, they were too caught up in the drama on stage. He took the biopod from Maria and plugg
ed it into the control board upstage of the news desk. The results hit the screen superimposed between Marty and Ira. The entire viewing area around New York City read the results, “PERSON ID, dnareg34096778, 12/24/47 2:37 PM, VIRAL REP – POSITIVE - HIV-7B. 5Mil per liter.”

  People all over New York involuntarily held their breath in shock. Even the reality shows didn’t go this far, because Pellet would have revoked their licenses.

  “Herbie, have you plugged in your drives so we can show what we brought?”

  Big thumbs up from Herbie, big hombre smile.

  Ira leaned over his desk, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, trying to say something to get back control of his show. “It’s okay Ira, sit back, we’re going to play a clip that is synched up to both the central database and this bipod through the world clock entry sequences.”

  Herbie plugged in his headbandcam to the control board. A freeze-frame of Salem Jones popped on screen, standing next to Jamal and Maria, as she was about to begin her report and administer the biopod exam. But it was this moment when the world saw Salem Jones for the first time, so before he could press the play button, the entire studio went into an uproar, in unison with the entire viewing population all over New York. Space and time seemed to be re-rendered in ways beyond special relativity, with no quantum mechanics able to account for the gaping holes ripping into the cosmic fabric. Not even Maria in all her newfound clarity had thought about what would happen when this finally occurred.

  The entire New York City-State was convulsing, as they watched Salem pick up little Jamal on the video. They listened to Maria, as they had in the past, narrate the mind-blowing visuals now happening before them. They heard her recite the prognosis from the biopod. They watched the clip as she broke down and sobbed. They plunged into deep communal shock as they witnessed Salem lick Jamal’s tumors with his tongue, their reflexive groaning absolutely cacophonic citywide. Within the space of that collective gargantuan gasp, Salem looks up at them from Jamal’s disease and stares through the lens into their riveted eyes, the celestial vibrato already running along its tonic down an octave and up to an amazingly graceful fifth . . .