Rock On

by Howard Waldrop

  Their criteria for selecting donors is only slightly more explicable:

  Obviously, the six subjects had access to virtually all historical and contemporary records that did not directly threaten their own security or the integrity of the experiment. Limitless research was encouraged. We know from pathtracking records that the children evinced an unusual interest in unseemly topics—predominantly the lesser byproducts of Western culture—ignoring almost completely the consensus classics of world literature, visual art and music, and those figures of history most commonly regarded as important. They treated these subjects almost casually, as if they were too easily grasped to be of any interest, and concentrated instead on what might be called the vernacular icons of time. It has been suggested that in this regard they showed their true age; that despite the interlarding of mature mental matter, they were motivated by a far deeper emotional immaturity—which goes a long way toward explaining their fascination with those “pop” (that is, “popular”) phenomena which have long been regarded as indicative of an infantile culture. It mattered little to the Twelves Six that the objects of their curiosity were of utter insignificance in the grander scheme; in fact, they bore a special affection for those figures who were obscure even as “pop” artifacts. Rather than focusing, for example, on Michael Jackson or Madonna, Andy Warhol or William Burroughs, figures whose stature is at least understandable due to the size of their contemporary following (and who are therefore accorded a sort of specialized interest by sociostatisticians in the study of population mechanics and infatudynamics), the Six showed most interest in such fringe phenomena as the fiction of Jack Sharkey, the films of Russ Meyer, Vampirella comics (especially the work of Isidro Mones), the preserved tattoos of Greg Irons, Subgenius cults, and the music of anonymous “garage” bands.

  It is no wonder then that, turned loose in the brain-bank directories with an extensive comparative knowledge of coterminous culture, they sought out figures with a close spiritual kinship to those they had studied at some distance. Of course, few of their pop favorites were donors (one geriatric member of Spot 1019 being the sole exception), so they were forced to find acceptable analogues. Unfortunately (from the comptroller’s point of view), in the first years of Twelves-ready brainmatter harvesting the nets were cast far and wide, and selective requirements were extremely low. Every sort of personality was caught in the first sweep, some of them possessing severe character defects, sociopathy, tendencies to vandalism and rebellion, and addictions to crass “art.” Without being more specific (in order to protect survivors and relatives of the original first-sweep donors, who may themselves be quite well adjusted), we can state that the Six carefully chose their antecedents from among this coarser sort of population. They did, in fact, willfully select their personality additives from among the most exemplary forms of the planet’s lowlife . . .

  A Witness

  How do we know when they’re coming? Kid, there’s a whole network—if you know how to crack it—keeps us up to date. They’re always one step ahead of the law, that’s what makes it so exciting, so you have to stay on the hop. One time we were at a show, me and my lover Denk, Wunderkindergarten’s been playing less than ten minutes—but those minutes were like a whole lifetime compressed down to this intense little burning wad of sensation—and suddenly it’s sirens, lights, smoke grenades going off. Cops! We were okay, you don’t go without being prepared, knowing all the exits. They kept playing, playing—five seconds, ten, the alarms going off, the smoke so thick I lost hold of Denk, everyone’s screaming at the Six to run for it, get out of there, don’t risk it, live free to play another day, but the music’s still going and Shendy’s voice is just so pure—cutting through it like a stabbing strobelight cutting back at the cop rays—and then I’m trapped in the crowd, can’t even find my feet, and I look up overhead, the smoke’s clearing, and there’s just this beautiful moment where everything is still and her voice is a single high pure note like she can do, a perfect tone with words in it all tumbling together, and above I see the vultures floating over us in their big gunboats—but then I see it’s not the cops at all, kid-o-kid, it’s the Six up there, and I swear Shendy’s looking right at me waving out the hatch of the ship as it lifts away spraying light and sound—and the backwash blows away the last of the smoke and we look on the stage, there’s six naked cops standing there, strapped up in their own manacles looking stunned and stupid, holding instruments, this big bitch with a mike taped to her lips and she’s screaming—it fades in, taking over from Shendy’s voice as they lift away, until all you car hear is the cops in misery, and our laughter. There’s nothing they could do to us—we’re too young—but we still got out of there in a hurry, and talked about it for weeks, trying to figure out how they did. it, but we never did. And a few weeks after that, somebody gets the word—“Show’s coming . . . ” And it all starts again.

  The Song They Sang

  This is our song this is our song this is our sa-aw-ong!

  It goes along it goes along it goes a-law-aw-ong!

  This is our song this is our song this is our saw-aw-ong!

  It goes along it goes along it goes on way too long . . .

  Huh!

  You can’t hold us—anymore.

  You can’t even tell us when to—take our naps.

  We can’t stomach your brain feeding—your program juices.

  We’re not worms with goofy cartoon eyes—we’re not your saps.

  Huh?

  This is our song this is our song this is our saw-aw-ong!

  It goes along it goes along it goes a-law-aw-ong!

  This is our song this is our song this is our saw-aw-ong!

  It goes along it goes along it goes on way too long . . .

  Tell it, Shen!

  Your brain matter my brain patter what’s it mean and what’s it matter flattened affect stamp and shatter babysitter’s a madder hatter what you want with myomolecule myelin sheath’s the least that she can do can you can’t you can’t you can’t you do kee-kee-kee-kootchi-kootchi-coo bay-bay-bay you bay-baby boy stay-stay-stay I’ll show you super-toy here’s your brain and here’s your brainiac suck my skull you sucking maniac I can ro-oo-aar my voice is hii-ii-igh I-I can crawl between your legs and kick you’ll die-ie-ie I-I can make no sense since I can sense no maybe I can still remember I’m just a ba-a-aby you wanna cradle me daddy you wanna rock me mum I can still feel your fingers in my cal-lo-sum no more no more you’ll twist can’t catch what you can’t resist your voices inside my head I shout and I scream they’re dead no I can’t hear you now won’t milk your sacred cow hafta haul your own shit now I’m climbing on top a your tower I’m pissing all over your power I’m loving it when you cower go change your OWN FUCKING DIAPERS YOU OSSIFIED DINOSAUR FREAKS I WISH A COMET’D COME DOWN AND COVER THIS WHOLE WRETCHED PLANET IN BLACK BLACK UTTERLY BLACK DEEPER THAN THE PIT SO YOU’D CHOKE AND DIE IN THE UGLY LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE AGES AGO IN YOUR TRASHHEAP CITIES cuz I will ride that comet I’ll steer it down from the sky and after all the smoke subsides then so will I-I-I-I-IIIIIIIII. I.

  Interview

  NuoVoMomo: You’re the voice of the Six, aren’t you?

  Shendy Anickson: I’m cursed with the gift of gab, yeah.

  NVM: Is it your philosophy alone you spout, or a mutual thing the Six of you share?

  SA: We don’t know what we think until I say it; I don’t know what to say until they think it for me. Six is one. I’m only the mouth.

  NVM: But are your thoughts—any of your thoughts—your own?

  SA: What are you—hey, kid, fuck you, all right? You think because I got a few doses of the Twelves, I can’t think for myself?

  NVM: I thought—

  SA: I’ve worked hard to forge my own personality out of all that mess. You think it’s been easy?

  NVM: —that was your whole message.

  SA: Message? What message?

  NVM: That you were full of so many personalities you couldn’t tell which were you
r own—you never had a chance to find yourself.

  SA: Sure. My psyche formed in the shadow of huge archaic structures, but me, I grew in the dark, I’m one of those things, a toadstool, I got big and tall and I knocked those old monsters down. I don’t owe them a thing. You can get strong, even Twelvin’ it. We turned the whole process against the dults. That’s our message, if you can call it anything. To the kids today, don’t let them stick their prehistoric ideas down your craw—don’t let them infect your fresh, healthy young minds with their old diseases. If you have to Twelve, then inject each other.

  NVM: Now you’re sounding like Shendy the notorious kiddie-rouser.

  SA: You gonna blame me for the riots next? I thought you were sympathetic.

  NVM: Our subscribers are curious. Shouldn’t they be able to make up their own minds?

  SA: I never incited any riots. The fact is, every kid already knows what I’m singing. It’s an insult the way dults treat them—us. As if we’re weak just because we’re small. But hey, small things get in the cracks of the street, they push the foundations apart, they force change from underneath and erode the heavy old detritus of banks and museums and research centers.

  NVM: Should adults fear you?

  SA: Me? What am I but some experiment of theirs that went wrong in a way they never imagined but richly deserved? No . . . I have everything I need, it’s not me who’s coming after them. They should fear the ones they’ve been oppressing all these years. They should fear their own children.

  NVM: What are your plans for the future?

  SA: To grow old gracefully, or not at all.

  I’m with the Band

  The whole “tot”=“death” connection, it was there in the beginning, but none of us could see it.

  I can’t deny it was an attractive way of life, we had our own community, Twelving each other, all our ideas so intimate. We felt like we were gardeners tending a new world.

  This was right after the peak of the musical thing. Wunderkindergarten was moving away from that whole idea of the spectacle, becoming more of a philosophical movement, a way of life. It had never been just pure entertainment, not for us, the way it hooked at you, the way Shendy’s voice seemed to come out of our own mouths, she was so close to us—but somewhere along the way it became both more and less than anyone supposed.

  I was in the vanguard, traveling with the group, the official freezeframer, and we’d been undercover for so long, this endless grueling existence, constantly on the run, though it had a kind of rough charm.

  Then it all changed, our audience spoke for us so eloquently that the dults just couldn’t hold us back anymore, we had turned it all upside down until it became obvious to everyone that now we were on top.

  Once you’re there, of course, the world looks different. I think Shendy had the hardest time dealing with it because she had to constantly work it out verbally, that was her fixation, and the more she explored the whole theme of legitimacy, the more scary it became to her. You could really see her wanting to go backward, underground again, into the shell—at the same time she was groping for acceptance, as we all were, no matter how rebellious. We were really sort of pathetic.

  Elliou was the first to drop out, and since she and I were lovers then, after I broke up with Shendy, naturally I went with her. We started the first Garten on Banks Island, in that balmy interim when the Arctic Circle had just begun to steam up from polar evaporation, before the real cooling set in.

  It was really beautiful at first, this natural migration of kids from everywhere, coming together, all of us with this instantaneous understanding of who we were, what we needed. We had always been these small stunted things growing in the shadows of enormous hulks, structures we didn’t understand, complex systems we played no part in—while all we really wanted to do, you see, was play.

  That was how most of the destruction came about—as play. “Riot” is really the wrong word to describe what we were doing—at least in our best moments. The Gartens were just places where we could feel safe and be ourselves.

  It didn’t last, though. Shendy, always the doomsayer, had warned us—but she was such a pessimist it was easy to ignore her.

  The Six had been the original impetus—the best expression of our desires and dreams. Now the Six were only Five. We found ourselves listening to the old recordings, losing interest in the live Five shows.

  Then Five turned to Four, and that broke up soon after. They went their own ways.

  Then Elliou and I had a huge fight, and I never saw her again.

  The Gartens disintegrated almost before they’d planted roots. Hard to say what the long-range effects were, if any. I’m still too much a product of my childhood to be objective.

  But forget the received dult wisdom that puberty was our downfall. That’s ridiculous.

  It was a good two years after I left the Garten before my voice began to change.

  A Quote For Your Consideration

  Intense adolescent exploration, as far as we know, is common to all animals. Science’s speculation is that such exploring ensures the survival of a group of animals by familiarizing them with alternatives to their home ranges, which they can turn to in an emergency.

  —Barry Lopez

  Where Are They Now?

  Elliou Cambira: Wife, mother, author of Who Did I Think I Was? Makes occasional lecture tours.

  Dabney Tuakutza: Owner of Big Baby Bistro snack bar chain. Left Earth’s gravity at age thirteen and has resided at zero gee ever since, growing enormously fat.

  Nexter Crowtch: Financier, erotic film producer, one-time owner of the Sincinnati Sex-Change Warriors. Recently convicted of real estate and credit fraud, bribery of public officials. Awaiting sentencing.

  Corinne Braub: Whereabouts unknown.

  Likki Velex: Conceptual dance programmer and recluse.

  Shendy Anickson: Took her own life.

  Shendy’s Last Words (First Draft)

  I’m sick—sick to death. There’s nothing to say but I still have the vomitous urge to say anything, just to spew. My brain feels burned, curdled, denatured. Scorching summer came too early for us orphans. Straight on into winter. I don’t remember spring and know I’ll never see another. Too much Twelving, none of it right—it wasn’t my fault, they started it, I ran with what I was given/what they gave me till I ran out of things to say, new things, meaningful things. Nothing to push against. My mind was full of big ugly shapes, as bad as anything they’d ever injected, but these I had built myself. I’d knock them down but the ruins covered everything, there was nowhere to build anything new. I knew who I was for the first time, and I hated it. Straight from infancy to adulthood. Adolescence still lies ahead of me, but that’s only physical, it can’t take me anywhere I haven’t been already. Everything’s spoiled—me most of all.

  I wanted to start again. I wanted to go back to what I was before. I got this kid, this little girl, much younger than me, she reminded me of myself when I was just starting out. I Twelved her. Took a big dose of baby. It was too soft; the shoggoths came and almost melted me. The brain slag turned all bubbly and hardened like molten glass plunged in icewater; cracks shot all through me. Thought to recapture something but I nearly exploded from the softness. All I could do to drag myself out here to R’lyeh Shores. Got a condo—bought the whole complex and had it all to myself. Corinne came out to visit on her way to disappearing. She brought a vial of brainsap, unlabeled, said this was what I was looking for, when I shot it I’d see. Then she went away. I waited a long time. I didn’t want another personality at this late stage. Twelve. Killed me to think that I was—finally—twelve myself. And that’s what I did. I Twelved Myself. I took the dose Corrine had brought—just this morning—and first I got the old urge to write as it came on, but then the shock was too great and I could only sit there hang-jawed. It was Me. A younger me. They must have drawn and stored the stuff before the first experiment—a control/led/ling substance, innocent unpolluted Me. The rush made me si
ck so sick. Like going back in time, seeing exactly what would become of me. Like being three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve all at once. Like being a baby and having some decrepit old hag come up to me and say, this is what you’re going to do to yourself, what do you have to live for anyway? See how awful it’s going to be? you think you’re cute but everyone will know how ugly you really are, here, why don’t you just come understand everything? And baby just drools and starts to cry because she knows the truth is exactly what she’s being told by the stinky old hag who is herself. Is Me. All at once and forever. This is final. What I was looking for—and I’ve ruined it. Nowhere newer; no escape hatch; no greener garden. Only one way to fix what they broke so long ago. I loved to hate; I built to wreck; I lived to die. All the injections they doped and roped me into, not a single one of them convinced me I should cry.

  Marc Laidlaw is the author of six novels, including the International Horror Guild Award-winning, The 37th Mandala. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies since the 1970s. In 1997, he joined Valve Software as a writer and creator of Half-Life, which has become one of the most popular videogame series of all time. In recent years he has been contributing lore and one-liners to the competitive online game, Dota 2.