by Mick Farren
With the coming of the Faithful administration, the Elvi had been forced to weather a series of storms. There had been more than one attempt to have them labeled as heretics, and Vanson Crowell, a syndicated faith healer out of Bloomington, Indiana, had even gone as far as to organize burnings of the Book of the King. Crowell had been the first to learn the lesson that one did not screw around with the Elvi. The moment he started his campaign, his grass-roots following vanished like the morning mist, and his cash contributions dropped away to nothing. The intense competition in the God business did the rest. Vanson Crowell vanished from sight and the airwaves. The truth was that Middle America rather liked the Elvi. They were different, maybe crazy, but they seemed harmless and good-natured. They were also rooted in a phenomenon that, for over half a century, had been very dear to the heart of blue-collar America. They worked alongside everyone else on the factory floor. They bitched about the pay cuts and the rising prices. After work, they went to the bar. They were permitted to get drunk, arm wrestle, and hold their own in a fight. Anthony, renowned for his bleary, saloon macho, had allowed himself plenty of slack when drawing up the Elvi moral code. The Elvi religion, above everything else, demanded that its members be good ol' boys and gals.
A ripple ran down the line. One of the Elvi grinned amiably at Speedboat. "Figure we should be getting inside pretty soon."
Speedboat nodded. It did not cost anything to be civil to the natural cover. He held up his computicket. "Says the doors open at five."
The Elvi consulted a huge, antique Rolex that was strapped to his left wrist. "Five on the nail."
As they filed forward, the Elvi kept up a stream of small talk. One thing that Speedboat thoroughly detested was non-conversations with total strangers. It was made worse by the fact that the line moved excruciatingly slowly. This Elvi might have been good-natured, but he was also extremely boring. It was the fate of many with fixed beliefs. Speedboat felt that it was best to humor the man, but even his minimal grunted replies came to an abrupt stop when he was confronted by the battery of security equipment that was deployed around the entrance.
"Holy shit."
The Elvi smiled indulgently as if to signify that he had heard a few cuss words in his time. "They do seem to be taking real good care of someone. I guess there's all kinds of nuts about. They say that Elvis himself was kind of leery about the possibility of a sniper trying for him from the audience."
Speedboat was about ready to bolt. The only thing that stopped him was that by the time that he actually saw the battery of security checks, it was already too late. There was no way that he could turn back without attracting attention. He was carried into the process by the momentum of the crowd. He dropped his ticket into the hopper and had its genuineness confirmed. Next he passed between a double line of armed and armored riot cops who stared impassively from behind dark visors. Speedboat could feel himself starting to sweat. The sensor banks were mounted in a cylindrical aluminum and plastic frame that formed a tunnel through which everyone in the line had to pass. Speedboat recognized some of the equipment. The mass detectors that ferreted out concealed weapons were larger versions of the portable frisk units that the deacons used. There were these dull black ceramic tubes that he could only assume sniffed for explosives. There was other stuff he had never encountered before – multiple lenses like the eyes of insects, tremor scoops, and curved ceramic panels. He could not start to guess at their function, but he did not like the look of them at all. Finally he was through the tunnel. The last obstacle was a huddle of Garden rentacops who amounted to very little after what had gone before. And then Speedboat was on his way down the tunnel that led into the main arena. If everything went according to plan, he had passed the first short stretch of a road that would lead all the way to Canada.
Mansard
The crowd was coming in like a flowing disorganized mass, spoiling and humanizing the symmetry of the ranked tiers of empty seats.
Charlie Mansard sighed. "I guess it's time for the preflight." Jimmy Gadd placed his arm on the back of the coordinator's console chair and leaned forward so only Mansard could hear him. "You're certain you want to run the program yourself?"
Mansard scowled and nodded. "I want to run the program myself."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"You've been bitching all afternoon about how you can't do it because you're not up to it and you don't feel well."
"It's my way of psyching myself up for the show. Some people pace, others meditate. I whine and complain."
"You've got a couple of drinks in you."
"Did you ever know me to do a show without a couple of drinks in me?"
Jimmy Gadd shrugged. "Just checking."
"Stop treating me like you're my nanny."
"Did you hear anything more from the cops?"
Mansard slowly pulled off the two strips of fake plastic skin that hid the DNI input receptors behind each ear. "I didn't hear anything new. It's pretty clear they feel that Proverb is some major assassination target."
"How do you feel about that?"
"The money's in escrow. We're covered."
"But if it happens, it's liable to happen during the show while you're jacked into the board."
"So with my luck, I'll be in the middle of a straight D-interface. I'll overload, produce clear white light, and fuse both halves of my brain."
"And you're not worried?"
"It'd be a merciful release."
Jimmy Gadd shrugged. There was no talking to Mansard immediately before a show. "Have it your way."
"I intend to. Go and tend your business. Make sure those horsemen come up on cue."
Gadd gestured to the others at the effects control board. "Okay, folks, let's all get to our places. It's time to go to it."
Mansard held up the leads that were destined to fit into the plugs in his neck. He stared at the gold connectors and spoke to nobody in particular. "It's amazing, isn't it? The Russians are colonizing Mars. The Japanese have DNI, and the Home of the Brave has Jesus, nuclear power stations, and fake miracles." He eased the two plugs into his neck receptors. "Let's commit ourselves a felony."
Direct neutral interface – DNI – was a federal crime in the United States. The sin of cybercation could cost the perpetrator five to ten in a camp. Congress with a machine had been deemed to be an abomination in the eyes of God and legislated against accordingly. The fact that with the coming of artificial intelligence many machines were potentially smarter than Larry Faithful and the majority of his cabinet did not count for anything. In the new America prejudice prevailed. God-fearing folks did not run wires into their heads and turn themselves into some kind of Frankenstein monsters. The net result was that the country was becoming increasingly backward, a victim of its own ideological struggle with the Japanese.
Of course Mansard and the others in his crew who wore plugs were in no danger of arrest – not until the day came when they were really of no more use to the hierarchy. If or when that happened, it would not really matter. In that unpleasant eventuality, cybercation and neuromancy would be just two more charges way down on a long list of crimes that would be heralded by first-degree heresy. Even the Faithful administration was aware that software-based systems were pissing in the dark without DNI. The military had DNI, as did the major corporations, the remaining airlines, and even the deacons themselves. The real purpose of DNI prohibition was to stop potential kid cowboy hackers from interfacing their way beyond the reach of the thought control of Jesus.
Mansard experienced the unpleasant lurch of reality as he melded with the control software. It was a little too much like baring his innermost being to be strictly comfortable – it was a yielding to something bigger that himself. Each time he melded, he felt the loss of his strict singular identity. The physical leads that ran to the console and the mental channels that were opened to the whole of the complex system made him a component in an open-ended matrix that was part cybernetic and part hu
man. That loss of self was, on its own, akin to a religious experience. Maybe that was why the hierarchy appeared so threatened by DNI. They probably saw it as competition.
What Mansard thought of as his second eyes came on and, with them, the exhilaration that followed the fear. The sheer depth of shared perception was what made jacking in such a source of pure excitement. He had been blind but now could see. The religious parallels always came thick and fast when anyone tried to describe the full depths of the DNI experience. Mansard was very much aware of the fact that, as the director of the whole operation. he occupied a unique position. They were his fantasies that were being projected as an illusion of light and form, and it was his will that directed the coordinated effort. He was the pivotal point around which everything else revolved. I am the cyberking; I can do anything. When anyone asked him how it felt to have that almost otherwordly power at his disposal, he had a stock reply. "From the top, you can see for fucking miles."
In a way, it was the absolute unvarnished truth. That was what the second eyes were really all about. Subjectively to the left and right of his physical vision, they provided an electronic overview of the entire control. "What can I tell you? I'm a visual artist, not a poet. It's like full-color radar – that's the only way that I can describe it." In that, he somewhat underplayed the truth. It might look like color radar, but it felt like playing God. His kingdom, the matrix, was laid out in front of him, a vast glowing landscape tailored to his hands and mind. If he thought it, it was done. The sense of omnipotence was all-consuming. About the only thing that rivaled it was the sense of the infinite. Although the second eyes did not show him anything but the single special-effects matrix, there was a awareness that, beyond the limits of his own universe, others existed. They were out there, glowing, distant things like island nebulae, linked by fiber optics or microwaves as surely as the stars are linked by mass energy and time. It was at that point that he envied the Japanese hardcore DNI ronin who had moved out in that space and freely roamed between the matrices. "One day," he told himself. "One day." In the meantime, even as limited as his circumstances were, he had enough consolations.
"Power!" Mansard broke the quiet in the control booth with a maniacal, mad-scientist laugh. "Let's bring up the power."
There were a number of smiles around the booth. The crew were all regulars and well aware of Mansard's flights of ego. Mansard moved back into the physical world and acknowledged the response with a nod. Then he was back to business.
"Bring the power up slow and be careful of surge. It's my brain in here."
He waited quietly while the crew built power and ran through the preflight. When his eyes had first come on, the image of the matrix had been a pale, ethereal thing, like a city in the dark, seen from a high and distant aircraft. Once power was fed into it, it came to shimmering life. As the dawnglow of first powerup surrounded Charlie Mansard, he realized just how big this job was. He had never handled anything this huge. It had looked manageable on paper and even in the miniaturisations, but now that he was confronted by the full-scale reality, he was not so sure.
"I'm going to need a drink after this sucker."
Jimmy Gadd was inside his head. "You always need a drink."
"Get out of my head, Gadd."
"Just reminding you that you aren't the only one who's jacked in."
Mansard sighed. In some respects he was the only one who was actually jacked in. He was the one in control. Most of the others on the crew who were on DNI would go through the show in a blissful half trance as they ran their functions. As more and more power was fed in, he started to move toward the center of the matrix. The control functions came to him as he moved forward. This was the subjective perception of entering the full interface.
"Damn, this really is big."
He was not even trying to run the Four Horsemen set piece himself. That would be controlled by its own program. Maybe he should have split the unit and used two controllers. He was almost at the center position. It was far too late for second thoughts, and what the hell, anyway. If he could not hack his own show he deserved to die trying.
There was a babble of audio at the periphery of his perception. Proverb's sound crew was syncing in. An alarm tone sounded, and the matrix flashed. That was immediately followed by an override voice.
"Showtime in ten minutes."
FIVE
Carlisle
"Revelations nine!"
The lights on the stage had dimmed to a velvet black. Allen Proverb stood under a single pin spot that beamed straight down. The impression created was that of his being touched by the finger of God.
"Yes, my friends. Revelations nine."
As Proverb's voice resonated through the auditorium, a murmur ran through the crowd. Revelations nine was a Proverb showstopper. For him to use it so early in the show would seem to indicate that he was planning to go for broke. The crowd was excited at the promise of fireworks. Someone in the seats behind Harry Carlisle let out a whoop.
"Good rockin' tonight."
Some of the crowd laughed. Harry Carlisle shook his head in the darkness. It had to be an Elvi.
There was a high sustained note, somewhere between a trumpet and a violin. It seemed to hang in the roof darkness of the Garden. Tiny pinpoints of light danced high in the air.
"And the fifth angel sounded…"
Proverb's voice was as much a force as any other factor in the spectacle. The naturally powerful baritone had been amplified and deepened; it had been enhanced and juiced in every conceivable way until it sounded as if some holy orchestra were buried in the words. When he fell into the rolling rhythm of his Bible reading, during which he tacked a punching aah sound to the ends of many of his words, the effect was even more pronounced. It became a voice ready to part the waters – -Moses with the gift of advanced electronics.
"… and I saw a star fell from heaven unto the earth:…"
The lights vanished, and the note faded. A deep sub-bass rumble seemed to be vibrating the foundations of the building. A deep glow, the color of blood, was crawling across the stage like something alive.
"… and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit."
The voices became the roar of a hurricane.
"And he opened the bottomless pit!"
It was an illusion, but for an instant, it seemed as if the floor of the Garden had opened up. For a fraction of a second, the crowd felt as if they were falling. There were screams. Carlisle looked around. The show had only just started, and the Garden was already in total chaos. The cops who were supposed to be protecting Proverb were quite helpless. In the darkness, and with all the movement in the crowd, there was no way that they would be able to spot a sniper.
"And there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."
All hell was majestically breaking loose. Green and purple evil was crawling down the walls while magenta doom rose to meet it. The bloody glowing mist was flowing off the stage and down into the crowd. Things seemed to be moving in the middle of it. People were pushing back, recoiling from its advance. Carlisle's ears were assaulted by a cacophony of shouts and screams and the terrible flapping of leathery wings. All around him, people were clutching their ears: some were down on their knees, eyes closed, sobbing. Carlisle knew that Proverb was a wildman, but if the preacher kept the intensity up at this level through a full three-hour show, he would have half his flock clean out of their minds at the end – if they had not killed each other in some mass psych-out.
An atonal chorus cut through the desperate noise and hung in the air above the heads of the milling crowd like a blanket of doom.
"Come not, Lucifer."
"Come not, Lucifer."
"Come not, Lucifer."
Proverb himself was rising above the red glow on a small, elevating platform. Hands seemed to be reaching out of the stuff to drag him back down.
"And there came ou
t of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power."
"Power."
"Power."
"Power."
"And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle."
Proverb was down on one knee. The heavy Bible was brandished on high. Even forced to his knees, Alien Proverb kept on fighting. He was high above the stage, surrounded by a golden aura. His voice had dropped to a terrifying whisper.
"And on their heads were as it were crowns like gold… And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle."
The bloody glow was fading, but it was being replaced by lurking, hovering blackness that hinted of men on horses and threatening spears. Harsh metallic noise seemed to be coming from a long way off.
"And the four angels were loosed… for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard the number of them."
"Kill meeeee!"
"Kill meeeee!"
The metallic noise was coming closer. The dark shapes loomed over the audience.
