by Ernest Hogan
He whimpered as the image of a mushroom cloud the size of the Arizona sky filled his brain.
His wife, Norma, her blonde hair mussed from sleep, shook him awake.
"Wake up, dear," she said, "you're having a nightmare."
"I was dreaming about Beto," he said.
"It figures." She smirked, and got that familiar look of disgust in her blue eyes.
*
"Oh look Caldonia," Phoebe said as the motorcycle came to a stop. "That cute guy – the one that looks a little like Beto – he sat right down in the middle of the street and he's playing music. Hey, I think Beto has a drum like that . . ."
"Don't be xau-xau, Phoebe. He's just like all the rest, and you really don't want to pay any attention to him if he reminds you of Beto. You should have some fun with me."
Phoebe squeezed Caldonia's hand. "But I am having fun with you."
Caldonia pulled something out of one of her bandoliers and slipped it into Phoebe's hand. "I mean have Fun with me, Phoebe-babe."
Phoebe looked at the stubby Fun stick in her hand. "Oh! Have Fun with you! How sumato! You mean right here on the street?"
"It's Dead Daze, we can get away with anything." Caldonia put a Fun stick between her lips, flicked it on, and sucked it off. Phoebe opened the mouth of her mask and did the same.
*
Hey! Two girls sucking Fun at five o'clock! Zoom in. Good. Our viewers love glimpses of blatant illegality. Uh-oh. Time for a station I.D.
(The Sumato Channel logo slides across the screen.)
*
"Oh!" said Phoebe. "Feels so good and sumato!"
Caldonia smiled, put an arm around Phoebe, and grabbed one of her breasts. "Now that we've had some Fun, maybe we can go back to my place and have fun."
*
You get the best Dead Daze coverage on the Sumato Channel, so stay tuned for more!
*
Tezcatlipoca was as aware of the people who were gathering around him and dancing to the music as he was aware of the music itself. He smiled. These people could be tricked. This world was his for the taking.
*
What is that music? No, not any of the chips being played – the electrified drum solo. There. Zero in and isolate. Kind of rough and primitive, but there are some possibilities there. Give me some hardcopy visuals on the musician and see if we can trace him. This could turn into something big.
*
There were some who weren't dancing to Tezcatlipoca's music – or at least they were trying not to. They had youthful faces, each painted with the same pattern in black and blue. They stood like warriors, even though some of them were women. They wore uniforms of sneakers, pants, T-shirts, jackets, and baseball caps, all bearing assorted corporate logos, all in the same black and blue as their face-paint.
Tezcatlipoca was pleased. Blue and black were his sacred colors.
The crowd parted as the black-and-blue-clad warriors marched toward Tezcatlipoca.
One of them, a tall latio who moved with the confidence of a leader, brought his crash-fibre Messerschmidt Stompers up to the drum and gave it a kick, sending it into Tezcatlipoca's lap and bringing the music to an abrupt halt.
"Those are last year's sneakers you've got on," the black and blue warrior said. "You know you can't wear obsolete fashions on Los Olvidadoid turf. We got corporate connections, you know."
Tezcatlipoca smiled. "Are you challenging me?"
"Yes." The warrior pulled out a black and blue Bic six-shot disposable.
Without touching his hands to the pavement, Tezcatlipoca stood up from his seated position. The teponaxtle fell onto the Messerschmidt Stompers. The Olvidadoid growled.
Without a pause, Tezcatlipoca took the drumsticks and forced them through the soft flesh under the Olvidadoid's chin all the way up into his brain. The gang leader looked shocked for a split second, then collapsed onto the teponaxtle like a pile of wet laundry.
Next to him the Bic, its self-destruct mechanism activated by the impact, melted into a steaming, bubbling black and blue puddle.
Tezcatlipoca's smile widened.
The crowd applauded, with hoots, hollers and whistles.
*
Did you get that? In closeup? Great! Of all the sumato luck! I can't chingow believe this! It's great! We caught a SoCal citizen exercising his legal right to kill a certified gangster in self-defense! Every network on the planet will want it! We gotta move fast – plug into the mediasphere, let the world know what we got and start taking bids . . .
*
Tezcatlipoca licked the blood off the drumsticks and didn't flinch from the mild electric shock. The crowd went wild. Soon he was riding its many shoulders down Hollywood Boulevard.
*
Phoebe looked over at Tezcatlipoca riding the crowd. "He sure is sumato, even if he does look like Beto," she said, then kissed Caldonia before she could react.
*
Eventually, Xochitl made her way to her father's house.
"My daughter," the bespectacled, grey-haired man asked, "what happened?"
"All Hell's breaking loose, Papa. Evil spirits are coming to get me through my computer. My work has gotten me into big trouble."
He looked confused.
"The god-simulating program, Papa."
He shook his head. "I didn't think it was possible."
"It may not be – I haven't worked out all the details yet, but that doesn't seem to matter to all the crazy people in the world."
"Let me get you something to wear. Sit down, my daughter." He pointed her to a chair and walked over to the closet.
"No, Papa, I think I need to use your phone. Who knows what they did to my place."
She punched in her number, then the code to play her messages, hoping to find a clue to what was going on. The first few were of the "Miss Echaurren, we want to talk to you about the program you have been working on," variety; whoever wanted the program, they were willing to go to extremes to get it. Then Beto's voice came in through some long distance static, singing, in English:
"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end?
to be stuck outside Tenochtitlán,
with the Tezcatlipoca blues, again!"
Then he switched to his heavily accented Spanish:
"Well, maybe not the end, Xochitlita. Maybe it's the beginning, a new beginning, far from Tenochtitlán, where we're going to be singing a brand new kind of Tezcatlipoca blues as soon as I run through the program of yours that I just had to make an unauthorized clone of. Sorry I couldn't come out and ask you for it, baby, but you were being so xau-xau cautious, worrying about all those control elements. You can't control gods, Xochitl; if you could, they wouldn't be gods. Zero hour will be when Dead Daze kicks off. I'll let you know what happens, or maybe the world will tell you first. Later, baby."
Xochitl said, "Oh my God!" and didn't listen through the next three renditions of "Miss Echaurren, we want to talk to you about the program . . ."
*
Tezcatlipoca saw Phoebe in the distance. Recognizing her caused a violent reaction in Beto's mind. Beto was repulsed. This interested Tezcatlipoca. It was a chance to see who was the master here.
"That metal-faced woman!" Tezcatlipoca pointed to Phoebe. "I want her!"
*
Xochitl's father brought a large bathrobe. "Here, my daughter, put this on."
She did. Like a glass-eyed zombie.
"Could it possibly be that bad?" he asked.
"Worse than I thought. Not only are some fanatics after the program, but that North American I met a few months ago, Beto . . ."
"The one from California." He shook his head, sorrowfully.
"Yes, he's trying to use the program to evoke Tezcatlipoca. And the version he cloned doesn't have any of my control elements."
"Why, if it works it could be a catastrophe."
"It may have already happened!"
"Well, don't worry, my daughter, you can stay here as long as you need to."
"Ay! I can
't do that! I called my place on your phone! They could have traced it! They might be on their way here already! How could I have been so stupid?"
He put his arms around her. "So, where can you go to be safe, Xochitlita? I'll do whatever I can to help you."
"Oh – I don't know. There may not be any safe place."
"Then sit down. Relax. Think." He led her back to the chair.
*
Phoebe broke the kiss, and pushed Caldonia away.
"That cute guy," Phoebe said, "I think he means me."
She looked. Tezcatlipoca was grinning at her.
"He does mean me!" She pushed her way to him.
Caldonia growled.
*
Xochitl jumped up. "I've got to leave the country! Now. Tonight. Can you lend me some clothes and money?"
"Of course, but the program, is it where the fanatics can get it?"
She reached into the bodice of her nightgown. "I hope it didn't fall out. No, here it is. I jammed it into a seam." She pulled out an ant-sized nanochip. "They saw me dressed like this and didn't think to search me – not very imaginative, I guess. If they had just pointed their software sniffers at me . . ."
"I'll do what I can to help you. Where do you think you should go?"
"Los Angeles."
He frowned. "California? Where that Beto fellow lives."
"I know, I know, it's crazy – almost as crazy as he is, but I have to. And at least it will get me out of here, away from whoever it is that's after me, and allow me to stop him, or try to undo any damage he's done."
*
The crowd carried Tezcatlipoca to Phoebe. Los Olvidadoids surrounded her, grabbed her. She relaxed, melted, and let a horde of strange hands lift and carry her to Tezcatlipoca.
Beto's mind struggled. It managed to make Tezcatlipoca subvocalize, "Help me."
This confused Tezcatlipoca, who glanced at his phone. The screen flashed a condensed stream of information about ancient movies about foolish men mixing their molecules with those of flies. Tezcatlipoca laughed.
*
Hold on the crowd fighting with the police for the corpse of the Olvidadoid leader – wouldn't it be great if they got it and tore it limb from limb? Talk about a chingow spectacular scene. Uh-oh, guess not. The police got it, too bad. Now cut to the guy who killed him being carried around. Hey! This is a good place to stick in that quote from President Jones . . .
President Jones: As long as it is kept from getting out of line – like last year's riots – Dead Daze can be a beautiful celebration of life in our community. So have fun, but behave. Don't spoil things for everybody.
*
The crowd gently placed Phoebe into Tezcatlipoca's arms. He tore off her mask, throwing it into air, then kissed her as if she were the still-beating heart of a human sacrifice. This was not Beto, Phoebe thought, he had never kissed her like this, at least not for a long, long time.
*
Phoebe's mask landed near Caldonia.
"This is really xau-xau, Phoebe!" She screamed, then put a stick of Fun in her lips, flicked it on, hopped on her Electroscooter, and zoomed away, holographic wings flapping, as she knocked over anybody who was in her way.
*
Beto's mind fought, lost, and faded away.
*
At the Hollywood Police station, Director Placio Ho was right in the middle of his latest attempt to straighten out the latest payroll/scheduling mess. He felt like one of the datapushers all the critics said the SoCal law enforcement community had become since corporations had taken on the task of assimilating gangs into society. When the phone rang, the auburn-haired asio/euro's rough hewn-face twitched; he had told the system to take all his calls while he was busy. What the heck (Ho was good Christian and didn't take the name of the final resting place of damned souls in vain) could it be?
With a well-practiced groan he switched his workstation screen to the phone line.
Madam Tan Tien's face, giving a Mona Lisa half-smile, appeared onscreen.
Oh, he thought. Then he thought Oh, no. Somehow she could always get through to him when she wanted. How could she know that he was working this late? It was like black magic.
"How are you this evening, Director Ho?" she asked. She looked different. Her hair was mussed, not its usual every-hair-in-place elegance – it looked as if she had just gotten out of bed. And instead of one of her usual crisp business suits, she had on a wrinkled oversized T-shirt with a picture of the human brain on it. In the background, out of focus, Zobop's hulking dark brown form practiced tai chi.
"I'm, er, busy," he said.
"Ah, yes." She gave one of her rare, brief full-smiles that made you want to do whatever she asked. "It is Dead Daze. There is a lot happening in El Lay."
"Yes." He tried to fight the effect of her smile. "I really don't have time to talk."
"But you should have time to listen," she went on. "Our scanning system has detected something happening over the communications lines. The source is very close to Hollywood and Vine. You will have to deal with it soon, and you need the help of Ti-Yong/Hoodoo Investigations. We have established a red link with your phone. You will know when to contact us. Goodbye, Director Ho."
She was replaced by the payroll files before Ho could say anything.
Director Ho's mouth clamped tighter than a chicken's anus. He didn't like Tan Tien, and Zobop terrified him. He wished there were some good anti-witchcraft laws on the books.
6. POSTMIDNIGHTMARES
Phoebe was reeling, feeling so good she could have exploded. This guy may have looked like Beto, but he was totally different – even the way he kissed! He was the way Beto wished he could be while all he could really do most of the time was sell Aztec mythology to virturealist gamers, play around with cut-out pictures, drums, and computers.
Her Dead Daze was saved!
And now all these people were around like he was a god or something. Did that make her a goddess? The thought made her blush.
The Fun and the fun combined and things went faster and faster, making Phoebe's brain spin on its stem as Tezcatlipoca wheeled and dealed, beat his drum, talked to be people on his phone, gave interviews, all while pausing to hug and kiss her and whisper sweet nothings like:
"Don't worry, Phoebe-baby, if you can't pronounce Tezcatlipoca; just call me Smokey. Smokey Espejo. The Mirror that Smokes. It's all me. It's all mad and merry and it'll recomboize the world."
She lost track of time. It only seemed like a few minutes that the crowd carried her and Smokey through the streets of Hollywood. When he convinced the people to let them go, and the two dashed into a coffee shop to drink, snack, and talk, she saw on the clock that it was past midnight. Fun and fun can do that.
*
We need a tighter shot, an extreme close-up! No! A telephoto shot won't do! Get the camera closer to that guy. The guy! The girl is okay, for background, but we need the guy's face so we can trace him, see if we can contact him, arrange for an interview. That crowd is amazing – impenetrable. I tell you, we need to add an electric prod to the cameraperson's kit! Hey! Look out for those gang members! Get the hell out of there! For God's sake, save the camera!
*
Soon Xochitl, her black hair pulled back into a last-minute pony-tail, an artificial glow-in-the-dark cempasúchil flower behind her left ear, was dressed in one of her father's old suits and a pair of his old William Burroughs Memorial Special Edition Nikes. She was on a Tres Estrellas de Oro Executive Class bus, heading for the border. It was full of Mexican migrant workers on the way to work, American migrant workers heading home, and a family of Portuguese-speaking Japanese. The "executive" luxuries – videos, and stewardesses serving hot meals – had long since been stripped away. Fortunately, the air-conditioning and the bathroom still worked – sort of.
If her nerves weren't already totally shot from being sure that someone dressed as Godzilla had followed her and had talked into a pay phone while keeping its eyes on her, seeing her father cry w
hen he realized that she wouldn't be with him at her mother's grave for their usual Day of the Dead ritual finished the job. That's why he had bought the new version of the bright orange flower that Anglos called marigolds and the Aztecs had called cempasúchil, a traditional offering to the spirits of the dead. When he gave it to her, he said, "It will make you pretty, my daughter – and remind you of your mother," and he had wept when she clipped it into place. She knew he didn't do it to make her feel bad – he would never do that. It was just that he was so sensitive. Unfortunately, she had inherited that sensitivity.
She had brought an English phrasebook and a bilingual edition of Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues. She needed to brush up on her English – which Beto had found clumsy but charming. An American's poetry written in Mexico seemed right to help a Mexican computer programmer on her first trip north of the border.
As they left the mountains and entered the desert, she was staring out the window, eyes hypnotically locked on the flowing landscape that was dotted with thousands of tiny lights from candles and artificial flowers.
*
Drinking hot cups of maté, Tan Tien and Zobop pulled two wheeled secretary's chairs in front of their workstation, and began to check for the source of the I AM TEZCATLIPOCA phenomenon.
"It's centered not far from here," said Zobop. "Could it be the spirit of Hollywood manifesting itself in the mediasphere?"
"Could be," said Tan Tien. "The signal is unfocused and varying, as if it was made by an artificial intelligence trying to break free of its source hardware."
"It's stronger than any we have encountered before."
"We'd better be careful then."
*
What? So the guy who did the drum music is in the Lupe's in Hollywood? Well what are you waiting for? Get us a phonelink, muy pronto, mon amour!
*
A screen flashed as a phonelink patched into the Tezcatlipoca phenomenon.
"So," said Tan Tien, "we aren't the only ones interested in this."
"Should make this trace a little easier." Zobop operated a keyboard.
*
