by Marc Laidlaw
***
Allejandro Gutierrez, a border inspector for twenty years, was full of stories of the things he had seen. They had piled up in his head until he thought he would go crazy. His family was sick of hearing them; his California counterpart, in the inspection booth across the lane, had tales of his own to tell, and Allejandro could never finish a sentence without the other man cutting him off. He could speak for days of what he’d seen, but no one had ever asked him.
Until now.
It was a typical day at the border station. Private vehicles paused for Allejandro’s inspection as they passed into Mexico. Grounded aircars, pedal vehicles, skateboarders, all jostled together in the broasting midday heat. Little boys threaded through the traffic selling sandals, shouting, “Chiclet—two dollars!” Waving plaster cobras and models of the spacebuses that were slapped together in the factory city that had once been Ensenada. It was busy, but not so busy that Allejandro couldn’t make time to talk to his guests.
They had pulled up in a polished, mint green aircar, parked alongside the booth, and walked in looking like strange twins. Another story, was his first thought. Then his American partner across the way began jumping around and shrieking, “You’re Newsbodies! You guys are from Channel Ninety, aren’t you? Alex! Look! They’re gonna make a star out of you!”
Journalists, yes, but odd ones. Allejandro invited them to stand in his booth and watch him at work. The tall Newsbody, whose tautly bulging mask covered a remarkably large nose, said Channel 90 had sent them to feel at first-hand the duties of a border guard. The other, shorter Newsbody said very little, though he sometimes sang catchy little songs and shouted what sounded like nonsense. The tall one said his partner was doing live commercials; it was all part of the program.
Allejandro was bursting with stories, yes, but all the traffic made it difficult to speak to the Newsbodies. He considered inviting them home after his shift, so he could really tell his stories properly. Meanwhile, as he searched cars, he shouted his stories over his shoulder to the men in their masks. They seemed anxious, or at least the tall one did; Allejandro suspected that the assignment bored them. He started to tell them about the time the poison-oak topiary robots that patrolled the desert stretches to the east had gone out of control and come crashing into Sandego—but then the big one distinctly yawned under his mask. How could he convince them that the job was full of dangers and surprises?
Here came a car full of nuns. Damn.
Allejandro tipped his cap to let them pass, but his American counterpart, having little respect for the Catholic Church, made them stop and get out of the car. The vehicle was air-conditioned and the nuns, of course, were dressed in very heavy black clothing. It was disgraceful, making them stand out in the heat.
Suddenly the American guard backed out of the car with a bag of red powder that wasn’t dried chili. Allejandro let out a shout to warn the Newsbodies.
By then the nuns were firing at the booths, and at Allejandro himself, producing guns from their black robes, plucking fire-knives out of their wimples. Allejandro crawled into his booth and called for help. Sirens began to wail. He heard the nuns’ car screech away into the dense Tijuana traffic.
The tall Newsbody pulled his babbling partner out the door, heading for their car.
“Where are you going?” Allejandro cried.
“Where there’s a fast-breaking story, it’s our duty to follow!”
Allejandro watched them drive past the booth into Tijuana, feeling numb and disappointed, his moment of stardom already fading. Just before the traffic closed around them, the green car leaped upward and sailed into the smoke above the city.
They should have stuck around, he thought. Heard his stories. Those nuns were nothing compared to other things he’d seen.
***
We now return to our regularly scheduled commercial, featuring Chas Tatty as Klarabell La Honda, Porcy Jones as Tryque Trombalos, and introducing Eloi Killian Shemhamphorasch as Blorg.
Below, the pocked and cratered surface of a blue moon:
“Think it’s safe to land, Trych?”
“I don’t know, Klarabell. We’d better ask Blorg.”
Blorg, warily, hungrily, watches them approach. Blorg starves for manflesh. The cage is sturdy. Blorg knows it will not be fed unless it cooperates.
“Blorg, is it safe to land?”
“It looks hungry, Klarabell.”
“Well, feed it.”
“I’m not going to feed it. Look what happened last time. That’s Glanz’s leg in there. You feed it.”
“I’m not going to feed it.”
Says Blorg, “You no feed, I no tell.”
“Look, Blorg, we don’t have any more human flesh for you. Our larders are a little low. If you eat more of us, that’s it. This ship doesn’t fly itself. We have to land and look for food. There might be an old colony supply ship down there, with maybe a few survivors left over for you.”
Blorg turns its backs on them.
“It’s useless. It’ll never tell us.”
“Hey, I know! Why don’t we try giving it some of Those New Cheesy Chewy Beefy Superstrings?”
“It won’t eat that. It wants real meat.”
“But they’re a real meat-synthetic, in a fun new shape. Blorg might like them.”
Later.
“Mm. Blorg like Superstrings better than manflesh. Blorg happy. Blorg say safe to land, but no supply ship. Blorg say go to nearest superstore and buy more of Those New Cheesy Chewy Beefy Superstrings.”
“Wow, Blorg! You’re okay!”
(Please. Cut. Wires.)
***
Sandy moaned in the backseat, eyes half open but still far from waking. He stirred and thrashed and shouted, “Blorg quite satisfied!” He tore at his Newsbody 90 mask and began to chew on the lips.
Cornelius prayed they weren’t too late.
Beneath them, the life had been stripped from the land. He looked down on brown desolation, sparse vegetation. Once-bright plastic signs lay toppled in the cactus-choked parking lots of ghost malls. Here and there, a figure hunched atop a plodding mule raised a trail of dust that the wind blurred. He couldn’t understand why Raimundo had chosen Baja California for his home. According to the navigator, the car was fewer than three miles from the Navarro homestead, but there was no sign of inhabitable land.
And then suddenly everything changed. Without warning, the Jaguaero plunged over a green world.
Trees rose up out of nowhere. Silvery creeks wound through cool shadows. Horses ran in a pasture, sheep grazed on rolling hummocks crowned by circular stands of cactus. At first he thought it a mirage, until he looked farther and saw sheer stone walls beyond which the desert went on as before. This narrow valley was a fertile oasis sheltered from the harsh Baja sun, spring-fed, secluded.
Within seconds, glimmering silver bodies appeared at either side of Cornelius’s car: aircraft with a distinctly military look. The whole car shook as they seized it in mag-grips from either side.
“How do you do,” Cornelius said, gritting his teeth against the vibration. He hoped they were decent pilots—a slight variance in their flights and they could tear the Jaguaero to pieces.
Their speed slowed considerably. The trees crawled below at a leisurely pace. He saw a brown stallion carrying a rider in a broad white hat, black boots, dressed all in blue with a touch of red at the throat. The rider looked up, startled by the aircraft. As she did, he felt an overwhelming relief.
It was Dyad.
More trees obscured her, then parted to reveal the pink tile roof of a large hacienda whose stucco walls shone as if freshly whitewashed. Ornate wrought iron gates were wide open on a fountain jetting blue water in a courtyard lined with tall-spiked century plants and agaves as big around as truck tires. The Jaguaero was placed almost tenderly on the earth outside the gates.
The jets were sleek, bullet-shaped things with swept wings and metal arms. With a buzz and a click, they released their grip on Co
rnelius’s car. He punched open the door and leaped out, looking off through the trees to see if he could spot Dyad.
Someone ordered him to raise his hands. Cornelius turned slowly to find five guards surrounding him. The great wooden door of the hacienda swung open and a lean, thin-lipped young man stepped into the heat of the afternoon.
“Greetings, Raimundo!” Cornelius called.
Raimundo Navarro-Valdez stiffened, recognizing his visitor. He rushed forward.
“What are you doing here? You’re that Figueroa!”
“Not quite, sir, but a close friend of the family. I come on behalf of Santiago Figueroa. At his request.”
Raimundo looked unconvinced. “Is that him in the car? What’s he doing? He looks drugged.”
“I wish it were that simple. He needs the care of your best surgeon.”
“My surgeon? What are you talking about?”
“Santiago desperately needs his wires removed, much as you did for your bride.”
“His wires . . .” Raimundo looked incredulous. “It can’t be. He’s the worst of them, an incorrigible sender.”
“So was Dyad once, I believe.”
Raimundo hesitated, then apparently decided that all the advantages were his. He nodded the guards away.
“Who else knows you’re here?” he asked.
“I brought Sandy in secrecy.”
“Hello, Cornelius,” said a calm voice. Cornelius turned as Dyad walked out from the shade of a nut tree. “What’s going on?” She glanced into the car and saw Sandy. She slid into the compartment and put her hands on his cheeks. “Sandy, what happened?”
His eyes came open, but only slightly.
“Die, Hyperbolean dog!” he cried in a choked voice. Then: “Look out, Rooster Man! They’re lice!”
She backed out of the car. “Is he out of his head?”
Cornelius began to explain. Once Dyad understood what was required, she snapped at Raimundo: “Well, don’t just stand there! Call Dr. Vargas!”
***
As the sun set over the walls of the lush little valley, Cornelius sipped punch with his hosts on a flagstone patio. Raimundo meditatively plucked the strings of a twelve-string guitar, reflecting his mood in his choice of rhythms, which wandered from slow, stately classical tunes to a passionate flamenco. Dyad, in a white cotton dress, ladled sangria from a bowl afloat with ice, strawberries, and lemon slices. She sat down by Raimundo and watched his face and fingers. At first he did not seem to see her, but eventually he stopped playing and set the instrument aside.
“They should be finished soon,” she said.
Almost as she spoke, Dr. Vargas appeared between the open french doors. Raimundo queried him in Spanish. The doctor nodded, spoke a few words, then bowed slightly and walked away.
“We can see him,” Dyad said. “But he won’t be awake for a while.”
“That’s it?” Cornelius said. “Did he pull out the wires so quickly?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t pull them out. He injects a chemical into the lymph nodes. It gradually works through the body, attacking the polynerve, breaking it down, letting the body absorb and then excrete it. Once it’s injected, it stops the signals immediately. He’s cut off from the network already, though it’ll be a week or so before the wires have totally dissolved. Would you like to see him, Cornelius?”
Raimundo rose quickly. “Wait. I want to be there when he wakes. He’ll answer a few of my questions.”
“Of course, Raimundo, you can do what you wish with your guest. But he won’t be awake before tomorrow. Remember how long it took me to recover? I just thought Cornelius might like to see that his friend is all right.”
Raimundo sighed. “Very well,” he said, retrieving his guitar. “But I’m calling my father tonight. He’ll have many questions, if Santiago has seen all the sealman claims. If he came close to the child and received such damage, then there can be no doubt that she’s the one we fear.”
***
The nightmares and advertisements went away eventually. After them came peaceful sleep, dreams from which he could have wakened if he wished. But sleep was a balm that never lost its novelty, and he wasn’t anxious to end it.
Finally, hearing whispers, he opened his eyes. A few people stood around him in a room bathed with sunlight. He lay in a huge soft bed, under fresh white sheets. It was so warm that he started to throw the sheets aside, then he realized that the people were strangers.
One was an old man, tall and dagger-nosed, dressed in a much-decorated military uniform. Sandy thought he knew him vaguely—had seen him years ago. Behind him stood Raimundo Navarro-Valdez. Ah, yes. The old man was his father. General Joaquim Navarro-Valdez.
“How do you feel?” the general asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.
Sandy listened to his body, searching for aches, finding none. Had he been sick?
And then he remembered.
Kali. The Holy City. The disconnection . . .
An unfamiliar silence permeated him; peace lay upon and within his nerves. Try as he might, he could find no commercials, no game shows, no programs of any kind, neither ludicrous nor educational. Nothing but his heartbeat, the twitch of his muscles, the soft background murmur of natural, original thought.
“You’re in Baja,” the general said.
“Cornelius brought you,” said Raimundo. “You wanted your wires removed.”
Sandy shuddered, gripping the sheets. “I don’t think I’ll ever wear them again, not while she’s out there. Now that I know what can be done with them.”
The general’s eyes narrowed. “Then you felt it? The wires are puppet-strings, isn’t that so?”
Sandy nodded. “They are now. She can use them that way.”
The general looked at Raimundo, then at a dark-complected woman who stood at the far side of the bed. “I told you. It’s exactly as we thought.” His eyes returned to Sandy. “You were lucky to reach us. We got your wires out just in time.”
“What’s going to happen?”
And then he remembered. His mother, masquerading as High Priestess, hinting at things she couldn’t tell him. The networks, conspiring to raise Kali as a goddess. He told them what Marjorie had said, as well as all he had seen.
“You think it’s only the networks?” Joaquim Navarro-Valdez shook his head. “McBeth is behind it. The networks merely do his work. Who better to grab hold of so many people at once? Who better than Hollywood, with their vast propaganda machine? Only they can turn a weapon into a star, and tune everyone in for their own destruction.”
“But why?” Sandy asked.
“To take control, why else? To have all the wired masses working together, with one mind.”
“But it wouldn’t be the president’s mind—it would be Kali’s.”
“Easier for him to control one child than billions of adults. She’s the natural focus for such power: a baby already believes itself to be the center of the universe.”
The woman spoke: “Should we speak in front of him, Father?”
“He knows more than I do, Sebastiana,” said the general. “I’m sure he will want to assist us in stopping this. Isn’t that so, Santiago?”
“It was horrible,” he said. “You can’t imagine being so out of control.”
The general nodded. “I’ve imagined many things. An entire nation, moving as one, could be turned against any enemy. They would be irresistible. Internal strife weakens and destroys armies and nations; but in such a group there would be no dissent, no resistance. A frightening challenge lies before us. You are free of the wires now, Santiago, but you are not yet free of what the other slaves may do.”
The dark young woman, Sebastiana, leaned toward him.
“How did it feel when she took control of you? Did she inhabit your thoughts or merely your body?”
Sandy shook his head. “No, not my thoughts, though she could change my expression. I must have looked like I was thinking whatever she wanted me to think.”
He stared at Sebastiana in something like awe, realizing that for the first time he was truly free of the self-consciousness that had come with the wires; for even when he hadn’t been sending, those wires had reminded him of his invaded privacy. Even as an RO, he’d never known when his mood might cause the wires to kick in without warning. Many times his idle thoughts had triggered broadcasts, tuning him to channels that seemed to match his mood. During sex it was even worse.
Now he was free of that chatter, the constant interference.
He stared at Sebastiana as if she were the first woman he had ever seen. Dark hair, clear blue eyes, an olive complexion. There were no voices in his head, nothing but the sight of her. He thought he could learn to like it here in Mexico.
Leave California behind, forget about the wire slaves, live a quiet life . . .
She smiled and reached out to stroke his forehead. “I’m sorry, you must be tired. Forgive my questions.”
“No, it’s not that. I—well, maybe I am tired. But I feel better than ever. It’s really incredible. There’s a deep feeling of peace and quiet. I could lie here for hours, just soaking in it.”
The general cleared his throat. “Get your rest, then. You will need your strength when you go back.”
“Back?” Sandy said, his newfound peace suddenly threatened.
“To California. To find your sister. You know her better than anyone; and now she has no power over you.”
“Find her?” he said. “And then what?”
“Then you’ll do what must be done,” the general said. “Whatever that may be.”
S01E11. Who Will Babysit the Babysitter?
Alfredo stood on the balcony, gazing down into the fissure of Beverly Canyon, hazy as the brown smoke that rose from his tofu cigarette. Filthy habit, but he couldn’t help it. He had stopped worrying about his health, his image, everything; and still he felt constantly worried. Worried and numb.
