Firebirds Soaring

by Sharyn November

  “No,” said Appie, “it’s just good to see that there’s more of the world out here. This is what we’re working for, right?”

  Julio snorted. “This is what I’m working to avoid.”

  “I don’t get you. Why did you come out here if you don’t like it?”

  “Because I like to be reminded, too, but of something else. When I look out at all this, I see nothing, emptiness, a wilderness. The only worthwhile landscape is a place where humans have built things, or where the natural resources are being harvested. Where we’ve made our stamp of achievement. This land is not being productive. Out here, there’s nothing worthwhile for you or me. Nature is not some kind, warm mother, Appie. You, as a woman, should realize this. Can you imagine life like the ancient Native Americans, giving birth without hospitals, getting sick without modern medicine? Pure misery, Appie. We’re working so that humanity never has to experience that again.”

  “Okay, I see your point, sort of. But, don’t we lose something in the process?” Appie protested.

  “Stuff well lost, in my opinion,” said Julio, staring narrow-eyed at the horizon. He checked his armtop, then held out his hand to Appie. “Come walk with me.”

  Uncertain, Appie took his hand. She felt so confused, admiration for his ambition mixed with revulsion.

  He led her several yards away from the hills where the nature trail lay, to an outcropping of rock. Behind the rock they were hidden from anyone’s view. Julio glanced once more at his armtop, glanced overhead, then pulled Appie into a tight embrace, with a long kiss that went straight to her groin.

  Well! thought Appie, at least part of him is human. He wanted to come out here for some romance. Shame he didn’t think to bring a blanket.

  Julio’s hand moved down to her butt. And then Appie was aware of him slipping something small and rectangular into her back jeans pocket.

  “You don’t have to give me your card. I know how to find you,” Appie murmured in his ear.

  “Shhh. It’s not mine. It’s a lead. A hot one.”

  Appie drew back, appalled. “You’re talking biz—”

  “Shh! Kiss me! We might still be in view of the satellite,” he whispered loudly.

  “Sat—oh.” As his lips fell hungrily on hers again, Appie realized that given Worldtree’s fleet of satellites, one was rarely not potentially viewable. After a long while, Appie finally drew back to catch her breath.

  “If it’s such a hot lead,” she whispered, “why aren’t you handling it?”

  “Plate’s too full,” Julio whispered back. “You need it more than I do. This could make your career, Appie. We Harbingers stick together, right? I wanted you to have it.”

  “Aw, and here I thought you were kissing me because you liked me.”

  “I do like you. I like you lots.” And the kissing continued so long, they nearly missed catching the ecotour truck back to the lodge.

  One thing led to another, and the next morning when Appie woke up, Julio was in bed beside her. She watched his chest rise and fall as he slept, her feelings in vague turmoil. It had been good; Julio was skilled. But his eyes had been closed most of the time.

  Appie got up, put on the flimsy bathrobe the resort provided, made a tiny pot of the weak coffee that came with the room, and strolled out to the deck. As the sun rose higher over the eastern horizon, Appie noted that not once did she wish for a remote. She wondered if she could download this scene for her cubio deck.

  Appie heard Julio stir behind her as he got up to go to the bathroom. Minutes later he strolled out to join her, wearing only a bath towel around his waist and holding an open cell phone.

  “Good morning,” Appie said, eyeing the phone with concern.

  “You’re looking happy and rested,” said Julio cheerfully. “What do you say, did I show you a good time?”

  “Well . . . sure . . . what, are you calling somebody?”

  Julio managed to look annoyed and embarrassed at the same time. “I’m making a vid. A souvenir, to remember the weekend. C’mon. Give me a smile and tell me we had a good time, okay?”

  Appie rolled her eyes but then remembered the better parts of the day before. She smiled and said, patiently, “I had a very good time with you, Julio. Thank you.”

  “Excellent.” He snapped the phone shut. He walked up to her and kissed her lightly again. “When does your flight leave? ”

  “Not until four. So I have most of the day to kill, if you—”

  “Got a better idea. The restaurant, Brownhorn, needs a courier the first week of every month to take legal documents to their headquarters in San Francisco. I bet I can get you on a flight out of Fargo by eleven.”

  “Oh, Julio,” Appie sighed in annoyance.

  “It’ll show initiative! Besides,” he added in a whisper, leaning close, “it will give you a chance to check out the place I gave you.” He patted her butt. “They’re in SF too.”

  Appie felt her hard-won happiness drain from her at cutting her vacation short. On the other hand, Julio’s go-getter attitude was getting on her last nerve. “Okay, okay. I’ll get back to work.”

  “Stop grumbling. We’re the lucky ones, remember? We’ve got the best jobs in the world.”

  “Yeah,” said Appie with one last, regretful glance at the view. “So goddamn lucky.”

  Appie let her mind drift as she rode in the taxi from the San Francisco airport. She gazed at the hybrids, ethanols, and electrics sharing the road, tried to read the faces of the drivers as she had the passengers on her crowded flight from Fargo. What did these people want, need, hunger for? What could Worldtree and its innumerable associates sell them? Appie sometimes told herself she was helping people in ways they could never appreciate. But sometimes she felt like she was preying on her own species.

  After dropping off the legal papers at the headquarters for Brownhorn Restaurants Ltd., Appie directed the taxi to the address on the card Julio had slipped into her jeans. The taxi let her off in front of a tall, narrow pink storefront with an iron-gated door and a quaint cupola on the second story, similar to its neighbors in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. There was only a small sign in the window to show this was the location of Mindportal, Inc. It stood near the crest of a hill from which one could glimpse the downtown. Appie saw a couple of new mod-towers going up that would rival the Transamerica Pyramid for attention. She rang the doorbell and heard a chime somewhere inside.

  The iron gate slid aside and the door was opened by a tall, slender woman with short-cropped gray hair. She was wearing a loose, long, white dress and her large eyes were a startling shade of blue. “May I help you?” the woman asked in a mild, throaty voice.

  Appie hadn’t called ahead, paranoid fears of being overheard on her company cell phone having held her back. “I’m Appomattox Kim from Worldtree. You had requested a marketing evaluation of your . . . product.” Appie was seriously winging it, as Julio had given no indication of what Mindportal produced, and the business card he’d given her was merely the company name and address. Appie assumed it was some sort of software . . . maybe competition for one of the major companies Worldtree already handled, and that’s why the job was so touchy.

  The woman gasped, her hand flying to her throat. “You . . . Worldtree actually sent someone! Oh, please, come in! We’d been hoping but since we hadn’t heard . . . I must have overlooked your e-mail. I’m so sorry, please come in!” The woman held the door open.

  Appie walked in, trying not to appear as sheepish as she felt. “Actually, I expect there was no e-mail, Ms. . . .”

  “Please, call me Grace.”

  “Um, Grace. I was only just given your contact information, and as I’m on a six-hour layover, I thought I would take the opportunity to make first contact and get to know your company.”

  “Wonderful! We were so worried, and we weren’t sure where else to turn. Thank you for coming. Right this way.” Grace guided Appie down a long, white-painted hallway whose only decoration was a large flower arrangem
ent in the Wafu style of Ikebana on a side table. Appie admired its circular structures of pine and bamboo before she was ushered into a plain, white-walled office with IKEA desks and Herman Miller chairs. Serious money was clashing with frugality here. She sat and opened up her laptop.

  Grace sat behind the desk, steepling her fingers. “I suppose you have all the background on the service we hope to provide. Frankly we’re not sure if we should be applying for FDA or AMA approval yet, so I’m afraid we haven’t begun that process. We’re hoping Worldtree can help us on that end.”

  “I see.” Whoa, a drug or medical device? A service? Appie thought, keeping her face neutral. “Yes, but I like to hear first from the company’s own perspective what they believe they are offering before giving any feedback.”

  “Well, that makes sense. Here at Mindportal, Ms. Kim, we believe we are offering, quite simply, a religious experience.”

  Appie’s hands paused above her keyboard. “Say what?”

  “Oh, I know, we can’t use that in the brochure. Religion has such heavy connotations, and none that we want to imply. Our device is a helmet that, using electricity and magnets, provides the same sort of experience that monks strive for years to achieve and that has inspired prophets through the ages. One five-to-ten minute session under the helmet, and one comes away with the feeling that All Is Connected. The universe is one and filled with a numinous purpose of which we are all a grand part.”

  After a pause, Appie said, “Um, wow.” No wonder Julio hadn’t wanted to touch this.

  “Yes, I see you understand the implications. But we have no interest in using this device to create a cult or enhance a church organization. We could all become billionaires if we did, but we don’t want to start the next Scientology. Our founding engineers came from the University of California, and we want to ensure this device is used under careful supervision.”

  “I see,” Appie said. “Then, who, exactly, do you see as your target market?”

  “Well, eventually, everyone. We hope. But in order to become established, we’d like to place ourselves first as a business productivity enhancement tool.”

  “A productivity enhancement tool,” Appie echoed dubiously. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Were these people wingnuts in clever disguise? Was this an elaborate practical joke on Julio’s part? She wanted to glance around surreptitiously for webcams. “But wouldn’t a state of . . . religious ecstasy interfere with one’s work productivity?” Jeez, I’m starting to sound like Julio.

  Grace smiled and shook her head. “It’s not like that. The experience doesn’t rob your mind of the capacity to think, quite the opposite. It simply . . . opens you up.” Her hands fell palm outward, like the wings of butterflies. “You have a feeling of oneness with all Creation, a general feeling of well-being, of serenity, that everything will be all right. Some of our test cases have reported enhanced creativity. And as the zen saying goes, ‘Even after the enlightenment of Satori, one must chop wood and carry water.’”

  “And you believe this will be of service to people like me, who work in mod-towers?”

  “Well, we have read of the stress and intensity of your work lives,” Grace said. “We’ve heard you even have a room in the towers called the ‘Hug and Cry,’ where you go when it gets overwhelming.”

  “Yes, there is such a place,” Appie said, hearing some defensiveness in her voice, “but it’s rarely used. I haven’t been to it once the whole time I’ve worked at Worldtree.” Cubions don’t dare use the Hug and Cry often, Appie thought, because your room card opens the door and HR can tell who’s cracking by how often you check in.

  “Well, perhaps our device can provide what your Hug and Cry cannot. True peace.”

  “Is that your ultimate goal with this service?”

  “Well.” Grace smiled and looked down at the floor. “Some of us have hippie grandparents. We like to think that our device could eventually lead to better understanding between people, perhaps even an end to war. But that’s thinking years ahead. Right now we just need to find acceptance somewhere, and we believe the business community is the best place to start. After all, if people believe it will help them make money, it’s bound to catch on, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t that a cynical approach?” asked Appie.

  “We like to think we’re being realistic. Now, would you like to see the device?”

  There wasn’t much to see. Grace led Appie to a glass partition. In the room beyond, a young woman in T-shirt and jeans lay in a big, plush recliner with what appeared to be an oversized football helmet on her head. Wires led from the helmet to a box being monitored by a bespectacled middle-aged man. He looked up and waved at Grace. The young woman under the helmet twitched a little as if in deep REM sleep. After five minutes, the man removed the helmet and the young woman sat up, smiling. A tear ran down her cheek.

  “Are the experiences always positive?” asked Appie.

  “Mostly, although some report uncanny feelings—like one volunteer who felt stretched in different directions, which he interpreted as a tug of war between angels and demons. Another felt weightless, like floating in space, and had a trace of nausea afterward. But the end result is one hundred percent positive. There’s always a feeling of connectedness to the universe, the sense that everything is going to be all right. Would you like to try it for yourself, Ms. Kim?”

  “Uh, no, thank you,” Appie said hastily. “I think it would be best to approach this from the aspect of one who hasn’t experienced it and needs to be convinced.”

  “I understand,” said Grace. “But you’re always welcome to try it if you’re ever curious. Free of charge.”

  “Thank you,” said Appie. “I assume . . . you’ve experienced it yourself?”

  “Of course,” said Grace, with a serene smile.

  “Do you ever . . . need a refresher? ” Appie asked. “I mean, is there reuse potential for this service?”

  “Ah, I see what you mean. How do you put a price on transformation? One could use it again, but neither I nor our subjects need to ‘refresh’ often to remember the experience. Once or twice a year might be all that’s needed to sustain the feeling.”

  Appie nodded and glanced at her watch. “Oh dear, I should be getting back to the airport,” she said, even though she had hours to go until her flight.

  “I’ll have a cab called for you.” Grace left to go into her office.

  Appie watched as the middle-aged man escorted the young woman who had been under the helmet to the door. The young woman was wide-eyed and all smiles, like a child on Christmas morning. Only, her mind is the present that has been opened, thought Appie.

  Grace returned. “The cab will be here in ten minutes. You seem . . . disquieted, Ms. Kim. Are there any other questions I can answer for you to set your mind at ease?”

  “You’ve never worried that this might be dangerous?” Appie asked.

  “Do you mean physically? It’s a very gentle procedure, really, with no more brain stimulation than a lengthy cell-phone call. Roller-coaster rides are more dangerous to the brain than our service, yet people gladly jump on those for no other purpose than entertainment. I can e-mail you the test results. I can’t be too specific about the structure of the device itself as our patent is still pending. You understand.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Appie, frowning, “but people are very . . . culturally sensitive about this kind of experience. Couldn’t they claim that, because it’s physically, deliberately induced, it’s not real?”

  Grace frowned quizzically. “People have been deliberately inducing this sort of experience for millennia, whether its through hunger fasts in the desert or climbing mountains or years of meditation in a temple or taking LSD in the sixties. Not that I want our service compared to recreational drugs, but people seem willing to go to extreme, even illegal lengths to have such mental experiences.”

  I only went as far as North Dakota to almost have one, thought Appie.

  “We hope t
o make them accessible, reliable, and legal. Perhaps you are hesitant because it is a technological innovation.”

  “Well, maybe. But if you tell people, ‘Hey, I can make your brain do this’ and then do it, won’t people discredit the effect, claiming it’s fake?”

  Grace shrugged. “Therapeutic hypnotists are straightforward about their technique, and yet they have been able to use their technique to effect positive change in their clients’ lives.”

  “Yes, hypnosis,” murmured Appie, “that might be a good place to start. Used to be thought of as crackpot and now it’s been accepted for decades. But it’s not quite the same. Hypnotherapists, to my knowledge, stay away from religious sensitivities.”

  “True. We know we are dealing in sensitive territory. Perhaps Worldtree can help us navigate those waters.”

  “I think we have a cultural anthropologist on staff, as well as a couple of doctors of philosophy,” said Appie. “But I’d like to hear from you, since you’ve used the device, what you believe. What do you tell someone when they ask you, “Is the experience real? Or is it just something all in your head? ’”

  Grace stared at Appie for a long moment. “I think I know what you’re grasping at. Naturally we advise each client to decide for him- or herself. But I look at it this way. You know those studies done by brain surgeons who poke at parts of people’s brains to evoke a certain movement or feeling?”

  “Yeah, I’ve read about things like that.”

  “Well, a surgeon could poke your brain and make your hand feel like it was dipped in ice-cold water. But your brain has that capacity because, on occasion, you may really dip your hand in ice water. Your brain’s capacity reflects an external reality. Why would our brains have this capacity to sense the oneness of the universe, a sense that can be induced in many ways, even technological, if that capacity did not reflect an external reality? So, yes, Ms. Kim. I believe the experience we provide is the perception of something real. Ah. Here’s your taxi.”