‘Just watch.’
Elvis did so, and what he saw during the next half hour he didn’t like one little bit.
The room Rex Mundi now occupied was tiled throughout with octagonal mirrors. It lacked furniture but for the steel chair into which the naked Rex was strapped. The floor was also mirror, but reflection was made difficult by the large amount of congealed blood splashed about it. The room smelt bad. It smelt of stale sweat, it smelt of fear. Rex stared up at his own image. It didn’t please him. Small white discs adhered to sensitive areas. These shone out amongst the grime which coated his body. He felt terror but also a strange self-loathing. A sense of total worthlessness.
A voice crackled down to him through an unseen intercom. ‘Bloodaxe, Rambo Bloodaxe. High priest of the sub-cult Devianti. We have no wish to prolong this interview. So to spare yourself the prolonged agony and we the inevitable arguing with the management over waiting time, it might just be simpler all round if you answered the questions without delay.’
‘As elected representative of the interrogation and security sub-committee I take exception to that remark,’ came a second voice. ‘There is no need to hurry. Give the gentleman a jolt or two as a little taster.’
‘Hold on,’ cried Rex. ‘I’m feeling in a particularly talkative mood at present.’
‘Good boy,’ said the first voice. ‘Now your chosen moniker is Rambo Bloodaxe, yes?’
‘Well, actually no. There seems to have been some mis-’ The pain hit him from every side. Every nerve ending was being torn from his body at the same time. ‘Yes, yes,’ Rex screamed, ‘Bloodaxe, yes.’
‘Good boy. Easy when you’ve got the knack, isn’t it?’
‘You had the volume turned right down,’ the second voice said. ‘He couldn’t have felt a thing. Whack it up a couple of notches.’
‘No. No.’ Rex yelled back. ‘It’s working just fine, honestly. What else would you like to know?’
‘How many in your chapter?’
Rex could only guess. ‘About twelve?’
‘Good,’ said the first voice, which pleased Rex no end.
‘Names?’
‘Deathblade Eric . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Er . . .’ Rex came apart at the seams. Pain comes in many colours; this came in all of them. ‘Vile Tony Watkins . . . Killer McKee . . . Syd the Slayer . . .’ Where they came from Rex had no idea but they poured from his mouth in a great unstoppable torrent. When he was done the voice said, ‘Correct.’
Rex bit his tongue, his body shook uncontrollably. Correct?
‘Now we come to the important part. What do you know about . . .’
Rex spoke rapidly. ‘Get-my-sister-Gloria-Mundi-you-have-got-the-wrong-man-I-don’t-know-anything-about-any-’ His unseen tormentor cranked up the volume and then the pain left Rex. It occurred to him almost at once that he was dying. Had died. Everything was gone.
He was staring down at himself. But he wasn’t alone. A cool soft palm stroked his forehead. A face stared into his. And such a face. She was beautiful. A golden aura encircled her head.
‘An angel,’ Rex gasped.
‘You’re such a pet,’ the Goddess replied.
‘And that’s about it.’ Jovil Jspht switched off the monitor and the motel room fell back into monochrome. ‘Do you want to see any of it again?’ Elvis shook his brain-stormed head rapidly. ‘A dismal end by any account,’ sighed Jovil.
‘Gross.’ Elvis spoke in a strangled whisper. ‘How did I get that gross? And that sweaty?’
‘Not a pretty sight, eh? Listen, do you want something to eat?’
‘No, I don’t! Something to drink.’
‘Good idea. I’ll go round to the reception and see what I can find. While I’m away the “alien” here will put you straight on the plan. Then you can do as you please really.’ Jovil slipped the gag back over Presley’s mouth. ‘Nothing personal,’ he said.
Jovil locked the motel room door behind him and slipped down the darkened veranda. A wan light showed through an unwashed window. There was a chill in the air. Jovil knocked at the door. The sound echoed, hollow. Norman Bates must have turned in for the night. Jovil tried the door. It swung in. A single naked lightbulb dangled above the reception desk. Jovil checked the place out. Beneath the desk he unearthed a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon. This was either half full or half empty depending how you felt about it. Jovil unscrewed the cap and took a slug. Wiping the back of his hand across his lips he went ‘ah’ and took another.
Just along the darkened veranda, someone bearing the appearance of an old woman and carrying a blood-stained kitchen knife, turned the pass key and pushed open the door to room number three.
Rex refocused his eyes. ‘Gloria?’ His sister struck him a second time.
‘Wake up,’ she demanded. Rex did so. The security men were removing the white discs from his skin, leaving behind horrid red weals. ‘Get him up and hose him down. He smells disgusting. Oh God, he’s messed himself.’
The security men hastened to oblige, looking far from happy.
‘Is this going to affect our bonus payments?’ one asked. Gloria glared at him daggers.
Rex had never taken a bath before. Never even seen one except on the Food Operas. If this one was typical, then baths were a very lavish thing indeed and it wasn’t surprising the vox pop never got a look at them. He lazed in the hot scented water. The bath was a bulbous glass dish set into the opaline floor. The bathing chamber was sumptuous. Carven sofas of ancient design swelled with plush cushions. Amber light fell in rich pools. Welcoming towels hung upon heated chromium tubes. A large terminal with an elaborate EYESPI broadcast news. Rex felt disinclined to watch. His current interest lay with his feet which floated magically before him. Rex sank lower into the water. Squeezing soap deliriously between his palms. The froth overflowed his fingers. The image of the tiny pills of caked fat which arrived with the weekly provisions, hands and faces for the use of, clouded his pleasure for but a moment. He allowed his body to float to the surface and applied soap to his penis.
‘When you’ve quite finished diddling with yourself,’ said the voice of Gloria Mundi, whose face now occupied the terminal screen, ‘your presence in my apartment would be appreciated.’
Rex submerged slowly. All things must pass, he thought.
Rex now gnawed upon an exotic viand. Savouring another sensory mind blast.
‘Is this meat?’ he asked.
‘Fresh meat.’ Gloria watched him dispassionately. ‘I wouldn’t advise over-indulgence. Your digestive tract won’t be able to cope.’
Rex wiped a sweetly-smelling knuckle across his mouth and reached for his wine glass. Gloria drew it beyond his reach. ‘I would like a full report. In detail.’
Rex grubbed up sweetmeats and thrust them into his mouth. ‘I’ve had a rough day,’ he mumbled. ‘How’s yours been?’
Gloria leant back in the high quilted chair and sipped wine. She wore a wide-shouldered jacket of black antique leather gathered at the waist by a braided silk belt. White silk trousers, her feet were bare. Gold rings encircled several toes. The room was dressed much after the style of the bathing chamber. Early Opulent. Long windows looked out upon a flawless blue expanse of nothing. Rex gestured towards them.
‘What is out there?’
‘The sky.’ Gloria sipped more wine.
‘The sky is blue?’ Rex peered at her suspiciously. ‘How might that be?’
‘The sky has been blue for a decade. However ground conditions are maintained as they have been and will continue to be for an indefinite period.’
‘You are telling me that the cloud cover is artificial?’ Rex couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘We are restructuring society. An agreement exists between the Big Three. When restructuring is complete then the cover will be lifted. Are you shocked?’
Rex chose his words carefully although his head swam. ‘I’m surprised naturally. But high-echelon decisions are just that. Who am I
to say?’
‘Who indeed?’ Gloria speared a tasty titbit with a 200-year-old eel fork. She ran her pointed tongue about her painted lips. ‘The Living God King knows his own business best.’ Her unguarded smile wasn’t lost upon Rex, although he pretended otherwise. He was altogether shaken by this staggering disclosure. ‘But how can such a secret be kept? If those living below were to find out...’
‘But they won’t, will they Rex? The air cars are programmed to fly no higher than the cloud cover. Only the tips of the Big Three’s bunkers pierce the murk. Only the elite see the true sky.’
‘But is it safe?’ Rex recalled his Uncle Tony telling him about an ‘ozone layer’ which had been destroyed during the previous century.
‘Quite safe. And it’s quite safe with you, isn’t it brother?’
Rex nodded numbly, his injuries were making themselves known to him in a big way. And he felt very sick indeed. ‘Might I use your toilet?’ he asked.
The sound of the revving engine and the wheel-screeching departure of the Plymouth drew Jovil’s attention away from the Bourbon bottle. He lurched out on to the veranda to watch the tail lights dwindle in the rain-swept night. He stumbled to the open door of room number three and gazed inside. There were signs of a violent struggle. The monitor was smashed upon the floor. Table and chair upturned. Across the wall above the bed was a garish streak of red. Elvis and the Time Sprout were nowhere to be seen. The deadly black box was nowhere to be seen. Jovil slumped on to the bed and buried his head in his hands. A stranger in a strange land. And now one with very unfavourable prospects.
Jovil Jspht groaned dismally and vanished from the plot.
10
NOTICE IMPORTANT. PLEASE FOLLOW CAREFULLY THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PLAYING PLEASURE AND HAPPY USING OF THE KOSHIBO HOLOPHON 2000.
Note One. The KOSHIBO 2000 is designed and built as same for your happy using to the highest standards as yet. To this purpose recommendation is made that all surfaces must be clean for use and not touched with hands nude or otherwise uncovered. Or with dust on.
1) Place the record with the playing side uppermost upon the playing deck. With hand in glove.
2) Closed the top must be for the playing.
3) Play in order with button marked for ON.
4) DANGER TO HEALTH. Do not unjack plug until the play is done with.
5) THE KOSHIBO CORPORATION accepts no responsibility in the small print.
Holophon instructional manual 1993
Discomforting but inevitable successor to the augmented CD, the Holophon 2000 now offers the enthusiast by far the greatest ever opportunity to burn out what few remaining brain cells he, she or it may still possess. Latest in a long line of trial-by-error technology intended to augment audio playing through the introduction of analogued sensory stimuli, which create what the manufacturers refer to as Inner Visuality, this is another turkey. The flaw in this particular system, as in all those previously marketed, is that the analogue frequency remains fixed, with the result that no two listeners experience the same image patterns.
Regular readers will recall the brilliant article by Sir John Rimmer, Telepathy: Food for Thought Unfit for Human Consumption?, which explained that telepathy is impossible between most humans due to the unique (fingerprint) brain frequencies of each separate individual, telepathy being only conclusively proved between identical twins who share the same alpha and beta brain-patterns.
Thus a system broadcasting upon a single fixed frequency can only offer you the opportunity to play Russian roulette with your brain.
So not one for the Christmas stocking, kiddies.
High Tech Review 27.7.93
Dalai Dan wormed the small plastic beads from his ears. Sickly yellow gobs of unappealing wax now clung to them. He touched a sensor and wrenched the jack from its socket. Two minutes and twenty-two seconds, or it could have been several lifetimes. It was all the same in there. He reached out for the highball glass and missed. His brain was still vibrating and he had no sense of perspective. The room before him was a flat canvas. To the left of the picture a door vanished sideways and the cut-out of a woman swelled to encompass the greater part of the room. Yet she appeared to get no closer. Most curious.
Gloria gazed into the face of the God King. ‘That is disgusting,’ said she, ‘I’ve seen you do some pretty revolting things, but both pupils in one eye, that’s a new low, even for you.’
Dan blinked violently and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Mirror! Mirror!’ Gloria delved into her sharkskin handbag and brought out the vanity. The flat room vanished to be replaced by Dan’s flat face. His right eye was blank and white. His left . . . ‘Goddamn,’ howled the high lama, ‘what have I done?’
‘By the smell of you, you’ve done your underwear.’
‘No control of bodily functions in there.’
‘Ah.’ Gloria understood. ‘You’ve been in the holophon. You will kill yourself in there. Don’t come crying to me when you do.’
‘Oh, ha bloody ha ha. My eyes, woman.’
Gloria sighed. ‘You jacked out of the system before it closed. If you must persist with this madness, you really should read the instructional manual. You’ll be all right in a minute or two.’
‘Hand me my glass.’ Gloria pressed it into the shaking hand and closed the fingers.
‘What were you playing anyway?’
‘Classical music. Black disc.’
Gloria raised a manicured eyebrow. ‘A vinyl recording, you’ve got one of those?’
‘Circa nineteen fifty- something.’
‘Elizabethan. How did you come by that? Those things are almost . . .’
‘Icons? This one was . . .’
Gloria’s flat face left the picture. Dan tried to turn his head but the effort made him giddy. Gloria bent over the holophon. Beneath the squat dome upon the system’s deck lay the ancient seventy-eight, encased within a two-centimetre protectrite shell. ‘Do you know what it says on the label?’ Gloria asked.
‘It is by SUN.’ Dan clutched his skull. ‘The script is old English. I thought antiques were your speciality.’
Gloria lifted the dome and ran a finger reverently across the protectrite. ‘And you’ve played it. Heard it play. Does it play?’
‘Impressed, aren’t you? It plays, I’ve heard it.’ Dan laughed painfully. ‘I’ve experienced it. You wouldn’t believe what’s in there.’
Gloria sniffed. ‘Probably a fake. I’ve seen more than one.’
‘Check it out.’
Gloria did so. Imprinted upon the protectrite was the seal of the Antiquities Federation. ‘Goddamn,’ said Gloria Mundi.
Dan ground at his eyes. Normality was returning. ‘So what do you want here, anyway? Come to get yourself laid?’
Gloria stuck her tongue out and made a face. ‘Something has come up. Something important. Where did you get this?’
‘None of your business. What something has come up?’
Gloria closed the dome and turned upon the Dalai. ‘She has been here again.’
‘She? What she is this?’
‘The she who makes you wake up screaming. The she you call Christeen.’
‘Rubbish.’ But they both knew that it wasn’t.
‘We’ve got her on tape this time.’
‘Interview is it? Don’t wind me up.’
‘Not exactly. Listen . . .’ Gloria seated herself upon a Persian pouffe. ‘I know we’ve had our differences in the past . . .’
‘And in the present. My precognitive senses advise me that the future looks no rosier.
‘You get right up my nose.’ Gloria’s knowledge of twentieth-century vernacular was impeccable.
‘Please,’ Dan grinned, ‘I prefer the missionary position.’
‘Clearly the matter is of no interest to you. I shall be going.’
‘Sit down.’ It was a command, not a request. Gloria sat down. ‘How many seconds of activity on the tape?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘The exact nu
mber of seconds that your brother was brain dead.’
‘The same thirteen seconds. What do you mean? You knew about those gobshites torturing my brother. You let it happen and did nothing until they killed him.’
Dan raised his eyes. The pupils were correctly rehoused but appeared to be lit from within. ‘I see everything, Gloria. I am the Dalai Lama.’
‘But you let them put my brother through that when you could have stopped it?’
‘It was a controlled experiment. Anyway, your brother is alive and kicking.’ Dan touched the centre of his forehead and closed his eyes. ‘No, correction, alive and shitting. He is currently venting his bowels into your bidet.’
Gloria opened her mouth to release invective. Dan held up his palm.
‘Save it until you are alone. I will hear it then. All in all I don’t think your brother has had an unsuccessful first day. I think he deserves a little bonus. Have him come up to see me tomorrow at ten sharp. And Gloria-’
‘Yes.’
‘You can piss off now.’
11
The term Universal Law is meaningless. In universal terms no absolutes can possibly exist. Each truth mankind discovers is inevitably modified by another which ultimately disproves it. And bearing this in mind we turn to the vexed question in point. ‘Do the Gods exist?’ In universal terms the question is unanswerable because the word ‘exist’ has no absolute definition.
So to rephrase the question, ‘In terms understandable to the human mind, do the Gods exist?’ This is somewhat easier. The answer is yes. The Gods of men exist. Whether the Gods that the great apes of Africa worship, when they dance beneath the full moon, exist, I don’t know. Whether the Fish God of the Sargasso to which the eels make their yearly pilgrimage exists, I don’t know. Whether the nameless winged spirit, to which all birds sing their hymns each dawn, exists, I can’t say. But the Gods of men, they are certainly real. I know this because I have met one.