* * *
Chickentown is located about five miles from the western city limits of Sedona on the site of the city’s wastewater treatment plant. For years we sent our human waste and ground up garbage and unwanted fluids and general detritus a-rushing to the treatment plant, where, through some alchemical miracle, it was transformed into drinkable water.
That worked well for years, until the water in Sedona wasn’t flowing regularly anymore and the city defaulted on its bond payments for the plant and the whole place was closed down. Sedona’s raw sewage, having nowhere to go, backed up into the sources from whence it came. Meanwhile, the plant had gazillions of gallons of treated water in storage, primarily in holding ponds that looked like clear blue lakes and in humongous storage tanks that looked like giant toilet bowls. This perfectly good water had for years been sprayed uselessly over three hundred acres of nearby open fields, creating a lush riparian habitat for creatures large and small.
A tent city sprang up in this location as the economy collapsed and desperation grew like a cancer.
The first settlers of the new city discovered and appropriated the pipes that would make the treated water available for drinking and other human needs. The ponds supported colonies of fish. The largest pond was available for swimming and boating and also served as a reservoir for drinking water.
All manner of fruits and vegetables thrived in the lush soil of the new city. One resident brought in a flock of chickens, which multiplied into the hundreds and supplied fresh meat and eggs and gave the tent city its name. In short, Chickentown was a huge success, a triumph of human ingenuity and engineering. It could have been, should have been, a kind of model for the City of the Future, a loving, sharing, supportive commune, a place of peace and happiness, a community of equals.
And it was. For about six months. Then human nature kicked in.
When our little group arrived at Chickentown, the place was a model of anarchy, greed, fear, and violence. Arguments and physical fighting were commonplace. Most occupants had gone tribal and divided themselves into various ethnic, religious and cultural groups. There were the atheists and anarchists and born-agains and Catholics and Jews and Mexicans and Protestants and New Agers and hippies and junkies and homosexuals.
Every group had its own little enclave. Most of the fights were over food and water. Money didn’t exist. You bartered and traded and worked in the fields for your food and did your best to survive. Motorcycle gangs rampaged through the place, stealing whatever they could and selling protection and cheap drugs. Mexican gang-bangers strutted and postured along the narrow lanes and alleys, but were not taken seriously.
This was the scene our little group walked—or rather, flew—into. The population was about three thousand when we arrived. In spite of the atmosphere of danger and potential violence, the place had a feeling of celebration and what-the-hell spirit. Colorful tents were everywhere, as well as booths offering food, cheap clothing, prescription drugs, booze, speed, and marijuana. Massage parlors were everywhere, as well as closed tents offering exotic sexual delights and degradations.
It was like a giant circus: loud, rowdy, exploding with energy. There was no sign of police or authority figures. The leaders of Chickentown, both Sedonans—a former politician and a former Jeep tour operator—decided that the best way to mellow out the rowdy, restless populace was with daily rock concerts.
Our job was to entertain the masses with some kick-ass, danceable music. Jill had arranged our gig. We were one of the opening acts for the featured group of the afternoon, a sinister-looking bunch of heavy metal thugs called Foreskin.
Because we arrived a little late for the gig, there was no time for a sound check. We had already put on our costumes by the van: long hair wigs for everyone, dark glasses, ratty, hole-filled jeans, and Grateful Dead t-shirts. Greta dressed herself in Janis Joplin hippie drag.
The rickety wooden stage was about twenty feet wide, fifteen feet deep, and ten feet above the excited, murmuring crowd. Huge stacks of speakers and amplifiers bookended the playing area. Leela’s borrowed drum kit glistened in the sun. We plugged in and dashed backstage for a quick briefing by Leela. Backstage was a tiny room where we huddled together in a tight circle in the dingy space with our arms around each other.
“Okay, guys,” whispered Leela, “you know the drill, right? We do the rock and roll for about twenty minutes and get the mob dancing, then we do that techno stuff. The techno is basically bass and drums so it’s me and Benny and the rest of you improvise the melody. Our job is to lure those Dakini girls up to the stage so we can nab ’em and take ’em with us. Jill will hit some notes on the flute that will bring the chicks to us without fail.”
“Right,” said Jill. “Harry the Handyman taught me this sequence of tones that will resonate with the crystals in the amulets the girls always wear. Kali gave the amulets to the Dakinis, and they can’t be taken off. No one else will hear the tones. Except maybe you, Marty, you might be affected because of your implant.”
“For chrissake, Jill,” I protested, “what if your freakin’ tones launch some kind of psychedelic trip while I’m up there cookin’ on my keyboard? You know, the DMT thing they warned me about.”
“Lucky you,” said Hacker. “Just go with the flow. Give me a signal and I’ll go all Jimi Hendrix on you with my guitar.”
“And I’ll go all Keith Moon on you, my brother,” said Benny. “Wait, who was Jimi’s bass player?”
Outside the tiny room, a roar punctuated by shouts and clapping was emerging from the audience like an ominous black cloud of sound. The crowd was getting ugly.
We hopped onto the stage, moved toward our instruments, and looked out at the mob. There were thousands of people screaming and shouting and waving fists in the air. “Let’s go bitches! Let’s go bitches!” they chanted.
I turned on my keyboard. I had the sound controls for our group at my fingertips. Cranking up the amps all the way to ten, I hit a power chord in B flat and we were off and running with Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The crowd went berserk, screaming and dancing and slamming into each other. We played cover versions of faves by the Stones, early Beatles, the Doors. We jammed on old rockabilly riffs and killed with Jerry Lee Lewis tunes. Benny introduced his just-composed new rap song, “Show Me Ya’ Paperz,” which he called “a tribute to the State of Arizona.” Greta took center stage, grabbed a cordless microphone, and did a dead-on impression of Janis Joplin singing “Piece of My Heart.”
I looked up and saw that the thing was getting out of hand. The audience had turned into a giant mosh pit. Both guys and gals were ripping off their shirts and throwing them toward the stage. Many people writhed together on the ground. The sweet smell of marijuana filled the air. Two punks on chopped Harleys tried to bully their way through the crowd, knocking down several people in their path. The crowd quickly turned on the bikers, throwing them to the ground.
It was a monumental, apocalyptic sight. This is how the world will end, I thought. What I didn’t see through all of our musical numbers was any of the three Dakinis. Neither had anyone else in our group, I learned with a quick mind scan. Leela had told us earlier that the Dakinis had fled to Chickentown after Goddess Kali split without warning. Now, she said, the girls intensely disliked each other and never hung out together.
We stopped playing suddenly on a signal from Leela. The mob froze in place. Leela gave us another hand signal and launched into a hypnotic drum beat, wilder than any drum machine.
The average human heart pumps at around seventy-five beats per minute. Leela was kicking it at, what, a hundred beats a minute? One-fifty? One-eighty? That’s it. Leela cooking on the drums at three beats per second, enough to potentially throw the unwary citizen into cardiac arrest. Benny Bravo kicked in on the fretless bass, thunk, thunk-a-thunk, thunka-thunk thunka-thunk thunka-thunk. Our audience suddenly shaped it up,
everyone standing and moving to the beat, no more mosh pit, no more pushing and shoving. Hacker came in on lead guitar, high and sweet and supernatural, channeling Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana at their trippiest. I played chords and riffs I didn’t know existed.
Jill raised the flute to her lips and began to wail. Greta gripped her mic and started screaming, a high, pure sound that made my scalp tingle. Jill’s sound suddenly disappeared, and I knew what was happening. Those mystery tones, off the scale, off the charts, were calling the Dakinis. In a space inside my skull the tones were bouncing and echoing and vibrating. I was fine with that.
I looked into the crowd and saw three figures making their way to the stage. They looked like hippie chicks of the Twentieth Century, peasant skirts and tank tops and beads—and, most important, those mysterious but vital amulets around their necks. One approached from the center, one from the right, and one from the left. They came to the foot of the stage, looking up at us with glazed eyes. They had called themselves Karma, Satori, and Chakra while employed at Kali’s Tantric Temple. There, they had driven men mad with their addictive sexuality. Now, occupations unknown. Now, names didn’t matter. They were obviously in a trance.
Jill gave a hand signal to the three and they clambered onto the stage, shakily making their way toward Leela. There they stood, heads bowed, surrendered to the Psi Queen herself: my beloved wife. With another hand signal, Leela told us that we would end this so-called song in four bars. Jill and Greta, in close vocal harmony, trying to stay with Leela’s syncopated techno beat, thanked the crowd for their enthusiasm.
“Thank you for having us/Now we gotta get on our bus/Fly away to a distant land/Be kind to each other/Understand?” sang our two songbirds. We stopped playing music. The crowd looked mesmerized. No one moved, no one uttered a sound. It was eerie. We unplugged our instruments, surrounded the three Dakinis, hustled them quickly off the stage and into the tiny room behind the performance area.
Harry the Handyman had told Leela to get the crystals contained within the amulets in order to render the Dakinis helpless. “Let’s get those crystals now, in case these three sexpots try to run away,” said Leela. She pushed the girls together, grabbed Karma’s amulet and telepathically invited Jill and I to hold the amulets of the other two. Push the amulets together so they’re touching, Leela flashed. We did. The three Dakinis went limp and had to be held by up the rest of our team. A strange buzzing sound emitted from the amulets. A golden beam of light suddenly radiated from the amulets, and a small round crystal dropped into our hands from each.
“That’s it!” said Leela excitedly. “Hold onto your crystals, guys, and we’ll see what Harry has in mind. I have a strong feeling these amulets and the three Dakinis together are the key to taking down Kali. Help me get these zombies into the van and let’s get out of here!”
We put our instruments back into the van, stuffed the limp Dakinis into the cargo area, and took off. To save time and trouble, Leela, Jill, and I lifted the van skyward and floated it just above the deeply rutted road as we made our way back to the Enchanted Forest resort. Hacker occupied the driver’s seat, but I was doing the steering with my mind. Jill and Leela supplied the power.
There was no time to waste. A mysterious being we knew only as Harry the Handyman would be waiting for us. Benny Bravo, apparently over his crush on the Dakini once called Satori, ignored her presence in the van and logged onto the Internet with his own Amigo. He told us with alarm that the environmental crisis had reached critical mass, worldwide. Our home planet, our Mother Earth, was beginning to turn, violently, against its human inhabitants. Leela connected with a State Department source and learned that Kali already was creating all kinds of mischief from Black Swan headquarters in New Mexico.
I squeezed the crystal in my palm. It was hot and pulsing. A showdown with Goddess Kali, a woman whose erotic heat I had once known a lifetime or two ago, was looming. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
28 The Human Virus
The bus was waiting for us when we got back to the Enchanted Forest. The being known only as Harry the Handyman was there, polishing the huge vehicle with a rag. The bus was awesome, overwhelming; it seemed to glow and vibrate in the late afternoon sun.
Harry waved. “Hi, folks! Say hello to your new home! Come have a look. But don’t take too long. You need to pack up a few things and get ready for our trip to New Mexico.”
Harry seemed so jovial. He looked exactly as I remembered him from our meeting at Jill’s house in Sedona: a little bent over, shabby clothes, an oddball out of his element, almost like a character from a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. When he took my hands in his, I remembered, I felt like I was hurtling through outer space.
Hacker took an instant dislike to Harry; that was obvious, from the sneer on Hacker’s face to the ugliness of his judgmental thought forms. I looked at Leela and Jill, and they gave slight nods of agreement. For openers, my bro’ didn’t believe in anything remotely New Age, which included space aliens and UFO visitations. (We had all dropped hints about Harry’s alien roots.) Also, Hacker didn’t like the looks of this greasy little character, and was outspoken about it.
“Who is this dude anyway, guys? Lemme get this straight: You want me to get on this vehicle with some character from Skid Row, drive all the way to Nowheresville New Mexico, and confront some madwoman and the head of Black Swan? You gotta be joking. The Hacker is outta here, folks.”
He turned to leave, but Greta grabbed his sleeve and hung on tight. “Hacker, please! I’m going to be on the bus, and look, I put on my special Manolo Blahnik toe-candy sandals, just for you!” Greta obviously knew of her new boyfriend’s weakness, and, at Jill’s suggestion, wore her very special shoes in case her BFF balked.
Hacker looked down—way down, he is about six-three—at Greta’s dainty feet. He had seen them before, but not like this. Greta had pushed an old fetish button. Hacker gasped, staggered, wavered.
“Mr. Hacker,” said Harry, unexpectedly. He caught Hacker’s eyes and held him for a long time, a full half minute. Hacker looked stunned at first, then he relaxed and his arms hung loosely at his sides. Suddenly he brightened. Harry had flipped him, but good.
“Okay, folks, I guess you need me on this trip! My computer expertise, my good looks, and my new friend Greta obviously has some big plans for me!”
That was the signal for everyone to run back to our rooms, quickly pack a suitcase, and hustle back to the bus. The three lethargic Dakinis were hustled into the front compartment of the bus by Benny Bravo. Benny elected to stay behind to keep an eye on the fast-changing planetary crisis, and to keep us updated with encrypted Amigo communications.
We left the resort about five in the afternoon and headed up Oak Creek Canyon toward Highway 40 in Flagstaff. Destination: somewhere near Santa Fe. I figured the Dakinis had been ordered by Harry to drive the bus. I didn’t stop to think that they were in a serious trance, limp, nodding off, and in no condition to do much of anything. Apparently, neither did anyone else in our vehicle. Nevertheless….
The bus was gorgeous, inside and out. The outside was painted a pale blue, overlaid with surreal versions of Sedona’s famous red rocks: The Thunder Mountain-Coffee Pot Rock-Chimney Rock range on one side, and Bell Rock-Cathedral Rock on the other. On the back was a detailed and psychedelic portrayal of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The bus itself was about sixty or seventy feet long, a late-model super-beast produced by Mercedes-Benz. Inside, pure luxury. Black leather seats and mahogany built-ins throughout. A front section included luxurious driver’s and co-pilot’s seats, then three rows of two seats each, all black leather. This is where Benny, on Harry’s instructions, installed the three still-dazed Dakinis. The front part was separated from the back of the bus by a half inch-thick wooden wall.
Next came a living room slash conference room, outfitted with black leather couches, a round oak table, a huge f
latscreen TV monitor, wrap-around stereo speakers, and laptop computers everywhere. Beyond this room was a full kitchen with granite countertops, built-in everything, and the ubiquitous flatscreen TV. Next were two small bedrooms with queen-size beds and mahogany cabinets—and of course a TV monitor and wrap-around stereo. Two bathrooms followed, one with a shower and one with a real bathtub.
Finally, at the back of the bus, a tiny recording studio filled with digital synthesizers and sampling keyboards, a setup so advanced it made me salivate. Harry had told us that the bus formerly belonged to a famous English rock group. He winked, as if he was keeping a secret. We didn’t ask him for details about the group or how he got the bus to the resort. Did he simply drive the bus down the heavily-patrolled streets of Sedona, through checkpoints and roadblocks, nervous cops and military and National Guard troops everywhere? Probably not.
Harry invited us into the conference room and we sprawled indulgently on the black leather couches: Leela and Jill, me in between them; Hacker and Greta, holding hands and seemingly attached at the hip. Harry the Handyman sat by himself in the full lotus position with closed eyes: a meditator, I thought, or perhaps a would-be guru. Who was this guy? Be silent and listen, Jill flashed. All shall be revealed.
He opened his eyes and looked for a few seconds at each of us with what I interpreted as compassion. I tried to scan his mind, but there was nothing there—no thoughts moving, no images, no memories.
“My friends,” he said softly. “Your planet is at a crossroads. I am here to help facilitate your transition to the next phase. Allow me to explain.”
I looked at Hacker. He was still not happy. I scanned him: he was full of distrust, anxiety, anger. Harry’s spell had completely worn off. Hacker didn’t accept the concept of ETs; he didn’t feel secure around psi people; and he was depressed about the dire state of the planet. A toxic combination.
I scanned Greta: She was filled with both fear and excitement. This was her first meeting with Harry, and his presence seemed to trigger her insecurities about the future. This seemed to be her usual state: excitement, fear. She had shared and survived a series of hazardous exploits with three psi daredevils, yet her Christian conditioning and childhood fears kept popping up.
“Just who the fuck are you, sir?” said Hacker, his voice trembling. “It’s time you told us who you are and what you are doing here and what exactly you mean by ‘the next phase.’”
“You are correct, Mr. Hack,” said Harry. “I do owe you all an explanation. My telepathic friends here”—he indicated Leela and Jill and I with a sweep of his hand—“have a bit of an edge because they have tried to look into my mind. You see, I have no mind, not in the human sense.”
“Then what the fu—” exclaimed Hacker, his face reddening. “Keep talking, dude,” he said menacingly.
“Harry” seemed unfazed. “I am not a humanoid,” he said calmly. “I travel inter-dimensionally. I traveled to your planet as an orb. I am—” long pause, deep breaths all around— “I am what you might call a shapeshifter. A metamorph; a therianthrope; a changeling. I can change shapes at will. I am basically a very advanced microprocessor contained in a ball of energy. I am here on a very important mission, important not just for the residents of Planet Earth, but for the residents of this quadrant of your galaxy.”
“Why?” shrieked Greta. I could feel her phasing into freakout mode. “What have we done to bring you here?”
“Let me explain, please,” pleaded the alien. “It is obvious that the people of Planet Earth have some serious psychological problems. First, your race, the human race, is very suicidal. You want to self-destruct. This is due to your religions, your priests, your concept of sin, your politicians. Perhaps even a defect in your collective DNA. But your basic defect is a two-sided coin. You also have a deep-seated need to kill each other. And you have an innate need to destroy this beautiful green planet. The people of Planet Earth—how can I say this delicately—are very, very sick.”
Hacker was outraged. “Who are you to judge us, you friggin’ alien creep!”
“Please listen carefully, Mr. Hack, all of you. I will put it simply. Planet Earth is on the verge of a global suicide. You are killing your planet, and you are killing each other. That is your business. But your tendency for self-destruction—what that means to the rest of your solar system and to this portion of the galaxy, that is my business.”
“What do you mean, Harry?” I interjected. I too was in the dark. I had been quiet up to this point, but I couldn’t stay silent any longer. “What exactly are you talking about?”
“First, Mr. Powers, my name is not Harry. Not Harry the Handyman or any such nonsense. I do not have a name in the human sense. I have a number, similar to the IP numbers you humans use on your primitive networks. The Internet Protocol numbers, every computer in your network has one. My number is twenty-four dot one twenty-three dot two eight dot eighty five dot, well, you get the idea. If you need to call me a name, call me…call me Nebula. Yes. Nebula Jones. That’s a good, solid name.”
“Nebula,” I said. “Has a nice ring to it. Meaning a cloud of gas and dust in outer space, eh? Maybe a distant galaxy. Nebula, nebulous….”
“Good, Mr. Powers, you get the idea. Now. Our computer models show that—”
“What computer models, Mr. Nebula Jones?” said Hacker, his voice rising. “Who runs the computer models that you are talking about?”
“Good question, Mr. Hack. I will get to that eventually. Your galaxy, which you call the Milky Way, has a governing council which is headquartered near the galactic core. These entities monitor the progress of all your occupied planets. Your planet, Terra, which you call Earth, has been red-flagged for the last twenty of your centuries. You have been watched, not because of your warlike ways—again, that is your business—but because of your potential impact on the well-being of the entire galaxy.”
“Wait a minute,” said Leela, speaking up for the first time. “You mean this Planet Earth, this little backwater planet at the far edge of the Milky Way, is a threat to the entire galaxy? How could that be? We haven’t even started to explore other planets in our star system. We’ve spent all of our money on weapons and wars.”
“Precisely. And that is a big part of the problem. Our computer models indicate that by the Earth year 2018—much sooner than expected—a global nuclear conflict on your planet will trigger a violent shock wave of energy which in turn will trigger a massive explosion of the Earth’s core. The Earth will blow into millions of pieces and become space junk. ”
“So what!” sputtered Hacker. “Why should you and your effin’ governing council care a rat’s ass if we blow ourselves up or not? As you said, it is none of your effin’ business!”
“Oh, but it is, in a very important way,” said the alien, brushing the question, and Hacker’s explosive temper, aside. “When Earth goes nova, which is a virtual certainty, it will leave a large hole in space. This hole will affect the orbits of all nearby bodies in space, because the gravitational pull of Earth will be gone. The orbit of the fourth planet in your system will go askew, and the Earth’s moon, with nothing to orbit around, will go crashing into the fourth planet.”
“Wait just a damn minute, Mister Spaceman,” snarled Hacker. “I doubt if—”
“One minute please, sir. Allow me to finish. The fourth planet and its moons will go careening into space. This in turn will trigger other orbital anomalies in your solar system, eventually affecting every planet and every moon. Our models show that in less than one thousand Earth years every planet and every moon in your system will have crashed into your yellow star, your sun.”
“Fine,” said Jill, obviously agitated by this news. “Fine. Then our sun can have a picnic and eat the entire solar system. Again, so what? Will the Universe really care?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not the entire Universe, but at least your clos
est galaxy and certainly every star system in this quadrant of the Milky Way. You see, your star, the sun, is a fiery nuclear furnace. As it consumes every piece of matter in your star system, it too will go careening off into space and possibly collide with nearby stars such as Sirius, Betelgeuse, Rigel….
“This could trigger a chain reaction that will affect all of the stars and planets in this quadrant. And possibly the entire Milky Way galaxy. Furthermore, these anomalies could hasten the Milky Way’s collision with its nearest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda. This collision is predicted to happen in three billion years. That is as it should be. But when Earth goes nova, it could cause the collision to happen in less than a million years. A disaster on a cosmic scale. All caused by your insignificant planet’s rush to commit suicide.”
Greta, who had been carefully holding in her feelings, exploded with near hysteria. “But— but— but— it’s not our fault! We didn’t cause all the wars! Not everyone wants to commit suicide or— or— cause the planets to crash into each other,” she sobbed.
“Look at it this way,” said Nebula calmly. “Earth itself is a diseased organism. It is infected with a deadly virus that is slowly eating away at the planet’s ability to sustain itself. I call this disease the Human Virus. If this condition is not corrected, the planet will be destroyed. Actually, the Earth itself will self-destruct and trigger the series of cosmic disasters I described earlier. This is unacceptable.”
Hacker stood up, enraged. “And what exactly do you plan to do to stop the disease, sir? Kill us all? Wipe the planet clean of humans? Destroy this civilization that has taken thousands of years to evolve?” He started moving slowly toward the alien, his huge hands balled into fists.
Nebula also stood up. As we all watched, transfixed, he began to change shape. His Harry the Handyman garb seemed to melt away as the hunched over, shabby persona was replaced by a tall, stunning, broad-shouldered, golden male with long hair, rippling muscles, killer abs, and…naked.
Migawd, look at that schlong, thought Jill. Who’s he supposed to be? John Holmes, the late porno star?
No, no, flashed Leela, he looks more like some legendary god, maybe Mahavira, one of the deities of that obscure Indian religion, Jainism. Mahavira supposedly never bothered to wear clothes and only took food once a year. He was on the scene twenty-five hundred years ago, around Buddha’s time. Hey, Jill, that is a pretty good-sized organ, yah.
Pretty good role model for a dimension-hopping ET, eh? flashed Jill. I guess he needed a more macho presence to deal with Hacker’s rages.
Nebula’s new persona, topped off with a strong, ruggedly handsome face, sculpted cheekbones, aggressive chin, piercing golden eyes, and full, pouting lips, was pretty overwhelming. Also, his voice had changed, from a slightly quavery, nerdy voice to a rich, booming baritone. “Please sit down, Mr. Hack,” he said. “I will explain everything.
“Leela, you are correct: I have morphed into a character out of your religious mythology, a god from thousands of years ago. Our computer models indicate that this identity will enable us to perform more successfully than we could as Harry the Handyman. I said please sit down, Mr. Hack.”
He picked up several sheets of paper from a folder on the oak table. “Now. We do not intend to kill anyone. You humans can do that on your own. No, we have another plan worked out, based on our computer models.”
Hacker collapsed into a black leather couch, intimidated and subdued. “Those freakin’ computer models again,” he muttered sullenly. “Please do tell us, master, what do those sacred computer models tell you? And could you put on some pants or something?”
Nebula ignored him. “What I hold in my hand is the solution to all of our problems. I intend to present this paper to a worldwide audience via television, radio, streaming holo, Internet, global wireless, mobile phone, texting, every form of communication possible on your planet. I would like all of you to hear it first, in case you have any suggestions. Because you five seem to have more intelligence than the typical retarded human.”
“Well, what the fuck is it, pal?” sneered Hacker.
Nebula waved the papers at Hacker. “I call this my manifesto. Maybe you clever people can come up with a more colorful name.”
“I’ve got it!” I piped up. “How about…The Alien Manifesto!”
29 The Ultimate Solution
Our bus was zipping along at a high speed—a very high speed—as I glanced out the big picture windows in our cozy little compartment. We were on Interstate 40 about two hours out of Flagstaff, barreling toward the New Mexico border. In normal times there would be huge semi-trucks clogging the highway, delivering their precious cargo to American cities. But these were not normal times. The semis were nowhere to be seen. Only the occasional passenger car or pickup truck which we left in our dust.
“Those Dakinis must be experienced drivers,” I said to our little group. “Whoever is at the wheel is really kickin’ ass.”
“No one is at the wheel, Mr. Powers,” said Nebula Jones in his new baritone voice.
“Then who the fug is drivin’ this fuggin’ bus?” demanded Hacker. His vocabulary was becoming ever more creative as his anger level escalated.
“I am. I am driving the bus, Mr. Hack. By remote control.” The alien paused for effect. “The three young women in the front compartment are still in a trance state. Look at the TV monitor to my right.”
The monitor switched on. It was an eerie picture. The three Dakinis were slumped over in their seats, chins on chests, nodding out. The driver’s seat was empty. The steering wheel moved slightly, on its own, to adjust to road conditions. Our bus hurtled onward at a now-frightening speed.
A cloud of silence pervaded the cramped space now occupied by five humans and a…what? The powers of the entity we now knew as Nebula Jones seemed unlimited and untouched by our laws of physics.
“My friends,” began the alien, reassuringly. He stood tall, towering above us. His huge organ was out of sight, below table level. He looked around the oak table at us.
“My friends,” he repeated. “I ask you to clear your minds and hear what I have to say. Time is very short.”
I tried to scan the alien again. There was no mind there to scan, just some white space and a faint crackle of static.
Forget it, Marty, flashed Leela, this guy doesn’t have a mind, only a link to a supercomputer that is orbiting the Earth right now. I think I’ve cracked their code. It makes our binary code look like a kiddie game. Jill, Marty, this dude’s got some pretty heavy stuff to tell us. But—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Powers,” interrupted the alien, who had been monitoring Leela’s transmission. Leela looked embarrassed. Jill rolled her eyes. I squirmed at this invasion of our privacy.
“You are good, very good. Very clever. But please let me explain the situation. There are many levels of data emanating from our satellite that only I can access and evaluate. When the time comes, I will incorporate that data into my Manifesto, which I intend to present to the citizens of your planet, as I mentioned earlier.”
Nebula Jones sat down in his leather chair and folded his hands together. My mind, for unknown reasons, went to a mental picture of his big, muscular bum merging with the rich leather. Jill picked up this thought and nudged me with her elbow, hard.
“You are by now aware,” said Nebula Jones, “that we are traveling to the nearby state of New Mexico for a confrontation with the being you have known as Goddess Kali and who now calls herself Big Mama Lakshmi, named, presumably, after a prominent goddess in the Hindu firmament. She apparently added the ‘Big Mama’ name to trigger an emotional response in other humans, probably fear. This entity possesses frightening powers and has been using these powers to trigger cataclysmic events on Planet Earth.” The alien paused and took a deep breath.
“Big Mama,” he continued, “can affect the weather. She causes earthquakes and volcanoes, hu
rricanes, floods. Just by using the powers of her mind. Advanced telekinesis. And it’s our fault. It’s our fault that she has such powers.”
“WHOA!” roared Hacker. He had been silent for several minutes. Now he was in full voice, eloquent and unambiguous. “Wait just a minute, Mr. Alien. You just said ‘it’s our fault,’ meaning that you and your buddies did something very stupid and created this monster. Out of a woman who we all knew as Aura Adelstein. A former New Age sex queen and half-assed Sedona psychic who my good friend Marty here was hosing at one time and…whoops!”
Embarrassed, and more red-faced than ever, Hacker knew he had given away one of my deepest, darkest secrets. At least I thought it was a secret.
Hacker clapped a hand to the side of his skull and banged it several times. “Oh, Leela, Marty, I’m so sorry, I gave it away, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s all right, Hacker, I’ve known all along,” said my wife in a soothing voice. “You can’t fool a psychic, you know.” I felt Leela’s warm hand covering mine. I scanned her mind and found a montage of memories of her former friend Aura. She recalled my weak lies and cover-ups of our sordid affair. She remembered how Aura had changed radically after one memorable stormy night. She gave my hand a warm squeeze.
“Watch,” said Nebula Jones. “Then you will understand what has happened to your former friend Aura.”
A hologram formed over the oak table. The images were about three feet high. The holo depicted that memorable night on Bell Rock, which began with a tremendous, unseasonable electrical storm, featuring torrents of rain plus a dramatic lightning and thunder show. Leela was not yet in the scene; when the incident in question actually occurred, she had disappeared behind some huge rocks. I watched an image of myself and Aura, standing out in the open, both drenched and wild-eyed, as bolts of lightning flashed around us and strange multi-colored orbs filled the air.
A lightning bolt struck the skull of Aura and clearly traveled through her body, followed by a brightly-colored orb, sending her writhing to the ground. Leela appeared from behind a rock. At this point the hologram froze.
“Look here,” said the alien, pointing to the lightning bolt which glowed brightly inside Aura’s body, which now appeared as a dark silhouette. The glowing orb was just behind the lightning bolt, clearly visible.
“This is the reason for our current dilemma. The bolt of electricity is actually the transport mechanism for the orb, which was implanted in the body of Ms. Adelstein. The orb contained the essence of my colleague. As I told Mr. Powers during an earlier meeting, I came to Sedona with a partner via inter-dimensional travel. My partner is a fussy sort, and it arrived on Bell Rock early, a few milliseconds before I arrived. It—he— and I triggered the unseasonable electrical storm and deluge of orbs. This is a common method of transubstantiation where we come from.”
“Trans— what? Get to the point, asshole,” snarled Hacker. “What is all this about?”
“Quite simply, my associate made a serious mistake. He was supposed to merge with another human. The other female on Bell Rock that stormy night. The orb was meant for Leela Powers.”
The hologram flickered out.
My jaw dropped. I looked over at Jill and Leela and saw their eyes widen. Hacker looked like he was having a stroke.
“What do you mean MEANT for Leela?!” demanded Hacker, pounding on the table with a closed fist. “And who is this ‘partner’ you keep talking about?”
“My colleague, another trans-dimensional consciousness. We were sent to Earth to fix a problem: humans. Our assignment was to penetrate a high-vibrational, advanced human, a low-ego or no-ego person, to merge with the consciousness and physical manifestation of that human, to enhance its psychic and physical abilities, and to use the human to bring about a dramatic shift in the consciousness of your entire planet.
“We searched our databases for the most advanced humans on your planet, and found three: One, an autistic genius, a Siberian dwarf, had been locked away in a mental institution for twenty years; the second, an Indian guru from Benares, lived his life in the Ganges River and refused to come out. The third was Leela Powers. She was our best choice to save your planet.
“Our plan was that with her enhanced psychic abilities and spiritual enlightenment, she would start a movement that would change and uplift the consciousness of your species. A movement that would spread love and understanding and awareness. A movement that would neutralize the prevalent human need to destroy and self-destruct. Call it Plan A. Goddess Leela.
“We thought it was a great plan. Unfortunately….”
The alien paused, looked down at his folded hands.
“What do you mean, ‘unfortunately’?” I raged. “What went wrong with your crazy scheme? Why was my wife passed over for an oversexed, overweight, half-baked psychic?”
“My associate—let’s call it Cosmo, ah, Cosmo Kincaid—is that a good name? Cosmo became confused in the intensity of the thunderstorm and entered the, uh, the physical manifestation of your Aura Adelstein, merged with her brain and body, became one with her, and enhanced her being with its limitless powers.
“Unfortunately, because of Miss Adelstein’s enormous ego and unstable mental state, our entire project has been sabotaged. As she became the self-anointed Goddess Kali, this woman became aware of her abilities and used them to build a spiritual and paranormal empire, even going so far as to bring the dead back to life.
“Now,” he continued, choosing his words carefully, “you see the ultimate result of the human ego gone berserk, totally out of control. Big Mama Lakshmi is now a threat not only to your planet, to your solar system, and to its quadrant of the galaxy, but to a large swath of the Universe.”
“So why doesn’t this Cosmo character just escape from Big Mama and leave with all of those powers,” asked Hacker. “Why doesn’t the dude just slip out through her rectum or some other orifice and give us all a break?”
I couldn’t help laughing at the mental picture this created. I scanned Leela and Jill and they shared the same mental picture: a roly-poly orb with a tiny head peering out of a giant rectum framed by huge, tree-trunk thighs. Both of my fellow psychics wore huge smiles.
“Why?” asked the alien, exasperated. “Why? Because Big Mama Lakshmi has learned how to control Cosmo. She has broken him into small pieces and has him stored in several places within her rather large physical structure. She has learned how to access his enormous power and use it willfully while essentially keeping him a prisoner. He cannot escape. I am no longer able to communicate with Cosmo because of his confinement.”
Leela, who had been watching, with a bemused smile, this little scene play out, finally decided to speak. “I am certainly flattered by your choice of me as the goddess who could save the planet, Mr. Jones. Too bad it didn’t work out. But it looks like we’ve got a real problem on our hands now. Hopefully, you and Cosmo have a Plan B.”
“The real problem we have now involves time, Mrs. Powers,” said Nebula Jones. “We are running out of it. Before Cosmo’s, uh, miscalculation created Goddess Kali and then Big Mama, Planet Earth already was in trouble because of environmental damage. We had several years to work on that problem. Then Black Swan came on the scene and shortened the timeline by several years. Now Big Mama has reduced our window to a matter of weeks, if that.”
“Then what do you propose to do, Mr. Jones? It looks like a hopeless situation,” said Greta sadly. She had been sitting nervously next to Hacker, twisting and pulling on her short hair. She had been sullen and silent during this whole discussion.
“There are several things we can do—must do—and all carry huge risks,” said Nebula Jones. “First, we must take down this Big Mama entity. That is of paramount importance. And then we must go after the Black Swan Galactic organization, which has already created havoc around your planet and still poses a threat to the future of humanity. We suspect
that right now, Big Mama is meeting with Wolfgang Maximus, the chief executive of Black Swan, at the organization’s ranch in New Mexico.”
“Whew!” I exclaimed. “That’s quite a challenge you’ve got there, Mr. Spaceman. Now that you and your boyfriend have totally fucked things up for us earthlings, what do you plan to do about it?”
“We are all in this together, Mr. Powers. You and your friends are here because you all have skills which can be used to deal with the present crisis. And because you can help prepare the citizens of your planet for the ultimate solution, which is contained in my manifesto, here.” He again picked up a sheath of papers and laid them down on the oak table.
“Say what?” said Hacker, incredulously. “What exactly do you mean by ‘ultimate solution’? And how do we fit into your crazy, effin’ plans?”
“Please try to relax, Mr. Hack. You seem to be on the verge of a breakdown, and we need your strength and wisdom in the hours ahead. Number one: Let us focus on neutralizing the Big Mama entity.”
“How?” asked Jill. “Sneak up on her? A surprise attack? She can probably sense us coming from miles away. And she could probably do some terrible mischief to stop us in our tracks.”
“This is true,” said the alien. “She does have frightening psychic energy at her fingertips. But we have one weapon, actually three, that can neutralize her. That would be the three females in front of our bus who you call the Dakinis. Remember, they were once disciples of Big Mama when she was known as Kali. Each Dakini wears an amulet given to them by Kali, supposedly to give them abilities such as telekinesis and ESP. The amulets did that, as long as the Dakinis were within psychic range of Kali, but the amulets also allowed the goddess to monitor and control them.”
“So?” I said sarcastically. “How does that apply to our present situation?”
“First, the amulets now are virtually useless, for the Dakinis. But…they can be used against Goddess Kali! Do you remember the amulets? Gold and silver with strange markings and the legendary Eye of Horus? Take a look.”
A hologram formed on the oak table displaying an enlarged version of the amulets. Sure enough, strange markings and that penetrating eye. A caption beneath the image: “Ancient symbol of strength and wisdom…spiritual guidance, insight, protection from evil.”
Nebula Jones turned off the image and continued. “I studied the markings. They are an ancient code for stopping evil forces. These amulets are probably thousands of years old.”
“As my friend Marty said, ‘So…?’” said Hacker, with sarcasm equaling mine. “Let’s skip the superstitious bullshit and get down to the source code here. What is the point of all this?”
“Patience, please, Mr. Hack,” said Nebula Jones. “These amulets, when held closely together by the Dakinis, touching actually, have the power to neutralize Big Mama. Do you understand? The crystals that our three psychics removed from the amulets are a key part of the process. This process is extremely powerful. Each of you, Leela, Jill, and Marty, must hold a crystal securely in your hand.”
The alien sighed, looked into the faces of our psi trio, and seemed close to showing emotion for the first time, as he presented his case. “As our three psychics and I direct the energy of the amulets and the crystals toward Big Mama, we will be sending a stream of anti-matter into her body. This anti-matter will release my associate, Cosmo Kincaid, from the grip of Big Mama, and hopefully reassemble his atoms back into his orb structure.”
“Holy shit!” said Leela, uncharacteristically.
“That’s the theory, anyway,” shrugged Nebula Jones.
“But how can we ever get those three bitches together to pull this off?” I asked. “They hate each other. They attack each other at every opportunity, physically and verbally. They can’t even stand to be in the same space together for more than a few seconds. I don’t know why they haven’t ripped each other to pieces already.”
“They have been in a trance for hours, sir. As long as you keep those crystals in your possession, you can control them—turn them into passive slaves, if necessary. When we engage in Operation Shiva Baby, they will be in a deep hypnotic state and will obey my commands.”
“Operation Shiva… Baby…?” I said.
“Yes. And for further protection against whatever weaponry Big Mama throws at us, we will all chant the mantra Om Namah Shivaya as we approach her. This chant will create a force field which is designed to repel any weapon up to a twenty-kiloton nuclear bomb.”
“Howzat.…?!” said Hacker. “You want us to chant some Hindu gibberish and create a force field? Do I look like a whack job? You ain’t gonna get me to chant some—”
“Hacker, please, listen to the, uh, man,” begged Greta. She had removed her thick horn-rimmed glasses, which gave her a distinctly bookish look, and without them she was actually quite beautiful.
“Mr. Jones,” Greta continued, “what happens when Mr. Cosmo Kincaid is removed from the person of Big Mama Lakshmi? Will she lose her powers? Will she go back to being just a regular person?”
“Our computer models say that she will no longer be a threat. She may suddenly became no more than an overweight ex-psychic with an uncertain future.”
We humans fell into silence again, eyes closed, absorbing and processing all that the alien had told us. Hacker was the first to pipe up with one of his irreverent questions.
“Your computer models have been wrong before, buster,” he began. “But tell us, dear alien, about your ultimate solution. You sidestepped my question when I asked you earlier. It sounds a little Hitlerian, don’t you think, folks?” We all nodded in agreement.
Nebula Jones again picked up his sheaf of papers. “This is the address I plan to deliver to the people of earth. This will answer all your questions. I would appreciate your feedback.” He cleared his throat.
“People of Planet Earth,” he began tentatively, looking around the table. “You have nearly destroyed your beautiful home. You cannot stop killing each other. Your environment is in ruins. Now your actions threaten the entire galaxy and beyond. The Planetary Council has decided that steps must be taken to stop your reckless march toward planetary self-destruction. Therefore—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” interrupted the Hacker. “Is this a joke? You must have stolen this from some cornball sci-fi movie from the Fifties. Get serious, dude.”
“This is no joke, Mr. Hack. Please listen carefully.” Now the alien looked ominously around the faces at the oak table. “Therefore, in approximately thirty days, Planet Earth will be dropped into a small, sentient black hole. Our computer models indicate that—”
“WHAT?!”
“How can you—”
“What the fu—”
“And then—”
“WAIT A MINUTE!!!”
Leela was the last to shout in protest. Of the black hole idea, that is. She was into that supercharged energy space that could bring any man—alien or human—to his knees.
“Let’s say you could physically drop our planet into a—what?—sentient black hole? Do you know what a black hole does, Mr. Jones? Just what is your fucking ultimate solution?” My wife was unusually livid.
The alien jerked and seemed to be knocked backward about half a foot. “Mrs. Powers. All of you. Listen carefully. The sentient black hole, which we have carefully programmed with computer power you cannot even imagine, will take Terra, your planet, back in time and give humanity another chance. We did this once before on a planet in the Andromeda system. It worked perfectly.”
“Just how far back in time are you talking about?” asked Jill. “Hundreds of years? Thousands? Do we have to rebuild the pyramids? Or go back to our caves and reinvent the wheel and start over?”
“Nothing that extreme, my friends,” said the alien soothingly. “Only back a generation or two. Has anyone here heard of a person named Tiffany Tattlebaum?”
30 Linchpin of the C
osmic Plan
“TIFFANY TATTLEBAUM?!!?” we all shouted in unison, causing Nebula Jones to cover his ears with his ginormous hands. “What does she have to do with anything?” I shrieked. “She nearly brought down our government. Why is she even in your wild scheme to save the Universe?”
“My friends,” said the alien calmly, “every civilization in every galaxy is at the effect of certain events that change or create history. A fly can land on someone’s nose, and…poof! There goes the solar system. You could say that humanoid life is but a tapestry of accidents, coincidences, synchronicities, random acts, cosmic events. Chance. Luck. Fate. Serendipity. Call it what you will.”
What the fuck is he talking about? I transmitted to my fellow psychics at the table. Where is he going with this cosmic babble? I didn’t care if the alien was eavesdropping.
I think he’s going to make a case for how Miss Tattlebaum’s talents changed the course of history, transmitted Jill. I’d better jump in here and keep this dude on message.
“Mr. Jones? Hear me out, please,” said Jill in her no-nonsense voice. “Let’s say Tiffany Tattlebaum’s affair with President Clinton changed the course of history. Clinton is impeached, the presidency is tainted, Al Gore loses by a hair, and the Bush-Cheney regime swaggers in. Now, Gore would have been the environmental president and global warming would have been his number one issue. Instead, the other guy wins, our country is attacked, we start unnecessary wars, America becomes a fascist state, the world economy collapses, we’ve got an ecological catastrophe on our hands.
“Then take all of these events to the illogical extreme, which would describe what is happening right now on our planet. America’s downfall triggers a worldwide crisis. Chaos and panic ensue. And so on and so forth. You plan to send us into the past to make it all go away. So please enlighten us, sir: If Miss Tattlebaum triggered this whole series of events, what does your sentient black hole intend to do about the fact that she exists in the present? And that her whole life’s history has created a path through time, influencing people and events?”
“Good questions, Miss Appleton. The entry on the world stage of the Bush-Cheney regime did indeed disrupt the psychic equilibrium of your planet. I am not a political scientist, nor do I care about the details of individual lives. But Miss Tattlebaum is what we call the pivot point. Her actions indeed changed the course of history. She is not to be blamed for subsequent events, because blame is irrelevant and childish. No. What we must do is slightly change the course of her life. We have studied her past, and fed the information into our supercomputers. Now—”
“And your computers can tell your black hole exactly how to change the path of her life, with all of its random events and the people she meets and her first boyfriend and the twists and turns of her life?” asked Hacker. “How is that possible? I’d like to meet the dude who wrote the code for this program.”
“Very simple, actually, Mr. Hack. Tiffany Tattlebaum grew up in a wealthy family, attended Beverly Hills High School around Earth year 1990, and met her first boyfriend there. Then she went on to exclusive private schools and worked her way into a key job at your White House at the age of twenty-one. That’s when the pivotal events started unfolding.
“We will send the Earth back in time to approximately 1990. In the new, custom-designed past, Miss Tattlebaum will take a class in Eastern religions, meet a handsome young man who will teach her yoga and meditation, and she will decide to become a Buddhist nun. After high school, she will move to a monastery in Nepal, over her parents’ objections, live a quiet life of service, and never meet Mr. Clinton. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“That is the craziest shit I’ve ever heard,” said Hacker, shaking his head. “You can’t mess with the past like that. Damn!”
“We are not ‘messing with the past,’ Mr. Hack. We are simply making a small, necessary adjustment in the time-space continuum. Our assignment is to save this quadrant of your galaxy from chaos and destruction due to the irrational behavioral patterns of the residents of Planet Earth.”
“Fascists,” muttered Hacker. “I told you guys that this dude is a Nazi.”
“You see, by re-creating the past,” said the alien, ignoring Hacker’s insult, “we are creating a new future for the people of Terra—a future that will be less about war and more about honoring the ecosystems of your planet. A future where the planet’s resources are shared by all and greed is disdained. A future where—”
“A beautiful vision, Mr. Jones,” interrupted Leela, “but a little idealistic. Are you saying that just by shifting the karma of one sexy woman that everyone on the planet will be affected?”
“That’s right, Ms. Powers. There is a Cosmic Plan, you know. Miss Tattlebaum is the linchpin of the Cosmic Plan. Our computer models are very clear on this.”
Jill jumped in, excitedly waving her arms. “Okay, Mr. Alien, what about our memories? Our memories are stored in our brain cells, you know, and in our blood and our bones. You and your friend are messing with some powerful forces. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Indeed we do,” said the alien. “You see, when your planet is dropped into our sentient black hole, all memories from the time of the—let’s just call it the Singularity— from that moment back to the moment in the past when time starts over again, all memories will be deleted by the black hole’s sophisticated software. That includes every person’s cellular memories in both body and mind.”
Hacker was still seething. “Black holes in space eat whole stars, dudes. What goes in never comes out. Is this what Mr. Jones has in mind for us? Or is his whole rap just a bunch of bullshit? Some whacko fantasy? And what the fuck is a sentient black hole? Think about it, folks.”
No one had an answer, and silence descended again on the oak table. I scanned some minds quickly. Everyone, including me, was not eager to lose twenty or twenty-five years of our lives and have to do it all over again. It seemed like being reborn into a new body after death and having to learn all of life’s hard lessons one more time.
“Bathroom break!” shouted Leela, standing up and stretching. “Come on, girls,” she said, signaling to Jill and Greta. They followed, both fingering their hair. Hacker got groggily to his feet and staggered to the men’s, not looking at me. I stayed to have a few minutes of peace and quiet. Nebula Jones sat silent and unmoving, eyes closed.
I stared out the bus window, watching the miles fly by, the dull, brown scenery no more than a blur. Briefly I held a picture of Tiffany Tattlebaum in my mind. In many ways she reminded me of Aura Adelstein: big girl, big boobs, great insinuating eyes, radiating sexual energy, loves oral sex, giving and receiving; Tiffany and Aura merged into one naked, hungry she-beast, coming for me, closer, closer….
“Hey, Marty, that’s a pretty wild thought form you’re projecting!” It was Jill, catching me off guard, as she and the other two ladies swept into the cramped compartment. I must have blushed bright red; my cheeks burned beyond my control.
Aren’t you violating the psi code of ethics, Jill? I flashed. I was serious. I thought such things were just between us psychics.
I caught your fantasy too, Marty, flashed Leela, in the ladies room. It was like a bright, flashing hologram. It was pretty wild. I guess Jill couldn’t control herself, right Jill?
Jill nodded solemnly.
You owe me one, Jill, I flashed, grinning. No, make that two: first, a good spanking, I give, you take. Then a good hour of oral—you give, I take. Okay?
Pretty good fantasy, Marty. Okay, I’ll think about it. An hour…?