replied. “I’m looking into the future and I see nothing.”
“There is nothing in the future,” the TV Brian replied. “There is nothing but oblivion. Television oblivion. The future of the cathode ray tube is to broadcast death by radiation. A radiation of the small screen that shall transform the souls of those who watch it. It shall reshape the fabric of their minds, reshape the very topography of the human brain and lead its viewers, hypnotized, into oblivion.”
“I don’t know what I should do,” he said.
“There is little you can do other than preach the gospels of the television age. You may become literally the video-word and bring forward your knowledge. Your knowledge and gospels have the chance to transcend even your own death and rebuild resonance to your name.”
“I don’t like my name… My mother called me Brian Olivier. Consec renamed me Brian Spectrometer. They said it was a special name.”
“Then you shall have a new name.”
Brian inhaled deeply. “Yes.”
“Then say your special name.”
“I am Professor Brian O’Blivion… I am the literal video-word made flesh… And I shall bring my gospels to the world.”
----- X -----
The vagrants were shuffling in a line. They collected their bowls of soup and hot coffees and huddled at tables. The mission was open until ten in the evening then they were back on the street. Brian felt like joining the queue. He wanted to shed his responsibilities, live homeless and drink himself to a stupor under a bridge as the cancer consumed him.
Bianca was serving the meals. She saw him. She must have seen some immediate outward sign of distress because she handed off her food serving position to a volunteer and rushed over to meet him. “Father, what’s wrong?”
“Everything is wrong… The world is ending, Bianca; and I am its destructor.”
Bianca took him upstairs to her office and tried to coax it out of him. Had he been to Pittsburgh? Yes. Had he found a way to contact his research student? Yes and she was dead. “I fear they may murder me,” he said. “I fear they will also murder you if I stay.”
“Nobody is going to commit murder, Father. Those people, those students died by accidental exposure. You couldn’t have known. You’re not a murderer.”
“But Consec are murderers. They have plans to murder on a grand scale. My partners plan to use Veraceo to eradicate people like these you feed here. They want to rid North America of what they consider its diseased flesh.”
Brian laid it out. All of it. Part of him wanted to leave so that Bianca would be untouched and unknowing to the horror Consec planned. He wanted to leave her out of it so she herself would not become a threat to Consec by having knowledge of their plans; but selfishly, he wanted to unburden himself. He didn’t want to be alone.
“I’ll help you,” she said. “You must stand up to these people and I will help you confront them.”
“You can’t confront these people,” he conceded. “They’re a mist, an unimpeachable fog. They have plans and schemes and they have the power to bring their ideology to the masses disguised as the very air we breathe.”
Bianca paced the room. “We can’t do nothing. I won’t be idle in the face of tyranny. I refuse. Do you see those people downstairs? Vagrants are what most people see, but I see human beings. I see trapped and hindered potential waiting to be unlocked. The very thought that a corporation, a business, would choose people like that for execution based on their economic output jars at my soul. I have tried my hardest to help the most unfortunate. I understand more than most that the destitute can become a charge upon society, but they can also be made productive. I don’t know anybody who would want to live in a society where the unproductive are graded and discarded.”
“You haven’t met these people,” Brian said with a sigh. “That is exactly what they want.”
“What does Barry think of this?”
“Barry?” Brian had to take a few breaths before answering, not even wanting to say the words else they make the statement more true. “Barry has become one of them. It is his idea to broadcast the Videodrome programme.”
“And he knows what it does?”
Brian nodded. “He knows what it does and that is why he wants to broadcast it. He wants to test its efficiency.”
“Have you talked to him? Face to face?”
Brian shook his head. “No. I haven’t.”
Bianca came to his side and knelt ahead of him. She took his hand in hers. A father and daughter pose they hadn’t formed in decades. “Then you must go and try. You’ve been partners since you were at college together. He’ll listen if you try hard enough. He can’t really be this monster you’re making him out to be. He was never like this. I’ve known him all my life. He entertained me as a child, he hugged me when Mother died and if he’s been swayed and taken down a dark road then you must plead with him and try to bring him back. Beg him. Turn him around. You must try, Father. You must find a way.”
----- X -----
Brian suffered nightmares of the Videodrome programme. What were they doing to the girl in the cage? What was her name? How did she end up there to be tortured for an entertainment show? Was she whipped? Choked? Raped? Drowned? Electrocuted? Peter Fluorite had said the brain knew when they were faking which meant they were hurting people for real. With every intrusive thought he felt brewing resentment and anger. Impotent rage towards Consec. He would burn them if he could, kill them if he had the courage. Violence is the outcome of a man stripped of his identity and he had lost even his name to these people. Hardly surprising he fantasised about murdering Consec Leader.
Thoughts of violence yet again.
Visions of violence.
He drove to Queen Street East. Spectacular Optical.
Barry’s flagship store looked a little grimier than usual. The storefront hadn’t been cleaned and the window display was looking worn. This wasn’t his usual manner. Normally Barry was obsessive about the high street image.
“I’m Brolley, Can I be helpin’ you?” The black man had a smile fit for a toothpaste commercial and plenty of charm.
“I’m looking for Barry. I’m Brian, I’m Barry’s business partner.” He held out a hand to shake.
“Ah, man. I only been here for the week. Still finding ma’ way around. Barry’s too busy to be managing the stores he say, that’s why he bring me in to be store manager. He’s out back in the grindin’ bay, do you know where that is?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Brian walked behind the counter and discovered that an adjoining wall had been knocked through into the next-door shop. An expansion into another building that couldn’t be seen from the front street. The newly acquired space was taken up with packing tables and lots of flattened cardboard boxes. Whatever work needed the extra space hadn’t started yet but it involved a lot of packaging.
Barry was in his office sitting at a newly installed computer terminal. “That looks fancy,” Brian said.
Barry smiled, but his face looked worn somehow, saddened. “They call it a Mycron 2000. Brand new. We’re going to use it for streamlining the manufacturing pipeline.” Brian took a seat with his old friend, easing himself into the chair carefully. “Jesus, Brian, are you okay? You look weak.”
“I am weak. I’m on a special diet to try and recover from the chemo but sometimes I feel tired. I went to Pittsburgh. I met Peter. I learned about the new TV show. Videodrome. I even saw how it’s made.”
Barry nodded. He looked down. He looked around the room. He looked everywhere except at Brian. “I know,” he said softly. “Peter told me. More importantly, Peter told Consec Security you had been there. I don’t know how to begin explaining.”
“You can say you’re sorry. Start with that.”
“Jesus… I am sorry… Have you ever had that feeling when things are slipping beyond your control? Consec wanted me to come and see you to assess your… they… they fear you may be a liability. They want certainty the project is secure. They
were going to send some hardass Consec man called Keller, but I said I would talk with you.”
“They’re torturing people, Barry. They’re torturing people on camera to make a television show and Peter told me you’re going to broadcast it.”
Barry shook his head. “No, that won’t happen. The Consec idea is to broadcast. It’s their idea and that’s why I’m still involved. If I wasn’t there it would be broadcast already. I’m stalling. I’m buying time. I’m doing what I can to minimize their insanity. But believe me. If I’m not there to raise problems and derail things, then the Videodrome programme would be in the wild by now. I’m going to stall them for as long as I can, for years if possible.”
“I have an idea,” Brian said. “Of another use for Veraceo. The first version, Veraceo-One seems to be safe. You were exposed to it. We tested a thousand college kids with it and things seem to be okay.”
Barry had his elbows on the table and rubbed his face with both hands. “Yes. So far they seem okay. No cancer proteins have been detected.”
“What I’m thinking of doing is a smaller test, still aligned with Consec ideals. At Bianca’s mission she has homeless people coming through the door every day. I’m thinking of exposing these people to Veraceo-One with content designed to make them more productive members of society.”
Barry leaned back in his chair, he made solid eye contact for the first time. “Interesting.”
“If Consec fear that