BOOK 1: Final Countdown
Chapter 1: Can't Take You Anywhere
Chapter 2: The 70s Never Died, it Just Smells that Way
THE YEAR WAS 2008AD (-3TERRAN RECKONING), AND THE WORLD WAS IN THE THROES OF ANOTHER 70s REVIVAL. Nobody knew exactly when, much less why, it all began. The earliest that Magda Maria was alerted came watching The Chucky Poong Show one night when some moviestar dropped the word “cat". Two weeks later, surfing the Pepsi Cola Virtual Amazon, she bumped into a boatload of Parisians dressed in velour. Another two weeks after that, sunbathing on Venice Beach, she spotted her first Afro in more than five years.
You are driving me crazy
Tiger baby
Why are you so lazy???>>
Chapter 3: Michael Jackson's 50th Birthday Party (Zha Zha and Gabor Edit)
WHEN MICHAEL JACKSON ANNOUNCED THAT HE WOULD SHORTLY BE CELEBRATING HIS 50th BIRTHDAY WITH A PARTY OF SPECIAL MAGNIFCIENCE, THERE WAS MUCH TALK AND EXCITEMENT IN HOLLYWOOD. Jackson was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the world for more than 40 years. He had churned out hits on a fairly regular basis since his tweens, each album a bigger spectacular than the last. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigor to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr Jackson. At 40 he looked much the same as at 25. At 45 they began to call him well-preserved; but finely-sculpted would have been nearer the mark. There were some who shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth. There were some who shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth. <<It will have to be paid for>> they said. <<It isn't natural, and trouble will come of it.>> But so far trouble had not come of it3, not unless you counted the recurring allegations of child abuse, the business with his collapsing face and the bounty on his ass imposed by the Reformed Black Panthers. Jackson released a new album every three years, promoted them with ever-more outrageous global concert tours, got married about twice as often. Apart from that, he kept to himself.
Chapter 4: Tha Elementz of Noize (Hedione #6 Edit)
<<GLAM SKINCARE ROCKS THE HOUSE!>> Meen E kicked the door ajar with a resounding BOOM!, grabbed the Middle-Class Clone by his Lacoste shirt and tossed him across the room. <<Yo bro, get set to satisfy your fix for my funkin' new snakeoil called Hedione #6.>> Clone stacked back on an antique oak or walnut wine rack, whacked head THWACK! into a model railway track. <<I just knew you'd fall for it!>> Meen E cracked. Clone groped stunned for his phone so Meen stomped hard on his hand and intoned: <<I know a show bro like yo might be shy of some door-to-door pro but this Hedione #6 is so fly, and so high in the sky, baby you're just gonna have to fucking know!>> Homes crawled over the carpet snailing a trail of blood, tooth and nail. <<Oo... are oo?>> he moaned. E smiled: the little worm was almost totally defiled. Picture the gore: finally, home from a grueling day of corporate war, chillin' with a beer and the soothing strains of a Chopin score, then there's this knocking on the door, then there's this knocking on the door, maybe it's the wife back from shopping at the store. But you open the door and detect a deadly flaw: some thing in a Darth Vader mask clubbing you to the fucking floor! <<Take the money, take the jewels!>> you now implore, but this monster only laughs and rasps: <<I don't want no charity, I'm here to repay a score!>> Clubbing the crone in a rhythmic four-four, about to tirade against the white man's law, Meen E remembered the film A Clockwork Orange which he'd only recently saw. He decided to change the tact of his attack. His skulltipped ebony staff, which hitherto he'd been swinging like an Industrial Light and Magic saber, mutated into a more appropriate weapon: a British gentleman's cane. <<My dear sir>> in the best Queen's English he can muster on such short notice <<I'm sure you're very impressed with the product Glam is selling tonight. But here's the best part, sir: it's free! That's right, Hedione #6, with a reputation developed from decades of research, doesn't cost a single penny.>> <<Oo... oo are oo?>> the codger spluttered. And the nigga kicked him in the head and screamed, <<Are you going to fucking take it?>> <<Es, es>> the codger croaked. <<And a very wise investment you'll find it I'm sure>> Meen E said. <<In business, however (and I'm sure you'll concur) you can't get something for nothing, even if it's advertised as such... and in this case, my droog7, a donation is expected, just to help us continue our fine line of merchandise. After all, everyone has to make a sacrifice for the System now and then.>> <<Oo... oo are oo?>> And as E hacked his cane to a soundless Ludwig Van melody a bloodsplattered microphone dangled quietly from his waist.
Peace out to my brothers in Philly and N'Orleans and Savannah
I'm down with the suicide crew, and we don't give no quarter
We bring the heat from the streets to export Jihad and slaughter...>>
<<Hahaha<< he laughed, with a deranged grin. <<you just fell for the banana in the tailpipe gag!>>
<<That's cool>> Meen said. <<Then I want to record it where it all began - South-Central. The cradle of the revolution.>>
<<That's what was talking about>> Kim said <<street cred!>> <<That's cool>> Meen said. all began - South-Central. The cradle of the revolution.>> <<That's what I mean>> Kim said <<street cred!>>Meen wanted to set his new single Crimson Skies inside the celluloid world of Beverly Hills Cop... 50 years down the track. The African-American nation is all but extinct - the genocide of the black man is nearly complete. Survivors realise their only salvation is to send a warrior back through the veils of time, to alter some kind of pivotal moment in the history of persecution. Murphy's placation of the Beverly Hills riot is considered one such turning point. They surmise that by stopping Murphy from stopping the riot, the balance in the black/white struggle would be tipped more fairly towards the former. Naturally, a black cyborg played by Meen E is selected for the role.
South-Central LA was the scene of those Rodney King riots in 1992 and was also where Matthew Egan grew up. He was five years old when the trouble began. He was playing on the streets in the golden April sunshine when that sunshine took on redder, more equatorial hues: it was being filtered through the smoke of burning shops. Within minutes South-Central's veneer of civilisation - tenuous at the best of times - had collapsed into the more Nubian politics of tribal war. Sirens and AK-47s blazed all over the city. Black girls in ponytails were boasting about <<racial revolution>>. Sixty deaths and a few days later the revolution petered out; rioters returned to more acceptable avenues of protest (eg, hard drugs and rap). But rap was the most popular music in America now, and every ghetto kid who could rhyme stood the chance of making a million bucks, and South-Central was home to dozens of recording studios.
E decided to house his studio in a ramshackle warehouse. He flung the doors open and invited anyone poor, young and black to drop in. <<Welcome to the South-Central Parliament!>> he told some bewildered streetkids. <<From here the revolution begins!>>
The band's first project was Crimson Skies, a song about a race riot which the Sun's wanted as the third single. In contrast to the first two singles, Crimson Skies was despairingly slow: an expanse of dark organ chords weighing down mournful bass burbles and empty drum fills. Max, putting on his best newsreader voice, opened the song with an enthusiastic report on new police offensives against inner-city gangs. In a monotone rap, Meen then symbolised the daily drudgery of life in the ghetto:
A few days before filming was due to start the Sun brothers came by to see how things were progressing. In an unusually amiable mood, Meen played them a tape of Crimson Skies and said: <<Another number one or what, gentlemen?>>
The homeboy levelled his machine gun on to the businessmen. <<Will someone talk reason into this man?>> Sun pleaded, but Moon's face was desolate and pale. <<For God's sake, we own this studio.>> <<Throw this yellow trash out on the street>> Meen E commanded.Chapter 5: The Queen of Sheen
<<THIS IS BIZARRE>> JULIAN OFFER, seconded snow slave, said poking a gloved finger into one of the holes. They were all about two centimeters across and almost perfectly round. <<How could they have formed? I couldn't have done it cleaner with a power drill.” <<Whatta ya talking about, power drill?” Dean Coombes, slumped back in the driver's seat, said sharply. He was too busy staring up at the turbulent Antarctic sky to worry about no holes in a tiny geological probe. << It was jist a storm.” Julian orbited the probe, a telephone box on a little tripod (or so it looked to perceptual systems weathered by 12 weeks of blizzards and ice). Some of its panels had been torn off and lay dragging tangles of wire in the wind but Julian was more interested in the holes. There were so many of them, pock-marked over every wall. <<Maybe a storm came up, that could explain the panels. But what about the holes? All perfectly round. The probe's turned into a sieve!” <<What else happened, the Chinese came and slugged it full of lead?” Dean laughed at the sky. <<C'mon, we've assessed the damage. I'm sick of you slowing me up.” He started revving the sled's engine. <<But the holes,” Julian said, <<and this is the second probe fucked over this month.” <<We'll get a crew from Tuggera to repair it and that'll be it. I don't know why they don't just whack a mine up straight. Come on, let's go!” Julian looked back anxiously at the cheese-grater probe. <<Oh... okay. This is so bizarre.” <<You're fucking bizarre mate.”
It was the best morning Julian had ever seen on the continent, nearly minus eight. A mixture of curiosity and defiance drove him to the damaged geological probe he had visited the day before. How the fuck could Maguire officially report it had been damaged in a storm? He took a few unauthorized photos of the holes and slid on to the coast, to a shallow bay almost free of ice. He sat on the edge of a rock shelf between squabbling petrels and looked over an enamel sea to the rusty speck of a grounded Japanese freighter whose oily legacy still rimmed the shore.
He sat and gazed at the freighter and wondered about the holes in the probes and thought, God, I want to go home. Something bright flared at the edge of his view and a second later a loud boom! rumbled through the air and rocks and blew away the petrels. A geyser of flame burst from the headland beside him and doubled over in the cold air. Christ, Julian swaying on his feet, the old fuel dump. He reached for his radio, hesitated as another blast shook the bay, pulled out a pair of binoculars. Training them on the dump he thought he could see a green figure flitting through the flames. And he thought: The Chinese must have come all the way from Suharto Station to blow up the dump. He crouched behind the shed, saw the figure emerge from the flames dragging something dark... another biped of some description. The upright one noticed Julian's sled, slumped its comrade over its shoulder and scurried down the headland. <<Wait!" Julian yelled, feeling oddly heroic. The headland was too steep for the sled so he blundered up on foot, trying to maintain a safe distance from the fire. The figures dissolved into smoke. Another geyser of flame shot up and doubled over Julian. Cowering from the heat he lost his footing on a chunk of ice and slipped down the headland.
Chapter 5: The Night of the Splintered Sets
BÄBEL THORGARTEN WAS TWIRLING, WHIRLING, HURLING AGAINST the dictatorship of the light. She was marching to some looped wolf snarls and Wagnerian leitmotifs and literally kicking over everything in her path. When she had run out of upright furniture, she arched back her head and let out one reverberating scream. On the other side of the room, a glass Erika had been swigging champagne out of just shattered into a hundred pieces.
<<It's so corrupted>> Bäbel said, chest heaving, eyes almost popping from her head. <<I wish I could smash this whole fucking estate!>>
She was interrupted by a tapping on the floor which was too urgent for applause: Herr Sautter the downstairs Deutsche Volksunion fanatic. Bäbel stomped a makeshift goosestep up and down the floorboards, screeching as she walked <You think you're cool because you smoked pot in Amsterdam in '68? The least you can do is appreciate my cybernetic sound sculptures! <<Encase him in a lattice of etheral control>> Dieter said. <<Subvert him with a blast of subsonic glum>> Erika said. I'll just smash things instead, she said. It was a typical Berlin night, and the sky was full of cranes. The Fernsehen tower twitched an urgent dialogue across the residential dark. Abandoning the wannabe Hitler Youth, Bäbel escorted her friends to a bedroom half-filled with outdated computer monitors, large-screen Korean TVs, the odd video. Bäbel cleared a space on the floor. She had recently begun delving into pagan mysticism and was finding countless everyday uses for the Occult. She lit several candles and the three of them sat down in a circle, held hands, and Bäbel began to intone:
She screamed, picked up the largest monitor and with a strength which startled her friends hurled it out of the window. 12 floors of silence, then the smash, the splinter of wood, Bäbel laughing like a madwoman: <<There's a beast in the machine! there's a beast in the machine! and his name is Rupert Murdoch!>>
Chapter 22: Many Divorce
THE PROGRAM'S THEME MUSIC, sexy sax morphed into futuristic fusestep, erupted from speakers set around the studio. Giant TV screens flashed the numbers 3... 2... 1, then the urgent refrain: Applause! At this cue the studio audience went ape, clapping and whistling, and even the odd Burmese language sign was thrust into the air. A door opened at the back of the stage and into this programmed acclaim, dressed in a gleaming spider silk suit, stepped the most popular man on American TV, the redoubtable, the incontrovertible... Chucky Poong! He guillotined the applause with his hands, sniffled, turned to camera two. <<In America, many divorce" he said. "No good! Chucky Poong say no good! Husbands must love their wife."He guillotined the applause with his hands, sniffled, turned to camera two. "In America, many divorce" he said. "No good! Chucky Poong say no good! Husbands must love their wife."
Chapter 7: Brane Storming
A NIPPON AIRLINES SKYBUS STREAKED ACROSS THE SOUTH CHINA SEA FAST AS A BOLT OF LIGHTNING, AS TERRIBLE AS A VERITABLE SPLIT of nature. Above it and around, the predawn sky was bejeweled by a sprinkling of stars burning like gemstones - a veritable treasure-trove. But when the flight passed over the lush islands of Indonesia, the sky brightened and took on a tarnished silver hue, the first suggestion of daylight. Soon the sun would rise in the east, and another long, humid day would begin in the tropics (who was in power in those delectable Spice Islands below? what racial atrocities were being committed?) A Nippon Airlines Skybus ripped up the Asian firmament like some kind of celestial earthquake, splitting the sky in two. This is simply how it was. When she came to the somewhat handsome man in the goldstreaked Louis Vuitton suit she put on her best smile and took special care in arranging his tray. Hana-chan had been told that he was Dr Ichiro Sato, but she didn't need any advice - Sato was a legend in Japan, and every teenager knew of his relentless zeal for space. One day there would be Nipponese colonies on the moon, and tunnels deep into the fifth dimension (the so called Parallel Branes Project) - Ichiro was the guiding light behind all of them, the wind in the sail. Everybody knew Sensei, he was more famous than baseball players. So Hana-chan put on her best smile when she came to the somewhat handsome and slightly greying man in the goldstreaked Vuitton suit and Gucci shoes, as if she was serving the Emperor. This is simply, undeniably how it happened.Brane Storming
Does this connect with the scene with Dr Sato going into the tunnel in Indonesia? PAUL LUSZEIT PULLED his metallic blue-green Toyota Corolla compact to the curb and peered through rain-streaked windows at the partially renovated terracehouse. Block lettering over the wet, blotchy door proclaimed: CHUCKY POONG CHEAP STORE. <<Read the truth. The world is flat. The revelations of Columbus are not what they appear. The universe is a membrane, not a sphere.>>
THE TERMINAL OF THE Medan International Airport was supposed to resemble a traditional Batak longhouse, the type favored by the local race when they were at the headhunting phase of their evolution. A couple of metallic buffalo horns notwithstanding, however, the whole thing looked like any other international airport terminal that Sato had ever visited. The astrophysics professor was one of the world's foremost experts on the search for intelligent life, but he couldn't see much of the Batak in this postmo(der)nstrosity. There were Nipponese influences everywhere, of course, and American - McDonald's restaurants on every floor, Dunkin' Donuts, karaoke bars and Starbucks Coffee. But Sato just couldn't see the Malay Primitive. Whatever - he wasn't in the mood for architecture. Sato was the world's foremost expert on astrophysics, and he had been summoned to Indonesia to investigate the recent discovery of strange signals from Outer Space. Was it the Final Proof of Life Beyond, or was it just another quasar? Sato bit his lip. He was too old for another disappointment! sudden love of vodka. It also justified his current choice of girlfriend - a Cockney chick named Jas. She was dressed just like Surfer Girl out of Quentin Tarantino's Jacky Brown, and like that infamous character, she could suck head just as deep! <<You ought to give that shit up>> Croon said. It was two nights after the Catheter visitation, and Croon was looking for any excuse to dump her. <<You know it fucks with your motivation.>>
The Phantom Menace (Club Bunker Edit)
In 2004 the German government approved a one-off influx of 80,000 Nigerian economic refugees. The press claimed it was a gesture of charity to the starving African masses but the true reason, naturally, was fiscal: long-range analysts had pinpointed Nigeria as a possible African tiger and Germany wanted to get that wooden shoe in the door. When the said investment boom eventually began the Reich would have thousands of dual citizens to send back as developers, export/importers and just plain opportunists. WHEN CASSIUS CROON SAW THE WORDS MARIE-CELESTE airsprayed on the side of the Paris-Frankfurt-Berlin express train at Paddington Station, the nigga had some cause to be alarmed. Croon was on his way to Germany, and he was already spooked enough by the goofy weirdness of the whole Storm Thorgarten mission. He didn't buy Catheter's claims about pro-Israeli propaganda for a second. As for the paucity of background information on his elfin granddaughter - well, that was lightyears beyond a joke. You couldn't walk five yards/exhale five breaths/snort five lines in this age without having your personal effects scattered across the Infosphere by any number of security cameras, automated bank tellers, vending machines, telephone receivers (and their cronies, too numerous to mention), robotic reconnoiters of the Paranoid Panopticon - shit, even toasters were wired to the Net these days! Big Brother was everywhere, and everyone was Big Brother - that's why Croon was so astounded that Babel Thorgarten's intelligence file amounted to a few flimsy photographs and some outdated work records. What was she, a fucking ghost? Nobody was invisible.
performance artist
During the Second World War, Nazi scientist Dr. Karl Stormgarten was determined to develop the ultimate weapon for the Third Reich. He had always been fascinated by the potential of DNA and the genetic code, and he believed that by manipulating it, he could create soldiers with superhuman strength and endurance, or even create entirely new species to do their bidding.
IN 2003 THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT approved the one-off influx of 120,000 economic refugees from the failed states of the African Horn -- namely Somalia and Eritrea. The press claimed it was a gesture of charity to the starving African masses but the true reason, naturally, was paranoia: long-range analysts had pinpointed Somalia as a terror breeding ground and Europe wanted to sweep that swamp clean. The plan was called "cultural sterilisation". If you sterilise a million female mosquitoes and then release them into the wild, male mosquitoes waste their seed and the population drops. That was the theory, at least. Get these budding suicide bombers of the future into Europe, the heart of the Civilisation, teach them how to behave, then send their children home as proponents of Democracy and Decency. Terrorism would be sapped at the source. Naturally it didn't work out that way.
He pedalled off down the street, eyes open for clues. For readers not in the know, Quantum Leap worked like this: Sam was an archetypal all-American lost in the time-space continuum and desperate to get home. He had been wandering history for years, yanked from one life to the next, one week an ailing wrestling star, the next the mother of the little boy who grew up to shoot John Lennon. If being a time refugee wasn't punishment enough, Sam also had to work: healing broken hearts, preventing crimes, generally guiding the course of human history. He fucking hated it!
Chapter 9: Bad Connection
<<ACH! It isn't working. It's only tickling!>> Her voice inflected between cocaine mirth and something vaguely close to boredom. Jan was propped over the fork of her thighs, a white dove feather dribbling out of his mouth. Well, it seemed a depraved idea at the time...He'd worked for the CIA, MI5, Mossad, a host of industrial and corporate clients... and when Russia privatised its security apparatus he'd probably work for them. He was one of the most renowned agents in the world, a legend of deep surveillance... and now he was tracking down one lousy war criminal who'd probably die before he came to trial. To make matters worse, Bäbel's telco didn't even have a decent percolator. No, it's not worth it, he thought, fighting the onset of mild panic. It's just not worth worrying about.
Bäbel Thorgarten, the token azure, came in for her morning glass of ginseng and gingko biloba. She said: <<If you didn't have five glasses of coffee a day, you wouldn't be so highly strung.>>
<<WHO>> MARC SPOON (aka Cassius Croon) was raving in the kitchenette <<who the fucking hell dropped tea leaves into the sugar? How could anyone be so daft, so blatantly idiotic? It's outrageous!>> Nobody was owning up. Croon shoveled spoons of sugar and tea leaves into the sink, discovered the contamination sank as far as the china floor of the bowl. Locking the sugar bowl in his desk, forced to make do with flat Coca-Cola, Croon logged on to his workstation and appraised today's dispatch from the complaints board. As soon as he saw her homepage Croon knew Bäbel wasn’t working at the telco for either the money or love. She had to be there for something subversive, and if she wasn't, she was definitely engaging in a bit of organized mischief on the side. And he wondered: What would an art terrorist do at a telephone company? The answer was obvious: crank calls. So he got INTCEN to invent him a job as a nuisance call investigator with an office in her sector, and even went so far as to appoint her as his secretary.
The phone was connected to an answering machine with a speaker to play messages as they came in. A voice started beckoning towards him, like a piper's call... or the Pied Piper for that matter. Two rising notes repeated three times - hoo whoo, hoo whoo, hoo whoo - with some evocative strings in the background. It was only as third as loud as the Gabba but for some reason it took over the room and whooshed through his ears and reminded him of a IndoEuropean plain so far away, so long ago, yet so close. It was as if Gaia Herself was yodeling him.
The sugar bowl was laced with ugly green infectious tea leaves.
He picked up the bowl and tossed it at the kitchenette wall and it created a snot-filled white sandpit over the floor.
<<It's this case>> he said (although vitamin deficiency probably played a part). <<There's something major happen.
Hmmm, I'm on the fucking case! was kind of like Cassius Croon's catchcry. Except he had two cases at the moment... well, three if he counted the tea leaves. His prime objective, of course, was to befriend Bäbel Thorgarten. To get close to her he'd taken a job as a nuisance call investigator at her telephone company. And he'd renamed himself Marc Spoon after some DJ he saw in Frankfurt once. Locking the sugar bowl in his desk, forced to make do with flat Coca-Cola, Croon logged on to his workstation and appraised today's dispatch from the complaints board.THE NEXT DAY WHEN Croon got to work there were 465 complaints for him to categorize. On a whim, he invented a new category - spiritual incitement. To his surprise, he found six complaints to fill it with, from the four corners of the nation. They all followed the same idea: lilting music, the faintest suggestion of words beneath it, then whoever it was hung up and left the victim in a freaked-out state of bliss.
<<Like maybe>> Bäbel putting on the schoolgirl voice she reserved for serious flirtation <<like maybe it's a serial prank caller!>> And she made stabbing motions which hardy seemed appropriate. Compelling stuff indeed, and Croon wondered why nobody had stumbled on to it before. But the job was only a sham, after all; his main job was infiltrating Bäbel. He had done well so far, attracting her with his usual mix of aloof mystique and forceful presence. Now it was time to move things towards closure.Oh telephone line / give me some time
CROON WAS PISSED OFF - Bäbel could tell it by gait as he marched into the office the following morning, the timbre of his <<No thanks, not today>> to her steaming offer of Chinese tea, the doubleclick of his mouse as he logged on. The latest dispatch scrolled open from the complaints board: 174 reported incidents since midnight, five of them mystical. He said: <<Ok, Bäbel, get back to these people with a psychological questionnaire. Focus on behavioral changes post-prank.>> When the psyche forms started coming in Croon knew he was on to something big. All respondents admitted to being under varying degrees of emotional stress immediately before receiving the call; immediately afterwards, all described experiencing (with amazing candour) varying degrees of spiritual bliss. <<One minute I was vacuuming the house and thinking about leaving my husband, the next I was running through the streets so happy I could cry>> said a housewife from Potsdam. <<I was worried about exams>> said a Bavarian schoolgirl <<but who needs worry once you feel the full magnitude of the universe?>> It read like the backcover of a New Age self-help bestseller. In the meantime, Germany was the African heart of Europe, and agbadas-were as common a sight in Berlin's Zoo Station as business suits or dyed denim. Cassius Croon barely caused a stir as he strolled along the platforms on his way to Bäbel's party, his Samuel L Jackson's simulcra pretty close to perfect. He had ditched his Jacky Brown tribute earlier in the evening and adopted more of a classic New German, Long Kiss Goodnight look: Tartan jacket and cap, bright green plastic pants, shiny red plastic thongs. All he needed was the seasonal PLO scarf wrapped around his neck and he'd look the model Berliner. It was an impressive disguise made all the more authentic by his perfect mastery of the German language. Complex disguises were nothing unusual for this PI: blending into the furniture while maintaining a coffee table charisma was his most lucrative skill.
INTO THE ENTRANCE, EUROS were exchanged for fluorescent stamps, the crowd pushed on, and Croon found himself being carried downward. Presently, upon that slope, Paval spied a huddle of squatting people, and a rather strange looking individual in a shellsuit and parachute lecturing them on the ethics of gravity and the inherent properties of falling bodies. Pavel moved on -- or rather, was pushed by the stream of clubbers behind. On and on pulsed the mass of bodies, of all genders and persuasions, or all the possible perversions. Suddenly giddy with the darkness and the smell of someone's cologne or a passing Ethiopian joint, Pavel found himself tripping on a piece of broken stair. He rolled over and over recklessly sheer into the arms of the gaping crowd below, dropping into a perfect mound of writhing forms and waving legs and arms. When he was done stumbling and spinning the mass disentangled itself and he was able to raise his head from the shoulder of someone on whom he had fallen, lifting him, or her -- which was it? -- into a dancing posture. All around, people were writhing like wheat-stalks in a hurricane, and the breakbeats sounded like irregular machine gun bursts, and the air was full with the roar of industrial implements and horns and the frenzied cries of a thousand birds. All around him, people were whirling like dervishes, and even the vast chamber itself seemed to spinning, rotating about a mysterious space within.
MYTHOLOGY WAS BECOMING a big concern in Germany in 2008, and The Lord of the Rings hadn't enjoyed such sales since Spielberg tried to make a movie out of it. Croon wasn't surprised when he arrived at Bäbel's party to find her apartment all decked out with Germanic fairytales: runes carved into the walls, Der Froschkönig emerging blinking out of his deep well, murals of elves and dwarves on the living room wall, real fir and oak branches hanging in the kitchen. Croon was dressed smart but casual: a polo-neck, arm-patches on his cashmere coat, all he needed was a couple of beauties to hang off them. Bäbel would hang there soon enough. He refrained invitations to drink as he wanted to stay alert. He didn't mind a coffee though... that was until he opened the sugar bowl and found it swimming with scrunched-up deep green tea leaves. Croon took a large, shame-faced draught from his cup. <<>Er, I was referring to people of the Germanic blood<< he said. >>You see, I might be German, but racially I'm descended from the tribes of Madagascar, with a bit of New York City house nigger thrown in for good measure. I didn't mean to cause any offence.<<
He turned around looking for a culprit, saw Babel made-up and pouting right beside him. Suddenly it all made sense: it had been her all along! It was a test. She was the hunter, and he was the prey. And these tea leaves were the tranquilizer darts!
He dipped a spoon into the foul mixture and scooped it into his mouth.
<<So>> Babel said << you trained with the FBI?>>
Babel slowly raised two fingers to her mouth, winked at Croon, and whistled so loud Croon's ears actually popped. The garcon's coffee pot shattered, hot shit spoiling out all over the floor. Croon turned away, embarrassed.
Chapter 8: EgyptAir
MK SUCKED BACK ON THE HOOKAH AND the coals flared and the water bubbled and smoke, dense green smoke, surged through the pipe and then trickled out of his mouth. The room was one of those pastel yellow, concrete-floored apartment numbers Cairo was famous for, 15 stories high and probably a fire hazard. MK stood at the window as the hash sank in and stared at the Hosri Mubarak Flyover, currently hurling 40 cars a second towards the new commuter suburbs of the north. Nagvib had his draw. The sky was darkening and the characteristic Cairo night, half blazing neon, half suffocating smog, was already replicating itself inside the bedroom.
Ishamel knocks a variation of 2-6-1-8 on the door before getting in!
<<My friend>> Nagvib affecting a mixture of sincerity and sleaze <<I recruited you for your iron will and devotion to Islam. These cap guns look authentic; nobody's going to argue with them, especially with you at the trigger. Just karate chop some of the hostesses on the way to the cockpit and we'll be okay.>>
THEY ALL STOPPED at a little bar in a grungy district of the city. The joint had started as a Wimpies' restaurant and retained the plastic seats, Laminex tables and pastel-hued waitresses of its youth. But sentiment had recently turned anti-Western in this part of town, and Koranic verses and spittle now competed for aesthetic dominance. Older men sucked water-pipes and argued furiously while the younger set competed over pool.
<<I'm so glad you could make it>> MK said. They were sitting in a murky corner of the room, and MK was playing drunk. <<This is the turning point. This is the first step towards a free al Quds.>> But MK shoved the needle into his arm and squirted deep into a vein. Ishmael jerked upright, flailing at MK for a futile few seconds before he began a slowmotion descent to the floor. <<I'll kill you!>> he said. Much later: <<God!>> he muttered, a nearly inaudible gasp. NEXT STOP WAS AN underground establishment in Misr el-Qadimah, the old city of Cairo. Ishmael (who was starting to come out of a long reverie) expected it to be a traditional revolutionary haunt, full of serious characters with waxed moustaches smoking pipes. Instead, it was more like a Jaffa warehouse party. What shocked Ishmael first was the presence of women, then the number of them, then the flamboyancy of their dress. Calls for stricter adherence to the veil were being openly flaunted here! The men were a Bohemian lot too, by Arab standards: there were boys with dreads and open Afro-Caribbean shirts, giant reefers almost sutured to their lips; there were guestworkers in full tribal wear; there were androgynous beings clad in various grades of plastic, rubber and leather; there was even a mummy pretty tied up donning a Tutankhamen mask. Ishmael couldn't believe he'd been brought here. Didn't his reputation count for anything! He was even more shocked when Nagvib returned from the bathroom changed into a galabiya, a gown commonly worn by Egyptian peasants... except his was retrofitted with velour trims and disco sparkles. He was wearing 3D sunglasses.<<Well, what do you think?>> he said. The music was fucked-up jazz with heavy cyberdelic and African forest influences.
<<Come, Ishmael, you talk about the glory of revolution. This is a revolution of the mind.>>
Nagvib pressed two small tablets into the Palestinian's hand. He then poured a short glass of vodka. <<Have you heard how the Christians eat bread and drink wine to infuse themselves with the body and blood of Jesus? Behold! this is the body and blood of the Arabian people. Drink it, eat it, if you want to join our holy war!>> ISHMAEL COULD have flung the tablets to the floor, he was that worked up. But MK and Nagvib were all over him, coaxing him with gentle words, goading the narcotics into his mouth. Five minutes later he excused himself, and went to toilet to throw up. Leaning over the clogged porcelain, invoking his stomach muscles in the Indian style, the hapless terrorist reviewed the night's incidents, from the least to most bizarre: jihadists swigging booze and popping amphetamines as if they were holy; the whole sloppy approach to the hijacking; now the Bacchanalian decadence and depravity of this nightclub. Lurching what was left of his guts into the bowl, glad to be rid of the pills Ishmael heard thumping and looking into the next cubicle, saw Mohammed humping Ali from behind.
KHADIJA THE BELOVED QUEEN of Sudan Speaks:
- The 0th Pillar of Islam.
Chapter 8: Quantum Leap
CAS Croon's HOTEL was right near the Kufurstendam, the former commercial heart of West Berlin. It was just a couple of hundred meters from the Berlin Zoo, Tiergarten and the Zoologishes Garten railway station, a place Croon remembered from the U2 song of his youth. Having scanned his new home for bugs and unpacked, Croon poured himself a few drinks, decided to call Jas, decided against it, settled in front of the TV instead. He was ready to sit through the classic clone episode of Melrose Place when a sudden whim overcame him, and he called up a search engine. He typed in Kurt Cobain Nirvana suicide time travel Quantum Leap event horizon Duff, crossed his fingers and hit the enter key. Seconds later the best match came up: Doctor Who and the Gates of Nirvana. Interesting, but it wasn't what Croon was after. He called up the complete Quantum Leap anthology and scanned through them 20 at a time in little windows on the TV, but none of them compared with what he'd seen in Berlin.Mist was rising from Puget Sound when Dr Sam Beckett possessed his latest victim, a chubby postal worker named Duff. Duff was riding a bicycle down a steep hill when his body was taken over and there followed the predictable gyrations and slapstick antics as Sam adjusted to the scene. He swerved swearing into the path of an oncoming car, narrowly missed splattering himself on the windsheild, careened into a tree on the other side of the road.
He pedalled off down the street, eyes open for clues. For readers not in the know, Quantum Leap worked like this: Sam was an archetypal all-American lost in the time-space continuum and desperate to get home. He had been wandering history for years, yanked from one life to the next, one week an ailing wrestling star, the next the mother of the little boy who grew up to shoot John Lennon. If being a time refugee wasn't punishment enough, Sam also had to work: healing broken hearts, preventing crimes, generally guiding the course of human history. He fucking hated it!<<What the...>> the popadanets said, his new body christened with a large bruise. He looked at his reflection in his sunglasses, appraised the long hair, untucked shirt, the Duff name-tag, the classic Doc Martin boots. Loud grunge music was playing through his headphones.
The admiral performed a complex sum on his calculator. Fuck knows what the reading was, but it graved Al out: <<Great god, this is more critical than I thought. We're nearly on the rim of the event horizon...>>
Chapter 9: Goldie and Bjork
CASSIUS CROON was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps, more Negroid than anything else, though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and his nose had a bridge. Sometimes (this was totally beyond Babel's comprehension) he would drop a Hindi or northern Australian Aboriginal expression into conversation. Moreover, his skin was brown rather than black, and the whites of his eyes were yellow (residual traces of opium addiction, suggesting a stay in Laos or at least a healthy love of alcohol. His broad cheekbones and narrow chin gave his face something of the viperine V. So natürlich, authentisch, empathisch, unprätentiös. His capacity for instant intimacy was incredible. In fact. their relationship started with such potential it reminded of her the great romances of history, Goldie and Bjork particularly (in their heyday months of course). It had just the right combination of Nordic menace and street fairytale. He carved Spoon digs Thorgarten! hearts into every tree in Charlottenburg. They talked about postIndustrialism and Bhangra. <<He's not going to brainwash me>> Bäbel said. <<I blame it on Rupert Murdoch>> he said. Then he suddenly realized the whole point of this exercise... and spat on the floor. As she rose her fist defiantly in the air he could have hardly felt more unsure. <<What if we’re already brainwashed?>> Her hand explored his waist, discovering one of the bullet scars on his abdomen. << She lifted her head to take a look. <<OH my god. You're an innie!>> Bäbel and Croon were in Tiergarten park, lazing under playdo clouds and a cellophane sun. <<I'm a what?>> Croon said. <<An innie. Your bellybutton sticks in. Some people are innies and some people are outies.>><<You’re an outie>> Croon said. <<Maybe it's a symbol for your personality.>>
As if to be ironic she started licking his stomach. Like a snail she moved, leaving a warm trail behind her.
"Some are the melody, some are the beat," Babel said. "Some are the gunshot, and some are the heat."
<<If we were on The X-Files, you’d be Scully and I'd be Mulder.>>
She had the ability to wither with her voice,
>>An inie. Your bellybutton goes in. Some people are inies and some people are outies... it's the duality of bellybutton expression.<<Sometimes Bjork would turn so vulnerable that even the most emaciated man would turn hero to protect her. One stormy night Croon found her hiding under a table in the conservatorium. <<We're in a lot of danger, aren't we?>> she whimpered.
<<Huh?>> Croon said, incredulous.If Croon and Bäbel were on Doctor Who he’d be the Doctor and she'd be one of his madder assistants, possibly Sheila. He'd be aloof, eccentric, brilliant, and she’d be just a bimbo in an animal skin.
Except Bäbel was no bimbo, and she soon got the hint that something was amiss. Like one night he came home from the video shop with that classic Transylvanian horror film The Keep. Cool, she thought... the movie had a good soundtrack and an excellent sex scene. But halfway through some scene when some Nazi bastards are doing nasty Nazi shit he started looking at her as if he was expecting some kind of reaction. Not getting any, he laughed and remarked about how bad-arsed it was. He’s not German she thought. No young German would act like that.<< The world is over-run, and the gods are angry. I should be fighting!>>
SUNLIGHT SPLAYED IN a field of daffodils, ramparts topped with royal standards, spice smells and girls in mordant marketplaces: Quilff was as pretty a Queendom as you'd find in all Creation, but its tranquility was beginning to impose an inverse feeling of fret upon Babel's sweet heart. All she seemed to do these days was fight. Even her halcyonic relationship with Croon was starting to disintegrate, and she was worried that not even mushrooms could bridge the growing rift.
<<I've dishonoured the clan, and Thor is calling for my doom. It wasn't supposed to end this way.>>
She commenced weeping, an indulgence Croon usually disliked in his "consolation obligation" zone. He gave her a regulation hug, said: <<Come on, it's just a storm.>> That didn't sound convincing so he hurriedly threw in: <<I know what you mean, celebritydom. It kills the soul, if you dwell on it too much.>>
"Going naked for a sign, or painted as birds" ... picture Babel mutated into a blue budgerigar or canary and floating in space.
Club Holocaust Bunker
WAITING IN THE QUEUE to enter the Bunker, Croon pondered Bäbel's chutzpah in selecting this place as the venue for their third date. Germans were generally ashamed of their Nazi heritage and Bäbel was more progressive than most. He was also mystified as to why Stormgarten's name didn't come up in any search engine. If the dude was such a monster, why hadn't he been liquidated decades ago? Mossad was ruthless when it came to revenge. - a cemetary of mechanical corpses which looked as if they might all start working again at any moment - magnetos, monophase transformers, turbines, convertors, steam engines, dynamos. these were once airplane engines. --- as if the progeny of Reason and the Enlightenment had been condemned to stand guard over the ultimate symbol of Tyranny and Horror. --In fact, nothing about this case made any sense.. Paval Pozynak enters the Club Holocaust Bunker. Sunk in the sandy soil were a jumble of artefacts from the Battle of 1945: Haubitzen (howizters) jutting out at odd angles, T-34 tanks, and shattered bicycles; from the lightpoles hung plastic kamikaze planes. Some of the weapons were intact, including artillery shells which might possibly be still live; others were only skeletons or chassis, rods and cranks that spoke of the horror and brutality of war. You could imagine the awful violence which occurred here, as blockades manned by grandfathers and Hitler Youth made their last stand against the Red Army. Whether this was the "real" Bunker or not was kind of beside the point; all of Berlin was a cauldron at that time. Into the entrance, Euros were exchanged for flourescent stamps, the crowd pushed on, and Croon found himself being carried downward. Presently, upon that slope, Pavel spied a huddle of squatting people, and a rather strange looking individual in a shellsuit and parachute lecturing them on the ethics of gravity and the inherent properties of falling bodies. Pavel moved on -- or rather, was pushed by the stream of clubbers behind. On and on pulsed the mass of bodies, of all genders and persuasions, or all the possible perversions. Suddenly giddy with the darkness and the smell of someone's cologne or a passing Ethiopian joint, Pavel found himself tripping on a piece of broken stair. He rolled over and over recklessly sheer into the arms of the gaping crowd below, dropping into a perfect mound of writhing forms and waving legs and arms. When he was done stumbling and spinning the mass disentangled itself and he was able to raise his head from the shoulder of someone on whom he had fallen, lifting him, or her -- which was it? -- into a dancing posture. All around, people were writhing like wheat-stalks in a hurricane, and the breakbeats sounded like irregular machine gun bursts, and the air was full with the roar of industrial implements and horns and the frenzied cries of a thousand birds. All around him, people were whirling like dervishes, and even the vast chamber itself seemed to spinning, rotating about a mysterious space within.
She looked up, and he noticed her eyes were the palest shade of blue, like icebergs. Croon suddenly realised he had been too bold, and silently cursed himself. >>I'm going to get some coffee<< she said.
A waitress came by with a steaming pot. >>Can I get anyone anymore coffee?<< she said.
She had permed her hair blonde and looked the full faded 70s safari star. <<But surely there's a physical difference?>>
<<Ah none, none that you can see. It's all... it's all internal with birds.
She stared him in the eye, threw him a gleam. <<Isn't that odd.>>
<<DOWN DOWN>> a deep reptilian voice was intoning, as if the Devil Himself had stepped up into the MC's booth. <<This is the way we go down.>>
AHHHHH, SPIDER SILK: it seemed everyone was wearing it in the crowded streets and elevated walkways of NewCanton. They should have been, because spider silk was the third most important force driving the economy here. Dulled into the respectable Calvin Klein blues and greys of the financial district's Metro stops, dazzling with its native sheen in the strobeclubs... spider silk was the wonder fabric of the 00s, and Guangzhou processed about 90 per cent of the global trade. It permeated the very structure of the SuperCity, its profits stringing out miles of monorails and fibre optics into the countryside, and from above Guangzhou had even begun to resemble a spider's web: delicate but strong, beautiful but a crueler peasant trap than ever was. Even Lachlan Murdoch, News Corp's big man in south-east Asia, was wearing spider silk when he arrived at Jacky Tung's cloudhigh pad. He should have been, because Tung was the second most important force driving the trade here. To wear anything else would have been a mark of disrespect. But it was more than that: as Murdoch and his henchmen were ushered into the anteroom he couldn't help thinking that he was being subjected to some kind of test. While both parties had been moving towards partnership for some time, the Australians in particular had found the going hard. Murdoch simply couldn't understand the Oriental mind. MAYBE THIS IS A BIT MUCH, THIS GIFT, he thought. TOO LAVISH. ANYWAY, IT'S TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW - LET'S DO IT!
GUANGZHOU WAS LEGENDARY for its karaoke bars, and none was more loved than the The Cosmetic Carp, stuck in the middle of the manga quarter. Murdoch and his firm went there to celebrate the panda breakthrough. That the club was owned by Tung's cousin was, of course, incidental.
Presently they were approached by a young woman in a spider kimono who introduced herself as the proprietor of the club. <<Cheung Li>> she said. <<I understand you met my father today.>>
Call him paranoid, but years in the seedy world of private investigation had taught Croon the virtue of being prepared. Of course, like all good detectives, he possessed the spirit of the voyeur --- it kind of went with his line of work. But Croon just wanted to make sure Ken-Ichi and Hana were harmless before he lugged his ass into the lobby of their Tokyo hotel. The enigma of his invitation to the Japanese capital puzzled him greatly, and his suspicion levels were high. However, even a cursory glance at K&H slouched over the hotel counter was enough to reassure him that they posed no threat. If there were any ninja stars to be flung at him tonight, it wasn't going to come from them. They ignored him as he entered the foyer, approached the desk, cleared his throat, even went so far as to drop his bag down on the counter. Ken-Ichi was poking randomly at the computer and Hana was misfiling thousands of tiny little oaktag cards, the color of old bananas, in a small wooden drawer.
<<Look, I don't mean to be difficult. It's just I've always had three rules, three rules to guide me threw my work. One, I never shave my chest. Two, I don't play gays - not that I'm just homophobic, it's just not my thing. Three, this is most important - I don't reveal my true identity. In this kind of work, anonymity is crucial.>>
Chapter 12: Gravity
AHHH, CROCODILE skin: it seemed everyone was wearing it in the air-con malls and smoky pubs of Greater Waluralla. It should have been, because crocodile skin was the fourth most important force driving the economy there. Sewn into nimble shoes and handbags for the lucrative Asian market, flaunting its Jim Morrison charms on the catwalks and at all the suburban rodeos... crocodile leather was the fashion statement of 00s, and Darwin processed about 40 per cent of the global trade. "Northern Australia rides on the cock of a freshwater croc," that's what the locals said, and the outskirts of Darwin were pregnant with reptile farms. FRANZ HOEBBARD KNEW SOMETHING WAS AMISS WHEN HE ARRIVED AT HIS tropical retreat after another BACKBREAKING day at the FACTORY. Maybe it was a chair or potplant moved so slightly out of place, or the faint suggestion of perfume in the air. Whatever. There was danger in the air, and the animal in Hoebbard's mind could sense its deadly menace. So, he proceeded into the house carefully, deliberately - this was the Wild North, after all, and he knew how rough things could get. He padded stealthily across the atrium, its plants now drowning in the claustrophobic colors of sunset. Checking to see he had his gun, he quietly pushed open his bedroom door. Nobody here, he thought... which was good because that was where he kept all his cash. He padded across the bedroom, turned the knob of the study door...
<<I've seen shows on TV about the amazing powers of martial arts," Hoebbard said. <<Why, I heard in the Boxer Rebellion, kung fu fighters caught bullets in their bellies."
<<This isn't a John Woo film," the copper said. "No offence, but you don't seem like the richest man in Darwin."WALURALLA OF the 00s was a Pac-Rim city on the edge of the south-east Asian powerhouse. Consequently, kung fu was an almost mandatory business skill. In 2003, keen to exploit the Second Asian Boom, Australia declared most of its northern coastline a Special Economic Zone. Business taxes were dropped, immigration restrictions eased, environmental concerns sort of hushed over for a while. More than 50,000 migrants - southern whites, Indonesian entrepreneurs, Vietnamese shitkickers, Chinese and South Africans and Russians - headed for the new gold rush. Most of them ended up in Greater Darwin, a prefab sprawl starting to resemble a cross between southern California and upmarket Bangkok.
"I wouldn't go around making allegations like that," the cop said. Darwin had the largest privatised police service in the world, and Hoebbard's own company owned shares. "I could charge you with slander."
>>WHY YOU LITTLE BITCH<< HOEBBARD SAID. HE CUPPED HIS HANDS WITH FULL INTENTS TO SLAP HER ONE SHE’D REMEMBER BUT SHE JUST POKED OUT HER TONGUE AND SOMER-BOLTED OUT OF HIS RANGE. SHE DROPPED A CARD ON THE TABLE ON HER WAY OUT THE WINDOW AND IT READ:
Then again, he wasn't responding to her hints. One stormy night Croon found her hiding under the kitchen table. << We're in a lot of danger, aren't we?>>
<< Huh?>>
<< It's Thor, the god of vengeance, and he despises me.>>
"I descended from thunder and storm, hurricane and gale...>>
id. He rose from his seat on the other sngers." SUNLIGHT SPLAYED IN a field of daffodils, ramparts topped with royal standards, spice smells and girls in mordant market-places: Quilff was as pretty a Queendom as you'd find in all Creation, but its tranquility was beginning to impose an inverse feeling of fret upon Bjork's sweet heart. All she seemed to do these days was fight. Even her halcyonic friendship with Croon was starting to disintegrate, and she was worried that not even mushrooms could bridge the growing rift.and an ornamental bong. He <<Jes Speaking of coffee here's three young men sippin
"They've been waiting for you," Moya said. "This is Mr Wagen "We're lawyers," Mr Wagenaar said, offering his hand nonetheless. "From Wagenaar and Associates. Pavel here is our client. Mr Brugmans said, <<Oh, we've got no concern about liability. Willem fingered his ornamental bong as if it were, say, a flute. <<So what I have got to do with it?.>>
<<When a man wakes up one morning and finds uture.>> Mr Kroon said. <<Especially if he's a school dropout and is living in an age of permanent 10 per cent unemployment. We could milk you for 30 million but is 30 million enough? Your a PR man, Mr Boonzajer," Mr Kroon smiling now, <<you understand these things..>>
"YOU'RE not actually saying>> Willem was reading Paval's bio over morning tea biscuits, guarana flakes in them to help preserve stamina. Paval was born in the Ukraine in 1982 and moved Dutchward with his parents when the EC came. In Rotterdam he fell into EC habits like crack cocaine and Gabba techno. The story about him being a school dropout was true and there were documents to prove it. He had acne as well. When he was 16 he started using Glam facewash to dry out his zits. It was reasonabP> Even Lachlan Murdoch, News Corp's big man in south-east Asia, was wearing spider silk when he arrived at Jacky Tung's cloudhigh pad. He should have been, because Tung was the second most important force driving the trade here. To wear anything else would have been a mark of disrespect. But it was more than that: as Murdoch and his henchmen were ushered into the anteroom he couldn't help thinking that he was being subjected to some kind of test. While both parties had been moving towards partnership for some time, the Australians in particular had found the going hard. Murdoch simply couldn't understand the Oriental mind. MAYBE THIS IS A BIT MUCH, THIS GIFT, he thought. TOO LAVISH. ANYWAY, IT'S TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW - LET'S DO IT!
"That's why we want to have fun with it," Mr Kroon said. "Glam makes the world's first Green Man. We'll make a fucking mint!"
THE NIGHT BEFORE WILLEM was at one of his courses, this one a Jungian therapy group. The topic of the night was fairytales and the archetype they represented. The woman in front of Willem began by talking about Jenny Longtchildren. After 25 minutes the coordinator had to interrupt and pass the torch to Willem. IN U2's Zoo Station a man sat in a leather jacket and hid behind a thick moustache and an evening newspaper. Dodgy as fuck, as Thorsten would say. The man looked Russian, a member of Germany's large guestworker community and his moustache twitched like the ticking of a clock. He looked up at a big electric clock, studied the press of evening commuters and lit a pipe.
It is sometimes glimpsed as a movement over the shouldeatter meet. But unless you can submerge yourself all you can do is stand at the brink of this world and catch flashes of what lies below the opaque surface. Only sometimes does someone burst through the skin and become a part of it, merging, breathing underwater.>>
Hoebbard still had a questioning look on his face so Sara said, "Let me it another way. In 1966 Soeharto became president of Indonesia, suppressed dissident thought, crushed secessionist tendencies, brought society under strict state control. In the 1980s and 1990s, inspired by the tiger growth of other south east Asian nations, Soeharto encouraged a consumer revolution. He thought a large middle class would strengthen the nation. We all know where it ended."
Getting redressed for work Willem dropped as casually as he could, "Fucking hell. I met a green man today.>>
Chapter 11: Gross Misconduct
GÜNTHER GROSS (PROFILE: MINNESOTA-BORN, 41, DIVORCED) STUCK HIS head around the doorway and bawled: <<Yo Paul, quittin' time. You ready?>> It was late afternoon, and grey Californian rain was railing against the windows. Paul Luszeit grinned and swung his feet down from his desk. He gave one last, cursory glance to the file he had been reading and stood up. ---alpha---gamma--- <<Sure, what the hell... it's Friday.>> He gestured the mountain of paperwork on his desk. <<But these aren't going anywhere.>> <<Okay, I'm moving>> Paul said, picking up his heartshaped phone. <<I just have to check my machine.>><<Still getting those crank calls?" he asked.
Luszeit shook his head. He shook it decisively. <<No, there was another one... if you were into choirboys, I'd have let you listen.>> Luszeit was uncharacteristically abrupt. He was uncomfortable talking about this with anyone, even in the light of Day. <<You think this guy would have realized your straight already and moved on."As Paul walked up the path their eyes met. His face was angelic, his teeth buffed and shining (what an LA cliche!) His eyes were bright, darkly ringed points: set in that moist, waxy face they were oddly unsettling, but held his for an uncomfortably long moment before he broke contact and kept walking. He clutched at his arm with fingers that dug in like calipers. It hurt.
<<Read the truth. The world is flat. The revelations of Columbus are not what they appear. The universe is a membrane, not a sphere.>>
The avenging angel pulled him closer, kind of threatening. <<Brane theory is no joke. Some of the top scientists in the world support it. The question is, do you?>> He thrust two pamphlets into his hand. Paul was about to refuse when he realised -- huh? -- he was trembling.
<<Please, sir, a moment>> he said. Paul winced, trying to twist his arm away, but to no avail. He was locked in a grip of pain.<<Read the truth. The world is flat. The revelations of Columbus are not what they appear. The universe is a membrane, not a sphere.>>
Amparro was almost a foot shorter than the other girl behind the counter. Only her head and shoulders projected above the counter as she logged packages. A teenaged boy buying a stack of posters said something funny and her heartshaped face caught the light, glowing as she laughed. When she shook her head her brown hair shimmered in ringlets, the highlights sparkling.
Bad idea, he thought as he reached for the play button on the answering machine. He shook his head and tried to remember when he'd last gotten this drunk. The reason wasn't a real mystery; Gross had spent the entire night pumping him for information about the hang-up calls. Luszeit had left the bar abruptly when Day, after his fourth or fifth drink, had offered the suggestion that the caller was Luszeit's girlfriend, Andrea.
the big guy liked to eat, and his kitchen (kuche) was as well equipped as any of the fancier Ku'damm restaurants. When Gross was not slaving extra hours at his corporate Eishair deathtower, or downing Steins and/or weeners in pretty Prussian parks, the guru could be found lavishing guests with some gom balante or goulash at home, or merely feeding his own huge appetite. Gross was a classy man, however brusque his dealings in the business worlds -- he was an entirely different man at home. Just check out his kitchen -- it would have shamed many of the great restaurants of Germany.
Sato squinted through alcohol-hazed eyes. He did not recognise the man. The stranger was plump, exuberant, with large projecting ears, a full head of tightly curled light hair, and an irrepressible smile. Sato guessed he German (he later discovered he was Dutch.) He bowed and gestured the man to sit down.
Chapter 9: Electric Toasterland
A PASTY-FACED MAN IN A PIN-STRIPE was waiting for Brett Weir apied with the Cheung Li-less gloom to notice him at first. When the warden slotted his giant key into the giant lock and swung open the giant steel door the man in the pin-stripe urgently - nervously - preened his short brown hair. He was waiting patiently at the prison gate, all that rong><<< Gerald Brugmans he said. <<Your lawyer. I'm here to represent you.
BRUGMANS' OFFICE WAS THE typical legal: piles of books on the shelves and mahogany furniture. Brett and Phillip Doof sat in padded leather chairs smoking Cuban cigars and chatting about old times. They'd made themselveas on the other side of the desk in a hands-free conversation with what could be best described a disgruntled client. Lucky it was hands-free because he needed both hands to gesticulate as he pleaded for another chance. Finally he slammed down the phone and swore, softly. He swore under his breath. <<Was that guy bugging you?>> Brett asked. <<We could sort him out if he's too much trouble>> Phillip Doof said.
THE SLIM YOUNG MOVIESTAR in the skin-graft briefs sprinted down the diving board and with a loud cry of <<This is how it's done!" sprung into the air. He somersaulted once, knees clenched, before unfolding smoothly into the pool. Applause and cheers of <<Straight!" rated him from women sunning in deck chairs on the shore. He bowed as he emerged from the water, stepped into a waiting towel. Leonardo di Caprio was not to be outdone. Snorting like a bull on the streets of Pamplona he charged down the board, jumped clumsily, succeeded in rotating at least 270 degrees... then sprawled backfirst across the concrete skin of the pool. He glowered painfully as he sank to the bottom. "Dude," the film star said, "you've got to turn your legs before you land." In one corner, a girl in a polkadot bikini was jerking uncontrollably through the early stages of a heroin overdose. In another, more secluded corner, a couple were groaning through the latter stages of anal sex.
Arnold Ongarol>Why did you make a prank phone call to the Premier of China on the night of Halloween 2008, thereby precipitating an international crisis which gravely embarrassed the Government of the United States of America?>>
Chapter 15: Sunsilk
In the presidential section Hana Isomura, a slim, darkhaired girl in her late preteens, served a breakfast of miso soup and rice. As she wheeled the breakfast cart down the aisle she observed that some of the passengers were dozing in their shindai style skybeds while others were checking their itineraries or the latest bulletins from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, or simply taking forlorn last looks at the fading stars. When she came to the somewhat handsome man in the goldstreaked Vuitton suit she put on her best smile and took special care in arranging his tray. Hana-chan had been told that he was Dr Ichiro Sato, but she didn't need any advice - Sato was a legend in Japan, and every teenager knew of his relentless zeal for space. One day there would be Nipponese colonies on the moon, and tunnels deep into the fifth dimension (the so called Parallel Branes Project) - Ichiro was the guiding light behind all of them, the wind in the sail. Everybody knew Sensei, he was more famous than baseball players. So Hana-chan put on her best smile when she came to the somewhat handsome and slightly greying man in the goldstreaked Vuitton suit and Gucci shoes, as if she was serving the Emperor. This is simply, undeniably how it happened. <<Yes, could I have the basashi (raw horse meat) please, and a glass of cold tea>> said Sato-sama, who was known to be eccentric.Hotman Madison, SETI's top man in Indonesia, was waiting for Sato in the arrivals lounge. That was SETI short for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and Madison looked as Batak traditional as this goddamned airport terminal. He was waiting in the airport lounge wearing a Nike baseball cap, Fila shell jacket (despite the suffocating heat outside) and Adidas shoes.... how's that for cross dressing! Sato, though he prided himself on his liberation from Japan's strict social codes, found the lack of suit and tie somewhat disconcerting. What kind of operation were they running down here in Indonesia anyway? And why the hell hadn't he heard a god-damned thing about this Sumatran radio telescope? Painfully, reluctantly, Sato bowed to the clown.
The seats embraced him, rather than submitted to be sat upon (Time Machine reference!) Going into the tunnel leads to a Lynchian scene, he sees all of the possible branes:A powerful, well-built man in a lame Versace suit stood as close as legally possible to the shop entrance, a brash and rather improbable contrast to the poverty consciousness of the shop. He was attempting to hand slips of paper to Chucky Poong cheap customers as they entered or left the shop.
Even sticks of dynamite. They used to be kept in a wooden box out back, and men from the mines used to send little kids down to the store to pick them up. The mines closed long ago, but the shelves were still stacked with cans and bags and boxes and bottles. The back office was still littered with handwritten dockets and grocery orders to be picked and packed for delivery by a boy on a bike (so much for the e-commerce revolution!) And the "shanglang" cash system still whistled across the ceiling, irritating the likes of Amparro Laxamana, who considered herself too trendy to be working in such a musty old dump.
It was 14.52.34, and sunlight was streaming into his 69th story workspace inside the Nippon Space Research and Development tower, which rocketed up from the Yokohama foreshore like some kind of retro Vostok bus. Dr Sato preened his hair nervously, stole another glance at that clock, took a puff of his Marlboro. He considered phoning reception again downstairs, thought better of it, then decided to call them anyway. He asked them iimportant meeting. She was more than an hour late, and there were no reports of delays at the arrivals deck at Narita Airport. Dr Sato knew that, because he had the Narita website open on his laptop, and it said her flight had already landed. She wasn't answering her cellphone, and neither was her driver. And according to all the online information, there were no reports of cellphone blackouts in the networks in this part of Japan. And no unusual sunspot activity either. So, what was going on?
The reception staff said no in a flurry of typical Japanese apologies -- no, they were very sorry, they definitely hadn't seen her. Sato apologised as well -- "Sumimasen... I'm sorry for disturbing you." He hung up the phone, bowing. It was 14.56.03, and still no sign of the impeccable and always punctual Cheung Li. 彼女はどこ？ She couldn't have been caught in traffic -- Sato had the traffic flows on his monitor to prove it, and there were no traffic jams between here and the airport. There was an overturned truck somewhere, but apart from that all the lanes were moving fast. She should have been here by now, bunkered down in a crisis meeting. He needed her now! And why wasn't she answering her phone? Dr Sato stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray, and lit another one. He was a nervous wreck! It was already 14.56.16.His office was a mishmash of high tech and traditional Japanese styles, straw and jet black. There were for, example, tatami mats on the floor and Japanese calligraphy posters hanging from the walls, extolling noble qualities. There was an ancient Noh theatre mask on display near to the door, the type worn by actors in oldfashioned plays. In absolute contrast to the tranquility of the past horoscopes, randomly pulled from the Net, little model rockets orbiting crystal moons, the obligatory framed photograph of Albert Einstein. There was also a photo of Sato with Cheung Li during a recent field trip to Sri Lanka, praying at the shrine of Arthur C Clarke. Dr Sato workr, and it was his job to dream Japan into outer space. The United States was a declining power these days, paranoid and bankrupt, and Asian countries were scrambling to fill the gap. Who would plant the first colony on Mars --- China, India or Japan? But now, for the moment, who cared? There was bigger news on the grapevine, welcome relief from years of terror alerts and predictions of Armageddon.
Cheung Li had been detained at the airport in Guangzhou, and her passport seized...
The taxi stopped. Madison turned and looked at him expectantly. Sato thought for a moment that he had gotten lost and was looking to Sato for instructions. The road terminated here, in a parking lot mysteriously placed in the middle of the cloud forest. Sato saw half a dozen big airconditioned trailers bearing the logos of Nipponese, German and American firms; a couple of dozen cars; as many buses. Two monkeys with giant stiff penises were fighting over some booty from a Dumpster. A wall of green rose at the end of the road, a green so dark it was almost black. But when he randomly pulled a letter from the bag and saw the Seattle address and the big words Kurt Cobain, the doctor felt a surge of delight. <<No way>> he said. <<This is too much!>>Cobain's house was the big one at the top of the hill. Sam rang the buzzer at the gate, waited nervously for a response.
NEW MUSK EDIT: <<I'm trying to build up a zoo>> Tung said. <<How Montgomery Burns of me!>>
Murdoch recognised the compliment and smiled. <<Yes, I heard about the zoo>> he said. <<That's why... that's why I felt it appropriate to... gentlemen, the gift!>>
An uncomfortable silence developed. <<Well>> Hoebbard said <<can't you dust for your some prints or something?>>
<<Not unless you pay for it mate!>> The cop tipped his hat, took one last look out the window and smirked. <<We'll take care of things.>>
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