Gojiro (38 page)

“The Beam! It’s inside his head!”

Komodo keystroked feverishly, desperate to locate the impulse on his overlays. It didn’t take long. When he saw it, Komodo gulped. Once that 90 Series receptor had been just a single neural coupling, one among billions, but now it stood by itself, a sole, tiny blinking star amid the blank. Komodo amplified the pulsating image until it filled the Dishscreen. It didn’t look different from the usual Quadcameral neuron: a pair of opposable cerebral stanchions, topped by the jagged sear of synapsial energy. But it was—radically, remarkably—different.

“My God,” Komodo said softly, “the Beam has refastened the 90 Series neurons. It has taken the place of the truncated synapsial force. It’s all that’s left of him. The only thing keeping him alive.”

* * *

First he saw pi, a ruthless irony. There was a time he’d spend whole days, even weeks, happily employing that useful Hellenism, extending it dozens of decimal places beyond the standard 3.14 so as to more precisely compute the circumference of the Triple Rings upon Gojiro’s chest—the chest that no longer existed. But that Beamically supplied energy reconnecting the monster’s last neuron was no fixed thing. Bonewhite phosphor amid the lusterless steel gray of the Dishscreen, it roiled, refigured, bisected. What did it look like now? Two tildes over a wayward
n
? Twin lightning strikes between radar towers? These items came to mind. But then Komodo settled on one imprint and one alone. “The Equal Sign,” he murmured.

Years before, Komodo had tried to convince Gojiro of the relevance of the Equal Sign within the working of the Instant of Reprimordialization. “In considering the properties of the eternal equation Prewire = Identity, we would make a grievous error to assume that the equal sign is nothing more than a mathematical convention, a simple conduit to be taken for granted. On the contrary, it represents a terrible chasm, a yawning breach. Oh, my own true friend, Reprimordialization is no easy thing, no walk in the park. It is Belief, personal decision. To view Identity from across the river is not enough. We must seize it, immerse ourselves in it. In my mind, this is the significance of the Equal Sign. It is Faith. That is the leap we must make. The Leap across the Equal Sign!”

Peering up at that quivering image on the Dishscreen, Komodo felt only despair. It was like being back on Radioactive Island, watching those seemingly endless reruns of Gojiro’s Black Spot Dream. “Leap!” he screamed then, urging that vacillating youngest zardplebe to plunge into the dark pool—only to see him go up but never come down. Now the whole thing was repeating itself, Komodo thought. Once again a youngest zardplebe, in this case disguised as a five-hundred-foot-tall King of Monsters, Friend to Atoms and goaded by a hopelessly idealistic, terminally foolhardy friend, had attempted to leap—only to be wrenched, yet another time, from the world he knew. This was the futility of that lone idiogram on the Dishscreen, Komodo decided; it was possible that even at that moment, his friend was waking up lonely and afraid inside another volcano, on another charred island, and calling out for another boy. Komodo put his head down on the keyboard. Once that Equal Sign had represented so much promise to him. But now it was nothing more than a pair of horizontal prison bars, a hideous limbo.

“Oh, my own true friend! I should have listened when you spoke,” Komodo sobbed. “You were right. There are lines that should not be crossed. Mr. Brooks’s equation should never have been touched. Mine
was
a mutant’s gamble, the result of which now stands before me. You are caught up in a realm out of time, out of space . . . like a coin forever on its side.”

“Wrong!” The word rang through the White Light Chamber, sheared through Komodo’s sobs.

“Wrong?” He’d almost forgotten about Sheila Brooks.

“Wrong!” She stood in front of that bank of Philcos and Admirals, her palms pressed to her pasty cheeks. “It’s not right, not what it’s supposed to be!”

Komodo raced over. Joseph Brooks was on those monitors, in his searching position, as always. Now Sheila was backing away from the picture. At her feet was her stereopticon. Komodo bent down and examined it once more: Joseph Prometheus Brooks and Leona Ross Brooks standing in that Valley, happy. And why not? They were soon to have a baby. The Echo Man had it right, Komodo noted. Sheila did have her mother’s eyes.

“His arms are
empty
! They’re not supposed to be empty!”

Komodo turned to the monitor. “You refer to the cradling position, Ms. Brooks. A most enigmatic—”

“It’s
wrong
. That’s not how it is in . . . In . . .”

Komodo came closer now. He could feel her struggling, trying to battle her way from Hell. “Not the same as in what?”

“As in
Gojiro vs. Joseph Prometheus Brooks in the Valley of Decision
!” The words flew out in a solid stream.

Komodo peered at the monitors again, then back at the stereopticon. Now he understood. It had started when Leona came across the country, heading for Los Angeles with her mother. Except their train broke down. Then she wandered away, found her way into the Valley. She met the Echo Man there—the poor, sad Echo Man, hope of a dying Clan. He thought she was the one who would help him fulfill his mission, renew his kind. But he was wrong. Instead, she saw the Beam and painted what she saw, in that X-ray style. That part was easy enough, Komodo thought, rubbing his chin. But what about Joseph Brooks? He wasn’t in the Beam. No, that was different. Brooks was Leona’s contribution; she
put
the scientist in the Encrucijada. Somehow, in the unknowable workings of her artist soul, she understood that the Beam was incomplete, that it needed a
catalyst
, someone to set the Power into motion. Then, in a Paris bar, she saw her vision playing “In a Mist” on a clarinet and convinced him of his destiny.

Komodo looked over to where Sheila Brooks stood, still yelling that her father’s searching position, the same stance her mother had foreseen in her X-ray painting, was wrong. This was not exactly accurate, Komodo decided. “Unfinished” was a better term. The notion that any idea—any vision—was the product of an individual practitioner, or even a single generation, struck Komodo as presumptuous. More than likely it would have to be passed on, like a baton in a relay race, to the next visionary, and the next—sifted and simmered through who knew how many generations of brains before it came into perfect focus.

“His arms aren’t empty!” she screamed again. “He’s holding . . .” She stopped now.

“Ms. Brooks! Tell me what you see!”

“Victor! What’s Victor doing on television?”

Komodo turned to the monitors once more. Those extra surveillance cameras, part of Shig’s exhaustive security apparatus, had preempted Joseph Prometheus Brooks. Victor Stiller was there instead, standing beside his Mercedes, relentlessly dapper in a summer suit. Several men in overalls milled around what looked to be a camouflaged oil rig.

A man was yelling, motioning everyone to stand back. “Gonna rip!” The rig shook, black liquid surging out.

“Owww!” The pain came simultaneously with that gusher, a thud between his eyes that knocked Komodo off his feet. He tried to get up but fell back down again.

“Are you all right?” Sheila Brooks asked.

“A momentary balance problem.” That’s when he saw what was happening on the Dishscreen, the way the Equal Sign was flickering, arcing like a poorly screwed-in bulb. Off, then on, off again. “My own true friend!” It was like watching a dozen deaths, a dozen resurrections. With the pumper’s every gush, the signal grew fainter.

Amid the ensuing panic, one phrase stood out: “What do fossils mean but fossil fuels?” That was the riddle of the Encrucijada, Komodo understood then, the reason Leona Brooks brought Joseph Brooks there to make the Bomb, the reason a lizard and a boy had come from so far to seek their Identities in that sandy, comet-made bowl where the dinosaurs perished.

“The Beam! It comes from oil!”

On the monitors, the well spurted again, black fluid spewing to the stark sky. Stiller’s plan was all too plain: He’d used his position and the secrecy surrounding Joseph Brooks to quietly pilfer the Valley’s lode and then got his lawyers to trump up that specious Native Lands Act case on behalf of the Echo Man as a fallback, so he could keep on stealing. An ingenious scheme, to be sure, but a scheme nevertheless. In the end, just another tawdry caper. Even at this late date, Komodo could not help but feel sorry for Stiller. Why would a man who once seemed capable of undertaking Life’s great gambits settle for something so paltry? What base instinct could have possessed him to dispassionately siphon the Beam itself from the sacred geologies, to shunt it into profane refineries, brand-name pumps, and combusting engines so that Hope might be blown choking and pointless out the ends of a billion exhaust pipes? Kleptomancer! It was difficult to imagine a more heinous crime.

Komodo looked at the Dishscreen, watched that Equal Sign dissolve. “He’s murdering my friend!”

Except then: Boom! On the monitors all that could be seen was the flying debris, those roustabouts staggering through the dust, their faces dusked like Jolson. Stiller got it bad. His hair standing on end, his suit shredded, he groped through the swirling grit like a demented pilgrim, irredeemably lost in the maelstrom of his own making. Probably he never even saw those crazy Atoms running back and forth, yowling triumph. They always loved a good explosion.

“Too late!” Komodo cried, turning back to the Dishscreen. The Beamic energy sustaining the monster’s lastmost neural coupling flared one last time, embered, faded away. Stiller’s offending shaft had pierced through the Beam’s heart, dealt the Font a fatal blow. “My own true friend . . . you are dying. I cannot help you.”

Except right then, Sheila Brooks came lurching across the White Light Chamber. “That Indian, he told me I would see! He said this would do it. Take it!” She crammed the black vial into Komodo’s hand.

Komodo held the Echo Man’s flask up, watched the dark fluid inside flow from side to side. “Blood . . .
blood from the earth!
The Varanidid’s blood—the Black Spot.”

“What?”

“Something he always dreamed of.”

Komodo wedged the cork stopper from the small container, set it down beside his beakers and bunsens. With the utmost care, he grasped the Goldplate Pill between his fingertips. The pellet fit perfectly within the mouth of the vial. Komodo guided it down until it was completely immersed in the black fluid.

“Leap, my own true friend . . . leap into the Black Spot.”

It took a moment, a horrible forever. But the image bled back onto the screen. That 90 Series neuron, short-circuited so long ago, had been resuscitated yet again. Komodo turned to embrace Sheila Brooks. But she wasn’t beside him anymore. She was back in front of those monitors, staring at her father.

“It was fun, you know, riding around together. I didn’t make that up. We had a lot of fun before they came and took him away . . .” She was crying now. “He looks so lonely out there, all by himself. Why didn’t he try to . . . call me up or something, you know? I could have kept his secret. Nobody had to know. Damn it!” She began beating on the monitor screens with her fists.

Komodo came near to comfort her, but she pulled away. “You don’t know what it’s like, not to know who you are . . . where you come from.”

“But I do.”

She was crying harder now. She looked back at her father. “Why’s he out there? What’s he trying to see?”

Komodo put his arms around her, held her tight, tried to make her feel safe. “What
you
see. That same thing.”

“But what’s that?”

“Ms. Brooks, please listen. There are certain things I must tell you.” Komodo glanced up at the Equal Sign now blazing on the Dishscreen. “You see, once, very long ago, my friend had a Muse, who we called Budd Hazard. In our beginnings, when we were all alone in a cold dark place, Budd Hazard pointed the way for us, turned us toward the Light. However, it is only in the past few days that I have come to truly understand much of what he said. For instance, the Tenacity of Genes and Dreams: ‘Dreams and Genes, it’s them that stitch the seams.’ That’s what Budd Hazard said. Ms. Brooks, did you notice that crook in Ebi’s eyebrow?”

Sheila Brooks blew her nose, nodded.

“So many times, over the years, I would steal a peek at that crook. There was a special angle to it that gave me so much pleasure; I never knew quite why. Ms. Brooks—once I was like you. All that I knew was taken from me, everything that I was. These things have now been returned to me. I’ve reached back to my beginnings. And now I know the source of that crook in Ebi’s eyebrow. It came from my own mother—all those years, without knowing so, I saw my mother in Ebi. Somehow, across the great abyss, an exploded generation, that crook persisted.”

“Ebi’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes. She was my daughter. I could not say that before.”

“I knew it. I don’t know how, but I did.”

Komodo squeezed her tighter. “Ms. Brooks, there is much that must be accomplished in a short time. We must adhere to Budd Hazard’s teaching, we must demonstrate the Tenacity of Genes and Dreams. We inherit more than the simple helix coil from those who gave us life. We take on their aspirations, their hopes and wishes . . . their delusions as well. Ms. Brooks, your mother came to this Valley and dreamed of your father standing at its center. Just as he is right now. That same vision lives inside you—it always has. Your mother’s own unfinished vision! You are the only one who can complete it. We must get it out of your head. It is the only chance—
Gojiro vs. Joseph Prometheus Brooks in the Valley of Decision
. The movie must be made!”

Sheila Brooks wailed. “But how? What do you want me to do?”

“Are you afraid of needles, Ms. Brooks?”

“You mean shots?” Suddenly, there was a wariness to her voice.

“Not exactly.” Komodo reached into his pajama pocket and pulled out a four-inch probe. “I’m sorry I’ve not yet developed a more sophisticated method. The hookup will be subcutaneous in the parietal.”

“The what?”