Kalifornia (22 page)

“Good. Because it’s dangerous to be here. If anyone knew you’d
found me, there would be trouble. I don’t think I could protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

She looked back at the sleeping baby, then took Sandy by the arm.
“Come with me. I don’t know what she hears. Her wires never sleep, you see. She’s
constantly picking up things. You’d better pretend she’s still controlling
you.”

They went into the corridor, surprising several Daughters who were
watching the door. Sandy tried making his voice squeaky and small again, in
imitation of Kali.

“Get away from there!” he said. “I see everything you do.”

They scurried away. His mother, veiled and playing High Priestess
again, led him through a large room with a stage at one end and row upon row of
seats. A few Daughters sat frozen in their seats, watching mother and son pass.
She took him up a narrow flight of stairs and into a tiny room with a window at
one end. A candle in a glass jar sat flickering on the ledge. Sandy peered
through the window and looked down on the huge chamber through which they had
just passed.

“What is this place?” he asked. “An old church?”

“It was a movie theater. You wouldn’t remember those. Here, it’s
time for the midnight show.”

She flipped a switch on a black metal box, and a flood of light
poured through the window. The far wall of the temple grew startlingly bright.

“Electricity is strictly forbidden in the temple; the Daughters
think this light is generated by the power of Kali’s spirit. Actually we have a
hidden power line coming into the building. I need it to run the computer I’m
using to program Kali. She has an incredible mind. Her human brain is merged
with something of the machine. It’s part polymatter, like the nerves. She’s an
amazing creature. The Daughters don’t yet realize how amazing. They’re easily
impressed.”

She stepped into the path of the light and began to make
flickering gestures with her hands. Enormous shadows danced across the white
screen, cowing the worshipers. Marjorie selected several bizarre, intricate
figures cut from paper and mounted on thin sticks; with these she enacted a
puppet show that was projected into the temple. As the shadows danced, she
chuckled, but Sandy took little amusement from the performance. Finally, as if
disgusted with herself, she shut off the light and leaned heavily against the
projector stand, shaking her head.

“My poor Daughters,” she said. “They’re tragic cases, most of
them. Brutalized as children, emotionally retarded . . . I
give them shelter and kindness and something to believe in. I set up what I
thought would be a suitable environment for Kali, you see. A goddess needs
worshipers.”

“Do
you
worship her?” he said.

She gave him a look of weary irony. “You think I should say no,
but don’t all grandmothers idolize their grandchildren? It’s more than that,
in my case. Kali is my life now. She
is
worthy
of worship—or soon will be.”

“Worship? She’s just a baby.”

“Just a baby? I’m afraid not. She’s a potent tool. She has the
body of a child, yes, but she has the powers of a goddess and the heart of a
network executive.”

“The nets . . . are they behind this?”

“You already know too much, Santiago. Believe me, everything you
learn puts you in greater danger.”

He nodded, thinking he was beginning to understand. “She can control
people, so she’s one step ahead of the usual wire technology. She’ll grow up
believing she’s a goddess, that she deserves her power by divine right.”

“She does deserve it!”

“But she’s a baby.”

“She doesn’t think of herself that way. In many respects, her mind
already surpasses those of most adults.”

“Does that give her the right to control them? I can’t believe
this was your idea. Did you come up with it, or did the nets approach you? Did
they decide you were the best one to bring it off? They wouldn’t dare approach
Father with it, would they? Only you were ruthless enough to donate—sacrifice—your
own flesh and blood for this. . . .”

She straightened and pulled the veil back over her face.

“I could throw you to the Daughters,” she said. “They would tear you
to pieces if I asked them.”

“Go ahead. You already tore me up once, mother. On the moon. I
wish you
had
died then. That was easier
to swallow than this whole scheme.”

“You never should have known about it,” she said. “This knowledge
was not meant for children.”

“I would have learned eventually, wouldn’t I? When Kali appeared?
When she came to control us? How is that supposed to happen? Will she come
creeping into our dreams, taking over gradually?”

Marjorie didn’t answer. She seemed to be shaking, perhaps with
anger. But Sandy’s fury was at least the equal of her own. He started toward
the door.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“I’m leaving.”

He stalked out of the little room and down the stairs, pushing his
way through the Daughters as he made his way back to the room where Kali slept.
Behind him he heard his mother screaming: “Stop him! Stop him!”

They tried to block his way, but he made the baby voice again and
they cleared out. Opening the door to the nursery, he saw the baby lying in her
cradle. As he picked her up, her eyes flickered open.

She stared straight at him. “Uncle?” she said.

“Yes, Kali. I’ve come to take you home.”

“Stop him!” came cries from the hallway. A few Daughters came
timidly into the room, but no one moved until the High Priestess forced them
aside.

She stood in front of Sandy, blocking the door. “What are you
doing?”

He pulled the baby to his chest. “I’m taking her home, where she
can grow up in a human place, like a normal child.”

The Daughters gasped.

“That’s right!” he shouted. “A normal child! That’s all she
is—or
should be. She’s no goddess,
she’s just a little baby.”

“Kali,” said Marjorie, coming no closer, “reach into him. Take
control. You hear his blasphemy. He is a heretic. You must cast him
out—disconnect him. You know how to do it, Kali. Those who disobey must be shut
down.”

Sandy
laughed, although her words frightened him. No
doubt Kali could shut him off, if her control of him were as complete as he
feared. He laughed only because his mother had forgotten that he still wore the
device that jammed Kali’s signal.

Or did, until a tiny hand reached up behind his ear and snatched
the thing away.

***

Packed away in her grown-up suit again, Kali stood in the center
of the room, staring down at her uncle Sandy. He lay crumpled on the floor as
though sleeping. When she reached out through the wires to live through him,
she felt nothing at all. He was blank. She had edited him right out of reality.

“Good,” said the High Priestess. “He’s insane, you realize. He was
sent by enemies to defy you.”

Kali knelt and gently stroked his cheek. “Uncle,” she whispered.
She had loved the look of his orange eyes, the way he talked to her so kindly.

“You can still make him move, can’t you, Kali?”

In reply, Sandy’s limbs twitched and he jerked upright, getting
clumsily to his feet. He banged around the room unsteadily, walking into walls,
stumbling over the Daughters’ long robes. They backed away, shrieking
squeamishly, but secretly delighted. Kali found she could tweak his vision
enough to keep him from walking into things. She let him wander aimlessly
around the room, mouth slack, eyes staring, until she grew bored with him.

Something else caught her attention.

“What are those sounds?” she asked.

“Sounds?” said the High Priestess.

From somewhere nearby came a muffled boom and the sound of
screaming, then a clatter of feet. Most of it was on the street, but some had
begun to echo inside the temple. Kali heard breaking plastic that must have
been the doors in the lobby.

The Daughters and the High Priestess rushed out of the room. Kali
followed them down the hall toward the lobby, where they met a flood of
frightened Daughters coming the other way.

“Men!” they cried. “Dogs and men!”

Kali smelled acrid smoke. The High Priestess turned, trying to push
her back. “You must run and hide yourself, Kali. Come—the back way.”

Kali was tired of being pushed around by grown-ups. She held her
ground. “I want to see,” she said.

“This isn’t a game! Come along quick or you’ll get hurt. They’re
looking for that man—your uncle.”

“What do they want with him? Are they his friends? Are they my
family?”

“You have no family apart from us, Kali. Now do as I say.”

Kali laughed. “No. You must obey me.”

She pushed the High Priestess out of her way. Over the heads of
the daughters she saw a crowd of strangers filling the lobby, men in black
suits and helmets, dogmen armed with weapons more lethal than fangs.

“He’s back there!” the High Priestess shouted.

“Don’t tell them,” Kali said.

“I’ll take you to him!”

“No!” Kali howled.

She sent her will across the lobby, reaching into the wires of the
strangers. The dogs were not wired, but it was enough to control the men. She
peered through two dozen eyes at once. They were fixed on her and on the High
Priestess, who now screamed, “Come with me!”

Kali caused their weapons to rise. She knew how to make the men do
what she wished while allowing them to use their own instincts for such details
as aiming and firing. Every bolt found its target.

Kali was only inches from the High Priestess, but not a single
shot marred her shiny new grown-up suit’s surface.

The High Priestess fell at Kali’s feet, fell in tatters of red and
black; smoke rose from her charred and glistening torso. She writhed, staring
up at Kali, her veils displaced.

Kali bent over to see if the High Priestess’s eyes were orange.
She had thought they might be, but they weren’t. She lost interest.

Her mind returned to the soldiers or whatever they were.
Everywhere she sent the men, the dogs were sure to follow. She kept a good grip
on their wires.

The Daughters cowered in the lobby and the hall, their minds torn
between Kali, the dead High Priestess, and the soldiers. She no longer trusted
these women; they lacked wires, and faith was a flimsy thing by comparison.

It was time to leave the nest.

She sent out one last signal to her uncle Sandy, but she couldn’t
feel him anymore. He was shut down, probably for good, wrecked somehow. Edited
out, the High Priestess had said.

Kali shrugged. She had more family out there somewhere.

“We go now,” she told the soldiers, her escort.

They turned and went back the way they had come. Kali walked with
them and within them, heading for a home she’d never seen.

S01E10.
 
Ba-Ha-Ha

Oblivious to his changing surroundings, Cornelius stared at the
tiny map-screen in his hands, and particularly at the symbolic speck of light
that represented Sandy. The Holy City ignored him as thoroughly as he ignored
it. The question of whether teegees had souls was a sticky one; no one seemed
interested in resolving it long enough to convert him. There were limits, even
here. Besides, he already resembled some of the other wandering mystics,
engaged in one-pointed contemplation of what could easily have been a prayer
calculator.

Finally, in the murky dawn, he circled the same building twice. Sandy’s blip was situated somewhere inside. He found an entryway of shattered plastic,
stepped over and through the shards into a darkened foyer, and became the
object of a myriad of frightened gazes. Black shapes huddled in the corners of
the room like grounded bats, silent except for an infrequent whimper. None
moved at his entrance.

Since they posed no apparent threat, he stepped gingerly through
the congregation and into a long hall. He saw nothing but the light blinking
in his palms.

Suddenly he bumped into someone.

“Excuse me,” he said, brushing past.

Whoever it was made no reply, stumbling on toward the lobby. He
glanced back at the figure silhouetted against the outer doors. When he looked
down at the screen again, he saw the Sandy-blip getting away.

“Wait!” he cried, running back.

He caught Sandy in the lobby and pulled him outside, away from the
pressure of woeful eyes.

“I’m glad to see you,” said Cornelius. “I know you told me not to
follow, but Clarence Starko was killed last night. I thought you also might be
in danger. I hope I haven’t interfered with anything critical.”

Sandy
smiled but made no reply. Cornelius thought perhaps
the daylight dazzled him, though the rays were still so faint and gray that
outdoors was little brighter than the dim lobby. It was just barely bright
enough to show the drab, stained ocher of Sandy’s outlandish overalls, on which
his name was stitched as if for Corny’s reassurance.

“I see you’re well,” Cornelius said, trying to convince them both.
“You are well, aren’t you?”

Still no answer.

Sandy
swayed slightly, that faint smile fixed to his
face, then turned a few degrees and brushed past Cornelius.

“Sandy? Santiago!”

Cornelius could no longer convince himself that Sandy was well, or
in his right mind.

The search for Kali was a matter of secondary importance to
Cornelius. If she was in the Holy City at all, she wouldn’t be going anywhere
in a hurry. She wasn’t even old enough to crawl. The main thing, as ever, was
to care for his friend.

The sealman slipped his arm through Sandy’s elbow and guided him
gently back the way he had come. After walking all night, he felt quite weary,
but concern for Sandy gave him strength. He was to need every last erg of it on
the way out.

Though Cornelius had traveled inconspicuously while on his own,
something about the sight of a man and a seal together attracted the attention
of the Holy City’s residents. Evangelists pestered them all day, slowing their
progress. It was not until nightfall that they made swifter progress. Sandy’s expression never changed throughout the harassment. He tagged along without
complaining, although he could scarcely negotiate the cluttered streets. He
stumbled constantly and would have fallen many times if Cornelius hadn’t been
there to catch him.

At last the streetlights began to flicker, and he knew they were
reentering the world of electricity. He saw people strolling about in common
clothes, no sign of self-inflicted torment on them, no extreme religious
symbols visible.

Ahead, a blaze of lights announced the grand opening of a
habimall. A brass band played salszydeko polkas. Balloons floated from
concessions and apartment windows. Civilization.

Leading his stupefied charge by the wrist, Cornelius bought a
paella platter and left Sandy guarding it at a round plastic table. Then he
went to find out exactly where they were. His Jaguaero was in a terminal
somewhere on the outskirts of the Holy City, and they were going to need it.

***

Hold tight. Hold tight. Hold tight, holdtight, holdtightholdtight,
ooodlyhelp me Corny I got seafood, Mama!

Shrimps and rice.

(Cut-cut-cut the wires. Disconnectee, Mama.)

Very nice. At twice the price.

Hold tight. Think. Hold tight. Where am you? Why? Who are I?

Welcome back to another episode of Riquard Wiglore, Media Surgeon?

Me? Wiglore?

Hold tight—

—For another episode of “There You Are!” The livewire show that
takes you to exotic locales and proves that wherever you go, “There You Are!”

Shrimps and rice.

Who are you? Hot new star of “The Magyk 7”—not since Sandy
Figueroa has a young man had such yearnings—hold tight.

Welcome back for another orgasmic hour in the nubile young body of
Fawni Pornish.

Very nice. Oooh . . .

Hold tight.

Where?

Hollywood
, California
.

“Call a doctor! Somebody call a doctor!”

I don’t need a doctor. I’m Doctor Wiglore.

I am—

“Sandy? Santiago, can you hear me?”

“This guy’s out of his mind!”

California
is a state of mind.

Regina
Quatermaine, Ambisex Cop!

Kalifornia is a police state. She’s my jailer.

Disconnect.

The wires.

Cut.

The wires.

(Hold tight.)

The wires.

Mexico
. . .

“I’ve seen it before—he’s a wire addict. This man needs a doctor—”

But I
am
a
doctor.

And There You Are.

***

Cornelius returned to find Sandy at the center of a commotion,
the star of a small-scale but energetic performance. He lay sprawled on the
floor, staring at the ceiling, twitching and shaking. The sealman pushed
through the crowd and knelt down beside him.

“Wire epilepsy,” someone said.

“I heard about that. It could happen to any of us.”

“Really? What channel is he on?”

“It’s contagious?”

“Sandy,” Cornelius said. “Sandy, can you hear me? What’s
happening?”

For a moment Sandy did seem to see him. His eyes widened, his
shoulders hunched as though he were trying to vomit something out.

“What is it?” asked Cornelius.

“Wurrs . . .” Sandy gasped.

“Wires?”

“Kulli . . .”

“Calafia? Did you see her?”

Sandy
’s face turned red with the strain. Wherever he
spoke from, it cost him tremendous energy to get his words this far. “Cut . . . wires . . . meh . . . Messico
. . .”

“I’ll get you home soon, Sandy.”

“Messico . . . Messi . . .”

“Mexico?”

He remembered the conversation in Thaxter Halfjest’s home. Dyad’s
wires had been disconnected; she was in Mexico now. Did Sandy want Cornelius
to take him to Mexico to be disconnected?

Why?

“All right,” Cornelius said. He slipped his arms under Sandy and lifted him up. “I’ll take care of him,” he told the crowd.

“Hey, aren’t you—yeah, you are! You’re uh . . . what’s
his name and . . . uh . . . remember
those guys before the Magyk
7?”

“That’s right! It is them! The Figaronis!”

Corny bowed. “We’re here for the grand opening, he said. “Now
please excuse us—we’re expected at a head shop.” He moved off quickly.

He had never liked or trusted the wires, though they had made
possible the Figueroa show—the happiest time of his life.

And if the wires were responsible for Sandy’s condition?

Obviously they should be disconnected. Removed.

Cornelius hadn’t known such a thing was possible. Switched off,
yes. But removed? They were an intricate tangle, spread everywhere. It must be
very dangerous.

Could he trust Raimundo? There was no love between him and Sandy.
Still, Raimundo must have had a trusted doctor perform the operation on Dyad.
Cornelius would see to it that the same person treated Sandy. Dyad would help.

Mexico
, then. It was settled.
Settled, but far from finished.

Teegees were not permitted to cross the border either way without
high-level permission or a six-month quarantine. The laws were strict. Mexico valued its humanimal labor—mostly Chihuahuas employed in offshore American plants—too highly
to risk teegee epidemics. There was no way to get Sandy across by himself.

As he carried his friend through the crowd, the band thumped and
blared. Suddenly a familiar face appeared out of the melee—a face he’d know
anywhere. A face everyone knew. Soft plastex cheeks, shiny eyes, neutral
hairstyle, a human with ridiculously regular androgynous features.

It was Newsbody 90, reporting on another grand opening.

Cornelius watched the ‘caster drift through the crowd, shoving a
toasted seadog through the mask’s clammy lips, comfortable everywhere, known
and loved by all, basking in the recognition.

Corny had never been so glad to find himself at a habimall grand
opening. And he’d been stuck in more than one or two.

***

(Cut-cut-cut. Cut the wires—cut the wires.)

Dark night, midnight, lightning, thunder. Candles leap in a drafty
old stone-walled cell. A chill wind breathes on her bare, heavy breasts,
whistles through the gaps in her long sharp teeth.

A baby wails. She snatches it up, clutching tiny feet in one fat
hand, dangling it head downward over a silver tureen. Black figures dance and
mutter around her; their song forms a smoky wreath of evil runes. The infant
shrieks. Someone slips a knife into her hand.

(Cut-cut-cut-cut—)

“Hail, Satan!” she croaks. “Pour your dark power into the elixir
of this child’s lifeblood. When I bathe in the fresh blood, let the power come
into me. Let it wash away the foul scars of age. . . .”

She raises the knife and lays it against the child’s soft, white
throat.

(Cut-cut-cut! Cut the throat—cut the throat—)

“Just a minute
,
madam!”

She hesitates. Her dark accomplices begin to blur and fade, their
chants broken by this stranger’s deep voice. Is it her lord and master, the
Dark One, arriving early?

No. She sees a tall, silver-haired mortal wearing a white frock.
He bears a bottle of bright red liquid, the exact shade of baby’s blood.

“Who are you?” she cries.

“A visitor from another age, another channel of time. I’ve come in
answer to your prayers. Why all this muss and fuss, this bloody spattering for
the sake of a soft complexion? Can it be that you’ve never heard of Dr. Batori’s
Miracle Youth Formula?”

“What?” she says.

“This is truly a Dark Age. Madam, there’s no further need to
slaughter innocent babes to extract the essence time-honored for its
wrinkle-removing properties. Now you can procure the same potion merely by
opening a bottle. No gore, no chore.”